NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast - What Home Sellers Can Legally Hide and How to Master Irregular Bills

Episode Date: October 16, 2025

Learn how to plan for surprise bills and what to ask about a home’s past so your budget and buying feel stress free. Do sellers have to disclose deaths, crimes or “hauntings” in a home? How can you budget for irregular expenses without daily tracking? Hosts Sean Pyles and Elizabeth Ayoola open a spooky episode with housing Nerds Holden Lewis and Kate Wood to break down which states require sellers to reveal a home’s dark history, when they don’t, and how to protect yourself as a buyer. They unpack how to check local laws, research an address, and talk with neighbors so you can make confident choices — and avoid creepy surprises. Then, Sean and Elizabeth answer listener Alyssa’s question about managing expenses that change (or don’t come up at all) from month to month. They share practical ways to plan ahead for costs like home maintenance, credit card fees, childcare, pet care, and car repairs — without tracking every penny. Learn how to build flexible savings buckets, automate deposits, and keep lifestyle creep in check so your budget finally feels steady. 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: haunted house disclosure laws, seller disclosure death in house, stigmatized property, California real estate law, Alaska disclosure rules, Massachusetts disclosure requirements, Minnesota property laws, South Dakota home sale rules, Kentucky real estate disclosure, house history search, property value and crime, neighborhood research before buying, state disclosure differences, how to check a home’s history, due diligence when buying a home, buyer protection strategies, homebuyer checklist, surprise home costs, unpredictable expenses, annual fees planning, sinking funds, budgeting system, flexible savings account, automated transfers, pay yourself first, lifestyle creep management, household budget balance, high income budgeting, financial organization, saving for irregular costs, long-term financial planning, and how to do a monthly money check-in. 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

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Check. Close the garage door? Yep. Installed window sensors, smoke sensors, and HD cameras with night vision? No. And you set up credit card transaction alerts, a secure VPN for a private connection, and continuous monitoring for our personal info on the dark web? Uh, I'm looking into it.

Stress less about security. Choose security solutions from TELUS for peace of mind at home and online. Visit TELUS.com slash Total Security to learn more. Conditions apply. Here's something spooky for your finances, irregular expenses. They can make it tough to budget, but today will help smooth it all out so it's not such a scary proposition. Welcome to NerdVollet'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.

Later on this episode, we'll be talking with a listener about how to budget for irregular expenses. But first, our weekly Money News Roundup, where we break down the late. latest in the world of finance to help you be smarter with your money. We're joined this episode by Housing Nerds Holden Lewis and Kate Wood. Welcome back, you two. Hello. Thanks for having us. So what's news in the world of home buying and selling right now?

All right. Kate, Sean, Halloween is coming up. And that just makes me want to ask this haunting question, which is, has either one of you lived in a house that was haunted or there were room that it was a haunted house. I'm so glad you asked this question, Holden. It reminds me of one time I was probably about five or six years old. I woke up in the middle of the night, and I look over at my door to my bedroom, and there is a white mass just floating at the door.

And I am terrified, being a child, seeing this glowing thing that clearly is a ghost to me. So I'm staring it down for what felt like hours and hours. I eventually mustered the courage to get up and check it out, turn on the light switch, which was, of course, right next to the door. And it was a shirt on a hanger on my doorknop. So that's the closest I've ever gotten to a ghost in my house. Beyond that, no, I kind of wish I did, but nothing that I've currently, presently, personally experienced. Okay, you were like the bravest five-year-old, though.

I would just waited that out. Kate, you lived in a super old house. So I'm sure you probably have something, right? Yes, so, like, sort of, but probably not as quite. cool as you'd think, but I don't know, it's kind of cool. You guys be the judge. If you really listen to this podcast a lot, you might remember I owned a house that dated to 1744. It was also next door to a cemetery, which was this huge selling point for me, because those are the least problematic neighbors you will ever have in your life, right? Unless they're coming back from the dead.

No, I mean, okay, unless it's a living dead situation, then everything changes, right? All bets are off. But in terms of, like, are they going to cause noise? Are they going to encroach on, like, your land? Are they going to build something? Nah, you're super safe. These people have been dead. Or at least, these specific people had been dead for a long time. So one of the house's previous owners was actually buried there.

