Your Money Priorities

Come now, you who say we will go into such and such a town and trade and make a profit, yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring.

I am Rob West. James 4, 13, and 14 teaches that only God knows the future, but we still have to plan and set priorities for whatever may come. I'll talk about your money priorities today, and then it's on to your calls at 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. This is Faith and Finance Live, biblical wisdom for your financial journey. Well a lot of folks are feeling uneasy about the future. How many more interest rate hikes can the economy take before sliding into a recession? And what about the roller coaster stock market? Well if you don't know what the future holds, it just means you should prepare and set certain priorities for managing your money. Here are some of them.

Not all will apply to you, but there's probably something here for everyone. First, if you've been procrastinating about getting out of debt, now's the time to buckle down and do something about it. Interest rates on credit cards and variable rate loans like HELOCs have risen dramatically. So make paying down consumer debt an absolute priority. You can avoid the sting of rising credit card interest by contacting Christian Credit Counselors. They have pre-negotiated agreements in place with credit card issuers to lower your interest rates, and you can take advantage of them when you sign up for a debt management plan. They'll help you get rid of credit card debt 80% faster than trying to do it by yourself.

You can get more information at christiancreditcounselors.org. Now, your next priority, and this affects everyone, is readjusting your budget. I say readjusting because you've probably already tweaked your spending plan to allow for last year's breathtaking inflation.

But even though we're told inflation has fallen to 4%, food prices have increased close to 7% over last year. So check to see where you're overspending and make adjustments. By the way, if you haven't downloaded the FaithFi app yet, this is a great time to do it. It offers three different ways to budget your money and provides the best biblically based financial content on the web.

So download it today at faithfi.com. You might also have to add money to your housing category. Lenders are raising monthly mortgage payments to accommodate for higher property taxes. Those tax hikes are the downside of rising property values, which are only on paper.

Property tax increases are quite real, however, so you have to account for them. Now, you'll probably need to make up for these higher costs, and you can do that by shopping more carefully. Take advantage of weekly sales and coupons at the grocery store.

For online purchases, use an app like Honey or Capital One Shopping to find the best deals and coupon codes. Now, if you've done all that and find you now have a few extra dollars, don't throw a party. Use the extra cash to beef up your emergency fund. Oh, you don't have an emergency fund?

Well, that's your number one priority now. You've got to start putting money away for unplanned expenses or you'll always be forced to borrow and go into debt when they occur. Open a savings account at an online bank to get the best interest rate and start tucking away something from every paycheck. Set a goal of $1,500, then one month's living expenses. Eventually, you want to have three to six months' worth of living expenses.

That way, you'll be able to ride out a job loss or medical condition that prevents you from working for a time. Okay, so the next priority is for prospective home buyers, especially those looking to purchase their first home. Don't let rising interest rates keep you from buying a home if and only if you're prepared to do it.

Now, what does that mean? Well, you should have 20% saved for a down payment to avoid private mortgage insurance. You also need to work up a budget that ensures that your mortgage payment is not more than 25% of your take-home pay. That will also show you how much house you can afford within that budget. Stick to that number.

Many lenders will be willing to loan you more than that number, but don't get carried away. Keep your payments within your budget, not the bank's. Now, the last priority involves your job. Employment remains relatively strong, but monthly job creation numbers are starting to come in below expectations.

That tells us two things. First, if you've been planning to look for a new job, do it now while the economy is still creating jobs. And second, if you plan on staying where you are, do what you can to increase your skill set to make yourself more productive and valuable to your company.

It's always a good time to do that, but now specifically ask the boss for an opportunity to do more and be willing to take on a few new assignments. So those are your priorities for the uncertain times we live in. We hope you find them useful. Your calls are next 800-525-7000. I'm Rob West, and this is Faith and Finance Live. We'll be right back. Delighted to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live.

I'm Rob West, your host. All right, it's time to take your calls and questions today on anything financial. The calls have already started coming in, but we've got room for you today. We'd love to hear from you at 800-525-7000. Again, that's 800-525-7000.

You can call right now. By the way, as you probably know by now, if you've been listening to this program for any length of time, Faith and Finance Live is listener supported. That means we rely on your generous support to bring you this broadcast every day in partnership with Moody Radio and our app and all the resources we provide at FaithFi. If you'd like to support our work, we'd certainly be grateful for a gift of any amount, and we mean that. Any amount will help us reach our goal, and we want to stay on track each month with listener support.

