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Christian Financial Perspectives episodes

January 19, 2024 191 – Investing Your Values: Inside Our Non-Woke, Biblically Aligned Stock Portfolio
Click below to listen to Episode 191 – Investing Your Values: Inside Our Non-Woke, Biblically Aligned Stock Portfolio
Investing Your Values: Inside Our Non-Woke, Biblically Aligned Stock Portfolio

Learn how we choose and filter out companies for our actively managed, Biblically responsible investment portfolio.

More episodes >>

Tired of “woke” companies that don’t align with your values? Eager to invest in a diversified stock portfolio that targets growth while honoring Biblical principles? You’re in the right place!
In this can’t-miss episode, Bob and Shawn pull back the curtain on our innovative Biblically responsible, non-woke, deep value stock portfolio. Get ready for an in-depth look at our rigorous stock selection process, which carefully evaluates both financial fundamentals and spiritual alignment.
Click here to learn more about our Biblical Responsible Stock Portfolio

HOSTED BY: Bob Barber, CWS®, CKA®
CO-HOST: Shawn Peters
Mentioned In This Episode

Christian Financial Advisors
Website

Bob Barber, CWS®, CKA®

Shawn Peters
Bible Verses In This Episode
PROVERBS 27:23
Know well the condition of your flock, and pay attention to your herds.
ECCLESIASTES 11:2
Give a portion to seven or even to eight, for you don’t know what disaster may happen on earth.
PROVERBS 13:11
Wealth obtained by fraud will dwindle, but whoever earns it through labor will multiply it.

Want to ask a question about your specific situation? Schedule a complimentary 15 minute phone call.
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Shawn:
Seeking a diversified stock portfolio aligned with Biblical values? Want to avoid woke companies while still targeting growth? Stay tuned for our Biblically Responsible Stocks portfolio. Let’s get some perspective. Welcome to another episode of Christian Financial Perspectives. My name’s Shawn Peters. I’m joined as always by my co-host, Bob Barber, and today we’re going to be covering our Biblically responsible non-work deep value, actively managed stock portfolio. I’m not going to say it five times fast, Bob.
Bob:
I know that’s kind of a hard one to get out there. Lemme say it, too. Okay. Our Biblically responsible, non woke, deep valued, actively managed, stock portfolio. You’re right, you can’t say that 10 times real fast.
Shawn:
And you can only get this through Christian Financial Advisors. So before we get into it, we are going to cover exactly what we go through to create this model to this portfolio, how we maintain it, things like that. But I want to share a few scriptures on this. First we have Proverbs 27:23, “Know well the condition of your flock and pay attention to your herds.”
Bob:
I think that’s a good one, Shawn, that you picked, too.
Shawn:
And this next one, I know you love Bob. You want to read that one?
Bob:
Well, yes, that’s one of my favorites. Ecclesiastes 11:2, “Give a portion to seven or even to eight for you do not know what disaster may happen on earth.”
Shawn:
It’s a good one for diversification.
Bob:
I think it’s one of the most important investing scriptures in the Bible.
Shawn:
And Proverbs 13:11, “Wealth obtained by fraud will dwindle, but whoever earns it through labor will multiply it.” So the model we’re going to be covering today, or the portfolio, we use within our risk target managed models, we use 50% of the equity in a number of those portfolios. 50% of that, of those equity positions, are managed in the same way. So the same portfolio, whether it’s on its own in a single individual account or if we’re talking about our target risk manage models, we use 50% of the equity in the same way.
Bob:
We’re bringing this to you today because we want you to understand that this is a portfolio you can have that would compliment something you may be already doing on your own that’s Biblically responsible and again, non woke. And basically, this is an introduction of this portfolio to the public that any of you can get with a minimum investment of $50,000.
Shawn:
Per account. So what we do first and foremost is we start our selection process with the US stock market covering the NASDAQ and the New York Stock Exchange. So there’s over 11,000, I think the exact total is 11,500 something. So we’ll say 11,000, but there’s over 11,000 companies to choose from. And we eventually funnel all of those down to 100 to 200 kind of range. So maybe a few hundred.
Bob:
So basically we funnel out about 98% of them.
Shawn:
A lot. Yeah. So we do this based on a financial value score, fundamental score, as well as we’re looking across and trying to whittle things down to the 12 sectors that’s representative of the market. So first thing we do for the value scores, we have 10 litmus tests that are assigned for the value categories such as earnings yield, book value compared to equity, overall profits of the company, cashflow, assets, liabilities, sales, et cetera. There’s a lot that goes into that. But out of these 10 tests and scores, these categories help us to locate companies that are selling for a low price relative to their benefit or some might say their intrinsic value. So what they should be worth based on historical multiples and all these other categories that go into it. Long story short, they’re on sale is how you could look at that.
Bob:
Exactly. And so after we look at the values then, and there’s like I say, there’s 10 different tests there.
Shawn:
And they have to pass at least 8 out of the 10 to even be considered for the portfolio.
Bob:
Right. That’s correct. Then we look at the fundamentals of the companies.
Shawn:
Another 10 tests.
Bob:
It’s another 10 tests that we assign for the fundamentals, litmus tests, as we call it. We look at things like earnings per share, revenue growth, amount of long-term debt, price of companies, stock to the earnings ratio, that’s called a PE ratio. And all these companies, again, must pass at least 8 of 10 of the litmus tests that we assigned to it for the fundamentals. So when we’re applying all these tests, they’ve got to score 80 or above, like you say, that knocks out 98% of the entire market.
Shawn:
So what’s left of the 11,000? Well, we kind of alluded to – presently as of recording, we only have about 1-2% left. So it ends up being around 125 to 150 that actually pass 8 out of 10 or more of both the value scoring and the fundamental scoring litmus test. So this, again, as I mentioned earlier, it does include the NASDAQ and the s and p 500. And from there we now go to our next to last, well, our last screening, but our next to last step if you will. So the last screening process allows us to whittle this list down even further to those that pass our Biblically responsible tests. That way we exclude the woke companies, companies that are not aligned with our values as Christians. And most companies that we’re talking about here, they’re not Christian companies, they’re just companies that, if anything, you could argue that they’re neutral, not really getting involved in either way on some of these key issues. Well,
Bob:
There are companies that are doing what they’re supposed to do if the company makes widgets, they should make widgets. They don’t need to be involved
Shawn:
In
Bob:
Politics, in politics and all of these other areas. So it does get down to the pure companies,
Shawn:
Right? So after applying this, I mean we’ve already gone from over 11,000, now we’re down to 125 to 150. So we’re going to whittle that down a little bit further and we screen out companies that have involvement in manufacturer sale or distribution of pornography, the production or sale of either alcoholic beverages or tobacco products. There are companies that are involved in gambling, abortion, human rights violations, or LGBT activism. I’m not going to name all the letters. There’s too many letters at this point. You get what I mean. So it narrows this down typically to around, say 100 to 120 companies just depending on what we originally started with. So the final part of this is that we narrow down the list even more because the most recent scans that we did, Bob, we had a significant number of companies that passed all the litmus tests, but if we just took from a market cap standpoint, we would’ve been heavily overweighted in regional banks within the financials just because of what had been going on with the regional banks. So this last step is very important because we want to look at the market cap and the sector of each company. So we group the companies across the 11 to 12 sectors.
Bob:
This is where we truly apply the Ecclesiastes scripture to it that says, “Give your portion to seven or eight because you do not know what disaster may come upon the land.” And so what we’re doing here is there’s 12 sectors of the market and we don’t want to invest more than 12% to 15% in any one sector because when you take that scripture and divide that into 100, that’s where you come up with 12-15%.
Shawn:
So that’s the goal. It may fluctuate a little bit. Sometimes we might be a little closer to 18-19% and a little bit lower in another sector. Just kind of depends on what actually passed all the criteria. But the goal is we’re trying to stick right around that 12-15% because we’re narrowing this down to our 50 finalists or for the portfolio. And so, then once we narrow that down and we try to spread the potential positions out as much as possible across the available sectors…
Bob:
We equally weight.
Shawn:
We then equally weight. Exactly. So we use market cap to help us find at least larger companies. We don’t want to be putting too much money into a company that can’t handle the volume. And so that’s why we do – once after we’ve done the market cap, that’s why we do the equal weighting because again, we’re not looking at putting 20% or 30% all in one particular sector. That usually gets us around what, three to four companies in each sector for the portfolio? And this gives us…
Bob:
Which is going to be, again, 50 stocks.
Shawn:
And this gives us our 50 finalists of the most deep valued, fundamentally sound, Biblically responsible, non-woke stocks that we can find in the markets.
Bob:
You did good there.
Shawn:
We do this step to avoid the overweighting, like we mentioned, to avoid the overweighting into any one sector and thereby reduce the systematic risk for that particular sector. So a good example, if we were not applying this and we just took more of a market cap approach, we might end up heavily weighted in the regional banks. Well then if more bad news came out about the regional banks, it would really hurt the portfolio if we had way too much and overweight in that area. So, once a quarter we repeat this whole process for the portfolio. However, we do monitor daily when the markets are open to make sure there haven’t been any major changes in the overall metrics that require a sell. So a good example of that might be, originally a company made it in, they made it into the 50 finalists, but if they go from an 8 out of 10 on the fundamental score and all of a sudden they’re at a 5 or 6 out of 10 because some stuff happens, some structural changes.
Bob:
That may be a good thing because the company might have increased their value by 30% or something and now they’re no longer a deep value company. Because remember, this is a deep value portfolio. This is not considered a high growth portfolio. It’s a value portfolio. So you can compliment it with a growth side of it.
Shawn:
So if the value score changed from 8 or 9 out of 10 down to like 5 or 6, then Bob is exactly right that it wouldn’t necessarily mean we want to liquidate it immediately. On the fundamental score, if that changed, that could, again, not a guarantee, but it could indicate a problem with the company. And so if we ever see something come up like that, we look a little further just because all of a sudden it didn’t pass as many tests we want to liquidate, but it is a, “Hey! Red flag! We need to go look into this a little further, see what’s going on.” Is this a temporary cashflow kind of thing? What’s going on exactly. But that’s something that we monitor on a regular basis and try to mitigate that risk.
Bob:
You know how I love markets, so I’m watching this portfolio at least six to eight times a day. That much. And just to see…
Shawn:
So you don’t have to.
Bob:
Yeah, well I don’t think most people want to go to the process either of this process of looking at 11,000 stocks and going through all of this funneling process, getting down to the most fundamentally, deep value, non-woke, Biblically responsible stocks in the entire market. But we’re introducing this today to where if you would like to get into this portfolio with a minimum investment of $50,000 per account, you’ve got that opportunity and you could compliment…
Shawn:
Visit our website, give us a call, text us.
Bob:
And this can compliment. We do want to point out one thing that this is 100% stocks, this, so this is considered a growth portfolio. Anytime you have 100% stocks of anything, it’s considered growth.
Shawn:
That’s right. But since this is all individual stocks and it’s 50, it would definitely be on the higher end. So, I think a good example would be – it’s just general rule of thumb – if you’re hearing this and it sounds interesting, but you’re not comfortable with seeing your account value drop 20% or more in a six month time period, this is probably not for you. Again, we think a really good strategy, but it does carry a lot more volatility and risk than your average managed portfolio.
Bob:
It could do the same thing on the other side. Okay. Absolutely. And we’ve seen that before, but always future performance is no guarantee based on past performance.
Shawn:
Exactly. Yeah. Insert disclaimer here, right? Yeah.
Bob:
If you would like more information about this, you can call or text us during business hours at (830) 609-6986, or you can go to our website right from there and you can set up an appointment with one of us here at the office. Go to www.ChristianFinancialAdvisors.com.
Shawn:
That’s right. That’s it. Thank you for joining us. God bless. Until next time.
[DISCLOSURES]
* Investment advisory services offered through Christian Investment Advisors Inc dba Christian Financial Advisors, a registered investment advisor registered with the SEC. Registration as an investment advisor does not imply a certain level of skill or training. Comments from today’s show are for informational purposes only and not to be considered investment advice or recommendations to buy or sell any company that may have been mentioned or discussed. The opinions expressed are solely those of the hosts, Bob Barber and Shawn Peters, and their guests. Bob and Shawn do not provide tax advice and encourage you to seek guidance from a tax professional. While Christian Financial Advisors believes the information to be accurate and reliable, we do not claim or have responsibility for its completeness, accuracy, or reliability.
14 min
January 08, 2024 190 – Selling Financial Fear
Click below to listen to Episode 190 – Selling Financial Fear
Selling Financial Fear

Many companies thrive today by selling financial fear. Learn how to avoid it.

More episodes >>

Are you overwhelmed by companies capitalizing on fear to sell overpriced solutions? Don’t fall for it. Bob and Shawn highlight the various means through which companies use fear-based tactics, such as social media platforms, email, television, and text messages. It is important to not fall for these fear tactics.
Instead, unplug from social media, study history to gain perspective, take breaks from screens, engage in constructive and kind activities, and seek God through scripture, prayer, and living by faith. Prioritize your mental and emotional well-being by avoiding this fear-based content and focusing on positive and uplifting activities.

HOSTED BY: Bob Barber, CWS®, CKA®
CO-HOST: Shawn Peters
Mentioned In This Episode

Christian Financial Advisors
Website

Bob Barber, CWS®, CKA®

Shawn Peters
Bible Verses In This Episode
2 TIMOTHY 1:7
For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
ISAIAH 41:10
Do not fear, for I am with you; Do not be afraid, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, I will also help you, I will also uphold you with My righteous right hand.
PHILIPPIANS 4:6-7
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; 7 and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
PROVERBS 29:25
The fear of man brings a snare, But one who trusts in the LORD will be protected.
ECCLESIASTES 7:14
When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider this: God has made the one as well as the other. Therefore, no one can discover anything about their future.

