Time for a Friday Flight- our little sampling of the week’s best 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:
- Fancy, frugal, or cheap advent calendars
- Political money planning
- Wild “FI Number” Guesses
- Free electricity
- AI replacing jobs
- And the jobs it CAN’T replace
- Cash is cringe
- Time for the kids to pay rent
- Owning nothing and renting it all
- Instacart iniquity- how much more convenience is costing you
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Head of Money. I'm Joel, I'm Matt. Today
we're talking political money, planning, free electricity, and cash.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Who's cringe, you.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Know, buddy. This is our Friday flight.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
We're going to get to the top stories from this
past week. What's you gotta know here about advent calendars?
Did you recently get one? Well, so we got a
hand me down advent calendar this way, how.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Do you hand me down? I'll tell you. I will
tell you.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Gosh, so I'm gonna go ahead and decide ahead of time.
Cheap at all, not frugal. No, it's actually really cool
and the kids are loving it. So it's like a
right Harry Potter funk funko pop is that.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
What it's called.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
The they're like these plastic figurines of of all the
Harry Potter figures and they I think they do them
for all sorts of different genres like Marvel Universe and
stuff like that, and so like every day they get
a new little Harry Potter funkle pop. It was from
my father in law. He's like, oh, use this before
with like and so now my kids are using it
(01:14):
and they're loving it so and it's super reusable.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Man.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Well, I don't get it.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
The I the idea is that you break the perforated
paper and you unfold it and then you pull it
out and then you consume it. Normally, if that's food,
you eat it. But if it's a plaything, it means
you play with it. You can play with it. But
I guess they just keep the pieces and they kept
the piece of stick, stuck them back in.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Knucking back in. So funny, and we get it round
two maybe round two.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Well, I love it too. So it's a free fun
advot calendar. But the all right, fine, I will I've
changed my vertio sign back to okay, back to thank
you what kicked me? Well? Maybe when I like mention this.
I saw this article in Harper's about the like the
beauty Bizarre.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
I guess it's one of your go to no just
kind of randomly on it, okay, yeah, yeah. And it
was about super super fancy advent calendars that people are
using these days, where you get like makeup or jewelry
or perfume every day. There are some very very fancy ones.
Didn't realize that was a thing.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
This This raises the stakes because you got the what
is it the Costco? And folks have even written to
us about the Costco Wine Calendar and they're like, it's
so good. There's some really good wines in there. I
totally get that as a way to even samples till
it goes on clearance.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Yeah, we can enjoy that in the new year. Yeah,
you'll go on the twenty sixth and get the left over.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
There's a big, really big difference between your secondhand out
event Kellor, though, and some of these perfume ones that
are like hundreds of I've seen these before.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
I've heard folks talk about them. What do you think
about those? It seems ridiculous to me, But I agree.
I don't wear perfume mat so maybe that's I wear
a scent you want to hear my take? Sure.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
So there's two ways to think about it, or at
least the way I'm thinking about it, which is from
like a religious lens. Maybe I'll give you a unexpect
to take, which is from like a from a Christian lens.
I actually don't really mind, because I think a lot
of folks out there who are believers are gonna are
gonna say, oh my gosh, I can't believe, oh you
you actually aren't a real Christian blah blah blah.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
But like because you support perfumeiacounter, I don't think that's
the apostles creen anywhare.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Well, And what is the for the majority of Americans
out there? How much does Christmas actually have to do
with the birth of Christ?
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Very little?
Speaker 3 (03:27):
And like, I mean, come on, like the advent season
is all about anticipation and waiting for the birth of
Christ and the ultimate you know, like they do a
second coming at some point off in the future as well,
But how many Americans actually subscribe to that?
Speaker 1 (03:41):
For them?
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Christmas is just Christmas, trees, Santa the twenty fifth, the
holidays very super generic and.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
So from thing about and Easter bunnies.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Yeah, and so I guess from that standpoint, I don't
really care from a religious standpoint all that much. The
fact that it's you know, this holiday has been that
has been hijacked. And honestly, I do think that there
could be some good, like the more focused has brought
to the season, even if it's not like on the Mark,
I think can be good because I think it can
allow folks to be a bit more reflective, like you
(04:11):
are counting down days. Now what I expected you to say.
I know, see, I told you I've been thinking about
this recently. You're counting down the days, and just the
marking of time, I think is a good practice for folks.
That just puts them in touch with their waning days
here on earth, right like, And that is not something
that we often do as adults measuring time. So that
being said, from a personal finance standpoint, I totally hate
(04:34):
it because a lot of times it just it feels
so wasteful. Man, it feels so consumption based, it feels
so mindless, unless, for instance, you are You're like, oh
my gosh, this advent calendar, the perfume one has all
the sense, all the flavors, Oh this wine has all
these different brands or vineyards that I've been wanting to try.
(04:55):
And if you see it as a way to it's
like a giant sampler platter. Okay, I could see some
some benefit there, but I think it's the adults who
are latching on to the advant calendars that rubs me
the wrong. Like for kids, I'm like, okay, whatever, like
they it's fun, it's.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
A little treat, it's a little toy.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
They can have fun, but it's as grown ups kind
of latching onto this what feels a bit more like a.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Sort of juvenile thing. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
I don't want to like yack on anyone's yum, but
like that's the part that feels like there are less
serious adults in the world.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Over they're smiling. Do you do you agree? I mean,
I just I think these things get so expensive and
so self indulgent. It's self indulgence. I just I'm just
not something that I would want to partake in, and
I do see it as just another form of consumption
in a season that is so marked by it. So
I don't know, but maybe we'll get off our high
(05:50):
horses and move on give to the rest of the
Friday flight. If it's something that you're partaking in very intentionally,
more power to you.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
I think there are lots of different ways that we
can celebrate the holidays and bring some joy into our lives,
especially towards the end of the.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Year, for sure. All right, let's keep going, uh political conversations, Matt,
They are dominating financial planning conversations right now. This is
according to a recent survey of cfps, and half of
those cfps say that politics and policy fallout are essentially
unavoidable topics right now, that every time we're most of
(06:24):
the time when a client is coming into a meeting
with them, politics is at the forefront of the conversation,
or at least it's a meaningful part of it. I
think in some ways that's understandable, right, Like, we've had
meaningful changes policy changes in recent years that don't just
impact our spending and savings rates, they can have a
real impact on our tax rate, which account we choose
(06:46):
to invest in, even new counts being brought to bear,
right like the Trump accounts that we talked about last week,
whether or not we take the standard deduction, Like, these
are all really big things, and political moves is essentially
have essentially made them a necessary part of the conversation.
And that's part of the reason that the Friday flight exists, right, Like,
(07:07):
those conversations matter and they really do impact how we
proceed on our wealth building journey. That's why we talk about, Hey,
what's going on in the news right now and how
does it impact you? Because it, Yeah, there are regularly
things that come about in uh from a political and
policy perspective that will touch your finances. But I also
think it's important to note that focusing too much on
(07:30):
politics or fixating on potential changes in government or policy
can also leave us feeling stuck. And it leaves a
lot of people doing things that are in their own
worst interest.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
Yeah, as they're overly fixating on like the more speculative
news as opposed to the actual changes.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Or even just saying like, oh my party, that one
that I support didn't get elected, maybe I should. That's
that's the worst way to interpret any sort of political
d's like from a policy stay going downhill now.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
So yeah, yeah, you are definitely going to shoe yourself
on the foot of history. That's just like never the case. Yeah,
I think you can make minor pivots, but also consider
tuning out just the bonkers and the problematic news cycle.
And most folks are according to Pew. My favorite part
there's a survey that they conducted in My favorite part
of the survey was that most people they have an
optimistic outlook about their ability to achieve the goals that
(08:20):
they have in the coming year. This is one of
those instances again where it's just like everything's going to
hell in a hand basket. But I think I'm gonna
be okay next year.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
These folks, they've rightly identified that they should be investing
like an optimist. The pessimists are their own worst enemy.
Another story we saw was about, as we're talking about
investing here, Joel, it was about women who were guessing
about how much they're going to need in retirement. And
this is I think that was the headline just to
(08:48):
catch the eyeballs. But let's be honest, everyone does this.
Men do this too, so we're gonna speak to both.
