NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast - Why Traditional Budgeting Fails and What’s Missing from Your Money Plan

Episode Date: February 17, 2025

Learn how values-based spending can help you curb impulse buys, avoid financial blindspots, and rethink your money habits How can you stop impulse spending? How do you know if you’re making good financial choices? This episode explores mindful spending and financial habits that may be holding you back. Personal finance Nerd Kim Palmer kicks off the episode with a discussion on spending habits with guests Jen Smith and Jill Sirianni, hosts of the Frugal Friends podcast and authors of the new book, Buy What You Love Without Going Broke. They explore the pitfalls of extreme budgeting, how values-based spending leads to financial confidence, the importance of aligning spending with what truly matters, strategies to curb impulse purchases, and how to reframe financial mistakes without shame. Then, hosts Sean Pyles and Elizabeth Ayoola discuss financial blindspots with Jeremy, a listener who works as a talent agent in New York City. They dive into how to evaluate whether you're on track with savings, when to prioritize your time over income, and how to address financial gaps you might not be aware of. Jeremy shares his detailed approach to budgeting and saving while expressing uncertainty about whether he's missing something in his financial plan. They explore retirement savings options beyond a 401(k), the importance of disability insurance, estate planning considerations, and how to balance long-term financial security with enjoying money in the present. Are you on track to save enough for retirement? Use NerdWallet’s retirement calculator to check your progress, see how much retirement income you'll have and estimate how much more you should save: https://www.nerdwallet.com/calculator/retirement-calculator  In their conversation, the Nerds discuss: impulse spending, financial blindspots, mindful spending, values-based spending, budgeting tips, budgeting strategies, spending guilt, financial regrets, smart money habits, how to stop emotional spending, personal finance mistakes, how to balance saving and spending, financial security, how to make a financial plan, retirement savings, estate planning, disability insurance, high-yield savings, robo-advisor investing, early retirement planning, how to save for retirement, and brokerage account alternatives. 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.

The buy button is one of the greatest inventions of our time. Also one of the worst. Yes, the convenience is great, but the ease of spending money is not so great. So let's get some advice for managing that spending and feeling good about making a budget. Welcome to NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast. I'm Sean Piles. And I'm Sean Piles. And I'm Kim Palmer. This episode, we're answering your money questions about financial blind spots. Do you have any of those, Sean?

Kim, need I remind you that I am a certified financial planner professional and I do not have any financial blind spots? Just kidding. I certainly have financial blind spots. I think everyone does, really. Well, not me. I don't have any. Oh, of course, of course.

Yeah, just kidding. But we are going to hear from you about some of the ways we can all better manage those blind spots. But first, we are tackling a question that each of us faces every day. How can we be better at spending our money? Kim, in her role as the host of our regular book club series is here to guide the conversation. So Kim, who are you talking with? I'm talking with Jen Smith and Jill Sirianni. They are the authors of the new book, Buy What You Love Without Going Broke, and they're also the hosts of the Frugal Friends podcast.

And they have a lot of really interesting ideas about how we can all be smarter spenders. Sounds great. We also want to remind listeners that you can enter for a chance to win our book giveaway at nerdwallet.com slash book club for our next book club pick. And with that, take it away, Kim. Great. Thank you, Jen and Jill. Welcome to our show. Thanks for having us. Yeah, lovely to be here. Let's start with why you wrote this book because your personal finance advice is a little different from what we hear every day.

What gap in the money world were you trying to fill? This gap for me, Jen, came out of personal experience. My husband and I, when we got married, we decided to pay off all of our debt, and we paid off $78,000 of debt in two years. We followed the traditional financial advice that really said, spend on nothing, earn as much as you can, wear yourself out so that you can pay off your debt and then all your problems will be solved.

And lo and behold, all of my problems were not solved afterwards. I had this debt payoff hangover where I had spent all of my energy and time and thought into this one goal and I didn't know how to manage money. I thought I knew how to manage money because I'd done this one thing, but I realized I really didn't. And so to compensate, I didn't look inside myself and figure out where those feelings were coming from.

