Speaker 1: Welcome to Had of Money. I'm Joel, I'm Matt, and
Speaker 1: today we're talking about purging pennies, financial fights, and phantom wealth.
Speaker 2: I can't hear phantom Joel, and not think of Phantom Planet.
Speaker 2: Did you ever listen to a pandom planet back? And
Speaker 2: then what did they do the theme song for the
Speaker 2: O C California? Oh yeah, or even Phantom Limb. I
Speaker 2: never really watched that show, Phantom Limb. That was a good,
Speaker 2: good Chin's song. Oh okay, yeah, you didn't watch the
Speaker 2: OC back. You were like a touch younger than me,
Speaker 2: and so when I was in college, like we would
Speaker 2: have OC watching parties. Oh yeah, because there's only like
Speaker 2: two sets of friends who paid for cable?
Speaker 1: Was it wasn't it basically like a modernized version of
Speaker 1: Beverly Hills nine or two went?
Speaker 2: Now? Okay, yeah, I've never really gotten nostalgia as I
Speaker 2: think back. But now this is our Friday flight, a
Speaker 2: quick sampling of the different stories we've come across, and
Speaker 2: we're specifically going to address how they are going to
Speaker 2: impact your dollars. But Joel, so you want to try
Speaker 2: to get everybody on like this beef jerkey train. Now
Speaker 2: that you're as you might try to brainwash everyone into
Speaker 2: thinking that meat it's the only category of food that
Speaker 2: you actually need in your life.
Speaker 1: I'm able to get behind that, although I do think
Speaker 1: I would get bored if like meat was my own
Speaker 1: league food group. But I think it belongs with the
Speaker 1: most meals Matt.
Speaker 2: Yeah, five meals all meat, and then on the six
Speaker 2: meal you throw a little bit of brocoli in there, right,
Speaker 2: exactly normally all year old.
Speaker 1: Maybe not quite that extreme, but a couple of my
Speaker 1: buddies have started making their own beef turkey. It's specifically
Speaker 1: South African variety called Biltong, and I had it samples
Speaker 1: at their house and I was like, Okay, that's pretty delicious.
Speaker 1: Let me give this a go, and I will link
Speaker 1: to the YouTube video that I used and that they
Speaker 1: used to figure out how to do this.
Speaker 2: The guy explains that he walks to it really well,
Speaker 2: send me the link, because I've had your Biltong and
Speaker 2: it's amazing. It's good, and you've been withholding the deats
Speaker 2: from me.
Speaker 1: Okay, So the video, like he like Crystal Clear, walks
Speaker 1: you through it super simple, incredibly inexpensive. You don't really
Speaker 1: need any special equipment, like literally the coolest parts about.
Speaker 2: It, Yeah, the fact that, yeah, you're explaining how yeah.
Speaker 1: It's not like you need a smoker, right, which is
Speaker 1: like hydrator or anything like that. You can you can
Speaker 1: like legit, just cure it and then hang it up
Speaker 1: in my pantry, is what was My wife was like,
Speaker 1: what are you doing? Looks a little wild, It looks
Speaker 1: a little sketch, doesn't look safe, but the final product
Speaker 1: is pretty darn tasty. So and when you think about
Speaker 1: how much something like beef turkey costs, even at a
Speaker 1: place like Costco, it's crazy expense, so expensive.
Speaker 2: So this is like.
Speaker 1: Denser, better, you know everything, It's going into higher quality stuff.
Speaker 2: I could not believe. So Kate I had a Christmas
Speaker 2: stocking stuffer, uh huh, and she got me a couple
Speaker 2: of packs of like some of this fancy oh I
Speaker 2: wish I could remember the name of it, but it's
Speaker 2: like this fancy beef jerky that she picked up at
Speaker 2: Whole Foods. So I thought, you could say BUCkies not
Speaker 2: a little bit nicer than that. But she forgot to
Speaker 2: scratch off the price tag and I went to you know,
Speaker 2: g I was like, oh, thank you know that cracked
Speaker 2: and I was like, oh my gosh, it was so
Speaker 2: I could not believe how much does the bag it was?
Speaker 2: It came down to something like ten dollars an ounce, Wow,
Speaker 2: which is crazy. Yeah, and uh, it's not apples to
Speaker 2: apples though when you're comparing it, like, obviously it's going
Speaker 2: to be more affordable when you do it at home.
Speaker 2: But like when you think about price per ounce of
Speaker 2: meat or price per pound of a traditional hunk of meat,
Speaker 2: like what did you just say? Oh, you have to
Speaker 2: dry this stuff out, so you are losing weights as
Speaker 2: you go through the aging process. How many days did
Speaker 2: you ge it? By the way, about five days? Awesome?
Speaker 1: And so in the week get cut in half. So
Speaker 1: let's say ask you twenty five bucks for two and
Speaker 1: a half pounds of beef.
Speaker 2: So really you're looking at pounding a quarter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well no, that's after after those five pounds of.
Speaker 2: You already calculated it down. It is like a concentrated
Speaker 2: amount of food, which is part of what's attractive about it.
Speaker 2: You got some of those concentrated flavors. But I like
Speaker 2: what you said too, I've got a snack out there
Speaker 2: on the hiking trails, Yes, exactly, Well, because typically I
Speaker 2: would rather. I'm like, all right, would rather have a
Speaker 2: juicy steak, some try tip or some jerky, some built
Speaker 2: on your case, and I'm probably gonna typically go with
Speaker 2: like the juicy, but like, like, I mean, if you're
Speaker 2: traveling though, if you're on the road, if you're hiking,
Speaker 2: that's a great opportunity to bring along your little stash.
