August 15, 2025 • 37 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: ridic Peloton fee, housing boom bust, where home prices go from here, realtors slowly fading away, medical debt to be aware of, contagious financial habits, crypto and private equity in the 401k, crypto mortgage applications, AI-induced outrage, employer perceptions and success, hybrid workdays are out, & infinite workdays are in.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Had of Money.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
I'm Joel Matt.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Today we're talking housing, boom busts, AI induced outrage, and
infinite work days.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Infinite work days sound much less appeeling than the infinite
pool that you want to be at sipping a drink
while you're on vacation.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
I'm gonna need you to come in on Sunday for
those TPS reports, Matt.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Do people even understand office space references anymore?
Speaker 1 (00:41):
I would hope. So it's still one of the greatest
comedies of all time. If you're a boomer, like you know,
they don't make great comedies any it is more all right,
Derek Thompson, No, they don't.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Oh I know, yeah, Yeah, that's something he harps on.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Just how it's just true.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
It is true, and I think the reasons given often
are it's definitely they is. It's less something that you
can translate to other cultures and countries, right, like as
opposed to like a big action. Everyone understands fear, everyone
understands suspense. Comedy can be more of a regional certainly
a more country based thing. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
I don't know, Joe Dirt. I think hits in every region, Matt.
But yeah, maybe not in China, which is where Hollywood
needs to make movies that do well there.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Now the okay, so the Office Space, I feel like
it was just more of a Gen X movie as
opposed to it. Yes, our generation wasn't really watching King
of the Hill, which is like coming back, all right,
Joel over here making a case for Office Space. If
you've never seen it, go out, wash it and let's
see if it still holds up.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
And you can email me if you wasted an hour
and a half of your time. But I'm gonna say
a dreamail out there had a money pottedt gmail dot com.
I don't want to read the email both of us.
I will reply just if you hate it, then you're wrong,
but you can tell me why.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
All right, now, this is our Friday flight and we
are going to cover the top personal finance stories we
came across this past week, the ones that we think
are gonna impact you the most, the ones that we
think that you need to be paying attention to.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Yeah, real quick. The so we bought a used Peloton
bike for Emily. She's like, we have this little sun
room that's right off are That was your.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Project for this summer. It was to reclaim the sun room.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
The kids had taken it over and we had to declutter,
and we wanted it to be more of a room
that that she and I get to used. I've got
my little sona tent in there, she's got I've got
my rolling machines, she's got a little Peloton.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
I feel like the first thing that's gonna break on
your portable sauna tent is the zipper.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Yeah, so far as held up surprisingly.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Well, I can totally see you go into unzip it
today and it's just gonna pull off.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
And you say, that's also why I got it at
Costco because I was looking at ones on Amazon, but
I was like, I got Costco because the return policy
is much better.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
But would you feel how long? How many uses to
would you put it through before you would feel bad
about taking it back? Because we've talked about this is
why we can't have nice things at Costco anymore, because
people abuse it. I'll probably getting to that point where, yeah,
if it broke today, since my nine month birthday, so.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Yeah, not really that long six months, So if it
broke today, I'd be morally questionable. Yeah, okay, all right, Peloton,
So Peloton bought a used Peloton on Facebook marketplace from somebody.
Even though Peloton and we talked about this, has their
own site for reselling used Pelotons now, but they're way
more expensive than buying it from the slew of people
who are selling their Pelotons on Facebook. The price has
(03:23):
gone down dramatically because everyone's trying to get rid of
their glorified code hanger that that is their Peloton.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
They're like, I've been tired of looking at this thing
for the price four years, so that I got back
in twenty one.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Yes, when Emily's other age, she's been using it, she's
been enjoying it. But the one thing I was surprised
by and a little bit frustrated about when we bought
the used Peloton. You know what Peloton is trying to
do to siphon money from users. If you buy a
used bike, they want to charge you a one hundred
(03:54):
dollars activation fee for switching that bike over to another account.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
It is an activation fee.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Yeah, it was already activated by somebody else being used,
and you're trying to switch it over to be suited
your name.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
So it would be like Apple, It's like you selling
your phone and being like yep, i've wiped it here.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
You know.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
This one's a totally factory reset, and the Apple being
like no, no, no, we get a cut of that because
somebody else is going to know use it.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
It would be exactly like that. That's so stupid, like, hey,
I'm going to sell my book and then the author
gets actually gets paid, we get more royalty.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Yeah no, that's not how it works. How they use
market works man.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Utterally ridiculous, totally, this is the kind of thing that
only a brand like Peloton could get away with where
they've they're just banking on rich customers who don't care
about money, and they're like, I guess this is just
part of doing business.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
But that's not what you did, right, Okay, give me
the ravocate or yeah, some eravocate success story.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
You've got to call in and advocate for yourself. This is,
by the way, if you want like a nerdy economist term,
it's called rent seeking. And this is totally that. This
would be a great definition of rent seeking by Peloton
saying like, listen, we've already, like gott we've landed our
hooks into this territory, and it's a way we can
just make extra money just fleecing people who don't deserve
to be fleeced, and it's pretty unethical also, But so
(05:09):
I called Peloton. I'm like, listen, we don't want to
pay this fee, Like what in the world do we
do to avoid this thing? And it took talking to
a couple of different representatives. You just kind of have
to keep pushing the envelope to get them to finally agree.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
To talking to customer service people. It's not my favorite.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
I wish it was.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
You're willing to do it, but I'm willing to do it,
especially for a hundred bucks. So it was just a
one time so you gotta waved kind of waved nice. Yeah,
very nice dude. All right, Well for all the folks.
This is for obviously for everyone other there who's thinking
about getting the secondhand Peloton, or you can just jump
on the bike that you already have mm hmm right
out there. The tradition, I like prefer to ride on
the street, the traditional bike in the wild scenario or
(05:48):
the winds blowing through your hair.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Emily and I differ in this regard. I bike, I
ride on my real bike.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
She rides. You get the passion neighbors have a conversation
with them. Cuts down on emissions because you're not driving
your vehicle, Combine it with needing to run an errand yep,
not to mention the cost savings of the aforementioned benefits.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
I'll let you talk.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
To my wife about it. Hey, I'll do it. Also.
Maybe one of the things you're talking about with your
neighbors as you're riding past their house is, Oh, what
do you think about the so and so's over there?
They got their house listed for saless been sitting on
the market forever. There's one in our neighborhood. That's literally
a conversation I had with one of our neighbors, like
what's going on with it? It's like, Oh, hasn't been
renovated recently? You think the uh it's overpriced? Well, I
(06:26):
think it is. And I think that's one of the
questions a lot of folks are wondering, is like, has
there been a housing like bubble essentially and is it
about to pop? And I would say that it's it
seems more like a slow leak as like versus just
like a sudden popping.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Right less two thousand and nine more its own thing.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Exactly yeah, yeah, numbers from almost every corner of the
market out there are showing asking price decreases. There is
showing more sellar concessions, inventory decreases as.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Well, inventory increases more I'm sorry on the market.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Yea, more homes are on the market, which, to be honest, though,
it's also just returning back to like pre pandemic norms. Essentially,
we saw a significant decline and that was in large
part why there was such an increase in housing prices.
But we're also seeing more cancellations after houses are going
under contract. Folks are basically getting cold feet during due diligence,
(07:21):
and this is such a far cry, dude, from a
few years ago. Homeowners obviously don't love seeing this, and
sellers of course are not pleased. You know, like back
when there was an open house and buyers were lined
up around the block just to be able to get
in and see the place. It's not like that.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Remember those calls for highest and best like two years ago,
three years ago, and the insanity of how much people
are willing to pay and bid up the price. It
was really unseen. I don't remember a time at least
in my life where that was the case.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Yeah, So I want to put a note out there
for a lot of folks who have been thinking about
purchasing the home because I think, dude, this is my
personal opinion. I think now is the time to strike personally,
So byek I do because I don't think. I don't
think we're going to continue to see declient. So I
this morning, I pretended to be a chart analyst and I.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Pulled up the I was gonna say, how did you
come to this school?
Speaker 2 (08:11):
What am I basing this on? And I pulled up
some data from the FED. I was looking at the chart,
and if you look at just the trend, So if
you look at the median home price in the US
from starting from around nine twenty ten, and if you
follow that up to pre pans so like around twenty nineteen,
there's a pretty consistent line. Uh. And then of course
what you saw slight decrease, but then you see it
(08:32):
shoot up. Specifically, a lot of folks are thinking about
the last fifteen years as when we saw these massive
price increases. I think all that was just kind of
catching back up to where things needed to be after
the housing crisis, price back seven eight nine exactly.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Like in twenty eleven, you could get a house for
not much money.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Yeah, and so I think all that was relatively healthy growth.
But what we saw basically in the two years twenty
to twenty two, we saw a massive increase. It goes COVID.