It's really hard to perfectly know how much you should
be aiming to amass in your nest egg in your
retirement account. We don't know what the market's going to do.
We don't know how our lives are going to end
up unfolding. We don't we don't know how long we're
going to live. Right, There's a big difference in what
your investments and maybe specifically you're spending. What that might
(09:11):
look like if you were if you knew you were
only going to live to age seventy five as opposed
to age ninety five, So I would I would say
fixate less on the number that you're you're aiming for,
and just more like.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Two million or one point five million headline number.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
And more on what you can control and I and
just knowing that you've got some sort of flexibility when
it comes to retirement.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
You're not locked. That's the thing.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Any as you are looking off to the future anything
that like you are picturing just what a typical year
might look like from a spending standpoint, But whatever it
is that you're identifying, it's not going to be that
year in and year out. It's going to be very dynamic.
There's gonna be up, so there's going to be downs.
And I think the I don't know, the more comfortable
this is something maybe I'm speaking from my personal experience,
(09:56):
but the more comfortable I get with knowing that life
might li look very different in the future, I don't know.
It just puts me at ease knowing that, like we've
got the ability to pivot a little bit, to change
our expectations, and that it's not going to lead to
the end.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Of our personal world.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Yeah, yep, I agreed.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
What if electricity were free, you'd like that when people
would uh over consume it. That's true that it's true
when you make it good ridiculous to cheap, then people
are gonna But and now that electricity has gotten more expensive,
I wonder if people are dialing back their usage because
and they're being more thoughtful about like where they set
the thermostat, and especially this winter, like putting on some
extra extra clothes.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
So that's what I'm telling my kids right now. It's frustrating.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
You know.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Our latest hack quote unquote hack is that we so
we keep the heat upstairs where we sleep set to sixty,
which is pretty chilly as quite a lot of folks,
but we all, every one of us loves it to
be cooler at night. And then I'll crank it up
this This indicates too that I've got this manual, dumb
thermostat and I can't wait to replace it in the
(10:58):
coming year. With the state energy tax credit where they
make it superfortable, you can only do two a year,
so I replaced two last year, going to replace the
third this coming year. Just a heads up for everybody
on my personal plans when it comes her h back.
But I will crank it up in the morning. That way,
it's not brutally painful. As you know, everyone's getting ready
for school. Getting ready to start their day. But then
I crank it back down to sixty degrees. That being
(11:20):
said that, I see something very similar. Our biggest pain
point is getting in and out of the shower. Kate
especially hates it.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
She like, she's like, I don't like getting out of
the shower.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
It is pretty good freezing. So I remembered that we
had some radiator radiator style electric heaters in our storage
shed out out back. So I want to grab that
bad boy. Yeah, dusted it off, and I was like,
talked about that not long ago. The space heater's baby.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
That's right. Well, it was in the back of my
mind still, I guess brought it in. Crank that thing up.
And now anytime she by the time she gets out
of the shower, it's nice and toasty in there.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Feels good.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Man, here you go.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
We don't need the heat the entire house just when
we're getting out of the shower.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Yeah. Well, if electric here, we're free year back to electricity,
people would people would use a lot of it. Well,
this author Leah Stokes, she recently proposed in the Atlantic
that maybe electricity should be free and basically her proposal
was that electricity should be cheaper, if not completely free,
just in the middle of the day, right because like
maybe like noon to two or something like that. Why well,
(12:21):
she says, because the grid is more overloaded at night,
and it would bring down costs of nighttime demand. People
woul demand less electricity in the evening if they did
use their electricity more during the day, right, So, and
the only way really to do this is to strongly
incentivize people to use those electric heavy electricity heavy appliances
when there's less demand. Some places like San Diego are
(12:43):
trying this. Some electric companies have kind of taken the
carrot and the stick approach. You can opt for a
plan with a lower rate during off peak hours and
higher ones during peak hours. So you're kind of like
spreading that window of how much you can you pay
on acy can be dirt cheap at certain parts of
the day and even more expensive than it normally is
(13:04):
it other parts. They to incentivize you to use that
electricity at the time that's most convenient for the power company,
right yeah. Yeah, that reduces the strain on the grid,
that's right. Yeah. And so similar to tracking our expenses,
we're all more likely to make a change if we're
aware of our usage, and we're incentivized positively and negatively
to act differently. The less energy we use, less infrastructure
(13:26):
that's needed, which would lower our costs. Makes me think, Matt,
we have a listeners who have like electric cars, and
they've written in about the power plan that they're on.
They save a ton of money by being really thoughtful
about the plan they pick and then being incredibly thoughtful
as well about when they're using electricity, whether it's dish washer,
washer dry or stuff like that, and when they're charging
(13:46):
their cars. And it's not just for people with evs
like these players exist seak hours super off peak. You've
got to be willing to change your habits their habits
a little bit. Yeah, yeah, I do.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
I wouldn't be surprised that some folks who are like, well,
that's great here, but sorry, I've got a job, so
I can't do laundry in the middle of the day,
I can't do all my cooking and the way I
robot It's what I would say to that, But I mean,
what I would say to that truly is that like, well, yeah,
like you have to introduce the incentives and create the
systems that help to reduce the strain on a system,
(14:18):
right that, Like, wherever there's stress because of the fact
that it's a limited resource, you do what you can to,
like you said, sort of spread out that consumption and
you get to a certain point, Like if it was free,
I bet there would be some folks would consider, like
you know what, like between childcare and taxes, just everything else,
the part time job is looking a little bit less attractive.
We could nix that bill. Oh also slight bonus. We're
(14:41):
paying basically nothing for electricity during the day. These are
pros and cons right, and you have to weigh the expense.
You have to weigh the trade offs between what it
is that seems like the same dunk decision, which is
working to make more money versus Oh, maybe there are
some other ways here that we can save a whole
lot of money that would render that potential job and
if less effective.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
I'd love to see more of this though. I think
there's so many ways that we can incentivize people to
do the to change their behavior. Like I remember seeing
the study from Great Britain back in the day, and
when people were just aware of how much it was
costing them. Let's say to boil their tea, like to
boil boil water to make tea. They were just more
(15:22):
thoughtful about when and how they did it, and when
electricity costs less, like they were like, oh yeah, mamma,
have my tea then, and I just people will make
those decisions. It's when it's opaque how much it's costing.
You just get your bill at the end of the
month and you're like, ah, it's expensive. Budget billing or
what's it call it? When well, budget billing is the
way to make it feel less like that where you
(15:45):
are essentially immune to your cons insulate you. Yeah, even
I don't right. We want the opposite so that you're
even more aware so you can make the changes to
save yourself money.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Instead of budget building was called it like acute consumption budgeting,
like where you really feel the like, oh I want
them to be a similar electrode. When we turn something onwards,
it's like, oh, oh yeah, that is costing us some money.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
I think.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Yeah. Zapping people into the right behavior is the way
to go.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
Electrotherapy. Yeah, it's always worked. Let's talk about the job markets.
A lot of us have seen that it is cooled,
if not frozen as of late, and well, the reasons
for that are pretty complex, but AI is certainly one
of those reasons. And there's a new study from MIT
that finds that AI is currently essentially it has the
(16:28):
capacity to replace almost twelve percent of the workforce. Actually
it's eleven point seven to be exact. And it's based
on something called the Iceberg Index, which is this forward
looking index that's attempting to forecast how AI is going
to impact the job market. And you know, the study
is not saying that we should expect mass layoffs any
(16:50):
day now, but it is saying that AI has the
capabilities to do.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Even more now.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
And I think a lot of its capabilities are only
now being discovers as folks are discovering applications for it.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Trying to integrate it into the workforce, Like it's just
happening more and more.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
Yeah, their typical sort of work day. And so this
doesn't mean that folks should be shaken in their boots,
but I do think we should continue to pay attention
to our network and to growing our skills in order
to thrive in an economy that's going to be more
AI dependent and to get super meta with it. Joel
I wonder if listeners have noticed that, like all the
(17:28):
you're not real anymore, this is all AI super accurate. No,
the fact that I heart the little stinger at the
beginning of the podcast. Now it says guaranteed human, which
is like the most dystopian, crazy y five thing that
I think has happened.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Yet.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
You know, like we all wanted flying cars in the future,
and we didn't really get flying cars because not yet.
