Ask HTM - Covering Expensive Childcare, Fidelity Fees, & Frugal or Cheap Car Tires #940 - How to Money

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Hada Money. I'm Joel, I'm Matt. Today we're
answering your listener questions.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
That's right, Happy Monday, everybody, and we are going to
get to listener questions today. Buddy, we're gonna hear from
a listener who's asking about some different ways that they
can afford some expensive childcare costs. We're gonna talk about
some of the different fees that Fidelity is charging.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
Gasp, can you believe a Joel Fidelity say it ain't so?
And we're gonna take more of a frugal versus cheap.
I guess we're gonna talk about like the name brand
nice tires that.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
You can purchase and put on your vehicle, or maybe
taking the more affordable route. I'm excited to get to
that one and share with listeners maybe some of the
ridiculous links that we might go to to keep the
car maintenance bill down. And dude, having older vehicles, this
is something that I've experienced, but also that I look
ahead and I see on the horizon, in particular with

(01:11):
tires as well, because I've got two tires that are
older and I know those are going to.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
Have to be replace. I've had a few bigger repair
bills too recently on pushing two hundred thousand miles and
so yeah, I won't get into it. Yeah, there's a
shop that we're going to that may not have been
the Apisoute. All right. Well, one thing I wanted to
mention briefly map before we get to listener questions is
some of the websites that allow you to book travel
and specifically hotels cheaper than or at least is what

(01:37):
they advertise. So you can book a hotel more cheaply
through hot wire and price Line in particular than you
can almost anywhere else on the internet. True, and that's
particularly true if you're willing to stay at an unnamed
hotel that you don't know until you've actually gone through
with the process. You say, all right, listen, I'm down
to stay at any three and a half star hotel
or whatever. And this is the mystery hotel particular part
of town. And there's probably five or six hotels that

(01:59):
are up for great and yeah, just give me whatever
one you're going to give me. That's how you save
the most money. I will say, it's not always true,
and it doesn't always work out, And this is something
I was helping my dad book a hotel room for
a trip that they've got coming up.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
Did you see a discrepancy between the price on hot
wire as opposed to reaching out to them directly.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
Yeah, exactly, Yeah, there were, and surprisingly when you were
booking through I think it was price Line in particular,
but the fees that are being charged were more significant
Priceline fees.

Speaker 3 (02:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
The price Line fees can be more boisterous. I don't
know that's a bad word, but they can be bigger
than what you're gonna pay when you go directly through
the hotel. So I think and hotels have kind of
wised up to this too in the new era. They're
willing to match prices that some of these online booking companies,

(02:50):
these aggregators are charging. They know that that's their competition,
and they are oftentimes offering discounts either on their website
you might have to put in a code or something
like that, or if you call them on the phone
and just say, hey, listen, this is the kind of
price I'm getting on one of these aggregators. How much
can you know what sort of price are you able
to offer directly? Yeah? And so I just want to
say like these. I think some people have, like knee jerk,

(03:12):
become accustomed to inhabit form going to these websites price
Lign and hot wire, and I think it's worth checking
those websites out before you book. But it's also worth,
especially if there's a hotel you like in the area
you're staying and you feel like it's reasonably priced in comparison,
or you see a good price on price line, going
to the hotel's website directly before you click book. You

(03:34):
might also have better cancelation benefits too. Booking directly with
the hotel, whereas price sign or hot Wire you might
have zero ability to change or modify the reservation.

Speaker 2 (03:43):
So dare I say even picking up the phone and
giving them a call, because maybe they haven't even updated
the website into the latest discounts that they're offering, but
they know that there's something that's out there and you
could snag the absolute best room.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
At the lowest price. My dad found the hotel, or
directly from the hotel itself saved one hundred bucks over
the price line price. And I used to be man
price Lign was the best, and now I just think
that's not quite as much the case. So he saved
one hundred bucks. And it turns out the hotel has
like a free car that they'll give you and for

(04:14):
three mile radius rides, and so like they need to
give you a ride or you actually get to drive it. No,
they give you a ride, ye okay, And so even
better if chauffeur Yeah, got a driver, babe.

Speaker 3 (04:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
And so he was like, we canceled my rental car too.
I'm just gonna uber and then take that little car
where we need to go. So there's all sorts of
ways to save on travel. That's a couple of quick
tips that picked up just from a recent travel a
booking encounter with my pops. I love it. Man.

Speaker 2 (04:37):
Let's introduce the beer that you and I are about
to enjoy during this episode. And this is a rum
barrel aged out fermented with Bretta nomiyases.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
This is my Wicked Weed.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
And we've had plenty of Wicked Weed beers before, but
I don't know if we've ever had the Dark Arts,
which is uh, I guess just a line that they're
doing that's a little bit fancier.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
Yeah, a little outside the box too. Write some kind
of unique flavors. They are trying to pull out of
some of the those beers, so looking forward to enjoying that.
We'll share our thoughts at the end of the episode,
no doubt. Let's get on to your questions, though, And
if you have a money question you want Matt and
I to tackle next week on the show, well send
us a voice memo. You go to howomoney dot com
slash ask for the specific directions on how to do that,

(05:15):
but really just recording your question on the voice memo
app of your phone, state in your name at the beginning,
and emailing and over. Hopefully we can take it real
real soon. Matt, this next question is one that I
think is on the minds of a lot of parents
of young children. Hi, Joel and Matt.

Speaker 4 (05:29):
My name is Kelly and I'm from Richmond, Virginia. I've
been an avid follower since twenty twenty. With your help,
I've become really confident with saving money and investing. My
husband and I are expecting our second child in March,
and we'll be paying for two kids in daycare. We
are going to need to come up with thirteen hundred
more a month or fifteen thousand, six hundred a year

(05:51):
to be able to afford this. In the meantime, we've
done well saving We have a fully funded emergency fund,
a car payment at zero percent interest, and a mortgage payment.
We max out a dependent care FSA and HSA as
a family to wroth iras, and we both contribute to
our companies for one K to at least receive the match.

(06:15):
My question is which accounts do I decrease or completely
stop contributing to to have more liquid income to afford
this new change. My initial thought is to keep everything
the same and only contribute thirty five hundred a year
to each wroth ira so we can take advantage of
that before we are over the income limit, and then

(06:39):
use the FSA and HSA to reimburse ourselves for daycare.
Let me know your thoughts. Looking forward to hearing your advice.
If you make it to Richmond, there is at least
twenty breweries to visit, most are in walking distance.

Speaker 1 (06:55):
Thanks so much, all right, Kelly, thank you so much
for listening to the podcast since twenty twenty. Joel, that's
back when I feel like that's when we were we
started taking it a little more seriously. Back then. We've
always taken it seriously. We just maybe we took it
more seriously twenty I mean we did because early on
we're like, we're not let's be honest, we weren't looking
for another hobby.