Speaker 2: Doesn't weigh much of some of this high quality meat,
Speaker 2: and so the quality of it. You don't have preservatives,
Speaker 2: which typically that's what you're gonna find in some of
Speaker 2: the stuff that you buy on the shelves in order
Speaker 2: for it to remain shelf stable. And it's not like
Speaker 2: you're keeping this around for months and months now you
Speaker 2: don't need it, there's no preserve. The lasts for like
Speaker 2: three weeks, four weeks in the fridge, so and then
Speaker 2: it only gets better, right, No, like a dry dry
Speaker 2: age rabbi where they have to like cut mold off.
Speaker 2: That seems weird. Hopefully we're not going to get to
Speaker 2: this point. I don't know.
Speaker 1: But it's fun to have a new hobby, and it's
Speaker 1: fun to have a hobby that tastes.
Speaker 2: Good, that's delicious that also ends up saving you a
Speaker 2: ton of money. If you are a big fan of
Speaker 2: the beef turkey or what makes it built on versus
Speaker 2: regular jerky bats. Good question. I do think beef tricky.
Speaker 1: Maybe what sets out apart is that you maybe are
Speaker 1: are dehydrating it in some way.
Speaker 2: So it's dryer. Because what I try some years and
Speaker 2: it was more like cured meat, like.
Speaker 1: Somewhere in between, kind of like a salami and a beach.
Speaker 2: It's like something you get on a shark utery board. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it still has some moisture. Yeah, Yeah, it was totally legit.
Speaker 2: I was really impressed, especially given that it was your first.
Speaker 2: But something that the two of us have talked about
Speaker 2: for years now is how worthless pennies are. Pennies mattered
Speaker 2: a whole lot more like a long time ago, right
Speaker 2: like even decades ago, but digital payments have essentially killed
Speaker 2: the need for the penny to exist. But then on
Speaker 2: top of that inflation as well. They're expensive to make,
Speaker 2: costing multiple times to mint that's the proper word for
Speaker 2: creating pennies than what they're actually worth when they're put
Speaker 2: into circulation. They cost something like three point seven cents
Speaker 2: per penny to create.
Speaker 1: And I know my Grandma remembers the time when pennies mattered,
Speaker 1: that we're just not living in that time.
Speaker 2: No man. And so one of the orders within the
Speaker 2: flurry of Trump administration executive orders is to order the
Speaker 2: Treasury Secretary to stop making new pennies. And this is
Speaker 2: something that's been proposed by Republicans in the past, by
Speaker 2: Democrats as well. We are not sad to see the
Speaker 2: penny go the way of the Dodo bird. I think
Speaker 2: this should be slam dunk easy thing for everyone to
Speaker 2: get behind. Who's clinging to the penny? Who are you?
Speaker 1: Who are these people who say, no, please, please keep
Speaker 1: the penny around. Nobody picks up pennies anymore. They becomes
Speaker 1: hoby value. I don't even pick up pennies anymore. And like,
Speaker 1: I'm the kind of I'm the guy that likes to
Speaker 1: find money on the ground. Oh yeah, but the things
Speaker 1: you have brought home that you picked up off the
Speaker 1: curb are are weird and various.
Speaker 2: But you don't pick up pennies, you know what. We
Speaker 2: live out in the burbs, though. If your folks put
Speaker 2: stuff out on the curb, they just throw it away. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think that's something I noticed about living in the city,
Speaker 2: folks are I don't know, are folks more frugal and.
Speaker 1: More conscientious about it getting a second life. But out
Speaker 1: here folks are like, I just sent it to the landfill.
Speaker 1: I guess there is nicer stuff with the good will maybe,
Speaker 1: or oh that's it. I think the good wills are nicer.
Speaker 1: That's what they're doing with it, they're donating it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, sorry to cast a spurs burd folks, but okay,
Speaker 1: so matter if we get rid of the penny, do
Speaker 1: we also need to get rid of the nickel. It
Speaker 1: kind of opens up that can of works. Where do
Speaker 1: you stop the culling of the coins, which actually would
Speaker 1: have been another.
Speaker 2: Good days forget.
Speaker 1: Like, once we start talking, I realized, well, so CNN
Speaker 1: had an article about nickels too, and how much of
Speaker 1: a problem they might be. So CNN's like, hey, now
Speaker 1: we need to go hogwhile on this and that basically
Speaker 1: the cost to make a nickel is and I was
Speaker 1: shocked to see this. I didn't realize this because the
Speaker 1: penny thing has been well documented. But apparently it cost
Speaker 1: fourteen cents to make a nickel, which is.
Speaker 2: A little less than three times whereas the penny is
Speaker 2: a little more than three times.
Speaker 1: Yeah so, but still like the gap is insane between
Speaker 1: that's a lot of money to make a dollar amount
Speaker 1: or send them out. Yeah, dimes and quarters at least
Speaker 1: are worth more than they cost to manufacture. But not
Speaker 1: only are these coins expensive relative relative to their worth,
Speaker 1: but they slow down transactions. I and maybe I shouldn't
Speaker 1: get annoyed, but when people pay with cash and coins
Speaker 1: in front of me, now I'm at it does it?
Speaker 1: Just it irks me a little? And I want to
Speaker 1: be like yea with the times.
Speaker 2: But that's it's a part. I need busy on the go.
Speaker 1: I got places to be I need to get over
Speaker 1: that people to see, beers to drink, right exactly. The
Speaker 1: National Association of Commedian Storts agrees with me, I think,
Speaker 1: because they, for instance, would like to see small coins
Speaker 1: down away with because it does add more time at
Speaker 1: the cash register. And as one economists put it, Matt,
Speaker 1: they said, when people start leaving a monetary unit at
Speaker 1: the cash register for the next customer, essentially they're citing
Speaker 1: it's insignificance. The unit is too small to be useful.
Speaker 1: I think pennies have been too small to be useful
Speaker 1: for a while now, and I'm not sad to see
Speaker 1: them go zero tier shed over here.
