Money Matters (part 8)

Bethlehem Bible Church

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Our Father in heaven, we just thank you and praise you today that you are Sovereign that you are loving that you are condescending father that you would send your son the

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Lord Jesus to bear our sins to live a perfect life in our place and to be resurrected on the third day what a

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Great blessing that is to us and to know that we belong to you forever Lord as we look to things of Seemingly lesser importance.

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I just pray that you would bless us that we would be reminded that how we handle our money Reveals much about us about how we're thinking about how much in line we are with What you've said in your word father bless our time in Christ's name.

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Amen Well, we've been talking about money and stewardship And how we need to view these things

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You know just a quick word, I guess I need to say something about my dad's funeral

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I can't really say too much. But let me just say this that the Lord was very gracious to me we had

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Ten minutes I took 11 I was told that they would give me the

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Military shepherds crook They didn't because I prayed for a little extended period of time there and I didn't think they'd interrupt the prayer and they didn't so that was a blessing and You know many

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Kind things were said afterwards. I was just pleased that I didn't totally break down but I Basically just give you a little outline.

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I talked about my dad I talked about the last time that I saw him when we read

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Psalm 23 together and then I went from that to talk about this shepherd and How Jesus said that he was the

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Good Shepherd and then some reasons why he's the Good Shepherd mostly out of the Gospel of John and I've kind of accented the first one which was he's eternally

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God and I Accented that for obvious reasons because a number of folks who were there that day are of the

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Latter -day Saint faith including uncles who are involved in church education and Three return missionaries and on and on and on it went so that that was just a blessing we have

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We videotape that and need to burn that to a DVD for some people who couldn't go including one of my uncles

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Who may be a Christian? I don't really know but what we'll see So anyway, thank you for your prayers

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Thank you for the cards and the emails and all the encouragement. It was a great blessing to me

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Okay, so talking about money and there was some confusion I just want to say I don't really want to belabor the whole rule of 78 thing

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The whole point of that was you need to read your contract before you sign it and you know What what is probably the most important thing you'll ever buy?

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How many of you said a stereo set That's what

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I would have thought when I was in the army stereo number one Wedding ring I Learned something about wedding rings this week to do not go to a jewelry store

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I won't I won't go into the details on that, but I I thought they they have a massive massive massive

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Markup, but I know a guy The most important thing you'll ever buy is your house without question, right?

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Now how many of you actually read every single word of the contract? I can't even raise my hand because if I did

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I'd be lying Casey and Pam the only two here and so if you're buying a house, please invite them over from,

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Texas It's just like page after eventually it's just like, you know, can

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I get one of those auto sign things? You know the president has one where they just auto pen everything and you're just like, okay

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How many pages do I have to sign? How many pages do I have to initial? That's probably the most important thing and my point on the rule of 78s is to read the contract because I read it

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I didn't really know what the rule of 78s was. I didn't read the contract and again, let me try this again quickly

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Sequences if you're adding sequences How quickly can we figure out what the total of 1 to 10 is who could do that?

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Jonathan yes, but the answer was 55 so okay, and He's right about how you know, you just said if if I say 1 to 10

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You just add the first number in the last number. Okay 1 plus 10 is 11 and you say well, how does that get us to 55 because there are

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Five sets of first and last numbers if you go for example 1 and 10 2 and 9 3 and 8 and you'll notice something magical as you do that that each of them add up to 11 so 5 times 11 gives us 55 not very difficult and the same thing the rule of 78s 1 plus 12 is

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Okay, 2 plus 11 is 13 10 plus 3 etc.

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Etc. Etc. So then you have 6 pairs and you add them all up you get 78 now if it's a two -year deal and that applied to how you how the interest is added to the account

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If you have a two -month contract, it's still called the rule of 78s, but you have 300 and it gets a little more complicated

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So but there you go How do we figure that out? Well because 1 plus 24 never mind

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But that principle still applies. Okay now whole life whole life because we're just talking about practical things here and I Found out some more about this this week people think that whole life insurance is a good deal

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What is whole life insurance? Gives you the value.

