BHS - 8A – ‘How to Money’ with Joel Larsgaard | Earlier with Mo Kelly

Host of ‘How to Money’ on KFI Joel Larsgaard joins the program to talk about online ‘investing courses’ that are being offered are either not worth the money or a complete scam, remodeling your home because you want to and have the money but not adding value, and work from home saving us time and money, but costing in other ways. Americans are spending more time and money on therapy in the Zoom era. Host of ‘Later with Mo Kelly’ closes the Bill Handel Show assessing Caitlin Clark’s WNBA impact 5 games in.

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
You're listening to bill Handle on demandfrom KFI AM six forty. You are
listening to the bill Handle show Money. And this is KFI bill Handle here
on a Thursday morning, May twentythird, and it is eight o'clock eight

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o'clock segment, which means that wecheck in with Joel Larsgard, who is
the host of How to Money Sundaytwelve pm to two, and you can
reach them at how to Money Joel. That's Instagram social media. Good morning,
Joel, Morning Bill. Okay,we got a lot to cover this
morning, so let's start with onceagain the Internet and how much good information

(00:50):
is out there and how much badinformation is out there, the scammers,
and this one has to do withonline investing courses now very quickly with online
investing courses, and that is investingis very sophisticated stuff. It really is.
To do a good job, youhave to really know what you're doing.
You have to pay a lot ofattention. And it's how to be

(01:14):
a millionaire in real estate, howto run your own business. You know,
how to remember the match books theyused to have when people's when people
smoked cigarettes and they didn't have lighters. They were matchbooks, and they would
always advertise on those matchbooks and Iremember how to fly the big ribs,
how you can be a big rigs, how you can be a seven forty
seven pilot, and twelve easy lessons. This is almost that bad. It's

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investing onlines. Let's talk about that. Yeah, well, I think a
couple things. One, you haveto be careful who you follow online,
because there are some great people offeringup incredible advice and not trying to charge
you a buttload of money for thatadvice. And then there are other people
who either don't know what they're doingor who are purposely misleading you in order

(02:00):
to enrich themselves. And so therewas a Bloomberg article about this specific online
trading school trying saying, hey,you're going to be a Goldman Sax level
trader if you just pay US twohundred and seventy five dollars and two hundred
and fifty a month every month thereafter. And it didn't stop there, Like,
it wasn't just that this was incrediblyexpensive and that they were target they
were specifically targeting people who didn't havea lot of financial means also, and

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it's like, well, hey,I need to grow my money quickly.
If anyone tells you that you're goingto get rich quick, that's probably when
you should stop listening to them.But then these folks started using like guru
language, religious language in order tocoerce people into signing up for them and
into buying into kind of this wayof investing and thinking about investing. But

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then it becomes a multi level marketingscheme on top of that, where hey,
guess what, you can reduce theprice you pay to us if you
recruit your friends and family members,which of course only makes everything worse and
ruins your relationships and all that otherstuff. So you have to be careful
who you're listening to and who you'repaying money. You know, Joel,
you yeah, how do you knowwho is good and who is bad?

(03:08):
I think you have to. There'sa couple of things. I think One
it's what are they trying to tellyou? Something like what is it?
How do they make their money?And how much are they charging you?
And guess what is this information thatthey're that they're purporting to have, which
including one of the promises they madewas spectacular returns. That sort of marketing
should throw up a red flag It'slike, wait a second, why how

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do you know something that I don'tknow? And if you know something that
I don't know, why are youletting me in on the secret? Why
aren't you just making money hand overfist yourself? So you have to think
about that, like what is itthat they stand to gain by signing you
up? Uh? And the truthis, like these guys, what they
end up doing is enriching themselves.It becomes this Ponzi scheme they buy with

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it. Yeah, but here's here'sthe point that I'm thinking of, and
that is to have someone who reallydoes give you investment advice means that's basically
a money manager or an investment person, and you turn over the money or
you have to have a minimum amountof money involved, and it's pretty substantial
money to get anybody that's good.And people don't have the wherewithal or don't

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have the means, as you said, so what do they default too?
Who do they go to if thereisn't enough money in the pot to go
to people who actually do this andare good. Okay, So a couple
of things I think One DII Investingis not as hard as people make it
out to be. And so ifyou're like, I know I should be
investing, but I don't know whereor how tax advantage retirement accounts, whether

