Trusting God with Your Money Matters

The following program was pre-recorded, so our phone lines are not open. Are you so busy depending on yourself to make ends meet that you're not trusting God to meet your needs? Hi, I'm Rob West. When you leave God out of the equation, things just don't add up. Today we'll talk about trusting God with your money matters.

Then we have some great calls lined up, but please don't call in today, because this program is pre-recorded. This is Faith and Finance Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. Well, I'm sure you've heard the term, the bottom line. In business, it's the final total on the balance sheet.

Once the income is counted and the bills are paid. For you and me, the bottom line is what's left in the bank account after our obligations are met. Sometimes it doesn't seem like enough, does it? If you're concerned about your financial bottom line today, let me remind you of another kind of bottom line, a spiritual one. For believers in Jesus, the true bottom line is our identity in Christ.

This is where our peace comes from. Maybe you know the old hymn that says, Jesus paid it all. All to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain.

He washed it white as snow. When we belong to Jesus, our spiritual balance sheet says we don't owe a thing for our sin. He paid the price in our place, so we can relax knowing God is our protector and provider, and yet we still worry about money problems sometimes. Jesus understood this tendency we have to worry about the future. In Matthew 6, Jesus reminded his followers that fretting about material things is unnecessary because of who God is.

Do not be worried about your life as to what you will eat or what you will drink, nor for your body as to what you will put on. Is life not more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow nor reap nor gather crops into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more important than they? Jesus told his disciples and us that we can be confident in God's love and provision, no matter what our circumstances are.

After all, is your worry really helping you accomplish your financial goals? You can trust God to take care of you and your family. It's a fact that people will let you down, but God never will. That's because God is completely trustworthy. Numbers 23 19 puts it this way, But God is not a man, so he does not lie. He is not human, so he does not change his mind. Has he ever spoken and failed to act? Has he ever promised and not carried it through? Human beings can be changeable, unreliable and untruthful, but the Lord is unchanging as well as loving and good. He always fulfills his promises according to his word. When he promises to protect, guide and provide for his children, we can believe he means it. In addition to being trustworthy, God is all-powerful.

God is for us, it says in Romans 8 31. Who can be against us? There's a memorable example of God's power in 2nd Kings 6. Back then, Israel was at war with Syria. Things were going badly for Syria because the prophet Elisha was revealing their battle strategies to the king of Israel. This annoyed the Syrian king so much that he sent an army to find and kill Elisha. Elisha's servant woke up one morning to see a horde of enemies surrounding the town where they were staying.

He was understandably terrified. Now let me pick up at 2nd Kings 6 verse 15. In the end, the Israelites captured their enemies and the Syrians pretty much left the Israelites alone after that. Now as you can see from this story, our God is a powerful savior.

Judging from the visible circumstances, Elisha's servant assumed they were outnumbered, surrounded and doomed. When his spiritual eyes were opened, he understood that God's greater army was right there the whole time. Like Elisha's servant, when we take our eyes off our circumstances and focus on the Lord instead, our confidence and peace are restored.

Jesus said in John 16 33, So remember that your spiritual bottom line is your identity in Christ. Your financial bottom line shouldn't be a source of worry, but an opportunity to put your trust in an Almighty God. Hey, you're listening to Faith and Finance Live with Rob West. Please remember that today's program is prerecorded, so our phone lines aren't open. But we'll be back with more Faith and Finance Live in just a few moments. I'm so grateful you're with us today on Faith and Finance Live.

I'm Rob West. Hey, a quick reminder, our team is not here today. We're away from the studio, so don't call in.

But we have some great questions lined up. Let me also remind you that Faith and Finance Live is listener supported. That just simply means we can't bring you this broadcast every day without your financial support. So whether you'd like to make a one time gift or become a monthly partner, we'd be delighted with whatever you might support us with. Just head to faithfi.com and click Give.

That's faithfi.com and click Give. Hey, before we go to the phones today, you know, it used to be that the word gig was only used by musicians. But these days, it seems like everybody has a side gig or a second job. According to the Labor Department, more than eight million people held multiple jobs in January of this year. That number rose by about two hundred thousand people from last year. That's just over five percent of the total U.S. workforce. Now, it's easy to understand why so many people have second or even third jobs. Fox Business says food prices.

