May 7, 2023 • 32 mins
Money Move of the Week: Video everything in your house in case of lost items during a fire // Companies are offering more and different benefits
Outlandish Headline of the Week: Americans are choosing lottery tickets and maybe even fortune tellers over financial planners
Chevy will no longer make the cheapest EV
Conversation with Taylor Sohns about macroeconomics affecting microeconomics //
You can get money from the Facebook class action lawsuit
Outlandish Headline of the Week: Americans are choosing lottery tickets and maybe even fortune tellers over financial planners
Chevy will no longer make the cheapest EV
Conversation with Taylor Sohns about macroeconomics affecting microeconomics //
You can get money from the Facebook class action lawsuit
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Kf I am six forty. You'relistening to How to Money on demand on
the iHeartRadio app. All right,now, let's get to our money move
of the week. What I wantyou to do and this is going to
sound a little weird, but Iwant you to video every single thing in
your house. And yes, thisis for insurance purposes to document what you
own. And this is really somethingput it on the calendar after you do
(00:22):
it to do on a yearly basis, an annual basis, where you walk
through your house, you video everything, you kind of make mention of what
you own as a record keeping scenario. Fortunately, it's it's cheaper and easier
than ever, right because basically everyonehas a smartphone in their pocket with almost
a free way to document what youhave. And it's just basically it's impossible
(00:45):
to remember all your possessions and ittakes almost no time to do this.
And in the event of the worstpossible case scenario a fire or catastrophic damage
to your home, it can bedifficult, especially if you're dealing with a
contentious insurance. I just had atree fall through my roof. I've had
phenomenal time dealing with my adjuster theyhave been so helpful, so nice,
(01:07):
so accommodating, so communicative, andI hope that's the case for you if
you ever have a scenario happened.But really I hope that the worst case
scenario never happens for you. Butit takes almost no time to video everything.
This is something that could save yourbacon should the worst case thing happen.
So money moved the week, videoeverything in your house. Go slowly
through every room, document everything,clothing, even everything it's in your bathroom,
(01:30):
because these are the kind of thingsthat you're going to want the money
for should something happen to your house. And again, I hope it doesn't.
Fortunately, my scenario was not awful, but it's not fun. It's
not fun. It's a little parttime job getting this house fixed, dealing
with insurance and all that stuff.But it could have been worse, right,
could have been worse. Got myhealth, become a family, that's
(01:52):
what really matters. But since we'retalking about possessions, documenting those possessions,
I want to mention something else toyou. Wirecutter had this great story on
how that are more repair cafes thanever before, and I'm not sure if
you've ever heard of a repair cafe, but it's this global organization that has
free meeting places where people can cometogether and learn how to fix their stuff
instead of toss it in the trash. This to me, has multiple awesome
(02:14):
things going for it. It's gota free place for you to go to
access tools and access knowledge to fixthings that you might have otherwise just like
gotten rid of because it's broken.But it also has like community elements,
like I really think I think thisis really neat as a place where people
gather to save money together. Youmight, I don't know, you might
make some friends. It's kind oflike volunteering or something like that. And
(02:35):
if you're a dy frugal type,then these cafes they might be your new
favorite place. There are a fewin southern California. I'll link to the
map of where you can find throughrepair cafe near you. The website is
repair cafe dot org if you wantto check it out on your own.
But you're going to save a lotof money by repairing the things that you
(02:55):
buy instead of replacing them. Justfeel like the older I get. The
word that starts to make sense forlife is maintenance. When it comes to
your body, when it comes toyour mind, when it comes to your
stuff. That's like the adulting wordof the year. It is maintenance.
(03:15):
I'm not trying to get buff orripped. I'm just trying to maintain my
body and not decline. And thetruth is, it can be expensive to
maintain things, but it's a wholelot more expensive to buy them new.
And if you want to save moneymaintaining those items, something like a repair
cafe could be helpful. They havethe tools and then know how for you.
(03:36):
They have often the repairs and theknow how because they have volunteers who
have more experienced, which means theyyou know, they've successfully repaired potentially more
complex items than what you're dealing with. But you can bring in stuff like
laptops, printers, jewelry, standmixers. It runs the gamut, but
I'll say this, if you don'thave a repair cafe location near you,
you can check out their tips andTricks pages, which has some helpful guides
(03:58):
on how you can maintain or repairlots of common items that we all live
at home. And I know everyoneknows this at this point, but don't
forget because I sometimes forget that YouTubeis a wonderful place to go for free
advice on how to repair things,specifically if we're talking about like your car.
I've gotten so much invaluable advice fromYouTube over the years. How you
got to watch a little bit ofan ad or something like that. But
(04:20):
man, when it comes to thefree content that's put out there for people,
YouTube is massively helpful and it couldsave you a bunch of money even
just in diagnosing something maybe, butthen also walking you step by step through
how you repair that thing. Andone other service I sat on this front
that I would highly recommend is asite called I fix it, which I
(04:43):
fix it dot com and they havetens of thousands of free manuals for just
as many devices, for tens ofthousands of devices, and of course they're
trying to sell you the parts thatyou're going to need in the tools in
order to fix your problem. Oftentimeswe're talking about smartphone fixes, but it
can still be a much or foraffordable alternative than the ladder than getting rid
(05:03):
of that item because of the screencracked, and yeah, you can go
to your local screen repair place.Those those are popping up all over the
board, all across all across thecountry, but you could you could do
that, or or you could attemptto repair that screen yourself. And I
think based on kind of the businessmodel I fix It has one fix and
(05:24):
think about it, you could startfixing people that you love their screen too.
You learn how to do it,you help people out. I think
I think I fix it It isdoing a great service. So many people
think of their phones as unrepairable.Got to upgrade if this one bites the
dust, when really, really,you might be able to extend to life.
And by the way, if youdon't have a single dy bone in
your body and you're like, yeah, fat chance. At the very least,
(05:46):
do not let that electronic gadget justturn into dust in your drawer over
time. There's sites like cell Cell, which is sell celll dot com,
selll cel dot com. They makeit easy to get some cash for your
phone. You can even sell yourold gadgets to Walmart. Right now,
they have this new program they justlaunched called Gadgets to Gift Cards. So
(06:13):
I like that when people make iteasier to turn unused electronics into something that
you'll actually use, you could gothrough all the trouble of having a yard
sale, or you could take yourselfdown to Walmart to you know, sign
up for that gadget to gift cardsprogram. I mean, there's so many
options, but the worst option isto let your electronics break, languish,
(06:34):
don't, don't maintain, don't repairthem, and then you have to upgrade.
It becomes a liability. It justcost you so much money over time.
So those repair cafes super cool.Walmart's new program. There's just a
lot of I think dy possibility outthere. And this is coming from a
guy. I'm not like Tim theToolman Taylor from Home Improvement over here.
(06:55):
I'm no d y expert, butI've owned some retal properties over the over
the year and just out of necessity, learn some things that I did not
know before, fixing put installing newtoilets, fixing toilets that are broken,
installing new faucets. I mean,all sorts of different things that I was
not interested in, didn't want todo, but now that I know how
(07:15):
to do them, boy, it'slike confidence boosting and it saves money.
At the same time, I wantto talk about benefits for just a second.
Employees are being offered a wider rangeof benefits these days. I'm not
sure if you notice this where youwork, but one of the benefits is
being offered is help paying down studentloans. And so this is this is
one of those things where if you'rechanging jobs, if you're thinking about moving
(07:36):
down the street to another employer,I want you to think about the total
compensation that an employer is offering youif they offer you a job there.
