Generous Stewardship

The point is this, whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. 2 Corinthians 9, 6.

Hi, I'm Rob West. Christians have a calling to be generous. We're also called to be faithful stewards. So what happens when those two virtues intersect? I'll talk about generous stewardship today, and then it's on to your calls at 800-525-7000.

800-525-7000. This is Faith and Finance Live, biblical wisdom for your financial journey. Well, the dictionary has some highfalutin technical definitions for synergy, but you've probably heard it described more simply as when the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Mathematically, it might be expressed as 2 plus 2 equals 5.

Obviously, that doesn't happen in mathematics, but it does in chemistry and physics. I think synergy also occurs when you combine generosity and stewardship. Something very special happens. Think of the women who supported Jesus' ministry. We read about them in Luke 8, 1-3.

Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with him, and also some women, who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases. Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had come out, Joanna, the wife of Chuza, the manager of Herod's household, Susanna, and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means. Now, we can only assume that it took a great deal of stewardship and generosity for these women to provide at least partial support for themselves and thirteen men as they traveled around Israel. They probably had to watch every shekel. But look at what they were a part of, the earthly ministry of Jesus.

Another example might be the widow's mite that we find in Mark 12, 41-44. Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts, but a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins worth only a few cents. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth, but she, out of her poverty, put in everything, all she had to live on. Of course, that passage is most often associated with sacrificial giving. But I think we can also see the stewardship that was required for the widow's generosity. She no doubt scrimped and saved, even to have those two small copper coins. And consider what came from her one small action. Her story has served as inspiration for millions of Christians over two thousand years.

That's greater than the sum of the parts. Now, I want to make it clear that being poor doesn't make one more spiritual, and being wealthy doesn't make one less spiritual. In Luke 18, 25, where Jesus says, It's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God, he simply means that anyone who thinks their earthly wealth or works can get them into heaven is sadly mistaken. There have been many wealthy individuals who practiced great stewardship and generosity toward God's kingdom. R.G.

Letourneau is one example. He made a fortune in the early 1900s inventing and building construction and land-moving equipment. He felt that money came in faster than he could give it away. He would say, I shovel it in, and God shovels it back, but God has a bigger shovel. He also challenged others to be generous. He often said, You will never know what you can accomplish until you say a great big yes to the Lord. As for stewardship, Letourneau said the real question was, not how much of my money I should give to God, but how much of His money I keep for myself. And that turned out to be only ten percent of what he made.

He was what you might call a reverse tither. He gave ninety percent of his income back to God and lived on ten percent. Truett Cathy, the founder of Chick-fil-A, had a similar philosophy, now carried on by his grandson, Andrew Cathy, who runs the company. It's not clear how much of the company's profits are given away, but Chick-fil-A remains privately held because the Cathy family likes being generous. They like giving money away, and they know that shareholders likely wouldn't see things the same way. Of course, Chick-fil-A is famous not only for chicken sandwiches, but also for being closed on Sundays, which the company has always done to give employees a day to rest and worship.

And while you might think that being open only six days a week is not good for stewardship for a fast food chain, interestingly, Chick-fil-A is more profitable per restaurant than McDonald's. All right, your calls are next, 800-525-7000. That's 800-525-7000. I'm Rob West, and we'll be right back. Stick around. 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 today on anything financial. We'd love to hear from you. The number to call is 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. We've got lines open and we'd love to take your calls and questions today. Let's dive in. We're going to begin in Colorado Springs. Linda, you'll be our first caller. Go right ahead.

Hi there. Thank you for taking my call. My husband and I are 67, so we're going to be taking Social Security in a couple of years. We have a vacation home in Arizona. We rent it out when we aren't there and it doesn't rent well in the summer, so we owe about $300,000 on it. I'm wondering if it would be smart to maybe take money out of our IRA since we don't really need it for retirement and plunk that down into the house. I also have some funds coming in from my business which I recently sold in order to try to reduce the interest that we're paying on that home.

Sure. So what is the interest rate on that home, Linda? It's 4.5, so it's not horrible like today's interest.

Okay, very good. And just give me a rundown of your investable assets. So what do you have in the IRA for instance? Okay, so my traditional IRA, $89,000. I've got annuity for $63,000. My husband's got a TSP for $250,000. I've got a SEP IRA. That's what I was wondering if I should do with my SEP IRA also.

