Rollover Mistakes to Avoid

Today's Faith in Finance Live is actually prerecorded, so our phone lines are not open. C.S. Lewis once said, You are never too old to set a new goal or dream a new dream. Hi, I'm Rob West. Retirement from your regular job one day will give you the opportunity to find a new way to serve the Lord. But along the way, you can make mistakes that may slow the process down. We'll go over a few today so you can avoid them.

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 in Finance Live, biblical wisdom for your financial journey. Now I should point out that the biggest mistake you can possibly make with respect to retirement is to not save enough during your working years. We always recommend that you put 10 to 15 percent of your income into a qualified retirement plan like a 401k, 403b, or an IRA. The younger you are, the more likely a Roth IRA will be best for you. If you fail to contribute enough to your retirement plan, it won't generate enough income to support you when you stop working. You can't depend on Social Security alone. The earlier you begin putting money away for retirement, the better off you'll be due to compound earnings. So avoid the biggest retirement mistake. Make sure you're contributing regularly to your qualified plan. There are several more mistakes you can make, however, and many of them have to do with rollovers. If you don't do them right, they can cost you a lot of money. The first rollover mistake to avoid is not paying attention to the one-per-year rule.

This happens if you change your mind about where you want to move your money and grow impatient. In most cases, you can make only one IRA to IRA rollover in a 12-month period. If you do more than one, that money will probably be included in your adjusted gross income. That's potentially a huge taxable event.

But that's not all. The IRS will also treat the second rollover as an excess contribution, which will trigger an additional 6 percent tax for every year the money stays in the new IRA. So whatever you do, plan your rollovers carefully and never do more than one per year. The next big rollover mistake is to lose track of the time and miss the 60-day rollover deadline. If you withdraw money from your IRA, you have 60 days to deposit that money into another qualified retirement plan, usually another IRA. If for any reason you take longer than that, the distribution will be added to your adjusted gross income. Now, who would do something like that?

Well, just about anyone can get caught up in the daily grind and let time slip away. We hear from them occasionally and there's really no way to help them, except to say that since the money is already out of the 401k or traditional IRA, they have until December 31st of that year to do a Roth conversion. They can take what's left of the distribution after taxes and put it into a Roth. Of course, the best way to avoid this is to never take a direct distribution from a qualified retirement plan if you intend to put the money into another qualified plan.

Just fill out the paperwork and have the plan administrator send the funds directly to the new account. That way you won't be taxed on the money since you never actually received it. Okay, another rollover mistake to avoid, losing the ability to take the 10% penalty exception. Most qualified plan distributions are not only taxable, they also trigger a 10% early withdrawal penalty if you take the money out before reaching age 59 and a half.

You may not even have known there are exceptions, but they indeed exist, although they're different for different plans. For example, if you're a first time home buyer, you can take a distribution of up to $10,000 out of your IRA for a down payment without incurring the 10% penalty, but you can't do that with a 401k plan. Alright, here's the fourth rollover mistake. Doing a rollover from a 401k to an IRA after you leave an employer if you still have an outstanding loan against the 401k.

Any outstanding loans will count as a distribution and will be fully taxable plus subject to the 10% penalty if you're not yet 59 and a half. Obviously you avoid that by paying off any loans before doing a rollover. So those are four potential rollover mistakes to avoid, but there may be others depending on your situation.

It's always best to consult with your CPA or another financial advisor before doing a rollover. Of course, we always recommend that you connect with a certified kingdom advisor for advice and help on issues like retirement planning and rollovers. You can find CKAs ready to help you by going to faithfi.com.

That's faithfi.com and click on the find a CKA tab. Alright, we're going to head to a break, so don't go anywhere. Still a lot more to come, even though we're away from the studio today and you shouldn't call in. 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. Hey, it's great to have you with us on Faith in Finance Live, but today we are prerecorded and we won't be taking your calls. However, we've lined up some calls in advance that we think you'll find helpful. So stay tuned and enjoy the rest of the program.

Let's begin today in Mississippi. Earl, thank you for calling. Go ahead.

Thank you for taking my call and thank you for your ministry and that was good teaching. I've been listening to having some CDs material and looking. I've been listening to my mentor and as far as putting him into this money, instead of putting it back into a CD, I've got it on a money market right now, looking at some annuities. Okay. Let's see.