Speaker 2 (07:14):
We were looking for something for us to actually do.
We wanted this, this podcast to take off and to succeed.
But twenty twenty, specifically, is what I'm thinking of, is
when we launched the Friday Fight. Yeah, the episodes where
we were diving into the news a little bit more so, Kelly,
we appreciate you being with us since then.

Speaker 1 (07:29):
I still I love doing the Friday Flights, But can
you do you remember, Matt, just how things were changing,
like every every week it was fast moving back. It
was like shifting sands, and we were covering so much
stuff going on. It felt like the Friday Flights were like,
it's so important back then. I still love those episodes, yea,
but man, they were like.

Speaker 2 (07:47):
It was more of a lifeline and a little more
necessary at that point, especially because we were recording like
three weeks in advance at that point, and we weren't
addressing the fact that there was a pandemic going on,
and folks were like, hey, guys, how about some about
this novel coronavirus that's in the streets.

Speaker 1 (08:03):
We're like, oh, wait, we have to shift things up
if we're gonna go full time exactly. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (08:07):
But Kelly, I also want to say congrats on the
soon to be additioned.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
There to your family. It sounds like you.

Speaker 2 (08:13):
Have set yourself up well for the ability to make
this pivot, to be able to grow your family, to
take on additional daycare costs, which are pretty significant. There's
been plenty written about the rising costs of daycare, and
my guess is that it's at least a part of
the reason for the declining birth rates that we're seeing.
Folks are like, I just can't afford like even just

(08:35):
somebody watching my kid while I'm able to go out
there and try to earn a living.

Speaker 1 (08:38):
It does make you think twice.

Speaker 2 (08:39):
The economics of growing your family has been getting a
bit more difficult, and I think in most families they
have to decide whether or not they can afford it.
Many families and make the difficult decision of you know,
having a parent quit their job or at least maybe
take a sabbatical hiatus. I don't know, once they reach
the point of having two or three kids, right, Like
once there's a double triple war score. When it comes

(09:00):
to those daycare costs, it gets a lot.

Speaker 1 (09:02):
More expensive than it doesn't make financial sense, yeah, given
the tax savings and not having to pay for childcare. Yeah,
especially if they're preschool aged, right because one thing can
start getting into kindergarten, first grade, and you've got a
couple at least in uh school, and then you're talking
about maybe daycare for just one or two. Then you
can make a different decision. But you're right management, Let's

(09:25):
say you got three kids five and under the childcare
bill can be astronomical.

Speaker 2 (09:28):
I don't want to go back to not to mention
the diaper bills. It was an awesome time, but I
appreciate where we are now.

Speaker 1 (09:35):
Also, yeah, I'm a little bit less tired these days
than I was back then as well. But there's actually
some new data out specifically about the cost of childcare
and out of the state of Tennessee. Well, they found
that it costs more to pay for your child's daycare
than it does to afford in state tuition for college. Jez.
So you think about as a parent, You're like, oh man,

(09:57):
you got tons of time to save up for college,
Well you don't for daycare, right, and you got nine
months sucker, right, exactly, get your act together. So childcare
now costs more than college in thirty four out of
the fifty states. So again, for college, you have let's say,
eighteen years to save to invest to prepare for the
high expense. But you know, you just don't have that

(10:19):
when you're talking about saving up and affording that. Childcare
and having a kid has always involved trade offs and
it has always impacted family finances, but it just does
seem like the stakes are higher these days. And Kelly
mentioned what fifteen thousand dollars a year is what it's
going to cost for kind of full time childcare. Well,
I think she said fifteen thousand dollars more to come up,

(10:40):
So maybe maybe she's even paying like fourking out thirty
annually for both of her kids with childcare. That's it's
a lot. There's a lot of money, but it also
doesn't seem out of the realm of normalcy for like
fifteen thousand dollars a kid.

Speaker 2 (10:53):
So specifically, she's asking which particular accounts should you dial
back on? And I'm gonna say that your analysis, I
think is spot on. Definitely keep that dependent care FSA
because that's just getting a straight up tax break for
money that you are going to be spending no matter what.
And then you know you're mentioning dropping contributing to your

(11:14):
roth IRA. I would one hundred percent do that. I
would because you mentioned you've got that HSA and rather
than dialing back on that account because of the fact
that the HSA is so tax advantage. It's got a
lot of times you hear it referred to as like
the triple tax advantage, but really it's a quadruple tax
advantage because you're also not paying payroll on any of
the funds that are going into your HSA. Payroll taxes

(11:36):
underrated and how expensive. Yeah, and you compare that to
a roths are awesome. We love wrath IRA's, but they
only grow tax free and only get to be withdrawn
once you hear retirement tax free. But that's only two
out of the four. With an HSA, that truly is
the ultimate retirement account. And given I guess how disciplined
it sounds like you are and just how organized you are.

(11:58):
For some folks, I would say that HSA is the
way to go when it comes to retirement savings instead,
you know what, just kind of hit the easy button.
Let's just keep definitely get the match, like you're doing
with your four one ks, but then beyond that, let's
just do the roth IRA. It's super easy. But if
you have the ability to stay organized to keep up
with qualified expenses over the years, the HSA from an

(12:18):
optimization standpoint, is one hundred percent the route I think
you should be taking when it comes to prioritizing a
retirement account.

Speaker 1 (12:26):
Yeah. I think you're I think you're right.

Speaker 5 (12:27):
Man.

Speaker 1 (12:28):
It's kind of tough to know which accounts to keep
and which ones to cut back on. I think if
Kelly was contributing above and beyond the match amount and
the four one K, well maybe I dial that back
to just the match amount, because I would prioritize the
HSA and the roth IRA above four to one K
contributions that exceed the match If that makes sense, Yeah,

(12:48):
because there's more flexibility.

Speaker 2 (12:49):
Yeah, with the roth IRA, but beyond the flexibility just
the tax advantage though with the HSA, baby, come on,
you can't beat that.

Speaker 1 (12:55):
I think it's also important to mention here, and this
might sound just trite or silly, But what about cutting
back on expenses so that you can I think you're
still going to have to cut back on your investments,
but if you can cut back on some expenses, you
might be able to continue investing more than you thought
you would be able to write. So it's highly unlikely

(13:16):
that you're going to be able to cut fifteen thousand
dollars out of your expenses and you know, dial that
back overnight so that you're able to invest just as
much as you were before and then also afford this
incredibly expensive childcare bill. But look at everything, leave no
stone unturned, insurance, cell phone bills, streaming, eating out right,
even even just like one hundred bucks a month.

Speaker 2 (13:36):
Let's be honest, they're probably not going to be doing
a whole lot of eating out right in the coming
months as well. That's true too, the lay to pair
back on the monthly budget.