If one employer offers literally they're allowedto offer five than two hundred and fifty
dollars in student loan repayment as atax exempt benefit to employees. If one
employer offers that and another one doesn't, sure, the salary might be bigger
(08:00):
the other one, But my goodness, that's a that's a big chunk of
free money that you have come inyour way at the other employer to pay
on those student loans. You've gotto run the numbers. How good is
the health insurance policy? How bigis the four oh one K match?
Right? These are all things todo. You have access to an HSA
through one business or one company orthe other. So, when we're talking
(08:22):
about being on the job market,the job market not as hot as it
was, but still still robust.Given all of the other circumstances there,
there's a lot that you can negotiate, and there's a lot that you need
to take into consideration before you pullthe trigger, before you sign on the
dotted line somewhere. And by theway, if you like where you work
(08:45):
and you would like better perks,better benefits, ask your HR department.
Hey, I noticed that there's thisthing where employers can help pay down student
loans. Mine are a big problem. I love this company. I want
to stay put. Can you helpme with that? I think that's that's
a reasonable question to ask, Hey, is this going to be offered soon?
(09:05):
And if not, why not.Employers are more than ever. They
feel the need to compete. Theyfeel they need to compete for employees,
for good employees, and to tryto retain them. And it's a competitive
job market out there. Use itto your advantage, Use it to your
advantage to get the best benefits youcan. Are coming up, I want
(09:26):
to talk about a hidden cost ofelectric vehicles. There is one thing you
might not have considered, and itmight cost more than the savings that you'd
otherwise get in gas. I'll talkabout that and more right after this you're
listening to How to Money with Joellars Guard on demand from KFI AM six
forty. And now I want toget to our outlandish headline of the week.
(09:48):
This one comes from Fast Company.It says Americans are choosing lottery tickets
and maybe even fortune tellers over financialplanners. And this is an new study
from a company called Empower, whichused to be called Personal Capital, And
it's just another one of those studies, man, that reveals some really interesting
things about the American public and howthey think about and handle their money.
(10:13):
And it found that seventy one percentof Americans have purchased a lottery ticket and
twenty four percent of millennials have goneto see a fortune teller, yet only
thirty three percent have spoken to afinancial planner. And honestly, I'm actually
surprised that the number four of goingto see financial planners is that high.
But this survey just had all sortsof interesting information about the lack of personal
(10:35):
finance knowledge that most people have.Half of people are unaware of what their
net worth is, and sixty twopercent of people said they don't ever talk
about money. And to me,there's a problem. There's a disconnect.
If you don't know what your networth is and you don't talk about money,
and maybe you're even going to seea fortune teller for advice on what
to do with your life instead ofspeaking to a financial professional, things are
(10:58):
out of whack. You're probably notheaded in the best direction. And it's
funny. I don't even think thatgoing to see a financial planner makes sense
for a whole lot of people.I don't think that's the best first direction
for you to go. And Ithink there's so much self education that needs
to happen before you go in thereand you sit down with a high pie
(11:18):
price professional in the suit. Butthat the last part of that survey is
what concerns me the most because Ithink I feel like the more we refuse
to talk about money as a society, the more likely we are to make
mistakes and screw things up. Themore we sweep it under the rug,
the more it's the elephant in theroom that doesn't get talked about. The
more we liable we are to feelshame and cover up the mistakes we've made
(11:41):
with more mistakes. And a majorgoal of this show is to get that
conversation started. I want listeners tofeel comfortable with how they handle their money,
but I also want them to feelenergized to talk about it more with
friends and family. I want youto ultimately learn enough to where you're becoming
a resource to help the people inyour life. It's not even that more
people need to go see a financialplanner, like I said, because that
(12:03):
can be an expensive endeavor that couldcost you hundreds and hundreds and hundreds,
if not thousands of dollars, andyou might be better off to learn the
ropes yourself of DIY in investing thekind of stuff we talk about on this
show. Finding those lowest cost funds, right a total stock market fund or
an SMP five hundred index fund canbe a great place to go if you're
not sure where else to start.You don't need some sort of blessing from
(12:26):
someone on high who is has somesort of CFP designation behind their name.
Not that there's anything wrong with that, but you don't necessarily need that to
get started, and getting started it'sthe most important thing. But I think
most folks that actually, if youdo feel like you need to help,
the DIY, education books, podcastradio shows is more helpful. But then
(12:48):
also if you need to pay aprofessional for one on one advice, I'd
rather see you visit a financial coach. I think a couple hours of time
with a financial coach can go alot further than paying money to a high
priced financial advisor or to a fortuneteller. Of course, still can't believe
that a quarter of millennials have goneto see a fortune teller, but yet
they won't talk about their money openlywith their friends. That's a problem,
(13:11):
all right. I mentioned I wasgoing to talk about electric vehicles. I
want to talk about that real quick, because I don't know if you've heard
this. I'm so sad the ChevyBolt EV is gonna be no longer very
soon. I don't have a Bolt, but it's the cheapest electric vehicle on
the market currently, and it isthe one I am recommending to people.
(13:31):
If you're trying to go EV andyou want to do it as cheaply as
possible, the Chevy Bolt or ChevyBolt EUV. That is a slam dunk
best choice if it fits your needsand it fits your family. But you're
not gonna be able to do somuch longer. This is the last model
year they're gonna make they're gonna startmaking more trucks instead of bolts. So
(13:52):
if you've been thinking, oh yeah, I've heard about that one, oh
yeah, it does seem cheap,and by the way, it's still qualifies
for that full federal federal tax creditof seventy half hundred dollars. You're talking
about a new EV for twenty grand, which is not bad, so it's
definitely worth considering. But again,you won't be able to consider it much
longer because no more bolts in thevery near future. On that note,
(14:13):
though, I saw a recent reportthat will help you decide about whether or
not upgrading to an EV makes sense. Because of course it's well documented that
it's going to save you on gascosts, right, that can be a
big deal, especially depending on howmuch you drive. But that electric vehicle
won't save you money in every spherebecause some new information came out about the
insurance costs on evs, it costsa whole lot more. This is according
(14:35):
to consumer reports. A Tesla,for instance, costs twenty percent more to
ensure than an equivalent BMW or Audietwenty percent more. The Chevy Bolt,
which I just mentioned, that's notgonna be around much longer. It costs
more to ensure than a Toyota Prius, and those are comparable vehicles in size
and kind of Vibe insurance website theZebra says that Tesla is only behind Maserati
(14:58):
when it comes to the average annualcost of insurance. So just a second
ago, I was talking about totalcompensation for your job, think about total
expense for a car. A bigpart of the reason it's so expensive to
insure these evs is that manufacturers havenot figured out the repairability of battery packs.
So we're talking about replacing a bunchof battery packs when there's an accident,
and that's insanely expensive. Therefore,the insurance cost skyrocket. So before
(15:24):
you get this new car, thisnew EV, run the numbers, figure
out the total cost of ownership.Ask for a quote from your insurance company
about what the insurance premiums are goingto be. I love that they've got
less cost of maintenance. I lovethat it's going to cost you less in
gas, but your savings might beeaten up by higher taxes and insurance.
