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October 23, 2023 53 mins

We’re kicking off the week by answering your listener questions! And if you have a question that you’d like for us to answer on the show, we’d love for you to submit your own via HowToMoney.com/ask , send us your voice memo. Regardless of how random or bizarre you might think it is, we want to hear it!

 

1 - Is an eSIM provider like Airalo legit and a good way to use my phone when traveling abroad?

2 - How do I supplement my pension if I want to retire early from my teaching career?

3 - What are the pros and cons of getting a permanent life insurance policy that my friend is selling?

4 - Some of the best ways to slash your grocery bill!

5 - ‘Mentally arriving’ vs ‘financially arriving’ and overcoming hurdles to actually spend your money!

 

Want more How To Money in your life? Here are some additional ways to get ahead with your personal finances:

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  • Join a thriving community of fellow money in the HTM Facebook group.
  • Find the best credit card for you with our new credit card tool!
  • Massively reduce your cell phone bill each month by switching to a discount provider like Mint Mobile.

 

During this episode we enjoyed a Strawberry Lemonade Sunset by Inner Voice 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!

 

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to How to Money. I'm Joel and I am Matt,
and today we're answering your listener questions.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
You know, a buddy, it's Monday, which means we've got
listener questions to get to. We've got a lot of
different financial advice that we're gonna touch on today. We're
gonna actually we're gonna discuss the best ways to save
in your monthly budget, specifically when it comes to groceries.
Another listener he's wondering if he should be looking at
life insurance. He's in his twenties. And we're gonna hear
from a listener who's asking about early retirement, but specifically

(00:48):
as a government or maybe not government, but as a
public employee in the public sector.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
There you go, Yeah, we'll get to all that and more.
And that one's interesting because there's always when you're talking
about retiring earlier early, you have to fund early retirement,
but you also have to fund normal retirement, which is
a long time, so it kind of makes the task
just a little more difficult to square. We'll talk about
that when we when we get to that question. But Matt,
before we get to listener questions, we had a listener

(01:15):
email come in to our inbox a week or two ago,
and it was from listener Liz, and she was like.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
That's that's how she wrote her. She signed off as
listener Liz, and she's like, I just have to share
this with you guys because I found it crazy. You
guys have been talking more and more about how tipping
culture has gone insane, gone to berserk, and I found
the strongest evidence of that yet. She basically said she
was making an e commerce order. I want to say
it was for like some organic sort of nut butter

(01:44):
or something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, fancy peanut butter,
or yeah, fancy jelly or something, and so the findest
pebe and Jays.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
These are these are these are expensive nut butters. But
there's something Liz prioritizes. But what she wasn't expecting was
a pitch to the workers who work there that she's
never even seen or met face to face, but when
she's placing it online order, which just again baffles me.
I continue to be shocked at how extensive tipping culture

(02:14):
has gone, how much worse it has gotten, how much
more fraught even and everywhere you go, whether it's counter service,
it's like, Hey, would you want to tip eighteen twenty
or thirty percent? You know, like, what do you what
do you.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
Think it's going to continue? Though, because I almost feel
like we've reached a point, a tipping point, if I
hope we have. I think maybe we're at the tippy
top of the amount of tips that are that are
being asked to this because I feel like so much
of it. We just saw such a run up during
the pandemic with folks getting cash infusions. Folks there's like

(02:45):
a desire to make sure everyone stays employed, Like in
a sense everyone was. It felt like everyone was kind
of like looking out for each other. There's like this
collective sense of community. But as things like student loans
are resumed and I don't know a's incomes having with inflation,
Like there are all these factors that in my mind
feel like the DEMI money is dwindled. Yeah, Like in
my mind, I can't imagine that the tipping culture, Uh

(03:08):
what is being asked of us that that would continue
into the feture. No, I don't know. I think you're right.

Speaker 1 (03:13):
I think it had a moment and that moment is
hopefully on the decline because people are gonna not just
kind of roll their eyes and stuff like this. In
the future, they're gonna start to make decisions about where
they shop in the future based on the things that
they're being asked and how much how much money they're
kind of being shaken down for. And yeah, if I'm
buying none of online and I'm already paying a premium

(03:34):
for the product, I don't want to be asked to
tip afterwards.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
And in fact, that might be turn me off from
your company all together. I would I would say that
if it was like it's like an uber super local
company where maybe I have been to the facility and
I know that it's just this one family and normally
I go there in.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
Person, like Sheila and Rob and they're running the place there.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
Okay, but like the way that but even then that
email she said, like it made it seem like a warehouse. Yeah,
and it's just like, wait, am I tipping warehouse workers?
Maybe they should pay the warehouse working exactly?

Speaker 1 (04:02):
And then and then maybe I don't know, charge more
for the product instead of asking for tips, because and
that is the problem I think most people have. It's like,
just tell me what the price is. I'll decide whether
or I want to pay for it. And this sort
of like begging for tips thing. Uh, you know when
you especially in places where it used to not be expected,
and we were just normalizing tipping in all these areas.

(04:23):
I think for some it makes people question whether or
not they should be tipping in normal circumstances, which is
not good, right, because when you're when you're actually sitting
down to eat somewhere, you should be generous tipping in
those situations. But then these other places the boy cried
wolf on on tipping to some you know, worker in
a factory when they are getting paid a wage and
they should be getting paid if they need to get

(04:44):
paid more than these companies need to pay them more,
in charge more for the service.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
But so yeah, but here's the thing. You always have
a choice choice tip, in which case it's not a
tip anymore. Yeah, then it's a fee. But as individuals,
we always have that autonomy, right, Like we have the
agency to be able to and you have the ability
to say, I'm gonna get my nut butter elsewhere because
that annoys me. I'm gonna go to Costco and buy
like five pounds of nutbudds. Right, But enough about tipping.

(05:09):
Before we get to our questions, let's introduce the beer
you and I are enjoying, a Strawberry Lemonade Sunset. This
is a beer by InterVoice Brewing where we had our
listener hang not too long ago here in Atlanta.

Speaker 1 (05:20):
We'll give our thoughts on this one at the end
of the episode, but let's move on to really nice
it does well.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
Let's get to our listener questions. Matt and if.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
By the way, if you're listening and you're like, I've
got a money question, I'd love Matt and Joel to
tackle it soon on the show.

Speaker 2 (05:33):
We'd love to do that.

Speaker 1 (05:34):
Just go to how tomoney dot com slash ask for
the simple instructions for how to get your question to
our inbox and hopefully we can take it on the
next ask HTM episode. Let's be honest, you don't even
need to read the instructions for cord of voice memo
email it. Our way is that simple. But Matt, let's
get to our first question of this episode. This one
comes from a listener who is curious about efficiency when

(05:57):
using her cell phone. Not in the United States.

Speaker 3 (06:00):
Hydrol and Matt, this is seta from Sacramento California. I
had a question regarding international roaming. I know you guys
just did a podcast on that not too long ago,
and I have I also have Mint and have been
struggling with, you know, the international roaming data. Using the
Mint international roaming data, it does go really fast. And

(06:25):
in my search I came across an app called airlow.
It's been it's been popping up a lot for me
on my YouTube search, and I was wondering if you
guys had heard of it. It's spelled ai r A
l O, and it's supposed to work as you're supposed to.
It's an eSIM. You purchase a SIMS for the countries

(06:48):
that you are going to travel for, and you can
purchase different data plans. A lot of YouTubers have been
raving about it, and I was wondering if you guys
have heard of it, and if you recommend it for
international roaming plans. I would love to hear your thoughts
on this, and I appreciate it and I love your podcast,
by the way, it's great. I listened to all the

(07:08):
new episodes that come out. Keep up the good work
and thanks again.

