Speaker 1: Welcome to How the Money. I'm Joel Matt and today
Speaker 1: we're discussing store brand surges, four oh one K changes
Speaker 1: and inconvenient conveniences you know what money. This is our
Speaker 1: Friday flight and we're gonna talk about the best headlines
Speaker 1: that we think you should be paying attention to that
Speaker 1: we came across this week. Uh, this is a small
Speaker 1: sampling of our favorite headlines. But before we get to that,
Speaker 1: we need to make sure we announce our Money and
Speaker 1: Love book winners. So Money and Love that's a book
Speaker 1: that we discussed this past Monday with Abby Davidson. She
Speaker 1: talked about relationships, talked about the logic that we often
Speaker 1: employ when it comes to making some of these bigger
Speaker 1: decisions in life. Uh, and how we need a little
Speaker 1: bit of both in order to make the absolute best decisions.
Speaker 1: Helpful framework for basically thinking about the biggest decisions we
Speaker 1: make in life, which often involve yeah, relational love interest
Speaker 1: kind of stuff and also money. Right, Like both of
Speaker 1: those things are simultaneously. It works, right, and we drew
Speaker 1: five winners. We we announced the book giveaway during that episode.
Speaker 1: All you needed to do was reach out to us
Speaker 1: with your review that you left over at Apple Podcasts
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your podcasts, and uh, here
Speaker 1: are the five winners. Todd Are, Mona M, Julian P.
Speaker 1: Matt D and Maggie Are. We will be reaching out
Speaker 1: to you, getting your mailing addresses and getting copies of
Speaker 1: those books on the way to you very soon. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Hopefully you'll enjoy that book and will help you make
Speaker 1: future money decisions with like a little more ease. It's
Speaker 1: never easy at all, Always a lot of stuff to way,
Speaker 1: especially when you're making big decisions with people that you love,
Speaker 1: with people that you're close to. But hopefully, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think I love what she said, Matt when she said that, like,
Speaker 1: well you can make it. Even if you look back,
Speaker 1: you don't regret the choice in nearly the same way
Speaker 1: that you might because you had a framework that you
Speaker 1: went into with. You made an intentional choice, which is
Speaker 1: a big part of the problem. Totally fly by the
Speaker 1: seat of our pants, But exactly it was like about
Speaker 1: it was about empowering your due diligence process within your decision.
Speaker 1: Maybe like we just want to make sure that we're
Speaker 1: making decisions on purpose and not looking back and being
Speaker 1: like did I how did that happen? That that is
Speaker 1: not the position that you want to be in. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just want to quickly mention that I'm working on
Speaker 1: getting the Amazon Prime student rate for for our account,
Speaker 1: because I totally forgot about this, but like a college
Speaker 1: student rate. My wife is in grad school. Why in
Speaker 1: the world, all snap, have I not taken advantage of this?
Speaker 1: You can buy, you can get like new computers, yes,
Speaker 1: student rates as well. Well, yeah we got what she
Speaker 1: got stock up when she got her laptop at the
Speaker 1: very beginning of school. We got the we got the
Speaker 1: student discount rate on a mac because yeah, that's the
Speaker 1: student discounts abound. I'm realized we were. My wife is
Speaker 1: getting some clothes on sale and made Well the other day,
Speaker 1: and made Well has like a student discount like their
Speaker 1: student discounts all over the place. So if you're a student,
Speaker 1: don't forget to ask or google it, check and see
Speaker 1: if there is one. But yeah, Amazon Prime has it too,
Speaker 1: So I'm hoping not only to get it for our
Speaker 1: Prime account, but also for our Prime music, which apparently
Speaker 1: gets discounted too if if we get the student rate,
Speaker 1: So I want those unlimited tunes at that student rate.
Speaker 1: I know right. I will report back, but just awesome
Speaker 1: reminded all the students out there their student discounts abound,
Speaker 1: and it's worth it's worth asking, it's worth looking into.
Speaker 1: But let's move on, Matt. Let's get to the Friday Flight.
