Whole Life Stewardship

And God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. Genesis 1 28.

I am Rob West. That verse presents what's often called the creation or cultural mandate, which in turn is the foundation of whole life stewardship. I'll talk about those ideas today, and then it's on to your calls at 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. This is Faith and Finance Live, biblical wisdom for your financial journey. Okay, the cultural mandate.

What is that exactly? Well, it's the very first set of orders given to man in the Garden of Eden before the fall. Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Ironically, the cultural mandate found in the Bible is about 180 degrees opposite of what the culture of the world is teaching and preaching today. To those many of whom worship creation over the Creator, man is a blight upon the world.

They would like man's presence reduced, population limited, carbon footprint shrunk. To some, this presents a conundrum. What are we to believe? God's Word or, quote, experts who've been warning us about imminent starvation for over 200 years now?

Englishman Thomas Malthus first predicted it in 1798. I think we should consult the owner on this, and it's not us. The Bible makes clear that as the Creator, God owns everything. First Corinthians 10 26 teaches, For the earth is the Lord's and all it contains.

Haggai 2 8 says, The silver is mine and the gold is mine, declares the Lord of hosts. Psalm 50 verse 10 reads, For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. And yes, God even owns us. First Corinthians 6 19 reads, Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?

You are not your own. Now, even though God owns the world and everything in it, He's given it all to man to act as his stewards, fill the earth and subdue it. We also find in Psalm 115 16, The heavens are the heavens of the Lord, but the earth He has given to the sons of men. And in a somewhat narrower context, we have Joshua 1 30, Every place on which the sole of your foot treads, I have given it to you, just as I spoke to Moses.

There God was giving all of Canaan to the Israelites, as was his right to do. So God created everything, including us. He owns everything, including us. And He's told us to subdue and have dominion over the earth, to be his stewards.

Now, what exactly does that mean? Well, this is where the concept of whole life stewardship comes in. God didn't tell us to be stewards on weekends only.

Our stewardship hours of operation are not listed in the cultural mandate. We're to be stewards 24-7. God didn't tell us to be stewards only of the money we decide to give back to His kingdom, not just a tithe, but the other 90% of our increase as well. We're to use it all wisely and in a way that glorifies God. As Larry Burkett liked to say, Every spending decision is a spiritual decision. Finally, God did not tell us to be stewards only with our time and money. They're very important, but they're not the only resources God has given you. You also have skills, talents, and interests, all on loan from God, you might say. God created us in His image, and He wired each of us in a unique way. For example, some of us are good with numbers, and actually like math.

Others can take practically any appliance apart, replace a broken part, and put it back together so it works. That's a gift. Some people can learn a new language as adults quite easily.

Well, for most of us, that's a difficult, time-consuming thing to accomplish. Some people have patience with children and adults who act like children, far beyond what seems humanly possible. That is truly a gift from God. Now, it would be impossible to list all of the different skills, abilities, and interests that God has given us, but we don't have to.

The important thing is for you to discover what yours are, and then begin using them for kingdom work, if you aren't already. God has been incredibly generous with us, to the point of even giving us His only Son, Jesus Christ, that we might be saved and enter into heaven. God wants us to be generous as well, to use the resources He's given us, time, treasure, and talents, to make the world a better place. He wants us to share in the joy of doing kingdom work that extends far beyond the tithe. You see, folks, He wants us to be whole life stewards. Your calls are next, 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. This is Faith and Finance Live, and we'll be right back. Stay with us. Great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live. I'm Rob West. All right, let's take your calls and questions today on anything financial. The number to call is 800-525-7000. We've got some lines open today.

We'd love to tackle your financial question. Again, 800-525-7000. You can call right now. Let's dive right in. We're going to begin today in Miami, Florida. Olivia, you'll be our first caller. Go right ahead. Hi, Rob.

Thank you for taking my call. I'm retired, and I'm considering paying off my mortgage. I have two buckets that I work out of out of my 401k.

One I work out of, really. The other one is just growing over there, but it's now weighing, outweighing the other side of my financial bucket, my 401k. So I want to pay it off to free cash flow. Okay. Make sure I understand. What is it you're trying to pay off?

My mortgage. I see. Okay.

So you're trying to eliminate that monthly payment. Is that right? Yes. Okay. What do you owe in your mortgage today? 260. 260,000. All right. And what do you have in your 401k?

