Debunking Conventional Financial Advice #117

care about. How how would science experiments translate to a podcast? Probably not very well. I think that's called alchemy, right, Like that's the whole premise of trying to turn lead

into gold or whatever metal into gold. But yeah, I am excited that we're going to cover a variety of topics, everything from just something that you would hear at work talking with a coworker or maybe even h R because sometimes they're dispensing financial advice because that's part of what they do all the way, maybe even to something you would even hear like a money expert, a financial advisor, maybe on the radio even And we're gonna get to

that later in the show. Yeah, there's a lot of financial advice floating around, and so not only are we going to to tell you some common financial advice that we think just isn't really all that good, we're also kind of towards the end of the show going to give you some ideas on where to go, some ways to think about how how you filter that financial advice that comes into your life. Okay, but but first, Matt, I wanted to tell you that my wife this week

tried Kroger clicklist nice and she loved it. Oh, yeah, she loved it. But wait a minute, does that mean you're gonna go ahead and cancel your costco membership for the year? And uh you are you a clicklist convert? Now? I mean I can be loyal to both. They both have different Oh but can you really? Oh I can? Oh?

I can so. And I know it's not Aldi. We like Aldi two, but Kroger Clicklist it's kind of this really cool tool where it's this happy medium between going into the store and shopping in true sational manner and going with something like instat cart or shipped where you order groceries and have them show up on your door. And the problem, in my opinion with the grocery delivery

services is the additional expense. Not only do you pay a delivery fee and have to tip the driver, et cetera, but you pay an inflated price for groceries when you use those services. But Kroger click List is kind of a thing of its own. What you do is you kind of buy your groceries on Kroger's website and then you pick them up at the Kroger store. But you don't even have to get out of your car. As a mom of kids, you're trying to pick up the groceries.

It's it's really nice that essentially someone just brings them and sticks them in your car and you pay the five dollar fee. That's the only thing. So there is a cost. So there is a cost, it's five bucks, but the prices of the actual food that you're buying are the exact same as what you would pay in the store, so you're not paying those inflated internet prices. But the coolest thing is that we're easily going to save that five bucks every time we do a Kroger

clicklist order. Because when you're shopping online, you tend to do a couple of different things. You tend to a spend less money. You're not impulse buying certain things as you're walking around the grocery store, right. And then the other thing is Kroger does a great job of offering digital coupons, and so while you're shopping online, you're just gonna see the coupons and it's gonna make it a

whole lot easier to apply those to your order. Yeah. Well, I will say the last time I was actually in Kroger buying some fancy seltzer because there's a certain kind of looking for actually for the Airbnb. I scanned it and I was getting ready to put it in the bag, and then right there on the spot, it's spit out a coupon. I didn't really read it. I just saw that it said peri air, which is the fancy sealzer that I buy for the Airbnb. And we're trying to

make it nice down there, fancy dude. So at the end when you are supposed to kind of skin the coupons, I scanned it and it freaking took like a ton of money off. And so if Kroger is able to do the digital version of that online and I don't even have to go in the store that might be attempting for us to use as well. Man, Yeah, so we're gonna keep trying it out, especially as you know, you and I were both about to have newborn babies.

The idea of sleeping babies, taking them out of the car seat, blah blah blah, going grocery shopping, it becomes a whole lot less appealing. And so this Kroger clicklist might be this happy medium solution for us, at least for a while. And yeah, we'll kind of keep folks updated, let them know if this click list experiment continues. Nice man. Are Kroger's nationwide? I think so, but I think in

other cities they have different names. Yeah, I think they own a bunch of different grocery stores like Ralph's and a couple others. So yeah, they're they're a very big company. They think they're the nation's largest grocer if I'm If I'm not mistaken, maybe in South Carolina they call it k Rogers instead of Roger's. Well, I've been to South Carolina. That would make sense. I don't want to hate on South Carolina too much. Plus, man, Laws are from South Carolina,

so now, dude, I love South Carolina. I'm just saying there's some weird stuff that happens from time to time, right, great people, though, beautiful scenery, It's it's a lovely state, but it's not quite as beautiful of a state as Hawaii. And I think we can readily admit that. And the beer that we're drinking today on the show is from Hawaii. The beer is called Golden Sabbath. It's a Belgian style ale brewed with Hawaiian honey, made by the brewery Big

