Speaker 1: Hello, Matt, Hey, buddy, how's it going good? This is
Speaker 1: not your normal How to Money show. This is a
Speaker 1: Bestie episode. And we're releasing this one because it is
Speaker 1: the day before Thanksgiving and coming up as Black Friday,
Speaker 1: a sign of weakness for many consumers around the nation.
Speaker 1: And I don't know, I mean, I think that this
Speaker 1: episode perfectly pairs for this week. It's an episode that
Speaker 1: we where we talked about taking advantage of free stuff.
Speaker 1: There's so much amazing free things all around us that
Speaker 1: we've failed to take advantage of that we failed to
Speaker 1: even consider. And so yeah, I think this is was
Speaker 1: an important episode, and it's especially important the week that
Speaker 1: consumers go the absolute most ape insanity over buying new stuff.
Speaker 1: Hopefully this episode being rereleased will sort of act as
Speaker 1: like an immunization shot for you, right, like get your
Speaker 1: dose of hearing how you should be taking advantage of
Speaker 1: free stuff before your you go out there and kind
Speaker 1: of you might be tempted by those sales. Get inoculated now.
Speaker 1: And the thing is, man, it's not that we're against
Speaker 1: spending money, right, like we're we're not against purchase things.
Speaker 1: We just want folks to be mindful, right, And thoughtful
Speaker 1: about their purchases and to not just bend blindly and
Speaker 1: kind of get caught up in all the big sales
Speaker 1: that are going on, all the hype. Yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: there's been a couple of things that I've considered purchasing
Speaker 1: a new TV. I've told you about this. I've had
Speaker 1: the same TV since I've purchased one on a Black Friday,
Speaker 1: like twelve years ago. And the one that you waited
Speaker 1: in line for, I had to stick my hand on
Speaker 1: it literally the whole time and wait for it. I
Speaker 1: think Black Fridays changed a little bit since then. Are
Speaker 1: you on one of those like shopping s free videos
Speaker 1: where people are like pushing each other over, like knocking
Speaker 1: down the glass sliding doors. An old lady might have
Speaker 1: knocked me over with her cane. I was so mad
Speaker 1: it didn't take much to knock you over back then,
Speaker 1: That's true. I was. I was like weekling. But yeah, no,
Speaker 1: that's still the same TV I have to this day.
Speaker 1: And you know what I've thought about it. I've poured
Speaker 1: it over my brain and they're so cheap, and you
Speaker 1: know what, I've decided, I'm gonna stick with it. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna do it. I'm not gonna give in. It's
Speaker 1: still solid. So more power to you, dude. Now. And
Speaker 1: that's not saying I'm not gonna buy anything, but gotcha,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna stick to eight incredibly small list
Speaker 1: of of one or two things that I've curated that Okay,
Speaker 1: if I find a deal on those two things, that's
Speaker 1: what I am willing to spend my money on. I
Speaker 1: hear you, dude, Well, do you actually even like turkey? Oh? Man?
Speaker 1: I love turkey. Yeah, it's a shame every time Thanksgiving
Speaker 1: rolls around, I'm always like, why is this the only
Speaker 1: day of the year we turkey is so good? Man? Specifically,
Speaker 1: I am a huge fan of smoke turkeys. There's a
Speaker 1: barbecue place locally and they smoke a bunch of their turkeys.
Speaker 1: They are so delicious. It's hard enough to try them
Speaker 1: out there when you smoke them, right, Well, that's the thing.
Speaker 1: You go to somebody that knows what they're doing and
Speaker 1: you can get yourself a juicy, delicious, tender smoked turkey.
Speaker 1: And it's got so much flavor. It's got all that
Speaker 1: barbecue flavor but built under the turkey. Yeah, what way
Speaker 1: can you make turkey better by making it tastes like bacon. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: one year, my sister actually put bacon on the outside
Speaker 1: of the turkey and it was pretty delightful. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think I think my favorite way of eating turkey those
Speaker 1: fried turkey. We did that in front of my house
Speaker 1: one year and it was awesome. Just a bunch of
Speaker 1: friends frying turkeys and we just had like a blast.
Speaker 1: And I just like locks in the flavor. The skin
Speaker 1: is a little crispy. There's just another better and turkey
Speaker 1: anyway you fried it up, right, You're getting me in
Speaker 1: the mood, dude, that sounds so good. Awesome. Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: we've got so much to be thankful for too, and
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, when we when we think of it
Speaker 1: in light of the fact that we have so much,
Speaker 1: we have so much to be thankful for. Actually, it
Speaker 1: makes Black Friday seem like a little less of a
Speaker 1: necessity in our lives. Yeah, yeah, dude, that's so true.
Speaker 1: I am thankful for for you man in this podcast,
Speaker 1: that we're able to do together. Don't make me cry,
Speaker 1: but it's it's it's true. I really appreciate our friendship
Speaker 1: and I'm also thankful man, for all of our listeners
Speaker 1: who just listen to us weekend week out. We could
Speaker 1: not do this podcast without you, our a listener out
Speaker 1: there supporting us. So man, we really appreciate you yeah
Speaker 1: and always yeah sharing their wins, reaching out to us
Speaker 1: for the email sharing stuff in the Facebook group, all
Speaker 1: that stuff that just energizes us to continue to create
Speaker 1: the show and we love doing it. And that one
Speaker 1: more thing we have to mention, actually, the day after Thanksgiving,
Speaker 1: on Black Friday, we're going to be in New York
Speaker 1: City because we're creating a podcast episode up there the
Speaker 1: following day, which will be really fun and for our
Speaker 1: listeners who live in the New York City area, we're
Speaker 1: going to try to have a beer hang So make
Speaker 1: sure you follow our Facebook page, Facebook dot com slash
Speaker 1: out to Money Pod, and we'll also post something on
Speaker 1: our Instagram page as well. So, yeah, if you are
Speaker 1: in New York, if you don't want to shop and
Speaker 1: you actually prefer to hang out and have a beer
Speaker 1: with some money saving dudes instead, well we'd love to
Speaker 1: see you. And without further ado, let's get to that
Speaker 1: best of the episode where we talked about free stuff.
Speaker 1: Welcome to how to Money. I'm Joel, and I'm Matt
Speaker 1: and today we're discussing how to take advantage of free stuff. Joel, Man,
Speaker 1: it is almost Christmas. Your plans for the holidays, Yeah, buddy,
Speaker 1: Christmas time. I'm stoked. Christmas is always so much fun,
Speaker 1: and our plans are really to hang out around the
Speaker 1: house and we'll see some families, see some friends. There's
Speaker 1: already been a lot of that. I think what I
Speaker 1: love about Christmas time the most is there's so many
Speaker 1: parties to go to. Oh my gosh, yeah, which is
Speaker 1: partly why you and I both sound a little horse.
Speaker 1: We might have been making a little too merry maybe, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: and those actually we were at the same three parties
Speaker 1: last week, which sounds kind of ridiculous because I mean,
Speaker 1: we do have lives outside of our own relationship. Should
Speaker 1: we find some other friends or something like that. I
Speaker 1: don't know, it sounds ridiculous. Uh, you've got something you're
Speaker 1: excited to to get for Christmas, like a gift, So
Speaker 1: I don't really have like a long list of gifts
Speaker 1: Christmas list, like like when you're tin I sent it
Speaker 1: to Santa. It was super thick. We'll see what I get. No,
Speaker 1: I mean, really my philosophy for asking for presents for Christmas.
Speaker 1: I mean, well, first off, there's not much I need,
Speaker 1: There's not much I asked for, but my mom like
Speaker 1: texts me eight times, like seriously, what do you want
Speaker 1: for Christmas? And so I feel like I have to
Speaker 1: provide her something And that sounds familiar. So I just
Speaker 1: always asked for something that I wouldn't buy myself, but
Speaker 1: that I would like to have. And usually that's like
Speaker 1: a soccer jersey or some sort of hed Laney United paraphernalia.
