Combatting Covetousness with God’s Wisdom

And he said to them, Take care and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. Luke 12 15.

Hi, I'm Rob West. Covetousness doesn't get enough pulpit time these days. Pastors would do well to preach more about this sin that infects today's society. I'll talk about how you can combat covetousness with God's wisdom today, and then it's on to your calls at 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. This is Faith and Finance Live, biblical wisdom for your financial journey. Okay, first a definition. Covetousness is a sinful desire for things. It's often confused with envy, which is actually directed toward another person, and leads to covetousness when you want what they have. I make this distinction because the Bible makes it by giving covetousness a special place, forbidding it in the tenth commandment.

Envy is bad. It's a sin. But covetousness is even more dangerous to your soul.

And why is that? Well, Paul gives us the answer in Colossians 3 5. It reads, When you covet something, you make it an idol, putting it before God. This, of course, points back to the first two commandments. In Deuteronomy 5, we find, Now you see the danger, that covetousness is an emotion that drives idolatry, and it's nothing short of a plague in today's society.

Through the media and advertising, we're bombarded daily with the images of things, many of which we can't afford, a bigger house, a newer car, or a skiing vacation in vale. Covetousness is sometimes called the mother of sin because it leads to so many others, like greed, envy, hate, and even murder. There are special warnings when money itself becomes an idol. Jesus says in Matthew 6 24, And in 1 Timothy 6 10, Paul writes, God gave the sin of covetousness a special place in the Ten Commandments because he had to. As Paul relates in Romans 7, that without the law, he wouldn't have known that he was covetous.

That's because our sin nature prevents us from seeing our greed, lust, and materialism. So how do you know if you've fallen victim to covetousness? First, by praying that God would reveal this sin in your heart. James 1 5 tells us, Second, by searching God's word for the truth about covetousness and how it may be affecting your life.

Second Timothy 3 16 and 17 reads, by asking yourself some difficult questions and answering them honestly. Does God hold preeminence in your life? Have you placed other gods before him? You would never worship a golden calf, but what about your favorite sports team or your TV or even your spouse or children? Have you placed those things before God?

Have you sought after earthly things instead of the kingdom of heaven? This says in Matthew 6 10, And in Luke 12 15, So pray for wisdom, study God's word, and guard your heart. That's how you combat covetousness. But as you do those things, keep in mind that money and possessions themselves are not evil. It's not a sin to have wealth, nor is it more holy to be poor.

It's only when we put possessions above the God that gives them to us that we fall into the trap of covetousness. I hope that's an encouragement to you today. All right, your calls are next, 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. I'm Rob West, and you're listening to Faith & Finance Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. Stick around. We'll be right back. So thankful to have you with us today on Faith & 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've got a few lines open. We'd love to hear from you today as we apply God's wisdom from the Bible to your financial decisions and choices. Here's our approach here at Faith & Finance. We start with our identity in Christ, who we are as God's creation, as children, daughters and sons of the King, and understanding our place once we've surrendered our lives to Jesus and placed our trust in Him as adopted into God's family, and a right standing before the Lord. And then we look to Scripture to say, what are the principles, the big themes that we can pull out of Scripture as it relates to money management?

And then finally, how can we apply those after we understand our true identity in Him and His wisdom from the Bible? How can we apply those principles to the real decisions and choices we're making every day in the financial arena? Well, we want to give you a hopeful and encouraging approach to answering each of those financial questions today. Whatever you're thinking about today financially, give us a call. We've got some lines open. Our team is standing by 800-525-7000.

Let's begin in upstate New York. Wesley, I understand you're a teenager thinking about buying a car. Tell me what's going on. Yeah, so I've worked for a couple years, and I've had my money saved up, and I'm not really exactly sure what I should do with it, because I want to buy a car, but I also, you know, I like having all the money saved up, so I was wondering what you would recommend I do.

Yeah, I love that. So talk to me just about your most pressing needs right now. Are there things on the horizon beyond this car purchase? How are you going to approach college? Is there an immediate need for a car, or is that something you can wait on?

And anything else that you know is coming in the next 12 to 18 months? Yeah, I am going to be going to college next year, but a lot of that is I'm going to have, like, scholarships. So maybe, you know, when you're a freshman, I guess I don't let you keep the car.