Island brew House. And big thanks to listener Cody for sending this one our way. I like their litt saying on the bottle here says share the Aloha. I think another brewery in Hawaii. There. There's some lookings like Liquid Aloha, which is another good one. So yeah, I guess anything Aloha is quiet on brand for anything coming out of Why Yeah, for sure, for sure. But yeah, looking forward to sharing this one with you man, and we'll talk

about this one at the end of the episode. Sounds good, everybody onto the topic at hand today, we are debunking conventional financial advice, and like we mentioned in the outset, there's a lot of financial advice floating around there's some good stuff, right, there's a lot of people delivering good financial advice, but there's also a lot of bad financial advice out there. And there are some sayings that you might hear all the time you're not even sure what

they're based on. Maybe it's more of a proverbial phrase even, And some of these things are said by a whole lot of people. They get repeated and repeated, and some of these sayings deserve a second glance. They might not be completely off, we might not disagree with them, but it's important to tackle these things so that we can get a better perspective on what our response should actually be to the conventional financial wisdom that we hear touted

out there. As Stephen bart would say, there's a certain amount of truthiness that some of these statements have, but are they actually true that their truth he has truthiness, Yeah, there's some sort of kernel right in there. Well, that's the thing though, that I mean, a reason I think a lot of this popular advice takes root is because there is typically some truth in it. And sometimes we may not have thought about it that much, but it seems fairly logical, so we just go with it, Okay, Joel.

On that note, let's go ahead and kick it off with our first piece of financial advice. More money will make you happier, like me personally, you specifically, a little more might make me happier. Right, And that's a phrase that you're less likely to hear from a financial expert or someone giving you money advice. But it is this kind of general, vague notion out there that more money

is always equivalent to greater happiness. It's an attitude, yeah, yeah, yeah, that I need to acquire more and if I get more, it will make me happier. And that's just not true. And in fact, although there are some instances in which

a bit more money could make us happier. Yeah. For example, if someone's in poverty, right, if they're able to increase their salary to a certain amount and they're able to achieve some sort of baseline standard of living, certainly their quality of life is going to improve and there should be some happiness derived from that, right. Yeah, most definitely, If if we can't afford the basic necessities of life, then an increase in access to money would make a

big difference. Right. But oftentimes, most of us, in middle class America, we end up buying ourselves more headaches than more money we get. We don't become happier by hoarding more or or even by pursuing happiness itself. Typically there's kind of a law of diminishing returns when it comes to having more money. Yeah, it's no surprise that the overconsumption of goods and services and just buying lots of stuff,

how that does not lead to our happiness. And with that, over the past several years, I feel that there has been a shift towards folks pursuing experiences, right, Like you hear people say that, like, Oh, I'm all about the experiences. I'm not about stuff. You know, there's a little more mindfulness in that area, especially publicly. There's just a broader realization. I think that stuff matters less and experiences matter more. Right exactly, they can be better than stuff. They can

change your life. You have an amazing experience, you learn something about yourself, you learn something about other cultures. But even trips, even vacations, even different experiences that you can go on, you can get used to those the same hedonic treadmill that we experience when it comes to purchasing things at home and the inflated lifestyle that we have that applies to vacations and trips and these different experiences as well. Our friend Carl Mr He's got a great

post over on his site about that very thing. We'll link to that in our show notes. But the conclusion that he comes to, at least for himself personally, is that for him, it's not about stuff. For him, it is not about vacations and travel. It's about finding joy and contentment in the everyday life. The vast majority of our lives are spent doing very normal things, and if we're able to find enjoyment in those things, how much

richer would our lives be? Right If you enjoy your coffee a certain way every single morning and you're able to recognize that, just imagine how much value that you're actually bringing to your life with something that does not cost very much money. If you know that by buying this one burg grinder, that you're gonna be able to make some fantastic coffee, which is, by the way, that's what you need. You need a burg grinder. We touched on coffee a few weeks ago. We didn't even talk

about how to grind your beans. But I've got some crummy grinder. I need a burg Grinderrinder's that you guys do? No, man, you can need to get one, all right. It crushes the bean instead of chops it. Okay, it doesn't overheat it and spoil the flavor. That's I'm getting nerdy over here. But but if you know that just something as simple as that can can bring a lot of value and joy to your every day, that's something worth investing in.

