Count Your Blessings: The Power of Gratitude

Back in 1897, Johnson Oatman Jr. wrote a hymn that remains a favorite even today. You probably know the refrain, count your blessings, name them one by one.

Hi, I'm Rob West. That well-loved gospel song contains a very important theme for the Christian life, gratitude. We'll talk about that today, 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, last year was the 100th anniversary of Johnson Oatman Jr.'s death. He wrote the words to 5,000 hymns in his lifetime. Count your blessings was his masterpiece, offering comfort and reassurance with its timeless theme of gratitude to the Lord. Well, gratitude is certainly an appropriate topic at this time of year, with Thanksgiving coming up. I'm sure we will all count our blessings as we gather with family and friends, remembering the goodness of God. Of course, gratitude is more than just a holiday feeling. First Thessalonians 5 18 says, giving thanks is an essential part of the Christian life.

Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. So let's look at the hymn more closely. There's deep truth in these verses Johnson Oatman wrote over a century ago. The first verse says, when upon life's billows you are tempest-tossed, when you are discouraged, thinking all is lost, count your many blessings, name them one by one, and it will surprise you what the Lord has done. Gratitude has the power to lift us out of fear and discouragement. Psalm 118 4 and 5 gives a testimony of this. Let those who fear the Lord say, his steadfast love endures forever. Out of my distress, I called on the Lord.

The Lord answered me and set me free. When you focus on your problems, they can seem overwhelming. Gratitude refocuses your heart and mind on the Lord. In light of his protection and provision, problems seem much less scary. In John 16 33 Jesus said, in this world you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world. Now verse 2 of the hymn tells us that gratitude can calm our doubts when times get tough.

Here are the words. Are you ever burdened with a load of care? Does the cross seem heavy? You are called to bear. Count your many blessings. Every doubt will fly, and you will be singing as the days go by. Considering what God has done in your life will remind you that he loves you and will never leave you to struggle alone. Remember Psalm 23? Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.

Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. Not only is gratitude effective in dispelling fear and doubt, it also helps us get our priorities straight. The third verse of the hymn puts it this way. When you look at others with their lands and gold, think that Christ has promised you his wealth untold. Count your many blessings, money cannot buy, your reward in heaven nor your home on high. We don't need to be jealous of the money and possessions of others, because we know the treasure we have in the Lord is eternal, and it's much more satisfying than anything the world has to offer. The heart that treasures God with gratitude will be at peace. In John 14 27, Jesus said, Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. The refrain of the hymn contains one of the best pieces of advice I can think of for Christians. Count your blessings, name them one by one, count your blessings, see what God has done. When was the last time you took a break from the busyness of life and just counted your blessings? I challenge you to set aside a few minutes, even today, to list all the blessings you can think of, big and small. I think you'll be amazed at how many you come up with.

Make this a challenge for the whole family, including your children. Here's an important reminder. It's not enough just to count your blessings.

Anybody can do that. For Christians, there's a part two. Acknowledge that these good gifts are from the Lord and give thanks to him for each blessing on the list.

I promise you, it'll be a joyful exercise. Here are the words to the final verse of Johnson Oatman's much loved hymn. So, amid the conflict, whether great or small, do not be discouraged. God is over all. Count your many blessings angels will attend, help and comfort give you to your journey's end.

Well, I hope that classic hymn encourages you to count your blessings today, one of which is that I didn't sing it for you. I could promise you that. 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. Stay tuned. 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, thanks for joining us today on Faith and Finance Live. I'm Rob West, your host. All right, it's time to take your calls and questions. The calls are coming in, but we still, at least at this moment, have a few lines open. 800-525-7000 is the number to call. Again, that's 800-525-7000. You can call right now. Let's begin today in Florida. Hi, James.

How can I help? Hey, appreciate you taking my call a lot. Thank you. I am a pastor. I'm a pastor, and I have a tax question, and I'll paint the picture this way, and I think it'll make sense, I hope. So let's say I have a salary of 70,000. I'm able to claim a housing allowance of 20, which drops the taxable income down to 50,000. Am I still able, at the end of the year, I think it's doing the easy form for tax, am I still able to also claim the standardized deduction from the government, which is somewhere in the ballpark of 23, $24,000?