So run the numbers as always beforeyou say, oh, evs make sense,
(15:46):
slam duck decision. It might be, it might be make a ton
of sense in your case. Italso might not. And a lot of
people just forget to think or theydon't even consider how much more insurance could
cost them, and that's not goodfor your wallet. You need to factor
that in before you before you pounced, before you make the move. All
right, just a second, Iwant to bring on one of my friends,
(16:06):
Taylor Zones. There have been someprognostications, including from Elon Musk,
about the US dollar no longer beingthe world reserve currency. What does that
mean? Is it going to happen? We'll talk to him about that in
just a second. This is Howthe Money. I'm Joel lars Gard.
You're listening to How to Money withJoel lars Gard on demand from KFI amzix
forty and now I wanted to bringon my good friend Taylor Zones. He
(16:30):
is a CFP Certified Financial planner.He's the founder of Life Goal Investments,
which is all about creating accessible,understandable, and low cost investment funds for
regular folks. I want to talkwith Taylor about what's going on in the
economy. Taylor. Some people evenhave called you an influencer recently, is
that true. Oh I don't knowas I would go that far, but
I am super excited to be onhere with you. Man, let's do
(16:51):
this. Dude, always glad tohave you my friend. And yeah you
life Goal Investments. Who follo him? On Instagram, Taylor is spitting out
awesome content about like what's going onin the economy right now. I'm always
talking about nerdy ways to save,to spend and invest, but Taylor's really
talking about like what's going on theeconomy. And so I wanted to get
your overview. I wanted to kindof actually just kind of do a broad
based question, but then I wantedto dig into kind of some dollar based
(17:12):
stuff. But the economy is soresilient, the American economy. It seems
like what's happened over the past threeand a half years, like it feels
like we're incredibly resilient as human beings, as individuals. But this economy too,
it just keeps on chugging despite everythingthat's been thrown out at the kitchen
sink. So where do things standright now? And yeah, recession has
(17:33):
been a term has been thrown aroundfor years, yet it hasn't Materialized's what's
going on. It's been a crazyenvironment. It really has not many people
would say that the federal funds ratecould go from zero where it was for
essentially the better part of a decade, to five percent and still have unemployment
at a three and a half percentrate, expending grandibly incredibly resilient. So
(17:56):
that I mean, the FED looksat this and says, listen, enemy
of the state Number one right nowis inflation. We all know it,
and they are doing their darned bestto try to address it. But our
economy is almost like bifurcated, almostlike two different economies. One is like
the goods economy, so think abouthouses, cars, etc. And then
the second part of it is theservices economy, and think about that being
(18:18):
going out to dinner, going onvacation, whatever it may be. They've
done a really good job of bringingdown inflation in the goods world, because
you think about it, they havea direct effect with the federal funds rate.
As it goes up, you're goingto try to buy a house and
your mortgage is doubled over the lastyear. So I'm not saying housing prices
that come crashing down, but they'vestabilized, which is what they're trying to
do. Same with car prices.You have to finance a car, but
(18:41):
when you're trying to go out todinner with your wife and kids, on
the other hand, are you reallythat interest rate sensitive in that environment or
go on vacation, You're not reallyfinancing that type of operation. And so
with that, the services inflation isreally really sticky, and that is what
the FED is still trying to fight, and it's not going away nearly as
(19:03):
quickly as what they had hoped itwould. Yeah. Yeah, And so
I mean I always talk about onthe show how recessions are impossible predicting what
economists have predicted nine out of thelast two recessions. Like that's the thing.
There's always a doom and gloom predictor, and it's best just to kind
of mostly ignore those predictions. Butif you were talking to people and you're
saying, like, listen, wemight be in for tougher economic times,
I mean, who knows, Like, right, it's hard, it's hard
(19:23):
to predict. What would you tellthat person? How do you shore up
your own finances if a recession wereto come around the corner? Yeah,
And I think in all reality,we have to look at the data and
say, what is the plausibility theprobability of this playing out? And when
you look at history, the FederalReserve has never brought inflation when it came
above five percent back down without causinga recession. So in all likelihood,
(19:47):
it is more likely that we windup in a recession than not. By
no means is that a foregone conclusionat this point. And again, the
resilient economy and unemployment continues to remainreally low to kind of buck that trend.
But I think when you talk aboutrecessions, you have to look at
data in history and say, okay, what asset classes as an investment have
done well historically during recessions Because youlook back at a two thousand and eight
(20:11):
type scenario and you see the SMPfive hundred drew down from its peak almost
fifty percent, And you look atthat and say, hey, as an
investor, can I stomach that andknow that over time asset prices will go
back up and stocks will recover.If the answer is yes, and you
have an incredibly long time horizon,okay, cool, maybe you're good as
just being a stock investor. Butthe other side of it is and the
(20:33):
reality of it is is we asinvestors historically have not been very good at
it. That's just the honest truth. So the SMP throughout the past twenty
years has returned nine and a halfpercent. That's what the broad stock market
has done. The average investor overthat same timeframe has returned three point six
percent. And it's like, man, people just buy when it looks good,
(20:55):
which was twenty twenty one when thingswere on fire, and then in
mid twenty twenty two, when theirlegs got cut out from under them,
they got out of the market,right. So to keep yourself from that
mental battle, what some might wantto do is just look at ways of
diversifying their portfolio. And historically duringrecessions, there are two asset classes that
have done very very well, onebeing bonds and high quality bonds, particularly
(21:18):
treasury bonds, and the second onebeing gold. The flight to quality ends
people in those two asset classes,and they historically have gone up in times
of economic recession when stocks have gonedown, thus balancing the overall ship.
And so much like you say,it depends on what your portfolio holds,
and it depends on your risk toleranceand your timeline and if you were thinking
(21:44):
when things were hitting the fan,back when COVID first started and the market
was dropping dramatically, if you soldany of your positions, then you know
your risktolerance and you need to probablychange your holdings before we hit some sort
of recessionary event or before the marketswoons, because yeah, or did what
did you do last year in twentytwenty two with your portfolio? That's a
really good question to ask, whatdoes past performance look like for you behaviorally,
(22:07):
so that you can can inform kindof what your portfolio looks like before
we experienced another event like that,No doubt, it's always an interesting question
that we get on social media orwherever just in person, Hey what should
I be buying right now? Andit's like I take a step back as
a CFP and I say, well, I don't know you. I don't
know any risk tolerance, I don'tknow your time horizon, and I don't
know what you already own. Yeah, right, the best investment I might
(22:29):
have my best idea right now mightmake no sense for you, Joel,
because it might be in a sectorthat you're already overweight or whatever it may
be, and therefore I need morecontext. You need to know and do
the analysis on your own portfolio,your own behavioral psychology, etc. To
know where you need to be investedat the end of the day. Yeah,
no, I like it, AndI want to talk about the US
dollar too, because I feel likeI saw some recent videos that you did
(22:51):
on that and it was great.I feel like the Elon Musk even recently
predicted like the dominance of the USdollar will not continue. The predictions about
this really for a long time.It's not just in the past six months,
but we're seeing more of them.So what's your take? And is
the US dollar the world's reserve currency? Is that it's status gonna last much
longer? And if not, howdoes that impact US? So yes,
(23:14):
almost definitively, the US world,the US dollar will be the world deserve
currency for the foreseeable future. Andso let me give you a little context
as to where these stories are comingfrom. So a lot of people are
of the mind that the US dollarhas the dominance that it has because it's
what oil is traded with around theglobe. So that's the catalyst, the
underpinning that they're saying. But that'snot the reality. At the end of
(23:37):
the day, So the US dollarsdominance goes back in the world reserve currency
to nineteen forty four Breton Woods.As we looked at how as a globe
we were going to repair Europe afterWorld War Two, we said, okay,
we need one currency to utilize hereso we can exchange and everyone would
be on a level playing field,and that was the US dollar, and
from there moving forward. The USdollar wasn't used to trade oil exclusively until
(24:00):
nineteen seventy three, so the USdollars dominance goes long before that. But
recently you've seen some rumors and newsthat the Saudi Arabia, that Saudis rather
are going to take other currencies andallow them to purchase their oil, which
is exclusively bought with the US dollarat this point. And so one you
have to realize that the underpinning behindthis is that there is this bigger global
(24:26):
scheme of people coming together, emergingmarkets coming together and creating one centralized currency.
