Avoiding the Trap of Planned Obsolescence #266

in particular. And the thing is too, we're also gonna get to why it's not necessarily an all bad thing. You know, like a lot of times you hear that planned obs lust since it's sort of this evil conspiracy that companies implement in order to fleece us, you know, to get more money out of our pockets. But it's not all bad. So that's what we're gonna discuss man. Yeah, And sometimes you know, there is planned obsolescens by certain

manufacturers or certain industries. And at the same time, there's ways in which we consider the things that we own to be functionally oppositely. So we're gonna tackle that as well in the show today. But Matt, before we get to that. You and I were celebrating a little bit today because we both paid off a big debt that we had in our lives. It's gone out of our lives now. You and I both have paid off some

big chunks of debts. So, Kate and I we've been working really hard over the past a year and a half two years to pay off the helock that we took out on our house to help fund the renovation that we that we did here at the house. And you, man, you recently paid off a full mortgage on one of your investment properties that you've been working really hard at. Yeah, that's right. So it was one of the ones that

I did not do a refin on. I refined a couple recently, and I realized, Man, there's this this one property I have, it's at above market interest rate. I don't want to refinance it and pay the closing costs in order to rEFInd. It's too low of a balance, and so I'm just ready to be done with it. And I had enough in my savings where I felt comfortable paying that sucker off and also having enough to, you know, to have that minimum six months right of

living expenses set aside. So yeah, like, man, it's like they weigh up the shoulders to have one mortgage down. Now it's like four to go. I guess yeah. And so I think the bigger question that folks are probably been asking is like, what are you doing paying off mortgages that have pretty low interest rates? And I mean, and I'll say, like I'll I will readily admit that the HELO that we paid off, man, it is sitting

at three and a quarter percent. That's really low. And a lot of the number nerds out there are thinking, oh, bad move, Matt and Joel, you guys both should have you know, been taking that money and investing it instead putting it in the market. But the fact is, man, like, this is an instance I know for us where it's

not all about the numbers. Over the years, man, I found myself varying from the camp that's only looking at the numbers, that's only looking at interest rates, and I am considering just the emotional and the mental impacts uh that paying off you know alone like that can have.

And so you know, the the stage of life that we are in for sure is one of simplifying, and we're trying to find ways to remove things from our minds that take up space and clutter our minds basically, and so for us, this was definitely one of the ways to do that, because, yeah, it's not all about the numbers. There's certainly some power behind feeling free mentally.

This is sort of an experiment to see how we respond and how it feels to eliminate some of this debt, even though by the numbers that may not necessarily make the most sense. Yeah, I think to Matt, there's something about being a little bit conservative in one area of your life that can allow you to be more aggressive

in another area of your life. And so for me, paying off this mortgage allows me to be even more confident with my stock allocation, you know, in my investing pairple It's like, if I'm a little conservative over here, I can make sure that I'm never forced to sell stocks, that I'm always able to maintain that aggressive allocation. And so for yeah, me and my family, it felt like the right move for us to make. And again, yeah, the numbers, is it the best move overall for the

coming decades, that's the question we asked ourselves. But at the same time, paying off a debt is I think almost never a bad idea as long you can continue to to invest and say for the future. Um, paying off debt is a good move for people, and we should all be encouraged, I think, to to look at the debts that we have in our lives, take them a little bit more seriously, and work a little bit

harder to get rid of them. So yeah, congrats to you, my friend, Thank you, and congrats as well to you buddy. Thanks man. I almost feel that we should have some champagne this episode instead of or not, maybe champagne, but like a nicer big bottle with a Cajun cork. They do make something called the Champagne of Beers. Is that so we're talking about that? Sat If they made a seven fifty bottle of the Champagne of Beers, then maybe

that would feel appropriate. But no, this episode, you and I we are enjoying a beer called Juicy I p a uh and this is by Squatters Craft Beers. Big thanks to Sam there at the brewery for sending this one our way. I'm looking forward to enjoying this one with you, buddy, and we will yeah share our thoughts on this beer at the end of the episode. Sounds good. All right, Matt, let's get to the topic at hand now. Today we're talking about avoiding the trap of planned obsolescence.

