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 more people wanting to retire early, spending more money to have more friends, and the definition of inflation changing. Even advertisers are telling you to get off your phone. Host of ‘Later with Mo Kelly’ closes the Bill Handel Show talking about  the terrible ‘Furiosa’ box office puts brakes on the next ‘Mad Max’ movie.

Episode Transcript

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You're listenings kf I AM six fortythe Bill Handle Show on demand on the
iHeartRadio app. You are listening tothe Bill Handle Show. And this is
KFI AM six forty Bill Handle.Here. It is a Thursday morning,

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May thirtieth, and the big newsis we are looking at day two of
the deliberations of the jurors in theHushmany trial. Donald Trump and the jurors
have asked for testimony to be weread to them. Actually at this point
Picker's testimony who owns the National Inquirer, Which is kind of weird because the

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defense said this is totally unimportant,none of that matters. It's they're just
throwing stuff and the jury's going,oh no, no, we want to
look at it. Which is kindof interesting. Also, Michael Cohens some
of his testimony has to be reread. The jury wants so kind of kind
of interesting stuff. We'll see wherethe jury goes. No one has any
Yeah, what juries do and what'simportant to a jury? Okay. Joe

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Larsgard How to Money, Sunday twelveto two pm. He's at How to
Money. Joel. Good Morning,Joel, Morning, Bill. Oh,
we just talked about retirement the lastsegment. And there are people who want
to retire early early, which Iguess it depends on how what kind of

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time you want to spend, howmuch you like your job. There are
people that put a calendar the daythey're going to retire, so it's it's
a different world. But retiring earlyis not an easy thing. You don't
get social security, pensions don't buildvery quickly because it's the end. The
last five years is really when pensionsbuild. So people want to do it.

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Is it easier to do it?Well, that's a good question.
I do think it's easier than everbefore, right because we live in a
country where it's possible to make alot of money and live frugally, and
you can, more than ever beforein human history, retire earlier than ever.
And retirement, when we're talking aboutthat, it's still, let's be

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honest, a fairly new concept.It's not something that's been around for like
a thousand years. It's really somethingthat's been around for like one hundred years.
And so even when we talk aboutretirement, like I think we've started
to think about oh sixty five,I'm going to retire, I'm going to
move to the beach. I'm goingto live thirty years on this nest egg.
I've been able to build up inmy working lifetime. But the way

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everything about retirement has changed significantly.That is, in some ways it's easier,
in some ways it's harder. Itdepends on what you're doing with the
income that you got coming in.There are some people who like the Fire
movement you've heard about that financial independence, retire early. Some people are like,
I want to retire when I'm likethirty eight, and that's incredibly difficult
to do. But it's interesting.There was a study that said that more
and more people are planning on retiringat like sixty two, So it's early,

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but it's not like Fire early,and I think that's kind of cool.
I don't have any problem with peopleaiming for that, But like you
said, you've got to like planahead, and you've got to be saving
and investing more over those working yearsso you can actually pull that off.
Yeah, And the other question Ihave, let's say you have enough money
to retire. Now you've got todeal with inflation and also vagaries of the

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stock market if you've invested primarily inthe stock market, and unless you have
a pension that has a cost ofliving index a COLA, which keeps up
with inflation. It just go Ifinflation goes up three percent, you get
three percent more. You know,you retire ten years from now, you're
screwed. Yeah, and yeah.That's the thing is if you, let's

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say, retired in twenty nineteen,and you weren't planning ahead and you didn't
have enough flexibility built into your retirementplan, you're sitting there scrouching. You're
saying, do I need to goback to work because it's inflation. It's
killing you know, it's killing me. I don't know if I'll be able
to actually afford this, especially ifyour investments now are in something a whole
lot more conservative and you're not necessarilyseeing the gains of the overall stock market.
So you're right, you got tobe really careful. You got to

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think about that stuff. The otherreally tough thing for so many people,
and it depends on what your jobwas. I mean, let's say you
were a teacher and you were retiringearly, or you worked and you were
in the military or something like that, and you've got health care for the
rest of your life guaranteed that's onething. But for a lot of people
who have to go out there andbuy their own health care plan for at
least those years until they actually reachfull retirement age, they could find themselves

