When Couples Disagree on Giving

In marriage, husbands and wives will disagree on many things, and sometimes the issue is giving.

Hi, I'm Rob West. Giving can be an especially difficult topic for some couples because it involves two issues that are often contentious in their own right, money and faith. Ron Blue joins us today with advice for couples who disagree on giving. 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, if you're new to Faith and Finance, you may not know that Ron Blue is the founder of Kingdom Advisors, our parent organization.

He's also the author of a shelf full of books on biblical finance. He's one of my mentors and a great friend. Ron, great to have you back. Always good, Rob.

Looking forward to it again. Ron, we're getting into the time of year when folks begin thinking about year-end giving, and maybe for some couples, giving in general has been a point of contention all year. You've had some personal experience with this that's helped shape how you counsel couples with this challenge. Share that with us. Well, you know, I have found in counseling people that this is a big area of potential disagreement, and Judy became a Christian two years before I did, and she mentioned tithing, and I about went through the roof.

There was no way. I earned that money. It was my money.

Yes. And Judy, very wisely, she didn't say anything about it, and she didn't ask again, but she lived out a life that was so compelling that eventually it led me to the Lord, and then tithing and giving became a normal part of our financial life, for sure. But we had rough moments there for a couple years. Oh, I can imagine, but obviously that made a profound impact on you, ultimately you coming to Christ, and I'd love to know how her decision not to press this issue of giving now informs how you counsel other couples. Well, many times I'm asked this question a lot when I speak, and you know, unfortunately, it's typically the wife will come up and say, you know, I'm saved, my husband's not, and he doesn't want to tithe, and I feel like it's biblical to tithe, and my counsel is, well, your relationship, I believe, is the most important thing. So I don't think it's a tithe that's a real issue. It is how you demonstrate a life in Christ, and I would not, you know, the Bible says to be mutually submissive to one another, so in a marriage relationship, I would tend to say, go to the lowest common denominator when it comes to this particular topic. It's not true of all topics, but it is, that's my counsel on this. Just because of my personal experience, I'm not sure I'd have ever considered becoming a believer had Judy not backed off on that issue with me.

Yeah, that's powerful. God's plan, of course, is oneness in marriage, and this issue could actually interfere with him hearing the gospel, and I know that was true in your situation. Ron, what about when both spouses are believers, and yet they still disagree about giving?

How would you counsel them? Well, there are several ways that you could do it. One is that you could separate out the amounts that are given. Now I'm talking probably beyond the tithe.

My own personal belief is that the tithe is the beginning point of giving, so let's assume people are giving beyond that. Probably the most practical thing that I've seen where there's real disagreement is where a husband and wife, maybe they have things that they agree on, fine, but where they disagree that they set up an amount in each of their accounts, we'll call it, where you give the dissenting spouse an opportunity to give to the things that he or she really feels passionate about. So I think, again, I'll come back to the relationship, and I think that that's the most important thing.

So it's not a fight, and it's not I give in, therefore you lose. It's how can we have a win-win situation where we're both doing that? And I believe it's very legitimate for husbands and wives to have different interests due to experience and due to different personalities. And so, you know, I know that when certain prayer letters come to our house, I know what Judy's response is going to be. Exactly. We're going to get to that.

I love your approach because it allows us each to bring our own wiring and passions to the table and yet keep the relationship at the center, which you've said multiple times, and I think that's absolutely the key. Ron, we're out of time. Thanks for giving us some counsel in this area. We're grateful. Well, that was good counsel that you just gave, Rob, so follow it. Thank you. Thanks, Ron. We'll be back with your questions.

800-525-7000. This is Faith and Finance Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. Much more to come just around the corner. Stick around. 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. We're glad to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live. I'm Rob West. All right, it's time to take your calls and questions today. 800-525-7000 is the number to call.