Well, I don't have it. Anyway, the ones I'm looking at, I'll just run a few names by you, Bright House Financial, Nationwide Insurance, Reliance, Standard, Athene, and Mass Mutual. They run anywhere from A to A plus and then A plus plus. Yeah. Yeah.

Very good. I mean, those would all be reputable insurance companies. So I feel like the product that's the right fit for you is probably the direction you would want to go. Are you looking at a variable or a fixed annuity? Fixed annuity. Everything I'm looking at is five above 5% up to 5.55. The main, my main purpose and what I'm reaching out to you is to find out I'm looking for safety in the next five to seven years.

Yes. Well, I feel like with an annuity product, you would be fine on that. I mean, there is backstops in insurance if one of these insurance companies were to fail. But given the timeframe you're looking at, that's not a concern to me. And given that you are out looking for safety, you've got basically a couple of options here.

I mean, one would be an insurance product like you're considering with a highly rated company. And the second would be just to move into some additional CDs. The challenge is if you try to lock it up for longer than a year, you're going to lose yield. So you'll be down in the fours pretty quickly the further out you go. And that's just a function of what's going on right now with interest rates and the yield curve on the bonds, the treasuries. So as a result of that, I think, you know, if you're looking for, let's say, five years, does that line up with the timeframe you're considering on this annuity, Earl? Yeah, either going five to seven years. And they're locking it in for me, you know, on the, like I said, anywhere from 5.1 to 5.55. Yeah, very good.

Yeah. I mean, I like that a lot because if you were to look at a five-year CD, you'd probably be down around, you know, well, you'd certainly be under five, probably, you know, around 4.6. So the idea that you could get five plus as much as five and a half in an annuity product, you know, I think works well for you just given what you're describing as your objective. So I would just, you know, consider all of those that you mentioned, looking for the rating, looking for the guaranteed rate of return that they're offering, and then considering the surrender charges and penalties if you needed to get your money back, although I realize the objective is to leave it there until it matures, then I think, you know, you're in a pretty good spot and I would line up with the direction you're headed. How much would you look at as far as the rating an A versus A plus and A plus plus? Yeah, I wouldn't be, you know, as long as you're A or higher, you know, I would be satisfied with that for a five-year term. Okay. And the one thing I've been advised to by my mentor is try to the 20 billion in reserves 20 to 30 billion in reserves and the person I'm speaking with tells me that these do qualify there.

Yeah, I think that's a good rule of thumb. And I would imagine that they do just hearing those names. Well, thank you for your time and thank you for your ministry. I try to listen every day and so I can pick up some bit of information and I speak the blessings of Abraham over you and your family and this ministry in Jesus name. Amen. I received that Earl and thank you very much for your kind remarks and for that that blessing. That means a lot. May the Lord bless you, sir, and call back any time. Let's go to Ohio.

Hi, Carol. Okay. What I was wondering as my son has almost $2,000 and he wants to put it in a savings account and I was wondering about the on bank on bank savings online. Online banking. Sure.

Yeah, I don't have any problem with that. You know, as long as it's FDIC insured. I mean, the benefit is because they don't have the brick and mortar banks, Carol, they're able to pass along that savings in the form of no fees and higher interest rates. You know, you know, the same rules that would apply in terms of doing business online, whether that's, you know, shopping on a website online or logging into, you know, your insurance company. I think the same rules apply with your online bank. You wouldn't want to conduct business using public Wi-Fi, so you wouldn't want to log into your bank. You know, while you're in a coffee shop, you'd want to make sure you have a strong password and you change that regularly.

I mean, there are best practices you'll want to employ no matter what you're doing online if it requires a secure connection. But apart from that, it's the same FDIC insurance as you'd have with your brick and mortar bank, which means the government's going to guarantee those deposits and ensure that even if that bank were to fail and the only failures we've, you know, seen recently were pretty isolated and they weren't even online banks. And the FDIC stepped in to ensure that there was liquidity to the depositors.

