Speaker 1: Welcome to Head of Money. I'm Joel and I am Matt,
Speaker 1: and today we're talking degree downsides, credit bureau blunders, and
Speaker 1: fluctuating fast food. You know what, buddy, this is our
Speaker 1: Friday flight.
Speaker 2: We're gonna share a sampling of the top personal finance
Speaker 2: stories that we think you need to be paying attention from,
Speaker 2: not just this past week, the past two weeks.
Speaker 1: We were able to take a little bit of time
Speaker 1: off there at the end of last.
Speaker 2: Week, which means we weren't able to get around to
Speaker 2: sharing some of the newsletter referral shout outs. Yeah, we
Speaker 2: recently lowered some of some of the bars, the threshold
Speaker 2: that was required in order to receive some of the
Speaker 2: different rewards that are available.
Speaker 1: To much literally cash money sent to you Vivenmo for real,
Speaker 1: no scam. It's a beer on us, a beer on us.
Speaker 1: And then the covetedt had the money. Socks those are
Speaker 1: that's what people really want. It only takes twenty referrals.
Speaker 1: Did we have it at like thirty thirty five? It
Speaker 1: was too high of a bar to achieve.
Speaker 2: And you know what, We've got a whole box of
Speaker 2: these socks sitting there wrapped in They're soft, fancy, little
Speaker 2: plastic and we want to get some of those out
Speaker 2: to folks we haven't even gotten well, I think there's
Speaker 2: a couple folks who have gotten pretty close to this.
Speaker 2: But a virtual beer hang I'm looking forward to the
Speaker 2: first one. We do pretty sure Brendan is gonna be
Speaker 2: the first time to get there.
Speaker 1: He's so close. Someone's gonna get there at some point. Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: to hang out with you for a little.
Speaker 2: Bit and have a beer exactly a little zoom beer,
Speaker 2: you know, like sort of like it was like back
Speaker 2: in the pandemic days.
Speaker 1: It was like a virtual happy hour. Unless you actually
Speaker 1: want to fly in here, we'll do in person.
Speaker 2: I guess, hey, if you do that, beers are definitely
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Speaker 1: slash newsletter. But Matt, let's move on. Let's get to
Speaker 1: the Friday flight. Let's get to the stories, the sampling
Speaker 1: of stories we found interesting this week in the personal
Speaker 1: finance space. And like you said, we were out of
Speaker 1: town last week. We didn't have a chance to comment
Speaker 1: on what was kind of a big story in the
Speaker 1: financial space, like in like the stodgy financial space, the
Speaker 1: banking space, the Capital One, the big bank space, takeover
Speaker 1: of Discover, that potential merger. Right, And you might think, actually,
Speaker 1: when we talk about our favorite online banks, Discover and
Speaker 1: Capital One both come up. Yeah, we like them both.
Speaker 1: They're both too, they're two of the best online banks
Speaker 1: you can choose. And so two of our favorite online
Speaker 1: banks coming together. This is a love story, a match
Speaker 1: made in heaven. Right, We're we're super enthusiastic about this
Speaker 1: maybe maybe not though, So there's a few things to
Speaker 1: really talk about here. One is going to reduce competition
Speaker 1: in the banking sector, right Economics one oh one tells
Speaker 1: us that reduce competition isn't great for consumers. And the
Speaker 1: bigger banks seem to come with smaller brains, kind of
Speaker 1: like dinosaurs, Matt, you know, the biggest dinosaurs, the bigger.
Speaker 1: It's true. We talked about like the big three or
Speaker 1: four banks that they have a massive percentage of deposits
Speaker 1: in this country, and they are tree consumers the worst.
Speaker 1: It's the smaller, medium sized banks that do a lot
Speaker 1: better by their customers. And so, yeah, I don't love
Speaker 1: reducing competition and taking two great banks and maybe making
Speaker 1: it into one mediocre bank. So yeah, at least on
Speaker 1: the consumer banking side, this probably isn't a great thing
Speaker 1: for the American public. But there's even more of the
Speaker 1: deal than that, I will.
Speaker 2: Say, though, Capital One they did pinky promise to maintain
Speaker 2: the Discover credit cards, so at least from a credit
Speaker 2: if you're a huge fan of your what is it
Speaker 2: the discover it card or literally I think Discover was
Speaker 2: my first credit card when I was a teenager. This
Speaker 2: is back when you could get your own credit card
Speaker 2: as a don't even have to be eighteen years old.
Speaker 1: Well, Discovery is actually the only We've talked about this before.
Speaker 1: They're the only bank that has a cash back debit card.
Speaker 1: Usually you don't get paid anything spending with your debit card,
Speaker 1: but True Discovers the only one that makes that possible.
Speaker 2: But then the other side of the coin is that
Speaker 2: the merger could actually create more competition on the credit
Speaker 2: card payments front, posing a potential threat to the duopoly
Speaker 2: of Visa and Master.
Speaker 1: Can I want to explain maybe what a duopoly is.
Speaker 1: Everyone knows what monopoly. Duopoly to competing against each other,
Speaker 1: Matt doesn't have the same impact of driving down prices.
Speaker 2: Well, just the fact that they can go into cahoots
Speaker 2: and basically agree without agreeing. Yeah, it's a week week,
Speaker 2: not situation. So what it is they're going to charge folks?
Speaker 2: And these banks make a ton of money on the
Speaker 2: transaction fees that they charge different small businesses.
Speaker 1: And that is large. It contributes to a greater expense.
