Speaker 1: Welcome to How to Money. I'm Joel, I'm Matt. Today
Speaker 1: we're talking ridiculous, car refinancing, occupation, consternation, and adds everywhere.
Speaker 1: That's right, buddy. This is our Friday flight where we
Speaker 1: cover the best headlines, the news that's going to pertain
Speaker 1: to your personal finances, only the most, only the best,
Speaker 1: only the finest. This is the cream of the crop.
Speaker 1: Before we get to all that, though, a quick little
Speaker 1: update from I think it was Greg who wrote in,
Speaker 1: and he was talking about the recision period that states
Speaker 1: allow specifically for time shares. So we recently talked about
Speaker 1: how you were like laying whether or not you're going
Speaker 1: to go to the timeshare pitch. You said no because
Speaker 1: ultimately they said your wife's gotta be there. I was
Speaker 1: like for it, and they were like, no, you're not
Speaker 1: not unless your wife comes. And I'm like, ah, man,
Speaker 1: well she doesn't changes the game, which makes sense. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it totally makes sense to me, right because if it's
Speaker 1: just one person that's whole that seems like a financial optimizer,
Speaker 1: it's that's a divide and conquer kind of move there, right,
Speaker 1: Like like you are, You're you're approaching this very strategically,
Speaker 1: what are they doing it like that? But you pointed
Speaker 1: out if there's two people, is that if you go
Speaker 1: alone and then you go back to the room and
Speaker 1: your spouse is like, what did you just sign up for? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that then those people are more likely the cancels, whereas
Speaker 1: if you make the decision together, you're unlikely to cancel.
Speaker 1: The time, there's like a commit there's something that happens
Speaker 1: from a commitment standpoint where there's two people, right, like
Speaker 1: so on, if it was just you, it would have
Speaker 1: been like the optimizer. But with two people that spend
Speaker 1: that amount of time and energy into it, it feels
Speaker 1: like you've you've started something, You've run through the gauntlet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like you've created relationships, you started to dream about what
Speaker 1: this scould look like together. Yeah, there's like there's a
Speaker 1: sun cost fallacy involved right where it's just like, well,
Speaker 1: we spent all that time doing that and you are
Speaker 1: you're only looking at that as opposed to thinking about
Speaker 1: what this is gonna what this will cost you in
Speaker 1: the future, And that's at the core of I think
Speaker 1: what they're trying to Yeah, promote Actually, I spent two
Speaker 1: hours here and I signed on the dotted line. I
Speaker 1: guess we're committed, and probably a lot of people don't
Speaker 1: even know about the recision period that exists, depending on
Speaker 1: what state you're in. It's somewhere between three and fifteen
Speaker 1: days after you've signed on the dotted line for that
Speaker 1: time share. So you do have we actually let's link
Speaker 1: to that in the show notes, OK, for folks out
Speaker 1: there to know that you do have a cooling off period,
Speaker 1: or you can say, yeah, I actually don't want to
Speaker 1: do that, which is I think really important, especially because
Speaker 1: that is such a highly I think it's an emotional
Speaker 1: decision that's made emotionally so much of the time, because
Speaker 1: you understandably, the human instinct is you kind of want
Speaker 1: to please the person who's trying to sell you the
Speaker 1: time share. They're spending that much time with you, you don't
Speaker 1: want to disappoint them. Right, you're sharing a meal together.
Speaker 1: They were probably really nice to you, and so you're like,
Speaker 1: all right, yeah, I and we'll get to take some vacations.
Speaker 1: Will be great. But time shares for most people don't
Speaker 1: make much financial sense. And even if you really want
Speaker 1: a timeshare, there are much cheaper ways to get a
Speaker 1: timeshare than paying full freight at one of those presentations.
Speaker 1: That's right, So Joe, let's kick things off. You want
Speaker 1: to talk about affordable vehicles. Those don't exist anymore, man,
Speaker 1: I think that's an oxymoron if I've ever heard one.
Speaker 1: There are some out there. I get very few, very few. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I actually was looking up at the value of our
Speaker 1: minivan the other the other day, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's worth like less than six thousand dollars. Now it's affordable.
Speaker 1: It's basically hit that fully depreciated mark. I don't know
Speaker 1: that's going to go down to value very much. So
Speaker 1: there are some cheap cars. You just can't buy mine. Sorry, yeah,
Speaker 1: you need that thing. Man, What did you put for
Speaker 1: the condition? Because that's I know what I know. Oh,
Speaker 1: it's definitely not excellent. Okay, but did you do pretty
Speaker 1: good or did you do four? Oh no, probably whatever's
Speaker 1: in the middle. Yeah, that's pretty easy. Yeah, it's got
Speaker 1: some things in that. At this point, I want to
Speaker 1: I want to think that mine's an excellent condition, but
Speaker 1: I know it's not. Like in my heart it's an
Speaker 1: excellent condition, but there are certain things about it that
Speaker 1: I know are excellent. But then I know from an
Speaker 1: outsider's perspective, they would see all some of the busted
Speaker 1: up thing, some of the spray painted side view mirrors
Speaker 1: that creative fathers three on there in order for it
Speaker 1: to look slightly better. They might notice that, well, I
Speaker 1: think my sc it makes it sound so ratchet, which
Speaker 1: I think both of our fans probably are. At this one.
Speaker 1: I would say my six four Runner is in mint condition.
