The Power of Gratitude

The Bible has plenty to say to you. If you've wondered how the peace of God translates into physical and emotional well-being, well, you're not alone. Researchers at the University of California campuses at Davis and Berkeley wanted to find out too. They gave groups of people gratitude journals to document the things they were thankful for and to report their experience. The researchers broke down the positive responses into three separate categories, physical, psychological, and social. Starting with the physical benefits, individuals reported having stronger immune systems, possibly noting that they got sick less often.

They also said they had fewer aches and pains, lower blood pressure, better sleep, and an increased desire to exercise and take better care of their health. All that by just fostering an attitude of gratitude. The positive psychological effects of gratitude included higher levels of positive emotions in general.

Respondents also said they were more alert, alive, and awake. They felt more joy and pleasure, more optimism and happiness. Now, a lot of Christians keep prayer journals where they often express their gratitude to God for what He provides. It's a way to count your blessings, and a verse that comes to mind is Colossians 4, 2, Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. When we track all of the ways the Lord provides for us, it's impossible to not be grateful. So it seems that keeping a prayer or gratitude journal is a great way to foster an attitude of thanksgiving.

Okay, the last category the researchers looked at was social. How does gratitude improve our relationships with family, friends, and others? Well, individuals said they became more helpful, generous, and compassionate. They felt more forgiving and more outgoing and less lonely and isolated. For all of those reasons, the researchers suggested that everyone should keep gratitude journals to enhance these effects, essentially writing down every day the things we're grateful for. Now, I can't help but think that these researchers found themselves backed into a corner by the data they collected. They had to come up with an explanation for why all these benefits flow from a spirit of gratitude.

And here things get really interesting. First, they determined that true gratitude is proof that, despite all of its problems, there is still goodness in the world. Second, and this is where it gets a little tricky for them, they admitted that a source of goodness must exist outside of ourselves.

It's not something we did, and that true gratitude acknowledges we're dependent on something or someone else. They even admitted this could be a higher power, quote-unquote, if one is spiritually inclined, someone who, quoting from one study, gave us many gifts, big and small, to help us achieve the goodness in our lives. Now, doesn't that sound like a definition of God to you?

It does in my book. Little wonder that the Apostle Paul writes in Romans 11, 36, For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Now, you may be thinking, why would folks who may not know the Lord experience the blessings of gratitude? Well, we know that God's financial principles work for believers and non-believers alike.

Staying on budget, living on less than you earn, saving for the future, all lead to financial well-being. So there's no reason why practicing gratitude wouldn't be beneficial to everyone as well. And who knows, the Holy Spirit might use the experience to lead someone to Christ. The Lord works in mysterious ways. We can even become a part of that by witnessing our gratitude to the God who provides all things.

1 Chronicles 16, 8 reads, Give thanks to the Lord, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the people. All right, your calls are next. 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. Stick with us. We'll be right back. Thanks for joining us today on MoneyWise Live, where we apply the wisdom from the Bible to your financial decisions and choices.

That's right, we all make financial decisions every day. So where do we take our cues? From the world? From CNBC?

From the internet? Well, perhaps from God's Word. God has entrusted everything we have to us. It all belongs to him. So as the master, we want to seek his heart as we manage his money.

We can do that faithfully by looking to the Council of Scripture and applying biblical truths that are timeless to our decisions and choices each day. We do that together here on MoneyWise Live, and we'd love to hear from you. The number to call is 800-525-7000.

Again, that's 800-525-7000. We've got some lines open today, and whatever is on your mind financially speaking, we'd love to tackle it. We can tackle savings or debt. Perhaps it's your lifestyle or accumulation. Maybe it's that credit score.

You're wondering how to impart biblical financial principles to your kids. Whatever it might be, we'll put it on the table and see if we can help you move forward with confidence. 800-525-7000 is the number to call. You know, often we don't get to as many emails as we like. We receive them all the time. And by the way, you can submit questions to us online at MoneyWise.org. You can also write to us at questions at MoneyWise.org, and many of them get read on the air.

Like this one from Laura. She writes, I'm on Social Security disability. I make $930 a month. My rent is $800. I don't have enough to pay a tithe, and I feel guilty, but I'm giving as much as I can. Does that count as tithing?