We've got lines open again, that number 800-525-7000. You know, we started today by talking about when couples disagree on giving. You know, when we come together as a married couple, God's design is, of course, unity, oneness. And yet there is a lot of conflict in marriage around money. Seventy percent, the data says, of married couples have disagreements, have conflict around money. And in large part, that's due, among other reasons, to different backgrounds. You know, if you think about it, the way money was handled growing up, some of your earliest memories of money inform, in large part, how you view and handle money today, how tightly you grip it, how loosely you hold it. A lot of that goes all the way back to your earliest memories of money. And so part of getting on the same page as a couple in all areas of finance, and that includes this area of giving, is first understanding, understanding each other's backgrounds and how that informs how we think about money today, how God has wired each of us as a spender or a saver, and coming together around that understanding and appreciation of each other's perspective.

Secondly, it's, of course, communication. You know, that's critical in marriage. And perhaps you might consider a weekly or a monthly money day to talk about money in marriage.

Third, it's about cushion. That's right, we need to have a spending plan, live within it. That spending plan needs to be based on our values and priorities. But our ability to live within our means and have margin or cushion at the end of the month is critical, the studies say, to us being on the same page and avoiding conflict in marriage. And as it relates to giving, I think really understanding each other's perspective here and developing a giving plan that really is based on our values and our priorities. And when we pursue that oneness, there's incredible benefit and joy that comes from that as we come together around this topic of money.

I realize it can be a charged conversation, but if you go in prayed up with the right perspective and understanding, good communication and a plan, I believe God can allow you to experience some breakthroughs in this area. Hopefully our conversation with Ron Blue was encouraging and helpful to you today. But listen, let's talk about what you're thinking about in your financial life today.

The number to call again is 800-525-7000. All right, let's begin in Chattanooga. Hi, Sharon, go right ahead.

Hi. Well, I'm blessed to have a believing spouse. And so we're happy with tithing and giving offerings. That's great. Yeah, I'm grateful for that. I'm so grateful for that. And we went, we started out really, really poor.

So God has just blessed us. But the thing is that our daughter has left the Lord for like, she's not been walking with him for at least seven years or so. And she wants, she's very impulsive. She's wanting to buy some land in a foreign country. About three or four months ago, she wanted to buy land in a different foreign country. She's not independently wealthy.

She's got a nest egg laid aside. But anyway, so my husband and I discussed it, and we had agreed to give her a certain amount of money. And now my husband wants to triple that.

And I have a very big hesitation. And I have said to him, this is God's money. And you're not offering to give our other child that amount of money. So and to further complicate it, you know, you've heard daddy's little girl and how somebody can wrap their daddy around their little finger.

Well, yeah, he never, he never says no to her. I mean, it's just, it's just, you know, I mean, and I just am afraid it's not, I'm afraid we're going to be wasting God's money. And it's not going to be helpful to her either. And so I've already, you know, shared this is God's money. And I'm kind of running out of ideas. Other than praying and fasting, I have prayed about it. God admit, I maybe if the fasting needs to come into it, I should do.

I'm also looking for some other tools if you have some ideas. Sure. Well, Sharon, I appreciate that call. And I know how challenging this can be. Of your children. Is this your only daughter? Or do you have other daughters?

It's our only daughter. Okay, got it. And tell me again about what it is you're providing the money for. Did you say it's an overseas real estate investment? Well, that's what she wants to use it for.

My husband gets bonuses periodically. Oh, unfortunately, we're losing you just a bit. Let's see if we can get a better signal there, Sharon.

Try that again. I can. Yes, ma'am.

How is the money going to be? Yes, ma'am. I can.

Can you hear me? All right, let's do this. I'm going to put you on.

Yeah, I'm going to put you on hold and have my team see if they can clear up that line because I want to be able to talk to you and get the details. But it seems like we're having a little bit of trouble there. So we'll come right back to you, Sharon. Let's quickly go to Margain. Hi, Caroline.

Hi. My question is, I'm thinking about investing into an annuity. And they're going to give you like, it's a fixed index annuity.

It's for 10 years. And they give you 40% on your initial investment. And after that, they give you 50% on your anniversary of whatever the interest rate is. So if it's 6%, they give you 9% on your total. I'm wondering if that's a good investment.

