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Welcome to How To Money, I'm Joel and I am Matt.
And today we're talking TikTok Shop,
Bitcoiners Beware and Kitchen Appreciation Fees.
Yeah, buddy, this is our Friday flight and we're going to talk about the relevant stories
that we think you need to be aware of.
We're going to talk about the stories you mentioned, Joel.
We're going to talk about investing.
I feel like at least once per episode,
we got to touch on investing a little bit.
The proper thing that you should be doing with your money.
It's a core necessity that we talk about often.
Absolutely, but before we get to that,
so Amy, over in our Facebook group,
she mentioned that there's this perk,
that if you are a stockholder of AMC stock,
so the movie theater chain,
you get certain perks occasionally by being a stockholder.
This is the way that they're reaching out to stockholders
to kind of like connect them with the actual act
of going to the movie theater.
Well, this really goes back to kind of when AMC became a meme stock.
And it was the way to reward those people
who were helping prop up the company.
That's right.
And so occasionally they will offer you like free popcorn,
I was sad to see that it'd be one thing,
if like every time you went in,
you could just get free popcorn.
But it's like, oh, you get a free refill.
So you have to actually buy some popcorn first,
and there's some other kind of random perks
that they roll out.
But my question for you is basically,
is this a frugal or cheap?
Is it a frugal move, in your opinion,
to get you some of that AMC stock
in order to receive some of these perks
that you're getting there in the movie theater?
So I'm not going to do it.
But it's not because even my stance
against single stock ownership,
it is more because I don't ever go to the movies.
But I think if you're the kind of person who goes
same to the movies and AMC is like your closest theater
or whatever,
and you're not going just to kind of score
the free popcorn, paying 30 bucks to get
in the normal watcher movie.
But if you're like, I go anyway,
this is just a way to get some free concessions
when I do go see a movie.
I think it's great.
And why not buy a single share sort of thing?
And same.
That's exactly how I feel.
Like I would much rather though be at home
watching a movie on my own TV,
sitting on my own couch,
next to my own wife.
Not somebody else's wife.
It's out in public.
Eating the popcorn that she's made,
drinking a delicious coconut rum that I've made.
Like that's the kind of experience that I want
versus, you know, actually going into a theater.
I think it could make sense if this is something
that you like to do often,
something that you can take advantage of.
But I wouldn't necessarily go out of my way
to go ahead and buy, you know,
a single stock of AMC in order to
score this benefit.
Just kind of on the note of food and
frugular cheap.
I was talking to a friend.
You know, we go,
there are local water park or whatever here
in outside of Atlanta.
You and I, we got like sick deals on season passes
for the family.
We've been going to do that.
And I was talking to a friend there the other day
and he was saying,
next year, you got to get the meal pass.
And some people come into the water park
to get their free meal.
And then they go home and eat that meal
because apparently the food pass is so cheap.
I think we talked about this at one point
with some dude using his six flags pass
and the meal pass attached to it.
It's like a couple dollars a meal
when you factor it out.
If you're going every day to get your free food,
have you heard about this?
I think I've seen it.
But like the food that you get at concession stands,
it's one thing if you're going to
grab a lemonade or something like that.
But I'm not necessarily going to go all the way out
to a theme park just to grab a bunch of hot dogs.
But this was close to our house.
It's like six or seven minutes away.
And so it's almost like going to,
instead of going to Wendy's or McDonald's
if you're a fast food person,
it's like you go there instead.
But you're right.
I mean, if you're eating that every day,
it's not going to be good for other reasons.
I'll let you try that one out.
Maybe this next year, you let me know.
Not me.
All right.
All right.
Let's get on to the Friday flight mat.
It's a sampling of stories.
Of course, that we found interesting this week
that pertained to your personal finances.
Let's start off by talking,
we'll keep talking about food.
Let's talk about restaurant fees.
There was an article Matt in the LA Times
just a couple weeks ago about the annoying
and sometimes downright deceptive restaurant surcharges
that are still plugging customer bills
after they finish their meals.
This is one of those things like,
I don't know, tipping on wild.
It feels like it's what's happened in our country, right?
Especially in major metropolitan cities.
