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Welcome to Radical Personal Finance, the show dedicated to providing you with the knowledge, skills, insight, and encouragement you need to live a rich and meaningful life now while building a plan for financial freedom in 10 years or less. My name is Joshua and today we have a special live Q&A.

Usually we do these shows on Fridays and today it's Monday. Let's see what happens. I don't know if Friday questions are going to be more fun than Monday questions, but whatever, I'll do my best. So we come up on the 500th show of Radical Personal Finance. I thought it'd be fun to do some more audience related things.

I want to share that with more of you and so I just had to open up a couple of days of Q&A calls for you, the listener, to be able to join in even if you are not a patron. Usually these Friday Q&A shows are restricted to patrons of the show, but I thought it'd be fun to go and have an open mic.

So if you'd like to call into the show, just search, look in the description as you're listening to me right now. Obviously this is being recorded live, but you're not hearing it live. Look in the description on your phone and there'll be a link there in that description or on the computer to my Twitter page where I posted some info on when I'm doing these shows today, Monday, October 2, also Tuesday and Wednesday this week at 1 o'clock p.m.

Eastern Standard Time and the phone number and all the information that you need is listed right on that page. So we're going to start with Joe in New Jersey. Joe, welcome to Radical Personal Finance. How can I serve you today? Great to be on the show. So my question kind of revolves around my unique compensation package.

Warning, there's a lot of first world problems in my story, but nonetheless. (Laughter.) And we are all very blessed to live, most of us, obviously. I have listeners throughout the world, but those of us who live in the first world are very blessed and privileged to live here. Absolutely.

Go ahead. Very true. Very true. So I work for a major tech firm as a software engineer, and one unique part of our compensation packages is that it's very heavy on company stock. So quarterly, after a single one-year cliff, we see a lot of this stock vest and come into my control.

I'm spleeted to have my first vesting, and quarterly thereafter, in February of 2018. Given where the market is right now, I'm kind of hesitant to do anything outside of tax advantage accounts by throwing this into low-cost index funds. My instinct tells me to pay off as much debt as I can and possibly even go into paying down the principal on my mortgage, even though I do have a fairly advantageous rate.

I have a 7-1 ARM that should convert -- the 7 expires in 2023, I believe, and I'm currently sitting on a 287 rate. So I'm kind of hesitant to put this into equities as I would, you know, following kind of the typical channels that I've read in the past.

But I'm wondering if there's something I might be missing, if there's other tax advantages I might be missing out on, if there's just a different way to think about this. Because given the bull run we've been on, I have to imagine that there's a correction coming, and given how much I'm going to be -- how much money I'm going to be getting every single time, it seems kind of risky to throw everything in equities.

>>TED: Let's come back to the correction question in a moment. I'll do one quick comment on that. I have always loved the statement that economists -- I first heard Ziegler say it, so I want to give him credit -- that economists have successfully predicted all 17 of the last three recessions.

And I feel that way a little bit myself. I expected -- my personal guess last year was that I thought that by the end of 2016 or during 2017 -- those were the statements that I made to my wife -- I said, "I think by the end of 2016 or during 2017, that we'll probably be back into a recession." It seems like we're long overdue, and I have mentally made my -- personally, that's what I thought would happen.

Now, all of the evidence that we have at present seems to indicate that I was wrong in that prediction. I can't see that I was wrong in saying that somehow recessions are a thing of the past. It's old and outdated and from the 18th century, so thus we're not going to have recessions again.

But I was certainly wrong on my timing. So that is very thorny, of course, to predict that. Let's come back to that in a minute. Let's start with the most useful way to approach a question like this, which is your personal situation. Run me through some numbers. Ballpark, your household annual income is how much?

Including salary, stock, like I spoke about, and cash bonus, it should end up somewhere around $350,000. And how much is your house worth? Last appraisal put it somewhere at $490,000. And how much is the mortgage balance presently? Somewhere in the realm of $345,000. And other major assets, retirement accounts, about how much?

