September 2, 2022 • 32 mins
Time for our Friday Flight! These episodes are a sampling of the week’s financial news and the impact on your personal finances. There are a lot of headlines out there, but we distill it down to specific takeaways that will allow you to kick off the weekend informed and help you to get ahead with your money. In this episode we cover some relevant and helpful stories like: tomorrow is National Cinema Day, sky high EV prices, heating your home this winter is gonna be pricey, e-bike incentives, at the brink of a possible housing recession, HGTV-ification of America, big brother employers doling out productivity scores, cheap ribeyes and brisket, buying meat in bulk straight from the farm, how eco-friendly is raising livestock, & Sam’s Club raising their membership fees.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to How the Money. I'm Joel and I am Matt.
Today we're discussing quiet, quitting, cheap ribis, and another housing recession.
(00:26):
Yeah that's the big question, right is this gonna be?
Are we living in another housing bubble? We're talking about
that today, along with a bunch of other stories. This
is our Friday flight Man where we tackle some of
the different headlines that we think are the most important,
the headlines we think you need to pay attention to
this week. But real quick, did you see that? Uh?
It's like, what is it National Cinema Day? That this
(00:48):
this weekend? We're not talking about the senator from Arizona.
This is not National Christians Chris, Now, this is Yes,
So September three, all movie theaters. They're only gonna be
three bucks. Sure a lot of folks have maybe even
already seen that, But if not, know that you can
get in to go see a movie at prices you
hadn't seen since. Yeah, and and even so three bucks
(01:11):
to go see a movie. And and the big movie
chains are participating too, to regal and AMC. Yeah, regardless
of the format as well as which I didn't dive
intego see an IMAX definitely eighteen bucks or I don't
even know what it costs anymore. Because when's the last
time you've gone to see a movie? I've I think
I went once during the pandemic, took the kids to
see a Disney movie, but rant in the whole place
(01:32):
out to yourself, basically there was no one else there.
But I haven't been to a movie since, And honestly,
I probably won't go this weekend. Well, I got a
lot of other stuff going on. Well even if I didn't,
I don't know. I might for a three dollar movie.
That sounds like fun, Like that's what it would take
to get me out into an actual movie theater, to
see something out of the comfort of my own home.
You and I we were talking about this this morning.
Ross douth at one of our he's a great writer
(01:54):
over at the Times, and he was talking about how
we're in the age of blockbuster TV right where you're
seeing the different platforms spending millions of dollars on their
programming and especially hundreds of hundreds of millions. Well, yeah,
Lord of the Rings, is it something like seven hundred
releases a million? I think tonight Basically, if you're listening
to this on on the day comes out. But but
(02:16):
it makes sense because there's so much great programming at
our fingertips on our big screens, and the convenience that
offers when you're in the stage of life that we're in. Man,
we are k and I we're going to be more
way more prone to watch a movie sitting at home
than actually, you know, after we put the kids down,
rather than going out. Well, it's typically just a really
expensive endeavor to go see a movie, especially if you're
(02:37):
you're a family. Even as an individual, though, thinking about
spending fifteen bucks or more to go see a movie,
it's like it's prohibitively expensive. And that's assuming you're not
gonna get popcorn and a drink. That's assuming you're shuffling
in your own snacks, right, but in which I don't
know if that's ruler cheap. We can cover that at
a later date, But that's uh for when especially when're
talking about buying four or five or or six tickets,
(02:59):
as it would be the case for your family, too
many tickets you got away for National Cinema Day every year,
and that that might be the only day it even
crosses your mind to go see a movie. All right, kids,
once a year we go to the theater exactly. Yeah.
The idea of going to the movie theater though with
a two year old almost three year olds, now that
you and I both have, that does not sound fun
for anyone. Yeah, not worth it, don't matter if it's
(03:22):
free even, right, So all right, let's move on, Matt.
Let's get to all the stories we found interesting this week.
We will put a link by the way in our
show notes to National Cinema Day so you can see
all the details. But the first story we want to
cover is actually about electric vehicles, because, yeah, the price
of electric vehicles is rising faster than I don't know,
gas prices were rising just a few months ago, Matt.
(03:42):
You know it's rising at a rapid clip. Yeah, they've
been for a minute, going down I think for almost
three months straight, which is good news for everyone. But
electric vehicles are literally going up from price five times
faster than there. And I know you're trying to get
this term adopted their ice counterparts, their internal combustion engine counterparts. Yeah,
I'm not going to try to make that stick because
it doesn't make sense, Like the abbreviation makes sense, but
(04:03):
it just does not seem to fit when you say
it out loud, gasoline powered vehicles is what I will
continue to say. All right, well, this was according to
I C Cars, who does just a lot of surveys
like this, and and part of that is because of
a lack of inventory. But rising battery costs are another
piece of the puzzle of why electric vehicles are costing
so much these days. And manufacturers they seem to be
(04:24):
focusing on the luxury and truck markets too, so the
e V makers know that there's more profit to be
made if they make a fancier version of an electric vehicle.
That's why we're seeing in cars like the Nissan Leaf
basically die, right. The Nissan has said we're not manufacturing
this car anymore. And you and I we really like
electric vehicles. We we truly do think they're the future.
(04:45):
But a massive chunk of these vehicles becoming unaffordable for
the average person doesn't really bode well for EV adoption.
And California just passed a law to that bans the
sale of gas cars by the that is does not
too far in the future, and I think, you know,
we could see electric vehicle prices rise even more because
(05:06):
of this, and again, evs are probably the future. We
like him a whole lot, but there are some physical
and financial constraints that are probably going to prevent us
from becoming a nation of EV drivers in the near future.
Or to see, we're just not going to see adoption
continue at the rate that we've been seeing it if
prices continue to do what they're doing. Yeah, and with
the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, we saw gas prices
(05:30):
uh increased dramatically right like this is back in March.
And right about that same time too, we see the
price of electric vehicles skyrocket. Uh. And so the reason
I mentioned that is because I think it's important to
keep in mind, like the like, the whole picture, the
entire picture of what's going on. Uh. And even though
folks are looking at gas prices and they're thinking, oh,
I don't know if I want to pay that anymore,
it's also important to take into account the total cost
(05:52):
of what it's gonna take to get you somewhere. You
got to take into account the cost of that electric vehicle.
But Joel, you mentioned how the price of gasoline has
been dropping a for the like I think the past
eighty days or so, uh, that's the good news. But
there's a little bit of bad news that we need
to mention as well, and that is that heating costs
are likely going to be increasing this winner as natural
gas prices they've been soaring in recent weeks and really
(06:14):
over the past the past year. It's not going to
be as bad as what what's been happening in Europe,
where utility a billits have more than doubled in the
past year. It's to see the stories about what's happening
with consumers. It's in saying Britain and stuff like, or
in Germany it is it's not a good place there
right now. Yeah, theyre in a world of hurt. But
but even still here in the US, I think it's
(06:35):
important to start preparing and start budgeting now, start preparing
to spend more money, more of your income for utilities
this winner. Uh. And if you are in a state
where you can shop your rates, which which you can
do in something like twenty states around the country, be
sure to do so. But then even still, the question remains,
do I lock in with the fixed rate and hopefully
(06:55):
secure maybe a lower price per therm? Thinking that rates
are going to be go going up, or do you
kind of gamble a little bit pay the variable rate
which tends to be higher, thinking that, okay, surely rates
are gonna come down. Who knows what the future is
gonna hold. Personally, I think prices are going to continue
to go up because I think I think things are
gonna they might look pretty crazy this winter. And regarding
(07:16):
the energy costs not only that Europe is experiencing, but
then how that's going to impact the US, I typically
like to take the burden hand on that when it
comes to natural gas rates, and I like to lock
in the rate. And the reality is that a lot
of other competitors in the space, they'll often pay for
your your brake fee. If they're offering a better deal
and they really really want your business, they'll pay for
(07:37):
you to break your contract with your current providers. So
um I would say that those offers are at least
here where we live, but in a lot of other
states to those offers are good enough from other competitors
that you can lock in securing yourself a better rate
than you would be sticking to some sort of variable
rate plan and then hoping that you're going to get
a good offer from somebody else in the future too,
(07:59):
But yeah, buckle up and prepare your budgets accordingly and
use I don't know, space heaters. Maybe instead of heating
the whole house. Like there's all sorts of ways, invest
in a pair of Long John's, like go to your
local Walmart or Amazon, whatever, your local goodwill. But I
think more people should be considering locking down those base
layers in order to stay warm in the winter. We
(08:19):
were talking more about that, I'm sure this winter, because
we've never said, you know, we're in our new space
here and we have no idea what the what the
heating bill might be. And so at the old place
it was fairly easy to keep it kind of warm
and toasty down there. But in this older carrotch house,
the jury is still out. Yeah, kind of leaks like
a sieve. I think, based on everything I can tell.