Yeah, you know, it really just depends, Caroline, on what your objectives are. I mean, annuities aren't my favorite tool, because, yes, you get the downside protection. But you have to give up something to get that. And usually what you're giving up is you only participate in a portion of the upside. So you're tying up your money, because when you put it in the insurance contract, you're going to have surrender penalties and charges. They're expensive because there's a lot of fees kind of embedded in these products.

And then although you do get the peace of mind with the downside floor, you don't get the full upside. And really, what I would prefer is we take a responsible kind of disciplined approach to investing, building a portfolio that makes sense for you, your goals and objectives, not taking unnecessary risk, but with the long time horizon, getting the full benefit of the upside potential and still keeping liquidity, meaning access to your money if you were to need it along the way, as opposed to some of the constraints and restrictions that you'll have inside of an annuity. So I just want you to understand what it is you're buying and why, and then make sure, you know, that this is the right product for you. So here's what I'm going to recommend.

I would connect with a certified kingdom advisor in your area. Just have that person look over this contract. I would also have a conversation just about your overall financial plan and just make sure that this particular investment vehicle fits with your goals and objectives. And that person can analyze the specifics of this particular annuity contract. They're so complicated, Sharon, that unfortunately, I wouldn't be able to tell you whether this is a good investment or a bad because there's a lot of fine print.

There's fees that are embedded in these. And again, you're just going to want to look at this in light of your overall plan. So what I would do is head to our website, faithfi.com. That's faithfi.com. Click find a CKA and there's some wonderful certified kingdom advisors there in Chattanooga.

They'd be delighted to sit down with you. Thanks for your call today. When we come back, we're going to go back to Sharon and talk about her daughter and her husband's desire to give some money to their daughter. We'll be right back. Stay with us. Hey, great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live. I'm Rob West.

We've got a couple of lines open, 800-525-7000. Now, before the break, we were talking to Sharon in Chattanooga. Her daughter, unfortunately, is not walking with the Lord. Sharon and her husband are believers.

They want to be able to bless their daughter. In fact, they had already decided to give her a certain amount of money, but Sharon's husband would like to do even more. Sharon is uncomfortable with that and just wanting to know how they should approach that, how she should work through that with her husband. Sharon, will you just clarify for me, how is the money going to be used that your daughter is asking for?

She's going to use it towards the property that she wants to buy. And she has, can you hear me okay now? Oh yes, absolutely. Okay, super. I'm going to pull over then off of the road and that way we'll be very safe when we talk to each other. Oh yeah, please be safe.

Yeah, let's do that. So anyway, the thing is she wanted us to go in partnership with her and I was definitely uncomfortable with that, so we agreed we wouldn't do that because it's in a different country. We don't know the laws.

She says she's had a lawyer, you know, she's got a lawyer, etc., but I, you know. Yeah, well I think that was a good decision on not going in the partnership. You know, that's just a difficult situation because whenever you're, you know, not only going into business together but if it involves loaning money, now it changes the relationship and let's say this doesn't work out the way everybody expected.

Now all of a sudden there's, you know, hard feelings and it potentially damages the relationship and nothing is worth taking that risk. Doesn't mean there's not ever a case to go into business together with family members. You just need to be really careful and make sure there's clear exit ramps and make sure that everything's in writing, but let's go back to that property for a second. So will this be her primary residence or is she looking to invest in real estate out of the country? She would like to live there part of the year. She's got a very flexible career where she can do that and she has lived in the same country before and really enjoys it there and she also feels like it would be beneficial for us. We would have a place to go on vacation, but we're, you know, in our 60s and so, you know, I'm like, I'm not sure how many real years of international travel we'll be doing and I really feel like, you know, investing a lot of money this close to retirement, I'm like, yeah, no, I can certainly understand that, especially being a real estate owner of property outside the U.S.

So give me the just the quick numbers here. What is the amount of the cost of the property she's looking to borrow or buy and how much is she borrowing? So to get the actual property itself, she's going half these with another person I don't even know and so she's going to be investing a total of $15,000 for just the land and then she'll have to invest over the next five years another $15,000 per year most likely. Okay and how much is she asking you all to put in? She was expecting five from us initially and that we were agreeable, but that we were agreeable, but it's now, it now looks like we have lost give 15, 10 to 15 and maybe more over the next few years and that's the issue. It's not a huge amount of money. Sure.

