NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast - Budget Rehab: What Our Hosts’ Spending Reveals About Smarter Money Moves

Episode Date: October 2, 2025

In this special video episode, Sean and Elizabeth give each other a “budget rehab,” revealing their own budgets to help you fix yours. How can you feel more in control of your spending? How can you plan for irregular expenses like credit card annual fees or surprise bills? In this video episode, hosts Sean Pyles and Elizabeth Ayoola give each other a “budget rehab” to reveal how they really manage their money — and how you can apply the same strategies to your own finances. But first, they’re joined by NerdWallet senior writer Anna Helhoski to discuss new NerdWallet survey findings about money stress and what steps you can take to alleviate it. They discuss why money stress hits some groups harder than others and share practical tips for easing the pressure. Then, Sean and Elizabeth present a personal “Budget Rehab” segment where they analyze each other’s real numbers while sitting eye to eye at NerdWallet HQ. Sean shares how he balances rental income, savings, and splurges, while Elizabeth maps her freelance income, high savings rate, and family priorities. Together, they highlight the pros and cons of tactics like setting up multiple savings buckets, trimming recurring costs, maxing out tax-advantaged accounts, and planning ahead for annual fees and surprise expenses. Smart Money is a finalist for TWO Signal Awards! Please take a moment to vote for us here: https://vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting#/2025/individual-episodes/genre/money-finance  https://vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting#/2025/shows/genre/money-finance  Want the cheapest prepaid phone plan that still fits your phone service needs? Read NerdWallet’s article on the best cheap cell phone plans: https://www.nerdwallet.com/p/best/finance/cheap-cell-phone-plans  Want us to review your budget? Fill out this form — completely anonymously if you want — and we might feature your budget in a future segment! https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScK53yAufsc4v5UpghhVfxtk2MoyooHzlSIRBnRxUPl3hKBig/viewform?usp=header In their conversation, the Nerds discuss: money anxiety, reduce financial stress, generational money differences, Gen Z money habits, Millennial money habits, Gen X finances, Baby Boomer finances, grocery inflation, high food prices, emergency savings, build emergency cushion, debt payoff strategies, debt snowball vs avalanche, credit card debt payoff, homeownership vs renting, housing costs, mortgage vs rent, rental affordability, HSA benefits, high-deductible health plan, maxing out 401k, brokerage account investing, saving for car replacement, sinking fund examples, subscription audit tips, lower utility bills, cheaper phone plan, cutting cell phone costs, donating to charity, values-based spending, overspending triggers, budget burnout, financial literacy gaps, improve financial confidence, setting financial goals, FIRE movement, early retirement savings, family budgeting, and teaching kids about money. To send the Nerds your money questions, call or text the Nerd hotline at 901-730-6373 or email [e-mail]. Like what you hear? Please leave us a review and tell a friend. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, smart money listeners. We've got some exciting news. Smart Money is nominated for two Signal Podcast Awards. We would love to win them, but we need your help to do so. That's right. These awards are basically a popularity contest, so we need you, yes, you, to vote for us. You can find a link to vote in the description of this podcast episode. You should know that voting closes on Tuesday, October the 9th, put it in your calendar, and hop to it. And thank you for your support, as always. Those of you who've been following the show lately know we have a new segment where we rehab a listener's budget, soup to nuts, and how much they're paying for that soup and those nuts. Today, we're doing a very special edition of budget rehab with some unexpected

guests. Welcome to NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast, where you send us your money questions and we answer them with the help of our genius nerds. I'm Sean Piles. And I'm Elizabeth Ayola. Later this episode, Sean and I are going to help two listeners with a new budget rehab. Guess who? It's us. But Elizabeth, we are not listeners. Yeah, I know we're not, but it sounded good. We're going to go through our budgets and let you all in on the nitty-gritty of what your favorite podcast hosts spend their money on. Oh boy. But first, our weekly money news roundup, where we rate down the latest in the world of finance to help you be smarter with your money. For those who are looking for a rundown of what the government shutdown means for your finances,

we did an entire segment on it last Thursday. So that's available for you to go back and listen to. Our news colleague, Anna Halhawski, is with us for this segment that honestly goes really well with the budget rehab because it's all about money stress. Yeah. Now, everyone, take a deep breath. Both of you.

Take a deep breath. Literally? Yes, do it. We're all breathing. Are your shoulders tight? Is your jaw clenched? You might be stressed. Yes.

