Speaker 1: Welcome to How the Money. I'm Joel and Matt and
Speaker 1: today we're discussing idiotic surveys, side hustle, superpowers, and underutilized
Speaker 1: h S A S. That's right, buddy. This is our
Speaker 1: Friday Flights where we are going to dive into the
Speaker 1: our favorite headlines we've come across. These are the stories
Speaker 1: that we think you should be paying attention to you
Speaker 1: because they're gonna be the most relevant to your money. Uh,
Speaker 1: and we want these to be. This is like an
Speaker 1: empowering All of our episodes are empowering episodes, but specifically,
Speaker 1: these are the stories they're gonna launch you into the
Speaker 1: weekend knowing what is up. Elon must buying Twitter doesn't
Speaker 1: have much relevance to any of our lives, but there's
Speaker 1: a bunch of stuff that did happen this week that
Speaker 1: does have an impact on how you're gonna handle your
Speaker 1: personal finances and what steps you take to improve them.
Speaker 1: And that's what we're gonna discuss tonight. Yeah, yeah, we're
Speaker 1: not gonna be talking about Elon. No, I don't really care.
Speaker 1: Maybe next time. And you know, he just got poor,
Speaker 1: but that's fine, Uh, that's true. He can afford it.
Speaker 1: But Matt, before we get to our our favorite stories
Speaker 1: this week, carry in our Facebook group. By the way,
Speaker 1: if you're not part of the how to Money Facebook group,
Speaker 1: you should totally join. There's almost ten thousand people in
Speaker 1: there helping each other out, and I'm telling you it's
Speaker 1: a good vibe. Everybody is super friendly, inquisitive, and they've
Speaker 1: got good information to share and Carry shared something this
Speaker 1: week and I don't know, I feel like maybe we
Speaker 1: talked about it years ago, but this was at the
Speaker 1: least put back on my radar. It's the too good
Speaker 1: to Go app? Have you heard of that one? So
Speaker 1: I think we talked about maybe a different one maybe,
Speaker 1: or maybe it was a website, but I have not
Speaker 1: seen one that was this slick yeah app because this
Speaker 1: is cool yeah yeah. So essentially the way it works,
Speaker 1: this is an app where different restaurants and grocery grocery
Speaker 1: stores that are out there, they basically allow you to
Speaker 1: purchase items that they're gonna throw away that's going to
Speaker 1: go in the trash, uh, and you get to buy
Speaker 1: those items at a discount. Yeah. Carrie posted her meal,
Speaker 1: like a picture of her meal and it looked delicious,
Speaker 1: Like I think this special purple drink. I don't know
Speaker 1: what it was. It wasn't like a soda, was some
Speaker 1: sort of smoothie or something like that. And I was like, man,
Speaker 1: like delicious and it was like a Mexican, like a
Speaker 1: delicious Mexican um plate of fair And she said she
Speaker 1: got everything in that picture grub for for less than
Speaker 1: five bucks, and I was like, that's that's really good.
Speaker 1: So this is the kind of thing I looked. I
Speaker 1: downloaded the app to check and see if we have
Speaker 1: any restaurants that participate in the Atlanta area. Unfortunately, yeah,
Speaker 1: but if you're in a major city. I saw other
Speaker 1: people replying the two carry's post to hand like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I've used it where I am and saw that in
Speaker 1: l A Portland, like Chicago. There's a lot of cities
Speaker 1: where they are. Unfortunately not here in Atlanta yet. But
Speaker 1: this is solving a massive problem, right, Like one third
Speaker 1: of all food goes to waste. And if there's anything
Speaker 1: I hate seeing more than folks wasting their money, it's
Speaker 1: seeing food go to waste, which is one in the same.
Speaker 1: I guess, yeah, they're almost the exact time, wasting food
Speaker 1: wasting money. But it's a win win situation, right, restaurants
Speaker 1: and and again grocery stores, they're able to unload this stuff.
Speaker 1: They make uh somewhat ever profit. I mean obviously maybe
Speaker 1: some break even if it goes in the trash, they're
Speaker 1: not making anything. But yeah, oftentimes they're they're they're like
Speaker 1: these surprise bags, like you don't know what it is
Speaker 1: that you're going to get. You just have to show
Speaker 1: up at the right time, because I'm assuming it's like
Speaker 1: they list the times like minutes before they close, you
Speaker 1: show up, you pay something like I mean, I checked
Speaker 1: out a bunch and there it's like four bucks for
Speaker 1: this bag of food, like you said, And it's almost
Speaker 1: kind of I think I see it as a fun
Speaker 1: way to expose yourself to different ingredients or different meals,
Speaker 1: like different fair that maybe you would not have chosen
Speaker 1: had you had the choice, But because it's sort of
Speaker 1: this mystery flavor, uh, I see that as fun and adventurous. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: and especially when a grubhub delivered to you your address
Speaker 1: is gonna cost you twenty two dollars or something like that,
Speaker 1: and this is gonna cost you four grained You're gonna
Speaker 1: have to go pick it up. But it's It's like, hey,
Speaker 1: if you you want to eat out, what you want
Speaker 1: to do it for less money? They're charging you like
Speaker 1: four dollars just in fees, like oh minimum minimum a
Speaker 1: counting the delivery feed like and then it hip on
Speaker 1: top that you gotta give. I mean, this is one
Speaker 1: of those ways to be able to have the ability
Speaker 1: to eat out a little bit more, but to do
Speaker 1: it in a way that cost you way less money
Speaker 1: is actually saving food from going in the carbage. I
Speaker 1: love it. I'm a huge fan of this ap all right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And and by the way, I love I always love
Speaker 1: seeing tips posts in the Facebook group. I I look
Speaker 1: in there and comment in there from time to time.
