Rebalance Your Portfolio

Question for you. When was the last time you rebalanced your investment portfolio?

That long, huh? Well, maybe it's time you did. Hi, I'm Rob West.

If you're a do-it-yourself investor and not working with a financial advisor, you need to periodically look at asset allocation. Mark Biller is here today to talk us through the process, and 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 decisions. Well, it's great to have Mark Biller with us today. He's of course, Executive Editor at Soundmind Investing, an underwriter of this program. Once a month, he joins us here on this program, and he's always one of our favorites.

This topic is an important one for you today. Mark, welcome back. Thanks, Rob. Good to be back with you.

That's great to have you. And let me just mention, folks, Mark and I are going to be talking about rebalancing your portfolio, but Mark will be here for a good portion of the broadcast today, taking your questions specifically on the markets, your portfolio, the economy. We'd love to tackle whatever you're thinking about today, investing related.

So give us a call with those questions for Mark Biller, 800-525-7000. All right, Mark, portfolio rebalancing, asset allocation. These of course are terms people here use, but perhaps they don't always know what they mean.

So maybe we can start by allowing you to give us a definition of what these are. Yeah, those are really foundational investing ideas, but you're exactly right that people don't always know exactly what they mean. So when we're talking about asset allocation, all that means is that we're talking about the decision of how much of your portfolio gets invested in each type of asset. Now, the two big asset classes for most people are going to be stocks and bonds.

Now, of course, you can branch out into all sorts of other things, gold, real estate, and so on. And there are also smaller distinctions between different types of stocks and different types of bonds. But for most people, the fundamental decision we're talking about with asset allocation is how much money do I need to put in stocks?

How much money do I need to put in bonds? And that target allocation really becomes your starting point and kind of the plumb line that you're going to keep coming back to over time. And that kind of moves us over into this portfolio rebalancing idea, which is simply the process of getting your current portfolio back to that original target allocation. See, what happens is over time, certain parts of your portfolio are inevitably going to do better than others. And so your portfolio will start to drift gradually away from that ideal that you started out with. So rebalancing occasionally just brings you back into alignment with your original target.

So let's go through a real quick example. Let's say you start with a portfolio of $100,000 at the beginning of the year. And just to keep this really simple, let's say you split it right down the middle, 50,000 in stocks, 50,000 in bonds. Then let's say that stocks have a really good year and they go up 10%, bonds have a terrible year, they go down 10%. Well, at the end of the year, your portfolio is still going to have the same $100,000 in it. But now the stocks make up 55,000 and the bonds are 45,000. So instead of your 50-50 ideal split, now you have a 55-45 split. So rebalancing is simply going to take some of the money out of what went up, the stocks in this case, and put that back into what went down to rebalance the portfolio back to the original target of 50-50. Yeah, that's really helpful.

I like that example. So what you're saying is a lot of the initial asset allocation decision really boils down to how much risk you're willing to take, right? Yeah, absolutely. You've got to consider your goals, your risk tolerance, and really your age or how long you have until retirement. Those are all really important in that equation because, you know, the longer your timeframe, typically the more risk you can take. And this type of risk assessment is really one of the first things an advisor or a service like SMI will take someone through because this is really important to get that part right, right up front.

Yeah, and I know you have a step-by-step process for understanding this right there at the beginning at the SMI website. All right, we're talking with Mark Biller today. He's executive editor at Soundmind Investing. We're talking rebalancing.

How often do you need to do it? What's the role of an advisor and much more, plus your questions today on investing-related topics. 800-525-7000. We'll be right back. 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. Helping you to see God as your true treasure and money, a tool to accomplish his purposes. This is Faith and Finance Live.

I'm Rob West. With me today, Mark Biller, executive editor at Soundmind Investing. We're talking today about an article that you'll find on the soundmindinvesting.org website. It's entitled, SMI's 2024 Rebalancing Guide, and it will help you understand the idea of rebalancing to get back to your target asset allocation, especially in light of a market like we had last year where bonds went through a pretty unique season of downward pressure. You saw some losses more than would be typical in the bond portion of your portfolio, which probably has your asset allocation out of line. Rebalancing would bring you back in. Mark, continuing our conversation here, once a person has an appropriate target asset allocation, we then turn to that rebalancing idea, which accomplishes a couple of different things. So explain what an investor gains by rebalancing.

