Speaker 1: Welcome to How the Money.
Speaker 2: I'm Joel and I am Matt.
Speaker 1: Today we're talking about exorbitant ev charging, interminable training, and
Speaker 1: being forced to sell. That's right. This is our.
Speaker 2: Friday flight, Joel.
Speaker 3: This is our weekly roundup of the most relevant news
Speaker 3: stories out there, how they're going to impact your money,
Speaker 3: and what it is.
Speaker 2: That you should be doing about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the man, there's a lot of stuff in
Speaker 1: the news. We're talking about the stuff that partakes your.
Speaker 3: Money right and specifically the relevant items because there's a
Speaker 3: whole lot out there that it doesn't really matter.
Speaker 1: But uh yeah, or there's just a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: that matters, but like we don't talk about it because
Speaker 1: it's just.
Speaker 3: On our radar, not in our field. Joel actually had
Speaker 3: a quick I wanted to get your opinion. What do
Speaker 3: you think about setting out milk and cookies not for Santa,
Speaker 3: but for the FedEx ups, Amazon Prime package deliverers out there.
Speaker 3: All those folks think you're on the right path, you
Speaker 3: know the but I'm talking about like this a junk
Speaker 3: milk out there for real, not like literal milk cookies.
Speaker 3: I'm talking like snacks out there for the folks who
Speaker 3: are working hard this season.
Speaker 2: I dig this.
Speaker 1: So I didn't even know this was a thing until
Speaker 1: some of my friends had, Like a I walked up
Speaker 1: to their house to snag my daughter who was hanging
Speaker 1: and playing with their daughter, and I saw this big
Speaker 1: snack pack of goodies for and it was like a
Speaker 1: little sign for delivery drivers, Hey take something, And I
Speaker 1: was like, this is brilliant. Why have I not done this?
Speaker 1: So I'm thinking of an institute that you think?
Speaker 2: So I think.
Speaker 3: So I feel like it's I think it makes sense
Speaker 3: for folks who do a whole lot of ordering. It's
Speaker 3: almost like a confession that like, yes, we live online
Speaker 3: and we purchased all of our stuff from the internet
Speaker 3: as a post, which is fine, like especially if you're looking.
Speaker 2: For the best deals and and all that. But I
Speaker 2: don't know.
Speaker 1: They also hate going into stores, which yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Do not like going into the stores, but like, I
Speaker 3: guess it's the snack part of it that also bothers me,
Speaker 3: because like I'm not a big fan of snacking throughout
Speaker 3: the day. And food is it just food that's just
Speaker 3: out there for how long?
Speaker 2: How long is that food out there just like forever?
Speaker 1: No, just for I think especially during this time of year.
Speaker 1: Think about how hard those delivery drivers are working. They're
Speaker 1: like breaking their backs to deliver packages. People probably yes,
Speaker 1: and so they probably. I think if it was me,
Speaker 1: if I was working for FedEx and I went up
Speaker 1: on that porch and I saw, you know, not the
Speaker 1: healthiest snacking the world, some pringles or something like that,
Speaker 1: but I would probably be like, oh, man, this is
Speaker 1: really cool. Even if I didn't end up taking it
Speaker 1: because I wasn't my jam, I would feel like I
Speaker 1: was thought of.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I wish there was another way to show the appreciation.
Speaker 3: I guess that's it because I think about what I
Speaker 3: if I was in their position, would I rather be
Speaker 3: snacking on pringles and slim gyms all day or.
Speaker 1: Like into a slim jam man they get.
Speaker 3: You get a lunch break and the ability to dig
Speaker 3: into some leftovers.
Speaker 2: It's hard to snack. I don't know.
Speaker 3: Now, I'm trying to picture what life is like actually
Speaker 3: driving around these trucks, and I don't know, Like, I'm
Speaker 3: sure by law they are required to have a lunch break,
Speaker 3: but I guarantee there's a lot of folks out there
Speaker 3: where their hours are pushing into the mandated lunch break.
Speaker 1: Well, some of these people are contractors and they there's
Speaker 1: probably no law. They're probably making their own hours, and
Speaker 1: they're just hustling, and they're hustling and so maybe that, yep,
Speaker 1: does provide a little bit of sustenance.
Speaker 3: But it almost makes me want to leave a tip
Speaker 3: out there though, like actual money as opposed to which.
Speaker 1: Is Food's cool idea too, if you want to go
Speaker 1: that route, it's just harder to police that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think there are ways that we can this time
Speaker 1: of year be thoughtful show appreciation. I mean it makes
Speaker 1: me think I love that front of the show. Andy Hill,
Speaker 1: who has the website podcast Marriage, Kids and Money. We've
Speaker 1: had him on the show before and he does this
Speaker 1: thing called Big Tip Tuesday, and he'll tip the guy
Speaker 1: who cuts his hair fifty bucks, or he goes out
Speaker 1: to eat at a place and that one of his
Speaker 1: favorite places, and he'll tip far above and beyond, dramatically
Speaker 1: above and beyond what he normally does. And so I
Speaker 1: just think, like that's whether we're giving to charities, that's
Speaker 1: a great thing to do with money that we have,
Speaker 1: but also like tipping and seeing the people who the
Speaker 1: service people in our lives who are doing so much
Speaker 1: for us, but it goes unrecognized so much of the time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's probably a good thing to keep in mind this
Speaker 1: time here.
