Helping “the Least of These”

Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these, my brothers, you did it to me. Matthew 25, 40.

I am Rob West. That verse describes what happens when Christians give of themselves with no expectation of earthly return, helping the helpless. Today, I'll talk with Brad Guffey about a way you can do that for Zambia's orphans. 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 decisions. Well, we're delighted to have Brad Guffey on the program today. He's a medical doctor and chief medical director at Family Legacy Missions International, where he specializes in treating infectious diseases. You may recall that Family Legacy is the ministry that's changing the lives of around 13,000 orphans in Zambia. They do that through a four-part program helping children grow academically, physically, emotionally, and of course spiritually. Brad, it's great to have you on the program today.

Pleasure to be with you today, Rob. Brad, I mentioned that the program has four parts, but we're going to focus on the physical or healthcare services that Family Legacy provides these Zambian children. It's grown quite a bit in the last 10 years. Tell us about that. Well, we're pragmatic. We are as efficient as we can be, and we believe in being faithful in the little things. And God has done an awesome work in my life, our team, the lives of so many children who are being helped and healed. We started off in a tent in a shipping container about 10 years ago, and now we are in a lovely high-quality healthcare facility, and we are actively serving several thousand families at any given point in time.

Well, I've seen it firsthand, and it's incredible, Brad, what you and your team do. Just give us a snapshot, help our listeners understand what medical care looks like in Zambia. It's a bit different.

We can start with the country, you know, 20 million people, two-thirds are under the age of 25. It's like healthcare in many places. We just work as hard as we can to keep the kids from falling through the cracks. But there are differences.

First, there's fewer prior authorizations to fill out, but we still have our paperwork. But, you know, we have rainy season flooding that certainly makes getting to homes different. We do lots of home visits.

Medically speaking, when we hear hoof beats, it's frequently the sound of zebras, not horses. We have opportunistic infections and cancers from advanced HIV and AIDS. Tuberculosis is one of our most significant contributors to mortality. We have frequent cases of rheumatic fever and heart valve disease.

I've seen 10-year-olds with liver cancer from environmental toxins from spoiled food. We also have those unusual things you study about in America, the lymphatic worms that cause elephant man syndrome and blood flukes and those kinds of things. But, you know, we have plenty of routine medical problems too.

And these are sometimes complicated by lack of resource. You know, severe protein and total calorie malnutrition are both things that we see frequently stemming from poverty. And it's one of the commonest diseases we treat. I can imagine it is. And of course, health care is absolutely essential before these amazing children can take on any other challenges, right?

Yeah. You know, we have 13,000 children in our program and we love the way we have a comprehensive approach to helping and caring for children. And our mission is to glorify God. And we do that by empowering the vulnerable and orphaned children of Zambia so they can live up to their God-given potential. But, you know, they need their health. We are seeing kids get better unlike ever before.

Our team's fantastic. The children are accessing the services by the droves for modern medicine and a lot of tender, loving care. But even after living in Zambia for 15 years and seeing many things improve and modernize, I still have kids come to my clinic in a wheelbarrow. But with God's grace, we get to see transformation every day, like Lydia. When I met Lydia, she was a 15-pound five-year-old. 15 pounds is the size of a five-month-old.

Severe malnutrition, tuberculosis in her brain that causes seizures, underlying HIV. But, you know, Lydia, she smiles. She's well-grown. She laughs. She goes to school.

Things are different for her now. Oh, Brad, that's incredible. And imagine that happening hundreds and hundreds of times over. And that's the work that you and your team are doing every day. Well, we've just scratched the surface, but thanks for the incredible work you're doing there in Zambia through Family Legacy and for stopping by today. Thank you. That's Brad Guffey with Family Legacy Missions International. If you want to get involved, go to HopeForZambia.com slash FaithFi.

That's HopeForZambia.com slash FaithFI. Your calls are next, 800-525-7000. This is Faith and Finance Live. We'll be right back. Well, thank you for joining us today on Faith and Finance Live.

I'm Rob Lass. We were talking about Family Legacy. Let me tell you, I've seen the impact of this ministry up close and personal, the work that they're doing to reach those precious Zambian orphans in the slums of Lusaka, to pull them out, to put them in Christ-centered schools, to share the hope and love of Jesus Christ, to nourish their bodies, feed their souls, and train them to eventually go on to what God has called them to is incredible. And, you know, we talk so much about giving and generosity here on Faith and Finance Live and what it looks like to be a part of God's mission here on earth to take a portion of the resources he's entrusted to us and to align those resources with the things on the heart of God that we see in Scripture. And the ministry of God's mercy is clearly at work in the life and ministry of Family Legacy.