I just decided to pursue financial independence and invest as much as possible. And then I lost my job seven or eight weeks before I gave birth to my first son, and I was unable to do any financial goals. And that's when I had to look at what is the difference between this traditional money management advice that people are giving us and the reality of my life is that I spend money. I like to spend money, but I also don't want to go broke. I want to be able to save for the future.

There's got to be some radical middle between these extremes. That's what Frugal Friends, our podcast, has truly been an exploration of and helping other people come alongside us in this journey. Well, that sounds great. One thing you talk about in the book is how badly a lot of people feel similar to that hangover that you're describing, the debt hangover. I mean, people feel badly often when they hear traditional financial advice. So what do you think is the problem there? What is going on that so much financial advice does make people feel badly about themselves? What is going on that so much financial advice does make people feel badly about themselves?

This is Jill. I think that really our finances are so much more nuanced than what traditional personal finance advice is going to let on. We so often want to approach it with a math first approach, when in reality, our financial decisions, the way that we spend, our ideas about money are so intertwined with who we are as a person, our experiences growing up, our current context and kind of how all of these things end up informing. The ways that we understand money, approach it, steward it as a resource along with all of our other resources. There's this gap in really combining those two things. We often kind of treat money as if it's this separate entity where we just have to understand spreadsheets to be

good at it. In reality, we realize, no, I've got a spreadsheet over here and yet I'm still not quite making the decisions that I want to be making. I still am impulse spending. Or maybe I'm spending money in areas that I don't feel ashamed about, but society or other people are telling me I should, that there are things I should and shouldn't be spending money on. And I think we really wanted to approach this in a manner of recognizing those nuances, our humanity, how dynamic we are and creating some more freedom and flexibility in the way that we

understand and approach money that is far less shameful because it's not about shoulds and shouldn'ts, right and wrong and these binaries that we've been sold, but the fluidity of it and the spectrum of what can be a really wise sound decision for one person might not be for another because of the context or season of life that they're in. And so this is kind of meeting that reality of saying you are a whole person and your money decisions fit within that context. And how can we help you develop spending as a skill?

And we don't blame the voices that came before us that focused on these extremes and left out the nuance. We understand it's easier to market and sell extremes. But we are at a place in time where it's time to start recognizing those nuances and really looking into them and embracing them and holding space for them. Absolutely, I think that's been such a positive trend

in the personal finance world in recent years. You also encourage people to really dig into their values when it comes to deciding how to spend money. How can we start that? What does that look like? This is a big question and it is essentially what our entire book is about and how values based spending can really be the key to feeling really confident about the decisions that

we make. And how we came to this is really through Maslow's hierarchy of needs. If you're familiar with that, it's a triangle and you've got your basic needs at the bottom as far as your physiological needs and safety needs. In the middle, you have your self-esteem and belonging needs. And at the tippy top, we've got self-actualization needs. This is finding purpose, engaging in creativity, recognizing that our needs are not just physical, which I think is where most traditional personal finance advice stops. It's food, shelter, clothing, done. How do we do that and say no to the rest? And we're

really recognizing there is more beyond that. We want to achieve an experience in our lives, like having friendship and family. This led us to what we call the four Fs, faith, family, friends, and fulfilling work. They meet those higher level needs on that hierarchy of needs. Now, the four Fs shouldn't cost us money, but we do need money in order to pursue these higher needs. And so values-based spending is recognizing

these core values inside of ourselves and then being able to start identifying, okay, if this is the case, how can I align my spending more with these areas? I think when we talk about budgeting, that piece often gets left out. So I love that you highlight that so much and basically wrote a whole book about it. I just felt like when I was budgeting, I was making perfect budgets, right? I was making them. I knew exactly how much money I had

and how much money I could spend, but I could never follow through with this perfect budget I had made. And then I would feel guilty. And I just realized what I really want are the things that money can't buy, but I still need money to pursue them. If we focus first on the values,

focusing first on those four, and then anything else if you can't fit them in there, they'll fall somewhere on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. It's like the 80-20 rule. These four are the 80 and the other 20%. It's gonna fall somewhere on that hierarchy. One number that really jumped out at me from a recent nerd wallet study that we did is that almost 7 in 10 Americans said they had financial regrets in 2024. And actually younger Americans were even more likely to say they had financial regrets.

