January 8, 2025 • 38 mins
Chuck Zodda and Paul Lane discuss America's frozen housing market is finally starting to thaw. How much money you need to retire in every US state. Tax bracket changes could mean your paycheck is slightly bigger in 2025. What are some of the cool gadgets coming from CES 2025? New warnings about alcohol hit restaurants at a tricky time.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:42):
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(01:06):
and Paul Lane.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Kicking off hour two on the Financial Exchange, and markets
not really find a much direction today, a little bit
of downward drift, but no conviction behind it.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Really.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
We've got the Dow down forty one points today, the
S and P's down ten, NASDAK down sixty five, so
you do have the tech heavy NASDAK kind of, you know,
continuing to perform the worst here that being led down
by AMD which is off about four point seven percent,
Meta down about one point seven and Shopify which is
down about one point one percent. So again all three
(01:43):
major US indices are sliding today.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Ten year US Treasury not really.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Moving a ton was down a little bit earlier in
the day, but now it's off two tenths of a
basis point to four point six eight seven, So just
no real movement on that front. Oil down seven cents
of barrel to seventy four eighteen. Unfortunately, with oil prices
back in the mid seventies, it is continuing to push
(02:10):
up on gas prices just a little bit, another tenth
of a cent rise today up to three h six
and nine tenths on the tripa national average for gas prices.
And we've got gold today up fifteen sixty ounce to
twenty six point eighty one. Even, Paul, We've got a
piece here in market Watch. It's titled America's frozen housing
market is finally starting to thaw.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
What kind of thong are we seeing?
Speaker 2 (02:34):
With interest rates still north of seven percent on the
thirty or fixed rate mortgage, what.
Speaker 4 (02:38):
We're seeing check is something, but I wouldn't necessarily waive
any victory flags just yet. In terms of the home
sales data that we've been getting for the month of November,
what we saw is a uptick in existing home sales
by about four point eight percent. That was a seasonally
adjusted pace of four point one to five million. That
(02:59):
was the best since March of twenty four last year.
If you also take a look at just the amount
of inventory of unsold existing homes throughout the country, we're
at one point three to three million. That's equivalent to
about four months of supply or so.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
You know.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
The crux of this piece that we're covering here is
that perhaps housing sentiment has ticked up and that people
have begun a little bit more accustomed to the highest
interest the higher interest rates on the mortgage side of
things that they are now in a better shape or
more used to paying. We sit at six point nine
to one percent on the thirty year fixed mortgage as
(03:38):
of the week closing on January second. That will likely
uptick from all the stuff that we've seen on the
US ten year treasury from Freddie Mack. But ultimately for
penning home sales too, you're looking at a little bit
of uptick in the Midwest, the South, and the West,
but the Northeast we're still seeing. To Clyde, I summarize
all those points by saying, I don't think that we
are going to see a tremendously active housing market in
(04:02):
this year. There certainly will be a lot more inventory,
it seems like from all that we're seeing. Yeah, in
the southeast and the Southwest, there'll be more inventory available,
but I don't know if that necessarily would translate to
a significant amount of more sales.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
So couple things first, In both twenty twenty three and
twenty twenty four, we had these little mini jumps in
sales activity, where you know, early twenty three we went
from like four million units annualized to four point five
to three million. Early twenty four we went from three
point eight eight to four point three eight, So we
had these you know, little bumps, and both of them
(04:38):
were a few months after yields bottomed and were really low,
so people locked in their mortgage rates you know, earlier,
and then they you know, were able to buy homes
with those lower rates. The existing home sales data that
we have for November, yields bottomed in mid September, so
if you were buying a home, if you were closing
on a home in November, you had a chance to
(04:59):
lock your mortgage rate in when you were buying in September. Like,
it kind of makes sense. The more real time data
that I've seen from Mike Simonson from all this research,
we have him on the show every now and then,
and his weekly data that that his firm puts out.
They are showing that newly pending home sales so not
like the total that's still out there, but basically week
(05:21):
to week, like how many new contracts are being signed
each week. The last couple of weeks now are back
to basically flat year over year, so not showing any
improvement after his data had showed Yeah, we're seeing like
four to five percent gains in sales volume in September
and October and things like that, like in the pendings,
So I think it's still a very rate sensitive market.
(05:44):
And his firm, they're also projecting that we get back
to pre pandemic levels of inventory late this year or
early twenty six. So that's another like forty percent expansion
in inventory levels, thirty to forty percent expansion in national
inventory levels.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
And the big thing.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Is, look the places that are already back to pre
pandemic inventory levels. Home prices are falling in those. It's Florida,
it's Texas, it's parts of the southeast and Southwest. In
addition to those areas, you know some communities in Arizona
and Georgia and North Carolina included as well. So I
think that where I get to on this is, hey,
(06:22):
if you're gonna have more inventory coming on board and
rates stay where they are, the only path to more
sales is prices down, or you can have the same
number of sales, but prices don't budge. It's and I
don't know exactly which way this ends up going, but
I struggled to get to you know, pre twenty twenty
(06:45):
two when rates spiked our norm like if and again
like excluding like even twenty twenty and everything like that.
If you look at the last decade, we were generally
seeing an annualized pace five and a quarter to five
point seventy five million units a year like that. That's
kind of the norm. So how do you see a
(07:05):
thirty you know, twenty to thirty percent jump in sales volume.
There aren't enough people who can afford homes with rates
where they are right now and these prices. So if
you want to get back to more normal volumes, prices
have to come down how much.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
I don't know, but you know, talk to anyone who's
trying to move a property in Florida right now, and
they'll tell you, yeah, it's been sitting for a while.
I'm not getting the bids I want. You know, I've
got neighbors that are listing and they're cutting prices, trying
to undercut me. So like it's I'm not saying that's
gonna happen in the Northeast, where you know, war based,
(07:44):
because the Northeast has some of the lowest inventory levels nationally. Yeah,
Connecticut's still like twenty five percent of pre pandemic levels.
The rest of the Northeast is sitting around like fifty
to sixty percent. I think depending on the state that
you're looking at. So I think ultimately I can believe
in a path towards higher volumes because when when homes
get listed, it's because someone wants to sell them, and
(08:06):
eventually they're gonna find a way to sell it. But
higher volumes at these rates means prices have to pull back.
Is it two percent, five percent, ten, I don't know.
But the other good thing is, look, the people selling
these properties generally aren't horribly overlevered. They were back in
(08:27):
two thousand and seven, and so I don't have concerns
about like massive numbers of short.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Sales and things like that.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
In some markets, you could potentially see that if you
bought at the very top in Austin, Texas, yeah you
might have, you know, some short sale problems if you
borrowed a ton, But even there, you weren't seeing like
a ton of people borrowing like ninety five percent loan
to value. It was yeah, lenders were pretty tight on stuff.
And so even if you're eighty percent loan to value,
(08:54):
you're not gonna have a twenty percent you've pick made
but ten or fifteen.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Look here's the thing.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
In the last two years, you've paid off six percent
of that right, so now you're loan to value. Even
if price didn't change was you know, seventy four and
even if you're taking a ten percent haircut from the
peak plus your commission to your agent, you're still walking
away with you know, eight to nine percent of the
property value.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
So short sales are not going to be the problem
this time. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
One other quick note here, two of ten people, according
to the Federal Housing Finance AHC, have mortgages that are
sitting at six percent or more. So still a swa
a huge walth of people that are locked in under
that six percent level, and some of those, you know,
nostalgically low levels of twenty one and twenty they are
at three or four percent.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Along with this, Zilo predicting that Providence, Rhode Island is
going to be one of the nation's hottest housing markets
in twenty twenty five. What's what's going on in dear
old Providence.
Speaker 4 (09:49):
Chuck, I will say that the definition of hotness by Zillo,
there's some nuance to it.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Before everyone you're saying there's a Zillo hotness index.