It's got $75,000 in it and I know if I take that out and put it on the house, I've got to pay taxes, but just wondering how that would balance out with the amount of interest we might be avoiding having to pay. Sure. No, I can understand why you're wanting to consider this. What do you have coming in from the business sale?

The business sale, I sold it January 1st for $300,000, but it will be payments of $5,000, well $5,600 a month for five years and that's including the interest. Okay. And then are you all fully retired then at this point?

I am not. My husband's pretty much working full-time. We both are self-employed and I do a little bit of work. I'm a sign language interpreter so I work from home off and on.

Okay, very good. And once you all really move into a full retirement phase where you're no longer working for pay, what income sources would you be counting on at that point other than Social Security? The things that I just listed, we have those. Also, my husband plans to probably work until he absolutely can't. He works from home with a tractor business so he will probably keep working. We also have quite a bit of inventory here at the home.

He sells tractors and has quite a bit that he could be selling throughout the years. Sure. Okay. And then just in terms of your overall lifestyle, have you looked at what you will be receiving from Social Security and if you were to compare that to your monthly expenses including the debt service on that vacation property, is that enough or does it require a supplement from either you all continuing to work or drawing an income from these investment accounts?

Our Social Security will give us, I just looked this up, about I think about $8,000 a month. So that with these other items will be in pretty good shape. Okay.

Yeah, very good. So the only thing I would say is as you look at these accounts, they're probably still down with the market. Would you say just overall from the TSP to the IRAs and so forth? Yes, I would agree with that.

Okay. Yeah, so I think this is probably not the time to pull that kind of money from the IRAs, number one. So I would give that some time and if you were to do it, perhaps consider that a year from now and even then you'd want to do it over multiple tax years just so you didn't push a portion of that up into a higher tax bracket.

So you might want to stage it, let's say over three years. The only thing I would look at though is just whether it might make some more sense to perhaps pay it out of current cash flow. So for instance, as you have these additional payments to pay out for your business sale, perhaps that's an opportunity to accelerate the mortgage payoff out of that surplus with an idea that you might look down maybe five years and say, okay, we want this paid off in the next five years, but we're not going to do it all right now because we want the accounts to recover, number one.

Number two, we want to stage this over time so we can preserve as much of that as possible to allow it to continue to grow. So when that time comes, if we do need to supplement our income because we need long-term care, whatever it might be in that season of life, if it goes beyond what you're going to be bringing in from Social Security, you would have the ability to fund that by creating an income stream from those portfolios. And perhaps there's some point in the future where we don't wait for you to pay it off just based on your scheduled mortgage payments, but we don't try to do it all right away. Does that make sense? It does make sense. And that's what we've been talking back and forth about.

So I really appreciate your input on that. Well, I think that, you know, we'll perhaps accomplish the best of both worlds. One thing you may want to consider where possible is consolidating some of these accounts.

Now, obviously your retirement accounts need to stay in your name, his need to stay in his, but they can be rolled together if you have, for instance, multiple accounts in each of your names. But I think the track that you're on, it seems like it makes a lot of sense between the inventory on the equipment that you've got, his desire to continue to work, which is great. You've got these portfolios that will, you know, continue to perform well over time. And if we can find a way to get that mortgage paid off, boy, that just puts you in a really strong position because now what is probably still your largest expense comes out of the budget and it makes it that much easier to solve for the income that you have. I think waiting to take that Social Security is also a great thing as well, Linda, because as you probably know, that's building by 8 percent a year up to age 70. And with you all continuing to work, doesn't seem like there's a real need for that. So you might as well let that payment just continue to grow. So I like this a lot.

I think you guys are right on track here and I would just work with your CPA if you do decide to pull some from these retirement accounts as to the best way to do that from a tax standpoint. Thanks for being on the program today, Linda. All the best to you all in this exciting season. God has you in May.

God bless you. Eight hundred five to five. Seven thousand is the number to call. We've got some lines open today and we'd love to hear from you. Whatever you're thinking about financially, we'd love to help you apply the wisdom from God's Word to your financial decisions and choices. Just around the corner, Mary will be coming your way.

