July 29, 2022 • 34 mins
Time for our Friday Flight! These episodes are a sampling of the week’s financial news and the impact on your personal finances. There are a lot of headlines out there, but we distill it down to specific takeaways that will allow you to kick off the weekend informed and help you to get ahead during these trying times. In this episode we cover some relevant and helpful stories like: scoring some HTM socks!, finally time for a recession, ginormous jackpots, using dumb personal loans to build wealth, fintech promising too good to be true savings rates, Overdraft Protection Act, the case of the $5,000 Springsteen tickets, expensive algorithms, fake reviews, student loan pause likely to be extended, geriatric roomates to save big, going with store brands, and conspicuous consumption if you’re into foot stuff.
And please help us to spread the word by letting friends and family know about How to Money! Hit the share button, subscribe if you’re not already a regular listener, and give us a quick review in Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Help us to change the conversation around personal finance and get more people doing smart things with their money. Have an awesome weekend!
Best friends out!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to How the Money. I'm Joel and I am Matt,
and today we're discussing ginormous jackpots, expensive algorithms, and geriatric roommates.
(00:28):
That's right, Joel. This is our Friday Flights where we
are talking through some of the different stories we came
across this week. We're gonna specifically talk about how they
are going to impact our finances and your finances. If
you're listening, and before we get to the stories, though
the time has come, you likely have heard about the
How the Money socks rumors are flying. These are the
(00:48):
meticulously designed socks that we created with the nice folks
over at Sock Fancy. I am holding a pair in
my hands right now, Matt. They look so good. They
are not only are they gorgeous, they are so ridiculously company.
And again, the reason these took so long is because
we really did want to make sure we had some
merch that we were proud of, not some of these
soft companies where they just printed the pictures. And we
(01:09):
joked about sharing the pictures of the some of the
crappy ones. I we will totally do that, will throw
it up at least on Instagram. I just held them
by the way, they smell like Hinton can either to listen,
you can eat them, but they smell so yeah. We
gave a few of several pairs of these away to
some folks who submitted listener money tips back for ourisode,
but we are now giving away five pairs to listeners
(01:31):
out there who leave a review over on Apple podcast
or if you give us a rating on Spotify or
some of the other platforms as well, like podcast Addict.
There are a lot of folks who listened over there
on that app as well, So all you gotta do
leave a review, even those old reviews that you may
have left previously, those count as well. But then send
us a screenshot or an email to resubmit your review
(01:51):
for the giveaway. Send those two how the money pot
at gmail dot com. Just make sure to do that
before end of day this coming Wednesday, and we will
announce those five winners on our next Friday flight, that's right,
And then we'll ship these gorgeous, lovely things out to
you and you'll be like, this is the best clothing
eye on my own. You might even throw away all
your other clothes and only where the hat of money
socks um. Although we don't suggest. If that's the case,
(02:12):
I'm fine with it. Uh that before we get to
kind of all the meatia stories we have to get
to this week. One thing I want to mention I
just talked about. We just talked about how crusty my
phone was getting. And it was one of those things
where I, as a frugalalite, was hoping to keep my
phone for a minimum of three years, and I threw
in the towel man I bought a new phone. Um,
(02:33):
it crossed my mind. But here's what pushed me over
the edge. I got the new I pre ordered the
new Google Pixel six A. Right now, I'm rolling with
the four A. The six A is at the newest.
The six A is the newest. I like literally just
came out, Like it's sitting at my house now and
I haven't even opened yet. But so, because of all
the issues I mentioned, the crack screen, the battery life,
(02:54):
messing up the charging board is is actually the biggest annoyance.
It's so hard to actually get my phone to charge
these days. But because of all those things, I was like,
I was at least interested. I was gonna look and
I was gonna see, you know how much can I
get from my phone? And some from folks in the
Facebook group, We're like, hey, check out Swap, check out Gazelle.
We've talked about the most websites on the show in
the past, but I was like, you're right, I should
(03:15):
go check those out. And uh, guess how much Gazelle
offered me for my two year old phone? Two year
old phone? How much was that phone? Brand new fifty
and it's kind of busted up, So I'm gonna guess
like sixty bucks? Okay, So they offered me twenty one
very much even worse. And then I went to cell Cell,
which is kind of like an aggregator, and the best
(03:36):
the most I could get paid for that phone was
eighty five from there, but decently, Yeah, that's still fair
for for what you got going on. It's okay, but
guess what. I went through the Google steps to see
how much Google would give me from my phone if
I were to pre order the source the Pixel six
A and two sixty two dollars what they offer. Yeah,
(03:57):
so it was like almost like a free phone for
the last couple of years. Did you realize I'll bust
it up? It is? Yeah, So they asked that once
you receive it, are they're gonna be like, oh, sorry, buddy,
we're gonna if I had money, I hope that they
asked if it had a bus to screen. I'm like yeah,
and uh, And if it hadn't, I think I would
have gotten three hulls, which is still shocking that you
could only lose fifty bucks on the phone after two years.
(04:17):
So it's one of those things where, um, it made
sense because of that. That's a great deal. It changed
the economics of of getting into a lot of folks
out there who might have an older pixel like you.
I mean, can you trade in some of your some
of the older pixel pixels as well? I think so. Yeah,
Well I think actually no, I think the four A
is the oldest down So if you're rolling with a
three or three A, it's probably not valuable enough. Um,
(04:37):
but if you got a four A or newer, it's
a great deal. Yeah, the upgrade might make sense. And
I think right now, yes, right now they're doing for
like a limited period of time. I think yeah, I
think so. I think it's literally just for a few
more days. So get out of folks, and and there's
a you get a free Google pixel buds that your
buds to with the pre order, and I'm like, I
don't even know if I want them. I might sell them,
but uh and make some of that money back. But
(04:58):
it felt like a no brainer when your kids will
use them for for something I'm sure they're trying to
steal on my cave. Okay, so the real question, will
you get a case for this phone discussion? We'll see,
we'll see probably, or are you're just gonna ride this
wave of cheap phones straight to the landfill Over the course,
You're gonna just have to deal with this on your conscience,
you know, when you're laying there on your deathbed and
I ruined the planet. That being said, I still don't
(05:19):
have a case or a screen cover, and if I
crack my stupid screen, I have no place to complain,
Like I will not come on the show and complain
about it. But that being said, I definitely want to.
I just keep forgetting, but at least your screen get.
The protective equipment is more it's more solid than than well,
it's heavier too, which mean you know, the heavier, the
(05:39):
bigger they are, the harder they fall. That's true. All right,
let's move on let's get to the Friday flight, the
sampling of stories we found interesting this week. Let's quickly
touch on kind of the big headline from yesterday, which
is the fact that we are we are now technically
kind of sort of in a recession, right, So we're
technically not in a recession, right, So like according to
(06:00):
the National Bureau of Economic Research, they're the folks who
gets us say that, yes, this is, as they're pushing
up their glasses, we are now officially in a recession. Yeah,
they have not come down from on high and spoken
and and said that that this is the case. But
the typical definition of recession has been met, right, which
is two quarters of declining growth um in a row.
(06:21):
And so I don't know, it feels like the definition
of recession is kind of up in the air right now.
But for most folks, we're kind of in one. But
we are. But that doesn't this is really that we're
going to be here as well. Yeah, we we we
figured this is gonna be the case, but that doesn't
mean that this is. Recessions can look different, right, they
don't have to all look the same. And right now,
as we've talked about on the show, there's still a
lot of positive economic data to point to a lot
(06:42):
of people are still if they didn't read the headlines,
they wouldn't realize that we were in a recession. It
doesn't seem to have impacted really a whole lot of folks.
That's true. Yeah, everyone notices the higher prices, everyone notices inflation,
but the recession part of the story maybe a little
bit less. So a quick p s A for everyone
out there, don't play the lottery. I'm sure this is
a conversation you and your friends have already had. Maybe
(07:04):
you're thinking about going in on a like within a
pool together where it's like, okay, let's all get together,
we'll promise to split it, because really, who needs a
billion dollars? I mean, really, beyond like a few million,
does life really look all that different for for most folks.
It's more attempting now than ever before. Though, when you're
talking about a billion dollars jackpot, that is well, that's
the thing you can go into in a pretty huge
pool of folks and everyone could still end up benefiting
(07:26):
pretty handsomely. But just bottom line, this is a bad
wealth building strategy because of the odds of winning are
one in three two million. Again, that jackpot is for
more than a billion dollars. Now that drawing happens tonight,
which is exciting for a lot of folks, But there
are countless other things that you likely should be thinking
about rather than the infantasmally small chance that you're gonna
(07:49):
win big. But plus, you know we've talked before how
winning the lottery, how it's usually bad for your life.
