SECURE Act 2.0 and Your Retirement

Today's version of Faith in Finance Live is actually not live, so don't call in. Just when you think Congress can't do anything right, they go ahead and pass the SECURE Act 2.0.

I'm Rob West. There are actually a lot of right things in the latest version of this legislation, which was signed into law a few months ago. I'll talk about how it affects your retirement, whether you're in it or still saving for it. Then we'll have some great calls that we've lined up, but since this program is not live today, please hold your calls until we're back in the studio. This is Faith in Finance Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions.

Okay, a little background first. Congress loves acronyms, so understand that SECURE stands for setting every community up for retirement enhancement. The first SECURE Act was passed in 2019 and made several improvements to make retirement saving easier. The latest version, the SECURE Act 2.0, as it has come to be known, builds on that, starting with changes to required minimum distributions that you'll have to take in retirement. The age for taking your RMD has been increased from 73 to 75 if you turn 72 after January 1st of 2023, and that takes effect this year. That means you'll have an extra two years to build your retirement savings before making a mandatory withdrawal and paying taxes on that money.

That's a definite improvement. A few more RMD improvements starting in 2024. If you have a Roth account with your 401k or 403b plan, you'll no longer have to take RMDs from that account during your lifetime. Also, if you're late taking an RMD or you miss one, the penalty has been reduced from 50% of the RMD to 25% starting this year.

And if you correct the mistake within what's called a timely manner, the penalty is further reduced to 10%. The new legislation also makes things easier if you're struggling to pay off student loans and save for retirement. Employers with 401k plans, 403b plans, governmental 457b plans, and simple IRAs now have the option to match contributions on qualified student loan payments to your retirement account. That means your loan payments will be treated as elective deferrals, just like your retirement contributions.

Now, you know how we're always telling you to have an emergency fund in place with 3 to 6 months living expenses? Well, the SECURE Act 2.0 will now give you a place to store those funds where they can make greater gains than in a savings account. Employers now have the option of adding a Roth emergency fund to their plans for most employees. Participants will be able to make limited contributions to those special Roth accounts and have penalty-free access to those funds when needed. And bonus, those contributions will be eligible for employer matches.

That, as they say, is a game changer. If you've been late making contributions to your retirement plan, there's also an increase in catch-up contributions. Starting in January of next year, if you are between ages 60 and 63, you'll be able to make larger contributions to your employer plan. The new limit will be $10,000 or 50% of the regular catch-up amount, whichever is greater, and that will be indexed to inflation. The IRA catch-up amount stays at $1,000, but that will also be indexed to inflation. Starting on January 1, 2025, individuals age 60 to 63 will be able to make larger catch-up contributions to employer-based retirement plans.

The limit for people in that age range will be the greater of $10,000 or 50% more than the regular catch-up amount indexed to inflation. Also, the current IRA catch-up contribution amount of $1,000 will be indexed for inflation starting in 2024. Now, if you're starting to think that Congress did all of this out of the goodness of their hearts, keep in mind that many of these new provisions are aimed at increasing Roth contributions. Since those contributions are made with after-tax money, it means that Uncle Sam gets his cut now instead of having to wait. An example in the new legislation is that Roth accounts in Company 401k and 403b plans are now eligible for matching employer contributions. But to be fair, increasing Roth contributions also works to the benefit of younger investors who are likely to be in a lower tax bracket now rather than later in life.

Proverbs 21 tells us, precious treasure and oil are in a wise man's dwelling, but a foolish man devours it, and it would certainly be wise to take advantage of all of these changes in the rules for retirement savings. This is Faith in Finance Live, and even though we're not here today and can't take your live calls, there's much more ahead on the program, so please stay tuned. Hey, great to have you with us today on Faith in Finance Live. I'm Rob West, your host.

Our team is away from the studio today, so don't call in, but coming up a little later, we'll have more of your questions right here on the program. Hey, let me take a moment to mention the FaithFi app. We'd love for you to download it. Just head to your app store, wherever you download apps, and search for FaithFi. That's Faith Fi.

You can manage your money, you can access the best content in biblical finance. You can also participate in our FaithFi community. You'll find it in your app store. Just search for FaithFi, or if it's easier, head to our website at faithfi.com.

That's faithfi.com, and you'll see the app right there on the home page. Let's begin today in Florida. Hi, Jay. Thanks for calling, sir.