Speaker 4 (09:59):
The way that they are determining what is hot Tucker's
que me up here, thank you. With some of these
other ones that round up the top five, you wouldn't
necessarily associate these hot Indianapolis, Hartford, Philly, Providence, and Buffalo
are the top five. What is taken to account here
(10:21):
is how quickly homes are selling in the particular area.
The local home value growth, so how much is your
home appreciating within that local era. The amount of job
growth in that area per new home that's being permitted,
so is there more job growth than homes that are
actually being built with an area, And affordability weighs into
so all four of those factors lead to a different
(10:43):
look in terms of what the hottest housing markets are.
Buffalo is a back to back champion. Unlike their Super
Bowl limited lack of success, they were able to claim
we don't have any Buffaloes. There's hopefully thank Bufalo Station
that they were back to back ted winners on this
hotness housing market where they have the relative affordability, a
(11:05):
lot of job growth in the area, and a real
scarcity of homes out there. Boston, they studied fifty metro
areas when they were looking at this Boston came in
at sixteenth. You know, the affordability piece drags down the
Boston or New York's of the world.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Here, take a quick break here when we come back,
we got trivia right after this.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
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(11:49):
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Speaker 5 (11:56):
The Financial Exchange is proud of our partnership with the
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We'll be here before you know. It's a mark your
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That's dav five K dot Boston. Time for trivia here
on the Financial Exchange. On this day in nineteen ninety two,
President George HW. Bush was at a banquet to deliver
(12:39):
a speech at the Japanese Prime Minister's residence. Unfortunately for
President Bush and Prime Minister Miyazawa, Bush was unable to
deliver his speech. Question today, what caused President Bush to
skip his speech that night?
Speaker 6 (12:56):
Once again?
Speaker 5 (12:56):
What caused President Bush to skip his speech that night?
Be the third person today to text us at six
one seven three six two thirteen eighty five with the
correct answer, and you win a Financial Exchange Showed t shirt.
Speaker 6 (13:09):
Once again.
Speaker 5 (13:09):
The third correct response to text us at six one
seven three six two thirteen eighty five, We'll win that
Financial Exchange Show T shirt. See complete contest rules at
Financial Exchange Show dot com.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Paul, how much money do you need to retire in
every US state?
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Go?
Speaker 4 (13:26):
I think I think I could get us to the
end of the hour. Uh if we take a look
at some of the numbers that came out from this one.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
But no, literally, let's go alphabetical Alabama seven hundred and
seventy three thousand, Alabama, Alaska eras.
Speaker 6 (13:39):
No, we're not doing We're not doing every state can
we do that?
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Which states can we do?
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Probably the New England ones are pretty smart, and maybe
like Florida, Okay, Connecticut.
Speaker 6 (13:49):
Arizona, maybe Connecticut.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
One point one six mili. Let's talk a little bit
about how they get their first Paul, yep. This is
UH data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and they
calculate annual living expense is for each state. And then
what they do is they use the four percent rule,
the thought that, hey, you can withdraw four percent of
your portfolio over the long term, and that's generally a
safe rate of you know, withdrawal. Whether it is or
(14:12):
not obviously depends on your specific situation. But that's how
they get to these numbers.
Speaker 4 (14:16):
And they subtract out the average solid security benefit as
part of that too, assusment that you're receiving that yep.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
So Connecticut annual cost of living sixty seven thousand savings
need to retire about one point one six million.
Speaker 6 (14:28):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Uh, Florida the annual living expenses, Uh my, it's a
cut off.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
I got you sixty one nine. You need nine hundred
and seventy seven k to live in Florida.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Uh, let's do Hawaii, just if you want to get
aspirational about it.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Hawaii.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
They annual living expenses one hundred and ten thousand savings
need to retire.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
Two point two million.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Yes, not cheap obviously with gas at like five dollars
a gallon. And I don't even know how much eggs
would be in Hawaii, but a lot barely know what
they are in Massachusett. He Paul, I got you that
you did. Paul walks in the grocery store. I'd like
to buy one egg please? Those are nine bucks each.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
I brought it twenty if you are extra God, I
love why Uh Aloha?
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Maine. Annual cost of living sixty eight thousand. Savings need
to retire one point one four million. Let's see continuing
down the list here New Hampshire.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Where Massachusetts go? Is that?
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Can I jump in Massachusetts?
Speaker 3 (15:35):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (15:35):
If you got the list, pull it one point six
four five million. An annual cost of living of eighty
eight thousand. New Hampshire is another one that you mentioned,
one point one to three million in terms of say
one point yeah, one point one to one million in
terms of savings, an annual cost of living of about
sixty seven thousand. Let's take a look at do we
cover main yet here Maine we hit that one yep, Okay,
(16:00):
let's see Vermont is one point one and sixty eight thousand,
very similar to New Hampshire Island. Rhode Island. Let's take
a peek here, they were sixty seven thousand, annual cost
of living one point one million, So that seems to
be kind of the recurring theme for the New England
states is one point one million in savings with sixty
(16:22):
seven thousand as the annual cost of living. Keep in mind,
this is bare bones minimum. This is not any type
of entertainment or travel. This is just the bare necessities.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
I wish I could have this list, and I'm sure
it exists on the internet somewhere. I wish I could
have this list from I don't know, twenty fourteen or
something like that, like how much to retire in each state? Then,
just because what I'm interested is not how much the
overall cost has gone up, but I'm interested in just
(16:52):
as an example, the difference between Massachusetts and Florida right now,
Massachusetts saying is like one point six million and Florida
is what did you say it was?
Speaker 3 (17:03):
It's one of the ones that's.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Blocked out nine hundred and seventy seventy k okay, So
the difference there, it's almost twice as expensive to retire
in Massachusetts as compared to Florida. In this example, for
most of New England, it's about twenty percent more expensive.
And what I'd be curious at is the cost of
living in Florida has clearly gone up the last few
(17:24):
years as well, when you're talking insurance costs, you know,
even property values, just what's happened to them in the
last decade. And what I'd be curious at seeing is
curious in seeing, curious of seeing. What I'd be curious
to see is what was the difference in those costs
from New England down to Florida ten years ago, because
(17:44):
I anticipate it was much wider, Like there was a
much bigger cost savings in moving from New England to
Florida in twenty fourteen, would be my guess.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
But I don't have the.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Data anywhere, and I I'm sure I'm not going to
find it from twenty fourteen, because I don't even the
even though if those pieces were published on the internet
then but it'd be something that I'd be interested in
looking at. But again, this is a great reminder that
where you decide to retire has a huge influence on
(18:15):
what your retirement finances look like. It's it's not just
and most people know this, you know, whether intuitively or
they've spent time looking at it, but there's a real
difference in what you need to spend in different regions.
And also remember these are looking at statewide things. The
difference from you know, Massachusetts to Miami is going to
(18:39):
be far different from the difference between Massachusetts to Orlando
or Pensacola.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Or something like that.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
It's these are big states we're talking about here, and
you can have different costs even within them, depending on
what you're trying to do and where you're trying to live.
Taking a look at markets, as we had towards the
bottom of the hour, still just a little bit of
very very mild downward drift that was off twenty six points.
S and PP's down five, Nasdack down thirty five. So
(19:05):
no major moves today at this point, just kind of
a little bit of slip slide, but but nothing too
significant to this point in the day. We're gonna take
a quick break here, but when we come back, we
have the trivia answer, and then we're gonna talk a
little bit about tax brackets. And after that I want
to get to what's going on at CES the Consumer
(19:27):
Electronics Show. What kind of smart toilets are they showing
us this year?
Speaker 3 (19:31):
We'll let you know.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Bringing the latest financial news straight to your radio every day,
it's the Financial Exchange on the Financial Exchange Radio Network.
Text guys six one seven TRN six to two one
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This is the Financial Exchange Radio at work.
Speaker 5 (20:03):
The trivia question today was what caused President Bush to
skip his speech the night.
