Choosing Contentment

Keep your lives free from the call at 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. This is Faith & Finance Live, biblical wisdom for your financial journey. Well, let me start by defining contentment. Contentment is an attitude that says, I will be satisfied with what God has given me.

Unfortunately, the godly contentment we're talking about isn't a popular virtue in our materialistic culture. There's constant pressure from peers in the media to desire more things, better cars, cooler friends. The attitude that says, I deserve this, is so prevalent that we've given it a name. Entitlement. Parents usually scold their kids for having this attitude because it's really a form of selfishness.

But it's not only kids who have this mindset, is it? So if an entitlement attitude is creeping in at your house, what do you do? Well, here's some wisdom from Moody Church theologian Harry Ironside. We would worry less if we praised more. Thanksgiving is the enemy of discontent and dissatisfaction. Cultivate that attitude of gratitude, and you'll find it easier to be content.

If someone, including you, starts complaining, stop a moment and think about what you're thankful for instead. You know, the Bible tells us about the benefits of being content. For the Apostle Paul, being content meant having the ability to weather all of life's storms without fear or worry. In Philippians 4-11, Paul writes, I have learned to be content, whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need.

I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well-fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. Well, what's Paul's secret for being content in all circumstances?

How does he do that? He finishes the passage in Philippians by saying, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Ultimately, it's Jesus who provides the strength to be at peace in all circumstances. Like Paul, you and I can choose to be content, because as Christ followers, our position in Christ never changes. Circumstances ebb and flow like the stock market, but who we are in Christ never budges one bit. We're saved by grace, and our eternal future is secure.

This can and should change our perspective on everyday life. Proverbs 19-23 puts it another way. Fear in this case means trust, honor, awe. We trust, obey, and respect the Lord because He is our Master, our Holy Lord. This trust leads to life, or flourishing. It's like spiritual confidence. Then, as a result of fearing the Lord, the verse says one rests content, untouched by trouble.

That doesn't mean we won't face trouble. I think it means trouble can't destroy us spiritually, so we can choose to be content. Another way to understand the choice to be content or not is to understand what the opposite looks like. The opposite of contentment is to be dissatisfied, disappointed, and unhappy.

It's actually worse than that. Proverbs 27-20 says death and destruction are never satisfied. So being discontented is right down there with death and destruction, not something you want in your life.

In Ecclesiastes 5-10 we see another problem with discontent, a lack of meaning. Whoever loves money never has enough. Whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income.

This too is meaningless. If what you make or what you have is all that matters, then you can never really be content, and you're courting death and destruction in your heart. The Bible confirms that in God's economy, material things are meaningless by themselves. You can be grateful for what God has provided now, knowing that He has a good plan for you both now and in the future. So as Philippians 4-19 teaches, you can let your heart be filled with gratitude because the Lord will supply every need of yours according to His riches and glory in Christ Jesus. Ultimately, our choice to be content rests in our understanding of three things. God is faithful, we can have peace through Christ, and our circumstances don't control us because we have the power of the Holy Spirit to face life with gratitude and grace. What God has for us is so much better than what we can imagine for ourselves. When we realize this, buying and keeping things doesn't seem so appealing anymore.

We can choose like the apostle Paul to be content in all circumstances. Your calls are next, 800-525-7000. We'll be right back. Great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live.

I'm Rob West. All right, it's time to take your calls and questions today on anything financial. The number to call is 800-525-7000. We've got some lines open today.

800-525-7000. Coming up a little later in the broadcast, Bob Doll stops by, even though the markets are closed today. He'll be back in just a moment. He'll preview the week ahead and give us an update on what transpired last week as we've seen some strength in the market as of late.

Bob will give us his take on whether or not he thinks the market's oversold in light of some of the challenges we still have facing us. And of course, again, your questions today. 800-525-7000. Call right now. Let's dive in.

Chicago. Hi, Mike. Thanks for calling, sir. Go ahead.

Hi, Rob. Thanks. First of all, thanks for taking my call. And thank you for all the work that you do and listening to your program. Thank you so much. I appreciate that.

No worries. But my question is, I accumulated about 1.2 million of which about 800,000 is in 401k. But the remaining is in energy stocks that I inherited and about 657 now, six years away from retirement. My question is, with those energy stocks, do I just continue to leave them where they are as I get closer to retirement? Do I turn them over to, you know, cash them out, turn them over?

