November 14, 2025 • 36 mins
Time for a Friday Flight- our little sampling of the week’s financial news and what it means for your personal finances. There are a lot of headlines out there, but we boil them down to specific takeaways that will allow you to kick off the weekend informed and help you to get ahead with your money. In this episode we explain some relevant and helpful stories like:
- Help us dominate the Daffy Voices for Good Campaign!
- 50 year mortgages
- Robinhood getting into the mortgage game
- Cash for Christmas
- FindHelp.org is a great resource for those in need of food, shelter, transportation and more
- Flights not quite as delayed
- Expense ratio transparency
- Investment nudges by Vanguard
- $2,000 tariff rebate checks
- Fancy credit cards potentially no longer accepted
- RIP Direct File
- Avoiding all the scams
- Voice authentication via code words
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- Knowing your ‘money gear’ is a crucial part of your personal finance journey. Start here.
- Sign up for the weekly HTM newsletter. It’s fun, free, & practical.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Out of Money. I'm Joel, I'm Matt. Today
we're talking forever mortgages, ruining rewards cards, and free tax
filing fails. Oh, we've got more than one tax filing
(00:30):
failed to get to I thought we were really going
to talk about fail I think I added an s Oh,
I think it's just one. Okay, Hey, you say failure.
If there's something else you want to talk about later on,
let's get to it. Man, we're talking about personal failures.
What's what's a recent personal fail Do you have one?
So many? Here's my I like to bring him to
light here on the podcast. That's my wife.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Wait, we need to let people know where I was gonna.
I was gonna mention how I rolled my ankle and
I've been hobbling around.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
He saw me this morning.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Actually, instead of us joining runs like we have in
the past, you saw me walking because I got to
rehab my stupid ankle after.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
I rolled it earlier. It's the worst, man, because those
are the things that you just kind of too fragile.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Yeah, I'm like one of these like little fragile like.
You gotta protect me. You gotta put some bubble wrap around.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Me to put you in a cocoon. Yeah, we can
do that. I'm high performance but highly fragile individual. Girl.
Think one of those formula and cars, you know, they're
always getting banged up.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
The line from Rob Blow's character in was It Parks
and rec probably take him a like one grain of
scene my engine. It was just when he was sound
that sounds like Rob characters Roblows character from that show.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Yeah, Okay, real quick, Matt. One thing we're not failing
at is raising money for some of our favorite nonprofits.
I just wanted to bring this up really quickly. You've
probably heard the ads around this, but we we talked
about donor advised funds regularly here on the show. We're
all about raising money for good causes. We have been
with Daffy for years now and been talking to Daffy
(01:54):
on the show for years now, and we're up against
some other podcasts trying to raise money for some of
our favorite profits. We're in I think third place right now,
which is admirable. We have a little bronze medal next
to hurt or something that has you go to the
Voices for Good Daffy dot org slash Voices for Good.
You can see we'll see I'm not going to getting
our butts kicked by the stacking Benjamins people. My god,
(02:15):
I didn't realize that. Yeah, so those idiots.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
So folks need to go to Daffy dot org Ford
slash how to Money. See I've been going. I've been
checking out our page and making sure that thing still works.
I didn't know there was a landing page as all
the all the top scores.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
And you can see oh no boards, maybe seven or
eight podcast total, so third place. It's respectable, but still like,
uh man, we're way better than the stacking Benjamins.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Guys and mess folks don't even know who those guys are, yeah, right,
forget them, just they barely exist. So you're listening to
our show. But when you go to Daffy dot org
ford slash how to Money, when you sign up and
make your first contribution as well, you get a free
twenty five dollars to be able to donate to your
charity of choice, so donor advice funds.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
They're awesome.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
We've been huge fans of Daffy in particular for years
and only recently have been able to partner with them.
And it was it was like one of those slam
nug decisions where they reached out to us and we're like,
would y'all want to do this? Sort of We're like,
oh my gosh, yes, this is a match made in
heaven for sure, as they say, so, please, yeah, join
us in this endeavor and help us smacked stacking Benjamins
(03:17):
in a face.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Yeah, I'm for it. I know. I'm using violent language
only because I think they've been doing it on their
podcast about us, and so yeah, oh yeah, they see
I don't read the comments some of the images they've
been flowed around like I did see that. Yeah, it's tough.
So we're I'm just getting back at them with some
subverbal abuse here. But let's keep moving, man.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
This is our Friday Flight where we cover the most
pertinent headlines from the past week how they're going to
impact your dollars. Let's talk about the new fifty year mortgage.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
That was floated. You're a big fan, right, I'm not.
I'll explain why.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
But the Trump administration is saying that they want Fanny
and Freddy to be able to back the fifty year mortgages,
making them likely to become accessible to more day Americans. Right,
And here's the thing. It would make housing slightly more affordable.
But similar to we talked about this last week, the
(04:10):
super long car loans. Similar to that right where you
lengthen these loans, this would have terrible downsize.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
It lowers the payment, which is nice, but barely. That's
the thing.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Like when you actually look at the numbers and crunch,
crunch the numbers, it's not It's like you look at
the difference between a fifteen year and a thirty year,
there's a significant difference. There is not much difference between
a thirty year and a fifty year. You know what
the difference is in how much overall interest you pay.
It's significantly higher with the fifty absolutely, But you can't
ignore the fact that you're extending this obligation for twenty
(04:41):
more years, and it's unlikely that you're going to even
be in the home for fifty years, which makes it
what it's going to make it harder when it comes
time to sell that home, especially in a stagnant market,
because you're gonna have paid off so little. Principle, So yes,
housing is not terribly affordable right now, but making longer
debt instruments is a it's a short term fix to
(05:03):
a long term problem that has the potential to create
even more long term problems down the road.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
And I am not a fan. From an individual anti
societal perspective, I think the fifty year mortgage and a
fifty year mortgages, like, I can't imagine they're going to
be all that popular to where it's going to create
some sort of crash. I mean, I think we're thinking
about the the housing crisis, the Great Recession. I can't
imagine it turning into something like that because it's not
all that attractive. It's not a great solution. I'm thinking
(05:30):
maybe the fifty year mortgage proposal is too short sighted, Matt.
Maybe we should go for like one hundred year maybe
two hundred year mortgages. Why not? Like why not? Where?
What is the limiting principle here?
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Well, one of the reasons is because of the fact
that banks would take on these longer out and I
know you're being facetious, of course, but the rates would
also be higher because of the fact that it's a
longer term. So the bank is signing up for a
riskier investment here, and that's another downside, right, Like it
would be one thing, I mean I would consider it
if the rates were lower, because then it's just like, Okay,
(06:01):
let's crunch them numbers seriously, how this pans out?
Speaker 1 (06:03):
But and it's not the case. The truth is, if
i're rate, if you have more of like an investor
mindset or like an optimization sort of mindset, you could
potentially take on a longer mortgage with the right terms
and if you're doing all the other right things. But
I just think there's way too many Americans who would
use the fifty year mortgage as hey, this is the
only way I can actually get into the housing market
(06:25):
and buy a house. You'll never own the home because
it's a fifty year mortgage, but you can at least
buy the home and be paying on it for a
long period of time. So I just think that this
would this would be a rough decision leading to a
bunch of negative downstream impacts for a lot of individuals.
It just seems so short sighted. And some folks are
talking about how much more an interest you are going
(06:45):
to pay. It's just absurd, right, like the total cost
of the actual loan.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
But it's honestly, it's less about that because of the
fact that people don't typically stay in their homes for
fifty years, right, And so it's I think where folks
are going to feel it more is when they're like, oh,
you know what, this.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
House is working out for us.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Oh we're gonna move because daddy got a new job.
Oh mom's got this promotion, and now we have to
move out of state. Oh the kid, whatever, all the
different reasons that you end up moving.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
And if you've been in that house for seven years
on a fifteen year mortgage, hey, you paid off a
lot of the principal bounds, or at least enough to
where you come to the closing table and you're you
don't feel like you just got slapped in the face, right,
But if you're in a fifty year.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Mortgage five to seven years, a fifty year note, yep,
especially yeah, when things are slower yet you're having to
come to the table.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
By the way, money, did you see that Robin Hood
is entering into the home mortgage market? They not fifty
years more, just because it's an a thing.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Yeah, hopefully it will become a thing. But we wanted
to talk about it since it was making the headlines,
since it was truthed out.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Earlier this week. I got truthed so stupid. Okay, So
but Robinhood looks like they might get into they're going
to get into mortgages at least for their gold numbers initially,
and they you know, Robinhood might offer good rates in terms.