You don't have a parking spot. Yeah. You know what I mean? Right now I'm borrowing my brother's car, because he's here right now, and I drive to school. But he's going to be gone eventually, and then I'm going to be not at home.

I mean... Okay. Are you going to be able to live on campus and get around without a car, perhaps? I think so. I think I'll be on campus.

Yeah. So I think that's perhaps the next approach, is to say, first of all, let's continue to save as you're able to. Sounds like you have a job, some way to earn some income. I think your ability to limit your lifestyle spending, not establish a consumptive lifestyle, but really prioritize the opportunity to save during this season of life would be really helpful. Keeping your expenses as low as possible, including delaying the purchase of that car as long as you can. So number one, you can continue to build savings and buy a used, older, but perhaps still fairly reliable car that you could depend on.

It's going to take you a little bit more than $4,000 to get there. And then you're going to have all those added expenses of putting gas in the car and keeping it properly insured. An older car is going to need some maintenance, so you'll need to put some money aside for that. And then beyond that, you're still going to want an emergency fund that you can fall back on of at least a few months' expenses, probably three months. I would put a budget together for when you're on your own in college. What expenses are you going to be required to cover?

Are there entertainment expenses, things, just personal spending that you're going to want to do, and how much are you going to need for that? Determine whether you're going to keep that job when you're still, you know, when you're in college, so you've got a means of income. But I think the focus right now is just to continue to save as much as you can so that when you're ready to make that car purchase or you have something else come up that you've got that money to count on. I wouldn't invest it. I don't want to put it at risk, given the time horizon is still fairly short on it. So I'd probably recommend, if you haven't already, you drop that into a high-yield savings account, probably in an online bank, and just really begin to set a goal for what you're trying to save, both for your emergency reserve and set an ultimate goal for that car purchase.

So you're looking to double that $4,000 and make it $8,000 and buy kind of an older, you know, used but still fairly reliable car. If so, begin doing that research, you know, spend some time on AutoTrader and look at what you're ultimately saving for so that you have a picture of where that's going. But I think your key right now is just to limit your spending, save as much as you can, and be thoughtful about what you're saving for, what those goals are. And then in addition to that, you want to put a budget together, a spending plan that just says, here's the expenses I have now and how I'm going to cover them. And when I'm in college, living on campus in the dorm, what are my expenses going to be then? Just so you have an idea of where you're headed.

And I think as you begin to not only put that plan in place but continue to build up some of these savings accounts, you'll be ready when the time comes to make these purchases. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. Thank you. That's actually really helpful. Good. Here's what I'd like to do, Wesley, and I didn't mean to cut you off. I want to hear if you have any additional thoughts, but I want you to stay on the line. I want to send you a book called Your Money Counts. It's by Howard Dayton.

It'll give you kind of a good primer on not only just wise money management but really bringing a biblical perspective of all of it so you understand and hopefully can get started in the right direction. Did you have any other follow-up thoughts or questions? No, I just wanted to thank you. I really appreciate your advice. Well, I'm happy to do it. You stay on the line. We'll get your information, Wesley, and get that book out to you. We appreciate you being on the program today. 800-525-7000 is the number to call. We've got some lines open today for your financial questions. Let's head to Tennessee.

Looks like Jim Bob. Go right ahead. Hi, Rob.

Thanks for taking the call. So we are getting ready to purchase a house, and the folks that we're buying it from have the house in their family's revocable trust. And I've not really heard of those before, and I was just wondering what's the benefit of that, and is that something that we should set up for ourselves?

Yeah, it's a good question. So a revocable trust has provisions that can be altered or canceled based on the wishes of the grantor. That is the person who creates the trust.

In this case, that would be you. That's why it's revocable as opposed to an irrevocable trust that can't be changed, and there's certain additional asset protection that comes from that. In terms of why you would want to do that, basically it allows you to have control over that asset before death, but also after death in terms of the trust documents would spell out how that asset, as well as anything else inside the trust, is to be distributed according to your wishes.

And that may not happen all right at death. It could be down the road based on certain triggering events, and the trustee would handle the distribution of the assets or the income from the trust according to the trust documents. One of the primary drivers there in addition to being able to control that into the future, even beyond your life, would be if you have, let's say, a disabled child or somebody who's going to be a lifelong dependent, or you had minor children and you'd want to be able to transfer assets to them at a certain age or based on certain events where they've demonstrated maturity and an ability to handle that wealth. That would be one reason. A second reason is for the asset to pass outside of probate, so it wouldn't run through the probate court. It would pass outside of probate directly to the beneficiaries of the trustee. That would be another reason why some folks use them. Does that make sense?