And while we're talking about transportation, let's talk about let's
(08:41):
talk about bikes for a second, because I don't know
that's what we do. And I was listening to an
interview recently from a guy who wrote kind of like
his book about the history of bikes. It was just
it was fascinating and it really is it's one of
the best inventions ever made. It's it's really trans transformed
the way we can get around as people. I feel
like the pandemic actually shown a spotlight on bikes in
(09:04):
a really, a really beautiful way. We saw bike sales
ticking up by some more people out on two wheels,
and I mean, I thought that was awesome. And then
recently we talked about the massive rise in the popularity
of e bikes. Well, sadly e bikes were not carved
out in the recent uh Inflation Reduction Acts bill. We
talked about the electric car debates that were included, but
(09:25):
ebikes didn't get any love, and that we don't like
seeing because we think they're a game changer when it
comes to getting around town and being good for the environment.
But Actios actually just wrote a story about ebike benefits
that a whole lot of states, cities, and companies are offering,
and I did I guess I just didn't realize that
the benefits were that numerous around the country from different
(09:47):
like I think Denver is is one of the places
where you can buy an e bike and you can
get some sort of tax credit from from the city.
And so we'll we'll link to Actually, there's a Google
doc that tracks incentives around the country and in Canada,
and so we'll link to that in the show notes.
But basically, if you've been considering one and you're bummed
that the federal government didn't include any sort of any
(10:08):
sort of rebate for that ebike purchase, that they haven't
done anything about that yet. But maybe you've balked at
the price. You're like, they're really expensive, and they are,
but we think that if you use them enough, they're
gonna pay for themselves because you're gonna be in your
car less. You might find that there's some financial assistance
out there, which is great. So again we'll link to
that in the show notes and hopefully, uh, there's something
(10:30):
where you live that will reduce the price that ebike
that maybe you've been wanting to buy. That's right, all right,
let's let's talk about whether or not we are in
a housing recession. That's a phrase that's that's being tossed
around quite a bit right now. The definition it's even
harder to agree on than the one for an economic recession,
it seems like, but it is true. At home sales
they are slowing, we're also seeing that inventory is increasing
(10:52):
as more folks are listening their homes for sale, and
we are also seeing more price cuts. For the first
time in quite a while, US home use fell month
over month, and granted it was only like a miniscule
amounts like point one percent, something like basically does flatline
a point one percent drop makes a housing recession? That
sounds like a bubble popping, right, Um, it doesn't to us.
(11:14):
You know, this doesn't sound like a housing recession. But
the reality is that those are all good things, all
of these changes that we've seen recently, and that's because
the housing market, like like much of the rest of
the economy, was booming in an unsustainable way over the
past couple of years. That the typical home it is
still worth something like more than it was in twenty nineteen,
which is a massive increase, more than what we've typically seen.
(11:37):
And so the natural question, yeah, yeah, And so folks
are like, oh, no, the sky is following just because
it's kind of flatlined for a little bit, and it's like,
no, no no, no, take another step back, look at the
big picture. Do you realize how much equity you have
in your home that you've realized over the past couple
of years. But the natural sort of next question is
will home prices continue to fall? Um. That's a great question,
(12:00):
because they certainly could, But we feel it's unlikely that
that we're in store for any sort of meaningful housing
crash given the fundamentals, Given for the increased demand that
we're seeing for housing that coupled with the much smaller
supply of housing that we've created uh here in the
US over the past decade, we think that that means
that prices will continue to rise, maybe just not at
(12:21):
the clip that we've seen recently. Well, it's an interesting point, Matt.
I mean, I think I could see that happening, but
I could see certainly not a housing recession, but I
could see housing prices continue to climb further moving forward
into the coming months. And I think a lot of
that so much of that is tied to what happens
with rates. And we've seen rates even just this week
bouncing back up, hitting basically right at six percent. And
(12:44):
if we see rates on mortgages continue to climb, that's
gonna occurve affordability even more. And so I think we
could see prices um prices have to go down because
of that. So, yeah, there might be some small declines.
It's not gonna be a pop right, like nothing is
going to crash. The recession term is for the housing market.
It's a bit extreme. It's it's extreme, and we we
don't necessarily see anything close to that happening in the
(13:06):
near future, but that makes be seen. And there are
people on YouTube making videos about this because they want
the clicks and they want to they want to in
sight fear, I think in panic into people or and
and for for some people who have wanted to buy
a home and they haven't been able to afford one yet, Matt,
they they they're kind of hoping for this too. Write
They're hoping for some sort of housing market calamity so
(13:28):
they can buy a home at a cheaper price. And
I totally understand that, but the reality is that's unlikely
to happen. And we just released episode five fifty one
about buying a home in this crazy expensive market. You
might be wondering, might nuts to still be making offers.
We don't think so, because as long as your personal
finances are in good shape and you're planning to own
(13:48):
that home for a decent chunk of time, we would
say at least seven years, preferably a decade. We're totally
fine with you going in that direction, even though there's
quite a bit of uncertainty about where the housing market
is headed in the short term because housing prices they
might continue to decline for a little while, um they
might continue to creep up. Is very hard to predict
what's going to happen in the short term. They're just
(14:09):
so many factors at play. But for you, if you're
financially prepared to buy a home, I wouldn't let these
doom and gloom predictions of a housing recession prevent you
from trying to buy a house if you're in the
position to do that. That's right. Speaking of houses, The
Atlantic just published an article about the h g TV
ification of America. Clearly, there's more streaming home renovation content
(14:31):
out there that's available to us now more than ever before.
That's because a huge percentage of your your friends, your neighbors,
your family are are likely watching it. And while it
might be entertaining, it's also changing our consumption patterns. It's
kind of subconsciously making us want to embrace like these
some of these specific trends for the homes that we
live in. It's making some of the things that are
currently in our home seem more disposable than maybe they
(14:54):
should be. So for instance, like the more wide appliances
that get ripped out of a kitchen on TV, well,
the you know, the more different just going to be
for us to continue to stare at our own white
appliances that work perfectly fine. Oh man, if they didn't
look good, if if the designers on whatever show I'm
watching thought that they had to be ripped out, but
then clearly mine are long in the tooth and I
need they need to be replaced. Also, personally, I think
(15:15):
white appliances, uh look pretty awesome. But this is just
another form of comparison, you know, like we're we're becoming
less okay with the things in our life that are
still working perfectly fine. And you know, this doesn't necessarily
mean that we think that h G TV or these
home renovation shows or you know, flip it or flop
or whatever, that they should be banned. So many names
designing a dime, flip it or flap, I don't know,
(15:36):
like property brothers, Oh my mom, my mom could probably
my house, she's got the roster she's got the line up.