So if you would like to learn more, maybe you want to support one of these sweet and amazing Zambian children or partner with Family Legacy with a portion of what God has entrusted to you, just head to HopeForZambia.com forward slash FaithFi, HopeForZambia.com forward slash FaithFI. And thanks in advance for your generous support. All right, we're going to take your calls and questions today. We've got lines open and I'm ready. My sleeves are rolled up and we're ready to go. 800-525-7000 is the number to call. Again, that's 800-525-7000.

And our lines are ready for you. Hey, before we dive in though, let me tackle this email. This comes to us at AskRob at FaithFi.com. Martha writes, what financial book do you recommend for a newly engaged young Christian couple to read prior to marriage? And first of all, Martha, I'm delighted to hear that you're thinking about that either because you're that newly engaged couple or maybe it's a child that's about to be married and you're encouraging them to think about money and marriage before marriage and that's really critical. And here's why, you know, so often what we find is that a lack of understanding about how God has wired each of you and what that means for how you'll handle money and how you were influenced by how money was handled growing up.

Unless you unpack that prior to marriage, you're going to struggle. My friend Shanti Feldhahn, the Harvard researcher, she wrote the book Thriving in Love and Money, which by the way would be a great resource, Martha, Thriving in Love and Money. What she uncovered is that one of the three things that helps couples overcome conflict in marriage over money is understanding. What are your earliest memories of money growing up? Was there money in an abundance or was it scarce? Was there a spending plan that was used or was debt rampant? In the family, was there a lot of pressure brought on by money? All of that shapes how you handle money today. Understanding is key. Shanti also goes on to say that cushion is key, living below your means.

And then thirdly, of course, communication. So I'm delighted to hear you're thinking about starting that prior to marriage. Now, in addition to Shanti's book, another great resource to your question is Howard Dayton's classic Money and Marriage God's Way. It will not only help this young couple with setting up their finances, but it will also help to avoid many of the conflicts that arise over money and marriage.

Again, it's called Money and Marriage God's Way. And Martha, thank you for writing to us. We appreciate it.

If you have a question, feel free to send it along, askrob at faithfi.com. All right, we're going to head to the phones. We've got a few lines open, although the calls are coming in quick. 800-525-7000. Now let's go to Michigan. Hi, Kathy, thanks for your call today. Go ahead.

Hi, thanks for taking my call. I have five grandchildren that are all minors between one years old and 13 years old. And I received a small inheritance from my mom's passing. And I wanted to give each child $7,000 each. And I didn't know what's the best way so that I can get the most out of the money for them. So when they maybe are ready to start college, they can use it towards college.

Yes. Well, that's going to be the first question that I think you need to answer, Kathy. And that is, do you really want this money, either all of what you're going to gift to each of them or a portion of it to be earmarked specifically for college? Because if you do, then I would use a 529 education savings plan. You could set up one for each child. You would be the one that sets up the account and each child would be the beneficiary.

It remains your asset. But for their benefit, the benefit of that is that if they happen to qualify for financial need based aid, it would be treated as your asset, which factors into the expected family contribution at a much lower percentage than an asset that's in their name, like a custodial account might affect whether or not they get need based aid. And it would be invested and then it could grow tax free so long as it's used for qualified education expenses.

Now, if you didn't use it for qualified educational expenses, it would either have to be transferred to another child to use for college or it could, with some specific rules around this, could be moved into a Roth IRA for the child. But then it would be long-term money that they'd want to use way down the road for retirement. If, though, you said, you know what, I like the idea of them having it for college, but I don't want to have them limited to only college. You know, I want them to be able to use it to buy their first car if they want to go to, you know, don't want to go to college and start a business, something like that. Then you would want to keep it outside of a 529 plan.

You wouldn't get the tax-free growth, but it would be accessible and ready for you to make that gift at any point and for any purpose. So which do you think is most aligned with what you're trying to accomplish? I think the education. Okay. Yeah. What do you think? Do you think that is the best or? Well, I think that's a great thought because, you know, most kids, I mean, the data says 50% of them will go to college and, you know, if you're hopeful that that's really the track that they're on, you know, then this money would be available.

