May 31, 2024 • 36 mins
Time for a Friday Flight- our little sampling of the week’s financial news and what it means for your personal finances. There are a lot of headlines out there, but we boil them down to specific takeaways that will allow you to kick off the weekend informed and help you to get ahead with your money. In this episode we explain some relevant and helpful stories like: a chargeback frugal or cheap, recession vibes, how low can groceries go, buying nothing, teens coming for your jobs, bagging work early, paying for friends, cars that are long in the tooth, addicted to autos, bookoos of bikes, affordable travel, and quiet vacationing.
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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. I'm Joel and I am Matt.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Today we're talking about recession vibes, addicted to autos, and
paying for friendship.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
That's right. Everyone's gonna figure out whether or not Joel
has been paying the seven to ninety nine subscription to
be Matt Alwicks's friend, or if he's been paying the
premium fourteen ninety nine. That's what it would cost for
the premium AD supported version of Corsi Wig. Because you
love ads, I just like saving money. This is our
Friday fly. We're gonna talk about the most pertinent headlines,
(00:49):
the ones that we think you should be paying attention to.
And Happy Friday everyone. It's so great having a holiday
weekend like this where I feel like the week just
flies by and before you know it, bloom.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
It's for only four days in the office this week
for most people, which is which is lovely. Okay, speaking
of which, Matt, Monday, you and I were off obviously
for Memorial Day, and it's a solemn holiday, right all
the fallen soldiers who have protected our freedoms. I was
going to run a five k on Memorial Day.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
While carrying an American flag.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Yeah, totally and in Norwegian one just because my heritage
is okay both at the same time. Yeah, they probably
would have goten scals, but I was gonna do it anyway.
Buddy and I were going to wake up early. Started
driving over there. It was raining a little bit. I
was like, all right, one ever't really run any races.
This is kind of my first four ray into that.
It's a little nervous anyway. But then it just like
the clouds open up and if Yeah, I felt like
(01:40):
Noah in the Old Testament, and the rain just came
down like crazy lightning. They canceled the race, right, So.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
The lightning is key. Yeah, I think that's because it's
a lot of races it's like rain or shine, But
I don't know about the lightning aspect of it.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
And they couldn't delay it because they got to shut
down the road. They've got a permit for a certain
time period, and hey, guess what if they delay by
a couple hours, they're gonna lose the permit. They got
to open the roads back, so they canceled the race.
We went to Cracker Barrel to commiserate, because that's what one.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Does instead of razy, like do the opposite this like, loo,
oh you actually fried southern food. We ran our own
race later that afternoons.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Okay, that was good. I still got to run it.
But my question to you is, because I'm still thinking
through this frugal or cheap, I don't know what my
response should be. Should I paid with a credit card?
Should I do a chargeback because the race was canceled?
You said you did pay with a credit card? I did, Okay,
So for I guess, first of all, maybe for folks.
Most folks know what a chargeback is. But that's where
you go go to your credit card company and you say, hey,
(02:39):
this was a fraudulent charge, or hey, service is not rendered,
or you say.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Hey they double dips sometimes I've had that happen.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Or they send me a product and it didn't look
anything like what they listened on the website.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Yeah. So, man, this is a good one. And I
think it has a lot to do with what did
the fine prints say, because you go look into that. Sure, okay,
because I think if it says on there, like I said,
rain or shine, even thunder, well I guess if it
was even thunder, then they should have actually held the race.
But they actually called it off So, first of all,
I do think it comes down to the fine print.
(03:07):
What kind of like who hosted the race? By the way,
I don't even remember.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
It was some sort of was it Memorial Day? Was
there like a charity race?
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Was it for like cancer or for like veterans or not?
I mean it was because veterans were able to run
free in the race. But okay, because I was gonna
say if it was like a fundraiser kind of race,
it seems like a cheap thing to like stick it
to them and be like, hey, I want my money back,
I want my donation back. Essentially, that's like how they're
qualifying the entry fee. But no, I think it's a
viable option to do a charge back. Okay, here's my
(03:38):
last question. Have you reached out to the race organizer?
Not yet. I'm still because I'm in that limo.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
I'm like, I don't know, it feels a little cheap,
but also like I hate the I oll one other thing,
by the way, I did, there was like thirty five
bucks to run the race no T shirt, and forty
bucks to run the race with a T shirt. I
assume the T shirts were going to be ugly. I
took the cheaper route. Yeah, but yeah, now I'm.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Like, the ends up being awesome. I don't know. So
that was another number. So yeah, some of them are cool,
So I do. I would be willing to do a chargeback,
but you've got to reach out to the business first.
And the reason I mentioned this is I think we
talked about it. They ask you that when you file
a charge back, they ask you if you've reached out
to the business, but specifically because it costs the small
(04:18):
business money, Like there's a fee involved when a small business,
a small retailer, or I guess a large business as well,
if they have customers who were requesting a charge back.
I didn't know this until somewhat recently because I requested
a charge back from a car wash where I had
signed up for a promotion and they're like, if you
cancel within thirty days, no harm, no foul or whatever,
(04:40):
you get to try it out. And so I canceled,
of course, and guess what they still did even after
I had reached out to them and to cancel it,
and they even gave me a confirmation like all right,
you're canceled, and then that next month rolled around, boom,
I was still charged and so in my according to
my own rules here, I guess I had reached out
to them, but not after they charged me, just in
(05:00):
order to keep myself from being charged. But someone with
the car wash reached out was just like, hey, next time,
if just just let us talk to us about it,
and I was like, well, I did reach out to you,
we did talk about it, but I guess I just
didn't talk about it with him. I didn't reach out
to him after the fact. But they could cost them
anywhere between. Like, I think the feed starts at around
twenty bucks, but I've seen it reported up to one
(05:21):
hundred dollars. Wow for a chargeback. Send it for businesses
to do right by their customers. Yeah, but that's a
good point. Maybe I should reach out on the car
processing network. They decide what it is that the small
but small business is charged.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Okay, maybe that's what I'll do. I'll at least reach
out in a friendly manner. I'll ask the question. I'll say, hey,
sad that the race guy canceled. Are there refunds?
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Are giving any refunds? Yeah? I think it's totally worth
And then if they offer at least starting a conversation
or maybe they're like they're like, hey, we're willing to
instead would you rather would you be willing to accept
a free entry to another race that kind of thing, right,
which it feels like a win win.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
I think i'd be that'd be great for me. So
good point. I'll reach out to the race sponsors. Right,
I'll let you know what if I know, let us know.
All right, Well, let's move on, Mat, let's get to
the Friday flight. This is a sampling of stories we
found interesting this week and how they pertain to your
personal finances. Of course, we talked with Kyla Scanlon on Wednesday.
We talked about vibes a whole lot. That is like
(06:18):
something that she thinks and writes a lot about. They're
incredibly influential, more so than I even thought, Matt. Just
how people feel. It's like this almost like self determining thing,
it seems, and an entire.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Economy feelings and attitudes.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Yeah, which makes sense because like, hey, if you're optimistic
about things, you're probably gonna take more chances in life.
If you're pessimistic, you're probably gonna take fewer. So yeah,
I guess just hadn't really connected the dots until I
started reading Kylo's work. Well, at least to a certain extent,
we tend to manifest what we feel, and it's no wonder. Actually,
I read this quote this week Matt Daniel Konnoman. He
once said that if you could only wish one thing
for your child, wish for optimism. And I thought that was, like,
(06:53):
actually a good point. I'm like, yeah, okay, if I
want my kids to be one thing, I don't know, resilient, gritty,
but optimistic would be certainly be up there. But the
American public, we're not terribly optimistic right now, despite a
spate of good economic news. There's this new Harris poll
and the results were shocking. It found that more than
half of Americans think we're currently in a recession, and
more than half of Americans also think that the economy
(07:16):
is shrinking. Recessions are backward looking, but I don't know,
we don't appear to be in one right now, and
the economy appears to be growing quite nicely.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Three quarters of.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Folks believe that inflation is increasing and it's not going
back to the two percent target easily, but it is
receding right Inflation is going down, It is coming down,
half folks think that unemployment is at a fifty year high.
The opposite is true. So it's just really interesting to
see that the facts on the ground are. You know,
it's not like all roses and sunshine. But the vibes
(07:45):
aren't great right now, and they don't necessarily align with reality.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Yeah, yeah, everything isn't quite peachy and wonderful. But yeah,
it is amazing how these bad vibes lead to massive,
like actual factual inaccuracies. So here's another positive stat that
I saw going around, which is that pay increases on
average have outpaced inflation. And that being said, I feel
like this is an instance where good news equals bad
(08:08):
news because wage increases is a key driver of inflation.
And what happens when inflation is high, well that's when
the FED refuses to cut rates, which is what we've seen.