Speaker 2: For everyone, especially yeah, especially for We heard a lot
Speaker 2: about this when it came to restaurants, which is why
Speaker 2: so many small businesses, especially restaurants, are charging much less
Speaker 2: if you skip credit cards altogether, and this could potentially
Speaker 2: result in lower swipe fees faced by businesses, which would
Speaker 2: end up helping us consumers. So it's tough to know
Speaker 2: which way the cookie is going to crumble. It makes
Speaker 2: the domino effect of this deal harder to decipher and
Speaker 2: to sort of look into the tea leaves and figure
Speaker 2: out what's actually going to happen.
Speaker 1: We don't know.
Speaker 2: But plus, there's a solid chance that this deal doesn't
Speaker 2: even actually come to fruition because of the political.
Speaker 1: Climate right now. It's not all that open to big
Speaker 1: deals like this happening, to these deals taking place in
Speaker 1: the first place.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we wanted to cover it because they're two
Speaker 2: huge names. They're companies that we both do business with,
Speaker 2: companies that we even recommend. But we'll see if this
Speaker 2: actually comes to fruition.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is interesting that the political climate might not
Speaker 1: favor this deal going through it. And it's also kind
Speaker 1: of fascinating that in one sense they might be less
Speaker 1: competition in the retail banking space, but in the other sense,
Speaker 1: in the payment processing space, there could be more petition.
Speaker 1: So is it a win for zoomers, is it not.
Speaker 1: That's like the regulars are going to weigh in on that,
Speaker 1: But I think it could be a bit of both,
Speaker 1: which makes us a tough one to figure out exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: All right, man, let's talk about careers and college for
Speaker 1: a second. A new study of more than ten million people,
Speaker 1: so it's really throwing not like a thousand people it
Speaker 1: questioned on just a quick phone call. It found that
Speaker 1: roughly fifty percent of college graduates end up in a
Speaker 1: job that didn't require the degree that they worked really
Speaker 1: hard to get. And I feel like this reveals a lot.
Speaker 1: You know, one of the most important things that reveals
Speaker 1: is just how important your first job is. Right, it
Speaker 1: doesn't have to pay a bundle, but if it's outside
Speaker 1: of your intended career path, it could have long lasting
Speaker 1: effects on where you end up. This piece in the
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal talking about this new study revealed a
Speaker 1: lot of individuals who were like, Oh, I took the
Speaker 1: first job because I couldn't find something in my career,
Speaker 1: and then it just I just kind of ended up
Speaker 1: staying in that place, or it took me off of
Speaker 1: that career path I was hoping to get on. This
Speaker 1: reduces pay and job satisfaction for a whole lot of
Speaker 1: folks too. And I would say this, like, the biggest
Speaker 1: finding from the study that I found most asking is
Speaker 1: it to help ensure that you end up working in
Speaker 1: your chosen field. The biggest way to do that is
Speaker 1: to get an internship, even if that internship I love internships. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like this is like we say great things about internships
Speaker 1: all the time, even and I know some people really
Speaker 1: hate the idea of an unpaid internship. And I would
Speaker 1: say go for the unpaid internship even too, because that
Speaker 1: is actually what's going to lead to the connections, the
Speaker 1: job history. It's essentially as the pathway the connection and
Speaker 1: the experience you may need to get in the front door. Matt.
Speaker 1: I had an internship in a completely unpaid internship for
Speaker 1: months when I was a senior in college. But it
Speaker 1: led to me being in getting the kind of job
Speaker 1: that I wanted to get, and so I had that
Speaker 1: first right job. Even if it's starting on the bottom
Speaker 1: of the tone pole, it's crucial to future decades of
Speaker 1: success for so many people. I think these are kind
Speaker 1: of sobering statistics about how a lot of people getting
Speaker 1: a college degree don't end up using that college degree,
Speaker 1: but I think there are ways not to be on
Speaker 1: the downside of the statistic.
Speaker 2: Sure, sure, yeah, I guess The one thing I didn't
Speaker 2: like about the article is that they seem to focus
Speaker 2: on a few specific anecdotes about folks who got stuck
Speaker 2: in a job, like the first job that they took
Speaker 2: out of college, basically because I think that there is
Speaker 2: totally a way to get out of a job that
Speaker 2: you find yourself in and you're just kind of like, eh,
Speaker 2: not really loving this or actually this, I am not
Speaker 2: using my degree.
Speaker 1: You're less stuck than you think you are.
Speaker 2: You are like, we have more control as individuals than
Speaker 2: I think folks give themselves credit for.
Speaker 1: And it's going to take a.
Speaker 2: Little bit of like creativity, it's going to take a
Speaker 2: little bit of initiative. It's going to take looking at
Speaker 2: problems differently. That's the kind of person that you're going
Speaker 2: to hire, even though they don't have the experience, even
Speaker 2: though their first job was, oh, what's this thing that
Speaker 2: you were in Walgreens pharmacy? No, No, I was actually
Speaker 2: just like working the register.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think that's totally fine, but it might just take
Speaker 2: a little bit of legwork. You can't just you. You
Speaker 2: can't just like follow everyone else. And like speaking to
Speaker 2: the fact of whether or not you're going to get
Speaker 2: land a great job straight out of college, I think
Speaker 2: that's another huge takeaway other than like the first job
Speaker 2: is thinking through that and it's just identifying and knowing
Speaker 2: that just because you go to college and get a degree,
Speaker 2: get good grades, more knowledge, that doesn't necessarily mean you're
Speaker 2: going to land that amazingly paying job in the industry
Speaker 2: that you want. Like it's just the standard default option.
