October 17, 2013 • 43 mins
Times are still kind of tough, but there are some time-tested and easy ways to get ahead and in this episode Josh and Chuck explore them. Learn about not only how to save, but also how to make your new-found dough grow.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the all New Toyota Corolla. Welcome
to you Stuff you Should Know Front House Stuff Works
dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Jock
Clark and Charles W. Chuck Bryan is with me, and
Jerry's over there. So this is Stuff you Should Know,
(00:21):
the legendary podcast live version. Well, it's recorded recorded live
to tape tape. We've done live persons. Yeah, like in
a with an audience. Yeah, I don't know if you
remember that. Sure, we've done it. Yeah. Should we set
up this a little bit? I'd like to oh, yes,
go ahead. Well, people, when you listen to Stuff you
(00:42):
Should Know, a lot of times you're regaled with stories
of history, or stories of science, or cool animals or
you know, you name it. We like to cover lots
of stuff, but occasionally we like to do a little advice. Yes,
but the fact that we're doing out advice does not
mean that we are professional advisers. No, no, no. But
(01:04):
occasionally we like to talk about things like green living,
or health and fitness, or in this case, finance, just
because you know, we know the millennials out there think
they're never gonna have to worry about anything but eventually
you're going to be off the teeth of your parents
and you might have to think about this stuff. Either
that or the millennials are already more worried than anybody
(01:25):
else right now. Uh, and not just millennials. I think
anybody could use this advice and put it to pretty
good use. Well. Yeah, one thing I've realized is that
you're never too young or you're never too old to
start being smart and thinking about like, you know, money,
inter future and stuff like that. I don't know, I mean,
like if you're in the last weeks of your life,
(01:45):
like it's too late that maybe, so never say never.
But yes, the younger you are, the better off you are.
The later you start, you know, the further you have
to catch up. But the point is there's no reason
to not try. And what we're talking about is is
saving money. But it's not just saving money, it's part
(02:05):
of like a saving money is the basis of basically
a conscientious lifestyle. Yeah. Um, you don't have to be rich,
and you don't have to even want to be rich. Basically,
all you have to have is the desire to be
financially independent or close to financially independent and financially free,
(02:29):
and that doesn't mean you have to have gobs of
money or endless amount of cash. Actually, it's pretty easy
to sit there and figure out how much money you
need and set that as your goal and get to it.
And the cool thing is if you if you do
kind of take this advice, you do kind of start
following this path. I guess you could say, um, it's
(02:51):
it's It becomes a bit addictive and you realize that
you've just altered your mindset and you're living basically the
antithesis of a wasteful consumer culture life and sticking it
to the man. That's right, and you don't have to
be a freaking to do it. You know, there's a
middle ground that's just being smart and uh frugal where
(03:13):
you need to be. And it's like, I get into it.
It's not like I'm loaded or anything, but I don't
think about the money so much as I think about
efficiency and like waste that really occupies a lot of
my mind. Once you start thinking about everything in those terms,
all of a sudden it becomes very clear and every
(03:34):
little bit it counts because you're you're you know, take energy,
which we'll get into if you unplug your toaster every
day after you use it. I mean, what's that going
to add up to? Like virtually nothing? Actually have a
bit on vampire power. We'll talk about good. I'm glad
you do. And it's not much though, right, well, we'll
talk about it all right. But let's say a toaster
(03:56):
is not much, just a single toaster, it's not much,
thank you bye. If you take that toaster and pile
it in with um, you know, savings on not buying
coffee every day while you're out and um, you know,
thinking about your auto insurance and just all the stuff
that we're going to talk about and think of all
of it is what you're throwing into a pot, your savings.
Then it does count. It does matter. Yeah, um, so good,
(04:20):
thanks man. So the recommended amount that I've seen, I
don't remember what investment advisor wrote the article or whatever,
but I've seen before that you want to save what
amounts to about eight times your ending salary, no matter
what you're ending salary, that's the salary you're gonna have
when you retire. Is that is a mind bogglingly daunting
(04:45):
number if you think about it, to say to have
that much in the bank by the time you retire. Yeah,
eight times. Yeah, I better get busy. Supposedly you're supposed
to have like one time what you you estimate your
ending salary would be by the time you're thirty, three
times by the time you're forty, and then so on
until by about the time you're sixty five. Shoot at
eight times, you're any Sorry, that's a lot of money,
(05:07):
That's a lot of savings. Okay, I think pretty much
everybody is a bit behind. I think that's a that's
a very important point. I don't feel like anybody, especially
somebody who feels daunted by that number, should feel like
that they're on the outs and that everybody else is
doing well. But at the same time, that doesn't mean
(05:29):
that just because everybody else is a saving that you
shouldn't start. Don't compare yourself to others. Just take care
of your business, and that's what this whole thing is about.
Don't worry about the joneses so um. One of the
first one of the first things you want to do
is figure out what the eight time amount is and
set that as your goal by the time you're sixty five,
and then start looking around and figuring out ways to
(05:51):
get there, and one of the best ways is to
stop wasting. Yeah, wasting is the opposite of saving, right,
So if you save, you're not wasting, and if you waste,
you're doing the wrong thing. Uh So here's some ways
you can say, Yeah, you don't get into this. Let's
entertainment is a lot of times one of the first
things on the list, because a lot of things in
(06:14):
the entertainment category are luxuries, meaning they make your life better,
which is super valid. You just can't do it all
all the time. Unless you're super rich, then go nuts
for you you're super rich already, then for instance, Um,
maybe you can get the same content online as you're
(06:34):
paying for either with a cable bill or like a
magazine subscription or a newspaper or something. You might be
able to get all that stuff free online. Save yourself
some bucks. Sure, that's one way to do it. Um.
You make a good point that you know, entertainment is
a luxury, but it's also in a lot of ways
of necessity to you just have to look around and say,
(06:54):
where can I trim some fat? Where am I being wasteful?
Is there anything that I'm just not really using that
I'm paying or in the entertainment category, and if so,
then that means I probably don't really need it and
I should stop just paying for it out of habit. Yeah, well,
the Netflix is one thing I dropped finally, the DVD
delivery in favor of just the online streaming. And would
(07:16):
it say, Man, I think it's like eight bucks a
month or something that adds up when you throw it
into a pot, it adds up. It's like over the
course of the year. That's like, you know, that's a
nice meal out or money you could ad mess in
something else, right, Yeah, Um, saying like you said, with
magazine subscriptions, if you're getting the magazine and it's just
sitting there and you're not really reading it or getting
anything from it, cancel your subscription and say, by the way,
(07:37):
I already paid for this, so send me what you
owe me. Still. Um, if you love your magazines, then
that one wouldn't count. Again. What we're talking about here
is trimming the fat, not living this horribly. Um, mind's
really lifestyle. Yeah that that is no fun whatsoever. But
like we said, once you start getting into this, you're
(07:58):
probably going to find that it's actually find to look
for ways to trim the fat. Yeah, and speaking of
trimming the fat, um, take a look at your gym
membership people. How often do you go and what do
you do while you're there. If it's something you get
a lot of benefit out of, then by all means,
keep going because at your health. But do you know
who pays a month to come run on a treadmill?
(08:18):
Jerry a sucker. Because there's streets, their sidewalks, there's running trails.
If you're not utilizing most of the stuff at the
gym or going to classes and things, you might want
to think about trim and the fat. Or if you
really need that ritual for that treadmill and you don't
mind paying that money for the treadmill, that's fine too,
But just think about it. Yeah, if you if you
(08:40):
are shameless or you have no self consciousness whatsoever, you
can go use the exercise equipment at the park. Yeah,
you know those little uh little things they have going on. Yeah,
I just couldn't do that. Yeah, Or you work out
at the park, you know, Or you could buy a
treadmill and have it tease you and acu and haunt
(09:00):
you for the rest of your life. In the spare room,
which is what happens sometimes. I think that's the opposite
of good advice as far as that's true. Uh, what
about automotive costs. That's a really satisfying way to save money,
because nobody likes paying for car up maintenance and gas,
two things people hate spending money on. I got some
(09:21):
numbers for you. Let's say let's say you drive eighty
thousand miles over five years. Uh, if you bought a
car that gets twenty five miles to the gallon compared
to one that gets fifteen miles to the gallon, you're
gonna be buying two thousand fewer gallons of gas over
that time average of three fifty gallon over five years,
(09:42):
You've saved seven thousand dollars in gasoline costs, which is like,
I mean, that's super substantial. Man. You could put that
into your four own care or whatever and make that
into a lot more money by the time you retire,
just by ten miles a gallon difference by not getting
that ginormous UV you can't even park, Maybe get something
(10:02):
more fuel efficient instead. You know, well, yeah, I mean,
that's a seven grand in your pocket that you just
wouldn't have had before. Um, what else? Your car insurance
is another good place to go, Like anything you're currently
paying for, um, that's a good place to to start
and say, how can I pay less for the same
(10:26):
amount or do I need the same amount that I
have right now? So usually if you have a decent
insurance person, you will find that they will be happy
to talk to you and say you don't really need this,
or if you raise your deductible a little bit, you'll
probably be okay, um, and you'll be paying less per
month without losing out on anything. Really, another place you
(10:50):
can say gas is and a lot of people don't
realize this, but your tires in your car are supposed
to be inflated to a certain amount, and if they're
lower than that, you're gonna be wasting gas. Yeah. Uh.
