In today’s episode of The Good Cents by Payactiv Podcast, host Eric Rosenberg answers the top personal finance questions submitted by Payactiv users, Instagram followers, and email subscribers. From setting savings goals to deciding between paying off debt and saving, this episode offers practical advice for everyone, whether managing variable income, building an emergency fund, or planning for short-term financial goals. Tune in for actionable tips to help you move from financial stress to stability.

In this episode, we’ll cover:

• Begin by identifying items around the house that can be sold online for quick cash. Consider high-yield savings accounts to maximize returns on short-term savings.
• Base your budget on the lowest anticipated income to keep expenses in check, then allocate any extra income toward goals like building an emergency fund or paying down debt.
• Even if cash is tight, small monthly contributions can help create a safety net. Start small and stay consistent.
• It’s essential to distinguish between needs and wants. Be honest about spending priorities to prevent unnecessary dips into emergency funds.
• When deciding between paying off debt and saving, small savings contributions come first, preventing the need for future debt in covering everyday expenses.
• Sinking funds can help you save for irregular expenses like car repairs or holidays without disrupting your monthly budget.
• Tap into free resources, such as local libraries and foundational finance books, to build and expand your financial knowledge.

Eric Rosenberg:

This is a quick reminder that today’s episode is intended for education and entertainment purposes only and should not be considered financial or legal advice.

Hello, friends. Welcome back to The Good Cents by Payactiv podcast. As always, I am your host, Eric Rosenberg, and today we have a really fun episode for you. In the last few weeks, we went on our Instagram and to our email subscribers and other social media channels, and we asked what are your biggest questions that we can help with? What are your biggest personal finance struggles? What can we do to get you set up for financial success?

So our team put together 10 top questions from readers and listeners and Payactiv users just like you. And we brought on a guest, Andy Hill from Marriage Kids and Money, to go through and answer your questions. So without any further ado, I want to dive into our discussion with Andy where we answer your questions about personal finance.

All right, everyone, I am so excited to be here with Andy. Now before we dive into the questions, could you share a little bit more about how you got into the personal finance world?

Andy Hill:

Yeah, absolutely. I personally was very much interested in helping my family win with money. So I decided to start a podcast about eight years ago now, and my goal for that was to share our money journey as well as learn from financial experts out there about how they were building wealth for their families. So along the way I’ve learned quite a bit, became a financial coach and continued to grow my education and help others along the way. So I am honored to be here, Eric. Thank you.

Eric Rosenberg:

That’s awesome. I know with three kids at home it’s easy to see our budgets grow really fast, and that’s a part of what we want to talk about today, helping manage our budgets. That’s whether you’re single or you have a family, busy families have unique challenges. Singles have unique challenges. Everyone has different money challenges, especially if we have variable income, not knowing exactly what we’re going to earn every payday.

So let’s start with our first question for you, “Are there any small, everyday changes someone could make to free up extra money for saving?”

Andy Hill:

Yeah, when I think about freeing up some extra money for saving, the first thing that pops into my mind is what can I do to walk around my house and see if there’s anything that might be able to go up for sale on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist? Honestly, it’s a quick way to make 20 bucks, 50 bucks, even 100 bucks depending on what you have around the house that has value that you’re not using. I’m not saying sell your stuff that you really covet, but if there are things in closets or garages sitting there that you’re not using, your trash could be somebody else’s treasure and could be cash for you. So that’s a quick way to bring in money, and it’s something that my wife and I do frequently just to bring in a little extra money.

Eric Rosenberg:

I actually have two things sitting in my garage right now listed on Facebook Marketplace.

Andy Hill:

There you go.

Eric Rosenberg:

So I’m doing that one myself. I’m putting your advice to work already. So here’s our next one, “How can I set realistic savings goals without feeling overwhelmed?”

Andy Hill:

You mentioned something at the beginning about that variable pay. I think that can sneak up and hurt people sometimes when they’re thinking, okay, how am I out of control with my spending again? Really what it is sometimes we project a lot more that’s actually coming in. I think what I try to do when I’ve had variable income over the years when I was working in sales and then now as a busy entrepreneur, my income goes up and down. What I try to do is budget based on my lowest month, here’s what I’m for sure going to get this month. And then anything after that I try to meet towards my goals, my financial goals, whether that’s paying down my debt or saving for an emergency and looking at ways to grow my family’s wealth. So if you had to do it, I would say what’s the bare minimum I’m definitely going to make this month? And then anything above that looks to accomplish your financial goals outside of that.