You ready for this? Up thirty three point seven percent from the start of twenty twenty one housing costs up eighteen point seven percent in the same period. Energy prices up thirty two point eight percent.

Again, according to Fox Business. So obviously the squeeze is on on our budgets. That's why a lot of folks looking for extra income to boost the inflow to try to match the outgo in your financial life. You know, a budget can help with all of that, a spending plan that directs how you're going to allocate God's money.

And we'd love to help with that. The FaithFi app, I think, is the very best way for you to set up a budget, control the flow of money in and out of your household using the tried and true envelope system. But in a modern digital expression, you can download it today at FaithFi dot com. That's Faith Fi dot com.

Just click app or head to your app store, Google Play or Apple and search for FaithFi. Check it out. We'd love to hear from you once you do. All right. We're ready to take calls, though, today. Let's go to New York City to begin today. Hi, Audrey.

How can I help? Hi. Thank you for taking my call.

Yes, ma'am. So my question is about I bonds about a year ago, I guess in 2022, when the interest for I bonds was high, was that a nine point something? I bought an I bond and for ten thousand. And I guess I was under the assumption that when the six month period was over, that my I bond would automatically invest into the new interest rate. Was I misunderstanding how I bonds work?

No, you were not. So they announced the new rates in May and November of each year. So that's the date that they announced them. But the date when the rate changes for your bond is every six months from the date, the issue date of the bond. So, for instance, if you were to buy a bond in January, you would get your the current bond rate that was being offered. And then your rate would change in July 1st of that year and then again January the following year.

So it's a semi-annual rate. And I bonds earn interest from the first day of the month you buy them. And then twice a year, they add all the interest the bond earned in the previous six months to the principal value of the bond, which you paid for it. And this gives the bond the new value, which was the old value plus the interest earned. And then over the next six month period, they apply the new interest rate to that entire new value. So it's called semi-annual compounding. Compounding meaning you're earning interest on the interest you earned in the previous period.

And that happens twice a year. So your money grows not just from the interest percentage, but from the fact that the interest is calculated on a growing balance because it's been adding interest all along the way. But the bottom line is you're going to earn interest every six months for the rate that was being paid during that six month period.

Okay. So now this part of my question might make me sound very foolish, but here it goes. So I'm bad at math. So the way I was calculating that interest, what you just said, that's what I understood. So I was taking that nine point six percent. I bought an I bond for ten thousand dollars and I was just literally calculating that interest rate off of ten thousand dollars.

And then with the understanding that after six months I would have nine hundred dollars or close to it. Again, I might be miscalculating because I'm not good at math. And then when the second six month period came and it dropped down, I think, to six percent something, I thought, like you said, the new calculation would take place.

And you know, I wasn't sure what that would be. But when I went to go redeem the bond, well, I'm trying to redeem it now. It only showed that after keeping the bond since I bought it in October 2022. So clearly that's two six month periods plus the three months that you said we would lose if we take it out after a year. So when I saw the new interest rate is calculating the interest rate off of ten thousand dollars at eight hundred and fifty two dollars. And that seems short to me. So am I doing something wrong in the way I'm calculating? One of the things you may be missing. I appreciate that explanation.

And you're not far off. I think the only consideration let me just make sure you understand is so that nine point six is annualized. But you're only going to get half of that because you get that for six months. So if you get ten thousand dollars at nine point six seven, that's nine hundred sixty seven dollars for the year, you would get half of that four hundred and eighty three fifty for that six month period. Does that make sense?

Got it. Yes, that makes sense. So basically they and then then it converted to the new interest after this six month period was over. And then you could you could take that percentage for a year and then cut that in half to get the next six month period. OK, so the people who really had the advantage were the ones who got in early on that nine percent because they probably I think that stayed almost a year. Right. Or am I wrong? Yeah, there was only in terms of the length of that, it was elevated from November twenty twenty one through, you know, November of twenty twenty two.

So it was never nine point six for a full year, but there certainly was one six month period and it was high for a couple of months prior to that as well. All right. Oh, that makes me feel much better.