He died in, like, the 1850s or 1860s. And so he was now, like, 10 feet from his former property line, which was, like, cool for him. So the house itself was not haunted, but it did have this one area where I was like, I'm not messing with this. So I called it, and you're going to, this is going to make your hair stand on it. I called this the spooky cabinet. So it was a cabinet above one of the fireplaces. The house had three fireplaces, it's colonial central chimney. And there's actually like no real agreement from historians on why colonial era homes have these fireplace cabinets or like what the point would have been.

It's just a cabinet that's above the mantle. So I bought this house empty, empty. It hadn't been lived in for over a year. I opened the cabinet just because like, you know, you're moving in. opening things. All that's in there is a tarnished silver spoon and a Bible. And it's not like a really old Bible, but like it's a Bible. Yeah, but these are clearly cursed items. Cursed items or it's protection, right? Like these are like protective. So I was like, I'm not going to touch these items whatsoever. So I was just kind of like noped on out of there and tried to close it, but this

cabinet refused to stay closed. So that was a whole other thing. Spooky habitant won't close. So one time my brother's visiting, and I was just like, hey, while you're here, can you install a latch on this cabinet to hold it closed? Because, again, I was like, I don't really want to touch it. I don't want to mess with it. So he's looking at it, and he's like, what do you think all the writing is? And I was like, what writing? Okay, like, I don't know how tall I sound, but in real life, I'm short. And so I had not even seen this writing. We can hear that, actually.

Yeah, no, okay, well, my brother is like six feet, and he's just looking at it. So on the inside of the cabinet door, and it was somehow like faded into the woods, so the writing was kind of lighter than the wood, there was what looked like a long jumbled list of names, like three columns covering it. And then there was a second shorter list in pen, also indecipherable names over the first column. So long story short, terrifying. We shut that cabinet. I hung a piece of art over it. I never touched it again. That's a good call because I'm just going to venture a guess that those are people who may well have died on the property over the course of those several hundred. years. Yeah, I don't, yeah. Wow. My experiences have been a lot less brought, I guess you could say. When I lived in Toledo, I rented an apartment right on the edge of downtown. And it was a row house

and the building was called Suicide Flats, because back in the 70s and 80s it had been a shooting gallery, you know, a drug den and, you know, a lot of overdoses there. And so every once in a while I would go down into the unfinished basement of this row house. Oh my gosh. You know, just kind of felt a presence, especially because since it was unfinished, it was like dirt floors, you know, and I would go, whoa, I wonder if something's buried down here. But, you know, I don't know, didn't really. You never dug it up just a check. No, oh my gosh. He was renting, Sean. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I kind of wonder if people's things disappeared because, you know, he would store things down there. And then right after that, bought a house there in Toledo from a widow, and her husband had died of

natural causes in the house. And I knew exactly where that bed was where he died. Like, it was in the second bedroom and I just knew it, partly because I felt a presence, but partly because that was the most obvious place to put a bed. And it is where we ended up putting our baby's crib. Wow. That sounds like the premise of a horror movie. Hold on. It really does. It does. And nothing horrible happened. But I would think about it at least a couple of times a week. Like, was that a wise thing to do to bark that? Is my baby going to be possessed by an old man who died here? Yeah, exactly.

Is my infant son developing the personality of like an octogenarian Ohioan? How do we know? Will he be a fireman just like him? Is your son a fireman? Just like that guy. And he is not. He is a social worker. So, okay, I got to ask you guys, do you believe in paranormal activity?

You know, whether or not you do, like, would you be willing to live, in a house where either there were rumors of ghosts or something terrible it had happened there and people knew it. Much like Mulder from The X-Files, I want to believe, but I've never seen a ghost besides that shirt hanging on my door that wasn't actually a ghost. I'm open to it, but yeah, waiting for evidence. Yeah, same. I feel like I'm ghost agnostic. And, like, in the scheme of things, supernatural, I feel like I'd be probably okay with living in the house. crime house, oh, like I'd really rather not, but at the same time, I recognize that, like, I'm in New England, it's still a really hot market year. I feel like if the price was right, you'd just kind of have to be like, well, there were a bunch of murders here. I'm going to burn a lot of sage. Yeah, I think I would need, like, a deep vibe cleanse of a house that I knew something horrific had happened in, but I wouldn't have it be my first choice because I just think that things like that leave an imprint in a space. But if you do want to buy a house where something horrible happened, do you have to be told about that?