Speaker 1: So it's it's fun to see how how the money
Speaker 1: listeners are saving money. We'll put a link by the
Speaker 1: way for to our Facebook group in the show notes
Speaker 1: for this episode. The Happiest place on the Internet. It
Speaker 1: is one of them, isn't it. It feels like that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what that's on your slogan. Usually people are massively
Speaker 1: unkind on the internet, but not in there. All right,
Speaker 1: let's let's move on, Matt though. Let's get to the
Speaker 1: topic in hand. We're talking our Friday flight a sampling
Speaker 1: of stories we found interesting this week, and let's start
Speaker 1: off by talking about h s as health savings accounts
Speaker 1: and uh, kind of boring sometimes a lot of people,
Speaker 1: it's it's not it's not super sexy. But there was
Speaker 1: a great article this week in the Wall Street Journal
Speaker 1: about h s A s and we've talked about kind
Speaker 1: of how good hs as can be, how they're one
Speaker 1: of the most tax advantaged accounts in existence, and I'm
Speaker 1: glad to see them getting a little more publicity because
Speaker 1: we've always said that, but there's just not much ink
Speaker 1: dedicated to how great they are, so most people still
Speaker 1: don't know. Yeah, big media, they need to talk about
Speaker 1: h s A is more. There's only so many episodes
Speaker 1: that we can dedicate IS before you're gonna unsubscribe exactly.
Speaker 1: But it truly is something that needs to be talked
Speaker 1: about more. And and the thing that struck accord with
Speaker 1: me reading this article this week was seeing stats about
Speaker 1: how many HSA dollars there are overall, it's grown quite
Speaker 1: a bit, but how many h s A dollars are
Speaker 1: not being invested, And that to me was the biggest travesty.
Speaker 1: So I was glad to see, there's now more than
Speaker 1: a hundred and five billion dollars tucked away inside of
Speaker 1: hs as, these brilliant tax advantaged accounts, but but only
Speaker 1: thirty four billion of those dollars is being invested. The
Speaker 1: rest is sitting on sidelines. It's sort of cash equivalent.
Speaker 1: So people are stocking money away in there, but then
Speaker 1: they're not utilizing the resources that they have to its
Speaker 1: fullest potential. That's that's not good. And I think part
Speaker 1: of it is because, like you and I have said,
Speaker 1: hs as have a branding problem. They're called health savings accounts,
Speaker 1: and so people assume that any money they stick in
Speaker 1: there should be used two save for current your health
Speaker 1: care expenses. But we would say, no, that's actually wrong.
Speaker 1: And I wish we could just rename the account overall
Speaker 1: to help people understand this. But the account works best
Speaker 1: is a long term investment account. And so if you
Speaker 1: want the full scoop on how great h s A
Speaker 1: s are and can be. By the way, it's we're
Speaker 1: getting to this point open enrollment and more and more
Speaker 1: people have access to an h s A. This is
Speaker 1: the time to be thinking about it. Check out our
Speaker 1: episode episode one of five, where we kind of dug deep,
Speaker 1: and we we gave the full scoop on hs A s.
Speaker 1: But yeah, let's say you already have one, but you're
Speaker 1: only saving money inside of it. You're not investing that money.
Speaker 1: We want to tell you to go look again and
Speaker 1: start investing those dollars instead of just saving them. And
Speaker 1: then if you don't have an hs A, it's a
Speaker 1: great time to to think about signing up for one.
Speaker 1: That's right. I think in episodes past, anytime we've talked
Speaker 1: about the hs A, we've likened it to like a
Speaker 1: tesla that you're just using to run the kids up
Speaker 1: to the neighborhood pool. It's like you're not taking advantage
Speaker 1: of the full potential of this actual vehicle. Instead of
Speaker 1: a hs A, it should be an h I, a
Speaker 1: health investing account. You should be drag racing that tesla, clearly,
Speaker 1: but that thing in ludacrous mode. But yeah, the truth
Speaker 1: is hs as can be an incredibly powerful tool in
Speaker 1: helping you to build wealth for the future. And they
Speaker 1: are literally the only account we know of that won't
Speaker 1: be taxed in any way, any form or fashion if
Speaker 1: used correctly. But luckily, stats show that over half of
Speaker 1: workers who receive healthcare from their employers are in a
Speaker 1: high deductible health plan. And this is actually good news
Speaker 1: because like on the downside, it means that you've you know,
Speaker 1: you've got to be better at self ensuring for healthcare
Speaker 1: costs that come up. A lot of times folks aren't
Speaker 1: used to doing that. But what that means the bright
Speaker 1: side is that this gives you access to an h
Speaker 1: s A, which can be again just this incredibly powerful tool,
Speaker 1: not for your healthcare costs now, but for actual retirement.