It also could be used for kindergarten through 12th grade with some limits if their parents wanted to send them to a private Christian school. But I think that's a great option for them. And this would be a great seed account, if you will. So they know that they have that option to go to college where, as you know, otherwise they may not because they know they'd have to take on a lot of debt. So I think that's that's great.

And it would be a real blessing to them. What I would do is head to the Web site, Kathy, saving for college dot com, saving for college dot com. And what you would do is you'd answer a series of questions and then it would actually recommend which states 529 plan you should open these accounts. It may be the state of Michigan because it would give you some state tax benefits or it may say, you know, the benefits aren't great enough given the investment results. And you might be better off with looking at one of these other states because you don't have to use five Michigan's 529 college savings. You can go outside of the state, especially if another plan had better investment results. And then you'd open a 529 account for each of the grandchildren. And then you could fund it, you know, at one time or you could fund it with an initial deposit and then you could add to it.

And then they would be well on their way to having an account that's growing through the investments that would be eventually there and available for them to use for qualified education expenses. OK, all right. We're having a little trouble hearing you.

But again, that Web site saving for college dot com. You sound like a wonderful grandmother. And I'm delighted you were on the program today, Kathy. Thanks for calling. Folks, we're going to take a quick break.

The number to call while we're on this break is 800-525-7000. I've got about four lines open. We'd love to hear from you.

More of your questions just around the corner. Well, thanks for joining us today on Faith and Finance Live. We've got phone lines open today. We'd love to hear from you.

Eight hundred five to five seven thousand. Let's head right back to the phones to New Hampshire. Alex, thanks for calling.

Go right ahead. Hi, my my daughter just graduated from college and her fiance's graduating December and they're both 21. They're both debt free from college, but they have really no emergency fund. They're thinking about buying a house, an FHA loan, five percent down, six point seven five. I've I've kind of said just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do it. I just they just think they're going to accrue some not wasting their money on rent. And I just wanted your feelings on that.

Yeah, that. Yeah, well, I'm definitely in line with your thinking on this. I mean, the challenge is home affordability is at its lowest level ever. I mean, we've got this one, two punch going on with higher prices and higher interest rates.

So think about this, Alex. Three years ago, you could get a 30 year mortgage at three percent and the median price for an existing home in the U.S. was just over three hundred thousand dollars. Now, fast forward three years later, the 30 year rate is close to seven and a half percent and the median price has jumped to over four hundred thousand. So you've got buyers now facing monthly payments more than double what they would have just three years ago. And unfortunately, you know, there are no easy solutions other than to wait. Now, I realize the counter argument to that is, well, rental prices are sky high, too.

And I get that. The problem is, you know, we don't have folks getting out there overextended. A lot of folks that are renting homes right now are locked in at much lower mortgages because they've had these properties a while. And so they can afford, you know, to to offer them at a little less. And so when you factor in the high prices of homes, plus the fact that we're at these, you know, we're more than double the interest rates we were three years ago, on top of the fact that, you know, you're saying they've got, you know, nine thousand to put down on, I think, a three hundred thousand dollar home. Well, they're way off of our 20 percent target.

Even 10 percent would be thirty thousand down. And that would take their emergency savings down to zero, which means anything comes out of left field. And, you know, they're all of a sudden, you know, in a situation where they're going to take on credit card debt just to, you know, cover an unexpected expense. So I would just urge them, listen, I know you want to start building equity. I know you'd like to own your home. I know it doesn't make sense to, you know, feel like you're throwing money down the drain on rent. And yet you all, especially, you know, early in marriage, having not, you know, avoiding that pressure of taking on something that, you know, is just way more than you can you can afford is just not the way to start out. And so I would just, you know, not try to make that lateral move to a three hundred thousand dollar home as much as we'd all, you know, love to have that starting out and say, listen, we've got to start small. We've got to think apartment. We've got to think rent. We've got to think keep our expenses low so that we can build up that emergency fund first to at least three months expenses and then go on to save for that down payment.

And hopefully we're in a situation a year from now, 18 months from now, where interest rates are lower and at least home prices have stabilized. Does that all make sense? Yeah, no, it does.

It's exactly what I was thinking. And then the other thing is we don't know about the market. It might it might go back down a bit.

Yeah. I mean, the challenge here is the reason that, you know, the housing market hasn't dipped, despite these high interest rates, despite a looming recession, is that we just simply don't have enough homes in this country. We're about two to three million homes short.