Total and total 1.2 million. Okay. And what is your age, if you don't mind me asking?

62. Okay. And are you still working? I'm retired. You are retired. Okay. Yeah. And are you drawing an income from the 401k at this point, or are you living on some other source of income?

I had been for a while and I drew down too much during COVID, and it made the portfolio off balance from the account I was drawing from. So I have other sources. Okay. So you're not working any longer. Where are you pulling the income from to cover your bills monthly? I have rent income from two houses. Okay.

Yeah. So you've got a couple of homes that you're using for rentals. You're pulling the income for that. You're meeting your expenses there. And then you've got this 1.2 in 401ks. Is that being managed by anyone, or is it just you're overseeing it yourself? One third of it is being managed by a professional company by Fidelity.

And then the other two thirds where I want to pull the money from is not being managed. Okay. And do you have it in investments currently, or is it sitting in cash or a combination? It's in investments.

It's a strong stock that my late husband had put it in. Okay. So do you have two thirds of that 1.2 in a single company? Yes. Okay. Exactly.

All right. So that's a little concerning. Now, obviously, if the company does well, you might look back and say, well, that was a great idea. The challenge is that you're not properly diversified. So you just got a lot of your investable assets and perhaps even your net worth tied up in one company, which if that does well, great. If it doesn't, then that could result in a lot more volatility than you would want in this season of life. That's what Ecclesiastes talks about.

Put your things in seven or even eight because you don't know what misfortune may occur. And so that's where we get the principle of diversification. So regardless of whether you pay off this mortgage, I would encourage you, even though you may have an affinity toward this company, if that's where your late husband had invested it. And again, even if it's done well, I just think you're taking unnecessary risk to be that highly concentrated in one company. Beyond that, though, I like the idea of you being debt free. And I think given the assets that you've got, the homes, the stock portfolio in the 401k, that's not being, you're drawn down at this point, you've got the assets to do it, of course, and then you'd own it free and clear. And that would eliminate, to your point, your biggest monthly expense.

So I'm on board with that 100%. I think the question is just the timing of how you do that, I would probably work with your CPA on how you go about that. At the very least, you're probably, you know, going to want to do half of it this year, and half of it next year, if you wanted to have it paid off as soon as January, because I realized you might like to get rid of that monthly expense. Although you could pull money out of the 401k, if you didn't have enough with the rental income to cover your bills plus the mortgage, if things were tight, you obviously could draw down from the 401k only to cover the mortgage payment until it makes sense to pay it off. So there's really two big considerations I would look at, assuming you don't want to just, you know, pay it down out of current cash flow over time.

Number one would be the taxes. And again, I'd work with your CPA on the timing of that, because we don't want to push a portion of this up into a higher tax bracket by recognizing, let's say $260,000 in withdrawals in one calendar year, which would obviously add 260,000 in taxable income. But secondly, just look at the performance of the investments. Because obviously, if they're down with the market, despite the fact that the market has recovered quite a bit, at least in a narrow set of stocks, maybe not as much broadly. But if what you own either in that single stock or that larger portfolio is down, there could be a case to be made on waiting for it to recover more fully, and then paying it off.

But at the end of the day, if you just have a real conviction to be debt free, then I would say, just try to time the withdrawals in such a way that you minimize the tax liability. But give me your thoughts on all that. That's, that's, that's perfect. That's something that I was looking at. And my concern is the stock is a very strong stock.

I know. Can I share the stock with you? That's fine. Sure. I didn't know if that would be okay. It's Apple.

Okay. And so I have a sentimental attachment. Apple has been strong over the years, but now it has outweighed my portfolio. And I'd hate to draw down on it too much and nickel and dime it out to help cover some expenses.

Because quite honestly, once I pay that mortgage off, I could leave it alone. Yeah. And let it do what, you know, let it do. It's been a strong start.

It sure has. Yeah, I mean, there's no doubt about that. And, and I'm a big fan. I mean, everything I use technology wise is an Apple product.

So don't get me wrong. I'm, I'm a fan of the products themselves. You know, the corporate decisions with regard to the issues they support and so forth.