And when the FED refuses to cut rates, so those
things down, people get bummed out. So it's I don't know, I'm.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Just highly new the fact that it's all it's all
circular essentially, and a pay RaSE happens things connected once
a year. But you go shop at the grocery store
every week, and so I think, like, oh, well, who
a five percent pay bump, But then you go to
the grocery store and you're bummed out, not realizing that
you've got more money to cover some of those, you know,
increased prices.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Sure well, speaking of the grocery store, here's some actual
good news that will soon realize, and that is that
Aldi they announce that they're lowering prices on more than
two hundred and fifty items this summer, So you had
another reason to try out Aldy if you if you
refuse to get a hold out. But also Target they
announced price reductions on more than five thousand items. Cost Go.
(09:00):
They similarly say that prices they're not just going up,
they're actually coming down on some items as well. Walgreens
reported something similar, And it makes me think about our
conversation with John Mackie, he's the founder of Whole Foods.
There is a lot of competition within the grocery industry,
and the more competition we have, I think, the more
that we are all going to benefit. This is a
(09:22):
case in point when it comes to what we're paying
at grocery stores. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Yeah, And that of course doesn't mean that inflation isn't
a problem anymore, Right, we've talked about childcare costs.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Last week we talked about.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
The insane rise in the cost of insurance home insurance,
auto insurance. Those aren't terribly easy to push back against. So, yes,
there are still microeconomic problems facing consumers, especially if you've
got like a slew of kids that you have to
find chalco are for slew of young kids, and if
you've got multiple cars or in the house to ensure
like those costs have gone up and yeah, there's some
(09:52):
things you can do to push back, but you probably
can't bring them back down to like twenty nineteen levels. Right,
that's impossible. But the response is to that poll also
reflect a lack of realism too, Right. There was this
interesting article in Axios. It highlighted a changing definition of
inflation as a potential part of this problem. Right because
instead of year over year price increases, which is the
(10:13):
real definition of inflation, when most folks cite inflation, now,
what they're really revealing, What they really mean is prices
are just too dang high. Like that's what people mean
when they say inflation. Now, sure, this inflation is crushing me,
and it's not about the year over year movement in prices.
It's all about the fact that prices are just higher
and they want them to be. Case in point, the
grocery store. Right, prices are up a lot since twenty
(10:34):
twenty one, up twenty plus percent, but the same time,
the rate of inflation has chilled out a lot too. Currently,
inflation is low on groceries. It's one point one percent
year over year price increases. So it's like we feel
a certain way, and yes, prices are higher at the
grocery store, but they're not rising at nearly the same clip.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
It's difficult because it's still inflation. It's just what is
your time horizon, right, because it's prices are higher, inflation
is low, or but the reason prices are high is
because of Like what we're talking about is yesterday's inflation,
not today's inflation. Right, Like we're not trying to gas
lightingbody out there, We're not trying to deny your personal experience,
but like what we're pointing to is the fact that
(11:13):
inflation was so high and has been so high over
the past four years. Right, Like we were close to
I mean we're over nine percent, we're close to double
digits that which is great for eebondholders. But sure, and
like that actually happened, right, And so even though inflation
is coming back down closer to the FEDS target, like
you said, prices will not come back down like regardless
of like we might see little drops here and there
(11:35):
at the grocery store like I mentioned, And that's I
welcome that with arms wide open. But but we also
don't want are you going to go creep on that?
I came out of the I'm not going to go there? Well,
I think yeah, some people, it's not going to be
We're not going to be able to go back to
pre pain levels in price levels.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Let's be honest, you don't want to because if we
enter a period of deflation, there's a lot of other
economic problems that come along with that. So slowing prices,
like prices not rising nearly as rapidly, is a good thing.
Prices going down could mean other signifigan problems for.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
All more deflationary in nature, which is not the Fed's goals.
By the way, So one trend two combat high prices
that's apparently smoking hot right now is not buying anything.
We talked about that actually earlier this year with Liz Chai.
She wrote a book about that very topic. We'll link
to that episode there in the show notes. But more
folks are getting on the buy nothing bandwagon in an
(12:26):
effort to combat overspending, which is something we can totally
get behind, because, yeah, it's basically, even though I feel
like we're speaking out of both sides of our mouth,
inflation is coming down, but prices are still high, and
it's impossible to not feel the pinch of the longer
term impacts of inflation over the previous years. But it's
also true that there are significant, meaningful ways to mitigate
(12:49):
the impact on us as individuals. And choosing not to
buy any non essential items for like a specific period
of time, even like a month or two, as opposed
to a whole year, I think that can be a
great way to change habits that have just become ingrained,
and it can help us to just achieve some different
financial goals more quickly. And I'm pointing to the fact
that there are time periods that are good to focus
(13:10):
on because that's essentially what constitutes like a no spend challenge. Yeah,
the ability to say, okay, for a set amount of time,
I'm going to alter my behavior in this way. It's
like a jolt to kind of snap you out of
your spending ways. It's like a fast.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Right, and you're saying You're not saying like I'm never
going to eat food again, but what you're saying is
three four days, which I mean, let's be honest, I've
never actually done. I think it would be a good
thing for my body. I heard quarterback Aaron Rodgers talking
about that recently and I was like, oh man, that
sounds like something I should do, right, because it is
good for your body. It is a jolt to the system,
and I think the same thing can be true for
your finances. Taking a sort of spending fast, maybe even
(13:46):
in just a couple of specific categories that you find
particularly problematic, that can be a great way to proceed. So, yeah,
you don't have to go whole hog buy nothing for
the rest of your life like Liz did, although you
might find yourself more inclined in that direction after giving.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
It a shot.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
It's cool to see this as a trend that's taking
off because, yeah, I don't know, I think it can
have a solid and meaningful impact for a lot of people.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Totally agree, And I think what's key is focusing on
whatever financial goal it is that you're trying to accomplish, Like,
what is it that you're trying to reach with this,
Because it's not just about depriving yourself and the removal
of something from your life, because then what is there
in that void? Ooh, all you do is just focus
on the negative. You're just focusing on the fact that, oh,
I'm not I don't get to spend like I used to,
(14:26):
or I guess yeah, I'm not going to go into
the food fasting example. But in the case of money,
if you are replacing that with like, oh, I want
to eliminate some debt. Oh I want to be able
to max out my wrath IRA for the first time
ever this year, that is the positive that's basically supplants
that negative, and the ability to focus on that, I
think that is what's so key. It's not just saying no,
it's about Okay, what instead do I want to focus on?
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Yeah, it can help you achieve those money goals faster. Yeah,
And again it's it's like the bare bones budget. It's
not something meant to be incorporated in perpetuity, but it
can be a great short term thing to do to
kind of like yeah, trump start your progress and then
you know what, if there are other people doing it,
join with your friends, make it a competition, make it
like a friendly endeavor that you do with other people,
because this is the kind of thing you can do
with the other folks in your life. Matt, I don't
(15:10):
know about you, but we have on our garment watches
like a step challenge sort of thing. I think I
invited you to a running challenge for the month of June.
Check it out with some of our other friends.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Haven't been on the app today, but that's.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
The cool thing is like, if it's just about me
running like, I'll do some, but if I'm like trying
to kick your butt, I'll probably do more.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
You got to include that community. That's right, It's huge.
All right, Let's talk about jobs for a second. It's
summertime and teens are signing up to work more, and
that's good news for the economy as a whole, given
how low the unemployment rate is. Their services are needed.
But it's also good for those young folks too.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Write and it's not just the money aspect either, Earning
money as a team, learning how to save, spend and
invest with those dollars that you've earned is great, but
it's also about the responsibility and the work experience that's garnered.
It's like learning how to talk to adults that aren't
your parent or teacher in the face. It's show up
on time, Like there's all these other things that happen
(16:03):
for teenagers when they do have a job that they
have to show up to. And Matt, you and I
were not like child labor advocates or anything like that,
but part time teen jobs are great in our book.
I think that my years spent working part time in
high school were really, really good for me, And I've
heard that from countless other people that those years you
could have been focusing more on your studies. But I
think for a lot of youngsters it gives you an
(16:25):
entry into the workforce that's pretty low stakes.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Yeah, essentially, what you're talking about are the soft skills
that you learn by going out there on your own.
And like, isn't that the unspoken rules and spoken rules
for us, Gore, Like, what are we trying to do
as adults or as parents. We're trying to launch our
kids like out into the world, And what a great
way to softly launch them out into the world with
the soft skills. By the way, I don't want them
to be like Matthew McConaughey. McConaughey and that rom Com.
(16:50):
I never watched failure to launch. But from young to
old time goes pretty quickly, y'all. And the share of
workers who think they'll work past age sixty two has
dropped dramatic in recent years. This is according to data
from the New York Fed. And what's interesting here is
that it's hard to put a finger on what it
is that's causing this new sentiment. We don't know. If
(17:12):
it's the fire movement, maybe that's gone a little warming stream.
Maybe it's the lingering impact of COVID, perhaps reminding us
that we're not going to live forever. We don't know.
But we're totally cool with folks aiming to bag work
a little bit earlier than the traditional retirement age. But
here's the thing. Planes and reality these are two different things.
(17:32):
And you've got to be more dedicated to saving and
investing if you're keen on retiring early, and that means
being more comfortable with greater sacrifice now for a brighter
tomorrow and funneling a higher percentage into your retirement accounts.