And but I think we've all heard a time or two one of our grandparents maybe exclaim they don't make it like they used to. And I, man, I think, like the older I get, I think I've been guilty of saying something like that. Speaking of dad jokes, which is the beer we did have recently? Yeah, yeah, I feel like that's the typical dadline. As I'm growing up, getting Yeah, I say stuff like that now and my kids notice. But I think planned obsolescence is a part

of the reason that people say that. It certainly feels at times that lots of items don't last as long as they used to. And I think it can be frustrating for all of us to purchase something with hard earned money and then have to replace it before it feels like it's a lifespan is up just because it wasn't made well. Planned obsolescence. For me, it took a massive leap onto my radar with the iPhone battery scandal just a few years ago. Battery gate. Do they call

it that? They call everything on a gate? Why is that. Actually I don't. I don't know Watergate, but like, was it because the hotel was the hotel's name. Hotels they just add gate to the end of their gate to everything, all of a sudden, it's a scandal, exactly beer gate.

I wonder what that would involve. But in seventeen, Apple actually admitted to slowing down older iPhones, which was really frustrating to people because it felt like they had noticed that for years, like, man, why is my iPhone so sluggish after just owning it for a year or two? Uh. And then they were basically forced to massively reduce the price of a battery upgrade in order to make customers whole to provide them with a fresh battery so that

their older phone could continue to work. Um, and that's kind of when playing obsilection. So I feel like the red lights were the red lights were blinking, and I started to like think about it a lot more in the past few years since then. Yeah, and there were even reports last year that that some people were experiencing issues with even you know, just newer iPhones right after the latest model was announced. I haven't seen any like verified reports of that, and so I might kind of

just chalk that up to kind of conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theory. Now, I think that man like, you know, subconsciously, like we consumers, might perceive our current products as inferior once there is something kind of new and shining on the scene. You know, there certainly are instances where, you know, it's the products where it seems that they're designed to fail after a certain period of time or maybe like after a certain

number of uses. But it's also important to consider whether or not this obsolescent is due to our own habits of consumption, you know, and in fact, like evidence points to items like cars and TV is actually being built to last even longer these days than they used to. And so I think we can feel that planned obsolescence is this thing that's kind of out to get us and out to to steal our money essentially, But in a lot of cases, I think sometimes that perception is

only occurring within our own minds. Yeah, you and I we actually talked recently about the failure rate of televisions these days. It's like three or something like that, And so, yeah, I think I was in our insurance episode, we're basically telling people to forego getting the extended warranty on a TV because they're so well made. And I think that sometimes it's easy to to see the negative point out the bad, but we don't necessarily take a look at

what's gotten better. And yeah, a lot of items that we use in our everyday lives have gotten better. Right. The biggest, most obvious reason math that you and I hate planned obsolescence, though, is due to the costs that we incur when something does break, when it stops working or it's no longer effective. And there's also the environmental impact. I think sometimes we develop a throw a mentality, which leads to increased waste, more items in the landfill, and ultimately, uh,

it accelerates global warming. And the planned obsolescence of products like lightbulbs, smartphones, or even just cheaply made furniture can be annoying and frustrating. It certainly seems like some of the things we buy these days just aren't meant to last very long, and that means shelling more money out in the future for replacement. Yeah, most definitely, you know.

And while some planned obsolescens might feel a bit nefarious, right, there are some positives that are a results of it's and we want to make sure to cover those two. You know, there are certain luxuries and creature comforts that united that we get to enjoy as a result of the effects of planned obsolescence. You know, for instance, going back to when light bulbs, when they were first introduced the filament, it was actually made with carbon and so

these light bulbs were much more expensive to produce. But due to the demand of the masses, you know, everybody wanted to have electric lights in their homes. And because of that, that was a product that had a huge barrier to entry and a lot of people weren't able to you know, enjoy that product. So that's a simple example where reducing the quality also brought down the cost, which then made it much more accessible to everybody else, not just not just the rich. Yeah, that's really cool.

