Speaker 1: Welcome to Head of Money. I'm Joel, I'm Matt, and
Speaker 1: today we're talking short term rental SmackDown, negative nelli's, and
Speaker 1: donation dilemmas. That's right. Happy Friday to everyone out there.
Speaker 1: I feel like folks are starting to get back into
Speaker 1: the swing of things. Kids are back in school. Friday's
Speaker 1: mean something now, whereas like over the summer, Friday they
Speaker 1: don't mean anything. It's just another day of the summer.
Speaker 1: Is it called Friday? Can we call it? Oh? You
Speaker 1: know if you're speaking gift, But yeah, this says our
Speaker 1: Friday flights. And we're gonna cover the top stories, the
Speaker 1: ones that we think you need to be paying a
Speaker 1: little more attention to because they pertain to your personal finances.
Speaker 1: We're gonna get to the ones you mentioned, Joel, plus
Speaker 1: a bunch of others too, but good stuff for sure.
Speaker 1: You want to talk about your watch. If listeners, if
Speaker 1: you if you listen closely, if you listen a lot,
Speaker 1: you heard me mention that I kind of wanted to
Speaker 1: get one of the Garmin smart watches largely man, it
Speaker 1: doesn't have a touch screen, which I'm actually thrilled about.
Speaker 1: It's pretty smart, dude. I'll say, I dig the way
Speaker 1: that that looks, cause it's all black, and I like
Speaker 1: the black on black like it's well, you know, like
Speaker 1: the actual typography or the typeface. It's like a dark gray. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it looks it's got a good It reminds me of
Speaker 1: my bike, which is which is all it's like all
Speaker 1: blacked out. Yeah, it kind of got a minimalist vibe
Speaker 1: for sure. It's a good look. Yeah, So I like
Speaker 1: it. It's and I got it used. I will say I
Speaker 1: mentioned that I was looking for a discounted one right
Speaker 1: on Prime Day or something like that, and I didn't
Speaker 1: see anything pop up that really made me want to pounds,
Speaker 1: and so I said, you know what, why don't I
Speaker 1: Why don't look to see how much they go for used?
Speaker 1: And I looked on eBay and I was like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, not enough of a discount to make me
Speaker 1: want to jump on it. But then for I never
Speaker 1: really used this app, but I tried something called mrcary.
Speaker 1: Have you heard of that one? M So it's kind
Speaker 1: of like eBay but for fancy people, I guess is
Speaker 1: what they're saying. Yeah, but I got this watch for
Speaker 1: seventy bucks, dude, and normally. I think it's like a
Speaker 1: two hundred dollars watch. It's the regular and so that
Speaker 1: there are two generations. I got the I got the
Speaker 1: first generation because I don't really care. I didn't see
Speaker 1: enough differences between the first and second. Yeah, so I
Speaker 1: got the first gen seventy bucks ship to my door
Speaker 1: and it's been great. Man. And what's what's smart about it? Sure?
Speaker 1: Like people here smart watch. It's not a touch screen,
Speaker 1: so it doesn't it sounds of dumb? Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: Well that's actually what I wanted because I didn't want
Speaker 1: like and I turned off all the notifications from my phone.
Speaker 1: So people are then what does it really do? Well's
Speaker 1: just tracking my health statistics, right, I didn't know it
Speaker 1: actually linked to your phone too. Yeah, so I've got
Speaker 1: an app on the phone that I can check and
Speaker 1: I can see, like it can tell me how I slept,
Speaker 1: it can tell me how many steps I've taken. It
Speaker 1: can tell me, well my heart rate has been and
Speaker 1: high heart rate. It can track all my different kind
Speaker 1: of workouts and stuff. Like Joel enters middle age, he
Speaker 1: want to start tracking the metrics. Well, the cool thing
Speaker 1: is I was a part of what I like about
Speaker 1: it is it motivates me to do more on things
Speaker 1: that I want to be doing. But I I kind
Speaker 1: of like to challenge myself. And so I'm I and
Speaker 1: having this app that's tracking all my stuff and it's
Speaker 1: kind of same from a running standpoint, Yeah, from like
Speaker 1: a running from like a like how many active minutes
Speaker 1: are you spending each and every week? And this is
Speaker 1: tracking all that stuff and it makes more of like
Speaker 1: beat myself from the week before. You want to increase
Speaker 1: your numbers. Yeah, like I know on the Apple Watch,
Speaker 1: I don't have one, but like you close your circles, yeah,
Speaker 1: like in that how that works? Yeah, Emily's got one
Speaker 1: and that's how well. Okay, So I love you bring
Speaker 1: us up. I think it's great. I totally did something similar.
Speaker 1: So I used eBay though, and I was kind of
Speaker 1: in the market for a blazer. I don't have like
Speaker 1: a blazer like a sports code, and I found one
Speaker 1: that I liked and brand new. Dude, this thing was
Speaker 1: three hundred and ninety bucks. Wow, I'm like, that's a
Speaker 1: lot of stinking money. And so here's what's great though
Speaker 1: about getting something that you know you either want or
Speaker 1: even need, is that if you've got time on your side,
Speaker 1: you can take the time to shop around and in
Speaker 1: particular see if you can get it used. Because so
Speaker 1: with that in mind, I'm like, I don't need blazer
Speaker 1: like now today, next week, but maybe like in a
Speaker 1: couple of months. And so I on eBay and there
Speaker 1: was the exact one that I was thinking about buying
Speaker 1: and it wasn't even used. This is what's so killer, too,
Speaker 1: is that there's so many folks on there and they've
Speaker 1: got NWT new with tags. I love. I love saying
Speaker 1: that because this massive discount is all I know. That's
Speaker 1: I'm getting screaming massive discount. There's no yeah, wear and
Speaker 1: tear on this thing. They had it so three nights.
Speaker 1: This thing was listed for one twenty five. And I
Speaker 1: also love you can make an offer, make an offer,
Speaker 1: and so I made an offer at ninety bucks and
Speaker 1: they accepted it. Boom, you know, like because these folks
Speaker 1: they've got these items, like I guess if you do this,
Speaker 1: so that's like a more full time and you've got
Speaker 1: a bunch of inventory you just want to unload it.