Go ahead. I have a financial advisor. My wife and I have what I consider a nice amount of money. We've had a financial advisor for maybe 20 years or more. I just wondered if you had suggestions, wife and I are believers, of some investors that are, you know, Christian, and I don't know if you recommend, but I'd be interested in knowing who you might recommend or who you have on your list that's good. Yes. And are you talking specifically, Jay, about mutual fund companies that have a faith-based approach or advisors that could serve you with an investment in financial planning advice or both?

I'm talking about investing in stocks and bonds, and the company that I'm with invests through Fidelity, so I'm not quite sure what you would call that. Okay. Yeah, very good.

I don't invest the money myself. I have hired them to do it. Sure.

Yeah, very good. Well, Fidelity would be a very popular and respected brokerage firm that a lot of independent advisors will use to custody the assets of their clients, and then it provides the trading platform for them to make buying and selling decisions for their clients in whatever investments they choose, whether that's individual stocks and bonds or mutual funds or exchange-traded funds or even other alternative-type investments. So I love the fact that you are using an advisor, Jay. You've built up an estate. You're not going to kind of put this on autopilot. You've delegated this to somebody who hopefully has a good understanding of who you are and what God's doing in your life in this season and how that relates to the investments that have been selected, starting with your values and then allowing your investments to be an expression of that, both in terms of how much risk you take in exchange for how much reward you're seeking, as well as the types of investments that you're choosing. If you have a good relationship with an advisor, it sounds like it's longstanding.

That's great. There's no reason to disrupt that. When you ask about alignment of your investments with your faith, I think that gets into a newer area, if you will, of the investing landscape where there is the ability to either avoid certain companies based on a misalignment with your values, and this really needs to be derived from your own personal conviction. Nobody should tell you which companies you should own or not own.

That really is something I think you need to consider prayerfully before the Lord. And so based on those convictions of you or you and your wife, you can avoid certain companies or you can embrace other companies where they have a specific purpose to either promote human flourishing or even perhaps a kingdom impact. And that's under an umbrella called faith-based investing, which is a very exciting kind of new opportunity right now with our investments. And you can either do that through individual stock ownership, where the investment advisor would understand this and have a process to help you either screen out or screen in or both those companies that would end up in your portfolio that would be more aligned with your values. Or he or she could use faith-based investing mutual funds, where the specific charge of the mutual fund is not only to provide an appropriate return for the clients, but where there's a faith-based investing approach embedded in what they do.

And either of those approaches would satisfy what you're looking for. The key would be, is your advisor positioned to offer these types of investments to go through a discovery process to help you determine your convictions and then select only those investments that align with your values, if that's what you're looking for. Have you had that conversation with your advisor, Jay? No, the advisor we have actually is a member of the church that we attend when we're in the north.

So he's a believer. Great. But I just we're we are kind of disappointed in what has happened in the last three or four years with some of the investments. For instance, when the bank in California was closed, we had shocked in another bank out there I did. I mean, the investment people put every all their investors in in another bank, or were in another bank stock.

And so instantly, they sold that out at a loss of over 600. So I just I'm just I'm kind of looking for more advisors that we can maybe talk to. Yeah, very good performance has been in the past.

Yeah. So I think you've got a couple of options here. One is to approach your current advisor and just make sure you express the concern that you have, the disappointment you have, and perhaps decisions that have been made, kind of talk through that and see if you come to a place where you feel better about the relationship moving forward.

So you could stay right where you're at. As a part of that, you could also introduce this idea of having an investment strategy that not only reflects your desire to grow this wealth and protect it in light of your age and risk tolerance goals and objectives, but also that you're interested in bringing a faith based approach into the investment selection as well, just to see if that's something that he can offer. The second approach would be and perhaps you do both of these, to seek out, as you said, a couple of other advisors that could be, you know, you could interview to see if perhaps there's a better fit. Now, we recommend the Certified Kingdom Advisor designation. It's the only industry designation that's widely accepted for advisors that specifically have been trained and met high standards in bringing advice and investing that aligns with the values and priorities of Christians. There's 1350 Certified Kingdom Advisors across the country and you could do a search based on a zip code and find a list of CKAs in whatever area you're interested in searching and then perhaps set up an appointment to interview two or three and find the one that's the best fit for you. Jay, you would do that at our website faithfi.com. That's faithfi.com and you could just click the button at the top that says find a CKA. Does that helpful? Yeah, but what was it?

