6 Steps When a Loved One Passes

When a loved one goes home to be with the Lord, it's often a time of great confusion as well as grief. What needs to be done and when?

Hi, I'm Rob West. Simply making funeral arrangements can be difficult enough, but then there's an estate to settle and many find themselves unprepared. Today, I'll give you the six financial steps to take when a loved one dies. 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 before we get to the financial steps you should take when a spouse or other loved one passes, there's a very important spiritual step to take, prayer. You should invite God to be a part of all your financial affairs and decisions, but especially now as you begin the process of settling your loved one's estate. It's enough simply to pray for wisdom in this challenging time. James 1-5 teaches, Romans 8-28 reveals just how much the Lord wants to guide and strengthen you. It reads, The Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. After a time of prayer, you'll feel more confident and ready to take on the challenge of settling your loved one's estate.

So here are the six steps you'll need to take. First, get a copy of the death certificate. This is the legal record of your loved one's death. It's usually prepared by a medical examiner and provided to you by the funeral home you're using for the burial. You may also obtain a copy at your county vital records office. It may take a few weeks to obtain the death certificate.

If you haven't received one in that time, contact the funeral home or records office to check on it. You really need a copy of the death certificate to begin the other steps in this process, and it's especially important if you are the executor of the estate because most of the actions you'll take require a copy of the death certificate. Okay, now that you have that document, you can take it and a copy of the will down to your county probate office and file a petition to begin the probate process. If you are the executor, you can then begin carrying out the deceased's last wishes as specified in the will. Ah, but what if there is no will?

Well, then things get a bit more complicated. You'll still take the death certificate to probate court and petition the court to begin the probate process. You can also request to be named administrator of the estate, but there's no guarantee the court will honor that request. The probate court will then decide, according to state law, how the deceased's estate will be divided up among the heirs. Things may get complicated at that point, and you may want to have an estate attorney help you through the process of distributing the assets.

We recommend getting someone with the CKA designation, and you can go to faithfi.com and just click find a CKA. Now in step three, you begin notifying the deceased's financial institutions and advisors, if any. If your loved one had a financial advisor, that person can be a huge help in determining what assets are involved. You can also check the current balances when you notify financial institutions of your loved one's death.

Here's where you may discover that some assets can pass directly to beneficiaries without going through probate. Check with administrators of retirement and standard brokerage accounts for transfer on death or TOD instructions. For banks, check for payable on death or POD instructions. You'll probably have to provide a copy of the death certificate to get the funds released. At this point, you should also notify the three credit reporting agencies, Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian of your loved one's passing. Again, you'll need the death certificate.

They will close those accounts, get copies of the reports, and check to make sure everything is in order and that there are no fraudulent accounts or transactions. Step four is to contact the deceased's life insurance company or companies. You'll need the death certificate here too. Also, cancel other types of insurance such as auto or disability that are no longer needed. Step five is to notify any affected government agencies.

Interestingly, the funeral director often notifies social security of a deceased's death. Check to confirm that and also notify Medicare and the VA if necessary. Finally, step six is getting started on the deceased's final taxes.

Here is where you really should bring in a professional such as a CPA to help with this. I know that's a lot, but you can get through it one step at a time and remember to pray for guidance and know that you are never alone. All right, your calls are next, 800-525-7000. By the way, you can call that number 24-7. I'm Rob West and this is Faith and Finance Live.

Stick around. Well, it's great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live. I'm Rob West. It's time to take your calls and questions today on anything financial. We'd love to hear from you at lines open. Len standing by today to receive your call at 800-525-7000. That's 800-525-7000. You can call right now. Let's dive in. We're going to begin today in Tampa, Florida. Fred, thank you for calling, sir.

How can we help? Hello, how are you? I'm doing well. Thanks.

Good to hear. Hey, was just a number of questions, some very general, but what is the average that you would want to retire at 65 with all of our monthly expenses about 3,000 a month? What should we have in the bank to retire on? Yeah, so you're looking for a number and general rule of thumb for that would be, and don't let this catch you off guard because if you're not anywhere close to this, we can talk about kind of how you move forward from here, but a general rule of thumb would be 10 to 12 times your income. And the idea behind that is to say, okay, if you have 10 times your income, let's say you were making $60,000 a year, that would mean you need to have 600,000 in the bank and that would throw off at a 4% withdrawal rate, $24,000 a year. Okay, so that would allow you to pull 2,000 a month. Now you might say, well, if you were making 60,000 a year, that's 5,000 a month.

