A Bigger Vision of Stewardship

Zambia has an estimated 1.2 million children without parents. Little wonder it's been called the land of orphans. I am Rob West.

AIDS accounts for the majority of Zambia's orphans, more than 700,000. Today I'll talk with Mario Zandstra about efforts to help these children and an amazing experience you can share. 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. Well, my friend and brother in Christ, Mario Zandstra is our guest today. He's the president and CEO of Family Legacy Missions International, a ministry dedicated to helping Zambia's orphans .

Mario, it's great to have you back, not just to the program, but back to the States. I know you're fresh off a trip to Zambia, aren't you? Yes, I've been to Zambia five times in the last 15 months, and the opportunity to impact these vulnerable and orphaned children is really a joy, an absolute joy. Well, I know it is.

I've actually experienced it with Family Legacy firsthand. Mario, I mention AIDS as perhaps the chief reason there are so many orphans in Zambia, but of course it's not the only one. What other factors contribute to this in Zambia? Well, there's just an issue with respect to just men in Zambia. Men are not necessarily committed to the homes. They have alcohol problem. They have an abandonment issue. I mean, it's a culture where men are basically absent, and so it kind of forces the care of the vulnerable and the orphan on the caregiver, which is typically a female. Maybe the mom could be just an aunt or a grandma, somebody who steps in the gap.

Yeah. I know you're motivated and inspired, Mario, by verses like James 1-27, religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this, to visit orphans and widows in their affliction. So tell us what Family Legacy does to help the orphans of Zambia. Well, we do four specific things. One, we impact the kids and their families spiritually. We want them to know who Jesus is. We want them to understand the gospel. We want them to grow in their faith.

If we do that, that's a huge step in the right direction. But we also feed the children. Every day they come to school, they get a meal. If they have perfect attendance, we give a food blessing to their families. We have a quad-certified infectious disease doctor that helps them with medical issues, including some that have AIDS. We have biblical social emotional learning, helping them unpack their trauma. And then we educate them. 14,000 kids in 22 schools. So we're impacting them, you know, body, mind, soul, and spirit.

I mean, the whole deal, holistically. It's incredible, the operation there by Family Legacy. Now, Mario, you recently had some American visitors who witnessed the impact of your ministry. Share that short story with us.

Well, we had some Americans come, and they spent some time in Zambia. And on Thursday, we went into town, and the Americans were going to share with the caregivers what they saw in the child they'd spent the last four days with. And this one American shared with the caregiver, I've seen Gladys. She's godly. She's courageous.

And she's a servant. And the interpreter shared that with the caregiver who was an aunt who has five kids in her home that are none of them are hers. And the caregiver begins to cry. And the interpreter says, why are you crying? And she says, nobody says anything positive about our kids.

Wow. We spoke identity into Gladys. That identity was shared with the caregiver. At the end, somebody pulled out an Evangikube, shared the gospel. Gladys' aunt came to Christ. On Tuesday, Gladys came to Christ. And so we think that whole family's been transformed. And then at the end, this little church, Cheyenne Church, the pastor got up there and said, if you live in this community, and you need a church home to know more about your relationship with Jesus, we meet at nine o'clock and 1130. And we would love for you to be here.

Wow, that's an incredible story. Well, I know there's many in our listening audience who want in on that, Mario. How can they support this work? Well, there's two ways they can support it.

One, we have a website called HopeForZambia.com slash FaithFi. And that allows people to give to scholarship funds for kids that are unsponsored. These 14,000 kids we have in the system, about 1500 of them currently don't have sponsors. And this could provide scholarship funding. We also have the opportunity, and we're sold out for this summer, but next summer you can come, summer of 24. Actually go to Zambia and meet 10 children that would have your name on their wrist and be part of this program called Camp Life.

And you can go to the website and you can find out more at FamilyLegacy.com. Oh, I love it, Mario. Well, thanks for stopping by. We're so grateful for your time.

It's great to be here. Thanks, Rob. That's Mario Zandstra, President and CEO of Family Legacy. You can find out more and sponsor one of these children at HopeForZambia.com slash FaithFi.

That's HopeForZambia.com slash FaithFI. All right, your calls are next. 800-525-7000. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Faith and Finance Live.

I'm Rob West. We're taking your calls and questions today on anything financial. 800-525-7000. We've got some lines open.