Like, is there disclosure laws around, like, ghosts or horrible acts of murder or anything like that? So depending on where you're buying, whether you have a right to know is going to vary. So sellers' disclosures are always a normal part of the home sale process, but what the seller actually has to reveal is going to vary depending on where you live. Fun fact, turns out in most states the home seller does not have to disclose the presence of ghosts or other paranormal activity. Most states know, some states yes. Massachusetts, for example, you sell a house in Massachusetts, it's not considered a quote-unquote material fact if the home has been the site of, again, we're quoting here, an alleged parapsychological or supernatural phenomenon. On the other hand, if the buyer asks you about it, you can't lie. opposite end of the spectrum, Minnesota. Zero disclosures on this topic as well as non-supernatural deaths. When I sold my house, I'm in Connecticut. I don't have to disclose it, but because it was such an old house and I figured people would make assumptions or want to know, I did kind of summarize things for my agent and I was just like, look, I don't think this house is haunted because I was mostly here by myself. The staircases are so steep. If some kind of malevolent spirit had wanted to mess with me, I was just like easy picking.

Yeah. Also, are those stairs up to code? No, no. That's another question. Oh, no. These are, colonial home stairs are like snowflakes. No two are the same, you know? Yeah. They're perilous. That's almost scarier than a ghost in the house. It definitely was for my boyfriend at the time. All right, so we're talking about ghosts, and that leaves a murder-sized hole. Or should I say, murder-sized hole in this discussion?

Which is, are there disclosures having to do with murders, suicides? I mean, from what I understand in most states, the seller can just keep their mouth shut about it. An exception is Alaska. If you're aware that a murder or suicide happened in the house in the last year, you have to disclose it and you have to tell the buyer up front. Other states have these only ifs, like California. You have to disclose a death in the house in the last three years. In South Dakota, you have to disclose if a suicide or homicide happen. while you own the property.

And in Kentucky, and I don't know, a few other places, you actually have to honestly answer a direct question about like a haunting, a death, a suicide, a murder, but you don't have to tell the buyer if they don't ask. I don't know. There's a bunch of different states, different rules. And a lot of places, if you're selling and someone asks you a question like that,

you can say, I do not care to answer that question. And then leave it at that. I think that that tells you all you need to know. if that is the answer to that question. Yeah, that feels very, I'm pleading the fifth. Don't worry about it. With these disclosures, there are basic laws, but there is room for nuance.

These things can evolve. So there was a court case 42 years ago in California. This woman had bought a house from a guy, and he just never mentioned, by the way, this was the site of a quintuple murder that had happened like 10 years prior. Also, no, like this is not like Charles Manson-related. It's not the Sharon Tate house.

So anyway, the buyer's sort of, sues the seller. And she argues that the neighbors, like, look, everyone knows what happened in this house, right? And that that history really probably makes the house less valuable than what she paid. She won. The court said that the seller had a duty to inform the buyer because the house was notorious in that community. And so, yeah, that quintuple murder had a negative effect on the property value. And she shouldn't have paid that much. That's kind of wild. What I'm taking from this is that when I buy any future house, I'm going to ask that any sort of crazy, spooky, haunty, murdery things happen here. Yeah. And maybe go around asking neighbors, too. All right,

so what if you're not a goth? And you don't want to live in a house that is supposedly haunted or someone died, but not of natural causes. What can you do? Again, the answer kind of varies by state in terms of, does the seller have to disclose this? Can you force the seller to disclose it in some way? these days, obviously this is something our like 42 years ago woman couldn't have done. But these days, we can just go on the web and search the address and see what shows up. Are there news articles letting you know that something horrifying happened there or that neighbors always smell like a mysterious scent or feel cold when they walk by the house, right? You could also just ask the neighbors. They will probably tell you.

Well, Kate Holden, thank you for coming on and sharing your spooky home buying insights with us today. Thank you for having us. It was my spooky pleasure. Up next, Elizabeth and I answer a listener's question about how to budget when your expenses aren't always the same week to week or month to month. But before we get into that, or a reminder, listener, to send us your money questions. Maybe you're wondering if the time of year when the veil is thinness between the living and the dead is a good time to buy a house. Or maybe even how to save up for a down payment on a house. Whatever your money question, leave us a voicemail or text us on the nerd hotline at 901-730-6373.

