Ask HTM - Avoiding Financial Skeletons, Gross OnlyFans Feet Pics, & Cutting Funeral Costs #742

We’re kicking off the week by answering your spooky listener money questions! And if you have a question that you’d like for us to answer on the show, we’d love for you to submit your own via HowToMoney.com/ask , send us your voice memo. Regardless of how random or bizarre you might think it is, we want to hear it! And since this episode wasn’t a traditional Ask HTM episode, let’s mention that we answered and covered a lot of different questions and comments like: favorite seasonal beers, making your own costumes to save, more affordable ways to have fun at Halloween, cutting costs on funerals, overcoming spooky feelings of guilt and taking a vacation, Pumpkin Spice Lattes, financial skeletons in the closet, Halloween arbitrage, gross OnlyFans feet pics, trick or treat candy exchange rate, our favorite scary movie, & repurposing leftover candy.

 

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During this episode we enjoyed a Social Hour by Santa Fe Brewing- thanks for donating this one to the podcast Bob! And please help us to spread the word by letting friends and family know about How to Money! Hit the share button, subscribe if you’re not already a regular listener, and give us a quick review in Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Help us to change the conversation around personal finance and get more people doing smart things with their money!

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to How to Money. I'm Joel and I am Matt,
and today we're answering your spooky listener questions.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
I almost did like a howl in the background as
you said, that's just that to add to the ambiance.
But we are going to talk through some spooky Halloween
related money questions. We've got a lot of different comments
that folks chimed in with over on Facebook. We're beginning
to those. We're going to talk about how you can
cut costs when it comes to funerals. We're gonna talk

(00:48):
about how you can avoid some of those financial skeletons
in your closet. And Joel, you and I we might
even share our favorite scary movie during this episode. A
lot to cover.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
And by the way, if you're not a part of
the out of Money Facebook group, go check it out.
It's a great place. We've got eleven thousand folks in
there and they're just helping each other all the time
with their money questions. So Matt and I, you know,
we are two dudes and we love taking your money questions.
We love talking about money three times a week with you.
But this is a great place to go if you
want like more information or you want like a deeper
dive with some of your listeners. Fellow listeners. It really

(01:20):
is a great crew, and so it's always nice to
be able to tap the Facebook.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
Group for Hive Mind.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
Yeah, it's nice to be able to tap them for
episodes like this too. There are a lot of good suggestions,
a lot of good, good questions in that group on
this topic.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
And that's right, man, all right, before we introduce the beer,
before we get to this episode, I wanted to share
a quick little story. It's nearing the end of the
month and I was wrapping up the October October expenses, right,
I was closing out the budget for this month. And
you know what, So one of the benefits of obviously
tracking or spending, you get to see you're not immune
to price increases, right, you are in touch with what

(01:53):
it is you're spending. You can keep an eye out
for different errors that may have occurred. But you also,
and this is something I realized just yesterday, actually you
have the ability to essentially relive some of the expenses
that you had incurred earlier that month. And in this case,
so earlier in the month we both took some long weekends.
You and Emily, y'all are up in New York. Kate

(02:13):
and I went out to Colorado wanted to do some
hiking and you.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
Got your first fourteen or in my first, Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
And so while we were out there, I also took
that as an opportunity to scratch my Tesla itch, as
folks have heard me talking about here on the show.
So I rented a Tesla Model three on turo. Is
honestly not that much more expensive than just getting a standard.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
Affordable sit in. Yeah, the regular Corolla from Hurts.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Yeah, exactly, And I thought, okay, this is a great
opportunity for me to actually try it out. It was awesome,
super cool, dude. We had so much fun driving that
thing around extended test drive, by the way, which is
so small. If you're like you get to actually live
with it, you know which there's good and there's bad.
Because I'll say the good is that it was a
lot of fun. It wasn't FSD, wasn't full so driving,

(03:00):
but man, double clicking that that right lever and having
it turned into Rainbow Road so stinking cool. Super cool.
But I tell you what is not cool was the
infrastructure actually having to go to a supercharger charging that thing.
It's really easy, right, You just stick it in there
and it just starts charging. That part's cool, but they're
just not as ubiquitous as gas stations. And then so

(03:22):
speak going back to my budget, that's an understatement, by
the way, Yes, exactly. Going back to the budget, I
saw obviously the turow rental fee, but then there was
the charge for the superchargers that we used, which because
it automatically charges the owner, which they then pass on
to you as the turo renter. And I was reminded
that it cost me around thirty dollars to charge it
over the course of three days or so, three four

(03:44):
days of driving, And so I thought, what would those
that same number of miles that we drove, how much
would it have cost with the average cost of gasoline
in Colorado were we to if we were driving? So
you ran the numbers? Did to the numbers? Did can
I guess? Yes?

Speaker 1 (03:59):
Yeah, the guess gas was definitely cheaper than than filling up.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
Cause it wasn't. It wasn't. It wasn't it wasn't it
was It was pretty much the exact same though it
was thirty bucks. And I was because we didn't drift
all that much. Yeah, but that just goes to show
that the superchargers are not an affordable way to power
your Tesla, your electric car. It really makes a whole
lot of sense though.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
If you've got those off peak hours or if are
charging at home.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
Yeah, charging at home and you've got the super off
peak hours where you're paying, Like I even crunched it
down to like the kill a what hour it was
like at home if you've got a good rate, I
mean you're paying sometimes something like one cent or something
like that per kill a what hour versus it was
like twenty five times that I think when it came
to the supercharger. The price difference between convenience is nice,
but you're paying a premium for it.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
Price difference between charging at home and charging out at
a charge point or a Tesla charger or something like that,
it's way significant difference. And so yeah, ev owners will
if they if they constantly find themselves charging somewhere else
besides where they live, they're gonna end up spending a
significant them out.

Speaker 2 (05:01):
It's not going to make a whole lot of sense
from the daily cost of operating a vehicle standpoint.

Speaker 1 (05:05):
And that's one of the biggest selling points is like, hey,
you don't have to go to the gas station and
you can charge it at home, and it makes it
really easy, but you have to make sure that you've
got enough range to where you can actually make that
a reality where you're actually doing exactly ninety plus percent
of you're charging at your home. And, by the way,
a lot of people and this is something I found
out having my leaf that had like no range, by
the way for a lot of years, is that a
lot of people can get by without having even a

(05:25):
level two charger. They can literally just trickle charge, which
is better for their battery life over time and slow
Insteady it works just fine for not for everyone, but
for a lot of folks.

Speaker 2 (05:36):
Yeah. Absolutely, And it also just reinforced that the fact
that I'm probably not ever going to rent an electric
vehicle when we go on vacation because was so great
about the convenience of an electric vehicle is being able
to charge it at home and when you don't have
a home, like so no joke, I was driving around
looking for outlets to plug into because I thought, oh man,
because we rented a condo and I thought, if there

(05:58):
are some outlets in the in the deck because there's
you know, not a sign there that says no EV charging.
I'm willing to pop the trunk, pull out the cord
out of the or the fronk I don't know where
wherever the charger was, and plug it up, but the
uh they cover them up and they both didn't have
any outlets in the entire deck. I drove the whole
the whole length of the U of the tech Kate

(06:18):
was like, Okay, we've driven enough. You're just gonna have
to go supercharger thing tomorrow. But uh, yeah, consider it
or we're going to consider it for maybe in the future,
for as a daily driver if you have a home
base to come back to, but certainly not for a
road trip where you're gonna be driving multiple days that
kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (06:34):
Yeah, for sure. And I think, like, yeah, you have
to plan it out ahead of time. And I do
think we're gonna get a lot more charging infrastructure in
the next few years. It's gonna be eas eventually easier. Yeah,
I don't know that it'll bring the prices down significantly, though,
And so I think if if you're charging while you're
out and about, it's still going to be about as
expensive as it is to fill up your gas car, which.

Speaker 2 (06:51):
Is fine, yeah on the on the yeah, opportunity for
you to travel out of state, that kind of thing.
But for the the daily driver makes a ton of
sense for sure. All right, let's move on. Matt.