Speaker 1: So that's right, hoping to get hoping to get a
Speaker 1: jersey this this Christmas? Yeah, for me, I'm actually thinking
Speaker 1: of do you have an e reader, like something that
Speaker 1: you read digitally with or do you just stick with
Speaker 1: paper books? No paper books or articles on my phone
Speaker 1: or whatever it is? Guys. Yeah, I actually mentioned something
Speaker 1: to Kate kind of offhand, and I hope she heard
Speaker 1: me shared it with maybe a family member, because I
Speaker 1: don't think she was planning to get it for me,
Speaker 1: but a knee reader or like a Kindle. Do you
Speaker 1: have an e reader? I don't know. I don't I'm
Speaker 1: not I'm not really into that. I read stuff on
Speaker 1: my phone sometimes just articles. But other than that, I'm
Speaker 1: reading paper books, saying I just never got into reading
Speaker 1: something on the screen. I feel like I'm in front
Speaker 1: of the screen too much anyway. Right, Well, that's the thing,
Speaker 1: that's why it's different, is because they used the ink
Speaker 1: and I've seen it in person, and every time I
Speaker 1: see it kind of blows me away because it's not
Speaker 1: an actual, you know, l ed screen. It's an e
Speaker 1: ink screen. It's kind of magic. Reminds me of Harry
Speaker 1: Potter with the map. I don't know how much Harry
Speaker 1: Potter lore, you know, but there's a special map and
Speaker 1: the ink moves on the paper. Oh yeah, I've seen
Speaker 1: the movie. Yeah, but I just haven't read those books,
Speaker 1: although I love a point. I can't wait till my
Speaker 1: daughter like grows up and she's got to read them
Speaker 1: and you have to, You're forced to read them to
Speaker 1: her exactly. Yeah, I have hope that would be the
Speaker 1: same for me. But yeah, just reading more stuff digitally,
Speaker 1: and I've been reading more pds lately, and I would
Speaker 1: love just to have us just a little e reader,
Speaker 1: like something basic, but just to be able to either
Speaker 1: read a study or just a book. Again, like you said,
Speaker 1: it's something that I wouldn't normally get for myself, but
Speaker 1: if I think through it, I'm like, this would make
Speaker 1: my life awesome. Well not really, but but I would
Speaker 1: really love it. Right. Yeah, I'll make sure to send
Speaker 1: a link to this episode to your mom, just as
Speaker 1: she notes, wink wink. But yeah, man, on that note,
Speaker 1: you said you're not a huge Christmas list kind of guy,
Speaker 1: how do you how do you guys do guests for
Speaker 1: for other folks? Like do you have folks make the
Speaker 1: Amazon wish list or do you kind of leave it
Speaker 1: open and you're just like, all right, whatever you want
Speaker 1: to get get me, you know you can get it
Speaker 1: for me whatever. Yeah, So, honestly, we don't really give
Speaker 1: many gifts to each other in our family. We've kind
Speaker 1: of button that down over the years and and so
Speaker 1: so really, you know, my parents will get me usually
Speaker 1: one thing, and siblings will give a little couple of gift,
Speaker 1: which is usually just a gift card to a local
Speaker 1: restaurant or something like that, or or a little experience
Speaker 1: in town that we know that they love. But other
Speaker 1: than that, there's an had a whole lot of gift
Speaker 1: giving on our side, and too, I honestly don't really
Speaker 1: like to get lists from other people to to buy
Speaker 1: off of. I really like you're a little more loosey
Speaker 1: goosey kind of guys. I want to be I want
Speaker 1: to be inspired, and I want to get somebody something
Speaker 1: that I know, the love that they didn't even ask for.
Speaker 1: That's kind of my goal in Christmas gift giving. I
Speaker 1: don't always succeed, but it's totally it's totally my goal.
Speaker 1: And so this Christmas, Emily and I actually decided not
Speaker 1: to get each other anything. And what we're doing is
Speaker 1: we've actually we got a hotel room just yeah you
Speaker 1: did in Athens, Georgia, which is about an hour and
Speaker 1: a half away from us, and they've got like just
Speaker 1: a lot of cool stuff going on in Athens. So
Speaker 1: you know when that's a great time. That's my alma mater. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know. I was actually joking about that because I
Speaker 1: saw you post that on Twitter or something about I
Speaker 1: think it was with Priceline. You're upset that they kind
Speaker 1: of did a bait and switch. Yeah, it was pretty ridiculous,
Speaker 1: and I was thinking, why the heck is he booking
Speaker 1: a stay in Athens, Georgia, home of creature comforts beer
Speaker 1: without me your co host. I was. I was a
Speaker 1: little angry. Sorry, buddy, well, good beer, good disc golf
Speaker 1: and things. But I'm only taking my life, not you.
Speaker 1: But I'm excited about that. That That should be fun. And
Speaker 1: by the way, I decided to tell people. So yeah,
Speaker 1: there was this I'm not gonna like bash price line here.
Speaker 1: There's no reason, but there was kind of a little
Speaker 1: bit and switch, and I feel like, if every other
Speaker 1: website could get it right price line, who is the
Speaker 1: big dog and has all the technology in the world
Speaker 1: to make sure they have the most accurate price reflected currently,
Speaker 1: they just didn't. Um and I didn't really like that.
Speaker 1: How you click through the little website and then it says,
Speaker 1: oh wait, actually the price is forty dollars more when
Speaker 1: every other website seemed to have the accurate price represented.
Speaker 1: Were they the cheapest ones when they had their own comparisons? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: It seemed a little dirty exactly. And so I ended
Speaker 1: up calling the hotel myself and I said, hey, these
Speaker 1: online retailers have a better price for hotel room stay
Speaker 1: than you guys have on your site, and I'd rather
Speaker 1: the money go into your pockets. And not a percentage
Speaker 1: to one of these third party hotel sites. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: what's the best rate you can offer me? And they
Speaker 1: still had a Cyber Monday discount going on like a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks later, fifty percent off rooms. So I
Speaker 1: got the sickest deal at this hotel that was way
Speaker 1: cheaper than even like a crumby Airbnb. And it's a
Speaker 1: really cool looking hotel. So I'm excited about that. Nice man.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. So sometimes you know, it's worth calling the hotel,
Speaker 1: calling the place, you know, before you end up booking online,
Speaker 1: just to see if they can match or exceed or
Speaker 1: maybe they've got, you know, promotion that's not published somewhere
Speaker 1: on their site that you're not even seen. Because I
Speaker 1: was like looking on their site and looking at the
Speaker 1: dates and didn't see it anywhere. So it was really
Speaker 1: nice just to call up and ask. And like we
Speaker 1: had that one episode about asking for a discount. Man,
Speaker 1: it never hurts. It's got to ask. Just to ask.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you get consumer tip. And by the way, as
Speaker 1: we right before we get into this beer, Matt, we
Speaker 1: have to relish our victory our Atlanta United winning the
Speaker 1: MLS Cup. Our beloved MLS soccer team. It's a beautiful thing.
Speaker 1: We were both there, super pumped to be there and
Speaker 1: uh to nothing victory over the Portland Timbers. It was
Speaker 1: so much fun. They were over seventy three thousand people.
Speaker 1: Our town came to life and just so exciting for
Speaker 1: Atlanta who hasn't won a championship in since second exactly.
Speaker 1: But the Atlanta brays Man. When we were we taught seriously, yeah,
Speaker 1: we were super young. Do you you remember? I assume
Speaker 1: I remember that. Yeah, yeah, not to spend too much
Speaker 1: time talking about soccer, but for our club to only
Speaker 1: be two years old and then to man just to
Speaker 1: walk away with it like like we did, makes me
Speaker 1: makes me so happy. But there's also a beer reason.
Speaker 1: I had to mention that our friend Dale is a
Speaker 1: Portland Timbers fan, came down to Atlanta for the map
Speaker 1: from Portland and cool dude brought us beer for the podcast.
Speaker 1: So what's really cool is that it was after the
Speaker 1: match the next day that he came by and dropped
Speaker 1: the beer off to you, So extra props to him
Speaker 1: for losing and then actually following through and bringing the beer.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a bet or anything, but he just was
Speaker 1: being kind. Yeah, of course, yeah. I gave him some
Speaker 1: some local beers to just to, you know, to say
Speaker 1: thank you, and man, just I love beer trading and
Speaker 1: I love, love love getting to see other people try
Speaker 1: some of the stuff that I love so much. So
Speaker 1: so Dale brought us Block fifteen Brewing Company, Sticky hands,
Speaker 1: I I p a. So that's what Matt and I
Speaker 1: are going to be drinking on the show today. Yeah. Man,
Speaker 1: so you just poured this and cheers. Tear's buddy all.
Speaker 1: We're gonna try this again, Matt, because last week we
Speaker 1: both gave one word just an initial response to the beer.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna let you try it again because last week
Speaker 1: you picked a really weird word. What's your one word
Speaker 1: descriptor for this beer? You don't let my words from
Speaker 1: last week? Jacket? It was just odd. So if people
Speaker 1: want to know why Matt referred to the beer is
Speaker 1: one is one descriptive word that he could use was jacket.
Speaker 1: Go back and listen to the last week's episode. So
Speaker 1: can my one word be tears? I guess it can,
Speaker 1: because I can't help but drink this Portland beer and
Speaker 1: not think of Dale's tears. Sorry, sorry, Buddy Dale's salty
Speaker 1: tears dropping in there. That's that's not a good descriptor.
Speaker 1: You do yours and then I'll do mine. Alright. So
Speaker 1: the one descriptive word I would use for this beer floral?