It all comes back to COVID. And if you draw
that line, basically from nine to nineteen we are about
where prices should be. We saw it spike where we
got way ahead of the curve. And for the past
(09:12):
couple of years, two three years, we've seen prices basically plateau.
They're starting to decline just a little bit.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
And it depends on local markets.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
It depends on local markets, but financing as well. And
so I think personally, my personal opinion is I would
not be surprised if we see mortgage rates come down. Right,
if the FED lower's rates, which there is talk about
that potentially happening next month in September, I think that
could be the first that could be the starting line
of the market opening back up.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
If mortgage rates go down, I think that will increase
buyer interest. I think you're probably right, and then maybe
the instead of declining prices, we do start to see
prices go up again. But just at a far less
accelerated pace.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
It will not be at the pace that we've seen because.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
That was just unsustainable. Yeah, totally, and I think but
I think this does maybe as far as advice for
potential home buyers, have a plan to own longer, because
it's really hard to know where the housing market goes
from here. I appreciate your your insights, Matt, and you
really might be right my hot take. Yeah, I mean
you might be right, but like my I know somebody
(10:14):
right now in my family who's selling a home after
owning it for two years, and that's just there's a
chance because of just what's happened with housing prices that
she's going to do okay, even after you know real
estate realtor expenses. But there's also it's a hard position
to put yourself in, and if you're planning, the longer
you plan to own, the more likely it is to
(10:35):
be a decent decision to buy, even if you are
slightly overpaying.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Totally agree.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Speaking of agents, got an email the other day criticizing us.
We're talking about three percent fees for real estate agents. Well,
you know, if they don't charge that much anymore, is
what the emailer said, well, legally, they don't have the
same leeway to just flat out charge three percent based
on that ruling against the National Association of Realtors practice
(11:00):
agent compensation hasn't really changed much since that ruling, but
for savvy consumers who know how to negotiate, some people
are able to claw back some of the agent's fees
they would have paid. This is particularly happening at the
higher end of the spectrum, where someone's saying, well, you're
gonna sell my three million dollar home, Well, awesome, but
(11:21):
guess what I'm gonna pay you one and a half
percent instead of the three percent their agent's like, it's
still pretty good payday, I'll do it. But yeah, I
think technology too, is finally and slowly starting to make
an impact on this front. There are startups in some
states that are helping a sliver of buyers of all
price points to majorly cut transaction costs. One called Turbo Home,
(11:42):
another one called shop prop, and another one called Arriva.
Will link to these in the show notes, but.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
These I'd like to say, Arriva arrive at that and
you've arrived at your home. Arriva makes me think more
of speedy Gonzales the little mouse, which I'm pretty sure
he was probably canceled or.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Also makes me think of like the coldsor medication for
some reason. Arriva, Yeah, I don't know why.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
What is it called the the canker sore? It sound
like the little wand and you put it on your
sore and it like numbs. It probably what's I thought
it was called like be something, but no, it's called Burreva. No.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
I don't know, all right, but for me, yeah, but
these three different startups are a potentially good way for
buyers and sellers to kind of hook up at a
fraction of the price.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
And this really like when you look at how much
transaction costs are in the typical transaction, you're you could
be talking about ten thousand dollars or more in savings
and awesome agents can really be worth worth the fee.
But there's also a growing place, I think, for agents
who charge reduced fees and for technology to kind of
grease the wheels of real estate transactions, making it a
little easier to buy and sell and less costly.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
That's right, so a couple of years ago, I think
it was back in twenty three Joel we talked about
how medical debt below a certain threshold wouldn't affect your credit.
Well that's no longer the case. Originally, back under the
Biden administration, the CFPP, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, they
instituted a medical debt rule that benefited millions of Americans
(13:10):
out there by not penalizing the credit for small medical debts.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Yeah less than five hundred bucks, right, Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
That was recently overturned by a judge. But even still,
credit bureaus they have the ability to factor medical debt
in different ways, and all three are still not including
bounces below five hundred bucks. So that's good.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
It's not legally mandated, but a choice that they're making.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
It's like a yeah, And there's there's a lot of
that actually that we're going to cover today in different
in varying ways. Where there are there have been different
recommendations perhaps or even an executive order that's not necessarily
enforceable by law because it's not something that Congress is
taking any action on. But there's also a one year
grace period before overdue medical debt gets reported, So we
(13:53):
want we're putting this out there as a nice little PSA.
We want folks to be aware and specifically as well
to go back and listen to some of the different
up episodes that where we've discussed negotiating medical debts. If
you are finding yourself in a situation where you're like,
oh my gosh, got hit with medical bill that I
was not expecting. We don't have the money on hand
for that. Even if hey, even if you do have
the money on hand, like Joeldaes, when it comes to
(14:14):
some different fees that these companies are hitting you with,
it is always worth negotiating and see if you can
push back. I could pay.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Peloton on our bucks, but I'm not going to. And
it's right basically, Well, it's been said to Matt on
the Credit Core Creditcore Front that you are the average
of the five people you spend the most time with.
And I think there's a lot of truth to that,
right that we rub off on each other, I've learned
a lot being your friend. I think what my life
would look like would be different if we didn't hang
(14:41):
out so much.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
It wouldn't be nearly as cool.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Well, that's true, that's definitely true.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
In fact, first, I wouldn't know half of the Great
musical artists that I know because of you, as you're
sitting there wearing your brand new billy string shirt. And
I'm sorry that I have not even commented on. I
know you're excited about the glorious, isn't I commented on
the one that you had on yesterday. I wear a
but this one it's purple. Yeah, it is not a
lot of men out there are rock and purple purple
tieye baby, I'm I'm all for it. Uh yeah, especially
(15:09):
Joel's not scared, especially when I'm supporting the best guitarist
of all time.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Okay, but credit scores. This new Harvard study of twenty
five million people found that financial habits are similar to
other people who grow up in an environment like yours.
So you rub shoulders with folks for eighteen years, and
you're likely to have similar credit scores and loan delinquency rates.
And that's actually not terribly surprising to me. There are,
(15:36):
of course, like individual examples of folks rising above their circumstances.
But I see this as another reason to get on
the ground personal finance education into neighborhoods that need it most.
Because one of the toughest things about doing what you
and I do. Matt is realizing that there's a bunch
of people who grew up without any helpful personal finance advice,
(15:57):
and they're probably not like on their podcastcher saying, what
is like a good personal finance podcast that can help
me out at this point in time, it's just kind
of off their radar. And so I think it's a
good call for us to surround ourselves with folks who
encourage us on money journey. But also it's just kind
of discouraging in some ways too to realize that there
are some people who are going to be more difficult
(16:18):
to help. It's going to be harder to find those people.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
I think a lot of those folks it's less the
advice and it's more that there's also just nobody in
their life who has lived it out essentially right, Like
oftentimes we look to mentors or just others that we
can look up to. Actually, on that note, do you
see the report by USAA about gen Z. Everyone likes
to pick on gen Z and they're saying that like
half a gen zs don't even know what their credit
(16:42):
score is or even like what constitutes their credit school. Yeah,
they don't know how it's made up, And I appreciate
that USA is trying to shine light on the younger generations, right,
because like that's kind of what you were speaking to
as well, like making sure that we are doing what
we can to help those around us, and maybe to
a certain extent, USAA is doing that well. But also
half of you gen Z, the gen Z generation are
(17:04):
like middle schoolers and high schoolers. So there's a part
of that too where I'm just like, I'm not I'm
also not going to necessarily expect a middle schooler or
a high schooler to know what their credit score is
because it's like, well, you probably don't really have a
credit I don't know. I didn't dive into that study
in depth, but I think there is a large part
of that generation who they're just getting started, right, And
(17:25):
just like we back in the day, what did we do?
We focused on being cheap. You actually are seeing gen
Z doing more of that sort of stuff. Embracing being
frugal is something that I saw reported recently.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
I couldn't have told you much about credit scores or
credit reports when I was in middle school either.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
So exactly. Yeah, So I think we all just need
to kind of play our part to educating the next
generation of financial savvy Americans. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
I mean, I think though, as you get older and
the credit score is a big part of our financial lives,
and so knowing what your credit score is, knowing how
your credit score comes about, like the factors that make
it up up is important. We've got information on that
at our website, howdomoney dot com. Matt, let's talk about
executive a new executive order for a second. That actually
(18:08):
makes it more likely that your workplace retirement account is
going to have access to even more investment options. That
sounds like a good thing, including alternative assets cryptocurrency. The basically,
the how this was worded in the executive order is
that the Department of Labor is supposed to revisit fiduciary guidelines.
(18:29):
And when you kind of pull the curtain up on that,
that the only way that they can make this or
that this executive order can push retirement accounts in this
direction to offer more alternative assets and cryptocurrency is to
say that the fiduciary standard isn't as big of a deal.
