September 7, 2025 • 33 mins
Customer loyalty sounds like a good thing...but it could cost you.
Ask HTM: Mike wants to pay off $50k of credit card debt.
You might want to start setting airfare alerts for holiday travel.
Ask HTM: Nicole wants to know about investing in real estate online. Is it a good idea?
Ask HTM: Mike wants to pay off $50k of credit card debt.
You might want to start setting airfare alerts for holiday travel.
Ask HTM: Nicole wants to know about investing in real estate online. Is it a good idea?
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Kf I AM six forty. You're listening to How To
Money on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
All Joel and Matt want to do is help you save,
invest and enjoy more of what matters. This is how
to Money with Joel lars Guard and Matt Altmics.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
KFI AM six point forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
This is how to Money. I'm Joe Larsgard and I
in Matt Altmix. Don't forget to sign up for the
how to Money newsletter over at howdamoney dot com slash newsletter.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
It's time for the ludicrous headline of the week. This
one comes from Business Insider and it says customer law
loyalty is a sham, true sham.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
I've never been spoken. It's interesting.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
I do think that it's a ludicrous in a good way.
There are some ways right in which being loyal can
benefit you in many aspects of life.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
About like the punch cards you just want, like your
free ice cream.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Yeah, although the my local ice cream shop changed ownership
and they don't don't do the punch cards anymore.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Which the one where they mix it all together, no
gone gone, or the punch cards I've got like three
of those. Well, the problem is that they would always
just initial it. It seems very unofficial, super smudgy and yeah,
as opposed to having some like custom bespoke puncher with
you know, right, it's hard. It's a lot harder to
forge that. I'm very sad to hear that they're doing
(01:42):
doing away with the customer loyalty card. You weren't cheating
the loyalty card system, Okay, I'm an upstanding, honest citizen
and consumer. I know that to be true.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Okay, but so so sorry to hear about that can
result in free ice cream at least it used to
be able to. But the only upside right, But companies,
as it turns out, love loyal customer.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Yeah, they love it.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
They want your loyal the worl on the customer side, right,
But us, we as customers, might be getting the short
end of the stick because often they don't offer better
perks because we're loyal. In fact, they take advantage of
our loyalty. So the longer you continue doing business with
a particular retailer or a particular store, particular business, the
(02:22):
more you're likely to pay. So if you're too loyal
to your insurance company, for instance, your premiums are probably
going to be higher than they otherwise should be. Classic example,
sometimes people are like, man, got dropped by my insurance company.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
I've been with them for twenty five years.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
They don't care about you because they don't care that
you were loyal, You cared about your loyalty, they didn't.
If you only fly one airline, for instance, Matt, I've
met many of these people who are like, hey, help
me find a deal, but I only fly this airline
and I only fly on these specific dates. And I'm like, yeah,
that's really hard to find the deal that way. Then,
And if you only fly one airline, you're regularly paying
too much for tickets. You're beholden to their loyalty program,
(02:57):
even though it's not as beneficial as shopping around and
say saving money. If you stick with one of the
big banks, your savings rate suffers. Right, There's an endless
litany of examples I can give here where loyalty is
actually costing you. And that's what this article was pointing out.
Shopping around and switching it can feel like a chore,
but twenty bucks a month or whatever it is, it
really can add up Matt. I was just talking with
(03:20):
a friend and he was telling me how much you
was spending on cell phone service. And I was like, well,
I'm with US Mobile, just letting you know, here's how
much I pay. And he was like, wow, man, I
just ran the numbers. I thought I was getting like
free iPhones and stuff from my carrier. But even even
when I factor in buying my own iPhone, I'm going
to save more than one hundred dollars a month for
my family by switching cell phone service. And so he
switched immediately.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
He did it.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
He got rid of the loyalty to the company he'd
been with for a long time and went with one
of the new upstarts. He's consumer success to consumer success story.
Those are the kind of things I think most of
us don't question, though. We're just kind of like, we
keep doing the thing we've been doing, and we prize
that loyalty the companies that we do business with, don't.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
That's that maintaining the status quo, that inertia bias, which
is totally natural, right, Like, I think it's totally natural
to want to see consistency in life because sort of
like we're just talking about entrepreneurship. When you can look
ahead and you it feels like you have a rough
idea of what the future holds, then that allows you
to make other pivots, make other measured risks that tend
(04:19):
to lead to let's say, entrepreneurship or or something that
you otherwise would not have partaken in. But when everything
feels like it's up in the air, I think sometimes
you can be I don't know, you're just a little
less prone to take some of those risks. And so
we seek that consistency in lots of areas in life,
and it's not just a chore, even if it's working
against us. Yeah, even well, that's the thing. I think
some folks are used to kind of like that slow
(04:41):
like letting of blood, as opposed to like ripping the
baniondaid off and making the switch. But I'm glad that
your buddy was able to do that. Another company that
you might not want to be loyal to is your
home internet provider, and you can realize similar savings there
because back in the day there used to be basically
zero options, just had the local cable company. But that
(05:02):
has changed at least a little bit, largely in things
to the different cell phone companies out there who are
offering the five G at home service. This isn't something
that I've personally paid for or taken advantage of, Joel,
but it does mean that there are more opportunities to save,
and it's just like another challenger in the mix right competition. Yeah,
the open market. It's a good thing. And some of
(05:23):
the different companies out there are offering multi year price locks,
which is got me looking twice. So T Mobile specifically,
they've got this thirty five dollars a month plan for
five years, and normally I would I don't know. I'm
not the one to take the bait. But then I
saw the five years a part and I thought, wait
a minute, that's pretty good. That's they got me. Looking
at the coverage map, I'm just like, okay, what is it?
Speaker 4 (05:45):
All right?
Speaker 3 (05:45):
I got the ultra I'm in the ultra zone. Baby.
That's that's what That's what you need. Downside, I think
you might have to go with the T Mobile service
in order to fully take advantage of that low offering. Yeah,
so what fifty bucks? Otherwise maybe I can't I can't
remember off the top of my head, but it's worth
considering because I think if you can do a little
bit of exploring, you got to shop around, you can
potentially save a ton of money by making the switch.
(06:08):
And I think there's a chance too, the fact that
that's even being offered. You know, if you are in
a zone that has that as an option, you might
be able to even reach out to your current cable provider,
let them know what the current competition with their advertising,
and you can even potentially get your current rate lord
without having to go through all the rigama role of switching.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Plus yeah, just like, hey, I'm finding a better deal elsewhere,
I'm thinking about it and see what they say. Uh yeah,
just I guess don't be too loyal or too priced
insensitive exactly on your hands exactly, They're savings to be had, Matt.
Are you and I are we too loyal to Amazon Prime?
That's I don't think so, No, Okay, I do. I
(06:48):
wish I try to always price shop and price compared.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
I will say so. Specifically, Walmart is one of the
other big, big heavy hitters, and there the app just
isn't as good. If you're searching for something, it'll pull
up like five thousand different results and I feel like
I'm buying some sort of bootleg shampoo from China or
something like that, as opposed to what feels like slight,
a slightly more walled garden where it's a bit more curated.
(07:13):
I think that a little extra lead in your hair
follicles is actually good for you. Oh yeah, can you
can you tell? Yeah, it's adding to more volume. Uh huh,
So I just wasn't that Dinner X Dinner X back
in the day is like a dander ref shampoo, and
it used to They're like, you can you can tell
it's working because you can feel it tingle. But then
like it had like coal tar really or something crazy
like that. Terrible. Yeah. I'm like, how is there not
(07:35):
some sort of class action lawsuit? Again, I don't remember.