I don't think we're ever going to have flying cars
because they're gonna be too noisy. Like think about how
loud little drones are. Nobody likes that sound, so flying
cars will never be at least self driving cars. I'll
take that. Self driving is that is the future. But
instead of getting flying cars, instead we got AI chatbots, yeah,
(18:10):
that we all get to listen to or interact with.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
And some of which we get to fall in love with.
If we're so inclined, I would avoid it. If how
were you wouldn't do that, Okay, But friend of the
show Allison Schreger Matt she actually tended to disagree with
this study, and I really liked her take. She wrote
that AI is going to cause a shortage actually of
skilled workers and then much of the population isn't really
able to make the most of this technology. I think,
(18:35):
when it comes down to it, at least in its
current iteration, AI can be a solid tool, but like
we've been saying, like it's not a great replacement for
humans who have wisdom and judgment. There's still a lot
of AI hallucination, there's a lot of inaccurate information, and
I just think critical thinking might be the most needed
skill right now out there in the workforce. Total communication,
(18:58):
great writing skills. You're like, oh, chuchud do the writing
for me? Well, no it can't. Well you can. It
might be somebody you're writing.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
It can do the writing for you, but are you
writing about the right thing? And that's up to you
to decide whether or not you are even in the
right direction.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Even still, like when you read somebody who's a great writer,
like a, I can't match that. It just can't from
what I've seen. Maybe maybe someday, not yet, not yet.
And I think maybe what it boils down to is
that AI can do a lot of tasks, but it
can't do a job. So maybe AI proficiency or feeling
(19:32):
like depending on what you do, knowing how to use
it in the context of your work can help you
get ahead or at least be less redundant knowing how
to use AI effectively. But AI coming for jobs, I
think there's less truth to that than maybe some of
the headlines want us to think. Yeah, I totally agree, Joey.
We've got more to get to.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
We're going to talk about how gen Z, how they
essentially want to rent everything own nothing. We'll get to
that more after this.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Our we're back. It's time to get to the ludicrous
headline of the week. This one comes from Business Insiders.
I'm actually excited about.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
I feel like we've got a bunch of ludicrous stories
here in the second Yeah, in the second half.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Some of these really could have There could be multiplets,
So yeah, get ready to hold on to your hast
the seat of your pants. Here. The Business Insider article
is titled for gen Z, cash isn't king, It's a joke.
And when you look at the stats, of course, cast
you to cash usage has been on the decline for years.
(20:40):
I think it's used now for just something like ten
percent of overall transactions, maybe a little bit more than that.
So cash is no longer the norm.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
I don't know, Matt.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
I was talking with somebody about this the other day.
I just don't like coins jingling around in my pocket,
even if it's a small purchase. I'm like, thirty two cents, Well, gosh,
that's like two pennies and a nickel and a horner,
and I'm just I hate that stuff jingling around. So
it's probably one of the most annoying things. Part of
the reason I stay away from cash.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Even after that conversation we had with Jazy Gorski back
in episode nine ninety five where he was trying to
convince us to use cash, I just right done it,
old jay Z, I've done it, maybe a little bit more,
but not as much as he would like. I haven't
increased money cash cash usage at all. Really, Yeah, I feel.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Bad because, yeah, for all the reasons that he said
it's important for us to occasionally use it.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Yeah, well, I keep some cash on hand always because
you just never know. And also like, uh, we still
I don't go to restaurants with like valets often have,
but I would just recently and I was like, oh man,
I'm so glad I have some cash. Where'd you go?
Speaker 2 (21:37):
You went to some.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
In town restaurants. Oh, I know what you're talking about
is going to close.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Oh otherwise Oh yeah, that place always always has had
a valet.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Yeah, and it's closing and we're like, we got to
go before it's gone. Pouring out a lot of good
memories there. Okay, but gen Z years, because cash is
no longer the norm cash having cash has kind of
created these weird for them. Previous generations of non digital natives,
they struggled with controlling credit card usage right, digitally spending
(22:08):
and reconciling those transactions, and that was the odd new thing.
But now the opposite is true. For younger folks. Gen
Zers consistently report that cash feels like it doesn't exist,
and they use it like fun money and like cash
is still tangible though, right, and it can either help
or hurt your progress that you're making towards your financial goals.
(22:29):
And so to use cash or credit card, to use
any form of money that comes into your life as
willy nilly, because it's like fake, it's not it doesn't
feel real. It doesn't make sense to me. I get
the propensity, but I just don't think it's wise. It's
totally fine, I think to use cash that you get
for like a birthday or for the holidays to splurch.
But if you treat all physical money as though it's
(22:50):
not real, it's gonna have consequences. That's right.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Yeah, cash is in fact real, and I think some
of those habits could even bleed into like how it
is that use credit card, how you use your your
digital dollars. I think one solution is to maybe put
all of your cash into an envelope to help you
to save for just a bigger expense, like a vacation. Right,
Like you got a jar, pretty big jar, and you're
throwing change, you're throwing bills in there. But Joe, speaking
(23:15):
of young people, this is the story.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
I was actually like that idea. By the way, can
I just say, having the envelope and then you're like,
instead of frittering it away, you're putting it towards something bigger,
fake money, towards a real thing that you want to accomplish.
That's a big one.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
Yeah, totally, Okay, So this is this the story I
was excited about. I wanted to mention how young people
we're talking about gen z, adult kids paying rent and
maybe this shouldn't have surprised me. But apparently sixty percent
of kids don't contribute a dime towards their household expenses.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
And not not just like kids, but adult chill exactly
because your kids don't contribute, but they they don't.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
But guess what things are going to change when they
are they are adults. And I'm not even kidding this
is a conversation. I mean basically, then the story talked
about how parents are financially harmed because they're like, oh
my gosh, I'm barely able to send money aside from
my own retirement. In addition to that, like, what are
you teaching your kids?
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Right?
Speaker 3 (24:07):
You're teaching that, oh, we're always going to be there
for you, and yes, you should always be there for them,
but how are you also equipping them to be real
adults out Oh my gosh. This kind of goes back
to the whole advent sort of adult advent. Counter is
a little bit like, teach them to be functioning, contributing
members of society. And I think you're there's a potential
there's a possibility for them to not learn that lesson
(24:29):
if they aren't having to chip in at all when
it comes to groceries or cleaning the house or paying
and not even talking about market rent, but just something
to where they've got some skin in the game. And
this is something that I'm gonna give my parents mad credit.
This is a conversation that we started having when I
was like thirteen years old, where my dad was just like,
(24:50):
guess what, once you graduate high school, you're gonna start
if you want to live here, you're gonna start paying rent.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
What if he was like, when you're fifteen, five hundred
bucks a.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
Month, I think that would have been not fair because
I'm like, why did you bring me into this world?
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Dad?
Speaker 1 (25:02):
But could have created some strife And guess what, like, let's.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
Be honest, our parents don't always get everything right. Like
we shouldn't just like blindly adopt the parenting methods that
I think are your parents employed. Perhaps you should think
critically about it. But and this is one that I
thought about and I thought, oh my gosh, that was
such a great way to get me thinking about it.
Because my parents wanted to make sure that I successfully
launched out into the world. And if I was hanging
(25:26):
out because I was incentivized to you because I had
a free place to stay and Mom's cooking and oh,
she's also doing my laundry.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
They saw that Matthew McConaughey movie, and they were like,
we don't want our son to be like that.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
He's not gonna fail to launch. And this is literally
a conversation I've had now with my twelve year old,
not like as a threat, but just something that we've
talked about of like, hey, you know, once you're an adult,
once you are eighteen years old, if you're sticking around,
you're going to contribute to the household expenses. And when
you start having these conversations early on, it's gonna be better.
(25:55):
It's gonna be better for your relationship. They're gonna be able
to start thinking about how, oh have things figured out?
Speaker 1 (26:01):
I need to have a plan. Guess what. I didn't
have a great plan, but I had something in mind
and I was able to And you also knew if
you come back in what you what was gonna happen.
You knew the consequence is the reality of that, like
you're gonna have to pay money exactly, so, like you're
gonna have to do something. Yeah, I think, yeah, I
matt You're right. Like that in particular was revelatory to me.
