How do I handle auto insurance if my kids are away at school?

Welcome to the Ask Ralph podcast where listening to an experienced financial professional with over 30 years of experience can help you make sense of confusing questions, current headlines and industry trends about taxes, small business, financial decision making, investment strategies, and even the art of proper budgeting. Ask Ralph makes the complex simple by sharing his real world knowledge from a Christian perspective with all things financial.

Now here's your Host, Ralph Estep Jr.

Welcome to the show. Tonight we've got some great questions to answer and I'm going to answer your questions as well. But let me start with this.

Can a Christian parent cut corners on car insurance to make ends meet? When Stacy's college costs doubled, she faced an impossible choice between her budget and her children's safety.

Today we'll tackle this mother's heart wrenching dilemma that many of us are facing right now. Plus, my church says debt is sinful, but my family needs a home. Is all debt really forbidden by Scripture? The answer might surprise you.

And later, the truth about life insurance, protective planning or lack of faith. We're going to open up the Bible and find clear answers for today's Christian families.

Tonight I'm going to give you real questions, biblical wisdom, practical solutions. Don't miss this crucial episode of the Ask Ralph show where Godly principles meet real world challenges.

Now if you're facing a similar dilemma or financial dilemma, remember you can submit your questions. Just go right into the chat window and type them right in there. So again, thank you for joining me.

This is your weekly opportunity to get your questions answered. Later on the show, I'm going to share the winner of the $250 Amazon gift card.

For those of you who completed our show survey and I truly appreciate all of your entries, we got some solid information for this show moving forward. Now I want to remind you there'll be no live show. Yeah, you're going to miss me for the next two Tuesday nights.

With it being Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve, I thought we wouldn't get many people to come out and I need a break anyway. So there'll be no live show for the next two weeks. But again, feel free to ask your questions in the chat.

If you do put a question in there, do me a favor, put a cue cone so I see that they are seen and feel free to comment and stick around. Like I said, I'm going to give away another hundred dollar Amazon gift card later in the show.

Well, let's get started with our Bible verse tonight as we like to ground ourselves in scripture and tonight's comes to us from First Timothy, chapter 5, verse 8. And it says this.

But if anyone does not provide for his relatives and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. Well, that's certainly a bold Bible verse and it's right on point for tonight's discussion. So I want to welcome everybody.

Jeff, I see you in the chat. Thanks for joining me. Well, let's get to our question here. Our first one of the night and that comes to us from. Let me get to question one.

There we go. This one comes to us from Stacy and Stacy writes to me from Michigan and she writes this.

Ralph, I'm struggling with a financial decision regarding my two college students. My daughter Jessica is attending university 200 miles away and my son Michael is at a local college.

Our auto insurance premiums are sky high and I'm tempted to remove them from our policy to save money. But as a Christian parent, I want to make sure I'm making wise and responsible choices. What should I do? Well, Stacy, that is a great question.

I actually faced the same issue when my oldest son went away to college. So tonight we're going to break down both the practical and spiritual perspectives. And thank you, Salty Waters. Thank you for joining us as well.

So let me break this down for you first. I'm gonna jump. I'm gonna, I'm gonna be very bold.

Completely removing your children from an auto insurance coverage could create serious financial and legal risk. It just could. So I'm, I'm gonna tell you, I don't recommend doing that because proper insurance is crucial. You might be saying, Ralph, why is that?

Well, here's the deal. If you drive your vehicles, let's say your kids come home from college.

And if they drive your vehicles when they're visiting home or during emergencies, any accident could leave your family facing devastating costs. So that is a first thing I'm going to jump to say, Stacey, don't do that.

But there are several responsible ways to reduce the cost while maintaining protection. So let's talk about that. I'm going to cut right to it. So you mentioned Michael is at a local college. This is a no brainer for me.

You got to keep him on your policy.

But one of the things you could consider a lot of people overlook this is reach out to your insurance company and see if they offer any good student discounts. A lot of people don't take advantage of that. And if your son's in college, he's probably getting pretty good grades in high school.

So now he's in college, he might qualify for some good student discounts. Another thing you could consider is a lot of states like Delaware, I'm at here, has what they call safe driver programs.