800-525-7000 is the number to call. You know, we started today by talking to my good friend Mario Zandstra of Family Legacy. I've actually been to Zambia with Mario and Family Legacy. Incredible to see what God is doing there. And today, just shining a light on this ministry that's doing incredible work in the name of Jesus, reaching the orphans of Zambia. And, you know, generosity is such a big part of what we talk about here on this program each day. And when we think about our role as stewards of managing God's money, certainly part of that is to use what God entrusts to us to provide for the needs of our family. The challenge is we can get stuck with ourselves, an endless list of needs and wants, and never get beyond that to really, I think, the true heart of our role as stewards, and that is to be generous. For God so loved the world, He gave His one and only Son. And we know that we have an opportunity to reflect God's generosity through our own giving. Being able to take a portion of what He has entrusted to us and direct it as a pipeline into His activity. And I can't think of something on the heart of God more so than that of the widows and the orphans.

And so we're delighted to be able to shine a light on the great work of Family Legacy today. If you'd like to learn more, you can visit this incredible ministry and learn how you could support a Zambian child at HopeForZambia.com forward slash Faithfi. That's HopeForZambia.com forward slash Faithfi. Salome, it sounds like you are actually from Zambia.

Is that right? Go right ahead. Yes, I'm from Zambia.

Excellent. What were you calling to share about today? So sharing, first of all, I'd like to appreciate for considering Zambia. I've grown up in Zambia, and I know what it is because I grew up an orphan too, and I know how it is.

For me to get to this, where I am today, is through the help of people. So right now, I have two vulnerable kids. Well, kids, well, the girl children, they live with their dad who actually works somewhere in the remote areas in the farm. So these little girls, as my son was passing, going to school, he stole them, he stole them, like, working with torn clothes, no food, stealing in people's fields. So I decided to empower those kids by buying them their uniforms and school books and shoes, and whatever.

So I'm really interested in the empowering of Zambian orphans. Is there any way I could be a part of the team? I'll be very, very grateful. Oh, I'm so delighted to hear your story.

Salome, I'm so glad that you called today. You know, I've experienced that firsthand. You obviously grew up there. You know, when I was in Lusaka, I had the chance to walk and see and interact with so many of these orphans, and then we had a chance to bring them to the family life facilities for a week each day. They were bussed up to the top of the hill, and we got a chance to get to know them and share Jesus with them and encourage them and provide them a meal and play games.

And it was just incredible. But the work that they're doing to build schools right there in Chiesa and all of those various communities there where they're living in, just as you know, very difficult conditions in the slums of Zambia. So many of them orphaned children to be able to build schools right there that's going to not only provide for their intellectual needs, but also their physical needs, providing them a meal and even some to take home. Also spiritually sharing the love of Christ with them and meeting their physical needs in terms of health as well.

Just incredible. So what I'd love for you to do is just connect with the team at Family Legacy that is really dedicated, its entire ministry and focus to the children of Zambia. You'll find out more at HopeForZambia.com slash FaithFi.

That's HopeForZambia.com slash FaithFi. And we appreciate you calling today and being an encouragement to what we're talking about. God bless you, Salome.

800-525-7000 is the number to call. Let's talk to Esther in Rochester. Go right ahead. Hello. How are you today? I'm well, thank you. Good.

I had two questions for you. I have an investment of a heritage that I, you know, the family had left me and you had suggested before an online banking. What is the best online banking that you could give me advice on to invest my money that my family had left me?

Yes. So this is money you want safe with FDIC insurance. You're not looking to invest it in stocks and bonds. You really want it just in a bank high yield savings account. Is that correct? That's what you had advised me prior and just, yes, correct.

Okay, very good. Yeah, if this is money that has a 10-year plus time horizon, I think you could consider, you know, putting it to work and perhaps investing it to try to outpace inflation. But if it's money that has a shorter time frame or you just you don't want to take any risk at all with it, then I think an online savings account now actually has some decent interest rates.

So I might look at Marcus, that's M-A-R-C-U-S dot com. You could look at Capital One 360. You can also look at Ally Bank, A-L-L-Y.

Any of those three would provide very competitive rates, most of them paying around 4% right now annually in terms of the yield. It's safe in that it's got FDIC insurance. So it's backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government up to $250,000 per account title, that's account type, or by account or by institution. So if you had multiple banks, you could get $250,000 in each bank. If you had different, if you're at the same bank but you had two accounts with different account categories, so like you had an individual account in your name only and then you had another account that was jointly titled, those could each have $250,000 in coverage. But as long as they have FDIC insurance, what you're going to get with the online banks is much better yields just because they don't have the brick and mortar operation. So they're able to pass that cost savings on to you in the form of a higher interest rate and there's no fees.

