Managing Money in Your Marriage and How to Build Wealth Without a Side Hustle

8:50Elizabeth Ayoola:Okay.

8:50Sean Pyles:So you might also be eligible for matching contributions from your employer, which makes it even easier to save for retirement with a Roth 401k. So do Roth 401ks allow you to take out your contributions before retirement penalty free like a Roth IRA? No. Do they let you pull out up to$10 ,000 for a first time home purchase like a Roth IRA? Also no. But guess what? Pulling from retirement accounts can jeopardize your retirement savings anyway. And also, you only have to be 55 to begin withdrawing from your employer's 401k upon retirement without penalties compared to the standard withdrawal age of 59 and a half from an IRA.

9:24Sean Pyles:There you have it. Roth IRAs are clearly way overrated. That was a marathon.

9:30Elizabeth Ayoola:That was a marathon, but it was...

9:31Sean Pyles:It was a sprint and a marathon at one time.

9:33Elizabeth Ayoola:Yes, but it was all good. So I love this argument, Sean.

9:36Sean Pyles:Thank you.

9:36Elizabeth Ayoola:As a balanced human and one who has both a Roth 401k and a Roth IRA, I have to agree, kind of. So I do agree that the Roth IRA limit isn't alluring enough for the rich auntie lifestyle that I hope to live during retirement and that the higher Roth 401k limit is more incentivizing. But that said, I feel like you're overlooking a huge part of the argument, which is that Roth 401ks can be limited when it comes to your investment options. So with a Roth 401k, you're at the mercy of plan administrators when it comes to your investment options. And that might comprise mutual funds, typically a target date fund, and they usually have set expense ratios.

10:18Elizabeth Ayoola:However, with a Roth IRA, you can shop around and that can save you money long term and take your retirement savings further.

10:24Sean Pyles:I'm glad you mentioned the potential limits of 401ks because you're right. You are kind of up to your employer's retirement investment options when it comes to what you can invest in in a 401k. Depending on the 401k you have at your company, you may be able to pay lower expense ratios than with a Roth IRA. For example, my robo Roth IRA has an expense ratio of 0.25 % and the expense ratio of my 401k at work is just 0.08%. And I have over 20 investment options in my 401k, which is plenty for me. But I do realize that not everyone is as spoiled as we are here at NerdWallet. So you definitely want to compare your options and shop around.

11:01Sean Pyles:This is not a one-size-fits-all situation.

11:03Elizabeth Ayoola:I will take that rebuttal, but let's not forget that everyone doesn't have access to a 401k. So for those who don't, a Roth IRA may be as close to tax-free withdrawals that they'll get, even if it is overrated, Sean.

11:17Sean Pyles:You're completely right, Elizabeth. Relying on access to a 401k or a similar account like a 403b through an employer to have a reasonable chance at saving for retirement is, shall we say, a massive problem in our society. And that might actually just be a topic for another round of hot takes.

11:33Elizabeth Ayoola:It might be. And because I just have to get the last word in, I'm also going to say, as an aspiring FIRE participant, Roth IRAs can be superior for people who retire early and want to take penalty-free money out of their account to live their best lives.

11:49Sean Pyles:Now, here's me getting the last word on your last word. You're only able to withdraw your contributions. The earnings can be taxed and face penalties if you withdraw those before 59 and a half. So, downsides, tradeoffs in every direction.

12:02Elizabeth Ayoola:Fine, you win.

12:04Sean Pyles:Thank you.

12:05Elizabeth Ayoola:We're about to get into this episode's money question segment, where we hear from a married couple about how they manage their money together and work through tough money conversations.

12:15Sean Pyles:But before we get into that, we are at the part of the show where we ask you to take a second and think about where you need some guidance with your money.

12:22Elizabeth Ayoola:Maybe you're having a hard time keeping track of your money and are wondering which budgeting method might be right for you. or you just got hit with a big car repair bill and are wondering if putting it on the credit card is such a bad idea. Whatever your money question, we nerds are here to help. Leave us a voicemail or text us on the nerd hotline at 901-730-6373. That's 901-730-NERD.

