February 20, 2025 • 21 mins
Host of ‘How to Money’ Joel Larsgaard joins the show to discuss longer commutes equal more fast food being consumed, the real estate market showing signs of calming down, and the ‘unlimited vacation’ perk. Dairy milk consumption has been declining over the past few decades, but that trend is shifting. Host of ‘Later with Mo Kelly’ on KFI joins the show to talk about Pixar debuting its first ever original animated series ‘Win or Lose.’
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
KFI AM six forty bill Handle. It is a Thursday morning,
February twentieth. As we're looking at a whole bunch of
stories coming up here that we're living at internationally. The
bodies of four Israeli hostages held in Gaza have been
returned as part of the hostage exchange. Israeli hands over
live Palestinians and Hamas hands over dead Israeli's boy, how's
(00:29):
that for a deal? Huh? And particularly really really heart
wrenching is three of them that were handed over, Sherry Bibus,
who is thirty two, and her sons Ariel and Kafir
four and nine months, four years old in nine months. Wonderful. Huh.
All right, let's get let me get you even more depressed.
(00:51):
It's time for how to Money with Joel Larsgard. Joel
heard every Sunday from twelve to two pm right here
on KFI and his address is a social dress at
how to Money Joel, Joel, a statement that you gave
me longer commutes equal more fast food consumed. Not only
did I find that to be true, but I'm also
(01:13):
going to give you the inverse, shorter commutes, more fast
food consumed. I just do it faster, that's all. I
just don't chew as much. But that translates into money.
This is where we're now going in your wheelhouse. Tell
me about that.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Yeah, I mean so it was. First of all, it
was kind of fascinating.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
And when you think about when you look at the
ratings of different cities in the United States and you say,
where are the worst commute times? Well, Los Angeles is
always like super high up there. It's like it's top
three in basically everywhere you look, usually second or first,
and the longer your commute is at some point you
get hungry in that commute, and the knee jerk response
(01:54):
is to go get yourself some fast food. I was
just talking to Kno about this. He's like, man, I
got these incredibly long commutes. Yeah, sometimes I do pop
off and I get a snack or I ate dinner
on the way home, and I think that that is
one we know that fast food is typically not very
healthy for you, but then it's that knee jerk reaction
to get fast food. It adds up in your budget too,
(02:16):
and fast food isn't nearly as cheap as it used
to be, So I think if you have a long commute,
there are ways to plan for that. This sounds like
super micro small time, but the reality is it's all
these small things that we spend money on. They add
up into meaningful dollars in our budget. And if we're
eating fast food four or five times a week because
our commute is terrible, it's just going to be bad
(02:37):
for our bodies and bad for our wallets.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
You know, when you talk about budgeting and nobody really budgets,
I'm talking about micro budgeting the way you're talking about,
and I think the way that you're promoting there is
a friend of mine told me about this. There's a
program called Monarch out there. I'm not pitching one or
the other. Oh yeah, yeah, but it's free. I think
(03:00):
you download it and it you put everything every dime
you spend, and over the course of a couple of months,
you'll see instantly what you are spending where, why, when,
what time of the day, how much, And now you're
looking at the ability to really really pay attention to
your budgeting, and you're right at the end of the
(03:21):
at the end of the day, man, I threw away
one hundred and thirteen dollars this month, threw it away, well.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Not directly in the trash. I hope, I hope you
spend it on something.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
Yeah, well, yeah, a burger right, yeah, yeah, well okay,
So I one, I'm a big fan of Monarch Money.
I love what they do and the you know, Mint
was kind of the og finance app, but that went
away and they stopped offering free robust essentially budget planning,
and somebody who used to work at Mint started Monarch
(03:55):
and they've done a really, really good job. It probably
is the best kind of tracking and budget software in existence.
So I do think, yeah, if you're like having trouble
figuring out where's all my money going, plugging all your
accounts into Monarch can give you that visualization and it
can help you then know where to cut. And so
when you look at something We've talked about this in
the past. Build just how we used to spend as
(04:16):
Americans more money at the grocery store than we spent
eating out. But after COVID, that's changed, and we spend
more money eating out than we do buying groceries. And yes,
everything's more expensive at the grocery store. But things have
gotten even more expensive at restaurants, and so if we
just eat out less, it's one of those things that
we might be able to meet some of those other
financial goals that we have, or spend on other things
(04:37):
that we care about even more. But it's that sort
of thoughtless consumption that we often do as humans. And
there is something about looking at the data and then
that allows us to make an informed decision to make
make a different choice.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Yeah, that we which Way Deli last night, and I
couldn't you look at at this and you shake your head,
you go, how could it cost this much? Shit? Neil
this morning talked about going into a subway sandwich shop
and you had two subway.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Three sandwiches, Joel, three foot long sandwiches, two bags of chips,
and a soda for the three of us my family
and it was like forty six bucks.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
Woo. Yeah, the five dollars foot long no longer in
a new sir.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Yeah. And the other thing about driving along way, I've
always had this question. I do not stop by fast
food establishment or go through the line and then start
eating in the car. I'll just get out of the car,
I'll park it out of the car and sit down
and eat there if I'm hungry. But I don't know
how people juggle a drink a sandwich talking to someone.
