September 8, 2023 • 37 mins
Time for a Friday Flight- our little sampling of the week’s financial news and what it means for your personal finances. There are a lot of headlines out there, but we boil them down to specific takeaways that will allow you to kick off the weekend informed and help you to get ahead with your money. In this episode we explain some relevant and helpful stories like: short-term rental smackdowns, Airbnb hosting considerations, zoning’s impact on the cost-of-housing crisis, negative nellies, more expensive health insurance, bankruptcy lawyers making bank, pros and cons of a cashless society, donation dilemmas, & proactively giving.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Head of Money. I'm Joel, I'm Matt, and
today we're talking short term rental SmackDown, negative nelli's, and
donation dilemmas. That's right. Happy Friday to everyone out there.
(00:30):
I feel like folks are starting to get back into
the swing of things. Kids are back in school. Friday's
mean something now, whereas like over the summer, Friday they
don't mean anything. It's just another day of the summer.
Is it called Friday? Can we call it? Oh? You
know if you're speaking gift, But yeah, this says our
Friday flights. And we're gonna cover the top stories, the
(00:50):
ones that we think you need to be paying a
little more attention to because they pertain to your personal finances.
We're gonna get to the ones you mentioned, Joel, plus
a bunch of others too, but good stuff for sure.
You want to talk about your watch. If listeners, if
you if you listen closely, if you listen a lot,
you heard me mention that I kind of wanted to
get one of the Garmin smart watches largely man, it
(01:11):
doesn't have a touch screen, which I'm actually thrilled about.
It's pretty smart, dude. I'll say, I dig the way
that that looks, cause it's all black, and I like
the black on black like it's well, you know, like
the actual typography or the typeface. It's like a dark gray. Yeah,
it looks it's got a good It reminds me of
my bike, which is which is all it's like all
blacked out. Yeah, it kind of got a minimalist vibe
(01:32):
for sure. It's a good look. Yeah, So I like
it. It's and I got it used. I will say I
mentioned that I was looking for a discounted one right
on Prime Day or something like that, and I didn't
see anything pop up that really made me want to pounds,
and so I said, you know what, why don't I
Why don't look to see how much they go for used?
And I looked on eBay and I was like, I
don't know, not enough of a discount to make me
(01:53):
want to jump on it. But then for I never
really used this app, but I tried something called mrcary.
Have you heard of that one? M So it's kind
of like eBay but for fancy people, I guess is
what they're saying. Yeah, but I got this watch for
seventy bucks, dude, and normally. I think it's like a
two hundred dollars watch. It's the regular and so that
there are two generations. I got the I got the
first generation because I don't really care. I didn't see
(02:14):
enough differences between the first and second. Yeah, so I
got the first gen seventy bucks ship to my door
and it's been great. Man. And what's what's smart about it? Sure?
Like people here smart watch. It's not a touch screen,
so it doesn't it sounds of dumb? Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Well that's actually what I wanted because I didn't want
like and I turned off all the notifications from my phone.
So people are then what does it really do? Well's
(02:35):
just tracking my health statistics, right, I didn't know it
actually linked to your phone too. Yeah, so I've got
an app on the phone that I can check and
I can see, like it can tell me how I slept,
it can tell me how many steps I've taken. It
can tell me, well my heart rate has been and
high heart rate. It can track all my different kind
of workouts and stuff. Like Joel enters middle age, he
want to start tracking the metrics. Well, the cool thing
is I was a part of what I like about
(02:55):
it is it motivates me to do more on things
that I want to be doing. But I I kind
of like to challenge myself. And so I'm I and
having this app that's tracking all my stuff and it's
kind of same from a running standpoint, Yeah, from like
a running from like a like how many active minutes
are you spending each and every week? And this is
tracking all that stuff and it makes more of like
beat myself from the week before. You want to increase
(03:15):
your numbers. Yeah, like I know on the Apple Watch,
I don't have one, but like you close your circles, yeah,
like in that how that works? Yeah, Emily's got one
and that's how well. Okay, So I love you bring
us up. I think it's great. I totally did something similar.
So I used eBay though, and I was kind of
in the market for a blazer. I don't have like
a blazer like a sports code, and I found one
that I liked and brand new. Dude, this thing was
(03:37):
three hundred and ninety bucks. Wow, I'm like, that's a
lot of stinking money. And so here's what's great though
about getting something that you know you either want or
even need, is that if you've got time on your side,
you can take the time to shop around and in
particular see if you can get it used. Because so
with that in mind, I'm like, I don't need blazer
like now today, next week, but maybe like in a
(03:58):
couple of months. And so I on eBay and there
was the exact one that I was thinking about buying
and it wasn't even used. This is what's so killer, too,
is that there's so many folks on there and they've
got NWT new with tags. I love. I love saying
that because this massive discount is all I know. That's
I'm getting screaming massive discount. There's no yeah, wear and
tear on this thing. They had it so three nights.
(04:19):
This thing was listed for one twenty five. And I
also love you can make an offer, make an offer,
and so I made an offer at ninety bucks and
they accepted it. Boom, you know, like because these folks
they've got these items, like I guess if you do this,
so that's like a more full time and you've got
a bunch of inventory you just want to unload it.
Yeah who And of course I instantly regretted and I
(04:39):
was like, oh, I should offer it even lower. But
they've also they got the recommendation on there now too,
where it's just like it's more likely to accept it
if you make an offer around ninety three dollars. And
so I was like, all right, I'll try ninety I
did something so I love it. So the ability to
have time on your side, man, yeah, you said eighty percent,
dis like a massive discount. I saved three hundred bucks
on something that is like virtually yeah, these are like
(05:00):
good shopping tips, hopefully from both of us. But well,
I think the other thing. I just jump all sorts
of things too, not just like consumer goods, but like
when it comes to housing, the ability to shop around
and when you have time on your side, man, it's
you come out ahead. But it's helpful to know that
there are multiple different sites. Like I didn't. I wasn't
even really aware of Macary. I guess I knew it existed,
and I was like, well, i'll give I'll check that
out and so but and I'm just, man, I really
(05:23):
like the ways in which this watch is like influencing
my behavior in a positive way. I'm not glued to
the screen because it's not a touch screen. It's not
doing a whole lot besides telling me the time super minimal. Oh,
it kind of reminds me of eat ink. That's why
I like it, because I love eat ink, like uh,
kindle reading on the kindle, but the ability to have
that on a watch. Yeah, kind of got that vibe.
You knows, man, I might join you, might join you
soon enough. Yeah, So just letting people know, like there
(05:45):
are always way who you don't need the thing brand
new necessarily and you might not need the newest version.
And the more you shop around, the more you might save.
And if you don't need it, I like that tip
mat if you don't need it, immediately take some time,
keep looking and make it off or went out to
all the above to save a little bit when you're
buying something. All right, let's get to our Friday flights,
the different stories we came across, and we're gonna spend
a minute here talking about Airbnb specifically, because yeah, short
(06:08):
term rentals. They're having a moment and it's not a
good moment for them. Some of the biggest cities in
the US are trying to tamp down. They're trying to
create more rules surrounding listings that appear on sites like
Airbnb Wired. They call New York's crackdown the end of
Airbnb in New York, New York City the big Apple.
(06:29):
They already had some restrictions on the books, but now
they're actually going to enforce them. They're gonna I guess
I'm thinking of Ashville. The Ashville's had a more stringent
regulation surrounding the airbnb's and how you have to be
registered with the city. But now the only way to
run an Airbnb in the city is if you are
staying in the apartment with the folks who are running it.
(06:53):
And that's for if it's a short term rental for
like less than thirty days or something like that. But
given the fact that a lot of folk want an
apartment to themselves right, like they don't want to there's
a lot of folks who aren't wanting to do the
sleep on the couch thing or like it's a shared apartment,
but you've got your own room. Kate and I like
when we were younger, even and when we were traveling
on shoe string budgets, that was never a consideration. I
(07:14):
guess it's when you have a partner, right, when you
have a significant other, because if it was me solo,
I totally share a room. But when you've got somebody
else with you, you went your privacy, like you're talking about stuff.
And I think this is going to have a serious
impact on Airbnb's in New York talking about stuff. So no,
we did, Emily and I actually did that in Norway
one time because the prices were so expensive, specifically in Bergen, Norway,
(07:37):
where we and we said, oh my gosh, to stay
in a house where somebody else there's somebody else there
is going to save us so much money. It's worth
the trade off for this one night in this one place, right, Yeah.
But most of the time, no, we want our own place. Yeah. Actually,
I guess I take that back. I think about we
rented a place when we went to Ireland, like ten
was it ten years ago? Oh my gosh, remember that
(07:57):
one BMB that one place. Yeah, okay, so then the
people who run it are actually living, they're there, we're
like playing with her kid. Yeah, so you can. Part
of it depends on your mentality. Can be kind of quaint,
nostalgic or what you're there for, or it can be creepy.
If it's like a really small New York City apartment,
and my mind immediately went to the creepy they're literally
all brushing in your teeth at the same time, which
is weird. But yeah, but it's not just New York City, Matt.
(08:17):
The short term crackdown isn't just happening there. The La
Times strote this week about Airbnb's being listed that haven't
applied for an application with the city to list their property,
so basically they're in violation of of local laws there.