12:49Sean Pyles:And a reminder that one of our goals on Smart Money this year is to talk with more of you live on the podcast to help you with your money questions. So if you want to hang out with Elizabeth and me for a bit and get some nerdy wisdom, let us know. One more time, leave us a voicemail or text us on the nerd hotline at 901-730-6373. That's 901-730-NERD.

13:10Elizabeth Ayoola:All righty, let's get to this episode's money question segment. That's coming up next, but you got to stay with us.

13:20Sean Pyles:The following is a paid sponsorship, not an endorsement by NerdWild's editorial team. Today's episode is sponsored by BILT.

13:27Elizabeth Ayoola:You've heard me talk about BILT as the loyalty program that lets you earn points on rent wherever you live. And they just leveled up even more. As of 2026, renters and homeowners can also earn up to 1.25x points on their housing payments.

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14:31Elizabeth Ayoola:Subject to approval and eligibility. Built cards are issued by Column N-A, member FDIC, pursuant to license for MasterCard International Incorporated. Ready to soundtrack your summer? With Red Bull Summer All Day Play, you choose a playlist that fits your summer vibe the best. Are you a festival fanatic, a deep end DJ, a road dog, or a trail mixer? Just add a song to your chosen playlist and put your summer on track. Red Bull summer all day play. Red Bull gives you wings. Visit redbull.com slash bright summer ahead to learn more. See you this summer.

15:11Sean Pyles:Welcome to NerdWallet'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.

15:18Elizabeth Ayoola:And I'm Elizabeth Ayola. If you have a money question for the nerds, call or text us on the nerd hotline at 901-730-6373. That's 901-730-N-E-R-D. You can also email us at podcast at nerdwallet.com.

15:36Sean Pyles:Follow us wherever you get your podcasts. And if you feel like we're here, please leave us a review and tell your friends.

15:41Elizabeth Ayoola:We're back and we are answering your money questions to help you make smarter financial decisions, hopefully. In this episode, we're joined by Naomi and her husband, Andrew, who have some questions for us about how to prioritize the new breathing room they have in their budget.

15:58Sean Pyles:Naomi, Andrew, welcome to Smart Money. Hey, everyone. Thank you. So to start, I'd love to hear a little bit about what your financial life is like right now. Where do you two feel confident? Where do you think there's maybe some room for improvement? I feel really confident that Andrew and I are on the same page about our priorities and our values when it comes to how we spend our money. I think we could use a little bit of improvement maybe with how we're saving for short term investments or how we're thinking about short term savings and goals that we have. I think that we're really good at accomplishing a goal.

16:35It's a little bit trickier for us when it comes to identifying what the next goal should be.

16:39Sean Pyles:Yeah, I love our shared prioritization of our budget and our spending. I love the margin that we currently have to live the life that we want and that we both enjoy and agree upon and the margin it has for generosity as well. So I think being aligned together is just financially, I feel in a really good place. Tell us more about that. How do you align on your values and priorities? Because that can be a challenging thing for couples. A few years ago, Andrew and I, before we had a kid, we took a weekend to think about our five core values that we share as a couple. And for me, that was a really helpful, exploratory conversation that we had.

17:23And although we don't refer to them very often, we do refer to them when it comes to money decisions. So I think that having those core values identified has helped us prioritize bigger things. And as Andrew said, generosity is one of those core values. And money is one of the biggest ways we can show what we value.

17:41Elizabeth Ayoola:I love that you guys are on the same page because, as Sean said, that can be difficult for some couples. So are there any areas where you maybe disagree or you don't necessarily align when it comes to how to spend money? I know you mentioned short-term goals. So maybe can you expand on that a bit more? Andrew, do you want to answer this one?

17:58Sean Pyles:I'm trying to think. If you can think of one off the top, go ahead and maybe that will inspire me. Yeah. Yeah, I think it is the short-term goals we disagree on. So I think Andrew feels the weight of debt a lot more than I do. So I am okay taking on more debt. I have taken on more debt in the past. I came into our marriage with more debt. But when it comes to short-term things, I am more inclined to take on debt for those things. I think that's where we have some disagreement about what's a healthy or good decision when it comes to what we should take debt for. That's right on. I have gotten more comfortable with debt with Naomi.

