Speaker 1: Welcome to How the Money. I'm Joel, I'm Matt, and
Speaker 1: today we're discussing by nothing groups, student loan forgiveness made Easy,
Speaker 1: and Jack cries hyper inflation. That's right. We're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about Jack Dorsey, plus a bunch of other stories, actual
Speaker 1: stories that we came across this week. And we're not
Speaker 1: going to be comment commenting on the newest iteration of
Speaker 1: his facial hair because that's a constantly changing with that.
Speaker 1: This could be a podcast i think, dedicated solely to
Speaker 1: that which we wanted to see going on right now. Um,
Speaker 1: it's like a very long looking goatee. Oh well, he's
Speaker 1: always said that, like it's just a wild looking beard.
Speaker 1: But but first we wanted to share that we are
Speaker 1: going to have some listener hangs here in Atlanta, not today,
Speaker 1: not this Friday, but rather next Friday, November. We are
Speaker 1: going to be meeting up at Monday Night Garage at
Speaker 1: seven five. I think Joel is going to be paying
Speaker 1: for beers. But please come out if you're in Atlanta
Speaker 1: or near Atlanta, we would love for you to come
Speaker 1: out in November five Money Night Garage. We're gonna have
Speaker 1: a little How the Money listener hang, yes, I'm looking
Speaker 1: forward to it, Matt. Here's why, though, I won't be
Speaker 1: able to pay for beers. Okay, tell me, because I am.
Speaker 1: I just want to ticket to go to the World Series. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you pull the trigger, you're doing it? I did,
Speaker 1: I did, And so yeah, this is instead of fibular cheap.
Speaker 1: This is dumb or criminally insane. No, it's dude, No,
Speaker 1: no it is not. Because you are such a big
Speaker 1: Braves fan and this is something that's gonna be worth
Speaker 1: it for you, right, I mean, And not to mention
Speaker 1: you're since you're covering beers for everybody, we know that
Speaker 1: you're in a You're in a good place financially. It
Speaker 1: would be different if you were saddled with loads of debts.
Speaker 1: It would be different if you hadn't been making smart
Speaker 1: moves with your money for the past fifteen years, ten
Speaker 1: years ago, going going to the World Series, which wasn't
Speaker 1: an option because it's been twenty two years since the
Speaker 1: Braves have been to the World Series. Yeah, and it,
Speaker 1: and that has been one of those like bucket list
Speaker 1: items since I was a kid's going to a World
Speaker 1: Series game, go and enjoy the heck out of it. Like,
Speaker 1: do you feel guilty at all? For kind of I mean,
Speaker 1: this is a small amount, it's a decent I will say,
Speaker 1: it's a small amount of guild for sure. But you
Speaker 1: need to not you need to push that out of
Speaker 1: your mind and just enjoy it to the max. And
Speaker 1: I want you to extract every amount of enjoyment from
Speaker 1: that game. Oh I will, I will, but don't lose
Speaker 1: your voice because we need to record. I thought about that.
Speaker 1: I'll try not to. But fortunately, at least one of
Speaker 1: my friends is a season ticket holder, and so I
Speaker 1: saw that standing room tickets are going for like eight
Speaker 1: hundred bucks. I paid four hundred bucks for the ticket,
Speaker 1: So it's that is awesome. It's definitely it's a discount, right,
Speaker 1: it's not it's not quite full freight, which I'm thinking
Speaker 1: for because because to be honest, like we we all
Speaker 1: have a price threshold, kind of like that that four
Speaker 1: pack of beer I talked about recently, I walked away
Speaker 1: from it. If it was eight hundred dollars to get in,
Speaker 1: I would say no plus standing remotely, like like you
Speaker 1: don't you do not have a guaranteed seats if you're
Speaker 1: just getting that eight hundred dollar ticket yeah, which I'd
Speaker 1: be okay with standing room only if it was like
Speaker 1: even if it was like two fifty or something like that.
Speaker 1: But we all have our breaking point before hundred bucks.
Speaker 1: For me, for this bucket list item, I'm doing it.