Why do you think financial regrets are so common? And how can we just set ourselves up better to feel good about the spending choices we're making? I think a lot of regrets are tied to the decisions that we've made, usually decisions that maybe we didn't have all the information that we needed, or we were kind of influenced to choose something that was not in our best interest. And so I think where these things combine, of course it's going to impact our finances. What comes to mind for me most often here is impulse spending. We hear from a lot of people that this is a big area of contention when it comes to their finances and can hold a lot of that regret, that shame, that what's wrong with

me? Why do I keep doing this? Why can't I make different decisions? I think the key with that then becomes let's identify what kind of impulse spenders we are. When is it that I am impulse spending? Is it out of habit? Is it that I'm shopping as an activity? So I'm of course just finding myself with things in my cart? Does it usually happen when I'm stressed or overwhelmed or feeling super anxious? Or maybe if I'm feeling happy and celebratory, I just need a little treat all the time? Is it that I love to hunt for things and I love deals and I constantly am drawn to the

red sticker? Or maybe the social influence of being on Instagram or around others in our community who have certain things that feel like, yeah, they're going to solve our problems. If we can start to identify which one of these impulse spending areas are we kind of falling into, it can help to then inform the next steps. How might I then shift some of the behaviors around those spending decisions? And I just want to encourage young people who are making quote unquote financial mistakes, or maybe older millennials like us who are still paying for some quote unquote mistakes we made as young people that a lot of us will then, because we've made these decisions,

internalize them and take on the identity that, okay, I'm just bad with money. I'm a spender. I don't save. I can't save. I'm just bad with money. I'm a spender. I don't save. I can't save. I will never make enough money. We take on these identities as a result of some of these financial mistakes. I just want to encourage people that your identity is not in the things that you do buy, do not buy, did buy, did not buy, took out debt on, whatever these financial mistakes are.

You can learn the skill of spending, the skills around earning. It's never too late to learn from mistakes and to learn new skills to improve. LESLIE KENDRICK If someone is just feeling really overwhelmed with all the money tips coming at them, what would you say are three of the most important things they can do today to start feeling better about how they're spending and managing their money. None of them are gonna be budgeting, okay? I'm gonna give three tips and none of them are make a budget.

So get excited. The first one would be to do a 90 day transaction inventory. If 90 days feels like too much, try 30. We just wanna look back at all of your transactions for the last 30 to 90 days so that you can start to see patterns. First, we're looking at the past spending. Then we're thinking about current spending. And so for that, I love to start a no-spend challenge or at least plan out when to do one. I have read a lot of books and articles about people who do these year

long no-spend challenges. I think 30 days is enough because there's a lot of research that says your dopamine receptors can start to kind of change the way the amount of dopamine or things that give you a dopamine release after just four weeks. I would say plan out when you're going to do a 30-day no-spend challenge because what that can do for you is it gives you 30 days to say automatic no's to any discretionary spending. And what that does is it just gives your brain space, takes away some decision fatigue, and it gives you space to get creative in how you meet your needs. The goal is to not want less, it's to want different.

So that would be the second is to plan out when you're gonna start that. And then the third would be start to curate your environment. We're looking at our physical space. How does it make us feel if one of the ways that I want to hang out with people instead of going to a bar or restaurant is to hang out at home. Is my home a place that I feel comfortable inviting people in? Is it a physical problem or an internal problem? Too much time on social media problem? Looking at that stuff in order to curate your environment to set yourself up to succeed with this stuff.

Jen Smith and Jill Sirianni, thank you so much for joining us on Smart Money. Thanks for having us, Kim. Yeah, thank you. Great conversation, Kim. Thanks so much for doing that. We've got more on the way, but here's the part where we ask you to take a second and think about where you need some guidance with your money.