But I want to share this because I think that
the opportunity still lies with us to control what entertainment
we're consuming. There are multiple points where we have the
opportunity to just not watch the stupid show, or if, like,
if you want to watch the show, you still have
(15:58):
the opportunity to say, Okay, I'm going to watch that
as entertainment, but I'm not going to allow that to
affect how I feel about my own residence, or even
if I do feel like my my own home feels
like you said, like long in the tooth, if it's
feeling kind of outdated, you still have control over your
behavior as to whether or not you rip those appliances
out and purchase new stuff. And so I just want
to emphasize personal responsibility and the ability that we have
(16:21):
over our own decisions in order and how that's going
to affect our money. Just as past Wednesday, we talked
about the different marketing maneuvers out there that that stymy
our growth thread, the things that keep us from achieving
the goals that we want to achieve, and it's nowhere
within that episode did we say that well marketing should
not exist. Yeah, that like that that can exist, burn
every billboard down to the ground. Although we make our interstates,
(16:43):
I don't feel a little more pleasant, that is true,
But it is up to us in the end to
decide what it is we're going to consume, how we
feel about those things, and then ultimately what we spend
our money and our resources on. Completely agree. And if
you start to feel like maybe the things that you're
taking in media wise are pushing you to consume more,
we I mean we've talked about that, like social media,
people around us, like keeping up with the Joneses. It's
(17:05):
a real thing that all of us feel, even Matt
and I Field right at times. Yeah, I'm not saying
that it doesn't exist, but what are you going to
do about? Yeah, And if you can call some of
those things out of your media consumption habits, it might
help you avoid some of those downer feelings you might
get about the place where you live. And you might
be like, wait a second, I like my house. I
just started to think for a second, because I'm watching
(17:26):
all this stuff that I needed to upgrade this this
or that, or I needed to rip everything down to
the studs and start over. When your house might be
perfectly good and and so I guess yeah, sometimes we
just let those outside influences have too much power over us. Totally, absolutely, Matt.
We got more to get to on this Friday flight,
including some good news on price drops at the grocery store.
(17:49):
We haven't been able to say much of that later. Yeah,
we'll talk about that and more right after this. All right,
we're back for the break, and we will talk about
that affordable red meat, specifically Ribby. It's a lot cheaper. Uh,
(18:11):
there's days. Yeah, but let's share the ludicrous headline of
the week. This one's from the New York Times and uh,
this one reads the rise of the Productivity Score. And dude,
to be honest, this article was was kind of tough
to read. At the Times. They detail how more employees
across the economy are being tracked, They're being recorded and ranked,
and those tracking systems for some folks, or even docking
(18:33):
your paycheck if you are not being productive enough, if
you're not meeting your quotas, if your screen falls asleep
for maybe more times and is allowed. Uh, this certainly
feels like something out of a dystopian novel or film.
Uh sounds like I mean honestly, downright depressing to have
your efforts reduced down to just a simple numerical score.
(18:53):
No wonder quiet quinning is is becoming a trend, you know,
Like I don't mean to say that this is a
good trend necessarily, Like I don't think two wrongs ever
make a right. Uh. And I'm all about working hard,
you know, like like doing the best that we can
for any employer out there. But dude, the more employers
are trying to track us and turn us into widgets,
I think the more that trust is going to deteriorate,
(19:14):
and without trust, it's going to be difficult to maintain
and even established a successful business. Right and by a quitting,
by the way, it's basically in reference to people doing
the bare minimum to get by. It's like I kind of,
in essence quit, I don't want the paycheck, but I'm
just gonna kind of mail it in, like I'm not
gonna put a lot of effort behind the tasks that
you've assigned me. And I get it. If your employer
(19:36):
is treating you like this, uh, then I understand that reaction.
But we would also say there's a better way forward,
and you should probably just leave an employer who who
treats you like this. And I think like part of
this is the quick switch to work from home math
that employers maybe feel the need to keep tabs on
their employees a little bit more. It sounded nice in
the beginning for employees to be working remote and they
(19:57):
can kind of shift their hours a little bit more
to be productive at different times of day, but not
every employer is down with that. And and apparently some
people are installing like software that causes their mouse to
jiggle because it's mouse jigglers, which is a great term,
but to make it look like they're doing work even
when they've stepped away from their computer. But they feel
(20:19):
the need to do that because their employer is tracking
them every single minute of the day. And Yeah, the
reality is I think that employers they should be hiring
folks that they trust to do the job they've hired
the person to do, and that means tracking based on
results that can be measured, not time spent working, not
clicks of the mouse. They're not just looking for. It
(20:40):
just reminds you in school doing busy work, right, And
it was like, that's that's not what we're looking for,
and that's not what employers should be looking for being
big brother every minute of the work day. It's gonna
lead to worse outcomes overall. Yeah, and it's not that
they're not measuring results, they're just measuring the wrong thing
the wrong thing right, Like with this, I mean we're
seeing we've seen a massive increase in the ability for
folks of work from home, and different technology companies are
(21:02):
out there trying to figure out how it is that
they can measure the productivity of their employees. So, like,
I get what's going on here, but I think what
this means is I mean, like, like we're talking about
turning employees into widgets, and instead of looking at employees
as widges, like I mean, managers need to do a
better job proactively managing their employees and whether that's the
relationship they have with them or working with them to
(21:23):
sort of establish whatever goals there are for more carrots
instead of sticks. You know, absolutely, instead of saying like
I'm gonna penalize you if your mouse isn't moving for
you know, every single minute of every single day, you
could you could offer more incentives and be more motivational
instead of just being ready to punish. Because first the
first instinct that when the mouse isn't moving, Yeah, it's
(21:45):
it's a it's a solution provided by software that truly
does turn us into widgets. And and widgets are fine,
you know when you're creating a machine, like a cold,
lifeless machine, But that's not who people are, you know, like,
that's not what a company is. And the other thing too,
if you start treating people like widgets like cogs and
gears in this machine, and the idea is that you're
(22:06):
able to then swap those people out very easily, right, Well, yeah,
folks are going to do that themselves. Like they're going
to be more likely to leave the company because they're
seeing that they're not valued, because they're they're realizing that, well,
what's the point of staying here when I could just
hop over here, all things being equal, I would rather
get paid a little bit more, and maybe in fact
I will be treated a little bit better over there
as well. Yeah, And I think some some of the
(22:26):
headlines make it sound like there's just this general rensence
to work, that maybe people don't like to work as
much as they used to. And I don't really actually
think that's true. That young people are maybe allergic to
working nine or something like that. I think that's I
think that's a wrong take. I think they just hate
their specific job, or maybe they they don't like their
(22:48):
employer or the way their employers treating them, or I mean,
or they might think that they don't like to work,
like right, Like on the surface level, they're thinking, yeah,
I don't want to work on to spend my time
doing other things. But if you take that view, I
think you're, like you you're in your discounting the intrinsic
value that work can bring to your life. Because when
you eliminate that from your life completely, uh, you're you're
eliminating purpose to a certain extent, also eliminating income, which
(23:10):
is a problem. Well that's the solution there is like
we'll give you, like, can you give me money? Like
if you can, that money be provided from another source
without me having to work. But when you remove that purpose,
I think you also remove like life satisfaction and happiness
and just kind of all the different things that come
with what feels like living a meaningful and productive life. Yes,
(23:30):
so I think the remedy is to find a new job.