Think about the efficiency and the practicality of something like that and the impact that it could have on your life. Yeah. The last thing I really want to say about money not making us happier, because I think that's just not a truism, is that part of the way that we combat that is by developing an understanding of what enough

looks like in our lives. And so if we can become okay with what we have, if we can practice thankfulness, a little bit more gratitude for what we have, and an understanding that more doesn't necessarily equate to better, I think really that's going to help us see that more money doesn't necessarily make us happier, that those things just aren't equivalent. All right, Matt, you want to debunk that next piece of financial advice. Yeah, let's do it, man.

The next piece of advice. It takes money to make money. Obviously, this is something that lots of folks have heard. Right. While this is true for businesses maybe that are looking to grow, maybe get that venture capital money. I mean, I'm still looking for my own personal angel investor. Are you willing to auction off shares of your soul? Probably would. It would take things though, But that's you know, with businesses,

but also for you personally as well. That might be true when it comes to investing in the stock market or saving for retirement. If you're trying to make passive income a real thing, you have to do that with money because that's the vehicle that's actually earning you money. Yeah, of course you need some sort of money to be

able to invest, right. It does take, for instance, being able to invest a couple of thousand dollars into your i RA every year or to hit a certain percentage in your four oh one K in order to grow your wealth. Yeah, that's actually when you have money making you money. And like that's the truth of the statement, right right, right, right, So there is definitely this carnal a truth still. But but however today it's more often used as an excuse by folks as to why they

can't get ahead and save more. It's a reason to justify not pursuing entrepreneurial endeavors that you just don't have the money in order to get started. And I think in today's day and age, this truism has actually become so much less true because of the ease of being able to invest. You're rounded up change on an app like Acorns, or open up a retirement account with five bucks or zero dollars depending on who you're with, with

no minimum balances, no minimum monthly contribution. It's just gotten so much easier. It doesn't take a lot of money to get started. It just takes something. It just takes prioritizing it. And when we're talking about entrepreneurial endeavors, becoming an online entrepreneur, creating something and putting it out there, the barrier to entry has been demolished. And there's something that almost all of us could do if we would just take the time and the energy to learn how

to do it and to just get started. Ye Joel, So what it takes to pursue that entrepreneurial endeavor is that hard work, and that hard work over time. That's the thing, right, is to not get burnt out and think, yeah, I can you know, hit this hard for maybe a couple of months, but often it takes a long time. And that's the sort of sweat equity that it takes to get something off the ground. And on a personal level, it doesn't absolutely require you to make a lot more money.

You could also just spend less. So what that means is cutting back, and I know that can be really difficult. Once you've sort of gotten to a certain level of comfort, it's a lot harder to remove that from your life than it is to have never gotten there in the first place. So it's easy to say, oh, yeah, I just cut back, but I know that that's difficult. And that's why priorities are so important to give you that focus, in that drive to actually accomplish what it is that

you truly want to accomplish. So you're saying, I don't have to sell part of my soul to that angel investor, just work hard and uh spend less. All right, it's so easy. It's so easy when you say it. All right, Well, there are some more conventional financial mantras that Matt and I feel compelled to tackle, and we'll get to a few more after the break. All right, Joe, we have talked through two of these conventional financial pieces of advice

or truisms. We're kind of calling them truisms too, aren't we? More like false is um? There's truthiness involved here. Let's get to our next one, though, which is save ten percent of your income. That sounds nice, right, It does sound nice, and honestly, that is a great place to start, but don't stop there. If you're looking to achieve any sort of financial independence while you still have some energy left to actually enjoy financial independence, you're going to need

a savings rate that is more than ten percent. Yeah. Man, I feel like when I was just starting out, I was listening to financial experts, I was trying to garner wisdom, and I heard a lot of people say to save and invest ten percent of your income. I heard others go out there on a limb and say fift And I think because I wasn't challenge us to save more,

