NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast - Will Your Streaming Bill Jump? Plus, How to Pick a Budgeting App You’ll Actually Use

Episode Date: March 5, 2026

Find out what Paramount’s bid for Warner Bros. Discovery could mean for streaming, then learn how to pick a budgeting app you’ll actually use. How do you pick a budgeting app that helps you see where your money goes? Hosts Sean Pyles and Elizabeth Ayoola discuss budgeting apps to help you understand how to track spending without making budgeting your second job. But first, news writer Rick VanderKnyff joins the show to discuss Paramount’s bid to buy Warner Bros. Discovery with Anthony Palomba, a media scholar and assistant professor at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business. They discuss what major brands and streaming platforms are on the line, how the bidding played out after Netflix walked away, and what the deal could mean for consumers. Then Sean and Elizabeth do a “Budget Rehab” with listener Rashondra, covering budgeting styles and the 50/30/20 framework, how big line items like a car lease and groceries can shift your “needs” category, and what to look for when comparing tools like Empower, YNAB, EveryDollar, Monarch, and NerdWallet’s budgeting app. Subscribe to MoneyNerd, our weekly email newsletter, at https://moneynerd-nerdwallet.beehiiv.com/  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

There's an apparent winner in the fight over who gets to buy Warner Brothers. But will consumers win too? 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. Later this episode, we'll be discussing how you can find the best budget app for tracking your money. But first of all, we have our weekly money news roundup where we break down the latest in the world of finance so that you can be smarter with your money. In December, it looked like Netflix was all set to buy Warner Brothers Discover in a move that was expected to shake up the movie and streaming industry.

But then Paramount Skydance stepped in with a hostile bid, and Netflix finally decided to walk away last week. Our news colleague Rick Banner Knaife stepping in for Anahalski is here to talk about it. Hey, Rick. Hey, thanks, Elizabeth and Sean. It's good to be here. In a minute, we'll dive into the latest Hollywood drama and what it might mean for your streaming habits and your entertainment budget. But first, I think we want to acknowledge what's dominating the headlines this week. And that, of course, is the joint U.S. and Israeli attack on Iran that began on Saturday.

Yeah, that's been capturing, I think, all of our attentions. Can you give us a quick summary of what the latest is there? Sure. In a nutshell, a massive air and missile attack targeted more than 100 sites in Iran, including an Israeli strike that killed the country's supreme leader, Ali Khomeini. Iran is retaliating with drone and missile strikes across the region. and the conflict has been spreading to other nations in the Middle East. The situation is evolving rapidly, and President Trump has said the operation could last four to five weeks.

And effects of the war that we are feeling here at home include spiking oil prices, some turmoil in the stock market, and travel disruptions. We'll be rounding up the latest consumer effects in our Friday edition of Money Nerd, which is our free weekly email newsletter. We'll put a sign-up link in our show notes. And with that, we'll turn back to Hollywood. Our guest today is Anthony Palomba, is a media scholar and assistant professor at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business. Welcome to Smart Money, Anthony.

Guys, thank you so much for having me. This is wonderful. First, could you set the scene a little? It seems like there have been a lot of mergers in entertainment in recent years. Can you give listeners a sense of what brand names these two companies, Paramount and Warner Brothers currently own? So if you go back through the annals of Hollywood history, Paramount and Warner Brothers, were right there, right at the nascence of this burgeoning industry that has enveloped film, television, gaming. Remember, Warner Brothers does have a gaming division. International theme parks as well through Warner Brothers. And both companies are legacy media firms.

And so this means that the IP that you and I watch, engage with, wear on our shirts, have on our coffee mugs, a lot of it comes from these entertainment brands that really for the bulk of their history were the arbiters of pop culture and determine who was in, who was out. And what we're seeing here, I think, is the realization that we have melting assets, not unlike melting glaciers. And so what do you do with assets that have been paid off, but may not hit the cultural zeitgeist like they once did? Can you still monetize them effectively? And can you bundle them together?

And so that has been the impetus at a macro level for a lot. a lot of what you're seeing with a lot of the mergers and acquisitions that have been going on for, say, the last 10, 15 years. In December, it looked like Netflix was going to buy Warner Brothers. But then Paramount entered the picture. And after some back and forth, Netflix decided to walk away last week. Can you walk us briefly through the events of the last few months and tell us where we landed? It is not unlike a romance novel or some sort of telenovela. I frankly have struggled, myself, admittedly, to keep up with all of the big. hitting. So this came to a head because Netflix, on the other hand, is on the hunt for IP. That's largely what they're interested in. They have scale. That's not the issue. The issue is you and I can name stranger things than K-pop demon hunters and that we might struggle with a third brand,

or at least a third franchise that can build itself into an ecosystem, right? When I say ecosystem, you should be thinking about Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, Jurassic Park, these things that just are able to continue and continue to unspool different kinds of stories. So Netflix swoops in saying, we need more of that. Paramount, on the other hand, is saying, we are the sixth or seventh biggest airliner, and increasingly, we are losing leverage. We need people, period.