Speaker 2 (07:13):
All right, Sata, thank you so much for being a
regular listener. We need folks like you to listen to
every single episode, the Few, the Proud. But let's you're
specifically asking about international cell phone usage. This is like
one of the things that honestly, it used to be
a huge problem, but in recent years it's become so
much more manageable, man, Matt, You remember just long distance calling, traveling.

Speaker 1 (07:37):
Think about how much easier traveling anywhere has gotten these days.
Emily and I when we were in New York, we
were just admiring Google mapps and how getting around the
subway has become a billion times easier. And so it's
just ten fifteen years ago, at twenty twenty five years
ago it was or even so much.

Speaker 2 (07:52):
More difficultet one hundred. Like that's the thing, like oftentimes
there's comparisons about, oh, well, there's a question would you
rather be a millionaire one hundred years or just an
average income person today? And the life that we can
live as an average American is so much better than
the life of a millionaire form one hundred years ago
because of some of the simple luxuries that we all
have access to. Plumbing even that even I was gonna

(08:16):
say with like a super cheap cell phone company like
Mint Mobile, which sayda awesome to hear that you are
with Mint. They do have an option for using your
your same plan, but getting international usage out of it
is a bit tougher, like you mentioned, like we discussed
actually a few weeks back, the service that Mint provides
when it comes to their international plans. It just I'll

(08:39):
be honest, this straight up sucks. Yeah, and it's not
that the services that is that it is so expensive.
We tended to use it for the first time in
May in Scotland. Terrible.

Speaker 1 (08:47):
Yeah, we oh my gosh, we love Mint in the
contiguous forty eight states or whatever, but when trying to
use it abroad, it's it's bad.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
It's terrible. So last time we talked about it, we
tried to put it in perspective, but this is what
they charged. They charged twenty cents per megabyte. But even
last time we talked about it, I don't know if
we were able to make it clear enough like what
that means because and this is so let's provide an
Apple to apples comparison. Most a broad cell phone providers

(09:15):
that we're going to discuss, you can get gigabytes for
something like like a dollar thirty or two dollars per gigabyte.
Men Mobile, they're charging twenty cents per megabyte, which means
two dollars four ten, twenty dollars for one hundred. You're
looking at two hundred dollars for a gigabyte two hundred. Yeah,
that is it's over one hundred times more expensive than

(09:38):
what some of the most competitive providers are going to
be overseas. Yeah, this is a place where Mint false
found on this they definitely have yea. Yeah, I kind
of screwed the pitch.

Speaker 1 (09:45):
Still love Mint, but man, I wish they'd pick up
their international options because those are trash and say that
if you travel regularly, we still think Google Fi. We're
gonna get to party your other question two in a second,
but we still think Google Fi is likely your best
bet because specifically, if you have four lines on a
Google Find plan, we're talking about a eighty dollars monthly bill,
which is twenty dollars a line. Sadly, the weird thing
about Google Fi is if you have two lines, it's

(10:05):
still eighty.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
Dollars a month.

Speaker 1 (10:06):
So you really really really benefit by adding two more
people and splitting the cost of that service with them
three others exactly find three people, and that's a great deal.
That's right in the sweet spot of what we want
people paying. And Google's international offering is pretty darn great too, right.
You can you can bump up to their more expensive option,
which doubles the price, and then you can use it
in two hundred plus countries. And so again, if we're

(10:28):
talking four lines forty dollars a month for unlimited everything international,
that's pretty great too.

Speaker 2 (10:33):
That's pretty awesome.

Speaker 1 (10:34):
And then you can always bump down your plan to
the cheaper one when you return to the States, which
is great. So it just eliminates any sort of hassle factor, which,
like I said, it's gotten so much easier, and we'll
get into the heart of that in just a second.
But still sticking with one plan that you get domestically
and being able to as oppose it going with an
entirely different product, being able to ramp it up and

(10:55):
down at will, I think is still the easiest, easy button.
It's very appealing. Yeah, So I think Google Fi is
definitely one of the best providers out there, and especially
if you travel international regularly, they're probably the best cell phone.

Speaker 2 (11:08):
Provider to be with. Yeah, okay, so something else that
is worth mentioning the listener. Greg. He actually reached out
to us after we talked about mint Mobile last time
when we're talking about international travel, and he mentioned that
most modern cell phones actually have two simslots. Like there's
the you know, the traditional SIM card that you can
stick in there that when you bought your iPhone or

(11:29):
whatever phone years ago you had to swap that swap
it out in order to get your number. You can
have like a bobby pinned in a paper clip exactly.
But then there's also an e SIM option and there's
not like a second slot. Actually, depending on your phone,
you can have multiple SUM providers for your one phone
and just like switch back and forth at will exactly.

Speaker 1 (11:49):
But this makes international travel a lot easier because you
can essentially have two services at the same time.

Speaker 2 (11:54):
And then you just choose which one you want to use.
You can toggling in settings. Yeah so literally at leased
on the iPhone, you just change what the defaults provider is.
But they make it even easier though, too, because you
can what's so great about it is you can choose
let's say you're going to make a call, you can
in the moment choose to go with the other cellular provider.
So depending on I think a lot of folks do

(12:16):
this with like business lines, right, and so if you
have an actual separate number but you want to be
able to use it on the same device, it's a
way of doing that without using something like Google Voice
with call forwarding or all that. It's literally using actual
service with your actual phone. But what's great about that is, like,
you don't have to buy a physical SIM once, say
you go to Europe or wherever it is that you

(12:37):
want to travel. You can still do that if you want.
But the ability to install a new esome for basically
any carrier out there in the world is amazing. The
ability to do that remotely, to not have to go
somewhere and buy a card is incredibly convenient.

Speaker 1 (12:51):
Yeah, you have a gas station or a drug store
or some sort of internet cafe in order to get
the actual physical SIM card. And so you know from
the airport, you had to get to that location, buy
the SIM card. You want to get it in your phone,
take the other one out. Now you're going at the
airport where you're paying more, pay more than yes, exactly charging. Yeah,
and so it's it's just so much easier now to

(13:12):
do the sum. You can set it up ahead of time,
which is great, so that when you when you get there,
you hop on airport Wi Fi, you make the switch
and boom, you're already. You're there, You're on your you're
on your other plan. And aer A Low which you mentioned,
is one of those SIM providers right that you could
opt to use. And so when you use an ESM provider,
you're basically buying the data plan ahead of time, yep,
while you're planning your trip, and then you install the

(13:33):
SM via those few clicks that we talked about. There's
a QR code oftentimes that can help you activate it.
You're able to connect and use your phone like normal then,
and the prices are incredibly reasonable for a lot of
these M providers, unlike like you said, which you pay
with somebody like Mint, and so they're they're also much
much cheaper than what Verizon or AT and T will
charge you. Oftentimes they'll charge you for a month or

(13:55):
for you know, a certain amount for days of usage
or per gig, and and that can rack up and
really expensive really quickly too. And considering how easy it
is to do this e sim thing to find a
good eSIM provider that has reasonable rates, to make the purchase,
and then make the switch once you're over in the country.
It's just it's so simple, and it's so much less
expensive to go that route, either that or the Google

(14:18):
Fire route than it is to basically buy service ahead
of time from your US provider.