Speaker 2: Well okay, so one practical use that we have for
Speaker 2: pennies and nichols is do y'all ever play thirty one
Speaker 2: with the kids? The card game. It's a good game,
Speaker 2: straightforward enough for them to understand. You know. It's like
Speaker 2: where the aces. Aces are worth eleven points, face cards
Speaker 2: are ten on you try to get thirty one and
Speaker 2: if you do games over, everyone loses. Okay, the game.
Speaker 2: The goal of the game is to not lose, essentially,
Speaker 2: and you can call it whenever you want. The goal
Speaker 2: of most games, well, no, some games of the goal
Speaker 2: is to win. But the goal in this game is
Speaker 2: to be good enough to not lose. And we used
Speaker 2: to use pennies and nickels and dimes and stuff just
Speaker 2: as a way to keep score kind of. But lately
Speaker 2: what we told them is like, hey, you need to
Speaker 2: come to the table with your own money, because it
Speaker 2: provides they got more skin in the game and it
Speaker 2: makes fun a little more interesting. So I would be
Speaker 2: sad from that standpoint. I would maybe hoard some pities
Speaker 2: and nagles just to be able to have on hand
Speaker 2: to facilitate game playing.
Speaker 1: Well, I think we should say this doesn't mean the
Speaker 1: pennies are going away. It just because you won't print
Speaker 1: and create new pennies.
Speaker 2: But eventually, what that's going to mean is that over time,
Speaker 2: they're gonna get they're gonna degrade, and they're gonna be
Speaker 2: They're all gonna be in the cacation and in people's jars,
Speaker 2: in their closet, in the game closet. Yeah, exactly. Okay,
Speaker 2: since it's Valentine's Day, let's talk about fighting with your partner, buddy.
Speaker 2: Hopefully you can not like I'm trying to avoid that,
Speaker 2: so your business partner, but yeah, we're talking about romantic
Speaker 2: partners here. Hopefully you can avoid that. But a new
Speaker 2: survey finds that a third of couples are uncomfortable talking
Speaker 2: about money at all in the relationships. And on average,
Speaker 2: couples argue about money something like fifty eight times a year,
Speaker 2: which is a lot if that's more than once a week.
Speaker 2: So no wonder their reticence approach the subject of money
Speaker 2: of personal finances, and on one hand arguing it's not
Speaker 2: the worst thing in the world, right, I think it
Speaker 2: depends on what the argument looks like. I think healthy
Speaker 2: arguing can be productive. It shows that you care about something,
Speaker 2: and you know what's worse to argue about something in
Speaker 2: a healthy or productive way or just to just not
Speaker 2: care at all, to where you're not even bringing it up.
Speaker 1: Can I share a little anecdote. I remember my pa,
Speaker 1: my grandpa, telling me that he and my grandma never
Speaker 1: ever fought, and so I was like, oh, that sounds awesome.
Speaker 1: I don't really like fighting, so I'm hoping for that
Speaker 1: same thing in my relationship. I remember telling Emily that
Speaker 1: early on, and she laughed at me and said that
Speaker 1: was really dumb and sorry, but we're probably gonna have arguments,
Speaker 1: and it's true we have. But I agree with you,
Speaker 1: Matt that I think just studying expectations of relationship, I
Speaker 1: appreciate that. I think arguments have been productive for the
Speaker 1: most part for us, although not always, but yeah.
Speaker 2: For the most part. It shows you care, and I
Speaker 2: think at least one of the ways to help maybe
Speaker 2: change the dynamic within a relationship is just to agree
Speaker 2: on some shared dreams, to cast a vision of what
Speaker 2: you want your future to look like. I think it's
Speaker 2: going to be easier to cut back in other areas
Speaker 2: in life in other ways, and when you're shooting for
Speaker 2: the same goals, when you can recognize that you're on
Speaker 2: the same team trying to achieve the same things. Yeah,
Speaker 2: just something to keep the money. I guess.
Speaker 1: I just do hate that people argue about money so much.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, And I think a lot of those arguments
Speaker 1: are not terribly productive. And part of that is because
Speaker 1: there hasn't been enough of that sort of team mindset,
Speaker 1: and there's probably a separation of finances, but in the couple, right,
Speaker 1: so it's like, hey, this is my money I'm bringing in,
Speaker 1: that's your money. And that's happening more and more as
Speaker 1: couples get married or come together at a later date,
Speaker 1: they've already kind of amassed a certain amount of money,
Speaker 1: maybe bought a home, maybe made some investments, and it's like, well,
Speaker 1: this is mine, that's yours, And then it's really hard,
Speaker 1: I think, to kind of pull in the same direction.
Speaker 1: And the truth is, another way to fight less in
Speaker 1: your marriage or in your partnership is to combine finances more.
Speaker 1: And this isn't rocket science, but the more you overlap
Speaker 1: finances when you're married, though, the more transparent you make
Speaker 1: your money, and the easier it is to work together.
Speaker 1: The New York Times just wrote an article about this.
Speaker 1: They found that or couples are segregating their finances, which
Speaker 1: is something that we have definitely seen, especially in the
Speaker 1: questions we get from our listeners, and that makes it
Speaker 1: harder to navigate. But there is research out there saying
Speaker 1: that it's not going to be the best way to
Speaker 1: move forward. The Journal of Consumer Research found that couples
Speaker 1: who combine finances they're happier, they're more committed to one another,
Speaker 1: And to me, this shows that there's mutual trust built
Speaker 1: up when you're pulling in the same direction and when
Speaker 1: you have that added transparency. So I think seeing those
Speaker 1: stats about fighting about money, well, if you want to
Speaker 1: not be a statistic, if you want to fight less
Speaker 1: about money, or you at least do want those more
Speaker 1: productive fights instead of the ones where you're just at
Speaker 1: each other's throats, Combining those accounts, dreaming big together, that
Speaker 1: is at least part of the solution I think for
Speaker 1: most people.
Speaker 2: I love it man. Yeah, so we don't often plug
Speaker 2: other people's podcasts, but we're both fans of honestly, that's
Speaker 2: Barry weiss Her and her team over at the Free Press.
