July 31, 2020 • 19 mins
Friday Flight episodes are all about the week’s news and the effects of Covid-19 on your personal finances. There are a lot of headlines out there, but we are distilling it down to specific takeaways that will allow you to not just weather this health and financial crisis, but to come out on the other side even stronger. In this episode we cover a lot of interesting topics like using Netflix payments to boost your credit score, the shortage of disinfectant supplies, upcoming sales tax holidays, working from home into 2021, and the stalled stimulus bill. After all of that we cover reports of surprise covid medical expenses and banks cutting credit lines without warning.
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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 and Matt,
and today we're discussing surprise COVID medical bills and stimulus progress.
(00:27):
And Joel, when you say stimulus progress, you mean lack
of progress, I mean or lack thereof. We're gonna talk
about that as well as a lot of different headlines
that caught our eye this week, things that pertain to
us in our money. But Joel, real quick I saw
that Walmart and Target they both announced that they for
this fall, they're they're still gonna be open on Black Friday,
but they're not going to be open on Thanksgiving Day,
(00:48):
which honestly, I actually thought was already the case. But
that's news, man. What are your thoughts on that? I say,
it's on American shop until you drop three or six
five days a year seven. No, I'm I'm totally in
favor of stores and not being open on Thanksgiving, Like,
I mean, you don't need an excuse of of a pandemic,
you know, to not be open on a like a
(01:09):
massive federal holiday like Thanksgiving that's supposed to be about
you know, family, family together and it's all that stuff.
And I hope you know, even on Thanksgiving, the families
are able to get together. I'm sure some families are
gonna find that more difficult this year because travel is
gonna be more difficult, because getting together with older relatives
is going to be more difficult. But yeah, I think
staying out of stores on Thanksgiving Day is always a
(01:31):
good idea, And so I'm glad that Walmart and Target
are kind of going in this direction to limit the
in store shopping. I'm sure they're still gonna have like
massive online sails when people are going to be in
front of their computer after the Turkey dinner on their
phone sitting there shopping. Yeah, but I'm glady're at least
taking this measure and closing the stores on Thanksgiving. Yeah,
we can always look to Target in Walmart to to
lead the charge when it comes to social change in America. Right, Yes,
(01:52):
they're a beacon of hope. But honestly too, it's really
good for everybody that works there. Think about all the
associates who are like, I'm gonna go in there and
you know, deal with a munch of grumpy people a
m the next day on Black Friday, which I know
you've done before, by the way, Like you are a
previous Black Friday shopper. That was like fourteen years ago.
I can proudly say I've never been in a store
(02:13):
on Black Friday to take advantage of those deals, you know,
waiting in line. Never done it. So, yeah, that was
fourteen years ago. I bought a TV and I basically
had it until just this past year. But yeah, at
this point in my life, definitely wouldn't do that again,
that's for sure. All Right, Now, let's get onto our
Friday flight a quick sampling of stories that we found
interesting this week. We are going to talk about what's
going on with the stimulus package and uh lack of
(02:35):
progress happening there. But first man experience BOOST. We've talked
about that on the show before, and basically BOOST works
like this, the records your on time payments that you
make with your bank account to third party companies like
utility companies and your cell phone service. Traditionally, your credit
score is only really a reflection of payments that you've
made to financial institutions, like paying off your credit card
or paying on a helock to a credit union, or
(02:56):
your mortgage, your student loans, all those kind of things.
But typically you're monthly bills, those just aren't reflected in
your credit score, and experience boost is something that's basically
trying to help people increase their score based on other
on time payments that they're making. Yeah, and so now
they're not only allowing you to enter in information paid
to utility companies in your cell phone service provider, but
now you can add Netflix. You can add on time
(03:18):
Netflix payments in order to boost your score. With so
many people staying at home these days, I think Netflix,
they're one of those companies that is doing really well
these days. Joel, you even mentioned a couple of weeks ago,
you guys kind of jumped back on the Netflix train.
What are you watch them? By the way, have you
checked out Dark? No? I haven't seen Dark is against
getting rave reviews. Yeah, evidently they just wrapped up their
third and final season and people are talking all about it.
(03:40):
So all right, I'll put that on my line. I
want you to check it out and then let me
know if I should watch. I'm kind of born of
the documentaries. Maybe I'm boring in that way, but now
that the air in her Name Learning, I know they're
in her Nandez documentary. Fascinating. Yeah, fascinating. So but yeah,
experience boost can raise your score ten, twelve, fifteen points
and now you can include your Netflix bill, which is huge, Matt.
It's also discussed disinfect and shortages. I think we've all
(04:03):
experienced this. Right toilet paper. It's back on shelves in
most places, but it's still hard to find disinfectant wipes.
