Where to Give

The following program was prerecorded, so our phone lines are not open. This time of year, some folks struggle with a major decision, where to do their year-end giving. Hi, I'm Rob West. If you have some money you'd like to give to God's kingdom before the end of the year, you might be swamped with requests. So how do you decide where to give? Sharon Epps joins us today with advice on how to make those decisions. Then we have some great calls lined up, but please don't call in today, because this program is prerecorded.

This is Faith and Finance Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. Well, it's always a pleasure to welcome Sharon Epps to the broadcast, Sharon's president of Kingdom Advisors, and has a real burden for giving back to God's kingdom. Sharon, great to have you. Good to be here, Rob. Thank you. We said that late December can be a time of confusion for some folks who aren't sure where to give funds.

So how does your family deal with this process? Well, Rob, really, I was reminded just the other day, Joel and I were out on a walk and just talking about our giving in general. And this time of year, we start asking the question, have we met our giving goals? And if we have not, the funds we have set aside, what we would like to do with them. And I realized that this giving portfolio approach that we were taught several years ago could be really helpful to other people.

So I just wanted to share it today. I'm so glad you are, because as we said, a lot of folks wondering, how does my giving line up with my passions, but also God's Word? So how would God's Word in particular give us guidance on this giving portfolio approach? Well, as you know, there are so many scriptures on generosity and giving. But I think one that we don't often think of is the words of Jesus himself from Luke 4, verses 16 to 19, where he gives his mission here on earth and says, The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. And we believe this is actually a model for a giving portfolio, all the different areas that he's talking about.

I love that. Okay, so how would you then take Luke 4, 16 to 19, and apply that to your giving decisions? Well, he really talks about three categories of giving. The first one would be the ministry of what we call God's mercy. It's the people that are in need, poor and needy, the prisoners, basic recovery ministries, and just basic human needs like water and food, shelter, and those kinds of things. Then the ministry of God's justice, the people that have been oppressed, widows, orphans, more the helpless, the victims. And then finally, the third one is the ministry of God's word. And as you know, here at Faithful, we encourage you to do your first giving to the local church, but then also to other evangelism and discipleship ministries. I love that, the ministry of God's mercy, God's justice, and God's word.

So those are the key themes from God's word. But now we use this word portfolio. So how do you treat your giving like it's a portfolio? Well, I don't want the word portfolio to be a scary word. In fact, it shouldn't be scary for investing either, because a portfolio simply means that there are multiple buckets to put money in with intended multiple purposes. And so when you put multiple buckets and multiple purposes, it makes a portfolio.

That's what your financial advisor does, is they help you structure your investment portfolio. But you can do that with your giving as well. And I might also mention that God calls us each to give according to what we've been given. And so where we choose to give around these themes can be done, whether we have a widow's mite, or whether we have multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars to give, the portfolio idea still works. And it helped us several years ago, we realized that we were missing in our giving portfolio, any giving to widows and orphans. And that led us to begin sponsoring a compassion child for years, and had another outcome of allowing our daughters to be involved in that process. And they began to care for orphans and give to them regularly as well. This is powerful, because it really gives you a filter or a lens to look at your giving, evaluate it in light of your passions, but also God's Word, and then see if there's any gaps.

Yes. And I need to thank one of our faculty members, Jim Wise, for pointing out this portfolio construction because it has been an essential tool for us. Oh, that's so good. Well, Sharon, I really appreciate you sharing with us here at Year End. Folks, I hope and pray that this will be a great tool for you as you think about your year-end giving and perhaps as you head into the new year, think about your giving in 2024 in light of these as well, and maybe be more intentional than ever before. Sharon, thanks for stopping by. It's great to be here.

That's Sharon Epps, president of Kingdom Advisors and frequent contributor here at Faith and Finance. Just a quick reminder, we're not here today, so don't call in, but we're going to head to a break and much more coming just after this. Stay with us. Well, it's great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live. A quick reminder, our team is away from the studio, so don't call in, but we've got some great questions we lined up in advance. Before we go to the phones, a quick email.

This one comes to us from Tim. Tim writes, is this an appropriate time to look for a first-time homebuyer loan? The housing prices are so high, the interest rates are high as well.

