00:00:00 Speaker 1: Welcome to How to Money. I'm Joel. I'm Matt. Today we're talking commuting, cost climbing, home buying with your homies, and Muse is meh. 00:00:16 Speaker 2: Joel, I don't know if I've ever heard a more Joel headline than home buying with your homies. 00:00:24 Speaker 1: I know you are. 00:00:24 Speaker 2: Particularly proud of that one. I don't know. 00:00:28 Speaker 1: Maybe that pegs me as a millennial using that term. Cause I don't know that the kids these days are, maybe they're not really using homie as much. Uh, it reminds me of, uh, Jesus is my homeboy. Like that whole meme. You remember back that like early two thousands? How could I forget? Oh, did you have a, did you have the hat or a shirt? No, I didn't have the hat, but I was very much in on the trucker hat era back in the day. 00:00:52 Speaker 2: Oh yeah. 00:00:53 Speaker 1: Oh yeah. 00:00:54 Speaker 2: I feel like your mom would have thought that that was too sacrilegious probably for you to wear that hat. 00:00:58 Speaker 1: She would have judged you. No. 00:01:01 Speaker 2: Hey, before we get started on our Friday flight, we need to wish a happy belated birthday to Pete Kasperson. Yes. His daughter reached out and she said that her father, Pete, he's officially eligible for Medicare. And he's a diehard listener. 00:01:21 Speaker 1: And she was. 00:01:23 Speaker 2: You know, she was honest. She was like, I'm a part-time listener. But dad, dad's a super fan. You got to give him a shout out. And she was like, I'll pay you 200 bucks if you do it. And we were like, all right, fine. That sounds about right. Only for money do we do it. No, man, I will say Pete. So her name is Lauren and she sent us the kindest email talking about her dad. But what I want Pete to know is that Pete, you did a good job because the kind of email that we received from her was just so It was so lovely. It was so kind and warm. And it just tells me, Pete, that you did a great job. I think I felt it because I'm looking off into the future and I'm just like, I want my kids to be able to say that about me. Not because like I'm great or anything, but just because if they are emailing and reaching out to people in the way that she did, it would tell me that I think I did a pretty decent. 00:02:15 Speaker 1: Job as a father. Does that? Make sense? Yeah, for sure. For sure. 00:02:20 Speaker 2: That's what I want to let Pete know. I think he did a good job, Pete. Yeah. I don't know about the other ones, but at least with Florent. 00:02:27 Speaker 1: He probably mailed those ones in. I hope that he spends some money on something he cares about today. So, Pete, go blow some dollars on something you really care about today and hopefully with your loved ones around you as well. So, happy birthday. I wanted to ask you a question, Matt, real quick before– frugal or cheap, buying an off-brand fridge. I feel like the... Yeah, like... Wait, are you specifically talking about your off-brand fridge? Yeah. The kind that we've never heard of? 00:02:58 Speaker 2: Yes! 00:02:59 Speaker 1: No, no, no. 00:03:00 Speaker 2: You need to share with folks, because I don't even know much about this name brand. 00:03:05 Speaker 1: Okay. Or this brand. It's not... Yeah, what do you call it? It's an off-brand, I guess. Madea, which sounds like a character from a Tyler Perry movie, because it is. But There's this fridge. Apparently, they've been making refrigerators and appliances for all these other brands for decades. But they just haven't released anything under their own brand. And so it's not like they're completely brand new to making appliances. But doing some research, there's just not a whole lot out there about them because they're kind of new under their own brand name. And we wanted to replace our fridge. We've like hated our fridge since we moved in, Matt. And we were like, this is something we can do for less than $ 1, 500. Why not? Why are we have we not done this? And so finally, we just pulled the trigger. We we had the money and bought the new fridge. But when I was doing my research, I, of course, like looked at Consumer Reports. I'm trying to figure out which brands are most reliable. But here's the thing. There wasn't much on this brand on Consumer Reports. Because it's so new. And so I'm taking a flyer on this thing. And it wasn't even just because this was the cheapest fridge, Matt. You might think Joel went with the off-brand because it was much cheaper. It was much cheaper. But there were a couple features that we really wanted in the fridge, including my wife likes the pitcher that you pull out of the fridge that automatically fills with water. Yeah, I remember you mentioning that. And the two sizes of ice. If it had those two features, then she was game. And the other thing we had to be concerned about as you You always do with a fridge is how far it sticks out. And this one didn't stick out too far. It stuck out a little bit further. It wasn't counter depth, but it wasn't as far as some of the other ones. So it kind of was the sweet spot and I couldn't find another fridge that really hit that. And so I felt like I had to take a flyer, especially with this fridge being 1300 bucks. Okay, nice. So you've got it delivered. Have y'all been using it? Oh my gosh, it's so great. It's been a game changer, yeah. Dude, oh my gosh. I don't know how long it's going to last. Is this fridge going to last for six years instead of 12? Does it seem cheap? 00:05:05 Speaker 2: What brand did y'all have before? Didn't y'all have Frigidaire or Whirlpool? 00:05:10 Speaker 1: It was like a KitchenAid. It was supposedly a nice fridge, but we just couldn't stand it. And part of it was it was just poorly laid out. It was too small for our family. We couldn't fit the stuff we wanted to in it. 00:05:22 Speaker 2: Okay, I know this is getting pretty specific off the top of your head. Do you know the cubic feet? Because some of the smaller fridges on the lower end, you think, oh, that's a nice fridge. It's got some of the features you're looking for. But if it's like 21, 19 cubic feet or something like that, you can't get a ton in there. And I'm all about prioritizing something closer to 30, which is some of the largest normal fridges possible. that i found when we were researching. 00:05:47 Speaker 1: Fridges i want to say we went from something like 21 to 30 and okay it's been mind-blowing those additional features have been nice but also just the so much extra space in there. 