Speaker 1 (07:01):
Let's mention the beer we're having on this episode. This
was called Social Hour. It's by Santa Fe Brewing. It's
a hazy wheat ale with orange. And this is a
big thanks to our friend Bob, who went to the
same Nerdy Money conference we did.

Speaker 2 (07:11):
So gave us beers last year.

Speaker 1 (07:13):
At that nerdy Money conference and Bob is just one
of the greatest dudes, and so he had a sackload
of beer for us to It was a shoebox.

Speaker 2 (07:21):
It was a shoebox. Yeah, not a little shoebox. I
don't know how big his feed are, but shoebox.

Speaker 1 (07:25):
He's got like Shaquilla and Neil sized feet and so
he Yeah, we got a lot of great beers from Bob,
and we'll be the next Bob yeah, next few episodes.
So big thanks to Bob and h And by the way,
if you have a personal finance question you want Matt
and I a tackle on an upcoming episode. Howdomoney dot
com slash ask is the place where you can find
the simple instructions to record that voice memo and send
it our way. We can't wait to hear from you, said.

Speaker 2 (07:46):
The majority of our questions of the comments today aren't
actual voice man, yes, and we wanted.

Speaker 1 (07:50):
To reach out to Usually they are, but today we
topped Facebook.

Speaker 2 (07:52):
It's just fun to hear the people's voice. It really well, right,
I mean, folks have got to get tired of hearing
us talk Bob.

Speaker 1 (07:58):
You would think, right, you would think, But now I
mean I think it's they tuned in for a reason, right, course,
that's why they're still subscribed, right, No, we appreciate all
you all you folks listening, listening regularly, But let's get
to kind of the topic you get off. We're talking
specifically about Halloween related spooky money questions that people in
our Facebook group had, And this first one comes from Danny,
who says, no question here, but I hope you'll share

(08:19):
an autumn themed beer and tell us about some of
your other seasonal faves. It's such a great time of
year for craft bruise. Obviously, it is like the fault time.
I love the seasonality of craft beer, and so Danny
makes a good point. First off, I will say the
hottest beer segment at this time of year is pumpkin beers.
I hate pumpkin beers. Matt, what I do?

Speaker 2 (08:40):
You know? You like the okay? So what about avery?
Avery makes the rumpkin? Okay?

Speaker 1 (08:45):
That avery is the the is the exception that proves
the rule. So rumpkin it's a I can't rum barrel
aged pumpkin beer pumpkin or maybe it's like sweet potata
or some something.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
Like that, but obviously it's aged in rum barrels, and
it was I haven't had it in a few years.
The problem phenomenal phenomenal pumpkin slash fall beer. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (09:05):
The problem is most pumpkin beers make pumpkin the main feature.
And if pumpkin is a minor feature in it and
it's all about the barrel age or it's about it
big old stout or this Imperial brown or something like that,
then I'm all for trying that. But it's the ones
that are like super pumpkin specific, and I feel.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
Like they make the the pumpkin where the kin is
spelled with a K y and that's Kentucky. Yeah, obviously
that's barrel aged. That being said, I think both of
those are in like the fifteen percent range, So not
the kind of beer that you drink, you drink all
the time. You definitely split that with a friend. Yeah yeah.
But speaking of seasonality, we just I think it's September
when fresh hot beers are typically yea because of harvest

(09:41):
season and not too long ago. Enjoyed Born Yesterday, Oh
by Laganita, the Loganita's fresh hop. They've got a born
Again Yesterday or something like that that's actually not a
fresh shop. I think it's like a fake.

Speaker 1 (09:53):
Uh huh fake. But the Born Yesterday is delicious.

Speaker 2 (09:56):
Born Yesterday is so good, and so most of the
time hops, they're processed in the pelletform frozen, it gets
packed off, you know, shipped off in pouches, that kind
of thing. Obviously, if they're fresh hot, they're literally making
the beers with like the cone, like the hop cones,
and not surprisingly, they have this amazingly crisp, delicious, grassy

(10:16):
herbal flavor that you cannot replicate because hops go bad
like really quickly. Yeah, they go bad and even when
they brew those beers, you have to drink it pretty
quickly too, while they're still alive. That's like, that's always
how I describe those beers. It's like they're still moving
around in the cans a little bit.

Speaker 1 (10:29):
Within like six weeks of bottling essentially. So yeah, look
at the born on date or whatever.

Speaker 2 (10:33):
That's honestly my favorite quote unquote seasonal beer, just because
of the freshness. Yes, it's like it's like farmed to mouth,
farmed a glass.

Speaker 1 (10:40):
So I think it's good to note that there are
some great fall beers that are pumpkin beers, and if
you like pumpkin beers, more power to you. It's just
like turkey flavored beer. Yeah, only the dark meat though,
Yeah right, yeah, it's more flavorable than the white meat.
Like we all know this, but for our listeners who
don't care much about beer, we'll keep moving on. Let's
let's get to Kathy's quite She says, do kids still

(11:01):
make their own Halloween costumes? I'm sure my family saved
a lot of money when we did that back in
the day. So, Matt, I don't know homemade costumes.

Speaker 2 (11:08):
What are your thoughts? Well, I like them. It feels
like something from a bygone era, you know, like I
totally remember like Little House on the Prayers, well even
as a kid myself. I mean I wasn't born in
the eighteen eighties or whatever Little House in the Prayer,
but I remember my dad making a ghost costume for me,
which is the classic, literally just a white sheet over

(11:29):
your head with holes cut the eyes, and of course
I remember just constantly tripping and falling everywhere and getting hurt,
so probably not worth it. That's one that I don't remember.
I'm not too fondly.

Speaker 1 (11:40):
I remember my mom breaking out the sewing machine back
in the day, and yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean just
I remember my little sister being a black sheet at
one point and it was just the goosiest looking costume
was So it was adorable though, because it's unique, it's
one of the kind. So I think they're they're rare,
but I'd love to see more of them.

Speaker 2 (11:55):
Yeah. So that being said, I will say, I don't
know if we've ever talked about this on the show
Our Kid. My kids to a classical school. It's like
a nerdy, traditional, like liberal arts kind of school. And
at the school, they have what's called Classical Character Day
and not surprisingly what that means that they're allowed because
normally they're wearing like the standard uniform, but on Classical
Character Day you can dress up as a historical figure

(12:19):
that literally has to be something that someone that you've studied,
like Pikachu. You mean right exactly, you know the classics
in the first few months of school. And I will
say that has caused our kids to be a little
more creative because there are still some things to buy
to kind of land the costume. But I do appreciate

(12:39):
the ingenuity the inventiveness that goes into because a lot
of times you do have some of those elements in
the past. Like one of our daughters was Artemis, the
Greek goddess. One of our daughters this year is going
to be for tid. I think that's like, okay, like
the Egyptian Queen. Do you know who this is? The
Egyptian Queen.

Speaker 1 (12:55):
No, it brings it like I know it's you probably
bring you.

Speaker 2 (12:57):
Probably seen there's a famous staff or bust of her
and one of her eyes has kind of been knocked
out and it looks like like the Pupil's gone and
the iris is gone. It's just white she keeps. Anytime
she talks about being her, she grabs the bottom part
of her eyelid and pulls her eye down and looks
up in order to wipe out her eye. I think
it's going to be pretty hilarious. Yeah, I love that.

(13:19):
I'm sure you know which kid came up with that one?

Speaker 3 (13:22):
Is? Right?

Speaker 2 (13:22):
Well, I think, But like I'm all for the creativity.
I guess that goes into it because like those when
it comes to actually handing it out candy, like those
are the kids that you want to give double candy too,
right versus the kids that are just shown up with.

Speaker 1 (13:33):
The back Let's be honest, like the ready made off
the rack. It's cool, they're very expensive, yes, yeah, So
if we're talking about saving money on Halloween using what
you have lying around, you probably already have if you've
got a few kids, some sort of costume bucket that
you can tap and you can you know, it doesn't
have to be like putting on the same exact thing,
but like, how can you maybe combine a few of

(13:54):
those things to create a cool new outfit that's a
little off the beaten path.

Speaker 2 (13:57):
I think it's a good way to go glasher. You
r g I Joe May this year you can be
zombie g I Joy. It's too short, it's all ripped
up and busted up. Discort some some fake blood all over.
Then you're good to go. See. I like this.