We have about $35,000 saved for a down payment, but we're not sure what to do. And Tim, it really is a challenging time to buy a home. We've got interest rates that have more than doubled in the last three years to about 7.5% from three. We've got housing prices that are up. Average home now over $400,000 instead of $300,000 where they were three years ago. So I would say, let's not rush into it. Make sure you save for that down payment. That $35,000 at 20% down would only buy you a $175,000 home. If that fits your needs, great.

If it doesn't, I'd say wait, the interest rates will come down and you can continue to save. I hope that helps. All right.

Let's begin in New York. Hi, Alice. Thanks for calling. Go ahead. Hi. Thank you so much for taking my call.

Sure. So I'm 62, planning to retire at 67. I've always carried long-term disability insurance as I'm in a higher risk profession, so a nurse. I'm wondering at what point it makes sense to stop the policy. I haven't had a need for it. As I get older, the premiums go up.

They're about 62 a month. I think it's a fairly good policy. I'm just not sure if I should continue with it. Yeah. Yeah, very good. Workers' comp may not be enough to meet your needs if you're injured on the job and not available at all if you're injured off the job.

So I would just say if you can afford it, I would keep taking this insurance for as long as you're working, if you're able to, just because this really will provide a valuable stop gap in the event that you have a disability. Okay. That's helpful. I do appreciate that.

And then just a second question, I heeded your advice. I do have an I-bond, and I know your current advice is to maybe move that money elsewhere, but how I've allocated that in my planning is for my funeral expenses. So my son is a beneficiary. It would be payable on debt, and that kind of just covers those expenses. I'm wondering if that is an okay thing to do. It takes the stress off of me and I think the stress off of my family.

I don't want to work with a local funeral home because I may not be living there when I can. Yes. No, that's great.

I mean, that gives you ultimate flexibility. So the question is just where to keep that money to have it safe and liquid, and certainly that's one way to do it with the payable on death, the POD, that would pretty quickly become available. He could then redeem that and transfer it to another account electronically and then have those funds pretty readily available.

It may take just a little bit longer than, for instance, if you were to have it in a high-yield savings account with a POD on it as well, but we're talking a matter of days. So I think that's fine. I like that plan.

Obviously, it's safe and secure, about as risk-free as you can get backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government. It's earmarked for that purpose, and then I like that it's going to pass outside of probate with that payable on debt. So I think you're well planned on that, Alice.

I like that a lot. All right. I think I'm well planned because of all of your advice. I recently moved a fraction of my savings into a high-yield savings account, so thank you for that, and just thank you for everything you do. I really listen almost every day and heed much of your advice, and I probably should have been more financially informed prior to this, but you've helped greatly, so thank you so much. Well, I appreciate you saying that, Alice.

That means a lot, and call any time. May the Lord bless you. To West Virginia. Hi, Carol. Hello. That was really quick. I didn't expect you to answer me that soon. No problem. I have just recently moved my retirement out of first savings into a checking account, and of course, they took 20 percent out for federal taxes, and I need to figure out whether I can invest that or I should invest that in my local credit union where I can get a 5 percent guaranteed CD, or if I should try and roll that money over into some other tax deferred investment to avoid losing that penalty.

Yes, very good. How long ago did you pull that money out? It was just deposited in my account this past Monday.

I guess the question I would have is, are you sure you want to do that? Would you rather leave it in the TSP and then perhaps roll it out to an IRA? You'd have the same options available to you, like putting it in a CD or putting it in a bond, a money market, but it wouldn't become taxable until you need it. So if you just plan to leave it there and let it grow, you could keep it in that tax deferred environment. So I guess that would be my first question, but give me your thoughts on that. Well, I don't even know if I could put it back into rich savings.

You should be able to, you have the option to usually within 60 days to put that back in. I mean, you could certainly ask that question. So that would be one thing that I would look at. But beyond that, how are you viewing this money, Carol, just in terms of the time horizon on it? Is this something you think you're going to tap into in the next, let's say three years? Well, I'm not dependent on that money.

I have a retirement with the government already under civil service and my husband has a good income as well. So I thought dependent on this investment, this is rich savings and I was already having an allotment century monthly from it and I just saw this opportunity to get a 5% return on a CD with my credit union, so I really didn't want to leave it in that rich savings plan. I was ready to pull it out. Yeah.

