October 6, 2025 • 52 mins
Let’s kick off the week with some fresh listener questions we have lined up for you! And don't just stand on the sidelines- if you have a question you’d like us to answer, toss your voice memo our way. It only takes about 90 seconds to record and you can find a step by step guide over at HowToMoney.com/ask . Regardless of how random or bizarre you might think it is, we want to hear it!
1 - Credit card autopay: how do I avoid getting hit with an interest charge?
2 - Timing a HELOC: should I apply and open a line of credit before my income drops significantly?
3 - Solar panels: should I take the plunge with solar in order to mitigate monthly expenses in retirement?
4 - Family money talk: how do I convince my parents that taking out a loan for some HVAC work is foolish?
5 - Cellular for wearables: what’s the best option if we’re adding a line for our kid’s watch?
Want more How To Money in your life? Here are some additional ways to get ahead with your personal finances:
- Negotiating severance during an impending layoff by Financial Samurai.
- Knowing your ‘money gear’ is a crucial part of your personal finance journey. Start here.
- Sign up for the weekly HTM newsletter. It’s fun, free, & practical.
- Join a thriving community of fellow money in the HTM Facebook group.
- Massively reduce your cell phone bill each month by switching to a discount provider like Mint Mobile.
During this episode we enjoyed a It’s Complicated Being A Wizard by Burlington Beer Co! 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!
Best friends out!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Hot to Money. I'm Joel, I am Matt,
and today we're answering your listener questions. Yeah, buddy, and
(00:24):
this is episode ten. I just saw that which sounds
like sounds like it's time for a mid morning break.
You know you hear ten forty five. That's when that's
when the folks used to step out of the office
to go for a smoke break. Oh back in another
mad Men era. Well, I mean I'm even thinking about
my first corporate job out of college. Oh really, yeah,
working out at an ad agency. Like a few ladies
(00:46):
would always got to your desk at nine and ten
forty five was the time. It was felt allow. I
guess so, because they would always come by and kind
of tap on the door, and one of the other
ladies would go, what's funny did you ever you eat? Well,
you can share what you want to share of one
of my kelbergers. I used to smoke a little bit. Yeah,
I was gonna ask did you take did you would
you take smoke breaks? No? Twenty years ago? No, like
(01:06):
way back, I wouldn't do it at work. That one
felt one I didn't want to smell at work, and
then two it also just these ladies did not care.
They didn't care. Yeah, but my buddy, Uh, the increased
productivity that nicotine can provide, does that offset the time
that smokers take? So maybe it's a wash. I was
wondering that because I have some friends who are doing
the nicotine gum. Are there the kids listening to this podcast?
We do not endorse using nicotine. Yeah, but I have
(01:30):
specifically smoked, specifically smoking, but who are getting more into
like the the pouches and there's like dissolvable uh, nicotine substances, pouches,
the gum. From a productivity standpoint, I think it does
help them focus at work. I'm crazy. I don't want
to be beholden to any substance. No, that's the kind
of except for a little bit of craft beer, except
for coffee. But yeah, I guess that's from that standpoint,
(01:53):
I'm gonna and it just it gets expensive. Yeah, it's
like one more thing that I can just not have
to worry about on the rig. I was gonna say
that one of my uh, I was working as a
graphic designer. One of my co designers, Brian, him and
I we would always get annoyed because they're taking like
multiple breaks a day, and it's like, you know what,
at least once a week you and I should roll
(02:14):
in here with our pipes because we're like it was
kind of hip to smoke a pipe back then, and
so once a week we'd go and like sit for
thirty forty five minutes for a quote unquote smoke break
and have like philosophical conversations. Put all your smoke breaks
into one long one. Yeah, I mean that being said,
they're down there for like ten, twelve, thirteen minutes, So
I don't know, I believe it, but uh what we
(02:35):
are way off, Tanjia, dude, this is an ask how
the Money episode, and maybe we will actually get to
some listener questions. Like a listener is looking to avoid
getting tripped up paying credit card interest. He wants like
all of the good that you can receive from a
credit card without any of the bad. We're going to
talk about the best time to get a he lock.
(02:56):
This listener she's contemplating a renovation, so that plays into
to what our answer is going to be. Another listener
he's thinking about how solar how getting solar panels might
aid in his ability to retire sooner. So yeah, we'll
get to those plus a couple more during today's episode.
There we go, and we will avoid any additional smoking
(03:16):
talk or any other vices that folks might participate. Try
to avoid it. Although we are going to drink a
craft beer on this episode. This one's we do. It's
complicated being a wizard. We'll give our thoughts on this
one at the end of the episode. Real quick, Matt,
I wanted to speA can of smoking a pipe. It's
complicated wizards, right, like Gandalf. Well, I went to the
thrift store recently that's near my house that I hadn't
been to before. There's one that's like super close to
(03:38):
my house, but then there's one that's a little further away.
I went to the one that's a little further away
because some people had said that's the best thrift store
in town. I was like, okay, I'll check it out.
Was it and it was great? It was a really
good thrift story. Was it? Which one is that? It's
called City Thrift? Oh? Yeah? Is that a Is that
a national chain of either stores? Don't think it is
like good Will. It seems like a smaller one like
it America's Thrift and good will are bigger. I haven't
(03:59):
seen any other city thrift locations of this particular one,
but there probably are. But the reason I went there
was because sadly we have a funeral to attend this weekend,
and my little dude, he we needed to get him
like a sports coat. And I was like, man, how
much is a sports go gonna cost my buying it
brand new? And how often is he actually gonna wear
(04:19):
this thing? Probably never again, And so that's the time
when the thrift storm makes most sense. Oh yeah, right,
totally agree, And so we got him a great one.
It was either five or six dollars, I don't remember,
but it doesn't matter five or six bucks. It's the
same thing, so good, so much cheaper. He was so
pumped and going to like J Crew for kindergartener's. Yes,
(04:39):
we basically got him a whole funeral outfit. He already
had like some dark pants that were good there, but
we got him a shirt, some dark shoes and then
that and the whole total walking out got a dressed
for my daughter was like twenty six dollars for everything
all in the guy. I even got myself a new
tie because I used tie I guess it's all used
there for two dollars and nine cents. Hey, that's not
(04:59):
always the case, actually, because sometimes you'll find stuff with
tags on it, things that have never ever been worn before.
That always blows my mind. The shoes we looked like
they've been worn once. Probably they probably had been. Yeah,
honestly so, which is kind of crazy. So don't forget
about the thirst source. The other thing that I saw
there was just a ton of Halloween costumes. I was like,
oh my gosh, that's surprising. Yeah, there were a lot,
(05:20):
like multiple racks of Halloween costs. I wonder if they
if they like hang onto them in the back and
then they pull them outs. Oh, probably at the beginning
of October, because I would think that you would see
more Halloween costumes after Halloween, or like at the beginning
of the year when folks are kind of cleaning out
the house a little bit. They're like, Oh, I'm gonna
hang onto this because I'm gonna wear it again, and
then January rolls around They're like, I'm not gonna wear
(05:41):
this again, right, let's put this on the donate pile.
But that would be a smart thing to do. It
sounds like a free market sort of innovative, capitalistic maneuver
that this city was it city thrift, city thrift. I
want to look it up. Yeah, check just word of
the lies. If your local thrift store has solid Halloween
costume options, it's probably worth checking out if you want
(06:03):
to get something kind of much cheaper, actually made, not
not homemade, not homespun. You like the homemade costume. We
do some homemade stuff, but it just depends on what
the kids have going on. You want to just reuse
costumes from prior years, assuming no one like I just
how many times have I worn my Turtles costume? Have
you done the costume recently? Over the past couple of
years when when the kids were younger, we dressed up
(06:23):
more with them. Do the themed family? Maybe I'll bring
it back this year. I'll be Michaelangelo. Got to do
the new Michaelangelo TMNT. How do you create a costume
that looks like that graphic novel? I don't know. Style.
That's the big question, because you're gonna look like Michael
Angelo from like the eighties throwback. He looks say soft
and plushy. I was gonna say one other way that
(06:46):
three store when it really shines is when you have
a preteen who doesn't totally understand her own style yet
and is trying out different things, trying different looks. How
much more affordable is it to do it there than
items new, and when they may not, you know, they
might wear them like twice, right, and then it's just like, oh, yeah,
I don't really like that anymore. She came home the
(07:07):
other day with bootcut jeans, which is something we had
talked about recently. She's like, what's something from when y'all
were younger. I guess we're talking specifically about style that
we don't do anymore. And I was just like, well,
I just think called boot cut jeans. Although bootcut jeans
are kind of back to like cut the size of
our job.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
You know.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
I explained that to her. I was just like, we
used to even do that to make it even wider,
said that they would fit over your tennis shoes, and
she's like, no way. I was like, yeah, that's how
we used to do it back twenty years ago. Take
me back to thirty years two thousand and two, Yeah
is when, Yeah, I think it was the last time
I had some bootcuts nice anyway. Yeah, Threet starves for
the wind, don't sleep on the thirft store. All right,
let's get to your questions. If you have a money question,
(07:45):
go to how to money dot com slash ask. It's
pretty simple to record the voice memo on the app
of your phone send it over our way. Hopefully we
can take your question next week on the show. Now
let's get to a question specifically about paying off a
credit card doing it in the smartest way possible.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Hey, Matt and Joel, this has been from Grand Rapids.
Thanks so much for all that you're doing with the podcast.
Been following along for about six years now and your
resource has been a huge part of my journey.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
Already. Quick question for you guys.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
So I use a Capital one Venture card and I
treat it like a debit card. I paid off in
full and just enjoy the rewards and the fraud protection
from it.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
My question is about auto pay.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
So for years I've had it set to autopay the
statement balance, which is really the only thing that they
kind of offer within Capital One. But since the current
balance is usually higher than the statement balance, I often
end up making a manual payment for the current balance
and then canceling the auto pay, so it doesn't double pay.
I'm not even sure if Capital one would allow that,
(08:44):
but it's yeah. I think I do it mostly out
of fear and trying to avoid interests. So my question
is am I overthinking this? If I just let the
auto pay handle the statement balance, does it ensure that
it'll never be charged interest? Or do I need to
manually pay the current balance each time to truly avoid interest?
Speaker 4 (09:04):
If so, is there a way to automatically do that.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
In Capital One that I'm not aware of, because it
appears that only the statement balance is the allowed thing
to choose for auto pay. So yeah, I'd love to
know if the statement balance autopay option is enough or
if I'm right to worry about the difference between statement
and current balance.
Speaker 4 (09:22):
So thanks a ton for you to help. Guys really
appreciate the sh All.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Right, Ben, short answer, it is enough, but that doesn't
mean that you shouldn't be worrying about it. There's other
things to think about here, so we want you to
worry constantly. Ben, don't be stressed, but we do want
you to to think about it. I do love, though,
that you are using your credit card like a debit card.
You know he's got a general healthy skepticism towards his
credit card, which I think is a It's a good,
(09:46):
healthy approach, and that is warranted because half the folks
who use their credit cards, they don't treat their credit
cards with care. They're not paying attention because they find
themselves in recurring credit card debt. And so having the
attitude Ben that you have is going to be what
keeps you in the fifty percent of folks who use
their credit cards well. And he specifically outlined the benefits there.
(10:08):
I talked about the fraud protection, the rewards that makes
using credit cards wisely so worth it. Yeah, I agree.
We call them the Golden Rules of plastic on our
website at how toomoney dot com. If you're interested in
kind of reading up what when it's okay to use
a credit card? We're okay with credit cards, but only
if you use them this smart way. And Matt, most
folks they know about their rewards, the two percent cash
(10:30):
back right, or the travel rewards that you can get
from using a credit card. But I think most people
don't understand the value of fraud protection that credit cards
can provide. And I love the Bend highlighted that. So
just real quick. I wanted to just mention credit cards.
They come with superior legal protections against fraud so that
you aren't liable if you lose your credit card and
someone else uses it as if they were you. So
(10:51):
you drop it on the pavement, someone else picks up
and they're like, ooh goodie, I'm going to Aldi. They're
probably going somewhere else to spend even more money, but
I'm going to Aldi. You get my groceries on the thing, Well,
that Aldi trip is not on you, whereas if someone
used your debit card, you are either if you don't
catch it in time, you could be on the hook
for some or all of that expense. And you're also
(11:13):
trying to call your own money back as opposed to
with a credit card you are. You're not out the money.
