Ask HTM - Jumping Back Into the Workforce, HELOC Cash Grab, and Free Life Insurance Gotchas #1021

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 - How do I calculate whether it’s worth it to jump back into the work force?

2 - Should I take out a HELOC on my home in order to pay off other debts?

3 - Doesn’t it make sense to take Social Security early, even if the payout is smaller?

4 - Is the free life insurance offered to me through my local credit union legit?

5 - Can I utilize a “goodwill letter” in order to ask my student loan service to remove a late payment?

 

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During this episode we enjoyed a Summer Lihing Mango by Lanikai Brewing! 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!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Had of Money.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
I'm Joel, I'm Matt.

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Today we're going to take some of your listener questions.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Dude, it's gonna be so good to get to some
listener questions. I wonder if I've missed this one of
the most the ability to directly respond to listeners. I
feel like it's been something that's been missing in our lives.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
Hearing their voices. I hear them in my sleep usually, but.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
That's different the unique questions that they have for us.
For instance, a listener she's determining whether or not she
should be going back to work. She's got a few
factors that she's weighing in her mind. Another listener, he
is wondering if he should take out a hee lock.
He essentially wants to know if it's like the Golden
ticket and if it's going to solve all of his problems.
And there are also multiple factors when it comes to

(00:59):
getting back to him as well hopefully provide some good feedback.
The listener is asking about some free life insurance that
was sent their way. Wanted to know whether or not
it was legit. So we will get to those three
plus more during our episode today.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
This is it a scam or not. And by the way,
this also means the catch people have like kind of
mostly stopped sending in listener questions Matt because they were
like those guys are gone questions folk. Some folks still
they trickled in. Yeah, but we just to let you
know if you have a money question.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
We love page out with it. Way, we're back at it.
We got to do it back in the seat. What
you got? You got a little story for us here.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
Well, I was one listener email we did get while
we were away that I was impressed by because it's
something that we've talked about. How just AI chat gpt
that kind of stuff. I've mostly stayed away and uh,
but I am curious about the use cases Kate used
AI apparently a lot on your road trip, right, especially
to find.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
The ability to type include a prompts and say, hey,
give us a three day itinerary for this city. It's
just another tool, Yeah, essentially, right, it's not to replace.
Oh maybe I should look this place up and see
whether or not they're going to be open because oh,
in fact, we're going to be there on Sunday. What
does that mean? Are the hours different? How do I
get the tickets things like that. Yeah, and of course

(02:19):
it can't replace your own judgment as to whether or
not you want to go there, like just because it's
fed to you. Yeah, obviously look it up, make sure
it's not an AI hallucination. But on top of that,
you personally need to decide whether or not this is
going to be something that you're going to be interested in.

Speaker 3 (02:32):
Well.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
One of the use is still a great tool though
for AI that I had not thought about was like
as a decision making tool and listener. Chris sent in
his thoughts on how his how he used it essentially
to decide which air conditioner to go withaus he had
to replace one at his home.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
I don't think I saw this email.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
Oh really, So he was basically saying like, hey, so
many people tell you to go with the more energy
efficient twenty.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
Sure, right, but is a go to twenty, I don't
know how it goes high? This one goes up to eleven.
But so he was like, all.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
Right, there's this massive price difference. Though if I go
for the more energy of vision one, how is it
going to save me enough over the life of the
unit to justify the increased cost? So he was asked
chat Cheapt, and chat Chept was like, Nah, man, go
with the cheaper unit, because yeah, you'll pay a little
bit more every single month, but you won't pay so
much that over the lifespan of the unit, which I

(03:25):
think they've estimated at something like twenty years, that it'll
be worth it. So go for the cheaper unit. You'll
save more money now, you won't pay more over the
life of the unit. And I think you probably maybe
could have done the math on a piece of paper
or something like that. But that's AI can be useful for.
It's a nice shortcut. Yeah, it's say it is a
nice short.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
I think that's one of the best use cases when
you have the ability to just truncate or just drastically
shortened the amount of time that you're spending researching something. Yeah,
because yeah, what was his name, maybe Chris? He was like, oh,
should I go with the stainless steel? Should I go
with the platinum in case air conditioning unit? Sure, does thelignize,
maybe it'll be more efficient. No, not worth its Out'm

(04:02):
not worth it.

Speaker 1 (04:03):
Yeah, it makes me think that maybe AI would be
a great tool for rental properties and just kind of
saying as you're thinking about making offers, Well, under what
parameters does it make sense for me to make an offer?
Or what price do I need to pay to ensure
that this is a good investment? There are you could
feed a bunch of stuff in the chat GPT and say, hey,
this is what I'm looking for. This is kind of

(04:23):
my bybox, as Chad Carson calls it, and we had.

Speaker 2 (04:26):
His episode not too long ago, Yeah, a couple of weeks.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
Yeah, And maybe AI could help you make an informed
decision there too. So maybe I have short sold AI,
not used it in the ways that I could. I
appreciate here from other people who are using.

Speaker 2 (04:37):
It, Well, I completely understand, Like is it gonna be
worth the vast amounts of money that all the companies
are pouring into it, you know, like Meta, Microsoft, Google,
Like they are all dumping ridiculous amounts of money into
AI thinking it's the next best thing. And I think
it's gonna be good, It's gonna be helpful, But is
it going to be as life changing? I don't know
right now, At least it feels more like fancy Google.

(05:00):
It's like this, Honestly, the same queries I punched into
Chat or into groc. I used rock some when we
were planning out our trip. Those are the same things
I punched into Google. You know, it's not all that
different the ability to then take that information and then
formulate what it is you're gonna do. I I don't know.
There's still magic that lies with us as humans to

(05:22):
make that best decision for ourselves.

Speaker 1 (05:23):
But let's mention the beer we're having on this episode.
This is a summer leaking mango sour from Lannie Kai.
Brewing with Kai picked up when I was in Hawaii.
So we'll give our thoughts on this at the end
of the episode.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
Any kind did Do you remember Indiana Jones and the
Temple of Doom? I do Lanni Kai? Sounds like the
thing that that one the priest. I don't know, the
guy that's like pulling people's hearts out est. Is that
what he says? Lenny Kay? Maybe Kai. It's been a while.
I don't think that's what he says.

Speaker 1 (05:51):
But I don't think they named it after Indian Jones.
I think it's literally named after like a beach or something.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
But the number of times I watched Indiana Jones and
the Temple of Doom as like probably too young, probably
as like an eight year old or something like that.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
Man, I loved, their parents would have been hauled off
to jail these days.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
The eighties, man, that's just like what you did.

Speaker 1 (06:08):
Everything flew in the eighties. All right, If you've got
a Bundy question, go to how to money dot com
slash ask for the simple directions on how to submit
yours over to us, and hopefully we'll take it next
week on the show. Matt, let's get to that question
about whether or not to go back to work? Does
it make financial sense?