If you have your son take that safe driver program, it might give you a little bit of a discount or a coupon on that insurance. Because the truth is many insurers offer substantial discounts for students maintaining good grades. So that's what I would recommend for.

Michael, you asked me a question. I gave you a direct answer. Now, let's talk about Jessica. Jessica is your daughter and she's 200 miles away.

So one of the things you could do, and I did this with my own oldest son, Ryan. You can ask your insurance company if they have what's called an away at school discount.

A lot of insurance companies offer that because they realize your child's not going to be driving as much and especially if they don't have their own car at school, because there's really not a whole lot of liability there. So you might be able to qualify for some reduced coverage as what they call an occasional driver.

But I'm definitely telling you not to drop either one of them. Just look at the discounts that are out there and available.

One of the other things you can do if you're trying to cut back on your cost, and I did a show a few weeks ago about this, you might consider raising those deductibles to lower your premiums. So you want to keep that essential coverage.

But like I said on my show a few weeks ago, you might take your deductible from $500 or maybe to $1000 or even 1500. Now, you need to check with your lender and make sure that it's okay to do that.

But the truth is, when you look at most car accidents now, the minimum you're going to spend is $1000 or $1500. And my little tip for you on that one is if you're going to increase your deductible, here's what I'm going to tell you to do.

Set up an emergency fund that has all of that deductible in it. So let's say your deductible right now is $500.

And you're saying, ralph, but listen, I can reduce my monthly premiums if I took that deductible to fifteen hundred dollars. Well, here's what I'm going to tell you to do. Take that fifteen hundred dollars, set it aside, put it in an emergency fund.

That way, if you God Forbid, have an accident, you've got that money for that deductible. Nothing you can do. Shop multiple insurance carriers for better rates. A lot of times people with insurance just set it and forget it.

They don't think about, hey, are there better options out there?

So that's what I'm going to do, is tell you to do, is to go find some insurance carriers, compare rates, shop one against another, but make sure you maintain that adequate coverage. Because here's the truth, Stacy. The most responsible path forward is to maintain appropriate coverage while actively pursuing cost reduction options.

Because that's going to honor both your role as a parent and your commitment to financial wisdom. Because then you don't want to have happen.

And I've heard horror stories about this, you drop that child from your insurance and they get into a fender bender, even it wasn't their fault. Then all of a sudden you've got an insurance claim, you've got a lawsuit against you. That's one thing we definitely don't want to do.

So I'm going to encourage you right now, if you've got any questions to ask me, if you have a comment, do me a favor, put them right in the chat. Well, let's move on to another question we received this week. And this one was pretty blunt. I didn't get a name for this one.

They just put it on our Facebook site and said this. It said, ralph, does the Bible prohibit taking on any debt? And I thought to myself, wow, that is a provocative question.

So I did a little research and here's, here's my opinion. This is Ralph's opinion. The Bible does not categorize. Let me say that 10 times. The Bible does not categorically prohibit debt. It just doesn't.

But here's the thing the Bible does do. It does contain numerous warnings about its danger. So I'm not saying that the Bible says you can't take on debt. I don't believe it says that.

I don't think it anywhere in this says that. But it does contain numerous warnings about its dangers. So you might be saying, ralph, what are some key principles that emerge from biblical text?

Let's jump right into them. Here's one. Number one. Debt is discouraged, but not forbidden.

If you look at Proverbs, chapter 22:7, and I use this on the show all the time, it says the borrower is slave to the lender. So I think about this. It's expressing that there's caution, but it's not saying you can't do it.

There's no Prohibition, but it's pretty strong and saying that the borrower is a slave to the lender. So that might mean you might want to look at smart debt. Let's look at the next Bible verse, And that's Romans 13, 8.

And it says this, owe nothing to anyone. That's pretty blunt and straightforward.

But you got to look at the context of that, because what they're really saying in the Bible, in my view, is that it refers to fulfilling obligations rather than banning loans. Again, you could take those things out of context, but when you put them in context, oh, nothing to anyone.

I don't think it's saying you can't take on debt. Now let's talk about some certain lending practices that I feel are explicitly prohibited. I think the Bible is very strong on these things.

This comes from Exodus 22, verse 25. And you can look these up. But the Bible distinctly talks about charging interest to the poor.

