Churches Need to Teach About Money

Well, fall share may be over, but you know, you still have time to partner with Moody Radio in our mission to create Christ-centered programs and share Jesus boldly with the world, if that's what you want. And if you've been impacted by programs like the one that you're listening to, we're guessing you have been. Hey, would you consider giving? You can actually see our impact and learn more at fallshare.org.

That's fallshare.org. See you there. When Stewardship Sunday comes around, some folks find excuses to skip church. Hi, I'm Rob West. It's a fact that money isn't a popular sermon topic. Well, maybe that's because people have the wrong attitude about money. We'll talk about that today, and then we'll take your calls at 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. This is Faith and Finance Live, biblical wisdom for your financial journey. Well, church leaders who teach God's Word every week understand their responsibility to guide their flocks wisely. Sometimes they have to teach on tough topics such as sin, spiritual discipline, and maybe even the book of Leviticus, one of the most awkward sermon subjects, though, is money. Whenever a church leader mentions stewardship or generosity or tithing, you can almost hear the eyes rolling as the congregation takes a tighter grip on their wallets. It's as if churchgoers resent being reminded about their financial responsibilities. No wonder churches shy away from talking about money from the pulpit. Here are a few more reasons why money is a touchy subject for church leaders. According to GrowAHealthyChurch.com, fear of failure and lack of financial training are two reasons pastors won't preach on money matters.

Other church leaders are reluctant to address the topic because their own personal finances are a mess. And sometimes pastors fail to teach about money because they think it will give the impression that the church is just after their money. Well, here's another reason for the lack of financial teaching in churches. According to GrowAHealthyChurch.com, pastors can get skittish about raising money because they know that this money will be used to pay them a salary. False guilt can rule a pastor's mind, and thus they avoid preaching on money. There are lots more reasons why church leaders avoid the topic of money, but as you might expect, we think churches should be teaching biblical financial principles. The Bible has a lot to say about money because how we handle our resources before God reveals the condition of our hearts. If Christians are going to be the hands and feet of Christ in the world, we need to know what God's word says about money and possessions. Topics such as stewardship and generosity do need to be taught from the pulpit, and not just one Sunday a year.

Here are a few more thoughts on this topic before we take your calls. 1 Timothy 5 17 reminds us that Christians are called to bring their tithes and offerings, to support the church and honor their shepherds. The elder who directs the affairs of the church are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching. Successful church ministries, and I don't necessarily mean those with a lot of money, are a function of the Holy Spirit's work in and through the body of Christ. People and leadership need to work together in faith to follow God's will, build disciples, and reach the lost.

These efforts need our financial support. James 1 17 reminds us that every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. When we gather as the body of Christ, we can acknowledge God's provision and respond in thankfulness and trust. While the church needs to teach biblical principles of stewardship and generosity to congregations, churches also need to be good stewards.

Church leaders must be transparent about the finances of the church, both for accountability and so that believers can step up to support God's work. This is a matter of integrity and sets an example for the congregation. So if we understand the importance of biblical stewardship in the life of every Christian, we can see stewardship Sunday as a day or days to look forward to.

And here's why. The church family gets to hear about God's provision and express gratitude. It's an opportunity to joyfully anticipate God's work continuing. Talking about God's provision and the needs around us gives Christians another opportunity for cheerful generosity. Finally, when we're transparent about the needs of the church and the community, the body can pray together in faith for God's will to be done.

We say it all the time. We're not owners, but stewards of God's resources. This goes for churches as well as individuals.

Psalm 24 one says the earth is the Lord's and everything in it. Stewardship demands transparency and accountability for the people and the organization. So the next time your pastor, priest or preacher brings up the subject of money, consider it an opportunity to be transparent and accountable to the Lord about your own finances as well and support your church. All right, your calls are next. The number 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. I'm Rob West and this is Faith and Finance Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. We'll be right back. Great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live.

I'm Rob West. We're taking your calls and questions now on anything financial. The number to call is 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. We'd love to tackle whatever you're thinking about today financially and we've got a few lines open. Let's dive in.

