June 7, 2024 • 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: the worst thing about the burbs, leveling up with private equity, not all that glitters is gold, forgotten 529s, abandoning insurance, brick and mortar perks, paying off mortgages, homes for $0 down, wrecked credit reports, and subbing out your social security number.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Hod of Money.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
I'm Joel and I am Matt, and today we're talking
about forgotten five twenty nine's, abandoning insurance and wrecked credit reports.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
That's right, everyone, This is our Friday flight and we're
going to talk about the most fascinating headlines this Friday.
Happy Friday to everyone out there. But yeah, these are
the stories that pertain to your personal finances the most.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
If you don't listen, you won't know this stuff you
need to know this weekend. But no, what's this you
got to note here about something about the Burbs? Okay, So, yes,
we've moved to the Burbs almost two years ago. Not
the Arcade Fire album the Suburbs, No, although that was
a great album back in the day.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
No.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
I was thinking the other day about on how good
of a two years it's been overall being here.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
The thing I miss the absolute most is great restaurants.
We have a dearth of those up here, although it's
getting better. There's some good restaurants, dude, there's some solid restaurants.
There's no great restaurants.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Or maybe one great one. Honestly, what I feel that's
lacking the most are good breweries, craft breweries because where
we used to be man, we had the best Monday
night inner Voice Halfway Crooks, which we got to go
back down and revisit recently.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
So many good ones there and we don't have those here.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
No we don't.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
But one of the biggest downsides of moving to the
verbs that.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Recently let me guess, you miss your car getting rifled through.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
No, now that.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
You miss somebody's actually stealing your niece on leaf and
then kidnapping it and trying to extort Those are good days.
Those are good days. Have kept me on the edge
of my seat. It's been a minute since we talked
about that. I don't say that story for another time.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
I like living in a weird place, so like I
missed some of the weirdness I do. But the biggest thing,
the thing that's like really kind of that I have
realized recently because on the Libby app we still had
our Fulton County Library access and now we don't anymore,
and so we only have the Cobb County Library access.
And guess what, the audiobook selection in there sucks. It's
(02:14):
so bad. I salivate thinking about all the books I
had access to for free before then. Now I've been
cut off from So he's that bad.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Here's a confession. I'm still logged in or at least
all on Hoopla, which is that you mentioned Libby. I've
recently been using Hoopla and I'm still logged in to
the city. Yeah, so they haven't reset. I was for
two years and then recently that got cut off. It
was because they don't know when you move. But then
they're like.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Hey, you actually need to update your account with new
with details and if you don't have if you don't
still live in the city, if you don't sell them
an address, they cut you off.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Man.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
So I don't know how to remedy this kind of bummed.
So what I'm doing now is I'm actually paying for
more audio books sadly, but I don't think.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
I mean, it's something that you value and it's not
necessarsarily like it's not like a craft beer equivalent. But
when there are books, especially the newer ones, that's what's
so difficult with the different library apps, is that you
are oftentimes in a really long line to hear or
read a good book.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
So I'm testing out too right now Spotify and libro
dot fm because Spotify added the audiobooks to their plan.
That's twelve bucks a month and you get like fifteen
hours worth of listening. So I've realized it's best to
listen to your short books on Spotify because you won't
be able to get two two books in a given
month for that twelve dollars fee. Libro, I go there
for my longer audiobook needs because you limited by It's
(03:37):
not about time, it's about a credit. If I spend
one credit for a five hour book versus one credit
for a twenty.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Hour same as same as Audible.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Yeah yeah, so yeah, just word of the wise out there,
live in a city if you want access to a
larger audiobook selection from your library. But then then those
other two I think are good places to turn if
you're if you're an audiobook addict kind of like I am,
and they'll help you. They don't have every single book ever,
but they have a pretty good selection. And I don't
(04:03):
know if I'll keep both of those around for forever,
but for the time being, I'm I'm using them both.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
See what sure works? What you what you got on
the docket for as far as books.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Okay, I'm about to listen to Glenn Lowry's memoir.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
That's so funny. Yeah, I'm the same here. I'm really
interested in uh well.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
It's it's the greatest American economists. And also his voice, Yes.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
I'm excited about that as well, because he's got a
he's got a great voice.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
And I just finished reading Knife by Samon Rushdie. Uh
the in just the first person account of being stabbed
seventeen times. It's just a terrible stage, but it's also
a beautiful story. Like it's crazy the way he tells it.
It's just I love hearing he talks about his relationship
with his wife and.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Just I don't know.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
It's a good reflection on life post something traumatic happening.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
So interesting. Highly recommend. I've been wanting to read Shop
Class as Soulcraft, which is like a book about it's
more of a philosophical book but about work, which I
feel like it's a you what was the second Mountain?
That was the day David Brooks that you read recently,
and that kind of got me thinking about work a
little bit. I'm like, you know what, I feel like
that would be a good way to approach the topic,
to help inform how it is that I'm thinking about
(05:08):
work these days, So let me know what you think
of that. I will let you know. But yeah, let's
move on to the Friday flight and let's get talking
about investing in specifically private equity within your retirement accounts.
This is something that's being pushed more and more around
the globe, and now some folks are advocating for it
here in the States. And it's not a great idea
in our book. And the biggest reason that private markets
(05:30):
are inherently more risky is because they aren't nearly as
transparent as public markets. Actually, friend of the Show, Alison Schreger,
she wrote about this this past week in Bloomberg and Dude.
Her most poignant line was, there is one golden rule
of investing. If someone tells you they can beat the
market without taking on more risk, you should not invest
(05:51):
in whatever they are selling the higher returns to become
agree more with more risk, right.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
And if someone's trying to say you can have the
best of both or sorry, they're trying to yeah, you're
gonna get taken advantage of.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
It was like a made off sort of set up.
Another front of the show, Nick Madjulie. We've had him
on the show as well, but he wrote about alternative investments,
with private equity being one of them. He wrote about
that on his blog and both writers came to a
similar conclusion. This is what Nick macjulie said. He said, Ultimately,
the key to building wealth isn't in any specific asset class.
(06:24):
It's in the power of consistent, disciplined investing over time.
It is the continual purchase of income producing assets. Music
come my years, Nick Man, it's just from time to time.
I think it's good for us just the let folks know.
We stick a flag in the sand to let folks
know how and where it is that we stand when
it comes to just different investments, because it's easy to
be distracted by all the latest and greatest, sexy things
(06:47):
that folks are talking about, the stuff that's making us
splash in the investment world. But it's not about that.
It's truly about investing consistently over the long haul. And
we've talked about this. There's whiskey wine, art, like all
these cool things, farm land, it's like, whoa, the world's
my oyster. I can invest in whatever I want, and
I can invest in things that I never would have
had access to ten years ago. Or my parents certainly
(07:08):
never had access to when it comes to investing. But
most of those things are actually going to lead you
astray from the path of building wealth, which that's the goal. Man.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
It doesn't even have to be super exciting and actually boring.
Is often going to be low fie, easy to replicate.
It's going to allow you to stay the course over
time without getting distracted. Speaking of alternative there's a simple
path to wealth.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Which maybe will link to that book. Yes, somebody wrote
about that. I hear jail columns. Yeah, that's a good book.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
And speaking of alternative investments, Matt, we've talked about Costco
selling gold bars. How popular that's been. You and I,
we just don't really see a need for gold inside
of your portfolio, especially physical bars in your home. It
can be a hassle. And guess what, it's easier to
lose your money if you're storing your investment under your mattress. Plus,
as the Wall Street Journal pointed out in an article
(07:58):
this week, the tax treatment on gold investments isn't great.
So gold is an especially poor investment for millennials and
gen Z folks, which is the vast majority of our audience. Well,
I think gold seems to have jump jumped the shark
too a little bit. Cookie company TIFFs Treats is now
selling gold bars too, So yeah, not only can you
(08:21):
buy some cookies. So I don't know how tasty their
cookies are. Have you had the TIFFs Treats cookies?
Speaker 1 (08:25):
I have not.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
I wonder if I bet they're delicious. But when you
buy cookies, you can also add on Fizzle gold to
your order, so you can get their Bullion bundle and
it's twenty five hundred bucks, right, you get a gold
bar with your twenty one dollars bucks of cookies.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
It's yeah, normally cookies that cost like twenty dollars, but
if you want the special package, actually it costs like
substantially more. Yeah. So yeah. The worst part of this
is the fact that you don't actually get a gold
bar with your cookies.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
They have to ship it severally. Yeah well, yeah, like
because it needs to be delivered with like an armored vehicle.