And behind this are the bricks countries. So it's Brazil, Russia,
India, China, and Saudi Arabiacoming together to form one central currency like
we have in the Eurozone with theEuro right, And we know that even
in Europe, where countries are righton top of each other and have relatively
(24:49):
homogeneous economies, they struggle to makedecisions in one central currency. And now
we're talking about five diabolical countries spanningacross the globe coming together in creating one
currency. Well, yeah, thatbeing the replacement for the US dollar.
And it's like, guys, thisis this is fairytale world. In my
opinion, this doesn't seem like ithas any likelihood of playing out or any
(25:11):
success of playing out if it wereto come Yeah, okay, it's just
interesting to say. I mean,people, when Elon speaks, people listen,
and but he speaks about a lotof things. Man, that's tweeting
all day every day, so he'sgot an opinion about everything. Maybe we
shouldn't be listening all of his opinions. But I always appreciate you and your
opinions. Taylor, Thanks for comingon the show. And where can how
the money listeners find out more aboutwhat you're up to so they can foll
(25:32):
you on Instagram? Right, that'sright, that's right, Instagram and TikTok,
where I'm both of that life goalinvestments awesome dude, thanks for joining
me. We'll bring you back onsoon. You're listening to How To Money
with Joel Larsgard on demand from KFIAmziz forty. I just wanted to kind
of follow up on that conversation Ijust had with Taylor Sons from Life Coal
Investments, and I just want tosay, like, I love his his
(25:56):
realism, his rationality, and evensome optimism when it comes to the economy.
I have the same feelings and justthink about what we were all going
through in March of twenty twenty whenthe world kind of stopped and a lot
of people assumed that they, likeI remember seeing articles the death of New
York City is like it'll never recover. Business travel, we'll never recover.
(26:21):
And we've we've seen some things stickaround a little more permanently, but nothing
nearly as negative as the doom andgloom and some of the really epic shifts
that people were predicting we're gonna occur. We haven't really seen that. Certainly,
we've seen more work from home.Certainly, we've seen some parts of
the economy not go back to normal. The supply chain has yet to go
(26:41):
fully back to normal. That's forsure, some people. I saw a
prediction about the car market which hasbeen outrageous. If you I was in
a car accident recently, someone raninto the back of me. I have
to buy a new car, nota brand new car, of course,
because I like to save money.I'm buying a used car. The used
car market is still in fuego,and it's on fire, and it is
(27:03):
really stink and difficult to find aninexpensive used minivan right now. The bottom
of the barrel stuff is like sixor seven thousand dollars. And you know,
I paid five thousand dollars for myminivan three years ago. I used
minivan, So prices are certainly upthere, elevated, but even still,
that resiliency, it's in full force. I think it's partly due to just
(27:29):
human nature. Talked about this acouple weeks ago, how the market,
the stock market has been through justlike human beings. The Gamut talked about
world wars, pandemics, recessions,depressions. The economy gets hit with stuff
and it bounces back, and sodo we as human beings. It is
always important to remember that because asinvestors, it's easy to lose sight and
(27:53):
to get freaked out in a moment. But there is always something someone calling
for a worst case scenario. Andyet and yet we push through, not
unscarred, not completely unscathed. Wetake some damage, we take a hit,
but the world continues and the marchof progress continues, and I'm betting
on that progress. I'm betting onthat progress. And so I am a
(28:18):
mostly stock investor. I invest insome real estate, but I am keeping
my portfolio the same, and Ihave kept my portfolio the same in major
draw downs or in years of exuberance. My mantra, my approach remains the
same, and I want that tobe the case for you. And so
figuring out what that approach is aheadof time, though, before the blip
occurs, before the difficulty gets encountered, is really important. It might make
(28:42):
sense this weekend sit down and writekind of and investing philosophy. Hey,
this is why I'm investing, andthis is what I'm investing in. And
I think when you put pen topaper, that can really help, That
can help you do the right thingbecause you have something physical, tangible to
go back to in the moment ofcrisis that you can up with when things
were bright and sunshiny when things wereokay. I think for a lot of
(29:03):
people that would make a lot ofsense, and I encourage you to consider
doing that. It doesn't have tobe anything lengthy, a few sentences.
I'm a total stock market index fundindustor because i like low costs and I've
got a long timeline. Boom,hey done. And then you can go
back to that and say, whyam I? Oh oh, I have
a long timeline, I like lowfees, and I believe in the trajectory
(29:23):
of the American economy. I'm gonnastay put. I'm gonna stay put,
all right, real quickly, Iwanted to mention there is potential free money
for you out there if you area Facebook user, and most people are,
like billions of Facebook users around theworld. There is a website you
can check out Facebook User Privacy Settlementdot com and if you're a Facebook user
in the US between May twenty fourth, two thousand and seven and December twenty
(29:47):
twenty twenty two, you might beeligible for a cash payment. You are
eligible for a cash payment from thisclass action settlement. The deadline to claim
is August twenty fifth, so wewill put that link in the show notes.
Up on KFI AM six forty dotcom slash how to money. But
if you've been a Facebook user,in all likelihood some of your information was
(30:08):
unknowingly against your will given to thirdparty companies who do business with Facebook,
and this yes, so I wouldsay, go to this website and again
we'll link to it in the shownotes to get payment for that. By
the way, I just wanted tomention quickly again, there's talk about AM
radio being removed from new cars andtrucks, which is not good, like
(30:30):
removing access to the very AM radiostations that millions of Americans count on for
local emergency information. And people say, oh, the cell phone, who
needs who needs am radio anymore forthat? But what if your cell phone's
dead? What if you've lost power? The AM radio is a lifeline for
people FEMA and first responders across thecountry. They rely heavily on AM radio
(30:52):
to deliver public warnings and emergencies dueto ams on match reach. And part
of the reason and there's so muchreach for AM radios because it's free,
because you don't have to pay adime for not just the entertainment, but
for the things you come to relyon, especially in terms of news and
breaking news. And some people say, yeah, oh, you don't need
(31:14):
it anymore, you got your phone, But that's not the same thing.
A text alert on your phone isnot a substitute for what broadcast radio provides
in times of need for millions ofpeople around the country, millions of people
alone in southern California, And aone line text alert doesn't take the place
of a voice on the radio givingyou up to the minute information, talking
to you twenty four seven until theemergency passes. So I want you have
(31:37):
your voice heard on this. Doyou think it's right for you to lose
access to k if I when you'reon the road. You need to make
your voice hurt on the issue.Text to Letters AM to five to eight
eighty six and tell Congress to keepAM radio in all cars and trucks.
This is an important thing because yeah, in the moment of crisis, emergency
responders and everyday listeners are calling intostations to provide vital information that radio is
(32:01):
able to disseminate. So again,you can text the letters AM to five
two eight eighty six and tell Congressto keep AM radio in all cars and
trucks. All right, don't forgetto stick around for Macro with Jason Middleton.