You think about this. I mean, the millennials are now reaching age 30. They're starting families. They want single family homes.

You've got a lot more people working remotely. So they're moving out of these densely, you know, populated urban areas to the suburbs and they're buying single family homes. So all of that, plus just not having enough new housing starts has led to the fact that, you know, despite all these factors I just mentioned, housing prices have not only not come down, they're still rising, even though they're not rising as fast a rate as we saw last year.

So I would argue that even if we get into a recession, unless it's a much deeper recession than we expect next year, I don't think we're going to see much of a dip in housing prices. The benefit, though, is they're going to have hopefully more time to save if they keep their lifestyle at a minimum and try to live really modestly. And hopefully they will get some relief by these mortgage rates coming down and they won't have to refinance, which that's going to cost them two to three percent of the cost of the mortgage, which is just money down the drain if they have to, you know, go into a home and then two years later look to refinance it to take advantage of lower rates.

So I think, you know, the prudent approach is to just start slow. Let's try to target that 20 percent down payment. Let's make sure that principal interest taxes and insurance payment that they ultimately have for a mortgage is no more than 25 percent of their take-home pay. And let's make sure their big three, food, auto and housing, stay under 65 percent of the budget. If they can do those things, they're going to set themselves up for success. Yeah, well, thank you.

It's just nice to hear someone else say what I was thinking. Yeah, absolutely. Let me do this, Alex. I'm going to send you a copy of that book that I mentioned, Money and Marriage God's Way from Howard Dayton. I want you to give that to them as a gift. And see if they wouldn't be willing to, as they're going through the engagement process, see if they can work through that, maybe a chapter at a time, and just start getting ready to think about what it looks like to live on less than they earn and understand the power of giving, that it can break the grip of money over their lives and that they need to understand God owns it all and that we're called to be faithful stewards. I mean, all of these things are just so important. Not only that, but just beginning to talk about what lifestyle is God calling them to and what is giving going to look like as a married couple and just all these things that they're going to have to wrestle through.

If they can think about that now, they will be way ahead of the game when they do actually get married. So listen, God bless you, Alex. Stay on the line. Amy will get your information. We'll get that book, Money and Marriage God's Way right out to you.

Thanks for calling today. Well, folks, we're just getting started here on Faith and Finance Live. Just after the break, we're going to head to Fargo and talk to Dennis.

He wants to know how much is enough stuff? That'll be fun to tackle that one. Also, Josh in Northern Michigan, his family lives on his income, but he needs help budgeting. We're going to help him out with that.

Plus, what is a UTMA account? Ben wants to talk about that in Ohio. That plus perhaps your question, 800-525-7000. Stick around. Great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live.

This is where we apply the wisdom from God's Word to your financial decisions and choices. I'm Rob West. Let's head back to the phones. By the way, we've got two lines open. 800-525-7000.

To Fargo, North Dakota. Hey, Dennis. Thanks for your call.

Go ahead. Hi, Rob. Good to meet you. You as well. I listen to you every day.

I've got to get my Rob fix. Oh, I love it. I really, I really appreciate your godly advice. Well, thank you.

That's very kind. My question is about long-term health care and giving while you're living. Okay. What do you wrestle with on that?

Sure, go ahead. Yeah, just being able to afford both. We don't have long-term health insurance. I'm 74. My wife is 69. Both of us are pretty much retired. We still do a few things, and we're in pretty good health, but like I say, we don't have long-term health care insurance.

We have no debt. Our houses pay off, and we have some retirement income, and we have investments. So, you know, we're okay, but the thing is, without the insurance for long-term health care, we could eat up our savings pretty quickly.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so you're just wondering how to think about that season of life in light of the potential for long-term care? Yes, and along with, you know, I read the book Splitting Errors, and I've been listening to you about that topic and decided that we would make some changes in our will and trust and that sort of thing, and do some giving while we're living. But that reduces our nest egg that much more.

