Healthcare Freedom of Choice

Have you ever noticed that the more pages your health care agreement has, the fewer choices you seem to have? Hi, I'm Rob West.

One reason that health plan guides are so long is because it takes a lot of ink to explain in-network versus out-of-network coverage and costs. I'll talk with Lauren Gydeck today about how you can eliminate all that mumbo jumbo, 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 decisions. Well, there's no question that Lauren Gydeck is one of our favorite guests here on the program because she always brings important information that listeners need to know. She's Vice President of Communications and Media at Christian Healthcare Ministries, an underwriter of this program. Lauren, great to have you back.

Thank you so much for having me back on the program, Rob. Absolutely. Now, I mentioned in-network versus out-of-network medical costs, and that's something that consumers really need to be aware of, isn't it?

Yes, absolutely. And I would say even so much the more so during, you know, this is kind of the peak of the summer travel season. And, you know, you don't want to think about those sorts of things, but a medical incident can happen at any time.

So there's a lot of pent up demand, travel demand following the pandemic. And folks just need to be aware that, you know, if they're going to a hospital, you know, the emergency room will probably be considered in-network. But there's a lot of other charges that might occur that that would not be considered in-network under an insurance plan. So just be aware, you know, you don't want to end up getting stuck with 20 or 30 percent of the bill. Yeah, no question about that.

We really need to be careful there. You know, one of the most popular topics you see these days on social media, Lauren, is what are known as life hacks, a better way to do something that people may not think of. And you've certainly got a life hack for health care.

No networks. Tell us how that works. Sure.

Yeah. Christian Health Care Ministries, we're not an insurance company. And for that reason, we are not bound to a list of health care providers that you have to see. We do share 100 percent of eligible medical bills. And what I mean by that is as long as they're eligible, the treatment is eligible, according to our guidelines.

You have great freedom. You can go to any doctor or any hospital that you want to go to. You can keep your doctor. You know, you just have a lot of choices with Christian Health Care Ministries versus a traditional plan. Well, and if that isn't amazing enough, when you become a member of Christian Health Care Ministries, you get something even more valuable, don't you?

Yes. I think the most important thing about CHM is that, you know, this is a ministry. We care about our members, the patients. You know, we pray with them.

This is something that aligns with a biblical worldview. And you also know where your dollars are going. So what our model does is it allows you to understand what you're being charged for your health care. And in addition to that, we have very low administrative costs.

Even for a nonprofit organization, we are on the extreme low end at under 10% of your dollars going toward administrative costs. So you can feel really good about sending money in every month because you know almost all of that money is going to help another Christian with a medical need. Yeah, that's really important. Lauren, in the minute we have left, just give our listeners a brief explanation of how CHM works. Yeah, I'd be happy to do that. So this is a membership-based program. So you join CHM, and should you incur medical bills, what you do is you send them into the ministry. We'll work with your health care providers to see if we can get discounts on those bills. And then we'll do what we call share those bills.

So we will send you a check, you the patient, and you pay your health care providers directly. And we've shared in our 40-plus year history, this has worked extremely well, we've shared nearly 10 billion, billion with a B, of medical bill costs. That's incredible. Absolutely incredible.

And what a lot of our listeners may not know is that CHM is really the longest serving organization in this space, right? Yep, that's correct. Wow, incredible.

Well, folks, this could be the answer you've been looking for to cover your health care costs in a way that's not only budget-friendly, but with fellow believers, encouraging and praying for you along the way. Lauren, thanks for stopping by. Oh, my pleasure. Thanks for having me. To learn more, go to chministries.org, that's chministries.org. All right, your calls are next.

The number, 800-525-7000. Stay tuned. I'm so thankful you joined us today for Faith and Finance Live.

You know, I just returned a little while ago from taping a video with my pastor. So he's starting a new sermon series called, well, I forget the title of it, but one of the weeks is on something called affluenza. Here's what it's defined as. Extreme materialism and consumerism associated with the pursuit of wealth and success and resulting in a life of chronic dissatisfaction, debt, overwork, stress and impaired relationships.

Sounds like something you want to stay away from. We talked about why affluenza was so common, especially in the most prosperous nation the world has ever seen. Listen to this.

I came across this just the other day. The bottom 5% of the American income distribution is still richer than 68% of the world's inhabitants. Yet we're still discontent in so many respects.

Why is that? Well, we had a fascinating conversation about what I think are a couple of drivers of that. Number one, we're discontent because of the comparison trap. You know, comparison is a contentment killer.