The fact that like parents are at this point with
(26:22):
their adult children and they're like, I don't know what
to do because they're not contributing and it's costing. It's
costing me money, and I feel like I can't achieve
the goals I need to achieve. And I think you're
spot on. It starts earlier you have earlier, the better
you have to have those combos along the way because
they can't you just like move back and then be
like you need I think you just pay something, and
(26:42):
they're like, what are you talking about, Like it's it's
just tougher to have that conversation later on down the line.
You got to be and you're not gonna mean a
harsh about it. Sit your eight year old down and
be like you're gonna be a productive economic unit here
in the next five years. Okay, son doesn't doesn't need
to go down like that doesn't need but it does
lead to just better conversation, Like because of that, Like
that's what led to conversations about college and scholarships and
(27:04):
getting a job and and all of this. It's like
I just.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Even think about it from the standpoint as a parent,
like how are you equipping your kids? What potentials do
they have that they're not even able to tap into
because they're not being pushed at all to pursue something.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
Hundred percent Okay. On the note of renting, another Business
Insider article we saw which was awesome, was talking about
young folks wanting to rent everything, and so, yeah, not
just like you love renting, Joel. I hear you say
that a lot. You say, you say, don't buy a
house renting it. Very accused of that, haven't we, And
I'm four. I am more for renting than a lot
(27:43):
of things. Even then, maybe I used to be like it.
It doesn't always make sense to buy stuff, like whether
you can borrow or rent, it might make more sense
depending on what we're talking about, and especially when we're
talking about housing. We've talked about that a lot, so
maybe we'll skip talking about that. But I'm talking about
renting clothes and baby gear and camping equipment like that's
that's what gen Z's like. I'm not going to buy
(28:03):
that stuff. I'm going to rent it. And there's no
one size fits all answer to whether buying or renting
is better on some of those consumer goods. I think
you know, it's so much depend like how frequently am
I going to use that item? Or is it a
one and done sort of thing, Like if you're not
going to use it again, a formal dress or a tuxedo,
rent that puppy. Yeah, it's expensive to rent, but it's
(28:23):
more expensive to buy and than never use it again.
How much money do you stand to say save? That's
a I think an important question when you're talking about
buying versus renting. If renting isn't going to save you
at least fifty percent, buying is probably a better choice. Also,
like borrowing, could you borrow something instead? Like renting is
one of those things where all of these companies have
(28:44):
come into the space to try to say come like
get it from us, and well, you know you'll be
able to You don't have to pay full freight, you
can send it back, but it's still expensive to use
some of these new fangled services. And can you borrow
that fancy dress from a friend and instead of or
a tuxedo? Like, I don't know, maybe it's not going
to look quite as cut and perfect on you. I
(29:05):
don't know. I'm not sure, but we did, Like Emily
rented a fancy dress from a site called newly and
it was it was great, But also looking back, I'm
like that that was an expensive experience. I get why
you might use it sometimes, but I also wouldn't want to,
like use it frequently. Yeah, it's one of those things
(29:26):
where you can do it every single month, and some
people do get new close shipped to their doorstep every
single month. That seems excessive.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
Yeah, it's a there's a trade off there, right, Like
it's the value cost trade off, which actually leads us
to my favorite story of this entire Freday Flight Groundwork
Collective and Consumer Reports looked into Instacart's algorithmic pricing model.
Some of you you've probably heard about this what they felt.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Just like yesterday.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
So it's pretty new.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
The pricing. It's not just dynamic, it's seemingly random. And
so even when shoppers opt for the same item from
the same store at the the literal same time, the
price can vary pretty meaningfully. So eggs might cost one
person like three ninety nine, and it's gonna cost the
other person four dollars and sixty nine cents.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
So basically, one of our listeners in South Carolina or
California and or or in US here where we are,
same time, same story, yep store, different computers, different prices,
different prices. Yeah, yeah, you talk about the same I
guess maybe it makes sense from different locations, right, Oh,
you're in Nevada and eggs cost more there for some
(30:33):
reason whatever. But like even close locations, like just to
cross in the same city, you're getting different prices.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
I guess.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
The big reason I'm just excited that this broke is
because it's calling into light some of Instacart's the somewhat
opaque way that they're doing business, which we're all about
price transparency. And I can't believe that we haven't talked
about this, Joel, because this is something I learned last month.
At the beginning of the last month, we started using
Instacart a little bit specifically because we've got one car,
(31:00):
and it's just like, gosh, okay, this one person can't
pick up this also run to the store, also make
this happen. Got a lot of competing goals, and so
the way I thought about.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
It was like it was cheaper to get another car.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
It was not cheaper to purchase another vehicle. So we said, hey, well,
let's this is a great instance to use Instacart, but
then you get used to using it, right, and you're
just kind of without even thinking about, oh, let's see
the instacard again, let's do it again. Until we ordered
some groceries. The guy, the instacart worker dropped him off
and he left the Aldi receipt in the bags, and
(31:32):
nobody else has ever done that before. And you got
to compare. So I compared the price of the actual
goods where I or Kate to run in and have
made that purchase versus what we paid Instacart, and what
the receipts that said was one hundred and seventy five
dollars the Instacart order or you know, like what was
(31:53):
all said and done with all the fees two hundred
and sixty one dollars. It was fifty percent more expensive.
And we have not used Instacart since because I could
not get over how much more expensive it was.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Dude.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
Yeah, I was like I spent the whole weekend, Like
Kate and I we're just like looking at each other,
like shaking our heads because for my minute there we're
using it pretty solidly. Just you know, you kind of
get used to the luxury of it. It's incredibly convenient,
but just know that obviously you know that you're paying
more for it, but you kind of turn a blind
eye to it and thinking, oh, it's worth it, Oh,
(32:31):
we can afford it. But dude, facing the hard facts
the numbers made me realize that it's not that I'm
never going to use it again. If again we are
independently and I can't get out there because Kate's doing
this other event and we still are rocking the one
car family thing. Okay, it will place the instacart order,
because yes, for us, that's one of the solutions to
(32:52):
not having a second vehicle. But oh my gosh, the
scales fell from my eyes.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
I saw the light. Well, I think this was I
think this was revelatory from that, like we are starting
to see one the price is not the price anymore online,
like it's just constantly moving, but it's not just dynamic.
It's becoming individualized. And Instacart is probably what it seems like,
is running tests to be like, well, does Sheila in
Denver does she care if eggs are four dollars or
(33:19):
if they're four dollars and fifty cents, like there's still
within this range or she's probably not gonna baton eye,
so let's go and charge her more. And I think
this is just going to happen more and more, and
we as consumers have to be more wary, and that
means going into the supermarket more regularly so that we
understand what the prices are and whether or not the
prices are getting from the online service that we're using
(33:40):
is within reason or not, because I get that it
is a convenience play and in some ways, in some ways, man,
I think using something like instacart can potentially save you
money if you're an impulse buyer, Like if you're going
in there and you're hungry, and like I think about
even just going into the grocery list. Yeah, going into Costco,
there's like the treasure hunt mentality and maybe you like
(34:01):
put all these other things in your cart that you
otherwise wouldn't have purchased, Like there is there's real downside
to that. But yeah, this is this is very interesting
to see and you have to be really careful, Like
it can be a time and money saver, but ultimately,
if you're not paying attention, it could cost you a lot.
It was so revelatory for us. Yeah, I feel like
(34:21):
I want to be the kind of individual who could
still go on the price is right with the host
Drew Carey and kind of know what things cost on average.
You got to be a man of the people man.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
Yeah, like you gotta set Yeah, it's just it puts
you in touch with reality actually going to the grocery store,
and if people are complaining to that, like the affordability
is going down. I think from now on, my first
question is going to be like, yeah, do you actually
get in the grocery store yourself or are you getting
those groceries delivered? Because if so, I now understand. I
was upset.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
I was pissed when I saw how much we had
been paying. And if you think inflation is impacting your groceries,
start using instacart and you'll see it happen even more.
I think will become more desensitized to price increases using
a service like this on the rag and so you just, yeah,
be aware, know that this is happening. And we'll post
a link to this and some of the other stories
(35:10):
we mentioned in the show notes. But this is one
of those where you're like, Okay, it makes me think
twice about using this service.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Just on repeat.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
That's right, but buddy, that's gonna be it for this
Friday flight. Listeners can find our show notes up on
the website at howtomoney dot com. That's where you will
find our newsletters signed up, as well as our favorite
credit cards how toomoney dot com.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
No doubt, al right, buddy, Until next time, Best friends out,
Best Friends Out,
Welcome to Head of Money. I'm Joel, I'm Matt. Today
we're talking political money, planning, free electricity, and cash.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Who's cringe, you.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Know, buddy. This is our Friday flight.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
We're going to get to the top stories from this
past week. What's you gotta know here about advent calendars?
