Speaker 1: Welcome to Had the Money. I'm Joel and I am Matt,
Speaker 1: and today we're talking erupting equity, apprenticeships that pay and
Speaker 1: scammy savings. That's right, man, this is a Friday Flight episode.
Speaker 1: And by the way, those are only three of the
Speaker 1: different stories that we're going to cover during this episode.
Speaker 1: We've had so much more, got plenty more to get
Speaker 1: to during this episode. But first we are actually going
Speaker 1: to discuss this feature. This specifically, it's a widget that
Speaker 1: was brought to our attention by listener Mike. So he
Speaker 1: was listening to our credit cards episode. This is just
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks ago, and we were talking about
Speaker 1: the need for credit cards to somehow keep their customers
Speaker 1: more informed as to what their what they're running totals are,
Speaker 1: what their current balances are. Although what we said, that's
Speaker 1: necessarily the goal of the credit card companies, but wouldn't
Speaker 1: it be nice that's not what they want to do.
Speaker 1: But guess what Apple? So Apple has a credit card
Speaker 1: and they've got this sweet widget that allows you to
Speaker 1: monitor your balance on your home screen on your stink
Speaker 1: and iPhone. This is something that we were not even
Speaker 1: aware of, but might pointed it out and because obviously
Speaker 1: that's one of the downsides of credit cards, right, is
Speaker 1: the fact that if you aren't checking your balance every day,
Speaker 1: and most people aren't, you have the chance of overspending. Essentially,
Speaker 1: like you're going to get to the end of the
Speaker 1: billing cycle. It's not going to be until you get
Speaker 1: your statement that you realize, oh crap, we actually went
Speaker 1: over budget because we weren't keeping up with how we're spending.
Speaker 1: So I think this has the potential to curb the
Speaker 1: amounts of overspending that folks might be tempted into doing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's really cool, and I'm glad that Apple
Speaker 1: launch something like that for their card, because we want
Speaker 1: people to kind of feel the pain of their spending,
Speaker 1: and some people just naturally do. They're naturally frugal, and
Speaker 1: so every I'm kind of one of those people. Anytime
Speaker 1: I spend money or my wife's like, hey, we're gonna
Speaker 1: get this thing, and I'm like, do we really mute it? Though,
Speaker 1: I'm like kind of panicking just a little bit, And
Speaker 1: so it comes to you're spending it, then you're like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: afford it. I need it, though I'm shocking about and
Speaker 1: so but it's one of those things where it's having
Speaker 1: it up front and center in front of you and
Speaker 1: coming face to face with how just how much money
Speaker 1: you owe to the credit card company will likely reduce
Speaker 1: how much you spend. So I think it's like one
Speaker 1: of those behavioral things. It's going to absolutely help a
Speaker 1: lot of people out well, and especially given how often
Speaker 1: we check our phones, right, and so this is literally
Speaker 1: a widget. It's an app that you install on your
Speaker 1: phone and it's on your home screen and it shows
Speaker 1: you how much you've spent. You can like do like
Speaker 1: a week view or a month view, but it shows
Speaker 1: you how much you spent even on individual days. Nice,
Speaker 1: just in this nice little, cool little graphics. So I
Speaker 1: think it's an awesome tool. And one of the cool
Speaker 1: things actually about the Apple card they they give you
Speaker 1: two percent cash back when you use it with Apple Pay.
Speaker 1: So an Apple Pay is accepted almost everywhere now, so
Speaker 1: double click that home button, Yeah, you still get the
Speaker 1: two percent, which is a great sort of catch all card.
Speaker 1: So I don't know if you saw this too, but
Speaker 1: I think Capital One they are actually about too, or
Speaker 1: maybe they already have released their own version of the
Speaker 1: widget as well. Oh, really, so if more cards are
Speaker 1: going to be jumping on this bandwagon, this is something
Speaker 1: that we can totally get behind. And I'm glad to
Speaker 1: see somebody like Apple, I guess, in this case setting
Speaker 1: the example as to maybe how some of these banks
Speaker 1: should be treating their customers, the non bank treating the
Speaker 1: banks at apps. Well, it's honestly, I think it takes
Speaker 1: a company like Apple sometimes to enter into its I
Speaker 1: mean just think about Tesla, right, Like, you get a
Speaker 1: company who is an a quote unquote outsider, and they
Speaker 1: enter into a new industry, like a new space, and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, everybody else, all the old players,
Speaker 1: they have to adapt. Yeah, I think we're going to
Speaker 1: see that disruption. I think mentality. Yeah, that does. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's upsets the Apple cart. It changes the way other
Speaker 1: people do business too, an Apple cart. Yeah, and nice,
Speaker 1: So big thanks to listener Mike for letting us know
Speaker 1: that that's cool and definitely good heads up for other
Speaker 1: Apple card users out there. But Matt, let's get onto
Speaker 1: the Friday flight. It's a quick sampling of stories we
Speaker 1: found interesting this week in the realm of personal financeers
Speaker 1: a lot to cover today and over the past decade,
Speaker 1: Apparently the number of registered apprenticeships has risen by sixty
Speaker 1: four percent. I saw that stat and I was like,
Speaker 1: just did a little like this pump in the air.