Plus, again, your questions. Give us a call right now. Our team is standing by the number eight hundred five to five. Seven thousand. Again, eight hundred five to five. Seven thousand. Hey, a quick email before we head to the break.

This comes to us from Mike in Tennessee. He writes, Rob, my daughter has a Roth IRA, which I started for her while she was working part time in college. Now she has a full time job and has a Roth IRA there. Can she still fund her personal Roth to what Mike probably means is she has the option for a Roth 401K there. She wouldn't have a Roth IRA through her employer. Those are only set up individually.

And if that's the case, Mike, absolutely. She can have a Roth 401K, which has the ability to put in love for this year. Twenty two thousand five hundred. And in addition to that, she can have a Roth IRA held in her name personally. She can put in sixty five hundred into that.

So her combined contributions could go as high as twenty nine thousand dollars. Mike, hope that's helpful to you. By the way, if you have a question you'd like read on the air, send it along to us. Ask Rob at faith five dot com. All right. Your calls and questions just around the corner.

Eight hundred five, two, five, seven thousand. This is Faith and Finance Live and we'll be right back. Great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live.

I'm Rob West. You know, have you thought about the fact that our relationship with money is never morally neutral? You see, we have to recognize that our struggle with regard to money management, planning or budgeting is really a heart issue more than it is a money issue.

My friend Paul David Tripp, the author and teacher, recently engaged with us here at Kingdom Advisors. And we had a great conversation just around the big idea that, you know, everyone lives for some kind of treasure. And the thing that is your treasure will control your heart.

The reality is what control your controls your heart, though, then will control your words and behaviors. And so ultimately, we have to determine to which kingdom are we oriented and what's driving us? What are we ultimately placing our value in? And that will then inform how we handle God's money. And so it's important that we're constantly renewing our minds and understanding an eternal perspective of God's money, that we're stewards or managers, and we need to see money not as an end, but a tool, a means to an end to accomplish God's purposes. Well, we want to help you do that on this program each day. And perhaps you have a question you'd like to tackle today financially speaking, we'd certainly love to hear from you.

The number to call is 800-525-7000. We've got some lines open. All right, let's head back to the phones to Memphis, Tennessee.

Hi, Mary, go right ahead. Hi, Rob, thank you for taking my call. We refinanced our home two years ago, and we currently pay $500 extra to the principal amount. We've been doing that for two years. But now I'm thinking maybe that money should be put in towards our 401k. We only put in, my husband's at 12% in, and I'm wondering if that $500 would be better suited to bumping it to the 401k to get us to 15%?

Or is it better toward the principal? Yeah, I love this question, Mary, because there's this tension that we have between trying to pursue being debt free, and saving to take advantage of our working years to grow our long term savings on a compounded basis. And we've got to wrestle with how much do we apply to debt reduction versus how much do we save and kind of find the balance between the two. Tell me just a bit of information and then we'll see if we can talk through this together. What would be your age for you and your husband? My husband's 59 and I'm 60.

All right. And what do you all have saved total in all of these retirement accounts that you have? We have $710,000, $600 in an IRA, and then $110,000 in his current 401k. And then we have $30,000 in a savings. Great. That sounds really good.

And do you all, I'm sorry, go ahead. But our mortgage is $201,000. Okay, very good. But you are sending $500 a month and you're doing that out of current cash flow, right? Correct.

Okay. And you said the percentage that you're putting in of his pay is around 10%? 12%. 12%.

Okay, that's great. You know, we usually recommend 10 to 15%. And so I love that you're, you're doing 12 and you're accelerating that mortgage payoff. I think one of the goals might be for you all to try to sync up the payoff of that mortgage with you entering retirement, which would give you an opportunity as you're entering retirement and perhaps now beginning to live on Social Security plus an income stream from these retirement accounts, it would take that largest expense off the table. Do you know based on the current track that you're on with the 500 extra per month, have you had your mortgage servicer run an amortization schedule? Or have you done it yourself to determine if you continued this, how quickly you'd have it paid off?

Yes, I would be well, we have 10 more years. So it'd be 10 years, but that's including the 500 a month extra? Yes. Okay. Yes, it is. Okay, very good.