Speaker 1: So go Braves. We'll see if we can win game
Speaker 1: three tonight. Um, I'm sure hoping so well. Even though
Speaker 1: I haven't been following it at all, I'm hoping so
Speaker 1: as well. I mean, I'm not so. I mean back
Speaker 1: when I was a kid, like when I was ten
Speaker 1: or eleven years old, there wasn't anything bigger than the
Speaker 1: Braves back in the nineties, right, But I haven't been
Speaker 1: following it as closely. But even I might turn the
Speaker 1: game on here in the next couple of days. Let's
Speaker 1: hope my face Paint Itself gets on the TV. But
Speaker 1: all right, let's move on to the Friday Flights. It's
Speaker 1: a sampling of stories we found interesting this week and
Speaker 1: how those pertain to your money. And so the first
Speaker 1: story we want to cover today. Truly, one person's trash
Speaker 1: is another person's treasure. The New York Times had a
Speaker 1: great right up on by Nothing Groups that's really worth reading.
Speaker 1: Will link to it in our show notes. But the
Speaker 1: passionate folks in these groups, they do a fantastic job
Speaker 1: really of offering up used goods that might otherwise end
Speaker 1: up in the landfill. I'm always amazed at some of
Speaker 1: the things that get posted in our local buy nothing group.
Speaker 1: The New York Times actually mentioned dryer lent being something
Speaker 1: that got snatched up recently. You can use that to
Speaker 1: uh like kindling for a little campfire or hamster beds.
Speaker 1: Apparently I didn't know that, but uh yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: little weird. And somebody in mind this week was requesting acorns. Oh,
Speaker 1: they should come over to our house. The oak trees
Speaker 1: behind our house are dropping acorns left orright? Have you?
Speaker 1: I mean as we're sitting here working, you can hear them.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah. So it's it's kind of just a
Speaker 1: fascinating place because you never know what somebody's gonna offer
Speaker 1: up or what somebody's gonna request. And I actually just
Speaker 1: scored two Halloween costumes this week on the buy Nothing group.
Speaker 1: I myself, I'm going to be the man of the
Speaker 1: yell hat from Curious George and my little Dude I
Speaker 1: wish he got a Curio Storge costume, but that would
Speaker 1: have been great, I know, but he's gonna be a dinosaur,
Speaker 1: so free costumes for the wind nights. I didn't know
Speaker 1: you were doing a dinosaur. So I think Westy is
Speaker 1: gonna be an alligator because Kayton, we're planning to be
Speaker 1: low key. It's basically a dinosaur, yeah, but specifically alligator
Speaker 1: lowkey Okay, I don't know what that is, so yeah,
Speaker 1: you'll see. So I mean, what's the weirdest thing that
Speaker 1: you have seen in our local buy nothing group? Because
Speaker 1: you know, with it being predominantly on Facebook, I am
Speaker 1: not on there. Yeah, but I did see that by
Speaker 1: Nothing that they're looking to launch a standalone app, in
Speaker 1: which case I could totally see myself getting on there.
Speaker 1: I just don't like getting inundated with all the other
Speaker 1: distractions actually hop hopping in Facebook. I know. I rarely
Speaker 1: head over there to Facebook in general. I will say.
Speaker 1: The great thing now, though, is I have the news
Speaker 1: feed eradicator plug in. I've had that for years. So
Speaker 1: do you have that on your phone as well? No,
Speaker 1: but I don't usually use it on my phone, so
Speaker 1: I usually go just on the desktop and I go
Speaker 1: straight to the Hat of Money Facebook group to check
Speaker 1: in on things there and I go to local buy
Speaker 1: nothing or the neighborhood civic association groups and groups are
Speaker 1: really the only thing I use Facebook for. I don't
Speaker 1: ever post, I don't really read people stuff that's just um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of crummy things about Facebook or time
Speaker 1: sucking things about Facebook, and I just want to use
Speaker 1: it for only the tools that I enjoy. But I
Speaker 1: just wanted to say, yeah, buy nothing groups can be
Speaker 1: a little weird, a little offbeat, but adorable at the
Speaker 1: same time. And I just encourage other folks to join
Speaker 1: one if they're on Facebook, and if not, to look
Speaker 1: forward to this standalone app in the future so that
Speaker 1: you can still participate, because it really it's like neighbors
Speaker 1: help and neighbors and I think it's it's just like
Speaker 1: it's a good thing. And that's one of the positive
Speaker 1: benefits that the Internet has brought us, that connectivity on
Speaker 1: that level. It's just that's a good stuff. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: buy nothing groups are a great way to keep you
Speaker 1: from spending all of your money. Uh. And on a
Speaker 1: related note, let's talk about the high price of burnout,
Speaker 1: because there is a great article in the Wall Street
Speaker 1: Journal decelling the reality that most of us tend to
Speaker 1: spend more money when we're exhausted, and when we're overwhelmed,
Speaker 1: we spend on the little conveniences that we might otherwise
Speaker 1: have considered too costly, or these once in a while
Speaker 1: treats kinda like they become more habitual, they become more regular,
Speaker 1: they find their way into our monthly budgets. And so
Speaker 1: when you've been put through the ringer at work, or
Speaker 1: if you have other stressors that are impacting your life,
Speaker 1: it's important to recognize what's going on. We don't want
Speaker 1: you to fall prey to the burnout temptation of just
Speaker 1: scrolling on Instagram, uh and more spur of the moment purchases.
