Inside Out Stewardship

As each has received a gift, use it to serve the world.

Let's dive into that. Christ who lives in me. Yeah, this is contrary to the world which is focused on self where I am at the center. So we have to fight this temptation to put our self at the center and really make sure that Christ is at the center of our life. Which is really a differentiator for what we do here at Faithfy because that beginning point changes everything as we begin to move out from your bullseye.

Let's do that as we move out in the bullseye. What comes next? Well, once we know that our identity is rooted in Christ, we then can move to the second tier of this target, which is really looking to the Bible for wisdom related to money management. We know that there are over 2,000 verses related to money and possessions found throughout the Bible. And here at Faithfy, we group those into five primary categories, which we call earn, live, give, owe, and grow.

And we're not going to go into the details of all of those here today, Rob. I know you talk about these all the time on the program, but we put together a great free ebook on our website, faithfy.com slash principles, where you can find the verses and the context related to earn, live, give, owe, grow, to just give you some better ideas around what does the Bible really say about these things. But again, it has to start with our identity in Christ and then we can move into that second ring of the target, which is the biblical wisdom and what God's Word says about managing money and possessions.

Yeah, that's great. So to get a copy of that free ebook again, go to faithfy.com forward slash principles, and you can read more about what Chad's describing here. So that makes us now Chad hearers or readers of the word, but that's not enough is it?

No, it's not. We are in the world, but we're not to be of the world. And so the outermost ring of this target is what we call application. We still have bills to pay. We still have financial decisions to make. But when we make those decisions from the inside out, we recognize that God is the owner of everything and our role as stewards is simply to glorify him with what he's entrusted to us. This is why we built the Faithfy app. It really has this application layer in mind and is a great tool to help us better understand how we are stewarding God's resources. You can connect your bank accounts, managing your incoming expenses, and just better understand the financial decisions that you're making and that you need to make. But we don't want to be too quick to jump to the application layer.

We never want to start at the application layer and move inward. We always want to work from the inside out and that's a really important principle when we think about what it means to be a good and faithful steward. Yeah, and perhaps this is the opposite of what we would typically be instructed to do by the world, which is start with the financial decisions we're making and oh by the way, is there a verse that goes along with that and then we get to the middle and we're focused on self. And so we're flipping that upside down by starting with our identity in Christ and then going to the principles and ultimately making those real-world decisions.

That's exactly right. And if you're looking to better understand how to make Christ that center point of your life, we've got an incredible resource for you. It's a book by our dear friend Michael Blue called Free to Follow and you can receive this book by going to faithfi.com slash give and we'll send it to you as a gift with any amount that you give to the ministry. Excellent. Well Chad always great to have you with us my friend. Thanks for giving us perhaps a different paradigm for stewardship today.

Thanks so much. That was Chad Clark executive director at Faithfi. And again, we'd be happy to send you a copy of this book free to follow with a gift of any amount at faithfi.com.

Well, we're coming up on a break but much more to come just around the corner. Call right now 800-525-7000. We'll be right back on Faith and Finance Live. Thanks for joining us today on Faith and Finance Live.

I'm Rob West your host. It's time to take your calls and questions today on anything financial. 800-525-7000 is the number to call.

Again, 800-525-7000. We'd love to hear from you today. Let's dive in. We're going to begin today in Aurora, Illinois and Jeremy will be our first caller. Go ahead. Hello. So I say thank you for taking my call. This is the first time that I've been on the radio before so I wanted to appreciate you for everything. Well, thank you very much, Jeremy.

Yes. So me and my wife were in our in our 30s. We have a lot of work left to do. We have a 401k, but I want to have something extra that we can draw from when I want to retire. Okay, so we have a little more income coming in just want to get your thoughts on anything that you suggest.

Yeah, very good. So you say you're in your 30s. How much of your income are you putting toward your 401k right now? Do you know as far as I just I max whatever my work so they match I think up to a third percent. So I'm doing the max. Doing the max that I don't it's not it's not very much to be honest with you.

