00:00:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to had the money. I'm Joel and I am Matt. Today we're talking cash hoarding, spendy sports, and work from home fees.

00:00:15
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right. It kicked in early, folks. I don't want anyone to think that there was a glitch in the recording or anything like that. That is not what we're dealing with. We had to modify the music a little, but we finally got around so that we're not just sitting staring at each other listening to our music. We like it.

00:00:33
Speaker 1: Sometimes we do sit around staring at each other listening to music map, but that's beside the point.

00:00:38
Speaker 2: It's true. Uh not if you can't do that with your best buddy, who can you do it with? That's true? Uh Yeah, what do you think about it? You kind of you like the way it sounds? I like it. I think we just yeah, we need It's gonna take a second to get used to it, but I think I think I like it too. Yeah. Also, I got to mention, what do you think about my new setup? My new digs here we gotta saw. We talked about it before we hit record, but looks better than mine. So I'm acoustically treated well, you've got the panels and stuff back there, and you're in a nice You're in a nice room. Mine kind of lacks a little personality. So maybe at some point I can get some stuff up on the walls, but acoustic panels. I've got a video light now over there. And also most notably, I'm using my phone. My phone is mounted up here, which is a better camera than what's on the iMac. Yeah, and so trying it out, and if this works, i'll show you how to do it as well. You can fit yourself. But I know you don't like the technology quite as much as I do.

00:01:34
Speaker 1: Know you're the tech guy. Really behind the scenes. I love it at HTM, I will dude.

00:01:40
Speaker 2: I will say I kind of got sucked into it as far as like, oh cause I got to fight some of my old school photography muscles a little bit with like, oh, let's just go ahead and bounce the light that I'll give us a nice look because I I was doing a shoot through umbrellousing about getting a light dome. I will say, the umbrella, it looked so good, but then I didn't want to freak you out. So we're just going with a nice basic bounce here.

00:02:02
Speaker 1: Well, if you look that much better than me, then it's just if the dichotomy is that strong people are going to be you really want me to step my game up, so you can't. You can't be too well lit, or I'm gonna sit over here looking like I'm gray and diseased. It's not like the fact that it's relative better or worse. It's the fact that it started to not feel like our show, right. And there's a certain sort of casualness to how we do how to money here, and I feel like I've gone on long enough. But after Monday's episode, when it was like night time outside and you had the green glow, I was being lit by my computer, by my screen, I was just like, I think we needed we should probably step up our production value a little bit. So well, like why of course on the new YouTube channel, if you haven't gone over and checked this second and Matt look exactly what we're talking to me handsome today, If you want to go over there and see, like how handsome does Matt look, it's really one to click away.

00:02:54
Speaker 2: Hair's looking pretty good. I will say, I do think about what shirt I put on in the morning now A little bit more.

00:02:59
Speaker 1: Same the actually brought a few older shirts that I don't wear as much here, just in case, like I'm sweaty or something like that.

00:03:06
Speaker 2: Like after a run or something like that. You forgot nice.

00:03:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're a little bit of hair gel up in here too, just in case I need to. You know, you hush it up a little bit.

00:03:16
Speaker 2: So do what you gotta do. Man.

00:03:18
Speaker 1: This is our flight though, where we get into.

00:03:20
Speaker 2: Talk about the stories from this week, the things we want to talk about, how they pertain to your finances, and kick it off. Man.

00:03:26
Speaker 1: I think the twenty dollars burritos was last week, but still I'm curious. Have you ever bought a twenty dollars burrito? Why did this become a thing. I don't think I've ever seen a burrito anyone charged twenty dollars for a burrito. And if they sit down restaurant, I maybe like, oh yeah, okay, maybe at like a really really fancy restaurant, But normally burritos are not. You're not getting a burrito at a fancy, sit down restaurant. So the twenty dollar burrito feels like this kind of mythical legend.

00:03:52
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, okay, so yeah, I want to challenge the question right, because it's just like, what are you talking about as far as the twenty dollars dollar brito? Because I will say, like our local Mexican spot, I think the uh I always get like the basic dude California burrito that's got guawka, and uh, I think if you get it with steak, it's like eighteen bucks.

00:04:12
Speaker 1: And so I see, okay, that's expensive. So the twenty dollar burrito you're saying is legit, it's a reality. I don't know what the context is. I feel like this got spun politically. This started, I think with a tweet, and I'm not on Twitter. I think I literally disbanded my account a few months ago because I didn't want to be tempted to go over there and waste time.

00:04:29
Speaker 2: So I still got mine, but I'm not on there.

00:04:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, but this is this is like going around the internets these days, and people are freaking. Some people are saying twenty albritos are too expensive, and other people are saying, where are you eating? I don't see twenty dollars burritos on the menu where I am. And this feels like just one of those silly Internet debates.