It also talks in Deuteronomy, chapter 23, verses 19 to 20. It discourages exploitative lending terms. Now, you can look in the economy right now.

Some of these payday loans, these buy here, pay here people, and maybe those are the ones they're talking about here. So you got to examine what's going on there. Now, all of this put together, the Bible does encourage responsible financial management. It just does.

There are scriptures all over the Bible that promote why stewardship and planning. One of those is first Timothy 5, 8. And it emphasizes on providing for your family. That's what I started today's show with.

Another thing the Bible highlights is debt forgiveness. It talks about how debt forgiveness needs to be highlighted. Look at Leviticus 25. It talks about the year of jubilee concept. And think about this.

Jesus himself, in many of his parables, said that debt forgiveness is the core. Today he talked about debt. He talked about debt forgiveness in many of his parables. So again, thank you for that question.

Does the Bible prohibit taking on any debt? Like I said, this is an opinion thing. But I think that the Bible cautions against taking on debt.

But listen, if you're going to go buy a home, if you're going to go buy a car, I think those are responsible things to use debt for. But again, don't get yourself into that position where you become a slave to the lender. So let me take a quick look here.

And let's go on to another question we received. And this one's another one of those straightforward questions. And it says, ralph, what's the biblical view on life insurance?

Now, I didn't expect to get that question, I got to be honest with you, that one hit me out of left field. So again, getting into some research, here's what I found out. There are biblical principles which support life insurance.

Now this is one of those things where there's a lot of questions going back and forth. And Mark, I see your question and I am going to answer that in just a moment. So let's get back to our discussion about supporting life insurance.

And this is where I believe the Bible supports it. So it's a family provision.

So beyond First Timothy 5, 8, which you talked about, Proverbs chapter 13, verse 22 states, a good person leaves an inheritance for their children's children. Again, I'm going to say that again, a good person leaves an inheritance for their children's children.

And I think that's pretty blunt and to the point. And it's saying that in my view, that life insurance is therefore acceptable biblically. And you got to think about it like this.

In these modern times, life insurance can be seen as a model tool for ensuring family stability after death. And this aligns perfectly with Joseph's example of in Egypt, of preparing for future hardships. You can check that out in Genesis 41.

Now, as it relates to life insurance, there's also the discussion of wisdom and planning. Proverbs 21:20 praises saying this. The why store up choice food and oil? But the fool gulps theirs down.

And Proverbs 20:27 12 encourages foreseeing and preparing for difficulties.

And in a lot of ways you can say life insurance can be viewed as both prudent financial planning, and that's similar to biblical concepts of storing up resources. I also believe this is something else you need to consider, and that's community responsibility.

If you look at the early church, the model showed believers caring for widows. That's Acts 6:1:7. And in a lot of ways, life insurance can be seen as a structured way to fulfill this community obligation.

If you've got young children, if you've got a wife, then I think that biblically, the Bible is very clear about making sure you provide for them, make sure you care for those widows. And it Also, in Galatians 6:2, it talks all about the principle of bearing one another's burdens. Now that's the pro point.

Now let me give you the counterpoint because a lot of people will argue with me on this. Here's where I think the biblical there's some potential biblical concerns. First one is trust and faith.

And a lot of people will go down this route they're going to go right to Matthew 25:34 that says do not worry about tomorrow. And some interpret that is discouraging insurance. I honestly don't agree with that.

But I think there is a place for balancing that trust in God with practical planning. And see, that's where this whole discussion goes into this thought of, does insurance indicate lack of faith?

I would certainly welcome your comments in the chat. And what do you think about that? Do you think that there is a balance here?

Do you think that by getting insurance, whether it be life insurance or any other kind of insurance, do you think that demonstrates a lack of faith? I honestly don't, but I would love to hear your comments. And then, of course, the con to this is stewardship issues.

A lot of people will make the argument whether paid insurance premiums are the best use of God's resources. You know, if you're thinking about where they're going with their counterpoint. I don't, like I said, I'm not saying I agree with it.

But then they're basically making a statement, well, if you're paying these premiums, you're not doing a good job of stewarding the resources that God has given to you. And it might say, well, there's alternate ways to protect your family. You know, maybe you need to do a better job at investment.