And then my wife has a little bit she she works for a privately owned company. So he offers a little bit as well. So I believe she's doing the max as well. But it's it's I believe it's under 5% it's not it's not a whole lot.

Okay, and when you say the max, what are you referring to? Because you can put in up to twenty two thousand five hundred dollars for 2023. So it's it's whatever the percent it's I think it's like two and a half percent or three is.

I mean, it's it's whatever the company is offering. Okay, so they do like six percent and then they match like half of that. Okay, but typically even though you would take full advantage of their match they'll allow you to put in as much as you want as long as you don't over a 12 month period or at least on a calendar year as long as you don't go beyond the IRS limit.

Which is twenty two thousand five hundred. So you would just specify what percent of your income you want to come out and then they're going to match up to a certain portion and that's going to be consistent across all the employees. We recommend ten to fifteen percent of your pre-retirement income. Now, you may not be in a position to do that.

You may say, you know what? That's just going to take too much out of my check and not leave me enough left over for everything else and that's fine. But that would be a goal because ultimately what you'd like to have is I mean, you know by 35 and this is just rules of thumb. So don't let this scare you but they would you know often say by 35 you'd want to have two times your income in in retirement savings by 45 four times by 55 seven times. And then ultimately ten times your salary pre-retirement salary in a retirement account by the time you retire so that that amount at a four percent withdrawal rate plus Social Security could cover your living expenses in retirement. Which is probably going to be seventy to eighty percent of your pre-retirement income because a lot of expenses go down. Maybe you're not well, you're certainly not saving for retirement anymore. So that's a major piece that comes off. Hopefully you're debt-free by then so you don't have a mortgage payment.

The kids are off the payroll. You drop your life insurance. I mean, you know, there's a number of factors that allow you to live on less but the goal would be somewhere around ten times your income plus Social Security and that would give you what you need.

Now if you say well, that's great. I'm just not sure I'm going to be able to do that because if I'm making six hundred thousand sixty thousand a year, that means six hundred thousand of the bank. If I'm making a hundred thousand a year, that's, you know, a million dollars in the bank. Well, that's fine, but we just need to right-size your expectations of what is going to be available for your spending in retirement based on what you believe you can accumulate. But if you could get ten to fifteen percent of your pre-retirement income going to your 401k or whatever retirement accounts you and your wife have available, then if you do that for the next thirty years, you should be well on your way to meeting these targets. Does that all make sense though? It does. Okay, so I wouldn't need to worry about anything extra to put in just focusing on my strictly on my work 401k make hit that ten percent and then just stick with that until I retire.

Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, the only other option you could look at would be another strategy is to say, okay, I'm going to fully max out whatever matching portion they give me. Then I'm going to pivot outside of my 401k to what's called a Roth IRA, R-O-T-H. Benefit of that is it grows tax-free and that you would be able to put in, for instance, $6,500 this year or you and your wife each in two IRAs, one for you, one for her could put in $13,000. And then if you fully fund that and you still have more to do, then you'd come back to your 401k and increase it up to what you're able to put away.

That would be a great option. Let me ask you, though. Do you know if you happen to have a Roth 401k option available through your employer or is it only the traditional?

It's only the traditional. I was looking into a Roth. We have an appointment with a bank about that. That was brought up to me. Maybe open up one. I don't know if we could just open up that one or transfer everything from what we have into a Roth. Yeah. Well, you wouldn't be able to transfer into a Roth unless you already had a Roth.

So anything else that would go into a Roth would either be a contribution or if it's coming from a traditional IRA or old 401k, it'd go through a Roth conversion, which means you'd have to add it to your taxable income for the year as it goes in. But I think the big idea is if you guys could focus on getting 10 to 15 percent of your income into a retirement account, whether that's all in the 401k or a combination of the 401k and the Roth IRA, that's the ultimate target that you're shooting for. And if you can do that over a long period of time, three decades or more, then you'll be well on your way to having what you need. Awesome. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. All right, Jeremy, thanks for being a first time caller today. We appreciate it. Eight hundred, five, two, five, seven thousand is the number to call. Again, eight hundred, five, two, five, seven thousand.