If your job sucks or if your employer is treating
you like a widget, and good news job markets hot
you can land a bigger paycheck, better working conditions at
the same time. So yeah, if if you're kind of
in that quiet quitting stage, like I'm just going to
do the bare minimum and just kind of hold my
nose at the stinky situation that is this job, then
(23:54):
you should you should really start looking. You should start
pounding the pavement and uh, start applying for other jobs
and start and look for companies that specifically are known
to have a good company culture, um, so that you
don't end up in the same situation elsewhere. But Matt,
let's let's move on. Let's talk about food for a second,
and how there's some good news at the grocery store,
especially for carnivores for years because steaks getting cheaper, baby,
(24:19):
and that's it's news to my ear. We're actually we're
talking about year over year changes here. So almost every
cut of steak when you look at the numbers, actually
cost less now than it did in September. Ribby is
ten percent cheaper, and brisk it is eighteen percent cheaper.
Actually kind of know this anecdotally from talking to my
cousin's husband when he smoked a brisk at a couple
(24:39):
of weekends ago, and he was like, man, prices are
so much better than they were a few months ago.
It's back on the menu. Boys. I think you said
it was like it was like seven dollars a pound
and ounced down to closer to four. So that's a
that's a big discount. But yeah, for a minute, those
prices were just massively elevated, and our advice was consistently
to you guys, was to trade down too instead of
(25:00):
buying Ribby, get something cheaper and cooked that for dinner,
because yeah, Ribby at seven dollars a pound, it's so
much different than Ribby at fourteen dollars a pound. And
I'm a fan of eating steak every now and again,
I don't do it all that often. But actually, Matt,
I got some this week because I noticed the price
was down when I was in the store. And then
(25:21):
I saw this story and I was like, it's true, true,
and so would you pick that up at Costco? And
so maybe maybe I'll start eating more steak again in
the near future. Well I'll not know. The Washington Post
they actually had an article about how buying meat and
bulk can save you even more money. And I'm not
talking about a double pack of steaks at Costco. More
(25:41):
folks are apparently buying more of their meat directly from
the local farmers in these days. We're talking like half cows,
whole cows that kind of buy. Yeah, this is a
good thing monetarily on a lot of levels, not only
for us as consumers, but also for the farmers. I've
seen relatives actually get a whole or half cow that
allows them to just curb their overall cost per pound
in a significant way. Obviously, you gotta have a deep
(26:03):
freezer in order to de store all of that meat
unless you just got a big appetite, buddy, even if
you have a big appetite, you're not gonna get that far.
But what what are your thoughts on this? You've got, uh,
do you have a fridge or a freezer in your garage? Fridge? Fridge?
Would you be willing to put in a deep freeze
in order to get you get yourself, say a half cow,
in order to say you know, I think I would
(26:23):
consider it, but we've never done it. And but if
someone if let's say my city, I think my my
older sister has done this before and if she reached
out to me, she's like, hey, would you guys want
to split a half cow. It's gonna cost five bucks
a pound, and that's that's cheaper than even the cheap
cuts a bee or something like that, and you're gonna
get some of the good stuff too. I would I
totally consider it. Yeah, Yeah, I think some folks might
(26:44):
be hesitant just because they're like, well, you gotta you
gotta buy a fridge or a freezer. You gotta buy
deep freeze. Those those things aren't cheap, but you can
find them on sale. Uh. And the other thing, I
feel like the other part of the equation is thinking
through like electricity use, and it turns out de freezes
don't use all that much ectricity. We actually, you know,
we calculated this because here where the studio is our landlord.
(27:06):
He's got his deep freeze plugged into our electric electricity
down to the garage and he just wanted to make
sure that we were cool with that. It's just like, hey, guys,
just just so you know, you know, is that okay
if we've got the deep freeze down there, and we're like,
as long as we can get some rid by out
of there every once in a while. I know we
we did the math and it was I mean, I'm
pretty sure it was less than fifty bucks. I think
it was closer to thirty bucks a year is what
(27:26):
it would cost. And so think about how much money
you'd be saving per pound on that beef. Uh, and
certainly factor thirty bucks a year into the equation factor
in finding a deep freeze on sale or maybe you know,
on Facebook marketplace. But I think it could definitely be
a way of reducing that grocery bill in a major way,
especially if you are a big fan of meat mistake. Yeah,
(27:46):
And I think one one thing somebody who's listening, especially
if they're if they're vegan or they're really conscious about
how much meat they consume, they might be wondering what
about the effects of eating meat on climate change? Guys,
And you're encouraging people to go eat like three stakes
a day, No, not necessarily. Well, and the Atlantic they
actually published a really great article this week about how
(28:07):
a world without animal agriculture it's not necessarily more environmentally
friendly than a fully vegan world would, yeah, which I
thought was interesting. It was a really nuanced take and
and basically what they said, Matt was that a world
without meat would require a third more crop land, and
large swaths of animal grazing land just aren't conducive to
(28:27):
anything else. It's not like you could grow crops in
some of those areas. And so we totally think that
a lot of Americans could stand eat less meat than
they do. Now, that's certainly true, right, But eating less meat,
especially the more expensive cuts, is going to curb your
grocery bill in a meaningful way. So that's just a
that's just a good thing to do if you want
to save money. But if you consider the earth, you're
(28:47):
considered about, you're worried about overall human flourishing in your
eating decisions. I don't know. I thought that was an
interesting article and it it shown some new light on
because I've I've always kind of been like, I've wondered that.
I'm like, is it is it really that bad in
the environment. There's a there's people have different takes on that,
and I thought that that article in particular provided just
a helpful nuanced view of me. We should eat less, yes, um,
(29:10):
and most Americans probably should yes, And eating less is
good for our bottom line too, typically nice, Yeah, I
didn't see that article, but I guess the big question
I would bring up would be what about all the
cow farts, because that's what you always hear about, all
the cow farts and burbs and the methane that they're producing.
I think that's something like of the overall overall emission emissions. Yeah,
(29:30):
I'm from cows, but uh lit, we'll make sure the
link to that. Uh. And you know, like I feel
like we're giving Costco a lot of love. We talked
about buying steaks from them. You can also buy a
deep freeze from them, because let's go on sale a
couple of times a year. Let's get some love to
the Sam's Club. Or actually, I guess we're kind of
throwing shade their way because they're raising their membership price
(29:51):
from forty five to fifty bucks for like their regular membership,
and then from a hundred bucks to d ten for
its quote unquote plus level. Uh And so this price
like is going to go into effect on October, but
Sam's Club they will be giving members five dollars in
uh Sam's Club bucks, That's what I'll call them, for
the first year of this increase. So that'll be nice, right,
(30:13):
kind of eases the pain a little bit, gets you
used to the idea that the prices are going to
be going up, giving you a full twelve months uh
in advanced notice. So we wanted to share that we
are more of Costco dudes here, But Sam's it's a
great warehouse option for a lot of folks, especially if
that's the only option that you have in your area. Uh.
And honestly, a five dollar increase, it's probably not gonna,
you know, cause many members to piece out, but like
(30:36):
it is always going to be a good idea to
reassess whether or not you're getting enough value out of
that membership when your renewal date comes around. It's just
like the subscriptions that we often have deducted from our account.
We're so prone just to let those charges continue to
rack up and we're not really thinking hard about whether
or not we are gaining any value from it, whether
(30:56):
we're talking about Netflix or something that typically will save
you money, something like warehouse club. Uh. And so that's
something to constantly reassess within your budget. Yeah. Now I'm
on the edge of my seat if you see if
Costco is going to raise its membership Rice, Yeah, they
probably will. On the last time the CEO was interviewed,
he was like, it's not on our radar, but it
might be now, so we'll see what happens. But Matt,
(31:17):
that's gonna do it for this episode. We will, of
course put links to everything that we we mentioned today
on our website at how to money dot com. That's right.
So we hope everyone has a fantastic holiday weekend. Labor
Day is going to be on Monday. Don't forget. How
could you forget if you've got the day off. I'm
sure you're looking forward to that, but don't forget about us.