I have one more question connected to the I-Bond. It's quick. Can I ask it? Yeah, go right ahead. Because I hear you talk a lot about charitable giving, you know, from IRAs and things like that. So if I wanted to take the interest and just give it to my church, the Treasury Department, they don't allow you to do that.

They don't have a mechanism to be able to do that. I want to do that. So one, I don't have to pay the taxes on it.

And two, I want to give it to my church anyway. So does that work with the government in terms of an I-Bond for me to just, you know, give the interest rate? That's the interest. Yes.

Yeah. So it's not you can't give directly from the bonds. What you would have to do is you would have to redeem the bonds and then, you know, that interest with I-Bonds, the interest by purchasing and holding it is subject to federal tax at the time that it's redeemed. So you would have that tax due and then you could turn around and make a charitable contribution. And as long as you itemize, then you could take that gift against your taxes.

But you can't go directly from the government I-Bond to your charity or church. Thanks for your call today, Audrey. We'll be right back. You're listening to Faith and Finance Live. Today's broadcast is prerecorded, so please keep that in mind. We're going to pause now for a brief break, then we'll be back after that with more on Faith and Finance Live. 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, to Kentucky we go. Hi, Stephen, go ahead.

Yes, sir. I had a little bit of money. I was wanting to put in a CD for about seven months, five percent increase.

Is that a decent idea, the way the economy is right now, or? It is a good idea, absolutely, because, you know, you can take advantage, Stephen, of these high interest rates that are available right now, which are, you know, much higher than what we had become accustomed to over the last couple of decades. But let's talk about this money that you're earmarking potentially for a CD and think that through. So let's start with what I call your emergency fund. How much do you have in liquid savings? Well, we've got, really, I don't know exactly. Okay, no problem.

I've got enough for probably three or four, maybe even six months. Okay, perfect. And then would this money that you're looking to put in the CD be in addition to that?

Yes. Okay. And how much are you talking about, roughly, for the CD? Well, I'm talking about $17,000.

Okay, very good. And do you have this earmarked for a specific purpose? Do you need it within a certain period of time? Well, I started putting it all back because I don't have a barrel insurance to take care of the barrel. Yes, sir. But, you know, I'm not planning on dying in the next seven months.

Yeah, I was going to say. So probably don't have really a time horizon on that, only the Lord knows, right? And the good news is, you know, if the Lord does call you home, your estate should be able to get to this money and use it for that purpose.

So yeah, I think putting it into a CD makes a lot of sense, Steven. I would choose a bank with FDIC insurance. If you want to check around locally, you certainly could. You may get a better rate from a local credit union. If you're comfortable with it, I'd like to see you consider an online bank. You could go to bankrate.com. That's bankrate.com.

Are you comfortable with the internet? Well, I don't have a computer. Okay, no problem.

I would either head down to the library or maybe get a friend or a family member, somebody from church to help you. But the benefit is that if you have somebody that could help you go on to bankrate, you could look and find some of the banks that are often offering some really compelling interest rates right now. For instance, a one year CD, I mean, I'm looking at one right now that's five star rated with FDIC insurance, meaning it's backed by the US government. No minimum deposit. You can get 5.3% for a year.

You can get 4.9 at another and five and a quarter at another one. So there are some really compelling rates right now. You may not find those, though, Stephen, at your local brick and mortar bank. And so if you really want to maximize the interest rate, this would be an option.

Otherwise, just shop it around locally. But I think you're right. The idea that you don't want to take a lot of risk, but you want to put this money to work is a good idea. And in this high interest rate environment, I think, you know, going toward a CD makes a lot of sense. OK, do you think the economy is going to fall off this year? You know, there is, you know, a good case for the fact that we would hit a recession.

I think, you know, all the experts are either saying we're going to miss it. And they talk about this idea of a soft landing, which is the Fed engineering, the Federal Reserve engineering, the kind of the meeting point where, you know, the economy slows to bring inflation down, but it doesn't tip into negative growth. And, you know, as the economy hits a near zero growth rate and we deal with inflation, they start dropping the rates and then, you know, the economy begins to accelerate again.