Speaker 1: I'd put that in excellent, but would be excellent. So
Speaker 1: how long will it stay that way? We'll see do
Speaker 1: you feel like it's already gone downhill since you've gotten
Speaker 1: it a little bit. I'm doing my best, though, But
Speaker 1: they kept it in a garage. I don't have space
Speaker 1: in a garage for two cars. I have a one
Speaker 1: car garage. People, what if you can clear everything out,
Speaker 1: squeeze both those suckers in there. I don't think it's possible, really, Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: we can try one day. Okay, so I'll help you
Speaker 1: try it this weekend if you want. Let's talk about
Speaker 1: expensive cars. Though. We have cheap cars, but the average
Speaker 1: American is opting for really really expensive ones. And I'm
Speaker 1: over here reticent to spend you know, five figures on
Speaker 1: a car. But people are spending fifty k on average
Speaker 1: on new cars. That's the we've crossed that threshold now,
Speaker 1: it's insane. But because of high costs and high interest rates,
Speaker 1: this means people are paying more for cars than ever before,
Speaker 1: which means that the vast majority find themselves on like
Speaker 1: a debt treadmill for a really long time. And we've
Speaker 1: talked about this kind of ad nausea map, but there
Speaker 1: was a new there was some new stats that came
Speaker 1: out this week from Caribou who they help people refinance
Speaker 1: their loan and shop around and get a better deal,
Speaker 1: and they said that the most popular choice these days
Speaker 1: when people refinance a car loan is an eighty four
Speaker 1: month long loan, which I didn't know. I knew you
Speaker 1: could get that out on a new car. I didn't
Speaker 1: realize you could refinance into an eighty four month long loan.
Speaker 1: It's crazy. So let's say you get a new car,
Speaker 1: you're in it for a couple of years, and then
Speaker 1: you refinance again into another seven year loan. Yeah, maybe
Speaker 1: you're able to save some money every month, and maybe
Speaker 1: you lowered your interest rate. You've probably done both of
Speaker 1: those things, but it means you're going to be in
Speaker 1: the loan for even longer. Some of those folks are
Speaker 1: going to be in that like a car loan because
Speaker 1: they take one out and refinance for something like nine
Speaker 1: or ten years. It's crazy hard to really have them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what's so the first thing I think of when I
Speaker 1: hear eighty four months? It makes me think of people
Speaker 1: who have like an eighteen month old. It's like, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: you need to go ahead and switch to my kids
Speaker 1: a year and a half. He's two years old. Like
Speaker 1: they're trying to obscure the fact of how long of
Speaker 1: a period this is, I think by saying something like
Speaker 1: eighty four months. But the journal actually had an article
Speaker 1: about how repomen are actually busier than ever. They're basically
Speaker 1: working around the clock repossessing vehicles where folks aren't making
Speaker 1: a payments, a dangerous job. I had a friend who
Speaker 1: did that for I think he still doesn't actually, and
Speaker 1: I believe it. He has a run ins man Like
Speaker 1: people do not like their car being taken out of
Speaker 1: their driveway in the middle of the night. But ye,
Speaker 1: when the payments aren't being made, this is going to
Speaker 1: take it is what happened. That's what you agree to
Speaker 1: and delinquencies on car loans are up across all income levels.
Speaker 1: But even with lower payments spread out over a longer
Speaker 1: period of time, way too many people are out there
Speaker 1: and they're unable to afford their ride. So just be
Speaker 1: careful when you are buying a car. You do not
Speaker 1: have to pay an arm and a leg in order
Speaker 1: to get a good one. And in that article as well,
Speaker 1: a fascinating stat was that home debt, so they had
Speaker 1: like different types of debt, so like obviously auto loan debt,
Speaker 1: but then they had home debt, right, so like your
Speaker 1: mortgage or home equity loans, they're down significantly. They're down
Speaker 1: something like fifty percent when looking at the same period
Speaker 1: of time, which is is just fascinating that it seems
Speaker 1: like something has changed in how it is that we
Speaker 1: view vehicles, which I kind of think is a good
Speaker 1: thing it. I guess one way to interpret the data
Speaker 1: is that more folks are seeing their vehicles more as
Speaker 1: a tool. They're seeing it as a more expendable thing.
Speaker 1: And I think some of them might have to do
Speaker 1: with the rise of uber and left right, like it's
Speaker 1: just a way to get from point A to point B,
Speaker 1: as opposed to maybe having your identity so tightly tied
Speaker 1: to a possession like that too, to something like a vehicle,
Speaker 1: which have just really fascinating. The fact that, yeah, mortgage delinquencies,
Speaker 1: home equity loan delinquencies are down about this like fifty percent,
Speaker 1: whereas auto loaned delinquencies are up fifty percent over the
Speaker 1: past fifteen years. Yeah. Crazy. Well, I mean I think, gosh,
Speaker 1: you want to keep a roof over your head stability,
Speaker 1: but it seems it's just interesting. Yeah, when you look
Speaker 1: at the same period of time, though, I think some
Speaker 1: of it also has to do with not to take
Speaker 1: it back to the pandemic, but stimmy checks, right, Like,
Speaker 1: we found ourselves with a lot more money in our banks.
Speaker 1: It wasn't so much money that you went and bought
Speaker 1: went on like a home shopping spree, but it was
Speaker 1: more than just like going to your local RII and
Speaker 1: getting a few new items. You're probably thinking, oh, I
Speaker 1: can handle a bigger payment in my life. It seems
Speaker 1: like taking on a not alone that you couldn't afford
Speaker 1: me have been like the happy medium for a lot
Speaker 1: of folks. Yeah, the activity du jure back in the Bay, Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I mean I just yeah, I think when you're refinancing,
Speaker 1: the goal is should be not to pay the lowest
Speaker 1: amount in your monthly payment. It is to get rid
Speaker 1: of that loan as quickly as possible, or it should
Speaker 1: be so it's not like how little can I pay
Speaker 1: every month to get rid of this car payment? And
Speaker 1: who cares how long? It's how much can I pay
Speaker 1: in order to get rid of this car debt as
Speaker 1: soon as possible? That really should be the thinking. We're
Speaker 1: payment buyers in this country, right, and that's not a
Speaker 1: good thing. On another nefarious car financing note, Matt More,
Speaker 1: car dealers are talking up the ten thousand dollars annual
Speaker 1: tax break that you can snag when you buy a
Speaker 1: new car finished in the good old US of A.
