Welcome to How the Money. I'm Joel and I'm Matt and today we're talking boa on blast, second home slip ups and buses are back.
Yeah, And by the way, we're not trying to mislead anybody when we say that, like a second home slip up, but it's not like you actually you stumble until like buying a second home. But there are some notions out there about real estate and investing and how smart of a decision that can be. We're gonna be talking about that, plus all of the other top stories that we came
across this week here in our Friday flight. And by the way, we call it a Friday flight because when you go to a brewery, you get that nice flight, that sampling of beers, you get a little taste of each one. You don't have to commit necessarily to one big story. And that's what we do here on the Friday flights.
But what's to cover every week right in the Personal Finance News and there's always a nugget takeaway for individuals like Okay, well, how does this apply to me? And so we got a bunch of good stuff lined up.
That's what we do.
Before you say, Matt, before we get to that. It just I wanted to mention I'm not a complainer by nature. I'm usually happy, go lucky fella. But in we've talked about recently, I've had like a bunch of stuff happened in my life, a lot of bad stuff. Really are difficult things, right, And one of those things was the tree full through my roof blah blah blah blah blah.
Not fun.
And then like soon after that we got rear ended, like the next week. Yeah, it wasn't long after that, And so dealing with the insurance companies on both ends has not been like a cup of tea. But one of the most annoying things actually for me, and hopefully the listeners can get something out of this, was that when my car, my car was totaled because it was so old that even just a fender benderman, it was total.
They're like, oh, this thing's done.
Yeah, it's worth about four grand. Yeah it needs like three grand worth of repairs. It's totaled, right, And so I got paid out on that. But the one thing that the insurance company refused to pay me for was the tax that I would owe when I were to buy another car of similar value, and so I pushed back repeatedly saying like, listen, no, I'm going to now I have to buy another one, and I'm going to incur sales tax and this is coming out of my pocket.
You guys should make me whole. And they disagreed, and they said, actually, the state not a standard thing. They said, the state doesn't require us. They only require it in a case where it's your primary insurance company covering your loss, not this third party company covering my loss because I wasn't at fault, which makes no sense. And so what I did. I reached out to the state insurance department
to file a complaint. Because there are always ways things at your disposal, right and like the CFPV we talk about that for consumer complaints. If you're having a problem with a bank or a financial institution, you can reach out to them and oftentimes your voice will get hurt and something will happen. Sadly, in this case, my voice did not get hurt. Oh but well it got heard at least.
But I was assuming there's gonna be a happy ending here. But I'm sorry, dude.
Well it's funny. Actually, at one point.
The interest could be like this, great takeaway for it for Everybody's just well, even if you don't get restitution, but you still got to try it. You gotta try.
Yeah, it's important to complain. I'm gonna, you know, I think I'm gonna take the time to write to my congress person and just say, listen, this isn't right that the insurance companies are not forced to make people fully whole in you know, in a case like this, But it sucks to Yeah. These are the kind of things that it's like a deductible on top of your deductible.
Yeah, you know, like it's money that you're having to pay in order to be me a whole. It sucks.
Yeah, which is it's just it's not right. But I want to encourage people. You know, you might not always, it might not always pan out in your favor. Lots of times it does. But in this case, it's still worth the complaint. It's still worth putting it on the radar of the people in charge and saying, hey, let's fix the system because this It doesn't make sense to hold insurance companies accountable in a primary insurance sort of case, but not in a third party case.
That's right, man, I like it well pay pretty soon. You're gonna be like a recent guest on the show, you know Espinal, and you're gonna be like a lobbyist. You're going to be there at the capitol change and changing the laws. Maybe maybe so how the money two
point zero is we get political? But h yes, this is our Friday flight and our first story this week has to do with the banks, because yes, Boa Bank of America, they just got slapped with two hundred and fifty million dollars in fines and refunds that they're having to sound like a big number pay back to customers. Let's be honest to them. It's probably not um change
it is. Hey, it's money, dude. But they regulators penalize the US's second biggest bank for a number of consumer abuses, including opening credit card accounts without consent, charging overdraft fees twice, and withholding credit card rewards. And so let's kind of let's dive into the details here. Let's itemize the crappiness of Boa here for a minute, because while they were not only charging insanely high fees when a transaction was
declined because of insufficient funds, but they were basically double dipping. So, for instance, l C, you didn't have enough money in your account and you're getting a three dollar coffee, you try to buy it, well, you were going to be charged in extra seventy bucks. It's thirty five dollars a pop for their insufficient fee.