I've heard other people say less bigger, but I'm like, yeah. And was this money coming from you as a gift alone or an investment? It was a gift. The $5,000 was a gift and I think Mass wants to make it 15 as a gift. Okay, all right. So that's really helpful.

Thanks for giving me that background. I mean I would agree with you. I don't think this is the time for you in this season of life to be going into, you know, really frankly for most people regardless of the season of life to go in and be buying property in a country where you don't kind of have first-hand knowledge of the laws and, you know, just a whole host of issues especially if you don't even know how much you would potentially use it. The other complicating factor is here it sounds like it's raw land then that means there's going to be construction that adds a whole other layer of complexity and challenge. I think the fact that, you know, you all are potentially providing the full amount of the first year's investment tells me also that she's not in a financial position to do this.

Yeah, it sounds great. Everybody would love to have a piece of property and ultimately a second home in another country but if she doesn't have the ability to do that you guys not only, you know, are helping her make an investment that she potentially doesn't have the ability to see through but also potentially setting her up for failure if she's getting herself overextended and committing to something that she really doesn't have the financial foundation to make good on and so that's where, you know, you actually in your desire to help and bless her you actually couldn't be setting her up for, you know, difficulties down the road by again enabling her to make a purchase she wouldn't otherwise be able to do without your help. I think any desire to help on your part where you and your husband agree and that's the key and I realize you're you're not in agreement now which for me that's going to be you know cause for you to put the brakes on this until you get to the same page you should make it a gift if you have the financial ability to do so and that way you're not looking for an investment return you're not looking to be paid back if something does happen to this it's not going to damage the relationship you can just walk alongside her and encourage her without having to, you know, get involved in the transaction apart from just blessing her. So I think if you all have the money to do it I kind of like this idea of you saying listen we're going to give you this five thousand dollar gift no strings attached it's our gift to you we want to bless you with this, you know, great and that's the end of it but the ability for you to go all the way up to the first year's investment even if you can financially do that I think is a mistake because again I think you're enabling her to make a purchase it doesn't sound like she has the ability to do so and that's going to create additional problems despite her expectation that maybe she'll have the money when the next 15 and the next 15 and the next 15 are due I can't imagine she will if she doesn't even have the first 15 today so I think you need to continue to pray about it go back to your husband say listen number one I think we need to be on the same page before we do this number two anything we do needs to be a gift and number three could we be enabling her to make a purchase that's actually setting her up for difficulty down the road if you can't get on the same page I'd get a third party either from your church or an advisor to walk alongside you in this stay on the line we'll talk a bit more off the air we'll be right back I'm delighted you've joined us today on faith and finance live I'm Rob West hey we've got some lines open room for a few more questions today before we round out the broadcast still half of the program remaining 800-525-7000 is the number to call again that's 800-525-7000 we've got lines open right now hey before we go back to the phones let me remind you faith and finance live is listener supported and here on the first day of November we have just two months remaining in the year I know it's really hard to believe but this is a really important time for us to hear from you with your financial support so if you've found value in this program maybe you listen regularly or you've been able to apply something you've heard to your financial life and you'd like to give back to the ministry a gift of any amount would go a long way to helping us meet our giving goals here at faith and finance live between now and December 31st just head to just head to our website faithfi.com that's faithfi.com and just click the give button at the top of the page all right let's head back to the phones we're going to go to Fort Wayne hi Ben go ahead hi I'm calling my wife and I are receiving we're at retirement age a couple of pensions that had a little bit more in them than what we expected we are both disabled and retired we so we live in a very very meager income while budgeted but I'm concerned about whether for example we had to buy a car unexpectedly a year ago and we still owe money on it and so one of them one of the pensions we would like to put toward paying off that car and then the concern too whether we would have to pay capital gains if we take money out of any of these pensions that are going to be sent to us capital gains or any kind of tax on it yeah yeah so you pay income tax on your pension and on withdrawals from any tax deferred any tax deferred investment