Speaker 1: And this was infused into the Build Back No what
Speaker 1: is it called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act? Right?
Speaker 1: Build Back Better? That's all these BBB's, right, which just
Speaker 1: sounds so enticing when you're buying a new car and
Speaker 1: the FNI person is saying, hey, this is such a
Speaker 1: great deal, like you're going to get a tax break
Speaker 1: of the ten thousand dollars. Yeah, yeah, yeah, tax breaks.
Speaker 1: Look how great this is? And they're making it sound
Speaker 1: like it's the best thing since sliced bread. Holy callous.
Speaker 1: A lot of money, right, But it's kind of like
Speaker 1: the homeowner's tax break, right that many people don't actually get.
Speaker 1: Something like ten percent of homeowners actually get the tax break,
Speaker 1: but many more think they're getting a tax break for
Speaker 1: owning a home. And the truth is you're only going
Speaker 1: to get the highest annual tax break if you buy
Speaker 1: one hundred than fifty thousand dollars car. Finance is seven
Speaker 1: percent one hundred and fifty thousand dollars car. So who
Speaker 1: do those exist? I'm sure, yeah, of course they do.
Speaker 1: But like you're a psycho, if you're like or you're
Speaker 1: incredibly rich much you have much more money, yeah than
Speaker 1: the two of us. But on a forty thousand dollars
Speaker 1: new car purchase at the same interest rate, your tax
Speaker 1: savings would be a little over five hundred bucks. So
Speaker 1: think about that. Are you going to go buy a
Speaker 1: forty thousand dollars new car finance it at seven percent
Speaker 1: in order to save five hundred bucks a year? I mean,
Speaker 1: that would be foolhardy. You Also, you know, you don't
Speaker 1: qualify if you're single making more than one hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollars or if you're married making more than two hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars, can't imagine buying one hundred and fifty thousand
Speaker 1: dollars car if you know that's where you're how much
Speaker 1: money you're earning. Also, a lot of makes and models
Speaker 1: don't qualify, so you got to check the vin first.
Speaker 1: You can do that on the NITSA website. But you know,
Speaker 1: while this tax break is better than nothing, I guess
Speaker 1: I think it's actually the offering the wrong kind of
Speaker 1: incentive to people, Matt to get Hey, yeah, finance that
Speaker 1: car so you can get a tax break for it.
Speaker 1: And really it's still a drop in the bucket of
Speaker 1: the cost of your new cars. So this is just
Speaker 1: bad math if you're buying a new car because you
Speaker 1: think you're gonna save a little bit of money on taxes.
Speaker 1: That's right, man. I wonder if we are now at
Speaker 1: a tipping point in the job market, because obviously sound
Speaker 1: like there tipping point. It was a popular book. Man.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about like the post pandemic times, right, like
Speaker 1: that was a killer period of time for workers. Getting
Speaker 1: a new job was just leading to record pay increases
Speaker 1: because the demand for employees, it was incredibly steep. The
Speaker 1: supply of folks for those jobs was limited, But then
Speaker 1: we've seen that level out and unemployment numbers are still
Speaker 1: actually good historically, but the job market just feels a
Speaker 1: little stagnant, and we've seen more recent reports of just
Speaker 1: bigger name companies out there cutting head counts by significantly,
Speaker 1: like tens of thousands of employees. I'm specifically thinking of
Speaker 1: Ups and Amazon who target maybe too. And at the
Speaker 1: same time, worries about artificial intelligence, how that's going to
Speaker 1: impact the job market, Those questions abound, and we do
Speaker 1: see the signs that it is impacting young folks, specifically
Speaker 1: at entry level jobs, and I think it's a problem
Speaker 1: that could compound even more as those entry level jobs
Speaker 1: lay are typically the gateway into more permanent, more higher
Speaker 1: paying jobs. Right. You don't typically take some of those
Speaker 1: initial jobs because you think it's just a fantastic job,
Speaker 1: but it's the opportunity and it being more of a
Speaker 1: stepping stone, and that's that feels like a problem, that's
Speaker 1: just kind of that we're speeding towards, still off pretty
Speaker 1: far off the distance, but especially as some of these
Speaker 1: during workers are trying to just get their foot in
Speaker 1: the door and to get into some of these companies
Speaker 1: that they want to work. For sure, it's yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a little worrisome to see college grads getting a degree
Speaker 1: and then coming out in a time where it feels
Speaker 1: like some of those starter jobs are harder to come by,
Speaker 1: because you're right, those starter jobs lead to careers that
Speaker 1: eventually lead lead to moving up and lead to earning more.
