Stephanie and Robert explain how to calculate and automate the amounts you need to pay off your debts, build a safety net, and save enough to accomplish your financial goals.
Also in this episode:
- While many tech stocks struggle, energy stocks are gushing.
- The bond market has struggled mightily since the pandemic, but the future looks brighter.
- Cisco finally surpasses its previous high reached in March of 2000.
To catch full episodes of all The Motley Fool's free podcasts, check out our podcast center. When you're ready to invest, check out this top 10 list of stocks to buy.
A full transcript is below.
This podcast was recorded on Feb. 07, 2026.
Robert Brokamp: Being intentional with your cash flow and the best performing sector of the past five years may surprise you. You're listening to the Saturday Personal Finance edition of Motley Fool Money. I'm Robert Bro Camp, though my nickname here at The Fool is Bro. Don't be surprised if you hear colleagues call me Bro when they're guests on the show, including this week when fellow Fool employee and certified financial planner, Stephanie Marini joins me to discuss this month's installment of our 2026 Financial Planning challenge. But first, let's highlight [inaudible] in the news from this past week. It's been an interesting year so far for investors. Many formerly high flying tech stocks are taking it on the chin, while some segments of the market are going gangbusters. For example, consumer staples are up 12% in 2026 as of the taping of this episode on the morning of February 5th, which trounces their meagre 1.5% return in all of 2025. But the best performing sector so far this year is energy, which is up more than 18% in 2026, driven largely by a spike in oil prices due to geopolitical tensions related to Venezuela and Iran. Despite the fact that AI and tech stocks have grabbed most of the investment headlines in recent memory, the energy sector has actually outperformed the tech sector over the last five years. Since early February of 2021, the State Street Energy Sector SPDR ETF, ticker XLE has earned a total return of 169%, compared to 114% for the State Street Technology Sector, SPDR ETF, ticker XLK. An investment that hasn't had such a great five years is the bond market, which brings us to our next item, Charlie Bilello of Creative Planning posted on X that the Bloomberg Aggregate Bond Index has spent 66 months below its all time high set in August of 2020. It is by far the longest drawdown since the index was launched in 1976. The next longest drawdown was a dip that began in 1980 that lasted only 16 months. Of course, bonds pay interest so the total return of bonds over the past five years has been about flat, maybe a little less. What explains this poor performance? Well, the level of rates five years ago. The yield on the 10 year treasury was 1.1% driven historically low by the Federal Reserve and the bond market, as the world recovered from the pandemic. The return from bonds over a period of 5-10 years or so is highly correlated to the level of rates at the starting point. Where are we now? The yield on the 10 year treasury is 4.3%, which is why most Wall Street firms expect bonds to return between four and five percent over the next several years. Now the number of the week, which is almost 26 years. That's how long it took Cisco's stock to exceed its.com high of $82 reached in March of 2000, it dropped to as low as $10 a share in the subsequent bear market, but this past Tuesday, it finally exceeded $82. While we here at The Motley Fool, like to point out that the overall US stock market has always recovered from a downturn and usually takes only a few years individual stocks are a different story. As we've seen with Cisco, it can sometimes take decades, but at least Cisco did recover. Many of the.com darlings eventually disappeared, which is why we here at the full recommend that you own at least 25 stocks across multiple sectors. I believe most investors in individual stocks should also complement that portion of their portfolios with a globally diversified mix of low cost index funds. In fact, that's what I do. Next up, calculating and automating the amounts you need to save to accomplish your financial goals when Motley Fool Money continues.
Greetings Fools, and welcome to Month 2 of our 2026 financial planning challenge, which we're calling a Year Well Planned. During this year, on the first Saturday episode of each month, we will focus on a key component of a financial plan, including spending, investing, insurance, retirement planning, estate planning, and taxes. If you follow along with us throughout 2026, you will end this year in the best shape possible, perhaps in the best shape you've ever been. Here to discuss this month's installment is my foolish colleague and certified financial planner, Stephanie Marini. Welcome, Stephanie.