Yeah, sure. So, you know, the most important reason that we focus so much attention on getting that initial asset allocation right is because that's what's going to really determine how much risk someone is taking in their investing. So if we do a really good job with that up front, then that establishes that plumb line for us, that that's our target, that's how much risk we want to have in the portfolio. Well, what we're saying then is as a portfolio drifts away from that target, we're either taking on now too much risk for that portfolio or too little risk. So the big thing that rebalancing accomplishes for us is it gets the risk level of the portfolio back where it's supposed to be. And that's why we don't want to let this go too long with the portfolio going in either direction away from where we want it to be right there in the middle of the road. Now a secondary benefit, Rob, is that when we do occasional rebalancing, it actually helps us with that elusive goal of buying low and selling high. So think about the example we just used a minute ago. If we're trimming from stocks after they've gone up a lot and we're buying bonds after they've gone down a lot, well, in theory at least, we're selling stocks when they're at a high point and we're buying bonds at a low point. So it's a subtle way of taking advantage of temporary price spikes and price discounts and we'll do more of our selling near highs, more of our buying near lows. It won't be perfect, but if we follow that discipline over many years, then we know that that's going to help us in that regard as well.

Yeah, that's really helpful. And as I mentioned, you know, we see a really vivid example of this in the markets right now, don't we? Yeah, we really do, or at least it sure appears to be that way because the big stock market index has had a really strong year last year and they're setting new all-time highs here as recently as this week. Whereas on the bond side, we've just gone through probably the worst three-year stretch that we've had in several decades. So if we just take that at face value, it seems like right now is a pretty good time to be trimming and selling some stocks while they're near all-time highs and adding money to bonds after a particularly rough stretch. Again, hopefully that means we're selling high-end stocks, we're buying low-end bonds. With rebalancing, you never really know for sure until later if those prices were actually highs or lows, but again, you know that by following that discipline, you're going to tend to get that right over time.

Yeah, that's really helpful. All right, we're going to continue to unpack this today. We're talking with Mark Biller at SoundMindInvesting.org, specifically about rebalancing, target asset allocations and more. We do want to take your calls, though, on investing-related topics as well. The number to call today, 800-525-7000. You can call right now. We've got lines open with your questions for Mark Biller today. Let's dive in.

We're going to begin in Illinois. Hi, Barb, go ahead. Hi, how are you? Doing well, thanks. Good.

Thanks for taking my call. My husband has recently retired, and we have four kids between the age of 14 and 18, and they've been interested in how he has money for us to pay bills, and so we've been teaching them about IRAs, and with their Christmas money, they went to open their own IRAs, but when we were researching the different funds, the growth funds, our kids were like, well, doesn't this company sell alcohol, and doesn't this company sell cigarettes? So how do we go about finding something that lines up with our values? Yeah, it's a great question. I love that you're starting this conversation now, really instilling in them that God owns it all, and that we're to be generous, and the value of hard work, that God created us to be workers, and that we're to take a portion of what God entrusts to us, and not only give it away, but set it aside for the future, and putting that into productive uses like growing it with stocks over time is a good thing, and it helps us to plan for the future.

So that's all great, and I love you introducing them to the IRA early as well. You know, this area of faith-based investing is one that is gaining subtraction, still a very small segment of the total investment landscape. A lot of Christians still using traditional investments, others deciding that they do want to go into funds that will avoid companies that are misaligned with their values.

We really believe here at Faith and Finance that that's a personal conviction matter, that each Christian needs to wrestle through and come to their own conviction on it. If that was something you wanted to do, there are a growing number of mutual fund families, Barb, that specifically are designed to honor the faith convictions of believers. They all take a slightly different approach, but most of them involve some what we call negative screening, where they might screen out companies that are misaligned with your values. You mentioned some of the industries those companies would be involved in.

