Speaker 1: Welcome to How the Money. I'm Joel Matt and today
Speaker 1: we're talking more potential loan forgiveness, egg fights, and workplace drama. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and luckily that workplace drama does not include folks fighting
Speaker 1: over eggs. It's not happening between you and I either,
Speaker 1: not you and I. We've got plenty of eggs at home.
Speaker 1: Actually we've got I don't wanna not to brag or anything,
Speaker 1: but I'm pretty sure we've got eggs, Okay, Richie rich
Speaker 1: And it's not that we stocked up either, Like literally,
Speaker 1: we go through one of those twenty four costco flats
Speaker 1: like uh, in less than a week. I'll just say,
Speaker 1: I'm sure. Yeah, we definitely throw it out for a
Speaker 1: family of your size, I was gonna ask you when
Speaker 1: you used to go into the office to work, did
Speaker 1: you ever Speaking of workplace drama, it makes me think
Speaker 1: about folks putting labels on different sauces. People don't want
Speaker 1: other people. I would not put anything in the main
Speaker 1: fridge because there was like lots of stinky, rotting stuff
Speaker 1: in there too. After a point, so we had like
Speaker 1: a we had a tiny fridge. I shared an office
Speaker 1: with one other person. We had a tiny fridge and
Speaker 1: we just kind of shared that because that thing locked
Speaker 1: down to clean. And then don't let anybody else out
Speaker 1: their stuff in there because it just you know, you
Speaker 1: put it too the main fridge or get your own.
Speaker 1: I like it, man. But yeah, this is our Friday flight,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna talk about the best stories that we
Speaker 1: came across this week and how those stories are going
Speaker 1: to pertain to your personal finances. But Joel, let's let's
Speaker 1: talk about this, uh, this fancy dance we were invited
Speaker 1: to do we love our daughters or not. So a
Speaker 1: friend of our site shot was told us about it's
Speaker 1: a this guy, it's a it's a little nonprofit group.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure it's not like he's doing this for profit.
Speaker 1: And it is a daddy daughter dance essentially this and
Speaker 1: this is it's kind of fancy. You get dressed up
Speaker 1: and everything, you wear your nicest clothes. You go. It's
Speaker 1: in a venue in town that I have shot many times.
Speaker 1: It's a nice spot. A lot of a lot of
Speaker 1: folks get married there. But it's also really stinking expensive.
Speaker 1: I think it's a hundreds, like hundred sixty bucks for
Speaker 1: one kid for one night onto the town with your daughter,
Speaker 1: which is a lot of money. So you and I
Speaker 1: started to debate this, and we're like, oh no, this
Speaker 1: is this is a good fodder for the show. But
Speaker 1: if that's your let me let me hear your argument.
Speaker 1: What's yeah, where are you on this? If that's your
Speaker 1: jam as a dad? And you're like, this is gonna
Speaker 1: make my daughter feel special, this is what we're into.
Speaker 1: We like to do this, and I'm gonna budget the money,
Speaker 1: set it aside to go to this dance, take my
Speaker 1: daughter to this dance. I think that's great. I will
Speaker 1: say it's not for me, though, and I don't think
Speaker 1: it's for my kids. My my daughter, not your jam,
Speaker 1: my middle daughter. She prefers waffle house. That's what makes
Speaker 1: her feel special and honestly makes me feel happy to
Speaker 1: So I think your oldest daughter, you don't. You don't
Speaker 1: think she's gonna want to go dance and far you
Speaker 1: might like it. And even if she did, though, I'd
Speaker 1: still be hard pressed to spend a hundred sixty bucks
Speaker 1: on this dance. But I don't know that. I think
Speaker 1: she might be like, oh that was sweet, but it
Speaker 1: wouldn't mean more to her than there's a lot of
Speaker 1: other cool things I could do with her. The lost
Speaker 1: a lot less money, especially for that much. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: kind of on the fence. I'm like, let's go. I
Speaker 1: wanted to take her to a climbing gym soon and
Speaker 1: she was like, that sounds awesome. I'd rather fun on
Speaker 1: my dollars towards those experiences than something like this. Totally. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like we get around a lot of the
Speaker 1: draw to go to something like this through daddy daughter dates.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I'm thinking about taking one of our our
Speaker 1: youngest daughter to go get her nails done. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I feel like that's something that she would totally bucks
Speaker 1: and I would totally do it alongside with her, And
Speaker 1: I feel like that that would have a even bigger
Speaker 1: impression on her and that would just be a lot
Speaker 1: of fun. And the other thing too, And there are
Speaker 1: also other ways to go party, uh by going to
Speaker 1: friends weddings. I feel like weddings used to be this
Speaker 1: huge thing that folks would change their plans in order
Speaker 1: to make sure that they were able to attend to
Speaker 1: see family members, to see old friends. And I think
Speaker 1: that that could definitely be a way that you get
Speaker 1: some of that dancing elements, you know, where it is
Speaker 1: a party without having to fork out that much money.