I don't remember the shampoo at all, but I remember
because I remember my dad using it. I remember as
like a six year old trying it one time, and
I'm just like, it burns, Dad, don't use that shampoo anymore.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
Well.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Sorry, I asked a question about Amazon Prime because you
and I have done the household sharing.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Yeah, we have because.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
There was nothing no rule against it, kind of like
Netflix used to to share passwords In fact, in many
ways they encouraged it. Some of the other streaming services
did the same. Now that's not in vogue. They're cracking
down on password sharing. Amazon is similarly cracking down on
the household sharing policy. Now you can only do the
sharing if that person actually lives under your roof. So yeah,
(08:18):
I guess you and I now need to consider our
relationship to Amazon and whether or not we want to
pony up for our individual prime memberships every year instead
of splitting the cost.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 4 (08:28):
You're listening to How To Money with Joel Larsgard on
demand from KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
If you are over on Facebook and you want to
join a group of like minded folks who have money
questions and insight, please go ahead and join the how
to Money Facebook group. Let's hear from Mike, and it
sounds like he's got a pretty damn good plan to
eliminate some debt in his life.
Speaker 5 (08:51):
Hello, I have a question for you on credit card debt.
I have about fifty thousand dollars in credit card debt
at a pretty high rate twenty two. I can have
access to a line of credit that's one percent for
six months that I could pay off the credit card debt.
(09:15):
But I can't decide which is better just to keep
it on the credit cards and pay it off in
six months, or would I be paying less interest on
the line of credit that is one percent for six months?
Speaker 3 (09:29):
All right, Matt, I just gotta know. I'd like this
could be a yes or no answer. Sure, it could be,
but there's plenty more to talk about here. This makes
me wonder how Mike is getting a one percent line
of credit that that sounds too good to be true,
and it makes me think that he's got some organs
that he's like signed away as collateral. Yeah, they're going
to come after his body. Yeah, this like mafia related
(09:51):
loan that you're taking and take out his knees man.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Even an awesome local credit union probably doesn't have rates
quite that good. So I am curious because might if
you really do have access to one percent line of
credit debt debt.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
At that rate, fill me in. I want to know. Yeah,
I'm done to take some of that out as well. Yeah,
this is speculation, but I wonder if it's like a
family member, you know, like somebody who's just like, hey,
I see what you're doing. Let's Uh, maybe there's some
of that going on, because that could I mean, like
you said, I can't remember the last time. I mean,
I don't. I don't think helock even helock rates right like,
I'm thinking about that. No, Like I'm thinking about the
(10:26):
Great Recession, and that's when rates were basically O twos
at all time lows, at least in my lifetime.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Yeah, well, speaking of that, I mean, we recently talked
about the downsides of turning credit card debt into a helock,
and so I think there were some similarities maybe here,
because you're just you're taking non secure debt, you're turning
it into secure debt, and then not paying your home
equity line of credit comes with bigger consequences than not
paying your credit card bills. So it's not just the
interest rate, is the terms and what you're putting up
(10:53):
as collateral, like whether it's vital organs, right Like.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
You just have to be careful.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
About what you're signing up for because yeah, there are
typically trade offs when you're exchanging one debt for another.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
You need to know what the tradeoffs are. You need
to know what the possible downsides might be were you
to not pay off that full amount in six months time,
you know, like, yeah, it starts out at one, but
then does it shoot to one hundred?
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Yeah, like the like this is yeah, this is a
this is an interest rate for the first three months,
and then after that it shoots up dramatically.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
It's like a payday loan. Who knows. Well, Yeah, it
did sound like he's kind of got like that introductory
rate perhaps for six months. But well, let's address that,
because I think it's amazing that he's going to be
able to pay off this much debt in that short
of the period of time. Like for most folks he said,
fifty thousand dollars man, Yeah, like that much debt would
take years to eradicate I think for most folks, and
(11:45):
that's often because it took them years to actually accumulate
that debt as well. It does make me think that
Mike has a reasonably high income and maybe he's just
found a way to slash expenses pretty significantly. Sometimes you
are just you're turning a blind eye to kind of
what the left hand is doing over here. You just
focus on the right hand. Oh, let's just focus on
(12:05):
all the spending.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
But they wake up and you get that like wait
a minute, this is this is crazy. Yeah, and just
fire alid under your butt and you're like, let's go exactly.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Yeah. So hopefully Mike is able to maintain that frame
of mind, that state of mind even after he eradicates
that that credit card debt, where he's able to save
and invest, and that's just going to seriously allow him
to ramp up his wealth down the road, you know,
a couple of years with that sort of singular focus
where okay, I mean fifty K six months, you're looking
(12:35):
at one hundred like close to six digits that he
might be able to just dispend, like do what he
chooses to a swing worth. Oh my goodness. Yeah, that
is a fantastic position to find yourself in, Mike, if
you're able to kind of hold the course even after
you eliminate that debt.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
I think to ex specific question like would I rather
pay one percent interest on a balance that large than
twenty two percent?
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (12:58):
I think I would, right, I mean, and I don't
think we're alone in that. I mean, reducing your interest
rate it can be a really beneficial thing when it
comes to speedy debt payoff. But again, the trade offs.
You got to be aware of the terms. If you're attentive,
it can work in your favorite Just like Matt, we
talk about balance transfer credit cards. Those can be a
really helpful thing for people who are incredibly motivated to
(13:19):
pay off their debt, and it can take them from
a twenty two percent interest rate. Hey, yeah, they pay
the three percent transfer fee or something like that, but
then they have potentially eighteen months at zero percent interest
to fully eradicate that debt. And it's going to be
really helpful, it's going to accelerate the process. But you
just again have to be aware of your own human fallibility,
(13:39):
because there's a chance you keep that other credit card around,
start spending on it again. Now you've got you've got
more credit card debt than you started with, and then
that lovely zero percent interest rate runs out and you're
up the creek, right, So be careful. And for instance,
with Mike's question here, we're talking over the course of
six months, he pay more than five thousand dollars extra
inches alone if he's stuck with the twenty two percent
(14:03):
loan versus the one percent loan.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
If you don't want that five k, Mike, just send
it over to the amount of money headquarters, and.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
That's just a ton of money obviously that he could
keep in his pocket instead. And the downside is, hey,
you don't change your ways, similar to the balance transfer
thing I just mentioned, you don't pay either of these
loans off with vigor, they both begin to grow again.
And this is just the situation so many people find
themselves in. They're trying to be crafty and shift deck
(14:30):
chairs around on the Titanic, but the whole ship is sinking,
and so you've got to really fix the leak before
you even kind of concentrate. I guess on the better
debt vehicle for you, because if you don't fix the
problem that led to the debt in the first place,
then you're just you're following a misplaced priority.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Totally agree, yep. I think this is where it's going
to be important for Mike to do some soul searching
and to figure out what behavioral tendencies that he had
that got him to this place in the first place.
This is I mean, this is a part of just
you know, let's take a second here to talk about
credit cards, because we love using credit cards, like there
are awesome benefits that you receive by keeping up with that,
(15:08):
but when you don't keep up with it, and when
you are overspending, it can come back and bite you,
bite you in the butt. It makes me even when
it consider like those behavioral tendencies are what trip us
up so oftentimes, and a lot of times you hear
it talked about in regards to investing people getting in
and out of the market. They get kind of freaked
out by the gyrations terrorists, whether or not they're legal
(15:28):
or not. Well, you know, what's the what are the
supreme is going to do? I don't know me personally,
I feel like I've gotten the behavioral elements from an
investing standpoint kind of licked like over over decades now,
multiple decades of investing in the market. I feel like
I've proven to myself that that doesn't spook me at all.
If anything, if the market dips a little bit, I'm
like trying to find ways to maybe throw a little
(15:49):
more money in the market while it's on sale. Selling
your kids use toys, Let's let's do it. Let's clean house. Yeah,
little garage shale, little yard sale. Take some extra money,
let's shove it in the market. But from a spending standpoint,
this is something I keep thinking about more and more,
how is the fact that I'm spending on a credit card,
how is that allowing me to maybe overspend in ways
(16:11):
that were I partying with actual cash, that I would
be second guessing. I'm like, how much less would I spend?