And then there's also, you know, discussion about whether insurance profits from other people's misfortune.

You know, do you have those people sitting on the sidelines saying, I can't wait till Ralph passes away because, man, I'm going to click in and get that insurance policy. Now here's another perspective before I move on to our question we just got is that. And that's the historical church perspectives.

And here's the truth. Early Christians relied on community support rather than formal financial interest.

They didn't have, you know, the insurance companies back in biblical days, they didn't have the different types of insurance companies.

And I gotta be honest with you, when I did some research, a lot of denominations historically opposed insurance because they called it gambling on death. Like you're throwing the dice when somebody dies, whether they have insurance or not. I'm not sure I agree with that.

But I'm going to tell you what I have found when I did some research. Most modern churches generally accept insurance as a practical tool. So you might say, Ralph, you haven't given us an answer. So here's the answer.

I think you got to look at some practical considerations. Look at your personal circumstances, look at your family size look at your financial obligations.

Are you in a family where there's a single income versus dual income households and you have to be honest and look at your assets and debts. You know, if you are barely getting by day to day, if you pass away, you're going to leave a big burden on the people that are remaining.

But if you're in a position where you don't have any debts, where you've got substantial assets, then I think one could argue the counterpoint and say that, well, I don't really think it's a lack of faith and I agree and I just want to share this comment. Let me, let me do this real quick because I thought this was great.

So I just got a comment here from one of the participants here and it says, I agree with you, Ralph. I don't think it demonstrates lack of faith. Thank you. I agree with you. I don't think it does either.

I think it's being, I think if we're going to talk about, you know, my show is all about Christian finance and it's all about being a good steward. And I honestly agree with you.

I think that it's all about being a good steward and I just think that's how you provide for the people that you care about and the people that you're in charge of taking care of. So but like I said, there's that personal circumstances which matter about this and there's also alternative purchase.

Some people will say maybe you do self insurance by saving money, by putting away money, by building those emergency funds. No, some churches like the Amish for example, and I'm not picking on the Amish, but they have a church based support system.

I have some clients that are Amish and I've asked them before, like what happens when somebody passes away?

What happens when somebody gets sick and their community is strong and they come and they take care of each other, you know, that's what we'll call that Community Care Networks. So here's my key takeaway and I hope you agree with me on this one and I'm welcome to listen to your comments. Feel free to put them in there.

I think you can have what I call a balanced approach because I think there's a way to be practical and still have that spiritual trust. Yes, trust in God. He said he will never leave us nor forsake us.

But I think you can use insurance as a tool, among many others, for family care, you know, and you could consider insurance as stewardship rather than lack of faith. So again, I'm going to I'm going to summarily like this.

The modern consensus among most Christian thinkers is that life insurance can be a valuable tool for fulfilling biblical principles of family care and wise planning. And that's while maintaining trust in God's providence.

But again, I think it comes down to like most things we talk about on the show, the key is maintaining that proper perspective and that proper balance.

And I think it's just one of the ways you can use insurance as one of the many ways to exercise good stewardship while not placing ultimate security and financial instruments rather than God. What? Well now let me switch over here to the screen here. We find it here, we'll go right to here.

Just dance ground and actually let me go to the one that doesn't have anything at the bottom so I can bring this question on. There we go, here we go. And so let's get to Mark Bernhardt asked a question, so let me drag his question.

This might be one that we're going to get some comments on. And Mark answered this. At what age do you think it's proper to stop providing for your children? Mark, that sounds like a looted question, my friend.

And I'm going to ask you in the chat, what do you think that is? What do you think the age is? You know, you can define child. You know that may be the best place to start.

Do you think a child is somebody that's 18 or less? Do you think a child is somebody that's 24 or less? You know, I think as a parent, I'm going to answer this as a parent with two adult children.

One is 23 and one is 27.

I think that the answer for me is that if you've done a good job of preparing your children, if you've made them, you've shown them love, you've shown them Christian love and you've brought them alongside of you and you taught them valuable lessons that I don't know that it really becomes a question because at some point I think you're doing your children a disservice to if you keep providing for it. And listen, I know people that do this. I know people that they are the go to person anytime something's going on in their kids lives.

