Friday Flight - 2 Week Test Drives, Micro-Philanthropy, & Scoring Cheaper Pizza #471

going to impact your money. That's right. Yeah. But before we get to that, we have to announce the winners from our book giveaway for Comico Love's new book, My Money, My Way. It came this past week, so a few days ago. Congrats to our friend of the show, Comico Love for her book release and L hoyt T, Perry Raoul in Georgia, J F. Hadson, and Scotty d. Y'all all one a copy of Comico's new book. Will make sure we get the is out to you, um really soon. Yeah,

we will reach out to you. Get your mailing address. And we had a lot of folks who rated us on Spotify, which I will say is the easiest way right now to enter a giveaway like this. I mean literally all you have to do is click because they don't let you leave a review yet, um, but who knows, maybe someday they will. That's also why we didn't have a bunch of weird names to read because with the Spotify like, there isn't an actual screen name or anything

like that. It's literally their name as folks are emailing us. So we shorten those names to protect your privacy a little bit. There we go, Well, Matt, let's not mentioned it is? It is that the Chinese New Year just having February one? Right, did you celebrate? No? But I actually was in China ten years ago when Chinese New Year was happening, and it was so much fun. I was gonna say that's probably probably the coolest thing you've ever experienced abroad. It was a party and a half.

And people also, when you're six ft six in China, they look at you like you're some sort of like did you have to pay for any drink? Any meal? I did, But they want to take pictures, which I was playing your cards right. It's more than happy to have blage like a bunch of random pictures with tall,

skinny Norwegian dude. A lot of folks over there now have you know, pictures on their mantle with me on them, which I appreciate, but like one sign, this basketball player came and came to our town except for not but I just thought it was interesting. The the phrase it gets used with Chinese New Year is I hope you get rich and specifically hope you get rich, you get rich? Yeah, no, I I hope you get rich. Okay, I just hope

you get rich and um, yeah, I don't know. Do you know Ronnie Chang the comedian, Yes, okay, was he on The Daily Show back in the day, back in the day, But but have you seen his He's got a stand up special from a few years ago on Netflix. Okay, I highly recommend it. It's got some language, so warning out there for everyone. He doesn't keep it as clean as we do here on the show, But dude, it is so funny. He talks about how Asians in general, how they love money and it's the stereotype and it's

hilarious because it's true. And I can say that being half Asian myself. I shared my my money origin stories. But just even like I think about when Kate and I got Arid, all of our American family and friends, they bring you a gift like you do, like you're supposed to do here in the States. But all of Mom's friends who were invited to the wedding, cold hard cash. They showed up with envelopes full of cash or you know, checks that they had cut. It is just a part

of the culture. And so he was just pointing out, how, you know, over there in China, they don't say Happy New Year. It's literally hope you get rich. Well, I think it's funny because what I would change it to is hope you build wealth. Is how, because you know, it's kind of the how the money way. Yeah, we view rich and wealth as kind of ten diferent things, and rich is usually this like I hope you stumble upon money really quickly, or make some sort of speculative

bit that pays off in a hurry. Hope you win the lottery exactly build wealth. It's like I hope you, like I started to, you know, continue to make progress on those goals and continue to uh, you know, grow your net worth for for years to come. It's the more wholesome, like well rounded approach to getting rich. Maybe I don't want to hate on the slogan, but okay, I hope you get rich. Happy Chinese New Year to everyone,

and um Matt, let's let's move on. Let's to the Friday flight, the quick sample of stories we found interesting this week and how they pertain to your personal finances. And the FCC, Uh, the Federal Communication Commission just voted to proceed with a proposal of Internet nutrition labels. It's what they're being called and makes me want to eat

my modem. But so, if you're not sure maybe why you're paying so much for internet service, or you maybe find comparing different planes to be a near impossible task, because yeah, each each uh internet service provider kind of has a different way of explaining what they offer. Well, standardized labels might be coming along to help soon, and these labels would include the price, data speeds, whether there

are data caps or not. And you know, it's not like most of us have this abundance of choices when it comes to home internet service. But hopefully this proposal gets adopted and we start seeing those labels, because it's gonna help make it easier for us to compare kind of uh, side by side apples to apples what we're being offered. That's right, Yeah, And this is just a reminder, you know, while we're talking about internet labels, to revisit it how much it is that you're paying for service.