For instance, if Kate and I were to go out
to eat. If I'm pulling out my wallet and I'm
parting with the actual actual bills when I go to
the grocery store, I'm gonna have to fork over twenties
and hundreds. Like that feels different to you rather than
just getting the phone. And it's so satisfying just to
(16:33):
do the tap to pay because it's got a nice
little chime. It beeps at you like, hey, way to go.
You did it. Sometimes it's tricky to tap your phone,
but you're a pro, I mean, you know how to
do it. Rewards you to spend using the credit card.
The actual devices themselves encourage spending, and so I'm just
pointing out that, like I'm even thinking through maybe there
(16:53):
are ways that I could kind of rain in our
spending a little bit, because that's one where I'm not
totally sure how much leash we've given ourselves to spend
more than we otherwise would.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Yeah, you're spot on, my friend. All right, Hey, we
got more money saving information to get to.
Speaker 4 (17:06):
You're listening to how to Money with Joel Larsgard on
demand from KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Don't forget to sign up for the how to Money newsletter.
You can find that up at how tomoney dot com
slash newsletter.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Joe, it feels like the cool weather is here. You
hear folks talking about the pumpkins spice slote, even though
the heat waves across the US feel like they've only
recently subsided. We're not gonna it's been hot. It has been,
but finally a little bit of cool weather.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
And I don't drink pumpkin spice mant I avoided like
the plague.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
I certainly do as well. Well, we're gonna jump gonna
jump right over. There was a personal badge of honor.
Cozy season goes straight to winter. We're gonna talk about
the holidays here, which feels maybe a little bit inappropriate,
but of course it's a smart thing to do, not
just when it comes to like Christmas gifts, where we
want folks saving all year round, right, like start checking
on that thinking finally, that's something you started back in January.
(17:56):
But also when it comes to traveling around the holiday,
that's what we're talking about here, because if you are
planning on flying, let's say, to see family or to
see friends, it might be time to start looking at prices.
It might be time to start setting the airfare alerts
because the top notch booking days to pay the lowest
possible price just around the bend, potentially even mid to
(18:18):
late September. Of course, try to have flexible dates. That's
what's going to allow you to save the most. But
just keep that in mind, it's going to be here
before you know it. You can head over to Google
flights use that to your advantage as well. Monitor prices
even after you book. If maybe it's something you've already
knocked out, but if you see prices drop, you might
be able to cancel, get a refund, rebook that the
(18:41):
same flight or that same travel for even less money.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
That's what I'm doing with a hotel room that I'm
going to be for New York next month for a
quick little trip.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Because you dropped the prices on that genet.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Well, prices went up and I had not booked yet,
and so I'm super bummed. So I'm pivoted to a
cheaper hotel for the time being, but I'm still still
got my eyes on the hotel that I would like
to stay at. It's like right out of a Wes
Anderson movie, and i want to stay back there.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Oh, is that you're talking about the ship one, the
one the maritime that's got the round windows.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Yes, it's awesome. It's like, I love that hotel so much,
but it's quite expensive. And so if price is dropped,
she shoul talk about loyalty.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
If price is.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
Drop, I'm not being loyal If prices drop, I'll go back.
If prices don't drop, I'm switching to the other. Not
going to do it right. But the same is true
for booking your flights in particular. Be ready to pounce
when you see a deal. And Google's so great on
the Google Flights features to tell you kind of hey,
this is you know, normal pricing for right now, or
this is you know a pretty good deal, you should
jump on it. I love how they kind of help
(19:42):
you in that decision making process. Google Flights also recently
announced an AI based deal feature that they just launched.
It's called flight Deals and it's in beta right now,
beta testing, and this is I think great for folks
who aren't sure where they want to go, but they
want to get a pretty sweet deal. They just want
to travel some more awesome and they don't want to
pay a ton of money to do it. And Matt,
(20:04):
this goes right in line with our ethos for travel.
It's like, hey, don't figure out where you want to travel,
figure out where it's cheap to travel to, and then say, yeah,
I guess that looks pretty cool. Let me look into
it and book a place that's inexpensive and allow that
to kind of guide you when it comes to your
destinations that you pick. It means you're going to spend
(20:25):
a whole lot less on travel and maybe even be
able to travel travel more, or you increase your your
budget in other possible parts of your travel. Maybe it's
the craft breweries you're going to, right you can spend
more on the craft beer if you spend less on
the flight. So you can go to Google dot com
slash flights, slash deals, and man, I was just there
(20:46):
checking it out seeing what kind of good deals they had.
And Greece round trip for less than five hundred bucks
in October.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
Greece wasn't on my radar.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
I don't think I can put another trip into my
calendar this year. This is not going to happen for me,
not going.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
To swing it. No.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
But I was like percolating, you know, and it's like,
that's a great deal to a really cool place. Not
gonna happen for me right now, but I'm gonna I'm
gonna use this service and see if it can help
me find So.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
That was over future. That was so, that was the
existing Did you say that was the deals the deal's
page or whatever.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Yeah, okay, yeah, Google dot Com slash flight, slash deals.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
Nice. I will say. So I explored the new beta
AI Google Flight deals page or whatever. What was the
the gymnast Kayla Moroni or whatever. Though I'm not impressed.
This is the silver medallists. You were impressed. I was
not impressed because it just seemed like it was essentially
the Google Explorer feature right where you're in a different
in a different way, and that's where display and that's
(21:44):
the part of me that is so I don't want
to say disappointed, but like I feel like there's just
so much hype around AI and someone like Google saying, oh,
come check out. They're touting their AI travel Explore thing,
but it's basically taking the Explore results and they're repackaging it.
It feels less like magic and more like a formatting
change essentially, which I get because I think that's the
(22:07):
part of it that we are drawn to this I
don't know little AI right here, like like we like stories,
like we like other people, and so it's fun to
talk to something or somebody else that feels like another person,
and so when AI is just like, yeah, let me
look into that for you, Oh, this is what I found.
What do you think would you like me to do this?
You feel like you're connecting to somebody else, like you
have a digital butler exactly, And it's great, but I
(22:30):
don't know. I don't want to get folks too excited
about this, And of course it's in it's in beta,
so I wouldn't go over there and expect to find
more amazing deals than what you what you could previously find.
But who knows, maybe it'll be, and if so, then
I am all for it. Yeah, but uh, it's just
a small critique within the AI landscape not to take
it back to AI.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
It does sometimes feel like it's AI everything, and you're
just like, m all right.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
In some ways, I do think it'll be a little yeah,
it'll be great, but this is an instance where it
just feels like repackaging of something that they're already doing.
All right, Matt, Let's touch briefly on tariffs. Before we departed.
We haven't get political.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
We've tried to not talk about it. We had to
talk about it for a while and then we're like
everyone's talking about it, let's not talk about it too much.
But the legality of top down tariff mandates from the
White House, it's kind of been questionable from the beginning,
like does the President have the authority to just willy nilly,
say fifty percent tariffs on India, ten percent tariffs, fifteen
(23:29):
percent tariffs on the EU, or is that really the
job of Congress to establish tariff policy? And so a
federal appeals court has ruled that President Trump does not
have the sole authority to tariff nations as he wishes,
and so tariffs are actually going to remain in place
for the time being. The Trump administration is hoping that
the Supreme Court will weigh in soon and when you
(23:50):
look at kind of all the talk about tariffs, well,
it feels like the bark has been worse than the bite.
They've yet to have this major impact on us consumers.
We haven't seen price increases to the point that many
people predicted. I don't think that means that they're not
going to cause real waves if they allowed to remain
in town stick around. So much depends on how big
the tariffs are, and especially the longer they remained. Some
(24:12):
of that front loading the companies were doing goes away,
and we will start to see some of those price increases.
But whether or not the tariffs are allowed to remain,
that remains to be seen, and we will you and
I will keep following, keep talking about it here on
the show.