Speaker 1: You can spend like a action to that on whatever
Speaker 1: gift you can get for that couple. I get the impetus.
Speaker 1: I feel like it's a sweet thought, and but it's
Speaker 1: I definitely get that. I think there's a way to
Speaker 1: do it for hopefully less money. Like that's that's just
Speaker 1: a lot of money. What you're missing out prohibitive and
Speaker 1: it's just not my jam anyway. What's cool, though, is
Speaker 1: being able to demonstrate how you want your daughter to
Speaker 1: expect someone that she were to go out out on
Speaker 1: a date with. Sure, you want to be able to
Speaker 1: set the bar real high. And so I guess that's
Speaker 1: the part of it that makes me still consider it
Speaker 1: a little bit, because it's like there's a whole there's
Speaker 1: just a formality around it that I want to see
Speaker 1: shown to my daughters if and when they go to
Speaker 1: dances or like when they start going on dates. This
Speaker 1: is in our future to do uh these kind of Yeah,
Speaker 1: these discussions are in the cards. So maybe we're being cheap.
Speaker 1: I don't know how, I don't think so it's not
Speaker 1: gonna happen for me this year, but maybe in the future,
Speaker 1: especially if there's a sweet discount come the cuts and
Speaker 1: half or something like that. But all right, let's move on, Matt.
Speaker 1: Let's get to the Friday flight in the sampling of
Speaker 1: stories we found interesting this week. Let's get that student
Speaker 1: one forgiveness to right off the bat, because you know,
Speaker 1: we still don't know what's going to happen with the
Speaker 1: Biden administration's ten to student loan forgiveness proposal that's still
Speaker 1: tied up in the courts. The Supreme Court is set
Speaker 1: to take that case up, likely in late spring. But
Speaker 1: there's potentially even more interesting news on the student loan
Speaker 1: front this week, something potentially even bigger than that student
Speaker 1: loan forgiveness, and most people being well, what's bigger than
Speaker 1: just getting a chunk of your debt lopped off? Well,
Speaker 1: new income based repayment rules could have an even bigger
Speaker 1: impact on a ton of college grads and the help
Speaker 1: that they're going to receive if these new IBr income
Speaker 1: based re payment rules are enacted. And there are a
Speaker 1: few different income based repayment plans currently on the books,
Speaker 1: but this new one is basically going to be uh
Speaker 1: a lot better than the ones that are currently around. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be a lot more generous. It could cut
Speaker 1: it's gonna cut in half the payment amounts for borrowers
Speaker 1: based on their discretionary income. And so we can see
Speaker 1: the average payment amount trop precipitously based on these you know,
Speaker 1: new income based rules loan balances, they wouldn't be allowed
Speaker 1: to grow if folks are making on time payments. We
Speaker 1: we'd see a lot more low income folks with a
Speaker 1: monthly student loan payment of zero dollars, which would obviously
Speaker 1: be majorly beneficial for their budget um. And it would
Speaker 1: also slash the forgiveness timeline from twenty years to ten,
Speaker 1: so cut that in half two for a whole lot
Speaker 1: of barbers as well. And so, while we're waiting for
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court to do their thing, this somewhat quiet proposal.
Speaker 1: It's it's getting some headlines, but it's not getting nearly
Speaker 1: the headlines that forgiveness forgiveness was. This could end up
Speaker 1: making I would say, a much bigger impact than ten
Speaker 1: thousand dollars lopped off your student loans. That's right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so friend of the show Travis over at student loan Planner,
Speaker 1: He tweeted Biden just proposed a permanent student loan pause
Speaker 1: and free college for almost all but no one realizes
Speaker 1: it yet. That's how big of an impact this might have. Yeah, exactly, so,
Speaker 1: I mean it would be an obvious relief to a
Speaker 1: lot of folks with significant amounts of student loan debt
Speaker 1: um and even after pay are set to resume, this
Speaker 1: would ensure that they kind of don't resume for millions
Speaker 1: of borrowers. Yeah, it's it's like a way to prolong.