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I'm sorry Cash value permanent insurance okay, and And here's what

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I say about whole insurance is it's really great if you Live what's that?

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Well, it's not so bad if you live let's put it this way But what

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I would say to the guys to any man in my office is Life insurance is it for you?

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You know, it's it's for your it's for your wife and for your family but term life

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It's cheap Depending on how old you are when you get to be as ancient as me it gets a little more expensive

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But if you buy it when you're young and you can lock in the rate for 10 or 20 years, however long it's pretty cheap

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Versus whole life, which is more expensive and part of the expense of whole life insurance is what?

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Commission They take it, you know to administer it

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It's somewhere around four or five or more percent of what you send in every month goes to that Brian, why don't you ask any of these questions didn't you sell insurance?

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Health insurance. Okay, so you didn't do that. All right, so sorry about that Health insurance.

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Well when we get to that section, I'll be asking you but when you

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If you analyze these whole life basically it usually is you get less money

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In the case that you die, for example Typical policy is maybe sixty seventy five hundred one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars

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But the fees are much much higher and here's how do they sell it? They sell it because when you

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Conclude the period of the policy twenty thirty years or whatever then you get that cash value

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But if you go and you figure out the interest and all that it's really not that high it's it's fairly low

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Given how long you're locking up your money and here's the worst part. Let's say you do die During the period that you're paying for this whole life insurance.

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How much money does your family your wife get? They get the face value well what happens to all the money you've been paying in so I mean you could be spending

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Roughly by the numbers I've seen somewhere around twelve times as much for one quarter of the coverage and if you die during the period that you're covered

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All that money extra that you're paying in goes for nothing One writer says you might as well have taken the extra the example.

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He gives is seven dollars for a whole life insurance or a term life insurance of $500 ,000 versus a hundred dollars for a hundred and twenty five thousand dollar

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Whole life policy, and he says you might have you would have come out ahead If you just stuck the ninety three dollars in the cookie jar in the event that you die, so I Wouldn't really advise

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Whole life in too many situations. It is kind of expensive

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And here's an interesting thing that I found this week 70 % of life insurance policies that are sold our cash value type 70 %

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Not a good deal We've talked about buying and leasing cars how you need to negotiate

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Okay, let's talk about Let's talk about Credit ratings.

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What do you need a credit rating for to get more credit, right?

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Well job applications, I think that's probably true especially if there's a security clearance component

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I mean if you go in and you want to work for the CIA and your credit rating is probably about what's the lowest?

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It can be I don't think it can be zero canopy zero Really? So if you you know, if you're you know cruising around 250, you're probably not gonna get that CIA job

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They're gonna be like But somebody said it's good for getting more credit more to borrow more money

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I Mean I recently was talking to somebody I think they said they're occurring. What's the highest you can get?

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800 See, that's what I thought. I thought it was 850 because I was talking to somebody who said they had an 847 credit rating and I thought

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I probably wouldn't argue with that person and 847 to get that kind of credit rating you have to Borrow you have to have a lot of credit

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You have to be on time all the time, but you have to you know have borrowed a lot of money Pam That's a good point

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Pam raises, you know to rent an apartment. You need a credit rating. That's true to get Electricity in some places.

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I mean there are other ways of going around getting electricity. I think probably You know cash deposit and stuff like that.