Speaker 3: And the problem is with the delivery is oftentimes you're
Speaker 3: not there, so you don't I wouldn't have the ability
Speaker 3: to actually tip them, and it's like, all right, just
Speaker 3: take one dollar. You don't like leave a bucket of
Speaker 3: dollars there. That's not gonna happen. I will say, speaking
Speaker 3: of delivery trucks, I'm seeing more and more of the
Speaker 3: Rivian Amazon vans, which are amazing. And on that note,
Speaker 3: one of the coolest things about going from gas to
Speaker 3: electric is the money that you get to save on gasoline.
Speaker 3: Depending on how much you drive, you can truly save
Speaker 3: hundreds of dollars a month. But specifically where you charge
Speaker 3: with an EV that matters a ton. The website Autotopian
Speaker 3: they had an article about just how expensive it can be,
Speaker 3: and in their story they charged a Rivian R one
Speaker 3: s but of course this applies to other evs as well. Sorry,
Speaker 3: my dream vehicle, but if you end up at the
Speaker 3: wrong charging station, you are going to pay a ton more.
Speaker 3: You might be paying upwards of forty cents, and then
Speaker 3: I saw actually later in the story, I think in
Speaker 3: one instance out in California, somewhere in LA he was
Speaker 3: paying sixty six cents per kill a what hour to
Speaker 3: fill up his EV depending on the public charging station
Speaker 3: that you go to. He crunched the numbers into the
Speaker 3: math on the forty cents per kill kill a what hour,
Speaker 3: and that equates to only getting nineteen miles per gallon
Speaker 3: in a traditional internal combustion engine vehicle, which isn't great.
Speaker 3: There's a whole lot of vehicles out there that can
Speaker 3: get much higher than that, and so of course charging
Speaker 3: at home most of the time, that is going to
Speaker 3: be crucial if you want to actually save money by
Speaker 3: owning and driving and electric vehicle. But still, I think
Speaker 3: EV's they can be fun to drive, They can make
Speaker 3: a ton of sense for a decent chunk of the population.
Speaker 3: You just got to make sure you're on that super
Speaker 3: off peak hour plan where you're paying two cents. It's
Speaker 3: just mind blowing, like that's so where.
Speaker 1: We are copasically sixty six cents if you're at the
Speaker 1: wrong charting.
Speaker 2: Station, or or three times that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there is such a market difference in the like,
Speaker 3: is there anything that has that wide of a disparity
Speaker 3: between like the most affordable and the most expensive?
Speaker 2: I think about that.
Speaker 1: I think there is, for like, think about bottle water.
Speaker 1: Whatch you pay when you buy a forty eight pack
Speaker 1: at Costco or something you're talking about less than twenty
Speaker 1: cents or even more affordable just it coming out of
Speaker 1: your tap, right, But I'm just saying, yeah, exactly. Like
Speaker 1: the equivalent is again, you going back home filling up
Speaker 1: your water bottle at home? How much are you paying
Speaker 1: for that as opposed to the glass bottle of you
Speaker 1: just get a bottle the nicest glacier water that you
Speaker 1: can afford, like a baseball game or something like that,
Speaker 1: think about how much it costs. Yeah, the price disparity
Speaker 1: depending on where you get the thing matters so much.
Speaker 1: And so if you're going to be filling up your
Speaker 1: ev with electricity on the go most of the time,
Speaker 1: it's not going to save you nearly as much money
Speaker 1: as you think a huge part of the savings that
Speaker 1: you that accrues to you is if you charge more
Speaker 1: at home. Makes me think one more thing, Matt, that
Speaker 1: I had a Nissan Leaf for six years that got
Speaker 1: the range was terrible. I still charge it at home
Speaker 1: ninety plus percent of the time. It went a solid
Speaker 1: fifteen miles, right, And I think everybody people when they
Speaker 1: get an EV, they think, oh, I need a level
Speaker 1: two charger, And a level two charger can be nice,
Speaker 1: but I think it's also not a necessity. So this
Speaker 1: thing's ten charge being run like five or six hundred
Speaker 1: bucks plus you might have to pay someone to install
Speaker 1: it for you. Well, you can literally trickle charge from
Speaker 1: the three prong outlet in your garage or on the
Speaker 1: side of your house, and you might find that it's
Speaker 1: unnecessary to pay for that too. So it's true. Just
Speaker 1: think about that if you're thinking about upgrading to an
Speaker 1: electric vehicle. They're great, but charging at home makes a
Speaker 1: big difference.
Speaker 3: I should have been running for Autotopian or whatever we
Speaker 3: talked about on the show. How when we rented when
Speaker 3: Kit and I rented at Tesla a couple of years
Speaker 3: ago out in Colorado. Yeah, when we flew out there
Speaker 3: and I did the math of the total that we
Speaker 3: spent with the miles that we drove that we drove
Speaker 3: and the average cost per gallon out there in Colorado
Speaker 3: and it was roughly equivalent. Yeah, that's because I was
Speaker 3: on the Tesla superchargers, which, yeah, I don't think I
Speaker 3: was paying nearly at the forty four or sixty six
Speaker 3: cents per kill a lot hour. But yeah, like when
Speaker 3: you do the math, it's easy to see how how
Speaker 3: does you can potentially end up paying.
Speaker 1: I went on the road trip, the backpacking trip with
Speaker 1: a buddy on the West Coast earlier this year, and that, yeah,
Speaker 1: filling up at the Tesla charging stations was expensive. Like
Speaker 1: it's still cheaper in California to do that than to
Speaker 1: go to the gas station, but it's not that much cheaper,
Speaker 1: whereas if you charge at home it is.
Speaker 2: That's the one downside to evs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when you're not driving your car, mat walking, we've
Speaker 1: always suggested it given me a great way to get
Speaker 1: rid your bike. Riding your bike to either way, whatever
Speaker 1: your preference, riding your bikes can be faster.