I yeah, I didn't know that, and I think that's fascinating and it is an example of how planned obsolescence it's not necessarily a conspiracy theory. Sometimes it's just a functional necessity. And there's some other upsides as well. Right, just thinking about all the jobs that come about as a result of producing goods that aren't meant to ask forever, Right, and another positive is that progress is made because items

eventually wear out and need to be replaced. So while in this episode will do our best to help you avoid the traffic planned obsolescency, it is important to admit that it also does play a role in the innovation and there are other side effects, positive effects of planned obsolescence in our lives. Yeah, and this progress in this innovation, it's it's a good thing, you know, Like nobody's going to argue with the fact that we pretty much all

have airbags in our cars now. But what that means though, is that, you know, that progress it comes at the expense of these older vehicles that don't have those features, right, And so it's not that those old items or old products no longer work, it's just that, well, they just don't happen to have the you know, the latest features that a lot of individuals are wanting in specifically in this case, in their cars today, you know, specifically to

keep us safe exactly. But plan obsolescence it's not always a good thing, and it can affect us negatively. And so we're gonna focus on avoiding products with a shorter life cycle in order to save yourself some money. You know, if we update our our gadgets every single year, you know it's gonna cost us. Or if we we purchase items that are more likely to break or wear out in a few years and instead of maybe a decade or longer, it will mean spending more, along with a

rising level of frustration. And so after the break, let's detail a few areas in addition to handheld electronics where plan obsolescence has been frustrating Lee in Vogue for quite a while now, and then we'll also discuss how we can take a different route. We'll get to that right after this. All right, we're back from the break, And Matt, I love the example you just gave up the light bulb. I feel like that clicks in my mind in like in a really awesome ways, like a light bulb went

off in my head. When if you want to really expensive nice lightbel that costs I don't know, fifty dollars or you know, like the one dollar one. Now I'm into that. Well, you remember too when elid bulbs first hit the market and they were like what twelve fifteen dollars per bulb, and it was like so expensive to replace them. But I'd love too how the more manufacturers were producing these bulbs that the costs have come down.

You can get great LED bulbs for a dollar a bulb now, Um, they're they're just so easy and cheap to replace. But let's give a couple examples of places where planned obsolescence wears a Tuckley had in a major way. And Matt first example is textbooks. It's all of our recent college grads out there. They're they're thinking, yes, text books, they're terrible. They cost me a lot of money every semester, and they're this classic example I think of planned obsolescence.

School systems pay an outrageous amount for textbooks every year for their kids, and college students have to budget hundreds and hundred of dollars each semester just for books for their classes. And so I think there are ways to combat a couple of these these major areas where we see planned obsolescence. So instead, when we're talking about textbooks, maybe check with your professor to see if a previous

edition still works. Oftentimes that previous edition costs a fraction of the price of the newest one because that's what everybody is using now. Or share with a friend. Sometimes that can work if you're going through a class together, and sometimes Matt the teacher, the professor doesn't even use

the textbook. It's it's listed as something you need to buy, and then you get the class and they're like, yeah, I don't really do the textbook, which just lecture based, and then you're like, crap, did I spend a hundred eighty dollars on that book now? Or you look at it like twice since? Right? Pointless exactly. And you can even rent textbooks these days via sites like Amazon and cheg right that prevents that loss of a new edition does come along for the next semester, making that book

that you purchased now worthless. So renting a textbook instead of buying it makes a whole lot of sense for

a lot of people. Yeah, and depending if you maybe are in an English or like a literature class too, Like they're like a lot of the classic books that college students are assigned to read sometimes can be found online for free right there, open licensed and I saw two that you can go to a site like open stacks or Project Gutenberg and you can check and see if a book that you that you need for a certain course can be found online for free, uh in a digital format, which is a really nice way to