Stephanie Marini: Thanks so much. Nice to be here.
Robert Brokamp: Hi, Stephanie. Tell us about the main goal of this month's installment of the Year Well Planned.
Stephanie Marini: For this month, we really want to focus on the intention behind cash flow. I'm not going to use the B word budget, but the idea is to put dollars to work for you in assigned task at the front end, rather than just think of savings in the context of what's left at the end of the month. Because honestly, is there ever anything left?
Robert Brokamp: Exactly. It's essentially the old pay yourself first, or, as we're going to talk about, pay your debts first, making sure that your priorities are funded before your frivolities. You broke this month's segment into four steps so let's go through them, starting with step 1, a January recap, map the entire flow.
Stephanie Marini: Last month, the challenge was to track for 30 days because step 1 is always figuring out where the starting line is. Odds are something stood out that was surprising. For me, it was always the grocery store when I started monitoring. That's not something I could really change. I have two toddlers, and they go through berries faster than I ever imagined. Knowing that I had to own that grocery amount, I had to make tweaks in other areas. What changes are you making going forward? I'm doing this challenge alongside of y'all, and transparently, the shocking transaction for me was the home improvement. I know it's part of being a homeowner, but the last few months, things have really added up and been recurring. Moving forward, I'm setting aside a certain amount into a sinking fund to have money available for these home repairs and improvements as they come up.
Robert Brokamp: Just as a reminder, we talked last month, too about finding a tool that will help you track your spending and your net worth. There's lots of good stuff out there, lots of free spreadsheet templates on the Internet. You can go to budgetsaresexy.com, which is a great website to have templates for budgeting. There are tools like Empower, Monarch Money, Quicken, Rocket Money, Tiller, YNAB, YNAB standing for You Need a Budget. The goal is to find the best way for you to track your spending and net worth. If you haven't started with us since last month, go ahead and do it now. It's not too late. I think what people will find is if you do it for a few months or even a few weeks, you're going to find that a lot of your expenses are fixed. Still good to know that, but they're fixed. You can't do much about them. There are really just a few categories that you should work on. You mentioned going to the grocery store for me and my wife because we're doing this, too. It's food away from home, like dining out, so we're trying to cut back on that. Then we realized, we always do every year how much we spend on the holidays. Having a separate fund, that we could contribute to that each month during the year could be a good idea for us. Let's move on to step 2, choose a debt strategy on purpose.
Stephanie Marini: I think it's important to realize that not all debts are created equally. Different balances, interest rates, the term length should all be factored into how to tackle overall debt. On top of all, psychology behind debt is really important to factor in. The Dave Ramsey followers of the world will know that he really pushes the snowball method because of the psychological benefit of paying smaller balances first, we'll hopefully build momentum and get those quick hit wins, rather than getting frustrated and quitting. But sorry to Dave, but I tend to tackle the highest interest rate balances first, because the saving money aspect is where my psychological benefit really kicks in, knowing that I'm saving more money in the interest that would have accumulated. I think it's important to first acknowledge what is the most important justification for paying off debt and what's going to give you the most satisfaction because sticking with it is the most important part. If you're looking for specific calculators, Ramsey Solutions has the snowball method on their website for a more traditional calculator. I like bank rate because you can customize it for you.
Robert Brokamp: I agree that paying off the high interest rate debt is probably the right move financially. For most people, that'll be credit card debt. The average rate on a credit card these days is between 20% and 25% so probably would be starting there. Average rate on a car loan is around 7% for a new car, 10% for a used car, so that would be the next step. Then there's mortgages. The current rate on a 30 year mortgage is 6.2%, but many people have lower rates, according to CNBC, about 50% of homeowners with mortgages have loans with rates at 4% or lower. But I do think that Dave is onto something when it comes to acknowledging that debt has a psychological component, and we're doing that with our finances, meaning my wife and mine. We have one of those low rate mortgages, but we're still paying a little bit more than the minimum because we love the idea of paying off that mortgage as soon as possible. Let's move on to step 3.
