How to Be Financially Free

You'd like to be financially free, but you just don't know how to make it happen.

Well, stay tuned to find out. Hi, I'm Rob West. Knowing and doing are two different things. I'll let you know how to be financially free today, but doing it, that's up to you. And like most things, you have to want to do it. Then we'll take your calls at 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. This is Faith and Finance Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. Okay, first I have to say that you never want to be financially independent from God.

He owns everything, and He's your provider. But you do want to be financially free to serve God more fully. Now, those who've achieved that know there's one absolute requirement for financial freedom, and that's learning how to live not just within your means, but actually below your means, and to do it for a long time. Certainly that will require doing certain things, which we'll get into in a bit, but achieving financial freedom actually begins with a mental exercise.

You need to change your thinking. Why do most diets fail? It's because they're based on deprivation.

As you restrict your calories, you feel deprived, and you can only tolerate that for so long before you plow into a box of donuts. Living on a budget works the same way. If you feel financially deprived, you'll eventually start to overspend again. It's the opposite of contentment. Why might someone feel financially deprived? Well, the Bible gives us several reasons. Greed, envy, or covetousness. A lack of faith in God to provide, or any combination of those. But no matter the reason, it makes living on a budget difficult, when it should be easy. The solution begins with developing a sense of gratitude for what God has already provided.

1 Thessalonians 5, 16-18 says, Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Next, you must believe that you can learn to live below your means. It might be a challenge and you'll probably have setbacks, but keep at it, cutting expenses as necessary. Okay, so much for the thinking part.

Now it's time to get your hands involved. Here are some tips for staying on budget. First, you must have margin. That's money left over at the end of the month. You no doubt have several fixed bills that come in every month and you pay them without thinking.

But start thinking about them. Is there a way to lower your mortgage payment? Maybe by getting rid of PMI? Can you reduce your heating or cooling bill?

Maybe get rid of streaming apps you don't use much. Don't take those bills for granted. Sometimes all you have to do is ask, did you know you can actually negotiate things like medical bills and household repairs?

You might say, is that the best you can do? You might get a discount. It certainly doesn't cost you anything to ask. By the way, it's easier to stay on budget if you actually watch what you spend instead of having a lot of stuff happen on autopilot. Download the FaithFi app to set up your budget.

It will then track all of your spending and likely reveal things you can easily cut like those streaming apps I mentioned. That alone could save you a few hundred dollars a year. Now there's another tried and true way you can avoid feeling deprived by your budget, and that's by rewarding yourself. You want to celebrate small victories along the way to financial freedom. At the end of a successful week of staying on budget, treat the family to ice cream.

After you have a thousand dollars in your emergency fund, maybe go out to dinner. The idea is that it's okay to splurge now and then, just not all the time. The same way, try to spread out your spending for things like having your nails done.

Instead of every four weeks, can you go every six weeks? At $25 a pop, you'll save around a hundred dollars a year. If you're paying to keep stuff in one of those, you store it places. Get rid of it. You can cut that cost and bring in more money by selling it.

For most things, if you haven't used it in a year, you probably don't need it. Every little bit helps. Okay, if you do all of those things, you've trimmed your budget as much as possible and you're still having trouble living below your means, well, you'll need to increase those means. So look for ways to add to your income.

Employers are still desperate to find and retain good workers, so maybe it's time to ask for a raise or for more hours or maybe you can take on a side job. So that's how you can learn to live below your means and start the process of becoming financially free to serve God more fully. We hope you'll let us know how it works out because we'd love to hear your stories. All right, we're going to take your calls next. The number to call is 800-525-7000.

By the way, you can call that 24 7 800-525-7000. I'm Rob West and this is Faith and Finance Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. Great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live.

I'm Rob West. All right, it's time to take your calls and questions today on anything financial. The number to call is 800 525-7000. We'd love to hear from you with whatever you're thinking about today. The calls are coming in. We're looking forward to perhaps taking yours as well. Again, 800 525-7000. Let's begin today in Florida. Hi, Nathan.

Go right ahead, sir. Rob, thank you so much. First of all, I'd also like to thank you because you about three years ago, I called in and you advised me not to go with what the teaching is. Teaching language is a second language right off the bat, but to be cautious, and I was, and it really helped me. I've saved, since then, I've saved about $34,000 and I'm still in my same job and I'm out of debt. I'm 56 and I'm wondering, my job takes me away from home about 81 and a half hours a week. I'm a trucker, so it's kind of a tough, tough schedule and I'm thankful for what I have. But, you know, I'm college educated. I look at chiropractic or law now and I just, in my lifetime, I guess I admit it, I have never been good at figuring out at figuring out what kind of career I should have.