so this would be IRAs 401ks 403bs tax deferred annuities you pay income tax on those withdrawals in the year you take the money so you know that would be added to your taxable income from the for the year when you take that withdrawal there's no capital gains on them the money is growing tax deferred but there is income tax as it comes out so and you would just you know add that those taxable withdrawals to your taxable income for the year when you prepare your return okay the situation is that we are so low as far as our income that we don't actually have to pay taxes right now so yeah that's what I I guess is what I'm gonna have to try to figure out if there's some kind of a limit as far as like if you make over such and such amount what you know you would have to pay yes well uh yeah so this would be added to the income that you have apart from the pension so for instance what do you think you'll roughly have coming in in income for for this year oh maybe um I mean it's it's very it's very meager probably about twenty two thousand or something like that maybe okay yeah so if you're um you know under the standard deduction um you know and this depends on your age and your filing status and your dependents but so forth but generally I mean if you take the standard deduction uh for 2022 um you know that would be uh twenty five thousand nine hundred I believe for married filing jointly um and so if you're under that you know typically you wouldn't have any tax that uh that you would have to pay but you know do you normally prepare your return yourself normally uh okay so you know your your cpa or tax preparer could help you understand this but you just want to make sure that they have access to all of the income that you receive wages and you know earnings things like that but also any withdrawals you take from tax deferred retirement accounts including your pension and then they could quickly tell you whether or not you need to file and whether you have any tax owed okay all right okay all right thanks ben we we appreciate you checking in with us god bless you sir uh eight hundred five two five seven thousand we've got two lines open let's go to lincoln nebraska hi brent go ahead uh good afternoon rob god bless you and your family and your financial team appreciate that i have a question you're welcome i have a question about uh two properties that i acquired via a 1031 exchange uh okay i would like them to transfer upon my death to my son and i was concerned if there was any tax implications on his behalf when that transfer occurs yeah all of the built-in gain disappears brent upon the taxpayer's death so that 1031 exchange you know pushes that capital gain forward uh into a future sale and so if at some point prior to your death you sell that property then you would have to pay the full capital gains on the sale against the original cost basis the 1031 just allows you to kind of kick that can down the road but with regard to an inheritance as long as you know he the person inheriting it's not a part of the deed and they truly are inheriting it as a part of the estate either through a will or a you know transfer on death deed or a trust then that built-in gain that's been accumulating through the 1031 goes away because the new cost basis steps up to the date of death for you as the owner and so if then you're in this case your son inherits that property then if he turns around and sells those properties right away there is no capital gains now if he holds them and they continue to appreciate then of course the capital gain would be based on the amount of profit versus the cost basis which is now as of the date of death does that make sense uh very clear thank you so much rob that's a great relief good well yeah you may you're welcome and i'll just mention you may want to consider with multiple properties here especially this is where a trust can be really helpful so you may want to visit with a godly estate planning attorney just to talk about whether if you don't already have one and you may whether it makes sense to put all of these properties in a trust and and then pass them that way outside of probate so i would just be something to consider uh darcy's in branson missouri go ahead yes good afternoon my question is about physical gold i'm trying to roll over my ira into physical gold and they will store in all of that it's about a little i would say a little less than a third of my liquid assets not counting you know home or anything and that's where i'm at i'm looking to see if that's something i should do now i have annuities i don't count them as anything okay because uh anyway because they're annuities yeah the other aspects this would be a third okay okay so a third not counting the annuities and and what is the rough total of the annuities um i can't figure it out um it was 700 000 minus this uh this ira okay i would be the ira would be 161 000 okay and you'd be looking at the annuities is anything i really don't count them i don't okay all right well let's do this i've got to take a quick break darcy that was a really helpful description of kind of where you're at i'd love to weigh in on this and i'll do this just on the other side of the break so you stay right there when we come back we'll talk about what's the right uh allocation to precious metals in this case uh gold through your ira folks much more to come still with one more segment on faith and finance live we'll be right back well it's great to have you with us today on faith and