Speaker 1: And by the way morning started, they just ranked their
Speaker 1: top hs A providers Fidelity and Lively. There are a
Speaker 1: couple of our favorites. We're happy to see that they
Speaker 1: are still at the top of the list. They are
Speaker 1: treating folks the best, which which often means that they
Speaker 1: are charging you the least and providing you with the
Speaker 1: best options when it comes to actually investing that money.
Speaker 1: And so if you are looking to open an hs
Speaker 1: A because you do have a high deductible healthcare plan,
Speaker 1: be sure to check out Fidelity or Lively. That's right,
Speaker 1: all right, let's let's give maybe a couple of money
Speaker 1: saving shopping updates. Matt. We talked for a second about
Speaker 1: shopping last week, and and Goodwill is getting with the times,
Speaker 1: is now selling stuff online. I thought that was that
Speaker 1: was kind of cool to see. They technically already had
Speaker 1: a site that we've talked about before that you have
Speaker 1: shopped that what shop Goodwill dot com I think is
Speaker 1: what it was called, right, yep. Yeah, it used to
Speaker 1: be really like just a really terrible site. They have
Speaker 1: up updated it over the years and it's actually not
Speaker 1: terrible these days, but it's still a little bit backwards.
Speaker 1: It still feels kind of dated when you go in
Speaker 1: there and you're trying to that was more auction style,
Speaker 1: kind of like he Bay Is that correct? Exactly exactly? Okay, well,
Speaker 1: well now you have a chance at getting a better
Speaker 1: deal without having to go through the auction hoops. There's
Speaker 1: an like an actual online store the Goodwill has set
Speaker 1: up where there's where their prices as opposed to go ahead,
Speaker 1: put them off for it, on it, we'll see what happened. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So this one is called good Will Finds dot com
Speaker 1: and it's it's kind of an attempt to mimic sites
Speaker 1: like thread up in posh Mark where they're appealing to
Speaker 1: folks who want nicer name brand goods, but they don't
Speaker 1: mind buying amused so they can get a discount of price.
Speaker 1: And yeah, have the fun to me of Goodwill is
Speaker 1: perusing the racks in person. But I don't know, I
Speaker 1: can I could see myself getting into shopping for used
Speaker 1: goods on this good Will site. To what do you
Speaker 1: think that you're gonna You're gonna check it out? Definitely
Speaker 1: they will add it to the list if I'm looking
Speaker 1: for something, because there there's some items that it just
Speaker 1: doesn't matter if their their second hand um, and so yeah,
Speaker 1: make sure that you add not only business there nasty uh.
Speaker 1: Goodwill finds dot com and shop Goodwill are both great
Speaker 1: sites to check out. So on another related note, are
Speaker 1: e I uh, they have announced that they're no longer
Speaker 1: going to participate in Black Friday. Like ever, like, we're
Speaker 1: glad to see that the Black Friday area it seems
Speaker 1: to be mostly over, you know, like where folks are
Speaker 1: waking up at the butt crack of dawn the day
Speaker 1: after Thanksgiving or actually even leaving dinner with a family
Speaker 1: early to go by massively discount of goods. I remember
Speaker 1: one of my aunts and my grandma doing that one year,
Speaker 1: after Thanksgiving dinner was over, they're like, all right, we're
Speaker 1: gonna head out to go to the Black Friday shopping.
Speaker 1: It's been back in the nineties TV now and so,
Speaker 1: as we discussed a little bit last week, the sale
Speaker 1: and the deal window, it's being extended. It's it's starting earlier,
Speaker 1: which is going to make it easier for folks to
Speaker 1: save money on holiday gifts and to just spread out
Speaker 1: their purchase is over time instead of just making this
Speaker 1: one crazy mad dash on a specific weekend. Um. But
Speaker 1: we wanted to share this because this is just another
Speaker 1: reason to love ari E. I like they were doing this.
Speaker 1: This isn't because they're realizing that, oh you know, if
Speaker 1: not not many folks are really showing up at these
Speaker 1: sales anymore. That they started doing this back in and
Speaker 1: this year just announced that it's going to be a
Speaker 1: permanent change. They were doing it before it was cool.
Speaker 1: But again their hashtag opt outside movement exactly, which is
Speaker 1: just awesome. They're thinking, where should our employees be Friday
Speaker 1: after Thanksgiving? Should there be indoors dealing with the throngs
Speaker 1: of people who are trying to get a sale, or
Speaker 1: maybe yeah, they should be outside the day after thanks
Speaker 1: give me what a great time to get out and
Speaker 1: move your body around them after you've eaten all that food.