Speaker 1: A quick sampling of stories we found interesting this week,
Speaker 1: and let's talk smack at the beginning at the outside
Speaker 1: of this Friday Fight about Wells Fargo and uh, that's
Speaker 1: they just got taken a task by the Consumer Financial
Speaker 1: Financial Protection Bureau. They have the four it's a fourk
Speaker 1: overall whopping three point seven billion dollars because they're such
Speaker 1: a terrible bank, and two billion of those dollars are
Speaker 1: going to customers and a record fine of one point
Speaker 1: seven billion is going to the CFPB. And this is
Speaker 1: not by the way, for new allegations of fraud, but
Speaker 1: for a slew of abusive practices that Wells Fargo has
Speaker 1: been engaging in over the past decade, which we have
Speaker 1: talked about here on the show. I mean, the worst
Speaker 1: of what they did came out like six seven years ago,
Speaker 1: but signing people up for accounts like that they didn't
Speaker 1: ask for, and I mean just all sorts of abuse
Speaker 1: for practice their current cuss but I was reading and
Speaker 1: they have had some issues even up and as recent
Speaker 1: as this year, like they've had some compliance failures I saw.
Speaker 1: So it's like, yeah, they're the most egregious examples of
Speaker 1: their misbehavior have been in the past, but even like
Speaker 1: even this year, they are still not doing what they're
Speaker 1: supposed to be better. But that doesn't mean they're not reformed.
Speaker 1: And the director of the CFPV he actually said that
Speaker 1: Wells Fargo has consistently been one of the most problematic
Speaker 1: repeat offenders, which isn't you know something you want said
Speaker 1: about yourself, And he basically said that this settlement doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily mean that the bank doesn't still have issues, like
Speaker 1: you just said, Matt, and so while they've made progress,
Speaker 1: there's still some rotten stuff going on in that bank.
Speaker 1: And so we would say you bank with Wells Fargo
Speaker 1: at your own peril, and really, really you bank with
Speaker 1: the top the biggest three or four banks, at your
Speaker 1: own peril, We would say you should switch banks, go
Speaker 1: somewhere else. We have an article that will link to
Speaker 1: in the show notes about how you can do that
Speaker 1: and make it easy on yourself. But if you're banking
Speaker 1: with Wells Fargo. There's no time like now, no no,
Speaker 1: no time like the president to not do that anymore.
Speaker 1: I think that could be an excellent, simple to do
Speaker 1: task for folks over the holidays. Right like, for the
Speaker 1: most part, you're laying low, you're taking it easy. You
Speaker 1: don't want to be running around, Oh my gosh, like
Speaker 1: in the crazy cold weather that most of the country
Speaker 1: is experiencing right now. Like, this is totally something that
Speaker 1: you can do from the ease of your laptop at home.
Speaker 1: So you've got that like erin del fireplace on in
Speaker 1: the background, you know exactly. But let's keep moving. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about high prices, because if you saw the most
Speaker 1: recent CPI numbers, it was nice to see inflation going
Speaker 1: down overall. One place though, that that wasn't the case
Speaker 1: is at the grocery store. Food prices they have remained
Speaker 1: stubbornly high. And to that end, supermarkets are trying some
Speaker 1: different techniques to ease the pain and to get customers
Speaker 1: to maybe switch their allegiance to start shopping with them.
Speaker 1: A popular method that some stores are doubling down on
Speaker 1: is to offer more store brands. Were huge fans of
Speaker 1: store brands and consumers are taking the bait. They're opting
Speaker 1: for a similar but vastly cheaper alternative Kroger. They say
Speaker 1: that they're selling more store brands compared to last year.
Speaker 1: We wanted to point this out because just generally speaking,
Speaker 1: store brands, they are getting better, they're getting more popular.
Speaker 1: There are there are more options for you on the shells. Uh.
Speaker 1: And if you're a name brand person, we think it's
Speaker 1: time for you to consider and maybe give some of
Speaker 1: the store brands a try. Yeah, you might have tried
Speaker 1: something in the past, but maybe it's maybe it's gotten better,
Speaker 1: so it's worth a shot again. And if you give
Speaker 1: it a shot at the right store. By the way,
Speaker 1: if you give store brands a chance at some of
Speaker 1: the lower cost grocery stores, you've actually got nothing to lose.
Speaker 1: And that's because stores like all the legal they've they've
Speaker 1: got guarantees on their store brain items which allow you
Speaker 1: to return them and get your money back all together.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, they'll refund and replace the item at
Speaker 1: the same time, which means no sweat off your back.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, Kroger they've got a return policy that's
Speaker 1: not quite as generous, but at least they've got one
Speaker 1: on store brands. But it's important to mention that there's
Speaker 1: nothing to lose and lots of your grocery dollars to
Speaker 1: gain opting for fewer name brains in your grocery cart,
Speaker 1: and that there was another story this week about how
Speaker 1: expensive egg prices are getting. It's it's getting pretty absurd, right,
Speaker 1: But so every every way in which we can save
Speaker 1: money at the grocery store it matters right now. And
Speaker 1: store brains are just one of the slammed on easiest
Speaker 1: ways to do it without having to like clip cubans
Speaker 1: and annoy yourself to death. When it comes to saving money,
Speaker 1: it's just a simple way to to make progress on that. Well.
