Speaker 1: Welcome to How the Money. I'm Joel and I am that.
Speaker 1: And today, of course we're gonna be discussing the new
Speaker 1: student loan forgiveness reality. We're gonna also talk about an
Speaker 1: expensive offspring and d I y Coffins. All right, man,
Speaker 1: we got a lot to cover today. Obviously, some important
Speaker 1: news that went who went out this week that effects
Speaker 1: probably a whole lot of How Money listeners. That's right.
Speaker 1: We'll definitely spend a good bit of time on that
Speaker 1: because there's a lot of nuance to what happened with
Speaker 1: with student loan forgiveness. But before we get to that,
Speaker 1: I wanted to mention that your girls and my girls,
Speaker 1: they have to wear uniforms to school these days, right,
Speaker 1: all the kids at your school. It's not just the girls.
Speaker 1: It's just that your girls are at of school where
Speaker 1: your girls are old enough. My girls are old enough,
Speaker 1: are you? Boys are are not yet in real school,
Speaker 1: so they still like boy at the school. When they
Speaker 1: go to school, they totally dude. Well, whereas our girls
Speaker 1: like nice and because uniforms. We see the pictures of
Speaker 1: them and they got like food all over their faces.
Speaker 1: They're sure like unsucked. And girls look like they know
Speaker 1: what's going on. Can I just say, as a parent,
Speaker 1: it's the greatest thing that ever happened having school uniforms
Speaker 1: because there's so much less fighting about what they were
Speaker 1: before the school all for the day thing. I mean,
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago we started having the girls
Speaker 1: light out their outfits the night before. That was helpful,
Speaker 1: but even still you would still kind of get into
Speaker 1: some of those arguments even then, even the not the
Speaker 1: night before. So it made it slightly less stressful because
Speaker 1: at least we're taking care of this at least not
Speaker 1: right before you're trying to rush out the door to school.
Speaker 1: But it didn't completely solve the problem. And in school
Speaker 1: uniforms totally for it. They're typically not terribly expensive, unless
Speaker 1: sometimes the school requires a particular name brand or a
Speaker 1: specific sort of uniform. Right, But I just wanted to
Speaker 1: mention that our r P t A had like a
Speaker 1: used school uniform sale and you could get I think
Speaker 1: tops for two bucks and bottoms three dollars or something
Speaker 1: insanely cheap, and so we stocked up. And the next
Speaker 1: time they have one of those sales, my girls will
Speaker 1: be bigger by then and so we'll stop up again.
Speaker 1: But These are the kind of things man, that that
Speaker 1: frugal folks like us to take advantage of because they
Speaker 1: can represent big savings. And you're also like reusing something,
Speaker 1: right and let go in the trash and sometimes well
Speaker 1: how did the there's some nice there's some nice stuff
Speaker 1: like nextually what we would have bought new as well? Yeah,
Speaker 1: well so how did the PTA get it? Is? Just
Speaker 1: is this from the lost and found from the previous year?
Speaker 1: I think it's lost and found. I think it's donations
Speaker 1: from other families who are like, hey, we've got a
Speaker 1: kid graduating, or or we're leaving the school, or it's
Speaker 1: it's different people who are donating old uniforms too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: our school did something similar to that. I think what
Speaker 1: they did with the lost and found from the previous years,
Speaker 1: they basically kept some of those uniforms on hand for
Speaker 1: families who might be in a position where they're struggling
Speaker 1: a little bit where they could potentially get those uniforms
Speaker 1: for for absolutely free. But but yeah, getting these things used, man,
Speaker 1: that's totally the way to go, because I mean we've
Speaker 1: got three girls now and forms yeah, I mean three
Speaker 1: times five, you know, like we're actually gonna have fifteen
Speaker 1: different sets of uniforms, and ideally, yeah, we wouldn't have
Speaker 1: to do laundry except for once on the weekends. But
Speaker 1: we're kind of like, you know what, let's maybe hold
Speaker 1: off until the next sale. The next time we come
Speaker 1: across a bunch of uniforms that someone's trying to unload
Speaker 1: for cheap, because it's like it's something like ninety percent
Speaker 1: off or eighty percent off versus what you pay on
Speaker 1: the store rack. Sometimes getting those things used, which is
Speaker 1: which is pretty sweet deal. And by the way, this
Speaker 1: is not a private school in case people wondering these are.