That's that's a whole separate matter. But with regard to the products, I think they make world class products. And you're right, the stock has been very good. I'm not going to give my thought on whether the stock will do good or bad moving forward, because we don't give individual stock recommendations. What I will say is, that's one company in one tech in one sector, which is a high growth tech sector. It was in favor years ago, it went out of favor, you know, the last couple of years, it's back in favor. But you just have a lot riding on one company, regardless of which company it is, which really does violate the principle of diversification and put you at risk.

Yes, it's been a great performer. Yes, it's a solid company with over a trillion dollars in market capitalization, which is mind boggling more than some nations on this planet. And yet it's just a lot of risk. And so I realize you're lessening that risk by paying off the mortgage. But I wouldn't do it for that reason, because the other approach is to say, what if I take the full 1.2 million, I find an advisor that I really trust, who can manage this portfolio to minimize the risk, protect what I've got, and grow it modestly, where I'm not taking so much and putting it on the performance of one individual company, which may or may not be continue to be good, but it's also going to perform in large respect, just due to the sector. So it you know, if the tech sector is out of favor, regardless of how good Apple is doing, it could lose value, and that's going to put you at risk.

So I like the idea of you paying off the mortgage, I'd work with your CPA on the timing, but I would consider getting an advisor to take over this portfolio. Because I just feel like you're taking unnecessary risk with having so much riding on one particular company, especially in that high growth tech sector. Olivia, God bless you. We appreciate your call today. We'll be right back on Faith and Finance Live. Great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live.

I'm Rob West, your host. We've got a few lines open today. 800-525-7000 if you'd like to get in on the conversation.

Let's head right back to the phones to Chicago we go. Hi, Sharon, thanks for your call. Go ahead. Hi, how are you doing today? I'm doing great. Thank you.

Well, I have a question. I have an account with my credit union. And I have like over 20,000 in there. 13,000 is for like emergency funds. And 9,000 is like for home improvement. But I want to move that to a high yield savings account. And I want to do it, you know, safely because when you transfer money over 10,000 or something like that, then you know, cause for investigation and all of that stuff. This is money I've been saving over the years.

So yes, ma'am. Well, I like the idea of you having this in a high yield savings account. Rates obviously are quite a bit higher than they have been for years just because of what's going on with interest rates. And what you'll find is that with FDIC insurance and an online bank, you should be able to get 4.1%, maybe even four and a quarter right now.

If you want to lock it up for 10 or 12 months in a CD, you could get five, five and a half percent plus. But to have the money completely liquid, getting more than 4% a year with no fees, you know, that's one of the beauties of these online banks. That's where they really shine because they're not taking the, having to fund the brick and mortar operations and therefore they can pass it on to you, the depositor in the form of a higher yield, plus they don't have any fees typically.

Now, where would you go? Well, I would go to bankrate.com and look for the online banks that have the highest savings yields. You can do a search there and it will bring up those that are highly rated and then compare the various rate options and then you can decide which one to go with. Now, you could keep your brick and mortar bank account and then just link this online savings account to that brick and mortar bank and then just move money back and forth as you need to. In fact, because they don't charge any fees for these accounts, you could have one high yield savings account with the online bank that you call emergency fund and put the $13,000 in there and then have a separate one for the home improvement. So that way, if you want to continue to build that up, you've got a designated account, you know how much is in there at any time and you know what the purpose of it is. So you could actually have two accounts and it wouldn't cost you anything.

But bankrate.com would be a great place for you to search and find the online bank that you feel comfortable with and that is offering the very best rate right now. Is that helpful? Yes, but then another question. So like if I'm transferring money over $10,000, would that raise any red flags, you know?

Yeah. Well, it wouldn't raise any red flags. Basically, they have to report transactions over $10,000. So federal law requires financial institutions to report transactions over $10,000 conducted by one person or on behalf of one person as well as currency transactions over $10,000 in a single day. Basically, that came into play when we had a lot of the, in 2008 as well as, well at several points, because of heightened security, they put that rule in place just to identify fraudulent transactions and to combat money laundering was really the purpose for it.

It's not something I would be concerned about, but if you do have a transaction over $10,000, it is going to be a reported to the IRS on the part of the bank. Okay, then. Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Okay. I appreciate your call today, Sharon. God bless you.

To Kansas City. Hi, Gabby. Go right ahead.