And Laura, I would say the tithe by definition is a tenth of your increase, but let's not be legalistic about it. We recognize God is all about our hearts. It all belongs to him anyway. It doesn't require of us to do anything for him financially, but it's really about our trust in him. And certainly he doesn't want us to feel guilty in our giving. He wants us to give cheerfully.

So given that you're on a very fixed income, doing your best to keep bills paid, I certainly would understand if you don't feel like at this time you can do any giving. So I would say trust God in that. Invite him into your financial life.

Ask him to provide. He is clear about his promises for provision to us. And if along the way you feel like you can give, I would do that with a cheerful heart as a demonstration of your trust and obedience in him being open to receiving. And I would say to those of us who are believers who have more than we need, perhaps this is an opportunity for us to step in as we see someone like Laura on our path who needs our assistance.

Perhaps you are that answer to prayer that she's been looking for with a knock at the door unexpectedly. So let's look for opportunities to be the hands and feet of Jesus as we give faithfully. And Laura, ultimately that giving that you do is between you and the Lord. So make it an adventure with God. Trust him implicitly.

Don't rob him from the opportunity of providing by using the credit cards. And let's see what God does in your situation. We appreciate you writing to us today.

God bless you. 800-525-7000 is the number to call. A second email says from Seth, what is your stance on bankruptcy? My wife and I are considering it as a last ditch effort. And I would say, Seth, sometimes bankruptcy can't be avoided, but it absolutely should be a last resort. You won't find it in the Bible, but what you will find is an absolute commitment that we need to have to repay.

The wicked borrows and does not repay is what it says in God's Word. So I would say run to your creditors, not away from them. Try to set up a payment plan. But if you're forced into bankruptcy, you may need to take that. What I would say, though, is still try to find a way to repay. I could tell you many, many examples of God's people who were forced into bankruptcy who then came back and, despite it not being easy to do given the charge-offs that occur, worked it out to actually repay all that was owed. So that's still an option based on the resources you have, even if you have to go into bankruptcy. The last thing I would say is get a lot of godly counsel before you make that decision. I would look for a godliest bankruptcy attorney. Perhaps you could check with someone at your local church.

Get wise counsel and let's make it a last-ditch effort or resort if you have to, but let's still look for an opportunity to repay as God provides. Thanks for writing to us, Seth. You can send your questions to us at questions at moneywise.org. All right, to the phones we go, we're going to begin today in Florida. Apollo Beach, Margarita, thank you for calling. Go right ahead.

Hi, I was just calling to find out. My husband passed away. It'll be a year next month and I don't know if I should sell the home and get me something smaller or what to do with it. Yes, ma'am. So the home has paid off, so you're free and clear.

I'm delighted to hear that. And you're wondering about selling it and buying a smaller home. What would be driving that sale, Margarita? Is it just you'd like something with a little less upkeep? Are you trying to pull some of that equity out to use for another purpose?

What would be the primary decision point for you? Yes, what I'm thinking is I wanted to move out to Vegas where my daughter is, my grandchildren, and maybe buy a town home there. And I didn't know if I should keep that house here and rent it out. I don't know what to do.

Have you ever been a landlord, Margarita? No, never. Okay.

All right. Yeah, I would go into that slowly. In fact, I'd probably discourage you from it unless you were pretty excited about it. The reason being, first of all, you don't have any experience in that area. Secondly, you would be an absentee landlord in the sense that you'd be relocating to another part of the country so you wouldn't be able to drive by and check on it or deal with something there in the property. You'd probably need a property manager of some kind. So I think in this season of life, unless you were really compelled to be a landlord, I'd probably look at selling that home. Once you've been out to Las Vegas, you've maybe spent some time out there, decided that is the place that you do want to relocate to to be near them, done your research about where you'd want to live, what the cost of living looks like, whether you'd want to rent a townhouse or buy one. Check it out.

Look at the price points. Do all of that. And then once you feel like you've made all those decisions, you've prayed through it, you've done your research, then I would list your home with a real estate professional there in Florida trying to get as much equity out as you can. This is still a great time to sell even though the housing market is softening.

And there in Florida, you've got a really hot housing market despite even the looming potential recession. So I think if it were me, I would pull the equity out of this house that no doubt has run up quite a bit over the last several years and then buy something perhaps a bit smaller there that you can buy with cash and then take the difference and perhaps look at investing it on a conservative basis with an advisor who could focus on preserving the capital that you have, but also generating a reasonable income so that you could use that to supplement your income as needed. Or if you don't need it, just let it continue to grow so it would be available down the road if you needed it for long term care or any other purpose in this season of life. Does that all make sense? Yeah, it does because that's what I was wondering, should I or should I save it? So when I do retire, you know, that'd be another type of income. And then if I had another property, you know, that could be some, you know, I heard something about good debt and bad debt, you know?