Want to ask a question about your specific situation? Schedule a complimentary 15 minute phone call.
SCHEDULE AN APPOINTMENTDid you enjoy this episode? Sign up for email updates and never miss an episode.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Shawn:
Are you overwhelmed by companies capitalizing on fear to sell overpriced solutions? Don’t fall for it. Instead, unplug, help others and seek God’s peace. Let’s get some perspective. Welcome to another episode of Christian Financial Perspectives. My name’s Shawn Peters. I’m joined as always by my co-host, Bob Barber, for those of you who haven’t met us yet. Today, we’re going to be covering selling financial fear and more specifically five ways that you can get away from it and hopefully avoid it.
Bob:
Yeah, deal with it.
Shawn:
Or deal with it. Yeah.
Bob:
Yeah. Today, companies are thriving by selling financial fear and they use every means available. And there’s so many means today, like the social media platforms, Facebook, Instagram, now X.
Shawn:
Formally Twitter. Kind of reminds me almost like with “Prince” or the “artist formally known as Prince”.
Bob:
Email, television, text messages. This is all to scare you into buying their high commission products like gold and silver, the newsletters, the food kits, annuities. When I was a kid, we didn’t have any of this. We had television. We only had three stations, and we were outside all the time. I mean, we would only watch television at night, and this stuff is just, it’s like hovering around us 24/7 it feels like today. And the business of selling financial fear has gotten really big.
Shawn:
Yeah, that’s right. They create a fear of something and just so happened to have the solution for it.
Bob:
And then they use the algorithms to just hit you over and over and over, and over.
Shawn:
The more you interact with it.
Bob:
So this summary of the Salesforce training and make sure this is not the Salesforce you said…
Shawn:
Right. Not Salesforce, the CRM, but it’s a different company, I guess. Salesforce Training.
Bob:
This was interesting as I researched this, that they actually train people to sell fear. Okay. So go ahead.
Shawn:
This is summary on “Fear Sells, So Sell Fear”, and there’s just a real short summary of it. We’ll have a link in the description if you want to take a look at the full article, but the summary of the Salesforce training article says that, “Fear is a more powerful motivator for selling than a desire for gain. An experiment found that people are more willing to take risk to avoid losses than to make gains.” So they’re more willing to take a risk to avoid a loss than they are to take a risk, to make gains. “Appealing to a potential customer’s fear of loss is often more effective than emphasizing the benefits they could gain. Sales pitches can be reframed to tap into fear of loss rather than just a desire for gain.” For example, again, this is coming from Salesforce training. “So for example, how many sales might you lose without training your team versus effectively the same thing, but versus your salespeople will close more sales with training. Fear tactics can be used along with emphasizing benefits. Both desire for gain and fear of loss can persuade potential clients into making buying decisions.” Now, we are not saying that we’re advocates of that, but this is out there. This is part of the training. The idea is that you will sell more units, you’ll sell more subscriptions, you’ll sell more of whatever it is if you tap into people’s fear purposely, their fear of loss, their fear of missing out, as opposed to talking about the benefits being positive.
Bob:
Yeah. Yeah. It’s like negativism sells more than positive.
Shawn:
So if companies are trying to sell things to you, using these tactics for you to make financial decisions, don’t listen. Don’t allow them to dictate this to you.
Bob:
It’s so embedded in scripture and of God that we are not to live in a spirit of fear.
Shawn:
That’s right. Which goes into our first scripture.
Bob:
Yeah. We’ve chosen four really strong scriptures that I think would be good for you to really take into your heart because we’re not supposed to walk around with the spirit of fear. And it says that in 2 Timothy 1:7, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of sound mind.”
Shawn:
That’s right. And Isaiah 41:10, “Do not fear for I am with you. Do not be afraid for I am your God. I will strengthen you. I will also help you. I will also uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
Bob:
You picked Philippians 4:6-7. Oh, this is such a good one. “Be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”
Shawn:
And finally, Proverbs 29:25, “The fear of man brings a snare, but one who trusts in the Lord will be protected.”
Bob:
Oh, that’s my favorite of these four, I think. The fear of man brings a snare, but the one who trusts in the Lord will be protected. Okay.
Shawn:
So how can you deal with all the financial fear selling today?
Bob:
So I’ve worked on this a lot. I came up with five ideas, I think, that will help you and me to deal with all the financial fear that’s hitting us on a daily basis.
Shawn:
So number one, turn off social media.
Bob:
Amen.
Shawn:
The first way to deal with financial fear is to turn off social media, at least temporarily, if not permanently, depending on the platform and how much you struggle with it.
Bob:
I promise you won’t die. You’re going to make it. Okay. We made it without social media for centuries and thousands of years in our world. If you turn it off, it’s not going to hurt you.
Shawn:
So platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and X, formerly Twitter, they use algorithms to target you with fear-based messaging i you’ve ever clicked on any related content.
Bob:
And you know that because if you just click on one thing, now they’re going to come at you with that same thing, right?
Shawn:
Well, not only that, but they also, there’s an incentive because fearful and divisive content gets more interactions. Now they’re negative, but it does get more interactions than happier, positive content. And they want people to engage with content on their platform as much as possible. Companies in general have learned to capitalize on fear via social media to sell products like we mentioned earlier, the high commission precious metals, subscription-based newsletters, “survival kits”, annuities, and more. Once you’re in their algorithm, you’ll be bombarded constantly. Consider taking a social media break again, maybe even permanently, to avoid these financial fear tactics. Out of sight can mean out of mind.
Bob:
Shawn, I haven’t posted anything to Facebook or even gone on Facebook in probably three or four years and it hasn’t hurt me one bit.
Shawn:
I don’t have Facebook on my phone at all anymore. I have Facebook messenger, but that’s only because some people don’t have my phone number or they might want to reach out. But it’s nice because I don’t get sucked in to the algorithm and the newsfeed and all this other stuff because it’s just for messaging.
Bob:
I tell people, just turn it off. The second thing I think is important in dealing with all this is to truly study history. And we know since the beginning of time with Cain and Abel, I mean that was not a good relationship. And you have to ask yourself with all these things that are going on today, is it really new? I mean, there was the Roman Empire conquest to the current state of the world today. I was thinking about just the last 120 years, Shawn. We’ve had World War I and II, we’ve had the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the 911 attacks, and now we’ve got this conflict between Israel and Palestine going on.
Shawn:
Yeah. Oh, the war in Ukraine is still continuing, the renewed conflict with Israel and Palestine, which again isn’t new.
Bob:
And I’ve had a lot of people call me, what about this? What about this? Well, look at the Old Testament. They’ve been fighting for 4,000 or 5,000 years, so nothing is really new under the sun, and it doesn’t help me to live in fear of this. Not at all. And it doesn’t help any of us. So focus on the good and the glass half full, not half empty. This is some good advice my wife gave me years ago, and ever since I’ve really taken that to heart, the focus on the glass half full, not half empty. Because negative thinking, Shawn, it just never gets us anywhere.
Shawn:
And it blocks out wisdom because that negative thinking and that fear, it doesn’t allow you to think clearly. So we have a scripture for this one.
Bob:
And it goes with this one too. Yeah.
Shawn:
Ecclesiastes 7:14, “When times are good, be happy. But when times are bad, consider this. God has made the one as well as the other. Therefore, no one can discover anything about their future.” I think it’s a good one.
Bob:
You know what? We forgot to put one in there in Matthew where Jesus says, “Do not worry. Look at the birds of the air.”
Shawn:
That’s right.
Bob:
And God feeds them. Fear can also push into worry. Which just doesn’t get you anywhere. Okay. So this one kind of goes with that first one about unplugging from media.
Shawn:
Social media. So this was a little different. But unplugging from screens in general. So take regular breaks from your cell phone, computers, tv, even just an hour or two a day at first. Find time to get away from it. Focus on limiting your fear-based news channels to maybe 15 to 30 minutes a day or cut them out entirely as part of just a daily consumption. You don’t need it.
Bob:
You can read a newspaper instead and it doesn’t have all the emotion. Now, some of it does. It’s written in there, but it doesn’t have all the emotion. I have a relative – that I’m not going to go any farther than saying it’s a relative – that keeps Fox News on 24/7. I mean, every time you walk into her house, it’s going, and she even falls asleep to it. And I’m thinking, oh my goodness, I can only watch 15 or 30 minutes of it a day and I start getting depressed, and I just have to turn it off and go watch the Andy Griffith show for a while. You know how I like that?
Shawn:
If you do need some screen time to decompress from the day, watch something positive, wholesome, or educational, something that’s not…
Bob:
Like the Andy Griffith show, right?
Shawn:
Sure. Yeah, yeah. Or again, educational, history, something like that where maybe you’ll learn a little bit about how history tries to repeat itself or rhymes with itself. So number four, do something constructive and kind.
Bob:
It’s hard to be fearful when you’re doing something constructive and kind.
Shawn:
That’s right. And this allows you to be active with doing something and not allow you to dwell on fear.
Bob:
Some ideas I came up with, write some handwritten letters to lift the friend’s spirits. Go out and paint something, make a painting or just paint the house or paint the guardrail. Build something. Take time to garden. Volunteer to help others. Go for a walk or go camping to decompress, but shift your focus from fear to spreading joy and things you cannot control.
Shawn:
That’s right. And so number five.
Bob:
Most important one.
Shawn:
The fifth way – seek God, immerse yourself in scripture, prayer, and living by faith over fear. Listen to praise and worship music instead of the voices selling you on fear, draw close to God who says, do not be afraid. 365 times in the Bible, one for each day of the year.
Bob:
Didn’t know that.
Shawn:
Yeah, so cool. You can look it up. There’s 365 times you see the phrase, “Do not be afraid.”
Bob:
So God’s not called us to live in a spirit of pure, like we said in the beginning. 2 Timothy 17, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of sound mind.”
Shawn:
Yeah. And Isaiah 41:10, “Do not fear for I’m with you. Do not be afraid for I’m your God. I will strengthen you. I will also help you. I will also uphold you with my righteous right hand.” And for those of you who aren’t convinced on at least taking temporary breaks or limiting your consumption of social media, youshould go check out “The Social Dilemma”. It’s on Netflix and it goes into psychology. There’s industry insiders.
Bob:
I watched that about three years ago, and I was shocked after watching it. So if you’re going to watch something…
Shawn:
That’s something educational
Bob:
After you see that, that is very educational, it will open your eyes to what all this social media is doing to us.
Shawn:
That’s right.
Bob:
I hope this has been informative for you today. Shawn and I do not want you living in fear. God doesn’t want you living in fear, and we just hope that this has been informative and these are some good ideas you can take to heart, and it will make 2024 a better year.
Shawn:
That’s right. We’d love to hear from you, too. If you have any other ideas to add to this, feel free to add them in the comments.
[DISCLOSURES]
* Investment advisory services offered through Christian Investment Advisors Inc dba Christian Financial Advisors, a registered investment advisor registered with the SEC. Registration as an investment advisor does not imply a certain level of skill or training. Comments from today’s show are for informational purposes only and not to be considered investment advice or recommendations to buy or sell any company that may have been mentioned or discussed. The opinions expressed are solely those of the hosts, Bob Barber and Shawn Peters, and their guests. Bob and Shawn do not provide tax advice and encourage you to seek guidance from a tax professional. While Christian Financial Advisors believes the information to be accurate and reliable, we do not claim or have responsibility for its completeness, accuracy, or reliability.
14 min
January 02, 2024 189 – Make This Year’s Goals Stick
Click below to listen to Episode 189 – Make This Year’s Goals Stick
Make This Year’s Goals Stick

Short summary about the guest or topic.

More episodes >>

Are you among the 92% who don’t achieve New Year’s resolutions? Make 2024 different! Bob and Shawn will show you how to use the SMAC Method – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, and Compatible – to make meaningful and achievable goals.
As Christians, we believe goals should align with God’s plan and also be compatible with one’s values and beliefs. Only a small percentage of people actually achieve their New Year’s resolutions, but that number rises with written goals that are visually placed around the house, car, and even work. This year, it’s time to be intentional and proactive in setting and pursuing goals!

HOSTED BY: Bob Barber, CWS®, CKA®
CO-HOST: Shawn Peters
Mentioned In This Episode

Christian Financial Advisors
Website

Bob Barber, CWS®, CKA®

Shawn Peters
Printable Goals Sheet
Click On Image To Open Printable Version
Bible Verses In This Episode
PROVERBS 16:3
Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.
PROVERBS 16:9
In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.
PHILIPPIANS 3:14
I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Want to ask a question about your specific situation? Schedule a complimentary 15 minute phone call.
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Shawn:
Are you among the 92% who don’t achieve New Year’s resolutions? Make 2024 different. We will show you how to use the SMAC method to make meaningful and achievable goals. Let’s get some perspective. Welcome to another episode of Christian Financial Perspectives. My name’s Shawn Peters. I’m joined as always by my co-host and Father-in-Law, Bob Barber. And today we’re going to be covering our goal setting outline for 2024. Now, why should you have goals? Well, because God called us to make a difference in our lives and in others’ lives. And if you aim for nothing, you’ll probably hit it.
Bob:
That’s right, Shawn. I don’t think God called us to live a life of mediocrity, but he called us to live a life of significance and put us here on this earth to make a difference.
Shawn:
That’s right.
Bob:
I believe that every year when it comes down to this point, and we talk about this, this is pretty much our first program of every year. You can rely that in January we’re going to be talking about goal setting because I’ve been doing it for so long. I’m a major goal setter. I’ve got this little, we’re going to show y’all this earlier. I don’t know if you can see this.
Shawn:
We’ll have Jenna put it on the screen.
Bob:
We will talk about it and have Jenna put it on the screen. But basically I have a copy of my goals. They’re not written in here.
Shawn:
Not yet.
Bob:
Not yet. But they’re going to be. And I laminate this little copy and I put one of them in my car, I put one of them on my desk, one in my shower. And I’ve just been amazed over the years how many of the goals that I have hit because I have a target. Like we said, there’s one way to not hit a target that’s not have a target. If you don’t have a target, you’re not going to hit it. And I believe it’s so important that as Christians, that our goals align with God’s plan for our lives. Okay. Scripture reader, always get on you for this. Okay. Because you’re my good scripture reader, Shawn.
Shawn:
I just have such a great radio voice.
Bob:
You do radio, huh?
Shawn:
Well, video too.
Bob:
Podcast.
Shawn:
I have been told I have a face for radio.
Bob:
Oh, okay. Alright. You know what? Me too. I guess that’s why I did it for eight years. Some of y’all might not have known that I had a program that was on San Antonio, Houston, Austin, and Corpus Christi for eight years. That was a long time ago. I didn’t have any gray hair. I looked a lot different.
Shawn:
Yeah, but nobody could tell.
Bob:
That’s true. That’s true. So we got two really good scriptures I want you to read and I want to read this last scripture.
Shawn:
Okay. Alright. So the first one is Proverbs 16:3, “Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.” And Proverbs 16:9, “In their hearts, humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.” Amen. And I don’t remember which versions, but there’s another one that says, A man determines his path in his heart, and the Lord directs his steps. I kind like that version, too.
Bob:
In Proverbs 2 somewhere?
Shawn:
No, it’s the same one. Proverbs 16:9. I just can’t remember which version.
Bob:
Oh, which version. Okay, I got you. I got you, and I liked the one from Philippians 3:14. It’s one of my favorites, “I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me Heavenward in Christ Jesus.” The important thing is that goals need to align with Christian principles if you’re a believer. And if you’re not a believer, it’s still a wise thing because all good principles are Christian principles. So today what we’re going to do is we’re going to talk about my goals that I’ve set for years. It’s kind of a path I’ve followed and it just never gets old talking about it. Before we do that, we’re going to go over the top 10 goals that people set for New Year’s resolutions over and over. And these are going to sound very familiar and these are in the order of which they set them. Alright, so go ahead Shawn.
Shawn:
So number one, 37% of people set a goal of eating healthier.
Bob:
Especially after all the Christmas cookies
Shawn:
And Thanksgiving and then Christmas and then New Year’s party.
Bob:
It’s usually that diet time around January.
Shawn:
And then the second one, also at 37%, getting more exercise.
Bob:
And that’s all your gyms are going to be really busy right now, just wait until about April or May and it’ll kind of taper off back down to the normal people. But I hope that you’re one that continues to stay up with it if that’s one, you’re starting this year.
Shawn:
Number three again at 37%. These first three were tied, but 37% start saving money or saving more. It’s also a really popular one.
Bob:
Well, this fourth one, it was one of them. It says focus on self-care.
Shawn:
It’s a little more generic, but for…
Bob:
The first two are kind of like that.
Shawn:
But self-care could also be, Hey, I’m going to take time more often for myself to just get away from everything and everybody, maybe read, maybe…
Bob:
You just mentioned one.
Shawn:
Oh, that’s true.
Bob:
That’s the next one.
Shawn:
Whatever people say for self-care, there’s a lot of different subcategories to that I guess. So number five is reading more at 18%. Number six, we have learning a new skill, 15%. Number seven, making new friends at 15%. Number eight, getting a job or getting a new one, 14%. Number nine, taking up a new hobby, 13%. And finally number 10, focusing more on relationships at 12%.
Bob:
Kind of goes with number seven, making new friends. But it is, but those relationships could also be with your mom or your dad or
Shawn:
Your spouse.
Bob:
Your spouse or your grandchildren. Old friends, old high school friends, maybe. I still keep up. It’s funny, in my high school, I mean there was about 300 in my graduating class, but I only really keep up with one. But we keep up with each other all the time. We text each other.
Shawn:
Well, it’s about quality over quantity.
Bob:
We’re kind of two old fellas.
Shawn:
Well, the interesting thing is, so researchers say about 60% of people make New Year’s resolutions, but only about 8% successfully achieve them. Why?
Bob:
Yeah, you realize Shawn, that’s like 92%. I mean they make them, but only 8% of that. So basically you’re throwing out 92%, aren’t you?
Shawn:
Yeah. And that’s of the 60% of people that even make them in the first place. According to a famous Harvard Business School study,
Bob:
83 out of 100 people do not have any clearly defined goals.
Shawn:
And of the 17 people who did have goals, only 3 of them actually wrote them down.
Bob:
So is this saying only 3 out of 100 write their goals down?
Shawn:
Write them down. Yep. So out of 100 people. Now, they’re saying…
Bob:
So I’m one of those 3, I guess.
Shawn:
Yeah. You are. The 60% of people that make resolutions. That was from one research study. But the Harvard Business School was talking about of all people, how many have clearly defined goals or they might have like, oh, I have resolution of I’m going to try to get healthier. Okay, what does that mean? So they’re saying that 83 out of 100 people don’t have any clearly defined goals. Only 17 do. But of the 17 who have clearly identified goals, 3 out of 100 wrote them down.
Bob:
Okay. What about this? This is interesting from this same study that Harvard did, and this is an old study done many years ago that 3 out of the 100 people that had written their goals down were earning 10 times the income of the 83 people that didn’t have any written goals at all. Now we talk about we’re a financial show. Right? Wow. So 10 times.
Shawn:
Wow.
Bob:
That’s a lot more, isn’t it? And they also tended to be in better health and had happier marriages. I think writing them down is extremely important. Now I just got to say this, the number one reason for financial failure is procrastination. But goals, like I mentioned in the beginning, they’re like a target. If you don’t even have the target, how do you expect to hit anything?
Shawn:
How do you know when you even hit anything?
Bob:
So this is an old Methodist from the old school. It’s been around a long time and they call this the SMAC method. SMAC.
Shawn:
You can SMAC your goals, but you can’t SMAC your friends. Just remember that. Kind of like you can pick your nose and you can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your friend’s nose. Kind of the same thing. So SMAC.
Bob:
Man, you making me turn all red at that. That’s a really good one, Shawn.
Shawn:
Well I’ll jump in on the first one then. So SMAC goal setting the S in SMAC means specific.
Bob:
I’m glad you said that one because I never can say that word right.
Shawn:
Well there’s a lot of consonants in there. So specific – setting your goals and a target specifically for you, not the goals someone else has or wants. Remember specific, not Pacific, like the ocean.
Bob:
Yeah, that’s where I get mixed up. Yeah, my wife says you can’t say that word, can you? I’ll say specific.
Shawn:
That’s fine. That’s all right. I’ll let you do the other one.
Bob:
Okay. Yeah, I can say this one. The M in SMAC is measurable. So set the goals that you can measure, actually measure along the way. That’s where losing weight, you can get on the scales every two or three days. I wouldn’t suggest every day because it’s going to fluctuate too much, but every three or four days and you can measure that.
Shawn:
And then A in SMAC stands for achievable. So set goals that are achievable. And the final one, Bob, you want to do the final one?
Bob:
The C, compatible with your values and beliefs.
Shawn:
So I think a simple example for people, if you say your goal is to get in better shape, well round is a shape. So what exactly do you mean by getting in better shape or getting in shape? So a SMAC goal might be, okay, I want something specific such as I want to lose 5% body fat. Whatever you’re at. Maybe you’re at 20%, you want to go down to 15%. Okay, so that’s specific. I almost said it wrong, but then the measurable part. Okay, well measurable. Well, there’s a lot of scales. There’s a lot of things you can do to pretty easily measure that on a regular basis. So the achievable part, okay, losing 5% body fat, I mean that’s fairly achievable as long as you don’t say in the next month. Well, no, that’s not achievable. And then the final one, compatible. Okay, well do you have any issues with that? I mean, I don’t really see any issues with that being incompatible with your values and beliefs, but you want to make sure it is compatible with that.
Bob:
Another example, and I remember I’ve used this one in the past is if I said I want to get in better shape, but I want to run a marathon with my torn meniscus on each knee, that’s not going to happen, Shawn. So for me to say I want to run a marathon is not compatible, but for me to say I can walk three to five miles a day, that’s compatible. I can do that with the right kind of tennis shoes. Okay.
Shawn:
Alright. Let’s get into specific. By being very specific with goals over the years and putting them in writing, Bob has reached nearly 100% of them over time.
Bob:
I have. It is amazing to go back, I’ve been doing this system now for a good at least 15, 17 years. I just found when I was going through on our word processor, 2008 goals that I’d written down. So I know I can go back right there. What is that, 16 years?
Shawn:
I forgot to bring mine. But when we did our program last time for 2023 of the six categories, I believe I hit it was four of the six. Yeah. I mean I made progress with the other two, but it is nice to be able to look back and see, okay, yeah, I actually made progress on these.
Bob:
This little goal chart that I have, and you can just do this on any word program, Google docs, whatever I write down for the SMAC method behind each one of these. Spiritually, physically, financially, mentally, relational, professional, and charitable. And so these are the seven that I’ve come up with over time. I remember it used to just be like four, but now it’s seven. All that, you can have different goals of the spiritual part. It could be you want to read the Bible this year or you want to get involved in a Bible study or teach a Bible study. Physically, we’ve talked about that. Financially, we’ve talked a lot about that. Professionally, like CFP I know you’re trying to become. Okay, alright. So there’s just so many areas. I know we’ve gone over a lot today and we’re getting near the end of our time for the day. But those financial goals could be paying off debt. The key is make it…
Shawn:
SMAC.
Bob:
Make it SMAC and make it…
Shawn:
The key is make it SMAC to you. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, and Compatible.
Bob:
Exactly. With this today, I hope this has been very informative to you. I will take this and I’ll laminate it and put it one in my shower, one in my car, one at my desk. I have several desks, by the way. I’ve got one up here at the office. I’ve got my office at home. I’ve got one in Rockport, Texas. So I just put these things all over the place where it reminds me on a daily basis. And you’ll notice when it’s reminding you to remember writing them down, that’s the important thing. You can’t just say it, you got to write it down and you got to see it with your eyes every day.
Shawn:
And I think the other thing that it forces you to do is when you have a smaller paper like this, with each of those six to seven categories, it forces you to be more intentional, which does also cover the specific part of it as opposed to, I have this huge list of goals I’m trying to accomplish. Like, well, you know what? Pick for the year. Pick one thing for spiritual, pick one thing for physical, pick one thing for financial, and just kind of go through that. And then it’s, okay, here’s the one thing in each of those categories that I’m trying to better myself and meet those goals for this year.
Bob:
Hope that helps you. Don’t delay, don’t procrastinate on this. Do it tonight, tomorrow, in the next day or two. Or this weekend that’s coming up.
Shawn:
Yeah.
Bob:
Alright, that’s all for now.
Shawn:
Thank you. And as always, God bless.
[CONCLUSION]
That’s all for now.
We invite you to listen to all of our past episodes covering many financial topics from a Christian Perspective. To make sure you don’t miss any of Bob’s upcoming episodes you can subscribe to Christian Financial Perspectives on iTunes, Google Play Music, Spotify, or Stitcher. To learn more about integrating your faith with your finances, visit ciswealth.com or call 830-609-6986.
[DISCLOSURES]
* Investment advisory services offered through Christian Investment Advisors Inc dba Christian Financial Advisors, a registered investment advisor registered with the SEC. Registration as an investment advisor does not imply a certain level of skill or training. Comments from today’s show are for informational purposes only and not to be considered investment advice or recommendations to buy or sell any company that may have been mentioned or discussed. The opinions expressed are solely those of the hosts, Bob Barber and Shawn Peters, and their guests. Bob and Shawn do not provide tax advice and encourage you to seek guidance from a tax professional. While Christian Financial Advisors believes the information to be accurate and reliable, we do not claim or have responsibility for its completeness, accuracy, or reliability.
15 min
December 26, 2023 188 – The Ultimate 2023 Financial Recap
Click below to listen to Episode 188 – The Ultimate 2023 Financial Recap
The Ultimate 2023 Financial Recap