00:05:59 Speaker 2: Yeah and think about the fact that like if you can see everything and everything's not buried on top of each other stuff's gonna last longer right because a you can see it so you know oh we need to eat that before it goes bad but b you're not like having to smash it I know you're in there punching the salad down into the drawer. 00:06:13 Speaker 1: Yeah. And like, that's probably not good for the produce. 00:06:15 Speaker 2: You're like halfway eviscerating it to begin with before, before it even has a chance to wilt in its package. And then you throw away into. 00:06:24 Speaker 1: The trash can. I can't tell you how many yogurts just came falling out of the fridge and splattering on the floor because like it's on the edge, it's teetering. And then you open the door and then it just, it comes out. So we're very happy with it, but it's one of those things where, White label. We're testing this brand out. I'll let you know years down the road how it goes. 00:06:47 Speaker 2: It's really interesting that they make these fridges for other companies that perhaps slap their label on there. But yeah, I'm curious if you found some sort of secret hack that you can report back on. But hey, let's keep moving. This is our Friday flight. Some of the stories we've come across this week, how we think they're going to pertain to your personal finances. And this one might pertain, I guess, less to people individually, but it's really interesting. It's definitely been going around. It's in the zeitgeist currently, which is there's this whole debate as to whether or not it's cool to bring an iced coffee to a job interview. 00:07:23 Speaker 1: And people are really torn. Joel, do you have a dog in this fight? Do you care? I do, actually. I do care. Oh, let's hear it. Yeah, so love me some iced coffee, some cold brew. Drink it almost every day, especially in the warmer months. Would I come in? to a job interview with a big gulp cold brew in my hands? No, I wouldn't. I think it's disrespectful. I think it's too casual. If someone came in to me and they're like, you know, sipping their cold brew in front while I'm, while we're having a job interview, I'm sorry. It doesn't mean you're not going to get the job, but it will weigh on how I think of you Uh, and just kind of like if you came in with your trucker hat sideways, like it is one of those things. Especially if it. 00:08:11 Speaker 2: Says Jesus is my homeboy. You're like, you know, man, like, what are you like a Gen Xer? 00:08:14 Speaker 1: Get out of here. Whatever your trucker hat says or what, just don't, don't come into a job interview looking overly casual unless it's at like, uh, I guess a really casual place, but most, I think that's what I was going to say. Wear your button up. Like I just care a little bit. 00:08:33 Speaker 2: Yeah. That's what I was going to say, is that I think the context matters so much. And I think so much of this discussion, this is more like an internet culture, social, kind of cultural conversation. Because, oh, have you heard of like the. 00:08:49 Speaker 1: Unicontext? 00:08:50 Speaker 2: It's this philosopher from University of Chicago. She made the rounds over the summer, I think. like on some of the different podcasts, and she did some writing. Her basic premise of the unit context is that what the internet does is it strips away context. And so because of that, people get all up in arms about certain things because context really matters, right? And so if you were to ask me, I would say, well, it just depends because if it is a more casual job, then yeah, that's probably fine. But you've got people responding and they work maybe more in a blue collar environment. You got folks who work in healthcare and you got folks who work in, you know, finance or client related, all these different sort of industries where there would be different rules for that. And I think that's a big part of it. And people get outraged. I will say one of the funnier things in that article, somebody mentioned how, Oh, actually I've got a regular coffee here. Something about Friday flights make, makes me want to drink, uh, drink a coffee while we record. But, um, He said that a regular coffee is like wearing a suit to an interview, whereas a cold brew or an iced coffee is like showing up in your bathing suit. 00:10:00 Speaker 1: I kind of feel that. Because there's always the condensation dripping off the cup. And maybe this, I think this speaks to something that's true. Even if you, some people will think of it as disrespectful, even if it isn't, right? 00:10:16 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:10:16 Speaker 1: Because I can see how like, yeah, there's this dichotomy there. Why is the regular coffee less disrespectful than the cold brew coffee? I don't know, but I think that's just a natural human tendency is to judge, right? And so you have to be in the mind of the employer a little bit and saying, how are they going to perceive me if I do this thing? Is it fair? Is it right? Not necessarily, but like, that's why people dress up in ways that they, to go to a job interview in a way that they wouldn't, even if they were going out with their friends, it is because of the perception and you want to put your best foot forward. So probably leave the cold brew in your car. I think the, I think the wetness part of it gets me as well. Cause when I read that, I was just like, that is so true. Like that's a part of why I think I stopped doing a cold brew at my desk. Cause I don't want to get my desk soaking wet. At least if, if I do, I have it in like an insulated Yeti or something like that. But you know, maybe that's more of a test because it's like, Oh, how do they, how do they negotiate? 