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in a tough spot with really,you know, an incredibly expensive monthly line
eine and budget that is hard toIt's hard to fork over that much money
every month. I guess. Theother thing some fire people do is because
yeah, they might have a massivenest egg, but their income looks relatively
small every year, and because ofthat, they qualify for some of those
subsidies on the healthcare exchange. Soit's kind of like you're playing a game

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here, but you got to makesure you're playing the game and you know
all the rules. Well yeah,well, first of all, sixty five
medical kicks in, so we're mediccarekicks in, So that helps on the
health insurance issue. And the otherthing is I have spent a lot of
time, a lot of time dealingwith my retirement. It's just something that

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I'm crazy about and I am goingto retire when I do, and I
will have enough money to live comfortably. But my pension is defined, which
means it's not going to go up. I have equities which go up and
down, and am I looking atten twelve years from my retirement literally applying

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in McDonald's. So I can say, do you want to supersize that?
In FARSI? I mean, isthat what the world is? I will
say, you have to be flexible. And there's there's a typical how much
people are wondering how much do Ineed to save to retire? And there's
all these complex formulas. I thinkthe simplest one is twenty five times you're

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spending. So if you, let'ssay you spend fifty grand in a year,
you need twenty five x that youneed to save up that much money
in your retirement account. But you'reright, you also have to. I
think it's wise to have even moreflexibility than that, because you just say,
wait, wait, wait, didyou just say twenty five times more
your income that you need that youspend, not your income more than what
you spend. Think about that.If you spend fifty thousand dollars a year,

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yep, that means twenty five timesfifty that's right, Yeah, that's
how many millions of dollars? Isthat? Well? No, that would
be what one point two million dollars. Yeah, I'm going to go with
Joel on the math. Yeah,one point twenty five mili. Yeah,
so it's how it's insane. Well, yeah, no, people make fifty

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thousand dollars a year or have toretire fifty thousand dollars a year. How
many people are able to put awayone point two million dollars after taxes,
right, which I guess speaks tokind of this this poll and people saying,
hey, I want to retire atsixty two, and for a lot
of people, that's pie in thesky because they haven't been saving fifteen plus
percent and investing in socking that awayand growing it over more couple decades.

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A lot of people don't start investinguntil they're like mid forties or something like
that. And so I love theidea of people being able to retire early.
It's just you're making a lot ofsacrifices to get there. In those
extra few working years, Like yousaid, like, they're going to pad
you out and so you can actuallyget healthcare and retirement. They're going to
also allow you to continue to increasewhat you're going to be able to get
in social security because the longer youdelay that Social Security the bigger the check

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is going to be. So theother thing is you just have to be
flexible too, because sometimes people getto choose when they retire, other times
they don't. Right. It couldbe something that happens with your boss,
in your industry, it could besomething that happens with your health. So
oversaving is always a smart move,all right, Joel, this is an
interesting one, and you brought thisone up, and the topic is do

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you need to spend more to havemore friends? Let's start with I don't
know how to have friends without buyingfriends. Yeah, so you know people
have to resort to that. Yeah, I'm pretty much one of them.
Oh yeah, oh yeah, myfriends like me because I well basically I
buy them. But that is avery interesting point. You have to spend

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more to have more friends? AndI don't even know where you go with
this one, so you just takeit from here. Well, there's like
a classy and a classless way todo this, I think, And I'm
not sure which route you're taking personally, But there's this article in the Wall
Street Journal about how people feel likethey have to spend money in order to
have friends these days, and we'reliving in this time where I don't know,

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everything's called a crisis. I don'tknow if it's really a crisis or
not. But we're living in atime where people have fewer friends, they
have fewer connections, those sort ofthe relational outlets seem to be shut down
for a lot of people. There'sa lot people feel a lot lonelier than
they have historically. When you askpeople like how many friends they have that
used to be something like on averagethree point eight good friends that you could

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turn to in a crisis, andnow it's like one point six or something
like that. It's been it's likefriendship has been demolished in this country.
And so I think people think thathaving memberships to certain places it's what's going
to create that community that they feellike they're lacking. And so people are
saying, listen, I got tojoin this expensive CrossFit, Jim, because
that's where I'm going to find mycommunity. And it's two hundred bucks a