Speaker 4 (24:26):
You're listening to how to Money with Joel Larsgard on
demand from KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
By the way, you can always find more money saving
information over at howtomoney dot com. It is now time
for the Facebook Question of the Week, which is from Nicole.
This is a great one because it's short. She writes,
has anyone heard about Arrived, described as a real estate
investing platform for passive investors? Joel, have you heard about Arrived.
(24:54):
What you think about it? Yes, I have Departed from Arrived.
It's a new Scorsese film. Yeah, the long weighted sequel
to The Departed. Okay, yeah it was. It's been a
long time so seen it has quite a while. It
was a good one, though. I wonder my question is
why is she Why is she talking about Arrived? Yeah?
(25:16):
You know, like has she seen advertisements? Maybe it's like
a recentcy. It just highlights the fact that like ads work,
Like you see something and you think, oh, maybe that's
something I should be participating, or a friend of hers
might be talking about it and they're like, well, if
they're talking about it, maybe maybe this is something I
should do too. You know.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
I've noticed it more and more in people who have
had some amount of financial success or hard work and
that's paid off, where they they start to see their
account balance grow and then they're like, Okay, my net
worth is has shot up pretty meaningfully. A man, I
feel like at this point I need to take on
a more complex investing strategy. And the truth is like
what's good for the goose is good for the gander
(25:53):
and for a lot of people. For most people like none, No,
you don't really need to reinvent the wheel. You don't
need to go back to the drawing board. The the
way you've been building wealth so far can continue to
work for you in the future. You don't need to
shake things up meaningfully. And Arrived is one of these
these crowdfunded sites, Matt. These alternative investment sites are the
place I see people turning and then getting burned. It's
(26:15):
one of those real estate crowdfunding sites that have launched
in the past what five plus years or so, And
we talked on our recent Friday flight about a very
similar site that's not doing so hot. Investors are not happy.
Some have seen really bad returns. Others would have loved
to see dismal returns because all their money they got
wiped out thanks to bad real estate deals that just
completely flopped and rising interest rates and vacancies increasing at
(26:38):
some of those rental properties. So you and I we've
always said that these crowdfunded investing sites are not for
the faint of heart. You need to know what you're
getting into, and that the projections that are made on
a lot of these investment deals they can be fanciful,
and that might be the nicest way that I can
put it because some of them are just completely blowing
smoke and they're not really based in reality, on rosy
(27:00):
projections that are unlikely to come about. And then at
the same time, the expenses are baked in. They're significant,
so that's guaranteed. Yeah, that is going to happen. But
I swear reading through some of those projection statements, you're
just like, it almost gets you fired.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
Oh, I'd be an idiot not to do this. Yeah,
I should do it, right like. And that's just a
lot of people again, have gotten burned in these things.
The sales pitches are great, right Like, there's a certain
appeal there, and I think they're often attempting to lure
less sophisticated investors who might have heard that real estate
investing is the way that like, that's how you make
the real money, and you got to do it. You
got a juicey returns by getting into real estate, right
(27:36):
they might, you know, and given the recent history of
the market, maybe they're thinking, Okay, I know enough. I
read the headlines. It sounds like the stock market's overrated,
so they're going to look elsewhere if they want to
achieve financial independence. A bit more quickly, but you avoid
the simple steady path at your own peril. And I
will say to talk about real estate here more generally,
(27:56):
more broadly speaking, it is possible to achieve outside returns
in real estate, but typically you do that by owning
and managing your own properties, which of course comes with
not only a larger time commitment, but also money, the
capital that you've got to set aside to be able
to purchase that property. As well, there's more risk involved,
You've got more on the line, there's more at stake,
(28:18):
which is oftentimes how it leads to those higher returns. Yeah,
when you are more directly involved.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
I think it's important to say that Arrived is not
a scam. And many of these these crowdfunded investing websites,
whether they be real estate or whether they be other
kind of interesting markets, let me say these are not scammy.
They are just not ideal for the average investor. And
and when you look at the returns compared to a
(28:45):
total stock market fund or an S and P five
hundred fund, and when you look at the expenses compared
to those funds as well, there's just not much of
a comparison, Like it just doesn't make much sense, and
it is kind of fun. I guess maybe to be
able to say I kind of own a part of
this apartment complex outside Nashville, Or it might be kind
of fun to say I own some specialty whiskey on
this site, because not only do I, I don't just
(29:07):
have it on my bar. I own the really rare stuff, right,
even if you don't physically hold on to it, like
you have an ownership stake in something that's that's really
rare and fancy, and that can sound kind of cool.
There's nothing seedy about these sites. We just don't think
you're gonna perform, and it comes with liquidity constraints in
a variety of fees that are just not worth enduring.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
I thought when you said it's not scamy, I thought
you were gonna say, but it is spamy. Oh. You know,
there's like a lot of yeah, stuff that's kind of
packed in there that it's easy to overlook because it's
packaged in a nice way. There's a lot of pork.
That's like an old school government podcast. We're like shifting gears,
a little bit of Yeah, a lot of pork in
that bill, in't there? Roll?
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Well, it's funny when I look at when you look
at some of the graphs. Sometimes the only investment that
I've seen that the potentially outperforms the stock market over
long periods of time could be farmland. And there's even
this one place where you can invest farmland online.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
And but when you look at it, it's called acre Trader, right, Yeah,
And when you look at when you even hesitant to
even mention it because I don't want to send folks there,
But that's better to the unknown. Evil is better than
an unknown, sure, And I'm not saying that actually evil
even that.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
I remember the last time I looked at their site
and I was like, wait a second, SMP's I'll perform that.
Oh and what is acre Trader not? You know again,
not bad people, It's an It's an interesting thing. I'm
fascinated by the fact that it exists. I do not
choose to invest my dollars there because the fees are
much higher than the fees and then like I have
to pay more attention to it, and my attentions, man.
Speaker 5 (30:35):
Is limited.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
Yeah, but it isn't it fun to say that I
invest in pistachios? Yeah, I only saw avocado farm.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
It is kind of cool, all right, Matt. Let's get
to a question from listener Teresa. She says, my twelve
year old is about to get paid for his first job,
house sitting for neighbors. So I'm going to open a
roth IRA for him with Fidelity. That's where I have
accounts and I know their user interface. Other than making
sure to invest the funds and keeping a log of
the job, the date, the amount paid, are there other
(31:02):
tips and tricks from folks who have done this before?
Speaker 3 (31:05):
All right? First, wait, when she says house sitting for
a twelve year old, does that mean he's like is he?
Is he like spending the night over there? It's like
blank check or you remember that? Wait was blank check mccalley, culkin, No,
some other kid? Which one was that? Was that Richie Rich?
Speaker 5 (31:20):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Yeah, that was Richie Rich. We're totally digging back into
the nineties archive, Teresa. I'll say, first off, the fact
that your son is starting at age twelve, that he's
got this job, I think is incredible because on the
financial side of things, that gives compounding so much time
to work. So that's great. But you said that you
are going to open up an IRA for him. I
(31:42):
just read that that's what you wrote, which is i'll say,
mostly awesome. But let's get him involved a little bit here.
Let's uh, that's that's my call here. I want you
to well, you're gonna need to open a custodial account,
but let him like actually input his information, Let let
him type in his name, let him click the mouse,
Let them be a part of the actual process here,
(32:02):
because I get to be pumped. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There
is a certain amount of buy in that you want
someone to emotionally feel, especially with something like this, and
I think were you to do that, he would be
more likely to follow it. He's going to ask questions
along the way. It's going to give him that buy in.
It's going to give him a healthy dose of financial
education along the way. You're not setting this up for him,
and you might be thinking, well, he's the one doing
(32:22):
the work, but I'm here to say that even the
process of him starting that account, these are all things
that I think are important for him to learn as well. Yeah,
that participatory interaction engagement, hands hands on learning. Yeah exactly. Okay.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
Thank you as always for listening to the show. We
appreciate your time and attention. You can always find more
money saving information up on our website at howtomoney dot com.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
We'll see you back here next week.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
You've been listening to how to Money with Joel Larsgard.