00:11:11 Speaker 2: Dude, Yeti is just a basic, I'm going to, I'm going to be drinking out of this cup for 20 years based on the fact that my found tequila thermos insulated bottle, that I found at a hotel when I was hanging out with you. I'm still drinking, and that was from 2018. But nonetheless, I feel like negotiating the drips. Oh, is he able to drink a cold brew, an iced coffee? Can she pull that off without getting everything wet? Maybe that even elevates you in the eyes of the interviewer, but probably not. 00:11:42 Speaker 1: Okay, so if you. 00:11:45 Speaker 1: Well, I was going to say, let's say you don't want to go to a job interview. And I think people are becoming more disenchanted with the job market. There was a recent study on that where people are saying, I think I want to start my own business because I don't want to go work for somebody else. It's not even that people are getting laid off. I think one of the things, Matt, I have always thought this, one of the things that pushes a certain type of person out of the traditional workforce working for somebody else to go work for themselves is is the bureaucracy of the workplace. So that was one of the things that I got fed up with, was why is it being done this way when it would be so much better if we did it this way? And I do think that's one of the things that leads people to going to work for themselves is because they have a lot more say, even if they have to work harder, they have more say over the outcome. 00:12:36 Speaker 2: That's like the number one, I mean, there's multiple pros to working for yourself, to being self-employed, to hanging your own shingle, right? Autonomy, being your own boss, calling your own shots, that is so invaluable. Obviously, you've got maximum flexibility. There's no ceiling as to how much you can earn when it comes to, I mean, depending on the industry, but it's not like there's some sort of artificial cap and the profits are just flowing. 00:13:04 Speaker 1: To your boss or the business. But some of the same pros, though, are the cons, right? Maximum flexibility, oh, that's so great. Oh, okay. 00:13:13 Speaker 2: Do you find yourself working at all hours of the night? You know, that's like the, everything has like a dark side, right? 00:13:22 Speaker 1: The shadow side, as Carl Jung would say. Oh, yeah. The autonomy. Okay, well, which direction do you go? 00:13:28 Speaker 2: You want to call the shots, but then it's just like, oh, actually, back when I was working for the man, working nine to five, there was a clear direction as opposed to the whole world being our oyster. And we're both referencing this Times article. They were also obviously highlighting some of the other cons were lack of retirement contributions. 00:13:49 Speaker 1: I found this fascinating. 00:13:50 Speaker 2: Half of folks who are self-employed aren't contributing to a retirement account, which is, oh, my gosh. How does that compare to other, you know, to folks who do have that available to them and aren't taking advantage of it? I'm not sure, but I didn't like that. And obviously, health care is the other massive component. con to working for yourself, right? And that's something that you and I have had to negotiate. 00:14:12 Speaker 1: I've had to. 00:14:13 Speaker 2: Negotiate that for 17, 18 years now at this point. But you got to figure out what's going to work for you and for your family. Yeah. 00:14:22 Speaker 1: And since COVID, we kind of saw this bump in people willing to go off and do their own thing. And some people use the STEMI money to kind of launch their business or to at least give them that wiggle room to get going, which I think is great. But yeah, you do have to know all those downsides. I think there's a lot of potential positives, especially the further along you get in building your business, you get to reap more of the benefits. Whereas in the beginning, you have to kind of plant the seeds in order to get to the place where you have a little bit more of that flexibility. And it's really important, I think, to stress that if you go into that, maybe there is a year or two where you can't make retirement contributions because you're putting everything into this business. But the goal is to then use the accounts that are at your disposal and your hopefully increased income years down the road to be funneling more towards your Roth IRA, towards your solo 401k. 00:15:13 Speaker 2: Or maybe even doing both. If you can continue to at least max out a Roth while you're building that business, more power to you. But yeah, I've thought long and hard about what it is about entrepreneurship that like I just think about, do I like entrepreneurship because it's just why, like I'm wired that way and it's just how I am and I like doing my own thing and I don't like bosses telling me what to do. 00:15:39 Speaker 1: Like there's a dark side to that too, obviously. 00:15:41 Speaker 2: There's the shadow. But I also wonder, like a lot of the folks that they were profiling in this piece, it just felt like the whole thing was set in a negative light, right? A lot of these folks were laid off and it was sort of seeing, like self-employment was seen more as the last resort, as opposed to something that they were actively pursuing. Like, you know, it makes me think about Theodore Roosevelt, like the man in the arena, as far as like stepping into it actively, as opposed to feeling like, well, shoot, like, I don't know what I'm going to do. So no, I need to do this. I wonder how much that impacts individuals as well in their perception of something like being self-employed and entrepreneurship. 00:16:22 Speaker 1: But either way. Another story kind of on this topic about the high cost of commuting and how people are really considering strongly whether or not they take a job that's offered to them because, oh, it's going to be a longer drive. Is it worth taking this job if my commuting costs are going to go up? And you and I have been talking about the cost of commuting for, I don't know, as long as we Since we came out of the womb, probably. 00:16:50 Speaker 2: Was it not just the cost of commuting, Joel? The episode that you're referring to, this is early on, and I do not recommend for folks to go back and listen to this because I'm sure it's awful. But I'm pretty sure the title was commuting to work is killing you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or something like that. I think we're trying to be a bit more bombastic early on. 00:17:11 Speaker 1: Yes. Well, and the truth is, yeah, in some ways it is, right? Sitting is the new smoking and you're sitting in your car. The average commute, I looked it up, in America is it takes roughly 55 minutes round trip. So you're talking about almost an hour of your life. There's 24 hours in the day. And I think a lot of people think about it as, well, it's the price I have to pay to get the paycheck. And I don't think that's always true. I think like this new report from Monster finds that 49% of folks have declined a job because it's too far away and it would increase commuting costs. And I think that is a reasonable decision to make. And it is important