(05:45):
It's crazy how you do that? Who does that? Who
eats breakfast in the car?
Speaker 4 (05:49):
Do you?
Speaker 2 (05:51):
No?
Speaker 3 (05:51):
I certainly don't.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
And I think you're right, like this is a greater
chance for an accident and your insurance going up to
if you're trying to eat your Hamburger's into something and
then also drive where you're trying to go.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Yeah, I just don't understand that. But the price, as
you pointed out, I want to end it on this
note and then come back and we'll start talking about
the wal estate market a little bit. As you alluded to,
as crazy as the prices have gotten in the grocery store,
they have increased greater as a percentage in going out
to eat.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Is that correct? That's exactly right.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
Yeah, And so yeah, you think about the egg prices,
which you and I have talked about, or just really
anything at the grocery store. At coffee prices also have
gone up. But that means that the price of coffee,
going out to get coffee has gone up even more
than the price of the bag of coffee that you
get at the grocery store. So I think sometimes people say, oh,
it's too expensive at the grocery store, I'm just gonna
go get my coffee down the street. And then when
(06:43):
you do that, you're talking about an even more expensive
cup of coffee than if you brew it at home.
So it's you just kind of almost have to like
suck up those higher grocery store prices so you don't
suck up an even worse price hike by going.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Out to get that thing.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
And again, I'm not like anti coffee, I'm not anti avocado.
Put it in your budget, like enjoy those things. But
I think we as Americans, we've become whether it's buying
something on Amazon or getting fast food because we're stuck
in traffic a little longer than we'd hoped plan ahead,
bring yourself some pistachios in the car or something like that.
It's the knee jerk buys the purchases that we make
that tend to do us in and if we're just
(07:18):
not paying attention to that stuff, it really does add up.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Yeah, you know, real men do not eat a vocado toast.
I would never admit to that I don't personally, that's
my point. I think it's delicious. Yeah, that's exactly my point.
All right, fite you both, Yes, that's my point. Joel.
A little bit about the real estate market, and I
know it's showing a little bit of signs of calming down.
But before we start there, just a quick story in
(07:43):
terms of what I ended up buying. As you know,
I moved to Orange County and I bought a house
in Orange County and there was nothing out there, and
this place I was able to check off ninety percent
of the boxes that I wanted to check. I paid
full tilt, insane money, to the point where I was
(08:04):
nauseous when I put in the offer because there was
just nothing out there. I mean full full tilt, right,
I go, okay, I mean there's no way this that's it.
I paid the most year ever going to pay for
this place. It's gone up ten percent. Yeah, how it's impossible.
How is that possible? Sec our national debt? You know,
it's thirty four trillion dollars? How do you pay that off?
(08:25):
We never will, and it's gonna go up two trillion
dollars this year. Yeah, it's like just when you think
it can't go any further. It continues to go up. Yeah,
So so tell me what's going on with the market.
I mean, right now, I'm still reeling in terms of
the money that I paid for the house relatively what
it was six months ago or a year ago.
Speaker 4 (08:42):
Everybody knows that just kind of the cot what happened
during COVID just made people value their homes differently. And
would we talk about how much more expensive it got
to put in a pool and to renovate, and just
all the prices of homes themselves, and then the prices
of adding on to your home. It's just increased astronomically,
and everyone like, there's so much bullishness around real estate.