It means front loading that sacrifice, and we think that
having big goals are great and right like that is
(17:53):
going to be what fuels you to make some of
those sacrifices or to cut back on spending, perhaps to
buy nothing for a set peeriod of time. But just
make sure that you're creating actionable steps to make sure
that you that you end up getting there, not just
wishing and thinking and hoping that at some point that
that'll be something that you too will be able to achieve.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Yeah, just seeing the change in that stat a lot
more people saying I want to retire a lot earlier,
and more power to you. But just make sure that
it's not just pie in the sky, but you've got
like actual plans in place to help you get there.
Otherwise you're gonna get to that age and you're gonna
want to put in your notice, but you won't have
the financial backup to allow you to do so. Now
we've got more to get to on this episode, including
(18:32):
great news for people who like to travel domestically and internationally.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Will get to that and more right after this. All right, buddy,
we are back from the break and it is now
time for the ludicrous headline of the week. This one.
It's from the Journal, and the headline reads, want to
make a new friend? Well, how much money have you
(18:56):
got and be charging for friendship? Now? How much would
you pay Joel to be my friend? If a lot? Yeah,
thank you priceless right. The gist of this article was
like a Master Cards commercial. There are more folks out there,
especially young folks, but just more folks in general who
are relying on paid memberships to find friends. And it's
(19:17):
certainly true that the average American is starved for friendship.
This is according to pretty much all the different studies
and metrics that we've seen.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Well, I think the average person used to, say, fifteen
years ago, they had three point eight close friends they
could call on in a time of emergency. The average
person now has one point.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Six or something. I feel like, if there's two things,
Joel that we know a whole lot about, well, it's
going to be friendship and money beer. That's the third. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
if you've got to add add one on there, we're
experts maybe on those three. Bottom line, I don't think
there's anything wrong with paying a membership every single month
to do something that you love, right. I don't think
there's there's no harm in joining, say a climbing gym
because you love to climb. And also there's the ability
(19:55):
to benefit from the social activity of hanging out on
the crash pads and striking up a com sation with everybody.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
That's the that's the vibe or or CrossFit. If you're
Matt and you just like to be in stinky places,
in close places with other people who.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Love it, it's worth totally worth it. But there are
just plenty of other ways to build community without spending
a ton of money. Uh, And that's what we want
to highlight here. We would recommend for folks to check
out something like meetup dot com. Uh. They've got a
list of different things that are going on near you.
You can look at like just different local Facebook groups
for some of the different activities that you're into, whether
that's like hiking or whether that's like pickleball. You don't
(20:29):
have to pay a ton of money to be able
to meet up with them.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Yeah, I've been telling you, Matt, my dad and I
at some point soon hopefully we wanna We want to hike,
we want to walk the Camino Santiago. There is a
place locally here or a Facebook group of people who
are getting together rerely like three four times a month
to do hikes and events together because they're passionate about
this one stretch of road in Spain. And it's just
fascinating how like you could do all that specific hike. Yes,
(20:53):
it's crazy, that.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Specific hike, and so that's amazing, Like it's it's not,
it's it's an incredibly cheap way to make friends with
people who care about the same things you do. I
love it. Church Like, that's another avenue as well if
you're so inclined. But just don't forget about some of
these lower cost ways of making friends, like anything from
like board games to volunteering serving others. That's a great
way to find folks who share a common passion or
(21:16):
common interest as you. It's just a great way to
not only to meet folks, but just also spend time
together and kindle some of these friendships that don't involve
you spending a ton of money every single month neighborhood events.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
And you know what, sometimes you've got to be the change.
You got to be the person to help inspire those
get togethers. Matt recently, I threw a little picnic for
a group of friends who live in the area. You
were there too, and I was like, oh, man, I
wish this existed. And then I like punched myself in
the face and I was like, you make it exist, Joel,
And so I did and it was a great time.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
And that like instigates community.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
And I think sometimes we're maybe afraid to get the
ball rolling on that, myself included, and so I just
have to be reminded that I too can start that participation.
I can be the catalyst for it. So don't feel obliged,
obligated to pay big bucks.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
To make friends. I don't think you need to. All right, man,
let's talk about the automobile, because we are big fans
of driving your car to the wheels fall off. Well,
it turns out more Americans are doing just that. The
typical car in the US now remains on the road
for over twelve years on average. I love hearing this
as someone with a twelve plus year old vehicle myself. Oh,
(22:21):
mine's almost twenty, bro, Is it really well? My my
accurate SUV? Yeah, wait, it looks surprisingly good for being
that old. Clean the bird poop off, though I wear
the age of our van, like as a badge of honor.
But I'm also a little disappointed now to see that
it's just average, because I don't know, I guess you
thought you were above average. I kind of thought it
was like when you're around folks that have newer vehicles,
(22:42):
you feel the age of your vehicle a little bit,
but they feel have to be proud of it. They
feel elite, ashamed of it in the other way, and
you're like, no, no, no, I'm the elite one. Yeah, okay.
So I think one of the reasons we wanted to
share the story with folks is because what's fascinating is
that our society, it seemed like, basically we're obsessed with
quote unquote going green, right like, get you that EV,
(23:03):
get you a new hybrid, do your part. Hybrids specifically,
they're hotter than than EV's. Right now, there seems to
be a shifting sentiment towards those. But the greenest and
the cheapest, most affordable thing is almost always to keep
driving the car that you already have. You want to
save money on those rising insurance costs that Joe mentioned earlier,
drive an older car. There's nothing wrong with EV's there's
(23:24):
nothing wrong with with hybrids out there. At some point,
we're all going to upgrade our cars, but holding out
longer is crucial. And you know that new hybrid. It
might save you some money on fuel, but most of
the time, buying a new car is going to cost
you more money overall. Obviously, take your own circumstances into account. Right,
crunch the numbers, figure out what it is that you're paying,
look up energy costs, all of that. But don't think
(23:46):
that buying something new makes you a greener person, especially
EV's because there's no stink and expensive, and realize that
if you want to get an EV that's totally fine,
but realize you're doing that as a lifestyle move as
opposed to like, I'm doing this for the earth.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
I don't even care if you're driving a one year
old truck that gets like eight miles to the gallon, Like,
it's still greener to keep that thing on the road
than to buy a new Prius in my ass, like,
because the longer it's like ripping out the floors in
your house to put in bamboo floors. Yes, bamboo is
incredibly sustainable, right, it grows really quickly, but keeping the
force you have is even greener. You're not using anything there.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Yeah, except for with a eight mile per gallon truck.
It's actually I picture it like spew and black smoke.
Hopefully it's not like awful for you. Sure, there's like
a certain point that you get to where the harm
caused outweighs the potential good. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
I think a lot of times though, it's a marketing tactic.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Yeah, And it's something that people are like think to themselves, Oh,
I'm gonna do the green thing, and it costs them
a lot of money to do the green thing that
might not actually be the green thing.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
How ironic is it that the green thing also happens
to be incredibly expensive. Yeah, and it's more associated with
luxury than actually what's best for the environment. That's right. Okay.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
The Atlantic recently had an article on the absurdity of
the primacy of the automobile in our country, and Matt,
for a second, I thought it was going to be
your byline on the article, because I know how you
feel about cars in general, and we've talked about it regularly.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
On the show.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Well, I didn't agree with every take in that article,
but in a whole lot of ways.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
It was spot on.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Car wrecks are actually the number one cause of death
for people under forty in this country. It's kind of
crazy to think about people get so nervous about My
kids getting nervous about shark attacks, and I tell them that,
like a vending machine is more likely to follow you
right than getting attacked by a shark. Well, actually the
most dangerous thing is driving anywhere in a car with them.
The cost of keeping a car centric society functioning isn't
(25:31):
cheap either, Like our society has been built around cars,
making it incredibly hard for people to take a different route,
make a different choice biking or walking where you want
to go, even if you want to, it's hard to
pull off. But it's updust to try, I think, and
to get involved locally to see more investments in non
car infrastructure. It's sad to me reading an article about
(25:51):
how cars dominate everything and how we've over the decades
made a series of bad choices. I guess when it
comes to how we think about urban design, how we
think about what's good for people, And the more we're
in our cars, the more traffic builds up, the more
we feel like we have to build extra lanes to
the freeway and guess what, the traffic comes. You build it,
(26:11):
it will come. And the less happy people are because
they're in their boxes driving around town all day, they're
more disassociated from their communities and from their bodies.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
That's right, and of course, one of the solutions to
all of that heartache, headache, emotional distress harm causes the
environment biking, And if you don't have a bike, now
actually might be a great time to get one. And
that's because bike supply is actually up in large part
because demand is down, so there are so many bikes
that we're sold. In twenty twenty and because of that,
(26:42):
bike production skyrocketed, but it shouldn't be a huge surprise.
