Are You Saving Too Much Cash? How to Know When to Invest More

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Shari Rash (1:26): Before we jump in, a quick disclosure. This episode is for educational purposes only. It is not individualized financial investment tax, legal, or accounting advice. Your money decision should be based on your own income goals, risk tolerance, tax situation, timeline, and overall financial picture. If you're trying to decide how much cash to keep, what to invest, or how to build a plan that actually fits your life, talk with a qualified financial professional who understands your full situation.

Shari Rash (1:55): GWA Wealth provides personalized financial planning and investment advisory services. You can learn more at gwawealth.com. Having cash feels good. I get it. Cash feels safe.

Shari Rash (2:15): Cash feels responsible. Cash feels like proof you are not being reckless and you are a responsible adult. But for a lot of women, seeing money in the bank creates an immediate sense of relief, especially if you grow up around financial uncertainty, job instability, debt stress, or money conversations that always sounded like we can't afford that. But there's a point where cash stops being a safety net and starts becoming a security blanket. Cash is not bad.

Shari Rash (2:50): Cash is king, right? That saying exists for a reason. Cash is a tool. But when cash becomes the place you hide because that just feels better or investing is uncertain, it may start costing you the future you are trying to protect. Now, don't get me wrong.

Unknown Speaker (3:12): This is not an episode telling you to drain your savings and throw everything into the stock market. Because that would be terrible advice. And I'm not here to give terrible advice. I'm here to give advice that you can take and implement into your own life. Cash has a very important job, but just because it's good and important doesn't mean more of it is more good and more important.

Shari Rash (3:40): Emergency funds matter. Near term goals, money to achieve those things should not be invested. It should be in cash. Cash is completely appropriate for things that are happening within the next year. But the question is, is your cash doing a specific job or is it just sitting there because you are afraid to make the next financial decision or even worse, you're afraid of messing up when you do make a decision.

Shari Rash (4:16): At some point, the question is not, do I have enough cash to feel safe? It then becomes, am I using cash as my security blanket to avoid making my next financial decision? And today we are going to talk about why cash feels so good. How to tell the difference between smart cash and fearful cash. What cash should be used for when having too much cash can actually cost you and hurt you versus helping you and how to think about investing without feeling like you are being reckless.

Shari Rash (4:58): Welcome back to everyone's talking money. I'm Shari Rash, founder of GWA Wealth. And after almost twenty years in personal finance, working with women who are doing well on paper, but still don't feel fully in control of their money, I can tell you this. Most women are not reckless with money. They're actually too cautious with their money.

Shari Rash (5:23): And caution could come from a good place, or it could come from a place of feeling inadequate or uncertain or uneducated. A lot of times it comes from wanting security, wanting options, wanting to never feel trapped, wanting to know that if something goes wrong, it can be handled on your own. But being responsible with money is not the same thing as letting fear make every decision. Looking like you're responsible with money could actually be the disguise of letting fear control your money. It could look like you may think you're being responsible with your money, but you're actually under utilizing it.

Shari Rash (6:12): Cash can protect you. Cash is necessary, but cash can also hold you back if too much of your long term money is just sitting there because you're waiting to feel ready. You're waiting to be super confident in your next decision. You're waiting to read the next article, listen to the next podcast to tell you what to do next. So we're gonna talk about why cash is great, but just because it's some of it's great doesn't mean more of it's even better.

Shari Rash (6:49): More of it could actually cost you much more than you thought. So before we get into numbers, here's something I tell my clients. Every dollar of cash that you have should have a job. So look at the money sitting in your checking account, your savings account, your money markets, your CDs, or anything else that it's just cash sitting there. Ask yourself, what is this money for?

Shari Rash (7:22): Why am I saving it? When will I need it? What would make me feel comfortable using it or moving part of it? Is this money protecting me from a real near term need? Or do I feel like it's my security blanket protecting me from uncertainty?

Shari Rash (7:46): Cash with a job is a plan. Cash with no job is just your anxiety sitting there in a bank account staring at you. So here are some examples of cash with a job. Your emergency fund, your upcoming tax bill, a home repair you have, a down payment for a house or a car, vacations you're going on, medical expenses, your therapy, your chiropractor, all those bigger bills that you know you have coming up. If you want to make a career change, if you want to go on a sabbatical, making a major purchase in the next handful of years, paying for your car insurance, all of that stuff is a purpose and a reason.