To Marilyn. Hi Ann, go ahead. Hey, I have a question about investing. My husband passed away last year and I had never handled much of the finances. So but now I have a significant amount that I need to invest. And I've heard you talking about the CKA advisors and I've gone online and looked at them. And one of them close to me, in fact, I have talked to on the phone, works with Merrill Lynch and Bank of America. But there's another one or two that works, I guess, with private or personal, whatever companies, investment companies.

Is there a preference between the two? Does working with one with Merrill Lynch limit for my fund to be invested? It's a great question and I'm delighted to hear that you're interviewing at least one CKA and considering others. I don't have a preference on whether that CKA is with Merrill Lynch or an independent firm. In both cases, including the Merrill Lynch option, that advisor would basically have a full range of investments. It wouldn't just be proprietary investments. They'd be able to essentially buy any stock, bond or mutual fund that you could possibly want. And they would build a portfolio that would make sense based on your goals and objectives. So I think the key is finding the advisor that you feel like you have a good match with just in terms of temperament, how they're going to communicate with you, whether or not you fit into their target client and you'd be working directly with them, the fee schedule and experience, those kinds of things, whether they're with Merrill or John Doe Financial Services or Ameriprise. That's not really of a concern to me.

I think the main thing is that you've interviewed a few and you find the one that you just really feel like is the best fit for you. Does that make sense? It makes perfect sense and that answers my question very, very completely. Good. I thank you very much, but I really do appreciate your program.

My husband and I started listening to that, I don't know, probably 40 years ago with Larry Burkett. Wow, that's incredible. It has greatly impacted our lives. Well, thank you so much. We've got to take a quick break. You stay on the line. We'll be right back. Great to have you with us today on Faith in Finance Live. What a joy to talk to Ann just a moment ago. I had the chance to visit with her in the break. She's been listening. She and her husband since Larry Burkett.

She said 30 years ago and she was just saying what a difference it's made in her life and I would echo that. I'll tell you, there are so many folks, we still hear from them literally every week who are impacted by the ministry and teaching of the late Larry Burkett and Christian Financial Concepts and Crown Financial Ministries. I walk in some giant shoes from Larry to Howard and now having the privilege each day of sharing these timeless principles from God's Word so that you can be a wise and faithful steward. And what we know is that God's Word is active and powerful and it changes our lives when we apply it. And what's so exciting is to see this community of God's people that are a part of this faith and finance community that are even in many cases rallying around each other to help one another. In fact, we just heard from one of them, a sweet listener named Nova recently that you all helped out.

Listen to Nova's story. I recently experienced God's faithfulness in my life. I was in chronic back pain for three years.

It got really bad like this last year to the point like I could barely walk. I had reached to this point of like helplessness. I was worried that I was going to become homeless because I couldn't even work to afford my bills. And I reached out to MoneyWise.

Maybe they know of a resource that I haven't reached out to already. People heard the story on MoneyWise and they reached out to the Helping Hands charity and donated money to help me with my life. She mentioned MoneyWise. We're now, of course, Faith and Finance.

That was late last year. But, you know, she is a story of someone who in her 20s had a debilitating illness with back problems and needed to have surgery, was out of work for three months, had no income. You all rallied around her.

She's now recovered. She's back in the workforce as a traveling chef and just gives testimony to the Lord and his faithfulness through God's people. So let me just say thank you to many of you who actually supported Nova through that difficult time. And, you know, as we head toward year end, I'm just mindful. And when I say year end, I mean our fiscal year end here at FaithFi, June the 30th, I'm mindful of really the ability we have to share these truths every day, which is only because of your support. As a listener supported ministry, we rely on your gifts to do what we do every day to equip you and the body of Christ with this timeless biblical wisdom. And this is a critical time for us as we finish our ministry year here over the next week. So if you'd help us close the gap and finish this ministry year strong, we'd certainly be grateful. A gift of any amount would go a long way to helping us do that. You can make a gift right now online at faithfi.com. That's faithfi.com. Just click the Give button.