Speaker 1: But again, keep in mind that you know, deals on
Speaker 1: stuff that you're already planning to buy are great, but
Speaker 1: deals and stuff that you haven't even budgeted for are bad.
Speaker 1: We want you to shop judiciously. Keep that in mind
Speaker 1: before you hit purchase on any item, whether you're doing
Speaker 1: it at ari I or at shop Goodwill or good
Speaker 1: Will find dot Com. Into that time of year where
Speaker 1: everybody wants a piece of your of your money they spending,
Speaker 1: They want you to use your credit card, and they
Speaker 1: want you to swipe it because this is the time
Speaker 1: of year where retailers make their money. And just because
Speaker 1: it's on sale doesn't mean that we should be buying it.
Speaker 1: And one of the reasons, Matt, that you need to
Speaker 1: be a smart shopper right now is because debt seems
Speaker 1: to be on the comeback trail. Savings rates for Americans
Speaker 1: are down. They spiked there for a bit kind of
Speaker 1: during the pandemic during the early days, but now they're
Speaker 1: right back down to around five percent, which is low,
Speaker 1: Like five percent of your income is it's not enough
Speaker 1: and long term credit card debt has always been a
Speaker 1: real problem, but it seems to be getting worse too.
Speaker 1: According to credit cards dot Com, some six of credit
Speaker 1: card debt ors owe money to the main player's Visa
Speaker 1: master Card, American Express, and they have owed money to
Speaker 1: the credit card companies for at least a year, often
Speaker 1: because they're putting emergency expenses on a credit card without
Speaker 1: any way to pay it off. And you and I
Speaker 1: we talked about credit cards lot. We had Brian Kelly,
Speaker 1: the points guy, on recently to talk about getting getting
Speaker 1: points for signing up for cards and when you're paying
Speaker 1: for them using points wisely. But what Brian said is
Speaker 1: exactly what we've always said about credit cards too. You're
Speaker 1: losing the game if you're not paying your bill on
Speaker 1: time and in full every single month. We are fans
Speaker 1: of using credit cards wisely, but surveys like this make
Speaker 1: us want to like extend that word of caution again.
Speaker 1: I feel like every time we talked about credit cards,
Speaker 1: we have to tell the whole truth that the sign
Speaker 1: up bonuses and the rewards can be great if you
Speaker 1: are a disciplined user of credit cards, because the rewards
Speaker 1: pale in comparison to the interest you're gonna be paying,
Speaker 1: especially as like we talked about recently, credit card interest
Speaker 1: rates continue to climb. That is one of the side effects.
Speaker 1: So talked about this on Wednesday fed fed right high.
Speaker 1: So we talked about on Wednesday exactly. And so this
Speaker 1: is the time of year. I think it gets people
Speaker 1: in trouble when it comes to debt, when it comes
Speaker 1: to credit card usage and getting in over their heads.
Speaker 1: And I think we're going to see people, especially with
Speaker 1: inflation taking up, it's going to be even more fraud
Speaker 1: this year. So you gotta pay even more close attention
Speaker 1: until you're spending right now is definitely we're gonna take
Speaker 1: a quick break, but after that we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about maybe some different ways that you can earn more.
Speaker 1: This is possibly the pay transparency or even through some
Speaker 1: side hustles. We'll get to that plus several other stories
Speaker 1: right after this Friday continues. It'll never die until we die, um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, for for it's the Frankenstein of how the money.
Speaker 1: It's something like that, like it continues, yeah or no.
Speaker 1: It's like a zombie but you can never kill it
Speaker 1: kind of gets like a Frankenstein though it's like pieced together.
Speaker 1: It's it's like this hodgepodge of bits and you know,
Speaker 1: you can you feel it. A bunch of different stories
Speaker 1: were totally getting into the Halloween spirit spooky season. Have
Speaker 1: you decorated your house yet? Have you? Yeah? I mean
Speaker 1: we haven't done like a ton, but we're totally behind.
Speaker 1: Maybe we're okay. Now we're talking about we want to
Speaker 1: look up when one of those stores, the Spirit Halloween
Speaker 1: stores or whatever, just to take the kids there, um
Speaker 1: for them to see all this stuff, because I've got
Speaker 1: all that stuff and I just remember going into those
Speaker 1: stores as a kid myself and it was just a
Speaker 1: ton of fun. Yeah, it's just impressive to to walk around,
Speaker 1: even if you don't buy anything, and it's a good
Speaker 1: field trip. But let's get to our ludicrous headline of
Speaker 1: the week. This one comes from Axios and it was
Speaker 1: it was covered widely though, and this one read Kim
Speaker 1: Kardashian to pay one point to six million in crypto
Speaker 1: charges settlement. Basically our good friend front of the show,
Speaker 1: Kim Kardashian, I I lie, she's not we're not. We
Speaker 1: don't know her at all. But she got paid two
Speaker 1: dred and fifty thousand dollars for one Instagram post about
Speaker 1: a crypto coin, and Matt I believe we talked about
Speaker 1: it at the time. We discussed how crappy it was
Speaker 1: that she was shilling for one of these coins to
Speaker 1: line her own pockets when a lot of her followers
Speaker 1: we're gonna lose money, and that's um. I have a
Speaker 1: hard time imagining how someone with her level of wealth
Speaker 1: feels compelled to sell out her followers like that. A
Speaker 1: lot of her followers got burned if they took her advice.