Speaker 1: And it's not like they're so specifically with Legal and Aldi.
Speaker 1: It's not like there's not store brands there. I mean,
Speaker 1: so there are a lot more. There definitely are, but
Speaker 1: they're like you last time we're over at Legal Rights Bacon,
Speaker 1: that's like they're really good stuff. They're totally on sale.
Speaker 1: Got a multiple pound and a half packages of that
Speaker 1: for like six bucks six bucks each of that jump
Speaker 1: in the in the in the freezer. But yeah, Legal
Speaker 1: and all these specifically, I think they carry something like
Speaker 1: four uh, four times more of their store brands versus
Speaker 1: the name brands that they carry in the store. And
Speaker 1: so it's just a way, I mean that is how
Speaker 1: you're able to save so much money is because by
Speaker 1: default you can't buy a whole lot of store brands
Speaker 1: because they don't i'm sorry, name brands, because they don't
Speaker 1: typically carry a ton of them. By default, you are
Speaker 1: purchasing the store brands, and those all the legal store
Speaker 1: brands are by default going to be cheaper than most
Speaker 1: of the other major grocery store store brands just because
Speaker 1: of the kind of business they run. And so store
Speaker 1: brands are a good idea store brands at the cheapest
Speaker 1: grocery stores out there isn't even better idea even more
Speaker 1: affordable Joel, there are gonna be changes that are likely
Speaker 1: coming to four one k's next year. We're gonna probably
Speaker 1: know sometime next week, but it definitely looks like this bill. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is part of the omnibus giant spending bill that's
Speaker 1: set to be passed by Congress, likely signed by the President.
Speaker 1: But it will also include secure two point oh bill,
Speaker 1: which means that retirement savers are going to be helped
Speaker 1: out on a few different fronts. First of all, r
Speaker 1: m d s required minimum distributions on retirement accounts. They're
Speaker 1: likely to be pushed back to age seventy five from
Speaker 1: the current age of seventy two over the next ten years.
Speaker 1: That's gonna be helpful for a lot of folks who
Speaker 1: honestly are still working. They're talking money away and they
Speaker 1: don't want to have to take that money out. And
Speaker 1: I mean, we're seeing the age of the workforce continue
Speaker 1: to increase as folks, they're living longer, they're living longer,
Speaker 1: they continue to be healthy, and they wouldn't want to
Speaker 1: be a productive part of society. Automatic enrollment in workplace
Speaker 1: retirement accounts plus annual percentage boosts are set to become
Speaker 1: law as well, and I think that's gonna be great.
Speaker 1: That'll be a way to help a lot of folks
Speaker 1: to invest who just otherwise wouldn't because they either forgot
Speaker 1: about it or because of inertiare bias, which is a
Speaker 1: fancy way of saying that they're just being lazy of
Speaker 1: a catch up contributor destination. When I did in college,
Speaker 1: that's what they're doing with their retirement accounts. Exactly, but
Speaker 1: catch up contribution limits they're gonna go up as well.
Speaker 1: They're gonna be raised by a meaningful amount for folks
Speaker 1: over the age of sixties. So in particular for those
Speaker 1: who are further along, there are going to be a
Speaker 1: lot of provisions to help those those folks out. And
Speaker 1: so we will definitely make sure to keep folks posted
Speaker 1: as this becomes law, for sure. Yeah, So there's a
Speaker 1: lot a lot of provisions in this bill that dramatically
Speaker 1: are going to change what people are able to do
Speaker 1: when it comes to saving for retirement, making it easier
Speaker 1: and just more reflexive for a lot of folks. And
Speaker 1: and one other provision would allow employers to incentivize their
Speaker 1: employees to save up a small emergency fund within their
Speaker 1: retirement account if they make under a certain threshold, which
Speaker 1: which is an interesting new feature. I think math that
Speaker 1: can help incentivize people to get that rainy day fund
Speaker 1: that they might not otherwise do if there's a match
Speaker 1: that kind of propels them in that direction. I think
Speaker 1: that's kind of cool. And since four oh one K
Speaker 1: hardship withdrawals are going up in a meaningful way according
Speaker 1: to recent statistics from Vanguard, from fidelity from some other
Speaker 1: four one K providers. This could be a really important
Speaker 1: part of this bill because yeah, one of the worst
Speaker 1: things you can do for your financial future, of course,
Speaker 1: is to raid your retirement account before you get to
Speaker 1: retirement age, like stealing from future you. Yes, uh, And
Speaker 1: so if you go this route, you might be solving
Speaker 1: a temporary money issue in your life, but you're creating
Speaker 1: a bigger, long term mess with taxes and penalties and
Speaker 1: the like, and and just yeah, like, like you said, Matt,
Speaker 1: stealing for future you. You don't have that money growing
Speaker 1: for your eventual retirement either, so you're setting yourself up
Speaker 1: to be working a lot later into your life then
Speaker 1: you might otherwise want to. And the truth is, like
Speaker 1: a four o one K loan is different. It's less
Speaker 1: egregious than a four oh one K hardship withdrawal. But
Speaker 1: we'd prefer that you think of retirement dollars as untouchable,
Speaker 1: even if there are ways in which you can access them.