We're slightly behind for the month of August, so you can help us meet that goal by month in. Just head to faithfi.com. That's faithfi.com, and click the Give button.

Again, faithfi.com, and click Give, and thanks in advance. All right, let's head back to the phones here. Actually, we're going to dive in. Our first caller will come from West Palm Beach, Florida, June. How can I serve you?

Oh, thank you for taking my call. I have over $14,000, and it's in the bank, but it's doing nothing. I get nothing on it. What can I do with it? Yeah, you've got options now, especially with interest rates up where they are, but let me just ask, is this money earmarked for any certain purpose, June? Would this be what I would call your emergency fund, or is it set aside for a specific expense down the road? Tell me what you're thinking. Well, I've only sort of just come into this country, so we're thinking of buying a property, so it could, you know, if we saw something really cheap, maybe.

Yeah, very good. So just a couple of thoughts on that, and then I'll give you some specific direction here on where you go next. I would love for you to have, if you don't have separate from this, and this is the extent of your savings, I'd love for you to have a goal of setting aside three to six months worth of expenses. So you total up all your expenses.

Hopefully you have a spending plan where this is documented, but if you don't, let's work toward that. But whatever your total expenses are for the month, I'd love for you to have three times that, or as much as six times that in an online savings account earning some interest, so that when the unexpected comes, you've got a place to turn. Beyond that, I'd love for you to have a separate account where you're saving for that home purchase, and your goal there is a 20% down payment based on the purchase price.

Now, I know just based on what's going on with real estate, especially if you're trying to buy there in South Florida, that's going to take you a while. I mean, houses are expensive, and I don't want you to stretch necessarily, and just because the mortgage company will give you a loan doesn't mean you should try to go in with, you know, much less than 20%. I'd try to save up for that 20% down payment and avoid what's called private mortgage insurance, which doesn't do you any good.

It's just for the lender, and it can run you 1% of that mortgage balance or more annually. So let's try to avoid that by going in with 20% down if you can. Now, where are you going to put this savings, that emergency savings, and then that savings that you're building up for that down payment? I really like online bank accounts, so here's the deal. A bank, which is federally insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, can either exist in a brick and mortar fashion, meaning they have branches down the street that you could walk into, or they exist only in cyberspace.

They don't have the brick and mortar branches. They're still a bank, and they're still federally insured, but they're able to take that savings by not having the brick and mortar operations and less staff and pass that on to you in the form of higher interest rates. That's what I would recommend. And then you can take that online savings account, which by the way should be fee-free, meaning you're not going to have any maintenance fees. Hopefully you don't have any minimum deposit requirements or even a minimum number of transactions. You'll move the savings, that $14,000, into that account, but you're going to link it electronically to your checking account, your main funding account that you pay your bills out of.

Maybe that's at a brick and mortar bank in case you want to walk in and see a teller face to face. But the great thing is that through the ACH system you should be able to transfer that money back and forth within a day or two at the most, and there shouldn't be any cost to that. I like the fact that it would be separate from your checking account because it makes it a little harder to get to, which is actually a good thing because we really only want to use that money for unexpected expenses. So the place to go to select that online bank account, I would direct you to a website called bankrate.com.

You'll be able to click the button that says show me all the high-yield savings accounts, and it will sort them for you and show you those that are the highest rated and the ones that are paying the best interest rates, which right now that's going to be more than 4% a year. It's not a ton, but it's something. You know on $14,000 over the next 12 months you can make more than $550. Well that's great.

We'll take it. So that would be the direction I would go June. Does that all make sense? It does, but that money is in the savings. I don't touch that money. And then I'm retired, so the money I get, I take my savings out, put it into the savings account, and then now that you've suggested putting it in one of these high-yield things, I will start saving again in that savings account, you know, sort of emergency fund I guess.

Yes. How long, how long in those savings accounts that you're talking about, what is the length of time? You have to keep the money in there for about a year or so?

No, no. What you're talking about is a certificate of deposit, and that would require you locking the money up for a period of time. You might buy a 6-month CD or a 12-month CD. 12-month CDs you could get as much as 5.5% right now. What I'm talking about is a straight savings account, it's just an online savings account. The benefit of that is you're still getting more than 4% a year, but it's completely liquid.