Speaker 1: And if you can't get the starter job, it's hard
Speaker 1: to get on that track. How they get out those
Speaker 1: lower percentile income brackets. Yeah, still, I don't think I
Speaker 1: would overreact to some of these headlines. I think far
Speaker 1: fewer people think that AI is a threat to their
Speaker 1: job then think it's going to impact the job market
Speaker 1: in general if you look at the statistics, so kind
Speaker 1: of like so many other things in this life, it's
Speaker 1: less personal pessimism like oh AI is going to mess
Speaker 1: me over, and it's more of like a general wariness.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how AI is going to impact the
Speaker 1: job the way jobs function in this country overall. And
Speaker 1: I'd say the two of us, Matt, we're banking on
Speaker 1: the fact that AI is going to make workers more
Speaker 1: productive kind of like the computers kind of like Internet,
Speaker 1: an internetimistic here, Yeah, and that it's not going to
Speaker 1: be an existential threat to labor as a whole, but
Speaker 1: they're going to be growing pains, and I think we're
Speaker 1: seeing some of those growing pains. They are going to
Speaker 1: be layoffs in some sectors, probably specifically in the tech sector,
Speaker 1: but I'm pretty sure we're also see companies that let
Speaker 1: too many workers go because of AI like rehiring in
Speaker 1: the coming years. I think they're going to be like, oh, hey,
Speaker 1: it's going to change everything. Let's call the workforce, and
Speaker 1: then they're going to realize we hold too much. We
Speaker 1: need some of those people back, and I think they're
Speaker 1: gonna regret some of the some of the layoffs that
Speaker 1: they made. So's it's a little consolation for current job
Speaker 1: seekers serving a tough time. But I just don't think
Speaker 1: these hiring frees are gonna last forever sure, or the
Speaker 1: folks who are getting cut right, because it is it
Speaker 1: feels like a tailff two job markets right, because it
Speaker 1: depends on it totally depends on the type of job
Speaker 1: you have. If it if you are in a more administrative,
Speaker 1: more data review or of job that involves a lot
Speaker 1: of digital monotony, not monotony, but like digital repetition, Like
Speaker 1: these are one hundred percent the types of jobs that
Speaker 1: are going to be replaced, and so if you are
Speaker 1: in that kind of a field, you probably are thinking no, no, no.
Speaker 1: For me, this is totally personal, yeah, as I play paralegals,
Speaker 1: like that's a job that's like up for extinction as
Speaker 1: opposed to the jobs that are going to be more
Speaker 1: difficult to replace, like healthcare or skilled skill trades or
Speaker 1: you know, teachers even right, like I could one d
Speaker 1: percent see AI being more of like the assistant in
Speaker 1: this in a similar way that we can't envision our
Speaker 1: life now without the Internet. And that's so much of
Speaker 1: it too, man, the fear of the unknown as we
Speaker 1: look ahead, Like you mentioned that the Internet being a
Speaker 1: good example, Well that's easy now as we look back
Speaker 1: and we are able to directly see all the industries
Speaker 1: and jobs that have been created because of the Internet.
Speaker 1: But we're at the very beginning of this as we're
Speaker 1: projecting and looking forward, and it's just for a lot
Speaker 1: of people it's scary because we like the creativity and
Speaker 1: the clairvoyance to know what's actually going to happen. I
Speaker 1: don't know, but there will likely be some of that
Speaker 1: creative destruction taking place and brand new sectors of jobs
Speaker 1: that we're not even that aren't even on people's radars.
Speaker 1: You think about the impact of the Internet, like you
Speaker 1: think about the dot com bubble and all of the
Speaker 1: companies that we're trying to do something novel because the
Speaker 1: Internet now existed, and so many of those companies no
Speaker 1: longer exist. Like there is even in particular, as new
Speaker 1: technologies are coming into the mainstream, there are a lot
Speaker 1: of new startups like vying to be the next successful
Speaker 1: company that are gonna that they're gonna they're they're gonna
Speaker 1: change right how we all interact with AI. Some of
Speaker 1: them are going to be highly successful, and many of
Speaker 1: them will fall by the wayside, and that is kind
Speaker 1: of part of how the economic cycle of new technology works,
Speaker 1: and they're winners and losers in it. But that's like
Speaker 1: cool comfort for somebody in the job market who feels
Speaker 1: like put out the pasture directly under threat. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: feels they're geting the heisman when they're looking for jobs
Speaker 1: because the market's tough and because there's a lot of
Speaker 1: kind of AI turmoil happening, a lot of these companies
Speaker 1: are looking to get leaner. On a related note, did
Speaker 1: you see the Business Insider story about folks who are
Speaker 1: basically taking like their side gigs and not side gig
Speaker 1: as in like driving for Uber or Left or whatever,
Speaker 1: but like a side business finding ways to diversify their income,
Speaker 1: essentially because they are a little concerned about the prospects
Speaker 1: of their future at that company. And this is something
Speaker 1: we've talked about it's like for a while. Yeah, essentially,
Speaker 1: the reason you and I initially started investing in real
Speaker 1: estate was to happen like another stream of income, not
Speaker 1: just like building up money in our four oh one k's,
Speaker 1: but saying, like, okay, what does it look like that
Speaker 1: it makes it easier than to launch out and start
Speaker 1: your own small business because you're not fully reliant on
Speaker 1: income from your day job exactly, which we felt personally
Speaker 1: when we launched the podcasts almost a decade ago at
Speaker 1: this point, no, not quite that long. But I do
Speaker 1: think it comes down to the individual because it makes
Speaker 1: me think about some folks who are more like like
Speaker 1: they're more of the renaissance man or a woman, right,
Speaker 1: like they're more of a polymath, and if you are
Speaker 1: the type of person who can take on different roles,
Speaker 1: who can be more adaptive to the changing markets out there,
Speaker 1: I think that this is a path that you could
Speaker 1: take that could serve you well. But I do think
Speaker 1: that there are some folks who are specialists. They're experts
Speaker 1: in their given field, and were they to divide their
Speaker 1: attention away from their job, you would essentially lose that edge.
Speaker 1: And so it's almost a path of Okay, which path
Speaker 1: do I want to take? Given the constraints of time, right,
Speaker 1: I can't do it. Also, which one am I going
Speaker 1: to choose here? And I think a highly personal question.
Speaker 1: It's very personal. I think it just takes knowing yourself
Speaker 1: what kind of satisfaction you're getting out of your job.