And a lot of this had to do with COVID
and a lot of us were more than happy to support
our favorite restaurants.
We realized that they had to tack on these fees
for a time,
but those fees persist, right?
There's a certain amount of risk,
not responsibility,
but we wanted to prop up our favorite local restaurants.
We talked about this back during the pandemic.
Like we went out to our favorite spots in BAV.
Yeah.
Just to, like, man,
the amount of takeout that we ordered
just to make sure that we were contributing
to our community,
just that entire mindset.
We were buying gift cards
that we didn't know we would actually end up getting to use
because we cared about our restaurants.
It was more like a donation, as opposed to
a smart way of spending your money.
But now the things are back.
The normal customers are fighting back.
They're saying enough is enough,
especially when I get blindsided,
you know, when I get the bill.
And so Reddit users in LA and Chicago,
they've created these public Google Sheets
to reveal to basically highlight the restaurants
that are imposing these fees on their customers
and its bulk or some of the names are hilarious.
Like the health and happiness fee
or the kitchen love surcharge
and people's bills are magically growing up
going up by like five to 18%.
Right.
So it was a lot that you're not expecting
when you get the final bill.
And it's not great for servers either
because a lot of people think,
oh, this probably goes.
This is probably in lieu of a tip.
But at a lot of these places, it's not.
And so I guess what we would tell restaurant owners
is just raise the menu prices.
So that we can see front and center
when we're looking at what we want to order,
what the cost is is the,
or at least let people know before they sit down.
Yeah, it's a transparency.
Like I don't like just fees anyway.
Build it into the price.
Let's get rid of the fees.
And we gave you a lot of leeway during COVID.
But it's time for restaurants to kind of
change their tactic on some of these goofy fees
are charging.
Yeah, well, and the problem is, is oftentimes,
like you think that that surcharge is going to servers,
but in a lot of cases, it's not.
It's straight to the pocket to the end.
So it fools you into thinking
that you don't need to leave a tip.
And so that's why specifically in the,
that LA Times example,
they were talking about how servers are,
like suing this restaurant group or whatever.
But it's also just a,
like in my mind attack,
it's, like it's just not a good customer experience.
Because when you sit down and you see all these line items,
like I don't want to have to have an accounting degree
to be able to review my receipt
as opposed, like you're just telling me how much
everything costs.
No, that, just tell me how much the,
I just want to bottom line number
because it's not like by breaking those things out
that you can remove those things.
There is no power or control that you have.
And so from that standpoint,
I'm not a huge fan of it either.
Well, the one thing I would tell people,
when you get the receipt,
if you weren't told in advance about this charge,
talk to a manager,
certainly push back back at it.
What is this fee?
What does it go to?
Why am I paying it?
And then if they refuse to like eliminate it,
or they don't have a good explanation,
or they didn't tell you ahead of time,
I mean, that might be a restaurant.
I would probably not go back.
You may not frequent again.
Yeah, so that's the kitchen appreciation fees.
But credit card fees are becoming more common these days too,
in particular at restaurants.
But like it used to be,
you would see this mostly at gas stations,
small boutique retailers.
You see like liquor stores,
at least around here.
But as paying with a credit card becomes essentially,
ubiquitous restaurants are doing their best to claw back
some of the essentially they're called like swipe fees
that they pay to Visa and Mastercard.
It's one of their largest expenses.
And so I kind of get it, right?
Like actually don't mind if they're trying to pass
some of those expenses along to the customers.
There's not a whole lot of margin
when it comes to running a successful restaurant.
It's not a sneaky contrived attempt
just to get more money out of you.
But with this one,
I think folks, they definitely do have the ability to modify
how it is that they're going to pay
in order to avoid this additional fee.
Because depending on how much the actual fee is,
I am still likely going to pay with my credit card
because I'm optimized.
If it was a 10% fee,
but if it's a two or three percent fee,
you'll still play with past plastic.
Exactly.
And I think this is something too
that I think you can push back on
because if you saw that fee after you get run up,
I think you could say,
oh, actually do you mind re-ringing that
because I didn't know.
You're going to charge me specifically
for using a credit card.
And I don't think they would mind
if you're like, oh, sure.
Actually, I want to switch over to cash
because I see there's a little discount built in by doing that.