That's 901-730 nerd. or email us at podcast at nurdwallet.com. 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. This episode's question comes from Alyssa, who sent us an email.

Here it is. Hi, Elizabeth and Sean. I love your podcast, and I've been learning a lot from it. I have a budgeting question for our family. My spouse and I make good salaries around 180,000 to 200,000 per year, and we don't spend extravagantly, but our budget always feels tighter than it should.

I've been working to better track our expenses, and one thing that consistently confuses me is how to plan for irregular bills. For example, we have an annual $2,000 oil bill, a quarterly water bill that fluctuates, an easy-pass charge that pops up unpredictably. We'd really prefer a set-it-and-for-get-it approach rather than daily expense tracking, something that keeps us organized, helps us plan for irregular cost, and allows us to consistently say for bigger goals like a home edition. Right now, our savings just keeps getting eaten up. Do you have advice for how to budget for irregular expenses in a way that smooths things out month to month

and makes it easier to build savings with confidence? Thank you for considering my question. I'd love to hear your take, Alyssa. And this episode, Sean and I are taking on Alyssa's questions ourselves. Are you ready to dive in, Sean? Let's do it. Let's start by talking about some common irregular expenses. A lot come to mind, actually, because I've faced these every single year, it seems,

and they're always annoying and throw me off. So car registration is one that I just paid, maybe premium credit card annual fees. I know, Elizabeth, you and I were just talking about this and how expensive it can get. Also, pet insurance, magazine subscriptions, oil changes, back-to-school supplies. Not so much my thing, but probably yours, Elizabeth. Also, neighborhood dues, home maintenance. There are so many. Do I together come to mind for you?

Definitely some that you have brought up. You called me out and told my business. Maybe I told my business already on this podcast, but premium card annual fees are definitely one for me. I have four or too many of those. Definitely back to school supplies. An interesting one for me actually is because I'm a single mama when I want to go out or even just when I want to travel on a trip without my son, I have to pay babysitter fees, which can get really expensive. And I don't always necessarily plan for car maintenance, beauty products, because a girl has the girl. Yeah, but you run out of a product and you have to replace it

and you don't know exactly when that's going to happen, right? Yeah. And then it's just so strangely happens that they all run out around the same time, and then it becomes this big expense bill. Like, I need eyeliner and face wash and shampoo and just all the things at once, and it can cost quite a bit. So I looked into my own irregular expenses ahead of this recording. Do you want to guess how much I spend on an annual basis? I'm going to say $5,000. Not quite. I spend a little over $3,500 a year on annual expenses, and that's a lot more than I was expecting it to be, although admittedly, most of this expense comes from my pet insurance, which is around like $2,200 a year. So, yeah, I just wasn't expecting to have that number. I thought it would be maybe closer to

a thousand, but all of those things that we just listed out really add up over time. Do you have a number for how much you're spending on your irregular expenses annually, Elizabeth? Probably around the amount that I was projecting, Sean, which it was $5,000. So I was putting that on you, but it was really on me. Yeah, that's a lot. I'm guessing a good chunk of that is coming from your credit card annual fees. Yep, credit card annual fees. And then a lot, honestly, goes to child care. Well, I think it's telling, too, that you don't have a precise number and that I didn't before I looked into it to answer this listener's question, because these things do pop up. We don't think about them on a regular basis until all of a sudden that charge hits our account

and we're like, oh, crap, I have to scramble and move some money around to cover this bill. Yes. So we should talk about how you can account for these expenses, given that they can be kind of unpredictable, or they seem like they can be unpredictable. I think to start the best place for people to look is just their spending. They can look backwards at what they have been spending their money on for the past few months. As you're looking through your charges, flag anything that seems, quote, unquote, irregular. And I'm saying, quote, unquote, because at the end of the day, there isn't actually a big difference between an irregular expense or a regular expense.