Right. So there are probably a lot of contributing factors there. But today we're going to talk about money stress. Now, a new survey from Nurbald shows that roughly half of Americans, that's about 51%, feel regular stress about money. And that stress doesn't really hit everyone equally either. Here are some of the findings that I want to point out. First off, women report more frequent money stress than men, 56% versus 45%. And by age, Gen Z is most likely to feel money stress.

63% compared to millennials at 59% and Gen Xers at 54%. Baby boomers, those in their 60s and 70s, are less likely to feel this kind of stress compared to younger generations. Now, that's not really all that surprising. Unless you're born into wealth or you're striking it rich at a young age, younger people are bound to be less financially secure. And right now, there's a lot to be stressed about. Would you both agree? Yeah, absolutely. I second that.

I feel like every time I go to the grocery store, my beloved cream cheese cost a dollar more. I paid $6 for a thing of cream cheese, and I'm still not giving up my locks bagels, but it hurts every time I've taken. to pay for it. Yeah. I don't blame you. Inflation, uncertainty over economic policy, high housing costs, et cetera, those are all going to be causing some stress. And on top of that, money carries a stigma.

So if you're struggling, you might also feel pressure to hide that struggle. And that can make your stress worse. But here's the thing that everybody should remember. Money stress is incredibly common. The key is to just figure out how to manage it one step at a time. Right. And one of the best ways to lower money stress is to take back control where you can, and a situation that can feel kind of out of control.

So let's talk through some of these steps so people can feel a little bit more empowered with their money. Yeah, so I'll kick it off. And something I have grown to love is keeping tabs on where my money is going. Now, I know just saying that out loud might sound stressful, but it can be even more stressful to actually ignore where your money is going.

So assess your spending, so you can understand what your needs versus your wants are. And you might even find that you have recurring subscription expenses. Last year, I found I had two Amazon subscriptions with two different email accounts. I know, just by looking through my statements. Exactly. And what you can do is track your expenses for at least a month. And I would advise just to make this like a non-judgmental activity.

Don't judge yourself. Just observe where your money is going. And you're probably going to see some patterns and then where you can make improvements. I'm old school. So I do like to use spreadsheets, but there are apps, budgeting apps. I'm going to plug the nerd wallet app if you like that. you know, and different kind of tools you can use to track your spending. Yeah. What I find really helpful is to do this on a weekly basis. I set aside probably 10 to 15 minutes each Sunday when I'm

just bored sitting on my sofa and I want to see exactly what I spent my money on over the past week. Does it align with where I want my money to go? What feels good about my spending? What do I want to maybe change over the coming week? And are all of these expenses, things that I actually spent my money on? This can also help you find fraud if something does happen to your credit card. So just making sure you have a regular habit of some sort so that you know what your money is. doing. That's one of the healthiest ways to stay in control of your finances. You're better than me, Sean. I do it on pretty much like a monthly basis. So at the end of the month, right before my rent is due, I just want to check and say, what did I actually spend

money on this month? And I go back through my accounts and through my various credit cards and just take a look. And sometimes I'm like, eh, didn't do so bad. And then other times I'm just pretty embarrassed. Who did that? Not me. And that's fine. Yeah. Monthly or weekly is okay, as long as you have some system. I like weekly because I used to have a problem with over spending. So this kind of helps me rein in my spending a little bit. Yeah. Another tip that we like to recommend is really creating a plan for the money that you have, and that's basically what a budget is. It's just a plan for your money. So at NerdWollet, we recommend the 50, 30, 20, 20, 20, income is going to needs. 30% goes to wants and 20% goes towards debt payments and savings. And we realize that a lot of

people live in expensive places where this is not realistic, but it's a good general framework to help you find balance to your money. That's what the entire framework was. originated around as having some sort of balanced way for allocating your finances knowing where it's all falling. And part of that 20% for savings includes an emergency fund. Now, having three to six months of needs expenses that are actually saved, they're put away, you can tap them when you need to. It gives you a buffer, something to fall back on if things go sideways. But then might not be realistic for everybody. Three to six months is quite a lot, but starting small, setting aside something every single time that you get paid,

it'll give you a little bit more peace of mind than if you didn't put any away. And a high-yield savings account is always a nice place to park that. Yeah, even having a thousand dollars set aside, which again takes a while to build up for some people, can help you weather most financial shocks. I remember one time I had to get all of my tires replaced on my car that I wasn't expecting. And guess what? My emergency fund helped me weather that without having to sell any of my investments. Yeah, I just spent $1,200 I wasn't expecting to on some dental work earlier this week.