Yeah. Well, you only want to borrow for appreciating assets. And clearly in most cases, especially if we've got the right time horizon, a house would fit into that category, even though housing prices are dipping right now over a reasonable time period they should appreciate. So that would be good debt as long as you can service the debt in your budget.

So I would pull that equity out, buy that new place, and if you're looking to add some real estate to your investments, perhaps do that locally but a bit down the road once you get a better feel for the area. Margarita, thanks for your call. We're going to take a quick break on MoneyWise Live. Your questions just around the corner.

Stick around. Great to have you with us today on MoneyWise Live. I'm Rob West, your host. This is where we apply the wisdom from God's word to your financial decisions and choices. Hey, before we head back to the phones, here in the last two months of the year, we rely heavily on your listener support to fund our budget to close out the year and prepare for our next year of ministry in 2023. We are listener supported here at MoneyWise Media, so if you're a part of the MoneyWise family and you'd consider a gift, we'd certainly be grateful. You can head to our website, MoneyWise.org, and click the Give button. You can give online safely and securely. You'll find a toll-free number to give with our team. You'll also find a mailing address for you to give that way as well. Again, MoneyWise.org to give and support this work here at MoneyWise. We'd certainly be grateful.

Just click the Give button and thanks in advance. All right, back to the phones we go. Looks like we have two lines open. 800-525-7000 to Chicago. Lee, thanks for calling. Go right ahead.

Hi. I had about $50,000 that I wanted to do something with rather than just leave it in a traditional bank account to try to keep up with inflation rates. I took $10,000 of it and spent it on iBonds. I took $10,000 of it and put it in a high-yield savings account so that it's still accessible to me by getting a little bit of a higher rate. And I was looking for something to do with the remaining $20,000. I had an investment opportunity to invest in a strip mall along with other investors and the return on that would be 18 to 20%. It's a five-year commitment.

I'm wondering if you would recommend that or the stock market as something with a little bit more risk that's not too risky to do with the rest of the money. Yeah, very good. It's a great question. So are they promising you an 18 to 20% annualized return or over the five-year period? Over the five-year period. Okay.

All right. And what type of investment structure is it? Do you know? Is it being referred to as a private placement or some other type of investment? I know that it's a corporation. I don't know if that's the answer you're looking for. Okay. Yeah, I'd want to know a little bit more about it.

That's probably a bit more risky than you might expect. Now, obviously, commercial real estate is very predictable in the sense that if you know how to analyze it, you know the general market trends going on in the areas, the population growing or contracting, what are the economic drivers, the household income. Then what about the vacancy rates for that particular property?

How old is it? What are the rental incomes that are coming in? That type of thing versus the purchase price. So there's a whole host of factors there and it may be a good investment, it may not, but you're highly concentrated into the performance of one particular piece of real estate as opposed to something that you can be a bit more diversified in and that's a properly diversified stock and bond portfolio. I kind of like that approach because you can spread your risk over lots of different investments and it's fairly passive in the sense that you just invest it and hold it and watch it perform over time.

And you'd essentially capture the broad moves of the market and right now there's a unique opportunity while the market is down for you to kind of buy into the market, so to speak, while stocks in the aggregate are trading at a discount. With that said though, you've got to match that to the right time horizon, Lee. So what is your time horizon on this particular 20,000? Is this money you can commit to being invested for the next 10 years or do you want it available more quickly? No, I can commit to 10 years.

Yeah. Okay, so from that standpoint, I just think from a diversification perspective, I like a properly diversified stock and bond portfolio, especially given where the market is right now. You could go in, you could dollar cost average that into the market and just hold that for the next 10 years or more. If it's money that's earmarked for retirement, meaning you're not going to touch it until at least after 59 and a half, then I'd try to do as much of that in a retirement account as possible. So you could, for instance, drop 6,000 if you're under age 50 into a Roth IRA and then do that again next year in January. So you could get 12,000 of that in a tax-free environment. It would grow tax-free and then all the compounding would be able to be done without any tax being taken out and then you'd pull it out in retirement. As long as you're willing to commit to that time horizon, then I'd do it in a Roth. Otherwise, you'd do it in a taxable account as you're thinking about the type of structure.