Speaker 6 (20:08):
In nineteen ninety two at the.
Speaker 5 (20:10):
Japanese Prime Minister's residence. Well, he puked on the Prime minister.
Speaker 6 (20:14):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 5 (20:15):
Unfortunately for President Bush and the Japanese Prime Minister, Bush
got sick during the dinner and vomited on the Prime
Minister's lap. Scott from Sudbury, mass is our winner today,
thank you, and he's taking home a Financial Exchange Show
T shirt. Congrats to Scott, and we played trivia every
day here on the Financial Exchange. See complete contest rules
(20:38):
at Financial Exchange Show dot com, Paul.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Each year, the federal government or specifically the IRS, adjusts
the tax brackets, and basically what they do is they
make them bigger, and in doing so, if you are
making the same amount that you were making in the
prior year, all else being equal, it generally ends up
meaning that you pay less tax because more of it
(21:03):
falls into lower brackets, or at least you potentially do,
because hey, if you're in the lowest bracket, then well
it's tough to pay too much less than the lowest rate, right.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
I was sort of scratching my head through that piece,
but I think you summarized it relatively well, and I
mean some of it ties into just keep an eye
on what you're withholding from a federal and state tax perspective.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
Yeah, tough.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Talk to your tax people every year, and you know,
if you're getting too big of a refund, you know,
bigger than you want, and you find it, Hey, you
don't want to be lending the government money when you
can still get you know, three to four percent on
money market rates and you know, savings accounts and things
like that. Okay, talk to your accountant likewise, if you
find yourself paying too much or you know, running into
penalties and things like that, talk to them as well
(21:50):
to make sure you have the right amount of withholding.
It's something that you should be doing every year to
make sure that you are in a good spot.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
One quick thing important to know is that, you know,
sometimes people sell bit of refund, but you phrased it
appropriately there that it's basically you've just been lending the
government your money over that period of time and particular
where interest rates where they are. It's not like finding
a twenty dollars bill in your pocket that should have
been in your pocket the whole time, collecting interest on it.
You really want to be right on the measure where
you're barely paying or you barely getting a refund. That's
(22:18):
where kind of the serendipity is in taxes.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
Right.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Remember if if you're getting a refund of two thousand dollars,
if you would had that money just sitting in a
CD for the last year, you know, low risk, Okay,
you were probably getting I don't know what three and
a half to four and a half percent, So call
it eighty bucks.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
That could get you like four eggs. Just pointing that out.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Right, Paul Jackpot.
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Speaker 2 (23:42):
So cnet always goes to the Consumer Electronics Show CIS.
It's always like the first week of the new year,
and they put together their list of a quote the
headline ie popping home tech gadgets were loving from CES
twenty twenty five. So far, let's go through some of these.
There's something called the Dream Robot vacuum, and it's like
(24:06):
other robot vacuums and that it goes around and well vacuums,
but it can uh go on uneven surfaces because of
like support legs that allow it to you know, go
up little steps and things like that.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
Okay, do you guys do you guys use those in
your home? The Rumba, which is the most popular, That's
what happened with me, Tucker, you know had it.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Oh, this is great collecting dust. Within six months we
used it for I think a little bit longer. It
became challenging once we had kids because they would screw
with it while it was and.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
I don't think our's got that aggressive.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
They would like pick it up and turn it around,
so like it just wouldn't clean areas then, or it
would run out of battery before it could, you know,
clean them.
Speaker 6 (24:58):
So also torments the dog too, the vacuum does.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
Let's fine, the dog needs to be putting its place sometimes,
you know.
Speaker 6 (25:04):
As a vacuum.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
Not everyone can love your dog.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Yeah no, not everyone loves dogs. My point is like
they need to feel what the rest of us feel.
Where hey, someone might not like you. You know, I'm
not saying like aggressive or anything. Yeah, come on, Gouvey's
new lamp now grooves to your music. So it's a
smart lamp with speakers built in that sinks the light
(25:27):
to the music and quote, it has a smart lava
lamp vibe that offers up one hundred different color scenes
to choose from. Sounds like my dream for college?
Speaker 3 (25:39):
Sure exactly. You know.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
They have a smart indoor garden that holds fifteen plants
and can be placed anywhere in your home. And I
guess waters are steams them in order, not steams because
they don't cook the plants, but it like mists them
to water them automatically. Okay, sounds fine. I'm not blown
away by any of this so far. Smart lawnmowers terrified
(26:03):
of Like, I just I don't as that terrify you
because unlike the vacuum where we talk about like, oh
it torments the dog, Like it's not gonna hurt the dog.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
This can hurt animals.
Speaker 6 (26:14):
Yeah, but you can.
Speaker 5 (26:16):
I mean you can see it coming like at you.
It's not going seventy five miles an hour, you can't.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
But like, here's the thing.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
If if I'm mowing the lawn personally and something darts
in front of me, I know I'm gonna stop. And
this I'm sure says that it will stop. But do
you really trust it?
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Right?
Speaker 6 (26:32):
I just I don't know what it's a thousand dollars.
Speaker 4 (26:35):
Yeah, and look at the size of this thing. I
don't know how much workload it can really handle here.
It's not that particularly big.
Speaker 6 (26:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Yeah, let's see turn your still water into carbonated water
on the go with the Rome soda top. It's got
a Co two cartridge in the lid.
Speaker 6 (26:50):
It's only fifty bucks.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
But still, I mean, I'm not really a carbonated water fan,
so I can't stand it.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
I guess if you're a fan of.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
It, fine, like a seltzer now and then you know,
I got one here that I do find to be
really obnoxious. This is my least favorite from the list.
It's an AI powered smart planter that's trying to create
the perfect watering schedule for your plant. It's called the
Leafy Pod, and it has an app and it alerts
you if your plant needs more or less light or
a change in scenery through the app that pairs with
(27:18):
the planter. How about just looking at your plant and
being like, is it growing or not? Is it dying, leaves, wilting,
you know, things like that that If you've ever had
plants or you know, anything, you you're kind of like, oh,
like maybe I should pay attention to this and see,
you know, how it's doing.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
Why do you need an.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
App to tell you, hey, it doesn't have you know,
enough water or something. Just look at it and tell.
Speaker 5 (27:44):
What's the one on this list that as the most
potential to actually like be of use.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
That's a good question.
Speaker 5 (27:49):
I would say This porch pire or one is pretty interesting.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
It's pretty much a locker.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
Yeah, so it's it's it's a locker that sits outside
and basically you give a password that allows delivery drivers
to drop off packages into it so no one can
steal them. Not can't people still take the locker depends
how heavy it is, but yeah, I can't imagine it's
(28:19):
like that heavy.
Speaker 6 (28:20):
That's a big commitment, though it is.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
I mean, look, then you're talking about okay, you got
to like saw the thing open or break it open.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
I guess.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
So, Yeah, probably dissuades people who just you know, would
grab a package three hundred bucks. Yeah, I could see
it having some use.
Speaker 4 (28:36):
Yeah, I feel like there's competitors. There's other companies that
do that too, But yeah, I would agree. Of the
list in terms of what's viable for use, that's probably
the one that I would point to the most. I
can't really you know, the cooling Cat is tempting to
name as the most promising.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
So this, I'll be honest might be the dumbest smart
thing I've ever seen. I say that like with with affection.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
Actually it sounds really dumb.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
So it's it's this little like cat sculpture type thing
that goes over the lip of your mug or plate
and it blows onto your food or drink.
Speaker 6 (29:17):
Because you're not able to.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Honestly, for the kids, this would be a home run.
So here's kids would love right, Like, this is the thing.
I'm not saying for me, but my kids would think
it's so cool to have like this little cat just
blowing onto their food. They would name it, they pretend
to feed it, like.
Speaker 6 (29:34):
Yeah, it's for kids only.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Oh definitely, this would be a big hit with my
kids and would save me the hassle of having to
do it myself. Devin and the menute it's still hot.