It does. I have a couple more questions about the probate and what the benefit of that would be. Okay, let's do this. If you can hold the line, we've got to take a quick break. When we come back, we'll tackle those questions and anything else on your mind, so you stay right there, Jim Bob. When we come back, we'll tackle the rest of this question plus yours. Looks like we have some questions about credit cards and several other topics we'll be covering today. Also, Bob Doll stopping by a little later in the broadcast as we start a new week. Bob will tell us what he's looking at in the markets.

Much more to come just around the corner. Stay with us. Great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live. I'm Rob West. We're taking your calls and questions today at 800-525-7000.

Just before the break, we were talking to Jim Bob in Tennessee. He's purchasing a home. The home is actually in a revocable trust, which means that the home was retitled in the name of the trust. That's generally done so you can have control over that asset either before or death if you're incapacitated or after death based on the wishes of the grantor who set it up. Also for just the efficiency of transferring the property outside of probate. So that home would be directed based on the trust documents as opposed to the probate court being involved in any way. Jim Bob, you had a follow-up question on that.

Go ahead. Well, I think you clarified it just with your clarifying statements there about just simplifying the process of having that asset pass on to whoever it was going to rather than having to go through probate. So I think that pretty much cleared it up for me. Yeah, so I mean there are costs associated with probate.

You would miss those. It's a part of the public record. With the trust, it would not be. It would be handled privately.

And then there's just the efficiency of it. The probate court process can take some time as opposed to the trust documents. If it was to go directly to a beneficiary at death, it could happen fairly quickly with the trust. The downside is it's a little more complex.

You have to retitle the property in the name of the trust and it could run you a couple of thousand dollars to set the trust up. So you just need to define on the front end what is it we're trying to accomplish and is a trust the best way to do that. You follow? Gotcha. Yeah.

Yeah. Do you have resources on ways or reasons why a trust might be a good idea? We don't have anything specifically on that. You could find a ton of information out there on the web from some reliable sources. But I would, at the end of the day, probably schedule a visit with a godly estate attorney who can just help you talk through your overall estate plan and whether or not a trust is going to be helpful to you as a part of what you're trying to accomplish. If you need a godly estate attorney in your area, I'd contact the Certified Kingdom Advisor and just ask for a referral.

They all will have an attorney that they work with for estates. And you just head to our website, faithfi.com. That's faithfi.com.

Just click Find a CKA. Thanks for your call today. We appreciate it, Jim Bob.

To Cleveland, Ohio. Hi, Helen. Go right ahead. Yes, I'm calling because I have some questions about credit card handling, not necessarily credit card management. But I have my credit card and I pay my credit card off every month.

I do not carry any balances or anything, so I never pay any interest on it. But what I do do is when I'm going to make large purchases, I will make the large purchase on the credit card, then take the money that I have to pay that credit card off. So I'm gaining sky miles on that.

And then I use the sky miles to travel. And so my question is, is this something that is there a problem with this? Because what I do notice is that my FICO score will go it will be at one time, maybe 835, then it might go down to like 810. Is this something that I should be turned to be concerned about? Normally, it doesn't go any lower than 810.

But still, I'm just wondering, is it a good thing? It's not a concern, Helen, although it's not surprising, and I'll tell you why it's happening. But given what you said right there at the end about the fact that even on the low end, you're still above 800, I wouldn't be concerned, you're still going to qualify for the very best rates and terms. If you're out there seeking credit, and most days and months and years, you're probably not even looking for any credit, you're not buying a house buying a car applying for a new credit card, and then it doesn't even really matter at that point, unless you're looking for a new, you know, a job and your employers using your credit score as a part of that consideration. So I wouldn't be terribly concerned about it, given how high your credit score already is.