In fact, for every two pounds per square inch that
you're off that they're low, your maledge goes down by
one percent. And in this article they judge most cards
are about five to ten pounds per square inch low,
(11:12):
and that's about five percent less fuel efficient just by
putting air in your tires. Yeah, that's crazy. Plus even more,
there's a lot of gas stations that have free air. Yeah,
not as much anymore, but your trip does they Yeah, alright,
go to kut um. Let's see what else, chuck. All right,
you want to talk grocery stores always? All right? Uh,
(11:34):
first of all, right, now would be a terrible time
for me to go grocery shopping because I'm very hungry. Yeah,
they say to eat first time. Yeah, I mean, it
really does work because it makes an enormous difference on
like buying stuff that you normally wouldn't buy. If you
are hungry at the grocery store, like, you're just gonna
buy more. It's a proven fact, that's right, Josh. And
(11:54):
then going out to lunch at work is a big,
big deal, a big expense potentially, they say in here
six dollars a day is eight hundred a year, but
six dollars a day that's super cheap. It is you know,
it probably won't live a year if you're eating six
dollar lunches every day. Yeah, I mean, let's say that's
twelve bucks. Or if you go out for business lunches,
(12:14):
like you're really racking up money. Right, And if it's
not just few, but also your spouse or significantity, life
partner whatever also doing the same thing. You can double
that amount right there. So I just get around the
whole thing by not eating lunch. But you could also
pack your own lunch save a substantial amount. Plus you know,
(12:35):
it's like you're being your own mom packing your lunch
in the morning. You write yourself a note even right, um,
and then chuck at the grocery store to um. If
you take a little time and go online or get
your favorite grocery stores app they have those these days. Um,
you can find all sorts of specials coupons, that kind
of thing, and say what can I do with salery
(12:58):
and chickpeas? Right, And then you put them together and
base your weekly plan on that you could make hummas
and dip the celery in it exactly. And you take
that list that features chickpea and salaries and whatever else
it takes to make hummus um and take it to
the store and you stick to that list some garlic exactly.
(13:19):
But the point is you've thought about all this before
you went to the store, wrote it down on the list,
and then stuck to the list, and then use the
coupons that originally got you to think of hummus in
the first place. You just saved yourself some money an
incalculable amount, mainly because I don't want to calculate it
right now, that's right. Yeah, keep your eyes peeled at
the store for specials. Um. I know you don't want
(13:41):
to grab the little fire when you walk in because
it makes you look like you're, you know, eighty years old.
But that's where you find out the deals. You know,
they're buy one, get one free on a tub of butter.
Go get the tub of butter and get your second
one for free. That's right. As I want to apologize
to our eighty year old listeners who like circulars at
(14:01):
the grocery store. Yeah, my man, my mom was way
into coupons. Yeah, well a lot of people are. Yeah,
I've read that apparently coupons have gone down in quality
because of this coupon craze that's going on right now.
So many people are using it that companies are like,
we can't afford to put out decent coupons. Did you
say there's a coupon craze going on? Really? Did you
not know? Not? Oh man, there's whole TV shows dedicated
(14:25):
to it. Coupon craze. Yes, really, it's the name of
the Joe coupon Grace. No, there's like extreme coupon NG Really,
I think on TLC you've never heard of that. What now?
Is it just people like it's people who are so
good at couponing. I saw a man on a TV show.
He had like a four hundred dollar grocery bill, and
from his coupons, he brought it down to like the
(14:47):
fourteen dollars. I thought, you're gonna say they paid him
a hundred dollars. It was close to it. It was
very close to it. Yeah, use your you know, most
grocery stores have a little club card used those that's
really satisfying to see all that money go away at
the end. Not only that, some of those cards will
get you like extra bucks or points or whatever that
will actually deduct money from your additional money on top
(15:09):
of coupons from your bill after a while. Like it's
it's not a bad idea, um to take advantage of
loyalty programs if it makes sense to you, Like there
are there are plenty of people out there that own
companies that have come up with loyalty programs that are
frankly scams, and you have to be wary of those
(15:32):
because you don't want to buy stuff you wouldn't normally
buy just because you're gonna say fifty cents on it
because it costs you three fifty that you weren't going
to spend anyway, you know. But if you're going to
the same store again and again and again, it's just
down the street, they have pretty good prices. You like
their coupons, sign up for their loyalty program and it
(15:52):
will pay off in the end. I'll buzz market here.
I got to Kroger, Yeah, when I can, and they
keep track of your thing through your little card. And
then I get gas or two because a it's cheaper already,
but every like four or five fill ups, they'll give
you credit from your grocery buys on your gas. Right,
I'll say, like, would you like to say tinsensic allen
because you bought groceries? Is there like an actual no button?
(16:15):
There's a no no because you can say that like
give your life or whatever, or I'm flushed this week
if that's how you live. But um, I always say, heck, yeah, yeah,
give me the tencent. I remember hearing a long time
ago that like, um, that they were trying to outlaw
gas discounts, Like some of those places sell gas at
(16:35):
below what they pay for. It attract people into their stores,
and it was like driving other gas stations out of business.
T Yeah, when it comes to saving baby, it's survival
of the fittest. All right. Let's talk about family expenses,
things like your prescription drugs or maybe your baby formula.
All these things you can get generic versions of that
(16:58):
are FDA proved to be just as good as your
brand name version. You know who buys brand name stuff,
suckers brand named drugs. Yeah. Well, it says here in
this article that drug companies spend all their money on
like research and development and stuff like that. That's not true.
Most drug companies get universities to do their r and
(17:19):
D for free, but they just have the patent on
it for the first few years and can charge whatever
they want depending on the country. There. The point is,
generics have the exact same thing in it by law. Um,
it's just they don't own the patent and the patents expired,
so now everybody can sell it for cheap. Buddy, I
know one way you save a lot of money in
(17:40):
the past few years. Smokies, Yes, not smoking yeah, cigarettes,
or how much are they know? Last I saw they
were like five bucks a pack. In Atlanta, they're like
twelve dollars a pack or so in New York that's
twelve dollars a pack. And I remember when they started
to go up because I smoked at a time when
(18:02):
you can get them for like a dollar fifty a pack,
and then all of a sudden they were like three
dollars four or five. And there were articles because you know,
tobacco is going through the roof, and there are articles
on what the price point would be where people stop smoking.
You remember hearing a lot of people say five and
it's that's just not some people, I'm sure quit because
(18:22):
they hit five bucks, But no, people will still smoke
and pay five dollars or twelve dollars a pack every
day to shorten their life and incur more medical expenses
later on. Right, And the point is is if you
quit like that is it's just like having a higher
fuel fuel efficiency car or um. It's just money in
(18:43):
your pocket that you otherwise would have spent unnecessarily. And
like you said, this is just harmful and you're spending
money at So that's a great one, right, there Chris
smoking thousands of dollars a year. Bam, right in your pocket. Boom.
They say quit drinking in this are iCal too, that
your addictions are costing you money pretty much. Anything that
(19:04):
you could give up, yeah, that maybe you should give
up that can save you money that falls into this category. Yeah,
or maybe you know, if you like your glass wine
with dinner, maybe just get a little maybe just pick
and choose and cut down and save a little money
and improve your health a little bit right by the
gigantic box of wine. Yeah, to get a better value.
(19:27):
Moderation it's the key, except with smoking, you should there
shouldn't even be moderation there. Household energy is the one
I'm obsessed with pretty much. Yeah. I grew up in
a house you know, teachers as parents, uh three kids, like,
we had to use coupons and turn off the lights
(19:47):
when you left the room and not leave the TV going.
And we had to do that to get by and
to live just a normal, lower middle class life. But
that's not something you should change because it's just wasteful.
Well yeah you yeah, even if you have the dough like,
you shouldn't waste energy. There's a yeah, that's exactly right.
That's one of the that's a good point, Chuck. Like,
one of the things about changing your mindset to like
(20:12):
a saving mindset is you know, not only is it
good for you financially, but it also tends to have
like positive spillover effects, Like, for example, you're saving money,
saving energy, but it's also a lot better for the
environment anything. Anytime you're cutting out waste, there's pretty much
no downside to that. So this is a good example
(20:33):
of like a good positive spillover effect. Yeah. Do you
know what I do is I think about the electronic uh,
the meter on the side of your house spinning, and
I'm literally every time I turn things off and follow
Emily around the house turning things off after she turns
them on, I literally think about the meter slowing down,
and it makes me like breathe a sigh of relief
(20:55):
as the meter breathes a sigh of relief. I know
it sounds silly, but no, it doesn't really think about
that things turning down. I mean just going, oh, yeah,
that's much more like it. There is an invention out
there that is made for you. It's pretty new, but
I believe it's on the market. You can plug it
into an outlet, and what it does is eavesdrops on
your electrical use and it can actually sort out what's
(21:18):
doing what. But the read out shows you how much
electricity you're using, and I think you can convert it
to like a dollar amount too or something. And the
whole point is if you see how much you're using,
you'll want to decrease it. So you would love this
thing because it would show a decreased amount every time
you turned off a light or unplug something that would
(21:39):
be stressed about that being plugged in though you know, um,
we talked about vampire energy earlier. That's the things that
you leave on standby power overnight or pretty much all
the time. Um, the average house uses one dollars two
power devices that are turned off each year, a hundred
(22:01):
dollars to power things that aren't even on. That's that's
money that you can and like your little smartphone plug,
that's even if your phone is not plugged into it,
it's sucking energy. Well. Plus it's a bad idea also
to charge your phone overnight because it's bad for your
battery typically to overcharge it. Oh yeah, it's a good idea. Uh.