But thirty five dollars wasn't enough for Bank of America. They said no, no, no, we're gonna We're gonna hit you twice for one transaction, which is just completely bugging.
It's it's bonkers. But they were also this is they were kind of taking a page out of Wells Fargo's book. They were creating unauthorized accounts because of sales incentive goals that were basically impossible to hit without cheating. And so not only did they pull credit reports, which of course hurt your credit score without asking you, but they also charged customers' fees on that account that they opened fraudulently
in your name. So there's always a nice, wholesome group of folks that we were counting over there at Bank of America.
Yeah, oh man, swell people who you just wanted to invite over for like family dinner or artecue.
Good people. The folks over the Boa.
Right now this year to infuriate every single person who has banked with Bank of America, or even if you haven't, like you should just make sure now to steer clear of them completely. Same with Wells Fargo. We've been banging that trump for years, but it gets even worse than that match. So let's let's continue to talk about how bad Bank of America is. They also didn't pay out
rewards as agreed on credit card sign ups. So let's say you hit your spending threshold and Bank of America says, now, we don't really feel like paying the you know, cash or travel awards that we told you were going to receive if you hit these these this sort of spending in a certain amount of time.
Yeah, they're trying to alienate everybody, not only the folks that don't have enough money in their count but also the folks who are trying to optimize and take their finances to the next level. Just in case they didn't piss off one grip, just let's just really stir the pot.
Yeah, exactly.
They don't.
They hate everyone equally, right, So it just seems like that they don't discriminate, no, no, and it seems like the height of arrogance to me, right, that there's just massive cultural rot some of the biggest banks, specifically Wells Fargo and Bank of America, and it's you know, they're often the worst place to go for loans, for savings, and for fees. I mean, like there's just no reason to do business with these guys at all. They treat their customers like dirt, and so we would take consumers
need to rethink which banks they do business with. And at some point it's on us if we continue to go back into the crappiest banks who are for the worst service and even you know, continue to commit criminal actions against our customers. It's almost like returning to a partner habitually who lies, steals and cheats you, right, I mean like this is at some point you have to say enough is enough, and I'm out of here. And
I think it's terrible what Bank of America did. I wish the CFPB had done even more to hold them accountable. But we have to now make a change. It's in our best interest, and staying with the big banks like Bank of America and Wells Fargo in particular, is a terrible idea really for any reason.
Yeah, I mean, you've got to vote with your dollars because shaming them, calling them out for the fact that they've done wrong, like that doesn't move the needle. For it, I don't think it'll feel shame. They don't care exactly. And it's the way that you're able to move the needle is by voting with your feet, voting with your dollars, and taking your business elsewhere. That is how they're going to respond. And it seems small.
I mean, I think we all want to take everybody wants to take a big action that but really to go down to the capitol, like, yeah, exactly, But it's a bunch of small actions, right, And yes it is an email here or there to your congress person, or it is actually taking your business elsewhere. It does make
a difference. And yeah, you can't single handedly, you know, bring Bank of America to its knees overnight, but a bunch of us doing the right thing over a period of time could see these banks being hurt substantially.
Yeah, Like it kind of makes me think of politics. There's the like there's individuals who get overly obsessed with politics, like on a federal scale, like national politics, right, But Oftentimes the biggest change you can make is locally, is by voting, is by pay paying attention to what's happening there at the local level. That's how you're going to be able to move the needle.
Or getting on the school board yourself, right as opposed to the Does the president have a difference, Sure, but like some of those local positions, you're right, have more of a day to day impact on our life.
