Financial & Spiritual Lessons for Kids

For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? Mark 8, 36.

I am Rob West. Christian parents should teach their children God's time-tested and true financial principles, but they shouldn't ignore the spiritual principles that accompany wise money management. I'll talk about that first 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, we've talked many times about the importance of teaching your kids biblical financial principles, starting as early as possible. Today, we'll go over those age-appropriate lessons along with some spiritual principles that go hand in hand. We think that grasping the spiritual principles will make your child more likely to follow the financial.

So let's get started. Maybe as early as age three, and certainly by age five, you can introduce the idea that buying things requires money. That's a simple concept, and it's followed by the idea that you have to earn money, and that means work. The first spiritual lesson that you must teach, then, is that God created everything. Genesis 1 1 reads, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Next, that God owns everything. Psalm 24 1 says the earth is the Lord's and everything in it, the world and all who live in it. And that work is a good thing, a gift from God given to us before the fall of man.

Genesis 2 15 tells us the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. Also, at this early age, you can begin to teach your children the importance of gratitude, and that we should always thank God for his blessings. First Thessalonians 5 18 teaches, In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. Now, once a child reaches age five or so, you can begin to introduce the basic concept of budgeting.

The three-jar method works great for this. Money received from an allowance or birthday or Christmas gifts can be divided equally between jars for saving, spending, and giving. The spiritual principles here are that it's wise to save because we don't know what the future will bring and that we should be generous. Proverbs 6 6 through 8 teaches, Go to the ant, consider her ways, and be wise.

Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest. And of course Hebrews 13 16 tells us, Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God. Okay, when your kids reach nine or ten, they're ready to learn more about the necessity of earning money and that work itself is a gift from God.

Deuteronomy 8 18 says, Remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth. You can give them opportunities to do that around the house. If a chore isn't done, the allowance is withheld until it is. Second Thessalonians 3 10 teaches, If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. Now from ages 10 to 15, you can expand on the idea of working to earn by giving your kids the chance to earn greater amounts for doing more difficult chores, such as babysitting or mowing the lawn. You can also help them set savings goals.

You can even set up a custodial account for them at the bank or set them up on the Faithfi app. The spiritual principle here is fairness. First Timothy 5 18 reads, You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain and the laborer deserves his wages. In this 10 to 15 range, you can also have children decide on a ministry they'd like to give to teach them to tithe to your local church, but let them choose where they'd like to give beyond that. Raising faithful tithers and generous givers, what more could you want as a parent?

Deuteronomy 15 10 tells us you shall give to him freely and your heart shall not be grudging when you give to him because for this, the Lord your God will bless you and all your work and in all that you undertake. Now we come to ages 16 to 18. At this stage, children are able to work outside the home and earn more money than they can around the house. So emphasize the importance of sticking to a budget so they can save and meet their goals, which by this time should be for things like a car or saving a certain amount for college. And that brings us to investing again with a custodial account or an app. Let teenagers decide which stock or stocks they'd like to buy, probably infractional shares. Proverbs 21 5 teaches the plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty.

You want to teach these financial and spiritual principles to your kids at the appropriate times so they're ready to take on the responsibility of managing money on their own and doing it wisely. All right, your calls are next 800-525-7000. We'll be right back. 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. Let's turn the corner 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. We'd love to hear from you today. As we started today, we were talking about financial and spiritual lessons for kids. You know, as we think about preparing future adults, yes, they need financial literacy. They need to understand the dangers of debt, what it means to work as unto the Lord with diligence and excellence. They need to understand the power of compounding for you in the form of investing and against you in the form of compound interest on credit cards and other debt. They need to understand how to live within their means. I mean, those are critical skills, but there's also this dual track, this other track that we need to also educate them on the spiritual principles around money, starting with God owning it all and that we're stewards, that our goal is faithfulness to opportunity and that we will give an account, and that if something's going to compete with God for first position in our lives, we're most often going to allow money and greed and materialism and covetousness to really fill that void. Unfortunately, money will never satisfy. It's a gift from God.

He created it to be a blessing, a tool to accomplish his purposes. We should enjoy it, but we should give it generously. When we understand these ideas and we put them together with the financial literacy, then we're fully formed and prepared to handle God's money as a faithful steward, not without trials and challenges. We'll have those, but at least prepared to make wise decisions. And that's our goal here on this program each day.