But I would be more inclined, just based on what I'm hearing, for you to go into a stock and bond portfolio as opposed to a single piece of commercial real estate. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate the advice. It makes a lot of sense. Absolutely. Well, thank you very much and I appreciate your call today. Quickly to Indiana. Hey, Josh, I've got just a couple of minutes before the next break.

How can I help? Yeah, I was wondering what amount for retirement savings should one have? Multiple of your income per year?

Yeah, that's a great question. Sure, so it's a rule of thumb and that's all it is, but typically you're looking at 10 to 12 times your income. Now, that can be a pretty big number and that's concerning to some people, so let me just give you an example to play this out. Let's say you make $60,000 a year. If you got 12 times that in your retirement account, that would mean you need to have $720,000.

Why $720,000? Well, at a 4% withdrawal rate, you're going to pull out $28,800, essentially half of your pre-retirement income. Social security was intended to cover only up to about 40%, so that's getting you up to 90% of your pre-retirement income when you take the 4% withdrawal rate on the $720,000 plus social security. Well, most people live on somewhere between 70 and 80% of their pre-retirement income, so that would put you in a pretty good spot. That's why you could go all the way down to perhaps even 10 times. If you can't do that, you're looking at that and say, that's just not practical.

Well, that's fine. Do what you can and then right-size your budget by paying off your house and other things in that season of life that you can do to reduce your overall expenses. But that at least gives you kind of a guideline on how you might think about retirement.

Is that helpful? It is, but I've heard that kind of statement before and that never seemed like it would be quite enough and I hate to be using the amount that I have saved and constantly drawing down the principal. I was wanting to save up enough. I could mostly work off of the return on that investment and try to live off of that. Yeah, and that's the key. Well, it is.

Yeah, I mean, if you can save more than that and get to cover all of it out of your retirement savings without counting on social security, even better. Hey, let's finish offline, Josh, and we'll be right back. Stay with us. Thanks for tuning in to Money Wise Live.

I'm Rob West. We're so glad you joined us on the program today as we tackle your financial questions. We've got some great ones coming up. The lines are full, so let's go right back to the phones.

We'll head to Tennessee. James, thanks for calling, sir. Go right ahead. Thank you.

Thank you. My question is, would it be wise for my wife and I to convert a portion of our savings to physical silver? Primarily, my concern is perhaps paper money value goes away or the computer systems of the world go haywire and you can't actually access your money in the bank or your 401K. Yeah, yeah. Well, I certainly appreciate where you're coming from, James.

And at the end of the day, you're the steward and need to feel good about how you're managing God's money. You know, the things that you referenced in terms of banking system collapse for any number of reasons or the value of the dollar, our fiat currency. Neither of those concern me in the near term and, you know, even somewhat longer term. I mean, if we look at the dollar, the dollar has been surging right now because as we grade on a curve against the rest of the world, we're still in the strongest and largest economy in the world.

And despite our national debt, despite our easy money policies, despite other headwinds that I would have wish wished we would have made different decisions on, we're still in far better shape than the other powerhouses of the world, Japan, China or Europe. And so I think for that reason, we're going to continue to be in that position in terms of, you know, the banking system collapsing or being able to not able to access the money. You know, I think even if you had silver coins, I think it's going to be difficult to do to barter based on that in terms of making it divisible for everyday purchases.

So I think kind of everybody would be in the same boat there. And in terms of an investment, you know, the precious metals are a fear trade in the sense that they do perform better when things are uncertain, when there's fear in the system. But I think even though longer term, you know, could we have a debt crisis? Is that plausible now where it perhaps hasn't been in the past?

Yes, but I don't think that's on the horizon now. I think that's much further down the road. So from my standpoint, given the volatility and just the lack of performance of the profession, the precious metals versus stocks and bonds in this market with the market down reasonable price to earnings ratios and the ability to dollar cost average into the market when you're when stocks real companies are trading at a discount. That would be my preferred approach for you with your long term money to build wealth over time.

The data says that's the best place for you to be. And that's just the way that I would go. The nice thing is you don't have the dealer markups on the buying and selling.

You don't have to secure it. You can generate income from it, which you can't with the physical assets, the precious metals. And so I would, you know, for me, go in that direction. But it doesn't mean you can't do this and it doesn't mean you couldn't have an allocation to the precious metals either in a tracking stock or ETF or in the physical metal.