Envy destroys our peace. And I think that's driven in many respects by social media. You know, we're trying to live up to the best version of someone else's life. Often that involves spending money we don't have to keep up with the Joneses.

That can be a killer with regard to contentment. But also just the fact that greed and materialism is so prevalent in our culture. Greed is a fascinating sin. You know, Tim Keller, the late pastor, points out in his book, Counterfeit Gods, that most people don't know when they're being greedy.

He goes on to say, As a pastor, I've had people come to me to confess they struggle with almost every kind of sin, almost, he says. I cannot recall anyone ever coming to me and saying I spend too much money on myself. I think my greedy lust for money is harming my family, my soul, and the people around me. Listen to this. He says, Greed hides itself from the victim. The money god's M.O.

includes blindness to one's own heart. So how do we overcome the comparison trap? How do we overcome greed? Well, if we're not careful, we can try to redeem greed in the name of the American dream.

And I think ultimately it comes down to, well, a lot of things, but here's two ideas. One, we need to recognize that we need to have contentment in the god who is worth more than the world. He's not just our source of abundance, although he is that. He is our abundance.

And we need to find contentment in that. Secondly, generosity. Giving actually breaks the grip of money in our lives. You see, when you and I give, we open our hands, we loosen our grip on God's resources, and then we put our treasure in his kingdom, which frees our heart from the constraints of our own little mini kingdoms.

And I think when we do that, when we understand God owns it all, and we find contentment in God and his abundance and who he is and nothing more, and then we give generously, well, we're able to overcome the greed and materialism in our culture. Think about that today. And I'm talking to myself at the same time I'm talking about you.

I hope that's an encouragement to you. All right, let's take your phone calls today. We've got some lines open. We'd love to hear from you. 800-525-7000.

By the way, we can talk about whatever you'd like today, whatever's on your mind financially speaking. 800-525-7000. By the way, that phone number goes all the way back to the late Larry Burkett. Did you know that was his phone number when he was on the airwaves back in the 70s and 80s, which is just kind of a fun anecdote that we can continue with that same phone number now, taking your questions and applying the truth from God's Word now in 2023. All right, let's take your calls today. We're going to start in Florida, and Giovanni, thank you for calling. Go ahead.

Hello, sir. I don't have a question, but I have a comment regarding clarification of both ministries that provide health care coverage. And the comment that I have is, because I've used both, they don't cover preexisting conditions. And I believe that has to be spelled out and people need to understand it. And the way it's advertised is not clear.

It was not clear to me. So when I find out that it was preexisting conditions did not cover, I was shocked. And because at some point in your life, depending on the timing, you are going to have a preexisting condition. And if you recall a long time ago with traditional insurance, that became a real issue because people were not being able to get coverage because of that clause.

Yeah. Well, preexisting conditions absolutely are a factor, and you need to be aware of that. With these health cost-sharing ministries like Christian Healthcare Ministries, you do have to understand how a preexisting condition would play into that.

And so you need to have that conversation with them. I'll tell you, though, we've got so many of our listeners, including some of our own team members here at Faith and Finance, that have used Christian Healthcare Ministries for a long time and have just been incredibly blessed by it. But you make a great point, Giovanni, so if you have a condition that you think would be classified as preexisting, make sure you talk to the folks at Christian Healthcare Ministries about that.

You can find them on the web at chministries.org. And Giovanni, we appreciate you bringing that to our attention. All right, 800-525-7000. We've got a few lines open today.

To Fort Lauderdale we go. Tara, thank you for calling. Go ahead. Hi. Good afternoon.

Thank you for taking my call. My question is regarding real estate investment. So I am not too sure about it.

I would like to have your input about this. How does the real estate investment work? Because I just bought some shares with a company, a real estate company called Nada. But I'm not sure how that works. I only receive an email saying that I own a piece of property now. Ah, I see.

Well, I'm not familiar with that one. But you've got a couple of different types of real estate investing. You know, number one would be a very simple way is to buy what's called a real estate investment trust. You may have heard of the term REIT, R-E-I-T. And that allows you to invest in real estate without the physical real estate. So it's kind of like a mutual fund. These are companies that own often commercial real estate like office buildings or retail spaces or apartments. They pay higher than average dividends, which is the income that you would receive while you own the investment. They're often used with retirees because they're income generating. And investors who don't need or want the regular income can automatically reinvest those dividends to buy more shares in the real estate investment trust. They can be good investments.