What are you thinking about financially? Let's talk about it. 800-525-7000. That's 800-525-7000.

All right, let's begin in Westfield, Indiana, WGNR. Hi, Marie. Go ahead. Hi, Rob. Thanks so much for taking my call. Yes, ma'am. So my question is that my husband's 401k with his former employer was through Vanguard, and when he left that company to a new one, we just took that and just rolled it, kept it in Vanguard, didn't move it or anything, you know, save on fees, et cetera, et cetera.

And it's been a long time, 20 years or so, and it's always performed pretty well and so forth. But I recently learned that Vanguard, BlackRock, State Street, those are the big ones that hold the most capital and that they're using that capital to promote the globalist agenda, which I've been trying to educate myself on and have been learning a lot, and it's not good. And I vehemently oppose it, that agenda, the globalist agenda. And so, you know, I mentioned to my husband that, you know, I know that essentially when you have 401ks and so forth, it's not really your money. It's like you've loaned it to them, and then that's how you get interest back, so to speak. And so they're using our money for their nefarious purposes, which I'm not interested. You know, like we want our money to grow, yes, but not at the expense.

I'm not going to sell my soul for it. So I'm wondering if you know of some good investment companies that will still provide a good return on investment, but that's not part of that agenda. And then the second part of my question, when I was researching on my own, I came across a new company that was started in 2022 by, I can't say his name, but he's a Republican presidential candidate, Vic Ramasheh, I'm not saying Ramaswamy, Ramaswamy, thank you. He started one with somebody last year called Strive, and it's only a year old, but he already has a billion in assets. And so I didn't know if that, if you know something about it or if that's worth moving, we're definitely getting out of Vanguard.

We just don't know where to go. Yeah, very good. Well, the good news here, Marie, is that you have more opportunity than ever to align your values with your investments. And I think that comes down to really three big ideas when it comes to what we call faith based investing.

Number one is alignment. And that alignment has to do with either negative or positive screens. So a negative screen would be you're excluding companies that are misaligned with your values. So you're screening them out. They're no longer a part of the universe of investments that would be considered as a potential investment for your capital because they've been eliminated because either their primary business activities in violation of your values, you know, think a company that makes, you know, produces alcohol or, you know, any we can use any number of things. So that would be a negative screen. And then there's positive screens where they actually intentionally include companies in the universe of possible investments because their business activities are promoting human flourishing or maybe even seeking a kingdom impact.

I mean, you might invest in a particular solar company that has intentionally said we will only use, you know, supply chain that does not use any kind of slave labor, which is notorious in some parts of the world with regard to solar in terms of the manufacturing process. So that would be a positive screen where you'd screen companies in. And by the way, that adds additional value as they do that.

So that would be one aspect. The other is what we call corporate engagement, where you would actually take your ownership position as a percentage owner through the ownership of shares of a company. And you would both vote proxies. So you have the ability to weigh in on corporate resolutions and shareholder proposals through the proxy voting process and even not only ask questions during those shareholder meetings, which is open to anyone, whether or not they'll entertain your questions, another thing.

But you should have that option. And then you can also, you know, actually submit proposals as a shareholder to be considered on the ballot when it comes to a shareholder meeting. Well, that's all a part of corporate engagement, which, you know, it sounds like would be very much aligned with what you're looking to do as you want to make an impact.

You know, as we think about the various impacts we can make in our culture, I mean, yes, we can show up in the ballot box and vote, and that's critical. And we, you know, some will choose to boycott certain companies because of their practices away from their core business when they tend to get too political. But another often overlooked way that you can express your values is through shareholder engagement. And all too often, Christians have been absent from the boardroom in that way. And what's exciting is that's coming back right into the fold and we're seeing a lot more corporate engagement, which makes a real difference.

And we're already seeing that play out. I could give you a lot of examples of where that's happening. So where do you go from here? Well, if your current investments are misaligned because they're not applying, you know, either the screens positively or negatively and there's not any shareholder engagement going on aligned with your values, then what I would suggest you do is look to replace those investments with faith based investing fund families. And you could find many of them on our website at faithfi.com. Just click on the show and you'll see the fund families like Eventide, Guidestone, Lightpoint Portfolios, One Ascent. You know, these are all Praxis faith based investing fund families that will do both the corporate engagement as well as the positive and negative screens.