Speaker 1 (13:43):
That's right. Like I think in those you know, first
months and first year, you're just eating out a whole
lot less because it's just a pain in the butt
right to get out there with a newborn. If you
save one hundred bucks a month, that's twelve hundred bucks
a year, and that's not nothing, So yeah, I mean
you might be able to save a few hundred bucks.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
And that coupled with dialing back to roth iras, I mean,
if they both have been or typically at least max
out the roth IRA's, you're looking at fourteen thousand dollars
right there, and so just by shaving some expenses here
and there, I think you could pretty easily hit that
fifteen thousand dollars mark that dollar amount for childcare. Something
else I would say too, is I think that Kelly
could use this opportunity to push for a raise because

(14:22):
there's something tangible that has impacted her life that she
can kind of point to. Because I think for a
lot of folks they might find it difficult to advocate
for themselves. They might be doing amazing work, they might
do an incredible job, but when it comes to the
annual review or kind of being in the squeaky wheel,
they have a harder time saying, hey, you know, I
think I'm worth this much. But when there's something that
sort of feels like is outside of you that you

(14:43):
can kind of point to, I think for some folks
at least it could be easier to say, hey, I've
got this bigger monthly bill that I've got to, you know,
fork out every single month.

Speaker 1 (14:50):
Now, Hey, some companies they offer childcare. That's a benefit,
that's a perk that they provide. We don't really do
that here.

Speaker 2 (14:58):
So maybe there's a way that I I could get
see some of those expenses deferred a little bit. It's
just I think an easier way to advocate for yourself
when it comes to maybe your next pay raise and
the ability to continue investing while also covering this larger
daycare costs.

Speaker 3 (15:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:13):
I like the way you framed it too. It's not
just like I had a baby, pay me more. It's like, hey, actually,
other companies who do something similar to what we do
have these additional perks that they offer people who have
who have young kids. And I think the other important
thing to mention too is that you can and should
ramp up your investments in the future. Right, So, like
I was saying, there's this gap, it's typically four or

(15:35):
five years, maybe a little longer, depending on how many
kids you have and what the time span is of
having those children that you're particularly hard up for cash
because of those childcare expenses until you reach school age,
and some people Matt they're prioritizing private school for their
kids or something like that, or they're adopting to homeschool,
so they're having a reduced income from that as well.

(15:57):
But in particular, if you're sending your kids to public school,
that takes a huge expense then off of your the
line item of your budget. So make sure that once
that happens, you're going back up and you're ramping up,
you're investing. You're thinking of this just as a season
that you're not able to invest as much, but you're
gonna hit it hard once you're able to get back

(16:17):
on track, and those kids are not costing quite as
much money, you know, once a carno goes away. By
the way, that's one thing Helly mentioned, invest that money.

Speaker 2 (16:25):
That's true, right, even though she mentioned that it's got
a zero percent I think she said it's a zero percent.

Speaker 1 (16:30):
Carlan, which is great.

Speaker 2 (16:32):
You've got to have an incredible credit score to be
able to snag one of those, and you also need
to be careful because oftentimes they roll extras into that
because they're like, hey, you're getting such a great deal here,
you may as well go for the undercarriage application.

Speaker 1 (16:43):
To make sure it doesn't rust right, don't you want that? Right?
Then you end up paying a lot for the vehicle
even though you're not paying financing costs. Yeah. And I
guess the last thing I want to mention here too, Matt,
is there might be some creative ways to reduce the
cost of childcare. And maybe that is going part time
at work and you're able to still keep the benefit
that you need and your pay is reduced twenty five

(17:04):
percent or something like that, but you're able to spend
more time with your child, but you're also not giving
up work and you're not, you know, reducing your future
career earnings. That there might be creative ways to kind
of figure this out, or some sort of nanny share.
If you've got other friends who get yeah, who have
some sort of who also have newborns, and you're like, listen,
what if we all go in together. Yeah, this nanny's

(17:24):
like forty bucks an hour, but when you split it
three ways, it's actually cheaper than our local childcare place.
And maybe they're getting more individual attention. I think there
are ways to noodle out ways to save on childcare.
It's not easy, though, that's right, But we've got more
to get to We will get to the cheap tires question. Jill,
if Aldi sold tires, would you buy your tires from Aldi? Uh,

(17:45):
we will get to that and more right after this.
All right, we're back. We've got more of your questions.
To get to more your money questions. Matt, let's get
to a question about an old retirement account and some
fees that this listener is really worried about.

Speaker 3 (18:08):
Hi, Joelan Matt, my name's Chelsea, and I really enjoyed
your podcast and I was hoping you might be able
to help answer a question for me. So my family,
which is my husband, our two young daughters, and myself.
We've been on my employer's high deductible healthcare plan for
the past several years, and I've contributed the annual maximum

(18:30):
to my HSA Health Savings account. But earlier this year,
my husband got a new job and we switched to
his healthcare plan and I now max contributions to an FSA.
But that means I can no longer contribute to my
HSA and I just noticed that I'm now paying a
five dollars per month maintenance fee on my HSA account

(18:52):
since I'm no longer making new contributions, So I was
wondering if you had any advice on a no fee
HSA account that I could transfer it. I looked into Fidelity,
but the fees for balances over twenty five thousand dollars
would be more than what I'm currently paying. And I
guess did you have any other ideas potentially too, about

(19:13):
how we might maximize both of our health insurance plans.
I kind of looked into this when we initially switched,
but it seemed pretty complex with trying to combine FSAs
and hsas, and I honestly just went with one plan
for simplicity. But I'm wondering if I maybe am not

(19:34):
maximizing the options we have there. So yeah, I would
just really appreciate any advice that you had for I guess,
using the two healthcare plans or just options for no
fee hsas. Thanks a lot, Joel.

Speaker 2 (19:47):
I noticed that you said a retirement accounts, which is
exactly how we should be thinking about the health savings account,
not as a way to cover healthcare expenses.

Speaker 1 (19:55):
It's just not how most people think about it, and indeed
it's partly because of the naming convention. So condolences Chelsea
on the loss of your retirement account, which feels overly dramatic.
Can we play some like funeral dirge music? The FSA?
So the flexible Spending Account for healthcare expensive, that's solid,
but it's not nearly as good from a long term perspective,
which is how we like to view the health savings account.

(20:17):
But still, it's amazing that you've been able to sock
away more than twenty five thousand dollars into your HSA.
And honestly, that's a good problem to have, the fact
that you have this account that's available to you because
it's open, because you have money in there, that you've
been so diligent about putting money in there that they're
now saying, hey, you can't get something for nothing once
you send some of your dollars our away.

Speaker 2 (20:35):
This is something that we want you to avoid it,
especially given the fact that this is something that you're
gonna pay in perpetuity, right, the fact that like we're
talking five dollars a month, but like chances are that
dollar amounts will going to go up from here, and
the fact is you're probably planning to hang onto this
account for twenty, possibly thirty years.