We're gonna begin today in Pittsburgh. Bob, thank you for calling, sir. Go ahead. Hi, sir. God bless you.

Thank you and you too. So my question is what line of resources should I draw from to, we want to refinish our basement. My wife is considering putting a beauty salon in our basement and currently we don't have a whole lot of money. We have probably about $15,000 in an IRA. We have about six grand stashed away for emergencies. I have good credit. I have a $5,000 secured credit card which probably isn't a good idea to draw from. The only other source I could draw from would be through my bank, I have a $10,000 available kind of loan credit type of thing. But do you think we should take like a line of credit out?

I only owe $10,000 or $12,000 on my house yet. Okay. Yeah. What is your home worth? I don't know. I imagine it's worth a lot more because we bought it about 15 years ago for $60,000 and I did a lot of work to it.

It's a nice house now so I imagine it's worth quite a bit more. Okay. All right. Very good. Yeah. So let's back up for a second.

I mean the first thing you need to do because this could be a showstopper is to check with local zoning to make sure you can in fact open a business in your basement if you're zoned as residential and then you would have to inquire about building permits necessary for converting it and then get a business license if you don't have one already. Have you been able to check any of those boxes yet? Yes.

My wife called the local courthouse and they're checking into it currently and they said it's about 98% chance that they'll give the green light for it. Okay. Great. Yeah.

So the last thing you want to do is get further down this road and find out you can't. So I'd want to make sure that all that lines up and you do need a business license. And then obviously you have the additional requirements just being you know a beauty salon with regard to you know keeping your proper licenses there with the you know with the county just to make sure you're doing things the way they would want it done so she doesn't get shut down. Beyond that just in terms of the cost to renovate that space assuming you have all of those pieces in place. What do you think the total project cost is?

Oh boy. Well you know this day and age I don't imagine it's going to be cheap probably. Well the good news is our basement is really small so it's not going to be a big salon but it's down to the cinder block and it needs a lot of work. Yeah.

Okay. Well I mean I think that would be a next step perhaps is to get a contractor in there to get a quote for what this would take for you to build it out so you know how much you're dealing with. And then at that point you have to decide do I want to go with a small business loan that's not secured to your personal residence keep it separate or do you want to try to finance it against the house. Now you're close to being having the home paid off and a lot of folks would say well that's a great opportunity to tap into that equity. And yes even though rates are up it's probably your cheapest source of capital but you are putting your home at risk. So if something were to come up you're unable to make those payments personally because the business isn't producing or whatever it is you know now you've put your home in jeopardy. So you're going to want to give careful thought to that and just how important it was for you to get to a place where you were completely debt free including your house even if you take on a small business loan where you know the small business loan program provides the government guarantees to private lenders who process your application and therefore it's separate even though you may have to give a personal guarantee you're not necessarily putting your home up as collateral. So that would be one option you'd probably be looking at the SBA 7 a loan that's their primary business loan program.

And then second to that would be you know you looking to get you know typically we would say a home equity loan although where rates are now I'd probably do a home equity line of credit just because you want the ability to have those rates drop with interest rates as they come back down probably sometime next year at the latest the year following. Does all that make sense? Yeah it does yeah thank you so much. Well you're welcome I think this is something to give careful thought to obviously she's been down this road before this isn't kind of her first rodeo in in this space I would imagine is that right? That's correct yes okay doing hair for 20 years. Okay great so she I assume she's got a client base that have said yeah if you kind of go out on your own and open this in your basement I'm with you so the the great thing is she's she's got a proven clientele she's got expertise so you'd have immediate cash flow I think you just don't want to get yourself overextended so I think your next step is let's see it through in terms of being able to check with zoning being able to get the proper licensing the health department's going to have to sign off on this given that she's doing beauty and opening a salon in the home that they're going to want to be able to check up on all those things are in place next thing is let's find a general contractor who can give you a bid and then let's explore our financing options either the HELOC or a small business loan I think that one you and your wife just need to pray about it. We appreciate your call Bob all the best to you my friend thanks for being on the program today.