So, yeah, I had to tap that, but I wouldn't say it didn't blink, but it just didn't make me feel as upset about it. Like, okay, well. The money is for. Exactly. And it's a total need. My teeth are very important to me. They are. I'm going to co-sign that.

Speaking of emergency funds, another helpful tip is to reduce your debt. Sometimes when you don't have that emergency fund, you may end up having to charge that expense onto a credit. credit card that has high interest and then it can snowball from there. So you want to look at unsecured debt, credit card debt, especially is tied to higher stress. Now, two methods that you can use to pay down what you owe is one, the debt snowball. This can be good for people who like instant gratification and just want to see those one of those balances gone.

So you pay off the smallest debt so that you can gain some momentum and hopefully get to the end of your debt road. Now, the second thing you can do is a debt avalanche and that's when you focus on debts with the highest interest rates first. Another area to explore, as you're considering your own personal financial stress, is where your housing falls. We saw a nerd wallet survey that homeowners are less likely to report feeling money stress than renters. It was 46% versus 62%. But, of course, we have a housing shortage in this country, and that's led to widespread housing on affordability.

But owning often locks in your housing costs and provides some stability. If buying is a long-term goal, you should explore whether there are loan programs, incentives, or lower-down payments to make it more. accessible. That said, home ownership isn't right for everyone. So just make sure it fits your financial situation and what your personal goals are, not what you think you should be doing with your money. Yeah. And I don't think that I should be buying a house. So I am actually renting and enjoying renting. Same here. Sometimes an unpopular opinion, but actually like to rent, gives me a lot more freedom to move if I need to or if my life changes. I am currently living in a condo building and that building has a ton of problems.

Pipes need to be replaced. There are problems with heating and air conditioning. There's mold behind my shower that I inherited. Yeah. And one of the board members who happens to be a retired detective and he's amazing, has been looking into everything. He said to me, if you can hang in there, it's such a great building to live with. I'm not an owner. So I don't have to hang tight through a bad situation. And in fact, I am moving next week. So in addition to that, thank you. Thank you. In addition to that $1,200 for dental work, I also get to pay for moving. I don't see renting as throwing money away either. I'm paying for the roof over my head and I wouldn't be able to afford to buy in my neighborhood. So there's that at all. Yeah. I think that sometimes when you're a property owner, either in a building like you're describing Anna or even just like a single family home, there's a certain amount of Stockholm syndrome that comes with it where you're like, I'm just going to put up with this house because it's great. Oh, this mold isn't so bad because I made it myself through living in this house. And that's not so good. But you know, you live in a really expensive. of city. So renting is just often the much more affordable option. I have enjoyed being a homeowner so far over the past four years or so. It's especially done some really great things to my net worth that I love. But I'm admittedly not super handy and I really hate doing home maintenance. The good news for me now is that since I'm renting out my house, my property management company deals with all of that for me. So it's great. Best of both worlds, kind of. The bottom line here is that financial literacy and education matter. The normal wallet survey found that about 20,

27% of Americans aren't confident about their financial knowledge. And that was a little bit surprising to me. Yeah, knowledge is power. And that's why we have this podcast here. Exactly. That's right. That's right. Spreading the good news.

And I can say from personal experience, knowledge can definitely boost your confidence. The more you know, the more tools you have to plan. And the more tools you have to plan, the more you can make decisions about what you're going to do with your finances. And if people aren't feeling confident, I think it's smart to just do one small. thing that can make them feel a little bit more empowered. Maybe it is tracking their spending for a month or finding a new savings account that helps you get a better yield on what you're tucking away each month. Something that is really tangible, but you don't have to do everything all at once

and realize that improving your finances, feeling more confident is a really gradual, long-term process that everyone is doing. Right. Revisiting that every month and then adjusting your plan to life changes makes a lot of sense too. Thank you, Anna. I can definitely say I'm feeling much better now, which is good, because next up, it's budget confession time. And if we hadn't gone through all this, I would still be much more stressed. Me too. But do stay tuned because you're going to hear much more about Elizabeth and mine's personal money management than you ever thought possible or even asked for. But before we get into that, a reminder to send us your money questions. Maybe you're feeling financial stress and you need help working through one of the

