May 1, 2025 • 13 mins
Host of ‘How to Money’ Joel Larsgaard joins the show to discuss FIRE folks retiring but not loving the retirement life, Americans paying more for groceries, and subscriptions potentially increasing.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Time for Joe Larsgard, a host of How the Money
every Sunday twelve to two pm.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Hello, Joel, do we not have Joel?
Speaker 3 (00:08):
I'm here, you hear me?
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Oh there you go?
Speaker 3 (00:10):
All right, we'll put that one on Kono.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Uh yeah, we will, by the way, real quickly. Who
do you think is out next?
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Never mind Kono Kono is out next?
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Yeah? Well absolutely, Hey, I hear something here is something
that's actually near and dear to my heart, which I
spend a lot of time thinking at thinking about so
many people retire and end up not loving retirement life
or early retirement life, and that's one of my fears,
(00:43):
is retiring and then what the hell do I do?
Because my identity is here. I love to work, I
always have, and I know people, we hear of stories
people retiring early, not only not happy about it, but
dying early because of retirement. And so this has become
a thing, I believe. So jump into that, would you, Joel.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
I think over the past like fifteen years in particular,
this trend towards early retirement has been picking up steam.
And it's partly is because of a few reasons.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
I think.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
One, there's like a disillusionment with work that some folks,
especially younger folks, have had. And there's also been this
like bull run in the stock market, and so they're like, cool, Well,
if I just save more and I'm super frugal, I'm
investing a decent chunk of my income, I can actually
grow up a decent nest egg and be able to
quit work a whole.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Lot sooner than most folks.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
So I realized that this is a subset of the
population that most folks don't find themselves in this camp.
And in fact, when you look at the statistics about
where Americans are with their investments and their finances, you
know most of them don't have nearly that much safe.
But there is this subset of people and some of them, yeah,
they've got like two incomes or dinks and they've got
and they're making a lot of money. But others aren't.
(01:58):
And yet they have still managed to pull this off off.
But here's what you find and kind of what you're
alluding to, Bill, with how you feel about the work
you do every day and how much like it provides
a sense of meaning and identity. Well, some of these
early retirees, they're pulling the trigger they're taking the parachute,
they're opting out of work early, and they've got enough
money to sustain themselves for decades to come. But then
(02:21):
they find that they're really unhappy. And there was this
article basically, and some stats show that something like six
and ten early retirees end up going back to work
because early retirements not all they thought I was gonna
They thought it was gonna be Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
So the issue here is not those people that have
the money to do it.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
It's those people.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Who do engage in early retirement and find out that
this was not it's not what they thought, or not
as satisfied as what they thought.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
I would love to I don't know if there are any.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Numbers in terms of percentage, but I know if I
retire anytime soon, I'm going to be an unhappy camper.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Well that's because I'm I don't play golf.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
There was a human being on this planet that I
would spend five and a half hours with. I don't
have hobbies. I mean, I read a lot, I'm a
news junkie, but I'm not out there horseback riding or
playing cards or hang out with the boys. And I
don't go to bars, so you know, for me, it's work.
(03:21):
But then again, and I'd love to know this stat too,
people who are satisfied what they do. If you're looking
at the calendar till the day you retire, and I
know people that do that, that's a different animal.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
Well, I think you know, Bill, that you're an anomaly.
Most people do have hobbies. I'm not sure horseback riding
is a common one or not, but most people have
things that they enjoy outside of work, and so they
are They're like, well, maybe I will get more time
to do the thing that I care about. But especially
when you retire early, what you find is, well, you
want to enjoy those things with other people, and your
(03:53):
friends are still working, and so you're like, how am
I going to spend my time if my kids are
in school? My friends are so what am I gonna do?
And then gets boring pretty quick. I think for early
retirees and for traditional retirees, there is something that my
friend Wes Moss calls core pursuits, and he calls them
hobbies on steroids. And the happiest retirees are the ones
(04:14):
who do have a couple at least three core pursuits.