Speaker 1: Just because you can doesn't mean you should. And we'll discuss,
Speaker 1: like we said, more about these changes at some point
Speaker 1: in January if this bill passes, Because there's just a
Speaker 1: lot of moving parts and We're not sure how it's
Speaker 1: all going to shake out at this point, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it sounds like there are some some good changes. But
Speaker 1: as always, human behavior stymies progress, and we don't want
Speaker 1: to see you styming your own, you know, financial progress
Speaker 1: by rating those retirement accounts before it's time. That's right, man,
Speaker 1: Let's talk about paying for college, because we've talked many
Speaker 1: times about how five twenty nine plans, how they're not
Speaker 1: our favorite spot for many folks to be stalking away
Speaker 1: money if you aren't crushing it right when it like
Speaker 1: when it comes to your your your own saving into
Speaker 1: your own retirement accounts where you're maxing out that roth
Speaker 1: IRA and hopefully coming close to maxing out of workplace plan.
Speaker 1: If that's the case, the five nine plans should be
Speaker 1: off the table for you. But if you are one
Speaker 1: of those folks who is knocking it out of the
Speaker 1: park on that front, and you've got kids who are
Speaker 1: likely to go to private school or to college, a
Speaker 1: five twenty nine plan actually might be a great account
Speaker 1: to consider funding. But there there's an interesting twist. There
Speaker 1: has been a rule that was changed recently that might
Speaker 1: impact how it is that you opt to go about
Speaker 1: saving four those goals and specifically who you might want
Speaker 1: to have ownership of that account. It's a it's a
Speaker 1: small it's a it's a it's a new outs here
Speaker 1: that's worth talking about. Yeah, so this is definitely another
Speaker 1: like headline that's worth discussing because it's going to impact
Speaker 1: how and in what way people save for their kids college.
Speaker 1: You're right, mad, It's something that we don't recommend for
Speaker 1: a whole lot of people, but for some people that
Speaker 1: doesn't make sense. And what some folks don't know is
Speaker 1: that a portion of what you invest in a five
Speaker 1: nine plan counts against your kid's ability to receive financial aid.
Speaker 1: So they're applying for college and the college says, hey,
Speaker 1: you got all this money in the plan. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: and so we're gonna offer you a little bit less
Speaker 1: money than than we would have because you've saved so well,
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of a penalty associated with it. Uh.
Speaker 1: The more you save, the more difficult it becomes to
Speaker 1: score free money from the college that they choose to
Speaker 1: go to. But FAFSA has made some changes that might
Speaker 1: impact how you choose to invest for your child's college future.
Speaker 1: And it turns out that money that's allocated in grand
Speaker 1: hairent accounts is now going to have zero impact on
Speaker 1: financial aid eligibility for their grand kids. In the past,
Speaker 1: that has not been the case. And we've said that
Speaker 1: you might want to solicit donations from grandparents for plans
Speaker 1: that you open for your your own kids, but now
Speaker 1: now effective for the school year, they the grandparents might
Speaker 1: want to open the five plan of their own volition
Speaker 1: for the benefit of their grand and their own name, yes,
Speaker 1: in their name being the owner, for the benefit of
Speaker 1: the grand kid, because that's gonna allow for maximum financial
Speaker 1: aid flexibility. And so it's a five twenty nine twist.
Speaker 1: New quirks is gonna they're gonna have ramifications. By the way,
Speaker 1: we might be one step ahead of you on this.