Speaker 1: Yeah who And of course I instantly regretted and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, I should offer it even lower. But
Speaker 1: they've also they got the recommendation on there now too,
Speaker 1: where it's just like it's more likely to accept it
Speaker 1: if you make an offer around ninety three dollars. And
Speaker 1: so I was like, all right, I'll try ninety I
Speaker 1: did something so I love it. So the ability to
Speaker 1: have time on your side, man, yeah, you said eighty percent,
Speaker 1: dis like a massive discount. I saved three hundred bucks
Speaker 1: on something that is like virtually yeah, these are like
Speaker 1: good shopping tips, hopefully from both of us. But well,
Speaker 1: I think the other thing. I just jump all sorts
Speaker 1: of things too, not just like consumer goods, but like
Speaker 1: when it comes to housing, the ability to shop around
Speaker 1: and when you have time on your side, man, it's
Speaker 1: you come out ahead. But it's helpful to know that
Speaker 1: there are multiple different sites. Like I didn't. I wasn't
Speaker 1: even really aware of Macary. I guess I knew it existed,
Speaker 1: and I was like, well, i'll give I'll check that
Speaker 1: out and so but and I'm just, man, I really
Speaker 1: like the ways in which this watch is like influencing
Speaker 1: my behavior in a positive way. I'm not glued to
Speaker 1: the screen because it's not a touch screen. It's not
Speaker 1: doing a whole lot besides telling me the time super minimal. Oh,
Speaker 1: it kind of reminds me of eat ink. That's why
Speaker 1: I like it, because I love eat ink, like uh,
Speaker 1: kindle reading on the kindle, but the ability to have
Speaker 1: that on a watch. Yeah, kind of got that vibe.
Speaker 1: You knows, man, I might join you, might join you
Speaker 1: soon enough. Yeah, So just letting people know, like there
Speaker 1: are always way who you don't need the thing brand
Speaker 1: new necessarily and you might not need the newest version.
Speaker 1: And the more you shop around, the more you might save.
Speaker 1: And if you don't need it, I like that tip
Speaker 1: mat if you don't need it, immediately take some time,
Speaker 1: keep looking and make it off or went out to
Speaker 1: all the above to save a little bit when you're
Speaker 1: buying something. All right, let's get to our Friday flights,
Speaker 1: the different stories we came across, and we're gonna spend
Speaker 1: a minute here talking about Airbnb specifically, because yeah, short
Speaker 1: term rentals. They're having a moment and it's not a
Speaker 1: good moment for them. Some of the biggest cities in
Speaker 1: the US are trying to tamp down. They're trying to
Speaker 1: create more rules surrounding listings that appear on sites like
Speaker 1: Airbnb Wired. They call New York's crackdown the end of
Speaker 1: Airbnb in New York, New York City the big Apple.
Speaker 1: They already had some restrictions on the books, but now
Speaker 1: they're actually going to enforce them. They're gonna I guess
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of Ashville. The Ashville's had a more stringent
Speaker 1: regulation surrounding the airbnb's and how you have to be
Speaker 1: registered with the city. But now the only way to
Speaker 1: run an Airbnb in the city is if you are
Speaker 1: staying in the apartment with the folks who are running it.
Speaker 1: And that's for if it's a short term rental for
Speaker 1: like less than thirty days or something like that. But
Speaker 1: given the fact that a lot of folk want an
Speaker 1: apartment to themselves right, like they don't want to there's
Speaker 1: a lot of folks who aren't wanting to do the
Speaker 1: sleep on the couch thing or like it's a shared apartment,
Speaker 1: but you've got your own room. Kate and I like
Speaker 1: when we were younger, even and when we were traveling
Speaker 1: on shoe string budgets, that was never a consideration. I
Speaker 1: guess it's when you have a partner, right, when you
Speaker 1: have a significant other, because if it was me solo,
Speaker 1: I totally share a room. But when you've got somebody
Speaker 1: else with you, you went your privacy, like you're talking about stuff.
Speaker 1: And I think this is going to have a serious
Speaker 1: impact on Airbnb's in New York talking about stuff. So no,
Speaker 1: we did, Emily and I actually did that in Norway
Speaker 1: one time because the prices were so expensive, specifically in Bergen, Norway,
Speaker 1: where we and we said, oh my gosh, to stay
Speaker 1: in a house where somebody else there's somebody else there
Speaker 1: is going to save us so much money. It's worth
Speaker 1: the trade off for this one night in this one place, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: But most of the time, no, we want our own place. Yeah. Actually,
Speaker 1: I guess I take that back. I think about we
Speaker 1: rented a place when we went to Ireland, like ten
Speaker 1: was it ten years ago? Oh my gosh, remember that
Speaker 1: one BMB that one place. Yeah, okay, so then the
Speaker 1: people who run it are actually living, they're there, we're
Speaker 1: like playing with her kid. Yeah, so you can. Part
Speaker 1: of it depends on your mentality. Can be kind of quaint,
Speaker 1: nostalgic or what you're there for, or it can be creepy.
Speaker 1: If it's like a really small New York City apartment,
Speaker 1: and my mind immediately went to the creepy they're literally
Speaker 1: all brushing in your teeth at the same time, which
Speaker 1: is weird. But yeah, but it's not just New York City, Matt.
Speaker 1: The short term crackdown isn't just happening there. The La
Speaker 1: Times strote this week about Airbnb's being listed that haven't
Speaker 1: applied for an application with the city to list their property,
Speaker 1: so basically they're in violation of of local laws there.
Speaker 1: And so these laws in Los Angeles are are pretty
Speaker 1: stringent for short term rentals too, and a good number
Speaker 1: of folks are trying to get they're basically trying to
Speaker 1: skirt the rules to keep their rental business afloat there.
Speaker 1: They're not filing, they're just going ahead and listing their
Speaker 1: Airbnb on the site because I got that illegal Airbnb. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they don't want to jump through the hoops that it
Speaker 1: takes to get there, pay the city for the privilege
Speaker 1: of listing on the site. And so there are a
Speaker 1: few takeaways I would say from what's happening in this
Speaker 1: space right now. One, short term rentals can be lucrative.