Okay, very good. Yeah, so I think again, if you're wanting ultimate safety on this, this is a unique window of time where you could put it into a CD, get a nice yield on it at about five and a half percent. I'd probably look online for one of the online banks. You're going to do better than your local brick and mortar bank.

If you check out bankrate.com, you could find some options and it does look like the typical ability to return money distributed from a 401k within 60 days perhaps may not apply to that TSP, so you may not be able to reverse that now that you've pulled it out. But I think the bottom line is I like your plan. The only other thing you might look at is if you want to kind of move up the risk curve just slightly, you could put it in a concentrated in a bond portfolio, maybe with 20 to 30% in the form of stocks, you do that through mutual funds given the amount we're talking about here.

But if you'd really rather stay on the much more conservative end of the spectrum, there's nothing that's risk free, but with a CD, with FDIC and insurance, you're as close to it as you're going to get. At five and a half percent, I'm thrilled with that rate right now, won't be available forever, but you might as well take advantage of it. Well, thank you. I really needed that assurance. I was wondering if I had done the right thing. All right.

Very good, Cara. Listen, all the best to you and your husband in this next season of life. I'm sure God has some great things planned for you all and call any time. We appreciate you being on the program today. Darrell in Texas, we're going to come to you after the break.

I want to be sure to give you enough time to ask your question about home title fraud insurance or so-called insurance. We'll talk about that. I do have some thoughts on your question. Hey, let me also remind you here in the last month of the year, this is an important time for us to hear from you with your financial support as a listener supported ministry. We rely on your gifts. If you find this program helpful, we'd invite you to contribute at faithfi.com. Click Give. That's faithfi.com.

Just click Give. We'll be right back. 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. 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 have 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 back to the phones. Darrell is waiting patiently in Texas. Go ahead, sir. Yes, sir. I hear on the radio these commercials about the home title lock insurance or something like that. They can go into the public records and create a document and get loans on your home, sell your home, and you don't know anything about it until the bank forecloses on your home. And I figured you might know something about that, you know, I'll let you go and you can speak on it.

Okay, yeah, Darrell, I appreciate you asking about it. Yeah, I'm not a fan of these simply because there's really nothing they can do to prevent somebody from fraudulently, you know, getting your name retitled in their name, essentially fraudulently transferring the deed to their name, which then would allow them to take out a loan in your name. The bottom line is you can do this yourself. A lot of county records office will have the ability for you to place an alert on your deed such that if there was any material changes to the deed, you would be alerted and there's not going to be any cost to you to do that. The bottom line is if somebody does this, it's wrongful foreclosure because if they, you know, fraudulently put the deed in their name, then take out a loan against it and the loan is not paid and they try to foreclose on your property, well at the end of the day, it's still fraud.

So they can't legally take the property from you because the person who took out the loan, it was not, you know, legally in their name. So there's really nothing they can do that you can't do yourself and therefore, you know, I wouldn't be paying somebody for a service that really, you know, doesn't stop anything other than perhaps giving you a notification, but again, you know, you can do that on your own. So I wouldn't worry about this. It doesn't mean that it doesn't happen.

It certainly does. I just don't think this lock insurance or policy, whatever they call it, it's really somewhat of a misnomer and it's just not an effective product. So I'd pass on it and if you're concerned about it, I'd call your county records office and see if you can place an alert on your account. Thanks for calling. We appreciate you raising this one. It's a good question.

Let's stay in Texas and talk to Michelle. Go right ahead. Yes, sir.

Thank you so much. What you do is extremely important, so God bless you for that. I just wanted to ask the question of, I have a 401k and I've got it, actually I'm not contributing to it, but my company contributes for me.

It's called like a safe harbor. But I do have it in just cash, kind of just the safest thing you can do. Everything else is like mutual funds and I want to be biblically responsible. And so I don't put it in anything except the cash and I just wanted to know how you feel about that. Is that unwise or I mean, it's not earning very much obviously. Sure.

Yeah, no, I appreciate this question, Michelle. And I can also appreciate that you want to honor your convictions and your values in your investments. The challenge is with 401ks that, you know, although some 401k plans are adding some of the faith based investing fund families, many of them don't yet have them. Now the good news is this whole space of faith based investing where you have investments that are intentionally aligned with the values of Christians, either avoiding certain companies or embracing others, that whole space is growing and it's growing rapidly, which means those, you know, 55 new products, for instance, in the last three years in this space. That's good news because what it means is they'll become more and more available in 401ks in the days ahead, but you may not have any of them today. So how do you approach that?