You're only talking about pulling two and that's right. There's two other factors here. The second factor is Social Security, which for most folks, it was intended to make up no more than 40% of your pre-retirement income, but that would add, let's say, another two to 3,000 a month between you and your spouse. And then the third factor is that most people live on 70 to 80% of their pre-retirement income. So if they were living on 5,000 a month, 70% of that is 3,500 a month. If they live on the full 80% of that, that's 4,000 a month. But the idea is that 10 times your income at 4% withdrawal rate plus retirement plus the fact that you're living on 80% of your income because your house is now paid off maybe and your kids are off the payroll and you drop your life insurance and you're not eating out at lunch during the workday. Your expenses have dropped and that's a general ballpark toward how most folks approach this. Now, the variables are maybe you live on less than 80% of your pre-retirement income. Secondly, maybe you haven't saved 10 times your income so you're working longer. Maybe you work past 65 and do a couple of things. Number one, you need to save in a tax-deferred environment like a retirement plan so it has more time for the compounding growth to work for you. And for every year you wait beyond full retirement age to take Social Security, that's increasing by 8% a year. So there are of course some levers you can pull to modify this, but that would at least be a starting point if you look at just kind of a general rule of thumb. Does that make sense though, Fred?

It does. What tax planning could be done now that would help in the future when we do retire? I've been watching a couple of shows and I'm hearing a lot of tax planning now and not quite sure what to make of all that. Yeah, I mean for the average person who's not in a high income bracket or doesn't have a lot of assets or with appreciated real estate or big appreciated stock outside of a retirement plan, we don't have to get terribly creative in the sense that most people, their tax strategy is to save in a tax-deferred environment or better yet, save in a tax-free environment through a Roth IRA or a Roth 401k so that as you're saving during your working years, that money is growing either tax-deferred or tax-free so then you're pulling it out hopefully in a lower income status and therefore paying lower taxes in retirement and then in the traditional form, you pull it out and pay tax on it as you take a distribution or in the case of the Roth IRA or 401k, all that growth is now being taken out tax-free.

There are other options. For instance, you could do what's called a charitable gift annuity. Some folks will do that where they'll take an asset, give it away to a ministry in exchange for a lifetime payout of income with some tax advantages and then what remains at death goes to that ministry. There are other strategies using donor advised funds that allow you to give but to take an asset and give it away before you sell it and then reduce your capital gains to create more giving opportunities.

There are things you can do but for the average person I think we don't have to overcomplicate it. I think the big idea is for your working years, you just want to try to get as much as you can up to what's an appropriate savings goal. I don't want you to over accumulate.

This is not about the mindless accumulation of wealth but whatever is an appropriate savings level for you after prayer and consideration about how much is enough, that needs to be done in the tax-deferred company sponsored retirement plan or IRA or both because that's going to give you the most tax advantage while you're saving and it keeps the taxes from putting a drag on the investment returns during your accumulation phase. Right. Well, we've been stuffing a fair amount in 401k both myself and my wife. We're not mass accumulation just to mass accumulate but we have seen my mom go through cancer and how that ate at my dad's finances.

He returned from the Navy, he still has. He did a good job of eating up finances over four and a half years. So we wanted to make sure we were going to be ready for that.

Yeah. Well, another consideration there and I'm glad you brought that up Fred and I'm sorry to hear what your dad has been walking through with your mom but long-term care insurance can be another vehicle there because you're right. If something is going to erode your assets in that season of life beyond just normal living expenses, it's most often going to be the need for long-term care and 70% of Americans 65 and older will need long-term care usually somewhere between two and three years and that's expensive. Full nursing care can run you nine or ten thousand dollars a month now and so if you can afford it, if you can fit it into the budget and that's a big if, just been on your age and your health status and so forth, getting that somewhere around age 60 could provide a daily benefit for a period of time to be able to step in and compensate you or help you pay the cost of long-term care if either of you can't perform a certain number of those activities of daily living and you know that can be a great assistance to offset that risk that you're describing there that can be really challenging for folks. My dad had five thousand, it would pay up five thousand a month but when all this happened as you mentioned the costs were seven, eight, nine thousand a month. So there was that difference between a gap there and that's why having somebody who really specializes in evaluating these policies, helping you understand what you're getting, helping you understand the gap between the daily benefit that would be paid out and what might need to be paid out for skilled care and how you're going to accomplish that and what savings goals you need to have to cover that or whether you need to get a more robust policy with a bigger benefit paid out on a daily basis. So all of those things come down to wise and prudent planning, having good godly counsel and just saving diligently and limiting your lifestyle to the best of your ability. Well, Fred, it sounds like you're asking all the right questions.