Not always. There is some risk there, of course. And they trade on the stock market like a stock. You can also buy real estate through a real estate investment platform where that connects real estate developers to investors who want to finance projects either through debt or equity. You can actually buy a rental property. So you could buy a piece of property.

You need to be careful with that. I encourage folks when they're buying a rental property to go in with 50 percent down if you can. Be careful not to get overextended there and be able to cover a mortgage without a renter for some period of time because you could have that situation. Other folks who are more handy, often those who have experience as a general contractor or doing a lot of work themselves, will buy investment properties to flip them, improving them and turning around and selling them in a short period of time. And then finally, you could rent out a room and a piece of real estate that you own. Perhaps you have an extra room or a space over a garage. So there's a number of ways to go with real estate. I do some research.

I like real estate as a way to diversify away from the traditional asset classes of stocks and bonds. But you need to be careful. Do your research and then go slow before you make any moves there. Hope that helps, Tara. Thanks for calling today. We'll be right back. Stay with us.

Great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live. I'm Rob West. We're taking your calls and questions today, 800-525-7000. We've got it looks like five lines open.

So plenty of room for you today to Chicago. Hi, Paul. Thanks for calling. Go ahead.

Hi, Rob. I have a question right now. I am shopping for life insurance and I just want to know what is the difference between term and whole life? Because I'm shopping around and everyone that I talk to, they're saying that theirs is better. I heard in the past that we should buy term and invest the rest. Well, it looks like that a whole life insurance policy that you're actually investing in and can pull money out down the road for retirement.

Which one, which vehicle would you recommend that's best? Yeah, I'm a term insurance guy. I like the idea that you just pay for what's called pure insurance, where you're literally just paying the mortality expense based on your age and health and death benefit. And you're going to pay what it actually costs just to have that insurance coverage to protect you for a period of time during your working years, while you're, as a separate activity, saving in a company sponsored retirement plan, you know, perhaps plus an IRA or other vehicles. And when you stop working, ideally you have saved enough such that you no longer need the life insurance.

You're no longer working at that point. So you don't have the risk that a dependent or loved one, namely a spouse, would have a hardship at your death because they're no longer counting on your income. You've built up your retirement assets and Social Security, and that's what you're using to pay your bills. I like that option because whole life insurance is expensive.

It does get complicated. Yes, you can borrow against it. Yes, it's kind of a savings vehicle, but not without its downsides. And I'd rather you just buy the pure insurance, get the proper amount of coverage at a minimum 10 to 12 times your income. Plus, on top of that, you may want to go beyond your income replacement, maybe enough to pay off the mortgage, maybe enough to cover college education for the kids, you know, whatever that might be. But by buying the term insurance, you're going to get it at the most affordable price possible, which means you can truly get enough death benefit to cover that risk that exists for a loved one. And then, you know, do your saving at 10 to 15 percent of your pay in retirement accounts.

I think that's a better option than using an expensive whole life policy. OK, thank you so much for that. I appreciate your program. God bless you all. Well, thank you, Paul.

I appreciate that. Thanks for being on the program today. 800-525-7000. We've got a few lines open today. We'd love to hear from you, whether it's your spending plan, maybe it's insurance like Paul wanted to talk about, maybe it's your long term retirement savings or perhaps debt repayment.

Whatever you're thinking about today, we'd love to hear from you and tackle that with you. The number again, 800-525-7000. You can call right now. Lynn is standing by today to take your calls to Tulsa, Oklahoma. Hi, Dave. Go right ahead.

Hey, thanks for taking my call. I have a retirement account that is professionally managed and have had for years. And then I also have a 401k with my employer. My professional account is I have really great returns with him. My 401k, not so much.

And I didn't know if there was a way to transfer funds from my 401k to this other account without penalty. Yeah. Are you still with the employer that where the 401k resides? Yes. Yes. I'm still employed and I still make regular contributions to that. It's rather large. And I was thinking, well, if I could move 60 or 70 thousand dollars out of that account into my other account, it would just I would I would make a greater return on that.

And yeah, my regular I totally get that. The challenge is most 401k administrators will not allow you to roll that out until you separate from the company. So you're going to typically need to leave that right where it is. The only exception to that might be if they have what's called a brokerage window, which, you know, typically in a 401k, you just have a menu of investment options to choose from. With the brokerage window, you can actually invest in any stock bond or mutual fund and you could likely authorize somebody to do that on your behalf. They would do it through the existing platform wherever your assets are custody based on that 401k plan administrator. But you'd remove the blinders, if you will, from just looking at those and investment options in the 401k to essentially anything.