Speaker 1 (20:52):
Yeah, that's right. It's not a months of paying this
perpetual fee. So if you can find a way to
nip it in the bud. Now, yeah, bucks a month
sounds minimal, but five bucks a month repeating every single
month for decades, that's the worst place it adds up. Yeah.
The truth is though, on the HSA front, Matt, the
average AHSA comes with fees like this. So, uh, you know,

(21:14):
almost all HSA providers charge an annual or a monthly
account fee. Many have really subhar investment options too. So
while we love hsas from a tax perspective, but when
you look at the providers who are offering hsas, they
impose more fees than what you're able to get typically
in the four to one k or ira sphere. So

(21:36):
these accounts, they have their issues to contend with. Even
though we like them, it doesn't mean they're perfect. And
again that varies significantly provided a provider, sure, and even
within providers. So you know, I'm sure you thought you
turned to the right place when it came to go
into fidelity, especially all that we've said about them having
the best HSA in existence with essentially zero fees. We

(21:57):
really too, life No, No, So there are two versions
of the Fidelity HSA. One doesn't charge any account fees.
And this is the one that we've talked about here
on the show. No five dollars a month, nothing, no
percentage of your assets once you reach a certain threshold.
But I think that.

Speaker 2 (22:14):
Possibly what you saw is that is that if you
are a Fidelity Go customer, which is there, it's more
of a it's a newer offering. It's kind of like
a robo advisory sort of service, you'll have to pay
a zero point three to five percent fee, which can
really add up. It would it would quickly be more
than the five dollars a month that you're currently being charged.
That's one balance is over twenty five thousand dollars. So

(22:35):
even that right there you're looking at, I think it's
something closer to eighty eight bucks right out of the
gate every single year, as opposed to paying that flat
five dollars a month leading to sixty a year.

Speaker 1 (22:45):
Yeah, and as the balance grows like that, eighty eight
is going to turn into a he couple lot more
as your HSA continues to crush. If invested in the
stock market, right, and Matt, this is actually this makes
me think of something we've talked about in the past
is Fidelity's target date fund offerings. They have two different
versions of that as well, and so this can be
confusing to people who go to Fidelity's website. It has

(23:07):
confused me in the past. And one of those target
date offerings is vastly inferior to the other. One comes
with like a point eight expent ray show and the
others like a point eight expensory show. So the ever
so similar oh so different, Yes, exactly. So the same
thing is true here with this AHSA if you go

(23:27):
the wrong path and you can opt for the expensive one,
but you certainly don't have to, and we would recommend
the cheaper version on both accounts. So you want to
opt specifically for the self directed Fidelity HSA, not the
managed Fidelity GO HSA accounts. This also means you're gonna
be able to choose your own investments, including and this

(23:48):
is what we recommend typically for the average investor in
the wealth building phase of their life, a super low
cost s and P five hundred fund. They also have
their better target date funds at your disposal inside of
the self directed HSA as well, So we would say yes,
go ahead and make the switch to Fidelity. You will
get rid of all those account fees, let those HSA

(24:09):
dollars grow without paying any fees at all. Just got
to make sure you choose the right one totally.

Speaker 2 (24:15):
And my guess is that you switch to your husband's
new healthcare plan because it just makes more financial sense
for your family.

Speaker 1 (24:21):
You mentioned your two daughters, you.

Speaker 2 (24:22):
Know, like that despite losing access to an HSA, I'm
assuming that you've got superior coverage for less money, and
that's great. This is an instance where we don't want
the tail to wag the dog. And I'm actually going
to go revisit something I said about the condolences on
the HSA, because because I would like to maybe let's
change the language around here a little bit.

Speaker 1 (24:39):
I'm going to say that there is a perspective shift.

Speaker 2 (24:42):
When it comes to how you view your HSA, Like
I want you to look back at your HSA and think.

Speaker 1 (24:46):
You know what, it was so great to be able
to sock that money away away when I had it,
But now.

Speaker 2 (24:50):
There are other benefits that are available to move or
even if there's not additional benefits, let's says just as
decent of a plan.

Speaker 1 (24:57):
Things change seasons changed.

Speaker 2 (24:59):
Jev as the philosopher group Future Islands Once No once
say not to get too sappy. It makes me think
of a friend who recently was talking about how she
misses her babies, like her girls are grown up now
and they're no longer babies or no longer in that
kindergarten sort of phase of life. But you know what,
there are some massive advantages. So when your kids are

(25:19):
able to win their own butt and feed themselves and
to clean their own.

Speaker 1 (25:22):
Room, I'm not mad about that.

Speaker 2 (25:24):
I'm not I'm mad about it, like and so it's
it's just a different stage of life. And so as
opposed to thinking man like just pining for the HSA
and what was at that point the sweetest account that
you had access to, things are different. Now you still
have that account, certainly invested, invested aggressively, let it grow,
but then look on to just maybe some of these
other ways that you can grow your wealth over time.

Speaker 1 (25:44):
And you and I we have always sung the praises
of HSA's and talked about the massive benefits that they
can bring. All the while you and I neither of
us have had access to an hl I've never contributed
to an HSA. Ever, yeah, so part of me is like, oh, man,
wouldn't it have been nice? But also so you kind
of have to work with what you got. And some people,
a lot of people listening don't have access to an

(26:05):
hs HSA, either they're not in a high deductible healthcare
plan or they don't have the additional funds to stick
into an HSA. And so yeah, they're like, oh, great, guys,
I wish I could use all those dollars to be
able to invest for my future as well, But I
got to spend that on whatever sick visits though, Yeah,
that are bleeding us dry every time we have to
go and to see the doctor, sir, especially new or
how the money listeners, right, they're like, I'm trying to
pay off the credit card, dead guys. Let's talk about that,

(26:26):
and we will we talk about that on the show too, Matt,
Let's get to our next question. I think this one's
a good frugaler cheap, specifically about the tires you put
on your ride.

Speaker 6 (26:35):
Hey, Matt and Joel, this is Joe from Fairfax, Virginia.
I had a question about tires. My dad always bought
the cheapest value tires, and you know said the reason
he did that because they're so highly regulated. You can't
really buy a bad tire in America. So that's what
I've always done. But I was just curious what you're
what you guys do, Do you buy the value tires

(26:56):
or do you see any reason to upgrade? We're just
driving around town, not doing any off roading or anything
crazy like that. Thanks a lot.

Speaker 2 (27:05):
Oh, I actually know very little about automobile tire regulations, Joel,
but I feel like this is a classic. This is
such a great frugal or cheap It's a question of
are you able to gain the value out of something
that you're paying a premium on that you're paying more
than maybe what's necessary out of something that pretty much
you know, everyone out there and is driving around something
that they are faced with on a fairly regular basis.

