Friday Flight - A Prime Pricing Hack, Discount Airlines, & Early Retirement Idiocy #474

the news impacts our money. By the way, if our voices sound slightly off, I think there there's been like some sithness going around, and you know, you and I got the sniffles work together, like I don't know, four feet apart. No, it's not my wife test ever COVID this morning, we as well is not. But uh yeah, Fortunately, um we are still well enough to host this podcast today. And even if we were, I mean, come on, I'd have to have like a knife wound to the stomach

to not sit down and record with you. My friends were like the postal service in that regard where it's like through through rain, sleet, and snow, like the Kevin Costner postal Service, like even through an apocalypse. Right, you're willing to be there, but hey, heads up. Valentine's Day it's on Monday's, right, you guys, do y'all celebrate not not typically we're not huge Valentine's Day people, but I do have a plan to get my wife something this year that's a little outside of the box. Um, but

I did. I think it's important to note that one you have to define expectations with your partner about Valentine's Day, because I think that's probably where the mishaps happen when it's like I didn't think we celebrated Valentine's Day, but your partner thought that you did. And hopefully that's something you learned early on, right, because like as a kid, you forget the first one and they're like, what's your problem?

Is a huge deal. I mean, I didn't celebrate, like it wasn't something we celebrated in my household as a kid growing up. Obviously, when you go to school, you do the Valentine Exchange at school, so everybody celebrates with a certain teenage muting Ninja turtleal Valentine's your hand up your classmates. But then once I started dating Kate realized it was more important. So it's a part of our life, but we don't spend a lot of money, and I

think that's kind of the difference here, right. I think some staff of flowers cooking, cooking dinner is like a nice way for me to show her that I care. But we're not, like, we're certainly not going out on Valentine's Day night to get dinner some fancy joint Valentine's Day prefixed dinner that's gonna cost you an rmnal leg not doing that. I came across some stats actually and lending Tree, they had a survey out and uh, the average person is looking to spend around two dollars, which

is a lot of money. There's a lot of money, um and interestingly, millennials are looking to spend the most. They're closer to three. And so I'm not saying that I'm not here to like yuck on your yum if that's you, because a lot of folks, I mean, Kate's roommate actually in college, it's like it was like her favorite holiday the whole year. Her name was also Katie,

but like Valentine's Day was serious. And so I'm guessing that's a holiday that they actually they probably do spend a good amount of money on in their household that is okay, but make sure, like you said, Jill, you talk about it with your partner and definitely make sure you actually have the money set aside, right, Like it's okay to celebrate, just make sure you're not going into debts in order to buy the red and pink stuff. Yes, exactly, well, and I wanted to note, like maybe where you shot

for flowers matters a whole lot too. I think if you're an Amazon Prime member, you can get two dozen roses at Whole Foods for twenty bucks, which is a really good deal. And um, the other places I like to get flowers are Costco and Trader Shoe's if you have one of those nearby, I think those are two of the best places to get really good looking flowers for a reasonable price. And so yeah, just where your

shot matters too. And if you're getting the delivery to the office like that is going to accept your lot. I've never done that, I never will do that, and I've never understood it because you've never been that wealthy. Right, So and I get I you know, I think I get why some people do it, but it's something that

I'm personally appointing. Um, And so yeah, hopefully you have a great Valentine's Day on on Monday, and um, it just kind of heads up now to start start paring and figure it's almost too late, yes exactly, But all right, Matt, let's get into the Friday flight the quickly sampling of stories that we found interesting this week. Let's talk about student loans and saving money on college for a second. Fort of those uh an anivil around the neck of

many people. Well, new information just came out and it actually reinforces how important it is for upcoming college students to file the FACTSA, which is this kind of annoying form that most upcoming college students do fill out, but sadly a lot of them don't. And because of that, many of these students are missing out on college grants that they would have otherwise received if they had just

filled out that pesky form. And so yeah, almost two million high school seniors didn't fill out the fast still last year, students leaving money on the table, right yeah, and so yeah, just about half of those students would have actually qualified for federal grants. And these are these are not like student loans, These are grants. This is free money that you don't have to pay back and all for just like not doing the busy work filling out the form um and yeah, it would reduce admission

us for a lot a low income students. Yeah, I mean, so the PELL grant alone, you're looking at close like that is I mean, like literally we're talking about thousands of dollars and that's just federal right because states and individual schools based their need based aid, you know, largely on the FASTA too, and so filing the facts that is just the number one step that everyone who is

like pursuing higher education should do. It can't hurt and for a lot of people that could provide massive levels of financial help and just dramatically lower the costs that you're going to incur for school. You might think like I can't afford to go to college, but if you felt the fasts that you might realize that, actually I can go for cheaper free. Yeah. I saw that some states actually, at Louisiana specifically, they require you have to fill out the FASTA in order to graduate. I love that.