You get a certificate for it.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
But I'm like, come on, if you're actually gonna take
like the Wonka approach, like there better be like a
gold bar like baked into a cookie where you run
the risk of like chipping your tooth like that sounds
like fun as opposed to like, oh, here's a piece
of make it a party, by the way, you're going
to get it? Like, no, you would, actually, I mean,
isn't that Part of the appeal of gold is actually
how it looks? But I thought that was silly that
(09:17):
that was like they're touting this but like they're not
even actually delivering.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
It's a marketing thing gold bars, and with the cookies again,
it's this sort of sexy thing. It's like, oh, and
it's really weird that a company that makes cookies, whether
they're delicious or not, I don't know, but like that
they're now getting into this gold game and trying to
sell their customers an investment product. And yeah, I don't know,
No need to deep dive because I feel like we
talked about gold recently. But it's one of those things
(09:42):
where you're just like, what is going on here? Why
are desserts and investments being mixed up?
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Right? But let's talk about higher ed specifically saving up
for higher education. Half of Americans don't know what a
five twenty nine plan is. And this is according to
a recent study done by Edward Owns and it's not
that they aren't like socking money into a five twenty
nine plan, They like literally don't know what those accounts do, and.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Those numbers put together, they're just like they blank face,
I don't.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Know what you're talking about. Yeah, well, speaking of numbers,
one third of the folks who were surveyed say they
were actively saving for their child's future, and so like
that just means many of them likely aren't doing it
as effectively as they could be. And so we wanted
to mention this because these accounts they've only gotten better
in recent years because you can use them. Well, first
of all, you can use them for K twelve expenses
if you so choose, right, Like, you don't necessarily even
(10:35):
have to wait for higher education if you.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Want your kid to go to private school or something
like that. Like, you can get a tax break in
most states by socking money into a five twenty nine
plan and.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Then have it and invest in the during during the interim.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Yeah, whereas back in the day used to be only
for college.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Right. But then on top of that, if you overfund
your five twenty nine account or your kids five twenty
nine account, you can turn those dollars into roth dollars
further down the line. And so if you have kids,
or if you play and even on going back to
school yourself, it's worth educating yourself about five twenty nine plans.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
You don't want to be in the fifty percent of
people who know don't know what it is.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Yeah, we've got an article up on the site explaining
how it is that you can maximize all the different
benefits that five to twenty nine plans offer.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Yeah, and that our advice. The way we think about
five twenty nine plans has changed significantly in recent years
thanks to the greater levels of flexibility, and so yeah,
people would behoove themselves to at least know what five
twenty nine plans are and to see whether or not
it makes sense for them to participate in funding five
twenty nine plans for their kids or for even themselves. Like,
(11:35):
if you're planning on going back to get a graduate
degree maybe a few years from now, well it might
make sense to start funneling money into a five twenty
nine started investing growing that pie so that you have
so that it's easier to pay for that advanced degree totally.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
But this also or even if you're gonna go get
that advanced degree like tomorrow, because the ability to fund
that account and then.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Pay directly out of that you still get that tax.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Braink, that's right.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Yeah, it's just greatbout it funnel through there. It's almost
like money laundering, but it's a legal form of it
because you're just getting an instant tax break for sticking
you know, like in the state of George at least
I think it's eight thousand dollars per beneficiary, and all
of that money that you stick in there just completely
avoids state taxes. But I will say this too, that
doesn't mean that we want everyone contributing to a five
twenty nine plan, right. There's a lot of nuance involved
(12:20):
in the decision, So even if you know what it is,
it doesn't mean that you should be participating. We still
think that most folks would be better off not saving
money for their child's future, which sounds like we don't
like kids or something like that, but that's not true.
Avoiding five twenty nine plans altogether can make sense for
a lot of folks, at least at least until their
(12:41):
own retirement has been diligently funded. Too many parents, Matt,
we run this all the time. They start to contribute regularly.
Lots of times it's done out of guilt, Like I
want to provide a great financial future for my kids,
I don't want them. I hear all these stories about
being saddled with student loan debt. I don't want my
kids to face that same fate. Feels like a selfless move, yeah, exactly.
(13:01):
But the problem is they're not even getting the full
match in their own four to one K, or they're
not maxing out their own roth IRA first. And if
you're not doing those things, then it doesn't make sense
to hop into five twenty nine plan investing for your
kid's future yet, right, I think those in particular are
two crucial steps to take before you even consider, before
it's even on your radar to think about making those
(13:22):
five twenty nine contributions.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Especially the four to one K match. But so oftentimes
we will talk about like the metaphor will use as
like the oxygen masks, And I was thinking through, all right,
let's let's come up with a different metaphor, maybe a
better metaphor perhaps, So imagine you've got a car and
it's low on gas, but it's also dirty and you're like, oh,
I need to go on a hot date. I want
to take care of both of those things. Got to
(13:44):
fill up the tank, and I also want to get
it cleaned up.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
What if it's an EV in this scenario, I forget that.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Okay Joel's question, Well, you could go straight to the
car wash, because you're like, why go I get this
thing shined up? Like that would be nice, right, But
if you do that first, you're not gonna have the
ability to then go to the gas station and fill up,
which is going to derail your entire plan. And so
there is a specific order that you need to do this,
and you need to go to the gas station first,
get that thing filled up with gas, and then at
that point you can maybe you'll look around and say, yeah,
(14:11):
you know, I still want to go ahead and get
the car wash. Let's go to the Let's go to
the car wash first. Or here's here's the great part.
You might look around and say, you know what, the
car is not that dirty. Oh it's starting to rain.
It's not quite like a car wash. But like there's
an alternative, like something else has taken place that means
I no longer necessarily need to go to the car wash.
The equivalent there for higher education are like scholarships, because
(14:31):
it's kind of like, oh, this is not something I
was counting on happening, but in fact it did happen.
It's I'm not going to stretch the run with a
metaphor even further. But bottom line, the oxygen mask one
is a little simpler. I would say I like the
car one because everyone I don't know. I feel like
you can picture yourself thinking there are multiple goals that
you have. There are multiple things that you want to do,
but you got to take care of one before you
take care of the other one. And plus who has
(14:52):
actually had the oxygen masks drop down where you're like, oh, yeah,
there's that thing that I need to suck on. Like
everyone fills.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Up there on a plane and we've heard ad nauseam,
but we've we've unfolded the thing from the seatback.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
You don't unfold it. You sit there and I don't
know who you are listen to your audio book, but
I have Yeah, I like those presentations. So whatever analogy
you prefer, run with that. But five twenty nine plans,
sure they've gotten better, and yes they can make sense,
and yes, we want people to know what they are,
but we also don't want people to over emphasize five
twenty nine plans to the detriment of their own retirement savings.
(15:24):
Let's talk about something else that's costing people money right now, Matt,
insurance has gotten significantly more expensive, and not only our
insurance rates climbing rapidly, but payouts on claims are diminishing too,
So basically the value proposition of having insurance has gone
down dramatically. We're talking mostly about homeowners insurance here, and
(15:45):
the question is for some people, Matt, they're like, this
has gotten prohibitively expensive. Maybe I should just ditch homeoders
insurance and risk it get a little risky. Well, more
people are choosing to do that, to ditch homeoders insurance altogether.
In twenty ninenineteen, only five percent of Americans had no
homeotors insurance at all. As of twenty twenty two, the
(16:06):
most recent figure we could find, that number rows to
twelve percent of Americans going without home motors and churnity
big increase.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
A lot more people live in that risky, risky life
hoping that nothing bad happens to their home. My guess
is that number is only going to go up with
soaring premiums now. So I was the twenty twenty two number.
What are we going to see in twenty twenty four,
Probably a higher percentage of people going without. And by
the way, if you have a mortgage, you can't forego insurance.
(16:33):
Your lender is not down with that. They will find
any policy for you if you cancel yours. It's what's
known as forced placed insurance, and it's going to be expensive.
It's not going to be as cheap as what you're
able to find shopping the open market. So just know
that if you are someone with a mortgage still on
your home, what more and more Americans are doing, this
is something you cannot participate in. Sure, But I guess
(16:55):
if your mortgage is paid off, if you're one of
those few folks.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Like you have that option. Yeah, yeah, I see that
force placed insurance almost like Cobra insurance. It's like it's
really expensive, it's kind of crappy. Somebody else picked it
up for you, but you're still on the hook for it. Like, oh,
by the way, you still have to pay for this thing.
And here's a shocking stat but close to forty percent
of Americans own their home free and clear with no
mortgage debt at all, And so I think that's another
reason that we might continue to see this number increase
(17:21):
the number of folks who are choosing to forego homeowners insurance.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
If I was asked for a guess before having known that,
I would have guessed something much lower like he.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
I think I would have guessed like twenty percent or
less likely to be honest, Yeah, it's really hard to think.
It's amazing to think that four out of ten people
own their home outright. That boggles the mind. But even
if that is you, So the question is, should you
ditch your insurance policy when the bill gets jacked up? Well,
like it's a personal decision obviously, but it just depends.
I think it depends on a if you've got the
(17:50):
money to fix it, if you're willing to deal with
the consequences if something catastrophic occurs. If that's the case,
I think it could be worth the savings. But I
think most folks will to shop around for better rates.
