Leverage Your Expertise

Every good gift and faith is your home for His kingdom. I'll talk about that 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, I want to give a shout out to Ken Boa and Russ Crossan for their book, Leverage, Using Temporal Wealth for Eternal Gain. It's a blueprint for how we can take the Bible's financial principles and put them into practice for God's kingdom. In other words, taking something that's temporary and making it eternal. We think everyone should have this book, so we're making it available for a gift of any amount to Faithfi until December 31st.

Just go to faithfi.com, that's faithfi.com, and click the Give tab at the top of the page, and we'll get a copy of Leverage right out to you. Now as I said, leveraging our finances to advance the kingdom is extremely important. But we must also acknowledge that God gives us many gifts, including time, talent, and experience. We need to look for ways to use them for the kingdom as well, if we're to be truly faithful stewards. You've been given skills and talents that the Lord wants to use for his kingdom. Paul makes this clear in 1 Corinthians 12, 4 through 7, it reads, Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are varieties of service, but the same Lord. And there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. And again in Romans 12, 6 through 8, Paul writes, Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them in proportion to our faith, if service in our serving, the one who teaches in his teaching, the one who contributes in generosity, the one who leads with zeal, the one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness. So let me ask you, are you giving back a portion of your talents to God's kingdom? You might not think you have any talents to contribute, but that's never the case. We all have skills and abilities that God can use. For example, if you're in the business world, you have a unique opportunity to share the gospel with those who don't yet know Christ.

You come into contact with many different people, like associates, customers, and vendors. And while doing that, you can make a strong witness for Christ by treating people with honesty and respect. It's probably not a coincidence that when Jesus called the 12 disciples, many of them owned and operated businesses as tradesmen and commercial fishermen.

It would only be reasonable to assume the disciples used their contacts and past relationships to witness for Christ. So we all have God-given talents. Are you good with children? Those skills can be put to use in the church nursery, or babysitting for a single mom or dad in your neighborhood who needs a break. Maybe you're good at repairing cars, or a great cook, or you like to paint, and yes, some people actually do. Or maybe you have time you can spend with an elderly shut-in down the street. Putting time and talents to work for others not only fulfills your calling for stewardship, it provides a great witnessing opportunity by reflecting the love of Christ and a chance to invite someone to your church.

So don't think you have nothing to give. God can use just about anything to advance His kingdom. For example, the staff of Moses in Exodus 4, 3, and 4. It reads, Then he said, Throw it on the ground. So he threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent, and Moses fled from it. But the Lord said to Moses, Stretch out your hand, and grasp it by its tail. So he stretched out his hand and caught it, and it became a staff in his hand.

The point is this, if God can use an ordinary object like a stick to perform miracles, imagine what He can do with you, a real, live person made in His image. God wants you to give of your expertise, because He loves you, and He wants you to experience the full spiritual blessings of giving. Luke 6, 38 reads, Give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap.

For with the measure you use it, it will be measured back to you. Now, how much time and talent you give back to God is between you and Him. And here, 2 Corinthians 9, 6 can be helpful. It reads, The point is this, whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. If you're generous with your time and talents, as well as your treasure, you'll no doubt one day hear these words, Well done, good and faithful steward, enter into the joy of your master. Stay tuned.

We'll see you much more, just around the corner. The opinions offered during this program represent the personal or professional opinions of the participants, given for informational purposes only. Any information provided is not intended to replace advice from a financial, medical, legal, or other professional who understands your specific situation. 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 on anything financial. The number to call with some lines open is 800-525-7000.

Again that's 800-525-7000. We'd love to hear from you. Let's dive in today. We're going to begin in Naples. John, you'll be our first caller.

Go ahead. Thank you, Rob. Thank you for taking the call. Yes, I listen in the program every day, and my son, he is 14, and he is asking me, well, he asked me yesterday while you were on the program, what could be the best advice for him to start smart in his financial life? He's got at a point $100 in savings, so what would be the best advice for him? Yeah, well, I love that, that you're starting him early, number one.

Obviously, he's listening in as you're listening, and that's great, because there's really two tracks here, John, he needs to be on. One is what I'll call the financial literacy. He needs to understand the importance of hard work unto the Lord, and that's how we receive funding.