It hasn't left your accountant. So it is just another
reason that we like credit cards as a method of
payment if you can use them in a healthy way. Yeah.
By the way, one of the reasons you don't go
to Aldie uh to use somebody else's card is because
they've got the camera set up. Now, Yeah, they got
the on the self checkout. It's like a high def
(11:34):
really nice picture of your face as you're there scanning
your you get caught. Yeah, but you're talking about the
front protection. This is actually something I don't think i've uh,
I haven't shared this yet on the show. I have
previously mentioned a car rental company that did not hold
my car rental reservation that I had made, so we
won't get into all that. And so they had canceled
(11:55):
the uh that reservation and I, you know, rebooked with
a different provider and they said, all right, you know
you can cancel and that will show back up on
your your I did the paid in full in order
to get the biggest discount at the time. That will
show back up on your card in like three to
five business days. Guess what never happened. They never refunded me.
(12:16):
They never credited me the amount, dude. And so it
was like two weeks later that I remembered and I
checked my statement. It still wasn't there. So I guess
what I did hopped on there. And at this point
in time, there's no way that I was gonna like
I'm sure I could have reached out to them and
been like, hey, guys, how come this is a giant company.
They had already treated me incredibly poorly. So I went
(12:36):
over onto the credit card on the online portal, flagged
that charge and it just had a nice option there.
As one of the reasons it was the fact that, oh,
this is something that had been canceled. It's not like
it didn't I feel like it used to say, please
reach out to the business first, but they're just like, oh,
did you was this a charge that should have been
canceled or refunded? And I was like yes, and they're like, cool,
(12:59):
we got your back. Be in touch, and they immediately
credited my account by that nine hundred bucks. Yeah. And
then it took them like over a month, I want
to say, almost two months of them evidently reaching out
to budget to see if they would be able to
be able to provide the money anyway. The temporary credit
was there that entire time, and I wasn't not that
(13:20):
money until they officially got it back. And of course
I didn't really care because in my mind it was
all it was already back in my account. But for
them to have done that for me, it was wonderful.
That's so great. It's an undervalued characteristic that credit cards offer. Yeah,
it's not often that you have to put it to use.
But man, I'm certainly glad that I was able to
do that then, as opposed to being forced to have
(13:40):
to manually claw back my own money. Where had I
put that on a debit card? For sure, you also
can get great rental car insurance through your credit card
as well, if you use the right credit card. That's true.
Let's talk about statement balances versus current balances. That's really
the heart of Ben's question here. He says, really which
one makes sense, and he's going through the manual way
(14:00):
to pay the current balance instead of just the statement balance. Well,
your credit card billing cycle, it closes it basically the
same time every month, and then you are responsible for
paying that balance by the d date, and if you do,
you're avoiding the most nefarious feature of credit cards, paying
those high interest rates, which have of course gotten worse
in recent months. And so auto paying the statement balance
(14:22):
is a great way to go, and it makes the
most sense for most folks because as long as you
get the money sitting in your bank account, it's this
seamless transaction happening behind the scenes that you don't have
to worry about. And we don't. I don't know if
a credit card issue issu're math that allows you to
auto pay your current balance as opposed to the statement balance.
I don't think it's the thing, probably because the current
balance is always changing multiple times a day for many people,
(14:45):
so still paying that statement balance, it's good enough for
most folks and they really shouldn't need to go any
further or pay that current balance like Ben is keen
to do. Yeah, yeah, you can't choose minimum balance, but
we wouldn't recommend you do that. That's the wrong option.
I think Ben's just worried that something's going to happen
and he's going to be charged interest, which is why
(15:06):
he is manually going in there. He's paying that current
balance each month. You don't need to do that. You
will avoid the downsides of credit card if you allow
that audit pay to go through. But that being said,
there are some perks to taking your approach as well.
And one of the benefits here is that you're giving
a potential boost to your credit score. So that balance
(15:27):
being reported to the credit bureaus is going to be smaller,
which lowers your credit utilization rate, which increases your score
over time. So if your score is just okay, and
this is something that you're trying to focus on increasing,
then this can be an effective tactic to essentially keep
that running, that revolving balance to a minimum. So I
normally pay the statement balance Matt and just kind of
(15:49):
have it, let it automatically be paid every single month
unless I make a really big purchase. Yeah, because when
I make a really big purchase, that's when I'm like, oh,
what was your latest really big purchase job. I'm trying
remember what it was. You were talking thousands of dollars there, right,
Like if you're like, oh, like if you're booking a trip,
perhaps booking a trip maybe so maybe a bunch of
flights or something like that, or a car rental. If
(16:10):
there's something that is like a little bit out of
the ordinary and I don't want it to impact that
credit credit utilization ratio, I will just manually go in
there and it's you know, I probably don't need to
And is it really gonna impact my score all that much?
Probably not. And even if it does impact it by
a few points, will it bounce back pretty quickly? Yeah? Probably,
but little I don't like towing the line though, Yeah,
(16:30):
I don't like even getting close, you know, you just
I just like to make sure that I'm not gonna, yeah,
gonna go anywhere near that line. J'all bounce in there,
pay it off real quick, get or done with. I
think there's also something powerful about taking things off autopilot,
and there's something really great about autopiloting certain things in
our lives. But a lot of people opt for auto
pay and then they don't ever look at their credit
(16:52):
card statements, so they're just not regularly being confronted by
their spending habits. And you know, maybe they consistently have
enough money in the bank to cover their statement balance
to be able to pay that off on time and
in full without having to worry about whether or not
they can pay it or it's going to impact their
credit score. Maybe their credit card limit is so high
(17:13):
that they're not even getting anywhere close to that territory,
and so they're like, yeah, statement balance done, I don't
have to even think about it. They are avoiding maybe
the worst parts of credit cards, interest in late payments.
But if those people were to log in and were
to be confronted with their spending on a monthly basis,
if they were to look at the actual transactions and
then they were to manually, I think, pay that credit
(17:34):
card bill instead of just letting it auto pay. I
think maybe for some folks it would wake them up
just some of the spending choices that they're making that
aren't in their best interests. And so, yeah, do you
need to manually log in and feel the pain viscerally
in order to be a smart credit card user? No,
but it could be a helpful psychological trick. I think
for some folks to go in there every now and
(17:56):
again more often than they currently are. And I do
think that it could to some positive benefits. Totally. Yeah,
and I don't I don't think this is quite what
Ben's doing. But he's mentioning going in there and canceling
the like the auto draft, the auto payment that's that's scheduled.
Hopefully he's not completely unscheduling it and then like rescheduling
it or something like that. I think he's just going
in there for that particular payment. But essentially he's got
(18:18):
it there as like a safety net, I think, right,
so just in case he does, you know, if it
slips his mind, that it will get taken care of.
But I think for a lot of folks, it is
a good safety mechanism to have that autopay on in
case you forget or things get busy, maybe just slips
your mind and you don't close out that month. And
for that reason now it's I would recommend keep that
(18:39):
keep that autopay on. I guess that's the thing that
worries me. If he's going in there and manually paying
and he takes off auto pay and he forgets to
manually pay, I think he's canceling that particular one because
like the way it's set up, it's it feels. I
think it's just I don't so I don't personally do autopay.
I like living life on the edge. Ben I uh,
So you put a calendar reminder to go in every
single month and May at the end of the month,
(19:01):
I go in there and I close out the month
with my different cards, and I schedule the payment. Don't
even I don't actually make the payment, but I schedule
it based on the current balance of the previous calendar month.
And because I don't like being partnered with my money
sooner than I have to do, I'll always schedule it
for one day before when it's actually due, which maximizes
that the time that that money is sitting in my
(19:22):
own account earning that interest. Baby, there you go. Yeah,
so yeah, I guess Ben, really, yeah, you don't have
to change your habits. And if this is working for you,
go for it. And maybe this is just creating more
insight to your money and it's kind of fueling that
drive to make progress with your finances, to spend less
and to save more. That's great. But also know that
you can choose that statement balance option if you want
(19:45):
to make your life a little simpler, and you'll be
okay if you do that too. All Right, we got
more to get to on this episode, including how do
you convince your parents to make better financial decisions. We'll
discuss that and more right after this. We are back
(20:05):
from the break and we will get to that relational
money question here in a second. But Joel, let's first
hear from a listener who is wanting to make sure
that she is nailing the timing when it comes to
applying for helock.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Hey, Matt, Joel, this is current from upstate New York.
I have a question about the right time to get
a heelock. Here's my situation. I am fairly confident that
I'm going to be laid off from my job sometime
in the next three to five months, but no worries
about that. We're very lucky. My family is in money
gear seven, and honestly, I have been thinking about leaving
(20:41):
my job for a couple of years now, but I
was never able to go through it, So it's probably
going to be a really good thing for me. The
thing is, my wife and I have been noodling with
the idea of a significant home renovation. We have no
immediate or specific plans, but it's something we'll probably want
to do sometime in the next five or ten year years.
(21:01):
Right now, I have a high income at my job,
and after I'm laid off, I don't anticipate getting another job.
We have two young kids at home, so I'll be
focused on them and running the household. My wife will
likely go back to work, mostly for the health insurance,
but her income will be significantly less than mine is now.
So would it make sense to get a heelock now
(21:22):
while my income is still high? Or am I overthinking
it since our future renovation plans are still so fuzzy.
I just don't want to lose out on good financing
opportunities once our W two income drops. But it seems
a little silly to fuss over a home renovation project
that may not ever even happen. So I'm kind of
leaning toward doing nothing now. But I'm very curious for
(21:43):
your thoughts.
Speaker 4 (21:43):
Thanks very much, Matt.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
It's very rare that you hear someone say I'm probably
going to get laid off in a few months, but no, biggie,
someone who's in such great spirits. That is the power
I think of financial responsibility over a long period of time,
which Karin and her partner have obviously, oh yeah, taking
a heart like they have taken a lot of steps.
They're in money year seven, so they have a lot
of options to say, yeah, I'll probably get laid off
(22:07):
and it'll be okay, and actually we're gonna have less
income coming in, but we can still afford a renovation.
We'll figure it out. Yeah. I mean, clearly they've done
a lot of work to get to the point yeah,
that they're at. So like she was also, she was
just like, I didn't really like that job anyway. It's
like already something that she was thinking about. And so
I think it's yeah, again, she's just in an amazing
position to be able to have the financial standing to
(22:30):
take that traditionally very bad news and get stride. Well,
if you don't love your job and you're kind of
ready to leave, but you can kind of see the
storm clouds on the horizon, getting laid off is the
best way to go oftentimes because you're able to negotiate
a severance package on the way out the door, Whereas
if you just leave of your own volition, you're just like, well,
all right, see yah, yeah, and then they're like, well,
(22:51):
we're going to lay you off next month, but okay, sure,
if you want to go now, that's great. So maybe
waiting a little bit longer is the perfect way to
do this. And the Sam Dogan who writes at Financial Samurai,
he's written about this extensively, the concept of engineering and
negotiating a layoff. His situation was a little unique working
in Silicon Valley, but still I think there's some stuff
that we can extrapolate as individuals when it comes to
(23:14):
trying to negotiate leaving our employer if we're so inclined.
And obviously Krinn is in the financial position to be
able to do this well, that's right. We're big fans
of helocks by the way home equity line of credit,
but similar to credit cards, I'm only for it if
you use them properly, and generally speaking, I would love
(23:35):
to see many more homeowners out there having access to
a helock but opting not to use it. Not unlike
how we use the credit that's available to us via
our cards. It can almost like function as like a
backup emergency fund of sorts. Certainly having one is no
excuse to not have gone through the money gears and
actually amassed a decent chunk of savings, and with a
(23:56):
big chunk of savings on hand and hopefully roth ira
contribution that you could potentially draw on were you to,
you know, were you to be in a pinch, you
never have to actually tap that helock for emergency purposes.
But still, since having access to one costs you essentially nothing,
I think Karin raises a just a good point as to,
you know, why not, like, why not pursue this product? Well,
(24:17):
I think the reason why the helock makes more sense
to have than so many other financial products is because
you're not paying interest on it unless you actually tap that,
so it's like get the helock. You don't actually pay
typically any closing costs or pay any money to open
the helock, and then if you never take any of
the money out, you do it just fine. You just
had it there as a just in case account and
(24:40):
hopefully you never have to use it. But Karin does
want to tap her helock, which is also fine, and
doing a home renovation, that's a reasonable use of that product.