You can transfer the money in and out as much as you want. Very good. Well, thank you for calling today, June. We're delighted you're here in the United States, and if I can serve you in any way in the future, please don't hesitate to reach out.

800-525-7000 is the number to call. We do have some lines open today. We'd love to hear from you as we take your questions on anything financial. Let's head to South Pittsburgh, Tennessee. Kathy, go right ahead.

Yes, Rob. I'm kind of financially here, there, and everywhere. I'm 66, widowed, retired. I have one debt, which is an RV trailer that I live in.

I pay $200 extra a month on my payment on that. I have $25,000 in savings, $16,000 in a 401k that's basically kind of dormant. I have $96,000 in an annuity.

I have $5,000 in a Roth 401k, and then I have three term life policies that I was kind of wondering what I should do with. Like I said, I'm kind of scattered. My financial person, I called to get some advice. He said on the annuity, he said, you can do whatever you want to in September.

He didn't expound on that, even though I questioned him. So like I said, I'm kind of scattered right now. Got it. Okay.

That's really helpful background, Kathy. So let's do this. I'm about to have to take a break, but I've got all of those notes down. And when we come back, if you can hold the line, I'll give you my thoughts on where we go from here and see if we can get you pointed in the right direction.

This is Faith in Finance Live. I'm Rob West. We've got a few lines open, although the calls are coming in quick.

800-525-7000 can give us a call. We'll be back with much more just around the corner. Stay with us. Grateful to have you with us today on Faith in Finance Live. I'm Rob West. We're taking your calls and questions today. Just two lines remaining.

800-525-7000. Just before the break, we were talking to Kathy. She's in Tennessee. Kathy was sharing that she's a 66-year-old widow. She has some debt, only one debt on her RV trailer. She's actually sitting beyond the minimum scheduled payment. So trying to get that paid off, at which point she'll be completely debt-free. She's retired, has some savings in 401k accounts, Roth and traditional. She's also got a $96,000 annuity and some term life insurance. Just kind of wondering where should she go from here. Kathy, do you have a written spending plan or can you give me a sense of just kind of how your expenses match up with your income and whether you have anything left at the end of the month?

Oh, yes, yes. Really, I will buy things from Amazon and pay that off every month. And then I have minimal, you know, utility bills.

There's no use much in that way. What would you say you spend on a typical month? I would say probably maybe $1,000 to $1,200 a month.

Okay. And is your only income source currently your Social Security? I also have a retirement from the state of Texas, which is only about $1,000 a month. So I make about $2,250 a month. Okay. So you're typically putting, you know, once you take out the $200 extra you're sending to pay down the RV trailer, you're having, you have about $1,000 a month left over typically? Yes, sir. It just kind of ranges on what I do for the grandkids. Yeah, I certainly understand that.

Okay. And you said the $96,000, you have the ability to pull that out sometime next year? He told me in September I could do what I wanted this coming September, but I didn't really know what he meant by that.

Yeah. Well, what happens is with an annuity, your money is locked up for a period of time, meaning you can't get it back by transferring it out. If it was put in pre-tax, you could roll it out to an IRA, which would give you unlimited flexibility on what you do with it in terms of investing it. But usually there's a surrender period where if you pull it out during that surrender period, you have to pay a penalty. And what he's saying probably is that come September, you could pull that money out and roll it out to an IRA or another type of account, and there wouldn't be any penalty to it. And so then you'd have your full $96,000 at that point to do something else with. What is your primary goal just to make sure you're being a wise steward of what you have? Or was there something else specific that's concerning you?

Well, nothing in concern. Of course, I want to be able to leave my kids some money and of course pay for whatever needs that I might have as I get older. But beyond that, I would love to be able to buy some property. But with the way the economy is right now, I'm not too sure about that. Yeah.

Yeah, very good. Okay. Well, what I would probably recommend, Kathy, is that you connect with a financial advisor. It doesn't sound like you have a relationship with an advisor currently, is that right? No other than we need you to do this. And this is what you can do, but not in a sound way.

Okay, good. Well, I think what would be helpful is to connect with a certified kingdom advisor there in Tennessee. That's just an industry designation for those professional advisors that have met high standards and character and competence. They've been trained to bring a biblical worldview. They've had a pastor and client reference, and they've been in the business at least 10 years. So they've met high standards, but they really will be aligned with your faith values, and that's key. And you could find, I'd say, two or three certified kingdom advisors there in Tennessee to interview, find the one that's the best fit. And you can do that at faithfi.com.