To Cleveland Ohio WCRF hey Deborah go ahead. Oh thank you for taking my call I am recently retired and I'm expecting a small severance from my former employer and before we are at before we leave exit we're asked where we where we want our money to go and I have a money market fund with Ally and so I also opened up a Roth IRA to have that deposited into the Roth IRA at Ally but I was recently hearing disturbing news about Ally and so then I got concerned if I had done the right thing. Yeah was that news related to just the the strength of the bank or was it related to values type issues? Well it was related to the leadership and I was wondering if I should be concerned or if everything else is pretty much solid I guess. Yeah yeah you know I would say in terms of the strength of the bank I don't know of any issues there there are some that have taken issue with just some of the decisions more from a value standpoint that have been made and so I think for that reason you may want to take another look at it and see if you'd want to go somewhere else. I think the key with the Roth IRA is how you want that managed ultimately. How much do you have going into that account?

Approximately thirty thousand. Okay all right and how are you going to invest that? I haven't even gotten that far yet.

Okay got it. Yeah what I might do is open an account instead with Fidelity or Schwab one of those two and that's going to give you some more excuse me some more flexibility in terms of how that's ultimately managed whether you want to pick one of the faith-based investing mutual funds that underwrite this program like Eventide or Guidestone or Praxis or One Ascent or Timothy or you want to get some help from somebody like soundmindinvesting.org where they can help you select some some high quality growth and income mutual funds either of those you'd have more flexibility at a Fidelity or Schwab so I might go that direction and that way if you do a bit more digging and you don't like what you're seeing in terms of values alignment at Ally then you don't have all your eggs in one basket you've already got your investments somewhere else and you could easily move your your high yield savings as well I hope that helps you if you need some further assistance head to soundmindinvesting.org or you can find some mutual funds on our website at faithfi.com thanks for your call 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 and we do have a few lines open if you have a financial question today we'd love to hear from you 800-525-7000 let's head back to the phones Jenny is in Spokane go right ahead hi Rob thanks for taking my call yes ma'am so I'm just wondering what's your view or take on structured notes? Ah structured notes yeah not something we talk about a lot but you know well first of all for the benefit of our listening audience I mean this is basically a debt obligation that has an embedded what's called a derivative and that adjusts the risk return profile so depending on what that derivative is can make it a very conservative investment or very risky so it's a it's a hybrid investment that puts these two things together with the bond and then the underlying asset and so the return on the structure note not only has the base of the investment in the bond portion but then with the derivative it's linked to let's say an underlying asset it could be you know gold it could be a group of assets it could be a stock market index so you know they they try to offer some protection in terms of the downside but then you know obviously there is the risk associated with it so a couple of the risks or disadvantages if you will Jenny number one is you want to really have the intention of holding it into maturity which sounds good in theory but then you get into the credit worthiness of the issuer so with any IOU you bear the risk of the investment bank getting into trouble and forfeiting its obligations obviously that's limited but it does happen Lehman Brothers would be the example and then if it does happen the underlying derivatives can have a positive return but the notes could still be worthless which is actually what happened in 2008 and then you've got the lack of liquidity which is the other reason why you want to hold to maturity so these these things rarely trade on what's called the secondary market like you would buy and sell a stock so that means they're highly illiquid so if you have to get out for any reason because you know the market was crashing you needed the money you know your only option for an early exit is to sell to the original issuer and so again if you needed to sell it before maturity it's unlikely the original issuer will give you a good price assuming they're even willing to take it and then they they don't offer any kind of trade they don't trade after issuance so you know the odds of an accurate daily price would be very slim so you even knowing what the value is you know is difficult and then finally is something called call risk which a lot of investors overlooked but it's possible for the issuer to actually call it back before its maturity regardless of the price and that means you might be forced to receive a price below the value now you might think well that I mean why would anybody ever touch these things and there are some upsides so as I said it is a way to provide a little bit more stability in diversification but you know be protected on the downside which is why a lot of people go into these notes in the first place so I guess given the complexity and some of those things that I mentioned you know what are your thoughts on that and how it fits into your overall plan well one question is what's what is the normal maturity length yeah