Just curious, because I am counting on that as part of my retirement savings. Yeah, very good. Yeah. The energy stock that you received, is it just in a taxable account currently? So it is actually in the corporations. It is actually stock.

And I had them, you know, transferred over to my name after, you know, the death. But it's not inside a retirement plan. No, it is not. It is not just straight regular stocks.

Yeah, very good. And your total total investable assets is how much? About 800,000 in 401k and about 400,000 in those stocks. Okay. All right. So you've got about 1.2 million total. Is that right? That's correct. Okay.

All right. Yeah, I mean, I think the only thing I would say there is, you know, that's a little much in terms of you being properly diversified. So I'd probably, even though energy has done well, will probably continue to do well, I would look at diversifying out of that as you're able to. And you want to be strategic about that just in terms of the tax implications.

But I think not being so highly concentrated with, you know, roughly 40% of your portfolio being in one sector, you know, is probably more highly concentrated than you want to be. Do you have an advisor or are you managing all this yourself? Pretty much doing it myself. Gotcha.

All right. And do you want to continue to manage it yourself and pick the investments, especially as you, you know, inside your 401k, you have limited investment. Choices, if you were to move away from and begin to diversify out of this highly concentrated position in these energy companies, you'd have unlimited investment options. Would you feel comfortable at that point building your portfolio?

I'm interested in looking in that direction. Yeah, I think that's the way I would go. I mean, you've obviously built up quite a nest egg here at some point. Once you separate from your company, it sounds like, you know, you're six years away from that. You're going to want to probably roll this out to an IRA, which, you know, would give you the ability to have more discretion over the investments you choose. So I think beginning to look at an overall portfolio that, you know, at your age maybe is about 50-50 between stocks and bonds. If you've had some loss in these portfolios, then maybe I'd wait for it to fully recover.

So we're maybe a year or two down the road. But at that point, I would begin moving toward having more fixed income in the portfolio. You could do some of that now if you wanted to get more conservative. But if you had some unrealized losses, I might wait. But I would probably go ahead and begin interviewing some advisors. And if you did find an advisor that you really felt comfortable with that could not only help you today with the energy portion of the portfolio, but down the road, perhaps managing the IRA, the rollover from the 401k, I think that would make a lot of sense. And that way, you know, if energy has a tough go a year from now, you're not experiencing significant loss just because you've got that risk spread over a number of different sectors. And I would begin moving on that more quickly, even if you wanted to wait on the 401k and begin to diversify that out of probably a highly concentrated stock positions and including more fixed income type assets. Does that make sense?

Yeah, it makes perfect sense. Yeah, I just don't want all of your eggs in one basket there. And as much as you know, it may have done well in the past, and I know it's an inheritance, so it brings with it, perhaps even some emotional connections to these investments.

You're the steward now. So we really need to look at the total investable assets of 1.2 million and say, okay, as a, you know, coming up on 60 years old, I'm six years away from retirement. I want to be a good steward of these resources. How do I properly position this money, which is significant, so that I'm not taking unnecessary risk. I've got good diversification.

You know, I'm less volatile than the market, but I still have the opportunity to grow it over time. We recommend if you listen to this program, you'll know the Certified Kingdom Advisor designation. And so I think your opportunity would be to reach out to a CKA in your area on our website, faithfi.com. That's faithfi.com. Just click find a CKA.

You could do a zip code search, interview two or three. But even if you wait on that 401k, I'd probably start diversifying out of those energy stocks fairly soon. Okay. Sounds like a real good plan, Rob. I appreciate it. Thank you. Absolutely, sir. God bless you. We appreciate your call today.

800-525-7000. We've got a few lines open. Let's head to St.

Cloud, Minnesota. Go ahead, Tom. Thanks for being on the program. Yes, Rob.

Thanks for taking my call. The question I have is I'm looking at buying property. So I wanted to pay all my credit cards off. I paid all of my credit cards off and my credit score dropped 40 points. Yeah. That doesn't make sense if I'm to not be in debt to anyone.

You would think, wouldn't you, Tom? Unfortunately, paying off your credit cards does have a tendency to lower your score. Now, did you close any of them or was it just paying them off?