That's coming up next. We'll seeyou back here next week for more
money saving information. I'm Joel larsGuard. This is how to Money on
kf I AM six forty. You'vebeen listening to how to Money with Joel
(32:22):
lars Guard. You can always hearus live on kf I AM six forty
twelve pm to two pm on Sundayand anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
Kf I am six forty. You'relistening to How to Money on demand on
the iHeartRadio app. All right,now, let's get to our money move
of the week. What I wantyou to do and this is going to
sound a little weird, but Iwant you to video every single thing in
your house. And yes, thisis for insurance purposes to document what you
own. And this is really somethingput it on the calendar after you do
(00:22):
it to do on a yearly basis, an annual basis, where you walk
through your house, you video everything, you kind of make mention of what
you own as a record keeping scenario. Fortunately, it's it's cheaper and easier
than ever, right because basically everyonehas a smartphone in their pocket with almost
a free way to document what youhave. And it's just basically it's impossible
(00:45):
to remember all your possessions and ittakes almost no time to do this.
And in the event of the worstpossible case scenario a fire or catastrophic damage
to your home, it can bedifficult, especially if you're dealing with a
contentious insurance. I just had atree fall through my roof. I've had
phenomenal time dealing with my adjuster theyhave been so helpful, so nice,
(01:07):
so accommodating, so communicative, andI hope that's the case for you if
you ever have a scenario happened.But really I hope that the worst case
scenario never happens for you. Butit takes almost no time to video everything.
This is something that could save yourbacon should the worst case thing happen.
So money moved the week, videoeverything in your house. Go slowly
through every room, document everything,clothing, even everything it's in your bathroom,
(01:30):
because these are the kind of thingsthat you're going to want the money
for should something happen to your house. And again, I hope it doesn't.
Fortunately, my scenario was not awful, but it's not fun. It's
not fun. It's a little parttime job getting this house fixed, dealing
with insurance and all that stuff.But it could have been worse, right,
could have been worse. Got myhealth, become a family, that's
(01:52):
what really matters. But since we'retalking about possessions, documenting those possessions,
I want to mention something else toyou. Wirecutter had this great story on
how that are more repair cafes thanever before, and I'm not sure if
you've ever heard of a repair cafe, but it's this global organization that has
free meeting places where people can cometogether and learn how to fix their stuff
instead of toss it in the trash. This to me, has multiple awesome
(02:14):
things going for it. It's gota free place for you to go to
access tools and access knowledge to fixthings that you might have otherwise just like
gotten rid of because it's broken.But it also has like community elements,
like I really think I think thisis really neat as a place where people
gather to save money together. Youmight, I don't know, you might
make some friends. It's kind oflike volunteering or something like that. And
(02:35):
if you're a dy frugal type,then these cafes they might be your new
favorite place. There are a fewin southern California. I'll link to the
map of where you can find throughrepair cafe near you. The website is
repair cafe dot org if you wantto check it out on your own.
But you're going to save a lotof money by repairing the things that you
(02:55):
buy instead of replacing them. Justfeel like the older I get. The
word that starts to make sense forlife is maintenance. When it comes to
your body, when it comes toyour mind, when it comes to your
stuff. That's like the adulting wordof the year. It is maintenance.
(03:15):
I'm not trying to get buff orripped. I'm just trying to maintain my
body and not decline. And thetruth is, it can be expensive to
maintain things, but it's a wholelot more expensive to buy them new.
And if you want to save moneymaintaining those items, something like a repair
cafe could be helpful. They havethe tools and then know how for you.
(03:36):
They have often the repairs and theknow how because they have volunteers who
have more experienced, which means theyyou know, they've successfully repaired potentially more
complex items than what you're dealing with. But you can bring in stuff like
laptops, printers, jewelry, standmixers. It runs the gamut, but
I'll say this, if you don'thave a repair cafe location near you,
you can check out their tips andTricks pages, which has some helpful guides
(03:58):
on how you can maintain or repairlots of common items that we all live
at home. And I know everyoneknows this at this point, but don't
forget because I sometimes forget that YouTubeis a wonderful place to go for free
advice on how to repair things,specifically if we're talking about like your car.
I've gotten so much invaluable advice fromYouTube over the years. How you
got to watch a little bit ofan ad or something like that. But
(04:20):
man, when it comes to thefree content that's put out there for people,
YouTube is massively helpful and it couldsave you a bunch of money even
just in diagnosing something maybe, butthen also walking you step by step through
how you repair that thing. Andone other service I sat on this front
that I would highly recommend is asite called I fix it, which I
(04:43):
fix it dot com and they havetens of thousands of free manuals for just
as many devices, for tens ofthousands of devices, and of course they're
trying to sell you the parts thatyou're going to need in the tools in
order to fix your problem. Oftentimeswe're talking about smartphone fixes, but it
can still be a much or foraffordable alternative than the ladder than getting rid
(05:03):
of that item because of the screencracked, and yeah, you can go
to your local screen repair place.Those those are popping up all over the
board, all across all across thecountry, but you could you could do
that, or or you could attemptto repair that screen yourself. And I
think based on kind of the businessmodel I fix It has one fix and
(05:24):
think about it, you could startfixing people that you love their screen too.
You learn how to do it,you help people out. I think
I think I fix it It isdoing a great service. So many people
think of their phones as unrepairable.Got to upgrade if this one bites the
dust, when really, really,you might be able to extend to life.
And by the way, if youdon't have a single dy bone in
your body and you're like, yeah, fat chance. At the very least,
(05:46):
do not let that electronic gadget justturn into dust in your drawer over
time. There's sites like cell Cell, which is sell celll dot com,
selll cel dot com. They makeit easy to get some cash for your
phone. You can even sell yourold gadgets to Walmart. Right now,
they have this new program they justlaunched called Gadgets to Gift Cards. So
(06:13):
I like that when people make iteasier to turn unused electronics into something that
you'll actually use, you could gothrough all the trouble of having a yard
sale, or you could take yourselfdown to Walmart to you know, sign
up for that gadget to gift cardsprogram. I mean, there's so many
options, but the worst option isto let your electronics break, languish,
(06:34):
don't, don't maintain, don't repairthem, and then you have to upgrade.
It becomes a liability. It justcost you so much money over time.
So those repair cafes super cool.Walmart's new program. There's just a
lot of I think dy possibility outthere. And this is coming from a
guy. I'm not like Tim theToolman Taylor from Home Improvement over here.
(06:55):
I'm no d y expert, butI've owned some retal properties over the over
the year and just out of necessity, learn some things that I did not
know before, fixing put installing newtoilets, fixing toilets that are broken,
installing new faucets. I mean,all sorts of different things that I was
not interested in, didn't want todo, but now that I know how
(07:15):
to do them, boy, it'slike confidence boosting and it saves money.
At the same time, I wantto talk about benefits for just a second.
Employees are being offered a wider rangeof benefits these days. I'm not
sure if you notice this where youwork, but one of the benefits is
being offered is help paying down studentloans. And so this is this is
one of those things where if you'rechanging jobs, if you're thinking about moving
(07:36):
down the street to another employer,I want you to think about the total
compensation that an employer is offering youif they offer you a job there.
If one employer offers literally they're allowedto offer five than two hundred and fifty
dollars in student loan repayment as atax exempt benefit to employees. If one
employer offers that and another one doesn't, sure, the salary might be bigger
(08:00):
the other one, But my goodness, that's a that's a big chunk of
free money that you have come inyour way at the other employer to pay
on those student loans. You've gotto run the numbers. How good is
the health insurance policy? How bigis the four oh one K match?