Perhaps a Certified Kingdom Advisor could be helpful to you as you think through all of this and do some planning around retirement. You can find one at our website, faithfi.com. Just click Find a CKA. God bless you, my friend. Thanks for calling. We'll be right back. Well great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live.

I'm Rob West and on behalf of the amazing team that makes this possible each day, we're so glad you're along with us today. Here's our hope and promise to you. We want to be hopeful and encouraging, help you to be a wise and faithful steward of what God has entrusted to you. But we also want to really help you make practical decisions. You know, handling God's money faithfully is about wise decision making.

You know, all the answers aren't there in God's Word, but we do see principles and themes and big ideas that I think we can apply to our daily financial decisions. We want to help you do that here on this program. It looks like just about every line is full. There might be room for one more question at this moment.

800-525-7000. Hey, before we head back to the phones, let me just remind you as well that Faith and Finance Live is listener supported, which just simply means that we rely on your listener support financially to bring you this broadcast every day and all the other great resources we provide to help you in your stewardship journey. So if you would consider a gift of any amount, we'd be grateful. Just go to faithfi.com. That's faithfi.com and just click give thanks in advance. All right, back to the phones we go.

We're going to my hometown, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Hi, Sarah. Go right ahead.

Yes. Hi, Rob. First of all, I want to say to you, this is terrific ministry. I listen to you every day and you're my financial therapy. Oh, that's very kind.

I don't know that I've ever been called a therapist before, but I'll take it, Sarah. Yeah, so I'm on disability and I heard you say at 65, they're going to cut it off. I'm now 60. Do I should I break myself for decreased income?

Yeah. So what happens there is once you reach age 62, you can apply to receive benefits based on your work record. Of course, the longer you wait, the greater your money monthly benefit would be all the way up to age 70. And so if you are, you know, so when we're talking benefits here, the Social Security Administration will then look at how much you'll receive based on your work record and compare that to your disability benefits and then give you the larger of the two. So it's in your best interest, Sarah, if you still qualify for disability benefits to stay right where you're at and allow your work record benefits to continue to grow. OK, so brace myself at 65 to switch over. No, you would have the ability to allow those benefits based on your work record to continue to grow all the way to age 70.

And they will grow if you don't take them. So once you take your benefits, you're going to lock in your benefit amount at that level. And then the Social Security Administration will look at what's the higher of the two. But if you delay taking those benefits and you continue to earn Social Security disability, then it's going to continue to grow and perhaps get to a level where, you know, it's at least the same amount or, you know, you possibly even are earning more.

OK, thank you. OK, listen, you might be helpful for you to call the Social Security Administration, set up maybe an in-person or a telephonic meeting and just go over your record and have them explain to you what benefits are available to you today, what benefits will be coming to you if you take it at 66, your full retirement age, if you wait till 70, and then you'll know what those numbers are. I don't want you to be guessing.

I want you to have real, you know, concrete facts based on your particular record. So I would go to the Social Security Administration, SSA dot gov and schedule a meeting so they can explain all of that to you. And then you'll know exactly what you should be expecting. Thanks for your call today. We appreciate it. Pina is in Spring Hill, Florida. Pina, I know you called yesterday. We weren't able to get you on. So I'm delighted you called us back. How can I help you?

Yes. Thank you for calling, taking my call. And God bless you.

And I'm a fan of your program. I want information about a reverse mortgage. My older sister, she's now over 80. When they bought the house, they went into a reverse mortgage. Her husband passed. And I don't think she has any, I guess if she can save it, save the house.

