September 13, 2024 • 37 mins
Time for a Friday Flight- our little sampling of the week’s financial news and what it means for your personal finances. There are a lot of headlines out there, but we boil them down to specific takeaways that will allow you to kick off the weekend informed and help you to get ahead with your money. In this episode we explain some relevant and helpful stories like: the new most affordable cell phone plan, holiday spending (with a plan), reprobate returns, 401k millionaires, miserable millionaires, specious savings, HELOC piggy banks, election spending sprees, more shrinkflation, dumb dorm insurance, and AirPod Pro hearing aids.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to How to Money. I'm Joel, I am Matt,
and today we're talking about miserable millionaires, more shrinkflation, and
dumb dorm insurance.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
You know, it's Friday, which means it's time to go
over the news from this past week and how it
pertains to your personal finances. But before we get to
the actual headlines, Joel, let's kick it off with a
quick tip in the pursuit of excellence and the ability
for How to Money listeners to save more money. You
and I have we're doing a little bit of self
experimentation and we're trying out some new cell phone service. Yeah,
(00:49):
a new cell phone carrier called US Mobile. So they've been.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Around for a minute, we just haven't really talked about them,
but it seems like their product, their service, and their
price points gotten better. So you and I we're like,
let's be guinea pigs.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Have they revamped what they what they were offering because
they weren't really on my radar up until I think
they have, So I think they've They look like that
they're kind of like an old school and VN O
really is that weird to say like an old school
because mvnas are relatively new, but like compared to Mints
like Mint. You see their site, which by the way,
we're still fans of, like Mint mobile, US mobile sites
better what yeah, oh funny. It just feels way more
(01:20):
like two point zero and kind of fun got the
little fox and the rocketed maneuverability.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
The maneuverability isn't as good actually as the US Mobile
side ux user Yeah, user experience. But the thing people
want to know about, I guess is how much money
you can save? Why we're doing this the price, Yeah,
and so the the reason we thought about switching is
because they released a couple of times. We were Emily
and I were on the five gig plan with Mint.
We were on Mint Mobile for years and Mint Mobile
(01:45):
still is an awesome service that you should consider still great,
but we were like, ah, man unlimited. It seems like
it's actually not much more expensive on some of the
other carriers. So we're going from potentially fifteen dollars a
month with Mint, and when we went over, we had
to pay Mint a little extra like enter twenty bucks
to reload a couple extra gigs, which got frustrating and
expensive over time.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
It's more of an inconvenience honestly, like compared to the cost. Right, Like,
it's also not fun to have to pay per gig
when you go over, but it's like the hassle of
being like, oh sorry, you right out right, you got
to do something about that. Yeah, well, and that's what
you're trying to avoid is the heartache from Emily.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
And then the price per gig is ridiculous at that point,
so you'd be better off to have a slightly more
expensive plan every single month and never have to worry
about that. So US Mobile seventeen dollars and fifty cents
a month for unlimited everything. Yes, they're read the details
about when you get throttled after using a certain amount
of data, stuff like that, but I was like, it's
(02:39):
worth a shot. And the cool thing is, I think
Mint has a free seven day trial. US Mobile has
a free thirty day trial.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
It's really stinking cool. So I've been doing that.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Emily and I have been doing that, and we've basically
noticed and I think this is actually the most ringing
endorsement you can give, no discernible change.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
It works just the same. Okay. So one of the
benefits of US Mobile is the fact that you can
choose from two different networks. What network did you choose?
Are y'all doing?
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
I forget what it was called.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
There's two different not the Warp one, not the dark
Oh really? Yeah, so because I heard is different than
the dark Star. Oh dark okay, So I did Warp,
not Dark Stars. So dark Star okay. Dark Star apparently
runs on AT and t's network, so US Mobile has
multiple networks they do this, which is how Star Wars
rylokin does that sound dark Star, which also makes sense
(03:25):
because the AT and T logo, I guess it kind
of looks like the dust Star.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Is that why they called it that? So I actually
started out because I looked at the maps, because they
got the coverage maps of both of those, and so
I knew that dark Star was AT and T. I know,
I knew that Warp was Verizon, and I looked at
the coverage map for where we live and it looked
like the AT and T map coverage map was slightly better.
And so for the past couple of weeks, I've been
doing Dark Star, which I also kind of like the
(03:49):
fact that says dark Star up in the top corner,
which is kind of fun. But I think I've noticed
that it has not been quite as good as Mint.
So I actually switched. And this is one of the
things that makes it so great is you can literally
switch networks in the middle of a period of a
pay period because it's all through the eSIM. Your phone's
offline for like five or ten minutes or something like
that while the new eSIM gets activated, but literally, So
(04:12):
I switched from dark Star, which is AIGHTE and T
two WARP which is Verizon, and I have seen much
better coverage with WARP. Yeah, it's good, and that's one
of the selling points that US Mobile has is not
just the cheap service, but that, hey, we're on multiple networks,
so you can flip flop back and forth if you
need to. So just let you guys know where. Doing
this as a trial period, it's still like the early
(04:32):
stages of it because I have not yet hit the
ten gig limit yet to where it's they're going to
start slowing it down. That area. The only downside and
the only thing to kind of watch out for.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Still better than the five gigs for fifteen I was getting.
Now get a minimum ten gigs for seventeen fifty and
technically unlimited, but I don't know how slow it is.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
You want to hear my last little tip then, because
it's so easy. I was getting ready to switch Kate over,
and they were really not happy with the fact that
I was getting ready to drop her off too, and
so they started throwing numbers out as to like, hey, well,
what if we gave you this special and it was
better and we've been on the Phax mobile was Mint
was yeah, I'm on the phone with customer support with Mint,
and we see we don't deal with the five gig
(05:09):
because Kate got on me too many times of her
running out of data, and so we bumped us. We
bumped ourselves up to the fifteen gig, which means we're
paying two hundred and forty bucks for the year, which
comes out to twenty dollars a month. And the lady
I was talking to you was saying, well, looks like
there's a special deal and we can offer you the
fifteen gig for one hundred and eighty dollars, and I
was like, oh really. I was like, oh, that's that's great.
(05:30):
I'll keep that in mind for next time. Let's go
ahead and switch. And she's like, Okay, hang on and
she like, you hear the keyboard typing, she dropped it
down to one sixty Oh wow, one hundred and sixty bucks,
which comes out to like thirteen dollars and change. That's great,
four fifteen gig. So I actually I left her on
Mint okay, yeah, because I was like, all right, babe,
have you been happy with the coverage? She's like, yeah, totally.
(05:51):
And so I saw that as a way for us
to compare one of the new networks with US Mobile
to the old T Mobile network, which is what Mint uses.
And so sometimes you gotta play hard to get to
get the deal. What's so great about this, though, is
the fact that competition. You've got another player entering into
the scene. And now Ryan Reynolds has to find a
way to keep his customers and keep all the Mint
mobile users happy.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
And I've even seen visible offering T Mobile customers and Mint.
Mint users count as T Mobile customers fifteen dollars a
month unlimited service for the next five years. So whoa, yeah,
I mean that's a commitment. That's a commitment. No, but no,
but you don't have it's not a they're guaranteeing it
for five years. You don't have to sign up. Okay,
it's not a contract.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Yeah, all right.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
But so that's the cool thing is there's so much
It's amazing how in an era of inflation, what's deflationary
is self fun playing prices.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
So love it.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Us Mobile going to give it a shot, and I
might even try some of these other ones, Matt, because
the price point might keep dropping. At some point, self
service is going to be like free. That's what it
feels like.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Honestly, we might get to that point because they're going
to pay you in order to get their hands on
your data. Yeah, I guess. So.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
All right, let's move on, Matt. Let's get to the
Friday Flight, the sampling of stories we found interesting this week.
Let's talk about toys for a second. I don't know
if you've noticed this, Matt, I don't know. I haven't
seen any catalogs come in the mail yet. My kids,
you just wait for those.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
You just wait. It'll be in the mailbox before you
know it. Come Monday, it'll be there.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
They found they found the old catalog from last year
under the couch recently, and they were obsessed with it again.
I had to throw it in the trash and I did
not want them to see it. But we're starting to
see lists come out of the hot toys for this
Christmas season. Barbie is apparently back. Legos never went away,
They've always been hot. Bluey, that's another hot toy. Everybody
(07:31):
loves Blue. I think there were more streaming hours of
Blue than any other show. Yeah, in the US. In
addition to that, Christmas aisles are popping up everywhere at
Costco selling the Christmas trees. All the Christmas stuff is
up already. The Halloween stuff has been put away. It
feels too soon. I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
It's just rushing us along through life. I know, yeah,
I'm not a fan.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Let's uh, let's wait for the Christmas season. But I
think what this brings up a couple of things. Businesses, Yes,
are clamoring for your holiday, but I think this is
just a friendly reminder from us as I'm starting to
see this stuff pop up, start budgeting, start saving for
those purchases.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Now.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Ultimately, what we're fans of is people saving throughout the
year so you're not overwhelmed. Come this season and you're like, ah, man,
I'm gonna spend more than I have on hand. But Hey,
maybe you can't go back to January. You can't time
travel back to January and start saving for Christmas ahead
of time, but you can start saving now. You still
have time to kind of ramp up your savings and
(08:31):
so that you're not going into debt. You don't want
to find yourself, of course in January with a ridiculous
credit card bill on hand.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
I know this sounds crazy, but you can start looking
ahead a little bit, so Christmas twenty twenty five. And yes,
you can't go back in time, but this is literally
why at the end of the year, Kate and we
sit down and we review our finances and we look
at the money that we spent when it comes to
Christmas presents, when it comes to birthday presents, and what
is it anniversaries as well, Like we've got a special
category that we that we spend oh in gifts like
teacher gifts, teacher appreciation, end of the year kind of
(08:59):
stuff that you know, when you have more kids, and
when we start having a lot more teachers as they
get into these higher grades, it really adds up. And
so the ability to start saving for that. Literally we
add all those up, we get a total amount and
then we divide that by twelve for the next year.