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it's one through work or whether it'san individual retirement account that you can open
up yourself with a low cost providerlike Fidelity, Schwab or Vanguard, Like
that's gonna get you most of theway there. And then what funds do
you invest in? Well, target, low cost target date funds are pretty
amazing, like, hey, what'sthe year you're likely to retire? Pick
that target date fund? And youknow again, Yeah, you could complicate
things. You can go overwhelmingly complicated. You can start investing in the individual

(05:03):
stocks and try to outperform the market. But I would instead rather buy the
whole market, the whole stock market. So I think for a lot of
people, Yeah, we've made itsound like people in fancy suits with fancy
words. It's here to make itsound like you can't do this on your
own. But I think a lotof people would be better off, especially
when we're talking about the cost thatit will that you'll endure by trying to

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hire a professional. You'd be betteroff going in alone and stocking the money
you would have paid to somebody elseinto your own retirement accounts. Yeah,
and that means you can go toone of these fidelity schwabs, et cetera,
and just say buy the market rightjust by and look at the stock
market or have a portfolio across theboard, and you're going to get five

(05:46):
six seven percent annually over historically,which is and you have to have sophistication
because there's going to be times whenyou lose money and there will be times
that are going to be spectacular yearsand you have to well say, of
course, yeah, dollar costs averagingregularly. You're right, And you could
talk if you at some point alongthe road, you've been doing the right

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thing. You've been socking money awayinto the market, and you've seen that
NESTE grow and you're like, nowI feel like I need some more specified
advice. I need more like taxappropriate investing advice. That's when you hire
a pro. But at that pointyou have the network to justify hiring somebody
to going to a certified financial plannerwho knows what they're doing. And the
other thing to mention is there's tonsof great free advice. There are great

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podcasts and radio shows and the libraryis full of awesome books that have stood
the test of time. When itcomes to how you do a good job
investing, paying somebody hundreds of dollarsa month because they have some sort of
special insight is just a bad idea. Joe Larsgard How to Money, which
is heard on Sunday's twelve pm totwo pm Social Address at how to Money,

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Joel, Joel, let's talk aboutremodeling your house. I mean,
we have the show here on KFIDean Sharp, which has heard Saturday mornings
from six date and then I thinknine to twelve on Sundays, and he
talks about remodeling the house. Andyour position is, and I believe is

(07:10):
it doesn't necessarily make sense in termsof the value of the house. Let's
explore that, and then I'm goingto throw it right back at you.
Yeah, yeah, No, Ihate to step on Dean's toast because he
knows what he hasn't talk about thevalue. He just talks about how to
do it. Yeah. Yeah.And there's which is brilliant. I mean,
like there's people who need help.How many contractor scams are out there,

(07:30):
how many people who have had evena reasonable contractor just not do a
good job, and they're that,you know, about the money they spend
is actually really really not paying back. But there's some new stats about home
improvement projects, and Americans since COVIDhave been spending like more and more on
home improvement projects. Like four hundredand fifty billion dollars this year is what
Americans are are spending. And soit turns out though almost none of those

(07:54):
things, A lot of us talkabout investing in our home and that's just
the wrong terminology to you. Spendingmoney to enjoy your home more is fine,
but the statistics show that, like, it's not a good investment.
Almost nothing that you do to yourhome with the rare exception and the only
things that were like positive in newstats from ZOMDA were updating your garage door
and your front door. I guessthere's so much curb appeal like things.

(08:18):
That's it. That's it. Howabout the old saw that certainly swimming pools
don't you don't get money out ofthat. But bathrooms and kitchens are a
good investment, especially if you're talkingabout old stuff. So okay, that
that is kind of sort of closerto maybe it's not as bad of a
spend as some of the other thingsthat you might do. But like the

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stats found that a minor kitchener modelmight help you boost reselle value a little
bit, but it's it's not goingto like pay off in some major way
that you think the other thing istoo. If you are handy, you
have the skills, you can diiysome of the stuff. I have a
friend who's like just redone two bathroomsin his house. He's going to come
out ahead because it's labor that isso dang expensive, and that's what's going

(09:03):
to come back to bite you.If the bathroom costs eight thousand dollars in
materials but then twenty five thousand dollarsin labor, well, if you're doing
a lot of the labor yourself,you're going to come out ahead. But
if you're paying someone else to doit, well, the new buyer might
see those new countertops and say,actually, I'm more of a fan of
like woodblock countertops or something, andI'm going to rip that granted out anyway.
So yeah, I think it dependson how outdated your home is,