Speaker 2 (14:23):
Sure, yeah, and I mean Airlows specifically. It's it seems solid.
There are were some bad reviews from frustrated customers on
what one website that we checked out, but no mad
that's actually another one that we heard good things about.
Bottom line, the service isn't going to be all that different,
so looking at the price per gig is going to
be the main consideration, and oftentimes, like on the lower end,

(14:44):
like you are looking at something closer to like a
dollar thirty a gig, on the high end something like
two dollars. And there's some different sites online, some different aggregators.
There's a site actually that like I mentioned listener greg
esimdb so esimdatabase. I think it's dot org, but we'll
make sure to link to that in the show notes.
But it allows you to compare these prepaid plans from
anywhere in the world. And what's great about it as

(15:06):
well is that you can focus specifically on the country
where you know you are going to be traveling, right,
so it's not just let's say a European eSIM provider,
it's specific to the country and so they might be
able to provide you with the absolute best rates, because hey,
all you truly need is a car that works in France,
not one that works for the entire EU. Sure.

Speaker 1 (15:26):
Yeah yeah, And by the way, it's esimdb dot com,
dot dot com dot work. Not nice, but it's one
of those great aggregator sites, which is like, yeah, you
plug in where you're trying to go, and then it says, okay, boom,
here's a list of ESM providers and what they charge,
and so check out a few of the lowest cost
providers that pop up when you're scanning that site, and
then maybe dig in just a little bit of those companies.

Speaker 2 (15:46):
Read their reviews.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
Oh no, this one, this one, this one checks out,
This one does good, and it's one of the one
of the cheapest prices available as well, So I think
that can be a great resource. Big thanks to listener
Greg for mentioning to mentioning it to us. I didn't
know about ESMDB, but I'm glad it's a good site.

Speaker 2 (16:01):
Lad you know it exists. I feel like I'm an
international travel nube to a certain extent. Yeah, Like, I know,
we got four kids, it's been like ten years, over
ten years since I traveled abroad, and so but like
just until this year, yeah, until earlier this year exactly.
But digging into it even more, I'm like, oh my gosh,
this is way easier than it used to be. There
is absolutely no reason, and it's we didn't pay two

(16:21):
hundred dollars per gig when we went to Scotland, but
we also didn't have data, and so we were just
limited to using our phones wherever we had. Why.

Speaker 1 (16:29):
I know, I paid fine, I paid for ten bucks
worth of data, but I didn't realize how extremely limited
that data was going to be.

Speaker 2 (16:34):
And I got to like three pictures.

Speaker 1 (16:36):
Yeah yeah, so it ran out in like no time flat,
and I was like, oh, this sucks. And so when
you put it into context like that, you're like, wait
a second, because it's outrageously expensive. Yes, and there was
a better way, and you and I we should have
been smarter and we should have known that ahead of time,
but now we do and now say to no yea.

Speaker 2 (16:50):
So yeah, And we were just talking about this this morning.
As the kids are getting older, I mean Kate and I,
we are going to be traveling more. Yeah, and finding
ways to cut those costs. That's definitely something that we're
gonna be doing. I will say, there's something nice about
having to rely on your will maps, pold school maps,
and just kind of walking around, like asking people gas
station directions like where you should go, as opposed to

(17:12):
checking the reviews and digitally reserving stuff. You know, Like
there's certainly we're praising the advances and technology and what
that allows us, but there's something that you kind of
miss out on from having more of those in person interactions. True,
you know what I'm saying. Yeah, But we've got more
to get to today. We're gonna talk about pension, We're
going to talk about paying to clean your house. We'll
get to all of that and more right after this.

(17:40):
All right, we're back.

Speaker 1 (17:41):
We've got more money questions to get to on this episode.
In just a second, we've got a listener who who
wants to know whether or not he should be buying
what his financial advisor friend is selling. But before we
get to that, we've got a listener who's a teacher
and it sounds like she's in that fire movement.

Speaker 4 (17:57):
Matt Hide and Matt, my name is Aaron and I
I'm from right outside of Baltimore. I love your show
so much, thanks for everything you do, and hope to
hear an answer to my question if you get a chance.
I am seventeen years into the thirty years needed in
the state of Maryland for a full pension for teachers.
I plan on retiring right at fifty three after I

(18:19):
have my thirty years in and getting that pension. I
might work part time and I might not, and the
pension will cover a significant amount of my retirement. But
obviously I can't get into my accounts until fifty nine
and a half. I currently have one hundred and thirty
five thousand dollars in a roth IRA and only about

(18:40):
sixteen thousand and my four or three B. My plan
for between fifty three and fifty nine and a half
is to start contributing to A four to fifty seven
so that money is available once I retire, and also
thinking about maybe cutting into the principle for my roth Ira,
which I know is not always the best choice. I
kind of just want to see if you guys think

(19:01):
I'm on the right track or if there's something else
I should be doing.

Speaker 2 (19:04):
All right, Aaron has a plan. I love it. She's
got it all laid out. Oh yeah, And I will
say when we first listened to her question, I thought
she was gonna say I'm seventeen years old, and I
was just like, oh man, this does not sound like
a I don't know. I guess the seventeen year old
could sound like Aaron, but probably couldn't have had that
long of a teaching team. Yeah, def definitely not there
to teaching from the age of two. Well, speaking of which,

(19:24):
I'm glad to hear Aaron that you are a teacher, right,
because we have seen a lot of folks leaving that profession,
and it's understandable given what it is that we've asked
of teachers, and how their pay hasn't necessarily kept up
with what it is that they could get where they
work for a private company in a lot of cases.
But it's just one of the most important jobs in existence,
teaching the next generation. So thank you so much for

(19:46):
the almost two decades that you've you've put in so far.
Definitely a sacrifice, right, And we don't give teachers enough
respect in our society and or enough pay. Yeah, and
I think maybe we used to, but I feel like
that's dropped off significantly, especially given what teachers went through
with COVIDSH I feel like they deserve even more respect
because their job got doubly not more so hard. So Aaron,

(20:08):
we think you're awesome, So thank you for your service
in that profession and retiring at fifty three, that's pretty sweet.
That's one of those things Matt kind of like we
talked about with with Lacy Langford talking about military like
that ability to retire early is there for teachers who
I mean, granted, if you start right out of college
and you work for straight thirty years. Yeah, you're talking
about being able to retire in your early fifties, which

(20:29):
is killer, and having the option to work or not
at such a young age. That's clutch, right.