Speaker 1: There are some people who are like really making my substantially,
Speaker 1: like they're supporting their lifestyle based on short term rentals too.
Speaker 1: That could change overnight thanks to new government restrictions. Makes
Speaker 1: you think. I have a buddy who has an airbnbn
Speaker 1: in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and his does quite well. He thought
Speaker 1: about buying another one, but guess what the city of
Speaker 1: Chattanooga said, We're putting a moratorium on any new short
Speaker 1: term rentals for the time being. And your grandfather and
Speaker 1: if you have one, but if you're like trying to
Speaker 1: launch one, sorry, you're out of luck. It's you can't
Speaker 1: do it now. And so basically, I think if you
Speaker 1: live in a place where short term rentals are allowed
Speaker 1: and you can make a sweet income stream, that it's great.
Speaker 1: It can be a great way to get into real estate.
Speaker 1: But have a backup plan, right, hope for the best,
Speaker 1: but at least have a plan in place for the
Speaker 1: worst potential outcome, because we're seeing people going through the
Speaker 1: worst potential outcome in certain places where you know the
Speaker 1: laws are being either finally enforced or being written to
Speaker 1: curb the amount of short term rentals that are available. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I think it pays to pay attention to some of
Speaker 1: the different industries that you're thinking about getting in to
Speaker 1: where there's a lot of government involvement where things could
Speaker 1: change either from a platform, right like from a private
Speaker 1: company like even Airbnb could say I don't know why
Speaker 1: they would do this, but they could say, all right,
Speaker 1: no more new airb Like we're just we're kind of
Speaker 1: capped out. We're just going to keep things where they are,
Speaker 1: whether it's being beholden too a specific platform. It's why
Speaker 1: we worn against that when it comes to even like
Speaker 1: with gig work, but then specifically with when it comes
Speaker 1: to different of the like different government agencies or just
Speaker 1: regulations that might come into play. Like it makes me
Speaker 1: think of the marijuana industry, right, like weed, and if
Speaker 1: you're going all in on that, okay, like you might
Speaker 1: see some outsized returns, but you are also exposing yourself
Speaker 1: to outsized risks because you just don't know where policy
Speaker 1: is going to go and what the rules are going
Speaker 1: to be in that industry. You might find that banks
Speaker 1: don't want to do businesses, right, but you never know
Speaker 1: growing operations stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. So one of
Speaker 1: the reasons for the airbnb crackdowns though, is because of
Speaker 1: the price of housing. Because of the increases that we've
Speaker 1: seen in rents. But the truth is short term rentals
Speaker 1: aren't the problem. That's it's just a result of the market.
Speaker 1: They're easy to pick on. It's easy to make it
Speaker 1: feel like these are the guys. So it wasn't for Airbnb.
Speaker 1: It's not Airbnb. It's the fact that, well, the market
Speaker 1: says that it's worth more if I can rent this
Speaker 1: out short term as opposed to a long term renter
Speaker 1: zoning loss, we think that they are more of the
Speaker 1: culprit when they don't allow for building more units, when
Speaker 1: they are preventing greater density, those are the real culprit
Speaker 1: in our opinion. Now, there was a great article in
Speaker 1: Insider about New Zealand's approach to zoning. They were basically
Speaker 1: facing a housing cost crisis, and they responded by relaxing
Speaker 1: medium density zoning restrictions and which obviously made it much
Speaker 1: easier to build duplexes and triplexes on what were originally
Speaker 1: single family lots. Yeah, and the result they're putting up
Speaker 1: highrises in single family neighborhoods. It's still reasonable. We're not
Speaker 1: like throwing getting rid of all the rules. But more
Speaker 1: supply came on the market. Because of this builders they
Speaker 1: were able to meet that need, that demand. More supply
Speaker 1: really does help the pricing problem, and the evidence points
Speaker 1: to the fact that rent and pricing growth slows down,
Speaker 1: so you know, it doesn't necessarily decrease, but it doesn't
Speaker 1: continue to skyrocket when more units are being built when
Speaker 1: there is more supply, and I guess theoretically it would
Speaker 1: decrease if enough units were built. There's a chance it
Speaker 1: could reverse course. Yeah, exactly. And we're not necessarily airbnb homers,
Speaker 1: although we think they're an interesting company that's really made
Speaker 1: hospitality across the United States. It's changed the face of it.
Speaker 1: But really, let's find the right problem and pinpoint that
Speaker 1: and attack that and zoning, not enough supply, those are
Speaker 1: the real problems that have led to the housing you know,
Speaker 1: housing cost increases that we've seen in all varieties and
Speaker 1: so yeah, but you still need to be aware if
Speaker 1: you're a want to be short term real estate investor
Speaker 1: of kind of these new laws. It's in vogue right
Speaker 1: now to kind of tamp down on this stuff. But mat,
Speaker 1: let's get to our next story. This one is about
Speaker 1: the negative Nellies out there. They're continuing to do their thing,
Speaker 1: as they always do. Negative nellies like to be negative,
Speaker 1: and so Kevin O'Leary of Shark Tank fing he was
Speaker 1: recently on a show and he started predicting. He's basically
Speaker 1: predicting chaos for the US economy in the coming days,
Speaker 1: in the coming months. He's particularly worried, he says, about
Speaker 1: small businesses, and he says that we have a crisis
Speaker 1: emerging because of Federal Reserve interest rate hikes. And I
Speaker 1: don't know, it just felt kind of like a chicken
Speaker 1: little sort of thing. This guy is falling hearing this
Speaker 1: from him. But Matt, from everything you and I read
Speaker 1: and see from almost every metric that we can track,
Speaker 1: inflation is coming down, unemployment is low, consumer spending is solid,
Speaker 1: and businesses have been able to raise prices when they
Speaker 1: need to because consumers still have money to spend. It
Speaker 1: seems like by every metric the economy is doing quite well.