Speaker 1: Because I think for some folks to hear to see
Speaker 1: the business, because they profiled all these success stories of like, oh, man,
Speaker 1: he's making more money now with the side business and
Speaker 1: it doesn't really matter that Microsoft let him go. I
Speaker 1: think if there's someone who hears that and thinks, well,
Speaker 1: that's what I need to do. But maybe for that person, man,
Speaker 1: they are so well suited for their role in this
Speaker 1: big company. And in fact, if they gave it a
Speaker 1: little more attention to a little more effort. They could lead
Speaker 1: this entire department. That kind of thing I don't want
Speaker 1: to discount. Even though I'm highly entrepreneurial, there are some
Speaker 1: folks who aren't. And like you said, I think it
Speaker 1: is personal. It's good to know yourself agreed. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: even just kind of thinking ahead about well, if you're worried,
Speaker 1: if you are in that camp who's a little bit
Speaker 1: worried about what's going to happen with AI, specifically in
Speaker 1: regards to your job. I think planning ahead for a layoff.
Speaker 1: We've got content about that up on the side of
Speaker 1: how Tomney dot Com makes a lot of sense, like
Speaker 1: financially getting your ducks in a row so that a
Speaker 1: layoff doesn't hit you as hard as it otherwise. Would
Speaker 1: you want to make hay while the sunshining right? You
Speaker 1: want to the calm before the storm is the time
Speaker 1: to prepare the ship, Matthew. So I just it's a
Speaker 1: good smart to start thinking about that, whether that's streams
Speaker 1: of income, whether that's saving more money, all the above.
Speaker 1: We got more to get to on this episode, including
Speaker 1: lunch is expensive. We'll get through that and more. Right
Speaker 1: after this, sorrybody, we are back from the break. It
Speaker 1: is now time for the ludicrous headline of the week,
Speaker 1: and we have a selection this week from market Watch.
Speaker 1: Headline reads, We're spending over one dollars a week on lunch.
Speaker 1: How did ordering food at work become a luxury? Which? Man,
Speaker 1: this article rubs me so the wrong way. I hate it.
Speaker 1: I'm suppose you don't have like a tattoo of leftover
Speaker 1: somewhere on everybody because you love leftovers more than anyone.
Speaker 1: With my little deli container takeout plastic, yeah, is it
Speaker 1: the is it the small, the medium or the large?
Speaker 1: Most of my leftovers are in the medium. That would
Speaker 1: be a cool tattoo. You should get that, Yeah, somewhere.
Speaker 1: That's just way too committed to the whole the leftover game.
Speaker 1: And no, this just rubs me the wrong way because
Speaker 1: of the like, honestly, the expectation that this should be
Speaker 1: something that someone should be able to afford, right, Like,
Speaker 1: there's like this lifestyle entitlement that I so highly dislike.
Speaker 1: And it's totally fine if you want to go out
Speaker 1: there and spend that kind of money all lunch, but
Speaker 1: you gotta be okay with it. You got to be
Speaker 1: able to afford it. You got to know that you're
Speaker 1: not going to be able to funnel those dollars towards
Speaker 1: some other financial goal in your life. But to think
Speaker 1: that it's this basic human rights so that that someone
Speaker 1: should have seems preposterous. I think that's the thing that
Speaker 1: hit me with this too, was like, how did ordering
Speaker 1: food to work become a luxury? And it's like, eating
Speaker 1: out for lunch every day of the week has always
Speaker 1: been luxury. Yeah, of course that's a luxury. That's the
Speaker 1: very definition of a luxury. Yeah, it's not a coach
Speaker 1: handbag or something like that or whatever. It's a fancy
Speaker 1: air Maze scarf. But it is totally a luxury to
Speaker 1: think that you can eat out every single day and
Speaker 1: not feel a massive impact on your budget. And one
Speaker 1: hundred bucks a week, yeah, that's you're talking about like
Speaker 1: four hundred plus dollars a month on food for lunch.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine. I would love to run the numbers
Speaker 1: on how much you and I spend on our lunches,
Speaker 1: Like it's be hard to factor out because most of
Speaker 1: the time it is leftovers from the dinner the night
Speaker 1: before or for most folks, unfortunately, they're just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's not worth keeping, and they just like scrape it
Speaker 1: off into the trash can as opposed to sticking it.
Speaker 1: It's like, Okay, no, that's a that's a medium deli
Speaker 1: container size leftover that plus a couple eggs. You fry
Speaker 1: it up. You got a nuke the leftovers, fry up
Speaker 1: a couple eggs. I mean, that's like the definition of
Speaker 1: decade of eating right there, with a yolk running over
Speaker 1: the leftover braced beef that you oh my gosh, Like
Speaker 1: I'm getting hungry. We haven't eaten lunch yet. I'm getting
Speaker 1: hungry even thinking about that. Yeah, I think leftovers are
Speaker 1: the answer here. And I think it's just also potting
Speaker 1: yourself in the frame of mind to realize what is
Speaker 1: a luxury and what isn't. I think if you and
Speaker 1: maybe the only way you could go out to eat
Speaker 1: lunch every day, Matt and not break the bank is
Speaker 1: to go to the Costco food court. If you're doing that.
Speaker 1: If you're doing that, you can probably forford to eat out,
Speaker 1: But then you might not be the healthiest. You may
Speaker 1: not be Oh my gosh. I was just talking Kate,
Speaker 1: And now we're looking at pictures of like us, me
Speaker 1: specifically back in the day, like before Kate and I
Speaker 1: got married and I was poor man, like I was broke,
Speaker 1: and I'm thinking through what did I eat? Because I
Speaker 1: could tell from looking at the pictures that I'm my
Speaker 1: skin didn't look at I was really skinny, and I
Speaker 1: told her I was just like I didn't really cook
Speaker 1: at home. I think I was just eating bowls of
Speaker 1: cereal and like once a week I might go out
Speaker 1: to McDonald's because back then they had like the value menu.