Speaker 1 (20:35):
A lot of people would love to have that ability,
but they haven't necessarily dedicated themselves to this effort as
solidly as Aaron has. And Aaron, you're funding other retirement
accounts and you're not just banking on the pension covering
all of your living expenses in the future, which is
incredibly wise. We want all teachers to be proactive because,
you know, while having that pension, that's obviously an incredible perk,

(20:56):
and it's a perk that a whole lot of people
don't have access to. Not many people have pench anymore,
but it's unlikely to cover, like you said, all of
your expenses. So funneling your dollars into other workplace and
individual retirement accounts like you're doing, that's essential and that
is what's going to help you, in particular kind of
cover that specific period of time, those six six and
a half years of Hey, I'm done teaching school, but

(21:20):
I'm not really full.

Speaker 2 (21:21):
Retirement age exactly. And it does sound like she's done
a pretty good job at doing just that. And specifically,
I love air that you've prioritized the roth IRA so much.
It's one of our favorite retirement accounts. It's definitely one
that you should keep putting money into, largely because of
the tax advantage status, but then also because of the
flexibility that it offers that you that you highlighted, you know,

(21:41):
trying to figure out where to draw from in order
to fund those handful of years. If you do decide
that you don't want to work at all, like that
can be a tough needle to thread. But having some
of that flexibility, like you said, having the ability to
draw down on principle or on the contributions that you've
made to your IRA, that's clutch. Specifically, it's one of
the coolest parts of a roth iray. Yeah, it's been

(22:02):
a minute since we've especial on that. If you haven't
touched on any money that you contribute to your roth IRA,
there is zero penalty for whatever reason you take that
money out. And sometimes folks are.

Speaker 1 (22:11):
Less because it's a post tax account, right and you've
already paid tax on those dollars, and so when you're
socking money away into that, yes, you can leave that
money there for a long long time. But if you
want to, even before you reach retirement age, you can
pull out the contributions, not the money that's been earned
inside of that account, but the contributions are tax and
penalty free exactly, and not for qualified expenses. Sometimes folks

(22:31):
get confused with the first time home buyer or education expense.
No like literally for anything if it's a contribution, you
can take that money out. You pull it out because
you want to get your hair done, which is bad idea,
but like you can't if you wanted to, though, But
I mean that being said, in an ideal world, you
wouldn't tap those WROTH funds until you are actually in
retirement as of as you let those dollars continue to grow.

(22:52):
But if you continue to be diligent with your contributions
and you continue to fund your roth ira roth Ira,
I think it's it's more than it's a more than
reasonable place to withdraw funds from if you are interested
in retiring sooner than your peers.

Speaker 2 (23:05):
If you put your peers or teachers, I guess they
might might maybe, but just what IRIS typically allows that fifty.

Speaker 1 (23:10):
Nine and a half, maybe not because they might wake
up to the realization of like, oh, pension. I thought
I was going to retire too, but I haven't been enough.
But I haven't saved enough money to ensure that I can.
Whereas where as Aaron is, she's making sure that that's
going to be the case. And so yeah, I think
it's I think it makes sense to be able to
pull some of those contributions to cover that handful of
years so that she can quit her job when she

(23:31):
wants to. And by the way, the annual contribution limits
for ROTH goes up to seven thousand dollars next year.
That's the right now it's sixty five hundred, but next
year it's going to be seven grand. So let's just say,
Matt that she's got sixteen years left to fully fund
that WROTH before she retires. That's one hundred and twelve
thousand dollars in contributions that she'll be able to make,
and she can withdraw those between the ages of fifty

(23:52):
three and fifty nine and a half, between the time
where she's quitting work and between the time that she's
able to, you know, fully start tapping the funds. And
that's in addition to the other contributions you've already made,
which I'm not sure what, oh yeah, specific amount of
how much you have in your wroth is contributions. Let's
say it's already got money stockpiled in there forty grand.
That's about one hundred and fifty grand let's say in
contributions overall, that's a decent junk of change. That's a

(24:14):
lot of money. You still have lots of money left
over in the wroth in addition to that, hopefully as well,
right the gains that you aren't allowed to tap until
you do hit that fifty nine and a half mark.
So yeah, you would still have hopefully lots of money
in your wroth, but you're taking out some of the
money that you have pigeonholed essentially for that purpose. And
I think that I think that's a reasonable plan. I

(24:34):
think it makes a lot of sense.

Speaker 2 (24:35):
I agree, man, Yeah, it's just I will say it's
important to note that while it's harder to access funds
for those years, and the roth contributions are a great
way of going about it, you're probably planning for a
much longer retirement beyond fifty nine and a half, right,
Like we're talking about funding cost of living for like
another thirty five forty years, And so take that into account,

(24:55):
because that could mean possibly funneling even more money into
you four fifty seven B for the time being, so
that you know you're building up more of a retirement
nest egg. Or it could actually mean working a little more,
maybe working part time during those six and a half
years between teacher retirement and real or I don't want
to say real retirement like IRS retirement age. To ensure

(25:17):
that you're tapping fewer of those rough contribution.

Speaker 1 (25:20):
Dollars, not necessarily taking it from like the scale dial
all the way up to literally taking it down to zero,
like forty hours a week or whatever, plus to zero
hours a week, saying maybe I'll work ten, twelve, fifteen
hours a week in order to not have.

Speaker 2 (25:33):
To pull those rock white as much. Yeah, not have
to pull as much money out well, because then a
you allow that money to can continue to grow. But
then obviously if you're working part time or if you've
got another job something that you're passionate about, it allows
you to Obviously it's money that you're able to live
off of, right, Like this is money that you're using
to pay the bills. But the double benefit of that
is by not having to tap your retirement dollars. If

(25:54):
the market happens to be down, well you're not gonna
It's a sequence of returns risk. Right, If the market
is down and you have you're like, oh, I don't
have any other way to supplement my pension that I'm
now receiving. I have to draw down. Compare that to
Let's say the market's at all time highs and you
start withdrawing that ness egg at all time highs is
going to last a lot longer than if the market's
in the red. Yeah, So that's another benefit of having

(26:16):
the options and the flexibility. But then also so we
could we kind of presented two options, right, like the
ability to either start investing and saving more now or
just working perhaps a little bit longer. I know, if
it was me, I wouldn't want to cut back to
the bone right now because there are other goals that
I have in my life in the here and now, right,
Like having kids makes it easy because you're like, all right,

(26:38):
I know, I've got eighteen years or less if your
kid's older before they're gone from the house, and so
that's a very limited window of time, right. But even
if you don't have kids, I'm sure you might have
some other like let's just say travel goals that you
might have. You might want to go travel with your friends,
and you might be thinking, Okay, am I going to
have the energy? Do I want to travel like that
when I'm fifty three, fifty four, fifty five in my sixties?

(27:00):
Is that something that I want to even do at
that point in time.