(09:06):
And I'm not saying that we're in for a real
estate collaps any time soon or anything like that, but
we are seeing at least the real estate market come
back to a place of a little more equilibrium. That
doesn't mean that there's more supply, right that there's tons
of homes for you to choose from, and we're in
this like buyer's market, but we have reached at least
a little bit of a stalemate where there.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
Are very few properties to pick from.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
But there are also very few buyers willing to pay
the price that people have attached to their homes now
they've gotten used to these higher prices, and they say, well,
my neighbor three doors down was able to get one
point two million for their house six months ago, so
I want one point three to five. Like they're assuming
that there's this just insane increase continuing to happen.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
And so what we're.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
Seeing is more homes lingering longer on the market and
even to the point where we're seeing more price reductions,
and then we're seeing we're seeing people just take their
home off of the MLS altogether, just saying screw it,
I'm not going to sell. So if someone has to sell,
we are seeing more price cuts. And then if someone
doesn't have to sell, they're saying, well, if I can't
(10:12):
get this price, I'm just not going to sell it
at all.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
So at what point right now it is clearly a
seller's market and has been that way for just a
long time. When does thing when you see this thing
just evening out as opposed to just you pay ridiculous prices.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
So much of it is going to come down to
what happens with rates and I think if rates come
down a tick, because we're still in the close to
seven percent range on a thirty year mortgage, which and
we're still not all that far removed from an era
of three percent interest rates, and so if somebody has
a three percent interest rate, they're loath to give it
(10:50):
up unless they absolutely have to. And so I do
think part of it is time. The longer we get
away from actually people remembering, oh, I get in that
three percent rate back in twenty twenty was so glorious.
The further we get away from that, the more we're
gonna we're just kinda forget that that existed. And the
more that people actually have to move the fact that
(11:12):
they got to keep their three percent rate around for
a long period of time. All right, now it's time
to give it up and pay market rate. That's okay,
but our family's growing, or we have to move over
to this other place for work. Then it's just going
to start to naturally increase the liquidity of the housing market.
And I think the other thing, too, is, yeah, if
rates drop down just a little bit, the pain point
(11:33):
of giving up that three percent mortgage to get that
bigger house or that nicer house or to move to
the place you really want to be. If the mortgage
rates are five point seventy five percent instead of seven percent,
you're more likely to take that punch if the if
the interest rate isn't quite as egregious egregiously high.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Yeah, and we do freget that five and a half
percent interest rate. Five point seven percent interest rate on
a home. Six percent is not high historically, right, It's
just that it's a fine rate. The three percent was
such an anomaly, was it? My friend savil two point
seven eight percent mortgage on his home. Yeah, I mean
(12:12):
that's just free money. You just you just don't give
that up. Compeller high water.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
But well, it's better than free given kind of the
rates that people can get on savings these days, even
though savings rates have come down.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
A little bit.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
That's why when people reach out to me asking about
paying off their mortgage, if they have one of those
three percent mortgages or two points something, my answer is
typically like, don't do it. Do other productive things with
your money, don't like, spend it instead, but don't pay
off free money when you can get a higher rate
in savings.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Yeah, Well those days are certainly gone now, so let's
move over to the concept of the unlimited vacation as
a perk. And there are companies out there, a lot
of the tech companies, high end tech companies, say as
long as you do your work, go ahead, just take
whatever vacation days you want, and as many as you
want and as long long as you want. But the
(13:01):
reality is, is there a couple factors that get in
the way of that. Number one, the kind of personality
you have, I'm assuming, the kind of company it is,
and some reality. Do you want to dive into that
for a minute.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Yeah, yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
I mean it seems like this great perk on the surface,
like unlimited vacation. Oh, let me go work there, because
then I can take off whenever I want. But when
you dig into it, so much depends on the company
culture whether or not you're actually, you know, allowed to
take unlimited vacation, or whether you're going to get the
stink eye if you try to take three weeks off
in the summer or something like that. So and I
(13:36):
think actually people because they don't want to leave their
coworkers in a lurch, or they don't want to be
seen as the person who's not pulling their weight, they
don't take the vacation that they that they have access to,
and so I think some people would rather say, have
like twenty days of PTO that are outlined, or twenty
five days or whatever it is, to know how many
(13:59):
they can actually take off, because if you if you
have an unlimited amount, I think that actually for a
lot of people feels kind of constricting, and they're like,
now I don't know what I can take. I feel
like I feel bad when I take this vacation time,
even though I'm supposed to have access to as much
vacation time as I want. So it's interesting that this
is kind of becoming a more normalized person. I think
(14:19):
it's because businesses are realizing, hey, actually people are going
to feel too self conscious to take the vacation time
that we've given them, So let's give unlimited PTO.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
Maybe they won't take as much time as they used to.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Yeah, it's sort of counterintuitive, but I'm willing to bet
that if we look at the stats a couple of
years from now, over the course of a lot of companies,
you're going to see that was the best move a
company's ever made, be giving people unlimited vacations because it's
going to go way down the number of days they
do take. And you're right. If I have two weeks,
I'm taking two weeks. If I have unlimited, you know,
(14:51):
am I going to No, I'm probably not going to
take it all. You're right on that one, all.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
Right, Joe, Americans, we're already bad about taking all our vacation. Yeah,
I think we should take it, you.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Know, absolutely take it and leave your your comrades and alert.