And that's because it's been hard to ramp up production
quickly for the companies that make these wipes right there,
they're having snags in their supply chains. In particular, polyester
that's used for wipes is the same stuff that's needed
for ppe and demand is also up four d for
(04:24):
these products. So if you know you're gonna need some
wipes soon, start hunting now because it might be a
while before you find some in the future. Yeah, you know,
we're not necessarily encouraging folks to to prep unnecessarily, you know,
like you don't need to go out and just buy
all the disinfecting wipes that you can possibly buy. That's
called hoarding, and we're not gonna encourage that. But you know,
if that's what's led to some of the shortages in
(04:46):
the first place, exactly, and and so We're not encouraging that,
but if you do know that you have a need
for these, this is just a little reminder that it's
in short supply. One thing hoarding is okay for craft
beer sr No judgment there's ever a craft beer shortage
that will come knocking on your door man. We also
saw that sales tax holidays are happening soon for for
some states, about sixteen of them is what we saw.
You can say between four and nine percent during these
(05:08):
tax free days, depending on the tax rate where you live.
Here in Georgia, the sales tax is actually pretty high,
so this would be pretty meaningful to our savings when
it comes to what we're spending our money on. But
our state unfortunately doesn't participate. Yeah, we haven't seen a
tax holiday here in Georgia since I looked it up.
That's lane I remember having them, but yeah, no longer,
(05:29):
it's been too long. Yeah, many of the state tax
holidays start this weekend, so while others happened the following weekend,
and still others happen at other random times during the year.
We'll post a link in the show notes though, so
you can see if or when your state is having
a tax holiday, and and also what the specific items
are exempt from taxation, and then kind of the overall
dollar amount that you are allowed to spend without having
(05:51):
to pay tax on it. So yeah, I saw it
like one state air conditioning units one weekend out of
the year, they you don't pay tax on them. Well,
that's when you buy a c units right up to
like six thou dollars. Think about the amount of tax
savings by buying your air conditioner that specific weekend. So yeah,
planning your purchases accordingly to when you don't have to
pay tax on them is an awesome way to go. Yeah,
(06:12):
it's good to cross check that list as well, because
some states are not including computers, and so some of
that back to school shopping that a lot of families
are expected to spend, unfortunately may not qualify. Joel on
the working from home front, Google, Uh, we just saw
that they announced that their employees are going to be
able to work from home until July. Man, this is significant,
you know, because I feel that other digital tech companies
(06:34):
they're going to follow the lead of of some of
the bigger players, and you know, with Google's decision impacting
around two hundred thousand workers, that could have an effect
on what your employer does. Yeah, earlier, Matt, you mentioned
kind of Walmart and how maybe sometimes their decisions guide
what other retailers choose to do. Well, it's probably even
more true of Google and kind of their decisions on
(06:55):
work from home. How other companies are gonna follow suit?
Who do you think has more sway, Google or Walmart?
It's tough to say, man, it is both mega corporations,
although Walmart wasn't the one who was under federal investigation,
under the federal spotlight for squashing the competition. That true,
That's a good point. Yeah, alright, maw Let's talk about
more stimulus now. And the question on lots of people's
minds is are we going to get a new stimulus
(07:15):
package anytime soon? Well, the answer to that is what
do you mean by soon, because it all depends on
your definition of when exactly soon as in tomorrow, now,
as soon as in the next month, probably right. Increased
federal unemployment assistance ran out this past weekend, and we
just found out that the economy contracted at a record
rate last quarter. Congress is now finally at least working
(07:38):
to implement another bill to help Americans as COVID pain
has continued to drag on so much longer than we
initially anticipated, and especially in our country, Matt that, of course,
the response has just been pretty pathetic. But the parties
still seem to be so far apart on what they'd
like to see in this latest bill that the Senate
Republicans proposed on Monday, right at difference of about two
trillion dollars in spending is where they're at. One party
(08:01):
wants to spend one trillion, the other party wants to
spend three plus trillion. It's gonna be interesting to see
how long it takes to hammer out the details. You
gotta love politics, man. What happens in d C just
doesn't seem to have nearly as much consideration for what's
happening in the rest of the country as people are
actually hurting out there. Yeah, so it's not worth maybe
getting into too much detail about the specifics of you know,
what's likely to be the Heels Act, because negotiations could
(08:23):
take two to three weeks. Still, I love the acronyms
they they go up with the Cares Act, the Heels Act.
It's beautiful and it actually kind of fits if you
if he's read what all the letters sand for. It's
it seems appropriate, so I don't blame them for that.
But when we do have a final compromise, I think
we will likely see federal unemployment benefits continue, but not
at the current six weekly amounts. Were also likely to
(08:44):
see more direct stimulus payments to individual households, which is
nice likely along the same parameters that the Cares Act
had outlined. I believe too, that will see more PPP
like funding for small businesses because that first round wasn't
quite enough to keep many of them afloat. A lot
of businesses were approved, but they weren't necessarily approved at
the amounts that they know that they need in order
(09:04):
to continue operations. Yeah. Well, I mean Congress basically gave
them amounts based on an eight week shutdown period, and
the shutdowns have lasted a lot longer for a lot
of businesses. So if the shutdowns are going to continue,
I think businesses are gonna need more federal funds. By
the way, there is still PPP money available from the
Cares Act that businesses can apply for right now. Four
businesses who have not applied yet exactly there's still money left.