Just paying them off. Okay. So the accounts are still active.

They just now have a zero balance. Is that right? Yes. Okay.

Yeah. That's a little surprising. I mean, if you would have closed them, I would have understood. You know, the thing about paying them down is if they're still active, it's still a part of your history, it's still a part of your credit mix. The only thing you've done is improve your credit utilization because now you have a zero balance, which means you have a lower utilization at zero versus the available limit.

So that's a little confusing. There's probably something else going on there in your credit report. Have there been any recent changes, any new accounts, any accounts that went away, any hard inquiries where you authorized somebody to pull your credit for the purpose of evaluating whether to extend you a loan, anything like that? No, not yet.

I was about to do that at the credit union and I watched my credit through my bank every week. They say it's updated every seven days and yet when I looked at it, it dropped 40 points. And I'm like, how is this possible?

Yeah, and when you were comparing it to the score that was 40 points higher, that was pulled from the same source? Yes. Interesting. Yeah, you've got me on that one. I'm a little bit at a loss.

I would probably chalk it up to some sort of an anomaly there because just paying off those cards and not closing them should actually help you, not hurt you. I suspect, Tom, and you let me know, I suspect next time you check it, it'll bounce right back. If you just keep doing what you're doing, my friend, you're doing a great job. Hey, let us know how we can help you further along the way.

Sorry, I don't have a definitive on this one. We'll be right back. Thanks for joining us today on Faith and Finance Live. I'm Rob West. We're taking your calls and questions. We've got a few lines open, 800-525-7000. Back to the phones to Illinois.

Hi, Joan. Thanks for calling. Go ahead.

Thank you. My first question regards auto debits. I have automatic payments set up from my checking account for monthly bills like utilities, my only credit card, and multiple 403c organizations. What happens when I die?

Yeah, specifically with those auto payments, is that right? Yes, sir. Okay. Do you have a will? No.

Okay. So you really need a will. The executor to your estate would take care of your accounts after you die and see the estate through probate to settle any outstanding obligations that you have, pay any debts that you have, and then ultimately help with the facilitation to distribute the assets according to your will. So your will is really going to tell the probate court how you want all of your assets to be handled, and the person that you either name through the will or that selected by the probate court in the absence of a will would be the one to provide death certificates and all the documentation to shut off those automatic payments, settle all of your accounts, and then ultimately distribute your assets. So the auto debits would continue going until an executor would step in, so that could be That's right. That's correct. I mean, unless, yeah, I mean, they would have to be notified that you were deceased and or if the credit card company or the bank was notified of your death, then obviously they would close the accounts and the auto payment wouldn't be processed.

But until either your bank credit card company or, you know, any of those vendors or your church are receiving, you know, receive notification, they're just going to continue to conduct business automatically because they won't know that you've passed away. Correct. Okay. Second question. Thank you.

And second question. What recommendation could you give me for finding a POA for property? Also health, but property mainly. No family. I'm a never married single person with no children. And no family members can do this for me.

The friend that I asked to be a POA for property declined because of her other responsibilities. Specifically, are there Christian organizations that do this, that you can hire? Yeah. Are you looking for somebody just to make, if you're incapacitated, that would step in and actually help or are you looking at death somebody to distribute your assets like an employer? What specifically are you looking for? Oh boy. Um, both.

Okay. Uh, yeah, there are some organizations, I mean basically you could hire a corporate trustee that would help you make these decisions and you could look for one that are, that is faith-based. I would probably reach out to our friends at the National Christian Foundation and ask for a referral. You could also reach out to a godly estate planning attorney who may be willing to serve in that capacity as well. So NCF is the National Christian Foundation. You'll find them at ncfgiving.com. Otherwise if you're just looking for a godly estate planning attorney who could advise you in these matters, and this is their business, this is what they do, and if you find somebody who shares your values, they would understand what you're looking for and wanting a corporate trustee or power of attorney that would be aligned with your faith values. Just head to our website at faithfi.com, that's faithfi.com, click find a CKA, and I would search for a certified kingdom advisor or two in your area and when you call them, Joan, just let them know that you're looking for a referral to a godly estate planning attorney.