Well, the last thing I'd want you to do is to tell you to violate your conviction. So at the end of that, at the end of the day, it's really between you and the Lord as to how you go about this. Obviously your ability to offset inflation and grow this money so you have something in the future that you can depend on to supplement social security, which was never intended to cover more than 40% of your pre-retirement income, means you're going to have to have compounding growth and it's going to be very difficult to get that in the cash account.

You know, right now we've got a little bit of a benefit in terms of the interest rates are higher, they won't be there forever and the Fed is going to try to lower them as soon as it possibly can just, you know, once inflation is under control. And so, you know, I think you're kind of in this dilemma where, you know, you don't have access perhaps to the faith-based investing options and you don't want to be misaligned with your value. So I would say, you know, you've got a couple of choices. One, you could, you know, look at more of the bond type options in there. There's probably a bond mutual fund. The second is you could certainly do the cash account. The third is you could, you know, look at the mutual fund options in there and actually have an advisor help you do some screening against the companies that are in it just to see whether or not you could feel comfortable with them. The other option is you, you know, you take the matching that comes automatically through the safe harbor, but then you try to do the, you know, more of your retirement investing outside of that 401k.

You know, you could fund an IRA every year, you know, so that would be one option and you'd have a lot more control over those investment options there. Does that all make sense? Yes, sir, and that does, that's a good idea because I don't actually even contribute. It's just my company contributing, which is wonderful.

It's almost like an extra gift. It is absolutely. Yeah.

The only downside to all of this is you just, you don't have the contribution amount in the IRA anywhere near what you're going to have in the 401k you know, so the 401k contribution limits for 2023, you know, are $22,500 whereas you're only at $6,500 for an IRA. So you're going to kind of quickly max that out and you may want to be able to put away more than that and your only option to do that is going to be in that safe harbor. Okay. Well, that's good to know too. Thank you so much. All right, Michelle, thanks for calling today and I appreciate your kind remarks about the program. It means a lot. Folks, we're up against another break, so we're going to head to that break here in just a moment, but let me remind you, we're out of the studio today. Our team is not here, so don't call in, but much more to come just around the corner on Faith and Finance Live. Stick around.

So glad to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live. I'm Rob West. Hey, our team is away from the studio today, so don't call in, but we live up some great questions in advance that I know you will enjoy. In fact, let's go to one of those right now. All right.

Let's go to Alabama. Hi, Jane. Hi. Thank you so much for taking my call. Yes, ma'am.

Okay. My question is, I'll go into a store, you know, and they're having, if I use their download or get their credit card, then they give me a percentage off at that time or things like that, special things. So I've done that over the several years, but I don't use those cards except that time.

I have one bank card that I use. Are those against me? Should I get rid of them, you know, or should I try and close them? What should I do with them? Because I don't use them anymore. Yeah, I can appreciate that, Jane, and I understand why you opened them in the first place to get that discount.

I would close them. You know, the only thing to consider is when you do, you are going to probably see a temporary decline in your credit card. No, excuse me, not your credit card, but your credit score. It'll be modest.

It won't be significant, but it certainly does happen. Let me ask you this. Are you in the market anytime soon for a new loan? Like would you be buying a car and you need to borrow some money or, you know, something like that? No, no, I'm 87 and I don't really, you know, I have, I just spend what I do and I don't plan on as long as my car and everything works, I don't plan on, so the credit rating would not affect me.

Yeah, very good. So then that really is not a factor here. So the bigger issue is just that every active account that you have is one more account that can be compromised. You know, whether that's, you know, they have a data breach and they get in and get your information, which theoretically can happen whether the account's open or not. But in terms of somebody compromising the account, getting access to your number, charging, you know, things fraudulently, every account you have open, you really need to be monitoring it each month, even if it's a zero balance. And so by closing it, that's going to take that one out of the mix and therefore it's one less account you need to keep up with. So I think just kind of given the prevalence of data breaches and, you know, account electronic financial fraud, I would go ahead and close those store cards that you don't plan on using. You just want to call the number on the back of the card, tell them you want to close it, ask them to send you confirmation in writing.

