The Medigap Option

Today's version of MoneyWise Live is prerecorded so our phone lines are not open. You've just turned 65 or you're about to. That means you have to make some important decisions about healthcare.

Hi, I'm Rob West. You may decide to sign up for an Advantage plan when you sign up for Medicare at age 65, but that's not the only choice you have for additional coverage. I'll talk about another option today.

Then we have some great calls lined up, but please don't call in today because we're prerecorded. This is MoneyWise Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. Okay, so I'm talking about a Medigap policy, and it's one more piece of the insurance jigsaw puzzle you may want to consider. It could save you thousands in medical bills. Medigap is an extra form of health insurance you can buy if you already have Medicare. Like a Part C Medicare Advantage plan, a Medigap policy will help you pay some of the costs that aren't covered by Medicare Parts A and B, where you still have to pay deductibles, copays, and coinsurance for approved medical care and services, which can add up quickly. A Medigap plan is a private insurance policy that can help you pay for some of the out-of-pocket costs that aren't covered by Medicare. The premium would be in addition to your Medicare Part B premium and Part D prescription drug premium. One important thing to remember is that you can't have a Medicare Advantage plan and Medigap insurance. You have to choose one or the other to supplement basic Medicare. So which one is better for you?

Well, it depends on your finances and health circumstances. Comparing the two, Medigap coverage will usually have a higher monthly premium, but lower out-of-pocket expenses. Medicare Advantage plans generally cost less and cover more services.

You might look at it this way. If you're in good overall health, you might choose a Medicare Advantage plan. But if you have a covered condition that requires frequent medical services with copays, Medigap might be the way to go. Something else to consider, traditional Medicare and Medigap policies cover you for any doctor or facility that accepts Medicare. But Medicare Advantage plans usually limit you to the doctors and facilities in their network. So Medigap costs more, but you get to choose your doctor.

And that's a very attractive feature for folks with a pre-existing condition. So who's eligible for a Medigap policy? Well, if you're 65 or older and eligible for Medicare and you already have Medicare Parts A and B, you can get a Medigap policy. But again, not if you already have a Medicare Advantage plan.

You can't have both. Now, when it comes to what's covered by a Medigap plan, things can get a bit confusing. As I mentioned, Medigap plans in general cover deductibles, copays, and coinsurance costs. But there are actually many different types of Medigap plans.

And each is identified by a letter. A, B, D, G, K, L, M, and N. Each plan provides a different level of supplemental coverage to Medicare. You have to pick the one that best meets your needs. Fortunately, you can find a comparison of the different Medigap plans at Medicare.gov.

And we'll put a link to that in today's show notes. And this should help simplify your decision. All Medigap policies have standardized coverage, meaning every company offering Medigap L, for example, has to cover the same things.

The only difference will be the price. So after you choose the lettered plan that works best for you, just shop for the lowest price in your state. And what might we expect to pay for Medigap coverage? Well, it varies depending on your state and the plan you choose. But the average for 2023 is $155 a month.

However, that's only for an individual. Under the rules, your spouse would have to have a separate plan. One other thing to keep in mind, with a Medigap plan, you may also want to get separate Medicare Part D coverage because it doesn't cover prescription drugs.

If you decide to go with a Medigap plan, you can sign up for any plan offered in your state during the six months after you enroll in Medicare Part B. That initial enrollment window is crucial because during that period, you're eligible for any plan even if you have health problems. The company has to take you on and they can't charge you extra for a medical condition.

After six months, however, you no longer have that guarantee. Now there's one more thing you should know about health care coverage. Now that you're turning 65, I mentioned that you can't have both Medicare Advantage and Medigap coverage. However, if you already have Medicare Advantage and you'd like additional coverage, you can check out a medical cost sharing ministry.