Speaker 2: But she just had an episode where she had this
Speaker 2: an expert on talking about relationship little advice, and it
Speaker 2: was fascinating that her prescription one of her recommendations when
Speaker 2: it came to love and sex as well, but it
Speaker 2: was much more traditionally conservative in nature, and she even
Speaker 2: admitted that, hey, I grew up very progressive, very you know,
Speaker 2: left leaning, very liberal, and based on the research and
Speaker 2: what she found, she essentially like recreated from the ground
Speaker 2: up this way of approaching relationships that is traditionally very conservative,
Speaker 2: and it was all based not on like religion or
Speaker 2: anything like that, but just based on the evidence, based
Speaker 2: on stats and the success of relationships and the benefit
Speaker 2: to society and how benefit women and children as well.
Speaker 2: It's super fascinating. If you haven't listened to that one,
Speaker 2: I'd recommend checking out. Okay, let's talk about paying for college.
Speaker 2: We saw an article where Bloomberg was highlighting the fact
Speaker 2: that many parents are investing within bitcoin for their kids
Speaker 2: as opposed to opting for you know, the good old
Speaker 2: traditional investments in a five nine plan. And the reason
Speaker 2: is that they think that returns on traditional stocks aren't
Speaker 2: going to be good enough to fund the high cost
Speaker 2: of college, so they're taking on a bit more risk here.
Speaker 2: And it's true that the inflation on college tuition has
Speaker 2: been crazy over the past few decades, as well as
Speaker 2: the fact that your term stock market return predictions aren't
Speaker 2: necessarily all that rosy. And in addition to that, only
Speaker 2: bitcoin it has been brilliant since its inception if you
Speaker 2: look all the way back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so how many better investments over the past, like
Speaker 1: what twelve fourteen years?
Speaker 2: So you take all three of these things, kind of
Speaker 2: stir them together in a pot, and you might come
Speaker 2: to a conclusion that, like, hey, bitcoin is the way
Speaker 2: to go, But you can't buy bitcoin inside of a
Speaker 2: five to twenty nine plan, so you're missing out on
Speaker 2: the tax benefits of that particular account. If your state
Speaker 2: offers a five twenty nine plan, a good one with good,
Speaker 2: good investment options and low fees. But the five twenty
Speaker 2: nine is better than it's ever been now thanks to
Speaker 2: new rules about it being able to be converted into
Speaker 2: a wrath down the road. And so we are a
Speaker 2: bit more bullish on nine plans then we used to be.
Speaker 2: So just keep that in mind. It might be this
Speaker 2: might be a good instance to keep those investments a
Speaker 2: little bit more separated. All four. If you are interested
Speaker 2: in bitcoin, sure have a little bit of exposure for
Speaker 2: yourself and even your kids. I think that's totally fine
Speaker 2: as well, but as always, just keep that limited to
Speaker 2: five percent of your overall portfolio and maybe don't co
Speaker 2: mingle those investments with the money and the funds that
Speaker 2: you're looking to pay for college with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess I just get nervous about people saying, no,
Speaker 1: this is the ticket to pay for my kids college.
Speaker 1: I'm seeing these headlines about bitcoin to a million. One
Speaker 1: bitcoin is gonna be worth a million dollars in the
Speaker 1: next couple of years, and that sounds great. And if
Speaker 1: that comes to pass and you have some exposure to bitcoin,
Speaker 1: that's fantastic for you, right, But I would just be
Speaker 1: nervous about putting all my eggs in that one basket.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and we would.
Speaker 1: That's just part of diversification, right, is to not have
Speaker 1: all those eggs.
Speaker 2: In one basket.
Speaker 1: And if you're overly allocated to bitcoin and you're missing
Speaker 1: out on the tax breaks and just the greater diversification
Speaker 1: when you're investing for your kids future, I can just
Speaker 1: see that coming back to bite you in the butt.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, we have no money leftover for college. Man.
Speaker 1: There's another article about, speaking of college, how personal finance
Speaker 1: courses are becoming more normal, not just in high schools
Speaker 1: across the country, which we've seen a lot of growth
Speaker 1: in there, but in colleges, and how schools like UNLV,
Speaker 1: cal Berkeley, and Stanford have them and they're working to
Speaker 1: bring more to campuses across the country. Actually, the Stafford
Speaker 1: course is taught by friend of the show, Adam Nash,
Speaker 1: who's been on the guy who runs Data, the.
Speaker 2: Donor advised fund platform that were fans of.
Speaker 1: That's right, and it's interesting, like not everyone has to
Speaker 1: take these courses, unlike many of these high schools where
Speaker 1: it's mandatory, but they seem kind of cool and Adam
Speaker 1: Nash is the way he explained his course, and I've
Speaker 1: looked through kind of the documents, like his syllabus, and
Speaker 1: I love kind of his approach to talking about personal finance.
Speaker 1: And the truth is a country, we just need more
Speaker 1: personal finance help altogether. Even brilliant students out a school
Speaker 1: like Stanford, they don't come to college knowing personal finance
Speaker 1: inside and out. And most of them just don't have
Speaker 1: much knowledge on that front. And personal finance is getting
Speaker 1: more complex as the financial system gains more complexity, and
Speaker 1: everyone knows Matt, I think the real solutions is listening
Speaker 1: to how the money is free nine to nine. That's right,
Speaker 1: it's free. And uh, we're funny and great and just
Speaker 1: a pleasure to be.
Speaker 2: With, funny ish sometimes we're cringe. But my problem it
Speaker 2: does come down to the cost. And I think that's
Speaker 2: my biggest personal hang up with especially gosh, personal paying
Speaker 2: for personal finances, finance classes and those credit hours cost. Yes,
Speaker 2: I mean, really, we're gonna I'm going to fork out money.
Speaker 2: I wanna pay money to like an Ivy League college
Speaker 2: in order to teach my kids how to save money.