And then probably 60 days later, I just check your credit report at annualcreditreport.com and just make sure that on each of the three credit bureaus that those accounts are showing closed. Okay. All right.

Well, that's what I wondered. I appreciate so much your help. You've been such a help to me. Thank you. Well, you're welcome, Jane. And I appreciate your call today. Thanks for your kind remarks about the program.

That means a lot. Let's go to Virginia. Hi, Ann. Go ahead. Hi.

I have a question. I've got my retirement funds in an annuity and it used to be managed by Allianz, but Charles Schwab bought Allianz out. I'm just curious if the Charles Schwab is related to the Schwab that's in that global reset thing and if they invest in faith-based companies.

Yeah. It's a great question and I'm not familiar with any ties from Schwab to what you're describing. The nice thing about Charles Schwab is that they're basically a platform that gives you access to any investments that you want.

So you can absolutely buy any of the faith-based investing funds on the Schwab platform. Are you still in an annuity product at this point? Yes. Yes.

Have you looked at the investment options inside of it to see what's there or is this a fixed annuity? I don't know the answer to it. Well, I know the answer to one.

I have not researched it. Okay. And the answer to the other one, I'm not sure. Okay. Yeah. Okay.

And do you have an advisor that you work with, Ann, or did you just work directly with Allianz? Yes. Yes. I have an advisor. Okay.

Yeah. I think this is a good time for you just to go back to your advisor and say, listen, can you just explain to me again exactly what I've got here? Is this a fixed annuity? If it is, then there's just a guaranteed interest rate that they're giving you each year. If it's a variable annuity, then there are some what are called sub accounts, which are basically just mutual funds inside.

And perhaps your advisor could explain to you what options you have in there or how the return is calculated. But I don't have any problem, Ann, with you being at Schwab as opposed to Allianz, just from a faith-based investing perspective. Okay. Well, thank you. You're welcome, Ann. Thanks for calling today. We appreciate it.

Let's head back to Texas. Hi, Karen. Go ahead. Thank you. I have a question.

It's kind of take off from a prior person calling. I thought I heard you say she could have changed her IRA into a CD. Could I do that? It's just a traditional IRA. Can I somehow do it without penalty and put it into a CD?

Yeah. Well, what I was saying is you can actually hold a CD in the IRA. So basically it allows you to keep the money in the IRA and you buy a CD inside of it. And so what you would want to do is just talk to your advisor or the bank or custodian of your IRA and just let them know that you would like to buy a CD inside of it.

And that would be fine to do. And then what that's going to do is that as that CD earns interest, it will not be taxable as it would normally be until you take the money out. And then as you withdraw the money from the CD or not the CD, but from the IRA in retirement when you need it, then it's treated as income and you'd pay tax on it at that point. So you just keep it right there in the IRA and then buy the CD inside of it.

Okay. I mean, this IRA is with my advisor, but I'm thinking about buying a CD from a different, let's say, Golden Socks. But you know, maybe my current advisor has an equal percentage point CD, right? Cause I'm just not thinking he's going to want me to buy a CD from another company, you know? Yeah, no, I can certainly understand that. I would just kind of talk him through what you're looking to try to do and have him give you the rates.

And then if you had to transfer it out, you just want to do a CD IRA at another institution that gives you the rates you're looking for. Thanks for your call. Yeah. Before we head to our break, you know, 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 changed lives.

In fact, let's listen to one of those stories. In 2017, I was on the verge of bankruptcy about to lose everything I had. I've worked in the pipeline industry for several, several years, and that's what's kind of up and down, you know, you pay and everything.

We'd work a while and be off the wallet anyway. I just got really tired of being in debt and I just prayed about it and I said, okay, Lord, if you open the door, we'll do it. You know? And I've been working ever since I started out in 2017 with $220,000 in debt and today I'm down to about $47,000. Wow. God has been faithful, man, he's been faithful.

It's incredible. We're so thankful to hear so many stories about 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 when we come back, much more just on the other side.

Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back. Thanks for joining us today on Faith and Finance Live here in our final segment of the broadcast today.