That's kind of embarrassing, but it's true. And I'm 56 now. Yeah, that's what I have, 34,000, no debt. And yeah, and I wonder, you know, how wise is it or is it foolish to go back to school and, you know, get in, you know, get in, yeah, something where I can sleep during the night. Sure.

And I assume that you're also with that, if you did, you'd have to borrow in order to do it. Is that right? Well, it looks like it, you know, chiropractic has about a quarter of a million and, you know, law school can be 185,000. Yeah, let me ask you this. Do you really have a clear conviction around, you know, the alignment between your giftings, your passions and, you know, perhaps where you think you'd want to go to work?

Or is there still some sort of an unsettled part of you in terms of what that career path is? Ironic, you should say unsettled. A friend of mine who's a Bible teacher, he said, Yes, you're pretty unsettled, Nathan. Yeah. But it was, it's true. I mean, it's very true.

I want to be as truthful as possible. Yeah. Yeah. Have you ever gone through a career assessment?

Well, Larry Bequette had one, I believe. And I did that. And it really, you know, it set out a couple of really good areas. And yet, they're the kind of things that I don't know if I can really make money, or I can really support myself. And so I feel foolish about it. How long ago was that, that you went through that?

Oh, that was, say, oh, I'd say 2007. Okay. All right.

Yeah. So you've done it, Reese, because that's what I was going to suggest. I'd be happy if you wanted to go back through that career direct, is that biblical assessment that would help you understand your gifts and find a career path that matches your God-given strengths and abilities. If you feel like you've already done that and gotten as much out of that as you can, then no need necessarily to do it again. Although, I'd be happy to make a counselor available to you, a career counselor to give you feedback and help you interpret what you're seeing there.

It wouldn't cost you anything. So if you wanted that, I think that's the key is making sure you really are, you know, not only going through an assessment like that, but asking those in your life who could give you a kind of a 360 on, you know, who do you see me being? And, you know, what are you seeing in me?

And here's some of the things I'm exploring. How do you think that would work with my temperament, skill set, passions, giftings? And then, you know, you've got to compare those career paths, which both of the career paths you mentioned can be lucrative, but you've got to match that with the amount you'd have to borrow and your ability at, you know, the salary that you can reasonably expect and the growth trends in that particular field that, you know, you could get from the Labor Department and others as to, you know, whether they're increasing or not, you know, what the trajectory is and whether you'd be able to pay that back in a reasonable period of time, or at the very least, you know, just maintain, you know, your ability to repay that and not have that severely impact your budget. Now, obviously, looking out, we know the world's changing, and we just take artificial intelligence, you know, what's that going to do to the field of law?

And, you know, where is all that headed? And, you know, you mentioned another career option there as well. So I think you need to really ask the Lord to give you clarity around what it is you're pursuing and make sure that you aren't unsettled. You know, you're not going to know for sure, but maybe you start, and I realize it's hard if you're on the road, but is there a way you could step into this, do some low-cost probes to, you know, spend some time with folks that are in that field, make sure you get some on-the-job experience, even just volunteering or hanging around.

Maybe somebody at your church would allow you to kind of, you know, be up close and personal with some of these career fields just to make sure you feel like it is the right fit. And then I think you need to do some real analysis on what is it actually going to take? How much am I going to need to borrow? Am I willing to do that?

And what's the payback on that look like? And, you know, with starting salaries, given that I'd have no experience other than the training and perhaps the law degree or, you know, the other certifications, you know, what can I expect in terms of a salary over the, you know, five years following school, and what does that mean in terms of my ability to repay that debt? And if those don't match up, then maybe it is something else that God is leading you to that, you know, is more reasonable in terms of your ability to seek the education that would be necessary and not take on the debt. So number one, I think it's a matter of prayer.

Number two, I think it's talking to people around you that know you well. Three, can you get some on-the-job experience as a low-cost probe without kind of enrolling and, you know, signing off on these huge debts? And then four, do you feel like it'd be helpful to have a career counselor kind of help you unpack the assessment and perhaps give you some other ideas?

Give me your thoughts. Yes, that's absolutely correct. I would be, it would be very helpful to have a career counselor to help me unpack that. That would very much help.