(09:27):
And you can apply. Access to that money ends on
August eight, though, that's when that money runs out, So again,
there might be another package past that has more money
for small businesses, but there's still money left over now.
And Matt, you and I would suggest a website like
cabbage dot com k A B B A g E.
That's a great place to go to apply for a
p P P loan. Right now, either have to go
(09:47):
to a bank or you have to go through one
of the very very few places online where you can apply.
And I know PayPal was offering the p P P loans,
but now you can't get them through PayPal anymore, so
Cabbage is really one of the only places I know
of online you can turn. Also, please don't buy a
Lamborghini with the PPPING money. You get some dirt backdown
in Florida did that and do that thing? I don't know.
(10:08):
Maybe we'll post that article in the show notes, but
that's just ridiculous. I mean, I can't believe the guy
took the money from the government and then bought a
bunch of crap for himself with it. That's just almost
impossible to fathom. And it's going to point out too
that not only is that it's not going to be
forgiven well you know where it'll be turned into a grant.
But that's also illegal. You know, there's there's a lot
of businesses where individuals have come in and falsified the
(10:30):
numbers related to that business in order to get a
higher amount from the governments. And so the federal government
and they have their hands full in order to make
sure there aren't folks that are just looking to take
advantage of these, uh these programs. Yeah, for sure, And Matt,
we will continue to do updates on the next stimulus
package and when things get more concrete, will relay that
information to you, in particular how it's gonna impact your
(10:51):
business and your personal finances. But we've got more stuff
to get to, including banks slashing credit limits and also
the surprise medical bills that people are receiving when they
get tested for COVID. We'll get to that right after
this break. ChIL, we're back to the break in we're
(11:13):
discussing our Friday flight. That's where we cover a bunch
of stories that we found interesting this week. But real
quick too. It's summertime, man, and I know you've shared
recently how you don't need watermelon, which is like a
summer you know, American treats. But you guys have a
lot of figs over at your house. Maybe you even
have too many of them. I know some of those
made their way back over to our house. We have
a lot of figs. Yeah, my seven year old Chie's
(11:34):
super into him picking them like every morning, all the
ripe ones. And she'll eat half of them man in
in like one sitting. It's pretty crazy, like on the
spot and pretty much. Yeah, so yeah, we do have
a lot of figs. We get this big fig tree
in our front yard, um and it is. Yeah, those
are nice for a little summer treat for sure. Yeah.
I think we're planning to take some of those and
make a little tart out of it. So there we do.
I'll have to try to share some of that with
you all. Yeah, we made like some some jam basically
(11:57):
fig jam, and uh yeah it's great. I mean this
is this has been like the year the homestead. You know,
we talked about the little nature preserve in our neighborhood
and y'all picked a bunch of blackberries made BlackBerry pie.
We we picked them and kind of made like a
like a jam out of it. So I feel like
we're all getting our fingers a little more dirty, kind
of you know, reconnecting with Earth a little bit. Yeah,
I'm feeling a little little house on the prairie these days, exactly.
(12:18):
But let's go ahead, let's talk about COVID nineteen testing.
Consumer reports. Uh, they are hearing that quote unquote free
COVID testing is resulting in some surprise medical bills. You know.
I guess we shouldn't be too surprised that in our
massively confusing healthcare system that people are are getting random
bills for COVID tests that are legally required to be
(12:38):
free based on two congressional aid packages passed back in March.
Some people received bills from urgent care centers, you know,
freestanding test sites, or even hospitals that range from a
hundred bucks to three thousand dollars for for COVID nineteen testing. Man,
that's just crazy, Yeah, it really is. It's a bummer
to to see those stories. And I'm sure people are
shocked when they receive a bill in the mail, especially
(12:58):
if they bread the headlines and they know that COVID
nineteen testing is not supposed to cost them a dollar.
So it's important to know that if you did receive
a bill after getting tested, you don't owe any money.
If you're insured, check to see if your insurance company
has paid the bill. If not, get on the phone
and make sure they cover those costs. You might have
to even submit an appeal. Will link to a great
guide from Patient Advocate dot org that will make that
(13:20):
easy for you. And if you are uninsured, let the
testing center know that you're not supposed to have an
outstanding bill from that COVID test due to the Cares Act.
Right in these cases, healthcare providers are supposed to submit
the bills to the provider Relief fund that those stimulus
bills created. We want to make sure if you've got
that bill, shock, you've got that surprising bill in the mail,
that you're not paying it unnecessarily. Yeah, that was the
(13:43):
exact reason, man, Why why these funds, why these aid
packages were passed back in the spring. But you know,
there are a few instances where you would be responsible
for a bill. For example, it's important to note that
being tested for COVID that is covered, but not the treatment.
So if you were in the hospital receiving treatment for COVID,
you will receive the bill for that care. On a
similar note, if you have COVID like symptoms and you
(14:05):
went in to get evaluated for COVID, but maybe first
you're tested for something else like pneumonia, you're going to
be on the hook for that test and for treatment
received from that as well. You know, those eight packages
aren't a free pass on all medical spending, yeah, for sure.
