Generational Wealth Built from Scratch and an Emergency Fund on a Deadline

NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast

NerdWallet Personal Finance

Investing, How To, Education, Business

4.3 • 895 Ratings

🗓️ 17 November 2025

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Learn how first-generation earners build wealth and how to grow an emergency fund before a possible job loss. How do first-generation earners start and protect generational wealth? How can you bulk up an emergency fund fast if layoffs are looming? Hosts Sean Pyles and Elizabeth Ayoola discuss first-generation wealth building and how to build an emergency fund. Elizabeth first welcomes Grace Vandecruze, founder and managing director at Grace Global Capital LLC, to discuss being the first in her family to accumulate wealth with the goal of passing it down to future generations. Vandecruze shares tips and tricks on shifting a scarcity money mindset, setting firm boundaries with relatives who ask for financial help, and laying a 100-year legacy with insurance, wills, and family money conversations. Then, personal finance Nerd Kim Palmer joins Sean and Elizabeth to discuss fast-tracking an emergency fund before a potential job loss. They discuss smart places to cut variable spending, how to route side-gig income to savings while setting aside money for taxes. They also go over ways to adjust retirement contributions while using frameworks such as the 50/30/20 budget, bare-bones budgeting, and high-yield savings to manage irregular income and avoid slipping back into credit card debt. How to Make Money Online and Offline in 2025: https://www.nerdwallet.com/finance/learn/how-to-make-money Homeless to Millionaire : 6 Keys to UPLIFT your Financial Abundance 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: budgeting with irregular income, side hustles to make money, no spend challenge, meal planning savings, grocery loyalty programs, variable vs fixed expenses, bare bones budget, high yield savings account, side gig taxes, estimated tax payments, consulting side income, adjunct professor income, nonprofit layoffs, student loan payoff strategy, save bonus vs salary, 403b match, pause retirement contributions, estate planning basics, will and power of attorney, life insurance for families, family money boundaries, saying no to money requests, financial literacy, legacy planning, intergenerational wealth transfer, talking about money with family, and underinsured households. To send the Nerds your money questions, call or text the Nerd hotline at 901-730-6373 or email podcast@nerdwallet.com. Like what you hear? Please leave us a review and tell a friend. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to NerdWallet Smart Money Podcast, where you send us your money questions,
0:08.5	and we answer them with the help of our genius nerds.
0:11.8	I'm Elizabeth Ayola.
0:14.0	Now, on this episode of the podcast, we'll be answering a listener's question about how to bulk up emergency savings.
0:20.2	But first of all, we're bringing you
0:22.3	the second half of our two-part series about first-generation wealth builders. These are the first
0:27.7	people in their family to accumulate wealth with the goal of passing it down to future generations.
0:33.1	In the first episode, we spoke to a couple building wealth together, but this time around,
0:37.2	we have Grace
0:38.0	Vanda Cruz. Welcome to Smart Money, Grace. Thank you so much, Elizabeth. It's a pleasure to be here.
0:44.2	All right, so a little bit about Grace. She's the founder and managing director at Grace Global Capital LLC,
0:50.3	which is a consulting firm that provides M&A financial advisory, restructuring, and valuation
0:56.7	to insurance executives, and also to boards, and also to financial regulators since 2006.
1:03.2	Now, a fun fact that I want to share with you all about Grace is that she's also a licensed sailor.
1:08.5	How did that happen, Grace? Two very different worlds? It is two different
1:12.3	worlds, but some of the lessons are connected. I became a sailor through the insurance industry.
1:18.0	I have the pleasure of developing some very deep and meaningful relationships with my clients.
1:24.1	And one of them was a sailor out of Hamburg, Germany, and he and his wife invited me to sail with
1:31.7	them off the coast of Sweden, sailing from Stockholm to haparanda, which is the furthest
1:39.5	north of Sweden.
1:43.2	And I was sailing in his all-wood wooden sailboat, which was a prototype of
1:48.9	the American Cups. It was quite a spectacular, majestic picture of history. And as we were sailing,
	...

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