We have all of the IP, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. We have a lot of horror franchises. We've got a lot going on here. We just, we need people. We need eyeballs. So these two lovers, as it were, both prized Warner Brothers, frankly, for different things. I would be remiss if I didn't note that, you know, Dave Ellison's father is Larry Ellison of Oracle

and him and President Trump already were able to get a sign off to have an investment in TikTok. And so that has kind of been one strategy for Paramount Skydance. And so what you're seeing here is a scaffold of being able to monetize social media along with legacy media as well. And we've both been using the initials IP, and that's referring to these companies' intellectual property. Anthony, in the end, Paramount will pay about $110 billion in cash for Warner Brothers Discovery. What are they getting for that kind of money, and why did they go after this deal so hard? So Netflix really wanted the studios and streaming services.

They were not really interested in some of the legacy assets. Differently, Paramount is getting the whole kit and caboodle. That means discovery. That means international theme parks run by Warner Brothers. a gaming division that I would push and push and say has not received enough attention. Remember, Paramount does not do video games. Netflix was trying and has been trying to scaffold a gaming arm. And so they're getting all of those assets together.

Now, it's interesting because you have Versant from NBC that was kind of a spinco of sorts, right? They kind of spun off some of their assets that perhaps are performing so well or, let's say, tired assets. And so that is a challenge when you're trying to think about raising the stock multiple to say, we look really, really good. We don't have those assets anymore. That's why, in part, they did verse it, right?

They were able to spin off those assets that were dragging down their stock multiple. Paramount now has an opportunity, potentially, with all of these assets, to think through, well, what do we really need? What is MTV? That's a scary question. Maybe for another podcast. What is Comedy Central, right? What are these brands that are on the shelf?

do we do another verse and do we do kind of another spin-off? We know that WVD was getting ready to spin off Discovery into Discovery Global. They were already kind of having these machinations in the background anyway. So I think there's going to be a lot of sifting through what they want to keep to keep their multiple up, as it were. And from the Warner Brothers perspective, why were they looking for a buyer in the first place? I think they're out of auctions without sounding too dramatic. I think when you tell the NBA to go take a walk, it's pretty bold and you better have something in your back pocket. I think Zaslav ran out of options.

He also has a bit of a sweetheart deal out of this. He gets paid handsomely. So he makes out pretty well that should not go unstated. Ultimately, you either fight on scale or you fight on IP. Warner Brothers has a lot of cable assets. I frankly don't think they know what to do. When was the last time you binge watch Long Order on TNT? for me, it was about 10 to 15 years ago.

And so if you're not in the business of making content, you might as well be in the business of distributing content. And if I were to forecast, I think that they will pay attention more and more to distributing. So what does this merger tell us about the state of the streaming landscape from a consumer perspective? Do we even know what this deal will mean for consumers? So for my creative buddies and friends and colleagues in Hollywood,

it's one less place to bid, right? it's one less place to sell your wares. If you have less and less competition in art compounded by the fact you have the creator economy really taking over. And you've got influencers like Mr. Bees, L'Rae, who are exceptionally talented, frankly, and are also taking cuts of the pot. And so we also know that consumers don't necessarily need to spend to be entertained. I can go on YouTube right now and see Leray, one gay guy versus 20 straight guys,

because everybody's doing that thing now where like you sit in the middle of a circle and you kind of debate things out. I don't have to pay for that. I just have to watch an ad. That dynamic is forcing these companies to kind of get together. So for the consumer specifically, you may see steeper streaming service subscriptions.

They might try to bundle more things together. It could be that if Warner Brothers gets it together with streaming, it could be a streaming channel from Warner Brothers. We know that they are releasing another Mortal Kombat movie in the coming year, I believe, and they do a lot of good stuff with the Mortal Kombat franchise for gaining.

That's plausible. From a consumer standpoint, where you get entertained is shifting. And I think a lot of these media legacy firms simply are struggling to figure out, do we use influencers? Do we work with them? Do we not work with them?

And that gets into the oversight that they're going to go with the DOJ. Warner Brothers and Paramount are going to go through the ringer. Paramount's going to have to say, you know, we compete in the attention economy. We don't compete in streaming. We don't compete in television. We compete against YouTube and TikTok.

and we're very small. The problem with all of this is that the lines are blurted. What is television? What is streaming? It's so messy right now. It is very, very difficult to have properly demarcated lines for anything. Do I anticipate any problems with the current FCC? I know you've mentioned that there's already a relationship between the Ellison's and Trump.