We would say that it's why not go for a
helock if you have a plan to pay it off
in a reasonable amount of time. We would ideally want
you to be able to pay it off within five years,
(25:00):
but that's the longest timeline that we want you to
consider if you're taking out money on a helock. Otherwise
you're taking on too much risk. And so good news
is rates are likely to go down on your heelock
over the coming months and maybe years, making it easier
to pay off over time. But the real question is here,
when should she take the helock out? And we would
say do it now, and that is because while you're
(25:23):
gainfully employed, you're likely to get the best terms you've got.
If you lost your job next week, credit unions and
banks they might tell you to take a hike. Hey,
guess what, you don't have enough income to justify us
giving you this loan, even though you might not need
it for five or ten years. Like, they're not going
to listen to that. They're going to look at what's
currently going on with your finances, and if you don't
have a paycheck coming in, they might turn you away.
(25:43):
Some lenders will underwrite based on assets, but many won't.
So I just say, don't risk it, because you could
find yourself in a position where you want access to
some of your home equity and you don't have it.
Why not while the sun is shining open the account.
It makes you think, am out of a friend who
just lost his job and he's trying to close on
a house, and it just throws all of the just
(26:06):
a ton of wrenches into the gears of his ability
to do this. And so yeah, while you have the job,
established this account, and then you can always choose to
not use it because Corin's prudent here when it comes
to finance, so she's not gonna screw this up totally. Yeah,
there's no real downside to getting the loan now and
not using it, even if you don't actually use it
(26:26):
for the renovation, you know, she says, well, what's the
point and fussing with this If this isn't a renovation
that actually takes place, well, there's not really much downside,
So go ahead and get it, even though even if
the home renovation isn't something that you that you end
up doing. Now, on that note, I love how flexible
you are with this potential home renovation because you said,
like that this might be something that happens a decade
(26:48):
down the line, or maybe even not, like not at all,
Like that's a lot of wiggle room, and a lot
can happen in that sort of time frame, including saving
up a bunch of money to pay for this renovation
with Yeah, so you know, while I think it makes
sense to go ahead and get a helock now for
the other reasons we mentioned, just know that you might
be able to completely avoid tapping it, or maybe you
(27:09):
just need it for a small amount of the remaining
balance of the of the reno because you thought, all right,
we were able to save up the vast majority of it.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
But then you.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Said, oh, you know what, let's go ahead, let's go
with the nicer, the nicer tile. Oh, let's go ahead
and add this as well, and you end up spending
maybe a little bit more and you're thinking, all right,
we'll shoot it actually did pay off to get the
helocky next we have twenty extra grain right now. Oh wait,
we have the heelock Oh wait, we do, and we
can pay that junck off in you know, nine to
twelve months something like that exactly. So I think that
that's a wise move. And just again that timeframe is
(27:40):
it's great that you've got so much flexibility there too,
because I will say, as adults, like I think are like,
we know our typical needs and what it is that
we're looking for if we're looking to renovate a home.
But when you have kids, do kids relative to adults,
kids are very dynamic as far as their interests, the
kind of space is that they're looking for, or like
the kind of hobbies it might be be interested in.
(28:02):
And that doesn't even account for possibly moving for schools,
right Like, as adults, I don't know, when I was younger,
I didn't consider it at all the school district other
than like, oh yeah, this is just generally speaking a
good school district, so I know that that's probably good
for home values, but there are other considerations that go
into that when you actually have a kid who you
are putting in a particular school, and where it is
(28:23):
you live has a large impact on the type of
school that you're in, So that could be something that
ends up happening down the road as well.
Speaker 4 (28:29):
Kurrent.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
So, like you said, this might be a renovation that
happens in a couple of years, or it might never happen.
But having the option to be able to tap that
helock for various reasons, I think is a good idea.
And man, just briefly, maybe we should mention shopping for
a helock, get quotes at different lenders, and a credit union,
a local credit union might be your best bet, but
(28:50):
chop around get a few different quotes. You can typically
do that from the comfort of your home online, just
going to a few different websites for lenders near you.
And because that's that's important too, that's we talk about
that when we're talking about financing a home, getting a mortgage.
But the same is true with he rates and fees
are going to differ by different lenders, So yeah, make
(29:10):
sure you do your due diligence on the front end.
There let's get to another question. This one is from
a listener who thinks that solar power might help him
retire sooner. I'm at in Joel.
Speaker 5 (29:21):
My name is Jacob, and I'm calling from Western Pennsylvania.
Speaker 4 (29:24):
I'm fifty one years old.
Speaker 5 (29:25):
I make about two hundred thousand a year. I have
roughly one point five million saved for retirement, plus one
hundred and fifty in high yield savings. I still have
about three hundred thousand left of my mortgage, but it's
a low interest rate, so I'm not paying it off early.
I'd like to retire in the next five to fifteen years,
depending on a lot of different things. Here's my question.
(29:47):
Our electric bill runs about four hundred dollars a month.
Solar contractors say a solar system to cover ninety percent
of our usage would cost about seventy thousand dollars. After
the federal tax credit, my net cost would be about
fifty with a break even around eleven years, not including
the opportunity cost of investing the fifty thousand. If I
(30:08):
financed the project, to break even stretches closer to twenty years,
but my monthly payment would stay the same as it
is right now. So in the big picture, I think
I would still be winning on on that trade off.
I'm also considering trying to self gsee the project, which
is not something that I know much about, but I
(30:29):
think I could handle it and that would save me
ten to fifteen thousand dollars on the total cost. My
question is, should I spend the fifty thousand of cash
now to control expenses later in my retirement. Should I
keep the money invested and just absorb the higher utility costs,
or should I take the extra risk of self g
seing to make the numbers look a little bit better.
(30:52):
I appreciate, appreciate any advice you can give me. Thanks,
and have a great day.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
All right. So I believe that Jacob has a very
good chance of retiring in five years. It sounds like
it based on how much he's got set aside. That
being said, again, we're talking about windows of time here
and flexibility, like the fact that he's thinking, all right,
I don't know sometime like in the next five I
don't know, maybe it'll be fifteen years from now. I
think that's pretty clutch when it comes to actually being
(31:21):
able to pull the trigger and retiring. That flexibility have
an options here, yeah, as opposed to like shooting for
a specific a year and then just realizing, oh, we're
either going to have to alter our lifestyle significantly, which, hey,
for some people's it's totally worth it, depending on what
you got going on. Yeah, but I just don't love
the idea of assuming that you'll be able to work
(31:42):
even longer in order to make more money until you know,
you're just a ripe old age because that's not always
in the cards for folks. But again, Jacob having the
flexibility to go either way, it just puts them in
the catbird seat. Yeah, I like it. I agreed. And Okay,
there's the retirement window that Jacob mentioned, but there's another
window that we're looking at here specific with Jacob's question, Matt,
and it is the short time that he's going to
(32:05):
be able to qualify for the tax credit for installing solar.
Oh yeah, and the tax credit is not an substantial
amount in this case. It could it could really turn
something that feels like a solid decision into a not
so great one overnight, like and I mean literally overnight,
because like January first, if you finish the installation, then
(32:25):
you're screwed. Like you're out of luck. You do not
get the federal tax credits. In his case, I guess
close to twenty thousand dollars because that's what he's saying, right,
is exactly seventy thousand dollars installed, but with the credits,
he's looking at it closer to fifty. It's holy cow,
that's very significant. Kind of like how the EV tax
credit went away at the end of last month and
October first, if you bought an EV, like what sucker
(32:46):
is going in to buy an EV on October first?
The number nobody has purchased a new EV in that
at some point six days, I'm curious's who's the first
person who's actually going to buy an EV? Like, who
is that person? And push them over the edge. Well,
if you if you're ultra wealthy, uh, and you don't
qualify for any other rebase, that's true. If you're if
your AGI is above a certain threshold, then you're like,
(33:08):
it doesn't matter. It's a good point. I'll just get
in whatever. That's a good point. But it Joel in
this case, like you just don't want to wait too long.
The economics of the project are going to get far
worse if you wait. So, given the known reality of
no more solar tax credits starting in twenty twenty six,
I think pouncing now is really important. Yeah. But he
also mentioned financing, which I don't love because that makes
the numbers much less compelling. Jacob, you'd be paying interest unnecessarily,
(33:33):
and like you said, the break even timely, it gets
stretched way out. Yes, so that you know. On the
other hand, what he's saying is well, I could invest
that money instead, but like we're likely talking about interest rates.
I'm assuming like in like somewhere in the six to
ten percent range, and that's if you have good credit,
which I'm assuming Jacob does.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
So.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
But that being said, the chances of outperforming go down significantly.
If you're looking to say, oh, well, I got my
money's got to earn more than nine percent in the market. Yeah,
I don't know if I could, But I don't know
if I would count on that, right, That's not gonna
go into my calculation. I'd rather take the guaranteed number,
which is paying you know, paying cash and not paying
(34:14):
the nine percent interest, then hoping I earn more in
the market.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
And on top of that, Jacob's got a lot of
cash on hand. Man, he's got a good amount in savings,
and so forking over fifty thousand dollars to do the
solar project, I don't think that would crush his finances.
You're still gonna have plenty of cash on hand. He
still currently has a job. He's earning two hundred K,
so he'd be able to fairly quickly, I think, refill
the coffers. But it would even once he just pays
(34:39):
for that solar project, he still has six months worth
of income on hand, which is quite a bit. That's significant. Yeah,
But what it would immediately do, though, of course, is
lower his monthly bills very nicely moving forward. And so
I think if you are getting hung up on the
investing sort of part of your your calculus here, just
to remind yourself that you can take the savings that
(35:00):
you are receiving every single month, essentially what you wouldn't
paid to the utility.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
Come.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Yeah, and you said ninety percent of his overall usage, son,
of that four hundred dollars every month, plug that straight
into the market. Man, So you're kind of getting getting
to have your cake and eat it too, agreed, And
financing is better than leasing there's a lot of weird
stuff when it comes to leasing your solar panels, but
it's still not our favorite. And if you try to
sell that home, by the way in the future while
(35:24):
still owing money on those solar panels, it could add
unnecessary stress to the situation, especially if you don't have
the cash on hand to pay that loan down in full.
And on another note, which I think is important to
mention here, not only are you going to be saving
on your energy bills, but you'll also be adding to
the value of your home. That's something that a lot
of people who install solar they're not really thinking about.
(35:44):
I don't think they're really that at home equity, right
in the sense that hey, this, yeah, it's like a
it's a feature, it's a benefit, it's like an amenity
at a nice hotel. It's a selling point. Yes, absolutely.
And so if for instance, he installs the solar and
then he saves, you know, say, roughly four grand a
year for the next two years, sells eight he saved
himself eight grand in energy bills, and then he's like,
(36:06):
oh man, it's time to move on. I got to
sell this home. Man, I'm such an idiot. Why did
I spend all this money on solar? Well, the truth
is you're going to get a lot of that money
back upon resale. So potential buyers are going to be
willing to pay more because of the perpetual energy savings
that having solar on the house provides. Like your investment
in the energy savings of this house, even if they
(36:28):
don't accrue to you for decades to come, they'll accrue
to somebody else and they'll pay you for that. So yeah,
saving money now, it's a big attraction. But it's also
I think helpful to know that it's a decent investment
in your property too. Yeah, to that extent, I would
make sure to keep good records to even show and
to like even demonstrate if and when the time came
for you to sell that house, to say, hey, this
is where my utilities were, this is where they are now.
(36:49):
That way, when it comes to someone who's thinking about, oh,
well another house, just like you're sold for this and
you can say, well, you got a factor in the
additional savings here that you're going to realize every single month.
Being able to communicate that effectively I think as clutch
and then just chop around with multiple installers. Make sure
specifically though, that they can get the system up and
(37:09):
running before the end of the year, because if not,
if the install completes in twenty twenty six, you can
miss out on those tax credits. I think for that reason,
I would avoid He mentioned possibly G seeing it himself.
I think for that reason, like G seeing it himself
sounds like he's not super interested in doing it, but
he's maybe capable. He sounds like a smart guy. I
(37:30):
would be more likely to say yes if it was
earlier in the year. But because there are going to
be there's gonna be like a mad rush. I think
of folks who are trying to get these things done agreed,
and these installers are going to be booked through like
December thirty first man, And that's one of the things
you need to prioritize, is like, hey, how like I
would even interview people who have used the company in
(37:50):
the past and say do they stick to their timeline?