People die, people o d on drugs, it's bad for
your relationships. It's something like seventy present a lot of
winners to clared bankruptcy at the point, and exactly just
imagine how many how people start to look at you
if they know you're a billionaire. They they're looking at
you for money. Now they want to loane and it's
going to drastically change. It's gonna alter the course of
(08:11):
your life. And you might think that it's all good,
but there's a lot of downsides too. Yes, you need
to think about the negatives. Although I'm not against people
playing it, Like if you want to do it because
it's fun, just know that you're doing it. You're paying
two dollars thinking that, Okay, this is gonna provide me
a little bit of fun. Like if that means that
you can be a part of all of the excitement,
I am okay with that, but don't count like, don't
(08:32):
think of it as like an investment strategy by by
any means. And I also like how it can cause
people to think about and how it could get them
to ask some bigger questions in their lives. Because if
you're thinking through, okay, oh, I would do this, and
I would do this, and I would do this if
you would change your life in a significant way, I
think it's worth thinking through, okay, what steps could I
take now that could allow me to start to replicate
(08:54):
some of those changes now, right without having won the lottery.
And if you're lucky enough that you're thinking, I don't
think there would be a ton of changes I would
I would make. Well, then I would say that that's
a great sign that you are you know, you're doing well,
you're working hard, that that you are on the right
track with how it is you want to live your life.
So I do like that it can cause you to
maybe have some bigger questions about life. It makes me think.
(09:15):
We did an episode, episode four ten, was entitled what
if You want the lottery, and I think it's it.
Maybe this is a good time to go breeth visit
that one if you didn't get a chance to listen
because some food or thought right about what what you
would actually do and how that impacts Well, you're probably
not gonna win a lottery, so how how should you
live life? In life of that? Um? But let's move on.
(09:35):
Let's talk about personal loans here for a second, because
there was an article in CNBC basically stating that that
some some people are taking out personal loans in an
effort to build wealth. Uh. That struck me as ridiculous,
sounds a little backward surprising. I'm like, who takes out
like debt that's in the upper single digits or low
(09:57):
double digits in order to build wealth like that? That's
not smart. So yeah, inside of that CNBC article, math
they they talked about a survey by lending Tree which
said that people are using personal loans in order to
make improvements to their home. And I guess I guess
those people are hoping that that's going to increase the
value of their home, there by increasing their net worth. UM.
But that seems like some pretty flawed logic to me
because when you look at the numbers, very few home
(10:20):
improvements actually pay off. You typically lose money by making
upgrades to your residents. And we'll actually link to some
recent research on this. In the show notes. You can
actually see kind of what the payoff looks like for
a bunch of different things that you could do to
your home. The truth is, on top of that, there
are better products if you're wanting to do work to
your house. So why would you take out a personal
loan when you could take out a home equity line
(10:41):
of credit instead, which is going to carry better terms,
a better interest rates. Personal loans mostly suck. We want
people to avoid them. And I was just shocked to
think that some people think taking out personal loans is
actually going to lead to more wealth for them in
the future. It's the exact opposite. Every dollar you decide
to take from a bank or credit union that is
class time as a personal loan is going to hamstring
(11:03):
your ability to build wealth to the future. That's right. Yeah,
And what's interesting too, they were talking about how borrowers
who have lower credit score scores, how they don't have
the ability to take out these personal loans, thereby denying
their potential ability to build wealth. And I was thinking, yeah, no,
like like they that's that's great, Like that's how the
game works. You don't want the lenders do not want
(11:24):
to lend credit, lend money to folks who have proven
to not be able to maintain a high credit score,
whether that's because they are using too much of their credit,
whether that's because they don't make their payments on time.
But I feel that this is uh an example of
the system working well. We do not want folks who
have not handled money well to then take on more debt,
specifically personal loans and just because you have a great
(11:47):
credit score and banks are willing to lend you money
doesn't mean you should take it. Right, there are certain
instances where it does make sense for you based on
your personal financial situation, how carefully you've been with money,
the fact that you prioritize saving and investing to take
on debt to help you accomplish other goals such as
buying a house or maybe doing some renovations to that house.
I mean, uh, not everybody can save up cash and
(12:08):
and and buy a house. You know mortgage tree, right,
But just because it's there doesn't mean you should be
jumping all over that exactly. And and and for folks who
have lower credit scores, the goal shouldn't be to get
your credit score high enough to warry. Now, oh you
qualify for personal loans, you know, like, there are other
reasons you want to get your credit score up so
that when you do have enough, and you have saved
up enough for a down payment, you can get the
best mortgage that's available to you, But not to get
(12:30):
a personal loan. Uh do, Let's let's keep moving. Jason's y.
He had this this great article in the Journal recently
about some companies who are offering super high savings rates,
and he sounds promising. It does u but even as
rates are going up, they're still pretty crummy from a
historical perspective, especially given the reality of what's happening with inflation.
(12:50):
So some folks are making risky your bets in an
attempt to get higher returns on their cash stable coins. Actually,
like those are one avenue that some have taken that
hasn't panned out very well. But some fintech companies that
like kind of sort of look like banks. They are
offering between like three and five percent returns right now,
(13:10):
even higher on basic savings type vehicles, or at least
they purport to be that. So, for instance, is why
he highlighted a company called Save and they're promising returns
in the four to ten percent range, which sounds pretty great.
Just your liquid cash. That sounds nice, right, I mean
it'd be great, true, but Save they are investing your money,
they're not saving it, So of course there was going
(13:31):
to be a catch. So it's it's sort of like
it's it's more of a hopeful pinky promise than anything else,
and we would not recommend for you to do this
with the liquid cash that you're planning to keep on
hands or something like an emergency fund. When you look
at the fine print, it is more like a pinky promise,
and it looks good displayed in big type on the
screen based on historical returns over the past ten years.
But we've only been around for ten months. So and
(13:53):
when we're talking about savings, right, it's it's a different
ballgame for for money you need liquid, you can't take
those risks. And so yeah, a lot of these fintech companies, Matt,
they are f d i C insured, but you're gonna
want to make sure that that is definitely the case
before you even attempt to put your money with one
of these guys. But so the money you deposit isn't
necessarily at risk, but there's a real chance that your
(14:16):
returns on the money, uh it could be something like
zero percent. And so instead of that, we would suggest
going with the bank that's tried and true, right like
ally Discover or see I T. The banks we've been
talking about for years now. Marcus is another good one,
and yesterday see I T. We've I feel like this
is the case every week now, like every two weeks,
rates are just going up. Bump these things up, which
(14:36):
which is great because he just is awesome for all
the savers out there, bump their savings connect account up
to one nine so pretty close to two. Yeah, not
as good as those theoretical promised returns right from some
of those other guys, But it's starting to look like
it used to look like ten years ago, which is
it makes me feel good about being a savor and
having that money in uh in savings. Yeah, it sucks
(14:56):
just a little bit less to be a saver right now,
which is good. And and and one other thing that
we just have been mentioning and will continue to mention
is I bonds as another place for guaranteed returns because
here's the thing, though, you have to lock your money
away for at least a year. But the rates on
I bons right now, we're almost ten percent, and so
it's one of those things and they're not going to
come cratering back down to earth anytime soon. I don't
(15:18):
think I bonds are still one of the best kind
of short ish to medium term savings vehicles for lots
of folks. That's right. Yeah. Another place you should avoid
storing your money though, is with the biggest banks because
they pay you almost nothing, which is super sucky. But
that's not your only problem that you'll encounter with them,
because overdraft fees are out of this world on many
of those checking accounts. Back in twenty nineteen, banks, all
(15:41):
those big banks, they made fifteen billion dollars from folks
who overdrafted their accounts. And so now Congress is looking
to do something about it. I mean, like they don't
actually get things done most of the time. That's probably
that's probably not likely that things will change. But it's
like the life cards on my local pool when they're
on their phone, and I'm like, oh man, what a
what a coushout. But that's what Congress seems like because
(16:02):
you don't really actually do much legislating through more glad
handing and cable news appearances. It's true, uh that that
being said, the Overdraft Protection Act could potentially step into
lesson or eliminate the ability for banks to to charge
ridiculous overdraft fees, which by the way, mostly hurts the
most financially vulnerable of folks. But this is an instance
(16:22):
of where I think we don't need to necessarily wait
around and like sit on our hands and hoping that
the banks are going to do something or hope that
Congress is actually going to act, because that's what I meant.