Whether it's like oh, man, I play guitar, or I'm
I go hiking, I'm a trail runner. Whatever it is
that you're into. If you have those core pursuits that
you're that you're into, retirement is going to feel less
jarring and you're gonna And so part of retirement is
the financial piece of it, right, You got to you
gotta save and invest, and you gotta be prepared financially,
(04:37):
but you also have to be prepared from a mental
and uh and a time standpoint like what are you
going to do with those hours? And one other thing
I think people can try out my friend Jilly, and
she's a big fan of something.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Called many retirements.
Speaker 4 (04:50):
So like, take small retirements along the way, whether it's
like a month and a half off of work, taking
a leave of absence or a sabbatical or something like that,
especially if your employer offers it, even if it's unpaid.
If you can get a decent chunk of time off
and say, well, what is retirement, like how would I
spend my time?
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Is this going to make sense?
Speaker 4 (05:05):
And I think the fire crowd it's like all over nothing,
And so I think there's a way to kind of
dip your toes in before you just kind of go
all in, uh hogwild and say I'm just gonna bag
work altogether. I think a lot of people do find
that that's just too far and it's not fulfilling.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
All right, So, Joel, let's spend twenty seconds talking about
the companies that you know that offer sabbaticals or a
month and a half off at a.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Time they exist building.
Speaker 4 (05:31):
This is truly something, especially if it's if it's an
unpaid thing. This is something If you've been an employer
for eight, nine, ten years, you can say you can
talk to your boss and say, listen, I feel like
I need I need some time off. I'm gonna come
back better, rested in and recharged. Here's what I'm planning
on doing with that time, so I'm a better me
when I return. Can I do this? Would you pay
me for two weeks out of the six weeks or
(05:52):
something like that. There are ways to make this happen.
Don't make it sound like it's impossible.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Okay, how about this close to him possible, almost impossible,
very nearly impossible.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Does that work for you?
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Okay?
Speaker 4 (06:07):
You could also use it as a time if you've
saved up enough money, so you don't have to save
up for a full retirement, but you save up enough
money to take, you know, six weeks off, and if
your boss says no way, then you say, cool, I'm
quitting and you find another job.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
On the backside.
Speaker 4 (06:21):
I know it's easier said than none, but those are possibilities.
It's not outside of the realm of possible, all right.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
So I'm going to share something that I have not
yet shared with everybody, because I'm pretty open about what's
going on in my life.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Today, I have a meeting with.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
The head of the history department at cal State Long
Beach to go back to school and get a master's
degree in history in.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Anticipation of now. I don't know whether I'm going to
do it or not. And it's a two year program.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
But that's kind of neat. I haven't been to school, wow,
and I got my degree. I was in the seventies,
so it's been a few years. I don't even know
if they have class if I can transfer any classes.
But that's kind of neat, you know, because I'm anticipating
when I don't work.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
What do I do?
Speaker 4 (07:09):
You have to get the stone tablet transferred from your
old schools that's right.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Yeah, And I don't and I don't want to end
up saying welcome to Walmart.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
I'd rather not do that.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Or there's an in and out Burger right near me,
and there's a lady there who literally just goes around
cleaning the tables and saying, hey, you like your meal?
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Is everything okay?
Speaker 1 (07:30):
And she's clearly not young anymore. And I'm sure a
lot of people, unfortunately have to do that. That's the
other side of the coin, people who can't retire and
have to work into their seventies. All right, Joel, Americans
paying for groceries via b NPL, explain that and explain
(07:51):
why that ain't so good.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
So BNPL stands for buy Now, Pay Later. It is
like the hottest new way to pay for everything under
the sun.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
And it's just amazing.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
How it started off at just a couple of different
internet retailers and it has expanded dramatically. And the reason
it has expanded dramatically to essentially paying for airline tickets
groceries for your grub Hub order now is because what
happens is Americans spend more money when they're paying with
(08:23):
buy now, Pay later because they don't feel the full
pain of what they're paying for because they're paying an
easy installment, so over the course of the coming four months,
so they end up stocking more stuff into their carts
and the checkout price is bigger. So the internet retailers
are more than happy to allow us to buy in
that way, even if it costs them a little bit
of money. They're making more money because of those bigger
(08:44):
cart sizes. And I just think that it going all
the way to paying for something as like a basic
staple and necessity like groceries.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
It's just worry.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
It worries me, Like I get if you want to
buy a sweater or a pair of genes via buy now,
Pay later, I mean, I don't like it. I think
it's terrible.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
But at least you have a sweater and at least
you have a pair of genes.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Here are you be eaten your genes and your sweater
and you're out of money?