I love that. It's just this thing that Okay, I'm sorry, like you have to fill out this form because, like you said, it could help students realize oh wow, Actually college is now It's back on the table, whereas before I didn't think that that was something I could do. Of course, that doesn't mean you have to go to college. You still have the option to. But I like how there's a quirement. I think it can just open a

lot more students eyes. And if you fail to fill out the fast, it's basically equivalent to not getting the full four one K match that your employer offers. It's a glaring error that will cost you money. And we understand it's a total pain in the butt, you know, the current fasts. It truly is this beastly annoyance. I think that's a part of the reason that many do

avoid it. Uh, you have to do it every single year, but the list of questions is supposed to get trimmed down and that should make a real difference in how many people end up filling it out. But until then, just suck it up and do it, because you know, like taking that hour or two to fill it out, it can result in thousands of dollars in aid that your student would otherwise forgo, likely leading to more student

loans in the end. Oh man, if you can just like do this and prevent more student loans like how how it's definitely a worth while the gift that keeps on federal student aid. They actually have this YouTube page with a helpful video that walks you through how to do it. It's really well done and we'll make sure

to link to that in our show notes. Okay, so, speaking of student loans and avoiding student loans through free aid from colleges and from the federal government, if you've got federal loans, well, you still don't have to pay them until May. And we're gonna see if that start back date ends up getting pushed back again. Who knows.

But in the meantime, uh INK reports that more employers are planning to help their employees pay off their student loans, and this is one of those company perks math that's kind of becoming more common over time, especially in the last like year to eighteen months, and that's largely thanks to the Pandemic Relief program that gives employers a tax break for providing some of that loan repayment assistance to their employees at least up to five thousand, two hundred

and fifty dollars a year. And the great thing is for that employee. They also don't pay any tax on that assistance either. So it's like this when when where both the employee employer are avoiding tax as long as that money is going to help you pay down student loans. And so yeah, if you have a pile of student loans, you're looking for an employer that offers this benefit, will link to a site that will actually help you find one.

SERI see this is a good employers exactly, Like this is a list of all the employers that will actually help you pay down your student loans. And it's one of those benefits I think we're going to see more and more of if it's being incentivized by the FEDS, Like I think more employers are gonna start offering it,

more employees are gonna start asking about it. Absolutely, so two things, like it became I think more of a benefit that employers were offering during the pandemic, but it didn't make it more popular because of course because of the forbearance, and so as we're getting closer to student loans resuming, that is something I think that more employees will be looking for. And also it's important to note that this is not only for federal student loans. UH,

private loans are an option as well. Just make sure you check with the benefit that your employer is offering. And so let's talk for a second about inflation. I feel like inflation they kind of have a standing there. They're they're a regular contributor here on the on the Friday flight. Yeah, especially like once a month we're talking about inflation. I guess, well, this is that week because

the new inflation numbers they just came out. The news wasn't shocking, and we're still seeing inflation running hot at seven and a half percent. Inflated prices are costing the average American in the neighborhood of two fifty dollars a month. This is according to Moody's Analytics. UH inflation. It's like it's just hanging around like mosquitoes in the summer at least Atlanta, right, Yeah, And honestly, with it being cold now,

we don't have mosquitoes. That's like the best part. Actually, really, it really is the best part of this cold weather. But while we're likely to see inflation trend downward, I think over the coming year we're still seeing higher prices in a bunch of spots that affect our budgets in in a real way. Food, gasoline, used cars, appliances for our homes. These are all different categories where we have

seen prices remain really high. Yeah, inflation obviously having a real impact, and with the FED set to raise rates this year multiple times, it's gonna be interesting to see what happens in the future with inflation, because, yeah, people are feeling the pain at the grocery store, at the gas pump, all those places. I mean, and you said rates going up, but like that's not necessarily going to fix supply chains, right right, So that's one of the I guess one of the criticisms. A lot of factors