I didn't save more. And ultimately, now that I'm older and I've seen what the numbers look like and what I'll actually need to save in order to reach any sort of financial independence goals I have. It's just gonna take saving at a much higher clip. And so we would say that is a great minimum goal to aim for,

which might sound crazy to some people. I mean, the national savings rate is what like five to seven percent something like that, And a great way to portion out that savings rate is to put half of your money in a savings account with a good rate to return for nearer term goals that you have, and then and in the other half in retirement accounts like your four

own k roth, Ira, h s A, etcetera. Yeah, with those near term goals in addition to those long term goals of retirement, you have some balance, right, You have those near term goals of maybe saving up enough money to put down a nice down payments or paying for that new used car that you're gonna buy in cash.

I think striking that balance is so important when it comes to staying motivated and feeling like that you're able to enjoy the benefits of your hard work now while at the same time setting yourself up for the future. And I want to say as well too that these are awesome goals to have, and this is something that we work towards. But you know, in particular me being self employed, some years are better than others, and there's years where I don't actually hit that percentage, and that's okay,

Like it's not the end of the world. But knowing what it is that you're seeking after, what the goal is, that's the high bar that we're trying to set here. Yeah. Man, sometimes I just feel like a bigger challenge helps me rise to the occasion. It helps give me that subtle

shift in mindset. And it might be a goal that even feels almost a little bit impossible, but but having it on your radar at least something that you want to aim for in the distant future can be really helpful even now to kind of tweak some things to start getting you headed in that direction. It sounds to me like maybe you would enjoy a nice Friday Night Lights like kind of locker room speech like that, you're

all about the underdog. I've never seen Friday Night Lights, but yeah, I mean either, but I'm guessing there's awesome halftime speeches that are given in the locker room. Right now, You're probably right, You're probably right. Yeah, I'll take it, go, go, get it, go, save, take home pay. Yeah, make it happen. It's all night. That's not Friday night lights. That's the

other one. Who knows? Who knows? Okay, all right, let's get to the next conventional piece of financial wisdom that we have to debunk here, which is that stock market investing is risky. And we went into a good bit of depth hill on this back in episode sixty nine. And it's true that investing haphazardly is risky, and money in the stock market will fluctuate, there will be great highs and there will be low lows, but that's not necessarily risk. The true risk in stock market investing is

not doing it, because inflation eats at your money. And another risk is thinking that you can time or outsmart the market. Both of those are much worse outcomes than slowly and steadily investing the money that you have. And so the true solution to avoiding that risk while investing in the stock market is to invest in index funds, widely diversified index funds, but over the long term, because again, the market is going to have those ups and downs.

But when you are invested over the long haul, thirty to forty years of ups and downs. When you're zoomed, it looks pretty smooth. It's smooth riding. You don't notice those bumps along the way. So that's the lens, right, that's the mindset that I want to have when it comes to investing in the stock market. You know, related to investing the stock market is bonds. There's a piece of financial advice out there that says that you should hold a percentage of your bonds that's equivalent to your age.

And it's true you want to minimize that volatility as you near retirement. But what if you don't start saving and investing for retirement until you're much much older. For example, if you're fifty years old, you don't want half of your portfolio in bonds if you don't have much value in your portfolio. Regardless of your age, if you're in that wealth building stage of investing, you need the majority of your investments in stocks. Yeah, there's a big difference

between wealth accumulation and wealth preservation, right, Matt. And and it's not necessarily dependent on the age you're at. You might be in the wealth building phase at age fifty five because you're brand new to investing and you're just getting started. That fifty year old you mentioned might still be in the wealth building phase, even though experts would

be them towards a less risky portfolio. We think that when you're in the beginning stages of investing, it doesn't matter what age you are, you need to have a portfolio that's more open to risk, which is more open to volatility, which means having more of your money in stock type choices. While we're still talking about investing, another quick piece of advice that you often hear is that you need to educate yourself on investing and make sure

that you stay informed. Oftentimes, in lots of areas of life, it's important to know what you're doing and to make sure that you've done the research. But a little bit goes a long way, and in the world of investing, too much reading and too much screen watching can actually lead to hubrists and worse eventual outcomes. Yes, so the answer on this one is to invest in the entire market by choosing one of our favorite funds, like with Vanguard vt s A X or v T I or with Fidelity f z R O X f c Rocks

