Make Giving a Family Affair

The following program was prerecorded, so our phone lines are not open. The holiday season is fast approaching, a time of year when folks naturally look for ways to be more generous. Hi, I'm Rob West. There's one way you can maximize your giving experience as we near the year's end, and that's by making it a family affair. Jeannie McMains joins us today to talk about that. And we have some great calls lined up, but we won't be taking your live calls today, because we're prerecorded.

This is Faith and Finance Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. Well our guest, Jeannie McMains, is Executive Vice President of Offerings and Marketing at the National Christian Foundation. For more than 25 years, she's helped families create a fun and lasting giving experience. Jeannie, always great to have you on the program. Rob, it's a pleasure to be back. Well, I'm delighted, and this is a topic that I love. And I know you've got five great ways to bring the whole family into the giving process as we head into the end of year and holidays. So where do you want to start first?

Well, Rob, you're right. This is a topic near and dear to my heart as well. And the whole idea is really to make a thriving family giving culture in the habits and the activities we do together around generosity.

So to start that, one of the important things to keep in mind is really to right-size the experience, Rob. Too often, parents will want to, in their enthusiasm, get their children or grandchildren excited about the idea of giving, and they overshoot the complexity or the time commitment in their enthusiasm. So we've all learned and experienced these types of things over the years. And so giving the family culture grace to grow and develop together is super important. A couple of stories come to mind to just emphasize that point. I remember working alongside a single mother years ago who had just a passion for giving, and she was so excited. She wanted to do it well and prayerfully with a lot of wisdom and discernment. And so while she gave her daughter a monetary amount to give away, it also came with a three-page instruction list on how to do it wisely and what to research.

It was great advice, but her daughter was a young mother with children all in grade school and serving her past her husband and managing a career of her own. Shocker, Rob. Almost disappointed. Hill, yes. Been there, done that. I can tell you that for sure.

Jones-London Absolutely. I have, too. Another important way to right-size the experience is, I can think of a father who had set up one Christmas as we're heading into the holidays and gave each child a monetary amount to go give away. And then the idea was, hey, report back to me on what you did. Great idea.

Great idea. I've seen families do this to bring about a lot of joy. However, this particular father gave an amount that was a little sizable, and he was concerned with the where the children gave to.

He didn't feel like it was quite up to what he was hoping those dollars would go to. My advice to him, Rob, was right-size not only the time involved, but the amount so that your children can learn to fall in love with giving and the things they care about and not have it be frustrating to you that those dollars went to things that were up to maybe your thinking on the best and highest use for those dollars. The goal is to really let them learn to fall in love with their own giving passions along the way. Well, there's the best of intentions there, but the complexity can stifle the giving itself. I love that idea that we need to right-size the experience along the way.

Of course, the idea there is to keep it simple. Jeannie, what else should we be thinking about here? I think it's important that we leave what I call both we and me space in the family giving context. Sometimes, like the story of the dad I just mentioned, parents want their children to give to the things that the parents are excited about.

Believe me, the kids know that and feel that, right? It's allowing them the opportunity to have me space in being able to give amounts to the things that they're excited about. And then, as a family, creating a collection of shared values that everybody can get excited about, so everybody can experience their own personal journey and their together journey in a way that builds family in the process. What does that look like for families that you've worked with? How do they unpack those values?

Oh, great question. Well, some of the things that are fun to do is sometimes you can get interesting like card games. There's a lot of resources out there in the marketplace. Make it fun to either talk about values or talk about charitable impact you want to have in the world. That's a great thing that families might want to check into this Christmas.

I love that idea. Well, we're just getting started. We're talking about how you can give as a family, keeping it simple, but really uncovering, perhaps, the joy of generosity for your kids this holiday season. We're talking with Jeannie McMains. She's executive vice president of offerings and marketing at National Christian Foundation, and much more to come just around the corner. This is Faith and Finance Live, biblical wisdom for your financial journey, helping you apply God's wisdom to the practical decisions you're making today. We'll be right back. Great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live.