They're gonna want to hold their nose and just pay
what they owe because not having any coverage on your home,
I think that just presents too big of a financial
risk for most folks who are listening to how Money.
(18:11):
At least most folks.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Just can't stomach it financially or mentally, like realizing, I
don't have many coverage on this thing, and if the
worst thing happens, if God forbid, a fire happens in
my home or something like that, or it makes me
think of my neighbor across the street, a fantastic dude.
He has a second home down in Florida, and his
home got smashed by a hurricane, like completely wiped out.
(18:33):
And that's the risk you run in the state of Florida.
And guess what, Florida is one of those states where
insurance rates are incredibly high for homeowners. And so he
had gone without self insuring. But he made a calculated decision.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
He had the money to rebuild, the money during the interim.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
That's exactly what he was doing. And so he was
hoping that day never came. But the day did come,
and he was mentally and financially prepared it for him.
But a lot of folks, Matt, I think, who are
that twelve percent of people who are going without homeowners insurance?
They're not prepared on either FOW and so it's a
big risk and maybe the thing you want to do
instead is raise your deductible and keeping homeowners insurance around
just be paying less for it and have ye more
(19:13):
of your own money at risk if something happens, but
not all of your money.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Find a way to pay less every single month. But like,
you got to be really buttoned up, Like you need
to be someone I think who's incredibly detail oriented, like
who might like borderline paranoid in order for that to
make even more sense, right, Like, cause if you're someone
who's just like, ah, if you're just winging it and
you're like, it'll probably be fine, well no, it kind
of just comes down to you. So you need to
know whether like it's black or white. You know. And
(19:39):
granted you can't plan for and mitigate all risks, but
this is more of an approach where you do need
to have things figured out. Like you know, you kind
of talked about fire, like, okay, you need to have
like a fire extinguisher in like every room. Maybe like
when you had some electrical work done, you're probably gonna
go with the electrician who seems like even more I
(20:01):
don't know, insure someone who's not like cutting corners, you know,
like everything needs to be bulletproof essentially, in my opinion,
in order for this to be a risk that I
would be willing to accept.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Basically, it's a big old risk, right, Like a higher
deductible is one risk. Not having insurance at all is
an even bigger risk that could be catastrophic to your finances. Yeah,
if the worst were to happen, so be careful. It's
crazy to see those numbers ticking up that traumatically. I
get it because insurance is crazy expensive. There are other
ways I think to reduce the costs of insurance, shopping
(20:32):
around being one of those, with particularly an independent insurance agent.
So definitely consider that as an option. But ditching it
all together probably doesn't make sense for a whole lot
of folks. All right, Matt, We've got more to get
to on this episode, including we're gonna talk about something
from two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight that
helped cause the housing crisis. It's back, baby, and it's
not good. We'll get to that more right after.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
This, everybuddy, we are back from the break, and before
we talk about housing, let us now get to the
ludicrous headline of the week. This one is from US
News and the headline reads why you shouldn't dump your
(21:14):
brick and mortar bank, which, hey, you see this headline
and raises some questions, right, could Matt and Joel Could
they be wrong? Maybe brick and mortar banks are better.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
And I'm leaving open the possibility that we could be
wrong on certain things. Sure, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
I try to keep an open mind.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
So I don't know if I'm leaving open the possibility
on this one.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
Because in this way, certainly we've been diametrically opposed to
this headline. If you've listened to the show for any
point of time, like you know that we're fans of
the online banks, We're not fans of the big old
banks that are dotting the street corners around the country.
And the US News article they highlight the individual attention, oh,
(21:52):
one of the top reasons to have a physical bank.
Don't you want somebody who knows you, a bank teller
who you recognize, And they also mentioned that it'll help
you if you need investment advice, but of course that
could be further from the truth. Don't ever take investing
advice from your local bank, and especially too don't even
consider I almost forget that this is an option that
you have the ability to open a retirement account with
(22:13):
your local bank. But these are some of the worst
places to invest your money. That's right.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
It's funny. I was talking to somebody the other day
and he was like, I'm thinking about moving banks, Like
my big bank started loving me with a thirty five
dollars a month fee for insufficient balance or something like that.
And the big banks are the worst at fees. And
it's amazing. No matter how many times we talk about it,
I still run into people consistently who have even heard
the show and they mention where they bank, and I'm like,
(22:38):
oh gosh, they're paying you point zero one percent on
your savings those point zero three Joelsh It has bumped
up a little bit, and it's just it's it's incredible.
And these things that US News and World Report is
pointing out are just kind of like non starters for me.
They individualize attention. Do you think even at a local
bank branch of a big giant megabank, that they are
(23:00):
paying special attention to you, that they're you might get
like a sucker for your kid or something if you
go in there, But that's about as good as you're
going to get. And then they also mentioned fee free ATMs. Well,
guess what you get those with online banks too. Most
of them, most of the best ones have extensive networks,
or they're even completely reimbursed ATM fees that you might incur.
And I just think at this point in their evolution,
(23:21):
online banks do essentially everything better than the biggest banks.
I don't see any need to have an account or
relationship there at all for the fast majority people maybe
small business owners, but even then there are probably better
local options for you. So the bottom of the article,
by the way, refers to Chase and Wells Fargo as
banks to consider because they have plenty of convenient locations
(23:44):
to visit. But the only reason I could see to
take US News's advice is if you love fees, you
love bad customer service, and you are down with low
interest rates low interest rates on your savings. If that's
the case for you, if you kind of are glutton
for punishment, go for it. But yeah, we couldn't disagree
with this article more right.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Friend of the show Michelle Singletary, she wrote about paying
off her mortgage early over in the Washington Post the
other day, our friend Andy Hill, he was actually making
similar like no regret claims on social media. Recently, Michelle,
she was writing about how she paid off a mortgage
with a rate of two point seventy five percent, which
(24:24):
seems like a very Michelle thing to do. And this
is because she hates, She abhors all kinds of debt.
She doesn't believe there's such a thing as good debt.
This is something that we talked about with her back
in episode three seventy three.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
And that doesn't mean we don't love Michelle or don't
think that she has a lot of great advice different
from this.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Diff different strokes for different folks. Her main reason for
that was for the peace of mind that it paid off,
mortgage created and you know, the approach to money and
how does you handle your personal finances. There's a reason
it's called personal right. We want Michelle to do what
she thinks is going to make her happy. That being said,
you're not going to find either Joel or I following suit.
(25:05):
Because a low interest rate mortgage is a hedge against inflation.
It's essentially free money right now. If you if you
had a mortgage that was at two point seventy five
percent and holding on better than the free money. Yeah,
to a low rate like that, it just obviously the
ability to reduce taxes, you can increase investments and have
added liquidity, that is, if you ought to do good
(25:26):
things with those dollars, not just using it to funnel
your lifestyle. Because obviously, if on one hand you have Okay,
we're gonna spend all of this money, or we could
use it to pay down a mortgage, well sure, yeah
that's going to lead to higher levels of wealth for you.
But we're talking about taking just a holistic view of
your personal finances and yeah, if you've got a thirty
year locked in low rate, that is something that we
(25:47):
are fans of. Yeah, it's like and for a.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Lot of people, Matt, that obsession with paying off a
mortgage can put the cart before the horse, because there
are other financial goals that you want to be hitting
before you even put that on your radar. It's kind
of like putting the five twenty nine planned before the
four oh one k investing. For most people, paying off
your mortgage is doing the very thing like you should
probably do, like six seven, eight, things before and do
them incredibly well, before you start focusing on the debt
(26:11):
payoff goal of the least degregious debt that's in your life. Sure,
and we talked about using debt wisely to build wealth
back on episode six thirty seven, so if you want
a nuanced discussion of that, please do check that out.
We'll link to it in the show notes. But speaking
of mortgages, by the way, Matt, something terrible is back.