Eric Rosenberg:

I like that you mentioned emergencies because that’s a perfect bridge to our next question, “How should someone plan on starting their first emergency fund or improving their emergency fund when they have a tight budget already?”

Andy Hill:

Yeah, I know you see a lot of these things out there that say, “Hey, three months of expenses or six months of expenses for an emergency fund,” and that could probably feel very overwhelming when you’re starting at zero. So I would say if you could just start by giving yourself the ability to build up a ladder. You’re starting with what can you do this month? Is that $50 in a high-yield savings account? Is that $100 in a high-yield savings account? And whatever that number is, feel okay with that. That’s what you can do this month, and if you can do that, that’s great.

And then from there, see how you can grow that month after month so you’re building up that ladder, you’re stepping up to that ladder of maybe eventually getting to one month of savings of expenses because that could keep you out of credit card debt. That could keep you out of these situations where you’re feeling stuck and that’s a good place to go.

I like the high-yield savings account too because it’s separate, probably in another online savings account that’s outside of your current checking or savings account, and it’s not easily spendable, which makes it even better for an emergency fund, so those are some thoughts.

Eric Rosenberg:

I always remind people it’s okay to start with $1. It’s okay to start with $5. Getting started is the hardest step, and then you can always automate and build momentum. And if you start finding other places in your budget to save, just ratchet that up a little bit, a little bit. $5 a month, $10 a month, $5 a pay period, $10 a pay period, whatever makes sense that you can afford. You just got to start somewhere. We got to start with that first dollar, and that’s always the hardest.

Andy Hill:

Absolutely.

Eric Rosenberg:

How should someone avoid dipping into that saving account or tapping into their emergency fund if they do have a financial emergency come up?

Andy Hill:

Well, if you have a financial emergency come up, that’s okay. That’s what it’s for. It is an emergency fund. Now the definition of emergency varies between person to person, and you have to be honest and pure with yourself, is this a financial emergency or is this something that I’m more interested in spending on? You have that moment with yourself and say, “Is this something that I really need to do,” have that gut check, a need versus wants moment. Is this a need or is this a want? And if it is a need and you are in a financial situation, that’s why you put the money aside for the emergency. So don’t feel bad about using it if you need to, but again, gut check with yourself and make sure it is actually a financial emergency or a need.

Eric Rosenberg:

Yeah, that makes me think of a good example is cell phones. We all love to have the latest and the coolest, or many of us do. So whenever there’s the next new Apple phone or Samsung phone or a Pixel phone, whatever you’re into, of course a lot of us want to get that new one, but that I would say does not constitute an emergency, a new one coming out. But maybe your phone, maybe your kid took it and totally broke it and it’s not repairable or it gets completely lost or stolen, to me, that would be an emergency. We need to be able to contact people and be online. That’s a safety issue.

So that’s the way I’d look at it. Remember, think, can you really live without this expense? And if the answer is yes, it’s probably not an emergency. And if it’s not, things like paying for groceries if you have a dip in income and you don’t have enough cash in the bank to cover your groceries, to me that would be a financial emergency. We got to feed ourselves and our family. Is it to go buy junk food and things like that? That’s probably not an emergency. So personal finance is personal, so we all have a different threshold there. That’s okay.

Andy Hill:

Absolutely. I mean as much as I really, really love my junk food on Fridays with the family, I would put that into the wants category. I’m a sucker for Milk Duds and Funyuns.

Eric Rosenberg:

I get you. To change gears a little bit, should I pay off debt before I start saving or is it possible to do both at the same time? How would you decide what to prioritize?

Andy Hill:

Hmm. Well, I guess it really depends on your current situation. Depending on how much you have saved already, this could be an opportunity for you to pay down high-interest debt like credit card debt or payday loans or that emotional debt of owing somebody else money in your family. That could feel just as bad as some of those high-interest debts.

But I guess your goal in the beginning is really to get some money put away so that you don’t have to keep going into debt for all of your everyday expenses or even the little things. So if you could get to that point of having $1,000, $2,000 or one month’s of expenses to get started, that’s a great place to start.

But yeah, if you are feeling like you are drowning in that debt and there’s a little bit of ability for you to do both, that’s great, but really don’t overwhelm yourself. Start with something and then move, like we talked about earlier, move towards that ladder of starting to build up over time. So if that is $50, $25 where you’re starting to build up into your savings account until you get to that point of having that money set aside so you’re not having as many emergencies, that’s a great win.