Boy, they are still the soccer mom or whatever you want to call that. And they are up in their children's business 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I don't think that's healthy for children.

I don't think that's healthy for young adults. It's certainly not healthy for somebody who's 21, 22, 23 years old. I'm not saying to say your kids, hey, goodbye, have a nice life.

That's not what I'm saying at all. But the thing is, you know, growing up yourself, you learn the most when you failed on your own. And that's just a simple truth.

If we don't allow our children to stumble, we don't allow our children to fall. We don't allow our children to make those same mistakes we've made. We can only pray that they don't make huge mistakes.

But ultimately they're going to have to learn. So, Mark, let me do this, because I like what you just said there, Mark. And it says 18 or less. Let me see here.

So 18 or less things appropriate unless they continue in the college. My feelings only. Yeah, I agree with you, Margaret. I don't disagree with that at all.

I think that's a fair number because at 18, they can go to fight in a war. They can. You know, I think there's a whole lot of reasons for that.

But again, I'm going to say this, Mark, but I think it depends on how well you provide them to be independent. Now, I'm not picking on you, Mark. I don't know you.

But I'm just saying that if you've prepared your kids well, that it really shouldn't be a big issue. And I just think you say to them, and maybe you start to plant those seeds, you know, maybe you start to plant those seeds when they're 12.

When they're 13, you start talking about how. And I've done many shows on this. You go check out. If you go to askralph.com you'll see a little search icon and you can click on that.

And I've done many shows about this. But you've got to train them and educate them and show them how to be independent. I think that's the key to the whole thing.

Now, we got a comment here from Salty Waters. Let's see here. And she says, if I had the ability to help my kids out financially, even as adults, I will. And I don't disagree with that.

I think the difference is you use the term help my kids out financially. And I think Mark was really getting to a different point, and he said, stop providing. And you can answer this in the chat.

Whether you guys see a difference in this, ladies and gentlemen, see a difference in this.

But I think there is a difference, because I think what Mark is saying is, Mark is saying, you know, when do we stop providing Meaning food, clothing, shelter, cell phones, gasoline, cars, all that kind of stuff and salty waters. I think you're saying something completely different and I tend to agree with you.

And I think the word help is different than, you know, handle, provide. One could disagree with me, and I, and I welcome your ideas in the chat, but I feel like that really is a distinct difference.

To help your children, I think is very honorable. And I think that's biblical. You know, I just think about us as children of God. God is helping us, but he's also given us free will.

And I think you've got to do the same thing with your children.

You've got to give them that free will, allow them to make those mistakes, allow them to fall flat on their face, because they're going to learn from that. All right, so let me get to. And I think that was a great discussion and I'll continue that if anybody has any more chat. So any more comments.

So here comes a quote or a question from Pokemon Guy 33 09. It says, I have a buddy that needs to file a tax return from a few years back, but he doesn't know how to go about doing that.

Do you have advice for him? I sure do. First thing is he needs to get the tax return filed because right now he is out of compliance.

Now, it's one thing to file a tax return and owe the irs. That's a civil issue. But what your buddy is in right now is he is in tax evasion. That's a criminal issue.

That's the kind of thing they'll lock you up for. Now, I'm not saying they're going to come and put your buddy in shackles and take him away, but technically they could.

So here's what I would recommend. If he knows the tax year he needs to file, then he can go online and get the forms that he needs. That's a 1040. Maybe it's a 1040 Z.

I don't know the full story of what's going on with your buddy, but I would start there. The second thing I would do is have him go to irs.gov that's irs.gov and have him create an account there you go on there.

You can sign up for an account.

They're going to put you through that ID me system and then he can pull up his information from that tax year and see what kind of information was reported under his Social Security number. I do this with clients all the time. I've had many clients.

In fact, I'm preparing for a show in the next week or two that talks about how to get started for preparing your taxes for 2024. Well, sometimes I've had clients who have gotten behind on their tax.

I'm actually going to talk about a guy that hadn't filed for 10 years, and we just recently got him caught up. But one of the best places to start is to go ahead and get that transcript from the irs, because that's going to tell him when he last filed.

That's going to tell him any information that was reported under Social Security number, because you're going to need all those things to file the tax return. Now, if he didn't have enough income, he may not need to file. So that's where I would start.