But in terms of rolling it out, you're almost certainly not going to be able to do that until you separate from the company. All right. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. All right, Dave, appreciate your call today.

God bless you, my friend. 800-525-7000 is the number to call. We've got some lines open today and we'd love to hear from you. We've got room for your questions. Again, 800-525-7000.

Let's head to South Dakota. Hi, Gary. Thanks for calling, sir. Go ahead. How are you this afternoon? I'm doing great. Thanks. Good.

I appreciate you taking my call. The question I have for you is I've had a whole life insurance policy for probably 30 years. And I paid on that, so I built up quite a cash value. Wondering how I can disperse that cash value without getting hit a high tax on that.

How do I claim that cash value? Yeah. So this is a whole life insurance, not an annuity. Is that right? That's correct. Yes.

Okay. Yeah, so you could, if you want to just try to get it out altogether, you know, you could borrow against it through a loan. But, you know, if you are going to just pull it out there, you know, what is it you want to do with it from here?

Do you know? I actually would like to reinvest it if I could. I talked to the agent that handles my policy. He said about half of it would be taxable and half of it wouldn't. And he suggested putting it into an annuity that would save me from being taxed until I'm ready to retire.

I'd be able to draw it out of there. Yeah. I'm just not a big fan of annuities. I mean, I might rather you pay the tax. I mean, typically cash value, the cash value life insurance is generally not taxable as it grows within the policy. But then when you take withdrawals or surrenders that exceed the premiums you made, you know, that's where taxes will often kick in. So you certainly could keep it in an insurance product and roll it into an annuity. But I kind of like the flexibility, even if you have to pay the taxes on a portion of it, of you getting it out of there and then just being able to invest it in whatever you want, whether that's on your own or you get the help from an advisor. I'd probably stay away from an annuity just because of the complexity, the cost. And they're just you're going to limit your upside potential. That's just my best advice.

But you do want to count the cost on the taxes. We'll be right back. Stay with us. Hey, grateful to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live. I'm Rob West. Got a stack of questions here, but room for maybe one or two more.

Eight hundred five, two, five, seven thousand. Let's dive in. I'm ready to go.

Cleveland, Ohio. Hi, Kathy. Go right ahead. Hi. Good afternoon, Rob.

Thanks for taking my call. I have a question about I have twenty thousand dollars to invest in and I have my emergency fund and I'm looking to build some interest. What would you suggest would be a good way to do that? I just put it all in Tesla and call it a day, Kathy. No, I'm just kidding. Don't do that. Don't do that.

So how does. Tell me where this money fits in kind of your overall financial picture. I appreciate that you have your emergency fund. Is this money you just want to try to grow for the future, but you're looking five years, maybe even 10 years plus. Yes, five to 10 years, I'd say, yeah. OK. Yeah. So I think now.

Yeah. So that makes it a candidate to invest. I wouldn't put it all in one stock, despite what I said a moment ago. I would properly diversify it.

So I think you've got a couple of options. You could use an actively managed fund mutual fund, which is just a basket of stocks. If you wanted to use a faith based investing fund option, you could go to our website, faithfi.com, just click on the show and you'd see some great mutual fund companies like Inspire and you'd see their Guidestone and you'd find Crossmark Global and Praxis and Eventide and some great fund families that you can invest in.

And those would be aligned with your values as a believer. A second option would be just to buy an index ETF. So ETF stands for Exchange Traded Fund.

And these indexes are just the broad market indexes. And I'd probably use one of the robo advisors. And that just means it's an automated investing solution that would build a portfolio after you answer a series of questions.

So they'd want to know your age and your risk tolerance and how long the time horizon is and what the purpose of the money is and all those things, and that it would use indexes to start building a portfolio for you. The benefit is it's turnkey. If you wanted to add more money to it, very easy to do. It's very low cost.

The annual cost might be a quarter of one percent a year. And you're just going to capture the broad moves of the stock and bond market. You're going to not try to pick the winners and losers. If you wanted to do that, I would go to probably Charles Schwab and use their Schwab intelligent portfolios. And then maybe a third option would be visit with our friends at soundmindinvesting.org and they could help you find a good mutual fund, more of an actively managed type mutual fund that would be a great solution for you. So I think any one of those three would be good. They're all going to be widely diversified, different approaches. One's faith based investing.