Speaker 1: And like, could we enter a recession in the next
Speaker 1: twelve to eighteen months. Sure, yes, it's of course possible,
Speaker 1: especially since a recession happens on average every like five
Speaker 1: to six years in the United States. But I guess
Speaker 1: I'm just so tired of these guys getting the headlines
Speaker 1: that spook normal people, that cause people to be like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, is it really? Is it all? Is
Speaker 1: it all coming down? Like is it a house of
Speaker 1: cards this US economy or something like that. Should I
Speaker 1: move into cash or or better yet bitcoin because man
Speaker 1: or gold, I feel like those are the yeah, push
Speaker 1: people towards precious metals. So he cou it's the new
Speaker 1: digital rolls, that's where people go. But like, I just
Speaker 1: get frustrated. I get annoyed when I see people in
Speaker 1: positions like this. People like people and I don't know who,
Speaker 1: but I think there's a lot of people out there
Speaker 1: who trust guys like Kevin O'Leary and they believe that
Speaker 1: he is telling them the truth and what's in their
Speaker 1: best interest. I just don't know that's the case in
Speaker 1: the scenario. Well, yeah, and part of it might also
Speaker 1: be media as well, because I'm sure were you to
Speaker 1: actually talk to him, he would give maybe a slightly
Speaker 1: more nuanced version of that headline. But media companies, that's
Speaker 1: not what he's known for. Nuance. By the way, Well,
Speaker 1: he is looking up for smaller business talker, you know,
Speaker 1: which I appreciate, But like there's a lot of help
Speaker 1: that's certainly being given to a lot of the giant
Speaker 1: businesses out there, and he's specifically talking about how it
Speaker 1: seems like smaller businesses might be the ones getting getting
Speaker 1: crushed here in the future. But regardless though of who
Speaker 1: it is we're talking about or the advice that they're given,
Speaker 1: we think that the lesson here is to be careful
Speaker 1: who it is that you're listening to. Like, it makes
Speaker 1: me think of Robert Kiyosaki, the rich rich dad, poor
Speaker 1: dad guy. He has some decent personal finance advice, but
Speaker 1: he is even worse than Kevin O'Leary, Like he is
Speaker 1: constantly calling for the end of the US economy times
Speaker 1: a year on Twitter. He gives he sounds to death
Speaker 1: knell and people are like, except his care we go again,
Speaker 1: like that's literally what he's saying, and that's what he's
Speaker 1: known for as opposed like, I feel like maybe his Yeah,
Speaker 1: the more rich dad poor dad talks, the more I'm like, dude,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I'm might be getting tired out, bro
Speaker 1: sired of your message altogether. But bottom line, what I
Speaker 1: think the big thing that we I kind of hate
Speaker 1: that we're talking about this because we don't want to
Speaker 1: bring any more light and attention to this. But it's
Speaker 1: also important to cover this because we want to disarm
Speaker 1: any of these sublines. We want to put you at
Speaker 1: ease because if specifically COVID, if the aftermath, if our
Speaker 1: economy's ability to rebound has proven anything, it is that
Speaker 1: our country is resilient. As I'll get out, bad things
Speaker 1: are certainly going to happen. Yes, we might see a recession,
Speaker 1: who knows exactly when that's going to happen, but not
Speaker 1: everything is going to be perfectly peachy. But we're still
Speaker 1: living in one of the greatest countries at an incredible
Speaker 1: time in human history. You can certainly read those stories
Speaker 1: as much as you want, try not to let them sway.
Speaker 1: How it is that you are handling and spending and
Speaker 1: investing your money though, Yeah, and you know what negative.
Speaker 1: People are going to be negative, And there's a whole
Speaker 1: it just I think it sounds smarter for some reason
Speaker 1: to say things are going to hell in a hand
Speaker 1: basket or things are awful, because it is it's easier
Speaker 1: for humans to identify negative things in the world around
Speaker 1: us than it is to identify positives. I think that's
Speaker 1: a natural human tendency and bias like to see the
Speaker 1: perceived threats around us and to be aware. And there
Speaker 1: are always perceived threats to the economy. But the truth
Speaker 1: is also that we man the economy's done really well,
Speaker 1: like you said in the aftermath of COVID. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: so I mean it might be less about the negative
Speaker 1: versus the positive as opposed to the certainty, because I
Speaker 1: think when folks come in and they they're saying, like
Speaker 1: a certain you know by this quarter, or the certainty
Speaker 1: in which they proclaim things is I think what a
Speaker 1: lot of people latch onto you because people don't like uncertainty.