But for me, I wouldn't make that more than five percent of my portfolio. Does that make sense? Makes perfect sense. I really appreciate your wisdom and advice and I intend to follow it. Thank you so much. All right, James. God bless you, my friend. We appreciate that.

To Pennsylvania. Hey, Barb, thanks for your patience. How can I help you today? Oh, I do.

I want to thank you for your blessing of your ministry. This is on the first time caller. My question is, I went with a debt settlement company and they said they would negotiate with the loan company that I had and I paid on a faithfully for two years. And then according to the papers, it was to be done after two years, no matter what. Well, I found out through my credit report six months after I started paying on it that that loan company wrote off the debt. And now the the settlement company is saying, well, we can't refund you your money until it comes off your credit record, which is five years from now. Is that true?

Yeah. Well, Barb, first of all, thank you for your kind remarks. And I am so sorry to hear about your situation. Not to make you feel bad about the decision you made, but I would just I just want to underscore why I don't ever recommend working through a debt settlement company is there is, unfortunately, Barb, just a lot of bad practices that go on there, in some cases, even fraud.

And they're not doing anything you can't do yourself. And so just as an encouragement to you and others that are listening in the future, if you have the ability to go in and settle a debt, either with a lump sum payoff or a payment plan, always go direct to the creditor, get everything in writing and then work through it that way. With regard to you thinking about how to move forward, the collection agency can settle the debt whenever they want, and they can verify that the debt has been settled in full. And as soon as it is provided, they're provided proof in writing that that debt is now zeroed out and settled in full. And that's also noted on the credit report. You're absolutely entitled to anything that you have paid beyond that through them. They're holding your money.

And that's that's not right for them to do that. So I would let them know that they need to refund that. I would get the documentation direct from the lender showing that the balance has been settled in full and is zeroed out. I would provide that to them and demand payment back for anything over and above the settlement amount.

And I would be quick to report it to the Federal Trade Commission at FTC.gov if they're not willing to do it. Yeah, they they said, no, they can't give me my money back until after it comes off my credit report. I didn't pay in more than what the loan was for, but they said they wouldn't negotiate. And here I found out six months later that, you know, they wrote it off and it says how much I owed on the credit report and it'll stay on there for five years. But they're saying, no, they can't give my money back until that comes off the credit report.

Yeah, that's just not true, Barb. There's there's no correlation to how long this notation stays on the credit report with regard to whether or not they should have collected more than was actually required to settle the debt by the creditor. The fact is, if it's been settled in full, what amount was it settled in full at in anything that you paid them beyond what it took them to zero this out is excess. And that should be refunded immediately. So I'd let them know, get the documentation from the lender.

I'd let them know that and tell them that, unfortunately, you're going to have to report this to the FTC to let them know that this is not being handled correctly. And please let us know how that turns out. I'm so sorry that you're dealing with this and I appreciate your call today.

God bless you, Barb. To Ohio we go. Hey, Richard, how can I help you? Hi, I've been I've received some mineral rights and they're going to start exploring on the property and they have sent me a letter about my level of participation. If I want to help pay the well cost, I got four choices.

I can participate and pay the well cost. I got three non-participates and they all are agreed to lease to the company for three years. Ones at one hundred and fifty per net acre with a one eighth royalty. Others at one hundred dollars a net acre, three sixteenth royalty and the other ones at a zero net acre for one fifth royalty.

What's the best option for me? Yeah, you're going to want to have somebody who has some expertise in this evaluate this. I mean, I like the idea that you would get royalties. Oil and gas royalties are, you know, a great investment for a lot of folks.

They call it mailbox money, you know, because you don't do anything other than collect the checks. The key is what is the price of the underlying mineral and how much is being produced or pulled out of the ground? And obviously, depending upon how attractive this is, you know, how other wells have done in the area and the particular natural resource that's in the ground. How is that doing in terms of prices and where is that expected to go moving forward? That would determine how attractive it is for you to actually put in money to get that royalty up.

And I just wouldn't be able to comment on that without knowing a lot more about the natural resource and the field. Hang on the line. We'll talk a bit more.

We'll be right back. Hey, great to have you with us today on Money Wise Live. Are you struggling to keep your budget balanced in light of rising costs everywhere?