And yeah, no, it is. But obviously you've got still a significant balance. When do you all think you might retire? Do you have a certain age you're targeting at this point?

No, my husband loves his job and he doesn't plan on retiring. But you know, initially, he'll have to. Okay, so a 10 year time horizon on that could be realistic from what you know today. Yes.

Okay, very good. So here's what I might do. I think trying to continue on this track, recognizing that, you know what, we were created to be workers.

I love the idea of your husband saying, I find a lot of enjoyment out of using the way God has wired me and gifted me in service to him and as a worker, and I want to continue to do that, you know, until God redirects me to something else. I think you all saving 12% a year already having 700,000 in savings, which would, you know, could throw off as much as 30,000 a year plus social security. If you were to stay on this track of continuing to fund that at 12%, that makes some sense to me, especially if by continuing with the $500 a month and prepaying the mortgage, it would allow you to enter retirement debt free. And you all could use that payoff date as perhaps a target that you'd like to use down the road.

Now, at some point, you could decide to change that date, you could extend it, make it longer, or maybe you try to accelerate that even a little quicker. But I don't think there's necessarily any definite idea here that you need to automatically get that to 15%. I think if you could continue at 12% and solve for having this mortgage paid off as you transition into retirement, that's kind of the best of both worlds for me. I mean, the only other opportunity you have married to kind of dig into this a little deeper would be to, you know, actually do some retirement planning with an advisor if you haven't already, just to say, what is our lifestyle going to look like in retirement, most folks live on about 70 to 80% of their pre retirement income. So if you were to look at that and run some projections as to what this 710,000 will be in 10 years, based on a reasonable growth rate, plus the additional contributions you're putting in, I mean, I could easily seeing you all be over a million dollars in this portfolio. And if you could do that, and that would cover your retirement expenses, plus allow you to have this mortgage paid off, I think that's an ideal situation. So I would say apart from some planning, I like the idea of you continuing right on the track that you're on.

If you'd like to do a little bit digger, deeper dive here into this, then I'd connect with a certified kingdom advisor or your existing advisor to do some retirement planning. Does that all make sense? It does. Thank you so much for the confirmation. Thank you.

All right, Mary, you're welcome. You guys keep up the great work and thanks for being on the program today. Hey, we've got four lines open 800-525-7000 a quick break and then back with much more. Stay with us.

Hey, great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live. I'm Rob West. We're taking your calls and questions, 800-525-7000. Back to the phones we go.

Ohio. Hi, Ray. Go ahead, sir. How are you doing? Thanks for taking my call. So listening to all your previous callers, I'm not anywhere near where they're at, but I have been very irresponsible in my younger years with finances and whatnot. The prodigal son came back five years ago and I went from coming out of prison to almost being homeless. Just last year, I got my credit up as far as I could get it to.

I purchased a home, purchased a vehicle for my wife, got married last year and I'm moving along. I'm not in any trouble. I'm not delinquent on anything.

I'm up to date on everything. I've got three years where no missed payments, but I do not have any type of safety net. There's no savings.

There's no emergency fund. The last couple of weeks, I've been talking with someone in the Debt for Life program and they just texted me last night and said that I got approved and we're going to have a final meeting tomorrow over Zoom. Basically, we're purchasing a whole life policy, which they are going to manage with me. I have about $13,000 to $15,000 in credit card debt and $18,000. My wife's vehicle is still old and my home is still about $420,000.

I bought it for $402,000. Like I said, it's only been a year and a half with the home. They are going to be paying off on a schedule with credit card debt first and the vehicle. I also got solar installed in the home.

That's going to go next and then the house lasts. The mortgage will be paid about 13 years faster than I would just pay in it regularly how I've been doing. At the end of that, once the home is paid off, I will also have a cash value of $94,000 change in the policy. That all sounds great to me. The way we're setting up is I'll be putting $400,000 to $500,000 a month into the policy.

Everything sounds great. Like I said, I'm not in any trouble, but I just wanted to hear your thoughts on this. Yeah. I'm not a big fan of this approach. It's a very complicated approach to paying down debt using a whole life insurance policy, which is a very expensive type of insurance policy and it's not being used for the death benefit.