Speaker 1: And not only does it turn out was it just
Speaker 1: crappy advice, but according to the FTC, it was also
Speaker 1: illegal and so now she's agreed to pay a fine.
Speaker 1: And so I don't know. I would say we're glad
Speaker 1: to see some accountability, Yes, but even when celebrity endorsements
Speaker 1: don't cross the line of legality, like Matt Damon or
Speaker 1: Larry David's Super Bowl commercials for crypto, they're still leading
Speaker 1: everyday consumers to take risk ear beats right, often causing
Speaker 1: them to lose big bucks. So I'm glad to see
Speaker 1: some sort of justice done for pretty crummy pitch that
Speaker 1: should have never happened, but krypto is still a space
Speaker 1: where people really have to have to continue to look
Speaker 1: out for themselves because hype filled pitches or are still
Speaker 1: kind of the norm. Yeah, well, and you said that
Speaker 1: justice has been doled out. That's I mean, I think
Speaker 1: that's probably a stretch as well, because for her, I mean,
Speaker 1: you see, what's the fine, like one point something million dollars,
Speaker 1: Like that is a lot of money. She basically had
Speaker 1: to pay back all the money she made plus more penalty. Right. Well,
Speaker 1: that I mean that doesn't include how much she made
Speaker 1: on her hyping that coin, right, and so how much
Speaker 1: did she buy before she you know, had that ad
Speaker 1: or had that post's ing her account that money that
Speaker 1: amount of capital gains, I don't think we know. But
Speaker 1: for somebody like her, who has got like a like
Speaker 1: a net worth of a couple of billion dollars, this
Speaker 1: is just like this is like a speeding ticket for her. Well,
Speaker 1: she did have to agree to not I think hill
Speaker 1: for any crypto she's like, yeah, no problem for like
Speaker 1: three years and she's like, yeah, it's crypto dead. I
Speaker 1: don't know, but she's probably thinking it doesn't really matter
Speaker 1: to me anyway. But but Yeah, it seemed like it
Speaker 1: was more of a warning for other celebrities out there
Speaker 1: who are looking to potentially, you know, pimp a coin,
Speaker 1: because although it may not affect her bottom line all
Speaker 1: that much, that would affect somebody else's. And the Financial
Speaker 1: Times they recently documented what they called the lawless world
Speaker 1: of crypto, which is basically kind of what we're seeing
Speaker 1: um a company called chain Analysis that tracks the crypto space.
Speaker 1: They claims that more than two point two billion dollars
Speaker 1: has been stolen from folks within the crypto space via
Speaker 1: hacking and this year alone, like not since the inception
Speaker 1: of cryptocurrencies, but just this year. Uh. And the truth is,
Speaker 1: you know, you not only have to watch out for
Speaker 1: celebrity pitches, but also some of these other nefarious players
Speaker 1: who are also after your money. Like so many folks
Speaker 1: have been scanned by just these spoof accounts and these
Speaker 1: fake apps that might show impressive earnings, but in reality,
Speaker 1: your money it's long gone. And when you actually try
Speaker 1: to cash that cash that account out because you want
Speaker 1: to buy something tangible in the real world, that money,
Speaker 1: those funds they never actually arrive. Uh. And you know,
Speaker 1: we're certainly not experts in this. But not only should
Speaker 1: you be very careful of which coins you have to
Speaker 1: purchase and how much you're looking to invest or speculate
Speaker 1: within the space, but it's also really important to be
Speaker 1: incredibly suspicious. In particular if anyone who befriends you online
Speaker 1: and says they're gonna help you out, Uh, you need
Speaker 1: to keep a close eye on security. Again, it's still
Speaker 1: the wild West in a lot of ways, and we
Speaker 1: do not want you losing any of your money for sure.