Speaker 2: Episode number one right there, right out of money.
Speaker 1: We've been talking about it for a long time, and
Speaker 1: that's especially true right when you're taking trips in that one,
Speaker 1: two or three mile range. But it turns out to
Speaker 1: migrate shock at least most folks they actually don't want
Speaker 1: to live in a walkable neighborhood. There was some new
Speaker 1: research from Pew which found that fifty seven percent of
Speaker 1: folks prefer to live in it in the suburban sprawl right,
Speaker 1: which basically means that you need to get into a
Speaker 1: car to do anything, versus living in a neighborhood that
Speaker 1: has walkable amenities like being able to walk to your kids' school,
Speaker 1: walking to a store or a restaurant that you care about.
Speaker 1: Walkable neighborhoods are actually also more expensive to live in
Speaker 1: when you look at the numbers, largely because there are
Speaker 1: fewer of them. But if you live in a walkable area,
Speaker 1: it might allow you to ditch a car, making that
Speaker 1: trade off far less financially harmful.
Speaker 2: That's true.
Speaker 1: I was just surprised, I guess, because to me it
Speaker 1: seems so idyllic, and I have always prioritized living in
Speaker 1: walkable areas, whether it's urban or suburban. And I know
Speaker 1: that it's it's not always easy to pull that off,
Speaker 1: but I don't know. For me, it's a quality of
Speaker 1: life standpoint. I would rather live in a smaller house
Speaker 1: and live somewhere that's walkable.
Speaker 2: See, that's the problem.
Speaker 3: Is that people's that's the challenge is to say, how
Speaker 3: do I actually need all of this additional square footage?
Speaker 3: Because it's not that folks preferred to not live in
Speaker 3: a walkable neighborhood. It's that they preferred to have a
Speaker 3: little bit more space over being able to live in
Speaker 3: the walkable neighborhood. And so like that is like, that's
Speaker 3: where the bottleneck is. Is like, Okay, you say you
Speaker 3: need this more space because it's more affordable, But do
Speaker 3: you actually need more space? Could you get by in
Speaker 3: a smaller place perhaps, and then you are somewhere where
Speaker 3: that is walkable and it's not costing you more, yeah
Speaker 3: than being out in the burbs.
Speaker 1: You know, they say that cotton is the fabric of
Speaker 1: our lives. Matt, I think these are like the decisions
Speaker 1: that make up our lives. And the more we can
Speaker 1: live in a place that is a little more walkable, man,
Speaker 1: the way our lives look and what our days look like.
Speaker 1: The choices that we make tend to shift when we
Speaker 1: live in a place that's more walkable and bikable. And
Speaker 1: so yeah, don't think of it maybe just in terms
Speaker 1: of dollars and cents, although that's a really important part
Speaker 1: of the equation. But I think again, there are other
Speaker 1: potential ways to save money if you live in a
Speaker 1: more walkable place. Not for everyone, but I think I'm
Speaker 1: going to advocate it, probably till the day I die.
Speaker 2: It's true, all.
Speaker 3: Right, Coffee prices they continue to go up quickly. They
Speaker 3: have risen now to a forty seven year high. This
Speaker 3: is according to Semaphore extreme weather in Vietnam and Brizi
Speaker 3: Zill Brizil specifically where they had droughts and then a
Speaker 3: whole lot of rain, which I guess isn't.
Speaker 1: Good for the coffe.
Speaker 3: Rain. Yeah, we like washed a lot of that away.
Speaker 3: That had a lot to do with that. And you know,
Speaker 3: we're not the don't ever drink coffee out dudes. But
Speaker 3: as the price for your favorite beverage as it goes up,
Speaker 3: which it already has been and it's likely going to
Speaker 3: continue to, I think you might want to consider pivoting
Speaker 3: making more coffee at home. We're huge fans of that,
Speaker 3: because even though your one pound bag of coffee might
Speaker 3: also cost more, it's going to be vastly more affordable
Speaker 3: to diy your own coffee as opposed to going out
Speaker 3: and On that note, I'm proud to say that I
Speaker 3: recently was at Whole Foods. Recently we've been buying our
Speaker 3: fancy coffees, specifically Intelligentsia and counterculture. Those are two good ones.
Speaker 3: And last time I was there, they were on drastic sale.
Speaker 3: There you go, and so normally these these little bags
Speaker 3: of coffee and they go for like over sixteen bucks, Joel,
Speaker 3: they were like down to eleven dollars. How many would
Speaker 3: you have purchased if you saw a discount like that,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna say four about six wow, because I'm addicted
Speaker 3: to caffeine.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say our favorite beverage, bounce on man.
Speaker 1: People might assume our favorite beverage is beer o contreier coffee.
Speaker 1: It's more of a if I had to give one
Speaker 1: or the other up, I would give up beer over coffee.
Speaker 2: I would.
Speaker 3: We are drinking less these days, drink less beer. It's
Speaker 3: just good for your health, and coffee makes you a
Speaker 3: little more productive. But the extent of that discount had
Speaker 3: to do with the fact that we were Amazon Prime members,
Speaker 3: and you know, Well almost said Wells Fargo Whole Foods
Speaker 3: same abbreviation, so they have that partnership with Amazon, and
Speaker 3: you have to make sure to scan by Amazon.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's right. I forget about that.
Speaker 3: But if you go to the Amazon app and swipe
Speaker 3: over to the in store purchase, I didn't realize that
Speaker 3: there is an actual item that you select and then
Speaker 3: you can scan the QR code. It took me a
Speaker 3: second to figure that out because I never go to
Speaker 3: Whole Foods, but we've only recently started going there.