Speaker 4 (06:23):
Hi? This is Bee and I hope you could help
me with this question. How do I calculate whether me
going back to work is worth doing. We don't necessarily
need me to go back to work because my husband's
income can handle all our bill's expenses and loans, but
we do want to try to pay off our house faster.

Speaker 1 (06:43):
I have a.

Speaker 4 (06:44):
Friend that said that for me going back to work,
it's not going to be worth it because after they
take out all the taxes and such for my income.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
If that is.

Speaker 4 (06:53):
True, I'm hoping to know soon so I can switch
schools for my kids. If I need to to open
up that option, it would be a sacrifice of time
away from taking care of my family in one way
or another if I decided to work. So I do
want to make sure it's worth doing. Please help you
make an informed decision.

Speaker 2 (07:11):
Man.

Speaker 1 (07:12):
I think if we had to go back to work,
Be should have to as well, don't you.

Speaker 2 (07:16):
Oh yeah, now that we're back from the bee, Yeah, yeah,
so there you go, Be. I hope you enjoy your work. No,
it's interesting because what she said was that I'm trying
to calculate whether or not this makes sense, and I
think at the maybe we'll get to it eventually, but
I think this feels more like an emotional not emotional,
but just like a personal fulfillment question as opposed to
being numbers based. But we will specifically talk about the

(07:38):
numbers here because the first play a role for her.

Speaker 1 (07:41):
You can't discount them exactly. Other stuff at play.

Speaker 2 (07:43):
Yeah. Yeah, And there are obvious benefits of going back
into the labor force. Let's say your kids are you know,
they're at school all day long like ours? Finally are Yeah, kindergartener's. Man,
it's amazing.

Speaker 1 (07:56):
I thought that day would never come from that, and
now it's here. I'm dropping them all off literally eight
oh five. I'm like, see, what does this stay hold
for me?

Speaker 2 (08:05):
Now? But maybe b is finding herself in a position
like that. I'm not totally sure because she did mention
like kids in schooling. But if that's the case, she's
got her day back. That's where Kate's at. She's like,
all right, what do I get to? What am I gonna?

Speaker 3 (08:17):
Well?

Speaker 2 (08:17):
Right now, I still feel like we're catching up getting
life back in order after the summer. But that being said,
for be there might be a world of new possibilities
that have just opened up for her. And even if
that's the case, though, I think a full time job
it might feel like too much. So we're gonna kind
of hopefully be run through the pros and cons with
you here.

Speaker 1 (08:36):
Let's talk about the advice from Bee's friend, and we
would say your friend's probably awesome, probably super smart, but
they're not quite right here. And yes, you're gonna pay
taxes on your income if you go back to work.

Speaker 2 (08:48):
That's a given.

Speaker 1 (08:49):
But the tax you pay it's not going to be
anywhere close to being in excess of your earnings. Right, So,
it is true that going from a one income house
hold to having two incomes. Yeah, it could bump you
up into a higher tax bracket, and yeah, you might
even pay a slightly higher rate on a portion of
your income. Right, But because we have a progressive tax system,

(09:13):
it's not going to mean that all of your income,
right that your family's bringing in, is going to be
taxed at this higher rate. Some people think that Matt
where it's like, well, but if we bump our income
up forty five thousand dollars, weren't in a new tax bracket,
all of a sudden, we're paying a higher percentage. It's like, no,
it's the next dollar beyond that tax tax bracket move
up that gets taxed at the high rate'll get taxed,
not all the preceding dollars, right, Yeah. Yeah, So that's

(09:35):
the difference between your marginal tax rate and your effective
tax rate, because a lot of times folks get confused
and they get it mixed up. They focus on the
marginal tax.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
Rate and you're like, oh, no, I'm now we're going
to be adding the twenty four percent tax bracket, and
it's like, well, your effective tax rate is much less
because it's including all the other previous tax brackets that
your income essentially flowed through before you arrived at that
twenty four percent.

Speaker 1 (09:58):
So I'm just pulling these numbers out of my butt.
But if you went from like the twenty two to
twenty four percent bracket, and let's say ten thousand of
the dollars to be earned at work, were it then
taxed in the twenty four percent bracket, well maybe her
effective tax rate goes from something like ten point eight
to eleven point five or something like.

Speaker 2 (10:16):
That, right to small increase.

Speaker 1 (10:17):
Yeah, it does go up, and you are paying a
higher percentage overall, but still it doesn't it doesn't negate
the benefits that you would get from increased income.

Speaker 2 (10:28):
So that's talking about the numbers. I think the biggest
deterrent to actually going back to work should be that
you just don't want to. Like it sounds like you've
got financial goals that you do want to accelerate, and
increasing your income getting that job is certainly going to
help you to get rid of that mortgage faster. You're
likely going to be able to pay it off in
years instead of decades. But I guess maybe I want

(10:50):
to push back against that particular goal because if that
is the only reason that you're looking to potentially upend
your life. The particulars matter. The details of your specific
more mortgage matter, and if you're doing I'll.

Speaker 5 (11:01):
He off that two and a half percent, that would yeah, yeah, yeah,
And so this is what a lot of times we
don't like to get into the details, but this is
an instance where knowing the terms of and you be
being familiar with the terms of your loan are incredibly
important because yeah, if you.

Speaker 2 (11:16):
Locked down a pre pandemic amazing thirty year mortgage rate,
I would not advise for you to pay that thing
off early. Other financial goals would be more pressing. Yes,
that being said, Let's say you just got this house
a couple of years ago and oh man, we're sitting
at like six point seven five percent. Well, if that
was me, I would be focusing on eliminating that mortgage

(11:38):
as soon as possible as well, because it's tough to
get you can't get a guaranteed rate of return that high,
and that's essentially what you'd be doing by tackling this
mortgage sooner.

Speaker 1 (11:47):
Well, the other thing about going back to work, when
be talking about, hey, this is going to help me
accelerate financial goals, well, she might have access to a
retirement plan via this new employer, which could help accelerate
investing goals. So maybe it's hey, all right, guys, I'll
listen to you and not pay off the mortgage quickly,
but hey, the four to one K with the match,
that's going to help me achieve my investing goals and

(12:08):
the desired amount that I'm trying to save up a lot.

Speaker 2 (12:11):
More quickly too. And that is true.

Speaker 1 (12:13):
So I think if your goal is kind of in
that direction of increasing the amount of money that you
have in retirement accounts, then that can make sense. If
you're like, how we feel like we're behind or we're
just trying to accelerate because we want to achieve financial
independence faster than going back to work, certainly.