So one of the ways you can completely avoid all
this headache is to go to a pharmacy or a
retailer that has directly partnered with states or the Department
(14:27):
of Health and Human Services. In these cases, no cost
testing is being provided for free by folks like CBS
and by Walmart. Will include a link in our show
notes to the Health and Human Services site where you
can see if you qualify and are eligible for those
no cost tests, and then you can avoid the bills,
the reimbursements, the phone calls about the surprise medical bill,
you know, altogether. Of course, Walmart had to come back
(14:49):
up in our conversation. I think we have like a
love hate relationship with them, right. You know, I don't
hate Walmart, that's for sure. I don't shop that very
often because I don't find it to be a wonderful
experience when I do. But but yeah, I don't really
have anything against Walmart, but I know some people do. Well.
Let's go ahead, shift gears. Let's talk about credit cards.
You know, we've talked about banks increasing lending standards and
slashing credit limits on previous Friday episodes. But it's important
(15:12):
to note now that these things are happening even more
frequently as banks that they're looking to protect their own
bottom line by curbing the risk. A recent survey reported
that of Americans have had a credit card account closed involuntarily,
and one and three have had their credit limit reduced.
This has caused some to unintentionally max out the credit cards,
(15:32):
you know, which puts an even bigger stray in a
their finances In an already tough time, there's lots of
individuals need access to a credit line in order to
pay their bills. Right now, this is going to hurt
the credit scores of millions of Americans. And we know
that a dinged credit score has all these other impacts,
right these cascading impacts. Um it could affect the amount
you pay for insurance. I mean, there's so many things,
(15:52):
so it's important to do a couple of things right now. One,
use all of your credit cards consistently. Matt and I
would say that you should use your credit cards once
per billing cycle, or maybe twice a month, even if
you want to play it safe, so your bank doesn't
cancel your card due to inactivity. If they cancel that card, obviously,
then you won't be able to use that credit card
and you're missing out on access to those funds if
you need them. But at the same time, it could
(16:13):
massively hurt your score to pay that credit card bill
on time and in full every month. This is always
our advice, right We always want people to avoid paying
interest and fees to the credit card companies by paying
those bills in full. But it's even more important right now,
so the banks don't think that you're a credit risk
and then think that maybe I should be shutting down
that credit line of credit because that person is a
(16:34):
threat to not pay. And then three, watch your utilization.
Don't charge more than of your credit limit in any month.
So if you have a five thousand dollar limit, don't
charge more than bucks a month. And then, lastly, if
this has already happened to you reach out to your
bank to ask that your credit limit be increased back
to where it was. It might not work, but it's
important to try. Yeah, and you, like you mentioned, these
(16:56):
are things that are good to do no matter what.
But in particular now as the banks, as the credit
card companies are changing the rules a little bit, you know,
it's important for us to stay on top of our
credit cards, make sure that we're not over utilizing our
credit because we're aligned to get cut, you know, or
a credit limit to be reduced that would immediately increase
our utilization rate, which would then affect our credit score. Man,
(17:18):
have you actually seen any of your your your limits decreased?
I haven't. I haven't. I think part of that is
because I'm kind of hyper aware of playing by the
rules that the bank's set up, and you know, some
of those rules are a little arbitrary. But the more
you can play by those rules, you're way less likely
to have a credit card closed or a limit decreased, which, yeah,
has just all these other impacts that are negative for
(17:40):
for people, especially right now. Yeah, man, it makes sense
that if you are keeping a clean house, that you know,
the credit card companies are probably gonna leave you alone.
They're not gonna cut your your limits. And you know what,
if you've had a pretty decent score, there's actually a
good chance to that you could actually maybe even increase
your credit limit. So actually I got I logged on
right before we hit record, and I was kind of
wanting to test this out. My off I'll log into
one of my credit cards, and with a lot of
(18:02):
the different companies, you can request a credit limit increase online.
And so one of my cards, man, I had a limit,
and I requested a two thousand dollar limit increase, and
I got it like immediately, like just on the spot,
and they're like, you will be able to utilize this
increased limit within fifteen minutes. I was like, that's way
too easy. I think I thought you were going to
say your Titanium card, you went from a five dollar
(18:22):
limit to like a seven fifty bump that up to
one mill please now. But I was surprised at how
easy it was. It doesn't even necessarily require a call
into the credit card companies maybe like it used to.
It can be pretty simple. So if you're in the
boat where you might need a credit limit increase, that's
something to remember, or if you can just help your
credit score, because a credit limit increase can't hurt you
except in the case that you would actually spend up
(18:44):
to that limit, right, That's exactly that's when it's a
bad idea. So all right, Matt, that's gonna do it.
For this episode, we covered some good stuff today for
everybody out there listening. We will have some some helpful
links on our show notes up on our website at
how to Money dot com. And maybe you're listening to
How the Money for the very first time, maybe you
just kind of stumbled upon it, and if you are,
we would ask for you to go ahead and hit
(19:04):
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be back with another episode on Monday. Everybody, have a
great weekend, Matt. Until next time, Best Friends Out, Best
Friends Out,
Welcome to How the Money. I'm Joel and I and Matt,
and today we're discussing surprise COVID medical bills and stimulus progress.