For example, with Christian Healthcare Ministries, you can have both a Medicare Advantage plan and CHM coverage, which costs about the same as a Medigap plan. Well, that's a lot to think about as you make your decisions about health care coverage, but we hope it helps. We're going to take a quick break, but we'll be right back. Stick around. It's great to have you with us on MoneyWise Live today, but unfortunately, today we're not live. We're prerecorded and therefore won't be taking your calls. However, we've lined up some calls in advance that we think you'll find helpful, so stay tuned and enjoy the rest of the program.

I'm Rob West, your host. This is the program where we apply the wisdom from the Bible to your financial decisions and choices. The things you're dealing with every day as you live and give and owe and grow. That's right, we can take all of these decisions you have to make every day in the short term and the long term related to money, which seem unlimited, and we can boil it down. We can simplify them to that which we live on, our lifestyle, that which we give both systematically and sacrificially, that which we owe for specifically debt and taxes and that which we grow. Our savings, that is our short term emergency savings or even longer term like maybe a college savings account or even retirement, our long term savings. Well, as we look at each of these, God's word speaks to every one of them and together in community, we want to find God's heart related to our money.

Now, we don't want to just pull these principles out so we can enrich ourselves. Now, there's nothing wrong with working hard. In fact, that was part of God's design before the fall. There's nothing wrong with making money. In fact, the Bible says it's the Lord who gives us the power to make wealth. It all comes from him.

So there's nothing wrong with that. The question is, what is it doing to our hearts? And we ultimately want to live out these principles so that, yeah, we can provide for ourselves and yes, we can give generously, but also so we can be drawn into a more intimate relationship with the Father. And if that's not our ultimate objective, then I think we're missing it because when we look at the Council of Scripture, we realize God was always about, has always been and always will be about our hearts. And money, I've found, is one of the key ways that God shapes that. You see, our financial journey is a key way God shapes our spiritual journey. And so if the way we work out our money decisions is in many ways a training ground of the heart, what are we doing to lean into that and how is God at work in our financial lives?

Have we invited him in and is he doing a new work in our hearts as we work out our priorities and values through our financial decisions every day? That's what we're after here at MoneyWise as we gather together. But if all of that is a little overwhelming or you have questions, well, maybe you need to connect with a professional who can help you navigate your financial life. Here at MoneyWise, we recommend the Certified Kingdom Advisor designation. It's the gold standard designation in the financial services industry for financial, insurance and legal professionals who have completed a rigorous certification program to give biblically wise financial advice as a part of their practice.

They've met high standards in training, competency, character and experience. And you can find a local CKA professional by going to our website moneywise.org and just click find a CKA right at the top of the page. I'd interview two or three, find the one that is the best fit for you and see if that might be what you're looking for in terms of added peace of mind, greater planning, investment management and all of your professional financial decisions you need to make.

Again, moneywise.org, click find a CKA. All right, let's head to the phones. We're going to begin today in Ohio. Minnie, thank you for calling. Go right ahead. Thank you so much for taking my call.

Sure. I carried from my mom for 17 years and then she passed away real fast. And I was just trying to find out for security how good was that. And I'm only getting 240. I wanted to know if I should go on temporary disability. I had a car accident years ago. I've got bone on bone on my knees.

I've got a bone meal that I need to walk right now. Yeah. I just don't know if I should go on temporary disability. It would make my income up to 860 instead of 240.

But I just don't know what I should do. Yeah. Well, if you qualify for it, obviously, despite popular belief, the requirements for disability are quite strict. But if you qualify, I would say absolutely.

That's what it's intended for. And if you're in a situation where you really can't work, then I would say, you know, take full advantage of that. If the Lord allows you to go back to work, perhaps in the future, once you know if this is able to be resolved either medically or the Lord heals you and you're able to go back to work, then I would absolutely do so.

And as you work, as long as you're paying into the Social Security system through your FICA taxes, you can actually see your benefits increase as you contribute more into the system. But it doesn't sound like that's an option right now. And if that's the case or health condition, then I would say take full advantage of that disability. I appreciate that. I just don't want to depend on Egypt and not depend on God. You know what I mean? I hear you. And I totally understand that. And I think you coming into this with that heart attitude says everything about what your ultimate intentions are. And let's just trust the Lord that he's going to bring healing to your body.

