NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast - How to Put $200K to Work and The Truth About Generational Spending

Episode Date: May 28, 2026

Learn what generational spending data reveals and what to do when fear is keeping $200K in savings from growing. What do the stereotypes about each generation's finances actually get wrong? Sean Pyles, CFP®, and Elizabeth Ayoola kick off the episode with senior news writer Anna Helhoski and NerdWallet data writer Kurt Woock, who breaks down a new study analyzing federal Consumer Expenditure Survey data spanning decades of American spending. They explore why housing costs follow a U-shaped curve that could hit hardest in retirement — not just in young adulthood — why the real expense of owning a car isn't the car payment, and how healthcare spending could triple as a share of your income in your later years, just as earnings begin to decline. When is having $200,000 in savings actually working against you? Sean and Elizabeth welcome Kat from Virginia, who has maxed out her 401(k), opened 529 accounts for her kids, and accumulated $200,000 in cash — but is too anxious to touch any of that cash. Joined by Ryan Sterling, CEO of NerdWallet Wealth Partners, they dig into how financial anxiety develops, how to determine the right size for your emergency fund, and what steps could help you move from hoarding cash to building real long-term wealth. NerdWallet Wealth Partners, LLC is an affiliate of NerdWallet Inc. NerdWallet Wealth Partners is a fiduciary online financial advisor, offering low-cost, comprehensive financial advice and investment management. Learn more at nerdwalletwealthpartners.com/smart  Data: Massive Survey Shows How Generations Spend Money https://www.nerdwallet.com/finance/studies/generational-spending-CES  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 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, Elizabeth, we have to talk about the newsletter. What newsletter are you talking about, Sean? You mean the new, free, smart money email newsletter? Yes, and I have to say it is so good. It really is. It has clips, episode roundups, and behind the scenes takes from me, you, and our producer, the stuff that makes you feel like you're really part of the show. And listeners, for the record, you actually are part of the show.

I'm going to be sharing personal stuff. You know, I love sharing my business, and I'm going to be sharing parenting tips from an eight-year-old. a single mom perspective. And I am loading up the newsletter with my favorite gardening tips and lots of cute photos from my garden, including my pets, just napping among my flower beds. It's kind of adorable. And the best part is that this newsletter is totally free. So head to nerdwollet.com slash podcast to sign up. For the record, that's nerdwollet.com slash podcast. Come hang out with us. We've all heard the different generational stereotypes. But what if they're all wrong and the data tells us a different story. Today, we're sharing insights about how each generation is spending.

Welcome to Nerd Wallet'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. First, our weekly money news roundup, where we break down the latest in the world of finance to help you be smarter with your money. Our news colleague, Anna Hill Hoski, is back to talk about the financial habits dividing and connecting generations. Hey, Anna. Hey, Elizabeth and Sean. Yeah, every generation gets some kind of spending cliche attached to it, right? Millennials like me spent their 20s hearing about how we spent all of our money on avocado toast and have nothing left to buy homes, which was very flattering. But the realities are a little more complicated than that.

Now, a new report from Nerd Wallet dug into Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics Data to see how Americans actually spend money across different stages of life. So joining us today to break it all down is the author of that study, data writer Kurt Wook. Kurt, welcome back to Smart Money. Hi. Hi, thank you. So you come through a ton of consumer expenditure survey data from the BLS. So first off, can you tell us what the survey is and why you wanted to look at it? So the federal government has been collecting data on everyday expenses since 1881. That's when James Garfield was president. So it's changed a lot over the years. But these days, that means about 30,000 people share what they buy and how much they spent on it. And with that many people involved, you can get pretty detailed about what. what people buy. For example, you can learn from this survey that millennials spent an average of $135 on postage and stationary in 2024, and Gen Xers spent an average of $296 on pork. Whoa. Yeah, there's a lot of fun trivia like that in this survey, but I was really focused

on understanding how essentials like housing, food transportation, felt different for different generations. Got it. Your analysis focused on spending as a share of income, not just raw dollars. Why was that important? Imagine asking the following question to 100 random strangers. Is $100 a good price for a dinner at a restaurant? You're probably going to get a lot of answers. And those answers probably hinge on that person's income. So if you make, let's say, $10,000 a month in income,

a $100 dinner might sound normal. But if you make $2,000 per month, a $100 dinner might be pretty expensive. It makes a bigger hole in your wallet. So instead of looking at those raw dollar amounts, I wanted to focus on how much of your income those different expenses, Eva. All right. So that's all the table setting. Now, at the top, I mentioned stereotypes. And I think a lot of generational coverage turns into oversimplifications pretty quick. Does anything in this report change the narrative? I think one oversimplification is that if you pay off your mortgage, you've basically cut out housing expenses for the rest of your life.