not just to think about the costs of filling your car and the depreciation and the miles you're putting on that car, but it is also important to think about how much your time is worth and how much, if you got to drive an hour round trip for your eight hour workday, well, it's not just eight hours that you're sacrificing. You're sacrificing nine and you're getting ready and you're maybe having to update your clothes in order to take that job. So I think there are all these things that it's worth, just like you have to think about the total compensation package. and not just the headline rate of pay you're going to receive. You have to think about the total expenses, right, that you have to put forth to have this job. And is it worth moving living closer? Or is it worth finding something else or finding something more flexible where you can work from home more often and you only have to go into that job once a week or maybe twice? I do like that more folks are considering those costs, right? Like it's almost like this is partly the climbing costs of commuting. But we can also flip it. It's also the cost of commuting may not be worth that job. 00:18:52 Speaker 2: Yeah. Right? Because like they're talking about folks who are turning down those positions. And man, one stood out to me, like one extreme example was this lady who was driving... who was driving eight hours. She was driving like three hours to go to school. 00:19:05 Speaker 1: That's crazy. 00:19:07 Speaker 2: I think she was in law school and then driving another three hours back to her job and then 45 minutes home, like almost eight hours. That's obviously extreme and totally insane. But there's also this other young individual who is 25 years old who did not want to drive 30 minutes on the interstate because it felt like she was saying she just didn't feel like she was a part of the community. And instead took a big pay cut for something that was only 10 minutes away. And that's an instance where I'm thinking, man, I have a tough time with that as well, right? If you have identified that that's incredibly important for you and you are looking over a longer horizon, okay. But I'm also thinking about those younger years, man. That's when you really hustle. You get after it in order to afford yourself some of these options later in life. I think you can do that if maybe you live in a more affordable cost of living area. if you don't have ambitious goals of, man, I want to own a house someday. Oh, I want to do a decent amount of international travel. Not that any of these things have to be especially expensive, but gosh, you're going to be able to do less of those things by saying, well, I'm really prioritizing a short commute, having community that feels like everyone's my neighbor. 00:20:27 Speaker 1: As long as you know that. It's all about trade-offs, right? Yeah, trade-offs. And that's the downside analysis. Sounds like the person who was Saying no to the 30-minute commute in favor of the 10-minute commute with a much smaller salary probably didn't do that cost-benefit analysis. Maybe not. And that's what I'm afraid of. Yeah. 00:20:41 Speaker 2: I don't want that to be idolized where folks are like, oh, well, I don't have a 10-minute commute. Okay, I'm going to say no to this job. Well, it's just like, well, that means you can't have X, Y, and Z as well. And I think it's worth thinking through some of those trade-offs. And the further along you get in your career or less in your career and more in your personal finances, right? The more ability you have to turn things down because you don't need the money in the same way. But early in your career, you're trying to build up. 00:21:09 Speaker 1: That nest egg. And so I think you say yes to everything. 00:21:11 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:21:11 Speaker 1: Yeah. You have to say yes to more things. Let's talk about plasma donation and all the other wacky things. You don't have to, but you can. Oh, Joel, I just thought of this. 00:21:20 Speaker 2: Uh, we, we met somebody who has their car wrapped and, uh, they're, she babysits and she's concerned about the wrap on her car. Turning people off. In particular, it being embarrassing being in the driveway of people she's doing nanny share for or babysitting. It's a bail bonds car wrap. 00:21:48 Speaker 1: Okay, that is a little. Would you let them wrap? Because you had Salesforce. Yeah. Which is awesome. 00:21:56 Speaker 2: I'm like, dude, Salesforce, you know, it's got that nice blue, I don't know. It was a good looking graphic. This is back on the Nissan Leaf back in the day. But anyway, maybe I should have saved that for some other story. That's so funny. Yeah, I was just like, oh, dang it. That is kind of tough because I don't know if I would love riding around without my car. You know, something that feels a bit more neutral. But to be advertising bail bonds feels, yeah, anyway. 00:22:20 Speaker 1: Yeah, car wraps. Maybe if you get the right one, it's not that bad. It depends on what you're making too. 00:22:25 Speaker 2: You want to share some good news with folks? I feel like there can be so much pessimism and looking at everything that's wrong in the world. You want to talk about some of those things? Yeah, there was just some new data about income and wealth going up. And there was this new federal report basically found that adjusted for inflation, the typical... And that's important, adjusted for inflation, right? The typical U.S. household is making more money than ever. And that is post-tax household income rose last year. And so I think we see all these headlines, Matt, especially about like the middle class is shrinking, which is true. But why is the middle class shrinking? It's because the share of people who qualify as upper class has grown. The share of upper income, which means you make $ 100, 000 or more households, has tripled since 1967. So I think we have this way of thinking that isn't quite commensurate with reality in terms of how we're doing, how our fellow Americans are doing, what the state of wealth accumulation looks like, or at least earnings have gone up. But I just think there's more economic. 