I think as long as customers and consumers,
as long as they have the option to do something about it,
that's, I don't mind it if you are giving folks the option.
Well, and again, this is a hard cost that restaurants have.
The kitchen appreciation fee is just kind of a bogus thing.
And it's like, oh, just make your prices what they should be.
But they have a legitimate hard cost
when it comes to taking credit cards.
And if they want to incentivize people
to get a discount to pay with cash,
I mean, I'm okay with that.
Because that's something that you can do something about,
as opposed to just being this line item that's just listed out.
And it's just like, oh, great.
Okay, can't do anything about that.
Maybe I just want to, like you said,
choosing not to come back here again.
Well, and I think the reason you said
that you would potentially still pay with a credit card
is because of the rewards that you get.
And some of our favorite cards,
you get three or four percent cash back
when you're eating out.
And so if the credit card fees three percent,
well, guess what?
My Costco Visa card comes with a three percent cash back
when eating out.
You've got one that gives you four percent cash back
when you're eating out.
And so that's a good reason to say,
oh, yeah, I'll still pay with credit card.
It's a wash.
But let's keep talking about credit card fees.
I feel like we've all gotten used to credit card reward points
over the years.
We just did a whole episode with Lynn Metler
about how to fly for free with your family
and using credit card rewards.
Yeah, TLDR.
The only way you get there is through credit cards.
There's no other way that I know of
that's going to allow you to travel for free
around the world or around the country.
This is all thanks to the credit card companies,
but it's not just because they're benevolent.
Other credit card users who don't pay off
their balances in full every month,
they're kind of subsidizing our rewards.
Well, on top of that,
because the credit card companies make massive swipe fees
like we just talked about that are burdening these restaurants,
every single time we use our cards,
these fees are actually kind of on the chopping block.
They might not be around for much longer.
And if Congress decides to pass the
the credit card competition act as it's called,
this could substantially inhibit the swipe fees
that we said in MasterCard are able to charge,
which would in all likelihood inhibit
the rewards that we're able to earn?
Is this even going to pass?
Is it going to get a vote even?
I don't know,
but this 2% transaction cost is a huge part of the reason
we all have rewards these days.
And if something does get done,
if this practice gets cracked down upon,
then those rewards say,
might not be around much longer.
That's true, yeah.
And typically, I'll say I'm skeptical
any time the government wants to step in
and play artificial limits on anything, right?
But I will say,
I am slightly more hopeful about this bill
because they're looking to increase competition.
And so the different,
the way the networks work,
is they're thinking about making it so that
one of the two networks that they are using
is not either Visa or MasterCard,
which dominate like I think over 80% of the market.
They basically have a duopoly,
which is two companies that run things.
And so I like this from the standpoint of
it introduces competition and anytime there's competition,
you're not just stifling in industry.
It opens the door for some creative expansion,
which is something that I do like to see.
It makes me think of the,
there's a study like long time ago,
I think over at MIT,
but they studied the airlines in any time
a low-cost budget airline
moved into a new market,
a new city,
what did that do to all the other airline fairs?
It lowered them.
I think they called them like the Southwest Effect.
But basically by introducing more competition
and giving people more options,
it drove prices down,
which ultimately saves us all money.
The same thing happens when an Aldi launches
in a neighborhood, right?
I mean, it's prices at Kroger,
that's half a mile away,
the prices go down there too,
because now they've got a,
there's competition.
Yeah, I love it.
And we haven't even talked about the fact
that Windixie and Aldi,
the fact that Aldi bought Windixie,
that's promising.
If you've got a Windixie near you,
fingers crossed,
that is one,
because they're only choosing
to convert certain numbers of the Windixie's two.
It's about 400 stores,
but two Aldi's?
They're only converting some, right?
So, yeah, fingers crossed,
that your Windixie will turn into an Aldi,
but hopefully it doesn't impact the existing Aldi's
and the incredible prices that they're able to offer, folks.
Yeah.
So again, this is vaporware,
this is potential legislation,
but and it could have an impact on credit card fees.
And you know what, Matt?
I'm okay.
If the, if those swipe fees go down,
and if it reduces costs for retailers,
I'm all about if those fees go down.