That way, every single month we're essentially like dollar cost average,
not dollar cost. We're just sending aside a small installment
(09:19):
so that we're not like you.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Said, it's a seeking fund, right like that, that's what
it's called. And you know what you're going to spend
in all likelihood, and you're you slowly but surely ahead
of time, and you know you want to spend that,
So just be prepared and to be a little bit
more proactive. Like Christmas happens every year we for some reason,
so many people always get caught up off guard and
didn't be.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
A surprise as much to their financial chagrin. Yeah, so
good news is there's a bank rate survey and they
find that a third of folks are planning on spending
less this holiday season. Actually, so that's great, A solid
chunk of shopper say that they plan on starting their shopping.
Now I love both of these things, right, So again,
spreading your shopping out where you're able to hunt for
bargains on the front, then I think that can lead
(10:01):
to increased savings. But then the bad news, the bad
part of the survey is that nearly a third, so
it was twenty seven percent of people are planning to
go into debt for holiday spending.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
They're not much like, ah, maybe they're planning on it,
They're like, literally, this is my plan.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
This is how they're going to be able to afford it,
which we obviously hate. So again, I think the ability
to proactively plan for that is the way to go.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Yeah, one of the things that Amanda said on Wednesday's
episode was it's just not worth it to go into
debt to try and keep up appearances. Matt and I
think sometimes, well, the things she's spot on, I think
sometimes when it comes to Christmas, the appearance is yeah,
I'm flush and I'm gonna buy everybody awesome Christmas presents,
when if you're not and you can't financially handle that,
(10:42):
now is the perfect time to have that conversation. It's
to set expectations. So we actually have an article about
creating a holiday budget that we'll link to in the
show notes. But also make sure you are are upfront, honest,
and having those talks with your friends and family before
or you get to Christmas Eve, because that's a recipe
(11:03):
for relational disaster. Having that conversation about maybe hey, let's
just buy for only the kids this year, or if
that's the financial position you find yourself in. I think
people respect that, yeah, and so yeah, just don't feel ashamed.
I guess to have that conversation to broach the topic.
And it could be something like, doesn't have to be
like all dour and sad and gray. Yeah, like there's
(11:24):
a way that you can do that but still make
it fun. Yeah, you just got to be a little
bit more creative. And it might not be that you're
strapped for cash. It might just be that you have
other financial goals you want to achieve. And so yeah,
you can say it like that, like, hey, listen, we're
working on this, this, and this right now, We're gonna
have to tame our Christmas spending down. Is that okay
with you guys? That's a great way to.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Start the con THO. We actually, I don't know how
folks would feel about this, but Kate and I asked
family and extended family instead of doing getting us kind
of random gifts to supply or not to supply, but
to help us to be able to purchase equipment for
the business that we're starting. At that point, in time,
and I would say most folks were on board with that,
and that was a great way for us to not
to go into debt in order to get that off
the ground. Speaking of surveys, there is a new one
(12:04):
from Loop that finds that more Americans are abusing return policies.
We've talked about this. Folks are they're lying about products
not showing up. They're wearing stuff and then returning it,
which is gosh, I hate that, man, that's like so
freaking tacky. Some folks are claiming that items are defective
when they weren't, all in hopes for a refund when
it actually isn't deserved. Retailers are finally starting to wise
(12:27):
up and they are making their return policies less generous,
which then harms honest customers who experience real issues. You're
basically ruining the party for everybody. Yeah, and so we
want folks to not be afraid to return items obviously
that aren't up to snuff. But just don't be one
of these people, please. But there is a slight silver lining,
which is that some companies and some brands, they're not
changing the overall return policy for everybody, but they are
(12:50):
cracking down on customers who present consistent issues. They're starting
to keep a little file on you, a little dossier.
And so if you like a company or a brand
and you want to keep shopping there, well, if you
abuse the return policies exhibiting this type of behavior, it
could lead to you not being able to do business
with them anymore.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
When mister Smith, this is your eighth return this.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Month, exactly. Yeah, I think this is a much better
way to go, and it could be a way that
companies are able to maintain just higher levels of customers
serve because you don't want to burn everybody, right right.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
I think that's one of the reasons for some price
inflation too, man. I think some of the companies that
offer the most generous return policies have kind of higher
prices on some of the items that they sell. So
it's one of their marketing things. And because they're saying, listen,
you can return it, no questions asked, even years down
the road, Well, you're going to pay a little more
for the item up front for that privilege, which I'm
also okay with because and you just have to remember too,
(13:42):
keep them oud. What is the return policy of that company?
For instance, Like we've talked about Darn Tough socks, Bambas
has something similar like one hundred percent satisfaction guarantee and
if there's holes in your socks, they'll send you new ones.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Because Bambas don't. I'm not a huge fan. You've like
Mamba's in the last, but like they're cozy when you
take them on. They have not held up at all all,
could not compared to the Darn tuffs a least send
them an email. I just did with just a couple
of mine because there's holes in them, and they send
me new socks. Bomb is dead. Yeah, nice, so interesting. Yeah,
all you gotta do.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
And you don't even have to send them pictures. You
just literally say this is the order, ye I got?
I got holes of my socks.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Guys. Yeah, but I do, I mean I do.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
I sent them pictures because I didn't want to be
that's I mean, coercive individuals.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
I want to. I feel bad for kind of throwing
them under the bus, but that's one of the reasons.
I'm just like, they haven't really held up, Unlike like
darn toff are amazing, dude, Like truly, I'm like, are
these things ever gonna wear out.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Well, if they do, like with either one of those companies,
you can get another product return, but that is their policy.
And they charge more for the socks up front because
you can get a three dollars pair of socks or
you can get a fifteen dollars pair of socks. But
as long as there's a guarantee behind the fifteen dollars
pair of socks, I don't mind spending more because if
they do wear out, they're gonna send me another pair.
Let's talk about retirement, Matt. There's good news on the
(14:49):
retirement front. There are more four oh one K millionaires
than ever before these days. It doesn't I guess take
a rocket scientist to figure out that that would be
the case considering how well the stock market has been
performing recently, you know, with that we're still near all
time highs. But Fidelity reports that they house almost half
a million four to one k's that have accrued more
(15:10):
than a million dollars in assets. And it's not only
because the assets are growing, that's part of it, obviously,
but investing habits are getting better too, So the average
Fidelity four o one K savings rate. Matt, this is
what I zeroed in I'm like, oh, yeah, cool, half
a million millionaires with Fidelity four on ks.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
That's super cool.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
But the average savings rate in a Fidelity four O
one K is fourteen point two percent, which is getting
really close to our fifteen percent minimum investment amount suggestion.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
It's amazing.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
So that's good. That's we're celebrating. And I think this
is just a reminder too. When I saw this, I'm like, oh,
that's really cool. But slow and steady wins the race.
And I would be willing to bet that the vast
majority of those those four to one k millionaires yes,
are in their fifties and sixties. They've been getting the
match and increasing their personal contribution amount year over year,
(15:58):
and it just took time, but they got there. They
got to where they wanted to go. And I think
this has encouragement, especially for our listener base who is
mostly younger let's say, jen Z and millennials. If you
do the same, you're going to get there too. And
I saw this article from our friend Sam Over at
Financial Samurai. He ran the numbers Ogan Sam Dogan, and
he found that if you max your four oh one
(16:20):
K contribution, I'm not saying that's easy. It can be
really difficult to do that. It can take years for
you to get there.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Just to designe twenty three thousand dollars, right, that's all
about every year. It's simple.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
But he basically found it's going to take you eighteen
years to get there with contribution limits set where they
are at twenty three grand. So think about that if
you were and again, really hard to do. It is simple,
it's not easy. But if you can max that four
one k out every year over eighteen years, with the
returns that you're going to get, I think about starting
off as a twenty two year old, you could be
(16:49):
a millionaire by the time you're forty Yep.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Yeah. I think what that highlights is the fact that
I think for a lot of folks it seems like
something that is completely unattainable. But what he's pointing out
here is that no, like there is a game plan,
this is actually attainable, even though it is a tall ask.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
And I think sometimes people say, oh, low and slow,
that's gonna take too long. Let me let me try
to get there faster, and that's how people get burned exactly.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
They're going for that for those different get rich quick schemes.