Shari Rash (8:39): Cash with no job sounds more like, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this money or the market feels scary. I don't want to lose money. I'm just waiting for the right time. I just like seeing it there. I like opening up my account and seeing all of these zeros.

Shari Rash (8:59): What if something happens? It's totally understandable to feel better when you have a big cash balance. Most of the women that I work with is that they like seeing that cash there. But then there's a very fine line of being prepared for these things. Being prepared for the emergency, planning for the down payment, planning for the home renovation.

Shari Rash (9:32): There's a fine line between that and hoarding money. And hoarding money for whatever reason, because it feels good, because you're nervous, because you don't have confidence in your next decision, because you know cash is right. So like, let's just make it more right by having more. Whatever your reason is, there's a very fine line between the two. So, but feeling better does not always mean you're doing the best thing for your money.

Shari Rash (10:03): And again, like I'm saying, I'm not anti cash. I am very pro cash. I am very pro cash when we use it in a smart way. Cash like everything is a tool. It's a slice of your money pie.

Shari Rash (10:20): It's part of the equation. It should not be the entire pie or three quarters of the pie. Cash is essential. It gives you flexibility. Cash keeps surprises or accidents, uh-ohs, from turning into credit card debt.

Shari Rash (10:40): Cash helps you avoid selling investments at the wrong time. So then you have cash for that thing. Cash gives you breathing room. Cash is what keeps an emergency from becoming a financial crisis. Cash makes sense for an emergency fund.

Shari Rash (10:58): And that can mean job loss, a medical issue, a major car repair, an urgent home repair, a family emergency, unexpected travel, a life disruption. If you are a single woman and you're managing your own financial life, cash is not just comfort. It's your independence. It's saving you from having to make a phone call to someone to borrow money when something goes wrong. So cash, especially as a single woman is very important.

Shari Rash (11:32): It matters. And it also makes sense for your near term goals. The money you're going to need in the next year or next three that should not be reliant on the market because if you lose it or lose some of it because of market performance, it's going to be devastating. So money that you need for the next three years or so includes a down payment for your house, moving expenses, taking a break or changing your job, starting a side hustle, going on a big trip, buying a car, a medical procedure, a major home project. So those are the things that like cash is important for.

Shari Rash (12:17): And that's not emergency fund cash. A sinking fund is a very powerful cash tool. So that is separate from your emergency fund. Emergency funds are for emergencies. You lost your job.

Unknown Speaker (12:34): You got in an accident. You need to fix your car. Stuff that isn't planned. And if you didn't have the cash, you would go into credit card debt as a result. An emergency fund should be put away with lock and key.

Shari Rash (12:47): We should not be borrowing from that or taking from that for non emergency items. That's where a sinking fund comes in. So a sinking fund is additional cash that you have set aside for known upcoming expenses. Your taxes, your insurance premiums that come twice a year, property taxes, holiday spending, travel you have planned for, professional expenses, annual subscriptions. So that's a use for your sinking fund.

Shari Rash (13:23): So you need to look at, okay, how much do I spend on those one off once a year, semi annual expenses. And that's how much you should have in your sinking fund. So then when it's there, that expense comes up, you use it. That's another problem I see with people that are hoarding cash. They keep saving and saving and saving for all of these things.

Shari Rash (13:50): And then when the thing comes, they feel weird using the cash because it's like, I'm just building it up. I'm building it up. I'm building it up. I don't want to touch it because it feels like then I'm taking a step backwards. Where if you are saving for a particular thing, your car insurance that you pay once every six months.

Shari Rash (14:12): It doesn't feel weird to access that money and use it because it has a purpose, because you know why you are saving into it. So that sinking funds are very powerful because it prevents you from saving too much cash, which we'll talk about, but then also it gives you permission to use the money. We don't get in the trap of just hoarding and hoarding and hoarding and never using because the sinking fund's like, Hey, I exist for a reason. That reason is now coming up. Let me use it.

Shari Rash (14:48): Cash starts becoming a problem when it's no longer serving a specific purchase. So signs you may be saving too much in cash. You have more than your emergency fund and your sinking funds. So an emergency fund, and this is just rules of thumb, are three to six months worth of expenses. Now, a problem I see with emergency funds is that it's not treated as an emergency fund.

Shari Rash (15:16): It's treated as a savings account. When I'll ask clients that we just first start working together, I'll say, Okay, let me see your bank accounts. Where's your emergency fund? Well, this is my savings account. A savings account is not an emergency fund.