Speaker 1: I was like, Wooo, this is great. And that's according
Speaker 1: to the latest data from the US Department of Labor,
Speaker 1: And basically, apprenticeships are becoming a more utilized alternative to
Speaker 1: just a traditional college education. And this is really just
Speaker 1: a great thing, and it's something that you and I
Speaker 1: have championed for for years. We've had remember our episode
Speaker 1: with Ken Rusk about blue collar work, and there's a
Speaker 1: dearth of people willing to consider this option. We've pushed
Speaker 1: everybody so hard into the colleges for everyone path, but
Speaker 1: that's just not true and it's coming back to bite
Speaker 1: some people. But a lot of young people are responding differently,
Speaker 1: and they're saying no, I think an apprenticeship is a
Speaker 1: decent alternative, whether you're working in a trade or learning
Speaker 1: from a professional in the space that you want to
Speaker 1: be in. That can be a great way to go
Speaker 1: about building a career, right, and you can skip loads
Speaker 1: of college debt and the time it takes to go
Speaker 1: to college too, and start earning a solid income earlier.
Speaker 1: And so it goes back to the question we've tackled
Speaker 1: on the show a few times, is college still a
Speaker 1: worthwhile pursuit? And the answer is always maybe, because it
Speaker 1: comes down to a value proposition, right. I mean, the
Speaker 1: Bureau of Labor Statistics, they say that the average college
Speaker 1: graduate is going to earn a million dollars more over
Speaker 1: their lifetime than their high school grad equivalent, and folks
Speaker 1: with a college degree are twenty percent more likely to
Speaker 1: own a home, and a massive amount of the new
Speaker 1: jobs that are being created are going to college educated folks.
Speaker 1: But we're also seeing the tide start to turn a
Speaker 1: little bit, and especially with how much a college education
Speaker 1: costs these days, it's not a slam dunk decision. And
Speaker 1: the unemployment rate is lower for folks who have a
Speaker 1: college education a college degree as well, and so basically,
Speaker 1: if we enter into a recession, the folks, the individuals
Speaker 1: with a college education are going to be impacted less severely.
Speaker 1: And so basically, at the end of the day, we're
Speaker 1: talking about college degree holders earning more money. They've got
Speaker 1: more job security and more opportunity as well, and all
Speaker 1: of these things sound like a lot of positives in
Speaker 1: our book. But again, we've also seen the costs of
Speaker 1: higher education rocket. I think I saw an infographic recently.
Speaker 1: Tuition costs are one hundred and seventy percent higher than
Speaker 1: they were twenty years ago. Like the only thing that
Speaker 1: has increased in cost more than education, let me guess, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, healthcare? Healthcare, which was like over two percent.
Speaker 1: It's crazy. I mean, those are the top two things
Speaker 1: that have gone up a lot of other things. Actually
Speaker 1: in our lives, we assume everything's gotten more expensive, but
Speaker 1: it's not true, like TVs gotten much more affordable, are
Speaker 1: more affordable. Yeah, But I mean some folks in specific
Speaker 1: fields of study, when it comes to the degrees that
Speaker 1: they're pursuing, like they find it almost impossible to overcome
Speaker 1: the cost of their very very expensive education. I'm thinking
Speaker 1: specifically in the fields of like psychology, or if you
Speaker 1: got a religion degree, or if like an art history degree.
Speaker 1: These are all things that are really difficult if in particular,
Speaker 1: if you want to like a private out of state college. So,
Speaker 1: I don't know, we wanted to share this because while
Speaker 1: opting to go to college that was rarely a bad decision.
Speaker 1: Thirty years ago, there is a lot more number crunching
Speaker 1: that needs to happen before you that decision these days,
Speaker 1: and the story that we're referencing, they talked about how
Speaker 1: a lot of different companies they're they're highlighting the fact
Speaker 1: that there is a labor shortage. There just are not
Speaker 1: enough workers, and so many of them are essentially providing
Speaker 1: that on the job training. And what's so great about
Speaker 1: that is, I mean you literally are earning a solid
Speaker 1: income right out of school, like right out of high school.
Speaker 1: And what this made me think of was just being
Speaker 1: flexible with what jobs you might want to pursue it
Speaker 1: or like what career path you want to take it.
Speaker 1: It makes me think of travel and the most affordable
Speaker 1: way to score like the cheapest airfare is well, look
Speaker 1: for the deals, look for the opportunity, go to look
Speaker 1: for those deals, find that opportunity, let the deal drive
Speaker 1: the destination, and then you convince yourself, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: convince yourself, but you're like, all right, what could we
Speaker 1: do when we were we to go to this country?
Speaker 1: And in a similar way, I think this is a
Speaker 1: bigger decision obviously obviously than just a vacation, but see
Speaker 1: what kind of training they're going to be able to
Speaker 1: provide you and you're essentially receiving a free education. Maybe
Speaker 1: that works out for a while, maybe it doesn't, But
Speaker 1: during that period of time you can then look to
Speaker 1: potentially other employers who might then be offering to cover
Speaker 1: the cost of a higher education that the cost of
Speaker 1: a bachelor's degree. In that case, I think it just
Speaker 1: pays to be flexible and to consider everything should be
Speaker 1: open for consideration when it comes to a job. Well,
Speaker 1: and the folks who end up in the worst position
Speaker 1: possible are the folks who went to college for a
Speaker 1: year or two or three but didn't end up getting
Speaker 1: that three And so there's a lot of people in
Speaker 1: that boat too, hold the downside without any upside. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think those are people who, in many, many
Speaker 1: times we're pushed into a college degree is the way
Speaker 1: you need to go. They've been indoctrinated when the reality
Speaker 1: is getting an apprenticeship or taking that entrepreneurial approach from
Speaker 1: an early age might have been better than racking up
Speaker 1: college debt without anything to show for it. Which on
Speaker 1: that nomat let's talk about student loan debt for a second.