And the low end of that range you're seeing is still north of 800, you really have nothing to worry about. The reason it's happening probably has to do with the closing date of your statement, your billing cycle. So what's happening is you're charging up in some months these large amounts, you have the money to pay it off, you're coming in and paying it off probably after the due date. And when you do that, it's being reported to the credit bureau that you still owe that amount, even though you've already come in and paid it off. And so that's pushing your credit utilization up, which just means you have a certain limit on that card. And the balance that's owed, which you're paying off, but the credit bureau doesn't know that because it was reported to them as you still owed it as of the last date of the cycle, it's causing that credit utilization to spike. And if it gets up above 30%, that's going to pull your credit score down. So the way to avoid that would be you would go in and pay off that balance prior to the end of that billing cycle so that when it's reported to the bureau, it's reported at zero, which is what's happening anyway, it's just happening probably a few days or a week after the end of the cycle.

But again, if you don't want to go through that hassle of paying it before the end of the cycle, I wouldn't worry about it because, you know, again, anything north of 800 is a good score. But that would be the way to avoid some of that fluctuation. Does that make sense? Yes, I think it does. And what I do sometimes is I know that if I don't charge something until after the 23rd of the month, it won't come on the bill that's due for the next month, it'll go on to the bill for the following month.

And that even gives me more time to float it. And so yeah, that's what I'm doing too. So maybe what I should do is, you know, be a little bit more careful with that then.

Yeah, I think that's right. Again, it's not going to affect you because if you're not out seeking credit, and even if you are, you still got a great score at the bottom end of that range. But if you wanted to really try to maximize your score, you would just want to figure out what's the end of my billing cycle, you'd maybe log in online a few days before that, go ahead and pay the balance in full, so that when the cycle ends, and the balance is reported, it's showing a zero balance.

And that would be the very best way to go because then your utilization for that card is at zero. I hope that's helpful to you, Helen. We appreciate your call today. 800-525-7000 is the number to call. Again, we've got some lines open. 800-525-7000.

Yvette, we're coming your way in South Florida just after the break and perhaps your question as well. By the way, folks, if you'd like to contact a Certified Kingdom Advisor in your area, this is a financial professional who's met high standards and character and competence. They've been trained to bring a biblical worldview of money management. They've had a regulatory review, pastor reference, client references, and a whole host of other requirements met. You can find a CKA in your area when you head to our website, the address, faithfi.com. That's faithfi.com. Just click the button that says Find a CKA.

I'd interview two or three before you make your selection. Hey, much more to come just around the corner on Faith and Finance Live. Stay with us. Great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live. I'm Rob West, your host. All right, it's time to take your calls and questions.

Continue to move through what you're thinking about today financially. We've got a few lines open, perhaps one just for you. The number to call is 800-525-7000. That's 800-525-7000. Give us a call.

Let's head to South Florida. Hi, Yvette. Thanks for calling today.

Go ahead. Hi, I'm Yvette from Florida and I'm calling because I have a question about my traditional IRA with Vanguard. And what I'd like to know is I found out that they're heavily into ESG and investing my money with things that I don't necessarily want them to invest it in. So I want to know if you have any recommendations or if I can take the money and do something else more profitable with it.

Yeah, Yvette, thanks for that question. So there's obviously multiple custodians you could use for this account. What do you have there? Do you have an IRA or a taxable account? What type of account do you have with Vanguard? It's just an IRA and it's $34,000.

Okay. And what is it invested in? Is it actually in Vanguard funds or is it in something else? It's in Vanguard funds. Okay. All right.

Yeah. So I think one of the things you could do would be open an IRA at another institution for perhaps fidelity would be a great one that's low cost. You'd have access to just about any mutual fund you could imagine.

I think mutual fund investing is a great way to go when it comes to managing a sum of around what you're talking about, about $30,000 because you're going to get good, broad diversification among lots of investments, but inside one investment product, which just makes it very simple. If you open that account at Fidelity, let's say the IRA, and then you just call Vanguard and tell them you'd like to transfer your account and you need that paperwork or you could initiate that through Fidelity and they could request that the account would be transferred. In either case, it would end up in your new Fidelity IRA.

That's not a taxable event because you're not taking a distribution. You're just transferring the same account to another institution. And then at that point, it would probably come over in the form of, well, you could either transfer it with the Vanguard funds in place, or you could liquidate them ahead of time, and it would come over as cash and go into the money market. And then at that point, it would be, you know, you would have to determine how you want to then invest it, which mutual funds you would use to do that. Are you looking for some faith-based investing funds, or would you like to take a more traditional approach? I'm more of a traditional approach.