Demand has not kept up after that spike, which means
prices they're looking a whole lot better. So we would
recommend for folks to shop around. RII and Bikes Direct
are solid places to look, but also just look around
locally because the ability to find use is going to
net you the best deal. I guarantee that there are
(27:05):
dozens of folks nearby, like within five minutes of you,
probably who aren't riding their bikes much After a pandemic
riding spree. So get out there by the gently used
bike and save a ton of money. You don't Again,
going green doesn't necessarily have to involve you getting the
latest and greatest, lightest carbon front you know, like, there
are ways of doing this, saving a ton of money,
(27:26):
and doing it on the cheap and Facebook marketplace. We've
talked about that.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Yeah, watch out for the scams on Facebook marketplace, but
bikes are usually something you can find on Facebook Marketplace
and you can feel I think comfortable with a lot
of the search results there. It's at least we're checking.
Especially in those neighborhood yard sale groups. I bet there
are bikes out there for sale that are pretty solid,
gently used and you're going to get them for a
whole lot less than the price of a new one.
On the note of giving around town, Matt driving and traffic,
(27:50):
there was an article in Bloomberg about the need to
raise money for infrastructure needs. I'm just talking about how
expensive it is to build the infrastructure for cars to
get around on.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Well.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
They pitched a solution in this article, and the solution
was kind of a simple one.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
It was toll roads.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
And while toll roads, I don't know I've always kind
of found them a little bit annoying. They're still I
think the best way actually to pay for increased infrastructure needs,
and that's because they're the fairest way to do so, right,
the people who drive on those roads end up paying
for them. The more you drive on those roads, the
more you're gonna pay. If you're the Monday through Friday,
guess what you're going to be hit with that toll
coming and going both ways. And if you only use
(28:27):
it two days, so you're going to pay less. And
if you commute on your bike, you avoid traffic and
tolls too, right. And so the biggest cities, according to
this article that are adopting toll roads are in the
sun Belt region. I know Florida, Orlando in particular, famous
for tolls, and they're taking this route so that they
can increase capacity. Something else we've done here in this
state map, so called Lexus lanes, Right, they're kind of
(28:49):
part of the solution. So basically, if you don't want
to sit in traffic, there's a special lane for you,
but you got to pay even more. Right, so depending
on how the Peach pass Peach Pass planes. Yeah, yeah,
but I think they call them the Lexus lanes because
it's for like fancy folks who got brainded. Because sometimes
you sponsored, it's not actually sponsored. They're basically saying you
got to you gotta have luxury money to hop in
(29:10):
those things. But I will say, man, I think for me,
most of the time, I rarely. It's usually on a
vacation or a trip or something coming back in town
and the traffic slammed, and I will hop in that lane,
even if it's like eight bucks to save thirty minutes. Sorry,
I'm doing it because my time is worth more than
that is. Sometimes you just want to get back, and
you just want to get back. So I think more
of those options, like that's going to be a better
(29:31):
way to pay for some of the infrastructure needs that
we have.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
That's right, man, all right. Speaking of travel, well, it
turns out that flying is actually cheaper this year. Last
year it was pretty expensive because that was the year
of revenge travel. That's what all the journalists were calling it.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
That's an interesting attack, Like travel never did anything to
you. You don't need to get revenge travel, but I know
you couldn't for a while.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
But still so twenty twenty four fares to Europe are
down eight percent year over year, and the average price
of all flights that are originating in the US have
fallen by five point This is all awesome news for
all the different travel addicts out there, something that might
cause them to fall even more. Get this. Southwest is
now playing mice with Google Flights. It's about time. At
(30:12):
the end of last week, Southwest they finally decided to
list its fares on the number one air fare search tool.
You should have seen the smile on my face when
I saw that, Mad It's like just streamlining. I love it.
And this is going to make shopping for the best
flights out there at the best prices is going to
make it even easier than before, because if you specifically,
if you live in a Southwest city, they typically offer
(30:34):
pretty competitive rates, pretty competitive fairs. But previously the results
they wouldn't show up their own Google flights, and Southwest
famously refused to participate. Yeah, and so because of that,
I think a lot of folks they would just forget
about Southwest completely and personally, like, dude, I think this
is going to give Southwest a ton more visibility. Folks
are gonna be like, oh yeah, I forgot about Southwest.
(30:55):
I think it's going to add another great competitor to
the mix as folks are out there shopping, So now
you don't have to hop between Google fights and have
a separate tab open to to see what the Southwest
fairs are going to be. I think it's going to
be great. I know, I agree.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
I think that's wonderful and glad to see Southwest participating
more fully in that. I hope it leads to a
lot more bookings for them, and I hope at leads
to lower prices serving the more. I mean, you think
about that. It's nice to have competition, but if not
all that competition is showing up and the number one
search tool, well then you don't really have as much
competition as it looks like exactly. And now the Southwest
(31:28):
is participating, it's going to cause I don't know, I
think probably it's like a little shot across the bow
for a lot of the other major airlines.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
Too, totally. Hey, did you see, by the way, folks
talking about so as we're you mentioned revenge travel? How
about quiet vacationing? Have you seen folks talking about that?
Speaker 2 (31:41):
I saw that we've invented so many silly terms over
the past few years. What was it quiet quitting? I
guess was yeah, I putting was huge a couple of
years ago.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Now. The thing, so for folks who don't know quiet
vacationing is basically it's going on vacation, not telling your
boss about it, but still getting like a little bit
of work done, so you're still kind of being quote
unquote product of but simultaneously you are not fully engaged
in your actual vacation. I feel like I'm a I
take kind of an extreme stance on this, but I
hate it because like, if you're going to take a vacation,
(32:11):
actually take a vacation and willing to the story for
this one too. But folks were talking about how the
culture of the company needs to change, like and I
get that right, because there can be pressure from a
boss to like, hey, you've got unlimited PTO. But then
what is the actual culture around whether or not folks
feel the freedom to actually take those days off just
(32:32):
because it says that, But there can be like cultural
pressure and spoken rules. But that being said, I think like, yes,
there probably is likely some work that needs to be
done on a company side of thing, but I think
there is so much internal and personal work that needs
to take place for us as individuals to feel the
freedom to take the time off as well. I think
a lot of us because it's natural to want to
(32:54):
be a part of a team like that sounds like
a healthy work environment right where you're like helping each
other out and it's rah rah, everyone's doing a good job,
the company is succeeding. But simultaneously, I think there can
be it can be a slippery slope to find too
much of your identity tied up into your work, and
I think that's generally speaking unhealthy. And I think folks
(33:14):
aren't gonna push to take that time off if they
don't have an identity outside of their work. And so
so much of that I think comes down to us
as individuals doing the things that we often talk about
here on the show, like hanging out with your neighbors,
going out and doing other things outside of your work
to fully flesh out who you are as an individual.
Take your time kind of existential and philosophical with it.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Well, take your time off unashamedly too, right Like I don't.
There's nothing wrong with that, And all the study show
if your boss GI's your hard time. Hey, guess what
I'm going to be better when I come back from work.
And I think the other thing too, Matt. This trend,
what it's likely to do is accelerate return to office
from a lot of employers. They're going to say, hey, listen,
we've seen this trend going around. We've noticed a lack
of productivity from some of you. Maybe you're quiet vacationing,
(33:57):
and it's just gonna instead of having the best in
both worlds, being able to do hybrid being in the
office one or two days a week and work from
home the rest, if people are like taking advantage of
that situation, we're just going to see more people returning
to the office and a lot of that hybrid stuff
squashed like a bug. Which sucks because I do think
hybrid is a great way for it and it's going
to work for a lot of employers and employees. But yeah,
(34:19):
if quiet vacation continues to take off, I don't know, it.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Might not, that might not last. I just can't get
past the fact that it's just a reduced quality of
vacation as well, because like you, you know, like we
always see folks on their phones, like getting back to messages,
and I understand that there are certain industries where that
is more of a requirement. So much of that I
think is self imposed. We do it to ourselves.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
The only exception to that is if you're able to
take more vacation because you're a little bit connected when
you're gone, right, So if you're like ah.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
I especially though I think more is not better, I
think offication yeah, because I think for a lot of folks,
it's less about the quantity of it, and I think
a lot of times it's the quality because I think
a lot of times, yeah, I think the folks who
are quote unquote quiet vacationing, Yeah, they do have more
vacation because they're able to, you know, send a few messages,
(35:06):
do business on the side, not on the side. It
makes it sound like super shady, but there's something about
that that feels counter to what feels like a healthy
detachment from work where you're able and like we've talked
about the research that points to that where it takes
like two weeks to fully like disengage and to actually
find that pace and the rhythm that's associated with taking
some time off work.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Yeah, And I think so as we forget how we
turned into a big ball of energy that needs to
spread its wings a little bit. Yeah, and detaching from
work for a healthy period of time we'll help us
do that make it feel more human.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
I get it though. I mean, if you can send
like one message while you're sitting on the beach over
the course of a day, and that's all it took
for you to be able to take that time off,
it's hard to argue against that as well.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
So yep, you're right, all right, that's gonna do it
for this episode. I hope everyone has a great weekend.
You can find show notes with links to some of
the articles we mentioned on today's podcast up on our
website at how to money dot com.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
And you can always sign.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
Up for the how to Money newslter, which is great.