And that just isn't the case. So as a percentage of income, housing costs look like a you over time. Housing is expensive for people in their 20s, goes down a bit for people who are millennials, and then it bottoms out for Gen Xers. And then it starts to go back up. So baby boomers spend a higher percentage of their income on housing than millennials. And folks in the silent generation pay a higher percentage than anyone. And that's because their income decreases after that kind of peak period that Gen Xers are in right now? Yeah.

So the primary factor isn't that like everyone's housing is costing more, but income drops. So after middle age, income on average drops. So you have fewer dollars to work with. And housing expenses never disappear completely, even if you don't have a mortgage. For example, baby boomers devote a higher percentage of their income to home maintenance. utilities than Gen XRAs devote to mortgage and rent payments. Okay, so that's mortgages. What about transportation?

The findings suggest the real cost of owning a car isn't necessarily just the car payment. Right. So for all but the oldest generation here in the study, transportation is the second biggest expense. And yes, car payments can be expensive, but on average people spend more money per year for the other associated costs of car ownership like insurance, gas, and maintenance. Yeah, especially gas right now. Was there one category that stood out as especially burdensome for people across the generations?

Yeah, health care. That is, in my mind, the one standout category. And all those bills are concentrated in your later years on average. It's tricky because you might spend your entire life decades where health care takes about 5% of your income. And then maybe in your last couple decades, that percentage triples or more. Naturally, yeah. Yeah, even if you know that this is going to happen, medical costs rise as you age. I think most people understand that conceptually, but it's really tough to accommodate that change of expenses, practically speaking.

I can definitely think of some other expenses that typically fall into specific periods of life. Why does this one stick out? Yeah, you're right. Other periods of life have, you know, on average age-specific expenses like student loans or raising children. Those are two bitties on their common at least. But those typically occurred during a time of right. rising income. So yes, those costs go up, but your income on average typically rises faster, but health care is different. Those costs kind of explode while your income is falling. So it's two

things working against each other and that makes it particularly difficult to deal with. Yeah, that makes sense. Now, the report notes that core expenses take up the largest share of income for both the youngest and the oldest generations. Does that create a kind of squeeze at both ends of adulthood? The entryway to adulthood is certainly not a time of a lot of money for most people. I'm pretty sure I ate nothing but peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for a year when I was 23. And the thing is life doesn't get cheaper after that. It actually gets more expensive for a while. But on average, again, income tends to rise faster than even those rising expenses on average, at least for a few decades. And at the other end of that timeline, older folks, we might ignore

or overlook this at times, but right, our future self is out there, kind of marching toward us every day, and we can see it coming at us, right? So we can prepare for that, unlike turning 23 when you're just starting out. That sounds like a plug for saving for retirement. Yep. When I looked at all these amounts listed in this survey, right, for utilities, medical care and even the pork and stationary, I see some real concrete reasons and motivation to save money. It's not just this abstract sense of, you know, this is the responsible thing to do, there's actually a reason to do it when you look at what you need to buy. Yeah, absolutely. Now, if listeners took away one idea from the report, what would you want it to be? Life changes, right? Mostly slowly, sometimes quickly, but always inevitably. And this is more of an admission than a lesson because I'm a

saver by nature. So when I see generational jumps in spending, housing or medical or child care costs, To be honest, my instinct is like, are you sure your retirement contributions are high enough right now? Like, shouldn't you be funneling more money away? And I get the urge to write this story about you got to save, save, save. And that's true. There's something to do that. But the thing is, there's a lot of data in the survey, like 650 rows of spending details. But eventually those rows run out, right?

The columns peter out and there's nothing left, right? There's only so much time we have. And yes, there's value in financial stability from year to year. and life is finite, and that means saving more sometimes, but sometimes it does mean spending more. That can be okay. So for you savers out there who are reluctant maybe to do that, that may mean spending more, right?