Don't forget about How the Money. We've got a great
(31:38):
ask How the Money episode lined up for you where
we're gonna be taking listener questions so you can look
forward to that. Joel, that's gonna be it for today,
But until next time, best Friends Out, Best Friends Out,
Welcome to How the Money. I'm Joel and I am Matt.
Today we're discussing quiet, quitting, cheap ribis, and another housing recession.
(00:26):
Yeah that's the big question, right is this gonna be?
Are we living in another housing bubble? We're talking about
that today, along with a bunch of other stories. This
is our Friday flight Man where we tackle some of
the different headlines that we think are the most important,
the headlines we think you need to pay attention to
this week. But real quick, did you see that? Uh?
It's like, what is it National Cinema Day? That this
(00:48):
this weekend? We're not talking about the senator from Arizona.
This is not National Christians Chris, Now, this is Yes,
So September three, all movie theaters. They're only gonna be
three bucks. Sure a lot of folks have maybe even
already seen that, But if not, know that you can
get in to go see a movie at prices you
hadn't seen since. Yeah, and and even so three bucks
(01:11):
to go see a movie. And and the big movie
chains are participating too, to regal and AMC. Yeah, regardless
of the format as well as which I didn't dive
intego see an IMAX definitely eighteen bucks or I don't
even know what it costs anymore. Because when's the last
time you've gone to see a movie? I've I think
I went once during the pandemic, took the kids to
see a Disney movie, but rant in the whole place
(01:32):
out to yourself, basically there was no one else there.
But I haven't been to a movie since, And honestly,
I probably won't go this weekend. Well, I got a
lot of other stuff going on. Well even if I didn't,
I don't know. I might for a three dollar movie.
That sounds like fun, Like that's what it would take
to get me out into an actual movie theater, to
see something out of the comfort of my own home.
You and I we were talking about this this morning.
Ross douth at one of our he's a great writer
(01:54):
over at the Times, and he was talking about how
we're in the age of blockbuster TV right where you're
seeing the different platforms spending millions of dollars on their
programming and especially hundreds of hundreds of millions. Well, yeah,
Lord of the Rings, is it something like seven hundred
releases a million? I think tonight Basically, if you're listening
to this on on the day comes out. But but
(02:16):
it makes sense because there's so much great programming at
our fingertips on our big screens, and the convenience that
offers when you're in the stage of life that we're in. Man,
we are k and I we're going to be more
way more prone to watch a movie sitting at home
than actually, you know, after we put the kids down,
rather than going out. Well, it's typically just a really
expensive endeavor to go see a movie, especially if you're
(02:37):
you're a family. Even as an individual, though, thinking about
spending fifteen bucks or more to go see a movie,
it's like it's prohibitively expensive. And that's assuming you're not
gonna get popcorn and a drink. That's assuming you're shuffling
in your own snacks, right, but in which I don't
know if that's ruler cheap. We can cover that at
a later date, But that's uh for when especially when're
talking about buying four or five or or six tickets,
(02:59):
as it would be the case for your family, too
many tickets you got away for National Cinema Day every year,
and that that might be the only day it even
crosses your mind to go see a movie. All right, kids,
once a year we go to the theater exactly. Yeah.
The idea of going to the movie theater though with
a two year old almost three year olds, now that
you and I both have, that does not sound fun
for anyone. Yeah, not worth it, don't matter if it's
(03:22):
free even, right, So all right, let's move on, Matt.
Let's get to all the stories we found interesting this week.
We will put a link by the way in our
show notes to National Cinema Day so you can see
all the details. But the first story we want to
cover is actually about electric vehicles, because, yeah, the price
of electric vehicles is rising faster than I don't know,
gas prices were rising just a few months ago, Matt.
(03:42):
You know it's rising at a rapid clip. Yeah, they've
been for a minute, going down I think for almost
three months straight, which is good news for everyone. But
electric vehicles are literally going up from price five times
faster than there. And I know you're trying to get
this term adopted their ice counterparts, their internal combustion engine counterparts. Yeah,
I'm not going to try to make that stick because
it doesn't make sense, Like the abbreviation makes sense, but
(04:03):
it just does not seem to fit when you say
it out loud, gasoline powered vehicles is what I will
continue to say. All right, well, this was according to
I C Cars, who does just a lot of surveys
like this, and and part of that is because of
a lack of inventory. But rising battery costs are another
piece of the puzzle of why electric vehicles are costing
so much these days. And manufacturers they seem to be
(04:24):
focusing on the luxury and truck markets too, so the
e V makers know that there's more profit to be
made if they make a fancier version of an electric vehicle.
That's why we're seeing in cars like the Nissan Leaf
basically die, right. The Nissan has said we're not manufacturing
this car anymore. And you and I we really like
electric vehicles. We we truly do think they're the future.
(04:45):
But a massive chunk of these vehicles becoming unaffordable for
the average person doesn't really bode well for EV adoption.
And California just passed a law to that bans the
sale of gas cars by the that is does not
too far in the future, and I think, you know,
we could see electric vehicle prices rise even more because
(05:06):
of this, and again, evs are probably the future. We
like him a whole lot, but there are some physical
and financial constraints that are probably going to prevent us
from becoming a nation of EV drivers in the near future.
Or to see, we're just not going to see adoption
continue at the rate that we've been seeing it if
prices continue to do what they're doing. Yeah, and with
the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, we saw gas prices
(05:30):
uh increased dramatically right like this is back in March.
And right about that same time too, we see the
price of electric vehicles skyrocket. Uh. And so the reason
I mentioned that is because I think it's important to
keep in mind, like the like, the whole picture, the
entire picture of what's going on. Uh. And even though
folks are looking at gas prices and they're thinking, oh,
I don't know if I want to pay that anymore,
it's also important to take into account the total cost
(05:52):
of what it's gonna take to get you somewhere. You
got to take into account the cost of that electric vehicle.
But Joel, you mentioned how the price of gasoline has
been dropping a for the like I think the past
eighty days or so, uh, that's the good news. But
there's a little bit of bad news that we need
to mention as well, and that is that heating costs
are likely going to be increasing this winner as natural
gas prices they've been soaring in recent weeks and really
(06:14):
over the past the past year. It's not going to
be as bad as what what's been happening in Europe,
where utility a billits have more than doubled in the
past year. It's to see the stories about what's happening
with consumers. It's in saying Britain and stuff like, or
in Germany it is it's not a good place there
right now. Yeah, theyre in a world of hurt. But
but even still here in the US, I think it's
(06:35):
important to start preparing and start budgeting now, start preparing
to spend more money, more of your income for utilities
this winner. Uh. And if you are in a state
where you can shop your rates, which which you can
do in something like twenty states around the country, be
sure to do so. But then even still, the question remains,
do I lock in with the fixed rate and hopefully
(06:55):
secure maybe a lower price per therm? Thinking that rates
are going to be go going up, or do you
kind of gamble a little bit pay the variable rate
which tends to be higher, thinking that, okay, surely rates
are gonna come down. Who knows what the future is
gonna hold. Personally, I think prices are going to continue
to go up because I think I think things are
gonna they might look pretty crazy this winter. And regarding
(07:16):
the energy costs not only that Europe is experiencing, but
then how that's going to impact the US, I typically
like to take the burden hand on that when it
comes to natural gas rates, and I like to lock
in the rate. And the reality is that a lot
of other competitors in the space, they'll often pay for
your your brake fee. If they're offering a better deal
and they really really want your business, they'll pay for
(07:37):
you to break your contract with your current providers. So
um I would say that those offers are at least
here where we live, but in a lot of other
states to those offers are good enough from other competitors
that you can lock in securing yourself a better rate
than you would be sticking to some sort of variable
rate plan and then hoping that you're going to get
a good offer from somebody else in the future too,
(07:59):
But yeah, buckle up and prepare your budgets accordingly and
use I don't know, space heaters. Maybe instead of heating
the whole house. Like there's all sorts of ways, invest
in a pair of Long John's, like go to your
local Walmart or Amazon, whatever, your local goodwill. But I
think more people should be considering locking down those base
layers in order to stay warm in the winter. We
(08:19):
were talking more about that, I'm sure this winter, because
we've never said, you know, we're in our new space
here and we have no idea what the what the
heating bill might be. And so at the old place
it was fairly easy to keep it kind of warm
and toasty down there. But in this older carrotch house,
the jury is still out. Yeah, kind of leaks like
a sieve. I think, based on everything I can tell.