FC Rocks. There are so many people who pride themselves on their investing knowledge, but that knowledge can lead to worse outcomes by essentially fiddling with their portfolio too frequently and making changes more than they should. The best investors aren't necessarily the ones that know the most, that watch CNBC every day. They're the ones that know enough, and they know enough to kind of set it and forget

it and stay the course. Please, Joe, if you don't have a stock ticker, you know, on your computer at work with all the stocks on there, you're not a real investor. Not doing it right. No, man, I don't even open statements. I very rarely look at my balance, just a couple of times a year. And honestly, ignorance is bliss. It makes me a better investor. And Jill, another really popular piece of advice that you here tossed around a lot is that your house is a good investment.

Heard that one before. Yeah, we actually did an entire episode on just this topic on episode thirty. And yes, while it is true that homes do typically go up in value, well, the fact is they don't go up enough to be considered a good investments. On average, real estate has increased about four percent annually since the nineteen sixties. And I don't know if you are aware. Four percent isn't a great rate of return? Yeah, not not as

good as the market overall. Right, In some of those funds that we mentioned, if you were invested there, you get a much better rate of return over the years. Yeah, closer to ten percent over that very same period of time. Yeah. So the average person, instead of buying a home and thinking it's a good investment, funnel more of your money towards the stock market or run the numbers, and treat

your primary home more like an investment. There are ways to do that too, And we're not against buying a home even if it's not a good investment, but just know the truth that you're buying the home because you love it. Don't trick yourself into thinking that it's also just this fantastic investment, because there's a good chance that it isn't. That's Rachel. And so we're going to cover a few more sayings, including one or two said by this guy named Dave Ramsey. Have you heard of him before?

Heard of him? Yeah, we're gonna get to that right after the break, all right, that we're back and We're gonna myth bust a couple of those Dave Ramsey things in just a minute. But the next piece of financial advice that we need to debunk is to start saving for your kids college early. And yes, we agree, right, the earlier the better when you're saving and investing for anything.

But I feel like right now we're in this interesting space in personal finance where there's a lot of pressure on parents to save for their kids, to save for their kids college, and to save a lot. But I feel like this puts a lot of pressure on us as parents from putting money where it often should be going first. Yeah, well that's what is so key, Jill. You said it right there. We're talking about retirement and

that's where your money should be going first. The thing is, we're not against saving for our kids college, right, We're not against being generous trying to do nice things for our kids. We just want to make sure that we are prioritizing retirements so that when we are older, twenty years down the road, that we are in a strong

place financially. Because when you're in a strong position with your money, that gives you more options, and that is an incredible and a very healthy place to be able to help your children with college at that point, make sure your own financial footing is solid before you try to start helping your kids with theirs. All right, Matt, we're gonna step in here be us. We have to disagree with Dave Ramsey. And there are are a lot of Dave Ramsey heads out there, and for good reason.

You know, we've talked about how much of a difference he's made in so many lives. He's made a huge impact in my life, man, Yeah, yeah, I know, I know he's he kind of got you started down the path of thinking about money. But we do have to say that there are a couple things we disagree with and and here's the first one. Debt is dumb. And that's a statement that's made popular by Dave. Right that you that you heard a lot, Matt when you were

listening to him. Yeah, he loves saying that, man. And the fact is, Dave hates any type of debt, including mortgages like sure, you should be getting rid of consumer debt, right, and even any other debt with higher interest rates. But man, you and I we feel that lower levels of debt are okay as long as you're investing. Yeah, man, I think taking on debt with low interest rates, like let's say a mortgage or student loan debt, even you want

to be wise about it. You want to be really intentional, You want to be smart, and you don't want to bite off more than you can chew. But most of us, if we think about how long it would take to buy a house in a hund percent cash, I mean it would be a long, long, long long time for many of us who would never happen. And the same

thing goes for a college education. And I do think student loans have gotten out of control and we need to be really thoughtful and reserved in the debts that we're willing to take on because it can get overwhelming really quickly. But debt is not dumb, and there are reasons that a smart person can take out debt and use it to their advantage as they're trying to build wealth. Yeah.