One's a robo advisor with indexes and one's actively managed mutual funds. But it would give you at least three options to choose from. Is that helpful? It is very helpful. Appreciate the advice.

Yeah. So check those out. Faithfi.com.

Click on the show. You can find those faith based investing fund families. You can go to the Schwab intelligent portfolios and read up and then you could go to soundmindinvesting.org. I'd also love to send you a copy of the sound mind investing handbook.

Kathy, I think it might be just helpful reading as you begin to familiarize yourself with investing. So you stay on the line. We'll get your information and we'll send that out to you. It's our way of saying thanks for being on the show today. Let's head to Wheaton, Illinois. Hi, Michelle. Go ahead.

Hi. Thank you so much for taking my question. I'm in the opposite situation of your previous caller. I've got about twenty thousand dollars worth of debt spread through about six or seven loan sources. OK. And I'm considering I've been listening to the ads for Trinity debt consolidation. So I've been considering doing that. However, I the lease on my car is due come January. So it's time to turn it in and get a new car.

I'm a single mom on full time disability and I don't want to ding my credit by having the consolidation process, possibly, you know, close cards or close things and make them look like I'm I'm afraid that that will affect negatively my credit. Yeah. Can you help me understand how I'd be happy to, Michelle?

Yeah, I sure can. So with regard to debt management, not debt consolidation, where you take out a new loan, but debt management or credit counseling, we happen to recommend Christian credit counselors is just the one we work with here at Faith and Finance Live. You mentioned Trinity. I have nothing bad to say about that organization at all. I've just never worked with them. A lot of our listeners have used Christian credit counselors.

Either one, I think, would probably be a great option for you. But the idea behind debt management, which is my preferred way for you to get out from under this credit card debt, is that the accounts will be closed. They're placed in a debt management program. The idea is you get a lower interest rate. You send a level monthly payment through the credit counseling agency, which should help you get out of debt on average 80 percent faster.

So that's all good. How does that affect your credit score? Well, it doesn't directly affect your credit score. The fact that you're in debt management is not a part of the credit scoring algorithm, so it will not affect your score one bit. Now, where will it affect you?

Well, a couple of ways. Number one is often the credit company will put a notation on your credit report, like literally a printed notation that you're in a debt management program, and that comment would be available to a lender who was running a credit check. Again, it won't directly impact your score, but they could see that and decide what to do with that information. That may or may not affect you.

Again, the score is the primary thing. Now, how could your score directly be impacted? Well, you mentioned probably the only way, and that is that any accounts that go into debt management are closed. So when they're closed, that reduces your available credit, which affects your credit utilization. So you could see a minor dip in your credit score just depending on the impact of the closing. What I'm much more concerned in is the fact that you get out of debt once and for all, and I love debt management to do that.

I'm also glad to hear it's August the 1st, and this is probably not until the first quarter of next year. So I think any temporary dip will have recovered by then, and keep in mind, through debt management, you're going to be paying off these cards faster. So those balances are going to be dropping much quicker on debt management, which I think will put you in a position to pay it off quicker and have very minimal, if any, impact to your credit score. Now, if you're right there on the bubble between the top tier credit where you get a better interest rate and the next level down, you know, could it result in you still having a score a few points lower come next January?

Possibly. I wouldn't expect that to be the case, but I think my primary concern is you getting out of debt. But give me your thoughts on all that. Well, it all sounds good hearing that they're going to close the lines of credit. That was my concern, is that I have had my credit cards closed in the past, and that that has negatively impacted my ability to get a loan.

And occasionally, because of my circumstances, I have needed loans to get me through. Yeah. Well, it may be different, though. This this would be the same as you calling a credit card that you're no longer using and just say, close it. It's not like the creditors closing it for nonpayment. This is as if you're closing it when you go into the debt management program.

So it's a very minimal impact. Really, the only impact you're going to see as a result of that being closed is related to credit utilization. The closing itself is not a negative thing. It's not like you failed to pay and the lender came in and closed the line down, which may have been what happened to you in the past. But it is absolutely going to be closed, any accounts that you put in, and you don't have to put them all in. So what may be a good next step is just to reach out to ChristianCreditCounselors.org and talk through it with them.