specific stressors. Leave us a voicemail or text us on the nerd hotline at 901-730636. That's the 901 730 and ERD. We love email, so please send up to us at podcast at nerdwallet.com. In a moment, this episode's money question. Stay with us. What did your ancestors really do all day? Beyond names, what were their lives like? With Ancestry's global historical records,

you can discover incredible stories about how your ancestors lived and worked. And for a limited time, you can explore select occupation records for free. Imagine finding your great. grandfather's RCMP records or discovering your ancestors name in the UK and Ireland nursing register. Don't miss out. Free access ends August 24th. Visit Ancestry.ca for more details. Terms apply. We're back and answering your money questions to help you make smarter financial decisions. This episode, we're doing another round of our budget rehab series, but we're doing it a little bit differently. Elizabeth and I are going to rehab each other's budgets and get a little bit nosy about

what we spend our money on and what kind of money we have coming in. We're doing this IRL in person at the Scottsdale, Arizona HQ of Nerd Wallet. So if you hear people running around the background, that's just a bunch of nerds making things great for you. So with that, let's do it, Elizabeth. Should we look at your budget first or mine? Yours. This was very vulnerable because even though Sean and I are co-hosts, we don't know each other's business like that. So now I know more about how Sean spends his money and he knows more about how I spend my money. Okay.

So let's start with your budget, Sean. So I made a little 50, 30, 20 spreadsheet that we use for this segment. And I modeled it after Elizabeth Warren's book where she lays out the 50, 30, 20 budget. So it was my fun little project putting this together for myself. So looking at my after-tax income, this includes my nerd wallet income and my rental income from my property in Washington. I'm making just under $10,000 a month, $9,98. And I'm spending that on all sorts of things. If we look at my 50, 30, 20 breakdown, my must-haves, my needs are a little over 35% of my income. My savings score, the amount I'm putting away, is around 35.44%, specifically. And my want score is 30%. So instead of doing 50, 30, 20, I'm kind of doing 30-30-ish.

Isn't that, I feel like that's so reflective of your personality. It feels so organized. and even. Very balanced. And balance. When I looked at your budget, one of the things that surprised me is how much you're saving. So I know the saving rate, depending on your age and stuff, is usually maybe advice to be around 15%, right? Yeah. General advice to put away between 10 and 15% of your income poor retirement. But I'm able to save a lot more, largely because my needs expenses are pretty low. So right now I have my place in Washington and pay my mortgage on that. The rental income basically covers that. I throw $1,000 a month to my partner for part of his mortgage, and I'm not really paying utilities right now. I give my mom 50 bucks a

month for the cell phone bill. But beyond that, I'm not paying a water bill. I'm not paying electricity. I am paying for homeowners insurance, but that's part of my mortgage, which is like just under $1,300. So I'm really fortunate that I have pretty low expenses. I paid off my car earlier this year. That was a big difference. Yeah, that's saving me $350 a month. my car insurance is like 180 a month. I hate to see how high that is, but that's actually pretty normal for my car. And I'm spending like a hundred bucks a month on gas because I work from home. So yeah, I can save so much because I don't have a lot of needs pulling out my money. I don't have kids like you do. So it makes it easier for me to do these things.

I was curious about your health care or rather your health care expenses. So there was nothing there. So tell me about that. Yeah. I mean, I have a high deductible health care plan. And I put money into my HSA each month. And I don't spend a lot on health care, which is why I have an HGHP and an HSA, because it's a smart. If you, an HSA is often a good idea. If you either are very low health care expenses or really high health care expenses and you're going to hit that deductible, I'm knock on wood. And the former category, we're like, I just don't spend a lot on my health care. I'm hoping that doesn't change. But it makes it so that my income is pretty stable. Yeah. So tell me, have you always had that high savings rate? And actually, I'm going to actually

you a follow-up question about your expenses after that. So tell me that first. I would say no. I think when I was paying off my car, I had, you know, like a lot more. I actually am going to play with my spreadsheet and see what my savings rate would be if I had that $350 a month payment in there. So now my must-haves are like 38%. So like a 3% difference, that changes things a little bit.

And that impacted the amount that I could tuck away. So now the amount that I was putting toward my car payment, I'm actually putting that into a car fund because as much as I love my car and I want to drive it into the ground, it only has like 70,000 miles on it, I know eventually I will need a new car. So I would love to use the hopefully 10 years that I had before that happens to be able to tuck aside a bunch of cash. So organized. And honestly, I'm about to pay off my car loan next year.