Totally. Yeah. That being said, there is some good news on the banking front, because it's looking like more folks are avoiding some of the different banks out there that aren't paying much an interest. More customers are finally waking up. More folks are realizing that as the Fed has been raising interest rates, that the gap the discrepancy is growing between rates at different banking institutions. Folks are realizing that if they don't make the switch, that they are potentially
leaving a lot of money on the table. And if banks want to grow their deposits, they're realizing that they'll have to create a meaningful incentive to in order to either keep folks or attract new customers. There's more competition now than ever with banks like CIIT. We talk about them all the time. They're at like almost five percent right now betterment they've increased their payout to five and a quarter. Yeah, so keep that in mind. If you're with one of the big banks, it could cost you
on multiple fronts. It's time to ditch them. And I also know that talking about banking is kind of boring, but like it's so foundation, Like it makes me think about getting enough sleep. It's something that no one really talks about. And everybody knows that they should get the proper amount of sleep, but instead they stay up and watch TV. Guilty as charged. Like I do this too, but like you know deep down that this is something that you should do, but you just kind of keep
avoiding it. No, this is something you just need to do. Now, get enough sleep a but then also switch away from some of the big banks. Go with one of the banks that are going to treat you well, that are paying a decent rate. Yeah.
I rarely let TV mess with my sleep, but I did allow The Bear season two to do.
What did you really, Oh, we haven't talked about that. It's so good. You were you were like, oh, you should really watch it. I actually got Kate to watch it. That's the only reason I watched it. Okay, I only watched TV if I can get Kate to do it, because then we're spending time together.
One of the best shows that you dig it. Oh yeah, I thought it was pretty good. I thought season two is better than season one.
Really. Yeah, well they introduced the relational side of things, yes, but right, nice enough about TV. Yeah, yeah, but no, you're right.
It is kind in one of those Maull ring But man, when you see a bank doing things like this, hating on their customers so hard, and then you see, wow, wait a second, it's more than that. It's like they're still paying point zero one percent on savings, And then are these other banks who actually care about my business. They're trying to win me over as a customer. Why are we saying no and staying with the piece of craft institutions to treat us poorly. Let's not do that anymore?
All right?
While we're talking about banks, Matt, though, there's another lesson that all of us can learn from the bank failures that took place earlier this year. We've already talked about FDIC insurance. Everybody knows hey don't have more than two hundred and fifty K in a given account, because if your bank goes bust, you're out some of that money potentially, even though a lot of those deposits didn't actually lose money.
It's important to recognize the limits of FDIC insurance. But there's something else, though, that we can all glean from what happened those three bank failures, something we should avoid it all costs, and that is buying stock in the
company you work for. And when those banks failed earlier this year, a lot of employees lost not only their income but a chunk of their retirement savings at the same time because they've been investing in company stock, which is just super sad, like how it's like insult to injury, right, And so SVB and First Republic, they were both of them were encouraging their employees to do just that, to buy company stock with their retirement savings, which is bad advice.
Of course, that's what your employer wants, but that's not what's best for you. And they're not alone, Matt. This makes you think, my mom, she just retired from Lockheed. And they also pushed to their employees to own company stock for many years, and so it's just an incredibly risky move. It's one that people should avoid. It is it likely that the place where you work is going to go bust over night? You're gonna lose your paycheck
in your retirement saves of savings. I mean, no, it's probably not going to happen tomorrow.