It's about how they are able to limit those fees.
But I'm all good with that,
because I don't mind missing out on some of those rewards
if it lowers prices, right?
And I kind of like the system the way it is,
but I know it's also not the most fair system.
So if those fees go down,
no sweat off my back,
I'm okay with fewer rewards.
But since we're talking about cards and plastic,
let's talk about gift cards for a second,
there's a lot of unused gift cards.
This is something that continues to be an American problem.
And 47% of US adults
have gift cards languishing in their wallet,
their purse, or like their underwear drawer.
That's, that's where a lot of people keep theirs, right?
So you keep your cash on it.
That's right, yeah.
Because I've looked through your underwear.
Which is weird.
But like the, the real thing, Matt,
is people need to spend the gift cards that they have, right?
Pulling together, Emily and I did this.
We started going back to these places
where we had gift cards and,
and taking our date nights,
based on where we had a gift card, too.
So use the, use the gift cards you have on hand,
or if you're like,
hey, this isn't really my jam,
buy something for somebody else at that retailer,
or sell your unused gift card
that you're never going to use.
You're never going to get a kid around to using.
It's just basically like worthless in your life.
Well, turn it into something positive.
And you can sell it at a site like cardcache.com.
Can you, so can you sell agave credit there?
Do you, Emily?
Do you have one of my favorite in-town restaurants?
Do you also have agave credit or gift cards?
I think we're all out now.
Okay.
We used it all right before we moved up.
Because that's a haul to go all the way back in town,
like that's kind of a frugal or cheap as well.
It's just like, oh, it's so far away
is it worth the additional time
to take advantage of money that you've already spent?
Because then you start dealing
with a little bit of the sunk cost fallacy, right?
And you're like, we already have it.
It is if you love the place, right?
And you want to go back there
because it's one of your favorites.
Sure.
And the whole reason I bought gift cards
to that restaurant, so frequently,
is because they offered deals.
There were always great deals.
It was like, hey, if you spend a hundred bucks,
you'll get $140 in gift cards to our restaurant.
And that's when gift cards make sense.
When you're getting a special deal.
But for the most part,
I think gift cards,
when you're just trading a dollar
that can be spent anywhere for a dollar
that has to be spent in one specific place,
that doesn't really compute with me.
It doesn't really make much sense.
So I would say like,
if you're thinking about getting a gift card
for somebody as a gift,
and you're not getting any sort of additional perk,
give cash instead with a thoughtful letter
that says like, hey,
I know you've been wanting this,
or I know you would love this,
or I know you'd love to go spend this on an experience
or something like that.
I mean, think about wedding registries now, Matt.
People want cash more than anything
to really go home down payment.
Let's do it down payments.
Yeah, they want down payments
or a hundred moon dollars, right?
And so, but people want to give you plates
and forks and stuff like that.
And sometimes like the best gift is cash.
Yeah, you're more of an absolutist on this one,
which is normally,
the rolls have reversed a little bit.
I feel like I'm normally like the absolutist.
But I do think it makes sense
if you want to give somebody,
like you said, an experience
because otherwise they would not pay for themselves, right?
And so like it makes like a favorite coffee shop here,
Tuesday, they make the best coffee,
like they pull the best espresso.
They make the best coffee.
The actual shop is gorgeous.
It's awesome.
And I think there's a lot of folks
who would say, well,
I don't really want to go there.
But if I basically am curating
an experience and I'm saying,
I really want you to experience
what I get to experience when I go there.
That's when I think it makes sense.
Because otherwise,
you could write a note,
but you can take them there.
Or even better, absolutely.
Even better.
But I think that's one exception as well.
So certainly if you get a deal,
if you're able to get more
buy, getting, ordering, buying a gift card,
then the actual cost of the gift card.
But then there's a whole experience
side of it as well that I think
can make a lot of sense.
A lot of times it can be,
it can be kind of a lazy gift, right?
And...
You calling me lazy?
No, we're not trying to throw shade.
I'm just saying, I know from personal experience,
that sometimes that's like a,
oh, I kind of know they like that retailer.
Maybe I'll just grab something there.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
And so...
I mean, I'm guilty because I've done it too.
But I do think that cash
is often a better gift.