That's the question. I want to know if it can be saved the house. And if she can't, can a sibling can do that? Okay. Did you say can she stay in the house? Well, I know that she, what I hear, she can stay until she passed. Yes, absolutely. But after that, can a sibling take over? So the house don't get taken, you know? Yes. Now, what would happen is, at that point, once she passes, then the amount that they paid out to her, you know, through the reverse mortgage would need to be paid back.

And so whoever inherits that house would then either have to satisfy that amount in order to keep the house by writing a check or getting their own mortgage or sell it and then cover the amount that's owed to the reverse mortgage company, you know, at that time. Does that make sense? Yes. Can she do it while she's alive? No. Can she pay off? Yes. So the person who got the reverse mortgage, can they pay it off?

Yes, absolutely. So that it can be paid back and she could get it back to where she owns it free and clear. But as long as she's taking a reverse mortgage, there is an amount that's growing over time with interest that's going to be that must be paid back when you die or move from the home. And it's possible to use up all of the equity so that, you know, eventually you would get the person inheriting the home would get nothing. The estate would get nothing when the house is sold if she uses it all up. But as long as she keeps the the homeowners insurance and property taxes paid, she can stay there as long as she wants. But that amount is going to have to be repaid, you know, by her estate, you know, at her death or by her if she moves and sells the home.

If you it sounds like you're interested in this for yourself, if you wanted to get more information, our great partners at Movement Mortgage do offer reverse mortgages and they could walk you through just a better understanding of how these things work. They're national lenders and they share our values. And so we have high trust there. You can get more information at movement.com forward slash faith. That's movement.com forward slash faith.

Thanks for calling Pina. We'll be right back on Faith and Finance Live. I'm grateful you joined us today for Faith and Finance Live. I'm Rob West. We have lines open today.

Eight hundred five to five seven thousand. If you have a financial question, we'd love to hear from you. Let's head right back to the phones. We're going to head to Oklahoma City. Hi, David.

Go ahead. Yeah, we know that the first let me say I love your show and it really helps. We know that the earth is the Lord and the fullness thereof. And we know that it's not our money. It's his money and we're just stewards of it. Reading Leviticus lately, I saw where if we redeem back a part of the tithe, we are supposed to add a fifth to it when we give it back. And if we go, let's say, several months without paying the tithe because we're taking care of bills and everything else, does that all have to be redeemed? And if I wasn't paid tithe for 10 years, do I have to go back and pay that?

And I just realized that we tithe on our gross, not our net. So I mean, do I do I am I responsible for all that under the law, but we're not under the law? Should I just ask the Lord to forgive me because it was a sin to withhold that? Yeah. And because I know he's faithful just to forgive.

What do you think? Yeah, it's a great question, David. So I think this is a personal conviction. My personal conviction would be that we're no longer under the Old Testament law. And therefore, the fine print of the law that you're describing there and in Leviticus, you know, and obviously, we see even references to the tithe before the Mosaic law with Melchizedek.

But I would say, you know, when Jesus came, basically what we would look to as New Testament believers, those who have seen the cross and trusted in Christ for the forgiveness of sin, I think we would look to Christ in terms of how he described our giving. And I don't see where he commands us to give a tenth. Instead, yes, he references it, but he describes our giving as firstfruits.

He describes it as proportionate. He describes it as being given freely and cheerfully. He does, I believe, raise the bar in the sense that he says to whom much is given, much is required. He, of course, celebrates the most famous giver in the New Testament, which was a widow.

We don't know her name, but she gave out of her poverty. So clearly, we should be giving. But I like the tithe, for me at least, as a meaningful guideline, perhaps a starting point for systematic and proportionate giving.

But I don't think God is an accountant. And it's really not about a legalistic gesture. It's about giving out of a heart posture of worship and out of an overflow of just gratitude to God for what he has given to us, most namely the gift of his son that we might have eternal life by placing our trust in the shed blood of Jesus and ultimately his resurrection, that we should be looking to increase our giving over time, in part because we want to be partnered with God where he's at work. But for me, it's not about checking a box or complying with an Old Testament law. I think that misses the bigger idea that Jesus was trying to share with us about our role in being stewards, the potential, the deceitfulness of riches, and how money can compete with our affections for God.

And we need to hold it loosely. We need to live with contentment. And I think part of the way we overcome the potential for money to occupy a place in our life it was never intended to as a tool.