Others will do that and offer corporate engagement or even specifically selecting companies that are intended to provide human flourishing in addition to values or value to their shareholders in the form of buying companies that are expected to grow. So what I might recommend that you do is head to our website, faithbuy.com. If you click on the show, you'll see that many of the underwriters of our program are some of those faith-based investing fund families like Crossmark, like Praxis, or Eventide, or One Ascent. You could read up on those fund families. It might even be a good assignment for the kids just to begin to study some of those fund families. All of them will have a growth stock fund option. Again, their websites will give a bit of an explanation as to how they approach the faith integration aspect of it. I would also mention to you that there are different what are called share classes. As you look at the funds, look at the different share classes because some of them might have a much higher minimum investment, like as much as $100,000.

Others will go much lower, like maybe just a couple of thousand. So you're going to want to look at those different share classes as you explore the faith-based investing mutual fund families. Again, our website, faithfi.com, just click on the show. Hopefully that's helpful to you. A good brokerage firm like Schwab or Fidelity should allow you to hold those as well.

So that might be where you want to go to open the IRAs. Thanks for your call. We're back with more with Mark Biller just around the corner. Stay with us. Great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live. I'm Rob West.

With me today, Mark Biller. We're talking rebalancing asset allocation, and we're taking your questions today on investing-related topics for this portion of the broadcast. Perhaps you're wrestling with how to think about the markets and especially the real strength we've seen in the markets as of late in light of your portfolio. Maybe you have a 401k you're wondering what to do with.

You want to get started with investing for the kids, whatever it might be, investing or economics today. We'd love to tackle those questions with Mark Biller. We've got lines open. We're ready for your calls at 800-525-7000. Again, that's 800-525-7000. You can call right now.

Let's go to Cleveland. Mariana, go ahead with your question for Mark. Thank you for taking my call, and I appreciate your ministry. The question I have is that my husband and I have a 10-month-old grandson, and we would like to invest $5,000 for him, for his future, and we were wondering what would be the options, the best option for that money to grow. Yeah, it's a great question.

Mark, what are your thoughts on that? Yeah, so there are a couple different ways you can go, Mariana. One popular way that a lot of folks go is they will target that more towards, like, a college savings account, and there are some specific account types. 529 plans are the most common that are targeted a little bit more towards education savings. If you're not sure that you want to designate it that way, then you can move more towards, like, a standard custodial account where the account is in the child's name, but you retain control of that until the time that they reach 18 years old in most states. Now, there are some risks that go along with that because, you know, you're turning that money over to them when they reach that age of majority, so that can be a little bit of a concern. Because of that, as we've talked with people over the years about this, sometimes people consider the different options if they don't want to kind of pigeonhole this for college and higher education, but they're not comfortable putting it in an account where the child will ultimately gain access to that. A lot of times people decide that they're going to just save that money and invest that money in an account of their own, so you'd open it in your own name and do your investing that way, and then just have that account earmarked for the particular child or grandchild down the road. So there are a few different options there.

They come with different pros and cons. Rob, I'm curious what your opinions are on this one. Yeah, I like that a lot, and I think the first question is what you hit on, Mark, is what is the purpose of the funds? If it is specifically for college, that's where the 529 can be great SavingForCollege.com is a great website to help you figure out what state to use, but if you want the money more widely available, just keeping it in your name or jointly with your spouse and investing it in some good high-quality growth mutual funds with a good track record, low cost, and just systematically investing in that over time I think can work really well, and that's where some of the robo solutions could be helpful or SMI can be helpful at SoundMindInvesting.org. Mariana, thanks for your call today.

Mark, one quick follow-up on that. When you're teaching the kids how to invest, obviously we want to teach diversification, but it's a lot harder to get them excited about buying an index fund and owning hundreds of companies as opposed to assigning them the task of going out and finding a company that they like, and they may use their products or services, and being able to watch that and get excited about checking up on the quarterly report or reading the news. So even though you're highly concentrated, do you think that's an effective approach for maybe a 14-year-old who you're trying to teach investing to? Yeah, I do, and there are actually services that will send you an actual stock certificate of a particular company which can be a tool even for kids maybe a little younger than 14. When they get that stock certificate, some of the companies that are a little bit more youth and young kid targeted will have kind of nice display certificates to kind of capture their attention and begin that conversation between a parent or a grandparent and a child. Now, you could even go the route of maybe doing that to capture their attention and then quietly behind the scenes targeting more of the investment money towards either a broad-based mutual fund or an index fund so that you're not putting all the eggs in a particular company basket. But yeah, I really like that idea.