Hi. I've heard that the banks are going to be asking people to turn their cash in and it be converted over to digital currency. Is there any truth to this?

Not right now. No, there is no digital currency. So we don't have a central bank digital currency at this point in the United States. There certainly are steps being taken in that direction. In fact, the Biden administration asked for a study on it.

You can go read it if you want to. And basically it's an inter-agency study that was done to look at the benefits, the pros and the cons of having what's called a central bank digital currency here in the United States. There's a lot of folks that are looking at the benefits just to keep us competitive and create the opportunity for instantaneous transactions. There's a lot of folks concerned about it. And I would be in that camp just because of the loss of privacy and some of the controls that would be in place with regard to the government having input into and an insight into our financial transactions at any level. And so for that reason, it's not going to be an easy thing to see come to pass here in the United States. Coinage is a congressional function. So it would require that Congress be involved.

The executive branch can't do this by itself. The Federal Reserve has even expressed reservations about how a digital currency would be created and operate and largely around privacy there as well. So while we might have a digital currency someday, it will be with a lot of debate in Congress prior to it ever happening. And until that time, banks aren't converting cash to digital dollars because they don't exist today. And I think one of the things going on because there is so much talk about it right now and that's all it is, but there's been a lot of rumors of an impending digital currency that have been really greatly exaggerated because this would be years away. Now, the Federal Reserve did just recently put something in place called FedNow, but this is not a central bank digital currency. It's basically a platform that the banks can sign up for where they have the ability to allow you through the bank you currently use to do instantaneous transactions 24-7, even on weekends. The current system does not allow that.

After hours and some weekend days, you just can't get it done. And whether it's individuals or businesses, the new FedNow platform, which is not a consumer platform, it's for the banks, allows these instantaneous transactions every day of the week, 24-7. That's not a digital currency.

A completely different, in fact, that would make the case even more that we don't need a digital currency because that helps to make transactions smooth. Thanks for your call, Gabby. We'll be right back. Hey, great to have you with us today on Faith in Finance Live. Coming up in our next segment, Bob Dahl will stop by. Bob is chief investment officer at Crossmark Global Investments, where investments and values intersect, and he'll stop by to share his outlook on the markets in the economy this week. We're waiting on a lot of economic data. Of course, the Fed meeting this week.

They're most economists expecting them to hike interest rates after taking a pause in their last meeting. Bob will weigh in on the implications of that and much more. We'll look forward to having Bob Dahl with us in just a bit. We've got a few lines open today and we'd love to hear from you with your financial questions. Whatever's on your mind, we'd love to tackle it with you. Let's head to Knoxville, Tennessee.

Hi, Jackie. Go right ahead. Hey, thanks so much for taking my call. I'm looking at retiring but not quick working until probably 66. I'm 61, be 62 in December, but I've already transferred my 401k money.

It's about $300,000 over to be invested, but I have a pension and needed to know if I should take a lump sum. I've always heard that that we should take that. I want to kind of keep this money liquid as much as possible just in case we need it.

What's your thoughts on that, sir? Yeah, you know, I think that's really the key when you look at this lump sum versus the annuity option because the first and foremost consideration is just this fact that, you know, you will not have access to the full amount if you take, you know, the annuity payment. The other factor is with inheritance, whether it's a single life annuity or you plus a spouse, you know, that would give you income for the rest of your life and your spouse is life, but then it goes away and there's nothing to leave behind either to leave as an inheritance or give it away to ministry or charity. You know, the other consideration is, you know, around just your peace of mind and security. So, you know, if you have multiple pools of retirement assets, one approach is to say, well, you know, I've got a lump sum over here that I could tap into if I needed it for, let's say, long-term care, but with this portion, the pension, I like the idea of shoring up income for life that will meet the gap that exists between social security and my lifestyle spending and so that way I just don't ever have to think about it.