And while we're talking about transportation, let's talk about let's
(08:41):
talk about bikes for a second, because I don't know
that's what we do. And I was listening to an
interview recently from a guy who wrote kind of like
his book about the history of bikes. It was just
it was fascinating and it really is it's one of
the best inventions ever made. It's it's really trans transformed
the way we can get around as people. I feel
like the pandemic actually shown a spotlight on bikes in
(09:04):
a really, a really beautiful way. We saw bike sales
ticking up by some more people out on two wheels,
and I mean, I thought that was awesome. And then
recently we talked about the massive rise in the popularity
of e bikes. Well, sadly e bikes were not carved
out in the recent uh Inflation Reduction Acts bill. We
talked about the electric car debates that were included, but
(09:25):
ebikes didn't get any love, and that we don't like
seeing because we think they're a game changer when it
comes to getting around town and being good for the environment.
But Actios actually just wrote a story about ebike benefits
that a whole lot of states, cities, and companies are offering,
and I did I guess I just didn't realize that
the benefits were that numerous around the country from different
(09:47):
like I think Denver is is one of the places
where you can buy an e bike and you can
get some sort of tax credit from from the city.
And so we'll we'll link to Actually, there's a Google
doc that tracks incentives around the country and in Canada,
and so we'll link to that in the show notes.
But basically, if you've been considering one and you're bummed
that the federal government didn't include any sort of any
(10:08):
sort of rebate for that ebike purchase, that they haven't
done anything about that yet. But maybe you've balked at
the price. You're like, they're really expensive, and they are,
but we think that if you use them enough, they're
gonna pay for themselves because you're gonna be in your
car less. You might find that there's some financial assistance
out there, which is great. So again we'll link to
that in the show notes and hopefully, uh, there's something
(10:30):
where you live that will reduce the price that ebike
that maybe you've been wanting to buy. That's right, all right,
let's let's talk about whether or not we are in
a housing recession. That's a phrase that's that's being tossed
around quite a bit right now. The definition it's even
harder to agree on than the one for an economic recession,
it seems like, but it is true. At home sales
they are slowing, we're also seeing that inventory is increasing
(10:52):
as more folks are listening their homes for sale, and
we are also seeing more price cuts. For the first
time in quite a while, US home use fell month
over month, and granted it was only like a miniscule
amounts like point one percent, something like basically does flatline
a point one percent drop makes a housing recession? That
sounds like a bubble popping, right, Um, it doesn't to us.
(11:14):
You know, this doesn't sound like a housing recession. But
the reality is that those are all good things, all
of these changes that we've seen recently, and that's because
the housing market, like like much of the rest of
the economy, was booming in an unsustainable way over the
past couple of years. That the typical home it is
still worth something like more than it was in twenty nineteen,
which is a massive increase, more than what we've typically seen.
(11:37):
And so the natural question, yeah, yeah, And so folks
are like, oh, no, the sky is following just because
it's kind of flatlined for a little bit, and it's like,
no, no no, no, take another step back, look at the
big picture. Do you realize how much equity you have
in your home that you've realized over the past couple
of years. But the natural sort of next question is
will home prices continue to fall? Um. That's a great question,
(12:00):
because they certainly could, But we feel it's unlikely that
that we're in store for any sort of meaningful housing
crash given the fundamentals, Given for the increased demand that
we're seeing for housing that coupled with the much smaller
supply of housing that we've created uh here in the
US over the past decade, we think that that means
that prices will continue to rise, maybe just not at
(12:21):
the clip that we've seen recently. Well, it's an interesting point, Matt.
I mean, I think I could see that happening, but
I could see certainly not a housing recession, but I
could see housing prices continue to climb further moving forward
into the coming months. And I think a lot of
that so much of that is tied to what happens
with rates. And we've seen rates even just this week
bouncing back up, hitting basically right at six percent. And
(12:44):
if we see rates on mortgages continue to climb, that's
gonna occurve affordability even more. And so I think we
could see prices um prices have to go down because
of that. So, yeah, there might be some small declines.
It's not gonna be a pop right, like nothing is
going to crash. The recession term is for the housing market.
It's a bit extreme. It's it's extreme, and we we
don't necessarily see anything close to that happening in the
(13:06):
near future, but that makes be seen. And there are
people on YouTube making videos about this because they want
the clicks and they want to they want to in
sight fear, I think in panic into people or and
and for for some people who have wanted to buy
a home and they haven't been able to afford one yet, Matt,
they they they're kind of hoping for this too. Write
They're hoping for some sort of housing market calamity so
(13:28):
they can buy a home at a cheaper price. And
I totally understand that, but the reality is that's unlikely
to happen. And we just released episode five fifty one
about buying a home in this crazy expensive market. You
might be wondering, might nuts to still be making offers.
We don't think so, because as long as your personal
finances are in good shape and you're planning to own
(13:48):
that home for a decent chunk of time, we would
say at least seven years, preferably a decade. We're totally
fine with you going in that direction, even though there's
quite a bit of uncertainty about where the housing market
is headed in the short term because housing prices they
might continue to decline for a little while, um they
might continue to creep up. Is very hard to predict
what's going to happen in the short term. They're just
(14:09):
so many factors at play. But for you, if you're
financially prepared to buy a home, I wouldn't let these
doom and gloom predictions of a housing recession prevent you
from trying to buy a house if you're in the
position to do that. That's right. Speaking of houses, The
Atlantic just published an article about the h g TV
ification of America. Clearly, there's more streaming home renovation content
(14:31):
out there that's available to us now more than ever before.
That's because a huge percentage of your your friends, your neighbors,
your family are are likely watching it. And while it
might be entertaining, it's also changing our consumption patterns. It's
kind of subconsciously making us want to embrace like these
some of these specific trends for the homes that we
live in. It's making some of the things that are
currently in our home seem more disposable than maybe they
(14:54):
should be. So for instance, like the more wide appliances
that get ripped out of a kitchen on TV, well,
the you know, the more different just going to be
for us to continue to stare at our own white
appliances that work perfectly fine. Oh man, if they didn't
look good, if if the designers on whatever show I'm
watching thought that they had to be ripped out, but
then clearly mine are long in the tooth and I
need they need to be replaced. Also, personally, I think
(15:15):
white appliances, uh look pretty awesome. But this is just
another form of comparison, you know, like we're we're becoming
less okay with the things in our life that are
still working perfectly fine. And you know, this doesn't necessarily
mean that we think that h G TV or these
home renovation shows or you know, flip it or flop
or whatever, that they should be banned. So many names
designing a dime, flip it or flap, I don't know,
(15:36):
like property brothers, Oh my mom, my mom could probably
my house, she's got the roster she's got the line up.