Speaker 4 (09:09):
Yeah, it feels less egregious to do it for something
like that. You don't need a non necessity, But when
you're paying for necessities with buy now, pay later, some
folks might make it seem like, well, how else are
people going to be able to afford their groceries. I
just don't think. I mean, people used to be able
to buy groceries before buy now, pay later existed. And
this is also it's not helping people having buy now
(09:31):
pay later. What happens with so many people who start
using buy now pay later, They use it more and
more and more, and when you're paying for things and installments,
you feel the pain a little bit or a lot less,
and that just leads to buying more than you otherwise
would like.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
This is a bad cycle.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
So many people now who use buy now Pay Later
are taking out many many loans at once. They forget
what ao, they become payment buyers, and it's just it's
just one more way to get stuck in bad financial
habits and to never be able to make progress.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
It's yeah, well, even when you look at and this
was I don't know how many years it started, ron
Po Peel started it with all of the infomercials where
you bought stuff, it was it's always five easy payments
of nineteen ninety five or thirteen ninety five, and there's
always a sweet spot. And as I was reading about this,
(10:22):
you don't want to go beyond nineteen ninety five, because
that seems to be sort of the tipping point unless
you're buying something very expensive and obviously selling that way,
which is the only way infomercials ever sell product. The
number of sales astronomical relative to just going to the store.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
And saying, here's something for ninety nine ninety five. Obviously
at psychology era.
Speaker 4 (10:50):
Yeah, I remember those infomercials, and as a kid, I
loved watching them, like they're so fun, the salesmanship and oh,
these knives will do things that your other nie can't do,
and so yeah, you get attracted to that, but you're right,
the only way it's sold is if you make it easy,
pasy to pay that thing off, if you make it
essentially non consequential or almost non consequential from a money perspective,
(11:13):
And then that's what's happening with buy now, pay later.
And so some people say, well, it's better than credit
cards because they don't charge interest, and I get that
half of Americans handle credit cards orly two. But by
now pay later has this like nefarious behavioral undertone to it,
and that credit cards can't have. Like I was literally
reading this book yesterday by this guy who's an economist
who's basically saying, hey, we should all go back to
(11:34):
paying in cash more because we'd all be better off
because we feel that pain, right, And I think in
some ways he's right, Like if we were to go
back to using cash, it would be more inconvenient, we
would have to fork over the actual green bills get
back some annoying change, and actually that might be good
for us, and might it might help us to spend
to spend less instead of Yeah, I mean, we know.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
He's a pain now.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
I mean, there's no issue.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
When I buy something in cash, I feel it I'm
paying real money. When I buy something with plastic, it's
not real money. It's you know, it's just easier. And
there's a whole psychology there. Now. I don't know if
you're old enough to remember my favorite infomercial, Ron Pop Peel,
who had pocket fishermen and he had these slice omatic
(12:20):
or the basomatic, which would he did the rotissary one
and then of course it exploded. Everybody does this, but
my favorite one was if you were bald, especially if
you had a bald spot on top of your head,
you could take care of it with the magic spray
can of basically brown paint and you would spray that.
(12:42):
I'm not kidding, by the way, I'm not exaggerating. And
that was the Ron Pop Peel Special. The guy invented
that whole process. I mean, the guy was a genius. Okay,
that's it.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
Two favorites. Can I share them real quick please? Okay?
So one with sham Wow.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
You gotta love the sham Wow guy and then the
subsequent trouble he got into. But there was this one
for it was like it was something that you put
on your legs.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
To remove hair. It was called nads.
Speaker 4 (13:08):
I think it was from Australia, and one of the
points they used to sell it was that you could
that it was edible, so you could they like literally
eat the stuff to remove the hair from your legs,
and that to me was like the best selling point.
I was like, oh, if you can't eat it, then
I definitely want it.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Well, there's a lot you can do with that. I'm
not even gonna go, okay, it's nads be an adult
I gut no, there's no chance.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
By the way, there was one that removed hair very successfully,
and that was basically sulfur your sulfuric acid, and that
worked brilliantly. Okay, we're done, Joel, all right, thank you,
all right, catch you this Sunday, twelve to two.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
How to Money, Joel at How to Money, Joel all right,
Time for Joe Larsgard, a host of How the Money
every Sunday twelve to two pm.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Hello, Joel, do we not have Joel?