And so these laws in Los Angeles are are pretty
stringent for short term rentals too, and a good number
of folks are trying to get they're basically trying to
skirt the rules to keep their rental business afloat there.
(08:40):
They're not filing, they're just going ahead and listing their
Airbnb on the site because I got that illegal Airbnb. Yeah,
they don't want to jump through the hoops that it
takes to get there, pay the city for the privilege
of listing on the site. And so there are a
few takeaways I would say from what's happening in this
space right now. One, short term rentals can be lucrative.
There are some people who are like really making my substantially,
(09:01):
like they're supporting their lifestyle based on short term rentals too.
That could change overnight thanks to new government restrictions. Makes
you think. I have a buddy who has an airbnbn
in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and his does quite well. He thought
about buying another one, but guess what the city of
Chattanooga said, We're putting a moratorium on any new short
term rentals for the time being. And your grandfather and
(09:21):
if you have one, but if you're like trying to
launch one, sorry, you're out of luck. It's you can't
do it now. And so basically, I think if you
live in a place where short term rentals are allowed
and you can make a sweet income stream, that it's great.
It can be a great way to get into real estate.
But have a backup plan, right, hope for the best,
but at least have a plan in place for the
worst potential outcome, because we're seeing people going through the
(09:44):
worst potential outcome in certain places where you know the
laws are being either finally enforced or being written to
curb the amount of short term rentals that are available. Yeah. Absolutely,
I think it pays to pay attention to some of
the different industries that you're thinking about getting in to
where there's a lot of government involvement where things could
change either from a platform, right like from a private
(10:06):
company like even Airbnb could say I don't know why
they would do this, but they could say, all right,
no more new airb Like we're just we're kind of
capped out. We're just going to keep things where they are,
whether it's being beholden too a specific platform. It's why
we worn against that when it comes to even like
with gig work, but then specifically with when it comes
to different of the like different government agencies or just
regulations that might come into play. Like it makes me
(10:27):
think of the marijuana industry, right, like weed, and if
you're going all in on that, okay, like you might
see some outsized returns, but you are also exposing yourself
to outsized risks because you just don't know where policy
is going to go and what the rules are going
to be in that industry. You might find that banks
don't want to do businesses, right, but you never know
(10:47):
growing operations stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. So one of
the reasons for the airbnb crackdowns though, is because of
the price of housing. Because of the increases that we've
seen in rents. But the truth is short term rentals
aren't the problem. That's it's just a result of the market.
They're easy to pick on. It's easy to make it
feel like these are the guys. So it wasn't for Airbnb.
It's not Airbnb. It's the fact that, well, the market
(11:09):
says that it's worth more if I can rent this
out short term as opposed to a long term renter
zoning loss, we think that they are more of the
culprit when they don't allow for building more units, when
they are preventing greater density, those are the real culprit
in our opinion. Now, there was a great article in
Insider about New Zealand's approach to zoning. They were basically
(11:31):
facing a housing cost crisis, and they responded by relaxing
medium density zoning restrictions and which obviously made it much
easier to build duplexes and triplexes on what were originally
single family lots. Yeah, and the result they're putting up
highrises in single family neighborhoods. It's still reasonable. We're not
like throwing getting rid of all the rules. But more
(11:52):
supply came on the market. Because of this builders they
were able to meet that need, that demand. More supply
really does help the pricing problem, and the evidence points
to the fact that rent and pricing growth slows down,
so you know, it doesn't necessarily decrease, but it doesn't
continue to skyrocket when more units are being built when
there is more supply, and I guess theoretically it would
(12:13):
decrease if enough units were built. There's a chance it
could reverse course. Yeah, exactly. And we're not necessarily airbnb homers,
although we think they're an interesting company that's really made
hospitality across the United States. It's changed the face of it.
But really, let's find the right problem and pinpoint that
and attack that and zoning, not enough supply, those are
(12:34):
the real problems that have led to the housing you know,
housing cost increases that we've seen in all varieties and
so yeah, but you still need to be aware if
you're a want to be short term real estate investor
of kind of these new laws. It's in vogue right
now to kind of tamp down on this stuff. But mat,
let's get to our next story. This one is about
the negative Nellies out there. They're continuing to do their thing,
(12:55):
as they always do. Negative nellies like to be negative,
and so Kevin O'Leary of Shark Tank fing he was
recently on a show and he started predicting. He's basically
predicting chaos for the US economy in the coming days,
in the coming months. He's particularly worried, he says, about
small businesses, and he says that we have a crisis
emerging because of Federal Reserve interest rate hikes. And I
(13:19):
don't know, it just felt kind of like a chicken
little sort of thing. This guy is falling hearing this
from him. But Matt, from everything you and I read
and see from almost every metric that we can track,
inflation is coming down, unemployment is low, consumer spending is solid,
and businesses have been able to raise prices when they
need to because consumers still have money to spend. It
seems like by every metric the economy is doing quite well.
(13:41):
And like, could we enter a recession in the next
twelve to eighteen months. Sure, yes, it's of course possible,
especially since a recession happens on average every like five
to six years in the United States. But I guess
I'm just so tired of these guys getting the headlines
that spook normal people, that cause people to be like,
oh my gosh, is it really? Is it all? Is
it all coming down? Like is it a house of
(14:01):
cards this US economy or something like that. Should I
move into cash or or better yet bitcoin because man
or gold, I feel like those are the yeah, push
people towards precious metals. So he cou it's the new
digital rolls, that's where people go. But like, I just
get frustrated. I get annoyed when I see people in
positions like this. People like people and I don't know who,
(14:22):
but I think there's a lot of people out there
who trust guys like Kevin O'Leary and they believe that
he is telling them the truth and what's in their
best interest. I just don't know that's the case in
the scenario. Well, yeah, and part of it might also
be media as well, because I'm sure were you to
actually talk to him, he would give maybe a slightly
more nuanced version of that headline. But media companies, that's
not what he's known for. Nuance. By the way, Well,
(14:43):
he is looking up for smaller business talker, you know,
which I appreciate, But like there's a lot of help
that's certainly being given to a lot of the giant
businesses out there, and he's specifically talking about how it
seems like smaller businesses might be the ones getting getting
crushed here in the future. But regardless though of who
it is we're talking about or the advice that they're given,
we think that the lesson here is to be careful
(15:06):
who it is that you're listening to. Like, it makes
me think of Robert Kiyosaki, the rich rich dad, poor
dad guy. He has some decent personal finance advice, but
he is even worse than Kevin O'Leary, Like he is
constantly calling for the end of the US economy times
a year on Twitter. He gives he sounds to death
knell and people are like, except his care we go again,
(15:28):
like that's literally what he's saying, and that's what he's
known for as opposed like, I feel like maybe his Yeah,
the more rich dad poor dad talks, the more I'm like, dude,
I don't know, I'm might be getting tired out, bro
sired of your message altogether. But bottom line, what I
think the big thing that we I kind of hate
that we're talking about this because we don't want to
bring any more light and attention to this. But it's
(15:50):
also important to cover this because we want to disarm
any of these sublines. We want to put you at
ease because if specifically COVID, if the aftermath, if our
economy's ability to rebound has proven anything, it is that
our country is resilient. As I'll get out, bad things
are certainly going to happen. Yes, we might see a recession,
(16:10):
who knows exactly when that's going to happen, but not
everything is going to be perfectly peachy. But we're still
living in one of the greatest countries at an incredible
time in human history. You can certainly read those stories
as much as you want, try not to let them sway.
How it is that you are handling and spending and
investing your money though, Yeah, and you know what negative.
(16:31):
People are going to be negative, And there's a whole
it just I think it sounds smarter for some reason
to say things are going to hell in a hand
basket or things are awful, because it is it's easier
for humans to identify negative things in the world around
us than it is to identify positives. I think that's
a natural human tendency and bias like to see the
perceived threats around us and to be aware. And there
(16:51):
are always perceived threats to the economy. But the truth
is also that we man the economy's done really well,
like you said in the aftermath of COVID. Yeah, and
so I mean it might be less about the negative
versus the positive as opposed to the certainty, because I
think when folks come in and they they're saying, like
a certain you know by this quarter, or the certainty
in which they proclaim things is I think what a
(17:13):
lot of people latch onto you because people don't like uncertainty.