And then annually in the US. Vampire power costs ten
(22:22):
billion dollars all over the US each year, So that's
pretty substantial. If you pull everyone together, if you divide
by three million, that's a lot of money in your pocket.
So what do you do? Set up a charging station,
which is what I have at my house, put that
all in a power strip, and turn that power strip
off and unplug it even even better, and then just
shoot it with a gun. Shot with a gun, like
(22:45):
the TV on And I I hate all those lights anyway,
Like I like to sleep in darkness. And if you
look in your room, you probably have like three or
four lights that are just on, like your cable box.
They're probably affecting your brain in some way. At the
very least they're affecting my wallet. So household energy that
was pretty good stuff. Yeah, by energy Star. Yeah, there's
(23:07):
a there's a lot of rebates out there right now. Um.
The government has put like a huge push behind getting
people that have more energy efficient um stuff. Yeah, I
just got one fifty bucks. Yeah so did you. Yeah,
you can definitely just say, um if you just look
for the energy Star thing when you're buying an appliance
(23:28):
or something and then go online before you buy it
and see if there's a rebate, because basically, it's just
like you got it if you got it on sale.
This is an extra fifty bucks, a hundred bucks whatever
that you'll get back in six eight weeks just for
mailing in a copy of your receipt. Why would you
not do that? That's right now, I think it's a
good time for a break because after this it's the
(23:49):
home stretch, which includes health insurance, money saving tips, and
then a few tips from your older buddies. Here about
what you can do with that money saving for your future?
All right, really quickly, before we get into tips, I
(24:09):
looked up insurance a little bit because, like a dummy
in my mid twenties, when I didn't have like anything
other than waiting tables jobs, I skipped on insurance because
I didn't want to pay a couple hundred dollars a month.
So I got to think. In today, here's an older dude,
how much it costs to stay in a hospital. The
average cost of a hospital stay in the US is
about six bucks. The average hospital the media and hospital
(24:33):
stay in the U s A. It's three times more
than other industrialized countries. Which is a whole different thing.
But eighteen thousand dollars is the average median stay in
a hospital. The Obamacare is coming out next month and
I think the average mid tier insurance policy will be
about three five bucks. So you would have to pay
(24:53):
on that insurance policy fifty five months, four and a
half years to equal out one hospital, a one bout
of something, one bad car wreck. Like, the point is,
you're not doing yourself any favors if you think you're
saving by not paying insurance. And I know when you're
twenty three and twenty five you don't think being is
gonna happen to you, but you are screwed if it does.
(25:17):
So just be smart, get insurance and you're covered unless
you're ned Flanders and then you consider a form of gambling. Yeah, um,
so insurance, that's a good one. Yeah. And like I said, um,
if you don't have insurance, I agree with you, Chuck.
Health insurance is a good way to go if you
already have insurance, car insurance, any kind of insurance. Um
(25:39):
check out if you have a svelt coverage right, and
then you know, try to save some money without shooting
yourself in the foot over time. But Yes, going without
insurance is not a good way to save money. A
good way to save money is to possibly look at
your cell phone bill and say, do I need the
plan that I have? Yeah? Do I need all those
(26:00):
unlimited text or see how many texts do you send
a month on average? Right? You might be able to
cut it back a little bit. Yeah, that that's a
that's another good point you keep raising, like all these
awesome points that deserve elaborating. But um, the first step
to all of this is to write down your monthly expenses,
track them for a little while, and you'll see where
your money is going. Just right out of the gate,
(26:21):
a lot of stuff will become obvious that you can
where you can try totally will right. Um. But the
second step to that is to look at all of
the things you're currently paying for that you're like, okay,
I need all this and figure out ways to trim
them individually. So, whether it's car insurance, whether it's um,
your cell phone bill, there's there's always a way to
cut it down a little bit. That's right. Uh. Living
(26:44):
debt free it's something we believe in now after incurring
credit card debt for a number of years, we got
rid of it all and haven't used credit cards in
like eight years. Oh yeah, yep. We if we can't
afford it that month, we don't get it. And do
you use the credit card to get it and then
pay it off though, just to keep your credit score up? Uh,
we run everything through our American Express, which would we
(27:06):
pay off each month? And um, well, this this article
makes a really good point, like if you are having
to pay interest on your credit card, that means you're
buying things that you can't afford. And you pay interest
on your credit card when you buy something and you
can't pay it off at the end of the month,
then that's that It sounds like you have a very
good policy going there. It's a good policy because when
(27:27):
we looked at what we were spending on finance chargers,
it was ridiculously wasteful. Yeah, and it makes you angry
when you really stopped and look at it. And uh,
because you know your hard for your money, you get
taxed a lot anyway. The last thing you want to
do is start throwing the man more money just because
he said I've got a little piece of plastic and
go hog wild for a little while. Right, You don't
have to wait for this, just get it now. And
(27:49):
that's a that's another good point that this article made. UM.
One of the things you can institute is a one
month waiting period for all purchases, all major purchases, any
purchase you're excited it about, you write it down instead
of buying it. You just write down what you want,
and then at after a month, you go back to
it and say, do I still want this? Probably more
often than not you're gonna be like, I don't even
(28:11):
remember why I wanted that, yeah, or wait for good.
We do a lot of the financing deals, like I
wanted a sound bar for the TV, and I waited
like a year to get it right, I waited till
the right deal came along in a certain store had
a twenty four month no interest deal, and now I'm
paying like, you know, twenty bucks a month ward or something.
(28:31):
And uh, but you've gotta be really careful. If you're
bad about paying your bills, you can get jacked around
on the finance because at the end of twenty four
months it's interest, or if you miss a month or something,
it's pretty ridiculous. I recommend financing deals, but you just
have to be really vigilant with your bills on time.
(28:51):
Another good reason to stop and wait a month, a week, whatever.
If you just basically put a moratorium in any immediate sending, um,
it'll cause you to go poke around the internet and,
like you said, to see if you can find like
a better like financing deal. Maybe somebody else has it
for less um. If you do use your credit cards,
(29:13):
some credit cards have deals with certain merchants to where
you'll actually get some cash back um, which is basically
just like money off and just money off. There's a
lot of reasons to stop and then figure out how
you can get that thing you want for the least
amount of money, which makes it even sweeter when you
do get it. All Right, dude, so we've given a
(29:34):
lot of good little tips on how to save money.
You're saving some dough even if you're a millennial. Pride
yourself on saving a little money and not being wasteful. Yeah,
I mean, like it's just save what you can. Yeah. Uh.
So what you want to think about next is, all right,
I have a little extra change here, and now what
do I do? Do you want to put in a
piggy bank or under the mattress? Or start investing in
(29:57):
stocks or gambling on football. What should I do? Well?
The first thing you want to do is to create
a fund, basically an emergency fund. The rule of thumb
is you have three to six months worth of expenses
tucked away in a savings account that you can get to,
but you don't touch. Um, just in case if you're
(30:19):
laid off something terrible happens. You have a significant amount
of money that you can live on no matter what.
You're not gonna get kicked out of your home. You're
not gonna go hungry. That's right, right. That's pretty much
the first thing you want to do when you're saving money. Like,
as you're saving all this money and you're putting it away, UM,
that's the pot that you wanted to go into. UM.
(30:42):
After that, you have a little more leeway to do
things with, like you want to maybe pay off debt
is a good second step, yeah, because if you're in debt,
then you're wasting money and it's no fun to pay
debt down, but it's super satisfying once you have it is,
and it can be fun to pay debt down, especially
(31:02):
if you're watching it climb down and get closer and
closer to zero, and when you write that last check,
you're just like, I'll see you in hell. You know. Um,
you're done. And from that point on you've got an
emergency fund, your debt free, and then now you can
do some fun stuff with your money. Yeah, you're on
the right track at this point. Hopefully by now you've
(31:25):
got a budget that will work for you. The key
with your budget is to do something that's reasonable for
you that you can stick to. It's sort of like
when I was reading about this, it's sort of like dieting, Like,
you know, if you set yourself up for some stupid
diet that you're not gonna follow, I'm only gonna have
an apple and a canatuna like Kristen Bale and the Machinist. Yeah,
chances are you're not gonna be successful. So it's really
(31:46):
like dieting. It's more like a lifestyle change and finding
whatever financial lifestyle works for you where you're able to
save some and still give yourself some things and have
a little fun. Right. But the key here is to
pay yourself first, like you cannot if you're saving. The
first thing you do is save when you get paid.