Speaker 1: The Amazon's purchase of Whole Foods has been so good
Speaker 1: for pricing at Whole Foods. And I don't shop at
Speaker 1: Whole Foods almost ever, but I've been getting pizza there
Speaker 1: more often, and they've got these Friday night pizza deal
Speaker 1: let's talked about like a cheese piece of game. If
Speaker 1: you sign in or whatever, make sure to get your
Speaker 1: Amazon Prime discount. And even though I don't chop in
Speaker 1: Whole Foods much, I'm a fan. We you and I
Speaker 1: are fans of John mackew started Whole Foods. We interviewed
Speaker 1: him I don't know what, like six months ago. We'll
Speaker 1: link to that one in the show notes. Another price increase,
Speaker 1: Matt that happened just this week. YouTube tv raised its
Speaker 1: price by fourteen percent from seventy three bucks a month
Speaker 1: to eighty three dollars a month. Nobody has really been
Speaker 1: able to figure out how to make live TV work
Speaker 1: and make it less expensive.
Speaker 2: Sports are a lot of money.
Speaker 1: Sports are the main reason, the main culprit behind that,
Speaker 1: and now live sports is disseminating essentially to all the
Speaker 1: other streaming platforms too. It's in bits and chunks. So
Speaker 1: I guess the best recipe to save money on like
Speaker 1: streaming TV like that is to just not care about
Speaker 1: live TV, stop watching sports because less that's that's really
Speaker 1: the thing that's going to like smack you around from
Speaker 1: a pricing perspective.
Speaker 3: So I will say I've recently changed my tune on
Speaker 3: you know how You to Be is in particular when
Speaker 3: it comes to the ad breaks across all the different platforms.
Speaker 3: How there's the more affordable version as long as it's
Speaker 3: as long as you can you can.
Speaker 2: Get hit with the ad breaks.
Speaker 3: Well, I still hate it personally, Like if you're watching
Speaker 3: a movie, Man, I hate it if your movie is
Speaker 3: broken up by stupid commercials.
Speaker 2: It just totally like ruins it.
Speaker 3: But I'm more I don't think it ruins it, but
Speaker 3: it spoils it a little bit, but I am more
Speaker 3: open to it because, like I guess one of the
Speaker 3: arguments prior was I didn't like the fact that the
Speaker 3: kids were sitting there and they're just like, oh, they're
Speaker 3: getting they're getting.
Speaker 2: Brainwashed by the different ads.
Speaker 3: But you know what, I think, I've I'm starting to
Speaker 3: change my tune on that because when our kids like
Speaker 3: launch out and start their own lives, they're going to
Speaker 3: be exposed to advertising. I'm like, man, I grew up
Speaker 3: watching Saturday Morning Cartoons and TGIF on Fridays in the evening,
Speaker 3: watching Family Matters by step Yeah, yeah, that's that's the
Speaker 3: Panga and Corey Corey Matthews. But there's almost a sense
Speaker 3: of like inoculation and getting exposed to advertising that helps them,
Speaker 3: I think, to be like well adjusted out in the world.
Speaker 3: So all that to say, I've kind of changed my
Speaker 3: tune a little bit when it comes to kids and
Speaker 3: advertising specifically.
Speaker 1: Forcibly, make your children look at all the billboards as
Speaker 1: you're but.
Speaker 2: Like, obviously they see those out there.
Speaker 1: But I'm surprised. I'm surprised that you say that.
Speaker 3: Culture like there's a certain amount of things that they
Speaker 3: just learn from watching advertisements on TV, and they're only
Speaker 3: getting more and more and more sophisticated, like TV ads
Speaker 3: are probably the least nefarious of the types of advertising
Speaker 3: that they're going to be exposed to, so may as
Speaker 3: well kind of get their advertising booster shot a little
Speaker 3: bit while they're at home.
Speaker 1: All the data I've seen too points that the streaming
Speaker 1: providers want you to be on the ad supported version
Speaker 1: because they make more money from that you're paying us.
Speaker 1: As opposed, they make more because the ads combined with
Speaker 1: what you're paying means they're making more than the non
Speaker 1: ads supported I believe it.
Speaker 3: Joel the Wall Street Journal, they had an article about
Speaker 3: the uptick in market timing. Their thesis is that COVID
Speaker 3: that fundamentally changed the way that many folks approach their investments.
Speaker 3: Folks are treading more frequently and more inefficiently. Were of course,
Speaker 3: they're attempting to juice their returns right, They're attempting to
Speaker 3: divine where the market is headed, but then they end
Speaker 3: up costing themselves dearly. The author of the article there
Speaker 3: believed that this ill advised strategy has led to returns
Speaker 3: that are greater than half a percent lower for those
Speaker 3: investors than the otherwise would have been, which doesn't sound awful,
Speaker 3: but it is because like those less robust returns, they
Speaker 3: add up significantly over time, Like we're talking about, even
Speaker 3: with just maxing out an IRA over the course of
Speaker 3: thirty years a one percent difference, you're looking at over
Speaker 3: two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in returns at the
Speaker 3: end of that period. So just goes to show that
Speaker 3: normal humans, as it turns out, that we're not great
Speaker 3: active investors, which is why setting it and forgetting it
Speaker 3: the automatic dollar cost averaging approach and paying less attention
Speaker 3: to media and immediate results that that is so crucial.
Speaker 3: Getting that money in the market and invested is far
Speaker 3: more important than trying to get it in at the
Speaker 3: exact right moments. It's not about timing the market. It's
Speaker 3: about time in the market.
Speaker 1: Well, then you talk about the fee essentially that's being charged.