Speaker 2 (12:30):
We'll help you do that, right, And from an orders
of operation standpoint, that would come before paying off a
high a mortgage that's high, that's low. Yeah, all of
a sudden, that low rate mortgage becomes a.

Speaker 1 (12:42):
Low priority, especially taking advantage of the match, which as
employers offer, and then yes, going back to work, it
means financial freedom, and then full financial independence could be
achieved a whole lot more quickly, especially especially and this
is key if you're spending doesn't change in a meaningful way,
because some times that happens, Matt, especially when the second
spouse goes to work, and it's like, well, now you know.

Speaker 2 (13:03):
What we need.

Speaker 1 (13:04):
We need more help, We need to pay for this
person to watch our kids in the afternoons. And then
you know what, we probably need to pay for grocery delivery.
And you know we're probably gonna eat out more because
it's a heck of a lot more convenient when I
work late nights and cooking those meals just becomes more onerous.
I get that, that makes sense, but you have to
factor all that stuff in, even have to factor in well,
so I need to buy a whole new wardrobe because

(13:25):
I'm going back to work and I'm going into the office,
a hidden costs and what about the miles I'm going
to put on my car and the gas and the intro.
I mean, like a lot of different costs could go
up as you go back to work. So I would
want to have clear eyes about what costs might increase,
what costs definitely will increase as I'm going back to work,
and just say, well, is it going to be as

(13:45):
beneficial as I thought it? Would because it's going to
involve trade offs. Right of time, it will and could
help accelerate towards those goals, but it could also increase
costs in other parts of your life.

Speaker 2 (13:56):
You know, I think even considering going back part time
could be a good solution for be And I just
want to put that on your radar because, like even
a twenty hour work week, that might feel more doable,
especially if you're juggling other responsibilities right like let's say
maybe the kids aren't somewhere full time in school, and
even if they are, man you have to coordinate like
who's going to pick up the kids or who's going
to be aware. Since you don't need to work, I

(14:19):
think you might be able to have your cake and
eat it too in this case, so you're earning some
additional money, but at the same time, you're not sacrificing
in all those other ways that Joel just talked about
from a lifestyle standpoint. And also, if your spouse gets
great benefits through his job, like health care for the
whole family, well that park that you would miss out
on by having a part time job, well it doesn't

(14:40):
even matter to you because it almost feels like a win, right,
because you've got more balance, you've got more family availability,
while also accelerating towards those financial goals, albeit of course
at a slower pace. But hey, if the goal is
to retire earlier someday, I do think you're kind of
getting a little bit of practice with a diminished work
life now. I think part time work could be the

(15:01):
best way to thread this needle.

Speaker 1 (15:02):
Yeah, yeah, I agree. And often when you choose part
time work because that you might not be receiving some
of the benefits that full time employees might be receiving.
Contractors can get paid a higher average hourly rate. So
we have a friend who got let go from his job,
and now he's contracting with that employer, contracting back to

(15:23):
work for them, and his hourly rates a heck of
a lot more than it was when he was a
full time employee. So in some ways it's actually been
kind of a win. So I would at least consider
that be And I think it bears mentioning that if
you're going back to work just for the paycheck, it's
going to be more mentally taxing. I would rather you
search for something that you're actually going to enjoy. This

(15:44):
going to kind of move the happiness needle for you inside,
even if maybe, let's say it means a smaller salary,
because it will make this transition back into work more sustainable.
And we're also fans of looking for an employer that
offers like a good work environment and some flexibility, who
might understand if something happens and you got to go,
you know, to your kid's school to pick them up
early for an orthodonist appointment or something like that, which

(16:07):
sounds like my life right now, and Matt graciously allows
me the.

Speaker 2 (16:11):
Opportunity to do that, I'd do what I can.

Speaker 1 (16:13):
I go give those braces on man, you know, and
I think that's going to help you avoid burnout. And
there's just like a lot of factors when you're trying
to come up with an answer to this question of
whether or not you go back to work. And you
mentioned having to change your kids' school if you decide
to go back to work, So that seems like a
big deal. That seems like a really big deal. That
could be a really big deal for them emotionally, friend wise.
So have a discussion with your spouse about the pros

(16:35):
and cons of this move, you know, paying off the
mortgage early. It's not a bad goal if you've accomplished
a lot of those other financial goals incredibly well. But
the price, I think doesn't have to be twelve hour workdays.
Maybe you can find some happy medium solution that's not
like all or nothing. I'm going back to work full time,
knows to the grindstone versus kind of something with a

(16:55):
little more balance that could help you achieve those goals faster,
but maybe just not nearly as quickly as as you
might have otherwise been able to do.

Speaker 2 (17:02):
That's right, all right, b We hope that gets you
pointed in the right direction. And Joel, you know we've
got more to get to. We're gonna hear from plenty
of listeners. We're gonna hear from a listener who's asking
about social Security and whether or not to take it
early or not. We'll get to that more right after this.

Speaker 1 (17:24):
All right, Matt, we're back. We've got more listener questions
to get to. This next one is about moving debt around.
Is it just moving chairs around on the Titanic? Or
can it make sense to swap one debt for another?

Speaker 6 (17:36):
Yes, Kevin, here, my question is what it would be
smart to pull out a fifty thousand dollars he lock
on my home with an eight point two interest rate,
which is basically gonna pay off my travel trailer, a
personal loan, and a couple of credit cards that equal

(18:00):
a little over one thousand dollars a month, and my
payment for the heelock is going to be four thirty
to four fifty.

Speaker 2 (18:08):
A month for fifteen years.

Speaker 3 (18:12):
Is that a good idea?

Speaker 6 (18:13):
Or should I just bite the bullet?

Speaker 2 (18:17):
Whether or not he should buy the bullet and just
pay off the debts he currently has. I think it's
what he's asking their.

Speaker 1 (18:22):
Angel versus trying to diminish.

Speaker 2 (18:24):
Finagle it and yeah, make yeah, make it happen. And
I get this.

Speaker 1 (18:27):
I totally get how you might in the initial thought
is turning credit card debt that's I don't know what
twenty twenty one twenty two percent right now into maybe higher,
less offensive eight point two percent debt that that kind
of squares upon your initial observation, and you're like, why
wouldn't I do this?

Speaker 2 (18:44):
Well, especially given to how many different mortgage servicers have
been sending out the different mailers and emails saying, Hey,
wouldn't you like to tap your home for some some
home equity. Think about all that you can do perhaps
with all this money that you've all this equity that
you've accrued over the pastage.

Speaker 1 (19:01):
And of course your mortgage servicer do you know what
they know? They know roughly what your home is worth,
and they know how much you owe, and so they
you know what they do. They give you a specific
number so that you might get that mailer and they
might say, hey, Kevin, you've got two hundred and nineteen
thousand dollars and twenty two cents of home equity that
you can tap right now.