But I want to share this because I think that
the opportunity still lies with us to control what entertainment
we're consuming. There are multiple points where we have the
opportunity to just not watch the stupid show, or if, like,
if you want to watch the show, you still have
(15:58):
the opportunity to say, Okay, I'm going to watch that
as entertainment, but I'm not going to allow that to
affect how I feel about my own residence, or even
if I do feel like my my own home feels
like you said, like long in the tooth, if it's
feeling kind of outdated, you still have control over your
behavior as to whether or not you rip those appliances
out and purchase new stuff. And so I just want
to emphasize personal responsibility and the ability that we have
(16:21):
over our own decisions in order and how that's going
to affect our money. Just as past Wednesday, we talked
about the different marketing maneuvers out there that that stymy
our growth thread, the things that keep us from achieving
the goals that we want to achieve, and it's nowhere
within that episode did we say that well marketing should
not exist. Yeah, that like that that can exist, burn
every billboard down to the ground. Although we make our interstates,
(16:43):
I don't feel a little more pleasant, that is true,
But it is up to us in the end to
decide what it is we're going to consume, how we
feel about those things, and then ultimately what we spend
our money and our resources on. Completely agree. And if
you start to feel like maybe the things that you're
taking in media wise are pushing you to consume more,
we I mean we've talked about that, like social media,
people around us, like keeping up with the Joneses. It's
(17:05):
a real thing that all of us feel, even Matt
and I Field right at times. Yeah, I'm not saying
that it doesn't exist, but what are you going to
do about? Yeah, And if you can call some of
those things out of your media consumption habits, it might
help you avoid some of those downer feelings you might
get about the place where you live. And you might
be like, wait a second, I like my house. I
just started to think for a second, because I'm watching
(17:26):
all this stuff that I needed to upgrade this this
or that, or I needed to rip everything down to
the studs and start over. When your house might be
perfectly good and and so I guess yeah, sometimes we
just let those outside influences have too much power over us. Totally, absolutely, Matt.
We got more to get to on this Friday flight,
including some good news on price drops at the grocery store.
(17:49):
We haven't been able to say much of that later. Yeah,
we'll talk about that and more right after this. All right,
we're back for the break, and we will talk about
that affordable red meat, specifically Ribby. It's a lot cheaper. Uh,
(18:11):
there's days. Yeah, but let's share the ludicrous headline of
the week. This one's from the New York Times and uh,
this one reads the rise of the Productivity Score. And dude,
to be honest, this article was was kind of tough
to read. At the Times. They detail how more employees
across the economy are being tracked, They're being recorded and ranked,
and those tracking systems for some folks, or even docking
(18:33):
your paycheck if you are not being productive enough, if
you're not meeting your quotas, if your screen falls asleep
for maybe more times and is allowed. Uh, this certainly
feels like something out of a dystopian novel or film.
Uh sounds like I mean honestly, downright depressing to have
your efforts reduced down to just a simple numerical score.
(18:53):
No wonder quiet quinning is is becoming a trend, you know,
Like I don't mean to say that this is a
good trend necessarily, Like I don't think two wrongs ever
make a right. Uh. And I'm all about working hard,
you know, like like doing the best that we can
for any employer out there. But dude, the more employers
are trying to track us and turn us into widgets,
I think the more that trust is going to deteriorate,
(19:14):
and without trust, it's going to be difficult to maintain
and even established a successful business. Right and by a quitting,
by the way, it's basically in reference to people doing
the bare minimum to get by. It's like I kind of,
in essence quit, I don't want the paycheck, but I'm
just gonna kind of mail it in, like I'm not
gonna put a lot of effort behind the tasks that
you've assigned me. And I get it. If your employer
(19:36):
is treating you like this, uh, then I understand that reaction.
But we would also say there's a better way forward,
and you should probably just leave an employer who who
treats you like this. And I think like part of
this is the quick switch to work from home math
that employers maybe feel the need to keep tabs on
their employees a little bit more. It sounded nice in
the beginning for employees to be working remote and they
(19:57):
can kind of shift their hours a little bit more
to be productive at different times of day, but not
every employer is down with that. And and apparently some
people are installing like software that causes their mouse to
jiggle because it's mouse jigglers, which is a great term,
but to make it look like they're doing work even
when they've stepped away from their computer. But they feel
(20:19):
the need to do that because their employer is tracking
them every single minute of the day. And Yeah, the
reality is I think that employers they should be hiring
folks that they trust to do the job they've hired
the person to do, and that means tracking based on
results that can be measured, not time spent working, not
clicks of the mouse. They're not just looking for. It
(20:40):
just reminds you in school doing busy work, right, And
it was like, that's that's not what we're looking for,
and that's not what employers should be looking for being
big brother every minute of the work day. It's gonna
lead to worse outcomes overall. Yeah, and it's not that
they're not measuring results, they're just measuring the wrong thing
the wrong thing right, Like with this, I mean we're
seeing we've seen a massive increase in the ability for
folks of work from home, and different technology companies are
(21:02):
out there trying to figure out how it is that
they can measure the productivity of their employees. So, like,
I get what's going on here, but I think what
this means is I mean, like, like we're talking about
turning employees into widgets, and instead of looking at employees
as widges, like I mean, managers need to do a
better job proactively managing their employees and whether that's the
relationship they have with them or working with them to
(21:23):
sort of establish whatever goals there are for more carrots
instead of sticks. You know, absolutely, instead of saying like
I'm gonna penalize you if your mouse isn't moving for
you know, every single minute of every single day, you
could you could offer more incentives and be more motivational
instead of just being ready to punish. Because first the
first instinct that when the mouse isn't moving, Yeah, it's
(21:45):
it's a it's a solution provided by software that truly
does turn us into widgets. And and widgets are fine,
you know when you're creating a machine, like a cold,
lifeless machine, But that's not who people are, you know, like,
that's not what a company is. And the other thing too,
if you start treating people like widgets like cogs and
gears in this machine, and the idea is that you're
(22:06):
able to then swap those people out very easily, right, Well, yeah,
folks are going to do that themselves. Like they're going
to be more likely to leave the company because they're
seeing that they're not valued, because they're they're realizing that, well,
what's the point of staying here when I could just
hop over here, all things being equal, I would rather
get paid a little bit more, and maybe in fact
I will be treated a little bit better over there
as well. Yeah, And I think some some of the
(22:26):
headlines make it sound like there's just this general rensence
to work, that maybe people don't like to work as
much as they used to. And I don't really actually
think that's true. That young people are maybe allergic to
working nine or something like that. I think that's I
think that's a wrong take. I think they just hate
their specific job, or maybe they they don't like their
(22:48):
employer or the way their employers treating them, or I mean,
or they might think that they don't like to work,
like right, Like on the surface level, they're thinking, yeah,
I don't want to work on to spend my time
doing other things. But if you take that view, I
think you're, like you you're in your discounting the intrinsic
value that work can bring to your life. Because when
you eliminate that from your life completely, uh, you're you're
eliminating purpose to a certain extent, also eliminating income, which
(23:10):
is a problem. Well that's the solution there is like
we'll give you, like, can you give me money? Like
if you can, that money be provided from another source
without me having to work. But when you remove that purpose,
I think you also remove like life satisfaction and happiness
and just kind of all the different things that come
with what feels like living a meaningful and productive life. Yes,
(23:30):
so I think the remedy is to find a new job.
If your job sucks or if your employer is treating
you like a widget, and good news job markets hot
you can land a bigger paycheck, better working conditions at
the same time. So yeah, if if you're kind of
in that quiet quitting stage, like I'm just going to
do the bare minimum and just kind of hold my
nose at the stinky situation that is this job, then
(23:54):
you should you should really start looking. You should start
pounding the pavement and uh, start applying for other jobs
and start and look for companies that specifically are known
to have a good company culture, um, so that you
don't end up in the same situation elsewhere. But Matt,
let's let's move on. Let's talk about food for a second,
and how there's some good news at the grocery store,
especially for carnivores for years because steaks getting cheaper, baby,
(24:19):
and that's it's news to my ear. We're actually we're
talking about year over year changes here. So almost every
cut of steak when you look at the numbers, actually
cost less now than it did in September. Ribby is
ten percent cheaper, and brisk it is eighteen percent cheaper.