Maybe maybe not. I don't know, but I think this
is just a good reminder. While it might be like
the blinking light in front of you, Oh yeah, I
use Robinhood to invest, and so now they're offering mortgages,
(08:02):
that's where I should go maybe, and you should probably
get a quote from them. But as we always say,
getting at least three quotes every time when you are
getting a mortgage is crucial because the numbers just show
you can save a significant amount of money by comparing
apples to apples with a bunch of different mortgage providers. Totally.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
One of the things they tatted was the mortgage application.
It only takes four minutes, which I don't know how
I feel about that either, Like there's a part of
me that says, you know what, I think the friction
is actually a good thing in this case, Like this
is a very big decision. This doesn't need to be
something that you buy paying four like on a pair
of sneakers, right or something. This is a house that
(08:39):
we're talking about, and so I don't know, there's a
part of me that thinks maybe it should be a
little bit harder to purchase the home. Not the fact
that a there's so little supply out there, not the
fact that housing prices are crazy, like those are the
like that is how it's so hard to get a house, right,
saving up the money for a down payment, actually finding
a place that you want to buy. You've saved up
(09:00):
the money. Okay, so maybe it should be easier when
once you've actually done those things. But something about it
taking so little time feels a bit like a bit
knee jerk. Like you're sitting there on the couch watching
Netflix and you're like, oh, let me just apply for
a Morgan, and all of a sudden you've been told that, oh, yeah,
you can afford a seven hundred thousand dollars home.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
I think what you're getting it would be like if
you were applying to Harvard and you just took like
a one minute selfie video and send it inn like
that would be like that would be a significant enough
of an application Like that doesn't seem thorough enough right, exact, Yeah, exactly. Yeah,
it's a multiple choice. Actually, I even know one bit
of a selfie app Yeah, that's not enough. Got to
go a little more harder than that. There was a
new survey map from US News and it found that
(09:40):
seventy nine percent of Americans are concerned they're not going
to have enough money for gifts this holiday season. I
get it, like I see that. I see that stat
and it's shocking in some ways, but I also understand
like rising prices more economic uncertainty, it makes splurging on
Christmas presents feel a bit more tenuous. Tariffs have been
(10:02):
impacting prices at least to a certain degree, and we
can't go back in time. But this is why Matt,
you and I were fans of starting a sinking fund
in January. Believe we talked about it. In January of
this year, Hey starts sending us side money that we did.
Now for the end of the year. Forty bucks a
month would mean you'd have four hundred and forty dollars
saved at this point in the year, and like then,
(10:23):
you would be able to buy most of the Christmas
presents you wanted to buy guilt free. And this would
ensure that you're at least within the ballpark of what
you're going to spend this year for presents, and our
advice now, start doing that for twenty twenty six. But
if you haven't done that and you feel concerned about
being able to buy presents this year, make a gift
(10:43):
recipient list and attach a reasonable budget for what you're
willing to spend for each person you want to buy for.
Then find ways to pair back and to save so
that you have the cash as gift buying season starts.
Because we're about to get into that season, Matt, where
like every retailer is pulling for your dollars with like
sales and advertisements and blinking lights, and I think it's
(11:04):
I just don't want to see how the money listener's
going to debt for it. Yeah, we want you to
have a plan, and if you don't, the worst thing
that happens, and this a lot of folks do this, right,
you end up putting all those gifts on a credit card.
You're saying yourself, I'm not gonna worry about this until
the next year, because next year's gonna be better.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Right, It might be better, it might not be uh,
and then you're dealing with it for the next six
seven months or so.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
But I think it's also okay today six to seven
you did, I did, I didn't. Okay. Sorry for all
the parents out there, all the middle schoolers out there,
what's up. It's also I wanted.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
To say, I think it's totally fine to dial back
your spending and expectations.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Specifically, this is something.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
That we're about to do with our extended family, but
have the conversations with your family, with your friends, set
the expectation.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Tell your father in law he's not getting the bow
on top of the lexus this year. Man.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Yes, but do it now, because the closer you get
to Christmas to the holidays, the harder it's going to become.
This is an instance where I think honesty is the
best policy, because if you've got other financial goals or
priorities that you might have, I think there's a good
chance that other folks in your life also have goals
that they want to achieve as well, and so it's
(12:14):
just I don't know. I think it could lead to
less stressful and potentially even more memorable holiday season for
you and your family.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
In another sign of kind of the economic times. The
CEO of GoFundMe said recently that people are raising money
on that platform to buy food I and he's basically
made it sound like that's not something they've seen a
lot of, but there's been a substantial uptick in that
go fundme, typically used to raise crowdfund for like health
care costs, or to raise money for emergencies that are
(12:45):
happening around the world. And this statement came I think
Matt before the snap benefits didn't go out at the
beginning of the month. I think this was in like
mid October that he said this, which compounded the problem
obviously for many families. So I think this is just
this is a good reminder to me, and I wanted
to say this on the podcast publicly too, to look
out for people in your community, especially people who are
(13:07):
struggling or you might see, oh gosh, they look like
they might be having a hard time. Like you know,
cash a gift card to your local grocery store could
be a big help for people in time and need.
This is a great time if you have the means
to support people who live near you.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Food drives even like this is something I think that
we've even struggled with with our family is connecting some
of the good that we tried to put out in
the world with the kids and their lessons. Because like
we're you've got kids, and you're you've got a full calendar.
It's tough to make time to go serve like in
a soup kitchen or something like that. But even simply
participating in a can food drive I think can be
a good way, especially if you're just talking about it
(13:45):
well and explain and explaining to them why we're doing this,
why we're how it is that we're able to do
something like that.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
We're seeing churches step up to the plate. And as
the snap benefits were cut, and so I saw a
bunch of churches saying, all right, listen, we're gonna step
in and fill this gap here, and so yeah, take
part in that. If your church is doing something like
that locally. There's also a website findhelp dot org if
you need financial or food or health assistance. That's a
(14:10):
great site to kind of find where you can get
that nearby.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Totally which is an awesome database. I've explored there a
little bit this morning. It seems super up to date.
It's Scott's and it's got it's really thorough.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Yeah, it's not just food. It's also like transportation housing.
You can get legal help as well, but it's got
updated hours, and certainly make sure to call them before
you you drive across town or share it with somebody.
I think what could be really helpful is if you're
hearing this need, if someone is in need, doing I
don't know, even I don't know. I almost said doing
it for them and just like helping to connect the dots.
(14:43):
But it's also good to empower individuals and say, hey,
this is a great resource. Yeah, it looks like aware
of those resources can be a big help too, exactly
rather than doing it but for them, But I could
see an argument for for either. But yeah, the shutdown,
the government shutdown, I think strained a lot of people's
but especially when it comes to food. The shutdown also
impacted thousands of flights at airports across the country, annoying
(15:08):
and delaying travelers. I was looking at the what is
it the misery map. There's a map that shows all
the delays at the major airports, and it is much
less read this morning than it was last Friday. Yeah,
this time, but even still This could drive up fairs
even more than anticipated this holiday season, so be aware,
(15:28):
be flexible when you are booking travel. Hopefully government resuming
means that those air traffic controllers and other workers are.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Back to it. On a similar note, something else that
Congress has been getting done pertains to our investments. And
this is one that they're not talking about of like, oh, yeah,
we finally got the government reopened. This is one that
they're it's kind of we're sweeping it under the rug
a little bit. Let to talk about the Epstein files vote,
but not so much public discussion about this. Yeah, so
(15:58):
this is and of course we're going to lean towards
investments and fee disclosure.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Specifically, this is something that Jason's wig over at the
Journal is doing, but he highlighted a bill that is
currently in the works that is seeking to hide expense
fees specifically on some more inside baseball type investments. But
the end result could be that ETFs don't have to
disclose certain fees, making it look to investors as though
(16:26):
they're investing in something that's a bit more reasonable, something
that might be perceived as low cost when it really isn't.
But specifically, if you dig into it a little bit.