Speaker 1: Oh really? Yep? Nice? All right, I'm gonna go with resinie. Okay,
Speaker 1: I like it. So if you guys want to hear
Speaker 1: the full beer review, stick around towards the end of
Speaker 1: the show, Matt and I will kind of give you
Speaker 1: our final thoughts on this beer. Alright, Matt, So onto
Speaker 1: the topic at hand, how to take advantage of free stuff? Yeah,
Speaker 1: And the reason that we're tackling this topic today is
Speaker 1: because there are so many free resources available to people.
Speaker 1: But we're so used to consumption and just easy consumption,
Speaker 1: especially on a subscription basis, we don't even think to
Speaker 1: take advantage of these free resources that are available to us. Yeah. Man,
Speaker 1: you know, our culture and honestly, our technology, even it
Speaker 1: kind of steers us in the direction to spend money.
Speaker 1: And so chances are, you know, we're not taking advantage
Speaker 1: and we are overspending because sometimes we just haven't given
Speaker 1: enough thought. And hopefully these resources will allow you to
Speaker 1: be smarter it'll help you to save money, and you know, honestly,
Speaker 1: it might even make you money overall, it'll just make
Speaker 1: your life better. Yeah, I mean, there are a lot
Speaker 1: of free resources, some of which are just gonna be
Speaker 1: kind of like duh, I know that. But then I
Speaker 1: think we're gonna dive a little bit deeper into those
Speaker 1: resources too, because everyone knows about the library, right, but
Speaker 1: in it turns out the library has just a lot
Speaker 1: more resources than you thought they did. Libraries have even
Speaker 1: gotten with the twenty one century, and there are a
Speaker 1: lot of resources that the library offers that you probably
Speaker 1: don't know about, or if you do, maybe you forgot
Speaker 1: about them. You're not taking advantage of them. I mean.
Speaker 1: And the thing is still I want to mention is
Speaker 1: that with it being the holiday or the Christmas season,
Speaker 1: we're not saying that you shouldn't spend money, especially on others, right. Obviously,
Speaker 1: make sure hopefully you've budgeted to spend on others, but
Speaker 1: we're hoping this is something that you'll be able to
Speaker 1: take into your own life personally, kind of once the
Speaker 1: new year rolls around and you're back to your typical
Speaker 1: usual spending and you kind of fall back into your
Speaker 1: regular habits. It's always tough to start new diets, new
Speaker 1: disciplines around the Christmas season. But again, this is something
Speaker 1: that we're kind of mentioning as you're looking forward into
Speaker 1: the new year. Yeah, and creating a goal to use
Speaker 1: more of the free resources at your disposal as opposed
Speaker 1: to consuming and spending money on entertainment. I feel like
Speaker 1: there's a lot of good stuff in here, Matt that
Speaker 1: we're gonna get to that kind of will help you
Speaker 1: accomplish that goal, like really make it easy for you
Speaker 1: to think about things a little bit differently and start
Speaker 1: implementing the use of these resources into your life. That's right, man,
Speaker 1: We're gonna get to those examples right after this break,
Speaker 1: all right, Matt. We already mentioned libraries kind of at
Speaker 1: the top of the show, and libraries are the first
Speaker 1: example we want to give here. Obviously, there are books
Speaker 1: and libraries, right, That's the main reason people go to libraries.
Speaker 1: I was just there on Saturday with my girls. It
Speaker 1: was super fun because we could kill an hour hanging
Speaker 1: out with the library looking for books. Are you were
Speaker 1: there on Saturday? Yeah? They had a book sale at
Speaker 1: our Yeah, those friends of the Library day. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm didn't know you were there. I
Speaker 1: don't know, I didn't see you. Well, I wasn't there personally,
Speaker 1: I was. I was taking it out. I didn't see
Speaker 1: your family either. Yeah, the in laws are in town
Speaker 1: and they took the big girls out for a little
Speaker 1: get out of the house while it was raining. Kind
Speaker 1: of kind of deal. Yeah, and libraries like the perfect
Speaker 1: rainy day activity first off, right, So, yeah, so there
Speaker 1: was the library sale. All books were a dollar or
Speaker 1: two dollars. Would it was cool. We didn't buy anything,
Speaker 1: but we perused and then also we looked around for
Speaker 1: books to bring home you can check up. I asked
Speaker 1: Emily this because I didn't know fifty books at a
Speaker 1: time you can have out at the library, And honestly,
Speaker 1: we don't come close to that. But we I swear
Speaker 1: we've got like fifteen books at a time because we
Speaker 1: we circle through them kids books mostly, right, We're circling
Speaker 1: through these books all the time at night, and then
Speaker 1: we just like sat in the corner and read books
Speaker 1: for a while too. It's just it's super fun to
Speaker 1: read in a different space with the girls, and just
Speaker 1: like all these books that they can go and choose
Speaker 1: from and pull off the shelf. So everybody knows that
Speaker 1: your local library has books, but maybe you forgot or
Speaker 1: maybe you've just gotten used to hitting the click button
Speaker 1: and buying books off of Amazon, right, But it turns
Speaker 1: out that a fifteen dollar book or a twenty dollar book, Man,
Speaker 1: that that gets expensive over time, So get on the
Speaker 1: waiting list. Emily does this all the time. She reads
Speaker 1: a lot more than I do, and so she'll be
Speaker 1: on the waiting list for a books. She'll be sixtieth,
Speaker 1: but you know what, it comes within like three weeks
Speaker 1: she's she's first on the list. And so I would, yeah,
Speaker 1: encourage you to sign up for books that you want
Speaker 1: at your local library, to go check it out and
Speaker 1: hunt for books that you're that might interest you. Just
Speaker 1: use your library for what it's there for. It's like
Speaker 1: the o G Original purpose books exactly, But it turns
Speaker 1: out there's a lot more resources that the library offers too. Right. Well,
Speaker 1: one of the things I was most excited about, and
Speaker 1: I've only learned this this past year, man, is that
Speaker 1: the library has e books. You can check out the books,
Speaker 1: you can check out audio books, which is I knew
Speaker 1: that before because I used to be huge and audio books.
Speaker 1: We used to travel a good bit and spend a
Speaker 1: lot of time in the car and especially before kids,
Speaker 1: man putting on a nice audio book. Kate and I
Speaker 1: used to love doing that. And this is maybe before
Speaker 1: we were getting into podcast pretty heavy, but we would
Speaker 1: throw on an audio book and you listen to it
Speaker 1: for a while, and then you stop for gas and
Speaker 1: you talk about it for a little bit, talk about
Speaker 1: whatever you want. But then kind of fired back up
Speaker 1: to love audio books. But now e books, now that
Speaker 1: I learned that, I think that might be fueling my
Speaker 1: desire to want to get a kindle. Yeah, Matt, And
Speaker 1: so speaking of audio books and e books, there are
Speaker 1: easy apps that you can just log in with your
Speaker 1: library card info and just sign up and you can
Speaker 1: start borrowing e books for free and borrowing audiobooks for
Speaker 1: free from your libraries, so like instead of getting an
Speaker 1: audible subscription. There are just so many free e books
Speaker 1: and audio books that you can get lent to you
Speaker 1: via apps like overdrive and Hoopla, and then this the
Speaker 1: Libby app, which is another great one. Well we'll link
Speaker 1: to all those apps you know in our show notes,
Speaker 1: but those are great apps. That you can use in
Speaker 1: order to get those free e book and audiobook resources.
Speaker 1: Libby in particular, I think has the best selection of
Speaker 1: just those, and Overdrive and Hoopla actually kind of give
Speaker 1: you more media than just that libraries are lending now,
Speaker 1: like TV shows and movies at the same time, all
Speaker 1: the media basically, Like it's not just about libraries because
Speaker 1: I guess they've realized that people aren't reading as much
Speaker 1: as they used to do, which is too bad. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess their mindset is, may as well get in
Speaker 1: on it because we're gonna have what people are going
Speaker 1: to consume. Yeah, And but the good thing is, at
Speaker 1: least on some of the streaming television shows and movies
Speaker 1: that you can download, there's a lot of educational stuff
Speaker 1: for kids. It's actually kind of interesting, that's really good
Speaker 1: that would cost you money elsewhere, So so I would
Speaker 1: definitely recommend it to folks. So if you want to
Speaker 1: cut one streaming service out of your life, well maybe
Speaker 1: Overdrive and hoop Look can kind of fit that bill
Speaker 1: and give you the additional streaming stuff that you might
Speaker 1: want for yourself or your kids. Yeadie, I am actually
Speaker 1: super excited to utilize those apps. Because I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: able to magically have the new book appear on my
Speaker 1: e reader. And that's assuming I get one. But if
Speaker 1: I don't, it's okay, folks, don't worry about it. Do
Speaker 1: this e readers like your red Rider bb gun. I'm
Speaker 1: having all my hope set on this thing. Let's do
Speaker 1: one more plug for libraries. In addition to media, they've
Speaker 1: got other things going on to like fitness classes or specifically,
Speaker 1: I know our library has yoga classes and they've got
Speaker 1: meditation classes, which are awesome, and I think that's just
Speaker 1: an awesome way to get folks into the library. And
Speaker 1: I think that's all it really takes for a lot
Speaker 1: of folks just to kind of be surrounded by the
Speaker 1: books and they think, man, it's been forever since I've
Speaker 1: been in the library. Let me just walk the aisles
Speaker 1: and see what I can pick up. And before you
Speaker 1: know it, they're they're reading at home and watching less TV.
