NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Less Spending Power, More Debt? Navigate a Declining Dollar and Make Progress on Credit Card Bills
24 Apr 2025
Chapter 1: Who are the hosts and guest on this episode?
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.
And I'm Elizabeth Ayola.
This episode, we're talking about some smart strategies to tackle credit card debt. But first, our weekly Money News Roundup, where we break down the latest in the world of finance to help you be smarter with your money.
Today, we're talking about something that touches everything from your shopping cart to your online checkout screen and your summer travel plans, the value of the U.S. dollar.
We've talked about tariffs many times before on the podcast, but today we want to zero in on what those policies mean for the value of the dollar and your spending. To help us unpack all that, we are joined by our news colleague, Anna Helhosky. Hey, Anna.
Hey, Sean.
As usual, let's start with the big picture here. Why are we talking about dollar value?
So the U.S. dollar is usually considered a safe haven when the market is volatile or when investors are concerned about the economy.
Sounds familiar.
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Chapter 2: Why is the U.S. dollar losing value and what affects its strength?
Those are great priorities. I want to touch on your savings in a little bit, but I just want to underline as well that having credit card debt isn't a personal failing. It doesn't make you a bad person. As we talked about earlier, the world is very expensive and you also want to enjoy the life that you have. It can be easy to overindulge sometimes.
We have a lot of pressure to spend a lot of money. So try to rid yourself of some of that guilt and understand that a lot of people are in a similar situation and it's not because they're bad people too. Things just cost a lot of money.
Oh, thank you so much. That makes me feel so much better about my situation. But I want to know which debt repayment method works best for someone like me who wants some instant gratification from paying off that debt. Because when I'm just making the minimum payments, it feels like I'm not getting anywhere.
So is there a specific method that I could use that may kind of give me that instant hit and make me feel like, yes, I'm making progress?
Yeah. In that case, the debt snowball method is probably going to be your best friend here because with this route, You pay off your debt with the smallest balance first. You're making your minimum payments on your other credit card, but you are funneling as much extra cash as you can into that lower balance debt. That way you're seeing that you're making progress.
You're paying off $1,000 at a time. You're really accelerating the payoff there, and that just feels good. But what I would really encourage you to do as well is reach out to a nonprofit credit counseling agency. They actually are nonprofits that partner with credit card companies, and they can set you on what's called a debt management plan.
This is where you can roll your credit card payments into one payment. It's almost like a form of consolidation. And these debt management plans allow you to slash your interest rate so that you can make much greater progress on paying off your debt. You likely won't be able to use your credit cards while on this plan.
What?
Yeah, that can be a rude awakening for people.
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