So I don't have any issue with that. In fact, it's where you're going to get, you know, the most compelling rate of return. You know, right now you can get four and a half percent plus on a high yield savings account with 100 percent liquidity. So what I might do is just direct him to bankrate.com. That's bankrate.com. He can search for those online banks that have the highest interest rates right now. They also have a five star rating system that takes into account customer service and bank stability and just some other factors there. I would also mention that if he's looking for a banking partner that shares his values as a Christian, he could look at Christian Community Credit Union, join Christian Community.com would be the place to go.

But if he's really just looking for an online bank with the best yield, bankrate.com will help him sort that out. Hope that helps you, Carol. Thanks for calling today. Before we head to our break, as we head toward year end, it's an important time for us to hear from you with your listener support. And when you support Faith and Finance Live, you're supporting Change Lives.

In fact, let's listen to one of those stories. So I started listening to Faith and Finance, all those other ones with Larry Burkett and Howard Dayton years ago. During that time, I've tried to be faithful in my finances getting out of debt. And so now I'm completely out of debt. My home is paid off. My car is paid off.

No credit card debt. I got a pretty decent emergency fund. So in, you know, for any case of emergencies or whatever and reading Howard Dayton book, your money counts and actually give it out to other people as well. We're so thankful to hear so many stories of how God is at work in your lives as you apply his wisdom to your financial situations.

That's what we're here for. And that's what you're supporting when you partner with us here at Faith and Finance Live. Would you consider a gift here as we head toward year end? You can make it online at faithfi.com. That's faithfi.com. And a gift of any amount would go a long way toward helping us to close our year strong. Thanks in advance for your gifts. Again, faithfi.com.

Just click Give. We're going to take a short break and we come back much more just on the other side. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back. Hey, great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live. I'm Rob West, your host.

Our team is away from the studio today, so don't call in. But coming up a little later, we'll have more of your questions right here on the program. Hey, let me take a moment to mention the Faith Fi app. We'd love for you to download it. Just head to your app store, wherever you download apps and search for Faith Fi. That's Faith Fi.

You can manage your money. You can access the best content in biblical finance, podcasts, articles and videos. You can also participate in our Faith Fi community where you can post questions and get answers from others on their stewardship journey. You'll find it in your app store. Just search for Faith Fi or if it's easier, head to our website at faithfi.com. That's faithfi.com.

And you'll see the app right there on the home page. All right. Let's get to our calls today that we've lined up. Let's head to Texas.

Hi, Patrick. Go ahead, sir. Question is, I turned 70 in April and my wife turned 70 in February. Can she claim her Social Security benefits when she turns 70? Or does she have to wait until I turn 70 in April as she's writing on my benefits? Yeah.

So she would be claiming not based on her own work record, but she's planning to claim spousal benefits. Is that right? Correct. That's right.

Yeah. There is a caveat that she has to be at least 62, which she is. But the second piece is that you have to be receiving your benefits. So the spousal benefit cannot be claimed until the worker files for their benefit.

That's you. Now, she's not her maximum benefit has already been achieved, because she's only entitled to up to 50% of your full retirement age benefit, not the increased benefit you'll get by waiting to 72. So her benefit is capped, but she can't claim a spousal benefit until you do. So I have to do the math and decide so I claim earlier. So she gets her money and figure out if that's cost effective as opposed to just waiting three more months until April.

That's exactly right. Because yours is continuing to rise one 12th of 8% every month. Hers is capped out, but she can't get hers until you do. And longevity runs in both of our families. So with raging inflation, I probably just have to wait. Yeah, I would guess so. And the good news is that, you know, if the Lord tarries and you live about 12 years or more, you're going to be repaid for everything you gave up and you'll have that higher check for the rest of your life. Well, statistically, if I'm 70, I'm good till about 85. Is that accurate? Yeah. When you reach 65, life expectancy for a male is 83.

For a female, it's 86. So yeah, I mean, statistically, you're right in there. All right. Well, God bless you and the team. Thanks for taking my call.

Absolutely. Patrick, thanks for your call today. We appreciate it.

Let's go out to Oregon. Hi, Betty. Thanks for calling. Go ahead. Thank you for taking my call. I had a question about donor advice funds.

Can you kind of give me a synopsis of the pros and cons of using that? And then there's I understand there's three types of donor advice funds and that you can give me an idea of which one you would recommend. Okay. Tell me I'd be delighted to do that. And I'm glad you asked about it. This is one of my favorite giving vehicles. So this is a great question.