Speaker 1: All right, let's move on to the stupid survey's portion
Speaker 1: of today's episode, and I feel like we get we
Speaker 1: get some of our information. Are some of our stories
Speaker 1: from surveys, which the credit cards Colm dot com thing
Speaker 1: earlier was a survey they performed. Yeah, and but but
Speaker 1: that one was a little more legit. But let's talk
Speaker 1: about some stupid ones, because yeah, like, despite the proliferation
Speaker 1: of crypto scams, I would say we're living in the
Speaker 1: best time of year to be a sports fan. The
Speaker 1: MLS playoffs matter about to kickoff, sadly without our Atlantic United,
Speaker 1: But so were the MLB playoffs are they? I believe
Speaker 1: they start tonight. In fact, not the Braves because they
Speaker 1: get a buy they get to buy the paper is
Speaker 1: a little bit, and hopefully we're gonna repeat his World Series. Chance,
Speaker 1: that's the goal. College football, pro football there in the
Speaker 1: swing of things. The NBA is in preseason, about to
Speaker 1: launch sooner as well. So no matter which sport you'd like,
Speaker 1: you can find something good to watch almost every night
Speaker 1: and or weekend if you want. But I don't watch
Speaker 1: nearly as much sports as I used to. I'll probably
Speaker 1: watch the Braves in the playoffs, but for the most part,
Speaker 1: I don't really watch sports these days. But I saw
Speaker 1: a lending Tree survey the other day and it's said
Speaker 1: that here's the survey portion. Here's the survey portion. It
Speaker 1: said that a third of Americans are willing to go
Speaker 1: into debt for their favorite team. And so whether that's
Speaker 1: buying a new jersey that maybe you don't have the
Speaker 1: money for or expensive, whether it's going to see a
Speaker 1: live game, which is also expensive. It's only gotten more
Speaker 1: expensive to go feed the family, like at a baseball
Speaker 1: game or something like that. In addition to the tickets,
Speaker 1: the hot dogs and the sodas and all that stuff,
Speaker 1: they add up in a big way. We get the
Speaker 1: desire to spend money in support of your club, but
Speaker 1: we would say budget for those expenses, do not put
Speaker 1: them on your credit card without being able to pay
Speaker 1: them off. Sports can be fun, and live sporting events
Speaker 1: can be a heck of a time, but yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's certainly not fun when you're paying it off for
Speaker 1: months to come. You just need to make sure that
Speaker 1: you're doing it responsibly. And I would say, I think
Speaker 1: there might be some folks who hear you say to
Speaker 1: budget for it, and they're gonna they're gonna balk at
Speaker 1: that you like that. That was another But what I
Speaker 1: would say is that, yes, you may not have known
Speaker 1: that the Braids are going to make it to the
Speaker 1: playoffs again, but if you know you enjoy going to
Speaker 1: see a game or going to see a match, this
Speaker 1: is something that you can be chipping, like socking some
Speaker 1: money from your entertainment budget just over the course of
Speaker 1: the year, kind of like your World Cup exactly. Like
Speaker 1: we heard about this a couple of years ago, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't know what specific game we're gonna
Speaker 1: go into, but I know that when the time comes
Speaker 1: a the tickets are going to be expensive and be
Speaker 1: no matter what I'm still probably gonna want to go
Speaker 1: see something. And so even though I don't know the
Speaker 1: exact dollar amount, it's something that you can begin to earmark,
Speaker 1: at least generally speaking, when you know that there's sort
Speaker 1: of like this sector of entertainment that you want to
Speaker 1: to be able to participate and start earmarking these funds. Now,
Speaker 1: all right, Joel, So we've got another stupid survey to
Speaker 1: share with folks. We should make this a regular Currens.
Speaker 1: I think this one comes from lending Tree as well,
Speaker 1: which makes me think, like it seems like lending lending Tree,
Speaker 1: they don't have anything else to do other than just
Speaker 1: ask thousands of people all day, all day long. Maybe
Speaker 1: we should stop doing this. Maybe we are feeding the beast.
Speaker 1: But in this case, we're gonna talk about it, maybe
Speaker 1: at least this one last time. Uh So the survey
Speaker 1: it says that it turns out that one in five
Speaker 1: folks say that they are dating last because of the
Speaker 1: higher costs of going out due to inflation. Other folks
Speaker 1: are downgrading their dating apps, so like basically they're settling
Speaker 1: for the free version, going with the freemium model. I'm
Speaker 1: not very familiar with these, I'm not sure, how big
Speaker 1: of an impact that has on your experience? Like, do
Speaker 1: does that mean you get paired with somebody who you're
Speaker 1: not actually matching with if they're just like, well, if
Speaker 1: you want the guys that you're really into, or if
Speaker 1: you if you want the girls who actually share common interest,
Speaker 1: you gotta pay up. You're not You're just in tier two.
Speaker 1: You haven't made it a tier line. You don't even
Speaker 1: know the quality of dates or potential partners that you
Speaker 1: might be exposed to. But all that being said, we
Speaker 1: would say that it's not that you need to to
Speaker 1: date less. We just think that you need to date
Speaker 1: smarter because dates don't have to cost a lot of money.
Speaker 1: You can still go out on dates, but maybe you
Speaker 1: aren't spending like a hundred bucks every single date. This
Speaker 1: might sound trite, but it's the thought that counts. And so,
Speaker 1: whether you're going out on a first date or if
Speaker 1: you're just taking your significant or your partner out who
Speaker 1: you've been with for decades, we want you to think
Speaker 1: outside the box to create a fun, a memorable, enjoyable
Speaker 1: date that's not going to break the bank. And so
Speaker 1: if you like, maybe you do really like to go
Speaker 1: out to restaurants. Maybe that means just going out to
Speaker 1: breakfast instead of dinner. Uh, this time of year, the
Speaker 1: weather is fantastic, Joel, our families. We went hiking last weekend.
Speaker 1: That's a completely free activity. We we ended the night
Speaker 1: sitting around a fire having an awesome conversation. Literally cost
Speaker 1: us nothing. But these are activities that aren't specific to
Speaker 1: just what something you do with your family. This is
Speaker 1: stuff that you can do on a date as well.