Speaker 1: You cannot change the account holder of the plan that
Speaker 1: you already have open. You can't transfer the assets that
Speaker 1: you have in your name to the benefit of your
Speaker 1: kids to your mom or dad or your mother in
Speaker 1: law father in law. So that's important to note. And
Speaker 1: also just one more minor note on the nine front,
Speaker 1: there's a proposed legislation that would allow folks to roll
Speaker 1: over unused five nine funds into a roth high array,
Speaker 1: and if that happens, we'll like them a whole lot more.
Speaker 1: They might become uh an account that we recommend a
Speaker 1: lot more people consider more options if that's something that
Speaker 1: you can do. There's certain stipulations around this, but again
Speaker 1: that that's a part of that secure two point oh
Speaker 1: bill and they're not that actually passes and if it
Speaker 1: gets modified, we're not totally sure. It definitely did have
Speaker 1: some stipulations right as to how long those funds needed,
Speaker 1: how long that account needed to have already existed before
Speaker 1: you could roll that over to a roth ira. Yeah.
Speaker 1: One of the things we hate the most about five
Speaker 1: nine plans is how inflexible they can become. And if
Speaker 1: they have more flexibility, if you can roll it over
Speaker 1: into a roth Ira, that's going to change the dynamics
Speaker 1: of how we feel about that account in general. But yeah,
Speaker 1: likely said, we'll update you, hopefully with more on this
Speaker 1: front soon. Lots of proposed changes, nothing uh firmly set yet,
Speaker 1: but now we've got more to get to, including we're
Speaker 1: gonna talk about some new headwinds facing real estate investors.
Speaker 1: We'll get to that and more right after this. All right,
Speaker 1: we are back from the break which means it is
Speaker 1: officially time now on our Friday flight to get to
Speaker 1: our ludicrous headline of the week. And this headline came
Speaker 1: from the Atlantic, the lie of consumer convenience. I don't
Speaker 1: like to be in line to Matt, I don't. I
Speaker 1: don't know either, man. This is gonna be a good
Speaker 1: one actually. So I love this article because it kind
Speaker 1: of calls into questions something most of society, most of
Speaker 1: us today has seen, a sort of like this unquestionable good,
Speaker 1: which is modern apps on our phones and services that
Speaker 1: make our lives incredibly convenient. I'm sure this probably sounds
Speaker 1: pretty familiar, right, Like, if anyone out there, if they've
Speaker 1: tried some of these services and they purport to save
Speaker 1: you time, and they say they save you hassle talking
Speaker 1: about apps like instat cart if so, you've probably found
Speaker 1: it to be you know, maybe like it works, you
Speaker 1: actually got some groceries, you found it to be pretty novel,
Speaker 1: maybe you found it to be meat. But also at
Speaker 1: the same time, uh, there's a good chance you found
Speaker 1: it to be lacking. There's probably a good chance he
Speaker 1: didn't get all of the goods that you wanted to
Speaker 1: get in the grocery, right, some of the substitutions were
Speaker 1: just whacking that. That's the biggest complaint I've heard about
Speaker 1: so many of those services is that somebody says, like
Speaker 1: I ordered pickles and they gave me cucumbers, and it's like,
Speaker 1: I know that the same thing, but they're not the
Speaker 1: same thing originally the vegetable, yes, but completely different. Yeah.
Speaker 1: At one point in the article, the writer asked the question,
Speaker 1: have all of these on demand services that have come
Speaker 1: to dominate our lives, have they actually made them better
Speaker 1: or have they just created the illusion of efficiency. I
Speaker 1: think that's a great question. I think it's one worth
Speaker 1: wrestling with because oftentimes these these apps and these services
Speaker 1: that we sign up for the free trials are oftentimes
Speaker 1: more trouble than they're actually worth. Yeah. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think if these apps are working for individual listeners
Speaker 1: out there, more power to you. But I think the
Speaker 1: reality and and what this writer was getting through in
Speaker 1: this article is that they do promise something and then
Speaker 1: they rarely deliver what they're promising, and or it's just
Speaker 1: like it's a subpar version of whatever it is at
Speaker 1: the promise, and so you're like, I'm going to get
Speaker 1: out of going to the grocery store, but no you're
Speaker 1: not because there's a few things that the shopper buying
Speaker 1: on the instant cart that they missed, and so you
Speaker 1: still have to go to the grocery store to pickos
Speaker 1: items up. And it's a big paint not to mention
Speaker 1: that service has costing you a pretty penny at the
Speaker 1: same time, but it's not delivering in the way that
Speaker 1: you hoped it would. And so yeah, we would say
Speaker 1: that we think that there can be value to paying
Speaker 1: for convenience in some circumstances. So there's a reason most
Speaker 1: of us have upgraded from using our two feet to
Speaker 1: get everywhere two bikes and cars. It's worth the expands
Speaker 1: because we're able to get places more quickly. You don't
Speaker 1: have the d y everything in your life to be frugal.