Yay. Oh, congratulations. I have not started thinking about planning for a new car. So you're making me feel embarrassed here. So that's definitely something to do. But, Sean, your budget is beautifully vanilla. So I want to know, since I can't see it in your budget, what do you spend your disposable income on? And don't tell me all the responsible things that you spend your disposable income on.

No, I spend most of my disposable income on going out to eat, going to bars, and slightly overpriced clothes. Oh, okay. So that's my indulgence is like I will buy some nice clothes like once or twice a quarter. So if I were to look at your bank statement, where do you go out to eat the most? There's a bar in my neighborhood called Rosco's that I love. they serve the neighboring joints sushi because they share a kitchen and you can get beer from Roscoe's tap list and they also they have Cajun food which like frankly is just so-so but they have really good Cajun tots so you can get a bunch of sushi rolls and then you can get your

Cajun tots and you can get your beer and it's the best so that's where I eat probably most often there's also an amazing Thai place in my neighborhood called Yawarat is one of the top Thai restaurants in the country and it is expensive my partner and I go there like maybe once every six weeks. And it feels indulgent, but it's 100% worth it because like the short, you've got to treat yourself. It is. And money is there to be spent as well, not just save, right? Yeah. And of course, I have to ask you, where are you buying these slightly expensive clothes from? What are your top stores? I would love if they would sponsor this podcast and give me free clothes, but I'm a huge fan of Alex Mill. It's a boutique and the guy that I used to work at J.Crew,

and they just make really nice basics that I can wear with pretty much anything. You can dress them up or down, and they'll last forever. So, yeah. Love it. And I want to know if you could change one thing about your budget, if anything, I don't see nothing that you really need to change. But what would you change? I would like to say it even more. So maybe find a way to trim like my car insurance. I don't really see a great way to do that.

I have a really good price right now. Eventually, I'll have my student loan paid off and paying $221.50 a month for that. I would love to not have that, but it's going to be a few years. So then I would just put that amount of money toward my brokerage account, which I consider a form of savings and investing that money. It is. But now I want to hear about your budget, Elizabeth, because we've gotten into some of my details. So let's pop this little spreadsheet open here.

What do you have? Okay. So in terms of my after-tax income, it's about $9,183, roughly, somewhere around there, so that that includes my nerd wallet income and then my freelance income as well. And your freelance income is mostly from you writing articles. Yeah, that's all I do. And a tip for that is I have contracts with these people. So I know basically how much I'm going to make each month, which each of the applications I work.

That's nice because the contract works. There's often such a regularity to it, right? Exactly. I have my housing costs. I pay rent, happy renter. And I pay $2,375 in rent. That's for that good for your area? I have no idea what the Houston rental market is like.

That's amazing. Living in Florida, I was paying that amount for a two-bedroom apartment. I pay this for a four-bedroom house. with a lush garden. So to me, definitely value. Utilities are boring, but I pay around $200 for that. That's not bad. No, it's not.

Internet and phone. I'm proud of myself because I think at the beginning of this year or last year, I cut that bill down to about 60 bucks. So my phone bill is only... How'd you do that? Well, I switch my phone. Don't ask me the company right now. I should know, but I don't.

I'll top of my head. But I pay about $25 for my phone bill, and the reception is fine, just fine. $25? Yes. And you have like unlimited internet and it works where you want it to. And hotspot too. And I was paying around $70 before. Yeah.

I know. You heard it here, folks. Exactly. Cut your cell phone bill. And you know what? It was actually a nerd. Shout out to Tommy who recommended that to me because he has an article, Tommy Tyndall, on how to basically get cheaper phone plans. Well, we'll link to that in the show notes.

There we go. Medical care, I only pay $47 a month. So like you. That's also not bad. No, it's not. So like you, I have a high deductible health care plan. and an HSA. I also don't go to the doctor often,

so I don't spend much on that. I know, I know. Let me see. What else I got in here? I still do have a car payment, and I pay about $350 a month for that. I'm about to up that to $400, so I could pay it off at the end of next year.

Show me how your money maps out in terms of, like, the 50, 30, 20. Oh, yeah, sure. Yeah. Okay. So in terms of the 50, 30, 20, 41% is spent on must-haves, monthly savings. I have about a 46% savings rate and a 12% want score. That's really good. I mean,

I will say your wants seem a little unbalanced. Are you going out to eat? Are you having fun? I absolutely am and I'm a shameless going out to eat. I order a Kva, however you say it, maybe like once or twice a week. So I do eat out quite often. And like I said, I do like to shop. So thrifting is my guilty pleasure for clothes. Is that where most of your wants budget is going toward the Kava? Yeah. Food and clothes, I would say. And then, sometimes. So what I don't do, so you didn't ask me this yet, if I had to improve something about my budget, because I have such a relatively high savings rate, sometimes I don't plan for like unexpected expenses and I'll just pull it out of my savings. But one time a year, something pops up.