That's that soft landing that you like to have when you're on a flight coming in through your, you know, for a landing. Is that going to happen? Who knows? But I think in either case, we're probably looking at the worst case at a mild recession. Now, we have bigger problems long term. I mean, I think 10, 20 years down the road, we've got to deal with the debt issue in this country. We've got to deal with our spending. We've got to deal with our demographics. I mean, we're we have a shrinking workforce just because of the aging of the population. We're not having as many babies. You know, we need to go back to God's design for for creation and for economics and wealth creation as well and realize that, you know, human beings, mankind is a blessing, not a curse.

And, you know, we're to be fruitful and multiply. And when we don't do that, we we pay the consequences or price on that. So longer term, you know, we've got some systemic issues we need to deal with. But I think in the short term, Stephen, certainly this year and in the next decade, I think, you know, we will, you know, have our challenges. But I don't see us getting into a major problem. OK, another question. What about that? Keep hearing them talk about cashless society that anytime soon coming up?

You know, it's still a long way off. And here's why. I mean, coinage is a congressional function, Stephen, despite what the president may or may not want to do.

He can't act alone on this one. And Congress is divided on it at best. And there's a lot of congressional leaders that have real concerns over a central bank digital currency. I would agree with that. There's a loss of privacy, a potential for social controls.

That's just not good. I mean, it could lead to a massive overreach on the part of the government and the Treasury. Now, I will tell you that even among those that are proponents of this, Stephen, are not talking about getting rid of real paper currency. It's a supplement.

It's additive. But even then, I don't like it. But I think it's a long way off. We're still in the very early days. I mean, these are research reports and white papers and a lot of debate. That's all it is.

So it's it's much further down the road, I think, if it ever comes to pass. Hey, God bless you, my friend. Thanks for being on the program today. We appreciate it. Folks, we're going to take a quick break, but back with more on Faith and Finance Live biblical wisdom for your financial decisions.

Stick around. Great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live. By the way, we're not live today. We're away from the studio, so don't call in.

But we have some great questions that we lined up in advance. By the way, this ministry is entirely listener supported. That means we rely on your financial gifts and support to do what we do on the air every day. If you consider a gift, we'd certainly be grateful. Just head to our website, faithfi.com. That's faithfi.com and click the Give button.

Thanks in advance. All right. Let's head back to the phones. Let's go to Oklahoma. Joe, thanks for your patience.

Go ahead, sir. I have a question about checking accounts. I have two banks and a credit union and four checking accounts, one checking account and one is a business account. I am thinking about opening another account in another bank in order to get some business loans with this bank, and that's one of their prerequisites. My question is, is having too many accounts not good, especially with the way the economy and the government is trying to take it?

In what way? What would be your concern about that, Joe? Well, I don't know when, I'm sure nobody really knows when, the government wants to try and control things more personally with our accounts and go digital. I don't know if that would have any effect on how many accounts you have or something that I'm not seeing.

Yeah, yeah, very good. I would say, and this is a little bit what we talked about with the previous caller. Number one, I don't think there's any problem with you having multiple accounts. There's nothing related to what is being discussed with regard to a digital currency that would factor into that. I think, as I said to the previous caller, we're still a long way off from a digital currency.

I would agree with you. It would not be a good thing, in my view, because of the potential for the loss of privacy and social controls, but it's going to take Congress getting on the same page. You're even seeing some of the states get out ahead of it. For instance, the state of Florida just recently said that a central bank digital currency does not comply with their UCC, their Uniform Commercial Code, and they're just driving a stake in the ground to say, listen, this is not something we're going to support. And I think there's a lot of congressional leaders who share those concerns and therefore wouldn't be on board with it. If we did have it, obviously there's a lot that we don't know about how it would be implemented. There's not currently a talk of it replacing the current currency that we have.

It would be additive. It would be a supplement to it to try to keep us more competitive on the world stage by having a digital dollar, and you can understand why that would be attractive globally as well as by some here in the states. The question is that now the government, the Treasury, would have insight into your daily spending and conceivably could cut off your spending based on certain criteria. So for instance, they said you can only spend X dollars on fossil fuels, and when you reach that limit, you're done. Now all of a sudden we're starting to think about things we hear coming out of China happening here in the United States, which is why a lot of folks would say, no, I don't want to go there. I don't think what you're talking about here would have any effect on that.