Thanks in advance. All right, we're taking your calls and questions today. 800-525-7000. We've got a few lines open today, and we'd love to hear from you. To Spring Hill, Missouri.

Spring Hill, that is. Aaron, go right ahead. Hi, thank you for taking my call.

Sure. My wife and I, we just started our own business back in March, and the question of taxes came up, and we're not really sure. We've heard, you know, some businesses do quarterly, some do yearly.

We just don't know where, you know, what exactly we're supposed to do. And I was just hoping you might have an answer. Yeah, very good.

Happy to. Yeah, so the IRS requires most small business owners to make those quarterly estimated payments if you expect to owe tax of $1,000 or more. So that would include income taxes and the self-employment taxes that you would have as a sole proprietor. So I would connect with the CPA at least first to set this up and determine how much to pay in quarterly taxes. They can run some calculations to basically come up with an estimate on what you would need to pay in. And then you can either download the estimated quarterly tax payment form at IRS.gov, or you can submit it electronically through the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System.

The short for that is the EFTPS, Electronic Federal Tax Payment System, and you'll find that online at EFTPS.gov. But yeah, you do want to make those quarterly payments just so you don't have any penalties or interest. And I think especially just as you're getting started here, having a CPA or accountant not only help you determine that quarterly amount that you owe, but also help you set up the books so you can really keep your personal finances separate from the business so you can truly evaluate how the business is doing, keep your deduction, your business deductions separate so that you can justify that before the IRS.

Whereas when it gets mixed in with your personal finances, it's a lot harder to document what was truly a business expense and therefore is not taxable. So that would be a great thing for you to do just as you're getting started here. Does that all make sense though? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much. Okay, very good, Aaron.

Well, listen, all the best to you. What line of work are you in? What is that new business? We started a Christian organization. We send out Bibles to people, so that's mainly what we do. Oh, wow.

That's incredible. Is it a 501c3? Have you gotten a nonprofit status? We're currently in the process of doing it, but we're in the early stages.

Yeah, I love that. Well, I think that would be well worth your time. You may want to get a CPA to help you with that.

It can be a little complicated and it's not hard if you've done it before, but if you're doing it for the first time, being able to fill out all that documentation to get that nonprofit status is not easy, but it'll be worth it because then folks will be able to come alongside you and give a tax-deductible gift to your work. How do you find the folks that you actually send the Bibles to? What does that look like? I had an experience in marketing, so I do all the back-end marketing to reach them through Google Bing. We do social media ads and campaigns like that. We reach them that way and they fill out a form on our website.

We send them a nice Bible with some extra resources and kind of just stay in touch with them and try to help them as much as we can. That's incredible. I love that. Well, give us the web address for what you're doing. It's madeitknown.com.

Okay, madeitknown.com. Well, listen, all the best to you, Aaron. I'm excited to hear about this great work that you're doing.

What a blast. And we'll just pray that the Lord expands your borders and allows you to reach more and more people with His Word. We appreciate you being on the program today. If we can help further, don't hesitate to reach out. God bless you, my friend, and call back anytime.

Wow, that's really cool. All right, we're going to take another quick break. Linda, Kyle, James, we're coming your way. If you have a question today, we'd love to hear from you.

800-525-7000. Hey, if you haven't checked out the FaithFi app recently and jumped into our community, people are posting questions every day and getting answers. Also, the digital envelope system there as well, faithfi.com, just click app. We'll be right back.

Stay with us. This is Faith in Finance Live. I'm Rob West, your host, and we're taking your calls and questions today on anything financial. 800-525-7000 is the number to call. That's 800-525-7000.

Let's head to Mundelein, Illinois. Thanks for calling, Linda. Go right ahead.

Hi, Rob. Thank you for taking my call. Yes, ma'am. God bless you for what you're doing. Thank you.