You know, as Joel said, like, there really is a lack of competition in the space. But even still, that doesn't mean that you can't save money. And so we would recommend that you pick up your phone call your existing company to see if they're offering any specials for any current customers. UH. If you do have some competition in the area, look out for mailers where they are offering a special rate because oftentimes some of the big

companies out there will match that. Uh. And specifically the social media teams for these different cable and internet companies, they often have even more leeway to offer you a better rate. You know, if if you were to do that, you might be able to save bucks every single month, which doesn't sound all that much, but over the course of a year, that adds up to real savings. You know, just think about how much craft beer, Joel, you could

buy with an extra three sixty bucks. That's exactly how I think that's a pretty big hall because yeah, when I'm like it's just ten bucks, I'm like, wait a second, how much? How much? Yeah, when it comes to beer or whatever your craft beer equivalent, and then it motivates me. But yeah, I actually just did that anything and now I've got three hundred meg service fiber service for forty bucks a month. Forty bucks forty bucks a month. Not too time for me to make that call, then yes,

it is after they take my momenticine. Um, So all right, speaking of getting a discount, when ego shopping is a huge part of how much you're going to pay, right there are seasonal sales that happen, and so of course, in certain times of year you're gonna save money on a grill, and then other times of year when grilling is not so popular, you're you're not going to be

able to score as big of a discount. For instance, TVs are often the cheapest on Black Friday, and right now as we're approaching the Super Bowl, there's like the two times of year when it's best to be shopping for television if you're in the market. And Consumer Reports actually had an article about the items that get discounted the most in February, so just a heads up, but smartphones, mattresses, tablets, space heaters, printers, and cameras are all more heavily discounted

right now than at other times of year. You're also a bound to see some great deals on winter clothing. There's still a decent chunk of winter left, and so if you're gonna wear those items for the rest of this season and then for years to come, it might make sense to pounce while the getting is good. But yeah, the shopping seasonally based on when things are are cheaper

is just a smart strategy. That's right. If you're like us and we're the same shirt for like ten plus years, get that thing on sale, especially, dude, I mean, shirts are gonna end up costing more money. I mean we're talking about inflation. Go ahead and score those clothes now, locking the low prices. Seriously. Another way to save money is to not get food delivered to your house. This is something that we've that we've talked about a good

deal how it can cost you more. Right, if you use Uber eats, scrub Hub or Postmates to pick up your food bring it to your you know, straight to your door, it can make your favorite restaurant and food cost thirty more. And with the current labor shortage, that increase actually might even start getting even steeper. So here's an interesting solution, Domino. As everybody knows Domino's Pizza, they're trying something new. They are paying their customers to pick

up their own food. If you order online and you choose carry out, you'll get a three dollar credit to spend on your next pizza. Dude, so cool. I love the strategy. I love this insensive that they're dangling in front of people. They are attempting to encourage folks to take the actions that they want to see. Uh and so yeah, if you want cheaper pizza, pick it up yourself instead. Yeah, And I think just that's just a

generally a good principle. I have even ordered things on Grubhub before, but because like a discount code or something like that, and then I go pick it up myself. Anyway, I don't get the delivery just because it does add so much money to the overall price. And I guess because of where we live, like I'm usually a mile or two away from the place I'm ordering from that far,

I don't mind jumping out picking it up myself. And I think, um, yeah, that is one of those things where if you've maybe just gotten too used to paying for someone to bring your food to your door. Um rethink that given a try picking up your own food again, see how it goes, because you could save a lot of money. That's right. So our our local favorite pizza place, Glide, do they even offer, like, can grub hub pick up the pizza from there for you? I don't, I don't

even know. We like, we always get it ourselves because you know, we do pizza. Movie. But my guest is, you know, a pizza there costs twenty eight dollars, but it's this big giant Yeah, probably it's like the size of to human bodies. Um. Well, and and it is, it's just super delicious pizza. But yeah, my guess is to deliver that to our house is twenty something bucks.

Uh so that's just prohibitive, like picking up yourself. Yeah. Well, and and since we're talking about fast food, Matt, we've got to mention that inflation is hitting the beloved value many of these days. You know, even though you and I were not big consumers of fast food ourselves, I will I will admit this weekend our family did eat at Wendy's because we had some coupons. Well, that's where you go if you want to get that beef patty that's never been frozen. It's right, So that's not a

normal occurrence for us. But it was a fun little treat the kids liked. But um yeah, prices of the cheapest and least nutritious foods amongst us are on the rise. And Little Caesar's, speaking of pizza, just announced recently that they're charging five dollars and fifty cents instead of just the flat five dollars for the hot ready A right, was that what it's called hot and ready pepperoni pizza?