And so I don't love that, Matt, because I don't
(18:50):
necessarily think that people need access to alternative investments and
more cryptocurrency inside of their four o one ks. And
kind of on another point, like all the you know,
working on a smart selection that doesn't overwhelm folks. There's
not sixty two different versions of Ketchup and Aldi, There's
like two, right, And so I think most people already
get overwhelmed when trying to choose what to invest in,
(19:12):
like which fund makes sense for them. And then a
lot of the funds that could become available in the
aftermath of this executive order, they're inferior in so many ways. Right,
They're more illiquid, they come with higher fees, and then
the kicker, they don't produce higher returns on average. So
I don't know how effective this executive order is going
to be. And when you might start seeing some of
(19:33):
these different funds available in your four to one K.
Is this like months down the road or years down
the road? I don't know, But it doesn't matter to me.
Like I think index funds the thing that we talk
about all the time, it doesn't matter if like eighty
two funds are added to your roster of choices tomorrow,
it still shouldn't change what you pick.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Yeah, I see what you're doing. Here you are putting
head to head my love of aldi and the lack
of options there with my desire for a libertarian option
right and for the market to decide, Because on one hand,
I'm with you, I don't want there to be more
options for folks to kind of muddy the waters. But
at the same time, I want the market to decide,
and I want the market to say, is this something
that's valuable or not? And if it is, it will
(20:13):
succeed and do well. If it isn't, then it's something
that hopefully will in most cases most of these cases,
hopefully it'll just end up dying on the vine as
opposed to being something that more and more folks get
pulled into. As we are talking about alternative assets, specifically crypto,
owning some crypto can actually help you to get a mortgage. Possibly,
Fanny and Freddy they are pivoting to factoring in your
(20:34):
crypto holdings when they are making loans. Now, if you were,
let's say an early adopter and you've got a decent
chunk of bitcoin, well, that can help you to qualify
for a mortgage, which this could be a good idea.
I like, like they are truly assets, right, and so today,
were someone to liquidate their holdings of let's say bitcoin,
(20:56):
Let's say they you know, they had one bitcoin, that's
a lot of money that could go towards a down
payment on two thousand dollars. It depends on the money, yeah,
exactly by the second. But given that volatility, that's also
the downside because it's just like, well, the underwriting process
is typically let's just say, it doesn't move as quickly
as crypto prices do. And so I could also see
(21:18):
that not being a great thing if you were counting
on some of that money for your down payment, as
opposed to actually, if you want to use some of
those funds, maybe you should go ahead and liquidate that
and then you could put that towards a down payment.
But hopefully it doesn't really matter all that much because
there aren't how the money listeners don't have an overwhelming
percentage of their portfolio in cryptocurrencies. Maybe it does a
(21:39):
little bit enough to be interested, And that's what I've
got going on. Yeah, it's sort of like factoring at
the margins exactly. And again this is more guidance that
has been given at the executive level. So the staying
power of this. How much it actually does impact loans
that are going to be made and moving forward is
yet to be determined.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Yeah, we've got more to get to, Matt, including how
artificial and intelligence is frustrating people who travel and rent
cars regularly. We'll talk about that and some interesting workplace
trends as well. We'll get to those stories and more
right after this.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Right, buddy, we are back from the break, and now
it is time, of course, for the ludicrous headline of
the week. We're gonna spend a minute here talking about
artificial intelligence, the old AI.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
It's kind of new, but it's Yeah, I don't know,
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
I feel like at this point.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
It does feel like there's too much talk about it much.
But this is where the rubber hits the road, right here, Matt,
with this story tifically.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
I like this story a whole lot. Actually, I mean
that in a very literal sense. It does. This one's
from Sherwood headline reads Hurts says it's AI powered damage
scanners are supposed to enhance your customer experience and part Okay,
So I was just saying that I am glad that
I actually like I'm a big fan of the story.
Sherwood is out there doing some real, some real journalism.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Yeah, they are, because it's just like Robin Hood's news.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Brand, which initially when when they rolled it out. So
this is a little bit of media talk, right. So
there's some shows we listened to and they the whole
time they just talk about media and some of the
different outlets and what's wrong with the world of media specifically.
So this is gonna be our tiny little segment how
to drill down on as we as we talk about that.
But I was skeptical of Sherwood initially. First of all,
(23:26):
it's kind of a too catchy of a name coming
from Robinhood as a trading platform. It's like, of course
you're gonna name your your news outlet media outlet here
think Sherwood. But the author of this piece was listening
in to the Earnings Call of Hurts and that's how
he discovered the fact that they were implementing some of
(23:47):
this AI say again quote quote unquote enhance the customer experience,
and it turns out that it's actually harming the customer.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Well, that's like the nitty gritty stuff that you have
to do as a reporter to get the good story, right, Yeah,
listen to the earnings call. And I don't know.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Because because the thing is that these companies they're not
broadcasting necessarily, some of them are, and they're learning really quickly,
ooh well yeah, when we are using this against you,
customers don't like that. But if they are quietly mentioning
it on an earnings call, they're thinking, all right, this
isn't no onman's going to hear about this except for
the investors, and it's going to positively impact our share price,
(24:21):
which it did in this case. But the customer out there,
the renters of vehicles, they're not going to hear about it. No,
we heard about it.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Well they are, they're hearing about it. And so so
customers are basically saying that they've received post rental bills
for damage that they didn't inflict on the car they rented.
So they're like, what the AI scanner. Yeah, I didn't
get in an accident. I didn't bump in anything like
Matt did in Scotland. Like that wasn't me so good
thing that was pre AI scanner right. Well. Sherwood says
that one customer was charged one hundred ninety five dollars
(24:50):
for a dent that looked like it crashed into an ant. Yeah,
it's a really funny one, great description, And I get
that Hurtz wants to save on labor costs by having
AI scan cars for damage versus using humans, But they
and other car rental companies they run the risk of
alienating their customers by fabricating these charges. And have you
(25:10):
seen what they look like, Matt. It looks kind of
like what humans walk through at the airport as they
go through security. Those scanners tsa scanner, it's kind of
like that for a car, and it's like taking these,
you know, three sixty videos and photos. And it has
obviously with think about how good cameras are now, how
much detail they can get into, and they can find
those seemingly insignificant scratches that you probably didn't even put
(25:31):
on the car. It was there already, and then they
can say, yeah, previous customer, this is on you.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
But if it was there already, wouldn't it have been
caught by the previous renter.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
You would think so maybe, But they're also so minor
that a human never would have done anything about it.
And typically you wouldn't be charged for a minor, minor scratch.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
So I think one like the guy at Scotland. I
was just like, oh, you know kinda, He's like, oh,
don't worry about it. Yeah, I'm not going to even try.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
But well, and one of the one of the people
can do to protect themselves is to just is to
take a three sixty video as you're walking around the.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Car zero your own skin. Yeah. I always take a
ton of photos.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
And that way, if you get called out, you get
some sort of bill in the mail, you can be
like no, no, no, that was here before or what are
you talking about, Like do it before and after and
then say it's not on my video or I don't
see anything here.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
That way you can at least have a fighting chance.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Yeah, I get it. I'm of two minds because on
from the renter's perspective, you don't want to get hit
with a bill for a small little ding but like
from well even from a renter's like, imagine you're the
next rent right and like, as this happens over the
course of multiple rentals, multiple renters, you end up getting
a car that's all dinged up, Like that's not what
you're paying for when you rent a bran new vehicle.
So from a renter's point of view, it's it keeps
(26:43):
the standard high. But then also for hurts, they're you know,
they unload these vehicles after a couple of years and
when they go to auction these things off. If if
you've got a car that's all dinged up with nothing
to show for it, well you're gonna get a whole
lot less for it. But I will say one of
the other examples was like a drop out of water
was on the car and that was initially cited by
one of the customers. It was flagged to a customer
(27:05):
as a dent and they're like, no, man, that's some rain.