A 2023 financial recap to help look forward to what 2024 might hold.

More episodes >>

What financial topics first come to mind when recalling 2023? Is it the emotional rollercoaster of 2023’s stock market or the endless printing of money? Bob and Shawn want to provide perspective on key events that impacted many financial portfolios. Before looking ahead, they are recapping the past year’s twists and turns.
This includes the markets’ obsession with interest rates, as well as the volatility caused by concerns about the Federal Reserve’s actions. Looking ahead to 2024, it is important to remember the ups and downs of 2023 in order to make more informed financial decisions for the future.

HOSTED BY: Bob Barber, CWS®, CKA®
CO-HOST: Shawn Peters
Mentioned In This Episode

Christian Financial Advisors
Website

Bob Barber, CWS®, CKA®

Shawn Peters

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Shawn:
Recalling the emotional rollercoaster of 2023’s stock market? Want perspective on key events that impacted your portfolio? Before looking ahead, we’re recapping the past year’s twists and turns. Let’s get some perspective.
Welcome to another episode of Christian Financial Perspectives. We’re so glad that you’ve joined us. My name is Shawn Peters for those who haven’t joined us before, and I’m joined by my co-host and Father-in-Law, Bob Barber. Today we are bringing you our 2023 financial recap, and this is released right after Christmas, but we did – because of the magic of Hollywood recording or whatever you want to call it, we believe it or not, did have to record this a little before we published it. So if anything has come out since right before Christmas or after that we don’t have on here, we apologize. Maybe we can try to put something in the description, but yeah, what a year. I mean, we have grown a lot, I feel like Bob, as a show.
Bob:
We have.
Shawn:
For those who don’t know.
Bob:
Had 180 episodes now. Yeah, we started off as a podcast the first three years.
Shawn:
This should be episode 188.
Bob:
Is that what it is?
Shawn:
Yep. So we’ll hit our 200, 201 come 2024.
Bob:
Exciting.
Shawn:
Just a quick shout out for those who don’t know, my wife took over editing, not sure how many episodes exactly back, but Bob’s oldest daughter, and thank you, Jenna. I think she’s done an awesome job. Hopefully you guys have appreciated some of the graphics and transitions, and it’s made a difference.
Bob:
She makes you and I sound good. I know that.
Shawn:
Which is a task.
Bob:
If we stumble by the way, she takes a stumbling out.
Shawn:
Exactly. Well, as much as she can. Yeah.
Bob:
Alright, so let’s get to the financial recap. Thank you very much, Jenna, for the incredible job that you do. Of course, you’re extremely smart and you go beyond anything that your dad has ever done, I think so. It was quite a year, Shawn, as we look back and do a financial recap of 2023, we had a market totally consumed with interest rates. I mean, you couldn’t turn on the financial news daily without nearly every interview.
Shawn:
Something related to interest…
Bob:
Something to do with interest rates and how they were going to be affected by consumer news. And then we ended up having a very narrow stock market that we’re going to go into a little bit here for much of the year just based on what they call the “Magnificent Seven”.
Shawn:
I like how you said that, Bob, for anyone watching that may not have seen one of these, but we do a monthly bullet point. It’s meant to be a two to three minute little recap of what was going on. And Bob called the S&P 500 the S&P 7, because that’s basically the tail wagging the dog is those seven companies.
Bob:
That’s what it was for the first 10 months, but it’s now spreading out. And then we had some of those bank failures earlier in the year, so let’s get to it. The market consumed with interest rates. You could not turn on the daily news without the concerns about the Federal Reserve and what they were going to do based on employment, unemployment, data, inflation, retail sales, and it just caused extreme volatility throughout the year.
Shawn:
That’s right. That’s right. And the Fed increased interest rates by a 0.25% increments in February, March, May, and July,
Bob:
And that was the last one in July. They’re not going to have any more interest rate increases – by the latest news that we have. The 10 year treasury bond was a really big newsmaker and the 10 year treasury bond, the reason that’s so important is that’s based a lot on how mortgage rates play into the equation. And in July it was a little bit under 4%, but then it rose to nearly 5%. It actually touched 5%.
Shawn:
It kind of kept touching…it was flirting with 5%.
Bob:
For one day, it went over 5% for just 10 minutes. We speak to you right now…
Shawn:
And that was the peak, like mid October.
Bob:
Yeah. And as we speak to you today, as of December 14th, 15th, the 10 year bond has gone back below 4%. I mean, this is just really fresh news as we bring the podcast to you today. So, it’s really been interesting to watch these rates pop around. You could see as the 10 year bond rate went up, the markets went down, vice versa. So it’s ended up being this yearend rally, and I was predicting this yearend rally. Our clients kept calling us, I said we’re going to have a yearend rally. I see it. It’s written all over the, it’s just in the handwriting, nearly.
Shawn:
Just a lot of factors.
Bob:
But it has been, you’ve been whipsawing around a lot this year and it just proves you’ve had to have a long-term perspective and not let your emotions get involved investing. Okay.
Shawn:
That’s right. As Bob mentioned earlier, it was also a very extremely narrow market for stock returns for the first 10 months of the year.
Bob:
And that was based on basically the seven companies, which these are woke companies, so we don’t invest in ’em. They’re not biblically responsible, but it was Apple and Google, Microsoft, Meta – which is Facebook, Tesla, and Nvidia, not the other 493 companies of the S&P 500. It’s like these seven just went off and left the other 493 in the dust. But the way that it’s reported in the news, it’s reported always is the cap weighted, not the equally weight, S&P 500. So if you were to look at the equally weighted S&P 500, which is a better way of looking at the Fortune 500, you’ll see the difference in how they just pulled apart. And a lot of that had to do with AI coming out, artificial intelligence, made a huge splash.
Shawn:
Even though there’s been a lot going on in that space, it seems like 2023 was kind of the year of AI with just so many different areas that it was affecting. And of course there’s also a lot of speculation on, oh, it’s going to do this or that, and there are many things I’ve heard. I’m not going to go into any details, but there’s some stuff that you see it come across and okay, realistically that’s probably more like a 10 year thing, but people are acting as if it’s happening in 2024.
Bob:
There was so much emphasis put on Nvidia because Nvidia came out with some very good news, and Nvidia went up to over 240% at one point.
Shawn:
And if I remember correctly about that, it was partially to do with the way, for those who haven’t looked into it as much, but believe it or not, AI does require a lot of computing power, but it’s a little bit different in the way that it works. And so Nvidia, a big part of their increase had to do with them getting involved and starting to be used more, I think, on the GPU side of things for the AI. Yeah, that was interesting to see this company going up this much kind of reminds you of the 1999 internet bubble.
Bob:
Yes, A little bit. So fast, so quick. The PE ratios just got way out of whack – way, way, far away from the overall average PE of the market. And will it be able to catch it thinking that these are really the only guys in town and now the news is coming out more and more that it’s not. I just heard another company, a big, big company, I’m not going to mention the name, because that’d be like saying a stock tip, but this morning how all their computers are going to be built with the AI chips, and they’re not getting them from Nvidia.
Shawn:
Which dropped Nvidia down about 20% from their earlier highs. As of when we’re recording.
Bob:
And it is not just that news, but it has just gotten a little, as I say, frothy. So the last several months of the year, it’s been interesting to watch the market returns finally spreading out to the other 493 companies. Okay.
Shawn:
Yeah, exactly.
Bob:
But in the beginning of the year also, we had these large bank failures we had back in the spring, and this caused widespread fear that other banks are going to collapse. We saw the entire banking sector just being sold off, ridiculously dropping by 28% and 30% in value, creating some really good buys, by the way. And it was basically, the two large banks were the Silicon Valley Bank. We heard that in the news back then as Signature Bank, and they were the third and fourth largest bank failures in the United States since 2001 in total assets lost. So that was a big deal, but we seem to have gotten past that now and I’m glad that we have.
Shawn:
Well, because remember, the banking system works as long as we all think it works. Which, I mean, it kind of is about that simple.
Bob:
Yeah, that’s right. So the last part of, as we recap 2024, there seemed to be a constant fear of recession and it wasn’t, I mean, not 2023, I mean going into 2024. For 2023, there was a constant fear of recession. By the way, this has been going on now for about 18 months. It’s just recession, recession, recession is going to happen, and it never did. The unemployment rate never went above 4% for the whole year of 2023.
Shawn:
Which is phenomenal.
Bob:
And the CPI inflation, consumer price index, it started off at 6% at the beginning of the year, and now it’s half that.
Shawn:
Yep. 3.1.
Bob:
Yeah. So that’s right at half that. We were pointing this out the other day. We saw GDP numbers come out, which were double what they were a year earlier.
Shawn:
It came in at 5.2% compared to 2.7% a year earlier, which is phenomenal. I mean, anytime our GDP is 5% or higher, that’s a good rate. And what was the analysts originally? I think they thought it was going to be 4.9, I think, or 4.8, and then the initial results came out at 5.0, but then when they finalized the results, it came out at 5.2. So I mean it’s been good.
Bob:
So the economy has been operating on all eight cylinders if it was an eight cylinder car.
Shawn:
Yeah, I think it was the third quarter earnings came out and for the S&P 500 companies, over 80% of the companies beat the estimates.
Bob:
Beat the estimates. They sure did. That’s right. The supply of goods was nice, too. This last year it seemed like the supply caught up with the demand. And when I drive by the car dealerships now I see so many cars where I remember at the beginning of ’23 and at the end of ’22, the lots, they were empty. But now there is plenty of supply, even maybe a little bit too much supply, which is helping to pull down inflation. That’s a recap of 2023. Looking ahead in 2024, first of all, it’s a presidential election year. Need we say more? The party in power usually wants to do everything that it can that’s possible to make that economy look really good so they can get back in power in the election.
Shawn:
Which I know they’re going to do that. I’m just hoping that maybe we won’t get as much printing money and passing out stimulus checks and all these other things, make people feel good because…
Bob:
Don’t buy the votes. Please don’t buy the votes. Come on.
Shawn:
They do that. And don’t be fooled by that. They send out these checks and you think, oh, sweet, I got an extra thousand bucks or 600 bucks a person or whatever it is.
Bob:
It’s crazy inflation.
Shawn:
But it’s just going to make it worse. Three, four months later, now inflation’s worse.
Bob:
Yeah, right.
Shawn:
It’s the worst thing they could do. Anyway.
Bob:
I’m worried a little bit that the Federal Reserve just said yesterday as we make the program again, that maybe we’re going to lower rates three times next year. Hopefully that’s not going to be a political thing and it’s going to turn that way, but because that could be a concern. The markets love it when interest rates go down, and so if they start lowering those rates, but they need to be careful because they over tightened and now they need to be careful of loosening up too much.
Shawn:
Well, I mean, if anything, Bob, they should have just said, we’re not planning on making any rate changes next year. Just leave it alone for a while. Yeah, because it’s like they keep acting like they’re driving a speedboat instead of a huge tanker.
Bob:
Well, that’s one of the things that’s pushed the market up so quick though, too.
Shawn:
Just the announcement that they’re going to drop rates.
Bob:
Because they’re thinking it’s going to happen around March or April is what the market’s thinking, and maybe another one by the summertime. You know what? We’ll just wait and to see, bottom line. I think returns in 2024 are going to continue to spread out, also, just from the Magnificent Seven as we called it, or the S&P 7, that’s what the CNBC and they called it the Magnificent Seven, but everybody’s talking about that now because so much money went just into that piece of the market, it needs to spread back out. And that’s what’s happening right now.
Shawn:
Which is good. That’s better in the long run.
Bob:
And I think we’re going to see short-term CD rates for banks that’s going to be going down this next year. Of course, when rates go down, boy, it was nice while it lasted. It lasted about a year, year and a half above 5.0%, 5.5%. I looked this morning. You can still get a 5.5% rate. If you can get it, go for it.
Shawn:
Because if you can find one for a 12 month…
Bob:
Take it!
Shawn:
Take it. It’s not going to be around very long.
Bob:
If you can find one for a 24 month, definitely take it. I saw some three year CDs this morning, like 4.9%, I may even take that. So close to 5%. So there you go. That’s a lot of information. I hope that was a good recap for you. We hope you have a very happy New Year. We’re looking forward to the year coming up. Anything else?
Shawn:
As always, thanks for joining us and if you have any specific topics you’d love to see us cover or possibly discuss on an episode, pop that in the comments, or you can visit our website, www.ChristianFinancialAdvisors.com, or you can call or text us, (830) 609-6986.
Bob:
We got some great topics coming up in the next two to three weeks, so stay tuned because we’ve already made some of those programs and they’re very good for the time period.
Shawn:
We’re always open to suggestions.
Bob:
Yes, absolutely.
Shawn:
So thank you as always, and God bless.
[DISCLOSURES]
* Investment advisory services offered through Christian Investment Advisors Inc dba Christian Financial Advisors, a registered investment advisor registered with the SEC. Registration as an investment advisor does not imply a certain level of skill or training. Comments from today’s show are for informational purposes only and not to be considered investment advice or recommendations to buy or sell any company that may have been mentioned or discussed. The opinions expressed are solely those of the hosts, Bob Barber and Shawn Peters, and their guests. Bob and Shawn do not provide tax advice and encourage you to seek guidance from a tax professional. While Christian Financial Advisors believes the information to be accurate and reliable, we do not claim or have responsibility for its completeness, accuracy, or reliability.
16 min
December 18, 2023 187 – The True Joy Of Christmas
Click below to listen to Episode 187 – The True Joy Of Christmas
The True Joy Of Christmas