Speaker 1: How bad is it? It's really bad. I think we've
Speaker 1: found that for a long time where we're still something
Speaker 1: like one point seven trillion dollars an outstanding student loan debt,
Speaker 1: but more than more than half of the folks in
Speaker 1: a recent survey said that their loan payments being paused
Speaker 1: are basically a necessity for them to be able to
Speaker 1: remain financially stable. That's a survey that canut from Credit
Speaker 1: Harma this week, and basically what they're saying is when
Speaker 1: payments resume, I'm screwed, which to me is just it's
Speaker 1: hard to fathom that we've had payments paused for this long,
Speaker 1: just basically a line item removed from people's budgets, and
Speaker 1: folks are saying, like, I still now that that's been
Speaker 1: gone for this long, I don't know how I'm going
Speaker 1: to approach it when that eventually does come back into
Speaker 1: my life. People are just getting they've gotten used to
Speaker 1: not having the payment. Yeah, And the longer we continue
Speaker 1: to go down this path, which could continue for many
Speaker 1: months to come, the harder it's going to be for
Speaker 1: these folks to face down that payment again. And so
Speaker 1: I get why people are saying this. I think what
Speaker 1: a lot of people are saying is like really, like
Speaker 1: I just don't want my student loan to resume, which
Speaker 1: I get. Like if I had that opportunity to not
Speaker 1: pay my mortgage or wave away a certain debt in
Speaker 1: my life, like I would, I would probably take it
Speaker 1: if I had some sort of magical ability. But I
Speaker 1: do want our listeners at least to prepare for the
Speaker 1: reality the student loans are going to resume at some point. Totally.
Speaker 1: It kind of makes me think of like the snooze
Speaker 1: button on an alarm. Yeah, you're thinking, oh, I could
Speaker 1: not ever wake up without us snooze button. Well guess
Speaker 1: what what if snooze buttons didn't exist, Well, you just
Speaker 1: get up, Yeah, Like like your learn would go off
Speaker 1: and that would be your single that it's time to
Speaker 1: wake up. But because the snooze button exists, you know,
Speaker 1: we can't imagine life without it. It's it's like Parkinson's law,
Speaker 1: like you will take up all the time necessary or
Speaker 1: all the time that you are given in order to
Speaker 1: complete a job. Right, It's like that, except for with money.
Speaker 1: And so we've just absorbed that those dollars that folks
Speaker 1: aren't putting towards our student loans, and there and it
Speaker 1: is going towards their monthly expenses, right, Like, maybe they
Speaker 1: only had twelve hundred dollars worth of expendable income before
Speaker 1: and now they've got fifteen hundred, and they're thinking, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna find a way to spend that
Speaker 1: that extra three hundred bucks a month. Yeah, it's incredibly
Speaker 1: easy for us to justify our spending when we don't
Speaker 1: have other goals. And so that's why it's so important
Speaker 1: for us to have a plan, because I mean, we
Speaker 1: don't obviously, we don't want most folks with student loan
Speaker 1: debt right now paying that you know, paying down their
Speaker 1: debt while this pauses in place Like this is that's
Speaker 1: the policy currently, and we want you to be able
Speaker 1: to utilize the rules and the policy and the laws
Speaker 1: in order for you to get ahead the most with
Speaker 1: your money. But we do want you to use the
Speaker 1: dollars that you would be spending to make other personal
Speaker 1: finance progress, right Like, don't just absorb and incorporate those
Speaker 1: dollars into your spending. We want you to pay off
Speaker 1: those other debts. We want you to build up your
Speaker 1: savings or even invest more of that money for your future.
Speaker 1: You've still got some time to get prepared for those
Speaker 1: payments to resume. We don't want you to waste this
Speaker 1: time versus being able to completely hit the ground running
Speaker 1: once those payments fire back up. Yeah, and again we
Speaker 1: don't know when they're going to fire back up. Will
Speaker 1: that remains to be seen. We'll let you know, kind
Speaker 1: of like as that news comes out, as so much
Speaker 1: has to do with the Supreme Court decision right now
Speaker 1: on that partial loan forgiveness. But yeah, there are steps
Speaker 1: you can take to be to start getting prepared right now.
Speaker 1: The fact that half of people are like I'd be
Speaker 1: up to creek without a paddle, that's just that's scary news.
Speaker 1: I hate seeing that. But let's talk about e bikes,
Speaker 1: Matt for a second. That's one of my favorite topics.
Speaker 1: And ebikes are awesome. We haven't talked about in a while,
Speaker 1: but I saw we haven't talked about Yeah ebikes or
Speaker 1: traditional biking. Yeah, and eat trad bikes. I like both.
Speaker 1: I like both. I'm an equal opportunity bike employer over here.