It comes from God, but it's through hard work, and God ordained that. He needs to understand the importance of saving, the importance of giving, the importance of living within his means and having a spending plan, but he also needs to understand a biblical worldview of money management as well, that God owns it all, and that we're actually tasked with being his manager and being faithful in handling that, and that God's word gives us principles that we can pull out and apply to our financial lives. Now, when it comes to this $100, kind of with that as a backdrop, I like the approach, especially with kids who are still young, understanding this idea of give, save, spend, that with every dollar we receive, we should give systematically, we should save a portion of it, and then a portion can be reserved for spending. If you were to think through this $100, would you allocate a portion of that to each of these three categories, or is all of this for savings? Well, this is for savings. He's doing some chores like, you know, car wash, the car wash in my car, or, you know, different things, and that's what he, at this point, he has $105, which he's got in the bank income account, but I got another little savings for him, and that's a capital one, which that's a little portion of interest, just little coins, but still he was asking me, you know what, what can I do with the $100, or what would be the best?

Yeah, very good. Well, that's the right question to ask, and whenever we want to think about how we can put our money to work for us, we always want to think about it in times of our expected time horizon. So the question is, in what time frame would he want to be able to use this? So if he's got his eye on a particular thing that he's saving for, and that happens to be something he might want to be able to access in less than five years, then he may want to just keep it in a savings account, even though he's earning a little bit of interest, because he knows he's saving for something in particular. If, however, he is not saving for something in particular and just wants to be able to let this money grow, and he's willing to not use it in the next few years, well then I think you could start looking at investing and beginning to teach him about investing in the stock market. Which do you think would be most appropriate, and what time horizon do you think is right? I think investing would be fine. I mean, it's going to be almost half of the year, which he's not being, he hasn't spent anything of that amount, so he is able to increase, you know, increase, increase. But what kind of, you know, investment do you think, which ones, I don't know.

Yeah, yeah, very good. Well, it's a great question, and I think, you know, at this age, I would love for him to do the research and pick the company. Now, normally we'd want to be really properly diversified. We'd not want to have all of our eggs in one basket, and so typically the way you would do that is to take this amount of money and put it into a mutual fund. And then with $100, you'd actually own, you know, dozens or even hundreds of companies, and that gives you good diversification. The challenge is with just a young man who's beginning to learn investing, what you want to really drive home is this idea that he actually owns a percentage of a real company. And so I kind of like the idea of through what's called fractional shares, him taking this $100 and finding and selecting the company that he would like to invest in. Perhaps it's a company he enjoys their brand or their product, or he has some affinity for their product or service, and he'd like to invest in that company, and that way he's got an interest in it, he could follow along with the company, see how it does. Maybe you even set up a time once a month where he reports back to you on any news that came out about the company, and he'll begin to really understand what this idea of ownership in a particular company looks like.

And so if you wanted to do that, you could use an app like Robinhood or Stockpile. Either of those would allow him to buy what are called fractional shares, where he might not even be able to afford one share of a company, but he could buy one fifth of one share of a company with that $100. And again, he would make that selection, and I would encourage this as an opportunity for you all to communicate about what company he selected and why, and then you all could watch it together.

So that would be one approach. The other approach is to take the $100 and put it into a mutual fund where he's got that diversification and maybe he uses one of what are called faith-based investing mutual funds. And these are companies that are not only looking to invest in companies that are creating value for shareholders, but also they're making a positive impact in the world. And he could begin to research how that particular mutual fund goes about doing that. And if he wanted to do that, one of the funds I might look at would be a fund family called Eventide. You can find them if you just put a search in your search engine, Eventide Mutual Funds, and he could begin to research how they make their selections for the holdings in their mutual fund and how they are making a positive impact in the world. And that would be really interesting for him as well. So I would probably take one of those two approaches, either Robinhood or Stockpile buying fractional shares in a single company that he picks, or a faith-based investing mutual fund like Eventide.

Either of those could be great. Does that make sense? He makes sense. So the risk of losing his $100 is minimal, right, in both cases?