This pertains to and this isn't This hasn't passed yet
as far as I know. I think the House passed it,
but the Senate has not. But it pertains specifically to
(16:46):
business development companies, which are a bit more niche.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
And I think they're private as well.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
So it's not like these are in your target date
funds or like a Fidelity or Vanguard index fund or
something like that. But I think so don't worry about
it from that standpoint. But I think the reason that
Jason was that he wrote about it was the fact
that this is an instance to where Wall Street has
getting their toe in the door a little bit, and
anytime they try that, we see Wall Street offu skate
(17:13):
fees like this where there's a lack of transparency. I
think that's where we start getting a little bit nervous
start where we start thinking, Okay, well, what's next, what
other funds that we are actually invested in where they
might try to pull something off in those funds as well.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Give me a slippery slope, It is exactly. Yeah, alternative
investments are just skate becoming more popular, and so we
do run the risk more and more as individuals individual
investors of having access to investments that are maybe a
little more opaque when it comes to fees inside of
(17:46):
our four O one k, like that could be coming soon,
so it is. Yeah, we'll definitely keep our eye on this.
On a positive note for investors, though, Baron's reported that
Vanguard is uping its use of behavioral technology to nudge
investors to make better choices. So, for example, when investors
initiate a rollover, one of the things that they often
fail to do is to invest the money once it
(18:09):
lands in that new account. That classic, It is such
a classic human mistake against Unfortunately, I did the rollover thing,
but I didn't complete it the final step. And so
their research found that twenty eight percent of rollover IRA
assets in twenty fifteen stayed in cash for at least
seven years. Matt, that's seven years. Was really good to
(18:29):
investors twenty fifteen.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Yeah, twenty twenty two, Oh my gosh, well minus twenty
twenty two, yeah twenty two yeah, seven years of compounding
returns for at least six of those years.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Yeah, those folks would miss out on a ton of returns.
And so Vanguard is creating a slew of nudges for
DIY investors to help them avoid mistakes like this and
to make smart decisions in general. This is kind of
a lah betterment. Betterment's done such a good job of this.
We talked with Dan Egan on the show, maybe like
a year ago or something, but it's nice to see
the low cost brokerages caring about helping their customers with
(19:03):
that behavioral side too, So instead of just saying like
do it yourself, Yeah, do it yourself, but maybe with
a little nudge here or there, knowing the kind of
pain points we as investors typically run up against. I
love the Vanguard is at least kind of getting into
this space a little bit. That's right, man. That's just
one of many reasons why we are fans of Vanguard.
(19:24):
But we've got more.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Stories to get to, more personal finance stories, including we're
going to talk about some of the different.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Bougie travel cards, how they could be beneficial, maybe not
so much. We'll get to that more right after this.
All right, we're back talk for the Ludacris headline of
the week. This one comes from CNN and it reads
(19:51):
Trump floats two thousand dollars tariff rebate checks what you
need to know.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Yeah, another something else that came from the Yeah, and
the rebay checks.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Matt promised again, this is another truth truth post.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Did we not learn our lesson from last time? This
apparently not history. This actually does seem seem like history.
I was gonna say history, it never repeats itself, but
it does rhyme and this very much.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
This is true. Yeah, pretty much like come on, two
thousand dollars, rebay check. Please. It's also not like distant memory.
We were like I think maybe like fifty years ago
and we tried that thing, had to doing that, my
grandpa had to deal with. Right, this is like, oh
we all remember this from a few years ago. Yeah,
this just happened. So this what did we see after
every loads of inflation? Like we've been paying the price,
(20:38):
that's part of it. That's the thing. There were other
reasons that we experienced inflation, not just the steamy checks,
but that was certainly a part of it. Was certainly
a part of it. We haven't even come back from
that yet either, Like we are still like the fercent
we are still at three percent.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
That is still significantly higher. Yeah, granted it's not close
to ten percent, where we were, so it's much much better.
But still this is yet another policy proposal from the
White House.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
So this this basically the proposals two thousand bucks for everyone,
because hey, we're wreaking in the money because of these tariffs,
so let's share the wealth and put the money directly
back into the people's pockets. One, the tariffs are legally dubious.
Our arguments in front of the Supreme Court didn't seem
to convince the majority of the justices. Will see how
(21:22):
that ruling comes out. Also, we haven't made enough money
from tariffs to actually pull this off at this proposed amount. So,
I mean, direct payments sound so exciting. People get thrilled
when they hear that they're going to get a couple
grand tossed in their bank account. But like we mentioned,
lives are getting wide. Yeah. Even hearing us talk about it,
(21:43):
it's it's like, yes, please, yeh, send money directly my
bank account. I'm in. But clearly it leads to other
problems in the economy, and it is a short term fixed.
It's a Often it's a political solution to a problem
that might be coming on the pike. And because it
can increase your popularity, in the short term, but then again,
(22:04):
there's the price to pay at the end of the day.
And I just want people to know, while they might
be reading the headlines and seeing stories about this, don't
count your chickens before they hatch. I just think this
is unlikely to pass. And even after that truth social
post came out that people in the administration have been
trying to kind of walk it back. Yeah, I'm not
(22:24):
sure about that. When when they're asked about reading the
tea leaves of what this means and when it's coming,
they're they're kind of they're being less committed committed to it.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
It's not even worth getting into the actual details because
of the Like I mean, so you mentioned the.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Supreme Court where are possibly.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Ruling that the terrorists aren't even constitutional, and like, can
you I don't even know what's going to happen when
it comes to paying back the businesses, Like what does
that then look like when it comes to individuals as
well if they kind of try to speed run some
of these rebate checks as before the Supreme.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Court rules on it, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
But this is just an instance of like robbing Peter
to pay Paul sort of thing. But instead, it's the
government robbing you to then pay.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
You, which is it's so dumb going to tax you
and then offer you a rebaitch check on the back
end of it. It's so silly.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
And at least with like okay, so it makes you
said tax, and it makes me think of like sales tax.
But at least with that we are paying something in
order for like, let's say the state to provide infrastructure
needs that you can't take care of yourself. Why give
me my own money back when instead you can just
remove yourself from the equation at all, remove layers of bureaucracy,
(23:35):
and give businesses some peace of mind to know what
it is that they can count on in the future,
which then leads to more investment and ultimately, with innovation,
lower prices that we all get.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
To and then enjoy. Doesn't that just sound like a
healthier way. It sounds like a much better way to live,
all right, Joel and Matt for yes please? I would
love to run all the solutions guys. Yeah, and boy
what a joy to run for public office in this country?
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Right?
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Not fun? Not cut out for it well, And the
Treasury Secretar Terry was even asked about it, and he
was like, well, they're gonna be income caps if this
comes to pass, then he also was even like he
was hedging these bets so much. He was like, but also,
you know, maybe this we've already kind of given the
rebate checks in the form of the big beautiful bill
that passed and lowering taxes for everybody, So maybe we'll
(24:20):
count that as your rebate check. And so yeah, so
dumb when you hear the headline, or it's easy to
be like, great, before the end of the year, I'm
getting this tear freebay check. Probably not, though, Uh, let's
talk about credit cards, mat you gonn talk about credit cards.
Let's do it. Okay. So there was a new big
visa MasterCard settlement that happened this week. And the truth
(24:40):
is every small business knows accepting credit cards is a
pain in the butt. I mean, it makes it easy
in some ways because you don't have to deal with cash,
but what you have to deal with is the exorbitant
fees the visa and MasterCard charge. And so this has
been a case it's been working its way through the
courts for a long time and.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Twenty I didn't realize that, I mean it kind of
makes sense that it would take them this long maybe
to figure it out.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
I don't know about I was shocked to see it
seems like longer than necessary to kind of come to.
And I think the last settlement that was agreed to,
the judge was like, yeah, this is ridiculous, like the Vcent,
master Card aren't giving anything up in this settlement. Go
back to the drawing board. And so now this new
settlement will lower exchange rates by zero point one percent
(25:24):
over the course of a few years. I think the
typical rate that a small business pays is something like
two point five to two point seven percent of the
purchase amount. So point one percent also still seems like
very little. It's not nothing, but it is, yeah, just
not a lot. But an even bigger change is that
business owners and this is probably this is where it's
(25:45):
going to meet individual consumers and potentially help small business owners.
You're gonna be able to decide as a small business
owner which credit card you take in which ones you
don't in the future. So the top notch rewards cards,
the ones with hefty annual fees that we've talked about
on the show here, those cost merchants much more than
like a run of the mill two percent cash back card.