to save some money as well. And so Jill, you know, speaking of textbooks, fast fashion like that is another textbook example of planned obsolescence. Beautiful pod, we gotta embrace those dad jokes. A new wardrob bottom that maybe you purchased recently, it likely wasn't made to look cool for very long, you know, or even to last until spring, because of

how cheaply it was made. In fact, there are reports of how H and M how they can turn out a new style from drawing board to the stores in just two weeks, man, And so that means, you know, there's cool new threads might be out of style after

you even wear them once. And so we would recommend for folks in this case to avoid fast fashion in the pursuit of well made, staple items that stay in the test of time, you know, instead of fashion like work to develop your own personal style that doesn't change with time. I think my wife wishes mine with change with time maybe, but it's not. It's here forever. Okay, it's here forever, and it's affordable exactly. No. It is funny, man, I think about some of the shirts that I own

that I've had the longest. Literally, some of them are fifty years old because I bought them fifteen years ago in the third Store and some old man was wearing them for thirty years before that. And those are some of my favorite shirts still. And when I pop a button or or uh, you know, get a hole in it, it makes me so sad because it's really hard to match a fifty year old button. Exactly. It'll make them. They'll make them like they used to, Joel. They don't

dig it. You did. Well. Yeah. Another area mat we're playing obsolescence definitely weird exactly, head is in ink cartridges for printers. That is in large part because these printers were created to waste ink, and printer manufacturers sell printers for twenty or thirty bucks because they're not hoping to

make money on the printer. They're planning on making money every time you have to replace the inc and some manufacturers are working to change that though, they're working to create printers that that don't function with this planned obsolescens mentality. So look to those printers instead of getting the cheapest printer you can, because that one's actually gonna cost you more over the time that you own it. Brother has

an investment printer and Epson has an Eco tank. Both have opted to change things up in the way they in their approach. The Eco tank implemented refillable cartridges so you don't have to replace them for a long, long, long time. Filling up that ink instead of constantly replacing the cartridges is going to save you just a massive amount of money, and it's gonna reduce waste at the same time. Chucking those used cartridges just in the in

the trash can. Yeah, and we all know that there are very few things that that are more inconvenient than running out of ink, you know, when you're interesting trying to get some printed out before dashing out the door. Truth.

All right, So those are some of the ways that we see planned obsolescence in our lives, right, cell phones and other personal technology may they are also an example that you know that comes to mind where planned obsolescence seems to be working on a predictable you know, to your schedule, where folks feel the need to replace the items costing them tons of money. But there are in

fact ways to make your technology last longer. And that's what we're gonna talk about now, So when it comes to our personal electronics, Uh, let's talk about replacing batteries. You know, we touched on this at the beginning of the episode. And it's not as you know, easy to d l why this as it was maybe in the early days of cell phones, right in the early days of you know, the droid phones in particular. Man, I remember my first EVO just like pop it out, popping

the news exactly. That's super easy. They used to be so easily removed in many of those models, but the battery is a likely culprit and white people tend to toss out an older laptop or an older phone. Uh, and so instead we would recommend for folks to to look to replace it. So whether that means taking your iPhone maybe to an Apple store for replacement, or ordering a replacement battery for your laptop, and those are are

typically easier to install. But you can easily get twice as much life out of a device with that one simple move. You know. A lot of the experts say that, like on your phone, you can check, you know, your battery health and once it gets down to like around six or less, you know, you're like you're You're device is not going to be functioning at the level that it needs to be in order to probably keep you happy, and so that would definitely be a good time to

get that battery replaced. Yeah. Another way to to make your tech last longer is to clean your gadgets and your appliances, right, just toss them in the washer with your pants. That's what I do with my phone. I tossed in the dishwasher, good to go, super clean, high temperature washed. It really doesn't affect it. And we have to put a disclaimer after that just in case one of our listeners actually does that. Now we don't, okay.