You say stay? Certified Kingdom Advisor is the name of the designation. The website is faithfi.com.

That's faithfi.com and then just click the button that says find a CKA, Certified Kingdom Advisor. Okay? Okay, sounds good. Very good. Jay, let us know how it turns out.

If we can help you further, don't hesitate to give us a call. Before we head to our break, you know, as I read scripture, I see this big idea jumping off the page around contentment. You know, I think as we consider our role as stewards of God's money, we need to foster this attitude that the Apostle Paul talked about and that is contentment. Remember, he said that it's learned. I've learned to be content. He was in a time of plenty and at a time of need and he learned to be content in either of those.

Contentment is a choice and when we increase our contentment, well, then we can focus on what God has given us and not on what he's given others. I hope that's an encouragement to you today. Again, we're not here today. We're away from the studio so don't call in, but just around the corner, we have some more questions to tackle. I know you're going to enjoy the calls we have coming up.

Stay with us. We'll be right back grateful you tuned into faith and finance live. I'm Rob West your host. This is where we recognize that God owns it all.

You're a steward or a manager of God's resources and money is a tool to accomplish God's purposes. Hey, we're away from the studio today, so don't call in, but we lined up some great questions in advance that I know you will enjoy. In fact, let's go ahead and take one of those right now. Let's head to Texas. Hi Tracy. How can I help today?

Hello. I have a question about my mother-in-law. She has a credit card that she has run up to over $5,000. She has dementia and we didn't realize that she was using this credit card. We didn't even know she had a credit card and she has run the total up so high that there is no way she's going to be able to pay for it. And I do understand that she probably needs to pay what's required, but I was wondering if there's something that a credit card company has that maybe they forgive a debt for an elderly person?

Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm so sorry to hear about this Tracy. I know this can I suspect it's weighing on you. It may be weighing on her and I realize that due to mental illness, this can be challenging. I'm not aware of, you know, anything that allows someone specifically with dementia or something similar to get out of responsibility for a debt. You know, this is often even true for someone who really loses mental capacity to manage their own money. They're still responsible for that debt and I realize that's really challenging. So obviously now that you all are aware of it, I think the key is to really cut off access to those funds for the ability to charge additional dollars. What is the status of these now? Is she or you on her behalf paying at least the minimums right now or have these gotten into a past-due status?

No, we pay the minimum right now. Okay. And she, we tore up her, we cut up the credit card. She doesn't even have, she doesn't even know that she probably had a credit card. She doesn't know that she had the credit card debt. So, you know, we just know about it and it comes to our house and we pay her bills for her now. Okay. We're just paying the minimum.

Yeah. And does she have enough money coming in to be able to cover her bills or you on her behalf to be able to cover the bills plus these credit cards or are you all supplementing that? No, she's paying her bills. We are paying her bills for her. She does have enough money to pay her bills. Okay. But she doesn't have any access to pay the credit card debt. Sure, sure. Well, given that this, you know, may be with us for a long time, maybe for the rest of her life, obviously at that point, as long as there's not somebody else on the account, then, you know, it would be either paid out of the estate to cover the debt or it would just be written off. I think the key is, if you're going to keep it current, and I like the fact that you're doing that, I'd probably put it into a debt management program. Are you familiar with that term?

Either debt management or credit counseling? Yes. Okay.

Yeah. So what would happen there Tracy is, as you probably know, the account would be closed, which is fine. You've already cut up the cards anyway. The nice thing is the interest rates would be reduced. So essentially that same monthly payment that you're making on her behalf using her funds would be going largely to principal or at least certainly more than today versus to interest because you'll have a lower interest rate. And with that fixed monthly payment as those balances come down through the combination of the compounding effect, the snowball effect, because now you're sending a larger percentage of the balance every month because you're not dropping the payment as the balance comes down, that combined with the lower interest rate will allow you to pay this off 80% faster. So if there is a chance that it could be paid off, putting it into a debt management program will get you headed in that direction. And the nice thing is you wouldn't have to, and I wouldn't recommend this even if you could, but we're not talking about going out and qualifying for a new loan to come in and pay this off.