It feels like two thousand and seven again, which was
(26:33):
a great year for you, I know, but that's what
I got married.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
Yeah, see like to testic year. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
But zero down mortgages, these are the products that are
making a comeback. Basically, hey, guess what buy a house
and no downpayment required. United Wholesale Mortgage in particular has
just launched a zero down product, which sounds great for
folks who want to buy a home but don't have
much in the way of savings. This sounds like, guess what,
Now I can finally buy the home I want, even
(26:58):
though I haven't been able to or just haven't saved
up the money yet. But is this a good thing? Well, yes,
it's gonna make it easier to purchase the home you
want to buy, you're gonna be financing a bigger percentage
of the purchase price. Though that means higher monthly payments
and at a higher rate these days too, So I'm
sure you agree with me, Matt. I can't imagine recommending
(27:19):
this to anyone.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Terrible.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
It can put you in like the most uncomfortable financial position,
Like you're starting off with no equity, a massive monthly
mortgage amount, and so if the if the housing market
experiences some turbulence and or you experience a loss of income,
the result's gonna be horrendous.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Yeah. Well, and the way that folks are able to
put zero down is that there's a second mortgage involved,
Like so the remaining like you're getting a first mortgage
basically for like ninety seven percent of the home value,
and the remaining three it's a second loan. It's a
second lean on the house, which you don't have to
pay interest on. It just sits there until you refi
or until you actually sell the home. And I think
(27:55):
that's where it's gonna end up, Like that's in my
mind where it feels like a taking time bomb because
folks are thinking, oh great, we got this house. We're
gonna have this thing forever. But what folks don't really
like the average American moves something like every five to
seven years. Yep, that is not that long. And it
just happens, I think, more frequently than people think. And
we don't think in seven year five to seven year
(28:15):
increments as much as we do, like, what are we
doing for the next couple of years? And then on
top of that, like you just just the additional costs
that come with moving. I think it's something like ten
thousand dollars there. I just think a lot of folks,
I don't know, maybe we should time stamp it, but
like five to seven years from them, we might see
a whole lot of folks underwater when it comes to
their mortgages and the homes that they're looking to get
(28:36):
out of.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
I think you're right, and I think what's also true
is that the terms of a mortgage are often far
less advantageous. The less money you put down, so more
skin you put in the game. Guess what, when you
put twenty percent down, you are in golden territory. Like
you are, You're gonna get better terms, You're gonna get
better interest rates. Potentially lower fees, Like, that's a crucial
part of smart money management. But if you are the
(28:59):
kind of who hasn't been able to save up much
money and you're at the mercy of lenders and the
only one you can shop with is United Wholesale Mortgage
because you need the zero percent down thing, well guess what,
all those terms are.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
Going to be worse.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
It's going to cost you a lot more money over time,
not to mention the potential severe downsides of buying a
house without any money to put down.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Yeah. If seriously, if stuff hits a fan, I guarantee
you is it United Wholesale? Is that the company they're
going to be at the center of it. Yeah, Well,
your debts or your loans, your mortgages in this case,
they end up on your credit report and of course
consumer reports. They just ran a test to see just
how off your credit reports can be, how many errors
that they actually have, And in that test, nearly half
(29:40):
of the thousands of volunteers found errors on the report
is forty four percent, the majority of which we're damaging
to their credit score.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Yeah, can you imagine anything like think about a fail
rate of four percent When we were in school, somebody,
And I know there's been like great inflation and more
leniency I think in a lot of ways and a
lot of educational systems. Can you imagine getting forty four
of the questions wrong on a quiz or or just
like getting a sixty six overall as a grade and
be like, Okay, it has to be a fifty six.
(30:09):
Everything's and your teacher saying, yeah, you're moving on to
the next grade.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Nope.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
No.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
The credit bureaus are terrible. It's terrible. Yeah. Basically, the
credit reports and the score complaints related to those credit
reports are through the roof, and the credit bureaus they
don't seem to care or be doing anything about it
in order to fix those reports. And I say that
because in the study, folks try to work with the
credit bureaus to get those items removed, and it took
many months. It took a ton of back and forth
(30:33):
of contacting the bureaus and reaching out to lenders in
order to fix the errors, which sounds incredibly frustrating. And
so what should we do with this information? We would
say to check load the bureaus. Yeah, well check your
credit report and you can do it once a week
for free. Still, this used to be something that you
can only do was it once annually? I'm so used
(30:54):
to the essentially credit report, that's right, But ever since
the pandemic, you can do it every single week. This
is something though that truly maybe just like twice a year,
that's maybe how often I would check it out. But
look over it for any inaccurate information. If you see
any report there's errors, to the bureaus and then follow
up make sure that this is you want to make
(31:15):
sure that this is something that you're on top of,
and then complain to the CFPB, the Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau if you are getting a dial tone basically if
they're doing nothing about it, which.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Is a report that people have levied against them, is like, hey,
I make the report, I've gone through the system, I've
jumped through the hoops at the bureaus are putting me through,
even though they're putting a lot of people through that
because so many of these reports are inaccurate, and then
they are getting that kind of dial tone, they're getting
zero customer service from the credit bureaus because guess what,
we're not the customer of the credit bureaus.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
We are the product.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
We are the product and because of that, they don't
really care when we complain. And so yeah, sometimes you
have to appeal to a higher authority. CFPB dot gov
is the place to do that. And best of luck
to all of you out there navigating what is a
god awful system that is in dire need of fixing.
All right, man, let's talk about another entity that sucks, real,
real bad. Ticketmaster is one of the worst companies in
(32:07):
the world. The Justice Department just announced that they're suing
Live Nation, which is the parent company of Ticketmaster, in
an attempt to break up the I say a parent monopoly,
but I think it's apparent to all that it is
a monopoly.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Fun with words.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
I'm also a parent Matt, which is different. I mean,
I have kids, okay, but we're going to be paying
attention to what happens this in this case. On top
of that, Ticketmaster announced that they experienced a data breach
this week and that customer data was leaked all across
the web. Another reason to dislike Ticketmaster and to freeze
your credit. Yeah, but Ticketmaster, get it together.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
This is just good news for everyone out there who
wants to go see a live show, because this is
what's so crazy is that they're finally getting around to this,
and what I don't understand, Well, it's they announced it
a couple weeks ago, but we're talking about it now.
But so much attention is paid to let's say, an
airline that's the seventh biggest airline and they're thinking about
acquiring or merging with the eighth biggest. I don't understand
(33:06):
why Ticketmaster hasn't come up. They are by far the
largest ticket sales venue whatever operator. Oh yeah, like it's something.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
They owned the venues and they own their ticket system.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Eighty percent, and nobody else comes even close. And so
I just don't understand. Maybe it is because airlines and
transportation that's more closely related to national security or something.
I don't really know. Maybe they just see concert sales
as like, oh, that's just like entertainment, it's not important.
But still, the stranglehold that Ticketmaster Live Nation has had
on the live events space, it's baffled.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Well, here's how big of a stranglehold they have. Mat
Even my homie, Zach Bryan, he released an album y'all
are tight?
Speaker 1 (33:44):
Right? Who we Are?
Speaker 2 (33:45):
He released an album called All My Homies Hay Ticketmaster,
and he had to sell his tickets for his tour
right now on Ticketmaster because they're the only game in
town for the big venues that he's gonna be playing.
That So even artists who make their complaints known still
have to get in bed. So you'll have to do
business with Ticketmaster. It's hard to watch.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Yeah, and you mentioned the data breach that Ticketmaster experienced.
The Journal they had some great advice this week as
it pertains to your data, your personal data. Don't give
out your Social Security number. This is something I don't know.
Maybe a lot of folks know this, but we're getting
asked for it all the time. And in most instances
the person asking the company asking they don't necessarily need
(34:27):
to have it or they're not required, like it's not
required of you to provide it.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
They put it on the form. But if you leave
it blank, then guess what they no harm no.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
Fact, like sometimes your doctor's office or your gym, if
there's a space there for like, just think twice about that,
see if you can, or ask them if you can
give your driver's license number instead. Sometimes I know we
had to fill out some childcare forms earlier this year
and there's another special form that you had to fill
out if you did not want to provide your Social
(34:57):
Security number. Do that because the more you write down
your social well, the more likely you are too experienced
ID theft, and especially if your kids are involved, that
might not be something that you even realized until like
ten fifteen years down the road. And again, the credit freeze,
this is a great and free way to protect yourself
in the modern world. So, yeah, if you're not planning
(35:17):
to take out any loans anytime soon, go ahead and
lock that thing down because it doesn't take that long
to unfreeze as well.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Yeah, and we've all we all know about the Equifax
breach of twenty seventeen in which you know, one hundred
and fifty million the information of one hundred and fifty
million people was released. And then Ticketmaster same thing, like
breached another breach, and these breaches like we've had breach fatigue, Matt,
because there happened all the day time, and so we
just assumed that our information is out there and we're
pretty product probably is that's right? And so really the
(35:44):
credit freeze, which is fortunately free thanks to federal law,
is the only way to prevent yourself from having that
information used against you in the worst ways possible. So yeah,
do this, Try to protect yourself on the front end.
Don't give your social out there. But then credit freeze
is like the back end protection too, so all right, yeah,
well link to an article that explains how does it.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
You can do that. And what's important to note here
is we're talking about freezes, not locks. Ye, locks cost money,
and our products that the different credit bureaus offer freezes, well,
those things are free, it's right.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Well, and the other thing is credit lock isn't and
nearly as good of a tool. No plus is gonna
cost you money.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
That's right. Well, we hope everyone has a fantastic weekend
and we will see you back here on Monday with
a fresh ask how to Money episode.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
If you've got a question, by the way, submit it.