Like I would want to similar to interviewing a general
contractor who's doing other work at your house. I would
want to know that they activate, that you do good work,
that people who have used them are happy with it,
and that they get it done in the time they
say they're going to get it done. And because it's
a lot of money on the line, there's a lot
of money on the line. It's so crucial right now,
(38:10):
I think, you know, getting this done makes sense g
seeing it could delay that process and that could cost
you more than the savings you might be able to
realize totally. That could be a cheap move, not a
frugal moved. Percent Another aspect too, that like you're talking
about the ongoing savings every month being the addition, you know,
like you got the benefit, the immediate benefit of the
(38:31):
monthly savings, but then just kind of like the long
term benefit of like the increase equity in the home.
There's also like something else, as I was just picturing
this on my own home, on my own roof, Like
it gets really hot up in the attic and there
is just a massive increase in your home's ability to
deflect solar energy that is not just getting sucked into
the attic, right And so I was up there recently
(38:51):
changing out the air filter. I was it's like it
is so hot up here, and picturing solar panels on there,
it literally takes the brunt of the solar energy. Not
only does it create of course electricity with it, but
it literally shades your home to where it creates this
energy passive system, which means that you need to use
even less energy to actually cool your homes. What some
people might it's like a double A double women, it's
(39:14):
it's what you're gonna say, Well, I was. It's like
a it's it serves the end goal of what you're
trying to achieve even more. And I think that that's
just uh, I don't know how big of a deal
that is, but you can tell the difference in your house,
you know, like imagine like when the even when the
external the temperature outside is roughly the same. When it's
a sunny day, at least at in our house, man
on the second floor, it gets so hot. It can
(39:36):
get really hot up there, as opposed to a cloudy
day where you're not getting that direct blast from the sun.
That's just bacon, the upstairs bacon. The Attics agreed, we
got more questions to get to, Matt, including convincing your
folks to make better financial decisions and what about the
best cell phone plan for wearables. We'll get to those
questions right after this m all right, buddy, We are
(40:04):
back from the break and of course it is now
time for the Facebook question of the Week, which this
week happens to be from body mcboat face es choir.
Remember I think that's a real name. So that's like
the that's like a British boat or submarine or something
that they didn't online poll for allowed the public to
name the boat. And this is why we can't have
(40:25):
nice things. I don't think they were expecting this name
to win, but it did so in Atlanta, so they
there is a public works project where they drilled underground
from the river to like a new reservoir, and they
did something similar and do you remember what ended up
ended up willing? I ended up winning for the name
for the drill drill of Mike, so like killer Mike
(40:51):
from Run the Jewels. But which is a great Yeah,
it's how awesome is that? I think it's I think
it's anyway, this is from body mcboat face as TLDR.
How do I convince my dad not to take out
a home equity loan to pay for new air conditioning
and a new furnace. My parents seventy seven and seventy five.
They don't have central air in their home, and their
(41:12):
furnace is legit fifty or sixty years old, which is impressive.
By the way. It's probably why it still runs, actually,
because it's like it'll make them like they used to.
They are planning on installing AC and getting a new furnace,
but they're going to take out a home equity loan
instead of taking some money out of their retirement. Costs
could be fifteen to twenty five thousand dollars. How do
I convince them that take me out a home equity
(41:32):
loan on a home I don't think it's paid off
yet is a horrible idea when interest rates will be
eight percent or higher. I don't know what their situation
is with their investments and how they have things invested,
but if you are in stocks, you have had a
pretty good couple of years. Being retired at seventy seven
and seventy five. I'm sure my parents are more conservative
with their money, but they still have to be making
some money, right. I feel like taking the money out
(41:55):
of their retirement would still be a much better idea
in the long run than a home equity How do
I show them that doing this is a bad idea.
That is retired postal with a pension social Security and
he moved his TSP to a private company. Mom's retirement
income is fairly negligible. Thanks. Yeah, I'm not sure if
this specific details matter here as much, because I think
(42:16):
what we want to talk about is sort of the
relational dynamic that comes with financial advice and other people, yes,
especially your parents. I think every time you're trying to
convince friends and family members to make more prudent financial decisions,
that is often a recipe for relational dysfunction. Typically, inserting
yourself into that scenario when it's not been asked for
(42:40):
leads to hurt feelings, right, And so if they come
to you and they sincerely ask you for your advice, well,
I would be willing to offer my non judgmental input.
But most folks don't love unsolicited advice. They don't like
for you to come and tell them what you think
they should do. And so if you really feel the
need to intervene, I guess maybe the best way to
(43:01):
go would be to ask a question instead of telling
them what you would do, or worse, what you think
they should do, but maybe ask a question like, hey,
tell me more about this HVAC install and tell me
more about how you're financing it or I don't know,
but like maybe curiosity instead of judgment and trying to
convince them that they should take your advice and not
go their own way instead of just immediately bringing down
(43:22):
the hammer. Yeah, be inquisitive. I totally agree. And it's
not like that your folks are looking to take out
a payday loan, right or they're not looking to send
money to a scammer overseas or something like that. If
that was the case, I would say, hey, you probably
do need to seriously intervene in that instance. But taking
out a helock versus, you know, taking money out of
(43:43):
the retirement it might not be a bad call. It
sounds like this expense is a need, not a want,
So I don't think I would fault them for replacing
that old unit and upgrading to a full fledged HVAC
system while they're at it. And I mean, it sounds
like nobody here has an idea of what they're cash
situation looks like. But I think there's a good chance
(44:03):
that I would use some investment dollars at that point
in my life for an expense like this, but it's
also not a clearcut situation. Maybe they are in a
cash flow tight sort of situation. They've got things figured
out when you take into account the pension, social Security,
and so they're just saying, you know what, we're just
going to keep that on autopilot. We can afford the payments.
What we don't want to do is draw down on
(44:25):
any retirement funds unnecessarily. Yeah, yeah, and yeah, maybe they
know things that you don't. And again this is like
you're saying that this is not this egregious financial move
where you're like, I have to intervene because they're out
of their mind. My mom's like watching QBC day in
day out and has packages showing up ten times a
day to the doorstep. It's not a problem along those
(44:46):
lines whereas a kid who of aging parents, you feel
like you really have to intervene. This is one of
those things where which own is the most fully optimized
versus sure not the most fully optimized. And I think
they're close enough to where you can let your parents
cut some slack on this and let them do their thing.
All right, Let's get to a question from Jordan, who says,
looking to find a cheaper phone plan. My wife is
(45:08):
against Mint because you can't have a line for wearables
like kids GPS watches. Is there a similarly priced service
that has that option, Matt. We are seeing more wearable
specific plans, which I like to see, and they're cheaper
than cell phone specific plans, I think because the cell
phone companies know that you're not going to use as
much data on your watch as you would with an
(45:30):
actual phone. But before we talk about that, it's going
to stream in video games right on your watch, right exactly,
probably not streaming a show or a movie. Maybe in
your watch two years you are, I don't know, yeah, actually,
but there are like device specific plans I wanted to mention,
like the gab Watch. Depending on how old your kid
is and what you want as far as parental protections,
(45:52):
that might be something you look into. The on the
gab plans to watch is like typically free, but you
pay a higher monthly rate and the you know, comes
out of the box with those more parent friendly features.
I don't love how expensive it is for what you get,
but for some parents and even for us for a
time it worked, it can be worth the trade off.
So just know that it's Yeah, if you want a
(46:15):
traditional like Apple or Android watch, you're gonna want to
go with one of these new fangled wearable specific plans.
But there are also these like tech companies that have
made watches specifically four Kids, and they have their kind
of standalone plans that you can out for as well. Yeah,
it's all in one. It's like an all inclusive resort. You
don't have to It's like you can stick with your
current cell phone provider, or you can go with the
(46:36):
Mint and then operate the wearable outside of that. But
if you are looking for something that's kind of that
has your cell phone plans, you and your wife, your
kid as well US Mobile, it totally rocks. In particular
when it comes to the wearable specific plans. Six dollars
and fifty cents a month for a smart watch if
(46:58):
you pay all all once, if you pay annually, that is,
in my opinion, that's a pretty great rate. When it
comes to the actual device, I would suggest going used certainly,
make sure to get the GPS, get the cellular cellular
model of like an Apple Watch for instance. Some of
those Apple watches are GPS only and the plus cellular
models cost more, but that's the only way you're going
(47:18):
to be able to use it standalone. That's right, But
US Mobile is our current favorite for most folks in
the cell phone and in the smart watch space. I
was just talking to a friend and I couldn't believe
that they are still with AT and T, a dude
like the og original terrible cell phone provider, like they're
paying I think over seventy a month for Going back
to our last question, I'm sure you didn't obliterate him,
(47:39):
but did you make it a helpful, gentle suggestion. I
made a very good case as to why US Mobile
in particular is so awesome, and I was just explaining
to her the benefits and like specifically, I was telling
her the best part is that, hey, you can even
switch between the different networks. Like that is what's so
great about US Mobile, the fact that on AT and
T's network you can so with US Mobile. It's called
(48:01):
dark Star, So dark Star is AT and T. You
can go with WARP so that's the Verizon in VA. No,
that's with US Mobile, or if you want to go
with light Speed, that's the T Mobile version that they have,
and you can switch in the middle of a month.
You can switch. Whenever you want to say things aren't
working out for you, you can be like, oh, okay,
you just log online. I literally did this within the
(48:23):
first month of trying US Mobile because I thought AT
and T was gonna be the better option and it wasn't.
So why I hopped over. I'm sorry I should say
I thought that dark Star was gonna be because it
was gonna be the best network. It turns out that
it wasn't, So I hopped over to WARP and my
phone was offline for less than five minutes before it's
hopped over, was recognized by the new network, and I
was good to go. You can even you can You
(48:44):
can even do like a multi network option to where
you pay extra, you pay for extra data. Let's say
you normally go with WARP, but then you know some
you know that, like, oh well, we go off to
the cabin. The only network that works up there is
T Mobile. You can do that too. You can do
data add ons at high speeds with a different network
as well, like the network flexibility with the vn O,
(49:07):
specifically with US Mobile. Man, it blows my mind. I
think it's just like the best thing since slice bread.
That's what's so fascinating now in this space is because
some of these NB and O operators, because of that flexibility,
they're better than the traditional guys that advertise all the time,
and it's better. Yeah. And I don't know what kind
of like shady deals they got going on in the
background where they are allowed to do this. I don't
(49:29):
understand how they have been allowed. Why do they agree
to it? Right? Why have the big networks? I don't
know this because they've got dirt on them. I think
it's sure. It just seems like US Mobile is going
to be able to take over the world with the
kind of rates and service that they're offering. So yeah, yeah,
for Jordan, I think that's the one top shot man, Like,
that's where I would go. Everybody else is going to
be minimum ten bucks a month for wearable plans. A
lot of them are closer to fifteen a month, so
(49:50):
less than half of that at US Mobile. All right, Matt,
let's get back to the pier before we clock out
for today. This we don't actually clim cout, but we
should have, like the punch card. That'd be awesome, like
Flintstone style. Sometimes you still see them in certain establishments. Yeah, okay,
this beer was from Burlington Beer Company. It's called It's
(50:12):
Complicated being a Wizard. What were your thoughts on this
double ipa? It was pretty tasty, it was bold. It
had a certain degree of sweetness going on, which I
was thinking about because you're kind of stopped up, could
you do you feel like you're able to pick up
on all the all the flavors. I think I probably
was missing a step, but yeah you did. I don't
know bringing my a game, my tasting game. I know
when I'm like got a cold or congested, I can't
(50:34):
That's like the first thing to go is I can't
taste anything, and so food and drink becomes very unattractive
to me. I tasted it, and I enjoyed it. I
just don't know that I fully enjoyed every element of
this beer, because when it tastes like to you and
then I'll let you know what you're missing on It
tasted like, yeah, semi sweet double ip a with like
a nice rep representative of a hazy I PA, but
(50:58):
nothing spectacular sticking me out, No notes that I can
cling to where I was like, oh man, this was
unique in this way. Okay, maybe a little pineapplely vibe.