Discover the true joy of Christmas through the birth of Jesus and a story about a giving family.

More episodes >>

This inspiring Christmas episode is all about reminding listeners of the joy of the season! Bob and Shawn share the original Christmas story of the birth of Jesus as told by Luke, as well as telling an inspiring story about a family who anonymously blessed another family in need.
This Christmas season, we encourage listeners to find ways to help those in need during the Christmas season, whether through financial donations or volunteering time. Use your time and resources to help bless others and in return, you’ll receive immeasurable joy!

HOSTED BY: Bob Barber, CWS®, CKA®
CO-HOST: Shawn Peters
Mentioned In This Episode

Christian Financial Advisors
Website

Bob Barber, CWS®, CKA®

Shawn Peters
Bible Verses In This Episode
LUKE 2:1-20
In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to their own town to register.
So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.
While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.
And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.
But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”
When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”
So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.
But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

Want to ask a question about your specific situation? Schedule a complimentary 15 minute phone call.
SCHEDULE AN APPOINTMENTDid you enjoy this episode? Sign up for email updates and never miss an episode.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Shawn:
Today we’re sharing an inspiring story about a family who anonymously blessed another family in need. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did. Let’s get some perspective. Welcome back to another episode of Christian Financial Perspectives. My name’s Shawn Peters. I’m joined as always by my co-host Bob Barber, and today we’re bringing you our Christmas episode as we’re about one week from Christmas at the time that this should be published. Today we’re going to be covering the Christmas story. We’re going to be covering some Christmas traditions, and we’re going to be sharing with you a story about a family helping another family in need. Bob, would you like to say anything to get us started?
Bob:
I am ready, Shawn. I’ve worked on this quite a bit and I think it’s going to be a very inspirational, especially this Christmas story that you’re going to hear and it just warmed my heart when I found this online. It totally warmed my heart to think, okay, this is something I can do and any of us can do. So please stay tuned today. You’re going to be blessed by today’s episode. But yeah, first we’re going to get into the Christmas story. I think it’s always good to go to God’s word.
Shawn:
We’re going to get started with Luke 2:1-20, “In those days, Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. This was the first census that took place while Corinius was governor of Syria.” Thanks for letting me read this part, Bob.
Bob:
That’s why I’ll let you read it, Shawn.
Shawn:
“And everyone went to their own town to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem, the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloth and placed him in a manger because there was no guest room available for them, and there were shepherds living out on the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shown around them and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people today in the town of David, a Savior has been born to you. He is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be assigned to you. You will find a baby wrapped in cloth and lying in a manger.'”
Bob:
“Suddenly, a great company of the heavenly hosts appeared with the angel praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.’ When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherd said to one another, ‘Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.’ So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph and the baby who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told about this child and all who had heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they’d been told.” There is the Christmas story wrapped up all for you.
Shawn:
Alright, well that about does it for us. So y’all have a wonderful rest of the day.
Bob:
Shawn. So some Christmas traditions I thought would be interesting. You know how Texan I am? I don’t know if you know it, but those who listen, my family goes back in Texas over 190 years. Way, way back.
Shawn:
You look good for 190.
Bob:
Yeah, I do, don’t I. I’m starting to get a lot of gray and losing some hair, too. My great great grandfather, my third great grandfather was the founder of Travis County, which is Austin, Texas. So back then, that was the farthest west that the pioneers had gone. And around Christmas time, of course, they all lived miles apart. So on Christmas time, they would go out on their front porches to wish each other Merry Christmas. Well, they couldn’t yell it. They were too far away. So guess what they did? They took a shotgun and blast three times, boom, boom, boom. You could hear the shotgun blast going off in the distance all over and around. And that’s how they would say Merry Christmas to each other. Actually, this story is in Texas monthly and Austin Statesman. This is an old famous story.
Shawn:
The Hornsby story.
Bob:
The Hornsby story that was on my mom’s side. Other family traditions that we have here in Texas, by the way, I know a lot of you are not in Texas that watch us, is that we always have tamales, chili, and beans on Christmas Eve with pecan pie for dessert, and it’s followed by lots of heartburn that night.
Shawn:
Heartburn is optional, though.
Bob:
Yeah, well it usually comes with it, though.
Shawn:
Depending on your age and whether or not you were medicated before you started eating.
Bob:
That’s a tradition, especially in South Texas and everybody eats those tamales. So I thought this would be a great, this is a great story of a prosperous family. We’re going to call it the prosperous family and the family in need. But I think you’ll be blessed by this story. Alright.
Shawn:
Alright, here we go. What a year we, this prosperous family, had – a new baby daughter, a job promotion, and a brand new home were among the many blessings they had received and they were grateful. They wanted only a few gifts for Christmas because their cups were running over, but they knew their children still anticipated Christmas morning and gifts from Santa. So one evening this prosperous family talked about doing something special for another family in need at Christmas. Their oldest son said, “Why don’t we find a family who needs help and give them presents?” Soon, the prosperous family was excited about the idea, so they decided to do their project anonymously. They didn’t know exactly how they would find a needy “Christmas family”, but they wanted to help. The next morning, the dad made calls to friends who might know of a family in need. That evening at dinner, dad described the family in need he had found.
Bob:
The father of the family in need was a carpenter and out of work. They had three children, one the same age as the prosperous family’s new baby. But their baby had been undergoing many tests as doctors tried to determine why she wasn’t developing properly. Because the family in need had no insurance for all the medical costs, their savings were completely depleted with nothing to spend for Christmas. The next morning while the prosperous family was talking about the family in need, the daughter asked if they could give the family in need some of their clothes. They all agreed that her idea was good. So the children of the prosperous family ran to their bedrooms and began sorting out the clothes they had outgrown. But dad just knew that clothes were not enough.
Shawn:
The following day, Prosperous Dad asked the children if they would like to buy a special present for each member of the Christmas family. Excitement rained as they departed for an evening of holiday shopping. The following week, the prosperous family was ready to deliver gifts, clothing, and oranges to their Christmas family in need. But before they left, Prosperous Dad gathered the children and said, “It sure is great to see all of you so excited to share your Christmas. Do you realize that by buying these gifts and this food you are giving up part of your own Christmas?” The prosperous children had not thought of their project that way before. Their eyes widen as Prosperous Dad took out a crisp, hundred dollar bill.
Bob:
“Do you think we should give this money to the family in need so that they can buy other things they need?” Prosperous Dad asked. “And do you understand that your Christmas will be very small this year because we’re sharing it with a family in need?” Each of the prosperous children grinned and nodded and they tucked the money into a Christmas card and addressed the envelope to “our friends”. They were off to deliver Christmas to their special family.
Shawn:
They parked the car up the street from the family in need and planned their delivery strategy. Within seconds, it was all accomplished. They pulled the car away just as the door opened. That evening, as the prosperous family prayed, their minds and hearts were truly one. Christmas was still a week away, but they felt they had just had theirs. The next morning the phone rang from a friend of Prosperous Dad, “Just thought you’d like to know about a family that received a special gift last night,” His friend said. “They had been wondering if they should use their last $20 to tithe to the local church or if they should keep it because Christmas was nearing and they had no more money. They decided to pay their tithe. Last night, their doorbell rang and when the husband opened the door, he found packages of clothes, gifts, and food. The next morning they noticed a white envelope on the floor and when they opened it, a $100 bill fell out. They know it was the Lord’s way of blessing them for being obedient and their hearts are full of gratitude.
Bob:
Wow, that’s it. What a story. Isn’t that a beautiful story? And it’s a great story for all of us that have been prosperous this year to look for someone in need. There are many, many people in need in our country, in your own town. So I would encourage you to take this story and make something of it and let’s all make a difference this Christmas. One of the things that we did just a few weeks ago is we talked about some unique giving ideas. So if this is not something you can do, there’s also many unique giving ideas like opening a donor advised fund this year and funding that. But go back to episode 184 that we made at the end of November, and that will give you many ideas that you can come up with.
Shawn:
That’s right. If maybe you don’t see yourself as prosperous or having as much to give as this family from the story, you can always give time and effort. I know every year our church for Thanksgiving and Christmas looks for ways that we can give food and meet the needs of people in the community. So talk to your church. Ask around. I’m sure there are places that maybe need extra volunteers, need people to help deliver. It doesn’t have to be money if you don’t necessarily have a lot of money, but we all have time that we can give.
Bob:
And Shawn, I wanted to do one last thing this time, too. It’s a little bit different for us. Okay? First, we want to wish all of our listeners a Merry Christmas next week and hope it’s filled with the love of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But I also want to say that there may be some of you that are listening that don’t know Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior, and we want you to know that he is there for you. And all you got to do is reach up to him and say, Lord, I’ve made a mess of my own life. I’d like to make you my personal Lord and Savior, and we would love to be there with you. If you would like somebody to pray with you, please give us a call or text us and we’ll be glad to reach out. But there’s so much with the walk with the Lord, and I just can’t imagine not being a Christian myself.
Shawn:
Well, we’re here, whether it’s financial or spiritual, give us a call.
[DISCLOSURES]
* Investment advisory services offered through Christian Investment Advisors Inc dba Christian Financial Advisors, a registered investment advisor registered with the SEC. Registration as an investment advisor does not imply a certain level of skill or training. Comments from today’s show are for informational purposes only and not to be considered investment advice or recommendations to buy or sell any company that may have been mentioned or discussed. The opinions expressed are solely those of the hosts, Bob Barber and Shawn Peters, and their guests. Bob and Shawn do not provide tax advice and encourage you to seek guidance from a tax professional. While Christian Financial Advisors believes the information to be accurate and reliable, we do not claim or have responsibility for its completeness, accuracy, or reliability.
12 min
December 11, 2023 186 – Do These 7 Things Before Buying Your Next Vehicle
Click below to listen to Episode 186 – Do These 7 Things Before Buying Your Next Vehicle
Do These 7 Things Before Buying Your Next Vehicle

Following these 7 tips before purchasing your next vehicle could save you thousands!

More episodes >>

Are you thinking about buying a car? Bob and Shawn discuss 7 smart steps to take before you make your decision. This episode is here to help you learn how to make the right vehicle choice with confidence.
It’s crucial to approach the car purchase with the right mindset, not emotions. A vehicle’s price is more than the minimum monthly payment, and it is important to be cautious of all of the add ons and price points that many salespeople will use to manipulate you into a premature purchase. These tips, along with several others, may just help you save thousands on your next car purchase!

HOSTED BY: Bob Barber, CWS®, CKA®
CO-HOST: Shawn Peters
Mentioned In This Episode

Christian Financial Advisors
Website

Bob Barber, CWS®, CKA®

Shawn Peters
Bible Verses In This Episode
JAMES 1:5
If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.