Well, yeah. So the bottom line is, yes, you can take the housing allowance, and that's separate from either the standard or itemized deductions based on what which you qualify for. The housing allowance is excluded from federal income taxes. You still would pay FICA on it, but it's excluded from income taxes. But as you calculate your return, it will tell you whether or not you qualify for the standard deduction, which for 2023 would be $27,700 for a married couple. For 2022, it is, let's see, I believe $19,000, no, no, $25,900 was married filing jointly for 2022. So if you're under that, you would take the standard deduction on top of your housing allowance. If you're over that, not counting the housing allowance, then that's where you would itemize.

Okay, I'm going to make sure I have this right. And typically, we don't itemize, we just go with the easy form. So you said, could you could you just explain one more time what you just said about if you're at this or over, you would do this.

And so on. I missed that, that whole Yeah, well, it's it's fairly simple, you can disregard the housing allowance, because you're allowed the housing allowance, regardless of whether you take the standard or the itemized deduction, it's separate. So basically, if you're filing your 2022 taxes, if your deductions add up to less than 25,900, then you'll claim the standard deduction, because you would benefit better by taking that.

If your deductions, contributions, mortgage interest, anything that's deductible, if those not counting the housing allowance add up to more than 25,900 for 2022, then you're going to be better off itemizing each of those deductions. So you get the full benefit. Does that make sense? Yeah, it makes sense. Yeah, it does.

I get so just in a nutshell, I think I've got it. If the housing allowance with that brings the taxable income down to 50,000, then that's a that's a done deal. And then we start figuring the that the taxes based upon that 50,000 at that point, and then going to what you said you can itemize, you'd be better to itemize if you can get beyond the standard deduction, but if not just go with the standard deduction is that that's exactly right.

Yeah, because that that housing allowance is exempt from federal income tax. So that would be excluded as you calculate your adjusted gross income. And then separately, you would count up all your deductions and determine whether you're better off itemizing or taking the standard deduction. Now, if you use a tax software to prepare that, I mean, as you enter in all these numbers, it will determine what the best option is for you.

Alternatively, and this would be what I would suggest as you get a CPA or a tax preparer to do that for you. Got it. Okay, that's all I need. Thanks. All right, James.

Yes, sir. God bless you. Thanks for calling today. We've got some lines open 805257,000. This is faith and finance live and we're looking forward to hearing from you today.

Let's go to Grand Rapids. Hi, Lori. Go ahead. Hi, thanks for taking my call.

I just have a question. I left my longtime employer in the healthcare field last year and I'm just wondering my 403b is still held with the company that takes care of that through them. What are my options to move that to something else?

Do I have to stay with like a Ross or do I have other options? Yeah, do you know which type of 403b it is? Is it the traditional pre-tax version or the the Roth after tax version? It's the pre-tax.

Okay. Yeah, so your options are to either leave it there in the 403b even though you've separated from that employer and then continue to just have it invested with those mutual fund or investment options inside the 403b. The second option would be to roll it into a new 403b if your plan administrator allows and you have a new employer that offers one or the third option would be to roll it to an IRA and the idea there is you're not taking a distribution. You don't ever receive any of the money. It's going directly from the 403b plan administrator to the custodian of your new IRA. It gets deposited. That's a non-taxable event because it's staying inside the pre-tax environment and then inside the IRA you or an advisor on your behalf could invest in basically anything at that point.

You wouldn't be limited to the investment choices inside the 403b. Okay, that's what I was wondering. Okay, thank you for the information. I appreciate it. All right, Lori, we appreciate your help. Listen, if you need an advisor to help you with that, we recommend the Certified Kingdom Advisor designation.

You can find a CKA on our website at faithfi.com and just click find a CKA. Thanks for your call today. Well, folks, we're just getting started here on Faith and Finance Live but looking forward to tackling your financial questions today.

Again, we've got lines open. The number to call is 800-525-7000. That's 800-525-7000. Let's tackle a quick email. These come into us, by the way, at moodyradio.org slash finance. You'll see a form there where you can submit questions.