You should do it at how to money dot com Newsletter.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
You know what, We hope everyone has a fantastic weekend,
and we'll see back here on Monday with a fresh
ask how to Money episode. So buddy, until next time,
best friends are Out, Best Friends Out.
Welcome to had of Money. I'm Joel and I am Matt.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Today we're talking about recession vibes, addicted to autos, and
paying for friendship.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
That's right. Everyone's gonna figure out whether or not Joel
has been paying the seven to ninety nine subscription to
be Matt Alwicks's friend, or if he's been paying the
premium fourteen ninety nine. That's what it would cost for
the premium AD supported version of Corsi Wig. Because you
love ads, I just like saving money. This is our
Friday fly. We're gonna talk about the most pertinent headlines,
(00:49):
the ones that we think you should be paying attention to.
And Happy Friday everyone. It's so great having a holiday
weekend like this where I feel like the week just
flies by and before you know it, bloom.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
It's for only four days in the office this week
for most people, which is which is lovely. Okay, speaking
of which, Matt, Monday, you and I were off obviously
for Memorial Day, and it's a solemn holiday, right all
the fallen soldiers who have protected our freedoms. I was
going to run a five k on Memorial Day.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
While carrying an American flag.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Yeah, totally and in Norwegian one just because my heritage
is okay both at the same time. Yeah, they probably
would have goten scals, but I was gonna do it anyway.
Buddy and I were going to wake up early. Started
driving over there. It was raining a little bit. I
was like, all right, one ever't really run any races.
This is kind of my first four ray into that.
It's a little nervous anyway. But then it just like
the clouds open up and if Yeah, I felt like
(01:40):
Noah in the Old Testament, and the rain just came
down like crazy lightning. They canceled the race, right, So.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
The lightning is key. Yeah, I think that's because it's
a lot of races it's like rain or shine, But
I don't know about the lightning aspect of it.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
And they couldn't delay it because they got to shut
down the road. They've got a permit for a certain
time period, and hey, guess what if they delay by
a couple hours, they're gonna lose the permit. They got
to open the roads back, so they canceled the race.
We went to Cracker Barrel to commiserate, because that's what one.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Does instead of razy, like do the opposite this like, loo,
oh you actually fried southern food. We ran our own
race later that afternoons.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Okay, that was good. I still got to run it.
But my question to you is, because I'm still thinking
through this frugal or cheap, I don't know what my
response should be. Should I paid with a credit card?
Should I do a chargeback because the race was canceled?
You said you did pay with a credit card? I did, Okay,
So for I guess, first of all, maybe for folks.
Most folks know what a chargeback is. But that's where
you go go to your credit card company and you say, hey,
(02:39):
this was a fraudulent charge, or hey, service is not rendered,
or you say.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Hey they double dips sometimes I've had that happen.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Or they send me a product and it didn't look
anything like what they listened on the website.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Yeah. So, man, this is a good one. And I
think it has a lot to do with what did
the fine prints say, because you go look into that. Sure, okay,
because I think if it says on there, like I said,
rain or shine, even thunder, well I guess if it
was even thunder, then they should have actually held the race.
But they actually called it off So, first of all,
I do think it comes down to the fine print.
(03:07):
What kind of like who hosted the race? By the way,
I don't even remember.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
It was some sort of was it Memorial Day? Was
there like a charity race?
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Was it for like cancer or for like veterans or not?
I mean it was because veterans were able to run
free in the race. But okay, because I was gonna
say if it was like a fundraiser kind of race,
it seems like a cheap thing to like stick it
to them and be like, hey, I want my money back,
I want my donation back. Essentially, that's like how they're
qualifying the entry fee. But no, I think it's a
viable option to do a charge back. Okay, here's my
(03:38):
last question. Have you reached out to the race organizer?
Not yet. I'm still because I'm in that limo.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
I'm like, I don't know, it feels a little cheap,
but also like I hate the I oll one other thing,
by the way, I did, there was like thirty five
bucks to run the race no T shirt, and forty
bucks to run the race with a T shirt. I
assume the T shirts were going to be ugly. I
took the cheaper route. Yeah, but yeah, now I'm.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Like, the ends up being awesome. I don't know. So
that was another number. So yeah, some of them are cool,
So I do. I would be willing to do a chargeback,
but you've got to reach out to the business first.
And the reason I mentioned this is I think we
talked about it. They ask you that when you file
a charge back, they ask you if you've reached out
to the business, but specifically because it costs the small
(04:18):
business money, Like there's a fee involved when a small business,
a small retailer, or I guess a large business as well,
if they have customers who were requesting a charge back.
I didn't know this until somewhat recently because I requested
a charge back from a car wash where I had
signed up for a promotion and they're like, if you
cancel within thirty days, no harm, no foul or whatever,
(04:40):
you get to try it out. And so I canceled,
of course, and guess what they still did even after
I had reached out to them and to cancel it,
and they even gave me a confirmation like all right,
you're canceled, and then that next month rolled around, boom,
I was still charged and so in my according to
my own rules here, I guess I had reached out
to them, but not after they charged me, just in
(05:00):
order to keep myself from being charged. But someone with
the car wash reached out was just like, hey, next time,
if just just let us talk to us about it,
and I was like, well, I did reach out to you,
we did talk about it, but I guess I just
didn't talk about it with him. I didn't reach out
to him after the fact. But they could cost them
anywhere between. Like, I think the feed starts at around
twenty bucks, but I've seen it reported up to one
(05:21):
hundred dollars. Wow for a chargeback. Send it for businesses
to do right by their customers. Yeah, but that's a
good point. Maybe I should reach out on the car
processing network. They decide what it is that the small
but small business is charged.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Okay, maybe that's what I'll do. I'll at least reach
out in a friendly manner. I'll ask the question. I'll say, hey,
sad that the race guy canceled. Are there refunds?
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Are giving any refunds? Yeah? I think it's totally worth
And then if they offer at least starting a conversation
or maybe they're like they're like, hey, we're willing to
instead would you rather would you be willing to accept
a free entry to another race that kind of thing, right,
which it feels like a win win.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
I think i'd be that'd be great for me. So
good point. I'll reach out to the race sponsors. Right,
I'll let you know what if I know, let us know.
All right, Well, let's move on, Mat, let's get to
the Friday flight. This is a sampling of stories we
found interesting this week and how they pertain to your
personal finances. Of course, we talked with Kyla Scanlon on Wednesday.
We talked about vibes a whole lot. That is like
(06:18):
something that she thinks and writes a lot about. They're
incredibly influential, more so than I even thought, Matt. Just
how people feel. It's like this almost like self determining thing,
it seems, and an entire.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Economy feelings and attitudes.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Yeah, which makes sense because like, hey, if you're optimistic
about things, you're probably gonna take more chances in life.
If you're pessimistic, you're probably gonna take fewer. So yeah,
I guess just hadn't really connected the dots until I
started reading Kylo's work. Well, at least to a certain extent,
we tend to manifest what we feel, and it's no wonder. Actually,
I read this quote this week Matt Daniel Konnoman. He
once said that if you could only wish one thing
for your child, wish for optimism. And I thought that was, like,
(06:53):
actually a good point. I'm like, yeah, okay, if I
want my kids to be one thing, I don't know, resilient, gritty,
but optimistic would be certainly be up there. But the
American public, we're not terribly optimistic right now, despite a
spate of good economic news. There's this new Harris poll
and the results were shocking. It found that more than
half of Americans think we're currently in a recession, and
more than half of Americans also think that the economy
(07:16):
is shrinking. Recessions are backward looking, but I don't know,
we don't appear to be in one right now, and
the economy appears to be growing quite nicely.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Three quarters of.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Folks believe that inflation is increasing and it's not going
back to the two percent target easily, but it is
receding right Inflation is going down, It is coming down,
half folks think that unemployment is at a fifty year high.
The opposite is true. So it's just really interesting to
see that the facts on the ground are. You know,
it's not like all roses and sunshine. But the vibes
(07:45):
aren't great right now, and they don't necessarily align with reality.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Yeah, yeah, everything isn't quite peachy and wonderful. But yeah,
it is amazing how these bad vibes lead to massive,
like actual factual inaccuracies. So here's another positive stat that
I saw going around, which is that pay increases on
average have outpaced inflation. And that being said, I feel
like this is an instance where good news equals bad
(08:08):
news because wage increases is a key driver of inflation.
And what happens when inflation is high, well that's when
the FED refuses to cut rates, which is what we've seen.
And when the FED refuses to cut rates, so those
things down, people get bummed out. So it's I don't know, I'm.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Just highly new the fact that it's all it's all
circular essentially, and a pay RaSE happens things connected once
a year. But you go shop at the grocery store
every week, and so I think, like, oh, well, who
a five percent pay bump, But then you go to
the grocery store and you're bummed out, not realizing that
you've got more money to cover some of those, you know,
increased prices.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Sure well, speaking of the grocery store, here's some actual
good news that will soon realize, and that is that
Aldi they announce that they're lowering prices on more than
two hundred and fifty items this summer, So you had
another reason to try out Aldy if you if you
refuse to get a hold out. But also Target they
announced price reductions on more than five thousand items. Cost Go.