Ballpark? Ballpark retirement accounts should be in the realm of $150,000. OK. And other investable assets or investment assets that aren't inside of a retirement account, specifically stocks, equities, things like that? Another $50,000 on top. So $200,000 total, $150,000 retirement, $50,000 taxable. OK. Cash or cash equivalents, emergency funds, that type of thing, about how much?

In the realm of $25,000. And then any other major investment assets, real estate, business interests, et cetera? No, just personal vehicles, that sort of thing. OK. $345,000 on the mortgage. Other debts? Yes. Student loan debt, that should be paid off with that February vesting in the realm of $40,000.

OK. And so any other debts other than that? No. We've been fairly aggressive with the debt. So that's the last of it. That's great. And so this particular vesting that you're looking at is about $40,000, right? No, that's just the amount we would pay off the student debt for.

How much? All in before Uncle Sam gets in there, assuming the stock price holds as it is today. Should be in the realm of $100,000 in February. OK. You mentioned tech, and you mentioned that this is your first-- I think you said something like this is your first year-- you've reached this first year cliff vesting, and now you're getting your first quarterly.

How long have you been with this company? I started on January 9th of this year. So this is fairly new in terms of your work there. And that, I think, should be a major area of focus for you to pay attention to. Because when you're new at a company, and if it's in tech, of course, there's a difference in how in your future that you've got to pay attention to.

It's less stable probably than some other things. Before this particular company, do you have a good, strong history of employment, good strong history of finding opportunities, or is this kind of a breakout position for you? I would certainly call it a breakout position, but I definitely have a strong history in the industry.

The only difference between working at my current company is that I've just worked for much earlier stage companies in the past, just because it was sort of a lifestyle thing. I was a little bit younger at the time. I liked the startup vibe. But I ended up joining the big company because I sort of hit the adult milestones.

Got married, bought a house, had a child, that sort of thing. So comp was always an issue. And stability, of course, too. Even though this is a technology company, like you said, they're a little bit more volatile. I actually have no problem saying what company it is, if you don't mind.

Sure, go ahead. It's Facebook. So we do have a little bit of a decent track record, in air quotes. Let me moderate my anti-Facebook rants then, out of respect for you. Out of respect for your employment. Actually, maybe this is my inside track here. I can ask you all my Facebook questions.

Although I think that's better put in a private forum. Full Q&A. So I guess the best way to approach – the Facebook thing is relevant, because obviously that makes a big difference in terms of the stability of the company. Just to say tech, I wasn't expecting such a large expression of a company.

As you said, Facebook. So that is a relevant detail. Thank you. The options that you just sketched out. Option number one is take the money, put it all into equities. And option number two was take the money, pay off debts, and keep some cash left over. Are those the two options that you're trying to decide between?

Essentially, and I imagine there's probably some kind of middle ground in there as well. And the only thing I would just reiterate is that after the February vesting, much less money in quantity, but quarterly vesting does take over and I should see windfalls every quarter of about – depending on stock fluctuation – 20 to 25,000.

So I guess the key thing I would identify with these two decisions is neither of them is particularly time-pressing and neither of them is probably going to be particularly impactful on your current lifestyle. That's what makes it hard, because oftentimes when related to personal finance questions, there are things that are very timely or there are things that are related to – that are going to improve your lifestyle.

Let's say you don't – you didn't own a home and you're getting to the point where like we'd really like to own a home and this lifestyle choice of owning a home and this particular kind of home, this will make a big difference on our family life. Well, in that situation, it's relatively easy because you look and say, "Is this the right home?

Is this the right time?" And you prioritize those things that are going to make a big difference in your lifestyle. But whether or not you face – you have student loans and whether or not you have an extra in your current situation, whether or not you have an extra 20 or $30,000 in the bank is – and/or whether or not you have your retirement accounts fully funded and you have a non-qualified stock account with $60,000, $70,000 of an index fund in it, neither of these is going to make a particularly big difference in your life.