Speaker 1: I get a cheeseburger, a side so expensive now I know,
Speaker 1: a side salad, and then I'll get a parfait and
Speaker 1: those three items, thinking that that was like a well
Speaker 1: balanced meal. But in a similar way, you would also
Speaker 1: be fooling yourself if you were going to the Costco
Speaker 1: food court thinking that you're getting something similar. But any
Speaker 1: just that, I think it's a really important thing to
Speaker 1: mention though, it's just fast food is so crazy expensive
Speaker 1: now too. You think you're going to save money by
Speaker 1: going Okay, at least I'm gonna get fast food for
Speaker 1: lunch instead. Sorry, no, that's expensive now. A big knac
Speaker 1: meal is probably eleven or twelve dollars, and so you can. Yeah,
Speaker 1: leftovers are way cheaper than that. By the way, I
Speaker 1: didn't crush the numbers. I thought you were going to say,
Speaker 1: we should run the numbers on knowing what our lunch costs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what it costs. What is costing you?
Speaker 1: Were you to go out to lunch every day at
Speaker 1: work instead of taking that one hundred dollars and investing
Speaker 1: it over a forty year career, you are looking at
Speaker 1: over one million dollars in the bank over a typical
Speaker 1: forty year career from that. Oh my gosh, I don't
Speaker 1: know what is and that's yeah, it was almost over
Speaker 1: a million dollars even with the seven percent return, but
Speaker 1: way seven hundred dollars. If one hundred dollars a week,
Speaker 1: four hundred a month invested, those returns compounded in forty years,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have I forget what the number was. That's crazy.
Speaker 1: At eight percent was like one point something, and at
Speaker 1: seven it was nine thirty four nine hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: four thousand or something like that. So seven and a
Speaker 1: half percent got you just over that one mil mark? Dude,
Speaker 1: are we too frugal? So impressive. Sometimes I wonder are
Speaker 1: we too frugal now because we've got other goals. There's
Speaker 1: other things that we want to pursue. And oh, actually
Speaker 1: there's an article. Okay, so the frugal Habits article. You
Speaker 1: want to one. Yeah, so folks who are like watering
Speaker 1: down their dish soap, their toothpaste even I think, right stretch,
Speaker 1: I don't. I'm all cutting the toothpaste tube open. I
Speaker 1: know our friend Maggie does that. I've never done that.
Speaker 1: I've never done that either. I mean to each their own,
Speaker 1: you know, like you need to be able to spend
Speaker 1: your money where it counts. But I'm all for folks
Speaker 1: assessing their spending, figuring out what moves the needle for them,
Speaker 1: and in the areas where it's not, to be able
Speaker 1: to cut back ruthlessly. Man. And it's hard not to
Speaker 1: judge other people spending, But like, I love it when
Speaker 1: they profile people because it gives you an insight into
Speaker 1: how it is that people are spending their money. And
Speaker 1: there's like a they talk about a lady She's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we've had to cut back on our dogs toy subscription.
Speaker 1: I know that was the thing, and I'm not going
Speaker 1: to hand on the pets. You know, I don't even
Speaker 1: know people know that I used to have a great
Speaker 1: Dane way back in the day, and that great Dane
Speaker 1: ate a lot of food. I'm all for pets, but
Speaker 1: a toy subscription where like toys are getting delivered to
Speaker 1: this house on the rag for the pet it just
Speaker 1: seems so insane. Man. Well, I think this article too.
Speaker 1: It was highlighting people who are going like kind of
Speaker 1: super hard in the frugal direction, almost to like an
Speaker 1: insane degree that most people would not do. And I
Speaker 1: feel two ways about that, because in one way, I'm like,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not gonna do that. I'm not going
Speaker 1: to water down my soap that's probably one step too far,
Speaker 1: or cut up with my toothpaste tube. But I think
Speaker 1: in the other vein, when you're paying that close attention
Speaker 1: to the resources that you're using and how much you're
Speaker 1: spending on even everyday basics and necessities, you're just going
Speaker 1: to make a lot more progress on the money goals
Speaker 1: that you have. So I'd be curious to know from
Speaker 1: how to money listeners like how far they're willing to
Speaker 1: go in the frugal the most extreme things done baffle me,
Speaker 1: send us an email how to money pot at gmail
Speaker 1: dot com. Let us know how frugal you're getting, because yeah,
Speaker 1: I think in some ways, I'm like, yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: little weird, it's a little off putting. I'm not one
Speaker 1: of those super cupon oter types, but I do think
Speaker 1: some people really get into it and they can save
Speaker 1: a lot of money, and then, you know what, it
Speaker 1: allows them to spend money in the ways that they
Speaker 1: care about while they're still able to save and invest.
Speaker 1: And the other people out there are just lamenting why
Speaker 1: does it cost so much to eat out now? While
Speaker 1: they're still eating out every day, they're not really questioning
Speaker 1: their choices. Yeah, you got to question that. So while
Speaker 1: we're talking about soap, you know, the real way to
Speaker 1: save when it comes to closed detergent is to make
Speaker 1: your own I have I told you that we do that.