Speaker 1: I'm a trad guy personally, Yes you are, well, I
Speaker 1: rode my trad bike today. But Ribban, who makes a
Speaker 1: bunch of awesome electric trucks and SUVs. Well a couple
Speaker 1: they apparently want to electrify everything, and they announced that
Speaker 1: they're working on an ebike, which I thought was really cool,
Speaker 1: super cool, although if they're priced anything like their trucks are,
Speaker 1: I probably won't be able to afford it. They're probably
Speaker 1: gonna be really expensive, but they're also going to look
Speaker 1: really cool. I'm sure. I'm yeah, I'm guessing there. Well,
Speaker 1: I saw that there's a chance that it's not an
Speaker 1: actual bicycle but a motorcycle man, which I could totally
Speaker 1: I could see myself getting on in e motorcy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think so if my wife would let me, I
Speaker 1: would wouldn't be awesome If they decided to start making
Speaker 1: those electric motorcycles in the plant or in the factory
Speaker 1: that's going to be opening up here in Atlanta, that
Speaker 1: would be awesome. Well, so I just I guess I
Speaker 1: just want to push people don't necessarily hold out for
Speaker 1: the Ribby and e bike. You might be a little
Speaker 1: too expensive, but a lot of other e bikes are
Speaker 1: are pretty inexpensive, and they're going to save you a
Speaker 1: lot of money. If it means you're going to be
Speaker 1: in your car less and one of our list verse
Speaker 1: he sent us in an email about ebikes in Denver,
Speaker 1: and there's like government subsidies that have been put in
Speaker 1: place to spur adoption and Bloomberg actually they had an
Speaker 1: article about how successful that incentive program has been. The
Speaker 1: subsidies are are pretty big. It's like four hundred bucks
Speaker 1: off a new regular ebike and nine hundred bucks off
Speaker 1: a cargo ebike, which just makes them ridiculously affordable. If
Speaker 1: that's the case. And so yeah, if you're buying like
Speaker 1: a fairly basic one, not one of the fancy soon
Speaker 1: to be ribbian ones, you can probably snag it for
Speaker 1: like a few hundred bucks, which isn't bad. And if
Speaker 1: he gets you out there on the bike, if he
Speaker 1: get you out there on the trails means more exercise.
Speaker 1: It also means using your car less. I think this
Speaker 1: is like a win win win. Yeah, And obviously this
Speaker 1: is going to cost the city of Denver a decent
Speaker 1: chunk of money over time. However, it could have a
Speaker 1: significant positive downstream effects. Like it's not just that more
Speaker 1: folks are going to be getting the ebikes you know
Speaker 1: who otherwise might not have, which is great, but the
Speaker 1: city just overall is experiencing a ripple effect of more
Speaker 1: bikes on the road. There's more advocacy happening in order
Speaker 1: to create more bike lanes, which benefit all bikers out there.
Speaker 1: And some of my guess is that this program's not
Speaker 1: only going to change how folks get around in the
Speaker 1: Mile High High City, but it's gonna change the city
Speaker 1: itself for the better. Right, Like, not only is it
Speaker 1: gonna it's going to improve the quality of life for
Speaker 1: those who live there, They're going to be healthier, those
Speaker 1: folks are going to be spending less money on the
Speaker 1: cost of transportation. But not to mention like this is
Speaker 1: a this is a greener alternative than driving around and
Speaker 1: very heavy expensive vehicles. Yeah, and some like For instance,
Speaker 1: in California, some cities already have incentives as well, but
Speaker 1: I think the whole state of California is adopting incentives
Speaker 1: to spurt ebike adoption as well. They make cities better
Speaker 1: and they make people healthier. So the more we all
Speaker 1: get on our bikes, I think it's a good thing.
Speaker 1: All right, let's quickly touch on something else before the
Speaker 1: break here, Matt, babysitting rates just came out and they've
Speaker 1: apparently risen ten percent over the past year. Baby sitting
Speaker 1: in a chief. I was like, literally over at a
Speaker 1: friend's house the other day and there they have a daughter.
Speaker 1: She is in I want to say, seven, finth grade,
Speaker 1: and her mom was like, oh, yeah, she'll baby sit
Speaker 1: for twelve bucks an hour, and she was correct her mom.
Speaker 1: She's like, now it's fifteen now, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: my goodness, Like inflation is going up in a major
Speaker 1: way even for these young middle schools. Babe, you feel
Speaker 1: pretty good about the ten dollars per hour babysitter high schooler.
Speaker 1: There you go, who we have? You're getting a deal weak, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we are, because we also tit pretty well because the
Speaker 1: national average apparently is twenty five dollars per hour. If
Speaker 1: you hire a babysitter for two kids, you've got four,
Speaker 1: so it's gonna be even more than that, and that
Speaker 1: just that just makes a night out on the town
Speaker 1: prohibitively expensive. And so I just wanted to share, Hey, yeah,
Speaker 1: this this sucks, but we have a remedy that more
Speaker 1: and more people should consider because you and I we
Speaker 1: don't have to use babysitters all that often, but we
Speaker 1: still get out there on the town. We still get
Speaker 1: date nights with our partner, and it's because we do
Speaker 1: date nights swaps and so you come over and watch
Speaker 1: my kids once a week. I come over and watch
Speaker 1: your kids once a week. We've put them to bed already,
Speaker 1: so it's like the seven thirty to ten o'clock sort
Speaker 1: of timeframe. But I think it's perfect. More and more
Speaker 1: people should consider this good because it's tough to get
Speaker 1: out for three out your time, seventy five bucks plus
Speaker 1: the price of dinner or the show or whatever we
Speaker 1: want to go do it just it becomes I think
Speaker 1: more people avoid date nights because of how expensive they are,
Speaker 1: and specifically how expensive babysitting in So I just want
Speaker 1: to encourage people. You see these numbers, but there's a
Speaker 1: way to make sure you're not paying that much. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: and then when you aren't going out on these date nights,
Speaker 1: then your relationship suffers. Yeah. So yeah, the ability for
Speaker 1: us to get out twice a month, for y'all to
Speaker 1: be able to get out twice a month, well worth
Speaker 1: you know, hopping over to y'all's place and sitting there
Speaker 1: and reading or watching some TV, listening to a podcast,
Speaker 1: which is often oftentimes what I'm doing as well. But Joel,
Speaker 1: we've got several other stories that we're gonna get to. Specifically,
Speaker 1: we're going to spend a minute talking about flexible spending
Speaker 1: accounts and how so many Americans aren't flushing money down
Speaker 1: the tour that we're going to talk about how you
Speaker 1: can take advantage of that money that you have already
Speaker 1: set aside. We'll get to that, plus a few other
Speaker 1: stories right after this. All right, we're back. The Friday
Speaker 1: flight continues. Matt, you mentioned people flushing money down the toilet.