Uh So. One of the reasons things break down oftentimes is due to a build up of dirt and grime and those canned air salt cans or even like a sewing needle, depending on on you know, what's messed up

with your phone or what's getting grimy. They can help you blow out or dig out some of the grime and nastiness and funk that's on a cell phone or laptop or or a desktop computer, and desktop computers can even be opened up once a year to blow out the fan household appliances to write your fridge will will last longer and perform better if you vacuum the coils

every year. There are all these ways that you can take care of the things that you have, keep them clean, and then they'll they'll last longer, they'll they'll perform better for you, and so you'll be more app to keep it around in your life and not ditch it for

the next model, which is gonna end up costing you money. Yeah, if you have a laptop or desktop computer that sounds like it's getting ready to take off, like it's an airplane, when you're trying to to maybe open more than one application at a time, like there's a good chance that it's really dirty, and and you know, and the fans having to work overtime in order to to keep the

processor cool. That's just how it works. And another fact, when you have too many apps or or too many old files on your computer, it's gonna slow down the

performance of that device, you know. So we're gonna recommend for you to delete unused data, back up your your videos and photos with something like you know, Google Photos, where you know you can have fifteen gigs of free storage, or you can even get a separate hard drive which are really affordable these days, or just something similar in order to avoid having tons of those files stored locally, which will slow down your device. You can even on

your iPhone. You can go to iPhone storage and it lists out the different apps on your phone that use the most storage. Right, And so you might be surprised to see that text messages, your messaging app uses over ten gigs worth of of storage. And it's because of all those gifts and a those pictures you're sending back and forth to your friends. And if you don't care about those pictures anymore, well that's something you can easily delete from your phone and free up a lot of space. Yeah.

In another way to extend the life of your gadget so you don't have to get a new one is to protect it. And this is an obvious move, but most people should have a phone case. The more we drop, crack, or completely shatter our phone screen without having a decent case. I'm looking at you, Matt, the less likely that the phone will last for us. And I actually do not

take my own advice on this one. I do not have a case on my phone, but I also handle it with care and I purchased cheaper phones so that if something did accidentally happen, I wouldn't be out nearly as much money. If I had iPhone, I would have a case on it. But but yeah, that's something that I think a lot of people, especially if you're getting the nicest latest gadget, protecting it so that it will have a long life is crucial, especially considering how much

some of the things cost these days. Yeah, that did I tell you that Kay got her new iPhone? Sc Oh nice? How she like it? She's digging it, man, I mean it's it's a nicer phone. It's probably the nicest phone she's ever owned, and which, by the way, isn't also very nice. It's kind of like their entry level phone. But she invested in one of those you know,

solid otter boxes and it's like bulletproof. Nice. But I was actually, especially with kids, you almost like need that because they will bite it and they will lick it and they will drop it on the ground. Something else so I learned is that I used to always kind of make fun of the screen protectors because I'm thinking, I don't really care if I get a light scratch on my phone, Like what I want to not have happen,

is it's shatter or crack, you know. But I was reading up on them, and one of the arguments for those screen protectors is the fact that by avoiding those really light scratches that actually keeps your phone from cracking when you do drop your phone. And so think of each one of those little scratch marks. It's sort of like a score, you know, like when you're scoring something and you're getting when you're getting ready to break it or to tear it. The more of the stare, the

more likely you're gonna break it, exactly. And I had never really thought about that. Maybe it seems obvious to you or maybe to some of our listeners out there, but I said it, It sounds obvious, but I wouldn't have known that. Yeah, I used to always think it. Well, I don't really like, why do you put a screen protector on there. It doesn't make any sense. If you end up dropping your phone, it's gonna shatter. I don't

care if it gets the fine scratch. I don't want it to shatter, but the fine scratches can lead to the shattering. And so so yeah, store that one away for the next time you do get a new phone. It's good to know. And Matt, I know there's people out there who do want to upgrade their device. I've talked recently about the fact that I'm really still leaning towards potentially getting the Pixel four as still on the for a train. Yeah, man, thinking about it, thinking about it.