Speaker 1: And everybody wins, Yeah, no doubt. Yeah. Often times, you know,
Speaker 1: the library has like a litany of events to like kids,
Speaker 1: storytime is going on, so you can show up and
Speaker 1: there's someone that's reading a special books to the kids.
Speaker 1: They're also instructional resources like lectures and book clubs. Some
Speaker 1: of these libraries offer stuff like computer classes and job training,
Speaker 1: resume build out resources, stuff like that, So if you're
Speaker 1: in need of training in any of those areas, library
Speaker 1: can be an awesome place to turn for for some
Speaker 1: of those instructional resources. And you and I are both
Speaker 1: lucky enough to be within a just right out a
Speaker 1: mile of our local library. So for us, there's just
Speaker 1: really no excuse when we can throw the girls on
Speaker 1: the bike, pedal up to the library like a bunch
Speaker 1: of hippies and check out some books, fill our premier
Speaker 1: bags up, you know exactly. But again, that's the life
Speaker 1: we want to live, and this is gonna help you
Speaker 1: to save money and spend less, So why not take
Speaker 1: advantage of the resources around you. Yeah, and one of
Speaker 1: the thing when it comes to digital media and television
Speaker 1: and movie shows and stuff like that, well, you know what,
Speaker 1: your local library probably offers a pretty decent selection of
Speaker 1: DVDs and blue rays and stuff like that as well.
Speaker 1: I know our library does. And maybe the streaming library
Speaker 1: isn't amazing from over driving hoopla, maybe you're not not
Speaker 1: going to find quite enough awesome stuff to watch entertainment
Speaker 1: wise on those apps. But I think you will find that,
Speaker 1: you know, some of the DVDs actually are quite current,
Speaker 1: and so you might find something that was released six
Speaker 1: months ago that's really solid movie at the library that
Speaker 1: you won't be able to find on Netflix or Hulu,
Speaker 1: and that's free at your library. Hopefully your library is
Speaker 1: not rolling with bats this anymore, because that'd be two
Speaker 1: old school The hipsters are all about the cassette and
Speaker 1: VHS rentals. That's enough, how to you hipsters? All right,
Speaker 1: that's enough about the libraryman, Let's move on to other
Speaker 1: free resources like nature. You mean. There was an article
Speaker 1: just a week or two ago in the New York
Speaker 1: Times and it talked about how the healthiest cities in
Speaker 1: America are the ones where almost all of its residents
Speaker 1: have a public park within a ten minute walk of
Speaker 1: where they live. And so it turns out did you
Speaker 1: did you read the article, by the way, Yeah it did. Okay,
Speaker 1: So it turns out that the healthiest city in America is, oh,
Speaker 1: you're quisin me, Minneapolis. So interestingly enough, the residents of
Speaker 1: Minneapolis live within ten minutes walking distance of a park,
Speaker 1: and that is the best indicator essentially of whether citizens
Speaker 1: are going to be active outside and healthy. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: what was key about that Article two is not it's
Speaker 1: not just within ten minutes or or that it's just
Speaker 1: really close, but that specifically it's within a ten minute walk. Yes,
Speaker 1: And so the accessibility of that outdoor in natural space
Speaker 1: was incredibly key for making that just a regular part
Speaker 1: of your life. Because if if you can walk to
Speaker 1: it in ten minutes, you're gonna go. But if you
Speaker 1: have to get in a car and load up and go,
Speaker 1: even if it's a ten minute driveaway, you're not gonna
Speaker 1: go down corf it's just really close by and there's
Speaker 1: just a massive freeway in between you and said park.
Speaker 1: You're not gonna sprout wings. Is this where they're saying,
Speaker 1: you're not just gonna magically hop over there because we
Speaker 1: just drink some red bull hop over to the park.
Speaker 1: You know, Yeah, it's got to be accessible. But on
Speaker 1: that note, to man, one of my favorite things are
Speaker 1: like state parks and national parks even as well, but
Speaker 1: just being able to take advantage of the beauty that's
Speaker 1: around you. There's just so much that we have in
Speaker 1: our country and we just don't think about it enough
Speaker 1: when it comes to vacationing. I think a lot of
Speaker 1: times you think, oh, we're gonna go to Europe, and
Speaker 1: at least I know for us personally, that is just
Speaker 1: not something we're doing as much, especially with our family.
Speaker 1: We've got young girls, we've got young kids, and taking
Speaker 1: advantage of national parks that we can drive to is
Speaker 1: going to be a huge money saver for us over
Speaker 1: the in the coming years because plane tickets are expensive
Speaker 1: and you get a national park pass for a year
Speaker 1: for pretty cheap. Yeah, for pretty cheap. Or if you
Speaker 1: know that, okay, there's I'm we want to hit up
Speaker 1: Yosemite later this summer. Okay, well, it's not gonna cost
Speaker 1: that much. You know. I can't imagine if you did
Speaker 1: a comparison of like you like a national park, try
Speaker 1: to compare that to Disney World for the same amount
Speaker 1: of time. There'd be no comparison, right. I bet you
Speaker 1: could literally add a zero onto the total cost and
Speaker 1: it would probably be pretty accurate. And what do you
Speaker 1: think five bucks to go out west and go camping
Speaker 1: and hiking versus five thousand maybe if you go to
Speaker 1: Disney World. Probably seriously, dude, And it's gotta be like
Speaker 1: a factor of tin like Disney costs over a hundred
Speaker 1: dollars a day per person. Now that adds up real
Speaker 1: quick if you want to take your family for a week.
Speaker 1: So we're talking about free stuff on this episode, right,
Speaker 1: and national parks typically costs money. So we gotta put
Speaker 1: our money in our mouth. Is we gotta fulfill our
Speaker 1: obligation to the listener tell them about how to get
Speaker 1: in for free. And it turns out that national parks
Speaker 1: there are over four hundred of them, they do offer
Speaker 1: fee free days on occasion, and so they have a
Speaker 1: list on their website. And the five days coming up
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen which you'll be able to access your
Speaker 1: national National park site for free is January twenty one,
Speaker 1: m okay April for the first day of National Park Week,
Speaker 1: August September, in November eleven for Veterans Day, So check
Speaker 1: that out nice. We'll we'll put a link to the
Speaker 1: National Park Service website too, so you can see a
Speaker 1: list of those dates. But it's great playing around that.
Speaker 1: It never ceases to amaze me the very topography, the
Speaker 1: amazing country that we live in, and the national parks
Speaker 1: are truly a treasure to get to go see you know,
Speaker 1: one or two or three great national parks in your
Speaker 1: life is still an amazing thing to do because we
Speaker 1: have so many of them. But I swear that each
Speaker 1: one I've been to just blows my mind with with
Speaker 1: how different it is from the last one and how
Speaker 1: amazingly diverse our climate is here in the United States,
Speaker 1: that's right, man. And even even on top of that,
Speaker 1: aside from state parks, which in Georgia, a lot of
Speaker 1: them do cost money, but just I mean compared to
Speaker 1: the relative cost of entertainment, right, they're still substantially cheaper.
Speaker 1: But even in addition to state parks and national parks,
Speaker 1: there's just a lot of trails locally. There's nature preserves
Speaker 1: and there's community gardens that you can just take part
Speaker 1: of and go hiking. And that's man. We just love
Speaker 1: doing that with our girls. Yeah, And I think especially
Speaker 1: like nature preserves. Really there are, at least where we live,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of them, and so I'm not
Speaker 1: sure about where you live if that's the case, but
Speaker 1: try to find a local nature preserve because those are
Speaker 1: often free places to go with an awesome playground and
Speaker 1: a cool nature walk and you'll get to see some
Speaker 1: stuff that you don't normally get to see. Uh. We
Speaker 1: have enjoyed taking the girls on like a Saturday morning
Speaker 1: to a nature preserve. We can't walk to those, right,
Speaker 1: it takes to drive, but it's worth it because it's
Speaker 1: this awesome free day where we get to get outside
Speaker 1: and go for a little hike together and just kind
Speaker 1: of explore nature. And the girls always find something interesting
Speaker 1: under a rock or honestly just find rocks interesting. Right.
Speaker 1: So that's just always that's always fun, all right, man,
Speaker 1: So that's nature being outside. Next, let's talk about museums.