If I was gonna pick no, I think you got
most of it. That's probably how I would describe it
as well. They don't claim to be hazy, but it
poured a little bit hazy, but it didn't have like
those sharp, hoppy notes that you get with some of
(51:19):
the best New England hazes out there. So it's drink
like halfway between just a regular hazy ipa and more
of a traditional American double yep. But I'm certainly glad though,
that we got to share one of these today, buddy,
And that's going to be it for this Ask how
to Money episode. You can find our show notes up
on the website. Some of the different resources we mentioned
(51:40):
during this episode, Like you mentioned the Golden Rules of
Credit earlier on, we'll link to that, We'll link to
the financial Samurai Engineering. You own your own layoff, you
can find all that up in our show notes. But
that'll be it. So until next time, Best Friends Out,
Best Friends Out.
Welcome to Hot to Money. I'm Joel, I am Matt,
and today we're answering your listener questions. Yeah, buddy, and
(00:24):
this is episode ten. I just saw that which sounds
like sounds like it's time for a mid morning break.
You know you hear ten forty five. That's when that's
when the folks used to step out of the office
to go for a smoke break. Oh back in another
mad Men era. Well, I mean I'm even thinking about
my first corporate job out of college. Oh really, yeah,
working out at an ad agency. Like a few ladies
(00:46):
would always got to your desk at nine and ten
forty five was the time. It was felt allow. I
guess so, because they would always come by and kind
of tap on the door, and one of the other
ladies would go, what's funny did you ever you eat? Well,
you can share what you want to share of one
of my kelbergers. I used to smoke a little bit. Yeah,
I was gonna ask did you take did you would
you take smoke breaks? No? Twenty years ago? No, like
(01:06):
way back, I wouldn't do it at work. That one
felt one I didn't want to smell at work, and
then two it also just these ladies did not care.
They didn't care. Yeah, but my buddy, Uh, the increased
productivity that nicotine can provide, does that offset the time
that smokers take? So maybe it's a wash. I was
wondering that because I have some friends who are doing
the nicotine gum. Are there the kids listening to this podcast?
We do not endorse using nicotine. Yeah, but I have
(01:30):
specifically smoked, specifically smoking, but who are getting more into
like the the pouches and there's like dissolvable uh, nicotine substances, pouches,
the gum. From a productivity standpoint, I think it does
help them focus at work. I'm crazy. I don't want
to be beholden to any substance. No, that's the kind
of except for a little bit of craft beer, except
for coffee. But yeah, I guess that's from that standpoint,
(01:53):
I'm gonna and it just it gets expensive. Yeah, it's
like one more thing that I can just not have
to worry about on the rig. I was gonna say
that one of my uh, I was working as a
graphic designer. One of my co designers, Brian, him and
I we would always get annoyed because they're taking like
multiple breaks a day, and it's like, you know what,
at least once a week you and I should roll
(02:14):
in here with our pipes because we're like it was
kind of hip to smoke a pipe back then, and
so once a week we'd go and like sit for
thirty forty five minutes for a quote unquote smoke break
and have like philosophical conversations. Put all your smoke breaks
into one long one. Yeah, I mean that being said,
they're down there for like ten, twelve, thirteen minutes, So
I don't know, I believe it, but uh what we
(02:35):
are way off, Tanjia, dude, this is an ask how
the Money episode, and maybe we will actually get to
some listener questions. Like a listener is looking to avoid
getting tripped up paying credit card interest. He wants like
all of the good that you can receive from a
credit card without any of the bad. We're going to
talk about the best time to get a he lock.
(02:56):
This listener she's contemplating a renovation, so that plays into
to what our answer is going to be. Another listener
he's thinking about how solar how getting solar panels might
aid in his ability to retire sooner. So yeah, we'll
get to those plus a couple more during today's episode.
There we go, and we will avoid any additional smoking
(03:16):
talk or any other vices that folks might participate. Try
to avoid it. Although we are going to drink a
craft beer on this episode. This one's we do. It's
complicated being a wizard. We'll give our thoughts on this
one at the end of the episode. Real quick, Matt,
I wanted to speA can of smoking a pipe. It's
complicated wizards, right, like Gandalf. Well, I went to the
thrift store recently that's near my house that I hadn't
been to before. There's one that's like super close to
(03:38):
my house, but then there's one that's a little further away.
I went to the one that's a little further away
because some people had said that's the best thrift store
in town. I was like, okay, I'll check it out.
Was it and it was great? It was a really
good thrift story. Was it? Which one is that? It's
called City Thrift? Oh? Yeah? Is that a Is that
a national chain of either stores? Don't think it is
like good Will. It seems like a smaller one like
it America's Thrift and good will are bigger. I haven't
(03:59):
seen any other city thrift locations of this particular one,
but there probably are. But the reason I went there
was because sadly we have a funeral to attend this weekend,
and my little dude, he we needed to get him
like a sports coat. And I was like, man, how
much is a sports go gonna cost my buying it
brand new? And how often is he actually gonna wear
(04:19):
this thing? Probably never again, And so that's the time
when the thrift storm makes most sense. Oh yeah, right,
totally agree, And so we got him a great one.
It was either five or six dollars, I don't remember,
but it doesn't matter five or six bucks. It's the
same thing, so good, so much cheaper. He was so
pumped and going to like J Crew for kindergartener's. Yes,
(04:39):
we basically got him a whole funeral outfit. He already
had like some dark pants that were good there, but
we got him a shirt, some dark shoes and then
that and the whole total walking out got a dressed
for my daughter was like twenty six dollars for everything
all in the guy. I even got myself a new
tie because I used tie I guess it's all used
there for two dollars and nine cents. Hey, that's not
(04:59):
always the case, actually, because sometimes you'll find stuff with
tags on it, things that have never ever been worn before.
That always blows my mind. The shoes we looked like
they've been worn once. Probably they probably had been. Yeah,
honestly so, which is kind of crazy. So don't forget
about the thirst source. The other thing that I saw
there was just a ton of Halloween costumes. I was like,
oh my gosh, that's surprising. Yeah, there were a lot,
(05:20):
like multiple racks of Halloween costs. I wonder if they
if they like hang onto them in the back and
then they pull them outs. Oh, probably at the beginning
of October, because I would think that you would see
more Halloween costumes after Halloween, or like at the beginning
of the year when folks are kind of cleaning out
the house a little bit. They're like, Oh, I'm gonna
hang onto this because I'm gonna wear it again, and
then January rolls around They're like, I'm not gonna wear
(05:41):
this again, right, let's put this on the donate pile.
But that would be a smart thing to do. It
sounds like a free market sort of innovative, capitalistic maneuver
that this city was it city thrift, city thrift. I
want to look it up. Yeah, check just word of
the lies. If your local thrift store has solid Halloween
costume options, it's probably worth checking out if you want
(06:03):
to get something kind of much cheaper, actually made, not
not homemade, not homespun. You like the homemade costume. We
do some homemade stuff, but it just depends on what
the kids have going on. You want to just reuse
costumes from prior years, assuming no one like I just
how many times have I worn my Turtles costume? Have
you done the costume recently? Over the past couple of
years when when the kids were younger, we dressed up
(06:23):
more with them. Do the themed family? Maybe I'll bring
it back this year. I'll be Michaelangelo. Got to do
the new Michaelangelo TMNT. How do you create a costume
that looks like that graphic novel? I don't know. Style.
That's the big question, because you're gonna look like Michael
Angelo from like the eighties throwback. He looks say soft
and plushy. I was gonna say one other way that
(06:46):
three store when it really shines is when you have
a preteen who doesn't totally understand her own style yet
and is trying out different things, trying different looks. How
much more affordable is it to do it there than
items new, and when they may not, you know, they
might wear them like twice, right, and then it's just like, oh, yeah,
I don't really like that anymore. She came home the
(07:07):
other day with bootcut jeans, which is something we had
talked about recently. She's like, what's something from when y'all
were younger. I guess we're talking specifically about style that
we don't do anymore. And I was just like, well,
I just think called boot cut jeans. Although bootcut jeans
are kind of back to like cut the size of
our job.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
You know.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
I explained that to her. I was just like, we
used to even do that to make it even wider,
said that they would fit over your tennis shoes, and
she's like, no way. I was like, yeah, that's how
we used to do it back twenty years ago. Take
me back to thirty years two thousand and two, Yeah
is when, Yeah, I think it was the last time
I had some bootcuts nice anyway. Yeah, Threet starves for
the wind, don't sleep on the thirft store. All right,
let's get to your questions. If you have a money question,
(07:45):
go to how to money dot com slash ask. It's
pretty simple to record the voice memo on the app
of your phone send it over our way. Hopefully we
can take your question next week on the show. Now
let's get to a question specifically about paying off a
credit card doing it in the smartest way possible.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Hey, Matt and Joel, this has been from Grand Rapids.
Thanks so much for all that you're doing with the podcast.
Been following along for about six years now and your
resource has been a huge part of my journey.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
Already. Quick question for you guys.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
So I use a Capital one Venture card and I
treat it like a debit card. I paid off in
full and just enjoy the rewards and the fraud protection
from it.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
My question is about auto pay.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
So for years I've had it set to autopay the
statement balance, which is really the only thing that they
kind of offer within Capital One. But since the current
balance is usually higher than the statement balance, I often
end up making a manual payment for the current balance
and then canceling the auto pay, so it doesn't double pay.
I'm not even sure if Capital one would allow that,
(08:44):
but it's yeah. I think I do it mostly out
of fear and trying to avoid interests. So my question
is am I overthinking this? If I just let the
auto pay handle the statement balance, does it ensure that
it'll never be charged interest? Or do I need to
manually pay the current balance each time to truly avoid interest?
Speaker 4 (09:04):
If so, is there a way to automatically do that.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
In Capital One that I'm not aware of, because it
appears that only the statement balance is the allowed thing
to choose for auto pay. So yeah, I'd love to
know if the statement balance autopay option is enough or
if I'm right to worry about the difference between statement
and current balance.
Speaker 4 (09:22):
So thanks a ton for you to help. Guys really
appreciate the sh All.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Right, Ben, short answer, it is enough, but that doesn't
mean that you shouldn't be worrying about it. There's other
things to think about here, so we want you to
worry constantly. Ben, don't be stressed, but we do want
you to to think about it. I do love, though,
that you are using your credit card like a debit card.
You know he's got a general healthy skepticism towards his
credit card, which I think is a It's a good,
(09:46):
healthy approach, and that is warranted because half the folks
who use their credit cards, they don't treat their credit
cards with care. They're not paying attention because they find
themselves in recurring credit card debt. And so having the
attitude Ben that you have is going to be what
keeps you in the fifty percent of folks who use
their credit cards well. And he specifically outlined the benefits there.
(10:08):
I talked about the fraud protection, the rewards that makes
using credit cards wisely so worth it. Yeah, I agree.
We call them the Golden Rules of plastic on our
website at how toomoney dot com. If you're interested in
kind of reading up what when it's okay to use
a credit card? We're okay with credit cards, but only
if you use them this smart way. And Matt, most
folks they know about their rewards, the two percent cash
(10:30):
back right, or the travel rewards that you can get
from using a credit card. But I think most people
don't understand the value of fraud protection that credit cards
can provide. And I love the Bend highlighted that. So
just real quick. I wanted to just mention credit cards.
They come with superior legal protections against fraud so that
you aren't liable if you lose your credit card and
someone else uses it as if they were you. So
(10:51):
you drop it on the pavement, someone else picks up
and they're like, ooh goodie, I'm going to Aldi. They're
probably going somewhere else to spend even more money, but
I'm going to Aldi. You get my groceries on the thing, Well,
that Aldi trip is not on you, whereas if someone
used your debit card, you are either if you don't
catch it in time, you could be on the hook
for some or all of that expense. And you're also
(11:13):
trying to call your own money back as opposed to
with a credit card you are. You're not out the money.
It hasn't left your accountant. So it is just another
reason that we like credit cards as a method of
payment if you can use them in a healthy way. Yeah.
By the way, one of the reasons you don't go
to Aldie uh to use somebody else's card is because
they've got the camera set up. Now, Yeah, they got
the on the self checkout. It's like a high def
(11:34):
really nice picture of your face as you're there scanning
your you get caught. Yeah, but you're talking about the
front protection. This is actually something I don't think i've uh,
I haven't shared this yet on the show. I have
previously mentioned a car rental company that did not hold
my car rental reservation that I had made, so we
won't get into all that. And so they had canceled
(11:55):
the uh that reservation and I, you know, rebooked with
a different provider and they said, all right, you know
you can cancel and that will show back up on
your your I did the paid in full in order
to get the biggest discount at the time. That will
show back up on your card in like three to
five business days. Guess what never happened. They never refunded me.