They'll all have one that they work with and then that person either could serve in that role or direct you to somebody who could. Excellent. Thank you so very much, Rob. All right.

Happy to help. Great call today. 800-525-7000. We've got just a few lines open today. We'd love to hear from you.

Let's stay in Indiana. Hi, Ann. Thanks for calling. Go ahead. Yes, I'd like to.

I have two questions. The first question is, where can I buy gold? Well, you can buy physical gold from any number of places. Is that what you're looking for? No, I thought it would be wiser if you buy stock gold. I'm not really familiar. I know that there's physical, but I've heard you before on the station saying that if you buy physical gold, then you have to store it and then you have to pay extra to buy it and then extra to sell it back.

Yes, that's right. The alternative to that, if you didn't want to take physical possession, would be one of the gold ETFs. That stands for Exchange Traded Security.

There's a number of them out there and basically these are just tracking stocks that follow the price of gold. Do you have an advisor that you work with, Ann? Well, the only thing we do, we do have a little money on a Roth account with Salomon investing, the sister company, and we went that route. I know you recommend the other institutions that we went this route because they're Christian and we feel safe.

Sure. No, we have a great relationship with Sound Mind Investing. They're an underwriter of this program and we know those folks well, going all the way back to their founder, Austin Pryor.

So I think you made a great choice. They could help you with that, actually. They've got a number of articles and could actually make some recommendations specifically on how to add gold to your portfolio through a tracking ETF.

So I would just contact them. What you will probably hear from them about is, for instance, one of them is GLD. That's the spider gold shares. Another one is IAU. That's the iShares Gold Trust.

There's another one called GLDM. There's a number of options and all of them basically provide a tracking stock that's going to move with the underlying price of the precious metal but without you having to take physical possession. So what I would do as a client of Sound Mind Investing, I would just reach out to them and say, listen, I want to add some gold to my portfolio.

I'd like to do it without taking physical possession and I'd like to see which exchange-traded funds or mutual funds you'd recommend for me to use and they will give you their suggestions. So that'd be the direction I'd go. Thanks for calling today. We appreciate it. We'll be right back with much more on Faith and Finance Live. Thanks for joining us today on Faith and Finance Live.

I'm Rob West. Hey, as we head toward the end of June, this is a really important time of the year for our team here at Faith and Finance. It's the end of our fiscal year.

That's right. The end of our ministry year happens June the 30th and this is a really important time as we try to close the gap on outstanding funds we're looking to receive between now and the end of the year so we can finish strong and prepare for another year of ministry. If you are a part of the FaithFi community and listen to this program with regularity and you'd like to help us close the gap, we'd certainly love for you to do that. Our gap at this point is right around $43,000 that we're looking from, from our listeners that would come alongside us and say, we want to stand with you and be there to help support the work that God is doing here at FaithFi. If you'd like to make a gift of any amount, and we mean that, we'd appreciate you heading over to our website at faithfi.com.

That's faithfi.com and just click the give button, faithfi.com, click give and thanks for your gift before June the 30th. All right, back to the phones we go and by the way, coming up in our next segment, Bob Dahl will stop by so we'll look forward to checking in with Bob here in just a moment. To Tampa, Florida. Hey, Noah, thanks for calling. Go ahead. How's it going, Rob?

Thanks for taking my call. Doing great. Absolutely. Just a quick question, so I'm 28 and I'm self-employed. I have a Roth IRA with a company called Thrivet and I contribute what I can.

I try to do 10% a month as I'm able to and I was always kind of seemed all right with them but I was sitting down with my cousin who has a little bit more financial knowledge than I do and he was just looking at some of the statements and stuff with me and was saying that their fees seem a little bit higher than many other companies and what he does is he goes directly into an index fund that he kind of looks at himself and so my question would be is, in your opinion, what would be a wise choice for me in the long run because I do like that Thrivet is a Christian company so I do enjoy that part where I feel better investing in the companies that they invest in but if they're taking more than what another other Christian company might be or possibly trying to do some index funding myself. Sure. Yeah, so are they making the investment selections for you, Noah? Yes.