Yeah, no doubt about it. Well, I'll tell you, the exciting thing is, this becomes a faith journey, doesn't it? And ultimately we place our trust in the Lord, and yet we want to be prudent planners. We want to save appropriately, and I think that's a key word that requires you to go back to the Lord in prayer and say, Lord, how much is enough? And I think that was the question you mentioned to Gabby T. today when she answered the phone, that you're really just wrestling with how much is enough. And I love the idea that, you know, as Ron Blue says in Splitting Ears, do your giving while you're living so you're knowing where it's going. And I think that's a great philosophy, but the tension that we live in, what is the balance between giving and accumulation, especially as we head into this season of life, and as you are pointing out, there's this kind of looming potential major expense on the horizon for you called long-term care, because 75 or 70 percent of 65-year-olds and older will need long-term care at some point, on average usually for two to three years.

And that could be 5,000 a month, it could be 9,000 a month. I mean, it just depends on what type of care you need and whether you need skilled care and skilled care in a nursing home and so forth. So, you know, I think the key is just to really make that a matter of prayer and I think seeking wise counsel.

Of course, you're doing that today. I think you could also visit with an advisor who could look at that and help you calculate, okay, you know, if we need long-term care, you know, what's the average we might spend and for what period of time, because typically you don't need long-term care for that long. You know, you either don't need it or when you do, you need it for, you know, a couple of years on average and, you know, eventually the Lord takes you home. So, you know, I think there is a planning function of this that actually kind of runs through the math and says, okay, how much do we have in investable assets? What income needs do we have beyond our guaranteed income sources that aren't ever going to go away? And what does that mean for our withdrawal rate against our retirement assets? And then we can run some scenarios and let's say both of you need, you know, long-term care and an average of $6,000 a month for two years.

Well, there's a math equation that tells you how long you're, you know, whether you'd be able to cover that out of your current assets and then you could back into ultimately what you might consider to be excess once you define that financial finish line as a part of that planning process. And then you could say, we're going to give it away. Now, ultimately that's all an act of faith. Any giving that we do is an act of faith because we say, Lord, we trust that you're our provider.

We know all of this could be reduced to rubble in an instant. And so we event, you know, we want to take a portion of what we've been entrusted and we want to give it to you and we're trusting by faith, you know, that we're, you're going to continue to provide, you're going to be prudent in that. But ultimately I think that's a decision between you and your wife in the Lord as to how much you, you know, can actually give away prior to death versus how much you feel like is prudent, you know, to keep invested so that you could offset this potential risk that's coming down the road. So I think a combination of prayer, wise counsel, and the financial equation actually doing some planning based on some scenarios that you all think are realistic, that in the middle of all of that, you know, God will give you all peace of mind around what the right approach is for you. And I don't think anybody at the end of the day can tell you what that is. That's ultimately between you and the Lord.

Does that make sense? Yes, we've been praying about it. We've talked to our pastor about it. And we haven't talked to our financial advisor, but he's assured me, assured me that we're okay. You know, I've done the math, and using your scenario, for two years that's 144,000, and times two, you know, times both of us, so that's about 300,000. That would use up about a third of our net worth. Well, a little less, maybe 25%. And then if we give some money away, not more than, you know, 100k or so, you know, that reduces it a little bit more. And then the unknown is, well, 6,000 a month is somewhat low because, well, there's a range there.

I have some friends in Faro, North Dakota that, you know, you think it'd be less expensive in the north, and they're paying over $10,000. Of course, that's for memory care. So, you know, we're just wrestling with a number of things here, and we're, you know, we've been giving. We're past the training wheels, as you call them, and we funnel our R&D directly into charities. So, you know, we're not going to, now that we're not bringing in any income from a job, we're not going to reduce our giving. Matter of fact, we're wanting to increase it a little.

So, that's where we stand. I really appreciate the suggestion about the advisor, because that's one right in front of me that I haven't really used, other than as we were doing the math to see if we had enough money to live, we had plenty of money to live. We have a surplus every month from, you know, our income with, you know, our income with the Social Security and a pension.

Well, and that's a good place to be. And maybe what you do is you increase that and you take it up to $9,000 a month, which is what full nursing care would cost these days. You know, you run that for two years times two of you, that's around $430,000.

Sounds like that wouldn't even be half of what you have today. So, I think you can begin to marry the financial equation, prudent, wise planning with trusting the Lord and your desire to give generously, and God will really confirm what it is you're supposed to do. Hey, God bless you, Dennis. Thanks for raising this question today.

It's a good one for your kind remarks about the program. We'll be right back. Well, it's great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live. I'm Rob West. Hey, before we head back to the phones, Bob Doll's stopping by today to give us his market analysis and commentary. He calls it his dolls deliberations, and you can sign up for your weekly copy at crossmarkglobal.com. Bob, good afternoon to you.