Speaker 1 (14:08):
You could be like a Halloween costume consultant.

Speaker 2 (14:10):
Take any costume and just call it zombie whatever, and
you're good for at least two three years, that's right.

Speaker 1 (14:14):
Or I may just make mine sexy right as well,
need and everything, which is I know the trend. I
don't actually do that, all right, ben, he asks. Our
family loves trick or treating, and our two young kids
will usually go knock on roughly five to ten select
doors before coming home to hand out treats to others
for a few hours. Our neighborhood really goes all out
with the treats. We're talking custom professional sugar cookies, massive
goodie bags, full sized candy bars, jeez, and even hard

(14:37):
selters for the adults. So if you're a kid, which
I can appreciate there, Yeah, yeah, I like that. So
we go craft beer instead, right, but everyone seems to
have an extravagant niche and goes all in. Do you
guys have ideas? For something unique, fun and affordable that
we can hand out.

Speaker 2 (14:51):
Who you want to kick this one off?

Speaker 1 (14:52):
So I was thinking that there's why not take like
wood scraps and turn them into like little cutouts or
something and hand paint them. Maybe maybe there's like a
little fun, unique gift that you can give out in
that way.

Speaker 2 (15:03):
We've actually like, uh, you said scraps, I'll play some
wood straps. I was like, Okay, they're wearing these cutouts
or okay, gotcha. Yeah, maybe you could Maybe you could
just like the Halloween ornaments exactly. Yeah, something like that
cut out little got extend the season.

Speaker 1 (15:17):
You probably want to give out like a tiny piece
of candy to go with it, so you don't get
your house t peed or something later on. A little
hand painted, a little handmade something or other. Maybe your
kids help you make the move becomes this family activity
to create like twenty or thirty of these things, and
maybe it becomes the coolest house on the block because
it's like something intangible, it's gonna.

Speaker 2 (15:33):
Last for a long time. I've been mentioning the seltzers
or hard whatever drinks for adults. Maybe think of the
fact that everyone's giving up stuff for kids to eat,
and oftentimes they are eating candy a seat trick or treat.
Right once you give out a drink, and not like
a prepackaged drink whatever, but get like a big thing,
get like a big cauldron looking thing, get some apple

(15:54):
cider in there, get some dry ice, and all of
a sudden you got a witch's cauldron, and.

Speaker 1 (15:59):
Would be one for adults too, where you.

Speaker 2 (16:01):
You got exactly you got the twenty one plus cauldron,
and then you got the little kids cauldron and that
would be so affordable, and just the little starphone cups.
And then obviously if you're sir, if you're the one
that's there, you gotta wear the witch cash or the warlock,
and you providing more of like an experience with a
long like snow white witch nose, yeah, as opposed to
just handing them a piece of candy, because that's yeah,

(16:21):
that's not gonna cost hardly any money at all. I
like that. I guess I'm drawing on our previous or
past experience when when year we had a fire pit
out front and we did s'mores in front of our
house because we also we were literally going for this
where we're trying to think Okay, the prepackaged that's what's
so expensive. How do we break it down? And then
we realized, oh, back of marshmallows and a few full

(16:42):
you know, chocolate barckers. They're expensive if you're giving out
one bar at a time, but if you're breaking them
up and making making smores out of them as great
from a financial standpoint. It's not great when you've got
twenty random kids running around with like marshmallows at are.

Speaker 1 (16:56):
On fire and you're trying to get them like sign
a waiver before the movies.

Speaker 2 (16:59):
Oh gosh. So all that being said, we're never going
to do this Moorst thing again because that was kind
of scary.

Speaker 1 (17:03):
Random side note, a couple of our neighbor kids came
over and did smortes the other night in our backyard
over a fire pit, and one.

Speaker 2 (17:08):
Kid were my kids there? No? I thought they were
while we were gone.

Speaker 1 (17:13):
Yeah, that was while we're gone, So that's the one
I was there. So little dude he sets his marshmallow
on fire, he starts flinging it and he accidentally throws
the marshmallow.

Speaker 2 (17:21):
It hits my leg. I almost catch on fire, dude.
So that's what I'm telling you, he's never invited like
kids with like the metal pokers, flaming marshmallows the scariest thing.
I didn't realize that something.

Speaker 1 (17:32):
So maybe the cauldron makes a little bit more sense.

Speaker 2 (17:34):
Yeah, you're just finding a way to do whatever it
is that you're giving away in batch. But I'm totally
with you. Finding ways to do it on the cheap
is the way to go. This one is from Jessica
on Facebook. She said, this isn't a personal issue. I'm
facing now that maybe you could go over how to
save money on funerals like cremation versus burial if you
can skip them bombing, or how to get deals on caskets,

(17:56):
or even if it's legal or possible to just be
tossed in the forest somewhere. I like that she put
an lol after that, because just making it clear, I
was a little nervous she wasn't being serious.

Speaker 1 (18:05):
It's gonna start ropping off dead bodies in the forest. Well,
I think what you think, Well, this is a great question.
This is certainly, you know, a spooky question that that
isn't Halloween specific. But I'm also glad to know it
sounds like Jessica's not on death door. She's just kind
of like doing her due diligence here, but death related.

Speaker 2 (18:20):
So that's good. Yeah, she's on theme. We appreciate that point.

Speaker 1 (18:23):
Well. And cremation is almost always cheaper than traditional barrel
We're talking like traditional barrels often four or five x
the cost, so it's really important.

Speaker 2 (18:31):
To know that that.

Speaker 1 (18:32):
Like, and some people have religious views on this or
something like that, which is no problem. Obviously you want
to let that be your guiding light. But for folks
who don't really care, they're just trying to figure out
what save some the most money right after death, Well,
cremation is going to be the cheapest thing.

Speaker 2 (18:48):
Sign me up for that, man, right, because then you're
able to avoid one of the most costly items at
least when it comes to a funeral, which is a casket.
I mean you're talking either a thousand bucks, like on
the cheap end, up to like twenty thousand dollars for
a high end casket, well, which is insane.

Speaker 1 (19:03):
A huge part of the problem in this industry is
a lack of transparency. So this is historically an industry
where it's hard to figure out what the price is
going to be ahead of time. And so the good
news is there a people in the tech space who
are trying to do something about that. Got a couple
suggestions for you. First, I would say, consider pre paying
for your funeral or burial costs ahead of time through

(19:25):
your state Funeral and Memorial society like ours not only
has a helpful price list in one handy dandy location,
but you can also become a member, which gives you
access to guaranteed pricing and it's just really cheap. It
helps take the stress out of the equation. I think
it's thirty five bucks Matt to join our states. It's
a one time fee, it's not an annual fee or
anything like that, and then you kind of have access
to these great prices essentially. And I know most people

(19:48):
in their twenties and thirties are like cool, don't care,
but like, yeah, it's a really good thing for a
lot of people to know about. And just google your
State and Funeral and Memorial Society and it will pop up.
And like, let's say, if we're talking about someone you
love who's dying. Though, comparison shopping is crucial because the
price range can be massive. Like I was saying, the
prices are rarely given when you're searching site. So if
you're going to let's say funerals funeral rolos near you, Yeah,

(20:12):
if you're going to just their specific sites, you might
have a really hard time figuring how much it's going
to cost. So you want to go to a third
party site that helps do some of that work for you.
Funeralosity kind of like Travelosity, but funeralosity dot com is
this is probably the best site out there for helping
you find pricing. They make the phone calls even to
a lot of these companies to try to get the
pricing so that they can make it, and that they're
constantly checking up on the pricing to make sure they're

(20:34):
giving you accurate pricing on their site. And then when
it comes to getting tossed in the woods, that's just
probably no boynough like not a good way to go.
I'm sure there's something illegal, said.

Speaker 2 (20:43):
Yeah, there's something maybe the Health Code. I don't know
if the FDA or I.

Speaker 1 (20:48):
Don't know who gets involved, or the forestry division. Right,
but those cremations really can be really inexpensive. We're talking
barely four figures or maybe even three figures. I think
you could probably do that pretty dang affordably.