Speaker 1: Have you ever heard the song cat flushing a toilet?
Speaker 1: But we've talked, we talked about it. My kids love
Speaker 1: that song. It's terrible. But it was when we were
Speaker 1: talking about the guy, the folks who make those songs
Speaker 1: and the royalties that oh yeah, remember, I think I
Speaker 1: guess crushing it just based on how many times my
Speaker 1: kids will play that song. But we'll get to that
Speaker 1: story about flushing money down the toilet in a second,
Speaker 1: But first let's get to the ludicrous headline of the week.
Speaker 1: And this one comes from the Wall Street Journal, and
Speaker 1: the headline title was the cameras worked fine. Their maker
Speaker 1: said they had reached the end of their life. And
Speaker 1: it makes me think of actually the ludicrous headline from
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks ago Matt about hp Hewlett Packard
Speaker 1: remotely shutting down printers on their customers. And we're just
Speaker 1: living in this day and age where it feels like
Speaker 1: we don't fully own the things that we buy, which
Speaker 1: is tough to stomach and it sucks. Yeah, And in
Speaker 1: this case it was camera company are Low. They implemented
Speaker 1: an end of life policy for some of its cameras.
Speaker 1: End of life that just feels like like what you
Speaker 1: do with your loved one who's aging and I don't
Speaker 1: know about to die. But they're doing this with cameras
Speaker 1: that work perfectly good and so and users were perfectly
Speaker 1: happy with the cameras and the way they were working.
Speaker 1: And some people had invested lots of money, like thousands
Speaker 1: and thousands of dollars and buying these cameras and setting
Speaker 1: them up around their house or their place of work.
Speaker 1: And the whole point, by the way, for many customers
Speaker 1: was the no fee cloud storage that came with these
Speaker 1: cameras and if they bought a new one. This is
Speaker 1: with Arlow specific. Yeah, they're gonna have to pay like
Speaker 1: a subscription fee, where Arlow had said, oh no, if
Speaker 1: you buy these ones, the seven day thing kind of
Speaker 1: comes with it. At Fortunately, Arlow's back down thanks to
Speaker 1: customer backlash, and they're going to be supporting these cameras
Speaker 1: for longer. And they've said that they're going to support
Speaker 1: all models for at least four years after discontinuation, moving
Speaker 1: forward after they stopped selling an item. But man, we
Speaker 1: continue to see stories about planned obsolescens and tech companies
Speaker 1: basically breaking your devices remotely. I hate it. It's a
Speaker 1: terrible trend. So like best case scenario, it feels like
Speaker 1: a bait and switch, right because you were sold a
Speaker 1: bill of goods and then it's like, oh no, actually
Speaker 1: this is this is what it includes. Worst case scenario
Speaker 1: is it kind of feels like gas lighting. Take like,
Speaker 1: oh no, you think you own this item. Oh but
Speaker 1: in facts, you can't do what you want with that
Speaker 1: item that you think you can. It's like consumer gas lighting,
Speaker 1: like they're rewriting history a little bit and trying to
Speaker 1: make sort of making us feel like that we're going crazy.
Speaker 1: And I think it's healthy. We got to style, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I do think It's good to think about it
Speaker 1: that way because I think that is when folks are
Speaker 1: going to get a little more up in arms, Like
Speaker 1: I think we need to take like literally more ownership
Speaker 1: of the devices that we're purchasing and realizing that we
Speaker 1: can have an impact on the different companies and manufacturers
Speaker 1: that we're purchasing from. It shows that making your voice heard,
Speaker 1: you know, complaining to that company, or you know, using
Speaker 1: persuasion tactics on social media, those can all have an impact,
Speaker 1: Like send an email to the Wall Street Journal, let
Speaker 1: them know if there's a company out there that is
Speaker 1: behaving poorly. But you know, we really are living in
Speaker 1: a like a brave new world of connected devices, and
Speaker 1: so it is important to look at how the manufacturers
Speaker 1: are going to handle the support for their older devices.
Speaker 1: So for instance, Apple, they typically offer a little bit
Speaker 1: longer support than Google does for their phones. So keep
Speaker 1: that in mind if you're trying to, you know, weigh
Speaker 1: the pros and cons between buying perhaps some more affordable
Speaker 1: droid device versus maybe a little bit more expensive iPhone.