(09:26):
depends on what updates need to bemade, But there are ways. I
think the spice your home up withoutspending a bundle if you're going to list
it on the market, but justgo into it eyes wide open as well.
Like if you want to do homerenovations because you've got the money and
you want your home to be nicerfor you, that's one thing, But
don't necessarily do it because you thinkit's going to make you a bundle.
Okay, And I like the ideaof remodeling your bathroom on your own because

(09:48):
you're such a good plumber, electrician, drywall installer of baths tubs. No,
I get that a lot of people, Oh buy my friend, I
would not forget. Let's not forgetdoing your own major surgery too, so
you don't have to pay the surgeon. See, now you're onto something exactly,
And then you're right. I meanthe contractor. My best friend,

(10:09):
Saville lives in Las Vegas, boughta home and he got ripped off by
two contractors. And that's a wholeanother one. And Dean helps with that
in terms of how to find adecent contractor. But I'm assuming that the
reason that there's so much remodeling goingon is you're crazy to sell your house
when you're sitting on two point sevenpercent mortgage interest payments. I mean,

(10:33):
it makes no sense to get ridof your house just exactly right, So
you're gonna live there forever and you'regonna put money into it, and okay,
you're gonna just do it. I'mremodeling my house that I just bought,
and it is not for the purposeof resale. It is I'm just
gonna have to spend the money becauseI want to spend the money. And
I think that's a perfectly fine useof your money. If you have saved

(10:56):
and you have the cash, like, go for it. But a lot
of people are using like home equityat higher rates. Be careful about that,
and then yeah, just just realizethat, hey, this is for
personal enjoyment. And you're right tooabout people. Hey I've got this three
percent mortgage. I'm not moving anytimesoon. But let's say think about young
families wherever you have a couple extrakids and now you're like, where am
I going to stick these kids.It is easier for a lot of people

(11:18):
to add on to their home thanit is financially speaking, than it is
to buy the bigger house, becausewith prices and rates, it's just ultimately
going to be a less expensive proposition. Yeah, And the reason I'm remodeling
is I'm not particularly interested in leavingmoney to my kids. I'd rather spend
it on me. I mean,I can see myself on my deathbed with

(11:39):
my loved ones around me, andmy kids tapping their wristwatches and going out,
Come on, dad, let's bethis thing up just what I need
in life. So, I meanall of that makes sense, all right,
So this Sunday from twelve to twopm, how to money? By
the way, do you know whatyou're talking what you plan your show in
advance? This far in advance,So what you're going to talk about on

(12:01):
Sunday? Yeah, I know afair amount of things, like but like
in some of these topics that wejust talked about, I'll delve into a
little bit more. I want totalk about the kind of four one ky
mistake. I want to talk abouta little bit more in depth about you
know, home reunnos and how muchis going to cost you and how to
think about home renovations. But Idon't play in everything event, so oh
something else. I want to talkabout how much it costs you to stream
NFL games? Now because of likenow there's like a million different streaming providers

(12:26):
that like the Netflix has the ChristmasGames now and stuff like that. So
I don't know, I'm gonna tryto convince people to stop loving the NFL
on Sunday. Yeah, well allthe sports, the national the MLB package,
which is hundreds of dollars, andyeah, it's gotten crazy. And
the cost I mean, we'll dothat too. I mean, just the
cost of streaming today. I mean, I don't even want to look at

(12:46):
how many hundreds of dollars I spendon streaming, Joel. That's per month,
by the way, all right,Joel, twelve to two pm coming
up this Sunday. We will talkagain now the pandemic and how it has
changed everything, and the Internet andhow it has changed everything. So you
put those two together and how ithas changed everything squared. Okay, First

(13:11):
of all, of course, youknow that the Internet is probably going to
go down as one of the greatadvances in the history of mankind. And
I'm talking about the level of controllingfire in the cave man days and the
invention of the wheel or the creationof the wheel, and the printing press.
I mean, it's just really big, big stuff, and the Internet

(13:31):
is right there. What's interesting,there were millions of years between the first
and the second, there were tensof thousands of years between the second and
the third, and now it's aboutfifty sixty years between the third and the
fourth, the fourth being ai.I mean, that's how rapidly life is

(13:54):
changing. So we take what's happeningwith the pandemic and how it has changed
every in terms of how we workand how we go to school and how
we socialize, and how do wedo therapy. And I don't know how
many people are involved in therapy.I've been in therapy most of my adult