(12:16):
They never credited me the amount, dude. And so it
was like two weeks later that I remembered and I
checked my statement. It still wasn't there. So I guess
what I did hopped on there. And at this point
in time, there's no way that I was gonna like
I'm sure I could have reached out to them and
been like, hey, guys, how come this is a giant company.
They had already treated me incredibly poorly. So I went
(12:36):
over onto the credit card on the online portal, flagged
that charge and it just had a nice option there.
As one of the reasons it was the fact that, oh,
this is something that had been canceled. It's not like
it didn't I feel like it used to say, please
reach out to the business first, but they're just like, oh,
did you was this a charge that should have been
canceled or refunded? And I was like yes, and they're like, cool,
(12:59):
we got your back. Be in touch, and they immediately
credited my account by that nine hundred bucks. Yeah. And
then it took them like over a month, I want
to say, almost two months of them evidently reaching out
to budget to see if they would be able to
be able to provide the money anyway. The temporary credit
was there that entire time, and I wasn't not that
(13:20):
money until they officially got it back. And of course
I didn't really care because in my mind it was
all it was already back in my account. But for
them to have done that for me, it was wonderful.
That's so great. It's an undervalued characteristic that credit cards offer. Yeah,
it's not often that you have to put it to use.
But man, I'm certainly glad that I was able to
do that then, as opposed to being forced to have
(13:40):
to manually claw back my own money. Where had I
put that on a debit card? For sure, you also
can get great rental car insurance through your credit card
as well, if you use the right credit card. That's true.
Let's talk about statement balances versus current balances. That's really
the heart of Ben's question here. He says, really which
one makes sense, and he's going through the manual way
(14:00):
to pay the current balance instead of just the statement balance. Well,
your credit card billing cycle, it closes it basically the
same time every month, and then you are responsible for
paying that balance by the d date, and if you do,
you're avoiding the most nefarious feature of credit cards, paying
those high interest rates, which have of course gotten worse
in recent months. And so auto paying the statement balance
(14:22):
is a great way to go, and it makes the
most sense for most folks because as long as you
get the money sitting in your bank account, it's this
seamless transaction happening behind the scenes that you don't have
to worry about. And we don't. I don't know if
a credit card issue issu're math that allows you to
auto pay your current balance as opposed to the statement balance.
I don't think it's the thing, probably because the current
balance is always changing multiple times a day for many people,
(14:45):
so still paying that statement balance, it's good enough for
most folks and they really shouldn't need to go any
further or pay that current balance like Ben is keen
to do. Yeah, yeah, you can't choose minimum balance, but
we wouldn't recommend you do that. That's the wrong option.
I think Ben's just worried that something's going to happen
and he's going to be charged interest, which is why
(15:06):
he is manually going in there. He's paying that current
balance each month. You don't need to do that. You
will avoid the downsides of credit card if you allow
that audit pay to go through. But that being said,
there are some perks to taking your approach as well.
And one of the benefits here is that you're giving
a potential boost to your credit score. So that balance
(15:27):
being reported to the credit bureaus is going to be smaller,
which lowers your credit utilization rate, which increases your score
over time. So if your score is just okay, and
this is something that you're trying to focus on increasing,
then this can be an effective tactic to essentially keep
that running, that revolving balance to a minimum. So I
normally pay the statement balance Matt and just kind of
(15:49):
have it, let it automatically be paid every single month
unless I make a really big purchase. Yeah, because when
I make a really big purchase, that's when I'm like, oh,
what was your latest really big purchase job. I'm trying
remember what it was. You were talking thousands of dollars there, right,
Like if you're like, oh, like if you're booking a trip,
perhaps booking a trip maybe so maybe a bunch of
flights or something like that, or a car rental. If
(16:10):
there's something that is like a little bit out of
the ordinary and I don't want it to impact that
credit credit utilization ratio, I will just manually go in
there and it's you know, I probably don't need to
And is it really gonna impact my score all that much?
Probably not. And even if it does impact it by
a few points, will it bounce back pretty quickly? Yeah? Probably,
but little I don't like towing the line though, Yeah,
(16:30):
I don't like even getting close, you know, you just
I just like to make sure that I'm not gonna, yeah,
gonna go anywhere near that line. J'all bounce in there,
pay it off real quick, get or done with. I
think there's also something powerful about taking things off autopilot,
and there's something really great about autopiloting certain things in
our lives. But a lot of people opt for auto
pay and then they don't ever look at their credit
(16:52):
card statements, so they're just not regularly being confronted by
their spending habits. And you know, maybe they consistently have
enough money in the bank to cover their statement balance
to be able to pay that off on time and
in full without having to worry about whether or not
they can pay it or it's going to impact their
credit score. Maybe their credit card limit is so high
(17:13):
that they're not even getting anywhere close to that territory,
and so they're like, yeah, statement balance done, I don't
have to even think about it. They are avoiding maybe
the worst parts of credit cards, interest in late payments.
But if those people were to log in and were
to be confronted with their spending on a monthly basis,
if they were to look at the actual transactions and
then they were to manually, I think, pay that credit
(17:34):
card bill instead of just letting it auto pay. I
think maybe for some folks it would wake them up
just some of the spending choices that they're making that
aren't in their best interests. And so, yeah, do you
need to manually log in and feel the pain viscerally
in order to be a smart credit card user? No,
but it could be a helpful psychological trick. I think
for some folks to go in there every now and
(17:56):
again more often than they currently are. And I do
think that it could to some positive benefits. Totally. Yeah,
and I don't I don't think this is quite what
Ben's doing. But he's mentioning going in there and canceling
the like the auto draft, the auto payment that's that's scheduled.
Hopefully he's not completely unscheduling it and then like rescheduling
it or something like that. I think he's just going
in there for that particular payment. But essentially he's got
(18:18):
it there as like a safety net, I think, right,
so just in case he does, you know, if it
slips his mind, that it will get taken care of.
But I think for a lot of folks, it is
a good safety mechanism to have that autopay on in
case you forget or things get busy, maybe just slips
your mind and you don't close out that month. And
for that reason now it's I would recommend keep that
(18:39):
keep that autopay on. I guess that's the thing that
worries me. If he's going in there and manually paying
and he takes off auto pay and he forgets to
manually pay, I think he's canceling that particular one because
like the way it's set up, it's it feels. I
think it's just I don't so I don't personally do autopay.
I like living life on the edge. Ben I uh,
So you put a calendar reminder to go in every
single month and May at the end of the month,
(19:01):
I go in there and I close out the month
with my different cards, and I schedule the payment. Don't
even I don't actually make the payment, but I schedule
it based on the current balance of the previous calendar month.
And because I don't like being partnered with my money
sooner than I have to do, I'll always schedule it
for one day before when it's actually due, which maximizes
that the time that that money is sitting in my
(19:22):
own account earning that interest. Baby, there you go. Yeah,
so yeah, I guess Ben, really, yeah, you don't have
to change your habits. And if this is working for you,
go for it. And maybe this is just creating more
insight to your money and it's kind of fueling that
drive to make progress with your finances, to spend less
and to save more. That's great. But also know that
you can choose that statement balance option if you want
(19:45):
to make your life a little simpler, and you'll be
okay if you do that too. All Right, we got
more to get to on this episode, including how do
you convince your parents to make better financial decisions. We'll
discuss that and more right after this. We are back
(20:05):
from the break and we will get to that relational
money question here in a second. But Joel, let's first
hear from a listener who is wanting to make sure
that she is nailing the timing when it comes to
applying for helock.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Hey, Matt, Joel, this is current from upstate New York.
I have a question about the right time to get
a heelock. Here's my situation. I am fairly confident that
I'm going to be laid off from my job sometime
in the next three to five months, but no worries
about that. We're very lucky. My family is in money
gear seven, and honestly, I have been thinking about leaving
(20:41):
my job for a couple of years now, but I
was never able to go through it, So it's probably
going to be a really good thing for me. The
thing is, my wife and I have been noodling with
the idea of a significant home renovation. We have no
immediate or specific plans, but it's something we'll probably want
to do sometime in the next five or ten year years.
(21:01):
Right now, I have a high income at my job,
and after I'm laid off, I don't anticipate getting another job.
We have two young kids at home, so I'll be
focused on them and running the household. My wife will
likely go back to work, mostly for the health insurance,
but her income will be significantly less than mine is now.
So would it make sense to get a heelock now
(21:22):
while my income is still high? Or am I overthinking
it since our future renovation plans are still so fuzzy.
I just don't want to lose out on good financing
opportunities once our W two income drops. But it seems
a little silly to fuss over a home renovation project
that may not ever even happen. So I'm kind of
leaning toward doing nothing now. But I'm very curious for
(21:43):
your thoughts.
Speaker 4 (21:43):
Thanks very much, Matt.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
It's very rare that you hear someone say I'm probably
going to get laid off in a few months, but no, biggie,
someone who's in such great spirits. That is the power
I think of financial responsibility over a long period of time,
which Karin and her partner have obviously, oh yeah, taking
a heart like they have taken a lot of steps.
They're in money year seven, so they have a lot
of options to say, yeah, I'll probably get laid off
(22:07):
and it'll be okay, and actually we're gonna have less
income coming in, but we can still afford a renovation.
We'll figure it out. Yeah. I mean, clearly they've done
a lot of work to get to the point yeah,
that they're at. So like she was also, she was
just like, I didn't really like that job anyway. It's
like already something that she was thinking about. And so
I think it's yeah, again, she's just in an amazing
position to be able to have the financial standing to
(22:30):
take that traditionally very bad news and get stride. Well,
if you don't love your job and you're kind of
ready to leave, but you can kind of see the
storm clouds on the horizon, getting laid off is the
best way to go oftentimes because you're able to negotiate
a severance package on the way out the door, Whereas
if you just leave of your own volition, you're just like, well,
all right, see yah, yeah, and then they're like, well,
(22:51):
we're going to lay you off next month, but okay, sure,
if you want to go now, that's great. So maybe
waiting a little bit longer is the perfect way to
do this. And the Sam Dogan who writes at Financial Samurai,
he's written about this extensively, the concept of engineering and
negotiating a layoff. His situation was a little unique working
in Silicon Valley, but still I think there's some stuff
that we can extrapolate as individuals when it comes to
(23:14):
trying to negotiate leaving our employer if we're so inclined.
And obviously Krinn is in the financial position to be
able to do this well, that's right. We're big fans
of helocks by the way home equity line of credit,
but similar to credit cards, I'm only for it if
you use them properly, and generally speaking, I would love
(23:35):
to see many more homeowners out there having access to
a helock but opting not to use it. Not unlike
how we use the credit that's available to us via
our cards. It can almost like function as like a
backup emergency fund of sorts. Certainly having one is no
excuse to not have gone through the money gears and
actually amassed a decent chunk of savings, and with a
(23:56):
big chunk of savings on hand and hopefully roth ira
contribution that you could potentially draw on were you to,
you know, were you to be in a pinch, you
never have to actually tap that helock for emergency purposes.
But still, since having access to one costs you essentially nothing,
I think Karin raises a just a good point as to,
you know, why not, like, why not pursue this product? Well,
(24:17):
I think the reason why the helock makes more sense
to have than so many other financial products is because
you're not paying interest on it unless you actually tap that,
so it's like get the helock. You don't actually pay
typically any closing costs or pay any money to open
the helock, and then if you never take any of
the money out, you do it just fine. You just
had it there as a just in case account and
(24:40):
hopefully you never have to use it. But Karin does
want to tap her helock, which is also fine, and
doing a home renovation, that's a reasonable use of that product.
We would say that it's why not go for a
helock if you have a plan to pay it off
in a reasonable amount of time. We would ideally want
you to be able to pay it off within five years,
(25:00):
but that's the longest timeline that we want you to
consider if you're taking out money on a helock. Otherwise
you're taking on too much risk. And so good news
is rates are likely to go down on your heelock
over the coming months and maybe years, making it easier
to pay off over time. But the real question is here,
when should she take the helock out? And we would
say do it now, and that is because while you're
(25:23):
gainfully employed, you're likely to get the best terms you've got.