Speaker 2 (20:59):
But yeah, I think what's important here is then to
make sure that this is something you've talked about ahead
of time, and we kind of touched on this last
week when we talked with Chanelle Reynolds. But figuring out
what the wishes of the deceased are before they're deceased
is the best way to go, because if you don't
talk about it in the heat of the moment, right
this is an emotional time, and I think you're going

(21:19):
to be more likely to air on the side of
maybe spending too much as opposed to too little, and
maybe actually having this expensive funeral versus something that's a
little more private at your home, and when you've done
the work on the front end, you can avoid all
of that expense and all of that guilt where you're
left holding the bill at the end of the day.

Speaker 1 (21:37):
I think there can be a lot of guilt there.
And by the way, if you're looking to buy a casket,
if you're saying no, we're going to go the burial route,
buying the casket yourself is often a better way to go.
And you can go to Costco truly like they Costco
has and.

Speaker 2 (21:51):
It always makes those lists of like, yeah, weird things
you never hear that Costco is sold.

Speaker 1 (21:55):
And their caskets run the gamut. You can get like
a six casket and get a wheel of cheese, giant
wheel cheese, and you can get a gasket and you
can bury your wheel a cheese. That's what you really
want to do. But yeah, that's a great place to
turn forward the casket as opposed to getting it with
the markup from the funeral home. You can go ahead
and get that.

Speaker 2 (22:10):
Yeah, So how do you feel about donating your body
to science, because that's a way that you can avoid
that's true because she was talking about avoiding the embalming
side of things. That's certainly a way to save a
few hundred dollars, right if you just go with the
it's called an immediate burial, as opposed to having a
showing where they're you know, chemicals injected in the body
to preserve the body so it doesn't start going bad.

Speaker 1 (22:31):
A relatively new phenomenon. I mean, it's I don't kind
of weird.

Speaker 2 (22:34):
I don't love it. But when you donate your body
to science, obviously that allows you I love it because
it allows you to have a memorial service on your
own time, like on your own timeline, Like you're not
rushed into making a decision, which also means that you
can probably find the best rates, whether it's at a
venue or even at a church, because they're probably going
to charge you something. But if you can schedule it

(22:55):
well in advance, that not only gives you the ability
to save more money, but I think it allows folks
to schedule a little bit and say, all right, I
need to make sure to be there for the celebration
of life service. Sorry tangent, how do you feel about
donating your body to science? I'm down with it, all right,
down with it? Yeah, yeah, and you can would you
want to do that?

Speaker 1 (23:11):
You just tell yourself, right, so it's listed on your
on your driver's license, whether or not you're.

Speaker 2 (23:14):
An organ owner. But I don't know body donor Oh
well yeah that separate.

Speaker 1 (23:18):
No, I guess that'd be separate, right, I'm like a
cadaver for medical Students'm okay with that.

Speaker 2 (23:22):
I'm down for the cremation. I don't know how I
feel about med students. I like it because it furthers science,
but something about them like picking.

Speaker 1 (23:29):
Ap heart your body. Now I'm more than okay with that.
I mean, what else is my body going to be
used for except for like the furthering of humanity?

Speaker 2 (23:34):
Right? So, like, I love the ideal of it, but
I would much rather have my ashes scattered in some
meaningful special place. Yeah, that my family can go is
like a top of a mountain. Maybe it'll be at
the top of Bowski style paundry peak over there outside
of Breck speaking of fourteen ers. Yeah, not big Lebowski
style with the ash all up in your face.

Speaker 1 (23:52):
All Right, we got We've got more to get to
on this episode, including questions about financial skeletons in the closet,
and maybe how to have a minie willist Halloween, and
we can I think some of these will be applicable
to like how you think about Halloween for next year too.
We'll get to more spooky money questions on today's How
to Money right after this.

Speaker 2 (24:17):
All right, we are back from the break. We've got
more Halloween themed questions for folks. We're actually going to
talk about pumpkin spice lattes here in a minute too,
But first let's hear from a listener up in New York.

Speaker 3 (24:27):
Hi. Joel and Matt This is Madison from New York City.
I am a twenty four year old who is totally
spooked by how to save up for a vacation and
spend on a vacation without feeling guilty and without backtracking
on my financial goals. I discovered your podcast during the
pandemic and am in a good place financially. I'm lucky
to not have student loans. I've contributed to my roth

(24:49):
ira since twenty nineteen, and I take advantage of my
employers for a one K match. I am just getting
started on putting money into an individual brokerage account. However,
with high cost of living in New York City, especially RANT,
I find it hard to do anything. On top of that,
I am super spooked by the idea of straying from
my goals and strategies, but I know I need a

(25:10):
break and want to plan for a vacation in a
smart way. Any advice for a newly minted adult figuring
out how to vacation. The idea of saving up a
few thousand dollars for leisure seems like a far off
goal for me. I know there are credit card point
hacks and other tips and tricks to take advantage of
where would you recommend starting and how can I shake
this spooked feeling? Thanks for all you guys do, and

(25:31):
happy spooky.

Speaker 2 (25:32):
Season, Matt.

Speaker 1 (25:33):
I love I love this question, and I love hearing
from someone like Madison because she feels like she feels
like someone like I can identify with the struggle that
she's going through, because that's something that I went through
early on when I was like, I really want to
make a lot of financial progress, and it got to
the point of hyper frugality at times for me. I've
grown a lot since then, but I get how, especially

(25:54):
in those early years, you just feel like funneling more
and more money is going to help set you up
into those retirementccounts is going to help set you up
for your future. But she's in such a good spot here,
no student loans, right, getting the match every year, contributing
significantly to her roth IRA, and opening the brokerage account
on top of it. I think she's way beyond where
most of her friends and coworkers are with their finances,

(26:14):
and she should feel really proud about all the progress
she's made.

Speaker 2 (26:17):
Yeah. Absolutely, And at the core of the issue here,
I think is mindset right because The truth is, if
you can't find the space in your budget for your
craft beer equivalent, if you can't change how it is
that you're thinking about your money, If you can't enjoy
some of the fruits of your labor while simultaneously saving
and investing for the future, then you're going to get
burned out. This is like a core, crucial, fundamental question.

(26:40):
And just punting those trips that you want to take
for a few more years and then a few more
years after that, Like that seems like a really bad
idea from a bounce perspective, And so I love that
you're wrestling with these ideas at a younger age so
that you can hopefully instill some habits, right, you can
build up a pattern of spending some of your money now,
because honestly, none of us are guaranteed tomorrow, and so

(27:02):
that's a little you know, Halloween spooky spookiness. I'm sure
interviews like we may not be around, and so I
think it's important to live They did, yes, like, if
we can start living in the way that we want
to live in the future a little bit now, I
think that's going to go along a long ways, not
only from a standpoint of how you're thinking about money,
but it has a lot to do with your happiness

(27:24):
in the hearing, now, yeah it does well.

Speaker 1 (27:26):
And we talk about their statistics about people that take
all their vacation end up they end up doing better
in their career, right because they end up getting the
rest that they need, they get to get away from
their work for a week or two, and it ends
up making them more productive better at their job. And
so you have to think about it like that too.
It's it is actually kind of a good kind of
selfish play to take your vacation. I think it's that

(27:47):
self care.

Speaker 2 (27:48):
Yeah, right, like you can't continually burn the candle's I
mean take it to the it's logical extreme where it's
just like, okay, well I gotta work multiple jobs, I
gotta pull all nighters. How long is that going to look? Right?
I mean your body will literally start breaking down and
you will not be able to maintain that pace. It's
more of a marathon than a sprint.

Speaker 1 (28:07):
But I think for someone like Madison, maybe that's the
way to look at it, is like, oh wait a second,
if I don't take this vacation, guess what, it's gonna
be worse for my finances, and I think maybe, so
maybe I'll prod you in that direction is to like
look at some of that research about how people taking
all their vacation time actually benefits them in their career,
and maybe that'll cause you to take the opposite, like
I can't afford not to take that vacation that I

(28:28):
want to take, right. And my guess is that based
on how you handle your finances, that you aren't spending
like a drunken sailor or anything like that, right.

Speaker 2 (28:34):
That's just doing good. Yeah, And so the good money
moves right.