And then burger hing McDonald's and Denny's and and other restaurants are all raising prices on some of the items on their on their cheapest value menu because if the told that, inflation is taking on their bottom line. So if you're one of those people and you frequent fast food chains a lot, just now that the value menu is not going to provide as much value in the near future, and you're gonna be paying more for those hamburgers or chicken nuggets, like whatever does you get that's

gonna be the theme for the year? Man, how much more is this costing me? I will say, if McDonald's chicken nuggets were healthy for you. I would eat them on the reg gross. Dude, so good, How are you serious? I can't handle that. I will say Checkers Checkers French fries like the Super Season fries. They're also incredibly expensive, but they're worth it. Those are something I will go out of my way for, But not the chicken nuggets McDonald's. All right, So we we've talked about how banks, how

they're starting to slash and even innate overdraft fees. We mentioned ally they were the first major bank to scrap them all together last year, Capital One. They followed suit Bank of America. They actually recently trimmed there's even though they didn't do away with it completely. Now, I was so surprised, like everybody else is like starting to do away with them, and you're like, we're gonna turn them

back there they suck. But but ally they are now going even further and they're introducing something called cover draft, which is it's basically overdraft protection with zero fees. That's a pretty sweet feature because I've always hated the idea of overdraft even being a thing. Right. It's it's crazy that the banks would say, Okay, so you don't have enough money to the bank to actually make this purchase.

But we're gonna make it happen anyway. It's just gonna cost you like an extra fifty bucks total and fees. Did you like profit line, Oh my gosh, don't do that, Like, just deny the charge, don't let it go through, don't charge me. It's pernicious. It's just a way for them to extract more money out of us. I was trying to like think through some different examples, and it kind of makes me think of like at a hotel, Right, you've got the little mini fridge, and you know everything

in their costs costs extra time. But imagine this scenario. Imagine you're sitting there, you're eating some spicy chicken wings and you're like, oh my gosh, like my mouth was on fire. I need I need some water. And you're like, all right, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna grab the water out of the mini fridge. Except that instead of them charging you money, it's as if the way that you receive that that nice, fancy water is like somehow your spicy chicken got spicier, Like it just adds fuel

to the fire. And so in this way, if you don't have money to spend and then they're like, oh, we're gonna allow you to make that purchase, but we're gonna charge you even more. I hate that. It's just kind of like this, you know, this evil cycle. It's like whatever, the opposite of a virtuous cyclist. But again, because allies offering this cover draft uh and it's totally free, I am all for that. Yeah. Well, we like their services. Anyway they're offering is like that. That is just one

of the best online banks you could be business. I've been with them now for like seven eight years. There are other great ones, but ally is definitely one of the best. Yip. Alright, Matt, We've got more stories to get to, including one about something that's almost as ridiculous as over draft fees. We're gonna get to that in the ludicrous headline of the week right after this. All right, man, we are back to the break. This is our Friday flight and we are covering some of the different stories

we came across this week. And it's time now for the ludicrous headline of the week. Uh. And this one comes from the Wall Street Journal and it reads, congrats you've won a higher electric bill. Uh. That headline caught my attention on Gotta Read this one. This one was by James Handley. He wrote about just something that's happening to folks in the city of Yonkers, New York. Residents. They're getting mailers telling them that the city is migrating

to renewable energy. Yeah, it sounds great. I like electric vehicles. I like solar power. There's actually a solar farm by Georgia Power south of town that we often drive by, you know, on the way to the beach sometimes and we're like, I, it's marvel at it's super cool. It's cool. Almost makes it feel like you're kind of like back in your skate Scandinavian home or you're like, look at how this renewable energy. But here's the thing. There's a catch.

You know, the mailers that folk were receiving and it wasn't all that easy to find, And it turns out that if residents don't opt out of this transition to renewable energy, their monthly bills we're going to increase by nine I would be totally piste if that was me. Yeah, that that is rough. That like, literally, hey, next month, we're gonna jack up your electricity bill by almost twenty if you don't opt out. I hate that you have

to actually take an action. It's not that you can opt in and pay more if you so choose because you care that much about renewals. It's the opposite, and they hit it, which is crazy, and this could potentially cost folks hundreds of dollars or more in electricity bills every single year. And so yeah, the lesson here, I

think is to read the fine print. While you and I'm at were all about the proliferation of alternative sources of energy and exploring wind energy and solar energy, sol solar energy continues to get better and better, and the cost continue to go down further and further, and it's gonna become more a part of how we get energy