We take several of them each Wednesday but we also get to them periodically as we're able to. This one comes from an anonymous listener who writes, I just opened a high-yield savings account. I wonder if moving 50,000 from a local bank will raise any issues with the IRS. Basically, if you make a cash deposit of more than 10,000 in your bank account, banks are required to file form 8300. It's the currency transaction report with the IRS. Basically, it's a part of trying to, you know, root out any kind of financial fraud. It came as a result of the Patriot Act. It's composed of basically law enforcement and financial regulatory bodies from FinCEN, which is the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.

This has been around a while. In your case, the IRS will see that it's a transfer from another bank and that should be the end of it. You wouldn't generally hear from them at all.

It's really just more to try to identify fraud taking place through large transactions. I would proceed full steam ahead with that $50,000 transfer and not give it a second thought. Thanks for writing to us. Again, if you'd like to submit a question to be read on the air, you can do that at moodyradio.org slash finance. All right, we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, more of your questions. Looks like we've got a few lines open. The number 800-525-7000. Call right now. We'll be right back on Faith and Finance Live. Great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live. I'm Rob West. We're taking your calls and questions today.

800-525-7000. We've got two lines open. Hey, before we head back to the phones here at the end of October, well, nearly the end of October, it's an important time for us to hear from you. Faith and Finance Live is listener supported. We only bring you this broadcast each day through your generous financial support direct to FaithFi and a gift of any amount would go a long way to helping us reach our goals between now and December 31st. So if you'd consider a gift, we'd be grateful. A gift of any amount at faithfi.com. Just click give.

That's faithfi.com and just click give and thanks in advance. All right, back to the phones. We go to Texas. Hey, Reed. Thanks for calling. Go ahead. Hi. Thanks for taking my call. Sure.

Yes, sir. I'm a military veteran. I have a head injury and I can't remember stuff very good. So I'm going to take a lot of notes. My wife just passed away in this year March and everybody's telling me I have to file a special tax return. I have no clue what I'm doing.

I've called H&R Block and other places and they're not in service yet. So what am I supposed to do? Yeah. Well, so have you generally or you or your wife, and by the way, I'm so sorry to hear about her passing, in prior years, Reed, have you all filed your tax returns yourself or did you have a preparer?

Ourselves. Okay. And this last year I did an electronic thing. My daughter helped me do it online, an online electronic return, but I filed jointly. Yeah, yeah. So generally what happens is the taxpayer, you know, when you're married, the spouse generally files a joint tax return for the year of death, claiming the full standard deduction and using the joint return rates. You know, that's typically what happens.

But I concur. I think you getting a tax preparer would be a great idea this year, especially with some of the health challenges you have. Just make sure that that's done properly and somebody that, you know, could help you prepare that each year and just make sure you're getting the full benefit of any deductions and paying what you owe, but not any more than that, certainly. So where I would head, Reed, if you're open to filing through a tax preparer or a CPA, is to our website to look for a certified Kingdom advisor. Now, you may not find a CKA that does tax preparation, although there are many of them across the country. But any of those certified Kingdom advisors in your area there in Texas, Reed, could make a referral to you to a godly tax preparer, somebody who shares your values and could help you, you know, prepare this return both for the current year and moving forward. So what you would do is just head to our website, faithfi.com, faithfi.com, and right there at the top of the page, it'll say find a CKA, and that stands for Certified Kingdom Advisor. And you can do a zip code search for your area and then again just ask for a referral. Does that make sense?

Okay, looks like we lost that call. So Reed, I hope that's helpful to you. Again, faithfi.com. Find a CKA is the link you're looking for and just ask for a referral.

I think this will be a really important year especially and even moving forward for you to have a professional handling this for you so you're in compliance and not paying any more than necessary. Thank you for your service to our country as well, sir. God bless you. Let's go to Colorado Springs.

Hi Samuel, go ahead. Yes, thank you for taking my call. My question is about my roof. I had a hill damage and this roofing company came around my community and asked to look at the roof. After they looked at the roof, they said it was damaged and needed full replacement. They asked me to give my insurance information, my home insurance, so they can contact them. I did and they have been signing an inspection report agreement so that I should not sue them according to what they told me and I did. But my home insurance sent an adjuster and they came in today and they did everything they're going to send me the estimate. But it looked like the roofing company, I've told them that I do not have my deductible of two thousand dollars and I wanted them to offset that amount as an assistant.