I think more than anything else, they can they can
handle things going poorly or things going going well for them,
But it's the uncertainty that puts people in that weird
state of limbo where they're not totally sure what to
expect next. Yeah. And I think the guy some of
the guys like Kevin O'Leary and Robert Kyosaki who speak
with a ton of boldness. Yeah, yeah, it's like I
(17:36):
know what's gonna happen, and here let me lay it
out for you. That when they say it with such
confidence I know. Yeah, that's I guess that's where the
term con man comes from. So all right, let's move
on though, let's talk about healthcare. Maybe I'll be I'm
gonna be a Debbie Downer here for a second. But
what with facts, not with bogus predictions. It's no secret
that health insurance has become more expensive and a couple
(17:56):
of major benefits. Consulting firms say that prices are going
to arise six percent in twenty twenty four in the
health care sector, which obviously sucks, right, but it's a
good thing to be aware of because it's important to
know that more of your paycheck might soon be going
towards increased health insurance premiums, increased health insurance costs, and
if you have health insurance through your employer, they might
absorb some of that hit, but they also might not
(18:18):
so and even if they do, by the way, that
can mean more meager salary increases because instead of giving
you a six percent raise, it's a four percent raise
because more of what would have gone to your paycheck
is going to pay for those increased health care expenses
that the employer is participating in with you. Yeah, okay,
so quick explainer as to why this is happening. Basically,
it's like a delayed reaction of the inflation that we've
(18:40):
seen over the past couple of years. I thought they
did a good job explaining it in this article, and
we'll link to this story like we do all the
stories that we mentioned during the Friday flight. But they
were essentially talking like insurers and hospitals. They've got contracts,
but those contracts don't come up for renewal every single year,
and so the higher costs that the hospitals incurred like
laffing shortages, right, Like think about all the money that
(19:01):
nurses were getting paid. Those contracts are coming up for renewal,
and so those costs are basically being reflected in the
contracts that the insurers are able to negotiate with the hospitals,
which are now beginning to renew and those costs are
now then being passed along to consumers. Right. So it's
like it's a domino effect, essentially delayed impact exactly exactly,
and so it's something that I think we can expect
(19:23):
to see across the board. But one of the things
you can do is, as we are getting closer to
open enrollment, consider raising, going with the plan that has
a higher deductible. If you're younger, if you have a
healthy family, if you rarely go and see the doctor,
consider a high deductible healthcare plan, one that also, by
the way, gets you access to an HSA added investing
(19:44):
benefit that your self ensuring not by paying fewer premiums
every single month, but instead be disciplined, take that money,
stick it in your own high old savings account. That way,
you've got the money money on hand to actually meet
that deductible if and when you do need to visit
the now. I think that's good advice. I think a
lot of people, Matt, they just assume, well, I want
the top tier coverage, but you might not need the
(20:06):
top tier coverage. You might be paying a whole lot
extra for it, and so getting the higher deductible plan,
really you can still go see the same doctors. It
just means that you're self ensuring more. You've got to
have a little bit more money in the bank to
cover some of those healthcare costs, the healthcare expenses that
you're hoping don't come to pass totally. Yeah, and you
could also consider a health sharing plan like Joel. Like
both of our families are on a health sharing plan.
(20:29):
Traditionally they have like a religious component, but there are
multiple companies now that do not have a faith element
at all, like Sidera is a newer one that a
lot of folks are checking out. But technically it is
not actually insurance. It's not regulated. But if that's a
way that you are interested in perhaps saving some money,
(20:49):
we can link to an article on the show that's
about meta share specifically, and we can link to some
of the other ones as well. But Joel, we've got
additional stories that we're gonna get to, including whether or
not we're on the path to becoming a cashless society.
Will get to that plus others right after this. All right,
(21:14):
in just a second, we're going to talk about digital payments. Matt,
I can't wait to pay with the chip that's embedded
in my wrist. I just that's a real thing, you know,
I know, Yeah, it's freaky. What is it? World market? No,
I'm not world market. What's it called whole foods? Whole foods?
What's world war market? That's like a furniture store. Yeah, yeah,
forget that. They don't do that there. But first we
(21:35):
got to get to the ludacra's headline of the week.
This one comes from the New York Times and it
reads a seven hundred million dollar bonanza for the winners
of crypto's collapse lawyers. Yes, at least someone is getting
rich off cryptocurrency. I guess, Matt. That was my initial thought.
My initial takeaway from reading that was like, well, most
people got screwed, but I guess somebody is making out
like a bandit. But the reality is, while millions of
(21:56):
Americans have lost hundreds or thousands of dollars in dribs
and drabs stocking money into different cryptocurrency investments, the folks
making the real money are the legal class. It's lawyers,
its accountants, and consultants. Those are the folks who have
raked in massive amounts of money from firms like FTX
right at the same time though they're regular folks lost
at all. And so some of these lawyers met that
(22:18):
command thousands of dollars an hour in fees, which you know,
they probably went to prestigious schools that worked really hard
to make a great income. I'm not hating on their
ability to make money, but it kind of feels like
a poke in the eye to normal folks who lost
some of their savings right thanks to SBF and his
Ponzi scheme and some of these other crypto firms that
went busted where lawyers are coming in, they're leeching, they're
(22:40):
leeching off, they're taking so much of the money that
would otherwise go to some of the folks who did
lose a bunch of their savings. Yeah, and of course
the way that you could not be footing the bills
for these expensive law firms is by having avoided cryptocurrencies altogether.
But there's one law firm there working for Celsius, another
(23:01):
failed one where they build one hundred thousand dollars to
come up with like they're trying to determine whether or
not they're going to bring up the case to potentially
pursue a Celsius customer using creditor funds to go after
that creditor basically, so they're using essentially her own money
to decide whether or they're going to sumeer or not.
And honestly, just crypto in general, it's a mess. But
(23:22):
on that note, Bloomberg had an article about the downfall
of NFTs. I don't know if you remember those jual
non fungible tokens. Yeah, the old expensive JPEGs, right, exactly. Well,
and it's not the JPEG that you own. What you
own is the fact that you bought the jpeg. Basically,
you owned the receipts, a certificate of authenticity that accompanies
the JPEG that makes it worth two hundred and fifty
(23:44):
thousand dollars. So everyone's sort of autopsies, right, and they
exist for a reason, and that's to figure out the
cause of death. Well, basically that's where we are when
it comes to NFTs. The hype of non fungible tokens
has faded, and so have any of thequote unquote investments
that folks have made within the space that FOMO was
(24:05):
in full gear. And it turned out that January of
twenty twenty two was the top, of course, and so
those who were speculating in the NFT space they got
host and that includes not just normal folks, but like
billionaires out there as well, who launched NFT platforms and projects,
celebrities out there. It's not often that we see hype
and we see the mania get to the degree that
(24:28):
NFT's reached. But I think it's certainly again a good
reminder that boring is better. Stick with tried and true
investments and you can avoid getting burned altogether when it
comes to your board eight plunging in value, or if
you even just hate the fact that more of your
investment dollars the lawsuit and the potential payout that you
might receive as a customer of somebody like Celsius or
(24:51):
FTX is going to pay the bills of expensive attorney. Yeah,
and typically we read about manias and bubbles in textbooks,
and so it's just really interesting to have kind of
lived through one, seen the rise in the fall, the swell,
and then the bust of of that space and uh yeah,
it's it's funny because I haven't even really heard the
term NFT recently. Nobody cares, nobody cares anymore. And yet
(25:14):
it was like the hot new thing on the block
there for a minute. And so people have to be careful.
There's we're going to see another one at some point,
a hot new thing on the block, and yeah, it'll
just be something different. Yeah. Yes, it's not the fact
that NFTs are no longer no longer cool. It's the
fact that or that they carry any cachet or anything.
It's the fact that there will be something else that
carries that same weight. Yes, and just we're just preemptively
(25:36):
putting that on your radar. Just store that one away
because if your cause your hackles come up, if you
raise your antenna as being like, wait a second, this
feels like something in the past that I experienced, and
I can't predict or tell you what it's gonna be,
but something else will come along. It's similar, even though
it's gonna it's gonna like look different in name and
in style, but it's gonna have a lot of the
same underlying elements might smell the same, right, yeah, exactly,
(25:57):
All right, let's talk about cash for a second, like, yeah,
the actual physical cash. Then it turns out fewer folks
are are even using. According to Pew Research, forty percent
of Americans actually didn't use any cash last year, which
is a shockingly high number. It's man, it's more than
I was expecting. Yeah, like literally almost half the country
because I used cash last year. I just did it
(26:17):
really really sparingly, right, very infrequently. And digital digital wallet's
Apple Pay, Google Pay, they've become more commonplace, and apps
like Venmo cash app for you know, splitting checks and
stuff like that. And it used to be I think
just the younger generation partaking in some of those things,
but now it feels like, you know, Gen X baby boomers. Oh,
they've gotten all in on it too. Literally, this past weekend,
my mother in law was like, hey, help me out
(26:39):
with Venmo. Yeah. I literally set her up on Venmo
because she's she buys stuff used that's how you do it.
That's right off of like Facebook, and she's like, everyone's
asking for Venmo. I gotta get I gotta get on
this stuff. People want to take payment, yeah I know, yeah, yeah,
well okay. And then actual retailers and restaurants they've been
moving in that direction as well. Taco Bell has said
that they want to go completely casius at all of
their restaurants, and so it's interesting to see and I
(27:01):
think in many ways, the transition to digital makes a
whole lot of sense, right, But I think also while
I get businesses wanting to streamline things, not accepting physical
US dollars seems kind of silly too, like you're limiting
your customers, especially a place like Taco Bell. Like I
guess I'm old school and I just think people should
still have the right the ability to use cash if
that's their preference, I think they'll still have the ability,
(27:23):
but just okay. So, like one of the biggest downsides
I think to there being less cash or us even
potentially moving and more in that direction is when it
comes to teaching kids about money. Because we've talked about this,
maybe it's been a while actually, so maybe folks probably
don't even remember or I don't know, maybe yeah, you
forgot or something, but like they hang on your every word.