Speaker 1: On one hand, I understand the need for expenses to
Speaker 1: go up if you're working a lot. I was talking
Speaker 1: with a friend of mine earlier this week, and he
Speaker 1: has been working until like eight, nine, even ten o'clock
Speaker 1: at night, and I guarantee that he doesn't have time
Speaker 1: these days to go to the grocery store on the
Speaker 1: way home from More go home, cook himself a nice, affordable,
Speaker 1: healthy meal, eating those hot pockets, hopefully not hot pockets.
Speaker 1: Hopefully the firm is covering dinner for them as well,
Speaker 1: which I'm sure is the case, but there's a lot
Speaker 1: of folks who don't have those kind of perks, and
Speaker 1: in those instances, I understand, especially when it comes to food,
Speaker 1: there's a convenience, Like there's a higher cost of convenience
Speaker 1: that you're gonna pay for in order to eat some
Speaker 1: food quickly without that taking a lot of time. But
Speaker 1: hopefully in addition to that, you're also making a little
Speaker 1: bit more money, and so in my mind it kind
Speaker 1: of balances out a little bit. But on the other hand,
Speaker 1: if you're a little burnt out and that's causing you
Speaker 1: to consume, like buy more dumb stuff, basically, that's definitely
Speaker 1: something we want to warn folks about. When you're consumeristic
Speaker 1: defenses are down, Essentially, it can be easy to get
Speaker 1: knocked in the face all of a sudden you're buying
Speaker 1: a bunch of stuff. That's what we want folks to
Speaker 1: avoid for sure. Yeah, it's like the shields being down
Speaker 1: the money and falcon or something like that, and you're
Speaker 1: just more prone to attack the best star man. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, that's right, do you My Star Wars references
Speaker 1: are terrible, but so it just makes me think that
Speaker 1: one yet, breaking that habit of scrolling is is a
Speaker 1: good thing, like working to break that habit is helpful.
Speaker 1: That news feed eradicator app that I mentioned is helpful
Speaker 1: one to help break that habit. And but if you
Speaker 1: still just kind of love the idea of mindless scrolling
Speaker 1: instead of scrolling Instagram where every fourth thing you see
Speaker 1: is an ad, scroll that buy nothing group instead and
Speaker 1: find the funky things that you know you you might
Speaker 1: be able to go pick up from a neighbor for
Speaker 1: free instead of buying something. And also yeah, find alternatives
Speaker 1: uh to the costly purchases that burnout can cause. We
Speaker 1: would say, get outside. You might feel like you can't
Speaker 1: afford to take the time for let's say, a twenty
Speaker 1: minute walk out in nature or in your neighborhood, but
Speaker 1: in reality you probably can't afford not to. Financial margin
Speaker 1: is crucial, But if you feel like you're hitting a
Speaker 1: wall when it comes to the demands on your time,
Speaker 1: it's crucial to take a step back and find ways
Speaker 1: to incorporate activities that are going to lead to better
Speaker 1: health overall for you. You can't just focus only on
Speaker 1: the money and achieving whatever financial goals you've set for yourself. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you got to think about the holistic person. And then
Speaker 1: if burnout is this continual struggle for you, and work
Speaker 1: is the perpetual culprit, well it might be time to
Speaker 1: look elsewhere and to prioritize an employer who incorporates better boundaries,
Speaker 1: who doesn't expect you to apply to a Slack message
Speaker 1: at eight pm, expect you to be constantly checking your phone.
Speaker 1: And this is a great time to look elsewhere if
Speaker 1: you're feeling like, you know what, there's no way out
Speaker 1: of this burnout conundrum. Uh, in the in the situation
Speaker 1: that I currently find myself in, I've got to get
Speaker 1: out of it completely. That's right, man. Let's talk about
Speaker 1: cars next. The we we saw that the average price
Speaker 1: of a new car has just topped forty five tho
Speaker 1: dollars for the first time. This is according to consumer
Speaker 1: reports and True Car. Uh. Dude, forty five dollars is
Speaker 1: a tremendous amount of money. Uh, nine times when I
Speaker 1: paid for homers And with supply chain bottlenecks and the
Speaker 1: car industry being basically in the dumps, like you can't
Speaker 1: even get the exact car that you want right now.