It's twenty five dollars, like whatever, you know. I kind
of look at this and yeah, it's it's kind of
stupid in My first initial reaction was to just deride
(29:58):
it mercilessly.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
But I don't know, I think there might be actually a.
Speaker 6 (30:02):
Place to go. This one good stocking stuff.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
It's twenty five bucks, not three thousand, like a lawnmower
with your kids. Hot cocoa, this this would be good
with the kids.
Speaker 6 (30:10):
Oh yea yeah, my kids have to have lukewarm coco.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
Yeah yeah, they're no. Not about hot cocoa in my
house either.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
I'll be honest, I have to have lukewarm coco.
Speaker 6 (30:20):
Oh really, I don't.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
I don't deal well with heat in my mouth.
Speaker 5 (30:25):
I don't like hot beverages either piping hot. I'm the
guy who has to like a microwave.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
That's my wife.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
My wife like, I know, same exact, whaling my throat.
I hate the risk of burning my tongue. I'd much
rather err on the side of it's been cold. But
I can just throw it back quickly. She'll be like,
how are you eating that? I'm like, it's the perfect temperature,
seventy three degrees. Just cook the steak and leave it
for an hour. I'll eat it then, Okay, soup on
the stove. No, put it in the fridge. Let's take
(30:53):
a quick break here. When we come back, time for
some stack Roulette.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
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Speaker 3 (31:34):
Oh what do you got for me? For stack Roulet?
Speaker 4 (31:36):
The US Surgeon General is new push to warn consumers
about the link between drinking and cancer. Is a tough
time for restaurants out there that really are are predicated
on driving most of their revenue from alcohol sales. We
saw sales at restaurants between November of twenty twenty three
and November of twenty twenty four dip by one point
(31:58):
seven percent. There's been so much turmoil in terms of
the rest on industry. I'm not saying necessarily that this
surgeon General is called Arms is going to, you know,
be the nail and the coffin for them by any means,
but certainly it is a surprising recent twist that has
come up that they'll have to deal with. Come forward here.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
I guess I'm not sure on this piece if there's
if there's going to be a clear shift in behavior
as a result of this. And I guess what I
mean is, Tucker, I believe you've had a drink or two. Yes,
not before the show, but I could tell this morning.
I could tell the way you're running the Yeah, Paul. Likewise,
(32:44):
you've had a cold, frosty adult beverage once or twice. True,
I have as well, all three of us, I think
know that drinking is not really the best for you
from a long term health perspective, absolutely, and I generally
think that absent like a personal health scare that forces
you to change your behavior, you kind of just say, look,
this is a risk that I am willing to take,
(33:06):
and I'm okay with this obviously, whenever you get, whenever
you might have, you know, some type of health scare.
What be it, you know, something liver related, cancer related,
whatever it is. Those are things that often force people
to change, you know, their behavior as it resorts as
it reflects on, you know, drinking. But I'm just not
sure that a Surgeon General warning is going to change that,
(33:28):
because I think anyone who's grown up in the last
thirty forty years has not been doing this in a
vacuum anyways. It's no one's been sitting there being like, wow,
this is good for me, Like no, you feel your
body the next day like, probably isn't good for me,
Like this is probably something bad. So I'm just not
sure how much this will impact, you know, overall alcohol sales,
(33:51):
especially at restaurants. I did learn something fantastic that I
had never heard before in this piece, the term California sober.
Yeah you only smoke.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
I didn't know that. I never heard that before. No,
I've never heard that before.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
Plenty apparently refers to someone who only smokes marijuana and
doesn't drink their California sober So that's uh.
Speaker 6 (34:10):
That's pretty well known.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
I thought you No, I'm a loser tucker like this,
I got no idea. I want to talk a little
bit about this piece from the New York Times about
Movie Pass. Movie Pass, if you remember, is the service
that promised you like unlimited movies. I think you go
see like a movie a day and pay was it
(34:33):
like ten dollars or fifteen dollars and the month and
you can see unlimited movies and Barry at one point,
like you make money. Barry went and got one of
these subscriptions and actually started going to see like a
movie a day. Yeah, and they went out of business
like shortly thereafter.
Speaker 6 (34:48):
So you would come in at each day and be like, yeah,
I saw this yesterday. I saw that.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
It was like yeah the day, yeah, He's like every
night he was going to a new movie. I'm like, Barry,
this is not sustainable. But anyways, the former seat of
Movie Past, Theodore Farnsworth, great name by the way, pled
guilty to securities fraud yesterday, and so he is going
to be facing a maximum of twenty years in prison
(35:13):
for securities fraud relating to movie Pass. Basically, I'll quote here,
he tried to inflate its stock price and took millions
of dollars from the company for himself, according to prosecutors
and court records.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
So he is going to.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Be spending some time in jail because it seems like
he did some things you're just not allowed to do
when you were the CEO of the company.
Speaker 4 (35:33):
Yeah, three million people signed up and took advantage for it,
and it was nine ninety five a month in terms
of the costs for the subscription model.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
That can we talk Can we talk about just one
other thing, just unrelated note, like obviously, look, you can't
just have people pay nine to ninety five a month
and then go see unlimited movies because movie Pass ultimately
was still paying for the tickets. This is something that
I'm gonna now relate to the insurance industry, which you're
(36:03):
gonna be like, how and why are you doing this?
But I think part of the reason why we are
seeing insurance premiums moving the way that we are is
because people are using insurance differently now than they used to,
and specifically, like I've had a couple questions from friends
where they'll, you know, they'll be like, hey, like, I
gotten a fender bender and my deductible's five hundred. You know,
(36:24):
the body shop says will cost like a couple thousand
to repair.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
What should I do? Like, how do I handle it?
Speaker 2 (36:30):
And I kind of look at and I go My
answer to them is like, look, do what you want ultimately,
because it's it's your money and whatever. But if every
time people getting a minor fender bender they want their
insurance to cover it for you know, again, these things
are expensive now because the cost of labor and parts,
Like it's you have a dented bumper and it's like
fifteen hundred bucks right off the bat. You sit there
(36:51):
and you go, Okay, if everyone's gonna do that, then
how do you expect your insurance premiums to stay low?
If everyone's filing those small claims and then you get
the occasional big ones that come through. It's not like
the money just gets created out of nowhere. Eventually, the
insurance company has to have the money to pay these things.
And so I think part of this is the way
(37:12):
that people are using insurance is for smaller claims that
are driving up the frequency of you know, claims processed
by insurers, and that's causing them to have to raise
rates as well, just because they're seeing a lot more
claims than they used to on that type of stuff.
Speaker 4 (37:28):
The other takeaway I've had in the auto insurance space
that I recognize for the higher premiums is bought a
newer car and the amount of technology that's incorporated within
this car in terms of sensors and monitors and things
like that. It at least makes me understand to a
degree why we've seen such premium increases because I just
think about the censoring of lay monitoring and all the
(37:48):
different stuff, all the cameras, and if you get into
some sort of accident, all that stuff gets messed up
and is expensive to replace, and it's also labor intensive.
Speaker 2 (37:56):
So I get that side too. Yeah, it's again, I
I don't want to be like, hey, I'm on the
side of insurance companies, but the money has to come
from somewhere. You can't expect to pay, you know, five
hundred dollars premiums and yet be able to resolve fifteen
hundred dollars claims indefinitely.