it just yeah it just totally depends upon what type of structured note you're getting into there's all kinds of different structured notes you're saying there are yeah and so how where would you be buying this from was it somebody that's told you about this or is this something you just came up with on your own yeah somebody somebody has told us about this yeah and he actually educated his financial guy about it and the financial guys now doing it also okay got it yeah I mean it really depends it can go from six months all the way up to 20 years I would say the typical maturity is between two and five years so we're not talking about you know a 30-year bond here but you know you do need to understand that when you get into it and again it's all going to come down to what is that underlying asset that it's tied to is it a you know something very volatile like a foreign currency or is it a group of stocks or a stock index or or even a commodity so I you know I think there's there's a wide range of risk profiles within structured notes but if they're used properly and you understand what you're getting into and it's one piece of a well-diversified portfolio then you know it can be a way to reduce risk overall and get a decent rate of return okay so the gentleman that was telling us about it was it was into the mortgage structure notes okay mortgage backed securities or get married back securities yes we do have a well diverse portfolio the weirdest wondering because he's made a substantial amount on his and even when he's had some called back he's made money yeah yeah okay yeah I mean I would probably get a second opinion on that before I went into it and so perhaps you reach out to a certified kingdom advisor there in Spokane Jenny and have that person look over the specific security that's being offered here and help you assess from an objective standpoint what the pros and cons are of this because if it sounds good to be true often it is and I just don't like getting in things that are overly complex if I can't explain them to my mom I just don't want to invest in them typically but I realize other people you know you know have different risk profiles and this may be somebody that's that's trusted and it may be somebody that's made a lot of money in these and done it in such a way where they minimize the risk I just think whenever you're going into something that's complicated that you don't totally understand I would absolutely get a second opinion so there's some great certified kingdom advisors there in Spokane Jenny perhaps you reach out and have somebody who doesn't have a vested interest in this take a look at it just head to our website faithfi.com that's faithfi.com and click find to cka thanks for your call today folks we're just getting started here a lot left in the program today on faith and finance live the calls are full we've got some good ones coming up much more just around the corner stay with us so glad to have you with us today on faith and finance live I'm Rob West hey if you'd like to support our work here at faith and finance we are a listener supported ministry in partnership with moody radio and we'd be grateful for any gift that you would make to support the broadcast work here plus all of the other offerings we do to equip stewards to be faithful managers of God's resources you can give online quickly and securely at faithfi.com that's faithfi.com just click the give button it's a simple form it'll take you less than a couple of minutes a gift of any amount and we mean that would go a long way to helping us continue to spread the message of biblical financial stewardship again faithfi.com just click give all right back to the phones we go we're going to go to grand rapids michigan john you're next on the program sir go ahead hello I hope you're having a joyful and blessed thursday first of all I sure am thank you john and you too oh I'm glad glad to hear that thank you and you said you're going to tackle some subjects today I've got one I need a whole team to tackle I'm 66 years old in a few weeks I'm disabled I'm receiving social security unfortunately due to extremely extenuating life events I'm in a financial situation where I have a total amount of fifteen thousand dollars to sustain the rest of my life so I'm trying to see if you may have some advice to help with how I might be able to live on 16 I'm sorry fifteen thousand dollars for I hope another 20 years that's that's the question yeah john I appreciate that I'm so sorry to hear about your health challenges so you said you're you're receiving social security every month in addition to that that's right okay yeah and are you able to pay your bills just based on social security alone yes I'm looking for cheaper subsidized housing though but otherwise yes okay so you're not having to draw anything out of the fifteen thousand every month no okay yeah so that's the good news is that you've got you know a base of income that's supporting your needs I love the fact that you said you're going to try to actually improve that which could free up a little bit of margin maybe even have a little bit of surplus left over I understand that's not easy and you're probably living very modestly but anything you can do to to cut expenses and you know add something to that fifteen thousand every month for the unexpected would be really key let's just be grateful that you know God and I'm not saying that you are ungrateful but I'm just joining with you and saying how wonderful is it that you have that base of income that covers your needs now you might say well what what if my needs exceed that at some point what if I need long-term care I mean that can run that's very expensive