And then you could just choose one of the discount brokerages to house the money like a Fidelity or Schwab. So that's what I would do next is begin to research these companies at faithfi.com and then just click on the show and you can start to learn more as you visit their websites. Stay on the line. We'll talk a bit more off the air. We'll be right back. Well, it's great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live. I'm Rob West.

I've got a few lines open, 800-525-7000. Before the break, we were talking to Marie and Marie is joined by her husband. We were talking about, you know, they're just not comfortable with the investments that they have. The particular fund family, in their case, they're with Vanguard. They feel like they've moved away from their values as investors, as shareholders and, you know, toward something that's really not reflective of what they want to be invested in largely in the ESG movement. And as I was sharing before the break, there's a great opportunity now to be more aligned with your values through faith-based investing.

It's really less about the custodian. I think you could use a Schwab or a Fidelity, but really more about either a specific advisor who has the ability to bring those types of investments through screening positive and negative and corporate engagement to the table, either in selecting individual stocks and bonds, or by investing in mutual funds, or by going directly to those fund families, many of which are listed on our website at faithfi.com. But give me your thoughts on that. So I have a financial advisor now. Okay. Who I found through, he's been, I've been friends with him for years for a Bible study. Sure.

He's very confident. So I'd be able to use that financial advisor who's on a platform. Yeah. And use him to go through those funds you mentioned on your website.

You sure could. And I think the question is, I mean, there's many great financial advisors who are committed Christ followers who love the Lord and are providing a great service to their clients that still use traditional investments. And that's okay. I mean, I think it really comes down to what is the conviction of the client? I think this is a conviction matter. Romans 13, let each one be fully convinced. I wouldn't say, you know, by investing in one company over another, it's your sinning.

I mean, that's not my perspective on it. My perspective is each and you know, investor, each Christ follower is a part of their stewardship responsibility has to before the Lord come to their own personal convictions. And this is a conscience matter. But if your conviction is that you want to deploy capital through the secondary market, investing in companies that are only aligned with your values in terms of their primary business activities and perhaps what they do with their corporate profits in terms of things that they might promote or support, you have the opportunity to do that today, whereas you didn't maybe five years ago in the same way. The question is, does that advisor offer that kind of investment strategy that is specifically faith based?

Many of them even believing advisors don't. So you would need to find an advisor that can, you know, select from the faith based investing fund families or if he or she is going to do it directly that they have the ability through, you know, the software that's out there today to make those selections where they're able to screen out certain companies screen in others, and they have that a part of their investing offering. So I think that's just a conversation you need to have with the advisor.

And if he can, great, then I think you're right where you need to be. Yeah, well, thank you very much. I appreciate that. Well, you're welcome. And I appreciate your call today.

Perhaps you refer him to our website just to look at a few of these fun families. The really exciting thing is an often folks who don't understand this space will say, Yeah, I don't know if we want to do that, because we're going to give up the returns in order to invest with our values. Well, if that were true, you may still want to do it. But the good news is the data the research says, you absolutely don't have to do that. I mean, these are world class award winning investments that in many cases are outperforming their peers, and they're employing a kingdom lens, if you will, in terms of the company selections, and the even the proxy voting and engagement.

So you can invest with your values, and you can get a great return. And I think ultimately, that's what a lot of Christians are coming to the conclusion on. But we appreciate your call. Thanks for being on the program today to both of you.

800-525-7000 to Minnesota. Hey, Jim, go ahead. Say my wife and I retired two years ago, I moved all of my 401k into an IRA, combined it with my traditional IRA. I have a small amount in a Roth IRA. I'm wondering if it's a good idea to slowly convert the traditional IRA to a Roth.