And perhaps there will be a different season ahead where you can go back to work. But in the meantime, if you can't, you need to provide for yourself. And that's what this is here for. It's why you pay into the system.

And it's not like you're trying to take advantage of anything. So we're going to ask the MoneyWise community to be praying for your health, many. But we appreciate you checking with us today. And we can serve you along the way.

Don't hesitate to reach out to Texas. Julio, thanks for calling. Go right ahead. Hey, everybody, how are you doing? I'm doing great. We appreciate you being on the program. Excellent. Yes.

And hey, I just wanted to make people aware. I don't know what what PayPal business it is to be probing into my, my stuff online, but I'd like to read you what they're saying after not agreeing with them politically, I guess. At the end of one of their clauses, it says, If you have funds in your PayPal balance will hold it up for 180 days after that period, we'll email you with information on how to access your funds.

We regret any inconvenience this may cause. I don't think they do. But they got to say that, I guess. But yeah, I just wanted to make people aware of that and just let them know if they're able to right now.

Go ahead and check it out. Yeah. Hey, I'll tell you what, I appreciate you calling that out. It's an important point, whether it's PayPal or anyone else that we need to be reading the fine print. And if we see something we don't like to let them know, this actually happened in another case with PayPal recently, where they came out with some information, whether it was intentional or not. And because of the backlash, they changed it. And it had to do with what a lot of folks were calling discrimination, threatening to find them for misinformation. Now, there was this huge backlash and PayPal basically rescinded the policy and said, and this is a quote, an unacceptable use policy notice recently went out in error that included incorrect information. PayPal is not finding people for misinformation and this language was never intended to be inserted into our policy. We're sorry for the confusion this has caused in quote. So I think the point here is that we need to speak up for our values when we see things that we disagree with and we need to be reading the fine print, which oftentimes we just gloss over. So Julio, thanks for calling that out today. We appreciate you mentioning it to our audience.

Eight hundred, five, two, five, seven thousand is typically the number to call. But as I said, we're not here today. So let's do this. We do get some great emails from time to time from those of you who listen to the program and we don't often get ample time to take as many as I would like.

So let's quickly take one. This one just says we're trying to find a financial coach. Where should we start? Well, MoneyWise.org would be a great resource for you. We have financial coaches here that would be delighted to help you with a spending plan or a giving plan, perhaps a debt reduction plan, whatever you need.

Our coaches can help. Just head over to MoneyWise.org. While you're there, create a free MoneyWise account that will ensure that you get our MoneyWise Weekly Wisdom email and you can check out all of our great content there as well. We aggregate content from 14 content partners, the best in Christian finance.

It's all there at MoneyWise.org. All right, we're going to pause for a break when we come back. Much more on the program, so don't go anywhere. We'll be right back. Thanks for joining us today on MoneyWise Live. Hey, our team is out of the studio today. We're away from the microphone, if you will, so don't call in because we're not here, but we lined up some questions in advance, some good ones, and we hope you'll enjoy. Let's head right back to the phones.

To Kansas we go. Elsie, thank you for calling. Go right ahead.

Yes, I've got a grandson turning 15 shortly, and I was wondering what I can do as a small gift of money to get him involved and interested in investing kind of things. What would be your suggestion? Yeah, very good, Elsie. A few questions.

So I assume you want this to be more broadly available than, for instance, specifically college. Is that right? Yes, correct. I'm thinking mostly just as a learning thing for him. Yes.

Okay, very good. And then secondly, we've got to determine the type of account to put it in. I generally recommend you put it in an account in your name, but separate and earmarked specifically for him as opposed to a custodial account. There are some tax benefits to that, but it does become his asset at the age of majority regardless of what decisions or choices he's made or making and his maturity level. But would you like for it to automatically be his, or do you want a little bit more control over it at that point? Could I put his parents in control?