00:04:46
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I feel like the context are heart is just like like they were talking about Chipotle, which come on, like, you can't get a burrita from Chipoti that costs that much unless you're doing the dumb thing, which is having it dropped off at your doorstep and then you've got to pay the up charge and you got to pay the tip and all that. But I guess I didn't like it. Seemed like it was getting spun in a political direction where people are going to see something and be like, oh, yeah, see that's right, we gotta do something political. We got to do something about the prices. I'm not there for that, no thank you. However, if you want to take the argument of hey, actually, if you go to the grocery store and you buy some tortillas and you get some chicken thighs from Costco and buy all the ingredients and you can make like, I don't know, twelve burritos for twenty bucks if you do it at home, if you're gonna take the personal finance message of diying it at home to save a buck, to save more than a buck, than I am one hundred percent for that. But it just feels like it's like a new cultural latte factor. It's like a new latte factor sort of thing, like, oh, I can't even afford a burrito.

00:05:51
Speaker 1: Well, and this is like this is the ultimate reality. There's somebody who probably makes a burrito that's well worth twenty bucks that I would easily pay twenty bucks for. But and then there are other people who are self owning and they're door dashing a cheap burrito and because of all the additional fees and tips and stuff like that, they're really crummy. Burrito does cost twenty dollars, And that's like because they made a poor choice. And then you could make probably much better burritos at home ten for twenty bucks or something like that. Yep, by just putting in a little more time and effort. And so yes, I think that those are all true things. And I don't know why we're all whining about it, So maybe you and I have to stop talking about it and move on.

00:06:31
Speaker 2: Well, I will say that I think the burrito is kind of like the perfect meal. I am a fan of the burrito because you got your carbs right, you got the tantellia, you got the rice, you got the protein in there. Whether it's chicken or steak. What else's beans? Beans is protein, right, some veggies, guac and whatever else they stick in there. I am a fan of the brito we actually I just thought of this our road trip. We were driving. Our go to road trip food food is Chick fil A unless you're driving on a Sunday and they're closed. More power to them if they want to do that, that's fine. It just means I can't get my chicken Tendy's my strips, which are by far the easiest thing to eat while you're driving. And so what we tried. We tried out Chipotle, which I will say it was I don't know, like eighty percent more expensive than chickile a order, but we did get a ton more food. And it is possible to house a burrito while you're driving on the interstate.

00:07:28
Speaker 1: That's I mean handheld. Yes, it's all in one, it's got everything easy. But then it's also handheld.

00:07:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, so not as easy as the chicken teddies, which you know the side doors got the little compartment for the sauce. It's like it's like it was made to put sauces over there. Yeah, for me to dip in. Brito's a lot harder.

00:07:43
Speaker 1: But all right, let's let's let's move on us keep moving us. So let's do maybe like a good news bad news segment here, Matt. There was this CBS News analysis of census data, and it basically found that pay for Americans has risen significantly over the past seven years. So they were looking at twenty nineteen like pre paan to now, and the average pay is up like thirty eight percent I think since twenty nineteen, which seems significant. But on the flip side of that, inflation has kind of kept pace with pay raises. But actually there's still a gap there. I think the average consumer cost rose something like thirty percent while pay rows thirty eight percent, So there's still a positive gap there for the average American, not for all Americans. That mean some Americans fell behind a little bit the pace of inflation. Something like a quarter of Americans, I want to say, did not quite keep pace their races did not keep pace with inflation. What did you think about this?

00:08:38
Speaker 2: How?

00:08:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, how did this impact how you think about what's going on in the economy right now?

00:08:42
Speaker 2: It makes me think that everything's perfectly normal, truly, like honestly, like kind of going back to the whole burrito thing. This kind of makes me think of that where news tends to be polarizing, and you've got folks who are on the left with the current administration, and they're going to see just the inflation side of things, and they're gonna say prices are up thirty percent over the past seven years. People can't afford things. And then you've got folks on the right who are gonna be like, man, oh, the headline, didn't the headline read like Americans get the largest pay raise in forty years, And that's the headline that they're going to run with as opposed to if you take both side, like the full story and look at it for a second, and you see that launch reality, Yes, yeah, Like what are the facts on the ground actually say, what is let's base our conversation in reality, and you you annualize that out and you're looking at about one percent, a little less than one percent, like eight percent wage real rage wage growth over the past seven years. I'm perfectly fine with that, man. I like, that is a very unpopular take but I think, uh, wage growth is extremely.

00:09:48
Speaker 1: Okay, extremely fine right now. The extremely fine, I think is a good takeaway. The line that stuck out to me from the article and from that study was they said that some of the biggest came from traditionally lower paid occupations, And I like that this is also great news.

00:10:06
Speaker 2: Right.

00:10:06
Speaker 1: We have you and I have even at times talked about the k shaped economy, But when you look at what's happened over the past seven years, you're talking about, yes, some of the people at the highest end of the wealth spectrum getting ridiculously richer, specifically talking about like billionaires, right, but you're also seeing people at the lowest spectrum of the economy and of earnings seeing better than average increases in their pay. So I think that's that is good news. And you can say there's a bigger discrepancy, but you can also which is which is true and I think that will increasingly be true in our society. But you can also say, well, there's good news for people who don't make as much money. They have seen higher wage increases than the average American.

00:10:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, which is good news. Okay. On a similar note, there is a Wall Street Journal article that dove into how holding cash, specifically too much cash, is going to cost you, and it's actually it's in more dramatic fashion than you would actually expect when it comes to your portfolio, the amount of money that you would hang on to. So there is specifically what stod out to me was there is this Fidelity study and it is essentially said that if you invested five thousand dollars over forty years this I love this, if you had the absolute best timing every single year, your portfolio size after about forty years would be five point six million dollars. And you're like, really nice, that's great, that's solid. Right. If you had the worst timing in the world, your portfolio would only be four point three million, and you're thinking, who you know, big gap? Yeah, big gap. More than a million less.