Speaker 1: This is more of like a self imposed stupid fee
Speaker 1: though than it is a fee that an advisor's charging
Speaker 1: and the advisor gives you like, oh man, you might
Speaker 1: be costing yourself a quarter of a million dollars in
Speaker 1: returns because of this self imposed fee. At least if
Speaker 1: you hire an advisor, you're getting some sort of you're
Speaker 1: getting something for your money, whereas this it's it's literally
Speaker 1: you trying to create a superior return and what you're
Speaker 1: doing is you're getting inferior results. There's one thing that
Speaker 1: could maybe make this phenomena of tinkering with your portfolio worse,
Speaker 1: and that's access to trading in the stock market twenty
Speaker 1: four to seven, all day, every day. Right now. The
Speaker 1: timeframe is nine thirty to four right that's Monday through Friday.
Speaker 1: That's been the hours for like a long time. But
Speaker 1: Robin Hood and Interactive Brokers to different broker's firms, they
Speaker 1: added twenty four to seven trading of individual stocks last year,
Speaker 1: and then other companies like Schwab, they're kind of attempting
Speaker 1: to mimic these startups. They want their traders, their customers
Speaker 1: to have access to the same And I don't know,
Speaker 1: we might be yelling into the void here. I don't
Speaker 1: think the genie's going back into the bottle and training
Speaker 1: has gotten easier. I think it's also gotten more enticing,
Speaker 1: and let's say we make it more frequent as well.
Speaker 1: The ability to trade whenever you want. I just don't
Speaker 1: see that as a good thing for individual investors. I mean,
Speaker 1: we think the right thing to do is to avoid
Speaker 1: all the bells and whistles when it comes to investing.
Speaker 1: No need to stay up late to trade based on
Speaker 1: breaking news and how you think that's going to impact
Speaker 1: a specific company or sector. If you're investing for the
Speaker 1: long haul, did just the auto dollar cost averaging, it
Speaker 1: still makes sense. So no matter whether these companies, these
Speaker 1: brokers firms say you can trade whatever you want, you
Speaker 1: can say, ah, I don't care, I'm just not interested in.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's right.
Speaker 3: It makes me think of that study I forget who
Speaker 3: it was where broker's looked at the accounts owned by
Speaker 3: people who had died and those accounts actually were the
Speaker 3: ones that performed the best because they weren't being Teamcurtains right.
Speaker 2: And in addition to.
Speaker 3: That, investors that they're not even doing some of the
Speaker 3: most basic things well like using their health savings accounts properly.
Speaker 3: And new stats out there show that HSA users that
Speaker 3: they're not investing inside of their accounts. Only a fifth
Speaker 3: are not only funding their HSA but actually investing those
Speaker 3: dollars for their future. And we've talked about HSA's a
Speaker 3: good bit here on the show. It's not right for
Speaker 3: everyone out there. For some folks utilizing the HSA to
Speaker 3: pay for their medical costs that year, that is how
Speaker 3: they need to be using it, but it's not the
Speaker 3: most optimized and ideal way of doing it. Because if
Speaker 3: you can fund your current health care needs with cash
Speaker 3: that you have on hand, well, that's going to allow
Speaker 3: those tax exempt dollars there within the HSA to grow
Speaker 3: for your future in a significant way. But as more
Speaker 3: and more folks get HSA's which is good, there's still
Speaker 3: going to be more work to be done to encourage
Speaker 3: folks to lever them properly for retirement, especially if you
Speaker 3: are looking for a way to retire early and tap
Speaker 3: some of your retirement accounts in a way that's not
Speaker 3: gonna that's not gonna leave you paying an additional ten
Speaker 3: percent because you're looking to withdraw your funds early.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And as we say that, AHSA is the only
Speaker 1: account that we know of that essentially or that in
Speaker 1: existence that allows you to forego paying tax on money
Speaker 1: that goes into that account altogether, Like you never pay
Speaker 1: the tax man on HSA dollars, which is cool. But
Speaker 1: the key is growing those dollars by investing them. All Right, man,
Speaker 1: We've got more to get to on this episode, including
Speaker 1: a retirement benefit for student loan borrowers. Will get to
Speaker 1: that and more right after this. All right, buddy, we are.
Speaker 2: Back from the break. The Friday flight continues.
Speaker 3: Now it is time for the ludicrous headline of the week,
Speaker 3: which is from USA today. The headline reads, Grandpa, cut
Speaker 3: up that card hard. Share of retirees have credit card debts.
Speaker 3: This is disheartening, Joel. The share of older Americans who
Speaker 3: are clinging on to debt, it continues to rise. There
Speaker 3: is new research from the Employee Benefit Research Institute, and
Speaker 3: they found that six and ten retirees have some form
Speaker 3: of debt, and of those folks, the majority are still
Speaker 3: hanging on to their credit cards and the debt and
Speaker 3: the payments that go along with that specifically, which is
Speaker 3: like there's a big difference between that and let's say,
Speaker 3: low interest mortgage debt. If that was the case, Like,
Speaker 3: if you know you're hanging onto a three and a
Speaker 3: half percent mortgage, I'm fine with that. I'm cool with
Speaker 3: the idea of keeping that around. But to have credit
Speaker 3: card debt, especially in your retirement years. That is a
Speaker 3: massive problem. And so this is a quick little story,
Speaker 3: just quick little PSA for folks, especially for folks out
Speaker 3: there who.
Speaker 2: Have parents who might be in a situation like this.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm, yeah, I would maybe proud and ask, or
Speaker 1: if you're assuming that they do, or if you've heard
Speaker 1: them mention it, talk about the importance of paying it off.