I think anything you can do at any point that's age-appropriate to kind of engage the kid in what even is investing, what is a stock, what's a company, how does all this work, I think that's only going to help the kid the sooner they start and engaging them all the way along. Yeah, that's great. Well, we've got lines open today for your questions for Mark Biller at 800-525-7000. For this portion of the broadcast, we're taking your questions on investing-related topics, and just after this break, we'll head back to the phone so you can call right now 800-525-7000. Mark, about a minute before we head to the next break, are you surprised by the strength we saw at the end of last year? It seems to be continuing. We're hitting new highs just about daily, and yet we've still got major geopolitical issues, the uncertainty of interest rates, inflation, and a whole host of issues. Yeah, you know, the market loves to climb a wall of worry, that's the old saying, and so problems like those are not unusual, they're not uncommon, and a lot of the time the market will continue advancing in the face of those things. I think the big change, Rob, really from a lot of last year to the end of this year has just been that the economy has been a lot stronger than most people expected, so as that recession risk has backed off, the market has really powered ahead. Yeah, the question remains to be seen, is it three rate cuts, is it six, is it less?

We'll see, only the Fed knows what they will ultimately do, and they probably still don't even know at this point what the rest of this year looks like. Well, a lot more to come with Mark Biller, including your questions at 800-525-7000. We'll also dive back into this topic of rebalancing and tell you how often you need to do that. Let me also mention, if you're struggling with debt, there's a free workshop coming up at the end of the week that I'll tell you about right after this break.

Stay with us, we'll be right back. Great to have you with us today on Faith in Finance Live. I'm Rob West. With me for this portion of the broadcast, Mark Biller, he's executive editor at Soundmind Investing. You can learn more at soundmindinvesting.org. We're going to head to the phones and take your questions in just a moment. But first, are you starting this new year with some debt and have you purposed yourself to get out of debt in the new year?

Well, we want to help. One of our Christian financial counselors is doing a free workshop this Friday to help you develop a game plan to get out of debt. And perhaps right there in the workshop, getting some practical strategies might just be what you need to get on a path to become debt free in 2024. So to learn more and sign up for this free workshop, it's just 30 minutes long and it'll help you create a plan to get debt free. Just head to faithfi.com slash debt free.

That's faithfi.com slash debt free. And you can sign up for the workshop. There are just a few spots remaining. So we'd love for you to jump into that workshop taking place again on Friday, this Friday at 2 p.m. Eastern Time. All right. Back to the phones we go with Mark Biller on the line today.

Diana in Chicago, how can we help? Hi. I am wanting to know. I'm in my early 50s. I quit my job and I had a 401 3B from there. How can I roll it over into an IRA? That's one. And how can I save tax deferred funds in my new job because they do not have a 401K or a 403D plan? Yeah.

Great questions, Mark. Yeah. So generally, Diana, what you want to do when you're rolling over from from any company retirement plan into an IRA is you want to figure out where do I want this account to land? So where do I want to invest from? And the options there typically are a mutual fund company. If you know you want to use a specific fund, you might go directly to that company. Or if you want to have more options, a lot of people will just choose a discount broker like Schwab or Fidelity, somebody like that. And once you've decided how you want to invest that money and where you want the account to be, then you contact that destination company directly and open an account with them and have them take care of the transfer process with your old employer.

It can be a pitfall if you get the money directly from the employer and plan to pass that on to the new destination. You don't really want to do that because there's some pitfalls there that can can trip you up tax wise and so forth. So it's really better to let the destination account provider handle that paperwork process. But that's a fairly straightforward process. It's something that they do all the time.

So they know all the the ins and outs of that. So once you decide how you want to invest the money and where, then just contact them directly and they can handle that transfer from your old 403b provider. Now the other part of your question.

Yeah, sorry. The other part of your question Diana then was how do I save in a tax advantaged way at my new employer? Well ideally, you'd be able to make new contributions directly into that same IRA.