Speaker 1: From what I'm sorry, your car is gonna have to
Speaker 1: be hot pig, sir, And it's no seriously exactly yeah,
Speaker 1: from I mean, there's different folks who know who are
Speaker 1: looking at getting new vehicles and basically they can't get
Speaker 1: what they want. It's kind of it's more like a
Speaker 1: beggar's can't be choosers mindset or like take take what
Speaker 1: you can get scenario out there and this that just
Speaker 1: puts it in perspective how expensive new cars are. On
Speaker 1: top of that, the average price on a new truck
Speaker 1: it's even more dude sixty thou dollars. While it's uh,
Speaker 1: it's certainly possible for a new car to be your
Speaker 1: craft beer equivalent, you'll want to make sure that you're
Speaker 1: doing some soul searching before you decide that it definitely is.
Speaker 1: If you're splurge has a couple of extra zeros after it,
Speaker 1: you can think a little bit harder. I think twice.
Speaker 1: And even though use car prices are through the roof
Speaker 1: as well, that just the current stratosphere that new car
Speaker 1: prices have reached just makes it an even bigger financial
Speaker 1: commitment and it means that your personal finances have to
Speaker 1: be an excellent shape in order to make a purchase
Speaker 1: of this magnitude. I agree. And speaking of consumer reports, Matt,
Speaker 1: they were writing a bunch of winning stuff this week.
Speaker 1: I love that they dropped the knowledge about how much
Speaker 1: these cars are costing right now, the average price of
Speaker 1: new car skyrocketing. But they wrote another article which showed
Speaker 1: that Americans are overpaying on their car loans, So in
Speaker 1: addition to the higher sticker price, they're also paying higher
Speaker 1: rates of interest unnecessarily. In fact, despite having a great
Speaker 1: credit score, dealerships often succeed in writing you alone at
Speaker 1: an interest rate far beyond what you should be paying.
Speaker 1: First things first, Matt and I don't like car loans.
Speaker 1: We don't. Nope, I don't really like buying new cars
Speaker 1: in general, or taking out loans to pay for depreciating assets.
Speaker 1: Although one could argue that cars are not a depreciating
Speaker 1: asset in the here now, but that's extremely rare. Count
Speaker 1: on that continuing exactly, we would prefer to see you
Speaker 1: pay cash for car, even if it means buying an
Speaker 1: extremely used car in even like the five thousand dollar range.
Speaker 1: That is exactly how much my current minivan cost, which
Speaker 1: two years ago to the equivalent today might be like
Speaker 1: maybe what you can find find a decent used car
Speaker 1: for right, But if you do decide to take on
Speaker 1: a car loan, know what your credit score is before
Speaker 1: you start the search. And if you've got good credit,
Speaker 1: we would say push to get a competitive rate. Don't
Speaker 1: just take the rate that's given to you. And that
Speaker 1: means shopping around, and so we would say check with
Speaker 1: your local credit union to see what rates you might
Speaker 1: qualify for before you go car shopping. You want to
Speaker 1: have that quote in hand so that when a dealership says,
Speaker 1: here's the rate you qualify at and you say, that's
Speaker 1: funny my credit unions, as I qualify at three and
Speaker 1: a half percent and you're telling me it's that doesn't
Speaker 1: make any sense. And since we're seeing record levels of
Speaker 1: car deebt overall, it's just important to mention that cardet sucks,
Speaker 1: like it's it's a crummy thing to have. We don't
Speaker 1: want you to have it. It might have become perfectly
Speaker 1: normal in our culture overall, but it shouldn't be normal
Speaker 1: for how the money listeners. We want you to avoid it,
Speaker 1: like the plague. Yeah, so the higher costs of new
Speaker 1: cars in general. That, coupled with higher rates of interest
Speaker 1: that these different lenders are pushing on folks. Both of
Speaker 1: those things have led to the average new car monthly
Speaker 1: payment being five hundred and sixty bucks last year, all
Speaker 1: time highs, which would give you more than enough to
Speaker 1: fully fund a roth Ira. So essentially, that car payment
Speaker 1: is keeping you from becoming a millionaire by the time
Speaker 1: you retire. Keep that in mind when you think about
Speaker 1: it like that, the trade off factor, it's like it's
Speaker 1: not worth it. No, not not at all, uh and dued.