I'm sorry. Yeah, if you're not for that, like you,
you know, you might be sitting around a long time exactly,
might grow a nice gray beard before that comes to past. Right. Well,
And the thing is, too, it's just not necessary because like,
this is not something that's overly complicated. I think there
(16:43):
are some industries in some sectors where maybe some government
intervention is necessary because it's it's just a really complicated process. Right,
But we're talking about savings and checking accounts like these
are accounts that you can open and set up for
your kids, and even they understand how they work. It's
not overly complicated. It's not like this makes me think
of the semiconductor bill that just passed. Cool, that's probably
(17:05):
necessary because that's in the best interest of our entire country, right, like,
like the future of our country is at stake here,
and like of semiconductors are made in Taiwan, and we
like Taiwan, but China they don't like Taiwan in China. Anyway,
we're getting political here or whatever. But all this being said,
this is something that you can easily do, and hopefully
(17:25):
an act does pass. But in the meantime, make sure
that you are banking with the banks who aren't trying
to financially ruin you. That's exactly right, because it's it's
other banks have actually already disallowed over draft fees. They
don't charge their customers any over draft fees, and so
the market is actually providing some solutions to this. Over
draftees are obviously too high, they're crazy costly. They screw
(17:48):
over a lot of people, especially the most financially vulnerable.
I would like to see them done away with. But
the great thing is some great banks have already done that.
So there's City, Ally and Capital One. Are are three
banks that have eliminated over draftees for their customers. And
it's worth mentioning that. So if you're if you want
to support a business that is that is doing the
right thing by their customers without being told to by
(18:09):
the federal government, then we'd say, do business with the
bank that doesn't suck. And those are a few of
them that don't suck. That's right, all right, Joel, we
have several other stories we're gonna get to today. We're
gonna talk about student loans. We're gonna talk about groceries,
we're gonna talk about fake reviews and more. All right,
after this, all right, Matt, we're back. Let's keep going
(18:37):
with the Friday Flight. And of course we always gotta
get to our ludicrous headline of the week. Indeed, and
this one comes from the New York Mark on the
Friday Flight. It's a mainstay, and our friend Ron Lieber
over the New York Times wrote this article. It was
called the case of the five thousand dollar Springsteen tickets.
And so let's talk about algorithms for a second, because
they're having this rapidly increasing the impact on what we
(19:01):
pay for lots of different items that we purchase and
events we choose to go to write prices are as
a terminus kind of came up with their their squishier
than ever before, right, and they they vary a whole
lot more than they ever used to, and so much
of that is due to the algorithms that determine what
we pay and when we pay it. And so these
(19:22):
Springsteen tickets, apparently some fans were trying to buy tickets
for shows, and they were being shown prices of north
of five thousand dollars right for tickets, and obviously they
they didn't really like that. They weren't sure if it
was worth that much to go see the Boston person.
And and it's not that these tickets were being sold
(19:42):
by scalpers, right, it was. It was truly an algorithmic
decision saying that mid five figures was a fair price
for this show. And I kind of have a few
different thoughts about this. I think one, I'd rather see
money go to the artist than to a scalper, right, right, Um,
so I'd rather see fewer people in the middle taking
(20:02):
a cut. It doesn't make sense right, right, So let's explain. Like,
the way it works right now is if you set
a static price and you happen to shoot too low
and there's an overwhelming demand for it, all the scalpers
they're gonna swoop in. They're gonna buy up all the tickets,
they've got the software, they got the box. Then they're
gonna jack up those prices and they're making all the profits, right,
effectively screwing over the artist. So like everybody gets hurt
except for these like few individuals who get loaded because
(20:24):
they've got the superior technology. The the challenges though, if
you set your prices too high, then the artist is
you know, you run the risk potentially of having empty seats.
You know, within an arena, you're not performing to a
sold out show, and that's kind of a bummer as well. Um,
and obviously your prices might be too high for a
lot of folks. And so it's just difficult to know
where does set the prices because how do you predict
(20:46):
the popularity, how do you predict the demand for a
specific show. There are so many factors. That's kind of
where they go into it. Dynamic pricing comes in and
it makes a lot of sense. Yeah, we see it
with air fare, we see it with entertainment, other areas
of entertainment, with with even like sporting event tickets and
stuff like that. And and so we're seeing more of
a reliance on dynamic pricing, which I think does make
sense in a lot of ways. Prices on Amazon right
(21:06):
change dozens of times in a single day, and so yeah,
these these swift changes, though, can make it harder to
be to be a smart shopper. Um but it's something
to be aware of. And we also just need to
be more price sensitive. Right. If I'm looking to go
see an artist and make a decision, and I think
it's gonna be a couple hundred dollars to go see
one of my favorite artists, but now now it turns
out it's gonna be a couple of thousand dollars, I'm
(21:26):
going to leave that website as quickly as possible. And um,
so unless it's your absolute favorite band and this is
the last show they might ever do, like you know,
there are a number of factors. I mean, even Ron Lieber,
he was just like, it's it's worth it. Yeah, maybe
not five thousand dollars. But he's just like, I'm willing
to pay hundreds and hundreds of dollars to go see
the Boss because he's a legend. Yeah, exactly. And there
are maybe a couple of people I would pay a
(21:48):
couple hundred dollars to go see. I don't know that
there's anybody I would pay thousands of dollars to see,
but right now, Yeah, I think what this comes down to, though,
is the fact that this is being run by Ticketmaster, right,
and and they have like a basically a stranglehold, a monopoly,
and they service something like over s all venues, and
so in my mind, the algorithm is good or it's
(22:09):
good enough, but maybe a lot of pricing algorithm that
just yeah, generally speaking, that dynamic pricing. But how do
you make these specific algorithm better? And you do that
by providing more competition to Ticketmaster, right, and so like
they don't have this more direct sales by artists out
Ticketmaster that middleman too. Um. And I think there's there's
more and more We're seeing more and more of that
happening as well, and I hope we see a lot
(22:31):
more of that because I would like to see Ticketmaster
go down of flames. We're not gonna lie. But what
that means though, are some other folks stepping and providing
some sort of service to these artists that allow them
to because even still, it's difficult for an artist to
build that right, to kind of build that network, to
build that kind of direct communication with their fans. That's
why they are dependent on folks like Ticketmaster. But generally speaking,
(22:52):
this is an industry that is overdue for some competitions
should come in and unseat Ticketmaster who's been sitting on
the throne for a long time. Actually, NPR they just
published this piece about sort of like the like these
funky algorithms this week as well, because depending on how
long it takes you to finish a transaction when you're
online shopping, after you put something in your cart, the
(23:14):
price might get bumped up in the meantime. Uh. And
we share this because we want you to be aware
of this trend, you know, some of the different sneaky
ways that it can cost you more sometimes without even
knowing it. Uh. And So bottom line, I feel like
this dynamic pricing model it's still kind of the best
alternative for what's out there. But we just need to
be aware that this is the direction that it seems
like things are going. Uh. And while we're talking about shopping,
(23:37):
let's talk about fake reviews. That's another mounting problem in
the world of e commerce. A recent study found that
folks are more likely to buy inferior products based on
glowing but fake reviews about that product. That makes sense.
A lot of us are just looking at the star
ratings on a product and we're like, Okay, it seems
pretty good, and let's click, you know, click to buy,
and we might read maybe one or two of those
(23:58):
actual reviews, but there are thousands, and so we certainly
don't wait through all of them. But it turns out
a lot of those are or at least on some products,
are completely fake. They're ramping up the star level even
though the product is not a great one. Yeah, and
these are products that we have not even hardly laid
eyes on. Obviously, we're not seeing them in person, so
we're not quite sure what we're gonna be getting. May
not even know anything about that specific brand. Because there
(24:19):
are like so many of these new thingled companies selling
all sorts of stuff online, it can be difficult to
manage and to interpret all the data that is out there.
So bottom line, like it kind of comes down to
you as an individual, like you said, reading the reviews
looking for items that might only have only five stars,
like that's a red flag basically, right. Um, there are
(24:40):
ways that you can read through the reviews and tell
was this created by a bot or is this a
real person who uploaded a legitimate photo of their product? Um?
And honestly, for me, when I see two three four
stars on a product, for me, that gives me a
little bit of reassurance that, oh, this is a legit product.
There's always gonna be people people out there who are
not happy that. A lot of times they put the
(25:01):
thing together wrong and they're like, oh the thing broke
after like three seconds, and it's like, well, I think
you broke it yourself. You can tell that when you
couldn read read some of the actual individual reviews, whereas
if you're just leaking at the star level, sometimes you
can be misled. And I think, what fake spot is
one of those cool sites and Chrome browser plug ins,
it's worth they've got it on Safari's are they okay? Great?