Speaker 2: It's not like this conveyor belt. It's not like a
Speaker 2: like a moving sidewalk out of airport and it's just
Speaker 2: gonna boo spit you out where you want to be
Speaker 2: perfectly and all magically. Like, there are different things that
Speaker 2: you have to do to stand out, And like you said,
Speaker 2: I think internships are a huge way to do that,
Speaker 2: and it's great for multiple reasons because it helps you
Speaker 2: to get a taste, like a sampling of the work
Speaker 2: that you might be doing. So for you as an individual,
Speaker 2: you're like, oh, well, maybe I didn't like that work. Well,
Speaker 2: what better way to get a feel for that than
Speaker 2: actually having gotten multiple years of schooling paying for a degree,
Speaker 2: and then you're kind of like, well, shoot, I don't
Speaker 2: want to do this anymore. Yeah, like the sooner the better.
Speaker 1: Just to figure that out, that the advanced degree is
Speaker 1: gonna equate to more money, and that's not always a case.
Speaker 1: You need to look into that on the front end.
Speaker 1: I've known multiple people who go through and get like
Speaker 1: at their master's degree and then oh, wait, a say,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I'm not getting paid much more for this.
Speaker 1: I thought I thought was going to result in like
Speaker 1: significant income increases. Maybe maybe not right.
Speaker 2: And that's one of the things you can learn with
Speaker 2: an INTERNI as you're there around other folks who are
Speaker 2: in the industry and you're like, oh, it might take
Speaker 2: a little bit to get up to this conversational point
Speaker 2: to say, hell, how much are you making? But I
Speaker 2: love that it allows students college hopefully soon to be
Speaker 2: college grads, the ability to get a taste of that work.
Speaker 2: But then obviously you got the head start advantage of
Speaker 2: an internship as well, because if you are in a
Speaker 2: field that you want to be in, man, what a
Speaker 2: great way just to basically get your foot in the door.
Speaker 1: I think what you're saying too, is to be able
Speaker 1: to bob and weave in kind of today's work climates.
Speaker 1: And everyone knows this, right that people the jobs don't
Speaker 1: last as long you're not necessarily employed by the same
Speaker 1: employer for ten, twenty thirty years, and so.
Speaker 2: It's going to require some of that resiliency in some
Speaker 2: of that creativity that comes with not only switching jobs,
Speaker 2: but switching even careers in industries.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, And I think this also calls into
Speaker 1: the question, and we've talked about this at different times
Speaker 1: on the podcast too, the value of a college degree.
Speaker 1: Has the value of a college degree diminished? I think
Speaker 1: it's a nuanced conversation. But when you look at the
Speaker 1: overall stats, the average college grad makes a million dollars
Speaker 1: or over the course of a lifetime than the average
Speaker 1: hig school grads a lot of money. That is telling, right,
Speaker 1: but that also diminishes if you end up with the
Speaker 1: wrong degree for the career that you want. But the
Speaker 1: stats also bear out that even if you end up
Speaker 1: underemployed with a college degree, you'll still earn twenty five
Speaker 1: percent more than the average highchool graduate. Still, we would
Speaker 1: say maybe not a full mill that's pretty good yeah,
Speaker 1: as premium. So much of the value proposition depends on
Speaker 1: what you study and what career path you want to take,
Speaker 1: and then how much time and money you spend acquiring
Speaker 1: that degree, because there are a lot of degrees that
Speaker 1: people are spending six figures matt to get and those
Speaker 1: degrees just don't pan out in terms of a significantly
Speaker 1: higher salary. And then there are other people who are
Speaker 1: just cut out for trade school, for entrepreneurship, for other things,
Speaker 1: where college just isn't going to be as much of
Speaker 1: a boon to their ultimate earnings.
Speaker 2: Totally, I think it depends too on who you're asking,
Speaker 2: or like where that person is, like what stage of
Speaker 2: life that person is in, because I would like I
Speaker 2: would have said in my twenties and early thirties, oh
Speaker 2: my gosh, yeah, college total waste of time. I'm not
Speaker 2: doing something that I studied in school.
Speaker 1: But I don't know.
Speaker 2: The older you get, you kind of realize, oh, there's
Speaker 2: a more general knowledge. There's more formation taking place in
Speaker 2: college than I think you give yourself credit for, Like
Speaker 2: when you are in your twenties and now that I've
Speaker 2: gotten older, I'm like, oh no, that was actually really
Speaker 2: good for me.
Speaker 1: To be there.
Speaker 2: So I think a lot of it as to your
Speaker 2: opinion and how you feel and how you think about
Speaker 2: your degree. Aside from the numbers, it also I think
Speaker 2: matters where you are in life, and that changes over time. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but dude, let's talk about the credit bureaus credit scores
Speaker 2: in particular, because for the past three years, the number
Speaker 2: one complaint that the CFPB gets is credit report mistakes,
Speaker 2: and the problem has gotten pretty bad. Complaints they have
Speaker 2: tripled in just two years. Five hundred thousand folks they
Speaker 2: have filed a complaint just last year, and there are
Speaker 2: tens of millions more who are being impacted by faulty
Speaker 2: incorrect information on their reports, but they just haven't filed
Speaker 2: a complaint, or they're just completely unaware because they're just
Speaker 2: cruising along, living life, doing their thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's amazing to think how how much complaints of skyrocketed,
Speaker 1: and yet there's still a lot of people who don't
Speaker 1: pay a take on the credit store. They don't know
Speaker 1: what's on their credit report exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So basically, something is on your credit report that
Speaker 2: shouldn't be experienced. They settled a class action lawsuit late
Speaker 2: last year for twenty two million dollars for ruining the
Speaker 2: credit report of a ton of their customers. But of
Speaker 2: course this is a settlement, which means they admitted to
Speaker 2: no wrongdoing, which is pretty classic and this problem that's just.