So that's why this is a fairly unemotional – it's kind of an academic intellectual question of what's best to do but there's not a lot of emotion behind it. Is there anything that – with regard to the money that does have more emotion? Are there any long-held goals that you and your wife have had that – the things you'd wanted to pursue that would have more of an emotional weight to them?

No. Like you said, I think we're fairly rational when it comes to the decision around this money and all money, really. I suppose the only thing you could really say as far as long-term goals would be just relatively debt-free college for our children. We plan on having at least two, maxing out at three kids.

What else would be on the docket? Having an appropriately sized home for those children. Other than that, we're fairly modest people. I wouldn't say we're completely tuned out to the idea of financial independence much earlier than most Americans. We'd certainly like to not necessarily have to work full-time in our, let's say, 50s and 60s, but we're both lucky enough that we kind of do what we love.

I'm a software engineer, like I said. I don't feel like I go to work every day. My wife currently stays home but that might change. We're both incredibly blessed but nothing too big as far as life goals. >> And how old are you currently? >> I turned 32 this week and my wife is 31.

>> Well, in terms of how to approach it, I guess I would think carefully to see if there is any major life goal first. It's okay if there's not, but if there is, you don't want to ignore it because oftentimes those things I think can be very, very important, very, very valuable.

Of course, you're just trying to be prudent and trying to make kind of good intellectual decisions. So let's just tackle this intellectually. With regard to timing the market, it does feel like markets are high and it does feel to me like we're due for a correction. There are good arguments, technical arguments that could be made in that direction.

I lack confidence though making big decisions in that based upon that personally, especially big single decisions. If you are investing kind of broadly in the mainstream approach toward investments using equities, using low-cost investment funds, and your basic theory is that in general, these companies are going to do well.

They're going to grow due to management decisions, taking advantage of new markets, et cetera. And the basic theory that underlies this is what's called the efficient market hypothesis. Basic idea, depending on which version of the efficient market hypothesis we accept, is generally the prices of companies are going to be pretty well priced.

You're going to pay about what a company is worth when you go and buy the stock. From this theory and from this philosophy, it comes out the natural movement to say that you can probably buy into the market at just about any time because you don't have any special inside information that the market is high.

You don't have any special information that every other of the thousands of analysts that are judging the market that they don't have. It's a very competitive environment. And so most likely, the market price today reflects all of the currently known information. Now, it's easy to think that we have some kind of contrarian insight.

For example, it's easy for me to look at the market and say, "Man, it just seems – everything seems so high. It seems like we're due for a correction." But the market is made up of millions and millions of people who are all buying and selling, trading these assets that they have, and each of them thinks that they're making a good move.

And so on the aggregate, I think a good dose of humility is in store when it comes to making specific investment decisions. You kind of have to look at it and say, "You know what? Really? I can't know – I don't know any more than all of these other traders do." You might know more about how to write good software and how to get your code to be very elegant and very efficient.

But at the end of the day, you don't know more about the market than I do or than anybody else does. And so the way that you handle this while being confident to make a decision is you look at it and you say, "I'm looking forward over the course of decades." And if you're 32 and you're saying, "I might like to be financially independent in my 50s or 60s.

It's not very important to me that I'm financially independent in five years." Over the course of a few decades, chances are things are probably going to work out pretty well. And so if you did invest your surplus into the market and you did it all at one time, I think that would be a very reasonable thing to do because you could look forward and say, "This fits my overall investment strategy.

I've got a couple of decades for prices to continue to – they'll go up and they'll go down. They'll go up and they'll go down. But on the whole, I'm betting that things will go up." So that's not – so I think that you're invested in this mentally in terms of this overall philosophy and given these philosophical constraints of mainstream investing, of the efficient market hypothesis, it makes sense not to worry about any particular unique fluctuation in the market.

It makes sense just to go ahead and say, "I'm going to go ahead and put some money in. There's almost never a bad time to buy." The theory is this. Current market prices reflect all currently known information. So it's possible that next week some new information will come out.