(25:23):
So so yeah, then that way, every time you go
to Amazon or some of these other websites. They'll give
you a rating like, hey, guess what the reviews on
this or a C or there a be, and you
you can kind of know, like, all right, I have
to try a little more more carefully before buying this
product because it looks like there are more fake reviews
on it. Yeah, and you know, fake spots good because
they actually they got good star ratings app stores. I
(25:46):
love It's so good. Who is policing the police, right exactly?
That's a good question. All right, Let's talk about student
loans for a second, because we're still in the middle
of a student loan payment pause that's supposed to resume
UM September one, and the question is that going to happen?
And the answer is probably not. Will any amount of
forgiveness come to fruition? That's another question on people's minds
(26:08):
when it comes to student loans. UM. That's a political
football that is is still kind of being batted around,
and we're gonna do our best to not get political
here and talk about how forgiving a bunch of student
loans might even lead to more inflation. But that's not
something we're gonna get into. We mentioned that before then.
It's it's not our favorite policy idea, but the political
writing was kind of on the wall that there might
(26:29):
be another forbearance extension. That's something we were kind of
thinking might come to pass. It's it's looking like it, right,
and and so now there's more and more rum link
pointing in that direction. That comes Uptember one, people who
have student loans who have not been paying on them
for the past couple of years will be able to
continue to not pay on their student loans. And yeah, well,
(26:49):
we'll certainly revisit this topic when the details firm up.
We still want you to be financially prepaired for those
payments to resume come September, even if it's unlikely to happen,
that's right. Yeah, And honestly, kind of going back to
what we're saying about that Overdraft Protection Act, this is
another instance, I feel where there's been some congressional ineptitude.
(27:09):
Let's just say like this, because it shouldn't come down
to the President deciding whether or not there's going to
be a forbearance extension, whether or not there's going to
be student loans that are gonna be forgiven. This is
Congress's job, and so regardless of what side of the
aisle you're on, I feel that this is it's just
a little discouraging. It's kind of annoying that this is
something that it feels like somebody who's just continues to
get the snooze button and it's just like, dude, either
just turn the a long o'clock off or get up
(27:31):
like like just but just aside and the fact that
there are borrowers out there who sure they've benefited from
not having to make payments over the past two year,
you know, two and a half years now, but still
the fact that we don't know what is going to
happen is kind of mind boggling, and it's something that
I wish our leaders could figure out. The congressional gridlock,
the inability to really kind of work together on anything,
(27:53):
is bad for the country as a whole, right, And
doesn't it still confidence in us as us as people? Um, Okay,
let's let's move on. Let's talk about ways you can
save on rent, and you could do that by potentially
getting an older roommate. This is your geriatric roommates. Uh.
Part of the headline that you mentioned at the beginning
Joel Uh. And what we're talking about here is a
(28:14):
much older roommate. Because Business Insider they just wrote about
how multigenerational living is on the rise, uh, and how
could save you money. Because some colleges have been doing this,
They've they've got these programs in place in order to
help some of their students live rent free given the
changing demographics in our society as are as well the world,
but America as well, like as we have an older
(28:34):
and older population. I love this idea. And it's like,
it's a good thing for the students to live in
a place where they can pay less rent or live
for free. And it's also a good thing for these
older people to have those younger folks um in their
live style exactly. Yeah, And it seems like the younger
generation uh, seems to be more willing to consider this
as a way to cut costs. Specifically, there's a website
(28:56):
nest eily they're trying to make this easier to accomplish,
although it's only working in a few cities right now,
mainly Boston seems to be the largest area where they
are doing, you know, making a lot of in roads.
But check it out if you're interested. We're all about
outside of the box ways to cut back and save
and and like you said, there's like a richness to
life that you gain by being in contact with folks
(29:17):
who are who are older. Like we've got some neighbors
who are in their seventies and eighties, and you can't
there's there's not like a dollar amount, you can't quantify
the benefit that you receive from having a connection like
that to an older generation. And like you said, it's
I think it's great for for older folks as well.
There's a girl in the story and she's living with
a lady who's closer to the age of her grandma,
and she's able to stay in her house like this
(29:39):
old family home because now she's got somebody to help
her pay the taxes, she helps out with chores. It's
just it's just a win win situation. And seems like
figuring out how to use emails, yeah you know, I
mean that's like a legit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's just
a great solution for for everyone involved. I love seeing that.
I got to be because my next fur neighbor, she's
oh snap, and she she lives alone because as her
(30:01):
son lives across the street from me, So it is
that multigenerational street living at least um, at least where
I'm at. Somebody shouldn't move in with her. Yeah, I'm
sure she's got extra rooms she's not using. I'm sure
she does. But it's Yeah, it's cool to see, and
it's it's nice to kind of live in a place
where you are. My neighbors are at different ages and
stages of their lives. I think that is a good thing. Well,
(30:21):
let's talk about groceries here for a second, Matt, And
because brand loyalty has it seems to be waning. As
prices are rising right as inflation at the grocery store
is somewhere in the twelve plus percent range, people are
starting to trade down for for store brands. There's another
article that said that people are downgrading two cheaper booze
beer and cigarettes right now to amount of No, you're
(30:42):
only drinking Jim Beam right for the time being, not
even water, like, not against Jim Beam. If I wasn't
drinking water, then that would increase my budget significantly. Yeah. Well, um,
some some Americans still remain incredibly loyal to some specific brands,
of course, but that's really to their financial detriment because
see that just published a story about how much store
(31:02):
brands can save you, and they claim, based on the
data that they pulled from multiple grocery stores, that the
average savings by switching from name brands to store brands
is something in the range of believe that. Yeah, that's
backed up from that's so true what we've seen with
our own very eyes and wint to the grocery store ourselves,
but also from just kind of other data we've seen
(31:24):
in the past. Store brands are one of the quickest
ways to help you save money on your grocery bill,
and it's it's a trade off that more people should
be making. Definitely. Yeah, if you've only ever gone to
Public's I challenge, you go to Aldi and by all
the same types of items, you're not going to get
the same name brands for the most part, and I
guarantee you will see a forty reduction on that receipt
(31:45):
even if right, like they talked about shopping at Whole
Foods and how if you just opt for the store
brand items at Whole Foods. But I want them to
have that ALDI experienced it too. I mean, but if
you went from shopping name brand at Whole Foods to all,
you're going to cut your grocery bill at least in half, probably,
but at least at wherever you shop at least opening
for store brands is going to save you. Yeah, So
the opposite of saving money on store brands is paying
(32:07):
for something like or twenty dollar socks because the Journal
they just wrote a story about that phenomena. And honestly, like,
I don't I do not know who these people are,
not met them. If I have four hundreds of dollars
on socks, like I get it for like a pair
of like Darn Tough socks. Those are my favorite nicer socks.
But like we're still talking about socks that cost like
around twenty bucks a pair. Uh, And you can get
(32:29):
socks that are way cheaper at Costco or buying them
in bulk online where you're buying like eight twelve pairs
at once. But like, like for instance, Darn Tough, they
makes them seriously comfortable socks, and their warranty is unmatched,
like literally they will take any pair back if they
have holes in them. I'll just read them about that.
And they actually expanded their warranty page and they're showing
pairs of socks and yeah, they look like old socks
(32:50):
and they have holes in them, and they're like, yeah,
send them back. We will send you a new pair
that's phenomenal and the kind of brand I like to
get behind. But it just doesn't seem like you're getting
much in return if you're gonna spend like many times
that on some super fancy socks here, you know, spending
hundreds of dollars just to signal that you've got that money.
This is conspicuous consumption, is all it is. It's it's
luxury consumption. It's not like you're paying for something that's superior.
(33:13):
You're really paying your paying for a feeling to show
people you've got money. You're trying to show it off. Yeah,
then this is a sure fireway to to lose all
of your money. Uh. And as we're talking about socks,
this is a reminder for you to leave us a review.
That is how you get entered to win one of
the five pairs of How the Money socks. And these
are performance crew socks. Joel, Like, these go like midway
(33:34):
up the calf, would you say midway like almost up
to the knee. They're beautiful up to the knee. You're
not like soccer socks. You've got long legs, dude. For me,
they almost go to my knee. I've got really short legs.