Speaker 1: You don't want to lecture your parents, right, that's never
Speaker 1: a good tactic to take. But ensuring that your parents
Speaker 1: don't have loads of credit card debt or have access
Speaker 1: to the help they need if they do, is important.
Speaker 1: But man, it's not not just old people. So I
Speaker 1: think something like fifty percent of American households have recurring
Speaker 1: credit card debt in their lives. And while at Hub
Speaker 1: just released new dispearting figures on the overall debt load
Speaker 1: that we have in this country, it turns out that
Speaker 1: the average household credit card debt has surpassed ten thousand bucks.
Speaker 1: That's a scary amount of money to have in credit
Speaker 1: card debt.
Speaker 2: I have figures, man, Yeah I don't like it.
Speaker 1: And the new record, man, we passed a trillion dollars
Speaker 1: in overall credit card debt not all that long ago,
Speaker 1: and now we're at one point three trillion, so it
Speaker 1: just kind of continues to grow and fester and not
Speaker 1: going to beat a dead horse. But credit card interest
Speaker 1: rates are awful. They have not gotten much better as
Speaker 1: rate cuts have started. Credit Cards can be a great tool,
Speaker 1: we say this all the time if you use them wisely,
Speaker 1: but you can ruin your finances if you don't.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So for listen out there keeping score. We're still
Speaker 3: not fans of Ticketmaster Sherwood News. They detail the many
Speaker 3: ways that I did not know this, but essentially they
Speaker 3: own many other businesses that feed into the main ticketing
Speaker 3: business that you think of when you think of Ticketmaster,
Speaker 3: and that helps to boost the profits at the expense
Speaker 3: of their patrons and so uh so when it comes
Speaker 3: to these these shows, basically the ticketing only makes up
Speaker 3: a small percentage of their overall revenue, think which they.
Speaker 1: Can claim and make it sound like, oh, we're not bad,
Speaker 1: look at we only make this much money.
Speaker 3: From ticket but they're making massive markups on the different
Speaker 3: parking companies that they own, or like if you go
Speaker 3: to a show and they've got lawn chair rentals booze
Speaker 3: trucks things like that. Maybe you're not even a fan
Speaker 3: of Booze my boos. You mean like forty dollars, margree,
Speaker 3: if you want to spend that money, that's told that
Speaker 3: that's on you. But what we're highlighting here is that
Speaker 3: they have their fingers in all of these different pots
Speaker 3: and not even I was gonna say not even Booze.
Speaker 3: Liquid Death is like the face is the fancy water
Speaker 3: Like guess who owns the dollars stake in Liquid Death
Speaker 3: Live Nation charging stations if your phone dies at the
Speaker 3: show that you can go to and I need to
Speaker 3: quick charge, Yeah, they own a stake in those companies
Speaker 3: as well. And the margins on those products and those
Speaker 3: what seem like independent companies can be fifty percent or
Speaker 3: more and these prices that they charge are astronomical, and
Speaker 3: it is a part of the reason that two factions
Speaker 3: of the federal government are going after Live Nation. Right now,
Speaker 3: I gets similar to the airlines we talked about last week, right,
Speaker 3: like you don't have to partake in most of these
Speaker 3: different upgrades, but still our gripe is with the monopolistic
Speaker 3: stranglehold right because it's almost like if you go to
Speaker 3: our restaurant and you're saying, oh, all these menu items
Speaker 3: are so expensive. Okay, well, you don't have to buy
Speaker 3: those menu items, right, But it's as if Live Nation
Speaker 3: and Ticketmaster, it's as if they're the only restaurant in town.
Speaker 3: Like the big difference is that you can go to
Speaker 3: another restaurant. But when it comes to these venues, these artists,
Speaker 3: they don't have much choice when it comes to being
Speaker 3: able to put on a show, and they have to.
Speaker 3: There is no other choice, and that's where there's a
Speaker 3: break down in the competition that's out there.
Speaker 1: Well, then Live Nation is using different incentives to try
Speaker 1: to push you towards buying the things inside of the
Speaker 1: concert venue. So for instance, hey, for a while out
Speaker 1: you could have brought your own chair in, but now
Speaker 1: that's disallowed because they have an incentive to promote you
Speaker 1: renting one of their lawn chairs that's like twenty bucks
Speaker 1: for the evening or something like that. So there are
Speaker 1: all these things that just make your concert going experience
Speaker 1: so much worse, and so much of it comes down
Speaker 1: to the fact that there's nobody else in the game
Speaker 1: except for Live Nation. Now let's talk about real estate
Speaker 1: for a second. Real estate investors are starting to do
Speaker 1: what they always want to avoid. It's happening in higher
Speaker 1: numbers right now. And the thing that every real estate
Speaker 1: investor doesn't want to do is to sell, especially in
Speaker 1: a time where they're forced to sell. And the Wall
Speaker 1: Street Journal profiled some titans in the real estate industry
Speaker 1: who have been forced to sell because of kind of
Speaker 1: new economic realities in the housing market, particularly in the
Speaker 1: office market, and work from home has kind of torched
Speaker 1: their ability to make money right now. That's the toughest
Speaker 1: part of the housing sector these days. And in other
Speaker 1: real estate sectors, investors have been forced to sell too
Speaker 1: because they were over leveraged, or maybe because they made
Speaker 1: rosy assumptions that didn't turn out to be true, or
Speaker 1: because they're financing wasn't as good as they thought it was.