What specifically are you looking to do, though, because that may help guide you? Why are you thinking about a donor advice fund? Well, it's so that you can pay less in income taxes, where you do your your donor giving through that advised fund. And and, and I guess you don't pay income taxes on that. I mean, so that's the whole idea is to save on income tax.

Yes, potentially. So here's the idea is it's think of it as a charitable checking account. So you're making a contribution or you're making a gift to your donor advised fund. And it could come in the form of cash, it could be assets. So you could actually contribute appreciated stock, you could give a piece of real estate or even a portion or all of a business to a donor advised fund.

When you do that, it does a couple of things. Number one is it becomes immediately a tax deduction. If you're able to itemize now remember, 80 plus percent of taxpayers don't take don't itemize on their taxes because they take the standard deduction. You know, so the standard deduction in 2023 for a joint filer is $20,800 or 27,700 excuse me for joint filers.

So you've got to get above that in order to realize the deduction. Now, one of the benefits of the donor advised fund is something called bunching, where essentially you're making maybe multiple years worth of contributions, let's say to your church or other ministries, you know, the equivalent of what you would have given over let's say the next three years, you make that gift to your donor advised fund all in one year, thereby pushing you above the standard deduction. Therefore you can itemize your tax deductions, get the full benefit of that deduction potentially. And then you could distribute it or essentially you'd you'd recommend to the donor advised fund sponsor that it be granted out to whatever ministry, charity or your church you want at whatever frequency you want.

And you could do that over the next 36 months. And so that's a way to kind of push that whole amount worth of a deduction into one year, but then give it out over time. So that's one of the ways it can be tax advantaged. The second is you give an appreciated asset to the donor advised fund prior to selling it. So you don't realize a capital gain. So for instance, you had appreciated stock rather than selling it and paying the capital gain, you give it to the donor advised fund. It's sold within the donor advised fund.

Therefore you don't realize the capital gain. And then it's given away at that point. So that's essentially how how it works. Does does that make sense to you? Yes. Yes. That clears that up. I appreciate that. But what about there's like a national one like fidelity or swab.

Yes. So what I would recommend is that you go to the National Christian Foundation, ncfgiving.com and set up a donor advised fund there. They call it a giving fund. The reason I would go there is because they'll ensure that you can always give it away to Christian ministries. Those other secular donor advised fund sponsors could eliminate some ministries you want to give to if they don't line up with their values.

So ncfgiving.com. Stay on the line. We'll talk a bit more off the air. Hey, folks, we're going to pause now for a brief break, but we'll be back with much more on today's Faith and Finance Live. On this program, we recognize God owns it all. We're stewards and money is a gift from the Lord.

It's a blessing. It's a tool to be used for God's glory. We're to provide for our families.

We're to enjoy it. And yeah, we're to hold it loosely and give it away to meet the needs of others. It's a tool, but it's also a testimony to the world how we handle God's money, especially in uncertain and difficult times. It can be a demonstration of our trust in the Lord when we continue to give, saying, God, I trust that you're my provider and therefore I don't have to hold what you've entrusted to me with a clenched fist. I can hold it loosely and give it generously because I know you will continue to provide. That's not prosperity theology.

I don't give to get. God is not a cosmic vending machine, but we do know that we can trust him. His promises are true and he said he'll provide for our needs. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that'll line up with your wants, but it does mean that we can trust him as our provider. He will never abdicate that responsibility to anyone else. But on this program, we want to help you look at handling God's money as a wise and faithful steward through the lens of scripture. And we do that each day.