(32:10):
The first thing, the first check. You right, the first
trancefer you make, the first payment you make is to yourself,
and you take whatever you budgeted for savings and take
it from your checking account and put it in your
savings account at exactly that's that's that's the other aspect
to it. Once you do that, that money does not exist.
It's in your savings. It's not for you to play
(32:31):
around with. It's not for you to be like, well,
I went a little over on my credit cards. I mean,
use my savings. You went a little over on your
credit card. That means you're gonna have to pay interest
on it that month because that money and savings does
not exist. And Josh will wrap your knuckles. Well, I'm
getting very excited right now that the idea of going
into your savings to pay off a credit card you
(32:52):
screwed up. That is true. UM. So if you do
have your budget working, you've got your emergency fund going one, um,
you're paying yourself every month, you're saving money. Um, then
you can start thinking about investments, things like maybe a
c D certificate of deposit. It's a nice, low risk
(33:13):
way to start if you're young. It is. It's so
it's such a paltry amount right now, but it's still
I mean, you do get money back. Gep your toe
in the water. If you're reticent, in a CD is
a good way to do it. So a CD is
basically like you give some you loan money to a
bank and it's for that amount of time three months, um,
a year, ten years, whatever, um. And basically the bank
(33:35):
says thanks for the money. At the end of the term,
they give you back that money and then some interest
for borrowing. So, like they put it in this article,
your money goes away and then when it comes back,
it brings more money with it. It's pretty simple. Yeah. Uh,
what if you're out there all right, Josh, I'm I'm
a millennial. I just got through watching Girls. I'm I'm
(33:56):
drinking uh pims cup on my sofa. Okay, And I say,
Josh and Chuck, this is great. But I've done these things.
I don't make much money. I'm an artist and crafter
of fine goods. I've only got twenty dollars a week extra. Um.
There's actually a lot you can do with twenty bucks
a week. No, there's not. There is, especially if you
(34:17):
look at that twenty bucks is part of a stream
of twenty bucks that you'll eventually have, UM that you say,
want to invest, All right, what can you do with
twenty Well, there's this cool thing called a drip. It's
a dividend reinvestment plan. UM. You can also look into
direct stock purchase plans. But basically, you are going to
a company that you believe in. You say, I have
(34:38):
twenty dollars and I want one share of your twenty
dollar stock, and they say, okay, here you go. It's
basically like a counter where you go and buy a
stock from the company directly, which saves you on brokerage fees.
So what you're saying is you can just invest a
little bit at a time and directly into these companies,
which all adds up and before you know it, you've
(35:00):
got like a couple of grand invested in this company.
Right or you know, there's there's supposedly about a thousand
companies in the United States that sell stock directly. You
don't have to go to an online brokerage, you don't
have to go to like your brick and mortar brokerage.
Like the companies like, we're not going to charge any
fees because you're giving us money for our stock, We're
happy to sell it to you. UM. And you are
(35:22):
just kind of building up a portfolio on your own.
It's a it's a good investment. If you're just going
to sit on something, if you're day trading, that's the
worst idea ever. I don't think you could do it
like that. But if you just wanted to build up stock,
if you say, I really believe in this company's future
and I want to have this stock fifty years from now,
why why just say it's only twenty bucks. Instead take
(35:46):
that twenty bucks and buy one Sheriff stock. That's one
thing you could do. If you've got a few hundred bucks,
maybe you could consider something called an index fund. Traditionally,
an index that tracks the SMP five is gonna return
about ten percent a year. That's pretty good, not bad money, no,
And you don't have to invest, like you know, ten
grand to do so. The other thing about an index
(36:08):
fund is um if you're buying compared to a mutual fund,
it's an unmanaged fund. There are five hundred stocks that
you own a percentage of in shares UM, and that's
the SMP five companies. And basically what you're doing is
investing in the market itself. Right, So it's unmanaged, which
(36:30):
means that the fees associated with it are next to nothing. Um.
If you have like a mutual fund that's managed, they
don't typically pay off as well and you're paying a
lot more in management fees. Um. There's a really good,
I think Frontline episode on index funds that came out
this year that's definitely worth watching, and I'll bet you
(36:52):
can get it for free online. Uh. If you have
a little bit more, let's say you've got five dollars um,
what that's gonna do is just open up your options
a little bit. Uh. You're gonna have a pick from
different companies, some of which might require a minimum of
let's say five, So it just opens your investment options
a little bit. You can shop around some. Um, you
(37:15):
might want to open what's called a discount brokerage account. Yeah.
It's just basically like an online stock trading platform, and
they're very cheap because they don't trade in micro seconds
or anything like that. It's just like this is where
you buy stock for as cheap as it comes pretty easy. Uh.
If you've got a grand land around, then buddy, you
(37:37):
are in the catbird seat. Uh. If you start with
a thousand dollars and invest an additional thousand each year,
you earn about ten percent annually and when you retire,
that money is going to turn into over half a
million dollars. And that's just a pretty standard like IRA right, yeah, yes,
(37:58):
it's speaking of I ras. If you have a if
you work for a company and they match, if they
do four oh one K matching, you want to do that, um,
because what that is is your company giving you. There's
no other way to put it. It's free money. Like you,
(38:18):
whatever you contribute, they'll match, like say, up to a
certain amount that you contribute. UM. That is literally your
company saying here's some extra money for your retirement. It's
what companies came up with to replace the old retirement
plans that they used to have in the heydays of
the unions. This is what we have today. So if
(38:39):
you're not taking advantage of that, you should. And there's
another reason to take advantage of a four oh one
K and to max it out. Frankly, because it's UM
deducted pre tax, it actually lowers your adjusted gross income,
which means you'll pay less taxes the more you contribute
to your four oh one K over the year. Boom. Yeah,
you should be a financial planner. I am for yourself. No,
(39:03):
I've been doing it on the side. Yeah, there's this
alley that I I set up on a couple of
garbage cans and people. I am fascinated by the stuff, Like,
it's very it. Once you start to really like get
into it and think about it and look around it
ways to like save, it's addictive. Well, I can say this.
(39:24):
Warren Buffett didn't become Warren Buffett by being disinterested in finance.
You know. He probably thought it was pretty neat early
on and look at him now. Maybe that's where you're headed.
I don't know about that. That's not like my primary interest,
you know, I just find it fascinating. Um what else, Chuck,
you got anything else? I have something else? Actually, Um,
(39:49):
this is just a total overview, just some starter ideas
like that was definitely not like a full rundown of
four one case and tax savings and that kind of stuff. Like, um,
whatever perched your ears up, Um, go look into it,
go do a little research. There's so much information online
about this stuff that it's just basically a never ending
(40:11):
supply this like free financial information, probably rivals, cute kitten videos,
and just the sheer volume of stuff on the internet. Yeah,
it sounds good to me. Yeah, get into it, people,
You'll you'll thank us later. So uh, okay, that's it
for this one. Yeah, all right. If you want to
learn more ways to save money, you can type in
(40:32):
ten easy ways to save money in the search bar
at how stuff works dot com. Uh. And we wish
you the best of luck in becoming financially free and
sticking it to the man. Yeah. Uh And since I
said search bar, it's time for listener mail. That's right.
I'm gonna call this um one of our better emails
about our death podcast, Dying Podcast. We heard from a
(40:55):
lot of people that really got a lot out of
this one, and it was very rewarding for us. So
this is from one of them. Hey, guys, my mom
passed away two years ago. When I was moved to
hospice for the last two weeks. It was a very
painful time for me, and I was nervous about listening
to this podcast. In fact, I was in two minds
about skipping it. However, I'm glad I did not skip it.
(41:17):
My mom went through each stage as you described. This
was the first time I had experienced anything like like this,
and it was horrible to watch. I thought she had
died in a lot of pain, struggling to breathe and
having to fight every step of the way. I now
realized she was going through the normal steps, and I
really wish I would have known this at the time.
I can confirm that sound is the last thing that goes.
About half an hour before she died, me and my
(41:39):
sisters asked the nurse if there was anything we could
do to help her, and she looked like she was
struggling to breathe. The nurse suggested putting on some of
her favorite music. Not only did this seem to calm
her down, but after a while we noticed that her
breathing noises started to match the rhythm of the music.
Was she trying to sing along? We think? So this
is one of the good memories I have over last week,
So I'm glad we did it. I just thought I
(42:00):
would email to say thank you for doing the show.
Even after two years, is still distressed me how my
mom died, And now I feel like I finally understand it,
and it's a big weight off my mind that she
didn't feel as much pain as she looked like she
was in Wow. So that is from uh Philippa Griggs
in Norwich, England, thank you very much for sending it.
And then it's very that's something else. Yeah, or maybe
(42:22):
it's pronounced norch ner ner nor Norwick. Sometimes h is
a sound. It's Norich nurch Norch, England. Thanks Philippa. That's
a cool name, jith. Yeah, thank you very much for
us sending it in. Thanks to all of you who
wrote in um about our Dying podcast, we really appreciate it. Uh.
(42:43):
If you want to let us know something we taught
you that meant a lot to you, we always like
to hear that. You can tweak to us at s
y SK podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com,
slash Stuff you Should Know. You can send us an
email the Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com. You can
come hang out with us at our home on the web.