00:11:41
Speaker 1: It's still a lot of money.

00:11:43
Speaker 2: If you held onto cash that entire period of time, your portfolio would have been devastated because you would only have three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. So it goes from best timing in the world five point six worst timing in the world, still invested for point three not invested at all, sitting in cash, parked in the bank, hiding the money in your mattress, bearing it out in the field, taking it to like biblical text there three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Man, I could not. I mean, I guess it makes sense. It's the power of compounding. But it just put up a real clear point on how you don't need to be holding on too much cash in your investment portfolio.

00:12:25
Speaker 1: Some cash, some liquidity is crucial, right, especially when we're talking about an emergency fund. But yes, after taxes, after inflation, you make essentially nothing, even with high yald sav these accounts rates having gone up from where they were like five years ago. You remember when they were half a percent was like good, and so we are in better territory than that. But even still assuming that holding on to extra cash and earning that slightly higher rate than what you were able to earn is going to help you build wealth over the long term, it's not. And you need to be You need to be investing with the vast majority of dollar that you don't need anytime soon, because yeah, look just look at the numbers, look at history, look at what's gonna happen to your dollars. You don't want them to get eroded. Even if you're making three and a half percent, that is not enough, right to help you build wealth for your future. Absolutely. On the banking note, let's talk about overdraft fees for just a second. Yeah, the average fee is apparently twenty seven dollars now the bank's charge, which I think it's gone down a little bit. I think the average fee used to be over thirty dollars, so banks are getting a little bit nicer. It still seems ridiculous to be charged that much money when you take more money out of your account than you should have. There was member of a proposal, Matt. I think it was by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to eradicate overdraft fees be altogether. But the CFPB has mostly been stripped of its power and so that's not going to happen. But I'm also okay with this because we've seen a lot of banks use this as marketing materials, saying, hey, we don't charge over draft fees anymore. We're one of the good banks, Like why don't you trust us instead of those big banks who don't care about you at all? And you should like, you should go to one of the banks. Even if you're the kind of person who says I keep enough, I got my eyeball on my money, I'm not overdrafting my account. I still think for many other reasons, it's better to do businesses with the banks that don't charge these stupid fees. Discover, Capital one, betterment, those are a few of our favorite they don't charge over draft fees. Go with them instead of the big banks who want to penalize you at every turn.

00:14:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And it's not just who are you going to bank with specifically worth you know, Capital one. You do a lot of banking with Discover and Capital one they don't.

00:14:39
Speaker 1: Charge overdraft, right, and those are now the same company. Eventually, I'm sure they'll be infused centil one.

00:14:46
Speaker 2: I don't but yeah, ally similarly something that they did away with. And hey, let's connect this to the hanging on to cash argument, which is if you have something to do with your cash, if it's served a purpose, if it has a reason to exist, then that is a good thing. But money or cash that you have on hand that does not have a purpose, money that does not have a job, is a bad thing. That's where you're going to see your wealth erode due to inflation. But one of the best case uses for having cash on hand is so that you don't get hit with an overdraft fee. Why Because you have an emergency fund either thirty either the money gear number one thirty forty five or is it money gear number four where you're looking at three three to six months or living expenses, right, And what that does is provide some margin and some buffer so that if it's I don't know, you're making a big purchase or a big card payment and happens to be before payday, you're not sweating it. Why Because you've got a good amount of cash set aside there, so that like that is a perfect use case for having cash on hand. But yeah, I'm with you, man, I think it is ultimately up to us as consumers to decid who we're going to do business with and then on top of that ensure that we are in good financial standing. Because like what the banks will say, this is what they say too. They say, well, the overdraft exists to act as like a shaka asorber there. That way, if you know you're out of the store, you're out with friends. You don't want to be in a situation where your card gets denied, do you. And what I say is, well, that just desensitizes you to the fact that you don't have any money right as opposed to like give me that feedback and then least when they charge you ridiculous fees on top of it, Yes, and allowed me to make a better decision. I think that that's that's what I would rather see more people doing. Okay, let's let's talk about kids sports for a second, because actually I saw this article about how expensive they've gotten. It's like a forty billion dollar industry now in the United States, which made me think of my most recent conversation with Jesse Meekham just this week, and that was at the very end of our conversation. I't remember if you remember this, Matt, he said, we're a rec league family, and he said that was a way that he's got seven kids, so it mattered even more than it does for you or I who have seven combined. But the I think that approach is going to become even more and more necessary in today's day and age, where athletics is getting so expensive. We when we were on a trip this summer, we ran into some folks from where we live who were there for a lacrosse tournament, and I was like, oh my goodness, Like the people are traveling hotels just everything has gotten more expensive about youth sports. And guess what when you look at the numbers in this article that will link to in the show notes, list the numbers. How likely is your kid to get a scholarship in this sport? How likely is your kid to go pro in this sport? Highly unlikely?