(14:15):
life. I just got fired bymy therapist, by the way, just
to let you know, legitimately,because I am being Jewish, I am
full of Jewish guilt. Someone oncetold me that I am a gold medalist
in every single Jewish Guilt Olympics.And someone just described it perfectly to me,
someone else saying, my mother wasa travel agent for the Jewish guilt

(14:41):
vacations that I take. So I'vebeen in therapy for a very long time.
By the way, it doesn't help. It doesn't help because my therapist
said there's nothing I can do foryou anymore. I mean, you're gonna
have to live with this. Justsuck it up, enjoy yourself. Okay.
So, over the years that I'vebeen in therapy, it was always
in person, always, because that'show you did therapy. And then COVID

(15:03):
hit and so I started going online. And then COVID was over. And
guess what, I'm still doing iton Zoom. Why because I'm not driving,
I'm not parking, I'm not ina waiting room, I'm not driving
back. I mean, if Ihave fifty minutes of therapy, it's fifty

(15:24):
minutes, not an hour and ahalf or hour forty five or two hours
if you're driving half an hour eachway, and it's even more than that.
So this makes so much sense.And Americans are getting to the point
now where the vast, vast majorityare is done online. The therapist that

(15:45):
I've gone to, I think shehas one patient that now comes in the
rest of us are online. Sheworks from her house. I do therapy
for my house, and it's justa much easier way of doing it.
I thought it wasn't going to workvery well well during COVID when we had
no choice. I thought being there, there'd be a huge difference because not

(16:07):
only do you have a space wherethe two of you are together, but
also you have hand motions, andthere's just something about being in person,
which of course you can't match beingon zoom or an internet call, a
video call. However, how aboutyou have ninety or ninety five percent of
what you have and you look atthe benefits versus the hassle and what Americans

(16:33):
are doing, well, guess whatit is. It's no issue. Also,
just therapy in general has gone upbig time. Why well, because
COVID made people very own, verylonely, having all kinds of psychological problems.
Because we are heard, we havea herd mentality. We have to

(16:55):
be among people. That's simply theway we are wired the DNA in human
beings is that we want to bearound other human beings. And we didn't
get that. So a lot ofit, a lot of people went into
therapy, and guess what, lonelinesscontinued. It's a very different world.

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Job security hasn't existed for a verylong time. It's just not easy to
be around relative to what it wasfifty sixty years ago. I mean,
life used to be a lot simpler. It was a lot easier. I
mean, I've been around around longenough where I mean, I was in
grammar school in the fifties and wehad drop drills, you know, just

(17:38):
in case an earthquake hit. Todayit's active shooter drills. I mean,
come on, you know, imaginewhat kids are going through. So you're
going to see a lot more peoplein the therapy. And therapy has exploded,
and therapy has exploded on the Internet, making it easier. And as

(17:59):
you know, I spend most ofmy therapy time at at Costco. I
switch from a therapist to going toCostco three times a week. I walk
around for an hour, you know, fight in my Costco. There's a
lot of Koreans, the ones Igo to, and I'm always fighting them
to see who gets in line firstfor the samples of chicken nuggets. And
it's always a huge fight. It'sreally fun. They're screaming at me in

(18:23):
Korean. I'm screaming at them,and it's just hugely entertaining. Here's the
problem is I paid hundreds of dollarsan hour for therapy. I spend hundreds
of dollars an hour at Costco.But at least I have something to show
for it. I come back witha twenty five pound bag of rice twice

(18:44):
a week. You just see mygarage. It's you want some rice,
I can give it to you ata really good price. All right,
it is time for Earlier with MoKelly Moe heard every night, Later with
Mo Kelly tonight and all weekend nightseven to ten pm. He's at mister
Moe Kelly mo. Hello, goodmorning, Good morning Bill. How you

(19:10):
doing, my friend? I'm allright, I'm all right, can't complain.
All right. Now, let's getinto sports, which we usually don't
get into because it's not my wheelhousecertainly, but it's something. This is
an interesting crossover here, and thishas to be with Caitlin Caitlin Clark and

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the fact television is now going tobe involved, and how responsible she is
and how big TV is going tobe with women's basketball. And then I'm
gonna make as soon as you finishthis thought, I'm gonna make I'm gonna
give you a quote from the headof women's basketball. Sure, Caitlin Clark
has given the WNBA a level ofvisibility never seen before. There is an