Speaker 3 (00:08):
I'm here, you hear me?
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Oh there you go?
Speaker 3 (00:10):
All right, we'll put that one on Kono.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Uh yeah, we will, by the way, real quickly. Who
do you think is out next?
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Never mind Kono Kono is out next?
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Yeah? Well absolutely, Hey, I hear something here is something
that's actually near and dear to my heart, which I
spend a lot of time thinking at thinking about so
many people retire and end up not loving retirement life
or early retirement life, and that's one of my fears,
(00:43):
is retiring and then what the hell do I do?
Because my identity is here. I love to work, I
always have, and I know people, we hear of stories
people retiring early, not only not happy about it, but
dying early because of retirement. And so this has become
a thing, I believe. So jump into that, would you, Joel.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
I think over the past like fifteen years in particular,
this trend towards early retirement has been picking up steam.
And it's partly is because of a few reasons.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
I think.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
One, there's like a disillusionment with work that some folks,
especially younger folks, have had. And there's also been this
like bull run in the stock market, and so they're like, cool, Well,
if I just save more and I'm super frugal, I'm
investing a decent chunk of my income, I can actually
grow up a decent nest egg and be able to
quit work a whole.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Lot sooner than most folks.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
So I realized that this is a subset of the
population that most folks don't find themselves in this camp.
And in fact, when you look at the statistics about
where Americans are with their investments and their finances, you
know most of them don't have nearly that much safe.
But there is this subset of people and some of them, yeah,
they've got like two incomes or dinks and they've got
and they're making a lot of money. But others aren't.
(01:58):
And yet they have still managed to pull this off off.
But here's what you find and kind of what you're
alluding to, Bill, with how you feel about the work
you do every day and how much like it provides
a sense of meaning and identity. Well, some of these
early retirees, they're pulling the trigger they're taking the parachute,
they're opting out of work early, and they've got enough
money to sustain themselves for decades to come. But then
(02:21):
they find that they're really unhappy. And there was this
article basically, and some stats show that something like six
and ten early retirees end up going back to work
because early retirements not all they thought I was gonna
They thought it was gonna be Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
So the issue here is not those people that have
the money to do it.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
It's those people.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Who do engage in early retirement and find out that
this was not it's not what they thought, or not
as satisfied as what they thought.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
I would love to I don't know if there are any.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Numbers in terms of percentage, but I know if I
retire anytime soon, I'm going to be an unhappy camper.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Well that's because I'm I don't play golf.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
There was a human being on this planet that I
would spend five and a half hours with. I don't
have hobbies. I mean, I read a lot, I'm a
news junkie, but I'm not out there horseback riding or
playing cards or hang out with the boys. And I
don't go to bars, so you know, for me, it's work.
(03:21):
But then again, and I'd love to know this stat too,
people who are satisfied what they do. If you're looking
at the calendar till the day you retire, and I
know people that do that, that's a different animal.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
Well, I think you know, Bill, that you're an anomaly.
Most people do have hobbies. I'm not sure horseback riding
is a common one or not, but most people have
things that they enjoy outside of work, and so they
are They're like, well, maybe I will get more time
to do the thing that I care about. But especially
when you retire early, what you find is, well, you
want to enjoy those things with other people, and your
(03:53):
friends are still working, and so you're like, how am
I going to spend my time if my kids are
in school? My friends are so what am I gonna do?
And then gets boring pretty quick. I think for early
retirees and for traditional retirees, there is something that my
friend Wes Moss calls core pursuits, and he calls them
hobbies on steroids. And the happiest retirees are the ones
(04:14):
who do have a couple at least three core pursuits.
Whether it's like oh, man, I play guitar, or I'm
I go hiking, I'm a trail runner. Whatever it is
that you're into. If you have those core pursuits that
you're that you're into, retirement is going to feel less
jarring and you're gonna And so part of retirement is
the financial piece of it, right, You got to you
gotta save and invest, and you gotta be prepared financially,
(04:37):
but you also have to be prepared from a mental
and uh and a time standpoint like what are you
going to do with those hours? And one other thing
I think people can try out my friend Jilly, and
she's a big fan of something.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Called many retirements.