I'm Rob West. Joining me today, Jeannie McMains. Jeannie's with the National Christian Foundation, and we're talking today about making giving a family affair. Just before the break, Jeannie shared two ideas that are really helpful.

First, right size the experience. Don't make it too complicated and miss the opportunity to actually dive in and begin enjoying the fruit of giving as a family. Second, make space for we and me. The idea is make sure there's room for your kids to actually give in a way that's aligned with their passions alongside the opportunities the family may give together. And Jeannie, I know that idea of making space for we and me really leads into the next one, doesn't it?

It really does. And while we mentioned before the break, you can do interesting card games and lots of conversation helps to find out what each individual in the family's passions are. Another important thing to keep in mind, Rob, is use a framework.

It's really helpful when everybody knows when they're coming into a conversation, all right, what are the guidelines and the expectations so I can show up with my full self? A couple of examples, I mean, the frameworks can get pretty involved. In fact, one of them I can think of outside the family context was in an employer company environment where the employer was doing a dollar match program. And sometimes you'll find parents wanting to do a dollar match in what their children want to give as well.

It's a great way to ignite enthusiasm for generosity. But in this case, the employer, he wanted to put a framework so he didn't have hundreds of employees making grant requests or giving requests to causes that the company wouldn't be thrilled in supporting. And they didn't want to be the policeman of that in their company culture.

It's supposed to be positive. So similarly, what they did is they said, you know what, we want to put some loose parameters about what we're for. Let's agree about what we're for. And then each employee or family member by comparison here can suggest the charities that is their individual expression or passion within that framework. So what they were for was improving the lives of people in their community. So all the giving requests didn't go out into left field and all these different directions. It gave a focus point for the we giving that everybody could show up and bring their ideas and passions. So I think that part of the framework is really important. I love that because then it gives them an opportunity to take these ideas that are coming in and weigh them against the parameters that they set up, but keep it really positive. Absolutely.

Absolutely. So that's a good idea on the we space. But what about the me space? Allowing each individual to walk through and explore their own passions. And it reminds me of when my kids were little. And Rob, you can do this with little children. You can do it with adult children and multiple generations in the room. But I just came up with a three step question with my own kids.

Again, that's just one of many, many ways you can approach it. But for our family, Rob, it was to guide them from when they were elementary school age on through three questions. And we did this around Thanksgiving as we were giving thanks to the Lord for the abundant blessings in our lives and asking him to use us to be a blessing to others. And those three questions were, okay, what people, group, or need has God put on your heart and do you really care about?

And so fun when my kids were little. You know, they might say, I have a little girl in my first grade class whose dad's in prison and I want to help family members who, you know, and so, you know, there are a lot of ministries out there, Christian ministries who have prison ministry in mind. Or one year, my son had seen a movie.

Remember that Pursuit of Happiness movie with Will Smith? And he's like, I care about the homeless. So we gave to the local Christian homeless shelter. But the three questions were what people, group, or need is on your heart. Two, what organizations are out there doing that work well?

And they might need our help to drive some internet search if they're really young, but the key is to let them pick and do the choosing here. And then I learned years ago to help narrow the funnel and give that framework. As I said, you know, how does this people group share the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ where they're serving that need? And that was the filter. Three steps.

Anybody can do it, right size to any age. Yeah, that's really simple. And I think so helpful to get them pointed in the right direction.

And these are critical questions to help shape that. You mentioned Thanksgiving. Did you all actually go around the table and do that as a part of the Thanksgiving meal? We did.

It was after or before. And we would also read some good books like The Treasure Principle and others leading up to it and did some devotions on stewardship along the way. And then we could keep those grants over the years and just see the pathway upon the passions on how the kids have developed over the years. Oh, this is so good, Jeannie.