Speaker 1: I think more than anything else, they can they can
Speaker 1: handle things going poorly or things going going well for them,
Speaker 1: But it's the uncertainty that puts people in that weird
Speaker 1: state of limbo where they're not totally sure what to
Speaker 1: expect next. Yeah. And I think the guy some of
Speaker 1: the guys like Kevin O'Leary and Robert Kyosaki who speak
Speaker 1: with a ton of boldness. Yeah, yeah, it's like I
Speaker 1: know what's gonna happen, and here let me lay it
Speaker 1: out for you. That when they say it with such
Speaker 1: confidence I know. Yeah, that's I guess that's where the
Speaker 1: term con man comes from. So all right, let's move
Speaker 1: on though, let's talk about healthcare. Maybe I'll be I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be a Debbie Downer here for a second. But
Speaker 1: what with facts, not with bogus predictions. It's no secret
Speaker 1: that health insurance has become more expensive and a couple
Speaker 1: of major benefits. Consulting firms say that prices are going
Speaker 1: to arise six percent in twenty twenty four in the
Speaker 1: health care sector, which obviously sucks, right, but it's a
Speaker 1: good thing to be aware of because it's important to
Speaker 1: know that more of your paycheck might soon be going
Speaker 1: towards increased health insurance premiums, increased health insurance costs, and
Speaker 1: if you have health insurance through your employer, they might
Speaker 1: absorb some of that hit, but they also might not
Speaker 1: so and even if they do, by the way, that
Speaker 1: can mean more meager salary increases because instead of giving
Speaker 1: you a six percent raise, it's a four percent raise
Speaker 1: because more of what would have gone to your paycheck
Speaker 1: is going to pay for those increased health care expenses
Speaker 1: that the employer is participating in with you. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so quick explainer as to why this is happening. Basically,
Speaker 1: it's like a delayed reaction of the inflation that we've
Speaker 1: seen over the past couple of years. I thought they
Speaker 1: did a good job explaining it in this article, and
Speaker 1: we'll link to this story like we do all the
Speaker 1: stories that we mentioned during the Friday flight. But they
Speaker 1: were essentially talking like insurers and hospitals. They've got contracts,
Speaker 1: but those contracts don't come up for renewal every single year,
Speaker 1: and so the higher costs that the hospitals incurred like
Speaker 1: laffing shortages, right, Like think about all the money that
Speaker 1: nurses were getting paid. Those contracts are coming up for renewal,
Speaker 1: and so those costs are basically being reflected in the
Speaker 1: contracts that the insurers are able to negotiate with the hospitals,
Speaker 1: which are now beginning to renew and those costs are
Speaker 1: now then being passed along to consumers. Right. So it's
Speaker 1: like it's a domino effect, essentially delayed impact exactly exactly,
Speaker 1: and so it's something that I think we can expect
Speaker 1: to see across the board. But one of the things
Speaker 1: you can do is, as we are getting closer to
Speaker 1: open enrollment, consider raising, going with the plan that has
Speaker 1: a higher deductible. If you're younger, if you have a
Speaker 1: healthy family, if you rarely go and see the doctor,
Speaker 1: consider a high deductible healthcare plan, one that also, by
Speaker 1: the way, gets you access to an HSA added investing
Speaker 1: benefit that your self ensuring not by paying fewer premiums
Speaker 1: every single month, but instead be disciplined, take that money,
Speaker 1: stick it in your own high old savings account. That way,
Speaker 1: you've got the money money on hand to actually meet
Speaker 1: that deductible if and when you do need to visit
Speaker 1: the now. I think that's good advice. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people, Matt, they just assume, well, I want
Speaker 1: the top tier coverage, but you might not need the
Speaker 1: top tier coverage. You might be paying a whole lot
Speaker 1: extra for it, and so getting the higher deductible plan,
Speaker 1: really you can still go see the same doctors. It
Speaker 1: just means that you're self ensuring more. You've got to
Speaker 1: have a little bit more money in the bank to
Speaker 1: cover some of those healthcare costs, the healthcare expenses that
Speaker 1: you're hoping don't come to pass totally. Yeah, and you
Speaker 1: could also consider a health sharing plan like Joel. Like
Speaker 1: both of our families are on a health sharing plan.
Speaker 1: Traditionally they have like a religious component, but there are
Speaker 1: multiple companies now that do not have a faith element
Speaker 1: at all, like Sidera is a newer one that a
Speaker 1: lot of folks are checking out. But technically it is
Speaker 1: not actually insurance. It's not regulated. But if that's a
Speaker 1: way that you are interested in perhaps saving some money,
Speaker 1: we can link to an article on the show that's
Speaker 1: about meta share specifically, and we can link to some
Speaker 1: of the other ones as well. But Joel, we've got
Speaker 1: additional stories that we're gonna get to, including whether or
Speaker 1: not we're on the path to becoming a cashless society.
Speaker 1: Will get to that plus others right after this. All right,
Speaker 1: in just a second, we're going to talk about digital payments. Matt,
Speaker 1: I can't wait to pay with the chip that's embedded
Speaker 1: in my wrist. I just that's a real thing, you know,
Speaker 1: I know, Yeah, it's freaky. What is it? World market? No,
Speaker 1: I'm not world market. What's it called whole foods? Whole foods?
Speaker 1: What's world war market? That's like a furniture store. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: forget that. They don't do that there. But first we
Speaker 1: got to get to the ludacra's headline of the week.
Speaker 1: This one comes from the New York Times and it
Speaker 1: reads a seven hundred million dollar bonanza for the winners
Speaker 1: of crypto's collapse lawyers. Yes, at least someone is getting
Speaker 1: rich off cryptocurrency. I guess, Matt. That was my initial thought.
Speaker 1: My initial takeaway from reading that was like, well, most
Speaker 1: people got screwed, but I guess somebody is making out
Speaker 1: like a bandit. But the reality is, while millions of
Speaker 1: Americans have lost hundreds or thousands of dollars in dribs
Speaker 1: and drabs stocking money into different cryptocurrency investments, the folks
Speaker 1: making the real money are the legal class. It's lawyers,
Speaker 1: its accountants, and consultants. Those are the folks who have
Speaker 1: raked in massive amounts of money from firms like FTX
Speaker 1: right at the same time though they're regular folks lost
Speaker 1: at all. And so some of these lawyers met that
Speaker 1: command thousands of dollars an hour in fees, which you know,
Speaker 1: they probably went to prestigious schools that worked really hard
Speaker 1: to make a great income. I'm not hating on their
Speaker 1: ability to make money, but it kind of feels like
Speaker 1: a poke in the eye to normal folks who lost
Speaker 1: some of their savings right thanks to SBF and his
Speaker 1: Ponzi scheme and some of these other crypto firms that
Speaker 1: went busted where lawyers are coming in, they're leeching, they're
Speaker 1: leeching off, they're taking so much of the money that
Speaker 1: would otherwise go to some of the folks who did
Speaker 1: lose a bunch of their savings. Yeah, and of course
Speaker 1: the way that you could not be footing the bills
Speaker 1: for these expensive law firms is by having avoided cryptocurrencies altogether.
Speaker 1: But there's one law firm there working for Celsius, another
Speaker 1: failed one where they build one hundred thousand dollars to
Speaker 1: come up with like they're trying to determine whether or
Speaker 1: not they're going to bring up the case to potentially
Speaker 1: pursue a Celsius customer using creditor funds to go after
Speaker 1: that creditor basically, so they're using essentially her own money
Speaker 1: to decide whether or they're going to sumeer or not.