Speaker 1 (27:03):
Yeah, And I think it's important to kind of I
love that Aaron has planned ahead and she's got this
idea of what she wants her life to look like,
but also hold those plans loosely, at least to a
certain extent, right, And so I would say, I would
say save in a way and invest in a way
that these plans, that you can pull these plans off,
that maybe you won't have to work at all between
those games fifty three and fifty nine. I think it's

(27:25):
a great goal to have, But also realize that as
you get closer to that, you might say, you know what,
I am tired of teaching, to have been teaching for
thirty years. But I would I still want to be
of use, and I would still actually have got this
other opportunity over here. Like my father in law, he's
still teaching. He's I think he's almost forty years into teaching,
which is incredible, and he spends even his summers like
working for the college Board. And so maybe when he

(27:47):
retires quote unquote, he'll still work for the college Board
part time or something like that. There's all sorts of
options after he's already retired, from the public, that's right,
from public to private. Then that, yeah, there are just
so many avenues and paths that you can take. And
I mean I've seen this with my folks, my dad
and then also my in laws. They're both like twenty
years into retirement and they worked during that period of

(28:07):
time and there wasn't for the pay. It was partly
because they had a desire to go to work for
some of these organizations that could not pay quite as much,
but it was work that they enjoyed, that they found meaningful.
And there's a lot of inherent value in what it
is that you're able to provide. And what you're pursuing
is optionality, and this is exactly what what Aaron's going
to have by putting essentially as many dollars as you

(28:30):
can in that roth Ira, knowing that that gives her
the most optionality because of the way those contributions can
be treated. So Aaron, you're taking the right approach and
just kind of mentally, I would say, hold it loosely
too as to exactly what your life's going to look
like in those years those are that's a decade and
a half plus down the road, but you're on the
right path here, and we encourage you to kind of
keep making these right decisions and keep going in this direction,

(28:51):
and then we're excited to see what that actually looks
like for you in reality.

Speaker 2 (28:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:55):
I love that she's got a plan and she is
she is guiding and steering her own shifts right as
opposed to seeing just where the wind ends up taking her.
And like we said, a lot of her fellow teachers
might think, oh, pension, this is great, I'll retire after
thirty years, and they might realize that they have to
keep teaching because they didn't they financially prepare in the
other ways that they needed to also, that's right.

Speaker 2 (29:14):
Yeah, great. Let's hear from our next listener, and he's
considering taking some financial advice from a friend or is
he a friend? Hey, Matt Joel.

Speaker 5 (29:23):
My name is Nathan and I live in Huntington Beach, California,
and I have a buddy who recently became a financial advisor,
and he's trying to sell me on this permanence life
insurance and he's really trying to make it sound like
it's the best thing since an HSA and craft beer.
He says it comes with cool stuff like tax deferred,
high yield savings, and I'm able to take out low

(29:45):
rates personal loans if I take out a loan against
my permanent life insurance. I just don't know too much
about it. I wanted to see if you guys could
put your input. I'm only twenty four years old and
I have no dependence. Also, if you're ever in or
Orange County, there's some great brewisi you guys should check out.

Speaker 2 (30:02):
Thanks. You guys love the show man.

Speaker 1 (30:04):
Nathan your buddy. He might be cool, but he's way
off of this, and largely because there's nothing better than
Ahsa's and craft Bear that's come along that I know,
but those are two mile time favorite things.

Speaker 5 (30:15):
YEP.

Speaker 2 (30:16):
Can't argue with that.

Speaker 1 (30:17):
Yeah, and we're so glad that you reached out, because
so many folks in the same situation, they would kind
of trust their friend on this one.

Speaker 2 (30:24):
They would buy the policy.

Speaker 1 (30:25):
They would tell themselves, well, they are a financial advisor, right,
so so this friend must know a whole lot more
than me, and because of that trust, they'll end up
pulling the trigger. And this isn't the same thing as
affinity fraud. But what there's this concept or this reality
of affinity fraud that happens where it's like, oh, you
know this person, they go to your church or synagogue
or they you know, you run in the same circle

(30:47):
as the same community. This is how Bernie madeoff made
so much money. People are like, I know Bernie, he's
the he's what a great guy, and he's he's in
this civic organization in that one and so they gave
him money to invest and it was this kind of
belief that because they knew him, he wasn't going to
do anything treacherous, and yet he ended up doing more
treachery than almost anyone in human history.

Speaker 2 (31:07):
Well, I will say, so it's not that this is
so the affinity part is true, but but not the
fraud part exactly exactly, because it's not like that's where
I was going.

Speaker 1 (31:15):
It's like, yes, so I'm saying it's kind of like
that because there's this there's this belief that the affinity
parts there, your friend is not trying to fraud you. Yeah,
he's not trying to not as total scam. Yes he's
not trying to scam me. But but basically there are
a slew of reasons why these policies aren't as great
as he's making them out to be. And just because
he's your friend doesn't mean you should listen to him
and buy in, hook line and sinker. This is almost

(31:37):
on a really bad idea for you, specifically at this
stage of life.

Speaker 2 (31:41):
Nathan. Yeah. Yeah, there is actual insurance that's being provided.
It's an investment financial product, but it's just not the
most efficient, high performing way of achieving that. Like it
makes me think about like a timeshare. Do you actually
get to go to the beach when you buy a timeshare? Share? Absolutely?
Do you have a place to sleep? Are you on vacation?

Speaker 3 (31:58):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (31:59):
Yeah? But is it easier to hop onto Airbnb and
find a deal or go to verbo? Oh my gosh. Yes,
that's a much much better way of going about it.
And that's kind of.

Speaker 1 (32:08):
How you're not signing your you know, life away in
a twenty year contract. Yes, yes, it's very similar in
that way.

Speaker 2 (32:14):
And some of the different perks that are being provided
by a permanent life insurance policy they certainly sound nice,
but I'm guessing you probably didn't tell you how much
the policy actually costs.

Speaker 1 (32:24):
Like if I was going to the Chevy dealership and
they're telling me how great this new Corvette is and
I'm like, oh yeah, horse power.

Speaker 2 (32:29):
Oh that sounds nice. Yeah, I can see it. Zerre
to sixty and how long.

Speaker 1 (32:32):
And they're gonna tell me all those great things, and
then finally they're gonna tell me the price tag and
be like, yeah, I'm just gonna walk away.

Speaker 2 (32:38):
Yeah, exactly. They are incredibly expensive, these policies. They can
cost you something like twenty times in premiums compared to
what a term policy with the exact same coverage what
that would run you. So instead of a you know,
like a couple hundred bucks in premiums every single year
for insurance, you're talking about dishing out thousands of dollars
for that policy instead. So you be far better off

(33:01):
not getting this policy and instead shoving that money into
pax advantaged accounts instead, just like we talked about with
the wroth IRA on our last question.

Speaker 1 (33:09):
Yeah, if you're talking about maxing out your roth Ira
versus not being able to max it out and getting
this permanent life insurance policy, there's a clear winner, Like
it's not even close, and it's maxing out the WRATH
And so we'd much rather see you putting more money
into that retirement account into your workplace retirement account, make
sure you're getting the full match or even more, rather
than putting those crucial dollars into a really really expensive

(33:30):
life insurance policy. And it's and it's truly what it
comes down to, it's one that you don't even need.
And what I mean by that, yeah, right, is what
makes us pitch even more difficult stomach. And again it's
not fraud, it's just selling the wrong product to the
wrong person. It's that you're incredibly young, you don't have
any dependence, You likely don't even need a super cheap,
cheap term life policy yet, right, like, no one needs

(33:51):
a recommend point because there's nobody that is who is
counting on your income or you to die right when
your status changes, maybe the older you get, you get married,
you have kids, something like that, eventually you might have
the need for something like a term life policy. Will
you ever have the need for a permanent life policy?

Speaker 2 (34:08):
Unlikely?