Instead of paying hundreds of dollars for socks, get some
for free by leaving a review UM and your favorite
podcatcher for our show. We really appreciate it. It It helps
(33:54):
us reach more people with money saving advice. And remember
you just have to do that by this coming Wednesday
at the the day and send us an email to
how to Money pod at gmail dot com. We'll get
you entered. And if you've left her view in the past,
you can still enter. Just send us an email with
that screenshot and we'll get you entered in. That's right,
all right, Joel, that's gonna be it. We hope everyone
has a great weekend and until next time, best friends Out,
(34:15):
Best Friends Out.
Welcome to How the Money. I'm Joel and I am Matt,
and today we're discussing ginormous jackpots, expensive algorithms, and geriatric roommates.
(00:28):
That's right, Joel. This is our Friday Flights where we
are talking through some of the different stories we came
across this week. We're gonna specifically talk about how they
are going to impact our finances and your finances. If
you're listening, and before we get to the stories, though
the time has come, you likely have heard about the
How the Money socks rumors are flying. These are the
(00:48):
meticulously designed socks that we created with the nice folks
over at Sock Fancy. I am holding a pair in
my hands right now, Matt. They look so good. They
are not only are they gorgeous, they are so ridiculously company.
And again, the reason these took so long is because
we really did want to make sure we had some
merch that we were proud of, not some of these
soft companies where they just printed the pictures. And we
(01:09):
joked about sharing the pictures of the some of the
crappy ones. I we will totally do that, will throw
it up at least on Instagram. I just held them
by the way, they smell like Hinton can either to listen,
you can eat them, but they smell so yeah. We
gave a few of several pairs of these away to
some folks who submitted listener money tips back for ourisode,
but we are now giving away five pairs to listeners
(01:31):
out there who leave a review over on Apple podcast
or if you give us a rating on Spotify or
some of the other platforms as well, like podcast Addict.
There are a lot of folks who listened over there
on that app as well, So all you gotta do
leave a review, even those old reviews that you may
have left previously, those count as well. But then send
us a screenshot or an email to resubmit your review
(01:51):
for the giveaway. Send those two how the money pot
at gmail dot com. Just make sure to do that
before end of day this coming Wednesday, and we will
announce those five winners on our next Friday flight, that's right,
And then we'll ship these gorgeous, lovely things out to
you and you'll be like, this is the best clothing
eye on my own. You might even throw away all
your other clothes and only where the hat of money
socks um. Although we don't suggest. If that's the case,
(02:12):
I'm fine with it. Uh that before we get to
kind of all the meatia stories we have to get
to this week. One thing I want to mention I
just talked about. We just talked about how crusty my
phone was getting. And it was one of those things
where I, as a frugalalite, was hoping to keep my
phone for a minimum of three years, and I threw
in the towel man I bought a new phone. Um,
(02:33):
it crossed my mind. But here's what pushed me over
the edge. I got the new I pre ordered the
new Google Pixel six A. Right now, I'm rolling with
the four A. The six A is at the newest.
The six A is the newest. I like literally just
came out, Like it's sitting at my house now and
I haven't even opened yet. But so, because of all
the issues I mentioned, the crack screen, the battery life,
(02:54):
messing up the charging board is is actually the biggest annoyance.
It's so hard to actually get my phone to charge
these days. But because of all those things, I was like,
I was at least interested. I was gonna look and
I was gonna see, you know how much can I
get from my phone? And some from folks in the
Facebook group, We're like, hey, check out Swap, check out Gazelle.
We've talked about the most websites on the show in
the past, but I was like, you're right, I should
(03:15):
go check those out. And uh, guess how much Gazelle
offered me for my two year old phone? Two year
old phone? How much was that phone? Brand new fifty
and it's kind of busted up, So I'm gonna guess
like sixty bucks? Okay, So they offered me twenty one
very much even worse. And then I went to cell Cell,
which is kind of like an aggregator, and the best
(03:36):
the most I could get paid for that phone was
eighty five from there, but decently, Yeah, that's still fair
for for what you got going on. It's okay, but
guess what. I went through the Google steps to see
how much Google would give me from my phone if
I were to pre order the source the Pixel six
A and two sixty two dollars what they offer. Yeah,
(03:57):
so it was like almost like a free phone for
the last couple of years. Did you realize I'll bust
it up? It is? Yeah, So they asked that once
you receive it, are they're gonna be like, oh, sorry, buddy,
we're gonna if I had money, I hope that they
asked if it had a bus to screen. I'm like yeah,
and uh, And if it hadn't, I think I would
have gotten three hulls, which is still shocking that you
could only lose fifty bucks on the phone after two years.
(04:17):
So it's one of those things where, um, it made
sense because of that. That's a great deal. It changed
the economics of of getting into a lot of folks
out there who might have an older pixel like you.
I mean, can you trade in some of your some
of the older pixel pixels as well? I think so. Yeah,
Well I think actually no, I think the four A
is the oldest down So if you're rolling with a
three or three A, it's probably not valuable enough. Um,
(04:37):
but if you got a four A or newer, it's
a great deal. Yeah, the upgrade might make sense. And
I think right now, yes, right now they're doing for
like a limited period of time. I think yeah, I
think so. I think it's literally just for a few
more days. So get out of folks, and and there's
a you get a free Google pixel buds that your
buds to with the pre order, and I'm like, I
don't even know if I want them. I might sell them,
but uh and make some of that money back. But
(04:58):
it felt like a no brainer when your kids will
use them for for something I'm sure they're trying to
steal on my cave. Okay, so the real question, will
you get a case for this phone discussion? We'll see,
we'll see probably, or are you're just gonna ride this
wave of cheap phones straight to the landfill Over the course,
You're gonna just have to deal with this on your conscience,
you know, when you're laying there on your deathbed and
I ruined the planet. That being said, I still don't
(05:19):
have a case or a screen cover, and if I
crack my stupid screen, I have no place to complain,
Like I will not come on the show and complain
about it. But that being said, I definitely want to.
I just keep forgetting, but at least your screen get.
The protective equipment is more it's more solid than than well,
it's heavier too, which mean you know, the heavier, the
(05:39):
bigger they are, the harder they fall. That's true. All right,
let's move on let's get to the Friday flight, the
sampling of stories we found interesting this week. Let's quickly
touch on kind of the big headline from yesterday, which
is the fact that we are we are now technically
kind of sort of in a recession, right, So we're
technically not in a recession, right, So like according to
(06:00):
the National Bureau of Economic Research, they're the folks who
gets us say that, yes, this is, as they're pushing
up their glasses, we are now officially in a recession. Yeah,
they have not come down from on high and spoken
and and said that that this is the case. But
the typical definition of recession has been met, right, which
is two quarters of declining growth um in a row.
(06:21):
And so I don't know, it feels like the definition
of recession is kind of up in the air right now.
But for most folks, we're kind of in one. But
we are. But that doesn't this is really that we're
going to be here as well. Yeah, we we we
figured this is gonna be the case, but that doesn't
mean that this is. Recessions can look different, right, they
don't have to all look the same. And right now,
as we've talked about on the show, there's still a
lot of positive economic data to point to a lot
(06:42):
of people are still if they didn't read the headlines,
they wouldn't realize that we were in a recession. It
doesn't seem to have impacted really a whole lot of folks.
That's true. Yeah, everyone notices the higher prices, everyone notices inflation,
but the recession part of the story maybe a little
bit less. So a quick p s A for everyone
out there, don't play the lottery. I'm sure this is
a conversation you and your friends have already had. Maybe
(07:04):
you're thinking about going in on a like within a
pool together where it's like, okay, let's all get together,
we'll promise to split it, because really, who needs a
billion dollars? I mean, really, beyond like a few million,
does life really look all that different for for most folks.
It's more attempting now than ever before. Though, when you're
talking about a billion dollars jackpot, that is well, that's
the thing you can go into in a pretty huge
pool of folks and everyone could still end up benefiting
(07:26):
pretty handsomely. But just bottom line, this is a bad
wealth building strategy because of the odds of winning are
one in three two million. Again, that jackpot is for
more than a billion dollars. Now that drawing happens tonight,
which is exciting for a lot of folks, But there
are countless other things that you likely should be thinking
about rather than the infantasmally small chance that you're gonna
(07:49):
win big. But plus, you know we've talked before how
winning the lottery, how it's usually bad for your life.
