NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Smart Planning Sessions: When is it OK to Stop Saving? (Plus: Spring Cleaning Your Finances)
28 Apr 2025
In a new Smart Planning segment, a finance expert tackles retirement goals and savings questions with a listener. How can you gift savings bonds? When is it time to stop saving for retirement early? Hosts Sean Pyles and Elizabeth Ayoola offer tips for “spring cleaning” your finances, including refreshing your budget, resetting your financial goals, updating your insurance and estate plans, and getting back on track if emotional spending crept up earlier this year. Then, they debut Smart Planning, a new segment where a registered financial advisor helps a listener tackle real-life money questions. In this session, Certified Financial Planner Barbara Ginty, host of the Future Rich podcast, talks with listener Kay about navigating the transition from saving to spending. They dive into how to know when you’ve saved enough to scale back at work, how to plan for rising medical costs in retirement, and how to gift savings bonds the right way. If you’ve ever wondered what financial freedom could look like after decades of diligent saving, this conversation is packed with insight. Inspired to navigate your finances with an advisor? Use NerdWallet Advisors Match to find vetted professionals today at https://www.nerdwalletadvisors.com/match Track your budget and credit score on the NerdWallet app, and let the Nerds guide you toward your financial goals: https://www.nerdwallet.com/p/mobile-app In their conversation, the Nerds discuss: updating financial goals, savings bonds, how to gift savings bonds, budgeting tools, emotional spending, estate planning checklist, updating beneficiaries, Roth IRA contributions, SEP IRA contributions, dollar-cost averaging investing, semi-retirement planning, when to stop saving for retirement, how much to save for retirement by 55, Medicare vs Medicare Advantage, retirement healthcare costs, setting up travel insurance, travel insurance for seniors, Roth vs traditional IRA in retirement, retirement income planning, safe withdrawal rate, 4% rule retirement, and required minimum distributions.. 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
Full Episode
Sean, it's spring and I can finally throw my jackets in the back of the closet and get back to being the tropical princess I was born to be. What are you growing in your garden during this season?
I have a bunch of seedlings growing in my greenhouse right now. Tomatoes, hot peppers, herbs, some annual flowers. I always feel so invigorated by spring and I just love to spend all of my free time in the garden this time of year.
Well, while we're on the topic of growing things, spring is a good time to clean up your finances and grow your money. So today we're going to chat about some ways that you can spring clean your finances.
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 have a new segment, Smart Planning, where we pair a listener with a financial expert, Barbara Ginty, to help walk through some questions around gifting and saving.
To start off the episode, though, we're going to chat a bit about spring cleaning your finances. But first, we want to acknowledge the news has been pretty wild lately, especially around trade policies and the economy. We designed this segment to be helpful no matter what's happening.
But if something big breaks between the time we record this and when you're listening, remember you can check out our Thursday episodes or the NerdWallet News Hub for the latest updates and to see how it affects your finances. Copy that, Sean. It's time to get your financial house in order. Deep clean that budget and get the dust off of those goals.
Personally, I love a good spring check-in with my finances. My summers tend to be so busy that I like to use this time to make sure that I'm on track with my financial goals. and find a place or two to make some adjustments. So, Elizabeth, where do you think folks should start?
I think we should talk about budgeting first, since that is the foundation of personal finances. Sean, have you had any major changes to your budget so far this year? Where does your budget need some spring cleaning?
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