But it looked like they don't want to do that. So my question is, I mean, is this proper or legal for me to find maybe one or two other companies to see who can offset that deductible? Yeah, I appreciate that question, Samuel. So let's talk about the way this would normally work, but let me just clarify. Nobody's done any work on the roof at this point, is that right?

No, not at all. Okay, so what I would typically do is find a reputable contractor in your area. You could go to Angie's List at angie.com, A-N-G-I, or, you know, any number, Better Business Bureau. You could ask around to friends or family or church members to find out who's got a roofing contractor that you can trust, somebody that somebody's worked with before. You can look at a lot of online reviews and make sure you're dealing with somebody that's reputable, especially because the insurance company's gonna be paying most of it.

So let's, you know, let's certainly get somebody who's licensed and insured and has really good reviews. And then what you'll want to do is have them give you an estimate for the repairs or the replacement of the roof. And I would submit that to your insurance company as a claim and get them to approve that estimate. And then what's going to happen is if you decide to go ahead with it, they're going to send, the insurance company is going to send you a check for the amount of the roof repair or replacement minus your deductible. And then you will pay the contractor. And I would make sure you get everything in writing. And again, that, you know, you have the guarantees and you don't pay for the work in advance, but it does require that you come out of pocket for that deductible because, you know, that's the way that's going to work. I mean, the insurance company is only going to give you the amount that's equal to the actual cost of the cost of the job, but they're going to subtract their deductible from that, which means you're going to have to come up with the deductible portion as you pay the contractor the full amount.

So you need to work through your insurance company, get it approved and figure out who you're going to work with, but you might need to delay this until you can come up with the amount equal to your deductible. I hope that helps. Thanks for your call. We'll be right back. Hey, thanks for joining us today on Faith and Finance Live. I'm Rob West. We're going to head back to the phones, continue to take your calls and questions. We've got room for a couple more before now and between now and the end of the broadcast at 800-525-7000. Let's go to West Palm Beach.

Hi, Georgia. Go right ahead. Hi, yes. I was calling to find out I have enough money saved up to pay off my car loan and I was wondering if that's a good choice to just get rid of it. The car interest rate was 3.84% and I was just wondering if it just makes sense to just pay it off and then I can just recoup and save again. I still have money saved up even after I pay off the car loan.

Yeah, very good. I mean, it may be. Let's talk about that for a moment. I love the idea of you being paying this debt off, but we want to make sure that it's wise and you hit on a key point and that is that it's not going to completely deplete you of any kind of liquid savings. So, what is the balance on the car and how much do you have in savings?

The balance on the car is like 12,000. Okay. And in savings, I have 34.

Okay. And what would you say is roughly, you know, your monthly expenses? And I do have those written out. My monthly expenses are basically, I think, everything and I include gas and all in this, gas and food for the week.

So, I did everything. It's like about, I think, 2,000. Was it like 2,900? Okay, so 3,000. Yeah, I mean, so if you were to pay this off, you'd have 22,000 left and, you know, 3,000 a month. That'd give you about seven months, a little bit more than seven months worth of expenses in your savings account.

So, that's great. Do you have any other debt that has a higher interest rate? No, the only debt I have besides my mortgage is the car loan.

Okay. And are you contributing to retirement? Yes, through school through FSR.

Oh, okay. I'm a teacher, so it's through the retirement system. Yeah, FRS, Florida Retirement System, great.

Yeah, I like this option a lot, Georgia. I think this makes a lot of sense because, like I say, you'd still have seven plus months worth of expenses. You'd eliminate that car note. Now, you've got more margin on a monthly basis, so you could give more, you could save more, you know, you can enjoy that. Maybe you fund a Roth IRA that would supplement or be growing alongside the FRS as an additional asset for retirement. And you could set that up, you know, equal to the amount you're putting away, currently paying toward the car and just have that automatically go into a Roth IRA and a good high quality mutual fund. Another option would be you keep making that car payment, but pay it to yourself in a separate savings account.

That is the, you know, the Georgia car replacement fund so that when that car is, you know, to the end of its useful life, you're ready to buy your next car with cash. What do you think about that? I think that is true. And I know a lot of people do that.

And here's the thing. The most important thing I got rid of that is I live in a villa and the villa is 30 years old. And I was, and there's a sliding glass door in the back that leads right into my home. But the sliding glass is, I think, in dire need of repair. Nobody wants to like repair it.