Yeah, I just had that with my pets health insurance and it was a nice like $2,200 surprise. And so I did the same thing. There is this kind of rebalancing of, all right, I guess I pulled some money from my home improvement fund because my pets are part of my house is how I justified it. That was a little girl out there. It's really easy to forget those expenses, right? It is. And speaking of which, my credit card annual fees always surprise me and they need to stop surprising me. So I go, oh my God, $500. Four? So I'll go, oh my God, $500. Oh my God, $700. So luckily I have it in savings, but I should plan better for it by putting aside like, exactly, $100 extra in my savings a month or whatever. So that I know. Another savings bucket just for your annual fees.

Who knows, Sean? I might end up with 10 savings accounts just like you. Exactly. I might. I might. Okay. And so what would you say was surprising going through this exercise? Because had you mapped out your finances in this way before? No. So I haven't actually, and guys, again, don't stow me. But I haven't actually put my budget in a 50, 30, 20 budget. Though it was interesting to see how high my savings rate is. And also settling for me because I'm hard on myself and I feel like I should be saving more. But it's like, girl, you're almost saving half of your income. If I'm looking at the spreadsheet correctly, you're maxing out your 401k. I am. Yeah. And I'm aiming to max out my HSA. Thank you. Thank you. And you're putting $500 a month into a taxable brokerage account. You know I want to retire early. That's so good. Yeah, I'm putting in $300 a month in mine. And I just actually up to that because I was doing like 150 and I figured like I can I can do that. I also want to ask too what feels gratifying about how you spend your money. The first thing that comes to mind is going on adventures with my son. I think that's priceless.

So whenever I spend money on our little adventures, I'm always happy. And just knowing that I'm saving towards retirement, that's not something many people in my family have done. So it just feels like I'm doing something different. And also, I'm showing my son what's possible in terms of if you're diligent and consistent and you save. So it's nice seeing my income go up in terms of my savings. Yeah. For me, one thing that I've been trying to invest more in is donating to causes that I really like. So I care a lot about hunger.

And so I donate to food banks in this my small town of Washington where I have my house in Oregon. And I just started donating to World Central Kitchen because they provide meals for people in Palestine. So it's important to put your money where your values are. We talk a lot about values on the show. So, yeah, I've been just trying to think about that too because I, we are so fortunate to have our needs not be 50% or 60% of our income like it is for so many people. So where can we put our money to make it more effective to make a better? world. I agree. I do donate to a few charities, but you're reminding me that I could definitely donate more. One thing I'm wondering about, too, is where your son fits in. Is he part of that

12% of your wants, like in terms of his extracurriculars? Or is he under that 46% of your, or 41% of your needs? Yeah, he's in both. So he's definitely in the wants. So going out to eat, he's muddled somewhere in there too. I'm not a huge toy buying mom, so I do not buy him a lot of toys. He barely plays with the ones that he has. So honestly, I'm more of an experience mom, so I'll spend money on us going to. You guys just went ziplining. Exactly. That was so cute. I saw the videos of that. It was so fun. And it was probably spent with food because we went out to eat after that probably was like a $150 trip, right? And after you did that, if you spent that money on the experience, did you discuss, okay, I allocated this amount of money for us to go out and have this time together and I'm putting my money into

this versus buying you some other piece of plastic? Absolutely. So I have started trying to help him weigh out like the value of what something is. So, for example, he's been wanting to buy a drone. Every time we go to the store, he's like, mom, can I get this drone? How much is the drone cost? Well, we were at Walmart the other day, and he saw one for $60. And I'm like, okay, that's great, but we have to do, you know, price comparison. So this might not be the best one for the best value.

So let's look at some other stores and see if we can find one at a good price. That's also a good value. And then he had a pause and he's like, oh, right? The light bulb went on. The light bulb went on. So we kind of do have all these money conversations. every time we do an activity and maybe he asked for something else. And he's like, I didn't get anything today.

And it's like, well, no, we just paid for ziplining and food, right? You don't need to treat every day. Not every day. As nice as that would be. Exactly. Exactly. So, Sean, we've been talking about all this, but I want us to go back a little in your history of budgeting.