Will that smooth things over to any degree? I think it'll smooth things over. I thought it was very telling that we didn't really hear from Trump at all during this. I don't know if that meant that he was confident the whole time or maybe he didn't care or he was busy with. Lord knows what, but as we get into these regulation matters, this is also shaping jurisprudence for the future. You know, what is streaming, what is television in 2026 is going to have to be vetted? Also, do we understand future mergers and acquisitions in media and entertainment? Does it no longer matter that you're a gaming firm or a movie firm or whatever it may be?

It may not, as there's a lot of blurring. I don't anticipate too many hurdles here, provided this is accomplished within the Trump administration. But, you know, the courts have also pushed back on Trump. They pushed back on him against the tariffs a few weeks ago. So it is not to say that courts will not come out against him here. But I'm far more interested in seeing what the new lens is because I think, unfortunately, a lot of jurisprudence is behind the times.

And this might force a lot of regulators to understand the different mechanisms that are at play here with how we define an operationalized media consumption. So Netflix, obviously, you mentioned they have scale. They were looking for IP in their original bid. But in the end, they decided the price was too high. And I think the quote was, the deal was always a nice to have at the right price, but not a must have at any price. So from your perspective, are any clear winners among the three companies involved? Did Paramount overpay? Did Netflix dodge a bullet? Is Warner Brothers happy with the price? And finally, can this be called a victory for consumers in any sense?

Warner Brothers is certainly happy with the price. Their stockholders were very, very happy. Even though Zaslov, especially in December and January, really wanted to be left alone, perhaps he was just being coy. After all, it is the most, either of the companies were willing to pay for the product. So, of course, Warner Brothers does win there. For Paramount, it's an awful lot. And as I alluded to earlier, you better be thinking through how you're going to be using TikTok and other things to monetize this IP because I would argue you've overpaid unless there's something that we're all not seeing. And unless you're really going to ratchet up, like I said, social media and gaming for that matter. Netflix got $3 billion, free cash flow, which is pretty nice. They're able to invest that back into IP.

They're able to invest that back into gaming. I mean, whatever they want to get into, they can. And let's remember, Netflix just signed a. bunch of influencers and YouTube people to do video podcasts. And so they may say to themselves, great, we can go hire fresh young talent with this while Paramount and Warner Brothers goes to figure out what to do with TDS, TNT, the Food Network, and all of these other brands that are weighing down on their corporate multiple. Moreover, Netflix is a tech company.

They are entertainment and media, but they have a tech bed that cannot be understated. And so they will be just fine. What does all of this mean for the consumer? I think the consumer is going to find that the IP and the content that they want are going to be on less services. It could full well mean that we go back to kind of a cable bundle, frankly, because it's increasingly looking like only three or four will survive. My suspicion is we will have Disney. Obviously, we will have Netflix. We will have some Paramount Warner Brothers, Frank.

And there may be another there that we will have as well. Apple could be that fourth one. And of course, you have smaller ones, crunchy role, which does fantastic work with animation. But it could be that people get back to that point. The problem is everybody's on their island. But if you're going to create really good content, you kind of need to rely on each other. The reason why cable was so damn successful in the 80s and 90s, it's because it was a bundle. You paid 120 bucks.

You're not going to ship from bundle to bundle. set of cable channels. And so that buoy, if you will, that financial stability, a lot, a lot of cable companies to innovate. Now, if you're on your own island, there's the Disney Island, there's the Netflix island, everybody's on their own island. You're not able to spread around the costs of, frankly, failure. If you talk to any artist, they fail way more than they succeed, but that's how you get to the good stuff. I am worried from a consumer perspective, what pressure this has on artists, what pressure this has in the creative community, and if people will be able to innovate more on these streaming services than they are on

YouTube, because I would argue that YouTube is doing circles around a lot of these legacy firms, and the trick is YouTube doesn't pay for any of the content. I'm being facetious. Of course, they pay a little bit, but influencers and all of these people who are coming on, they finance their own stock. They have brand deals. And the consumer doesn't pay. either. So Anthony, that's super illuminating. Thanks so much for joining us on smart money, a lot to chew over there. My absolute pleasure. Thank you so much. And thank you, Rick. Up next, we answer a listener's question about how to figure out which budgeting app works best for you. But before we get into that, a reminder, listener to send us your money questions. Maybe you're

wondering if cutting a streaming service or two is a smart way to improve your budget, or you want help getting out of credit card debt. Whatever your money question, leave us a voicemail or text us on the nerd hotline at 901 730 6373. That's 901 730 Nerd. Nerd. You can also email us at podcast at nerd wallet.com or leave us a comment on Spotify or YouTube. And we have a special call out for our listeners in the Scottsdale, Arizona area. Sean and I are going to be in your city in a few weeks, and we want to meet you in real life to talk to you about your money questions. Send us an email with the subject, Scottsdale, if you want to hang with me and Sean to get some help with your finances. In a moment, this episode

money question. Stay with us. We are back and we are answering your money questions to help you make smarter financial decisions. Now on this episode, we have a question from a listener named Rashandra. And she has a question about budgeting apps. And we have Rashandra here joining us for the conversation. Hey, Rashondra, welcome to Smart Money. Hi. Thank you for having me, Sean and Elizabeth. Nice to meet you both. Nice to meet you too. We like to start the show with a little icebreaker, okay? So I'm going to throw you a question, no pressure. And I want you to tell me the first answer that comes to mind, all right? Okay.