Shari Rash (15:31): You could house, you can put your emergency fund in a savings account, but your emergency fund is an emergency fund. You're not saving into an emergency fund. We set a dollar amount. And again, emergency funds are three to six months worth of expenses. So again, that's three months worth, four months worth, four and a half months worth, five months worth, six months worth.

Shari Rash (15:56): So usually when people hear three to six months, it's like, okay, three months is this much, six months is that much. Okay, I'll go with six months because more cash is better. Right? But if you understand emergency funds are for emergencies only, it is not a savings account. It's not money you dip into when your checking account gets low or when you're going on a trip.

Shari Rash (16:19): It is for true emergencies. I oftentimes see people going closer to the three month side of the emergency fund gauge of three to six months, because it's like, wait, I can't touch this money. I have cash elsewhere. I'm going to have sinking funds elsewhere because Shari's going to help me with that. Let's lean more towards three months.

Shari Rash (16:45): It's whatever works for you. But again, three to six months. So take your monthly expenses, times it by three, times it by six, look at those two numbers, then pick a number that feels good to you. That's your emergency fund is put away with lock and key. So if you're listening to this thinking, I have cash.

Shari Rash (17:05): I know I probably need to do more with it, but I don't know how much to keep, how much to invest, or what order to do this in. This is exactly where financial planning can help. The right amount of cash is not one size fits all. It depends on your income, your job stability, your single or partnered status, your debt, your expenses, your emergency fund needs, your goals, your tax situation, your retirement savings, your risk tolerance, your family obligations. You do not need someone to shame you for having too much cash.

Shari Rash (17:39): You need someone to help you give that cash a better job. At GWA Wealth, I help women who are doing well on paper build financial plans that connect cash, investing, retirement, debt, taxes, and the life they actually want to live. You can learn more at gwawealth.com or through the link in the show notes. So again, signs you may be saving too much in cash. You have no clear goal attached to any of the extra cash you have.

Shari Rash (18:10): You keep saying you'll invest when things feel calmer. You feel weird or nauseous, guilty, nervous, whatever, every time you think about moving money. You have long term goals, but most of your money doesn't support that. It's all in savings, which is short term goals. You're behind on investing.

Shari Rash (18:36): You're not investing regularly, but you have a large cash balance. You feel like you're being responsible by keeping all of this cash. So that's your excuse. Well, like I'm super responsible because I have all this cash, so I'm doing something right. But really you are being responsible means you're nervous or scared.

Shari Rash (18:58): Too much cash can feel like safety, but it creates a different kind of risk. There's risks no matter what you do. Too much cash opens you up to inflation risk. So we hear about inflation all the time. It's stock just costing more.

Unknown Speaker (19:19): So when you go to the grocery store and $100 today certainly does not buy you what $100 did a year ago, definitely not five years ago, right? Your $100 got you a lot further then. That's inflation. That is stuff just costing more. When you hoard your money in cash in a savings account, your account balance may not be going down, right?

Shari Rash (19:46): It's not going down. It's going up because you're getting some type of interest on this money. You keep on socking away more money, but your purchasing power shrinks. What if you have $50,000 in your bank account? Ten years from now, $50,000 has lost purchasing power because of inflation.

Shari Rash (20:12): So we're not losing dollars, but we're losing what our cash can get us if we keep it always in a savings account. Cash does not have to lose dollars to lose value. And when we keep the bulk of our net worth in cash, that's what we're doing. It's losing value. The dollar amounts aren't changing, but the value, the purchasing power of it is decreasing.

Shari Rash (20:43): Another risk is opportunity cost. Money sitting in cash, you miss out on potential growth. And this matters for long term money. So the money you don't need for seven, ten, twenty years should be treated differently than money you need for six months from now, a year from now, three years from now. The money meant for future you cannot do its best work if it's sitting in a savings account, earning nothing.

Shari Rash (21:15): Another risk of having too much cash is a false sense of progress. Your cash balance goes up, so it feels like you're moving forward. It feels like you're doing good things. But if your retirement, investing, long term goals are under funded as a result, you're not building as much wealth as you think you are. And then there's the emotional dependency.