Speaker 1 (28:37):
And if you're investing that much and that regularly, your
budget is probably really buttoned up too. But it's a
good idea idea to take a look and see if
you can curb spending on a couple of things that
maybe you don't care that much about. For example, thinking
like your cell phone service, can you get it from
seventy bucks a month to fifteen bucks a month? Maybe
you've already done that, but that's just a thought like
were you to do that, you might be able to
mentally account for some of the fun money that you're

(28:58):
going to spend in the future for for funneling more
dollars towards the vacation fund, so you can take that
one international or at least awesome domestic trip every single year.
You're able to justify that spending. You're able to go
on vacation without the guilt because you've reassigned those fifty
five bucks every single month that you just saved. Your
overall expenses haven't really changed all that much. You haven't

(29:19):
really changed your lifestyle, but you've found a couple of
ways to cut back that aren't necessarily like pinching you hard.
You're still getting a very similar product at the end
of the day, but you still were able to make
more room.

Speaker 2 (29:30):
Yeah, it's more efficient. You have reprioritized those dollars. You're
like redeploying certain dollars. It's like, Okay, all of these
dollars over here, we're kind of being wasted because I
can get that for a lot a lot cheaper, and
now instead you're able to put that money towards your travel.
But other than that, Madison, and this might sound crazy,
but consider dialing back on your actual investments. This kind

(29:51):
of goes on line with what you're sayingel about how
it is that you think about working and working more
versus working less. Did you hear my audible gas? I did?
I think? Yeah, Madison heard. But if you are going
above and beyond the match, if you are maxing out
your wrath already, well maybe that taxable brokerage account can wait.
We don't want you to live the spooky existence of

(30:11):
building up massive dollars of investments but missing out on
the joy of vacationing in your twenties, hanging out with
your friends. By the way, this is part of the
reason that we're not fire adherents right financial independence, retire early.

Speaker 1 (30:24):
There is a lot of.

Speaker 2 (30:25):
Emphasis on the future, which isn't It's not terrible, it's
not bad, But often it is at the expense of
the present, which we feel is not good. There's a
big difference between enjoying the here and now versus yolo. Right,
There's a difference in the ability to wisely spend your
dollars in meaningful ways today versus going all out and

(30:46):
going for bankrupt and funneling a few more dollars towards
memorable trips. It sounds really wise to us, and it
sounds like it's something that you want to do as well,
So use that desire to want to go on some
of these vacations. Use that as fuel to push you
in the right rug.

Speaker 1 (31:01):
Yeah, and she mentioned credit card points, and I do
think that that can be part of your strategy, and
it's a helpful part of your strategy, right, Like, if
you're going to use credit cards wisely, which I would
imagine you are going to, then using those getting the
sign up bonuses, adding those points, you know, getting those
points that you can spend on a hotel stay or
a free flight, maybe like that can help significantly reduce.

Speaker 2 (31:23):
The cost of your trip.

Speaker 1 (31:24):
And so yeah, save up a little more money, use
some points to your advantage as well. Like Emily and
I when we went to New York, map Southwest points
for the win right there, free flights for both of us.
That is the kind of thing that can significantly help
you make that trip more achievable, less costly. And so
maybe that can be that extra kind of kicking the
pants to get you out the door, onto the plane

(31:45):
and on top, yeah, out of the office.

Speaker 2 (31:47):
And the more you think about it too, right, because
like in a way, the points game, it's it's gamifying it.
And so what I found though, is the more you
more time you spend playing a game, the more interested
you get in it, and that might even cause you
to want to take it even more after you've worked
towards acquiring some of those points. And one last little
bit of counterintuitive advice, Like you're talking about working less
so that you could make more, we talked about investing

(32:09):
less so that you can live more. How about getting
a bigger place in New York? And here's the catch waiting. Yes,
the rent's going to be more expensive on a bigger place,
But what if you're able to add, Like say, right now,
you have one roommate, right, because you got the smallest
place that you could possibly manage. What if you get
a slightly bigger place and it means adding two more
roommates or even three more roommates, right, what if there's
five of y'all splitting rent? I think and I mentioned

(32:32):
this because she's talking about how expensive it is to
live in New York, which is accurate. Yes, I mean
that is I'm sure that is easily her largest single
line item in her budget every single month. But I
think thinking through some different creative ways to reduce that
one particular expense could more than easily cover the cost
of multiple, honestly multiple vacations. Yeah, it makes me think
of I had a friend and he did that, dude.

(32:55):
It's made the headlines more recently. It's called hot betting.
He was hot betting before it was cool. But literally,
it's a single bedroom place and you share a big
like they can fit a king sized bed and they're
so share the bed with your roommate someone you don't
necessarily know. It's not something I would personally do. Nope, sorry,
not really interested in that. For cheap, I must say
that one was cheap for me. We've got another friend

(33:15):
to each their own, though I guess teach their own.
She moved from New York actually to New Jersey because
you just had a reprioritization in life and her she
still works out of New York. She doesn't talk about
the whole New Jersey thing, but she just rides the
train in. And I know living in New York is
a part of the lifestyle. You're in your twenties, you
want to be able to experience all that the city
has to offer. But I think that's another way you

(33:36):
could potentially cut back again on what I know is
a massive expense for you.

Speaker 1 (33:41):
Every single I think you're gonna look back, You're gonna
be really happy five years from now that you're not
going to miss out on the what fifteen thousand dollars
of compounding returns, but you are going to miss out
on those memories because you're gonna you're saving enough, you're
doing great, like you're crushing You're crushing it compared to
most people your age. So take your foot off the
pedal just a little bit. Find these creative ways to

(34:01):
bring a little more cash or credit card points into
your life so you can travel without spending a ton
of money, but also feel free to loosen the purse
strings just a bit. And I think, yeah, you'll be like, oh, man,
I took some awesome trips in my twenties, and those
memories man there for a long time. I'm so glad
I took all the trips I took in my twenties,
and I really don't regret the money that I spent
on those, all right, Joe In the Facebook group, he

(34:22):
said how much do Americans spend on pumpkin spice lattes?

Speaker 2 (34:25):
Matt.

Speaker 1 (34:26):
A quick Google search on this reveals that Americans spend
more than five hundred million dollars annually on pumpkin spice products,
a lot of money, and the average price of a
single pumpkin spice latte in the United States is five
dollars and ninety five cents, which is up by about
fifty cents compared to last year. So let's getting more.

Speaker 2 (34:42):
Expensive to enjoy your you and you enjoyed the The
PSL listeners know my stance on pumpkin beers.

Speaker 1 (34:48):
I have very similar dance on pumpkin coffee flavored time.

Speaker 2 (34:51):
So it's funny because this year, twenty twenty three, it's
the twenty year anniversary of when the Pumpkin spice loot
came out. They really introduced this in two thousand three,
and I know this for multiple reasons. I know because
I read it in the news, but I also remember
when when it came out. I was literally in college
and then they unveiled like multi there's multiple holiday drinks

(35:11):
that they came out with. I guess the pumpkins spice
latte was the one, you know, one of the ones
that took off. But it did make me wonder how
much did it used to cost back then? So I
couldn't find a price if you figure it out. Using
an inflation calculator, you can estimate that it was it
costs around four dollars if you adjust for inflation. So
I thought, of course, I'm into the numbers. How much

(35:31):
were you to enjoy a pumpkin spice latte. Let's just
say once a week. Obviously they're not available year round,
but let's just say once a week four dollars, So
you know you're dropping sixteen bucks a month. And instead,
let's say seth person a mister pumpkin spice latte. But
let's say the person B is mister or miss S
and P five hundred, and instead they take that money

(35:54):
and invested it in the S and P of five hundred.
Compounding over the past twenty years, the SMP has earned
nine in three quarters. If you were to have invested
that for the past twenty years, you would have over
three million dollars. I'm kidding, I'm knowing you wouldn't. It's
actually not an impressive amount of money. It's like a
few grand, it's like a little it's actually a little
bit over ten thousand dollars. Oh wow.

Speaker 1 (36:14):
Okay, so it's nothing, which.