So on that note, it is no surprise that you and I are both a fan of our mortgages that we have that are in the threes, because that allows us to take our money and instead of paying down those mortgages, instead of paying down those debts, we are taking that money and we are investing it. Yeah, and prioritizing investing not only allows us to get higher returns over the years, but it also gives us current tax advantages. Right. Yeah, this whole conversation around debt really is just a nuanced

one that we need to have. It's I think it's difficult to come to a discussion like this and have a blanket statement where you say, just across the board, debt is dumb, right, And I don't want it to sound like that we're picking on Dave Ramsey here, but you know, something that's interesting is that he started his whole approach to finances we know where all debt is

dumb back in the nineties. And man, I got curious and I was looking at what thirty year mortgage interest rates were back in the nineties when he was starting, and they were over eight percent, as a far cry from where they are now. Yeah, that's that's really high. So back then, yeah, it made a lot of sense to pay down your mortgage to get rid of that debt as soon as possible, because that is a guaranteed eight and a half percent that you are essentially making

on your money. It makes a ton of sense. But the fact is the financial landscape has changed since then, and so I think it's just healthy for us from a financial standpoint to revisit the statements that we hear because there has been changed that has occurred, and so it's important for us to correspondingly change our behavior. In response, Yeah, you just talked about mortgage rates. Well, I think something similar could be said for student loans. Back in college

costs a whole lot less than it does today. Student loans for a lot of people are almost this necessary. Evil you and I met, We would encourage people to figure out any way they could to to save money on school, to to pay less, to find more scholarships, take more ap classes, clip out altogether of certain classes that you can become an r A, whatever, all these ways that you can cut down on the cost of college. But for a lot of people, taking out some sort

of student loan debt is going to be necessary. So in that case, to further your education and pursue a career that will be more lucrative than for going to college education altogether, well, debt is not dumb in that case either. Okay, while we're talking about Dave Ramsey, let's talk about his approach towards credit cards, and he would say, to cut up your credit cards. That's what he does.

We've talked about this fairly often, but your credit score is so important today and credit cards are one of the best ways to get a healthy credit score and to keep it there. We're talking about mortgage rates, the potential to land a job or not, and even insurance rates. These are all things that are affected by our credit score. Yeah, Matt, not to mention some of the protections that credit cards

provide for us as consumers when we buy things. Yeah, we talked about that a little bit in our episode about lesser known credit card benefits back in the day. Another thing is the rewards that can be earned if we put our normal, everyday shopping and purchases onto a credit card as opposed to paying in cash or with a debit card. You can get sweet sign up bonuses or or mega discounted travel, or even just two percent cash back by paying with the credit card instead of

paying in other ways. So the answer is not that you should cut up your credit cards, but that you should be very very careful about how you use them. That you should use them as a tool because that's what they are. They can be very good for the conscious consumer that pays their credit card bill in full and on time every single month. Yeah, and here's the thing. As we go through these conventional tropes, right, these standard pieces of advice that we're used to hearing, we can

see where people are coming from. Rules of thumb can help us along our way as we make financial decisions, but it's important for us to question these assumptions as well. I think for a lot of folks who don't have a grasp on their finances, these rules of thumb are are good, they can be helpful. They're they're good, sort

of like markers along the right. But for someone who has maybe just a little bit better understanding other finances, I'm gonna guess anyone that's listening to this podcast, those hard and fast rules don't stand. And I think we could greatly benefit by questioning these pieces of advice and seeing what we should and shouldn't do with our money. Yeah, man, I feel like there's a lot of nuance in the way that we had to tackle a lot of these

conventional pieces of advice. Not all of them are completely idiotic, Like there's something there that makes sense to a lot of people. But I think if we do question a lot of these assumptions and do a little more digging, there's way better advice. There are way better ways that we can behave as opposed to just blindly following the things that we've heard over a long period of time.