Shari Rash (21:42): I can throw math and facts and figures at you, but as we all know, money is emotional. So if you find your money anxiety is more regulated with the more zeros you have in your savings account, that's gonna keep you holding onto cash and potentially not making the best choices for you if your gut is running the show. You feel weird or you'll feel like you did something wrong if you take half of that savings account and invest it. Because now when you open up your app, you're not seeing it every day. If you feel like the only way to feel safe with money is by never moving it, never touching it, that is worth paying attention to and diving deeper into.

Shari Rash (22:40): A lot of women who oversave in cash are the ones trying very, very hard to be good with money. They're like, I want to be good with money, so I'm going to have cash. They were taught that cash equals responsibility. So the messages growing up may have been save your money. Don't take risks in the market because you could end up losing.

Shari Rash (23:04): Debt is bad. They may feel like investing is confusing. They may have heard investing in the stock market is just like gambling. You never know what's going to happen. You could end up losing everything.

Shari Rash (23:17): And for a lot of women, cash is like the gold star of being responsible. Also, a lot of these women don't want to make a mistake for the reasons I just said that they heard growing up. Investing is gambling. You could lose. So it's like, if I'm on my own and I should start investing, or I heard I should start investing, Well, what if I make a decision?

Shari Rash (23:44): I have no one to blame but myself. But at least with cash, I know my money's there and I'm not going to do something bad or wrong with it. Also investing feels permanent. We sometimes think that if we're investing our money, we no longer have access to it. It's poof, gone.

Shari Rash (24:04): We know it's not gone, gone, but because it's not in our bank account, it feels like it's gone. And that could feel intimidating or that could feel like, Oh, I could really mess up. A lot of women worry about picking the wrong thing, the wrong investment. They worry about losing their money. A lot of women want to understand exactly what they're investing in.

Shari Rash (24:32): So then they feel like, well, if I understand it, I can't screw it up. But then what happens is the analysis paralysis kicks in and they're researching and researching and researching, And then they're getting more stuff, more information's falling into their laps and they're getting overwhelmed and just creates this cycle. And then what happens? We're still sitting there in cash. Waiting feels like it's neutral.

Shari Rash (24:58): Like I'm not doing anything. I'm just going to sit here. But I tell my clients that a lack of a decision is still a decision. Choosing not to invest, choosing to keep your money in cash, because that feels like it's just easier and safer is still a decision. We also carry the emotional load of our financial decisions.

Shari Rash (25:23): So women look at money as what can money do for me? And if we are making a decision that potentially we can lose, which means we have less money to do things for ourselves, we're going to beat ourselves up. We're going to second guess ourselves. And that's a huge emotional load that we carry. The concerns women have when it comes to making decisions about their cash are very real, and I don't want to dismiss them.

Shari Rash (26:01): But we don't want fear to be the only planner in the room. We don't want fear to drive this bus. They can ride the bus. They can be there with us, but it's not going to be the driver. And also a lot of women confuse confidence with certainty.

Shari Rash (26:21): We think that we need to be 100% sure of our decision before investing. Hence, the analysis paralysis. Hence, the research and over research and articles and podcasts and everything. We need to be 100% sure. But investing never comes with full certainty.

Shari Rash (26:42): Planning is not about eliminating uncertainty. It's about deciding what to do in the presence of uncertainty. We are never gonna know 100% what is gonna happen with our money, But we need to know what could happen or we need to be prepared for things and still moving forward regardless. Because if we have a plan for our different scenarios, that helps to eliminate the uncertainty.

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Unknown Speaker (27:47): So how much cash is enough? Everyone wants a magic number, and I get it. It's like, well, fine, Shari. Just tell me. I think I'm holding too much.

Shari Rash (27:56): Tell me how much I should have. But the right cash number is not magic. It is personal. I just can't say everyone should have X amount in cash. So as I mentioned, a common emergency fund rule of thumb is three to six months of essential expenses.

Shari Rash (28:13): But that's just a starting point. But again, your emergency fund is put away with lock and key. More cash may make sense if you're solely reliant on your income, if you're self employed, if your income is variable, if you work in a volatile industry where you could get laid off or furloughed at any point in time. You may want more cash if you own a home, if you have dependents, if you support family, if you have health concerns, if you're planning a career change, if you're nearing retirement. That's where you may want some more cash and be closer to that six months number.

Shari Rash (28:55): May less cash may make more sense if you have stable income. Your expenses are relatively low. You don't have dependents. You don't own a home. You have no major near term goals.