Yeah. I sat with an advisor and kind of built a portfolio based on like, you know, right now it's very aggressive because I'm only 28 and it seems like they're kind of, they're operating at least on average with everyone else in the same kind of field so I don't really have a problem with their investing because they seem to be doing a at least well enough job and not under doing what seems, what I can tell as kind of... Yeah, no, that makes sense. Do you know what the fees are as a percentage of the portfolio?

If I'm correct, I believe it's like 0.7 or like 0.7 to 0.85 or something like that. Okay. Yeah, I mean if that's the case, I would certainly be comfortable with that. That wouldn't be out of the norm, especially if they're making the investment decisions for you or giving you guidance in that and you're kind of signing off on it.

So that's one approach and I don't have any problem with you staying right where you're at. If you wanted to take more of an indexing type approach and not try to pick the winners and losers but really just capture the broad moves of the market, then you could certainly look at one of the discount brokerage houses like Fidelity or Schwab and then you could move yourself into those indexes. If you wanted some faith-based investment options where they were screened for your Christian values and companies that were specifically promoting investments and looking for investments that had a return potential but also were promoting human flourishing and even advancing the gospel, you could look at some of the faith-based investing mutual funds like you could look at Eventide or Timothy Plan or One Ascent. I mean there's a number of them and then you could find them all on our website at faithfi.com.

Just click on the show and you can see a listing of a lot of those faith-based investing fund families and those would all be accessible through one of the discount brokerage houses as well like Fidelity or Schwab. So I think it really just depends upon kind of the approach that you want to take. Where you are at right now, if you're right on the fees, then those don't sound out of the ordinary. You want to have a good relationship with your advisor, you like how it's performing, you could stay right there.

But if you wanted to have some faith-based investments or you wanted to go indexing, that's where I think probably one of the discount brokerages could be a good base for you for the Roth IRA and then you can make those investments in that way. Does that make sense? Okay. Absolutely, yeah.

If I could, a quick question to go along with it. If I were to kind of roll over from the Roth IRA I have into one of those things, would that create a realization of loss because it is down a little bit right now? Yeah, not necessarily. What I suspect would happen, and you'd want to confirm this, is that those investments, as long as they could be held at Fidelity or Schwab, whatever you own in the portfolio at Thrivent, as long as those could also be held, they weren't proprietary or something like that, then they would just come over with the existing holdings. So those would not be sold, they would just be transferred to this new institution and then you could determine at what point you sell those investments. Okay. Yeah.

So what you would do is when you open the account, you would just want to give them a listing of all of your holdings and they'll tell you whether they can hold those investments and if they can, then you would just tell them to transfer them as opposed to liquidating and then transferring the cash. Okay. Thank you so much. You're welcome, Noah. Thanks for calling today, my friend.

We appreciate it. 800-525-7000 is the number to call. That's 800-525-7000. A lot of calls from Illinois. Let's stay there. Plainfield. Hi, Stephanie. Go right ahead.

Hi. I have a question about co-signing on a loan. So about 15 months ago, I co-signed for my son on an automobile loan so he could get the 2% financing rate. He's been paying for 15 months. It's coming automatically out of his checking account. But I'm concerned, number one, I get any kind of recalls are coming to my address and I'm also wondering why they sent me happy first year anniversary on the car.

He's not getting it, but it's coming in my name. So is there any way I could remove myself now from that loan? Now the difference here, I mean, there's a difference between the loan and the title. You know, did you all buy this new from a dealership? Yes. Yes, we did. And his name is on the title.

Okay. What you may want to do is just go back to the dealership and have them update the records to make sure that he is the primary point of contact for communication because the relationship with the dealer is what's generating the recall notices and the anniversary notice. That's separate from the loan itself. Now the fact that you co-signed on the loan, they're not going to let you out of that unless you were to refinance it. They have no incentive to do that because this gives them yet another person that they could try to collect from if your son were to stop paying. And so they have much more incentive to have both of you on the loan and make you both responsible. But that doesn't mean you have to be in the primary position with regard to the records around the car itself with the dealership and the manufacturer.

So I would go back to the dealership, let them know that you want your son to be the point of contact, but you are going to have to leave that loan alone with regard to both of you being audit until it's either paid off or you refinance it. Does that make sense? Yes, it does. Thank you so much for your advice. All right, Stephanie, thanks for calling today. Folks, we're going to take a quick break here on Faith and Finance when we come back.