And and Kate obviously she just upgraded, got a new phone. But the important thing to do if you are ready to upgrade to something else is to know that one person's trash is another person's treasure. So in order to avoid the trap of planned obsolescence in that case, it's important to sell your old item, your your old piece of electronics for for as much as you can get

from it. You could also hand it down to somebody else who who's in need, right, But but selling for top dollar means that you're gonna want to avoid a trade in with your service provider. Look to selling independently instead. That way, the circle of life continues. That the vice doesn't go into the trash, somebody ends up using it and they get joy out of it and U sound

of it too. I'm just picturing the lion king in the circle of life as someone's like handing like the cell phone over to the monkey and he holds it up, you know, like some moving rock move after handing his his older pixel model down to Simba. So yeah, definitely look to sell it yourself, right, like you don't necessarily want to just hand it over to your your cell carrier. Look to be a platforms that we all know like eBay,

you can get a Facebook marketplace. Gazelle is also another place where you can sell your old device and also to check out sell sell dot com but that's spelled s e L L C e l L dot com, uh, and you can go there and you can get a quick idea of what it might be worth, what your phone might be worth, and who is willing to pay you the most. I entered the information from my phone and I found out it's even still with all the cracks and everything is still worth between twenty and twenty

seven dollars. But as I was taggling between the different levels of condition, you know, you got like good, fair, bad, or I think like the last one was like defective or something like that. Trash. Yeah, I'm like, well what you near effective fear trash because like it's not trash, it still works, but like the screen is broken in all the places and so, but but that can be refurbished.

That's a great thing about selling some of those sites as those phones to get referbished, they get a new life, they get resold to somebody after they've been looked over, and someone else can can have a phone that they get for I don't know, maybe seventy or eighty dollars that is set to last for another two years. So yeah, don't junk it and actually get your money's worth out of it. Mine, I looked it up, was worth seventeen dollars. It doesn't have a crack screen, but it's a really

old phone. Um, and I really thought it was worth probably zero. But to know that I could actually get something out of it better than nothing, yeah, I was like, all right, that's not too bad. Yeah. What's so cool about that site is that, you know, you enter in the information and it pulls up all these other sites and they show what the average prices that they're willing to pay. And so that's that's how you're able to easily go to this one place and get the best,

you know, the best estimate for your device. Love an aggregator like that, So bringing them all together, all right, Matt, We've got more to get to on playing adopts a lescens, including the most important ways you can fight back in a world that's deep in planned obsolescence, and we'll get to to some of those tips right after this break. Al r Joe, We're back to the break and we're talking about planned obso lescens and specifically planing ops lessons,

how it costs us a lot of money. But we're not just gonna take it, you know, We're not just gonna roll over. We're going to fight back against this planned obsolescens. We're gonna throw Mike Tyson uvercut punch to it. Let's do it. Man. Did you ever play Mike Tyson's Punch Up back on the original Nintendo? Yeah, for sure, that's a great game. We've recently pulled out what's that. What's the little mini Nintendo that you plug up that's got all into games built into it and you plug

it up. Yeah, it's like the modern version of the old school Nintendo. Yeah right, and it's got like fifty games built into it, you know, but it's still got the remote. We recently busted that out and the girls have been playing Balloon Fight. It's so much fun. Yeah, I got one for Christmas, Slasher, but I think I'm only played it twice. Like, I don't know, I just don't play video games very much, but it's fun when

I do. It's good for like a rainy day. And wait, wait, yeah it was raining the other Saturday and kind of cold outside. So we're like, all right, this is the perfect morning for us and video games. But we digress. We're talking about video games. We want to be talking about planed obsolescence, right, and so let's talk through some different ways that we can make sure that we are that we're fighting, that we're combating planned obsolescens um. And the first step that we need to take comes before

we even make that purchase. I think we need to research more before we make these purchases in our life. You know, if you make a smarter initial purchase, like you are more likely to get a longer lifespan out of your device. There are great sites out there, sites like Consumer Reports and Wirecutter where you can read all about the different you know, devices that you're considering, and they can help you to buy things that are going

to be built to last. And to avoid the products that are gonna cause you headaches after you need to replace them after just a few months of use. Yeah, buying quality on the front end make such a difference in how long we're actually able to own something. Um, we end up liking it more if it works better.