That was like, that's water, and they apologize, really, oh sorry,
Actually I don't even even know if they apologize. But
he didn't have to pay anything because of that. So
you've got to be careful if it's not ready for
prime time. Yet. That's another reason to maybe slow the
role when it comes to implementing some of this. But
it's just fascinating because how it is that a company
rolls something like this out has such an impact on
(27:28):
how a company's perceived, which then therefore has an impact
on the share price of that company if it's publicly traded,
or even if you want to work for it. There's
new research from Charter that links the financial health and
the stock market returns of a company to how it
is perceived by the workforce. So, for instance, when folks
want to work for a particular employer, it has many
(27:48):
benefits enhancing that specific brand, right, they're attracting there and
retaining talent. It's limiting turnover, which leads to even more
positive results for that company.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Yeah. That like, the actual hiring process and training of
new employees costs so much money that if there's a
high turnover, it's an expense exactly.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Yeah, and this then of course improves customer service and
gender's loyalty from customers. It's an upward spiral. Basically. It
just makes me think about all the different PR professionals
who are out there. If you are, if you know
somebody that has the work the title at work of
like chief Storyteller, Like all the PR folks are just
like fist pumping and just like so happy because they're like, yeah,
see what we do matters. Because truly, something like Hertz,
(28:30):
if they were to have rolled that out in a
very public way, they would have gotten lambasted. I mean
they they're getting called out on it already as it is,
but I've got to think that something like this is
a much easier thing to get past as opposed to
rolling this out as a new feature where they just
get ridiculed and made a fun of by the market.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Well, what you were just talking about too, with kind
of where people want to work and how that enhances
a brand. It makes me think that, like, if I
was out there looking for a job in the workforce,
instead of just looking for positions that were reflected what
I was interested in, I would be looking towards employers
who have a great reputation amongst their employees, and I
(29:10):
would be looking for positions at those companies that I
was interested in, absolutely, because like I want to work
for a company that treats people well, that offers great benefits,
where I could stay for a long time, instead of
just getting the position in the salary I was interested in,
because that I don't know, it might not be there
as long, it might not be as good of an experience.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Totally agree. Yeah, that's why these narratives though, are so important,
because it's almost like a self fulfilling prophecy. Yeah, if
you say that you believe in something, it attracts people
who then believe in that. A couple of brands come
to mind, but I'm not going to focus on them
at this point in time. Jo. Let's talk about hybrid work,
because I think this is an instance where we're going
to have to eat some crow. Remember we had an
episode called I think it was called hybrid work.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Is here to say that we're wrong sometimes?
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Oh yeah, and we're going to call ourselves out on it.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
I'm okay. Following on the sword here.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Hybrid work is no longer the norm, and worker leverage
is on the decline. More than half of the top
Fortune one hundred companies are requiring employees to be back
at the office full time. So I guess it's maybe
Fortune fifty companies. We got from the Fortune five hundred
to the one hundred to the fifty. But for folks
(30:19):
who got used to like a zero commute, basically if
they got used to having more flexible time, or maybe
even some of those folks even moved right, they're like, Oh,
location doesn't even matter.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
I'm moving out to the country because I don't have
that commute. And then the employer comes to knocking and says,
yes you do.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
They're like, oh, maybe I'll move to Boise, like Matt
was thinking, which is very short lived, which I'm so glad.
Oh my gosh, I'm so glad that was very short lived.
Of Course, it's nice to get paid, But is it
worth going back to this sort of old pre payan
pre COVID normalcy. There are certainly pros and cons to it.
I think there are more pros for younger workers who
are looking to show that they've got the initiative, they
(30:57):
got what it takes. They're trying to learn from their peers.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
That face time.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Yeah, but if your employer is pushing for some serious
back to office, you know, policies that you aren't okay with,
I would recommend to politely push back. See if this
is something that you can discuss. Is this the conversation
worth having? Hey, maybe this is maybe we can have
some sort of roundtable. This guy, I don't know, Like,
what's it called out there in the corporate world, Folks,
(31:21):
I'm lacking when it comes to the most latest experience
of what it's like to be in the corporate world.
That or despite the cooling labor market. I might even
be worth looking elsewhere if this is not something if
this if it has been very clearly communicated that this
isn't a conversation we're having anymore, because I still.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Think those flexible policies are gonna matter to workers and
for the best workers out there, for sure. And I
think that a lot of companies, Yeah, you can try
to go all draconian, but you will eventually have some
brain drain, and those people are gonna want to go
to companies that have a little more flexibility. I was
talking to a friend who just got a new job
at one of those big tech companies, and he was like, yeah,
(31:59):
I have to go in. I think I forget if
you said four or five days a week, but all
I have to do is like be there for a
little bit. So I think going in ten to two
or ten to three, and I'm avoiding traffic on both ends,
but I'm in the office, and so it's I'm giving
them what they want, but I'm kind of getting what
I want at the same time. And I do think
the companies are gonna have to be flexible.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Yeah, if you I think on both ends, yeah, right,
Like like for the employee. It's just like, all right, cool,
you're getting in there, you're having some of those face
to face meetings. Yeah, being a little bit more collaborative,
which is I think still easier without having to go
do it over zoom or teams or whatever.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
Yeah, and maybe you're doing something that in the morning,
a little bit of that when you get home, but
you're not at the office all day totally. Let's talk
about me some of the downsides of work from home.
There's this new work Trend Index report and they said
that one of the biggest downsides and this is something
I think we've seen spiral out of control, Matt. They're
calling it the infinite work day, And basically it was
a Microsoft report that found that workers are starting they're
(32:56):
looking at an email at six am, likely right after they
wake up, and then those workers are battling messages on
a ton of different fronts like Slack and Microsoft teams,
and then text messages and phone calls, so they feel
like they're getting inundated with requests or with coworker chatter
from every direction. Then also they're working into the evening
(33:17):
with a whole lot of folks. A high percentage of
people digging back into their inbox between eight and ten pm. Oh,
and then guess what. The weekends aren't free of work.
Either you're maybe expected to respond or you're at least
checking stuff trying to stay up on it even though
you're not supposed to be working. And then there's this
just the reality of work these days, where there's constant interruptions.
(33:39):
On average, every two minutes, you're being interrupted by a
pin from somewhere. And it makes me think of Cal Newport.
One of his first books was called Deep Work, and man,
how do you actually get deep work done when it
feels like, Okay, you're constantly playing whack a mole, right,
whether it's with messages or emails or you're just kind
of you never have that time to actually deeply focus
(33:59):
on a tack.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Yeah, what was the number? I think it was like
twenty three minutes. Once you are once you are distracted
from something, it takes you twenty three minutes to kind
of regain your focus to be able to hit that
deep work again. Yeah, which we love saying when we're
talking about distractions. But I'm also I don't know, I
don't know if I totally believe that twenty.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Three minutes like a long time lot. Sometimes your mind
wanders for a while. But I don't know, like I
get it.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
I could be I get distracted easily, but I guess
even if it's half of that, Like let's just say,
even if it's ten minutes, that's a lot of time
when you are getting distracted as often as oftentimes we are.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
And I think it's probably a good idea to have
some like non office hours during the day where if
you are working on a big project or you know,
some people like you mentioned pr people just a second ago, Matt,
A lot of those people like their job is to
constantly be in their inbox. So that's that's just a
different type of profession, right, But then there are other
professions where you're like, no, I have to work on
this project and I cannot be like emailing and slacking
(34:51):
while I'm trying to get that thing done, and you
carving out an hour in the afternoon and thirty minutes
in the morning or whatever, but carving out these specific
times where you're not responsible and kind of letting people
know that, whether it's an away from the desk message
or something like that on slack, letting your boss know Hey,
I'm going to be unreachable, but it's going to make
sure I'm able to meet the deadline. That's really important
(35:12):
to kind of set, I think, those expectations and allow
that time for yourself to do what you need to
do so that you can actually be productive and not
just be responding to whatever someone else tells you as
urgent in the moment.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
Yeah, you said it away from desk, obviously, away from
office makes it seem like you're not even on location.
Away from desk, it's just like, well, he's around, but
what's he even doing. Maybe he's over there playing ping pong.
I woul like to even call it like an away
from email or away from Slack sort of message, because
it's like, no, I'm sitting here, I'm working, I'm just
trying to do the important stuff. I just muted this
right now exactly like I'm sitting here. I'm We're all
part of this, but let's have some dedicated time to
(35:44):
the project at hand that we're trying to be able
to deliver in two weeks. Yeah, that sort of thing.
Or maybe you can just leave all the notifications on Joel,
but just put your plugs in. That's what I do
here in the office. Yeah, you've done it. How do
you feel when I put my ear plugs in? Because
sometimes I get even distracted by my coworkers are typing.
And when I say coworkers, everyone knows I'm talking about you.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
There's not many of them. That doesn't bother me. I think,
even something super simple, if I need something, I'll let
you know. Yeah, you can, like well, wave but I.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Can kind of hear you. But it's enough to kind
of blunt the sharp stimulus of messages. Other sounds like
folks who honestly folks who go in and work in
like a coffee shop. I don't know how they do that,
and maybe I'm just overly sensitive, but I like the vibe.
I like the scene of going and working somewhere where
there's a lot of people. But man, the distractions.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
I'd never get anything done.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
I would not. Well, I know why you wouldn't, because
you're talking to everybody. Yeah, I'm ignoring people, but then
I'm thinking about the fact that I've ignored them.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
But if I if I really have to dig in
and get something done, I'm usually taking like clicking out
of the email on my like you should put nothing
down so if I see the number popping up, I'm
tempted to go over there and get in, and I
get distracted pretty quickly, and.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
Then command Q on the on the mail ad.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
When do I actually get back to the task. Here
you go, you know, all right, Matt, that's going to
do it for this Friday flight. The show notes we
always live up on the way website at howtomoney dot com,
along with a bunch of other money saving information. But yeah,
we'll catch you back here on Monday for a fresh
ask how to Money episode. Until next time, best Friends Out,
Best Friends Out,
Welcome to Had of Money.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
I'm Joel Matt.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Today we're talking housing, boom busts, AI induced outrage, and
infinite work days.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Infinite work days sound much less appeeling than the infinite
pool that you want to be at sipping a drink
while you're on vacation.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
I'm gonna need you to come in on Sunday for
those TPS reports, Matt.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Do people even understand office space references anymore?