00:23:42 Speaker 1: than at any other time in human history, right? And we are, but there's so many negative headlines that don't reflect that. Yeah, let's throw it back to the philosopher and the unit context. One of the premises of her idea there is that what. 00:23:58 Speaker 2: Stands out to people across all cultures, no matter what stage of life you're in, no matter what class you're in, is the negative stuff, right? Good news doesn't spread as evenly as, as bad news, right? So like something like murder or a flood or like all of these things are always bad. Like that's just no matter what, yeah, no matter what culture you are in, these are not things that you want to see happen. As opposed to the fact that it's not just financial economic stuff, but I mean, we have seen like murder is low or what's it called? Like violent crime specifically is down. Like all of these things are down as opposed to, and then you look at like the consumer sentiment and 85% of folks think, think that they are worse off now, uh, ignoring all of the actual data, man. Uh, and it's just, it's just, it is fascinating to see. And, you know, media has known this for forever. Um, if it bleeds, it leads and that, that does appeal to everybody, um, as opposed to the good news, right? Uh, Earlier this week, as opposed to the fact that inflation numbers came in. 00:25:10 Speaker 1: Oh, wow. 00:25:10 Speaker 2: It looks like it's actually cooling more than people thought. Oh, the economy actually grew more back in the spring than forecasters had expected. 00:25:22 Speaker 1: And we talk about rate of inflation, but we don't talk about rate of paycheck growth, which has exceeded on average inflation. And so there, yeah, there are all these ways in which you can. There's good news out there, man. You can use the data to paint a picture that everything's bad. And I think a lot of people buy into that because that's the news that gets reported. But when you look at the flip side, there's a lot of good too. And I think if we can reflect on that and be content, a little more content, right, with what we have, we might be shocked at the progress we can make. 00:25:54 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:25:54 Speaker 1: Yeah, totally agree. 00:25:55 Speaker 2: Let's talk about housing real quick. The New Yorker, they had an article about siblings who were buying houses together. You know, yeah, it was a real... Real cute article. What did you think about it? They had some fun graphics with it too. The overall vibe was fun. It's better to buy with a family member than it is to buy with a friend, I guess. I've seen that trend too, which kind of unnerves me. But I still think it's not an ideal way to go. And I think if you're, I think it also overly idealizes the goal of homeownership to say like, well, we both desperately want to buy a home. Neither of us can afford to do it on our own. So let's do it together. I still think that renting makes more sense for a whole lot of people. Rent something together. The stakes are lower. The cost is going to be lower. Like my little sister, there's this one place that they are really thinking about buying, but it makes no sense. They pay another $ 700 a month. They're not getting much more space. They could rent a very, very similar place right around the corner from there and still continue to pay much less. 00:27:05 Speaker 1: Like, all right. 00:27:06 Speaker 2: So the question is, is she, instead of buying that house, will she take that $ 700 and stick an extra 700 a month into her investments? Because that's, I mean, granted, it's not apples to apples, right? Not all of that payment is going directly towards equity, especially early on in the. 00:27:21 Speaker 1: Life of the loan, but that's the difference, right? 00:27:23 Speaker 2: And so from a payment standpoint, yes, it does not make sense, but that's one of the things you get is that sort of forced equity, the forced savings vehicle of a home is obviously one of the benefits of a home. 00:27:33 Speaker 1: But, um, But people overvalue that, right? And you're like, if more people would say, okay, what would it cost for us to buy this home? And we have this mortgage together. Okay, the mortgage is going to be three grand, which means we're each paying 1500 a month. And interest rates, by the way, are not helping out right now. And then if we were to rent a similar place around the corner, how much would we pay in rent? Oh, it'd be 2200. We're paying 1100 a month. And then you each take the 400 extra, right? And you're saving and investing that money. for years to come, you might actually find too, like instead of forcing it in an era like we're in right now with high rates, I think it makes more sense to just kind of continue to rent and to continue to sock money away. And I think there's also just the relational aspect of buying a home with someone else, whether it's your sister or brother or a friend that doesn't does make me a little nervous too. That you could run into some problems or somebody wants to get out earlier than the other person. You can't afford to buy them out. And so now you have to sell the home that you've come to love. I just think renting is cleaner and easier. And if somebody wants out at the end of the lease, then they can't go on their merry way. 00:28:52 Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot of, you need to think through a lot of the different situations if you go in and purchase a home together, right? Like what does it look like for someone to then leave or to someone who no longer wants to be there you know, at the house. Like, how are you accounting for equity growth? You kind of need to figure out an exit clause before the time comes because I feel like folks aren't doing that in particular because to a certain extent, at least this article, at least, I felt like it was elevating sibling life. 00:29:21 Speaker 1: And like, I know siblings are awesome. 00:29:22 Speaker 2: I hope maybe a couple of my kids will buy a house together. 00:29:24 Speaker 1: I don't know, whatever. 00:29:25 Speaker 2: But like, I don't think that should necessarily be the goal, right? I think our country is... great and awesome because folks are like going out on their own and finding a partner, like settling down, creating a stable household where they're able to contribute at their jobs to the community, like communities that are robust and that have kids running around. Like these are the communities that are thriving as opposed to, I don't know if everyone moved in with their sibling and didn't have kids. I feel like America would be pretty sad in about 70 years, but yeah, all that being said, uh, you, you touched on high, you know, just with mortgage rates and yeah, like we're seeing 30 year mortgage rates now close to 7% or if not higher. 