Before we head to South Dakota, let me just make a quick comment. You know, before the break we were talking to Betty about donor advised funds and she was asking about where to open that account. You know, here's the reality is when you make a gift to a donor advised fund, you are in a sense losing control of those funds. Those funds are no longer owned by you, which is how you can get the deduction upon the gift. It's also how you can miss the capital gains on the asset before the sale because you've given it away to the donor advised fund sponsor. Now, the way the donor advised fund works is you're then able to recommend where those gifts go after they get into your donor advised fund and the donor advised fund sponsor then is supposed to distribute those funds based on your recommendation. So it's donor initiated or donor recommended, but the sponsor actually sends the money and makes the gifts and they can do that either in your name as the owner of the donor advised fund or anonymously and you would choose that. Now, they do have the ability to say, we're not going to allow you to give to that ministry because again, they're the one who makes the final decision. That ministry we believe has somehow been disqualified because of their values or beliefs or practices, which is why I think it's so critical that when you use a donor advised fund, and I'm a huge fan that you use a donor advised fund sponsor that aligns with your values so you would never be prohibited from making a gift to a ministry or your church or a charity in terms of making that recommendation. And that's why we recommend the National Christian Foundation founded by Larry Burkett and Ron Blue and Terry Parker and exist today to serve God's people as their wise and faithful stewards of God's money. And so if you want to use a donor advised fund, and I think it's a great tool, I'd head to ncfgiving.com.

It stands for National Christian Foundation, ncfgiving.com and open what's called a giving fund, which is another word for a donor advised fund. I hope that's helpful and clears up some things. All right, back to the phones we go. Let's go to South Dakota. Hi Steve, go ahead sir.

Thank you for taking my call. Yes sir. I just had a curiosity question that I turned 70 this year, so I will start to draw Social Security and I was just curious, there's a certain percent increase every year for those already drawing. Now I get, everyone gets 8% a year after your full retirement age. Is that correct? Only if you delay in taking your benefits.

Yes. So I turned 70 this year, so I will start drawing. So that 8% a year is fixed. So the increases, and I think last year there was 8% increase for everyone that was drawing. And I was just curious, do I get the 8% for delaying as well as the increases, any increase that those drawings would get? Yes, so what happens is you get the 8% a year and then once you start drawing you'd get the cost of living adjustment on top of that. So you're getting the 8%, actually one-twelfth of 8% every month up to age 70.

And then once you start drawing, there's only two ways for that check to continue to grow. One would be the cost of living adjustment that's going to happen every year based on the consumer price index. And then the second is if you were to continue working, and in doing so if you were to replace any one of your what's called high 35, which is your highest 35 years of earnings, if you knock off one of those lower years and replace it with a higher earning year, then that would allow your benefit to be recalculated once a year based on your work record. But those two things would actually play into your increased check. So yes, you get the cost of living adjustment plus you're getting one-twelfth of 8% every month you wait until your age 70 birthday.

So yes, the cost of living adjustment is also added to the 8% even if I delayed. Is that what you said? Yes. Oh, okay.

Then that was it. I very much appreciate your knowledge and information. Thank you. Well, you're very welcome, Steve. Thanks for calling. We appreciate you being on the program.

God bless you. Hey, let me mention, you know, one of the things we often talk about here on this program is the idea of financial unity in marriage. You know, financial unity should be a priority in a Christian marriage.

Here's why. Let me give you some thoughts to consider here because we hear from so many folks who are still, you know, kind of keeping their finances separate. And I just believe really strongly that this fosters disunity in marriage and that's not God's intent.

Here's why it's so important to have financial unity. Number one, unity is God's will for the church and marriage is supposed to be a reflection of Christ's relationship with his people. Let me take you to Ephesians 4, 2, and 3.

Here's what Paul writes. Be completely humble and gentle. Be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep, here it is, the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. Second, life is much more satisfying when you're working together. Here's what Psalm 133 says, how good and pleasant is it when God's people live together in unity, for there the Lord bestows his blessing, even life forevermore.

Thirdly, unity is a priority because you made a promise. You may disagree with your spouse about the family finances, but remember why you're together in the first place. To love and to cherish, right?

Until death do you part, as the traditional vow says. Your promise to each other before God means you must work together for unity, even when you disagree about money issues. And I realize there can be plenty of disagreements in this area of money management. Fourth, financial unity builds virtues that keep a marriage strong, including love and trust and patience and forgiveness and generosity and self-sacrifice. You see, when you live out these virtues together, your relationship rises above petty disagreements. And then finally, your financial unity, well, it's a witness. Believe it or not, the way you handle your finances as a couple can demonstrate the hope of Christ to the people who don't know him. Your loving attitude towards each other and your generosity and integrity as a couple can have a huge impact on the people around you. So let's pursue unity in our financial dealings with each other.