Speaker 1: When people pay money and then they're like, but we
Speaker 1: don't we didn't do anything wrong, no admission of guilt.
Speaker 1: Then why did you pay the twenty two mel If
Speaker 1: you don't feel like you did anything wrong. That's how
Speaker 1: our justice is.
Speaker 2: But the problem has gotten out of hand because of
Speaker 2: the way the credit bureaus approach any sort of complaint
Speaker 2: is kind of like poor.
Speaker 1: Salt in the wound.
Speaker 2: They now have an automated system that handles the first
Speaker 2: round of disputes that get filed, and of course it
Speaker 2: finds that your dispute has no merit.
Speaker 1: E basically every time, even though it actually does. The
Speaker 1: tree is.
Speaker 2: Roughly twenty five percent of credit reports contain an air,
Speaker 2: So we think this is worth putting on your putting
Speaker 2: on your radar. And the big three bureaus, they're really
Speaker 2: bad at their jobs. Personally, I don't think that any
Speaker 2: additional government oversight or any additional regulation is going to
Speaker 2: bring much result.
Speaker 1: I feel like the.
Speaker 2: Government can barely keep the lights on without passing short
Speaker 2: term spending bills, and they're just kicking the can down
Speaker 2: their road, which makes me think, well, okay, well, like,
Speaker 2: what are the actual alternatives. This isn't something we talk
Speaker 2: much about, but having loans, like specifically mortgages manually underwritten
Speaker 2: is totally an alternative option. I had my very first
Speaker 2: mortgage manually underwritten, and honestly, pretty much every mortgage like
Speaker 2: for investment properties as well, because I'm self employed and
Speaker 2: you know, if you have irregular sources of income, they
Speaker 2: want to know all the information on you before they're like,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, yeahh we'll give you, We'll give you a loan.
Speaker 2: But this is something that the folks over at Ramsey
Speaker 2: they talk about this all the time, and I think
Speaker 2: I'm going to find myself kind of barking up this
Speaker 2: tree a lot more because it is an alternative option,
Speaker 2: and it's honestly the one that seems the most viable
Speaker 2: as opposed to waving a magical wand and fixing the
Speaker 2: system that seems to be broken and does not seem
Speaker 2: like there is anybody that's going to hold them accountable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a shame. I mean that's what the CFPB
Speaker 1: is supposed to be. They're supposed to be there to
Speaker 1: kind of help consumers and keep these financial institutions hold
Speaker 1: them accountable. I have less and less hope of that
Speaker 1: actually happened. Yeah, that's that's my problem. In an ideal world,
Speaker 1: the credit score and the credit report would be a
Speaker 1: reflection of our financial prowess and kind of how we've
Speaker 1: done handling debt, because that helps lenders understand pretty quickly
Speaker 1: how we're going to handle alone that they might give
Speaker 1: us right Totally, that can help a mortgage lender feel
Speaker 1: really comfortable. I'm surprised that these businesses that are buying
Speaker 1: credit scores from these bureaus aren't pushing back and saying,
Speaker 1: what you guys are selling us completely inaccurate information that
Speaker 1: you would think that would be frustrating for them because
Speaker 1: it's harder to verify when something like twenty twenty five
Speaker 1: percent of these credit bureaus contain a mistake. Totally, the
Speaker 1: bureaus aren't doing the job for the businesses they're supposed
Speaker 1: to serve. That's a crappy product, and who ends up
Speaker 1: in the who ens up getting screwed in the middle.
Speaker 1: It's every single consumer out there who has who's impacted
Speaker 1: by credit reports that aren't accurate.
Speaker 2: Hey, here's a here's a potential silver lining. Maybe this
Speaker 2: is where buy now, Pay later comes to the rescue
Speaker 2: of consumers, the ability to provide perhaps better information as
Speaker 2: they're maybe creating their own databases. Yeah maybe you never know.
Speaker 2: I'm not.
Speaker 1: I'm also not counting on that actually coming to fruition. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know. It's it's just tough and I think like
Speaker 1: the well, the other thing to do is to keep
Speaker 1: an eye on your credit report and on your credit score.
Speaker 1: And your score is a reflection essentially of what's on
Speaker 1: your report. So if you see your score drop thirty
Speaker 1: forty points and you're like, wait a second, I paid
Speaker 1: everything on time, nothing changed, Well that's going on there.
Speaker 1: Dig into your credit report. You can find it for
Speaker 1: free at annual credit report dot com. If you keep
Speaker 1: tabs on that, you have the ability then to file
Speaker 1: a dispute, to ramp things up, to file a complaint
Speaker 1: with the CFPB. Then if the credit utters don't respond
Speaker 1: in a helpful way once you file that complaint, which
Speaker 1: they probably won't. So but this is this is it
Speaker 1: sucks that this is burden that we take on us
Speaker 1: because they're really bad at their jobs. But it is
Speaker 1: kind of the burden that we bear because the credit
Speaker 1: score and the credit report are so integral to how
Speaker 1: we function in the modern era. I'm sinking at manual underwriting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but what if your credit score gets screwed by forty
Speaker 1: points and you're a renter and you're trying to apply
Speaker 1: to rent a new place, Well, then you have the
Speaker 1: job explained to that that landlord. Hey, guess what, I
Speaker 1: promise my credit score is actually better than this more
Speaker 1: hoops to jump through. Yeah, and it's just.