Ultimately, it's supposed to be a tool, not an end, but a means to an end. One of the ways we do that is through our generosity. But for me, and this is my conviction, David, that would just be a recognition that we want to be regular and proportionate givers, but we're not trying to necessarily go back and square up with God what we need to send because it all belongs to him anyway, and ultimately he's about our hearts. So I would say take that back to the Lord in prayer. You and your wife think through it, pray through it, and decide how the Lord would lead you. But for me, I would say it's not a matter of kind of quote-unquote truing up your obligation to the Lord because we're not under the Old Testament law anymore, and it's really just about a heart posture of cheerful proportionate giving moving forward.

Is that helpful? Yeah, it really is, because, you know, for years I didn't tithe because I wasn't walking where I was supposed to. The last two years, you know, I mean, I'm just like, oh my gosh, God loves me, and I just can't believe he loves me. And so now it's like I walk, I try to walk in the Spirit, I read my Bible every day, I talk to him every day, he's turning into my best friend again like he was when my child read. And I just want to give so much that, you know, it's like, I don't care if I pay these bills, let me give this to my Lord. And every time I do that, he gives back more than enough to pay the bills on time. And it's just so good. And I look over my life, I'm 67, I'm never going to quit working because I enjoy it so much.

My house is almost paid off, I could retire if I want to, but I don't want to. And he keeps me in good health, so it's like, God is so good. You know?

And I just can't get out of that. But yeah, I really enjoy your show, and this has been weighing on my heart the last couple of days, and you really help. Well, I appreciate that. And I appreciate your testimony today. I'm confident, David, that you were just an encouragement with what you shared just now. And I'm delighted to hear about your walk with the Lord and how it's deepening, and that relationship that you have with the Father, and how you are wanting just to be generous as an overflow and an expression of your gratitude to God for who he is and what he's done, and the abundance that we have in him, that he alone is enough. And yet, as a part of that, part of good stewardship is to meet your obligations and, you know, care for those that are, you know, your loved ones. And so you put all of that together, and I think that requires us then to walk by faith, which is the ultimate objective. You know, God doesn't give us all the answers. He wants us to really navigate this road. And I think finances is one of those training grounds of the heart that allows us to work out our faith on a daily basis.

And it sounds like that's exactly what you're doing. So listen, you've been an encouragement to me, David. I'm delighted that you're on the program. I'm so thankful for your kind remarks and call back any time. God bless you, sir.

Let's go to Illinois. Hi, Barbara. Go ahead. Yeah. Thanks for taking my call. I have a problem. Well, it's not a problem.

It's just I just need advice. I'm a I'm a widow. And what I have, we have three children. They're, you know, they're, I'm in the right 80s. So therefore, they're in their 50s and 60s. And the two older are doing well. The younger is not. And so over the years, my husband and I have given him money when he needed it.

And we've never done that to the other two. And so I'm just concerned when there comes to the dividing of the estate, if that should be what that should look like. Yes.

Well, it's a great question. And it's one that a lot of folks wrestle with. And I think the starting point is to recognize that, you know, one of your primary responsibilities is this idea of, you know, is the next steward chosen and prepared? And you need to consider kind of where they're at spiritually, financially, just in terms of maturity, and what a gift would do to either accelerate poor decision making and financial decision making as well as lifestyle to the extent they're not pursuing the Lord.

And could that gift actually, you know, take them further away from God. And so just thinking through what's the worst thing that can happen and, and really considering that fully. But let's do this. I've got to take a break. I'd like to help you kind of think through this and where you go from here. So if I'm going to ask you to just hold the line, and we'll pick this conversation up on the other side. We'll be right back on Faith and Finance Live.

Stay with us. So glad to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live here in our final segment of the broadcast today. We're going to go back to the call we had with Barbara in Illinois. Just before the break Barbara was sharing with us. She is a widow. She's a mom of three adult children, two of them doing really well financially, one not doing so well. And she and her husband, and now she continues to help this child financially along the way. And she's just wondering, how do I approach that as I think about an inheritance and my wealth transfer?

And should I be deducting that amount as I, you know, make my decisions around giving? And I think the big principle here that I learned from my friend Ron Blue in the book Splitting Heirs, and by the way, Barbara, I'm going to send you a copy of that book. It's called Splitting Heirs, giving your money and things to your children without ruining their lives.