Stephanie Marini: Sorry. One thing that I would add because I think you bring up a good point is that debt is just a bigger part of the puzzle, too, and so it's not always just the numbers. One of the things my husband and I are looking at is paying off our lower interest mortgage, but before the kids go to school. Not necessarily being debt free, but in conjunction with other goals. I think that could go a long way as members are thinking about their whole financial picture.
Robert Brokamp: That's a great point. Our goal is more to have it paid off before we retire. We probably won't be completely there, but that not only feels better to be retired without a mortgage, but it can actually be a tax saving strategy, because if you enter retirement or at some point in retirement without a mortgage, that means you don't have to withdraw as much from your IRAs and your brokerage accounts, which means you'll pay less taxes in retirement. Let's move on to step 3, build safety without overwhelm.
Stephanie Marini: This step was really about thinking about savings but also breaking it down into a short, medium and long term goals. Those short term goals are the sinking funds. Money set aside for specific goals, but things that are come annually or quarterly, not monthly that can be worked into a budget. Things like for me, home maintenance, for you, you mentioned that Christmas or holiday funds that you're paying into every month, but used in December or to pay off that credit card in January. Medium length goals are things that you're going to be saving for that come in a couple of years and you want to put money aside, but maybe at a slower rate. That could be things like a new car or a home downpayment. Those are some good examples of media link goals versus long term is that college funding or retirement goals, things that are 10, 15, maybe even 20 years away that can have that value of compounding.
Robert Brokamp: One of those, of course, is the emergency fund, and I think it's always important to think about having a backup income option. These days, the job market is slowing down. Anyone who is relying on a job for income should think about making sure they have enough money to live for 3-6 months in case something happens to their job. But even retirees need an emergency fund. A recent study from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College found that more than 80% of retiree households faced unplanned outlays in any given year, with the average being about 10% of their income so it's important for retirees as well.
Stephanie Marini: I think that's a good point. All of these savings goals and even the different ranges are personal. Because even something that we say here at The Motley Fool is, retiree savings accounts and emergency funds is that three year cushion to have. Rather than if you're working 3-6 months, if you're in a dual income household, might be closer to three months rather than six months. If you're a business owner, it might look closer to 6-12 months. It really needs to focus on where you're spending is, which is why we start with the tracking for 30 days, but also considering where the income is coming from and how variable that could be.
Robert Brokamp: Very good points. Then, of course, part of it, too, is calculating how much you need to save, and anyone who's listened to this show for a long enough time knows I love calculators. You'll find all free regular savings calculators. If you want to know how much you need to save, for example, a down payment for a house or something like that they're all over the Internet. At the end of last week's episode, I name some of my favorite retirement calculator so go back to that episode for those. I do want to highlight, though, if you are saving for college, what you will find is, the number way people save for college is through a 529 savings plan and most 529 websites have a calculator that can help you estimate how much you need to save each month to have enough or mostly enough by the time your kid reaches 18. But I will highlight the one that I consider the best. It's created by Invite. Just do an online search for the Invite Education College Savings Estimator. You'll find that Invite makes the calculator for other folks. You'll find this tool on BlackRock's website, you'll find it on the websites of other 529 plans, including here in Virginia, where I live. What I like about this tool is it brings in the cost of colleges you're considering. If your youngin has a particular school in mind, you enter the college, it pulls in that cost, and then it helps you calculate how much you need to save for when they go to college. Let's move on to step 4, automate for consistency.