00:17:50
Speaker 1: And I like the way there was a article a couple of months ago about how Norway does youth sports. Matt, I think you and I talked about this maybe off the year, but it's so laid back and chill and up until age thirteen, like they're not even keeping score in a lot of these leagues. There is no like travel ball. It is just a way for kids to have fun and enjoy it. And I think the way we have like commoditized and made youth sports this ridiculously expensive endeavor, it hasn't necessarily made it more fun for kids, but it's made it way more expensive for adults. Well, I will say it probably makes sport watching sports more fun at a professional level, because I mean, you're like, what is the net result of the product that's being created? And I would venture to say that like pro athletes in large part are better because of the fact that they started at younger ages. It does lead to more injury, right, repetitive use like you talk about like Tommy John surgery and you got that's all they're doing, right, Like they're only pitching. That is like the only sort of I guess I think there can be a benefit there. But bottom line, like you said, unless you know.

00:18:57
Speaker 2: You've got a kid who's just a complete total prodigy at the game, you don't need to be spending that much money. Yeah, this is this article was written by one of the rit Holts guys, and like my big takeaway was that, h oh yeah, well, Meekham, He's just like, we're not doing travel league like you said, we're rec league. Family, there's additional steps because below rec league, in m my opinion, his school like school sports, which a lot of times are even free. Uh if there is a small uniform fee perhaps something like that. But you're not traveling why because it's like, oh yeah, practice is right after school, so like travel rereck school. And then there's another level, Joel, I'm gonna call that church league. Like I've got multiple friends who have reached out and they're like, hey, does Westy he's getting older, he's he's up, he's fast, he's running around. Maybe he wants to play play soccer with us. We play this league, you know, we do that league. This isn't because they're like trying to recruit him or anything. He's not like impressive. They're just friends. Everybody knows it. They're being kind. But I'm like, you know what, actually, I think we're going to start he's in first grade. I think we're going to start in locally. There's a nearby church and they've got a pretty casual league. It's real chill for a few months. Seventy five dollars all in, includes the includes the jersey. It's even less if you bring a sibling. It's like each additional kid, it's like then it's fifty five dollars or forty five or something like that. But just mostly are out there for folks there are. We're mostly doing the cheap leagues over here. Ezra's in this one, my youngest, he's in this one soccer league. And they changed the jersey colors every two years though, and so you got to buy in the new jerseys even if the old ones still fit. Added they added a training jersey because they you know, these kids want to be like the Granted, I think the training jersey was like twelve dollars, so it didn't break the bank. But I'm just like, this is like, this is creep. This adds up, It all adds up, and this is so silly, Like what, we do not need a specialty red training jersey for our practices? That seems reasonable twelve bucks. Compare that to what it is some not yeah kids, but what some grown ups are spending on shirts with holes in them? Did you read that one? You want to talk about that?

00:21:18
Speaker 1: Oh, these are specialty. I think Nike started it. Hoka's got one too. These are to keep you cool when you're running long distances, and ultra runners are wearing these, and if you're a professional ultrarunner, I'm sure you're getting sponsored and Nike and Hoka are just like sending you to these shirts. But then just like regular dad runners and mom runners around my neighborhood are starting to wear these fancier shirts that are really really expensive and one.

00:21:43
Speaker 2: Hundred and forty bucks for a shirt. Yeah, and I think shirt.

00:21:46
Speaker 1: They assume that this is going to make them a better runner or yeah, but it just doesn't. It just doesn't like unless you are running at elite levels, so much of this additional equipment. Or when you show up to your local five k matt and you see the guy wearing the Nike Alpha Fly shoes or getting those Adidas shoes that set the record in the marathon pace, like, come on, that's not going to be you, and that maybe gives you an additional two seconds on your crummy five k, but well, it takes, But the four hundred dollars wasn't worth it because your regular shoes sitting in the back of your closet would have done you just as well.

00:22:23
Speaker 2: Hey, it is up to the runner to decide whether or not it's worth it, right, because on one hand, it's you know, like the shirts with the holes in it. It's one thing some of the tech that goes into the newer shoes and like they are lighter, but like especially the shirts with the holes in it, they're like lasered in one of them, Like the line it's like moth something it's supposed to like mimic the fact that like, oh, the shirt's been in the back of the closet and it got eaten up by moths. It's so ridiculous. I can'tnot think darre leaked, you know, just the fact that people are paying top dollar for stuff that looks old and trash. Dude, Oh my gosh, don't get me started on the hold us. The tennis shoes that all the moms around here are were the Golden Goose, and these are like tennis shoes that are distressed and they're made to the They're just like plain looking sneakers. They're made to look dirty or busted up. At the same they're like hundreds of dollars for these tennis shoes. Dude, Like that's man, I just have a tough time with that as opposed to actually wearing the dang thing and getting like real holes in it. Like, ain't nobody can imitate the holes that you put in your own shirt or your own shoes.

00:23:31
Speaker 1: Do it the old fashioned way, in the much cheaper way, shall we. Let's let's see, let's get cut to a break, and let's get there's this story we have to talk about about apartments charging people money extra money if they work from home. It's ridiculous. We'll get to that and more right after this.