Well, we'd love to help you. The Money Wise app was designed for that purpose. You know, Larry Burkett popularized the envelope system back in the 80s where you'd literally take your paycheck and fund the envelopes by category and then spend out of them until the money was gone. And the beautiful part was once it was empty, you couldn't spend any more in that particular category.

And it's worked for so many folks. Some folks still do it with the accordion files and physical envelopes. Well, we set out a number of years ago to recreate that in a digital expression that was beautiful and simple and easy to use and safe and secure.

We had two years worth of some world class developers building that. And today it looks like the Money Wise app. It's our digital envelope system where you can connect securely to all of your institutions, set up your budget and digital envelopes, download your transactions automatically. And at any point during the month, determine, do I have any more to spend in this category?

And if not, well, I need to stop and wait till next month. It's an incredible system and you can learn more at MoneyWise.org. Just click the app button or you can head to your app store, Google Play or Apple and search for Money Wise biblical finance. We'd love for you to download it and check it out today. By the way, if you were a former envelopes user and there's tons of you out there, envelopes has recently announced they're shutting down. Well, we're welcoming hundreds and hundreds of you every day into the Money Wise app. And we're so thrilled that in our community, you're saying you're finding it to be a great solution or alternative to envelopes. And we're delighted to have you. So if you want to check out the Money Wise app, MoneyWise.org, just click app and we'll look forward to meeting you there. All right.

Let's head to Florida. Hey, Sonia, thanks for your patience. How can I help you?

Sonia, yes. Hi. Good afternoon. I just want to thank you so much for making this platform available to the listeners out here. And I really, really appreciate it. Well, thank you. That was very kind. OK. Now, I did a timeshare. I brought it to a timeshare, I think about two years or more ago. I really didn't want to, but a friend of mine at the time, a boyfriend, I think that was bad advice.

I did it. And I've been paying every year, every month I have the payment. And then COVID happened. So it was longer than two years. And it was hard because the maintenance, the more I searched into timeshares, the more I realized this really was not such a good idea.

And I couldn't afford to pay the maintenance and I kept paying the monthly payments, but I couldn't afford to pay the maintenance. And this is the second year because I took one year off. So it's one year on, one year off. And one year has gone and wasn't paid. And this is the second year.

I haven't even, the year isn't even done. But they have put me into a debt collection agency and they've racked up like $3,000 or something. I mean, it's ridiculous. And they're insisting that I have to pay it. And of course, if I don't pay it, then my credit is going to suffer.

And then with that, all of that, of course, you get all the people who get your information and you get people calling you, saying that they can get you out of it and they're guaranteeing if you pay them money. So unfortunately, Sonia, this is just an all too typical scenario here. Let this be just good counsel for those who are considering a timeshare. I don't get calls from people who want to tell me how excited they are about their timeshare. I don't ever get those calls. So just be careful before you go into these.

And Sonia, I'm so sorry to hear about your situation. Unfortunately, if you obligated yourself to carry on this maintenance as a result of your timeshare agreement, then you're going to have to make good on that or it will destroy your credit. The key is to try to get out from under it. The problem is there's so many people that want to unload these. And the companies that sell them don't have any incentive to help you do that because they just want to sell new ones to new people. They don't want to make a market for those that are already existing.

So what do you do? Well, unfortunately, I would do research before you give anybody money that tells you they can sell it. You'd want to read a lot of reviews. We don't feel good about recommending any of them. I've just not had a good experience with folks that use any of these exit companies.

So what do you do from there? Well, you could contact the original company that sold it to you and see if they'd take it back. You could go to the timeshare users group at TUG2.com.

That's T-U-G, the number two dot com. See if you could list it there. You could try to give it away to somebody who just want to assume the maintenance on it and use it. But unfortunately, there's not good options.

And if the contract you signed says that you're willing to continue to keep up the maintenance, then unfortunately, they have you obligated to that and they can ruin your credit if you're not willing to do it. So there's really not a good solution here. I would just say do your homework.

Look for every option. Let's ask the Lord to give you some wisdom as you navigate this. And we certainly wish you all the best. And thank you for calling today and for also your kind remarks on you about the program. I appreciate it.

Walters in Florida. How can I help you? Yes. Good afternoon. Thank you so much for your program and your advice. I really appreciate it.

Yes, I have. I'm a retired person, older person, and I have some investment. I have stocks.