18:37Sean Pyles:I don't know if we qualify good or bad debt, but just seeing how we work as a team and tackle debt together, I have more and more confidence with those short-term goals that we can tackle them, pay them off, and move on to the next goal. I love hearing how aligned you are. It's really refreshing. And the idea of you guys having a weekend to talk about your values. Sounds weirdly romantic in a very nerdy way. So you mentioned that you had these five values. Generosity is one of them. What are the other ones? Andrew mentioned margin. That is one of them. We also have flourish as one. So we value like caring for creation and caring for other people in our homes.

19:19So allowing an environment where all can flourish.

19:22Sean Pyles:Wisdom. Generosity. I have a portrait under my desk of all five of them. I'm not going to run and grab it, but four of the five. I love that. You guys are manifesting this so much. Where did these words come from? Well, we both share Christian faith together. I serve at a local Lutheran congregation, and Naomi has her background and tradition as well. So I have to say our understanding of our Christian faith would very much be an inspiration to those things. And then just having done life together and seeing what one another valued kind of all came together to help form those. Yeah.

20:02Elizabeth Ayoola:I love that. I want to circle back to this idea of you guys maybe disagreeing a bit around your short-term goals, and especially because you mentioned debt being maybe the main driver for that. And you also mentioned a very good point, which is sometimes there is what is called in the financial world, good debt and bad debt. So what are you guys' ideas of what good and bad debt are? So if we can see if we can get you to reframe and maybe align in that regard. So we have two, I think examples are important, but we have two loans right now besides our mortgage. And we identified these as priorities for the family and something that we could take on.

20:39So the one loan is for solar panels for our home. And then one loan is for a car that we purchased. Both are very low interest. Both are, we're able to make the monthly commitment for that. What we would say is probably what we are considering now, which is harder for us to explore together because we disagree about this, is an addition to our home. So it is a huge purchase. It is something that feels really unattainable if we are just trying to pay cash for it. But financing it also seems like a really enormous task as well if we were to take out like a home equity loan. So I think that that figuring out if we take out a loan or if we save for cash is one area where I think we're having some disagreement.

21:22Elizabeth Ayoola:So Sean, do you want to maybe first go into what good debt and bad debt is, especially within their context?

21:28Sean Pyles:Yeah, well, good debt is debt that often helps you build wealth long term. A lot of people think of student loans as a good debt. Bad debt can prevent you from achieving your financial goals. Often that's high interest credit card debt. So based on these pretty simple parameters, it does seem like you guys have good debt. Although I tend to veer toward thinking that debt is neither good nor bad in moderation. It is a tool to be deployed carefully. And I'd like to hear how you guys have negotiated your feelings around debt, because Andrew, it seems like you've kind of come around to thinking that debt is less bad in general than you thought in the past.

22:07Sean Pyles:Is that right? Yeah, I did not have a credit card until I started considering buying my first home when I was single in my late 20s. I had a credit card actually, but I had never built any credit because there was just this fear of, you know, getting into this trap of debt. And I just stuck with my debit card, which was really good practice at the time. But then learning how to not just use a credit card, but learn how to spend money and learn that it was okay to spend money. credit and build credit was was something I learned one of the strongest most empowering things we did as a couple was pay off Naomi's grad school debt within two years after we got married and that was great and awesome and that was kind of like okay we can do this let's not get into that situation ever again anytime soon but if we were to we can and like Naomi said when And we were looking into the cars and deciding whether to pay cash, how much to pay in cash, how much to take out a loan.

23:07Sean Pyles:Interest rates were really key. We wanted to make sure that what we had in our high interest savings was building at a higher rate than what the interest rate on the loan would be. And with the solar panels, we saw it as a replacement of an energy bill that we would no longer have to be paying as much because of the solar. This one's a little trickier with taking on what would be not a second mortgage, but if we were to finance an addition to the house, that's a little trickier because I like the sense, again, this living simply, living with margin. Right now, if one of us were to not be able to work or not work, we could float our mortgage on one salary.

23:52Sean Pyles:it scares me to think that we would be locked into something where we would both have to work. Now, I fully intend for both of us to work until retirement, but I like the freedom that not having that additional debt brings. Yeah, it's essentially a financial buffer. But you wrote to us about how you will soon have some new wiggle room in your budget. Tell us more about that. Yeah, I am so excited. because in the next couple of months, we will be done with daycare payments. That's huge. An additional$1 ,430 that we will have every month that's not going to daycare. I was looking at our budget. It's the second highest line item in our monthly budget.