Speaker 1: These are both public schools public schools, but sometimes the
Speaker 1: public schools require uniforms. And I like it. Again, I
Speaker 1: like it from a housle at home standpoint, but also
Speaker 1: just while the kids are in school. I am all
Speaker 1: for freedom of expression and for kids to be able
Speaker 1: to express themselves through what they wear and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: But within two MAT's kids have neck tattoos. So there's
Speaker 1: that DOT is working on getting some I drop tear
Speaker 1: drop tattoos phrase for every you know, she's pretty hard, no,
Speaker 1: but I think it does help. I think it can
Speaker 1: help within that educational environment as well when it comes
Speaker 1: to learning. Agreed. All right, Well, while we're talking about education,
Speaker 1: let's let's get on the Friday flight, let's get through
Speaker 1: the on that note, most impactful story of this week
Speaker 1: for at least for folks in our audience, and that
Speaker 1: is about the student loan forgiveness that just took place.
Speaker 1: President Biden announced an executive action on Wednesday afternoon about
Speaker 1: student loans, and I don't know about you, I was
Speaker 1: like hitting refresh mat. I was like, what's gonna happen.
Speaker 1: I've kind of seen a couple of different outlets reporting
Speaker 1: what might happen, but they're rumblings. Folks knew that was
Speaker 1: going to be going down. Yep, it has happened, so
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks here and there, but I wanted
Speaker 1: to know, like right when it hits, and not because
Speaker 1: I have any skin of the game. I fortunately don't
Speaker 1: have any student loans anymore. But if you, dear listener,
Speaker 1: if you have student loans hanging around and you haven't
Speaker 1: heard about what happened this week at this point, I'd
Speaker 1: be shocked. But there's just a lot of information to
Speaker 1: cover and you might not be familiar with all the details.
Speaker 1: So that's what we want to kind of get into today.
Speaker 1: The big news is that in a three hundred billion
Speaker 1: dollar push, that's how much it's likelihood gonna cost taxpayers.
Speaker 1: All individual federal student loan borrowers with an a g
Speaker 1: I and adjusted gross income below a hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: five thousand dollars or two fifty thousand dollars as a
Speaker 1: married couple are going to receive ten thousand dollars of
Speaker 1: forgiveness for for their student loans. And interestingly enough, parent
Speaker 1: plus loans are included as well, Matt. But private student loans, now,
Speaker 1: if you refinanced into private student loans, there is no
Speaker 1: forgiveness for for you if you have those private loans.
Speaker 1: And uh, in addition to that, folks who had pell grants,
Speaker 1: which typically out to lower income borrowers, they're eligible for
Speaker 1: an extra ten thousand dollars of forgiveness. So when you
Speaker 1: kind of step back out take the big view, something
Speaker 1: like fifteen million people just had their entire student loan
Speaker 1: amount wiped out. And even besides that, it's a it's
Speaker 1: obviously a huge financial relief for tens of millions of
Speaker 1: other folks too. Yeah, and so this is great news
Speaker 1: for all of those folks. And I promise I'm not
Speaker 1: being a debbie downer here. I know there are a
Speaker 1: lot of folks who are like rejoicing, you know, who
Speaker 1: have had some of their student loans forgiven, potentially all
Speaker 1: of their student loans wiped out. But the reality is
Speaker 1: this announcement, it's sort of akin to treating symptoms, not
Speaker 1: the route of what we think is a much larger problem.
Speaker 1: It's like putting band aid on a gunshot wound. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: bleeding will continue. The cost of college it's been rising
Speaker 1: far faster than the rate of inflation for decades, and
Speaker 1: just for giving a boatload of the debt that individuals
Speaker 1: currently hold, it does nothing to address that. Uh. In
Speaker 1: case some point front of the show, Ron Lieber from
Speaker 1: The Times, he just wrote about colleges producing graduates that
Speaker 1: make far less money than their counterparts who only have
Speaker 1: a high school degree. And this is even after years
Speaker 1: of being in the workforce, where you know you've had
Speaker 1: time to get acclimated. Sometimes those first couple of years
Speaker 1: after graduating college, you might still be on par with
Speaker 1: high school graduate counterparts. But you should quickly see six,
Speaker 1: Yeah you should, You should be making far more crazy. Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: I mean talk about being behind a ball, you know,
Speaker 1: taking on debt without superior job prospects because of an
Speaker 1: inferior higher education. This is a real problem going to college.
Speaker 1: It really is a great choice for some folks, but
Speaker 1: not for everyone. We all need to do a better
Speaker 1: job thinking through the value proposition of a degree before
Speaker 1: blindly encouraging folks to pursue getting one. We all need
Speaker 1: to ask the question, you know, well, the time, well,
Speaker 1: the money that we are willing to spend equal higher,
Speaker 1: higher salary down the road and off. I feel like
Speaker 1: we asked that, what's the anything else? And unfortunately, this forgiveness,
Speaker 1: I feel like, isn't going to encourage folks to do that,
Speaker 1: because there's always that sort of thought in the back
Speaker 1: of your mind of like, well, there's a chance that
Speaker 1: something might happen with it. Well, and it also incentivizes
Speaker 1: colleges to do absolutely nothing when it comes to what
Speaker 1: they're charging. And there's no institutional reform or kind of
Speaker 1: soul searching when it comes to what these colleges are providing.