So I for a while there, we went totally digital
(27:45):
and we're paying our kids for the different jobs they
are doing via a digital digital app, like even the
interests they were earning by quote unquote investing it. I
was paying it that way, but I don't think it
was very successful. It kind of fell flat. This also
makes me have you ever of Singapore? You've heard of it? Right,
it's a curriculum. It's just a way of teaching math.
But like the tenets of it are when you are
(28:08):
teaching kids math, like they can be a difficult theoretical
thing to understand and grasp, and so what you do
you start with concrete ways of teaching kids, So like
literal blocks on their desk, and you count them, and
you subtract them, and you add them together. You move
from that to the pictures, so basically a visual representation
of that on paper, and then from there you're able
(28:29):
to move more to the abstract and kids are able
to understand the concepts building blocks and to fully understand
what it does that they're doing. Yeah, you take these
baby steps and you incrementally have a better understanding of
what it is. I do wonder if kids in particular
are never taught about money in the tangible, like where
they're actually holding it and that they hand it over
when they pay for something, that they're truly missing out
(28:51):
potentially on what it is that money can actually do
or the true value of money. And so hopefully there
will always at least be a little bit of money
on hand for us to teach our kids. Yeah, and
of course that kind of comes down to us as parents. Well,
some people want to use cash for privacy reasons, which
I totally get to. Yep, So it's totally get it.
I don't want not even just the government like visa
investor regard doing everything I do. That's right, Okay, But
(29:13):
so all signs do point though to the fact that
we are moving towards like a cashless society, whether you
like it or not. And so I think that it
comes down to us again as individuals, to then determine
how best, for instance, to monitor our spending right, because
you may not like the fact that the rules of
the game are changing, but how can you add best
adapt to those changing rules. And so before when you're
(29:34):
talking about physical cash, like you were like literally physically
limited on how much you could spend because you ran
out of cashers, I'm sure there's still folks who do
the envelope system. But using technology to then place digital
constraints on your spending, I think those are the next steps.
And I think it would be prudent and wise to
start finding ways to harness this technology to control and
(29:56):
to govern yourself right, to provide that discipline. And so
I think what that means is that but the very least,
just monitoring your spending via a free app like mint,
we talk about that all the time, or even considering
paying for a service like y nab where it's got
a little it's more sophisticated with the ability for you
to plan out you're spending and when it comes to budgeting,
But don't totally stick your head in the sand and say, well,
(30:18):
even though things are going more digital, I'm not necessarily
going to change my ways when it comes to the
like the best practices for me to be able to
optimize my money. No, Like, let's move along with the
I'm looking at your watch. It makes me think about
your watch, Like maybe before somebody would have a running
partner or like sign up for a race or something
like that. But and those are great, certainly accountability and
(30:39):
it's fun to run a race or whatever, but like
there's also other ways where you can take advantage of
technology and charts and seeing your numbers. I think the
ability to make the best of technology is the best
path forward. Yeah personally, Yeah, well I think it's a
good point though, is using the best of technology because
there's sometimes technology and not letting it use you Yah,
taking campus right, and we can we can be the
(31:00):
bill of goods that's being sold as opposed to using
technology in a way that helps us without allowing it
to harm us. And so I think you're right, like
digital minimalism, right, that concept of using enough technology to
get the things you need to get done or you
want to get done done, and then being able to
put it aside. And so I think something like wine
app is a perfect use case of like good technology
(31:20):
that helps us and something like this watch too, where
it's not distracting me, but it's giving me what I need.
Love it all. Right, Let's let's get to talk about
charity map for a second, because speaking of like digital
payments when we're when we're out shopping or something like that,
if you were to ask pull our listener base, I
would imagine most people have gotten asked to donate money
at some point while they've been checking out. Right, while
(31:40):
they've been at the checkout. You're not just talking about tip.
You're not talking about donating money as as the person
who just made your Oh no, which you should do.
You should tip the person right who's serving you. But
you're literally asked to donate to a to a nonprofit,
to a cause that the grocery store or retailer supports.
It feels like it's happening all the time now. And
this new study that we're being asked to make charitable
(32:01):
contributions at the point of purchase more than ever. So
it's not just like in our minds, like it's really happening.
And the thing is people are participating. Shopper donations at
checkout have gone up something like twenty four percent since
twenty twenty. But people are apparently getting tired of being asked.
I know, I am. It's understandable, right. Not everyone feels
like this, but I would say a decent chunk of
(32:21):
folks feel kind of browbeaten into rounding up the purchase
price or it's donating five or ten bucks for that
retailer's pet cause. My take, and not everyone has to
agree with me, but my take is to always say no,
not because you hate the cause, or because you don't
care about others, or because you're not planning to be generous,
but I would say people should rather proactively choose where
(32:43):
they want their money to go instead of being guilt
tripped into that donation in a spur of the moment transaction.
It allows you to have more control over where your
money goes. You can still be you can be more
generous even in fact by saying no, and but by
funneling your dollars into the nonprofits that you can about.
It's just it's just interesting to see that we're being
like asked for donations more and more and more, And
(33:05):
I think a lot of times people people just feel like,
I feel like it's the right thing to do, so
I'm gonna do it, even if your their heart's not
in it, let's say, guilt tripped into doing it. So
I like what you're saying, but I would say the
only like, the only caveat is that I would say,
continue to give, maybe because like maybe you aren't giving
at all. And I would say, use that desire to
(33:26):
not necessarily give to these organizations that you're the most
crazy about as fuel for the fire for you to
find the charities that you do care about, because I
think the temptation, like the reason these prompts exist is
because people don't give. They like, there's just a lack
of an ability for us to be proactive and to
go out there. I don't think it's because people don't give.
I think Emerson, actually, when you look at numbers, were
(33:47):
actually really generous, more generous than most cultures. I guess
I'm thinking about the fact that I think there's a
lot of folks who might hear what you're saying and
take that as permission to be like, yeah, I'm not
going to give anymore, but then they don't go out
there and actually do their research. And that's not what
I said. I think, Oh I no, no, I totally yeah,
it's definitely not what you said. But I'm just pointing
out the behavioral tendency to not necessarily want to give
(34:07):
our money away because marketing works, right, Like, that's why
these different efforts are out there, is because if you're
able to get in front of somebody and to remind them,
you're like, okay, yeah, I'll go ahead and do that.
But if you're relying on yourself to do it at
a later time, you just have to make sure that
you actually do that, you know. And I think I
just think that when you're asked to donate five bucks
to check out, the lazy person's way out is to
(34:28):
be like, okay, and then wait, look I've done my
good thing. Sure, And but the truth is you don't know.
And I'm not even saying that the money that they're
asking for isn't going to those nonprofits. It is like
everything I can I've read, it sounds like the money
is going to those nonprofits that they say it's going to.
So It's not like I'm even worried about fraud or
anything like that. It's just that, man, what nonprofit man
you want to see succeeds? Exactly. It may not be
(34:49):
your first choice. Yeah, And even still, is that nonprofit
that you're giving money to, how well are they using
the funds? Those are things you can look up and
see so that you can proactively funnel money towards nonprofits
you care about that are being really effective exactly. And
we truly do feel that it's important to give your money,
and so we want people to be proactive and to
take these steps to do this. It's just that I
(35:10):
get the argument of marketers because they're like, well, nobody
wants to who truly wants to give their money away?
We recommend for you to do this, for folks out
there to do this all the time, and specifically, you
can research some of the different organizations at a site
like give dot org or Charity Navigator. They both do
a great job at giving you just a peek behind
the curtain, but do some research and then send a
(35:31):
one time gift or just make a recurring monthly donation
as opposed to again feeling kind of guilt tripped into
being like, all right, I'll go ahead do the five bucks.
You could even start a donor advised fund to invest
money for future giving purposes too, if you're not quite
sure where it is that you want to funnel those
giving dollars now. But again it comes down to whether
or not you're actually to do that thing. But hopefully
(35:54):
you are hearing us talk about this. This is the
kind of the kick in the pants for you to say,
all right, let me actually do that. How much am
I actually giving away of my money? Because it feels
like I'm getting I'm giving away a bunch because I'm
prompted often, But as a percentage of your income, maybe
it's like, I don't know, like zero point zero five
percent of your actual income. And you're probably thinking, but
that feels more like five percent of my actual income.
(36:16):
But it's because it's not something that you're proactively looking at.
And we want folks to be more engaged with the
money that they're giving away. Yeah, we'd rather see you
feel connected to the giving that you're doing, a connection
sort of disconnected in the moment. Guilt trip like that's
not that doesn't make you feel good about the giving
that you're doing either, right, it's kind of crummy, it's
not ideal. So instead, if you're the one who's practically
looking for and saying, you know what I care about,
(36:37):
I care about the local shelter that's rescuing animals in
my area, Like that's something I can feel connected to
in proactively giving your money in that direction, go for it.
That's great. Love it. But just because somebody's raising money
and they put it in front of your face, it
doesn't mean that's the thing you should give money to
that exactly. Yeah, all right, well is that gonna be it?
That's it? All right, that's it for our Friday flights.