Unity, the IBANs, the CD. I lost a lot of money inside the stock market and things like that. But my question is, I have a twenty thousand dollars and it just sitting in the bank.

Could you direct me where could I put it, please? Yes, ma'am. I appreciate your question. So you said you have twenty five thousand. Is that right? In the bank?

Yes. OK. And what do you have in other investments? You mentioned you have an investment portfolio in stocks that's lost a good bit of money. How much is in the stock market?

Maybe two hundred and fifty thousand. OK. And are you managing that yourself, Walters, or do you have somebody overseeing that for you? Somebody manages it for me.

I think it's Unity or something. I have like eighty thousand dollars into that. I have the IRA. I have the IRA, whatever. And I have the CD.

I just bought some other CD for another ten thousand. OK. Very good. What do you spend on a monthly basis? What are the total of your bills each month? Six hundred. OK. So very little.

Yeah. So you've got quite a bit more than you need in checking. So I think this really requires a plan for you to have an advisor.

And maybe it's the one you already have, but maybe not. Have an advisor look over all of your assets and help you make sure that you're positioned properly. I'm not sure what the Unity investment is. And then you mentioned IRA and I bonds and stocks and twenty five thousand in cash. And I just think, Walters, this begs somebody who could, from a financial planning perspective, look at your total situation.

Look at I mean, you obviously have a very modest lifestyle. So the key is, are you positioned properly to preserve the assets that you have? Protect them, even though whatever is allocated to stocks is certainly going to go down in a period like this. And that's OK, because we wait that out.

It will come back and move to higher ground. So you don't want to sell that. But I think the key is, what is the right plan for you in terms of how all of this is allocated? And do some of these investments need to change?

For instance, whatever this unity is, is that the best place for it to be? Or should it be repositioned elsewhere, especially given where bonds and stocks are relative to where they were a year ago? So if you don't have an advisor who could look at that holistically and help you establish a plan, I'd encourage you to go to our website at MoneyWise.org. Click Find a CKA and interview two or three professionals who could, just from a financial planning standpoint, not necessarily investment management yet, give you a good plan looking at everything that you have, because I'd be hesitant to recommend what you do with the 25 until I had a better understanding of all the other pieces and parts of your financial plan. So you could go to your advisor to do it or head to MoneyWise.org and click Find a CKA.

I think that'll give you some peace of mind to know you have a good plan moving forward and you have the right investments based on your age and goals and objectives. And we appreciate your call today very much. To St. Charles, Illinois, WMBI. Hey, Dan, thanks for calling. Go right ahead. Hi, thanks for taking my call.

Really appreciate your show. I've been listening to you talking about annuities. I've got term life insurance worth about a million dollars. If I were to pass away, my dilemma is that my wife is disabled and would not be able to actively manage that.

And so I was trying to figure out what would be the best advice for her or somebody who would be helping her out if something tragic happened to me and had to enact that life insurance. I thought an annuity would be the way to go, but I've heard you recently talking about annuities are not the best way to go. And when I looked into them, a lot of them weren't even my thought was on the mount that we have is that that she would live off of the interest and not really touch the principal.

So I don't know if that's off or if it's because back when I bought them, there were investment possibilities where she could make eight to 10 percent a year. But nowadays, that doesn't seem viable in a really safe investment. Well, I totally understand what you're saying here, Dan, and I totally agree in terms of you need to have that plan and that needs to be well thought through in advance so she knows exactly what's going to happen. And there's provision made for how this influx of this significant asset of a million dollars would be handled. I think what's really key in this situation, Dan, is for you to establish now a trusted relationship with an advisor that she helps you select where a relationship could be established and a rapport built so that in the event the Lord takes you home, that's already in place. And that money, we already have a plan for how it's going to be managed and what her needs will be for the rest of her life and any estate planning that needs to be done alongside that. But also the investment strategy. There's some wonderful certified kingdom advisors there near St. Charles. So I'd interview two or three and find the one that's the best fit to set up a relationship and establish that right now.

Just head to MoneyWise.org, click find a CKA, and that's really, I think, the place you need to go. We appreciate your call today. All the best. Hey, let me say thanks to my team today. Amy Rios, Gabby T, Jim Henry and Luke Castaldo. Couldn't do it without them. So thankful for their great work each day. MoneyWise Live is a partnership between Moody Radio and MoneyWise Media. Have a great afternoon. We'll see you tomorrow.