Eric Rosenberg:

I totally agree. For all the listeners out there, most of these questions came from you, from our Instagram followers and our email subscribers. So this one’s from our Instagram following. If you’re not already following, check us out, Payactiv on Instagram. “How can I save for short-term goals like a car repair or small vacation without completely derailing my current budget?”

Andy Hill:

I love that. That’s such a great question. What we love to talk about in our little financial world, Eric, as you know, are these awesome things called sinking funds where it’s specific savings amounts that don’t happen all the time, like every month, but they happen every four months, every six months, once a year, every two years, but they’re just as important as these every month expenses.

For example, car repairs. As much as we hate going to get our car repaired every time it happens, it happens. It’s a frequent thing that happens for everybody. If you’ve got a car, you know car repairs. They’re not fun, but they happen. So pooling up some money each month to build up over time so that you’re ready for those things is really smart.

I like to think about that with Christmas gifts too. In the past, Christmas would pop up and I’d be like, oh my gosh, this is so expensive. Now we’re going to have to go into credit card debt. We’re going to not be able to buy as much. I never want to feel like that. I want to feel prepared. So if I’m putting away 25 bucks a month, 50 bucks a month so that Christmas is a fun time instead of a feeling of maybe not wanting to be as giving or holding back, sinking funds can really help you do that.

So physically you can do that within your budget where you’re allocating a certain amount of money each month and preparing for that. And then where do you put that? Maybe you put that in a completely separate savings account, like a high-yield savings account that can help you separate these things out. Some of these online savings accounts have buckets, features, or different areas for you to put away your money and put a label on it. So if there’s a name on it, it’s a lot harder to spend. At least that psychological moment happens where you say, oh no, that’s specifically for when my car gets busted. I can’t take away from that right now. So a lot of psychology when it comes to money, and if you can do those little tricks to help your brain know when to spend and when not to spend, it can be really helpful.

Eric Rosenberg:

Talking about cars, there’s those expenses with cars we know were going to happen. We have that recommended maintenance. So maybe if you think ahead every however many months or miles you’ll do an oil change or have to get new brake pads, add it up for the year, figure out what you’re going to spend, divide it by 12 and that’s your goal to save every month. So if you would already plan on spending $20 a month on average, let’s say for things like oil changes and breaks and checks and maintenance and fluids and all the other car thingies that we have to deal with, maybe add another $5 or $10 to that and just keep that away in that separate fund, as you said, a high-yield savings account works. The Payactiv account has a way we can segregate money and put money away automatically for a goal.

So as long as you’re putting something away to build up and get ahead of that goal, whether it’s your car repair or a small vacation, whatever it is, those little steps add up and it doesn’t feel like it always right away, but if you watch over weeks and months, it can really have a huge impact on your money.

Andy Hill:

Future you will thank you for planning ahead. Absolutely, Eric.

Eric Rosenberg:

So here’s a question. I think this one came in from our email list. “Do you have any other favorite resources, in addition to your own podcast and website,” and of course this podcast and our resources, “But do you have any favorite books or podcasts or organizations, maybe in no particular order, top three or four or five that you like to go to learn more about managing your money?”

Andy Hill:

You know the absolute best place that I’ve learned a lot about managing money is my local library. Honestly, it is a free place where you can go grab the best books that can help you on your journey. Some of the ones that helped me out a lot on my journey in the beginning, I really liked Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey. It’s very simple, walks you through the process of those important steps of budgeting, paying off debt and saving for that emergency because if you can handle a lot of those things in the beginning, your financial life gets a lot easier. So that was a book that definitely helped me a lot early on in my journey.

Eric Rosenberg:

I’d say two that I’d throw out there if you’re going to the library that I’d pick up, one that got me started writing about money online. I was so excited after I read The Automatic Millionaire by David Bach, and that dates me a little. That was an older one. And then a few years later, one came out called I Will Teach You to Be Rich by someone I think Andy and I both know, Ramit Sethi. So those ones both spoke to a lot about automation, getting your high-interest debts paid off, and then building slow savings and turning that into investing and who knows where it could go from there, but you got to start somewhere, and I think those are definitely great resources.

Andy Hill:

I love the automation plans that David Bach puts in there. Once it’s set, it’s like a one-time thing. You set it up and then it just continues to go. Whether that’s paying off your debt, investing, saving for the future, the power of automation is really incredible.

Eric Rosenberg:

Totally. So here’s a last one, this one’s a little more open-ended, “Do you have any last-minute financial tips that could help someone go from striving to improve their finances to thriving in their finances?”