So you stay on the line after we're done here. But the principle he shares in this book, Barbara, is or one of them among many, is that if you love your children equally, you will treat them uniquely. And here's what he means by that he recognizes, and he and Judy, his wife in their own wealth transfer, which has changed the decisions on inheritance have changed over time, they recognize there's different needs.

And God doesn't treat us all the same. And he evaluated at different stages in life, the needs of his children, and they made their estate plans accordingly. So one child was, you know, an attorney and doing well, it didn't need a lot. Another was, you know, had gone through a divorce and was a single mom and, you know, had more in the way of financial needs. And so they according, you know, constructed their estate plan accordingly. So I think, you know, you are the steward, and your final stewardship decision is to choose the next steward and prepare them. But part of that is a discernment question around what are truly their needs?

What is the trajectory of their life? And how can money be a blessing and not a curse? And I don't think you need to automatically unless you just have a conviction to do this, and that's your call, you don't need to automatically assume that everybody needs to get the same amount. So then, once you look at that, you would make that decision to either, you know, give more to one child. And by the way, the one who's doing the worst financially may not be the one you give the most to because again, you may decide that that's going to lead him or her down a path, you know, further away from the Lord or into to more poor financial decision making.

And so that's a decision you have to make. And then after you make those decisions, then I think you need to come back and say, okay, based on the decisions I made on how I want to divide my estate, and how I can make sure that, you know, they're prepared for the money that they would receive, regardless of how much, how do I want to account for any assistance that has taken place during their lifetime? Do I want to just treat that as a part of how I was blessing one child who was in need, and I'm not going to factor that in at death? Or do I want to somehow account for that by, you know, withholding a portion to kind of make up for that? I don't think there's a right or wrong answer there. I think you just need to consider that as a part of the overall consideration.

The last thing I'll say, and then I want to hear your thoughts, is to the extent there continues to be a financial need with this one child that has had financial struggles, I would just challenge you to prayerfully consider whether you are actually helping by giving financial assistance. Or is it possible you need to exercise some tough love because you're in some way perpetuating their poor financial decision making or, you know, their hunger to go out and work and earn what they need or perhaps spending more than they've earned because you're coming in and bailing them out and whether the very best thing you could do would be to say, you know what, I love you and I want to help you in certain times and in certain ways, but I'm no longer just going to give you a handout because I just don't think it's helping the situation. Now, I've thrown a lot at you there, Barbara, so give me your thoughts. Yes. Do you have thoughts on that? Well, yeah, because, okay, so another thing, so then do I share this with them so that like, you know, after I'm gone, they won't say, Oh, really, you know, I mean, I think it's important that they know what I'm doing. I think you're right. I agree. I think it's important to have that conversation with your children so they understand your decision-making process and there are no surprises and you can express your heart to them in why you've done what you've done. And I think that's a good thing.

And that's addressed in this book as well. But I would communicate that. So I think your next step is really just to first of all, just take a step back and pray and just say, Lord, what should I be doing right now with regard to the child that continues to be in financial need? And do I need to make a change? Could I be perpetuating poor behavior in terms of financial wisdom and decision-making? And then secondly, how should I handle this last stewardship decision I'm going to make on who the next steward is? First of all, should I be giving some or all of it away to ministries doing the work in the name of Jesus? And to the extent you decide to leave an inheritance, how should it be divided? And I would go child by child and say, how could this be a blessing to them?

And what's the worst thing that could happen if they get X dollars? You fill in the blank and really think and pray through that with discernment and then decide how much you want to leave to each one. And then I think, yes, the last step is communicating that. OK, very good.

All right. Now, listen, I want you to... I've been worrying about this for a while. Well, I don't want you to worry anymore. I hope you're a reader because I'm sending you a book. So I want you to stay on the line and we're going to get your information. And in a few days, you're going to get a package in the mail from me here at Faith and Finance, and it's going to have a book called Splitting Airs.

And I'm going to pray that as you read the words of my good friend Ron Blue, that that will be a further encouragement to you and it'll give you some help in these decisions you've been wrestling with. So stay on the line. We'll get your information. Thanks for your call today.

Let's go to Georgia. Hey, Mike, thanks for calling. Go ahead. Yes. Thank you, Rob.