(26:06):
But under the previous agreement, hey, if you accept visa cards,
you have to accept all of them, not just the
basic ones that we don't charge it as much for,
but the super fancy ones too. And so now retailers
are gonna be able to pick and choose, and they're
gonna be able to say, actually, you're super high end
fancy credit card, I'm not taking that one because it
costs me more money. So I'm curious to see how
this plays out. I know high end consumers they love,
(26:29):
they love those credit cards, but those credit cards might
not be nearly as rewarding if they're accepted, if few
retailers moving forward. Yeah, I like that small businesses have
a choice, right, But I also don't see that being
a great solution because well, do you have to train
your employees to say no to certain cards? Right? Like?
Are they I don't are they going to be in
the weeds enough to.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Be like, Okay, we're allowed to accept this card, this card,
and this card, but not this one in this one
because it's so expensive.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Visa, the visa it's like a visa signature card, right,
like a lot of the fancy ones say that might
say no visas signature cards allowed or something like that.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
But even still, that's a lot of training when you're
trying to get them to like serve their serve customers well,
and it just slows things down. If you have to say, oh, actually,
we don't take that card, then you run the risk
of alienating customers. So I wonder, like, I've got to
think that the different credit card process, like the stripe
or clover or square, that they're able to input the
(27:26):
charge amount that they're passing on to customers, right, yeah,
because I think I see that being the most likely
scenario where it's just like, oh, you want to use
your AMEX Platinum card, Sure, that's fine, it's gonna be
slightly more. And I'm sure those like folks aren't really
thinking about it at their register, right They're just looking
to pay and get out of there move on with
their life. And I think that's honestly the fairest way
to pass along these costs to the people who are
(27:47):
taking advantage of the travel perks. Why should I have
to pay for your access to the AX to the
Chase Sapphire sky Lounge when I don't have that card,
or if I'm not using that card, but we all
have to pay for that due to higher prices across
the board.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
There's a subsidiation happening of the.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Higher credit card users as opposed to passing it on
directly to the customers who want to use that card.
And I think that's totally fine, and I think most
of them will gladly say oh, yeah, sure I can.
You know, that's just the price of admission, or.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
They'll change their habits and say, hey, it's not worth
paying three percent more every time I use this card,
or three and a half percent. I don't even go
to the lounges anymore. You're overrun. I guess I'm gonna
pick a new credit card. And so this is going
to it's how this shakes out is going to be
fascinating to watch, and different different retailers will take different tactics.
I wonder if even inside of some of those processing machines,
(28:38):
it might say, like if someone you know, lays taps
their visa signature card, it just rejects it out of
hand because the retailers, we don't take those fancy cards.
So yeah, what this is going to look like will
be fascinating, and we'll keep our eyes peeled and we'll
keep talking about it.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
All right, let's talk about that free tax filing fail
and that is this the irs is free direct file system.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
It's going away. This is something we talked about last year.
It's a pretty short lived experiment, and even when we
talked about it, we mentioned to folks it is only
going to be available to a certain select number of states,
but its reach won't spread any further as the Treasury
Department they axed it, and the focus instead is going
to be on building up the free file system, which
(29:23):
has been out for a while. Unfortunately, it's become a
political issue, I think.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
But that being said, like I can't imagine many how
to money listeners even used direct file because not many
taxpayers had at all. I think I saw those less
than three hundred thousand users actually gave it a shot
last year, even though it cost us like over forty
million dollars or something like.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Yeah, that's zero point one percent of the country, right, Yeah,
nobody was using it.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
Much of the free tax filing systems out there are
reserved for folks with lower incomes. We will continue to
mention cash app taxes, specifically for free federal and for
free state filing for folks of all income levels. So
just know that even though the IRS free direct file
system but the dust.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
There are still some great options out there for folks.
The direct file, right, the free file still exists sorright?
What did I say? Yeah, the direct file free file
is still around for people. That's typically people who make
less than seventy grand I think, yeah, changes the direct
file is also free.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
But the direct file system that's gone free file is
still here.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
And some of the big tax riders, and you know,
we're not too far away from tax season. I guess right.
We start hearing the ads pretty soon, seeing the ads
for the big the big players in the game, and
they often offer free filing as well, but that's typically
for super basic stuff and often doesn't include the state
state filing, which then you're like, you get to the
(30:49):
end of it and you're like, okay, I guess I'm
gonna pay thirty bucks to file my state taxes. Those
are the gotchaes.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Yeah, that's why some of those big names get all
the complaints. So I think they can be a good
product for some folks, but you got to yeah, no, oh,
what you're getting into.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
And cash app taxes don't play those games. So yeah,
that's why we typically mentioned them free federal and state.
And even if you make millions of dollars, which congratulations
if you do. Ultimately, the biggest disappointment is that I
think taxes remain as complicated as they are. It's so
frustrating to people. I'm not looking forward matd to getting
(31:21):
closer to taxeas and I know most people dread it
because it's just it's annoying. There's a lot of documents
you have to grab, and I just don't think it
has to be quite this complicated. And as we get
closer to taxis, and I think it's important to tell
people to watch out for tax scams. Calls abound right
now claiming that there's this new federal program in place
(31:42):
where the IRS can eliminate your debt. If you have
debt with the IRS, robo calls are still a real
way that scammers are reaching out. But this program doesn't exist,
of course, and the IRS doesn't call people on the phone.
And so if you have outstanding TEX debt, it's wise
to get on a payment plan with the I R S.
But if someone calls pretending that they are the I
(32:03):
R S or I swear. I don't know why I'm
getting so many voicemails telling me that I qualify for
this program and it's debt consolidation. It's not.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
It's not real backpaid taxes that you owe. Yeah, up
to twenty five thousand dollars those.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
Yes, yeah, it's so it's it's totally fake. It's totally bogus,
but it's gonna hook a lot of people. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
So on the on the note of scams, the journal
had an article about the necessity of family code words
these days. So not a scam from from a business
taxes standpoint, but from a interpersonal standpoint.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
And like the scam where the grandparents scam, they call
the grandparent and the teenagers in juble. Yeah, well, so
this is we've talked about this on the show. This
literally happened to me.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
My grandfather, This is years ago, but had received a
call and it was something about me.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
With a DUI and and he was like that checks.
That checks out? Totally does that check? I can't love
Craft beer, dude, that is true. Definitely definitely love Craft beer.
It's unfortunately sad that we are upset that your grandpa
was like, just leave them behind the bars, like it's fine.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
He was, even in his later years, savvy enough to
to get my one of my uncles on the line
and he was able to help him work through it.
But the whole, the whole thing, the whole story behind
the code words is to avoid a situation where somebody
is reaching out to you from an unknown number. But actually, man,
it sounds like, oh, that sounds just like Joel. Honestly, dude,
(33:27):
we probably are more susceptible to there being deep fakes
of our.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Yeah, deep fakes, because of how much audio of our
voice they can make us say anything. There's plenty of saying. Unfortunately.
That's probably true in any language. But that's why there
sat Money podcast is available in Spanish Spanish. That's right.
To identify or to choose a code word that your
closest family members know about. It's not written down anywhere,
(33:52):
it's something that you've talked about, don't change it, but
you just know that there's just some sort of odd ball,
random sort of code word that you latch onto. Which
the fact that we have to do that just that's
just the world we're living in. These days.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
Yeah, which what's what's what's so difficult about it is
the fact that, like, if somebody's running at you with
a baseball bat, you know that you should be on
guard right like or that you should just straight up run.
But if somebody texts you or calls you out of
the blue, that's normally how your friends reach out to you,
and that's how you make plans, or that's how someone
at work gets in touch with you. Well, we don't
(34:25):
normally have our defenses up in this way, but we
need to. We need to be a little bit more
wary of receiving, especially on non numbers. I think code
word is such an easy way, easy way to do it. Yeah,
you know what it reminded me of when I read
this artic what would our.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Code word be?
Speaker 2 (34:38):
By the way craft beer, Billy Shrigs. It totally reminded
me of the Arthur Weasley.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
I don't this is this is kind of a deep cut.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
It was when there's more people impersonating each other because
of poly juice potions.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Oh, she made Molly say their code word before. That's right,
Molly wobble.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
Totally maybe think about think about that, which seems again
so silly, but I think it could be wise prudent.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
Step to take. It's not it's not just uh the
forest gumps of this world who fall prey toe scams
like this, Mat. I think people are like, oh, that's
a low IQ thing. I have. I know, smart, smart
people who have like in you know, in a moment
of emotional turmoil, falling for a scam like this, or
elderly in particular. Right, but so, a family code word
is a very small, easy thing to do that could
(35:29):
prevent you from a lot of heartache, are getting scammed
out of a bunch of money? Super practical. Yeah, yeah,
all right, it's gonna do it. For this episode, we'll
put links to some of the articles we mentioned up
in the show notes on our website howdomoney dot com.