I didn't have that before, so I just sat there spinning my wheels without spinning my wheels. There are, you know, here are six options. I don't know what, where to start.

I'm not really, yeah. All right, let's do that, Nathan. We'll start there.

You hold the line. I'll get your information. This will be our gift to you, and we're going to have one of these career counselors reach out to you and, you know, they could either use the assessment you did years ago.

Maybe they're going to ask you to update it, but it won't cost you anything, and it's just our way of helping you out and hopefully getting to a place where you have some confidence and where you're headed. By the way, folks, if you'd like to learn more about Career Direct, it is a career direct. It's a guidance system that was really developed out of a need for a comprehensive biblically-based assessment that would help people find their unique gifts and a career path that matches their God-given strengths and abilities.

You can learn more at careerdirect.org. We highly recommend it. It's a wonderful tool. Nathan, you hold the line. We'll get your information. Listen, all the best to you, my friend, and keep us posted as you progress.

Well, folks, we've got a lot more to come. We're just getting started here on Faith and Finance Live, so perhaps we can get you in on the the question you're wrestling with today. We've got three lines open, 800-525-7000. By the way, if you consider yourself a part of the Faith and Finance Live community and you'd like to help support our work, we are listener-supported and not-for-profit ministry, you can support this ministry at faithfi.com. Just click Give. Right now, as we head toward our year-end, it would be really helpful to have you on board. Again, faithfi.com. Just click Give.

Thanks in advance. Back with much more just around the corner. Stay with us. Thanks for joining us today on Faith and Finance Live. We're so glad you're along with us today. Let's head right back to the phones.

Cleveland, Ohio. Hi, Teresa. Go right ahead. Teresa, are you with us? Yes, I am. Great. Go right ahead. Hi, Rob.

Thanks for taking my call. My question today for you is around my husband is getting to retire. He'll be 62 in four years. We are debt-free, other than our mortgage, and we're just shy of a million in our retirement accounts. The market beat us up a little bit over the last couple of years. On the mortgage piece, my husband's investments are just in investment accounts. They're not in 401Ks or retirement accounts. He does have a Roth, but that's probably the smallest of the accounts. We're wondering, because he will have a nice pension coming from his job as well when he retires, if it makes sense to go ahead and take the money out of the investment accounts and just go ahead and pay this mortgage off. So going into retirement, we are debt-free.

Yeah. How far away are you from retirement? Four years. He's four years away.

I'm, well, I'm a retired pharmaceutical rep and I'm doing gig work right now. Okay, good. And what is the balance on the mortgage? It's $231,000 and change.

Yeah. And are both of you excited about paying it off? Is there one that prefers this option and one would rather stick with the investments? Give me a sense of what you and your husband have talked about. I think we're, he's very nervous about the market volatility.

We don't like having that payment every month. So I think we're, I think it's a good, you know, we're both kind of just uncertain and we're looking for, you know, just direction. Yeah. Yeah.

That's helpful. What about this million dollar portfolio? Is it managed by somebody or are you all picking the investments yourselves?

It's, it, it has been managed at times and right now it is not. Okay. All right. Well, first of all, I like the idea of you being debt-free as you enter retirement. It sounds like, and tell me if this is true, that once he starts collecting his pension, you all think you'll be able to cover your bills without touching this portfolio.

Is that true? We're, we're hoping we wouldn't, we wouldn't have to for quite a while. Yeah. Okay.

And when you say quite a while. Well, cause my piece of the, the, the investment accounts, we won't be able to get to for a while cause I'm 10 years younger than him. Okay. Part of the million dollars are you talking about? Correct. Correct.

Okay. But I thought you said it was all in taxable accounts, not in retirement accounts. Well, his, his part of the, the investment accounts, um, my, my part of the million dollars are in IRAs.

Oh, okay. And what's the breakdown between, uh, retirement accounts and non-retirement accounts roughly? Probably about two thirds is in retirement accounts and about a third is not. Okay. So perhaps a little more than 300,000.

So enough to cover the, the 231,000 mortgage. Correct. Okay. Um, and you're thinking that, um, why would you need an income stream down the road from this million, but you wouldn't need it right when you start retirement.

Correct. Why is that? What would cause you to need it down the road and not early and not early? Um, we just think, go ahead. We're just thinking that as soon as he retires, he's going to probably still, you know, probably be picking up another part-time job between, between his pension and he's probably going to take his social security sooner rather than later. We just don't think we're gonna need to be dipping into it.