Stuff you Should Know dot com for more on this
(43:08):
and thousands of other topics. Is it how Stuff works
dot Com Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go Places
Brought to you by the all New Toyota Corolla. Welcome
to you Stuff you Should Know Front House Stuff Works
dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Jock
Clark and Charles W. Chuck Bryan is with me, and
Jerry's over there. So this is Stuff you Should Know,
(00:21):
the legendary podcast live version. Well, it's recorded recorded live
to tape tape. We've done live persons. Yeah, like in
a with an audience. Yeah, I don't know if you
remember that. Sure, we've done it. Yeah. Should we set
up this a little bit? I'd like to oh, yes,
go ahead. Well, people, when you listen to Stuff you
(00:42):
Should Know, a lot of times you're regaled with stories
of history, or stories of science, or cool animals or
you know, you name it. We like to cover lots
of stuff, but occasionally we like to do a little advice. Yes,
but the fact that we're doing out advice does not
mean that we are professional advisers. No, no, no. But
(01:04):
occasionally we like to talk about things like green living,
or health and fitness, or in this case, finance, just
because you know, we know the millennials out there think
they're never gonna have to worry about anything but eventually
you're going to be off the teeth of your parents
and you might have to think about this stuff. Either
that or the millennials are already more worried than anybody
(01:25):
else right now. Uh, and not just millennials. I think
anybody could use this advice and put it to pretty
good use. Well. Yeah, one thing I've realized is that
you're never too young or you're never too old to
start being smart and thinking about like, you know, money,
inter future and stuff like that. I don't know, I mean,
like if you're in the last weeks of your life,
(01:45):
like it's too late that maybe, so never say never.
But yes, the younger you are, the better off you are.
The later you start, you know, the further you have
to catch up. But the point is there's no reason
to not try. And what we're talking about is is
saving money. But it's not just saving money, it's part
(02:05):
of like a saving money is the basis of basically
a conscientious lifestyle. Yeah. Um, you don't have to be rich,
and you don't have to even want to be rich. Basically,
all you have to have is the desire to be
financially independent or close to financially independent and financially free,
(02:29):
and that doesn't mean you have to have gobs of
money or endless amount of cash. Actually, it's pretty easy
to sit there and figure out how much money you
need and set that as your goal and get to it.
And the cool thing is if you if you do
kind of take this advice, you do kind of start
following this path. I guess you could say, um, it's
(02:51):
it's It becomes a bit addictive and you realize that
you've just altered your mindset and you're living basically the
antithesis of a wasteful consumer culture life and sticking it
to the man. That's right, and you don't have to
be a freaking to do it. You know, there's a
middle ground that's just being smart and uh frugal where
(03:13):
you need to be. And it's like, I get into it.
It's not like I'm loaded or anything, but I don't
think about the money so much as I think about
efficiency and like waste that really occupies a lot of
my mind. Once you start thinking about everything in those terms,
all of a sudden it becomes very clear and every
(03:34):
little bit it counts because you're you're you know, take energy,
which we'll get into if you unplug your toaster every
day after you use it. I mean, what's that going
to add up to? Like virtually nothing? Actually have a
bit on vampire power. We'll talk about good. I'm glad
you do. And it's not much though, right, well, we'll
talk about it all right. But let's say a toaster
(03:56):
is not much, just a single toaster, it's not much,
thank you bye. If you take that toaster and pile
it in with um, you know, savings on not buying
coffee every day while you're out and um, you know,
thinking about your auto insurance and just all the stuff
that we're going to talk about and think of all
of it is what you're throwing into a pot, your savings.
Then it does count. It does matter. Yeah, um, so good,
(04:20):
thanks man. So the recommended amount that I've seen, I
don't remember what investment advisor wrote the article or whatever,
but I've seen before that you want to save what
amounts to about eight times your ending salary, no matter
what you're ending salary, that's the salary you're gonna have
when you retire. Is that is a mind bogglingly daunting
(04:45):
number if you think about it, to say to have
that much in the bank by the time you retire. Yeah,
eight times. Yeah, I better get busy. Supposedly you're supposed
to have like one time what you you estimate your
ending salary would be by the time you're thirty, three
times by the time you're forty, and then so on
until by about the time you're sixty five. Shoot at
eight times, you're any Sorry, that's a lot of money,
(05:07):
That's a lot of savings. Okay, I think pretty much
everybody is a bit behind. I think that's a that's
a very important point. I don't feel like anybody, especially
somebody who feels daunted by that number, should feel like
that they're on the outs and that everybody else is
doing well. But at the same time, that doesn't mean
(05:29):
that just because everybody else is a saving that you
shouldn't start. Don't compare yourself to others. Just take care
of your business, and that's what this whole thing is about.
Don't worry about the joneses so um. One of the
first one of the first things you want to do
is figure out what the eight time amount is and
set that as your goal by the time you're sixty five,
and then start looking around and figuring out ways to
(05:51):
get there, and one of the best ways is to
stop wasting. Yeah, wasting is the opposite of saving, right,
So if you save, you're not wasting, and if you waste,
you're doing the wrong thing. Uh So here's some ways
you can say, Yeah, you don't get into this. Let's
entertainment is a lot of times one of the first
things on the list, because a lot of things in
(06:14):
the entertainment category are luxuries, meaning they make your life better,
which is super valid. You just can't do it all
all the time. Unless you're super rich, then go nuts
for you you're super rich already, then for instance, Um,
maybe you can get the same content online as you're
(06:34):
paying for either with a cable bill or like a
magazine subscription or a newspaper or something. You might be
able to get all that stuff free online. Save yourself
some bucks. Sure, that's one way to do it. Um.
You make a good point that you know, entertainment is
a luxury, but it's also in a lot of ways
of necessity to you just have to look around and say,
(06:54):
where can I trim some fat? Where am I being wasteful?
Is there anything that I'm just not really using that
I'm paying or in the entertainment category, and if so,
then that means I probably don't really need it and
I should stop just paying for it out of habit. Yeah, well,
the Netflix is one thing I dropped finally, the DVD
delivery in favor of just the online streaming. And would
(07:16):
it say, Man, I think it's like eight bucks a
month or something that adds up when you throw it
into a pot, it adds up. It's like over the
course of the year. That's like, you know, that's a
nice meal out or money you could ad mess in
something else, right, Yeah, Um, saying like you said, with
magazine subscriptions, if you're getting the magazine and it's just
sitting there and you're not really reading it or getting
anything from it, cancel your subscription and say, by the way,
(07:37):
I already paid for this, so send me what you
owe me. Still. Um, if you love your magazines, then
that one wouldn't count. Again. What we're talking about here
is trimming the fat, not living this horribly. Um, mind's
really lifestyle. Yeah that that is no fun whatsoever. But
like we said, once you start getting into this, you're
(07:58):
probably going to find that it's actually find to look
for ways to trim the fat. Yeah, and speaking of
trimming the fat, um, take a look at your gym
membership people. How often do you go and what do
you do while you're there. If it's something you get
a lot of benefit out of, then by all means,
keep going because at your health. But do you know
who pays a month to come run on a treadmill?
(08:18):
Jerry a sucker. Because there's streets, their sidewalks, there's running trails.
If you're not utilizing most of the stuff at the
gym or going to classes and things, you might want
to think about trim and the fat. Or if you
really need that ritual for that treadmill and you don't
mind paying that money for the treadmill, that's fine too,
But just think about it. Yeah, if you if you
(08:40):
are shameless or you have no self consciousness whatsoever, you
can go use the exercise equipment at the park. Yeah,
you know those little uh little things they have going on. Yeah,
I just couldn't do that. Yeah, Or you work out
at the park, you know, Or you could buy a
treadmill and have it tease you and acu and haunt
(09:00):
you for the rest of your life. In the spare room,
which is what happens sometimes. I think that's the opposite
of good advice as far as that's true. Uh, what
about automotive costs. That's a really satisfying way to save money,
because nobody likes paying for car up maintenance and gas,
two things people hate spending money on. I got some
(09:21):
numbers for you. Let's say let's say you drive eighty
thousand miles over five years. Uh, if you bought a
car that gets twenty five miles to the gallon compared
to one that gets fifteen miles to the gallon, you're
gonna be buying two thousand fewer gallons of gas over
that time average of three fifty gallon over five years,
(09:42):
You've saved seven thousand dollars in gasoline costs, which is like,
I mean, that's super substantial. Man. You could put that
into your four own care or whatever and make that
into a lot more money by the time you retire,
just by ten miles a gallon difference by not getting
that ginormous UV you can't even park, Maybe get something
(10:02):
more fuel efficient instead. You know, well, yeah, I mean,
that's a seven grand in your pocket that you just
wouldn't have had before. Um, what else? Your car insurance
is another good place to go, Like anything you're currently
paying for, um, that's a good place to to start
and say, how can I pay less for the same
(10:26):
amount or do I need the same amount that I
have right now? So usually if you have a decent
insurance person, you will find that they will be happy
to talk to you and say you don't really need this,
or if you raise your deductible a little bit, you'll
probably be okay, um, and you'll be paying less per
month without losing out on anything. Really, another place you
(10:50):
can say gas is and a lot of people don't
realize this, but your tires in your car are supposed
to be inflated to a certain amount, and if they're
lower than that, you're gonna be wasting gas. Yeah. Uh.