Speaker 1: We're gonna push this out and then after ten years poof,
Speaker 1: you don't. You're calling it something else, but that's in
Speaker 1: effect what it's doing. You're eliminating it. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: where does this thing stand. Well, it's in this thirty
Speaker 1: day comment period, but we could see it become an
Speaker 1: official rule soon after that. And so yeah, one thing
Speaker 1: that we should mention is that, you know, neither this
Speaker 1: plan nor the forgiveness endeavor impact the sticker price of
Speaker 1: a college education. They're not addressing that head on, and
Speaker 1: we'd love to see some focus on actually bringing down
Speaker 1: the cost of college, not just helping folks pay for
Speaker 1: that overpriced education on the back end. And actually, I
Speaker 1: take that back I think it will have an impact
Speaker 1: on the sticker price of college because anytime you have
Speaker 1: the of a good being subsidied subsidized, what does that
Speaker 1: then do you? You've you've got the partakers, the folks
Speaker 1: who consume that good. They say, oh, well, if you're
Speaker 1: gonna give me money to buy this thing, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go buy more of that thing. You essentially are reducing
Speaker 1: the cost of college for individuals. And of course colleges,
Speaker 1: they only have a limited supply of their education, right, Like,
Speaker 1: there are only so many students that they can have
Speaker 1: on campus. And so if they have more folks than
Speaker 1: ever clamoring to get into their college because it's becoming
Speaker 1: effectively more affordable for those potential college grads, what are
Speaker 1: they gonna do to balance out that supply and demand
Speaker 1: you raise the stinking prices? Like, we only need to
Speaker 1: look back to the past two or three years to
Speaker 1: see something a very similar dynamic. Right during the pandemic,
Speaker 1: we were all wedding on those stemmy checks to show up.
Speaker 1: And what did that additional cash on hand? Cause it
Speaker 1: caused prices of all goods and services to skyrockets. Inflation
Speaker 1: we're talking about now being called yea general inflation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so we only need to look back. I mean,
Speaker 1: we we have a very recent example as to what
Speaker 1: this is likely going to do to something like we're
Speaker 1: not learning from that and the reality, Yeah, this does
Speaker 1: incentivize people to take out more and more student loan
Speaker 1: debt because you realize, well, hey, my payments probably are
Speaker 1: going to be that bad even you know, even if
Speaker 1: I do take on a d k uh in student
Speaker 1: loans to get that degree, and eventually they're going to
Speaker 1: be forgiven, So what's the harm? And it just encourages
Speaker 1: people to load up on stuff, and we're going to
Speaker 1: just see the federal government paying hundreds of billions of
Speaker 1: dollars to more than more than they already are total
Speaker 1: to subsidize people to go to college. And by the way,
Speaker 1: this isn't like this, This isn't a political soapbox. This
Speaker 1: is just economics. This is supply and demand. Uh. And
Speaker 1: another note, I mean, I don't blame individuals for taking
Speaker 1: advantage of that, because if you are going to incentivize
Speaker 1: a certain behavior, I think it would be foolish to
Speaker 1: not accept the offerings that are being presented to you. Say,
Speaker 1: I mean kind of like when you get to two
Speaker 1: and a half percent mortgage, right, you're like, cool, this
Speaker 1: is great, and then you don't want to pay it
Speaker 1: off when mortgage rates go up. Yeah, exactly. In going
Speaker 1: back to to the stimy checks, we were all sitting
Speaker 1: there waiting for those checks to drop, for for those
Speaker 1: checks to hit our bank accounts. It's not that as
Speaker 1: individuals we shouldn't necessarily respond to those incent tis. It's
Speaker 1: just that we feel that the government is going about
Speaker 1: this the wrong way. Yeah, for sure, And and and
Speaker 1: again not attacking the problem. We are trying to put
Speaker 1: a band aid on a gaping wounds, and the root cause,
Speaker 1: the root problem still remains unattended. But Matt, you mentioned inflation,
Speaker 1: and let's talk about egg prices, something that have become
Speaker 1: massively inflated recently. See more headlines about eggs over the
Speaker 1: past two weeks. Yes, you have, that's because they've gone
Speaker 1: up by something something like about in a month. So
Speaker 1: and uh, my wife Emily shoeing to Costco. You have
Speaker 1: two crates your lucky dog. But she said they were
Speaker 1: completely out of all eggs, even the expensive fans. But
Speaker 1: do you all have any right now in your fridge?