You could, yes. So they would open the account. You could fund it. They would put it in their names, perhaps jointly with him as the beneficiary, but then they would determine when he actually can take control of the money or take it out. If it's in a custodial account at the age of usually 18, the age of majority in your state, it would automatically be his asset, and if he wanted to take it out and buy a sports car, he could.

So I think that's something to think through as to whether or not to put it in a custodial account or not. With regard to the investments, Elsie, once the account's opened, I like the idea of you using this as a learning tool. You want somebody who can walk alongside him in that process to understand what investments are, how they work, and to be able to watch the account and hopefully develop some excitement for compound growth over time, which will serve him well in the future if he learns that lesson today.

I'll send you a book as our gift that you can use, or his parents, either one, to kind of walk alongside him in this process. It's called The Sound Mind Investing Handbook, and it's based on biblical wisdom, but it offers all of the principles and ideas around how you invest in terms of not only the biblical approach, but just the financial literacy side as well. What are investments? How do they work?

How does compound interest work? What's a stock versus a mutual fund? So we'll send that out to you. If you stay on the line after this call, we'll get your information, and that could be a great guide to journey with him in this process. Once the amount has been deposited into the account, whether that's in your name or his parents, then I think at that point you'd want to go ahead and get him involved and then make the purchase of the investments. I would probably not, even though it may be more interesting to him, I would probably not buy individual stocks, just because with a small amount of money you'd be too highly concentrated in one company, and that's not teaching the principle of diversification, which is really key for him moving forward. So I'd probably buy a mutual fund, and what you may want to do is look at one of the faith-based investing funds, which is where they're going to invest in companies that specifically have a purpose to promote human flourishing and make a positive impact in the world. At the same time, they're buying companies that are focused on value creation, so they're going to do very well in terms of long-term performance. And if you wanted to do that, you could look at some of the fund families on our website at MoneyWise.org, like Eventide or Timothy Funds, you could look at even Guidestone.

Each of these fund families have world-class mutual funds, Elsie, but they specifically have a purpose to avoid companies that might conflict with Christian values, and they specifically buy companies that promote a positive impact in the world. How does that sound? That sounds good. You're suggesting a mutual fund instead of an investment? I am. Yes, ma'am. Okay, that wouldn't be considered an investment account then, right? Say that again? That wouldn't be considered an investment account if it's in a mutual fund.

Well, it would. So there's the type of account, and then there's the investments inside the account. So the type of account I'm suggesting is either an individual or a joint account, either in your name or his parents' name, with him as the beneficiary. So that's just a taxable account. And then the investments inside the account, you have a choice here where you could buy individual stocks or you could use a mutual fund, which is essentially a basket of stocks. And I'm suggesting that once you deposit the money into the investment account that's created for his benefit, then you purchase a mutual fund, and that's going to give him broad diversification among lots of investments so that his money or the performance of that investment is not at the risk of one particular company that might have a bad quarter or be out of favor for a period of time and may suffer some losses. Does that all make sense?

It does, pretty much. And it sounds like Soundmind Investing Handbook will be a good place to start and maybe be good for me, too. I think it'll be a great resource.

So you stay on the line. We'll get your information and then send it out to you. And then as far as the investments go, I would probably look at Eventide. I think that might be a really interesting fund family for him and you all to choose a mutual fund from.

These are faith-based investing funds that are award-winning, but they really have a great story behind each of the investments that they pick in terms of how they're making a positive impact in the world. Hey, let us know how that goes, and I'm delighted to hear that his grandmother is taking such a proactive interest in training him to be a wise steward of God's money down the road. So stay on the line. We'll get your information, Elsie, and we'll get that book right out to you. And God bless you very much. We've got to take another quick break when we come back.