Not really, no. I mean, because whenever you're investing in a company, and especially if he invests in just one company, I mean, the worst case scenario is that company could go bankrupt. Now, if he picks Apple Computer, it's the biggest company in the world. They're not going to go bankrupt anytime soon. But could their stock price, you know, get cut in half if we got into a recession?

It's possible. So that $100 could be $50. That would be a valuable learning experience. And that's why, if you're comfortable with it, a mutual fund would be a better option. He can still lose money, but at least he wouldn't have everything riding on one company's performance. He would have it in hundreds of companies.

So I think this is part of the education process. Let's do this. I'm going to send you a book called The Sound Mind Investing Handbook. You stay on the line. I'd love for you to begin reading this with him so you can introduce him to the world of investing from a biblical perspective. John, I hope that helps. Thanks for your call today. We'll be right back on Faith in Finance Live.

Great to have you with us today on Faith in Finance Live. I'm Rob West. Hey, we've got lines open for your questions today. 800-525-7000. Again, that number, 800-525-7000. You can call right now.

Let's head to Miramar, Florida. Ariel, thank you for calling. Go ahead. Yeah, I'm a Christian, I'm retired, and I would like to know if I should pay tithes for my Social Security that I get. Very good. Yeah, that's a great question.

So there's a couple of ways to address this here, Ariel. First of all, we have to recognize that the tithe is an Old Testament idea that was a part of the Mosaic law, and it was really based on your increase. Now, there was actually three tithes that totaled 23 and a third percent, but the word tithe means a tenth, and it was a way to give off of the increase as the Lord prospered them on their harvest, and they would bring that, at least one of the tithes, to the temple. And we would most often associate that with a gift of, a systematic gift on the increase to our local church, God's plan A. Now, we're a part of the law of Christ because the Mosaic law was replaced when Jesus enters the scene, but he often raised the bar in just about every situation, and I would say that includes this area of giving. Now, New Testament giving is about giving freely. It's about giving proportionately as God has prospered you. It's about giving cheerfully, recognizing God is our provider, and those of us who have seen what he's done for us on our behalf on the cross as he paid the penalty for our sin out of gratitude, one of the ways that we can worship him is through our generosity, through our giving, which is simply returning a portion of what he's entrusted to us back to him. Now, using the principle of the tithe, a gift, a systematic gift, a tenth on our increase, I think is a great place to start.

My friend Randy Alcorn calls that the training wheels of giving. So if you wanted to apply the principle of the tithe to your Social Security, you would have to say, what portion of this is my increase? Now, it gets a little complicated with your Social Security because, as you know, if you've been tithing on your gross income while you were working, you've in a sense, you've already tithed on a portion of this money that's coming back to you in the form of a monthly check as your Social Security benefit. Through your FICA taxes, you paid into Social Security, and then at some point, you start claiming those benefits and they start sending you a monthly check.

Now, some portion of this check you get every month is a return of what you've already paid in and then a portion would be considered the gain or the increase. So you've really got two ways to approach this, Ariel, if you want to give a tithe on your Social Security. The first is to say, listen, everything I receive is a gracious gift from God. And so I'm just going to give systematically on everything I get, my wages, my Social Security check, an inheritance, an annuity payment, you know, a distribution I take from my investments. I'm going to see it all as a gift from the Lord.

And I'm just going to give a tenth back to my local church as my tithe. The other approach you could take is a little more technical. And this goes back to this idea that a portion of what you're receiving is a return of what you've already paid in through your FICA taxes. So how would you approach that?

Well, here's the way you could approach it. Your Social Security benefit statement will tell you all that you've paid into Social Security during your working years. And what you could do is you could say, okay, if I take my monthly benefit check times the number of years of my life expectancy, which once you reach age 65, your life expectancy as a woman in the United States is 86. So you could say, let's say you started taking your benefits at 66.

You could say over the next 20 years, here's how much I'm going to receive back from Social Security if I collect this same check for the next 20 years. And you could compare that to what you paid into the system and determine what portion of that is being returned to you from what you've already contributed and what portion would be the profit. And then that portion that is the profit or the increase is what you would pay the tithe on. And you could establish a percentage, perhaps 70% of what you're getting every month is just returning to you what you've already paid in to Social Security. And 30%, let's say, is beyond that.