(00:27):
And Joel, when you say stimulus progress, you mean lack
of progress, I mean or lack thereof. We're gonna talk
about that as well as a lot of different headlines
that caught our eye this week, things that pertain to
us in our money. But Joel, real quick I saw
that Walmart and Target they both announced that they for
this fall, they're they're still gonna be open on Black Friday,
but they're not going to be open on Thanksgiving Day,
(00:48):
which honestly, I actually thought was already the case. But
that's news, man. What are your thoughts on that? I say,
it's on American shop until you drop three or six
five days a year seven. No, I'm I'm totally in
favor of stores and not being open on Thanksgiving, Like,
I mean, you don't need an excuse of of a pandemic,
you know, to not be open on a like a
(01:09):
massive federal holiday like Thanksgiving that's supposed to be about
you know, family, family together and it's all that stuff.
And I hope you know, even on Thanksgiving, the families
are able to get together. I'm sure some families are
gonna find that more difficult this year because travel is
gonna be more difficult, because getting together with older relatives
is going to be more difficult. But yeah, I think
staying out of stores on Thanksgiving Day is always a
(01:31):
good idea, And so I'm glad that Walmart and Target
are kind of going in this direction to limit the
in store shopping. I'm sure they're still gonna have like
massive online sails when people are going to be in
front of their computer after the Turkey dinner on their
phone sitting there shopping. Yeah, but I'm glady're at least
taking this measure and closing the stores on Thanksgiving. Yeah,
we can always look to Target in Walmart to to
lead the charge when it comes to social change in America. Right, Yes,
(01:52):
they're a beacon of hope. But honestly too, it's really
good for everybody that works there. Think about all the
associates who are like, I'm gonna go in there and
you know, deal with a munch of grumpy people a
m the next day on Black Friday, which I know
you've done before, by the way, Like you are a
previous Black Friday shopper. That was like fourteen years ago.
I can proudly say I've never been in a store
(02:13):
on Black Friday to take advantage of those deals, you know,
waiting in line. Never done it. So, yeah, that was
fourteen years ago. I bought a TV and I basically
had it until just this past year. But yeah, at
this point in my life, definitely wouldn't do that again,
that's for sure. All Right, Now, let's get onto our
Friday flight a quick sampling of stories that we found
interesting this week. We are going to talk about what's
going on with the stimulus package and uh lack of
(02:35):
progress happening there. But first man experience BOOST. We've talked
about that on the show before, and basically BOOST works
like this, the records your on time payments that you
make with your bank account to third party companies like
utility companies and your cell phone service. Traditionally, your credit
score is only really a reflection of payments that you've
made to financial institutions, like paying off your credit card
or paying on a helock to a credit union, or
(02:56):
your mortgage, your student loans, all those kind of things.
But typically you're monthly bills, those just aren't reflected in
your credit score, and experience boost is something that's basically
trying to help people increase their score based on other
on time payments that they're making. Yeah, and so now
they're not only allowing you to enter in information paid
to utility companies in your cell phone service provider, but
now you can add Netflix. You can add on time
(03:18):
Netflix payments in order to boost your score. With so
many people staying at home these days, I think Netflix,
they're one of those companies that is doing really well
these days. Joel, you even mentioned a couple of weeks ago,
you guys kind of jumped back on the Netflix train.
What are you watch them? By the way, have you
checked out Dark? No? I haven't seen Dark is against
getting rave reviews. Yeah, evidently they just wrapped up their
third and final season and people are talking all about it.
(03:40):
So all right, I'll put that on my line. I
want you to check it out and then let me
know if I should watch. I'm kind of born of
the documentaries. Maybe I'm boring in that way, but now
that the air in her Name Learning, I know they're
in her Nandez documentary. Fascinating. Yeah, fascinating. So but yeah,
experience boost can raise your score ten, twelve, fifteen points
and now you can include your Netflix bill, which is huge, Matt.
It's also discussed disinfect and shortages. I think we've all
(04:03):
experienced this. Right toilet paper. It's back on shelves in
most places, but it's still hard to find disinfectant wipes.
And that's because it's been hard to ramp up production
quickly for the companies that make these wipes right there,
they're having snags in their supply chains. In particular, polyester
that's used for wipes is the same stuff that's needed
for ppe and demand is also up four d for
(04:24):
these products. So if you know you're gonna need some
wipes soon, start hunting now because it might be a
while before you find some in the future. Yeah, you know,
we're not necessarily encouraging folks to to prep unnecessarily, you know,
like you don't need to go out and just buy
all the disinfecting wipes that you can possibly buy. That's
called hoarding, and we're not gonna encourage that. But you know,
if that's what's led to some of the shortages in
(04:46):
the first place, exactly, and and so We're not encouraging that,
but if you do know that you have a need
for these, this is just a little reminder that it's
in short supply. One thing hoarding is okay for craft
beer sr No judgment there's ever a craft beer shortage
that will come knocking on your door man. We also
saw that sales tax holidays are happening soon for for
some states, about sixteen of them is what we saw.