And especially when you look at that stat
and you're like, man,
there's a decent chance this goes unused.
Not even because they didn't think it was a good gift.
But because it got lost somewhere.
They didn't get around to it.
Fell behind the cracks of your dresser or that kind of,
whatever.
And that's kind of what I want to avoid.
I hate seeing like, just...
What is it?
More than a billion dollars in Unisco?
It's like so much money.
Yeah, I mean...
It's substantial amount of money.
So it is a lot.
Yeah.
That different retailers that they have on their books,
as gift cards,
that hasn't quite yet been reading.
So even though I think I agree with you in principle,
it's thoughtful, right?
To give that...
That can be...
I don't know. You said it's lazy.
But...
Yeah.
I think it can be thoughtful.
And it shows, hey,
I want you to have this interesting day.
But if that gift card gets lost or, you know, misplaced,
then that just kind of went down the toilet.
Yeah.
All right, we do have additional stories
we're going to get to,
including how Bitcoiners need to be aware.
We will get to that plus a few other stories right after the break.
All right, the Friday flight continues.
And of course,
we've got to get to our ludicrous headline of the week.
This one is titled,
Most Docks are Bad for Your Wealth,
which doesn't sound like a great title.
But I do like the headline,
because it makes it sound like,
this is bad for your health.
Yeah.
So it avoid this thing.
It's not like smoking.
I like that.
Yeah, exactly.
Surgeon General's warning.
Right.
Jerome Powell's warning.
Well, this one comes from the Financial Times,
which is a great newspaper from across the pond.
And so it just may be thinking,
wait a second,
are you guys telling me that investing in stocks is a bad idea?
No, of course, as always,
this is a headline that's meant to evoke a click
in some sort of emotional response.
But let's check the numbers, right?
The stats do show that the majority,
58.6%,
and that's what we're talking about.
And so,
we're talking about,
we're talking about,
we're talking about,
we're talking about,
we're talking about,
the majority,
58.6% to be exact,
of stocks,
underperform a basic cash strategy, right?
So,
more than half of stocks,
if you were to invest in them,
they would do worse than just
holding onto your dollar bills.
The Financial Times literally concludes,
at the end of this article,
that the median global stock
has been worse than dollars in a cookie jar,
which is crazy.
So a bunch of stocks
are not going to help you out.
And this is crazy,
but true,
there's nuance here, though, right?
it just because most stocks won't help you build wealth,
it doesn't mean that investing in the market
as a whole is gonna let you down, right?
The stocks that don't suck,
well, those ones more than make up
for their underperforming peers.
Essentially, this entire story can be explained
by looking at the difference between average returns
and median returns,
because they're looking at median returns
and that's not what you get when you invest
in the entire market, which is what we advocate for.
Like, it's like a modern day parable.
Like, have you heard the story of when Elon Musk
walks into a bar, the net worth of everyone in the bar,
on average goes up like 20, 50 million or something like that.
Does that mean that each person,
each patron in that bar that they actually got richer?
No, but if you're looking at the average,
it effectively does,
and that is what happens when you buy the entire market
as opposed to individually picking stocks.
And by the way, we actually talked about the dangers
of single stock investing back in episode 497.
So that's one that you can go back and listen to
if you wanna do a deep dive into some investing,
but let's kinda pull this all together.
This is not a case for hoarding cash.
We're not saying that it's a better move
to stick that money in your underwear drawer
or in the cookie jar.
It's another argument though in favor of index funds
and against investing in single stocks.
Even though most stocks end up doing worse
than money that you're actually just keeping
as physical cash,
it's still too difficult to pick the actual winners
and the actual losers.
It's like going into a bar,
let's say you didn't know what Elon Musk looked like
and you had to pick somebody and say,
okay, you get to share the wealth of one person in this bar.
It's like, what if you end up picking the guy
that's saddled with $40,000 in student loan debt?
That's essentially the equivalent of single stock investing.
You don't know which ones are gonna perform.
So that's why we like to point folks
towards index investing.
Investing in the entire market,
I don't even like typically saying investing in stocks
because it does have that connotation of,
okay, well, which ones?
As opposed to saying, no,
you need to invest in the market.