Want to ask a question about your specific situation? Schedule a complimentary 15 minute phone call.
SCHEDULE AN APPOINTMENTDid you enjoy this episode? Sign up for email updates and never miss an episode.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Shawn:
Thinking about buying a car? Here are seven smart steps to take before you decide. Learn how to make the right choice with confidence. Let’s get some perspective.
Welcome to another episode of Christian Financial Perspectives. My name’s Shawn Peters. I’m joined as always by my co-host, Bob Barber, and today we’re going to be talking about the seven things to consider before buying your next vehicle. And so we feel that this will be a really helpful one to cover whether you’ve got a little bit of money or a lot of money or somewhere in between. First and foremost, we’re going to go over our scripture, James 1:5, “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God who gives generously to all without finding fault and will be given to you.” Now, we do have one thing to cover before we get into the official seven things, but we’re kind of bringing this episode to you because this is, I would say, very close to Bob’s heart because these are things that he does. And Bob, I’d say you’re probably one of the few people that kind of enjoy almost the game of buying a car.
Bob:
It’s unfortunate, but I kind of do.
Shawn:
Where most of us get stressed out and frustrated with the whole process. So, the idea here is we’re going to hopefully try to glean from Bob’s experience.
Bob:
I played Monopoly when I was a kid.
Shawn:
And you actually loved it.
Bob:
I loved it. I mean, I’m talking like seven and eight years old. I was playing Monopoly.
Shawn:
That explains so much.
Bob:
That’s it. I mean it’s kind of like that. So I know it’s a process and it can be so stressful, but Shawn cars are so expensive today. Vehicles.
Shawn:
Crazy expensive.
Bob:
Yes. We’ve had several clients recently buy trucks and I’m like, $50-60,000 and these are not the loaded trucks.
Shawn:
If you’re lucky, for a truck.
Bob:
Oh my goodness.
Shawn:
I mean, Bob, we live in a world now where you can buy a Kia that’s $60,000 and that’s the normal price.
Bob:
Yeah.
Shawn:
If you told me that 10 years ago, I would’ve said you’re crazy. But it’s true.
Bob:
Anyway, the first thing, I mean, we’re going to have seven things that we’re going to talk about when buying a car. This is not the first one, but it kind of is the most important thing that I see.
Shawn:
And it’s coming to this with the right mindset, I guess, is how you want to consider.
Bob:
That’s right. So use your savings to buy a car, not your investments. A car is a depreciating asset, Shawn.
Shawn:
And for those who aren’t up to date on their financial terms, depreciating meaning it goes down in overall value over time.
Bob:
Yeah. Cars go down, and investments go up over time. Don’t take something that’s growing and appreciating to put it into something that is depreciating.
Shawn:
And losing value over time.
Bob:
An example of this, let’s take the $50,000 car.
Shawn:
Which is probably average, I would say, nowadays.
Bob:
You’ve got your long-term investment plan, let’s say a balanced or a moderate portfolio making 6% or 7% a year. And so through the rule of 72’s compound interests, we’ve shared that on some other programs. Now, if you take that 50k out of the investment plan, it’s not going to double to 100k in like 10 years, and it’s not going to double to 200k in like 20 years. So I always think of it this way.
Shawn:
So over 20 years, the $50,000 could fairly easily grow to $200,000 in value.
Bob:
Based on historical results. That’s right.
Shawn:
So if you take that $50,000 out of your investment portfolio to buy a car, how much is the car going to be worth in 20 years?
Bob:
I’m guessing $10,000 or 15,000 at the most.
Shawn:
Yeah. Seems about right.
Bob:
Would anybody want to be in an investment plan where you’re guaranteed to lose every single year? I mean, no. Not at all. But people do that with vehicles and it is just amazing how much money is wasted on vehicles. So today what we’re going to do is we’re going to go over the seven things to do before you buy your next vehicle, and hopefully this will at least help you some in saving $5,000 or $10,000 when you’re buying that next vehicle.
Shawn:
I think what we just covered, Bob, kind of brings up a side point if you will, but if your only real option after we cover all these things, if your only real option to buy a car is to take money out of your investment portfolio, then don’t buy the car in the first place. Or, you need to significantly lower your expectations of the kind of car that you want. You don’t need the new $50,000 car. Maybe you need to get a used, not as nice, car because I understand, we understand you have to have a vehicle nowadays.
Bob:
You do.
Shawn:
Especially if you have a growing family. But that does not mean you need to spend anywhere near $50,000 on a car.
Bob:
No, you could buy a 3 or 4-year-old car that maybe has 50,000 miles on it, has another 150k to go – 150,000 miles to go. Now I understand some of you don’t have the savings either, so if you are going to, you’re just absolutely going to buy one, go talk to your credit union about the best interest rate deal you can get. I wouldn’t use the dealership. They may have higher rates. Okay.
Shawn:
Alright. So now on the main event, now the seven things before buying that next vehicle, number one, select the vehicle you want first and foremost by test driving a few at a dealership. But here’s the kicker. Whatever you do, please do not buy for at least another three to four weeks, it will save you thousands of dollars.
Bob:
It will. I’ve seen it over and over. Do not let those emotions get involved. Get away from that dealership. Just find the car you want first because there’s going to be a what?
Shawn:
Why should they wait three to four weeks and not buy that first day of the dealership? Well, it’s because the dealers…Are not going to give you the best price on that first day. You want them to sweat a little bit and try to move that unit, move that product off of their lot. So you give ’em a few more weeks, you don’t look desperate. So you’re negotiating from a position of power.
Bob:
That’s right. They just keep lowering and lowering and lowering the price.
Shawn:
They want to get you in. Yep. So number two, after finding the exact make model, color and year that you’re wanting to buy, search multiple websites. You want to get a good idea of what that car is actually worth, what it’s going for in the market right now. So cars.com, Autotrader, Edmonds, I mean there’s a lot of them.
Bob:
And they’ll give you a mile radius, do it within about a 500 mile radius, not just your local area. A car again is a $50,000 investments investment. It’s not really an investment. What would you call a car?
Shawn:
It’s a necessary expense.
Bob:
It’s a necessary expense.
Shawn:
It’s not an asset, it’s not an investment.
Bob:
So if you got to drive seven or eight hours to go get that car to save yourself $5,000 or $6,000, it’s worth it. Definitely. Or just have it shipped.
Shawn:
Yeah. Sometimes it might even be worth it because if you can save $6,000 might be a thousand dollars to ship it. Well, great.
Bob:
You’re going to be surprised in the variation in dollar amounts on one of these websites like cars.com or edmonds.com or Autotrader.
Shawn:
One kind of sub bullet point on this though is when you’re searching, if you’re looking at a car and you’re seeing that make model color, everything but similar mileage and the car is, let’s say the car is around $40,000 to $50,000 pretty much across the board, if all of a sudden you see a listing for $30,000,
Bob:
That car’s been damaged.
Shawn:
Yeah, probably. It’s one of those things where they’re not being upfront about it and there was something going on and I actually learned that, thankfully not the hard way, but I learned that because I kept seeing for some of these used cars that Jenna and I were looking at like, man, why are some of these options so much better and the car seems to be in really good shape? And then you find out, oh, it’s because they sell a lot of those almost like refurbished because it was in a water damage or it was in an accident, it was totaled. There’s all kinds of stuff.
Bob:
It’s the old saying, “If it sounds so good to be true, it is.” So this third point, this is really something, I’ve done this a lot. Okay?
Shawn:
If it’s a new vehicle, if it’s a new vehicle.
Bob:
If it’s a new vehicle. So if it’s a new vehicle and you found exactly what you want, I have a Nissan Pathfinder.
Shawn:
Whatever it is, go to the manufacturer’s website.
Bob:
Go to the manufacturer website
Shawn:
And find up to 10 dealerships within say 200 to 500 mile radius where you live. Then you’re going to take those dealers and you’re going to contact each one, preferably by email because you want to hear everything in writing, but you can initially talk to ’em over the phone and tell ’em precisely what you want. Now here’s the kicker on this. You want to get the drive out price in writing via email. Do not even tell them whether or not you’re considering a trade-in. Just say that’s not relevant for the discussion right now. You’re just looking for the best price. You may or may not trade in. That’s all they need to know. So once you get that price, take the lowest price and let all the other dealerships know it. Do this two or three times and you know you’ve found more or less the lowest price when they’re only coming back and dropping maybe a hundred dollars. At that point, go to the closest dealer, the local dealer, see if they’ll match it. Sometimes they will. Other times they’ll say, nah, we can’t match that, which is fine. Then in which case, go to another one.
Bob:
I’ve done this over and over, Shawn, and I mean from the time I begin to the time I’m done doing this, there’s about a $5,000 difference. I am amazed and we’re talking y’all just a couple weeks. So this is why it’s so important to follow this process to not buy that car that first day. You are literally throwing $,4000 or $5,000… you’re just throwing it away, right? Okay, alright.
Shawn:
Number four, get educated. All along the way during this process you want to get educated. So obviously this video is intended to try to help you with that, but there are also some other really awesome channels that are more dedicated.
Bob:
By the way, when we were starting this video, it’s one of these as I watched, I said, they do such a great job. They’re a father son team.
Shawn:
Father in law, son in law. Close enough.
Bob:
But YAA. Go on YouTube and put in “YAA car buying” and they’re really fun to watch, too. They have about 10 or 15 minute videos and they go through all of the things you need to be thinking about.
Shawn:
Tricks and techniques that car dealerships will use. They’ve even done some almost like mock scenarios where the dad kind of pretends like he’s the dealership, the car salesman guy, or he’s the finance manager. And so they go through in more detail on a lot of things that we’ve kind of alluded to on this. So I think that’s another really good one is go through and just learn how the tricks and these add-ons and all this other nonsense stuff that they’re just trying to make money on.
Bob:
It’s because the dad was in the car, he’s been in the car business for a very long time and some examples they’ll give you and I’m going to give you right now is don’t ever buy a car just on car payment. That’s crazy.
Shawn:
The price is what actually matters.
Bob:
Right. Because the car payment, even though you may be buying a car on payment, what interest rate are they charging? How long are the terms? They really hark a lot on that program about the extended warranties and how a huge markup.
Shawn:
Paint protection.
Bob:
Right. So these extras all have a lot of markup and you just don’t need ’em. Stay away from it.
Shawn:
High markup and little to no value.
Bob:
Number five, do not allow emotions at all to play into the vehicle deal. I know that’s hard, but you’ve heard me say over and over that emotions have no place in financial transactions. They just don’t have a place in it. Don’t let the car person manipulate you, folks. I’m sorry, and I don’t mean to be putting down. There’s just some good car salespeople that even go to our church.
Shawn:
But they will try to be your best friend. They will tell you what you want to hear. Bob’s been in the investment industry a long time and he’s heard it countless times of, “Well, what is it you do? Oh, I really need to talk to you about that. I really need to do some financial planning or I like that you guys are a Christian company. I really want to work with that.” And then weird how after Bob bought the car that they never called him, never one time, just disappeared.
Bob:
I’ve never had it happen one single time.
Shawn:
But they’re saying all this, they’re doing this because they’re paid on a commission. They have a significant conflict of interest to do what’s in their best interest monetarily and not yours, all the way down to signing the paperwork in the finance office where they try to sell you more so that sales guy is not your lifeline to make sure that the finance manager isn’t raking you over the coals. They’re still trying to close that deal.
Bob:
And they’re trying to sell you those extras. The finance manager gets paid based on that, too. So throughout the whole thing, it’s just spending extra thousands and thousands of dollars if you don’t follow these guidelines that we’re putting in place for you.
Shawn:
So be on your guard and be very suspicious until you are finally home with the new car, right? Or the new-to-you card.
Bob:
And unfortunately, I’m sorry you have to do that, but you have to. Okay, number six, do everything online, if possible. This is where I said in the beginning, you go find the car that you want, but from that point, the only time you should step into the dealership again would be the day you buy it.
Shawn:
Or you’re picking up the vehicle. Maybe you even sign the paperwork electronically and so you’re just walking in to pick up the keys and get a copy of the executed paperwork.
Bob:
So many benefits to doing that. The emotions are not there. The price transparency is. You’re not under pressure.
Shawn:
It’s a lot more convenient.
Bob:
You get to read all the paperwork, the speed, and you get the selection of the vehicle that you want. So there’s so many benefits to buying that car lot online. And then we come down to the seventh and I think one of the most important points of buying a car, because it is one of the largest purchases you do in your life besides your home.
Shawn:
Pray about the decision.
Bob:
Yes.
Shawn:
Because this is not a decision that you should be making quickly. It’s not a decision that you should be making under pressure. There is no emergency to buy that car. It doesn’t matter what it is. Doesn’t matter how good the car people, salespeople think the deal is.
Bob:
Even if it’s broken down, you can go rent a car for a few days.
Shawn:
Exactly. So pray about it. Seek wise counsel from someone with your best interest in mind, not a salesperson.
Bob:
And integrate, because it’s such a large purchase today, it needs to be integrated into a financial plan, in my opinion. As we get to the point, like I said in the beginning, over the years, vehicle purchases have cost people many hundreds of thousands of dollars and lost net worth in the future.
Shawn:
Without anything really to show for it.
Bob:
Yeah, exactly.
Shawn:
Buying vehicles is usually the second largest expenditure that most people will make in life besides buying home.
Bob:
So, let’s end on the scripture we started with.
Shawn:
That’s right, James 1:5, “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God who gives generously to all without finding fault and it will be given to you.” Thanks for joining us. Feel free to post stuff in the comments if there’s any other topics that you want us to cover. It doesn’t have to be about investments. If we can tie it to finance, we’re happy to help. Thanks, God bless.
[DISCLOSURES]
* Investment advisory services offered through Christian Investment Advisors Inc dba Christian Financial Advisors, a registered investment advisor registered with the SEC. Registration as an investment advisor does not imply a certain level of skill or training. Comments from today’s show are for informational purposes only and not to be considered investment advice or recommendations to buy or sell any company that may have been mentioned or discussed. The opinions expressed are solely those of the hosts, Bob Barber and Shawn Peters, and their guests. Bob and Shawn do not provide tax advice and encourage you to seek guidance from a tax professional. While Christian Financial Advisors believes the information to be accurate and reliable, we do not claim or have responsibility for its completeness, accuracy, or reliability.
17 min
December 04, 2023 185 – The High Cost of Cash Value Life Insurance
Click below to listen to Episode 185 – The High Cost of Cash Value Life Insurance
The High Cost of Cash Value Life Insurance

Discover which type of life insurance should be best for you!

More episodes >>

Are sky high fees making cash value life insurance a poor investment for you? Should you just buy term life insurance and invest the difference yourself? Bob and Shawn discuss the true cost of cash value life insurance, such as whole life and universal life. Life insurance is almost always a must to protect your family and immediate loved ones in the case of your death, especially from your 20’s to 60’s.
This episode highlights the various fees and charges associated with these policies, including upfront premium loads and surrender charges. No matter what you decide after listening to this episode, it is highly recommended to seek advice from a fee-based advisor or CPA.

HOSTED BY: Bob Barber, CWS®, CKA®
CO-HOST: Shawn Peters
Mentioned In This Episode

Christian Financial Advisors
Website

Bob Barber, CWS®, CKA®

Shawn Peters
Bible Verses In This Episode
LUKE 14:28-29
Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you.
PROVERBS 22:3
The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and pay the penalty.