Let me remind you, our team is not here so don't call in but we lined up some great questions in advance. We'll get to those in just a moment. Before we do, let me remind you, if you haven't downloaded the Faithfi app, we'd love for you to check it out.

It's got three sections in it. The first is the money management system based on Larry Burkett's digital envelope system and helps you manage God's money in a way where you know exactly what's left in each envelope at any point during the month. There's also our learn tab where you can access the best content and biblical finance to grow in your understanding of God's way of handling money and our community where you can post questions, get comments and ideas from other stewards on the journey. So download it today on our website, faithfi.com.

Just click app. Hey, let me mention something quickly before we talk to Mary in Texas. We've had some calls recently just about credit cards versus debit cards. Let me mention one thing that a lot of folks fail to realize and that is they often will opt for a debit card just because there's not the chance that you could spend money that you don't have.

And I completely concur with that. If credit cards are going to get you into a problem situation where you're spending beyond your means, then you need to cut them up. It's just not worth it. Now, if you have good financial disciplines in your life and you're only using a credit card for budgeted items, then I'm completely fine with it. We use ours every month. We have one that gives 2% back on cash back on every purchase.

We only use it for budgeted items. We pay it off in full at the end of the month and that's the way it's always been. Now one of the benefits to the credit card is in terms of fraud and liability. I had a friend just tell me yesterday that his account was compromised. They had lost their card, didn't realize it by the time they found out that their debit card had been lost, somebody had charged $6,000 on it. Well, that money came right out of the account, the checking account. Now this was with one of the online banks.

I won't mention which one it is, but they said, listen, we're going to do our research on it and we'll restore your account at the conclusion of that, but it could take 21 days. Now this is $6,000 that's no longer in his account for three weeks. At that point it will likely be refunded to them because the card was lost, they had promptly reported it, they're technically not liable for it, but the money's gone. Now they happen to have more than that, a good bit more in this particular account, but if you were living right up to the edge and that account was gone, now all of a sudden you've got recurring charges that are hitting that account that are insufficient funds, you're going to have extra fees and expenses, not to mention the hassle factor. So one benefit of having that credit card is that same thing occurs, you lose that card, they charge the same $6,000, there's no money that's left your account. Those are just sitting on your credit card statement and as long as you report that on a timely basis, you're never going to pay a dollar toward those fraudulent purchases. The credit card company is going to handle that for you. So just something to keep in mind when it comes to debit cards is yes, you have protection against fraud, but that money is often leaving your account for a period of time before you get it back.

So just keep that in mind as you think about credit versus debit. All right, back to the phones we go here in our final segment. Let's go to Texas. Hi Mary, thanks for calling. Go ahead. I'm 65 and my retirement age is 66 and eight months. I think I told the screen a different time, but I'm checking it now and it's 66 and eight months. So far up to date, I've lost $7,000 in my retirement money and the guy, my financial guy just keeps telling me, just hang in there, just hang in there and I do plan on working as long as I can, but I played a lot of sports, my joints are just not holding up, I'm on medication and I have a business that I run, it's a courier business, so I'm on my feet moving a lot, which I know is probably good, but it's just painful. So I just don't know how long I'm going to be able to do this, but I'm just wondering should I be worried about, I mean so far I'm up to $7,000, that was the last time I checked that I've lost and I just don't think I can afford to lose any.

I've only got about a little over a hundred in there. Yeah, yeah. Well Mary, let me just say, I mean I completely understand your concern, I realize your proximity to retirement is weighing on you and nobody likes to watch their statement go down and it's kind of counterproductive, it seems at least. Why would I just continue to stay in these investments only to open my statement every month and seeing them fall? And on top of that, we are likely headed towards some sort of recession next year and we could see the market retest its lows from last October, which means we could go down a considerable amount even beyond what we're at today. The reason you would stay in the market, despite everything I just said, is because even when you reach retirement, you can still have a long-term perspective.

If you're in good health and the Lord tarries, I mean your life expectancy once you reach 65 is 86 years old. So you need this money to last decades. And the challenge is the only way to overcome the loss of purchasing power, which is what happens to our money, it becomes less and less effective in making purchases because of inflation. It's eroding our purchasing power. The only way to overcome that is through investing in companies, whether it's through bonds, debt or stocks, equities, where they're growing, they're providing value to their shareholders. And despite the kind of ebbs and flows of the market based on the overall economy and so forth, the long-term trend is up. I mean, if you look at the S&P 500 over the last hundred years, it's averaged over nine percent a year. And that includes the stock market crash of 29, it includes the dot-com bubble in 99.