Okay. So, Reshandra, you have won $200,000 cash, okay? Now you can only spend this money on three things. What are you going to spend the money on? I would probably, at the top of my head, pay off my house and my car. Very financially responsible decisions there. Not a vacation in sight for you. Maybe after you pay up your house in your car, you can fund a vacation with that.

Exactly. Then I'll be able to retire because that's the biggest thing that limits people for retiring is their home or their mortgage. Well, I'd love to hear a little bit more about your life for Chandra. So where do you live and what do you do for work? So I live in Tampa, Florida. As far as what I do for work, I am a clinical pharmacist. Oh, love that. And then who do you live with?

Do you live solo? Are you married if you got my answer? Do you have kids? Tell us the spiel. So I live with my husband. husband. We are, I guess, what they call dink, double income, no kids. We do have a little dog, Roxy. That's called Dink Wad. Are you familiar with that term, Roshandra? Double income, no kid with a dog. Oh, no, I have to. Okay, I'm going to Google that one. How much are you two bringing in together,

I guess, your individual salaries and your total household salary? My take home is probably close to 150K. I'll probably say he's probably closer to 100. Nice. It's a pretty solid household to come, especially in Florida. And then how do you guys manage your finances? Me? I do all the finances. Different stroke for different folks. I pretty much do like pay the bills. We have a joint account. He has his side account. I don't have a side account. And that's my personal thing. I don't like having a lot of different accounts. It's hard for me to manage. I'm the executive of my dad's estate. So I have a state account and I still have some of his accounts that are still open that I'm working with too.

So I have several accounts open. So I don't like having my own personal checking account, but he does. Okay. Well done to you for managing all these different accounts. I know that sometimes it can feel like a circus managing finances. Tell us the pain points in your budget right now. We don't have a budget per se. One of my goals for 2026 is to count.

kind of know where our money is going. And so that way we can better prepare for retirement for a sport. And then how are you currently managing those accounts? The accounts that I have are online. And then the estate account is with a different bank. It's still an ongoing litigation with my dad's estate. So. Okay. And then it seems like you are just trying to get a grip on where your money is going. So thus far, have you been using any sort of budgeting app? How do you get a feel for that if you want to. Are you looking at your monthly credit card statements? What's your, I guess, source of truth for this right now? So my source of truth is just basically looking at the checking account and just kind of looking to see if it goes up or down. And so if it dips too low,

I'm like, okay, we need to, we need to save a little bit. That's one way to do it. If it gets too high, we can start looking at if we can move it into, we have a high-year-s savings account. Can we move some of the funds into a high-year-s savings account? When you think about managing your finances and having a better grip on your spending, is this something that you would be tracking down to the penny? Or are you more of a looser budgeter and you just want to know generally that you have your expenses met? You're saving some money on a regular basis, but you won't be sweating the details as much. How do you think you might fall in that continuum? Definitely the latter would like a little bit less. Me too. Yes. All right, Rashonda, we want to

help you with your budget. So now we're going to dive in. Thank you so much for sending your numbers over. So what we're going to do now is talk through your budget. That's the fun stuff. So I want to start with your income. You are a dink. I'm not a dink. I'm envious of you guys. Or what was it, Sean, with a dog, dink what? Dink wad. Double income, no kid, with a dog. Okay. So we're going to start with your income. Now, you said that your after tax income is just over $10,000. And I want to clarify, is that just your income or also with your partner? So that is my income plus what he contributes to the household. All right.

So we're going to start with the must haves and the needs because we have to make sure our bills are paid so that the house can keep running. All right. So your monthly housing cost seems relatively low. I was jealous when I saw how much you're paying at a little over $1,200. Are you renting or you're paying a mortgage? You're paying a mortgage because you said in your first answer that you would love to pay your mortgage off if you won that money. I am paying a mortgage. Okay.

And I'm guessing you have a low interest rate. Yeah, we have one of those COVID rates. So I refinanced my house around COVID like 2020. And when I say my house, I have a house and he has a house. His house is on rental. But it basically is paying for itself. So like my current interest rate is like 2.75-ish. Nice.