Speaker 2: But I will say, landlords will actually take a look
Speaker 2: at the will.
Speaker 1: Yeah, some well exactly.
Speaker 2: I mean I know that I would like I currently
Speaker 2: have currently have renters who had.
Speaker 1: A really rough credit score, but.
Speaker 2: They explained their situation this kind of the financial hardship
Speaker 2: they experienced in the past where they are currently and
Speaker 2: I got to see all. You know that there's a
Speaker 2: lot of corporate landlords aren't as nice as here one
Speaker 2: hundred percent.
Speaker 1: I get that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess I can. I can't also wave my
Speaker 2: wand and expect that corporations are also going to go
Speaker 2: through the additional steps required as opposed to just simply
Speaker 2: looking at a credit score.
Speaker 1: So I guess that there's a bunch of different takeaways
Speaker 1: from this. One to credit bureau suck, and two you've
Speaker 1: got to watch your own back. And you can get
Speaker 1: your free credit report. There's one place, the federally section
Speaker 1: site Annual Credit Report dot com, and sign up for
Speaker 1: at sight maybe like credit Karma, or maybe log in
Speaker 1: once a month to check your if your credit card
Speaker 1: allows you to get a visual on that credit score,
Speaker 1: just follow it roughly, loosely. You don't need to be
Speaker 1: obsessed with it, but just kind of knowing generally where
Speaker 1: it is and if there is some sort of a
Speaker 1: sudden drop that allows you that'll alert you to something
Speaker 1: going wrong, something that's amiss.
Speaker 2: But we've got more stories to get to, including we've
Speaker 2: got just a fascinating scam. And you're probably thinking, oh,
Speaker 2: I don't care about scams. No, no, no, this is
Speaker 2: this is a really really good scam. Or share it
Speaker 2: hit somebody that you would normally not.
Speaker 1: Think it would. I know, I know, we'll get to
Speaker 1: that more right after this. All right, Matt, we're back.
Speaker 1: The Friday flight continues. More personal finance goodness to get
Speaker 1: to on this episode, we always got to get to
Speaker 1: the ludicrous headline of the week. This one comes from
Speaker 1: The New Yorker and here's what the headline reads. The
Speaker 1: day I put fifty thousand dollars into a shoe box
Speaker 1: and hey it to a stranger. I never thought I
Speaker 1: was the kind of person to fall for a scam.
Speaker 1: Whoa man? This art. Everyone should read this article fIF
Speaker 1: two thousand dollars. It's fascinating and it's ludicrous on many
Speaker 1: fronts too. First, the story itself just incredible. You've you've
Speaker 1: got to read it. It's a longer, more meandering scam
Speaker 1: it which is kind of makes it so interestingly. Then
Speaker 1: the scammers are less directive and more just kind of
Speaker 1: going with the flow as they call this person and
Speaker 1: that are trying to get them to cough over some money.
Speaker 2: It's it's like a case study and how to scam people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, honestly, it really is. And like it's good. You know,
Speaker 1: like there's hackers now that we're encouraging.
Speaker 2: There's white hat hackers and black hat hackers or whatever,
Speaker 2: and so like like you hire hackers, like an organization
Speaker 2: will or a company to try to penetrate your cybersecurity,
Speaker 2: to let you know how did you can improve read
Speaker 2: this story so that you can learn from this individual's mistake.
Speaker 1: That's right. That way you can learn just how freaking
Speaker 1: good they are. Yeah, So it starts off with like
Speaker 1: a fake Amazon employee giving you a call attempting to
Speaker 1: verify account activity that's fraudulent, and like, in this case,
Speaker 1: there was no account activity that was fraudulent, but she's like, oh,
Speaker 1: they've opened up another account in your name, And then
Speaker 1: the person who got scam is like what so yeah,
Speaker 1: then that Amazon employee connects the person who wrote this
Speaker 1: article to someone at the CIA because this kind of
Speaker 1: fraud is apparently happening regularly. And then it ends up
Speaker 1: matt with the writer handing over so sadly fifty thousand
Speaker 1: dollars in cash that she put in a shoe box
Speaker 1: to what she thought was an undercover CIA agent. Pretty
Speaker 1: horrifying stuff. It's again, it's worth the read. It's a
Speaker 1: complex scam, but it's just crazy to think that scams
Speaker 1: have gotten this good.
Speaker 2: Okay, So the other ridiculous, ludicrous part of this article
Speaker 2: is that the person wasn't just any writer. It happened
Speaker 2: to be. And I'll share a name because obviously she
Speaker 2: published this herself.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I don't know how to say her last name, but
Speaker 2: her Charlotte's cows. I guess this is how you pronounce
Speaker 2: her name. She's the financial advice columnist for The New Yorker.
Speaker 1: She writes for the New York Times.
Speaker 2: Man, I certainly feel for her and felt terrible while
Speaker 2: reading this awful documentation of what she went through. But man,
Speaker 2: there are so many points along the way that red
Speaker 2: flags should have been going off, Like I would just
Speaker 2: hope that someone with her level of money, experienced and
Speaker 2: sophistication wouldn't have fallen for a scam like this. But
Speaker 2: it also reveals how good these gamers have gotten, and
Speaker 2: they're not just targeting the elderly. They often end up
Speaker 2: conning millennials and gen zers out there, So we want
Speaker 2: folks to be careful. This is something that can Like
Speaker 2: if it can happen to someone who eats and breeze money,
Speaker 2: I think it can happen to almost anyone. They slowly
Speaker 2: tightened the I mean, man, it was so steady and
Speaker 2: incremental and like they were slowly removing her from reality
Speaker 2: and placing her in a reality that.