(09:09):
month or something like that, whichis insane. But it's fine. If
you love working out and cross it'syour thing and you've budgeted for it.
I've got no problem with that.But I think just to assume that you
have to pay and you have tobuy expensive memberships in order to be able
to develop meaningful friendships. That seemsnot necessary to me. A lot of

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it has to do We've talked aboutthis over and over again. Certainly we
know the reasons why it's so difficultto make friends or why they're so few
friends. You look at COVID,which of course everybody was inside for two
years. You look at the Internet, how people don't interact anymore. It's
all done via zoom business wise,and it's hard to make friendships at the

(09:54):
office if you're not there the watercooler, although I don't know anybody who
has water coolers anymore. And itsays so they are all the good reasons,
and I would think trying to youknow, there's something where you can
make some money. It's basically yourversion of the Dale Carnegie course how to
influence people and make friends, orhow to make friends and influence people.

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Yeah, instead of tender for likea dating relationship, tender for friendship,
right, yeah, something like that. I mean, I would think people
are starved for that. Go ahead, Well, I was just gonna say,
I think there's a lot of waysthat you can sort of take the
reins back a little bit, becauseyou're right, like, there are have
been a lot of things working againstus in recent years, kind of leading
to that demise of friendship. I'mnot I don't necessarily want to castigate people

(10:37):
who find themselves lonely, or Ijust want to say I think there are
good, healthy ways to do thisthat aren't going to cost you a ton
of money. There's a website calledmeetup dot com and you can type in
your zip code and you can findthings happening locally near you. I think
outdoorsy stuff is a great way tomeet people and you don't have to be
like the fittest person in the world. But like, there's this there's a
hiking group that I'm a part of, and it's it starts digitally like it's

(11:00):
on Facebook, but it's people whoare like, Okay, cool, this
weekend, we're going to go hikethis, or we're going to go walk
this neighborhood, and it starts they'redoing it regularly, and it's it doesn't
cost a time, and you're goingto develop some relationships that way. I
think actually another interesting way that peopledon't often think about that leads to meaningful
friendships is serving somewhere. So findinga nonprofit that you can plug into something
where you can serve other people alongsidepeople who care about the same thing as

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you, and that automatically like sparkssomething for a lot of people. So
there are ways to do this whereyou don't have to have some expensive membership
join a fancy art class or somethinglike that just to meet friends. Hey,
Joe without spending Joel, can youexplain to handle what caring and serving
it? Yeah, I don't quiteunderstand that. You know, somehow joining

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groups of people that help others getI don't get that. How does that
work? It's it's it's very dissimilarfrom like running them off the road in
your car or something like that.Yeah, it's typically where you care about
it. There's something happening in thecommunity that's meaningful to you, and you
say I'm going to participate in thatand I don't need to even get paid
for it. Yeah, I meanit. And I've seen you know as
I choose out as no No.As I said earlier, I have over

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the years been involved in many charities, usually as an MC or speaking and
I usually give charities at about atwenty percent break than my normal appearance fee.
And I see people there who areI mean, they're they're tight.
They really enjoy what they do helpingpeople. It's a really interesting dynamic that

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makes the friendships even stronger because they'redoing something that is valuable in helping people,
because more selfless exactly, I thinkthat really does create bonds. Yeah,
again, I don't understand that atall. All right, Joel twelve
to two every Sunday, including thisSunday and the address how to Money,
How to Money Joel at How toMoney, Joel, Joel, thank you

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and we'll talk again. Thanks Bill, okay before mo Kelly comes aboard,
and I'm mostly taking phone calls alsoafter the show for Handle on the Law.
Off the air, there is thishappens and Neil always talks about this
in the restaurant fast food business wherethey come up with these I think bonehead

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promos just to get some press,just to get some excitement going. So
Heineken the beer company introduce what itcalls the boring phone, a cell phone,
a flip to answer phone, keypad, flashlight, FM radio, low
resolution camera, and that's basically it. Why because they want you, And