Speaker 1: A lot of museums and we've talked about this actually
Speaker 1: recently too. I just remembered, but a lot of museums
Speaker 1: have free days. Uh. The second Sunday every month for
Speaker 1: us here in Atlanta is the free day for the High.
Speaker 1: And dude, we love hitting up the High. It's a
Speaker 1: great museum. Yeah. And even aside from that, were just
Speaker 1: like being on the grounds around the High it's just
Speaker 1: so nice. I mean, the grounds themselves are almost a
Speaker 1: park like Unto Unto itself. It honestly makes me think
Speaker 1: of going to Europe. You go to different cities in Europe,
Speaker 1: and they've got chairs kind of scattered all over the
Speaker 1: cities in public spaces, and they're always full because folks
Speaker 1: are sitting around enjoying the weather, enjoying the landscape, the scenery,
Speaker 1: whatever it is. And I kind of feel that way
Speaker 1: when I'm at the High because it's fancy and they've
Speaker 1: got like really nice European looking chairs. Maybe I don't know,
Speaker 1: but every time we're going outup there, I think to myself, man,
Speaker 1: this is so nice, Like we don't even need to
Speaker 1: go inside the museum, but just kind of being up
Speaker 1: here seeing the architecture of the of the building itself
Speaker 1: and then just letting the girls hang out in the
Speaker 1: in the lawn and having a picnic for us. That
Speaker 1: is I mean that in and of itself is an
Speaker 1: activity for the day. Yeah, no doubt. Yeah. And the
Speaker 1: cool thing bringing it back to libraries. Oftentimes libraries will
Speaker 1: have access or free vouchers for you to go visit
Speaker 1: your local museum. And so, yeah, not a museum, but
Speaker 1: recently our wives took advantage. They went together, they took
Speaker 1: all the girls free day at the zoo. And so
Speaker 1: there's this DVD at the library. Field rent it and
Speaker 1: watch the DVD with your kids and bring it back.
Speaker 1: You get a voucher to take two adults and like
Speaker 1: five kids to the zoo. And so they did, and
Speaker 1: they had a blast. It was a free entrance to
Speaker 1: the zoos. So maybe your library has something like that.
Speaker 1: Lots of libraries, lots and lots of libraries offer free
Speaker 1: access to local museums if you will watch a DVD
Speaker 1: or check out a book or something like that, and
Speaker 1: so that's kind of cool too. Or donate plasma. That's
Speaker 1: a separate thing. I don't think libraries will take your plasma, Matt.
Speaker 1: That's a different kind of library. And now that's a bank,
Speaker 1: live bank. Our wives are so smart, by the way,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to mention that, like they're always taking
Speaker 1: taking advantage of the little deals like that, you know,
Speaker 1: I love that. Yeah, it's all those little things, right
Speaker 1: that they truly do add up, and especially when those
Speaker 1: resources are so awesome and can provide so much fun
Speaker 1: and value for your family, Like, take advantage of them, right, um,
Speaker 1: take advantage of that free zoo day, take advantage of
Speaker 1: all those free books, and take advantage of those museum
Speaker 1: right the free days of the museum whatever, it is
Speaker 1: especially you know what I love doing, man, I love
Speaker 1: going to Washington, d C. That's one of my favorite cities.
Speaker 1: And the reason is because all those amazing museums are
Speaker 1: freaking free. It's incredible, Like I could spend four days
Speaker 1: at the National Art Gallery in d C. There's just
Speaker 1: a never ending supply of incredible art just to stare at.
Speaker 1: And all of those Smithsonian museums are are free. So
Speaker 1: if you're looking for even like a cheap vacation to
Speaker 1: take with a family or your partner or whatever, it
Speaker 1: is DC an awesome place to do it because once
Speaker 1: you get there, after you paid for the travel in
Speaker 1: the hotel room, man, so much of your entertainment is
Speaker 1: just free. And even one of our favorite restaurants here
Speaker 1: real close by, Homegrown. They have this local, small kind
Speaker 1: of folk art gallery in the back, and it fits
Speaker 1: perfectly with a restaurant. Why do you think it's my
Speaker 1: favorite breakfast place, Matt, It's awesome, dude. I love you
Speaker 1: both purchased art from there, right, Yeah. I love that
Speaker 1: place because, yeah, it's got the little folk art gallery.
Speaker 1: It's also got like a five and dime kind of
Speaker 1: thrift store in the back, so not only do I
Speaker 1: get the best dang breakfast in town, but I also
Speaker 1: get to peruce some awesome art and just like check
Speaker 1: out the random thrift store kind of knickknacks they got
Speaker 1: in the back, and sometimes there's a guy there on
Speaker 1: the on the big xylophone playing I don't know this guy.
Speaker 1: You've never been there with the know how I missed him?
Speaker 1: I don't know. You need to go in them the
Speaker 1: days that I go, I guess. So all right, there's
Speaker 1: so much culture after your local breaknast place. Sometimes well
Speaker 1: in another thing, another way to go see local art.
Speaker 1: If especially if you live near an urban center, there's
Speaker 1: so much good, amazing street art so many places, and
Speaker 1: there's web resources for you to look up where that
Speaker 1: street art is, and so that's that's one of my
Speaker 1: favorite things, is go hit up those places where there's
Speaker 1: a bunch of free street art, and Emily and I
Speaker 1: will just go for a stroll on date night and
Speaker 1: just look at all the awesome stuff. Because there are
Speaker 1: these amazing murals that are up I think you mentioned
Speaker 1: that a couple of months ago. Yeah, they're just free
Speaker 1: and you and they're beautiful, and so yeah, I think
Speaker 1: I would recommend that to anyone too. That's a great
Speaker 1: thing to do. You know, we'll just get a beer
Speaker 1: or get a quick dinner and then go for a
Speaker 1: stroll and look at the free art. All right, man,
Speaker 1: The next free thing you have to take advantage of
Speaker 1: is the Internet and free information because there's so much
Speaker 1: out there, and I feel like this is like a
Speaker 1: duf thing. Yeah, that's what's gonna say. But let's leave
Speaker 1: people just a little bit further into that. Because the
Speaker 1: Internet has a lot of free resources for you to
Speaker 1: take advantage of, and there's a lot you can get
Speaker 1: hung up on that's not actually helpful and not really
Speaker 1: I wouldn't consider it a resource. But there's a lot
Speaker 1: of cat videos and something you just get you get stuck,
Speaker 1: you know, playing and auto playing videos and the endless
Speaker 1: loop of cavideos that's free but not helpful. So yeah,
Speaker 1: let's talk about free resources on the Internet that are
Speaker 1: actually helpful. Well, first, I did want to say that
Speaker 1: it's something that we totally take advantage of. It's something
Speaker 1: that we honestly take for granted, right because for in
Speaker 1: our life it's pretty much always been around. Actually, have
Speaker 1: you did you have an encyclopedia on your computer at home,
Speaker 1: like the Encarta, Microsoftlcarta totally. Yeah, yeah, I remember the
Speaker 1: first we had an Apple back in the day. I
Speaker 1: think it was called the Grolier Encyclopedia. But it's such
Speaker 1: a big deal because before that you had to pay
Speaker 1: to get a full encyclopedia set, and that was sort
Speaker 1: of a dawn of having information free. Yeah, I met.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of things that, like thirty years ago,
Speaker 1: you would have had to go find a class if
Speaker 1: you wanted to learn some sort of information, you would
Speaker 1: have had to pay and take the time out of
Speaker 1: your day to go to a specific class with a
Speaker 1: teacher that had the knowledge you were looking for. But now,
Speaker 1: with the advent of podcasts and professional YouTubers and there
Speaker 1: are PhD level folks putting out free information via podcast
Speaker 1: and YouTube and writing blogs that you can access through Google,
Speaker 1: it's kind of made that paying for classes for certain
Speaker 1: things way less important, and I kind of love the
Speaker 1: democratization of information. I've learned so much about different topics
Speaker 1: that I honestly never would have had access to. I
Speaker 1: never would have thought about just some of the topics
Speaker 1: that I enjoy thinking about. If it weren't for access
Speaker 1: to your free podcast, freelong form lectures on YouTube, just
Speaker 1: hearing professors and interesting people, modern thinkers, people that are
Speaker 1: just major influencers in the world giving way information for free. Whereas,
Speaker 1: like I said, thirty years ago, it would have been
Speaker 1: someone teaching at a major academic institution and you're paying
Speaker 1: tens of thousands of dollars a year to go to
Speaker 1: that school to learn from this professor. But now that's
Speaker 1: just not the case, and they can reach so many
Speaker 1: people at one time with podcast, YouTube and Google. I mean,
Speaker 1: even aside from that, man, how much money have we
Speaker 1: saved just searching on YouTube for how to fix something?