So simple and effective. All right, let's continue to move through this. What's the next way to enhance the family giving experience? I think it's important that we share the responsibility. Many times the planning, the meetings, the tracking, the dollars, and the how-to are all coming from one generation down to another.

But keeping in mind our prior principles here of right sizing the experience and letting it be something that's tailored to them and their interests, I think it's important that we share the responsibility. So depending upon ages or talents or interests, you could have them raise some money on their own to contribute. You could have them research potential causes. As my kids got older, they would research their own causes. You can have them be the hands and feet in developing relationships with the charities. At one point, I had my daughter reach out to the charity that was having mental health ministry from a Christian standpoint in public high schools.

She was our point of contact. Maybe the event planning, like the family meeting. Don't forget the party.

I think giving should always have a party and celebrate the work that God's doing in and through us through our giving. Yeah, that is so good. All right, so we're going to get short on time here in a minute. What about our fifth and final tip? Don't forget the fruit. And what I mean by that, of course, is the fruit of the Spirit.

Great segue from party. This whole experience of giving, while it is modeled and directed to us throughout the Scriptures to be generous with what's been given to us, it should be an outpouring of the fruits of the Spirit. If we find in our families that the conversation of giving has lost the predominant qualities of experiencing love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control in the way we're shepherding and sharing the blessings God given to us, we really need to rethink, are we building a thriving family culture around generosity? Because where the Spirit's moving, these are the fruit. And I think we should be intentional about calling them out, pursuing them, and celebrating them in our family-giving culture.

Oh, Jeannie, that is so good. So when we right-size the experience, don't make it overcomplicated. When we create space for not only we, but also me, so everyone gets their giving expression, use a simple framework, share the responsibilities, and then don't forget the fruit. We can truly experience the joy of family giving. Now, Jeannie, before we wrap up today, how can NCF come alongside families who want to experience giving in this way?

Oh, thanks for asking, Rob. Our ministry is to help people see lives transformed through biblical generosity. And so we have a giving strategy that we would love. Just feel free to call NCF. You can find us at ncfgiving.com. And we also have local offices all around the country to connect with you and your family as you'd like to explore greater joy, greater purpose, and greater effectiveness in your charitable giving individually or as a family.

Yeah. And Jeannie, for someone saying, I don't know that I have enough money. Maybe I have to be a multimillionaire to work with NCF. What would you say to them?

I would say absolutely not. God measures the value of our gifts by the heart we put behind it. I love that. Well, Jeannie, unfortunately, we're out of time, but this has been so good. Thanks for stopping by today.

Thank you, Rob. It's Jeannie McMains with the National Christian Foundation. Folks, check it out today, ncfgiving.com.

Make your giving strategy at ncfgiving.com. Well, folks, we're going to head to a break, but let me remind you, we're out of the studio today. Our team is not here, so don't call in, but there's much more ahead on the program. We have some great questions that you're really going to enjoy as we continue to apply God's wisdom to your financial decisions. We'll be right back. This is Faith in Finance Live with Rob West. Hey, if you hear a phone number mentioned today, please ignore that number and don't call us, because today's broadcast was previously recorded. But we think the upcoming information will help you and make you a wise steward of what God's given you.

So please stay tuned. How do we apply scripture to the actual decisions and choices you're making every day as you live, give, owe, and grow? Putting God in his proper place as owner of everything, recognizing you're a steward, and money's a tool to accomplish God's purposes. We're to enjoy it. We're to provide for our families with it. We're to give it generously.

But how do we do that in light of competing priorities? Well, we want to help you navigate that here today. All right, let's dive in. We're going to begin today in New York. Daniel, go ahead, sir.

Yes. First, let me tell you, I really appreciate your show. We try not to miss it.

We listen to it every day. Well, very good. Thank you.