Speaker 2 (19:22):
Yeah, the specific number, you start thinking about, oh, I
could totally see that amount of money, am I? Well
you went and it's a helock, so it's not like
a home equity loan, right. So but I feel like
a lot of folks would see that number and they
would just immediately just like move that over to their
savings account or the check account and be like, oh,
that would look.

Speaker 1 (19:38):
Nice sitting over there. It's come out all that I
could do with that. There's a reason they send the
mailers out, and it's because it works, I think.

Speaker 2 (19:44):
Is it's effective. Yeah, But this isn't as easy as that, Kevin,
I'm going to say, first of all, be careful overly
focusing on just the monthly payment. Yes, it is going
to be nicer to lower the interest rate and the
monthly payment amount, keep in your monthly payment in check,
providing more breathing room every single month, But doing so
it could keep you in debt longer than you otherwise

(20:07):
would be. It's sort of like, let's say you've owned
a home for ten years and you're like, you know, well,
let's go ahead to refinance this thing. It's gonna make
things a bit easier. But guess what, now you just
hit the You just reset the clock on another thirty years.

Speaker 1 (20:17):
It's then instead of paying until you're sixty on that house,
you're paying till you're seventy.

Speaker 2 (20:20):
Yeah, you're seventy years old. And so I think it
could also help you to feel more comfortable taking on
even more debt. Right, So this is it could potentially
be a behavioral thing. You're like, oh, you got that
cleaned up, and maybe you're used to the amount that
was going out every month to service that debt, and
all of a sudden you hadn't changed a thing. Yeah,
and now you uh yeah, you've got more more debt
to boot.

Speaker 1 (20:39):
And I think this happens a lot, man. I think
this is a tactic that the people take, which is,
if I can just get that monthly amount lower, even
if it means let's say a higher interest rate or
worse terms, then that is going to give me some
breathing room. And what ends up happening with that breathing
room is typically that it gets spent a lot of people.

(21:00):
It is now you're paying off that debt item for
a longer period of time, and then you also take
on other obligations with the extra money that you would
have had in your budget instead have gone towards saving
or investing. So maybe, if you're incredibly disciplined, you can
make this payoff, but most people aren't. Yeah, except you
said if with worse terms, like a higher interest rate.
That's the thing though with in Kevin's case, he's like, man,

(21:22):
this is so much better, guys, truly, this.

Speaker 2 (21:25):
Is a slam dunk, right, And that's where we're even
going to push back a little bit on that.

Speaker 3 (21:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:29):
I think it's also important to mention here, Matt, that
the eight point two percent rate, it's not bad, right,
It's not terrible in today's environment, but that rate is
also subject to change, and so it's true your your
rates could go up, your payment could go up at
the same time. The biggest, one of the biggest risk
factors here is you're taking unsecured debt. You're turning into
secured debt against your home, and if you're unable to

(21:51):
pay your hee lock, well, you'd be risking losing your home.
And so there's this a massive difference between not paying
your credit card bill, which is an ideal, but the
risks just aren't the same because American Express they don't
have the power to foreclothes on you, to essentially kick
you out and take the roof from over your head,
whereas your mortgage service provider does because they've got this
interest in the property if you're not paying on it.

Speaker 2 (22:13):
Yeah, I think at the end of the day, this
answer comes down to you knowing yourself, Kevin, because yeah,
this really might be the best decision, but only if
you are motivated to pay off that balance as quickly
as possible, if you are disciplined in your approach, like
the fact that he was willing to to say, hey,
I'm going to be locked into this for the next
fifteen years. Like what that tells me though, is that

(22:36):
he doesn't have the ability to quickly or to easily
eliminate the collection of debt that he has, right, And
so that's another benefit of the heelock is just to
clean things up. Like right now, it feels like he's
got like this rats nest of debts going out every
single month.

Speaker 1 (22:51):
It feels like an organizational tool of sorts.

Speaker 2 (22:53):
Yeah, and I totally get that. But the behavioral side
of things, I think is incredibly important because if you, yeah,
if you consolidate all that debt onto the heelock and
you stretch that out for fifteen years, and then you
take that additional savings that I think he said it
was around one thousand per month and he's getting it
down to like four hundred for something. Yeah, so basically
he's got like six hundred dollars worth of savings. I

(23:15):
would I think I would be very willing and very
okay with Kevin saying, all right, I'm gonna consolidate, we're
gonna do the helock, and now I'm gonna take that
additional six hundred dollars and how about instead of locking
into the fifteen years. How about we start paying down
extra every single month, putting that towards the principle, because
then he's not going to be in that debt for
a full fifteen years. He's going to get out of

(23:36):
that thing way sooner.

Speaker 1 (23:37):
Four to five years, maybe so much faster.

Speaker 2 (23:39):
I think that is more of sort of the again,
he can't like go after it crazy right now, based
on how he was talking about, like, yeah, I'm kind
of resigning myself to the fifteen year thing, but you
also don't have to do the whole fifteen year thing
that I said that weird. You also don't have to
resign yourself to the full fifteen years, right like, you
have the ability to find somewhere there in the middle,
and I think that's.

Speaker 1 (23:58):
Where I would I'd love to see you, Kevin, and
especially at an eight plus percent rate, holding on to
that for fifteen years isn't going to be the best
thing for your finance. Is trying to get rid of
it as quickly as possible would be the goal. But yeah,
I think this isn't as much of a no brainer
as it might seem on the surface to a lot
of people. And that behavioral side, your right.

Speaker 2 (24:13):
Matter is what you do with that additional money, what
you do.

Speaker 1 (24:15):
With the additional money? And also, are you now, once
you've got all your credit card debts wiped away, well,
what about the habits that led you into credit card
debt in the first place? Are you going to have
this heelock debt that it's going to take potentially fifteen
years to pay off? And then are you also going
to crew more credit card debt? The habits have to
change or else the strategy, even this helock strategy isn't
going to work. It's actually gonna blow up in your face.

(24:37):
You totally need to commit to that.

Speaker 2 (24:38):
Yeah, I guess I wanted to say that because I
feel like we're downplaying the interest rate thing because as
I was thinking that three, I'm like, geez, yeah, twenty
going from twenty two to twenty four percent down to
eight something like that is a massive difference, especially if
you are looking out over the years, over the even decades. Yeah,
if you're looking at a short term, like a short
period of time where you're just going to attack it,
the rate doesn't matter that much because you're talking about

(25:00):
what maybe one year's worth of payments, maybe two years.
But when you stretch it out like that. Gosh, that
is a ton of money going to interest. But like
Joel said, yeah, we want to make sure that you
address You gotta nip it in the bud. We're not
just going to gloss over the surface. Yeah, Joel. Let's
hear from our next listener who has a question. It's
a quasi earlier retirement question. Quasi how much should it

(25:20):
be depending on the government. Let's hear from Ian.