And then you would just give a tithe on 30% of your Social Security check. Now, I realize that may be way too complicated, but I'm just trying to help you think through an approach to this. Does that happen to make sense, Ariel? Yes, it does make sense. But God bless you for your brains to be working this out and I'm just listening. But just tell me, what should I, you know, should I just give something or every month from it or?

Yes. At the end of the day, I think that's, first of all, that's between you and the Lord. So I can't tell you how much to give.

But what I can tell you is the Lord sees your heart and he knows you want to honor him. And so I would give something systematically. What that amount is, is totally up to you. And as long as you give with a cheerful heart, with the right attitude and as an act of worship, I believe that's a gift that God will, that will honor the Lord. Whether that's a full tenth of that Social Security check every month or some percentage that's less than that, I think that's between you and the Lord. But I would give something regularly.

Yes, yes, because I really feel a bit guilty because I say I'm not working no more and I'm getting my Social Security and I'm like, what should I pay out of it and what, you know, and then if I don't give anything, I just feel guilty like I'm not doing what I should do for the Lord. So I just really wanted your input and I think I will definitely do what you say. Give something substantial from it. What I, you know, what the Lord blessed me with and I thank you for your advice.

Well, you're welcome, Ariel. I'm confident that what you just described will please the Lord because you're trying to honor him and be found faithful in what he's given to you. Clearly, you're acknowledging his provision in your life, his blessing in your life, and you're wanting to give back. And that's great because every time you give, it's a demonstration of your trust in the Lord, your understanding that he is your provider. And that's why you don't hold it with a tight fist because you know he'll continue to provide for you. And so that allows you to be freed up to give. And here's the big part.

It's the joy that follows, not the guilt, but the joy where you can participate in God's work. It's a real blessing that he gives us. Thanks for your call today. We'll be right back.

Ed, coming your way after the break. Stay with us. Hey, do you find some value in this program? Maybe you listen regularly, you've found something that's been an encouragement to you, or you've been able to apply something directly in your financial life. In any case, if you'd like to support the work of Faith and Finance Live, we'd certainly be grateful, especially as we're into the fourth quarter. That is the final stretch before year end. This is a crucial time for us in terms of our listener giving.

That's right. We rely on your financial support to bring you this program each day and all of the many offerings from FaithFi. If you'd make a gift of any amount, we'd certainly be grateful, especially now here in late October. Just head to faithfi.com. That's faithfi.com and click the give button and you can give quickly and securely. faithfi.com.

Just click give. All right. We've got some lines open today.

A few, in fact. So if you have a financial question, this is a great day to get through, 800-525-7000. You can call right now.

Let's go to Cleveland. Ed, you've been very patient. Go ahead, sir. Well, thank you, Rob. Greetings and salutations to you.

We've spoken a couple of times in the past, so what I'd like to do is just tell you quickly. I just bought a brand new car, a 2024, and I was going to finance it. There's no trade in it or anything like that. I was going to finance it through my credit union, so they did a credit check and whatnot. Long story short, I just decided to take cash. In other words, I wrote a personal check and bought the car. You know what I mean? I know that's not too rare, but God's been good to me.

That's great. I keep getting these emails that say a hard credit check was done on you. It's a warning and whatnot. People have been telling me that when they run a credit report for you, that has a detrimental effect on your credit rating. My question is, why would that be?

Yeah, it's a great question. Just to bring some terminology to bear, you mentioned the hard credit inquiry. That's when you authorize a lender to check your credit for the purposes of determining whether or not they'll extend you credit.

A soft inquiry is what you would initiate on your own. You could go to Credit Karma. Many credit card companies now offer free credit scores to their cardholders. If you go and get your own credit just for the purpose of knowing what your credit score is or checking your credit file, that's a soft inquiry and that's not going to have an effect on you. You're right, that hard inquiry where you authorized a lender, in this case a car dealership, to check your credit because you were considering financing, that does temporarily pull your score down.