Really do appreciate it. You did enlighten me at one time about the required minimum distribution for an IRA, which I do now, which works out very well. But my question today is, I have an accumulation of savings bonds, and I would like to donate them to the church and their older bonds, so they've reached their maturity, and then some, they're up to 31 years old. I've got about 102 series EE bonds and four HH bonds. I'm just wondering if I can donate them to the church and somehow avoid the tax consequence so they could get the full benefit of it.

Yeah, well, I love the way you're thinking, Daniel. And, you know, typically you would be able to take appreciated securities and even bonds, some corporate bonds and even some government bonds, although not the savings bonds you're describing, and you'd be able to give them either directly to the charity or it's often more convenient to give it to a donor-advised fund, which you lose control over it technically, but then you would initiate or recommend a grant from that donor-advised fund to the charity of your choice, which would be your church. So you'd think of it like a charitable checking account, and when you make that gift, you would miss the capital gains and then you could direct the money out through the donor-advised fund. That is not available through savings bonds, unfortunately.

Typically the only way to redeem savings bonds is to in fact redeem them, and when you do, the interest will be credited, it will be taxable. Then you could turn around and make the gift at that point. Now, if you itemize your taxes, so married filing jointly, that would be for 2023, $27,700 in deductions. If you get above that, above the standard deduction and therefore itemized, then you could get the benefit of that by deducting the amount of the gift.

If, however, you're taking the standard deduction, you would not get any benefit of donating to the church just because, you know, you would take the standard deduction anyway and therefore it wouldn't offer any benefit there. So unfortunately you're a little limited in what you can do with a savings bond through the Treasury and giving those away prior to redeeming them is not an option. Say you pass away and these bonds are left in the estate.

What happens to them then? Well, that would be the way to get the full value to the church because when you leave them at your death, then they would pass according, you know, to your will directly to the church or the charity and that would not be taxable because unless you have a pretty massive estate based on today's standards of, you know, having to be north of $12 million, there wouldn't be any taxes due on that. So you're saying that if I'd left them in my will, that they would get the full benefit of them? That is correct.

Yeah. Now, if you would rather them have that money now because they can use it or there's a specific thing you had in mind or it's a building campaign or a missions project and, you know, it might be worth, you know, going ahead and making the gift, but you're correct. They would get the full benefit if they receive that through your will as opposed to you redeeming them and paying the interest, the taxes, the tax liability triggered by the interest income.

Let me ask you this, Daniel, how much do you think you would give in total? Well, I'm thinking that because I cashed some previously because they're so old, you know, they're close to 30 years old. I'm saying that what I have is probably worth $25,000. Okay. Yeah. And, you know, I mean, most of that is interest. So, I mean, they would certainly get the better benefit if it was left in the will. That is true. Yeah. So that would be one way to handle it. And you would, in fact, maximize the gift that's being given by giving it through the will versus paying the tax on the interest and then looking for the opportunity to potentially deduct it against income if you itemize on your taxes. So I think that's the consideration.

Are you really convinced that they need this money sooner rather than later to put it to use in the kingdom or are you comfortable waiting a little while and therefore they'd get a little bit more money? So I think that's the decision point. The other thing I might mention is and I suspect you're aware of this, but you mentioned you became aware of the RMD. That's great. Are you doing what's called a qualified charitable distribution? Have you heard me mention that term? Yes.

That's what I'm doing. Yes. Okay. Very good.

Yeah. So that's a great opportunity for you to satisfy that RMD, that required minimum, and get that money directly to your church or charity. And when you don't need that money, when that's money that, you know, you have no use for because your expenses are covered, boy, it's a great way to satisfy that RMD and not add to your adjusted gross income for tax purposes. So it sounds like that's the decision point you need to make. But I appreciate so much that you want to be generous with these resources. You've defined enough and it sounds like this is beyond that.

And so looking to get that into circulation into God's economy is a really good idea. Yes. Thank you for your help.

That answers my question completely. All right. Very good.