Speaker 3 (25:23):
Hey, Matt, and Joel. This is Ian from Virginia. I
really enjoyed your discussion on social security last week, particularly
break even analysis. I was wondering if you could address
the break even analysis with the including the impact of
growth rates. I was once in a social Security seminar

(25:44):
a couple of years ago, and I remember them showing
a chart where the break even point would be like
eighty seven or eighty eight years old if you'd take
it earlier, you know, assuming some sort of return on
that money that you beginning versus waiting to full retirement age.

(26:04):
They have since taken that off of the sold Security
website because they said it was pushing people to take
it sooner. And I guess maybe they don't want people
taking it sooner. But yeah, if you could take a
look at that, I've included a resource in the email.
But also even the Seeking Alpha has a chart where

(26:27):
they're with a two percent real return assumed. You're still
looking at a break even point in the early eighties.
And I just don't know how much people are going
to be doing past eighty. But you can if you
take it sooner at sixty two, you'll have all those
extra years to you know, play pick a ball and

(26:47):
do other things. So thanks a lot and join the show.

Speaker 1 (26:51):
Matt, you plan on playing pickleball in your eighties?

Speaker 2 (26:53):
Pickleball's fun. Have you been playing?

Speaker 4 (26:55):
No?

Speaker 2 (26:55):
I would like to though, so well, we talked about
our local court. How I was like, oh, it's going
to get rests. Well, they did restripe it, but it's
still a tennis court. They did, you know, did you
see the pies? They put the lines on it. But
it's real subtle. Okay, So there's there's I saw folks
out there today during my post lunch walk. I saw
some they're playing pick out there. No, they're doing the.

Speaker 1 (27:14):
Okay, okay, No, I'd like to get mix. But are
people how how how long? Like, what's the timeframe. How
old is too old to play pickleball? Are people still
playing in their eighties?

Speaker 2 (27:24):
Yeah? Okay, that's it's a low impact sport. The I mean,
we've heard folks talk about it from a very competitive standpoint,
but it's like a low impact, kind of chill, social
way to to play tennis. Essentially, they're playing it if
you don't want to run as much. They're playing at
the villages down in Florida's what you're telling me, Yeah,
Which it sounds like Ian is considering. Like he doesn't
sound he's got retirement like questions on his mind, but

(27:44):
he doesn't sound like he's necessarily rich. Does he sound
like he's sixty two? No, he's old. You who?

Speaker 1 (27:49):
I think he's still away from this, but I think
he's really I.

Speaker 2 (27:51):
Don't know though, because he said he went he went
to a Social Security retirement seminar. Yeah, that's something.

Speaker 1 (27:56):
You doing for his grandma or just for his own edification.
Like it sounds like he's trying to get his mind
around this asking for a friend. He just doesn't sound
super old. So maybe you are in and your voice
just sounds young. I don't know, but it sounds young
to me. I think it's important before we get into
this question just to say that there's a lot of
nuance and there's not one single answer that makes sense
for everyone. So much of this depends on whether you

(28:16):
are married or single, right, it depends on how long
you expect to live, and then what bumps happen along
the way. So we'll do our best to offer some
of those caveats and response to your question, Ian, but
we also just just know that there's just there are
a lot of moving parts, and so we don't have
any advice like, well, everyone should take social security at

(28:37):
age seventy or everyone should take it at their first
possible available date at age sixty two. Like, there's no
clear and precise answer that everyone can do the same thing,
and it makes sense totally.

Speaker 2 (28:48):
That being said, like the general conventional wisdom and recommendation
is to claim your social security later that for most
folks on average, that is going to be the best
choice for them. One of the major reasons to consider
taking social Security later is because of the higher guaranteed
income that you're going to receive. So you choose to
take your social Security early on when you are sixty

(29:09):
two years old, is it a like a thirty percent
reduction as opposed to a wedding to full retirement.

Speaker 1 (29:15):
Yeah, something like that.

Speaker 2 (29:16):
And so essentially you wait a little bit and it's
a it's sort of like we're talking, we talk about
this all the time. By paying off debt, that is
a guaranteed rate of return essentially on the money that
you are using to pay on that debt. In a
similar way, it's just like all you got to do
is wait and there is a guaranteed return. There's no
risk associated here, and that's important because the older we get,
the more we need to take some risk off the table. Right,

(29:37):
one hundred percent stocks, Well, that can work out well
during those wealth building years maybe when you're younger, but
once you reach wealth preservation status for a lot of folks,
it's going to be a bit too stomach churning.

Speaker 1 (29:49):
Yeah, Like think about the COVID downturn twenty twenty two
when we saw stocks decline pretty meaningfully.

Speaker 2 (29:55):
Could you have held on those?

Speaker 1 (29:57):
Feel like not much of a gut punch to me
when I'm late thirties, early forties, But the older i get,
the more I'm gonna start looking at that balance and
a giant drop is certainly going to impact me mentally,
and it makes sense that it would.

Speaker 2 (30:09):
And plus just the guaranteed income, it's something like an
eight percent higher payout every single year that you wait,
and so it's just a great way to shelter you
from that potential stock market turbulence that you're going to experience.
That's the price of admission.

Speaker 1 (30:25):
Yeah, right, Like, I mean, you could get and I've
heard people claim this, matt Hey, if you start taking
Social Security at sixty two and you invest that money
instead in the overall stock market, in something like Voo,
you could do better actually then waiting and delaying your
Social Security payments till age seventy.

Speaker 2 (30:41):
There's a very good chance you'll do better.

Speaker 1 (30:42):
And there's yeah, there's a decent chance of that if
you're a savvy investor and you are actually investing most
of those dollars. But the truth is, are you going
to do it? Are you going to be able to
actually do that? Are you going to actually invest the money?
And are you going to be able to invest it
in such a way where you can stomach the volatility
and eke out higher returns?

Speaker 2 (31:01):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (31:02):
Ian said, well, what even is the break even point,
and a lot of charts are different charts factoring in
different things that will tell you different predictions of what
the break even point will be depending on when you
take those security and I would say that most charts
show that you're gonna break even in your late seventies
or your very early eighties. It does get more complicated,

(31:22):
right if you opt to take those security early and
you do invest kind of like I was just talking about,
You invest those dollars instead of spending them, which is
not what most people do. Most people are not like, hey,
what's the most optimized route for me to grow those
dollars to the biggest amount possible, because that's not typically
the goal at that point in your life. But if
they do, if someone takes that route, they might be

(31:43):
able to hit that break even point much later in
the spectrum, or it definitely pushes it out, yeah, into
like what typically what like eighty eighty seven, eighty eight.

Speaker 2 (31:50):
It just depends on what your returns are.