Now, two points there. Number one is all hard inquiries in a two-week period for the same type of loan, in this case a car loan, would be treated as one. That does give you the freedom, and I know you chose to pay cash so that it doesn't apply, but it does give someone who's out shopping for a car loan, let's say, the freedom to have a number of lenders or dealerships pull their credit and all of that would be treated as one.

There is that piece of it. Now, why would it bring your score down to your original question? Well, the scoring algorithm is just a function of the studies that have been done on hundreds and hundreds of credit files to determine a formula that will produce a number that indicates how likely you are to repay as agreed. Basically, what that's saying is that the more credit reports they looked at, that this idea that somebody's out looking to borrow money is just one indication among many that they're a worse credit risk than somebody else because somebody who's not out looking to borrow money arguably is in a stronger financial position than somebody who is out looking to borrow money. Now, again, that's just one piece of hundreds of factors that make up your credit score, but nevertheless, when you have that one hard inquiry, it does pull your score down 20 or 30 points generally. Is that a big deal? It shouldn't be because, again, as long as you keep it within the two-week period, your score shouldn't be affected and once you've gotten the loan, then it's a temporary decline.

It will come back up as you have the months following where you don't have any hard inquiries and really the only time your credit score matters is when you're looking to get a loan because it's at that point that you need to know or they need to know where your score is and which bracket that falls into in terms of whether they're going to give you their very best rates and terms. If it's in a period where you're not out borrowing money, it doesn't really mean anything because nobody's using it for that basis. Does that make sense? It makes perfect sense and does it make a difference that I didn't accept a loan that I was personal? It doesn't.

No. The fact that you authorized that credit inquiry has already had the impact. It was minimal. It's temporary.

It's going to come right back and it's just based on the data that says that because you're out looking to borrow some money or at least considering it, they're going to drop your score temporarily. I see. When you talk about algorithms and things like that, it reminds me of 50 years ago when I took physics and calculus courses, but thank you very much. All right. Thanks, Ed. We appreciate your call today.

God bless you, my friend. 800-525-7000. Let's go to Maryland.

Greenbelt. Hi, Susan. Go ahead. Susan, are you with us? All right.

We don't hear Susan, so I'm going to have my teamwork on that and let's head to Miami. Go ahead, Alex. Yes. Good evening. My employer offers a 457 investment plan and knowing that we will have taxes be going up in the future, do you really think it's a benefit?

I do. I mean, you're right. We expect the tax rates, if they're going anywhere, are going up. We know if nothing changes, the current Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that Trump put in place that resulted in these lower tax rates we're paying now is expiring in 2025. So starting in 2026, unless somebody extends that, they're going up. Now, obviously, we've got a presidential election right around the corner. We don't know the future of the makeup of Congress. And so that's obviously something that remains to be seen.

But you're right. We could expect with some degree of reasonable analysis that rates are headed higher. Why would you continue to contribute to a 457? Well, not only do you get the tax deferral going in, so that's excluded from your adjusted gross income, but you get the tax deferred growth. So the nice part about that is as you're investing during your working years and you make investments and they have profits and then they're sold and it's moved into some other investment because your mutual fund manager inside your 457 is buying and selling stocks, the benefit is that, you know, those those gains are not having any kind of drag on the investments because that's inside that tax deferred environment. So 100 percent of the profits inside that investment are working for you as opposed to you investing outside of that 457. You don't get the current deduction. And as you have profits along the way, you'd be paying capital gains on that.

So I think for that reason, it's worth continuing to invest in it. Now, if you had a Roth option, I might do both contribute some to the Roth and some to the traditional. The studies say that if you have both options, you're better off to go with the portion in the traditional or the tax deferred option. You take your age and add 20 to it. So if you were 50, you'd put 70 percent in the traditional version and then put the balance and in my example, 30 percent in a Roth version, an after tax vehicle.

But if you don't have the Roth option, then I'd put 100 percent in that 457 plan. Does that make sense? Yes, it does. Thank you very much. You're welcome, Alex. Thanks for your call today. This is Faith and Finance Live.

We do have lines open 800-525-7000, a quick break and back with much more. Stay with us. Hey, thanks for joining us today on Faith and Finance Live. I'm Rob West. Let's head right back to the phones, to Greenbelt, Maryland. Susan, go right ahead.