But think this all kind of begs the question if we are debunking some of this conventional financial advice, like where can we turn? And I guess, really like, why should people trust and believe that that we have a better idea or a better way of thinking than some of the folks out there that have been touting some of these pieces of advice for for years, maybe even decades. Well, part of that answer is that we would encourage folks

to look for financial advice that is unbiased. A question that you can always ask yourself, is our folks trying to sell me something. If you have a financial advisor, you need to know how they are paid. Are they paid on a commission by the products that they sell you? Or are they a fee only advisor where they are there to give you great, sound financial advice that's in your own best interest. Yeah, And really an important part of this is to do your own due diligence, dig

a little bit deeper. Multiple sources of information can be helpful as you seek to understand concepts of personal finance investing in more. I think blindly following one person, listening to their advice and just trusting it wholeheartedly and not testing it for yourself, and that that's just not a good way to go. There are a lot of great people out there giving really good financial advice, but you also have to be careful when people are giving you

advice about money. And it's amazing how even just buying into a few of these misconceptions can massively affect the way you spend, the way you save, and the way you invest. And one other thing to keep in mind is that most all of these financial concepts that were discussing here are easy to understand. The vast majority of folks out there should be able to wrap their heads

around them. And if you were talking to a financial advisor or somebody else that's giving you advice, there should be a red flag that goes up if they are not easily able to explain to you how that products or how that service works, if it seems overly complicated, there's a good chance that it could be a crappy product that is being sort of disguised, or that there would even be fees built into them in such a way that you would not be able to easily identify them.

You man, lofty promises and complex products, or just major warning signs like while we're on this path to figuring out what financial wisdom is worth following? Yes, so are you ready to talk about this beer? Let's do it all right? We had on the show Golden Sabbath. This is my big Island brew Hoss sent to us by Cody. So this is the second beer that we got to enjoy from Hawaii. So thanks again to Cody. Joel. Were your thoughts on this beer? Next time? Can Cody send

us plane tickets? Because, uh, you know what, this beer was almost as good as a plane ticket. It was really really tasty. Made with Hawaiian honey. You totally get that nice honey sweetness with just a touch of hot bitterness and then really strong Belgian yeast flavors coming through. I love it when a beer has kind of multiple notes to to pique your interest, and this one had that. It was really really tasty. Yeah for me, What stood out about this beer was it's beautiful golden honey color.

Right you poured in the glass and when you read on the bottle of that, you see the word like honey, and then you actually see what looks like honey in your glass, although not quite as viscous. I don't know. Something about that rings true to me. And while I was drinking this, I was just imagining myself sitting there in Hawaii, even though I never have, but drinking a nice, clean, refreshing Belgian style a like this definitely made me think

of Hawaii. Maybe not like on the beach necessarily, but sort of like maybe sitting on a porch overlooking a beach. How about that? There you go, Okay, that sounds nice? Yeah, And man, I feel like we don't need any final thoughts here. We kind of just wrapped it up right before we got to the beer. We got some really smart listeners and hopefully they can see that that kernel of truth that exists in in some of these conventional

money sayings doesn't necessarily always hold true. Sometimes is inaccurate, or at most maybe used to be true and isn't true anymore, And so a little bit of question can be really good for us when it comes to some of these money sayings that we've heard throughout the years. Yeah, these tidbits of popular financial advice, they might be helpful for someone who is doing just a really, really poor job and they have no clue on what to do

with their money. These tidbits of financial advice, they might be helpful. But we know for you, how the money listeners out there, that it's not going to cut it, and we would encourage you to dig a little bit deeper and take your money to the next level. Next level stuff, baby, I like it? Is that going to be it? Yeah? That's it for this episode, man. So folks want the show notes, they can check those out

on our website, how to money dot com. And if you're listening to this episode and this is the first or even second or third episode that you've listened to and you have not yet hit that subscribe button, go ahead and mash that button so you're notified of upcoming episodes. All right, Matt, that's gonna do it, buddy. Until next time, Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out. M