Speaker 1 (31:52):
It depends on what your returns are, because it might
actually be the most the most intelligent move from an
overall return standpoint, But again, you're adding a more risky
into the equation. If you do that, so, but because
you're investing your check right that that break even date
gets pushed out further. And it just makes sense because
you're growing your wealth by investing those checks instead of

(32:12):
using them to fund and supplement your monthly lifestyle. But
most people are claiming early, Matt. Almost everyone claiming early
is doing it because they need the money to support themselves,
because it's the majority of the income they have coming
in at that point in their lives.

Speaker 2 (32:26):
Yeah, I will say I would not be surprised if
a larger percentage of how to Money listeners might be
in the camp of, you know what, We've got some
of this additional money on hand, what should we do
with it? We do want to take the more optimized approach.
I know a retiree who took Social Security early. For
the past five years, he has been investing those dollars
and dude, he's done well. He's done really well, and

(32:47):
I don't think he's ever going to hit that break
even point had he waited and taken the higher payout
because of his returns over the past five years, and
if he continues to invest in a non flashy way,
he has the ability like he's never going to be
able to hit the breake even point because of because
his returns have been so high.

Speaker 1 (33:07):
So typically the only people who can do that is
the people who have been great savers and investors for many,
many decades, so they have enough of a margin.

Speaker 2 (33:15):
Yeah. See that is so key. That Like that is
how you have your cake and eat it too. If
you have that income, whether it's additional money from investments,
whether maybe you're still working, right, like, maybe you're still
paying the bills because you're like, you know what, I
tried the retirement thing for a few years, and I'm
going to pick up this part time because it provides fulfillment.
I love it. I get to talk to folks. And
by the way, check it out, I get to pay

(33:35):
my bills every single month. Or you got a pension
coming in, right, or a pension. Yeah, if you've got
these additional sources of income, well you have the ability.
You're not counting on that money, right, and so if
you are able to take those social Security checks and
stick them in the market, you can stomach more the
ups and downs because you're not needing to tap these
dollars immediately. I think that's certainly a way to be

(33:55):
able to have your cake and eat it too. But
even as we're crunching these numbers, there are other factors
like your health that you need to main I don't know.
You can't just get bogged down in the spreadsheets and
be like, well, this is the optimized path. There are
so many other external factors, like your health, how you're feeling.

Speaker 1 (34:13):
We're not promised tomorrow, so that's a really difficult thing.
But also there are a lot of predictive signs along
the way, especially as you enter into your early sixties,
like how long do I think I'm gonna live, what's
going on with me health wise, how often am I
going to the doctor, and what for That can influence
your decision.

Speaker 2 (34:28):
Yeah, let's say you were planning on holding off. You're like,
you know what, I'm gonna get the fattest check from
the government as possible. I don't know, let's wait until
I'm seven years old to maximize it. Well, it's gonna
be a good idea to remain flexible. Perhaps the change
your strategy. If you encounter health problems earlier than you thought,
you can't ignore the real risk of dying early than
you are expecting to. Because this is an instance where

(34:52):
perhaps it's like gertreat mcfuzz, like too much of a
good thing leads to poor results. Joel defer gratification. It's
like typically always to be a helpful skill, right, the
marshmallow test? Can you say no to the one marshmallo
announce so that you can have two in five minutes
when the scientist comes back into the room that you're
being held in as a five year old.

Speaker 1 (35:10):
Would you say no to one beer now for two
beers later?

Speaker 2 (35:12):
It just depends on helper, It depends on the given situation,
depends on the types of beers. Delay gratification, deferred gratification.
This is great until it's not because you don't have
the ability to spend that money because you've died.

Speaker 1 (35:25):
You're delaying gratification for a reason, and that is for
those golden years. And typically those early sixties are the
most fluid. Right, Your body is working better than it
will ten years down the road. So maybe you do
want a front load so that you can take vacations
realizing that you've I've saved an investment enough for those
later years of my life, but I want more financial

(35:46):
flexibility now, and I actually want to spend some of
those dollars. I want to go have some fun. That's
a reasonable choice. It might not be the most optimized
financial choice. You might say, hey, I lived once, you're
eighty nine, and you're like, my paycheck is my check
from Social Security is still smaller than what I would
have gotten if I had waited. But man, I look
back at those pictures from all those great trips that.

Speaker 2 (36:05):
I had the ability to get out there and do
all the fun things, and I can't take anymore. I'm
thinking of another couple who this is like an ongoing
conversation with them, Like we're there's one who wants to
spend I think that wants to spend more of the
money now, and the other wants to hold off because
they've seen more of the high costs towards the end
of life, right, because it does taper off a bit
as you're not out there exploring the world. But then

(36:27):
some of those those final years can be really expensive
to you've got some of that some of that long
term care that you're paying for, especially out of the home. Yeah. Yeah,
And it's a tough tight rope to walk.

Speaker 1 (36:38):
Talk about pivoting your strategy. You know, my parents pivoted
their strategy because of health concerns, and it just makes sense,
like you, I think you want to retain some flexibility
in that decision. Married folks have even more to consider
because it can often be smart to claim the lower
earning spouses early claim that maybe in those earlier retirement years,
then wait until like age seventy to claim the other.

(37:00):
But that depends on other factors too, including health. But
if you fall into the camp of not having enough
money to make it without social Security, and that's hopefully
something that how the money listeners are not falling into
that camp because they're taking action, they're being proactive, investing
and saving for their future. You just might have fewer choices,
less ability to optimize your claim date. Totally good, and
so yeah, you might be able to hold out six

(37:22):
more months extra or a year extra for that slightly
increased check, but you're not able to hold out multiple
years in order to increase your check even more.

Speaker 2 (37:29):
Yeah, But there's also kind of an elephant in the room,
which is the solvency of Social Security, and this is
something that we've covered a few times. Bottom Line, I
don't think social security is going to go away completely
but if our politicians don't do something, if our members
of Congress don't take action, benefits will be reduced I think,

(37:50):
I mean likely by twenty five percent or so in
the next eight to ten years. And I feel like
they keep kind of bumping up the solvency date. And
that doesn't mean that that younger how money listeners should
just discount any hope of getting any social security at all.
But it is not a bad idea to save and
invest in such a way that you see that check

(38:10):
more as gravy on top, because you have done such
a great job preparing for retirement on your own. It
was earlier this month, Joe I was thinking about I
was reviewing the numbers with Kate, which we do either
at the end of the month or the beginning of
the next month. And I always like to get in
there with our investments and kind do some projections and
tweak the numbers a little bit, see what that change
and lifestyle would do for us when it comes to
a number of years in retirement and all that kind

(38:32):
of stuff. Blah blah blah blah. But there's always a
caveat where I say that being said, this is a
bit conservative because I never include social security. Again, I'm
trying to not count on that just in case something
does happen with it. And again, that does seem like
an extreme position, but I do think it's a worthwhile
goal to have. It's just like financial independence. I think

(38:52):
there's a lot of folks who push back against that,
and they're just like, yeah, you and your like pie
in the sky heading the clouds kind of for folks
to strive after this. But I do think it's something
that's totally worthwhile striving after. Agreed.