(36:58):
You can find resources some of the different things we
mentioned during this episode up in our show notes up
on the website at howdomoney dot com. And we hope
everyone ether has a beautiful weekend. So buddy, that's going
to be it until next time. Best Friends Out, Best
Friends Out.
Welcome to Head of Money. I'm Joel, I'm Matt, and
today we're talking short term rental SmackDown, negative nelli's, and
donation dilemmas. That's right. Happy Friday to everyone out there.
(00:30):
I feel like folks are starting to get back into
the swing of things. Kids are back in school. Friday's
mean something now, whereas like over the summer, Friday they
don't mean anything. It's just another day of the summer.
Is it called Friday? Can we call it? Oh? You
know if you're speaking gift, But yeah, this says our
Friday flights. And we're gonna cover the top stories, the
(00:50):
ones that we think you need to be paying a
little more attention to because they pertain to your personal finances.
We're gonna get to the ones you mentioned, Joel, plus
a bunch of others too, but good stuff for sure.
You want to talk about your watch. If listeners, if
you if you listen closely, if you listen a lot,
you heard me mention that I kind of wanted to
get one of the Garmin smart watches largely man, it
(01:11):
doesn't have a touch screen, which I'm actually thrilled about.
It's pretty smart, dude. I'll say, I dig the way
that that looks, cause it's all black, and I like
the black on black like it's well, you know, like
the actual typography or the typeface. It's like a dark gray. Yeah,
it looks it's got a good It reminds me of
my bike, which is which is all it's like all
blacked out. Yeah, it kind of got a minimalist vibe
(01:32):
for sure. It's a good look. Yeah, So I like
it. It's and I got it used. I will say I
mentioned that I was looking for a discounted one right
on Prime Day or something like that, and I didn't
see anything pop up that really made me want to pounds,
and so I said, you know what, why don't I
Why don't look to see how much they go for used?
And I looked on eBay and I was like, I
don't know, not enough of a discount to make me
(01:53):
want to jump on it. But then for I never
really used this app, but I tried something called mrcary.
Have you heard of that one? M So it's kind
of like eBay but for fancy people, I guess is
what they're saying. Yeah, but I got this watch for
seventy bucks, dude, and normally. I think it's like a
two hundred dollars watch. It's the regular and so that
there are two generations. I got the I got the
first generation because I don't really care. I didn't see
(02:14):
enough differences between the first and second. Yeah, so I
got the first gen seventy bucks ship to my door
and it's been great. Man. And what's what's smart about it? Sure?
Like people here smart watch. It's not a touch screen,
so it doesn't it sounds of dumb? Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Well that's actually what I wanted because I didn't want
like and I turned off all the notifications from my phone.
So people are then what does it really do? Well's
(02:35):
just tracking my health statistics, right, I didn't know it
actually linked to your phone too. Yeah, so I've got
an app on the phone that I can check and
I can see, like it can tell me how I slept,
it can tell me how many steps I've taken. It
can tell me, well my heart rate has been and
high heart rate. It can track all my different kind
of workouts and stuff. Like Joel enters middle age, he
want to start tracking the metrics. Well, the cool thing
is I was a part of what I like about
(02:55):
it is it motivates me to do more on things
that I want to be doing. But I I kind
of like to challenge myself. And so I'm I and
having this app that's tracking all my stuff and it's
kind of same from a running standpoint, Yeah, from like
a running from like a like how many active minutes
are you spending each and every week? And this is
tracking all that stuff and it makes more of like
beat myself from the week before. You want to increase
(03:15):
your numbers. Yeah, like I know on the Apple Watch,
I don't have one, but like you close your circles, yeah,
like in that how that works? Yeah, Emily's got one
and that's how well. Okay, So I love you bring
us up. I think it's great. I totally did something similar.
So I used eBay though, and I was kind of
in the market for a blazer. I don't have like
a blazer like a sports code, and I found one
that I liked and brand new. Dude, this thing was
(03:37):
three hundred and ninety bucks. Wow, I'm like, that's a
lot of stinking money. And so here's what's great though
about getting something that you know you either want or
even need, is that if you've got time on your side,
you can take the time to shop around and in
particular see if you can get it used. Because so
with that in mind, I'm like, I don't need blazer
like now today, next week, but maybe like in a
(03:58):
couple of months. And so I on eBay and there
was the exact one that I was thinking about buying
and it wasn't even used. This is what's so killer, too,
is that there's so many folks on there and they've
got NWT new with tags. I love. I love saying
that because this massive discount is all I know. That's
I'm getting screaming massive discount. There's no yeah, wear and
tear on this thing. They had it so three nights.
(04:19):
This thing was listed for one twenty five. And I
also love you can make an offer, make an offer,
and so I made an offer at ninety bucks and
they accepted it. Boom, you know, like because these folks
they've got these items, like I guess if you do this,
so that's like a more full time and you've got
a bunch of inventory you just want to unload it.
Yeah who And of course I instantly regretted and I
(04:39):
was like, oh, I should offer it even lower. But
they've also they got the recommendation on there now too,
where it's just like it's more likely to accept it
if you make an offer around ninety three dollars. And
so I was like, all right, I'll try ninety I
did something so I love it. So the ability to
have time on your side, man, yeah, you said eighty percent,
dis like a massive discount. I saved three hundred bucks
on something that is like virtually yeah, these are like
(05:00):
good shopping tips, hopefully from both of us. But well,
I think the other thing. I just jump all sorts
of things too, not just like consumer goods, but like
when it comes to housing, the ability to shop around
and when you have time on your side, man, it's
you come out ahead. But it's helpful to know that
there are multiple different sites. Like I didn't. I wasn't
even really aware of Macary. I guess I knew it existed,
and I was like, well, i'll give I'll check that
out and so but and I'm just, man, I really
(05:23):
like the ways in which this watch is like influencing
my behavior in a positive way. I'm not glued to
the screen because it's not a touch screen. It's not
doing a whole lot besides telling me the time super minimal. Oh,
it kind of reminds me of eat ink. That's why
I like it, because I love eat ink, like uh,
kindle reading on the kindle, but the ability to have
that on a watch. Yeah, kind of got that vibe.
You knows, man, I might join you, might join you
soon enough. Yeah, So just letting people know, like there
(05:45):
are always way who you don't need the thing brand
new necessarily and you might not need the newest version.
And the more you shop around, the more you might save.
And if you don't need it, I like that tip
mat if you don't need it, immediately take some time,
keep looking and make it off or went out to
all the above to save a little bit when you're
buying something. All right, let's get to our Friday flights,
the different stories we came across, and we're gonna spend
a minute here talking about Airbnb specifically, because yeah, short
(06:08):
term rentals. They're having a moment and it's not a
good moment for them. Some of the biggest cities in
the US are trying to tamp down. They're trying to
create more rules surrounding listings that appear on sites like
Airbnb Wired. They call New York's crackdown the end of
Airbnb in New York, New York City the big Apple.
(06:29):
They already had some restrictions on the books, but now
they're actually going to enforce them. They're gonna I guess
I'm thinking of Ashville. The Ashville's had a more stringent
regulation surrounding the airbnb's and how you have to be
registered with the city. But now the only way to
run an Airbnb in the city is if you are
staying in the apartment with the folks who are running it.
(06:53):
And that's for if it's a short term rental for
like less than thirty days or something like that. But
given the fact that a lot of folk want an
apartment to themselves right, like they don't want to there's
a lot of folks who aren't wanting to do the
sleep on the couch thing or like it's a shared apartment,
but you've got your own room. Kate and I like
when we were younger, even and when we were traveling
on shoe string budgets, that was never a consideration. I
(07:14):
guess it's when you have a partner, right, when you
have a significant other, because if it was me solo,
I totally share a room. But when you've got somebody
else with you, you went your privacy, like you're talking about stuff.
And I think this is going to have a serious
impact on Airbnb's in New York talking about stuff. So no,
we did, Emily and I actually did that in Norway
one time because the prices were so expensive, specifically in Bergen, Norway,
(07:37):
where we and we said, oh my gosh, to stay
in a house where somebody else there's somebody else there
is going to save us so much money. It's worth
the trade off for this one night in this one place, right, Yeah.
But most of the time, no, we want our own place. Yeah. Actually,
I guess I take that back. I think about we
rented a place when we went to Ireland, like ten
was it ten years ago? Oh my gosh, remember that
(07:57):
one BMB that one place. Yeah, okay, so then the
people who run it are actually living, they're there, we're
like playing with her kid. Yeah, so you can. Part
of it depends on your mentality. Can be kind of quaint,
nostalgic or what you're there for, or it can be creepy.
If it's like a really small New York City apartment,
and my mind immediately went to the creepy they're literally
all brushing in your teeth at the same time, which
is weird. But yeah, but it's not just New York City, Matt.
(08:17):
The short term crackdown isn't just happening there. The La
Times strote this week about Airbnb's being listed that haven't
applied for an application with the city to list their property,
so basically they're in violation of of local laws there.
And so these laws in Los Angeles are are pretty
stringent for short term rentals too, and a good number
of folks are trying to get they're basically trying to
skirt the rules to keep their rental business afloat there.