We're going to head to a break here in just a moment, but let me remind you, our team is away from the studios today, so don't call in, but we have lined up some great questions in advance. So when we come back, we'll dive into those as we apply God's wisdom to your financial decisions and choices. You know, here at Faith and Finance Live, it's all about understanding the heart of God in our role as stewards or managers of God's resources.

It's a game changer when we understand that as our starting point. Much more to come just around the corner right here on Faith and Finance Live. Stay with us. We'll be right back. Great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live. Just a quick reminder, we're not here today, so don't call in, but we've lined up some great questions in advance.

We'll get to those in just a moment. First, your emails, these come in to us at moodyradio.org slash finance. Sharon writes, what's the safest way to consolidate student loan debt? Well, Sharon, one of the keys here is that you don't want to mix federal and private student loan debt when consolidating. Each has its own mechanism for consolidating. If you mix them, however, you'll have to do that with a private loan, but that will wipe out any of the safeguards you have with federal loans, such as income-based repayment plans and deferment.

The fact that the interest rates have risen shouldn't affect federal loan consolidation, though the new rate will simply be a composite of all of the existing rates on your loans. This next one comes from Judy. She writes, my nephew is 15. He would like to start investing. He has side jobs and has money and a savings account.

What is the next step? You know, as his parents, you can open a custodial IRA for your nephew. This would be a great blessing as you can put it up to $6,500 a year, at least for 2023, that will grow to 7,000 as a limit for 2024. If he has that much in earned income, you could contribute all the way up to those limits. Again, all contributions must be out of at least the amount of earned income that he has. Now, your nephew will gain control of these accounts when he reaches the age of majority.

That's something to consider, but here's the reality. If you could start that now and he has a Roth IRA growing for him for the next 50 years, you can imagine the power of that compounding. I'd probably look to our friends at soundmindinvesting.org for some mutual fund recommendations as you consider that option. Now, if you'd like to send us a question to be read on the air, you can do that on our website, moodyradio.org slash finance. That's moodyradio.org slash finance.

Well again, we'll be headed back to the phones here in just a moment. Let me talk for a second about getting rich quick. You know, especially when times get tight and difficult like they are right now, the temptation is to take a shortcut to riches.

You know, we see it in the news. I mean, there's all kinds of crimes, but also even pyramid schemes and get rich quick schemes that are promising to make you rich in no time. You know that whether that's day trading or house flipping or multi-level sales, all you have to do is pay a fee, attend a seminar, order a brochure and make you lots of money without much effort. Well, we need to be careful because when we follow God's principles, God's revealed way for handling his wealth is gradually through hard work and skill. The problem is pride can lead us to think that we can circumvent the Lord's wisdom. Here's what Proverbs 28 verses 19 and 20 say, 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. So I've got three dangers I want to point out of the get rich quick mentality in just a moment here. We'll get back to those here just after this call, but first let's head to Ohio. Hi, Natalie. How can I help you? About three years ago, my husband and I went down south to Williamsburg, Virginia, bought into a timeshare thinking we were going to use it.

This would be great. We're both retired. Less than six months after that, my husband was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Now he does not want to travel with just more difficult to travel anywhere and we'd like to get out of it, uh, out of our contract with this timeshare, but I don't know who to trust or where to start.

Yeah. Well, Natalie, this is a real challenge and I, uh, my heart goes out to you for the situation that you're in and I can understand absolutely why you'd want to get out of it. The challenge is there's far more people that want to do exactly what you do want to do. Then there are those looking to buy them and those who are selling the timeshares have very little incentive to create a market for you to sell this because they're trying to sell new timeshares.

They don't want to just help people who have already bought them, uh, you know, get rid of them. And so it's a really difficult situation and I just don't have any confidence in any of the kind of exit companies out there that claim they can get you out of these legally. Um, I've just never found one. It doesn't mean there's not one out there that's legitimate and reputable and, and has some success. I've just never found one that I would be comfortable recommending.

And there's many that are out there that have been seen to be, you know, less than, uh, you know, above board. So what do you do? Where do you go from here? Well, um, you know, you can try to sell it on the resale market. One website you might want to check out would be, uh, the timeshare users group. It's called a tug, T U G and it's on the web at tug two dot com.