So they don't charge anything to keep the account open. So any of those three would be great, Esther. Does that sound good?

It sounds good. My next question is, what is the best, if you were interested in shares, taking on a share or two, what would be the best to invest shares in? Yeah, are you talking, asking about which particular companies would I buy shares in?

Yes. Yeah, we actually don't give individual stock recommendations on this program, so I wouldn't be able to offer you a specific company, but what I would say is I'd probably be thinking about being really properly diversified. You know, if you have a significant sum of money that you're looking to invest, you could do that with individual stocks. You know, the other way to do it that's a little simpler is to buy what's called a mutual fund, which is basically a basket of stocks.

So you can invest directly into the mutual fund and whether that's tracking an index like the S&P 500, the 500 largest companies in the US, or it's actively managed by a money manager who's making those stock buy and sell decisions and trying to outperform the broad market indexes, either approach would be good. If you're just getting started though on this, I'd probably recommend soundmindinvesting.org. That's soundmindinvesting.org.

Not only could you learn about investing through biblical principles, but also they could provide some individual mutual fund recommendations that would be good, solid mutual funds for long-term appreciation. So I would check that out, Esther. Again, soundmindinvesting.org. Phone lines are open 800-525-7000. We'll be right back. Great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live. I'm Rob West, your host. We're taking your calls and questions today, 800-525-7000. We're also taking a moment today to shine a light on an incredible ministry serving the orphans of Zambia, empowering them to reach their full potential as they receive spiritual, intellectual, emotional, and physical care. And if you'd like to be a part of their incredible work to serve the orphans of Zambia for as little as $25, you could participate in supporting and caring for one of these children in Zambia at hopeforzambia.com forward slash faithfi.

That's hopeforzambia.com forward slash faithfi. Let's head back to the phones today to Indiana. Hi, Greg. Go right ahead, sir. Hi there.

Yeah, I love your program for one thing. But anyways, I'm 68. I've talked to the company that I work for, and I'm able to retire, work full-time through the end of the year, and then go to part-time with them, just to keep myself busy. But I've got like $350,000 in an IRA with them. My wife and I have another $400,000 in annuity and another $200,000 in fidelity. And then we've got $50,000 in the bank in savings with $50,000 in I bonds and then $75,000 in life insurance. But I was concerned about if I should wait to retire to roll over my IRA, because I don't want to see it.

I keep hearing things where things might drop drastically. And if I keep waiting, you know, waiting till the end of the year, I just didn't know if that was a wise thing to do, or should I roll that over and service now and then go ahead and drop to part-time, you know, in a month or so? Yeah, makes sense. So you are still working you are still working for the company right now that has this 401k. Is that right? Correct. Yes.

Okay. Yeah, you would typically want to wait until you retire or separate from the company before you roll that out. I think there is some wisdom in combining the 401k with the IRA that you have.

So you just kind of minimize the number of accounts you have for simplicity sake. And then secondly, you could hire an advisor potentially, that could then take over and actually, you know, begin managing this for you on a monthly basis, which, you know, I think will make some sense to me. What are your main questions at this point just financially other than the appropriate time to roll that out? Are you wondering whether you're on track to retire?

Or do you feel like you've already kind of run the numbers and know that you have enough to be able to supplement your income based on your monthly needs? I think that I could supplement and especially just work in a couple days a week with them, which I've already asked them about. And they said I burned the ride over 30 years to go out of the company however I wanted to. And so they will allow me to, you know, just go in a couple days a week.

And I worked for a pretty large lumberyard in Indiana. And so anyways, yeah, I didn't know if I tried to hold out and wait till the end of the year, you know, could I possibly take a substantial drop in the IRA that I have with them or the 401k I should say that I have with them? Is that a risk worth taking? Or should I, you know, roll it over now?

And, you know, just then transfer to part time. Yeah, there's no way to know whether you're going to lose more money in the 401k versus the IRA. It really all comes down to the investments that you've chosen in each of those accounts.

You can lose money just as quickly or quicker in the IRA as you can the 401k, again, depending upon the investments that you've chosen. What is the 401k currently invested in at this point? The mix between stocks and bonds?