People die, people o d on drugs, it's bad for
your relationships. It's something like seventy present a lot of
winners to clared bankruptcy at the point, and exactly just
imagine how many how people start to look at you
if they know you're a billionaire. They they're looking at
you for money. Now they want to loane and it's
going to drastically change. It's gonna alter the course of
(08:11):
your life. And you might think that it's all good,
but there's a lot of downsides too. Yes, you need
to think about the negatives. Although I'm not against people
playing it, Like if you want to do it because
it's fun, just know that you're doing it. You're paying
two dollars thinking that, Okay, this is gonna provide me
a little bit of fun. Like if that means that
you can be a part of all of the excitement,
I am okay with that, but don't count like, don't
(08:32):
think of it as like an investment strategy by by
any means. And I also like how it can cause
people to think about and how it could get them
to ask some bigger questions in their lives. Because if
you're thinking through, okay, oh, I would do this, and
I would do this, and I would do this if
you would change your life in a significant way, I
think it's worth thinking through, okay, what steps could I
take now that could allow me to start to replicate
(08:54):
some of those changes now, right without having won the lottery.
And if you're lucky enough that you're thinking, I don't
think there would be a ton of changes I would
I would make. Well, then I would say that that's
a great sign that you are you know, you're doing well,
you're working hard, that that you are on the right
track with how it is you want to live your life.
So I do like that it can cause you to
maybe have some bigger questions about life. It makes me think.
(09:15):
We did an episode, episode four ten, was entitled what
if You want the lottery, and I think it's it.
Maybe this is a good time to go breeth visit
that one if you didn't get a chance to listen
because some food or thought right about what what you
would actually do and how that impacts Well, you're probably
not gonna win a lottery, so how how should you
live life? In life of that? Um? But let's move on.
(09:35):
Let's talk about personal loans here for a second, because
there was an article in CNBC basically stating that that
some some people are taking out personal loans in an
effort to build wealth. Uh. That struck me as ridiculous,
sounds a little backward surprising. I'm like, who takes out
like debt that's in the upper single digits or low
(09:57):
double digits in order to build wealth like that? That's
not smart. So yeah, inside of that CNBC article, math
they they talked about a survey by lending Tree which
said that people are using personal loans in order to
make improvements to their home. And I guess I guess
those people are hoping that that's going to increase the
value of their home, there by increasing their net worth. UM.
But that seems like some pretty flawed logic to me
because when you look at the numbers, very few home
(10:20):
improvements actually pay off. You typically lose money by making
upgrades to your residents. And we'll actually link to some
recent research on this. In the show notes. You can
actually see kind of what the payoff looks like for
a bunch of different things that you could do to
your home. The truth is, on top of that, there
are better products if you're wanting to do work to
your house. So why would you take out a personal
loan when you could take out a home equity line
(10:41):
of credit instead, which is going to carry better terms,
a better interest rates. Personal loans mostly suck. We want
people to avoid them. And I was just shocked to
think that some people think taking out personal loans is
actually going to lead to more wealth for them in
the future. It's the exact opposite. Every dollar you decide
to take from a bank or credit union that is
class time as a personal loan is going to hamstring
(11:03):
your ability to build wealth to the future. That's right. Yeah,
And what's interesting too, they were talking about how borrowers
who have lower credit score scores, how they don't have
the ability to take out these personal loans, thereby denying
their potential ability to build wealth. And I was thinking, yeah, no,
like like they that's that's great, Like that's how the
game works. You don't want the lenders do not want
(11:24):
to lend credit, lend money to folks who have proven
to not be able to maintain a high credit score,
whether that's because they are using too much of their credit,
whether that's because they don't make their payments on time.
But I feel that this is uh an example of
the system working well. We do not want folks who
have not handled money well to then take on more debt,
specifically personal loans and just because you have a great
(11:47):
credit score and banks are willing to lend you money
doesn't mean you should take it. Right, there are certain
instances where it does make sense for you based on
your personal financial situation, how carefully you've been with money,
the fact that you prioritize saving and investing to take
on debt to help you accomplish other goals such as
buying a house or maybe doing some renovations to that house.
I mean, uh, not everybody can save up cash and
(12:08):
and and buy a house. You know mortgage tree, right,
But just because it's there doesn't mean you should be
jumping all over that exactly. And and and for folks who
have lower credit scores, the goal shouldn't be to get
your credit score high enough to warry. Now, oh you
qualify for personal loans, you know, like, there are other
reasons you want to get your credit score up so
that when you do have enough, and you have saved
up enough for a down payment, you can get the
best mortgage that's available to you, But not to get
(12:30):
a personal loan. Uh do, Let's let's keep moving. Jason's y.
He had this this great article in the Journal recently
about some companies who are offering super high savings rates,
and he sounds promising. It does u but even as
rates are going up, they're still pretty crummy from a
historical perspective, especially given the reality of what's happening with inflation.
(12:50):
So some folks are making risky your bets in an
attempt to get higher returns on their cash stable coins. Actually,
like those are one avenue that some have taken that
hasn't panned out very well. But some fintech companies that
like kind of sort of look like banks. They are
offering between like three and five percent returns right now,
(13:10):
even higher on basic savings type vehicles, or at least
they purport to be that. So, for instance, is why
he highlighted a company called Save and they're promising returns
in the four to ten percent range, which sounds pretty great.
Just your liquid cash. That sounds nice, right, I mean
it'd be great, true, but Save they are investing your money,
they're not saving it, So of course there was going
(13:31):
to be a catch. So it's it's sort of like
it's it's more of a hopeful pinky promise than anything else,
and we would not recommend for you to do this
with the liquid cash that you're planning to keep on
hands or something like an emergency fund. When you look
at the fine print, it is more like a pinky promise,
and it looks good displayed in big type on the
screen based on historical returns over the past ten years.
But we've only been around for ten months. So and
(13:53):
when we're talking about savings, right, it's it's a different
ballgame for for money you need liquid, you can't take
those risks. And so yeah, a lot of these fintech companies, Matt,
they are f d i C insured, but you're gonna
want to make sure that that is definitely the case
before you even attempt to put your money with one
of these guys. But so the money you deposit isn't
necessarily at risk, but there's a real chance that your
(14:16):
returns on the money, uh it could be something like
zero percent. And so instead of that, we would suggest
going with the bank that's tried and true, right like
ally Discover or see I T. The banks we've been
talking about for years now. Marcus is another good one,
and yesterday see I T. We've I feel like this
is the case every week now, like every two weeks,
rates are just going up. Bump these things up, which
(14:36):
which is great because he just is awesome for all
the savers out there, bump their savings connect account up
to one nine so pretty close to two. Yeah, not
as good as those theoretical promised returns right from some
of those other guys, But it's starting to look like
it used to look like ten years ago, which is
it makes me feel good about being a savor and
having that money in uh in savings. Yeah, it sucks
(14:56):
just a little bit less to be a saver right now,
which is good. And and and one other thing that
we just have been mentioning and will continue to mention
is I bonds as another place for guaranteed returns because
here's the thing, though, you have to lock your money
away for at least a year. But the rates on
I bons right now, we're almost ten percent, and so
it's one of those things and they're not going to
come cratering back down to earth anytime soon. I don't
(15:18):
think I bonds are still one of the best kind
of short ish to medium term savings vehicles for lots
of folks. That's right. Yeah. Another place you should avoid
storing your money though, is with the biggest banks because
they pay you almost nothing, which is super sucky. But
that's not your only problem that you'll encounter with them,
because overdraft fees are out of this world on many
of those checking accounts. Back in twenty nineteen, banks, all
(15:41):
those big banks, they made fifteen billion dollars from folks
who overdrafted their accounts. And so now Congress is looking
to do something about it. I mean, like they don't
actually get things done most of the time. That's probably
that's probably not likely that things will change. But it's
like the life cards on my local pool when they're
on their phone, and I'm like, oh man, what a
what a coushout. But that's what Congress seems like because
(16:02):
you don't really actually do much legislating through more glad
handing and cable news appearances. It's true, uh that that
being said, the Overdraft Protection Act could potentially step into
lesson or eliminate the ability for banks to to charge
ridiculous overdraft fees, which by the way, mostly hurts the
most financially vulnerable of folks. But this is an instance
(16:22):
of where I think we don't need to necessarily wait
around and like sit on our hands and hoping that
the banks are going to do something or hope that
Congress is actually going to act, because that's what I meant.