Speaker 1: But there's also this subtle line, right that this article
Speaker 1: draws helpful attention to that that these services they overpromised,
Speaker 1: they under deliver, and we're told that they're going to
Speaker 1: make our lives easier, so we can kick up our feet,
Speaker 1: we can take a break, take a sip, eliminade, read
Speaker 1: a book, whatever it is, paying just a few extra
Speaker 1: bucks to have our grocers delivered. Wow, how nice is
Speaker 1: this going to be? And how much more free time
Speaker 1: is it gonna add to our schedule? But now is
Speaker 1: just a great time to reassess whether or not these
Speaker 1: services that we're paying for that claim to make our
Speaker 1: lives easier, whether they're actually paying dividends or not. I
Speaker 1: think it's great to revisit from time to time instead
Speaker 1: of blindly continuing to pay for a service that maybe
Speaker 1: isn't providing as much value in your life as you
Speaker 1: thought it was going to. And the writer of the author,
Speaker 1: she she talks about how off times it seems like
Speaker 1: what we're striving for is control. It seems like that
Speaker 1: there's maybe a higher level level of accountability because maybe
Speaker 1: we have the ability to rate somebody who delivers us
Speaker 1: the groceries or chooses to skip the thing that they
Speaker 1: can't find. Uh. It's also kind of funny that she
Speaker 1: mentioned how she never leaves a bad review, and so
Speaker 1: it's like the one thing that actually did give you control,
Speaker 1: you're completely relinquishing, but you're too soft, you're too nice
Speaker 1: to do it. Yeah, you're too nice. But I think
Speaker 1: I know bad review for me is like three stars,
Speaker 1: May and it's hard for me to even go there.
Speaker 1: But another aspect of control that it makes me think
Speaker 1: of is it seems like maybe the entire generation of
Speaker 1: folks who are maybe the prime users of these different apps,
Speaker 1: seem to be wanting like more control over the type
Speaker 1: of communication that it takes two to interact with some
Speaker 1: of these different services. Right, Because you could hail a
Speaker 1: taxi where you wave your hand and you look at
Speaker 1: somebody and you tell them more to go, as opposed
Speaker 1: to just pushing a button on your screen, whether it's groceries,
Speaker 1: you know, you could totally go in there and do
Speaker 1: that yourself, as opposed to selecting boxes of the different
Speaker 1: items you want, or at like a house cleaner, right,
Speaker 1: like actually talking to somebody getting a quote, You talked
Speaker 1: to them on the phone, they come out to your
Speaker 1: house asking a friend for a reference. Yeah, And so
Speaker 1: in all these instances, it's like there's a desire almost
Speaker 1: to remove the humanity from some of these personal, uh,
Speaker 1: face to face interactions, you know. And in that way,
Speaker 1: I feel like maybe actual human connection, which is typically
Speaker 1: a more robust form of communication, is just getting underrated.
Speaker 1: And it seems like these platforms and the software that
Speaker 1: is going to alleviate all these problems, but in reality
Speaker 1: it's leading to more frustration. Yeah, I think that's true
Speaker 1: on a lot of fronts. And again, paying for convenience
Speaker 1: can make sense, right, like lives are busy, and things
Speaker 1: that can allow us can actually free up some extra
Speaker 1: time in our lives. Like sometimes it's worth paying for
Speaker 1: those things, but you gotta know what the tradeoff is.
Speaker 1: And you also have to think long and hard about
Speaker 1: whether or not the comedians that's being promised is being delivered.
Speaker 1: And and on a related note, by the way, Matt
Speaker 1: Barry Weiss's new site, The Free Press had an article
Speaker 1: on how frustrating and ubiquitous planned obts a lescence just
Speaker 1: becoming And I loved the title of this piece. It
Speaker 1: was called oh Holy crap, which this time of the
Speaker 1: year is is fitting. But I can relate to the
Speaker 1: author's frustrations with cheap goods that unravel or break in
Speaker 1: what feels like no time flat. And you know, you
Speaker 1: and I we talked about how to avoid the trap
Speaker 1: of planned obsolescence backing episode to sixty six. But if
Speaker 1: you want the t LDR right, if you don't want
Speaker 1: to go back and listen necessarily, we would say it's
Speaker 1: important to do more research on the front end before
Speaker 1: making a purchase, to repair items that you own whenever
Speaker 1: you can, to buy more good second hand to begin with,
Speaker 1: and then to own less stuf in general. There we
Speaker 1: can't do anything necessarily as a whole about the reality
Speaker 1: that some of our appliances, washing machines, refrigerators, dryers or whatever,
Speaker 1: they're not being made as well as they used to be.