Speaker 1: Real estate can be a great investment, but market dynamics
Speaker 1: or even just specific personal issues can lead to hard
Speaker 1: times as a real estate investor. And so what we
Speaker 1: have always said and what we'll continue to say is
Speaker 1: if you opt to invest in real estate, being forced
Speaker 1: to sell is one of the worst outcomes. And predicting
Speaker 1: the pandemic that was impossible predicting kind of the trend
Speaker 1: to work from home. That was also going to be
Speaker 1: an impossible thing to do, right, You can't. Nobody had
Speaker 1: that kind of foresight. But having the know how and
Speaker 1: the financial reserves to back you up if your investment
Speaker 1: falls on hard times. Let's say, if rents actually declined
Speaker 1: year over year for multiple years on end, or you
Speaker 1: have vake and see in a rental property that you
Speaker 1: own for longer than you assumed. Right, that is crucial
Speaker 1: to lasting over the long term. You got to have
Speaker 1: the financial backup. You can't just become a real estate
Speaker 1: investor with no money down and no money in reserves
Speaker 1: like that. That puts you you're living on the razor's
Speaker 1: edge if that's the route you take.
Speaker 2: So the recipe for disaster.
Speaker 3: And then on top of the home price growth is
Speaker 3: slowing and if you were counting on that explosive growth
Speaker 3: that we have seen over the past few years, I
Speaker 3: think you're going to be let down. And on a
Speaker 3: related note, friend of the show, Nick Midjulie, he recently
Speaker 3: predicted and it's always fun to see folks predict stuff.
Speaker 1: Because we'll see if you're right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but he predicted that that us home prices that
Speaker 3: they won't keep up with inflation in the coming decade.
Speaker 3: And this is, you know, despite what so many others
Speaker 3: in the real estate space have predicted. And he might
Speaker 3: be true, we'll just see. But real estate and influencers,
Speaker 3: real estate agents, they want to make it sound like
Speaker 3: buying a home is always a great idea, and it
Speaker 3: might be for you. You know, it depends on where
Speaker 3: you live, depends on your financial situation, which is what
Speaker 3: Joel just spoke all about, and you need to be
Speaker 3: in a solid position. It depends on how long you
Speaker 3: plan on being there in that town, how long you
Speaker 3: plan on owning that property. But it's certainly not a
Speaker 3: slam dunk financial moves over the past decade, I know exactly.
Speaker 3: And that's but people have like that short termism sort
Speaker 3: of and they see, oh man, hous home prices of
Speaker 3: skyrocket over the past three years. I better jump in
Speaker 3: now while I can. But now we're leveraged to the
Speaker 3: hilt and we've completely depleted our cast reserves. It leads
Speaker 3: to a weak position.
Speaker 1: We have heard from listeners over the years who found
Speaker 1: not too long ago even where it's like, oh man,
Speaker 1: I bought a house because I was told that's what
Speaker 1: I was supposed to do, and it ended up not
Speaker 1: being the best move for me. How do I get
Speaker 1: out of this? And the transaction costs are high in
Speaker 1: real estate and so it's a difficult thing to get
Speaker 1: out of without losing your shirt if you're trying to
Speaker 1: do it in short order. And Matt, we don't usually
Speaker 1: throw dissenting listeners under the bus, but we had a
Speaker 1: Facebook comments or recently in the how to Money Facebook
Speaker 1: group and he basically said, worst advice ever to tell
Speaker 1: people not to buy a home. And we're not telling
Speaker 1: everyone blanket, don't buy a home. We're also not telling
Speaker 1: everyone blanket do buy a home. We're saying there's a
Speaker 1: lot of factors to consider. There's a lot of nuance.
Speaker 2: Yeah, have a whole lot to consider.
Speaker 1: Right, So, yeah, there is, there's not a blanket home
Speaker 1: ownership is the way to wealth, or renting investing more
Speaker 1: is the way to build wealth. So much of it
Speaker 1: depends on a bunch of you know, personal and economic
Speaker 1: macroeconomic considerations before you kind of hone in on the
Speaker 1: right path for you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and this is coming from two dudes who have
Speaker 3: done well in real estate, like you would think like that,
Speaker 3: we would be on the train that would be beating
Speaker 3: the drum of like everybody's got to own right multiple properties.
Speaker 3: But dude, it's not twenty ten, it's not twenty eleven,
Speaker 3: not twenty twelve anymore. It's harder and harder, not even ownership,
Speaker 3: when it's even harder to get a deal when it
Speaker 3: comes to investing in Really, yeah.
Speaker 1: We're not going just based on our lived experience in
Speaker 1: real estate. We're going based on like market conditions, marketing conditions,
Speaker 1: historical realities, and like potential, the potential future of real estate,
Speaker 1: which I think Nick Medjulie is sober about the future
Speaker 1: and not overly optimistic, which I appreciate. And the truth is,
Speaker 1: we are still suffering from a lack of inventory in
Speaker 1: this country, which is part of the reason that he
Speaker 1: might be wrong about his prediction. And Matt people are
Speaker 1: actually starting to turn shopping malls into homes that could
Speaker 1: be one of the ways to increase supply. And it's
Speaker 1: kind of this twofer because people aren't visiting malls. I
Speaker 1: can't tell you the last time I visited the mall
Speaker 1: that's actually not too far away from us. People aren't
Speaker 1: going like they did twenty years ago. Spencer's a hot topic,
Speaker 1: just aren't attracting the foot traffic that they used to.
Speaker 2: Don't think it has the same ring that it did
Speaker 2: in ninety five.