I have a quick question. Yes, ma'am. I'm 62 and a half, and I was thinking about changing my career. I'm still working.

Okay. And if I have a 401k where I am, and if I went going into a new one, new company, what would I do best when it comes to my 401k? Should I roll it over into something else, roll it over to the new company?

Yes, ma'am. I like the idea of rolling it out, the current 401k, and once you separate from your employer, you have the ability to do that. I would typically recommend you either roll it to an IRA where you then have unlimited investment options.

You could either manage it yourself or hire someone to do that. Or, for simplicity's sake, just roll it into your new 401k if the new 401k plan administrator will allow that. And that would just keep it all in one place, and then you could invest it all, what you roll in plus what you add to it moving forward in the same investments. And then once you ultimately retire, you could roll it out to an IRA and hire an advisor to manage that for you. How much do you have in that old 401k that would be coming out?

Right now it's almost like $190,000. Okay, so it's a significant sum of money, so I think it really depends on the direction you want to go. With $190,000, you can absolutely have an advisor manage that for you. And we would recommend that you interview a couple of Certified Kingdom Advisors there in Illinois. You can find the CKAs in your area, that stands for Certified Kingdom Advisor.

Just go to faithfi.com and click find a CKA. The benefit of that is you wouldn't be limited to the investment options inside the 401k, and that advisor could really understand your goals and objectives, your age and risk tolerance, and then build a portfolio that's uniquely suited to you, but he or she would have the full gamut of investments to choose from. Now, you'd have to pay them for that, but they'd be able to have certainly more in the way of investment options than inside your 401k. But if you didn't want to hire an advisor at this point and you wanted to do it yourself, then it's probably easier to roll it into the 401k and just pick from the investment options inside the plan.

Okay. Which sounds like it would be the better fit for you. I would roll it over because I don't know if I'm going to do three more years or maybe, what, I might work until 67.

Okay, yeah. Well, the other benefit of having an advisor manage it is you could do some retirement planning as well, just to determine what are your expenses going to look like in retirement, how much can you expect from Social Security, and what is a good goal for your ultimate retirement savings that could be converted to an income stream that would give you enough to meet your obligations. And I think if you did some of that planning, Linda, you may have a bit more peace of mind just knowing that you know what your ultimate goal is, you've got a plan to do it, and you're not just hopeful that you'll have enough to meet your obligations, but you'll have a real plan backing it up. And that could be one of the benefits of engaging an advisor. So I think the bottom line is I would roll it out. If you roll it out to an IRA, I'd consider hiring a CKA to manage it and do that planning.

And if you'd rather not start that process, then I'd roll that to your new 401k and take it from there. Okay? Thank you so much. All right, thanks for calling today.

800-525-7000 is the number to call. Coming up in the next segment, by the way, Jerry Boyer will stop by. We'll get Jerry's thoughts and analysis on where the market's at. Market's selling off a bit this week. Jerry will give us an update as to what Jerome Powell said that led to that sell-off.

That and more with Jerry Boyer just around the corner. Back to the phones. 800-525-7000 with a few lines open.

Lake Zurich, Illinois. Hi, Kyle. Go ahead, sir. Hey, how's it going?

Thanks for taking my call. Sure. So I am 29 years old, about to turn 30 in November, and I have a good amount saved up in my savings right now. And I'm just looking for better return on investments instead of just letting it sit in there, not really accruing much interest, and an investment in something that would be safe even with this, it seems like it's almost inevitable, this transition that's going to come with digital currency down the road. So yeah, just looking for best ways to invest instead of letting it sit in the savings.

Yeah. So we have to define the time horizon on this savings. I would want you to keep at least three to six months expenses in that savings account. If it's not in a high-yield saving, earning at least four percent, I'd consider moving it there.

If it is, great. I'd leave at least that much behind. But tell me, do you have more than what would be equal to three to six months expenses?

Yeah, I do. Okay. What do you have roughly that would be available beyond that to invest? I have about $15,000. Okay.