You don't have to. You can have more than one IRA. But just for simplicity's sake, it sounds like probably the easiest path would be once you get the money rolled over, you can set up an automatic deposit into that new IRA and have the money taken out monthly or every couple weeks just like you were doing with your 401k at your workplace plan. And we've found that automating that investing process is such a huge benefit for people because it just makes it happen automatically in the background and you don't miss months and payments and so forth. It really can accelerate your retirement savings. So that's how I would tackle it. Diana, Rob, anything else on that one? No, I think you're right on there Mark. And I would just add Diana that in your 50s, beyond the age of 50, you can add an extra thousand to that IRA.

So that puts you at 8,000 for 2024. Thanks for your call today. To Wes Palm. Hi, Barbara, go ahead. Barbara, are you with us?

Barbara, are you there? All right, we're going to put that. Oh, there you are. Go right ahead.

How can we help? Well, I want to thank you for riding home with me every day. I listen every day. Well, I'm delighted. Good.

Go ahead. I'm going to be 75 next year. I'm thinking of retiring next year.

We'll see. I have 12% of my salary going into my company's 401k. And it is the 6040.

I have company stock as well, which I purchased when they first went public. I'm just wondering if there anything else I should be doing in this coming year. Hmm.

Yeah, Mark, any thoughts? Well, it sounds like you're doing a lot of things right already, Barbara. So that's wonderful.

That's a great thing. You know, I think that probably one thing to look at is just the proportion of how much of your savings is in that company stock versus the rest of your investing. We generally recommend that people don't have more than about 10% of their total in any one stock, even if it is their, their employer stock. So that might be something to look at there. You know, of course, there are decisions around, you know, Medicare and Social Security and so on and so forth. Those are very important as you think about retiring. If you haven't already dealt with those, you definitely will want to look into those. Those are the things that come immediately to mind for me.

Rob, how about you? No, I think that's right. I think, you know, continuing to look at this as a long term investment strategy, you know, even in your 70s, you know, we recognize that if the Lord tarries and you're in good health, you need this money to last a long time.

And so allowing it to continue to grow and outpace inflation, I think is the right approach. So hopefully that gives you some help, Barbara, and thanks for bringing us with you on your ride home each day. You be careful and call any time. Hey, Mark, before we wrap up this segment just quickly, how often should somebody be thinking about rebalancing to our earlier conversation? Yeah, you know, this is one of those areas that really close enough is good enough. Rob, you know, if you're doing this once a year or even anywhere close to that, that's really the sweet spot.

This isn't one of these where you've got to calculate everything to the fifth decimal point. Again, our goal is just to get back close to that target asset allocation so that the risk level of your portfolio is appropriate. So once a year is a great target.

January is a good time to do it only because it's a convenient reminder to get that done. But yeah, that's what you're looking for there. Very good. And if you want help with that, SMI's 2024 rebalancing guide could be a great tool for you. So check that out at soundmindinvesting.org.

Anything to tie a bow on this today, Mark, as we wrap up? No, I think it's, you know, it's just one of those to-do list items as an individual investor to keep yourself on track and continue to be a good steward as you're working towards retirement and your financial goals. Very good. If you need some help in this area, SMI can help. Their Soundmind Investing newsletter is a great resource to a lot of DYI and investors.

So it may be something that you want to check out. Mark, I always appreciate your time, my friend. Thanks for stopping by. Always my pleasure, Rob.

All right, take care. That's Mark Biller, Executive Editor at Soundmind Investing and underwriter of this program. Again, to learn more, go to soundmindinvesting.org. Back with our final segment and your questions on any financial topic right after this. It's great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live. I'm Rob West. Here in our final segment, we'll get to as many calls as we can on any financial topic, help you apply God's wisdom to your financial choices. Let's go right back to the phones.

Aurora, Illinois. Hi, Patricia. Thanks for your patience. Go ahead. How are you doing, sir? Oh, no worries.

It's a peace of God be with you, sir. I just had a quick question. I have like $8,000 in my personal savings account.