Speaker 3 (38:13):
The money has to actually come from somewhere.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
Quick break for the rest of the day. We're back
at it Tomorrow. Markets will be closed tomorrow. We're still
here on the Financial Exchange
The Financial Exchange is produced by Money Matters Radio and
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(01:06):
and Paul Lane.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Kicking off hour two on the Financial Exchange, and markets
not really find a much direction today, a little bit
of downward drift, but no conviction behind it.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Really.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
We've got the Dow down forty one points today, the
S and P's down ten, NASDAK down sixty five, so
you do have the tech heavy NASDAK kind of, you know,
continuing to perform the worst here that being led down
by AMD which is off about four point seven percent,
Meta down about one point seven and Shopify which is
down about one point one percent. So again all three
(01:43):
major US indices are sliding today.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Ten year US Treasury not really.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Moving a ton was down a little bit earlier in
the day, but now it's off two tenths of a
basis point to four point six eight seven, So just
no real movement on that front. Oil down seven cents
of barrel to seventy four eighteen. Unfortunately, with oil prices
back in the mid seventies, it is continuing to push
(02:10):
up on gas prices just a little bit, another tenth
of a cent rise today up to three h six
and nine tenths on the tripa national average for gas prices.
And we've got gold today up fifteen sixty ounce to
twenty six point eighty one. Even, Paul, We've got a
piece here in market Watch. It's titled America's frozen housing
market is finally starting to thaw.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
What kind of thong are we seeing?
Speaker 2 (02:34):
With interest rates still north of seven percent on the
thirty or fixed rate mortgage, what.
Speaker 4 (02:38):
We're seeing check is something, but I wouldn't necessarily waive
any victory flags just yet. In terms of the home
sales data that we've been getting for the month of November,
what we saw is a uptick in existing home sales
by about four point eight percent. That was a seasonally
adjusted pace of four point one to five million. That
(02:59):
was the best since March of twenty four last year.
If you also take a look at just the amount
of inventory of unsold existing homes throughout the country, we're
at one point three to three million. That's equivalent to
about four months of supply or so.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
You know.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
The crux of this piece that we're covering here is
that perhaps housing sentiment has ticked up and that people
have begun a little bit more accustomed to the highest
interest the higher interest rates on the mortgage side of
things that they are now in a better shape or
more used to paying. We sit at six point nine
to one percent on the thirty year fixed mortgage as
(03:38):
of the week closing on January second. That will likely
uptick from all the stuff that we've seen on the
US ten year treasury from Freddie Mack. But ultimately for
penning home sales too, you're looking at a little bit
of uptick in the Midwest, the South, and the West,
but the Northeast we're still seeing. To Clyde, I summarize
all those points by saying, I don't think that we
are going to see a tremendously active housing market in
(04:02):
this year. There certainly will be a lot more inventory,
it seems like from all that we're seeing. Yeah, in
the southeast and the Southwest, there'll be more inventory available,
but I don't know if that necessarily would translate to
a significant amount of more sales.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
So couple things first, In both twenty twenty three and
twenty twenty four, we had these little mini jumps in
sales activity, where you know, early twenty three we went
from like four million units annualized to four point five
to three million. Early twenty four we went from three
point eight eight to four point three eight, So we
had these you know, little bumps, and both of them
(04:38):
were a few months after yields bottomed and were really low,
so people locked in their mortgage rates you know, earlier,
and then they you know, were able to buy homes
with those lower rates. The existing home sales data that
we have for November, yields bottomed in mid September, so
if you were buying a home, if you were closing
on a home in November, you had a chance to
(04:59):
lock your mortgage rate in when you were buying in September. Like,
it kind of makes sense. The more real time data
that I've seen from Mike Simonson from all this research,
we have him on the show every now and then,
and his weekly data that that his firm puts out.
They are showing that newly pending home sales so not
like the total that's still out there, but basically week
(05:21):
to week, like how many new contracts are being signed
each week. The last couple of weeks now are back
to basically flat year over year, so not showing any
improvement after his data had showed Yeah, we're seeing like
four to five percent gains in sales volume in September
and October and things like that, like in the pendings,
So I think it's still a very rate sensitive market.
(05:44):
And his firm, they're also projecting that we get back
to pre pandemic levels of inventory late this year or
early twenty six. So that's another like forty percent expansion
in inventory levels, thirty to forty percent expansion in national
inventory levels.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
And the big thing.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Is, look the places that are already back to pre
pandemic inventory levels. Home prices are falling in those. It's Florida,
it's Texas, it's parts of the southeast and Southwest. In
addition to those areas, you know some communities in Arizona
and Georgia and North Carolina included as well. So I
think that where I get to on this is, hey,
(06:22):
if you're gonna have more inventory coming on board and
rates stay where they are, the only path to more
sales is prices down, or you can have the same
number of sales, but prices don't budge. It's and I
don't know exactly which way this ends up going, but
I struggled to get to you know, pre twenty twenty
(06:45):
two when rates spiked our norm like if and again
like excluding like even twenty twenty and everything like that.
If you look at the last decade, we were generally
seeing an annualized pace five and a quarter to five
point seventy five million units a year like that. That's
kind of the norm. So how do you see a
(07:05):
thirty you know, twenty to thirty percent jump in sales volume.
There aren't enough people who can afford homes with rates
where they are right now and these prices. So if
you want to get back to more normal volumes, prices
have to come down how much.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
I don't know, but you know, talk to anyone who's
trying to move a property in Florida right now, and
they'll tell you, yeah, it's been sitting for a while.
I'm not getting the bids I want. You know, I've
got neighbors that are listing and they're cutting prices, trying
to undercut me. So like it's I'm not saying that's
gonna happen in the Northeast, where you know, war based,
(07:44):
because the Northeast has some of the lowest inventory levels nationally. Yeah,
Connecticut's still like twenty five percent of pre pandemic levels.
The rest of the Northeast is sitting around like fifty
to sixty percent. I think depending on the state that
you're looking at. So I think ultimately I can believe
in a path towards higher volumes because when when homes
get listed, it's because someone wants to sell them, and
(08:06):
eventually they're gonna find a way to sell it. But
higher volumes at these rates means prices have to pull back.
Is it two percent, five percent, ten, I don't know.
But the other good thing is, look, the people selling
these properties generally aren't horribly overlevered. They were back in
(08:27):
two thousand and seven, and so I don't have concerns
about like massive numbers of short.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Sales and things like that.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
In some markets, you could potentially see that if you
bought at the very top in Austin, Texas, yeah you
might have, you know, some short sale problems if you
borrowed a ton, But even there, you weren't seeing like
a ton of people borrowing like ninety five percent loan
to value. It was yeah, lenders were pretty tight on stuff.
And so even if you're eighty percent loan to value,
(08:54):
you're not gonna have a twenty percent you've pick made
but ten or fifteen.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Look here's the thing.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
In the last two years, you've paid off six percent
of that right, so now you're loan to value. Even
if price didn't change was you know, seventy four and
even if you're taking a ten percent haircut from the
peak plus your commission to your agent, you're still walking
away with you know, eight to nine percent of the
property value.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
So short sales are not going to be the problem
this time. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
One other quick note here, two of ten people, according
to the Federal Housing Finance AHC, have mortgages that are
sitting at six percent or more. So still a swa
a huge walth of people that are locked in under
that six percent level, and some of those, you know,
nostalgically low levels of twenty one and twenty they are
at three or four percent.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Along with this, Zilo predicting that Providence, Rhode Island is
going to be one of the nation's hottest housing markets
in twenty twenty five. What's what's going on in dear
old Providence.
Speaker 4 (09:49):
Chuck, I will say that the definition of hotness by Zillo,
there's some nuance to it.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Before everyone you're saying there's a Zillo hotness index.
Speaker 4 (09:59):
The way that they are determining what is hot Tucker's
que me up here, thank you. With some of these
other ones that round up the top five, you wouldn't
necessarily associate these hot Indianapolis, Hartford, Philly, Providence, and Buffalo
are the top five. What is taken to account here
(10:21):
is how quickly homes are selling in the particular area.
The local home value growth, so how much is your
home appreciating within that local era. The amount of job
growth in that area per new home that's being permitted,
so is there more job growth than homes that are
actually being built with an area, And affordability weighs into
so all four of those factors lead to a different
(10:43):
look in terms of what the hottest housing markets are.