Got it. Uh, but have you done your budget to look at what we might be spending in retirement? Let's say you're like the typical retiree and it's, you're spending 80% of your pre-retirement income. If you were to put that budget together and then compare that to your retirement assets, not including you all working, do you have any idea what your shortfall would be, which would have to come from this roughly million dollar portfolio today?

Well, we just looking at what he would have from the pension and the social security, that would more than cover what in terms of 80% that would cover that. Okay, good. So you may not ever need to touch this, correct?

Hopefully not, but life is, you know, does, you never know. Okay. Yeah. So all that was really helpful background.

Thank you for that Teresa. So here's my thought. Number one is you said this portfolio has been beat up. Um, so I don't love the idea of you pulling out a lot of money right now. I'd love for you to let it recover. Is it going to recover?

Yes, absolutely. I feel like it will. We have some problems, you know, economically that are going to come to roost, I think much further down the road. I think right now, for the near term, we're going to get through this recession, we're going to get through this inflation and interest rate hikes. And once the markets knows that the Fed's done raising rates, and we can see the light at the end of the tunnel on the recession, there's a lot of money on the sidelines that will come rushing back in this market will move to a new high, you will recover what you lost. And you could perhaps get more conservative, then I would recommend you have an advisor. But as soon as that money comes out, whether it's through the retirement accounts, which is taxable, or through the, you know, through the non retirement account portion, you've locked in your losses, now you can't recover. So I would tend to err on the side of let's kind of let this recover before we do a whole lot. The other option is well, or in addition to that, I would say let's make a goal for you all to be completely debt free by the time you're fully retired, meaning no longer working.

And maybe we step into this. One option is on that one third that's out of retirement accounts, you could do some tax loss harvesting. So there's a way for you to take some losses on a strategic basis, sell them, save taxes, and then use that money to either reinvest or to pay off the mortgage.

But again, that's where an advisor comes in. So I'd really love an advisor to put a whole plan together for you guys, that gets you from now to four years from now, with this goal of being debt free and being really strategic about how you go about that. I wouldn't rush into paying it off all right now, unless you just have a real conviction of the Lord, we need to be debt free, the Lord told us that and then go for it.

But apart from that, I'd be a little patient, let this recover and be strategic about how you pay it down from a tax advantage standpoint. I hope that helps you. I want to get your thoughts, but I'm out of time. So stay on the line. We'll talk a bit off the air and we'll be right back. Stay with us. Thanks for joining us today on Faith and Finance Live. I'm Rob West, your host, and we're so glad you're along with us. All the lines are full, so let's head right back to the phone, see how many we can get through. Let's go to Indiana. Hi Joyce, how can I help you with your question today?

Hi Rob, thanks for taking my call. My husband and I each bought an I-Bond last August and September, and whenever we get on our account, which we just tried today, it never shows any interest. It's still the ten thousand dollars that we put in. Now when should that show up?

Yeah, so I'm a little surprised by that. So normally what happens is, and maybe you're just on the wrong screen, I haven't looked at it with their new site to see exactly how it works, but your interest starts from the first day of the month you buy the bonds. Twice a year they add all the interest the bond earned in the previous six months to the principal value of the bond, so that gives it a new value, the old value plus the interest that's earned. And then over the next six months, the new interest is then applied to the entire value, so it's compounding semi-annually, which is great.

So you should be able to go into your treasurydirect.gov account and look for the value of that bond there. You know, given that you've had it, you've had it more than six months, is that right? Yes, it's seven months going on eight. Okay, and have you looked at the account recently and you're not able to see that?

Right, today. Okay, yeah, interesting. Okay, you know what, we'll look into this for you because here's the reality, that interest is being credited, it does absolutely compound semi-annually. So once it's added after the first six months, then you know you're accruing interest on that new higher value, that's a good thing. And my understanding is you can see that new value once it's credited twice a year in your treasury direct account.

If you had a paper bond you'd have to use their savings bond calculator. But we'll do this, we'll check into that and just get some more details on perhaps why you're not seeing that given that you've had that there at least six months and it's not showing on your account and then report back on the program. Does that sound good? That would be great, thank you. Okay, all right, thanks Joyce. God bless you, thanks for calling today. To Iowa, hi Phil, go right ahead sir.