Just gonna have to money dot com slash ask can't
wait to hear your question. Hope to take it on
the next Ask htm episode in a couple of weeks.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
That's right. If you don't have a question, leave us
a review over wherever it is that you listen to
your podcast.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
If you don't leave us a review, I don't know
do something else that's fun this weekend. Yeah, all right,
until next time, Buddy, best friends out and best friends
out
Welcome to Hod of Money.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
I'm Joel and I am Matt, and today we're talking
about forgotten five twenty nine's, abandoning insurance and wrecked credit reports.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
That's right, everyone, This is our Friday flight and we're
going to talk about the most fascinating headlines this Friday.
Happy Friday to everyone out there. But yeah, these are
the stories that pertain to your personal finances the most.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
If you don't listen, you won't know this stuff you
need to know this weekend. But no, what's this you
got to note here about something about the Burbs? Okay, So, yes,
we've moved to the Burbs almost two years ago. Not
the Arcade Fire album the Suburbs, No, although that was
a great album back in the day.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
No.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
I was thinking the other day about on how good
of a two years it's been overall being here.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
The thing I miss the absolute most is great restaurants.
We have a dearth of those up here, although it's
getting better. There's some good restaurants, dude, there's some solid restaurants.
There's no great restaurants.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Or maybe one great one. Honestly, what I feel that's
lacking the most are good breweries, craft breweries because where
we used to be man, we had the best Monday
night inner Voice Halfway Crooks, which we got to go
back down and revisit recently.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
So many good ones there and we don't have those here.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
No we don't.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
But one of the biggest downsides of moving to the
verbs that.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Recently let me guess, you miss your car getting rifled through.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
No, now that.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
You miss somebody's actually stealing your niece on leaf and
then kidnapping it and trying to extort Those are good days.
Those are good days. Have kept me on the edge
of my seat. It's been a minute since we talked
about that. I don't say that story for another time.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
I like living in a weird place, so like I
missed some of the weirdness I do. But the biggest thing,
the thing that's like really kind of that I have
realized recently because on the Libby app we still had
our Fulton County Library access and now we don't anymore,
and so we only have the Cobb County Library access.
And guess what, the audiobook selection in there sucks. It's
(02:14):
so bad. I salivate thinking about all the books I
had access to for free before then. Now I've been
cut off from So he's that bad.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Here's a confession. I'm still logged in or at least
all on Hoopla, which is that you mentioned Libby. I've
recently been using Hoopla and I'm still logged in to
the city. Yeah, so they haven't reset. I was for
two years and then recently that got cut off. It
was because they don't know when you move. But then
they're like.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Hey, you actually need to update your account with new
with details and if you don't have if you don't
still live in the city, if you don't sell them
an address, they cut you off.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Man.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
So I don't know how to remedy this kind of bummed.
So what I'm doing now is I'm actually paying for
more audio books sadly, but I don't think.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
I mean, it's something that you value and it's not
necessarsarily like it's not like a craft beer equivalent. But
when there are books, especially the newer ones, that's what's
so difficult with the different library apps, is that you
are oftentimes in a really long line to hear or
read a good book.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
So I'm testing out too right now Spotify and libro
dot fm because Spotify added the audiobooks to their plan.
That's twelve bucks a month and you get like fifteen
hours worth of listening. So I've realized it's best to
listen to your short books on Spotify because you won't
be able to get two two books in a given
month for that twelve dollars fee. Libro, I go there
for my longer audiobook needs because you limited by It's
(03:37):
not about time, it's about a credit. If I spend
one credit for a five hour book versus one credit
for a twenty.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Hour same as same as Audible.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Yeah yeah, so yeah, just word of the wise out there,
live in a city if you want access to a
larger audiobook selection from your library. But then then those
other two I think are good places to turn if
you're if you're an audiobook addict kind of like I am,
and they'll help you. They don't have every single book ever,
but they have a pretty good selection. And I don't
(04:03):
know if I'll keep both of those around for forever,
but for the time being, I'm I'm using them both.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
See what sure works? What you what you got on
the docket for as far as books.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Okay, I'm about to listen to Glenn Lowry's memoir.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
That's so funny. Yeah, I'm the same here. I'm really
interested in uh well.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
It's it's the greatest American economists. And also his voice, Yes.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
I'm excited about that as well, because he's got a
he's got a great voice.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
And I just finished reading Knife by Samon Rushdie. Uh
the in just the first person account of being stabbed
seventeen times. It's just a terrible stage, but it's also
a beautiful story. Like it's crazy the way he tells it.
It's just I love hearing he talks about his relationship
with his wife and.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Just I don't know.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
It's a good reflection on life post something traumatic happening.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
So interesting. Highly recommend. I've been wanting to read Shop
Class as Soulcraft, which is like a book about it's
more of a philosophical book but about work, which I
feel like it's a you what was the second Mountain?
That was the day David Brooks that you read recently,
and that kind of got me thinking about work a
little bit. I'm like, you know what, I feel like
that would be a good way to approach the topic,
to help inform how it is that I'm thinking about
(05:08):
work these days, So let me know what you think
of that. I will let you know. But yeah, let's
move on to the Friday flight and let's get talking
about investing in specifically private equity within your retirement accounts.
This is something that's being pushed more and more around
the globe, and now some folks are advocating for it
here in the States. And it's not a great idea
in our book. And the biggest reason that private markets
(05:30):
are inherently more risky is because they aren't nearly as
transparent as public markets. Actually, friend of the Show, Alison Schreger,
she wrote about this this past week in Bloomberg and Dude.
Her most poignant line was, there is one golden rule
of investing. If someone tells you they can beat the
market without taking on more risk, you should not invest
(05:51):
in whatever they are selling the higher returns to become
agree more with more risk, right.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
And if someone's trying to say you can have the
best of both or sorry, they're trying to yeah, you're
gonna get taken advantage of.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
It was like a made off sort of set up.
Another front of the show, Nick Madjulie. We've had him
on the show as well, but he wrote about alternative investments,
with private equity being one of them. He wrote about
that on his blog and both writers came to a
similar conclusion. This is what Nick macjulie said. He said, Ultimately,
the key to building wealth isn't in any specific asset class.
(06:24):
It's in the power of consistent, disciplined investing over time.
It is the continual purchase of income producing assets. Music
come my years, Nick Man, it's just from time to time.
I think it's good for us just the let folks know.
We stick a flag in the sand to let folks
know how and where it is that we stand when
it comes to just different investments, because it's easy to
be distracted by all the latest and greatest, sexy things
(06:47):
that folks are talking about, the stuff that's making us
splash in the investment world. But it's not about that.
It's truly about investing consistently over the long haul. And
we've talked about this. There's whiskey wine, art, like all
these cool things, farm land, it's like, whoa, the world's
my oyster. I can invest in whatever I want, and
I can invest in things that I never would have
had access to ten years ago. Or my parents certainly
(07:08):
never had access to when it comes to investing. But
most of those things are actually going to lead you
astray from the path of building wealth, which that's the goal. Man.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
It doesn't even have to be super exciting and actually boring.
Is often going to be low fie, easy to replicate.
It's going to allow you to stay the course over
time without getting distracted. Speaking of alternative there's a simple
path to wealth.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Which maybe will link to that book. Yes, somebody wrote
about that. I hear jail columns. Yeah, that's a good book.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
And speaking of alternative investments, Matt, we've talked about Costco
selling gold bars. How popular that's been. You and I,
we just don't really see a need for gold inside
of your portfolio, especially physical bars in your home. It
can be a hassle. And guess what, it's easier to
lose your money if you're storing your investment under your mattress. Plus,
as the Wall Street Journal pointed out in an article
(07:58):
this week, the tax treatment on gold investments isn't great.
So gold is an especially poor investment for millennials and
gen Z folks, which is the vast majority of our audience. Well,
I think gold seems to have jump jumped the shark
too a little bit. Cookie company TIFFs Treats is now
selling gold bars too, So yeah, not only can you
(08:21):
buy some cookies. So I don't know how tasty their
cookies are. Have you had the TIFFs Treats cookies?
Speaker 1 (08:25):
I have not.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
I wonder if I bet they're delicious. But when you
buy cookies, you can also add on Fizzle gold to
your order, so you can get their Bullion bundle and
it's twenty five hundred bucks, right, you get a gold
bar with your twenty one dollars bucks of cookies.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
It's yeah, normally cookies that cost like twenty dollars, but
if you want the special package, actually it costs like
substantially more. Yeah. So yeah. The worst part of this
is the fact that you don't actually get a gold
bar with your cookies.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
They have to ship it severally. Yeah well, yeah, like
because it needs to be delivered with like an armored vehicle.
You get a certificate for it.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
But I'm like, come on, if you're actually gonna take
like the Wonka approach, like there better be like a
gold bar like baked into a cookie where you run
the risk of like chipping your tooth like that sounds
like fun as opposed to like, oh, here's a piece
of make it a party, by the way, you're going
to get it? Like, no, you would, actually, I mean,
isn't that Part of the appeal of gold is actually
how it looks? But I thought that was silly that
(09:17):
that was like they're touting this but like they're not
even actually delivering.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
It's a marketing thing gold bars, and with the cookies again,
it's this sort of sexy thing. It's like, oh, and
it's really weird that a company that makes cookies, whether
they're delicious or not, I don't know, but like that
they're now getting into this gold game and trying to
sell their customers an investment product. And yeah, I don't know,
No need to deep dive because I feel like we
talked about gold recently. But it's one of those things
(09:42):
where you're just like, what is going on here? Why
are desserts and investments being mixed up?