I don't have to worry about the market results and I'm going to sleep better at night knowing that that portion is covered and then I've got other assets that I can tap into, you know, in other accounts. So, I think there's a lot to consider there, you know, beyond those big considerations is ultimately the internal rate of return calculation that an advisor could help you do where you would look at the present value of that lump sum versus that annuity stream just to see what type of rate of return you would need to achieve on that lump sum to generate the same income, but again, the benefit of the lump sum is having access to the capital if you need it. So, talk to me about just how you're thinking about retirement, the various income sources that you have and whether there is a gap that perhaps this, you know, monthly payout could shore up in your situation. Well, we certainly, with the monies that we just invested out of my 401k, we're actually starting to invest that's about $300,000. I probably have another $140,000 in an annuity as well and it starts paying at $65,000, I believe it is, and then this money here is probably in the area of probably $400,000 probably and so, I mean, that's kind of what we're doing. We're thinking about keeping that liquid so that we can get to it and with the market the way it is, we don't want to put it somewhere and just start losing.

Yes. Yeah, so obviously you could, you've really got three options. You could take the annuity from your company as long as it's healthy and you feel good about it. You could take the lump sum and buy your own annuity which would give you the ability to, you know, also generate an income stream but have the peace of mind to know that it's not at the risk of the market or you could take the lump sum and then invest it yourself or hire an advisor to do that. Generally, I like that option because it just gives you ultimate flexibility in terms of how the money is managed, you know, the income that you would, you know, can draw out and being able to access more as you need it and then ideally if you could generate the income you need on the lump sum through the investments without taking unnecessary risk, you'd still be able to preserve, if not the whole principal balance, a good portion of it so that, you know, at your death you have something to leave as an inheritance. At the end of the day, I think it really does require some pretty thoughtful retirement planning just to look at the full scope of your retirement picture, the various assets that you have, the actual annuity payment stream that they're offering versus the lump sum amount so that an internal rate of return calculation can be run and then ultimately the decision becomes really clear.

But if you just say generally speaking which do I like, I certainly do like the option of the lump sum for you to have access to the capital to do with what you want. And just take the hit on the taxes, you got to pay them anyway, right? Well yeah, I mean it's going to be taxable either way. What you would do with the lump sum is roll it to an IRA and then you'd keep it in a tax-deferred environment and then you just pay tax on the amount that you pull out each month.

Okay, okay, perfect. And once you reach 70 and a half, you could do some qualified charitable distributions as well. So if you were doing giving out of current cash flow or savings, you could replace that with giving out of your IRA and then there wouldn't even be any tax on it when it comes out. And you can hang on to that cash in your savings account.

So there's a lot of flexibility there but I would encourage you to do some retirement planning with an advisor before you make the final decision. And if you want, you need to find one. You can do that on our website. We recommend the Certified Kingdom Advisor designation.

You could go to faithfi.com and click find to CKA. Jackie, thanks for your call today. We appreciate it.

To Fort Lauderdale. Hi Marie, go right ahead. Thanks for taking my call. I have $30,000 sitting in a checking account which really isn't earning any interest and I don't need it and I don't know what to do with it. I don't like it sitting there just doing nothing. Yeah.

What should I do? Yeah, I would definitely put it to work, Marie. Let me ask you, is this what I would refer to as your emergency fund?

The place you would go if something unexpected happened or is this beyond that? Beyond that. Okay, so you already have three to six months worth of expenses at a minimum in another account, correct? Yes. Okay, great. Yeah, and so I assume you're not wanting to take any risk with this, is that right?

Right, I'm 80 years old. Okay, yeah, no problem. So what I would do then, Marie, is I would take advantage of these high interest rates and put it into a CD. Now, if you wanted to keep it completely liquid because you felt like you wanted to be able to get to it, you could put it in a high yield savings account with FDIC insurance and get about 4.1% today. But if you were willing to lock it up for between 10 months and a year with, again, FDIC insurance, so it's backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government, I'd put it in a CD and you can get 5.5% on it over the next year.

Are you comfortable using the internet? Oh yeah, absolutely. Okay, yeah, so I would go to bankrate.com, bankrate.com, and you could search for a high yield savings account or a CD. It's going to give you a listing of the online banks, and that's who you're going to need to use to get these rates, but I have no concern with that because there's still FDIC insurance.

It'll give you a listing of the ones that offer the most attractive rates right now. We'll be right back. Marie, stay on the line. We'll talk a bit more. Hey, great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live. I'm Rob West, and we're taking your phone calls today at 800-525-7000. But before we head back to the phones, it's Monday, which means Bob Doll joins us. Bob is Chief Investment Officer at Crossmark Global Investments. He's a frequent contributor at CNBC and Fox Business, and his annual 10 predictions are sought after, but so is his weekly market commentary called Doll's Deliberations, and you can sign up for that weekly email commentary at crossmarkglobal.com.