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this is the whole premise in thisworld. What they want you to do
is not spend a great deal oftime on the internet. They want you
to be you and have more socialinteraction. But wait a minute, you
do marketing on the internet, right, That's how you sell. I mean
there are companies today that ninety percentof their budget is internet advertising. And

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by the way, Jose Quervo tequilabrand ran a sweep steakes last year for
its own dumb phones. There wasa Super Bowl ad this year by Squarespace,
the ad company. And imagine whatwould happen if nobody noticed an alien
arrival because humanity wouldn't look up fromfrom its screens. Neil, you've talked

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a lot about these would appear tobe ridiculous, ridiculous campaigns that just go
off in weird directions. Does itwork in the fast food industry? Does
it work in the food industry ingeneral? And the manufactured food too,
production food? I think you're gettingto the point where it if you're that
attached to your phone, then you'renot going to buy the things that you

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do when you live life. Soit's like, hey, you got You're
not going to buy more underwear.If you're sitting in the same pair watching
television or being on your phone,that maybe they're just saying, hey,
you got to get up and yougot to get out. And they're also
riding the wave as all advertisers andmarketers do. And the wave right now
is a slow but steady rejection oftech and getting out, being social again

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and connecting with people. Yeah,the tech companies are saying, don't use
our products. Get to a stagewhere you're actually talking to people. What
is it? The OPO, aChinese electronics firm, ran a campaign all
across Asia said put your phones downat the dinner table as opposed to use

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your phones. It's wonderful. Whatit basically is is companies are admitting that
life is crap and they're saying,don't use our product. They're not going
we are fantastic. Use our productbecause we are fantastic and you'll feel fantastic.
It's we recognize that life is basicallycrap, so take it easy,
recognize it, and we're going tomake it easy by giving you a crappier

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phone where you can't go on theinternet, a phone where you have a
crappy camera where you really don't wantto take pictures. Totally counterintuitive. Now,
is it gonna work? I thinkit will, and I think it's
part of something that bigger. Youremember in Silence of the Lambs, what
was her name, Christina or Christinathe captor or the capture, the girl

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that they kept using her name tomake her more human to the killer.
And we have gotten so technology based. Yeah, that was the guy who
kept the gal in the puts thelotion on her skin. Or if because
we don't we don't connect with anybodywe stopped. We don't go into the

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bank because there's the ATM. Wedon't go into the gas station because you
can do everything right there at thepump. As we continue to desocialize from
human contact, you see things likehit and runs up. We don't personalize
humans any more. They're attached tosomething. There's somebody that we connect with
only digitally. The friendships are nottrue friendships. There everything is so so

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different and disconnected. I think thatultimately, if we don't get back to
that, that's what's going to makecrime go down, which is having connection.
Having to understand that and no,we understand that big picture, but
it's fascinating these internet companies are tellingyou don't use the internet because you still
have to be human to buy humanthings. And once you start getting away

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from our natural patterns, then youstart losing money as well. You don't
go to work, so you don'tbuy clothes. You don't go to work,
so you don't put gas in thecar. You don't, you don't.
If you don't have connections and sociability, it will ultimately hurt them.
And they know that. And bythe way, when's the last time you
saw anybody at a gas station availableto pump gas? It's the guy not

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in California, you have to Telifornia. It's a guy sitting in that little
market thing who doesn't speak a wordof English, and you the credit card
here, you just do that atthe pump. I mean, you don't
even talk to anybody. You're absolutelyright. Okay, that's it, just
real quickly. A story that I'veoften told. I came home years ago
and my kids were a lot younger, and they're sitting on the couch and

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they're texting, and I said,what's going on? We're talking to each
other. They were six feet apart, And I said, to Barbara,
who's on the right. Why don'tyou just put your head left and talk
to your sister? And Pamela,why don't you just turn your head right
and talk to your sister. Theydidn't know what I was talking about it

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They talked by text six feet aparton the couch. Welcome to the world.
Okay, okay, since it's Thursday, we end the show with Mo
Kelly. He's hosted Later with MoKelly Monday through Friday seven to ten pm.
His social address at mister Mo Kelly. And this segment cleverly entitled Earlier