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Yep Yeah, but but I I tend to think that credit rating really is to some extent

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Overrated because the less money that you borrow the lower your credit rating will be and so what does that say about you if you just if you paid cash imagine if you were

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If I just wrote you a check which would bounce, but if I wrote you a check for ten million dollars I'd go to jail, but if you had ten million dollars

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Then would you be running around worrying about where your credit rating was? Yeah, and that's and that's a good point

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Pam raises You know here's how much you could borrow and how much you actually owe and so they take they factor in all those kind of things so if you could borrow

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I Don't know a couple hundred thousand dollars, and you owe five thousand Then you're a good credit risk if you could borrow a couple hundred thousand dollars, and you owe a hundred and eighty then they're gonna be less likely to Let you borrow and all those kind of things are based on income savings

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What kind of holdings you have in terms of real estate everything else, but It is it's difficult to buy a house without Any kind of credit rating, but true or false you can buy a house without a credit rating

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If Or if you just somebody said pay cash, which is true, or if you put a lot down I mean if these days a little bit trickier because banks are a little

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Leary about just loaning money to anybody, but if you have enough money You can always the problem is we've gotten into a mindset that we should not have to save we should not have to wait

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You know to save enough money to make a down payment we think we should just move in But one man once said a great theologian said money talks, and it's persuasive

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You can ask me later who that great theologian was but it's true right money talks And it is very persuasive you can walk into a lot of deals, and if you have money

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You get a better deal So I wouldn't entirely ignore the credit rating, but I would say that you know

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I I think I think It's overrated You can focus so much on it.

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You know you're 18 you got to start building your credit rating Is that are you really building your credit rating or are you learning to just satisfy immediate needs and so I don't know about that I think credit rating is definitely overrated.

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You don't want to have a low one but Having a high one if that just means you get more indebted.

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That's not a good That's just not a smart thing to do. It's not a good stewardship move Let's put it this way is it better for you to have a high credit rating and to be paying interest to others

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Or is it better for you to have a lower credit rating and be being paid interest on the money that you saved

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I'd rather be being paid money Couple things about odds and ends about credit cards

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Found this interesting statistic upwards of 60 % of people do not pay them off every month 60 % and even if you do

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Even if you pay it off every month, which true confessions I Don't really like cash.

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I'm sorry. I'm supposed to like cash. I don't like it I get nervous if I have a lot of money in my wallet

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Seriously people are like I don't believe you and I'm like yes. I really don't I mean if I look at my wallet right now

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Don't tell anybody don't mug me in the parking lot But I have too much money because I just traveled and I have I have some money.

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I don't like it In fact a couple weeks ago that the second second trip.

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I made to Bakersfield. I was walking around the mall now Bakersfield It's kind of a rough area It's walking around the mall the mall is

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Infested with gang members, and I'm looking around and I'm playing this game my head who's more likely to get robbed than me

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And I kept going No, I'd rather rob me. Nope. I'd rather up So it was a short.

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It was a short trip to the mall Happy people don't shoot.

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That's right But Why are you using a credit card we we use a credit card and we pay it off every month.

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Why do we do that? What's that? Convenience part of it

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Brian bill up our credit rating. No, not really Brian Tracking what you buy.

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It's a good way to know right Cashback bonus we started doing this years ago because my brother said

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You know they started using the discover card They paid it off every month, and they got cash back, and I was like that's kind of crazy

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And then we started putting more and more stuff on it so every couple I I don't know how how long it is my wife can tell me how long does it take to get some kind of serious?

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money in there Every so often she'll just go well We have $300 on our credit card you know thing and so we can just use that for whatever and I'm like that's pretty nice And because we just kind of put everything on that fact at one point when we were in California We were renting.

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I'm going boy if there was some way to put our rents on the credit card that that would really be cool Yes Yeah, you do, and we're gonna.

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We're gonna. I think I have something here. Let me see oh, yeah We'll get there in a second, but yeah, you do have some protection.

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Which is good How many of you have been the victim this isn't even my notes? But I was just thinking about how many of you have been the victim of credit card fraud.

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That's a lot of hands Which brings up another thing you really need to have some kind of identity theft protection

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Because really is amazing. We've we've had that problem a few times over the last couple of years the first time

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My wife is you know at her desk, and I'm at my desk. We can't really see each other, but I hear this hey

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Did you buy $2 ,000 worth of books? I don't know it's like $2 ,000 worth of books can you just imagine what that would look like I?