Do you know roughly? I believe it's 30. It's like 30% that's a little risky and 60% or 70% it's not. So I'm only at risk for about 30% of it.

Okay, yeah, so that's probably a pretty good place to be given what you've got here. I mean, remember, once you retire, if you're in good health, you know, you need this money to last decades, unless the Lord returns. So, you know, I think keeping an allocation to stocks, even in retirement makes sense.

And, you know, at 65 or 70, I'd probably have still at least 30%. In some cases, you might want to have 40% in stocks, just to provide that growth component and then the balance and fixed income investments and maybe an allocation of the precious metals as well. So I wouldn't be necessarily making any major changes right now, just based on what I'm hearing, especially if the 401k is down a little bit.

You know, we want to give that time to recover. And then I think the key would be that whenever you roll that out to the IRA, that you get it invested again immediately because you don't want to try to time the market in terms of when to get out, when to get back in. You just want to stay invested with the right allocation that's appropriate for your age and risk tolerance and give that the chance to work and grow over time, no matter what's going on in the market, whether we're in a recession, like we'll likely be later this year, or we're beyond it. And, you know, the market's making new highs, you just want to continue to stay with that long term perspective. And, you know, apply that rules based approach that says, Okay, I've chosen this allocation for these reasons.

And I'm going to stay the course. So I wouldn't necessarily see you needing to get out of that 401k right now, I think this is a time just to stay put. And then when you're, when you're ready to retire, and you've separated from the company, then you'd start consolidating these into one retirement account where possible. And then you've got to choose, do you want to manage this to yourself or hire somebody to do that for you?

I'd have somebody do it, but I would also want to be drawing income from it. That is the main reason that I would want to take it out of the 401k now and roll it over is that so that I would still maintain the same, you know, lifestyle or, yes, the way that we've been living. But you don't need to start drawing that income until you retire, correct? Correct. Yeah.

So and that's perfectly appropriate. I mean, that's really the approach you would typically take you accumulate during your working years, the accumulation phase in 401ks, and IRAs, and whatever else you have. And then once you get into retirement, you convert that to an income stream. Typical rule of thumb there is 4% a year would be a good number for you to be able to draw it out, and then still maintain that principal ballot.

So it would last the rest of your life, and you can have something to give away or to pass on as an inheritance. But I would say leave that right where it is. And when you're, once you're retired, then you roll it to the IRA and let your advisor take over. Doing a great job here. Great. Keep up the good work, my friend. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back on Faith and Finance Live. Stay with us.

Thanks for joining us today on Faith and Finance Live, where we apply the wisdom from God's Word to your financial decisions and choices. We're taking your calls today. We have just a couple of lines open. 800-525-7000. Let's head right back to the phones.

To Florida we go. Hi, Tanya. Thanks for calling. Go ahead. Hi, thank you.

I have a CD for a very long time in back of America, and it's really not earning any money. It's really low, so I want to change it, and I know you heard you said three different online banking. Can you tell me what those are again? Yeah, you know, I like the online banks, Tanya, as long as there's FDIC insurance, and it's a reputable and strong financial institution for this purpose, for savings accounts, for CDs, just because you're going to get much better than average interest rates on these products because the online banks don't have the operations that they have to fund, like the brick and mortar banks. So I mentioned three. Ally Bank, A-L-L-Y, Marcus, M-A-R-C-U-S. That's the retail operation of Goldman Sachs, and then Capital One 360 would be another. Any one of those three I would be comfortable with, and you'll get a great rate right now north of five percent, probably, on a CD for 12 months or maybe even less.

So I would check that out. If you want a credit union that shares your values, you can also check out Christian Community Credit Union. They've got a wonderful welcome CD, I think, that's north of four percent, and you could look that up at joinchristiancommunity.com, and you'd know that they share your values and that a portion of the profits are actually going to fund kingdom work and activity around the globe. Again, that's joinchristiancommunity.com.

So any of those I think would be what you're looking for. Is that helpful? Yes, I have another question.

Sure. So my husband has like about $250,000 in regular savings accounts in the bank, and he almost lost that money because they thought he was dead. So the bank, I don't know if I should mention, I don't want to mention the name, actually got that money and sent it to some treasury, whatever, the government. So it took like five months, you know, he went into the bank and they told him, you know, that money goes to the state, but we're going to help you get your money back, which they did, and it took a long time. So he didn't have a very good experience with the bank.