The only single stock you should own
is one share of AMS in order to get that pop up.
Yeah, because usually it really is the hope
and the hunch and the prayer sort of mentality
when it comes to single stock investing.
It's like, well, I watch Netflix sometimes.
I should invest in that or it's like, whatever.
I mean, that CEO, he's kind of crazy in out there.
Maybe I should invest in that stock,
but there's so many things that influence the value
in the direction of a single stock
that it's just a really, even if that company is great,
it doesn't mean their stock is properly valued, right?
And so yeah, it looks like maybe let's say Nvidia
has a lot of room to run as a company.
Does it mean their stock has a lot of room to run?
Not necessarily.
It might be super overvalued right now.
I don't know.
Who knows?
That's a thing though.
We don't know.
It literally takes dedicating your entire life,
like Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett,
to analyzing different companies.
Then, yeah, you might be able to outperform
otherwise the rest of us, all the rest of us peons,
you invest in the entire market.
And that's honestly why so many individual investors
end up underperforming the index
and underperforming other more conservative ways
of investing too, is because they're trading frequently
based on what they read in some headline.
Exactly.
They're like, oh, maybe I should hop in on that one then,
or I think I heard Carl Richards
who does like those sketches on the napkins
for the New York Times.
He, the behavior guy, he, I think recently said,
if you don't have something in your portfolio
that's underperforming that you're kind of annoyed with,
you're not diversified enough.
And so, yeah, I think like the fact
that we're diversified, we're not gonna have
the top returns, we're not gonna have,
we're not gonna be overweighted towards the stocks
that are doing the absolute best,
but it also prevents us from that downside
being too heavily invested in some of these stocks
that are gonna perform worse than, you know,
cash in our wallet.
So, something else, by the way,
that can impact your returns is your Bitcoin exposure.
And the folks and Morningstar did a write-up on this,
and they found that even just a little bit of Bitcoin
will add a lot of volatility to the mix of your investments.
And too much volatility can cause you to take actions
that you probably wouldn't have made otherwise, right?
And so, they give this example of how adding
just 5% Bitcoin to your portfolio,
which is, in our estimation, the absolute most you should have
to, like, a balanced portfolio,
a 60, 40 portfolio of stocks and bonds.
Well, from a volatility perspective,
it's gonna make it feel more like a 90-ten,
90% stocks, 10% bond portfolio.
And so, for a lot of people,
I think it's important to say,
the right crypto exposure for a whole lot of people,
the right Bitcoin exposure is zero.
Because if you do opt to invest in Bitcoin at all,
even just a little bit,
know that you'll experience bigger portfolio swings.
Can you handle it?
Then you might be okay having a little bit of exposure,
but know that these swings are often
what cause investors to make changes
that aren't in their best interest.
And so, I thought that was a good write-up.
It's helpful because there's still a lot of interest,
even though, I guess, I don't know,
is the crypto winter still around?
It seems like Bitcoin hasn't done much, right?
It's doing pretty good over the, I guess,
the past year, but not compared to its highs,
like two, three years ago or whatnot.
But let's talk about a new way, Joel,
for us to spend our money, not us personally,
because we avoid TikTok and got time for that.
But, I don't believe we are on TikTok,
but you and I have no control of it.
Yeah, personally, I am not on there.
Don't wanna get sucked in.
But the TikTok shop has now been unleashed.
And yeah, that's yet another way that they've greased the skids
and the different social media companies
are trying to party from your money.
The algorithm there, all TikTok, of course,
is promoting different videos that are promoting products
that you can purchase via TikTok shop.
And so, Doom scrolling, it's not only gonna suck all of your time,
but it's also gonna cost you money.
It's gonna steal your money as well.
And so, we would recommend to either take the app
off your home screen or just considering deleting it altogether,
because you're gonna be able to avoid this new virtual mall.
You'll probably be a little bit happier as well.
Based on the recent research that has on mental health,
but it's, I wanted to admit that I buy things
on social media, specifically Instagram.
But I feel like it's a little bit different,
because when I see an ad on Instagram,
it feels more like a marketplace.
At least in my own experience, I know that,
for instance, Steepencheap, they serve me up.
A Patagonia down jacket that was on massive sale.