An irregular expense is just one that popped up unexpectedly that you maybe forgot or you weren't totally planning for. Although, if you have foresight and you look at your expenses closely enough, we should all be able to plan for these things. We know they're coming, right? Absolutely. And actually, this reminds me of an irregular expense dilemma that I was having with my small business, which is that I had those kind of unexpected fees coming up as well. So something I did was I created a spreadsheet. It was easier to look through because my business credit card expenses are not as much as my personal one. So I was able to kind of highlight each of those quote unquote irregular

expenses and pop them in a spreadsheet and also put the date next to it of what time of the year they come around so that I can anticipate them. So maybe that's something people can consider as well. That's really smart. I think people can either track them either through a spreadsheet or a note on their notes up on their phone, something so that if and when these expenses do pop up, you can just keep track of it in that moment. And then hopefully next time this expense comes around, you know to anticipate it because you have it written down somewhere. And also you flagging your business expense makes me think about how next year I'm going to be facing a bunch of irregular expenses with my business and my CFP certification. And that stuff is not cheap. So I'm going to start

saving for that probably today. Yeah, even just the annual business registration fee, not to get too much into business stuff, but my website domain comes up, you know, every year. And then you're like, whoa, another bill. Well, one thing that's hard to figure out as well is how you can track irregular expenses when the price can fluctuate. Like a water bill might not be the same every month or every quarter, depending on how frequently your bill. So in that case, it's a regular expense. It's a good idea to try to get an average for how much you might be spending. So look back at your last three or four bills. See what you're typically spending. Also see if you might be getting a price increase coming up because we're getting that for our water bills here in Portland. Get some

sort of grasp on what you might have to spend. That way you can plan for it, even if you don't know exactly how much it's going to cost you. And I would also suggest putting in a cushion in your budget to save maybe more than you might expect so that you don't end up not having enough set aside for it. And I think that's a good segue, Sean, because everyone has a different budgeting system, right? And I think your budgeting system is going to determine how you manage those irregular expenses. So someone like you who has five million different accounts, you might have an account, you know, for each bill or whatever it looks like. But for someone like me who has only two checking accounts and one savings account, I find my approach is, like you said, having enough money

in my account, knowing roughly how much my monthly expenses are, and then having that extra cushion, right, for those unexpected bills so that I'm not robbing Peter to pay Paul. Yeah. And for something like Alyssa's $2,000 oil bill, I would probably put it in my home maintenance fund. And then they can break that up on a monthly basis and see what amount they might need to put aside into that account. So that is all covered. That's just one easy way. And that's probably, again, how I would do it. But one thing that I'm thinking about is how Alyssa mentioned that their budget always feels tighter than it should while they're making between $180,000 to $200,000 a year. And we don't know a lot about their household finances. We don't know where they live, what their mortgage

costs, all of this. But I am willing to bet that they probably aren't tracking their expenses as closely as they might think they are. And this is kind of a open secret in the financial planning and personal finance world, which is that most people, when they're living a pretty comfortable middle class life, aren't really budgeting that closely at all. And that's okay, because you have enough money to get by, but then when you're facing a cash crunch like they are facing, it's time to look into what's really going on and track your expenses more closely. I agree. I had a moment like that between the end of last year and earlier this year, where I was like, wait a minute, where's all my money going because I got so comfortable,

kind of like, you know, this couple is. And it was a daunting and also freeing, freeing experience to really sit down. And I did something which is track my expenses for a month and see exactly, exactly what I was spending. I started checking every single week to see how many Uber eats I was doing how many Instagram. And I was like, girl, you're doing too much. So that can help you see where. And I was like, I do have enough money because I started to feel like, oh, I need more money. No, I just needed to manage the money I had better. So I think tracking the expenses really closely to see where it's going is a good place to start. How exactly was that freeing? Because it sounds kind of tedious, to be honest. It was tedious. But how it was freeing is, first of all,

I was stressed out because I didn't know where my money was going and I was avoiding checking where my money was going. And it was also freeing because I had all this pressure on myself because I was feeling guilty because I didn't know where my money was going and because I knew that I was possibly overspending. But being able to track and see where all that was going helped me to feel free from all of that stress and all of that guilt because now I know where my money is going and what I need to fix and I have a clear path forward. It's like you had this budget boogeyman in your life and once you confronted it head on, you were able to take more control over your finances. Exactly. Exactly. Okay. And so how did you change the way you're tracking your money?