Actually kind of know this anecdotally from talking to my
cousin's husband when he smoked a brisk at a couple
(24:39):
of weekends ago, and he was like, man, prices are
so much better than they were a few months ago.
It's back on the menu. Boys. I think you said
it was like it was like seven dollars a pound
and ounced down to closer to four. So that's a
that's a big discount. But yeah, for a minute, those
prices were just massively elevated, and our advice was consistently
to you guys, was to trade down too instead of
(25:00):
buying Ribby, get something cheaper and cooked that for dinner,
because yeah, Ribby at seven dollars a pound, it's so
much different than Ribby at fourteen dollars a pound. And
I'm a fan of eating steak every now and again,
I don't do it all that often. But actually, Matt,
I got some this week because I noticed the price
was down when I was in the store. And then
(25:21):
I saw this story and I was like, it's true, true,
and so would you pick that up at Costco? And
so maybe maybe I'll start eating more steak again in
the near future. Well I'll not know. The Washington Post
they actually had an article about how buying meat and
bulk can save you even more money. And I'm not
talking about a double pack of steaks at Costco. More
(25:41):
folks are apparently buying more of their meat directly from
the local farmers in these days. We're talking like half cows,
whole cows that kind of buy. Yeah, this is a
good thing monetarily on a lot of levels, not only
for us as consumers, but also for the farmers. I've
seen relatives actually get a whole or half cow that
allows them to just curb their overall cost per pound
in a significant way. Obviously, you gotta have a deep
(26:03):
freezer in order to de store all of that meat
unless you just got a big appetite, buddy, even if
you have a big appetite, you're not gonna get that far.
But what what are your thoughts on this? You've got, uh,
do you have a fridge or a freezer in your garage? Fridge? Fridge?
Would you be willing to put in a deep freeze
in order to get you get yourself, say a half cow,
in order to say you know, I think I would
(26:23):
consider it, but we've never done it. And but if
someone if let's say my city, I think my my
older sister has done this before and if she reached
out to me, she's like, hey, would you guys want
to split a half cow. It's gonna cost five bucks
a pound, and that's that's cheaper than even the cheap
cuts a bee or something like that, and you're gonna
get some of the good stuff too. I would I
totally consider it. Yeah, Yeah, I think some folks might
(26:44):
be hesitant just because they're like, well, you gotta you
gotta buy a fridge or a freezer. You gotta buy
deep freeze. Those those things aren't cheap, but you can
find them on sale. Uh. And the other thing, I
feel like the other part of the equation is thinking
through like electricity use, and it turns out de freezes
don't use all that much ectricity. We actually, you know,
we calculated this because here where the studio is our landlord.
(27:06):
He's got his deep freeze plugged into our electric electricity
down to the garage and he just wanted to make
sure that we were cool with that. It's just like, hey, guys,
just just so you know, you know, is that okay
if we've got the deep freeze down there, and we're like,
as long as we can get some rid by out
of there every once in a while. I know we
we did the math and it was I mean, I'm
pretty sure it was less than fifty bucks. I think
it was closer to thirty bucks a year is what
(27:26):
it would cost. And so think about how much money
you'd be saving per pound on that beef. Uh, and
certainly factor thirty bucks a year into the equation factor
in finding a deep freeze on sale or maybe you know,
on Facebook marketplace. But I think it could definitely be
a way of reducing that grocery bill in a major way,
especially if you are a big fan of meat mistake. Yeah,
(27:46):
And I think one one thing somebody who's listening, especially
if they're if they're vegan or they're really conscious about
how much meat they consume, they might be wondering what
about the effects of eating meat on climate change? Guys,
And you're encouraging people to go eat like three stakes
a day, No, not necessarily. Well, and the Atlantic they
actually published a really great article this week about how
(28:07):
a world without animal agriculture it's not necessarily more environmentally
friendly than a fully vegan world would, yeah, which I
thought was interesting. It was a really nuanced take and
and basically what they said, Matt was that a world
without meat would require a third more crop land, and
large swaths of animal grazing land just aren't conducive to
(28:27):
anything else. It's not like you could grow crops in
some of those areas. And so we totally think that
a lot of Americans could stand eat less meat than
they do. Now, that's certainly true, right, But eating less meat,
especially the more expensive cuts, is going to curb your
grocery bill in a meaningful way. So that's just a
that's just a good thing to do if you want
to save money. But if you consider the earth, you're
(28:47):
considered about, you're worried about overall human flourishing in your
eating decisions. I don't know. I thought that was an
interesting article and it it shown some new light on
because I've I've always kind of been like, I've wondered that.
I'm like, is it is it really that bad in
the environment. There's a there's people have different takes on that,
and I thought that that article in particular provided just
a helpful nuanced view of me. We should eat less, yes, um,
(29:10):
and most Americans probably should yes, And eating less is
good for our bottom line too, typically nice, Yeah, I
didn't see that article, but I guess the big question
I would bring up would be what about all the
cow farts, because that's what you always hear about, all
the cow farts and burbs and the methane that they're producing.
I think that's something like of the overall overall emission emissions. Yeah,
(29:30):
I'm from cows, but uh lit, we'll make sure the
link to that. Uh. And you know, like I feel
like we're giving Costco a lot of love. We talked
about buying steaks from them. You can also buy a
deep freeze from them, because let's go on sale a
couple of times a year. Let's get some love to
the Sam's Club. Or actually, I guess we're kind of
throwing shade their way because they're raising their membership price
(29:51):
from forty five to fifty bucks for like their regular membership,
and then from a hundred bucks to d ten for
its quote unquote plus level. Uh And so this price
like is going to go into effect on October, but
Sam's Club they will be giving members five dollars in
uh Sam's Club bucks, That's what I'll call them, for
the first year of this increase. So that'll be nice, right,
(30:13):
kind of eases the pain a little bit, gets you
used to the idea that the prices are going to
be going up, giving you a full twelve months uh
in advanced notice. So we wanted to share that we
are more of Costco dudes here, But Sam's it's a
great warehouse option for a lot of folks, especially if
that's the only option that you have in your area. Uh.
And honestly, a five dollar increase, it's probably not gonna,
you know, cause many members to piece out, but like
(30:36):
it is always going to be a good idea to
reassess whether or not you're getting enough value out of
that membership when your renewal date comes around. It's just
like the subscriptions that we often have deducted from our account.
We're so prone just to let those charges continue to
rack up and we're not really thinking hard about whether
or not we are gaining any value from it, whether
(30:56):
we're talking about Netflix or something that typically will save
you money, something like warehouse club. Uh. And so that's
something to constantly reassess within your budget. Yeah. Now I'm
on the edge of my seat if you see if
Costco is going to raise its membership Rice, Yeah, they
probably will. On the last time the CEO was interviewed,
he was like, it's not on our radar, but it
might be now, so we'll see what happens. But Matt,
(31:17):
that's gonna do it for this episode. We will, of
course put links to everything that we we mentioned today
on our website at how to money dot com. That's right.
So we hope everyone has a fantastic holiday weekend. Labor
Day is going to be on Monday. Don't forget. How
could you forget if you've got the day off. I'm
sure you're looking forward to that, but don't forget about us.
Don't forget about How the Money. We've got a great
(31:38):
ask How the Money episode lined up for you where
we're gonna be taking listener questions so you can look
forward to that. Joel, that's gonna be it for today,
But until next time, best Friends Out, Best Friends Out,
Hosts And Creators
Joel Larsgaard
Matthew Altmix
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