It would stay right where it is with the original creditor, but through the combination of that fixed payment and those lower interest rates, at least you'll be making more progress every month than you are today. And I would recommend our friends at Christian credit counselors.org. Okay. Okay. All right. That sounds great. Thank you.

Very good. Thank you, Tracy. We appreciate your call today very much.

Let's head to North Carolina. Hi, Tom. How can I help you, sir? Hey, how are you? I'm doing great. I have a couple hundred thousand in our race.

I'm 75 years old. I don't, I don't expect to spend that money, but I'm wondering is there anything I could do to lessen the tax burden on my children or my passing? Well, there's not going to be a tax burden. There essentially is no estate tax or for you to pay until your estate gets up at least this year to over $12 million and they're not going to have to pay any tax on it as they receive it. Now through an inherited IRA, obviously as they take it out with at that point, it would be taxable. So it's not taxed at the inheritance level because there's not one. It would just be taxed only as it comes out of the IRA.

You know, I think at this point I would just continue to manage that as effectively as you can, as you said, you probably don't need it. So your ability to grow it would give them, you know, a great nest egg to be able to have. And in terms of anything you can do to be able to give them to that, you know, that those funds to them tax free, it would require you to pull the money out and pay tax on it.

So it's really not accomplishing any purpose in doing that. So I think your best option at this point would be to continue the tax deferral by leaving it right where it is, invest it, manage it wisely to grow it so that you can, you know, pass as big of a nest egg as possible to them. And they'll just pay tax on it as ordinary income when it comes out. Well, I should move that CD just paying nothing over into something that's doing a little bit generated more, a little bit more profit, right? I think that's right.

Yeah. You know, you've got time in the sense that if the Lord tarries and you're in good health, we need this money to last a long time. You don't need it.

So you can take a long time horizon where, you know, as long as we're looking at eight to ten years, although none of us know when the Lord's coming back, at least you would know that it's growing, it's outpacing inflation. So you can either manage that yourself or connect with a certified kingdom advisor on our website at faithfi.com. That's faithfi.com.

Click Find a CKA. Thanks for your call, Tom. God bless you, sir. And we're going to head to a break.

So don't go anywhere. Still a lot more to come, even though we're away from the studio today and you shouldn't call in. We have some great questions that you're really going to enjoy as we continue to apply God's wisdom to your financial decisions. This is Faith and Finance Live, and we'll be right back. This is Faith and Finance Live with Rob West. Hey, if you hear a phone number mentioned today, please ignore that number and don't call us, because today's broadcast was previously recorded. But we think the upcoming information will help you and make you a wise steward of what God's given you.

So please stay tuned. Back to the phones we go to Iowa. Hi, John. Thanks for calling, sir. Go ahead.

Hi, Rob. Question is, I'm in a great position where I get to inherit some farmland from my parents when they pass. The situation is, though, I get 100 acres, and then I also get my sister's 100 acres, because my parents want me to have the farmland, and I'm supposed to pay my sister out for her 100 acres. My question is, do I have to pay capital gains on that? Because my parents bought the land years ago when it might have been worth $1,000. Now in some places close to me, it's worth $16,000.

Yeah. Well, one of the nice things is that for heirs of farm assets or really any other asset, under the current law, the tax basis for that is adjusted to the fair market value at the date of death, if it's an inheritance. So as a result, the gain and the value of that assets that occurred during your parents' life is not taxed, because you get and enjoy that stepped up cost basis as of the date of death. So if you were to turn around and liquidate all or a portion of that farmland at essentially the same market value that was established as of the date of death, because you did that immediately, then you would have no capital gains whatsoever, and then you could turn around and make a gift, if you wanted to, to your sister. Oh, that's a lot better than I thought my options were.

That's great. So the basis will start over then. It's kind of like a restart. Yeah, it steps up to the market, the true market value of the asset as of the date of death. And so any gain, capital gain or loss from the date of death forward would be realized at the point of sale.

But if it's essentially done simultaneously, or within a very short period of time, there would naturally be very little gain, if any. Right. Okay. All right.

That's wonderful. Thank you so much, Rob. All right, John, thanks for calling today. We appreciate it.

800-525-7000 is the number to call. We'd love to hear from you today. Let's head to Illinois. Hi, Barbara. Thank you for being on the program. Go right ahead. Thank you very much. Enjoy your program.