Want to ask a question about your specific situation? Schedule a complimentary 15 minute phone call.
SCHEDULE AN APPOINTMENTDid you enjoy this episode? Sign up for email updates and never miss an episode.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Shawn:
Are sky high fees making cash value life insurance a poor investment for you? Should you just buy term and invest the difference yourself? Let’s get some perspective.
Welcome to another episode of Christian Financial Perspectives. We’re so glad that you’ve joined us, whether that’s video or audio. My name is Shawn Peters and I’m joined as always by my co-host, Bob Barber. And today we are going to be talking about the true cost of cash value life insurance, which of course goes by many different names, the most common being whole life and universal life. And we’re going to talk a little bit about some scriptures that I think go really well with this and when it is actually useful versus when many times it gets sold. And so, really the point of this is either it’s for you if you’re considering whole universal life or probably someone that you know, hopefully this will help them make the right decision. So as with all things, we want to start with scripture and we want to make sure that we equip people to make good financial decisions using Biblical principles. So Bob, anything to add before we get into the scripture?
Bob:
Nope, I think we’re ready. Okay.
Shawn:
Luke 14:28-29, “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower, won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it for? If you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you.”
Bob:
So I want to say something here. The reason I picked this scripture, and we’ve used this scripture many times, but one of the reasons estimating the cost is talked about in this scripture. You’ve got to know the cost of something before you go into it, not after you’re already in it.
Shawn:
That’s right, that’s right. And our second verse, Proverbs 22:3, “The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and pay the penalty.”
Bob:
You could pay severe penalties with cash value life insurance, which we will talk about later.
Shawn:
That’s right. Okay. Cash value life insurance, unlike straightforward term life insurance in most cases, is sold as 1) A retirement plan alternative; 2) a college savings plan; 3) Bank on yourself plan; 4) A savings plan; and 5) Which in some cases for very highly valued estate to cover estate taxes and other complex planning cases for taxes.
Bob:
That’s about 1/10th of the population on that fifth one by the way. Okay. Because it means your estate would have to probably be over $20 million before there’s going to be an estate tax problem, a married couple.
Shawn:
So anything we should know yet on those five, Bob?
Bob:
Not really, but I know Shawn, that what got me excited about this was a couple of weeks ago you sent me a video about this bank on yourself plan.
Shawn:
That’s right. I think the current term that they’re using is “infinite banking”.
Bob:
Oh, is that what they’re using today?
Shawn:
Yeah. I think that’s what they’re calling it.
Bob:
The bank on yourself plan is what they were using 20 years ago.
Shawn:
It’s same thing, just slightly different name.
Bob:
We’ll go into this, but I think it’s important that you know this is how cash value life insurance is sold, and there’s four types of cash value life insurance policies. Their main one is variable universal life. And that has to do with, you could pick any, you have your pick of subaccounts that are like S&P 500 index or a large cap fund, small cap fund etc.
Shawn:
It functions a little bit more like a variable annuity, for example.
Bob:
It does.
Shawn:
Similar.
Bob:
Even a 401k that has all your choices in it. Okay. Another one is indexed universal life. That came out when fixed indexed annuities came out. Then we have universal life that came about, gosh, that’s been around 35 or 40 years. It’s kind of tied to the interest rates where interest rates are. So it may be getting more attractive today with interest rates being higher. And then the old kind of policy, whole life life insurance. Whole life insurance has been around, I think, probably a hundred years or longer. It’s built empires, I can tell you that. We share later in the program. Today, I was writing this thinking about this, is that the largest nicest buildings in America are life insurance buildings, life insurance buildings.
Shawn:
It’s almost like they’re making money off of that.
Bob:
Yeah, I think so. Exactly. You think about cash value life insurance, there’s a lot of fees and expenses, and that’s what we’re here to really educate you on. We’re here about educating you with wisdom. So we’re going to go through a lot of the cost of a cash value life insurance plan. Remember, that’s just universal life, variable universal life, whole life, or indexed universal life. The number one thing up front is that even before your money goes in, Shawn, there’s an upfront premium load in sales charge that compensates for the sales expenses. This is for marketing the policy. The high commissions that are paid to the life insurance agent that sells this. And also most people don’t realize this, there’s state and local taxes that actually come with cash value life insurance, and they’re deducted from every single payment made to the policy before it’s even applied to it. So right up front, it’s usually a 5-7% charge, which is pretty high.
Shawn:
Kind of look at that as when people have a mortgage payment earlier in the loan, there’s obviously a pretty high percentage of the regular payment that goes to the interest. So you’ve got to pay well over and above that if you want to actually try to pay it down in the capital faster. So same thing here. So you have that premium that you’re paying, but there’s quite a bit in fees, it gets taken right off the top.
Bob:
So if you’re paying a $200 a month premium or payment, they call it premiums in the insurance industry, then you could think about $20, probably around $20, $15-20 of that has already just kind of taken off the table. Okay. Next are the ongoing administrative fees, which can also, that comes out, too. So now, you’ve had this upfront load come out. Now you’ve got this ongoing administrative fee that’s used to pay the policy costs, all the accounting and the record keeping that goes into this. And these are usually deducted monthly or some cases it’ll be annually, which is another charge.
Shawn:
That’s right. So next, number three, we have mortality and expense risk charges. So when a life insurance company issues a policy, they estimate you’ll live to a certain age based on your current age, gender, and health. A mortality and expense charge compensates them if the insured does not live to the estimated age. This charge is generally once a month.
Bob:
So now we’re at three different charges. Right?
Shawn:
That’s right. We’re already at three different charges.
Bob:
There’s a lot being taken out. Next is if the sub-accounts are in there, there’s high fund management fees. You’ll notice that the fees are higher inside of a variable universal life than it is outside by itself or like an ETF that you could buy really low cost out in the marketplace.
Shawn:
So effectively it’s another fee where those funds that you’re in, you’re getting charged to be in those funds within that life insurance policy.
Bob:
Charged a little bit more possibly than you are if you’d just gone direct to those funds. Okay. A little bit in there for the insurance company and then…
Shawn:
We thought taxes were bad.
Bob:
Yeah, I mean this just, it really starts taking out, it’s chipping away more and more and more chipping away. And then we do have, which is kind of like the mortality expense charge, but it’s the actual life insurance cost itself, which if you buy term and invest the rest, you’re still going to have that life insurance cost. But this is based on your age and your gender, your underwriting classification. How healthy are you when they’re issuing the policy?
Shawn:
Well, and of course this particular cost compared to term is also going to be quite a bit more expensive since term at least has a fixed term or period like the name implies. But with these different types of cash value life insurance, they don’t have an expiration. So just comparing apples to apples, it’s still going to have a slightly higher insurance cost itself.
Bob:
And again, this charge is assessed monthly.
Shawn:
That’s right. So another monthly fee. So the last one are high surrender charges and fees that are deducted from the cash value if you surrender or terminate the life insurance cash value policy during the surrender charge period, which usually varies between 10-15 years, a fairly long time.
Bob:
That’s a long time. It really is. So you go put $20,000 or $50,000 in one of these, it could be a very, very long time before you can get that 50k plus all the earnings that it’s making back.
Shawn:
That’s right. And they do that obviously, because the insurance company doesn’t really want you to pull the money back out or surrender it early.
Bob:
And you’ve got to evaluate all these different fees that go into it. It’s very, very important to do that. I mean, the question is, should you buy cash value life insurance as a retirement, college savings, bank on yourself, or savings type of plan? And Shawn, in almost all cases, the mathematical answer to this question, you know me, I always say it’s just math, is a resounding no. No, you shouldn’t.
Shawn:
So almost all cases when you look at the math, the answer is no, you should not.
Bob:
Right. You’re better off buying a much less expensive straight term, 10 or 20 year level term policy.
Shawn:
You could even do 30 if you wanted, especially if you’re starting younger.
Bob:
When it first started off with term, it was just annual renewable term, and then they went to the level 5, 10, 15, 20, and now, yeah, you can go all the way 30 years out and if you’re in your mid thirties, buy a 30 year term and they’re going to, I mean the prices are so much lower than buying whole life. Take that difference, because you’re buying it pennies on the dollar.
Shawn:
Oh yeah. I got a 30 year term life insurance when Jenna and I first got married. And so I’m still in my twenties and I mean it’s super cheap. I’d have to go look at the bill, but I mean it’s very, very cheap. And then when I went to get an additional policy, another 30 year in my early thirties after Rhonan was born, it was quite a bit more expensive, but still very cheap. It was more than what it was in my twenties, but still even in my thirties, getting another 30 year to add some additional coverage on there just in case something happens to me and the house gets paid off, the kids have money, and it’s crazy how cheap it still is, even in your thirties.
Bob:
It’s cheap for a 30 year old. It’s not cheap at 61, though. Y’all I’m there now, but thank goodness I don’t need life insurance anymore. The kids are out of the nest. We have adequate savings and investments, we’re debt free, so we don’t need life insurance anymore.
Shawn:
Well that’s really the point when you hear people say, “Buy term and invest the rest,” the reason for that is when you look at a chart and you’re looking at over time, basically your term life insurance in this case is to help cover the assets that your family might need if something should happen to you prematurely. But over time, as you continue to build your savings and your investment assets, that number will be higher and higher than your term to where eventually when the term turns out you don’t need it. That’s kind of the whole point is to help you get over that difference.
Bob:
The whole goal is you start off with this amount of insurance you can see here and you’re this much in savings and they flip flop.
Shawn:
Exactly.
Bob:
And then the savings comes up here and you’ve got your insurance down here. And it makes sense because the older you get the insurance companies, there’s mortality tables, they know you’re getting closer. We’re all going to die someday. And the older you get, the less years you have.
Shawn:
So you’re saying someone at 85 is more likely that they might not live another 30 years than someone in their thirties?
Bob:
Exactly. All these expenses that we went over today are very important to understand and know. I do want to say this, though. There are some cases for those that want permanent life insurance…
Shawn:
Where it makes sense.
Bob:
It makes sense. Right. Because you have a level premium your whole life. Also, if any health issues change, it’s there with you. It’s not going away. Other reasons may be, like we mentioned at the beginning, if you have a major estate tax problem, but today, husband and wife together combined, estate planning, you have to be over 20 million. That means 1/10th of the population needs that.
Shawn:
If you need the life insurance for that. Congrats. You’ve done pretty well.
Bob:
I do want to mention that there is 99% of the cases we’re saying buy that term, but in whole life, universal life, index life, there is a clear winner in these policies. You want to say who the clear winners are, Shawn?
Shawn:
In someone actually buying one of these cash value life insurance, right?
Bob:
Yeah.
Shawn:
The sales person and the insurance company.
Bob:
Exactly.
Shawn:
Because the sales person gets the huge commission. The insurance company gets to collect not just your premiums, but all the extra fees and expenses for years on end, like we talked about before. It could be 15 years, even if you wanted to get out of it, or you pay a bunch of penalties. Yeah. I mean, why do you think insurance agents and insurance companies love it so much?
Bob:
And that’s one of the reasons a good old farmer told me one time that the insurance companies and banks are built of marble and granite and our homes are built of sticks and stones. So bottom line is count the cost. Like we said in the beginning with the scripture we shared. Count all the costs before entering into a cash value life insurance policy such as whole life, universal life, et cetera, and have a fiduciary fee-based advisor or CPA that does not sell life insurance. There’s no reason for them to analyze the real facts about what you’re getting into. It’s very, very important. Don’t have a commission-based life insurance person.
Shawn:
Yeah. I mean it’s a conflict of interest. I know that maybe should seem obvious, but the point is don’t ask someone for advice about whether or not you should buy a product that they directly benefit significantly from financially. It’s not a good idea.
Bob:
And they are taught Shawn in class after class how to make it look appealing, and they’re very good at what they do because they spend hours of teaching how to sell these policies.
Shawn:
Yes. Because it’s about selling the policy, not what’s doing right for the client.
Bob:
In the end, folks, life insurance is very important. It’s very important for somebody, especially like you, Shawn, you’re younger, you haven’t gotten to the millions yet or even the hundreds of thousands yet, okay. And with that term policy, immediately you’re covering your family. I have seen many, many cases, I’ve been around a long time in this business, over 30 years, and I’ve seen families saved where the breadwinner has had a unfortunate either accident or a disease like cancer strike them and take their lives. And thank goodness the life insurance was there. As a general rule of thumb, I always say multiply your annual income times 10-15x and that’s the amount of insurance you should need. So if you’re making a hundred thousand a year, you need about a million to a million and a half of coverage, and it’s not going to be much with a term policy. Go with a term policy. And by the way, don’t forget to invest the rest. I would say if you got a good 401k, invest in that 401k and take that match that your employer’s giving.
Shawn:
Max that out as much as you can. That’s right.
Bob:
I hope this has been educational today.
Shawn:
Yeah, hopefully. If this doesn’t apply to you because you’re not considering one of the cash value life insurance, I’m sure you know someone that is considering it or has talked about it or will come up in conversation at some point. So hopefully this will help them as well. Alright, well thanks as always for joining us and God bless.
[DISCLOSURES]
* Investment advisory services offered through Christian Investment Advisors Inc dba Christian Financial Advisors, a registered investment advisor registered with the SEC. Registration as an investment advisor does not imply a certain level of skill or training. Comments from today’s show are for informational purposes only and not to be considered investment advice or recommendations to buy or sell any company that may have been mentioned or discussed. The opinions expressed are solely those of the hosts, Bob Barber and Shawn Peters, and their guests. Bob and Shawn do not provide tax advice and encourage you to seek guidance from a tax professional. While Christian Financial Advisors believes the information to be accurate and reliable, we do not claim or have responsibility for its completeness, accuracy, or reliability.
18 min
November 27, 2023 184 – Year End Charitable Gifting Ideas
Click below to listen to Episode 184 – Year End Charitable Gifting Ideas
Year End Charitable Gifting Ideas

Cash giving isn’t the only option when it comes to supporting your favorite charities!

More episodes >>

Want to give beyond just cash this year? Donate stocks, real estate, required IRA distributions, and more by December 31st. Bob and Shawn discuss the importance of alternative non-cash giving, as the majority of charitable giving is done through cash despite cash being a small portion of people’s assets.
Various options for non-cash giving are discussed in depth, including opening a donor-advised fund, contributing to a charitable gift annuity, donating appreciated stocks, and donating other valuable assets. Tune in now to learn about the many ways to give to your favorite charities in unique ways that continue to offer support for many years down the road.

HOSTED BY: Bob Barber, CWS®, CKA®
CO-HOST: Shawn Peters
Mentioned In This Episode

Christian Financial Advisors
Website

Bob Barber, CWS®, CKA®

Shawn Peters

Fidelity Charitable
Website

National Christian Foundation
WebsiteVimeoInstagram
Bible Verses In This Episode
ACTS 20:35
In everything I showed you that by working hard in this way you must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that He Himself said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

Want to ask a question about your specific situation? Schedule a complimentary 15 minute phone call.
SCHEDULE AN APPOINTMENTDid you enjoy this episode? Sign up for email updates and never miss an episode.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Shawn:
Want to give beyond just cash this year? Donate stocks, real estate, required IRA distributions, and more by December 31st. Let’s get some perspective.
Hi, my name is Shawn Peters. I’m joined as always by my father-in-law and Co-host Bob Barber. Today we’re going to be talking about year-end charitable giving ideas. And this is really helpful because there’s still time between now and the end of the year, assuming you watch this within the first week or so of being published. But our scripture for today is going to be Acts 20:35, “In everything I showed you that by working hard in this way, you must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus that he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.'” For those of you who don’t know, Bob is the one who puts most, if not all, of the scripts and information together for this. So Bob, do you have any quick comments before we get started?
Bob:
I do Shawn, and I think the main emphasis here in the scripture is that it is actually more blessed to give than receive. And I don’t think people will understand that until they start giving. We’re all about giving to Compassion here in a huge way and sponsor all these children. And gosh, I’m blessed by that. So we’re going to share with you seven ideas today, and the most important thing I want you to reach from today is not just giving, but that most all charitable giving, 90-95% of that is done from cash, right? So there’s the other 90-95% that no one ever thinks about giving. And today we’re going to talk about non-cash giving a lot. So a few of these will involve cash, but others won’t.
Shawn:
So basically the majority of charitable giving is through cash, even though that’s a fairly small portion of assets that people control.
Bob:
I remember seeing a pie chart where, yeah, there’s just this little bitty piece of pie. That’s what we have in cash. The rest of it is in IRAs, mutual funds, brokerage accounts, bank accounts, saving accounts, and the list goes on.
Shawn:
Alright, well that takes us right into number one, which is open a donor-advised fund. A donor-advised fund or DAF is like a charitable investment account to support charitable organizations that you care about. When you contribute cash securities or other assets to a donor-advised fund at a public charity, like Fidelity Charitable, you are generally eligible to take an immediate tax deduction. Then those funds can be invested for tax-free growth and you can recommend grants to any eligible, IRS qualified public charity.
Bob:
So there’s a lot of these donor-advised funds that are offered. Fidelity was one that you mentioned. There’s the National Christian Foundation, and I like using them. But the nice thing about a donor-advised fund is you can give it anytime you want to. You can give all kinds of different things like cash, not just cash. Yeah, I mean you could give a precious piece of art that may be worth a couple thousand dollars. You could give that to the donor advised fund. It would be a deduction. And then like you say, it’s likes like a bank account. It’s like a charitable banking account in which you can give it now, get the deduction now. This is why it’s so important that we’re doing this right now at the beginning of December.
Shawn:
Because there’s still time.
Bob:
Because you can get the deduction, but you don’t have to give it to the charity next year or even the following year. You could give at a later time.
Shawn:
Maybe this would be an easier way for our viewers and listeners to reconcile. So you’re getting the deduction immediately, but when that charitable gift goes to the charity, it does not have to be at the same time.
Bob:
That’s correct. That’s right.
Shawn:
So you’re kind of separating those where obviously when you give cash to a charity, it’s an immediate, it’s a deduction for that tax year, but it also immediately goes to the charity. This allows you to make those deductions, but you can wait until later for whatever reason, but you can wait until later to actually give it to the charity.
Bob:
Why would you do that? Maybe you’re getting a huge bonus and you want to give, you need a deduction right before the end of the year. So you could give a third of that a bonus or 40 or 50% or all of that.
Shawn:
Or maybe you’re accumulating a lot of assets or maybe it’s stocks and securities, you want to allow them to grow and then later you want to start doing a regular contribution per year to the charity out of that donor advised fund.
Bob:
You absolutely can.
Shawn:
Awesome. Okay, so number two, contribute to a charitable gift annuity. This one sounds similar. Bob, do you want to cover this one?
Bob:
So a charitable gift annuity is a contract between a donor and a charity with the following terms. As a donor, you make a sizable gift to a charity using cash, again, securities or any other assets. But in return, this is what’s interesting about a charitable gift return annuity. In return, you’ll be eligible to take a partial tax deduction and get back a fixed income stream. So somebody that’s very charitably minded, but they need an income from maybe what they have in savings and you’re going to get a very competitive interest rate on a charitable gift annuity. So you don’t get a full deduction for it, but you get still a large deduction that can be carried over in future years. Also, if you don’t use it all this year.
Shawn:
Very similar to a normal annuity in that you annuitize and you’re going to start getting an income. But the interesting part of this is that there’s a partial tax deduction that you receive for that upfront donation.
Bob:
And the part that you may not use that’s in the annuity goes to charity. That can be, you can name a donor advised fund. So it can be a family donor advised fund, where if you do an annuitize with an annuity with an insurance company, they’re going to keep the money versus charitable organization keeping the money. Okay.
Shawn:
I like sound of that. Alright, so number three, donate appreciated stocks. So you can donate to a donor-advised fund or you can do this as a ministry for churches.
Bob:
Which is what we do.
Shawn:
Exactly. Sorry. We will do that as a ministry.
Bob:
We’ll do it as a ministry for your church. We will open a brokerage account and you can donate a stock to it once the brokerage account’s in the name of your church, and then you’ll get that deduction for what the security is worth, what the stock is worth, and then we’ll sell it for your church so they can use that for ministry. We do this all for free. This is a ministry of Christian Financial Advisors. Does that make sense?
Shawn:
Yep. I was just reading it wrong.
Bob:
Now, when we say appreciated stock, not a lot this year maybe, but hey, if you bought some, what was it, Navidia at the beginning of the year and went up, what, 80% maybe you want to give some of that if you bought that particular stock.
Shawn:
So number four, donate real estate. So it could be raw land, a residential lot, any other kind of acreage, et cetera. I mean there are obviously a lot of different types of real estate – that you aren’t planning on ever using or selling.
Bob:
So I have a great example here. We had a client that did this in San Antonio. She had about a three acre lot on the corner of a very high traffic location. And this thing went, I mean it went up in value and was worth about a million and a half dollars. She loved a Christian school that she went to in her earlier years, and this still is a very strong Christian school. I don’t want to mention the name of that.
Shawn:
Yeah, we don’t want to give too many exact details.
Bob:
She did a charitable gift annuity with that and donated that lot that she had in San Antonio in that commercial district and got the full deduction. She didn’t have to pay any taxes at all.
Shawn:
So she generated an income off of a lot she really didn’t plan on do anything with.
Bob:
That’s right, for the rest of her life.
Shawn:
And then when she does pass away, the school is able to do whatever they want with it.
Bob:
They sell it.
Shawn:
Or they can build on it.
Bob:
What might be left of what’s left in the annuity.
Shawn:
Wow, that’s awesome.
Bob:
Now, if she lives to 120 years old, there might not be anything left in that annuity.
Shawn:
Okay. Wow, that’s a great one. So number five, make those required minimum distributions or RMDs, make them through a qualified charitable distribution.
Bob:
We refer to that as a QCD.
Shawn:
Exactly. QCD. So there are clients of ours that have accounts with RMDs, but because of their other, maybe the pension, social security, whatever the case may be, but they have RMDs they really don’t need. Well the government wants you to make those RMDs though because they want to get the tax money. So if you’re in a situation like that, either partial or full RMD, you can go through a qualified charitable distribution to satisfy that requirement, but payable to a qualified charity.
Bob:
And it makes so much sense because you don’t want the money coming to you and then give it to the charity because then you may not be able to deduct it. You declare it as income.
Shawn:
The way this works is a QCD is a direct transfer of funds from your IRA. The custodian does this for you, but from the IRA paid to the qualified charity. So because of that, it satisfies the RMD requirement, but since it never goes into your hands, it goes straight from the custodian in the IRA to the charity, it doesn’t create that taxable event on the RMD. So, I love that as an option if you’re in that situation, you don’t need the RMD, well just give it to the church or give it to a charity.
Bob:
We have a lot of people like that, Shawn, because in our area we have a large military retirement crowd, I guess. And because they were stationed in San Antonio years ago and they like to come back and retire in this area and really from their pensions, from their pension plan they’re getting from the government, than their social security. And if they worked outside of the workplace anywhere, they have more than they need. But then comes this RMD, and by the way, you can go beyond the RMD once you’re in that age bracket, you have to be in the age bracket of an RMD, which is 70.5 or older. Now, it’s going to 73 because that’s when the RMD requirements for somebody my age is going to be 73 years old. But I’m way away from that by the way. I’ve still got a lot of years to go there. But you can go much larger than the RMD itself. You can go up to a hundred thousand dollars if you wanted to. Not that you would do that, but I’m just say your RMD is supposed to be $8,000. Well, you could give $15,000 to your charity. And I really emphasize that people use their RMD in lieu of cash giving to their church. If you’re tithing to your church, give from your RMD as a tithe, it makes so much sense financially and tax wise.
Shawn:
Just assume you’re in a lower tax bracket. Even at 20-22% range, you’re giving 20-22% more to your church by using the money as a qualified charitable distribution from your IRA instead of paying the cash. So it just makes sense if you are already going to give some money to the church anyway and you have an RMD, use that as a qualified charitable distribution.
Bob:
And another thing is this year, for the first time
Shawn:
2023.
Bob:
Yep. You can give a QCD qualified charitable distribution to a charitable gift annuity up to a maximum onetime event of $50,000.
Shawn:
Wow. That’s awesome.
Bob:
Alright, now we’re down to the last two, number six and number seven.
Shawn:
Number six is donating physical gold or silver or whatever precious metal, but donating physical precious metals.
Bob:
Just think about this folks. Are you really going to take the gold to the gas station and buy gas with it? Are you going to take it to HEB? They’re probably not going to accept it. Well, I say HEB in our area. I know some of you up north, you don’t know what that means, but that’s our local big grocery store chain here in Texas.
Shawn:
That’s the place to go. We have a whole episode on that. Should check out our episode on gold. So number seven, donate an old car, truck, or anything of value like loan notes, estate gifts, retirement plans, mineral rights, oil and gas royalties, copyrights and intellectual property, or patents. Really anything that has some sort of intrinsic value and you can donate that as well.
Bob:
So there you have it. There’s seven ideas for donating. Many of those, as you can see, they’re non-cash gifts. It comes back to that. Remember that the majority of what we have is not in cash.
Shawn:
That’s right.
Bob:
So let’s give from the non-cash and make it tax efficient as well. Now if you need help with all of this, this is a lot of charitable giving ideas, give us a call. I also want to emphasize if you want to make this a deduction for this year, it needs to be done by December 31st. And please don’t be calling us on December 30th. You’ve got two weeks to make a decision on this, basically, because we got to set this in motion. It’s going to take a few days and with Christmas and everything…do it now.
Shawn:
I would just say if you haven’t actually started the process of opening whatever account or whatever the situation is by December 15th, it’s too late. You’re not going to have enough time.
Bob:
So sit down with your spouse tonight and talk about this and y’all get together and get your tray tables out and go to YouTube and watch this online.
Shawn:
Thanks for joining us as always and God bless.
[DISCLOSURES]
* Investment advisory services offered through Christian Investment Advisors Inc dba Christian Financial Advisors, a registered investment advisor registered with the SEC. Registration as an investment advisor does not imply a certain level of skill or training. Comments from today’s show are for informational purposes only and not to be considered investment advice or recommendations to buy or sell any company that may have been mentioned or discussed. The opinions expressed are solely those of the hosts, Bob Barber and Shawn Peters, and their guests. Bob and Shawn do not provide tax advice and encourage you to seek guidance from a tax professional. While Christian Financial Advisors believes the information to be accurate and reliable, we do not claim or have responsibility for its completeness, accuracy, or reliability.
15 min
November 20, 2023 183 – 7 Takeaways For Christmas Spending
Click below to listen to Episode 183 – 7 Takeaways For Christmas Spending
7 Takeaways For Christmas Spending