Speaker 1: Probably have like eighteen eggs in our friend. If you
Speaker 1: if you'll need some eggs, y'all, y'all let us know,
Speaker 1: don't don't worry. I'm coming knocking on your door. It
Speaker 1: is interesting to see egg prices rocking up in the
Speaker 1: way they are, like they're even higher in California. The
Speaker 1: l A time says that a dozen eggs is going
Speaker 1: to cost you seven dollars and thirty seven cents right now.
Speaker 1: And part of the reason there's so much more expensive
Speaker 1: in California is because law there only allows for cage
Speaker 1: free eggs, which means there's even less supply, which means,
Speaker 1: of course, even higher prices. And that is triple the
Speaker 1: cost of what you would have paid a year ago.
Speaker 1: It's something like two dollars and forty cents, and now
Speaker 1: it's seven dollars and thirty seven cents. So we've seen
Speaker 1: egg prices just go up precipitously. And apparently there are
Speaker 1: literally fights breaking out in the egg which sounds like
Speaker 1: it can actually threaten the precious, preciously loads of five eggs,
Speaker 1: like no, no, not the egg. Someone gets slammed into
Speaker 1: the pile of eggs and boom, you just like ruined.
Speaker 1: A bunch of one thing if you're fighting ever, like
Speaker 1: cans of beans, right, but like these eggs are gonna
Speaker 1: be harmed in the actual still half with like a
Speaker 1: slightly dented can of beans, but the eggs are just ruined.
Speaker 1: And it's it's not just your normal inflation trends though,
Speaker 1: that are causing the spike and egg prices. It's the
Speaker 1: Avian flu, which is leading to the deaths of tens
Speaker 1: of millions of chickens, wreaking havoc on the supply of
Speaker 1: just the most basic kitchen staple like that everyone has
Speaker 1: in the fridge or almost everyone, right, And when something
Speaker 1: goes up in the price in a big way, like
Speaker 1: the typically matt we would recommend a substitute for someone
Speaker 1: to say, hey, guess what chicken went up, but beef
Speaker 1: prices remain relatively stable. You should substitute and and eat
Speaker 1: more beef instead of chicken. That typically not how it works,
Speaker 1: but I'm just saying, like, usually we would say, don't
Speaker 1: buy the really expensive thing for a while, wait for
Speaker 1: prices to come down. But when it comes to eggs,
Speaker 1: there it's just not really any equivalent on that front.
Speaker 1: So you almost have to grin and merit kind of
Speaker 1: there is Well, have you ever heard of aquafaba? It's
Speaker 1: like this, um, it's the water. How do you know
Speaker 1: about all these weird things? Because my wife is Kate,
Speaker 1: and so we talked about food stuff. It's the liquid
Speaker 1: that's left behind in a can of chick piece and
Speaker 1: so it's like the starchy, protein laden liquid. And evidently
Speaker 1: and you can you can whip it and create a meringue,
Speaker 1: which normally called egg whites. So it's like a it's
Speaker 1: like a vegan egg white substitute. Basically, what's like, what's
Speaker 1: the yolk substitute? Matt h caldberry cream eggs. It's a
Speaker 1: good point. It kind of makes one wonder if they
Speaker 1: should like buy some of those chickens, get the jump
Speaker 1: in on the backyard chicken trend, go back to their
Speaker 1: agrarian roots. Yeah, Like I mean we did that for
Speaker 1: a while away back in the day. Another way you
Speaker 1: can keep from blowing out your grocery budget is by
Speaker 1: wasting less food, which is what The New York Times
Speaker 1: wrote about this week. One of my favorite topics. The
Speaker 1: average household shovels nearly a third one third of their
Speaker 1: food into the garbage. Uh. And this article talked about
Speaker 1: a town in Ohio that's on a mission to do
Speaker 1: something about it, largely through education, and so much of
Speaker 1: the waste that that happens obviously, it's it's at the
Speaker 1: household level. Uh. And so there are a number of
Speaker 1: things that you can do to reduce food waste. We've
Speaker 1: got a few tips. First of all, playing your meals.
Speaker 1: Once you have that plan, make a list, and then
Speaker 1: shop via that list. Don't go to the grocery store hungry,
Speaker 1: and you know, bypass the egg. I'll start walking through
Speaker 1: all the prepared foods that looks so delicious, that costs
Speaker 1: so much money. Though. But then on the back end
Speaker 1: of fixing a meal, make sure that you eat, or
Speaker 1: if you if you don't eat, freeze your leftovers. I
Speaker 1: know this sounds super basic, but oftentimes the most simple
Speaker 1: solutions are going to be the most effective. Usually, the
Speaker 1: biggest food waste culprit is that we're just scraping those
Speaker 1: leftovers into the trash trash man. Yeah, and it's not
Speaker 1: always easy. I will say so recently, we bought a
Speaker 1: bunch of like a Costco. It's like three pounds of
Speaker 1: sliced chicken breast, for the for the kids, and some
Speaker 1: other cheeps, some fancy provogom that we've never gotten before.