I'm sorry. Yeah, if you're not for that, like you,
you know, you might be sitting around a long time exactly,
might grow a nice gray beard before that comes to past. Right. Well,
And the thing is, too, it's just not necessary because like,
this is not something that's overly complicated. I think there
(16:43):
are some industries in some sectors where maybe some government
intervention is necessary because it's it's just a really complicated process. Right,
But we're talking about savings and checking accounts like these
are accounts that you can open and set up for
your kids, and even they understand how they work. It's
not overly complicated. It's not like this makes me think
of the semiconductor bill that just passed. Cool, that's probably
(17:05):
necessary because that's in the best interest of our entire country, right, like,
like the future of our country is at stake here,
and like of semiconductors are made in Taiwan, and we
like Taiwan, but China they don't like Taiwan in China. Anyway,
we're getting political here or whatever. But all this being said,
this is something that you can easily do, and hopefully
(17:25):
an act does pass. But in the meantime, make sure
that you are banking with the banks who aren't trying
to financially ruin you. That's exactly right, because it's it's
other banks have actually already disallowed over draft fees. They
don't charge their customers any over draft fees, and so
the market is actually providing some solutions to this. Over
draftees are obviously too high, they're crazy costly. They screw
(17:48):
over a lot of people, especially the most financially vulnerable.
I would like to see them done away with. But
the great thing is some great banks have already done that.
So there's City, Ally and Capital One. Are are three
banks that have eliminated over draftees for their customers. And
it's worth mentioning that. So if you're if you want
to support a business that is that is doing the
right thing by their customers without being told to by
(18:09):
the federal government, then we'd say, do business with the
bank that doesn't suck. And those are a few of
them that don't suck. That's right, all right, Joel, we
have several other stories we're gonna get to today. We're
gonna talk about student loans. We're gonna talk about groceries,
we're gonna talk about fake reviews and more. All right,
after this, all right, Matt, we're back. Let's keep going
(18:37):
with the Friday Flight. And of course we always gotta
get to our ludicrous headline of the week. Indeed, and
this one comes from the New York Mark on the
Friday Flight. It's a mainstay, and our friend Ron Lieber
over the New York Times wrote this article. It was
called the case of the five thousand dollar Springsteen tickets.
And so let's talk about algorithms for a second, because
they're having this rapidly increasing the impact on what we
(19:01):
pay for lots of different items that we purchase and
events we choose to go to write prices are as
a terminus kind of came up with their their squishier
than ever before, right, and they they vary a whole
lot more than they ever used to, and so much
of that is due to the algorithms that determine what
we pay and when we pay it. And so these
(19:22):
Springsteen tickets, apparently some fans were trying to buy tickets
for shows, and they were being shown prices of north
of five thousand dollars right for tickets, and obviously they
they didn't really like that. They weren't sure if it
was worth that much to go see the Boston person.
And and it's not that these tickets were being sold
(19:42):
by scalpers, right, it was. It was truly an algorithmic
decision saying that mid five figures was a fair price
for this show. And I kind of have a few
different thoughts about this. I think one, I'd rather see
money go to the artist than to a scalper, right, right, Um,
so I'd rather see fewer people in the middle taking
(20:02):
a cut. It doesn't make sense right, right, So let's explain. Like,
the way it works right now is if you set
a static price and you happen to shoot too low
and there's an overwhelming demand for it, all the scalpers
they're gonna swoop in. They're gonna buy up all the tickets,
they've got the software, they got the box. Then they're
gonna jack up those prices and they're making all the profits, right,
effectively screwing over the artist. So like everybody gets hurt
except for these like few individuals who get loaded because
(20:24):
they've got the superior technology. The the challenges though, if
you set your prices too high, then the artist is
you know, you run the risk potentially of having empty seats.
You know, within an arena, you're not performing to a
sold out show, and that's kind of a bummer as well. Um,
and obviously your prices might be too high for a
lot of folks. And so it's just difficult to know
where does set the prices because how do you predict
(20:46):
the popularity, how do you predict the demand for a
specific show. There are so many factors. That's kind of
where they go into it. Dynamic pricing comes in and
it makes a lot of sense. Yeah, we see it
with air fare, we see it with entertainment, other areas
of entertainment, with with even like sporting event tickets and
stuff like that. And and so we're seeing more of
a reliance on dynamic pricing, which I think does make
sense in a lot of ways. Prices on Amazon right
(21:06):
change dozens of times in a single day, and so yeah,
these these swift changes, though, can make it harder to
be to be a smart shopper. Um but it's something
to be aware of. And we also just need to
be more price sensitive. Right. If I'm looking to go
see an artist and make a decision, and I think
it's gonna be a couple hundred dollars to go see
one of my favorite artists, but now now it turns
out it's gonna be a couple of thousand dollars, I'm
(21:26):
going to leave that website as quickly as possible. And um,
so unless it's your absolute favorite band and this is
the last show they might ever do, like you know,
there are a number of factors. I mean, even Ron Lieber,
he was just like, it's it's worth it. Yeah, maybe
not five thousand dollars. But he's just like, I'm willing
to pay hundreds and hundreds of dollars to go see
the Boss because he's a legend. Yeah, exactly. And there
are maybe a couple of people I would pay a
(21:48):
couple hundred dollars to go see. I don't know that
there's anybody I would pay thousands of dollars to see,
but right now, Yeah, I think what this comes down to, though,
is the fact that this is being run by Ticketmaster, right,
and and they have like a basically a stranglehold, a monopoly,
and they service something like over s all venues, and
so in my mind, the algorithm is good or it's
(22:09):
good enough, but maybe a lot of pricing algorithm that
just yeah, generally speaking, that dynamic pricing. But how do
you make these specific algorithm better? And you do that
by providing more competition to Ticketmaster, right, and so like
they don't have this more direct sales by artists out
Ticketmaster that middleman too. Um. And I think there's there's
more and more We're seeing more and more of that
happening as well, and I hope we see a lot
(22:31):
more of that because I would like to see Ticketmaster
go down of flames. We're not gonna lie. But what
that means though, are some other folks stepping and providing
some sort of service to these artists that allow them
to because even still, it's difficult for an artist to
build that right, to kind of build that network, to
build that kind of direct communication with their fans. That's
why they are dependent on folks like Ticketmaster. But generally speaking,
(22:52):
this is an industry that is overdue for some competitions
should come in and unseat Ticketmaster who's been sitting on
the throne for a long time. Actually, NPR they just
published this piece about sort of like the like these
funky algorithms this week as well, because depending on how
long it takes you to finish a transaction when you're
online shopping, after you put something in your cart, the
(23:14):
price might get bumped up in the meantime. Uh. And
we share this because we want you to be aware
of this trend, you know, some of the different sneaky
ways that it can cost you more sometimes without even
knowing it. Uh. And So bottom line, I feel like
this dynamic pricing model it's still kind of the best
alternative for what's out there. But we just need to
be aware that this is the direction that it seems
like things are going. Uh. And while we're talking about shopping,
(23:37):
let's talk about fake reviews. That's another mounting problem in
the world of e commerce. A recent study found that
folks are more likely to buy inferior products based on
glowing but fake reviews about that product. That makes sense.
A lot of us are just looking at the star
ratings on a product and we're like, Okay, it seems
pretty good, and let's click, you know, click to buy,
and we might read maybe one or two of those
(23:58):
actual reviews, but there are thousands, and so we certainly
don't wait through all of them. But it turns out
a lot of those are or at least on some products,
are completely fake. They're ramping up the star level even
though the product is not a great one. Yeah, and
these are products that we have not even hardly laid
eyes on. Obviously, we're not seeing them in person, so
we're not quite sure what we're gonna be getting. May
not even know anything about that specific brand. Because there
(24:19):
are like so many of these new thingled companies selling
all sorts of stuff online, it can be difficult to
manage and to interpret all the data that is out there.
So bottom line, like it kind of comes down to
you as an individual, like you said, reading the reviews
looking for items that might only have only five stars,
like that's a red flag basically, right. Um, there are
(24:40):
ways that you can read through the reviews and tell
was this created by a bot or is this a
real person who uploaded a legitimate photo of their product? Um?
And honestly, for me, when I see two three four
stars on a product, for me, that gives me a
little bit of reassurance that, oh, this is a legit product.
There's always gonna be people people out there who are
not happy that. A lot of times they put the
(25:01):
thing together wrong and they're like, oh the thing broke
after like three seconds, and it's like, well, I think
you broke it yourself. You can tell that when you
couldn read read some of the actual individual reviews, whereas
if you're just leaking at the star level, sometimes you
can be misled. And I think, what fake spot is
one of those cool sites and Chrome browser plug ins,
it's worth they've got it on Safari's are they okay? Great?
(25:23):
So so yeah, then that way, every time you go
to Amazon or some of these other websites. They'll give
you a rating like, hey, guess what the reviews on
this or a C or there a be, and you
you can kind of know, like, all right, I have
to try a little more more carefully before buying this
product because it looks like there are more fake reviews
on it. Yeah, and you know, fake spots good because
they actually they got good star ratings app stores. I
(25:46):
love It's so good. Who is policing the police, right exactly?