00:30:11 Speaker 1: Depending on worth worth of seven. 00:30:13 Speaker 2: Yeah. Depending on where quick we were checking. So it's harder than ever to find a house these days. Um, and I'm not going to say, I'm not going to say, um, what is it? Marry the house and date the right Joel. But that's kind of what business was a business insider. They're pointing out that a lot of markets are softening in part because houses are staying on the market longer. So what that's causing them to do is cut the price. And guess what? You can negotiate the price upfront. Guess what you can never do once you buy the home. You can never negotiate the price again. Like it's just locked in, but you can negotiate You're financing. You can negotiate your interest rate down the road. And so that's like- Hopefully, that's what people three years ago thought. That's what people three years ago were banking on, right? 00:31:02 Speaker 1: Well, it hasn't happened. That's for sure. And it hasn't happened. And they were like, I'm going to buy something at the top of my price range. But fortunately, I can refinance this 5.75% interest rate in a couple of years. I'm going to lower my mortgage payment. It's going to be awesome. I'm going to make out like a bandit. And those people haven't been able to refinance, Matt, and they might find themselves in a hard spot. I think people who bought in the last few years, many of them who feel like they need to move are in one of the toughest spots. And so I think the people who are sitting in the cap urgency right now are the people who have been saving up a boatload of cash so they don't have to finance as much of their purchase. And they can take advantage of the fact that there are some stressed out sellers who have had to make meaningful price cuts already to their property because And they can jump in, especially if a seller really has to get out of there. And they can put in what would have been considered a low ball offer and have it actually be considered. I think for the first time in a long time, I'm not going to say it's a buyer's market because interest rates are still high. Prices are still high. But there's so much more wiggle room. I'm seeing homes. Yeah, home prices are coming down, though, in a lot of markets. I'm seeing home prices. Part of it was because sellers thought their house was worth way more than it actually is. But I've seen home prices or just asking prices come down. 25 plus percent on many homes around where we live, Matt. And part of that was the pie in the sky seller was like, I'm going to make a fortune on this. And they were just completely out of their minds. And part of it is too, that the market is softening substantially and buyers who have plenty of cash at their disposal, I think they can benefit from this. Yeah. 00:32:38 Speaker 2: And if they don't though, I mean, I think what you have to do is adjust expectations, right? Because it really sucks for folks who are thinking, oh, I thought I was going to be able to get a house two years ago. Oh, I thought I was going to be able to get one last year. Oh, I can't even get one this year because rates are ticking back up. I mean, that really sucks. But honestly, it's either saving up more money or adjusting your expectations. That's the only other alternative to just sitting around on your butt, wishing that it was different, but that's not at all attached to reality. That doesn't mean it's not hard. That it sucks because it does. But let's talk about more personal finance stuff after our break. Talk about, we'll talk a lot about investing and AI. We'll get to all that right after this. All right. 00:33:32 Speaker 1: Let's hit up the ludicrous headline of the week, Matthew. This one comes from Yahoo and everybody's talking about Metamuse this week. We had to weigh in. We had to weigh in. So the headline said, Meta's Muse says it can manage your money should you let it. What do you think people think we're going to say, Matt? 00:33:49 Speaker 2: Are you asking me? I was hoping that you would make some... Know that we love Meta Muse. 00:33:54 Speaker 1: I was hoping. 00:33:55 Speaker 2: Well, when you say Meta Muse, it kind of sounds like Metamucil. Has anybody made that joke yet? I was expecting you to reference Muse, the band, another early aughts reference that would have dated you. 00:34:08 Speaker 1: I saw them open for you too way back in the day. You did? Yeah. Dude, I bet that was actually a pretty good show. It was cool. It was a good show. That was like a long time ago. Yeah. Well, I am all for AI. I am all for. 00:34:23 Speaker 2: LLMs and specifically just how Muse is more incorporated as an app. 00:34:30 Speaker 1: Okay. When you say you're all for them, that's interesting. But I'm not all for... Bill Gates says they're going to kill... Kill us all. 00:34:36 Speaker 2: I'm not all for you entering all your information in. You're for the end of humanity. 00:34:40 Speaker 1: That's what I heard. 00:34:41 Speaker 2: Dude, yeah, this sounds a lot like Y2K, doesn't it? Like, how is the AI going to, like, find me in my bed and, like, strangle me, you know? 00:34:53 Speaker 1: Not until the... I'm going to play this back at your funeral someday. 00:34:58 Speaker 2: It's just like, oh, it's that Tesla bot. That's where it crosses over into reality, I guess, where the software... Oh, self-driving into a ditch. Yeah. Which, at some point, we're going to have to talk about the full self-driving on the 26 models, which I have experienced one time. But anyway, all that to say, no, I do not recommend for folks to plug in their information, especially if you've. 00:35:22 Speaker 1: Got more on the line. 00:35:24 Speaker 2: And what I mean by that is that I think if you are younger, I might be okay. 00:35:30 Speaker 1: If you're younger. 00:35:31 Speaker 2: and you don't hardly have any money and you don't really have any financial systems in place, there's a part of me that's like, I think I would try it out. Like what's there to lose other than perhaps gaining a lot of insights as to what it is I'm doing with my money, right? Like if you're kind of sloppy and you're kind of all over the place when it comes to your money, the ability to plug in your information and then have it just provide some executive summaries for you. And all of a sudden, you're just like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. I feel like I've got my own personal coach, my personal finance assistant here telling me what it is that I should be doing. I think I could see how that might be a decent option for some folks. 