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Right? But let's talk about higher ed specifically saving up
for higher education. Half of Americans don't know what a
five twenty nine plan is. And this is according to
a recent study done by Edward Owns and it's not
that they aren't like socking money into a five twenty
nine plan, They like literally don't know what those accounts do, and.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Those numbers put together, they're just like they blank face,
I don't.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Know what you're talking about. Yeah, well, speaking of numbers,
one third of the folks who were surveyed say they
were actively saving for their child's future, and so like
that just means many of them likely aren't doing it
as effectively as they could be. And so we wanted
to mention this because these accounts they've only gotten better
in recent years because you can use them. Well, first
of all, you can use them for K twelve expenses
if you so choose, right, Like, you don't necessarily even
(10:35):
have to wait for higher education if you.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Want your kid to go to private school or something
like that. Like, you can get a tax break in
most states by socking money into a five twenty nine
plan and.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Then have it and invest in the during during the interim.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Yeah, whereas back in the day used to be only
for college.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Right. But then on top of that, if you overfund
your five twenty nine account or your kids five twenty
nine account, you can turn those dollars into roth dollars
further down the line. And so if you have kids,
or if you play and even on going back to
school yourself, it's worth educating yourself about five twenty nine plans.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
You don't want to be in the fifty percent of
people who know don't know what it is.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Yeah, we've got an article up on the site explaining
how it is that you can maximize all the different
benefits that five to twenty nine plans offer.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Yeah, and that our advice. The way we think about
five twenty nine plans has changed significantly in recent years
thanks to the greater levels of flexibility, and so yeah,
people would behoove themselves to at least know what five
twenty nine plans are and to see whether or not
it makes sense for them to participate in funding five
twenty nine plans for their kids or for even themselves. Like,
(11:35):
if you're planning on going back to get a graduate
degree maybe a few years from now, well it might
make sense to start funneling money into a five twenty
nine started investing growing that pie so that you have
so that it's easier to pay for that advanced degree totally.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
But this also or even if you're gonna go get
that advanced degree like tomorrow, because the ability to fund
that account and then.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Pay directly out of that you still get that tax.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Braink, that's right.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Yeah, it's just greatbout it funnel through there. It's almost
like money laundering, but it's a legal form of it
because you're just getting an instant tax break for sticking
you know, like in the state of George at least
I think it's eight thousand dollars per beneficiary, and all
of that money that you stick in there just completely
avoids state taxes. But I will say this too, that
doesn't mean that we want everyone contributing to a five
twenty nine plan, right. There's a lot of nuance involved
(12:20):
in the decision, So even if you know what it is,
it doesn't mean that you should be participating. We still
think that most folks would be better off not saving
money for their child's future, which sounds like we don't
like kids or something like that, but that's not true.
Avoiding five twenty nine plans altogether can make sense for
a lot of folks, at least at least until their
(12:41):
own retirement has been diligently funded. Too many parents, Matt,
we run this all the time. They start to contribute regularly.
Lots of times it's done out of guilt, Like I
want to provide a great financial future for my kids,
I don't want them. I hear all these stories about
being saddled with student loan debt. I don't want my
kids to face that same fate. Feels like a selfless move, yeah, exactly.
(13:01):
But the problem is they're not even getting the full
match in their own four to one K, or they're
not maxing out their own roth IRA first. And if
you're not doing those things, then it doesn't make sense
to hop into five twenty nine plan investing for your
kid's future yet, right, I think those in particular are
two crucial steps to take before you even consider, before
it's even on your radar to think about making those
(13:22):
five twenty nine contributions.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Especially the four to one K match. But so oftentimes
we will talk about like the metaphor will use as
like the oxygen masks, And I was thinking through, all right,
let's let's come up with a different metaphor, maybe a
better metaphor perhaps, So imagine you've got a car and
it's low on gas, but it's also dirty and you're like, oh,
I need to go on a hot date. I want
to take care of both of those things. Got to
(13:44):
fill up the tank, and I also want to get
it cleaned up.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
What if it's an EV in this scenario, I forget that.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Okay Joel's question, Well, you could go straight to the
car wash, because you're like, why go I get this
thing shined up? Like that would be nice, right, But
if you do that first, you're not gonna have the
ability to then go to the gas station and fill up,
which is going to derail your entire plan. And so
there is a specific order that you need to do this,
and you need to go to the gas station first,
get that thing filled up with gas, and then at
that point you can maybe you'll look around and say, yeah,
(14:11):
you know, I still want to go ahead and get
the car wash. Let's go to the Let's go to
the car wash first. Or here's here's the great part.
You might look around and say, you know what, the
car is not that dirty. Oh it's starting to rain.
It's not quite like a car wash. But like there's
an alternative, like something else has taken place that means
I no longer necessarily need to go to the car wash.
The equivalent there for higher education are like scholarships, because
(14:31):
it's kind of like, oh, this is not something I
was counting on happening, but in fact it did happen.
It's I'm not going to stretch the run with a
metaphor even further. But bottom line, the oxygen mask one
is a little simpler. I would say I like the
car one because everyone I don't know. I feel like
you can picture yourself thinking there are multiple goals that
you have. There are multiple things that you want to do,
but you got to take care of one before you
take care of the other one. And plus who has
(14:52):
actually had the oxygen masks drop down where you're like, oh, yeah,
there's that thing that I need to suck on. Like
everyone fills.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Up there on a plane and we've heard ad nauseam,
but we've we've unfolded the thing from the seatback.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
You don't unfold it. You sit there and I don't
know who you are listen to your audio book, but
I have Yeah, I like those presentations. So whatever analogy
you prefer, run with that. But five twenty nine plans,
sure they've gotten better, and yes they can make sense,
and yes, we want people to know what they are,
but we also don't want people to over emphasize five
twenty nine plans to the detriment of their own retirement savings.
(15:24):
Let's talk about something else that's costing people money right now, Matt,
insurance has gotten significantly more expensive, and not only our
insurance rates climbing rapidly, but payouts on claims are diminishing too,
So basically the value proposition of having insurance has gone
down dramatically. We're talking mostly about homeowners insurance here, and
(15:45):
the question is for some people, Matt, they're like, this
has gotten prohibitively expensive. Maybe I should just ditch homeoders
insurance and risk it get a little risky. Well, more
people are choosing to do that, to ditch homeoders insurance altogether.
In twenty ninenineteen, only five percent of Americans had no
homeotors insurance at all. As of twenty twenty two, the
(16:06):
most recent figure we could find, that number rows to
twelve percent of Americans going without home motors and churnity
big increase.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
A lot more people live in that risky, risky life
hoping that nothing bad happens to their home. My guess
is that number is only going to go up with
soaring premiums now. So I was the twenty twenty two number.
What are we going to see in twenty twenty four,
Probably a higher percentage of people going without. And by
the way, if you have a mortgage, you can't forego insurance.
(16:33):
Your lender is not down with that. They will find
any policy for you if you cancel yours. It's what's
known as forced placed insurance, and it's going to be expensive.
It's not going to be as cheap as what you're
able to find shopping the open market. So just know
that if you are someone with a mortgage still on
your home, what more and more Americans are doing, this
is something you cannot participate in. Sure, But I guess
(16:55):
if your mortgage is paid off, if you're one of
those few folks.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Like you have that option. Yeah, yeah, I see that
force placed insurance almost like Cobra insurance. It's like it's
really expensive, it's kind of crappy. Somebody else picked it
up for you, but you're still on the hook for it. Like, oh,
by the way, you still have to pay for this thing.
And here's a shocking stat but close to forty percent
of Americans own their home free and clear with no
mortgage debt at all, And so I think that's another
reason that we might continue to see this number increase
(17:21):
the number of folks who are choosing to forego homeowners insurance.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
If I was asked for a guess before having known that,
I would have guessed something much lower like he.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
I think I would have guessed like twenty percent or
less likely to be honest, Yeah, it's really hard to think.
It's amazing to think that four out of ten people
own their home outright. That boggles the mind. But even
if that is you, So the question is, should you
ditch your insurance policy when the bill gets jacked up? Well,
like it's a personal decision obviously, but it just depends.
I think it depends on a if you've got the
(17:50):
money to fix it, if you're willing to deal with
the consequences if something catastrophic occurs. If that's the case,
I think it could be worth the savings. But I
think most folks will to shop around for better rates.
They're gonna want to hold their nose and just pay
what they owe because not having any coverage on your home,
I think that just presents too big of a financial
risk for most folks who are listening to how Money.