It's simply being able to... It's being used to kind of create a complex way, as you said, to bank on yourself and use the borrowings from that to pay down debt and so forth. It's not a revolutionary idea and it tends to be somewhat expensive. It's got to be structured correctly because if it's not structured properly, you could actually collapse the policy if you don't handle it the right way. Again, there are plenty of fees involved in it with the folks that are selling these products to be able to run their businesses, but I would just rather you keep this much more simple and just say, how do we limit my lifestyle in such a way that I can free up margin, do my long-term savings in more traditional type investment vehicles, whether that's a company-sponsored retirement plan or an IRA, investing on a disciplined systematic basis to be able to grow that money over time and then paying down debt out of surplus cash flow where you, first of all, build up an emergency fund to eliminate additional borrowing and then we snowball the debt. If you have credit card debt, I would much prefer a debt management program where you're getting the interest rates reduced through credit counseling and paying those off with a level monthly payment using the snowball method, smallest to largest balance and knocking that out over time without directing so much into this expensive insurance policy, kind of using these strategies that I understand they can show you a lot of fancy illustrations that might make some sense on paper.

It's not a scam, but it is a fairly expensive way to go about something you can do on your own without involving life insurance. Does that make sense? Yes, it does.

Yeah. So if it were me, I would kind of go back to that spending plan, say, how do I reduce my expenses to the best of my ability to cut back so I can free up margin? I'd look at first getting your emergency savings to three to six months worth of expenses. At that point, I'd look at what you're putting toward the credit cards because that's really the most important, especially given where interest rates are right now.

I suspect those rates are pretty high. I'd focus on that first after you have the emergency fund. I'd contact our friends at christiancreditcounselors.org, have them run an illustration to show you how quickly you can get it paid off with the reduced interest rates that they'd make available. Once that's gone, I'd look at starting your contributions to a long-term investment plan. If you have a company-sponsored plan at work, great. If not, you can set up one on your own to be able to save for retirement. Then let's continue to use any excess margin to pay down other debts until you're debt-free.

Then I think you're in a really great spot at that point and you haven't spent any money on keeping up these whole life policies. That would be the direction I'd go, Ray, if you want to contact Christian Credit Counselors. Again, the web address is christiancreditcounselors.org. If you have other questions along these lines at some point, don't hesitate to reach out to us. We appreciate your call today. Let's head to Florida. Cindy has been waiting patiently and I understand you have a question about your mortgage. Go ahead. Yes, my mortgage is like $16,000 left to pay off and I'm about a year or two from retirement and I wondered if I should take it out of my savings and just pay it off or just... Yeah, how much do you have in savings, Wanda?

Excuse me, Cindy? Probably around $50,000 just on my own, but I have an investment with like $300 and some thousand. Okay, very good. Yeah, I like the idea of you not pulling that out of investments at this point. I think given the fact that you have $50,000, once this is paid off, obviously you could take that monthly mortgage payment and then just put it right back into savings every month. Would that be your plan?

Right. Yeah, so that makes a lot of sense to me whether you do that all at one time or you do that, let's say over the next 18 months where maybe you take $1,000 a month and do that so that as you're entering retirement, which you said is a year and a half away, the key would be that you have it paid off by at least that point and that would allow you to do it not all at once so that if you needed that $50,000, you'd still have access to it. If you really were convicted to be out of debt immediately, you could do it all right away, but I think spreading that out over 18 months makes a lot of sense to me and that way as you retire, you've eliminated that expense and it's going to make it all that much easier to balance your budget. So do that at $1,000 a month and I think once you do it, you'll be thrilled that you did, Cindy. Thanks for your call today. We'll be right back on Faith and Finance Live. Stay with us. Well, we're grateful to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live. We might have room for one or two more calls today before we round out the program, 800-525-7000.

Back to the phones we go to Illinois. Hi, Wanda. Go right ahead.

Hi. Yeah. Um, I have a piece of property that was in a trust and it was to be given to me and my brothers and the last survivor, um, gets the property.

So I, I was a beneficiary and since I've outlived my brothers, do I sell that if I decide to sell it as a beneficiary or as an owner? Yeah. So this trust was established by your parents. Is that right? Yes. Yes.