Speaker 1: They had created, and before you know, it almost broke
Speaker 1: her brain. It was crazy, Yeah, it was, Oh man,
Speaker 1: it was it was like psychological terrorism. Yes, yeah, so
Speaker 1: you have to read link to it in the show
Speaker 1: notes and hopefully it's it's just a sad case, but
Speaker 1: it's hopefully enlightening as well, and just these are the
Speaker 1: kinds of ways scammers can get to you. Now, you
Speaker 1: might think you're not susceptible. I think most of us
Speaker 1: would like to think that.
Speaker 2: But if that's what I thought before reading this article,
Speaker 2: but then as I was reading through it, I was.
Speaker 1: Like, oh, oh that's good.
Speaker 2: Oh oh man, And I would like to think that
Speaker 2: I wouldn't also fall for something like this, but.
Speaker 1: I could totally see how she did for sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so all right, let's move on, Matete, let's talk about
Speaker 1: dynamic pricing. We titled this one Fluctuating fast Food. We
Speaker 1: also could have called it frosty Foibles. I think because
Speaker 1: this is a Wendy's maneuver, and the thing is, dynamic
Speaker 1: pricing has been around for a long time. Basically, Wendy's
Speaker 1: is now saying we're going to jump into the dynamic
Speaker 1: pricing Sphere and Amazon, for instance, the price of the
Speaker 1: item that you want to buy could change dozens of
Speaker 1: times in a single day. Airfare similar price machinations, like
Speaker 1: so you might try to book something in the morning
Speaker 1: and go back later that day and the flight now
Speaker 1: cost one hundred and fifty bucks more. That's dynamic pricing
Speaker 1: at its best or worst. I guess ride sharing, right,
Speaker 1: those costs vary depending on when you book. Two. There's
Speaker 1: surge pricing, right that Uber has become so famous for. Well,
Speaker 1: fast food is apparently getting on this trend, specifically Wendy's.
Speaker 1: They say they're going to pilot fast food surge pricing
Speaker 1: a la Uber next year. So your burger and fries
Speaker 1: maybe cost three bucks at eleven am or four dollars
Speaker 1: and fifty cents at noon. It just depends. You don't
Speaker 1: know what it's going to be when you walk in there. Matt,
Speaker 1: I actually think it's a bad idea for Wendy's. I
Speaker 1: think dynamic pricing seems terrible. It works really well for
Speaker 1: some industries. I don't see it working terribly well in
Speaker 1: the fast food game. Like, I could see this being
Speaker 1: far more confusing for consumers who want to know what
Speaker 1: their meal is going to cost before they head to
Speaker 1: the restaurant. I think there are potentially better ways to
Speaker 1: skin this cat for them as a whole. I think
Speaker 1: dynamic pricing is actually a good thing for savvy consumers
Speaker 1: who are willing to pivot, willing to change their habits,
Speaker 1: willing to shop around. But in the case of fast food,
Speaker 1: I just don't see Wendy's like making out like a
Speaker 1: bandit with this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you can zag while everyone else is zigging,
Speaker 2: that's when dynamic pricing, just like with just like with airfare,
Speaker 2: if you can travel when everybody else isn't traveling, all right,
Speaker 2: well you have the potential to totally snagg it.
Speaker 1: Or do they just did like a generic ten percent
Speaker 1: discount during those off peak hours.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just a different way of skinning the Cat's
Speaker 2: way is not how they're going about it. It's counter
Speaker 2: to I think what people think of with fast food.
Speaker 2: Like when you get fast food, you want it to
Speaker 2: be quick and what else.
Speaker 1: Pretty cheap. You want it to be affordable, also terribly unhealthy.
Speaker 2: And when you don't know what's gonna what it's gonna
Speaker 2: cost you when you go out to grab a quick
Speaker 2: lunch I feel like that's gonna it's gonna backfire. Like
Speaker 2: it makes me think about right after college, before I
Speaker 2: knew anything about cooking food at home and eating affordably, though,
Speaker 2: I was still watching my budget a decent bit, and
Speaker 2: because of that, I knew exactly what it would cost
Speaker 2: me to go to the local McDonald's and I wouldn't
Speaker 2: get a little side salid. I would get a cheeseburger
Speaker 2: and i'd get a yogurt parfe. Now that sounds like
Speaker 2: a really healthy McDonald's.
Speaker 1: It's not too bad.
Speaker 2: But also I know now that that's still a very
Speaker 2: expensive way of eating lunch versus what we do these days.
Speaker 1: Or do you want to tell people what you used
Speaker 1: to do in college at the food court at the
Speaker 1: college campus food court?
Speaker 2: We okay, So the meal plan at UGA is pretty
Speaker 2: dang expensive. And I lived off campus even though we
Speaker 2: were we live very very close to campus technically, like
Speaker 2: in the dorm, didn't make sense to pay.
Speaker 1: For the meal plan.
Speaker 2: However, it's like a buffet when you go there, and
Speaker 2: so I drop twelve bucks, which is pretty expensive for
Speaker 2: a college student. But I would sit there for multiple
Speaker 2: meals and just eat all day long.