If this is the best way for you to operate in terms of keeping your financial life operating and taking advantage of what you need to run your business, and in that case that loan that you were talking about, then I think you go for it, and I wouldn't have any concern about that. Okay. All right.

That's really all I had, and I appreciate your time. Absolutely. I appreciate your call today, call any time. Let's go to Mississippi.

Jamal, you've been very patient. Go ahead. So I have an older relative who has a large amount of savings, well, she has some savings in cash, and we're just looking for alternative methods besides just keeping it in cash to maybe grow that money and possibly even get some kind of return off of it, whether it's dividends or some form of payment out of it that she could benefit from. Yes. So tell me about this money that you're talking about. What is it earmarked for? Nothing in specific, just savings. Okay. It's not in the savings account or anything, it's just in cash.

Okay, got it. Yeah, so what I would recommend there is you probably, in terms of cash on hand, only want to keep, I would say a certain number of days or weeks worth of cash for maybe some sort of disruption or act of God, some major weather event, something like that. Typically you'll hear folks say, keep a couple of weeks worth of expenses in cash max at your home, and that way you don't have to worry about securing it and so forth. And then put the rest in a bank account that has FDIC insurance. Now I would keep liquid, meaning in a savings account that's readily available, somewhere between three and six months worth of expenses, and the nice thing is now you can get four plus percent interest on that money in a bank, completely liquid with no fees, and it's readily available with FDIC insurance.

So I would put that into your, or her, emergency fund of three to six months expenses. And then if there's money beyond that, beyond the cash on hand for a couple of weeks and beyond the three to six months in the savings, now we're starting to say, okay, to get a little bit more return, we can lock that money up either by putting it in something like a CD for a year or two years where maybe we get another percent, even a percent and a half worth of interest by agreeing to not be able to access it for 12 to 18 months. Or if we've got money that really is longer term and we're willing to take some risk, even modest risk, then all of a sudden now we're starting to think about stocks and bonds.

But give me your thoughts on all that. Yes, it is, I guess, larger than, I guess, just the savings account. So I like the idea of the CD and possibly even the stocks and bonds. So we may definitely look into that, especially the bonds, I think that sounds a little safer. I don't know much about the stock market.

Yeah, very good. So what I would say then is, you know, you probably want to reach out to an advisor, just somebody who could help to understand what your family member's goals are, what the risk tolerance is, and actually be the one to manage the money and build the portfolio. You know, I think once you've worked hard to save up a significant sum of money, especially this is not an area of expertise or you don't have the time or training to do it, I think that's where an advisor could be a real great compliment. God's word affirms the idea of godly counsel and, you know, there's wisdom in a multitude of counselors is the way the Bible says it. So what I would do if you don't have an advisor is head to our website, faithfi.com. That's faithfi.com. And right there at the top of the page, you'll see a button that says Find a CKA.

That stands for Certified Kingdom Advisor, and you could do a search for a CKA there in Mississippi. I'd probably interview with your family member two or three advisors and perhaps settle on the one that's the best fit. But that way for that portion that's beyond the, you know, the cash on hand and the three to six months, you could develop together with the advisor an investment strategy that makes sense.

It's not overly aggressive. It fits the time horizon and the risk tolerance of your family member, but then the advisor would actually make the buy and sell decisions for the bonds or the stocks, whatever you decide on. So Jamal, hopefully that helps you. We appreciate your call today and thanks for being on the program. Well, folks, we're going to take a quick break. We've got some more questions coming up. Brad in Arkansas, Christine in Texas, Richard in New York, we're coming your way. 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. This is Faith in Finance Live with Rob West. Hey, if you hear a phone number mentioned today, please ignore that number and don't call us because today's broadcast was previously recorded, but we think the upcoming information will help you and make you a wise steward of what God's given you. So please stay tuned. Let's head right back to the phones here in our final segment today to Texas we go. Hi, Christine.

How can I help? Hi, I am an Uber driver and I just want to say I listen to you all the time and I love it and my Uber passengers love it too. So I just had a question about my tax return.