Shari Rash (29:06): You have access to other resources if you're investing. So the right emergency fund is not based on what others are telling you. It's based on what your life requires. And you also need to separate essential expenses from lifestyle expenses. Emergency fund money needs to cover your essentials, not like your total ideal lifestyle, which that's an important differentiator because that might mean that's less cash than you are essentially expecting.

Shari Rash (29:41): So like essentials are your housing, your utilities, insurance, groceries, transportation, health care, debt payments, pet care, family obligations, you know, running through the drive through one night a week, going out with your friends a couple times a month. Like, those are essential. Lifestyle extras are travel, excessive dining out, shopping, your beauty upgrades, your subscriptions, your entertainment. When you're in an emergency, the goal is not to fund your ideal life. It's just to keep your real life stable.

Shari Rash (30:19): So another helpful step is funding. One, we got to figure out the emergency fund. That is step one of this whole process. How much did you have in emergency fund? Does that number make you feel good?

Shari Rash (30:33): Great. Check the box. Move on. We don't need to belabor this. This should not be hours and hours of thinking and conversations.

Unknown Speaker (30:41): Check the box. Move on. This is how much I need to have in my emergency fund. If you already have enough cash for it, great. Take the rest of the money out of it because we're gonna give it more jobs.

Shari Rash (30:53): So we have our emergency fund. Then we're going to maybe create a short term goals fund. If you want to repaint your house, you want to make some changes, you want to go on a trip, that's short term goals. Figure out how much money you need from that. Fund it.

Shari Rash (31:09): Check the box. Great. Move on. Now we create some sinking funds for our car insurance, for our dog's annual teeth cleaning, whatever those big expenses are that come up, they should not be part of your regular monthly spending. Let's have cash set aside for that.

Shari Rash (31:30): Then yeah, you may have five or six different savings accounts, but your emergency fund, put that in a high yield savings account so then it gets extra interest, right? Versus your point 1% that your brick and mortar bank is giving you. Your sinking funds, they can be in your traditional savings account because you're using them soon. When all of your cash is in one pile, it feels untouchable. It feels like, well, it feels weird using this because I'm saving this.

Shari Rash (32:01): Yeah, but what are you saving it for? By separating it out and giving it a purpose, now it exists for a reason. When each dollar has a job, decisions get easier. Then you may still have cash left over. I hope you do still have cash left over after deciding your emergency fund, your sinking fund.

Shari Rash (32:23): Now let's get that money working for you. This is now long term money we're talking about. So let's start thinking about investing. And that does not mean we are plopping your money boom right into the market. Right?

Shari Rash (32:40): I'm not trying to scare you. I'm not trying to freak you out. But let's ask ourselves, when will I need this money? What is the purpose of this money? What happens if I leave this money in cash?

Unknown Speaker (32:55): We've already talked about opportunity costs and inflation risk. Right? So what happens if I leave it in cash? What happens if I invest some of it? Yeah, I could lose some, but I couldn't make money.

Unknown Speaker (33:09): But if I lose some, I'm not using this money for the long term anyway. So likely I'm going to make back whatever I lost. Okay. What amount will let me sleep at night? So again, we're not trying to lose sleep.

Shari Rash (33:23): I'm not trying to freak you out over here about this, but I want to get your money working for you. So what am I not gonna freak out about investing initially? We are not going from all cash to all invested overnight. So we're looking at the excess again. We're keeping the emergency funding intact.

Shari Rash (33:45): We're keeping our short term goals and sinking funds intact. Then we're looking at the money that's left over. And this is where automation can really help us. Automation removes the emotion from money. So let's set up an account, an after tax account, which depending on where you're investing your money could have different names, brokerage, after tax, T O D, which stands for transfer on death.

Shari Rash (34:14): All of those mean the same thing. It's money after tax, so you still have access to it if you needed it. It's not tied up for retirement. Let's just start with an amount. Whatever your amount is, after doing this exercise, if you have $20,000 left over, okay, let's start the account with a thousand dollars.

Shari Rash (34:41): And then let's move maybe a thousand dollars a month over and let's see how that feels. So set up the automatic transfer to a thousand dollars a month. We are getting our money working for us. We are not diving in head first and whatever happens, happens. We are not making any decisions.

Shari Rash (35:04): We're just setting up the automation, and then the automation is taking control. It removes the drama. Automation takes the drama out of the decision making. This is called dollar cost averaging. So sometimes your $1,000 may buy in when the market's high and you're not buying as many shares.