Andy Hill:

Yeah, I think a big problem that a lot of us are facing right now, anybody really on their financial journey, is dealing with inflation over the past three or four years. And it is one of those things that’s been difficult for a lot of us to catch up on. And what it’s done to us, for a lot of us that did have a savings amount there, it’s closed our gap a little bit about how much we’re earning and how much we’re spending. The spending keeps going up. The earning is not going up as much. Obviously there’s a lot of things we could do there to improve, but if we look at that inflation amount, it’s been really difficult.

So instead of cursing inflation and saying, “Hey, you’re the worst thing in the world,” we got to fight back. So some of the things that we’ve done to fight back inflation in our house are looking at lower cost grocery stores. In the past, we had shopped at places like Kroger, depending on which area of the country we are in, you might be aware of that. Then we switched over to a grocery store like Aldi where the prices are a lot lower for a lot of our staples that we need, and it saved us thousands of dollars over the years. Little changes like that, it might not be for all your needs, but a lot of your staples could really get done there.

Looking at your insurance each year and saying, “Okay, am I getting the best rates here? Am I protecting myself in the good fashion if I have renter’s insurance or things like that to ensure that my family is protected?” Looking at areas like that for savings can be really smart.

And then just making sure that you are doing some sort of budget. It doesn’t have to be like any fancy app or anything like that. There’s a lot of free options out there. Or making your own spreadsheet or just a simple piece of paper tracking where your money’s going. It helps you to get clarity on does this really need to be spent? Do I need to be spending money in this area? And that can help you to move closer to growing that gap of your income and your expenses and increasing your financial freedom.

Eric Rosenberg:

Yeah, I like that. It’s funny, it reminds me of a story. When I was maybe eight or 10 years old, for my birthday my grandpa gave me a general ledger notebook, just what every little kid wants. And he said, “Every time I make money, write it on a line. Every time I spend money, put it on a line, and when I add up the page, the amount I make should always be higher than the amount I spend. And as long as I can always do that, then my finances should be improving.” And I can’t say that I used that book right away or maybe even ever, but that concept and that philosophy definitely stuck with me. And I did keep track, at least a mental tally.

And now as Andy was pointing out, I use an app. There’s a lot of different apps, some are free, some cost money. You don’t have to spend money to track your money, but you can. There’s lots of different ways you can do it. And even a good old-fashioned piece of paper. Shockingly, we still have paper and pens so we can track our money that way.

Well, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and wisdom with us today. If anyone wants to go check out your podcast or website or social medias, I know you’re busy on the internets talking about personal finance, where should they go?

Andy Hill:

Absolutely, I’m busy talking like you are, Eric. It’s a lot of fun. I love helping people, especially families. So if you wanted to go to marriagekidsandmoney.com, you could learn all about our different channels, our YouTube channel, podcast, and they’re all called Marriage Kids and Money.

Eric Rosenberg:

Awesome. Well, thank you so much, and hopefully we’ll chat with you again sometime soon. Have an awesome rest of your week.

Andy Hill:

Thanks, Eric.

Eric Rosenberg:

Gosh, that was a fun one. Andy’s really a pro. He knows his money stuff inside out. As you could tell, we both have families. We’re both juggling our finances with our kids, but anybody in any financial situation can take away from what we discussed today.

Remember, as always, as we mentioned in the show, the Payactiv app¹ can help with so much of this from tracking your budget to automating your saving², to getting ahead of some of those emergency bills. And if you ever run into a situation where you’ve got hours done at work and a bill is due right away but payday’s not till a few days passed when you need to get that bill in, you can use our earned wage access³, or EWA feature that is very low cost or no cost depending on your employer, where you can get part of your paycheck early.

It’s just getting money you’ve earned ahead of time to help cover those bills. And if you could do that to avoid a late fee or an overdraft charge, that adds up to big savings really fast. So remember, you always have that as a resource in your pocket with the Payactiv app on your phone.

If you are not already following us, make sure to check out Payactiv on Instagram. You can also join the email list. Go to payactiv.com and you can sign up there and we’d love to have you as part of our community. Until next time, keep living the life you’ve earned.

¹ Standard data rates from your wireless service provider may apply.

² Goal-based saving is a set-aside account, and you will not receive interest or other earnings on the funds within the goal-based account.

³ Earned Wage Access requires employer participation. Employees can only access a portion of the wages they have earned to date.

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