Bob Doll, plus more of your questions, 800-525-7000. Stick around. We'll be right back. Great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live.

I'm Rob West. Before we head back to the phones, it's Monday, our good friend Bob Doll stops by each Monday. Bob is traveling today, but gracious enough to still give us some of his time. Bob, good afternoon to you. And to you, my friend.

Great to have you here and to you. So you get a little reprieve from the markets today, but not a reprieve from thinking about the markets. So, you know, Bob, if we were to look at kind of the headline numbers on these big market indexes, we would think, well, we have no problems here. I mean, the market's doing just fine, but if we get down below the surface a little bit, is this concentrated still in a few sectors or market capitalizations? A few sectors, a few market capitalizations, and frankly, a few stocks.

Now, to be fair, the breadth has broadened a bit over the last, call it two weeks, but it's still near record narrow. Year to date, as you probably know, the S&P 500 is up, let's call it 15%, but the average stock is only up three, four percent. So it's the loads being carried by those mega cap tech stocks that everybody's aware of. Yeah, Bob, is AI the new dot com? Oh, did we lose you?

Yeah, well, I'm back again. Is AI the new dot com? Yeah, great question. It's trying to be, it's acting that way, although as the bulls point out, the valuation levels for the AI stocks are nowhere near what the peak of, that we witnessed with dot com, and that's true.

They're up a lot and they're not particularly cheap, but they're not crazy expensive. So if we're going there, there's more fun to be had in those AI stocks. Yeah, no, no question about that. Let me ask you, I mean, what about the near term risks of a recession? Is there a general consensus that perhaps it's less likely or do you think it's still just as we thought a month or two ago? So the consensus would say the probability, I would agree with this, the probability recession in the near term has gone down. But once the near term disappears next couple of months, the probabilities are still there. We're witnessing some weakening in the formerly impeccably strong labor market. You're seeing some weakness in the consumer.

It's not horrible in any way, shape or form, Rob, just the edges coming off. And when you combine that with all the lead indicators that we've pointed out several times that are flashing problem, you put that together and you're saying the probability of recession has not disappeared just in the near term. Yeah. Obviously, the Fed is still front and center in all of this. They've said they're going to pause, but they made no uncertain terms. They said very clearly they're expecting more rate hikes down the road. Is the market telling us they don't believe the Fed or is that priced in?

That's a very good question. I think the right answer is the market doesn't believe the Fed. The market still has now the market has pushed rate declined out in time. But my view of the Fed with inflation still four and a half to five, the Fed wanting to. I don't see rate cuts coming any time in the next 12 months. You know, bringing inflation from four and a half down to two is a lot harder than getting it from nine to four and a half.

Yeah, no question. So I guess the bottom line is we just need to be willing to sustain some more volatility in the next 12 months. We're probably going to have somewhat of a sideways market here while the economy and the Fed and everybody else figures out where we're headed.

I think that's right. It does not mean the out of stocks. It just means have a little ballast in your portfolio. Yeah, only a few growth stocks, but stay close to the vest. Make sure you're not overpaying.

Make sure you're owning companies that can deliver the earnings in a slowly weakening economy. Yeah, very good. All right, Bob. Safe travels to you, my friend. We'll talk to you next week. All the best. Bye bye. All right. That's Bob Doll, chief investment officer at Crossmart Global Investments.

You can sign up for his weekly dolls deliberations at crossmartglobal.com. All right, back to the phones. Let's head to Benton Harbor, Michigan. Hey, Rick. Go ahead, sir. Yeah. How are you doing, Rob? Doing great. Thanks for your call. Thanks for everything you do.

I've got a question. My wife and I have both just turned 62. She is work, but mostly at home raising our kids, and we're trying to decide whether she should draw our Social Security now or later because I plan on retiring in the next three to four years. And her Social Security right now, we get the statements every year and hers is substantially less than half of mine. And my understanding is once I start drawing, she will draw, she has option of drawing hers or half of mine, is that correct? That's exactly right.

Yeah. So your wife can file for Social Security benefits based on her work record at 62 and then switch to the spousal benefits when you file to claim benefits. However, her monthly benefits based on her record and then spousal benefits later will be reduced because she took them before full retirement age.