Did you recently get one? Well, so we got a
hand me down advent calendar this way, how.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Do you hand me down? I'll tell you. I will
tell you.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Gosh, so I'm gonna go ahead and decide ahead of time.
Cheap at all, not frugal. No, it's actually really cool
and the kids are loving it. So it's like a
right Harry Potter funk funko pop is that.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
What it's called.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
The they're like these plastic figurines of of all the
Harry Potter figures and they I think they do them
for all sorts of different genres like Marvel Universe and
stuff like that, and so like every day they get
a new little Harry Potter funkle pop. It was from
my father in law. He's like, oh, use this before
with like and so now my kids are using it
(01:14):
and they're loving it so and it's super reusable.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Man.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Well, I don't get it.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
The I the idea is that you break the perforated
paper and you unfold it and then you pull it
out and then you consume it. Normally, if that's food,
you eat it. But if it's a plaything, it means
you play with it. You can play with it. But
I guess they just keep the pieces and they kept
the piece of stick, stuck them back in.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Knucking back in. So funny, and we get it round
two maybe round two.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Well, I love it too. So it's a free fun
advot calendar. But the all right, fine, I will I've
changed my vertio sign back to okay, back to thank
you what kicked me? Well? Maybe when I like mention this.
I saw this article in Harper's about the like the
beauty Bizarre.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
I guess it's one of your go to no just
kind of randomly on it, okay, yeah, yeah. And it
was about super super fancy advent calendars that people are
using these days, where you get like makeup or jewelry
or perfume every day. There are some very very fancy ones.
Didn't realize that was a thing.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
This This raises the stakes because you got the what
is it the Costco? And folks have even written to
us about the Costco Wine Calendar and they're like, it's
so good. There's some really good wines in there. I
totally get that as a way to even samples till
it goes on clearance.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Yeah, we can enjoy that in the new year. Yeah,
you'll go on the twenty sixth and get the left over.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
There's a big, really big difference between your secondhand out
event Kellor, though, and some of these perfume ones that
are like hundreds of I've seen these before.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
I've heard folks talk about them. What do you think
about those? It seems ridiculous to me, But I agree.
I don't wear perfume mat so maybe that's I wear
a scent you want to hear my take? Sure.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
So there's two ways to think about it, or at
least the way I'm thinking about it, which is from
like a religious lens. Maybe I'll give you a unexpect
to take, which is from like a from a Christian lens.
I actually don't really mind, because I think a lot
of folks out there who are believers are gonna are
gonna say, oh my gosh, I can't believe, oh you
you actually aren't a real Christian blah blah blah.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
But like because you support perfumeiacounter, I don't think that's
the apostles creen anywhare.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Well, And what is the for the majority of Americans
out there? How much does Christmas actually have to do
with the birth of Christ?
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Very little?
Speaker 3 (03:27):
And like, I mean, come on, like the advent season
is all about anticipation and waiting for the birth of
Christ and the ultimate you know, like they do a
second coming at some point off in the future as well,
But how many Americans actually subscribe to that?
Speaker 1 (03:41):
For them?
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Christmas is just Christmas, trees, Santa the twenty fifth, the
holidays very super generic and.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
So from thing about and Easter bunnies.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Yeah, and so I guess from that standpoint, I don't
really care from a religious standpoint all that much. The
fact that it's you know, this holiday has been that
has been hijacked. And honestly, I do think that there
could be some good, like the more focused has brought
to the season, even if it's not like on the Mark,
I think can be good because I think it can
allow folks to be a bit more reflective, like you
(04:11):
are counting down days. Now what I expected you to say.
I know, see, I told you I've been thinking about
this recently. You're counting down the days, and just the
marking of time, I think is a good practice for folks.
That just puts them in touch with their waning days
here on earth, right like, And that is not something
that we often do as adults measuring time. So that
being said, from a personal finance standpoint, I totally hate
(04:34):
it because a lot of times it just it feels
so wasteful. Man, it feels so consumption based, it feels
so mindless, unless, for instance, you are You're like, oh
my gosh, this advent calendar, the perfume one has all
the sense, all the flavors, Oh this wine has all
these different brands or vineyards that I've been wanting to try.
(04:55):
And if you see it as a way to it's
like a giant sampler platter. Okay, I could see some
some benefit there, but I think it's the adults who
are latching on to the advant calendars that rubs me
the wrong. Like for kids, I'm like, okay, whatever, like
they it's fun, it's.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
A little treat, it's a little toy.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
They can have fun, but it's as grown ups kind
of latching onto this what feels a bit more like a.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Sort of juvenile thing. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
I don't want to like yack on anyone's yum, but
like that's the part that feels like there are less
serious adults in the world.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Over they're smiling. Do you do you agree? I mean,
I just I think these things get so expensive and
so self indulgent. It's self indulgence. I just I'm just
not something that I would want to partake in, and
I do see it as just another form of consumption
in a season that is so marked by it. So
I don't know, but maybe we'll get off our high
(05:50):
horses and move on give to the rest of the
Friday flight. If it's something that you're partaking in very intentionally,
more power to you.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
I think there are lots of different ways that we
can celebrate the holidays and bring some joy into our lives,
especially towards the end of the.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Year, for sure. All right, let's keep going, uh political conversations, Matt,
They are dominating financial planning conversations right now. This is
according to a recent survey of cfps, and half of
those cfps say that politics and policy fallout are essentially
unavoidable topics right now, that every time we're most of
(06:24):
the time when a client is coming into a meeting
with them, politics is at the forefront of the conversation,
or at least it's a meaningful part of it. I
think in some ways that's understandable, right, Like, we've had
meaningful changes policy changes in recent years that don't just
impact our spending and savings rates, they can have a
real impact on our tax rate, which account we choose
(06:46):
to invest in, even new counts being brought to bear,
right like the Trump accounts that we talked about last week,
whether or not we take the standard deduction, Like, these
are all really big things, and political moves is essentially
have essentially made them a necessary part of the conversation.
And that's part of the reason that the Friday flight exists, right, Like,
(07:07):
those conversations matter and they really do impact how we
proceed on our wealth building journey. That's why we talk about, Hey,
what's going on in the news right now and how
does it impact you? Because it, Yeah, there are regularly
things that come about in uh from a political and
policy perspective that will touch your finances. But I also
think it's important to note that focusing too much on
(07:30):
politics or fixating on potential changes in government or policy
can also leave us feeling stuck. And it leaves a
lot of people doing things that are in their own
worst interest.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
Yeah, as they're overly fixating on like the more speculative
news as opposed to the actual changes.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Or even just saying like, oh my party, that one
that I support didn't get elected, maybe I should. That's
that's the worst way to interpret any sort of political
d's like from a policy stay going downhill now.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
So yeah, yeah, you are definitely going to shoe yourself
on the foot of history. That's just like never the case. Yeah,
I think you can make minor pivots, but also consider
tuning out just the bonkers and the problematic news cycle.
And most folks are according to Pew. My favorite part
there's a survey that they conducted in My favorite part
of the survey was that most people they have an
optimistic outlook about their ability to achieve the goals that
(08:20):
they have in the coming year. This is one of
those instances again where it's just like everything's going to
hell in a hand basket. But I think I'm gonna
be okay next year.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
These folks, they've rightly identified that they should be investing
like an optimist. The pessimists are their own worst enemy.
Another story we saw was about, as we're talking about
investing here, Joel, it was about women who were guessing
about how much they're going to need in retirement. And
this is I think that was the headline just to
(08:48):
catch the eyeballs. But let's be honest, everyone does this.
Men do this too, so we're gonna speak to both.
It's really hard to perfectly know how much you should
be aiming to amass in your nest egg in your
retirement account. We don't know what the market's going to do.