Another way then that we can fight back against planned obsolescence is attempt to repair the items that we do own we're so used to I think disposable products that we often don't consider if the broken item is reparable. You know, Matt, you and I were not d I Y gurus, but we're all for giving it a shot. I don't mind breaking out the hot glue gun or even the duct tape if necessary. And if it's an electronic item, check out sites like I fix It. It's

a great website. You can buy the tools to fix your device and then they'll give you the instructions on how to do it. Almost every decent sized metropolis too has a screen fixing place, uh somewhere nearby where you live if you don't want a chance going it alone. But those are the kind of things where instead of replacing it, trying to fix it, trying to extend the life essentially of the item that you already have. Yeah, that's right. We mentioned the Apple Store earlier. You don't

necessarily need to go straight to the Apple Store. You can support a smaller local business. Another way that we can avoid planned obs lescens is by forsaking latest trends, Joel. You know, often it's it's not that our gadget doesn't work any longer, it's just that we got bored with it. We see a product release, keynote addressed, you know, featuring the hottest item that will make ours kind of feel old and maybe a little bit crusty, you know, but

the feeling is not based on reality. Our desire to the follow the trends is often at the root of our belief that, you know, what we currently own is obsolete, even when it definitely does have meaningful life left in it. Yeah, we're talking about gadgets here, some mat but but you know, we talked about fast fashion earlier on in the show. I think this is a specific example where people end

up spending too much on clothing. We see an Instagram at or we're reading a fashion magazine and we realized that what we owned last year just doesn't cut it. Anymore, And I think sometimes it feels like it's all these inputs coming our way, and we'd normally be perfectly happy with our wardrobe until we see those things. So yeah, sometimes it takes like getting some of those inputs out of our lives and then we don't know what we're missing. Another way to to fight back in the world of

planned obsolescence is to shop second hand. Sometimes you don't even have to shop on eBay in order to grab something a bit newer for yourself. Do you have a friend or family member who's constantly upgrading their own gadgets, maybe there are two or three generations ahead of you by one of their used models off of them they make a bit of money from from their piece of electronics that was used. You get to upgrade on the cheap. Or maybe you can even score an item for free.

If they were looking to toss an item out completely, you can save it from reaching the landfill. That's just a one creative way that you might be able to use. Shopping secondhand and maybe seeing what family members are are doing with their old devices can can help you to avoid buying new as opposed to getting something used that's still in great condition right. In another way that we can completely avoid the headache of plan obsolescens is if we don't even own that item to begin with. And

we're talking about actually owning fewer of these items. Man, I'm thinking recently so when like the Apple Watch, you know, all the different smart watches have been coming out, and you know they're they're really stinking popular, and I just don't get it, you know, like do any of us actually need any of these gadgets? And makes my fail

curl watch look pretty shabby right now, doesn't it. It It makes me want to go back and get like the little calculator watch, like like like that rectangular black one with like the tiny little buttons on it. But like, I know some people they really dig owning one of these smart watches. But I think it's really important for us to question that decision before you make that purchase, you know, especially I think this is true if you're

buying something that's in a new product category. Like were you able to get along fine for years and maybe even decades of your life before you ever own this product, but now all of a sudden you need it? Why is that? And so if it's not something that you really need. Then, I think owning less can be really, really helpful when it comes to the derailing effects of

planned obsolescens in our lives. Yeah. I feel like I had the same reaction when the iPad came out and then everybody was tablet crazy and it's like, well, we need a tablet for our family now, of course, maybe three tablets, and it's just one of those new new product lines, and a lot of people, just hook Line and Sinker were like, everybody needs sign me up. Yeah,