I'm glad to hear it. And thanks for your kind remarks about the program and for you and your wife being such a faithful listener. May the Lord bless you, Daniel, and call back anytime. Well, folks, before we head to this break, let me remind you, if you haven't checked out faithfi.com, that's faithfi.com, I'd love for you to do that. You'll find the best content in biblical finance there for you to grow in your understanding of managing money God's way. You'll find our community and the money management system.

It's all there at faithfi.com. Now, again, a reminder, we're not here today, but more of your questions that we lined up after the break. So glad to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live.

Our team is away today, so don't call in, but we lined up some great questions in advance and we'll be going to those here in just a moment. Let me also remind you that the advice that I give each day on this program is general in nature. We offer principles and ideas that apply at a high level. They are not personalized, so that's why you should always seek professional financial advice. And if you'd like to find a professional who shares your values, we, of course, here at Faith and Finance Live recommend the Certified Kingdom Advisor designation.

These are men and women who've met high standards and they've been trained to bring a biblical worldview of financial decision making. You can find one at faithfi.com. Let's head to Oklahoma. Hi, Denise. Thanks for calling. Go right ahead. Thank you so much. Yes, ma'am.

Just have a question for you. I hope you can help. My husband is 57 years old. He just filed for Social Security disability. I am 62 years old and I wanted to file for Social Security.

Is that wise? Yeah, it is possible, but your benefits will be reduced, Denise, by 8% for each year you take them before full retirement age. At 62, you should be eligible for spousal benefits if your husband is receiving disability benefits as you would be if he were receiving retirement benefits. So I would check in to taking spousal benefits instead of benefits based on your work record, but just recognize you are going to lock in that reduction. Okay, so I should file for what they call spousal benefits? That's exactly right. Yeah, and that will be based on his record. You can get up to 50% of his benefit, but you are going to have off of that maximum that you could earn as a spouse.

You will have a reduction of about 8% for every year that you take it prior to full retirement age, which will be somewhere between 66 and 67 for you. Okay. Well, that's wonderful. All right. Thank you so much for your help. You're welcome, Denise. Thank you for calling today. God bless you. Let's tackle an email. This one comes to us at AskRobatFaithFi.com. Feel free to send your questions along if you'd like them to be read on the air.

Tammy writes, I recently received a large amount of money. Until I figure out how to invest it, should I do a money market account or divide it up into CDs? You know, I would go with the money market account because you can usually withdraw the funds without penalty. You should be able to get with a money market account, not a money market mutual fund, but a money market account.

You should still be able to get that FDIC insurance. And then that will ensure that it's completely liquid when you decide how to invest it. Now, if you know that you're not going to deploy this for the next year, let's say, you could get a little bit more yield, a little bit more interest out of a CD. But given these high interest rates on high yield savings and money markets right now with FDIC insurance and complete liquidity, I'd like the idea of you putting it there just while you figure out where you go from here. By the way, if you don't have an advisor to help you build out your investment strategy and oversee those investments for you, which I do recommend, especially given that you said you received a large sum of money, Tammy, I would consider connecting with a few, maybe two or three certified kingdom advisors in your area, interview them all. We provide a helpful list of questions on our website and then find the one that's the best fit.

Perhaps that person with you could develop the investment strategy based on your goals and objectives, your needs, even consider your personal convictions around your faith values and how that applies to your investing and give you some peace of mind to know that somebody really is responsible for managing this money on a day in and day out basis. You can find a CKA in your area, Tammy, by heading to our website, faithfi.com. That's faithfi.com. And you can click find a CKA right there at the top of the page that will take you to a zip code search that will allow you to search for the CKs in your area. By the way, there's about 1400 of them across the country.

And so pretty good chance that there's one near you. And again, right there at the top of that page, when you click find a CKA, you will see a PDF there that you can download that will give you a list of helpful questions as you interview those advisors. Thanks for writing to us. By the way, again, if you have questions you'd like right on the air, feel free to send those along at any time.

Ask Rob at faithfi.com. All right, back to the phones to Virginia we go. Hi, Donald.