Speaker 1: And you mentioned that the inflation rate of of a
Speaker 1: higher education has outpaced basically everything else. In recent decades,
Speaker 1: and that is true, and that will continue to be
Speaker 1: the case if these are the kind of policy measures
Speaker 1: that we're taking. But let's let's actually talk a little
Speaker 1: bit more about what happens inside of the student loan
Speaker 1: forgiveness and announcement Matt, because one question some folks might
Speaker 1: have is are their tax implications to this forgiveness, because
Speaker 1: sometimes there are, right if you're if you're you have
Speaker 1: debt forgiven, oftentimes you're you tax on the amount that
Speaker 1: was forgiven. But that is not going to be the
Speaker 1: case with this. You will not incur any tax burden
Speaker 1: on this forgiveness amounts. And and actually there's there's even
Speaker 1: more in this announcement because in addition to this headline
Speaker 1: forgiveness amount, the student loan payment pause has been extended
Speaker 1: through the end of the year. So payments will now
Speaker 1: maybe potentially perhaps begin in January. It's been Biden says,
Speaker 1: that's what has been said multiple times. We'll see what
Speaker 1: I see. Yeah, we'll see if that happens, But in
Speaker 1: all likelihood, I do believe that January payments are going
Speaker 1: to restart, and so how the money listeners should be
Speaker 1: prepared for the to resume those payments come the new year.
Speaker 1: The White House also announced new repayment plans that are
Speaker 1: going to cap your monthly payment at five percent of
Speaker 1: your discretionary monthly income, down from ten percent under the
Speaker 1: previous plans. This is probably my favorite thing actually, UH
Speaker 1: in the program, because there was like an alphabet soup
Speaker 1: of income based payment plans before, and now this is
Speaker 1: going to be the slam dunk repayment plan that's best
Speaker 1: for almost everyone. It's is gonna be easier for people
Speaker 1: to understand how it works. And instead of forgiveness after
Speaker 1: twenty years of on time payments, folks are gonna be
Speaker 1: able to have their loans eradicated after just ten under
Speaker 1: this plan. And so, yeah, there's a lot of details
Speaker 1: in this forgiveness action, and we'll link to the page
Speaker 1: on student named dot gov and and we'll actually cover
Speaker 1: more of this in our newsletter on Tuesday, because because
Speaker 1: there was more than just me to the eye in
Speaker 1: UH in a ten thousand dollar blanket forgiveness, Like, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of moving parts in this announcement, and so
Speaker 1: we'll do our best to kind of cover it all.
Speaker 1: That's right, but overall, this is great news for all
Speaker 1: of the student loan borrowers out there who are paying
Speaker 1: down that debt. Joel, let's go ahead and shift gears.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about TV. We saw that there's new data
Speaker 1: from Nielsen that shows that streaming has finally overtaken cable
Speaker 1: in terms of hours spent watching TV for the first time. Uh.
Speaker 1: And what this tells me is that there are way
Speaker 1: more people who love cable than I realized, because like
Speaker 1: I would have said that this would have happened years ago.
Speaker 1: The fact that there are still that many Up until recently,
Speaker 1: up until I guess last quarter or last month, there
Speaker 1: were still more people watching cable than there were watching streaming.
Speaker 1: It's partly a demographics thing, right, mind blowing. There's there's
Speaker 1: still a lot of fifty sixty, seventy something and they
Speaker 1: have kind of stuck with not all of them, right,
Speaker 1: but a much larger percentage of those hooks have stuck
Speaker 1: with cable. They haven't really made the leap, or maybe
Speaker 1: they've added Netflix into their life, but they didn't get
Speaker 1: slowly they've Yeah, maybe they are slowly kind of making
Speaker 1: that transition, making that switch. Like what I want to
Speaker 1: know is, like, what are they watching? What content is
Speaker 1: out there that you can't get it more affordably on
Speaker 1: one of the streaming c ann Plus is no longer
Speaker 1: around my friends, So then the only way to get
Speaker 1: your cn in fix is too is to have a
Speaker 1: cable subscription. But they're canceling their shows anyway. Uh. But
Speaker 1: one of the other things we saw as well is
Speaker 1: that a lot of streaming services are upping their monthly
Speaker 1: subscription prices. Disney they announced surprise increase of thirty percent
Speaker 1: just over a week ago now, and so unless you
Speaker 1: know you want to watch ads while streaming BLUEI, you're
Speaker 1: gonna have to pay that increased rate. That's going to
Speaker 1: be the only way to keep your recurrent monthly price
Speaker 1: of seven dollars and ninety nine cents. By the way,
Speaker 1: Blue season three is out and it is phenomenal. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's better than all the other one if
Speaker 1: you have kids, and even if you don't have kids,
Speaker 1: it's it's like the best cartoon in the world, I
Speaker 1: think right now, it's pretty great. And Netflix they're still
Speaker 1: likely to raise its subscription price as it introduces an
Speaker 1: ad supported tier, which makes sense, you know, like some
Speaker 1: of these streaming companies they're spending huge amounts of money
Speaker 1: on new content that ends up living only behind their paywalls.