Speaker 1: You and I were just talking about that before the show,
Speaker 1: before we started recording, Like, hey, my phone was a
Speaker 1: lot cheaper than yours. But then again, your phone's going
Speaker 1: to be supported longer, and so I might be hanging
Speaker 1: on in a long round. It might be a wash. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I've got my iPhone thirteen Pro or whatever. I
Speaker 1: think it's about a year and a half. Like it
Speaker 1: still feels brain new to me, and I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: that I'm going to continue using that device for for
Speaker 1: years down the road. And I think that's another thing
Speaker 1: to keep in mind too, is that I think consumers
Speaker 1: would have been more okay with this in the past,
Speaker 1: as devices needed improving faster, right, Like think about the
Speaker 1: first webcams or Wi Fi connected cameras that we used
Speaker 1: to use with with our oldest kids when they're babies.
Speaker 1: Like the video on those things were was terrible. Same
Speaker 1: thing with phones. The early cameras were awful, the screen
Speaker 1: resolution terrible, battery life horrendous. But now improvements are incremental
Speaker 1: at best, it's incremental, and so there isn't a knee
Speaker 1: to upgrade these devices. And because of that, I think
Speaker 1: hopefully we can unite our voices and let our complaints
Speaker 1: be known and to simply let companies know that we
Speaker 1: want to be able to use our devices for longer
Speaker 1: than maybe they were originally planning on supporting before the
Speaker 1: bottom line planing opts lesns. It's becoming harder to avoid,
Speaker 1: but it's important to fight back wherever and however it
Speaker 1: is that you can. Yeah, and it sounds like it
Speaker 1: worked in this case, and I hope it continues to work.
Speaker 1: You just kind of kind of saying no, no, we're
Speaker 1: not taking this. This thing works perfectly. Fine, don't rip
Speaker 1: away from me something that I bought four I bought
Speaker 1: fair and square that is still working properly. Yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: let's talk about agree finding a new savings account, Matt.
Speaker 1: And this is something we talk about regularly, but this
Speaker 1: is more of a warning actually about how to avoid
Speaker 1: crappy banks. And I'm not even just talking about the
Speaker 1: big banks that we kind of rake over the coals
Speaker 1: all the time. We got we got new crappy banks
Speaker 1: to exactly. And so, of course, like rates on savings
Speaker 1: have been going up, which is a great thing. We've
Speaker 1: been documenting that regularly. And we've always said switching to
Speaker 1: a better bank so that you're saying, isn't earning next
Speaker 1: to nothing is a good route to take that you
Speaker 1: should probably go with one of the online banks as
Speaker 1: paying somewhere in the neighborhood of four percent versus the
Speaker 1: big bank that's paying point zero two percent or something
Speaker 1: like that. Just a massive chasm between the rates that
Speaker 1: are being offered. But here's the thing. You've got to
Speaker 1: be careful when you're switching. Which bank are you switching?
Speaker 1: Two and there's a bank called Compound Bank bank spelled
Speaker 1: with a C, which sounds like Swiss or something. That's right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, man, I put my monocle on and
Speaker 1: sign up for that bank account. Well, they say on
Speaker 1: their website they're offering a seven percent rate of return
Speaker 1: on savings. They actually send us an email this week, Matt,
Speaker 1: to tell us about this offering, and we were like, okay,
Speaker 1: that seems outside of what the market is offering. This
Speaker 1: seems like there's something might be wrong with that, and
Speaker 1: so we looked into it a little more and sadly,
Speaker 1: this bank is offering a return to this high because
Speaker 1: you're actually investing in real estate bonds. It's not sitting
Speaker 1: there in a traditional style savings account. And according to
Speaker 1: the SEC filing, this kind of account comes with a
Speaker 1: quote unquote high degree of risk. So Yeah, when you're
Speaker 1: switching to online banks. There are a lot of online banks,
Speaker 1: not all of them are created equal, and some of
Speaker 1: them are doing risky things with your money, putting that
Speaker 1: capital at risk, and you've got to be careful. And
Speaker 1: so Compound Bank, we would say, is not one of
Speaker 1: the banks you should be going with. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: it's okay to go with a bond fund if you're
Speaker 1: looking to potentially invest your money, but not, I mean
Speaker 1: that the problem here, like the slide of hand, is
Speaker 1: taking places that they're they're comparing their the rate and
Speaker 1: what they're offering, like they're saying this one hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty five times better than the national average, national average
Speaker 1: of what, Well, it's not high yield savings accounts, it's
Speaker 1: checking accounts, and so like that's not even fair, like
Speaker 1: you're comparing apples to oranges. And so that's certainly something
Speaker 1: to keep an eye out for. And in addition, Compound Bank,
Speaker 1: they're not even insured by the FDIC because again it's
Speaker 1: not a it's not a savings actual savings product, and
Speaker 1: so we definitely want you to score a higher rate
Speaker 1: on your savings, but only if you're doing business with
Speaker 1: a bank. That is FDIC insured, that isn't running an
Speaker 1: extremely risky real estate lending scheme. It makes me think
Speaker 1: back to the stable coins. Those were so incredibly hot.
Speaker 1: Well that's because they were offering something like eight to
Speaker 1: nine percent just by saving your money, and everybody was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I want in on this, Like why wouldn't you do that? Well,
Speaker 1: I felt like we were raining on people's prede because
Speaker 1: they're like, I want to go get that an eighth
Speaker 1: nine percent, and we were like, that's a dumb idea.