Or some circumstances will change that will affect market prices. But at the moment, market prices are fair. They reflect all currently known information. I don't think that's going to make a big difference to your lifestyle. But it will help you to start moving towards more accumulation. I think that you've got a lot of room to use this new job.

I think you've got a lot of room to start piling up many more substantial assets. Sounds like you've done a great job of, "Hey, we've got a house that's appropriate for us," given your current income of $350,000 a year. A house valued at $490,000 is a perfectly reasonable decision.

You're a little light in terms of where you could be if this income continues in the coming years. You're a little light in terms of investment assets. So I'd love to see you move in that direction. But I think that's just a reflection of the fact that this is a new job, a big step up, a breakthrough career opportunity for you.

And that will happen in the next couple of years. Emotionally, I think there's a good case to make for paying off the student loans. I think that would put you in a situation where you have no debt other than the mortgage, and that's a secured asset, which is probably well-financed.

And you can clear yourself of that if you ever move from the house. I think if I woke up in your shoes just emotionally, I would pay off the student loans myself because I don't like having that debt, especially debt that is unsecured debt for which I'm personally liable and the fact that I can't – I don't get any protection from those.

But that's kind of an emotional decision, not so much a clear logical decision. And how I'd balance in terms of the proper thing to do is, of course, well, how much – what's the interest rate? Calculate all that. If I woke up in your shoes, I'd pay off the student loans, especially with $100,000 windfall.

I'd pay off the $40,000 of student loans. Then the flip side is if I were you, I'd pile up more of an emergency fund. Rather than pursuing equities right away, I personally would want to build a stronger emergency fund than just $25,000. Do you have any idea of how much your monthly expenses are right now?

Michael Munger Yeah. Generally, I target around a budget of $6,500. So if you extrapolate that out to somewhere between an intelligent emergency fund of four to six months. We're right on the cost, right on the cost. Trevor Burrus: Good. Okay. So $6,500 is good. The issue is – well, the $6,500 – my calculator stopped working.

I try not to do live math, but I guess it is. With $6,500, a six-month emergency fund is going to – $6,500 a month. A six-month emergency fund is $39,000. For you as a single income earner with your wife not presently bringing an income into the household, I think a six months would be a target.

So $40,000 emergency fund would be good. I personally – I think there's a lot of power in a little bit more. So I guess depending on how you wind up with taxes, if I woke up in your shoes, I'd probably take some of the windfall, set aside some of it, and try to come up with some kind of fun, memorable way to spend the money.

I'd knock out the student loans and I'd probably put 25 grand in my emergency fund, and I'd do that with this particular $100,000 windfall. Bring me up to a $50,000 emergency fund, make me debt-free except for the house, and then I'd schedule something fun for the family, a special way to celebrate our success with this earning ability.

Then I'd probably develop a formula or a theory to follow with those quarterly disbursements going forward. I guess that's how I'd handle it. Questions, comments, Joe? Joe Fornear No, this was pretty much confirmation of the thoughts I had before I called. But hearing it from somebody whose opinions that I've kind of taken to heart in the past, gives me a lot more confidence to pull the trigger on exactly what you've outlined.

Marc Thiessen Good. Well, congratulations on having an awesome breakout in your career. I think that's really tremendous and it shows even just the power of a career and a career growth. So I congratulate you on achieving such an incredible career. I'm sure you've worked very, very hard to develop the skills in order to build that.

Just remember, you're going to start to be targeted with all kinds of opportunities. Just because you're earning new money, don't lose any – or big money, which from what you described, you're earning big money for the first time. Don't lose confidence in your willingness to think things through carefully and use common sense in all of your decisions.

But it sounds like you've got that wrapped up and hopefully, I'll continue to serve you in coming years. Hannah, North Carolina, welcome to Radical Personal Finance. How can I serve you today? Hannah Neumann Hi, thanks. Excuse me. Sorry, that was really gross sounding. Marc Thiessen All good. Hannah Neumann Yeah.

So thanks for taking my call. I'm calling, seeking your advice on how to proceed in a relationship with somebody that I'm mentoring. So she's a young woman. She's 15. She's living in poverty currently. Her mom is a single mom. And she saved up several – almost $1,000 over the summer.