Yeah, so here's the thing. I mean, the Roth really shines when you have a lot of time on your side for it to grow tax free on a compounded basis, and where you believe that you the taxes in the future will be higher than they are today. Now, oftentimes, you drop down in terms of your tax bracket in retirement, because you're earning less you have less, less adjusted gross income because, you know, pre retirement, you're in the peak of your earning years paying perhaps the higher tax brackets, you'd you go into retirement, now you're living on passive income, so you know, dividends and, you know, Social Security, and then maybe your withdrawals from your IRA, but you know, perhaps you're living on less because your mortgage is paid off and the kids are off the payroll and so therefore you're paying less tax. Now, the variable there the wildcard, if you will, is what's going to happen with tax rates in the future? Well, they're likely if going if they're going anywhere, they're probably going higher, because we know that Trump Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is going to expire in 2025 unless a new administration continues it. We probably aren't going to see rates lower than they are today.

They're probably going up, if anything. So, you know, I think that's the consideration is whether or not you want the current year deduction with new contributions and tax deferred growth paying taxes later, or in the case of a conversion, are you better off, you know, paying the tax now and then, you know, letting it grow? Now, did you say you're still working or are you fully retired?

Fully retired two years ago. Okay, so what would you be looking for out of this? Are you looking for avoiding the required minimum? Are you just looking for the tax-free growth? What's your primary objective and why you'd go ahead and pay the tax now? I think tax-free growth. Yeah, because right now the taxes aren't providing a drag on the returns, because you're in a tax-deferred environment and you're going to pay taxes at some point. So the question is, are the tax rates going to be higher in the future than they are today?

It's probably a good chance that they are. So I like that idea of you perhaps converting some of it. I would just be, you know, the key I think Jim is to work with your CPA on this, because you wouldn't want to do too much in one year and push yourself up into a higher bracket without intending to do so. Stay on the line. We'll be right back. 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 today. We've got some lines open.

800-525-7000 to James in Kansas. Go ahead. Yes, sir. I got some shares from Home Depot and I just don't know what to do with them. Well, in terms of whether to just continue to hold them or whether to sell them, is that just what you're trying to decide here? Yes, sir. It would be best to go talk to a financial advisor.

It would. I mean, here's just kind of the general rule I'll give you. I can't weigh in on whether to buy or sell a particular holding, but what I can say is a couple of rules of thumb. Number one is we want to make sure you're properly diversified. I mean, you're taking if these holdings, if these shares of Home Depot are more than, let's say, 15 percent of your total investable assets, then you're adding a pretty significant amount of risk to your portfolio.

Generally, the rule of thumb is you wouldn't want to for a company you either were working for or currently working for. And, you know, you're really excited about them. Despite that, you really don't want to ever have more than 15 percent. And that's really on the very high end, because if you've just got so much riding on one company's performance, their particular sector in industry, their performance, you know, and there's just not the diversification that we would like for you to have.

So I think that's probably the bigger idea is, am I too highly concentrated? And then, yes, to your point, James, what is the overall financial plan and what's the investment strategy that's aligned with your values, your goals? Ultimately, how much income you need from these investments? What percent of your income you're relying on versus the amount you have invested? All of that will shape how conservative you are in this investment strategy.

And then ultimately, who's going to deploy that? Are you going to do that yourself or hire somebody to do it for you? So I guess I would say, number one, if you're more highly concentrated than 15 percent in one company, absolutely. I would look at diversifying.

And then, too, I do think you need an overall financial plan from an adviser. Does that make sense? OK. Yeah. Most of my stuff is from pensions from the military. OK. I'm very good. Most of my money.

Yeah. So you've got that obviously guaranteed income that you can rely on. But with your other assets, namely these investments, we want to make sure that you've got a good strategy. You're not taking unnecessary risk and that it can, you know, grow for you to offset inflation, but where you can protect it at the same time.

And part of that is the selection of the investments and how risky they are and what kind of income they generate, but also that you're properly diversified. If you don't have an adviser, James, you can head to our Web site at faith fi dot com faith f i dot com and just click find the CCA and you could search for a few certified kingdom advisers in Kansas to interview. Thanks for being on the program, sir. May the Lord bless you and thank you for your service to our country, to Waterford, Michigan. Hi, Paul. Go ahead.

Hi. I'm calling about a cemetery plant that I purchased back in the early mid 80s. I wondered when I want to sell it. And I'm thinking, do I have to I'm wondering, do I have to pay capital gain taxes?