Go ahead, sir. If you had 400k, where would you put it for the largest return in the shortest period of time? Yeah, so I would want to know a little bit more about this 400k in terms of what is the objective on it. So let's start with the time horizon on when you think you might need to use it in a large amount, like for a home purchase, or to convert it to an income stream? I don't have a timeline.

It's cash from the sale of a property. And I don't have a timeline. Okay. So talk to me just about the rest of your financial life. Let's start with are you planning to buy another piece of property in the next five years?

No, I'm retired. My income is covering my expenses. And I guess my best explanation is this is just this funny money. Okay.

All right. Not not a bad place to be when you got a $400,000 funny money sitting there. Was this Did this come from an investment property where you're going to have to pay some capital gains Donald?

No home place. Okay, got it. So you're not looking to redeploy it, your income is covered, and you're retired. Do you have any emergency savings that you had already put aside separate from this 400,000? Or would that be included? No, we have separate. Okay, great. And do you have so you have other retirement assets that you're pulling from every month? Yes. All right. I have I have a retirement income from my my workplace. Yeah, my wife has a retirement income.

A house is paid for. Okay. I just, I'm looking to get rich off of this funny money. Yeah, well, so here's what I would say. I mean, you know, you may be looking for some specific recommendations.

I'm not able to do that. But here's what I would say. I mean, I think this is a great opportunity for you to step back, which we all need to be doing, myself included along the way and in our journey with the Lord and ask the question, how much is enough?

Right? And so we look at what are our needs, we do prudent planning, we think about what is a wise amount to save for the future, given the uncertainties, we want to be able to cover long term care expenses, which could run for nursing care today, not counting inflation in the future, nine or $10,000 a month, which is probably your biggest risk in this season of life, especially if you don't have long term care insurance, and you're beyond 65, where it begins to get pretty expensive to get it. You know, you'd want to plan for what's an appropriate amount to have set aside beyond, you know, what we're counting on to generate the income for our lifestyle and expenses in retirement. So you'd want to do some prudent planning, you'd also want to say, Lord, what would you have me to do in the way of giving and generosity. But I don't think there's anything wrong with you investing in and putting it to work. I would generally recommend a steady plotting approach, which is just kind of a sure and steady approach over time. Now, if you want to take a portion of it and get a little more speculative, you could.

And then I don't think there's anything wrong with that. If you know that's what you're doing, and you've got the money to do it, I would just get an advisor to help you navigate that in terms of dividing it up and then making the actual investment selections. I hope that helps. We appreciate your call. Well, folks, before we head to this break, let me remind you, if you haven't checked out faithfi.com, that's faithfi.com, I'd love for you to do that. You'll find the best content in biblical finance there for you to grow in your understanding of managing money God's way. You'll find our community and the money management system.

It's all there at faithfi.com. Now, again, a reminder, we're not here today, but more of your questions that we lined up after the break. This is our final segment of a faith and finance live program that we previously recorded.

Thanks so much for being with us today, and we hope you'll stick around and enjoy the rest of the program. Donald and I had a chance to connect off the air and he was talking about this funny money he wanted to get rich on. I think he was saying that a little tongue in cheek. We talked about his desire to maximize the interest income off of that through CDs, which I like that a lot in this environment. You can get five and a half percent plus if you stay on the short end of the durations, less than 18 months.

Interestingly, the further out you get beyond that, you're actually going to see a reduction in the interest rate just because we know we're in a high interest rate environment right now, and that's not likely to continue beyond the next couple of years. Now, what I had also shared with him is, again, once he considers how much is enough, once he looks at opportunities to be generous and align giving this away with his passions and the heart of God that we see in Scripture, if he wants to take maybe 10% of it and say, I want to be more speculative with this portion, realizing I could do well with it, or I could lose a good bit of it. I don't have a problem with that as long as it's a reasonable amount in light of your overall investment portfolio.