(09:00):
They similarly say that prices they're not just going up,
they're actually coming down on some items as well. Walgreens
reported something similar, And it makes me think about our
conversation with John Mackie, he's the founder of Whole Foods.
There is a lot of competition within the grocery industry,
and the more competition we have, I think, the more
that we are all going to benefit. This is a
(09:22):
case in point when it comes to what we're paying
at grocery stores. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Yeah, And that of course doesn't mean that inflation isn't
a problem anymore, Right, we've talked about childcare costs.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Last week we talked about.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
The insane rise in the cost of insurance home insurance,
auto insurance. Those aren't terribly easy to push back against. So, yes,
there are still microeconomic problems facing consumers, especially if you've
got like a slew of kids that you have to
find chalco are for slew of young kids, and if
you've got multiple cars or in the house to ensure
like those costs have gone up and yeah, there's some
(09:52):
things you can do to push back, but you probably
can't bring them back down to like twenty nineteen levels. Right,
that's impossible. But the response is to that poll also
reflect a lack of realism too, Right. There was this
interesting article in Axios. It highlighted a changing definition of
inflation as a potential part of this problem. Right because
instead of year over year price increases, which is the
(10:13):
real definition of inflation, when most folks cite inflation, now,
what they're really revealing, What they really mean is prices
are just too dang high. Like that's what people mean
when they say inflation. Now, sure, this inflation is crushing me,
and it's not about the year over year movement in prices.
It's all about the fact that prices are just higher
and they want them to be. Case in point, the
grocery store. Right, prices are up a lot since twenty
(10:34):
twenty one, up twenty plus percent, but the same time,
the rate of inflation has chilled out a lot too. Currently,
inflation is low on groceries. It's one point one percent
year over year price increases. So it's like we feel
a certain way, and yes, prices are higher at the
grocery store, but they're not rising at nearly the same clip.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
It's difficult because it's still inflation. It's just what is
your time horizon, right, because it's prices are higher, inflation
is low, or but the reason prices are high is
because of Like what we're talking about is yesterday's inflation,
not today's inflation. Right, Like we're not trying to gas
lightingbody out there, We're not trying to deny your personal experience,
but like what we're pointing to is the fact that
(11:13):
inflation was so high and has been so high over
the past four years. Right, Like we were close to
I mean we're over nine percent, we're close to double
digits that which is great for eebondholders. But sure, and
like that actually happened, right, And so even though inflation
is coming back down closer to the FEDS target, like
you said, prices will not come back down like regardless
of like we might see little drops here and there
(11:35):
at the grocery store like I mentioned, And that's I
welcome that with arms wide open. But but we also
don't want are you going to go creep on that?
I came out of the I'm not going to go there? Well,
I think yeah, some people, it's not going to be
We're not going to be able to go back to
pre pain levels in price levels.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Let's be honest, you don't want to because if we
enter a period of deflation, there's a lot of other
economic problems that come along with that. So slowing prices,
like prices not rising nearly as rapidly, is a good thing.
Prices going down could mean other signifigan problems for.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
All more deflationary in nature, which is not the Fed's goals.
By the way, So one trend two combat high prices
that's apparently smoking hot right now is not buying anything.
We talked about that actually earlier this year with Liz Chai.
She wrote a book about that very topic. We'll link
to that episode there in the show notes. But more
folks are getting on the buy nothing bandwagon in an
(12:26):
effort to combat overspending, which is something we can totally
get behind, because, yeah, it's basically, even though I feel
like we're speaking out of both sides of our mouth,
inflation is coming down, but prices are still high, and
it's impossible to not feel the pinch of the longer
term impacts of inflation over the previous years. But it's
also true that there are significant, meaningful ways to mitigate
(12:49):
the impact on us as individuals. And choosing not to
buy any non essential items for like a specific period
of time, even like a month or two, as opposed
to a whole year, I think that can be a
great way to change habits that have just become ingrained,
and it can help us to just achieve some different
financial goals more quickly. And I'm pointing to the fact
that there are time periods that are good to focus
(13:10):
on because that's essentially what constitutes like a no spend challenge. Yeah,
the ability to say, okay, for a set amount of time,
I'm going to alter my behavior in this way. It's
like a jolt to kind of snap you out of
your spending ways. It's like a fast.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Right, and you're saying You're not saying like I'm never
going to eat food again, but what you're saying is
three four days, which I mean, let's be honest, I've
never actually done. I think it would be a good
thing for my body. I heard quarterback Aaron Rodgers talking
about that recently and I was like, oh man, that
sounds like something I should do, right, because it is
good for your body. It is a jolt to the system,
and I think the same thing can be true for
your finances. Taking a sort of spending fast, maybe even
(13:46):
in just a couple of specific categories that you find
particularly problematic, that can be a great way to proceed. So, yeah,
you don't have to go whole hog buy nothing for
the rest of your life like Liz did, although you
might find yourself more inclined in that direction after giving.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
It a shot.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
It's cool to see this as a trend that's taking
off because, yeah, I don't know, I think it can
have a solid and meaningful impact for a lot of people.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Totally agree, And I think what's key is focusing on
whatever financial goal it is that you're trying to accomplish, Like,
what is it that you're trying to reach with this,
Because it's not just about depriving yourself and the removal
of something from your life, because then what is there
in that void? Ooh, all you do is just focus
on the negative. You're just focusing on the fact that, oh,
I'm not I don't get to spend like I used to,
(14:26):
or I guess yeah, I'm not going to go into
the food fasting example. But in the case of money,
if you are replacing that with like, oh, I want
to eliminate some debt. Oh I want to be able
to max out my wrath IRA for the first time
ever this year, that is the positive that's basically supplants
that negative, and the ability to focus on that, I
think that is what's so key. It's not just saying no,
it's about Okay, what instead do I want to focus on?
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Yeah, it can help you achieve those money goals faster. Yeah,
And again it's it's like the bare bones budget. It's
not something meant to be incorporated in perpetuity, but it
can be a great short term thing to do to
kind of like yeah, trump start your progress and then
you know what, if there are other people doing it,
join with your friends, make it a competition, make it
like a friendly endeavor that you do with other people,
because this is the kind of thing you can do
with the other folks in your life. Matt, I don't
(15:10):
know about you, but we have on our garment watches
like a step challenge sort of thing. I think I
invited you to a running challenge for the month of June.
Check it out with some of our other friends.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Haven't been on the app today, but that's.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
The cool thing is like, if it's just about me
running like, I'll do some, but if I'm like trying
to kick your butt, I'll probably do more.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
You got to include that community. That's right, It's huge.
All right, Let's talk about jobs for a second. It's
summertime and teens are signing up to work more, and
that's good news for the economy as a whole, given
how low the unemployment rate is. Their services are needed.
But it's also good for those young folks too.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Write and it's not just the money aspect either, Earning
money as a team, learning how to save, spend and
invest with those dollars that you've earned is great, but
it's also about the responsibility and the work experience that's garnered.
It's like learning how to talk to adults that aren't
your parent or teacher in the face. It's show up
on time, Like there's all these other things that happen
(16:03):
for teenagers when they do have a job that they
have to show up to. And Matt, you and I
were not like child labor advocates or anything like that,
but part time teen jobs are great in our book.
I think that my years spent working part time in
high school were really, really good for me, And I've
heard that from countless other people that those years you
could have been focusing more on your studies. But I
think for a lot of youngsters it gives you an
(16:25):
entry into the workforce that's pretty low stakes.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Yeah, essentially, what you're talking about are the soft skills
that you learn by going out there on your own.
And like, isn't that the unspoken rules and spoken rules
for us, Gore, Like, what are we trying to do
as adults or as parents. We're trying to launch our
kids like out into the world, And what a great
way to softly launch them out into the world with
the soft skills. By the way, I don't want them
to be like Matthew McConaughey. McConaughey and that rom Com.
(16:50):
I never watched failure to launch. But from young to
old time goes pretty quickly, y'all. And the share of
workers who think they'll work past age sixty two has
dropped dramatic in recent years. This is according to data
from the New York Fed. And what's interesting here is
that it's hard to put a finger on what it
is that's causing this new sentiment. We don't know. If
(17:12):
it's the fire movement, maybe that's gone a little warming stream.
Maybe it's the lingering impact of COVID, perhaps reminding us
that we're not going to live forever. We don't know.
But we're totally cool with folks aiming to bag work
a little bit earlier than the traditional retirement age. But
here's the thing. Planes and reality these are two different things.
(17:32):
And you've got to be more dedicated to saving and
investing if you're keen on retiring early, and that means
being more comfortable with greater sacrifice now for a brighter
tomorrow and funneling a higher percentage into your retirement accounts.