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Said I'm going no the The UPS man didn't you know stop and empty out the whole truck at my back door so the answer is no

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If she goes well, we've got a $2 ,000 charge here for blah blah blah blah, and I'm going

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So call the credit card company, and they said well you didn't have $2 ,000 worth of books sent to England Nope close the account.

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You know they they they take it off your charge saying right About a year or so later $2 ,000 charge

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Call the credit card company wait a minute Do you mean to say that you weren't in the Bronx and you didn't send $2 ,000 worth of marble to Africa?

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truth and I said first of all I Watch law and order, and I'm not foolish enough to go to the

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Bronx, okay? Secondly I don't know anybody in Africa that I would send hey, hey, buddy.

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You need $2 ,000 worth of marble So and this is kind of funny, too

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I mean, this is all funny except for its money. You know and you you you have to watch your credit card bills so They I said look this is the second time this has happened.

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Is there any way that you know we can we can stop this and They said oh sure you know you can pay $10 a month, and I'm going no no

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I mean when there's some obviously or Possibly fraudulent use of my credit card can't you guys you know check with me before you do it?

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I mean can we set some kind of limit you know on it, and I said well. Yeah, you $10 a month and I go It's your money.

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We're talking about It's not mine because you insured against fraud Right so when somebody buys a $2 ,000 worth of marble and sends it to Africa.

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That's out of your wallet not mine And so finally they go well, yeah, you know what we can do is we do you have a cell phone we can send you a

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Text and ask you you know put a temporary hold on your account and ask you if you're the one using it

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And I said oh, that'll be great That'll be wonderful. I thought so Last year

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I'm in California Shepherds conference And I've been in because I go and visit my family out there

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And I've been in California for I don't know maybe a week or so and I Go to Target about 930 at night.

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I'm just picking up a few odds and ends there Your cards been declined.

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It's $35 Thankfully I had a debit card, so I used the debit card good to go, so I'm just like this is lame

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What is the credit card company doing now? Oh, but it gets better I'm asleep.

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It's 330 in the morning. I get a text bring Did you try to spend $35 at Target now?

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$2 ,000 of marble to Africa they don't question $35 at Target when

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I've been in California for a week using it all over the place, and I'm like oh stop 35 bucks

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You gotta love your credit card company They want to make sure they didn't lose that 35 bucks

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Although we did just have a couple of I'll get to you in a second We did just have a couple of my wife goes through you know you have to go through the statement every month

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And there's a couple $40 charges in California To the post office and so She asked me about him and then just a few minutes later.

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I get a text from the company I was already on the phone with him though because I said now let me get this straight because I didn't want to cancel the cards if I didn't have to and You know

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I have a few things that I buy here and there I go I just want to make sure I understand that somebody walked into the post office in Agoura Hills, California and presented my credit card

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And they said yes, that's correct And I said well that's sad because I'm not in Agoura Hills And that really wouldn't work, and it was just a couple $40 charges

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But you know oftentimes they do that as a means to make sure that the credit card numbers are valid before they make their

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Their big purchases and by the way just so you know I think it was I've read differing accounts, but several million credit cards

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Were possibly that their numbers were possibly tampered with here over the last couple months

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So it's really a good time to be watching your credit card statements A lot of that going on yeah,

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John Yeah, and that's true

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Right they will do that they they will set a limit Yeah And that's what drove me nuts because I think we eventually decided on four or five hundred dollars or whatever it was and then they

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You know hold up my account for the 35 bucks. I was like. I'm really glad you guys are on the job, but you know

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That's really swell But yeah, they will set a limit for you, but again. What are they trying to do?

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They're always trying to sell you something you know it's not like they get enough Money out of you anyway.