I would go get those transcripts, see what records he has, and then determine what the next steps are. I'm not sure that the. I mean, the IRS is certainly not going to file his tax return form, although they may have.

And maybe he's moved and he's got an assessment notice and didn't even realize it. All the more reasons to go and get that transcript from the irs. But Pokemon, that's a great question and I truly appreciate your comment there.

So let's see here. I got another comment here. And this is from says Ralph. In a previous episode, you mentioned open a new credit card in case of lower interest rates.

Is the lower interest rate worth the hit to your credit score? Well, I think that's a good question. And you have to think about it in terms of this.

Generally, a credit score is going to take a little bit of a hit from new credit.

But, and I talk about this on the show all the time when I talk about credit, if you keep your outstanding balance below 30% and you don't have a ton of inquiries, I really don't think you're going to see a very large dip based on getting a new credit card. In fact, I actually encourage it in some cases.

Let's say that you're one of these people that puts everything on a credit card and you constantly put your groceries on there, you put your gas on there, you put all those things on there. Well, you might be pushing that capacity.

And one of the things I talk about all the time is never let your capacity or the amount that you owe be greater than 30%. So in other words, what I'm saying is if you've got $1,000 credit limit, you never want to have on that charge more than $300.

Well, if you're like me, you know, $300 isn't going to go very far with groceries and all that kind of stuff. So if you're constantly pushing the limit of that credit card, then that may be all the more reason to open up a new credit.

I know you're not talking about, you're saying in case of a lower interest rate, but. So I don't really know that. I'm too concerned about. You have a problem with your credit score.

I actually think it might help in particular circumstances. Now, if you've got a credit card with a $10,000 limit and the most you ever put on is $1000 or $1500 at any time, then we don't have that capacity.

We don't have that, that amount over 30% issue.

But in general, if your credit score is good and you get a new credit card, as long as you don't go charging that thing up over that 30%, I really don't see a problem with that. So again, I appreciate that question because I talk about this on the show all the time.

And actually I've got a show coming out next week that's going to talk about how people obsess on this 800 point credit score. And what you're going to realize is that you don't have to have perfect credit.

I don't want to spoil it, so I'm going to encourage you to check it out. But it's all about why that 800 credit score shouldn't be like your life's goal. I'm not saying don't get an 800 credit score.

I'm not saying that at all. A lot of people have those, but don't fret about it.

So if your credit score drops 10 points because you got a new credit card, which I doubt that it would, if it's just a single inquiry and a single new account, I really don't see that drop in your credit score. In fact, it might help it because like I said, it's going to add more capacity.

So therefore the amount that you charge is not going to be as big a percentage. So that's a really good question though. So let me take a sip of tea here and see if anybody else has any more questions here in the live chat.

And I do appreciate everybody's comments tonight. We've had some, some really good interaction tonight. So go look here. All right.

Well, let me, let me ask you this because I always like to tell you that there's a way to get in touch with me. Well, maybe you're listening tonight. You know what, Ralph? I feel Like, I'm under this enormous amount of financial stress.

Maybe you're feeling overwhelmed by your financial challenges. Maybe you're buying a home. You're running a small business. Maybe you're living. You feel like you live in paycheck to paycheck.

And the sad reality is so many people are doing it, especially this time of year. This Christmas season is tough on people financially. Well, here's the thing I'm going to tell you. You don't have to walk this alone.

Like many others, you might be watching your dreams slip away. Maybe you're struggling with mounting debt. You're feeling stuck and frustrated.

You're trying to balance business and personal finances, and you feel like you're all alone doing it. But there is hope. Working together, we can create a path to your financial freedom while honoring your Christian values.

And here's how we'll get there. I'm gonna tell you what I do with every person I work with. I assess their current situation. This is not about judgment. This is not about emotion.

This is about the facts. What do you got? What's going on? We sit down and we talk about it. Just like if you're trying to take a trip.

Let's say I want to take a trip to New York City for New Year's Eve. I want to go up to Times Square and see the ball drop.

Well, if I'm going to do a map, I got to figure out where I'm at before I can figure out where I'm going. I'm going to do the same thing when I work with you with your finances.