Go ahead. I have no problem doing that here, you know,
goodbye everybody. All right, Joe, we'll catch you this Sunday,
twelve to two pm. All right, right, thanks Bill, take care.
So now, Neil, I'm bringing you into this because this
is something that we really haven't seen that much. We
actually seen the reverse, and that is milk consumption. Drops, drops, drops, Yeah,
(15:25):
I've been dropping for years. Twenty twenty four, first time
that there was an increase in milk consumption since the seventies.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Actually the second time since the seventies that you've had
a bump in milk consumption. Now, you remember thirty years
ago there was the massive gotten milk. Yeah, with the
mustag of the milk mustache and all that stuff and
that was a boone. I mean, that really was. It
did a lot well. Since then, you have a massive
(15:54):
influx of plant based alternatives becoming the norm against cow's milk,
a lot of marketing. I mean, I've studied religion for
thirty years plus and I've never seen anybody more religious
about anything than oat milk. I mean, people just are
(16:15):
very intense about their plant based milk.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
I have one of those at home who drinks oat milk. Yeah,
and you have a goat.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
If I call her a goat, it's not a good
day for me for the rest of the day. But yeah,
it's oat milk. As a matter of fact, I actually
had my niece came over to our house to visit,
and she's a super vegan whatever the hell she does,
and so I offer a cup of coffee, or she
asked for a cup of coffee, and I said, yeah,
she goes. Do you happen to have any oat milk?
Speaker 1 (16:43):
I when, of course we have oat milk, because all
people talk about.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Is oat milk, except for those of us who drink
real milk.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
I have no problem with plant based milks. They are
you know, they are a produced product. I mean, you know,
we talk about processed foods. That is a processed food,
so a lot of people don't think of them that way.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
They only actually put the little milking device on.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
The tea the nurps of the old No, no, they
do not, but it'd be fun to watch if they did.
So that was going up strangely, and now right now
American sales of dairy milk have increased two percent overall
in twenty twenty four. That's seventeen point one billion, by
(17:30):
the way, But you also have a consumption, believe it
or not, and a decrease in plant milk consumption. So
whole milk consumption rose three point two when all of
a sudden done, plant milk consumption fell five point nine percent, So.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
The other way.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Yeah, it's sort of here's the thing, the highly produced stuff,
the plant based stuff. Some of it's very tasty, Like
I love almond milk. I use almond milk and I
use whole milk too, but they are expensive as hell,
So I think there's a lot of factors in there.
(18:11):
Plus I think I think we go in these cycles.
Do you remember it was margarine for a long time
and all of that.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
I remember when it was the unmeetable meat, the ubiquitous.
Rememberies first introduced me to the Umi burger and all
of these plant based meats.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
What's happened to those, Well, they're expensive, they're highly processed,
they're high end salt. The only thing that they don't
have is meat. Well, the only thing they don't The
only thing that's really different about plant based meat is
the cholesterol. However, more studies, I'm not a doctor, more
and more studies have come out food cholesterol is not
(18:52):
what raises your cholesterol to the degree that we once thought.
So I think Harvard did a study among others that
looked at the amount and I think it's less than
ten percent of your overall cholesterol comes from food cholesterol.
So we've learned a lot more about these things, and
as we learn them, we kind of go back to
(19:13):
the fact that animal fats, that meat when raised properly
and not the antibiotics and all the hormones and all
those things, that they still end up being a whole product.
You know, they're the manufacturing is more fabrication that it
(19:35):
is over processing and the like and what kind of
go back to them, and you know, it's not I
think that they love for plant based stuff is noble.
I think if you're coming from an animal standpoint, of course,
there's going to be nothing that beats it to preserve
the life of the animal. But overall, we're omnivores and
(19:57):
we're designed to consume the these products, and as a
matter of fact, we would not have been where we
are today as humanoids if we didn't.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
They're a good thing or a bad thing.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Yeah, so I listen, farming has gone off, you know,
the personal farming, the dedicated farmer. They it has become
a factory farm. I'm not thrilled about.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Kids don't grow up on farms anymore. What do they
learn about sex? Oh, when you don't have the yeah, yeah,
when there isn't a cow or you know, a big well.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Think back, you go back to American history built and
like eighty percent of what we produced and what we
did in the United States was agriculture. That's true, it
was nothing but agriculture. We came from an agriculture.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
What are they au? What are the aguarrian? What is that?