Hi there, Rob West. Are you on the way to get the new iPhone? I understand Apple's got some shiny new devices out today.

They do, and they have a nice price tag on it if you need one. Yes, all of a sudden my phone that felt really capable about two hours ago feels very obsolete. You have an antique now. Yeah, exactly. Hey, let's talk markets today, Bob. You were mentioning in your deliberations this week kind of maybe the both sides of good news and bad news with regard to transcripts from corporations about the lack of the word recession and inflation as of late, but an increase in bankruptcies.

What do you see? Yeah, so it's a lot of the differences between size of company. Big companies are talking a lot less about recession and inflation. Their word counts on the corporate releases, and those two words are getting far fewer mentions even since the summertime. But on the other hand, in the month of August, as you point out, bankruptcies were up more than 50 percent from last August.

Now, who goes bankrupt? Well, typically it's smaller companies, which I point out quickly are the ones that generate all the jobs. So we need healthy small businesses in this country if we're going to generate jobs. Yeah, no doubt about that.

Well, of course, good news and bad will seems like that's the story of the day. Let's talk about the Fed's war against inflation. And on the other hand, they want to prevent much higher employment and a recession.

And you make the point they're probably going to have to pick one, right? Yeah, it's look, inflation's come down. The economy has slowed some, but nobody's happy with where we are yet. So either the Fed is going to have to take this in between.

I call it the attempt at threading the needle where the eye of that needle keeps getting smaller, Rob. Their other choice is let's fight inflation and not worry about a recession. And that's the choice they'll probably end up having to make. Or they can say, no way we're going to allow recession to happen, but then we're going to tolerate higher inflation. The Fed has attempted to thread this needle seven times in the last 60 or so years, and only twice have they been successful.

The other five times we've had a recession. So that's the higher probability, Rob. Yeah.

All right. Well, that's certainly when most folks, including you, I know are expecting either later this year or next year, for sure. Bob, let's finish today with the opportunity that our listeners have and what we call faith based investing. You know, even just a few years ago, there really wasn't the options that we have today, like Crossmark Global, to truly have our values reflected in our investments. What does that look like for the average investor?

Yeah, it's a great, great subject. As I recall a conversation you and I had probably a dozen years ago where there just wasn't enough definition to this little business for me to entertain entering it. But fast forward, the world has changed. People are very aware, more and more people are aware, it's still an education process, that they really can line up their investments with their values. And if they're faith based values, I like to say, you're going to line up your portfolio that's going to put a smile on the face of God. Avoiding companies that are destructive to society and giving an extra kiss to companies that are doing good things and how they treat their constituents, while at the same time being a great investment because they have a strategic plan and cash flow and all those good things. And that's the excitement of this faith based investing, Rob. Well, we love that it's continuing to grow and develop and mature. And now you don't have to sacrifice returns to invest this way, right?

That's the part I love. A decade ago, you and I weren't sure because we didn't have enough evidence. But there were a lot of scientific, I call them empirical studies that show that you don't give up any return to be able to get a portfolio that looks like this. In fact, there's some studies to say you do a little bit better. But let's just assume to be conservative, it's the same.

Why wouldn't you think about doing this? I love it. Bob, we always appreciate your insights. Have a great week. We'll talk to you on Monday.

Sounds like a plan. Bye. All right, Bob Dahl, Chief Investment Officer at Crossmark Global Investments.

You can learn more at crossmarkglobal.com. All right, back to the phones. Let's round out the program with as many calls as we can get to to Northern Michigan. Josh, thanks for your patience. Go ahead.

Yeah, thanks for taking my call. My question evolves around our finances, obviously, but my wife and I have a single income home by choice. So I work and she works in homeschools and does probably more than I do.

And she draws in a modest income, a very minor one, coordinating some homeschooling activities for a group of individuals. But at the end of the day, we're, our credit card balance goes up, goes down. And just in the end of the day, I mean, at the end of the year, we generally get it caught up and scored away.

Yeah. But in the end of the day, it just seems like my income is a little bit short. And so my question, you know, comes along, we have my parents give occasional modest gifts. My wife has proposed that we use that maybe that we use that maybe as a small, if you will allowance for her just so she doesn't have to feel stressed about how I get for finances.