And we hope you have just a lovely weekend. Yeah
and hope see back here on Monday for a new
Listener Questions episode Matt. Until next time, best Friends Out,
(35:52):
Best Friends Out, the Become
Welcome to Out of Money. I'm Joel, I'm Matt. Today
we're talking forever mortgages, ruining rewards cards, and free tax
filing fails. Oh, we've got more than one tax filing
(00:30):
failed to get to I thought we were really going
to talk about fail I think I added an s Oh,
I think it's just one. Okay, Hey, you say failure.
If there's something else you want to talk about later on,
let's get to it. Man, we're talking about personal failures.
What's what's a recent personal fail Do you have one?
So many? Here's my I like to bring him to
light here on the podcast. That's my wife.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Wait, we need to let people know where I was gonna.
I was gonna mention how I rolled my ankle and
I've been hobbling around.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
He saw me this morning.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Actually, instead of us joining runs like we have in
the past, you saw me walking because I got to
rehab my stupid ankle after.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
I rolled it earlier. It's the worst, man, because those
are the things that you just kind of too fragile.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Yeah, I'm like one of these like little fragile like.
You gotta protect me. You gotta put some bubble wrap around.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Me to put you in a cocoon. Yeah, we can
do that. I'm high performance but highly fragile individual. Girl.
Think one of those formula and cars, you know, they're
always getting banged up.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
The line from Rob Blow's character in was It Parks
and rec probably take him a like one grain of
scene my engine. It was just when he was sound
that sounds like Rob characters Roblows character from that show.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Yeah, Okay, real quick, Matt. One thing we're not failing
at is raising money for some of our favorite nonprofits.
I just wanted to bring this up really quickly. You've
probably heard the ads around this, but we we talked
about donor advised funds regularly here on the show. We're
all about raising money for good causes. We have been
with Daffy for years now and been talking to Daffy
(01:54):
on the show for years now, and we're up against
some other podcasts trying to raise money for some of
our favorite profits. We're in I think third place right now,
which is admirable. We have a little bronze medal next
to hurt or something that has you go to the
Voices for Good Daffy dot org slash Voices for Good.
You can see we'll see I'm not going to getting
our butts kicked by the stacking Benjamins people. My god,
(02:15):
I didn't realize that. Yeah, so those idiots.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
So folks need to go to Daffy dot org Ford
slash how to Money. See I've been going. I've been
checking out our page and making sure that thing still works.
I didn't know there was a landing page as all
the all the top scores.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
And you can see oh no boards, maybe seven or
eight podcast total, so third place. It's respectable, but still like,
uh man, we're way better than the stacking Benjamins.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Guys and mess folks don't even know who those guys are, yeah, right,
forget them, just they barely exist. So you're listening to
our show. But when you go to Daffy dot org
ford slash how to Money, when you sign up and
make your first contribution as well, you get a free
twenty five dollars to be able to donate to your
charity of choice, so donor advice funds.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
They're awesome.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
We've been huge fans of Daffy in particular for years
and only recently have been able to partner with them.
And it was it was like one of those slam
nug decisions where they reached out to us and we're like,
would y'all want to do this? Sort of We're like,
oh my gosh, yes, this is a match made in
heaven for sure, as they say, so, please, yeah, join
us in this endeavor and help us smacked stacking Benjamins
(03:17):
in a face.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Yeah, I'm for it. I know. I'm using violent language
only because I think they've been doing it on their
podcast about us, and so yeah, oh yeah, they see
I don't read the comments some of the images they've
been flowed around like I did see that. Yeah, it's tough.
So we're I'm just getting back at them with some
subverbal abuse here. But let's keep moving, man.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
This is our Friday Flight where we cover the most
pertinent headlines from the past week how they're going to
impact your dollars. Let's talk about the new fifty year mortgage.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
That was floated. You're a big fan, right, I'm not.
I'll explain why.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
But the Trump administration is saying that they want Fanny
and Freddy to be able to back the fifty year mortgages,
making them likely to become accessible to more day Americans. Right,
And here's the thing. It would make housing slightly more affordable.
But similar to we talked about this last week, the
(04:10):
super long car loans. Similar to that right where you
lengthen these loans, this would have terrible downsize.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
It lowers the payment, which is nice, but barely. That's
the thing.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Like when you actually look at the numbers and crunch,
crunch the numbers, it's not It's like you look at
the difference between a fifteen year and a thirty year,
there's a significant difference. There is not much difference between
a thirty year and a fifty year. You know what
the difference is in how much overall interest you pay.
It's significantly higher with the fifty absolutely, But you can't
ignore the fact that you're extending this obligation for twenty
(04:41):
more years, and it's unlikely that you're going to even
be in the home for fifty years, which makes it
what it's going to make it harder when it comes
time to sell that home, especially in a stagnant market,
because you're gonna have paid off so little. Principle, So yes,
housing is not terribly affordable right now, but making longer
debt instruments is a it's a short term fix to
(05:03):
a long term problem that has the potential to create
even more long term problems down the road.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
And I am not a fan. From an individual anti
societal perspective, I think the fifty year mortgage and a
fifty year mortgages, like, I can't imagine they're going to
be all that popular to where it's going to create
some sort of crash. I mean, I think we're thinking
about the the housing crisis, the Great Recession. I can't
imagine it turning into something like that because it's not
all that attractive. It's not a great solution. I'm thinking
(05:30):
maybe the fifty year mortgage proposal is too short sighted, Matt.
Maybe we should go for like one hundred year maybe
two hundred year mortgages. Why not? Like why not? Where?
What is the limiting principle here?
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Well, one of the reasons is because of the fact
that banks would take on these longer out and I
know you're being facetious, of course, but the rates would
also be higher because of the fact that it's a
longer term. So the bank is signing up for a
riskier investment here, and that's another downside, right, Like it
would be one thing, I mean I would consider it
if the rates were lower, because then it's just like, Okay,
(06:01):
let's crunch them numbers seriously, how this pans out?
Speaker 1 (06:03):
But and it's not the case. The truth is, if
i're rate, if you have more of like an investor
mindset or like an optimization sort of mindset, you could
potentially take on a longer mortgage with the right terms
and if you're doing all the other right things. But
I just think there's way too many Americans who would
use the fifty year mortgage as hey, this is the
only way I can actually get into the housing market
(06:25):
and buy a house. You'll never own the home because
it's a fifty year mortgage, but you can at least
buy the home and be paying on it for a
long period of time. So I just think that this
would this would be a rough decision leading to a
bunch of negative downstream impacts for a lot of individuals.
It just seems so short sighted. And some folks are
talking about how much more an interest you are going
(06:45):
to pay. It's just absurd, right, like the total cost
of the actual loan.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
But it's honestly, it's less about that because of the
fact that people don't typically stay in their homes for
fifty years, right, And so it's I think where folks
are going to feel it more is when they're like, oh,
you know what, this.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
House is working out for us.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Oh we're gonna move because daddy got a new job.
Oh mom's got this promotion, and now we have to
move out of state. Oh the kid, whatever, all the
different reasons that you end up moving.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
And if you've been in that house for seven years
on a fifteen year mortgage, hey, you paid off a
lot of the principal bounds, or at least enough to
where you come to the closing table and you're you
don't feel like you just got slapped in the face, right,
But if you're in a fifty year.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Mortgage five to seven years, a fifty year note, yep,
especially yeah, when things are slower yet you're having to
come to the table.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
By the way, money, did you see that Robin Hood
is entering into the home mortgage market? They not fifty
years more, just because it's an a thing.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Yeah, hopefully it will become a thing. But we wanted
to talk about it since it was making the headlines,
since it was truthed out.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Earlier this week. I got truthed so stupid. Okay, So
but Robinhood looks like they might get into they're going
to get into mortgages at least for their gold numbers initially,
and they you know, Robinhood might offer good rates in terms.
Maybe maybe not. I don't know, but I think this
is just a good reminder. While it might be like
the blinking light in front of you, Oh yeah, I
use Robinhood to invest, and so now they're offering mortgages,
(08:02):
that's where I should go maybe, and you should probably
get a quote from them. But as we always say,
getting at least three quotes every time when you are
getting a mortgage is crucial because the numbers just show
you can save a significant amount of money by comparing
apples to apples with a bunch of different mortgage providers. Totally.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
One of the things they tatted was the mortgage application.