00:23:57
Speaker 2: All right, you know what I love that you just did that on the fly. You just chose to skip some of those stories that we had slotted up, and I'm totally I'm totally cool with that. Man. Nobody even noticed that we didn't get to the now they noticed. Now right now we're gonna get to the lyticrous headline of the week, which is from USA Today. Headline reads, the rent was already high, then came the two hundred. I botched that. Then came the two hundred dollars work from home fee. I was trying to be overly dramatic. That's why I watched it. What'd you think of that story? Joel? This is from USA Today.

00:24:33
Speaker 1: Channeling your inner David Mrror or something like that, trying to be dramatic.

00:24:37
Speaker 2: Trying to get a little more dramatic.

00:24:40
Speaker 1: What do I think of this? It's ridiculous. Apparently this is not happening all over the country. This is only happening has happened at a couple of different apartment complexes, or on a couple of different listings, one in California and one in North Carolina that we've seen that USA Today was able to document. So it's rare. Yeah, but still, I guess the thought process from the apartment complex is Oh, if you're working from home, you're probably going to use more utilities, more electricity. If that's let's say, baked into the price of your rent, maybe that's why maybe they're charging this additional fee. I would walk away from any apartment that said how many hours a day are you going to be using your apartment, because we have to charge you based on how how much of the time you're actually going to be there. If you're going to be at the bar more with your friends or in the office more, we'll charge you less. But if you're going to actually be using your apartment as much as more than the average, then you're gonna have to pay more. That's ridiculous that I don't like it at all.

00:25:40
Speaker 2: Dude, Yeah, I don't like it as well. And it's also just it was just dumb, right Like, like you said, this isn't doesn't seem to be a widespread thing. It's more it kind of went viral, and the fact that I went viral and so many people push back on it, I think made it very clear the very few apartments are going to try to pull this off on their residents because it's just a pr nightmare, right Like it doesn't. It just doesn't make sense, Like what apartments first of all, like are the apartments that are also including electricity? That are including how much of the Wi Fi you're using? That that includes how much water are you using? How much gap?

00:26:13
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe there are, but even sometimes I think water is included in your monthly rant amount.

00:26:19
Speaker 2: But even still, the fact that you've itemized it and separated it out is just a massive per public relations PR nightmare. As opposed to let's say that that is taking as a business owner, You're like, oh, this is actually impacting us. Okay, just across the board, raised rent by like four dollars or something, right, and then you've equivaled, You've done the equivalent of raised of charge to two hundred dollars fee to the twenty percent of folks who are working from home. But then the more you think, the more I was thinking about it, the more it just made less and less sense, because how the heck would you actually police this? Yeah? How is it doing it? On that like honor system?

00:27:01
Speaker 1: Send someone around the door to knock on doors at one pm? Are you working in there, sir, ma'am?

00:27:06
Speaker 2: No, yah, It's easy. I'm just not gonna it's just way too big brother.

00:27:10
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, what is this nineteen?

00:27:11
Speaker 2: How you actually police people? How you are going to implement this makes no sense at all. And and people, I think it's done. People hate fees, people hate being charged extra fees. People love a discount, and so I think the better way to go is to offer people discounts for behavior that you want to see instead of penalizing them for the behavior you don't want to see. So, yeah, people are going to be like I'm done with you, I'm out of here, so and rightly, So yeah, let's let's talk about fidelity. Matt, Okay, good. Yeah. I was gonna say this is that this is like a ludicrous runner up. I thought this one too, and skipping kind of mood like mood over there. So I wanted to I wanted to talk about this.

00:27:56
Speaker 1: So stuff crossed pizza you've you know remember when that came about. I think it was Pizza Hut that invented it back in the day.

00:28:02
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna Ballpark nineteen ninety four, ninety six.

00:28:06
Speaker 1: That sounds about right. I remember seeing the commercials and being like, oh, that's the gooey stuff in the crust, like mom I need that Fidelity has launched something that's kind of like the investing version of stuff Cruss Pizza Target date funds with annuities inside. These are going to roll out apparently in early twenty twenty seven, and they're becoming more and more popular. These are products we're going to start seeing more as investors. And an annuity is kind of like an insurance product that allows you to turn a lump sum into an ongoing paycheck. Right, that's the goal of an annuity. Social Security is kind of like an annuity for us that we will eventually when we claim Social Security, we will have an ongoing paycheck every single month until we die. That is the point of an annuity, turning that lump sum into your retirement account into an ongoing paycheck. Well, it's important to I'm not going to say this is a terrible idea, but it's really important to look at the costs and trade offs if you're going to do this, because typically you're talking about higher costs, you're talking about inferior returns than having that money left in the market. At the same time, you are talking about knowing consistently how much you can count on every month, and there is something valuable about that. But if you already have social Security, you might not need one of these products, and it's just worth looking into again. Just because Vanguard Fidelity companies that you and I tend to like and respect Matt offer something like this, it doesn't mean it's a slam dung decision to go with it.

00:29:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. And I do think the biggest thing, like the biggest selling point, like the unique selling points or what is it, the USB unique selling proposition to forget. I feel like people in sales know what I'm talking about, right, But it's the guaranteed income. I think that's the hardest part about Like I'm not in retirement, but I think people don't like having to decide when they're going to sell some of their investments, and then they are when they do finally choose to how much much are they going to sell? Right?