I want to know where will be a place to invest it. Yeah. Have it to grow. Very good. Patricia, let me just ask a couple of quick questions. First is, is this the extent of your savings or is this money that truly can be invested and you have other savings available? I can invest. Yes, sir.

So you already have separate from this $8,000 what I would call your emergency fund of three to six months expenses. Yes, sir. Okay.

And the time goes to up. Well, I retired. And so I have had a defer comp kind of thing with my retirement. So I do have a few dollars in that account as well. But I wanted to invest something else other than and that in my defer comp.

Yeah. The only thing I would say, though, the only thing I would say is that I would prefer that you keep at least three. And if you're retired as much as six months worth of expenses. And what I mean by that is total up all your bills for a month's time.

And I take that number. Let's say it's $3,000 a month you're spending times six. That's $18,000. I'd love for you to have as much as six months worth of expenses in a high yield savings account where you're not taking any risk, where if the unexpected comes and you needed to, you know, cover a major unexpected expense, you're not having to sell investments to get the money, which they could be down. You know, if we hit a recession later this year and the stock market's down 20 percent from its high where it is today and you needed some money for something unexpected, you'd be forced to sell those investments at a loss to have access to that money, which is why your emergency fund should stay in savings. So to get a little bit of return on it, I would move to an online savings account with an online bank. And you can get right now four and a half percent with FDIC insurance guaranteed completely liquid and available. And yet you'll still, you know, earn a little bit of money, you know, on eight thousand dollars. You know, we're talking almost three and well, a little more than three hundred fifty dollars for the year.

Now, it's not a thousand, but it's something. And you've got the money available. Now, once you fund that emergency fund, if you say, no, Rob, I've got money beyond that, that I want to make a profit on, then I would say, OK, let's make sure your time horizon is at least five, preferably 10 years in order to invest it. And that way we can wait out the ebbs and flows in the market and have a better chance of a realistic rate of return. And then I would say, let's pick just a high quality mutual fund. Our friends at SoundMindInvesting.org could help you make that investment selection. Mark Biller, who was just on the program today, would be, you know, is from Sound Mind Investing and the team there is helping a lot of our listeners through the SMI newsletter. So I would either use it to fund your emergency fund. I do that first in an online savings account.

And then if you have money left over, you can look at SoundMindInvesting.org. Thanks for your call today, Patricia, to Birmingham. Hi, Lou. Go ahead. Hey, thank you for taking my call. Sure.

Hi. Yeah, I'm 73. I'm still working, but I have an eight year old granddaughter that I'm helping to raise. OK. And I have my parents just passed and left some money, which I would like to leave as a legacy for my granddaughter for college. And I just don't know the best way to grow that money, whether it be a 529 or some other method.

Yeah. If it is earmarked for college, Lou, then that's what I would do. You could go to SavingForCollege.com and find out which states 529 would be recommended for you.

It could be Alabama, could be another state. They'll help you make that decision based on whether or not you get a tax break there in Alabama versus better performance in another state. And then if she didn't end up using it, she's got a couple of ways to get it out. Number one is it could be taken out on a pro rata basis for any scholarship awards or grants she receives. So if she gets a full ride to school, she can absolutely take that money out.

No penalty. Apart from that, let's just say she decided not to go to college. The money could be used for other types of advanced education. It can be used to pay for qualified kindergarten through 12th grade private school expenses up to ten thousand per student per year. She could roll it over into a Roth IRA.

There are certain requirements on that, but that's something new that's coming. That's a part of the Secure Act 2.0, where money could be rolled over in increments each year, so long as it's been in there at least 15 years into a Roth IRA. And then it could just keep growing tax free until, you know, retirement. And she'd have a great start on a retirement fund. You could also change beneficiaries on it and, you know, give it to another child or grandchild to be able to use it for college. So there are some options if you didn't want those requirements, which by the way, that gives you tax advantages because the money that you put in there, this let's say $40,000 into the 529 is going to grow in the mutual funds inside the 529 tax free so long as it's used for qualified education expenses. And so that's a great benefit.

But if you didn't want to be limited to use for college and one of these other options I mentioned don't sound appealing, then I'd probably just keep it in a taxable account in your name, invest it, and then you could decide when to give it to her and for what purpose. But if it truly is earmarked for college, I like the 529. Does that make sense, Lou? Yeah, it does. Absolutely.