He had to go in like three different times because they told him to go into the surgery online and that after we did that, we sent it and it took a long time. The bank actually had to get involved and call some other location and then try to get the treasury to actually, you know, send him some account numbers and something and then send the paperwork in and we got the money back. So he wants to get the money out of the savings and invest it somewhere else. And it's about $250,000 and he's got like three different banks.

What do you suggest for that? Where, you know, what's a good place to invest that? Well, you know, we need to look at the bigger financial picture here. So, you know, what I would say is kind of the priority order of this is number one, you want an emergency fund of three to six months expenses. And I'm talking about you together as a married couple, you know, being one flesh looking at your whole financial life. Between the two of you, you want three to six months worth of expenses in a savings account that's readily accessible. Once you get to that, then we're looking at making sure we've eliminated consumer debt.

So we don't want any credit card debt that you're not paying off in full. We want to be saving for cars. We also want to be saving for retirement, preferably through a tax-advantaged account like a 401k or a 401k plus an IRA. If you have access to a 401k and you'd want to put away typically about 10 to 15% of your pay.

Now, if you're starting late, you may need to try to put away a little bit more than that. But that's going to allow that to grow tax deferred so that the investments are not generating taxes along the way, but it's free to grow fully. And then you'd pay tax in retirement when you take it out. So how does this money fit into that overall picture?

Would you see this as part of your retirement nest egg or is this for some other purpose? I think he wants to invest, but you know, in some kind of properties, but he hasn't done that. So he hasn't done that. So this is just working money that he's got.

So, you know, throughout the years and I, you know, I understand I'm going to say not to him, but I really don't know what his plans are right now, but you know, he could be wanting to invest that money in property, but I'm not really sure right now, but he definitely needs to take it somewhere, you know, because in the bank, you know, he had a bad experience. All right. Well, yeah. I mean, it sounds like what you're describing was an anomaly.

I've never heard of that happening before and hopefully you've rectified that situation. I can't imagine that would happen again, but I would understand if you'd want to change your banking relationship as a result of that. But beyond that, it sounds like you all need a financial planner. You need to sit down with an advisor who can look at your overall financial picture, make sure you all are both on the same page with regard to what you have, assets and liabilities that your income is spending is in line with your values and your goals. And then you have a plan moving forward to position those assets to be able to grow them for the future and in an appropriate way that meets your goals and objectives and also isn't taking unnecessary risk. And that may include stocks and bonds inside a retirement account that may include buying a piece of real estate.

If you have the ability to do so, you're not putting your financial life in jeopardy and generate income by owning real estate and renting it out and building, you know, assets outside of the stock and bond market. That all makes sense, but it needs to be done in the context of a well thought out financial plan where you and here on the same page and you know what you're ultimately trying to accomplish. Do you think he'd be willing to sit down with an advisor, the three of you? Yes, for sure. Yeah.

Okay. Well, I think that's the place to go. We recommend the Certified Kingdom Advisor designation, Tanya. It's the only accepted industry designation in financial services for men and women who will share your values as a believer. They've been trained to bring professional biblical financial advice. They've met high standards and character and competence and regulatory reviews and pastor and client references. So I'd head to our website at faithfi.com. That's faithfi.com. And then just click the button that says find a CKA. Again, that stands for Certified Kingdom Advisor.

You could do a zip code search for a CKA in your area. And then I would interview two or three you and he together. And then from that point, maybe decide who you want to go visit with starting with a financial plan. You're not necessarily looking for somebody to manage the money. You just need that financial plan so that you all are clear about where you're headed, how you're positioning your assets and what you're trying to accomplish in the future.

And then if you need somebody to help you manage assets along the way, you could certainly do that. Again, the website is faithfi.com. Just click find a CKA and Tanya, thank you for calling today. We appreciate it. Folks, in just a moment, we're going to take a break. We'll be back in our final segment. Erica, let's see Mary, we're coming your way and Daryl will be coming to you as well. A quick email.

These come in to us every day at askrobb at faithfi.com. And Matt says, my employer offers a retirement plan. I've just started saving, so I'm kind of a late bloomer. How much should I put toward my retirement? My company contributes about 4%.

First of all, Matt, thanks for listening and for writing to us. That 4% match is very generous, so that's great. Take full advantage of that. Ideally, you'd put away 15% of your income especially since you're getting a late start into that retirement account. It's going to be through salary deferral. You might even want to put away the max. That happens to be 22,500 for this year. If you're over age 50, you can put away a full 30,000.