Speaker 1: We we actually we literally just covered this on the
Speaker 1: podcast recently, episode five forty two. We talked about streaming
Speaker 1: and we offered a lot of remedies to the problem
Speaker 1: of these increased streaming costs. But one of these considerations
Speaker 1: that needs to be on the table for money conscious
Speaker 1: folks out there is to consider eliminating at least one
Speaker 1: or two of these streaming services from your life. If
Speaker 1: there are ways that you can be a little more
Speaker 1: choosy with the content that you are consuming, that is
Speaker 1: what we're gonna recommend. Plus just watching lest TV generally speaking.
Speaker 1: When we did that episode, what was it, something like
Speaker 1: close to four hours a day the average American watches
Speaker 1: of TV. How it's how it's a hobby basically. I mean,
Speaker 1: you consider sleeping hours and TV hours, that's half your
Speaker 1: life right there. It's insane that we spend that much
Speaker 1: time in front of the television. Some people more than that,
Speaker 1: because that's the average, right, So yeah, watching less TV
Speaker 1: in general sedentary basically, Like that's the other part is
Speaker 1: that if you're on a treadmill watching TV it's a
Speaker 1: different stuff, like, like, what is it? I guarantee it's
Speaker 1: just the tiny, tiny sliver of those people who are
Speaker 1: actually walking on a treadmill while watching TV. But I
Speaker 1: had a first did that just sitting there. I think
Speaker 1: it's a perfect way to reward yourself. If you are
Speaker 1: going to get on the treadmill or something and you
Speaker 1: are going to work out while watching TV, go for it.
Speaker 1: Like I like to listen to podcast or music when
Speaker 1: I'm working out, but it's uh, I think that's a
Speaker 1: reasonable choice totally. But if your case's dad does that
Speaker 1: just on the couch, he gets something elliptical and he
Speaker 1: watches a movie while he just like plugs away for
Speaker 1: only and a half, I like it nicely done. Greg,
Speaker 1: all right, Well, one more thing that we should mention
Speaker 1: specifically when it comes to watching content is if you
Speaker 1: prefer to watch movies but then you prefer to watch
Speaker 1: them in the theater, there's actually a chance you're gonna
Speaker 1: be able to spend less money doing that in the
Speaker 1: near future because movie passed. I don't remember that startup
Speaker 1: you passed. I do. I never joined it because I
Speaker 1: never really go watch movies in the theater. But it's
Speaker 1: coming back from the dead. It's like a zombie company
Speaker 1: that's coming back to life, and it's set to relaunch
Speaker 1: in just over a week. And uh, yeah, we have
Speaker 1: no idea how long movie Pass is gonna last this
Speaker 1: time because their business model last time around was awesome
Speaker 1: for consumers, but not so great for movie Pass continuing
Speaker 1: to exist because they were offering one free movie every
Speaker 1: day for a monthly fee of which I don't know
Speaker 1: where you go see movies, but that's less than the
Speaker 1: price of going to see one movie theater here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's like totally a steal for a movie ticket. So
Speaker 1: this was less than that and you can go see
Speaker 1: a bunch of movies. It just wasn't sustainable. Um, And
Speaker 1: since the movie Pass collapse, a lot of major movie
Speaker 1: chains have kind of launched their own flat fee multiple
Speaker 1: movie initiatives, So maybe a movie Pass isn't gonna be
Speaker 1: as good of a deal. But they're apparently sets a
Speaker 1: relaunch with different tiers of ten and thirty bucks. So
Speaker 1: I don't know. If movies are your thing and you
Speaker 1: want to pay less money, we don't know the specifics,
Speaker 1: but movie Pass might be your jam, that's right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just do the math, and it might make a lot
Speaker 1: of sense for you. It might make fiscal sense for
Speaker 1: you to do that. And this advice is coming right
Speaker 1: after we told you to consume lest TV. But like,
Speaker 1: going to the actual movie, in my mind, is more
Speaker 1: of an experience. You definitely have to get off your butt.