If you're comfortable on the web, go to faithfi.com and click find to CKA. And what I would probably recommend is that you do, in fact, pull this out of the annuity unless you knew you wanted to leave it there, and the advisor could advise you on that. The only reason you'd want to leave it is if you'd really just like to have a guaranteed return, and you don't want to take any risk, and you just want to leave that to the insurance company. But you'd have a lot more flexibility to buy a piece of property or invest it if it was in an IRA.

And so that's why I'd recommend that perhaps this advisor pulls the 401k money into an IRA, the Roth 401k into a Roth IRA, and then rolls the annuity money out into an IRA as well, assuming it's put in pre-tax. And then they can help you develop a plan to manage that, minimizing the risk, but trying to grow it reasonably so that it's there if you need it, if you had an unexpected expense or you needed to go into nursing care or to be able to leave to your heirs or to charity or ministry. And so I think having that plan with a trusted advisor that you can call that will manage this for you would give you a lot of peace of mind. And then the good news is you're adding $1,000 a month to that or thereabout to that savings, so you've got plenty of cushion. In fact, you could do a little more giving or even invest more just based on the fact that you've already built up plenty of money in that savings, given that you're only spending $1,500 a month or so on your expenses.

So that would mean my best advice is to connect with an advisor. And again, you can do that at faithfi.com. Kathy, we appreciate your call today. May the Lord bless you. To Wisconsin.

Hi, Katherine, go ahead. Hi, I'm just wondering, I saw an article about gold IRAs and wondering, I'm wondering what you think of them. Yeah, well, you know, that's just a way to buy gold inside the IRA structure, which makes it tax deferred and allows it to grow tax deferred. You know, I think the key question is how much, what percent of your total investable assets should you have in gold?

And I would say that really shouldn't be more than 10%. Usually folks that are looking at gold IRAs are going to be more highly concentrated. And I would just say, Katherine, based on the historical performance and given the fact that gold doesn't generate an income, it's more volatile and it performs less. I'd rather you have the bulk of your money, 90% in stocks and bonds that which is longterm and keep the gold to no more than 10%. So I don't have any problem with a gold IRA. I think it's just what does that gold IRA represent in total in terms of your total investable assets.

And for me, I'd keep that at 10% or less. We appreciate your call. We've got to take a break, but back with much more on Faith and Finance Live. Well, it's great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live. I'm Rob West. We're taking your calls and questions. In fact, let's head right back to the phones to Chicago, Illinois. We go. Hi, Andrew. Go ahead, sir.

Yes. I have about $80,000 in a savings account right now that's growing about 4% right now. And I owe 160 currently on a house, which is at 2.2%. And I'm paying about $300 more a month in a mortgage.

So I'm going to pay it off within 10 years quicker than if I were to do the full 30. Would you say me keeping my 80 in my bank account and making 4% is smarter or should I take that 80 and put it in to the home? And mind you, I do have an emergency fund and I have another savings account that's for emergencies.

Okay. And what about long-term investments? I mean, are you saving and contributing to a retirement account?

Yeah, I'm doing about 6% each paycheck into a 401k and some small little stocks that I buy here and there. Okay. What is your age, Andrew?

I am 35. Okay. Are you single or married?

Married. Okay. And does your wife work? My wife works as well. Okay. And is she also contributing to a retirement plan?

Yes. She's on the exact same plan that I am. We actually only my income we actually use for just expenses, our living expenses and entertainment.

And 100% of her paycheck just gets bundled in this $80,000 that's just been growing pretty significantly. We've been blessed to be able to do that. Yeah, that's great.

So why are you prioritizing so much outside the retirement plan just in taxable savings versus bumping those retirement contributions up to 10% or 15% of your pay? I could. I don't see why I couldn't. Actually, it's been just more of laziness. I just have I need to do it. I've been told to do it. I haven't done that piece yet.

Okay, yeah, no worries. Well, the good news is to me, at least you're getting 4% a year on that 80,000. But I think, you know, your opportunity, you and your wife is as you define enough.

And I think that's key. It's not about the mindless accumulation of wealth. And, you know, I think you're in a situation where because you all have limited your lifestyle, you're on track to be debt free.