Speaker 1: You should avoid it. Yeah, and hopefully everyone learned their
Speaker 1: lesson because a lot of those companies went belly up.
Speaker 1: So if the interest rate on some of the different
Speaker 1: offers that you're seeing out there is that much higher
Speaker 1: than some of the solid online savings accounts and you've
Speaker 1: never heard of them before, make sure that you perform
Speaker 1: your due diligence first, because the truth is that the
Speaker 1: best banks right now are they're somewhere in like the
Speaker 1: four percent range c I. They are consistently near the top,
Speaker 1: and they're currently sitting at four point zero five percent.
Speaker 1: So if you see something lies like three point four,
Speaker 1: but everybody's in that three and a half to four
Speaker 1: percent rates the best ones are exactly. So someone's like,
Speaker 1: I'll put you eight. You're like, okay, what do you
Speaker 1: What in the world are you doing to try to
Speaker 1: juice that return, because know that there's a catch. Yeah
Speaker 1: it's yeah, it's not legit, it's not insured by the FDIC. Like,
Speaker 1: could you make money in this account for a time, maybe,
Speaker 1: but are you putting that savings at risk? Yes? And
Speaker 1: there's a reason we talked about not investing your savings.
Speaker 1: This is the money you want to have on hand, right,
Speaker 1: I want you, we want you investing in your tax
Speaker 1: advantage account, but we don't want you investing with money
Speaker 1: that's supposed to be savings. All right, let's talk about
Speaker 1: while we're talking about rates, Matt, let's talk about home
Speaker 1: equity lines of credit. And a lot more homeowners are
Speaker 1: tapping the equity that they've built up in their homes.
Speaker 1: And so if you've owned a home for a few
Speaker 1: years now, you likely have a decent chunk of equity
Speaker 1: dollars that you could drap on and not to do
Speaker 1: something with. And I think some people see that and
Speaker 1: they're like, Okay, it's time to do something because I've
Speaker 1: built up one hundred thousand dollars worth of equity. I
Speaker 1: can't just let us sit there, right, can I? Well,
Speaker 1: yes you can, and you probably should. Because a home
Speaker 1: equity withdrawals are up close to forty seven percent over
Speaker 1: the past year, a lot more people are tapping these
Speaker 1: their lines of equity in order to grab some of
Speaker 1: that cash. But interest rates are up a good bit too,
Speaker 1: which makes that withdrawal a lot more costly. So we
Speaker 1: would say, you know, taking out a moderate amount of
Speaker 1: home equity it can make in certain cases, like reasonably
Speaker 1: renovating making some changes to the house, but way the
Speaker 1: pros and cons before you do, and knowing what your
Speaker 1: timeline is going to be to pay that debt off
Speaker 1: is a crucial place to start. Because if we're talking
Speaker 1: about eight or nine or ten years to pay off
Speaker 1: that whole echoity line of credit, that's too long. If
Speaker 1: we're talking about just a few years to pay that back,
Speaker 1: that's a different scenario. And so we're actually going to
Speaker 1: talk about the value of debt in building wealth on Monday.
Speaker 1: We're not completely against all forns been debt. Well, we're
Speaker 1: going to do that with a guy who has written
Speaker 1: multiple books on the subject. So I'm looking forward to
Speaker 1: that combo. That's right, Yeah, you can look forward to
Speaker 1: that episode here after the weekend, Joel. I saw a
Speaker 1: stat this weekend that caused a pit to form on
Speaker 1: my stomach. It turns out that workers are losing billions
Speaker 1: of their own dollars that they could have used for
Speaker 1: healthcare expenses because they forgot to use their FSA money.
Speaker 1: They're flexible spending account money, money set aside for health expenses.
Speaker 1: And that's especially demoralizing when we were just talking about
Speaker 1: how the rising cost of healthcare, how that's nothing has
Speaker 1: increased more than that. The Employee Benefit Research Institute they
Speaker 1: release some data this week and it turns out that
Speaker 1: forty eight percent of folks who stuck some of their
Speaker 1: pre tax dollars from their employer into an FSA lost
Speaker 1: at least some of those dollars. So that's almost half
Speaker 1: of the folks who have an account, and the average
Speaker 1: amount lost was over four hundred dollars is four hundred
Speaker 1: and eight bucks. That is, that's not chump change, and
Speaker 1: that means that each year Americans combine are losing somewhere
Speaker 1: between three and four billion dollars total. So is the
Speaker 1: takeaway that you should completely avoid an FSA if it's
Speaker 1: offered by your employer, will know. I think FSAs can
Speaker 1: make a lot of sense, but it does mean that
Speaker 1: you've got to be careful and you need to make
Speaker 1: sure that you are. That is just not something you're
Speaker 1: forgetting about, because I think sometimes it can be a
Speaker 1: benefit that's offered and you're like, oh sweet, I got
Speaker 1: that there when the time comes, and when the time comes,
Speaker 1: you forget about it. That's exactly right. I mean, I
Speaker 1: like to avoid taxation on money that I'm getting paid
Speaker 1: whenever and wherever I can, and FSAs allow you to
Speaker 1: do that on money that you're going to spend for
Speaker 1: dependent here or for healthcare. But here's the thing. You
Speaker 1: got to use it or lose it. It's to use
Speaker 1: it the year of or it's gone. Typically there's a
Speaker 1: grace period and some of those dollars, at least a
Speaker 1: percentage of them, can roll over until March of next year,
Speaker 1: which is coming up. That deadline is coming up soon.