Speaker 1: You gotta get off the couch. Maybe you could ride
Speaker 1: your bike to the movie theater. Uh. That way, you're
Speaker 1: not wasting any gas, you get a little bit of exercise,
Speaker 1: you meet up with some friends there. To me, that
Speaker 1: sounds like a lot of fun. Also, I think going
Speaker 1: to the movie theater every single day just because you
Speaker 1: have that movie pass, because you've got that membership, Uh,
Speaker 1: sounds very time consuming. You know, like like this is
Speaker 1: a young person's game. Maybe the once you get tired
Speaker 1: of movies after a while too, would she's be like,
Speaker 1: I gotta go just to make it worried if if
Speaker 1: I did have movie pass, I guarantee that I'm going
Speaker 1: to see every single movie. And that comes out just
Speaker 1: become yourself. Yeah, in the same way crappy ones, it's
Speaker 1: it's some cost falacy sort of well, it's it's sort
Speaker 1: of like leftovers. If there are leftovers in my fridge.
Speaker 1: Even if it's not something I'm super excited about. You
Speaker 1: know what, we already paid for that thing. It still
Speaker 1: provides calories and urishment nutrition to my body. I'm going
Speaker 1: to eat it. But I've got kids now, and so
Speaker 1: going to the movie theater isn't something I've done in
Speaker 1: a long long time. Kids take up a lot of time.
Speaker 1: They also cost a lot of money, and that is
Speaker 1: actually a story we're gonna get to right after this break.
Speaker 1: All right, man, it's time now to talk about expensive children.
Speaker 1: This is the ludicrous headline of the week, and apparently
Speaker 1: it now costs three thousand dollars to raise a child.
Speaker 1: This this headline was based on analysis from the Brookings Institution,
Speaker 1: and when I read it, I almost put to my
Speaker 1: pants because I was like, I've got three children, soilers
Speaker 1: costs me a million dollars? Right if when you add
Speaker 1: those those numbers up one point two baby, right? Well yeah,
Speaker 1: for you exactly when the average middle class couple is
Speaker 1: going to spend more than three hundred and ten thousand
Speaker 1: dollars on a child just raising them up until the
Speaker 1: age of seventeen. So yes, this number is crazy. Does
Speaker 1: not include the cost of college in addition to the
Speaker 1: cost um raising them. That's that's an average annual cost
Speaker 1: of more than eighteen tho dollars per kiddo. That's basically
Speaker 1: it's a mortgage payment, yeah, every single month. And yeah,
Speaker 1: if you have a few we were talking about a
Speaker 1: luxury penthouse or something like that. But you don't get
Speaker 1: the sweet pool to swimming. You just get the love
Speaker 1: and affection. But of course, inflation has adjusted this this
Speaker 1: number upwards significantly over the past couple of years, raising
Speaker 1: the cost of everything from diapers to groceries and Matt
Speaker 1: I'm I'm sure how much it costs to raise kids
Speaker 1: is largely dependent on where people live and just a
Speaker 1: slew of other factors that a lot of us are
Speaker 1: actually largely in control of. We see this headline number
Speaker 1: and maybe it feels disempowering, but I kind of thought
Speaker 1: about it differently. I think, um, so many of the things,
Speaker 1: like whether it's just small ticket expenses like buying name
Speaker 1: brand snacks, or if you're going to get those used
Speaker 1: school uniforms instead of the brand new ones, you know,
Speaker 1: all the way up to bigger expenses like the kind
Speaker 1: of camps that you're sending your kids too, or if
Speaker 1: you buy them a car, or if you're choosing to
Speaker 1: live in a smaller house and and letting them sleep
Speaker 1: in the same room. Like, those are decisions you can
Speaker 1: make that will greatly lessen the amount of money that
Speaker 1: you're going to personally spend raising kids. You obviously you
Speaker 1: got to feed them. But I think our suggestion would
Speaker 1: be to take that three dollar number with a grain
Speaker 1: of salt. There are things that you can do to
Speaker 1: ensure that opting to have children isn't going to set
Speaker 1: you back to that extent. I think people might read that,
Speaker 1: especially if they're like, I'm on the fence about whether
Speaker 1: I want to have children. They'll read that and they'll
Speaker 1: be like, Nope, that can durish them. Yeah, basically, And
Speaker 1: I don't think that's good because I think, um, one,
Speaker 1: it's not good for our society. It's not good for
Speaker 1: our country when it comes to maintaining that replacement rate.