That's a good question. All right, Let's talk about student
loans for a second, because we're still in the middle
of a student loan payment pause that's supposed to resume
UM September one, and the question is that going to happen?
And the answer is probably not. Will any amount of
forgiveness come to fruition? That's another question on people's minds
(26:08):
when it comes to student loans. UM. That's a political
football that is is still kind of being batted around,
and we're gonna do our best to not get political
here and talk about how forgiving a bunch of student
loans might even lead to more inflation. But that's not
something we're gonna get into. We mentioned that before then.
It's it's not our favorite policy idea, but the political
writing was kind of on the wall that there might
(26:29):
be another forbearance extension. That's something we were kind of
thinking might come to pass. It's it's looking like it, right,
and and so now there's more and more rum link
pointing in that direction. That comes Uptember one, people who
have student loans who have not been paying on them
for the past couple of years will be able to
continue to not pay on their student loans. And yeah, well,
(26:49):
we'll certainly revisit this topic when the details firm up.
We still want you to be financially prepaired for those
payments to resume come September, even if it's unlikely to happen,
that's right. Yeah, And honestly, kind of going back to
what we're saying about that Overdraft Protection Act, this is
another instance, I feel where there's been some congressional ineptitude.
(27:09):
Let's just say like this, because it shouldn't come down
to the President deciding whether or not there's going to
be a forbearance extension, whether or not there's going to
be student loans that are gonna be forgiven. This is
Congress's job, and so regardless of what side of the
aisle you're on, I feel that this is it's just
a little discouraging. It's kind of annoying that this is
something that it feels like somebody who's just continues to
get the snooze button and it's just like, dude, either
just turn the a long o'clock off or get up
(27:31):
like like just but just aside and the fact that
there are borrowers out there who sure they've benefited from
not having to make payments over the past two year,
you know, two and a half years now, but still
the fact that we don't know what is going to
happen is kind of mind boggling, and it's something that
I wish our leaders could figure out. The congressional gridlock,
the inability to really kind of work together on anything,
(27:53):
is bad for the country as a whole, right, And
doesn't it still confidence in us as us as people? Um, Okay,
let's let's move on. Let's talk about ways you can
save on rent, and you could do that by potentially
getting an older roommate. This is your geriatric roommates. Uh.
Part of the headline that you mentioned at the beginning
Joel Uh. And what we're talking about here is a
(28:14):
much older roommate. Because Business Insider they just wrote about
how multigenerational living is on the rise, uh, and how
could save you money. Because some colleges have been doing this,
They've they've got these programs in place in order to
help some of their students live rent free given the
changing demographics in our society as are as well the world,
but America as well, like as we have an older
(28:34):
and older population. I love this idea. And it's like,
it's a good thing for the students to live in
a place where they can pay less rent or live
for free. And it's also a good thing for these
older people to have those younger folks um in their
live style exactly. Yeah, And it seems like the younger
generation uh, seems to be more willing to consider this
as a way to cut costs. Specifically, there's a website
(28:56):
nest eily they're trying to make this easier to accomplish,
although it's only working in a few cities right now,
mainly Boston seems to be the largest area where they
are doing, you know, making a lot of in roads.
But check it out if you're interested. We're all about
outside of the box ways to cut back and save
and and like you said, there's like a richness to
life that you gain by being in contact with folks
(29:17):
who are who are older. Like we've got some neighbors
who are in their seventies and eighties, and you can't
there's there's not like a dollar amount, you can't quantify
the benefit that you receive from having a connection like
that to an older generation. And like you said, it's
I think it's great for for older folks as well.
There's a girl in the story and she's living with
a lady who's closer to the age of her grandma,
and she's able to stay in her house like this
(29:39):
old family home because now she's got somebody to help
her pay the taxes, she helps out with chores. It's
just it's just a win win situation. And seems like
figuring out how to use emails, yeah you know, I
mean that's like a legit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's just
a great solution for for everyone involved. I love seeing that.
I got to be because my next fur neighbor, she's
oh snap, and she she lives alone because as her
(30:01):
son lives across the street from me, So it is
that multigenerational street living at least um, at least where
I'm at. Somebody shouldn't move in with her. Yeah, I'm
sure she's got extra rooms she's not using. I'm sure
she does. But it's Yeah, it's cool to see, and
it's it's nice to kind of live in a place
where you are. My neighbors are at different ages and
stages of their lives. I think that is a good thing. Well,
(30:21):
let's talk about groceries here for a second, Matt, And
because brand loyalty has it seems to be waning. As
prices are rising right as inflation at the grocery store
is somewhere in the twelve plus percent range, people are
starting to trade down for for store brands. There's another
article that said that people are downgrading two cheaper booze
beer and cigarettes right now to amount of No, you're
(30:42):
only drinking Jim Beam right for the time being, not
even water, like, not against Jim Beam. If I wasn't
drinking water, then that would increase my budget significantly. Yeah. Well, um,
some some Americans still remain incredibly loyal to some specific brands,
of course, but that's really to their financial detriment because
see that just published a story about how much store
(31:02):
brands can save you, and they claim, based on the
data that they pulled from multiple grocery stores, that the
average savings by switching from name brands to store brands
is something in the range of believe that. Yeah, that's
backed up from that's so true what we've seen with
our own very eyes and wint to the grocery store ourselves,
but also from just kind of other data we've seen
(31:24):
in the past. Store brands are one of the quickest
ways to help you save money on your grocery bill,
and it's it's a trade off that more people should
be making. Definitely. Yeah, if you've only ever gone to
Public's I challenge, you go to Aldi and by all
the same types of items, you're not going to get
the same name brands for the most part, and I
guarantee you will see a forty reduction on that receipt
(31:45):
even if right, like they talked about shopping at Whole
Foods and how if you just opt for the store
brand items at Whole Foods. But I want them to
have that ALDI experienced it too. I mean, but if
you went from shopping name brand at Whole Foods to all,
you're going to cut your grocery bill at least in half, probably,
but at least at wherever you shop at least opening
for store brands is going to save you. Yeah, So
the opposite of saving money on store brands is paying
(32:07):
for something like or twenty dollar socks because the Journal
they just wrote a story about that phenomena. And honestly, like,
I don't I do not know who these people are,
not met them. If I have four hundreds of dollars
on socks, like I get it for like a pair
of like Darn Tough socks. Those are my favorite nicer socks.
But like we're still talking about socks that cost like
around twenty bucks a pair. Uh, And you can get
(32:29):
socks that are way cheaper at Costco or buying them
in bulk online where you're buying like eight twelve pairs
at once. But like, like for instance, Darn Tough, they
makes them seriously comfortable socks, and their warranty is unmatched,
like literally they will take any pair back if they
have holes in them. I'll just read them about that.
And they actually expanded their warranty page and they're showing
pairs of socks and yeah, they look like old socks
(32:50):
and they have holes in them, and they're like, yeah,
send them back. We will send you a new pair
that's phenomenal and the kind of brand I like to
get behind. But it just doesn't seem like you're getting
much in return if you're gonna spend like many times
that on some super fancy socks here, you know, spending
hundreds of dollars just to signal that you've got that money.
This is conspicuous consumption, is all it is. It's it's
luxury consumption. It's not like you're paying for something that's superior.
(33:13):
You're really paying your paying for a feeling to show
people you've got money. You're trying to show it off. Yeah,
then this is a sure fireway to to lose all
of your money. Uh. And as we're talking about socks,
this is a reminder for you to leave us a review.
That is how you get entered to win one of
the five pairs of How the Money socks. And these
are performance crew socks. Joel, Like, these go like midway
(33:34):
up the calf, would you say midway like almost up
to the knee. They're beautiful up to the knee. You're
not like soccer socks. You've got long legs, dude. For me,
they almost go to my knee. I've got really short legs.
Instead of paying hundreds of dollars for socks, get some
for free by leaving a review UM and your favorite
podcatcher for our show. We really appreciate it. It It helps
(33:54):
us reach more people with money saving advice. And remember
you just have to do that by this coming Wednesday
at the the day and send us an email to
how to Money pod at gmail dot com. We'll get
you entered. And if you've left her view in the past,
you can still enter. Just send us an email with
that screenshot and we'll get you entered in. That's right,
all right, Joel, that's gonna be it. We hope everyone
has a great weekend and until next time, best friends Out,
(34:15):
Best Friends Out.
Hosts And Creators
Joel Larsgaard
Matthew Altmix
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