We don't know how our lives are going to end
up unfolding. We don't we don't know how long we're
going to live. Right, There's a big difference in what
your investments and maybe specifically you're spending. What that might
(09:11):
look like if you were if you knew you were
only going to live to age seventy five as opposed
to age ninety five, So I would I would say
fixate less on the number that you're you're aiming for,
and just more like.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Two million or one point five million headline number.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
And more on what you can control and I and
just knowing that you've got some sort of flexibility when
it comes to retirement.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
You're not locked. That's the thing.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Any as you are looking off to the future anything
that like you are picturing just what a typical year
might look like from a spending standpoint, But whatever it
is that you're identifying, it's not going to be that
year in and year out. It's going to be very dynamic.
There's gonna be up, so there's going to be downs.
And I think the I don't know, the more comfortable
this is something maybe I'm speaking from my personal experience,
(09:56):
but the more comfortable I get with knowing that life
might li look very different in the future, I don't know.
It just puts me at ease knowing that, like we've
got the ability to pivot a little bit, to change
our expectations, and that it's not going to lead to
the end.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Of our personal world.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Yeah, yep, I agreed.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
What if electricity were free, you'd like that when people
would uh over consume it. That's true that it's true
when you make it good ridiculous to cheap, then people
are gonna But and now that electricity has gotten more expensive,
I wonder if people are dialing back their usage because
and they're being more thoughtful about like where they set
the thermostat, and especially this winter, like putting on some
extra extra clothes.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
So that's what I'm telling my kids right now. It's frustrating.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
You know.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Our latest hack quote unquote hack is that we so
we keep the heat upstairs where we sleep set to sixty,
which is pretty chilly as quite a lot of folks,
but we all, every one of us loves it to
be cooler at night. And then I'll crank it up
this This indicates too that I've got this manual, dumb
thermostat and I can't wait to replace it in the
(10:58):
coming year. With the state energy tax credit where they
make it superfortable, you can only do two a year,
so I replaced two last year, going to replace the
third this coming year. Just a heads up for everybody
on my personal plans when it comes her h back.
But I will crank it up in the morning. That way,
it's not brutally painful. As you know, everyone's getting ready
for school. Getting ready to start their day. But then
I crank it back down to sixty degrees. That being
(11:20):
said that, I see something very similar. Our biggest pain
point is getting in and out of the shower. Kate
especially hates it.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
She like, she's like, I don't like getting out of
the shower.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
It is pretty good freezing. So I remembered that we
had some radiator radiator style electric heaters in our storage
shed out out back. So I want to grab that
bad boy. Yeah, dusted it off, and I was like,
talked about that not long ago. The space heater's baby.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
That's right. Well, it was in the back of my
mind still, I guess brought it in. Crank that thing up.
And now anytime she by the time she gets out
of the shower, it's nice and toasty in there.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Feels good.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Man, here you go.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
We don't need the heat the entire house just when
we're getting out of the shower.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Yeah. Well, if electric here, we're free year back to electricity,
people would people would use a lot of it. Well,
this author Leah Stokes, she recently proposed in the Atlantic
that maybe electricity should be free and basically her proposal
was that electricity should be cheaper, if not completely free,
just in the middle of the day, right because like
maybe like noon to two or something like that. Why well,
(12:21):
she says, because the grid is more overloaded at night,
and it would bring down costs of nighttime demand. People
woul demand less electricity in the evening if they did
use their electricity more during the day, right, So, and
the only way really to do this is to strongly
incentivize people to use those electric heavy electricity heavy appliances
when there's less demand. Some places like San Diego are
(12:43):
trying this. Some electric companies have kind of taken the
carrot and the stick approach. You can opt for a
plan with a lower rate during off peak hours and
higher ones during peak hours. So you're kind of like
spreading that window of how much you can you pay
on acy can be dirt cheap at certain parts of
the day and even more expensive than it normally is
(13:04):
it other parts. They to incentivize you to use that
electricity at the time that's most convenient for the power company,
right yeah. Yeah, that reduces the strain on the grid,
that's right. Yeah. And so similar to tracking our expenses,
we're all more likely to make a change if we're
aware of our usage, and we're incentivized positively and negatively
to act differently. The less energy we use, less infrastructure
(13:26):
that's needed, which would lower our costs. Makes me think, Matt,
we have a listeners who have like electric cars, and
they've written in about the power plan that they're on.
They save a ton of money by being really thoughtful
about the plan they pick and then being incredibly thoughtful
as well about when they're using electricity, whether it's dish washer,
washer dry or stuff like that, and when they're charging
(13:46):
their cars. And it's not just for people with evs
like these players exist seak hours super off peak. You've
got to be willing to change your habits their habits
a little bit. Yeah, yeah, I do.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
I wouldn't be surprised that some folks who are like, well,
that's great here, but sorry, I've got a job, so
I can't do laundry in the middle of the day,
I can't do all my cooking and the way I
robot It's what I would say to that, But I mean,
what I would say to that truly is that like, well, yeah,
like you have to introduce the incentives and create the
systems that help to reduce the strain on a system,
(14:18):
right that, Like, wherever there's stress because of the fact
that it's a limited resource, you do what you can to,
like you said, sort of spread out that consumption and
you get to a certain point, Like if it was free,
I bet there would be some folks would consider, like
you know what, like between childcare and taxes, just everything else,
the part time job is looking a little bit less attractive.
We could nix that bill. Oh also slight bonus. We're
(14:41):
paying basically nothing for electricity during the day. These are
pros and cons right, and you have to weigh the expense.
You have to weigh the trade offs between what it
is that seems like the same dunk decision, which is
working to make more money versus Oh, maybe there are
some other ways here that we can save a whole
lot of money that would render that potential job and
if less effective.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
I'd love to see more of this though. I think
there's so many ways that we can incentivize people to
do the to change their behavior. Like I remember seeing
the study from Great Britain back in the day, and
when people were just aware of how much it was
costing them. Let's say to boil their tea, like to
boil boil water to make tea. They were just more
(15:22):
thoughtful about when and how they did it, and when
electricity costs less, like they were like, oh yeah, mamma,
have my tea then, and I just people will make
those decisions. It's when it's opaque how much it's costing.
You just get your bill at the end of the
month and you're like, ah, it's expensive. Budget billing or
what's it call it? When well, budget billing is the
way to make it feel less like that where you
(15:45):
are essentially immune to your cons insulate you. Yeah, even
I don't right. We want the opposite so that you're
even more aware so you can make the changes to
save yourself money.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Instead of budget building was called it like acute consumption budgeting,
like where you really feel the like, oh I want
them to be a similar electrode. When we turn something onwards,
it's like, oh, oh yeah, that is costing us some money.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
I think.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Yeah. Zapping people into the right behavior is the way
to go.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
Electrotherapy. Yeah, it's always worked. Let's talk about the job markets.
A lot of us have seen that it is cooled,
if not frozen as of late, and well, the reasons
for that are pretty complex, but AI is certainly one
of those reasons. And there's a new study from MIT
that finds that AI is currently essentially it has the
(16:28):
capacity to replace almost twelve percent of the workforce. Actually
it's eleven point seven to be exact. And it's based
on something called the Iceberg Index, which is this forward
looking index that's attempting to forecast how AI is going
to impact the job market. And you know, the study
is not saying that we should expect mass layoffs any
(16:50):
day now, but it is saying that AI has the
capabilities to do.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Even more now.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
And I think a lot of its capabilities are only
now being discovers as folks are discovering applications for it.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Trying to integrate it into the workforce, Like it's just
happening more and more.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
Yeah, their typical sort of work day. And so this
doesn't mean that folks should be shaken in their boots,
but I do think we should continue to pay attention
to our network and to growing our skills in order
to thrive in an economy that's going to be more
AI dependent and to get super meta with it. Joel
I wonder if listeners have noticed that, like all the
(17:28):
you're not real anymore, this is all AI super accurate. No,
the fact that I heart the little stinger at the
beginning of the podcast. Now it says guaranteed human, which
is like the most dystopian, crazy y five thing that
I think has happened.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Yet.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
You know, like we all wanted flying cars in the future,
and we didn't really get flying cars because not yet.
I don't think we're ever going to have flying cars
because they're gonna be too noisy. Like think about how
loud little drones are. Nobody likes that sound, so flying
cars will never be at least self driving cars. I'll
take that. Self driving is that is the future. But
instead of getting flying cars, instead we got AI chatbots, yeah,
(18:10):
that we all get to listen to or interact with.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
And some of which we get to fall in love with.