Thank you. What I have is, I have a brother that's credit card debt. He's about six hours away and he will want to move down here in the next few years. If he would do the credit counseling and get in a plan, does that sort of put him in a bankruptcy position that he would not be able to borrow any money for seven years? No, not at all. In fact, the fact that you're in credit counseling is not a part of the credit scoring algorithm. So any change to his credit score would only come by virtue of the fact that when you enter credit counseling, that account is closed. So any time you were to close an account, that would have a minor effect on your credit report because that perhaps is being removed from your credit history. It's going to change your credit utilization. So if he owes balances on other accounts, it might make them a higher percentage of his overall limit. But that would be true any time you close a credit card. I will say that there will be a notation on the credit report that he's in a debt management program. And a lender could choose to use that information however they want. But again, it's not in and of itself a part of the credit scoring formula. When is he planning on moving, did you say? I think it will be a few years. It could be three or more.

Yeah, yeah. So I would say in my view, the benefits of getting in this and getting these cards paid down or paid off is far outweighs any potential impact of the participation in the program on his credit. Because as I said, it's not a part of the scoring algorithm and it's going to have a minimal impact. Certainly not anywhere close to a late, late payment or a charge offer a bankruptcy. When he works with a credit counseling, they negotiate with credit card counseling and then is the interest rate lower?

Did I understand? It is not through negotiation, though, Barbara, each of the creditors establish in advance their credit counseling interest rate, which is lower than their prevailing rate. So yes, there will be a reduction. But based on which creditors he has accounts with the credit counseling agency, we recommend Christian credit counselors. They'll just let him know based on the accounts he has what the new interest rates will be. It's not a negotiated process.

It's already been determined. So that's why I'd recommend he reach out to them. They'll through the initial consultation, help him determine what his new interest rates will be, what his monthly payment will be, and then he'd be able to make a decision on whether or not to proceed. So just look up christiancreditcounseling.com?

Dot org. Christian credit counselors. That's plural, christiancreditcounselors.org.

And they've worked with hundreds and hundreds of our listeners, Barbara, and these are wonderful godly people that just want to serve believers with help in getting out of debt. And this is my preferred way. If you have more than four thousand in credit card debt, I find this is the way to go. If you have less than four thousand, you can often just snowball it on your own.

But more than four, this is my preferred approach to get it paid off once and for all. Well, I will be happy because I think the interest is leaving him alive and he's a good person. He's a contractor.

He helps people. And I thank you for taking this call and giving me this information. I appreciate it. You are very welcome, Barbara. If we can help further, don't hesitate to reach out. May the Lord bless you. Let's take an email. These come in to us every day and ask Rob at faithfi.com.

Feel free to send your question along. This comes from Ted. He says, Is it OK to take a loan from a 401k to consolidate and pay off other high interest loans? I wouldn't advise that, Ted.

Let me give you a few reasons for that. First, if for any reason you're unable to make the payments on the 401k loan, it will be counted as a distribution. You'll have to pay taxes. And if you're not yet fifty nine and a half, you'd add to that a 10 percent penalty. Second, if you lose the time you spent earning and contributing the money to the 401k, you can't get that back.

So even though it's only a loan, that money won't be earning you anything because it's essentially no longer in your 401k during the term of the loan. And especially right now, while the market is down, I don't want you to miss the recovery when that occurs. When we're done with this cycle of Fed raising rates and they're out of the way, this market, in my view, is going to move higher.

It always does. We've never gone through a recession where we didn't move to new highs. And I don't want your money to be out during that time. And then third, and this might be the biggest one, it really doesn't address the underlying problem, which is often overspending that led you to the debt in the first place. So you could just double your debt if you're not living on a budget with your spending under control.

You might write us six months or a year from now and say, well, guess what, Rob? Now I have the 401k loan and the consumer debt is back and that wouldn't help you in any way, shape or form. So what I would do, Ted, is just go back to your budget, limit your lifestyle, reduce spending, try to free up margin or surplus. If it's credit card debt, I'd visit with our friends at christiancreditcounselors.org. If it's other types of debt, I'd just snowball it, smallest to largest balance, attack the one that's the smallest balance and then kind of move right down the line.