Speaker 1: Kids didn't like it? Did I throw that food away?
Speaker 1: Heck no, I've been eating it for like three days straight.
Speaker 1: I've noticed you're like, I think you like it, but
Speaker 1: you're also probably tired of it. But but you're pushing through.
Speaker 1: I liked it initially, I am getting tired of it.
Speaker 1: But guess what, it's the weekend, and so I'm gonna
Speaker 1: toss that in the freezer. I'm gonna revisit those leftovers
Speaker 1: sometime next week. So do the same thing. Eat those
Speaker 1: leftovers if you If you feel like you've had it
Speaker 1: too much, maybe you're getting sick of it, toss it
Speaker 1: in the freezer and pull that out in a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks or maybe at the end of the month
Speaker 1: and once your grocery budget UH is looking a little
Speaker 1: more lean, and also maybe dial back on how many
Speaker 1: unless you're making yeah, going back to the afford them anymore.
Speaker 1: We're not experts on the bird diseases out there, so
Speaker 1: we don't have any idea where the price of eggs
Speaker 1: are headed. But if I mean if egg prices continue
Speaker 1: to go up, you might, you know, want to cut
Speaker 1: back a bit on the consumption of those and also consider,
Speaker 1: let me make some adjustments to your budget, because you
Speaker 1: need to make sure that you're spending is reflecting this
Speaker 1: this new reality. All right, Matt, We got more to
Speaker 1: get to on this Friday flight. And we talked just
Speaker 1: a second ago about one government proposal that could massively
Speaker 1: impact how much people have to pay on their student loans.
Speaker 1: But there's another government proposal that might go into effect
Speaker 1: later this year too that might have an even bigger
Speaker 1: impact on our economy and on a bunch of individuals.
Speaker 1: Will discuss that and more right after this the rubber back.
Speaker 1: Do you think we talked a little bit too much
Speaker 1: about eggs before the break? I don't want this to
Speaker 1: be like, yeah, okay, everyone eats them. It's it's really important,
Speaker 1: like and it's crazy to see something like that. We're
Speaker 1: all like, inflation eight percent a year. You're like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's tough of stomach, but a price has literally been up.
Speaker 1: It felt like it. And so that being said, we
Speaker 1: gotta stop because now we are talking. Uh, it is
Speaker 1: now time for our ludicrous headline of the week doesn't
Speaker 1: comes from Bloomberg on the headline reads airline stocks dip
Speaker 1: as f a A system failure leads to groundings. Basically,
Speaker 1: you may have seen this earlier this week, but the
Speaker 1: f a A may have been to the airport and
Speaker 1: been like, hopefully your airport that the notification system it
Speaker 1: had an outage on Wednesday morning and that impacted airlines
Speaker 1: in a meaningful way, causing obviously more delays and cancelations
Speaker 1: of flights. And you might be thinking this is kind
Speaker 1: of a what an odd ludicrous headline, right, Well, it
Speaker 1: kind of felt like a good way to show that
Speaker 1: there are all sorts of things that can impact the
Speaker 1: price of individual stocks, especially in the short term, and
Speaker 1: many of which are out of the hands of the
Speaker 1: businesses themselves. You know, this was an an f a A
Speaker 1: A failure, not the airlines themselves, but still they felt
Speaker 1: the brunt of that failure at least for a little while. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so it's just important to keep in mind that
Speaker 1: all sorts of things can impact the value of an
Speaker 1: individual stock or even an entire industry. An errant tweet
Speaker 1: makes me think back to Elon Musk. Haven't heard from
Speaker 1: him in a while. What's he up to? Who knows?
Speaker 1: Hopefully he's back to work. Hopefully he's actually like working
Speaker 1: yet not less tweeting, more running, doing what he's best at.
Speaker 1: But other environmental effects, you like rising interest rates or
Speaker 1: even going in and exiting a pandemic, you can't predict
Speaker 1: these things as an individual investor, as smart as you
Speaker 1: think you might be. And that's why, you know, buying
Speaker 1: an entire basket of let's say, five D stocks and
Speaker 1: an index fund is a far better move, we think
Speaker 1: for almost everyone out there. What are you referring to,
Speaker 1: man or three thou that's another approach you can take. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: so we had a listener email us last year and
Speaker 1: he was he told us, Matt, how insane we are
Speaker 1: for telling our listeners not to invest in single stocks.