Would that be just under income, like under a regular income tax? Are you selling it for more than you paid for it? Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. So that would be considered a capital asset. And so it would go on your you know, on your tax return as a capital gain. I talked to your CPA about that.

You know, that would be reported on Schedule D as a as a capital gain on your 1040. OK, thank you. All right. Thanks for your call, Paul.

We appreciate it. Eight hundred five, two, five, seven thousand's the number to call. We've got a few lines open today and we'd love to hear from you. Adrea, thank you for calling.

How can I help? Yes, I was just calling to I'm going into a new chapter in my life. My son is going off to college. He's 18 in November. I'm a single mom teacher and teaching for 27 years and want to retire at some point. But I'm trying to figure out I've got a new less income coming in coming in November when he turns 18. His grandfather's helped me through the years. And so he's not going to be paying after November.

My son will be moving out. But I'm trying to figure out I've got about ten thousand dollars in credit card debt. And I know that's not horrible, but I just don't want to continue with the same pattern and continue going higher. So I'm trying to figure out what to do. Should I take a credit card offer or put it back in like at a home equity line?

I don't know how to work it. So I just want to ask you. No, I'm so glad you did. And I think, you know, it's really important to go into this next season with a plan. And I totally agree. I'd love for you to be out from under that just so that, you know, lessens the burden on your monthly finances, but also just get out from under that interest, especially now with the average credit card interest rate north of 20 percent.

This is going to add a lot in the way of interest. My preferred approach on this, Andrea, is is what's called debt management. So generally, the rule of thumb is if you have less than 4000 in total credit card debt, you can probably just do it yourself and what I call snowballing the debt. It's a pretty common term, but essentially means you line them up from smallest to largest balance, cut back wherever you can to free up as much margin each month as possible.

And I realize, you know, that's not easy to do on a limited income, but you try to free up, let's say, a couple hundred dollars a month whenever you can. You pay the minimums on all of them, and then you start with the smallest balance and go smallest to largest. And the thing that really makes that so effective is when you start with those smaller balances, you can usually knock off one or two of them in a few months or less than a year, which gives you the motivation to keep going. And the best plan is the plan that you'll ultimately complete and get out of debt once and for all. But when you get beyond 4000, it becomes problematic and costly to do it, especially with these high interest rates. So debt management is the way I would go then. And essentially, what happens is there are pre-negotiated lower interest rates through what's called a credit counseling program or debt management. So every creditor has their credit counseling rate, and it's going to be something significantly lower than today. You might be paying 20 now and in credit counseling, you might get eight or nine or 11 percent interest. So what happens is you pay one monthly payment, probably around 3 percent of the total balance, about three hundred a month to the credit counseling agency, and then they distribute it to your creditors so they don't pay off the debt with a new loan or anything like that.

It stays right where it is. But with the combination of this level monthly payment every month and these reduced interest rates, it allows you to get out of debt on average 80 percent faster. And our friends at Christian credit counselors dot org have worked with hundreds and hundreds of our listeners, Adrea, and we've never had anybody say it wasn't a great experience.

I mean, they're believers. They'll help you with your budget and they'll get you set up on the program and then you just make that one payment every month. And then once you're out of debt, the key is to keep your lifestyle right where it is and then redirect that money to other priorities aligned with your values. Does that make sense, though? It does, but I've got it all with one credit card and it's at a pretty good rate.

It's just that I don't make enough to like if I'm kind of like a month behind in income. What is that interest rate? It's at 11. Okay. And is that temporary or is that permanent? It's been permanent.

I mean, it's gone up some since, you know, everything's gone up, but it's not near as high as others. Yeah. I would check with them to see if you could get it down. If not, then you could just leave it right there.

And then the key is just to try to keep your expenses as low as possible. Let's do this. I've got to take a quick break, but you and I'll finish up off the air. We'll be right back. I'm thankful to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live.

And guess what? Bob Dolls here today. It's always a great day when Bob stops by to give us his market commentary and analysis. And Bob, the market's up, the market's down. Seems like it's down more than it's up in the last at least couple of weeks.

What do you make of all of this? You know, so to put a point on it, since July 31st, the market high almost two months ago, depending on the average, we're down between six and 10 percent. That's the biggest decline we've seen in in some months here, Rob.