You can always hear us live on KFI AM six
forty twelve pm to two pm on Sunday, and anytime
on demand on the iHeartRadio app
Kf I AM six forty. You're listening to How To
Money on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
All Joel and Matt want to do is help you save,
invest and enjoy more of what matters. This is how
to Money with Joel lars Guard and Matt Altmics.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
KFI AM six point forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
This is how to Money. I'm Joe Larsgard and I
in Matt Altmix. Don't forget to sign up for the
how to Money newsletter over at howdamoney dot com slash newsletter.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
It's time for the ludicrous headline of the week. This
one comes from Business Insider and it says customer law
loyalty is a sham, true sham.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
I've never been spoken. It's interesting.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
I do think that it's a ludicrous in a good way.
There are some ways right in which being loyal can
benefit you in many aspects of life.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
About like the punch cards you just want, like your
free ice cream.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Yeah, although the my local ice cream shop changed ownership
and they don't don't do the punch cards anymore.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Which the one where they mix it all together, no
gone gone, or the punch cards I've got like three
of those. Well, the problem is that they would always
just initial it. It seems very unofficial, super smudgy and yeah,
as opposed to having some like custom bespoke puncher with
you know, right, it's hard. It's a lot harder to
forge that. I'm very sad to hear that they're doing
(01:42):
doing away with the customer loyalty card. You weren't cheating
the loyalty card system, Okay, I'm an upstanding, honest citizen
and consumer. I know that to be true.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Okay, but so so sorry to hear about that can
result in free ice cream at least it used to
be able to. But the only upside right, But companies,
as it turns out, love loyal customer.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Yeah, they love it.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
They want your loyal the worl on the customer side, right,
But us, we as customers, might be getting the short
end of the stick because often they don't offer better
perks because we're loyal. In fact, they take advantage of
our loyalty. So the longer you continue doing business with
a particular retailer or a particular store, particular business, the
(02:22):
more you're likely to pay. So if you're too loyal
to your insurance company, for instance, your premiums are probably
going to be higher than they otherwise should be. Classic example,
sometimes people are like, man, got dropped by my insurance company.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
I've been with them for twenty five years.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
They don't care about you because they don't care that
you were loyal, You cared about your loyalty, they didn't.
If you only fly one airline, for instance, Matt, I've
met many of these people who are like, hey, help
me find a deal, but I only fly this airline
and I only fly on these specific dates. And I'm like, yeah,
that's really hard to find the deal that way. Then,
And if you only fly one airline, you're regularly paying
too much for tickets. You're beholden to their loyalty program,
(02:57):
even though it's not as beneficial as shopping around and
say saving money. If you stick with one of the
big banks, your savings rate suffers. Right, There's an endless
litany of examples I can give here where loyalty is
actually costing you. And that's what this article was pointing out.
Shopping around and switching it can feel like a chore,
but twenty bucks a month or whatever it is, it
really can add up Matt. I was just talking with
(03:20):
a friend and he was telling me how much you
was spending on cell phone service. And I was like, well,
I'm with US Mobile, just letting you know, here's how
much I pay. And he was like, wow, man, I
just ran the numbers. I thought I was getting like
free iPhones and stuff from my carrier. But even even
when I factor in buying my own iPhone, I'm going
to save more than one hundred dollars a month for
my family by switching cell phone service. And so he
switched immediately.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
He did it.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
He got rid of the loyalty to the company he'd
been with for a long time and went with one
of the new upstarts. He's consumer success to consumer success story.
Those are the kind of things I think most of
us don't question, though. We're just kind of like, we
keep doing the thing we've been doing, and we prize
that loyalty the companies that we do business with, don't.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
That's that maintaining the status quo, that inertia bias, which
is totally natural, right, Like, I think it's totally natural
to want to see consistency in life because sort of
like we're just talking about entrepreneurship. When you can look
ahead and you it feels like you have a rough
idea of what the future holds, then that allows you
to make other pivots, make other measured risks that tend
(04:19):
to lead to let's say, entrepreneurship or or something that
you otherwise would not have partaken in. But when everything
feels like it's up in the air, I think sometimes
you can be I don't know, you're just a little
less prone to take some of those risks. And so
we seek that consistency in lots of areas in life,
and it's not just a chore, even if it's working
against us. Yeah, even well, that's the thing. I think
some folks are used to kind of like that slow
(04:41):
like letting of blood, as opposed to like ripping the
baniondaid off and making the switch. But I'm glad that
your buddy was able to do that. Another company that
you might not want to be loyal to is your
home internet provider, and you can realize similar savings there
because back in the day there used to be basically
zero options, just had the local cable company. But that
(05:02):
has changed at least a little bit, largely in things
to the different cell phone companies out there who are
offering the five G at home service. This isn't something
that I've personally paid for or taken advantage of, Joel,
but it does mean that there are more opportunities to save,
and it's just like another challenger in the mix right competition. Yeah,
the open market. It's a good thing. And some of
(05:23):
the different companies out there are offering multi year price locks,
which is got me looking twice. So T Mobile specifically,
they've got this thirty five dollars a month plan for
five years, and normally I would I don't know. I'm
not the one to take the bait. But then I
saw the five years a part and I thought, wait
a minute, that's pretty good. That's they got me. Looking
at the coverage map, I'm just like, okay, what is it?
Speaker 4 (05:45):
All right?
Speaker 3 (05:45):
I got the ultra I'm in the ultra zone. Baby.
That's that's what That's what you need. Downside, I think
you might have to go with the T Mobile service
in order to fully take advantage of that low offering. Yeah,
so what fifty bucks? Otherwise maybe I can't I can't
remember off the top of my head, but it's worth
considering because I think if you can do a little
bit of exploring, you got to shop around, you can
potentially save a ton of money by making the switch.
(06:08):
And I think there's a chance too, the fact that
that's even being offered. You know, if you are in
a zone that has that as an option, you might
be able to even reach out to your current cable provider,
let them know what the current competition with their advertising,
and you can even potentially get your current rate lord
without having to go through all the rigama role of switching.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Plus yeah, just like, hey, I'm finding a better deal elsewhere,
I'm thinking about it and see what they say. Uh yeah,
just I guess don't be too loyal or too priced
insensitive exactly on your hands exactly, They're savings to be had, Matt.
Are you and I are we too loyal to Amazon Prime?
That's I don't think so, No, Okay, I do. I
(06:48):
wish I try to always price shop and price compared.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
I will say so. Specifically, Walmart is one of the
other big, big heavy hitters, and there the app just
isn't as good. If you're searching for something, it'll pull
up like five thousand different results and I feel like
I'm buying some sort of bootleg shampoo from China or
something like that, as opposed to what feels like slight,
a slightly more walled garden where it's a bit more curated.
(07:13):
I think that a little extra lead in your hair
follicles is actually good for you. Oh yeah, can you
can you tell? Yeah, it's adding to more volume. Uh huh,
So I just wasn't that Dinner X Dinner X back
in the day is like a dander ref shampoo, and
it used to They're like, you can you can tell
it's working because you can feel it tingle. But then
like it had like coal tar really or something crazy
like that. Terrible. Yeah. I'm like, how is there not
(07:35):
some sort of class action lawsuit? Again, I don't remember.
I don't remember the shampoo at all, but I remember
because I remember my dad using it. I remember as
like a six year old trying it one time, and
I'm just like, it burns, Dad, don't use that shampoo anymore.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
Well.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Sorry, I asked a question about Amazon Prime because you
and I have done the household sharing.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Yeah, we have because.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
There was nothing no rule against it, kind of like
Netflix used to to share passwords In fact, in many
ways they encouraged it. Some of the other streaming services
did the same. Now that's not in vogue. They're cracking
down on password sharing. Amazon is similarly cracking down on
the household sharing policy. Now you can only do the
sharing if that person actually lives under your roof. So yeah,
(08:18):
I guess you and I now need to consider our
relationship to Amazon and whether or not we want to
pony up for our individual prime memberships every year instead
of splitting the cost.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 4 (08:28):
You're listening to How To Money with Joel Larsgard on
demand from KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
If you are over on Facebook and you want to
join a group of like minded folks who have money
questions and insight, please go ahead and join the how
to Money Facebook group. Let's hear from Mike, and it
sounds like he's got a pretty damn good plan to
eliminate some debt in his life.
