Each week the NZ Herald's Cooking the Books podcast tackles a different money problem. Today, it's where to put any extra money so it's working hardest for you. Hosted by Frances Cook.

Covid-19 shocked many of us into paying more attention to our money, with recent research from Sorted showing that more of us are talking about it, and wanting to handle it better.

Now, these are weird times, but for those of us who still have a job, there are actually financial opportunities at the moment.

Interest rates are very low, which means you could make serious progress on your mortgage and knock years off it.

Then again, the sharemarket is down, which means if you invest carefully there's the possibility of making far more money from it in the future.

Clearly you guys have been paying attention because heaps of Cooking the Books' listeners have sent me pretty much identical questions; if you have some extra money right now, should you be putting it on the mortgage, or investing?

It's a great question, and to be honest, there's no one-size-fits-all answer. But there are some easy ways you can figure out what's right for you, so let's get into them.

For the latest Cooking the Books I talked to Simon Stredder from Wealth & Co.

We discussed the pros and cons of extra mortgage payments, the pros and cons of putting the money into shares, and how to balance the two for your own life.

If you have a question you'd like answered in a future podcast, 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