Speaker 1: And honestly, just crypto in general, it's a mess. But
Speaker 1: on that note, Bloomberg had an article about the downfall
Speaker 1: of NFTs. I don't know if you remember those jual
Speaker 1: non fungible tokens. Yeah, the old expensive JPEGs, right, exactly. Well,
Speaker 1: and it's not the JPEG that you own. What you
Speaker 1: own is the fact that you bought the jpeg. Basically,
Speaker 1: you owned the receipts, a certificate of authenticity that accompanies
Speaker 1: the JPEG that makes it worth two hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. So everyone's sort of autopsies, right, and they
Speaker 1: exist for a reason, and that's to figure out the
Speaker 1: cause of death. Well, basically that's where we are when
Speaker 1: it comes to NFTs. The hype of non fungible tokens
Speaker 1: has faded, and so have any of thequote unquote investments
Speaker 1: that folks have made within the space that FOMO was
Speaker 1: in full gear. And it turned out that January of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two was the top, of course, and so
Speaker 1: those who were speculating in the NFT space they got
Speaker 1: host and that includes not just normal folks, but like
Speaker 1: billionaires out there as well, who launched NFT platforms and projects,
Speaker 1: celebrities out there. It's not often that we see hype
Speaker 1: and we see the mania get to the degree that
Speaker 1: NFT's reached. But I think it's certainly again a good
Speaker 1: reminder that boring is better. Stick with tried and true
Speaker 1: investments and you can avoid getting burned altogether when it
Speaker 1: comes to your board eight plunging in value, or if
Speaker 1: you even just hate the fact that more of your
Speaker 1: investment dollars the lawsuit and the potential payout that you
Speaker 1: might receive as a customer of somebody like Celsius or
Speaker 1: FTX is going to pay the bills of expensive attorney. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and typically we read about manias and bubbles in textbooks,
Speaker 1: and so it's just really interesting to have kind of
Speaker 1: lived through one, seen the rise in the fall, the swell,
Speaker 1: and then the bust of of that space and uh yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's funny because I haven't even really heard the
Speaker 1: term NFT recently. Nobody cares, nobody cares anymore. And yet
Speaker 1: it was like the hot new thing on the block
Speaker 1: there for a minute. And so people have to be careful.
Speaker 1: There's we're going to see another one at some point,
Speaker 1: a hot new thing on the block, and yeah, it'll
Speaker 1: just be something different. Yeah. Yes, it's not the fact
Speaker 1: that NFTs are no longer no longer cool. It's the
Speaker 1: fact that or that they carry any cachet or anything.
Speaker 1: It's the fact that there will be something else that
Speaker 1: carries that same weight. Yes, and just we're just preemptively
Speaker 1: putting that on your radar. Just store that one away
Speaker 1: because if your cause your hackles come up, if you
Speaker 1: raise your antenna as being like, wait a second, this
Speaker 1: feels like something in the past that I experienced, and
Speaker 1: I can't predict or tell you what it's gonna be,
Speaker 1: but something else will come along. It's similar, even though
Speaker 1: it's gonna it's gonna like look different in name and
Speaker 1: in style, but it's gonna have a lot of the
Speaker 1: same underlying elements might smell the same, right, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: All right, let's talk about cash for a second, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: the actual physical cash. Then it turns out fewer folks
Speaker 1: are are even using. According to Pew Research, forty percent
Speaker 1: of Americans actually didn't use any cash last year, which
Speaker 1: is a shockingly high number. It's man, it's more than
Speaker 1: I was expecting. Yeah, like literally almost half the country
Speaker 1: because I used cash last year. I just did it
Speaker 1: really really sparingly, right, very infrequently. And digital digital wallet's
Speaker 1: Apple Pay, Google Pay, they've become more commonplace, and apps
Speaker 1: like Venmo cash app for you know, splitting checks and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. And it used to be I think
Speaker 1: just the younger generation partaking in some of those things,
Speaker 1: but now it feels like, you know, Gen X baby boomers. Oh,
Speaker 1: they've gotten all in on it too. Literally, this past weekend,
Speaker 1: my mother in law was like, hey, help me out
Speaker 1: with Venmo. Yeah. I literally set her up on Venmo
Speaker 1: because she's she buys stuff used that's how you do it.
Speaker 1: That's right off of like Facebook, and she's like, everyone's
Speaker 1: asking for Venmo. I gotta get I gotta get on
Speaker 1: this stuff. People want to take payment, yeah I know, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: well okay. And then actual retailers and restaurants they've been
Speaker 1: moving in that direction as well. Taco Bell has said
Speaker 1: that they want to go completely casius at all of
Speaker 1: their restaurants, and so it's interesting to see and I
Speaker 1: think in many ways, the transition to digital makes a
Speaker 1: whole lot of sense, right, But I think also while
Speaker 1: I get businesses wanting to streamline things, not accepting physical
Speaker 1: US dollars seems kind of silly too, like you're limiting
Speaker 1: your customers, especially a place like Taco Bell. Like I
Speaker 1: guess I'm old school and I just think people should
Speaker 1: still have the right the ability to use cash if
Speaker 1: that's their preference, I think they'll still have the ability,
Speaker 1: but just okay. So, like one of the biggest downsides
Speaker 1: I think to there being less cash or us even
Speaker 1: potentially moving and more in that direction is when it
Speaker 1: comes to teaching kids about money. Because we've talked about this,
Speaker 1: maybe it's been a while actually, so maybe folks probably
Speaker 1: don't even remember or I don't know, maybe yeah, you
Speaker 1: forgot or something, but like they hang on your every word.
Speaker 1: So I for a while there, we went totally digital
Speaker 1: and we're paying our kids for the different jobs they
Speaker 1: are doing via a digital digital app, like even the
Speaker 1: interests they were earning by quote unquote investing it. I
Speaker 1: was paying it that way, but I don't think it
Speaker 1: was very successful. It kind of fell flat. This also
Speaker 1: makes me have you ever of Singapore? You've heard of it? Right,
Speaker 1: it's a curriculum. It's just a way of teaching math.