And then her mom lost her job. There was a series of unfortunate events. And so she gave all her money to her mom. She didn't ask me my advice on it then. But I do feel I have a space to speak to both mom and daughter. And I was wondering, is that a good thing for a 15-year-old to be doing?

Should I be pointing her towards, "Hey, there's a lot of upcoming expenses in your future. How would you proceed in this situation given the tiny amount of information I've just given you? I can give you more." Marc Thiessen Yeah, that is a really interesting question because it brings in so many other – so many things.

So a couple of questions. With regard to the mother and the mother's actions and behavior, do you see that the mother – is the mother a responsible mother? Is she – well, sorry. Is the mother abusive towards her daughter? Kate Sills No. Marc Thiessen And by all accounts, obviously, they're living in poverty.

And that's not necessarily – that doesn't indicate necessarily yes or no. But from other accounts, does the mother seem to be responsible in her life and in her lifestyle? Kate Sills She is a great mom. She has never successfully held a job for very long, largely because some of her own actions.

So probably I sort of think of her as a good woman but not particularly – she doesn't take all the right steps to escape poverty, so to speak. Marc Thiessen And so these types of job actions, are we talking – is the mother, to the best of your knowledge, is she addicted to drugs or to alcohol?

Or are these more – Kate Sills No, no, no. Marc Thiessen OK, good. All right. Man, it's tough. Just this weekend, I was having a conversation with some family members. We were at a family birthday party. And we were talking about some of the – just the different situations of people that are close to us and some of the different relationships that have developed for us, each of us with different people.

But just some really, really struggling people that we are – we're in their lives, they're in our lives. We're trying to help them. And I often struggle to know how to help people at the most basic level of success. I think of – I asked Dan Sullivan a question one time.

Dan Sullivan is a well-known executive coach. He has a program called Strategic Coach. And it's exclusively open to people who are earning $100,000 or more. That's his minimum entry requirement for anybody to even apply to be part of the coaching program is you have to be a six-figure income earner.

And I asked Dan Sullivan one time, I said, "You've done all this incredible coaching work," and he's widely renowned in the coaching world as being really good at helping people to go from $100,000 a year to a million and beyond. I said, "You've done all this work in the coaching world to help people go from $100,000 and up." And I said, "What about helping people go from zero to 100?

How do you do that? What thoughts and ideas and suggestions do you have to help people go from zero to 100?" And Dan said, "I don't know. I don't know how to help people get that." He says, "It's not my thing." And I often personally feel that way when it comes to personal finance, that so many people face challenges with regard to what I'm imagining based upon what you're describing, personal problems.

They have prickly personalities. They struggle to do the basic skills of success, show up on time, work hard, just very basic things that aren't necessarily as obviously identifiable as a moral failing like being an alcoholic, but they're not as diagnosable. If somebody is an alcoholic, you can say, "Well, here, you have a problem.

Let's work on a solution and a treatment plan, and let's work on an accountability plan, and let's fix this." But if somebody just has a prickly personality or somebody who doesn't do a very good job at thinking ahead, it's a lot harder to know how to help them. And so I often struggle with scenarios like you're describing with a mother in this circumstance because you kind of see the things that need to be done, but you don't know how to help them learn.

And I do not have good answers for the mother. But maybe we could talk it through with the daughter, which is obviously the question that you're asking. I have some thoughts, but before I do, I just want to hear, because you're the one who knows the situation. What do you think?

Do you think that the daughter did the right thing, is doing the right thing here? I think the daughter did the right thing the first time around. I really would like for her… So she aspires to go to college, and I would like for her to have several thousand dollars in the bank before she goes to college.

She would be in a situation where she could probably get scholarships and very minimal debt, and the Pell Grant and things like that would be able to get her through college. But I worry that she wouldn't… One thing goes wrong at home, mom asks her to come back. I'm worried that she's kind of setting herself up for a codependent relationship rather than when I left home, my parents didn't need my help.