Speaker 1 (00:41):
I would hope. So it's still one of the greatest
comedies of all time. If you're a boomer, like you know,
they don't make great comedies any it is more all right,
Derek Thompson, No, they don't.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Oh I know, yeah, Yeah, that's something he harps on.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Just how it's just true.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
It is true, and I think the reasons given often
are it's definitely they is. It's less something that you
can translate to other cultures and countries, right, like as
opposed to like a big action. Everyone understands fear, everyone
understands suspense. Comedy can be more of a regional certainly
a more country based thing. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
I don't know, Joe Dirt. I think hits in every region, Matt.
But yeah, maybe not in China, which is where Hollywood
needs to make movies that do well there.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Now the okay, so the Office Space, I feel like
it was just more of a Gen X movie as
opposed to it. Yes, our generation wasn't really watching King
of the Hill, which is like coming back, all right,
Joel over here making a case for Office Space. If
you've never seen it, go out, wash it and let's
see if it still holds up.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
And you can email me if you wasted an hour
and a half of your time. But I'm gonna say
a dreamail out there had a money pottedt gmail dot com.
I don't want to read the email both of us.
I will reply just if you hate it, then you're wrong,
but you can tell me why.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
All right, now, this is our Friday flight and we
are going to cover the top personal finance stories we
came across this past week, the ones that we think
are gonna impact you the most, the ones that we
think that you need to be paying attention to.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Yeah, real quick. The so we bought a used Peloton
bike for Emily. She's like, we have this little sun
room that's right off are That was your.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Project for this summer. It was to reclaim the sun room.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
The kids had taken it over and we had to declutter,
and we wanted it to be more of a room
that that she and I get to used. I've got
my little sona tent in there, she's got I've got
my rolling machines, she's got a little Peloton.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
I feel like the first thing that's gonna break on
your portable sauna tent is the zipper.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Yeah, so far as held up surprisingly.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Well, I can totally see you go into unzip it
today and it's just gonna pull off.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
And you say, that's also why I got it at
Costco because I was looking at ones on Amazon, but
I was like, I got Costco because the return policy
is much better.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
But would you feel how long? How many uses to
would you put it through before you would feel bad
about taking it back? Because we've talked about this is
why we can't have nice things at Costco anymore, because
people abuse it. I'll probably getting to that point where, yeah,
if it broke today, since my nine month birthday, so.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Yeah, not really that long six months, So if it
broke today, I'd be morally questionable. Yeah, okay, all right, Peloton,
So Peloton bought a used Peloton on Facebook marketplace from somebody.
Even though Peloton and we talked about this, has their
own site for reselling used Pelotons now, but they're way
more expensive than buying it from the slew of people
who are selling their Pelotons on Facebook. The price has
(03:23):
gone down dramatically because everyone's trying to get rid of
their glorified code hanger that that is their Peloton.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
They're like, I've been tired of looking at this thing
for the price four years, so that I got back
in twenty one.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Yes, when Emily's other age, she's been using it, she's
been enjoying it. But the one thing I was surprised
by and a little bit frustrated about when we bought
the used Peloton. You know what Peloton is trying to
do to siphon money from users. If you buy a
used bike, they want to charge you a one hundred
(03:54):
dollars activation fee for switching that bike over to another account.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
It is an activation fee.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Yeah, it was already activated by somebody else being used,
and you're trying to switch it over to be suited
your name.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
So it would be like Apple, It's like you selling
your phone and being like yep, i've wiped it here.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
You know.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
This one's a totally factory reset, and the Apple being
like no, no, no, we get a cut of that because
somebody else is going to know use it.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
It would be exactly like that. That's so stupid, like, hey,
I'm going to sell my book and then the author
gets actually gets paid, we get more royalty.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Yeah no, that's not how it works. How they use
market works man.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Utterally ridiculous, totally, this is the kind of thing that
only a brand like Peloton could get away with where
they've they're just banking on rich customers who don't care
about money, and they're like, I guess this is just
part of doing business.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
But that's not what you did, right, Okay, give me
the ravocate or yeah, some eravocate success story.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
You've got to call in and advocate for yourself. This is,
by the way, if you want like a nerdy economist term,
it's called rent seeking. And this is totally that. This
would be a great definition of rent seeking by Peloton
saying like, listen, we've already, like gott we've landed our
hooks into this territory, and it's a way we can
just make extra money just fleecing people who don't deserve
to be fleeced, and it's pretty unethical also, But so
(05:09):
I called Peloton. I'm like, listen, we don't want to
pay this fee, Like what in the world do we
do to avoid this thing? And it took talking to
a couple of different representatives. You just kind of have
to keep pushing the envelope to get them to finally agree.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
To talking to customer service people. It's not my favorite.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
I wish it was.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
You're willing to do it, but I'm willing to do it,
especially for a hundred bucks. So it was just a
one time so you gotta waved kind of waved nice. Yeah,
very nice dude. All right, Well for all the folks.
This is for obviously for everyone other there who's thinking
about getting the secondhand Peloton, or you can just jump
on the bike that you already have mm hmm right
out there. The tradition, I like prefer to ride on
the street, the traditional bike in the wild scenario or
(05:48):
the winds blowing through your hair.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Emily and I differ in this regard. I bike, I
ride on my real bike.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
She rides. You get the passion neighbors have a conversation
with them. Cuts down on emissions because you're not driving
your vehicle, Combine it with needing to run an errand yep,
not to mention the cost savings of the aforementioned benefits.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
I'll let you talk.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
To my wife about it. Hey, I'll do it. Also.
Maybe one of the things you're talking about with your
neighbors as you're riding past their house is, Oh, what
do you think about the so and so's over there?
They got their house listed for saless been sitting on
the market forever. There's one in our neighborhood. That's literally
a conversation I had with one of our neighbors, like
what's going on with it? It's like, Oh, hasn't been
renovated recently? You think the uh it's overpriced? Well, I
(06:26):
think it is. And I think that's one of the
questions a lot of folks are wondering, is like, has
there been a housing like bubble essentially and is it
about to pop? And I would say that it's it
seems more like a slow leak as like versus just
like a sudden popping.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Right less two thousand and nine more its own thing.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Exactly yeah, yeah, numbers from almost every corner of the
market out there are showing asking price decreases. There is
showing more sellar concessions, inventory decreases as.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Well, inventory increases more I'm sorry on the market.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Yea, more homes are on the market, which, to be honest, though,
it's also just returning back to like pre pandemic norms. Essentially,
we saw a significant decline and that was in large
part why there was such an increase in housing prices.
But we're also seeing more cancellations after houses are going
under contract. Folks are basically getting cold feet during due diligence,
(07:21):
and this is such a far cry, dude, from a
few years ago. Homeowners obviously don't love seeing this, and
sellers of course are not pleased. You know, like back
when there was an open house and buyers were lined
up around the block just to be able to get
in and see the place. It's not like that.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Remember those calls for highest and best like two years ago,
three years ago, and the insanity of how much people
are willing to pay and bid up the price. It
was really unseen. I don't remember a time at least
in my life where that was the case.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Yeah, So I want to put a note out there
for a lot of folks who have been thinking about
purchasing the home because I think, dude, this is my
personal opinion. I think now is the time to strike personally,
So byek I do because I don't think. I don't
think we're going to continue to see declient. So I
this morning, I pretended to be a chart analyst and I.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Pulled up the I was gonna say, how did you
come to this school?
Speaker 2 (08:11):
What am I basing this on? And I pulled up
some data from the FED. I was looking at the chart,
and if you look at just the trend, So if
you look at the median home price in the US
from starting from around nine twenty ten, and if you
follow that up to pre pans so like around twenty nineteen,
there's a pretty consistent line. Uh. And then of course
what you saw slight decrease, but then you see it
(08:32):
shoot up. Specifically, a lot of folks are thinking about
the last fifteen years as when we saw these massive
price increases. I think all that was just kind of
catching back up to where things needed to be after
the housing crisis, price back seven eight nine exactly.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Like in twenty eleven, you could get a house for
not much money.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Yeah, and so I think all that was relatively healthy growth.
But what we saw basically in the two years twenty
to twenty two, we saw a massive increase. It goes COVID.
It all comes back to COVID. And if you draw
that line, basically from nine to nineteen we are about
where prices should be. We saw it spike where we
got way ahead of the curve. And for the past
(09:12):
couple of years, two three years, we've seen prices basically plateau.