How can we help? Hi. Thanks for taking my call.

Sure. I'm 55. I make about $85,000 a year and I own my own home, only about six years in, so still a high balance left. I don't have – well, during the COVID issue, I did have a couple of debts that ran up on me, which I am paying them off. And I have a 23-year-old autistic son. So my question is, one, how do I and how can I retire or how can I prepare myself to be with this where I am now and how do I make preparations for my son?

How can I set things up for him to be okay? Yes. Very good.

Well, a couple of thoughts here, Susan. So retirement is, you think, I mean, you know, if you have the option, what, about 10 years away potentially? Yes. Okay.

And you still have a mortgage. Did you say you don't have any retirement savings currently, correct? Correct.

Correct. All right. And what is your employment situation?

I think I have a – I do have a IRA with about $6,000 in there. Okay. All right.

Very good. And do you have a retirement plan available at work? That's what I'm putting into. Okay. And what percent of your – Maybe about – I put about $200 to $300 every two weeks. Okay.

$200 to $300. And do you – I'm sorry, say that again. And it currently has about $6,000. Okay. And that's the Roth IRA? Yes. No, it's not Roth.

They're a regular one. Oh, okay. Okay. But it's an IRA or it's a plan at work?

A plan at work. Okay. Got it. And do they match any portion of that?

They do. Okay. And do you know how much they match up to a certain percentage?

I think it's 1%. Got it. Okay. And they're matching. Yeah.

They're putting in this. Okay. And if you were to – well, for instance, let me ask you, do you have anything left over at the end of the month?

Not really, but once I pay off the debt, then I will. Okay. And when will that be?

Maybe by next year. Okay. All right. Very good. And how much could you add to it at that point? Maybe another four or five hundred. Okay. All right.

You know, here's the thing. You know, with 6,000 a day, if you were to add 600 a month, because you said 300 every paycheck to this account, and it were to grow, let's just say it grew at 8% a year, you'd have about 125,000 in 10 years when you get to age 65. And what we would expect is that if you had that 125,000, and I'm not counting on this going up next year either, so, you know, let's say you'd have 150,000 because you could put an extra $300 a month in, but let's just take the 125 for a second. You know, we would probably say typically you'd want to pull out no more than 4% a year. So that would give you an extra 5,000 a year, or about $415 a month. So the question to start with is, before we talk about your special needs son, you know, is Social Security plus $400 a month enough for you to cover your bills in retirement if you're no longer working? Do you know what you should receive at full retirement age? Have you looked at your Social Security benefit statement?

No, I haven't. Okay, so that would be a good thing to do. You could go to SSA.gov and log into your account to MySSA, and it will tell you that just based on, you know, your current work record and projecting, you know, what you will do over the next 10 years if you continue to pay FICA taxes based on the income you have been receiving lately, it will tell you what your monthly benefit will be at full retirement age, which is probably age 66 or 67. And at that point, you would be able to say, okay, I at least know I'm going to receive this amount every month, and then if you add $400 to it, then, you know, the question is can you build your budget around that? And at least then you would know if you do nothing more than what you're doing right now, putting in $600 a month into your retirement plan, you've already got $6,000 there, you want to really focus as soon as that debt's paid off of, you know, bumping that up instead of $600 a month or $300 every pay period, you know, to maybe $400 or $500 a pay period, that's going to put $1,000 a month in there, you know, that would all of a sudden make a big difference.

Because now, you know, if you grew that at 10, at 8% a year, you'd have about $200,000 in there, and instead of $400 a month, you know, you could pull out about $8,000 a year, you know, or about $650 a month. So I think that's the kind of planning you need to do in really looking at what your budget will be in retirement and trying to just sock away as much as you can over this next decade. The other thing you can do would be to try to cut your expenses and put more in.

The other thing you could do is work longer. So instead of retiring at $65,000, maybe you try to wait till $70,000. And actually, if you did that, your Social Security check would be about 24% higher every month, and it would give you an extra, let's say, five years to continue, you know, to build up your retirement nest egg. So instead of 10 years, you'd have 15 years, and now all of a sudden, you know, just with that $600 a month, you know, you've got $225,000 in there.

