@WakeUpCall – ‘How to Money’ with Joel Larsgaard

Amy talks with the host of ‘How to Money’ Joel Larsgaard about prescription vending machines, cost plus drugs, Walmart and Aldi Thanksgiving, and why you should TAKE YOUR VACATION DAYS!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Right now, let's say good morning do the host of
How to Money on KFI. It's are very own Joel
lars Guard. So Joel, let's talk about today, including how
you can now get prescriptions at vending machines.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Yeah, so that's a super that's a really interesting one, right,
And this is happening specifically in Los Angeles. It's a
trial from Amazon and One Medical who have a partnership together.
And I think it's just great. Think about how annoying
it can be to get prescriptions filled. A massive chunk
of prescriptions that are made don't get picked up by people.

(00:38):
Lots of times it gets lost in the shuffle. You
realize how much it's going to cost, and or you're
just like I don't know the scheduling and actually making
it out to the pharmacy. You just don't do it.
And so you're like, I'll just get better over time,
and you grin and bear it. And so I think
these these pharmacy vending machines are going to do a
couple things. I think one, people are actually going to

(00:59):
get their prescriptions because it's going to be so much easier,
so much more convenient, and the cost is going to
come down with some of these pharmacy vending machines. So
it's not going to be for like everything, but it
is going to be neat to see how these impact
the prescription game, which is changing a lot. Like it's.

(01:19):
While these vending machines are great, I think actually, if
you want to save the most money still, it's worth
checking online, in particular at places like cost plus Drugs
dot com. I think that's the best place right now
to save money on prescriptions.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
Okay, so if you go to your doctor and they
say here's a prescription for a maxicillin or something, you
don't have to go to a regular old pharmacy and
go to cost plus drug and get it filled.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Well, yeah, so you can go to cost plus Drugs
like this is Actually we had a prescription for my
daughter recently. It's going to become a recurring prescription. And
when I was doing the doing digging into seeing well
how much does this cost? I was seeing a reasonable
prices at some of the big pharmacies or a grocery
sport chain pharmacy, and then I looked it up on
cost plus Drugs and I was like, oh my goodness,

(02:07):
it's half as much on cost Plus Drugs, and that's
because this is Mark Cuban's company, and they have a
model that's kind of actually like Costco's model, where the
markup is essentially fifteen percent on every drug that they sell,
and then there's like a five dollars shipping charge. So
in particular, if you're getting your prescription filled there and
you're also getting multiple months at the same time, let's

(02:29):
say getting a ninety day supply instead of thirty, you
can really cut that cost in half or maybe even more,
depending on what prescription you're getting. They've got instructions essentially
for how to tell your doctor to send your prescription
into Cost Plus Drugs. But it's pretty easy, and I
think for a lot of people, especially people who take
medicine on a recurring basis, if that medicine's offered on
Cost Plus Drugs, it's going to save them a ton.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
Okay, good to know, Good to know. Okay, here's another
way you can save a ton. At Thanksgiving. There's turkey
baskets at a couple of different places that are really
quite economical.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
Yeah, so all the and Walmart are essentially like vying
for the title of low cost leader when it comes
to groceries and there's just so much competition in the
grocery space. It's a beautiful Behold doesn't mean food prices
haven't gone up obviously over the past five years in particular,
like we've seen inflation in that space, but we've seen

(03:26):
less inflation because of how much competition there really is.
And All The in particular has been at the forefront
of that has been basically holding other grocery store chained
feet to the fire. And so All the and Walmart
have both announced full Thanksgiving meals for forty bucks that
are going to say, are going to feed ten people.
So this includes like the turkey, the sides of apple,

(03:50):
pumpkin pie, excuse me, all that kind of stuff. And
so I just I love this because it just goes
I mean, Thanksgiving can be a really inexpensive if you're smart,
and so yeah, if you're going to Aldi or Walmart,
I think it just reinforces how where you shop makes
a significant difference in what you end up paying. And

(04:11):
I love the low cost grocery stores because they just man,
they're all about making it. I mean, think about going
into all the there's all these cardboard boxes, like there's
just the shelves don't look as nice. There's fewer choices.
But all that means is that you're going to save
more money by shopping there.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
Okay, perfect, and then we have like thirty seconds left.
But you said that people are not taking their vacations.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
What oh man, Flex Jobs just did this study of
US workers and they found that about a quarter don't
take a single day of vacation over a whole entire year.
That shocked me. I'm like, I know we don't take
all our vacation, but to see that a quarter people
aren't taking anything, like, I just don't under I don't understand.

(04:55):
And I realized that there's sometimes in some work environments
kind of an un the unsaid rule, like we don't
take vacation here, but man, a fivacation time is offered
to you, it's time to book that rule. You got
to take that vacation. It's actually going to make you
a better, more productive worker.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
See there you go. Host of how to Money is
Joel Larsgard, and you can listen to him every Sunday
from noon to two right here on KFI. Get lots
of great financial tips from him, and you can also
follow him if you want to give him more often
at how to Money Joel, Thank you, Joel Larsgard, Thanks Amy,