Speaker 1 (39:06):
All right, We've got a few more questions we need
to get to, including one about free life insurance and
problems with a student loan servicer.

Speaker 2 (39:13):
We'll get to those right after this. All right, buddy,
we are back for the break. It is now time
for the Facebook question of the Week, which is from
karm You think that's short for Carmen? Makes you think
of the bear Carmel? Carme? Oh? Is that how he

(39:35):
spelt it? I don't know what was his full name.
I don't remember it was Carmen. I think they called
him Carmen. I think so. Okay, season three that's a
great was it. I haven't watched season four? I've heard
good things. Oh when did it come out a couple
months ago? Okay, I totally felt off. Okay, Karm said,
I got an offer for two thousand dollars in life
insurance for free from my credit union. What's the catch, Joel?

(39:57):
Should CARM be eliminating their membership? Well, the credit union should?
They should be fleeing. What do you think?

Speaker 1 (40:05):
Maybe you know, throw a molotov cocktail through their window.

Speaker 2 (40:09):
That's what I would do. What are you guys trying
to do?

Speaker 1 (40:11):
It's like violence. No, don't look at gift horse in
the mouth. Calm domestic terrorism is advocating.

Speaker 2 (40:16):
For total joke. Please do that.

Speaker 1 (40:17):
Don't do that. Uh no, a joke. Don't look at
gift horse in the mouth. But this, I think is
a fully fledged free offer. It sounds like a sweet
park and it could be. But but yes, of course,
the credit union also has self interested reasons for sending
this out to you. One they want to They want
you to continue to be a member because if you
value this perk that they're offering that doesn't cost them

(40:40):
very much at all, you might stick around as a customer.

Speaker 2 (40:43):
Yeah, you're not going to go running for the hills. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (40:45):
In fact, you think, uh, well that's the place I'm
going to turn when I need not a loan or
a home loan. Because they're such sweethearts. You know you're
gonna be endeared to the credit union, which makes sense.
And you know the number one thing your love. Yeah,
to a certain extent, that's all business works, is that
what sales are just a.

Speaker 2 (41:03):
Way to sweeten the sweeten the pot a little bit,
sometimes trying to buy your allegiance. I was gonna say
the number one thing that credit unions need to do
is just like to update their websites. Yeah, dude, like
the interfaces, the what do you call it, like when
you log in, the platforms, the dashboards, interface, the user interface.
With every single credit union that I have dealt with,
the local ones, Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 1 (41:22):
The national ones are much better.

Speaker 2 (41:23):
They are better. Yeah, I'm thinking about the local ones,
which tend to offer the best rates when it comes
to different loan products. They're terrible. Yeah, Like it's the
most backwards thing to go in there and to like
link an account or to try to find any information.

Speaker 1 (41:37):
But we still love credit unions because they offer the
best rates fairly most of the time.

Speaker 2 (41:42):
On most loan products, so I was saying, I said
barely too. We still love them, yeah, yeah, yeah, we
still love they most definitely offer the best, the best rates. Yeah,
we still love them. Barely. They're like hanging on by
a wire. Okay, Well back.

Speaker 1 (41:54):
To Carm's question though, I think the main reason that
they're sending this out is that they're hoping that KARM
buys more life insurance. Right, it's kind of this, like
this teaser. It's like a, well, we're gonna give you
this for free, but really you're gonna be left wanting more.
It's kind of like a laced potato chip or something
like that. You can't eat just one, and they're like, bet,
you can't survive on just two thousand dollars with a
life insurance. And now that you know that you need

(42:16):
some life insurance and you got a little bit, they're
gonna assume that you're gonna be knocking down their door
to get more. Right, that's true. Two thousand bucks in
life insurance, it's not going to go very far. But
now that they've welet your appetite, maybe you're gonna want
that five hundred thousand dollars or maybe even a million
dollar policy and then you know.

Speaker 2 (42:33):
They just they just scored a little rep in thee
heck yeah, so it's just a marketing ploy for them.
That being said, you probably don't want to call that
number and to get a policy in the heat of
the moment. I think it would be better for you
to shop around, and Policy Genius is great for that.
We are seriously big fans of what it is that
they're doing Costco. They actually offer dis kind of life
insurance policies for their customers as well. I think those

(42:56):
are probably going to be the two best recommendations we have.
But check out our site for more details on how
to figure out what term that you should be opting for,
how much coverage it is that you need because it's
more than two thousand dollars a year. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And by the way, term life is most definitely what
it is that you want to go with. We'll take
questions from time to time about whole life. Some of
the different types of life insurance out there gets funky

(43:19):
and it's also going to cost you way too much
money and it kind of co mingles that investing slash
life insurance benefit.

Speaker 1 (43:24):
Those those premiums can be ten to fifteen times higher
and stay away. You got better things to do with
that money. Some folks might say, well, I have this
sake free policy from my employer, so maybe I don't
need additional coverage. That's also not true, because those policies
typically cover like one times your wages, maybe a little
more if you have a generous employer. But these two,
even just those two policies together, you might be like, great, mind,

(43:47):
I get paid seventy five thousand dollars a year, got
this extra two grand seventy seven thousand dollars worth coverage,
Look at me. That's awesome.

Speaker 2 (43:53):
And that is thirty times thirty five times better than
what it is that carm got a offul Yeah, that'd
be great if you had that much, But you also
probably need more.

Speaker 1 (44:01):
You need a policy of your own right, and you
can buy more through your employer. But it's a lot
more expensive typically, and it's only a good idea unless
you if you have like extreme pre existing conditions.

Speaker 2 (44:11):
Yeah, and again it's it is kind of like a
marketing ploy a little bit. It's just like, oh, they
tease you, it's a little free, free, little sampler. It's
just like costco They give you the taste, and it's
just like, oh, before you know it, dropping way too
much money on AUSI bites, which are so delicious, but
it's so expensive. Let's get to this email from Riley.
He wrote, at the beginning of this year, I was
notified by my credit card account that my credit took

(44:33):
a hit. So I pulled it up. Turned out that
for some reason, my auto pay was on a That
turns out my autopay on a student loan account, which
had been fine for years, got messed up and wasn't paying.
This notification hit me in February, and the account stopped
paying in January. So that was two installments of what
is technically three loans, even though they are through the
same creditor. That was a pretty hard hits my credit,

(44:56):
and I thought there was nothing I could do. But
I just came across the good will adjustments where you
can basically ask for forgiveness. Anyway, I'm looking into it,
but wasn't sure if you had already gone over that
or with that something you could do. Sometimes, Joel, let's
talk about goodwill and not that cunting. Not that good will.