there are. It's un of factors and so like honestly, and this sounds so very Unamerican, but what we have to do as individuals, if we're looking to curb the amount of inflation in allives, is change our spending habits. This is one of those situations where the solution doesn't

solely rest with the government. And this is also going to sound Unamerican, but I think for most of us that means eating less steak and bacon, and just because those are goes counter to Joel's commandments right exactly, but for for the time being, as those two things specifically have skyrocketed in price, that those are things you probably want to trim out of your your grocery bill as

much as possible. And and Matt, even with the current inflation reality we're faced with, there's this new study and it found that that most of us are more concerned with work life balance instead of and over a high paying salary. And so yeah, the numbers revealed that two thirds of folks um said that work life balance is more important than making a much higher salary. And so yeah, the numbers revealed that two thirds of folks prioritize that

work life balance more than more money. And I think we could probably all admit that how having both is ideal. Would be nice to make a good bit of money and then also have work life balance where at your home for breakfast, home for dinner, Like that's my goal every day is to be home for breakfast, home for dinner. But really, balance is key, and sometimes it is best to say yes to more money and even working longer

hours to get it. But we would just suggest that you think long and hard before you opt to go that route. You know, often that trade off means you'll have less personal time, less social time, less family time, and the fatter paycheck it won't make up for missing your kids soccer game, or or the flexibility that you might have um doing something else. And so I'm glad to see that Americans priority lies more with what their life looks like than accruing more and more money and

just having a fatter bank account overall. And so, Matt, we've actually got more what we want to talk about on the work life balance because there's a headline that got our attention about the fire movement. We're going to get to that in our ludicrous headline segment right after this. All right, we are back from the break and Joel, like you alluded to just a second ago, it is now time for the ludicrous headline of the week. Uh and this one reads Harvard trained economist says early retirement

is one of the worst money mistakes. Here's why you'll regret it. The modern path thing of the headline just brings me to tears almost on a weekly basis. I think I think we need to make sure that our friends in Colorado over there Longmont can make sure to restrain Mr Money must because he's gonna write his pedal his little bicycle over and this guy's glasses and laid

on the law with this author. Here's the thing that when you actually read this article, it's not as offensive as the headline might appear, as is often the case. So the reason that earlier retirement is such a mistake this is, according to the author, Lawrence Kotlikoff, is because Americans are lousy savers. Most people are going to run out of money pretty quickly if they quit their jobs too soon. And yeah, sure, retiring with little to no savings or investments, that's a bad idea. We would not

encourage it if you are one of these folks. If you're a lousy saver, you're gonna need to change that pretty quickly. If you don't want to work until you're like sixties or early seventies, it's gonna be hard to live the kind of life that you want to live in retirement if you bow out of the workforce too early. Um. And thankfully, though, for how the money listeners, early retirement, if approached well, is not a mistake that you'll regret. And luckily a lot of our listeners have plenty of

time to make sure that they have enough invested and saved. Yeah, I think for any of our listeners who have been around for a while, they've heard our thoughts on the Fire movement. We're not against it, but we're also not

like hook Line and Sinker all about it. And yeah, basically, even if you're a great saver and you've got the money to comfortably retire in your fifties or or even your forties, or for some of these like stringent Fire adherents who start young even in their thirties, that doesn't

necessarily mean that you should quit your job, right. And Yeah, one of our main beasts we would say with the Fire movement is when folks work as hard as possible to escape work that they don't really like, and so they sign themselves up for ten twelve plus years of doing something that is not enjoyable um in order just to achieve this goal in the future. And we think that people shouldn't said pursue days and weeks and years that are enjoyable right now, even if it means making

less money. Right. Just kind of like that survey revealed earlier, and in one of the last lines in the piece, the author actually says that he plans to die in the saddle, as he puts it, because his work is just to rewarding financially, intellectually, and psychologically. He says, to give it up. And I think that is something that I resonate with because I want to do something then do work that that resonates with me every single day.

And it's not like doing this podcast. Every day I get like enthusiastic, like when I pop out of bed because I'm like, can't wait to go and sit in front of the microphone and talk to Matt. We are real people, right, and and some days it feels like right. But overall I can definitely say that about this job is that it is all of the above of its rewarding in all those ways. It's overall the best job I've ever had, right, right, I mean, let's be honest.