And do you have a retirement plan available at work? I don't. Not currently. Okay. All right. And so are you actively putting anything away for retirement currently?

Not right now, no. I'm taking everything I got, most of it, and just throwing it all in my savings until I know what to do with it. Okay, great.

Yeah, so I think getting that working for you on a tax-deferred basis is really going to be key. I mean, you hear what you're saying about the digital currency. I don't like that thought either. A lot of congressional leaders don't as well or state governors, which is why we're seeing a lot of debate against it. I think probably even more against it than for it. It's going to have a hard time getting through a divided Congress just because this is a congressional decision, not something the Treasury can do.

I don't like it because of the loss of privacy and control by the government over financial transactions. But it's a long way off and it's not a foregone conclusion because of the fact that it would require Congress to get involved. Coinage is a congressional function. But even then, especially with some of the challenges we have in this country with the national debt and our spending and the control of the Federal Reserve, not to mention the possibility of a digital currency.

Despite all of that, we're still in the best position in the U.S. The U.S. dollar, no one's even a close second by any stretch to be a world reserve currency. And that's for reserves. I'm not talking about trade.

I'm talking about for reserves. There's nobody even close. The euro is not an option.

None of them. And we're still the strongest and best economy in the world, despite the fact that we've got $30 trillion in debt. So I think the very best way for you to overcome inflation and as a 30 year old guy, grow your wealth for the future so you have something in retirement to fund your lifestyle beyond Social Security. I think investing in stocks and bonds is still the way to go. I wouldn't get out of the banking system. I wouldn't get out of the stock market. I think that's your very best place to invest. And I'd rather you do it on a tax deferred basis. So at a minimum, as a 30 year old guy, I would open a Roth IRA and fully fund it every year at $6,500 for this year.

And we'll find out if that's going up to $7,000 next year in the fall. But I would absolutely fully fund that this year. And maybe you start by using that excess beyond the, you know, what you have for emergency savings in terms of where to open that and how to pick the investments. Our friends at soundmindinvesting.org are equipped to help you as a very beginner investor and could actually help you with some mutual fund selections. If you'd rather go with more of a robo advisor solution, I'd look at the Schwab intelligent portfolios. But I think the name of the game is get three to six months expenses in a high yield savings account and then start fully funding your Roth IRA every year.

Get that invested on a low cost basis and some high quality mutual funds or ETFs and do that every year between now and retirement. Thanks for your call. We'll be right back on Faith and Finance Live. Stay with us. 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 Friday, which means Jerry Boyer, our resident economist, joins us on the markets and economics. Plus his latest work on corporate engagement. Jerry, I just got done reviewing your activities for the last couple of weeks. And man, some incredible conversations that you're having on the corporate engagement front.

We'll get to that in just a moment. But first, update us on the economy. Obviously, the market's selling off this week. Once again, Chairman Powell, front and center in moving the markets.

What do you make of all of that action? Well, what I make of that is that we live in a time now where the biggest mover of markets is the central bank, our own central bank. And the reason that the biggest mover in markets is because they're the biggest investor. So when they buy, they're the biggest buyer. And when they sell, they're the biggest seller. So now we don't think of them as buyers or sellers because they always talk in terms of raising interest rates or dropping interest rates.

But that's really not what happens. They don't really, they don't have like a little dial where they say move like a thermometer or, you know, I guess not a thermometer, a thermostat. Thermostat controls thermometer reports, right?

They don't have a thermostat. When they're lowering interest rates, that's just what they're buying, right? And when they're raising interest rates, they're selling. So that's basically a buy-sell thing. So when the Fed gets in the mode of selling or hints that they'll be selling, markets say, oh, the biggest participant in the market is selling. I better sell before they do.

And that's what happened this week. The Fed chairman said, you know, we haven't beaten inflation. We're going to sell investments.