(08:40):
They're not filing, they're just going ahead and listing their
Airbnb on the site because I got that illegal Airbnb. Yeah,
they don't want to jump through the hoops that it
takes to get there, pay the city for the privilege
of listing on the site. And so there are a
few takeaways I would say from what's happening in this
space right now. One, short term rentals can be lucrative.
There are some people who are like really making my substantially,
(09:01):
like they're supporting their lifestyle based on short term rentals too.
That could change overnight thanks to new government restrictions. Makes
you think. I have a buddy who has an airbnbn
in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and his does quite well. He thought
about buying another one, but guess what the city of
Chattanooga said, We're putting a moratorium on any new short
term rentals for the time being. And your grandfather and
(09:21):
if you have one, but if you're like trying to
launch one, sorry, you're out of luck. It's you can't
do it now. And so basically, I think if you
live in a place where short term rentals are allowed
and you can make a sweet income stream, that it's great.
It can be a great way to get into real estate.
But have a backup plan, right, hope for the best,
but at least have a plan in place for the
worst potential outcome, because we're seeing people going through the
(09:44):
worst potential outcome in certain places where you know the
laws are being either finally enforced or being written to
curb the amount of short term rentals that are available. Yeah. Absolutely,
I think it pays to pay attention to some of
the different industries that you're thinking about getting in to
where there's a lot of government involvement where things could
change either from a platform, right like from a private
(10:06):
company like even Airbnb could say I don't know why
they would do this, but they could say, all right,
no more new airb Like we're just we're kind of
capped out. We're just going to keep things where they are,
whether it's being beholden too a specific platform. It's why
we worn against that when it comes to even like
with gig work, but then specifically with when it comes
to different of the like different government agencies or just
regulations that might come into play. Like it makes me
(10:27):
think of the marijuana industry, right, like weed, and if
you're going all in on that, okay, like you might
see some outsized returns, but you are also exposing yourself
to outsized risks because you just don't know where policy
is going to go and what the rules are going
to be in that industry. You might find that banks
don't want to do businesses, right, but you never know
(10:47):
growing operations stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. So one of
the reasons for the airbnb crackdowns though, is because of
the price of housing. Because of the increases that we've
seen in rents. But the truth is short term rentals
aren't the problem. That's it's just a result of the market.
They're easy to pick on. It's easy to make it
feel like these are the guys. So it wasn't for Airbnb.
It's not Airbnb. It's the fact that, well, the market
(11:09):
says that it's worth more if I can rent this
out short term as opposed to a long term renter
zoning loss, we think that they are more of the
culprit when they don't allow for building more units, when
they are preventing greater density, those are the real culprit
in our opinion. Now, there was a great article in
Insider about New Zealand's approach to zoning. They were basically
(11:31):
facing a housing cost crisis, and they responded by relaxing
medium density zoning restrictions and which obviously made it much
easier to build duplexes and triplexes on what were originally
single family lots. Yeah, and the result they're putting up
highrises in single family neighborhoods. It's still reasonable. We're not
like throwing getting rid of all the rules. But more
(11:52):
supply came on the market. Because of this builders they
were able to meet that need, that demand. More supply
really does help the pricing problem, and the evidence points
to the fact that rent and pricing growth slows down,
so you know, it doesn't necessarily decrease, but it doesn't
continue to skyrocket when more units are being built when
there is more supply, and I guess theoretically it would
(12:13):
decrease if enough units were built. There's a chance it
could reverse course. Yeah, exactly. And we're not necessarily airbnb homers,
although we think they're an interesting company that's really made
hospitality across the United States. It's changed the face of it.
But really, let's find the right problem and pinpoint that
and attack that and zoning, not enough supply, those are
(12:34):
the real problems that have led to the housing you know,
housing cost increases that we've seen in all varieties and
so yeah, but you still need to be aware if
you're a want to be short term real estate investor
of kind of these new laws. It's in vogue right
now to kind of tamp down on this stuff. But mat,
let's get to our next story. This one is about
the negative Nellies out there. They're continuing to do their thing,
(12:55):
as they always do. Negative nellies like to be negative,
and so Kevin O'Leary of Shark Tank fing he was
recently on a show and he started predicting. He's basically
predicting chaos for the US economy in the coming days,
in the coming months. He's particularly worried, he says, about
small businesses, and he says that we have a crisis
emerging because of Federal Reserve interest rate hikes. And I
(13:19):
don't know, it just felt kind of like a chicken
little sort of thing. This guy is falling hearing this
from him. But Matt, from everything you and I read
and see from almost every metric that we can track,
inflation is coming down, unemployment is low, consumer spending is solid,
and businesses have been able to raise prices when they
need to because consumers still have money to spend. It
seems like by every metric the economy is doing quite well.
(13:41):
And like, could we enter a recession in the next
twelve to eighteen months. Sure, yes, it's of course possible,
especially since a recession happens on average every like five
to six years in the United States. But I guess
I'm just so tired of these guys getting the headlines
that spook normal people, that cause people to be like,
oh my gosh, is it really? Is it all? Is
it all coming down? Like is it a house of
(14:01):
cards this US economy or something like that. Should I
move into cash or or better yet bitcoin because man
or gold, I feel like those are the yeah, push
people towards precious metals. So he cou it's the new
digital rolls, that's where people go. But like, I just
get frustrated. I get annoyed when I see people in
positions like this. People like people and I don't know who,
(14:22):
but I think there's a lot of people out there
who trust guys like Kevin O'Leary and they believe that
he is telling them the truth and what's in their
best interest. I just don't know that's the case in
the scenario. Well, yeah, and part of it might also
be media as well, because I'm sure were you to
actually talk to him, he would give maybe a slightly
more nuanced version of that headline. But media companies, that's
not what he's known for. Nuance. By the way, Well,
(14:43):
he is looking up for smaller business talker, you know,
which I appreciate, But like there's a lot of help
that's certainly being given to a lot of the giant
businesses out there, and he's specifically talking about how it
seems like smaller businesses might be the ones getting getting
crushed here in the future. But regardless though of who
it is we're talking about or the advice that they're given,
we think that the lesson here is to be careful
(15:06):
who it is that you're listening to. Like, it makes
me think of Robert Kiyosaki, the rich rich dad, poor
dad guy. He has some decent personal finance advice, but
he is even worse than Kevin O'Leary, Like he is
constantly calling for the end of the US economy times
a year on Twitter. He gives he sounds to death
knell and people are like, except his care we go again,
(15:28):
like that's literally what he's saying, and that's what he's
known for as opposed like, I feel like maybe his Yeah,
the more rich dad poor dad talks, the more I'm like, dude,
I don't know, I'm might be getting tired out, bro
sired of your message altogether. But bottom line, what I
think the big thing that we I kind of hate
that we're talking about this because we don't want to
bring any more light and attention to this. But it's
(15:50):
also important to cover this because we want to disarm
any of these sublines. We want to put you at
ease because if specifically COVID, if the aftermath, if our
economy's ability to rebound has proven anything, it is that
our country is resilient. As I'll get out, bad things
are certainly going to happen. Yes, we might see a recession,
(16:10):
who knows exactly when that's going to happen, but not
everything is going to be perfectly peachy. But we're still
living in one of the greatest countries at an incredible
time in human history. You can certainly read those stories
as much as you want, try not to let them sway.
How it is that you are handling and spending and
investing your money though, Yeah, and you know what negative.
(16:31):
People are going to be negative, And there's a whole
it just I think it sounds smarter for some reason
to say things are going to hell in a hand
basket or things are awful, because it is it's easier
for humans to identify negative things in the world around
us than it is to identify positives. I think that's
a natural human tendency and bias like to see the
perceived threats around us and to be aware. And there
(16:51):
are always perceived threats to the economy. But the truth
is also that we man the economy's done really well,
like you said in the aftermath of COVID. Yeah, and
so I mean it might be less about the negative
versus the positive as opposed to the certainty, because I
think when folks come in and they they're saying, like
a certain you know by this quarter, or the certainty
in which they proclaim things is I think what a
(17:13):
lot of people latch onto you because people don't like uncertainty.