And so you may want to hold off and try to, you know, delay this as long as you can just so you don't lock in any kind of reduction. Okay. In other words, she doesn't just automatically get half of what I get whenever I decide to retire. She doesn't unless she waits until full retirement age.

Okay. That's now whenever if I pass before her, which I family history is, I probably will. Will she receive my benefits at that time instead of hers? She will. Yes, she'll get the death benefit there.

And so they will switch to the amount that she would be entitled to based on your work record as a spouse of the deceased. So yeah, so I think, you know, it's important to have a plan going into all this, Rick, and I love that you're thinking through this now. Do you all have an advisor that you work with on retirement planning and these kinds of things? We've talked to a couple, but we haven't locked it in with anybody.

Okay. You know, we're kind of at the point to where we feel our retiring early, well, for at least myself, retire early and that way we can still do things, you know, just in case you're never guaranteed for tomorrow, you know? Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. My wife, she's always worked just during tax time. So her job is, you know, seasonal.

I see. Well, the reason I mentioned that is it just may make some sense for you all to do some more comprehensive retirement planning just to look at both Social Security in terms of when's the optimal time for you to take it as well as how long you need to work in order to be able to have enough in the way of assets plus Social Security to cover whatever your retirement expenses are going to look like. I just want you to be really well planned before you make some of these really big decisions and it may require at the end of that for you to work a little bit longer than you were expecting. But I think the bottom line is if she were to take, you know, the spousal benefit at 62, it would only be about 32 and a half percent of what she would be entitled to versus waiting to full retirement age and it'd be about 50 percent.

So there is going to be a reduction that's locked in there and she will just want to be aware of that. So hopefully that helps you, my friend. I think you guys are doing a great job in thinking through all this.

If you want an advisor or a planner to help you consider the full picture, you can find a CKA at our website at faithfi.com. Thanks for your call today. To Red Oak, Texas. Hey, Clarence, thanks for calling. Go ahead. Hey, how's it going? Good.

I just got a question. We have two businesses. We opened up one January of 2021. And then we opened up another one, no, 2022, January of 2022.

And then we opened up the second one, September of 2022. And we put all of our funds in there that we had saved and we had a little bit left, well, a nice amount left over. And we've been paying our employees with that money as we're getting established with the business. So now my question is, is we have a $360,000 mortgage, well, $380,000 mortgage, and we have $100,000, almost $100,000 equity. I want to sell the home and get like a fifth wheel and live out the fifth wheel for about two years as we're growing the business, take that equity, buy a fifth wheel and just pay cash for it and just save up as much money as we can for them two years.

And then when the market changes and be a buyer's market, hopefully within the next two to three years, we come back and buy and the interest rates are lower. Yeah. What does your wife think about this plan? She don't like the fifth wheel idea. Well, she's unsure about it because our house is 4,200 square feet.

And we're talking about going to maybe like, I don't know how big those fifth wheels are, but I would get a nice one that's a nice size for about $80,000. Yeah. Well, I think that's the key because remember there's the financial side of this and then there's the non-financial side.

I mean, this is where you all live, right? And I know it sounds good to, well, we'll just kind of muscle through it for the next couple of years and really save some money and the market's going to go in our favor with the housing market and interest rates. And there's a lot of assumptions being made in that regard. Number one is we've already kind of moved to a buyer's market. Could the housing market soften a bit more? Sure. It's probably not going to soften too much more because there's still a shortage of houses in this country.

Could interest rates improve over the next couple of years? Absolutely. I'd give you that one. But I'd really think and pray through this. I mean, maybe an alternative approach is for you all to maybe just downsize a bit as opposed to going all the way to the fifth wheel. I mean, this is something I'd want you both to be on the same page about, feel really good about, and know what your plan is and that you're not making assumptions that if they don't come through, we're going to kind of make all this for naught because there's a lot of expense in buying and selling properties in the process that you've got to factor into this as well. So I'd take some time, you guys think and pray through it before you make this big decision.

But I think generally speaking, I would count the cost before I'd go ahead with it. Thanks for your call today. That's going to do it for us today, folks.

Faith and Finance Live is a partnership between Moody Radio and Faith Buy. Thank you to Jim, Dan, and Amy. We appreciate you being here as well. We'll see you tomorrow. We'll see you next time.