Maybe it's not just the number, right? It's starting a family or buying a home or going on a trip of a lifetime, and those opportunities kind of look and feel different as you age, and don't expect those things to always stay the same. Sounds like financial existentialism of May. Let's go. Kurt, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you.

Kurt, I didn't expect that to pull at my heartstrings the way it is. Am I so sloppy? It's what's happening. But I feel so emotional and I feel like I need to go and spend some money after this recording. Thank you. Meanwhile, I'm thinking I need to go and save a little more money. Yeah, I'm with Sean. Thank you so much, Anna. A reminder to send us your money questions.

Maybe you are wondering how you can break the generational curse of spending too much on avocado toast or how to budget for an upcoming summer vacation. Whatever your money question, send it our way. We want you to leave those questions via voicemail. We listen to the voicemails. We love them. Or you can text us on the nerd hotline at 901-730, 63-73. That's 901-730 NERD.

Can also email us at podcast at nerdwallet.com. We do love your Spotify comments. Please keep leaving them. And we're also on YouTube if you care to see our beautiful faces. Go watch the YouTube videos and leave a comment. In a moment, this episode's Money Question. Stay with us. We're back and answering your money questions to help you make smarter financial decisions.

Today's question comes from Kat in Virginia, who has done almost everything right, maxed out her 401K, open 529s for her kids, and also has $200,000 saved. But she's absolutely terrified to touch it. Now Kat is actually here with us today and we're going to answer her question about investing anxiety. Hey, Kat. Welcome to Smart Money. Thanks for having me. Thanks for coming on. So to help answer your question on this episode of Smart Money, we're joined by Ryan Sterling, wealth advisor with NerdWallet Wealth Partners. And NerdWallers lawyers want us to say that NerdWallet Wealth Partners LLC is an affiliate of NerdWallet Inc. So Ryan, hey, welcome to the conversation. Hey, thanks for having me back. All right, Kat. We're going to start by asking pretty broadly for you to tell us about your financial situation. But first, a little icebreaker to make it a little fun. describe your finances using a season. I just kind of default to fall always.

I mean, they're kind of a, I guess, in a period of transition, if that makes sense, because we did just have our second child. Congratulations. I say just had her. She's like seven months old. Still a baby. Still pretty recent. Things have just changed quite a bit.

All the leaves fell off the money tree into child care. Yeah. Period of change. Trying to kind of sort. through what comes next. Because at this point, I think we've done as much cost cutting as we can. And at some point, we just have to increase the income, which I did do. I got a new job.

What feels like the impossible, I got a new job a few months ago. Congratulations. Nice. Big raise doing that. Thank you. But, you know, child care is what it is. I can really. Especially in this area.

It's quite expensive in this area. People in this area like to say it's the most expensive in the country. I don't think that's actually true. And you're in Virginia around D.C., right? Yes, yeah, northern Virginia. It is very expensive there. It is. And I even looked it up where we picked a Montessori place because we wanted Montessori.

It's right by the house. There's a lot of reasons to have picked this place, but it's just a scoge above the median for the area. Of course. So we did it to ourselves, but it's we like it. We'd like to keep our kids there if we can. So at this point, not many costs are left to be cut, I don't think. So we need to increase the income somehow, and I think that's where investing comes in, but how? Mm-hmm.

All right, Kat. Well, based on what you wrote us, I think the bulk of your question was around you having challenges with financial anxiety, which is essentially a fear of financial anxiety. Now, some symptoms of financial anxiety can include overspending, hoarding, fear of spending, depression, or even obsessive behavior. Can you think about a specific memory maybe during your childhood or later where you might have felt anxiousness or stress around money? I have quite a bit of privilege in terms of like a history of financial security was able to come into adulthood with zero debt, which is great. So it's not so much that there's like an instance of, oh, no, money is just kind of my parents both have business degrees and we're always talking about it and trying to make sure we knew this and we're educated on the subject. So it's just kind of always top of mind. and maybe being a middle child, I just kind of

am generally anxious and have to do the best always. Yeah. That's kind of why I have this sort of personality about it. Yeah, and also just the world is really expensive and we don't have much of a social safety net in this country. So I think that keeps all of us a little on our toes about our finances. Well, Kat, tell us what you're feeling anxious about in terms of your finances. So explain to us your financial situation and then where the anxiousness is coming from.