Speaker 2: I have a hard time not thinking that that's a
Speaker 2: total waste of my money.
Speaker 1: I would tell today, not because I hate personal finance,
Speaker 1: because obviously I love it, but I would be like, no,
Speaker 1: let's how about you read this book. Let's come with
Speaker 1: our own curriculum. Here's a couple podcasts you can listen to.
Speaker 2: That everyone has that ex experience, has that upbringing, or
Speaker 2: parents who have that upbringing as well to where they're
Speaker 2: even talking about it as a couple. They're within the family. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but it's not rocket science. The basic formulas to spend
Speaker 2: less than you make, invest the rest and then listen
Speaker 2: to hown of money for all the rest of the details.
Speaker 2: I mean, And there are a lot of details, and
Speaker 2: we talk about a lot of the details on this show.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's it's The basics are certainly not rocket science.
Speaker 2: But you should stick around and listen to more amount
Speaker 2: of money because it's the right prescription for what ails
Speaker 2: you on the personal finance front. Yeah, you get beef
Speaker 2: curing tips from Joel.
Speaker 1: So many good things you didn't expect on today's episode.
Speaker 1: All right, there's more to get to, Matt, including are
Speaker 1: we overpaying for internet and are there ways to combat that.
Speaker 1: We'll get to that and more right after this.
Speaker 2: All right, buddy, we are back from the break. It
Speaker 2: is now time for the ludicrous headline of the week,
Speaker 2: which this week is from Fast Company. Headline reads, Millennials
Speaker 2: are plagued by fantom wealth. Why the generation doesn't feel
Speaker 2: rich despite their net worth quadrupling? Did you know that
Speaker 2: millennials net worth is quadruple Jrol has yours quadrupled? Mat yes,
Speaker 2: it has out of tupled. I will say millennials as
Speaker 2: a cohort have outlasted the tremors of the Great Recession, right,
Speaker 2: like that was the big It's like, oh man, you've
Speaker 2: got this generation going into adulthood, leaving college. They got
Speaker 2: their degrees, Now they can't get jobs.
Speaker 1: All those headlines early on were about how millennials were
Speaker 1: never going to recover, and they have things.
Speaker 2: We're looking pretty dour. We've seen our network skyrocket especially,
Speaker 2: I would say over the past six years, but the
Speaker 2: millennial crowd has hit their stride. From a work and
Speaker 2: from an income perspective, networks have increased. But a lot
Speaker 2: of folks around our age they don't actually feel wealthy,
Speaker 2: and that's typically because their money is tied up in
Speaker 2: liquid assets like their home. All right, Like you've seen
Speaker 2: your home equity increase, but it's tough. It's tough to
Speaker 2: pull that money out of that tangible or like you're
Speaker 2: four to one k. A lot of listeners, especially millennial listeners,
Speaker 2: have had hopefully if it was an automatic it's something
Speaker 2: that they did themselves. But a lot of employers now
Speaker 2: are auto enrolling their new employees.
Speaker 1: It's like they got the message. They stuck more than
Speaker 1: their four one k and they're happy about seeing their
Speaker 1: net worth balloon. But they also can't touch.
Speaker 2: That money either. But that's also kind of a part
Speaker 2: of it, right, Like part of building wealth is not
Speaker 2: touching the majority of it. For quiet a while, makes
Speaker 2: me think of Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett's late partner, where
Speaker 2: he said, like the number one rule of compounding is
Speaker 2: to not interrupt it unnecessarily, which is so true. So
Speaker 2: the fact is you're doing it right. This is how
Speaker 2: you build wealth. This is how you're going to be
Speaker 2: able to retire in your later years. But that being said,
Speaker 2: if you're investing so much that you feel poor where
Speaker 2: you can't even enjoy a craft beer equivalent, I would say,
Speaker 2: maybe you're doing it wrong, Like maybe you've cut back
Speaker 2: in every single area of your life. It's a part
Speaker 2: of why that's something that we always talk about, Joel
Speaker 2: craft beer or maybe in your case now it's craft meat.
Speaker 2: By the ability to spend in some ways, it seems
Speaker 2: kind of silly, but it's something that lights you up.
Speaker 2: That's important as well to live life in the here now,
Speaker 2: or especially early on when you might be aggressively saving.
Speaker 1: Don't forego some of those things that matter right while
Speaker 1: you're trying to save up and invest for the future,
Speaker 1: because if you do, you are going to have those
Speaker 1: negative feelings. And I do think that's ultimately harmful, and
Speaker 1: it causes a lot of people to say, why am
Speaker 1: I investing for this thing forty years down the road?
Speaker 2: Why don't I just yobo?
Speaker 1: And yeah, that's why you have to have balance in
Speaker 1: your approach. And Matt, if you want to boost your
Speaker 1: savings straight, there's new evidence that you should be more optimistic.
Speaker 1: A new study from the American Psychological Association finds that
Speaker 1: being optimistic about the future may help people save more money,
Speaker 1: and people who described themselves as more optimistic they ended
Speaker 1: up saving a higher percentage of their income. And that
Speaker 1: applies across the income spectrum, whether you were bringing home
Speaker 1: six figures or whether you're bringing home half that and so,
Speaker 1: as the study said, optimism appears to exert a slightly
Speaker 1: stronger influence on savings behavior than financial literacy and risk tolerance.
Speaker 1: Which is kind of crazy to think that, like, just
Speaker 1: being more optimistic matters more than learning more about money.
Speaker 1: So maybe people can turn this off and just go
Speaker 1: like tap into their inner optimism.
Speaker 2: Maybe that's gonna be more beneficial. I don't know.
Speaker 1: But your mindset is I think more powerful than most
Speaker 1: people give it credit for. And I don't think this
Speaker 1: is necessarily like manifesting something into existence, which maybe some
Speaker 1: gurus would encourage you to do. I think it's more
Speaker 1: believing that good things are coming down the pike that
Speaker 1: gets you excited for the future. And the truth, I mean,
Speaker 1: optimists tend to live longer as well. There's evidence about that.