And he doesn't say it this explicitly, but this is the mechanics. If you talk about the policy and then like look through the mechanics, we're going to sell investments. They sell bonds and we're going to take that money and we're going to incinerate it. They're going to destroy that part of the money supply that they get from that sale. So that's how they fight inflation.

They sell to try to make markets go down so that we feel less rich. And so we'll spend less because they think spending is what causes inflation. And they also want to slow down the economy. So by moving credit out of the economy, by raising interest rates, that makes it a little harder for businesses to expand so they won't hire.

You would think they want business to hire, but no, they don't. They think unemployment is too low. They think low unemployment causes inflation. That's called the Phillips curve. That's part of Keynesian economics.

That's the cruelty of that atheistic system. So they try to slow down the economy. So when the Fed does that or when they signal that they're going to do that, markets go down and that's what's happening. So they're doing that because they think that's how you fight inflation. So gold went down this week because gold is kind of an inflation edge. So if the Fed's going to be selling and burning money supply, I guess inflation isn't as big a problem. The dollar goes up because if there are fewer dollars, if they're going to be selling bonds and then burning dollars, they don't literally burn them.

They just delete them from an account. Then that means dollars might be worth more because they're scarcer. And of course, if the Fed is pulling money out of markets, then markets go down. And that's how you get a week like this.

It's just a hawk week. Gold goes up, excuse me, gold goes down. Dollar goes up. Stocks and bonds go down. Inflation hedges go down a little bit. Recession hedges go up a little bit. That's what happened this week.

Yeah, no question about it. Well, that's really helpful, Jerry. Let's do this.

I want to get the update on corporate engagement. We're having a little bit of an issue with your phone line, so I'm going to take a call. I'm going to let Amy work with you to see if we can get that cleared up and then we'll have you right back on here in just a moment to round out the program today. And we'll get an update on some of this incredible work you've been doing on corporate engagement. So, Jerry, you stay right there and Amy will grab you on the line. Let's go to Indianapolis. James, how can I help you today?

Hi, how are you? So I recently came across the investment company and their portfolio primarily is made up of companies that are paying dividends and royalties. And the way that I understand it, it seems like, you know, over the course of your life, you keep investing in these dividends, keep going back into the company and reinvesting. And then, you know, at the end, you've got not only like this large investment nest egg, but also now you're getting like dividend income and royalty income. And as I understand it, those are like tax free.

So, or income tax free. So is that like, I mean, that sounds like awesome. Is that like a better strategy to use than just a traditional, you know, Roth IRA that's in, you know, mutual funds and stocks and stuff like that? Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, there's something to be said about dividends. You know, if we look over the last hundred years at the S&P 500 returns, and that's just the 500 largest companies here in the United States, I'm not saying you should necessarily invest in the S&P 500. But if you look at the return with the without dividends, the annualized return over that hundred years is a little better than 6%. The S&P 500 returns with dividends reinvested, meaning taking that dividend income and reinvesting it is goes from a little over six to almost 10 and a half. And so there's a real case to be made for how dividends can be a great part of your overall investing strategy to provide income that can be reinvested in the form of more shares and then continue to grow. They also represent a certain sector of the market with often value type or income type investments that are in energy and other types of sectors, you know, that can make up a well-diversified portfolio alongside growth type investments where they're not paying dividends, but all that's getting pumped back into the company to grow it quicker. I think that's a part of a well-balanced strategy. So I like dividends a lot. I wouldn't necessarily as you're building your wealth go exclusively dividends, but I think it's certainly a part of a well-founded portfolio.

So I would look at using an advisor who can incorporate that as a part of his or her investment portfolio. But if you're looking to do it yourself, I would completely agree about the wisdom of what you just shared. So thanks for weighing in today, James. We appreciate you being on the program, sir.

God bless you. Let's head back to Jerry Boyer. Jerry, really appreciate what you were saying on your analysis on the markets and the economy. I understand we've fixed your phone line.

That's great. So let's pivot to corporate engagement. Jerry, as I was just looking at the meetings you were having between, well, the shareholder meetings you're participating in between the end of May and just the 9th of June.