Speaker 4 (04:50):
So like, take small retirements along the way, whether it's
like a month and a half off of work, taking
a leave of absence or a sabbatical or something like that,
especially if your employer offers it, even if it's unpaid.
If you can get a decent chunk of time off
and say, well, what is retirement, like how would I
spend my time?
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Is this going to make sense?
Speaker 4 (05:05):
And I think the fire crowd it's like all over nothing,
And so I think there's a way to kind of
dip your toes in before you just kind of go
all in, uh hogwild and say I'm just gonna bag
work altogether. I think a lot of people do find
that that's just too far and it's not fulfilling.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
All right, So, Joel, let's spend twenty seconds talking about
the companies that you know that offer sabbaticals or a
month and a half off at a.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Time they exist building.
Speaker 4 (05:31):
This is truly something, especially if it's if it's an
unpaid thing. This is something If you've been an employer
for eight, nine, ten years, you can say you can
talk to your boss and say, listen, I feel like
I need I need some time off. I'm gonna come
back better, rested in and recharged. Here's what I'm planning
on doing with that time, so I'm a better me
when I return. Can I do this? Would you pay
me for two weeks out of the six weeks or
(05:52):
something like that. There are ways to make this happen.
Don't make it sound like it's impossible.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Okay, how about this close to him possible, almost impossible,
very nearly impossible.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Does that work for you?
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Okay?
Speaker 4 (06:07):
You could also use it as a time if you've
saved up enough money, so you don't have to save
up for a full retirement, but you save up enough
money to take, you know, six weeks off, and if
your boss says no way, then you say, cool, I'm
quitting and you find another job.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
On the backside.
Speaker 4 (06:21):
I know it's easier said than none, but those are possibilities.
It's not outside of the realm of possible, all right.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
So I'm going to share something that I have not
yet shared with everybody, because I'm pretty open about what's
going on in my life.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Today, I have a meeting with.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
The head of the history department at cal State Long
Beach to go back to school and get a master's
degree in history in.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Anticipation of now. I don't know whether I'm going to
do it or not. And it's a two year program.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
But that's kind of neat. I haven't been to school, wow,
and I got my degree. I was in the seventies,
so it's been a few years. I don't even know
if they have class if I can transfer any classes.
But that's kind of neat, you know, because I'm anticipating
when I don't work.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
What do I do?
Speaker 4 (07:09):
You have to get the stone tablet transferred from your
old schools that's right.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Yeah, And I don't and I don't want to end
up saying welcome to Walmart.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
I'd rather not do that.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Or there's an in and out Burger right near me,
and there's a lady there who literally just goes around
cleaning the tables and saying, hey, you like your meal?
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Is everything okay?
Speaker 1 (07:30):
And she's clearly not young anymore. And I'm sure a
lot of people, unfortunately have to do that. That's the
other side of the coin, people who can't retire and
have to work into their seventies. All right, Joel, Americans
paying for groceries via b NPL, explain that and explain
(07:51):
why that ain't so good.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
So BNPL stands for buy Now, Pay Later. It is
like the hottest new way to pay for everything under
the sun.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
And it's just amazing.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
How it started off at just a couple of different
internet retailers and it has expanded dramatically. And the reason
it has expanded dramatically to essentially paying for airline tickets
groceries for your grub Hub order now is because what
happens is Americans spend more money when they're paying with
(08:23):
buy now, Pay later because they don't feel the full
pain of what they're paying for because they're paying an
easy installment, so over the course of the coming four months,
so they end up stocking more stuff into their carts
and the checkout price is bigger. So the internet retailers
are more than happy to allow us to buy in
that way, even if it costs them a little bit
of money. They're making more money because of those bigger
(08:44):
cart sizes. And I just think that it going all
the way to paying for something as like a basic
staple and necessity like groceries.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
It's just worry.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
It worries me, Like I get if you want to
buy a sweater or a pair of genes via buy now,
Pay later, I mean, I don't like it. I think
it's terrible.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
But at least you have a sweater and at least
you have a pair of genes.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Here are you be eaten your genes and your sweater
and you're out of money?