I just wouldn't put your serious money in that. I don't think that's the model we see for investing in Scripture. The most, I think, accurate description or prudent description of our investing strategy that comes from God's Word is around this idea of steady plotting, and that is, you know, growing consistently over a long time period at a reasonable rate of return, not taking an inordinate amount of risk so we can ultimately not get too emotionally attached to this.

It doesn't affect us in other ways, placing unnecessary pressure or stress on us. And I just think as we're caretakers of God's money, we don't want to be foolish with it. Which leads me to a topic I want to share with you, and that is around this idea of getting rich quick. I think a lot of folks feel that temptation to make shortcuts to riches.

I mean, it's a powerful pull. We see it in the news. I mean, it can look like crime, shoplifting, drug dealing, identity theft, pyramid schemes, because pride and greed never really go away. These programs that we also see on TV from time to time, like multilevel sales and house flipping or day trading, nothing wrong with those if you're doing them right in a thoughtful way and you have the training to do it, but it does pull a lot of people in who don't have that expertise, and they're asking them to pay a fee or attend a seminar or order a brochure, and they make you think that you can earn lots of money without too much time or effort. People doing house flipping or day trading right know that it takes a lot of time and a lot of effort and training.

So let me address this. Talking about get rich quick, according to author Jim Neuheiser, the best financial plans follow, of course, God's principles. He says, Jim does in his book, God has revealed his way of building wealth.

Here's what I was talking about before. Jim says it's gradually through hard work and skill. You see, pride leads us to think we can circumvent the Lord's wisdom, but the Bible confirms this in Proverbs 28 verses 19 and 20. Whoever works his land will have plenty of bread, but he who follows worthless pursuits will have plenty of poverty. A faithful man will abound with blessings, but whoever hastens to be rich will not go unpunished. Now it's good to recognize and avoid get rich quick programs, but that doesn't solve the problem of wanting to get rich quickly. Here are three dangers I want to point out, and then we're going to head back to the phones as we round out the broadcast today. Here's three dangers of get rich quick mentality.

Think about these. First, getting involved with things you don't understand. Proverbs 24 verses three and four reminds us that by wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it's established, and by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches. The second danger in get rich quick is the temptation to risk money you don't have or can't afford to lose. That's Proverbs 27 two. The prudent man sees evil and hides himself, and the naive proceed and pay the penalty. You see, what I was talking about with this previous caller is, again, he had the assets to be able to say, okay, I'm going to take a reasonable amount if he wanted to, and I threw out the number of five to ten percent, and I'm going to be more speculative with those investments because I can't afford to lose it. But I think we always need to weigh that against what is my responsibility as a steward of God's money, which is an even higher calling than just being a prudent money manager. The third problem with trying to get rich without hard work or skill is that it usually involves making impulsive decisions. Proverbs 28 22 reminds us that a man with an evil eye hastens after wealth and does not know that want will come upon him.

So I would say, just in conclusion here, even if you're in financial trouble, trusting in a get rich quick program to pull you out is a recipe for disaster. But there is hope. And let me finish with going back to Jim Neuheiser's book. Here's what he writes, quote, In the end, those who reject God's wisdom will suffer the consequences.

But we can be confident that as we trust him and seek to walk in his ways, our needs will be met. I hope that's an encouragement to you today. All right. Let's round out the broadcast today by heading back to the phones to Louisiana.

Randy, thank you for calling. Go right ahead. Yes, sir. We have five grandkids and we've opened up these college savings accounts for them. I think they call them 529 accounts. Yes. And the question is, we have IRAs that are traditional IRAs.