But you'll even though there are more millionaires than ever,
only a third of folks who have a million bucks
in the retirement account think of themselves as wealthy. And
I get it right, because we've experienced inflation. Right overall
prices are twenty five percent higher than pre PAM. Yeah,
a million bucks in twenty nineteen eight the same as
a million bucks. No, having a million dollars, Like even
(17:31):
back in the nineties when we first heard about having
a million dollars as kids. Uh, if you had million
dollars back then, that was way more impressive than having
a million dollars today. But that is still a massive
number to hit in your wealth building journey, Like if
your net worth is more than a million dollars, like
you are legit wealthy and I'm incially on like a
worldwide scale, Oh my gosh. Yes. And the problem though
(17:51):
is that it's just it comes down to lifestyle, because
what is a million dollars if you are living on
if you're an elitist living on one of the coasts,
you know, like if you are living in and around
New York City, if you're living on the West Coast
near San friand or la. Yes, that doesn't get you
as far. But there's a difference between knowing that you
want to continue to work towards saving and investing more
versus accepting the fact that oh, well I'm not actually wealthy. No, no,
(18:15):
truly you are wealthy. Doesn't mean that you can totally
bag work altogether. Doesn't mean that you can go around
travel around the world, or you're not working to stop
investing exactly. Yeah, No, those are still things that you
need to do.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
I think it's a really good point, and we actually
have an article on our site about how to become
an IRA millionaire. Obviously, the contributions are limits are smaller
on those accounts, but you can still hit that just
under four decades if you get after it. So this
isn't the show where you're gonna learn about how to
become a millionaire overnight. If you turn into those just
(18:46):
be careful because you might lose your money. But it's
amazing that these tax advantaged accounts, Matt, just slow and
steady can win the race. And speaking of which, Matt
think lofty promises are out there all over the place
because they're buying into people's desire to want to build
wealth more quickly and to kind of avoid the hard
work and the time that it typically takes. Well. Investment
(19:08):
writer jason's Wig of The Wall Street Journal, he wrote
about some of these promises of lofty returns and how
they hoodwink people essentially into giving their money over to
companies that might not have your best interest at heart.
And so there was this one company he profiled. They
were promising lofty returns. It was this startup internet bank.
The company was promising and I quote colossal yields that
(19:32):
were and I quote risk free in the fifteen to
seventeen percent range. Yeah, oh that sounds good likely, right,
Not when someone promises that's like the Bernie made Off scam,
right where it's like, let's promise a little bit above
average and the money never goes down. You're always making money.
Somehow I found this without fail to al smart everybody else.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Right.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
This company even touted the FDIC insurance through up to
two million bucks, which sounds nice if only it were true.
The fine print was jar and sketchy. I'm not going
to get into all the details, but the lesson from
this one is if it sounds too good to be true,
it probably is and risk free returns far in excess
of what the best online banks are offering, far in
(20:12):
excess of what the stock market is able to reliably
generate year every year should set off alarm bells in
your head. If you want to enjoy higher returns, be
ready to experience more volatility. It's the inevitable rule of
wealth building. And if you want to enjoy much higher
returns and somebody is telling you they can offer it
to you, you probably should run away.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
And if you're not sure, hit us up. We always
like to field listener questions. You can even email us
a It helps us to kind of like tap into
the how to money hive mind to help other listeners
out there, but also be personally. I want to know
if there's a new account out there where I can
earn let's say six and a half percent or seven percent.
That kind of thing made me think.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
I saw another bank recently, Matt, and they were offering
eight percent returns, And then you dig into the fine
print and you get that extra three percent for three months.
So yes, technically getting eight percent returns for a hot minute,
but then it drops back down to normal levels, so
that even that it's like, well, it's not completely untrue.
It's just for a limited time only.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Then you want to know what kind of hoops you
have to jump through, and less and less am I
willing to jump through different hoops as opposed to staying
with a solid bank for the long haul. But Joe,
we've got more to get to. We're gonna share our
thoughts on the new iPhone. We're gonna talk about how
Kamala and Trump, how they might make you spend more money.
We'll get to that more right after this. All right,
(21:32):
now we're back to the break.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
I'm a little disappointed you didn't mention the other candidate's
running for president that nobody knows about. But Chase Oliver
is also running, just nobody knows it. All right, let's
get to the ludicrous headline of the week. This one
comes from Bloomberg and to the headline reads, Americans have
a new piggybank to raid their houses. We don't like
seeing these sorts of headlines that Matt and I think.
(21:56):
What is causing people to think about tapping into their
home for some money is that, hey, stimulus money's gone.
My bank account balance is dwindling. Interest rates for borrows
are starting to tick down, so maybe my helock is
starting to look a little more attractive. And then at
the same time, I've got more money in home equity
than ever before, So why shouldn't I get money from
(22:17):
that location? Why shouldn't I tap it? And if you
bought a house for like two hundred thousand bucks in
twenty eighteen, it's probably worth double that at least in
lots of the country.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Yeah, so I get the appeal. Yeah, I think the
only saving grace, honestly, is the fact that home prizes
half slowed down a little bit, Like could you imagine
if they continued at the clip that we had experienced
in twenty one twenty two, Oh my gosh, Like because
people would whole lock, but they would only be seeing
dollars signs.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
So I think the numbers bear out that there's what
thirty four trillion dollars in home equity overall, which means
the average American has something like three hundred thousand dollars
in equity. Obviously this is going to vary depending on
how old you are when you bought your home, where
you live, all that kind of stuff, But with an
average of three hundred thousand bucks in equity and two
hundred thousand dollars of that being tappable. People are saying, well, yeah,
(23:03):
I don't know. I think I should borrow some money,
even if it just to take a vacation or to
buy a car or something like that. And there are
some instances where using home equity dollars can make sense,
like doing home improvements when you have a reasonable payoff timeline.
Still we'd rather see you save up for that, but
it's at least worth mentioning that is a reasonable use
of a home equity line of credit. But don't treat
(23:25):
your home like a piggy bank. You're going to see
more and more of these headlines and you're going to
get more emails directly from lenders saying why not the
rates are going down, this is the perfect time to
start taking money out of your home. Well, I wouldn't
bank on the fact that declining rates are going to
lower your payment in the future, saving you more money.
That's I think another selling point that people are going
to say. Helocks are a financial tool that are incredibly
(23:48):
easy to mishandle It's really easy to take money out
of your home to open up one of those helocks. Matt,
the banks and the credit unions, they make it super
easy and there might not even be closing costs involved.
So it's simple to set up and it's not going
to cost you any money on the front end. But
if you do draw down on that significantly, you could
find yourself in financial pain that you didn't have to
get in.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
So there's an interesting article in the Journal from Julia
Carpenter and she alleges that what she caused election fatigue
is causing overspending, at least it is for her. There
aren't any stats about whether or not this is a
prevalent phenomena, and so maybe this is a bit anecdotal. Though.
We did just have a presidential debate on Tuesday, But
we are coming down to the wire and political ads
(24:30):
are basically everywhere everywhere we turn. I'm getting all the
texts too, mad. I don't know about you. I just
heard you get I hear report junk on all day.
Did you get that one Tuesday night, like late at
night where it's just like hey you join yeah, yes,
don't text me late at night. No. But it sure
seems like just generally speaking, as a culture, we're just
putting more of our hope in campaigns and in politicians
(24:50):
and the president, which honestly is kind of sad the
fact that we're starting to see our political figures as
heroes as opposed to others in our lives, maybe who
should be seen as heroes who are taking a more
self sacrificial route. But we don't want political anxiety to
turn your finances upside down. Bottom line, the national and
world events they're not always pretty. And so the more
(25:13):
that we can tune out the twenty four to seven
news cycle, the more that we can ignore the day
to day political barrage, I think, the happier we're going
to be, and the less likely we're going to feel
compelled to spend in order to combat these bad feelings.
I think when we realize that the daily news cycle
that it truly does not have an impact on the
bottom line of our lives. Like it makes me think
(25:33):
of the stock market, right, and we tell folks to
ignore the day to day gyrations because what do we
want you to do. We want you to zoom out,
We want you to see that oh over the long haul, Yeah,
stock market goes historically speaking up into the right, Yeah,
and the day to day movements don't matter. And so
in a similar way, people can get so stressed out
about the political environment and what's going on in media,
(25:55):
but just zoom out, and what happens when you zoom
out you see that our country, the United States, it's
still an amazing place to be. I'm so fortunate to
have been born here. It makes me think of Warren
Buffett talks about that we have all won the Ovarian lottery,
the fact that we were fortunate enough to be born
in this country, as opposed to I would say the
vast majority of people in the rest of the world
(26:16):
who can't say the same for where it is that
they live.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
It's like, the more you watch the news and the
political sphere, the worse you think our country is. And
the more you talk to your neighbors and hang out
with friends and visit local businesses, the more you're like, man,
our country's actually in pretty good shape. And so if
we get out of our own heads and get out
of that space and just get out in the real world,
the likelihood is we're gonna have a more optimistic view
(26:40):
and we're going to be less stressed out. And I
do agree that stress spending is a real thing. And
so at least for this author, she's saying, what stresses
me out is politics, and I'm spending more because of it. Well,
whatever it is that's stressing you out too, I guess
from a broader perspective, i'd have to just be politics. Yeah,
it can be a bunch of other things, like put
your finger on it so that you can see the
correlation between stress and spending, so that you can hopefully
(27:03):
nip it in the bud and kind of create some
barriers to spending willy nilly when you do get stressed out.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Yeah, that is something that we do have control over
what it is that we're spending.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Yeah, And I think especially in this season, when we
don't have control over I mean, what is it seven states, Matt,
that really matter in this election anyway? So if you
live in like most of the country, your vote has
very little impact and you don't have control even in
the seven states that matter, Like, you don't have much
control at all over the outcome anyway, And so we
have to be focused more on what we can control
(27:32):
than the things that are out of our hands. And
sorry to point this out, but there's something else that's
out of our control, and that is a phenomenon. Note
as shrink flation and shrink plation tends to get a
bad rap, especially from politicians, Matt, we're just talking about politics.
We've always said that shrinklation is not a bad thing,
although it is important for us as consumers to pay
(27:55):
attention to it and to recognize it because as things
get more expensive, we have two choice to pay more
or to get less for our dollars, and so shrink
flation essentially opts for the ladder of those two options.