Rhonda, Joe, Bill, we're coming your way. A quick email before we do that, though, we receive emails all the time at questions at moneywise.org, and we try to get as many of them on the air as we can. This comes from Ed. He writes, do you prefer term or whole life insurance for a young couple in our 30s with kids? Ed, absolutely term insurance. It's pure insurance without getting muddled up with an investment component. It's cheap, much cheaper than whole life, so you can easily purchase the amount you need to protect your family, which at a minimum is 10 to 12 times the income you're trying to replace. So this is going to allow you to fit it right into the budget and then do your investing on the side outside of an insurance policy.

That's my best advice. Hey, before we go to our break, let me remind you that we're not live today, but we do have lots of good information coming your way, so please stay tuned. Thankful that you've joined us today from Money Wise Live, I'm Rob West, your host. This is where we apply God's wisdom to your financial decisions and choices. Thanks for tuning in. Our team is taking some time off. We're away from the studio, so today's not the day to call in, but we've got some great questions that we lined up in advance, so let's head right back to the phones. To Mississippi we go. Hey, Rhonda, thanks for calling.

Go right ahead. Hey, I'm calling about how to replace dormant stock certificates and somebody else had told me of a company that could do it without a fee, but when he told me my pin wouldn't work and I didn't get it written down. And he later died of COVID, I think. Well, I'm sorry to hear that. Yeah, so do you have the physical certificates, Rhonda? No, my brother took mine away from me and I don't know, he probably threw them out because a lawyer told him they weren't any good anymore because they were dormant. My mother never collected any profit from them. She just collected them and they were in her name and she had them covered in plastic so they were in good shape.

Yes. I do know the names of some of the companies. Okay, well you could, I mean there are stock search companies generally, I mean all the ones that I'm familiar with will do this investigative work for you for a fee.

And so you could engage somebody to do that for you. You could try to do some of the legwork yourself. Ideally, you'd get your hands on at least those stock certificates or what's called the CUSIP numbers, C-U-S-I-P, the CUSIP numbers on each stock. Each stock certificate has a unique identifier and then you could contact.

How do I find that number? Yeah, well the best way is, I mean you've got to have the certificate itself so if you don't then the other approach would be to contact the company that you're aware of and ask for investor relations and have them do a search for the registered name of the shareholder to see if you can identify it that way. But if for some reason you're able to contact your brother or brother-in-law and get the actual certificates if they still exist, maybe he didn't throw them away, he just filed them somewhere, then those CUSIP numbers would make it really easy for you to chase this down. But if you don't have them, it's either going to take a search company or you're going to have to go to those companies directly if they're still in existence and see if they can do a search for you. I can give you the names of three of them, Disneyland, McDonald's and AT&T.

Well those haven't gone anywhere so I would absolutely see if you can do a search. Each of those companies, Rhonda, will have an investor relations department and you could get that telephone number off of each of their websites. Call investor relations, tell them what you've got and see if they can help you chase down the CUSIP number for the shareholder, which was your mom it sounds like, and see if they can help you get this resolved. If you have the CUSIP number, then you can actually call a brokerage firm, one of the major firms, and have them connect your certificate to the company into the account and essentially bring it in electronically.

But it all starts by you identifying the actual shares and the CUSIP number related to the certificates. So I would reach out to each of those companies and see if they do a search for you and let us know how it turns out. Rhonda, we appreciate you being on the program today. God bless you. Let's see, Wilmington, North Carolina. Hey Joe, thanks for calling. Go ahead, sir.

No, actually Jacksonville, North Carolina, home of the East Coast Marine Corps. Oh wow, excellent. Okay, quick question.

I'm sure you get this a couple times, you know, in a month, if not once a week, just I haven't heard anybody ask it. But when I turn 70 and a half, I will have money left in my traditional. Now, I'm about 80% Roth right now and what I've been doing is on my federal income tax, I generally get a refund of $1,000. But I've been using that $1,000 to roll over currently my Roth or my traditional in the Roth. And I can do about $7,000 a year doing that.