Speaker 1: So it's a good idea for us all to work
Speaker 1: on seeing the good because we will save more harm money,
Speaker 1: be the more.
Speaker 2: Thoughtful about our future, and we'll have a longer future.
Speaker 2: That's right. Man. Let's talk about utilities Internet specifically, because
Speaker 2: seeing that they recently published an article about overpaying for
Speaker 2: their Internet, and I think with more folks working from home,
Speaker 2: I think there's even more of an attraction to maybe
Speaker 2: pay premium rates for fast inner that. But it turns
Speaker 2: out too many folks are paying for speeds that they
Speaker 2: don't really actually use, or speeds that they don't actually need,
Speaker 2: and so opting to go from like a more premium
Speaker 2: speed of like three hundred megabits per second down to
Speaker 2: one hundred megabits per second, that might be a brilliant
Speaker 2: financial move. So much of this depends on what you're
Speaker 2: using your internet connection for, how often you're using it.
Speaker 2: So like you're let's say you do like you're uploading
Speaker 2: massive files, Okay, maybe you do need to pay pay
Speaker 2: attention up speed. That's probably critical for you to be
Speaker 2: able to do your job efficiently. If you've got multiple
Speaker 2: folks or family members whatever, streaming on different devices at
Speaker 2: the same time, maybe you want to pay more as well.
Speaker 2: But you know, I think similar to buying the unlimited
Speaker 2: data cell phone plan, when you're on Wi Fi most
Speaker 2: of the time at home, I think you might be
Speaker 2: paying too much. This might be an instance where it's
Speaker 2: just money going to waste. Man. And this also makes
Speaker 2: me think about let's say you're at home, you're watching
Speaker 2: a movie and it like glitches or it kind of
Speaker 2: times out or whatever. It's like, dang it, it's got
Speaker 2: a load kind of ruins. The ruins the flow a
Speaker 2: little bit, and so folks think they're like, oh, you
Speaker 2: know what we need to do. We need to pay
Speaker 2: more for our internet. We should upgrade it to one
Speaker 2: of those premium speed plans, when in reality, what I
Speaker 2: think a lot of folks need to do, and I'm
Speaker 2: saying this from personal experience, what they need to do
Speaker 2: is get take their Wi Fi router out of the
Speaker 2: cabinet and pull it because like it's that's a wood
Speaker 2: positioning matters. Yeah, that's a wooden coffin, and it's really
Speaker 2: hard for the Wi Fi signal to get from the
Speaker 2: wireless router to your device, to your phone to your TV.
Speaker 1: In a coffin in the backyard. And now I'm like,
Speaker 1: where are my speed?
Speaker 2: Yeah I don't have internet anymore. What I would do it,
Speaker 2: but I'm still paying for it, so truly, and I
Speaker 2: get why people don't want to do that because typically
Speaker 2: they're not pretty, you know, like they're typically unsightly, like
Speaker 2: there's it can be a jumble of cords and so
Speaker 2: you're thinking, let me just put that in the cabin
Speaker 2: let me stick that in the bottom of the closet.
Speaker 2: But that impacts your speeds. You want to have a
Speaker 2: clear line of sight. That is really important. I think folks, uh,
Speaker 2: they're doing it wrong. Yeah right, Like they think just
Speaker 2: by paying more that that's going to increase their speeds
Speaker 2: when in reality it's just okay, your methodology, your technique,
Speaker 2: make sure you're paying that some attention as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we're talking, at least with the cost of
Speaker 1: internet about paying more every single month, Well, what about
Speaker 1: maybe getting a mesh router system. Those things have gone
Speaker 1: down in price, and yeah, maybe you're extending the internet
Speaker 1: signal to make it faster in other parts of the house.
Speaker 1: It's like, you don't need faster speeds, you just need
Speaker 1: it better coverage. Yeah, better coverage, and that's a one
Speaker 1: time cost is instead of upgrading and paying more money
Speaker 1: every single month and not getting essentially what you need either.
Speaker 2: We're totally like do with the ced net beat right now.
Speaker 2: But like and so when some folks might hear j
Speaker 2: you'll say, like the mesh router system and just like,
Speaker 2: oh man, that sounds that sounds confusing. That's like plug
Speaker 2: and play though, But it also doesn't even have to
Speaker 2: be that complicated. You can literally and this is what
Speaker 2: we've done, but you can buy another wireless router that's
Speaker 2: exactly like the current one. You have, plug the Internet
Speaker 2: cable into the back of that thing, and plug that
Speaker 2: into the other router that's somewhere that's positioned somewhere else
Speaker 2: in your house. So if you do have a long,
Speaker 2: skinny house, rather than having a router right in the middle,
Speaker 2: maybe that means kind of placing them at both ends
Speaker 2: of your house. And you can just I mean, I
Speaker 2: don't I don't bat an eyelash it doing this, but
Speaker 2: I just drilled the hole into my floor, through the hardwoods,
Speaker 2: down into the cross space. You run that cable to
Speaker 2: the other part of the house, have it pop up,
Speaker 2: plug it in, name it the exact same name, with
Speaker 2: the same password and everything, and your devices will hop
Speaker 2: from one to the other seamlessly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, look at that little little tech tip.
Speaker 1: Didn't know you were getting that in depth tech analysis here.
Speaker 1: The other thing, Matt, people spend too much more, and
Speaker 1: this is something we talked about regularly on the show,
Speaker 1: is streaming services, right, And Americans are spending an average
Speaker 1: of one thousand dollars a year for streaming now, bringing
Speaker 1: the monthly cost at least kind of closer to what
Speaker 1: cable used to cost us. And we're still watching ads
Speaker 1: like we had to in the cable days. Two at
Speaker 1: least most people are because they're not paying the premium
Speaker 1: for which is now a lot more to get ads
Speaker 1: removed from your streaming And.