Speaker 1: So this is an effort that was spearheaded not by me,
Speaker 1: but by my wife because she was so sick of
Speaker 1: because it's really expensive when you buy like this, even
Speaker 1: the big ones from Costco's, it costs a lot of
Speaker 1: money and you just it's like, what forty cents a
Speaker 1: load or thirty I don't know. She felt that we
Speaker 1: were ripping through those so like too quickly. So now
Speaker 1: I don't know exactly what I'll have to ask her
Speaker 1: over the weekend. But like you, it's borax. It's like
Speaker 1: washing soda. You put like a drop of whatever essential
Speaker 1: oils you want, and we've been doing that for like
Speaker 1: months now. Okay, I will ask her and see what
Speaker 1: the actual breakdown is per load. But she's like, oh,
Speaker 1: we are sitting. According to her, we're saving a ton
Speaker 1: of money by making our own clothes detergent. You gotta
Speaker 1: share this kind of stuff with the world. That's what
Speaker 1: I'm doing. Let us know the recipe. Yeah, we'll post
Speaker 1: it or something. Yeah, we'll post it. I speaking of
Speaker 1: doing chores, Matt, we're not paying a robot to do
Speaker 1: your chores. How would you feel about that? You don't
Speaker 1: talking about the neo? Yeah, so this is one is
Speaker 1: interesting because it's insane. This is like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I'm not really necessarily interested in having a robot in
Speaker 1: my home, but I think it's probably going to become
Speaker 1: more common in the coming years, not just because of
Speaker 1: the price tag, right, twenty grand how much this robot
Speaker 1: cost her? I think you can pay like five or
Speaker 1: six hundred bucks a month to lease it. Crazy, yeah,
Speaker 1: But it's also the dystopian vibe vibes, like can't you
Speaker 1: imagine treating that robot telling you to do all the
Speaker 1: chores and then it just being like super pissed that
Speaker 1: you treated it like Cinderella choking you out in your
Speaker 1: sleep or something like that. That's the That's the image
Speaker 1: I have in my head. I'm not worried about it,
Speaker 1: but it's just it does feel so far removed that
Speaker 1: it just is dumb, yeah, you know, or the current abilities.
Speaker 1: The Wall Street Journal tech writer had spent a day
Speaker 1: with this robot and it couldn't do anything like it
Speaker 1: fumbled every task, so so stupid. This is I don't
Speaker 1: get it. It's ridiculous. I couldn't be any less interested
Speaker 1: in getting something like that, Like I couldn't. We did
Speaker 1: rumba like the little Robot vacuum and even that, and
Speaker 1: granted we had an older version of that thing, but
Speaker 1: even that struggled at times to do a very specific
Speaker 1: task that it was very much created to do. I've
Speaker 1: been hoping that the robot lawnmowers would get those Evidently
Speaker 1: are they okay, because it seems like that would save
Speaker 1: a ton of money in time, Like that seems like
Speaker 1: a great spot for a robot. But inside my house
Speaker 1: doing my dishes and like I don't know, tending to
Speaker 1: my children, just getting in the way, Like no, no, here,
Speaker 1: here's the problem. So yes, the fact that it costs
Speaker 1: so much money is ridiculous, but the whole equation needs
Speaker 1: to be reversed. They like, they need to pay me
Speaker 1: to be able to test drive this thing in my
Speaker 1: own because I feel like they are now currently in
Speaker 1: the game of acquiring and gathering data. This is why
Speaker 1: Tesla is so great, right, Not only were they able
Speaker 1: to create a successful EV company, but now they've got
Speaker 1: these driving robots essentially like all across the country gathering
Speaker 1: data for Tesla, and they use that data. I mean,
Speaker 1: think about the amount of video data and experience that
Speaker 1: they have in their servers and the ability to then
Speaker 1: iterate using that data on future products to be able
Speaker 1: to make them even more and more seamless. Like that
Speaker 1: is the model, not this clunky yeah robot that the
Speaker 1: user had asked to crack open a walnut and it
Speaker 1: couldn't do it or something like that. Yeah, Well, in
Speaker 1: early adopters always pay too much and get an inferior product.
Speaker 1: And if you just wait, if you wait a few
Speaker 1: years and you really want one of those robots to
Speaker 1: do your chores for you, I guarantee you it's going
Speaker 1: to cost a heck of a lot less money, and
Speaker 1: it's going to be so much better than it currently is.
Speaker 1: So maybe just don't not for the first gin totally
Speaker 1: agree Jo. Let's talk about averag and this is given
Speaker 1: the caveat that our show is of course ad supported,
Speaker 1: so you know, we'll discuss the story with that acknowledgment.
Speaker 1: But advertisements, ads, they're popping up in places that you
Speaker 1: wouldn't have found them in the past. How do you say, so, Ted,
Speaker 1: He writes a substack Joya, I believe is it? Joya?
Speaker 1: I always always see it's a weird ge I always
Speaker 1: want to say Geo because I always read his stuff,
Speaker 1: but I never hear his name being said. But all right,
Speaker 1: he's got one of the best substacks out there. He's
Speaker 1: really smart, really thoughtful. But he he wrote about this recently.
Speaker 1: Ads they're popping up on the screen of your car.
Speaker 1: This is on jeep specifically. There it's highlighting the extended warranty. Well,
Speaker 1: those warranties are thousands and thousands. They're so expensive they're
Speaker 1: hardly ever worth it. But also Samsung has these really
Speaker 1: expensive fridges now where ads are popping up there, so
Speaker 1: you're you're you know, you're dropping thirty five hundred dollars
Speaker 1: and then you've got it displaying ads. Yeah to you.
Speaker 1: You got a screen on your fridge because you thought
Speaker 1: it was cool, and now it's just serving you ads
Speaker 1: all the time. Yeah. Yeah, I think this is an
Speaker 1: argument for going low tech, writing things down on a
Speaker 1: sheet of paper maybe instead of having the I don't know,
Speaker 1: the day's agenda projected onto the front of your your
Speaker 1: fancy fridge. And this is no, this is not a
Speaker 1: knock against Samsung. I think they're a fantastic company. We've
Speaker 1: got a lot of Samsung products, but I will not
Speaker 1: be myself paying for that really fancy Samsung fridge. And
Speaker 1: I think the problem the rub is when you pay
Speaker 1: full price for something and it still comes with ads.