You've obviously got a lot of surplus because you're living modestly. I mean, you guys are ripe for an advisor who could really guide you through from a values standpoint, a conversation about, hey, what's God doing in your life? And how can money be a tool to accomplish his purposes? And, you know, what's important to you all in terms of saving?

And what's the lifestyle he's called you to? And what does that translate into in terms of an ultimate goal for retirement savings? Because we don't want to over accumulate. Because if you've capped your lifestyle and, you know, you're eventually debt free or on your way to being debt free, then it's really just a matter of defining the give and the grow buckets and determining how much is enough for each. And once you establish a finish line for your long term retirement savings, then you can accelerate your giving.

You know, and that's that's going to be a blast. So I would encourage if you don't have one to connect with an advisor, we'd recommend a certified kingdom advisor there in Chicago who could really help you think through all of this. But just at a high level, what I would say is, you know, I'd love for you just given how much you all cash surplus you're throwing off on a monthly basis, I'd love to see you prioritize as long as it's within, you know, the confines of a plan and some retirement planning. I'd love to see you prioritize getting that into a tax deferred environment. So I would quickly increase your percentage of withholdings going into the retirement plan.

And again, then do some planning with regard to the 80,000. Do you all have any other kind of medium, short or medium term goals? I mean, are you looking to buy a bigger house, you need to replace a car? I mean, are there any things on the horizon that you need to do with that? No, I honestly we have two great cars that are paid off all with less than five years on them.

Yes, my wife and I, of course, who doesn't want a bigger house, but with the interest rates being so high, not that I'm afraid of taking a little bit more interest to get a better quality home. It's definitely been talked about, but it's not a high, high priority. We're definitely looking but not like we're not. We don't need, you know?

Yeah, yeah, got it. Okay, well, I mean, again, I like the trajectory you're on, I would connect an advisor, I'd think deeply about your values and how that informs your goals. I'd answer the question, how much is enough? You've already answered that for your lifestyle, because you're living on your income only. I would answer that for the long term accumulation. And then based on that, I would set a target on how much you need to be putting aside every month to reach that goal. And then I would increase your retirement with holdings. And then I'd probably start funding Roth IRAs out of that 80,000 for you and your wife, you guys could each put in 6500 this year, and then you could turn around and do it again next year. And then, you know, once you have, you know, surplus beyond that, then I think it's starting, it's time to start thinking about, well, maybe we ought to start accelerating the mortgage payoff. Because even though it's a low interest rate, there's a non financial win of you being out of debt, which is just being unencumbered and being debt free. And that's going to throw off even more cash on a monthly basis, because now you don't have that mortgage payment. And you know, now you can decide, do we give that away?

What are we doing with it? But maybe you buy a piece of real estate, and you know, you have a rental property or you just accelerate your giving. So I would say that would be my priorities with the 80,000 is first funding Roth IRAs this year and next.

And then, you know, perhaps looking at accelerating the mortgage payoff. And where do you where do you find these advisors as I've looked before, and I've never been successful of actually finding one of these? Okay, yeah. So just go to our website, faithfi.com. That's faithfi.com. And then at the top of the page, it says find a CKA and that stands for Certified Kingdom Advisor. It's the only recognized and accepted financial services industry designation for men and women who have met really high standards around character and competence, but also pastor and client references. They've signed a statement of faith, but even more than that, they've been trained to bring a biblical worldview of financial decision making.

So they'll be able to think about your values as believers, and how that should inform your decisions with money being a tool to accomplish God's purposes. Cool. Okay. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you for answering my question. I appreciate it.

Absolutely. Andrew. God bless you, my friend.

To Cleveland. Hi, Mary. Go ahead. Hi, how are you? Well, I am good. Good, good. I appreciate your show.

And I listen all the time. So you have such good advice. The reason I'm calling is because we have over $100,000 in debt between credit cards, two car notes, a home equity line of credit.

I think that's pretty much it. But it's it's a big, deep number in my opinion. And we are paid off with our houses value is about 150,000. I'm a PRN nurse, so I don't have a full time job. He is currently at $115,000 job. My question is, we are about to go through a divorce, which I'm very sad for. And I just need to know how to get a fresh start with paying all this off. We have about 650,000 in a retirement account. That'll have to be split. People tell me that I should take the money out of there to pay off the you know, the 5050 of the debt. So I don't know what to do.