Speaker 1 (27:26):
Yeah, it is a good question. It's basically part of
the question is are there, you know, the equivalent of
store brands and name brands in tires, and am I
getting the additional benefit out of paying more for the
name brands once I see all the commercials for so
we will talk about that, and Matt, I think part
of this comes down to people's income, money gear, where
they're at in their money progress, and kind of what

(27:47):
financial goals they have for themselves as well. When I
was first starting out, I was so intent on saving
every penny that I even bought used tires at times
at those roadside shops. We've all seen them. Some of
them are like twenty four to seven. No, I just thought, oh,
this is going to help me save money on the
tires I need to upgrade because they're what thirty five
bucks a pop or whatever. So I'm thinking of one
that used to be in our old neighborhood on the

(28:08):
main street. Where is that what you're talking about. I
never got them there, but that was a shady one.
That was a really shady one. Yeah, that's one that
I feel like, I'm like, where did you get these tires?

Speaker 2 (28:17):
Did you pull these directly off somebody that was overnight parking?

Speaker 4 (28:22):
Live?

Speaker 1 (28:22):
No, it's weird, and I think the truth is it
probably saves you money in the moment, but it's not
the best long term money saving strategy, right, Like putting
used tires on your car, especially if they're like mismatched
used tires, it's not a brilliant move. I think I'm
glad you've come around, Joel. I mean, we all did things,
at least I did in my twenties to experiment to
save money that I'm no longer willing to do. We've

(28:43):
talked about donating plasma on the show before, right, and
at the time, when my income was not great, donating
plasma made more sense from a time perspective, Right, I
was willing to donate my time for fifty bucks because
or forty, but I forget what PLASMI to pay.

Speaker 2 (29:00):
But you can probably more like one fifty today, which
it might be with this sounds pretty good at the
cost of one tire right there.

Speaker 1 (29:06):
Right exactly. But yeah, I just am not willing to
do it. I also didn't have kids back then, so
the hoops I would jump through to save a buck
were significant. I value my time more than I did,
and I'm just no longer willing to go to those
links totally.

Speaker 2 (29:19):
I think it's also worth pointing out that so according
to consumer reports, the big name brands that you're used
to seeing do perform better. So like Michelin Continental, they yes,
they do spend more on advertising. It takes maybe like
a split second to recall the Michelin man we can
all picture him in our minds or even Continental.

Speaker 1 (29:36):
He even likes food too, right, and he gives like
star ratings to restaurants.

Speaker 2 (29:39):
Which is a whole another fascinating thing that they were. Yeah,
how the Michelin guide came about. Yeah, but Continental that like,
I feel like a lot of folks or at least
I can see the typeface written out, like they've kind
of got like a unique script, Like I don't even
watch racing or like Formula one, but I feel like
I can picture it written on the like what are
the barriers, you know, like on the side of the track.
But the fact is that according to consumer reports tests,

(30:02):
those nicer tires actually perform better, so you are getting
a better product for your money. Specifically Michelin and Continental,
I think they're like number one and number two when
it comes to tire performance. But I think the biggest
question is do you need that additional performance? And he said, Joe,
he said, he's not doing any off roading or anything
like that.

Speaker 1 (30:21):
Are you also doing any like high speed racing. What
kind of cornering are you doing? Because that does have
an impact, at least for me, the money that I
would be willing to spend on tires, and specifically not
just like how I'm driving, but if there's somebody else
driving the vehicle, Like luckily we don't have teenage drivers yet,
think the insurance gods out there, But when the time

(30:42):
comes and we've got kids who are driving, I think
I'm going to be less prone to maybe take the
more affordable tire.

Speaker 2 (30:48):
Like every additional bit of performance is something I'm going
to kind of be kind of weighing in my mind
of like, all right, maybe I do want to spend
twenty dollars more per tire in order to get the
higher performance version.

Speaker 1 (30:59):
Where are they going to be driving? That's something else
I'm thinking of too, Like if it's just like Hugel,
where when it's pouring on rain, sometimes occasionally you'll like
drive into the office. We don't every single day walk
or ride our bikes to the office just ninety six
percent of the time only probably like ninety eight ninety
nighters at the time you are walking or riding your bikes.
But if you're just putting around town on surface streets, right,
like on low speed streets, there's a big difference in

(31:22):
what I'm expecting out of my tires as opposed to
someone who's on the interstate constantly. You know, if you
are regularly driving eighty miles per hour, okay, and the
conditions vary, like if it's pouring down raid, well, I'm
going to be more likely to go with a higher
performance try or something that rates better. And I'm going
to be more likely to swap those tires out as
well once they once the tread, once it starts getting

(31:42):
what do they say, like below five thirty seconds of
an inch or something like that, to be like start
planning on a replacements or tenny to check the tied
up right.

Speaker 2 (31:50):
But uh, I think if it was just me driving Joe,
I'm gonna be much more willing to roll the dice
a little bit, drive a little more carefully, knowing that, hey,
my stopping distance might be a little bit increased. But
with all those other factors in mind, I think that
might steer me in a slightly more performance minded direction.

Speaker 1 (32:07):
So, Matt, I don't know about you, but where I
get my tires now is Costco And so would you
get your tires from Aldigel if that's something that that
they stole, well, I would want to read the reviews
but my assumption is based on everything else. All he
turns out is that they do pretty solid stuff for
a lot less money. And so if they followed that
same program with tires, I'd get my brain new tires

(32:28):
at all.

Speaker 2 (32:28):
What if they're on like the seasonal aisle where you've
got like the Christmas decorations, like when they're selling out
a discount and there's also four tires just to install.

Speaker 1 (32:35):
Them yourself, Yeah, I'm probably not doing that. Yeah, I
wouldn't do that. So I think Costco is such a
great place to go because especially when they have like
quarterly sales and you can get eighty or one hundred
bucks off or whatever it is. It might not be
the absolute lowest price, the absolute best deal that you
can get, but it's a competitive price. And then on
top of that, here's why I like buying from Costco.

(32:56):
There are other significant benefits that a whole lot of
people you kind of underrate. You're looking at like the
walkout price, but then you're not looking at the benefits
after the fact, right the warranty and maintenance that adds
a lot, I think to the value proposition that Costco offers.
If you need to get your tires rotated or balanced.
Think about how much money that can cost over time.
Or you just need a tire plug because there's a

(33:16):
there's a hole in your tire. It's free if you
bought your tires at Costco. True and Matt. You're talking
about the difference between performance levels of different tires, and
I'm not I have not done enough research to know
how different like one Michelin versus a BF Goodrich versus
a Continental can be. If you want to wait into
those weeds, you totally can. I'm just looking for a

(33:38):
good tire at a solid price, and ordering from a
company who stands behind the product and the installation. I think, yeah,
Costco is that they hit that sweet spot for me.
I'm paying more than I used to bind use tires,
but at this point in my life, it's worth it.
And part of it is just kind of the peace
of mind that provides.

Speaker 2 (33:56):
Sure, if you can get an appointment schedule with our
low coal costco is. I tried for multiple weeks when
it came time for us to get our tires replaced,
and I couldn't get on the freaking schedule.