24:40And that is a huge blessing to be able to say that we don't have a place where we have to put it right now. So we want to be able to think strategically and thoughtfully about what to do with this money now and have it work for us.

24:52Sean Pyles:That is more than my mortgage payment, I'll say, that you have in your budget to work with. So you're considering maybe the expansion on your house. What are the other priorities that you're weighing? Definitely saving for our kiddos' future. So we're able to save a little bit each month, but I'd like to consider adding more, the addition to the house. And then, you know, wondering if we need to buff up either emergency savings or our retirement savings.

25:22Elizabeth Ayoola:I want to say congratulations for having that extra money in your budget because I am also a mother and my son is seven. And when he stopped going to daycare, I could have thrown a party for that. So I'm glad you guys have that extra income. So based on all of your priorities now, which one of the ones that you mentioned would you say best aligns with one, your long term financial goals and also what feels the most pressing? For me, it would be bulking up our emergency savings and then saving for our son's future. Those the two where I think we could be putting more attention to and also feel like they align with like our long term goals.

26:04Elizabeth Ayoola:And if you don't mind me asking, how much do you guys have in your emergency savings at the moment? Right now, we're teetering around just$20 ,000.

26:12Sean Pyles:How many months of savings is that for your expenses? Maybe three. Well, a lot of financial planners will recommend that for households where you have two incomes like you guys, three months can be okay. But it does seem like you're pretty risk averse and you like having a lot of financial security. So in that case, you might feel safer with closer to six. Tell us a little more about your retirement savings, too. Our retirement savings, we also feel good about and probably a lever where I'm hoping we can pull back, but we also have the opportunity to put more into. I'm just curious with our three months of emergency savings, if it hits the fan or whatnot, and are we talking all of our expenses as they currently are, we can float for three months or are we talking we're pulling back on a bunch of things?

27:02Sean Pyles:You mentioned levers like retirement. Would we be six months and also be pulling back on payments that we wouldn't necessarily need to make but are currently making? That's a great question and one that we get often. And think about what you would do in a crisis. Say, God forbid, one of you lost your job. You would make some drastic changes to your budget. You probably wouldn't be eating out as much. You might pull back on retirement savings. You would go into shelter mode, basically. So you want to think about, for your emergency fund, three to six months of your bare bones budget. I think we could float a lot longer than three months is what I'm getting at or saying.

27:41Sean Pyles:Okay. But Naomi would have a much better picture of that than me. I mean, that's helpful. Yeah, that's like including our continued giving and our continued Roth contributions and stuff. So I think we're in the three to six month range probably. So for retirement, we currently contribute 17 % of our combined income toward Roths and 401k.

28:06Elizabeth Ayoola:I like that you said you feel like you're on track for your retirement savings. So what makes you feel like you're on track? What are your goals? And how are you kind of measuring your progress?

28:17Sean Pyles:I'm pretty sure I've Googled this specifically and have come across a NerdWallet blog or something about where you need to be at what decade. I just turned 40 and whatever the metrics are, you know, three times your income at 35 or whatnot. From those very basic blogs that I have read, I believe we're on track with our current income where we're at.

28:40Elizabeth Ayoola:I guess to answer your question about what you should prioritize, obviously only you guys know that. But I will say that some general options in terms of financial priorities that we usually share at NerdWallet is, first of all, like Sean said, ensuring that you have a sufficient emergency fund. Then it would be paying down high interest debt, which it doesn't sound like you guys have much of. The next thing would be saving for retirement. And you're already doing that and you seem to be on track. And then you could consider putting money into college funds for your kids, which you guys said was one of your priorities, too.

29:11Elizabeth Ayoola:You can try to achieve multiple financial goals at the same time. I think sometimes people get hung up on having to do one thing at a time, which is fine if that's what you want to do. But it is possible to allocate some of that extra income that you now have to saving for retirement and also allocate some to a college fund for your kids. and also save some towards your house renovation. So it doesn't have to be one or the other. Can we go into some more specifics? Sure. We've done some basic financial planning in the past, but because we started early, combined, we have$515 ,000 in retirement.