I was able to set up sort of an independent life from my parents relatively quickly, whereas I feel like if she… Even if her mom stops asking her for money come college time, I worry that she would just be so close to the edge and so used to that really, really tight relationship with her family that she wouldn't actually be able to make it through college if she doesn't have some financial buffer before heading off.

Does that make sense? - Yeah, it does. So kind of the counseling questions, there's almost the counseling questions of the relationship and then there's the financial question of how to help someone get a few thousand dollars as a buffer and establish their own independent life. Here's how I think through the issues and I want to be very humble in my thoughts.

I think in a situation like this, the most important thing is to actually be close to the situation as you are and to try to see what's actually going on because I don't think the external description is always going to be the appropriate… You got to be close enough to actually know what's actually going on in this circumstance.

So I think that first and foremost, parents have a responsibility towards their children. Ideally, the appropriate model for parents is that parents should be in the situation where they're able to support their children and provide for their children and it's ideal if they can do that without necessarily the work of the children.

That's really an ideal model. There's a biblical proverb that I have often thought was inspirational that it says, "A righteous man leaves an inheritance to his children's children," and the implication is that there is work that's being done that's not only sufficient to support me but also my children and my children's children.

I've always found that to be very inspirational. The challenge is I think there's also a responsibility from children to their parents and I admire when a child takes that responsibility on seriously. Now as an adult, it's usually a little bit easier because the adult can – an adult child is an independent person.

And so for me as an adult, I have a responsibility to help and support my parents and I can do that as an autonomous adult who's able to earn money, have my own household, etc. So there's more of an equal footing with my parents in the sense that we're adults.

But as children, I think that there is still some of that responsibility, that there is a sense of family responsibility and there are many families throughout the world who if it weren't for the contributions financially to the family of the children, the family would starve. And so I admire the ethos of a child supporting her mother, especially a single mother, a single mother living in poverty.

I admire that and I think that's a rightful instinct. But of course we want to protect the child, the more vulnerable one, and we want to make sure that she's not being taken advantage of and that's why we look for those questions about the mother. Is this being used because this is actually an important need in the family?

We're going to go hungry. We're going to go without housing. Or is the daughter being abused and her earnings are being abused to allow the mother to make frivolous purchases, things like that? And I don't know how to judge that from an external perspective. But I do think that I admire the ethos and I think it's important and valuable for that daughter to work and support the family.

I don't think that there's some kind of arbitrary line that somehow before 18 children should just play, play, play, and then after 18 then it doesn't matter what mom or dad do. Children – there's a long line of history and even today of young children, 9 years old, 10 years old, 12, 13, 14, 15 years old, working and supporting their families.

And I think that's – we should honor that. So I mean I guess those are the dimensions that I look at. I do think that it would be valuable to teach the child and help to teach the daughter some of the things to be careful of in terms of the codependent relationship.

And here would be my idea in terms of how the daughter could help the mother. Depending on what the money was spent on, one way that I think the daughter could help the mother would be to use some of her earnings to take more responsibility for herself. So maybe if she had $1,000 saved as an example, maybe she can make a small gift to the mother.

But perhaps if the mother needs the money for something, perhaps she could say, "Mom, I want to help. Tell you what. Why don't – instead of you giving me money for my lunch or instead of you trying to help me clothe myself, I'm going to use some – I'll take these responsibilities over for myself and I'll start buying my clothes.

I'll start paying for my lunch. I'll start doing some of these things." And that way, the daughter is taking some of the burden from the mother financially but we don't run into the kind of the dangers of the money back and forth. That's one idea that I have supporting the family also in terms of if you see the mother making bad decisions, maybe there's a way where – hopefully you have access to be able to work with the mother.

But maybe there's a way where you can encourage the daughter in some basic ways that she can improve things. For example, maybe the mother is overspending in an area that's causing real problems. I think of a family that I knew growing up. It was actually close friends. And this particular mother was a single mother.