Maybe you're feeling a little lost, like you don't even know what your financial goals should be. Or you're trying to break yourself out of a bad financial habit, but you just can't seem to do it. Whatever your money question, we nerds are here to help. Leave us a voicemail or text us on the Nerd Hotline at 901-730-6373. That's 901-730-NERD.

And a reminder that one of our goals on Smart Money this year is to talk with more of you live on the podcast to help you with your money questions. So if you wanna hang out with us for a bit and get some nerdy wisdom, let us know. One more time, leave us a voicemail or text us on the nerd hotline at 901-730-6373. That's 901-730-NERD.

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Answering your money questions to help you make smarter financial decisions. This episode, we're joined by Jeremy, a talent agent living in New York City who's wondering about his financial blind spots. Jeremy, welcome to Smart Money. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

So Jeremy, before we get into the conversation, I want to remind you that everything we are about to discuss is just for educational purposes and is not individual financial advice. Make sense? Absolutely. Perfect. So to start, can you give us a high-level overview of your finances ranging from like savings to debt to investing? How are you doing?

I feel like I should knock on wood while I say this, but I feel like overall I'm doing pretty well. I have no major debt aside from my mortgage. I do have a good amount of savings, including about a six to nine month emergency fund. I am currently investing mainly in my Roth IRA that I have, that I've been investing in for the five or six years that I've had it open. So I feel like most of the check the box, hey, do ABCD are pretty well maintained. Now I'm kind of looking for that next level.

So how do you manage your money on a regular basis? Do you have a budget? Do you contribute to savings accounts? I feel like I'm kind of old school in this way. I still write out a paper budget. That's what works best in my head and being. So I literally go purchase by purchase and every month kind of tally in terms of how far over or under for total

expenses and total income. I do also do a automatic transfer. Usually it's about a hundred dollars into my savings account at the beginning of every month. And then at the end of every month, whenever I have a surplus, I usually say, okay, so much of this goes toward savings, so much of this goes toward charities, so much of this goes toward charities, so much of this goes toward something else that I'm saving up for. How long does that take you to write all of your purchases out? I still am that person who asks for a receipt every time that I'm out shopping in person. So it's usually like at the end of the night I'll come back and I'll write down the two additional expenses that I have there. And then usually weekly I'll go through

and just double check my credit card statements or double check if there's anything that I missed for some reason and I have all my automatic payments already written down as like a fixed expense for lack of a better term. I like that analog approach. So on paper, quite literally, it seems like you're doing all of the right things financially, but you seem to have this nagging feeling that something is missing. Tell us about that. I feel like when it comes to personal finances, there's always the potential boogeyman of what are you not prepared for. I look to the, again, check the box things of like maxing out your Roth IRA and having an emergency fund, but I always keep thinking to myself, is there something else I'm missing? Is there something more I should

be doing? And getting a little bit caught up in that anxiety. The other thing that I think adds a little bit to that is in my current job, we do not have a 401k plan. So I have a 401k from a previous employer, but I also don't have that extra security blanket that comes with a lot of occupations that says like, hey, four to 6% of your income is already going to be saved for this other thing. And instead, it's a much more manual process that I have to be cognizant of. So I think between that failsafe and the general anxiety of

what else am I missing? Do I just have that nagging suspicion? And it's almost like you don't know what you might be missing. That's kind of the question mark. Exactly. Well, this feels like a good segue into retirement savings since you're talking about 401k and on the like. So let's talk about your retirement savings. How much do you have saved? And also, how much are you saving at the moment? I have in retirement savings, I have about 33,000 ish in a 401k from a previous employer. I have about 74,000 in my Roth IRA that I look to max out every year.

And then right now, post pandemic, I have a large high yield savings account that honestly, I kind of treated as my makeshift 401k because interest rates were high but as interest rates are coming down I'm now trying to think of what would be a better use for that money as well and that's closer to around the 80 to 90 thousand dollar range. That's really interesting and it leads me to a next question because I know when I first started saving for retirement, I didn't actually have a goal in mind. I just was thinking, you know,

let me max out everything I can and save as much as I can. But it really helped me to put things into perspective when I realized I should probably have a number that I'm saving towards. So with that said, have you used a retirement calculator to get an estimate of how much you may need to save for retirement? I did.