It means front loading that sacrifice, and we think that
having big goals are great and right like that is
(17:53):
going to be what fuels you to make some of
those sacrifices or to cut back on spending, perhaps to
buy nothing for a set peeriod of time. But just
make sure that you're creating actionable steps to make sure
that you that you end up getting there, not just
wishing and thinking and hoping that at some point that
that'll be something that you too will be able to achieve.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Yeah, just seeing the change in that stat a lot
more people saying I want to retire a lot earlier,
and more power to you. But just make sure that
it's not just pie in the sky, but you've got
like actual plans in place to help you get there.
Otherwise you're gonna get to that age and you're gonna
want to put in your notice, but you won't have
the financial backup to allow you to do so. Now
we've got more to get to on this episode, including
(18:32):
great news for people who like to travel domestically and internationally.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Will get to that and more right after this. All right, buddy,
we are back from the break and it is now
time for the ludicrous headline of the week. This one.
It's from the Journal, and the headline reads, want to
make a new friend? Well, how much money have you
(18:56):
got and be charging for friendship? Now? How much would
you pay Joel to be my friend? If a lot? Yeah,
thank you priceless right. The gist of this article was
like a Master Cards commercial. There are more folks out there,
especially young folks, but just more folks in general who
are relying on paid memberships to find friends. And it's
(19:17):
certainly true that the average American is starved for friendship.
This is according to pretty much all the different studies
and metrics that we've seen.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Well, I think the average person used to, say, fifteen
years ago, they had three point eight close friends they
could call on in a time of emergency. The average
person now has one point.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Six or something. I feel like, if there's two things,
Joel that we know a whole lot about, well, it's
going to be friendship and money beer. That's the third. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
if you've got to add add one on there, we're
experts maybe on those three. Bottom line, I don't think
there's anything wrong with paying a membership every single month
to do something that you love, right. I don't think
there's there's no harm in joining, say a climbing gym
because you love to climb. And also there's the ability
(19:55):
to benefit from the social activity of hanging out on
the crash pads and striking up a com sation with everybody.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
That's the that's the vibe or or CrossFit. If you're
Matt and you just like to be in stinky places,
in close places with other people who.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Love it, it's worth totally worth it. But there are
just plenty of other ways to build community without spending
a ton of money. Uh, And that's what we want
to highlight here. We would recommend for folks to check
out something like meetup dot com. Uh. They've got a
list of different things that are going on near you.
You can look at like just different local Facebook groups
for some of the different activities that you're into, whether
that's like hiking or whether that's like pickleball. You don't
(20:29):
have to pay a ton of money to be able
to meet up with them.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Yeah, I've been telling you, Matt, my dad and I
at some point soon hopefully we wanna We want to hike,
we want to walk the Camino Santiago. There is a
place locally here or a Facebook group of people who
are getting together rerely like three four times a month
to do hikes and events together because they're passionate about
this one stretch of road in Spain. And it's just
fascinating how like you could do all that specific hike. Yes,
(20:53):
it's crazy, that.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Specific hike, and so that's amazing, Like it's it's not,
it's it's an incredibly cheap way to make friends with
people who care about the same things you do. I
love it. Church Like, that's another avenue as well if
you're so inclined. But just don't forget about some of
these lower cost ways of making friends, like anything from
like board games to volunteering serving others. That's a great
way to find folks who share a common passion or
(21:16):
common interest as you. It's just a great way to
not only to meet folks, but just also spend time
together and kindle some of these friendships that don't involve
you spending a ton of money every single month neighborhood events.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
And you know what, sometimes you've got to be the change.
You got to be the person to help inspire those
get togethers. Matt recently, I threw a little picnic for
a group of friends who live in the area. You
were there too, and I was like, oh, man, I
wish this existed. And then I like punched myself in
the face and I was like, you make it exist, Joel,
And so I did and it was a great time.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
And that like instigates community.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
And I think sometimes we're maybe afraid to get the
ball rolling on that, myself included, and so I just
have to be reminded that I too can start that participation.
I can be the catalyst for it. So don't feel obliged,
obligated to pay big bucks.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
To make friends. I don't think you need to. All right, man,
let's talk about the automobile, because we are big fans
of driving your car to the wheels fall off. Well,
it turns out more Americans are doing just that. The
typical car in the US now remains on the road
for over twelve years on average. I love hearing this
as someone with a twelve plus year old vehicle myself. Oh,
(22:21):
mine's almost twenty, bro, Is it really well? My my
accurate SUV? Yeah, wait, it looks surprisingly good for being
that old. Clean the bird poop off, though I wear
the age of our van, like as a badge of honor.
But I'm also a little disappointed now to see that
it's just average, because I don't know, I guess you
thought you were above average. I kind of thought it
was like when you're around folks that have newer vehicles,
(22:42):
you feel the age of your vehicle a little bit,
but they feel have to be proud of it. They
feel elite, ashamed of it in the other way, and
you're like, no, no, no, I'm the elite one. Yeah, okay.
So I think one of the reasons we wanted to
share the story with folks is because what's fascinating is
that our society, it seemed like, basically we're obsessed with
quote unquote going green, right like, get you that EV,
(23:03):
get you a new hybrid, do your part. Hybrids specifically,
they're hotter than than EV's. Right now, there seems to
be a shifting sentiment towards those. But the greenest and
the cheapest, most affordable thing is almost always to keep
driving the car that you already have. You want to
save money on those rising insurance costs that Joe mentioned earlier,
drive an older car. There's nothing wrong with EV's there's
(23:24):
nothing wrong with with hybrids out there. At some point,
we're all going to upgrade our cars, but holding out
longer is crucial. And you know that new hybrid. It
might save you some money on fuel, but most of
the time, buying a new car is going to cost
you more money overall. Obviously, take your own circumstances into account. Right,
crunch the numbers, figure out what it is that you're paying,
look up energy costs, all of that. But don't think
(23:46):
that buying something new makes you a greener person, especially
EV's because there's no stink and expensive, and realize that
if you want to get an EV that's totally fine,
but realize you're doing that as a lifestyle move as
opposed to like, I'm doing this for the earth.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
I don't even care if you're driving a one year
old truck that gets like eight miles to the gallon, Like,
it's still greener to keep that thing on the road
than to buy a new Prius in my ass, like,
because the longer it's like ripping out the floors in
your house to put in bamboo floors. Yes, bamboo is
incredibly sustainable, right, it grows really quickly, but keeping the
force you have is even greener. You're not using anything there.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Yeah, except for with a eight mile per gallon truck.
It's actually I picture it like spew and black smoke.
Hopefully it's not like awful for you. Sure, there's like
a certain point that you get to where the harm
caused outweighs the potential good. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
I think a lot of times though, it's a marketing tactic.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Yeah, And it's something that people are like think to themselves, Oh,
I'm gonna do the green thing, and it costs them
a lot of money to do the green thing that
might not actually be the green thing.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
How ironic is it that the green thing also happens
to be incredibly expensive. Yeah, and it's more associated with
luxury than actually what's best for the environment. That's right. Okay.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
The Atlantic recently had an article on the absurdity of
the primacy of the automobile in our country, and Matt,
for a second, I thought it was going to be
your byline on the article, because I know how you
feel about cars in general, and we've talked about it regularly.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
On the show.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Well, I didn't agree with every take in that article,
but in a whole lot of ways.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
It was spot on.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Car wrecks are actually the number one cause of death
for people under forty in this country. It's kind of
crazy to think about people get so nervous about My
kids getting nervous about shark attacks, and I tell them that,
like a vending machine is more likely to follow you
right than getting attacked by a shark. Well, actually the
most dangerous thing is driving anywhere in a car with them.
The cost of keeping a car centric society functioning isn't
(25:31):
cheap either, Like our society has been built around cars,
making it incredibly hard for people to take a different route,
make a different choice biking or walking where you want
to go, even if you want to, it's hard to
pull off. But it's updust to try, I think, and
to get involved locally to see more investments in non
car infrastructure. It's sad to me reading an article about
(25:51):
how cars dominate everything and how we've over the decades
made a series of bad choices. I guess when it
comes to how we think about urban design, how we
think about what's good for people, And the more we're
in our cars, the more traffic builds up, the more
we feel like we have to build extra lanes to
the freeway and guess what, the traffic comes. You build it,
(26:11):
it will come. And the less happy people are because
they're in their boxes driving around town all day, they're
more disassociated from their communities and from their bodies.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
That's right, and of course, one of the solutions to
all of that heartache, headache, emotional distress harm causes the
environment biking, And if you don't have a bike, now
actually might be a great time to get one. And
that's because bike supply is actually up in large part
because demand is down, so there are so many bikes
that we're sold. In twenty twenty and because of that,
(26:42):
bike production skyrocketed, but it shouldn't be a huge surprise.
Demand has not kept up after that spike, which means
prices they're looking a whole lot better. So we would
recommend for folks to shop around. RII and Bikes Direct
are solid places to look, but also just look around
locally because the ability to find use is going to
net you the best deal. I guarantee that there are
(27:05):
dozens of folks nearby, like within five minutes of you,
probably who aren't riding their bikes much After a pandemic
riding spree. So get out there by the gently used
bike and save a ton of money. You don't Again,
going green doesn't necessarily have to involve you getting the
latest and greatest, lightest carbon front you know, like, there
are ways of doing this, saving a ton of money,
(27:26):
and doing it on the cheap and Facebook marketplace. We've
talked about that.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Yeah, watch out for the scams on Facebook marketplace, but
bikes are usually something you can find on Facebook Marketplace
and you can feel I think comfortable with a lot
of the search results there. It's at least we're checking.