You can say between four and nine percent during these
(05:08):
tax free days, depending on the tax rate where you live.
Here in Georgia, the sales tax is actually pretty high,
so this would be pretty meaningful to our savings when
it comes to what we're spending our money on. But
our state unfortunately doesn't participate. Yeah, we haven't seen a
tax holiday here in Georgia since I looked it up.
That's lane I remember having them, but yeah, no longer,
(05:29):
it's been too long. Yeah, many of the state tax
holidays start this weekend, so while others happened the following weekend,
and still others happen at other random times during the year.
We'll post a link in the show notes though, so
you can see if or when your state is having
a tax holiday, and and also what the specific items
are exempt from taxation, and then kind of the overall
dollar amount that you are allowed to spend without having
(05:51):
to pay tax on it. So yeah, I saw it
like one state air conditioning units one weekend out of
the year, they you don't pay tax on them. Well,
that's when you buy a c units right up to
like six thou dollars. Think about the amount of tax
savings by buying your air conditioner that specific weekend. So yeah,
planning your purchases accordingly to when you don't have to
pay tax on them is an awesome way to go. Yeah,
(06:12):
it's good to cross check that list as well, because
some states are not including computers, and so some of
that back to school shopping that a lot of families
are expected to spend, unfortunately may not qualify. Joel on
the working from home front, Google, Uh, we just saw
that they announced that their employees are going to be
able to work from home until July. Man, this is significant,
you know, because I feel that other digital tech companies
(06:34):
they're going to follow the lead of of some of
the bigger players, and you know, with Google's decision impacting
around two hundred thousand workers, that could have an effect
on what your employer does. Yeah, earlier, Matt, you mentioned
kind of Walmart and how maybe sometimes their decisions guide
what other retailers choose to do. Well, it's probably even
more true of Google and kind of their decisions on
(06:55):
work from home. How other companies are gonna follow suit?
Who do you think has more sway, Google or Walmart?
It's tough to say, man, it is both mega corporations,
although Walmart wasn't the one who was under federal investigation,
under the federal spotlight for squashing the competition. That true,
That's a good point. Yeah, alright, maw Let's talk about
more stimulus now. And the question on lots of people's
minds is are we going to get a new stimulus
(07:15):
package anytime soon? Well, the answer to that is what
do you mean by soon, because it all depends on
your definition of when exactly soon as in tomorrow, now,
as soon as in the next month, probably right. Increased
federal unemployment assistance ran out this past weekend, and we
just found out that the economy contracted at a record
rate last quarter. Congress is now finally at least working
(07:38):
to implement another bill to help Americans as COVID pain
has continued to drag on so much longer than we
initially anticipated, and especially in our country, Matt that, of course,
the response has just been pretty pathetic. But the parties
still seem to be so far apart on what they'd
like to see in this latest bill that the Senate
Republicans proposed on Monday, right at difference of about two
trillion dollars in spending is where they're at. One party
(08:01):
wants to spend one trillion, the other party wants to
spend three plus trillion. It's gonna be interesting to see
how long it takes to hammer out the details. You
gotta love politics, man. What happens in d C just
doesn't seem to have nearly as much consideration for what's
happening in the rest of the country as people are
actually hurting out there. Yeah, so it's not worth maybe
getting into too much detail about the specifics of you know,
what's likely to be the Heels Act, because negotiations could
(08:23):
take two to three weeks. Still, I love the acronyms
they they go up with the Cares Act, the Heels Act.
It's beautiful and it actually kind of fits if you
if he's read what all the letters sand for. It's
it seems appropriate, so I don't blame them for that.
But when we do have a final compromise, I think
we will likely see federal unemployment benefits continue, but not
at the current six weekly amounts. Were also likely to
(08:44):
see more direct stimulus payments to individual households, which is
nice likely along the same parameters that the Cares Act
had outlined. I believe too, that will see more PPP
like funding for small businesses because that first round wasn't
quite enough to keep many of them afloat. A lot
of businesses were approved, but they weren't necessarily approved at
the amounts that they know that they need in order
(09:04):
to continue operations. Yeah. Well, I mean Congress basically gave
them amounts based on an eight week shutdown period, and
the shutdowns have lasted a lot longer for a lot
of businesses. So if the shutdowns are going to continue,
I think businesses are gonna need more federal funds. By
the way, there is still PPP money available from the
Cares Act that businesses can apply for right now. Four
businesses who have not applied yet exactly there's still money left.
(09:27):
And you can apply. Access to that money ends on
August eight, though, that's when that money runs out, So again,
there might be another package past that has more money
for small businesses, but there's still money left over now.
And Matt, you and I would suggest a website like
cabbage dot com k A B B A g E.
That's a great place to go to apply for a
p P P loan. Right now, either have to go
(09:47):
to a bank or you have to go through one
of the very very few places online where you can apply.