They're starting to decline just a little bit.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
And it depends on local markets.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
It depends on local markets, but financing as well. And
so I think personally, my personal opinion is I would
not be surprised if we see mortgage rates come down. Right,
if the FED lower's rates, which there is talk about
that potentially happening next month in September, I think that
could be the first that could be the starting line
of the market opening back up.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
If mortgage rates go down, I think that will increase
buyer interest. I think you're probably right, and then maybe
the instead of declining prices, we do start to see
prices go up again. But just at a far less
accelerated pace.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
It will not be at the pace that we've seen because.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
That was just unsustainable. Yeah, totally, and I think but
I think this does maybe as far as advice for
potential home buyers, have a plan to own longer, because
it's really hard to know where the housing market goes
from here. I appreciate your your insights, Matt, and you
really might be right my hot take. Yeah, I mean
you might be right, but like my I know somebody
(10:14):
right now in my family who's selling a home after
owning it for two years, and that's just there's a
chance because of just what's happened with housing prices that
she's going to do okay, even after you know real
estate realtor expenses. But there's also it's a hard position
to put yourself in, and if you're planning, the longer
you plan to own, the more likely it is to
(10:35):
be a decent decision to buy, even if you are
slightly overpaying.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Totally agree.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Speaking of agents, got an email the other day criticizing us.
We're talking about three percent fees for real estate agents. Well,
you know, if they don't charge that much anymore, is
what the emailer said, well, legally, they don't have the
same leeway to just flat out charge three percent based
on that ruling against the National Association of Realtors practice
(11:00):
agent compensation hasn't really changed much since that ruling, but
for savvy consumers who know how to negotiate, some people
are able to claw back some of the agent's fees
they would have paid. This is particularly happening at the
higher end of the spectrum, where someone's saying, well, you're
gonna sell my three million dollar home, Well, awesome, but
(11:21):
guess what I'm gonna pay you one and a half
percent instead of the three percent their agent's like, it's
still pretty good payday, I'll do it. But yeah, I
think technology too, is finally and slowly starting to make
an impact on this front. There are startups in some
states that are helping a sliver of buyers of all
price points to majorly cut transaction costs. One called Turbo Home,
(11:42):
another one called shop prop, and another one called Arriva.
Will link to these in the show notes, but.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
These I'd like to say, Arriva arrive at that and
you've arrived at your home. Arriva makes me think more
of speedy Gonzales the little mouse, which I'm pretty sure
he was probably canceled or.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Also makes me think of like the coldsor medication for
some reason. Arriva, Yeah, I don't know why.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
What is it called the the canker sore? It sound
like the little wand and you put it on your
sore and it like numbs. It probably what's I thought
it was called like be something, but no, it's called Burreva. No.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
I don't know, all right, but for me, yeah, but
these three different startups are a potentially good way for
buyers and sellers to kind of hook up at a
fraction of the price.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
And this really like when you look at how much
transaction costs are in the typical transaction, you're you could
be talking about ten thousand dollars or more in savings
and awesome agents can really be worth worth the fee.
But there's also a growing place, I think, for agents
who charge reduced fees and for technology to kind of
grease the wheels of real estate transactions, making it a
little easier to buy and sell and less costly.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
That's right, so a couple of years ago, I think
it was back in twenty three Joel we talked about
how medical debt below a certain threshold wouldn't affect your credit.
Well that's no longer the case. Originally, back under the
Biden administration, the CFPP, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, they
instituted a medical debt rule that benefited millions of Americans
(13:10):
out there by not penalizing the credit for small medical debts.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Yeah less than five hundred bucks, right, Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
That was recently overturned by a judge. But even still,
credit bureaus they have the ability to factor medical debt
in different ways, and all three are still not including
bounces below five hundred bucks. So that's good.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
It's not legally mandated, but a choice that they're making.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
It's like a yeah, And there's there's a lot of
that actually that we're going to cover today in different
in varying ways. Where there are there have been different
recommendations perhaps or even an executive order that's not necessarily
enforceable by law because it's not something that Congress is
taking any action on. But there's also a one year
grace period before overdue medical debt gets reported, So we
(13:53):
want we're putting this out there as a nice little PSA.
We want folks to be aware and specifically as well
to go back and listen to some of the different
up episodes that where we've discussed negotiating medical debts. If
you are finding yourself in a situation where you're like,
oh my gosh, got hit with medical bill that I
was not expecting. We don't have the money on hand
for that. Even if hey, even if you do have
the money on hand, like Joeldaes, when it comes to
(14:14):
some different fees that these companies are hitting you with,
it is always worth negotiating and see if you can
push back. I could pay.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Peloton on our bucks, but I'm not going to. And
it's right basically, Well, it's been said to Matt on
the Credit Core Creditcore Front that you are the average
of the five people you spend the most time with.
And I think there's a lot of truth to that,
right that we rub off on each other, I've learned
a lot being your friend. I think what my life
would look like would be different if we didn't hang
(14:41):
out so much.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
It wouldn't be nearly as cool.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Well, that's true, that's definitely true.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
In fact, first, I wouldn't know half of the Great
musical artists that I know because of you, as you're
sitting there wearing your brand new billy string shirt. And
I'm sorry that I have not even commented on. I
know you're excited about the glorious, isn't I commented on
the one that you had on yesterday. I wear a
but this one it's purple. Yeah, it is not a
lot of men out there are rock and purple purple
tieye baby, I'm I'm all for it. Uh yeah, especially
(15:09):
Joel's not scared, especially when I'm supporting the best guitarist
of all time.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Okay, but credit scores. This new Harvard study of twenty
five million people found that financial habits are similar to
other people who grow up in an environment like yours.
So you rub shoulders with folks for eighteen years, and
you're likely to have similar credit scores and loan delinquency rates.
And that's actually not terribly surprising to me. There are,
(15:36):
of course, like individual examples of folks rising above their circumstances.
But I see this as another reason to get on
the ground personal finance education into neighborhoods that need it most.
Because one of the toughest things about doing what you
and I do. Matt is realizing that there's a bunch
of people who grew up without any helpful personal finance advice,
(15:57):
and they're probably not like on their podcastcher saying, what
is like a good personal finance podcast that can help
me out at this point in time, it's just kind
of off their radar. And so I think it's a
good call for us to surround ourselves with folks who
encourage us on money journey. But also it's just kind
of discouraging in some ways too to realize that there
are some people who are going to be more difficult
(16:18):
to help. It's going to be harder to find those people.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
I think a lot of those folks it's less the
advice and it's more that there's also just nobody in
their life who has lived it out essentially right, Like
oftentimes we look to mentors or just others that we
can look up to. Actually, on that note, do you
see the report by USAA about gen Z. Everyone likes
to pick on gen Z and they're saying that like
half a gen zs don't even know what their credit
(16:42):
score is or even like what constitutes their credit school. Yeah,
they don't know how it's made up, And I appreciate
that USA is trying to shine light on the younger generations, right,
because like that's kind of what you were speaking to
as well, like making sure that we are doing what
we can to help those around us, and maybe to
a certain extent, USAA is doing that well. But also
half of you gen Z, the gen Z generation are
(17:04):
like middle schoolers and high schoolers. So there's a part
of that too where I'm just like, I'm not I'm
also not going to necessarily expect a middle schooler or
a high schooler to know what their credit score is
because it's like, well, you probably don't really have a
credit I don't know. I didn't dive into that study
in depth, but I think there is a large part
of that generation who they're just getting started, right, And
(17:25):
just like we back in the day, what did we do?
We focused on being cheap. You actually are seeing gen
Z doing more of that sort of stuff. Embracing being
frugal is something that I saw reported recently.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
I couldn't have told you much about credit scores or
credit reports when I was in middle school either.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
So exactly. Yeah, So I think we all just need
to kind of play our part to educating the next
generation of financial savvy Americans. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
I mean, I think though, as you get older and
the credit score is a big part of our financial lives,
and so knowing what your credit score is, knowing how
your credit score comes about, like the factors that make
it up up is important. We've got information on that
at our website, howdomoney dot com. Matt, let's talk about
executive a new executive order for a second. That actually
(18:08):
makes it more likely that your workplace retirement account is
going to have access to even more investment options. That
sounds like a good thing, including alternative assets cryptocurrency. The basically,
the how this was worded in the executive order is
that the Department of Labor is supposed to revisit fiduciary guidelines.
(18:29):
And when you kind of pull the curtain up on that,
that the only way that they can make this or
that this executive order can push retirement accounts in this
direction to offer more alternative assets and cryptocurrency is to
say that the fiduciary standard isn't as big of a deal.