I think more than anything else, they can they can
handle things going poorly or things going going well for them,
But it's the uncertainty that puts people in that weird
state of limbo where they're not totally sure what to
expect next. Yeah. And I think the guy some of
the guys like Kevin O'Leary and Robert Kyosaki who speak
with a ton of boldness. Yeah, yeah, it's like I
(17:36):
know what's gonna happen, and here let me lay it
out for you. That when they say it with such
confidence I know. Yeah, that's I guess that's where the
term con man comes from. So all right, let's move
on though, let's talk about healthcare. Maybe I'll be I'm
gonna be a Debbie Downer here for a second. But
what with facts, not with bogus predictions. It's no secret
that health insurance has become more expensive and a couple
(17:56):
of major benefits. Consulting firms say that prices are going
to arise six percent in twenty twenty four in the
health care sector, which obviously sucks, right, but it's a
good thing to be aware of because it's important to
know that more of your paycheck might soon be going
towards increased health insurance premiums, increased health insurance costs, and
if you have health insurance through your employer, they might
absorb some of that hit, but they also might not
(18:18):
so and even if they do, by the way, that
can mean more meager salary increases because instead of giving
you a six percent raise, it's a four percent raise
because more of what would have gone to your paycheck
is going to pay for those increased health care expenses
that the employer is participating in with you. Yeah, okay,
so quick explainer as to why this is happening. Basically,
it's like a delayed reaction of the inflation that we've
(18:40):
seen over the past couple of years. I thought they
did a good job explaining it in this article, and
we'll link to this story like we do all the
stories that we mentioned during the Friday flight. But they
were essentially talking like insurers and hospitals. They've got contracts,
but those contracts don't come up for renewal every single year,
and so the higher costs that the hospitals incurred like
laffing shortages, right, Like think about all the money that
(19:01):
nurses were getting paid. Those contracts are coming up for renewal,
and so those costs are basically being reflected in the
contracts that the insurers are able to negotiate with the hospitals,
which are now beginning to renew and those costs are
now then being passed along to consumers. Right. So it's
like it's a domino effect, essentially delayed impact exactly exactly,
and so it's something that I think we can expect
(19:23):
to see across the board. But one of the things
you can do is, as we are getting closer to
open enrollment, consider raising, going with the plan that has
a higher deductible. If you're younger, if you have a
healthy family, if you rarely go and see the doctor,
consider a high deductible healthcare plan, one that also, by
the way, gets you access to an HSA added investing
(19:44):
benefit that your self ensuring not by paying fewer premiums
every single month, but instead be disciplined, take that money,
stick it in your own high old savings account. That way,
you've got the money money on hand to actually meet
that deductible if and when you do need to visit
the now. I think that's good advice. I think a
lot of people, Matt, they just assume, well, I want
the top tier coverage, but you might not need the
(20:06):
top tier coverage. You might be paying a whole lot
extra for it, and so getting the higher deductible plan,
really you can still go see the same doctors. It
just means that you're self ensuring more. You've got to
have a little bit more money in the bank to
cover some of those healthcare costs, the healthcare expenses that
you're hoping don't come to pass totally. Yeah, and you
could also consider a health sharing plan like Joel. Like
both of our families are on a health sharing plan.
(20:29):
Traditionally they have like a religious component, but there are
multiple companies now that do not have a faith element
at all, like Sidera is a newer one that a
lot of folks are checking out. But technically it is
not actually insurance. It's not regulated. But if that's a
way that you are interested in perhaps saving some money,
(20:49):
we can link to an article on the show that's
about meta share specifically, and we can link to some
of the other ones as well. But Joel, we've got
additional stories that we're gonna get to, including whether or
not we're on the path to becoming a cashless society.
Will get to that plus others right after this. All right,
(21:14):
in just a second, we're going to talk about digital payments. Matt,
I can't wait to pay with the chip that's embedded
in my wrist. I just that's a real thing, you know,
I know, Yeah, it's freaky. What is it? World market? No,
I'm not world market. What's it called whole foods? Whole foods?
What's world war market? That's like a furniture store. Yeah, yeah,
forget that. They don't do that there. But first we
(21:35):
got to get to the ludacra's headline of the week.
This one comes from the New York Times and it
reads a seven hundred million dollar bonanza for the winners
of crypto's collapse lawyers. Yes, at least someone is getting
rich off cryptocurrency. I guess, Matt. That was my initial thought.
My initial takeaway from reading that was like, well, most
people got screwed, but I guess somebody is making out
like a bandit. But the reality is, while millions of
(21:56):
Americans have lost hundreds or thousands of dollars in dribs
and drabs stocking money into different cryptocurrency investments, the folks
making the real money are the legal class. It's lawyers,
its accountants, and consultants. Those are the folks who have
raked in massive amounts of money from firms like FTX
right at the same time though they're regular folks lost
at all. And so some of these lawyers met that
(22:18):
command thousands of dollars an hour in fees, which you know,
they probably went to prestigious schools that worked really hard
to make a great income. I'm not hating on their
ability to make money, but it kind of feels like
a poke in the eye to normal folks who lost
some of their savings right thanks to SBF and his
Ponzi scheme and some of these other crypto firms that
went busted where lawyers are coming in, they're leeching, they're
(22:40):
leeching off, they're taking so much of the money that
would otherwise go to some of the folks who did
lose a bunch of their savings. Yeah, and of course
the way that you could not be footing the bills
for these expensive law firms is by having avoided cryptocurrencies altogether.
But there's one law firm there working for Celsius, another
(23:01):
failed one where they build one hundred thousand dollars to
come up with like they're trying to determine whether or
not they're going to bring up the case to potentially
pursue a Celsius customer using creditor funds to go after
that creditor basically, so they're using essentially her own money
to decide whether or they're going to sumeer or not.
And honestly, just crypto in general, it's a mess. But
(23:22):
on that note, Bloomberg had an article about the downfall
of NFTs. I don't know if you remember those jual
non fungible tokens. Yeah, the old expensive JPEGs, right, exactly. Well,
and it's not the JPEG that you own. What you
own is the fact that you bought the jpeg. Basically,
you owned the receipts, a certificate of authenticity that accompanies
the JPEG that makes it worth two hundred and fifty
(23:44):
thousand dollars. So everyone's sort of autopsies, right, and they
exist for a reason, and that's to figure out the
cause of death. Well, basically that's where we are when
it comes to NFTs. The hype of non fungible tokens
has faded, and so have any of thequote unquote investments
that folks have made within the space that FOMO was
(24:05):
in full gear. And it turned out that January of
twenty twenty two was the top, of course, and so
those who were speculating in the NFT space they got
host and that includes not just normal folks, but like
billionaires out there as well, who launched NFT platforms and projects,
celebrities out there. It's not often that we see hype
and we see the mania get to the degree that
(24:28):
NFT's reached. But I think it's certainly again a good
reminder that boring is better. Stick with tried and true
investments and you can avoid getting burned altogether when it
comes to your board eight plunging in value, or if
you even just hate the fact that more of your
investment dollars the lawsuit and the potential payout that you
might receive as a customer of somebody like Celsius or
(24:51):
FTX is going to pay the bills of expensive attorney. Yeah,
and typically we read about manias and bubbles in textbooks,
and so it's just really interesting to have kind of
lived through one, seen the rise in the fall, the swell,
and then the bust of of that space and uh yeah,
it's it's funny because I haven't even really heard the
term NFT recently. Nobody cares, nobody cares anymore. And yet
(25:14):
it was like the hot new thing on the block
there for a minute. And so people have to be careful.
There's we're going to see another one at some point,
a hot new thing on the block, and yeah, it'll
just be something different. Yeah. Yes, it's not the fact
that NFTs are no longer no longer cool. It's the
fact that or that they carry any cachet or anything.
It's the fact that there will be something else that
carries that same weight. Yes, and just we're just preemptively
(25:36):
putting that on your radar. Just store that one away
because if your cause your hackles come up, if you
raise your antenna as being like, wait a second, this
feels like something in the past that I experienced, and
I can't predict or tell you what it's gonna be,
but something else will come along. It's similar, even though
it's gonna it's gonna like look different in name and
in style, but it's gonna have a lot of the
same underlying elements might smell the same, right, yeah, exactly,
(25:57):
All right, let's talk about cash for a second, like, yeah,
the actual physical cash. Then it turns out fewer folks
are are even using. According to Pew Research, forty percent
of Americans actually didn't use any cash last year, which
is a shockingly high number. It's man, it's more than
I was expecting. Yeah, like literally almost half the country
because I used cash last year. I just did it
(26:17):
really really sparingly, right, very infrequently. And digital digital wallet's
Apple Pay, Google Pay, they've become more commonplace, and apps
like Venmo cash app for you know, splitting checks and
stuff like that. And it used to be I think
just the younger generation partaking in some of those things,
but now it feels like, you know, Gen X baby boomers. Oh,
they've gotten all in on it too. Literally, this past weekend,
my mother in law was like, hey, help me out
(26:39):
with Venmo. Yeah. I literally set her up on Venmo
because she's she buys stuff used that's how you do it.
That's right off of like Facebook, and she's like, everyone's
asking for Venmo. I gotta get I gotta get on
this stuff. People want to take payment, yeah I know, yeah, yeah,
well okay. And then actual retailers and restaurants they've been
moving in that direction as well. Taco Bell has said
that they want to go completely casius at all of
their restaurants, and so it's interesting to see and I
(27:01):
think in many ways, the transition to digital makes a
whole lot of sense, right, But I think also while
I get businesses wanting to streamline things, not accepting physical
US dollars seems kind of silly too, like you're limiting
your customers, especially a place like Taco Bell. Like I
guess I'm old school and I just think people should
still have the right the ability to use cash if
that's their preference, I think they'll still have the ability,
(27:23):
but just okay. So, like one of the biggest downsides
I think to there being less cash or us even
potentially moving and more in that direction is when it
comes to teaching kids about money. Because we've talked about this,
maybe it's been a while actually, so maybe folks probably
don't even remember or I don't know, maybe yeah, you
forgot or something, but like they hang on your every word.
So I for a while there, we went totally digital
(27:45):
and we're paying our kids for the different jobs they
are doing via a digital digital app, like even the
interests they were earning by quote unquote investing it. I
was paying it that way, but I don't think it
was very successful. It kind of fell flat. This also
makes me have you ever of Singapore? You've heard of it? Right,
it's a curriculum. It's just a way of teaching math.