Speaker 2 (36:15):
Is maybe more than you think. But also it's not.
I don't know. It's just like, oh, cut back on
your lattes and you can afford a house. That's not
a down payment right on a house. And so the
moral of this lesson perhaps is maybe you should just
enjoy the pumpkin spice latte if that is something that
you actually enjoy. I don't want she's spending blindly without
even thinking of it.

Speaker 1 (36:33):
Also, within reason, you and I we go to our
local coffee shop once a week, exactly, That's what we
do once a week. And because it's like it makes
it special, makes it memorable. I enjoy it. But if
we did it every day, wouldn't be nearly a special.

Speaker 2 (36:43):
But Joel, if we invested instead over the next twenty years, right,
we might we might have ten thousands.

Speaker 1 (36:48):
If we never went on vacations, we'd have a lot
more money in our retirement accounts to but a much
blander life, right. Yeah, So all this one comes from
Cody says. An idea that I have for you guys
to talk about is financial skeletons in the closet that
comes up for me. He says, discover financial burdens, mishaps,
behaviors of loved ones that can break trust, or cause
harm upon death or while they're still alive. He said,
something spooky for me is a looming threat of identity theft, password, security,

(37:09):
sensitive information breaches. How to have the right safeguards in place?

Speaker 2 (37:13):
Yeah, financial, I just like the financial skeletons aspect of it, right,
because this is why we want the financial lines of
communication to be open regularly. I mean, you can never
guarantee that your significant other won't lie to you or
do something behind your back that puts your finances at risk,
but you can take some important steps to ensure that
it is less likely going to happen. And I think

(37:34):
namely having just regular conversations about shared money goals, about
how it is that you're achieving those goals, feeling like
that you're on the same page, that you're on the
same team, working like, working in the same direction. And
also make sure that you are allowing each other to
just have enough financial independence within the relationship. So we're
talking about a set determined amount of blow money that

(37:56):
isn't necessarily accountable for to where it feels like that
there is this inherent trust that's built into your budget.

Speaker 1 (38:02):
You have the tighter those constraints the more likely somebody
is to be like.

Speaker 2 (38:05):
I can't take it anymore. Right, then you start going
secret under the radar, spending that kind of thing, open
a credit card without you're shaving another knowing. I think
the ability to spend money in the way that each
of you sees fit at a certain dollar amount that
you are agree upon with no questions asked, is an
incredibly healthy way to help ensure that some of this
financial infidelity doesn't take place. Yeah, all right.

Speaker 1 (38:26):
Cody also mentioned the looming threat of identity theft and
password security, So I'll just quickly mention some a couple
of things on both of those. Bitwarden is a free
kind of password app, all in one password app, which
a lot of our listeners have recommended Matt and it's Yeah,
it's open source, completely free. It's definitely worth checking out
if you're kind of worried about password security and having
all your passwords in one place. I think Bitwarden's ad

(38:48):
a good site to turn to when he talks about
identity theft. Well, the quickest, the best way to shut
down identity theft is to freeze your credit That's right,
And so that's how we have an article up on
that at how do my that we'll put in the
show notes for this, But the truth is that it's
a free thing thanks to federal law to be able
to freeze your credit. It used to cost money, which

(39:09):
is so frustrating. And there are other things out there
that are similar that the credit bureaus. We'll try to
sell you, Oh, do the credit lock instead. It's twenty
nine to ninety five a month, and that is so bogus,
and you should avoid it because one it's ridiculously expensive,
and two it's not even as effective as a credit freeze.
And so credit freeze is one hundred percent free. It'll
take you just a few minutes. And the best way
to prevent someone from stealing your good name and your

(39:31):
credit is to have a credit credit freeze in place.

Speaker 2 (39:34):
Exactly you want the freeze, not the lock. So speaking
of financial infidelity, it happens. And actually this Wednesday we
are talking about pre nups, so you can look forward
to that and not something we've talked about before here, Yeah,
not much. So. Our next comment or question comes from
sir rees. This is over in the Facebook group, and
she said minimalist Halloween. What would that look like? Both

(39:57):
financially minimal and in terms of stuff. Want to decorate
the yard because the neighbors have decorated yards. Mom. The
candy quality expectations are high, pulling in kids from all
over the city, resulting in lots of trick or treaters.
The Halloween costumes are expensive. They take up a lot
of space in my house, but after they're purchased I
have a hard time throwing them away because they cost
so dang much. So minimal Halloween is what she says.

(40:20):
What are your thoughts here regarding a more minimalist approach
we were talking about, like the ghost aesthetic kind of
goes to the whole minimalist and so does so cheap.
What's your sister a black sheep? That's right? Which was
she was when she was little?

Speaker 3 (40:33):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (40:33):
Are you sure she wasn't like a black cat.

Speaker 1 (40:35):
She's still the black sheep of the family. No, it
was like cotton balls, paste it all over, something like
a unit tart or something. For real, she was a
black sheep. I'll have to dig up the picture. Maybe
we can give you can find the photo, Yeah, we'll
throw it up there.

Speaker 2 (40:47):
It's good stuff.

Speaker 1 (40:47):
Yeah, I mean, I think the DIY thing right, they're
creative and cheap ways that you can decorate your yard.
Actually one of the best yards in our neighborhood. So
much of the decorations are DIY there. They've got these
rate ghosts on the front ports that are really cool
with white bed sheets. They've got these there you go
eyes and fangs that they've done out of construction of
paper in the windows. So you know, it costs, It's

(41:09):
just takes some time and a little bit of creativity,
a little bit of foresight. You don't really have to
spend much money. And I would say too, go to
the thrift store, say hey, we've got a twenty dollars budget. Man,
this sounds like the most fun. And by the way,
I mean October thirtieth, I realized that this is not
something you're probably gonna do today and put them up
tonight in next six hours to be prepared. Yeah, but

(41:30):
this for next year, say like, all right, twenty bucks,
let's get all the cool stuff we can get and
figure out what we can make out of it, Like
what a fun little challenge to do with your fam
And so yeah, I don't think it has to be
fifty dollars inflatables. I think there's a lot of stuff. Yeah,
that you can do that. And by the way, inflatables,
I don't mind some of them, but they can be
a little boring right.

Speaker 2 (41:48):
Well, and you have to plug them in and they
require more energy. Like that's the other part of it too,
is to actually run the decor that you purchased. It
costs even more money.

Speaker 1 (41:57):
I mean at your last house, Lose Lose, you made
this really cool giant wooden bat that you painted black
that you hung up every year.

Speaker 2 (42:04):
And that was evidently the guys that bought the house.
I think they stick it up every year. You kept it,
you gave it to them. It was a part of
the house. Yeah, in our mind, Yeah, are just the
design of the house that had this thing that when
you step back after we painted the house, we're like,
that kind is kind of creepy if we painted that way,
because it kind of looks like wings. But then it
was actually close to Halloween and I was like, Babe,
what if I made like a plywood cut up bat

(42:25):
body to go in between those two things and it
looks like an actual bat. That's a great way to
get that big impact it. No, it's a homemade decoration.
Though I forgot all about that.

Speaker 1 (42:34):
Yeah, and most people don't think about homemade decorations. I
think about storebot decorations. They're thinking about the three hundred
dollars fourteen foot skeleton from home Depot or whatever. And
it's not that that thing's not cool, it's just that, like,
you know what's actually cooler, like thinking outside the box
and doing it your own way totally.

Speaker 2 (42:48):
I think Facebook, yard sale, your local brick and mortar
kids shop, they can be a great place to turn.
When it comes to used costumes as well. There's just
no need to buy a brand new costume every single year,
and there's no need to hang onto every single costume
that you've ever used over the years. And so maybe
the best advice we can give now with it being
so close to Halloween is think about the day after Halloween,

(43:10):
because I think right after Halloween could be the best
time to snag all those decorations, all those different costumes,
and then the as far as the costumes that you
already have, just hang on to them for a single year. Right.
You don't have to hang onto every single costume you've
ever owned over all the years. Just one year you
got one storage bind that you put the costumes in
pull them out October first, So that's that thing out
in the month of October. Halloween is on everyone's mind.

(43:33):
You're gonna be able to like, maybe even get the
same price that you paid for that costume. Perhaps, I
don't know. It depends on where it inflace, especially.