Speaker 1: One of the worst parts about buying a new car,
Speaker 1: I mean, besides how much they cost, is the car
Speaker 1: warranty robotcalls that you'll have to endure might be worse
Speaker 1: than the monthly payment. You've seen like the different memes
Speaker 1: right where it's just like we've been trying to contact
Speaker 1: you about your car's extent. Do you have you seen those?
Speaker 1: I have? They're like yeah, and um, like a fortune
Speaker 1: cookie or like on a pregnancy test or my favorite one.
Speaker 1: I actually saw them reasonably that I like looking at memes. Uh,
Speaker 1: It's how I like to spend the remaining minutes I
Speaker 1: have before I go to bed. But there was one
Speaker 1: that I saw that was on the Squid Game invitation card,
Speaker 1: you know the card where they invite folks to the game,
Speaker 1: and he flips it over and it's like, we've been
Speaker 1: trying to contact you. Which on that note, actually next
Speaker 1: week we actually recorded a Squid Game financial Lessons money
Speaker 1: lessons episode, and you can look forward to uh to
Speaker 1: that one next week next Wednesday. But regarding these robocalls,
Speaker 1: Americans receive roughly thirteen billion of these specific types of
Speaker 1: phone calls every year. They're actually the top scam phone
Speaker 1: call in the US right now, according to robo Killer,
Speaker 1: and according to the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission. Uh So,
Speaker 1: David Lazarus from the l A times, he picked up
Speaker 1: his pen, he got to work his proverbial pan. I
Speaker 1: think the laptop his repetic choices. True, he probably actually
Speaker 1: writes things out on the computer. But he noted that
Speaker 1: these these supposed warranties are actually just service contracts that
Speaker 1: aren't worth the paper that they're written on. I think
Speaker 1: we all maybe suspected that, but he is confirming it,
Speaker 1: and we wanted to share that with you. But these
Speaker 1: extended warranties, in general, it's a tenuous decision. These aren't
Speaker 1: great products, and we would prefer for you to have
Speaker 1: the money on hand to pay for these hairs instead
Speaker 1: of plunking down thousands of dollars on a warranty, even
Speaker 1: if it's directly for the manufacturer of your vehicle. But
Speaker 1: if you're getting a call from, you know, one of
Speaker 1: these scam warranty companies, we would recommend that you definitely
Speaker 1: hang up the phone. Yes, and if you open up
Speaker 1: the fortune Cookie, just toss that in the trash, because, yeah,
Speaker 1: you want to avoid these in every turn. The manufacturers
Speaker 1: warranties aren't trash, They're still probably not worth the money.
Speaker 1: It's better just to have the money on hand and
Speaker 1: not put the thousands of hard earned dollars towards that
Speaker 1: extended warranty, especially if the kind of vehicle that you
Speaker 1: you purchased is mostly reliable. But yeah, without being literally
Speaker 1: the hottest, the number one scam these days, we wanted
Speaker 1: to mention hang up the phone, don't even consider it.
Speaker 1: But we've got more to get to on this episode, Matt,
Speaker 1: including cries of hyper inflation from the Twitter Master himself.
Speaker 1: Well we'll talk about that right after this. All Right,
Speaker 1: we're back for the break talking about headlines we came
Speaker 1: across this week. This is our Friday Flights, and of
Speaker 1: course it's time now to get to our ludicrous headline
Speaker 1: of the week, which actually doesn't have to do with
Speaker 1: hyper inflation. Uh. We'll get to that story here in
Speaker 1: a second. But the actual ludicrous headline is Florida Man,
Speaker 1: which you always gotta love Headlina Stori Florida Man. Uh,
Speaker 1: Florida Man, you piqued my interest already wins lottery and
Speaker 1: plans to buy a toothbrush. This is an article from
Speaker 1: a local news organization in Florida and listener Dan he
Speaker 1: posted this in the Facebook group a young dude named Brian.
Speaker 1: He ended up winning a million bucks from a scratch off,
Speaker 1: and you know, good for him, glad he wants some money.