And it's just not necessarily the case. And I don't want to hate on people who really really love their smart watch or love having an iPad and get a lot of use out of it, that's okay. I think sometimes we just don't do enough consideration ahead of time on the front end before we make the purchase, and then we're like, oh, yeah, this whole thing, it's it's fine, it's and then then you gotta upgraded every every year

when the new one comes out too. Yeah, and you certainly want to affect the situation where you're buying something and then trying to figure out what you're gonna do

with it. Right, It's like, I'm gonna go ahead and get this and let's see what problems that solves, if any, you know, Like that should be the exact opposite approach that we should be taking, Like we should start with a problem and hopefully these problems aren't like manufactured problems that we're now thinking that we have just because there is a new solution on the scene. But yeah, like definitely don't buy something thinking that like, cool, this will

be fun. Let's figure out what we're gonna do with it later. Buy it now though, Yeah, I mean, dude, some of the companies are creating like video chat devices specific to their platform, like Facebook Portal I think is what it's called. I don't even know about that yet. So so you can like literally buy it's been a while since I've been on the Facebook. You can buy buy a device from Facebook so you can message on

it and do like video calls. It's like I can do that on my phone already, Like my phone basically allows me to do all these things. I don't need another device in my life, It's true. So yeah, just it's a it's an important thing to consider owning less in order to fight back against planned obsolescence and Matt ultimately planned obsolescence is something that we've ace in a

lot of areas in our lives these days. But to avoid letting it cost us tons of money, it's really important for us as individuals to do more homework up front to protect and take care of the item so we do purchase and then to purposefully work to avoid upgrading. Because it's trendy, planned obsolescens as we talked about in the beginning, has some benefits, right, And at the same time, there's a lot of competition in our country, and so

people are competing to make good products and services. For us as individuals, a lot of the burden is on us actually to to avoid prematurely getting rid of things that's still work, that's still function well, um, and they can still serve a purpose in our lives. I feel like, while planned obsolescence still exists in the marketplace for the most part, is something that we do to ourselves these days and and something we need to do our best to avoid. Yeah, man, I totally agree. So let's go

ahead and shift gears. Man, let's get back to our beer. On this episode, you and I we enjoyed a juicy I p A and this is beer by Squatters Craft Beer. These guys are out of Salt Lake City in Utah, which means that it is limited five percent. Yeah. I know, we looked that up because I was like, oh, this is five percent. It's a really good i PA for

five percent. It really is. And it's like, oh the Utah laws, that's right, they cap it at five percent, Like you can't make a beer that has a higher a BV than that, and that's like a big constraint for a brewer to be under. And I gotta say, man, this beer that being said, was really good for a five percent I PAL. It was delicious. It was like light and fresh, and it had some great juicy character to it. I feel like typically I p a s and the five percent range are lacking, and this one

was just awesome for the style and really really enjoyed it. Yeah, I'm with you, man. The first thing I noticed is when we poured it, it it poured this really beautiful kind of cloudy light gold color. And so it definitely is a New England style i PA. But again, it's got those flavors going on, but it's not too heavy. It's got just a touch of that sharp funkiness without you know, maybe the body that kind of weighs it down. It really was real bright and citrusy. It was honestly kind

of refreshing. It was a really clean drinking New England I PA, which I feel like it isn't necessarily a typical characteristic of a New England style I PA. You know, you don't really characterize it as like clean drinking. A lot of times they're kind of like hazy and kind of cloudy, unfiltered, unclean, little funky exactly. But somehow this one would managed to do both. I'm glad that you and I got to enjoy this one, man. I'm glad Sam sent this one our way to enjoy on the show. Uh,

thank you, Sam. Yeah, thanks Sam. All Right, for everybody who's listening, and if you want shown ups for this episodes, there there are a lot of things we mentioned and all of those websites will be in the show notes for you to check out. If you just go to our website at how to money dot com. Yeah, we'll definitely make sure to link to uh sal sale dot com.

That was certainly our favorite website that we came across when we were preparing getting ready for this episode and For folks who have not left us a review, we would really appreciate a review over at Apple Podcasts. All those great reviews allows others who haven't yet listened to how the money helps them to find the podcast and hopefully to do smarter things with their money as well. So thank you in advance for that. Alright, my friend, Until next time, Best friends out, best friends out, m