And so I'm going to fall short when I turn 70 and a half. Thus, I will have a minimum monthly withdrawal at that time on my traditional. That said, are there any vehicles? Okay, I do the withdrawal and I know I'm going to get taxed for it, but are there any vehicles at the end of the year that I could use as a deduction because I do itemize on my federal?

Yes, there really isn't. I mean, obviously anything you do as a deduction is going to reduce your taxable income of which this distribution would be added to your adjusted gross income as it comes out. So if you itemize, you would be reducing all of your AGI, but not specifically this required minimum distribution. One thing, though, that you might consider, Joe, is what's called a qualified charitable distribution. Are you familiar with that term? I have heard that term.

I'll tell you what, rather than tie up other phone callers, if you could give me a reference, you know, if there's a book out there or something like that. Well, you could just. Yeah, let me tell you quickly, but I'll just if you Google qualified charitable distribution, you'll find hundreds of articles that explain what it is.

But here's the idea that I'm suggesting. If you're doing your giving out of cash, out of current cash flow. So let's say you're given a tithe to the church or you're supporting a ministry or charity that's on your heart and you would normally do that out of your current cash flow or out of savings or checking. What if you do it directly from the IRA in lieu of that money that you would have been giving out of cash? What that does is it transfers directly to the ministry or charity. It satisfies the required minimum. They get the full benefit upon the sale once they receive it. And then you get to miss adding that to your AGI. So it's not a taxable distribution to you. You satisfy the required minimum. And if you do it in lieu of money you were going to give out of, you know, after tax money, then you've essentially offset that tax you would have otherwise paid with the same money you were going to send to your church anyway.

Yeah, I'll look into that. So it's a qualified charitable contribution. Distribution. Qualified charitable distribution.

QCD is the term. It's a great option once you have a required minimum. You just have that go directly from the brokerage firm who has the IRA directly to the ministry or charity or your church.

And it'll satisfy that required minimum. And then, you know, if you use it to offset cash you would have been giving otherwise, you've essentially done the minimum that you needed to. But you haven't added anything to your AGI for the year. Right, right. So if I could take a percentage of that, go that way with my church, and then the balance that remains for that given month will be reflected on my AGI when I do my taxes.

Yeah, that's right. But you could do kind of some bunching here. So if you were to say, listen, here's the amount I would give to my church over the next six months or 12 months even. And I give all that at once in lieu of what I would have been giving monthly. I mean, there's, you know, a way even to satisfy to do the full amount of your RMD to the church. And then, you know, in lieu of what you would have been doing over a series of months out of current cash flow.

So something to think about. Yeah, yeah, we'll look at when we get to that point. But if something still comes up, I'm going to try and knock out that traditional buy at age 69 anyway, get it in the Roth one way or another. I think that's a great idea because then you've already paid the tax on it, probably at the lowest tax rates we'll see for a long time. If they go anywhere from here, they're going up.

I feel pretty strongly about. So this is a good time to recognize that income. And as you know, once it gets in the Roth and you don't have that required minimum any longer and you could just let that money continue to grow. So I like the way you're thinking here, Joe.

But yeah, just Google qualified charitable distribution or call your brokerage firm and they'll give you all the information you need to get that done. Thanks for checking in with us today. This is Money Wise, our final segment just around the corner. Stay with us. We'll be right back. This is our final segment of a broadcast we previously recorded.

Thanks so much for being with us today, and we hope you'll stick around and enjoy the rest of today's program. Hey, you know, one of the things we have challenges with is dealing with both prosperity and adversity. Roman historian Solast writing in the first century B.C. said this, and I quote, Prosperity tries the souls, even of the wise. You see, financial prosperity has its temptations. Pride, greed and selfishness can clog our hearts if we forget our first priority, and that is to love God. But what about adversity? You know, facing hardships without wisdom can also lead to hard problems. It can lead to self-pity or bitterness, even hopelessness. These are just a few of the human responses to hard times, but these aren't godly attitudes either.

