Each week the NZ Herald and Newstalk ZB's Cooking The Books podcast tackles a different money problem. Today, it's whether there's an ideal way to allocate pots of money. Hosted by Frances Cook.

People seem to love the idea that you can set up a few hard and fast rules for your money, and if you just follow that diligently, you'll be safe.

So you see rules pop up like the 50/30/20 rule, the so-called "golden ratio" for your money.

The idea is that out of the money you earn, 50 per cent should go towards life's necessities, 30 per cent goes on discretionary spending, and 20 per cent goes towards savings or investments.

The problem is I'm not someone who likes rules very much. They can come across judgmental, when we all have very different circumstances.

So for the latest podcast, I called up Dr Ayesha Scott from AUT.

We discussed whether there's any truth to this "rule", the exceptions to it, and how to apply it to your life in a smarter way.

If you have a question about this podcast, or question you'd like answered in the next one, come and talk to me about it. I'm on Facebook here https://www.facebook.com/FrancesCookJournalist/ Instagram here https://www.instagram.com/francescooknz/ and Twitter here https://twitter.com/FrancesCook