But at the end of the day, if you decide it's not worth it because of a potential impact to the credit score, then I would pass. We'll be right back. Thanks for calling. So thankful to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live, where we help you apply the wisdom from God's word to your financial decisions, those practical financial decisions you're trying to make right now.

Let's head to beautiful Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Hi, Donna. Thanks for calling. Go ahead. Oh, I've listened to you for so long. It's just nice to talk to you. Thank you for taking my call. Well, that's great.

Thank you. Of course. You spoke a little while ago about REITs, R-E-I-T, REITs.

Yes. Just a little background. We own the property in Ohio. We sold the property, so we have like $70,000 from that.

It was in a business, buy and sell properties. So it's the Lord's money, and we understand we have a couple of months, like six months, to reinvest it before we have to do something. We're getting ideas.

I keep hearing about REITs, and I wondered if this is a place we want to invest some, you know, some or all of the money, which is where the Lord wants us. We don't know. How do you pick a good group or person? How do you investigate them? Oftentimes, they're a group of people. Do you have any idea on that, how to know whether they're reliable or not to put the money there?

Yeah. So just let me help me understand kind of how this particular money fits into your overall investment strategy. So how much do you have available that you're wanting to invest? Well, there's $70,000 from in the business itself. So we don't know if that's enough. Maybe they require $100,000. No, no, not necessarily.

No, not at all. So you've got $70,000. This is from a home sale.

And is this money you're going to put to some other use in the foreseeable future, or are you just wanting to grow it over time? No, it's it's just in the business that the Lord gave us. We got a tax lien and they never paid the taxes. We own the house free and clear.

It's the Lord's definite leading. But you don't think you need it potentially for reserves or something like that? No. OK. And do you have other investments?

I'm sorry that I'm sorry. Do you have and that's OK. Do you have other stocks and bonds, other investments? Oh, nothing in the business. This is totally separate for the business in our own personal life. We have we have our monthly the money set ahead for emergency fund. We have money in some other investments, but not a lot of retirement.

Just maybe this will eventually be that. But for right now, we handle it separately from our own personal finances. OK. All right.

Yeah. You know, I mean, the thing the only concern I have is, you know, I'd rather you be a little bit more diversified with this money. I mean, yes, REITs can provide a great return. If you buy and hold, they can be income generating. There's both, you know, tradable REITs that are on the stock exchange.

And then there's non traded REITs that are not traded on the stock exchange. And they often have less liquidity, meaning it's a little harder to get your money back. And they have a variety of returns.

I mean, some, you know, could fail altogether. So there is risk there. Others might do very well. And in addition to the income, you could get some appreciation in the investments. So I think, you know, as you look at it in recessions, normally interest rates fall, which is typically bullish or positive for real estate investment trusts, as you know, they're a second level kind of bond investment. And, you know, this could be a great option for you, I would probably not put all of it in REITs. And I would use more of the publicly traded REITs, which is where you can do a little bit more due diligence.

I mean, you can know the management company and their track record and see how they're compensated. And, you know, you can see how they've done with other investments and that type of thing. But just to take this $70,000 and drop it in a REIT or a couple of REITs without really being able to analyze it, do your due diligence and knowing a lot more about which ones because they're not all created equal. I would have some concern if this is a new area of investing for you, Donna. So I think what would probably be better is to go find an advisor who could advise you on how best to invest this $70,000 to protect it, but also to grow it where you're not taking unnecessary risk by being too highly concentrated in one asset class or one particular investment or pool of investments. And in order to do that, if you were going to connect with an advisor, there's some great CKAs there in Fort Lauderdale, I would go to our website, faithfi.com and click find a CCA. But I would probably can advise you away from just dropping all of this in a REIT or a couple of REITs if you don't have experience in them, just because there are such wide differences and you really need to be able to analyze what you're getting yourself into before you would want to make that investment. I hope that's helpful to you.

I'm sorry, I couldn't give you a bit more definitive on that, but I think an advisor would be a better option for you. Let's head to Charleston, South Carolina. Hey, Kevin, go right ahead.

Hey, good afternoon. I have a question. I've got more than three months of income in a emergency fund account, and I'm considering using the excess in that account to cover a portion of the purchase of a used vehicle. I just wanted to see what your thoughts were on using those funds that way.

Yeah, I like that a lot. I mean, I think, you know, you could consider this your savings account for that vehicle. And I think any time we can go in and buy with cash and or at least as much cash as possible, so long as we don't erode that emergency fund that really needs to be there in the event of the unexpected, which, you know, by definition, we don't know when that's going to come.