Speaker 1: But like the tenets of it are when you are
Speaker 1: teaching kids math, like they can be a difficult theoretical
Speaker 1: thing to understand and grasp, and so what you do
Speaker 1: you start with concrete ways of teaching kids, So like
Speaker 1: literal blocks on their desk, and you count them, and
Speaker 1: you subtract them, and you add them together. You move
Speaker 1: from that to the pictures, so basically a visual representation
Speaker 1: of that on paper, and then from there you're able
Speaker 1: to move more to the abstract and kids are able
Speaker 1: to understand the concepts building blocks and to fully understand
Speaker 1: what it does that they're doing. Yeah, you take these
Speaker 1: baby steps and you incrementally have a better understanding of
Speaker 1: what it is. I do wonder if kids in particular
Speaker 1: are never taught about money in the tangible, like where
Speaker 1: they're actually holding it and that they hand it over
Speaker 1: when they pay for something, that they're truly missing out
Speaker 1: potentially on what it is that money can actually do
Speaker 1: or the true value of money. And so hopefully there
Speaker 1: will always at least be a little bit of money
Speaker 1: on hand for us to teach our kids. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: of course that kind of comes down to us as parents. Well,
Speaker 1: some people want to use cash for privacy reasons, which
Speaker 1: I totally get to. Yep, So it's totally get it.
Speaker 1: I don't want not even just the government like visa
Speaker 1: investor regard doing everything I do. That's right, Okay, But
Speaker 1: so all signs do point though to the fact that
Speaker 1: we are moving towards like a cashless society, whether you
Speaker 1: like it or not. And so I think that it
Speaker 1: comes down to us again as individuals, to then determine
Speaker 1: how best, for instance, to monitor our spending right, because
Speaker 1: you may not like the fact that the rules of
Speaker 1: the game are changing, but how can you add best
Speaker 1: adapt to those changing rules. And so before when you're
Speaker 1: talking about physical cash, like you were like literally physically
Speaker 1: limited on how much you could spend because you ran
Speaker 1: out of cashers, I'm sure there's still folks who do
Speaker 1: the envelope system. But using technology to then place digital
Speaker 1: constraints on your spending, I think those are the next steps.
Speaker 1: And I think it would be prudent and wise to
Speaker 1: start finding ways to harness this technology to control and
Speaker 1: to govern yourself right, to provide that discipline. And so
Speaker 1: I think what that means is that but the very least,
Speaker 1: just monitoring your spending via a free app like mint,
Speaker 1: we talk about that all the time, or even considering
Speaker 1: paying for a service like y nab where it's got
Speaker 1: a little it's more sophisticated with the ability for you
Speaker 1: to plan out you're spending and when it comes to budgeting,
Speaker 1: But don't totally stick your head in the sand and say, well,
Speaker 1: even though things are going more digital, I'm not necessarily
Speaker 1: going to change my ways when it comes to the
Speaker 1: like the best practices for me to be able to
Speaker 1: optimize my money. No, Like, let's move along with the
Speaker 1: I'm looking at your watch. It makes me think about
Speaker 1: your watch, Like maybe before somebody would have a running
Speaker 1: partner or like sign up for a race or something
Speaker 1: like that. But and those are great, certainly accountability and
Speaker 1: it's fun to run a race or whatever, but like
Speaker 1: there's also other ways where you can take advantage of
Speaker 1: technology and charts and seeing your numbers. I think the
Speaker 1: ability to make the best of technology is the best
Speaker 1: path forward. Yeah personally, Yeah, well I think it's a
Speaker 1: good point though, is using the best of technology because
Speaker 1: there's sometimes technology and not letting it use you Yah,
Speaker 1: taking campus right, and we can we can be the
Speaker 1: bill of goods that's being sold as opposed to using
Speaker 1: technology in a way that helps us without allowing it
Speaker 1: to harm us. And so I think you're right, like
Speaker 1: digital minimalism, right, that concept of using enough technology to
Speaker 1: get the things you need to get done or you
Speaker 1: want to get done done, and then being able to
Speaker 1: put it aside. And so I think something like wine
Speaker 1: app is a perfect use case of like good technology
Speaker 1: that helps us and something like this watch too, where
Speaker 1: it's not distracting me, but it's giving me what I need.
Speaker 1: Love it all. Right, Let's let's get to talk about
Speaker 1: charity map for a second, because speaking of like digital
Speaker 1: payments when we're when we're out shopping or something like that,
Speaker 1: if you were to ask pull our listener base, I
Speaker 1: would imagine most people have gotten asked to donate money
Speaker 1: at some point while they've been checking out. Right, while
Speaker 1: they've been at the checkout. You're not just talking about tip.
Speaker 1: You're not talking about donating money as as the person
Speaker 1: who just made your Oh no, which you should do.
Speaker 1: You should tip the person right who's serving you. But
Speaker 1: you're literally asked to donate to a to a nonprofit,
Speaker 1: to a cause that the grocery store or retailer supports.
Speaker 1: It feels like it's happening all the time now. And
Speaker 1: this new study that we're being asked to make charitable
Speaker 1: contributions at the point of purchase more than ever. So
Speaker 1: it's not just like in our minds, like it's really happening.
Speaker 1: And the thing is people are participating. Shopper donations at
Speaker 1: checkout have gone up something like twenty four percent since
Speaker 1: twenty twenty. But people are apparently getting tired of being asked.
Speaker 1: I know, I am. It's understandable, right. Not everyone feels
Speaker 1: like this, but I would say a decent chunk of
Speaker 1: folks feel kind of browbeaten into rounding up the purchase
Speaker 1: price or it's donating five or ten bucks for that
Speaker 1: retailer's pet cause. My take, and not everyone has to
Speaker 1: agree with me, but my take is to always say no,
Speaker 1: not because you hate the cause, or because you don't
Speaker 1: care about others, or because you're not planning to be generous,
Speaker 1: but I would say people should rather proactively choose where
Speaker 1: they want their money to go instead of being guilt
Speaker 1: tripped into that donation in a spur of the moment transaction.