Speaker 5 (08:51):
Hello, I have a question for you on credit card debt.
I have about fifty thousand dollars in credit card debt
at a pretty high rate twenty two. I can have
access to a line of credit that's one percent for
six months that I could pay off the credit card debt.
(09:15):
But I can't decide which is better just to keep
it on the credit cards and pay it off in
six months, or would I be paying less interest on
the line of credit that is one percent for six months?
Speaker 3 (09:29):
All right, Matt, I just gotta know. I'd like this
could be a yes or no answer. Sure, it could be,
but there's plenty more to talk about here. This makes
me wonder how Mike is getting a one percent line
of credit that that sounds too good to be true,
and it makes me think that he's got some organs
that he's like signed away as collateral. Yeah, they're going
to come after his body. Yeah, this like mafia related
(09:51):
loan that you're taking and take out his knees man.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Even an awesome local credit union probably doesn't have rates
quite that good. So I am curious because might if
you really do have access to one percent line of
credit debt debt.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
At that rate, fill me in. I want to know. Yeah,
I'm done to take some of that out as well. Yeah,
this is speculation, but I wonder if it's like a
family member, you know, like somebody who's just like, hey,
I see what you're doing. Let's Uh, maybe there's some
of that going on, because that could I mean, like
you said, I can't remember the last time. I mean,
I don't. I don't think helock even helock rates right like,
I'm thinking about that. No, Like I'm thinking about the
(10:26):
Great Recession, and that's when rates were basically O twos
at all time lows, at least in my lifetime.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Yeah, well, speaking of that, I mean, we recently talked
about the downsides of turning credit card debt into a helock,
and so I think there were some similarities maybe here,
because you're just you're taking non secure debt, you're turning
it into secure debt, and then not paying your home
equity line of credit comes with bigger consequences than not
paying your credit card bills. So it's not just the
interest rate, is the terms and what you're putting up
(10:53):
as collateral, like whether it's vital organs, right Like.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
You just have to be careful.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
About what you're signing up for because yeah, there are
typically trade offs when you're exchanging one debt for another.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
You need to know what the tradeoffs are. You need
to know what the possible downsides might be were you
to not pay off that full amount in six months time,
you know, like, yeah, it starts out at one, but
then does it shoot to one hundred?
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Yeah, like the like this is yeah, this is a
this is an interest rate for the first three months,
and then after that it shoots up dramatically.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
It's like a payday loan. Who knows. Well, Yeah, it
did sound like he's kind of got like that introductory
rate perhaps for six months. But well, let's address that,
because I think it's amazing that he's going to be
able to pay off this much debt in that short
of the period of time. Like for most folks he said,
fifty thousand dollars man, Yeah, like that much debt would
take years to eradicate I think for most folks, and
(11:45):
that's often because it took them years to actually accumulate
that debt as well. It does make me think that
Mike has a reasonably high income and maybe he's just
found a way to slash expenses pretty significantly. Sometimes you
are just you're turning a blind eye to kind of
what the left hand is doing over here. You just
focus on the right hand. Oh, let's just focus on
(12:05):
all the spending.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
But they wake up and you get that like wait
a minute, this is this is crazy. Yeah, and just
fire alid under your butt and you're like, let's go exactly.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Yeah. So hopefully Mike is able to maintain that frame
of mind, that state of mind even after he eradicates
that that credit card debt, where he's able to save
and invest, and that's just going to seriously allow him
to ramp up his wealth down the road, you know,
a couple of years with that sort of singular focus
where okay, I mean fifty K six months, you're looking
(12:35):
at one hundred like close to six digits that he
might be able to just dispend, like do what he
chooses to a swing worth. Oh my goodness. Yeah, that
is a fantastic position to find yourself in, Mike, if
you're able to kind of hold the course even after
you eliminate that debt.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
I think to ex specific question like would I rather
pay one percent interest on a balance that large than
twenty two percent?
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (12:58):
I think I would, right, I mean, and I don't
think we're alone in that. I mean, reducing your interest
rate it can be a really beneficial thing when it
comes to speedy debt payoff. But again, the trade offs.
You got to be aware of the terms. If you're attentive,
it can work in your favorite Just like Matt, we
talk about balance transfer credit cards. Those can be a
really helpful thing for people who are incredibly motivated to
(13:19):
pay off their debt, and it can take them from
a twenty two percent interest rate. Hey, yeah, they pay
the three percent transfer fee or something like that, but
then they have potentially eighteen months at zero percent interest
to fully eradicate that debt. And it's going to be
really helpful, it's going to accelerate the process. But you
just again have to be aware of your own human fallibility,
(13:39):
because there's a chance you keep that other credit card around,
start spending on it again. Now you've got you've got
more credit card debt than you started with, and then
that lovely zero percent interest rate runs out and you're
up the creek, right, So be careful. And for instance,
with Mike's question here, we're talking over the course of
six months, he pay more than five thousand dollars extra
inches alone if he's stuck with the twenty two percent
(14:03):
loan versus the one percent loan.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
If you don't want that five k, Mike, just send
it over to the amount of money headquarters, and.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
That's just a ton of money obviously that he could
keep in his pocket instead. And the downside is, hey,
you don't change your ways, similar to the balance transfer
thing I just mentioned, you don't pay either of these
loans off with vigor, they both begin to grow again.
And this is just the situation so many people find
themselves in. They're trying to be crafty and shift deck
(14:30):
chairs around on the Titanic, but the whole ship is sinking,
and so you've got to really fix the leak before
you even kind of concentrate. I guess on the better
debt vehicle for you, because if you don't fix the
problem that led to the debt in the first place,
then you're just you're following a misplaced priority.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Totally agree, yep. I think this is where it's going
to be important for Mike to do some soul searching
and to figure out what behavioral tendencies that he had
that got him to this place in the first place.
This is I mean, this is a part of just
you know, let's take a second here to talk about
credit cards, because we love using credit cards, like there
are awesome benefits that you receive by keeping up with that,
(15:08):
but when you don't keep up with it, and when
you are overspending, it can come back and bite you,
bite you in the butt. It makes me even when
it consider like those behavioral tendencies are what trip us
up so oftentimes, and a lot of times you hear
it talked about in regards to investing people getting in
and out of the market. They get kind of freaked
out by the gyrations terrorists, whether or not they're legal
(15:28):
or not. Well, you know, what's the what are the
supreme is going to do? I don't know me personally,
I feel like I've gotten the behavioral elements from an
investing standpoint kind of licked like over over decades now,
multiple decades of investing in the market. I feel like
I've proven to myself that that doesn't spook me at all.
If anything, if the market dips a little bit, I'm
like trying to find ways to maybe throw a little
(15:49):
more money in the market while it's on sale. Selling
your kids use toys, Let's let's do it. Let's clean house. Yeah,
little garage shale, little yard sale. Take some extra money,
let's shove it in the market. But from a spending standpoint,
this is something I keep thinking about more and more,
how is the fact that I'm spending on a credit card,
how is that allowing me to maybe overspend in ways
(16:11):
that were I partying with actual cash, that I would
be second guessing. I'm like, how much less would I spend?
For instance, if Kate and I were to go out
to eat. If I'm pulling out my wallet and I'm
parting with the actual actual bills when I go to
the grocery store, I'm gonna have to fork over twenties
and hundreds. Like that feels different to you rather than
just getting the phone. And it's so satisfying just to
(16:33):
do the tap to pay because it's got a nice
little chime. It beeps at you like, hey, way to go.