It only takes four minutes, which I don't know how
I feel about that either, Like there's a part of
me that says, you know what, I think the friction
is actually a good thing in this case, Like this
is a very big decision. This doesn't need to be
something that you buy paying four like on a pair
of sneakers, right or something. This is a house that
(08:39):
we're talking about, and so I don't know, there's a
part of me that thinks maybe it should be a
little bit harder to purchase the home. Not the fact
that a there's so little supply out there, not the
fact that housing prices are crazy, like those are the
like that is how it's so hard to get a house, right,
saving up the money for a down payment, actually finding
a place that you want to buy. You've saved up
(09:00):
the money. Okay, so maybe it should be easier when
once you've actually done those things. But something about it
taking so little time feels a bit like a bit
knee jerk. Like you're sitting there on the couch watching
Netflix and you're like, oh, let me just apply for
a Morgan, and all of a sudden you've been told that, oh, yeah,
you can afford a seven hundred thousand dollars home.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
I think what you're getting it would be like if
you were applying to Harvard and you just took like
a one minute selfie video and send it inn like
that would be like that would be a significant enough
of an application Like that doesn't seem thorough enough right, exact, Yeah, exactly. Yeah,
it's a multiple choice. Actually, I even know one bit
of a selfie app Yeah, that's not enough. Got to
go a little more harder than that. There was a
new survey map from US News and it found that
(09:40):
seventy nine percent of Americans are concerned they're not going
to have enough money for gifts this holiday season. I
get it, like I see that. I see that stat
and it's shocking in some ways, but I also understand
like rising prices more economic uncertainty, it makes splurging on
Christmas presents feel a bit more tenuous. Tariffs have been
(10:02):
impacting prices at least to a certain degree, and we
can't go back in time. But this is why Matt,
you and I were fans of starting a sinking fund
in January. Believe we talked about it. In January of
this year, Hey starts sending us side money that we did.
Now for the end of the year. Forty bucks a
month would mean you'd have four hundred and forty dollars
saved at this point in the year, and like then,
(10:23):
you would be able to buy most of the Christmas
presents you wanted to buy guilt free. And this would
ensure that you're at least within the ballpark of what
you're going to spend this year for presents, and our
advice now, start doing that for twenty twenty six. But
if you haven't done that and you feel concerned about
being able to buy presents this year, make a gift
(10:43):
recipient list and attach a reasonable budget for what you're
willing to spend for each person you want to buy for.
Then find ways to pair back and to save so
that you have the cash as gift buying season starts.
Because we're about to get into that season, Matt, where
like every retailer is pulling for your dollars with like
sales and advertisements and blinking lights, and I think it's
(11:04):
I just don't want to see how the money listener's
going to debt for it. Yeah, we want you to
have a plan, and if you don't, the worst thing
that happens, and this a lot of folks do this, right,
you end up putting all those gifts on a credit card.
You're saying yourself, I'm not gonna worry about this until
the next year, because next year's gonna be better.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Right, It might be better, it might not be uh,
and then you're dealing with it for the next six
seven months or so.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
But I think it's also okay today six to seven
you did, I did, I didn't. Okay. Sorry for all
the parents out there, all the middle schoolers out there,
what's up. It's also I wanted.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
To say, I think it's totally fine to dial back
your spending and expectations.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Specifically, this is something.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
That we're about to do with our extended family, but
have the conversations with your family, with your friends, set
the expectation.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Tell your father in law he's not getting the bow
on top of the lexus this year. Man.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Yes, but do it now, because the closer you get
to Christmas to the holidays, the harder it's going to become.
This is an instance where I think honesty is the
best policy, because if you've got other financial goals or
priorities that you might have, I think there's a good
chance that other folks in your life also have goals
that they want to achieve as well, and so it's
(12:14):
just I don't know. I think it could lead to
less stressful and potentially even more memorable holiday season for
you and your family.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
In another sign of kind of the economic times. The
CEO of GoFundMe said recently that people are raising money
on that platform to buy food I and he's basically
made it sound like that's not something they've seen a
lot of, but there's been a substantial uptick in that
go fundme, typically used to raise crowdfund for like health
care costs, or to raise money for emergencies that are
(12:45):
happening around the world. And this statement came I think
Matt before the snap benefits didn't go out at the
beginning of the month. I think this was in like
mid October that he said this, which compounded the problem
obviously for many families. So I think this is just
this is a good reminder to me, and I wanted
to say this on the podcast publicly too, to look
out for people in your community, especially people who are
(13:07):
struggling or you might see, oh gosh, they look like
they might be having a hard time. Like you know,
cash a gift card to your local grocery store could
be a big help for people in time and need.
This is a great time if you have the means
to support people who live near you.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Food drives even like this is something I think that
we've even struggled with with our family is connecting some
of the good that we tried to put out in
the world with the kids and their lessons. Because like
we're you've got kids, and you're you've got a full calendar.
It's tough to make time to go serve like in
a soup kitchen or something like that. But even simply
participating in a can food drive I think can be
a good way, especially if you're just talking about it
(13:45):
well and explain and explaining to them why we're doing this,
why we're how it is that we're able to do
something like that.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
We're seeing churches step up to the plate. And as
the snap benefits were cut, and so I saw a
bunch of churches saying, all right, listen, we're gonna step
in and fill this gap here, and so yeah, take
part in that. If your church is doing something like
that locally. There's also a website findhelp dot org if
you need financial or food or health assistance. That's a
(14:10):
great site to kind of find where you can get
that nearby.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Totally which is an awesome database. I've explored there a
little bit this morning. It seems super up to date.
It's Scott's and it's got it's really thorough.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Yeah, it's not just food. It's also like transportation housing.
You can get legal help as well, but it's got
updated hours, and certainly make sure to call them before
you you drive across town or share it with somebody.
I think what could be really helpful is if you're
hearing this need, if someone is in need, doing I
don't know, even I don't know. I almost said doing
it for them and just like helping to connect the dots.
(14:43):
But it's also good to empower individuals and say, hey,
this is a great resource. Yeah, it looks like aware
of those resources can be a big help too, exactly
rather than doing it but for them, But I could
see an argument for for either. But yeah, the shutdown,
the government shutdown, I think strained a lot of people's
but especially when it comes to food. The shutdown also
impacted thousands of flights at airports across the country, annoying
(15:08):
and delaying travelers. I was looking at the what is
it the misery map. There's a map that shows all
the delays at the major airports, and it is much
less read this morning than it was last Friday. Yeah,
this time, but even still This could drive up fairs
even more than anticipated this holiday season, so be aware,
(15:28):
be flexible when you are booking travel. Hopefully government resuming
means that those air traffic controllers and other workers are.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Back to it. On a similar note, something else that
Congress has been getting done pertains to our investments. And
this is one that they're not talking about of like, oh, yeah,
we finally got the government reopened. This is one that
they're it's kind of we're sweeping it under the rug
a little bit. Let to talk about the Epstein files vote,
but not so much public discussion about this. Yeah, so
(15:58):
this is and of course we're going to lean towards
investments and fee disclosure.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Specifically, this is something that Jason's wig over at the
Journal is doing, but he highlighted a bill that is
currently in the works that is seeking to hide expense
fees specifically on some more inside baseball type investments. But
the end result could be that ETFs don't have to
disclose certain fees, making it look to investors as though
(16:26):
they're investing in something that's a bit more reasonable, something
that might be perceived as low cost when it really isn't.
But specifically, if you dig into it a little bit.
This pertains to and this isn't This hasn't passed yet
as far as I know. I think the House passed it,
but the Senate has not. But it pertains specifically to
(16:46):
business development companies, which are a bit more niche.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
And I think they're private as well.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
So it's not like these are in your target date
funds or like a Fidelity or Vanguard index fund or
something like that. But I think so don't worry about
it from that standpoint. But I think the reason that
Jason was that he wrote about it was the fact
that this is an instance to where Wall Street has
getting their toe in the door a little bit, and
anytime they try that, we see Wall Street offu skate
(17:13):
fees like this where there's a lack of transparency. I
think that's where we start getting a little bit nervous
start where we start thinking, Okay, well, what's next, what
other funds that we are actually invested in where they
might try to pull something off in those funds as well.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Give me a slippery slope, It is exactly. Yeah, alternative
investments are just skate becoming more popular, and so we
do run the risk more and more as individuals individual
investors of having access to investments that are maybe a
little more opaque when it comes to fees inside of
(17:46):
our four O one k, like that could be coming soon,
so it is. Yeah, we'll definitely keep our eye on this.