If you lost your job next week, credit unions and
banks they might tell you to take a hike. Hey,
guess what, you don't have enough income to justify us
giving you this loan, even though you might not need
it for five or ten years. Like, they're not going
to listen to that. They're going to look at what's
currently going on with your finances, and if you don't
have a paycheck coming in, they might turn you away.
(25:43):
Some lenders will underwrite based on assets, but many won't.
So I just say, don't risk it, because you could
find yourself in a position where you want access to
some of your home equity and you don't have it.
Why not while the sun is shining open the account.
It makes you think, am out of a friend who
just lost his job and he's trying to close on
a house, and it just throws all of the just
(26:06):
a ton of wrenches into the gears of his ability
to do this. And so yeah, while you have the job,
established this account, and then you can always choose to
not use it because Corin's prudent here when it comes
to finance, so she's not gonna screw this up totally. Yeah,
there's no real downside to getting the loan now and
not using it, even if you don't actually use it
(26:26):
for the renovation, you know, she says, well, what's the
point and fussing with this If this isn't a renovation
that actually takes place, well, there's not really much downside,
So go ahead and get it, even though even if
the home renovation isn't something that you that you end
up doing. Now, on that note, I love how flexible
you are with this potential home renovation because you said,
like that this might be something that happens a decade
(26:48):
down the line, or maybe even not, like not at all,
Like that's a lot of wiggle room, and a lot
can happen in that sort of time frame, including saving
up a bunch of money to pay for this renovation
with Yeah, so you know, while I think it makes
sense to go ahead and get a helock now for
the other reasons we mentioned, just know that you might
be able to completely avoid tapping it, or maybe you
(27:09):
just need it for a small amount of the remaining
balance of the of the reno because you thought, all right,
we were able to save up the vast majority of it.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
But then you.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Said, oh, you know what, let's go ahead, let's go
with the nicer, the nicer tile. Oh, let's go ahead
and add this as well, and you end up spending
maybe a little bit more and you're thinking, all right,
we'll shoot it actually did pay off to get the
helocky next we have twenty extra grain right now. Oh wait,
we have the heelock Oh wait, we do, and we
can pay that junck off in you know, nine to
twelve months something like that exactly. So I think that
that's a wise move. And just again that timeframe is
(27:40):
it's great that you've got so much flexibility there too,
because I will say, as adults, like I think are like,
we know our typical needs and what it is that
we're looking for if we're looking to renovate a home.
But when you have kids, do kids relative to adults,
kids are very dynamic as far as their interests, the
kind of space is that they're looking for, or like
the kind of hobbies it might be be interested in.
(28:02):
And that doesn't even account for possibly moving for schools,
right Like, as adults, I don't know, when I was younger,
I didn't consider it at all the school district other
than like, oh yeah, this is just generally speaking a
good school district, so I know that that's probably good
for home values, but there are other considerations that go
into that when you actually have a kid who you
are putting in a particular school, and where it is
(28:23):
you live has a large impact on the type of
school that you're in, So that could be something that
ends up happening down the road as well.
Speaker 4 (28:29):
Kurrent.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
So, like you said, this might be a renovation that
happens in a couple of years, or it might never happen.
But having the option to be able to tap that
helock for various reasons, I think is a good idea.
And man, just briefly, maybe we should mention shopping for
a helock, get quotes at different lenders, and a credit union,
a local credit union might be your best bet, but
(28:50):
chop around get a few different quotes. You can typically
do that from the comfort of your home online, just
going to a few different websites for lenders near you.
And because that's that's important too, that's we talk about
that when we're talking about financing a home, getting a mortgage.
But the same is true with he rates and fees
are going to differ by different lenders, So yeah, make
(29:10):
sure you do your due diligence on the front end.
There let's get to another question. This one is from
a listener who thinks that solar power might help him
retire sooner. I'm at in Joel.
Speaker 5 (29:21):
My name is Jacob, and I'm calling from Western Pennsylvania.
Speaker 4 (29:24):
I'm fifty one years old.
Speaker 5 (29:25):
I make about two hundred thousand a year. I have
roughly one point five million saved for retirement, plus one
hundred and fifty in high yield savings. I still have
about three hundred thousand left of my mortgage, but it's
a low interest rate, so I'm not paying it off early.
I'd like to retire in the next five to fifteen years,
depending on a lot of different things. Here's my question.
(29:47):
Our electric bill runs about four hundred dollars a month.
Solar contractors say a solar system to cover ninety percent
of our usage would cost about seventy thousand dollars. After
the federal tax credit, my net cost would be about
fifty with a break even around eleven years, not including
the opportunity cost of investing the fifty thousand. If I
(30:08):
financed the project, to break even stretches closer to twenty years,
but my monthly payment would stay the same as it
is right now. So in the big picture, I think
I would still be winning on on that trade off.
I'm also considering trying to self gsee the project, which
is not something that I know much about, but I
(30:29):
think I could handle it and that would save me
ten to fifteen thousand dollars on the total cost. My
question is, should I spend the fifty thousand of cash
now to control expenses later in my retirement. Should I
keep the money invested and just absorb the higher utility costs,
or should I take the extra risk of self g
seing to make the numbers look a little bit better.
(30:52):
I appreciate, appreciate any advice you can give me. Thanks,
and have a great day.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
All right. So I believe that Jacob has a very
good chance of retiring in five years. It sounds like
it based on how much he's got set aside. That
being said, again, we're talking about windows of time here
and flexibility, like the fact that he's thinking, all right,
I don't know sometime like in the next five I
don't know, maybe it'll be fifteen years from now. I
think that's pretty clutch when it comes to actually being
(31:21):
able to pull the trigger and retiring. That flexibility have
an options here, yeah, as opposed to like shooting for
a specific a year and then just realizing, oh, we're
either going to have to alter our lifestyle significantly, which, hey,
for some people's it's totally worth it, depending on what
you got going on. Yeah, but I just don't love
the idea of assuming that you'll be able to work
(31:42):
even longer in order to make more money until you know,
you're just a ripe old age because that's not always
in the cards for folks. But again, Jacob having the
flexibility to go either way, it just puts them in
the catbird seat. Yeah, I like it. I agreed. And Okay,
there's the retirement window that Jacob mentioned, but there's another
window that we're looking at here specific with Jacob's question, Matt,
and it is the short time that he's going to
(32:05):
be able to qualify for the tax credit for installing solar.
Oh yeah, and the tax credit is not an substantial
amount in this case. It could it could really turn
something that feels like a solid decision into a not
so great one overnight, like and I mean literally overnight,
because like January first, if you finish the installation, then
(32:25):
you're screwed. Like you're out of luck. You do not
get the federal tax credits. In his case, I guess
close to twenty thousand dollars because that's what he's saying, right,
is exactly seventy thousand dollars installed, but with the credits,
he's looking at it closer to fifty. It's holy cow,
that's very significant. Kind of like how the EV tax
credit went away at the end of last month and
October first, if you bought an EV, like what sucker
(32:46):
is going in to buy an EV on October first?
The number nobody has purchased a new EV in that
at some point six days, I'm curious's who's the first
person who's actually going to buy an EV? Like, who
is that person? And push them over the edge. Well,
if you if you're ultra wealthy, uh, and you don't
qualify for any other rebase, that's true. If you're if
your AGI is above a certain threshold, then you're like,
(33:08):
it doesn't matter. It's a good point. I'll just get
in whatever. That's a good point. But it Joel in
this case, like you just don't want to wait too long.
The economics of the project are going to get far
worse if you wait. So, given the known reality of
no more solar tax credits starting in twenty twenty six,
I think pouncing now is really important. Yeah. But he
also mentioned financing, which I don't love because that makes
the numbers much less compelling. Jacob, you'd be paying interest unnecessarily,
(33:33):
and like you said, the break even timely, it gets
stretched way out. Yes, so that you know. On the
other hand, what he's saying is well, I could invest
that money instead, but like we're likely talking about interest rates.
I'm assuming like in like somewhere in the six to
ten percent range, and that's if you have good credit,
which I'm assuming Jacob does.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
So.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
But that being said, the chances of outperforming go down significantly.
If you're looking to say, oh, well, I got my
money's got to earn more than nine percent in the market. Yeah,
I don't know if I could, But I don't know
if I would count on that, right, That's not gonna
go into my calculation. I'd rather take the guaranteed number,
which is paying you know, paying cash and not paying
(34:14):
the nine percent interest, then hoping I earn more in
the market.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
And on top of that, Jacob's got a lot of
cash on hand. Man, he's got a good amount in savings,
and so forking over fifty thousand dollars to do the
solar project, I don't think that would crush his finances.
You're still gonna have plenty of cash on hand. He
still currently has a job. He's earning two hundred K,
so he'd be able to fairly quickly, I think, refill
the coffers. But it would even once he just pays
(34:39):
for that solar project, he still has six months worth
of income on hand, which is quite a bit. That's significant. Yeah,
But what it would immediately do, though, of course, is
lower his monthly bills very nicely moving forward. And so
I think if you are getting hung up on the
investing sort of part of your your calculus here, just
to remind yourself that you can take the savings that
(35:00):
you are receiving every single month, essentially what you wouldn't
paid to the utility.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
Come.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Yeah, and you said ninety percent of his overall usage, son,
of that four hundred dollars every month, plug that straight
into the market. Man, So you're kind of getting getting
to have your cake and eat it too, agreed, And
financing is better than leasing there's a lot of weird
stuff when it comes to leasing your solar panels, but
it's still not our favorite. And if you try to
sell that home, by the way in the future while
(35:24):
still owing money on those solar panels, it could add
unnecessary stress to the situation, especially if you don't have
the cash on hand to pay that loan down in full.
And on another note, which I think is important to
mention here, not only are you going to be saving
on your energy bills, but you'll also be adding to
the value of your home. That's something that a lot
of people who install solar they're not really thinking about.
(35:44):
I don't think they're really that at home equity, right
in the sense that hey, this, yeah, it's like a
it's a feature, it's a benefit, it's like an amenity
at a nice hotel. It's a selling point. Yes, absolutely.
And so if for instance, he installs the solar and
then he saves, you know, say, roughly four grand a
year for the next two years, sells eight he saved
himself eight grand in energy bills, and then he's like,
(36:06):
oh man, it's time to move on. I got to
sell this home. Man, I'm such an idiot. Why did
I spend all this money on solar? Well, the truth
is you're going to get a lot of that money
back upon resale. So potential buyers are going to be
willing to pay more because of the perpetual energy savings
that having solar on the house provides. Like your investment
in the energy savings of this house, even if they
(36:28):
don't accrue to you for decades to come, they'll accrue
to somebody else and they'll pay you for that. So yeah,
saving money now, it's a big attraction. But it's also
I think helpful to know that it's a decent investment
in your property too. Yeah, to that extent, I would
make sure to keep good records to even show and
to like even demonstrate if and when the time came
for you to sell that house, to say, hey, this
is where my utilities were, this is where they are now.
(36:49):
That way, when it comes to someone who's thinking about, oh,
well another house, just like you're sold for this and
you can say, well, you got a factor in the
additional savings here that you're going to realize every single month.
Being able to communicate that effectively I think as clutch
and then just chop around with multiple installers. Make sure
specifically though, that they can get the system up and
(37:09):
running before the end of the year, because if not,
if the install completes in twenty twenty six, you can
miss out on those tax credits. I think for that reason,
I would avoid He mentioned possibly G seeing it himself.
I think for that reason, like G seeing it himself
sounds like he's not super interested in doing it, but
he's maybe capable. He sounds like a smart guy. I
(37:30):
would be more likely to say yes if it was
earlier in the year. But because there are going to
be there's gonna be like a mad rush. I think
of folks who are trying to get these things done agreed,
and these installers are going to be booked through like
December thirty first man, And that's one of the things
you need to prioritize, is like, hey, how like I
would even interview people who have used the company in
(37:50):
the past and say do they stick to their timeline?
Like I would want to similar to interviewing a general
contractor who's doing other work at your house. I would
want to know that they activate, that you do good work,
that people who have used them are happy with it,
and that they get it done in the time they
say they're going to get it done. And because it's
a lot of money on the line, there's a lot
of money on the line. It's so crucial right now,
(38:10):
I think, you know, getting this done makes sense g
seeing it could delay that process and that could cost
you more than the savings you might be able to
realize totally. That could be a cheap move, not a
frugal moved. Percent Another aspect too, that like you're talking
about the ongoing savings every month being the addition, you know,
like you got the benefit, the immediate benefit of the
(38:31):
monthly savings, but then just kind of like the long
term benefit of like the increase equity in the home.