I'm not a bigger risk-taker. Okay, so our friends at soundmindinvesting.org could be helpful to you. They could give you several mutual funds to consider that would be appropriate for your age and risk tolerance.

And at that point, you would just, once the money gets into that new IRA, at my suggestion was Fidelity, then you would make those purchases and begin to move into those new funds at that point. Does that make sense? Yes, it does. Let me ask you one question and I'll follow up with that. Does that mean that I would choose what funds I wanted them to invest it in?

You would. Is that what you're looking for, or would you like a different approach? Actually, I think it would be easier for me to get a different approach because I'm not that familiar enough to really, there are certain funds I know of, but not enough to really do it myself.

Okay. And that's where soundmindinvesting.org could be helpful because they can actually give you the funds to invest in as well. Okay, I'll contact them. Thank you so much. You're welcome. You're welcome, Yvette. Thanks for calling today.

God bless you. 800-525-7000 is the number to call. We've got some lines open today. We'd love to hear from you.

To Chicago, WMBI. Hi, Sue. Go right ahead. Hi. I just wanted some information about creating a budget. My daughter and her husband are trying to save for a house and they cannot do it at this time because of the debt. Yeah.

All right. Tell me how motivated they are to rectify this situation. Do you feel like if somebody was willing to walk alongside them and guide them, they'd be willing to put the budget in place and make the decisions necessary to bring spending down so that they have some surplus and then really stick to it?

Or do you feel like there's kind of a bigger issue underneath the surface? No, I think that they really need some guidance. They're trying to buy a house and the bank is telling them probably not until next year. So they really want to purchase a home.

Yeah, very good. Well, here's what I'd like to do. We have certified Christian financial counselors available here at FaithFi, and I'd love, just as our gift to you, to make one of them available to your daughter and son-in-law. Again, as long as they're willing to do the work, this would be somebody who's been trained to help them evaluate where they're at currently with their spending, really capture that in a thorough manner, and then put a new budget together and make the hard decisions on how to balance that budget, including having margin available after all the bills are paid to be able to fund a home savings account. And then perhaps help them get up on a system that's going to control the flow of money on a monthly basis so they can stay on track and really make course corrections during the month as they see that certain categories have been expended fully, making the decisions to dial back their spending or perhaps cut back in another area so they can use the money from that particular budget category, whatever that might be.

This certified Christian financial counselor can really walk alongside them as they put all that together. Does that sound good? That would be great.

Okay, very good. Let's do this. You stay on the line.

We'll get your information and then have one of our CERT CFCs give you a call to connect with your daughter and son-in-law and see if we can be helpful to them. Thanks for being on the program today. We appreciate it very much.

Quickly to Tennessee. Hi, Judy. Go right ahead. Hi.

Thank you for taking my call. What I'm asking you is what do you think about if someone, what my mother would call Rob Peter to pay Paul? And what I mean is I get my zero percent interest credit card and then I pay off all the other credit cards that might have an interest on them. I've done this several times and right now I've got a total of about $8,000. I put them all on one card and now I've got 15 months to pay it off at zero percent. I did have to pay a three percent balance transfer, but I've done that quite a few times in the last 30 years. Yeah. Let me ask you this. Is the balance really ever declining or are you just kind of maintaining it because you're continuing to add to these cards?

It depends which year it's been. I mean, some years I get them all paid off and some years I don't because now that we're in Social Security, it makes it much more difficult because we don't have the money we once had to pay off. No, I certainly understand. I mean, I'm not a big fan of this approach because usually it involves us not addressing the underlying issue, which is spending beyond our means. Now, that's easier said than done. I realize that you're on a fixed income, you have limited resources, things come up along the way that cause you to have to spend beyond what's immediately available. And so historically, you've used the credit cards and you've relied on this balance transfer game at zero percent to kind of float that and minimize the impact on interest. I would rather you get out of debt once and for all and stay that way. So build up an emergency fund of three to six months expenses and let's pay these credit cards down to zero and really not see those as an option any longer to fund lifestyle spending, especially given that it does have an impact on your credit as you jump around from card to card and keep opening new accounts. And number two, you are paying that three percent charge every time you jump around. So there's a cost to it, even though it's at zero percent.