Speaker 1: You just like literally hang out, take all your meetings
Speaker 1: in there, do all your studying in there, and just
Speaker 1: have like.
Speaker 2: Bright dinner Snelling Thursdays is what we called it, because
Speaker 2: all this is going to be there and everyone would
Speaker 2: come by.
Speaker 1: Love it. The body.
Speaker 2: It is incredible because the way it works, you eat
Speaker 2: all this food and it stores it in your body.
Speaker 2: That's just that's the way fat works. You know, the
Speaker 2: fat and the vitem is of the new also with
Speaker 2: the nutrients. Anyway, all that being said, going back to McDonald's,
Speaker 2: I think I would have been far less likely to
Speaker 2: do that if I didn't know what the price was
Speaker 2: going to be. So I don't like, like you said,
Speaker 2: I like your approach to it. Offer a discount on
Speaker 2: some of those off peak dining outs and hours.
Speaker 1: When you serve a consumers. They hate the idea of
Speaker 1: surch pricing. I think again, it makes sense for a
Speaker 1: lot of businesses, but just there's a better week. Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2: And the fact is CEO Kirk Tanner he was a
Speaker 2: little upset. He made it clear that he didn't actually
Speaker 2: say surge pricing, so okay, but he definitely did talk
Speaker 2: about it as dynamic pricing, which sounds kind of similar.
Speaker 1: But Okay.
Speaker 2: We occasionally rail about the subscription economy that we're living in,
Speaker 2: and there are obviously some nice things about it, right,
Speaker 2: you can cancel whatever you want. You can then, oh, actually,
Speaker 2: I see new shows coming. I'm gonna go ahead and
Speaker 2: rejoin Netflix. Squad Game season two. Yeah, it often means
Speaker 2: that we're able to remove an expensive upfront cost by
Speaker 2: being strategic. But even still, recurring subscriptions are easy to
Speaker 2: forget about. They cost the average American two hundred and
Speaker 2: nineteen dollars a month. The subscriptions that we forget about,
Speaker 2: and even though we're getting something in return, because of
Speaker 2: the nature of the model, we often forget that even
Speaker 2: what we're subscribed to, which means we underestimate how many
Speaker 2: dollars we're actually wasting. But there is another subscription attempting
Speaker 2: to siphon money from us every single month, and that
Speaker 2: is the local car wash. Bloomberg, they read about the
Speaker 2: proliferation of car washes recently. There's a new one on
Speaker 2: our our route to school. That is, the girls are like,
Speaker 2: that's gonna be a new car wash. I hate that
Speaker 2: they're looking all over the place that they're looking forward
Speaker 2: to it and so instead of paying like four or five,
Speaker 2: six seven bucks for a wash, they want you to
Speaker 2: fork over twenty dollars a month.
Speaker 1: Or more or yeah, or thirty five forty.
Speaker 2: And I'm not gonna I'm not gonna completely hate on
Speaker 2: the subscription car wash in particular, if you really like
Speaker 2: having a shiny car, you know, looking off fresh, that's fine.
Speaker 2: If that's your craft beer equivalent. You spend a lot
Speaker 2: of money on your car. If you park outside and
Speaker 2: it's pollen season and you got all the tree bits
Speaker 2: falling getting caught in your air intake, I get that.
Speaker 2: That's that's annoying, But we just want to make sure
Speaker 2: that you are being careful for what it is that
Speaker 2: you're subscribing to.
Speaker 1: Especially Yeah, because it's Bloomberg article is talking about how
Speaker 1: many car washes are being opened and everywhere. Private equity
Speaker 1: investors are in on the deal. One of my best
Speaker 1: friends from childhood, mat his dad has had a car
Speaker 1: wash for years, and I'm sure he's done quite well
Speaker 1: with it because and then if you opt to sell it, man,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of money in that game too. I
Speaker 1: get it, But who's paying the price for that though,
Speaker 1: who's making the private equity equity investors. Rich is the
Speaker 1: people who have the thirty five dollars a month car
Speaker 1: watch subscription and who aren't using it. Yeah, especially if
Speaker 1: you're not using it. But if you go on twice
Speaker 1: a month, I don't know. Maybe it's better to either
Speaker 1: pay when you do go or wash your car home.
Speaker 1: Just saying, but let's talk. Let's keep talking about cars
Speaker 1: and subscriptions. There's one subscription that could end up potentially
Speaker 1: saving you money, and that is if you opted for
Speaker 1: a car subscription instead of owning an extra set of
Speaker 1: expensive wheels or not, maybe subscribe and reduce your overall
Speaker 1: cost of car ownership. Ownership of appreciating assets. We talked
Speaker 1: about that that's a really good thing. When you own
Speaker 1: assets that go up in value, this is wonderful. This
Speaker 1: is increasing your net worth. But when you own assets
Speaker 1: that depreciate regularly and substantially, that's another thing. And stats
Speaker 1: find that we're only in our car driving between three
Speaker 1: to five percent of the time. Anyway, most of the
Speaker 1: time the car is sitting idle, whether it's in the
Speaker 1: parking lot of work, whether it's in the driveway or
Speaker 1: the parking lot of your apartment complex. Wherever it is right,
Speaker 1: and work from home and hybrid work has reduced the
Speaker 1: need for a lot of folks to constantly have access
Speaker 1: to their own specific vehicle that they own that they're
Speaker 1: in charge of. And there's startups like finn out of
Speaker 1: Germany that are trying to normalize the car subscription model,
Speaker 1: which includes the cost of insurance and repairs. I think
Speaker 1: this is kind of cool, Matt, even though it might
Speaker 1: not save everybody money, but it's at least something worth
Speaker 1: looking into.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think what's great about this is that
Speaker 2: we're trying to point folks to thinking about things that
Speaker 2: traditionally might not be something that you'd be in favor of.