And we saw there were a couple of stories on
that this week. One was about how toilet paper rolls
are shrinking, which is totally true, and there was like
(28:15):
a nobody wants to read this, it's a long form
piece about the shrinking.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Sharmon roll or whatever. I actually don't mind that, because
you know what I hate is when there's like the
jumbo roll and you put a fresh roll in there
and it's too tight to pull, yeah, and then it
ends up breaking. Yeah. I hate that.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
But here's the thing, Like, you just have to realize
that the solution isn't to crack down on companies for
shrinking their product, because what they're trying to do is
keep the price the same For consumers. The solution is
to pay attention to unit pricing and to change our
buying habits accordingly.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
And so if the.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
Sharman role is shrinking, but the costco role isn't, I'm
going with the costco role. And guess what, I'm going
with the costco roll of toilet paper, no matter what.
But if you pay attention to unit pricing, that is,
and it's on there. It's when you're at the grocery store.
When you're at costco, you can see price per item
or price per foot or whatever it is. Look at
that and let that help you decide which product is
(29:03):
going to make the most sense for you. You might say, oh,
if you look at the branding on the package, you
might think one thing. But if you look at the
unit price, it'll help put things in the right perspective
to help you make the right choice.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
So another article discussed shrinkflation in the hotel rewards sector.
They're following the lead of airlines, who are they're essentially
the kings of dolling out points only to inflate them
away over time. It's honestly, it's kind of like one
of the few downsides that I've never really thought of
of the fact that airline points don't expire, is the
fact that like, oh yeah, they kind of maybe they
(29:33):
want you to hang on to those and definitely because
eventually they're worth nothing.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
It's yeah, you let them linger and then they linger
into worthlessness.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
It's yeah, they're eighty percent water. They just drivel up.
It's nothing so hotels. A hotel room that might have
cost forty thousand points a few years ago, it might
cost you something like one hundred thousand points now even
more than that. But this is a type of shrinkflation
that feels a bit more insidious because of the fact
that they think it seems like they have a bit
more control over the value of those points. And the
(30:02):
only real way to combat this version of shrinkflation is
to use your points in a reasonable amount of time,
because the longer they sit there, the less valuable they
become as they shrivel up. So if you've got airline
points but a flight with them, saying, and the same
is true if you have hotel rewards points.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Yeah, let's talk about a random kind of thing, Matt. Here,
our kids went to back to school a month ago,
but a whole lot of school systems have only recently
started back up, and colleges typically started even later. I'm
seeing all the photos of friends sending their kids off
to college for the first time. It's adorable, And I'm
also like, did we look that young when we went
to college?
Speaker 2 (30:34):
We probably did. Was I a young little idiot? Yes?
I was? Yes.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Well, something else that happens when kids go off to
college is like, well, you have to think about different
kinds of insurance. And there's one insurance product that we've
been seeing more written about lately. It's dorm insurance. And
it's like, what really is this? Do we have to
ensure our dorm room possessions too? And the question is
should you have it? Well, the answer might not be
(30:59):
the most satisfying. It depends because, first, before just buying
dorm insurance in knee jerk reaction to cover your child's possessions,
check your homeowner's insurance policy to see if your child's
positions are covered while they're away at school. They likely
are electronics, clothing, all that stuff. You might already have
coverage for it, and you might not need a separate
(31:20):
policy despite the fact that it's actually not that expensive. Basically,
it could be repetitive and unnecessary. And even though it's cheap,
like I said, it's not that expensive, it's kind of
akin to Renter's insurance. The question is also do they
have enough stuff worth insuring. Maybe they're going to school
with twelve hundred bucks worth of stuff, and even if
you're paying twenty bucks a month, well, it'd be better
(31:41):
off to self insurance to not have that dorm insurance anyway,
So you might see more pitches for dorm insurance, and
there might be some cases where it makes sense, but
I think for most folks matter, it's either redundant or
not necessary, and self.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Insurance better redundant insurance exactly. And the fact too, I
think a lot of parents in particular might be thinking, oh,
that's a that's an expensive laptop or your phone. We'll
get to that here in a second. Your phone, that's
an expensive, brand new iPhone. But like, I think that's
less of an issue today because of the fact that
security is built into these devices so well, Like think
about some of like the US government, they're trying to
(32:15):
like they're talking to Apple when they're trying to break
into somebody's phone to get like important information and they
can't because of the fact that the security on these
devices is essentially so buttoned up, and so I think
that's less of the less of a concern. And so's
the what's the other thing that you're ensuring against, Well,
like it's if you damage it yourself, to which there
I would say, there are a lot of more affordable options,
like having your phone in a case, or just like
(32:37):
taking care of your laptop, or paying.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Yourself on bill with the right credit cards because you
get insurance and.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
It's built in. But just not maintaining our device, Like
we've got an eleven year old laptop. Yes, it's getting
long in the tooth, but dude, that thing still works
really well. And it's because we just take care of it.
We literally I clean that thing and make sure that
we set it up on the shelf to where the
kids aren't going to talk nice to it and we're
going to damage the thing. I think that is a
certainly much more affordable way to prolong our devices, to
(33:04):
make sure that we are able to use them off
into the future. And I mentioned iPhone. Don't get the
new iPhone? What is it this world? The sixteen at
this point, but.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
Matt the cameras are in alignment now and it's gonna Yeah,
I don't.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Know it's got two is it one button or two buttons?
I thought there's like multiple buttons now that like the
action buttons. Yeah, it doesn't matter who cares. Get you
a referbed directly from Apple, don't get it from Amazon, folks, Yeah,
because you had an issue with some of those. Indeed, indeed,
but do consider getting a new pair of AirPods, that is,
if your hearing's not great. And I say that because well,
(33:38):
specifically AirPod pros, so AirPod pros. Regular AirPods are pretty affordable,
but the pros are incredibly expensive.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
I regular AirPods are kind of expensive compared to their
non name brand equivalents too.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Though that's true in the fact that they just they
just sit there in your ear and they just I
don't know, they're they're able to easily fall out.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
But I've got a twenty dollar pair of in ear
buds and they work great.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
I've got a slightly more expensive pair that I really like.
But but the AirPod pros are crazy expensive. If you're
just listening to a podcast like this or if you're
listening to music, But they are a very affordable hearing aid,
which is what Apple is now purporting to offer via
their AirPod Pros prescription hearing aids. They typically cost thousands
of dollars for some of the nicer ones. And I
(34:19):
don't know if AirPods function as well as the ridiculously
expensive hearing aids that you have to go to a
doc in order to get tested for. We'll see. But
technology has come a long way, and it's pretty incredible
to think that not that long ago it was illegal
to sell hearing aids over the counter. That is really crazy.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Just literally two years ago it was illegal, it was
paying you didn't sell some of these hearing aids over
the counter. And now a company like Apple is saying,
we've made it cheap and we've revolutionized people's ability with like.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
Hearing tests and the ability like. So what I'm saying, though,
is don't go out and buy a pair of AirPod
pros if you think that you are losing your hearing,
because if that's the case, you're just in denial, Like
you're a gen xer, maybe even an older millennial, and
maybe you do need to get your ears checked. Because
the other thing is I just think it's cool that
they're offering this as an option if you already have it.
(35:10):
Like if I had a pair of AirPod pros, I
can't say AirPod pros today it's like a three times
Tungu twister. Oh would totally pop those into my ear.
See how my hearing's going? Yes, I think there's a
chance I might be losing my hearing. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
And hearing aids have historically been incredibly expensive, and so.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
For they're getting more affordable.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
That's the thing, because of the rule change and the
fact that you can buy over the counter heearing aids
now and Costco has been one of the go to
places for hearing aids because they have some of the
cheapest solid hearing aids. Because there's there's like there are
differences in type and in performance from hearing aids, and
Costco's really good ones for a reasonable price, and so
(35:48):
that's I'm curious about these, Like at the two fifty
price point, that's really good for hearing aids. How good
are they?
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Though? Is? What what are you gonna do? Though? Are you? Like?
I like that it exists. I don't want people to
turn to them for hearing aids. You know. So it's
sort of like it's added value folks, because are you
also then going to walk around with it, like because
you hate the way air pods elect, Like you're always like, oh,
they got the stems hanging down and they're white. I think, goofy,
that's the thing. You're gonna end up looking like the
dude and Baby Driver. We got the air pods in
(36:13):
constantly and it's like, oh, yeah, these my hearing age.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
But if they if they took me from not hearing
well to hearing it to being better in conversation, I
would totally wear them when I would get over it.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
The National Council on Aging, they've they've always got great
write ups on some of the more affordable ones out there,
and like you can get a decent pair for less
than a thousand dollars, Like there's some decent ones that
are in the hundreds. Maybe we'll link to that in
the show notes as well, and you might probably can
hide them a lot better. Yeah, and exactly, they go
into your ear. They're a little more discreet. They're flesh
colored as a pair, you know, compared to like bright white. Yeah,
(36:43):
I think it's cool that they're offering this not unlike
some of the other health apps that are built into
Apple watches and phones. But at the same time, it
doesn't that doesn't replace your doctor.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
You know, it's look at you being solidly on the
side of doctors.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
That's rare.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
That is, actually never goes to see the doctor. I
don't know the last time you wait, not too long ago.
But for the most part, yeah, avoid them.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
I don't know, maybe I'm wise enough, Joel. It's maybe
it's cheap, not frugal to completely avoid the dentist or
the dermatology.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
It also becomes more necessary as we get older. We've
crossed the forty year old threshold, so indeed doctor has
become more part of our lives. All right, thank you
so much for listening. As always, we'll put links to
some of the stuff we mentioned up in the show
notes on our website at howtomoney dot com. But Matt,
that's going to do it for this one. Until next time,
Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out.