On a positive note for investors, though, Baron's reported that
Vanguard is uping its use of behavioral technology to nudge
investors to make better choices. So, for example, when investors
initiate a rollover, one of the things that they often
fail to do is to invest the money once it
(18:09):
lands in that new account. That classic, It is such
a classic human mistake against Unfortunately, I did the rollover thing,
but I didn't complete it the final step. And so
their research found that twenty eight percent of rollover IRA
assets in twenty fifteen stayed in cash for at least
seven years. Matt, that's seven years. Was really good to
(18:29):
investors twenty fifteen.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Yeah, twenty twenty two, Oh my gosh, well minus twenty
twenty two, yeah twenty two yeah, seven years of compounding
returns for at least six of those years.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Yeah, those folks would miss out on a ton of returns.
And so Vanguard is creating a slew of nudges for
DIY investors to help them avoid mistakes like this and
to make smart decisions in general. This is kind of
a lah betterment. Betterment's done such a good job of this.
We talked with Dan Egan on the show, maybe like
a year ago or something, but it's nice to see
the low cost brokerages caring about helping their customers with
(19:03):
that behavioral side too, So instead of just saying like
do it yourself, Yeah, do it yourself, but maybe with
a little nudge here or there, knowing the kind of
pain points we as investors typically run up against. I
love the Vanguard is at least kind of getting into
this space a little bit. That's right, man. That's just
one of many reasons why we are fans of Vanguard.
(19:24):
But we've got more.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Stories to get to, more personal finance stories, including we're
going to talk about some of the different.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Bougie travel cards, how they could be beneficial, maybe not
so much. We'll get to that more right after this.
All right, we're back talk for the Ludacris headline of
the week. This one comes from CNN and it reads
(19:51):
Trump floats two thousand dollars tariff rebate checks what you
need to know.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Yeah, another something else that came from the Yeah, and
the rebay checks.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Matt promised again, this is another truth truth post.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Did we not learn our lesson from last time? This
apparently not history. This actually does seem seem like history.
I was gonna say history, it never repeats itself, but
it does rhyme and this very much.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
This is true. Yeah, pretty much like come on, two
thousand dollars, rebay check. Please. It's also not like distant memory.
We were like I think maybe like fifty years ago
and we tried that thing, had to doing that, my
grandpa had to deal with. Right, this is like, oh
we all remember this from a few years ago. Yeah,
this just happened. So this what did we see after
every loads of inflation? Like we've been paying the price,
(20:38):
that's part of it. That's the thing. There were other
reasons that we experienced inflation, not just the steamy checks,
but that was certainly a part of it. Was certainly
a part of it. We haven't even come back from
that yet either, Like we are still like the fercent
we are still at three percent.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
That is still significantly higher. Yeah, granted it's not close
to ten percent, where we were, so it's much much better.
But still this is yet another policy proposal from the
White House.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
So this this basically the proposals two thousand bucks for everyone,
because hey, we're wreaking in the money because of these tariffs,
so let's share the wealth and put the money directly
back into the people's pockets. One, the tariffs are legally dubious.
Our arguments in front of the Supreme Court didn't seem
to convince the majority of the justices. Will see how
(21:22):
that ruling comes out. Also, we haven't made enough money
from tariffs to actually pull this off at this proposed amount. So,
I mean, direct payments sound so exciting. People get thrilled
when they hear that they're going to get a couple
grand tossed in their bank account. But like we mentioned,
lives are getting wide. Yeah. Even hearing us talk about it,
(21:43):
it's it's like, yes, please, yeh, send money directly my
bank account. I'm in. But clearly it leads to other
problems in the economy, and it is a short term fixed.
It's a Often it's a political solution to a problem
that might be coming on the pike. And because it
can increase your popularity, in the short term, but then again,
(22:04):
there's the price to pay at the end of the day.
And I just want people to know, while they might
be reading the headlines and seeing stories about this, don't
count your chickens before they hatch. I just think this
is unlikely to pass. And even after that truth social
post came out that people in the administration have been
trying to kind of walk it back. Yeah, I'm not
(22:24):
sure about that. When when they're asked about reading the
tea leaves of what this means and when it's coming,
they're they're kind of they're being less committed committed to it.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
It's not even worth getting into the actual details because
of the Like I mean, so you mentioned the.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Supreme Court where are possibly.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Ruling that the terrorists aren't even constitutional, and like, can
you I don't even know what's going to happen when
it comes to paying back the businesses, Like what does
that then look like when it comes to individuals as
well if they kind of try to speed run some
of these rebate checks as before the Supreme.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Court rules on it, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
But this is just an instance of like robbing Peter
to pay Paul sort of thing. But instead, it's the
government robbing you to then pay.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
You, which is it's so dumb going to tax you
and then offer you a rebaitch check on the back
end of it. It's so silly.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
And at least with like okay, so it makes you
said tax, and it makes me think of like sales tax.
But at least with that we are paying something in
order for like, let's say the state to provide infrastructure
needs that you can't take care of yourself. Why give
me my own money back when instead you can just
remove yourself from the equation at all, remove layers of bureaucracy,
(23:35):
and give businesses some peace of mind to know what
it is that they can count on in the future,
which then leads to more investment and ultimately, with innovation,
lower prices that we all get.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
To and then enjoy. Doesn't that just sound like a
healthier way. It sounds like a much better way to live,
all right, Joel and Matt for yes please? I would
love to run all the solutions guys. Yeah, and boy
what a joy to run for public office in this country?
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Right?
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Not fun? Not cut out for it well, And the
Treasury Secretar Terry was even asked about it, and he
was like, well, they're gonna be income caps if this
comes to pass, then he also was even like he
was hedging these bets so much. He was like, but also,
you know, maybe this we've already kind of given the
rebate checks in the form of the big beautiful bill
that passed and lowering taxes for everybody, So maybe we'll
(24:20):
count that as your rebate check. And so yeah, so
dumb when you hear the headline, or it's easy to
be like, great, before the end of the year, I'm
getting this tear freebay check. Probably not, though, Uh, let's
talk about credit cards, mat you gonn talk about credit cards.
Let's do it. Okay. So there was a new big
visa MasterCard settlement that happened this week. And the truth
(24:40):
is every small business knows accepting credit cards is a
pain in the butt. I mean, it makes it easy
in some ways because you don't have to deal with cash,
but what you have to deal with is the exorbitant
fees the visa and MasterCard charge. And so this has
been a case it's been working its way through the
courts for a long time and.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Twenty I didn't realize that, I mean it kind of
makes sense that it would take them this long maybe
to figure it out.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
I don't know about I was shocked to see it
seems like longer than necessary to kind of come to.
And I think the last settlement that was agreed to,
the judge was like, yeah, this is ridiculous, like the Vcent,
master Card aren't giving anything up in this settlement. Go
back to the drawing board. And so now this new
settlement will lower exchange rates by zero point one percent
(25:24):
over the course of a few years. I think the
typical rate that a small business pays is something like
two point five to two point seven percent of the
purchase amount. So point one percent also still seems like
very little. It's not nothing, but it is, yeah, just
not a lot. But an even bigger change is that
business owners and this is probably this is where it's
(25:45):
going to meet individual consumers and potentially help small business owners.
You're gonna be able to decide as a small business
owner which credit card you take in which ones you
don't in the future. So the top notch rewards cards,
the ones with hefty annual fees that we've talked about
on the show here, those cost merchants much more than
like a run of the mill two percent cash back card.
(26:06):
But under the previous agreement, hey, if you accept visa cards,
you have to accept all of them, not just the
basic ones that we don't charge it as much for,
but the super fancy ones too. And so now retailers
are gonna be able to pick and choose, and they're
gonna be able to say, actually, you're super high end
fancy credit card, I'm not taking that one because it
costs me more money. So I'm curious to see how
this plays out. I know high end consumers they love,
(26:29):
they love those credit cards, but those credit cards might
not be nearly as rewarding if they're accepted, if few
retailers moving forward. Yeah, I like that small businesses have
a choice, right, But I also don't see that being
a great solution because well, do you have to train
your employees to say no to certain cards? Right? Like?