We discuss seven budget friendly ways to give gifts this Christmas season.

More episodes >>

Want to avoid debt this Christmas? Make a budget, limit gifts, and remember the reason for the season – Jesus. Bob and Shawn discuss seven takeaways for Christmas spending. Some takeaways suggest using cash or a debit card instead of a credit card to prevent overspending. Thoughtful and meaningful gifts that will be remembered are usually better than expensive gifts. This Christmas, don’t forget to focus on the true meaning of Christmas and to have fun giving gifts!

HOSTED BY: Bob Barber, CWS®, CKA®
CO-HOST: Shawn Peters
Mentioned In This Episode

Christian Financial Advisors
Website

Bob Barber, CWS®, CKA®

Shawn Peters
Bible Verses In This Episode
MATTHEW 1:18-22
This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).
JOHN 1:1-5;14
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Want to ask a question about your specific situation? Schedule a complimentary 15 minute phone call.
SCHEDULE AN APPOINTMENTDid you enjoy this episode? Sign up for email updates and never miss an episode.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Shawn:
Want to avoid debt this Christmas? Make a budget, limit gifts, and remember the reason for the season – Jesus. Let’s get some Christmas perspective.
Welcome to another episode of Christian Financial Perspectives. We’re so glad that you’ve joined us. My name is Shawn Peters and my co-host joins me, Bob Barber. Today we’re going to be talking about seven takeaways for Christmas spending. And the idea of this, of course, is well, we’re a financial podcast, so we got to find some sort of financial topic for Christmas, right, Bob?
Bob:
Well, and Thanksgiving is next week. That’s right. And what is it, they call it Black Friday. And if you still get the old fashioned newspaper comes where it’s about two or three inches thick full of ads. And everybody is, I mean, I know 20 years ago, I dunno if this still goes on because I don’t do it, but I know 20 years ago, 25 years ago, everybody was up on Friday morning after Thanksgiving, about 5:00 AM in the morning hitting the Walmarts and the Best Buys of the world.
Shawn:
And now so many of those things end up being available online Christmas day in the afternoon or Friday morning.
Bob:
Yeah, we all it cyber, right? Cyber Black Friday or Cyber Monday, things like that.
Shawn:
What we thought would be very helpful is, and some of these may seem a little redundant maybe, or you’ve heard ’em before, but repetition, repetition, repetition.
Bob:
Well, it’s good wisdom. And I think the scripture I picked to go with seven takeaways for Christmas spending is from Proverbs 22:7. Now you’ve heard us say this on Christian Financial Perspectives, “The rich rule over the poor and the borrower is slave to the lender,” which takes us to our first takeaway. And that is some people can pay off that credit card and are great about it. I mean, I know you and Jenna use a credit card and you’re so disciplined.
Shawn:
The reason for it.
Bob:
But you’re the half percent.
Shawn:
Yes, we might be the exception, but the reason why is for a lot of people, Bob, when they look at a credit card, there’s no budget in place in the first place. And so, we treat our credit card for us at least like a debit card because whatever money we’re spending, it’s already in the bank. We only do it because it racks up points for us.
Bob:
You’re different, Shawn.
Shawn:
I know it’s different. So in general, I would say the rule of thumb is do not use the credit card.
Bob:
Do not use a credit card. Do not go into any debt over Christmas spending. Buy it with cash and what you have in savings. Oh goodness. That’s a really big one, isn’t it?
Shawn:
It’s a big one. But keep this in mind. Some of these takeaways will be applicable for going into this Christmas season. Some of it might not. You might have to implement this for the next year, so don’t be discouraged. But whether it’s this year or next year, again, yes, do not go into debt just to buy gifts.
Bob:
It’s not worth it. So what you’ve got to do right now, right now, is figure out what’s the total that you can spend on Christmas. Not what you want to spend, but what you can spend. And that’s from what you have in cash in savings basically right now. And only use cash or a debit card. I know the majority of us now are going to buy our Christmas gifts online, so that’s going to require a debit card.
Shawn:
So you can use debit card for that.
Bob:
But use a debit card. A credit card company is not going to say when you get to a limit, they’re going to want you to keep going. They love charging that high interest. But a debit card, there’s only a certain amount that you can do. So I tell you, it’s a really great way to not overspend is coming from cash and a debit card.
Shawn:
Exactly. Yep. And that’s the main thing with that is so you don’t go over whatever that budget or limit is that you set. The credit card makes it so easy to go over that budget. So number two, make a list of every person and every charitable organization that you want to give a gift to this year for Christmas. Which kind of goes back into the budgeting as well.
Bob:
It does. It does.
Shawn:
Yeah. Okay, great. Well, you figured out how much you can spend now go through your list. Okay, great. Well, how much can I spend for each person or organization? And then you go from there.
Bob:
And number three. So number three, this is an idea that is an old idea, Shawn. It’s very, very old.
Shawn:
This is like white elephant or something like that. But take the pressure off. And this is going to depend on the family, obviously.
Bob:
It does, it does.
Shawn:
But for some families, especially if you have a really big family that always gets together.
Bob:
This is the third takeaway.
Shawn:
This is number three. So the third is take the pressure off of people in the family, especially again, if you’ve got a big family, what you may want to do is instead of everybody trying to buy presents for 10, 15, 20 people, well maybe you guys just do the white elephant deal where you draw a name from a hat.
Bob:
You draw a name, exactly. Draw from a hat. Figuratively speaking, what you try to do is you get each family member’s name, you put it in a hat. Now I know you’re not going to probably put it in a hat.
Shawn:
Figuratively, put it in a hat.
Bob:
This is the old fashioned way. You’d put it in a hat and their name is on it. And then everybody draws a name out of the hat. Alright? And that’s who you’re going to buy a gift for. And Shawn, this has meant more for the family members. There’s going to be some family members that can’t afford to buy gifts for everyone. And then there’s going to be the ones that can afford to buy a gift for everyone plus 10 more.
Shawn:
It’s multifaceted. Because the thing is, if you’ve got a lot of family members, even if someone is budgeting a very small amount and trying to be creative, my wife always does creative stuff. Hers is the time that she put into it. But even still, it’s hard to buy gifts if you’ve got a large family. And so this is one option. However, keep in mind if you go this route, there’s going to be that aunt or grandma or somebody that’s like, I don’t care. I’m going to buy gifts for everybody still anyway.
Bob:
Wait, that’s going to be my wife. Definitely Rachael does that.
Shawn:
Some people just love that. Some people, their love language is definitely gift giving. So do not try to tell them that for their Super Bowl for gift giving that they’re not allowed to give gifts.
Bob:
But the thing is, Shawn, I really believe God never intended for Christmas to end up being a financial burden.
Shawn:
Well, of course.
Bob:
But it does, especially here in America. It can end up being a financial burden for some people if you have a large family. So this is a way that instead of having to buy 10 gifts, you can buy one. You can actually be more meaningful in that gift and maybe spend a little bit more on the one gift than you would on 10 gifts, not 10 gifts combined. But you understand, right?
Shawn:
Sure, yeah. And if you’re in a situation where, again, refer back to number one, if your family, everyone’s buying gifts for everyone. Remember number one, do not go into debt of any kind to get gifts, get creative. Alright? There are a lot of gifts that you can give in that situation that require $0. But just time, especially for your family members that quality time is their love language. So refer to number one on all these. Don’t go into debt no matter what the situation is.
Bob:
Which takes us right to number four. Again, allocate a budget to each person and charitable organization on your list. Total that number, then adjust as necessary to stay within budget. Now Rachael told me about an app that we’ve been using for several years. I did not know this until just a couple of days ago that she’d been using this app.
Shawn:
Well, Bob, I will say you’re probably more the classic dad of, “Wait, what did we get the kids?” Rachael handles all that. No problem. What’d you get? What did I get you?
Bob:
But it’s called the Christmas list app. You actually just go into the app store. I went this morning, “The Christmas List”, and so you can write everybody’s name down. Then you put the amount you’re going to spend and it actually keeps a running total for each person.
Shawn:
So you don’t forget anybody either.
Bob:
So anyway, that’s out there today and most of us have a smartphone, so that’s a great way to do it.
Shawn:
Yeah. So number five, think long and hard about the gift you want to give. Will it be remembered one to three years from now or longer or forgotten about in the next month or two? And I think a great example of this one, I think it was last year or the year before, but my sister-in-law, your middle daughter, she got my wife, these earrings. Now when I say she got her these earrings, she made her a set of earrings. So if I had to guess less than $10, I’m assuming, in materials, she does this for a lot of people. But that is something that she, Jenna wears those earrings all the time. She loves that gift. So that’s something that didn’t cost a lot of money, but has a lot of meaning and value because it was that time and effort that she put into it. Plus it’s something that she can wear all the time. It doesn’t get used up one time.
Bob:
Now his wife, my daughter, she gives me coconut every year.
Shawn:
Well, coconut flavored everything.
Bob:
Coconut drinks, coconut everything. She knows, I love everything coconut with coconut in it. So she goes out. But I remember that, okay, because I’m like, okay, what’s she going to get me this year? Oh, I eat every bit of it. And I don’t know, I don’t know, it’s maybe a $15 basket of coconuts, but I’d love it. And I remember it every year. If she got me something else, I might not remember it. And you know what? I doubt most of us can remember five gifts that we got in the last three years or years.
Shawn:
Or it’s the ones that are actually more thoughtful.
Bob:
Exactly. Like you said, the sister-in-Law, our middle daughter, made that for our oldest daughter.
Shawn:
Yeah, it cracks me reminds of Clayton, one of our other staff members here for his dad, he pretty much always gets him some drinks, like energy drinks or something like that. And the assorted roasted nuts. So it’s not very expensive, but it’s one of those where he loves it. But he’s the kind of guy that he’ll never run over to HEB or wherever and grab those.
Bob:
No, I’m the same way. I don’t go get all that stuff that Jenna gets me every year. But I absolutely love it and it is ingrained in my memory now. And so this is our takeaway number six is ask yourselves about the gift. Does it have to be expensive to be appreciated?
Shawn:
Which we kind of highlighted, but it doesn’t really.
Bob:
It doesn’t. No, it doesn’t. Not at all. And of course, our last one for today, number seven definitely is the most important one, isn’t it?
Shawn:
Remember the real reason for Christmas this year, not the American/ westernized version based on consumerism, debt, materialism, but it’s about Jesus.
Bob:
That’s right.
Shawn:
That’s what it ultimately comes down to.
Bob:
Which I think would be great just to end this on a couple of scriptures today.
Shawn:
You want to do the first one?
Bob:
You read from Matthew first chapter in Matthew 1:18-22. Okay.
Shawn:
“This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about. His mother, Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph, her husband, was faithful to the law and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. But after he’d considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he’ll save his people from their sins. All of this took place to fulfill what God had said through the prophet. The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and they will call him Emmanuel, which means God with us.”
Bob:
And I took verses 1-5 from John 1, and verse 14. Okay, so verse one through five, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made. Without him, nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. That light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.” Verse 14, “The Word became flesh.” This is through Jesus, “And made his dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of His one and only son who came from the Father full of grace and truth.” Amen. We hope you have a Merry Christmas based on what God did for us in sending his son and that you also have some fun times. Giving gifts.
Shawn:
Yep. Well, God bless and again, thank you so much for joining us. Bye-Bye.
[DISCLOSURES]
* Investment advisory services offered through Christian Investment Advisors Inc dba Christian Financial Advisors, a registered investment advisor registered with the SEC. Registration as an investment advisor does not imply a certain level of skill or training. Comments from today’s show are for informational purposes only and not to be considered investment advice or recommendations to buy or sell any company that may have been mentioned or discussed. The opinions expressed are solely those of the hosts, Bob Barber and Shawn Peters, and their guests. Bob and Shawn do not provide tax advice and encourage you to seek guidance from a tax professional. While Christian Financial Advisors believes the information to be accurate and reliable, we do not claim or have responsibility for its completeness, accuracy, or reliability.
13 min
November 13, 2023 182 – 2023 Year End Tax Strategies
Click below to listen to Episode 182 – 2023 Year End Tax Strategies
2023 Year End Tax Strategies

We’ve got some great tips for helping to lower your 2023 taxes.