Speaker 1 (34:06):
Oh really, And that was even when they would pick
up They're like, yeah, we're booked for are you talking
like two weeks from now?

Speaker 2 (34:10):
And I'm just like, oh, geez, I don't know. I
was looking at like this coming Friday. And so that
being said, I was wanting to do Costco because they
did have a decent sale coming up. But I guess
when they do have their sales, they the calendar gets
really full, I bet, And so instead I reached out
to the Discount Tire and that is where I went,
and they when you buy a tire from them, they
also do free flat repairs. They do free balancing, free

(34:33):
rotations on tires that you purchase and that they install,
and there you can also buy just more like off
brand tires and say specifically, the last time I was there,
when I got two tires replaced, I was able to
go with this Falcon brand. Oh yeah, so it's not
Falcon like or something like that. But no, honestly, I

(34:56):
think Falcon rates.

Speaker 1 (34:58):
Higher, so as F A L K E. N. I
think they rate higher. Falcon like Rylo Kin. I guess
that's funny.

Speaker 2 (35:06):
Yeah, But so I was standing there in the like
in the store, and he mentioned that these were like
a good value, and so I literally pulled it up
on the spot and was able to see that these
Falcons rate pretty dang high. They're not as they're not better.

Speaker 1 (35:19):
Bro, he give those tam Moo tires.

Speaker 2 (35:21):
So I kind of felt like that when he mentioned originally,
But when I pulled him up on Consumer Reports and
saw that they were like fifth and they were only
the fifth one down from you know, the michelin Man.

Speaker 3 (35:30):
I felt.

Speaker 1 (35:30):
I was like, Okay, I felt pretty good about it.
I was like, hey, let's go with this Falcons and
add a note of confidence. He's just like, good choice. Actually,
those are the exact same tires I have on my car.
That's anecdotal, but it still made me feel feel good
about it. I think it's a good point to point
people towards a third party, unbiased tire reviewer, and that
is Consumer Reports. And I sure I trust Consumer Reports

(35:52):
when it comes to car reviews and reliability ratings. Why
not also look at tire ratings as well? And I
think if you're if they're in that, if they're in
that top upper echelon that top twenty percent, I'm more
than willing to consider a tire brand i've never heard of.
If Consumer Reports say are good they were even they
were way better than Goodyear. I remember being surprised, as
I'm like, okay, who are they better than? And it

(36:12):
was like they were better than some of these other
name brand tires that you had heard of. It's attorney
to Consumer Reports, because in the store he also.

Speaker 2 (36:18):
Had like their own reviews, you know, like their own
sort of database where they're like, Okay, this number of
customers rate this one, you know, this highly that kind
of thing. And I tend to be a little more skeptical,
so I'm like, all right, man, I'm not sure if I'm.

Speaker 1 (36:29):
Gonna trust the discount tires review reviewers as opposed to
seeing at third party, But for me, that was a
big vote of confidence. I think last place that you
might want to consider looking at tires is tire rack
dot com. And that's one I've never checked out. Tirerack. Yeah,
they're great, and you can kind of buy tires on
that site and have them installed in a local shop.
And yeah, again, look at those those third party reviews

(36:52):
from a site like Consumer Reports, and then you can
do some shopping online and maybe tire Rack's got a
better price than kind of what some of these other
shops are off or what Costco is offering. And again,
if it's hard to schedule that appointment at Costco, then
it makes the price no one void, right, I get
it though, Right Like, if you are already going to
be at Costco, you're already gonna do some shopping, Go ahead,
schedule that thing. Do you have to You have to
schedule it, right, Yeah? You can't just like show up

(37:14):
and expect to be seeing good luck. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:16):
So the ability to drop your vehicle off do all
the typical shopping that you would do in the same location.
I completely understand the convenience, and so I think for
a lot of folks it comes down to what is
going to be easy for them to access, what is
going to be convenient for them, And for some folks,
I've even heard that Walmart is a solid, solid spot
to get tires as well, and I think a lot
of it depends on the individuals who are working at the.

Speaker 1 (37:38):
Specific stores there near you, no doubt. All Right, now
was yet more to get to. We clearly we have
a listener who wanted to weigh in on a recent
Friday flight segment. We'll get to that and our Facebook
Question of the Week right after this all right, buddy,
we are back from the break in.

Speaker 2 (37:58):
We're going to get to a question pertaining to the MSRP,
the suggested retail price of lost teeth on kids. But
first Amber, she's actually got a response to a recent
had A money segment.

Speaker 5 (38:12):
Hey Matt Joel, this is Amber from Vancouver, Washington. I
just heard you Friday flight where you were talking about
Capital One getting into trouble over savings accounts. Now, while back,
I had ing Direct as an online savings account which
was bought by Capital One, and after a while they
started announcing that they were getting that they were doing
the higher interest rates. I forget what it was at

(38:33):
the time, but it was like three percent, and I
never saw that in the bank in the savings accounts
that I had with them. And around that time, I
think ALI had some special transfer offer, So I just
moved everything over to Ali and didn't think twice about it.
Later I was talking to a friend and he mentioned
he called them because they were advertising this rate that

(38:55):
he obviously wasn't getting on his Capital One savings accounts,
and they told him, oh, you have to actually call
us to convert your account from this old type of
account to a new type of account. So even though
they were emailing us and saying, hey, yues, what new
interest rate, they weren't actually apply applicable to the accounts
that we had. So something to think about. And no,

(39:19):
I haven't looked into this lawsuit or whatever, but that
sort of made me think of when you mentioned have
a great day.

Speaker 1 (39:27):
Okay, Matt Amber is specifically referring to the lawsuit we mentioned.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau levey to lawsuit against Capital One,
and it is true. Capital One had multiple save these
accounts paying different rates, and the CFPB said, you guys
were being real shady about that at paying some people

(39:48):
a really high rate of interest on same these accounts
and paying other people next to nothing. One rate was
super sweet, the other not so much. And the thing
that Capital One is kind of a trouble for us
that they didn't point this out to customers in an
attempt to help them secure the best rate. The customers
who knew better asked for that account or opened that

(40:08):
account online, and the ones who didn't kind of suffered
in not getting paid very much on their savings. We
mentioned on the Friday flight that this was kind of shady.
It is a shady practice. We even talked about it
many many months ago when we found out the Capital
One had these two accounts and people were getting frustrated
by it, and we said, listen, make sure you open

(40:28):
the performance save these account because that one pays a
heck of a lot more. But we also noted that
Capital One's less beneficial save these account their worse one
was still better than what the big banks were offering. True,
we thought it was interesting that the CFPB targeted them
when the big banks paid nothing on savings, have for
many many years, and they never get in any sort
of trouble for not caring about their customers. I don't

(40:51):
know where this lawsuit is going to go, but I
do think it is incumbent upon us to know the
rate that we're getting paid and to move, whether that's
to a different, diferent bank account within the bank we
currently do business with, or it is to another bank altogether,
if the rates and or the customer service are not
up to stuff totally.