Speaker 2: Like we saw last Sunday, the ads, they're just not
Speaker 2: as good as they used to be. No commercials, just
Speaker 2: not They're not as good, not at all.
Speaker 1: Although I only watched the first half, I didn't watch
Speaker 1: the second half of the game. So but you actually
Speaker 1: you don't watch watch any of it? But did you
Speaker 1: go watch any of the ads?
Speaker 2: And yeah, oh I searched it. See. I was like,
Speaker 2: I'm an advertising guy, man, that's that's my background way
Speaker 2: back in the day. And I still love seeing what,
Speaker 2: you know, what clever things they came up with. Yeah,
Speaker 2: there's not much cleverness out there. It's a little do,
Speaker 2: a little dill this year. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, I think it's just a good reminder to go
Speaker 1: take a look see what services are currently subscribed to
Speaker 1: make the goal of having I think fewer simultaneous services.
Speaker 1: You know, watch Severance or Silo or whatever your favorite
Speaker 1: Apple TV show is for a month, which I haven't.
Speaker 1: I still you haven't watched seven season two?
Speaker 2: Noo? Yeah, season two. I can't wait. But I just
Speaker 2: haven't been able to carve the time out. Yes, which
Speaker 2: means I haven't resubscribed to Apple Plus yet because I
Speaker 2: haven't committed to being in it. Baby, yeah, ok, I
Speaker 2: want to.
Speaker 1: Once you do, though, watch it in a month and
Speaker 1: then get rid of it, like you don't want to
Speaker 1: stay subscribed to it exactly. And then you know, careful
Speaker 1: consumers I think, who pay attention, who cancel services regularly,
Speaker 1: they're the ones who are winning in the new environment.
Speaker 1: But there's far too many people who just aren't taking
Speaker 1: that tact. And I think it's also Matt. They're a
Speaker 1: good reminder there are pretty good free services out there now,
Speaker 1: like to B, freeb and Filo. It's amazing to see
Speaker 1: how much steam some of those are gaining, how much
Speaker 1: people are gravitating over there. Hey, if you're gonna watch
Speaker 1: ads anyway, why not not pay a dime?
Speaker 2: Why not? Yeah? Okay. So we talked about the need
Speaker 2: for higher taxes as well as reduced government spending on
Speaker 2: Wednesday with economist Noah Smith, and man, there's no way
Speaker 2: around the both and approach. And get this, it turns
Speaker 2: out that most Americans are willing to be taxed more
Speaker 2: in order to keep their favorite government benefits like Social Security.
Speaker 2: Isn't that crazy? Eighty five percent of folks surveyed would
Speaker 2: like to see social Security benefits enhanced. I feel like
Speaker 2: there's a CSI joke in the enhanced, but they wouldn't
Speaker 2: mind a bigger tax bill for that perk. There is
Speaker 2: only something like fifteen percent of folks who said that
Speaker 2: they'd be willing to take a reduced benefit in order
Speaker 2: to prevent tax increases. And found that really fascinating. There's
Speaker 2: not much political will to even touch taxes or Social
Speaker 2: Security payouts, and in fact, the current administration they're talking
Speaker 2: about stopping taxing social Security benefits overall. Yeah, but given
Speaker 2: the state of Social Security, man like, we've got to
Speaker 2: make some real changes if we want it to stick
Speaker 2: around for future generations. It seems like some degree, it
Speaker 2: seems like some degree of austerity is going to be necessary.
Speaker 2: But then I was after talking with Noah, I was
Speaker 2: thinking about it, and I wonder if that's not true anymore,
Speaker 2: not in the sense of like the modern monetary theory
Speaker 2: or anything like that. But so states obviously have to
Speaker 2: reconcile their budgets, but the federal government doesn't, and so
Speaker 2: so much of it comes down to what the alternatives are.
Speaker 2: And as long as the US system and our economy
Speaker 2: as a whole continues to thrive, why would you change
Speaker 2: something even if we are running a deficit, because so
Speaker 2: much of it is in relation to what other countries
Speaker 2: are doing. And guess what other countries run deficits as
Speaker 2: well Asian countries, European countries, They're all running deficits, and
Speaker 2: so it's kind of relative, which is crazy to say,
Speaker 2: because you know, what would your mom say if, like,
Speaker 2: if everybody else is running jumping off the bridge aal
Speaker 2: would you well in this case, like there is a
Speaker 2: limited number of people who are jumping off the bridge,
Speaker 2: And truly, if everyone is jumping off the bridge and
Speaker 2: things are and money continues to be invested in, say
Speaker 2: in the in the US, there is there's no viable
Speaker 2: alternative when I'm thinking about investing specifically here when it
Speaker 2: comes to investing in markets that are also like blowing
Speaker 2: up and doing really well. So I don't know, just
Speaker 2: an idea. It's almost like no one's willing to say, oh,
Speaker 2: we don't need to eliminate the deficit. But that's how
Speaker 2: they're acting, Like that's how administrations over the past several
Speaker 2: I mean years and decades have acted that this is
Speaker 2: something that doesn't in fact need to be addressed, And
Speaker 2: maybe it doesn't because other countries are are doing something
Speaker 2: highly similar.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but what Noah was saying is essentially, the higher
Speaker 1: the deficit and the debt grow, and the more of
Speaker 1: the government budget that has to go to pay interest
Speaker 1: like it will inhibit dynamism at some point. So I
Speaker 1: do think this is.
Speaker 2: One of the best relation to what other countries and
Speaker 2: other countries are also are also doing that.
Speaker 1: Don't we want to be way more by dynamic than
Speaker 1: actually I would think so.