Speaker 1 (45:13):
Yeah, go get your t shirts there, they're much cheaper
and not goodwill hunting. Don't buy your underwear though that's weird,
don't do that. So Riley's not alone in getting dinged
on his credit score right now due to his student loans.
That is happening across the country to literally millions of people,
and it's only going to get worse in the fall.
A lot of folks being impacted negatively by the restart
of payments, not having yeah, maybe not having a connected

(45:36):
account anymore, or not having the money to pay for
their payment because they weren't assuming it was going to
come back. There's just a lot of and we'll continue
to cover it on Friday flights and stuff. What's happening
in the student loan space. It's not pretty, and yes,
for Riley in particular, maybe for others as well. If
you have a significant impact to your credit score because
of an inability to pay a student loan payment or

(45:56):
some kerfuffle like Riley experienced, a good will letter I
think can be a smart way to proceed. You're not
telling the servicer that they screwed up and they need
to fix it. You're not pointing the finger and being
like you've done me wrong. You're telling them that you
made a mistake and then you're asking for grace, And
I think that can be a smart tactic, like I
would do it probably after I made a couple of

(46:18):
on time payments. They're more likely to grant you this
goodwill adjustment and say, all right, we'll remove that mark
from your credit report if you're back on track and
you're paying on time. But you have a pretty good
track record over the prior years, so I would think
I would think that they would be at least willing
to entertain the idea.

Speaker 2 (46:35):
I get it, that's right, And I'll say too, you
don't have to start from scratch. Student loan lawyer stan
Lee Tate, He's actually got some great resources that will
link to. He's got a good template over on a
site that we will link to in our show notes.
That way, you can take that make it your own,
offer a great explanation Riley as to what went on
what happened there. I guess you could like.

Speaker 1 (46:55):
Ask Chatchipt to write you something, But the fact that
Stanley's already got something up on his site, I feel
like that's that's helpful. Stanley does a great job covering
the student loans base and kind of what's happening and
the changes, and we.

Speaker 2 (47:05):
Tried to get him on the show once, didn't we did.
I think he said no.

Speaker 1 (47:07):
I think he was like, I'm too busy for laying
podcasts like yours. And we're like, oh, okay, that's that's
a bummer, because we really like what.

Speaker 2 (47:13):
You do, Stanley. If you hear about this, we would
still love to have you on. Yeah, for sure anytime.
I can't remember why it was that it didn't work out,
but we'll go barking up that tree against all right, well,
we hope that helps Riley. Matt.

Speaker 1 (47:25):
Let's get back to the beer that we had on
this episode.

Speaker 2 (47:27):
Let's do it.

Speaker 1 (47:28):
This was again a summer leaking mango sour ale from
Lonni Kai Brewing.

Speaker 2 (47:32):
So you started to explain to me what leeking means.
What is it? It's like this this sour powder dust.

Speaker 1 (47:38):
Yeah, made from plums, I want to say, and we
mixed with other things and it becomes it's like when
you if you've had like sour gummy bears or gummy
worms or sour patch kids or something like that, if
you've had so those who's never had this is like
the the less intense Hawaiian version of sour powder that
they make, and so they put it that's all that.

Speaker 2 (47:58):
Stuff, that's all natural. That's right. If it's made from
that's right exactly. That grows on trees.

Speaker 1 (48:02):
So I really, I mean, this is like true Hawaiian
ingredients here. Here, mango's super cool hang from every tree there.
So again this, did you get much mango in the
actual beer, because when I cracked it and smelled it,
I'm like, oh man, it's like I'm standing in the
kitchen at the cutting board right now peeling a mango.
That's what it smelled like.

Speaker 2 (48:19):
But I didn't. I didn't pick up a whole lot
of the mango fruit, and it I don't know I got.
I got more of the leeking than I did the mango. Yeah,
more of the tart going on. And maybe that's because
maybe if it was a little bit sweeter it would
have tasted maybe more of that mango flavor would have shown.
But man, it was like aggressively tart. It almost felt
like it was electric. But then it stopped and it

(48:40):
switched to more of this whea tea, like a WHAEDI
profile like I felt like I was tasting this Captain
crunch notes like in the mid where I was like,
oh interesting, after the after I took my tongue off
of the nine volt battery, and that's what it felt
like when I first first sipped it. And then interestingly enough,
it finished like quite bitter like, it's got the sours
after taste. The after taste is surprisingly bitter like. It's

(49:03):
not quite that hoppy bitterness that you expect with a
New England Hazy, but it's like a totally different I
think it's the way the leaking changes and it's hitting
different taste. Budu again, my entire tongue a workout, like
there was no part of my song that was unscathed
after not unscathed, un stimulated. Well, so this beer, this.

Speaker 1 (49:24):
Brewery had a second location in Volcano, which is right
outside of Volcanoes National Park where we stayed, and we
drove by it and there was like a line out
the door, and so we opted to go elsewhere. But
I'm kind of bummed that we didn't get to hit
it up while we were there, because this beer, I
really enjoyed it pretty and I wish I'd tried more
of their stuff, but I.

Speaker 2 (49:43):
Could totally see many folks saying after they hiked some volcanoes, like,
you know what I want now, a fruity electric sour
beer to quench my third hits the spot after likesh
a hike around the room above a volcano, right, so
that sounds perfect. Yeah, thanks for bringing this on. It's
quite beat up, I feel like, and it made it though.
I was looking at the can. You can's quite beat up.

(50:04):
Should have seen me at the airport? Were you wrapping it?

Speaker 3 (50:06):
Well?

Speaker 1 (50:07):
Yeah, well so I wrapped it up pretty well. But
then when you get to the airport and we checked
one bag because you had to check a bag to
bring beer, and the you know, you weigh the bag
and they say, oh this, sorry, sir, this is fifty
seven pounds. You need to get down to fifty and
they were really serious about the weight amount. And so
I'm stuffing every you know, everything I can into other
I've been through this before with beer packages in other places,

(50:30):
and I've had lenient flight attendance or people there at
the at the counter.

Speaker 2 (50:36):
This person was not lenient, oh man. And it's not
like this liquid, so it's not like you could have
put that in your pocket. So that means you had
to stick on like five sweaters. Yeah, is that what
you were?

Speaker 1 (50:43):
And then it's not as well protected, so it's a
little dented up, but it made it so well. Regardless
of glad you were able to bring that one back,
I enjoyed sharing it with you, my friend. You can
find our show notes up on the website at howtomoney
dot com. That's going to be it for this episode,
so until next time, best Friends Out, Best Friends Out,