Yes, I love it. My husband and I get our taxes and we went to irs.gov and it asked us whether we're self I was self employed or whether I was an employee for Uber. And I wasn't sure because I know they said I was an independent contractor, but I'm not sure if I'm an employee of Uber or if I'm self employed and if I write things off like my car payments or my maintenance for my car or gas or anything like that.

Yeah, it's a great question. So you are an independent contractor, which means you're self employed. You're not an employee and therefore you will not receive a W2. You're typically with Uber going to receive what's called a 1099 NEC, which just stands for Non-Employment Compensation. And then you can absolutely write off expenses against it. So there's two ways for an Uber driver to deduct the business use of your vehicle that the IRS will allow you to use. One is called the actual expense method and the other is the standard mileage rate. So the standard mileage rate just says as long as you calculate the miles and you've got a log or a documentation on this, you know, if you calculate the miles that you drove for Uber, then you can take the standard mileage, which for instance in 2024 is 67 cents a mile.

And then that would be it. You can't deduct anything else. If you take the actual expense method, then you have to have records for it, for your business expenses. But that would include, not limited to, but it includes your fuel costs, your car repairs, vehicle depreciation, auto insurance, things like that. Now, if you use your automobile for both personal and business, you've got to factor that in. So you would have to determine what it actually costs to operate the car for the portion of the overall use of that car that's business related. So you'd take those things that I mentioned, gas, oil, repairs, tires, insurance, depreciation or lease payments, and you would only attribute the portion of all of those things to the portion of the total miles driven that are business miles versus the amount of miles you drove in total, which would allow you to determine how much of it was for personal use. And then you could deduct it that way. So you, along with your CPA, could determine, you know, whether it makes more sense to do the standard mileage rate or the actual expenses. But in either case, you really need a good log for all of this so you can document it to the IRS if you're ever challenged.

Yeah, the Uber app helps us out a lot with that. So in other words, I'm hiring Uber to, like, I'm not an employee, so I'm hiring them to do that part, the third party part. Well, they're hiring you as an independent contractor and then they, as long as you earn more than $600 in income for them for the year, then they're going to be required to send you that 1099 NEC.

They've got to report it regardless of whether they give you a 1099, but they'll automatically send you the 1099 over $600. And so they've hired you as an independent contractor, which has a legal definition to it. You know, you're able to work at will and you set your own hours and, you know, I mean, you're running your own business basically, as opposed to an employee where, you know, you're getting a W-2 and your works are set hours and you have a very specific job description, that type of thing. Does that make sense? Yes.

That makes perfect sense. Thank you so much. All right.

I'll continue listening. Thank you. Awesome.

Yeah. You're welcome, Christine. Thanks for your call today. We appreciate it. Let's go to Arkansas. Brad, you're next up.

Go ahead, sir. Yes. Hey, I was, I caught a little bit of a discussion you had, I think it was last week, on reverse mortgage. My wife and I, we're 63.

We owe $32,000 on a house that's worth like $95,000, $100,000, something like that. And we're just wondering a little bit more information about how that works. Yeah. So, it's a wonderful planning tool to consider in this season of life.

It's not an automatic for everybody, but it's, I think, an often overlooked tool, Brad. You certainly would qualify, I mean, at face value, you need to be at least 62 years old, you are. You need to have at least 50% equity in the home, you do.

So that's good. Basically, the way it works is, it's also called a home equity conversion mortgage. The difference between the reverse mortgage and the conventional is the reverse mortgage doesn't require you to put up any personal guarantees. So normally, with a conventional mortgage, you are, you know, there's recourse, meaning if the home is sold, that's serving as the collateral for the loan. And for whatever reason, the home is not enough to satisfy the value of the loan, they have recourse against you personally.

With a reverse mortgage, it's non-recourse, the government's guaranteeing anything that's owed beyond the value of the home. So what would happen is they'd take your age, and then the equity that you have, and you could do a couple of things. Number one is, you could just stop making payments. So basically, they would pay off the existing 32,000 that you owe, and you wouldn't take any more of the equity out.