Shari Rash (35:24): Other times your $1,000 is buying in when the market's lower and you're buying more shares. So it smooths out the volatility for you. It gives you a timeline so then you see, Hey, if I invest a thousand dollars a month, my $20,000 over two years, I will get this money working for me. You may say, Wow, that's a really long time. I think I want it working for me faster than that.

Shari Rash (35:52): We're a couple months into it. We're getting it. We see the money leaving. We know we have plenty of cash. The anxiety is starting to go down.

Shari Rash (36:01): Okay. Let's bump it up to $2,000 a month. And so we're cutting our time in half. Gradual is fine. Move at a pace that works for you.

Shari Rash (36:13): Investing builds wealth because it allows your money to work for you. And when money is working for you, yeah, you may see your balance go up, your balance go down. Please do not check it every day. Maybe even don't even check it every week or every month. Let some time go by.

Shari Rash (36:34): If you know you're going to freak out because your $10,000 goes down to 9, don't check it. Don't look at it. Your money is working for you. Sometimes we have to take a step backwards in order to take a step forward. But do not leave this episode and make a dramatic money move.

Shari Rash (36:53): Don't drain your emergency fund. Having cash, I think we've established this, having cash is important. Having cash matters. You need that liquidity. Do not put yourself in a position where financially fragile, that you would need to borrow money if something were to happen.

Shari Rash (37:14): You need to make sure you have enough cushion for you. But again, we want our money to work for you. Cash and figure out why you were keeping so much cash so we can learn and move forward. So were you saving all this cash because it made you feel safe? Were you saving all this cash because you wanted to avoid debt?

Unknown Speaker (37:37): Were you saving all this cash because you just didn't know what to do? Were you saving all of this cash because you're like, I don't even know where to invest, how to invest, how much I should invest? Acknowledge why you had the cash so we don't avoid it. So we don't repeat it. Okay.

Shari Rash (37:54): By having a plan, by having your emergency fund, by having your sinking funds, that helps you feel safe and confident in what you are doing, but not perfect confidence. Not 100% knowledge and confidence. Just some confidence. That's what we need in order to move forward. A plan creates confidence.

Shari Rash (38:18): What I'd like you to do is a simple cash check-in. Add up your cash, your checking, your savings, your money market, your CDs, your cash like accounts, and label the jobs. So label everything you need your cash to do for you. Your emergency fund, your upcoming goal, your taxes, your annual expenses, your business cushion, travel, home repairs. And then also say, this money may not have a job, right?

Shari Rash (38:47): If you already have jobs assigned to accounts, label them. If you don't have jobs, you don't have jobs. Don't make up the job. Look at where you are currently. Step three, after your emergency fund is funded, look at your near term goals.

Shari Rash (39:03): What are they and how much do you need? And what money are you going to use to help fund those near term goals? Then ask yourself, is this cash protecting my future or is it preventing me from building my future? Step five, choose one next step. Options.

Shari Rash (39:24): Leave the cash alone because that has a real job. Move it to a high yield savings account. Separate into buckets. Use some of the cash to pay down a high interest debt. Start or increasing automatic investing.

Shari Rash (39:38): Schedule a meeting with a financial planner. Talk to a CPA if taxes are involved in these decisions. Make a three to six month investing plan for your excess cash. You do not need to fix everything this week. You just need one next step that moves the money from comfort blanket to a clearer plan.

Shari Rash (40:03): And again, cash is good. Cash is useful. Cash protects you and cash gives you options. But cash is not the only form of safety. Growth can be a safety.

Shari Rash (40:14): A plan is safety. Diversification is safety. Knowing what your money is for can be safety. Safety is not just your money piling up in a savings account. Safety is knowing your money is doing the right job for the life you are building.

Shari Rash (40:31): If your cash has a job, keep it. If your cash is for a near term goal, protect it. If your cash is for an emergency fund, leave it alone. Don't touch it. Put it away with lock and key.

Shari Rash (40:44): But if your cash is sitting there because investing or doing something else with it feels scary, it may be time to look closer. If you want help figuring out how much cash to keep, what to invest, and how to connect it all to your real goals, learn more about working with me at gwawealth.com or follow the link in your show notes. Follow the show on your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode and leave me a quick rating and review. Continue the conversation on Instagram at everyone's talking money. Remember, money should not just sit there making you feel temporarily safe.

Shari Rash (41:20): Money should be a tool that helps you live life on your terms. I'll see you next Tuesday in your episode feed.

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