So, but I refied from a third. 30-year loan to a 15-year loan. And so I was trying to match my 15-year loan with the time that I would be expected to retire. Okay. So do you have just nine years left of paying off your mortgage then? Is that right? Yeah. It's 15, 15 from 2020. I haven't done the calculations. I'm just paying on the same. But you're getting there. I'm getting there. Okay. Yes. I know that homeowners insurance has been a really complicated and difficult topic for Florida homeowners. How has that affected your budget? My first insurance, they dropped a lot of people or they went bankrupt.

So I was on the state insurance. I was called citizens. I was on citizens for a while. Their rates were pretty relative. And then just recently, if there is someone that can pick up your homeowners insurance, then the state needs to kind of turf you off. So I got turfed off again. And so it has gone.

up but not necessarily like significantly. I don't live in a flood zone. I did have some like roof damage with the last couple of last hurricane. The hurricanes from 2024. No, not 2024. It's just previous hurricanes. Oh yeah. That was like Ian. I was just going to say the good news is you have that awesome rate and your mortgage payment is around the 25 to 30 percent recommended amount for your budget. So you're in a good spot there. So even if we were to look for somewhere to squeeze, it doesn't necessarily have to be your mortgage. Now that said, there was one area of your budget that really stood out to me as being more expensive than I was expecting.

And that's your car payment. I'm seeing that you're spending around $1,300 a month on your car payment. Is that just your car? Or is that your car and your husband's car? What's going on there? Tell us. It's my car. I have a lease.

What kind of car do you have? This is a safe place, but tell us what's happening? Yes, we are not judging, but we do need to know. Well, everyone will be judging. I have a Mercedes. I have a pretty good size Mercedes. And on top of that, you're paying $320 a month for car insurance. So you're spending around $1,600 a month for your car.

Does that feel comfortable for you? Again, I'm all about affording the luxuries that you want to have in life. I have a BMW myself, but I got it in a way that was affordable for me. So how do you feel having this expense in your budget? I feel good with having it. I know some people would probably rather buy than lease. I've been leasing for a while. I started off with a pretty relatively low monthly payment and then they would show me something else that was a little bit bigger. So, and then the price would escalate as well when you would release. But everywhere else I really am very frugal with. So. Yeah. And I want to say there's nothing wrong with. It's just. Sean said, having a luxury part in your budget because money should be enjoyed, right? So as long as you can afford it, there's nothing wrong with where you decide to put your money. Yeah, I will say the one thing that stood out to me, since we're using the 50, 30, 20 framework here,

all of your needs add up to around just shy of 57% of your income. And so in that case, if you were looking for somewhere to trim back eventually, you might want to look at that car payment after your lease term is up and see if you get something a little bit less expensive. so that you can be closer to that 50%. And the reason why we emphasize that 50% is so then you can have more money elsewhere to save for your home projects that you want to fund or your retirement, these other goals that might not be as attainable if you're putting all this money toward your car. Understood. Okay, well, now I do want to turn to another part of your finances, which is your savings

and your debts. And this category of the 50, 30, 20 is generally, supposed to be around 20%, so it's savings and additional debt payments beyond your standard monthly payments, which for you is really just your mortgage and we'll consider your car in there as well. So you're at about 24% of your budget being your savings and debt payments, and that's just, you know, a little bit higher than the standard 20% there. But that's not a bad thing necessarily because you're putting about $2,400 a month toward your retirement, which is phenomenal to here. Congratulations on that. So I want to hear about your retirement savings and also how you're

saving what accounts you're using, all of that. Okay. It's complicated. Just like any relationship. So I have my high-year-s savings account that I just recently opened last year. So it just started to kind of see actual dividends from that. And then as far as my retirement, I am a federal worker. So I do have what's called a TSP. A thrift saving plan. So instead of a 401k, I have the TSP. And we get a statement once a year. We're close to about 890K.

I have them pull about 12% of my pre-tax income to my TSP, every paycheck. And then they match, I believe, 6%. Okay. Wonderful. And then they also pull $1,000. For my pension, a poll was called FERS. I do not remember what that stands for. Got to love the acronyms.