So I would go up to the max if you have the ability to do so. Just because you're getting a late start, that's going to allow you to sock away a good bit to be able to take advantage of down the road. Thanks for writing, Matt. Much more to come on Faith and Finance Live just around the corner. Stay with us.

So thankful to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live. Here in our final segment, we're going to head back to the phones, get to as many calls as we can. To Erica in Ohio, go right ahead. Yes, hi Rob. Thanks for taking my call. I love listening to you every day on my ride home.

Well, thanks. My question is, my husband and I both have a pension coming to us when we retire. We're like early 50s.

I'm 51, he's 53, so we have time yet. But we got a letter saying that we could take it as a lump sum if we wanted. Unfortunately, I don't know what that lump sum would be, but I do know when we retire, like I would get 600, he would get 550 a month. And the first question is, I didn't know if that affects Social Security at all.

No, it shouldn't. Whether you take the lump sum or the payout, as long as you've been paying in to Social Security along the way, you should be able to, you know, and you've reached the number of credits that are necessary to earn your benefits, then you would get your Social Security check and then the pension on top of it. And I think determining whether to take the lump sum or the monthly payout is something you ought to look into further. You'll want to know what that lump sum amount is, compare that against kind of the present value of the income stream that they're going to give you and decide which is the better option. I would consider taking the lump sum distribution just because you'd have full access to the money and more control over how it's invested. But you are assuming that risk and some folks would rather just have that guaranteed income stream for life.

So it's something to look at. You're going to want to compare the two numbers and you might even want to do some planning with a competent professional as you make that decision. But no, that shouldn't affect your Social Security eligibility at all. Okay. And my other question is, we have a son with special needs and we're looking, he's an adult now and we're looking for long-term housing for him, which is quite expensive.

So that's the other reason that maybe it would be better to get the lump sum to start to invest that to kind of dog ear that for him and housing. Yes. Yeah, absolutely.

Are you familiar with something called a special needs trust? Yeah. Okay. We don't have one. I know we need to get one. Okay. Yeah.

Okay, great. So yeah, you would have the ability to designate basically your special needs trust as the beneficiary to your retirement accounts and that would fund that trust at your death, you or your husband. And then that special needs trust would be there to provide for his ongoing care and wouldn't affect his eligibility for public assistance, which is really the key part of that. And then there could be a trustee name that would help to distribute those assets for his benefit and according to your wishes spelled out in that special needs trust. So you'll just want to visit with an estate planner and you'll have you'll just want to visit with an estate planning attorney to set that up. But I would absolutely explore this a little bit further just to determine whether you want to take the lump sum or the monthly payout.

And I think for this reason, you may want to go ahead and take that lump sum and then designate the special needs trust as the beneficiary. Okay, great. Thank you so much for your help. All righty. Thanks for calling Erica and for your kind remarks about the program. God bless you. Daryl is our next caller. Go right ahead, sir.

Hi. Yeah, I've got a father that's 82. And he has, he purchased some silver and coin back in 2010.

He's getting to the point where he's probably going to be needing to go into assisted living. We need to liquidate the coins in order to pay for that. How what's the best way of going about that? Yeah, so I would do some research online. I mean, you could visit with a local, you know, jeweler, but you probably want to find somebody who specializes in coin grading and then can help you with the sale.

I would direct you to a few websites to begin your search on this. You would probably want to look at first Numismatic Guarantee Corporation. That's NGCCoin.com. NGCCoin.com. Professional Coin Grading Service at PCGS.com. And then the American Numismatic Association at Money.org. All three of those will give you helpful resources on just how you go about, you know, the coin grading to figure out what you actually have. And then you can see if you have any coin dealers in your area.

If you're in a larger city, you know, they tend to be there. They could help you as well. Once you know, you know, what they're worth, then you're selling them knowing you're getting a fair price.

And there are plenty of places online that you can do that, read a lot of reviews. But I think that's your next step to just kind of figure out what you've got. And then make sure you're using that information to determine kind of what is a fair price and what isn't as you try to free up these resources for your dad's care. So I think that'll get you pointed in the right direction, Daryl. We appreciate your call today. Listen, all the best to you as you care for your dad in this really important season of life. Thanks for calling today.

800-525-7000 is the number to call. We may have room for one more question today. We'd love to hear from you if you'd like to get in on the conversation. Another email.