in this country, which we think is good. But pulling the wool over people's eyes in a mailer that most people are going to quickly throw in the waste basket, assuming that it is trash like, that's just an awful way to go about it. And so yeah, just to the city of Yonkers, New York, do better. Yeah, it's always important for folks to know and to have the option to decide what they want to pay for do. Let's talk about media, because the democratization of media, it

has become an interesting phenomenon to watch. It wasn't that long ago Americans, they used to get all of their news, all of their information from, you know, like the three main channels, like Walt Walter Cronkite. He was the voice that everyone trusted. Uh. Then after that cable came along, they gave us a bunch more options, not only for news, but for entertainment as well. But the information environment now makes cable like looks like a joke. Basically, it's it's

been crazy to watch. But many podcasters, YouTube creators, TikTok influencers, they all have more viewers and they hold a lot more sway than even the legacy media companies. But the thing is that also comes with some trade offs. In one of those is figuring out who you can trust

to give you that information that's not gonna lead you astray. Uh. The ecount of this, they actually had a great article about the proliferation of personal finance advice on TikTok uh and it turns out that nearly twenty percent of young folks turned there for financial advice. Is that an awesome thing. Well, you know, we wouldn't say it's necessarily awesome, but maybe

it's not the worst thing ever as well. Yeah, yeah, I think the democratization of media, like you said, has had trade offs where it's like, man, you can get some of the most interesting, curated content that kind of fits you like a glove, as opposed to having three choices and picking, you know, the one that you like kind of the best exactly. And so it shocked me though that this many people are turning to to TikTok for financial advice. I guess to a certain degree. Um,

I guess. You know, we've got a lot of influencer friends in the space who are using that actually for good. They are doing good work on TikTok and they are putting helpful information out into that space. And but here's the thing. You know, some while some of these new media creators they're smart, they're earnest, um, they're reaching people where they're hanging out, which I think is a good thing.

They're giving helpful advice. But at the same time, we would say that you need to be careful who you trust to give you information. Don't take every piece of money advice you here on social media to heart, because there are a lot of bad pieces of information out there too, and that's in part because of some folks. Well they might mean well, but they don't have necessarily the depth of knowledge to broadcast advice to the whole world and kind of give you a thorough understanding of

a topic. And I don't know that TikTok is built for thorough understandings of a topic anyway. Right. Um, On top of that, there's been this proliferation of scams on social media. That's according to a new report from the FTC from the Federal Trade Commission, so reported losses from social media scams in the year they were eighteen times what they were in seventeen. That's a massive jump in just four years. So, yeah, we just wanted to put

this warning out there. It's totally fine if you're on TikTok and you like the dance videos and if you find the right people to follow on there, you can get some helpful money advice for how you live. But there are also are people out there who aren't worth following, and you know what, they might even lead you astray, They might even scam you out of money. That's right, Yeah, so kind of along those lines, let's talk about giving money away. Let's talk about philanthropy, not to scam artists,

nonprofit organizations that you want to support. Uh. And you know, we're also seeing headlines too that aren't just detailing the millions that are being donated from like the world's richest folks. Although I saw that Melinda French Gates, she's slowing her role a little bit. She's not gonna be giving away like all of her money, you know, definitely billions and billions, but maybe not all of her billions. Gonna keep a couple of bill in the nest, the nest egg and

you know, in her allies, heavy's accountably. Yeah. I was gonna make a joke about another bill not paying in the nest anymore. Let's not go there. Uh. But there's an article from the Journal this week that was all about how fintech companies are starting to make it easier for everyday folks to give their money away. Some are specializing in microphilanthropy, and so think about it sort of

like acorns, but for giving your money away. I thought that was really cool because you know, if you're looking to give more of your money away, this year, but you can't seem to find the room in your budget. Maybe downloading an app like round up um not the Monsanto chemical. That's the first thing I thought of when I saw that round up. Yeah, well that app that might help you to be able to give some of

that money away without feeling the pinch. And the thing is too, you know, those donations are still going to be tax deductible as well. However, if you are thinking about stepping up how much you're looking to give away this year, you're not just looking to give away that spare change. Daffy is still one of the coolest apps out there that that can help you to do that. We discussed Daffy in more detail towards the end of

last year. But the fees are microscopic and it's an easy way to give investments like stocks and crypto as well. It's a way for you to set up a donor advised fund. That's why they call it Daffy, but they help to facilitate that in a way that makes it really easy to give away more of your money. That's right, and I believe the website is daffy dot org if you want to check it out. But we'll also link

to it in the shout ups for this episode. But yeah, I think that's a really good goal to have, Matt, you and I talk about how to give away money and why we should give away mo any and we just think it's good for our overall attachment level to money, how we think about it and view it, and if we can see the money that we make doing good in our community, you know, and and donate it to organizations that are doing great work where near where we live.