We're going to look at that current situation, and then I'm going to sit down with you and I'm going to look at what your dreams are. Because everybody's dreams are different. Your dream might be saving for retirement. Your dream might be putting kids through college.

It might be building up your emergency fund. Everybody's dreams are different. That's what I call your big, hairy, audacious goals.

And we'll sit down, we'll go through those together, and then I'm going to align your goals with your faith, because that's important. Because you have to have a reason for doing these things.

And then what I'm going to do, just like that trip to New York City, I'm going to help you personalize what I call a financial roadmap. And we'll establish accountability. I'm going to track your success. And the truth is, let me tell you this.

You might think there is, but there are no cookie Cutter approaches to this. There's no one size fits all. Everybody's situation is different. You know the questions we had on the show tonight, each one of those is different.

But what I bring to the table is practical faith based approaches tailored to your unique situation. So let me ask you again. Are you ready to break free from debt?

Are you wanting to find financial stability and achieve long term success and at the same time grow spiritually while building wealth? Don't let another day pass feeling stuck or overwhelmed. I'm going to encourage you to book a consultation right now.

You go to askrab.com when you get there, you'll see a banner at the top. It says book a call with Ralph. Just click on that and let's create your path to financial freedom and spiritual growth together.

All right, well, now it's time to announce the winner of the survey. And I again want to thank everybody who entered into the survey. I got a ton of great results, I got a ton of information.

I'm going to put that all to work here and move it into the new year. So let's go. Without further ado, my changes to the next slide and I'm going to say the winner of the survey is Stephen Rorabaugh.

So Stephen, thank you so much for entering into the survey. You've won that $250Amazon gift card and I truly appreciate you, all the comments that you made and all the positive feedback you gave to the show.

You told me how I can do things better. You told me about some things that I could do that could improve the show. So again, Steven, I want to say thank you, my friend.

Thank you for being a supporter of the show and I hope this $250 is great for you. So now let's move on to our drawing for tonight and if I can find the slide, we'll do that. Here it is.

Okay, so let's go to our drawing of the night and what I'm going to encourage you to do. Let me launch this other thing over here. I'm going to hit start.

Now what you need to do to enter into the drawing is you need to go into the comment field. And what you're going to do is you're going to type in #askralph. That's #askralph. Okay, great. So Salty Waters is entered.

Now this is your opportunity. You got five minutes to enter in. If you don't enter in, you can't win.

But there's going to be a hundred dollar Amazon gift card given to somebody who enters into the contest. Now we're waiting. We got five minutes left on the timer here, actually four minutes and 42 seconds.

If you've got any more comments or questions, feel free to put those in the chat. I feel like we've had a really a good night tonight. We've answered some great questions and I appreciate you sharing those with me.

I'm going to encourage you. Now the show goes off every day. I've got a special surprise. Starting January 1st, we're changing the show up a little bit.

Nothing outrageous, but we're just, we're kicking it up a notch. So I want to thank everybody who supported the show. And remember, you can catch it every day on the audio show.

You can get that on Apple podcasts, you can get that on Spotify. I think there's about two or three hundred places you can actually get it. And then we also do it live on YouTube. We do it on YouTube every day.

We do it on rumble, we release YouTube shorts. We're just launched a TikTok site so there is a ton of place where you can get content.

So it looks like we got about four more minutes left on the drawing. So again, go into the chat and type in #askralph. This will be a nice little $100 gift card that might help you on your Christmas shopping.

And listen, we're not got many days left to that, so it won't be too long. So if you haven't gotten that gift for the person in your life, make sure you do that. Don't be like me and wait to the last minute.

Now, of course I ordered my wife's gift a week or two ago, but it hadn't come in yet. We're hoping that it gets here by Christmas.

But again, I just want to remind you while we're here, I'm not going to be doing the live show for the next Tuesday nights. I still will be doing the normal daily show so you can catch out all the content there. And I'm going to encourage you.

Go to ask Ralph.com if you don't. If you haven't already, sign up for our email list and whenever we put out a new show, you'll get an email that talks about what's on the show today.

So it looks like we got about three minutes left. If you're in the chat, don't forget to just type in #askralph and you will be entered into the drawing. So let me say my hellos here again.