finance live i'm rob last hey in just a minute bob doll's going to stop by with his market analysis and commentary we'll find out where bob's at today as we uh well we are thinking fed uh today we'll give you the update on what the federal reserve said on rates and their assessment of economic growth bob will have all of that just around the corner but first uh darcy is with us in branson missouri before the break darcy was sharing that she's got some annuities that amassed that have in them about 700 000 she's got about 160 000 in iras and she'd like to put a third of the ira into gold and a gold ira essentially where uh you know she has a a custodian that's actually going to buy and store and secure the physical gold for her and she's just wondering is that an appropriate allocation and uh darcy i would say you know just generally speaking we recommend you don't go over 10 so if we look just purely at that 160 000 that would mean you wouldn't put more than you know 16 000 in and you'd be looking at putting about 53 so that's obviously three times what we would recommend and the reason for that is you know gold is more volatile and it just doesn't have the long-term performance it doesn't perform as well as a properly diversified stock and bond portfolio and it also doesn't generate any income so you know you can buy whether it's bonds or even you know dividend paying stocks all can generate an income in addition to the appreciation of the underlying asset as they create value for shareholders but in the case of gold you're just counting on that spot price of gold increasing and you don't have the ability you know to to take on income and even though it's a fear trade and a store of value you know it doesn't always perform the way we thought it would and this recent period has been a great example i mean we're still not back to the the high watermark that we had on gold in the summer of 2020 and you know you would thought have thought that just given all the you know unexpected you know things going on geopolitically and inflation and the u.s dollar and the economy and all of that you would think that goal gold is through the roof and it's actually cheaper today than it was in the summer of 2020 so i think given all of that i would be hesitant if we just looked at the 160 000 for you to put a third in gold i'd rather see you put 10 percent max in gold and then you know put the rest in bonds and maybe a smaller allocation to stocks now i would also though challenge this idea that you should exclude the annuity when you're considering your investable assets because i realize you don't have control over that it's you know in an insurance contract and there's maybe a guaranteed return on that but it is a part of the total that would be available for you to draw income from if and when you need it so you have you know separate from your house which is a liquid you don't have 160 000 you've got 860 000 roughly and although you can't do a whole lot with the annuity it is able to be annuitized if you haven't already and then they'd pay you an income stream and if we looked at both of those together well that you know 861 000 you know you could go as high as 86 000 in gold and you still wouldn't be above my 10 threshold and of course your 52 800 is is less than that so you know i i guess i would just maybe talk to you about the percentage allocation but i think it would be very appropriate for you to look at the whole thing as a part of your investable assets does that make sense yes the whole thing is that's how i want to look at it yes okay all right very good yeah i thought you were saying you wanted to exclude the annuities in determining whether this was too high of a percentage but i think as long as you look at your investable assets is 861 000 i think you putting around 50 000 in gold you know is is perfectly appropriate and uh and probably could be a great investment and the way you're talking about doing it as long as you're not paying too much of a premium above the the price of gold i like the fact that you don't have to worry about buying it storing it all of those things that come with the gold ira i hope that's helpful to you darcy thanks for being on the program today we appreciate it well before we go back to the phones bob dole joins us today it's a big day in the markets and with the federal reserve uh markets seem like they like uh what they're seeing bob but give us the download what did the fed say today no the fed said uh ditto meaning same as last meeting uh the statement they put out i'm told even the commas were in the same place so not much change they basically said we're watching the data uh they did not change rates so we should start there uh the probability that they uh raise rates in december uh during the course of the chairman's news conference came down um and uh the fed chair appropriately and i would underscore talked about remember we we raise rates from zero to five and a quarter percent in 18 months the impact of that probably has not yet still been totally felt by the economy and therefore we're probably having some slowdown um the the the the inflation rate where the fed wants it to be two is still running almost four so the fed's the fed's got a lot of work to do or i'm going to have a lot of luck coming their way to get that number down to two without some more surgery yeah very good um i'm looking at a quote here from uh fed chair powell he said the process of getting inflation sustainably down to two percent has a long