Hey, thanks for taking the call. I have a question regarding how to use some funds coming up given some of the instability in the stock market, inflation and all of that. I'm 67, plan to retire around 70 and a half. I have about a hundred thousand in the stock market and we are debt free and I'm wondering about possibly taking some of our stock market funds and using them for capital improvements on our house.

We have a barn, a small farm, just doing some of the things around the house rather than possibly losing some of it or all of it in the stock market. Your thoughts? Yeah, so the hundred thousand is where this would come from for the capital improvements, is that right? Correct. All right, and that's the extent of your investable assets?

That's correct. All right, and how is it currently invested? Is it in all cash inside the portfolio or are you currently invested in stocks and or bonds? We have a financial advisor and the reason we have that is because I'm not very good with any of this stuff. He's taking care of all of that. Okay, but as far as you're concerned, it's fully invested, right?

That's correct, yep. Okay, and how much would you be looking to pull out for these capital improvements? I'm thinking maybe 20 to 30. Okay, 30,000.

Okay, and are you, is this something you really want to do, need to do quickly or could you wait up to a year? We could wait. Yeah, okay. I guess my primary motivation is just because when I see things destabilizing and the interest rates are going way, way down and the fourth, you know, what they're saying is things are not going to be looking better. I'm just thinking I'd rather have it invested in such a way that, you know, the stuff that we can hang on to rather than stuff that's going to disappear.

Yeah, no, I certainly get that. I mean, my perspective, even though I would agree with you, there's a lot of headwinds out there, there's a lot of things we could point to and say, yeah, that's a problem and this is a problem over here and the Federal Reserve has been printing money pretty quickly and our debt's sky high and we've got, you know, a debate coming up this summer about the debt ceiling and interest rates and inflation and the money supply and the U.S. dollar. You've got a lot of things and yet on the world stage, the U.S. is still in, for all intents and purposes, the strongest position both in terms of our currency, our economy, our ingenuity, our ability to, you know, continue to grow and innovate into the future. Do we have some problems if not that if left unaddressed could result in, you know, some real challenges economically, potentially a default on our debt, which, by the way, the interest on our debt is going to be our largest federal expenditure in the not too distant future?

Yes, but I think that's all down the road. I don't see that happening anytime soon. There's no replacement for the U.S. dollar on the world stage. You know, we are still the largest economy. Now, we need pro-growth policies. We need a return to understanding God's design for economies and economies and wealth creation and the value of human life and productivity and the virtuous cycle that all of that creates. And I think we need a low tax environment.

And, you know, there's a lot of things we can do to rein in spending at a federal level and try to get our debt coming down. We've got demographics challenges longer term. But despite all of that, I think the very best place for you to build wealth and overcome the effects of inflation, which are real, is in that stock and bond portfolio. And I don't think this is the time while stocks are on sale for you to sell out. Now, if we thought a collapse of some kind was imminent, that, you know, this was a house of cards, we had a real major potential for a default here in the United States in the near future, then that would be different. I don't think any of that's true. The economists, godly economists that I trust, would agree with that.

That's much further down the road. And if that's the case, then selling while stocks are on sale and bonds too, for that matter, would not be a good choice because we'd be realizing those losses and preventing yourself from the ability to see it recover. And that's usually what happens when we get into a bear market. People say enough is enough. I can't take this anymore. I'm out of here. And then six months or a year later, they're watching how the markets recovered, gone to new highs, and their money's on the sideline.

They took the losses but didn't participate in the recovery. So what I would say is you've got an advisor, that's great. I'd stay the course, I'd keep a long term perspective. If the Lord tarries and you're in good health, even at 70 and a half, you're going to need this money to last for decades. So we don't have to take a short term view on it, we can take a long term view. And with the long term in mind, that is, you know, 10, 20, 30 years, you know, this portfolio is going to do well, I think. And if we get to the place where there's some real potential problems that are imminent, well, obviously, we can react at that point. So I guess all that to say, you know, it's your money, you're the steward of it, I pray and follow the Lord's leading. But if you're not having a sense of clear direction, I think conventional wisdom says, you stay the course. And then maybe once it's recovered, you get the advisor to get you a little more conservative, including pulling out that money, maybe 20 or 30,000 for those improvements. How does that sound?

That sounds really good. One question is with the yen, possibly overtaking the US dollar as standard. Yeah, no, it's kind of what got me going. Not anywhere close to that. It's just there's just too much manipulation of currency there for it to be a legitimate alternative right now.