Speaker 2: But as long as we are, as long as we
Speaker 2: have less of our overall budget going towards interest payments
Speaker 2: than other countries, then maybe we can kind of have
Speaker 2: our cake and be able to eat it too. Maybe
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe Okay, But speaking of like paying more taxes on purpose,
Speaker 1: which is what a lot of those people in that
Speaker 1: Social Security survey we're signing up for, the Wall Street
Speaker 1: Journal had an article on that topic too this week,
Speaker 1: and it makes you think, why would we want to
Speaker 1: pay more taxes on purpose? Well, there are some reasons
Speaker 1: that you might want to purposely pay more in tax
Speaker 1: and what she highlighted in this article is that more
Speaker 1: Americans could benefit from what she calls strategically accelerating your income. Basically,
Speaker 1: if you're can afford to pay more taxes today, well
Speaker 1: it might lead to overall tax reduction. And this is
Speaker 1: something we've talked about on the show before two. You know,
Speaker 1: we're talking about essentially being able and willing to pay
Speaker 1: more taxes in twenty twenty five on purpose in order
Speaker 1: to reduce your future tax burden. And I think it's
Speaker 1: a smart suggestion. It's more of a holistic tax planning
Speaker 1: approach totally than just trying to, hey, how low can
Speaker 1: I cram my current year tax bill? Just it's a
Speaker 1: very myopic approach saying like, how can I limit taxes
Speaker 1: in this world one given year instead of thinking about
Speaker 1: well how much tax am I going to pay over
Speaker 1: the course of my life.
Speaker 2: Which is like it makes sense though, because I think
Speaker 2: there's a lot of folks who might be thinking, uh, well,
Speaker 2: especially maybe folks who are going to a tax professional
Speaker 2: and they're paying money, and so the tax professional kind
Speaker 2: of steers them in that direction too, because they're trying
Speaker 2: to justify what it is that they're charging. And if
Speaker 2: they're the one saying well, actually you should probably pay
Speaker 2: I know you just paid me, but you also need
Speaker 2: to pay more in taxes. Yeah, Like it feels like
Speaker 2: a double way of me.
Speaker 1: As Also, the tax pro win is to say I
Speaker 1: got you the biggest refund yes, and you're like you brock,
Speaker 1: I'm going to keep coming back to you, yes, because
Speaker 1: that feels the best in the short term exactly, but
Speaker 1: it could lead to the most you know, long term
Speaker 1: financial pain.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So more retirees are starting to find themselves in
Speaker 1: higher than his anticipated tax brackets thanks to rm ds
Speaker 1: required minimum distributions. So let's learn maybe from some of
Speaker 1: the issues they're facing. Guess why we typically talk about
Speaker 1: having more wroth accounts and balancing out your tax exposure
Speaker 1: classic example, as you're contributing two those retirement accounts, because
Speaker 1: you don't want to end up in that position where
Speaker 1: it's like, man, I mean, it's not the worst thing
Speaker 1: in the world to have a massive traditional form one K,
Speaker 1: but when you think about it from a tax perspective,
Speaker 1: there are things you could have done along the way
Speaker 1: to mitigate future taxation by bringing a little more of
Speaker 1: the pain into the present.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and just facing the reality. It makes me think
Speaker 2: about like, if you're hiring somebody to paint your house,
Speaker 2: it's just like they're thinking, Okay, I gotta get a
Speaker 2: competitive price so that they hire me. And then once
Speaker 2: we're doing it, I just need to make this house
Speaker 2: look good, like it just needs to be painted, it
Speaker 2: needs to be shiny or whatever. It needs to be fresh.
Speaker 2: And if they come across some rot, you know, if
Speaker 2: they're only thinking about the here and now, it's like, oh,
Speaker 2: is ever just gonna slap some pain on that thing? Yeah,
Speaker 2: as opposed to being the bearer of bad news. And
Speaker 2: I think oftentimes that's what it feels like when you
Speaker 2: say to somebody that, hey, yeah, it's probably gonna behoove
Speaker 2: you to pay a little more in tax right now.
Speaker 2: Like you feel like the bear of bad news.
Speaker 1: But the painter is like, hey, we're going to replace
Speaker 1: a few boards because ultimately it's gonna save you money
Speaker 1: in the long run.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But if you can have a conversation about that
Speaker 2: to point to the bigger, overall picture, well, of course
Speaker 2: that's what we want to do. You don't just want
Speaker 2: to slap some pain on it and not have to
Speaker 2: think about it now because it's going to turn into
Speaker 2: a bigger headache down the road. So's right, that's what
Speaker 2: we're trying to get y'all to do with those roth IRA's.
Speaker 1: So I think for and if you are hiring someone
Speaker 1: to do your taxes, those are good questions to ask, like, Hey,
Speaker 1: I don't I'm not concerned with only lowering my taxes
Speaker 1: right now this given year. How can I think about
Speaker 1: smart tax planning moving forward? And that's like thinking about
Speaker 1: conversations we've had on the show with Sean Mulaney. Those
Speaker 1: are really important conversations to have because again, the stakes
Speaker 1: are high when we're talking about taxation, and you might
Speaker 1: be able to save a couple grand this year, but
Speaker 1: what if you could save a heck of a lot
Speaker 1: more than that over the course of the next ten
Speaker 1: or fifteen years because you paid a little bit more now.
Speaker 2: Heck yeah, actually, I just looked it up. That's episode
Speaker 2: seven fifty eight that we last talked about that with
Speaker 2: Sean mulaney, So look that one up. Yeah. But otherwise, man,
Speaker 2: that's going to be it for this Friday. Flight Listeners
Speaker 2: can finder show notes up on the website at how
Speaker 2: to money dot com. We hope everyone has fantastic weekend.
Speaker 2: Hope your Valentine's Day plans turned out well. Forever up there,
Speaker 2: and you'll love her.
Speaker 1: Some beef turkey. That's that's my suggestion.
Speaker 2: If only Emily knew that that was the way to
Speaker 2: your heart, she would have beat you to the punch.
Speaker 1: All Right, that's gonna do it, Matt. Until next time,
Speaker 1: best friends out, Best Friends Out.