And so I don't love that, Matt, because I don't
(18:50):
necessarily think that people need access to alternative investments and
more cryptocurrency inside of their four o one ks. And
kind of on another point, like all the you know,
working on a smart selection that doesn't overwhelm folks. There's
not sixty two different versions of Ketchup and Aldi, There's
like two, right, And so I think most people already
get overwhelmed when trying to choose what to invest in,
(19:12):
like which fund makes sense for them. And then a
lot of the funds that could become available in the
aftermath of this executive order, they're inferior in so many ways. Right,
They're more illiquid, they come with higher fees, and then
the kicker, they don't produce higher returns on average. So
I don't know how effective this executive order is going
to be. And when you might start seeing some of
(19:33):
these different funds available in your four to one K.
Is this like months down the road or years down
the road? I don't know, But it doesn't matter to me.
Like I think index funds the thing that we talk
about all the time, it doesn't matter if like eighty
two funds are added to your roster of choices tomorrow,
it still shouldn't change what you pick.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Yeah, I see what you're doing. Here you are putting
head to head my love of aldi and the lack
of options there with my desire for a libertarian option
right and for the market to decide, Because on one hand,
I'm with you, I don't want there to be more
options for folks to kind of muddy the waters. But
at the same time, I want the market to decide,
and I want the market to say, is this something
that's valuable or not? And if it is, it will
(20:13):
succeed and do well. If it isn't, then it's something
that hopefully will in most cases most of these cases,
hopefully it'll just end up dying on the vine as
opposed to being something that more and more folks get
pulled into. As we are talking about alternative assets, specifically crypto,
owning some crypto can actually help you to get a mortgage. Possibly,
Fanny and Freddy they are pivoting to factoring in your
(20:34):
crypto holdings when they are making loans. Now, if you were,
let's say an early adopter and you've got a decent
chunk of bitcoin, well, that can help you to qualify
for a mortgage, which this could be a good idea.
I like, like they are truly assets, right, and so today,
were someone to liquidate their holdings of let's say bitcoin,
(20:56):
Let's say they you know, they had one bitcoin, that's
a lot of money that could go towards a down
payment on two thousand dollars. It depends on the money, yeah,
exactly by the second. But given that volatility, that's also
the downside because it's just like, well, the underwriting process
is typically let's just say, it doesn't move as quickly
as crypto prices do. And so I could also see
(21:18):
that not being a great thing if you were counting
on some of that money for your down payment, as
opposed to actually, if you want to use some of
those funds, maybe you should go ahead and liquidate that
and then you could put that towards a down payment.
But hopefully it doesn't really matter all that much because
there aren't how the money listeners don't have an overwhelming
percentage of their portfolio in cryptocurrencies. Maybe it does a
(21:39):
little bit enough to be interested, And that's what I've
got going on. Yeah, it's sort of like factoring at
the margins exactly. And again this is more guidance that
has been given at the executive level. So the staying
power of this. How much it actually does impact loans
that are going to be made and moving forward is
yet to be determined.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Yeah, we've got more to get to, Matt, including how
artificial and intelligence is frustrating people who travel and rent
cars regularly. We'll talk about that and some interesting workplace
trends as well. We'll get to those stories and more
right after this.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Right, buddy, we are back from the break, and now
it is time, of course, for the ludicrous headline of
the week. We're gonna spend a minute here talking about
artificial intelligence, the old AI.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
It's kind of new, but it's Yeah, I don't know,
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
I feel like at this point.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
It does feel like there's too much talk about it much.
But this is where the rubber hits the road, right here, Matt,
with this story tifically.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
I like this story a whole lot. Actually, I mean
that in a very literal sense. It does. This one's
from Sherwood headline reads Hurts says it's AI powered damage
scanners are supposed to enhance your customer experience and part Okay,
So I was just saying that I am glad that
I actually like I'm a big fan of the story.
Sherwood is out there doing some real, some real journalism.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Yeah, they are, because it's just like Robin Hood's news.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Brand, which initially when when they rolled it out. So
this is a little bit of media talk, right. So
there's some shows we listened to and they the whole
time they just talk about media and some of the
different outlets and what's wrong with the world of media specifically.
So this is gonna be our tiny little segment how
to drill down on as we as we talk about that.
But I was skeptical of Sherwood initially. First of all,
(23:26):
it's kind of a too catchy of a name coming
from Robinhood as a trading platform. It's like, of course
you're gonna name your your news outlet media outlet here
think Sherwood. But the author of this piece was listening
in to the Earnings Call of Hurts and that's how
he discovered the fact that they were implementing some of
(23:47):
this AI say again quote quote unquote enhance the customer experience,
and it turns out that it's actually harming the customer.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Well, that's like the nitty gritty stuff that you have
to do as a reporter to get the good story, right, Yeah,
listen to the earnings call. And I don't know.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Because because the thing is that these companies they're not
broadcasting necessarily, some of them are, and they're learning really quickly,
ooh well yeah, when we are using this against you,
customers don't like that. But if they are quietly mentioning
it on an earnings call, they're thinking, all right, this
isn't no onman's going to hear about this except for
the investors, and it's going to positively impact our share price,
(24:21):
which it did in this case. But the customer out there,
the renters of vehicles, they're not going to hear about it. No,
we heard about it.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Well they are, they're hearing about it. And so so
customers are basically saying that they've received post rental bills
for damage that they didn't inflict on the car they rented.
So they're like, what the AI scanner. Yeah, I didn't
get in an accident. I didn't bump in anything like
Matt did in Scotland. Like that wasn't me so good
thing that was pre AI scanner right. Well. Sherwood says
that one customer was charged one hundred ninety five dollars
(24:50):
for a dent that looked like it crashed into an ant. Yeah,
it's a really funny one, great description, And I get
that Hurtz wants to save on labor costs by having
AI scan cars for damage versus using humans, But they
and other car rental companies they run the risk of
alienating their customers by fabricating these charges. And have you
(25:10):
seen what they look like, Matt. It looks kind of
like what humans walk through at the airport as they
go through security. Those scanners tsa scanner, it's kind of
like that for a car, and it's like taking these,
you know, three sixty videos and photos. And it has
obviously with think about how good cameras are now, how
much detail they can get into, and they can find
those seemingly insignificant scratches that you probably didn't even put
(25:31):
on the car. It was there already, and then they
can say, yeah, previous customer, this is on you.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
But if it was there already, wouldn't it have been
caught by the previous renter.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
You would think so maybe, But they're also so minor
that a human never would have done anything about it.
And typically you wouldn't be charged for a minor, minor scratch.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
So I think one like the guy at Scotland. I
was just like, oh, you know kinda, He's like, oh,
don't worry about it. Yeah, I'm not going to even try.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
But well, and one of the one of the people
can do to protect themselves is to just is to
take a three sixty video as you're walking around the.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Car zero your own skin. Yeah. I always take a
ton of photos.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
And that way, if you get called out, you get
some sort of bill in the mail, you can be
like no, no, no, that was here before or what are
you talking about, Like do it before and after and
then say it's not on my video or I don't
see anything here.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
That way you can at least have a fighting chance.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Yeah, I get it. I'm of two minds because on
from the renter's perspective, you don't want to get hit
with a bill for a small little ding but like
from well even from a renter's like, imagine you're the
next rent right and like, as this happens over the
course of multiple rentals, multiple renters, you end up getting
a car that's all dinged up, Like that's not what
you're paying for when you rent a bran new vehicle.
So from a renter's point of view, it's it keeps
(26:43):
the standard high. But then also for hurts, they're you know,
they unload these vehicles after a couple of years and
when they go to auction these things off. If if
you've got a car that's all dinged up with nothing
to show for it, well you're gonna get a whole
lot less for it. But I will say one of
the other examples was like a drop out of water
was on the car and that was initially cited by
one of the customers. It was flagged to a customer
(27:05):
as a dent and they're like, no, man, that's some rain.