Stephanie Marini: I think this is a step that we need to talk more about. We talk about it a lot from a retirement savings and paying yourself first, taking it out of your paycheck. But I really find that having savings accounts, sinking funds, brokerage accounts, that money taken out in the beginning, having it sent there directly from your direct deposit, from your employer, it forces those savings methods and helping learn individuals to live off less. I think we can start with early dollar amounts and keep the money just recurring per paycheck. If we need to touch it and we need to make adjustments, it's fine. But having that come out first, it really helps that psychological benefit of saving and learning to live off of less.
Robert Brokamp: I think of it as you're basically removing speed bumps or even hurdles, things that slow you down or get in the way of you making the most of your money. Every time you can remove the need for you to make a decision or take an action, you're better off. I do think it's a good idea to have a single document that has all the info about all the ways you've automated your finances, including money going to a savings accounts, maybe extra money going to debt, or just payments for services and we're all doing that, of course. That way, you have one document to review every once in a while, maybe once a year, to make sure that your money is going to where you think it should go. It also facilitates communication with your spouse, because sometimes a spouse will sign up for something, and the other spouse may not know about it. That way, it's all on the same page. This is a good document to include in your estate plan. We're going to talk about estate planning in a future month during our year well planned. But this is one document that, in case someone has to take over your finances, either temporarily or permanently, they can see, which bills are being automatically paid, which are not, what services are you paying for, which accounts are being contributed to? Where are those accounts so that they can make any changes that are necessary?
Stephanie Marini: I think this is also a good time to circle back almost to the beginning of, this is why a tracking app or spreadsheet comes in handy so well. You mentioned it earlier, but the one my husband and I use is Monarch Money because it does flag new payments if we need to. It's very easy to categorize expenses, create new rules for categorization and then it's easy to look back, compare month over month, see what trends are happening. Also, from our estate planning, we can link our access so that way, God forbid, something happens our heirs and beneficiaries know what to expect.
Robert Brokamp: I'll just add a final thought here. You mentioned at the beginning, Stephanie, the B word, budgeting. Many people don't like budgeting because they don't want to have to account for and categorize every penny. But if you take the time to calculate how much you need to save for your goals, automate those savings, and then make sure you're paying off your debts on the timeline that's right for you, then you could feel comfortable spending whatever's left over without always getting into the nitty gritty of where it's going. I call it goals based budgeting, because you're funding your goals first and then spending the rest however you see fit. Now, I still think analyzing your spending is very informative. But if your goals are properly funded, you don't have to stress so much about whether you spent $100 more than planned on dining out or whatever, as long as you're not overspending and relying on credit cards. On that note, let's end this month's installment of our 2026 financial planning challenge. Thank you, Stephanie, for joining us.
Stephanie Marini: Thanks so much, Bro.
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Robert Brokamp: It's time to get it done Fools, and Stephanie and I just discussed many items for your to do list. Which should you prioritize? Well, I bet you got a hint, a hunch while you were listening. As we were chatting, I suspect we mentioned something that made you say to yourself, I got to take care of that. It might be an uncomfortably high level of credit card debt leftover from the holidays. It could be the 529 college savings plan you've been meaning to open for your kids or grandkids. Perhaps it's checking out any of the personal finance tools we've mentioned, or maybe it's using any of the retirement calculators I mentioned at the end of last week's episode, which I'll repeat again here, the CalcXML retirement planning module, MaxiFi, ProjectionLab, or Boldin. I'll again disclose that Motley Fool Ventures, a sister company, the Motley Fool, has an investment in Boldin. If you're a listener in this podcast, I bet you already have a sense of what task you need to tackle. There's some financial to do that's been gnawing at you, sticking in your craw so start there. Because not only will be good for your finances, but you'll feel better after finally getting it done. That brings us to the end of the show. Thank you so much for listening, and thanks to Bart Shannon, the engineer for the episode. As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about, and the Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against. Don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. All personal finance content follows Motley Fool editorial standards, and is not approved by advertisers. Advertisements are sponsored content and provided for informational purposes only. To see our full advertising disclosure, please check out our show notes. I'm Robert Brokamp. Fool on, everybody.