I think that makes a lot of sense. So you could get the amount you're borrowing down, help you pay it off quicker, especially with interest rates up. You know, that would cut the total interest cost by you borrowing less. And as long as you don't go below three months, I think that's a good plan. So I'm on board with that, Kevin.

Okay, great. Yeah, I wasn't sure I contribute to the emergency fund every every month anyway. I wasn't sure if I should wait for it to build up to six months before I did something like that, or if I should just go for the vehicle once with the excess. So, yeah, no, I think that's a good plan.

I mean, unless you knew of something that was kind of looming on the horizon that may cause a disruption in your pay or, you know, have a, an unexpected expense coming that you think, you know, maybe possible something like that, then obviously you'd want to hold off but everything, you know, looks pretty stable and you've got a minimum of three months after you put this money down, I would say you go for it, you should be in pretty good shape. Thanks for your call today, sir. We appreciate it.

Let's finish up in Florida. Joanna, you'll be our final caller. Go ahead. Hi, thank you so much for taking my call.

I really appreciate your program. My question is I have 12,000, which is 6% of my traditional IRA. And I want to know if it's, if I should move it out of the fixed income and put it into stocks and, and, and I'm only two years away from, from needing to take required minimum distribution.

I have no debts and car house, and I have the emergency fund. Okay, got it. Yeah, so I mean, I would typically have only about 40% at age 72 in stock 60% in fixed income, you're saying you have 12,000 of the 200,000 does that mean that the rest of it is already in stocks? That's correct. Yes.

Okay. And so you're, you're wanting to know, should you go ahead and move 100% in stocks by taking the 12,000 that's in bonds and moving that into stocks as well? Yes, and bonds is why I actually don't know what it is. It's fixed income. I thought it was like a money market or something. Yeah.

Okay. Well, fixed income is a pretty generic term. It often means bonds doesn't necessarily have, you know, automatically mean that.

I mean, that's up to you just depends on how aggressive you want to be. Again, typically, I would look for you at this age to have, you know, probably at the most 40% in stock 60% in bonds, just because it's going to smooth out some of the volatility. You know, you're you're obviously taking more risk when you're 100% in stocks. And, you know, we have no idea what the market is going to do over the next couple of years. So you'd want to be in this for the long haul, meaning 10 years plus now the good news is of the Lord Terry's and you're in good health, maybe this money needs to last another 30 years.

That'd be great. And you know, the stock portion would do well. It's just typically, if you're going to need to draw an income from it, which seems like you will in the next couple of years, through an RMD, or you need to supplement your income, that's where I would typically advise you to be a little bit more conservative just to protect this and be less volatile. But if you can stomach the volatility, and you're saying I would just do this, you know, until I start taking the RMD, and then maybe for that portion, you maybe start moving more conservative, that's entirely up to you. It would just not be the typical approach.

Again, I would say typically at age 72, you'd want about only about 40% in stocks, you're talking about having 100%, which, you know, is obviously a bit more aggressive. But as long as you know that going into it, you know, ultimately, you're the steward and you need to make that call. I see. Okay. Well, I thank you. All right, Joanna.

Absolutely. Well, thank you for your call today and for your kind remarks about the program. We appreciate it.

Well, folks, that's gonna do it for us. We're gonna take a well head to the end of the program, I guess I should say but a couple of reminders before we do that. Number one, if you have a question you would like read on the air, let me remind you how you can do that. You can send it along to us at askrob at faithfi.com and we'd love to read that on the air.

We try to get to a few of them each week. Secondly, if you have not downloaded the FaithFi app, I would love for you to do that. It would allow you to access broadcast archives of this program, you can jump into our FaithFi community. There's just an active conversation going on in there every day of stewards like you, asking questions, sharing ideas, encouraging one another, we'd love to have you in there and the FaithFi app is the best way to do that. And if you'd like to set up that spending plan, maybe you've been meaning to do it, but you haven't been able to, that would be a great way for you to do that right there in the FaithFi app.

Just head to our website, faithfi.com, click the app tab and you can download it today. Hey, I couldn't do this each day without my amazing team. I want to say thank you to Dan Anderson, Amy Rios. Thank you to Lynn, our call screener today. Thank you to Robert Sutherland providing great research.

Faith in Finance Live is a partnership between Moody Radio and FaithFi. You have a great rest of your day and come back and join us next time. We'll see you then. Bye bye.