Speaker 1: But we just wanted everyone real quick to know that
Speaker 1: we do not support you playing the lottery. I mean,
Speaker 1: here's the thing. If you buy a new car and
Speaker 1: don't play the lottery, if you are doing it because
Speaker 1: you know that you're just doing it for kicks, and
Speaker 1: if you're in a financial position to absorb that cost,
Speaker 1: and maybe I wanted to be in your budget, like
Speaker 1: like I wanted to be this planned, uh, decisive thing
Speaker 1: that you've decided in a moment of clarity, something that
Speaker 1: your coworkers or something like that. It's it's it feels okay,
Speaker 1: but if you're going to the gas station every every
Speaker 1: day kind of thing, that's probably unhealthy. Exactly. Yeah. But
Speaker 1: but Brian, he was insanely lucky, and so now he's
Speaker 1: got a lot of unexpected money flowing into his life,
Speaker 1: and so what's he gonna do with it? He wants
Speaker 1: a new pair of flip flaps, plus that electric toothbrush
Speaker 1: that we mentioned in the title. Uh, this guy is awesome.
Speaker 1: It sounds like that. Hopefully he'll be able to avoid,
Speaker 1: you know, the lott of curse of declaring bankruptcy within
Speaker 1: just a couple of years of winning. So fingers crossed
Speaker 1: that he'll be able to keep his desires in check
Speaker 1: as that money starts to flow into his account. And
Speaker 1: by the way, you know, he won a million bucks,
Speaker 1: but he's actually receiving less than eight hundred thousand because
Speaker 1: of taxes. Taxes. Gotta keep that in mind. You definitely, yeah,
Speaker 1: did you start spending all that money? You see the
Speaker 1: headline number and it's like, that's not actually how much
Speaker 1: money you're gonna get, And if he lived in a
Speaker 1: state like California, he'd beginning even less but more of
Speaker 1: those state income tax So good on you, Brian. But Matt,
Speaker 1: let's let's just keep moving on. If the ludicrous headline
Speaker 1: was a tweet in my have been one from Twitter
Speaker 1: CEO Jack Dorsey this week, he made a remark about
Speaker 1: hyper inflation, and his tweet read, and I quote, hyper
Speaker 1: inflation is going to change everything. It's happening, end quote,
Speaker 1: And all right, buddy. I didn't know how to respond
Speaker 1: to that. I didn't actually respond to that, and not
Speaker 1: that he would have read it if I didn't. I
Speaker 1: think he was waiting on you to get He's like,
Speaker 1: how do the how do money guys feel about my tweets?
Speaker 1: What do you think about my take? Well? I think
Speaker 1: my complete dismissal love it. Jack tells you everything you
Speaker 1: need to know. It's important to note, though, that there
Speaker 1: is a huge difference between the inflation that is happening
Speaker 1: right now that Matt and I have been talking about
Speaker 1: four months and months and months and hyper inflation. Just
Speaker 1: ask somebody who lives in Venezuela what hyper inflation like
Speaker 1: it's a completely different scenario than what we're enduring here
Speaker 1: in the United States, where it's like two thousand percent.
Speaker 1: Is their inflation right right? Exactly? Yes, And it's a
Speaker 1: far cry from what we are currently dealing with. And
Speaker 1: when he says it's happening now, well, hyper inflation has
Speaker 1: an actual definition, and you can compare what's happening now
Speaker 1: in real numbers to the actual definition, and you can
Speaker 1: see that it doesn't hold any water. His argument doesn't
Speaker 1: hold any water. And basically the definition is when the
Speaker 1: price for goods and services are going up at roughly
Speaker 1: fifty percent a month or a thousand percent in a year.
Speaker 1: And so we talked about rising prices in this country,
Speaker 1: and they certainly are going up, but that would mean
Speaker 1: that that price or on that good or services going
Speaker 1: up every single day. Like you might check a price
Speaker 1: on Amazon in the morning about that evening it costs
Speaker 1: ten percent more and you're like, WHOA, I should have
Speaker 1: bought it earlier. But that is not what's happening in
Speaker 1: this like a year later, not twenty four hours later. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: And so I feel like this is like kind of
Speaker 1: crying wolf. It's getting people throwing some people in a tizzy,
Speaker 1: and no, hyper inflation is not here. We all know
Speaker 1: that Twitter is not the best place to get your
Speaker 1: information or to have a nuanced conversation about the crucial
Speaker 1: topics of our day. But this really only reinforces that
Speaker 1: inflation that we are experiencing. Like, like you said, Jill,
Speaker 1: it is sticking around more than we expected, but we're
Speaker 1: nowhere near hyper inflation like it would seriously wreck our economy,
Speaker 1: and we are not seeing that. I'm not gonna say
Speaker 1: that it's impossible because I don't know what the future holds,
Speaker 1: but it is not something at all that we're expecting
Speaker 1: to see on the horizon anytime soon. And Joel, since
Speaker 1: we've just got them talking about sort of a tech blunder,
Speaker 1: maybe Jack stepping in it a little bit there on Twitter,
Speaker 1: let's mention another This one involves buying stuff online. Bloomberg
Speaker 1: they had this interesting article about bots buying Christmas gifts.