Speaker 1: Like we? I mean, I We've fixed our air conditioning units,
Speaker 1: We've fixed our water heaters. I've made a repair on
Speaker 1: my dishwasher before I fixed a leaking refrigerator. Yeah, dude,
Speaker 1: there there's just so many things that again, these are
Speaker 1: ways that it is able to save us, save us money,
Speaker 1: keeps us from having to hire someone that's a little
Speaker 1: more specialized. Obviously, if it's something that's a bigger deal
Speaker 1: or a bigger project, we're gonna hire a pro. But
Speaker 1: when it comes to finding these little fixes to to
Speaker 1: kind of hold us over, and even not even hold
Speaker 1: us over, but to make a legitimate repair man. YouTube
Speaker 1: specifically is an incredible resource, and on that note, to
Speaker 1: just more organized and more professional classes. So aside from
Speaker 1: actual free content on YouTube, but you can take online
Speaker 1: courses as well. There's just free courses at places like
Speaker 1: course era and ed x and you to me as well.
Speaker 1: These are classes that you would take in on a
Speaker 1: more academic level, whether it be like at a community college.
Speaker 1: But some of the instruction and some of the courses
Speaker 1: that you can get on these websites are offered by
Speaker 1: legit universities, and not just University of Phoenix, but like
Speaker 1: bigger actual universities that that that have a single campus
Speaker 1: where they were founded like two hundred years ago, um.
Speaker 1: And and to have that at your fingertips, to have
Speaker 1: that as an option to try something up for free
Speaker 1: is just an incredible resource. And yes, a lot of
Speaker 1: them are set up in a sort of model where
Speaker 1: if you want to take higher level courses and or
Speaker 1: even get a full degree, you're able to do that,
Speaker 1: and there might you fees associated with that, you might
Speaker 1: pay a little bit more, but still to be able
Speaker 1: to get your foot in the door and to learn
Speaker 1: without having to commit and without having to pay tuition
Speaker 1: or enroll and show up at whatever time, you know,
Speaker 1: eight am classes, I know those were the worst. They
Speaker 1: were totally the worst for me. I mist so many
Speaker 1: of my A A M. Classes. But to have again,
Speaker 1: have these courses online you get a little curious and
Speaker 1: you kind of are interested in at a certain topic,
Speaker 1: to be able to explore that without enrolling formally and
Speaker 1: sort of disrupting your your life, that's just so amazing
Speaker 1: that we have that available to us today. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: in some of these classes, Matt, you can take purely
Speaker 1: for your own edification. I want to learn the skill,
Speaker 1: or I'm just curious, right, whatever it is that kind
Speaker 1: of makes you interested or want to enroll in that
Speaker 1: free online class, like do it? Why not? It's free,
Speaker 1: check it out. That's just amazing to think that things
Speaker 1: have changed that much, you know, since we were born,
Speaker 1: that we almost take for granted now. Um And so yeah,
Speaker 1: I would recommend anybody who's looking for just to do
Speaker 1: it for purely their own benefit or to learn a
Speaker 1: new skill that they think will be beneficial in their job,
Speaker 1: potentially help them achieve a promotion, or kind of help
Speaker 1: benefit them in their career. Like these resources, these free
Speaker 1: resources can be a benefit to you for lots of reasons, ye, man.
Speaker 1: And then so lastly, when it comes to just the
Speaker 1: Internet and free information, our phone apps. We've all got
Speaker 1: these tiny little computers in our pockets called cell phones,
Speaker 1: and there are now just so many apps that are
Speaker 1: out there dedicated towards education, whether it be du a lingo.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's tons of coding apps like for all ages,
Speaker 1: but you know, I was specifically looking into it for kids.
Speaker 1: But then other things like con Academy. You know, we've
Speaker 1: talked recently about limiting the amount of screen time that
Speaker 1: our kids have and not necessarily introducing that to them.
Speaker 1: But in researching this episode, man, I was kind of curious,
Speaker 1: and you know, I wanted to see what was out there.
Speaker 1: And there are is just so much out there that
Speaker 1: you could use if you're active in your child's education,
Speaker 1: to compliment and to sort of act as just another
Speaker 1: outlet for your kid to learn. And yeah, I was
Speaker 1: honestly shocked at the number of apps that were out there,
Speaker 1: and not just the quantity of them, but the quality.
Speaker 1: They were just so freaking good. Yeah, and think about
Speaker 1: due lingo, write something like that where you can learn
Speaker 1: another language for free, be an app on your phone. Yeah,
Speaker 1: super cool, It's that's crazy man, at your own pace,
Speaker 1: however you like to learn. And I love that because
Speaker 1: I took a lot of Spanish growing up, in middle school,
Speaker 1: high school, in college, and right now my Spanish is trash, dude, Like,
Speaker 1: I need to get better at it, I miss I
Speaker 1: want to get better. I want to go, you know,
Speaker 1: be immersed in it, and I want to I want
Speaker 1: to be down in South America more and like using
Speaker 1: my Spanish skills, but they're almost non existent at this point.
Speaker 1: So I need to download some dual Lingo and just
Speaker 1: kind of start learning Spanish all over again and get
Speaker 1: better at it because it's free and why not. And
Speaker 1: I just love that. If you're getting ready to take
Speaker 1: a trip somewhere and you just want to learn the
Speaker 1: basics or you want to dive deep and try to
Speaker 1: learn a full language, there's a free way to do that,
Speaker 1: and it's at your fingertips. I wonder if they have
Speaker 1: sort of a competition based version of due Lingo, like
Speaker 1: could we both started at the same time and then
Speaker 1: sort of kind of try to outperform each other. Well,
Speaker 1: that would be amazing if so let's do it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I totally like I'm kind of into learning Spanish too,
Speaker 1: so all right, let's fire it up. I'll take you
Speaker 1: down espaniol ce senor. It's like zero Spanish, so you'll
Speaker 1: probably totally kick my butt, all right. At the last
Speaker 1: category example we wanted to go over was general community resources,
Speaker 1: and so whether it be entertainment or culture based or
Speaker 1: educational based, there are a lot of free resources that
Speaker 1: you have access to in all likelihood in your community,
Speaker 1: and so specifically in the entertainment category, and there's like
Speaker 1: free concert series in lots of towns. Maybe there's like
Speaker 1: jazz bands that play on Friday nights at your local
Speaker 1: amphitheater or whatever it may be. In Atlanta, throughout the years,
Speaker 1: we've had a free concert series in the summer that
Speaker 1: would take place once a week for like six or
Speaker 1: eight weeks something like that. And there's also like free
Speaker 1: fireworks on the Fourth of July and New Year's Eve
Speaker 1: stuff like that. We had a tree lighting just recently
Speaker 1: in in the downtown part of our neighborhood, so just
Speaker 1: really cool stuff that if you know what's out there,
Speaker 1: and you check your local paper, you check website of
Speaker 1: your local community board, You'll you'll know what's going on,
Speaker 1: You'll know what the free stuff is it's coming up,
Speaker 1: and and will be ready to take your family to
Speaker 1: that stuff. That also makes me think of just festival
Speaker 1: season in the spring in Atlanta, once it's once we
Speaker 1: hit Memorial Day, there's basically a festival every single stinking
Speaker 1: weekend and it goes all the way into the fall,
Speaker 1: and there's just so much stuff you can do for
Speaker 1: free that you don't have to pay for that's just
Speaker 1: kind of provided by the community, that's provided by the city,
Speaker 1: and yeah, take take advantage of those things. Yeah, my
Speaker 1: favorite part of those festivals is just the people watching. Honestly,
Speaker 1: like just walking around and seeing everybody looking at the
Speaker 1: steth of vendors have like it. It's not all about
Speaker 1: buying a bunch of stuff, but just hanging out at
Speaker 1: the festival for a few hours. We just we just
Speaker 1: have a blast walking around those things with as a family.
Speaker 1: Nice man. Something else that you can find kind of
Speaker 1: generally speaking in your community are tool banks. Uh, I
Speaker 1: know we've got one here in Atlanta. I've never personally
Speaker 1: used it, but I have used just online communities like
Speaker 1: Facebook are awesome for reaching out into your sort of
Speaker 1: local neighborhood and your community. And I've personally borrowed lots
Speaker 1: of tools that way, and I've also had folks borrow
Speaker 1: stuff from me that way. And so aside from having
Speaker 1: an actual organized tool bank where they keep the tools
Speaker 1: clean and you can go in there and check it
Speaker 1: out and stuff, kind of reaching out to your community
Speaker 1: that way is a way to save money and utilize
Speaker 1: that resource. Yes, so we'll opposed to link. There's like
Speaker 1: a National Tool Library organization and they kind of have
Speaker 1: a map of all the tool banks in the United States,
Speaker 1: so you can see if there's one in your area.