Oh, we're full of acronyms on the federal side. We're full of acronyms. So it's basically like my pension and then I contribute and then my employer contributes. Saving so much money is incredible. You guys are doing really good with your savings. So you've seen really disciplined there. How's your emergency fund looking? I will probably say that's our emergency.

emergency fund is our savings. Everyone says you have three times your expenses, but then I need to know what my expenses look like per month to make sure I have enough set aside in my savings. Like right now, like if something big does happen, I can go into my savings. But also I want to have that for, you know, our retirement as well and how to differentiate the two. How much do you have in that high yield savings account. About 155. Wow, very, very impressive. That's a good amount of cash in your account. Congratulations on that. I'm sure you're earning pretty solid interest since it's in a high old savings account. So you mentioned not knowing exactly how much to have an emergency fund. And so since you and your husband are both working, you're probably going to be safe with a three-month

emergency fund. And that's based on your bare bones budget. We sometimes call it in that 50, 30, 20 category is going to be that needs amount. So in your case, it looks like about $5,800. So that times three is going to be what you would need or ideally have in an emergency fund. Obviously, you're well beyond that. You mentioned you don't like having a lot of different types of accounts. If you listen to a lot of smart money, you know that I am a big proponent of savings buckets and sinking funds of different categories. Maybe one day you can think about doing that and breaking out this amount, this three-month worth of expenses into a different savings account, but for now, I think it's okay since you already have so much set aside for savings. That's right. Well, thank you for sharing your savings.

Okay. And then I also want to clarify you don't have any debt. Yeah, besides the mortgage and besides the car payment, I don't carry a credit card balance. So I use my credit card to get the points and all the extra stuff. But other than that, when the statement comes, I pay it off. That's what we like to hear. Yeah. Now, before we go into your wants briefly, I just wanted to circle back. Rashondra, I see that you are spending, again, no judgment, $800 on groceries. So tell us about that. What are you eating? First of all, what are you buying? What are you eating? So I know it's just me and my husband, but we do eat a lot of protein. I work out a lot.

He works out too. We probably, every other month, we're going out to eat with very rare. We don't. eats, we cook at home, but to have quality protein, quality vegetables, quality fruit, it costs money. It's not cheap, though, and it will, like, it will go bad. So we're constantly going to the grocery store. You're going to the nicer grocery store. I'm picking and choosing. I don't know if you guys have it out there, but I love my Aldi. I don't have any qualms at shopping at Aldi, the big Sam's Club, but there are certain things like I eat a lot of protein bars. Those are not cheap.

So I put all that into my grocery bill. Man, I feel so seen. I started working out intensive. I don't want to say intensely, but for a girl who doesn't like working out, I don't know, four or five times a week, maybe last year. And I was working with a trainer. And the amount I spent buying protein made me not want to keep training. So it is expensive.

I hear you. Yes, it's very expensive. My husband's like, you eat, you eat like so much chicken. And so we go to Restaurant Depot to buy like my chicken breast because I go through it so quickly. Hey, that's economical. Saving some money there. It is. Yep.

We save some money there going to restaurant depot. And then I'm going to pivot quickly to your medical insurance situation. I saw that you're paying $150 out of pocket. We do have, you know, good insurance, but there's still things that we have going on. So like right now I am actually healing from a surgery that I had last year. So I'm still doing physical therapy. So I still have to pay my co-pay. We also have other things that we go and see a routine doctor for.

So give or take, it could be a little bit more than that per month. I was just kind of like a rough estimate to try to put something there because I know we're spending money on our co-pay. One of the good things that I decided to do, and I've been doing it for a couple of years now, is to do a FSA. a flex spending account. Yeah, remember that one. And so that definitely helps to lower my income. It also basically puts the money back into our account until we use it all up. Thanks for sharing that. I also want to hear about your ongoing contractual obligation, where you are spending over $700. What are you spending that on? My gym membership is pretty high. I do CrossFit. CrossFit typically is a higher membership per month.

month. So we're looking at about $130 a month for that particular gym membership. I've been doing that since 2013. So when COVID happened for Florida, at least all the gym shut down, I have also another online membership that's not as pricey. I think it's $160 for the year, $15 a month. I still have that because I do have some workout equipment because of COVID, still in my garage. And so every once in a while, I do work out at home. Okay. And then I see you're spending 300 on hair and nails. So is that a contractual obligation or that's just a want?

This is, I guess it's a want then. It's not a contractual. It's a want, but for me, it's a girl. Well, listen, GirlMess says you got to do your hair and nails. So I feel like I need to have my nails done. And then even though my hair is up in a bun, actually I have what's called sister locks and they do any kind of lock or locking of your hair, you do have to go in regularly every six to eight weeks to get it re, we'll call it retwisted or retied. And so this is an investment

because sister locks, I see Elizabeth shaking her head. It is very pricey to get them installed. So you got to keep them up. Yes. They can be very expensive. And I've had mine for almost seven years. And so to me, that's a contract with my hair. So if I want to keep my locks looking nice, I do have to go on a regular basis. Rounding out the 50, 30, 20, usually there's 30% for your wants category. It seems like there are a couple areas that I would maybe say your wants have turned into some needs, like having a nicer car. Having a car in Florida especially is a necessity.