and you're right and so you would need to rely on Medicaid at that point once you spent down your assets of you know that fifteen thousand and that would go quick you'd need to go into a Medicaid approved facility that would provide that additional care throughout the rest of your life but beyond that you've got the social security so I think at this point you know it makes things fairly simple in that we're thankful to the Lord for his provision he's your provider he will provide his God's Word is clear about that you've got this base of income that you're living within right now you're going to try to improve that which will give you a little bit of surplus every month and that's great and then you've got this emergency fund of fifteen thousand now I know you're probably look at that and saying that's just not a lot and we're talking about you know sustaining me for the next 20 years if the Lord tarries and he doesn't call me home and you're right and that's where you know you you're relying on you know government assistance if you need it in the form of Medicaid and you know Social Security which you obviously paid into during your working life so you know I think at this point it's just a matter of staying really laser focused on that spending every month just to you know keep your expenses as lean as possible so that hopefully you can continue to build that fifteen thousand and let's just pray and trust the Lord that you won't have to use that you know at any point along the way does that make sense that does make sense and praise God I am a child of God and I have total faith that's right he's brought me along this far Mike I guess part of my question is do you would you advise against or for investing or seeking some form of investment of that fifteen thousand I wouldn't interest yeah I wouldn't John I mean you can do a little better than that than three so you should be able to get four and a half percent right now on that money with a high yield savings account with an online bank and so I'd probably look at moving that you could go to bankrate.com and find a dozen banks online banks with FDIC insurance today that are paying four and a half percent plus maybe a size 4.6 so you could do a little bit better on that but I don't think there's any reason why you would want to take any risk with that that really is your emergency fund and I would keep every bit of that safe and liquid and available if you need it beautiful and tithing I'm sorry to keep bringing up my one question yes turning into a dozen but can you tell me about tithing yeah so so New Testament giving John is giving freely it's giving proportionately it's giving cheerfully and I think you know the gift that that that makes you know God smile is the one that is given with a glad heart and out of gratitude for all that he's done for us the abundance that he's given us in Christ before the first dollar and your ability to give proportionately back to the Lord as a steward of his resources is a demonstration of your trust in him because if if you believed it was dependent upon you to generate your income then you'd want to hold everything every dime you had with a clenched fist but if you believe God is your provider you can hold it loosely and say God I want to I want to continue to give systematically and proportionately as you bless me and I think part of that blessing is the Social Security you're receiving so I don't think there's a specific amount we don't want to be legalistic about it in my view I think that's between you and the Lord but what I would say at the very least is let's give something systematically out of what he provides for you every month beautiful that makes total sense and I truly appreciate your help today all right John may the Lord bless you my friend thanks for being on the program let's head to st. Louis hi Shannon go ahead hi how are you I really appreciate your program and advice I listen to it whenever I can well thanks I appreciate that I have a question regarding a pension I have w-2 income and also self-employment income my w-2 work does have a 403b which I max out and they also offer a defined contribution pension and they do put funds into that and currently I'm matching it my unemployment has a step and I put the most that I can into that as well so my question is regarding the the pension the funds I put in our after-tax and do you feel that it's a good move to match your employer when it's an after-tax contribution I do a pension plan or do you have a feeling either way whether you put money into that or not or just let employer put funds into it yeah it's a good question so you're putting in what percent of your income into the 403b I max it out 22,000 for this year yeah yeah okay and how do you feel like you're doing just in terms of are you on track for what you ultimately need to save do you know what your retirement savings goal is I do I do kind of have I have a program through beyond the online website that you can track that and kind of plan ahead so I I feel like I'm on track but you just never know with the climate and how it shifts and changes yeah and what yeah and the pension how is that invested what kind of return are you seeing on that around seven percent it's not high risk it's moderate but okay right now I think it's down to around three or four percent okay got it all right let's do this I've got to take a quick break Shannon if you don't mind holding the line I'll give you my thoughts right around the corner we'll be right back on faith and finance live well it's great to have you with us today on faith and finance live here in our final segment today let's head right back to the phones before the break we were talking