Speaker 1: And he specifically detailed how amazing it's been for him
Speaker 1: owning Apple and Tesla stock. And he's like, uh, I
Speaker 1: mean this was probably this was probably nine or ten
Speaker 1: months ago, and he was talking about how much money
Speaker 1: he made and how we must be just complete ignoramuses
Speaker 1: to not suggest that our listeners do the same. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Tesla in particular was on a nice rod up to
Speaker 1: the up to its peak. Yes it was, And I
Speaker 1: didn't want to dissuade him from doing what he wanted
Speaker 1: to do. But I'm also not willing to change my
Speaker 1: take and what we recommend folks to invest in based
Speaker 1: purely on this dude's experience. And so the question is, like,
Speaker 1: how are those stocks doing now that we're doing so
Speaker 1: well for him a year ago. Well, even though Tesla
Speaker 1: as a company has had a solid last twelve months,
Speaker 1: the stock has dropped more than And that's another thing.
Speaker 1: It's like, it's not like Tesla's massively missing out on
Speaker 1: the deliveries of the vehicles they said they're gonna make.
Speaker 1: They've been doing pretty good on that front, but they
Speaker 1: delivered more than ever at the you know, by the
Speaker 1: end of two maybe not quite as many as they
Speaker 1: were shooting for, but still the most pret on close,
Speaker 1: and it was the most they've ever done. And yet
Speaker 1: still the stock has been snake bitten. And so how's
Speaker 1: that listener feeling now? I don't know, I haven't talked
Speaker 1: to him in a while, but he's probably not doing
Speaker 1: not very happy with his individual stock choices, unless he
Speaker 1: bought that Tesla stock like a bunch of years back. Still,
Speaker 1: but the truth is that there's just too much data
Speaker 1: showing how risky it is to invest heavily in just
Speaker 1: a few companies. And even if that company is a
Speaker 1: pretty good one, like a company like Southwest, they had issues,
Speaker 1: right that we talked about last week, and you never
Speaker 1: know when a storm or an f a, a failure
Speaker 1: can hurt that company's stock performance. So diversification, we would say,
Speaker 1: is the only free lunch in Our suggestion as always
Speaker 1: is to dedicate no more than five percent of your
Speaker 1: overall portfolio to risk your individual picks. And again, Matt,
Speaker 1: the the story that that you you mentioned from Bloomberg,
Speaker 1: it's like, this is this is one of those things
Speaker 1: that that investors couldn't have predicted that there was going
Speaker 1: to be some sort of failure in this system that
Speaker 1: impacts the profitability of airlines. But it did, it does,
Speaker 1: and there's all sorts of things that we can't predict,
Speaker 1: and that's why it's best for us to do less
Speaker 1: predicting and to stick to that basic, boring investing method. Exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, honestly, it's important to note that basically everyone's
Speaker 1: strategy failed over the over the past year, right, some
Speaker 1: just did worse than others. And when you are invested
Speaker 1: in single stocks, you're gonna see potentially higher upsides, but
Speaker 1: also you're gonna see dramatic downsides when things aren't looking
Speaker 1: so great. And many of the folks who did the worst,
Speaker 1: they were heavily allocated to individual stocks, often the tech sector.
Speaker 1: So yeah, we believe that diversification is key. UH and
Speaker 1: the brilliant investing writer Jason's Wage he wrote this week
Speaker 1: about how our response to that failure, how it should
Speaker 1: be to double down. And you know, this might seem counterintuitive,
Speaker 1: it might seem somewhat crazy, but we believe that he
Speaker 1: is spot on or crazy like a fox. Maybe smart
Speaker 1: UH stocks and bonds they had an awful two will
Speaker 1: be a lot better. We're not sure. I mean it probably,
Speaker 1: but it may not. When you look back at the
Speaker 1: tin worst years for the stock market, the average three
Speaker 1: year total returns are over thirty two It's I think
Speaker 1: thirty two and a half percent. That's over ten percent annually.
Speaker 1: Not too shabby. But either way, if you are in
Speaker 1: the wealth building stage of life and you're investing for
Speaker 1: the long term, doubling down, buying while the market is
Speaker 1: on sale, continuing to stick money into these assets at
Speaker 1: the press prices is exactly what you should be doing.