Speaker 1: You bring a picnic to go along with the hike,
Speaker 1: Like the spread that you put out there. I mean
Speaker 1: you have to go all out and got all the
Speaker 1: and get and get the stuff for that picnic tossed
Speaker 1: in your backpack. That looks pretty thoughtful without spending much money.
Speaker 1: So I think you're right. I think you don't have
Speaker 1: to forsake dating just because costs have gone up. Even
Speaker 1: even something like apple apple picking or wimple picking is expensive,
Speaker 1: Like is it really? It's like the most expensive way
Speaker 1: to get a bushel of apples because you have to fail,
Speaker 1: like you have to pay entry and then you can
Speaker 1: like you have to like buy those bags and it's
Speaker 1: just like, oh man, we just dropped how much it's
Speaker 1: the memories though, it's like the whole day experience. But yeah,
Speaker 1: if you're the put it back on yeah Apple thinking,
Speaker 1: don't do it. Then if you're looking to the same
Speaker 1: money in this I didn't realize. I guess I've been
Speaker 1: apple picking up well. Well, even like fest like fall festivals,
Speaker 1: if you want to get into that sort of fall
Speaker 1: fall spirit, Like every single weekend there is some activity
Speaker 1: either in the town where you live or it's you know,
Speaker 1: somewhere near my Like I'm not talking about music festivals
Speaker 1: or like like beer festivals, but like free festivals just
Speaker 1: where you get to hang out, see some really cool art,
Speaker 1: or hear some music for free. I think that's can
Speaker 1: also be a really affordable way to enjoy a date
Speaker 1: with somebody. Yeah, most definitely. And Matt, I'd love to
Speaker 1: hear from our listeners to to know, like what their
Speaker 1: favorite cheaper free data. It's been a minute since we
Speaker 1: have been dating. I don't want to say that we
Speaker 1: like don't date our wives. Like every single week, either
Speaker 1: you and Emily or either Kate and I go out
Speaker 1: on a date. So like, we definitely take our wives
Speaker 1: out to dates, but we're also limited and when it
Speaker 1: is that we can do that. So oftentimes we are
Speaker 1: actually going out to restaurants. We're going with the dinner typically,
Speaker 1: But yeah, my wife and I were heading out this
Speaker 1: weekend and we're going to go on a bunch of hikes,
Speaker 1: which I'm excited about. My parents are gonna watch the kids.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be it's gonna be lovely. So yeah, we're
Speaker 1: gonna spend a lot of free time out in nature.
Speaker 1: But I'm curious to hear you what other people do.
Speaker 1: But let's move on and let's talk about pay transparency,
Speaker 1: because it's becoming more common in job listings these days.
Speaker 1: And it's actually it's now a requirement in the state
Speaker 1: of California, which means that we're likely to see pay
Speaker 1: ranges posted, pay ranges becoming even more common in online
Speaker 1: work postings in the coming months and years. And we've
Speaker 1: talked about this before when it became state law in
Speaker 1: Colorado and Nevada, Washington, they've implemented similar laws. Interestingly enough,
Speaker 1: pay transparency in job listings. It's it's been on the
Speaker 1: rise for years anyway. And I would say the best
Speaker 1: part of less elusive pay information is is really that
Speaker 1: job seekers are going to be applying to fewer jobs
Speaker 1: where they might receive a low ball offer right interviewing.
Speaker 1: It can be time consuming and it's no fun to
Speaker 1: jump through a bunch of hoops for a job that
Speaker 1: you think you're gonna like, when then only to find
Speaker 1: out that I guess what the pay is going to be,
Speaker 1: I don't know, fifteen thousand dollars less than what you thought,
Speaker 1: or then what other similar companies are paying for comparable positions.
Speaker 1: That's just annoying. So I mean, other than that, though,
Speaker 1: it turns out, we have very little data about how
Speaker 1: much increased pay transparency is going to impact higher wages overall. Hopefully,
Speaker 1: hopefully it will, but I think it's it's probably gonna
Speaker 1: be helpful for job applicants. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: you've still got to advocate for yourself. You've still gotta
Speaker 1: negotiate effectively, even when there's a range of pay offered,
Speaker 1: So much comes down to you and how you negotiate
Speaker 1: to get paid more. That's right, man. And so speaking
Speaker 1: of pay, I think a lot of people wouldn't mind
Speaker 1: if they made more money, and lots of individuals who
Speaker 1: are looking to increase their income, they're they're opting to
Speaker 1: launch a side hustle in order to do just that.
Speaker 1: We've covered the pros and the cons before of the
Speaker 1: gig economy of side hustles, but new evidence has come
Speaker 1: to light that side hustles essentially be the superpower. A
Speaker 1: new white paper from the professors at the University of
Speaker 1: Oregon in Arizona and Nebraska. They found that side hustles,
Speaker 1: while they're becoming more common, they aren't actually detracting from
Speaker 1: the work that is getting done at your full time job,
Speaker 1: which is something that employers have have feared. On the contrary,
Speaker 1: they are empowering, is is basically what they're arguing, and
Speaker 1: the research, the best line from the actual study states
Speaker 1: that psychological empowerment from side hustles enriches full time work performance,
Speaker 1: which is really really interesting. We're gonna have more to
Speaker 1: say about side hustles in our upcoming newsletter on Tuesday.
