Busy Family’s Guide to Money: A Podcast

This is a transcript of a podcast posted March 20, 2008.

“I don’t keep track, I don’t budget anymore, I don’t keep a checkbook, I don’t check online…”

“Student loans have been a hard deal, and just in terms of consolidating the loans, and getting a good rate, and also staying on top of payments, knowing my options.”

“Catching up from the past, you know, like old debts and stuff, trying to get those down and stay current at the same time can be a challenge.”

“I wish I understood the stock market better, and I’ve been making an effort to increase my knowledge of financial stuff, including the stock market, over the years, but I’d always like to know more.”

“I’m always hoping I don’t go bounce a check…”

“I don’t really have any concerns, I don’t really buy anything!”

Nolo: Many people today feel anxious about money and short on time to do anything about it. In this episode, we’re talking to Sandra Block, one of USA Today’s personal finance columnists. Working with columnist John Waggoner and reporter Kathy Chu, she’s got a useful new book out called The Busy Family’s Guide to Money. The book offers real, practical financial solutions, with the busy person in mind. And since we’re all busy, let’s cut right to the chase and hear from Sandra Block.

Sandra Block: It basically covers a lot of personal finance issues, ranging from couples and money to creating a spending plan, to taking control of your debt, to creating an emergency fund. We talk about health care, taxes, real estate, college, starting as an investor, and estate planning, so it covers a pretty broad range of topics.

Nolo: So, as I understand it, this is very practical information that people can use.

Sandra Block: Yes, exactly. This is for people who are either starting out, or feel that they just don’t really understand things like how to save for retirement, how to save for college. It’s presented in a very user-friendly manner with lots of graphics and side bars, which is something that Nolo and USA Today, I think, do very well. So, it’s put together in a way where you can read just parts of it. You don’t have to sit down and read the whole thing.

Nolo: And, really, don’t you find that most people have trouble knowing what to do with their money?

Sandra Block: Well, yes, and that’s really what we’ve seen in covering personal finances, that people are being asked to make more and more complex decisions about their money. Certainly with retirement, most people now can’t count on just getting a monthly pension check for the rest of their lives; they have to manage their savings in retirement. So, that not only means you have to save appropriately while you’re working, but then you have to figure out how you’re going to make that money last when you retire, and that’s a very daunting task for most people. Investing isn’t just something for professionals anymore. People have to make very serious investment decisions every day in terms of their 401(k) plans, and their IRAs, and their other long-term savings plans.

Nolo: The book has a number of tips for prioritizing your finances.

Sandra Block: Well, one thing that a lot of people ask me about is prioritizing -- whether they should save for their kids’ college and retirement at the same time, which one they should do first, and our advice -- and this is generally the advice of a lot of financial planners -- is that you have to save for retirement first, because you can always borrow for college, but you can’t borrow to pay your retirement bills. So, without obsessing about it, because it’s easy to get kind of lost in the weeds, we give you three things to remember when you invest, which kind of boils it down, and we also, because many people do need help, offer advice on who to hire, how to find a good financial planner, adviser, or a broker.

Nolo: Do you offer advice in the book on how to get in the habit of saving?

Sandra Block: Yes, we do, and we have a whole chapter on how to teach your children how to save, because that’s really where it starts. A lot of people who regret some of the decisions they made now wish that they’d had better instructions in financial planning when they were young. So we have a whole chapter called “From Piggy Banks On Up: Your Kids and Money” that covers things like allowances, how grandparents can make smart financial gifts to their children, and what teens can do with the money they make from their summer jobs.

Nolo: Another common problem I see you deal with is credit card debt. How do you advise people to deal with that problem?

Sandra Block: Well, some people just get so overwhelmed by their debt that they can’t prioritize it and they just make minimum payments on their credit cards forever, and end up with a bad credit score, which ends up costing them even more in terms of interest and things like that. So we break it down in terms of figuring out how much debt is too much, because very few people can go through life with absolutely no debt. And there’s good debt and bad debt, and mortgages are considered pretty good debt; credit cards -- not so great. We talk about how to get a really good credit score, and then, as you said, how to prioritize your debts, how to set up a plan where you pay off your costliest debts first so you can free up some cash to pay off your debts that have a lower interest rate. We talk about also managing your student loan debt, which is a huge issue for many young people today. And finally, how to avoid falling back into old habits when you do get rid of your debt.

Nolo: Do your friends who know what you do bring you their own money problems when they see you?

Sandra Block: Yes, they do, and I don’t mind, because it gives me ideas for stories, because so much of this is just problem solving. Oftentimes, there are really good solutions to these problems, but you have people being hit with an onslaught of marketing and advertising from various companies that make money off of everything from debt to saving for retirement or college. And while their advice may be very good, it’s obviously not always unbiased. So yes, people come to us all the time with questions, and and that is what makes this job so interesting is that we try to answer them.

Nolo: Sandra Block is one of the authors of The Busy Family’s Guide to Money, available now in bookstores and at Nolo.com.

This podcast has been brought to you by Nolo and USA Today.

Buy it now! Busy Family's Guide to Money by Sandra Block, personal finance columnist, USA TODAY,  Kathy Chu, reporter, USA TODAY & John Waggoner, investment columnist, USA TODAY.