Speaker 1: I don't mind having the trade off, like the streaming services, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: you pay more for something so you don't have to
Speaker 1: see the ads, right, And this is like the yeah,
Speaker 1: and I love that the opposite. Hey, there's that trade
Speaker 1: off and you have to decide for yourself. It makes
Speaker 1: me think of you remember when we talked about Telly,
Speaker 1: which was this fifty five inch television with like ads
Speaker 1: at the bottom. I signed up where they never sent
Speaker 1: me one. I don't know what happened to the company
Speaker 1: at this point, but that I was willing. That's like
Speaker 1: an informed trade offf where you're like, you're giving me
Speaker 1: the TV for free, and yes, I'm subjecting myself to
Speaker 1: more ads because of it, but I didn't pay. I'd
Speaker 1: be really upset if I paid full price for a
Speaker 1: nice TV and then they start popping up ads while
Speaker 1: I'm not watching something like that would be incredibly frustrating.
Speaker 1: But if they're going to give me the TV for
Speaker 1: free and say, hey, ads are going to be on
Speaker 1: whenever you're not watching your show, I think I would
Speaker 1: be far more okay with that. That'd be kosher to me.
Speaker 1: You're making that informed decision, yeah right, yeah, And like
Speaker 1: we just end up paying with our attention so much
Speaker 1: of the time now when these endless ads are served
Speaker 1: our way. When it comes to social media, something estimates
Speaker 1: show that four and ten posts are now ads, which
Speaker 1: makes me question why we still use these services. Man. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: when you're thumbing through scrolling through Facebook or Instagram, yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe you see a little bit of like your friend's contents,
Speaker 1: but so much of its like influencers you don't actually
Speaker 1: care about, or it's ads that you are not thrilled
Speaker 1: to see something. It feels like half of the content
Speaker 1: isn't the content you actually came there for. I totally agree.
Speaker 1: And do you want to know a solution for that
Speaker 1: aside from just deleting completely? Oh? Man, I totally saw all.
Speaker 1: This is the kind of stuff that's fed to me.
Speaker 1: This guy created like this five pound phone case and
Speaker 1: it's basically like a weight that you stick your phone
Speaker 1: in and this makes it look like the giant Zach
Speaker 1: from the Save by the Bell phone essentially except for
Speaker 1: your iPhone. So that's one way you can do it.
Speaker 1: Another well, specifically on Instagrams, I've basically been off of
Speaker 1: it for a solid year, and I think I've been
Speaker 1: much happier because of that. But I've been on there
Speaker 1: recently helping Kate because she's watching some ceramic arts stuff
Speaker 1: on there, and we've been talking more about social media
Speaker 1: and I came across the same thing. I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, I'm scrolling through my feed. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I don't follow this person. Why is this showing up? Yeah,
Speaker 1: here's another ad, here's another sponsor post. You want to
Speaker 1: know the secret why this is gonna be great for
Speaker 1: everyone out there who is on Instagram. Go to the
Speaker 1: top of your app where it says Instagram. Right, it's
Speaker 1: like written in the script at the top middle of
Speaker 1: your screen. Tap it and it'll drop down and you
Speaker 1: can change it to your followers, like who it is
Speaker 1: that you are following, I'm sorry you're following, and it'll
Speaker 1: change the feed to just those actual folks, no ads,
Speaker 1: no suggested posts. Does this seem illegal? And like I
Speaker 1: even hasn't seem illegal. I just shocked. Why would that
Speaker 1: be there? Yeah, because no one touches that. I guess
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's crazy, like it's it's something like
Speaker 1: it's either your your start or favorite posts or people
Speaker 1: or something like that. But then it's literally just Also,
Speaker 1: one of the other options is following, so only the
Speaker 1: people that you're following don't serve ads. So I literally
Speaker 1: did this last night. That's why I was excited to
Speaker 1: share it because I was looking into it because I
Speaker 1: was getting so fed up with why I was I'm like,
Speaker 1: is there a way to see less of this other crap?
Speaker 1: And that's evidently a way that you can do it.
Speaker 1: Now that I've like spoken the system, spoken it into
Speaker 1: the universe, I'm afraid that it's going to be disappearing soon.
Speaker 1: But for all the how to Money listeners out there
Speaker 1: for the time being, try it out there you go,
Speaker 1: You're welcome. All right, Matt, that's gonna do it. For
Speaker 1: this episode of How Too Money Podcast, I think we
Speaker 1: should always refer to ourselves a we how too Money Podcast?
Speaker 1: Should we say our actual corporation name and how we
Speaker 1: file our taxes and in what state were incorporated? All right,
Speaker 1: but we hope you found this helpful. You can find
Speaker 1: links to some of the stories that we mentioned on
Speaker 1: this episode up on our website at howtomoney dot com.
Speaker 1: That's right, tons of other resources up there for you
Speaker 1: as well. But until next time, Buddy, best friends are
Speaker 1: best friends out? No ads, dude, that's crazy Boom. I
Speaker 1: just went through my whole feed from the past twenty
Speaker 1: four hours. It's amazing. It's not that bad. Then it
Speaker 1: is a workaround because you have to do a couple
Speaker 1: additional steps. But I'm guessing. I'm guessing that most people
Speaker 1: aren't taking those additional steps to avoid it, right, And
Speaker 1: I think there's going to be more widely known though
Speaker 1: I don't know. I've never heard anybody talk about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's amazing