00:30:02
Speaker 1: So, as opposed to be myself rule sounds great in theory, it's really hard to pull off an actual album and practice exactly right.

00:30:09
Speaker 2: So, like, I don't know, I'm not there, I'm not living this myself, but I'm thinking, Okay, I don't think it would be that hard just to say, oh, market's down a little bit more this month or this year, we're gonna let's let's leave as much as I in there so it can rebound, versus, oh, man, market's been on a tear, Like okay, maybe we can go on the little bit nicer vacation. Like I'm saying, saying all this theoretically, and I just think that you're offloading the stress of having to decide when it is you're going to sell, how much you're going to you're actually going to decide. So it's sort of like this behavioral psychological benefit that you're receiving. And I think that there is a solution. Obviously you can do it yourself, but I think there's a way that maybe prior to retirement you practice selling some investments a little bit. It's sort of like, dude, it's not unlike how you use your time. We talk about developing interests and core pursuits and hobbies, friendships even along the way, not waiting until you retire and say, oh, all of a sudden, I'm gonna do all these things I used to, you know, work seventy hours a week. Now I'm just gonna sit on my butt all day at the beach and now I'm just only going to golf. Yeah, that's probably not gonna work out well for you, right, like you have to gradually transition into retirement, and I think the same is actually true for your money. I think the more thing about it, it would benefit people to not only slow down how much they're saving and investing as they get closer to retirement, but man, I think maybe even a good practice might be to what does it feel like to sell some investments to pay for something big that not even all that big, but just the practice of having exercise that muscle a little bit could give you con strengthen that muscle, but also give you some insight as to whether or not that's something you need to kind of work on yourself internally, or if you're just like, well, that was fine, okay, if it was fun, and maybe you should save some more, because maybe you're gonna be a big spender if you freaked out by you know, by selling, maybe it's just like, okay, maybe that's something you can revisit over the years. But in a similar way, Yeah, it's not the worst thing in the world. The fact that the pensionification of our fore wing case has taken place, but not what I'm most excited about. Like you said, even though some of our favorites are starting to carry it.

00:32:23
Speaker 1: I think it is You're right, like test it out is good, is I think good advice. I also think know yourself is a good advice. And if you are a nervous nelly, you're an anxious person, You're you're if the market were to decline twenty five percent in a given year, you'd be freaking out and you would wish you had done that. And you also realize that you're giving up on some of the upside of what the market can offer, even when you still need that portfolio. And I'll likely to continue to grow over time, missing out on some of the upside. It might be worth it for some people. So it really is kind of a know yourself sort of thing. And when you see these new products rolling out, don't just jump on them because familiar Vangar, these are great companies Matt and Joel talk about, like, this must be an awesome product, and you might even want to talk to a professional, one of our friends at wealth ramp right who could help you make a smart decision for you. I do think this is probably a more individual decision than like a blanketed advice for every single person out there.

00:33:27
Speaker 2: Totally yeah, totally agree. Let's get to another good news bad news story, Joel, which is that gen Z is evidently investing at an earlier age. I think this is something we've talked about. So that's the good. Yeah. The bad is that these investments. Oh and another part of the good too is that predominantly in roth iras, which I'm just like, great, yes you're not.

00:33:49
Speaker 1: They they got the memo on that.

00:33:51
Speaker 2: They finally got the memo. All that was great to see. The bad news is that sometimes these investments also include prediction markets, sports betting options, leverage, gtfs, all the bad things as well. Yeah, this is the story over in the Morning Star. But yeah, what do you think about this sort of bad news good news situation.

00:34:11
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's amazing that people are investing at a younger age. I want to say gen Z is investing essentially twenty years earlier than their baby boomer counterparts, and two extra decades of your money growing and compounding is an incredible thing. It will make a massive difference in your eventual standard of living. In the nest egg you're able to accumulate unless you're really screw the pooch with a lot of those investing dollars early on, and you think that some of the actions that you're taking that you're calling investing are not actually investing. Like if you are using those dollars to gamble on Calshi and they disappear, Sorry, that wasn't investing. And if you thought it was, you were misled. And so I just this is a case in which you can participate in some of those things with a percentage of your budget. If you call it entertainment, don't call it investing. Yeah, don't call it investing, and then stick stick you know the proper amount that you need to in your four one K in your roth ira heck yes, and invest in widely diversified index ones. But if you want to put part of your money into those things and assume I'm assuming that you're probably going to lose most of those dollars over time that you put it, you know that you gamble away. But if you win, more power to you. Hey you had fun and you came out on top. But I think for the most part, starting early is a great thing. But only if you don't fritter that money away in dumb ways.

00:35:42
Speaker 2: But isn't it inevitable though, the fact that younger folks have the ability to invest, Like I was doing dumb stuff when I was nineteen years old, right, I just didn't I couldn't easily invest my dollars at nineteen. It's just like we've given them the keys to the car, Like they have access to the markets, which in so many ways is the great thing. It also doesn't surprise me that there's some some casualties along the way. Sure, the fact the fact that they are getting kind of sucked into this, and there's a part of me that's I mean, please, if you're nineteen and you're dabbling a little bit in this, yeah, if you see it as entertainment, okay, great. If you think it's an investment, please heed our advice. It is not an investment. This is just for fun. But I'm also as a.