The Eckerts Photo Lab. Still it was not there but parking golf carts back when I was a sixteen year old, but that one was not financially rewarding. But you you only get so many years on this planet, right, And so yeah, working sixty hours a week doing something you detest in order to retire ten or twenty years sooner. That's not something we would sign up for or that

we would encourage others to sign up for. Either. That's right, and yeah, I feel like one of the other things he was pushing back against, too, is almost like the sense of entitlement, like early retirement. It's something that we've all heard of now, and honestly, even retirement in general. To think that, Okay, once you hit a certain age you can just kick back and travel the world, it's like, well,

I don't know if that's actually true. Maybe you will be able to stop working, but maybe you won't have enough to travel the world. It all comes down to

what you've done in the meantime. And again, our listeners have so much time that they can position themselves to be set up for the kind of retirement or the kind of work that they want to pursue down the road, whether it is full retirement where they are just traveling doing the more traditional thing, or like you said, Joel, taking a job that pays a little bit less but you find way more fulfilling, something that's more sustainable that

fits better with your life. Those are the kind of things that we want to see how many listeners working forwards, continuing to work, maybe in the field that you love, but just reducing the hours. Or you know, my mom, I think I'm revealed recently that she took one day off of her work weeks she was working for now she's working three maybe next year, sing on to two like it's great, um, And I think we're time with the grandkids with you as well. She likes you all right,

and she prefers the grandkids. But um, which is understandable that far uter it's like grandparent life. But yeah, I think those are the kind of things that you can pursue. But if you're all about just like building up that stash of cash in in your investment accounts and you're thinking long term, we encourage long term thinking, but you can do it to the detriment of your everyday life in the here now, for for years on end, and that is something that is a travesty. Absolutely. Let's talk

about getting those cardboard boxes dropped on your doorstep. Amazon, they just announced that they're going to be raising the cost of Prime membership from a hundred nineteen dollars a year to a hundred and thirty nine dollars annually. If you subscribe on a monthly basis, the price is going to be ticking up by two dollars each month to so. But let's be honest. You know these price increases are

probably not devastating to your budget. But that doesn't mean that you should just hang on to Prime just because this is the perfect time to do the math and to decide whether or not you're getting enough value from your Prime membership or not. And because Prime offers so many benefits, it can be tough to figure this out. We are Prime members mostly because of the shipping, but they've got the Amazon Music, which we have been big fans of, especially ever since the Encanto soundtrack came out,

has been going NonStop in our household. We don't use the actual video streaming service all that much. What although, Lord of the Rings, when's that supposed to think? This year? Maybe maybe early next year even But I can get excited about that. Dude, did you start reading the hobbit? We did so good? It gets to be excited about seeing more of that scenery down there in New Zealand. It also makes me want to visit down there as well. But one other things worth considering is to only pay

for Amazon Prime on a month basis. UH. If you're not a heavy user, and so let's say you only need it, you know, maybe for half the year. If that's the case, you're only gonna pay ninety dollars instead of one forty. That can be a strategic way to approach your spending. If you know there's gonna be a certain period of time when you are going to take advantage of their services, that can be something that you

can be more strategic about. That's true. There are also ways to lock in the cheaper price right now before it goes up later this month, so where you can actually still stick that hundred nineteen dollar price tag on your renewal. You can basically purchase the Gift of Prime membership right now at the current rate and then apply it to your membership once it runs out. Just make sure that your membership is not set to auto renewed

uh in order to actually pull that one off. And theoretically, the word word on the street is that you can get multiple years by buying those memberships the Gift of Prime for other members of your family as well. Not I haven't done that personally, but evidently theoretically you could do that. Okay, all right, let's you know, worth we look into the fine details and figure out if there's an expiration for those, right, Yeah, well I think it's it's all before we decide, like, of course I have

to have this, I'm gonna stick with Prime. You have to think about the downsides that Amazon Prime has in your life potentially too, because it certainly has some benefits and some perks, and it's certainly helped a lot of people during the pandemic, but but you it can also turn us into horrible consumers who are completely insensitive to price.