But like the tenets of it are when you are
(28:08):
teaching kids math, like they can be a difficult theoretical
thing to understand and grasp, and so what you do
you start with concrete ways of teaching kids, So like
literal blocks on their desk, and you count them, and
you subtract them, and you add them together. You move
from that to the pictures, so basically a visual representation
of that on paper, and then from there you're able
(28:29):
to move more to the abstract and kids are able
to understand the concepts building blocks and to fully understand
what it does that they're doing. Yeah, you take these
baby steps and you incrementally have a better understanding of
what it is. I do wonder if kids in particular
are never taught about money in the tangible, like where
they're actually holding it and that they hand it over
when they pay for something, that they're truly missing out
(28:51):
potentially on what it is that money can actually do
or the true value of money. And so hopefully there
will always at least be a little bit of money
on hand for us to teach our kids. Yeah, and
of course that kind of comes down to us as parents. Well,
some people want to use cash for privacy reasons, which
I totally get to. Yep, So it's totally get it.
I don't want not even just the government like visa
investor regard doing everything I do. That's right, Okay, But
(29:13):
so all signs do point though to the fact that
we are moving towards like a cashless society, whether you
like it or not. And so I think that it
comes down to us again as individuals, to then determine
how best, for instance, to monitor our spending right, because
you may not like the fact that the rules of
the game are changing, but how can you add best
adapt to those changing rules. And so before when you're
(29:34):
talking about physical cash, like you were like literally physically
limited on how much you could spend because you ran
out of cashers, I'm sure there's still folks who do
the envelope system. But using technology to then place digital
constraints on your spending, I think those are the next steps.
And I think it would be prudent and wise to
start finding ways to harness this technology to control and
(29:56):
to govern yourself right, to provide that discipline. And so
I think what that means is that but the very least,
just monitoring your spending via a free app like mint,
we talk about that all the time, or even considering
paying for a service like y nab where it's got
a little it's more sophisticated with the ability for you
to plan out you're spending and when it comes to budgeting,
But don't totally stick your head in the sand and say, well,
(30:18):
even though things are going more digital, I'm not necessarily
going to change my ways when it comes to the
like the best practices for me to be able to
optimize my money. No, Like, let's move along with the
I'm looking at your watch. It makes me think about
your watch, Like maybe before somebody would have a running
partner or like sign up for a race or something
like that. But and those are great, certainly accountability and
(30:39):
it's fun to run a race or whatever, but like
there's also other ways where you can take advantage of
technology and charts and seeing your numbers. I think the
ability to make the best of technology is the best
path forward. Yeah personally, Yeah, well I think it's a
good point though, is using the best of technology because
there's sometimes technology and not letting it use you Yah,
taking campus right, and we can we can be the
(31:00):
bill of goods that's being sold as opposed to using
technology in a way that helps us without allowing it
to harm us. And so I think you're right, like
digital minimalism, right, that concept of using enough technology to
get the things you need to get done or you
want to get done done, and then being able to
put it aside. And so I think something like wine
app is a perfect use case of like good technology
(31:20):
that helps us and something like this watch too, where
it's not distracting me, but it's giving me what I need.
Love it all. Right, Let's let's get to talk about
charity map for a second, because speaking of like digital
payments when we're when we're out shopping or something like that,
if you were to ask pull our listener base, I
would imagine most people have gotten asked to donate money
at some point while they've been checking out. Right, while
(31:40):
they've been at the checkout. You're not just talking about tip.
You're not talking about donating money as as the person
who just made your Oh no, which you should do.
You should tip the person right who's serving you. But
you're literally asked to donate to a to a nonprofit,
to a cause that the grocery store or retailer supports.
It feels like it's happening all the time now. And
this new study that we're being asked to make charitable
(32:01):
contributions at the point of purchase more than ever. So
it's not just like in our minds, like it's really happening.
And the thing is people are participating. Shopper donations at
checkout have gone up something like twenty four percent since
twenty twenty. But people are apparently getting tired of being asked.
I know, I am. It's understandable, right. Not everyone feels
like this, but I would say a decent chunk of
(32:21):
folks feel kind of browbeaten into rounding up the purchase
price or it's donating five or ten bucks for that
retailer's pet cause. My take, and not everyone has to
agree with me, but my take is to always say no,
not because you hate the cause, or because you don't
care about others, or because you're not planning to be generous,
but I would say people should rather proactively choose where
(32:43):
they want their money to go instead of being guilt
tripped into that donation in a spur of the moment transaction.
It allows you to have more control over where your
money goes. You can still be you can be more
generous even in fact by saying no, and but by
funneling your dollars into the nonprofits that you can about.
It's just it's just interesting to see that we're being
like asked for donations more and more and more, And
(33:05):
I think a lot of times people people just feel like,
I feel like it's the right thing to do, so
I'm gonna do it, even if your their heart's not
in it, let's say, guilt tripped into doing it. So
I like what you're saying, but I would say the
only like, the only caveat is that I would say,
continue to give, maybe because like maybe you aren't giving
at all. And I would say, use that desire to
(33:26):
not necessarily give to these organizations that you're the most
crazy about as fuel for the fire for you to
find the charities that you do care about, because I
think the temptation, like the reason these prompts exist is
because people don't give. They like, there's just a lack
of an ability for us to be proactive and to
go out there. I don't think it's because people don't give.
I think Emerson, actually, when you look at numbers, were
(33:47):
actually really generous, more generous than most cultures. I guess
I'm thinking about the fact that I think there's a
lot of folks who might hear what you're saying and
take that as permission to be like, yeah, I'm not
going to give anymore, but then they don't go out
there and actually do their research. And that's not what
I said. I think, Oh I no, no, I totally yeah,
it's definitely not what you said. But I'm just pointing
out the behavioral tendency to not necessarily want to give
(34:07):
our money away because marketing works, right, Like, that's why
these different efforts are out there, is because if you're
able to get in front of somebody and to remind them,
you're like, okay, yeah, I'll go ahead and do that.
But if you're relying on yourself to do it at
a later time, you just have to make sure that
you actually do that, you know. And I think I
just think that when you're asked to donate five bucks
to check out, the lazy person's way out is to
(34:28):
be like, okay, and then wait, look I've done my
good thing. Sure, And but the truth is you don't know.
And I'm not even saying that the money that they're
asking for isn't going to those nonprofits. It is like
everything I can I've read, it sounds like the money
is going to those nonprofits that they say it's going to.
So It's not like I'm even worried about fraud or
anything like that. It's just that, man, what nonprofit man
you want to see succeeds? Exactly. It may not be
(34:49):
your first choice. Yeah, And even still, is that nonprofit
that you're giving money to, how well are they using
the funds? Those are things you can look up and
see so that you can proactively funnel money towards nonprofits
you care about that are being really effective exactly. And
we truly do feel that it's important to give your money,
and so we want people to be proactive and to
take these steps to do this. It's just that I
(35:10):
get the argument of marketers because they're like, well, nobody
wants to who truly wants to give their money away?
We recommend for you to do this, for folks out
there to do this all the time, and specifically, you
can research some of the different organizations at a site
like give dot org or Charity Navigator. They both do
a great job at giving you just a peek behind
the curtain, but do some research and then send a
(35:31):
one time gift or just make a recurring monthly donation
as opposed to again feeling kind of guilt tripped into
being like, all right, I'll go ahead do the five bucks.
You could even start a donor advised fund to invest
money for future giving purposes too, if you're not quite
sure where it is that you want to funnel those
giving dollars now. But again it comes down to whether
or not you're actually to do that thing. But hopefully
(35:54):
you are hearing us talk about this. This is the
kind of the kick in the pants for you to say,
all right, let me actually do that. How much am
I actually giving away of my money? Because it feels
like I'm getting I'm giving away a bunch because I'm
prompted often, But as a percentage of your income, maybe
it's like, I don't know, like zero point zero five
percent of your actual income. And you're probably thinking, but
that feels more like five percent of my actual income.
(36:16):
But it's because it's not something that you're proactively looking at.
And we want folks to be more engaged with the
money that they're giving away. Yeah, we'd rather see you
feel connected to the giving that you're doing, a connection
sort of disconnected in the moment. Guilt trip like that's
not that doesn't make you feel good about the giving
that you're doing either, right, it's kind of crummy, it's
not ideal. So instead, if you're the one who's practically
looking for and saying, you know what I care about,
(36:37):
I care about the local shelter that's rescuing animals in
my area, Like that's something I can feel connected to
in proactively giving your money in that direction, go for it.
That's great. Love it. But just because somebody's raising money
and they put it in front of your face, it
doesn't mean that's the thing you should give money to
that exactly. Yeah, all right, well is that gonna be it?
That's it? All right, that's it for our Friday flights.
(36:58):
You can find resources some of the different things we
mentioned during this episode up in our show notes up
on the website at howdomoney dot com. And we hope
everyone ether has a beautiful weekend. So buddy, that's going
to be it until next time. Best Friends Out, Best
Friends Out.
Hosts And Creators
Joel Larsgaard
Matthew Altmix
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