Are they I don't are they going to be in
the weeds enough to.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Be like, Okay, we're allowed to accept this card, this card,
and this card, but not this one in this one
because it's so expensive.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Visa, the visa it's like a visa signature card, right,
like a lot of the fancy ones say that might
say no visas signature cards allowed or something like that.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
But even still, that's a lot of training when you're
trying to get them to like serve their serve customers well,
and it just slows things down. If you have to say, oh, actually,
we don't take that card, then you run the risk
of alienating customers. So I wonder, like, I've got to
think that the different credit card process, like the stripe
or clover or square, that they're able to input the
(27:26):
charge amount that they're passing on to customers, right, yeah,
because I think I see that being the most likely
scenario where it's just like, oh, you want to use
your AMEX Platinum card, Sure, that's fine, it's gonna be
slightly more. And I'm sure those like folks aren't really
thinking about it at their register, right They're just looking
to pay and get out of there move on with
their life. And I think that's honestly the fairest way
to pass along these costs to the people who are
(27:47):
taking advantage of the travel perks. Why should I have
to pay for your access to the AX to the
Chase Sapphire sky Lounge when I don't have that card,
or if I'm not using that card, but we all
have to pay for that due to higher prices across
the board.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
There's a subsidiation happening of the.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Higher credit card users as opposed to passing it on
directly to the customers who want to use that card.
And I think that's totally fine, and I think most
of them will gladly say oh, yeah, sure I can.
You know, that's just the price of admission, or.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
They'll change their habits and say, hey, it's not worth
paying three percent more every time I use this card,
or three and a half percent. I don't even go
to the lounges anymore. You're overrun. I guess I'm gonna
pick a new credit card. And so this is going
to it's how this shakes out is going to be
fascinating to watch, and different different retailers will take different tactics.
I wonder if even inside of some of those processing machines,
(28:38):
it might say, like if someone you know, lays taps
their visa signature card, it just rejects it out of
hand because the retailers, we don't take those fancy cards.
So yeah, what this is going to look like will
be fascinating, and we'll keep our eyes peeled and we'll
keep talking about it.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
All right, let's talk about that free tax filing fail
and that is this the irs is free direct file system.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
It's going away. This is something we talked about last year.
It's a pretty short lived experiment, and even when we
talked about it, we mentioned to folks it is only
going to be available to a certain select number of states,
but its reach won't spread any further as the Treasury
Department they axed it, and the focus instead is going
to be on building up the free file system, which
(29:23):
has been out for a while. Unfortunately, it's become a
political issue, I think.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
But that being said, like I can't imagine many how
to money listeners even used direct file because not many
taxpayers had at all. I think I saw those less
than three hundred thousand users actually gave it a shot
last year, even though it cost us like over forty
million dollars or something like.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Yeah, that's zero point one percent of the country, right, Yeah,
nobody was using it.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
Much of the free tax filing systems out there are
reserved for folks with lower incomes. We will continue to
mention cash app taxes, specifically for free federal and for
free state filing for folks of all income levels. So
just know that even though the IRS free direct file
system but the dust.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
There are still some great options out there for folks.
The direct file, right, the free file still exists sorright?
What did I say? Yeah, the direct file free file
is still around for people. That's typically people who make
less than seventy grand I think, yeah, changes the direct
file is also free.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
But the direct file system that's gone free file is
still here.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
And some of the big tax riders, and you know,
we're not too far away from tax season. I guess right.
We start hearing the ads pretty soon, seeing the ads
for the big the big players in the game, and
they often offer free filing as well, but that's typically
for super basic stuff and often doesn't include the state
state filing, which then you're like, you get to the
(30:49):
end of it and you're like, okay, I guess I'm
gonna pay thirty bucks to file my state taxes. Those
are the gotchaes.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Yeah, that's why some of those big names get all
the complaints. So I think they can be a good
product for some folks, but you got to yeah, no, oh,
what you're getting into.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
And cash app taxes don't play those games. So yeah,
that's why we typically mentioned them free federal and state.
And even if you make millions of dollars, which congratulations
if you do. Ultimately, the biggest disappointment is that I
think taxes remain as complicated as they are. It's so
frustrating to people. I'm not looking forward matd to getting
(31:21):
closer to taxeas and I know most people dread it
because it's just it's annoying. There's a lot of documents
you have to grab, and I just don't think it
has to be quite this complicated. And as we get
closer to taxis, and I think it's important to tell
people to watch out for tax scams. Calls abound right
now claiming that there's this new federal program in place
(31:42):
where the IRS can eliminate your debt. If you have
debt with the IRS, robo calls are still a real
way that scammers are reaching out. But this program doesn't exist,
of course, and the IRS doesn't call people on the phone.
And so if you have outstanding TEX debt, it's wise
to get on a payment plan with the I R S.
But if someone calls pretending that they are the I
(32:03):
R S or I swear. I don't know why I'm
getting so many voicemails telling me that I qualify for
this program and it's debt consolidation. It's not.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
It's not real backpaid taxes that you owe. Yeah, up
to twenty five thousand dollars those.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
Yes, yeah, it's so it's it's totally fake. It's totally bogus,
but it's gonna hook a lot of people. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
So on the on the note of scams, the journal
had an article about the necessity of family code words
these days. So not a scam from from a business
taxes standpoint, but from a interpersonal standpoint.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
And like the scam where the grandparents scam, they call
the grandparent and the teenagers in juble. Yeah, well, so
this is we've talked about this on the show. This
literally happened to me.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
My grandfather, This is years ago, but had received a
call and it was something about me.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
With a DUI and and he was like that checks.
That checks out? Totally does that check? I can't love
Craft beer, dude, that is true. Definitely definitely love Craft beer.
It's unfortunately sad that we are upset that your grandpa
was like, just leave them behind the bars, like it's fine.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
He was, even in his later years, savvy enough to
to get my one of my uncles on the line
and he was able to help him work through it.
But the whole, the whole thing, the whole story behind
the code words is to avoid a situation where somebody
is reaching out to you from an unknown number. But actually, man,
it sounds like, oh, that sounds just like Joel. Honestly, dude,
(33:27):
we probably are more susceptible to there being deep fakes
of our.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Yeah, deep fakes, because of how much audio of our
voice they can make us say anything. There's plenty of saying. Unfortunately.
That's probably true in any language. But that's why there
sat Money podcast is available in Spanish Spanish. That's right.
To identify or to choose a code word that your
closest family members know about. It's not written down anywhere,
(33:52):
it's something that you've talked about, don't change it, but
you just know that there's just some sort of odd ball,
random sort of code word that you latch onto. Which
the fact that we have to do that just that's
just the world we're living in. These days.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
Yeah, which what's what's what's so difficult about it is
the fact that, like, if somebody's running at you with
a baseball bat, you know that you should be on
guard right like or that you should just straight up run.
But if somebody texts you or calls you out of
the blue, that's normally how your friends reach out to you,
and that's how you make plans, or that's how someone
at work gets in touch with you. Well, we don't
(34:25):
normally have our defenses up in this way, but we
need to. We need to be a little bit more
wary of receiving, especially on non numbers. I think code
word is such an easy way, easy way to do it. Yeah,
you know what it reminded me of when I read
this artic what would our.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Code word be?
Speaker 2 (34:38):
By the way craft beer, Billy Shrigs. It totally reminded
me of the Arthur Weasley.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
I don't this is this is kind of a deep cut.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
It was when there's more people impersonating each other because
of poly juice potions.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Oh, she made Molly say their code word before. That's right,
Molly wobble.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
Totally maybe think about think about that, which seems again
so silly, but I think it could be wise prudent.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
Step to take. It's not it's not just uh the
forest gumps of this world who fall prey toe scams
like this, Mat. I think people are like, oh, that's
a low IQ thing. I have. I know, smart, smart
people who have like in you know, in a moment
of emotional turmoil, falling for a scam like this, or
elderly in particular. Right, but so, a family code word
is a very small, easy thing to do that could
(35:29):
prevent you from a lot of heartache, are getting scammed
out of a bunch of money? Super practical. Yeah, yeah,
all right, it's gonna do it. For this episode, we'll
put links to some of the articles we mentioned up
in the show notes on our website howdomoney dot com.
And we hope you have just a lovely weekend. Yeah
and hope see back here on Monday for a new
Listener Questions episode Matt. Until next time, best Friends Out,
(35:52):
Best Friends Out, the Become
Hosts And Creators
Joel Larsgaard
Matthew Altmix
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