I think the friction list one click sort of payment options that we have where it shows up to our door the next day or the day after or sometimes even in less time than that, like that is not a good thing for for us and our budgets. Basically, if our knee jerk reaction is to go to Amazon before we even chop around anywhere else and just buy the item directly there, that's a bad thing. Um. And so yeah, the reality is that Amazon can be Dr Jekyll or Mr. Hyde for us. It just depends on

on how we use it. So those are all important things to consider before you sign up for another year of prime membership, especially now that the price has increased. A right time now for our allow story that we're gonna cover during this episode. Folks who like discount flying, they will be happy to hear that Spirit Airlines may not exist for much longer. Well, it's funny you say that, because I think people who like discount flying are probably like, oh,

Spirits discount airlines. I'll probably choose that. It just depends on what you're looking for when it comes to your airline. But this is because fellow discount airline Frontier, they just announced that they're going to be that they're planning to buy Spirit Airlines, and these two airlines combined would become the fifth largest airline in the country. That is if the merger is approved by the Justice Department. So the big question is, you know, is this a good thing

for us as customers? As flyers. The two companies claim that merging will allow them to compete with the bigger four airlines while offering more savings to the flying public. And that might be true given the fact that those big four airlines they do of business uh in the domestic market. They could use a stronger fifth competitor that has a strong discount bias. But you know, at the same time, having fewer overall airlines thing at the heels of the big four will likely maybe be worse for

all of us out there. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see what happens, will less you know, but some of the smaller discount airlines, Matt, I think you're right, could potentially face even more severe headwinds. Um yeah, sorry, dad, joke there. If the merger does go through, I think, like, yeah, once you can create this fifth competitor, some of those other smaller competitors find it even harder to to keep

a foothold in an intensely competitive industry. And we as consumers, we need competition in the market in order to receive the most benefit and best product and service possible. But either way, it's gonna take a lot to try and

dethrone Delta, Alaska and Southwest. And you know what, all of those airlines do consistently rank in the top spots in the airline rankings, but Spirit their way down at the bottom of the list here and so um yeah, even if these airlines do combine, that doesn't necessarily mean

that their service is going to improve. But if you're looking for the absolute lowest price and you can travel with all of your things in a small backpack, then the fronts here, Spirit, you know, probably a good way to go, and we're all about jumping through some hoops

to save some money. And the other thing that people need to know, like, regardless of whether an airline says that they are, you know, a discount airline or not, Google dot com slash flights is a great place to kind of get the lay of the land for how much cheaper it actually is to fly a different airline, and very quickly you can get an idea of whether or not it's gonna be worth it to fly a

discount airline or not. Um And and just remember, if you're flying a discount airline like Spirit, there are all these random little fees that are going to get assessed. So the price that you're paying up front is not necessarily equal to the price that you're gonna pay at the very end. And so yeah, keep that in mind

as you're booking travel. Yeah, generally speaking, though, I'm all for it because of the fact that it provides more competition, right, I mean, that's capitalism when there is more competition, that leads to innovation and the ability for us as customers

to have options. I mean, that's I think in the end, that's what I want folks to have, because, like we're saying, if you want to kind of jump through all the hoops, you want to, you know, squish all your stuff into a purse and that's how you travel because you don't want to pay extra for an additional bag. I'm totally fine with that. But at the same time, if you want better service, if you want to sit in business class, you're not gonna fly Frontier or Spirit. You're gonna fly Delta,

and you're gonna be willing to pay that. As long as we have the freedom to choose and you know where our money goes, I think that's what I want to see more of. And as long as Frontier is offering that as a service that people are willing to pay for, then they will continue to do well. Yeah. And the great thing is if if either one of these airlines stops providing value or there are too many complaints, which, yeah, the word gets out, you go Southwest where it gets out.

And like these rankings do have an impact on whether people decide to fly with these airlines or not. And Spirit went through a crisis a few years ago and they had to change a whole lot of things about the way they communicated to customers about what they were paying for those flights because people felt taking advantage of on the back end Nicolon exactly, and so um, you know, Spirit has done a better job now communicating about what the fees are going to be and the trade offs

that you're making to fly with them. But one of the trade offs you're making is to save money. And if that's your primary goal, then for a lot of folks who can make sense to, you know, opt for one of those discount airlines like Spirit instead of one of the full fair airlines. That's right. So that's gonna be it for this Friday Flight episode. We hope everyone has a wonderful Valentine's Day weekend, and we will see

you back here on Monday on Valentine's Day. And remember we're going to be speaking with a financial therapist about love and money. You can look forward to that episode showing up in your pod catcher. So basically, I think what you can do is avoid the flowers or the fancy dinner out just listen to how to money with your partner because this is gonna be a compelling episode. Yeah, I don't do that. Do listen to the episode, but don't have that be uh in your own placements the

day activity actual Valentine's Day festivities. Yes, all right, Well that's gonna do it for this one, Matt. Until next time, best friends out, Best Friends Out,