00:36:23
Speaker 1: Society, we've we've done I think young people in disservice by making some of these things seem like smart uses of their money, or hey, this is better than buying a twenty dollars burrito. Stick this money into prediction markets where you're investing. You say you think that that we've done a diservice.

00:36:39
Speaker 2: We're not saying that. It's it's not you and I there's people out there who are trying to like swindle kids essentially, or who are trying to gain a following, and they're saying the extreme thing. Whether that's extremely good or extremely true or extremely but it's really use. It's also some of these some of these companies with their slick advertising, and it's also some of our politicians who have, in an effort to get more time tax dollars in the coffers of states, have said, yeah, let's legalize some of these forms of gambling, or they've looked the other way when it comes to prediction markets, which they're saying, are are these forms of uh that what they're they're not calling them gambling? What do they call what are The politicians come, yeah, yeah, prediction markets. I mean that's that's the work around.

00:37:19
Speaker 1: It's not yeah exactly, they're saying, yeah, these aren't, these aren't actually gambling, when clearly they are. And so when when everyone has a vested interest to make money, including politicians, they're they're letting people who don't have a fully formed prefrontal cortex at least some leaving them to the to the wolves, watching their favorite sporting event and being like and seeing their favorite athlete repping this brand. Oh, I guess this is a decent way for me to go. And you and I can sit here in our ripole middle age and say they should know better, but as a society, we haven't done a good job communicating that to them and helping helping investors understand what's smart.

00:37:56
Speaker 2: That's yeah, and that's what we're doing because that's what we can do because like, there's just so many things out there though that are harmful, you know, like you know, credit card points, cash back, Like how is that funded?

00:38:07
Speaker 1: Lottery tickets? How does that fund higher ed?

00:38:09
Speaker 2: Like, there are things that are out there and obviously we don't want we want folks to participate in them to a lesser extent, And I think the transparency is the biggest thing that we can do at least and making folks know what it is other participating in that. It's not an investment. And you want to talk about shopping. Should we move on?

00:38:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's do that. Speaking of politicians, there's a proposal in some states. In New York specifically right now, to mandate cheaper groceries if you buy them at the self checkout Kiosk versus going through the line where there's an actual employee ringing up said groceries. What do you think about this?

00:38:54
Speaker 2: I think that you're asking how I feel about self checkout, or you ask me how I feel about this potential policy that that might happen in New York City?

00:39:05
Speaker 1: Do you use self checkout? And would you use it more if you got a ten percent discount?

00:39:10
Speaker 2: I use it no matter what, because what depends on a lot depends on going through an employee line. I love talking to the person and selfwhere it depends where, man, I will dude, Oh, I was recently in hobby lobby. When's the last time you stood in line at hobby lobby on a Saturday afternoon? Don't tell you that? Tell me if I'm wrong. Doesn't hobby lobby not have UPC codes and they enter everything in manually? Is that what's going on?

00:39:34
Speaker 1: I say, the most maddening experience. It was bumkers.

00:39:38
Speaker 2: It's like she wanted to talk about every item and I'm like, I'm after last week and uh no, was it Monday we're talking about human connection. I've been challenging myself to be like, you know what, I want to be better about seeing people out in the world when I'm running my errands instead of trying to be as efficient as possible. But I'm telling dude, I tell you what. There was like a line stretched out behind me and this lady she was literally providing a commentary on the items she was ringing.

00:40:03
Speaker 1: Now, so you're eight minute conversation about yarn wasn't enjoyable, dude.

00:40:06
Speaker 2: I was just like, oh, you know, She's like, oh man, I can't believe this only costs this much more for in this package is so much bigger than that package. So I'm like, it is. I don't want to comment because I want We got a whole bunch of folks here behind us, as opposed to some you know, you get an Aldie, dude, They're they're all about just ripping you through personally. It depends what because if I got like three gallons of milk, which I've done I purchased recently at Aldi, I love just showing up grabbing the gun and being like beep beep, yeah, double click, tap the pay I'm out of there.

00:40:39
Speaker 1: So okay, you don't you don't mind self checkout. I don't mind it at and I would love it there. I'm here there. But this policy, if it, if this bill passes, Matt, this like not good This is not good news because what are the economic incentives that then shoppers have, and then then grocery stores would have either too. I think eliminate self check out kiosks altogether, which I don't know. I think a lot of people like them. Why would you want to rip them out? They actually give a discount. Yeah, they actually in the end make groceries cheaper for all of us by reducing labor costs. And I think it will and grocery stores will also raise prices right to cover the cost of the discount now that they're mandated to offer if you use the self checkout. So I think this is just like bad policy idea, And people assume great grocery stores are going to have to give a ten percent discount now at self checkout, and that's just not the way it's going to play out.

00:41:37
Speaker 2: It's just it's a distortion to the market that is completely unnecessary. And on one hand, I'm fine with it because like I would much rather New York City try this out in that city before they try it at a state level where I live, or you know, at a federal level, Like that's the laboratories of democracy that we have working for us. Let's experiment a little bit. But I would rather a company try this out on their own.

00:42:01
Speaker 1: Right.