In fact, for every two pounds per square inch that
you're off that they're low, your maledge goes down by
one percent. And in this article they judge most cards
are about five to ten pounds per square inch low,
(11:12):
and that's about five percent less fuel efficient just by
putting air in your tires. Yeah, that's crazy. Plus even more,
there's a lot of gas stations that have free air. Yeah,
not as much anymore, but your trip does they Yeah, alright,
go to kut um. Let's see what else, chuck. All right,
you want to talk grocery stores always? All right? Uh,
(11:34):
first of all, right, now would be a terrible time
for me to go grocery shopping because I'm very hungry. Yeah,
they say to eat first time. Yeah, I mean, it
really does work because it makes an enormous difference on
like buying stuff that you normally wouldn't buy. If you
are hungry at the grocery store, like, you're just gonna
buy more. It's a proven fact, that's right, Josh. And
(11:54):
then going out to lunch at work is a big,
big deal, a big expense potentially, they say in here
six dollars a day is eight hundred a year, but
six dollars a day that's super cheap. It is you know,
it probably won't live a year if you're eating six
dollar lunches every day. Yeah, I mean, let's say that's
twelve bucks. Or if you go out for business lunches,
(12:14):
like you're really racking up money. Right, And if it's
not just few, but also your spouse or significantity, life
partner whatever also doing the same thing. You can double
that amount right there. So I just get around the
whole thing by not eating lunch. But you could also
pack your own lunch save a substantial amount. Plus you know,
(12:35):
it's like you're being your own mom packing your lunch
in the morning. You write yourself a note even right, um,
and then chuck at the grocery store to um. If
you take a little time and go online or get
your favorite grocery stores app they have those these days. Um,
you can find all sorts of specials coupons, that kind
of thing, and say what can I do with salery
(12:58):
and chickpeas? Right, And then you put them together and
base your weekly plan on that you could make hummas
and dip the celery in it exactly. And you take
that list that features chickpea and salaries and whatever else
it takes to make hummus um and take it to
the store and you stick to that list some garlic exactly.
(13:19):
But the point is you've thought about all this before
you went to the store, wrote it down on the list,
and then stuck to the list, and then use the
coupons that originally got you to think of hummus in
the first place. You just saved yourself some money an
incalculable amount, mainly because I don't want to calculate it
right now, that's right. Yeah, keep your eyes peeled at
the store for specials. Um. I know you don't want
(13:41):
to grab the little fire when you walk in because
it makes you look like you're, you know, eighty years old.
But that's where you find out the deals. You know,
they're buy one, get one free on a tub of butter.
Go get the tub of butter and get your second
one for free. That's right. As I want to apologize
to our eighty year old listeners who like circulars at
(14:01):
the grocery store. Yeah, my man, my mom was way
into coupons. Yeah, well a lot of people are. Yeah,
I've read that apparently coupons have gone down in quality
because of this coupon craze that's going on right now.
So many people are using it that companies are like,
we can't afford to put out decent coupons. Did you
say there's a coupon craze going on? Really? Did you
not know? Not? Oh man, there's whole TV shows dedicated
(14:25):
to it. Coupon craze. Yes, really, it's the name of
the Joe coupon Grace. No, there's like extreme coupon NG Really,
I think on TLC you've never heard of that. What now?
Is it just people like it's people who are so
good at couponing. I saw a man on a TV show.
He had like a four hundred dollar grocery bill, and
from his coupons, he brought it down to like the
(14:47):
fourteen dollars. I thought, you're gonna say they paid him
a hundred dollars. It was close to it. It was
very close to it. Yeah, use your you know, most
grocery stores have a little club card used those that's
really satisfying to see all that money go away at
the end. Not only that, some of those cards will
get you like extra bucks or points or whatever that
will actually deduct money from your additional money on top
(15:09):
of coupons from your bill after a while. Like it's
it's not a bad idea, um to take advantage of
loyalty programs if it makes sense to you, Like there
are there are plenty of people out there that own
companies that have come up with loyalty programs that are
frankly scams, and you have to be wary of those
(15:32):
because you don't want to buy stuff you wouldn't normally
buy just because you're gonna say fifty cents on it
because it costs you three fifty that you weren't going
to spend anyway, you know. But if you're going to
the same store again and again and again, it's just
down the street, they have pretty good prices. You like
their coupons, sign up for their loyalty program and it
(15:52):
will pay off in the end. I'll buzz market here.
I got to Kroger, Yeah, when I can, and they
keep track of your thing through your little card. And
then I get gas or two because a it's cheaper already,
but every like four or five fill ups, they'll give
you credit from your grocery buys on your gas. Right,
I'll say, like, would you like to say tinsensic allen
because you bought groceries? Is there like an actual no button?
(16:15):
There's a no no because you can say that like
give your life or whatever, or I'm flushed this week
if that's how you live. But um, I always say, heck, yeah, yeah,
give me the tencent. I remember hearing a long time
ago that like, um, that they were trying to outlaw
gas discounts, Like some of those places sell gas at
(16:35):
below what they pay for. It attract people into their stores,
and it was like driving other gas stations out of business.
T Yeah, when it comes to saving baby, it's survival
of the fittest. All right. Let's talk about family expenses,
things like your prescription drugs or maybe your baby formula.
All these things you can get generic versions of that
(16:58):
are FDA proved to be just as good as your
brand name version. You know who buys brand name stuff,
suckers brand named drugs. Yeah. Well, it says here in
this article that drug companies spend all their money on
like research and development and stuff like that. That's not true.
Most drug companies get universities to do their r and
(17:19):
D for free, but they just have the patent on
it for the first few years and can charge whatever
they want depending on the country. There. The point is,
generics have the exact same thing in it by law. Um,
it's just they don't own the patent and the patents expired,
so now everybody can sell it for cheap. Buddy, I
know one way you save a lot of money in
(17:40):
the past few years. Smokies, Yes, not smoking yeah, cigarettes,
or how much are they know? Last I saw they
were like five bucks a pack. In Atlanta, they're like
twelve dollars a pack or so in New York that's
twelve dollars a pack. And I remember when they started
to go up because I smoked at a time when
(18:02):
you can get them for like a dollar fifty a pack,
and then all of a sudden they were like three
dollars four or five. And there were articles because you know,
tobacco is going through the roof, and there are articles
on what the price point would be where people stop smoking.
You remember hearing a lot of people say five and
it's that's just not some people, I'm sure quit because
(18:22):
they hit five bucks, But no, people will still smoke
and pay five dollars or twelve dollars a pack every
day to shorten their life and incur more medical expenses
later on. Right, And the point is is if you
quit like that is it's just like having a higher
fuel fuel efficiency car or um. It's just money in
(18:43):
your pocket that you otherwise would have spent unnecessarily. And
like you said, this is just harmful and you're spending
money at So that's a great one, right, there Chris
smoking thousands of dollars a year. Bam, right in your pocket. Boom.
They say quit drinking in this are iCal too, that
your addictions are costing you money pretty much. Anything that
(19:04):
you could give up, yeah, that maybe you should give
up that can save you money that falls into this category. Yeah,
or maybe you know, if you like your glass wine
with dinner, maybe just get a little maybe just pick
and choose and cut down and save a little money
and improve your health a little bit right by the
gigantic box of wine. Yeah, to get a better value.
(19:27):
Moderation it's the key, except with smoking, you should there
shouldn't even be moderation there. Household energy is the one
I'm obsessed with pretty much. Yeah. I grew up in
a house you know, teachers as parents, uh three kids, like,
we had to use coupons and turn off the lights
(19:47):
when you left the room and not leave the TV going.
And we had to do that to get by and
to live just a normal, lower middle class life. But
that's not something you should change because it's just wasteful.
Well yeah you yeah, even if you have the dough like,
you shouldn't waste energy. There's a yeah, that's exactly right.
That's one of the that's a good point, Chuck. Like,
one of the things about changing your mindset to like
(20:12):
a saving mindset is you know, not only is it
good for you financially, but it also tends to have
like positive spillover effects, Like, for example, you're saving money,
saving energy, but it's also a lot better for the
environment anything. Anytime you're cutting out waste, there's pretty much
no downside to that. So this is a good example
(20:33):
of like a good positive spillover effect. Yeah. Do you
know what I do is I think about the electronic uh,
the meter on the side of your house spinning, and
I'm literally every time I turn things off and follow
Emily around the house turning things off after she turns
them on, I literally think about the meter slowing down,
and it makes me like breathe a sigh of relief
(20:55):
as the meter breathes a sigh of relief. I know
it sounds silly, but no, it doesn't really think about
that things turning down. I mean just going, oh, yeah,
that's much more like it. There is an invention out
there that is made for you. It's pretty new, but
I believe it's on the market. You can plug it
into an outlet, and what it does is eavesdrops on
your electrical use and it can actually sort out what's
(21:18):
doing what. But the read out shows you how much
electricity you're using, and I think you can convert it
to like a dollar amount too or something. And the
whole point is if you see how much you're using,
you'll want to decrease it. So you would love this
thing because it would show a decreased amount every time
you turned off a light or unplug something that would
(21:39):
be stressed about that being plugged in though you know, um,
we talked about vampire energy earlier. That's the things that
you leave on standby power overnight or pretty much all
the time. Um, the average house uses one dollars two
power devices that are turned off each year, a hundred
(22:01):
dollars to power things that aren't even on. That's that's
money that you can and like your little smartphone plug,
that's even if your phone is not plugged into it,
it's sucking energy. Well. Plus it's a bad idea also
to charge your phone overnight because it's bad for your
battery typically to overcharge it. Oh yeah, it's a good idea. Uh.