to Shannon in St. Louis Shannon is fully funding his 403b his employer is not only matching a portion of that but also providing contributions to a defined benefit plan a pension he has the ability to contribute to that alongside his employer in an after-tax fashion and wondering if that makes sense you know I think just given the returns on that I'd probably given that you're not experiencing any of the tax benefit on that Shannon and you're fully funding that 403b I'd probably look to do you know something else with that that gives you a greater potential for return I realize it's you know you're gonna take added risk with that but you know you could just you know sock that away in a high quality you know solid mutual fund that has a good track record a good manager maybe even one of the faith-based investing funds that aligns with your values that gives you the ability to grow that a little bit more over the next you know 20 years or so rather than you know the returns that come with that pension program especially given that you know you're not getting any tax incentive there right okay yeah that makes sense I I've been on the fence about it and heard various opinions but that that your thoughts are in a line with several others that fill a similar sentiment yeah I just think you can do better the other thing you've got is even though there are some guarantees I mean you've got the risk of the company you know got kind of all your eggs in one basket there and so it's kind of nice that you'd be building assets outside of that particular pension program since so much of your retirement's riding on that so I think that'd probably be the best way to go again if you want the more conservative route I don't think there's any problem with continuing on the track that you're on I just think you could do a little better elsewhere I'd also do some you know and it sounds like you've done it at least through some of the online tools and some of them are fabulous so I'm not saying that that's not a good solution but you know I would also look at just defining enough and figure out when you know you're on track to be accumulating enough such that you could look to do other things you know can we accelerate the payoff of our home if you haven't already should we be giving you know at a higher level so you know I want you to be thoughtful about how much you're putting aside each year just to make sure you don't over accumulate unnecessarily now you may be right on track I'm not saying what you're doing is inappropriate I would just be thoughtful about that along the way hey thanks for your kind remarks about the program and for calling today Shannon god bless you my friend to West Palm Beach Florida hi Heather go ahead hi good afternoon thank you for taking my call sure my siblings and I are trying to prepare for the end of the civil our parents are 82 years old and 75 and we would like to know what type of insurance can be purchased to help prepare to cover burial expenses for them our parents migrated to the United States in their older years and there's a possibility that they would like to be taken back to their home country to be buried I see okay yeah very good I appreciate that question do they have the assets that at their death that would be available for burial expenses even something that was maybe a little more costly because it involved an out-of-country burial or is the insurance necessary in order to provide the resources to do so we my brothers and sisters and I want to take on that insurance so that we can prepare for that I do believe both of my parents do have some assets they do have some pension from when they retired as teachers from their home country in Jamaica so there are some assets there but we also want to be prepared okay got it yeah so I think the first thing to do is some pre-planning so you figure out how much you actually need especially given the fact that you know they may want to be buried elsewhere and that involves some conversations that you all or a member of the family who's been you know going to be the executor would have with them perhaps I would suggest the whole family just to make sure you understand exactly what their desires are and so that you know how much you need now there's burial insurance which is basically like a whole life policy and then you would receive the payout from the life insurance claims there's no restrictions on how you use it and you know that your parents can make their wishes known and then the money could be spent accordingly then there's funeral insurance which it sounds the same it's a little different it has a payout linked directly to the cost of a pre-arranged funeral burial or cremation so you typically select the funeral home and choose the details of the funeral and you know purchase the policy from the funeral director if they want to be buried outside the country and you all are wanting to take this policy on I would probably be looking at burial insurance as the best option they typically don't you know have any kind of you know you don't have to qualify for it it's guaranteed issue you know and it's just going to be a flat price depending upon their age you're going to want to understand any of the waiting periods a lot of people don't realize they can have a couple of year waiting period often a two-year waiting period where if they die within the first two years of taking out the policy they you won't get the full payout you would just get the premiums that were paid in or it will pay out a smaller amount and then after two years you'd get the full amount but they're simplified policies they're guaranteed issue and you know for you know a healthy male at that age you'd