I mean, TripAdvisor, Vimeo, Netflix, Expedia, Meta, Walmart. I mean, you guys are really busy and some exciting conversations that are taking place with these companies around some really important issues, often where these companies are losing focus on their core business and becoming politically motivated. What update would you give us just on what you've been doing as of late? Well, as of late, I think the big one this week was Kroger's had their annual meeting.

So this has been going on for about two months and we've done just about 100 meetings. And so the most recent one is just Kroger's, which was a couple of days ago. And this was interesting because they had two proposals on the ballot from conservatives. One was a pro-life group, which wanted them to disclose their charitable contributions. They had made a lot of statements in favor of abortion.

They had taken a lot of political issues and moral stances, which would be out of alignment with where a lot of Christians who are listening to me right now would be. And so what's hidden there? It isn't the corporate giving. You don't disclose your corporate giving.

We want to know what's there. And it was a pro-life group that brought that because, frankly, they were concerned about giving to Planned Parenthood, especially since the company. You know, when Roe vs. Wade was overturned, the company came out and said, well, we'll reimburse abortion travel. And I asked, will you reimburse adoption travel? And they didn't answer. But we at least know. With some of these companies, they come back and say, yes, we will.

I mean, sometimes it's interesting they don't even know the answer. So I had one particular company where there was a full 30-second silence when I asked the question about adoption travel. And they said, we don't reimburse adoption travel. But another 30 seconds, we do reimburse some adoption expenses. And my point is, okay, for those of you who do reimburse adoption travel, that's good. But if you announce your abortion reimbursement and you don't announce your adoption reimbursement, you are taking sides. You're sending the signal that you are taking sides. And so Kroger, we want to know whether you're taking sides, especially where Kroger has been, you know, on some issues where, you know, a couple of years ago during June.

So everyone knows what happens in June in retail world. There are a couple of nice Christian ladies who were told that they have to wear, you know, certain pieces of flair on their work outfit that denote a set of values they don't happen to believe in. And they were told, well, we don't really believe that we're Christians. And, you know, we love everybody. But no, we don't want to wear, you know, we don't want to wear your rainbow or we don't want to wear whatever it is. So we don't want to wear those letters.

That's not who we are. They were fired over this. And the EEOC brought a case against them saying, well, this is religious discrimination. Kroger ended up losing that and so they settled and they ended up paying, I think it was $180,000 or $200,000 in settlement of shareholder money.

CEO didn't pay that out of his own pocket of shareholder money. So there was a proposal there asking about viewpoint discrimination. And I asked about that question as well. By the way, they didn't take any of those. They didn't take any questions from people like me. It was really odd. They took questions only from one side. Most companies aren't that bad.

Most of them were balanced. They actually took a question from somebody who objected to a rumor that he heard that Kroger uses monkey slave labor for picking coconuts for their coconut water. And, you know, how can we do that? You need to look into it. And we're not aware of any monkey slave labor. I mean, I don't know. Maybe this guy watched Planet of the Apes. Was it Planet of the Apes 3? Is that the one where they go back in time and we enslave the monkeys? I can't keep track. Oh, come on, you know, but admit it.

I think Planet of the Apes 2 was the one with the nuclear bomb and then they leave and then they go back in time and then there's monkey slaves. So somebody was concerned about monkey slaves and that got airtime at the annual meeting, but firing Christian women for exercising their religious freedom. Apparently that's not a pressing shareholder concern. So we're going to follow up with Kroger about that. I'm glad you are. Well, thanks for that update, Jerry. I'll tell you, here's what at the end of the day, here's what I'm thankful for, that you are showing up on behalf of believers to vote your values and to ask about these really important issues that are being neglected.

It's long time due that we step up and use our rights there. Thanks, Jerry, for being on the program today. I appreciate you, my friend. Well, Faith in Finance Live is a partnership between Mooney Radio and Faith by thank you to Amy, Dan and Jim. I'll see you on Monday. God bless you.