Right? These are all things todo. You have access to an HSA
through one business or one company orthe other. So, when we're talking
(08:22):
about being on the job market,the job market not as hot as it
was, but still still robust.Given all of the other circumstances there,
there's a lot that you can negotiate, and there's a lot that you need
to take into consideration before you pullthe trigger, before you sign on the
dotted line somewhere. And by theway, if you like where you work
(08:45):
and you would like better perks,better benefits, ask your HR department.
Hey, I noticed that there's thisthing where employers can help pay down student
loans. Mine are a big problem. I love this company. I want
to stay put. Can you helpme with that? I think that's that's
a reasonable question to ask, Hey, is this going to be offered soon?
(09:05):
And if not, why not.Employers are more than ever. They
feel the need to compete. Theyfeel they need to compete for employees,
for good employees, and to tryto retain them. And it's a competitive
job market out there. Use itto your advantage, Use it to your
advantage to get the best benefits youcan. Are coming up, I want
(09:26):
to talk about a hidden cost ofelectric vehicles. There is one thing you
might not have considered, and itmight cost more than the savings that you'd
otherwise get in gas. I'll talkabout that and more right after this you're
listening to How to Money with Joellars Guard on demand from KFI AM six
forty. And now I want toget to our outlandish headline of the week.
(09:48):
This one comes from Fast Company.It says Americans are choosing lottery tickets
and maybe even fortune tellers over financialplanners. And this is an new study
from a company called Empower, whichused to be called Personal Capital, And
it's just another one of those studies, man, that reveals some really interesting
things about the American public and howthey think about and handle their money.
(10:13):
And it found that seventy one percentof Americans have purchased a lottery ticket and
twenty four percent of millennials have goneto see a fortune teller, yet only
thirty three percent have spoken to afinancial planner. And honestly, I'm actually
surprised that the number four of goingto see financial planners is that high.
But this survey just had all sortsof interesting information about the lack of personal
(10:35):
finance knowledge that most people have.Half of people are unaware of what their
net worth is, and sixty twopercent of people said they don't ever talk
about money. And to me,there's a problem. There's a disconnect.
If you don't know what your networth is and you don't talk about money,
and maybe you're even going to seea fortune teller for advice on what
to do with your life instead ofspeaking to a financial professional, things are
(10:58):
out of whack. You're probably notheaded in the best direction. And it's
funny. I don't even think thatgoing to see a financial planner makes sense
for a whole lot of people.I don't think that's the best first direction
for you to go. And Ithink there's so much self education that needs
to happen before you go in thereand you sit down with a high pie
(11:18):
price professional in the suit. Butthat the last part of that survey is
what concerns me the most because Ithink I feel like the more we refuse
to talk about money as a society, the more likely we are to make
mistakes and screw things up. Themore we sweep it under the rug,
the more it's the elephant in theroom that doesn't get talked about. The
more we liable we are to feelshame and cover up the mistakes we've made
(11:41):
with more mistakes. And a majorgoal of this show is to get that
conversation started. I want listeners tofeel comfortable with how they handle their money,
but I also want them to feelenergized to talk about it more with
friends and family. I want youto ultimately learn enough to where you're becoming
a resource to help the people inyour life. It's not even that more
people need to go see a financialplanner, like I said, because that
(12:03):
can be an expensive endeavor that couldcost you hundreds and hundreds and hundreds,
if not thousands of dollars, andyou might be better off to learn the
ropes yourself of DIY in investing thekind of stuff we talk about on this
show. Finding those lowest cost funds, right a total stock market fund or
an SMP five hundred index fund canbe a great place to go if you're
not sure where else to start.You don't need some sort of blessing from
(12:26):
someone on high who is has somesort of CFP designation behind their name.
Not that there's anything wrong with that, but you don't necessarily need that to
get started, and getting started it'sthe most important thing. But I think
most folks that actually, if youdo feel like you need to help,
the DIY, education books, podcastradio shows is more helpful. But then
(12:48):
also if you need to pay aprofessional for one on one advice, I'd
rather see you visit a financial coach. I think a couple hours of time
with a financial coach can go alot further than paying money to a high
priced financial advisor or to a fortuneteller. Of course, still can't believe
that a quarter of millennials have goneto see a fortune teller, but yet
they won't talk about their money openlywith their friends. That's a problem,
(13:11):
all right. I mentioned I wasgoing to talk about electric vehicles. I
want to talk about that real quick, because I don't know if you've heard
this. I'm so sad the ChevyBolt EV is gonna be no longer very
soon. I don't have a Bolt, but it's the cheapest electric vehicle on
the market currently, and it isthe one I am recommending to people.
(13:31):
If you're trying to go EV andyou want to do it as cheaply as
possible, the Chevy Bolt or ChevyBolt EUV. That is a slam dunk
best choice if it fits your needsand it fits your family. But you're
not gonna be able to do somuch longer. This is the last model
year they're gonna make they're gonna startmaking more trucks instead of bolts. So
(13:52):
if you've been thinking, oh yeah, I've heard about that one, oh
yeah, it does seem cheap,and by the way, it's still qualifies
for that full federal federal tax creditof seventy half hundred dollars. You're talking
about a new EV for twenty grand, which is not bad, so it's
definitely worth considering. But again,you won't be able to consider it much
longer because no more bolts in thevery near future. On that note,
(14:13):
though, I saw a recent reportthat will help you decide about whether or
not upgrading to an EV makes sense. Because of course it's well documented that
it's going to save you on gascosts, right, that can be a
big deal, especially depending on howmuch you drive. But that electric vehicle
won't save you money in every spherebecause some new information came out about the
insurance costs on evs, it costsa whole lot more. This is according
(14:35):
to consumer reports. A Tesla,for instance, costs twenty percent more to
ensure than an equivalent BMW or Audietwenty percent more. The Chevy Bolt,
which I just mentioned, that's notgonna be around much longer. It costs
more to ensure than a Toyota Prius, and those are comparable vehicles in size
and kind of Vibe insurance website theZebra says that Tesla is only behind Maserati
(14:58):
when it comes to the average annualcost of insurance. So just a second
ago, I was talking about totalcompensation for your job, think about total
expense for a car. A bigpart of the reason it's so expensive to
insure these evs is that manufacturers havenot figured out the repairability of battery packs.
So we're talking about replacing a bunchof battery packs when there's an accident,
and that's insanely expensive. Therefore,the insurance cost skyrocket. So before
(15:24):
you get this new car, thisnew EV, run the numbers, figure
out the total cost of ownership.Ask for a quote from your insurance company
about what the insurance premiums are goingto be. I love that they've got
less cost of maintenance. I lovethat it's going to cost you less in
gas, but your savings might beeaten up by higher taxes and insurance.
So run the numbers as always beforeyou say, oh, evs make sense,
(15:46):
slam duck decision. It might be, it might be make a ton
of sense in your case. Italso might not. And a lot of
people just forget to think or theydon't even consider how much more insurance could
cost them, and that's not goodfor your wallet. You need to factor
that in before you before you pounced, before you make the move. All
right, just a second, Iwant to bring on one of my friends,
(16:06):
Taylor Zones. There have been someprognostications, including from Elon Musk,
about the US dollar no longer beingthe world reserve currency. What does that
mean? Is it going to happen? We'll talk to him about that in
just a second. This is Howthe Money. I'm Joel lars Gard.