So I try to eliminate it, get it on a balanced budget and get rid of those once and for all. We'll be right back. Stay with us. Before we head back to the phones today, it's Monday, which means Bob Doll stops by. Bob is chief investment officer at Crossmark Global Investments. He joins us each Monday afternoon to give us a preview of the week ahead in the markets. And Bob, what is that preview this week?

What are you looking for? That preview is earnings, earnings, earnings between this week and next week. Sixty percent of the companies will report their earnings.

So it's an intensive period. And we're going to be watching, obviously, what are the results, Rob? But as importantly, what do companies say about what's coming in the next few quarters?

Yeah. Bob, what has been your analysis thus far? I know you were out in your dolls deliberations this week saying you think earnings forecasts are too optimistic.

Yeah, it's interesting. In the limited number of reports for the first quarter that we already have, results have actually been better than expected. But even as that's happened, Rob, analysts have cut their estimates. So it basically is a sign that there's more uncertainty about the economy than we might have thought earlier. And I think those estimate cuts, there's more to come.

Yeah, no doubt about that. Bob, what about the labor market? Obviously, we've started to see some small cracks there in that one segment of the economy that had been holding up pretty well.

It sure has. It's been a bit of a mystery with lots of things weakening to some degree how labor is and job market has been so strong. I think employers are reluctant to let workers go because if they need to find people again, where are they going to find them sort of thing with the unemployment rate at this low three and a half percent. But as you point out, we're starting to see some cracks. Lots of layoffs have been announced, but there's a lot of time typically between announcement and actually executing on the layoff opportunity that companies have. So I think we'll see more weakness there in that three and a half percent unemployment rate. We'll look back a few months from now wishing we could see that again.

Yeah. Bob, obviously, the market continues to be very choppy trying to figure out where to go from here. The prospect of a recession, most economists, including yourself, believe we are headed for some form of a recession. We are expecting on top of that another rate hike in the midst of even what we've seen going on with the banks. Do you think there's a reason to believe that we could start to see the Fed pull back and actually lower rates in this calendar year, or do you think we have to look out to next year for that? I just can't imagine the Fed raising rates next week, which they are likely to do, and then turn around a couple of months from now.

We were only kidding. We're going to turn around and start bringing them back down. That would only occur if we had a, I think, almost miraculous decline in the inflation rate. I think the Fed will need to leave rates wherever they end up, presumably 25%, which is one more quarter of a percent next week, for a bunch of months. Maybe by the end of the year, early next year, if the economy is really weak and inflation is behaving. But let's put it away, the futures curve, which is the sum total of all expectations, is that by year end, the Fed will have cut rates three times. I just don't see it. Yeah, no doubt about it. All right, and then finally, Bob, obviously the banking crisis was front and center several weeks ago. Where has that, you know, where does that exist right now, and do you think we're out of the woods on that one? Yeah, so it was a nasty period, and then we kind of, you know, rub our hands together and get back up on our horse and ride into the sunset is the way it's looked so far.

I'm not sure it's that simple. As you and I have said before, when the Fed raises rates at a record pace, a refresher from zero to four and three quarters in 12 short months, there are consequences. Now, I'm not predicting more bank failures, but I would suspect we will have more credit problems, maybe difficulty getting credit on the part of certain borrowers, and maybe the economic slowdown and mild recession.

So I still think there are more consequences from that Fed action yet to be faced by the investor. All right, very good. Well, Bob, we always appreciate your insights.

Thanks for stopping by. Talk to you next week. All right, that's Bob Dahl, Chief Investment Officer at Crossmark Global Investments, where investments and values intersect.

You can sign up for his dolls deliberations when you visit their website at crossmarkglobal.com. All right, back to the phones. We have room for maybe three more questions today. 800-525-7000, Farmington, New Mexico. Miles, go right ahead.

Hey, Rob. I'm considering a career change, and I currently work for the state here, and I have some money saved up in the pension program. I think $28,000 is about what I'm eligible to take with me, and I would think I would like to roll that into or transfer it into a Roth IRA account that I have. And I was wondering if I could do that all at once or if I need to do it over a few years and how I would do that. Sure. What is your age, Miles?

I'm 37. Okay, yeah. So you've still got time on your side, and where are you headed from here in terms of employment? So I'm considering purchasing a business here or starting one.