Speaker 1: It allows you to have more control over where your
Speaker 1: money goes. You can still be you can be more
Speaker 1: generous even in fact by saying no, and but by
Speaker 1: funneling your dollars into the nonprofits that you can about.
Speaker 1: It's just it's just interesting to see that we're being
Speaker 1: like asked for donations more and more and more, And
Speaker 1: I think a lot of times people people just feel like,
Speaker 1: I feel like it's the right thing to do, so
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do it, even if your their heart's not
Speaker 1: in it, let's say, guilt tripped into doing it. So
Speaker 1: I like what you're saying, but I would say the
Speaker 1: only like, the only caveat is that I would say,
Speaker 1: continue to give, maybe because like maybe you aren't giving
Speaker 1: at all. And I would say, use that desire to
Speaker 1: not necessarily give to these organizations that you're the most
Speaker 1: crazy about as fuel for the fire for you to
Speaker 1: find the charities that you do care about, because I
Speaker 1: think the temptation, like the reason these prompts exist is
Speaker 1: because people don't give. They like, there's just a lack
Speaker 1: of an ability for us to be proactive and to
Speaker 1: go out there. I don't think it's because people don't give.
Speaker 1: I think Emerson, actually, when you look at numbers, were
Speaker 1: actually really generous, more generous than most cultures. I guess
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about the fact that I think there's a
Speaker 1: lot of folks who might hear what you're saying and
Speaker 1: take that as permission to be like, yeah, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to give anymore, but then they don't go out
Speaker 1: there and actually do their research. And that's not what
Speaker 1: I said. I think, Oh I no, no, I totally yeah,
Speaker 1: it's definitely not what you said. But I'm just pointing
Speaker 1: out the behavioral tendency to not necessarily want to give
Speaker 1: our money away because marketing works, right, Like, that's why
Speaker 1: these different efforts are out there, is because if you're
Speaker 1: able to get in front of somebody and to remind them,
Speaker 1: you're like, okay, yeah, I'll go ahead and do that.
Speaker 1: But if you're relying on yourself to do it at
Speaker 1: a later time, you just have to make sure that
Speaker 1: you actually do that, you know. And I think I
Speaker 1: just think that when you're asked to donate five bucks
Speaker 1: to check out, the lazy person's way out is to
Speaker 1: be like, okay, and then wait, look I've done my
Speaker 1: good thing. Sure, And but the truth is you don't know.
Speaker 1: And I'm not even saying that the money that they're
Speaker 1: asking for isn't going to those nonprofits. It is like
Speaker 1: everything I can I've read, it sounds like the money
Speaker 1: is going to those nonprofits that they say it's going to.
Speaker 1: So It's not like I'm even worried about fraud or
Speaker 1: anything like that. It's just that, man, what nonprofit man
Speaker 1: you want to see succeeds? Exactly. It may not be
Speaker 1: your first choice. Yeah, And even still, is that nonprofit
Speaker 1: that you're giving money to, how well are they using
Speaker 1: the funds? Those are things you can look up and
Speaker 1: see so that you can proactively funnel money towards nonprofits
Speaker 1: you care about that are being really effective exactly. And
Speaker 1: we truly do feel that it's important to give your money,
Speaker 1: and so we want people to be proactive and to
Speaker 1: take these steps to do this. It's just that I
Speaker 1: get the argument of marketers because they're like, well, nobody
Speaker 1: wants to who truly wants to give their money away?
Speaker 1: We recommend for you to do this, for folks out
Speaker 1: there to do this all the time, and specifically, you
Speaker 1: can research some of the different organizations at a site
Speaker 1: like give dot org or Charity Navigator. They both do
Speaker 1: a great job at giving you just a peek behind
Speaker 1: the curtain, but do some research and then send a
Speaker 1: one time gift or just make a recurring monthly donation
Speaker 1: as opposed to again feeling kind of guilt tripped into
Speaker 1: being like, all right, I'll go ahead do the five bucks.
Speaker 1: You could even start a donor advised fund to invest
Speaker 1: money for future giving purposes too, if you're not quite
Speaker 1: sure where it is that you want to funnel those
Speaker 1: giving dollars now. But again it comes down to whether
Speaker 1: or not you're actually to do that thing. But hopefully
Speaker 1: you are hearing us talk about this. This is the
Speaker 1: kind of the kick in the pants for you to say,
Speaker 1: all right, let me actually do that. How much am
Speaker 1: I actually giving away of my money? Because it feels
Speaker 1: like I'm getting I'm giving away a bunch because I'm
Speaker 1: prompted often, But as a percentage of your income, maybe
Speaker 1: it's like, I don't know, like zero point zero five
Speaker 1: percent of your actual income. And you're probably thinking, but
Speaker 1: that feels more like five percent of my actual income.
Speaker 1: But it's because it's not something that you're proactively looking at.
Speaker 1: And we want folks to be more engaged with the
Speaker 1: money that they're giving away. Yeah, we'd rather see you
Speaker 1: feel connected to the giving that you're doing, a connection
Speaker 1: sort of disconnected in the moment. Guilt trip like that's
Speaker 1: not that doesn't make you feel good about the giving
Speaker 1: that you're doing either, right, it's kind of crummy, it's
Speaker 1: not ideal. So instead, if you're the one who's practically
Speaker 1: looking for and saying, you know what I care about,
Speaker 1: I care about the local shelter that's rescuing animals in
Speaker 1: my area, Like that's something I can feel connected to
Speaker 1: in proactively giving your money in that direction, go for it.
Speaker 1: That's great. Love it. But just because somebody's raising money
Speaker 1: and they put it in front of your face, it
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that's the thing you should give money to
Speaker 1: that exactly. Yeah, all right, well is that gonna be it?
Speaker 1: That's it? All right, that's it for our Friday flights.
Speaker 1: You can find resources some of the different things we
Speaker 1: mentioned during this episode up in our show notes up
Speaker 1: on the website at howdomoney dot com. And we hope
Speaker 1: everyone ether has a beautiful weekend. So buddy, that's going
Speaker 1: to be it until next time. Best Friends Out, Best
Speaker 1: Friends Out.