How to Get Your Finances Ready for a Crisis and Tackle Debt Smarter

NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast

NerdWallet Personal Finance

Business, Education, Investing, How To

4.2 • 665 Ratings

🗓️ 3 March 2025

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Learn how to prepare financially for uncertain times and balance debt payoff with saving for emergencies and retirement. How much emergency cash should you keep on hand? Should you focus on paying off debt or saving for retirement first? Hosts Sean Pyles and Elizabeth Ayoola discuss financial preparedness and debt payoff strategies to help you feel more financially secure. They begin with a discussion on personal and financial resilience, covering tips on keeping emergency cash, building a support network, and taking proactive financial actions. Then, Sean and Elizabeth talk with listener Michaela, a 24-year-old paralegal, about balancing debt repayment with savings and investing. They explore the debt snowball vs. debt avalanche methods, how much to save for emergencies, and why starting retirement savings early — even while in debt — can pay off in the long run. NerdWallet’s guide to how to prepare for your next emergency: https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/finance/how-to-prepare-for-your-next-emergency How to open a Roth IRA: https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/investing/how-and-where-to-open-a-roth-ira In their conversation, the Nerds discuss: emergency cash savings, how much cash to keep at home, personal finance preparedness, financial resilience, budgeting for emergencies, how to build an emergency fund, debt snowball vs. debt avalanche, should I pay off debt or save, how to start investing in your 20s, best budgeting methods, 50/30/20 budget, zero-based budgeting, how to save for retirement early, Roth IRA vs. 401(k), why you need an emergency fund, financial security tips, community and financial support, mutual aid groups, debt repayment strategies, credit card debt payoff, investing while in debt, how to budget better, personal loan repayment, car loan interest rates, financial planning for young professionals, cash vs. credit in an emergency, preparing for a crisis financially, high-interest debt payoff, how to avoid debt traps, savings vs. debt payoff balance, and financial habits to build in your 20s. To send the Nerds your money questions, call or text the Nerd hotline at 901-730-6373 or email [email protected]. 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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0:30.6	Hey Sean. Have things felt a little, shall we say, shaky as of late? Yes. And I live in an earthquake zone, so I'm making sure my go bag is ready in case I got to get out of town.
0:42.9	Well, this episode, we're going to help our listeners feel more prepared for what may feel like an unprecedented amount of shakiness.
1:03.0	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.
1:03.8	I'm Sean Piles.
1:05.8	And I'm Elizabeth Ayola.
1:12.1	On this episode, we talk with a listener who's wondering how to balance paying off their debt while building up their savings.
1:20.2	But first, we're going to talk about a few ways that you can prepare for uncertain, unprecedented, possibly unstable times.
1:24.3	Whatever unword you want to use, it can feel like we're facing it right now.
1:28.2	And we've been hearing from listeners with concerns about how they can prepare for any unforeseen unpleasantness. I see what you did there, Sean. You get a gold star for the
1:34.1	wordplay. Thank you. In addition to being a money nerd, I'm also a word nerd. But this is a really
1:40.1	important topic to address. Right now, there are myriad events happening simultaneously that
1:45.5	might lead some folks to feeling like they're vulnerable, either personally or financially or both.
1:52.0	So we're going to talk about a range of ways that you can shore up your own resilience and take
1:56.5	action when you might feel powerless. All right, Sean, so tell us, where do you think people
2:00.4	should start? There are three main areas that I think people can look into.
2:03.6	I mean, there are more than three certainly, but we're going to talk about three in this segment.
2:07.6	One is their own personal preparedness.
	...

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