29:46I am 36 and Andrew is 40. So we are on track, I believe, to retire at or around 65, very comfortably, with actually a higher income, I think, than we have now. But sometimes when I run analysis or when I'm trying to predict how much we'll have, it still seems like we're going to come up short. And that's really hard for me. Like, it just feels like it's never going to be enough. However much we're contributing, it never seems like we are going to have enough at retirement.

30:17Sean Pyles:I think that's how everyone feels, unless you're a multi, multi-millionaire. And even then, I bet lots of people who have lots of money feel like they still don't have enough. So that's totally normal. You've played around with NerdWallet's retirement calculator? Yes. Love to hear that. And for folks curious about it, we'll have a link to it in the show notes here. But as you play around with that calculator, you can see, okay, I'm planning on living on maybe 70 or 80 % of my pre-retirement income in retirement. And it can give you an idea of how much you might need to save. But that is an estimate.

30:47Sean Pyles:We don't really know what the future holds, how the stock market might perform. But this is why it's really helpful. Like you were talking about earlier with doing some financial planning, I would recommend just for retirement planning, specifically partnering with a certified financial planner professional who can run what's called a Monte Carlo simulation. And they can basically run all these different variations of your current financial plan and factor in, OK, the stock market crashes or it does really well or one of you stops working, any number of changes, and it can give you a percentage of how likely you are to hit that financial goal and have enough in retirement.

31:21Sean Pyles:It seems like you want a clear percentage of how on track you are and what your chances are of having the retirement that you're envisioning. Is that right? I think so, because we also it feels like we contribute so much post-tax and now we have this extra money. So if we need to do more, we can do more. But if we can do less, It'd be nice to do less. Do people ever stop giving to retirement at a certain point in time? Just like, all right, based on projections, we'll be good. We gave a lot. I just remember in personal finance in college, you're like, if you start giving to your retirement from 24 and stop at 30, you'll have more by retirement than someone who starts at 30 and goes all the way until retirement giving.

32:03Sean Pyles:Does it ever make sense to stop or really like cool it?

32:07Elizabeth Ayoola:Well, I'm going to jump in here because I love talking about FIRE, but I know that's not the exact topic, but it makes me think of Coast Fire. For anyone who's not familiar with FIRE, it's, you know, financial independence, retire early. But essentially with Coast Fire, you save aggressively and then you do get to a point where your investments can grow enough to cover your retirement needs. And it allows you to, like the word says, coast to retirement without having to save so aggressively. So to answer your question, it doesn't mean that you necessarily stop saving, but maybe you don't have to front load as much as you are.

32:40Elizabeth Ayoola:And for a little personal anecdote, I can relate with you guys because I started saving for retirement late and I was obsessing over not having enough as well. So I was working, taking on all these side hustles in order to put as much as I could into retirement savings. But at a point I started forgetting that because my number, I don't know, was around like, oh, I need two million dollars or something to retire how I would like to. And I, you know, started to think, oh, my God, I need to save two million dollars. But I forgot that compound interest is working for me. So after some time, that's going to kick in and it's going to help my money to grow.

33:15Elizabeth Ayoola:So all that to say, I think, as Sean said, maybe sitting down with a CFP and having maybe a more clear number of where you're trying to go within the different scenarios can help. And just also letting the stock market do what it does and hopefully let your money grow over time can be really helpful. And then also maybe exploring some of the anxiety that you're having around the uncertainty, because I realized that was a big issue for me as well. for in some ways was maybe not so much about the amount of money I had, but more about the fears I had about not having enough money that was driving me to overworry about it.

33:49Yeah, I guess we haven't done a whole lot of dreaming, like what do we want retirement to

33:55Sean Pyles:look like? And I don't know if that's something that that planner would help with or that we would have to come to those meetings with those thoughts.

34:02Elizabeth Ayoola:But so important, so important. I used to be so afraid of retirement. And even I took me so long to start saving because I was scared to do that daydreaming because I thought it was going to make me realize how far behind I was. But it actually was such a motivator because I got to think about what I want my life post-retirement to look like. So I would totally say even you guys doing that together on one of your dates where you have like your goal sharing or talking about money to just sit down and allow yourself to daydream. And even doing that maybe before a meeting could help you bring more to the meeting with the financial planner about what exactly you want that retirement to look like so they can help you with the numbers elements of things as well.