And I know PayPal was offering the p P P loans,
but now you can't get them through PayPal anymore, so
Cabbage is really one of the only places I know
of online you can turn. Also, please don't buy a
Lamborghini with the PPPING money. You get some dirt backdown
in Florida did that and do that thing? I don't know.
(10:08):
Maybe we'll post that article in the show notes, but
that's just ridiculous. I mean, I can't believe the guy
took the money from the government and then bought a
bunch of crap for himself with it. That's just almost
impossible to fathom. And it's going to point out too
that not only is that it's not going to be
forgiven well you know where it'll be turned into a grant.
But that's also illegal. You know, there's there's a lot
of businesses where individuals have come in and falsified the
(10:30):
numbers related to that business in order to get a
higher amount from the governments. And so the federal government
and they have their hands full in order to make
sure there aren't folks that are just looking to take
advantage of these, uh these programs. Yeah, for sure, And Matt,
we will continue to do updates on the next stimulus
package and when things get more concrete, will relay that
information to you, in particular how it's gonna impact your
(10:51):
business and your personal finances. But we've got more stuff
to get to, including banks slashing credit limits and also
the surprise medical bills that people are receiving when they
get tested for COVID. We'll get to that right after
this break. ChIL, we're back to the break in we're
(11:13):
discussing our Friday flight. That's where we cover a bunch
of stories that we found interesting this week. But real
quick too. It's summertime, man, and I know you've shared
recently how you don't need watermelon, which is like a
summer you know, American treats. But you guys have a
lot of figs over at your house. Maybe you even
have too many of them. I know some of those
made their way back over to our house. We have
a lot of figs. Yeah, my seven year old Chie's
(11:34):
super into him picking them like every morning, all the
ripe ones. And she'll eat half of them man in
in like one sitting. It's pretty crazy, like on the
spot and pretty much. Yeah, so yeah, we do have
a lot of figs. We get this big fig tree
in our front yard, um and it is. Yeah, those
are nice for a little summer treat for sure. Yeah.
I think we're planning to take some of those and
make a little tart out of it. So there we do.
I'll have to try to share some of that with
you all. Yeah, we made like some some jam basically
(11:57):
fig jam, and uh yeah it's great. I mean this
is this has been like the year the homestead. You know,
we talked about the little nature preserve in our neighborhood
and y'all picked a bunch of blackberries made BlackBerry pie.
We we picked them and kind of made like a
like a jam out of it. So I feel like
we're all getting our fingers a little more dirty, kind
of you know, reconnecting with Earth a little bit. Yeah,
I'm feeling a little little house on the prairie these days, exactly.
(12:18):
But let's go ahead, let's talk about COVID nineteen testing.
Consumer reports. Uh, they are hearing that quote unquote free
COVID testing is resulting in some surprise medical bills. You know.
I guess we shouldn't be too surprised that in our
massively confusing healthcare system that people are are getting random
bills for COVID tests that are legally required to be
(12:38):
free based on two congressional aid packages passed back in March.
Some people received bills from urgent care centers, you know,
freestanding test sites, or even hospitals that range from a
hundred bucks to three thousand dollars for for COVID nineteen testing. Man,
that's just crazy, Yeah, it really is. It's a bummer
to to see those stories. And I'm sure people are
shocked when they receive a bill in the mail, especially
(12:58):
if they bread the headlines and they know that COVID
nineteen testing is not supposed to cost them a dollar.
So it's important to know that if you did receive
a bill after getting tested, you don't owe any money.
If you're insured, check to see if your insurance company
has paid the bill. If not, get on the phone
and make sure they cover those costs. You might have
to even submit an appeal. Will link to a great
guide from Patient Advocate dot org that will make that
(13:20):
easy for you. And if you are uninsured, let the
testing center know that you're not supposed to have an
outstanding bill from that COVID test due to the Cares Act.
Right in these cases, healthcare providers are supposed to submit
the bills to the provider Relief fund that those stimulus
bills created. We want to make sure if you've got
that bill, shock, you've got that surprising bill in the mail,
that you're not paying it unnecessarily. Yeah, that was the
(13:43):
exact reason, man, Why why these funds, why these aid
packages were passed back in the spring. But you know,
there are a few instances where you would be responsible
for a bill. For example, it's important to note that
being tested for COVID that is covered, but not the treatment.
So if you were in the hospital receiving treatment for COVID,
you will receive the bill for that care. On a
similar note, if you have COVID like symptoms and you
(14:05):
went in to get evaluated for COVID, but maybe first
you're tested for something else like pneumonia, you're going to
be on the hook for that test and for treatment
received from that as well. You know, those eight packages
aren't a free pass on all medical spending, yeah, for sure.