I'm a basic bro, okay?
I got my Patagonia jacket.
But what it feels like TikTok is doing is that
it feels like they're actually manufacturing consumption.
It's almost as if they're manufacturing demand
and they're selling stuff that,
I'm sure there might be some decent stuff up there within the shop,
but it feels like stuff that is part meme,
and they're basically blurring the line between memes
and real life, essentially.
And so, I feel like what that does is it just feels consumption,
it feels waste.
Like, have you seen, have you heard about these pickle,
pickle t-shirts, or these like these pickles?
It's stuff like that, where I'm just like, okay,
you have blurred the line up between social media and real life.
And when it comes to different memes,
and how things are trending online
and on social media, it costs you your time
if you are kind of getting sucked into that.
But they're on actual products being manufactured,
and I hate this, because it just feels like fast fashion,
fast fashion, taken to the nth degree,
where someone's gonna get something,
because they think it's funny,
and maybe they wear it or they use it
whatever for like a week.
And then it just ends up in the landfill.
I hate that aspect of what it feels like
that the TikTok shop is doing.
And I think you and I would say,
whether it's TikTok or Instagram,
however you're getting served ads,
and you see something that's like,
oh, that's a decent deal,
and that's something that I would like.
Well, incorporate a 24 or 48 hour rule, right?
Where you're like, okay, do I still feel this way
about that jacket or that pickle shirt 48 hours later?
And if you don't, if you're saying wait,
well, in the moment, yeah, it seemed nice,
and it seemed like a good deal,
but now I'm realizing, wait,
I have other financial priorities.
If you have a rule like that in place,
and you're not buying stuff on a whim,
that's being served up to you,
realize there's things that you can't go on the internet now,
and not be, and not have someone attempt to sell you something.
And so the more we can avoid that
and incorporate habits into our lives,
that prevent us from making knee jerk purchases,
I think that's what's important.
And you mentioned it's the virtual mall,
like that's the perfect way to phrase it.
Like, yeah, they're just perusing along
and something flashes in front of you.
Like you weren't necessarily looking for something.
And again, I know it's a fine line, it's way.
It's like Spencer, it's like the goofy t-shirts and stuff like that.
I don't even know if that store still exists,
but that's kind of what TikTok's trying to do.
And you didn't need the like Bert and Ernie Goofy
retro shirt or anything like that,
but now TikTok says, hey, whoa, what else do you check?
And then they're like, yeah, why not?
And, but that money adds up, right?
And there's this, it's your money.
You spend it like you want.
You spend it like you want,
but create habits to prevent you from spending it
in a knee jerk way.
They're gonna upend your budget.
And there's another TikTok trend, by the way.
It's apparently called Girl Math,
man, I don't know if you've heard of this.
It sounds kind of sexist.
I don't know if I'm allowed to be talking about it,
but it's kind of a joke, really.
Like one of the Girl Math trends is to view cash as free money
or to think that you're making money
when you don't buy a latte at your favorite coffee shop
that day or that you're losing money
when you don't buy something that's a good deal.
All those things are not true.
We know that, right?
Basically, it's dumb mental accounting,
but it's something that we've all been guilty of
at different times, right?
Yeah, we've all done something like that
to justify something that we want to buy.
Like a splurge that we want to protect in
as a way to emotionally not feel as bad about it.
But just because these jokes are swirling around
social media, don't let them impact how you view your dollars,
that your dollars are workers
that can help you on the path to financial independence.
And yes, that includes physical cash.
That's real money too.
And even though personally, for me,
that isn't a completely separate bucket as well,
because it's literally not on the books anywhere
and I keep like this little stash of penny cash around.
Yeah, which doesn't feel real, though I know it is.
Exactly, but I think if you trick yourself into thinking
that some of these purchases are free money
or that not spending its money is saving money,
those are different things, right?
I saw some folks justifying that,
like if you get, you split a bill,
a friend Venmo's you some money,
and so that money's sitting there in your Venmo account,
it feels unaccounted for,
oh, that's free money and you can just spend it however you want.
But no, you should be accounting for that.
And especially if you have big financial goals,
every dollar matters.
That's right, yeah.