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Do you know I mean? Many of you may not know for a business to take your credit card cost the money

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It's how much is it? Yeah, it can be as much as four or five percent depending on how big you are the bigger

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You are the less they take because they you know how do you make money volume volume volume? The smaller you are the more likely they are to take more money

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That's why some places will even offer you a cash discount So something to consider when you're shopping especially if you're shopping in a smaller store

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They may be more than happy to give you a discount Just to not to have to hassle with the credit card

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Yes, well

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Yeah, that's an excellent. Yeah, and you still use that mechanic. Yeah, he was just saying that he had $1 ,900

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Charged and the mechanic didn't actually do the work. Well. He did put a used transmission in there sort of might have loosened a couple bolts and then tighten them back up, but Yes, stuck the same bad thing in there, so what do you do in that case well the credit card company will?

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Get their money out of out of the business, and so you're protected in that way so there are benefits that But you get all the same benefits by the way with a debit card

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If your debit card says Visa, or if it says MasterCard on it or whatever then it's got all the same protections in it that a credit card does and none of the downside

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Because at the end of the month you can't pay off your or you have to your debit card has already paid off.

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Yes, sir Yes, sir. Yes Yes, they will that is true.

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They will take the money immediately from your Thing and then your account, and then I think there's a kind of a process of a few days

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Let's say let's say you were in that situation Jonathan you have to use as a credit and not a debit card

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Okay, there you go Okay, so there you have it any other thoughts

27:31

Bruce Mm -hmm

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Bruce was saying that When they started taking credit cards at McDonald's their average bill went up 40 % pretty good investment on their part

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So I'm sure they're not paying the four or five percent and and it is true right because you don't feel the pain

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There is something like I said about you know having a lot of money makes me nervous Spending a lot of money.

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I mean just going I Mean imagine. I had to you know put down all the money for my house like that That would have been a three -day process

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Yeah, I mean people do tend to overspend we tend to lose track of what we're spending And so I here's what

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I would say I'd say If you are either more wealthy than the average person or you're more disciplined in other words you track things more

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Accurately than the average person, then I would say you could probably do that sort of thing But if you have a tendency to In love to be a little flaky

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To not really track things to not be disciplined to not know where you are Specifically and then you get to the end of the month you go good.

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I can't pay that bill You you probably need to stop using your credit card.

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You just need to stop Okay, yeah, we should be right our whole life should be disciplined and thoughtful and everything else

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But I I think there is a tendency to sort of lose track of where we are if we don't

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You know I Ramsey prefers the envelope system where you keep your money in envelope, but again keeping a lot of money around makes

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Me nervous mostly because you know when you drive around a radio car and you take burglary reports What's missing cash?

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Where did you have it in a big envelope mark cash on the I don't know

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Yes, yeah, that's why

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I prefer imbalanced tires no No Square tires, and you know what it slows her down, too

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But but but you know what yeah, and here's the thing too when With with what you're saying the main thing and what we've been stressing

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I think from the beginning is the need to have what an emergency fund so And you know

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I would go along with that if you have an auto maintenance fund which I also I I mean, I think when you sit down you do

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I'll get to you in a second We sit down and you do your budget Some of the things that you know you talk about living with with only 5 % headroom well, that's part of the problem

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Because what we don't do is ahead of times build in what we're going to give to the

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Lord what we're going to save You know and then we need to start be thinking about different accounts that I mean there are things that are gonna break down Our cars are gonna break down.

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I was just I Was just out in California my stepmom just bought a brand new washer and dryer

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Because the the washer just went out a couple weeks ago and Somehow and this really isn't a good advertisement for the company a piece of clothing got down below the

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The what do you call it? yeah, the agitator down there and just completely locked up the whole machine and But it's still under warranty so you know obviously so no big deal there although I'm just like okay if it happened on the first time what's gonna stop it from happening again, but anyway

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Machines break down Talking to my sister my sister has a laptop, and she's just like I don't know.

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I don't know what's wrong That's you know it's getting hot. It's doing this. How old is it? It's two and a half years, and I go I don't know what to tell you, but when you spend the big bucks like five hundred dollars on a laptop

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Two and a half years is is a lifetime There's built -in obsolescence

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Right they want these things that I mean they're not just you don't buy a laptop and they say oh, that's good for life And when the

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Lord returns this thing will still be humming. You'll be able to give this to your kids Your great -grandkids will rise up and call you blessed for this laptop.