Speaker 2 (41:09):
And this is a great excuse to be able to
talk about irong Direct, which Amber mentioned. I'm guessing there's
a lot of folks or a lot of listeners who
don't know anything about Ing Direct. They had the Lion,
remember the like the little lion logo. They were the best,
and specifically their Electric Orange account, which this is a
great name was It's like hey, world, the Internet, it's electric.

(41:30):
But they were really Look, they were the first customer
centric online bank out there. They changed things from the
ground up. They ushered in like this new era of service.
I think it was like, was it five Joeld?

Speaker 1 (41:42):
Is that what? Like?

Speaker 2 (41:42):
When I think back, that's what That's what I remember
signing up for my ing Direct Electric Orange account. But
because of them, I don't think banks like Ally or
C or Discover, I don't think they would even exist
in their current formation had Ing not paved the way.
And then of course Capital One came along they bought Ing.
Everyone was nervous, ourselves included, but Capital One for the

(42:04):
most part, it hasn't changed much of the service that
they're offering at that point, other than of course the name.

Speaker 1 (42:09):
And even with this sort of what I would call
a short sighted two savings account in this step, I'm
still a fan of Capital One. It's where we have
our business account. And Jah, I know there have been
times when you've had all of your money over there
with Capital One as well. Yeah, I have accounts with
multiple banks, Capital one is still one of them, and
I just actually opened up a new account or two
new accounts with Capital One because they offered a bonus. Well, no,

(42:31):
they offered the best, in my estimation from all my research,
kids accounts. So if you want saving these accounts with
debit cards for your kids and you don't want to
pay you know, we've talked in the past about green
Light and go Henry. Those are great specific apps set
up to help teach kids about money, and they offered
them a debit card and those are fun and great,
but those cost money. And so if you want a

(42:53):
free option with less bells and whistles, Capital one is
the only one I know of offering something like that.
They call them teen accounts, but you can actually open
them up for kids who are even younger. My girls
are nine and eleven. I think they just have to
be eight and over and so they just have to
be alive. No, I actually have a child. I don't
think my five year old would qualify. They have to

(43:13):
be over a certain age. But the Capra one is
still offering a lot of great perks and I guess
I just don't think that the CFIV lawsuit should cause
anyone to balk of doing business with them, thinking, oh man,
this is some sort of you know, cruddy institution. They're
not treating their customers, right, I just don't think that's
the case. And again, make sure you're in the performance
savings if you have an adult savings account with them,

(43:35):
not the other samans account that pays the crummy rate.
I think those are called post teen accounts. Yeah, that's right. Yeah,
But I guess if this, if it does give you
pause seeing this lawsuit or or seeing the way Capital
One acted in this in this case, Ally and c
I those are great alternative choices for where to put
your money. But I guess I just want to highlight. Man,
there's a lot of great stuff, and both Matt and

(43:57):
I do business with Capital One, and so yeah, this
one faux pop. It's not going to change my relationship
with them. It wouldn't. Yeah, I wouldn't personally make me nervous. So,
speaking of kids and money, let's now get to the
Facebook question of the Week, which is from Wendy. She wrote,
my kids are just starting to lose their teeth and
someone suggested that the tooth fairy leave well tooth fairies capitalized,

(44:17):
which is kind of cute as well. It's proper now
a proper entity. Here, someone suggested the tooth fairy should
leave five dollars enough to spend, donate, invest and save. Realistically,
what can the five year old start investing in? And
how what do you think about that? A Joel five bucks?
What is the suggested retail of a tooth over at

(44:37):
your house. That's a good question. I that's not what
I'm paying. I'll know, five bucks. I was shocked to see.
Maybe and maybe that isn't going rate and inflation has
just been tamed on the tooth front in our house
in particular.

Speaker 2 (44:49):
Maybe they this is the tooth fairy from the Bay
Area or up in Manhattan or something like that.

Speaker 1 (44:53):
Yeah, maybe on the on the elite coastal cities. This
is what the tooth fairy in Tokyo and London. She pays.
Our tooth fairy pays a dollar twenty five. But on
top of that, our tooth fairy leaves a kinderreg under
the pillow of each kid. So like the opposite of
what the tooth fairy should be advocating for sure. I'm
sure Dennis everywhere are are shocked and appalled by what

(45:15):
our tooth fairy leaves. But I just don't feel the need,
I think, to fork over five bucks per tooth per
kid tooth theories because you know other people around you
are doing it. It's totally fine if you want to,
but that really can add up, man, five bucks a
tooths a lot.

Speaker 2 (45:30):
Yes, I mean, I guess if you want to use
those tooth fairy dollars to start teaching about donating, saving
and investing, that's certainly admirable, But I would push back
on the fact that a larger dollar amount would allow
you to do that more easily, because I'm just going
to think back to a long time ago, back when
I was a little kid, and when I was getting
paid for jobs by my parents. It was typically like

(45:51):
a dollar to do something. And guess how I received
that dollar. It wasn't a single one dollar bill jol.
I was paid in dimes, So I received ten dimes.
And this was I think in part because my dad
wanted to. My parents were teaching me how to be
generous and how to be a giver, specifically how to
tie I thin give money to our local church, and
it was like, all right, you ice take off one
of those dimes, and that's the dime that you give.

(46:14):
And so as long as you are paying your kids
or they're you know, whatever they're receiving from the tooth fairy,
is isn't just like a bill or denomination that's difficult
to break down. I still think there are lessons you
can teach. Yeah, and I still think that the kids
see that as valuable as well. Like I guess what
I'm pointing to is the fact that like at least
with our younger kids, they don't see like bills being

(46:35):
more valuable as coins, like for them, you mean, I'm
thinking of my five year old.

Speaker 1 (46:39):
He thinks the more coins he gets the better. So
just more units, more denominations. Yeah, it's less about the
actual dollar amount. It's about having more stuff to play
around with, exactly.

Speaker 2 (46:48):
And so I almost think, like, I don't know, as
long as you can break it. Yeah, I don't want
to say the more the better or it's better to
have coins. But as long as you are giving them money,
or that they are earning money, or that they are
gifted money in a way that allows them to direct
that money in different ways, whether it is saving, whether
it's investing, spinning it at the store, or giving that
money away.

Speaker 1 (47:06):
I think that's to me, like that is the task
that falls upon us.

Speaker 2 (47:11):
Like that's where we as parents are incumbent to make
sure that we are not being I don't call it laziness,
but like it's pretty easy to say, all right, here's
you know, a five dollar bill or here's a one
dollar bill, as opposed to having to take bills into
the store, breaking up bills from twenties even down to
ones to where we can even pay our dollar daughter
for babysitting, like that kind of thing. That's literally a

(47:32):
situation in a scenario that we found ourselves in recently
where I'm just like, man, we need more ones. But
we always use our credit cards because we're looking to
maximize the advantages that we're receiving via points and all that.
But what we need to do is go in break
up some of those twenties so that we can more
effectively pay our kids for some of the different chores
and jobs.