Speaker 1: I too, have not used the local tool bank, and
Speaker 1: probably to my great chain, it's because I don't do
Speaker 1: enough work with tools. I should work on that. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I've definitely borrowed some from friends and neighbors and that's
Speaker 1: just kind of nice to have. And I think that's
Speaker 1: another just another great point, just that we often don't
Speaker 1: use those resources, like posting in our Facebook community group
Speaker 1: to say, hey, does anyone have an air rador that
Speaker 1: I can borrow because I'm about to fertilize my lawn
Speaker 1: as opposed to going out and buying something. A quick
Speaker 1: post could save you, you know, big money on just
Speaker 1: borrowing a tool for a day. I too, have lent
Speaker 1: out my own tools and and happy to do so
Speaker 1: for friends that want to borrow it for a weekend.
Speaker 1: I love the fact that I'm saving them, hopefu from
Speaker 1: having to go buy something, and and hopefully other friends,
Speaker 1: you know, we'll save me from having to go buy
Speaker 1: something that I'm only gonna use, you know, once or
Speaker 1: once in a long while, all right, Joel. So that
Speaker 1: was a few examples that we gave of resources that
Speaker 1: are free that you could be taking advantage of. And
Speaker 1: so after the break we're gonna come back and we're
Speaker 1: gonna cover some specifics and these are things that you
Speaker 1: can do right now, right away in order to take
Speaker 1: advantage of these free resources. All right, Matt. I think
Speaker 1: one of the most important reasons to stress and why
Speaker 1: we want people to take advantage of these free resources
Speaker 1: is it oftentimes you're kind of already in some way
Speaker 1: former fashion paying for them, right the National park System,
Speaker 1: State park System, the library that's in your neighborhood, the
Speaker 1: local parks. Those are funded by your tax dollars, right,
Speaker 1: So you are in in one way, you're paying for
Speaker 1: these resources to exist. And I think by not taking
Speaker 1: advantage of them, by not using them to their fullest extent,
Speaker 1: we're doing ourselves a disservice. We're leaving something amazing on
Speaker 1: the table that we've already paid for and we're putting
Speaker 1: it in the back of the closet, so to speak.
Speaker 1: These are things that we're going to discuss, and they're
Speaker 1: not crazy complicated or super sophisticated, right, but we're hoping
Speaker 1: that by us going over these things that and you're
Speaker 1: hearing them, that you will actually take the steps necessary
Speaker 1: in order to to actually take advantage of these things.
Speaker 1: So specifically, your local library, go up there and get
Speaker 1: a library card. You need to check it out. See
Speaker 1: what they have, see what classes, what resources, what different
Speaker 1: events that they have going on. These are all things
Speaker 1: that will make your life richer. It will allow you
Speaker 1: to feel more connected to your community. And plus, man,
Speaker 1: it's just fun, Like it's just a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: And then this is something that we've like our family
Speaker 1: has felt challenged a little bit, you know, by you guys.
Speaker 1: But to see you guys taking advantage of it. It's
Speaker 1: it's awesome we see that. Not I think, man, yeah,
Speaker 1: we need to do that more often too. Why are
Speaker 1: we not doing that? And it's because you just don't
Speaker 1: think of it. It's not something that rises to the top.
Speaker 1: And in our sort of society, you don't hear people saying, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're gonna go to the library. You wanna come with us.
Speaker 1: It's not like this thing that we do as as
Speaker 1: family's it's not something I even really did as a
Speaker 1: single person. And so for us to kind of bring
Speaker 1: light to it and kind of shine a light on it,
Speaker 1: hopefully it's yeah, jogs people's memories of like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: there is a library, like right there, I pass it
Speaker 1: every single day. Why am I not going there? And
Speaker 1: oftentimes as you walk into your local library map there's
Speaker 1: like a bulletin board or a white board or something
Speaker 1: like that with event information on it. And so next
Speaker 1: time you go into your library, check and see what
Speaker 1: events are happening at your library. There's also probably a
Speaker 1: posting of events on your local libraries website, so check
Speaker 1: that out. It might not be happening at the library
Speaker 1: right next to where you are lots of times there.
Speaker 1: These libraries are in a system, right, which means that
Speaker 1: you have access to books that aren't just at the
Speaker 1: library next to you, which is great, but also it
Speaker 1: might mean that you'd have to travel to an awesome
Speaker 1: event at a little bit bigger library a little bit
Speaker 1: further away from here, because like the library by us,
Speaker 1: it's awesome, but it's also pretty small, so we don't
Speaker 1: have all the resources at a bigger library might have.
Speaker 1: How do I go to the library with the swimming pool, Oh,
Speaker 1: that would be nice and the beer tasting all right? Also, Matt,
Speaker 1: we want to encourage people to get outside. Check out
Speaker 1: your state tourism website to see what sort of events
Speaker 1: are going on or what park days are free to
Speaker 1: get into your state parks. We already mentioned, you know,
Speaker 1: the national parks in the free days that are happening,
Speaker 1: and also the city hall for community events like the
Speaker 1: local tree lighting or a community festival. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: wanted to touch on that real quick too. When it
Speaker 1: comes to taking advantage of the state and national parks.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of times people think I'm not
Speaker 1: I can't get out there and go hiking for you know, However,
Speaker 1: many miles or Hey, I've got kids, how's that gonna
Speaker 1: work out for me? We'll start small, right and so
Speaker 1: for us, we saw some families when Kate and I
Speaker 1: went up to a Kadia National Park and they had
Speaker 1: the little kids hiking up the same freaking mountain that
Speaker 1: we were hiking up, and we were winded, yea, we were.
Speaker 1: I mean Kate and I looked at each other and
Speaker 1: I thought, how the heck do we get our kids
Speaker 1: to do what those kids are doing? And what we
Speaker 1: realized after talking about it was that we just gotta
Speaker 1: start small and so and that means starting at your
Speaker 1: park and just walking around the park, and then stepping
Speaker 1: it up to like a little small mountain that you
Speaker 1: can go visit for free, and then before you know it,
Speaker 1: then you can hit up the biggest state parks and
Speaker 1: then you can hit up the big national parks. We're
Speaker 1: actively pursuing that because we have a bigger goal in mind,
Speaker 1: because our bigger goal is that we want to be
Speaker 1: able to take our entire family and go on these
Speaker 1: multi day hikes, or at least some solid hikes. Doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be multi day if we want to go
Speaker 1: back and spend the night in a hotel, that's fine,
Speaker 1: but to be able to get out there and have
Speaker 1: them enjoy it, not only to be in shape, but
Speaker 1: just for them to know that this is fun and
Speaker 1: to see why it's fun, and to understand the time
Speaker 1: that they're able to spend out in nature and with
Speaker 1: their family. To us, we found that that's so important
Speaker 1: because Kate and I we feel rejuvenated and we love
Speaker 1: that time that we get to spend together, and so
Speaker 1: we're trying to start young and brainwash our girls so
Speaker 1: that they know that that's what is also fun. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's great, dude. I love that idea of starting
Speaker 1: small and working towards that bigger mountain to climb, and
Speaker 1: that's very good. Yeah, that's super cool. So it just
Speaker 1: it makes me you want to go do the same
Speaker 1: with my girls, take them out and do a couple
Speaker 1: of smaller hikes and just kind of get them used
Speaker 1: to get kind of break their legs in, as it were,
Speaker 1: but hopefully no actual broken legs. Yeah. And Jul you
Speaker 1: already mentioned, you know, to check out resources in your area,
Speaker 1: and that's the the downside, right is that some of
Speaker 1: these more local things, it's gonna come down to what's
Speaker 1: specific in your town, or your neighborhood or your county.
Speaker 1: You know, we all share the national parks, but whatever
Speaker 1: is happening on more on a local level, it's gonna
Speaker 1: come down to just what's going on around you. So
Speaker 1: be sure to look around and see whoever it is
Speaker 1: that publishes a list of those free activities local happenings.
Speaker 1: Often times it's gonna be, like you said, dull, like
Speaker 1: a local bulletin board, maybe at the library. But if
Speaker 1: not that, you know, you've always got the paper. And
Speaker 1: a lot of times there's different entertainment periodicals and papers
Speaker 1: that exist as well who focus on those different kind
Speaker 1: of events, So be sure to pick one of those
Speaker 1: up if you haven't already. Yeah, man, Another easy way
Speaker 1: to kind of find out about local happenings is to
Speaker 1: ask your friends. I feel like I learned about so
Speaker 1: many things that are happening in our neighborhood that I
Speaker 1: didn't even know about before until my friends tell me,
Speaker 1: or I ask, hey, what are you up to this weekend? Oh,
Speaker 1: we're going into this or this for that. That's so
Speaker 1: much of the way I stay in form is by
Speaker 1: just hearing what people are up to and so I would, yeah,
Speaker 1: and just just by being human, right, talking to folks.
Speaker 1: So so yeah, ask your friends, ask your neighbors, Hey,
Speaker 1: what are you doing, Hey, what's the last cool free
Speaker 1: thing you did in town? What are your favorite free resources?