That's way down the road if it's even possible. Thanks for your call, Phil. We'll be right back. Hey, great to have you with us today on faith and finance. You know, we've been talking with several callers about investments and having an advisor who can help you plan and manage your finances. And if you're looking for a financial professional who shares your values, who's met high standards and character and competence, pastor and client references, they've signed a statement of faith and been trained to bring biblically wise financial advice. We recommend you check out the Certified Kingdom Advisor designation. You can find a CKA in your area when you visit our website, faithfi.com.

That's faithfi.com and just click Find a CKA. All right, back to the phones to Florida. Hi, David. Go right ahead, sir. Hi, Rob. Thanks so much for taking my call. I appreciate you so much.

Well, thank you. Hey, I'm a retired public service employee. I've got three funds that are managed by Mission Square Retirement. They're the mutual fund in retirement for the public sector.

They do a lot of that work. And I've got three funds. One's a 457B with 133K. And I've got a traditional IRA that I've rolled over from my late wife. It's just 53K. And then a 401A with about 228. So a total of 414K in these three funds.

They're really static. They're going nowhere with like minimal, minimal percentage of growth at all. We were pretty risk averse, just for some reason, but my lifestyle issues a couple years back. So anyway, I recently had a discussion with the folks at Mission Square and they did what's called like they're looking at a managed account option for me. They use Morningstar Investment Management as kind of like their subcontractors take the recommendation. I took their assessment and their risk analysis test and it came back. They said, hey, it looks like I might be good for a balanced portfolio with a 40 to 59 percent in stock and the rest involved in cash, etc. And really, my question is, with the current financial conditions, is this a good time for me to you know, get off the bench, if you will, and stop being so static and maybe get into a more balanced portfolio?

Yeah. What did you say your age was, David? I'm 66 and I'll be a forward. I mean, I'm not collecting social. I could do that in July this year.

66 to six months at that point. But I'm not. I don't really need to. I've got other cash reserves. Okay.

I'm not even drawing on this money and I have no debt. All right. And it's currently in the most stable investment option? It is.

It is the safest. Yeah, it's going nowhere. I'm like less than a percent of growth by 26% of interest. Okay. And what is the total amount in this account? 414k. Okay.

And what do you think? Or do you think you'll need to draw an income from it to supplement other income sources in the near future or at any point during retirement? At some point, I will, but I don't see it before, before five years. I mean, I'm looking at five years before I need to touch any of this money. Okay, got it.

And at that point, it would just be a reasonable withdrawal rate of maybe 4% or something. Yeah, whatever, you know, that I could bear at that time that would make sense. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, very good. Yeah. I mean, I think this is a good approach. You said that they're suggesting somewhere between 40 and 60% in stocks and the balance in bonds? Yeah, of course, 40 to 59% in stock and then in bonds and cash and the rest of it.

Yeah. I mean, at 66, that's a little aggressive. I mean, the typical rule of thumb is you used to take 100 minus your age. Now, because people are living longer, you do 110 minus your age. That puts your stock allocation at, call it 45%, your bond allocation at 55, going all the way up to 59%, nearly 60% in stocks, 40% bonds.

That's pretty aggressive for 66. So I'd probably stay around the more conservative end of that range. But yeah, taking advantage of this market being down your long time horizon, you don't need the money right now. Maybe you've missed some of the downside on the market and now you put it back in, not trying to time it, but with this long term perspective that if the Lord tarries and you're in good health, this money can last decades and five years from now, you start drawing a reasonable income from it. But even then, you'd want some sort of growth component where maybe you're down to somewhere between 30 and 40% in stocks at age 70. But for right now, having somewhere around 45% in stocks, I think makes some sense. But the bigger question is, should you start taking a little bit of risk? And I think, yeah, that does make some sense given your situation, as long as you're not going to get a statement when it's down, when we hit this recession later this year and we retest our lows from last October, which we likely could, and that's going to cause you to pull it out and go to cash and now you're locking in those losses.

As long as you can stomach some of that volatility and keep that long time horizon, then I think that does make some sense. Very good. That's part of it.

A confirmation, I wanted to run it fine, get your take on it. You've got such good wisdom. I appreciate it. And I did take some of your wisdom before.

I did buy two I-bonds as well for $10,000 each, so I took advantage of that. Appreciate it. Appreciate your good advice on that one.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, listen, thanks for calling, David. All the best to you in this next season of life.