So these are the kinds of things you need to do. Now, the other thing you need to do is go visit with an estate planning attorney who can help you put your estate documents in place so that whatever you build up in terms of your nest egg could be left as a beneficiary to, let's say, a special needs trust, which would then be there to provide for your son and wouldn't affect his ability to earn or collect, you know, government assistance. So that asset would not in any way impede him from getting the assistance from the government, but he could use it for his care or somebody could use it on his behalf.

But that would mean that you have to visit with an attorney who understands that and could set up a special needs trust for his benefit. Does that all make sense? Okay. Yes. Okay.

Good. So I think this is the right direction. You know, the only other thing I might suggest is you connect with a certified kingdom advisor, somebody who can help you do, I mean, we're just spending about three minutes together here today, but somebody who could spend some real time with you, do some retirement projections, help you plan for what you're ultimately going to need in terms of a retirement savings goal, help you match that up with how many years you plan to work and even connect you with a godly estate planning attorney. If you want a certified kingdom advisor, just head to our website, faithfi.com.

It's faithfi.com and just click find a CKA and you can look for one right there in Maryland. I hope that's helpful to you, Susan. Thanks for your call today and may the Lord bless you. Bye bye.

To Kenosha, Wisconsin. Hi, Sam. Go ahead.

Hi. I was just curious if you had any thoughts or opinions on, my wife and I are wondering if we should tithe or whatever amount we want to give before or after tax. Yeah. You know, the late Larry Burkett used to say kind of tongue in cheek, well, it depends on whether you want to be blessed, gross or net. And he would say that, you know, in kind of a joking way, but in some respects not in the sense that, you know, if we go back to the principle of the tithe and look at the Old Testament law, you know, they were giving off of their increase. They didn't deduct out the cost of the grain or take anything out of that.

It was on the first fruits. And I think the most equivalent to that would be you tithing on the gross before anything comes out. It's just a recognition of God's ownership of everything and a demonstration that you're going to put him first. That would be the approach that I would encourage you to take. But again, this is not between me and you. It's between you and the Lord.

And so I would ultimately make this a matter of prayer, but that's at least my thoughts on it. Does that make sense? Yeah. Thanks so much. All right, Sam. God bless you, bud.

Let's finish up in Orlando, Florida today. Hi, Alice. Go ahead. Hi. I just have a quick question. I wanted to know where I can tell my son and his wife to go for budgeting assistance.

Yeah. So let me give you a website. It's actually a part of our website. We recommend something called a Certified Christian Financial Counselor.

And these are men and women who've been trained to do exactly what you're describing. They provide help with relational issues around money, money and marriage, budgeting help, getting out of debt. It's really for those folks who are not ready for a certified kingdom advisor, a professional, but they need somebody who's trained in biblical financial wisdom and really specializes in these types of issues, primarily budgeting, like you're describing. You'll see a list of our first dozen Certified Christian Financial Counselors on our website. If you've got a pin handy, it's faithfi.com. That's faithfi.com forward slash cert c-e-r-t c-f-c. That's short for Certified Christian Financial Counselor, cert c-f-c.

So again, that website is faithfi.com slash c-e-r-t c-f-c. And that will take you to a listing of the men and women who have the Certified Christian Financial Counselor designation, and any of those folks on that web page will be able to help you with budgeting. And you'll just want to have them look through them and contact the one that seems like the best fit. Okay? Excellent. Well, thank you so very much. I appreciate it. All right. God bless you, Alice. Thanks so much for your call today. By the way, folks, again, this is a great resource.

It's one of the newest offerings. We're just now in the process of building out our listing of Certified Christian Financial Counselors. We will see a day in the near future where there's dozens and dozens and eventually hundreds of Certified Christian Financial Counselors all over the country to serve you all who don't need a Certified Kingdom Advisor quite yet, but you need help with premarital finances, debt reduction, credit reports, and budgeting. Just go to faithfi.com slash cert c-f-c. Hey, if you'd like to support our work, this is a critical time for us. You can give online quickly and securely at faithfi.com.

Just click Give. Faith and Finance Live is a partnership between Moody Radio and Faithfi. Thanks to my team today. We'll see you tomorrow.