be looking at you know somewhere around a hundred and forty dollars a month for a ten thousand-dollar benefit for a healthy female about a hundred dollars a month for a ten thousand dollar benefit so you know they're not cheap just given the limited amount you get back as a death benefit versus versus the annual premium but if you and your siblings are dividing it up and it gives you some added peace of mind then you know I think that's fine I think just given though the additional cost that could be here it it is going to really require you all to spend some time talking through your parents wishes and then actually do enough planning to know what this will really cost so you get enough coverage does that make sense yes it does okay so so insurance versus funeral exactly purchase directly responsible insurance company yeah and so not not from the funeral director because you probably are going to be working with a funeral director outside the country so that's why pre-planning is going to be really important in this case so it sounds like you've got some work to do but I appreciate you thinking through this other and you know it sounds like you and your siblings need to have a conversation with mom and dad just to kind of flush all of this out we appreciate your call today thanks for being on the program let's go to Naples hi Becky go ahead hi Rob thanks for taking my call my question is we have or I have a Disney credit card that's issued through Chase Bank and I've had it for quite some time my husband and I also have another credit card that's through Chase Bank but it's with a different reward program there is a $45 annual fee for the Disney and until probably right before the COVID hit I was we were people who went to Disney regularly living in Florida but there's been so much uncovered and so much things that I don't like about that company any longer and I had a substantial amount of points but you can only use the points for either Disney purchases or for airlines and we have not been flying the past couple of years we've been driving to our destinations I'm thinking about closing it but I know that when you close an account that you've had for a long time that it could possibly have a negative impact on your credit score my husband I have very strong credit or should I just continue to pay the $45 and I think I use it like that credit card just for the dog's food because I've got that stored in the company the Petco website yeah very good are you guys looking to take on any additional credit anytime soon would you be buying a new house where you need a mortgage or a car where you need a loan we might possibly be looking at a new vehicle because mine's four years old it's totally paid off has been for well over a year and we might possibly go into another vehicle if you know it's not something that we have to have but I've really once I got out of my hybrid vehicles and I'm not in a hybrid now I'm like I want to back my hybrid but I'm not going to be we're not willing to pay you know exorbitant my husband's quite a wheeler and dealer with automobile loans and so we would take on something like that but we do have very strong credit score good yeah so you're north of eight eight hundred let's say yes okay yeah yeah I don't think this is an issue Becky if you're not using the card any longer and I can certainly understand why you have an objection to that from a values perspective I would just close it you know could it result you know taking this out of the history you know in you having a temporary reduction in your credit score potentially it's probably going to be 30 or 40 points and it's going to bounce back in no time but the bottom line is any credit you would be seeking you're still going to be so far ahead of the minimum threshold to qualify for the very best rates and terms that it really doesn't matter so just having one more account to keep up with one more potential annual fee you know I would say it's just not worth it you don't plan to use it you don't plan to take advantage of the reward points and you have a strong conviction about that and I can understand why so I'd say close it don't look back it's not going to have any effect on you if it does it's temporary but even that reduction wouldn't prevent you from qualifying for the top tier rates well how long will that drop go probably just a few months if any if at all because you know you guys have such a long history of being on-time payers that this is one of probably many of accounts that you've had over your lifetime right oh yes most definitely yeah we're in our 60s right so this is it's going to be a very minimal impact and like I say it will only last a few months if it happens at all okay thank you so much have a blessed day all right Becky you too thanks for your call today let's see quickly well you know what unfortunately we're out of time so Christian and Gabriel if you guys want to talk to my team Tahira will pick up the line we'd love to get you scheduled for tomorrow's broadcast I apologize we didn't get to you today you know folks as we think about our role in managing God's money one of the things I've experienced over the years is that our financial journey is one of the key ways God shapes our spiritual journey there's just something about working out our money decisions that just connects our heart to the Lord's and allows us to truly work out where we've ultimately placed our trust and what we value we want to direct you back to God's word so you have a biblical approach when you look at that hey faith and finance live is a partnership between moody radio and faith five thank you to Lynn Amy Tahira and Jim couldn't do it without him see you tomorrow.