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ESPN TV deal where you'll see alot of the Indiana her team's games.
There's a CBS deal in which stilltelevise most of the games. There is
the on ground effect where Kitlin Clarkas a visiting player visiting arenas. Those
arenas have sold out. Last night'sgame in Seattle had an attendance to sell
out of attendance of more than eighteenthousand people. So it's helping on the

(20:18):
local level as far as the individualteams in their arenas, and is also
helping helping on the national the brandlevel, advertising television deals and merchandising.
All right, and with that,let's talk about and I couldn't even believe
that this was true, that shecomes aboard as the number one pick in

(20:38):
the WNBA and she got a bigI think her annual salary is three hundred
and eighty thousand dollars a year asthe best most famous player in the entire
league relative to what was the numberone pick last year in the NBA got

(20:59):
forty four million billion dollars or whateverto come aboard. And does that make
any sense at this point? Itmakes perfect sense. Let me correct you.
First, her salaries in three hundredand eighty thousand, it's about seventy
five thousand. That three hundred andeighty thousand was for the life of the
contract. All of these contracts,the rookie pay scale is relative to their
cbas their collective bargating agreements, andyou as a litigator and attorney can appreciate

(21:22):
this. These are collectively bargained betweenthe players, union and the owners.
That money pie has to do withrevenue sharing, and so with the bigger
the pie, there are more moneywhich is available to be shared to the
players. To WNBA had been runningin the red for the nine of the
past ten years, usually at aten million dollars loss, and was being

(21:42):
subsidized by the NBA. Much smallerpie for there to be separated for money
for the players. But now goingback to Caitlin Clark, because of these
new TV deals and greater interest inthe league, the next collective bargaining agreement,
which I think is going to berenegotiated next year, will be a
larger piece of the pie. Andlet's not forget the w excuse me,

(22:03):
the NBA, they've had labor disagreementsover the past thirty forty years. They've
had lockouts, they've had strikes.They've had all sorts of labor stripes and
players had to fight for what they'regetting right now. It's not the owners
arbitrarily paying players. Okay, Soa couple of comments. First of all,
the negotiation, the collective bargain negotiation. That's a minimum. And so

(22:27):
in the NBA there is a minimum. In baseball, there is a minimum.
In football, there is a minimum. And I don't know how many
players are only played the minimum.You know, I don't think that you've
got brand new quarterbacks coming out thathave been selected or top of the line
linemen getting paid minimum. So that'snumber one. Number two, And this

(22:49):
is a quote from the head ofthe NBA, and it actually parrots what
you say. Football and basketball men'shave been around for sixty eighty years and
there is a history there which doesn'texist with the NBA, and it's just
a question now of time and itwill get there. You agree with that

(23:10):
absolutely. If you look at thehistory of the NBA. When Magic Johnson
and Larry Bird both came into theleague in the nineteen seventy nine season,
the NBA was very much where theWNBA is right now. They didn't have
the national TV deal. In fact, they were showing the finals to Championships
at night tape delay at eleven o'clockon CBS. There was really no interest

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that the arena has only had maybeseven to ten thousand people. It almost
mirrors where the WNBA is now.But like Bird and Magic when they came
into the league, Caitlin Clark hasrenewed the interest in the league and can
expand the television footprint and this willfundamentally change how much money is available for
all players going forward and for her. Her endorsement deals are already in the

(23:55):
millions, several millions of dollars ayear, which she obviously deserves. So
all right, mo as always,thank you, I will you will catch
you what tonight from seven o'clock toten. Yes, all right, before
I get out of here, Iam taking a handle on the law phone
calls. I'm going to give youmarginal legal advice for your marginal legal questions

(24:17):
off the air, and I'll startjust in a moment or two, and
I'll do it for half an houror more and if you have a question,
and sometimes you can't get in onSaturday, sometimes we're jammed for several
hours. So now is the time. If you have a question, and
I go through them very quickly becausethere are no commercials, and you know
I'm known as mister Patience. Thephone number is eight seven seven five to

(24:37):
zero eleven fifty. Eight seven sevenfive to zero eleven fifty, and you
can call right now and still listento KFI right there on the phone while
you're waiting. Tomorrow morning wake upcall with Amy King and the rest of
us come aboard from six to nineo'clock eight seven seven five to zero eleven
fifty. This is kf I Amsix forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.

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You've been listening to the Bill HandleShow. Catch My Show Monday through
Friday six am to nine am,and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.