And, and for me, it's a little bit. It's hard, I guess, it's a little bit hard to, I, I'm trying to operate, you know, within our income specifically. But for some of those things that come up that she wants to do, you know, nothing major. But for some of those things, she wants to do that, again, just a gift for someone or take someone out to coffee, like to be able to do that for but yeah, I'm conflicted as far as the budget part when, when, when, when at the end of the year, we're always a little bit behind. So I'm, yeah, I'm kind of curious what other people's input is, whether we would use a little bit of that gift money for something like that. So I'm, yeah, speaking of, you know, that's really helpful, Josh. And I certainly understand what you're saying.

And it seems like, you know, at the end of the day, there's always something that comes out of left field. Do you all have a budget? I mean, have you taken time to truly capture not only the things that happen on a monthly basis that are regular and recurring, but those things that happen outside of the recurring expenses that, you know, as you look over 12 months, or you look at the typical month, you say, you know, if we were really trying to capture everything, this is what the budget would look like. And we'd be putting money away, you know, in into savings in months where, you know, we didn't have one of our quarterly, you know, insurance bills, so that when it comes, we've got the money there.

And we actually build in a, you know, coffee, you know, with mom category where, you know, she can, you know, take a friend out, and there's money in there, and it's planned. I mean, to the best of your ability, have you tried to capture all of that? We have not done a hard and fast budget. No, I mean, I have a pretty good idea of things, but not a hard and fast budget.

No. I think that's maybe the next step, Josh, is for you guys to take a harder look at it, just to say, okay, if we put everything in, where would we come out? And what you may find is that you're upside down $300 a month or something, and then at least you've got the information so you can say, okay, now in light of our values and priorities, what do we want this budget to look like? You know, if money tells a story about what's most important to us and her ability to go invest in a friend and, you know, be able to take them to coffee and, you know, pour into her another friend's life or just be there in a time of need, I mean, that's really important to you all.

That's great. What are we going to cut back on over here? And maybe we need to make some sacrifices and maybe the eating out budget gets trimmed a little bit or maybe we cut one of those subscriptions or, you know, maybe we cut back in another area, but at least you'd have the information in front of you so that you can be as realistic as possible as to what it actually costs you all to be able to live the lifestyle you believe God has called you to, and then you can make some informed decisions together. And then it's just a matter of having that control mechanism in place.

And that's where I think something like the FaithFi app could help you because now all of a sudden you're funding those envelopes and she pulls up the, you know, coffee with friends envelope and she knows there's only six bucks left in there and, you know, that's going to have to last until the next payday. And, you know, she makes that sacrifice and you do the same in other areas, but at least, you know, now that becomes the instrument of peace because we've got a plan. Now, things are still going to come out of left field and that's why we need an emergency fund and that's why we need a miscellaneous category, but at least we've thought through it and we've been intentional to make those decisions.

And then we've got a way to actually stay on the same page during the month so that we can keep ourselves on track with what we said we were going to do because we came up with that by evaluating what's most important to us. Does that make sense? It does. I mean, and I get the budget part.

I really do. I really, my concern is we really, there's not much trimming to be done. I mean, we go out infrequently. We have maybe one cell phone bill that we pay, we need to pay for.

I mean, so our expenses are pretty trimmed back. Yeah. Yeah.

No, I get it. And what did you say this gift was that comes regularly? I mean, my parents give gifts. Yeah.

So they're just gifts of amounts, you know, no particular strings attached typically go to our savings account long-term, but we don't have, we don't earmark for anything. Yeah. So they're just okay.

And are you saving as a part of your regularly scheduled budget and salary deferral into a retirement plan? Indeed. Yes. Okay. So you're on track there.

Yeah. I mean, that sounds like, I mean, obviously you can't count on it, but as long as you guys were willing to be flexible, I mean, perhaps that's what you do once your emergency fund is funded. And once you feel like you're on track with your retirement savings, if you've got additional income sources that come along the way, being able to take that and sock it away in a savings account that has a name on it, you know, that you know what it's for, and maybe it's for just what you said, some of those extra things that you and she would like to be able to do, but it just, it's not in the budget. You know, I think that's a great use of that money.

And I don't think there's any reason why you couldn't be even more intentional about that. Hey, check out the FaithFi app. It may be a great tool and help you in some of this. I hope what I shared has been helpful to you. God bless you, Josh. Thanks for being with us, folks. Thank you. And Finance Live is a partnership between Moody Radio and FaithFi. Thanks to my team and see you tomorrow.