Buffalo is a back to back champion. Unlike their Super
Bowl limited lack of success, they were able to claim
we don't have any Buffaloes. There's hopefully thank Bufalo Station
that they were back to back ted winners on this
hotness housing market where they have the relative affordability, a
(11:05):
lot of job growth in the area, and a real
scarcity of homes out there. Boston, they studied fifty metro
areas when they were looking at this Boston came in
at sixteenth. You know, the affordability piece drags down the
Boston or New York's of the world.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Here, take a quick break here when we come back,
we got trivia right after this.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
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(11:49):
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Speaker 5 (11:56):
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That's dav five K dot Boston. Time for trivia here
on the Financial Exchange. On this day in nineteen ninety two,
President George HW. Bush was at a banquet to deliver
(12:39):
a speech at the Japanese Prime Minister's residence. Unfortunately for
President Bush and Prime Minister Miyazawa, Bush was unable to
deliver his speech. Question today, what caused President Bush to
skip his speech that night?
Speaker 6 (12:56):
Once again?
Speaker 5 (12:56):
What caused President Bush to skip his speech that night?
Be the third person today to text us at six
one seven three six two thirteen eighty five with the
correct answer, and you win a Financial Exchange Showed t shirt.
Speaker 6 (13:09):
Once again.
Speaker 5 (13:09):
The third correct response to text us at six one
seven three six two thirteen eighty five, We'll win that
Financial Exchange Show T shirt. See complete contest rules at
Financial Exchange Show dot com.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Paul, how much money do you need to retire in
every US state?
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Go?
Speaker 4 (13:26):
I think I think I could get us to the
end of the hour. Uh if we take a look
at some of the numbers that came out from this one.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
But no, literally, let's go alphabetical Alabama seven hundred and
seventy three thousand, Alabama, Alaska eras.
Speaker 6 (13:39):
No, we're not doing We're not doing every state can
we do that?
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Which states can we do?
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Probably the New England ones are pretty smart, and maybe
like Florida, Okay, Connecticut.
Speaker 6 (13:49):
Arizona, maybe Connecticut.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
One point one six mili. Let's talk a little bit
about how they get their first Paul, yep. This is
UH data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and they
calculate annual living expense is for each state. And then
what they do is they use the four percent rule,
the thought that, hey, you can withdraw four percent of
your portfolio over the long term, and that's generally a
safe rate of you know, withdrawal. Whether it is or
(14:12):
not obviously depends on your specific situation. But that's how
they get to these numbers.
Speaker 4 (14:16):
And they subtract out the average solid security benefit as
part of that too, assusment that you're receiving that yep.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
So Connecticut annual cost of living sixty seven thousand savings
need to retire about one point one six million.
Speaker 6 (14:28):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Uh, Florida the annual living expenses, Uh my, it's a
cut off.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
I got you sixty one nine. You need nine hundred
and seventy seven k to live in Florida.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Uh, let's do Hawaii, just if you want to get
aspirational about it.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Hawaii.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
They annual living expenses one hundred and ten thousand savings
need to retire.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
Two point two million.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Yes, not cheap obviously with gas at like five dollars
a gallon. And I don't even know how much eggs
would be in Hawaii, but a lot barely know what
they are in Massachusett. He Paul, I got you that
you did. Paul walks in the grocery store. I'd like
to buy one egg please? Those are nine bucks each.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
I brought it twenty if you are extra God, I
love why Uh Aloha?
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Maine. Annual cost of living sixty eight thousand. Savings need
to retire one point one four million. Let's see continuing
down the list here New Hampshire.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Where Massachusetts go? Is that?
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Can I jump in Massachusetts?
Speaker 3 (15:35):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (15:35):
If you got the list, pull it one point six
four five million. An annual cost of living of eighty
eight thousand. New Hampshire is another one that you mentioned,
one point one to three million in terms of say
one point yeah, one point one to one million in
terms of savings, an annual cost of living of about
sixty seven thousand. Let's take a look at do we
cover main yet here Maine we hit that one yep, Okay,
(16:00):
let's see Vermont is one point one and sixty eight thousand,
very similar to New Hampshire Island. Rhode Island. Let's take
a peek here, they were sixty seven thousand, annual cost
of living one point one million, So that seems to
be kind of the recurring theme for the New England
states is one point one million in savings with sixty
(16:22):
seven thousand as the annual cost of living. Keep in mind,
this is bare bones minimum. This is not any type
of entertainment or travel. This is just the bare necessities.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
I wish I could have this list, and I'm sure
it exists on the internet somewhere. I wish I could
have this list from I don't know, twenty fourteen or
something like that, like how much to retire in each state? Then,
just because what I'm interested is not how much the
overall cost has gone up, but I'm interested in just
(16:52):
as an example, the difference between Massachusetts and Florida right now,
Massachusetts saying is like one point six million and Florida
is what did you say it was?
Speaker 3 (17:03):
It's one of the ones that's.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Blocked out nine hundred and seventy seventy k okay, So
the difference there, it's almost twice as expensive to retire
in Massachusetts as compared to Florida. In this example, for
most of New England, it's about twenty percent more expensive.
And what I'd be curious at is the cost of
living in Florida has clearly gone up the last few
(17:24):
years as well, when you're talking insurance costs, you know,
even property values, just what's happened to them in the
last decade. And what I'd be curious at seeing is
curious in seeing, curious of seeing. What I'd be curious
to see is what was the difference in those costs
from New England down to Florida ten years ago, because
(17:44):
I anticipate it was much wider, Like there was a
much bigger cost savings in moving from New England to
Florida in twenty fourteen, would be my guess.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
But I don't have the.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Data anywhere, and I I'm sure I'm not going to
find it from twenty fourteen, because I don't even the
even though if those pieces were published on the internet
then but it'd be something that I'd be interested in
looking at. But again, this is a great reminder that
where you decide to retire has a huge influence on
(18:15):
what your retirement finances look like. It's it's not just
and most people know this, you know, whether intuitively or
they've spent time looking at it, but there's a real
difference in what you need to spend in different regions.
And also remember these are looking at statewide things. The
difference from you know, Massachusetts to Miami is going to
(18:39):
be far different from the difference between Massachusetts to Orlando
or Pensacola.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Or something like that.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
It's these are big states we're talking about here, and
you can have different costs even within them, depending on
what you're trying to do and where you're trying to live.
Taking a look at markets, as we had towards the
bottom of the hour, still just a little bit of
very very mild downward drift that was off twenty six points.
S and PP's down five, Nasdack down thirty five. So
(19:05):
no major moves today at this point, just kind of
a little bit of slip slide, but but nothing too
significant to this point in the day. We're gonna take
a quick break here, but when we come back, we
have the trivia answer, and then we're gonna talk a
little bit about tax brackets. And after that I want
to get to what's going on at CES the Consumer
(19:27):
Electronics Show. What kind of smart toilets are they showing
us this year?
Speaker 3 (19:31):
We'll let you know.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Bringing the latest financial news straight to your radio every day,
it's the Financial Exchange on the Financial Exchange Radio Network.
Text guys six one seven TRN six to two one
three eight five with your comments and questions about today's show.
This is the Financial Exchange Radio at work.
Speaker 5 (20:03):
The trivia question today was what caused President Bush to
skip his speech the night.
Speaker 6 (20:08):
In nineteen ninety two at the.
Speaker 5 (20:10):
Japanese Prime Minister's residence. Well, he puked on the Prime minister.