we're in that period of budget tracking right now before we, you know, I don't make any big changes, but I guess we've got a good handle on cash flow is the fact that we have a really good amount saved. We just need it to be working more in accounts that are not just a regular run-of-the-mill saving account that's kind of doing nothing. I am afraid to do the wrong thing. I'm afraid I'm going to move it to this type of investment account or that type, because I keep doing the research and I keep forgetting what all of these account types are. Mutual funds, money market funds.

I can't keep them straight. There's so much to keep straight. And I'm just afraid that when I move something, I'm going to like pick wrong and lose it or something. Yeah. The baby step that I took last year was setting up a CD because it's with the institution I already have. I'm already at. It's FDIC insured. and it was, you know, it's really low risk.

So that's why I was comfortable doing that. Right. But also that's probably meaning it's a little lower return. Ryan, I want to bring you in here. When you hear about cat situation, what's maybe your first question you would ask a prospective client with the understanding that cat is not your client in this conversation? I would say, like, you should feel really good about the base that you established. I mean, up to this point, it seems like you guys have done a lot of the right. things. I will also say just your mindset, I think is somebody I really want to applaud you on in the

sense of, like, you can only cut your way so much to wealth. Like, you have to think about growing your wealth. So the fact that you, you know, came to this conversation saying that and saying that you really had a focus on increasing your income, we always encourage people to do that. That's one of the fastest way to increase wealth is to increase your income. So when we think about building wealth, we think about growing our way to wealth as opposed to cutting our way to wealth. So your mindset is spot on. The big part about growing your way to wealth, though, is that you are just one person and you have the exact same constraints that all of us have, and that is you have 24 hours in a day. So you need to have your money working for you. And Sean alluded to this that in the CD,

like, yes, like it's very safe. It's a really good baby step that you took. So, get. Like, I applaud you for doing that. However, because it's safer, it's going to yield you a much lower return. So you're not going to get as much help. You're not going to get as much wind at your back over time as it relates to, you know, having a resource to help you fast track wealth. Now, I'm assuming that you're investing through your 401ks and, you know, those are invested in the market as well as your IRA. So, you know, learning a bit more about your balance sheet before this, it, you know, to me does suggest that you do have money in the market, so you do have money working for you. But that amount of cash that you've accumulated, which is like, again,

it's so hard to do. And I really applaud you for being able to do that. I will say that there's certainly a component of that that needs to be in an emergency savings fund that needs to be safe, that needs to be secured, that you don't want to risk at all. But having too much in kind of safety and security is actually in a way the riskiest thing that you could do over the long term because you're not going to have the wind at your back that you need in order to help build wealth. You are in a period of your life that is especially hard, and we see it all the time with our clients. A young family, a mortgage, I'm sure the last five years or so, it's been a pretty dramatic change in terms of the level of responsibility that you have,

and with that, the amount of financial resources that that has involved, you are not alone. So I think you also need to give yourself a good amount of grace because it is a very challenging period that you're in. It's very similar to a lot of our clients as well as the advisors here at NerdWalt Wealth Partners. So like we know what you're going through right now. And I will say that I think you're doing it in a really graceful way. And again, the base you have established is something you should feel really good about. Yeah, that's just very encouraging to hear. It's very easy to feel like everything you're doing is not quite right. So it's kind of good to be told to calm down a little bit.

Yeah. Things are generally okay. They are more than okay. I notice you have $200,000 save in a savings account, and I think that's what stood out the most about your question. I'm very curious about because it sounds like you're scared, like you said, to touch that money because you don't want to make a mistake. I'm curious about what you think the worst case scenario is and also how having $200,000

in cash makes you feel. Does it make you feel secure, stressed, anxious? Having it in cash makes me feel. kind of dumb. Because, like, again, I mean, if I had it in cash in a high-yield account, I would feel better about it. The term high-yield savings account, I always find confusing because why aren't they all that? The way to think about cash is when you go to a bank and you deposit money into a bank, it is basically an IOU in that it's not going into a vault where someone's writing a note