Are you still looking at it on a kind of close basis like you were for that month? Or have you gone back to a kind of more relaxed pattern? Oh, no. We're not going all the way that way, relaxed. So now I check weekly, actually. I see exactly what I'm spending weekly. And then intuitively, I'm able to say, hey, maybe I'm going to spend less next week or this is kind of my budget for the rest of the month.

And that's a good idea. So with Alyssa, they could track every expense for a month, see what's coming in, see what's going out, just get a really clear picture on where they might be succumbing to some. kind of lifestyle creep like all the Uber eats or shopping for clothes, whatever it might be, we all have our own little lifestyle creeps that are not necessarily bad, but they can become troublesome when it prevents us from not being able to save how we want to or cover our expenses in Alyssa's case. So once they get a feel for that, then they might want to try a budgeting method that is kind of relaxed because it seems like they don't want to be micromanaging their

finances on a regular basis. In that case, you know, I like to recommend the 50, 30, 20 budget framework, which we talk about a lot for a good reason. If you have your 50, 30, 20, 20, budget where half of your income is going to cover your needs, 30% is going to wants, 20% is going towards additional debt payments and savings. This is a way where you can ensure that you have some kind of financial and budgeting balance. And if your money is fitting into these categories neatly, then you can kind of set it and forget it, have your money going to your different expenses and not have to worry about every single thing that you're spending money on. Yeah, because it can be time-consuming. So, Sean, I want to know

Have you experienced any type of lifestyle creep? What was that like for you if you have? I kind of love lifestyle creep in a responsible way. That's why when I bought a car in 2020, I bought myself a very affordable BMW because I drove crappy cars my entire life. In high school, I had a Honda Civic where the muffler was rusted out and dragging on the ground behind me. It was a mess. Yeah, it was really bad. So I said, okay, I have a big boy job.

I'm earning some money. I can fit this luxurious car into my lifestyle. and my budget, and, you know, it was affordable for me. My monthly payment was like $3.50 a month, which is nothing for a far. Yeah. Exactly. So I'm all about having thoughtful lifestyle creep. So think about where your priorities are.

For me, I wanted a nice car. I also like buying some nice clothes. I don't have a child that's taking up my money or a really big housing payment. So I have the freedom in my finances to allocate things to where I want to indulge a little bit. And that can be a nice vacation every once in a while, too. So yes, I like lifestyle creep, but I think you need to be really considerate about how you're doing it. I like that framing. So it's almost like you're using lifestyle creep as a way to say, hey, I can enjoy a bit more of my money now that I have more money. One thing I go back to a lot in personal finance is that it's important to plan for tomorrow, but also live for today too, because there is no promise of tomorrow, but you want to, of course, cover all your bases.

So enjoy things while you can. Go out to that nice meal. Treat your partner to a nice evening out. Whatever is important to you, but just make sure it fits. into everything else you need to do with your finances. That's right. What about you, Elizabeth? What's your big indulgence? Is it the Uber Eats? Ah, I feel like I talk about Uber Eats a lot. Do I sound like a greedy girl?

We are not sponsored by Uber Eats, by the way. She's organic. Honestly, I would say my biggest lifestyle creep was no, just escaped from my vocabulary suddenly. Hey, want to go out to eat? No. Hey, want to go on vacation? I mean, yes, yes, yes, there were no-nows. I was saying yes to everything and not.

checking with my budget first because I was like, I think I have enough money to do all of these things. And maybe I didn't, you know, have enough money that month to do all of the things. Right. And that's where the lifestyle creep becomes problematic. So again, Alyssa, we don't know what your household finances are like, but I suspect there might be some kind of lifestyle of creep going on. Think about where you can cut back and find some extra money in your budget to cover all of these unexpected irregular expenses. Okay, well, something else that Alyssa mentioned is wanting to have a set it and forget it approach to savings. And I am the master of doing this because, as you said earlier, Elizabeth, I have about 20,000 savings accounts

at the moment. No, I really only have nine that I'm currently using. And that might sound extreme, but let me just list them out. I don't think it will sound as wild as you might initially think. So going in order, I have my emergency fund. I have my wedding fund, which is being quickly depleted as I spend more and more ahead of my wedding in less than two months now. I have my house maintenance fund. I have a student loaned fund. I have a fund for taxes. I have one for my car maintenance and for my future car. I have one that's just fun money. I also have a checking account at a credit union. That's kind of my day-to-day spending. I also have an old checking account from high school that I pretty much just used to pay my mom my part of the cell phone bill. And that's it. That's where my money is going.