Speaker 6 (20:14):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 5 (20:15):
Unfortunately for President Bush and the Japanese Prime Minister, Bush
got sick during the dinner and vomited on the Prime
Minister's lap. Scott from Sudbury, mass is our winner today,
thank you, and he's taking home a Financial Exchange Show
T shirt. Congrats to Scott, and we played trivia every
day here on the Financial Exchange. See complete contest rules
(20:38):
at Financial Exchange Show dot com, Paul.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Each year, the federal government or specifically the IRS, adjusts
the tax brackets, and basically what they do is they
make them bigger, and in doing so, if you are
making the same amount that you were making in the
prior year, all else being equal, it generally ends up
meaning that you pay less tax because more of it
(21:03):
falls into lower brackets, or at least you potentially do,
because hey, if you're in the lowest bracket, then well
it's tough to pay too much less than the lowest rate, right.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
I was sort of scratching my head through that piece,
but I think you summarized it relatively well, and I
mean some of it ties into just keep an eye
on what you're withholding from a federal and state tax perspective.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
Yeah, tough.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Talk to your tax people every year, and you know,
if you're getting too big of a refund, you know,
bigger than you want, and you find it, Hey, you
don't want to be lending the government money when you
can still get you know, three to four percent on
money market rates and you know, savings accounts and things
like that. Okay, talk to your accountant likewise, if you
find yourself paying too much or you know, running into
penalties and things like that, talk to them as well
(21:50):
to make sure you have the right amount of withholding.
It's something that you should be doing every year to
make sure that you are in a good spot.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
One quick thing important to know is that, you know,
sometimes people sell bit of refund, but you phrased it
appropriately there that it's basically you've just been lending the
government your money over that period of time and particular
where interest rates where they are. It's not like finding
a twenty dollars bill in your pocket that should have
been in your pocket the whole time, collecting interest on it.
You really want to be right on the measure where
you're barely paying or you barely getting a refund. That's
(22:18):
where kind of the serendipity is in taxes.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
Right.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Remember if if you're getting a refund of two thousand dollars,
if you would had that money just sitting in a
CD for the last year, you know, low risk, Okay,
you were probably getting I don't know what three and
a half to four and a half percent, So call
it eighty bucks.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
That could get you like four eggs. Just pointing that out.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Right, Paul Jackpot.
Speaker 5 (22:42):
Well, the calendar's turned and the cold is here to stay,
So now's the perfect time to plan that getaway to
the US Virgin Islands. Act now and take advantage of
a special promotion to Saint Croix. Experience af eybe like
no other and receive a two hundred and fifty dollars
per person airfare credit and a free hotel night's day
when you book a five night minimum stay with any
(23:03):
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is known for its incredible history and spectacular architecture, along
with world class cuisine, incredible golf courses, and a wide
variety of water sports. From the moment you arrive, you'll
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Speaker 6 (23:18):
Of the islands.
Speaker 5 (23:19):
There's no money to exchange, and travel from New England
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brook your trip today, that's visit USVII dot com and
code Vibe twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
So cnet always goes to the Consumer Electronics Show CIS.
It's always like the first week of the new year,
and they put together their list of a quote the
headline ie popping home tech gadgets were loving from CES
twenty twenty five. So far, let's go through some of these.
There's something called the Dream Robot vacuum, and it's like
(24:06):
other robot vacuums and that it goes around and well vacuums,
but it can uh go on uneven surfaces because of
like support legs that allow it to you know, go
up little steps and things like that.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
Okay, do you guys do you guys use those in
your home? The Rumba, which is the most popular, That's
what happened with me, Tucker, you know had it.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Oh, this is great collecting dust. Within six months we
used it for I think a little bit longer. It
became challenging once we had kids because they would screw
with it while it was and.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
I don't think our's got that aggressive.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
They would like pick it up and turn it around,
so like it just wouldn't clean areas then, or it
would run out of battery before it could, you know,
clean them.
Speaker 6 (24:58):
So also torments the dog too, the vacuum does.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
Let's fine, the dog needs to be putting its place sometimes,
you know.
Speaker 6 (25:04):
As a vacuum.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
Not everyone can love your dog.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Yeah no, not everyone loves dogs. My point is like
they need to feel what the rest of us feel.
Where hey, someone might not like you. You know, I'm
not saying like aggressive or anything. Yeah, come on, Gouvey's
new lamp now grooves to your music. So it's a
smart lamp with speakers built in that sinks the light
(25:27):
to the music and quote, it has a smart lava
lamp vibe that offers up one hundred different color scenes
to choose from. Sounds like my dream for college?
Speaker 3 (25:39):
Sure exactly. You know.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
They have a smart indoor garden that holds fifteen plants
and can be placed anywhere in your home. And I
guess waters are steams them in order, not steams because
they don't cook the plants, but it like mists them
to water them automatically. Okay, sounds fine. I'm not blown
away by any of this so far. Smart lawnmowers terrified
(26:03):
of Like, I just I don't as that terrify you
because unlike the vacuum where we talk about like, oh
it torments the dog, Like it's not gonna hurt the dog.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
This can hurt animals.
Speaker 6 (26:14):
Yeah, but you can.
Speaker 5 (26:16):
I mean you can see it coming like at you.
It's not going seventy five miles an hour, you can't.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
But like, here's the thing.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
If if I'm mowing the lawn personally and something darts
in front of me, I know I'm gonna stop. And
this I'm sure says that it will stop. But do
you really trust it?
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Right?
Speaker 6 (26:32):
I just I don't know what it's a thousand dollars.
Speaker 4 (26:35):
Yeah, and look at the size of this thing. I
don't know how much workload it can really handle here.
It's not that particularly big.
Speaker 6 (26:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Yeah, let's see turn your still water into carbonated water
on the go with the Rome soda top. It's got
a Co two cartridge in the lid.
Speaker 6 (26:50):
It's only fifty bucks.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
But still, I mean, I'm not really a carbonated water fan,
so I can't stand it.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
I guess if you're a fan of.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
It, fine, like a seltzer now and then you know,
I got one here that I do find to be
really obnoxious. This is my least favorite from the list.
It's an AI powered smart planter that's trying to create
the perfect watering schedule for your plant. It's called the
Leafy Pod, and it has an app and it alerts
you if your plant needs more or less light or
a change in scenery through the app that pairs with
(27:18):
the planter. How about just looking at your plant and
being like, is it growing or not? Is it dying, leaves, wilting,
you know, things like that that If you've ever had
plants or you know, anything, you you're kind of like, oh,
like maybe I should pay attention to this and see,
you know, how it's doing.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
Why do you need an.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
App to tell you, hey, it doesn't have you know,
enough water or something. Just look at it and tell.
Speaker 5 (27:44):
What's the one on this list that as the most
potential to actually like be of use.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
That's a good question.
Speaker 5 (27:49):
I would say This porch pire or one is pretty interesting.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
It's pretty much a locker.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
Yeah, so it's it's it's a locker that sits outside
and basically you give a password that allows delivery drivers
to drop off packages into it so no one can
steal them. Not can't people still take the locker depends
how heavy it is, but yeah, I can't imagine it's
(28:19):
like that heavy.
Speaker 6 (28:20):
That's a big commitment, though it is.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
I mean, look, then you're talking about okay, you got
to like saw the thing open or break it open.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
I guess.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
So, Yeah, probably dissuades people who just you know, would
grab a package three hundred bucks. Yeah, I could see
it having some use.
Speaker 4 (28:36):
Yeah, I feel like there's competitors. There's other companies that
do that too, But yeah, I would agree. Of the
list in terms of what's viable for use, that's probably
the one that I would point to the most. I
can't really you know, the cooling Cat is tempting to
name as the most promising.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
So this, I'll be honest might be the dumbest smart
thing I've ever seen. I say that like with with affection.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
Actually it sounds really dumb.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
So it's it's this little like cat sculpture type thing
that goes over the lip of your mug or plate
and it blows onto your food or drink.
Speaker 6 (29:17):
Because you're not able to.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Honestly, for the kids, this would be a home run.
So here's kids would love right, Like, this is the thing.
I'm not saying for me, but my kids would think
it's so cool to have like this little cat just
blowing onto their food. They would name it, they pretend
to feed it, like.
Speaker 6 (29:34):
Yeah, it's for kids only.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Oh definitely, this would be a big hit with my
kids and would save me the hassle of having to
do it myself. Devin and the menute it's still hot.