And by doing that hard work and getting it paid off and correcting the problem that got you there in the first place and not taking the money out of the 401k so it can recover with the market, I think you'll be in a much better shape. Hey folks, we're going to pause now for a brief break, but we'll be back with much more on today's Faith and Finance Live. By the way, we're not live today.

We're away from the studio, so don't call in, but we have some great questions that we lined up in advance. By the way, this ministry is entirely listener supported. That means we rely on your financial gifts and support to do what we do on the air every day. If you consider a gift, we'd certainly be grateful. Just head to our website, faithfi.com. That's faithfi.com and click the give button.

Thanks in advance. Often we talk about developing an eternal mindset on this program, really counteracting the messages of this world that drive us toward a temporal perspective. Matthew 13 44 says, listen to this, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. And then in his joy, he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. You know, when we view our earthly wealth with a biblical worldview, we begin to value eternity over our present reality.

When we realize that eternity is our purpose and that God is enough, we then can be content no matter our circumstances. You see, very few can handle riches. The Bible is very clear of that. It says money is not money, but the love of money is the root of all evil. And so we need to be on our guard against the love of money. The Bible is very clear about that. It can be one of those competitors to Lordship in our life, but if we approach it through a biblical worldview, we understand that God is our treasure and eternity is our home and we need to be focused there. Yes, we live in the here and now, and we need to be faithful stewards right now of God's resources. But when we shape our minds and our perspective around the things that are eternal, it does change how we approach daily spending and financial decisions, because then we understand God owns it all and we're stewards. Money then is a tool and we're to hold it loosely so we can give it generously. And that's really the key to growing in intimacy with the Father. And that's certainly our prayer for you on this program each day. A quick email.

This one came to us at AskRob at FaithFi.com. Kim writes, we want to do what is right. We make our daughter's house payment for her, which includes taxes and insurance. She considers it part of her inheritance. Can we claim this as a gift to her on our taxes? And can they claim the mortgage interest on their taxes at the same time?

Thank you in advance for your assistance. I love your program. Thanks, Kim, for writing to us. You really don't want to claim these payments as gifts because there's no deduction for that. She's, of course, not a qualified nonprofit, so you'll have to claim them if you pay more than $17,000 a year as a gift.

You'd use IRS gift form 709 for that. You still won't have to pay any taxes unless you exceed your lifetime exemption, which today sits at north of $12 million. So not any benefit. It's really just a reporting mechanism over that $17,000 a year. If you're married, you could give her $34,000 a year, $17,000 apiece, without notifying the IRS because that's under the annual gift exclusion. But again, no tax benefit there. Now, if you're giving your daughter the money and then she makes the payment, she can certainly claim the interest deduction, but she can only do that if she's able to itemize her taxes. Keep in mind, 90% of folks are no longer able to itemize because of the higher standard deduction, which for 2023 is sitting at $27,700 if she's married filing jointly. So a decent likelihood she's not going to be able to claim that. If she does itemize, of course she could because she's receiving that money as a gift. And then she could then obviously make the payment. The mortgage is in her name and it doesn't matter that the source of those funds was from you. She gets the benefit of that deduction if she's able to take it. But you all really don't get any benefit by making that a gift to her. So hope that helps you, Kim.

We appreciate you listening to the program and thank you for your kind remarks today. You know, so often we hear from folks asking about money and marriage. You know, 70% of married couples have conflict over money. And we know that, well, we don't have to look far to experience that. I mean, Julie and I certainly have over the years had conflict around money. And, you know, despite the fact that we always work through it, it's just there, right? It can be one of those charged topics. So how do you get past that?

What does that look like? Well, I think it starts with going way back to really understand not only how God has wired you, but how money was handled growing up. As you think about, you know, money, what are your earliest memories of money and how does that shape how you view and handle money today?

If you haven't gone through that exercise, it might be a worthwhile exercise. Was money scarce? Was it plentiful? That shapes how you view money today. Did your parents operate on a budget or was there, you know, excess spending?

Was there a consumptive lifestyle that was modeled? Was there any discussion of a biblical worldview of money? You know, all of that shapes kind of how tightly we hold money or how loosely we hold money in our lives today. Well, understanding that and then coming together as husband and wife to talk about that, I think can provide a really helpful foundation to understanding how you make decisions and how together you all better reflect the mind and the heart of Christ as two become one flesh. Now, what's the key to overcoming conflict? Well, my friend Shanti Feldhahn, the researcher in the book Thriving in Love and Money, among other things says that really two key ideas help to overcome conflict in your financial life, in your marriage.