What's the word I'm looking for? Society? Agrarian, agrarian, agrarian,
that's egregious. The age of a. Alright, we're done. Guys.
You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show. Catch My
Show Monday through Friday, six am to nine am, and
(21:07):
anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
You're listening to bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
KFI AM six forty bill Handle. It is a Thursday morning,
February twentieth. As we're looking at a whole bunch of
stories coming up here that we're living at internationally. The
bodies of four Israeli hostages held in Gaza have been
returned as part of the hostage exchange. Israeli hands over
live Palestinians and Hamas hands over dead Israeli's boy, how's
(00:29):
that for a deal? Huh? And particularly really really heart
wrenching is three of them that were handed over, Sherry Bibus,
who is thirty two, and her sons Ariel and Kafir
four and nine months, four years old in nine months. Wonderful. Huh.
All right, let's get let me get you even more depressed.
(00:51):
It's time for how to Money with Joel Larsgard. Joel
heard every Sunday from twelve to two pm right here
on KFI and his address is a social dress at
how to Money Joel, Joel, a statement that you gave
me longer commutes equal more fast food consumed. Not only
did I find that to be true, but I'm also
(01:13):
going to give you the inverse, shorter commutes, more fast
food consumed. I just do it faster, that's all. I
just don't chew as much. But that translates into money.
This is where we're now going in your wheelhouse. Tell
me about that.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Yeah, I mean so it was. First of all, it
was kind of fascinating.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
And when you think about when you look at the
ratings of different cities in the United States and you say,
where are the worst commute times? Well, Los Angeles is
always like super high up there. It's like it's top
three in basically everywhere you look, usually second or first,
and the longer your commute is at some point you
get hungry in that commute, and the knee jerk response
(01:54):
is to go get yourself some fast food. I was
just talking to Kno about this. He's like, man, I
got these incredibly long commutes. Yeah, sometimes I do pop
off and I get a snack or I ate dinner
on the way home, and I think that that is
one we know that fast food is typically not very
healthy for you, but then it's that knee jerk reaction
to get fast food. It adds up in your budget too,
(02:16):
and fast food isn't nearly as cheap as it used
to be, So I think if you have a long commute,
there are ways to plan for that. This sounds like
super micro small time, but the reality is it's all
these small things that we spend money on. They add
up into meaningful dollars in our budget. And if we're
eating fast food four or five times a week because
our commute is terrible, it's just going to be bad
(02:37):
for our bodies and bad for our wallets.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
You know, when you talk about budgeting and nobody really budgets,
I'm talking about micro budgeting the way you're talking about,
and I think the way that you're promoting there is
a friend of mine told me about this. There's a
program called Monarch out there. I'm not pitching one or
the other. Oh yeah, yeah, but it's free. I think
(03:00):
you download it and it you put everything every dime
you spend, and over the course of a couple of months,
you'll see instantly what you are spending where, why, when,
what time of the day, how much, And now you're
looking at the ability to really really pay attention to
your budgeting, and you're right at the end of the
(03:21):
at the end of the day, man, I threw away
one hundred and thirteen dollars this month, threw it away, well.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Not directly in the trash. I hope, I hope you
spend it on something.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
Yeah, well, yeah, a burger right, yeah, yeah, well okay,
So I one, I'm a big fan of Monarch Money.
I love what they do and the you know, Mint
was kind of the og finance app, but that went
away and they stopped offering free robust essentially budget planning,
and somebody who used to work at Mint started Monarch
(03:55):
and they've done a really, really good job. It probably
is the best kind of tracking and budget software in existence.
So I do think, yeah, if you're like having trouble
figuring out where's all my money going, plugging all your
accounts into Monarch can give you that visualization and it
can help you then know where to cut. And so
when you look at something We've talked about this in
the past. Build just how we used to spend as
(04:16):
Americans more money at the grocery store than we spent
eating out. But after COVID, that's changed, and we spend
more money eating out than we do buying groceries. And yes,
everything's more expensive at the grocery store. But things have
gotten even more expensive at restaurants, and so if we
just eat out less, it's one of those things that
we might be able to meet some of those other
financial goals that we have, or spend on other things
(04:37):
that we care about even more. But it's that sort
of thoughtless consumption that we often do as humans. And
there is something about looking at the data and then
that allows us to make an informed decision to make
make a different choice.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Yeah, that we which Way Deli last night, and I
couldn't you look at at this and you shake your head,
you go, how could it cost this much? Shit? Neil
this morning talked about going into a subway sandwich shop
and you had two subway.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Three sandwiches, Joel, three foot long sandwiches, two bags of chips,
and a soda for the three of us my family
and it was like forty six bucks.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
Woo. Yeah, the five dollars foot long no longer in
a new sir.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Yeah. And the other thing about driving along way, I've
always had this question. I do not stop by fast
food establishment or go through the line and then start
eating in the car. I'll just get out of the car,
I'll park it out of the car and sit down
and eat there if I'm hungry. But I don't know
how people juggle a drink a sandwich talking to someone.