and says, this is Katz money. Do not touch, right? The bank is immediately loaning it out. They're putting that money to work. And that what you see when you log in to view your account balances, that's effectively an IOU and that the bank is saying that when you go to the bank and ask for your money, they will make this money available for you. Okay. So how does the bank make money? They take your money and they pay you a certain interest rate and then they loan it out and they earn a higher interest rate. So with banks, the way they make money, is on that spread. Okay, but banks need to attract capital. They need to attract money in order to loan it out. So what you see is the bigger banks, and I don't want to pick on any bank,

but think about big national bank that offers kind of massive checking accounts. That's really cheap capital for banks. And they want you to keep it in that checking account. They want you to have the biggest balance for the longest amount of time because they can basically pay you zero percent and they can charge a loan at a higher rate and they make so much money on that. So the bigger banks have a tremendous advantage in that they have locations everywhere and that look like in a way, not that we're forced to, but like we're sort of kind of forced to work with them in some capacity, right? So then when you think about certain services that offer a higher yield, what those banks or

what those financial institutions are doing is they're saying, hey, like we know we're not necessarily a depository institution like a JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, kind of you name it. So what we need to do in order to attract capital is we need to offer a more attractive yield. So instead of 0% we're going to offer three and a half percent. And what you typically see is these high yield savings accounts start to get competitive with each other. Now, it goes even to step further where banks that are really desperate to attract capital, they might offer five, five and a half percent, so on and so forth. So what's a good way to think about it? A good way to think about it is you should demand a return for your money, right? You shouldn't have it

where your money sits in a bank account at one of the bigger banks because you're basically giving them a free loan. So what you should say is that, hey, I need to get some return for this money that I'm parking somewhere. But at the same time, I want it to be with a firm that is on solid financial footing. So, you know, and the way that you can really decipher that is, are they paying like a market rate for a high-yield savings account that tells you that they're not desperate for cash, but they want to pay you for your cash. Whereas, again, what I would stay away from is some of these really juicy deals that you hear sound really good, but it's usually with a financial institution that might be on shakier ground. So that's the way that I personally look at it. So my high-yield savings account

is in like the three and a half percent range. And it's with a very reputable, well-known financial institution. I feel really good about it. I'll say quick plug, Nerdwalt also has a high-yield savings accounts. That also is paying like in the three and a half percent range. So again, when you put these firms and you have them compete with each other, that's then where again you start to see like that three and a half percent is usually where you have a reputable firm that you can feel good having your money there.

And the last thing I'll say is that these all come with. FDIC insurance. So you should look at that as well. And that if it's FDIC insured up to $250,000, if something happens with that bank where they go out of business, your money is insured. And one thing I'll also add on, Kat, because I understand how it could be kind of overwhelming to sift through which of these banks is maybe a reputable one versus a sketchier upstart. Nerve wallet has loads of roundups and reviews. We'll link to them in the show notes here for this episode. I would recommend checking those out because our editorial team does a great job of really helping you understand where's a smart place to place your money and which kind of bank might be

right for your lifestyle and the way you manage your finances. But looking more forward with what you might want to do with this money, once you have a certain amount allocated for your emergency fund or maybe another savings goal that you might have around your kids or your house or what have you. What sort of time horizon might you imagine for this money? When do you think you might actually need to tap what you would put into an investment account? Would that be five years, 10 years, 20 years down the line or are you not even at that point yet? Yeah, I guess there's a couple of buckets that I have that I'm thinking about for what I want that money to be doing.

And like one example, I guess would be the CD that was started with a car in mind because we have two kids and two sedans. So it's kind of hard to fit everybody in those. So we're thinking new car in the next 12 to 18 months. The CD was supposed to kind of start us off on that. And the fact that it's not, you know, A liquid fund is why I only put in like so much and was afraid to put more, even though it would have made a lot of sense to put in maybe just $5,000 more than what I did. Again, you know, it's, it's not something liquid.

It's hard to commit to putting more in, even though we have still like 200 available. That is liquid. So that is some of the fear. So the other buckets would be we travel to Texas very frequently. It would be nice to have some kind of account that we could borrow on for travel. kind of, you know, that's in the couple of months range and ongoing. And then our emergency fund, which is, again, it needs to be liquid. We need to be able to access it.