It does. But now if I wanted to invest it in my name, do you have a suggestion? Is mutual funds the way to go? It is.

Yeah. For an amount like that, it would give you a good broad diversification. It's a little simpler because you're not having to pick the individual stocks. So with one purchase of a mutual fund, you know, let's say a $40,000 allocation, you're going to get hundreds of stocks. Then the question is, OK, which mutual fund? And I think you got a couple of options there. You could use a robo advisor like the Schwab Intelligent portfolios. You could use one of the faith based investing mutual funds like you'll find on our website at faithfi.com or our friends at soundmindinvesting.org from Mark Biller's organization could help you as well.

So I would check out some of those options if that's the direction you decide to go. You sound like a wonderful grandmother. And thank you for being on the program today, Lou. God bless you. Let's go to Illinois. Hi, Linda.

How can I help? Hi. Me and my husband, we're both retired. He has a pension and and I get some income as well. And we're I'm 69.

He's 71. And we've been saving cash that's in a safe. And I've been hearing about the digital dollar and Biden's ability to remove the U.S. dollar at any time.

And I'm wondering, what could we do to hedge against a loss? Yeah. You know, first of all, President Biden can't do that on his own. Coinage is a congressional function, so it would require Congress to act.

They seem to not be able to agree on just about anything. So the idea that both the president and both houses of Congress would get on board with a digital currency is a pretty far stretch. And if it ever happened, it's much further down the road.

You know, President Trump was out just the other day. I think it was yesterday saying he will never allow a central bank digital currency. Of course, we have no idea who will be president, but that's at least one candidate who will could be in office that is very clear on it. But even if it was Biden for another term, he doesn't have the ability to act alone. Secondly, you know, what's being discussed if it ever came to pass is that it would not replace our physical currency, the legal tender that you have.

It would only supplement it. Now, I'm not a fan because of the loss of privacy, but I don't think it's something we're going to see, you know, anytime soon. If it were to come, it's much further down the road. And there's a lot of congressional leaders who have already said we're against it.

For instance, the state of Florida has already said it doesn't comply with our uniform commercial code. So they've gotten out ahead of it as well. So I wouldn't be concerned about that. I would just be invested properly, according to your age and risk tolerance with stocks, bonds and precious metals, perhaps.

And, you know, you continue to invest systematically. I think you'll do well. Thanks for your call, Tim and Boise. We have just a couple of minutes left.

Go ahead. Yeah, Rob, thanks for taking my call. And hey, I'm my wife and I are 65 and we're looking to retire and we are debt free. And I'm we're kind of in between as far as when do I when when when do I need my life insurance? Yeah.

Do I cancel my life insurance? The question, Tim, is, is there a hardship that is created by one of you passing away for the other one, namely in terms of a loss of income? Or if one of you pass away, passes away, would would the other one be just fine with the assets that you've accumulated? I think we would be just fine. You know, we we've got a lot of property and we're debt free and we've got some cash that aside.

So yeah. Well, what I would dial into and all that's good. I mean, that keeps your expenses real low because you're debt free.

You've got assets. I think the key is looking at your income. And so go ahead and work on your retirement budget and say, what would we need per month for the two of us? And what would that look like if one of us passed away? And then if you passed away, what income sources would she have? What her Social Security, for instance, plus, you know, any other retirement income you all have that would be coming into her that would be secure for the rest of her life be enough to cover her and the same for you.

And I think that's the evaluation. The goal is just what you said, Tim, which is we have life insurance during our working years to offset the risk that if one of us were to pass away, it creates a real problem for the other spouse because of that loss of income. But the idea is once we get to retirement, ideally, we no longer need life insurance.

So we drop that expense because the other spouse is provided for through our assets and and guaranteed income sources and an entitlement benefit. So hopefully that helps you, Tim. We appreciate your call today. God bless you, sir. Faith and Finance Live is a partnership between Mooney Radio and Faith by thank you to Dan and Amy, Robert and Gabby T. We'll see you next time. I'm Rob West and have a great day. Come back and join us tomorrow.