Speaker 1 (34:08):
Possibly, but it definitely definitely is the case that you
don't need one now. And so I guess what we
would say is even the two hundred bucks that you
might spend on a term life policy, even that would
be kind of wasted essentially until the need arises totally.

Speaker 2 (34:22):
Yeah, could not agree more. And so the question is,
why is your friend selling you on this policy so hard?
And you even said that word, right, So I think
deep down you kind of know he's like, Oh, he's
trying to sell me this policy. We don't want to
throw shade, but it's probably because he stands to make
a pretty sweet commission by selling you this policy. And

(34:44):
maybe he's somewhat tricked his own mind into believing that
everyone and their mom out there needs one of these
life insurance policies, even if the reality is that these
aren't all that great for the majority of folks. Like
it makes me the Upton Sinclair quote that comes to mind,
you know, as far as was it, Oh, it's hard
to get a man understand something when his salary depends
on his not understanding it. Yeah, I feel like that

(35:06):
might be the boat that he's in. So it's gonna
be hard to convince him, because hard to convinced himself.
And he may not even fully know because to be
did he say financial advisor or a financial.

Speaker 1 (35:16):
He's aid financial advisor, but he could Yeah, maybe it's
an he's just an insurance salesman.

Speaker 2 (35:19):
Yes, I mean there's not. It's not like he's a
surgeon or a doctor where he's taken some oath. He's
not necessarily a fiduciary, and so he might be thinking, oh,
this is something that people out there by and it
definitely is, but it just may not be what's best
for you. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (35:33):
So for now, as a twenty four year old with
no dependence, we would say focus on the basics. Get
the match in the workplace, retirement acount, max how you're
roth IRA if you can. If you have access to
an HSA, which you alluded to in your question, try
to get some money into that account too. Invest some
of those dollars for your future right, learn more about
the HSA and maximize your ability to crush it with

(35:54):
that account. Just don't get a ridiculously expensive insurance policy
that you don't need just for the secondaryry perks that
it offers, and you can always get a much cheaper
term life policy in the future. Win Again, things in
your life change, but and you don't have to be
rude or mean.

Speaker 2 (36:09):
To your friend too. Again.

Speaker 1 (36:10):
I said that about affinity fraud and Bernie Manoff, I
really was not trying to loop your friend in and
say that he's on a similar plane.

Speaker 2 (36:18):
He's not.

Speaker 1 (36:18):
I don't believe that in any way, form or fashion.
But the truth is, the closer we are to people,
the more likely we are to believe that.

Speaker 2 (36:23):
Matt.

Speaker 1 (36:24):
If you told me that I should take a new
way home because it's a lot faster, I would believe you.
I wouldn't even look it up on Google Maps, just
because I trust you, right, Yeah, And that is a
natural response. And so, but something like this, when it's
this expensive, we're talking about this much money, and you
know your friend has a dog in the fight because
he stands to benefit financially from selling you this product.
It's not necessarily that he's trying to screw you over,

(36:46):
but maybe he believes that something is great when in
our opinion, it's subpar, especially given the situation that you're in.

Speaker 2 (36:52):
Exactly, all right, we've got more to get to. We're
actually going to take a couple listener money Wins. There
are some listeners ever in the how to Money Facebook group.
They are crushing it when it comes to their money.
We're Gonna win. In particular, has started paying for what
she previously considered to be a splurge and completely unnecessary.
We'll get to that and more right after this.

Speaker 1 (37:19):
All right, Matt, we're back, and you know we got
to get to I think a few Facebook listener money wins.
There have been some great great shares in there recently.
And by the way, if you're listening and you're not
a member of the how to Money Facebook group, you
should go over there. You should sign up. You should
join largely because if you've got a question, it's a
great place to ask it. If you're just looking for
insight and wisdom, it's a great place to turn. And
it's the actually literally the only thing I used Facebook

(37:42):
for that in Facebook Marketplace, and other than that, I
avoid Facebook all together. But except for keeping up with
your ex girlfriends from high school, duh, doesn't everyone do that?

Speaker 3 (37:50):
No?

Speaker 2 (37:50):
I don't. Let's be honest. Joll never didn't have any
x RO Matt.

Speaker 1 (37:54):
Girls wouldn't date me back then. I got I had
a couple. I found one that would date me, and
I stuck to her. But Pam posted in our Facebook
group this week and she said, we've been trying to
cut our grocery bill and we have successfully cut out
about four hundred dollars a month nice, which is a
lot of money. By doing the following should using the
free Walmart pickup. This has helped curb any impulse purchases

(38:15):
by not entering the store using the app upside the
local grocery chain. She said, I use has up to
eight percent cash back on the app. When I see
a higher percentage, that's the day I shop. Using my
Costco membership to buy more items than bulks, she said,
I've stopped being stuck in my ways, so I started
buying off brand items too, and then pre making some
breakfast food like that kind of stuff. So I'm trying

(38:38):
to figure out even more ways to save. But I
feel like this has been a good start. So Matt,
there's a few things I think we could talk about
on this one. Congrats to Pam saving four hundred bucks
a month. That's insane, like that is a lot of
money to cut.

Speaker 2 (38:50):
It's a big junk.

Speaker 1 (38:50):
And especially I think for a lot of people right now,
they've seen the reality of inflation at the grocery store
and maybe they bought the narrative that there's nothing they
can do about it. And I think Pam is living proof
that there are things you can do to push back
on the reality of higher prices. I'm not saying that
it's not true the prices aren't more expensive at the
grocery store. They are, but I think there's there are
also things that we can do to fight back. And
absolutely let's go through a couple of these. One of

(39:12):
the things she said was using pickup.

Speaker 2 (39:14):
Yeah, what do you think about the Uh, Well, specifically
with Walmart is the fact that it's free, but I
think it's free at Kroger as well.

Speaker 1 (39:21):
I think is it I think I think we pick
up specifically.

Speaker 2 (39:24):
Is Kroger, and I know at all the costs, there's
a very small fee associated with it, just a couple
of bucks.

Speaker 1 (39:29):
So I think the coolest thing about pickup. I think
pickup is this is this beautiful happy medium versus going
in the store, which takes a lot of time, versus delivery,
which costs a lot of extra money. Right, so sometimes
there's like delivery fee and tip fee. But then on
top of that, every item that you buy might cost
more money and probably usually does cost more money too.
Let's say you're buying for doing instacart on a side

(39:50):
like Instagram, Yeah, and so's.

Speaker 2 (39:52):
A huge downside. Well, and then the pickup is great
because they bring it out to your car, but you're
also the online shopping part though, if like the having
to make I've seen folks on their phones and I'm like,
for all the time that you just spent on your phone,
not talking to the people around you, as you've been
responding to somebody who's shopping for you because they can't
find the item and they're asking for replacements. Yeah, you
should have just gone yeah and saved all the money.

(40:13):
And it may maybe you would have taken to.

Speaker 1 (40:15):
Just I'm a weirdo and I like grocery shopping, so
I usually do the grocery shopping in our house anyway
because I enjoy it. But for most people who don't
or feel like they don't have the time, I think
ordering online and then picking it up makes a whole
lot of sense because the other thing that Pam mentioned
was those impulse purchases. They are they get you right,
they get you at the grocery store, and that is

(40:36):
one massive benefit of doing the pickup is you're not
tempted to get the stuff on the endcap that costs a.