So that's kind of a mystery when we would need to access that. And hopefully we won't need to in any significant capacity. But those are really the buckets I'm thinking about. And I feel like we should have something that's more long term, especially when I think about house buying, because we're here for a good amount of time looking forward, hopefully. But, you know, we bought in 2021. So the rates and the prices are going to be vastly different what we're buying in the future.

Ryan, I'd love to hear how when you talk with clients who are a little afraid to go from having all this liquid cash to actually investing in something that's less liquid, how do you help people get over that hurdle? Because that's kind of the crux of cat situation here. Yeah, no, of course. And it's a very common question, a very common concern. I think it comes down to, Sean, the question you asked, I think is hitting the nail around the head is that what are the known liabilities that you have? So, you know, if it's buying car in the next couple of months, if there's a tuition payment, if there's some sort of down payment that you have to make, you don't want to get too cute with that. You want to have that in a high-yield savings account or something that you can access very

quickly. So let's think about the building blocks here. So known liabilities, keep that in cash. Do not feel guilty about it. I would say just put it to the highest yielding cash product that you have that you can tap into at a moment's notice. Okay. So that's number one.

Number two, then, is it's not a known liability, but it's a potential liability, and that's emergencies, right? Life has a way of revealing itself. We have no idea when those moments are going to happen where you need quick access to capital. We all need an emergency account. Now, for some people, it's three months. For some people, it's six months of living expenses. For some people, it's 12 months of living expenses. I would say from what I'm hearing from you, I think 12 months of living expenses is something that is completely fine

and something that I would hold no shame with at all. You have a young family. You live in a high cost of living area. Things do tend to happen. And I feel like especially when you're a homeowner living in a high cost of living area with young kids, it just increases the odds of something happening, right? So I would say 12 months of living expenses, you know, put that then in the high-yield savings account. Okay, so then it's everything on top of that.

So let's just make up the numbers here. Let's say there's $200,000 in cash. Let's say it's $8,000 a month in living expenses, including the cost of mortgage, et cetera. Okay, so right up the bat, you have $100,000 in emergency savings account. Boom. Let's say there's the $30,000 in known liabilities that could be buying a new car as well as the known travel that you have coming up. Making this up, let's say that's $30,000. That means $130,000 should be in something like a high-yield savings account where you're earning,

No, 3.5%, but you have access to it when you need it. So that would mean then 70,000 would be a good candidate for a diversified investment portfolio. How does that sound, Kat? Something about that size of that number scares me. I think it's maybe just how nebulous and kind of weird like money is in the digital realm. This feels like a very silly thing to be worried about in the grand scheme of things. Not silly. it's, you know, putting money to work, but just even just making the down payment on our house and putting in the account information to send all of that money over where it was supposed to go, like totally expected, totally plan to spend that much on the house. Nothing was a surprise, but the act of doing that was so anxiety-inducing. Yes.

All the money is just going. Right. And just making sure like, oh, God, I hope this goes to the right place. I check the account numbers like seven times. I think it's just moving it is what's kind of mixed me. anxious? I think some of that could be a result of not having muscle memory in doing this. You took a baby step and putting some money into a CD, and I think opening up a high-held savings account and transferring money over potentially gradually, you could do five or $10,000

increments until you have that emergency fund amount. Just so this feel is more normal, you can trust the system that is going to work the way it should. Again, this is insured money. So if something does totally go awry, you're covered, which is a big relief. But I understand the anxiety around not fully trusting the system that's working in the background because we don't really see it happening. It's just money and numbers moving on their own. And that can make people feel anxious. I feel validated. It's not uncommon that clients bring us in to literally share the screen and help them press the right buttons. Wow. We've done that. Oh, yeah. We've done that many times. And I'm talking about like legit, incredibly smart, capable working performance.

professionals like yourself will bring us in and say, I just need a sense check. I'm sharing the Zoom screen. Am I pressing the right buttons? But look, we also come to this with a great deal of empathy and know that for people who don't, like, it does feel nebulous. And I love what you said about that. And, you know, I think about the stock market, for example. I think financial professionals, by and large, have not done a good job and of helping people understand when you're invested in the stock market, you're not buying dots on a screen. You're owning companies. So when people talk about the stock market's risky, I'm like, I don't see it as risky at all. So long as you're diversified and you're doing it in a way where you're not chasing a hot dot, so to speak. But if you have a portfolio that's diversified that's invested in the S&P 500, it's the largest 500 companies where you own Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, so on and so forth, you know, these are companies that are producing tremendous free cash flow, products and services that people are using, across the globe on a daily basis, you need to have ownership in order to build a wealth over time. Without that ownership, with your money being held in just a low-frequency investment like cash, you're not going to have the wind at your back. You're not going to have the growth.