What I mean, what do I make of it? I think investors are finally saying, oh, wait a minute. Inflation's not two percent.

Doesn't look like it's going to get there any time soon. Stocks are fairly expensive relative to that. And I'm not sure where the economy is going. And so maybe I better sell a stock or two. I think that's what's going on. Yeah.

And that certainly makes sense. How's the consumer holding up in the midst of all this? So far, OK. As you know, with strong labor market, the consumer has held up better and for longer than we would have guessed. But there's some there's some cracks in the foundation, I guess I'd say. New orders are weak. Consumer expectations have deteriorated somewhat. Of course, we're dealing with these high interest rates. It seems like consumers might pull back a bit here.

We've got consumer confidence today was less good than expected. So I think the darker side of that is is rearing inside. Yeah. No question about it. Now, Bob, we're, of course, headed into an election year. What does that mean in a typical election cycle if there is such a thing? Well, the typical election year pattern, Rob, is kind of flat until the election and then post the election into the end of the year, market goes up. I don't know if history will follow suit there. Typically, the third year, the year we are now in, is the best of the four years.

And, you know, that's certainly not the case for the average stock, maybe for the the magnificent seven. Voters have been clear that they really are not in favor of Biden versus Trump one more time. And so a lot of talk about a third party, which I think will get a lot of airing. We know the history of third parties in the U.S. is not good. We'll see if it's any different this time, should that come to fruition.

Yeah. So this is likely a challenging period. Not only we're in, but we're going to continue to be in for quite a while, which just means we kind of keep our head down, keep the long perspective and stay the course. You know, I keep the long perspective for sure. Remember why you're invested.

It's not from now till, you know, a week from next Tuesday. It's for the long term. And therefore, don't go chasing them when they're up and don't panic out when there's a lot of red on the screen. Like today's probably not a great day to do some selling. Yeah.

And if you're a dollar cost averaging through your 401K, who wants to buy at the top all the time? Well said. Well said.

You're picking up some more shares for the same price after a decline like today. Yeah, very good. All right, Bob. We always appreciate you, my friend.

Thanks for stopping by. Talk to you next week. Bye bye. All right. That's Bob Dahl, chief investment officer at Crossmark Global Investments.

You can learn more at CrossmarkGlobal.com. All right. Let's head back to the phones. We're going to round out the program today with as many calls as we can take to Wooddale, Illinois.

WMBI. Hi, Doris. Go ahead.

Hi. My question is this. My husband and I are working on our will and trust and have been told by a reputable source that we should only give to our children and grandchildren because that is biblical, but not to give to Christian charities because we should be doing that during our lifetime. So what is your biblical advice about that? Yeah, boy, you know, I don't agree with that in the sense that I love the idea of you giving during your lifetime, whether that's to Christian, I mean, certainly to you, to God's Plan A, the local church, and then beyond that to ministries that align with what we see in scripture that's on the heart of God, the ministry of God's word, preaching, teaching and discipleship, the ministry of God's mercy, you know, maybe widows and orphans, the ministry of God's justice.

So I love that. But I think, you know, when it comes to that last stewardship decision we'll make, we need to be thinking about is the next steward chosen and prepared? And you are the one that is to choose that steward. And I think you can make the case that there's nothing wrong with giving an inheritance, but it doesn't mean you always should because I think we always have to be asking the question when it comes to an inheritance is, you know, how much should we leave and to whom? So, for instance, ask the question, if we give X amount to X person, what's the worst thing that can happen? And how serious is that?

And how likely is that to occur? You know, you could take and drop a large sum of money in an adult child's life where they're, you know, on a path of a lifestyle that's pointed away from the Lord and it could accelerate that. I mean, it could be the last thing if they're spiritually and financially not mature enough to handle that.

Or it could, you know, cause other problems if it denies their opportunity to provide, which, you know, maybe for some would be really important to them. So I think in that case, giving it away to support God's work is really a key opportunity that you have. When we look at scripture, I mean, whether it's, you know, the passage that's often cited, you know, we should leave an inheritance to our children's children. The context of that passage is really not financial. It's really more of a spiritual inheritance.