I've had companies, glass companies that have come out and given me a quote because what's happening is if the rainy season has passed, but when it rains and the rain hits a certain way and the wind, I got water underneath the tracks. Yes. I've been there. Yes.

And if the wind is heavy, I can actually see my blinds moving a bit. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm from South Florida myself.

I remember having lots of sliding glass doors and I remember water coming underneath them. So I understand what you're saying. How much will that project cost? Have you found a contractor who'd be willing to do it? Well, yeah, I went to two different companies and asked the price.

So after two, I said it seems like most of them will be around the same price. One quoted me $15,000, then another one quoted $12,000. And so they have something with Wells Fargo where they said there's no interest for 18 months if you're approved. So you fill out an application online through Wells Fargo.

They have a thing with Wells Fargo. And no matter what they do is whatever it costs, they divide that by 18 months. So there's no interest for 18 months. So let's say that's 12 something. That payment is 720 something dollars. And for me, I'm wondering if I'm stretching it a bit.

I don't know what to do that's pushing it. Yes, I see. That makes sense. What is the amount of your car payment right now? The car payment is 300.

Well, I paid 300, but it was like 283. Okay. Assuming you're still making the car payment, because you are now, how much do you typically have left over at the end of the month in a typical month? Anything?

Yes. At the end of the month, that was three. I think I have like $1,300, $1,400. I don't want to lie because I had that all of my paperwork, which is not in front of me. But I think I have $1,400. All right.

So then, yeah, I like this a lot. I mean, I would do a lot of checking online, look for as many reviews as you can on this sliding glass door company before you go ahead. But assuming that checks out, maybe you get one more bid with somebody who'd be recommended.

Maybe you find a general contractor in your church who can make a referral to you to a sliding glass door company that he or she's worked with and get a third bid. But assuming you determine this is a reputable company with good reviews, I like the idea of you doing the $12,400 over 18 months with zero interest. I just make sure you pay that amount in full every month. And you should have that because, you know, not only do you have $1,200 or $1,300 a month extra, you're about to have 300 more when you pay off the car. So I think that all makes sense to me, Georgia.

Okay. So because I'll have like with the car payment being paid off, I'll have like $1,800. So that means that having to pay them almost $700 a month, my disposable income now would be just $800 left over.

Right. But you've still got a healthy emergency fund of more than seven months expenses. You're debt-free except your mortgage. You still got, you know, another $800 a month in surplus that you can add to your savings or your car replacement fund if you do that.

And, you know, 18 months from now, you'll have new sliding glass doors and you will have paid no debt or no interest. Okay. All right. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. You're welcome. God bless you. Thanks for calling.

Let's stay in West Palm Beach, actually. Peter's driving down the road. And do I understand this correctly, Peter? Is today your retirement day? Yeah. I just called up today.

I spoke to the guy, but I forgot to ask him the question that I want to ask you. I'm 65 and a half, so I made it there. But the only point is, you know, I'm going to continue to work and I want to know if I continue to work. Does Social Security still go up a little bit more as I work until 70, I think, right? That's the number. Yeah. So you haven't taken Social Security.

Is that right? Yeah, we're taking it. I should have a check in about a week, about a month, I guess.

Okay. Well, as soon as you start taking your benefit, it locks it in. So if you if you decided to wait and not take it, and you may not have had that choice, I understand you retired today. But if you had not taken it, it would have continued to grow at 8% a year until age 70. So now that you've taken it, the only way for it to continue to grow would be to number one is the cost of living adjustment that happens every year.

This year, I think it's 3.4%, you know, going into 2024. So the cost of living adjustment will increase it. That's going to happen whether you work or not. The other way is if you do continue to work, and your earnings that you pay FICA taxes on for that year, that you're continuing to work is higher than any of your high 35. So your Social Security is based on your highest 35 years of earnings.

If your new earnings moving forward are higher than any of those high 35, it'll drop that off and replace it, and that'll push your checkup as well. So those are the two ways. Hey, congratulations on your retirement. We'll be right back. Hey, we're so glad you're along with us today. Here in our final segment of the broadcast, we're going to try to get through as many questions as we can, as we apply God's wisdom to your financial decisions. Let's go. Well, it's been a Florida day.