So one of the ways you can completely avoid all
this headache is to go to a pharmacy or a
retailer that has directly partnered with states or the Department
(14:27):
of Health and Human Services. In these cases, no cost
testing is being provided for free by folks like CBS
and by Walmart. Will include a link in our show
notes to the Health and Human Services site where you
can see if you qualify and are eligible for those
no cost tests, and then you can avoid the bills,
the reimbursements, the phone calls about the surprise medical bill,
you know, altogether. Of course, Walmart had to come back
(14:49):
up in our conversation. I think we have like a
love hate relationship with them, right. You know, I don't
hate Walmart, that's for sure. I don't shop that very
often because I don't find it to be a wonderful
experience when I do. But but yeah, I don't really
have anything against Walmart, but I know some people do. Well.
Let's go ahead, shift gears. Let's talk about credit cards.
You know, we've talked about banks increasing lending standards and
slashing credit limits on previous Friday episodes. But it's important
(15:12):
to note now that these things are happening even more
frequently as banks that they're looking to protect their own
bottom line by curbing the risk. A recent survey reported
that of Americans have had a credit card account closed involuntarily,
and one and three have had their credit limit reduced.
This has caused some to unintentionally max out the credit cards,
(15:32):
you know, which puts an even bigger stray in a
their finances In an already tough time, there's lots of
individuals need access to a credit line in order to
pay their bills. Right now, this is going to hurt
the credit scores of millions of Americans. And we know
that a dinged credit score has all these other impacts,
right these cascading impacts. Um it could affect the amount
you pay for insurance. I mean, there's so many things,
(15:52):
so it's important to do a couple of things right now. One,
use all of your credit cards consistently. Matt and I
would say that you should use your credit cards once
per billing cycle, or maybe twice a month, even if
you want to play it safe, so your bank doesn't
cancel your card due to inactivity. If they cancel that card, obviously,
then you won't be able to use that credit card
and you're missing out on access to those funds if
you need them. But at the same time, it could
(16:13):
massively hurt your score to pay that credit card bill
on time and in full every month. This is always
our advice, right We always want people to avoid paying
interest and fees to the credit card companies by paying
those bills in full. But it's even more important right now,
so the banks don't think that you're a credit risk
and then think that maybe I should be shutting down
that credit line of credit because that person is a
(16:34):
threat to not pay. And then three, watch your utilization.
Don't charge more than of your credit limit in any month.
So if you have a five thousand dollar limit, don't
charge more than bucks a month. And then, lastly, if
this has already happened to you reach out to your
bank to ask that your credit limit be increased back
to where it was. It might not work, but it's
important to try. Yeah, and you, like you mentioned, these
(16:56):
are things that are good to do no matter what.
But in particular now as the banks, as the credit
card companies are changing the rules a little bit, you know,
it's important for us to stay on top of our
credit cards, make sure that we're not over utilizing our
credit because we're aligned to get cut, you know, or
a credit limit to be reduced that would immediately increase
our utilization rate, which would then affect our credit score. Man,
(17:18):
have you actually seen any of your your your limits decreased?
I haven't. I haven't. I think part of that is
because I'm kind of hyper aware of playing by the
rules that the bank's set up, and you know, some
of those rules are a little arbitrary. But the more
you can play by those rules, you're way less likely
to have a credit card closed or a limit decreased, which, yeah,
has just all these other impacts that are negative for
(17:40):
for people, especially right now. Yeah, man, it makes sense
that if you are keeping a clean house, that you know,
the credit card companies are probably gonna leave you alone.
They're not gonna cut your your limits. And you know what,
if you've had a pretty decent score, there's actually a
good chance to that you could actually maybe even increase
your credit limit. So actually I got I logged on
right before we hit record, and I was kind of
wanting to test this out. My off I'll log into
one of my credit cards, and with a lot of
(18:02):
the different companies, you can request a credit limit increase online.
And so one of my cards, man, I had a limit,
and I requested a two thousand dollar limit increase, and
I got it like immediately, like just on the spot,
and they're like, you will be able to utilize this
increased limit within fifteen minutes. I was like, that's way
too easy. I think I thought you were going to
say your Titanium card, you went from a five dollar
(18:22):
limit to like a seven fifty bump that up to
one mill please now. But I was surprised at how
easy it was. It doesn't even necessarily require a call
into the credit card companies maybe like it used to.
It can be pretty simple. So if you're in the
boat where you might need a credit limit increase, that's
something to remember, or if you can just help your
credit score, because a credit limit increase can't hurt you
except in the case that you would actually spend up
(18:44):
to that limit, right, That's exactly that's when it's a
bad idea. So all right, Matt, that's gonna do it.
For this episode, we covered some good stuff today for
everybody out there listening. We will have some some helpful
links on our show notes up on our website at
how to Money dot com. And maybe you're listening to
How the Money for the very first time, maybe you
just kind of stumbled upon it, and if you are,
we would ask for you to go ahead and hit
(19:04):
subscribe so that you don't miss future episodes. And if
you are already a subscriber and you haven't left us
a review yet, we would love for you to leave
us a review. You know what, don't even worry about
it over at Apple Podcast. Just do it wherever it
is that you listen to your podcast. All right, we'll
be back with another episode on Monday. Everybody, have a
great weekend, Matt. Until next time, Best Friends Out, Best
Friends Out,
Hosts And Creators
Joel Larsgaard
Matthew Altmix
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