And I want you to tell me when you actually started budgeting and why. So how did you start budgeting? I can honestly say I didn't really start budgeting in a sincere, thoughtful way until I started working at nerd wallet, which was like nine years ago at this point. And it wasn't because I had. loads of money to throw around. In fact, I didn't really have much at all, but I just put my head in the sand and just hoped that I had enough. And oftentimes I didn't. Like, there were times in my early 20s where I would try to buy groceries and my debit card would get to

client because I didn't have a credit card. And that was, you would think it would be a wake-up call for me. And it just wasn't because I was so avoidant with all of it. And then once I started working in our wallet and I realized that there were different ways to approach budgeting, I understood that, look, I like to know where my money is going. This is why I have all like 10 savings buckets and I have my money generally mapped out. But I'm not a super granular budgeter. I'm not doing zero-based budgeting where I know where every single penny goes because I'm more of like a big picture kind of guy, if you will. So that's what's worked for me because I set up the system of having my direct deposits into various accounts. And it's been fine. As we can see in my numbers here, I have

my finances pretty well organized. But it was a process of discovery around like what would I want to do with my budget on a regular basis, how much time do I want to spend thinking about where my money is going? I'm one of those people that thinks that we should all be trying to get to a place where we don't have to think about our money too much. And budgeting with the system that I have allows me to do that. Yeah. And what about you, Elizabeth? Well, for me, to be honest, it's when I found out I was pregnant with my son. So before then, I was kind of just yoloing it, you know? And a wake-up call. A bit of a wake-up call. So I was just like, well, I guess my expenses are about to double. And I guess I got to figure out how to pay, you know, for another human.

And I just remember I started saving aggressively and lowering my expenses, but I didn't really have a formal way of doing it. That's just what I was doing, saving. What were you doing in your life at this time? You weren't working in a nerd wallet. No. Seven years ago, right? Oh, my gosh.

I was writing. Yep. I was writing. And I was freelancing. And I was in a content mill. And I was writing about 10 articles a day. And they were paying me $8 per article. That sounds miserable.

Yeah. You weren't making quite as much as you were making now. No, so it's been a journey for sure. But even with that, I was, yeah, the motivation was I have to take care of a child. Yeah, so that's basically when I started budgeting. And as I started learning more about money, I guess would refine my budget and realize, okay, aside from putting money in a savings account, I didn't know anything about retirement back then. But when I joined NerdWallet, of course, I learned a lot more about it and started putting my money into different buckets, if that makes sense.

So how do you approach it now? you're also not like a zero-based budgeter, right? Well, you know, we're twins. You know, hey, twin. So no, I am not a zero-based budgeter, but I will say sometime last year when my budget got a little out of whack, I did do zero-based budgeting for a couple of months just to see where all my money was going. What do you mean? Oh, overspending. So I just found I kept overspending.

So I was still saving a lot. Well, it was around the time I moved. So I had just huge expenses. I think I had almost like $20,000 save for my move. And don't ask me how I blew through that. Buying new furniture. Oh, furniture is so expensive. Yeah.

Deposits, that'll really do it. But my son in private schools. So just all these big expenses came up. Well, you had to move the fish. For listeners, Elizabeth moved fish from Florida to Texas in the trunk of a car? U-Haul. And the U-Haul and, what, two out of three survived? One out of two survived.

Okay, okay. Well, I guess 50% success rate is maybe the best. Well, well. The fact that a single fish could make it that far. I mean, you're putting your money in an important place, even that fish alive. Exactly. Exactly. And not to throw my son's godfather under the bus, but the second might, I am, hey, if you're listening, the second might have survived if he listened to me and didn't put both of the fish in the back of the U-Haul where it was so hot.

Oh, no. So the one that survived was such a fighter because they survived all those hours in the back of the U-Haul. Is it still alive? Yeah. It's still in there. What's his name? Oh, he doesn't have one. Maybe she or they.

They deserve a name. You're right. Me and I are. We're going to work on them. And when we get home, we're going to choose the name. And how much are you paying a month for this fish? Oh, they're so low maintenance. I love them for that.

There you go. I buy fish food and it's about, I don't know, 15 bucks, maybe every three or four months. And that's under your needs. Yeah, that's under my needs, exactly, but low needs. Yeah. One thing I want to ask you about, too, is what would you change about your budget if you could? What I would change, I know I'm a little chaotic, right? So I'm not perfect with my budget is that I do not really plan for those maybe one-time annual expenses.