And then annually in the US. Vampire power costs ten
(22:22):
billion dollars all over the US each year, So that's
pretty substantial. If you pull everyone together, if you divide
by three million, that's a lot of money in your pocket.
So what do you do? Set up a charging station,
which is what I have at my house, put that
all in a power strip, and turn that power strip
off and unplug it even even better, and then just
shoot it with a gun. Shot with a gun, like
(22:45):
the TV on And I I hate all those lights anyway,
Like I like to sleep in darkness. And if you
look in your room, you probably have like three or
four lights that are just on, like your cable box.
They're probably affecting your brain in some way. At the
very least they're affecting my wallet. So household energy that
was pretty good stuff. Yeah, by energy Star. Yeah, there's
(23:07):
a there's a lot of rebates out there right now. Um.
The government has put like a huge push behind getting
people that have more energy efficient um stuff. Yeah, I
just got one fifty bucks. Yeah so did you. Yeah,
you can definitely just say, um if you just look
for the energy Star thing when you're buying an appliance
(23:28):
or something and then go online before you buy it
and see if there's a rebate, because basically, it's just
like you got it if you got it on sale.
This is an extra fifty bucks, a hundred bucks whatever
that you'll get back in six eight weeks just for
mailing in a copy of your receipt. Why would you
not do that? That's right now, I think it's a
good time for a break because after this it's the
(23:49):
home stretch, which includes health insurance, money saving tips, and
then a few tips from your older buddies. Here about
what you can do with that money saving for your future?
All right, really quickly, before we get into tips, I
(24:09):
looked up insurance a little bit because, like a dummy
in my mid twenties, when I didn't have like anything
other than waiting tables jobs, I skipped on insurance because
I didn't want to pay a couple hundred dollars a month.
So I got to think. In today, here's an older dude,
how much it costs to stay in a hospital. The
average cost of a hospital stay in the US is
about six bucks. The average hospital the media and hospital
(24:33):
stay in the U s A. It's three times more
than other industrialized countries. Which is a whole different thing.
But eighteen thousand dollars is the average median stay in
a hospital. The Obamacare is coming out next month and
I think the average mid tier insurance policy will be
about three five bucks. So you would have to pay
(24:53):
on that insurance policy fifty five months, four and a
half years to equal out one hospital, a one bout
of something, one bad car wreck. Like, the point is,
you're not doing yourself any favors if you think you're
saving by not paying insurance. And I know when you're
twenty three and twenty five you don't think being is
gonna happen to you, but you are screwed if it does.
(25:17):
So just be smart, get insurance and you're covered unless
you're ned Flanders and then you consider a form of gambling. Yeah, um,
so insurance, that's a good one. Yeah. And like I said, um,
if you don't have insurance, I agree with you, Chuck.
Health insurance is a good way to go if you
already have insurance, car insurance, any kind of insurance. Um
(25:39):
check out if you have a svelt coverage right, and
then you know, try to save some money without shooting
yourself in the foot over time. But Yes, going without
insurance is not a good way to save money. A
good way to save money is to possibly look at
your cell phone bill and say, do I need the
plan that I have? Yeah? Do I need all those
(26:00):
unlimited text or see how many texts do you send
a month on average? Right? You might be able to
cut it back a little bit. Yeah, that that's a
that's another good point you keep raising, like all these
awesome points that deserve elaborating. But um, the first step
to all of this is to write down your monthly expenses,
track them for a little while, and you'll see where
your money is going. Just right out of the gate,
(26:21):
a lot of stuff will become obvious that you can
where you can try totally will right. Um. But the
second step to that is to look at all of
the things you're currently paying for that you're like, okay,
I need all this and figure out ways to trim
them individually. So, whether it's car insurance, whether it's um,
your cell phone bill, there's there's always a way to
cut it down a little bit. That's right. Uh. Living
(26:44):
debt free it's something we believe in now after incurring
credit card debt for a number of years, we got
rid of it all and haven't used credit cards in
like eight years. Oh yeah, yep. We if we can't
afford it that month, we don't get it. And do
you use the credit card to get it and then
pay it off though, just to keep your credit score up? Uh,
we run everything through our American Express, which would we
(27:06):
pay off each month? And um, well, this this article
makes a really good point, like if you are having
to pay interest on your credit card, that means you're
buying things that you can't afford. And you pay interest
on your credit card when you buy something and you
can't pay it off at the end of the month,
then that's that It sounds like you have a very
good policy going there. It's a good policy because when
(27:27):
we looked at what we were spending on finance chargers,
it was ridiculously wasteful. Yeah, and it makes you angry
when you really stopped and look at it. And uh,
because you know your hard for your money, you get
taxed a lot anyway. The last thing you want to
do is start throwing the man more money just because
he said I've got a little piece of plastic and
go hog wild for a little while. Right, You don't
have to wait for this, just get it now. And
(27:49):
that's a that's another good point that this article made. UM.
One of the things you can institute is a one
month waiting period for all purchases, all major purchases, any
purchase you're excited it about, you write it down instead
of buying it. You just write down what you want,
and then at after a month, you go back to
it and say, do I still want this? Probably more
often than not you're gonna be like, I don't even
(28:11):
remember why I wanted that, yeah, or wait for good.
We do a lot of the financing deals, like I
wanted a sound bar for the TV, and I waited
like a year to get it right, I waited till
the right deal came along in a certain store had
a twenty four month no interest deal, and now I'm
paying like, you know, twenty bucks a month ward or something.
(28:31):
And uh, but you've gotta be really careful. If you're
bad about paying your bills, you can get jacked around
on the finance because at the end of twenty four
months it's interest, or if you miss a month or something,
it's pretty ridiculous. I recommend financing deals, but you just
have to be really vigilant with your bills on time.
(28:51):
Another good reason to stop and wait a month, a week, whatever.
If you just basically put a moratorium in any immediate sending, um,
it'll cause you to go poke around the internet and,
like you said, to see if you can find like
a better like financing deal. Maybe somebody else has it
for less um. If you do use your credit cards,
(29:13):
some credit cards have deals with certain merchants to where
you'll actually get some cash back um, which is basically
just like money off and just money off. There's a
lot of reasons to stop and then figure out how
you can get that thing you want for the least
amount of money, which makes it even sweeter when you
do get it. All Right, dude, so we've given a
(29:34):
lot of good little tips on how to save money.
You're saving some dough even if you're a millennial. Pride
yourself on saving a little money and not being wasteful. Yeah,
I mean, like it's just save what you can. Yeah. Uh.
So what you want to think about next is, all right,
I have a little extra change here, and now what
do I do? Do you want to put in a
piggy bank or under the mattress? Or start investing in
(29:57):
stocks or gambling on football. What should I do? Well?
The first thing you want to do is to create
a fund, basically an emergency fund. The rule of thumb
is you have three to six months worth of expenses
tucked away in a savings account that you can get to,
but you don't touch. Um, just in case if you're
(30:19):
laid off something terrible happens. You have a significant amount
of money that you can live on no matter what.
You're not gonna get kicked out of your home. You're
not gonna go hungry. That's right, right. That's pretty much
the first thing you want to do when you're saving money. Like,
as you're saving all this money and you're putting it away, UM,
that's the pot that you wanted to go into. UM.
(30:42):
After that, you have a little more leeway to do
things with, like you want to maybe pay off debt
is a good second step, yeah, because if you're in debt,
then you're wasting money and it's no fun to pay
debt down, but it's super satisfying once you have it is,
and it can be fun to pay debt down, especially
(31:02):
if you're watching it climb down and get closer and
closer to zero, and when you write that last check,
you're just like, I'll see you in hell. You know. Um,
you're done. And from that point on you've got an
emergency fund, your debt free, and then now you can
do some fun stuff with your money. Yeah, you're on
the right track at this point. Hopefully by now you've
(31:25):
got a budget that will work for you. The key
with your budget is to do something that's reasonable for
you that you can stick to. It's sort of like
when I was reading about this, it's sort of like dieting, Like,
you know, if you set yourself up for some stupid
diet that you're not gonna follow, I'm only gonna have
an apple and a canatuna like Kristen Bale and the Machinist. Yeah,
chances are you're not gonna be successful. So it's really
(31:46):
like dieting. It's more like a lifestyle change and finding
whatever financial lifestyle works for you where you're able to
save some and still give yourself some things and have
a little fun. Right. But the key here is to
pay yourself first, like you cannot if you're saving. The
first thing you do is save when you get paid.
(32:10):
The first thing, the first check. You right, the first
trancefer you make, the first payment you make is to yourself,
and you take whatever you budgeted for savings and take
it from your checking account and put it in your
savings account at exactly that's that's that's the other aspect
to it. Once you do that, that money does not exist.