So does that mean it goes straight up? Of course not. You know, there are days where the market's down. There are weeks where the market down. There are months. There are years where the market's down. But I look at this and say, if I have a five, 10-year time horizon, I feel very comfortable owning a basket of these stocks, knowing that over time that they are going to help propel my wealth-building journey.

But it's helpful to take it away from them being dots on the screen that you just see going up and down every day and you get reconnected to the fact of like, these are companies that are producing real products and services that we all use on a daily basis. And Kat, I also want to point out that beyond this CD, you've taken some really big strides. When you wrote to us, you said that you have money invested in your 401k and in a Roth account that you have opened 529s for your kids. Have you invested the money in those accounts or is it just sitting there in cash? I put a thousand to start in each account. So I don't have a monthly contribution set up. When I said our cash flows handled, it's fixed for the most part with like a little bit of leeway. So I think maybe part of that leftover 70 might go into those accounts.

And, you know, every birthday, we don't need more toys. put it there. No. See, you're already taking steps. So that's awesome because you're already investing, right? Yeah. So we have a start. I have a suggestion for you, Kat, that might make investing feel a little bit more tangible and would show you the power of what you could be doing with your money. And that would be to play with Nerd Wallet's investment calculator. You can put in the amount of money that you have to invest, the potential return on investments. And you can really compare what you would be getting, having your money sitting in your current checking account, which would be basically nothing and in fact actually essentially losing value because of inflation. And then you can say,

okay, if I'm getting maybe a 7% return on my investment, what would that look like over five or 10 years? You can see how it would grow. And that I think could be really eye-opening for you just to understand what potential this money you had that sitting there really has for you and your family's future. I'm going to do that immediately today because I did not know about that tool. And it sounds so interesting. All right, Ryan. So we've covered a gamut of topics here, what would you say are some good next steps? We know that Kat is not your client, but what would you recommend for a client of yours in Kat situation? Maybe something they could do within the next 30 to 60 days. I would definitely open up a high yield savings accounts,

and I would start moving cash. And by the way, start small. So you can even run a test, all these high yield savings accounts. You can connect your current bank accounts. So move $1,000 over and then maybe try moving like $200 back. And just run a test. just to get comfortable with it. And then you can start moving larger chunks over to it. So I think first step is opening up that high-yield savings accounts and moving a good portion of that cash over to the high-yield savings accounts. Opening up an investment brokerage accounts for that excess cash,

I also think would be important in investing that in an diversified investment portfolio. And then where does retirement savings come into this scenario, Ryan, considering we haven't talked much about that. And I know that's a huge part of finances as well. That's a really good question. So it's also looking to see, you know, are your 401Ks, you're contributing to them, are they being invested? And are they being invested in the right way? I know you've been contributing to your Roth, which I applaud you for.

That's great. Is it being invested? Because contributing money to a Roth is one thing. But where you get the benefit of the Roth over time is investing it. So it's also then just doing an audit of all of these accounts and making sure that they're being invested in an appropriate way. given your long-term growth objectives. Yeah, and we mentioned that because every so often, we will hear stories of people who've been contributing to a Roth or a 401K

or whatever retirement account for years and years, but they never actually selected their investments. And so in some cases, it's worse than just a checking account because it had so much potential and it was never taken advantage of. And that can be very heartbreaking if you thought that you were actually investing for retirement and you weren't. Real life story. Someone DM'd me once and was like,