Speaker 1: But we can be better shoppers and shop less often, um,
Speaker 1: but plan obsolescence. It's annoying, but it's something I think
Speaker 1: that we can avoid at least to some degree. That's right.
Speaker 1: But companies they still want you to buy their crap. Right,
Speaker 1: And I'm sure you've noticed this trend. But email marketing
Speaker 1: it's becoming even more intrusive. The Washington Post there about
Speaker 1: how some companies out there are basically abusing you, or
Speaker 1: at least your inbox, in an attempt to get you
Speaker 1: to spend more money. Information from HubSpot found that thirty
Speaker 1: three percent of marketers are sending you an email at
Speaker 1: least once a week. Some retailers out there, like bed,
Speaker 1: Bath and Beyond, they're sending multiple emails in a single day.
Speaker 1: How many coupons do I need? Matt uh. And I'm
Speaker 1: not against receiving emails, but like be strategic and how
Speaker 1: it does that you're signing up for for different emails
Speaker 1: and notifications about discounts, but especially like if you're if
Speaker 1: you're shopping for something, like I want to receive the information,
Speaker 1: like I want that to be something that's on my radar.
Speaker 1: But sometimes like you'll just put something in your cart
Speaker 1: at check out you haven't signed up for anything. Then
Speaker 1: you'll get an email that sucks that annoys me when
Speaker 1: you go, I think that's a bad marketing practice. And
Speaker 1: then on top of that, if they're abusing your inbox,
Speaker 1: it's time to unsubscribe as much as possible. I think
Speaker 1: we've got to get these things out of our inbox,
Speaker 1: one because they're annoying and two because they cause us
Speaker 1: to spend money that we other that we otherwise wouldn't.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, just you can do that manually hit
Speaker 1: on subscribe um through Gmail or wherever you you know,
Speaker 1: get your email, or you can use a tool like
Speaker 1: unrolled out me, which can help you tackle that task
Speaker 1: more quickly. You're not like one off hitting it, but
Speaker 1: you're like unsubscribing to a bunch of things at once.
Speaker 1: I think that that can help. That can go a
Speaker 1: long way. And for a lot of people, man, fewer
Speaker 1: emails is a good thing, and fewer temptations to buy
Speaker 1: things just because they're discounted is a good thing too.
Speaker 1: Most definitely. Uh, let's get to our last story for today.
Speaker 1: The Journal they had an article this week about how
Speaker 1: the rental property game is changing, and it's definitely true.
Speaker 1: It's it's harder to make the numbers work now when
Speaker 1: you're considering buying a home in order to start your
Speaker 1: own personal mom and pop landlord operation. Back in fourteen,
Speaker 1: like after the Great Recession, it was almost like shooting
Speaker 1: fish in a barrel, right, And if you're looking to
Speaker 1: to get a solid rental property even two or three
Speaker 1: years ago, it was possible if you knew what you
Speaker 1: were looking for, if you knew what you were doing.
Speaker 1: Now it's it's harder to make the numbers work because
Speaker 1: of higher price is higher interest rates. They've caused many
Speaker 1: folks to to now sit on the sidelines. Um not
Speaker 1: to mention like repair and maintenance costs are rising as well.
Speaker 1: With the increased costs of goods. So we're not saying
Speaker 1: that like that it's impossible to snag a solid investment
Speaker 1: property to to snag a solid rental one that that
Speaker 1: makes sense for you over the long haul. But due
Speaker 1: diligence is going to be more important now than ever
Speaker 1: to make sure you're crunching the numbers so that this
Speaker 1: property is gonna work for you. When we talked about
Speaker 1: financial flexibility recently, Matt, that's one of those things it's like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: buying rental properties makes more sense than some environments than others,
Speaker 1: and you have to be willing to adjust according to
Speaker 1: market conditions. And it's also just important to know what
Speaker 1: you're getting into because rental properties, yeah, sure they can
Speaker 1: be profitable, but you know they also have the elements
Speaker 1: of a part time job many many times. And so
Speaker 1: we still think that investing in renuntal properties can be
Speaker 1: a great way to build wealth, but be warned right
Speaker 1: that you might be looking for a long time before
Speaker 1: you find one that makes financial sense, where the numbers account,
Speaker 1: where you feel like it's actually going to make sense,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be profitable over the long run, and it's
Speaker 1: not going to take you for a ride in the
Speaker 1: short run either. And so if you're looking to get
Speaker 1: into the vacation rental market, by the way, that's not
Speaker 1: as advertising as it's been either. Economic headwinds and inflation
Speaker 1: appear to be impacting vacation rental owners too. So if
Speaker 1: you were like, hey, I'm gonna buy this property and
Speaker 1: turn it into an airbnb, while there are extra considerations
Speaker 1: that you need to think through before you take the plunge,
Speaker 1: and the number of listings on those sites are up,
Speaker 1: which means that the average number of bookings a host
Speaker 1: receives per month are down. There's just more competition there.