Yeah, the credit card annual fees. Yeah. Exactly. Okay. Also, how do you justify all those expenses? Because I have a really hard time paying credit card annual fees. I just got my second credit card with an annual fee. I'm now at around $600 a year total in fees. And I'm thinking I might nix my older card that has the fee because is it worth it for me? Sometimes no. So what's interesting is I more recently got, I guess, two of my higher fee cards within the past year or a year and a half. So I'm in the process of testing out whether it's worth it. I am most likely going to cancel my Chase Sapphire Reserve since they increased that price because so far I can't justify. It's so expensive and you have to work really hard to make it break even.

And for me, I'm a lazy credit card person. So I'm not about that game. But you are still kind of trying out different products and that's how you make it worth it for your budget. Exactly. And luckily, the travel gals on the travel podcast at NerdWallet. Smart Travel. Thank you. are going to help me think through or talk through whether all of those cards are worth it and the fees are worth it.

But if not, I guess I'll just chalk it up to my wants bucket. Okay. Well, maybe we can both commit because we mentioned that we both struggle with these like one-off annual expenses to putting aside a pot of money to cover that expense. No, first of all, we need to know exactly how much we have coming up. Because I have the same thing. I have a magazine subscription that hits every spring and it's like $250. What magazine are you paying $254? That's the New Yorker. It's probably not $2.50. It might even be more. Who knows by the time this goes live, the price is raised every year. But it's worth it for the journalism that I'm getting. However, it's always a shock. And I hate that kind of unexpected expense. So that plus my pet's insurance. And that's what's harder to account when you are doing like loosey-goosey budgeting sometimes.

Exactly. So I think maybe you have convinced me to open another account because why not savings account for those expenses. So I can just pull from there and it doesn't feel so awful. Before long, you'll have 10 savings accounts just like me. Oh my gosh, probably not. You know, I'm all over the place. So I probably wouldn't be able to manage all at once, but another one won't hurt. Okay. So I love how you share your financial journey with your son. If there is one thing about how you have gone through your budgeting journey, but you would like him to learn the easy way through you, not the hard way by going through it himself. What would that be? Oh. I know everyone's probably sick of hearing this, but I think a huge part of budgeting really is needs versus wants. And also not just that, having a financial goal. Because I think when I started having financial goals like fire in early retirement or just even incremental goals, like wanting to get my savings from zero to $50,000 in my 401K, it helps me to say no to some needs that I might want to do in the moment because I'm working towards a goal. I think teaching him to have goals that. motivate him that align with his values and also fit him with his lifestyle would be the foundation of him choosing whatever budgeting system works for him. Oh, I love that. Yeah. Yeah. I find for a lot of people, they don't know their numbers. And that's something that I encounter talking with clients for

my firm where I try to get a grip on where their budget is first and foremost. And it's such a journey of self-discovery. And a lot of folks don't realize that they are spending so much on discretionary expenses. And look, we all have to live. There's no guarantee of tomorrow. I'm not saying just live in a hole in the dark or anything, but you have to know what you're working with so you can make those change so you can have those goals and put away the money so that you can achieve what you want in life. And it's empowering, you know, I think it's really empowering to look at your numbers, even though it might feel scary at first. Yeah. Well, this has been so informative. I don't think we rehabbed anything about our finances, but we did commit to one change,

which is going to be getting a grip on our once a year unexpected expenses. But I'm proud of us for being so vulnerable and open with each other. So thank you for sharing. that. Thank you for sharing too, Sean. We're having a kumbaya moment. That's all we have for this episode. Remember, listener, that we're here to answer your money questions, so send them our way. You can call or text us on the Nerd Hotline at 901-730 6373. That's 901-730 nerd. Nerd or email us at Podcast at NerdWallet.com. And of course, we want you to join us next time to hear about when it's better to trade in your car, then fix it up. Follow smart money on your favorite podcast app that includes Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and IHeartRadio.

to automatically download new episodes. Here's our brief disclaimer. We are not your financial or investment advisors. This nerdy info is provided for general educational and entertainment purposes and may not apply to your specific circumstances. This episode is produced by Tess Vigland and Anna Helhoski, Hilary Georgie, helped with editing, and Nick Kersamy mixed our audio. We want to give a huge thank you to Nerdwallets editors for all the ways they help us.

And with that said, until next time, turn to the nerds. Thank you.