And that balance would grow because there'd be an interest rate and some fees in the background accumulating. And then when you move or sell or you pass away, the sale of the home would satisfy the mortgage. And if that is to you, you're no longer making payments. So it helps you in this season of life balance the budget because, you know, one of your expenses is now eliminated. The other approach is they could give you a line of credit where it's not being paid to you, but you could tap into it if you need it. And then the third option is they take the amount of equity and your age, and then they just give you an income stream for the rest of your life at a certain level, and they would tell you what that was.

And then, again, at your passing, your estate, let's say your heirs get the home, whatever that reverse mortgage balance is, the home is sold, it's paid off, and then the rest is available. So there's multiple options there, but it certainly is a tool that can be helpful depending on your situation. Does that make sense? Yes. Yeah. We're struggling with some credit card debt.

So losing the payment would sure help with us paying off the credit cards. Yeah. Yeah. Very good.

So if you head to our friends at Movement Mortgage are just wonderful experts in this area and do a great job. And so if you head to movement.com slash faith, that's movement.com slash faith, they can kind of run you through the scenario based on your actual situation, and I think it'll give you more details. Excellent. Thank you. All right. Thanks, Brad. We appreciate your call.

Richard in New York. I understand you have a similar question. Go ahead, sir.

Yes. I was listening to your program last week, Monday or Tuesday night, and a lady called in with a question about some stuff, and you said that a reverse mortgage will probably be okay for her. So I just need from you today a name of the company and a phone number. Yeah, very good. My team can give you that phone number offline, but basically it's Movement Mortgage is who we were talking to Harlan Acola, who wrote the book literally on reverse mortgages and has been doing it for decades, was our guest.

He joins us periodically on the broadcast and really is our kind of go-to expert there. If you use the internet movement.com slash faith, if you prefer a phone number, our team can give you that offline. Okay? Okay.

Very good. So let's do this. You hold the line and we'll get that phone number to you and we appreciate your call today, sir. May the Lord bless you.

Well, folks, we covered a lot of ground today. I'll tell you, you know, as we think about managing God's money, here's the reality. First of all, this is a really high calling. You know, you and I have been called to be stewards of the King of Kings resources.

The goal faithfulness over a long period of time. It's the daily decisions that allow us to counteract the messages of this world and focus on the eternal, not the temporal. It means looking to God and his wisdom to be able to handle his money as a tool.

Now, that means that we can enjoy it. That's clear in first Timothy. It means we can use it to provide for ourselves and our family. That's clear in God's word. It also means that we should use it to be generous, to be able to bless those on our path, those in need, even those ministries doing work in the name of Jesus to the ends of the earth.

That's our goal because one day we will give an account. I mean, we know that to be clear from God's word. So we want to be faithful in managing God's money. Once we surrender our lives to Jesus, and that's our heart's desire here, is that that would be first.

That you would understand that you are a sinner, I am a sinner, and we need a savior to pay the penalty for our sins. God reconciled that problem through Jesus, his son, who was fully man and fully God who came to pay the penalty for our sins. And when we place our trust in him, it reconciles our relationship to the father.

It's called substitutionary atonement. It covers the penalty of sin and death through Christ's death and resurrection on the cross. Once we surrender our lives to him, then it's about stewardship of our time and our talents and our relationships and God's word and yes, God's money. So each day here on this broadcast, we want to encourage you in that role that you have and point you back to God's word, allow you to celebrate with those who are having some victories along the way, allow you to hear from others who are struggling so you can be praying for them. And as we do that together as the body of Christ, I think it provides really just the encouragement we all need because there's plenty of days where I'm discouraged and frustrated, even a little concerned or fearful at times.

And we've got to replace that with faith and trust in God. And that's what we want to do as we gather together on this program each day. Hey, I appreciate you listening. I appreciate you calling.

And we always love to hear from you as well. If you didn't get through today and you have a question, you're welcome to send that to us by email. Just send it to us at askrob at faithfi.com. Let me also mention quickly faith and finance here on American Family Radio is listener supported. So if you found some value in this program, maybe you listen regularly as you're out and about in your car or at home or at work and you want to make a gift of any amount, either one time or as a monthly financial partner, we'd welcome that. Just go to faithfi.com and click Give, faithfi.com and click Give. Hey, Faith and Finance Live is a ministry of Faithfi and Moody Radio thanks to my team today and we'll see you tomorrow. Come back and join us then. We'll see you next time.