00:42:01
Speaker 2: If they're thinking, oh, you know, what's a big nightmare is having to onboard new employees, maybe we'll do more of the self checkouts, and you try that out, and then they balance kind of weigh that with Okay, we're starting to see an increase in shrinkage, right, because that's a ply way of saying folks are stealing our stuff. Yeah, yeah, uh, then you make a decisions based on that. But yeah, I don't like the fact that it's mandated from on high. But I'm also okay with another city that I don't live in trying this out. But yeah, and also I think under doesn't quite understand that grocery stores are a very low margin, highly competitive business. So there aren't many grocery stores making money hand over fist. They're and then all of a sudden you're forced to give a ten percent discount. That's gonna have a mind as we have three people working there and everything's in a cardboard box. It's because they're trying to make everything as cheap as humanly possible, and they can't afford to give a ten percent discount if you go through the self checkout line. Not possible.

00:43:08
Speaker 1: You want to talk about a new shopping app that that people are flocking to and it's not been so good.

00:43:14
Speaker 2: I didn't see this. What's the app?

00:43:16
Speaker 1: So it's called the What's Not Shopping App? And do you remember do you remember those penny bid sites that people were doing for a while and you would bid just a penny, and so over time it got super addictive and you would hope that you would win the new PlayStation for.

00:43:29
Speaker 2: Like, oh I think I ever.

00:43:30
Speaker 1: I don't think I ever did this, but we've talked about it before. Okay, they're awful. So this new site is called what Not Shopping App and it's a mix of like QBC, TikTok eBay and FanDuel. It is it is like this little cock shopping cocktail site where people are doing live auctions of certain things. You're just like doing little swipes across the screen if you want to make a bid. The price keeps going up. And there was this one guy profile in the story, Matt who I mean super sad his wife. His wife divorced him because he racked up one point four million dollars worth of worth of debt shopping on this app because he got so addicted.

00:44:08
Speaker 2: So I would divorce that guy too, not because of the one point four but because we would have had conversations well before that and he would have ignored me.

00:44:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, this hypothetical situation is making.

00:44:19
Speaker 2: Just Yeah, I'm thinking it's not the money, it's the lack of trust and disrespect and the mutual understanding. Yeah, Like that's unfortunately one of the downsides too, Like when you socialize things. Maybe we can tie this back to investing. It's like shopping or like investing, it leads to kind of like this peer pressure to participate in something that you don't necessarily want to participate in. And to even round it back to the Spendee Sports segment of the show. In the article there, he was talking about how that's a large part of it too, the fact that people feel pressured to participate. And so whether it's youth sports, whether it's investing, or whether it's something what's it called?

00:45:01
Speaker 1: Not?

00:45:03
Speaker 2: Whatnot? What nots? Oh my gosh. Yeah, even the name kind of tells you that, like you're buying stuff that you don't need. What you get, what you get delivered. I don't notice whatnot some other stuff.

00:45:14
Speaker 1: I think. I also think I think we underestimate Silicon Valley and smart entrepreneurs who are trying to part us from our money at our own peril. And the better thing to do is probably to if you have this app on your phone, to delete it. If you don't have it, to avoid it completely. It's really hard for us to know, sometimes speaking from experience, as like who who doesn't has not become addicted to the Instagram algorithm at times? Right, And the only way for me to overcome that was to take it off my phone. There are ways in which we are our own worst enemy, and it's really hard for us to rein it in with sheer willpower, and so sometimes the only thing you can do is just to completely sever your relationship to something thing. So when apps like this come along, I think I question the I hate it because I think it's it makes people more addicted to doing things that are not in their best interest. But as of right now. The only thing we can do. You can't get FanDuel band or what not app band necessarily or TikTok band, although they tried. All you can do is just resist and make sure it's not on your phone so it can't screw you over.

00:46:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, cut it, free distance yourself, and I think it'll lead a better outcomes. Man, that's gonna be it. You got anything else you gonna talk about? No, Man, All right, let's call it. That's our Friday flight. We help everyone has a fantastic weekend. We'll see it back here on Monday with a fresh ask how to money and oh make sure to head over to YouTube our channel how to Money pod like and subscribe. I think that's what the that's what the kids, that's what the tubers is that that's what they're called, right, tubers.

00:46:56
Speaker 1: I think that's what they call potatoes.

00:47:00
Speaker 2: What if they're called tubers?

00:47:01
Speaker 1: Oh?

00:47:02
Speaker 2: All right, all the tubers out there, likescribe.

00:47:05
Speaker 1: Influencers are the people who creating the content you're talking about the people who subscribe.

00:47:09
Speaker 2: What are they called? I don't know, just people who are on YouTubers. This should be called tubers. I just think that's cracking myself up. But yeah, head over there to make sure to like and subscribe. You can see our faces. If I got to see Joel's face, then you gotta see Jeel's face.

00:47:23
Speaker 1: But that's gonna be it, buddy. So it'll make your day, I promise. Until next time, Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out.

00:47:36
Speaker 2: Oh that's short. The short intro is good. Hey you would go for a run? Dmorrow morning? You go for run? Yeah?

00:47:43
Speaker 1: I think so. I just have to check on the coffee thing.

00:47:46
Speaker 2: Oh okay, you let me know, okay. Peace