We have Roth also. But the question is, can I take money from a traditional IRA and shoot it straight to a college fund without paying taxes? No, unfortunately, you can't. There is no way to directly transfer IRA funds to a 529 college savings plan. So you would need to withdraw those funds, which would be taxable and could result in a penalty if you're under 59 and a half, and then turn around and make that contribution. Now, once you put money into that 529 plan with after tax money, because that's what it is, a 529 involves after tax contributions, whereas the IRA is using pre-tax money, the traditional, you do have the option of converting that to a Roth IRA with some requirements if the money goes unused. And that's a new thing that's coming based on a recent change in the law. But to your original question, Randy, can't go directly from that traditional to the 529. Okay. But you can if you have to start taking the required distribution, you can do that straight to a nonprofit organization right without paying taxes.

Absolutely. And you can actually do that prior to having a required minimum, which now is up at age 73. Once you reach 70 and a half, even before that RMD kicks in, you can use something called a qualified charitable distribution, which allows you to go straight from that IRA, that traditional IRA to a 501c3 nonprofit, ministry or charity or your church, you would just need to call your custodian, whoever houses that traditional IRA, let them know that you want to do a qualified charitable distribution, they'll tell you how to initiate that alert the charity or ministry that it's coming, so they know that they're going to receive it. And then the beautiful part is that comes out of there without adding anything to your adjusted gross income, they get the full amount. And yes, you could satisfy an RMD if you have it, or another strategy that folks will use is, you know, they may have been giving to their church or a ministry out of after tax dollars, maybe sitting in a checking or savings account. And instead, they replace that with the money coming out of the IRA. So they're given the same amount.

They're just using it as a way to get the money out of the IRA without paying any tax. Does that make sense? That's, that's exactly what I was thinking. So thank you very much for the information. All right, Randy, God bless you, my friend. Thanks for being on the program today.

To New York. Hi, Elizabeth, the first time caller go right ahead. Thank you so much for taking my call.

I just have a quick question for you. My husband and I are buying a new to us 2013 Toyota Sienna. We've been able to save up and hopefully we'll be able to pay cash. But they are offering an extended warranty to us because it is under 100,000 miles and it's not quite the 10 year mark for it. And so I was just wondering your thoughts on extended warranties, if it's worth it, or if we should just buy it and not get the extended warranty. Yeah, you know, we generally advise folks not to get the extended warranties just because they're rarely able to use them. You know, when you read the fine print, you usually find they don't cover enough to make the purchase worthwhile.

So what do you do instead? Well, I love the idea of you taking what you would have spent on that and sticking it in a separate maintenance account. That way you can hang on to it, if you needed it for something else, or if you don't use it. And, you know, it's still available.

So we're not having to pull that out of your hopefully primary emergency fund. But just generally speaking, if you get it checked out by an independent mechanic and it looks like it's been properly maintained, you continue on that track to properly maintain it. And it should run a long, long time if you're buying a car that gets good reviews in terms of holding up. And we just find that on the average, and this is what Consumer Reports and others will tell you, that, you know, although there will be plenty of exceptions out there just on the whole, probably better just to hang on to that money yourself.

Okay. So hopefully you're getting a good price on that new to you vehicle, but do make sure you check the Carfax on it. And make sure you get that independent mechanic to check it out as well. I think that will go a long way to making sure you're buying something that's going to last you a long time. By the way, congrats Elizabeth on saving up and being able to buy that with cash.

That's impressive. That's the way to do it. Perhaps keep funding that car replacement account as you're able to.

So the next time you need to buy a car, you can do the same thing, but you're missing these high interest rates, which is a great thing. Hey, thanks for calling today. God bless you. Well, we're about out of time today. Before we go, let me remind us why we do what we do here on this program every day. We gather for Faith and Finance Live because we recognize we all have a high calling. We're money managers for the King of Kings, which means we're to be found faithful as we manage God's resources.

That includes our finances. So thanks for being here today. Thanks for calling and for writing and for your emails. We love to do what we do and serving you to be wise stewards of God's money. I want to say thanks to my team today. Couldn't do it without them. Faith and Finance Live is a partnership between FaithFi and Moody Radio. We'll see you next time. God bless you. Bye bye.