It's in your savings. It's not for you to play
(32:31):
around with. It's not for you to be like, well,
I went a little over on my credit cards. I mean,
use my savings. You went a little over on your
credit card. That means you're gonna have to pay interest
on it that month because that money and savings does
not exist. And Josh will wrap your knuckles. Well, I'm
getting very excited right now that the idea of going
into your savings to pay off a credit card you
(32:52):
screwed up. That is true. UM. So if you do
have your budget working, you've got your emergency fund going one, um,
you're paying yourself every month, you're saving money. Um, then
you can start thinking about investments, things like maybe a
c D certificate of deposit. It's a nice, low risk
(33:13):
way to start if you're young. It is. It's so
it's such a paltry amount right now, but it's still
I mean, you do get money back. Gep your toe
in the water. If you're reticent, in a CD is
a good way to do it. So a CD is
basically like you give some you loan money to a
bank and it's for that amount of time three months, um,
a year, ten years, whatever, um. And basically the bank
(33:35):
says thanks for the money. At the end of the term,
they give you back that money and then some interest
for borrowing. So, like they put it in this article,
your money goes away and then when it comes back,
it brings more money with it. It's pretty simple. Yeah. Uh,
what if you're out there all right, Josh, I'm I'm
a millennial. I just got through watching Girls. I'm I'm
(33:56):
drinking uh pims cup on my sofa. Okay, And I say,
Josh and Chuck, this is great. But I've done these things.
I don't make much money. I'm an artist and crafter
of fine goods. I've only got twenty dollars a week extra. Um.
There's actually a lot you can do with twenty bucks
a week. No, there's not. There is, especially if you
(34:17):
look at that twenty bucks is part of a stream
of twenty bucks that you'll eventually have, UM that you say,
want to invest, All right, what can you do with
twenty Well, there's this cool thing called a drip. It's
a dividend reinvestment plan. UM. You can also look into
direct stock purchase plans. But basically, you are going to
a company that you believe in. You say, I have
(34:38):
twenty dollars and I want one share of your twenty
dollar stock, and they say, okay, here you go. It's
basically like a counter where you go and buy a
stock from the company directly, which saves you on brokerage fees.
So what you're saying is you can just invest a
little bit at a time and directly into these companies,
which all adds up and before you know it, you've
(35:00):
got like a couple of grand invested in this company.
Right or you know, there's there's supposedly about a thousand
companies in the United States that sell stock directly. You
don't have to go to an online brokerage, you don't
have to go to like your brick and mortar brokerage.
Like the companies like, we're not going to charge any
fees because you're giving us money for our stock, We're
happy to sell it to you. UM. And you are
(35:22):
just kind of building up a portfolio on your own.
It's a it's a good investment. If you're just going
to sit on something, if you're day trading, that's the
worst idea ever. I don't think you could do it
like that. But if you just wanted to build up stock,
if you say, I really believe in this company's future
and I want to have this stock fifty years from now,
why why just say it's only twenty bucks. Instead take
(35:46):
that twenty bucks and buy one Sheriff stock. That's one
thing you could do. If you've got a few hundred bucks,
maybe you could consider something called an index fund. Traditionally,
an index that tracks the SMP five is gonna return
about ten percent a year. That's pretty good, not bad money, no,
And you don't have to invest, like you know, ten
grand to do so. The other thing about an index
(36:08):
fund is um if you're buying compared to a mutual fund,
it's an unmanaged fund. There are five hundred stocks that
you own a percentage of in shares UM, and that's
the SMP five companies. And basically what you're doing is
investing in the market itself. Right, So it's unmanaged, which
(36:30):
means that the fees associated with it are next to nothing. Um.
If you have like a mutual fund that's managed, they
don't typically pay off as well and you're paying a
lot more in management fees. Um. There's a really good,
I think Frontline episode on index funds that came out
this year that's definitely worth watching, and I'll bet you
(36:52):
can get it for free online. Uh. If you have
a little bit more, let's say you've got five dollars um,
what that's gonna do is just open up your options
a little bit. Uh. You're gonna have a pick from
different companies, some of which might require a minimum of
let's say five, So it just opens your investment options
a little bit. You can shop around some. Um, you
(37:15):
might want to open what's called a discount brokerage account. Yeah.
It's just basically like an online stock trading platform, and
they're very cheap because they don't trade in micro seconds
or anything like that. It's just like this is where
you buy stock for as cheap as it comes pretty easy. Uh.
If you've got a grand land around, then buddy, you
(37:37):
are in the catbird seat. Uh. If you start with
a thousand dollars and invest an additional thousand each year,
you earn about ten percent annually and when you retire,
that money is going to turn into over half a
million dollars. And that's just a pretty standard like IRA right, yeah, yes,
(37:58):
it's speaking of I ras. If you have a if
you work for a company and they match, if they
do four oh one K matching, you want to do that, um,
because what that is is your company giving you. There's
no other way to put it. It's free money. Like you,
(38:18):
whatever you contribute, they'll match, like say, up to a
certain amount that you contribute. UM. That is literally your
company saying here's some extra money for your retirement. It's
what companies came up with to replace the old retirement
plans that they used to have in the heydays of
the unions. This is what we have today. So if
(38:39):
you're not taking advantage of that, you should. And there's
another reason to take advantage of a four oh one
K and to max it out. Frankly, because it's UM
deducted pre tax, it actually lowers your adjusted gross income,
which means you'll pay less taxes the more you contribute
to your four oh one K over the year. Boom. Yeah,
you should be a financial planner. I am for yourself. No,
(39:03):
I've been doing it on the side. Yeah, there's this
alley that I I set up on a couple of
garbage cans and people. I am fascinated by the stuff, Like,
it's very it. Once you start to really like get
into it and think about it and look around it
ways to like save, it's addictive. Well, I can say this.
(39:24):
Warren Buffett didn't become Warren Buffett by being disinterested in finance.
You know. He probably thought it was pretty neat early
on and look at him now. Maybe that's where you're headed.
I don't know about that. That's not like my primary interest,
you know, I just find it fascinating. Um what else, Chuck,
you got anything else? I have something else? Actually, Um,
(39:49):
this is just a total overview, just some starter ideas
like that was definitely not like a full rundown of
four one case and tax savings and that kind of stuff. Like, um,
whatever perched your ears up, Um, go look into it,
go do a little research. There's so much information online
about this stuff that it's just basically a never ending
(40:11):
supply this like free financial information, probably rivals, cute kitten videos,
and just the sheer volume of stuff on the internet. Yeah,
it sounds good to me. Yeah, get into it, people,
You'll you'll thank us later. So uh, okay, that's it
for this one. Yeah, all right. If you want to
learn more ways to save money, you can type in
(40:32):
ten easy ways to save money in the search bar
at how stuff works dot com. Uh. And we wish
you the best of luck in becoming financially free and
sticking it to the man. Yeah. Uh And since I
said search bar, it's time for listener mail. That's right.
I'm gonna call this um one of our better emails
about our death podcast, Dying Podcast. We heard from a
(40:55):
lot of people that really got a lot out of
this one, and it was very rewarding for us. So
this is from one of them. Hey, guys, my mom
passed away two years ago. When I was moved to
hospice for the last two weeks. It was a very
painful time for me, and I was nervous about listening
to this podcast. In fact, I was in two minds
about skipping it. However, I'm glad I did not skip it.
(41:17):
My mom went through each stage as you described. This
was the first time I had experienced anything like like this,
and it was horrible to watch. I thought she had
died in a lot of pain, struggling to breathe and
having to fight every step of the way. I now
realized she was going through the normal steps, and I
really wish I would have known this at the time.
I can confirm that sound is the last thing that goes.
About half an hour before she died, me and my
(41:39):
sisters asked the nurse if there was anything we could
do to help her, and she looked like she was
struggling to breathe. The nurse suggested putting on some of
her favorite music. Not only did this seem to calm
her down, but after a while we noticed that her
breathing noises started to match the rhythm of the music.
Was she trying to sing along? We think? So this
is one of the good memories I have over last week,
So I'm glad we did it. I just thought I
(42:00):
would email to say thank you for doing the show.
Even after two years, is still distressed me how my
mom died, And now I feel like I finally understand it,
and it's a big weight off my mind that she
didn't feel as much pain as she looked like she
was in Wow. So that is from uh Philippa Griggs
in Norwich, England, thank you very much for sending it.
And then it's very that's something else. Yeah, or maybe
(42:22):
it's pronounced norch ner ner nor Norwick. Sometimes h is
a sound. It's Norich nurch Norch, England. Thanks Philippa. That's
a cool name, jith. Yeah, thank you very much for
us sending it in. Thanks to all of you who
wrote in um about our Dying podcast, we really appreciate it. Uh.
(42:43):
If you want to let us know something we taught
you that meant a lot to you, we always like
to hear that. You can tweak to us at s
y SK podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com,
slash Stuff you Should Know. You can send us an
email the Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com. You can
come hang out with us at our home on the web.
Stuff you Should Know dot com for more on this
(43:08):
and thousands of other topics. Is it how Stuff works
dot Com Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go Places
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Chuck Bryant
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