More episodes >>

It’s time to discuss strategies for 2023 year-end tax planning! Want to lower your 2023 taxes with strategies like charitable giving, retirement plan contributions, and medical expenses? Small moves now could save you thousands in the future.
It’s important to pay our fair share of taxes, but also equally important to not pay more taxes than necessary. By taking advantage of strategies like sales tax deductions, you may be able to lower your tax bracket. As always, it’s important to consult with a CPA or tax professional for personalized advice.

HOSTED BY: Bob Barber, CWS®, CKA®
CO-HOST: Shawn Peters
Mentioned In This Episode

Christian Financial Advisors
Website

Bob Barber, CWS®, CKA®

Shawn Peters
Bible Verses In This Episode
MARK 12:16-17
They brought the coin, and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?” “Caesar’s,” they replied. Then Jesus said to them, “Give b ack to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” And they were amazed at him.

Want to ask a question about your specific situation? Schedule a complimentary 15 minute phone call.
SCHEDULE AN APPOINTMENTDid you enjoy this episode? Sign up for email updates and never miss an episode.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Shawn:
Want to lower your 2023 taxes with strategies like charitable giving, retirement plan contributions, and medical expenses? Small moves now could save you thousands. Let’s get some perspective.
Bob:
Welcome to another episode of Christian Financial Perspectives. We’re so glad that you joined us. My name is Shawn Peters. I’m joined as always by my co-host and father-in-Law, Bob Barber. And today we’re going to be talking about everyone’s favorite topic, taxes. Just kidding. So these are strategies though to help you with your year end tax planning. And we’re bringing this to you in early November. So there is still time. So if you hear anything in this program today and you want to implement it, hopefully there’s still time. However, we do want to bring this with a warning. If you listen to today’s program, it could help you save thousands of dollars possibly in tax. So if you don’t like that, you might want to stop listening here.
Yeah, we’ll go watch a paid subscription service of something.
Shawn:
We’ll give everyone a second if they want to leave. Okay. Those of you who are still here, let’s get into it.
Bob:
So we’re going to get through this in about 15 minutes. So it’s worth about what, a hundred dollars per minute?
Shawn:
Yeah. Something like that.
Bob:
Yeah. Awesome. At least that much.
Shawn:
Alright. Obviously results may vary, depends on what your tax situation is.
Bob:
That’s exactly right.
Shawn:
However, let’s go ahead and start with the scripture. Mark 12:16-17, “They brought the coin and he asked them, ‘Whose image is this?'” By the way, we’re talking about Jesus here.
Bob:
Yeah, right.
Shawn:
“‘Whose image is this and whose inscription?’ ‘Caesar’s,’ they replied and then Jesus said to them, ‘Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to Godwhat is God’s.’ And they were amazed at him.” I’ve always loved this verse. I remember my dad would always say, you give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, but the part that I guess Jesus left off or implied was, “And not a penny more.”
Bob:
Exactly.
Shawn:
So that’s really what this is about is it’s talking about legal tax strategies because yes, you need to pay taxes that are owed, but that doesn’t mean you need to pay any more than you have to. That’s the goal here.
Bob:
And believe it or not, I’ve heard Ron Blue say this, don’t complain about paying taxes, that’s God’s provision. And you can always pay less. Just make less.
Shawn:
Just make less. Exactly.
Bob:
And please be honest about your taxes. Don’t try to hide income. It’s not a good idea. And I’ve heard people say, well, you need to pay me in cash. Well why? Well, so I don’t have to report it. Well, that’s wrong. I don’t care how you look at it. That’s wrong. You need to report it.
Shawn:
That’s right. So before we get started on the year end tax strategies for 2023, we encourage you to run any of the things that we’ve talked about. We make sure run them by your CPA or other tax professional. These strategies are very individualized to the person using them. So they may or may not apply. And we are not tax professionals. So we’re doing this in good faith to try to help point you in the right direction. So with all the fun legal disclaimers, I guess, out of the way.
Bob:
Yes, exactly.
Shawn:
Let’s get started.
Bob:
So I think the first thing, as we get started, is to know this number throughout all of these strategies and that is the standard deduction. And the standard deduction for 2023 for a single person is $13,850. And for a married couple filing jointly is $27,700. That’s where most of us fall. Now, if you’re single and you have a dependent at home, that goes to $20,800. The reason we are going to go over this is because you got to get over these standard deductions
Shawn:
For the itemized deductions to make any sense. If you already know, just ballpark that you’re not going to be really even close to those numbers. Don’t waste your time doing the itemized deductions.
Bob:
But we’re going to tell you how those itemized deductions can add up to more than the standard deductions so that you do have some tax strategies here and take some money off of those taxes. Okay.
Shawn:
Now the one exception to that standard deduction is sometimes there may be a qualifying disaster in your area like hurricane or wildfire. So again, talk with your CPA or tax professional. Look into that. But these are just the standards.
Bob:
Because that could be a deduction. Exactly.
Shawn:
So once you figure out your standard deduction for your particular area, you then have a choice to claim it or use the itemized deductions if they’re, again, more than the standard deduction, but you can’t do both. So either use the standard or you itemize.
Bob:
Okay. So some things – we’re going to get into 10 of these very, very quickly. We want to point out, many of you think about your property taxes right up front. That is usually a standard deduction, but the max you can go there is $10,000. So, if you have two homes, we have a second home in Rockport, Texas, our two homes total more, the property taxes total more than $10,000, but we can only take $10,000. It’s the same way with mortgage interest, which is a really big one that most of you all think about. The maximum amount that you can take towards the mortgage, think about your loan. If you’re loan is between $750,000 and $350,000, you can only deduct the interest on that amount of money. Okay. 350k if filing separately, 750k filing jointly.
Shawn:
So if you have a really large expensive home, you may not be able to deduct all of that.
Bob:
Right.
Shawn:
Gotcha.
Bob:
Yeah, we don’t have many that fit into that category, but if you had a $900,000 mortgage, you’re only going to get to deduct the interest on $750,000 of that. Okay.
Shawn:
Alright.
Bob:
Strategy number one.
Shawn:
Strategy number one, lump together all the itemized deductions so you can get over the standard deduction limit.
Bob:
Exactly. Yep. And you want to try to do this – sometimes what this means is taking deductions that you can take and putting them into one year versus two different years.
Shawn:
So two good examples of that would be, let’s say your property taxes are around $5,000 for the year. Well, you could go ahead and pay the latest tax bill that you had as well as next year’s property taxes before the end of the year. So you at least get that 10k and then in that given tax year, you’d be able to deduct the full amount from both years. The downside of course, is the next year you’re not going to be able to deduct any of the property tax. But again, depending on your situation, it could be a good thing to do.
Bob:
So here’s your tax strategy, year end tax strategy right now. If you paid your taxes and there were around $5,000 for property taxes, if you paid that in January of this year, go ahead and pay before December 31st of this year. But then again, you won’t have the deduction for next year. But now that should total to be enough to get you up there towards that standard deduction.
Shawn:
And another one might be charitable giving. So maybe you make your giving at the end of the year, but if you can afford it from a cashflow perspective, maybe go ahead and do both years at once before the end of the year for your charitable giving. And why would you want to do either of these? Why would you want to do this or maybe do the double property taxes? Well, what if you got a bonus this year, for example, and next year you don’t know if you’re going to necessarily get that. Well that would be a great example of why you might want to go ahead and double up on some of those normal annual things is to try to help reduce those taxes.
Bob:
Tax strategy number two, this is the one, Shawn, that I see probably 90% of our audience and of our clients here not taking advantage of and I don’t know why, but they’re not maxing out their qualified retirement plans.
Shawn:
So strategy number two is max out qualified plans.
Bob:
And we’re talking about that 401K, you may have a 403B if you work for a nonprofit or a hospital, 457 or TSP plan if you work for a government agency. You can really put a lot of money away. For this year, you can put $22,000 up to $22,500 in that qualified retirement plan. From your side, this is without the match.
Shawn:
Not including the employer match.
Bob:
And if you’re over 50, you can add another $7,500 to that. So now you, you’re getting up to $30,000 if you can afford to do it.
Shawn:
If you’re 50 or older.
Bob:
Shawn, think about this. I meet people all the time. They’re putting $10,000 in their plan and they could put that $22,500, but let’s just say they put another $10,000, and in the higher tax bracket it’s like 24%. You have immediately saved $2,400 by getting this idea.
Shawn:
That’s right.
Bob:
Right now that quick. And we’re just at the second strategy.
Shawn:
Yeah.
Bob:
Okay.
Shawn:
So max out the qualified plan is basically the – and that’s good advice in general, not even just from a tax perspective, just because it allows you to put away more for the long run and do that before you even look at, oh, maybe I should add some more money to a non-qualified account to a taxable account. No, max out your 401k. Get that deduction.
Bob:
And we mentioned tax strategy number three was large year end gifts to charities.
Shawn:
That’s right.
Bob:
You need to understand here, too, it doesn’t have to be cash. It can be things like stocks or maybe a property, small lot that you have that you don’t plan on building anything on it. You’ve had it forever. It’s just growing grass on it and costing you taxes and maintenance every year keeping it mowed for the city regulations.
Shawn:
You can even donate old cars.
Bob:
I always hear the advertisement, “Cars for Kids”. I’ve sang that song in my head. I hear I’m singing that song and I’m like, get that out of my head. There’s a limit to what you can put. Most people are not going to fall into that limit, Shawn, but it’s up to 60% of your adjusted gross income and certain types of donations may be limited to 2030 or even 50% depending on the type of contribution when it comes, like the car or the property.
Shawn:
That’s right. Alright, so tax strategy number four, sales tax. Buy the new car if you need one. But there’s a $10,000 limit with property taxes.
Bob:
So it comes under the same rules. So, you have your property taxes, let’s say your property taxes for $7,000, but you’re going to go out and buy a new car and the sales tax is $3,000. You can add those together. You’re at your $10,000.
Shawn:
So, they’re not exclusive is what we’re saying.
Bob:
I’m not saying don’t go buy a new car for that reason. Please.
Shawn:
Well, it could be new to you. It could be new. We are not necessarily saying you need to buy a actual brand new car, but let’s say your property taxes are a little bit lower, maybe they’re only 3,500 so you could pay this year and next year’s. And then the car, you’re like, well we did need to get the car anyway, we’ve been saving up and thinking about it. And if the property tax on that is around $3000 or so, okay, great. Well then between the sales tax, yeah, sorry, the sales tax and the doubling up in the property tax. There you go. Now, you’re at your 10K.
Bob:
That’s your incentive now to buy before the end of the year, buy that shiny new car or that shiny new used car. Boy, this is one I see a lot of people miss out on. Okay, tax strategy number five, you’re going to see an immediate tax advantage here. Probably going to save depending on what bracket you’re in, but let’s just say 20% here, you’re going to save maybe $1,300-$1,400 right here again.
Shawn:
So the strategy number five is the health savings account. So you want to try to max out those because it’s going to help you reduce the taxes. But also that means there’s more money that you can actually use for yourself and your family.
Bob:
And you can put $3,850 in there if you’re an individual, $7,750 if you’re family. Alright. Plus if you’re above 55 you can add another thousand to that. So Shawn, all of a sudden now you’re at $8,750, you’re at that 20% bracket. You realize for some people we’ve already saved them $4,000 or $5,000 from this first 10 or 12 minutes.
Shawn:
And I accept tips in cash or check.
Bob:
We’re going to have to zip through these to get through the rest of these. So year end tax strategy number six is medical procedures. Now this is limited to 7.5% of your income, but if you’re going to get a medical procedure anyway and maybe possibly do that before the end of the year, but let’s say you make a hundred thousand, it’s got to go over $7,500 to cost you and normally you’re going to hit your deductible.
Shawn:
That’s elective or mandatory. Just if there’s been something that you’ve been needing or wanting to get done. Well there’s an option. I always say spend the money on yourself or your family or charity if you can do that instead of giving the government more money.
Bob:
Now, Shawn, this next strategy number eight is when we use a lot around here, we always look at December and we say what do we need?
Shawn:
So, strategy number eight, business equipment. So if you own a business and there’s something you need with furniture, copiers, automobiles. I know my dad’s been in farming and mining for a long time and he would always tell me, well I guess we need new tires. And when you have big machines, those tires are expensive. Hey, may as well spend it on something you can use.
Bob:
And maybe you just have a small home business but you need a new computer. Go ahead and buy that. That is a business deduction. It’s considered business equipment.
Shawn:
So strategy number eight, tax loss harvesting. If you have investments that have fallen below your purchase price, use the resulting loss to offset capital gains in future or this year.
Bob:
And you say maybe you’re like, well I don’t want to sell that. Well you can buy it back in 31 days. So it’s a great idea, Shawn. I used this last year in a huge way because we had a property that we sold on a major highway that had a big gain in it. And last year when the market was down, I pretty much sold out my portfolio in the bottom of the market then bought back a light kind portfolio, but not the exact same holdings.
Shawn:
Because you can’t buy the same holdings.
Bob:
No, you can’t. I waited 31-32 days. Then I went back in and went back into those holdings.
Shawn:
Well, we did the same thing for our clients, too, in taxable accounts is we made sure to, well hey, let’s go ahead and do some tax loss harvesting. And so then in future good years, if you can’t use it this year, then you’ve got some tax losses you can write off.
Bob:
It’s a big one I think a lot of people don’t think about. But a very good one.
Shawn:
Tax strategy number three is use your required minimum distributions or RMDs.
Bob:
If you’re 73 or above
Shawn:
And you have them, but use your RMDs and direct them to charity. It’s known as Qualified Charitable Distribution, QCD.
Bob:
Right. So we say do this and we emphasize this to our clients here. I think it’s a great idea. If you’re a tither, and this is Christian Financial Perspectives and you give the charities, instead of giving cash give from your IRAs/your RMDs if you’re in that stage now. If you’re above 73, I know our listeners are younger because it is YouTube and podcasts, tell your grandma and grandpa about this one. Okay. Alright. And then we’ve come down to our 10th one.
Shawn:
That’s right. Number 10, income timing. And I’ll let you cover this one.
Bob:
Okay, well this has a lot to do and I work with a lot of people that get bonuses at the end of the year and they may not get that bonus next year. They may be retiring next year. So see if you can delay getting that bonus until next year when you’re in a lower tax bracket.
Shawn:
That’s right.
Bob:
That’s the main thing.
Shawn:
And I think when you’re going to be retiring next year, that is definitely the perfect one where if you think I’m going to be working until the start of the summer next year, well ask your employer, Hey, instead of give me the Christmas bonus, can you give me that bonus in March?
Bob:
Yeah, well there you go. There’s 10 strategies. I think if we were to total these up, it’d be a lot more than the $1,500 we talked to you about. But I hope this has been very productive for you. This is about a 15 minute program today, so it’s about a hundred dollars per minute.
Shawn:
That’s right, that’s right. And obviously, all joking aside, yeah, don’t send us actually any cash tips or anything like that.
Bob:
No, we don’t want that.
Shawn:
Too many compliance issues. But you can comment, like this video, share it with your friends, subscribe, all those would be much appreciated. So thank you. And as always, God bless you.
[DISCLOSURES]
* Investment advisory services offered through Christian Investment Advisors Inc dba Christian Financial Advisors, a registered investment advisor registered with the SEC. Registration as an investment advisor does not imply a certain level of skill or training. Comments from today’s show are for informational purposes only and not to be considered investment advice or recommendations to buy or sell any company that may have been mentioned or discussed. The opinions expressed are solely those of the hosts, Bob Barber and Shawn Peters, and their guests. Bob and Shawn do not provide tax advice and encourage you to seek guidance from a tax professional. While Christian Financial Advisors believes the information to be accurate and reliable, we do not claim or have responsibility for its completeness, accuracy, or reliability.
18 min

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Biblical wisdom for financial decisions and goals. Conversations about managing money according to Christian principles, featuring expert insights on budgeting, investing, giving, and building wealth…