way to go what does that mean in fed speak i think that what that means is hey guys um the easy job getting from nine down to four is behind us the hard job from four percent down to two is still in front of us and that's going to take some time so don't expect inflation to you know be two percent by christmas or anything like that it's going to take much of next year and economic slowdown and um some weakness uh in the economy and if we don't get those things the federal have to raise rates some more yeah well the labor market too bob i was just reading earlier today there's as of september according to the later labor department there's still one and a half jobs available for every available worker i mean that's a pretty strong labor market it sure is stronger than any time except this cycle and of course as you know that ratio ratio was more than two to one not that long ago so jobs are slowly getting getting filled and what's not in that number is the number of people who are working two jobs that have moved down to one job we've seen a lot of that which is some labor market weakness it's still strong don't get me wrong but labor employment unemployment employment these are all lagging indicators uh we'll we'll see the effective uh slowdown after the fact in the labor numbers we need to be looking at the leading economic indicators and most of those are flashing uh yellow if not a red light yeah bob i heard someone speaking on behalf of bank of america just this week and they were saying that their analysts are predicting that the the lowest two quarters of gdp growth will come in the middle two quarters next year but they still don't see them seeing them get to zero or negative they see them being still in the positive territory even if it's less than one percent growth that would say that a soft landing is coming and they're saying the only reason that's going to happen despite this massive rise in interest rates is the fact that we're still on the hangover of covet in terms of americans still being flush with more cash than they would have otherwise been and that's the only way this happens what would you make of that analysis on 2024 you know i i don't vigorously disagree with that i'd start by saying the covet experience has thrown the numbers way out of whack and so analyzing things and looking at past patterns has been difficult number two yes americans had a lot of excess cash but most economists are saying that's coming down pretty fast at the peak more than three trillion dollars now maybe a half a trillion at most maybe only a quarter of a trillion so i think americans will run out of that excess cash at the spending rate we saw with that giant third quarter gdp number so i think we'll get some weakness perhaps even before the second quarter as uh uh the bank of america people are talking yeah very good all right bob always appreciate your insights thanks for giving us the update on the fed today we appreciate it buy low sell high talk to you next week it sounds great and that's great advice that's bob dole chief investment officer at crossmark global investments uh the fed holds a rate steady but uh upgrades their assessment of economic growth fascinating all right back to the phones we go let's see if we can sneak in one more call avon lake ohio hi christie go ahead yes hi i was calling i had a question regards um i'm putting into an ira um i'm 63 looking to retire at 68 to 70 i have emergency savings is there a need to have um other money available like in cds to have um cash available for those first couple years of retirement beyond the ira for any emergency purpose uh no how many months worth of expenses would you say you have in in emergency savings um three to six months probably right now i have four or five actually yeah that's great you know i i think as you get into retirement some retirees like a little bit more cushion uh just because they like the option of not having to touch their investments um you know if the market is not performing at least for that portion that's in let's say stocks and so the ability especially once you're beginning to draw on those accounts your ability to delay that withdrawal so you can let the market recover if we happen to be going through a bare market uh rather than you know selling things at a loss and having to pull the cash out the only way you can do that is if you have a little bit more cushion so whereas during your work day years you might have three to six months expenses in your emergency savings a lot of retirees want six to 12 months for the reasons that i mentioned so that might be the only reason why you might want to get up as much as 12 months and maybe you do that in a cd because you don't plan on using it and you can get an extra percentage point versus high yield savings does that make sense yes yes it does thank you very much you're right you're right you're right you're right it does thank you very much you're welcome but i think beyond 12 months you're probably safe to say no i'm going to keep this invested and take a long time horizon christy thanks for your call today may the lord bless you that's going to do it for us today folks uh faith and finance lives a partnership between moody radio and faith fi let me say thanks to my team today engineer was dan today our producer was amy helping me with research was jim and uh grateful to have laura on our phone screening today i'm rob west thanks for being along with us come back and join us tomorrow we'll see you then bye-bye you