That was like, that's water, and they apologize, really, oh sorry,
Actually I don't even even know if they apologize. But
he didn't have to pay anything because of that. So
you've got to be careful if it's not ready for
prime time. Yet. That's another reason to maybe slow the
role when it comes to implementing some of this. But
it's just fascinating because how it is that a company
rolls something like this out has such an impact on
(27:28):
how a company's perceived, which then therefore has an impact
on the share price of that company if it's publicly traded,
or even if you want to work for it. There's
new research from Charter that links the financial health and
the stock market returns of a company to how it
is perceived by the workforce. So, for instance, when folks
want to work for a particular employer, it has many
(27:48):
benefits enhancing that specific brand, right, they're attracting there and
retaining talent. It's limiting turnover, which leads to even more
positive results for that company.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Yeah. That like, the actual hiring process and training of
new employees costs so much money that if there's a
high turnover, it's an expense exactly.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Yeah, and this then of course improves customer service and
gender's loyalty from customers. It's an upward spiral. Basically. It
just makes me think about all the different PR professionals
who are out there. If you are, if you know
somebody that has the work the title at work of
like chief Storyteller, Like all the PR folks are just
like fist pumping and just like so happy because they're like, yeah,
see what we do matters. Because truly, something like Hertz,
(28:30):
if they were to have rolled that out in a
very public way, they would have gotten lambasted. I mean
they they're getting called out on it already as it is,
but I've got to think that something like this is
a much easier thing to get past as opposed to
rolling this out as a new feature where they just
get ridiculed and made a fun of by the market.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Well, what you were just talking about too, with kind
of where people want to work and how that enhances
a brand. It makes me think that, like, if I
was out there looking for a job in the workforce,
instead of just looking for positions that were reflected what
I was interested in, I would be looking towards employers
who have a great reputation amongst their employees, and I
(29:10):
would be looking for positions at those companies that I
was interested in, absolutely, because like I want to work
for a company that treats people well, that offers great benefits,
where I could stay for a long time, instead of
just getting the position in the salary I was interested in,
because that I don't know, it might not be there
as long, it might not be as good of an experience.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Totally agree. Yeah, that's why these narratives though, are so important,
because it's almost like a self fulfilling prophecy. Yeah, if
you say that you believe in something, it attracts people
who then believe in that. A couple of brands come
to mind, but I'm not going to focus on them
at this point in time. Jo. Let's talk about hybrid work,
because I think this is an instance where we're going
to have to eat some crow. Remember we had an
episode called I think it was called hybrid work.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Is here to say that we're wrong sometimes?
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Oh yeah, and we're going to call ourselves out on it.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
I'm okay. Following on the sword here.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Hybrid work is no longer the norm, and worker leverage
is on the decline. More than half of the top
Fortune one hundred companies are requiring employees to be back
at the office full time. So I guess it's maybe
Fortune fifty companies. We got from the Fortune five hundred
to the one hundred to the fifty. But for folks
(30:19):
who got used to like a zero commute, basically if
they got used to having more flexible time, or maybe
even some of those folks even moved right, they're like, Oh,
location doesn't even matter.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
I'm moving out to the country because I don't have
that commute. And then the employer comes to knocking and says,
yes you do.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
They're like, oh, maybe I'll move to Boise, like Matt
was thinking, which is very short lived, which I'm so glad.
Oh my gosh, I'm so glad that was very short lived.
Of Course, it's nice to get paid, But is it
worth going back to this sort of old pre payan
pre COVID normalcy. There are certainly pros and cons to it.
I think there are more pros for younger workers who
are looking to show that they've got the initiative, they
(30:57):
got what it takes. They're trying to learn from their peers.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
That face time.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Yeah, but if your employer is pushing for some serious
back to office, you know, policies that you aren't okay with,
I would recommend to politely push back. See if this
is something that you can discuss. Is this the conversation
worth having? Hey, maybe this is maybe we can have
some sort of roundtable. This guy, I don't know, Like,
what's it called out there in the corporate world, Folks,
(31:21):
I'm lacking when it comes to the most latest experience
of what it's like to be in the corporate world.
That or despite the cooling labor market. I might even
be worth looking elsewhere if this is not something if
this if it has been very clearly communicated that this
isn't a conversation we're having anymore, because I still.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Think those flexible policies are gonna matter to workers and
for the best workers out there, for sure. And I
think that a lot of companies, Yeah, you can try
to go all draconian, but you will eventually have some
brain drain, and those people are gonna want to go
to companies that have a little more flexibility. I was
talking to a friend who just got a new job
at one of those big tech companies, and he was like, yeah,
(31:59):
I have to go in. I think I forget if
you said four or five days a week, but all
I have to do is like be there for a
little bit. So I think going in ten to two
or ten to three, and I'm avoiding traffic on both ends,
but I'm in the office, and so it's I'm giving
them what they want, but I'm kind of getting what
I want at the same time. And I do think
the companies are gonna have to be flexible.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Yeah, if you I think on both ends, yeah, right,
Like like for the employee. It's just like, all right, cool,
you're getting in there, you're having some of those face
to face meetings. Yeah, being a little bit more collaborative,
which is I think still easier without having to go
do it over zoom or teams or whatever.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
Yeah, and maybe you're doing something that in the morning,
a little bit of that when you get home, but
you're not at the office all day totally. Let's talk
about me some of the downsides of work from home.
There's this new work Trend Index report and they said
that one of the biggest downsides and this is something
I think we've seen spiral out of control, Matt. They're
calling it the infinite work day, And basically it was
a Microsoft report that found that workers are starting they're
(32:56):
looking at an email at six am, likely right after they
wake up, and then those workers are battling messages on
a ton of different fronts like Slack and Microsoft teams,
and then text messages and phone calls, so they feel
like they're getting inundated with requests or with coworker chatter
from every direction. Then also they're working into the evening
(33:17):
with a whole lot of folks. A high percentage of
people digging back into their inbox between eight and ten pm. Oh,
and then guess what. The weekends aren't free of work.
Either you're maybe expected to respond or you're at least
checking stuff trying to stay up on it even though
you're not supposed to be working. And then there's this
just the reality of work these days, where there's constant interruptions.
(33:39):
On average, every two minutes, you're being interrupted by a
pin from somewhere. And it makes me think of Cal Newport.
One of his first books was called Deep Work, and man,
how do you actually get deep work done when it
feels like, Okay, you're constantly playing whack a mole, right,
whether it's with messages or emails or you're just kind
of you never have that time to actually deeply focus
(33:59):
on a tack.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Yeah, what was the number? I think it was like
twenty three minutes. Once you are once you are distracted
from something, it takes you twenty three minutes to kind
of regain your focus to be able to hit that
deep work again. Yeah, which we love saying when we're
talking about distractions. But I'm also I don't know, I
don't know if I totally believe that twenty.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Three minutes like a long time lot. Sometimes your mind
wanders for a while. But I don't know, like I
get it.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
I could be I get distracted easily, but I guess
even if it's half of that, Like let's just say,
even if it's ten minutes, that's a lot of time
when you are getting distracted as often as oftentimes we are.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
And I think it's probably a good idea to have
some like non office hours during the day where if
you are working on a big project or you know,
some people like you mentioned pr people just a second ago, Matt,
A lot of those people like their job is to
constantly be in their inbox. So that's that's just a
different type of profession, right, But then there are other
professions where you're like, no, I have to work on
this project and I cannot be like emailing and slacking
(34:51):
while I'm trying to get that thing done, and you
carving out an hour in the afternoon and thirty minutes
in the morning or whatever, but carving out these specific
times where you're not responsible and kind of letting people
know that, whether it's an away from the desk message
or something like that on slack, letting your boss know Hey,
I'm going to be unreachable, but it's going to make
sure I'm able to meet the deadline. That's really important
(35:12):
to kind of set, I think, those expectations and allow
that time for yourself to do what you need to
do so that you can actually be productive and not
just be responding to whatever someone else tells you as
urgent in the moment.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
Yeah, you said it away from desk, obviously, away from
office makes it seem like you're not even on location.
Away from desk, it's just like, well, he's around, but
what's he even doing. Maybe he's over there playing ping pong.
I woul like to even call it like an away
from email or away from Slack sort of message, because
it's like, no, I'm sitting here, I'm working, I'm just
trying to do the important stuff. I just muted this
right now exactly like I'm sitting here. I'm We're all
part of this, but let's have some dedicated time to
(35:44):
the project at hand that we're trying to be able
to deliver in two weeks. Yeah, that sort of thing.
Or maybe you can just leave all the notifications on Joel,
but just put your plugs in. That's what I do
here in the office. Yeah, you've done it. How do
you feel when I put my ear plugs in? Because
sometimes I get even distracted by my coworkers are typing.
And when I say coworkers, everyone knows I'm talking about you.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
There's not many of them. That doesn't bother me. I think,
even something super simple, if I need something, I'll let
you know. Yeah, you can, like well, wave but I.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Can kind of hear you. But it's enough to kind
of blunt the sharp stimulus of messages. Other sounds like
folks who honestly folks who go in and work in
like a coffee shop. I don't know how they do that,
and maybe I'm just overly sensitive, but I like the vibe.
I like the scene of going and working somewhere where
there's a lot of people. But man, the distractions.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
I'd never get anything done.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
I would not. Well, I know why you wouldn't, because
you're talking to everybody. Yeah, I'm ignoring people, but then
I'm thinking about the fact that I've ignored them.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
But if I if I really have to dig in
and get something done, I'm usually taking like clicking out
of the email on my like you should put nothing
down so if I see the number popping up, I'm
tempted to go over there and get in, and I
get distracted pretty quickly, and.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
Then command Q on the on the mail ad.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
When do I actually get back to the task. Here
you go, you know, all right, Matt, that's going to
do it for this Friday flight. The show notes we
always live up on the way website at howtomoney dot com,
along with a bunch of other money saving information. But yeah,
we'll catch you back here on Monday for a fresh
ask how to Money episode. Until next time, best Friends Out,
Best Friends Out,
Hosts And Creators
Joel Larsgaard
Matthew Altmix
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