I think it's probably like three or four years ago, to be honest at this point. And I think the number I came up with was in the range of like 1.3 million, but I have not done it recently and that probably would be a helpful thing for me to do. Yeah, I would encourage you to play with that. We have a great retirement calculator

on NerdWallet's website. So that's a pretty handy thing to pull up. Just Google like NerdWallet retirement calculator. But as it relates to your retirement savings, I want to throw out a couple benchmarks here because there are some that can be handy in terms of gauging how well you're doing saving for retirement. So one question, how old are you Jeremy? I am 31. 31, okay. And can I ask what your salary is? It is just from my full-time job, or I have a couple other streams of income from part-time work as well. So total income? I guess annual income, yeah.

Annual income is looking around a little above $130 a year. benchmark that's put out and Fidelity recommends this which is to save at least one times your salary by age 30 and then three times by age 40 and it just grows exponentially as you get closer to retirement and that's in part because of your compound interest and your continued contributions to retirement accounts. So based on that you're doing well in terms of saving for retirement. You're not quite at that 100% mark, but having $100,000 between two retirement accounts, a little north of that actually, is really solid for anyone in general, but especially for someone who's just 31 years old. So pat yourself on the back for that,

and that's especially impressive considering that you don't have access to a 401k right now. I will take that compliment, thank you. Yeah, of course. But yet, you still have this nagging feeling of, okay, what's going on? Where am I missing? Where can I improve things? And I think with that in mind, it might be helpful to zoom out and talk about what your life goals are. Like, do you know what you want to do with the rest of your life? Do you want to travel? Do you want to retire early? Maybe increase your charitable giving?

I hope this doesn't sound too much like a PBS special, but I want to try and have what is as much comfort and ease of mind as possible. What I think that looks like more for me is that in an ideal ideal world, I currently have a home in New York City and I would love to own a second property, ideally closer to family just because most of my family lives in the same area and to have that be somewhat consolidated. I would love to do more traveling, that's not the top priority but it's something there. And then in my ideal world I feel like I work a few different avenues

and I'm hard pressed to believe that I will ever fully retire completely from working because I'd probably keep myself busy in some way. But if I could have the opportunity to retire from full-time employment a little earlier than the 62-65 range, I would love if that's possible. Do you have an age in mind where you think, okay, maybe when I'm 55, I'll want to step away from nine to five work? I've always had the goal with not a lot of evidence to back it up of 58.

But generally late 50s is when I would love to say, I don't need to continue working 40 to 50 hours a week, full, full time. Well that's helpful to know too. So 58 might sound like an arbitrary number and it may well be, and that's fine, but I would encourage you when you play with a retirement calculator to put in that number of years that you have until 58 and then how many years you might need to be living off of your savings afterward. Because obviously if you're retiring earlier, you'll have to have a larger nest egg to fund those post retirement years, even if you are still working

somewhat. Yeah, absolutely. Another thing that I think you might want to consider as you decide or mull over what your goals are and what you might want to do with your finances and how you can shore up your financial life is the question of like, what do I want to do, which we kind of talked about. And then also to your point earlier, where am I vulnerable? So that can provide an opportunity for introspection and evaluation of how you can shore up your finances. And on the subject of being vulnerable or preventing vulnerability,

insurance comes to mind for me. Have you looked into life insurance or disability insurance? I do currently have a life insurance plan. I do not have a further disability insurance plan. I mentioned disability insurance because it's something a lot of people overlook and the chances of becoming disabled before normal retirement age is 25 percent, at least according to the latest information from the Social Security Administration, and that's for those who were born in the year 2000, but that 25 percent number has been pretty steady for a number of years. So a lot of people may not realize that they actually have disability insurance through their workplace. Evaluate your benefits,