You're listening to How to Money withJoel lars Gard on demand from KFI amzix
forty and now I wanted to bringon my good friend Taylor Zones. He
(16:30):
is a CFP Certified Financial planner.He's the founder of Life Goal Investments,
which is all about creating accessible,understandable, and low cost investment funds for
regular folks. I want to talkwith Taylor about what's going on in the
economy. Taylor. Some people evenhave called you an influencer recently, is
that true. Oh I don't knowas I would go that far, but
I am super excited to be onhere with you. Man, let's do
(16:51):
this. Dude, always glad tohave you my friend. And yeah you
life Goal Investments. Who follo him? On Instagram, Taylor is spitting out
awesome content about like what's going onin the economy right now. I'm always
talking about nerdy ways to save,to spend and invest, but Taylor's really
talking about like what's going on theeconomy. And so I wanted to get
your overview. I wanted to kindof actually just kind of do a broad
based question, but then I wantedto dig into kind of some dollar based
(17:12):
stuff. But the economy is soresilient, the American economy. It seems
like what's happened over the past threeand a half years, like it feels
like we're incredibly resilient as human beings, as individuals. But this economy too,
it just keeps on chugging despite everythingthat's been thrown out at the kitchen
sink. So where do things standright now? And yeah, recession has
(17:33):
been a term has been thrown aroundfor years, yet it hasn't Materialized's what's
going on. It's been a crazyenvironment. It really has not many people
would say that the federal funds ratecould go from zero where it was for
essentially the better part of a decade, to five percent and still have unemployment
at a three and a half percentrate, expending grandibly incredibly resilient. So
(17:56):
that I mean, the FED looksat this and says, listen, enemy
of the state Number one right nowis inflation. We all know it,
and they are doing their darned bestto try to address it. But our
economy is almost like bifurcated, almostlike two different economies. One is like
the goods economy, so think abouthouses, cars, etc. And then
the second part of it is theservices economy, and think about that being
(18:18):
going out to dinner, going onvacation, whatever it may be. They've
done a really good job of bringingdown inflation in the goods world, because
you think about it, they havea direct effect with the federal funds rate.
As it goes up, you're goingto try to buy a house and
your mortgage is doubled over the lastyear. So I'm not saying housing prices
that come crashing down, but they'vestabilized, which is what they're trying to
do. Same with car prices.You have to finance a car, but
(18:41):
when you're trying to go out todinner with your wife and kids, on
the other hand, are you reallythat interest rate sensitive in that environment or
go on vacation, You're not reallyfinancing that type of operation. And so
with that, the services inflation isreally really sticky, and that is what
the FED is still trying to fight, and it's not going away nearly as
(19:03):
quickly as what they had hoped itwould. Yeah. Yeah, And so
I mean I always talk about onthe show how recessions are impossible predicting what
economists have predicted nine out of thelast two recessions. Like that's the thing.
There's always a doom and gloom predictor, and it's best just to kind
of mostly ignore those predictions. Butif you were talking to people and you're
saying, like, listen, wemight be in for tougher economic times,
I mean, who knows, Like, right, it's hard, it's hard
(19:23):
to predict. What would you tellthat person? How do you shore up
your own finances if a recession wereto come around the corner? Yeah,
And I think in all reality,we have to look at the data and
say, what is the plausibility theprobability of this playing out? And when
you look at history, the FederalReserve has never brought inflation when it came
above five percent back down without causinga recession. So in all likelihood,
(19:47):
it is more likely that we windup in a recession than not. By
no means is that a foregone conclusionat this point. And again, the
resilient economy and unemployment continues to remainreally low to kind of buck that trend.
But I think when you talk aboutrecessions, you have to look at
data in history and say, okay, what asset classes as an investment have
done well historically during recessions Because youlook back at a two thousand and eight
(20:11):
type scenario and you see the SMPfive hundred drew down from its peak almost
fifty percent, And you look atthat and say, hey, as an
investor, can I stomach that andknow that over time asset prices will go
back up and stocks will recover.If the answer is yes, and you
have an incredibly long time horizon,okay, cool, maybe you're good as
just being a stock investor. Butthe other side of it is and the
(20:33):
reality of it is is we asinvestors historically have not been very good at
it. That's just the honest truth. So the SMP throughout the past twenty
years has returned nine and a halfpercent. That's what the broad stock market
has done. The average investor overthat same timeframe has returned three point six
percent. And it's like, man, people just buy when it looks good,
(20:55):
which was twenty twenty one when thingswere on fire, and then in
mid twenty twenty two, when theirlegs got cut out from under them,
they got out of the market,right. So to keep yourself from that
mental battle, what some might wantto do is just look at ways of
diversifying their portfolio. And historically duringrecessions, there are two asset classes that
have done very very well, onebeing bonds and high quality bonds, particularly
(21:18):
treasury bonds, and the second onebeing gold. The flight to quality ends
people in those two asset classes,and they historically have gone up in times
of economic recession when stocks have gonedown, thus balancing the overall ship.
And so much like you say,it depends on what your portfolio holds,
and it depends on your risk toleranceand your timeline and if you were thinking
(21:44):
when things were hitting the fan,back when COVID first started and the market
was dropping dramatically, if you soldany of your positions, then you know
your risktolerance and you need to probablychange your holdings before we hit some sort
of recessionary event or before the marketswoons, because yeah, or did what
did you do last year in twentytwenty two with your portfolio? That's a
really good question to ask, whatdoes past performance look like for you behaviorally,
(22:07):
so that you can can inform kindof what your portfolio looks like before
we experienced another event like that,No doubt, it's always an interesting question
that we get on social media orwherever just in person, Hey what should
I be buying right now? Andit's like I take a step back as
a CFP and I say, well, I don't know you. I don't
know any risk tolerance, I don'tknow your time horizon, and I don't
know what you already own. Yeah, right, the best investment I might
(22:29):
have my best idea right now mightmake no sense for you, Joel,
because it might be in a sectorthat you're already overweight or whatever it may
be, and therefore I need morecontext. You need to know and do
the analysis on your own portfolio,your own behavioral psychology, etc. To
know where you need to be investedat the end of the day. Yeah,
no, I like it, AndI want to talk about the US
dollar too, because I feel likeI saw some recent videos that you did
(22:51):
on that and it was great.I feel like the Elon Musk even recently
predicted like the dominance of the USdollar will not continue. The predictions about
this really for a long time.It's not just in the past six months,
but we're seeing more of them.So what's your take? And is
the US dollar the world's reserve currency? Is that it's status gonna last much
longer? And if not, howdoes that impact US? So yes,
(23:14):
almost definitively, the US world,the US dollar will be the world deserve
currency for the foreseeable future. Andso let me give you a little context
as to where these stories are comingfrom. So a lot of people are
of the mind that the US dollarhas the dominance that it has because it's
what oil is traded with around theglobe. So that's the catalyst, the
underpinning that they're saying. But that'snot the reality. At the end of
(23:37):
the day, So the US dollarsdominance goes back in the world reserve currency
to nineteen forty four Breton Woods.As we looked at how as a globe
we were going to repair Europe afterWorld War Two, we said, okay,
we need one currency to utilize hereso we can exchange and everyone would
be on a level playing field,and that was the US dollar, and
from there moving forward. The USdollar wasn't used to trade oil exclusively until
(24:00):
nineteen seventy three, so the USdollars dominance goes long before that. But
recently you've seen some rumors and newsthat the Saudi Arabia, that Saudis rather
are going to take other currencies andallow them to purchase their oil, which
is exclusively bought with the US dollarat this point. And so one you
have to realize that the underpinning behindthis is that there is this bigger global
(24:26):
scheme of people coming together, emergingmarkets coming together and creating one centralized currency.