(05:45):
It's crazy how you do that? Who does that? Who
eats breakfast in the car?
Speaker 4 (05:49):
Do you?
Speaker 2 (05:51):
No?
Speaker 3 (05:51):
I certainly don't.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
And I think you're right, like this is a greater
chance for an accident and your insurance going up to
if you're trying to eat your Hamburger's into something and
then also drive where you're trying to go.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Yeah, I just don't understand that. But the price, as
you pointed out, I want to end it on this
note and then come back and we'll start talking about
the wal estate market a little bit. As you alluded to,
as crazy as the prices have gotten in the grocery store,
they have increased greater as a percentage in going out
to eat.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Is that correct? That's exactly right.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
Yeah, And so yeah, you think about the egg prices,
which you and I have talked about, or just really
anything at the grocery store. At coffee prices also have
gone up. But that means that the price of coffee,
going out to get coffee has gone up even more
than the price of the bag of coffee that you
get at the grocery store. So I think sometimes people say, oh,
it's too expensive at the grocery store, I'm just gonna
go get my coffee down the street. And then when
(06:43):
you do that, you're talking about an even more expensive
cup of coffee than if you brew it at home.
So it's you just kind of almost have to like
suck up those higher grocery store prices so you don't
suck up an even worse price hike by going.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Out to get that thing.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
And again, I'm not like anti coffee, I'm not anti avocado.
Put it in your budget, like enjoy those things. But
I think we as Americans, we've become whether it's buying
something on Amazon or getting fast food because we're stuck
in traffic a little longer than we'd hoped plan ahead,
bring yourself some pistachios in the car or something like that.
It's the knee jerk buys the purchases that we make
that tend to do us in and if we're just
(07:18):
not paying attention to that stuff, it really does add up.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Yeah, you know, real men do not eat a vocado toast.
I would never admit to that I don't personally, that's
my point. I think it's delicious. Yeah, that's exactly my point.
All right, fite you both, Yes, that's my point. Joel.
A little bit about the real estate market, and I
know it's showing a little bit of signs of calming down.
But before we start there, just a quick story in
(07:43):
terms of what I ended up buying. As you know,
I moved to Orange County and I bought a house
in Orange County and there was nothing out there, and
this place I was able to check off ninety percent
of the boxes that I wanted to check. I paid
full tilt, insane money, to the point where I was
(08:04):
nauseous when I put in the offer because there was
just nothing out there. I mean full full tilt, right,
I go, okay, I mean there's no way this that's it.
I paid the most year ever going to pay for
this place. It's gone up ten percent. Yeah, how it's impossible.
How is that possible? Sec our national debt? You know,
it's thirty four trillion dollars? How do you pay that off?
(08:25):
We never will, and it's gonna go up two trillion
dollars this year. Yeah, it's like just when you think
it can't go any further. It continues to go up. Yeah,
So so tell me what's going on with the market.
I mean, right now, I'm still reeling in terms of
the money that I paid for the house relatively what
it was six months ago or a year ago.
Speaker 4 (08:42):
Everybody knows that just kind of the cot what happened
during COVID just made people value their homes differently. And
would we talk about how much more expensive it got
to put in a pool and to renovate, and just
all the prices of homes themselves, and then the prices
of adding on to your home. It's just increased astronomically,
and everyone like, there's so much bullishness around real estate.