Speaker 1: And ultimately we would say that kids um are well
Speaker 1: worth every single dollar. Is sure you don't have to
Speaker 1: spend as much as this Brookings Institute study says you're
Speaker 1: gonna have to spend. There are a lot of ways
Speaker 1: for you to curb curb that cost. And either way, man,
Speaker 1: it's worth having kids no matter what. Well, and it's
Speaker 1: it's a personal decision that you need to make, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, like, yes, you need to be wise and
Speaker 1: and look at the numbers and to do some forecasting
Speaker 1: and think about what your life is gonna look like
Speaker 1: were you to have kids and if you can afford it.
Speaker 1: We are all about potential parents being responsible right when
Speaker 1: it comes to like crunching the numbers. But simultaneously, it's
Speaker 1: not just financial reasons that you do or don't have kids.
Speaker 1: Um And for all of the different planners out there
Speaker 1: and perhaps maybe folks who listen to how the money,
Speaker 1: what I want you to hear is that you will
Speaker 1: not perfectly be able to plan out what it's going
Speaker 1: to look like to have kids. Um you might think, okay,
Speaker 1: well maybe next year or you know what, we need
Speaker 1: to have this figured out and this figured out, whereas
Speaker 1: in reality, being a parent, man, like a lot of
Speaker 1: times you're just winging it. Uh. Not only from how
Speaker 1: do I teach my kids how to stop doing this
Speaker 1: or get them to stop doing this? How do I
Speaker 1: teach them to be a respectful kid? But also when
Speaker 1: it comes to the finances of what it costs to
Speaker 1: have a kid. You don't necessarily have to have everything
Speaker 1: planned out, but you will quickly find that you would
Speaker 1: do pretty much anything in order to provide for your kids,
Speaker 1: for your family. And so in that sense, a lot
Speaker 1: of times you're not just flying by the seat of
Speaker 1: your pants. So you're literally putting the plane together as
Speaker 1: you're flying it because you know you have to. But
Speaker 1: like you said, you like, I don't want that to
Speaker 1: be discouraging for potential parents to hear and think, oh,
Speaker 1: this is way too much money. This is not a
Speaker 1: part of my financial plan. This is gonna derail me
Speaker 1: from achieving fire in five years. Therefore, I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: have kids. Hopefully, folks are out there and they're thinking
Speaker 1: about it from a much more holistic standpoint, all right, Matt,
Speaker 1: So hopefully we've convinced everybody out there to have at
Speaker 1: least a kid. Maybe coup more if you're if you're unsure,
Speaker 1: because even though they cost a lot of money, they
Speaker 1: bring a lot of joy. If you're unsure, just have
Speaker 1: three or four. Give it a go. What's the worst
Speaker 1: thing could happen? Uh, let's talk about libraries for a
Speaker 1: second map, because if you're not using your local library,
Speaker 1: then you should rethink whether you're actually a frugal person
Speaker 1: or not. Like you, you might be screwing up on
Speaker 1: this one. Have your frugal license revote. If you're not
Speaker 1: taking over here, we're gonna take it away from you
Speaker 1: into the library. Man, you're gonna do that. We've actually
Speaker 1: had a few guests come on the show, matt And
Speaker 1: and they've actually said that their splurge is books. Right.
Speaker 1: We all always want to know what's your crappier equivalent,
Speaker 1: what is it that you're spending money on while you're
Speaker 1: saving and investing for the future. And a lot of
Speaker 1: them do say, I just buy whatever book I want
Speaker 1: because knowledge is important. And I'm like, good, I can
Speaker 1: totally get behind that. I know what you're saying, but
Speaker 1: I sure hope you're you're not doing that at the
Speaker 1: expense of not using what's available to you for free
Speaker 1: at the library. Um And And sometimes I buy books,
Speaker 1: especially used on eBay, especially if it's one I want
Speaker 1: to keep, or if it's one I want to read
Speaker 1: right away, where there's like a six month wait on
Speaker 1: the libby app, but the reality is that your local
Speaker 1: library system is an incredible resource. And the New York
Speaker 1: Post just reading an article about Overdrive, which is the
Speaker 1: company behind the Libby app where you can go get
Speaker 1: free e books and audio books from your local library,
Speaker 1: and that app has been crushing it basically since the
Speaker 1: pandemic began. When more folks started getting their library content
Speaker 1: via one of those apps, they started getting the digital
Speaker 1: books instead of getting the physical ones. Sadly for libraries,
Speaker 1: though Matt I didn't realize how bad this problem was.
Speaker 1: Digital copies are a lot more expensive than the physical ones,
Speaker 1: and the way times can be weeks or month long
Speaker 1: to grab digital copy of the book you want. Like
Speaker 1: I've literally been waiting for some books for like nine months,
Speaker 1: and so I guess I would just say this plan
Speaker 1: accordingly when you're getting digital copies. I kind of like
Speaker 1: to line things up based on the way time. So
Speaker 1: I'm like always getting fed a book within a reasonable
Speaker 1: amount of time, But you can't always plan it perfectly.