Here's the question. Why do we have such a hard time handling both prosperity and adversity? Well, the Bible is full of insight about both. According to God's word, the key to managing both prosperity and adversity is the same. And I'm talking about wisdom. Here's what Proverbs 1 says.

You'll be familiar with this passage. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline. The fear of the Lord is where we have to start, in good times and in bad.

Fearing the Lord means to honor and worship God and obey his commands. The opposite of knowledge is foolishness, and the Bible comes down pretty hard on fools. Fools are those who despise wisdom and discipline.

You see, God's word warns that fools will suffer shame, disaster, distress and troubles. On the other hand, the book of Proverbs, the wisdom book, it reminds us that the benefits of wisdom are substantial. Listen to these few passages about wisdom and renew your mind as we think about this. Proverbs 2, 9 says, The wise will understand what is right and just and fair. Proverbs 3, 6 is a promise.

In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. In Proverbs 3, 13, we hear that blessed is the man who finds wisdom. Proverbs 3, 35, the wisdom will inherit honor. Proverbs 16, 6 promises that through the fear of the Lord, a man avoids evil. Obviously, living wisely is much better than foolishness.

When we're wise, you give up serving and honoring yourself, and you begin serving and honoring God himself. Whether God in his wisdom has provided you with adversity or prosperity, you can face both with contentment. I think that's one of God's big ideas when we look at the Council of Scripture related to our money is that we're to seek contentment. Being willing to live within God's provision.

It doesn't mean we can't try to improve our situation. We should through hard work, but we're content wherever God has us in that moment. We can be confident in God's love and provision.

We can be prepared to deal with any financial circumstances. And when we're focused on what's really important, and that's following Jesus. As it says in 1 Corinthians 1, 30, Jesus Christ has become for us wisdom from God. That is our righteousness, holiness, and redemption. This message was taken from our friend Jim Neuheiser's 31-day devotional entitled, Money Seeking God's Wisdom. You know, pursuing Godly wisdom is a constant but rewarding effort. We all need to develop the mind of Christ and spend daily time in God's word.

That's the key. Well, we want to help you do that with a copy of this devotional with any gifts to MoneyWise this fall. You'll find biblical wisdom and scripture passages that speak to the specific situations and financial struggles, inspiring you to apply God's word to your life in practical ways day after day. If you'd like to pick up a copy of this 31-day devotional, again, it's called Money Seeking God's Wisdom. Just simply go to MoneyWise.org and right there on the top of the page you can click the Give button.

It will be our gift to you with any gift between now and the end of the year. Again, it's called Money Seeking God's Wisdom. And you know, as we think about applying God's wisdom to our financial lives, we realize that God's word is the source.

It's where we need to go in terms of pulling out the principles that we can apply to our lives so that we can make confident decisions day to day that are timeless and rooted in truth, but also seek God's heart as it relates to our money, and that is the key. All right, let's head back to the phone to Louisiana. David, thanks for calling, sir.

Go right ahead. Yes, I heard about the fact that you can look up stocks that you have records of that you inherited, that people have passed away, and I was wanting to know what the companies are named and their phone numbers that you could check into to see if these stocks I have available could be researched. If you have access to them. Well, you know, here's the key is you certainly want to, if you have the certificates themselves, if you have the CUSIP number on the certificate, you've got a couple of options. Option one is to contact a brokerage firm, one of the major firms, give them the CUSIP number and see if they can connect that particular holding to your account, and then you can move away from the physical certificate and then have that deposited into your brokerage account, and that way it could be traded if you want to and you no longer have to keep up with the actual certificate.

You would endorse it over and actually get it deposited into that brokerage account. The other thing you could do would be to Google the company, find out if the company is still in existence, and just verify your holding, determine the market value of it. But I think the key is, David, to the best you can, I'd love to see you get this inserted or deposited into an account titled in whatever name the certificate is titled in so that it actually can be traded at any point if you want in the future and you're not relying on keeping up with that physical stock certificate. If you need somebody to actually do this research for you, that's where you'd want to reach out to one of these stock search companies that will do that for a fee. But if you have those certificates, you have all you need with the QSIP number to get more information about these holdings and get it deposited into a brokerage account in the same title as the certificate.