Speaker 1: Basically basic supply and demand. I think I saw like
Speaker 1: at the peak there's something like eighty thousand new additional
Speaker 1: short term rental properties coming on the market. Yeah every
Speaker 1: single month. Wow. Yeah, that's crazy, and that's going to
Speaker 1: impact you if you have one, and so you have
Speaker 1: to have extra margin built in knowing that supply demand
Speaker 1: is going to shift over time. The same thing is
Speaker 1: true if you're like record rents. This is great as
Speaker 1: a landlord, but you also have to take into account
Speaker 1: increasing cause us in other areas and the reality that
Speaker 1: those rents might not stay where they are forever. So
Speaker 1: just another reason, by the way, to make sure that
Speaker 1: you've got plenty of margin, a strong financial backstop before
Speaker 1: you opt to buy a property, whether it's short term
Speaker 1: more for long term leasing. That's right, of course, if
Speaker 1: you are a guest looking at different properties, this is
Speaker 1: a good thing, right like this means more competition, more
Speaker 1: options available for you at hopefully reasonable prices. But if
Speaker 1: you switch over to host view, uh, this is gonna
Speaker 1: be uh, it's gonna be more challenging. Again, not that
Speaker 1: it's not possible to, you know, house hack or find
Speaker 1: ways to make your short term rental make money for you,
Speaker 1: but the numbers just they may not be quite as juicy,
Speaker 1: They may not be quite as nice as they used
Speaker 1: to be a few years ago before. There is a
Speaker 1: massive marketing put push to get more folks to host property,
Speaker 1: but generally is big, and we think it's a good thing.
Speaker 1: We think it's great that an individual can choose to
Speaker 1: rent out a room or rent out a house while
Speaker 1: they're on vacation. We think that that can be a
Speaker 1: really smart use of the resources that are under your ownership.
Speaker 1: But if you are counting on some of these high rents,
Speaker 1: some of these high numbers. We just want to make
Speaker 1: sure that you're Yeah, maybe you're crunching the numbers twice
Speaker 1: and allowing for a little more margin than what you
Speaker 1: were initially expecting. I think this is smart. Yeah, be
Speaker 1: slightly pessimistic. Don't plan for perfection, right, You don't want
Speaker 1: to be a perpetual optimist. If you're taking on an
Speaker 1: obligation like a short term or long term rental, you
Speaker 1: want to have your eyes wide open and be a
Speaker 1: little more realistic than often. You want to be a realists.
Speaker 1: That's right, man. Um. Well, hey, this is our last
Speaker 1: episode before Christmas, so if you celebrate Christmas, we want
Speaker 1: to wish everybody out there a merry Christmas and we
Speaker 1: hope you are staying warm. You can finding of the
Speaker 1: resources we may have mentioned during this episode up on
Speaker 1: our website at how to money dot com. Of course,
Speaker 1: we'll see you back here on Monday for an ask
Speaker 1: htm episode Know It and congrats again too. The book
Speaker 1: winners of the Money and Love Book, we'll get those
Speaker 1: shipped out to you shortly. And yeah, there's more giveaways
Speaker 1: to come in Matt for Shack, We've got more more
Speaker 1: of those socks hanging around that we gotta get out.
Speaker 1: We've got to get those socks out. They're delicious, they're well,
Speaker 1: they look amazing. Socks aren't delicious, not edible, not like, yeah,
Speaker 1: well what we should get somehow of money edible underwear.
Speaker 1: That's for all the all the freaks out there. We'll
Speaker 1: consider it. And on that note, Mary Christmas. All right, well,
Speaker 1: we'll see you later, Matt. Until next time, Best friends out,
Speaker 1: Best friends Out,