Well, I'm so sorry. Has all of this so you you don't know kind of who's going to get what and where all this is going to land that point, correct? No, I'm keeping the house he actually moved out and moved out of state too. So I'm keeping the house I have two children living with me, they're adults, but they're still going to stay with me in our home. And it's paid off, but the value is about 150.

So I'm assuming I'm going to have to spend 75 to pay him out. I see. Okay, where to go with the bill.

Yeah, yeah. Okay. Let's do this.

I've got to take a quick break. I'm so sorry to hear about what you're going through. I'd love to help you take a step forward. So we'll be right back and talk more. Thanks for joining us today on faith and finance live.

We're grateful to have you along with us today. We were talking just before the break to Mary in Cleveland. Unfortunately, she and her husband are about to enter a divorce and she's just wondering with a home that's paid off that she's going to be receiving likely in the outcome of this plus a good bit of debt, a couple of car notes and home equity line of credit and about 65,000 in credit card debt how she should proceed. They have investments of about 650,000 and obviously Mary we're going to have to see kind of exactly how this comes down. Ohio is not a community property state but would likely be divided under what's called equitable distribution where property and debt is based on what a judge determines to be fair and the circumstances doesn't always mean it's equal. Whereas in a community property state it would be a straight 50-50.

I'm not an attorney. Your attorney could likely guide you on what to expect but clearly if you're getting the home that would be $150,000 asset and then let's say the debt is divided between the two of you and then you'd have the investments. The goal would be to try to not touch the investments so those could continue to grow and I think the question would just be at that point perhaps could you take on a mortgage that would allow you to pay you know your former husband the value of his portion of the home that you're keeping and then also pay off or begin paying off your portion of the credit card debt whatever happens to come your way and again we'll have to wait and see what that is and perhaps once that happens we can either look at paying that off in a lump sum based on the mortgage that you would get or maybe you put it into a debt management program where you'd get it onto a monthly payment but at a much lower interest rate through our friends at christiancreditcounselors.org.

I think we just need to see kind of how all this shakes out. Would you have the ability though to take on a mortgage at this point you know just based on the income you have? If I work full-time somewhere yes I can but right now I've been looking for full-time where I want to work and it's just been hit and miss so I'm the one who was keeping the house afloat keeping the kids in Catholic school and stuff like that he was not working for close to five straight years I was the one working 60 hour a week so that's when all this debt occurred. Outside of that I don't I have a little cushion from money that my dad had left but I mean I know he can't touch that and that's just goes through the inheritance lines and that'll be for the kids I really don't want to touch that money to pay this stuff off.