Speaker 1: That's the plan. But side hustles, depending on the route
Speaker 1: that you can take, not only can they be energizing
Speaker 1: in the moment, but they can also potentially lead you
Speaker 1: down the road of working full time for yourself. The
Speaker 1: only criticism I would have of that study is that
Speaker 1: it was only over the course of ten days, which
Speaker 1: makes me think we've all been up against the deadline
Speaker 1: or worked on a project where we're basically working at
Speaker 1: a level that we know not that we can't necessarily sustain.
Speaker 1: And so while those results are encouraging, I think a
Speaker 1: better question for us to ask is, is that what
Speaker 1: I want to pursue right now in my life? Right?
Speaker 1: Because we like we talk all the time about trying
Speaker 1: to strike that balance. And yes, by pursuing this high
Speaker 1: side hustle, it makes you more productive at work, But
Speaker 1: what about all the other areas in your life that
Speaker 1: might be suffering slightly? Right? And so, like I was
Speaker 1: talking about working for like a short period of time
Speaker 1: when you know that you've got like a deadline or something,
Speaker 1: oftentimes there are other areas in our life that suffered
Speaker 1: because of that, right, Like maybe you're not eating like
Speaker 1: you should be, or maybe you're not exercising like you
Speaker 1: should you should be, Uh, like you're maybe your sleep suffers,
Speaker 1: you take an hour or two off your normal sleep exactly,
Speaker 1: you're getting sick more often, or you're not you're not
Speaker 1: hanging out with your friends, the meaningful relationships in your life.
Speaker 1: And so I think what's important to keep in mind
Speaker 1: are some of those other aspects, of those other sectors
Speaker 1: of our lives. They can often get pushed off to
Speaker 1: the sides. And again we talk about this on the
Speaker 1: show as a good thing because a lot of times
Speaker 1: folks are looking to make more money. They're trying to
Speaker 1: get ahead with the money and the financial goals in
Speaker 1: their life. But we also want folks out there to
Speaker 1: kind of strike that balance. We want you to achieve
Speaker 1: whatever goals we want you to that that you're that
Speaker 1: you're chasing after. We want you to achieve financial freedom,
Speaker 1: but don't forget to live life along the way. Don't
Speaker 1: forget all the other aspects of life that that make
Speaker 1: life worth living. Right, it's not just about work. I
Speaker 1: will say, I think it makes sense too that some
Speaker 1: of the folks in this survey that maybe the if
Speaker 1: they're if you're go getter enough to start your own
Speaker 1: side hustle, if you're excited about launching your own thing,
Speaker 1: about maybe becoming an entrepreneur, then it makes sense to
Speaker 1: me that you are enthusiastic about your day job too.
Speaker 1: Maybe you're you're just but you might be going too hard.
Speaker 1: You might be that's the reality. I think that's what
Speaker 1: you're pointing to, and I think that's true. I think
Speaker 1: it's I think it can be a good thing. What
Speaker 1: we've talked about is you don't want to You're gonna
Speaker 1: have to trade time for money at least for a
Speaker 1: period of time as you're launching something new, but you
Speaker 1: don't want that to be in perpetuity. At some point,
Speaker 1: at some point you want to be ramping this up,
Speaker 1: typically so that it can become like your your full
Speaker 1: time thing, so that you're not burning the candle at
Speaker 1: both ends for years on end exactly. Yeah, It's it's
Speaker 1: almost like this feedback loop, right, Like you start getting
Speaker 1: good at your side hustle and you just realize that, man,
Speaker 1: you are you're just really good at working. I'm really
Speaker 1: good at making money, and are you really good at
Speaker 1: the other areas of life that at the end of
Speaker 1: your life you're gonna look back on and say, do
Speaker 1: do I have any regrets? Like? What could I have
Speaker 1: done differently? Those are the kind of things we want
Speaker 1: you thinking about now, not forty years down the line,
Speaker 1: the stuff that makes you balanced exactly for sure. All right, well,
Speaker 1: let's let's wrap it up on that note. Matt. That's
Speaker 1: gonna do it for for this episode. We will have
Speaker 1: the show notes for this episode up on our website
Speaker 1: at how to money dot com. And remember, we will
Speaker 1: have more in our upcoming newsletter about side hustles. We've
Speaker 1: got some, I think, some additional thoughts that we want
Speaker 1: to share with you guys on Tuesday. You can sign
Speaker 1: up for that at how the money dot com slash newsletter.
Speaker 1: It's free, you'll get it every Tuesday morning in your inbox,
Speaker 1: and hopefully it's informative and encouraging. That's the goal, you
Speaker 1: know what. All right, man, that's gonna be it for
Speaker 1: this episode. Until next time, Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out.
Speaker 1: M