It's twenty five dollars, like whatever, you know. I kind
of look at this and yeah, it's it's kind of
stupid in My first initial reaction was to just deride
(29:58):
it mercilessly.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
But I don't know, I think there might be actually a.
Speaker 6 (30:02):
Place to go. This one good stocking stuff.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
It's twenty five bucks, not three thousand, like a lawnmower
with your kids. Hot cocoa, this this would be good
with the kids.
Speaker 6 (30:10):
Oh yea yeah, my kids have to have lukewarm coco.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
Yeah yeah, they're no. Not about hot cocoa in my
house either.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
I'll be honest, I have to have lukewarm coco.
Speaker 6 (30:20):
Oh really, I don't.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
I don't deal well with heat in my mouth.
Speaker 5 (30:25):
I don't like hot beverages either piping hot. I'm the
guy who has to like a microwave.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
That's my wife.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
My wife like, I know, same exact, whaling my throat.
I hate the risk of burning my tongue. I'd much
rather err on the side of it's been cold. But
I can just throw it back quickly. She'll be like,
how are you eating that? I'm like, it's the perfect temperature,
seventy three degrees. Just cook the steak and leave it
for an hour. I'll eat it then, Okay, soup on
the stove. No, put it in the fridge. Let's take
(30:53):
a quick break here. When we come back, time for
some stack Roulette.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Find daily interviews and full shows of the Finalecial Exchange
on our YouTube page. Like us on YouTube and get
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This is the Financial Exchange Radio Network. The Financial Exchange
Show podcast drops every day on Apple, Spotify, and iHeartRadio.
Hit that subscribe button and leave us a five star review.
(31:18):
You're listening to the Financial Exchange Radio Network.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
Oh what do you got for me? For stack Roulet?
Speaker 4 (31:36):
The US Surgeon General is new push to warn consumers
about the link between drinking and cancer. Is a tough
time for restaurants out there that really are are predicated
on driving most of their revenue from alcohol sales. We
saw sales at restaurants between November of twenty twenty three
and November of twenty twenty four dip by one point
(31:58):
seven percent. There's been so much turmoil in terms of
the rest on industry. I'm not saying necessarily that this
surgeon General is called Arms is going to, you know,
be the nail and the coffin for them by any means,
but certainly it is a surprising recent twist that has
come up that they'll have to deal with. Come forward here.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
I guess I'm not sure on this piece if there's
if there's going to be a clear shift in behavior
as a result of this. And I guess what I
mean is, Tucker, I believe you've had a drink or two. Yes,
not before the show, but I could tell this morning.
I could tell the way you're running the Yeah, Paul. Likewise,
(32:44):
you've had a cold, frosty adult beverage once or twice. True,
I have as well, all three of us, I think
know that drinking is not really the best for you
from a long term health perspective, absolutely, and I generally
think that absent like a personal health scare that forces
you to change your behavior, you kind of just say, look,
this is a risk that I am willing to take,
(33:06):
and I'm okay with this obviously, whenever you get, whenever
you might have, you know, some type of health scare.
What be it, you know, something liver related, cancer related,
whatever it is. Those are things that often force people
to change, you know, their behavior as it resorts as
it reflects on, you know, drinking. But I'm just not
sure that a Surgeon General warning is going to change that,
(33:28):
because I think anyone who's grown up in the last
thirty forty years has not been doing this in a
vacuum anyways. It's no one's been sitting there being like, wow,
this is good for me, Like no, you feel your
body the next day like, probably isn't good for me,
Like this is probably something bad. So I'm just not
sure how much this will impact, you know, overall alcohol sales,
(33:51):
especially at restaurants. I did learn something fantastic that I
had never heard before in this piece, the term California sober.
Yeah you only smoke.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
I didn't know that. I never heard that before. No,
I've never heard that before.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
Plenty apparently refers to someone who only smokes marijuana and
doesn't drink their California sober So that's uh.
Speaker 6 (34:10):
That's pretty well known.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
I thought you No, I'm a loser tucker like this,
I got no idea. I want to talk a little
bit about this piece from the New York Times about
Movie Pass. Movie Pass, if you remember, is the service
that promised you like unlimited movies. I think you go
see like a movie a day and pay was it
(34:33):
like ten dollars or fifteen dollars and the month and
you can see unlimited movies and Barry at one point,
like you make money. Barry went and got one of
these subscriptions and actually started going to see like a
movie a day. Yeah, and they went out of business
like shortly thereafter.
Speaker 6 (34:48):
So you would come in at each day and be like, yeah,
I saw this yesterday. I saw that.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
It was like yeah the day, yeah, He's like every
night he was going to a new movie. I'm like, Barry,
this is not sustainable. But anyways, the former seat of
Movie Past, Theodore Farnsworth, great name by the way, pled
guilty to securities fraud yesterday, and so he is going
to be facing a maximum of twenty years in prison
(35:13):
for securities fraud relating to movie Pass. Basically, I'll quote here,
he tried to inflate its stock price and took millions
of dollars from the company for himself, according to prosecutors
and court records.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
So he is going to.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Be spending some time in jail because it seems like
he did some things you're just not allowed to do
when you were the CEO of the company.
Speaker 4 (35:33):
Yeah, three million people signed up and took advantage for it,
and it was nine ninety five a month in terms
of the costs for the subscription model.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
That can we talk Can we talk about just one
other thing, just unrelated note, like obviously, look, you can't
just have people pay nine to ninety five a month
and then go see unlimited movies because movie Pass ultimately
was still paying for the tickets. This is something that
I'm gonna now relate to the insurance industry, which you're
(36:03):
gonna be like, how and why are you doing this?
But I think part of the reason why we are
seeing insurance premiums moving the way that we are is
because people are using insurance differently now than they used to,
and specifically, like I've had a couple questions from friends
where they'll, you know, they'll be like, hey, like, I
gotten a fender bender and my deductible's five hundred. You know,
(36:24):
the body shop says will cost like a couple thousand
to repair.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
What should I do? Like, how do I handle it?
Speaker 2 (36:30):
And I kind of look at and I go My
answer to them is like, look, do what you want ultimately,
because it's it's your money and whatever. But if every
time people getting a minor fender bender they want their
insurance to cover it for you know, again, these things
are expensive now because the cost of labor and parts,
Like it's you have a dented bumper and it's like
fifteen hundred bucks right off the bat. You sit there
(36:51):
and you go, Okay, if everyone's gonna do that, then
how do you expect your insurance premiums to stay low?
If everyone's filing those small claims and then you get
the occasional big ones that come through. It's not like
the money just gets created out of nowhere. Eventually, the
insurance company has to have the money to pay these things.
And so I think part of this is the way
(37:12):
that people are using insurance is for smaller claims that
are driving up the frequency of you know, claims processed
by insurers, and that's causing them to have to raise
rates as well, just because they're seeing a lot more
claims than they used to on that type of stuff.
Speaker 4 (37:28):
The other takeaway I've had in the auto insurance space
that I recognize for the higher premiums is bought a
newer car and the amount of technology that's incorporated within
this car in terms of sensors and monitors and things
like that. It at least makes me understand to a
degree why we've seen such premium increases because I just
think about the censoring of lay monitoring and all the
(37:48):
different stuff, all the cameras, and if you get into
some sort of accident, all that stuff gets messed up
and is expensive to replace, and it's also labor intensive.
Speaker 2 (37:56):
So I get that side too. Yeah, it's again, I
I don't want to be like, hey, I'm on the
side of insurance companies, but the money has to come
from somewhere. You can't expect to pay, you know, five
hundred dollars premiums and yet be able to resolve fifteen
hundred dollars claims indefinitely.
Speaker 3 (38:13):
The money has to actually come from somewhere.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
Quick break for the rest of the day. We're back
at it Tomorrow. Markets will be closed tomorrow. We're still
here on the Financial Exchange
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