Does that make sense? Yes, sir. Some of the companies are sort of old. I don't know if they're still in business. I don't have any means to research any of this. So it would be helpful if you had available the number to some of these companies, the phone number to some of these companies so I can call them and see what they have to say.

Yeah. I don't have any recommendations on that regard in terms of whenever we make a recommendation to a specific company, it's somebody that we've thoroughly vetted and have knowledge that they'll be a resource you want to take full advantage of. I don't have any in this particular case on a stock search company, and so I would be hesitant to give you a recommendation.

We do that in lots of other areas, but it's after extensive research and making sure that it's a good recommendation for our listeners. So at this point, what I would do is contact a brokerage company if you have a relationship and ask for who they might recommend. Or again, if you have those certificates, I don't think you really need necessarily anybody to do a search for you.

It's really just a matter of getting those certificates out, opening an account in a brokerage firm like Schwab or Fidelity in the same title as the certificate itself, providing the QSIP number to the firm and seeing if they'll get you the information you need to verify the holding, and then you could get that endorsed over and deposited. But sorry I couldn't give you specific recommendations on that, David, but I appreciate you calling today, sir, and listening to the program. God bless you. We're about out of time. A couple more emails that came in recently.

I'd love to try to tackle these before we round out our program today. This next one says from Jennifer, I have a 403b retirement account. Pretty soon I'll have to take my first required minimum distribution. With a Roth IRA or a 403b, can the money go straight to a church or charity without paying taxes? This is what I'd like to do. We talked about this with a previous caller today. You can't make a qualified charitable distribution, which is what I referenced earlier, from a 403b, and you don't have to take an RMD from a Roth IRA.

So here's the thing, Jennifer. When you separate from your company, assuming you haven't already, you can roll it over to a traditional IRA. If you have separated, you could do that rollover now. And then you could make a qualified charitable distribution to satisfy a required minimum directly to a charity without triggering a taxable event. And that's the way I would recommend going about satisfying your RMD and blessing a ministry at the same time without creating any kind of tax consequence. So again, get that money into the IRA, traditional IRA, and then you can do what's called a qualified charitable distribution at that point.

We appreciate you writing to us. And then finally today, Carol's asking about investing in gold and silver with the stock market performance the way it's been. Would she overweight? I wouldn't.

Here's the thing. As much as I like the precious metals, having the hard asset, I don't like the long-term performance and the increased volatility versus stocks and bonds, even though the market's been under a lot of pressure as of late. So I wouldn't overweight there. I'd recommend a typical allocation of 5%, certainly no more than 10%. They have no cash flow.

They don't receive any income. There are markups to buy and sell the physical gold with dealers. So I'd buy one of the tracking exchange-traded funds that track the underlying movements of the price of gold or silver. I'd add it to your portfolio through an ETF and use that as an uncorrelated asset as a part of a diversified portfolio.

But I wouldn't overweight there. Again, the long-term performance just isn't as good as a properly diversified stock and bond portfolio. But Carol, thank you for writing to us today. We appreciate it. If you have a question, send it along to questions at moneywise.org. Well, folks, that's going to do it for us today. We've covered a lot of ground and taken a lot of questions as we apply God's wisdom to the financial situations you're dealing with.

You know, at the end of the day, when we recognize that God owns it all and we're stewards of those resources, we live within our means and set long-term goals and give generously, then we'd put ourselves in a position to experience God's best. Hey, let me mention, if you'd like to support this work, we are listener-supported. You can do that on our website at moneywise.org. Just click Donate.

MoneyWise Live is a partnership between Moody Radio and MoneyWise Media. Thank you to Jim, Amy, Deb, and Hans. Thank you to Dan as well. We appreciate you being along with us today. God bless you. We'll see you next time. Bye-bye.