Okay. And so at their passing, uh, this property was to be, uh, placed in the name of you and your siblings. Is that right? Or was it to be sold?

What were the... The trust, it was put in a trust for me and my brothers to live there and whoever lived, outlived us and that the property goes to the last survivor. I was in charge of the trust though. I did have to make sure things were took care of.

I was the one to enter, uh, but otherwise my brothers have passed. So now I, I didn't know how to go about selling it as an owner or do I sell it as a beneficiary for the capital gains? Yes. Uh, yeah, that's great.

Well, when you take possession of the property, you get the stepped up basis on the property, which would be that, uh, that fair market value. Um, no, you would, I would, uh, contact, do you have an estate planning attorney that you've worked with? Uh, perhaps the person that set up the trust? The gentleman, yeah, the lawyer that set up the trust, he's still around.

Okay. I would contact him, Wanda. Uh, I wouldn't want to say necessarily what your next steps would be without seeing the trust documents because he's the one that set it up. He would be able to tell you exactly how you would go from proceed from here as to liquidating the property. And what I would suspect would happen is that because you've fulfilled the, uh, uh, trust obligations, that it's to be passed to that, um, you know, final, uh, person of the beneficiaries is that you would transfer that out of the trust into your own name, and then you would sell it at that point, uh, using that stepped up basis that would come with that.

Uh, you would have any capital gains for proceeds beyond that, uh, capital gain or excuse me, beyond that cost basis. But as to the order of that and exactly how you'd go about that in terms of distributing the process to you and then turning around and selling it, you'd want to have, uh, that attorney give you some counsel on exactly how to go about that. So I would place that call to him Wanda and have that attorney walk you through the process from here.

And given that he created the trust, it'll be very easy for him to pull that up and then give you instructions on the next steps. Uh, honey, I thought I just didn't know if being a beneficiary, you know, if, if you as a beneficiary, if you have to pay capital gains also, uh, you get, yeah, you would certainly if the selling price is beyond the stepped up basis for the property that you're inheriting, uh, through the trust. And so that's a part of what will need to be determined. He can help you determine the date, uh, for the, um, market, uh, value, uh, based on the date of death. And then you'll determine, you'll put that against the ultimate selling price to determine whether you have capital gains. So you will certainly get a stepped up basis as a part of this. Um, the question is just whether there's, um, you know, any capital gains beyond that, uh, upon the sale. And, uh, he should be able to help you handle that.

And then you'll want to talk to your CPA about reporting that appropriately in the year of the sale. So, uh, hopefully that helps you Wanda all the best to you as you go through this. I know there's a lot of work that you've already put into this, and it sounds like you have a bit more before this is eventually sold.

Uh, but once it is, um, then you will have, uh, uh, sufficiently, uh, exhausted all of your responsibilities is that a trustee. Thanks for your call today, uh, to Tulsa, Oklahoma. I, hi, Anne, how can I help you?

Hi. Um, I am a widow and I, um, I am now not working except part time. I only have about 30,000 in the bank and about seven, 16 or 17 in a school retirement. And, um, I know when I hit 72, which is in December, they're going to want me to start taking out some of that money. The government will require that. So would I be wise to see if I can leave it where it is and only take a small amount or would I be better to roll the whole thing into something else? Uh, yeah.

So that, uh, is currently where it's, uh, it's still with you, the university that you worked for or the college. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay.

Yeah. Very good. Uh, and do you need that money at all? Well, I know I'm trying not to use that money. Okay.

Very good. So, um, you know, one opportunity would be if you decided to roll it out to an IRA, um, have you separated from employment? Are you still there? No, I'm not there anymore.

I am working some part time, but I'm not working there anymore. Okay. All right. Um, and will you turn 72 or, or did you turn 72 after December 31st of last year? No, it's this year, this year I turned 72.

Okay. Um, so if you don't turn 72 until this year, your age for taking that required minimum is actually 73, not 72. They're systematically increasing that it's eventually going to be pushed out to age 75. But, uh, for anyone who turned 72 after December 31st of 2022, your age for taking that required minimum distribution is actually 73.