Speaker 1 (43:39):
If you've got it used the year before and you're
selling it you like you, yeah, you might break even.

Speaker 2 (43:43):
Halloween costume arbitrage is what that is, Yes, exactly, all right.

Speaker 1 (43:46):
Next question, This one's from Marls, who says, all right,
one of the spookiest financial stories I've heard this year
is the aftermath of the Robinhood horror stories for people
who got unexpected tax bills now from day trading without
doing enough research beforehand. And so, Matt, you want to
opine on and I talk about kind of what happened
to some of those investors.

Speaker 2 (44:02):
I feel like this happens every year where folks are
they're trading inside of the brokerage accounts, right, and obviously
they're doing it more within robin Hood because of the
interface or because of the confetti.

Speaker 1 (44:11):
The literally statistics showing how much more there.

Speaker 2 (44:14):
Was a New York Times analysis, and they found that
robin Hood users they buy and trade the riskiest products
at the fastest pace compared to users on all the
other trading platforms. And it's not it's not even close.
Those trades done inside of a taxable brokerage account, they
come with massive packs consequences in addition to the extreme
swings and just poor behavior that robin Hood incentivizes, which

(44:38):
already leads to worse results for most folks. And this
is the best case scenario, right, the fact that they
would owe money, because when you trade based on headlines,
based on whims, based on how lunch is settling in
your stomach from that day, or like what your friends
are doing, Yeah, owing money to the irs is the
best case scenario. And more folks are thinking, man, I

(44:58):
wish I owe tax exactly. That would mean I didn't
lose half of my investment because I'm losing money hanging
over for this.

Speaker 1 (45:05):
And if you're trading regularly on a platform like that
and you think you're doing it in a stoic manner,
the truth is that's highly unlikely there. I mean, there
are even studies about how judges rule matt In certain cases,
they rule based on how hungry they are like before.

Speaker 2 (45:19):
Now, that's exactly what I was thinking, Like, there are
more negative outcomes right before lunch versus right after lunch
where they're just fat and happy.

Speaker 1 (45:26):
And I bet you, I bet if you were to
ask them if they do that most of the time,
they would probably assume no, no, no, no no, I don't
let my hunger influence my legal decision making. I'm a judge,
of course I am objective. So clearly the reality is
that we as humans, we think we're objective even when
we're not.

Speaker 2 (45:41):
We're not.

Speaker 1 (45:41):
And most folks don't realize, by the way, that if
they own a security for less than a year, less
than twelve months, they'll pay ordinary income rates instead of
the more favorable capital gains rate. So that's another mistake
that a lot of Robinhood traders have made. So let's
learn maybe from these spooky financial stories. Let's avoid the
traps that so many others have fallen into. Most people
don't realize when they open up one of these and

(46:03):
so many people are opening up a robin Hood account
and they're investing in a taxable broker's account before sticking
eighty dollars into a roth IRA too, So there's so
many reasons to avoid that route, and it's you know,
we talked about the robin Hood match recently and how
that can be if you're really disciplined and you're you're
a savvy investor, and you're opening up the Robinhood account,

(46:25):
but in your funneling, you're maxing out the roth IRA,
you're getting the free match, and you're not actually making
any day trading sort of decisions. If you can control
your behavior to that extent, then maybe it's the right
way for you to go. But you gotta be careful
because a lot of robin Hood traders can avoid the perils.

Speaker 2 (46:39):
Yeah. Bottom line, if you are the same type of
person that optimizes credit card points, I think you can
invest within an IRA, within robin Hood and take full
advantage of that match.

Speaker 1 (46:48):
We got a few more Facebook Halloween related money questions
to get you on this episode. We'll get to the
rest of them right after this.

Speaker 2 (47:04):
A. Right, we are back and we will get to
our favorite scary movie of all time here in a minute.
But so our right before the break, we heard from Marla.
We have actually got something else from Marla, and she
said this one could be like opening a can of worms.
This is a completely wild idea, but in quote unquote,
industry that has always fascinated me is sugar daddy sugar

(47:25):
baby situations. Additionally, people who monetize their feet on only
fans very interesting to me. Yeah, the ethical questions, the
financial impact, the idea of monetizing your body. So Joel, Yeah,
what are your thoughts on why didn't we leave with OnlyFans?
We should have the we missed an Okay, I might
actually change bad marketing. I'll change the title of the episode,

(47:47):
even though at the beginning we didn't mention that we're
the only fan things at all.

Speaker 1 (47:50):
We've never really tackled that subject on the pods. So
I'm glad Marla brought it up because variety is a
spice of life, and so we're going to go there.
So yeah, let's talk about maybe the merits or lack thereof,
of selling feet picks.

Speaker 2 (48:03):
On the internet.

Speaker 1 (48:03):
Matt, I don't want to sound like a crude here,
but this is not our cup of tea. And I
guess my thought is it just because it's potentially profitable
doesn't mean that it's good for society or it's a
worthwhile endeavor.

Speaker 2 (48:13):
Totally and so yeah, this feels Yeah, this is airing
on the side of cheap as opposed to frugal.

Speaker 1 (48:17):
I'm willing to leave money on the table, Matt if
it means not monetizing my feet.

Speaker 2 (48:21):
Yeah. This is also a case I think of like
a small percentage of folks who are actually making the
bulk of the revenue. Some only fans creators. They want
to make it sound like like it's some sort of
liberating work that everyone out there can participate in. But
from what we've read, it's an infanitismally small percentage of
the folks on the site who are making.

Speaker 1 (48:40):
The bulk of the profit of eighty twenty rule. Yeah,
I bet it's even more. It's probably way more extremely
it's probably like ninety five to.

Speaker 2 (48:47):
Five, I think, yeah, or like ninety nine to one. Yeah,
I think there's Yeah, there are some folks who might
be able to turn a site like that into a
lucrative career if you want to even call it that.
But just from a financi just remove the morals from it,
you know, if you're only looking at the numbers, if
you're only looking at the finances, it's not gonna work out.

(49:08):
The numbers aren't going to pan out in your favor
for the vast majority of folks who are going to
give it a shot. And I don't think Marla was
saying she's interested in this. I think she's just.

Speaker 1 (49:16):
Curious about how Star is interested her it is. It
has been interesting to see the rise of the direct
creator to audience route that people are taking, and in
some ways it's it's like the rest of media, right,
it's become very much direct to audience. We're cutting out
the middleman. And so where do you go get your news? Well,
it's often not from CBS News tonight, right, It's from

(49:39):
a YouTube creator or somebody on Instagram, or it's from
somebody who writes a substack. And so in some ways
like it makes sense, it makes sense from it makes
sense because it's what's happening everywhere else on the Internet.
But it's also not my idea.

Speaker 2 (49:51):
Doesn't mean that I like it, right, Yeah, So that's
all we have to say about that, Marline.

Speaker 1 (49:55):
All right, Daniel says, for health reasons, too much candy.
How common is it to let your kicks four x
exchange their loot for things of value such as a
trip to the zoo, getting their nails done, a board game,
et cetera.

Speaker 2 (50:06):
Dude, I love this idea. And this is actually something
that Kate and I have talked about the so for
us here, So okay, you know, I'm fine with like
walking around with the kids doing the Halloween thing. It's
not the horror part of it that turns me off.
What it is that I don't like about Halloween so
much is the candy. I swear every single year it
is Halloween that kicks off our kids being sick November

(50:29):
and December like basically.

Speaker 1 (50:31):
Until massive sugar spike can do yes.

Speaker 2 (50:33):
In like their little bodies. I don't think can handle it.
I can't handle it very well. That is why I'm
not the biggest Halloween fan. Uh And literally a few
weeks ago, Kate and now we're talking talking us through
and I was just like, why don't we just dangle
some not literal carrot, but like find an incentive, like
how trade carrot? Pretty sure they're gonna say, now, how
can we incentivize them to not eat candy? And we

(50:54):
haven't figured out what the exchange rate is going to
be yet, but finding a way to exchange their candy
for money is something that we are one hundred percent
going to do this year or experience, and we will.
Well yeah, I mean, and well, I like cash because
it's it's the universal incentive. Right, they can do whatever
they want with that money, except for buying more candy
with it.