Having a really nice Mercedes is a little bit of a want. right? So you've made this want into a need. And so I think it's okay that right now your wants is about just under 20% of your budget. So in all, I think you're doing a pretty good job of enjoying your money. You're doing things like you're investing in your appearance in ways that are valuable and helpful for you. You're getting the car that you want, you're getting the food that you want. It seems like you're managing your money in a pretty well-rounded way. So is there any area of your spending or your savings that you think you would want to adjust? or is it really the understanding your cash flow and getting a budgeting system that you'd like to improve?

I think the latter, Sean, just kind of seeing where the money is going and then being able to make those tweaks that I feel like there's something that's coming up that we can kind of plan for. Like if we wanted to go on an expensive trip, is there something that I could start looking at our budget and say, hey, this is what we put aside for our emergency fund? this is where we're putting aside for this, how much money do we have left over? Okay, well, I am happy to tell you that the first step in understanding your budget better is choosing a budgeting style, which we spoke about a little bit earlier. And it sounds like based on what you've told us, you are a little bit like Sean and I, and you like to go with a maybe pay yourself first or loose kind of approach to budgeting. So now an app that may be good for that, because I know in your original question you asked us

about budgeting apps is one called Empower. and it can be helpful as it's primarily an investment tool. But what it does is it lists out your transactions by category. So you can kind of see a snapshot of where your money is going. And you can also monitor your checking, your savings, your credit card accounts, and also your investment accounts. And I know that you said it being low cost was important to you. I'm happy to tell you that Empower is free.

Oh, nice. I like free. Free is for me. Another thing I will say, It is when you are new to budgeting or just starting out, it can be a little annoying to track every dollar, but it can also be extremely helpful so you see exactly where your money is going. Some feelings that can come up when you see where every dollar is going is sometimes embarrassment, sometimes shame.

Oh, I spend that much on Uber Eats. Oh, I order that many things a day. But it's really helpful to help you to make adjustments to your budget. For people who like to track every dollar, a zero-based budgeting style can be extremely helpful. And it can be a good starting point. Now, if you're not familiar with zero-based budgeting, how it works is you ensure every dollar has a home and it's allocated to a category, like your needs, your wants and you're saving, kind of like in the 50, 30, 20 breakdown of your finances.

Now, since every dollar is accounted for in the zero-based budgeting, your income minus your expenses should equal zero at the end of the month. And there are two apps that you can look into for that. One includes every dollar. The other one is YNAB. and both have free versions and then paid versions and obviously the services that you get with each vary, because free sometimes means not as many services. Yeah, and choosing the right budgeting app can be a journey of self-exploration in some ways

and finding out what kind of app works best for your style. Nerd wallet has a budgeting app that can help you get a grip on your finances. There's also another app called Monarch that can help you understand your money and a lot of couples like using Monarch because it can help them manage their money together. what I would recommend for you, Reschandra, is downloading maybe three different apps and see which one you like the interface of, which one is easiest for you to connect your accounts to it.

It seems like you want a lot of automation and how your money is being tracked, so which service allows you to do that in the easiest way for you. Just spend maybe 20, 30 minutes poking around the app store on your phone, find some that look good to you, look at some reviews online.

We have loads of reviews of budgeting apps on the NerdWall website as well that you can check out and just play around with them. It might be a journey over a couple months where you're seeing, oh, I actually like this one better or this one looks nicer, but it's not actually linking my account in the way that I really need it to. So that one's kind of out of the running here.

So just get a feel for it because the best way to learn is really by experiencing the apps through using them. Yeah, that sounds like a great idea, Sean. Based on what we've shared with Chandra, which budgeting style or maybe app stands out to you the most? I would probably go with the first one as far as Empower. I just basically want something a little bit easy for now, something that I'm not necessarily spending too much time

having to track down every last dollar. But it doesn't mean down the road that I may get to a point where I do want an app that does track every dollar. I just kind of want to, I guess, put my toe in for a little bit and then kind of see and go from there. I don't want to have something that's going to have me scrutinize every dollar and I'm staying up late at night trying to figure out my budget when I could be doing something else.

Absolutely. Did you have any other financial goals that you wanted improving your budget to help support? I know that you messaged us or rather emailed us and told us about you wanting to retire in 10 years. Again, I am jealous. Well, I'm probably older than both of you. But as far as I started working fairly early in my career.

career. So for federal employees to receive your full pension, it's 30 years of employment. So I'm close to 25, but not at 30 just yet. So I still have about less than 10 years that I can get my full retirement from the federal government. So I think that's a big thing as we're getting closer to that time. I still feel like I just started. As we get closer to that time, I definitely want to be prepared so that if I want to walk away, I'm able to. What I'm hearing is that in 10 years, you're going to have your house paid off and you're going to be eligible for a pension. That's really exciting. You're also in a position where you're going to begin thinking about how you can use your retirement funds. And there's a lot

of factors to consider when you're sorting out how you might pivot into some kind of retirement. Have you worked with a financial planner before to talk about these things? I have. I don't want to say necessarily that I'm not happy, but I think sometimes when you go to certain places, they sign you up for a couple of things and then you don't hear from them. I'm not a big fish. I'm not investing like millions or anything like that. I do actually do have some stock. I got that over there too as well. I know. I didn't just throw stuff at you guys. I don't even know why I just thought about it now, just because I don't think about it. For me, the stock market is more of a hands-off approach. So when I hear about the stock market,