Speaker 2 (40:42):
Lot of money. I think it comes down to knowing
yourself right, and if you know that you're gonna be tempted, uh,
then maybe that's a situation you should completely avoid. I
personally don't do a whole lot of our grocery shopping.
But because of that, I don't think I've developed that muscle,
and so anytime I do go to the grocery store, dude,
I always come home with stuff. And Kate's like, what
is this because she like she has it down to
a science, and so like the time saving part of

(41:03):
it doesn't really apply because literally she can get in
and out of all the faster than anyone I know. Like,
she knows her items, she knows exactly what it is
that we need, so there's not a whole lot. She's
also on rollerblades. That would be awesome if she did
do that, but she's like she would make a great
contestant on supermarket sweet. I wanted to mention so she
was talking about getting more items at Costco in bulk,

(41:24):
specifically when they're on sale. That's something that we're considering doing,
taking advantage of the ability to do that. Specifically, when
I'm talking about here is potentially getting a deep freeze.
I want to crunch the numbers a little bit, figure
out how much it's actually going to cost me to
run to power a deep freeze in our garage. Yeah,
look at the energy star numbers or ye, yeah exactly,
and then try to calculate, like how much do I

(41:44):
actually think I can save? Because the problem is is
if you buy a pull lot of food, it's going
to spoil if you don't eat it, obviously, right, And
is there anybody who has an empty freezer at home? No,
Like everybody's freezer is always so packed out. And the
ability to buy more big old hunks of meat or vegetables,
just whatever berries as they go on sale and keep

(42:05):
them in the fridge. Man, Like I wouldn't be able
to do that to be a little more scrappy. Yeah, well,
when those sales will come along by them, stock up
in the proper season when things are on sale, and
then save them for later for sure. Exactly.

Speaker 1 (42:15):
One of the other things she mentioned was she said
I stopped being stuck in my ways and I started
buying off brand items, which I love.

Speaker 2 (42:21):
This is I think this is the biggest thing.

Speaker 1 (42:23):
There's so much potential for savings area that you could
change where your shop which is one of the things
she said she did. But we always recommend ally, we
think it's the if you're going to do one thing,
that's probably the biggest thing. Like in my mind, it's
the lowest hanging fruit, the easiest thing, because like she
also mentioned that app which can be nice, but that's
sort of in my mind, it's couponing two point zero. Yeah,
it's like a little bit of ads, more hoops to

(42:44):
jump through, But the biggest thing is where you shop
and then and then discount or excuse me, store brand items.
Lots of times she can get him thirty to forty
percent off what the brand name cost is sometimes even more.
And consumer Reports, by the way, they did a taste
test a few years back, and they found most people
can't tell the difference between a lot of these store
brand name brand items, and so it's certainly worth another shot.
And especially when you're talking about all the or legal

(43:07):
shopping at one of those stores, because all you have
to do is just go to one of those two
grocery stores, go to all the well, they've got the
guarantee everybody has one of those news if it sucks,
you can take it back. If you're like these fake
oreos don't taste like oreos.

Speaker 2 (43:18):
Take them back. It's the aldi doritos are terrible. I know.
You know what, Actually, I got a lot of flak
for that. I think we're gonna stop getting the American
singles like this. Che slices of cheese, it's the plastic on.
When you go to peel the cheese, it breaks. And
so we were recently doing burgers and I was slapping
you know, everybody. I know you don't like cheeseburgers, but
all the rest of them hamburgers. All the rest of

(43:40):
the world white cheddar up likes a cheeseburger. Jool And
I was cracking those bad boys open, and they plastic
kept ripping. It was like a cheap tape and you're
trying when you're trying to like, you know, like if
you've got some packing tape and you're trying to get
a big piece of tape off and it keeps like shredding.
That's what the plastic was doing. And I was afraid
that there's gonna be a little piece of plastic on
the on the cheeseburgers. Was a little paranoid. It kind

(44:00):
of stress me out. Yeah, it's Okay, I don't think
we should be getting the cheese anymore because I don't
think it's worth it because of those way I was like,
I don't want Yeah, I don't want anybody to be
munching on any plasting, But I think more than all
the alone, just go there. And I know we easily
save thirty, if not forty percent, just from going there
instead of Kroger.

Speaker 1 (44:18):
Well, I feel like Pam's whole post summed up a
lot of the advice we would give to someone who's
asking how do you save money? To the grocery store
and pre making some meals like that too saves money
on buying some of those prepackaged foods, and it.

Speaker 2 (44:29):
Also even eating out. Yeah, exactly that temptation. We got
it ready to go.

Speaker 1 (44:33):
I've got a meal in the freezer, kind of feels
like fast food I could pop in the oven, and
we've got dinner tonight. Those are the kind of things
to think through if you want to save at the
grocery store, and they're just a lot of the low
hanging fruit, a lot of the easy steps that a
lot of people are just kind of unwilling to take.
So kudos to you, PAMs. Are actually doing good work, Pam,
and for saving as much as much money as you
have grocery budgets. I think it's something around ten percent
of what it is that we spend every single month.

(44:55):
So any ability that we have to adjust something like
that that we have total control over.

Speaker 2 (45:00):
Is a huge win in our book. Another win is
from Bonnie and she said life win more than a
money win, a craft beer equivalent. I have always told
myself that when I make X dollars or when I
had enough money whatever that means, I would hire someone
to clean my house a couple times a month. However,
I could never pull the trigger, even though we are
now debt free except for our two and a quarter

(45:21):
percent mortgage. Wow, humble, jealous, double brag, we are maxing
out retirement accounts, et cetera. Then I had a realization
that I hesitate to invite people to my home due
to feeling like it is never clean enough, and she wrote,
I do realize friends and family likely won't notice or care.
So I pulled the trigger on spending the two hundred
fifty dollars a month for the freedom to have people

(45:41):
over at any time and being able to enjoy my
time off work more without feeling guilty for procrastinating on
cleaning the house. M Joel, what are your thoughts on
Bonnie's money win. I like it.

Speaker 1 (45:52):
You're gonna get all judgy, Honestly, the exact opposite. I
love that she's spending money in this way, and I
love that she's connecting it to a deeper value that
she has. That it's not just like I don't like
cleaning or oh I want to be lazy, right, It
is truly, you know, what I really value is community,
having people over in my house and not and being
able to do it full approach on a whim whenever

(46:13):
I want to. And that's why I want to get
this done, which is cool. And obviously she's financially prepared
to do it. She can make this decision no matter
what the underlying reason is, because she's making the other
smart money moves. It just it makes me think of
our conversation with Ben from Chronify about you know, time
and money, and what he talked about was this one
night of the week where they get takeout from their
favorite Mediterranean place, and it was more than just like, ah,

(46:35):
we don't have to cook because we don't like cooking
it was. It was really so much deeper than that,
the way he connected the money he spent on that
to you know what it means no clean up. It
means we can just really enjoy this family dinner and
then play games afterwards without having to worry about cleaning
up the kids.

Speaker 2 (46:50):
She talked about. Speaking of clean he talked about it
being like clean eating as well. So he's just like,
it's a healthy meal as opposed to fast food. So
in his case, it was going to cost more than
ding like a burrito or something from well, burrito's gonna
be pretty help like a cheeseburger back getting a cheeseburger fries.
But he was also valuing not in this case not

(47:11):
just time spent together in community or relationship with his family,
but also like his physical health, which is good too.