There's also like something else, as I was just picturing
this on my own home, on my own roof, Like
it gets really hot up in the attic and there
is just a massive increase in your home's ability to
deflect solar energy that is not just getting sucked into
the attic, right And so I was up there recently
(38:51):
changing out the air filter. I was it's like it
is so hot up here, and picturing solar panels on there,
it literally takes the brunt of the solar energy. Not
only does it create of course electricity with it, but
it literally shades your home to where it creates this
energy passive system, which means that you need to use
even less energy to actually cool your homes. What some
people might it's like a double A double women, it's
(39:14):
it's what you're gonna say, Well, I was. It's like
a it's it serves the end goal of what you're
trying to achieve even more. And I think that that's
just uh, I don't know how big of a deal
that is, but you can tell the difference in your house,
you know, like imagine like when the even when the
external the temperature outside is roughly the same. When it's
a sunny day, at least at in our house, man
on the second floor, it gets so hot. It can
(39:36):
get really hot up there, as opposed to a cloudy
day where you're not getting that direct blast from the sun.
That's just bacon, the upstairs bacon. The Attics agreed, we
got more questions to get to, Matt, including convincing your
folks to make better financial decisions and what about the
best cell phone plan for wearables. We'll get to those
questions right after this m all right, buddy, We are
(40:04):
back from the break and of course it is now
time for the Facebook question of the Week, which this
week happens to be from body mcboat face es choir.
Remember I think that's a real name. So that's like
the that's like a British boat or submarine or something
that they didn't online poll for allowed the public to
name the boat. And this is why we can't have
(40:25):
nice things. I don't think they were expecting this name
to win, but it did so in Atlanta, so they
there is a public works project where they drilled underground
from the river to like a new reservoir, and they
did something similar and do you remember what ended up
ended up willing? I ended up winning for the name
for the drill drill of Mike, so like killer Mike
(40:51):
from Run the Jewels. But which is a great Yeah,
it's how awesome is that? I think it's I think
it's anyway, this is from body mcboat face as TLDR.
How do I convince my dad not to take out
a home equity loan to pay for new air conditioning
and a new furnace. My parents seventy seven and seventy five.
They don't have central air in their home, and their
(41:12):
furnace is legit fifty or sixty years old, which is impressive.
By the way. It's probably why it still runs, actually,
because it's like it'll make them like they used to.
They are planning on installing AC and getting a new furnace,
but they're going to take out a home equity loan
instead of taking some money out of their retirement. Costs
could be fifteen to twenty five thousand dollars. How do
I convince them that take me out a home equity
(41:32):
loan on a home I don't think it's paid off
yet is a horrible idea when interest rates will be
eight percent or higher. I don't know what their situation
is with their investments and how they have things invested,
but if you are in stocks, you have had a
pretty good couple of years. Being retired at seventy seven
and seventy five. I'm sure my parents are more conservative
with their money, but they still have to be making
some money, right. I feel like taking the money out
(41:55):
of their retirement would still be a much better idea
in the long run than a home equity How do
I show them that doing this is a bad idea.
That is retired postal with a pension social Security and
he moved his TSP to a private company. Mom's retirement
income is fairly negligible. Thanks. Yeah, I'm not sure if
this specific details matter here as much, because I think
(42:16):
what we want to talk about is sort of the
relational dynamic that comes with financial advice and other people, yes,
especially your parents. I think every time you're trying to
convince friends and family members to make more prudent financial decisions,
that is often a recipe for relational dysfunction. Typically, inserting
yourself into that scenario when it's not been asked for
(42:40):
leads to hurt feelings, right, And so if they come
to you and they sincerely ask you for your advice, well,
I would be willing to offer my non judgmental input.
But most folks don't love unsolicited advice. They don't like
for you to come and tell them what you think
they should do. And so if you really feel the
need to intervene, I guess maybe the best way to
(43:01):
go would be to ask a question instead of telling
them what you would do, or worse, what you think
they should do, but maybe ask a question like, hey,
tell me more about this HVAC install and tell me
more about how you're financing it or I don't know,
but like maybe curiosity instead of judgment and trying to
convince them that they should take your advice and not
go their own way instead of just immediately bringing down
(43:22):
the hammer. Yeah, be inquisitive. I totally agree. And it's
not like that your folks are looking to take out
a payday loan, right or they're not looking to send
money to a scammer overseas or something like that. If
that was the case, I would say, hey, you probably
do need to seriously intervene in that instance. But taking
out a helock versus, you know, taking money out of
(43:43):
the retirement it might not be a bad call. It
sounds like this expense is a need, not a want,
So I don't think I would fault them for replacing
that old unit and upgrading to a full fledged HVAC
system while they're at it. And I mean, it sounds
like nobody here has an idea of what they're cash
situation looks like. But I think there's a good chance
(44:03):
that I would use some investment dollars at that point
in my life for an expense like this, but it's
also not a clearcut situation. Maybe they are in a
cash flow tight sort of situation. They've got things figured
out when you take into account the pension, social Security,
and so they're just saying, you know what, we're just
going to keep that on autopilot. We can afford the payments.
What we don't want to do is draw down on
(44:25):
any retirement funds unnecessarily. Yeah, yeah, and yeah, maybe they
know things that you don't. And again this is like
you're saying that this is not this egregious financial move
where you're like, I have to intervene because they're out
of their mind. My mom's like watching QBC day in
day out and has packages showing up ten times a
day to the doorstep. It's not a problem along those
(44:46):
lines whereas a kid who of aging parents, you feel
like you really have to intervene. This is one of
those things where which own is the most fully optimized
versus sure not the most fully optimized. And I think
they're close enough to where you can let your parents
cut some slack on this and let them do their thing.
All right, Let's get to a question from Jordan, who says,
looking to find a cheaper phone plan. My wife is
(45:08):
against Mint because you can't have a line for wearables
like kids GPS watches. Is there a similarly priced service
that has that option, Matt. We are seeing more wearable
specific plans, which I like to see, and they're cheaper
than cell phone specific plans, I think because the cell
phone companies know that you're not going to use as
much data on your watch as you would with an
(45:30):
actual phone. But before we talk about that, it's going
to stream in video games right on your watch, right exactly,
probably not streaming a show or a movie. Maybe in
your watch two years you are, I don't know, yeah, actually,
but there are like device specific plans I wanted to mention,
like the gab Watch. Depending on how old your kid
is and what you want as far as parental protections,
(45:52):
that might be something you look into. The on the
gab plans to watch is like typically free, but you
pay a higher monthly rate and the you know, comes
out of the box with those more parent friendly features.
I don't love how expensive it is for what you get,
but for some parents and even for us for a
time it worked, it can be worth the trade off.
So just know that it's Yeah, if you want a
(46:15):
traditional like Apple or Android watch, you're gonna want to
go with one of these new fangled wearable specific plans.
But there are also these like tech companies that have
made watches specifically four Kids, and they have their kind
of standalone plans that you can out for as well. Yeah,
it's all in one. It's like an all inclusive resort. You
don't have to It's like you can stick with your
current cell phone provider, or you can go with the
(46:36):
Mint and then operate the wearable outside of that. But
if you are looking for something that's kind of that
has your cell phone plans, you and your wife, your
kid as well US Mobile, it totally rocks. In particular
when it comes to the wearable specific plans. Six dollars
and fifty cents a month for a smart watch if
(46:58):
you pay all all once, if you pay annually, that is,
in my opinion, that's a pretty great rate. When it
comes to the actual device, I would suggest going used certainly,
make sure to get the GPS, get the cellular cellular
model of like an Apple Watch for instance. Some of
those Apple watches are GPS only and the plus cellular
models cost more, but that's the only way you're going
(47:18):
to be able to use it standalone. That's right, But
US Mobile is our current favorite for most folks in
the cell phone and in the smart watch space. I
was just talking to a friend and I couldn't believe
that they are still with AT and T, a dude
like the og original terrible cell phone provider, like they're
paying I think over seventy a month for Going back
to our last question, I'm sure you didn't obliterate him,
(47:39):
but did you make it a helpful, gentle suggestion. I
made a very good case as to why US Mobile
in particular is so awesome, and I was just explaining
to her the benefits and like specifically, I was telling
her the best part is that, hey, you can even
switch between the different networks. Like that is what's so
great about US Mobile, the fact that on AT and
T's network you can so with US Mobile. It's called
(48:01):
dark Star, So dark Star is AT and T. You
can go with WARP so that's the Verizon in VA. No,
that's with US Mobile, or if you want to go
with light Speed, that's the T Mobile version that they have,
and you can switch in the middle of a month.
You can switch. Whenever you want to say things aren't
working out for you, you can be like, oh, okay,
you just log online. I literally did this within the
(48:23):
first month of trying US Mobile because I thought AT
and T was gonna be the better option and it wasn't.
So why I hopped over. I'm sorry I should say
I thought that dark Star was gonna be because it
was gonna be the best network. It turns out that
it wasn't, So I hopped over to WARP and my
phone was offline for less than five minutes before it's
hopped over, was recognized by the new network, and I
was good to go. You can even you can You
(48:44):
can even do like a multi network option to where
you pay extra, you pay for extra data. Let's say
you normally go with WARP, but then you know some
you know that, like, oh well, we go off to
the cabin. The only network that works up there is
T Mobile. You can do that too. You can do
data add ons at high speeds with a different network
as well, like the network flexibility with the vn O,
(49:07):
specifically with US Mobile. Man, it blows my mind. I
think it's just like the best thing since slice bread.
That's what's so fascinating now in this space is because
some of these NB and O operators, because of that flexibility,
they're better than the traditional guys that advertise all the time,
and it's better. Yeah. And I don't know what kind
of like shady deals they got going on in the
background where they are allowed to do this. I don't
(49:29):
understand how they have been allowed. Why do they agree
to it? Right? Why have the big networks? I don't
know this because they've got dirt on them. I think
it's sure. It just seems like US Mobile is going
to be able to take over the world with the
kind of rates and service that they're offering. So yeah, yeah,
for Jordan, I think that's the one top shot man, Like,
that's where I would go. Everybody else is going to
be minimum ten bucks a month for wearable plans. A
lot of them are closer to fifteen a month, so
(49:50):
less than half of that at US Mobile. All right, Matt,
let's get back to the pier before we clock out
for today. This we don't actually clim cout, but we
should have, like the punch card. That'd be awesome, like
Flintstone style. Sometimes you still see them in certain establishments. Yeah, okay,
this beer was from Burlington Beer Company. It's called It's
(50:12):
Complicated being a Wizard. What were your thoughts on this
double ipa? It was pretty tasty, it was bold. It
had a certain degree of sweetness going on, which I
was thinking about because you're kind of stopped up, could
you do you feel like you're able to pick up
on all the all the flavors. I think I probably
was missing a step, but yeah you did. I don't
know bringing my a game, my tasting game. I know
when I'm like got a cold or congested, I can't
(50:34):
That's like the first thing to go is I can't
taste anything, and so food and drink becomes very unattractive
to me. I tasted it, and I enjoyed it. I
just don't know that I fully enjoyed every element of
this beer, because when it tastes like to you and
then I'll let you know what you're missing on It
tasted like, yeah, semi sweet double ip a with like
a nice rep representative of a hazy I PA, but
(50:58):
nothing spectacular sticking me out, No notes that I can
cling to where I was like, oh man, this was
unique in this way. Okay, maybe a little pineapplely vibe.
If I was gonna pick no, I think you got
most of it. That's probably how I would describe it
as well. They don't claim to be hazy, but it
poured a little bit hazy, but it didn't have like
those sharp, hoppy notes that you get with some of
(51:19):
the best New England hazes out there. So it's drink
like halfway between just a regular hazy ipa and more
of a traditional American double yep. But I'm certainly glad though,
that we got to share one of these today, buddy,
And that's going to be it for this Ask how
to Money episode. You can find our show notes up
on the website. Some of the different resources we mentioned
(51:40):
during this episode, Like you mentioned the Golden Rules of
Credit earlier on, we'll link to that, We'll link to
the financial Samurai Engineering. You own your own layoff, you
can find all that up in our show notes. But
that'll be it. So until next time, Best Friends Out,
Best Friends Out.
Hosts And Creators
Joel Larsgaard
Matthew Altmix
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.