And I have a little bit of my paycheck, every single pay period, going into each one of these accounts based on percentages. You can add nine? Yes, actually. So with NerdWallet's system, they say you can add 10. But guess what? I did that one time and I broke the system. So you can't do 10. But you can do nine.

This way, I have just different percentages of my paycheck going into all these different areas. And I don't even have to think about it. It's happening in the background on autopilot. Super easy. Well, I do have one question for you. Do you ever find that you end up commingling? This is a common issue I hear for people who are having budgeting issues, which is like, I didn't have enough in my checking, then I had to take it from my savings, or I had to take it from that account and put it in this account. So do you ever have that issue?

I have had that issue, especially with some of these irregular expenses. Like this past August, my annual pet insurance bill came, and I just pay it all at one time. And it was, again, like $2,200 or something. And so I didn't have enough money in my checking account to cover that. So I pulled it from my house maintenance fund because my pets are part of my house. That's how I, girl math, justified it to myself. But I'm thinking that in general, I want to get better about having my irregular expenses accounted for because Alyssa's question was kind of a wake-up call for me, too. So in the future, I'll probably put that into my emergency fund account and just pull it from there, even though it's not technically an emergency.

But it's a place where I have a pot of money that I know has a designated purpose outside of, like, typical day-to-day spending. And something I will say further for anyone who's thinking about adopting Sean's wild idea is that you may want to budget again. You're going to have to go through, but you're going to have to, I think, budget for each of these expenses. And then maybe you automatically save, I don't know, if you want to put $50 for your pet bill. I'm sorry, I made that up. I have fish. Maybe that applies to me. Maybe you're putting $5.

I know, right? Maybe you're putting $5 into that account. a month in order to meet that bill. So you're going to have to time it properly and also plan your savings. So with this, there's a little bit of admin work on the front end, understanding where you need your money to go to cover all of your expenses and then setting up the direct deposit if your employer graciously allows you to do so like NerdWallet does. Thank you, nerd wallet. But if they don't allow you to do that, you could also just do automated transfers from your checking into a different savings account each pay period. This is really the pay yourself

first method of savings, where before the money is even available for you to spend it, you have it just quickly shot into whatever savings account that you want, and you just ensure that savings is going on in the background, and that's just what I do personally. Elizabeth, how do you handle this? Because I understand that you don't have nine checking in savings accounts. I do not. So I am a lump sum girl. I love to see big sums of money going somewhere, usually into my savings. So I save quite a chunk, maybe around, let's say, $1,000 a month into a, you know, general savings account. And then when I need to use it, I just pull it out. So I just save large amounts and use it whenever it's needed. Okay, but you're not sweating. Oh,

I'm pulling this a couple hundred bucks for, like, my son's expense from my lump sum. And you're not worried about that getting in the way of saving for another goal that you have, like a vacation or something. No. Okay. That's fine. Because you know where your money is going. So if you are a little bit, I don't want to say Lucy Goosey, but a little bit more flexible than my potentially more rigid way of saving, that's okay to each their own, right? Exactly, exactly. And then on months, so if I'm planning for a vacation, for example, I will plan a couple of months ahead for that, and then I'll budget like, hey, maybe I need to put aside a little extra money into my savings for that so that when it's time to pay for it, I have enough.

All right. Well, Alyssa and all other listeners who struggle with irregular expenses, Elizabeth and I included in this, I hope this has been helpful. Let us know what you end up doing with your finances because this is something that we all struggle with. That's right. So I'll be taking some tips from what we learned today or what we taught y'all today. And I'll be using them in my personal finances too. And keep us posted, Elizabeth. You too, Sean. We're holding each other accountable here. Yes, exactly. Accountability partners here. Well, that's all we have for this episode. Remember, listener, that we are 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 Nerd. You can also email us

at podcast at nerdwalt.com. Join us next time to hear about how much life insurance. you might need. You can 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 Viglin and Anna Hal Halski. Hilary Georgie helped with editing. Nick Kirst Me Mixed our audio and a big thank you to NerdWallet's editors for their help. And with that said, until next. time, turn to the nerds.