00:36:11 Speaker 1: Now, do I think any Boomer listeners out there, Pete, do not enter your information. Don't log in. It's his birthday, man. Come on. 00:36:22 Speaker 2: Don't give Muse your Fidelity, Vanguard, or Schwab login information because you've got more riding on the line. You've got more to lose. And so I think, again, a lot of it comes back to context, Joel. 00:36:35 Speaker 1: So the New York Times basically said, oh, this is really good at helping you find subscriptions you're not using and helping you cancel them. And that That might be true, and I don't doubt that. And I think there's a use for that because we spend way too much money on subscriptions on average, and we should be attentive to that. But meta itself, it says about Muse that it's not immune to attack, and it will make mistakes sometimes. I am just worried. I'm less worried about AI strangling me in my bed, but I am worried about if I give it extra information that it doesn't need, instead of asking it questions, And using that thoughtfully to parse through how I react and what I choose to do. Instead of doing that, people are just like saying, here's everything. Check out my life, my calendar, my email, all my financial stuff. And like- I don't like it. Yeah. Help me do the right thing in all of these areas. I just worry about Like, we've been worried about hackers, right, stealing our information. And now we're just giving stuff up to these chatbots and assuming that they're going to handle it with care. I think that's quite an assumption. And at this point in time, I think it's prudent to wait. Does it make sense maybe in the future? Possibly. Like, we'll see. And even asking questions, Matt. There was this study from Investment News, and it said that AI chatbots give the wrong financial answers most of the time. Oh, yeah. I saw that. I think these chatbots, they've gotten so much better. Oh, dude, I copied this over. I want to read this because, yeah, that was really compelling. This is research by Saturn, which is an AI and technology firm. And this is, man, I'm going to read this verbatim. This is the most in-depth benchmarking exercise of its kind to date. They tested 18 AI models across 121 different money-related questions with each question run five times to account for variability. In total, more than 10,000 responses were assessed. 00:38:32 Speaker 2: And what did all of these, I mean, this has all the models, everything from free to the high-end paid-for ones. 00:38:39 Speaker 1: And what did they receive? 00:38:41 Speaker 2: Wrong answers, 57% of the time, which is like mind-blowing. Like this is a research firm that really went through and painstakingly did this. And even still, less than a coin flip, was it giving you the correct answers, which is not what you want to see. One of the things they said was that wrong info, when they said that the answer was wrong, sometimes they meant that it wasn't enough information from the chatbot to say that it was a correct answer. Yeah. 00:39:11 Speaker 1: So sometimes that's it too. It's just insufficient. And part of that is what questions are you using to prompt it? Part of that is how good are these models? And some are better than others. That was one of the other things they found was that the paid models tended to be better and offer better responses and advice. But I think- Well, they're all getting better, you know? Yeah. They're constantly improving. This is still a brave new world though. And you have to be thoughtful about what you ask and how you use the responses that you get and what you're uploading to the chatbots. I'm just worried that at some point, within the next year, right? There's some sort of leak. And if you're using the chatbot where a bunch of stuff got leaked, right? Or there's another like AI on AI attack and a lot of your personal finance information gets leaked out there. Like this is gonna, it's not Equifax being an idiot. It is these AIs using stuff that you have given them in the first place. You have just offered up. And then it gets disseminated out there into the wider world and you're hurt because of it. And it's going to happen, right? 00:40:17 Speaker 2: I think a wiser approach, if you do want to start, and I would even feel comfortable with this, but even just like uploading a statement, right? Uploading a credit card statement and just being like, hey, what you think? You tell me what I should cut back on. Oh, what is this? And tell me step-by-step how to cancel that. That seems like a more sandboxed, siloed way of approaching it as opposed to just giving it free reign. But I will say, So I used Muse last week when everyone was kind of talking about it. And it's really good. It's better at doing some other things. And so I've used some of the different models for shopping. Just been like, hey, find me the best price on this. And it'll give me either incorrect items or just weird stuff, weird results. And I'm on my own able to find a better deal. I asked it to find a certain pair of boots, some desert boots last week. And first of all, it shows the browser, like as if it's working, which is interesting. Like you can click it and open it. And it's like going to all these different websites and clicking and selecting my size for me. And it's compiling the results. And then at the end, it gave a little like write-up of like, if you want some that are used, here's this listing on eBay with your exact size. But what I ended up going with was it found like over at Zappos, it had a 20% off fall sale. And they're like using this code. And so it took the code into account as well. Using the code with these boots, this is your best brand new price. I was very impressed at that task. So I'm not going to give it my login information for my retirement account. But using it selectively and strategically like that, I think there's a massive benefit to be gained. 