Speaker 1: So you might have FSA dollars from twenty twenty two
Speaker 1: that you can still use, but not for much longer.
Speaker 1: And so if you do, it's this is like kind
Speaker 1: of a warning, make sure to go in there, make
Speaker 1: sure you're using that money. And if you don't have
Speaker 1: some sort of like dermatologists visit or expensive surgery coming up,
Speaker 1: that's okay. There are other ways that you can at
Speaker 1: least make sure that you're using this money that it
Speaker 1: can be spent on FSA eligible items. Will link to
Speaker 1: a couple of places in the show notes where you
Speaker 1: can kind of see what items are eligible to be
Speaker 1: spent on FSA money. And the Amazon even has like
Speaker 1: a dedicated FSA store. So if you're like, oh, I've
Speaker 1: got four hundred bucks, like the average person that's just
Speaker 1: literally about to vaporize, then we would say, you know,
Speaker 1: go to that Amazon FSA store, spend that money on
Speaker 1: things that are eligible, just so that you're getting something,
Speaker 1: some sort of return for your money. And then next
Speaker 1: time your next open enrollment, you might want to consider
Speaker 1: allocating less money to it, just to make sure that
Speaker 1: you're using all the money you stick aside, like it
Speaker 1: stinks to be taxed on money that you did spend
Speaker 1: on healthcare when you could have avoided it. But what's worse,
Speaker 1: I would say, is completely losing that money. Can again
Speaker 1: flushing the money down the toilet. Yeah. Yeah, And this
Speaker 1: is an argument for budgeting, or at least tracking your expenses,
Speaker 1: because I think a lot of folks are going to
Speaker 1: hear you say that and they're thinking, well, I don't know, Like,
Speaker 1: how the heck am I supposed to know how much
Speaker 1: I spent on healthcare last year? Well? Guess what if
Speaker 1: you tracked your expenses, Like if you were to asking
Speaker 1: you right now, Matt, how much did you spend on
Speaker 1: healthcare last year? I've got no clue, but I could
Speaker 1: take thirty seconds and look at my spreadsheet from last
Speaker 1: year and be like blah blah, blah blah and just
Speaker 1: punch that in. And so I don't. I'm just making
Speaker 1: an argument for at the very least tracking your expenses
Speaker 1: and planning ahead too, because you can say, hey, listen,
Speaker 1: this how much I spent last year, But I know
Speaker 1: that I'm going to need new classes, I know I'm
Speaker 1: going to need this, this and that, and so you
Speaker 1: can say I'm likely to spend more actually this coming year,
Speaker 1: and so you can allocate another, you know, four or
Speaker 1: five hundred dollars based on the healthcare procedures you plan
Speaker 1: on take. And obviously you can't plan for everything, but
Speaker 1: don't stick too much money in your FSA to where
Speaker 1: some of us just gonna go completely could put. That's right, man.
Speaker 1: But before we wrap up this episode, we've got our
Speaker 1: newsletter a referral shout out to take care of here.
Speaker 1: And this past week, Daniel b he referred our newsletter
Speaker 1: out to at least three of his friends. I think
Speaker 1: I saw that a couple more of his friends, which
Speaker 1: means Daniel be the man. But just a reminder, if
Speaker 1: you have not yet signed up for the newsletter, head
Speaker 1: to Howtomoney dot com forward slash newsletter. Every Tuesday morning,
Speaker 1: we send out an incredible newsletter centered around your personal finances.
Speaker 1: We cover a lot of the great stories that you
Speaker 1: need to make sure that you're not missing. And built
Speaker 1: into that newsletter is a trackable referral program. And when
Speaker 1: you refer some friends, you are able to earn some
Speaker 1: different rewards. So like that's either a shout out like
Speaker 1: we are doing right now, a beer on us the
Speaker 1: coveted how to money socks, and I'll say as well,
Speaker 1: I noticed that there are a lot of folks that
Speaker 1: have one or two referrals, So I just want to
Speaker 1: encourage all you folks out there who are so close
Speaker 1: to hitting that that first tier, that first reward. And
Speaker 1: by the way, Joel, happy birthday. This is it is
Speaker 1: your birthday today. And I'll say that I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: all Joel wants for his birthday is more folks to
Speaker 1: sign up for the newsplay. Yeah, makee my birthday a
Speaker 1: good one and do what you're supposed to do by
Speaker 1: signing up for that newsletter. But yeah, no, it's gonna
Speaker 1: be good. I'm like, honestly, my mother in law she
Speaker 1: asked me, like, what do you want for your birthday?
Speaker 1: And I was like, literally, just to be with people
Speaker 1: I care about, like to hang out with friends and stuff,
Speaker 1: which I'm gonna get to do tonight. You drink some
Speaker 1: beers with some paths I haven't seen in a minute,
Speaker 1: and play some disc off this weekend with you and
Speaker 1: some other dude. So yeah, it's like, that's that to
Speaker 1: me is what makes me happy. Who I don't need
Speaker 1: more stuff? So there you go. All right, Well that's
Speaker 1: gonna do it for this edition of The Friday Flight
Speaker 1: and for this episode, Matt. We'll be back here on
Speaker 1: Monday with that fun conversation about using debt to your
Speaker 1: advantage when it comes to building wealth, but until next time,
Speaker 1: best friends out, best friends out,