I want to say hello to Jeff. Thank you for Joining the show Salty Waters. Thank you for being a member of Ask Ralph Live. Mark, thank you for joining me. One wfc.

I'm not sure what that stands for, but thank you for being a part. Thank you for sharing some comments and questions. And Pokemon Guy 3309 with your Dallas jersey on there. Yeah, I'm a Cowboys fan too.

So I just want to thank all of you for joining me tonight. Chris, thanks for joining the show tonight.

Looks like we got about two minutes left in the drawing, so make sure that you enter in if you've got a question. Jeff, thank you. I'm going to, I'm going to share this because Jeff just gave us a comment.

He said love Ralph's daily emails and I hope they're not a burden to you. If it's too much for you can unsubscribe.

I won't take it personally but the whole point of that is just to remind you because listen, I know we're doing a daily show. Sometimes the topics just not relevant for you and I get it. That's cool with me. I am totally cool if you say rob, that show doesn't impact me.

I've had several people say during the survey, you know, one of the questions I asked was do you listen to the show every day? And a lot of people said no, but that's okay because not everything pertains to everyone.

You know, some days I talk about credit, some days I talk about retirement savings, some days I talk about technology stuff like I just did one about seven signs you might have been hacked. That's when you definitely want to check out because in today's digital age nobody wants to go through that stuff.

So Jeff, thank you so much for your comment there. It looks like, oh, I think we got a little competition going here. So Salty Water said go Eagles.

And that kind of contradicts what The Pokemon Guy 3309 looked like a Cowboys fan. So, and actually so we're going to, we're going to leave that on the screen for a second but it looks like we got about a minute and 14 seconds.

So if you haven't already entered into the contest, I know there's more people in the chat or watching the broadcast than there are entered. So again, just go to the chat window, type in #askralph so you don't miss your chance to win that hundred dollar gift card.

And here's a challenge for 2025. And I haven't said this before, but here's what I'm going to do. Kicking it up a notch on the live show.

Here's what we're going to do on the live show. Here's my challenge for you.

For every 10 active viewers, when that number of people that are in the broadcast reaches 10, I'm going to add another 25 bucks to the weekly drawing. So in other words, if we get to 20 viewers, I'm going to make it $125 for the drawing. So invite your friends and family.

Tell them this guy Ralph has lost his mind. And the more people that come to the live show, the more, the more money he's going to give away.

So I'm putting my money where my mouth is because I truly want to help people. Looks like we got about 20 seconds left. So. Yeah, I see what you're saying there, Pokemon Guy. Looks like we got a go, Eagles. And then, I don't know.

Oh, boy. That's not very nice, Pokemon Guy. But I understand, you know, that football brings out the robbery people.

But the truth is the Eagles are playing really well. I got the green shirt on today, but they're playing really well. So we got about three seconds. Two, one.

All right, so let's see who the winner of tonight's $100Amazon gift card is going to be. As it spins around. We're going to see who the winner is. Let's see who the winner is. All right, here we go. And tonight's winner is Pokemon Guy 3309.

So, Dallas Cowboys and Pokemon Guy, you are the winner of tonight's drawing. And Pokemon Guy's been here just about every week since we started the live show.

So thank you for attending and I thank everybody for joining me tonight. It's been great. And let me just do this here. Let's switch screens here right quick.

If you didn't have a chance to enter your question tonight, you can go to just ask Ralph.com. just go right to that website and type your question. I'm looking for content for the show. I'm looking for more ideas for people for the show.

So again, thank you for joining me tonight. Remember, every Tuesday night, 7pm Eastern time, so share the show with friends and family. Let's fill this place.

Let's help people get past those difficulties that they're having in their financial lives with that Christian perspective. Because remember this, my passion, my mission is to help you achieve financial success.

I want to see you live out your dreams and I want to see you grow in your faith. And I know together in our community, working together, we can master your finances from that Christian perspective.

So as I always end this show, stay financially savvy and God bless. And since I won't be seeing you next Tuesday live, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Have a great night.

Thank you for joining us on the Ask Ralph podcast, and with a simple click to subscribe, we'll invite you back to our next episode. And remember, financial issues don't have to be complicated, just Ask Ralph.

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