(18:11):
At least most folks.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Just can't stomach it financially or mentally, like realizing, I
don't have many coverage on this thing, and if the
worst thing happens, if God forbid, a fire happens in
my home or something like that, or it makes me
think of my neighbor across the street, a fantastic dude.
He has a second home down in Florida, and his
home got smashed by a hurricane, like completely wiped out.
(18:33):
And that's the risk you run in the state of Florida.
And guess what, Florida is one of those states where
insurance rates are incredibly high for homeowners. And so he
had gone without self insuring. But he made a calculated decision.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
He had the money to rebuild, the money during the interim.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
That's exactly what he was doing. And so he was
hoping that day never came. But the day did come,
and he was mentally and financially prepared it for him.
But a lot of folks, Matt, I think, who are
that twelve percent of people who are going without homeowners insurance?
They're not prepared on either FOW and so it's a
big risk and maybe the thing you want to do
instead is raise your deductible and keeping homeowners insurance around
just be paying less for it and have ye more
(19:13):
of your own money at risk if something happens, but
not all of your money.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Find a way to pay less every single month. But like,
you got to be really buttoned up, Like you need
to be someone I think who's incredibly detail oriented, like
who might like borderline paranoid in order for that to
make even more sense, right, Like, cause if you're someone
who's just like, ah, if you're just winging it and
you're like, it'll probably be fine, well no, it kind
of just comes down to you. So you need to
know whether like it's black or white. You know. And
(19:39):
granted you can't plan for and mitigate all risks, but
this is more of an approach where you do need
to have things figured out. Like you know, you kind
of talked about fire, like, okay, you need to have
like a fire extinguisher in like every room. Maybe like
when you had some electrical work done, you're probably gonna
go with the electrician who seems like even more I
(20:01):
don't know, insure someone who's not like cutting corners, you know,
like everything needs to be bulletproof essentially, in my opinion,
in order for this to be a risk that I
would be willing to accept.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Basically, it's a big old risk, right, Like a higher
deductible is one risk. Not having insurance at all is
an even bigger risk that could be catastrophic to your finances. Yeah,
if the worst were to happen, so be careful. It's
crazy to see those numbers ticking up that traumatically. I
get it because insurance is crazy expensive. There are other
ways I think to reduce the costs of insurance, shopping
(20:32):
around being one of those, with particularly an independent insurance agent.
So definitely consider that as an option. But ditching it
all together probably doesn't make sense for a whole lot
of folks. All right, Matt, We've got more to get
to on this episode, including we're gonna talk about something
from two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight that
helped cause the housing crisis. It's back, baby, and it's
not good. We'll get to that more right after.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
This, everybuddy, we are back from the break, and before
we talk about housing, let us now get to the
ludicrous headline of the week. This one is from US
News and the headline reads why you shouldn't dump your
(21:14):
brick and mortar bank, which, hey, you see this headline
and raises some questions, right, could Matt and Joel Could
they be wrong? Maybe brick and mortar banks are better.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
And I'm leaving open the possibility that we could be
wrong on certain things. Sure, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
I try to keep an open mind.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
So I don't know if I'm leaving open the possibility
on this one.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
Because in this way, certainly we've been diametrically opposed to
this headline. If you've listened to the show for any
point of time, like you know that we're fans of
the online banks, We're not fans of the big old
banks that are dotting the street corners around the country.
And the US News article they highlight the individual attention, oh,
(21:52):
one of the top reasons to have a physical bank.
Don't you want somebody who knows you, a bank teller
who you recognize, And they also mentioned that it'll help
you if you need investment advice, but of course that
could be further from the truth. Don't ever take investing
advice from your local bank, and especially too don't even
consider I almost forget that this is an option that
you have the ability to open a retirement account with
(22:13):
your local bank. But these are some of the worst
places to invest your money. That's right.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
It's funny. I was talking to somebody the other day
and he was like, I'm thinking about moving banks, Like
my big bank started loving me with a thirty five
dollars a month fee for insufficient balance or something like that.
And the big banks are the worst at fees. And
it's amazing. No matter how many times we talk about it,
I still run into people consistently who have even heard
the show and they mention where they bank, and I'm like,
(22:38):
oh gosh, they're paying you point zero one percent on
your savings those point zero three Joelsh It has bumped
up a little bit, and it's just it's it's incredible.
And these things that US News and World Report is
pointing out are just kind of like non starters for me.
They individualize attention. Do you think even at a local
bank branch of a big giant megabank, that they are
(23:00):
paying special attention to you, that they're you might get
like a sucker for your kid or something if you
go in there, But that's about as good as you're
going to get. And then they also mentioned fee free ATMs. Well,
guess what you get those with online banks too. Most
of them, most of the best ones have extensive networks,
or they're even completely reimbursed ATM fees that you might incur.
And I just think at this point in their evolution,
(23:21):
online banks do essentially everything better than the biggest banks.
I don't see any need to have an account or
relationship there at all for the fast majority people maybe
small business owners, but even then there are probably better
local options for you. So the bottom of the article,
by the way, refers to Chase and Wells Fargo as
banks to consider because they have plenty of convenient locations
(23:44):
to visit. But the only reason I could see to
take US News's advice is if you love fees, you
love bad customer service, and you are down with low
interest rates low interest rates on your savings. If that's
the case for you, if you kind of are glutton
for punishment, go for it. But yeah, we couldn't disagree
with this article more right.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Friend of the show Michelle Singletary, she wrote about paying
off her mortgage early over in the Washington Post the
other day, our friend Andy Hill, he was actually making
similar like no regret claims on social media. Recently, Michelle,
she was writing about how she paid off a mortgage
with a rate of two point seventy five percent, which
(24:24):
seems like a very Michelle thing to do. And this
is because she hates, She abhors all kinds of debt.
She doesn't believe there's such a thing as good debt.
This is something that we talked about with her back
in episode three seventy three.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
And that doesn't mean we don't love Michelle or don't
think that she has a lot of great advice different
from this.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Diff different strokes for different folks. Her main reason for
that was for the peace of mind that it paid off,
mortgage created and you know, the approach to money and
how does you handle your personal finances. There's a reason
it's called personal right. We want Michelle to do what
she thinks is going to make her happy. That being said,
you're not going to find either Joel or I following suit.
(25:05):
Because a low interest rate mortgage is a hedge against inflation.
It's essentially free money right now. If you if you
had a mortgage that was at two point seventy five
percent and holding on better than the free money. Yeah,
to a low rate like that, it just obviously the
ability to reduce taxes, you can increase investments and have
added liquidity, that is, if you ought to do good
(25:26):
things with those dollars, not just using it to funnel
your lifestyle. Because obviously, if on one hand you have Okay,
we're gonna spend all of this money, or we could
use it to pay down a mortgage, well sure, yeah
that's going to lead to higher levels of wealth for you.
But we're talking about taking just a holistic view of
your personal finances and yeah, if you've got a thirty
year locked in low rate, that is something that we
(25:47):
are fans of. Yeah, it's like and for a.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Lot of people, Matt, that obsession with paying off a
mortgage can put the cart before the horse, because there
are other financial goals that you want to be hitting
before you even put that on your radar. It's kind
of like putting the five twenty nine planned before the
four oh one k investing. For most people, paying off
your mortgage is doing the very thing like you should
probably do, like six seven, eight, things before and do
them incredibly well, before you start focusing on the debt
(26:11):
payoff goal of the least degregious debt that's in your life. Sure,
and we talked about using debt wisely to build wealth
back on episode six thirty seven, so if you want
a nuanced discussion of that, please do check that out.
We'll link to it in the show notes. But speaking
of mortgages, by the way, Matt, something terrible is back.