34:40Thinking about the future, it always feels like there's never going to be enough to prepare for the future. But I also am, we're shifting our mentality to make sure that we have enough to give us margin for today. It's easier to see and we want to have these short-term goals to be able to give us joy now. But checking that anxiety is always really helpful. So thank you for sharing that. Of course.

35:03Sean Pyles:And I think once you have that shared vision in mind of what you want your retirement to be like, you can almost walk backwards into that and think, how can we allocate the$1 ,400 that we're going to have each month now to get what we want? Having an addition on your house can be great in the short and medium term just for quality of life, especially as your son grows up. But then longer term, it could make your house more valuable. Also, putting more into your kids 529 can make it so that they have less debt later on or you don't take out as much debt for them when they hit college age. So like Elizabeth mentioned earlier, there are a lot of ways that you can deploy this money simultaneously to achieve the vision that you want one month, one day at a time.

35:46Can you talk to us about 529s? We haven't specifically talked about how much we want to save for our kids' future or whether or not we want that to be in a college fund, for example. I do anticipate he will probably go to college, but it's important for me to be able to fund a gap year for him to explore if that's what he needs. What are other options besides a 529 as we consider savings for his future?

36:14Sean Pyles:Well, 529s are great because they are very flexible for higher education. You can also use them for things like trade school or even high school if needed, if you're putting them toward the right expenses. But if you want to fund something like a gap year, an account like a taxable brokerage account might be the more flexible way to go because you don't have all these restrictions around what you can use the funds in it for. So that would probably be something to look into as well. Have you considered opening one of those for your son? We have, but I have not done anything about it yet. Well, we have tons of roundups on the NerdWall website.

36:53Sean Pyles:So check those out. You can, again, even think about putting some of that money that you have each month into one of those. I do want to remind you that I'm not telling you exactly what to do with your money. You know, I'm a CFP, but I'm not your CFP. But these are just things to think about. You have a lot of money at your disposal right now. NF529 is one way you can build savings for him. But again, that taxable brokerage can give you a lot of flexibility too. Naomi, Andrew, we've run through a lot of different ways to meet different goals, different ways to think about your values and your priorities.

37:22Sean Pyles:How are you two thinking about the money that you'll have at hand on a monthly basis pretty soon and how you might deploy that? I mean, it's a significant amount. Like we all said, it's now just kind of starting to sink in. I feel excited that we can start setting some new goals and having these like dreaming sessions again about what we could do, even, you know, like having a legacy somewhere for somebody. But I think we can also be strategic and we can do a little bit for all of these things and pull some levers maybe as those goals change. So yeah, it's exciting to have that money and to have the margin.

37:59Like I said, it's like a huge gift to be able to assign it in a new way.

38:03Sean Pyles:Yeah, and you guys are thinking about this and talking about this at a great time. You have a few weeks before you're going to see any of this money. So take the time to have these conversations to dream a little bit, maybe even map out how your budget might look if you put a certain amount toward this goal and a certain amount toward another goal, and then try mixing up those numbers a bit and see where you might be five, 10 years down the road if you allocate a certain amount toward different goals over time. that might help you see how you can get to where you want to be in really concrete terms too.

38:34That's great.

38:35Sean Pyles:Well, Naomi, Andrew, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story and talking with us. Hey, thank you guys. Yeah, thanks, Sean. Thanks, Elizabeth. And that is all we have for this episode. Remember, listener, that we are here to answer your money questions. So turn to the nerds and call or text us your questions at 901-730-6373. That's 901-730-N-E-R-D. You can also email us at podcast at nerdballot.com. Remember, you can follow the show on your favorite podcast app, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and iHeartRadio to automatically download new episodes.

39:07Elizabeth Ayoola:And here's our brief disclaimer. We are not financial or investment advisors. This nerdy information is provided for general educational and entertainment purposes, and it may not apply to your specific circumstances. This episode was produced by Tess Vigeland. Hilary Georgie helps with editing. Nick Karasimi mixed our audio and a big thank you to NerdWallet's editors for all the help.

39:33Sean Pyles:And with that said, until next time, turn to the nerds.

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