Speaker 1: And you know, just I wanted to use this as
Speaker 1: an excuse to plan the free content that's at all
Speaker 1: of our fingertips. If you're looking to maybe stream less,
Speaker 1: like we were talking about earlier reading more is a
Speaker 1: great way to accomplish that, and there's a way to
Speaker 1: do it for free or for super Jeep. Sure, I'll
Speaker 1: push back a little bit because you said that this
Speaker 1: is a free resource, but I'll point out that it's not.
Speaker 1: It feels like it's free, but this is a resource
Speaker 1: that we have already paid for through our property taxes,
Speaker 1: through our our local and state taxes. That is what
Speaker 1: funds libraries. And so again, I don't want to be
Speaker 1: like the super tax heavy Debbie down a realist guy
Speaker 1: during this episode, but I think like it could even
Speaker 1: potentially be more helpful to think about the library that way.
Speaker 1: It's not just this free resource that's available. Uh, this
Speaker 1: is something that you paid for and if you don't
Speaker 1: go there and take advantage of it, in that case,
Speaker 1: you're just flushing money down the toilet, kind of like
Speaker 1: signing up for movie pass and not going to Like
Speaker 1: why would you? Why would you do that? You would
Speaker 1: not do that, and you're already paying for the library,
Speaker 1: so go take advantage. So maybe this is the mindset
Speaker 1: shift that might help you to visit your local library,
Speaker 1: at least even through the libby app. Joel Let's talk
Speaker 1: about social security. That is a topic we talked about
Speaker 1: last week along with parent plus loans, how it's affecting
Speaker 1: the older generations. So let's dig into another topic affecting
Speaker 1: some of our older listeners, hearing aids. The FDA. What's
Speaker 1: that you saying? Man? Somehow, deep down I knew you're
Speaker 1: gonna do. But the joke. They regulated the sale of
Speaker 1: hearing aids for decades, uh, and they have not allowed
Speaker 1: for them to be sold over the counter. And so
Speaker 1: that means that hearing aids they have been needlessly antiquated
Speaker 1: and expensive for millions of older adults. And so the
Speaker 1: good news though, is that the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission,
Speaker 1: they just give the green light for lots of your
Speaker 1: hearing aids to be sold over the counter. And that
Speaker 1: means that prices that they're bound to come down, and
Speaker 1: it's likely to happen pretty quickly. Hopefully maybe we'll even
Speaker 1: see some innovation, and maybe we'll even see some superior
Speaker 1: products come on the market. Uh. And so instead of
Speaker 1: thousands of dollars for your average pair of hearing aids,
Speaker 1: in the coming years, you know, we can see folks
Speaker 1: being able to get comparable quality hearing aids for just
Speaker 1: you know, hundreds of dollars rather than thousands. But that
Speaker 1: being said, even now you can I mean, you can
Speaker 1: get hearing aids for like a hundred bucks. Maybe the
Speaker 1: quality isn't that good, but this is one of those
Speaker 1: there's a huge discrepancy between hearing. Okay, so if you
Speaker 1: want the good hearing over trying amount the thousands of
Speaker 1: bucks and yeah, well we were not even anywhere close
Speaker 1: to needing them mat fortunately, but at least that we
Speaker 1: know of. But this is one of those things where
Speaker 1: the if you cheap out, it's going to be an
Speaker 1: inferior product. And when it's one of those things where
Speaker 1: it's pretty necessary. If we're still doing the show and
Speaker 1: I don't know, thirty fifty years, well that'll be a
Speaker 1: frugal or cheap that we get to. All right, Jill,
Speaker 1: I'm trying out the hundred dollar hundred dollar hearing aids. Well,
Speaker 1: this is good news because it's an industry that's kind
Speaker 1: of been behind lock and key, and if you're gonna
Speaker 1: be able to kind of shop around and just like
Speaker 1: you would for a whole lot of other electronic items,
Speaker 1: now that you're gonna be able to do it with
Speaker 1: hearing aid's gonna bring the cost down and allow more
Speaker 1: people to get a product that's necessary for them to
Speaker 1: be able to, like live a meaningful life, like to
Speaker 1: be able to hear their loved ones, but and not
Speaker 1: pay just a ridiculous amount of money to do like
Speaker 1: it probably would be a cheap move to, like you said,
Speaker 1: not be able to hear your loved ones, because I
Speaker 1: know I've read stories where with the onset of hearing loss,
Speaker 1: the likelihood of dementia increases significantly in older generations, so
Speaker 1: it's not something you gonna mess around with. And another
Speaker 1: story that affects the oldest among us as well as
Speaker 1: the younger, unlucky ones. People are opting to make their
Speaker 1: own coffins, like we tease too at the beginning of
Speaker 1: this episode, and we're not talking about starting from scratch.