You did it. Sometimes it's tricky to tap your phone,
but you're a pro, I mean, you know how to
do it. Rewards you to spend using the credit card.
The actual devices themselves encourage spending, and so I'm just
pointing out that, like I'm even thinking through maybe there
(16:53):
are ways that I could kind of rain in our
spending a little bit, because that's one where I'm not
totally sure how much leash we've given ourselves to spend
more than we otherwise would.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Yeah, you're spot on, my friend. All right, Hey, we
got more money saving information to get to.
Speaker 4 (17:06):
You're listening to how to Money with Joel Larsgard on
demand from KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Don't forget to sign up for the how to Money newsletter.
You can find that up at how tomoney dot com
slash newsletter.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Joe, it feels like the cool weather is here. You
hear folks talking about the pumpkins spice slote, even though
the heat waves across the US feel like they've only
recently subsided. We're not gonna it's been hot. It has been,
but finally a little bit of cool weather.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
And I don't drink pumpkin spice mant I avoided like
the plague.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
I certainly do as well. Well, we're gonna jump gonna
jump right over. There was a personal badge of honor.
Cozy season goes straight to winter. We're gonna talk about
the holidays here, which feels maybe a little bit inappropriate,
but of course it's a smart thing to do, not
just when it comes to like Christmas gifts, where we
want folks saving all year round, right, like start checking
on that thinking finally, that's something you started back in January.
(17:56):
But also when it comes to traveling around the holiday,
that's what we're talking about here, because if you are
planning on flying, let's say, to see family or to
see friends, it might be time to start looking at prices.
It might be time to start setting the airfare alerts
because the top notch booking days to pay the lowest
possible price just around the bend, potentially even mid to
(18:18):
late September. Of course, try to have flexible dates. That's
what's going to allow you to save the most. But
just keep that in mind, it's going to be here
before you know it. You can head over to Google
flights use that to your advantage as well. Monitor prices
even after you book. If maybe it's something you've already
knocked out, but if you see prices drop, you might
be able to cancel, get a refund, rebook that the
(18:41):
same flight or that same travel for even less money.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
That's what I'm doing with a hotel room that I'm
going to be for New York next month for a
quick little trip.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Because you dropped the prices on that genet.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Well, prices went up and I had not booked yet,
and so I'm super bummed. So I'm pivoted to a
cheaper hotel for the time being, but I'm still still
got my eyes on the hotel that I would like
to stay at. It's like right out of a Wes
Anderson movie, and i want to stay back there.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Oh, is that you're talking about the ship one, the
one the maritime that's got the round windows.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Yes, it's awesome. It's like, I love that hotel so much,
but it's quite expensive. And so if price is dropped,
she shoul talk about loyalty.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
If price is.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
Drop, I'm not being loyal If prices drop, I'll go back.
If prices don't drop, I'm switching to the other. Not
going to do it right. But the same is true
for booking your flights in particular. Be ready to pounce
when you see a deal. And Google's so great on
the Google Flights features to tell you kind of hey,
this is you know, normal pricing for right now, or
this is you know a pretty good deal, you should
jump on it. I love how they kind of help
(19:42):
you in that decision making process. Google Flights also recently
announced an AI based deal feature that they just launched.
It's called flight Deals and it's in beta right now,
beta testing, and this is I think great for folks
who aren't sure where they want to go, but they
want to get a pretty sweet deal. They just want
to travel some more awesome and they don't want to
pay a ton of money to do it. And Matt,
(20:04):
this goes right in line with our ethos for travel.
It's like, hey, don't figure out where you want to travel,
figure out where it's cheap to travel to, and then say, yeah,
I guess that looks pretty cool. Let me look into
it and book a place that's inexpensive and allow that
to kind of guide you when it comes to your
destinations that you pick. It means you're going to spend
(20:25):
a whole lot less on travel and maybe even be
able to travel travel more, or you increase your your
budget in other possible parts of your travel. Maybe it's
the craft breweries you're going to, right you can spend
more on the craft beer if you spend less on
the flight. So you can go to Google dot com
slash flights, slash deals, and man, I was just there
(20:46):
checking it out seeing what kind of good deals they had.
And Greece round trip for less than five hundred bucks
in October.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
Greece wasn't on my radar.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
I don't think I can put another trip into my
calendar this year. This is not going to happen for me,
not going.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
To swing it. No.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
But I was like percolating, you know, and it's like,
that's a great deal to a really cool place. Not
gonna happen for me right now, but I'm gonna I'm
gonna use this service and see if it can help
me find So.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
That was over future. That was so, that was the
existing Did you say that was the deals the deal's
page or whatever.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Yeah, okay, yeah, Google dot Com slash flight, slash deals.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
Nice. I will say. So I explored the new beta
AI Google Flight deals page or whatever. What was the
the gymnast Kayla Moroni or whatever. Though I'm not impressed.
This is the silver medallists. You were impressed. I was
not impressed because it just seemed like it was essentially
the Google Explorer feature right where you're in a different
in a different way, and that's where display and that's
(21:44):
the part of me that is so I don't want
to say disappointed, but like I feel like there's just
so much hype around AI and someone like Google saying, oh,
come check out. They're touting their AI travel Explore thing,
but it's basically taking the Explore results and they're repackaging it.
It feels less like magic and more like a formatting
change essentially, which I get because I think that's the
(22:07):
part of it that we are drawn to this I
don't know little AI right here, like like we like stories,
like we like other people, and so it's fun to
talk to something or somebody else that feels like another person,
and so when AI is just like, yeah, let me
look into that for you, Oh, this is what I found.
What do you think would you like me to do this?
You feel like you're connecting to somebody else, like you
have a digital butler exactly, And it's great, but I
(22:30):
don't know. I don't want to get folks too excited
about this, And of course it's in it's in beta,
so I wouldn't go over there and expect to find
more amazing deals than what you what you could previously find.
But who knows, maybe it'll be, and if so, then
I am all for it. Yeah, but uh, it's just
a small critique within the AI landscape not to take
it back to AI.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
It does sometimes feel like it's AI everything, and you're
just like, m all right.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
In some ways, I do think it'll be a little yeah,
it'll be great, but this is an instance where it
just feels like repackaging of something that they're already doing.
All right, Matt, Let's touch briefly on tariffs. Before we departed.
We haven't get political.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
We've tried to not talk about it. We had to
talk about it for a while and then we're like
everyone's talking about it, let's not talk about it too much.
But the legality of top down tariff mandates from the
White House, it's kind of been questionable from the beginning,
like does the President have the authority to just willy nilly,
say fifty percent tariffs on India, ten percent tariffs, fifteen
(23:29):
percent tariffs on the EU, or is that really the
job of Congress to establish tariff policy? And so a
federal appeals court has ruled that President Trump does not
have the sole authority to tariff nations as he wishes,
and so tariffs are actually going to remain in place
for the time being. The Trump administration is hoping that
the Supreme Court will weigh in soon and when you
(23:50):
look at kind of all the talk about tariffs, well,
it feels like the bark has been worse than the bite.
They've yet to have this major impact on us consumers.
We haven't seen price increases to the point that many
people predicted. I don't think that means that they're not
going to cause real waves if they allowed to remain
in town stick around. So much depends on how big
the tariffs are, and especially the longer they remained. Some
(24:12):
of that front loading the companies were doing goes away,
and we will start to see some of those price increases.
But whether or not the tariffs are allowed to remain,
that remains to be seen, and we will you and
I will keep following, keep talking about it here on
the show.
Speaker 4 (24:26):
You're listening to how to Money with Joel Larsgard on
demand from KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
By the way, you can always find more money saving
information over at howtomoney dot com. It is now time
for the Facebook Question of the Week, which is from Nicole.
This is a great one because it's short. She writes,
has anyone heard about Arrived, described as a real estate
investing platform for passive investors? Joel, have you heard about Arrived.