If we're so inclined, I would avoid it. If how
were you wouldn't do that, Okay, But friend of the
show Allison Schreger Matt she actually tended to disagree with
this study, and I really liked her take. She wrote
that AI is going to cause a shortage actually of
skilled workers and then much of the population isn't really
able to make the most of this technology. I think,
(18:35):
when it comes down to it, at least in its
current iteration, AI can be a solid tool, but like
we've been saying, like it's not a great replacement for
humans who have wisdom and judgment. There's still a lot
of AI hallucination, there's a lot of inaccurate information, and
I just think critical thinking might be the most needed
skill right now out there in the workforce. Total communication,
(18:58):
great writing skills. You're like, oh, chuchud do the writing
for me? Well, no it can't. Well you can. It
might be somebody you're writing.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
It can do the writing for you, but are you
writing about the right thing? And that's up to you
to decide whether or not you are even in the
right direction.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Even still, like when you read somebody who's a great writer,
like a, I can't match that. It just can't from
what I've seen. Maybe maybe someday, not yet, not yet.
And I think maybe what it boils down to is
that AI can do a lot of tasks, but it
can't do a job. So maybe AI proficiency or feeling
(19:32):
like depending on what you do, knowing how to use
it in the context of your work can help you
get ahead or at least be less redundant knowing how
to use AI effectively. But AI coming for jobs, I
think there's less truth to that than maybe some of
the headlines want us to think. Yeah, I totally agree, Joey.
We've got more to get to.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
We're going to talk about how gen Z, how they
essentially want to rent everything own nothing. We'll get to
that more after this.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Our we're back. It's time to get to the ludicrous
headline of the week. This one comes from Business Insiders.
I'm actually excited about.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
I feel like we've got a bunch of ludicrous stories
here in the second Yeah, in the second half.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Some of these really could have There could be multiplets,
So yeah, get ready to hold on to your hast
the seat of your pants. Here. The Business Insider article
is titled for gen Z, cash isn't king, It's a joke.
And when you look at the stats, of course, cast
you to cash usage has been on the decline for years.
(20:40):
I think it's used now for just something like ten
percent of overall transactions, maybe a little bit more than that.
So cash is no longer the norm.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
I don't know, Matt.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
I was talking with somebody about this the other day.
I just don't like coins jingling around in my pocket,
even if it's a small purchase. I'm like, thirty two cents, Well, gosh,
that's like two pennies and a nickel and a horner,
and I'm just I hate that stuff jingling around. So
it's probably one of the most annoying things. Part of
the reason I stay away from cash.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Even after that conversation we had with Jazy Gorski back
in episode nine ninety five where he was trying to
convince us to use cash, I just right done it,
old jay Z, I've done it, maybe a little bit more,
but not as much as he would like. I haven't
increased money cash cash usage at all. Really, Yeah, I feel.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Bad because, yeah, for all the reasons that he said
it's important for us to occasionally use it.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Yeah, well, I keep some cash on hand always because
you just never know. And also like, uh, we still
I don't go to restaurants with like valets often have,
but I would just recently and I was like, oh man,
I'm so glad I have some cash. Where'd you go?
Speaker 2 (21:37):
You went to some.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
In town restaurants. Oh, I know what you're talking about
is going to close.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Oh otherwise Oh yeah, that place always always has had
a valet.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Yeah, and it's closing and we're like, we got to
go before it's gone. Pouring out a lot of good
memories there. Okay, but gen Z years, because cash is
no longer the norm cash having cash has kind of
created these weird for them. Previous generations of non digital natives,
they struggled with controlling credit card usage right, digitally spending
(22:08):
and reconciling those transactions, and that was the odd new thing.
But now the opposite is true. For younger folks. Gen
Zers consistently report that cash feels like it doesn't exist,
and they use it like fun money and like cash
is still tangible though, right, and it can either help
or hurt your progress that you're making towards your financial goals.
(22:29):
And so to use cash or credit card, to use
any form of money that comes into your life as
willy nilly, because it's like fake, it's not it doesn't
feel real. It doesn't make sense to me. I get
the propensity, but I just don't think it's wise. It's
totally fine, I think to use cash that you get
for like a birthday or for the holidays to splurch.
But if you treat all physical money as though it's
(22:50):
not real, it's gonna have consequences. That's right.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Yeah, cash is in fact real, and I think some
of those habits could even bleed into like how it
is that use credit card, how you use your your
digital dollars. I think one solution is to maybe put
all of your cash into an envelope to help you
to save for just a bigger expense, like a vacation. Right,
Like you got a jar, pretty big jar, and you're
throwing change, you're throwing bills in there. But Joe, speaking
(23:15):
of young people, this is the story.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
I was actually like that idea. By the way, can
I just say, having the envelope and then you're like,
instead of frittering it away, you're putting it towards something bigger,
fake money, towards a real thing that you want to accomplish.
That's a big one.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
Yeah, totally, Okay, So this is this the story I
was excited about. I wanted to mention how young people
we're talking about gen z, adult kids paying rent and
maybe this shouldn't have surprised me. But apparently sixty percent
of kids don't contribute a dime towards their household expenses.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
And not not just like kids, but adult chill exactly
because your kids don't contribute, but they they don't.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
But guess what things are going to change when they
are they are adults. And I'm not even kidding this
is a conversation. I mean basically, then the story talked
about how parents are financially harmed because they're like, oh
my gosh, I'm barely able to send money aside from
my own retirement. In addition to that, like, what are
you teaching your kids?
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Right?
Speaker 3 (24:07):
You're teaching that, oh, we're always going to be there
for you, and yes, you should always be there for them,
but how are you also equipping them to be real
adults out Oh my gosh. This kind of goes back
to the whole advent sort of adult advent. Counter is
a little bit like, teach them to be functioning, contributing
members of society. And I think you're there's a potential
there's a possibility for them to not learn that lesson
(24:29):
if they aren't having to chip in at all when
it comes to groceries or cleaning the house or paying
and not even talking about market rent, but just something
to where they've got some skin in the game. And
this is something that I'm gonna give my parents mad credit.
This is a conversation that we started having when I
was like thirteen years old, where my dad was just like,
(24:50):
guess what, once you graduate high school, you're gonna start
if you want to live here, you're gonna start paying rent.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
What if he was like, when you're fifteen, five hundred
bucks a.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
Month, I think that would have been not fair because
I'm like, why did you bring me into this world?
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Dad?
Speaker 1 (25:02):
But could have created some strife And guess what, like, let's.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
Be honest, our parents don't always get everything right. Like
we shouldn't just like blindly adopt the parenting methods that
I think are your parents employed. Perhaps you should think
critically about it. But and this is one that I
thought about and I thought, oh my gosh, that was
such a great way to get me thinking about it.
Because my parents wanted to make sure that I successfully
launched out into the world. And if I was hanging
(25:26):
out because I was incentivized to you because I had
a free place to stay and Mom's cooking and oh,
she's also doing my laundry.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
They saw that Matthew McConaughey movie, and they were like,
we don't want our son to be like that.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
He's not gonna fail to launch. And this is literally
a conversation I've had now with my twelve year old,
not like as a threat, but just something that we've
talked about of like, hey, you know, once you're an adult,
once you are eighteen years old, if you're sticking around,
you're going to contribute to the household expenses. And when
you start having these conversations early on, it's gonna be better.
(25:55):
It's gonna be better for your relationship. They're gonna be able
to start thinking about how, oh have things figured out?
Speaker 1 (26:01):
I need to have a plan. Guess what. I didn't
have a great plan, but I had something in mind
and I was able to And you also knew if
you come back in what you what was gonna happen.
You knew the consequence is the reality of that, like
you're gonna have to pay money exactly, so, like you're
gonna have to do something. Yeah, I think, yeah, I
matt You're right. Like that in particular was revelatory to me.
The fact that like parents are at this point with
(26:22):
their adult children and they're like, I don't know what
to do because they're not contributing and it's costing. It's
costing me money, and I feel like I can't achieve
the goals I need to achieve. And I think you're
spot on. It starts earlier you have earlier, the better
you have to have those combos along the way because
they can't you just like move back and then be
like you need I think you just pay something, and
(26:42):
they're like, what are you talking about, Like it's it's
just tougher to have that conversation later on down the line.