(09:06):
And I'm not saying that we're in for a real
estate collaps any time soon or anything like that, but
we are seeing at least the real estate market come
back to a place of a little more equilibrium. That
doesn't mean that there's more supply, right that there's tons
of homes for you to choose from, and we're in
this like buyer's market, but we have reached at least
a little bit of a stalemate where there.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
Are very few properties to pick from.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
But there are also very few buyers willing to pay
the price that people have attached to their homes now
they've gotten used to these higher prices, and they say, well,
my neighbor three doors down was able to get one
point two million for their house six months ago, so
I want one point three to five. Like they're assuming
that there's this just insane increase continuing to happen.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
And so what we're.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
Seeing is more homes lingering longer on the market and
even to the point where we're seeing more price reductions,
and then we're seeing we're seeing people just take their
home off of the MLS altogether, just saying screw it,
I'm not going to sell. So if someone has to sell,
we are seeing more price cuts. And then if someone
doesn't have to sell, they're saying, well, if I can't
(10:12):
get this price, I'm just not going to sell it
at all.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
So at what point right now it is clearly a
seller's market and has been that way for just a
long time. When does thing when you see this thing
just evening out as opposed to just you pay ridiculous prices.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
So much of it is going to come down to
what happens with rates and I think if rates come
down a tick, because we're still in the close to
seven percent range on a thirty year mortgage, which and
we're still not all that far removed from an era
of three percent interest rates, and so if somebody has
a three percent interest rate, they're loath to give it
(10:50):
up unless they absolutely have to. And so I do
think part of it is time. The longer we get
away from actually people remembering, oh, I get in that
three percent rate back in twenty twenty was so glorious.
The further we get away from that, the more we're
gonna we're just kinda forget that that existed. And the
more that people actually have to move the fact that
(11:12):
they got to keep their three percent rate around for
a long period of time. All right, now it's time
to give it up and pay market rate. That's okay,
but our family's growing, or we have to move over
to this other place for work. Then it's just going
to start to naturally increase the liquidity of the housing market.
And I think the other thing, too, is, yeah, if
rates drop down just a little bit, the pain point
(11:33):
of giving up that three percent mortgage to get that
bigger house or that nicer house or to move to
the place you really want to be. If the mortgage
rates are five point seventy five percent instead of seven percent,
you're more likely to take that punch if the if
the interest rate isn't quite as egregious egregiously high.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Yeah, and we do freget that five and a half
percent interest rate. Five point seven percent interest rate on
a home. Six percent is not high historically, right, It's
just that it's a fine rate. The three percent was
such an anomaly, was it? My friend savil two point
seven eight percent mortgage on his home. Yeah, I mean
(12:12):
that's just free money. You just you just don't give
that up. Compeller high water.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
But well, it's better than free given kind of the
rates that people can get on savings these days, even
though savings rates have come down.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
A little bit.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
That's why when people reach out to me asking about
paying off their mortgage, if they have one of those
three percent mortgages or two points something, my answer is
typically like, don't do it. Do other productive things with
your money, don't like, spend it instead, but don't pay
off free money when you can get a higher rate
in savings.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Yeah, Well those days are certainly gone now, so let's
move over to the concept of the unlimited vacation as
a perk. And there are companies out there, a lot
of the tech companies, high end tech companies, say as
long as you do your work, go ahead, just take
whatever vacation days you want, and as many as you
want and as long long as you want. But the
(13:01):
reality is, is there a couple factors that get in
the way of that. Number one, the kind of personality
you have, I'm assuming, the kind of company it is,
and some reality. Do you want to dive into that
for a minute.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Yeah, yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
I mean it seems like this great perk on the surface,
like unlimited vacation. Oh, let me go work there, because
then I can take off whenever I want. But when
you dig into it, so much depends on the company
culture whether or not you're actually, you know, allowed to
take unlimited vacation, or whether you're going to get the
stink eye if you try to take three weeks off
in the summer or something like that. So and I
(13:36):
think actually people because they don't want to leave their
coworkers in a lurch, or they don't want to be
seen as the person who's not pulling their weight, they
don't take the vacation that they that they have access to,
and so I think some people would rather say, have
like twenty days of PTO that are outlined, or twenty
five days or whatever it is, to know how many
(13:59):
they can actually take off, because if you if you
have an unlimited amount, I think that actually for a
lot of people feels kind of constricting, and they're like,
now I don't know what I can take. I feel
like I feel bad when I take this vacation time,
even though I'm supposed to have access to as much
vacation time as I want. So it's interesting that this
is kind of becoming a more normalized person. I think
(14:19):
it's because businesses are realizing, hey, actually people are going
to feel too self conscious to take the vacation time
that we've given them, So let's give unlimited PTO.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
Maybe they won't take as much time as they used to.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Yeah, it's sort of counterintuitive, but I'm willing to bet
that if we look at the stats a couple of
years from now, over the course of a lot of companies,
you're going to see that was the best move a
company's ever made, be giving people unlimited vacations because it's
going to go way down the number of days they
do take. And you're right. If I have two weeks,
I'm taking two weeks. If I have unlimited, you know,
(14:51):
am I going to No, I'm probably not going to
take it all. You're right on that one, all.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
Right, Joe, Americans, we're already bad about taking all our vacation. Yeah,
I think we should take it, you.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Know, absolutely take it and leave your your comrades and alert.