(24:54):
What you think about it? Yes, I have Departed from Arrived.
It's a new Scorsese film. Yeah, the long weighted sequel
to The Departed. Okay, yeah it was. It's been a
long time so seen it has quite a while. It
was a good one, though. I wonder my question is
why is she Why is she talking about Arrived? Yeah?
(25:16):
You know, like has she seen advertisements? Maybe it's like
a recentcy. It just highlights the fact that like ads work,
Like you see something and you think, oh, maybe that's
something I should be participating, or a friend of hers
might be talking about it and they're like, well, if
they're talking about it, maybe maybe this is something I
should do too. You know.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
I've noticed it more and more in people who have
had some amount of financial success or hard work and
that's paid off, where they they start to see their
account balance grow and then they're like, Okay, my net
worth is has shot up pretty meaningfully. A man, I
feel like at this point I need to take on
a more complex investing strategy. And the truth is like
what's good for the goose is good for the gander
(25:53):
and for a lot of people. For most people like none, No,
you don't really need to reinvent the wheel. You don't
need to go back to the drawing board. The the
way you've been building wealth so far can continue to
work for you in the future. You don't need to
shake things up meaningfully. And Arrived is one of these
these crowdfunded sites, Matt. These alternative investment sites are the
place I see people turning and then getting burned. It's
(26:15):
one of those real estate crowdfunding sites that have launched
in the past what five plus years or so, And
we talked on our recent Friday flight about a very
similar site that's not doing so hot. Investors are not happy.
Some have seen really bad returns. Others would have loved
to see dismal returns because all their money they got
wiped out thanks to bad real estate deals that just
completely flopped and rising interest rates and vacancies increasing at
(26:38):
some of those rental properties. So you and I we've
always said that these crowdfunded investing sites are not for
the faint of heart. You need to know what you're
getting into, and that the projections that are made on
a lot of these investment deals they can be fanciful,
and that might be the nicest way that I can
put it because some of them are just completely blowing
smoke and they're not really based in reality, on rosy
(27:00):
projections that are unlikely to come about. And then at
the same time, the expenses are baked in. They're significant,
so that's guaranteed. Yeah, that is going to happen. But
I swear reading through some of those projection statements, you're
just like, it almost gets you fired.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
Oh, I'd be an idiot not to do this. Yeah,
I should do it, right like. And that's just a
lot of people again, have gotten burned in these things.
The sales pitches are great, right Like, there's a certain
appeal there, and I think they're often attempting to lure
less sophisticated investors who might have heard that real estate
investing is the way that like, that's how you make
the real money, and you got to do it. You
got a juicey returns by getting into real estate, right
(27:36):
they might, you know, and given the recent history of
the market, maybe they're thinking, Okay, I know enough. I
read the headlines. It sounds like the stock market's overrated,
so they're going to look elsewhere if they want to
achieve financial independence. A bit more quickly, but you avoid
the simple steady path at your own peril. And I
will say to talk about real estate here more generally,
(27:56):
more broadly speaking, it is possible to achieve outside returns
in real estate, but typically you do that by owning
and managing your own properties, which of course comes with
not only a larger time commitment, but also money, the
capital that you've got to set aside to be able
to purchase that property. As well, there's more risk involved,
You've got more on the line, there's more at stake,
(28:18):
which is oftentimes how it leads to those higher returns. Yeah,
when you are more directly involved.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
I think it's important to say that Arrived is not
a scam. And many of these these crowdfunded investing websites,
whether they be real estate or whether they be other
kind of interesting markets, let me say these are not scammy.
They are just not ideal for the average investor. And
and when you look at the returns compared to a
(28:45):
total stock market fund or an S and P five
hundred fund, and when you look at the expenses compared
to those funds as well, there's just not much of
a comparison, Like it just doesn't make much sense, and
it is kind of fun. I guess maybe to be
able to say I kind of own a part of
this apartment complex outside Nashville, Or it might be kind
of fun to say I own some specialty whiskey on
this site, because not only do I, I don't just
(29:07):
have it on my bar. I own the really rare stuff, right,
even if you don't physically hold on to it, like
you have an ownership stake in something that's that's really
rare and fancy, and that can sound kind of cool.
There's nothing seedy about these sites. We just don't think
you're gonna perform, and it comes with liquidity constraints in
a variety of fees that are just not worth enduring.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
I thought when you said it's not scamy, I thought
you were gonna say, but it is spamy. Oh. You know,
there's like a lot of yeah, stuff that's kind of
packed in there that it's easy to overlook because it's
packaged in a nice way. There's a lot of pork.
That's like an old school government podcast. We're like shifting gears,
a little bit of Yeah, a lot of pork in
that bill, in't there? Roll?
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Well, it's funny when I look at when you look
at some of the graphs. Sometimes the only investment that
I've seen that the potentially outperforms the stock market over
long periods of time could be farmland. And there's even
this one place where you can invest farmland online.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
And but when you look at it, it's called acre Trader, right, Yeah,
And when you look at when you even hesitant to
even mention it because I don't want to send folks there,
But that's better to the unknown. Evil is better than
an unknown, sure, And I'm not saying that actually evil
even that.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
I remember the last time I looked at their site
and I was like, wait a second, SMP's I'll perform that.
Oh and what is acre Trader not? You know again,
not bad people, It's an It's an interesting thing. I'm
fascinated by the fact that it exists. I do not
choose to invest my dollars there because the fees are
much higher than the fees and then like I have
to pay more attention to it, and my attentions, man.
Speaker 5 (30:35):
Is limited.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
Yeah, but it isn't it fun to say that I
invest in pistachios? Yeah, I only saw avocado farm.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
It is kind of cool, all right, Matt. Let's get
to a question from listener Teresa. She says, my twelve
year old is about to get paid for his first job,
house sitting for neighbors. So I'm going to open a
roth IRA for him with Fidelity. That's where I have
accounts and I know their user interface. Other than making
sure to invest the funds and keeping a log of
the job, the date, the amount paid, are there other
(31:02):
tips and tricks from folks who have done this before?
Speaker 3 (31:05):
All right? First, wait, when she says house sitting for
a twelve year old, does that mean he's like is he?
Is he like spending the night over there? It's like
blank check or you remember that? Wait was blank check mccalley, culkin, No,
some other kid? Which one was that? Was that Richie Rich?
Speaker 5 (31:20):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Yeah, that was Richie Rich. We're totally digging back into
the nineties archive, Teresa. I'll say, first off, the fact
that your son is starting at age twelve, that he's
got this job, I think is incredible because on the
financial side of things, that gives compounding so much time
to work. So that's great. But you said that you
are going to open up an IRA for him. I
(31:42):
just read that that's what you wrote, which is i'll say,
mostly awesome. But let's get him involved a little bit here.
Let's uh, that's that's my call here. I want you
to well, you're gonna need to open a custodial account,
but let him like actually input his information, Let let
him type in his name, let him click the mouse,
Let them be a part of the actual process here,
(32:02):
because I get to be pumped. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There
is a certain amount of buy in that you want
someone to emotionally feel, especially with something like this, and
I think were you to do that, he would be
more likely to follow it. He's going to ask questions
along the way. It's going to give him that buy in.
It's going to give him a healthy dose of financial
education along the way. You're not setting this up for him,
and you might be thinking, well, he's the one doing
(32:22):
the work, but I'm here to say that even the
process of him starting that account, these are all things
that I think are important for him to learn as well. Yeah,
that participatory interaction engagement, hands hands on learning. Yeah exactly. Okay.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
Thank you as always for listening to the show. We
appreciate your time and attention. You can always find more
money saving information up on our website at howtomoney dot com.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
We'll see you back here next week.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
You've been listening to how to Money with Joel Larsgard.
You can always hear us live on KFI AM six
forty twelve pm to two pm on Sunday, and anytime
on demand on the iHeartRadio app
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.