Speaker 1 (47:17):
And I think when lots of times we're doing stuff
from pure convenience standpoint and we're not really connecting the
dollars we're spending to something deeper, and I think even
just reframing it and okay, why am I spending money
like this again, it can help us feel less guilty
about spending money in that direction and thinking of it
that's why we talk about the craft beer equivalent. When
you can think of money you're spending on even just

(47:38):
a spoorers and saying like this is something that brings
me a lot of joy for this, this and this reason.
When you can call those things out, it can help
connect the money spent to the deeper reason. It's a
good thing and makes me even think about our episode
Ken Honda back in the day and how that helped
me change how we were spending money in a couple
of ways, and it just made me feel less guilty
about doing it. And I think I've always had this

(48:00):
ability to be guilt ridden when it comes to how
I spend money, largely because of the way I just
felt like I had to save and invest everything. And
I've grown up, I've realized, especially in recent years, that's
really silly, and there's a lot of good that can
come from spending your money well on things that you
care about and so, but connecting the dots is really important.

Speaker 2 (48:20):
Yeah, that being said, and I completely agree with everything
that you're saying. I think that, like they sometimes you
don't even need to justify your spending if you are
reaching your financial goals, and so I think that's a
huge part of Bonni's story, right, the fact that she
has achieved her financial some different financial goals or milestones
that she's got going on, and for her, the bigger

(48:40):
win here is that she has mentally arrived right like
she is, She's already she's previously financially arrived, and now
for her to mentally arrived at that point, she's kind
of doing it through thinking about community. And again, everything
that you said and everything that she's saying I completely
agree with. But I think like this is I guess,
the more libertarian approach. If you are reaching your financial goals,
I don't even really care what you spend your money on.

(49:01):
Hopefully there's some sort of ideal something that's driving you,
like a way that you're able to justify it. But honestly,
I don't even really care because you have as long
as you are making excuses for goals that you aren't achieving.
Like in my mind, I almost see it as like
a black er white thing. You know. I don't want
you to like literally flesh money down the toilet unless
that somehow gives you some weird pleasure. I don't know,

(49:24):
is that a king? But like we are all different people,
and we all have different things that we prioritize and
things because for somebody else it's just maybe their thing
that they're able to connect it to is just it
truly is convenience. Maybe their big thing is I just
want to not have to think about anything, all right.
That sounds like being lazy, But if that's what it
is for that person, I'm not going to tell anybody

(49:44):
that that shouldn't be something that they spend money on.
So I love the fact that you can connect it
to things that truly do bring you, like life satisfaction
and where you're able to hit some of these other
goals in life other than just financial. But I also
think if you are reaching your financial milestones, the different
goals have that you can kind of spend your money
however you want, yeah, yeah, or give it away even sure,

(50:05):
which is I think another great goal. So I think
people like Bonnie are probably rare, though usually most people
are like don't have enough money left over to invest
because they're spending on so many things to make their
lives easier. Bonnie's on the frugal side.

Speaker 1 (50:16):
Yeah, but I think probably there's a disproportionate amount of
folks who listen to our podcast who do fall into
that camp, who are told so bent in the frugal
direction that they have a hard time loosening the purse strings.
And so I think it's a really good thing to
go back and look and say, well, how much money
do we have saved leftover? Can we afford to splurge
on this or that the things that matter to us?

(50:37):
Because you can't spend on everything. We know that if
you choose to spend on everything, you won't have any
money left over to save and invest and give money
to the causes that matter to you. And so you
have to be thoughtful about where you're putting those extra dollars.
But I think that a lot of our listeners could
stand to benefit from kind of what Bonnie is saying.
And maybe you rethink some of those things that they
had said were off limits for them financially, and maybe

(50:59):
so to dedicate more dollars in that direction, and it's
going to prove to add a whole lot of happiness
to their lives. But they just haven't given themselves permission
to spend money in that direction yet.

Speaker 2 (51:08):
Absolutely, Yeah, anchoring it to something that matters more to
you than having actual dollars on the hand, because yeah,
at the end of the day, what does what does
that extra two hundred dollars a month mean for your
financial future? Sure, you can run a return simulator on
what that money invest in the s and P five
hundred is going to give you, but how much joy
is it going to give you in the here and now?
And are you still going to have enough money in
the future because you're already investing really well, then maybe

(51:30):
you can part with that two hundred bucks and use
it to spend on cleaning the house so that you
can enjoy your friends and that extra bottle of wine
you gotta buy too, the host. Don't forget those ancillary costs, Bannie,
But thank you for sharing that. And again Joe mentioned
the how to Money Facebook group. Head over there if
you have not yet checked it out. It's I'm going
to say, the happiest place on the entire Internet.

Speaker 1 (51:50):
Yeah, internets, And there aren't necessarily as many happy places
as you would hope on the Internet, but this is
one at all. Yeah, but let's let's get back to
the beer. This one's called Strawberry Lemonade Suns. It's by
Inner Voice Brewing or your thoughts on this, spear Man
so good.

Speaker 2 (52:04):
I will say that on the nose, I was expecting
much more strawberry. Then when you start drinking it, I
feel like there's more of the tart lemon. The sourness
kind of come coming through, more strawberry in the nose,
more lemon on the tongue, in the actual mouth. I
could one hundred percent picture of this being like a
frozen drink. Oh you know what I'm talking about, Like
you could you imagine these flavors like it just the

(52:26):
with a straw and you're sitting on the beach. Side,
That's what I was saying. Side.

Speaker 1 (52:29):
This feels like a beach drink with an umbrella in it,
but in beer form, right, and strawberry lemonade. What a
great what a great beverage. But turning it into a beer.
I was worried that this is going to be like
way too sweet, way too cloying, or something like that.

Speaker 2 (52:42):
It was just right, No, it was great.

Speaker 1 (52:44):
This was really well balanced. And lemon lemon can sometimes
be a little too harsh, too tart for me.

Speaker 2 (52:49):
But this wasn't.

Speaker 1 (52:50):
This was perfectly balanced, Like got both the strawberry and
the lemonade in there, and it was laid back version
of kind of of something that I was thinking was
going to be too intense, so bad. Props to the
folks that in Voice for making just another great beer.

Speaker 2 (53:01):
Yeah. And if you have a twenty one year old
and you're worried that they're not going to take up
craft beer drinking like like you enjoy, try something like this,
you know, because maybe they're used to enjoying the strawberry
lemonade minute made frozen tree like out the Six Flags
or whatever amusement park. This is a way to step
it up to the next level.

Speaker 1 (53:19):
If they're only drinking white Claw, this is a beer
to give them so that they can try craft beer.
But maybe the nice Gateway drunk.

Speaker 2 (53:25):
You know, that's gonna be it for this episode of
How to Money. You can find links any of their
different resources we may have mentioned in our show notes
up on the website at how Tomoney dot com and
so buddy. Until next time, Best friends Are I'm best
Friends Out
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Hosts And Creators

Joel Larsgaard

Joel Larsgaard

Matthew Altmix

Matthew Altmix

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