Speaker 4 (09:09):
Yeah, it feels less egregious to do it for something
like that. You don't need a non necessity, But when
you're paying for necessities with buy now, pay later, some
folks might make it seem like, well, how else are
people going to be able to afford their groceries. I
just don't think. I mean, people used to be able
to buy groceries before buy now, pay later existed. And
this is also it's not helping people having buy now
(09:31):
pay later. What happens with so many people who start
using buy now pay later, They use it more and
more and more, and when you're paying for things and installments,
you feel the pain a little bit or a lot less,
and that just leads to buying more than you otherwise
would like.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
This is a bad cycle.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
So many people now who use buy now Pay Later
are taking out many many loans at once. They forget
what ao, they become payment buyers, and it's just it's
just one more way to get stuck in bad financial
habits and to never be able to make progress.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
It's yeah, well, even when you look at and this
was I don't know how many years it started, ron
Po Peel started it with all of the infomercials where
you bought stuff, it was it's always five easy payments
of nineteen ninety five or thirteen ninety five, and there's
always a sweet spot. And as I was reading about this,
(10:22):
you don't want to go beyond nineteen ninety five, because
that seems to be sort of the tipping point unless
you're buying something very expensive and obviously selling that way,
which is the only way infomercials ever sell product. The
number of sales astronomical relative to just going to the store.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
And saying, here's something for ninety nine ninety five. Obviously
at psychology era.
Speaker 4 (10:50):
Yeah, I remember those infomercials, and as a kid, I
loved watching them, like they're so fun, the salesmanship and oh,
these knives will do things that your other nie can't do,
and so yeah, you get attracted to that, but you're right,
the only way it's sold is if you make it easy,
pasy to pay that thing off, if you make it
essentially non consequential or almost non consequential from a money perspective,
(11:13):
And then that's what's happening with buy now, pay later.
And so some people say, well, it's better than credit
cards because they don't charge interest, and I get that
half of Americans handle credit cards orly two. But by
now pay later has this like nefarious behavioral undertone to it,
and that credit cards can't have. Like I was literally
reading this book yesterday by this guy who's an economist
who's basically saying, hey, we should all go back to
(11:34):
paying in cash more because we'd all be better off
because we feel that pain, right, And I think in
some ways he's right, Like if we were to go
back to using cash, it would be more inconvenient, we
would have to fork over the actual green bills get
back some annoying change, and actually that might be good
for us, and might it might help us to spend
to spend less instead of Yeah, I mean, we know.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
He's a pain now.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
I mean, there's no issue.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
When I buy something in cash, I feel it I'm
paying real money. When I buy something with plastic, it's
not real money. It's you know, it's just easier. And
there's a whole psychology there. Now. I don't know if
you're old enough to remember my favorite infomercial, Ron Pop Peel,
who had pocket fishermen and he had these slice omatic
(12:20):
or the basomatic, which would he did the rotissary one
and then of course it exploded. Everybody does this, but
my favorite one was if you were bald, especially if
you had a bald spot on top of your head,
you could take care of it with the magic spray
can of basically brown paint and you would spray that.
(12:42):
I'm not kidding, by the way, I'm not exaggerating. And
that was the Ron Pop Peel Special. The guy invented
that whole process. I mean, the guy was a genius. Okay,
that's it.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
Two favorites. Can I share them real quick please? Okay?
So one with sham Wow.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
You gotta love the sham Wow guy and then the
subsequent trouble he got into. But there was this one
for it was like it was something that you put
on your legs.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
To remove hair. It was called nads.
Speaker 4 (13:08):
I think it was from Australia, and one of the
points they used to sell it was that you could
that it was edible, so you could they like literally
eat the stuff to remove the hair from your legs,
and that to me was like the best selling point.
I was like, oh, if you can't eat it, then
I definitely want it.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Well, there's a lot you can do with that. I'm
not even gonna go, okay, it's nads be an adult
I gut no, there's no chance.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
By the way, there was one that removed hair very successfully,
and that was basically sulfur your sulfuric acid, and that
worked brilliantly. Okay, we're done, Joel, all right, thank you,
all right, catch you this Sunday, twelve to two.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
How to Money, Joel at How to Money, Joel all right,
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