Thank you for taking my call. I'm a 56 year old retired teacher, but I'm working as a part time job right now. I've got no debt and I'm drawing my teacher retirement, but I've got twenty eight thousand six hundred dollars in a 403 B and it's in a fixed account right now. And I didn't know whether I should be putting that into the stock market or whether I can and when how to go about doing that, if I should. Yeah, so you said you are retired, but you're working part time and you said you in this 403 B of twenty three thousand. Twenty eight thousand, yes, twenty eight thousand. OK. And so would you expect to have to touch this in the next 10 years or or would you just continue to live on your teacher's retirement plus any side income you pull in? That's right. Yeah, I wouldn't need this money anytime soon.

OK. Yeah. Then I would get invested because keep in mind, even once you reach retirement, I mean, once you reach age 65 as a male in this country, your life expectancy is 83. If you're in good health, Lord Terry's, you might need this money to last decades. So putting it in that stable account is probably going to end up just losing purchasing power because of inflation.

You're not really growing it. So I would probably roll it to an IRA and just put it in some high quality mutual funds, either some faith based investing funds like you'll find on our website at faith by dot com, you know, like Eventide or Guidestone or Praxis or one ascent or, you know, a robo adviser that she's going to use an indexed approach to investing like the Schwab intelligent portfolios or even our friends at sound mind investing dot org. Any of those could help you with a smaller amount, which, you know, twenty thousand is less than what you would need to have an adviser manage it actively.

But I like the idea of you being in a in a balanced portfolio with a mix of stocks and bonds with the goal of saying, hey, what could it look like for this twenty eight thousand, you know, to be one hundred thousand down the road? And maybe you're even adding to this IRA as long as you have earned income, you could continue to contribute to it if you had some surplus just to continue to build up a nest egg that you might need to tap into down the road for medical expenses or something like that. OK, and how would I go about getting the IRA? So you would you would just have to decide where you want to custody the IRA. So are you going to open it at Charles Schwab? Are you going to open it at Fidelity? And wherever you decide, you go online, you'd open a traditional IRA and then you'd contact your plan administrator who handles the four or three B and you'd say, I want to surrender paperwork to roll this over.

That's the key. You're not taking a distribution. You want to roll it over to your IRA. They'll give you a form or you fill it out electronically. You put in the account number of your new IRA and the custodian and then they'll just send the money, you know, through the eight cat system.

And and then, you know, a few days later it would just show up as cash in your IRA and then you'd need to invest it at that point. All right, great. Thank you. God bless. All right. Absolutely. Thanks, Mike. We appreciate it. Let's see quickly to Maureen.

We'll finish in Edwardsville, Illinois. Go ahead. Hello. I have an HSA account that's been frozen since I went on Medicare, because once, of course, once you go on Medicare, you can no longer contribute to an HSA. I'm 70 years old. I'm still working. And it's bugging me that that this money is not a lot of money. It's only about $16,000 is all I have in there.

But it's not really gaining any anything but really small interest. So I want to know how I can invest it outside of the bank where it where it is, if I can just withdraw money from it and do my own investing. Yeah, you would want to leave it in there and invest it inside the HSA because, you know, there are benefits to having that HSA money. Past age 65, you have some additional options with regard to how that money can be used. And, you know, especially if you use that for, you know, health care expenses down the road, it could be a great resource to you with with obviously a lot of tax advantages. So what I would do is if your bank that's holding that HSA doesn't offer the ability to invest it, I would just look at at transferring it to an HSA with another institution, like HSA bank or any number, you could go to NerdWallet.com or just do an internet search for, you know, the best HSA, you know, providers, and you'll see a list of them.

There's some great ones out there and they offer a lot of flexibilities in terms of your investment options. And then once you pick that HSA provider, you transfer the HSA over and then at that point you could start investing it and let that thing grow and it'll be a great tool to supplement your retirement assets specifically for healthcare. So that's where I would go. I just get it out of where you currently have it. Thanks for your call, Maureen.

I hope that's helpful. We appreciate you calling today. Well, folks, on behalf of my amazing team, Amy Rios, our producer, and Tahira, who was also producing today as well as Lynn and Jim, couldn't do this without them. I'm Rob West. Faith and Finance is a partnership between Mooney Radio and Faith Buy. See you tomorrow.