you may currently have this coverage, but if not, it's worth doing some research and looking into a policy because I don't know about you, I'm pretty risk averse and hearing that I have a 25% chance of not being able to work or potentially earn an income through my job makes me a little bit nervous and I try to do what I can to prevent that risk from happening. Yes, I feel very similarly and feel that same risk aversion. So this is very helpful. All right. So something that piqued my interest in terms of a question

you asked us was that at what point do you take advantage of your time over the pursuit of more income? So can you tell us a bit about that? Yeah, absolutely. And I almost feel like I should have my partner like yelling into the camera in the background here. I feel a lot of comfort and frankly a lot of joy in work, but I think on paper I could absolutely be seen as a workaholic.

I work a job that currently I think it's on average I pull between 45 to 50 hours a week and just the nature of the work also is very on call. There's a lot of times when you're reacting to scenarios or you're working unique hours because of that. And in addition, another thing that I really love doing is that I love teaching. So I work as adjunct faculty at actually my alma mater, and I do some different teaching around the city as well. At some point, I can feel myself in the worst times when I'm at that point of potentially burnout or being extremely tired of thinking like, do I really need to put in this extra time for X amount of dollars that may or may not be actually making an impact? And that thought and just kind of, for lack of a term,

strategies around even this general anxiety of what are ways to help quantify when the opportunity cost of your time is valuing more than the money you would be earning. It's something that kind of rings in my head a lot since we can always buy more stuff, but you can't buy more time. Mm-hmm. This was the story of my life last year and the year prior. I was also juggling multiple gigs

because I wanted to get ahead financially. I am someone who, you know, believes a bit in the FIRE movement, and the year prior. I was also juggling multiple gigs because I wanted to get ahead financially. I am someone who, you know, believes a bit in the FIRE movement, so I was looking at early retirement, still am. Saying I was burnt out was an understatement. I will say using a calculator Ashawn mentioned to see how far I was from my retirement goal, both if I continued working and saving at the same pace I was and also looking at it if I had dropped a few gigs helped me tremendously. For one, gigs helped me tremendously. For one, it helped me to remember that compound interest will begin to fast track my growth

in a few years. I started late so I am a late starter when it comes to retirement saving. And also the calculator helped me to see that I'm doing pretty good just as we've given you a pat on the back for doing earlier. And then the last thing I'll say is that reassessing my money values helped me too. So in the end I did choose to drop a few gigs because while money is important, enjoying my time is equally important. And I was putting too much pressure on myself. Money was starting to cause me more stress than it was creating ease in my life. That makes a lot of sense. And I really appreciate that. Another area I wanted to touch on kind of quickly, because it does go back to the idea of security that you seem pretty focused on too is estate planning. Have you talked with your partner and your family around estate planning and set up anything like a will?

So not for me personally, funny enough, we're having a lot of conversations about that with my parents right now, but I have not started that process for myself. but I have not started that process for myself. Well, it's something that I suggest everyone look into regardless of their age. Is making a will or at the very least having your beneficiary designations set up on your financial accounts and double checking that they currently reflect who you would want the assets in those accounts to go to upon your death. Because doing that helps ensure that your finances and other property are managed according to your wishes and it also makes the lives of your loved ones a little easier during a really difficult time if you were to pass away, knock on wood. And you know, it seems like you've done a really great job of building a strong financial foundation. So setting up a will can

help ensure that your assets go where you want them to and that your loved ones are supported. Yeah, that's a really great point. And I'm going to stop harping on estate documents in a second, but there's one last one that I want to talk about because you are living with your partner, you're not married? Correct. The last thing I want to mention is a living will, which is a legal document that directs the kind of medical treatment that you would or would not want to get in the event that you're incapacitated.