Speaker 1 (51:11):
I'm not gonna let them do that. Then are you
gonna eat all the candy you bought?

Speaker 2 (51:14):
Or what are you gonna do? I get very good
question because there's always like the daddy tacks, Yeah, right,
Like it's that. I think there might be a few selects,
only the best, and I will will I hang on
to some. I'm talking about Butterfingers, Almond Joys, Snickers, only
the finest crappy candy. You don't want their Tiptwo rolls.
But dude, all the rest is I mean, it's all junk, right,

(51:36):
It's all trash and provides zero nutritional value. But yeah,
that's gonna be the hard part is actually getting rid
of the candy. Yeah, yeah, what do you think? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (51:45):
No, I feel similarly. So Actually, I think the right
incentive matters a lot. So Yes, my daughters recently I
was told them I would buy them whatever used book
they want. We'll go to the used bookstore or I'll
buy them on eBay whatever you want, but i'll get
whatever use. But if you get a hundred on your
spelling test, So they were getting like eighty eighty fives,
and it was just kind of like they were doing great,

(52:05):
but like it was if they just put in the
little extra effort, I knew they could get a hundred.
And so this has been the incentive to get them
to like, now they're coming to me and they're like, Dad,
let's practice spelling because they want they want the reward
at the end.

Speaker 2 (52:17):
And then Joel's like all the time studying with your
kids now, right, So yeah, I think it provides the
right incentive for the for what you want your kids
to value.

Speaker 1 (52:28):
And if I think this is a great way to
do it, and especially if you don't want them eating
all that candy, you could like not let them go
trick or treating or limit their trick or treating. Trick
or treating is fun, that's fine.

Speaker 2 (52:38):
I don't Yeah, I don't disagree with that. It is
literally the consumption of high fruit cost srupt and the
quantities at which they do it.

Speaker 1 (52:44):
So maybe you say, hey, listen, what books are you
interested in I'll buy books, you know, one book for
every fifteen piece of candy you give me how much
candy to get something like that.

Speaker 2 (52:52):
But yeah, then you can play video games to whatever. Yeah, exactly.
Maybe the problem is is you said used books, Joel.
Maybe you got a splurge the new books.

Speaker 1 (53:00):
Nah, I'm all I'm all about the used books, man,
I'm like and plus, I think I love going to
these used bookstores.

Speaker 2 (53:05):
It's best. Have you been to the there's a new
used book reading room slash bookstore above the bubble t
shop on the square. Now I need to check that out.

Speaker 1 (53:13):
It's awesome, Okay, it's yeah, dude, Oh your kids would
love it.

Speaker 2 (53:16):
It's it's like decked out. They've got like a Harry
Potter sort of section and it's being definitely going. It's
a good com it's a good daddy daughter date combos.
You get the tea and then you go upstairs, which
they allow you can take it up there. Brillianah, it's great.

Speaker 1 (53:28):
Okay, I'll put that on my list. Yeah, all right,
let's go to Andrew says Matt and Joel. What's your
favorite scary movie?

Speaker 2 (53:34):
Okay? So for me, I saw it like the original
it ste king, yeah, like the old one, nothing new
one with yeah what's his name? At a pretty young age,
and that's certainly ruined clowns and sewers. So I think
for the longest time I didn't like going on walks,
So I don't I wouldn't necessarily call it call it
a favorite, but that one had a pretty big impact
on me as a six year old when I saw it. Gosh,

(53:57):
what were your parents doing? I think it was I
don't know, it was just all I wasn't like sitting
there watching it where we're like, we're gonna watch this
freaking scary movie as a family. It was where I
was kind of passing through, Like I didn't even watch
the whole movie, but I remember seeing the clown in
the sewer, and then later I remember seeing like the
brother was looking at a photo album and then the
photos started bleeding. Oh gosh, oh my gosh. As a

(54:19):
little kid, dude, talk about messing you up. I will say.

Speaker 1 (54:22):
The The Exorcist is the only really scary move I've seen.
And that was like probably twelve or thirteen, when you
sat down and watched it straight through. Yeah, with some friends. Uncle,
of course, your uncle it's always the uncle right put
you onto the word stuff. And I've never liked scary movies.
I've never really wore that uncle ever since. The scariest
movie I've seen since then is probably The Village like
from m Night Traumalan, which is really not Yeah, So
I don't mind a good thriller scary movies.

Speaker 2 (54:43):
I just avoid them. So I know this time of
year a lot of people get into that. I just
not a huge shit. Yeah, our family, we're not in
the stomaching. But all right here, I'll get to the
last one. Katie and she had a frugal or cheap
for us putting leftover Halloween candy and Christmas stockings. I'm
gonna say frugal if that it's something that you are
not opposed to giving your kids. Again, maybe it's the

(55:03):
only the nicest candy. Maybe it's the Reese's peanut buttercups
that feels like something. Actually, that's like the most Halloween candy.

Speaker 1 (55:10):
There is because the orange factors get the orange.

Speaker 2 (55:12):
But I think if there's a way you can extend
it out to where you have small amounts of the
candy overtime, it's again, it's the spike of sugar consumption,
candy consumption on like over the course of three days.

Speaker 1 (55:24):
Let's be honest, most candy is good for six plus months,
and so if you're taking it, it's less at least
or less than two months away from from Christmas. So
take some of that stuff, put it in the stockings.
I'm totally fine with that, especially depending on how younger
kids are. They probably won't even know, so yeah, probably,
yeah there, Let's be honest, the young ones, they don't
know any better.

Speaker 2 (55:40):
So and then you sit down and watch The Nightmare
before Christmas? Right? Yeah? Which was that scary? I've never
ever seen that.

Speaker 1 (55:46):
It's It's not really that scary. Now it's not too bad,
although I have to decide if my kids are ready
for it. I'm not sure, but yeah, thanks for all
the questions. Thanks for playing along with us on this one.
This was It was super fun.

Speaker 2 (55:55):
So the war chill, yeah, shoot from the hip episode.
That's right.

Speaker 1 (55:57):
I like this one. But Matt, let's get back to
beer that we had on this episode. This was a
social hour by Santa Fe Brewing. It's a hazy wheat
with orange. What are your thoughts on this one?

Speaker 2 (56:07):
I like this it is exactly like it reads. It's
a hazy wheat. It certainly has those orange notes coming through,
and so it reads to me like a like more
of a citrusy kind of beer with not like I
guess it's the orange part of it. That's the citrus.
It's not like a lemony, zesty kind of beer.

Speaker 1 (56:24):
No, yeah, no, I thought this one too. Yeah, the wheat,
the orange comma.

Speaker 2 (56:27):
It was nice.

Speaker 1 (56:27):
The beer is a bit more it was a bit
more carbonated than some beers. It almost gave it like
a Seltz sur vibe. I thought, especially like those first
few SIPs, a nice wheat citrusy beer is like a
really good beer for this time of year two because
it's laid back, it's reserved, but it's got a little
bit of mouthfeel to it at the same time.

Speaker 2 (56:47):
So, I Doug, was it sort of like a lining Google?
Do they make some like hazy orange orange whets. Yeah,
I would say probably that's probably true if you're kind
of into the shad vibe macro kind of. So yeah,
this takes a back to his like shot Top. That's
a beer that you've tried at I was at a
random bar and you thought, Oh, I kind of like
this beer, and if you're looking to type your game,

(57:07):
maybe Social Hour is a is a beer that you
can try there out of Santa Fe Brewing Camp.

Speaker 1 (57:13):
Big thanks to our friend Bob. Yeah, thanks for this
beer and the many others he gave us.

Speaker 2 (57:18):
We appreciate you, Bob.

Speaker 1 (57:19):
All Right, that's going to do it for this episode, Matt.
For show notes, listeners can find those up on our
website at how tomoney dot com. Don't forget to sign
up for the how to Money newsletter if you haven't yet.
It is chock full of great information. You can find it.
It's free at how to money dot com slash newsletter.
I promise you it'll be the best newsletter you get
every week in year inbox chalk full of nuts.

Speaker 2 (57:38):
That's gonna be it for this one, buddy. Until next time,
Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out,