Speaker 1: That's right, it sounds cute. This is these are non
Speaker 1: cute boty little bot daughters and less robots and more
Speaker 1: automated software which is snapping up in demand items and
Speaker 1: reselling them for a profit. Uh, these bots are doing
Speaker 1: the bidding of folks who are trying to make just
Speaker 1: a massive profit from items that are in extremely limited supply.
Speaker 1: This is especially prevalent in like the white hot market
Speaker 1: of sneakers, you know, after this, bots will buy hundreds
Speaker 1: or thousands of items just in your seconds. They then
Speaker 1: just will turn around and then list those now sold
Speaker 1: out items on sites like eBay, which I don't like.
Speaker 1: I don't like ebab being used that way for double
Speaker 1: has a site. Though I like eBay, I don't like
Speaker 1: that that's happening to eBay because, like I mean, it
Speaker 1: makes eBay get a bad rap exactly. Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: see baseball. I see it as such, especially since I've
Speaker 1: been on there selling more recently. I see it as
Speaker 1: such a bastion of uh, you know, instead of you know,
Speaker 1: buying nothing. It's like, well, you can buy stuff you
Speaker 1: need and make a small profit, but it just helps
Speaker 1: keep stuff from going into the landfills. And how many
Speaker 1: yeasies did you buy while you run there? None? But sadly,
Speaker 1: these folks who are doing this, there's not much that
Speaker 1: can be done about it. There are there are a
Speaker 1: couple of companies that are selling this just different anti
Speaker 1: bought software to some of the big retailers like Walmart,
Speaker 1: and hopefully we will see that curb some of the
Speaker 1: this nefarious behavior that's going on. However, we wanted to
Speaker 1: share this with you because if there is an item
Speaker 1: that you really really want and it sells out, that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that you should pay double or even triple
Speaker 1: for it elsewhere. Instead, we want you to keep shopping
Speaker 1: or maybe even do the harder thing of like changing
Speaker 1: your mind and say, Okay, I no longer want this
Speaker 1: thing that I really really wanted to do some mental
Speaker 1: gymnastics jedi mind, choose something else. The Star Wars like
Speaker 1: that two for two. I think we actually got that
Speaker 1: one right where these are no longer the yeasies you
Speaker 1: are looking for. I love it if you could say
Speaker 1: that to yourself, it's gonna help a lot. That's what
Speaker 1: you want to do exactly, because we're we're going to
Speaker 1: see more and more of these shenanigans, whatever the hot
Speaker 1: toy is of the moment. We're gonna see more people
Speaker 1: with these automated programs snapping them up, basically grinch ing
Speaker 1: this stuff that you might have bought for your child
Speaker 1: or for yourself, and um, yeah, I hate seeing that
Speaker 1: Hopefully these anti bought softwares that are are are starting
Speaker 1: to get really good, are implemented more widely across more
Speaker 1: more of these sites that these bots are targeting. But
Speaker 1: let's move on to student loans for a second map
Speaker 1: there there is some some urgent news that we have
Speaker 1: to share for anybody out there who has student loans. No,
Speaker 1: your payments have not resumed yet the the Education coming
Speaker 1: up soon next year in February, but the Education Department
Speaker 1: has relaxed the requirements for what counts as qualified payments
Speaker 1: in the PSLF program Public Service Loan Forgiveness. This is
Speaker 1: huge because it means that about twenty two borrowers will
Speaker 1: automatically see their remaining loans erased straight up, poof gone yep,
Speaker 1: like magic, and then another twenty seven thousand borrowers could
Speaker 1: join them if they can show they were previously working
Speaker 1: in public service when they made payments that were considered
Speaker 1: ineligible at the time. And additionally, and estimated five hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty thousand borrowers will be able to have payments
Speaker 1: that were previously made to Federal Family Education loans and
Speaker 1: Federal Perkins loans count towards PSLF two. The only catches.