Go ahead. I have no problem doing that here, you know,
goodbye everybody. All right, Joe, we'll catch you this Sunday,
twelve to two pm. All right, right, thanks Bill, take care.
So now, Neil, I'm bringing you into this because this
is something that we really haven't seen that much. We
actually seen the reverse, and that is milk consumption. Drops, drops, drops, Yeah,
(15:25):
I've been dropping for years. Twenty twenty four, first time
that there was an increase in milk consumption since the seventies.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Actually the second time since the seventies that you've had
a bump in milk consumption. Now, you remember thirty years
ago there was the massive gotten milk. Yeah, with the
mustag of the milk mustache and all that stuff and
that was a boone. I mean, that really was. It
did a lot well. Since then, you have a massive
(15:54):
influx of plant based alternatives becoming the norm against cow's milk,
a lot of marketing. I mean, I've studied religion for
thirty years plus and I've never seen anybody more religious
about anything than oat milk. I mean, people just are
(16:15):
very intense about their plant based milk.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
I have one of those at home who drinks oat milk. Yeah,
and you have a goat.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
If I call her a goat, it's not a good
day for me for the rest of the day. But yeah,
it's oat milk. As a matter of fact, I actually
had my niece came over to our house to visit,
and she's a super vegan whatever the hell she does,
and so I offer a cup of coffee, or she
asked for a cup of coffee, and I said, yeah,
she goes. Do you happen to have any oat milk?
Speaker 1 (16:43):
I when, of course we have oat milk, because all
people talk about.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Is oat milk, except for those of us who drink
real milk.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
I have no problem with plant based milks. They are
you know, they are a produced product. I mean, you know,
we talk about processed foods. That is a processed food,
so a lot of people don't think of them that way.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
They only actually put the little milking device on.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
The tea the nurps of the old No, no, they
do not, but it'd be fun to watch if they did.
So that was going up strangely, and now right now
American sales of dairy milk have increased two percent overall
in twenty twenty four. That's seventeen point one billion, by
(17:30):
the way, But you also have a consumption, believe it
or not, and a decrease in plant milk consumption. So
whole milk consumption rose three point two when all of
a sudden done, plant milk consumption fell five point nine percent, So.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
The other way.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Yeah, it's sort of here's the thing, the highly produced stuff,
the plant based stuff. Some of it's very tasty, Like
I love almond milk. I use almond milk and I
use whole milk too, but they are expensive as hell,
So I think there's a lot of factors in there.
(18:11):
Plus I think I think we go in these cycles.
Do you remember it was margarine for a long time
and all of that.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
I remember when it was the unmeetable meat, the ubiquitous.
Rememberies first introduced me to the Umi burger and all
of these plant based meats.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
What's happened to those, Well, they're expensive, they're highly processed,
they're high end salt. The only thing that they don't
have is meat. Well, the only thing they don't The
only thing that's really different about plant based meat is
the cholesterol. However, more studies, I'm not a doctor, more
and more studies have come out food cholesterol is not
(18:52):
what raises your cholesterol to the degree that we once thought.
So I think Harvard did a study among others that
looked at the amount and I think it's less than
ten percent of your overall cholesterol comes from food cholesterol.
So we've learned a lot more about these things, and
as we learn them, we kind of go back to
(19:13):
the fact that animal fats, that meat when raised properly
and not the antibiotics and all the hormones and all
those things, that they still end up being a whole product.
You know, they're the manufacturing is more fabrication that it
(19:35):
is over processing and the like and what kind of
go back to them, and you know, it's not I
think that they love for plant based stuff is noble.
I think if you're coming from an animal standpoint, of course,
there's going to be nothing that beats it to preserve
the life of the animal. But overall, we're omnivores and
(19:57):
we're designed to consume the these products, and as a
matter of fact, we would not have been where we
are today as humanoids if we didn't.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
They're a good thing or a bad thing.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Yeah, so I listen, farming has gone off, you know,
the personal farming, the dedicated farmer. They it has become
a factory farm. I'm not thrilled about.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Kids don't grow up on farms anymore. What do they
learn about sex? Oh, when you don't have the yeah, yeah,
when there isn't a cow or you know, a big well.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Think back, you go back to American history built and
like eighty percent of what we produced and what we
did in the United States was agriculture. That's true, it
was nothing but agriculture. We came from an agriculture.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
What are they au? What are the aguarrian? What is that?
What's the word I'm looking for? Society? Agrarian, agrarian, agrarian,
that's egregious. The age of a. Alright, we're done. Guys.
You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show. Catch My
Show Monday through Friday, six am to nine am, and
(21:07):
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