And you can also direct a medical power of attorney that could be your partner who could help execute this stuff. That way you can ensure that if something does happen where you or your partner has something happen medically that you will be there for each other and you can help get the care that you want and not get the care that you don't want. It's pretty important. You probably want to talk to an attorney to get this sorted out. But I think given where you are with your assets and the savings that you have, it'd be well worth the money you would spend doing this. Yeah, absolutely. And then I don't know how much this will resonate, but something else that comes to mind is I know we can get hung up on it is important,

retirement savings as a long term goal, but there are also short and medium financial goals that you can work towards. And they don't all have to be retirement-focused. So I know you mentioned buying a second house. For some people, it may be as simple as going on a vacation or buying a new car. So it's important to remember that money is here to create security, but also to bring joy in your life as well.

Yeah, I think that I sometimes, while I feel empowered by money, I feel also inhibited by money sometimes so I think that that reminder Elizabeth is very helpful because we should also make money to have some fun and While I do think I do have fun It's it sometimes is only a moderation when I can allow myself a little more freedom You said that you feel inhibited by money. What do you mean by that? I grew up in a very money conscious household and with two parents who worked incredibly, incredibly hard. Like my mom was in a similar position where she worked a full-time job and

my first ever job was in planta fitness with her as her part-time job because I at 14 could work the same shifts as her so we could both make part-time money. And my dad always worked six days a week growing up, so I think that we grew up in a very scarcity mentality household of always wanting to have as much of a security blanket as possible. So while I now have more freedoms because of having more income and having more things at my disposal, I still always feel that tinge in the back of my head of you aren't as far as long as you think you might be, or there might be a boogeyman around the corner. So it's been both a learning lesson of allowing some of that freedom, while also trying to use the numbers that, as Sean astutely pointed

out, that I kind of rely on as a means of defending myself in trying to find this freedom and more openness in my decisions around money. Thank you for sharing that. Well, Jeremy, we've covered a lot of ground over the past, however many minutes we've been chatting here. I'm wondering if you have any other questions or thoughts for us based on what we've discussed. I think my only main other question to pivot a little bit back to the retirement conversation is while the 401k is a little bit in flux, if I'll be able to get one with my current employer,

thinking about other means or vehicles to act as a replacement 401k, for lack of better terms, or other vehicles to act as a replacement 401k for lack of better terms or other vehicles to consider when thinking about saving for long term. I wanted to also get your thoughts on that in terms of if I would look at like a regular brokerage account versus a robo advisor account and just thinking about what else I can be doing, especially considering that I have this chunk of money in a high yield savings that I don't think it's getting its best use out of anymore.

Elizabeth, do you want to dive in? You were an investing writer for many years. The first thing I will say, I know this can be a frustrating response, but it really, really does depend on your goals. There are several accounts that you can use in place of a 401k. An IRA is a good account that you could consider. A taxable brokerage account is also one that you can consider and probably the easiest one to go with.

You would just shop around a bit, find the right one for you and then make regular contributions to that account. There's also a solo 401k if you happen to be self-employed that you could contribute to as well. So yeah, there are different options aside from 401ks. I think the main thing to consider are fees. So you just obviously want to contribute to the account that has the lowest fees and that's going to get you closest to your long-term goals.

This is all very helpful. Thank you. And Jeremy, you mentioned a robo advisor account that's essentially a type of taxable brokerage account where your investment allocations are automatically sorted based on your specific goals and perhaps the type of account or investments that are within the account. So it's not that different from a taxable brokerage account. Upon selling the assets in that account to get your money out, it would be taxed at either short term or long term capital gains basis depending on how long you held the investments for. Well Jeremy, I hope this has been helpful and given you some things to think about and maybe consider on an existential and financial level what you might want to do with your money and your life.

Yeah. Thank you both so much. I truly cannot thank you both enough for the time and the conversation, and I'm just so grateful. Thank you. We're happy to do it. 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 podcastatnerdwallet.com. Remember you can follow the show on your favorite podcast app including Spotify, Apple Podcasts and iHeartRadio to automatically download new episodes. And here's our brief disclaimer. we are not financial or investment advisors. This nerdy information is provided for general educational and entertainment purposes and it may not apply to your specific circumstances. And with that said, until next time, turn to the nerds. Today's episode is supported by Amazefit.

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