Welcome to How to Money. I'm Joel, I am Matt,
and today we're talking about miserable millionaires, more shrinkflation, and
dumb dorm insurance.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
You know, it's Friday, which means it's time to go
over the news from this past week and how it
pertains to your personal finances. But before we get to
the actual headlines, Joel, let's kick it off with a
quick tip in the pursuit of excellence and the ability
for How to Money listeners to save more money. You
and I have we're doing a little bit of self
experimentation and we're trying out some new cell phone service. Yeah,
(00:49):
a new cell phone carrier called US Mobile. So they've been.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Around for a minute, we just haven't really talked about them,
but it seems like their product, their service, and their
price points gotten better. So you and I we're like,
let's be guinea pigs.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Have they revamped what they what they were offering because
they weren't really on my radar up until I think
they have, So I think they've They look like that
they're kind of like an old school and VN O
really is that weird to say like an old school
because mvnas are relatively new, but like compared to Mints
like Mint. You see their site, which by the way,
we're still fans of, like Mint mobile, US mobile sites
better what yeah, oh funny. It just feels way more
(01:20):
like two point zero and kind of fun got the
little fox and the rocketed maneuverability.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
The maneuverability isn't as good actually as the US Mobile
side ux user Yeah, user experience. But the thing people
want to know about, I guess is how much money
you can save? Why we're doing this the price, Yeah,
and so the the reason we thought about switching is
because they released a couple of times. We were Emily
and I were on the five gig plan with Mint.
We were on Mint Mobile for years and Mint Mobile
(01:45):
still is an awesome service that you should consider still great,
but we were like, ah, man unlimited. It seems like
it's actually not much more expensive on some of the
other carriers. So we're going from potentially fifteen dollars a
month with Mint, and when we went over, we had
to pay Mint a little extra like enter twenty bucks
to reload a couple extra gigs, which got frustrating and
expensive over time.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
It's more of an inconvenience honestly, like compared to the cost. Right, Like,
it's also not fun to have to pay per gig
when you go over, but it's like the hassle of
being like, oh sorry, you right out right, you got
to do something about that. Yeah, well, and that's what
you're trying to avoid is the heartache from Emily.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
And then the price per gig is ridiculous at that point,
so you'd be better off to have a slightly more
expensive plan every single month and never have to worry
about that. So US Mobile seventeen dollars and fifty cents
a month for unlimited everything. Yes, they're read the details
about when you get throttled after using a certain amount
of data, stuff like that, but I was like, it's
(02:39):
worth a shot. And the cool thing is, I think
Mint has a free seven day trial. US Mobile has
a free thirty day trial.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
It's really stinking cool. So I've been doing that.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Emily and I have been doing that, and we've basically
noticed and I think this is actually the most ringing
endorsement you can give, no discernible change.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
It works just the same. Okay. So one of the
benefits of US Mobile is the fact that you can
choose from two different networks. What network did you choose?
Are y'all doing?
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
I forget what it was called.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
There's two different not the Warp one, not the dark
Oh really? Yeah, so because I heard is different than
the dark Star. Oh dark okay, So I did Warp,
not Dark Stars. So dark Star okay. Dark Star apparently
runs on AT and t's network, so US Mobile has
multiple networks they do this, which is how Star Wars
rylokin does that sound dark Star, which also makes sense
(03:25):
because the AT and T logo, I guess it kind
of looks like the dust Star.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Is that why they called it that? So I actually
started out because I looked at the maps, because they
got the coverage maps of both of those, and so
I knew that dark Star was AT and T. I know,
I knew that Warp was Verizon, and I looked at
the coverage map for where we live and it looked
like the AT and T map coverage map was slightly better.
And so for the past couple of weeks, I've been
doing Dark Star, which I also kind of like the
(03:49):
fact that says dark Star up in the top corner,
which is kind of fun. But I think I've noticed
that it has not been quite as good as Mint.
So I actually switched. And this is one of the
things that makes it so great is you can literally
switch networks in the middle of a period of a
pay period because it's all through the eSIM. Your phone's
offline for like five or ten minutes or something like
that while the new eSIM gets activated, but literally, So
(04:12):
I switched from dark Star, which is AIGHTE and T
two WARP which is Verizon, and I have seen much
better coverage with WARP. Yeah, it's good, and that's one
of the selling points that US Mobile has is not
just the cheap service, but that, hey, we're on multiple networks,
so you can flip flop back and forth if you
need to. So just let you guys know where. Doing
this as a trial period, it's still like the early
(04:32):
stages of it because I have not yet hit the
ten gig limit yet to where it's they're going to
start slowing it down. That area. The only downside and
the only thing to kind of watch out for.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Still better than the five gigs for fifteen I was getting.
Now get a minimum ten gigs for seventeen fifty and
technically unlimited, but I don't know how slow it is.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
You want to hear my last little tip then, because
it's so easy. I was getting ready to switch Kate over,
and they were really not happy with the fact that
I was getting ready to drop her off too, and
so they started throwing numbers out as to like, hey, well,
what if we gave you this special and it was
better and we've been on the Phax mobile was Mint
was yeah, I'm on the phone with customer support with Mint,
and we see we don't deal with the five gig
(05:09):
because Kate got on me too many times of her
running out of data, and so we bumped us. We
bumped ourselves up to the fifteen gig, which means we're
paying two hundred and forty bucks for the year, which
comes out to twenty dollars a month. And the lady
I was talking to you was saying, well, looks like
there's a special deal and we can offer you the
fifteen gig for one hundred and eighty dollars, and I
was like, oh really. I was like, oh, that's that's great.
(05:30):
I'll keep that in mind for next time. Let's go
ahead and switch. And she's like, Okay, hang on and
she like, you hear the keyboard typing, she dropped it
down to one sixty Oh wow, one hundred and sixty bucks,
which comes out to like thirteen dollars and change. That's great,
four fifteen gig. So I actually I left her on
Mint okay, yeah, because I was like, all right, babe,
have you been happy with the coverage? She's like, yeah, totally.
(05:51):
And so I saw that as a way for us
to compare one of the new networks with US Mobile
to the old T Mobile network, which is what Mint uses.
And so sometimes you gotta play hard to get to
get the deal. What's so great about this, though, is
the fact that competition. You've got another player entering into
the scene. And now Ryan Reynolds has to find a
way to keep his customers and keep all the Mint
mobile users happy.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
And I've even seen visible offering T Mobile customers and Mint.
Mint users count as T Mobile customers fifteen dollars a
month unlimited service for the next five years. So whoa, yeah,
I mean that's a commitment. That's a commitment. No, but no,
but you don't have it's not a they're guaranteeing it
for five years. You don't have to sign up. Okay,
it's not a contract.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Yeah, all right.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
But so that's the cool thing is there's so much
It's amazing how in an era of inflation, what's deflationary
is self fun playing prices.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
So love it.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Us Mobile going to give it a shot, and I
might even try some of these other ones, Matt, because
the price point might keep dropping. At some point, self
service is going to be like free. That's what it
feels like.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Honestly, we might get to that point because they're going
to pay you in order to get their hands on
your data. Yeah, I guess. So.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
All right, let's move on, Matt. Let's get to the
Friday Flight, the sampling of stories we found interesting this week.
Let's talk about toys for a second. I don't know
if you've noticed this, Matt, I don't know. I haven't
seen any catalogs come in the mail yet. My kids,
you just wait for those.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
You just wait. It'll be in the mailbox before you
know it. Come Monday, it'll be there.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
They found they found the old catalog from last year
under the couch recently, and they were obsessed with it again.
I had to throw it in the trash and I did
not want them to see it. But we're starting to
see lists come out of the hot toys for this
Christmas season. Barbie is apparently back. Legos never went away,
They've always been hot. Bluey, that's another hot toy. Everybody
(07:31):
loves Blue. I think there were more streaming hours of
Blue than any other show. Yeah, in the US. In
addition to that, Christmas aisles are popping up everywhere at
Costco selling the Christmas trees. All the Christmas stuff is
up already. The Halloween stuff has been put away. It
feels too soon. I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
It's just rushing us along through life. I know, yeah,
I'm not a fan.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Let's uh, let's wait for the Christmas season. But I
think what this brings up a couple of things. Businesses, Yes,
are clamoring for your holiday, but I think this is
just a friendly reminder from us as I'm starting to
see this stuff pop up, start budgeting, start saving for
those purchases.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Now.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Ultimately, what we're fans of is people saving throughout the
year so you're not overwhelmed. Come this season and you're like, ah, man,
I'm gonna spend more than I have on hand. But Hey,
maybe you can't go back to January. You can't time
travel back to January and start saving for Christmas ahead
of time, but you can start saving now. You still
have time to kind of ramp up your savings and
(08:31):
so that you're not going into debt. You don't want
to find yourself, of course in January with a ridiculous
credit card bill on hand.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
I know this sounds crazy, but you can start looking
ahead a little bit, so Christmas twenty twenty five. And yes,
you can't go back in time, but this is literally
why at the end of the year, Kate and we
sit down and we review our finances and we look
at the money that we spent when it comes to
Christmas presents, when it comes to birthday presents, and what
is it anniversaries as well, Like we've got a special
category that we that we spend oh in gifts like
teacher gifts, teacher appreciation, end of the year kind of
(08:59):
stuff that you know, when you have more kids, and
when we start having a lot more teachers as they
get into these higher grades, it really adds up. And
so the ability to start saving for that. Literally we
add all those up, we get a total amount and
then we divide that by twelve for the next year.
