Ready to launch your business? Get started with the commerce platform made for entrepreneurs.

Shopify is specially designed to help you start, run and grow your business with easy customizable themes that let you build your brand.

Marketing tools that get your products out there. Integrated shipping solutions that actually save you time.

From startups to scaleups, online, in person, and on the go. Shopify is made for

entrepreneurs like you. Sign up for your $1 a month trial at Shopify.com slash setup.

Welcome to the NerdWallet Smart Money podcast where we answer your personal finance questions

and help you feel a little smarter about what you do with your money. I'm Liz Weston.

And I'm Sean Piles. If you want your money questions answered on a future episode, turn to the

nerds. Call or text us your questions at 901-730-6373. That's 901-730 nerd. Or email us at podcast at nerdwollet.com.

If you hit that subscribe button, you'll get new episodes delivered to your devices every Monday.

If you like what you hear, please leave us a review.

This week, Sean and I answer a listener's money question about what they should do with the money they've saved during the pandemic.

But first, in our This Week in Your Money segment, we're talking about what to do if you happen to win a billion dollar jackpot.

You mean after you've cashed the check and started a new life on a tropical island, right?

Well, there's a few decisions you have to make before then.

One of the biggest is, how are you going to get this money? Are you going to take the lump sum? Are you going to take the annuity? And there's a lot of calculations that have to go into that. Right. This was a big debate that I had recently with Garrett because there was that $1.05 billion dollar megamillions jackpot that someone won in Michigan. He said, I'm just going to take the cash prize

because it's still over $550 million. And I was leaning a little bit more toward the annuity

because it seemed like over 30 years getting this regular installments might be the better way to go.

I'm wondering what your thoughts are on this. Well, the way they figure annuity payments has a lot to

do with what the prevailing interest rates are. So when interest rates are as low as they are today,

that's going to mean smaller payments going forward, which would kind of tilt the scales towards

taking the lump sum. The problem is most people are not in a great position to manage a lump sum of money, unfortunately.

...