Elizabeth, I can't figure out why my balance isn't growing. actually it's going down. And I was like, did you invest the money? And they were like, no. And I was like, oh, no. So that's an important point. Yeah, that's a very good point. You know, I'm wanting to check my IRA. I'm pretty sure that that is. I get brokerage statements. Oh, good. Well, there's brokerage statements, but there could be cash in a brokerage statement that actually isn't being invested. No, I need to look. We've given you some more homework here, Kat. Okay. Well, it says 89% stocks, then bonds and then like one percent short term. Do you know, do you have a target date fund? I think it's a target date. I set, this up in college, this was a gift from our parents. Again, I was set up very well for success. It's just a matter of figuring out on my own now. For what is worth at a high level, that sounds about right. Yeah. Okay. Is it even worth it to have just a regular savings account with my bank? Because that was, that's what I've been wondering. Like, I hear about high-yield savings

accounts. If you have one of those, do you even need to bother with a regular savings account? A high-yield savings account, it's a high likelihood that that's going to pay you a much higher rate of interest than a savings account. Oftentimes they're called savings accounts, but the interest over a checking account is marginal at best. So I would just skip the savings account and I would go right to the high yield savings accounts. Okay. So it really is just a replacement of an existing account. That's right. And you can set up auto pay and direct deposits into and out of this high old savings account, just like your checking account too. So it's pretty, pretty similar to use. And it's low risk just like you like Kat. So your money should not do.

disappear overnight. That's right. Great. And I have one more question for you, Kat, because you also mentioned when you sent us a question that you are the primary one who manages the finances. So where does your husband come into play here? And does he help at all to maybe manage your anxiety around making these financial decisions? We always talk about decisions together before we do something. I'm just usually the one who's looking at the accounts, at least like three times a week, sometimes it's daily. I'm the one who picked our budgeting app. And I keep track of all of that. He didn't grow up talking about like money and finances quite as much as we did because like I have two business degrees in my family. I'd like my dad's retirement activity is day trading.

No. That tells you anything about my environment growing up. So it's it's kind of more on me. We talk about it together. But I think there's kind of a like a shared anxiety. And I think talking about it definitely helps. Like when we sit down and look at the budgeting app, it definitely helps us feel a little bit better about it. But when it comes to decisions, I feel like a lot of the research is on me.

And then we just kind of touch base and confirm before making the big changes or decisions like that. Well, Ryan, do you have one last tip on how they can work together as a couple, maybe to manage the anxiety around making financial decisions? Look, I mean, you guys are ahead of a lot of people and the fact that you guys are actually talking about it. So I would say keep talking about it. Keep doing that. It's kind of like anything in life where it's like when you have shared goals and shared values, that's kind of half the best. battle or more than half the battle right then and there. So I would say continue to keep talking about it, you know, make sure there's no finger pointing involved and make sure that, you know, you guys are

making decisions as a couple. But I would say that you were thinking about it the right way as it relates to your income in that you can't cut anymore. You need to grow your way to wealth. And I would just take that same approach to the rest of your capital base and basically say, I need this to grow for me. I need it to work for me. and my family because we're not going to get there alone or we're not going to get there with cash in a checking account. Thank you, Ryan. Yes, pleasure.

Okay, Kat. Well, you have a number of things to do on your to-do list. Your homework will take you some time to do. And you don't need to do it all overnight, which is kind of the good part about finances, is it's an ongoing conversation with yourself and with your partner and your family. We would really love to hear how this all pans out for you. So please let us know maybe in three or six months where you are with your finances, what changes you've maybe made, and just how you're feeling overall.

whether your anxiety has been alleviated by doing this. And thank you, Kat. Kat, would you like to close us out? I would be happy to. And that's all we have for this episode. Remember a listener that we're here to answer your money questions. So turn to the nerds and call or text us. Your questions at 901-730-6373.

That's 901-730 N-E-R-D. You can also email us at podcast at nerdwallet.com. We like comments too. Please leave them on Spotify. I love you guys' comments about my hands. hair, as you can see, by popular demand, it is back. You can also follow us on YouTube and leave comments on there, too. Until then, join us next time to hear a review of the Robin Hood Gold Card in case you've been curious. Follow smart money on your favorite podcast app that includes

Spotify, Apple Podcast, and IHeartRadio to automatically download new episodes. And 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 This episode was produced by Nick Carusamy, Hillary Georgie, help with editing. Eve Krogman edits our audio and video, and a big thank you to NerdWallets editors for all of their help. And with that said, until next time, turn to the nerds.