Speaker 1: There are d i y coffin kits that you can
Speaker 1: now buy in order to save a chunk of money.
Speaker 1: Because coffins are they're not all that cheap cost uh.
Speaker 1: I feel like they've probably got some of the more
Speaker 1: affordable coffins out there, but even still they're pretty expensive.
Speaker 1: They're like at least fifteen hundred bucks. They don't sell
Speaker 1: the base model. They don't sell like like straight pine one.
Speaker 1: Once all these starts selling coffins, then we might be
Speaker 1: able to get that sub thousand dollars range. But the
Speaker 1: d I y kits they can cost half as much,
Speaker 1: around eight hundred bucks. But even still, man, I feel
Speaker 1: like that is a lot of money for something that
Speaker 1: in my opinion, I'm like, you know what, I'm still
Speaker 1: going thinking about going the cremation route still cheaper, it's
Speaker 1: still going to be much more affordable, because yeah, even still,
Speaker 1: you're like, you're looking at hundreds and hundreds of dollars
Speaker 1: for a coffin, and especially my opinion, it doesn't it
Speaker 1: doesn't make any different actually when you shop around for
Speaker 1: that cremation, right, And we've talked about that before in
Speaker 1: the show, that sites like funeralocity allows you to kind
Speaker 1: of shop around for your burial or cremation services, right,
Speaker 1: And a lot of people pay way too much for that,
Speaker 1: and Funeralocity is doing a great service and helping people
Speaker 1: be able to save money on something that you kind
Speaker 1: of you often don't have a lot of time to
Speaker 1: plan for the cost of that, and so it's a
Speaker 1: great site to kind of look at to see in
Speaker 1: your area where you can go, which what what funeral
Speaker 1: homes charge? Like you're gonna be able to see the
Speaker 1: price front and center before you make a decision in
Speaker 1: the heat of the moment. Totally. But yeah, I'm mad
Speaker 1: enough about death. Let's talk about disc golf. A secantilist,
Speaker 1: make a nice little pivot here. You got an endorsement
Speaker 1: one of my favorite sports. You would like your ashes
Speaker 1: scattered on a disc golf course? That's exactly right, right, honestly,
Speaker 1: I'd be cool with that. Uh. And there was a
Speaker 1: ringing endorsement of disc golf from The New York Times
Speaker 1: this week. And it's not It's not that we need
Speaker 1: the Gray ladies opinion on disc golf. I don't need
Speaker 1: to hear their stamp of approval to know that it's awesome.
Speaker 1: The Gray Lady, by the way, that's the nickname for
Speaker 1: the New York Times. But it's fun to see one
Speaker 1: of the best sports in existence get some love out there,
Speaker 1: get some major publication love. It's it's not as hot
Speaker 1: as pickle ball. I've seen a lot more headlines about that,
Speaker 1: uh recently. But if you don't do anything else this weekend,
Speaker 1: we would say, buy a disc or two. You can
Speaker 1: get them used at played against sports if you've got
Speaker 1: one in your area, or maybe on Facebook marketplace. But yeah,
Speaker 1: find a course near you and go throw some disks. Well,
Speaker 1: we'll actually link to the p d G a Professional
Speaker 1: Discolf Association course directory on our website, so you can
Speaker 1: find a course near you. It's free, it's fun, it
Speaker 1: gets you out in nature. Like, there's just not many
Speaker 1: better weekend activities than going to play around a discolf
Speaker 1: I don't think, especially as the temperatures are starting to cool. Um,
Speaker 1: maybe you know, I we should go sometimes sometimes today Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm in. I mean I'll be old to today, not today,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe next weekend. Okay, next weekend. Alright, let's you
Speaker 1: gotta play ahead? Yeah exactly, But that is going to
Speaker 1: be it for today's Friday flight. We hope that you
Speaker 1: have a fantastic weekend. We've got a great episode lined
Speaker 1: up for you here on Monday. We're actually going to
Speaker 1: be speaking with a professional athlete, not a professional disc
Speaker 1: golf player, a professional football player, and so we are
Speaker 1: looking forward to sharing that one with you here on Monday.
Speaker 1: And no, this is not the Tom Brady crypto episode. Okay,
Speaker 1: somebody else with much more balanced personal finance views. That's
Speaker 1: right man. Yep So, until next time, Joel, best Friends
Speaker 1: Out and best Friends Out m