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jean chatzky, "today" financial editor and author of "money 911" and sharon epperson and courtney reagan correspondents. >> nice to see you. >> jay in ketchum, idaho. >> i own a condo worth one-third of what i owe on it. my mortgage is 30-year fixed at 3.35%, auto i'll current on my bills, have good to excellent credit but as a proprietor of a small business severely affected by the economy in the past several years my income has been dramatically reduced and mortgage payment is now 75% of my take home pay. this has become a stressful hardship. what do you see as my options and what do you think i should do? >> jay, do you know if your loan is a fannie mae or freddie mac? >> it is a freddie mac. >> excellent, great, great news. you are a good candidate for the h.a.r.p. program, a program under which you should be able to refinance that loan to current rates, to like 4%, maybe even lower than 4%. call your lender, tell them you want a h.a.r.p. modification and be persistent. they're still getting their systems in place to do these things but this should work for but >> happy thanksgiving,

jean chatzky, david bach the author of "debt free for life" and sharon epperson cnbc's personal financetributor. good to see you guys. >> nice to see you. >> we got dennis from grape vine, texas. good morning, tdennis, what is your question? >> caller: good morning. i am 64 1/2. my wife is 63. our full retirement age is 66. we both are retired and receive monthly pensions. we have money in a joint brokerage account as well as our i.r.a.s. in order to supplement our pensions should we consider taking social security early or draw funds from our joint account? >> all right. jean, i guess a lot of folks think of this. >> so many. it is a very confusing question and you're in great shape, dennis. you have a lot of choices. i would delay social security because for every year that you put off taking social security, you get about an 8% bump in your eventual payouts. you're at the age at which you can pull money out of your i.r.a.s and other retirement accounts without penalty, which is just terrific. so i'd draw what you need from there and let those social security premiums run up. >> good

financial editor and author of "money 911" and david bach author of "debt free for life" and sharon eppersonis is an e-mail from a viewer in alaska, ryan writes "my mother-in-law keeps asking for money. it's a small amount, usually about $50 a month, always pays us back when she says she will but it's been going on for about a year now and it happens each month. would it be rude to say no and stop sending her the money?" >> it's a little dodgy. i wouldn't say no. what's happening here is a sign of a much potentially larger problem, and so what you got to do is use this opening that your mother-in-law is giving to you figure out what's going on here, why is she unable to pay her bills on a monthly basis, where is she getting stuck? can you help out and i would be really careful. she said mother-in-law. >> yes. >> if the child, if ryan's spouse is actually being asked by the mother for the money every month, ryan's spouse should have that conversation. >> yes. >> so be really careful. >> also if you can afford the $50 a month, think about ul of athe times our parents gave us money. >> absolute

with me, steve liesman and sharon epperson who will be doing part of the questioning on set here. steve, let me start with you. i'm excited about this debate. you guys aren't covering the campaign process. you guys cover the economy every day. you cover the markets. steve, what is it that you haven't heard on the campaign trail that you are interested in hearing tonight from candidates. >> i haven't heard much of anything on the campaign trail that was interesting in terms of solutions to the economy. we have had a lot of complaining about where we are now. i think that's justified given the high unemployment rate. when you hear and watch what the candidates have said so far it stops there. we need to repeal what the president has done, what the president has done isn't good. we are not in a good place. haven't heard a lot of how you get us to the next place. a key issue is housing. you go back and read the debates. nobody has a housing plan except for the foreclosures. >> we're not giving away anything by saying there will be a lot of questions about housing. >> how do you fix th

jean chatzky, "today" financial editor and author of "money 911" and sharon epperson and courtney reaganeddie mac? >> it is a freddie mac. >> excellent, great, great news. you are a good candidate for the h.a.r.p. program, a program under which you should be able to refinance that loan to current rates, to like 4%, maybe even lower than 4%. call your lender, tell them you want a h.a.r.p. modification and be persistent. they're still getting their systems in place to do these things but this should work for but >> happy thanksgiving, jay. let's go to stephanie from valencia, california, and on the phone with us. good morning, steph. >> caller: good morning. >> hi. your question? >> caller: yes, i purchased various etfs for my i.r.a. account and doing pretty well. i was wondering with the drastic rise and falls in the market, if i should sell off enough shares to realize my gain and then repurchase more shares of the etfs when there's another dip in the market. >> first of all, sharon, what is an epf, etf i mean? >> exchange traded fund. stephanie, you never know when if the market dips yo