Especially in those neighborhood yard sale groups. I bet there
are bikes out there for sale that are pretty solid,
gently used and you're going to get them for a
whole lot less than the price of a new one.
On the note of giving around town, Matt driving and traffic,
(27:50):
there was an article in Bloomberg about the need to
raise money for infrastructure needs. I'm just talking about how
expensive it is to build the infrastructure for cars to
get around on.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Well.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
They pitched a solution in this article, and the solution
was kind of a simple one.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
It was toll roads.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
And while toll roads, I don't know I've always kind
of found them a little bit annoying. They're still I
think the best way actually to pay for increased infrastructure needs,
and that's because they're the fairest way to do so, right,
the people who drive on those roads end up paying
for them. The more you drive on those roads, the
more you're gonna pay. If you're the Monday through Friday,
guess what you're going to be hit with that toll
coming and going both ways. And if you only use
(28:27):
it two days, so you're going to pay less. And
if you commute on your bike, you avoid traffic and
tolls too, right. And so the biggest cities, according to
this article that are adopting toll roads are in the
sun Belt region. I know Florida, Orlando in particular, famous
for tolls, and they're taking this route so that they
can increase capacity. Something else we've done here in this
state map, so called Lexus lanes, Right, they're kind of
(28:49):
part of the solution. So basically, if you don't want
to sit in traffic, there's a special lane for you,
but you got to pay even more. Right, so depending
on how the Peach pass Peach Pass planes. Yeah, yeah,
but I think they call them the Lexus lanes because
it's for like fancy folks who got brainded. Because sometimes
you sponsored, it's not actually sponsored. They're basically saying you
got to you gotta have luxury money to hop in
(29:10):
those things. But I will say, man, I think for me,
most of the time, I rarely. It's usually on a
vacation or a trip or something coming back in town
and the traffic slammed, and I will hop in that lane,
even if it's like eight bucks to save thirty minutes. Sorry,
I'm doing it because my time is worth more than
that is. Sometimes you just want to get back, and
you just want to get back. So I think more
of those options, like that's going to be a better
(29:31):
way to pay for some of the infrastructure needs that
we have.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
That's right, man, all right. Speaking of travel, well, it
turns out that flying is actually cheaper this year. Last
year it was pretty expensive because that was the year
of revenge travel. That's what all the journalists were calling it.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
That's an interesting attack, Like travel never did anything to
you. You don't need to get revenge travel, but I know
you couldn't for a while.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
But still so twenty twenty four fares to Europe are
down eight percent year over year, and the average price
of all flights that are originating in the US have
fallen by five point This is all awesome news for
all the different travel addicts out there, something that might
cause them to fall even more. Get this. Southwest is
now playing mice with Google Flights. It's about time. At
(30:12):
the end of last week, Southwest they finally decided to
list its fares on the number one air fare search tool.
You should have seen the smile on my face when
I saw that, Mad It's like just streamlining. I love it.
And this is going to make shopping for the best
flights out there at the best prices is going to
make it even easier than before, because if you specifically,
if you live in a Southwest city, they typically offer
(30:34):
pretty competitive rates, pretty competitive fairs. But previously the results
they wouldn't show up their own Google flights, and Southwest
famously refused to participate. Yeah, and so because of that,
I think a lot of folks they would just forget
about Southwest completely and personally, like, dude, I think this
is going to give Southwest a ton more visibility. Folks
are gonna be like, oh yeah, I forgot about Southwest.
(30:55):
I think it's going to add another great competitor to
the mix as folks are out there shopping, So now
you don't have to hop between Google fights and have
a separate tab open to to see what the Southwest
fairs are going to be. I think it's going to
be great. I know, I agree.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
I think that's wonderful and glad to see Southwest participating
more fully in that. I hope it leads to a
lot more bookings for them, and I hope at leads
to lower prices serving the more. I mean, you think
about that. It's nice to have competition, but if not
all that competition is showing up and the number one
search tool, well then you don't really have as much
competition as it looks like exactly. And now the Southwest
(31:28):
is participating, it's going to cause I don't know, I
think probably it's like a little shot across the bow
for a lot of the other major airlines.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
Too, totally. Hey, did you see, by the way, folks
talking about so as we're you mentioned revenge travel? How
about quiet vacationing? Have you seen folks talking about that?
Speaker 2 (31:41):
I saw that we've invented so many silly terms over
the past few years. What was it quiet quitting? I
guess was yeah, I putting was huge a couple of
years ago.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Now. The thing, so for folks who don't know quiet
vacationing is basically it's going on vacation, not telling your
boss about it, but still getting like a little bit
of work done, so you're still kind of being quote
unquote product of but simultaneously you are not fully engaged
in your actual vacation. I feel like I'm a I
take kind of an extreme stance on this, but I
hate it because like, if you're going to take a vacation,
(32:11):
actually take a vacation and willing to the story for
this one too. But folks were talking about how the
culture of the company needs to change, like and I
get that right, because there can be pressure from a
boss to like, hey, you've got unlimited PTO. But then
what is the actual culture around whether or not folks
feel the freedom to actually take those days off just
(32:32):
because it says that, But there can be like cultural
pressure and spoken rules. But that being said, I think like, yes,
there probably is likely some work that needs to be
done on a company side of thing, but I think
there is so much internal and personal work that needs
to take place for us as individuals to feel the
freedom to take the time off as well. I think
a lot of us because it's natural to want to
(32:54):
be a part of a team like that sounds like
a healthy work environment right where you're like helping each
other out and it's rah rah, everyone's doing a good job,
the company is succeeding. But simultaneously, I think there can
be it can be a slippery slope to find too
much of your identity tied up into your work, and
I think that's generally speaking unhealthy. And I think folks
(33:14):
aren't gonna push to take that time off if they
don't have an identity outside of their work. And so
so much of that I think comes down to us
as individuals doing the things that we often talk about
here on the show, like hanging out with your neighbors,
going out and doing other things outside of your work
to fully flesh out who you are as an individual.
Take your time kind of existential and philosophical with it.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Well, take your time off unashamedly too, right Like I don't.
There's nothing wrong with that, And all the study show
if your boss GI's your hard time. Hey, guess what
I'm going to be better when I come back from work.
And I think the other thing too, Matt. This trend,
what it's likely to do is accelerate return to office
from a lot of employers. They're going to say, hey, listen,
we've seen this trend going around. We've noticed a lack
of productivity from some of you. Maybe you're quiet vacationing,
(33:57):
and it's just gonna instead of having the best in
both worlds, being able to do hybrid being in the
office one or two days a week and work from
home the rest, if people are like taking advantage of
that situation, we're just going to see more people returning
to the office and a lot of that hybrid stuff
squashed like a bug. Which sucks because I do think
hybrid is a great way for it and it's going
to work for a lot of employers and employees. But yeah,
(34:19):
if quiet vacation continues to take off, I don't know, it.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Might not, that might not last. I just can't get
past the fact that it's just a reduced quality of
vacation as well, because like you, you know, like we
always see folks on their phones, like getting back to messages,
and I understand that there are certain industries where that
is more of a requirement. So much of that I
think is self imposed. We do it to ourselves.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
The only exception to that is if you're able to
take more vacation because you're a little bit connected when
you're gone, right, So if you're like ah.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
I especially though I think more is not better, I
think offication yeah, because I think for a lot of folks,
it's less about the quantity of it, and I think
a lot of times it's the quality because I think
a lot of times, yeah, I think the folks who
are quote unquote quiet vacationing, Yeah, they do have more
vacation because they're able to, you know, send a few messages,
(35:06):
do business on the side, not on the side. It
makes it sound like super shady, but there's something about
that that feels counter to what feels like a healthy
detachment from work where you're able and like we've talked
about the research that points to that where it takes
like two weeks to fully like disengage and to actually
find that pace and the rhythm that's associated with taking
some time off work.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Yeah, And I think so as we forget how we
turned into a big ball of energy that needs to
spread its wings a little bit. Yeah, and detaching from
work for a healthy period of time we'll help us
do that make it feel more human.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
I get it though. I mean, if you can send
like one message while you're sitting on the beach over
the course of a day, and that's all it took
for you to be able to take that time off,
it's hard to argue against that as well.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
So yep, you're right, all right, that's gonna do it
for this episode. I hope everyone has a great weekend.
You can find show notes with links to some of
the articles we mentioned on today's podcast up on our
website at how to money dot com.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
And you can always sign.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
Up for the how to Money newslter, which is great.
You should do it at how to money dot com Newsletter.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
You know what, We hope everyone has a fantastic weekend,
and we'll see back here on Monday with a fresh
ask how to Money episode. So buddy, until next time,
best friends are Out, Best Friends Out.
Hosts And Creators
Joel Larsgaard
Matthew Altmix
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