It's pretty scary, I guess. Yeah. Do you have some flexibility to do that financially? Do you have a good bit in the way of reserves?

Not necessarily. I would be doing something like I was thinking a home equity line of credit and asking this person if they would own or finance the rest of whatever I can't buy with the equity in our home. Yeah.

I got to tell you, Miles, I don't love the sound of that. It sounds like you're going in to buy this business, and as attractive as it may be, the amount of leverage that it's going to take for you to make the purchase, especially with it being a new business and what we know about how long it takes to get businesses up and running and the percentage of them that are unsuccessful and just the fact that we're heading into a recession here, which obviously I have no idea what industry you're in, but you just have to take that into account, that causes me concern, especially given that your home would be at risk. So I'd probably consider, and again, I know nothing about what you're doing here.

I would just say, generally speaking, at a high level, I would go slow, really think and pray about this. That's a lot of debt in a really challenging economic environment with your personal residence at risk. I would say those would all be warning signs that perhaps you going and getting another job in your area of expertise as opposed to taking on a new venture without adequate reserves is going to be a much better solution for you to have some income that you can count on. As to your original question, I think that colors this as well, although I love the Roth IRA, in order for you to roll that pension, you can't roll it directly into a Roth, so you'd have to go to a traditional IRA and then you'd have to convert it to a Roth, which means you'd add $28,000 to your taxable income in the year of the conversion, which means you're going to have an additional tax bill that you would have to pay for this year. And especially given some of the other changes you've got here, I don't know that this is the year where you're going to want some additional tax money to have to go out the door to Uncle Sam. So I'd probably leave that in the traditional IRA until you get everything else situated. And then if you have a surplus and you want to sock this money away in a Roth and let it grow tax free for the next 25 years, that's great.

But you'd have the money to be able to pay the tax bill, whereas now I think given some of the uncertainties you've got, it's probably not the best time. Excellent. All right.

Great. Yeah, I really appreciate it, Rob. You have a nice day. All right, you too, Miles. All the best to you, my friend.

To Indiana, let's finish up with Karen. Go right ahead. Hi, how are you doing? I'm doing great. Thanks for your call. I have to have you on speakerphone, so I hope you can hear me.

I can. Okay, um, I, we, we only get that we carry is our mortgage and I'd like to take some money out of my IRA to pay it off, which is less than $8,000. And my husband is now retired.

I'm just curious if you would advise that. Yeah, so it's an IRA and what do you have in there right now, Karen, how much? Probably only about $56,000.

Okay. And you'd like to take $8,000 out and you could eliminate the mortgage. What is your mortgage payment currently? It's only about $150,000.

He just made it this, it's only $150,000 a month. Okay. And are you all sending extra? Yeah, he always sends extra.

Okay. So if you just continue on the current track that you're on, how quickly would you have it paid off? Oh, what would that divide up? We only owe like $7,000 on the hat. And what do you think he's sending each month? He's sending 100 extra I mean, it would save us about $600 a month a year, I should say.

Okay, with the pain at all. I mean, with the interest, he sends 100 extra I mean, actual payment. It's really almost embarrassing sandwich we make for a mortgage. Yeah. And is that 56,000 down a good bit from where it was, let's say a year ago. It's up because it's come up the interest he's paying, that we're paying has come up a little bit, not much. Okay, so the IRAs in cash and cash equivalents, banking type products, not stocks?

That I can't. Okay, but you feel like the value of that IRA is up from 12 months ago or? So the IRA is down. Oh, right. Okay. Yeah. So that's what I was asking about. Yeah, so that that would be the only reason I might wait. I mean, if this is if this is going to solve a shortfall every month, and let me ask about that is, are you able to cover all of your bills every month without any problem, even with the mortgage? Yeah.

Okay. So given that that IRA is down, you've you've written it down with the market, like everybody else has, because we've been in a challenging environment, pulling 8000 out is going to lock in those losses. And it's going to add 8000 to your taxable income for the year. So given that and given you've got plenty of money to make this very small mortgage payment on this mortgage that's around seven grand, unless you all just have a real conviction to be debt free as soon as possible, I'd wait and let that IRA recover over the next year or two, and just keep paying it like you are. You can always pay it off if you want to, but I wouldn't do it right now. Thanks for your call today.

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