You got to be and you're not gonna mean a
harsh about it. Sit your eight year old down and
be like you're gonna be a productive economic unit here
in the next five years. Okay, son doesn't doesn't need
to go down like that doesn't need but it does
lead to just better conversation, Like because of that, Like
that's what led to conversations about college and scholarships and
(27:04):
getting a job and and all of this. It's like
I just.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Even think about it from the standpoint as a parent,
like how are you equipping your kids? What potentials do
they have that they're not even able to tap into
because they're not being pushed at all to pursue something.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
Hundred percent Okay. On the note of renting, another Business
Insider article we saw which was awesome, was talking about
young folks wanting to rent everything, and so, yeah, not
just like you love renting, Joel. I hear you say
that a lot. You say, you say, don't buy a
house renting it. Very accused of that, haven't we, And
I'm four. I am more for renting than a lot
(27:43):
of things. Even then, maybe I used to be like it.
It doesn't always make sense to buy stuff, like whether
you can borrow or rent, it might make more sense
depending on what we're talking about, and especially when we're
talking about housing. We've talked about that a lot, so
maybe we'll skip talking about that. But I'm talking about
renting clothes and baby gear and camping equipment like that's
that's what gen Z's like. I'm not going to buy
(28:03):
that stuff. I'm going to rent it. And there's no
one size fits all answer to whether buying or renting
is better on some of those consumer goods. I think
you know, it's so much depend like how frequently am
I going to use that item? Or is it a
one and done sort of thing, Like if you're not
going to use it again, a formal dress or a tuxedo,
rent that puppy. Yeah, it's expensive to rent, but it's
(28:23):
more expensive to buy and than never use it again.
How much money do you stand to say save? That's
a I think an important question when you're talking about
buying versus renting. If renting isn't going to save you
at least fifty percent, buying is probably a better choice. Also,
like borrowing, could you borrow something instead? Like renting is
one of those things where all of these companies have
(28:44):
come into the space to try to say come like
get it from us, and well, you know you'll be
able to You don't have to pay full freight, you
can send it back, but it's still expensive to use
some of these new fangled services. And can you borrow
that fancy dress from a friend and instead of or
a tuxedo? Like, I don't know, maybe it's not going
to look quite as cut and perfect on you. I
(29:05):
don't know. I'm not sure, but we did, Like Emily
rented a fancy dress from a site called newly and
it was it was great, But also looking back, I'm
like that that was an expensive experience. I get why
you might use it sometimes, but I also wouldn't want to,
like use it frequently. Yeah, it's one of those things
(29:26):
where you can do it every single month, and some
people do get new close shipped to their doorstep every
single month. That seems excessive.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
Yeah, it's a there's a trade off there, right, Like
it's the value cost trade off, which actually leads us
to my favorite story of this entire Freday Flight Groundwork
Collective and Consumer Reports looked into Instacart's algorithmic pricing model.
Some of you you've probably heard about this what they felt.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Just like yesterday.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
So it's pretty new.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
The pricing. It's not just dynamic, it's seemingly random. And
so even when shoppers opt for the same item from
the same store at the the literal same time, the
price can vary pretty meaningfully. So eggs might cost one
person like three ninety nine, and it's gonna cost the
other person four dollars and sixty nine cents.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
So basically, one of our listeners in South Carolina or
California and or or in US here where we are,
same time, same story, yep store, different computers, different prices,
different prices. Yeah, yeah, you talk about the same I
guess maybe it makes sense from different locations, right, Oh,
you're in Nevada and eggs cost more there for some
(30:33):
reason whatever. But like even close locations, like just to
cross in the same city, you're getting different prices.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
I guess.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
The big reason I'm just excited that this broke is
because it's calling into light some of Instacart's the somewhat
opaque way that they're doing business, which we're all about
price transparency. And I can't believe that we haven't talked
about this, Joel, because this is something I learned last month.
At the beginning of the last month, we started using
Instacart a little bit specifically because we've got one car,
(31:00):
and it's just like, gosh, okay, this one person can't
pick up this also run to the store, also make
this happen. Got a lot of competing goals, and so
the way I thought about.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
It was like it was cheaper to get another car.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
It was not cheaper to purchase another vehicle. So we said, hey, well,
let's this is a great instance to use Instacart, but
then you get used to using it, right, and you're
just kind of without even thinking about, oh, let's see
the instacard again, let's do it again. Until we ordered
some groceries. The guy, the instacart worker dropped him off
and he left the Aldi receipt in the bags, and
(31:32):
nobody else has ever done that before. And you got
to compare. So I compared the price of the actual
goods where I or Kate to run in and have
made that purchase versus what we paid Instacart, and what
the receipts that said was one hundred and seventy five
dollars the Instacart order or you know, like what was
(31:53):
all said and done with all the fees two hundred
and sixty one dollars. It was fifty percent more expensive.
And we have not used Instacart since because I could
not get over how much more expensive it was.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Dude.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
Yeah, I was like I spent the whole weekend, Like
Kate and I we're just like looking at each other,
like shaking our heads because for my minute there we're
using it pretty solidly. Just you know, you kind of
get used to the luxury of it. It's incredibly convenient,
but just know that obviously you know that you're paying
more for it, but you kind of turn a blind
eye to it and thinking, oh, it's worth it, Oh,
(32:31):
we can afford it. But dude, facing the hard facts
the numbers made me realize that it's not that I'm
never going to use it again. If again we are
independently and I can't get out there because Kate's doing
this other event and we still are rocking the one
car family thing. Okay, it will place the instacart order,
because yes, for us, that's one of the solutions to
(32:52):
not having a second vehicle. But oh my gosh, the
scales fell from my eyes.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
I saw the light. Well, I think this was I
think this was revelatory from that, like we are starting
to see one the price is not the price anymore online,
like it's just constantly moving, but it's not just dynamic.
It's becoming individualized. And Instacart is probably what it seems like,
is running tests to be like, well, does Sheila in
Denver does she care if eggs are four dollars or
(33:19):
if they're four dollars and fifty cents, like there's still
within this range or she's probably not gonna baton eye,
so let's go and charge her more. And I think
this is just going to happen more and more, and
we as consumers have to be more wary, and that
means going into the supermarket more regularly so that we
understand what the prices are and whether or not the
prices are getting from the online service that we're using
(33:40):
is within reason or not, because I get that it
is a convenience play and in some ways, in some ways, man,
I think using something like instacart can potentially save you
money if you're an impulse buyer, Like if you're going
in there and you're hungry, and like I think about
even just going into the grocery list. Yeah, going into Costco,
there's like the treasure hunt mentality and maybe you like
(34:01):
put all these other things in your cart that you
otherwise wouldn't have purchased, Like there is there's real downside
to that. But yeah, this is this is very interesting
to see and you have to be really careful, Like
it can be a time and money saver, but ultimately,
if you're not paying attention, it could cost you a lot.
It was so revelatory for us. Yeah, I feel like
(34:21):
I want to be the kind of individual who could
still go on the price is right with the host
Drew Carey and kind of know what things cost on average.
You got to be a man of the people man.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
Yeah, like you gotta set Yeah, it's just it puts
you in touch with reality actually going to the grocery store,
and if people are complaining to that, like the affordability
is going down. I think from now on, my first
question is going to be like, yeah, do you actually
get in the grocery store yourself or are you getting
those groceries delivered? Because if so, I now understand. I
was upset.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
I was pissed when I saw how much we had
been paying. And if you think inflation is impacting your groceries,
start using instacart and you'll see it happen even more.
I think will become more desensitized to price increases using
a service like this on the rag and so you just, yeah,
be aware, know that this is happening. And we'll post
a link to this and some of the other stories
(35:10):
we mentioned in the show notes. But this is one
of those where you're like, Okay, it makes me think
twice about using this service.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Just on repeat.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
That's right, but buddy, that's gonna be it for this
Friday flight. Listeners can find our show notes up on
the website at howtomoney dot com. That's where you will
find our newsletters signed up, as well as our favorite
credit cards how toomoney dot com.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
No doubt, al right, buddy, Until next time, Best friends out,
Best Friends Out,
Hosts And Creators
Joel Larsgaard
Matthew Altmix
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