That's T U G the number two dot com. Uh, on the timeshare users group you can, uh, they do have a marketplace for buying and selling timeshares and there's classified listings basically where you could try to sell your timeshare. Um, so that would be one way to go. Uh, the second is of course you could call the timeshare developer and just see if they have any options for you to resell this.

I don't find that folks have a lot of success with that, but it's worth a phone call. Um, you could try to gift it to a friend, a family member or someone else, but they would obviously have to recognize that they'd be assuming, assuming it's been paid off or paid up. They'd have to assume the ongoing maintenance, but it may be a way that, you know, you can at least unload it so that even though you don't get any value out of it, you're no longer responsible for the ongoing maintenance costs. Um, and then you could rent it out is the other option. The challenge is there's just a lot of scams out there, so I would be very leery of trusting someone to quote unquote kind of get you out of it, so to speak, um, without you finding a legitimate buyer on your own. Does that make sense? Uh, yes, and I'm willing to gift it to anyone who will just take it off our hands, but I don't know all the legalities of if I can even do that.

Yeah. Well, and eventually, you know, that's going to go back to the, uh, to the fine print and the agreement that you signed. It could be that there's somebody, maybe an attorney, uh, or someone, you know, in your church that could help you just kind of review that and see what your options are. But, uh, you know, if you do have the option to sell it and then transfer, uh, that, you know, responsibility to someone else or to give it away, you know, potentially this timeshare users group marketplace, uh, could be a place where you could list that and find somebody who'd be willing to take it off your hands. Again, this is not easy.

I wish I had better news and a kind of a straightforward process that would allow you to dispose of this. Unfortunately, there's just the supply and demand is, is really out of whack. There's a lot of folks that are looking to unload these and just very few people that are looking to get into them.

And those that are buying into them are often being sold these through, you know, free vacations that, you know, result in a high pressure kind of sales situation. Okay. Well, thank you. You said tug2.com is up close to you?

Yes, T-U-G, T-U-G and the number two dot com. Okay. Thank you very much. You're welcome, Natalie and all the best to you. Thanks for being on the program today.

All right. Let me give you a three dangers of the get rich quick mentality here. Uh, it's really good to recognize and avoid these get rich quick programs. Number one, uh, getting involved in things you just don't understand. Uh, Proverbs 24 verse three and four reminds us that by wisdom, a house is built by understanding it's established. Then by knowledge, the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches.

If you can't explain it to your mom, I would pass on it. The second danger and get rich quick is the temptation to risk money you don't have or can't afford to lose. Here's what Proverbs 27 two warns. The prudent man sees evil and hides himself. The naive proceed and pay the penalty. And then the third problem with trying to get rich quick without hard work or skill is that it usually involves 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 if you're in a high pressure situation, whether it's somebody trying to sell you a timeshare or steak dinner with a financial product attached to it or a quote unquote business opportunity that you need to act on today or you'll miss out, those would be telltale signs that maybe you need to hit the pause button for a second. Think about it for a couple of days or a couple of weeks before you move forward.

Um, and if it involves an impulsive decision, I would allow that to be your warning sign that maybe you need to pass. Now, 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. Uh, 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. Uh, and that's a truth from God's word that we can trust on today. Well, folks, so thankful that you were along with us today.

We covered a lot of ground talking about social security and timeshares and giving through a donor advised fund and a host of other topics. You know, at the end of the day though, our goal here in managing God's money as a steward is faithfulness. And at the core of faithfulness is obedience, obedience to God's word, which is truth, which can help us counteract the messages of this world that often tell us our self-worth is equal to our net worth. And we can get caught up in the comparison trap, which is kind of the, uh, manifestation of covetousness that is clear in the Bible.

We need to be on our guard against. And when we try to adopt or live out the best version of someone else's life that we see on social media, especially when we do that, uh, in a way that, uh, causes us to spend money we don't have through debt, that can give us in a, give us in a real problem situation, but we can counteract that by renewing our mind in God's word. And so let me direct you back to the scriptures today to just meditate on God's word and his promises.

We know those are true and ultimately they will change your life. Well, that's going to do it for us today. Faith and finance live is a partnership between Moody radio and faith five. Thank you to my amazing broadcast team. I couldn't do this without them. I hope you have a great rest of your day and we'll see you next time on faith and finance live.