That's crossmarkglobal.com. Bob, good afternoon. And the same to you, Rob.

Great to have you, Bob. A lot going on this week. Economic data, we've of course got a Fed meeting.

Give us a preview of what's to come. Yep, this is the busiest week for earnings, so it'll be earnings reports, fast and furious. Up until now, it's still early, but the numbers have been reasonably okay.

Less bad than feared, just like last quarter. Then the Fed meets, as you said, on Wednesday, and widely expected to raise rates, another 25 basis points, then perhaps pause again. And then Friday, not getting a lot of attention, but the Fed's favorite inflation indicator, core PCE, personal consumption expenditures, will be released.

So that will get a lot of attention, too. Yeah, no doubt about it. Bob, of course, some economists now saying maybe we're going to miss the recession. I know you and many others feel like that's probably still the base case, a recession, but maybe it's a bit further down the road.

Maybe it extends to late this year, maybe even into next year. Why do you think the U.S. economy has proven more resilient, even than economists expected? I think the amount of cash, Rob, that consumers in particular have had still is a residual from COVID, either because the government mailed them checks or they didn't spend cash during those months and the markets are up and real estate's done reasonably well. So Americans have a lot of money and so they keep spending and that pushes any notion of a noticeable slowdown slash recession off to the right.

Okay. Obviously, we're still feeling it, you know, in our wallets with regard to inflation. What's your latest read on inflation?

How long we're going to have it elevated? And whether what the Fed's doing is really working in terms of a longer term solution? Well, for starters, the core, the headline number, sorry, peaked at 9%, remind everybody, and is now at 3.1.

So it's come down a long way. The problem is core inflation has only moved from the fives to the fours and the Fed wants two and there's a long way to go. So if the Fed, which I suspect they will again at their meeting on Wednesday, say our goal is 2% inflation, I don't know how we do that without some more economic pain. And that's why noticeable slowdowns last recession somewhere out there is still the right call we believe.

Yeah, yeah, no question. Bob, we could argue whether or not, you know, their suppression of interest rates and monetary policy in the past was the right move. But just looking from this point forward, I mean, do you believe that in the last 12 months the Fed has been taking the right steps to fight the inflation that's so present today?

By and large, the answer is yes. To be critical, remember they waited much too long to get started. They talked about inflation is transitory, kind of don't worry about it, it's going to come back down.

Well, it didn't come back down. And so their job is still significant ahead of them. Of course, they have but one tool, one instrument called interest rates. They don't have scalpels that can go in and adjust various parts of the economy. So there's still some heavy lifting yet to do to get that inflation rate down.

Yeah. Bob, we've talked in previous weeks about how the rally has been somewhat narrow in terms of the number of stocks that have been affected by it. Nasdaq is a great example. I know in this week's dolls deliberations, you said early last week, the Nasdaq was trading 38% above its 200-day moving average, exceeded only by the tech bubble in March of 2000. That means these stock prices are really high in this particular sector.

What do you make of all of that? You know, it's where the concentration was, the super seven, as the people call it, those mega cap stocks. And starting, as you know, Rob, almost two months ago, the market began to broaden somewhat. In fact, small stocks have beaten big stocks by a bit over the last two months as the economy has looked less bad, flash a little bit better. And that's given encouragement to the broader market. But those Nasdaq stocks are still way above their moving averages.

And that's usually a sign they're overbought and probably need to correct at a minimum by going sideways and perhaps coming down some. Yeah, very good. All right, Bob. Well, we always appreciate your insights. It'll be an interesting week. We'll look forward to having you back next week to debrief all of it. Talk to you then. All right. That's Bob Doll, Chief Investment Officer at Crossmark Global Investments.

You can learn more and sign up for his weekly investment commentary at crossmarkglobal.com. Let's round out the program today. We'll get to as many calls as we can. Let's head next to Chicago. Hi, Anne, go right ahead. Okay, good afternoon.

Hi. I'm retired at this time. And I do have an annuity. But my company is stating that it has a 10 year maturity, right? But I need four more years until it matures.