And behind this are the bricks countries. So it's Brazil, Russia,
India, China, and Saudi Arabiacoming together to form one central currency like
we have in the Eurozone with theEuro right, And we know that even
in Europe, where countries are righton top of each other and have relatively
(24:49):
homogeneous economies, they struggle to makedecisions in one central currency. And now
we're talking about five diabolical countries spanningacross the globe coming together in creating one
currency. Well, yeah, thatbeing the replacement for the US dollar.
And it's like, guys, thisis this is fairytale world. In my
opinion, this doesn't seem like ithas any likelihood of playing out or any
(25:11):
success of playing out if it wereto come Yeah, okay, it's just
interesting to say. I mean,people, when Elon speaks, people listen,
and but he speaks about a lotof things. Man, that's tweeting
all day every day, so he'sgot an opinion about everything. Maybe we
shouldn't be listening all of his opinions. But I always appreciate you and your
opinions. Taylor, Thanks for comingon the show. And where can how
the money listeners find out more aboutwhat you're up to so they can foll
(25:32):
you on Instagram? Right, that'sright, that's right, Instagram and TikTok,
where I'm both of that life goalinvestments awesome dude, thanks for joining
me. We'll bring you back onsoon. You're listening to How To Money
with Joel Larsgard on demand from KFIAmziz forty. I just wanted to kind
of follow up on that conversation Ijust had with Taylor Sons from Life Coal
Investments, and I just want tosay, like, I love his his
(25:56):
realism, his rationality, and evensome optimism when it comes to the economy.
I have the same feelings and justthink about what we were all going
through in March of twenty twenty whenthe world kind of stopped and a lot
of people assumed that they, likeI remember seeing articles the death of New
York City is like it'll never recover. Business travel, we'll never recover.
(26:21):
And we've we've seen some things stickaround a little more permanently, but nothing
nearly as negative as the doom andgloom and some of the really epic shifts
that people were predicting we're gonna occur. We haven't really seen that. Certainly,
we've seen more work from home.Certainly, we've seen some parts of
the economy not go back to normal. The supply chain has yet to go
(26:41):
fully back to normal. That's forsure, some people. I saw a
prediction about the car market which hasbeen outrageous. If you I was in
a car accident recently, someone raninto the back of me. I have
to buy a new car, nota brand new car, of course,
because I like to save money.I'm buying a used car. The used
car market is still in fuego,and it's on fire, and it is
(27:03):
really stink and difficult to find aninexpensive used minivan right now. The bottom
of the barrel stuff is like sixor seven thousand dollars. And you know,
I paid five thousand dollars for myminivan three years ago. I used
minivan, So prices are certainly upthere, elevated, but even still,
that resiliency, it's in full force. I think it's partly due to just
(27:29):
human nature. Talked about this acouple weeks ago, how the market,
the stock market has been through justlike human beings. The Gamut talked about
world wars, pandemics, recessions,depressions. The economy gets hit with stuff
and it bounces back, and sodo we as human beings. It is
always important to remember that because asinvestors, it's easy to lose sight and
(27:53):
to get freaked out in a moment. But there is always something someone calling
for a worst case scenario. Andyet and yet we push through, not
unscarred, not completely unscathed. Wetake some damage, we take a hit,
but the world continues and the marchof progress continues, and I'm betting
on that progress. I'm betting onthat progress. And so I am a
(28:18):
mostly stock investor. I invest insome real estate, but I am keeping
my portfolio the same, and Ihave kept my portfolio the same in major
draw downs or in years of exuberance. My mantra, my approach remains the
same, and I want that tobe the case for you. And so
figuring out what that approach is aheadof time, though, before the blip
occurs, before the difficulty gets encountered, is really important. It might make
(28:42):
sense this weekend sit down and writekind of and investing philosophy. Hey,
this is why I'm investing, andthis is what I'm investing in. And
I think when you put pen topaper, that can really help, That
can help you do the right thingbecause you have something physical, tangible to
go back to in the moment ofcrisis that you can up with when things
were bright and sunshiny when things wereokay. I think for a lot of
(29:03):
people that would make a lot ofsense, and I encourage you to consider
doing that. It doesn't have tobe anything lengthy, a few sentences.
I'm a total stock market index fundindustor because i like low costs and I've
got a long timeline. Boom,hey done. And then you can go
back to that and say, whyam I? Oh oh, I have
a long timeline, I like lowfees, and I believe in the trajectory
(29:23):
of the American economy. I'm gonnastay put. I'm gonna stay put,
all right, real quickly, Iwanted to mention there is potential free money
for you out there if you area Facebook user, and most people are,
like billions of Facebook users around theworld. There is a website you
can check out Facebook User Privacy Settlementdot com and if you're a Facebook user
in the US between May twenty fourth, two thousand and seven and December twenty
(29:47):
twenty twenty two, you might beeligible for a cash payment. You are
eligible for a cash payment from thisclass action settlement. The deadline to claim
is August twenty fifth, so wewill put that link in the show notes.
Up on KFI AM six forty dotcom slash how to money. But
if you've been a Facebook user,in all likelihood some of your information was
(30:08):
unknowingly against your will given to thirdparty companies who do business with Facebook,
and this yes, so I wouldsay, go to this website and again
we'll link to it in the shownotes to get payment for that. By
the way, I just wanted tomention quickly again, there's talk about AM
radio being removed from new cars andtrucks, which is not good, like
(30:30):
removing access to the very AM radiostations that millions of Americans count on for
local emergency information. And people say, oh, the cell phone, who
needs who needs am radio anymore forthat? But what if your cell phone's
dead? What if you've lost power? The AM radio is a lifeline for
people FEMA and first responders across thecountry. They rely heavily on AM radio
(30:52):
to deliver public warnings and emergencies dueto ams on match reach. And part
of the reason and there's so muchreach for AM radios because it's free,
because you don't have to pay adime for not just the entertainment, but
for the things you come to relyon, especially in terms of news and
breaking news. And some people say, yeah, oh, you don't need
(31:14):
it anymore, you got your phone, But that's not the same thing.
A text alert on your phone isnot a substitute for what broadcast radio provides
in times of need for millions ofpeople around the country, millions of people
alone in southern California, And aone line text alert doesn't take the place
of a voice on the radio givingyou up to the minute information, talking
to you twenty four seven until theemergency passes. So I want you have
(31:37):
your voice heard on this. Doyou think it's right for you to lose
access to k if I when you'reon the road. You need to make
your voice hurt on the issue.Text to Letters AM to five to eight
eighty six and tell Congress to keepAM radio in all cars and trucks.
This is an important thing because yeah, in the moment of crisis, emergency
responders and everyday listeners are calling intostations to provide vital information that radio is
(32:01):
able to disseminate. So again,you can text the letters AM to five
two eight eighty six and tell Congressto keep AM radio in all cars and
trucks. All right, don't forgetto stick around for Macro with Jason Middleton.
That's coming up next. We'll seeyou back here next week for more
money saving information. I'm Joel larsGuard. This is how to Money on
kf I AM six forty. You'vebeen listening to how to Money with Joel
(32:22):
lars Guard. You can always hearus live on kf I AM six forty
twelve pm to two pm on Sundayand anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
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