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It's not gonna happen So we we have to set aside some money knowing that these things are going to break nobody can say you know come in here and Go I don't know what happened my car broke down Tears streaming down their faces like it's never gonna happen

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You have to be you know part of a you know being a Boy Scout be prepared Part of it is you have to think okay?

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What is going to happen in the future? It's not just about right now. What's gonna happen on the future, so what have we been talking about living on less than what we make?

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Not just living paycheck to paycheck Yeah, living below your means it's a shocking concept is there anything else

34:21

Bob Yeah, and see that's fine like like you know you go to a department store

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And they say you know you want to apply for a credit card today. It's 10 % off Here's what

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I would say you're the guppy out there in the ocean Here comes the bright shiny thing into the water.

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You know and you're like hole must have bright shiny thing For you know maybe even most of us

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That's no problem because like Bob said you know we we plan it out We know exactly what we're getting we get a discount on every purchase

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So you know at the end of the month we pay off. That's fine But again getting back to what Bruce said the odds are for most people

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You're going to go in and spend more than you wait wait what you planned and at the end of the month You're not gonna be able to pay it off, and then that nice little shite shiny bright

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You know 10 % that you got off turns into 28 29 30 percent interest

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And they're just reeling you in and just you know you feel the pain after that So I you know it's like going to Las Vegas When I first got on the sheriff's department, it was unsaved

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I mean I was unsafe for a long time But you know guys used to talk about there were certain games of chance where you could really make a killing

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In Las Vegas, and I'm just like I even as an unbeliever. I knew better I'm just like next time you go to Vegas.

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Just look around at all those bright shiny buildings and remind yourselves They don't know what they're doing

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I do And it's the same thing with the credit cards those things are massive

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Global corporations they didn't get to be massive global corporations by giving you a sweet deal

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That's not how they work. If you don't believe that try calling them see how nice.

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They are to you They'll be nice as long as you're paying your bill But then not so nice About credit cards, you know look at it.

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This way. Yeah, I want to build my credit rating. Okay How much you willing to pay to do that?

36:53

Credit rating or credit card interest I Mean on the low end you know sometimes you can get short -term deals for zero percent

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But typically what are they 12 on the low end 15 18 22 35 98

37:15

Hut Hut Hut I mean they make a lot of money doing that Okay, let's uh any other thoughts about credit cards, so cash balances aren't like wine.

37:57

They don't get better over time no Although I really have no interest on wine either, so but yeah

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I I mean all those things it they are designed to reel you in whether it's a short -term

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You know great deal or whatever Even you know you can get so caught up on Cash back and airline miles or whatever

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Consumer Reports says that 75 % of airline miles you know for the bonuses using the card all the time don't even get used

38:27

Well, why is that because you can rack up speaking from personal experience you can rack up all kinds of you know airline miles and They They they basically tell you when they guide you into when you can travel and use those miles

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And sometimes let's be honest You know when they want you to go is not when you can get off work or whatever and so you just they wind up not being used

38:57

Okay, let's talk about refinancing your home Why would you want to consider refinancing your home?

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What are some of the reasons people typically do it? Lower interest rate okay now.

39:13

I would say that's a good reason In fact, I would say that's a good reason because we just did it

39:21

But but when we did that we kept the same number of months because I didn't want to change I didn't want to change the length of the loan.

39:27

I just wanted to pay less and It was interesting because I just called the bank and said you know

39:32

I like to get a lower interest rate And they said okay It was a rough negotiation

39:40

Saved us a couple hundred dollars a month. I liked it. It's good Okay, what are some other reasons that people?