00:41:59 Speaker 1: 100%, yeah. We're not Luddites. We're not anti-AI. I was using it to come up with... Look up fridges. Come up with... awards for the cross-country kids for this season. And I was like, help me come up with some creative awards to give out to these kids. And I'm obviously thinking, well, which kid deserves this award and which one of these names that the AI came up with, which ones are actually kind of fun and good and fit the vibe of our team. But yeah, it's great for stuff like that idea generation. But then there's, I think if we use it too much, if we become overly reliant, our brains atrophy. And if we give it a bunch of our information. We're bound at some point to become, I think to get screwed because of it. Yeah. 00:42:44 Speaker 2: Well, that's a whole nother aspect of it is the atrophy. And that's one of the downsides I think of plugging all of your information in is that it is then pro like, and it's one of the upsides of it. The fact that it's proactively leaning into you and suggesting things for you, as opposed to you taking the first step and saying, Hey, provide me the answers to this, right? Like that would be the shopping example or, or your example. But when it's got all the information and then it's just sort of like willy-nilly guiding you in whichever direction it wants you to go, that's when it starts feeling a little dystopian and, yeah, a little more of that brave new world. 00:43:19 Speaker 1: Okay, let's talk about something else dystopian is like all the ETFs that continue to proliferate. We've talked about this. There are more ETFs, exchange-traded funds, that you can purchase than there are individual stocks. but they continue to get weirder and weirder. And I'm shocked even that some of these ETFs are a thing. Jason Zweig from the Wall Street Journal kind of parodied this. It felt like an SNL skit, Matt, in Wall Street Journal form. These ETFs that people are launching are kind of silly. One that tracks election results, one that tracks hockey stats, and then trades based on that. there are already ETFs that trade based on single commodities, or they do like double the daily return of an individual stock. So you're doing like a leveraged individual stock pick inside of an ETF. ETFs can be great, right? I'm glad ETFs exist. It's just the proliferation and the ridiculousness to which ETFs have gone. There are, I would say, this many ETFs, right? And there are this many that are worth considering. If you're not watching on YouTube, you can't see my hands. But like, there's a huge amount. Like three of them. Yeah, but the ones that are worth considering are probably like, you can count them on two hands. Yeah, yeah, if that. But yeah, I don't know, man. 00:44:42 Speaker 2: There's a part of me that wonders who is falling for this or why is there this much interest? And I don't know, like I've got zero, there's zero part of me that's at all interested in this. And I wonder too, if it's just the, like the older I get, Joel, is this wisdom? Like when you have some life experience and you just see something as boring and basic and proven as the S & P 500, why would you mess with an ETF that tracks election results unless you're just looking to insert some of that gambling atmosphere into your portfolio? I mean, I guess people are going to continue to make stuff if folks are thinking that it's interesting. I don't at all find it interesting and I can't imagine why it is that people are are actually investing in that. 00:45:26 Speaker 1: But Jason's takeaway at the end, he said 99% of investing is knowing what not to do. So what to do is actually pretty basic and it kind of stays the same over a long period of time. What not to do when everything else is flying in your face and you're like, that must be important. I should probably jump on that. This new thing, like they must have created that for a reason. This is going to help me get better returns. And the truth is most of the time, it is just noise and it is probably going to lead you astray and lead to worse results. V-O-O. That's it. You do love that one. 00:45:59 Speaker 2: I love, that's, that's my favorite. You want to talk about, did you want to talk about the social security bill? 00:46:03 Speaker 1: Oh, dude. Okay. So this is like proposed policy, right? This is not actually. 00:46:07 Speaker 2: I wasn't sure if you want to talk about it since it hadn't passed yet, but yeah, go for it. 00:46:10 Speaker 1: And I, man, I hope it doesn't. I'll tell you what it is though. It's a new bill. And this is going to sound like I hate blue collar workers or something, but I don't. And I'll tell you why I don't like this bill, but It's essentially to allow workers with highly physical jobs to get full Social Security at an earlier age, at age 60, which is seven years earlier than they are currently allowed to. And this would only apply to people who work in trades like construction, roofing, nursing, stuff like that. I don't know all of the range and what job. I don't think podcasting is in there, Matt. I don't think we're going to qualify for early Social Security. We don't have a very onerous job. at least physically, right? So, and dude, I really think that roofing crews have one of the hardest jobs, especially in the summer where we live. I look up and I'm like, that is, that is an incredibly difficult job. Oh yeah. 00:47:00 Speaker 2: I've roofed a house in the summer as a 17 year old. I think it was in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Was that one of the hardest things you've ever done? 00:47:09 Speaker 1: It was brutal. It was insane. 00:47:10 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:47:11 Speaker 1: And so I understand the impulse here, right? Especially to help like American workers who experience greater wear and tear on their bodies. But the Social Security system, Matt, as we have documented on the show, is not doing so hot. And we're already staring down a deadline where the Social Security system is going to have to reduce paychecks automatically for people in the system. We're also facing a soaring national debt, which we have talked about here on the podcast. If neither of those things were true, I could see this being an understandable policy proposal. But sadly, we don't live in that world, and I don't. I think this would only make our nation's fiscal situation worse. Totally agree. 00:47:53 Speaker 2: It feels like it's a proposal in the wrong direction. And I personally, yeah, I hope it doesn't pass either. 00:48:00 Speaker 1: All right. Is that going to be it? That's it. Awesome. Folks, you know where to find us. Like and subscribe. Until next time, buddy. Best friends out. 00:48:10 Speaker 2: Best. 00:48:10 Speaker 1: I was waiting on you. Best friends out. I like to scare you from time to time.