Speaker 1: If you haven't applied for PSLF, you have until October
Speaker 1: thirty one, Halloween, which is this weekend. You could do
Speaker 1: so you've got two days. So we're gonna put the
Speaker 1: link to this where you do that. On how to
Speaker 1: money dot com. Time is of the essence. You gotta
Speaker 1: do it immediately, but I'll read the website real quick
Speaker 1: to it's student aid dot gov slash p s l
Speaker 1: F waiver. That's right. And on the note of student loans,
Speaker 1: you know, we've talked about a few of the major
Speaker 1: student loan servicers who are all getting out of the
Speaker 1: federal student loan servicing game. So let's give some more
Speaker 1: details on that. Specifically, loans with navigants are going to
Speaker 1: be now serviced by Maximus. If you're with FED Loan,
Speaker 1: you might end up over at Mohila Nell, Net, ed
Speaker 1: Financial and Maximus. Those are all options for you, and
Speaker 1: then Granite State loans will be transferred over to ed
Speaker 1: Financial as well. Uh. This is all gonna be happening
Speaker 1: in the next couple of months and new servicers should
Speaker 1: be in place by the end of the year. Your
Speaker 1: repayment plans and interest rates will all remain the same,
Speaker 1: of course, and the good news is that you shouldn't
Speaker 1: have to do anything. If your loans are currently in
Speaker 1: deferment or if they're in forbearance, that should automatically carry over.
Speaker 1: But of course, with something this big and complicated, uh,
Speaker 1: something where the federal government is involved, you never know.
Speaker 1: And so that's why we want this to be on
Speaker 1: your radar. A lot of moving parts right here, Yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of things going on, and I would be
Speaker 1: actually shocked if everything goes as smoothly as it's supposed
Speaker 1: to agree. Just like in my own life, I assume
Speaker 1: that things are going to go goes well. Whenever I
Speaker 1: am telling Emily how long it's gonna take me to
Speaker 1: fix something, how long I'll be away from the house,
Speaker 1: She's always like twenty minutes. Really, like, how long is
Speaker 1: it actually gonna take time? Three? Yeah, well, I think
Speaker 1: it's gonna take twenty minutes because I'm an optimist, but
Speaker 1: you're right, it is always times more like an hour.
Speaker 1: And some of you may have already received information on this,
Speaker 1: but if you haven't, we would suggest logging into your
Speaker 1: current service or making sure they have all your updated
Speaker 1: information because you want to make sure you're getting all
Speaker 1: the correct details about the transition, and even if you
Speaker 1: have been getting that updated info, it wouldn't hurt to
Speaker 1: go ahead and make sure you have copies of all
Speaker 1: your information, like your payment history and your current balance
Speaker 1: is on hand. In particular, if you're working towards PSLF,
Speaker 1: you'll want to file an employment certification form to verify
Speaker 1: the number of payments you've made so far. It's an
Speaker 1: e c F by the way, you like the abbreviations
Speaker 1: go for us. Again, none of this should be absolutely necessary,
Speaker 1: but it wouldn't hurt to have your info saved on
Speaker 1: your own computer in case any snaff woos arise. One
Speaker 1: thing you will need to do. Most folks probably were
Speaker 1: enrolled in auto pay back before your federal student loans
Speaker 1: were put on hiatus. If so, you actually need to
Speaker 1: confirm your auto pay in order for those payments to
Speaker 1: automatically resume in February. So if your service or has changed,
Speaker 1: those auto payments aren't going to just turn on and resume.
Speaker 1: You've got to go in there and manually do something
Speaker 1: exactly Yeah, and you know there's no rush on that,
Speaker 1: unlike the making sure that you sign up for that
Speaker 1: pslf waiver, but do keep that mind as you are
Speaker 1: transitioned over to that new service or but will But
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure we'll be revisiting this topic in the
Speaker 1: coming months, as well as we get closer to February
Speaker 1: of next year. But Joe, that's gonna be it for
Speaker 1: this episode. Again, we want to remind folks that we
Speaker 1: were gonna have that listener hang coming up next Friday,
Speaker 1: November five. You should be able to recognize Joel and I.
Speaker 1: We look like the guys on the cover of your
Speaker 1: podcast artwork, except I do different. I got longer hair now.
Speaker 1: But we'll be out there hopefully. Interest It's not that great.
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm just giving you. Hey. I'm I'm actually
Speaker 1: not ashamed of having uh not just gray but white hairs.
Speaker 1: It's a sign of maturity, that's what some would say.
Speaker 1: But yeah, and I'm wisdom. I'm gonna go do some
Speaker 1: chopping tonight and watch the Braves win. But yeah, we
Speaker 1: hope to see you next Friday night at Monday Night
Speaker 1: Garage if you live in Atlanta at seven forty five.
Speaker 1: Follow us on Instagram for more details. But it's gonna
Speaker 1: be a lot of fun having beers with fellow money nerds,
Speaker 1: but Matt until next time. Best friends out, best friends out,