We're going to Lake Worth. Hey, Bruce, thanks for calling. Go ahead. Hi, Rob, thank you for all that you do. And my question is paying my bills by check or by, you know, through the bank. The issue is that, you know, my kids are telling me you're crazy to write checks. There's all that information on the check. And so and so I'm old school, almost 70.

I always written checks, but I guess Do I need to get with the new program and go online to pay? Yeah, I love that your kids are telling you that. Come on, Dad, you're still writing checks.

What are you doing? That's great. Yeah, I mean, I think they're, I mean, it's a double edged sword, right? Because there's a there's a safety factor in those not going through the mail.

Now, we'll talk about that in a second. Because just through just because you do bill pay doesn't mean it's not going through the mail in some cases. But there's this kind of other risk that you run by doing business online, which is, you know, somebody can compromise your account and, you know, hack in and those kinds of things.

So let's let's talk about how you approach this. With online bill pay, you've got really two options. If the bank has the ability to do a direct transfer with your particular, let's say, utility company, and when you go to set up your bill pay, it'll tell you whether you can do and, you know, an electronic payment and even receive your bills direct into the bank's website, then you're right, you would avoid the check going through the mail, which prevents the ability for somebody to get a hold of that envelope and, you know, access your account number and your routing number. But in many cases, the people you would be issuing bills payments to through your bank on their website, they don't have a relationship with. And so then rather than you just writing the check and putting in the mail, they're generating the physical check and putting it in the mail and still traveling through the mail.

And it's arriving at the, you know, destination, the vendor or the, you know, contractor utility company that you're paying. So it doesn't automatically eliminate that possibility of somebody, you know, intercepting that envelope, although it would certainly reduce the number of checks that are being sent because again, some of them may be able to be paid electronically. Now, if you do this, then you need to also use best practices with regard to just doing business online period. And that means don't use public Wi-Fi when you're logging into your bank. So you wouldn't want to do that from the coffee shop.

You'd want to do it at home. And you'd want, you know, the WEP encryption, which you would typically have with, you know, typical internet service provider. You'd want to have a good strong password and change that regularly.

I mean, there's going to be some things you want to do just to be safe online. But yeah, I like the idea of you getting online and doing this because it will reduce the number of physical checks being mailed. And I think what you'll find, Bruce, is even though there's a learning curve, you know, so many of these things can be paid automatically. So you set it up once and you may want to monitor it.

But you're, you're going to recoup maybe an hour or two of your time every month just by not having to physically write out those checks because there's a lot that can be automated at the same time. Does that all make sense? Yes, it does. I appreciate that advice. Thank you so much. All right. Hey, God bless you. Thanks for listening to the program. We appreciate it. Let's go to Indiana.

Randy, go ahead, sir. I have roughly between my giving and product that I'm holding to donate to Salvation Army. We have potentially above $25K for donation. If we held it till after the year end and then donate it after January 1st, we would like to make these donations then.

My wife is very concerned that we may be audited because going through an audit process is very long and draining. So she is very leery about itemizing. And I've been donating for probably 30 years to Salvation Army, but we have extra items to donate. So I'm concerned with her concern. Yeah, no, I appreciate that. And I appreciate that you're trying to alleviate your wife's concern.

And that may be the reason you need to do this. Now, if you were to just ask me without telling me your wife was concerned, should you be, you know, perhaps change what you were going to do in terms of your giving this year to stay under the standard deduction? I'd say no. I mean, even though 80 to 90 percent of taxpayers take the standard deduction, the fact that you're just bumping up against it and slightly above it, is that going to trigger an IRS audit, especially since this is a charity that you've been giving to for a long time? You know, it's not like you're contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars. I mean, you're barely above the joint filer threshold and you're going to have all the documentation to back it up, you know, when you when you send it in. So I wouldn't be concerned about it triggering an audit, could it? Well, of course. And, you know, I'm not going to say that there's no way that you're going to be audited. And if, again, she's concerned about it and is going to lose even a bit of sleep over it, then just don't do it. Just wait until the following year. But I would just say, you know, from my perspective, I don't think this really increases your risk at all of an audit by you just being slightly above the standard deduction.