Sounds like perhaps the Lord's got a lot in store for you. So we appreciate you being on the program today very much. Let's head to Cleveland. Hi, Sharon. Thank you for your call. Go ahead. Hi, Sharon. Go right ahead. Hi. Thank you for taking my call. I really enjoy your program.

I have a question and I don't know if there's a legality against this or whatever. My husband and I are both 73. We're both retired.

I still work part time. We have no debt. We own our home.

We own all our vehicles. The only thing we have is just insurance and daily expenses. We have our home and then there's a separate house on our property that we have a child that had a head injury that we take care of.

And we have several outbuildings enough for another home. But anyway, my question is, our daughter would love to be able to take care of us as we're getting older. And I would love to be able to give her our property. And there's like three places you can live on the property.

But I don't know legally, like if we were to die and everything got sold, how does it work that you can leave something to your kids without having to pay taxes on it? Are you opposed to just leaving it to her as an inheritance and just letting her live there until that point? Yeah. Okay.

Yeah, we would be fine doing that. But what would happen to her financially? Because I mean, probably the property value is probably close to seven eight hundred thousand.

Yeah. The short answer is there's nothing that would happen to her. There's no inheritance tax. There's only estate taxes.

But your estate would have to, based on the current laws, would have to be above 12 million dollars before you would pay any estate tax. So essentially what would happen is when you all passed away, whether this was in a trust and the trust dictated that it's to go to her or you just leave it to her in your will, it would pass to her through, if it was through the will, through probate, she would get it. Her cost basis would be stepped up to the date of death. So now her new cost basis would be the value of this property she's inheriting as of your death, which means now there's no capital gains in it. If she were to turn around and sell it, it would only be capital gains if it continued to appreciate beyond that point and she sold it down the road and she'd, you know, have that property free and clear without any taxes whatsoever. Would I be or would we be smart to put it in a trust with her as that it would, you know, have a legal thing? I just don't want her to to have an inheritance tax or a state tax you have to pay. Yeah, there is no, there wouldn't be any estate tax until your estate gets above 12 million. There is no inheritance tax. The only question on the trust versus the will is, is there a reason why you would want to pass it outside of probate, the probate court, which is there'd be some costs there, not big taxes like you're thinking, but there'd be just some court costs for the probate process.

It's a part of the public record. It would take a little bit of time for it to be, you know, passed to her. The trust would have it passed either immediately or if you wanted to keep it in the trust and let's say, you know, have a portion of it go to her and a portion to your other child with the, you know, medical issues and have certain triggering events that allow it to be passed over time based on that trustee, you know, giving it away, which could be her at the appropriate time, which is dictated by the trust documents. That would be a reason to put it in a trust. But apart from that, if you're just simply going to give her the property and it's, you want it to be hers at your death, the simplest and most cost effective way to do that is through a will or through a transfer on death deed, where again, it's being transferred automatically at your death.

There's no taxes, inheritance or estate because your estate is under $12 million. And so I think you would accomplish exactly what you're looking for. Oh, thank you so much. We've just been, I mean, she's like, I want to take care of you and dad, you know, as you get older and we're both getting older and you know, we have enough, like just put up another building. She could put a place in there if she wanted to.

I mean, it's big enough, but I wanted to stay in the family and die in my own house. You know what I mean? I see.

Yes, ma'am. I certainly understand. Well, you sound like a wonderful mom, Karen, for your kids and it sounds like you're on a great plan here. What I would do though, Sharon, is contact a godly estate attorney just to make sure your will's up to date, that you have all these things in place so that you can pass these assets according to your wishes. You at the same time probably want to have a, if you don't already, a health care surrogate, a living will and a durable power of attorney, maybe naming her as power of attorney if you all are incapacitated. It's not a bad idea just periodically to update all of that and just make sure that your intentions are properly reflected in a current and valid will and a godly estate attorney can help you navigate that.

If you don't know one, you could contact a certified Kingdom advisor in your area and ask for a referral. They'd be delighted to do that. But listen, all the best to you. We appreciate you calling and being on the program today.

God bless you. James, Gail, Kathy, I apologize we didn't get to you. If you all would like to give us your number, we'll try to get you back on tomorrow. Folks, that's going to do it for us. Faith and Finance Live is a partnership between Moody Radio and Faithfi. I want to say thank you to my team today.

Tahira, Amy, Jim and Luke, certainly couldn't do it without them. Thank you for being here as well. Hope this has been an encouragement to you. We'll see you tomorrow. God bless you. Bye-bye.