Speaker 1: The mantra that our friend friend of the show Nickma
Speaker 1: Julie has coined is just keep mining, and I think
Speaker 1: keep bying. I think that's a good one. All right,
Speaker 1: let's talk about work for a second map, because in specifically,
Speaker 1: let's talk about something that is happening at Disney this week.
Speaker 1: What former CEO Bob Iger returned to the helmet Disney.
Speaker 1: I think it was last month and maybe two months
Speaker 1: ago and earlier this week. He's he's already making some changes.
Speaker 1: He called workers back into the office. He staid that
Speaker 1: starting marked first, every Disney employee is gonna need to
Speaker 1: start coming in four days a week. And here's what
Speaker 1: he said. I wanted to share this quote from Bob Iger.
Speaker 1: He said, and to creative business like ours, nothing can
Speaker 1: replace the ability to connect, observe, and create with peers
Speaker 1: that comes from being physically together, nor the opportunity to
Speaker 1: grow professionally by learning from leaders and mentors. Bob said,
Speaker 1: it is my belief that working together more in person
Speaker 1: will benefit the company's creativity culture and our employees careers.
Speaker 1: And I think I think he makes a great point here.
Speaker 1: You know these are actually the two main reasons why
Speaker 1: we're likely to see more companies follow suit is because
Speaker 1: it has benefits for the company and for individual employees
Speaker 1: and for their careers. We think that that hybrid work
Speaker 1: is here to stay, at least to some degree, but
Speaker 1: also don't be shocked if your company or your boss
Speaker 1: makes a similar move in the near future. I think
Speaker 1: there were predictions a few years ago that in person
Speaker 1: work was going to be a thing of the past.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's the case, and I think we've
Speaker 1: seen some massive benefits of hybrid work and the ability
Speaker 1: for more employees to do more remote work. But there's
Speaker 1: also something massively important about in person collaboration. And I
Speaker 1: think for a company like Disney, for they're gonna be
Speaker 1: other companies that that see how this experiment goes over
Speaker 1: at Disney, and then they might try to implement it themselves.
Speaker 1: They need to get those creative juices flow and all together.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think as I think we underestimate the
Speaker 1: power of UH like real life interactions like I r L.
Speaker 1: I think that needs to be something that we we
Speaker 1: consider more, not just from like a work standpoint, And
Speaker 1: until the menaverse gets better to collaborate and to to
Speaker 1: work together. But just from a social, like relational level,
Speaker 1: I think hanging out in real life is under under
Speaker 1: rated difficure. And then when he said for our employees careers,
Speaker 1: I think that's what that is. I think when you
Speaker 1: are working in person in front of your boss is
Speaker 1: like your career stands to benefit too. And if you're
Speaker 1: out of sight, you're almost out of mind. And that's
Speaker 1: important to note. If you are all if you want
Speaker 1: to move up the ranks, if you want to get
Speaker 1: paid more, if you want more responsibility, um, then being
Speaker 1: in person is probably going to help you in that
Speaker 1: endeavor exactly. But also from like a friendship level, That's
Speaker 1: what I was getting out, like, not just from how
Speaker 1: is this going to benefit you as an individual professionally,
Speaker 1: but how is this gonna benefit you as an individual
Speaker 1: to like make friends at work and interestingly, having a
Speaker 1: community and having friends at work is it's that's one
Speaker 1: of those things that can keep you working for an
Speaker 1: employer to the extent that they wouldn't need to force
Speaker 1: you to continue to work there with something like a
Speaker 1: non compete agreement because so non compete clauses they might
Speaker 1: be going away soon thanks to the FTC. A new
Speaker 1: proposal would outlaw these agreements. They would allow workers to
Speaker 1: to move freely to other businesses in the same industry,
Speaker 1: and I think this would be a great outcome. We
Speaker 1: don't like non competes. They depress worker wages, They sty
Speaker 1: me innovation, And you might be thinking, this isn't something
Speaker 1: I need to worry about. That's that's not the kind
Speaker 1: of industry that I'm in. But you might be applies
Speaker 1: to like high knowledge professional Yeah, no, it's not just
Speaker 1: high dollar white collar workers. One in five Americans are
Speaker 1: subject to a non compete clause, many of whom work
Speaker 1: in fast food or they work in manual labor. And
Speaker 1: generally overall, we think that non competes are bad for individuals,
Speaker 1: are bad for the economy as a whole. So, you know,
Speaker 1: similar to the new ib R rules, the income based
Speaker 1: for payment rules for student loans. This is in a
Speaker 1: comment period, but it could go into effect later this year.