Speaker 1 (47:46):
That they're doing. But they look at your little scants
when you're like, I need one hundred ones, what are
you up to, sir?

Speaker 2 (47:51):
Yeah, I've literally had not even joking, I've had this
some day to do list to take a twenty or
a couple twenties in and just you know, next time
on that aldy to say, hey, do you mind breaking
this in to attend you know a five five ones,
like just something other than a large bill that the
kids can do something with.

Speaker 1 (48:06):
And you're talking about kind of the coin approach of
the five year old. I think that works with a
five year old, less so with a ten or eleven
year old, right, because totally agree, they then at this
point understand money and now having more dollars as opposed
to more units, right, more coins, it actually impacts their
ability to spend or to do the things they want
to do. So you can't really get away with that

(48:27):
once the kids get a certain age, but five years
old you totally can. And actually you might be helping
them by doing that. And I don't want to discourage
you from teaching your five year old about investing or
or some of these finer points of personal finance. You
know that tooth fairy money. It might be able to
help out in that regard, but I think given their

(48:47):
lack of real financial resources and their ability to understand
maybe as much as you'd like them to at that age.
Like I'm still trying to talk to my eleven year
old and nine year old about investing, and it is
low going. Yep, my five year old, I have a
five year old two. Yeah, that conversation is not gonna
go over. Is there a sword involved? Yeah, exactly. He's

(49:09):
gonna be like, Okay, not interested, Sorry, bud, got a dad.
Can we just like play with cards or something? And
it's not really that you can't have any sort of
productive money money conversation, but maybe just temper your expectations
talking about compounding or turns or something like that that's
going to go right over their heads. Well, and this
is coming. I think this is a mistake that I mean,
I'll let you speak for yourself, but I know that
I made for sure early on because I think our

(49:31):
oldest daughters, I think they were around five, six or
seven years old maybe where I was trying to teach
her about investing and compounding returns, and initially because I
was like, all right, it needs to be a big
enough return that she sees some progress. So what I'm
gonna do is call it a match because that's something
that she's going to experience out in the real world, right,
contributing to a four to one K.

Speaker 2 (49:50):
So we're gonna call it the match. But then I realized, well,
she's more likely to realize interest and see returns on
investments that way, So then I kind of change the
name of it from the match to interest instead. And
I wanted it to be weekly so that she it
was recurring and not something that she only thought about
like once a year.

Speaker 1 (50:07):
And what I realized is that I overcomplicated it at
least for that age.

Speaker 2 (50:10):
At least for that age exactly, and especially when we're
talking about a five year old, like this is something
These are real conversations that we're having now within an
eleven year old about opening a roth ira with babysitting earnings,
that kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (50:21):
But I think the desire for us to teach our
kids about investing how that can potentially overshadow some of
the more basic lessons which I think are the biggest
things that we need to enforce, like the teaching our
kids the value of a dollar. Oh that I think
that should come before them understanding how it is that
they should be investing their dollars. Yeah, yeah, I agree

(50:42):
with you. I think it's also important to note that
teaching smart money management is a long play. They're going
to imitate you more than they're going to follow what
you say. And I realized that in basically everything when
it comes to parenting is they're going to do as
I do, not do as I say. And so when
it comes to how you handle your money, they are
watching even at the age of five.

Speaker 2 (51:03):
So how you talk about your money, how you are
talking about different expenses, different things that you're spending your
money on.

Speaker 1 (51:09):
Yeah, all of those things. Man, So kids are such sponges. Yeah,
so I think tooth fairy money great. And can you
use it to teach lessons? Yes, at the age of five,
we're talking about like ten words of teaching that you
can accompany with it because their attention span and their
capacity just is pretty small. So yeah, as they get older,

(51:30):
you're going to be able to kind of pour in
and teach more and more. Totally. Man, Okay, it's beer time.
Let's get back to the beer review of the beer
that you and I enjoyed during this episode, and I
will say the craft beer. We're not just drinking like
Macro Pilsner's here on the show. That kind of thing. Definitely.

Speaker 2 (51:44):
These are the beers that you and I enjoy are
like works of art. These are the Michelin of beers,
the Michelin Star Beard. This is the rum barrel aged
out fermented with Bretta nomiases. What do you think about
this one, buddy?

Speaker 1 (51:57):
So the first thing that hits you is the rum sweetness.
I mean, I think this year was aged for eighteen
plus months in rum barrels and you taste that heavy
rum sweetness.

Speaker 2 (52:08):
Before we even get into it, like the smell of it,
like it's a combination. It almost made me think of bananas,
like you know, like you get a right banana and
it's got like this over like kind of over the
top sort of sweetness.

Speaker 1 (52:19):
That is associated with at huh, That's.

Speaker 2 (52:21):
Totally where my mind went, which then made me think
of what's the banana dessert? Like a flame bananas foster,
like where it's on fire and that whole thing. It
almost had a richness that you would expect from a
really fancy dessert like that.

Speaker 1 (52:33):
Dark and rich is what I was thinking, Yes, for sure.
And they used Breton to Miacees in the making of
this beer, which is a type of yeast that often
adds kind of a funky element. I didn't get as
much of that. Yeah, I'm not smart enough to understand,
but it can often yield like funky flavors in the
final results. This had I think maybe a little bit

(52:53):
on the front end, but it dissipated quickly. So I've
had some of their beers and like that would have
made it even more interesting. I think if if the
Bretton mices had been played a larger role, well, but yeah,
it would have been a little more unique. At least
it's super.

Speaker 2 (53:05):
Fascinating cause typically, like if when you characterize the beer
as bready, it's like, in my mind, it tends to
be drier, like like a lot of times they're associated
with farmhouses or seasons, but they're not typically.

Speaker 1 (53:15):
Beers that are higher in like the sweetness index.

Speaker 2 (53:18):
But yeah, I had a hard time getting past the
rum because it like it tastes like they were just
like rum soaked raisins in here that were liquefied that
were now drinking. Oh yeah, which I don't know maybe
that was the case, but almost like, yeah, what what's
the candy? The raisins are covered in chocolates and that's yeah,
it's like that, but Asian rum barrels just sasd in
here soaked in a rum. Yeah, really unique, super delicious,
and maybe a fantastic beer to enjoy. I don't know,

(53:41):
maybe when it's like fifteen degrees outside, which it may
or may not be at this exact moment.

Speaker 1 (53:46):
Right, all right, Matt, that's gonna do it. For this episode,
we will link to some of the resources we mentioned
in the answers to your questions up on our website
at howtomoney dot com. You know it. So, until next time, Buddy,
best Friends out best Friends out

Speaker 3 (54:04):
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Matthew Altmix

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