That way, every single month we're essentially like dollar cost average,
not dollar cost. We're just sending aside a small installment
(09:19):
so that we're not like you.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Said, it's a seeking fund, right like that, that's what
it's called. And you know what you're going to spend
in all likelihood, and you're you slowly but surely ahead
of time, and you know you want to spend that,
So just be prepared and to be a little bit
more proactive. Like Christmas happens every year we for some reason,
so many people always get caught up off guard and
didn't be.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
A surprise as much to their financial chagrin. Yeah, so
good news is there's a bank rate survey and they
find that a third of folks are planning on spending
less this holiday season. Actually, so that's great, A solid
chunk of shopper say that they plan on starting their shopping.
Now I love both of these things, right, So again,
spreading your shopping out where you're able to hunt for
bargains on the front, then I think that can lead
(10:01):
to increased savings. But then the bad news, the bad
part of the survey is that nearly a third, so
it was twenty seven percent of people are planning to
go into debt for holiday spending.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
They're not much like, ah, maybe they're planning on it,
They're like, literally, this is my plan.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
This is how they're going to be able to afford it,
which we obviously hate. So again, I think the ability
to proactively plan for that is the way to go.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Yeah, one of the things that Amanda said on Wednesday's
episode was it's just not worth it to go into
debt to try and keep up appearances. Matt and I
think sometimes, well, the things she's spot on, I think
sometimes when it comes to Christmas, the appearance is yeah,
I'm flush and I'm gonna buy everybody awesome Christmas presents,
when if you're not and you can't financially handle that,
(10:42):
now is the perfect time to have that conversation. It's
to set expectations. So we actually have an article about
creating a holiday budget that we'll link to in the
show notes. But also make sure you are are upfront, honest,
and having those talks with your friends and family before
or you get to Christmas Eve, because that's a recipe
(11:03):
for relational disaster. Having that conversation about maybe hey, let's
just buy for only the kids this year, or if
that's the financial position you find yourself in. I think
people respect that, yeah, and so yeah, just don't feel ashamed.
I guess to have that conversation to broach the topic.
And it could be something like, doesn't have to be
like all dour and sad and gray. Yeah, like there's
(11:24):
a way that you can do that but still make
it fun. Yeah, you just got to be a little
bit more creative. And it might not be that you're
strapped for cash. It might just be that you have
other financial goals you want to achieve. And so yeah,
you can say it like that, like, hey, listen, we're
working on this, this, and this right now, We're gonna
have to tame our Christmas spending down. Is that okay
with you guys? That's a great way to.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Start the con THO. We actually, I don't know how
folks would feel about this, but Kate and I asked
family and extended family instead of doing getting us kind
of random gifts to supply or not to supply, but
to help us to be able to purchase equipment for
the business that we're starting. At that point, in time,
and I would say most folks were on board with that,
and that was a great way for us to not
to go into debt in order to get that off
the ground. Speaking of surveys, there is a new one
(12:04):
from Loop that finds that more Americans are abusing return policies.
We've talked about this. Folks are they're lying about products
not showing up. They're wearing stuff and then returning it,
which is gosh, I hate that, man, that's like so
freaking tacky. Some folks are claiming that items are defective
when they weren't, all in hopes for a refund when
it actually isn't deserved. Retailers are finally starting to wise
(12:27):
up and they are making their return policies less generous,
which then harms honest customers who experience real issues. You're
basically ruining the party for everybody. Yeah, and so we
want folks to not be afraid to return items obviously
that aren't up to snuff. But just don't be one
of these people, please. But there is a slight silver lining,
which is that some companies and some brands, they're not
changing the overall return policy for everybody, but they are
(12:50):
cracking down on customers who present consistent issues. They're starting
to keep a little file on you, a little dossier.
And so if you like a company or a brand
and you want to keep shopping there, well, if you
abuse the return policies exhibiting this type of behavior, it
could lead to you not being able to do business
with them anymore.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
When mister Smith, this is your eighth return this.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Month, exactly. Yeah, I think this is a much better
way to go, and it could be a way that
companies are able to maintain just higher levels of customers
serve because you don't want to burn everybody, right right.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
I think that's one of the reasons for some price
inflation too, man. I think some of the companies that
offer the most generous return policies have kind of higher
prices on some of the items that they sell. So
it's one of their marketing things. And because they're saying, listen,
you can return it, no questions asked, even years down
the road, Well, you're going to pay a little more
for the item up front for that privilege, which I'm
also okay with because and you just have to remember too,
(13:42):
keep them oud. What is the return policy of that company?
For instance, Like we've talked about Darn Tough socks, Bambas
has something similar like one hundred percent satisfaction guarantee and
if there's holes in your socks, they'll send you new ones.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Because Bambas don't. I'm not a huge fan. You've like
Mamba's in the last, but like they're cozy when you
take them on. They have not held up at all all,
could not compared to the Darn tuffs a least send
them an email. I just did with just a couple
of mine because there's holes in them, and they send
me new socks. Bomb is dead. Yeah, nice, so interesting. Yeah,
all you gotta do.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
And you don't even have to send them pictures. You
just literally say this is the order, ye I got?
I got holes of my socks.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Guys. Yeah, but I do, I mean I do.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
I sent them pictures because I didn't want to be
that's I mean, coercive individuals.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
I want to. I feel bad for kind of throwing
them under the bus, but that's one of the reasons.
I'm just like, they haven't really held up, Unlike like
darn toff are amazing, dude, Like truly, I'm like, are
these things ever gonna wear out.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Well, if they do, like with either one of those companies,
you can get another product return, but that is their policy.
And they charge more for the socks up front because
you can get a three dollars pair of socks or
you can get a fifteen dollars pair of socks. But
as long as there's a guarantee behind the fifteen dollars
pair of socks, I don't mind spending more because if
they do wear out, they're gonna send me another pair.
Let's talk about retirement, Matt. There's good news on the
(14:49):
retirement front. There are more four oh one K millionaires
than ever before these days. It doesn't I guess take
a rocket scientist to figure out that that would be
the case considering how well the stock market has been
performing recently, you know, with that we're still near all
time highs. But Fidelity reports that they house almost half
a million four to one k's that have accrued more
(15:10):
than a million dollars in assets. And it's not only
because the assets are growing, that's part of it, obviously,
but investing habits are getting better too, So the average
Fidelity four o one K savings rate. Matt, this is
what I zeroed in I'm like, oh, yeah, cool, half
a million millionaires with Fidelity four on ks.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
That's super cool.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
But the average savings rate in a Fidelity four O
one K is fourteen point two percent, which is getting
really close to our fifteen percent minimum investment amount suggestion.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
It's amazing.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
So that's good. That's we're celebrating. And I think this
is just a reminder too. When I saw this, I'm like, oh,
that's really cool. But slow and steady wins the race.
And I would be willing to bet that the vast
majority of those those four to one k millionaires yes,
are in their fifties and sixties. They've been getting the
match and increasing their personal contribution amount year over year,
(15:58):
and it just took time, but they got there. They
got to where they wanted to go. And I think
this has encouragement, especially for our listener base who is
mostly younger let's say, jen Z and millennials. If you
do the same, you're going to get there too. And
I saw this article from our friend Sam Over at
Financial Samurai. He ran the numbers Ogan Sam Dogan, and
he found that if you max your four oh one
(16:20):
K contribution, I'm not saying that's easy. It can be
really difficult to do that. It can take years for
you to get there.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Just to designe twenty three thousand dollars, right, that's all
about every year. It's simple.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
But he basically found it's going to take you eighteen
years to get there with contribution limits set where they
are at twenty three grand. So think about that if
you were and again, really hard to do. It is simple,
it's not easy. But if you can max that four
one k out every year over eighteen years, with the
returns that you're going to get, I think about starting
off as a twenty two year old, you could be
(16:49):
a millionaire by the time you're forty Yep.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Yeah. I think what that highlights is the fact that
I think for a lot of folks it seems like
something that is completely unattainable. But what he's pointing out
here is that no, like there is a game plan,
this is actually attainable, even though it is a tall ask.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
And I think sometimes people say, oh, low and slow,
that's gonna take too long. Let me let me try
to get there faster, and that's how people get burned exactly.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
They're going for that for those different get rich quick schemes.
But you'll even though there are more millionaires than ever,
only a third of folks who have a million bucks
in the retirement account think of themselves as wealthy. And
I get it right, because we've experienced inflation. Right overall
prices are twenty five percent higher than pre PAM. Yeah,
a million bucks in twenty nineteen eight the same as
a million bucks. No, having a million dollars, Like even
(17:31):
back in the nineties when we first heard about having
a million dollars as kids. Uh, if you had million
dollars back then, that was way more impressive than having
a million dollars today. But that is still a massive
number to hit in your wealth building journey, Like if
your net worth is more than a million dollars, like
you are legit wealthy and I'm incially on like a
worldwide scale, Oh my gosh. Yes. And the problem though
(17:51):
is that it's just it comes down to lifestyle, because
what is a million dollars if you are living on
if you're an elitist living on one of the coasts,
you know, like if you are living in and around
New York City, if you're living on the West Coast
near San friand or la. Yes, that doesn't get you
as far. But there's a difference between knowing that you
want to continue to work towards saving and investing more
versus accepting the fact that oh, well I'm not actually wealthy. No, no,
(18:15):
truly you are wealthy. Doesn't mean that you can totally
bag work altogether. Doesn't mean that you can go around
travel around the world, or you're not working to stop
investing exactly. Yeah, No, those are still things that you
need to do.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
I think it's a really good point, and we actually
have an article on our site about how to become
an IRA millionaire. Obviously, the contributions are limits are smaller
on those accounts, but you can still hit that just
under four decades if you get after it. So this
isn't the show where you're gonna learn about how to
become a millionaire overnight. If you turn into those just
(18:46):
be careful because you might lose your money. But it's
amazing that these tax advantaged accounts, Matt, just slow and
steady can win the race. And speaking of which, Matt
think lofty promises are out there all over the place
because they're buying into people's desire to want to build
wealth more quickly and to kind of avoid the hard
work and the time that it typically takes. Well. Investment
(19:08):
writer jason's Wig of The Wall Street Journal, he wrote
about some of these promises of lofty returns and how
they hoodwink people essentially into giving their money over to
companies that might not have your best interest at heart.