Speaker 1: And again, while I you know, we might agree with
Speaker 1: the outcome, it does rubly a little bit the wrong way,
Speaker 1: the way in which that this is coming about. I
Speaker 1: would much rather see individuals taking the responsibility of themselves
Speaker 1: to decide what it is that what they're going to
Speaker 1: sign and what they're not going to sign. You know,
Speaker 1: it's one thing to you know, if you download an
Speaker 1: app and they're like, all right, you have to agree
Speaker 1: to all this and then you can use our app,
Speaker 1: that's one thing. But signing a contract for a job,
Speaker 1: I feel like that's something that we should be reading
Speaker 1: over a little bit more. I feel like some of
Speaker 1: the responsibility should be on us as individuals, rather than
Speaker 1: being some mandate that passes or you know, some dictate
Speaker 1: from on high that all businesses have to abide by.
Speaker 1: I can see why you say that. I don't know
Speaker 1: if I agree necessarily, because I do think that these
Speaker 1: many of these um noncompete contracts can be shady, They
Speaker 1: can be hard to decipher, and they take advantage of people,
Speaker 1: and especially a lot of people in low paying industries
Speaker 1: to like security guards or sub sandwich makers, Like a
Speaker 1: lot of people in non high profile jobs are are
Speaker 1: being not maybe not forced, but maybe coerced in designing
Speaker 1: some of these sorts of non compete agreements, and it's
Speaker 1: a bad for the economy and it's bad for those individuals.
Speaker 1: And then also there's I think you underestimate the free
Speaker 1: will of individual, you know, just the indility. I know
Speaker 1: multiple friends. I signed one back in the day when
Speaker 1: I worked for a pressure washing company, and it's one
Speaker 1: of those things like what's for two years, you can't
Speaker 1: go work for another pressure washing company. And I remember like, okay,
Speaker 1: I remember thinking I probably won't work for another pressure
Speaker 1: washing company, but the fact that I wasn't then able
Speaker 1: to once I kind of learned how to do it,
Speaker 1: maybe like I didn't think, I don't think it's a
Speaker 1: good thing for the economy. It wasn't a good thing
Speaker 1: for me personally, even though I was done with pressure
Speaker 1: washing at the time. I have another friend who's an optometrist,
Speaker 1: and it's one of those things where he signed one
Speaker 1: of those things and now he's forced to commute a
Speaker 1: lengthy distance after leaving that work for just ethical reasons,
Speaker 1: um because he disagree with the ethics of the company,
Speaker 1: and so he was put over a barrel essentially because
Speaker 1: of this noncompete. I'd like to see noncompetes go away,
Speaker 1: and I do as well. So I'm just how do
Speaker 1: you get rid of them? That's that's so. I mean,
Speaker 1: we're in agreement as far as whether or not noncompetes
Speaker 1: are good or not. It seems like they suck just
Speaker 1: across the board. But how do we arrive at that point?
Speaker 1: That's the that's the difference though we're not they're not
Speaker 1: going away. They're actually becoming more influential in our society
Speaker 1: and they're negatively impacting the wages of millions. So if
Speaker 1: if this is an FTC mandate, I'm okay with it
Speaker 1: because they're that bad. So all right, that's gonna do
Speaker 1: it for today's episode. You can find our show notes
Speaker 1: and links to some of the stuff we mentioned up
Speaker 1: on our site at how the Money dot com and
Speaker 1: Matt Let's also mention that the people can follow us
Speaker 1: on Instagram at how to Money Pod. And you and
Speaker 1: I were going we're taking a four person trip with
Speaker 1: our ladies, taking a couple's trip to a Bourbon countries. Yea,
Speaker 1: so we may or may not post some pictures uh
Speaker 1: to the account if you'd like to keep up with
Speaker 1: our adventures either way, you can follow us at how
Speaker 1: the Money Pod over there on Instagram. And by the way,
Speaker 1: we've got a great interview lined up for folks UH Monday.
Speaker 1: We're speaking with the founder of y nab you need
Speaker 1: a budget, so if you want to learn more about
Speaker 1: budgeting and budgeting strategy, make sure to look for that one.
Speaker 1: And by the way, it's not as boring as you
Speaker 1: might think, because we actually think budgets can awesome. They
Speaker 1: should be the opposite of depressing. They should actually make
Speaker 1: you feel hopeful about your money, and I think Jesse
Speaker 1: does a great job of helping people connect budgets to
Speaker 1: the possibilities right that your money can to help you achieve.
Speaker 1: All right, man, that's gonna be it for this episode
Speaker 1: until next time. Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out,