Um, so you will have another year before you have to start doing that. Um, if at that point you want to satisfy that required minimum, but you don't need the money even then, uh, then what you could look at would be what's called a qualified charitable distribution. It would have to be in an IRA, so you'd have to roll it out. But what that means is if you're doing any giving to your church or a charity right now out of current cashflow or out of savings on an annual basis, one thing you could do would be to not give that amount from your own cash or your savings and do that from the IRA through a qualified charitable distribution that would satisfy the required minimum and take that same money that you were giving out of current cashflow or savings and just bring it out of the IRA instead.

And at that point it's not added to your gross adjusted gross income so you don't pay any tax on it and you can give the ministry or charity or both the same amount that you would have been giving otherwise. Does that make sense? Yes, it does. It does. They probably have to talk to some financial person on this.

Not necessarily. So what would happen is once you roll that out to an IRA, let's say you did that at Fidelity or Charles Schwab. Um, you would then contact your, uh, the brokerage firm that handles it, the custodian of the account, and just let them know that you want to do a qualified charitable distribution. You'd let the church or your charity know that it's coming and they will initiate the paperwork to send the amount that you need to send to satisfy the required minimum. And it'll just send straight over to the charity and they'll receive it, uh, at that point. And, um, you know, then you'll report to the IRS that you did it so they know that you took out your required minimum.

But again, that wouldn't be until age 73. And that would all have to be a one lump sum correct to do a qualified charitable. No, you could do that.

Uh, no, it could be as long as you reach the total required minimum, uh, throughout the, that calendar year, by the end of that calendar year, then you're covered. Okay. And I have one other question, uh, since I don't have lots of money, uh, like 30,000 in the bank, it's just sitting there because I am trying to keep my home going and all the repairs and this and that, and I don't have a lot. So, uh, I've been advised to kind of keep my money liquid, but that wouldn't be wise for me to take two or 3000 and do one of the CDs for seven months or something like that. Sure.

Yeah. You know, some of these CDs to get the most competitive rates, you do need to put, you know, they have minimums and so you would just have to look at that, but you could go to bankrate.com and explore the banks that have the very best CD rates right now. And you could even type in as part of the search criteria, how much you want to put into it, uh, to only see those results of banks that would allow you to put in that amount. Uh, because again, in order to get the most competitive rates, you might have a 10 or even a $25,000 minimum that you would have to put in.

But yeah, I don't have any problem with that. The other option is to open a high yield savings account. Where is that 30,000 currently? Uh, our vest. And what are you getting in terms of a, a yield on that?

Uh, you know, I, I'm not sure if something looked like two something, two points. Okay. Yeah. There are rates that are much better than that right now. So you can look at Marcus or capital one 360. Uh, you know, right now, marcus.com is paying 4.15% on their high yield savings. So you could put the whole 30,000 in there and you'd get over 4% a year on that it's FDIC insured, uh, and you'd have full access to the money whenever you needed it.

So that might be an alternative as opposed to leaving it there and just putting only a few thousand into a CD. So what is the other, other, you mentioned Marcus and another one capital one 360. Yeah.

Marcus is the retail side of Goldman Sachs marcus.com and capital one 360 would be another either of those would be great options. Okay. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. Happy to do it. Thanks very much for your call quickly to Omaha.

Uh, theists, thank you for calling. I have just a minute left. Yeah.

Rob, I'll be very brief. Um, Rob, I was trying to see if you, I know in the past you've mentioned, um, sound mind investing and also for Devlin and Charles swab. Would you have any other companies outside of other companies for Roth IRAs for individuals?

Yeah. Um, so, uh, sound mind investing is a great option. You mentioned them. And the reason I would mention that again is they'll essentially give you some good mutual fund recommendations, but you can use any brokerage firm you want. Uh, you don't have to use Schwab or fidelity. Those are just two of the largest discount brokerages out there, which keep the expenses low. Um, but they'll essentially give you the mutual fund suggestions that fit with the strategy you're looking to deploy based on your age and risk tolerance. And then you can choose the brokerage firm of your choice, uh, at that point.

So I'd probably start with soundmindinvesting.org and then go from there. Thea's thanks for your call today. That's going to do it for us today. Folks, faith and finance live as a partnership between moody radio and faith by and say, thanks to my team today. Hope you have a great rest of your day and come back and join us tomorrow. We'll see you then. Bye bye.