If you look at that particular verse that's often cited in its larger context in that particular passage of scripture. So I don't see anything that says we should never give to Christian ministries at death and that we absolutely have to give a financial inheritance. I think that's a decision you need to make before the Lord and consider carefully as to what would be the implications of giving that to a child or an heir. And that may be a wonderful idea, but it may not be. And in that case, you may want to opt to give it all away or you may want to split it. And at the end of the day, that's your call. Let me do this, Doris.

I think the best book to help you think about wealth transfer biblically is the book by Ron Blue called Splitting Errors. And I'd love to send you that as our gift. Would that be OK? I think we lost Doris, but let's do this. Doris, if you can hear me, stay on the line and we'll get that, get your information and get that book right out to you. I think we have you back. Is that all right if I send you that book?

Yes, that would be wonderful. OK, thank you for calling Doris. May the Lord bless you.

To Birmingham. Hey, Matt, go ahead. Hey, good afternoon.

Thank you for what you do. Hey, I am 66, almost 66 and a half. I'm looking at retiring in the end of 2024 at 67 and a half. I have a mortgage that I owe about one hundred and sixty one one hundred sixty one thousand dollars on. And I have I have all my bases covered, but I have an account that I have about one hundred and twenty seven thousand dollars. And I am planning to use to pay off the house at the end of 2024.

And my question is, I got in a debate with some people. My house mortgage is at three point five percent interest rate and the one to one hundred and twenty seven thousand is gone almost five percent. Well, for four point three. Oh, yeah. So I'm trying to each month put make sure I get fifteen hundred dollars of principal towards the house and fifteen hundred dollars going into the savings account. Yeah. Is that the way I should do it or should I just put a whole bunch on the house or put it all in savings?

Yeah. You know, I don't think there's a right or wrong answer here. And I don't think this is purely a math equation either because there's some there's more to you paying off your house than just whether or not you can make more money elsewhere. There's the peace of mind. There's the ability to be completely unencumbered, which gives you more flexibility to follow the leading of the Lord. There's less need then for income, which might free you up to do some things you might not otherwise do. You may have a conviction from the Lord to be debt free.

And if so, I wouldn't look back. I would follow that conviction. Now, if you're saying, no, I feel like, you know, I don't feel like the Lord is telling me to get out of debt. I just want to do the thing that makes the most sense on paper. And I want to kind of push these non-financial considerations aside. Well, then certainly you could make the case that, you know, you're making a little bit more outside of that in essentially a risk free investment. I mean, you will have to factor in the taxes on that interest and you make it may end up being a wash or close to it. And then in that case, I would probably just go and pay off the house and be done with it.

But keep in mind, these interest rates where they are aren't going to last forever on CDs and high yield savings, because as the economy slows and stalls, eventually the Fed's going to have to lower rates and then they won't be available any longer. So at that point, you probably certainly would now some will say, well, you should go invest this money in the stock market. And over, you know, a five or 10 year period, you should by far outperform that interest on the home. And I would say, yeah, in a typical decade, you should, if you, you know, choose high quality investments and you have the right strategy, but a, you're adding risk to the equation and B, you know, you're potentially missing the non-financial piece of this equation, which are the items I mentioned a moment ago.

But give me your thoughts on all that. Oh, I like the way you think I didn't think about the tax ramifications on the interest. I am debt free others, or we are my wife and I, other than the house. So yeah, I feel very, very strong and adamant about we're not retiring until the house is paid off. Okay, zero debt. Well then I think you've got your answer, despite what your friends and your brother in law and everybody else say, I'm joking there and it may not be your brother in law, but despite what anybody else says, I think you've got your answer there, Matt. And here's what I can tell you. And all the time, the years I've been doing this and the thousands of calls that I've taken, I've never had anybody that called me and said, I paid off my house last year and I've regretted it ever since.

Never once. So you go do that, focus on paying off that house and then go find God's calling for the next chapter of your life. All right. Amen. Thank you. All right. God bless you. Hey Joe, I'm sorry we didn't get your call today. I'd love to get you on tomorrow. Perhaps our team can help you do that. Folks, Faith in Finance Live is a partnership between Moody Radio and Faith by thank you to Robert and to Amy and to Dan and everybody that makes this program happen every day. May God bless you. We'll see you tomorrow. Bye bye.