Number one is communication and that won't be a surprise to you. We need to have communication in all areas of our life, but that includes this area of money management, which is why we recommend a monthly, at a minimum, money date where you're not pointing fingers but where you're course correcting, talking about your plan, updating your goals, looking at your spending for the month, just fostering communication. But then secondly is margin, the ability to live below your means. It's not a matter of your income level that helps you to overcome conflict.

It's a matter of whatever your income level is, you're living below it. And what Shanti found is that really the margin being present was key to creating the right foundation to have a healthy communication around money. So lean into that. Talk about how money was handled growing up. Set a money date to foster communication and go back to your spending plan and create margin.

And I think if you do those things, you may find that it makes a radical difference in how you approach money in marriage. I hope that's helpful to you. All right, back to the phones.

We go to Illinois. Hi, Leland. Thank you for calling. Go ahead. I've got two questions. One is I have 36,000. I'd like to invest in a non risk investment and my brother has 90,000. He'd like to put in a non risk investment.

What would you advise her? Yeah. So when you say a non risk investment, I mean, oftentimes we think of bank products then. Right now CDs are fairly attractive where they haven't been in the past. You could get with FDIC insurance.

You could ladder this. So you could look at a six month, a 12 month and an 18 month CD, a third, a third, a third. And then every time one comes due, you could roll it over into another 18 months to take advantage of higher rates because we anticipate we're going to see some additional rate hikes throughout the balance of the year. That would be guaranteed money that, you know, you wouldn't have the risk of loss and it, you know, would give you a fairly attractive rate of return. Another option for at least 10,000 of this for this calendar year would be through I bonds, inflation bonds backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government paying 6.82% right now. You'd get that for the next six months and then it would adjust to whatever the new rate is based on the consumer price index that would be out at the end of April. And we'd know that new rate in May, but that's a fairly attractive return. You can only put in up to 10,000. You can buy the electronic bonds at treasury direct.gov and it's got to stay in there for at least 12 months. But you know, that's a essentially risk free, you know, investment with a fairly attractive return. Beyond that, you could look at US treasuries or money market would be some other options.

How does that sound though? Okay, two questions. Well, same question are the CDs and the I bonds biblically correct. And especially like the I bond dealing with the government.

I just I've heard about those on your program before and I just had reservations. You know, invest in with our government. Yeah, I mean, that's ultimately a personal conviction between you and the Lord that you would have to wrestle through.

Personally, I wouldn't have a problem. In fact, I own some my bonds, you know, extending this money to the government in exchange for the return. I mean, that we're a part of the US banking system doesn't mean we agree with all the decisions that are being made by the Fed or the government or Congress by any stretch. But we're a part of this banking system. And, you know, if we want to put God's money to work, we see that clearly in God's word to the parable of the talents. And so whether you're investing in corporations, you know, we don't have godly corporations and ungodly corporations, we have people running companies, and those people are making decisions that either align or misaligned with our values. And so we choose based on our own personal convictions, which companies we're investing in, I think the same applies with the US government. If you have a conviction, not to place debt with the US government to be able to get a return on it, then I'd say avoid it. But if you pray through that, and you feel like you're okay proceeding there, then I would certainly proceed as I said, I have and and come to that conviction that I'm comfortable with that. What are your thoughts? Okay, one other thing I heard you say a couple of two or three days ago that $100,000 in one particular investment, I believe would yield $600 a month.

What would that have been? Yeah, $600 a month. I'm not sure it'd probably be a I mean, that's a 6% rate of return. So I'm not sure.

There's nothing that offers a guaranteed 6% other than the I bonds right now. Okay, well, it may not have been guaranteed. I've got to wrap up the program. Hey, I appreciate your call today. Call back sometime Leland.

Let's talk some more. Hey, Faith and Finance Live is a ministry of Faith Fi and Moody Radio. Thanks to my team today, Amy, Dan, Clara and Jim. Thank you for being here as well.

Faith and Finance Live is a partnership between Moody Radio and Faith Fi. I hope you have a great rest of your day and come back and join us next time. We'll see you then. Bye bye.