And so there was this one company he profiled. They
were promising lofty returns. It was this startup internet bank.
The company was promising and I quote colossal yields that
(19:32):
were and I quote risk free in the fifteen to
seventeen percent range. Yeah, oh that sounds good likely, right,
Not when someone promises that's like the Bernie made Off scam,
right where it's like, let's promise a little bit above
average and the money never goes down. You're always making money.
Somehow I found this without fail to al smart everybody else.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Right.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
This company even touted the FDIC insurance through up to
two million bucks, which sounds nice if only it were true.
The fine print was jar and sketchy. I'm not going
to get into all the details, but the lesson from
this one is if it sounds too good to be true,
it probably is and risk free returns far in excess
of what the best online banks are offering, far in
(20:12):
excess of what the stock market is able to reliably
generate year every year should set off alarm bells in
your head. If you want to enjoy higher returns, be
ready to experience more volatility. It's the inevitable rule of
wealth building. And if you want to enjoy much higher
returns and somebody is telling you they can offer it
to you, you probably should run away.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
And if you're not sure, hit us up. We always
like to field listener questions. You can even email us
a It helps us to kind of like tap into
the how to money hive mind to help other listeners
out there, but also be personally. I want to know
if there's a new account out there where I can
earn let's say six and a half percent or seven percent.
That kind of thing made me think.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
I saw another bank recently, Matt, and they were offering
eight percent returns, And then you dig into the fine
print and you get that extra three percent for three months.
So yes, technically getting eight percent returns for a hot minute,
but then it drops back down to normal levels, so
that even that it's like, well, it's not completely untrue.
It's just for a limited time only.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Then you want to know what kind of hoops you
have to jump through, and less and less am I
willing to jump through different hoops as opposed to staying
with a solid bank for the long haul. But Joe,
we've got more to get to. We're gonna share our
thoughts on the new iPhone. We're gonna talk about how
Kamala and Trump, how they might make you spend more money.
We'll get to that more right after this. All right,
(21:32):
now we're back to the break.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
I'm a little disappointed you didn't mention the other candidate's
running for president that nobody knows about. But Chase Oliver
is also running, just nobody knows it. All right, let's
get to the ludicrous headline of the week. This one
comes from Bloomberg and to the headline reads, Americans have
a new piggybank to raid their houses. We don't like
seeing these sorts of headlines that Matt and I think.
(21:56):
What is causing people to think about tapping into their
home for some money is that, hey, stimulus money's gone.
My bank account balance is dwindling. Interest rates for borrows
are starting to tick down, so maybe my helock is
starting to look a little more attractive. And then at
the same time, I've got more money in home equity
than ever before, So why shouldn't I get money from
(22:17):
that location? Why shouldn't I tap it? And if you
bought a house for like two hundred thousand bucks in
twenty eighteen, it's probably worth double that at least in
lots of the country.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Yeah, so I get the appeal. Yeah, I think the
only saving grace, honestly, is the fact that home prizes
half slowed down a little bit, Like could you imagine
if they continued at the clip that we had experienced
in twenty one twenty two, Oh my gosh, Like because
people would whole lock, but they would only be seeing
dollars signs.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
So I think the numbers bear out that there's what
thirty four trillion dollars in home equity overall, which means
the average American has something like three hundred thousand dollars
in equity. Obviously this is going to vary depending on
how old you are when you bought your home, where
you live, all that kind of stuff, But with an
average of three hundred thousand bucks in equity and two
hundred thousand dollars of that being tappable. People are saying, well, yeah,
(23:03):
I don't know. I think I should borrow some money,
even if it just to take a vacation or to
buy a car or something like that. And there are
some instances where using home equity dollars can make sense,
like doing home improvements when you have a reasonable payoff timeline.
Still we'd rather see you save up for that, but
it's at least worth mentioning that is a reasonable use
of a home equity line of credit. But don't treat
(23:25):
your home like a piggy bank. You're going to see
more and more of these headlines and you're going to
get more emails directly from lenders saying why not the
rates are going down, this is the perfect time to
start taking money out of your home. Well, I wouldn't
bank on the fact that declining rates are going to
lower your payment in the future, saving you more money.
That's I think another selling point that people are going
to say. Helocks are a financial tool that are incredibly
(23:48):
easy to mishandle It's really easy to take money out
of your home to open up one of those helocks. Matt,
the banks and the credit unions, they make it super
easy and there might not even be closing costs involved.
So it's simple to set up and it's not going
to cost you any money on the front end. But
if you do draw down on that significantly, you could
find yourself in financial pain that you didn't have to
get in.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
So there's an interesting article in the Journal from Julia
Carpenter and she alleges that what she caused election fatigue
is causing overspending, at least it is for her. There
aren't any stats about whether or not this is a
prevalent phenomena, and so maybe this is a bit anecdotal. Though.
We did just have a presidential debate on Tuesday, But
we are coming down to the wire and political ads
(24:30):
are basically everywhere everywhere we turn. I'm getting all the
texts too, mad. I don't know about you. I just
heard you get I hear report junk on all day.
Did you get that one Tuesday night, like late at
night where it's just like hey you join yeah, yes,
don't text me late at night. No. But it sure
seems like just generally speaking, as a culture, we're just
putting more of our hope in campaigns and in politicians
(24:50):
and the president, which honestly is kind of sad the
fact that we're starting to see our political figures as
heroes as opposed to others in our lives, maybe who
should be seen as heroes who are taking a more
self sacrificial route. But we don't want political anxiety to
turn your finances upside down. Bottom line, the national and
world events they're not always pretty. And so the more
(25:13):
that we can tune out the twenty four to seven
news cycle, the more that we can ignore the day
to day political barrage, I think, the happier we're going
to be, and the less likely we're going to feel
compelled to spend in order to combat these bad feelings.
I think when we realize that the daily news cycle
that it truly does not have an impact on the
bottom line of our lives. Like it makes me think
(25:33):
of the stock market, right, and we tell folks to
ignore the day to day gyrations because what do we
want you to do. We want you to zoom out,
We want you to see that oh over the long haul, Yeah,
stock market goes historically speaking up into the right, Yeah,
and the day to day movements don't matter. And so
in a similar way, people can get so stressed out
about the political environment and what's going on in media,
(25:55):
but just zoom out, and what happens when you zoom
out you see that our country, the United States, it's
still an amazing place to be. I'm so fortunate to
have been born here. It makes me think of Warren
Buffett talks about that we have all won the Ovarian lottery,
the fact that we were fortunate enough to be born
in this country, as opposed to I would say the
vast majority of people in the rest of the world
(26:16):
who can't say the same for where it is that
they live.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
It's like, the more you watch the news and the
political sphere, the worse you think our country is. And
the more you talk to your neighbors and hang out
with friends and visit local businesses, the more you're like, man,
our country's actually in pretty good shape. And so if
we get out of our own heads and get out
of that space and just get out in the real world,
the likelihood is we're gonna have a more optimistic view
(26:40):
and we're going to be less stressed out. And I
do agree that stress spending is a real thing. And
so at least for this author, she's saying, what stresses
me out is politics, and I'm spending more because of it. Well,
whatever it is that's stressing you out too, I guess
from a broader perspective, i'd have to just be politics. Yeah,
it can be a bunch of other things, like put
your finger on it so that you can see the
correlation between stress and spending, so that you can hopefully
(27:03):
nip it in the bud and kind of create some
barriers to spending willy nilly when you do get stressed out.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Yeah, that is something that we do have control over
what it is that we're spending.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Yeah, And I think especially in this season, when we
don't have control over I mean, what is it seven states, Matt,
that really matter in this election anyway? So if you
live in like most of the country, your vote has
very little impact and you don't have control even in
the seven states that matter, Like, you don't have much
control at all over the outcome anyway, And so we
have to be focused more on what we can control
(27:32):
than the things that are out of our hands. And
sorry to point this out, but there's something else that's
out of our control, and that is a phenomenon. Note
as shrink flation and shrink plation tends to get a
bad rap, especially from politicians, Matt, we're just talking about politics.
We've always said that shrinklation is not a bad thing,
although it is important for us as consumers to pay
(27:55):
attention to it and to recognize it because as things
get more expensive, we have two choice to pay more
or to get less for our dollars, and so shrink
flation essentially opts for the ladder of those two options.