But what makes it funny, though, is that there is a kernel
of truth.
Anything funny is that it's slightly true.
And so it's okay to laugh at it and enjoy the joke,
but simultaneously we hope that you are making
wise decisions with your money
that you are doing the right things.
Joel, did you see that there are no longer any cars
that you can buy new that are less than $20,000 now?
See that, yeah.
So the Mitsubishi Mirage is just like that.
It's a Mirage and no longer exists, it's gone.
Which personally, I don't even know what a Mitsubishi Mirage
looks like and say my mind.
I didn't know anybody that drove one.
And so I feel like that the sub $20,000 car,
maybe it disappeared a long time ago.
But a couple years ago that there were some others too
that were sub 20, the Corolla used to be one.
I think that was a dependable sub 20k car.
But now, and that was just a starting price, by the way,
that when you put on extra stuff,
it was going to cost more than that anymore, expensive.
Yeah, it's a bummer because it seems like cars are getting
more affordable, less affordable, I should say.
Which got me thinking, though, is this just,
is this the reality or is this just perception?
Is this just what it seems to be?
And so I did a little bit of research, I started digging
and I was like, okay, what's a good solid car
that they made like 30 years ago?
So I was like, oh, like a Honda Accord.
So I looked back in 1993.
How much do you think a new Honda Accord cost?
1993, I'm going to say it costs $14,500.
Oh my gosh, excellent, yes.
It was like right around $15,000.
All right, and so, but what do you think
the average annual salary was in 1993?
I'm going to say the average annual salary was $39,800.
It was $30,000.
Okay, $30,000.
So you do the math, basically a good solid car
back 30 years ago was about half of the annual salary.
And so guess what the annual American salary is today?
Why, I'll just tell you.
It's like $74,000.
It's 60, it's right at $60,000.
So based on that math, that should tell you that,
okay, maybe a solid, decent car today
that's new should cost you around $30,000,
which is obviously substantially more
than a $20,000 vehicle.
And so I guess I wanted to present that piece of information,
I guess with some of the numbers I'm showing
because even though there are fewer affordable cars
in relation to what cars used to cost,
it seems like it's kind of keeping in line.
It seems to be tracking.
Well, the average price of a new car sold in America
is like $49,500.
So that's true.
Yeah, I mean, that also takes into account
just how nice cars have gotten, right?
That's true.
It definitely is apples to apples.
And a cord in 93 is not the same as an accord in 2023.
That is true, that is true.
Same with houses, right?
Like houses have improved a lot.
So you're not comparing apples to apples
on either one of these.
But it is, I think, disheartening for people to see
that it's hard to buy a new car for sub 20K
and car prices are still just kind of crazy right now,
which only reinforces, keep your car longer,
like maintain it well.
Consider it used as well.
If folks are out there and they've never
actually purchased a used car, I mean,
you could, like, do not take that depreciation hit
by a car that's three years old, save a ton of money
and have a virtually new car.
Yeah, I ran into my best friend from childhood
growing up, you're my current best friend, so.
Oh, yeah, don't feel like you, they do.
So he and I went to a concert the other day
and he pulled up in his, in his Hyundai.
It's 13 years old.
He paid $13,000 for it 13 years ago
and he's still driving it.
And by the way, it's just like a tiny account box
and he's like six six, which I just think is a mate,
like, people, people, people,
it gets pretty good gasmail.
If you're willing to suffer a little bit,
drive something that's not very cool,
that might not even be all that comfortable,
you can save a ton of money
and that's all that car is done for him.
He bought a brand new, I just heard you,
I just registered him in my mind.
So you and this other guy, I bet y'all
were on like the front row at the concert.
Right, oh yeah, blocking everybody's ears, right.
Hey, down the front.
But it's just a good lesson, right?
Like could you afford something nice or sure?
But does he choose to drive this
so he can spend money freely in other ways?
Yeah, he does.
And I don't know, I think it's a good example.
Absolutely.
All right, I think that's going to be it
for this Friday flight.
You can find all the stories that we mentioned today
up on the website at howdomoney.com there in the show notes.
We'll link to any other resources that we may have mentioned.
But buddy, that's going to be it for this episode.
So until next time, best friends out, best friends out.
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