I don't want to make a quick decision and try to move things around because I heard you just leave it in there, just let it rip. Just mind your business. That's right. Well, yeah, I'll say some financial planners tend to be more on the sales side and they're going to try to push you into a product that gets them a commission. That said, there are other financial advisors, certified financial planners who are more focused on comprehensive financial planning, life planning, retirement planning.

You can consult with them and say, hey, I'm in this period where I'm being. beginning to think about what my life is going to look like in five to 10 years when I'm eligible for this pension and can retire and don't have a mortgage. What does my cash flow look like? How can I model different scenarios for me and my husband budgeting for two vacations a year? What does that look like with the money I currently have available to me? They can map the stuff out for you so you can get really concrete numbers and begin to envision what your life is going to look like after you're done working. And then I'm just curious. I know you said you spoke into financial advisor at one point, but how did you come up with your retirement number? Since you, you

seem unsure if you have enough to retire in 10 years, do you have a number in mind that would make you feel comfortable retiring? I think the biggest thing is just making sure, like, our basic necessities are taking care of. So it's not just paying off the house, but I have to still pay taxes and you still have to pay the insurance on the house. So making sure that there's enough money for that, also our health care will be older. And so having enough to cover health insurance, which it seems to be always increasing. And like Sean said, still be able to take a nice vacation, you know, here or there. I'm not trying to go across Europe, but would like to, if I wanted to like take two weeks and go to Europe,

if we need to for the year. So that would be one of our yearly trips or something like that. I think what Sean said is very helpful in terms of working with a financial advisor because then you can get more concrete numbers. but if you just wanted to kind of get a rough estimate, there are two things that you could do. You could use the rule of 25. So that's 25 times of your anticipated annual retirement expenses having that before you retire. That's one way to look at it. And there's also the 80% rule.

So having 80% of your pre-retirement income can also help you know whether you're on track to retire as well. But again, there's nothing like getting concrete numbers based on your nuanced financial situation. Yeah. And I really can't underscore how important that is as you'd be. begin to look at your retirement. And in these years before, where you are right now is a prime time to talk with a fiduciary financial advisor who can help map this out for you because it's just a lot to juggle on your own. I'm sure you understand, I mean, you're managing your father's estate.

That's complicated enough. Planning your own retirement is a whole another ballgame. Taxes are an important thing as well of why it can be helpful to speak to a financial advisor because some people think you're just going to get to retirement and start withdrawing all that money that you've worked so hard for, but it can trigger so many different tax situations that can eat away at your retirement savings. So now it's a good time to start planning towards that. Oh yeah, exactly. Okay, well, Shrandra, we've run through a lot in this conversation. How are you feeling about your finances now, your budget, everything else we've talked about?

It's a lot to take in and it is a little bit scary. But I know that this is a good step in the right direction so that we can go in with our eyes wide open as far as like my husband and I and what we're going to be looking forward to as far as with retirement. Yep. And this is just one conversation of many you'll have about this. I got work to do. And then I'm curious, Roshandra. I know that you are the one managing the finances,

but are you going to go home and tell Hubby about all the things that we told you and all of the apps that you learned about? What is that conversation going to be like? He's probably waiting for me to discuss it with him. Because I did tell him about, like, I was coming on NerdWallet. So he was very interested in. to know what we talked about and then what we're going to plan going forward. Let us know how the conversation goes, Rastro, because we always love hearing updates from our

listeners, too. Of course, I will. Great. And thank you so much for coming on and sharing all of this with us. Oh, thank you. Thank you guys for all the knowledge. If you want the nerds to answer your money questions, call or text them at 901-730-6373. That's 901-730 N-E-R-D.

You can also email your questions like I did to podcast at nerd wallet.com. We want you all to join us next time to hear about savings, goals, and treating yourself, how to balance both. And let me tell y'all I'm an expert at that. Definitely an expert of treating myself. Anyways, follow smart money on your favorite podcast app that includes Spotify, Apple Podcast, and IHeartRadio to automatically download new episode. 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 circumstance. This episode is produced by Tess Vigland, Hillary Georgie helped with editing, Nick Kirstami, and Eve Krogman, Helmour Audio, and video production. And a huge thank you to NerdWallets editors for all their help. And with that said, until next time, turn to the nerds.