Speaker 1: You know nearby where we live, And you know, starting
Speaker 1: to ask those questions and can make you aware of
Speaker 1: some cool free resources that you had no idea that
Speaker 1: they even existed. And you know, honestly, what I love
Speaker 1: about the different free resources is that they tend to
Speaker 1: push you out into the world, like out in the public,
Speaker 1: which is something that I love because I feel that
Speaker 1: so much of our consumeristic culture focuses on you as
Speaker 1: an individual. And so when you're making these purchases on
Speaker 1: your own, by yourself, without consulting others, you're just by
Speaker 1: yourself because you have everything that you need, and it
Speaker 1: leads to isolation and you're by yourself, and that's not
Speaker 1: really healthy as well. Certainly, there's introversial extroverts. People have
Speaker 1: different levels of time that they want to spend around
Speaker 1: other people, but generally speaking, there is something incredibly healthy
Speaker 1: about being sort of pushed out into the world, being
Speaker 1: surrounded by your neighbors and like minded folks and folks
Speaker 1: who aren't like minded, right, Like, this is all part
Speaker 1: of the full rich community. Anybody can take part in
Speaker 1: a resource that's free, and so you're gonna, you know,
Speaker 1: cross paths with somebody that you wouldn't normally cross paths with. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think one other thing, we want to encourage people
Speaker 1: to challenge yourself and desire to grow, especially when you're
Speaker 1: using technology, right like the apps that we talked about,
Speaker 1: or YouTube or podcast there's a tendency to even use
Speaker 1: those things as a way to veg out or just
Speaker 1: mindlessly consume and considering like the vast amount of amazing
Speaker 1: resources that you have access to, the amazing people that
Speaker 1: you have so much information to give and they're giving
Speaker 1: it away for free. I would challenge you, when you're
Speaker 1: looking at the next podcast you want to listen to,
Speaker 1: or the next YouTube channel you think you want to
Speaker 1: subscribe to, whatever it is, try to find something that
Speaker 1: isn't just going to gratify your immediate desires to be entertained,
Speaker 1: but instead trying to find something that is going to
Speaker 1: help you uh to learn a new skill or achieve
Speaker 1: something that you've never achieved before, or learn something that
Speaker 1: you've always wanted to know about, but you've never dove
Speaker 1: into it before. But now you have access for free
Speaker 1: because of those Internet resources. So challenge yourself to do
Speaker 1: that with those free resources, because it's just really easy
Speaker 1: to abuse them. Dude. I love that just because there's
Speaker 1: lots of stuff out there that is free doesn't mean
Speaker 1: you should be consuming it, right, Well, I mean essentially
Speaker 1: that's what you're saying. But just because there's this unlimited
Speaker 1: buffet of entertainment like cat we're joking about cat videos earlier,
Speaker 1: but but seriously, just because there probably more cat videos
Speaker 1: on YouTube than I can even watch in an entire lifetime. Yeah, dudeful.
Speaker 1: For me, it's it's less about the cat videos. And
Speaker 1: there's more of these sort of like crash videos that
Speaker 1: are popping up, like either dash cam where like a
Speaker 1: semi truck almost like tips over onto this unsuspecting Kia
Speaker 1: like driving next but on the interstate, And like for me,
Speaker 1: that's yeah, it's less about the cats. It's more about
Speaker 1: the near misses that kind of suck me in. If
Speaker 1: I was gonna start a band, I call it unsuspecting Kia.
Speaker 1: Could I play bass? You got it, buddy? All Matt.
Speaker 1: So let's get back to the beer we're drinking, Block
Speaker 1: fifteen Brewing Company, Sticky Hands. Sticky Hands, Sticky Hands, brought
Speaker 1: down to us by our friend Dale from Portland. But yeah, Mat.
Speaker 1: At the beginning of the episode, we each gave one
Speaker 1: word to describe this beer. Yeah, man, mine was resume
Speaker 1: or resin and what was yours? Mine was floral? Floral?
Speaker 1: You wanna kick it off? So floral. Yeah. I just
Speaker 1: felt like this beer had a bouquet of smells coming
Speaker 1: coming off of it, which is awesome. You just get
Speaker 1: a ton of hops, you know, a roma coming up
Speaker 1: through the nose, you know. I thought, based on the
Speaker 1: smell that it was going to be even more dank
Speaker 1: than it was. But I feel like the hot taste
Speaker 1: actually to me, tasted a little more florally. I've definitely
Speaker 1: had the pine, the pine backbone, but it also had
Speaker 1: like some nice floral floral notes. Yeah, light and and
Speaker 1: yeah it's super tasty. Yeah, I'm with you a lot
Speaker 1: of times when you like the danker sort of I
Speaker 1: p as have a sort of a wet basement, kind
Speaker 1: of a heavier feel to it, and this kind of
Speaker 1: sits light up there. But for me. Yeah, it did
Speaker 1: have sort of a resume. It got that classic kind
Speaker 1: of West host I p A where there's resins piny.
Speaker 1: But I totally get what you're saying about the about
Speaker 1: the florals though. It's a delicious I p A. And
Speaker 1: it's kind of nice having something like this too in
Speaker 1: the middle of the winter when we've been drinking some
Speaker 1: bigger stouts, some bigger beers that might seem a little
Speaker 1: more appropriate for the winter, But dude, I'll drink an
Speaker 1: I p A any day of the year, any day
Speaker 1: for sure. All Right, Matt, we're both on untapped, which
Speaker 1: is an app that is free for super beer nerds
Speaker 1: like this. I like to keep track of the beers
Speaker 1: they're drinking and see what their friends are drinking. What
Speaker 1: would you rate Sticky Hands on Untapped? Yeah, man, I
Speaker 1: think I would give this four point. Oh It's it's
Speaker 1: not a style that I always gravitate towards, like more
Speaker 1: of the West Coast I PA. But you know, it
Speaker 1: tasted great, nice florals, like you said, and maybe because
Speaker 1: the name Sticky, you know, it kind of made me
Speaker 1: feel like there's just enough sweetness in there that kind
Speaker 1: of kind of pulled me in and maybe want to
Speaker 1: drink another one. So yeah, I'll give it a four
Speaker 1: point Oh yeah, I agree, I mean I thought it was.
Speaker 1: I'll give it a three point seven five. It's super solid.
Speaker 1: I agree, you had a lot going on. It's really
Speaker 1: kind of fun to drink an ipa that's completely different
Speaker 1: than what we normally get. And I really dug it
Speaker 1: and so yeah, solid three point seven five from me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: great beer, all right, Joe, So real quick, let's go
Speaker 1: ahead and give our final thoughts. The whole reason that
Speaker 1: we're talking about this is because oftentimes there are free
Speaker 1: resources out there and we do not think to use them.
Speaker 1: Once we do, we realize that it is just a
Speaker 1: much smarter and a more efficient way to use the
Speaker 1: resources around us. As mentioned, it will save you a
Speaker 1: good bit of money. So be sure to take advantage
Speaker 1: of those free things all around you. Yeah, Matt, these
Speaker 1: free resources are just gonna make your life better, really,
Speaker 1: So get outside, find a list of free activities of
Speaker 1: the local happenings you'll find that resource and tap into it,
Speaker 1: and also make sure to ask your friends. Ask around
Speaker 1: of people in your community that you know are doing
Speaker 1: cool stuff of your neighbors who you know, we're taking
Speaker 1: advantage of some of these free resources. Hey, how are
Speaker 1: you doing it? Where are you finding out about these things?
Speaker 1: And and what are some of your favorites? And those
Speaker 1: are great ways to kind of get started down the
Speaker 1: rabbit hole of finding out what free resources are available
Speaker 1: and then tapping into them because you don't want to
Speaker 1: leave these things on the table, right, are free, and
Speaker 1: they're awesome and they can benefit you in so many ways. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: and real quick, this actually makes me think of the
Speaker 1: episode we just did about talking to your friends and
Speaker 1: family about money. What a great ice breaker to actually
Speaker 1: start talking about money with your friends then just to
Speaker 1: talk about like what cool festivals are you going to
Speaker 1: go to next week? Like when you have something like
Speaker 1: this in your real life that you're able to point
Speaker 1: to and ask about and share with your friends, then
Speaker 1: you can start those discussions about money. And it's really
Speaker 1: easy to do, no doubt. Man. So thanks everyone for listening.
Speaker 1: Our home on the web is how to money dot com.
Speaker 1: We'll have links up for all the things that we
Speaker 1: mentioned on this episode. Yeah, that's right. And if you
Speaker 1: like this episode and have found it helpful, please consider
Speaker 1: leaving us a review. We would love to to hear
Speaker 1: how this podcast might be helping you and your financial journey,
Speaker 1: so consider leaving a review, and while you're there, uh
Speaker 1: hit subscribe our buddy. Until next time, Best friends Out,
Speaker 1: Best Friends Out, m m BO