She had been abandoned by her husband and had three beautiful girls and she worked night and day to provide for her girls. But one of the things that happened is because she was so overworked to provide for her daughters, that leads to a lot of times inefficiency where she's too tired to cook from scratch.

She's too tired to do some of those frugal things that can help but there's just no way that she could do those. And so in that context, I've thought of that situation and I thought, "Well, maybe there'd be a way that the daughters could contribute meaningfully to the family finances by helping with some of those things that are time-intensive but make a real difference to the savings of the family." They're just things that the mother just has no time to be able to do.

She can't do them because she's got to work and she's got to earn the income. And then maybe that establishes a good basis for that relationship to be healthy and then to work together but the daughter to increasingly grow in her earning ability, increasingly grow in her ability to support.

Is that helpful at all? Is that kind of the direction that your question is going, Hannah? Hannah Zinkham: Yeah, those are some helpful ideas. I know we've definitely discussed you need to be buying your own clothes now that you're earning money and things like that. So she has taken on some of those.

These were the specific money was for a car repair and they had gotten behind on utilities. So that's when she gave her mom all the money all at once. But I do think there are some good principles there and I don't know. Ted Kelly: Yeah, car repair and utilities, I mean how do you fault that?

Those are real needs. Those are real, real needs. If a single mom doesn't have a car and she's already got a checkered earnings history and she doesn't have the ability to get to work, that's a huge need. That's a real, real need. And then utilities, that's a real need as well.

And so I don't know of a single easy answer in a circumstance like that. I do think that as she's fortunate that you're there, my thought would just be in terms of her going to college, yes, her to have some savings will make a big difference. But I think that over time, she'll be able to get the scale up enough where she could – where we're not just dealing with $1,000 and then she's back to school full time.

But when she can start to get into a few thousand dollars, then that'll provide for her. I have no magic question. But it's certainly a challenging situation. I'm glad you're there, frankly. I mean that's the only solution that I know of is to have somebody who's thoughtful, who's not emotionally invested, who's in the situation, who can work with the mother and the daughter and provide useful counseling and provide the help when they need it.

Hannah S.: Well, hopefully I can be useful. We'll see. Paul Battelle: Well, you're there for a reason and I love to hear that. We often I think go too quickly to kind of big solutions when in reality somebody needs a friend to come by and help. Any other questions or comments before I go on, Hannah?

Hannah S.: No, thank you. Paul Battelle: Oops, I thought I had one more call and that one just dropped off. I guess that's it for Callers for Today show. So let me just close with this encouragement to you. I love hearing circumstances like Hannah just described because Hannah's there.

Let me just encourage you. Get involved in any opportunity that you have to help somebody. When you find out of a person in need, get involved and help. Look especially to single parents. Single moms and dads face a Herculean task to establish their families and to build. Just a few weeks ago, my wife was just flat on her back, sick for a few days and I was refreshed in how hard it is to get anything accomplished on my list, all my things I want to do without her to help me with our children.

If she were not here, it would be tough, tough, tough. Three small children do not a great productive day make when productivity is measured by things checked off a to-do list. So get involved and there are a lot of things that you can do that are very, very simple that are very, very helpful.

If you know of a single mom who's in need, go by and help her with some home projects. Maybe you can help her fix the roof, help her paint the house, help with the landscaping. There are all kinds of things that we can do that don't necessarily involve transferences of money, although money is important.

Oftentimes money comes with certain challenges, especially if you see somebody who is challenged in their management of money, which can be for many reasons. Sometimes you don't want to give direct money, but money is really useful. Buy groceries, do anything you can to help out because people who are in these situations face really, really challenging circumstances.

It's only in the context of community, of friends and friends, neighbors and neighbors, church members to church members that they can really oftentimes have the things that they need. So use Hannah's example, get involved, mentor the children, and get involved, get close to the situation so that you can give good, helpful, useful help.

That's it for today's show. If you'd like to join for tomorrow's show, details in the description. Call in. Talk to you soon. This show is part of the Radical Life Media network of podcasts and resources. Find out more at RadicalLifeMedia.com.