It feels like two thousand and seven again, which was
(26:33):
a great year for you, I know, but that's what
I got married.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
Yeah, see like to testic year. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
But zero down mortgages, these are the products that are
making a comeback. Basically, hey, guess what buy a house
and no downpayment required. United Wholesale Mortgage in particular has
just launched a zero down product, which sounds great for
folks who want to buy a home but don't have
much in the way of savings. This sounds like, guess what,
Now I can finally buy the home I want, even
(26:58):
though I haven't been able to or just haven't saved
up the money yet. But is this a good thing? Well, yes,
it's gonna make it easier to purchase the home you
want to buy, you're gonna be financing a bigger percentage
of the purchase price. Though that means higher monthly payments
and at a higher rate these days too, So I'm
sure you agree with me, Matt. I can't imagine recommending
(27:19):
this to anyone.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Terrible.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
It can put you in like the most uncomfortable financial position,
Like you're starting off with no equity, a massive monthly
mortgage amount, and so if the if the housing market
experiences some turbulence and or you experience a loss of income,
the result's gonna be horrendous.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Yeah. Well, and the way that folks are able to
put zero down is that there's a second mortgage involved,
Like so the remaining like you're getting a first mortgage
basically for like ninety seven percent of the home value,
and the remaining three it's a second loan. It's a
second lean on the house, which you don't have to
pay interest on. It just sits there until you refi
or until you actually sell the home. And I think
(27:55):
that's where it's gonna end up, Like that's in my
mind where it feels like a taking time bomb because
folks are thinking, oh great, we got this house. We're
gonna have this thing forever. But what folks don't really
like the average American moves something like every five to
seven years. Yep, that is not that long. And it
just happens, I think, more frequently than people think. And
we don't think in seven year five to seven year
(28:15):
increments as much as we do, like, what are we
doing for the next couple of years? And then on
top of that, like you just just the additional costs
that come with moving. I think it's something like ten
thousand dollars there. I just think a lot of folks,
I don't know, maybe we should time stamp it, but
like five to seven years from them, we might see
a whole lot of folks underwater when it comes to
their mortgages and the homes that they're looking to get
(28:36):
out of.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
I think you're right, and I think what's also true
is that the terms of a mortgage are often far
less advantageous. The less money you put down, so more
skin you put in the game. Guess what, when you
put twenty percent down, you are in golden territory. Like
you are, You're gonna get better terms, You're gonna get
better interest rates. Potentially lower fees, Like, that's a crucial
part of smart money management. But if you are the
(28:59):
kind of who hasn't been able to save up much
money and you're at the mercy of lenders and the
only one you can shop with is United Wholesale Mortgage
because you need the zero percent down thing, well guess what,
all those terms are.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
Going to be worse.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
It's going to cost you a lot more money over time,
not to mention the potential severe downsides of buying a
house without any money to put down.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Yeah. If seriously, if stuff hits a fan, I guarantee
you is it United Wholesale? Is that the company they're
going to be at the center of it. Yeah, Well,
your debts or your loans, your mortgages in this case,
they end up on your credit report and of course
consumer reports. They just ran a test to see just
how off your credit reports can be, how many errors
that they actually have, And in that test, nearly half
(29:40):
of the thousands of volunteers found errors on the report
is forty four percent, the majority of which we're damaging
to their credit score.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Yeah, can you imagine anything like think about a fail
rate of four percent When we were in school, somebody,
And I know there's been like great inflation and more
leniency I think in a lot of ways and a
lot of educational systems. Can you imagine getting forty four
of the questions wrong on a quiz or or just
like getting a sixty six overall as a grade and
be like, Okay, it has to be a fifty six.
(30:09):
Everything's and your teacher saying, yeah, you're moving on to
the next grade.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Nope.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
No.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
The credit bureaus are terrible. It's terrible. Yeah. Basically, the
credit reports and the score complaints related to those credit
reports are through the roof, and the credit bureaus they
don't seem to care or be doing anything about it
in order to fix those reports. And I say that
because in the study, folks try to work with the
credit bureaus to get those items removed, and it took
many months. It took a ton of back and forth
(30:33):
of contacting the bureaus and reaching out to lenders in
order to fix the errors, which sounds incredibly frustrating. And
so what should we do with this information? We would
say to check load the bureaus. Yeah, well check your
credit report and you can do it once a week
for free. Still, this used to be something that you
can only do was it once annually? I'm so used
(30:54):
to the essentially credit report, that's right, But ever since
the pandemic, you can do it every single week. This
is something though that truly maybe just like twice a year,
that's maybe how often I would check it out. But
look over it for any inaccurate information. If you see
any report there's errors, to the bureaus and then follow
up make sure that this is you want to make
(31:15):
sure that this is something that you're on top of,
and then complain to the CFPB, the Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau if you are getting a dial tone basically if
they're doing nothing about it, which.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Is a report that people have levied against them, is like, hey,
I make the report, I've gone through the system, I've
jumped through the hoops at the bureaus are putting me through,
even though they're putting a lot of people through that
because so many of these reports are inaccurate, and then
they are getting that kind of dial tone, they're getting
zero customer service from the credit bureaus because guess what,
we're not the customer of the credit bureaus.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
We are the product.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
We are the product and because of that, they don't
really care when we complain. And so yeah, sometimes you
have to appeal to a higher authority. CFPB dot gov
is the place to do that. And best of luck
to all of you out there navigating what is a
god awful system that is in dire need of fixing.
All right, man, let's talk about another entity that sucks, real,
real bad. Ticketmaster is one of the worst companies in
(32:07):
the world. The Justice Department just announced that they're suing
Live Nation, which is the parent company of Ticketmaster, in
an attempt to break up the I say a parent monopoly,
but I think it's apparent to all that it is
a monopoly.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Fun with words.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
I'm also a parent Matt, which is different. I mean,
I have kids, okay, but we're going to be paying
attention to what happens this in this case. On top
of that, Ticketmaster announced that they experienced a data breach
this week and that customer data was leaked all across
the web. Another reason to dislike Ticketmaster and to freeze
your credit. Yeah, but Ticketmaster, get it together.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
This is just good news for everyone out there who
wants to go see a live show, because this is
what's so crazy is that they're finally getting around to this,
and what I don't understand, Well, it's they announced it
a couple weeks ago, but we're talking about it now.
But so much attention is paid to let's say, an
airline that's the seventh biggest airline and they're thinking about
acquiring or merging with the eighth biggest. I don't understand
(33:06):
why Ticketmaster hasn't come up. They are by far the
largest ticket sales venue whatever operator. Oh yeah, like it's something.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
They owned the venues and they own their ticket system.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Eighty percent, and nobody else comes even close. And so
I just don't understand. Maybe it is because airlines and
transportation that's more closely related to national security or something.
I don't really know. Maybe they just see concert sales
as like, oh, that's just like entertainment, it's not important.
But still, the stranglehold that Ticketmaster Live Nation has had
on the live events space, it's baffled.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Well, here's how big of a stranglehold they have. Mat
Even my homie, Zach Bryan, he released an album y'all
are tight?
Speaker 1 (33:44):
Right? Who we Are?
Speaker 2 (33:45):
He released an album called All My Homies Hay Ticketmaster,
and he had to sell his tickets for his tour
right now on Ticketmaster because they're the only game in
town for the big venues that he's gonna be playing.
That So even artists who make their complaints known still
have to get in bed. So you'll have to do
business with Ticketmaster. It's hard to watch.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Yeah, and you mentioned the data breach that Ticketmaster experienced.
The Journal they had some great advice this week as
it pertains to your data, your personal data. Don't give
out your Social Security number. This is something I don't know.
Maybe a lot of folks know this, but we're getting
asked for it all the time. And in most instances
the person asking the company asking they don't necessarily need
(34:27):
to have it or they're not required, like it's not
required of you to provide it.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
They put it on the form. But if you leave
it blank, then guess what they no harm no.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
Fact, like sometimes your doctor's office or your gym, if
there's a space there for like, just think twice about that,
see if you can, or ask them if you can
give your driver's license number instead. Sometimes I know we
had to fill out some childcare forms earlier this year
and there's another special form that you had to fill
out if you did not want to provide your Social
(34:57):
Security number. Do that because the more you write down
your social well, the more likely you are too experienced
ID theft, and especially if your kids are involved, that
might not be something that you even realized until like
ten fifteen years down the road. And again, the credit freeze,
this is a great and free way to protect yourself
in the modern world. So, yeah, if you're not planning
(35:17):
to take out any loans anytime soon, go ahead and
lock that thing down because it doesn't take that long
to unfreeze as well.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Yeah, and we've all we all know about the Equifax
breach of twenty seventeen in which you know, one hundred
and fifty million the information of one hundred and fifty
million people was released. And then Ticketmaster same thing, like
breached another breach, and these breaches like we've had breach fatigue, Matt,
because there happened all the day time, and so we
just assumed that our information is out there and we're
pretty product probably is that's right? And so really the
(35:44):
credit freeze, which is fortunately free thanks to federal law,
is the only way to prevent yourself from having that
information used against you in the worst ways possible. So yeah,
do this, Try to protect yourself on the front end.
Don't give your social out there. But then credit freeze
is like the back end protection too, so all right, yeah,
well link to an article that explains how does it.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
You can do that. And what's important to note here
is we're talking about freezes, not locks. Ye, locks cost money,
and our products that the different credit bureaus offer freezes, well,
those things are free, it's right.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Well, and the other thing is credit lock isn't and
nearly as good of a tool. No plus is gonna
cost you money.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
That's right. Well, we hope everyone has a fantastic weekend
and we will see you back here on Monday with
a fresh ask how to Money episode.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
If you've got a question, by the way, submit it.
Just gonna have to money dot com slash ask can't
wait to hear your question. Hope to take it on
the next Ask htm episode in a couple of weeks.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
That's right. If you don't have a question, leave us
a review over wherever it is that you listen to
your podcast.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
If you don't leave us a review, I don't know
do something else that's fun this weekend. Yeah, all right,
until next time, Buddy, best friends out and best friends
out
Hosts And Creators
Joel Larsgaard
Matthew Altmix
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