Speaker 1: No, no, it doesn't.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: And even just like the big stores that were the
Speaker 1: anchor stores, Macy's, JC, Penny's, Sears right like a lot
Speaker 1: of this, I don't even think Sears exists anymore. And
Speaker 1: then jac nobody goes to those other stores. And so
Speaker 1: those spaces and their adjoining parking lots are being turned
Speaker 1: into residential units, and other developers are finding other uses
Speaker 1: for those spaces too, like hey, let's make like a
Speaker 1: slew of pickleball courts and start charging people to come
Speaker 1: play the game they're obsessed with. But as malls are
Speaker 1: floundering and traditional retailers are folding and more of our
Speaker 1: shopping does go online, turning malls into apartments and condos,
Speaker 1: I don't know that makes a lot of sense for me.
Speaker 1: Let's repurpose these big buildings into something the way people
Speaker 1: are actually going to use them.
Speaker 2: Now, Yeah, I will say.
Speaker 3: I think the biggest challenge, though, might be for them
Speaker 3: to convert these vast swaths of interior square footage into
Speaker 3: units that people actually want to live in, right, because
Speaker 3: it's like, think about especially those big box stores on
Speaker 3: the it's one thing of the smaller stores that connect,
Speaker 3: you know, like along the balcony or whatever like that
Speaker 3: connect that like.
Speaker 2: The Apple Store or gap. Yeah, like these like, oh yeah,
Speaker 2: that could be a dope.
Speaker 3: Place to live. I live in what used to be
Speaker 3: the Sunglass Hut. But like when it comes to these giants,
Speaker 3: just put me next to the spara.
Speaker 1: That's all I ask.
Speaker 3: Could you imagine waking up every morn in the smell
Speaker 3: the smell of Anti ANNs. But these big box stores
Speaker 3: that have so much interior square footage with no outside access,
Speaker 3: with like no fresh air, Like that's some sort of
Speaker 3: like dystopian living arrangement right there.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 3: Like even even in Blade Runner he had a window,
Speaker 3: you know, yeah.
Speaker 1: Not to be smirts the name of the late Charlie Munger,
Speaker 1: remember when he tried to create that dorm room with
Speaker 1: like zero windows in it order. You're right, like, you
Speaker 1: don't want to live in Nobody wants to live there.
Speaker 1: There's go be a way to pull it off.
Speaker 3: This is what they do in like China, like some
Speaker 3: of those massive building developments that nobody well, I guess
Speaker 3: they're tearing them down now because nobody like that. They
Speaker 3: don't have the population, yeah to live there. Crazy to
Speaker 3: think about, but Jael, let's talk about how more employers
Speaker 3: are offering a four to one K match even when
Speaker 3: you don't put any money into your four onin K.
Speaker 3: How does that work? Well, this is an odd benefit,
Speaker 3: but it's one that the Secure Act two point zero
Speaker 3: that it made a reality this year. Even if you
Speaker 3: don't contribute a dime to your four win K, but
Speaker 3: you are paying on your student loans, well, your company
Speaker 3: can opt to treat those payments as if you're making
Speaker 3: four wind K contributions, which would allow them to then
Speaker 3: stock money into your four one K on your behalf.
Speaker 3: And this is great because I think it's true that
Speaker 3: there are a lot of folks who have such a
Speaker 3: high student loan payment that they find it difficult, if
Speaker 3: not impossible, to contribute towards their retirement. And this simply
Speaker 3: ensures that if they, you know, work for an ever
Speaker 3: expanding group of companies who are going to offer this benefit,
Speaker 3: they're not going to be completely left behind when it
Speaker 3: comes to saving up for retirement.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think this is good news. And Fidelity
Speaker 1: notes that more than one hundred companies have now made
Speaker 1: this benefit available to their employees, and they're some of
Speaker 1: the bigger companies in the country as well. That still
Speaker 1: really only covers a small percentage of the workforce. But again,
Speaker 1: this is a new benefit, like this only became law
Speaker 1: the law of the land starting at the beginning of
Speaker 1: this year, and we're likely going to see adoption I
Speaker 1: think go up significantly in the coming years.
Speaker 3: It's it's like when the four to one K first
Speaker 3: came into existence. It's not like everyone all all of
Speaker 3: a sudden had a four K. It's something that gradually ramped.
Speaker 3: The same thing with a roth. Ira'sorts are like, who's
Speaker 3: this name?
Speaker 1: That what?
Speaker 3: Senator oh, Senator au did this well, slowly over time
Speaker 3: it became our favorite individual retirement account option. But it
Speaker 3: takes time for it to gain some state.
Speaker 1: And it takes people kind of clamoring for that, asking
Speaker 1: their employer, asking their HR department.
Speaker 3: Hey, which is why we're talking about it, for you
Speaker 3: to ask your boss.
Speaker 1: Yeah, other companies are offering this. My friend works down
Speaker 1: the street and he's got this or she's got this
Speaker 1: available where or she works. Can can I get that here?
Speaker 1: What's going on? And they might say, hey, it's in
Speaker 1: the works. Actually we know about this, we're planning on
Speaker 1: offering it. But this is one of those benefits that
Speaker 1: I think, especially for the younger crowd who has loads
Speaker 1: of student loan debt like is going to ask to
Speaker 1: be made available. And these are the kind of benefits
Speaker 1: that go beyond just the headline pay number, that make
Speaker 1: a big difference in your overall compensation package.
Speaker 2: So that's right.
Speaker 1: Be sure to check and see what sort of benefit
Speaker 1: your current employee offers, or if you're in the job market, hey,
Speaker 1: this is something you're going to want to at least
Speaker 1: note whether that potential employer offers this kind of student
Speaker 1: loan for one k match.
Speaker 3: That's right, but that's going to be it for a
Speaker 3: Friday flight. We hope everyone has a fantastic weekend, and
Speaker 3: we'll see you back here on Monday with a fresh
Speaker 3: set of listener questions for you, buddy. Until next time,
Speaker 3: Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out,