39:49

Janet yeah, yeah the dreaded debt consolidation

40:01

This is really a bad plan If the objective and I and I like how

40:06

Ramsey frames this the if the objective is to outright own own your home someday To be debt -free

40:12

I mean again imagine what it would be like let's say you make $40 ,000 a year and You have no bills $40 ,000 a year a lot of money.

40:24

It's all the bills that get in the way right so if you don't have to pay for a House or anything else you can get by on a lot less money than what you might be making now

40:33

But debt consolidation is whoa we're out of control on these credit cards the only way out is or what's it's not the only way

40:39

Out because you could be disciplined and work your way out of the hole, but instead Hey, we've got some equity in the house now.

40:46

I don't know how many people still have equity in their homes I was talking to one guy this week who? He lost 50 % of the value in this house 50 % but the idea is

41:01

You have equity in your house, and so you use that equity and get rid of your credit cards And you start fresh with this vow of you know kind of credit chastity.

41:11

I will never borrow money again Which lasts until the next time that you have a need every every step along the way you have to be thinking

41:19

Are we viewing our money rightly are we living below our means are we doing everything we can to be?

41:27

responsible good stewards of our money and debt consolidation Generally speaking is a bad idea because basically at best it puts you back at square one

41:41

And you still yeah, you still have the debt It's just at a lower interest rate and an interest you know that you get to take off But I'll tell you who loves the debt consolidation is the mortgage people and also the credit card people too even though they lose some interest

41:53

Initially some money there They'll get it back later because people keep going back and borrowing more money, and then you know it's just like a cycle

42:01

I think what's happened though, and the good news about if there is any good news about the housing values going down Is people have had to kind of?

42:11

Reassess everything and go okay real estate isn't a sure thing I can't count on it always going up, and so maybe

42:18

I need to adjust how I look at my money What's another reason people refinance their homes?

42:29

Tim to get out of a really stupid previous yes, you know with some kind of adjustable rate or something like that yep

42:37

I would agree with that yep Shorten the term is a really good reason to do that I mean if you can the sooner you can own your home.

42:46

I'm big -time in favor of that pet That's the other one

42:53

I was looking at home improvements. You know sometimes. I think it can be Almost a necessity depending on what kind of shape the house is in But you know if you tell me well

43:04

We're gonna borrow $50 ,000 out of the equity in our home, so we can put in a much -needed swimming pool spa

43:10

Jacuzzi I'm gonna say you invite me over, but Before I say that before I say that I'm gonna say

43:21

You probably should think twice about that There's nothing wrong with swimming pool spa and Jacuzzi, and you'll know that when

43:28

I put it in my house never but You know these things need we need to always be thinking

43:36

Future what am I doing in the future? How am I how am I preparing myself for what lies ahead?

43:43

So I would say that you know if something at you know Let's put it this way if that if it's the difference between your house falling down from termite damage or Whatever, or are you being able to stay in it then okay?

43:57

But we need to tread really lightly on that and try to find other ways to pay for things other than borrowing more money well, let's

44:09

What we'll talk about retirement and whatnot next week, but let me just give you this How about this as a true or false statement social security is all you need to retire it wasn't meant to be funny

44:25

Anybody know what the average social security benefit is right now What the average person

44:33

Who retires and collects social security what what it is? It's a little bit more than that, but as of the beginning of 2012.

44:42

It's twelve hundred and thirty dollars a month twelve hundred thirty dollars now if you

44:50

At least that's from there. That's that's from their website, so who knows oh, I'm sorry No, it's not

45:04

Yeah, it's not enough to retire on and that's the main thing. I want to stress, but it is It's pretty good return on investment.

45:13

Which just goes to show why it's not a return on investment situation it really is a subsidy and the government is

45:20

Let's just call it a Ponzi scheme and close in prayer All right Father we thank you that you provide every good gift and that all things

45:33

Really are blessings from your hand Lord I just pray that you would cause us to reflect on how we can be better stewards of what you've given us that we might glorify you and all that we do not just in terms of how we act, but how we handle the

45:51

The what the world might see is the more base things that we get father. There's nothing base.