How to Be Less Silly About Money With Felix Salmon
Some people like to dig into their finances to optimize their savings like a well-oiled machine. Personally, I prefer to bury my head in the sand and hope that my bank account can handle it on its own. Felix Salmon, senior editor at Fusion and co-host of the Slate’s Money podcast , is here to help us sort out dollars and cents.
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Discussion this week
Save more and spend less. I think most of us have this part figured out, but there are many little things about money management and new options that allow you to ditch a bank account altogether. For example, Felix supports the use of reloadable debit cards, which allow you to store money without bank fees. Almost like money under a mattress without a mattress. There’s Chase Liquid , Amex Bluebird, and newer upstarts like Simple .
For many, a gorilla weighing 800 pounds in a room is credit card debt (by the way, an 800 pound gorilla would cost $ 1005). You should always prioritize paying off credit cards over other debts, as these have the highest interest rates. Felix even recommends that you take out a loan to pay off your card through a place like Lending Club if you can, as loans usually have much lower interest rates. And never pay to check your credit score; there are many free options like Credit Karma .
And if you have enough money to start investing – “enough” means you have more than six months of your budget accumulated, ”says Felix,“ you can try a company like Vanguard or Wealthfront . This is just a cursory glimpse of our discussion, so pour yourself a glass of wine, take your time and listen to our entire discussion with Felix Salmon .
Our weekly updates
Every week we like to wrap up the show with small improvements we’ve made to our lives. This week puzzles, wine and collective bargaining.
- Melissa : Melissa signed up for the New York Times crossword puzzle so she no longer has to wait until the weekend to solve her puzzle. With digital access to all NYT crossword archives, she can now solve puzzles every day if she wants to.
- Felix : Felix treated himself to a bottle of Frank Cornelissen’s Contadino , a $ 26 red wine from Sicily. His theory is that by spending a little more on a bottle of good wine, you can literally buy happiness. And he shared the bottle, so I agree.
- Andy : I didn’t make any small changes this week, but I thought about something that has actually improved my life in recent years: unionization. We organized in 2015 and eventually joined the Writers Guild of the Americas , and our union brought much-needed stability through several storms as well as a direct way to express our concerns to leadership. Think about workplace organization .
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