I think that's just kind of a great use of money and something that we should we should strive to do more of. But let's talk about cars for a second. We um, we actually talked in depth about that on Wednesday's episodes. You listen back to that, that's right, So if you're like, Okay, how do I buy a car? That's what Wednesday's episode was all about. And uh, yeah, we we mentioned our love for the extended return policy that some of the online car companies offer these days.

Carbon and CarMax both make it really easy to take that car for a week or a month even and kind of decide whether you like it or not, and you can bring it back no questions. Asked if you don't, well, I guess forward. They ended up liking that business model too, because they just announced that they're going to offer a two week, one thousand mile return policy on use cars

sold at for d of ships. And this trend is just so great because you can get that extended test drive to the side whether you like the car or not, because, let's be honest, like a three mile or two mile test drive close by the dealership, it's just not quite enough time to know whether this is a car that's gonna work for you long term. And yeah, it gives you extra time to get that car checked out by

your mechanic as well. And so yeah, they even have a website where you can peruse their used car selection. It's called Ford Blue Advantage, and so yeah, there's just more options and more competition in the used car space. And on that site, they're not just selling Ford vehicles. I think the majority are Ford vehicles. We can find some Hondas and some Toyotas and some Chryslers and some other stuff in there too, And so yeah, we just

wanted to highlight this trend. It's a good one. Make sure when you're buying a car it's good to prioritize that no questions asked return policy. It's a big helper. Yeah, I think it can be helpful to see it in your driveway for a few days to be like, all right, does this feel like my car? Or is this somebody else's car? Maybe I should take it back. We talked

about taxes a couple of weeks ago. I'm definitely curious to know if any how the money listeners if they end up using that free tax filing service from Square or cash app specifically, but they call it cash app taxes. But if so, drop us a line and let us know what you think of it, if you give it a shot. One other thing though, that we've got to mention on the tax front. According to the numbers, typically three and four folks get a tax refund. That's not

necessarily a great thing. However, it can be a great thing for your ability to be able to quickly pay off some credit card debt, maybe too rapidly, fund your emergency fund that you've ignored, maybe it's on the back burner, maybe it's been languishing. But it is also great for your ability to put more money into I bonds. There is a ten thousand dollar annual cap, but it has this one exception. You can use your tax refund to buy up to five thousand dollars more and I bonds.

And so if I bonds or your jam right now and they are pretty great, that's a good thing to know that you can slide an additional five thousand dollars for a total of fifteen thousand dollars into I bonds this year. Yeah, And the reason we've been talking about I bonds so much more than we have in years past these last year and a half, as inflation has just you know, sort through the roof. You can get right now the going rate on an I bond because

it mirrors the rate of inflation. And so seven point one two is what you're going to get on that night. And you know we've talked about the specifics before. And make sure that you don't need that money for at least a year, because you have to lock it away for a year if you do decide to purchase I bonds um. But if you've got some, you know, a big fat refund coming your way, it can be a good place to put that that that refund for your future.

And there's also a good chance that your tax refund is going to be smaller this year, specifically if you already received half of your child tax credit as an advanced last year, and so yeah, it made like the end of last year on the fifteenth, just always a sweet day to look forward to when you saw that money show up your account if you have kids. Yeah, hundreds of dollars for many families every single month where

was getting placed into that into their accounts. But don't forget that that happened, because that's not that's money that you're not gonna be receiving, you know, with your fund exactly. Yeah, and so if you happen to receive any unemployment conversation in um, the same thing is going to be true

because of the pandemic. You've got a tax break for unemployment received back in but not so don't let it come as a shock if you're refunded small or smaller, or if you even oh a little bit more this year. Those are things to kind of put on your radar as you're getting ready to file your taxes, which I mean, you know, obviously you still got time, but people are starting at you know, people that are on the ball, they're starting to getting going with it. Time to ramp

it up. I'm not on the ball. I'm not going with you. I've slowly gathered my documents, but i haven't sent them in yet. I've got like a folder and I'm just like putting everything. That's that's all. You gotta do. That way, as stuff kind of shows up in your in box, you canel all right, let me go download that PDF for whatever it is that they're sending your way. But dude, that's gonna be it for this episode. We hope everyone has a great weekend. We will see you

back here on Monday. We've got a great ask how the Money Listener Questions episode lined up for you and so Joel. Until next time, Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out, M M