This one comes to us from Sherry. She writes, my dad's annuity recently forwarded some paperwork to me. They recommended having him sign the annuity over to a different financial company and product to manage. My dad is not capable of signing. He doesn't have a financial power of attorney.

What do you think we should do? Unfortunately, if your father is incapable of signing a power of attorney, you'll have to apply to the courts for him to be declared as such and for you or someone else to be named as a guardian or conservator. This can be expensive, unfortunately, and it's certainly time consuming. So, you'll need to connect with a conservatorship attorney to get the process started. Sherry, this is an attorney who really specializes in situations like this. I would also connect with a financial advisor just to get a second opinion on transferring the annuity. That may not be in your father's best interest. Just because they're recommending it, I would investigate whether that's the case. If you don't have an advisor, you could reach out to one at our website, faithfi.com.

That's faithfi.com. Just click find a CKA, but you'll probably want to start the process. If you don't believe your father is headed in the direction of being able to have the mental faculties to sign the POA in the future, you're probably going to want to have that in the works so that as needs come up, you've got the authority to do that. And again, you'll need to reach out to an attorney to take care of it. Sherry, thank you for writing to us. All the best to you as you care for your dad right now. And folks, if you have a question you'd like to send it along to be read on the air, we'd love to hear from you.

You can send it to askrob at faithfi.com. All right, back to the phones to Chicago. Hey, Michael, go right ahead, sir. Hey, how you doing?

Doing great. So my wife and I, we were looking into getting some life insurance and we had an agent that was insisting on something called universal policy. And I wanted to get some feedback on that because I mean, I'm trying to look at the mass of it and I'm not sure if it's making sense. Yeah, you know, I'm not a big fan. I mean, these do provide the potential for upside because essentially there's sub-accounts inside the life insurance where it's invested. You don't get the full return and that's one of the drawbacks is there's a cap on the amount of return that you're getting and there's no guarantee as to the premium out or the amount or the market's return. And so, you know, they typically have a large upfront investment.

There's a lot of fees and so forth that are built into them. So they're not my favorite tool as you're thinking about, you know, the, you know, investing for the future. And so for that reason, because of the fees without the guarantees and the caps on the returns, I'd rather see you just invest outside of an insurance product in a company-sponsored retirement plan, an IRA, perhaps both. Do your investing in the stock market with an appropriate amount of risk. With a long-term perspective, you get the full amount of the upside and not the cap that would be present with the universal life.

You don't have the fees and the expenses. And then for your life insurance, which you absolutely need, get the proper amount of coverage equal to at least 10 to 15 times your annual income. But the most effective way to do that, the most cost-effective way is through term life insurance. So you might get a 20-year level term with the idea that once you reach age 65, now you no longer have a need for it.

And so you drop it. It served the purpose of offsetting the risk of you at your death, creating a financial hardship for a loved one, namely a spouse because of the loss of your income. But once you reach retirement, that risk is no longer there because you've saved, you've got social security, you've got your retirement investments. So if something were to happen to you, that doesn't create a hardship because you're no longer earning an income. So there's nothing to go away, so to speak. So I think for that reason, I like investing in pure investments plus term insurance and not using an expensive insurance product like universal life. That's just my perspective.

Doesn't mean there's never a place for life insurance products, but they're just not my first choice for saving for the future. I hope that helps you, Michael. We appreciate your call today, my friend.

God bless you. Well, folks, that's going to just about do it for us. As we wrap up today, let me just mention two ways that you can engage further with us. One is, as we head toward year-end, our fiscal year-end, that is, here at Faith and Finance, which is June the 30th. We could absolutely use your financial assistance as we finish the year strong and plan for another year of ministry. If you'd like to support our work with any amount beyond the giving to your local church and beyond your giving to Moody Radio, you can do that at faithfi.com.

That's faithfi.com. Just click the Give tab, and there's a way for you to give securely online, through the mail, or over the phone. Again, your gifts between now and June 30th mean a lot to us here at Faith and Finance Live, and you can make those at faithfi.com and just click Give. I would also just call to your attention one more time the great work of Family Legacy. If you want to learn more about how they're serving the least of these, the orphans in Zambia, you can learn more at hopeforzambia.com forward slash faithfi. Hey, let me say thanks to my team today. Couldn't do it without Amara, Dan, Tahira, and Jim. I'm Rob West.

Faith and Finance Live is a partnership between Moody Radio and FaithFi. I hope you have a great rest of your day, and we'll be here tomorrow. Come back and join us then. Bye-bye.