(18:59):
with Kelly. And in case youdidn't understand that, it's really a takeoff
because his his show is Later withmost Kelly. You see how that works
Later and then Earlier Mo. Thanksfor explaining that to me the first time
out. Okay, You're most welcome, Bill, Good morning, good morning.
Okay. I love stories like thiswhere you have a fairly big budget

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movie that doesn't make six dollars,and that is Furiosa, which I haven't
seen, and this is connected actuallyput the brakes on the next Mad Max
movie. So let's talk about that. Lay it out and let's I want
your input on this. Furiosa isthe prequel to Mad Max Fury Road,

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which came out about seven eight yearsago. Mad Max Fury Road brought in
three hundred and eighty million dollars,so there were high expectations around this movie.
This movie, though, doesn't haveany of the same actors as mad
Max fury Road, Matt Max furyRoad, Tom Hardy, and Charlie Stirone.
In this movie, which is aprequel, you had Anya Taylor Joy

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who wasn't even in half of themovie actually, and Chris Hemsworth. And
it came in over the Memorial Dayweekend with about sixty eight million against one
hundred and sixty eight million dollar budget, which was abominable dismal in nature,
but it was also dismal with respectto the larger box office of the weekend.

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None of the movies did well.Hey, so let me ask you.
One hundred and sixty eight million dollarbudget, and that's not even considered.
That's not even a megabudget film anymore, is it's. Yeah, No,
it's on the high end, butit's not an out of the world
that can't believe how much money theyspent like Water World money. No,
it's not in the two hundred totwo hundred and fifty million dollar range,

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which we will see rather routine lely. Yeah, which is completely crazy.
I mean, I can't even beginto understand how much that much money is
the movie furiosa. Is is itbecause a Mad Max franchise is sort of
worn through, it's seen, itstays, it's done, Or is the
movie itself just god awful? Oris it a combination? I would say

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d none of the above. Ithink it is so niche. You have
to be a Mad Max fan.You have to be able to know and
understand the George Miller universe that hecreated, and I think that's very niche.
And then you have the fact thatyou don't have any of the original
actors. You don't have a MelGibson, you don't even have any of
the original actors from Mad Max FuryRoad for the newer generation Tom Hardy charlist

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their own. There's no point ofcontact, there's no real poll. You
don't have the same affinity for thefranchise that you would if you are a
longtime Mad Max fan like me,or someone who is just a fan of
Fury Road. When you talk abouta niche a niche audience, I mean
Mad Max is or was at leasta franchise. I mean, there was

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nothing niche about the audience. Whenyou're talking three four hundred million dollars a
box office, that's not exactly niche. I would disagree in this sense when
you talk about Mad Max as inthirty years ago, maybe Beyond Thunderdome with
Tina Turner, or forty years agothe Road Warrior Mad Max. Excuse me,
Mel Gibson was a worldwide star.This generation has no connection to that,

(22:19):
and so Mad Max Jury Road wasa rebirth in many instances where you
brought back the character, but youdidn't bring back the actor. And this
type of action there really it's nota lot of CGI special effects. It's
practical effects. It's great stunt work. It's visually beautiful. But I don't
know to how many people it reallywould appeal over the age of forty five

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if you don't have Mel Gibson.All right, Emo, thank you,
I'm sure you're gonna pick that uptonight, shot at at ten pm.
All right, both take care,have a good one. All right bye,
that's it. We're done, guys. Do we go again tomorrow with
a wake up call? Amy andthe rest of us here until nine o'clock,
which is just about now. Also, I am taking phone calls for

(23:04):
Handle on the Law off the air, and I go through them very quickly,
because you know, first of all, there's no breaks, and second
of all, mister patients, Idon't have a lot of it, so
a lot of phone calls happen veryquickly. So the number right now eight
seven seven five to two zero elevenfifty eight seven seven five two zero eleven

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fifty. This is Handle on.No, it's not Handle on the loss,
not handle on the news. Thisis hang on a minute. I'm
gonna read it right here here.It is KFI AM six forty live everywhere
on the iHeartRadio app. You've beenlistening to the Bill Handle Show. Catch
my Show Monday through Friday six amto nine am, and anytime on demand

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on the iHeartRadio app.