Speaker 1: But it comes down to like what the numbers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but then you know, like crunch the.
Speaker 2: Numbers, see if it makes sense for you, Because I
Speaker 2: think they're talking about how it's technically it's more expensive
Speaker 2: even than leasing a vehicle, but it also comes with
Speaker 2: much much shorter subscription windows, so maybe subscribe for a
Speaker 2: month and so yeah, like, technically it might be more expensive,
Speaker 2: but if it's over a shorter period of time and
Speaker 2: that means you're spending less money overall, well then it
Speaker 2: could be a smart way of going about it, and
Speaker 2: especially like they're trying to get folks to try out evs.
Speaker 2: And I do like the idea of knowing what you're
Speaker 2: getting into before you make a purchase. But that's also
Speaker 2: something that you can do via something like Touro or
Speaker 2: via a zip car. Like literally, Kate and I did
Speaker 2: that out in Colorado last year. We rented a Tesla.
Speaker 2: I was able to scratch my ev itch, get a
Speaker 2: feel for it and avoided paying tons of money. And
Speaker 2: I don't think I would have gone out and bought
Speaker 2: a Tesla, but I was able to try that out
Speaker 2: in I think a.
Speaker 1: More affordable way.
Speaker 2: But it's worth considering because we're not principally against something
Speaker 2: like this. It comes down to how does it work
Speaker 2: for you and how does it work out for your
Speaker 2: personal financial situation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when you look at Finn's website, their most expensive
Speaker 1: monthly model is twelve hundred bucks a month. That's a
Speaker 1: lot of money for a car. Even though it includes
Speaker 1: everything including insurance. That's still really expensive. And so I
Speaker 1: think you're right. I think some of those pay by
Speaker 1: the hour or pay by the day, car sharing services Toro,
Speaker 1: zip car, those are worth looking into if they're in
Speaker 1: your area. Turtos basically everywhere. Zip car is only a
Speaker 1: certain locations, but yeah, or ride share. And I think
Speaker 1: if you're able to ditch a car completely, if you
Speaker 1: actually run the numbers and see how much your car
Speaker 1: is costing you on an annual basis, and then so
Speaker 1: much more. It could a forty dollars uber ride, But
Speaker 1: ultimately that forty dollars uber ride could end up saving
Speaker 1: you hundreds and hundreds of dollars a month, even though
Speaker 1: it's a more expensive way of getting from one place
Speaker 1: to another. Well, when you look at that overall perspective,
Speaker 1: it could be saving you more. Dude, absolutely, But I
Speaker 1: guess the other part of it too.
Speaker 2: I just want to challenge folks to like think through
Speaker 2: whether or not they truly need it, and to push
Speaker 2: back on sort of the cultural expectation that we have
Speaker 2: a vehicle. Like literally, yesterday I was running home, slash
Speaker 2: running slash walking home from work. Started started to rain
Speaker 2: a little bit, and dude, no fewer than three people
Speaker 2: pulled over and were like, hey, do you need to ride?
Speaker 2: There are folks we you know folks. I know you
Speaker 2: should take rides with strangers always and I found it
Speaker 2: to be incredibly well, it was amazing for a couple
Speaker 2: of reasons. I guess, a, it's awesome that we live
Speaker 2: in a community that were we you know, it's fun
Speaker 2: to see neighbors taking care of other folks and checking
Speaker 2: in stuff like that.
Speaker 1: But I also wish that.
Speaker 2: It wasn't such a rarity to see somebody out there
Speaker 2: running home in the rain and I wasn't like, it's
Speaker 2: not like I was like fleeing from my life, like smiling,
Speaker 2: and it's just drizzling a little bit. And I wish
Speaker 2: that wasn't such a rare site for folks to consider
Speaker 2: walking home or riding their bike, because there are there's
Speaker 2: a much larger possibility of folks doing that. Then I think,
Speaker 2: what's what's normal in our culture today is is all?
Speaker 1: I think. I think the amount of the number of
Speaker 1: box the number of TVs, and the number of cars
Speaker 1: that we own per household is overdone. And if you
Speaker 1: can think about ways to reduce both those things in
Speaker 1: your life, I think it's a good thing. I don't
Speaker 1: know why I mentioned TV's there, but I guess it's just.
Speaker 2: It seems like, yeah, it seems like another one of
Speaker 2: those things that you just like, oh why not? They
Speaker 2: certainly have gotten more and more.
Speaker 1: Fores the norm. But the and the norm is to
Speaker 1: have multiple cars like often often two or three in
Speaker 1: the household r. I don't know what the average number
Speaker 1: of cars that the average household has, but it's it's
Speaker 1: more for a lot of households, at least, especially in
Speaker 1: today's work climate. It's a lot easier than ditch your
Speaker 1: car than ever before. Absolutely. Yeah, all right, Matt, that's
Speaker 1: gonna do it for this Friday flight. Hope you have
Speaker 1: a great weekend. And by the way, if you haven't
Speaker 1: gone to how to money dot com recently, tons of
Speaker 1: new money saving information there, be sure to check it
Speaker 1: out and we'll see you back here on Monday. Matt.
Speaker 1: Until next time, best friends Out, Best Friends Out.