I do receive Social Security. And what they're offering me from the company that holds my annuity, it's a little tight regarding my mortgage and other things. Do you think that I should try another company and see if I could get more out of the out of the annuity at this time?

But it still has another four years old? What should I do? Yeah, it would be worth looking into and you might find that it just doesn't make sense. And you should wait it out. This would really be a great opportunity for an advisor to look into this. You know, the problem or one of the challenges, I guess I should say with annuities, is they're very complex. And there's a lot of fine print. And so you've just really got to understand what type of annuity Do you have?

How does the how do the surrender charges work? Just a host of factors there to consider whether it would make sense to exit early or to wait it out. And then what alternatives exist for you to replace this annuity with to make sure that, you know, you're actually improving your situation, especially if it's going to cost you something. Do you have an advisor that you trust that can help you look this over? Not at this time, really.

Okay. Well, if you if you're comfortable using the internet, I would head to our website at faithfi.com. That's faithfi.com and click find a CKA and interview a couple of certified Kingdom advisors. There's some wonderful CKs there in the Chicagoland area. Find one that could help you analyze what you have, decide whether it makes sense to exit and then look at alternatives for where you could redeploy that money.

I think that'd be your next best step, because I wouldn't be able to weigh in on the specifics of whether or not it makes sense to pull it out without reviewing all the documents. But I do appreciate your call today. I think this is worth looking into and I'm sorry, I couldn't give you more specific information. God bless you and to the Twin Cities. Hi, Marianne. Go ahead. Hi, thanks for taking my call.

Great program. You know, I have called before and I am looking on finding a financial advisor. I haven't had a lot of good luck, just not feeling the connection at all. But yeah, I will say real simply, I'm looking at an annuity of a personal advisor had mentioned that I heard the last caller with $250,000 kind of at my disposal, about $40,000 equity in a home. I'm still working. I'm 72. I plan on retiring about 75.

I'm just wondering if an annuity in that percentage when you reach my age, is that a good vehicle? I know they're complex. I know there's many different types, but I'm kind of honed back from that.

I don't know why if I'm just afraid to move forward with it. But is there like 30% in this and 40% in that? I mean, is there some kind of a general rule of thumb? Yeah, so there is with regard to stocks versus bonds. But your question is really about annuity versus what, versus an advisor investing this for you? I think that's, yeah, I'm not sure if I should do, you know, that annuity and tie it up for 10 years, or maybe just scale back the amount I would do. I mean, I've got money in a 401k as well, not a ton, but 250,000 is what I have at my disposal to do something with.

And I only have it in a high-yield savings right now. Okay, yeah, I mean, I would, I mean, annuity is a great option if you've got money in a taxable account, which is what that savings account is, because it can provide some tax benefit and give you peace of mind to know, at least for that portion, and you'd have other assets in the 401k, you've got some guaranteed return. If you go with a fixed annuity or with a variable annuity, you'd get at least a portion of the upside and you could lock in and eliminate the downside. I mean, there's some benefit to that for you to know that, you know, you don't have to worry about the stock market.

And there's some tax advantages to that. But again, as you said, not all annuities are created equal. So I do think you need to find the advisor who can help you make the decision on what annuity to go with. I'd rather you not be sold an annuity. I'd rather you have somebody who's objective, who can go out and find the right annuity for you based on what your needs are. And I still think that does lead back to a certified kingdom advisor. So that would be my next step. But I do think what you're describing makes sense in terms of putting this in an annuity that fits your objectives, and then having the 401k to continue to invest and a certified kingdom advisor can help you with that. Quickly to Kokomo, Josh, I've just got about 30 seconds left. I know you're wondering about life insurance.

Go ahead. Yeah, so I'm a single in my mid 30s. No, not married, no dependents, no immediate prospects of being married. I was just wondering if it made sense to get life insurance or not. You know, there will come a time when somebody depends on your income that you need life insurance, but that's not the case today. So I'd take that money, Josh, and put it into your employer's 401k or a Roth IRA instead. You don't need life insurance right now because nobody's counting on you for your income specifically.

I would make sure you have a will, but you don't need life insurance at this point. God bless you, my friend. Thanks for your call. Faith at Finance Live is a partnership between Moody Radio and FaithFi. Thank you to Anne, Amy, Dan, and Jim. We'll see you tomorrow. Bye-bye.