I mean, it includes the financial crisis in 2007-2008. So we go through these periods, but we stay the course. And the reason is we just can't time the market.

There's no way for you to know when to get out and then when to get back in. And if you don't get back in, you're going to miss the recovery and then the question is, yeah, you can get five and a half percent of the CD today, but you're probably not going to be able to get that two or three years from now because the Fed's going to try to get the interest rates back down. And then what? So I think the key is to make sure that you have the right investment mix. And once you know that you have the right mix in your portfolio, stocks to bonds and maybe some precious metals, then, you know, I think you just kind of keep that long term and say, OK, even though I'm only three years out from retirement, I need this money to last potentially, Lord willing, the next 30 years.

And so the way I do that is by, you know, continuing to focus on the long term. What is the right investment mix at 68? Probably somewhere around 40 percent in stocks and maybe 60 percent in bonds, potentially. If you want to be even more conservative than that, you could be maybe 10 percent in precious metals like gold, maybe 30 percent in stocks, 60 percent in bonds.

And by the way, the bonds will do very well as interest rates come down, which will probably start sometime next year. So listen, at the end of the day, this is your call. You're the steward. God has entrusted this money to you, not to your advisor or anyone else. But I like the idea of you continuing to stay invested and keep a long term perspective even at age 65. Does that all make sense, though? Well, I'm just going to trust what you say. That's the main reason I call, because I don't, of course, I see it the way I see it. It doesn't make sense. It doesn't make 100 percent sense to me, but I trust you over me. And so and it's pretty much what my representative of my account or whatever you call him, that's pretty much what he's telling me, that he's kind of young.

And so I'm thinking, does he really even know? Sure. You know, but I'll do it. I'll just leave it there. I've been with this company for a long time.

And you know, other than 2008, I believe it was that it took a bit, but it's you know, I think he has been in low risk funds so that I'm just I'm barely creeping up. Yeah. But I just feel like that's the best because I just don't want to I want to have something but nothing.

I don't want to be too chancy. Yeah. You know, I can certainly understand that. I will tell you the fact that you're only down about seven percent in this environment. I know you don't want to be down anything, but it's not that's not a bad, unrealized loss. You haven't lost anything until you sell something. These are unrealized losses and a decline of seven percent in a market like this is not bad at all. And the other thing is, keep in mind, while you're still working, assuming you're still contributing to this, you're buying with the same monthly contribution, the same dollar amount, you're buying more shares of those investments. So this is actually a great buying opportunity for you to continue to accrue more investable assets in the portfolio, because as the market recovers, those investments that you're buying at a discount today are going to do well over time. So I think the bottom line is here, I like the idea of you maintaining a long term perspective and staying the course as hard as I know it can be. So hopefully that's helpful to you, Mary. We appreciate your call today. Thanks for being on the program.

Let's head to where we're going to stay in Texas, Monty. Go ahead. I'm currently using one active credit card and I have about four credit cards that I don't use. What is the notification if I want to cancel it? I don't want to have those cards just in case it be stolen or misplaced.

Yeah. I mean, I would probably limit it to closing two every six months. The reason is it's just going to have an effect on your credit score. The main issue is two of the five factors that make up your credit score. One is what's called credit utilization. So it's the total balance you're carrying versus the limit of what's available to you. And as you cancel these cards, the limit comes down, which means any balances you're carrying, even if you're paying it off at the end of the month, it's still being reported to the Bureau. It's a higher percentage of the overall limit.

And if you get above 30%, that's going to pull your score down. The other is history. So if you've had these accounts for a while, that history is coming out. I like the idea of you closing them if you're not using them and don't plan to. I would just try to limit it to two every six months.

And if you're planning to go buy a car or a house and you need to qualify for a loan, I'd wait till you do that first before you close the accounts. I hope that helps, Monty. Thanks for your call today.

Hey, Faith in Finance Live is a ministry of FaithFi and Moody Radio. We'll see you tomorrow. Come back and join us there. We'll be right back.