You know, 10 percent plus is upwards of 20 percent of taxpayers take the itemized deduction, and that's what it's there for. Okay, very good. All right. Thanks for your call. You're welcome, sir. God bless you. Thanks for your being on the program today. Let's go to Naples.

Sylvester, go ahead. How can I help? Hi, thank you for taking my call. My question is, I contribute 15 percent to my employer towards 401k. It's a rough 401k. And I just listened to your show and you say it's probably better to split that, like do a little bit to a traditional, some of them to rough.

How's that work? Yeah, potentially. And here's why. Because we don't know what's happening to the tax rates in the future. You know, because when you're going to be pulling this money out, it's going to be down the road. I don't know how far away you are from retirement, but, you know, tax rates could be higher, could be the same, could be lower, probably not, but they could be.

And we don't know what your income is going to be in retirement. So if you want to do some reading on this, let me direct you to soundmindinvesting.org, soundmindinvesting.org. What you'll see there is an article that I discussed recently with Mark Biller, who took a deep dive into this topic. The article is titled, should you use a Roth IRA or excuse me, a Roth account, even if you prefer traditional.

And he's really exploring this topic of why would you want to put in Roth after tax versus the traditional, or does it make sense to have both? And the conclusion, based on some researchers that really studied this in thousands of cases, came up with this formula. And it's just a rule of thumb.

That's all it is. But the formula was that based on their studies, that you should put, you take your age, you add 20 to it, and that's the percentage that you should put into the pre-tax version. And then you put the balance in your after tax or Roth version. So if you're 50 years old, you take 50, you add 20 to it, that's 70. You'd put 70% in the pre-tax and 30% in the after tax. And the idea that you have these two buckets to pull from, depending upon the tax code, your income, you know, how you're giving charitably, I mean, all of these factors gives you the most flexibility to do it in a way that minimizes taxes. Does that make sense?

Yeah, it does. You actually, I'm a 50. So you're, you know, I'm right there.

Hey, come on. That was amazing. I did that. Right. But I always, it's like, because if you accumulate all this, you know, interest, the company interest through all these years. So it's better to keep it as a Roth instead of a traditional, because that's where you don't have to pay any taxes on it. Is that right?

Yeah. And, and that's certainly, I mean, you can make a case for that, especially when you're younger, that the offset to that though, is that you're probably in the peak of your earnings potential right now in, you know, kind of this second season of your working life. And you're probably paying a good bit in taxes. And so you may benefit more from the tax deduction now at age 50 than you would from, you know, the paying the taxes now, because your income is going to be a lot lower in retirement.

So I think you should check out this article at soundmindinvesting.org. And it'll help you think through this a little better. Hey, God bless you, Sylvester. Thanks for calling today. Quickly to Indiana Gregory, you'll be our final caller. Go ahead.

Yes. I, I own my own home. I'm in my 80s. I just sold some real estate. I have been in invested real estate since early 70s. Okay. And I sold some properties for about 750,000.

And I wish I would have given it more thought before I sold it, because I found some other investment properties that I'd like to get into, but I didn't file the proper form to qualify for it. Okay, how long ago did you make that sale, Gregory? It was in August.

In August. Okay. Yeah.

I'm afraid that window has passed. So it's called a 1031 exchange. And it's where you take the proceeds from the sale of a property with capital gains, and you move roll it into another like kind property, so another investment property. And then you can essentially defer the capital gains by rolling 100% into this next property. And then at some point, you'd have to pay the capital gains. But if you keep investing it in a like kind property, you can defer that recognition of the gain. The problem is the rule says, you've got to, you've got to declare your intention to do this within 45 days from the sale. And you have to complete the sale for the new property within 180 days.

And if you're beyond the 45 days, then, you know, you wouldn't be able to declare that intention, unfortunately. Okay. Does that make sense?

The gain on this, if you held it for a period of time, in my case, I've held it for years. Let's do this. I want to help you answer the rest of your questions, but I'm out of time. So you stay right there. We'll talk off the air, Gregory. Thanks for your call today. Folks, that's going to do it for us.

Faith and Finance Live is a partnership between Moody Radio and FaithFi. I want to say thanks to Lynn, Tahira, Amy, and Jim. I'm Rob West. We'll see you next time. Bye-bye.