And we saw there were a couple of stories on
that this week. One was about how toilet paper rolls
are shrinking, which is totally true, and there was like
(28:15):
a nobody wants to read this, it's a long form
piece about the shrinking.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Sharmon roll or whatever. I actually don't mind that, because
you know what I hate is when there's like the
jumbo roll and you put a fresh roll in there
and it's too tight to pull, yeah, and then it
ends up breaking. Yeah. I hate that.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
But here's the thing, Like, you just have to realize
that the solution isn't to crack down on companies for
shrinking their product, because what they're trying to do is
keep the price the same For consumers. The solution is
to pay attention to unit pricing and to change our
buying habits accordingly.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
And so if the.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
Sharman role is shrinking, but the costco role isn't, I'm
going with the costco role. And guess what, I'm going
with the costco roll of toilet paper, no matter what.
But if you pay attention to unit pricing, that is,
and it's on there. It's when you're at the grocery store.
When you're at costco, you can see price per item
or price per foot or whatever it is. Look at
that and let that help you decide which product is
(29:03):
going to make the most sense for you. You might say, oh,
if you look at the branding on the package, you
might think one thing. But if you look at the
unit price, it'll help put things in the right perspective
to help you make the right choice.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
So another article discussed shrinkflation in the hotel rewards sector.
They're following the lead of airlines, who are they're essentially
the kings of dolling out points only to inflate them
away over time. It's honestly, it's kind of like one
of the few downsides that I've never really thought of
of the fact that airline points don't expire, is the
fact that like, oh yeah, they kind of maybe they
(29:33):
want you to hang on to those and definitely because
eventually they're worth nothing.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
It's yeah, you let them linger and then they linger
into worthlessness.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
It's yeah, they're eighty percent water. They just drivel up.
It's nothing so hotels. A hotel room that might have
cost forty thousand points a few years ago, it might
cost you something like one hundred thousand points now even
more than that. But this is a type of shrinkflation
that feels a bit more insidious because of the fact
that they think it seems like they have a bit
more control over the value of those points. And the
(30:02):
only real way to combat this version of shrinkflation is
to use your points in a reasonable amount of time,
because the longer they sit there, the less valuable they
become as they shrivel up. So if you've got airline
points but a flight with them, saying, and the same
is true if you have hotel rewards points.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Yeah, let's talk about a random kind of thing, Matt. Here,
our kids went to back to school a month ago,
but a whole lot of school systems have only recently
started back up, and colleges typically started even later. I'm
seeing all the photos of friends sending their kids off
to college for the first time. It's adorable, And I'm
also like, did we look that young when we went
to college?
Speaker 2 (30:34):
We probably did. Was I a young little idiot? Yes?
I was? Yes.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Well, something else that happens when kids go off to
college is like, well, you have to think about different
kinds of insurance. And there's one insurance product that we've
been seeing more written about lately. It's dorm insurance. And
it's like, what really is this? Do we have to
ensure our dorm room possessions too? And the question is
should you have it? Well, the answer might not be
(30:59):
the most satisfying. It depends because, first, before just buying
dorm insurance in knee jerk reaction to cover your child's possessions,
check your homeowner's insurance policy to see if your child's
positions are covered while they're away at school. They likely
are electronics, clothing, all that stuff. You might already have
coverage for it, and you might not need a separate
(31:20):
policy despite the fact that it's actually not that expensive. Basically,
it could be repetitive and unnecessary. And even though it's cheap,
like I said, it's not that expensive, it's kind of
akin to Renter's insurance. The question is also do they
have enough stuff worth insuring. Maybe they're going to school
with twelve hundred bucks worth of stuff, and even if
you're paying twenty bucks a month, well, it'd be better
(31:41):
off to self insurance to not have that dorm insurance anyway,
So you might see more pitches for dorm insurance, and
there might be some cases where it makes sense, but
I think for most folks matter, it's either redundant or
not necessary, and self.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Insurance better redundant insurance exactly. And the fact too, I
think a lot of parents in particular might be thinking, oh,
that's a that's an expensive laptop or your phone. We'll
get to that here in a second. Your phone, that's
an expensive, brand new iPhone. But like, I think that's
less of an issue today because of the fact that
security is built into these devices so well, Like think
about some of like the US government, they're trying to
(32:15):
like they're talking to Apple when they're trying to break
into somebody's phone to get like important information and they
can't because of the fact that the security on these
devices is essentially so buttoned up, and so I think
that's less of the less of a concern. And so's
the what's the other thing that you're ensuring against, Well,
like it's if you damage it yourself, to which there
I would say, there are a lot of more affordable options,
like having your phone in a case, or just like
(32:37):
taking care of your laptop, or paying.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Yourself on bill with the right credit cards because you
get insurance and.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
It's built in. But just not maintaining our device, Like
we've got an eleven year old laptop. Yes, it's getting
long in the tooth, but dude, that thing still works
really well. And it's because we just take care of it.
We literally I clean that thing and make sure that
we set it up on the shelf to where the
kids aren't going to talk nice to it and we're
going to damage the thing. I think that is a
certainly much more affordable way to prolong our devices, to
(33:04):
make sure that we are able to use them off
into the future. And I mentioned iPhone. Don't get the
new iPhone? What is it this world? The sixteen at
this point, but.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
Matt the cameras are in alignment now and it's gonna Yeah,
I don't.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Know it's got two is it one button or two buttons?
I thought there's like multiple buttons now that like the
action buttons. Yeah, it doesn't matter who cares. Get you
a referbed directly from Apple, don't get it from Amazon, folks, Yeah,
because you had an issue with some of those. Indeed, indeed,
but do consider getting a new pair of AirPods, that is,
if your hearing's not great. And I say that because well,
(33:38):
specifically AirPod pros, so AirPod pros. Regular AirPods are pretty affordable,
but the pros are incredibly expensive.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
I regular AirPods are kind of expensive compared to their
non name brand equivalents too.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Though that's true in the fact that they just they
just sit there in your ear and they just I
don't know, they're they're able to easily fall out.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
But I've got a twenty dollar pair of in ear
buds and they work great.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
I've got a slightly more expensive pair that I really like.
But but the AirPod pros are crazy expensive. If you're
just listening to a podcast like this or if you're
listening to music, But they are a very affordable hearing aid,
which is what Apple is now purporting to offer via
their AirPod Pros prescription hearing aids. They typically cost thousands
of dollars for some of the nicer ones. And I
(34:19):
don't know if AirPods function as well as the ridiculously
expensive hearing aids that you have to go to a
doc in order to get tested for. We'll see. But
technology has come a long way, and it's pretty incredible
to think that not that long ago it was illegal
to sell hearing aids over the counter. That is really crazy.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Just literally two years ago it was illegal, it was
paying you didn't sell some of these hearing aids over
the counter. And now a company like Apple is saying,
we've made it cheap and we've revolutionized people's ability with like.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
Hearing tests and the ability like. So what I'm saying, though,
is don't go out and buy a pair of AirPod
pros if you think that you are losing your hearing,
because if that's the case, you're just in denial, Like
you're a gen xer, maybe even an older millennial, and
maybe you do need to get your ears checked. Because
the other thing is I just think it's cool that
they're offering this as an option if you already have it.
(35:10):
Like if I had a pair of AirPod pros, I
can't say AirPod pros today it's like a three times
Tungu twister. Oh would totally pop those into my ear.
See how my hearing's going? Yes, I think there's a
chance I might be losing my hearing. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
And hearing aids have historically been incredibly expensive, and so.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
For they're getting more affordable.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
That's the thing, because of the rule change and the
fact that you can buy over the counter heearing aids
now and Costco has been one of the go to
places for hearing aids because they have some of the
cheapest solid hearing aids. Because there's there's like there are
differences in type and in performance from hearing aids, and
Costco's really good ones for a reasonable price, and so
(35:48):
that's I'm curious about these, Like at the two fifty
price point, that's really good for hearing aids. How good
are they?
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Though? Is? What what are you gonna do? Though? Are you? Like?
I like that it exists. I don't want people to
turn to them for hearing aids. You know. So it's
sort of like it's added value folks, because are you
also then going to walk around with it, like because
you hate the way air pods elect, Like you're always like, oh,
they got the stems hanging down and they're white. I think, goofy,
that's the thing. You're gonna end up looking like the
dude and Baby Driver. We got the air pods in
(36:13):
constantly and it's like, oh, yeah, these my hearing age.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
But if they if they took me from not hearing
well to hearing it to being better in conversation, I
would totally wear them when I would get over it.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
The National Council on Aging, they've they've always got great
write ups on some of the more affordable ones out there,
and like you can get a decent pair for less
than a thousand dollars, Like there's some decent ones that
are in the hundreds. Maybe we'll link to that in
the show notes as well, and you might probably can
hide them a lot better. Yeah, and exactly, they go
into your ear. They're a little more discreet. They're flesh
colored as a pair, you know, compared to like bright white. Yeah,
(36:43):
I think it's cool that they're offering this not unlike
some of the other health apps that are built into
Apple watches and phones. But at the same time, it
doesn't that doesn't replace your doctor.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
You know, it's look at you being solidly on the
side of doctors.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
That's rare.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
That is, actually never goes to see the doctor. I
don't know the last time you wait, not too long ago.
But for the most part, yeah, avoid them.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
I don't know, maybe I'm wise enough, Joel. It's maybe
it's cheap, not frugal to completely avoid the dentist or
the dermatology.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
It also becomes more necessary as we get older. We've
crossed the forty year old threshold, so indeed doctor has
become more part of our lives. All right, thank you
so much for listening. As always, we'll put links to
some of the stuff we mentioned up in the show
notes on our website at howtomoney dot com. But Matt,
that's going to do it for this one. Until next time,
Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out.
Hosts And Creators
Joel Larsgaard
Matthew Altmix
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