Sure sure now that makes sense. I'm really concerned about the retirement account I know it should split it 50-50 but as I said some people say I should take that money out take the penalties and just pay off everything to be clean and fresh but I'm thinking that would be more detrimental to you know pay the penalty and the taxes that are going to fall off of that. Yeah that's just really expensive money because you'd have a penalty and the taxes that would be due and so I mean we're talking a minimum of 30% right off the top so I agree with you I'd like to preserve that if at all possible and but we're just going to need to see how this all comes down they'll obviously be what's called a qualified domestic relations order that indicates how they you know retirement assets will be distributed to either of you and then you know we'll have to wait for all of that to take place. Let's do this perhaps Mary I'd love to be of help to you and I'm so sorry to hear you're having the weight of all of this that you're having to navigate with kids and debt and I know it's a lot and on top of going through a divorce so I'd like to connect you with one of our certified Christian financial counselors somebody who could just be there to encourage you but also help you once you know exactly where this is going help you make some decisions around your budget your spending plan kind of how you go about thinking about paying off the debt getting it connected to Christian credit counselors if that's necessary just somebody to walk alongside you to be a sounding board with maybe a few sessions on the phone or through a video conference would that be of help to you I think it would yes yeah okay and how long do you think it'll be before the divorce is final well that's it there has even been movement on it he left in October I got a letter originally in March of this year and now it's already August and I've had there's been no movement from it so and like I said he's living out of state and so I don't even know but I need to like put my ducks in a row here I have like I said two of the adult children are living with me I have a 21 and a 23 my 23 year old is high-functioning autistic but she only can work like part-time and she there's no way she could ever work a full-time job she doesn't do well with a lot of busy people and stuff like that so anyway I'll always have her in our home surely and it's just I'm just do you have an attorney Mary I do okay all right all right let me do this let's let me pray for you and then we're gonna get one of our counselors in touch with you who can at least consult with you on the financial side of this and I think once you have a plan you know that'll help you to feel a lot better just at least that you're working towards something a lot of there's obviously still a lot of questions to remaining and they're going to be out there until the divorce is final but let's let's get somebody connected who can at least walk with you for a period of time father we just you know our hearts Lord you know this situation we know you love Mary more than we could ever imagine and thank you that you are Abba father and we just tell you today we trust you would you be near to her during a difficult season just give her strength pray that you just draw her unto you Lord I pray for those kids that you just guard their hearts and be with her as she's caretaker even for you know a special needs child as well and Lord we just ask that you would intervene that with this would come to a quick resolution whichever whatever the path forward looks like that you would just bring people around her that can be an encouragement to her a community that could point her back to you and just walk with her during this difficult season we know that's what the body of Christ is and yet we also know that your Holy Spirit is there and so we just ask that you would be near to her as you tell us you will be and in your word and we just trust you for the outcome may you be glorified in this process and may she come out of this with a renewed vision for what you have for her in this next season of life as she serves you with her whole heart and leans into to what's next so we trust you in that we love you and we thank you in advance in Jesus name Amen Mary thank you for your call today and stay on the line we'll get your information and get somebody in touch with you and Lord bless you let's head to Indiana hi Ivy thanks for calling go ahead hi my name is Ivy I am married and I'm a special education high school teacher before I started teaching I invested into a 401k plan at my previous employer as a I worked at a tech company so I wrote in about $50,000 into like a new company sponsor 401k and over the years I've you know just added on to that and I also have a teacher retirement plan that's given to us from the state of Indiana yeah I'm just trying to figure out like the best investment options for myself because I work at a charter now and I really don't care for the company that they want us to pour our 401k in so I'm just kind of torn with what to do with the 50,000 that I have and then secondly my husband he you know he tells me not to worry about my retirement because he's a government employee and I'll get a pension but I don't know what that amount is on the pension that I'll see sure I'm really not sure like how I should plan for my future because I am married and you know yeah I plan to retire and teach you I just don't know what to do yeah how much do you have in the 401k from the all-in from the all-in like the one that's in from yeah I know you brought in 50 and and combine that and then fund you know continue to fund it what's the value on it today so the value on it today is probably like 60,000 and that's over the last seven years okay all right yeah I think what you all need is a financial plan I mean you need to be on the same page and I think you need somebody who can really advise you and help you determine okay what is our lifestyle today what will it be in retirement a lot of times folks live on 70 to 80 percent of their pre-retirement income how much are we going to need to fund that given that you're going to have your teacher's retirement you may or may not have social security he may or may not he might have a retirement and then you've got this 60,000 what is your savings goal and are you on track ahead or behind and that way you'll know you'll have a plan that says okay here's where we're going and here's what we need to do to get there and this has been considered in light of our values and priorities but I think apart from that you're just kind of guessing and that's what's making you feel uneasy so I'd encourage you to head to our website faithfi.com click find a cka and see if your husband be willing to engage a certified kingdom advisor not necessarily to manage the money although I would roll it out to an IRA but and that's going to deal with you not being comfortable with the provider because now it's somewhere else and you can invest it but also you know to have a financial plan so you guys know where you're headed and you've defined those goals and and that'll give you some peace of mind so head to our website faithfi.com click find a cka thanks for your call quickly to Columbus John I've got just a minute left go ahead I appreciate all your um all your advice it's a lot um two questions I have it's a two-part question the first one I have is um so I have a a car note that I got a car in my finance last year it was 2022 and um but it's shaped like 10-6 and I'm telling y'all for me a refi uh for at eight percent and uh but it's a longer term on the loan and that's a cheaper monthly payment but um with a longer note um I was wondering it made sense to go that route because you do get a little money back from your uh maintenance coverages on the vehicle and I was thinking that was the only thing that sounded pretty attractive to get you know some money back out of the loan yeah put back for you know rainy day fun and stuff like that yeah here's my thought and unfortunately I'm out of time uh I don't like you extending that term I do want you to get the interest rate down I would look to refinance it at a lower rate but with the same term or at least make the payment schedule such that you won't extend the term at all I want to get you out of debt not get money for a rainy day so I'd look at refinancing but don't extend the term is my best advice god bless you john that's gonna do it for us today faith and finance live is a partnership between moody radio and faith by thank you to my amazing team and we'll see you tomorrow bye-bye