Not but yeah, you never know. Yeah right. That's the problem here, is that you just don't know. And I think the only exception to this rule are the different ESPP plans, the employee stock purchase plan options or benefits that are available, because those can offer significant discounts for employees to buy some company stock. But even then, you've
got to pay close attention to the timeline. You've got to have an exist strategy so that you're not holding onto that company's stock indefinitely, but investing in your company stock inside of your four one K. This is a terrible idea because if you lose your job and you don't want your retirement dollars to get flushed down the toilet, at the same time, you got to make sure that
those dollars are divorced from your job. Basically and honestly, even if you're let's say you are employed by a different company, a different bank, or say someone's employed by Lockheed. Well that doesn't then mean that you now have permission to put all of your retirement dollars into a single stock company like SVB, because someone might be thinking, oh, no, I'm diversified enough, I'm employed by this company, and I'm investing in this company right here. Well, no, that's still
incredibly stinking risky. That's still putting all of your eggs in one basket. And even I was, so I was looking at the story closer sub like over the past decade, at one point the stock was up something like eight hundred to nine hundred percent, And so no wonder if folks were thinking, oh, yeah, this is this gravy train is going to keep on rolling. But it'd be a fool not to do that exactly, And so it makes sense as to why more and more folks were continuing to do that. But if you use.
Around the water cooler, everybody's talking about how you know their retirement accounts growing faster than everybody else's.
Because but you look at it now, But I did, I.
Invested in this company, and this company.
Is rocking now. They're at negative one hundred percent over the past ten years, so it is is too risky. It's why we recommend for folks to widely diversify their retirement dollars in index funds. Either invest in the entire stock market or invest in the S and P five hundred. That is how we want you to invest your retirement dollars. Yeah.
Yeah, it might work out. It's not necessarily going to sink your battleship, but it could. It could, and you just don't want to put yourself at undue risk, especially when you're getting your paycheck from that.
Employer as well. That's just too much volatility associated with single stock investing, too scary. Ye, all right, if you want to do it with a small percentage, I mean, this is I don't want this to turn it into an entire investing episode, but like you want to put five percent of your investable dollars into a single stock, sure, because guess what if you lose all that five percent? Yeah, you still got a lot of the rest of your nest egg that's unscathed. Yeah.
One guy quoted in that article had put just a small amount in company stock in one of these banks, and he said, well, yes, the icing was taken off the cake, but the cake was still there, still got the cake. And I'm like, hey, that's if you want to do that, that's fine, but just make sure the cake is still there at the end of this.
Right right. Yeah, And that guy isn't financially ruined, but a lot of people weren't. So well, how about you take it? Okay.
I was just gonna say, let's get to the story about second homes. It's fascinating. Some of the worst financial advice I've seen in recent memory. We'll discuss that and more right after this.
Yeah, we're back from the break. Yes, speaking of terrible ways to invest your dollars. We're gonna get to our ludicrous headline of the week, and this one comes from the brilliant minds.
Over there at Yahoo Finance. The headline the dunce, cap on them and put them.
In the corner. Headline reads, two thirds of wealthy Americans own a second home. Here's why everyone should consider this investment. So there does folks, go ahead, buy that dope condo and Malibu, buy that second home in Jackson Hole or out in the Rockies in order to build wealth. Who knew that is going to be that easy? But of course basic flaw with this piece is that they are mistaking correlation and causation. Right. Is it that buying a vacation home is going to increase your net worth in
a substantial way? Or is it that those who already have significant resources, who are already wealthy, that they're out there buying second homes. It's clearly the latter, right, Buying a vacation home is not going to make you rich. It's folks who are already rich who are buying those homes. It's like somebody looking around and being like, oh man, all the wealthy people I know have Rolexes. I need
virolex because maybe then I'll be I'll be wealthy. Yeah, people, I don't even know if people wear fancy watches anymore, but some people do. It's it's iPhone fourteen pros like you fancy pants.
I know, Joel's. Hey, I'm still holding on to my Cassio though.
So you win, some you lose. That's right, Welcome to the Apple side. Okay, soft friend, Maybe i'll tell that story a later day. Yeah, but you got it on sale, so yeah, but I don't know if I made the right move. Well, really, it's it's a nicer piece of hardware, but I don't know if I like the software quite as much. You having some regrets, but maybe it's just like old me being an old man, being an old curmudgeon. It's gonna take me a few takes a second to
get used to the iOS. You literally have never had an iPhone never, Yeah, so this is I've only ever had an iPhones. Yeah. I think it's the greatest thing ever, all right, And I love that I can actually like your texts and when you like like it, just does it in the proper way now instead of old green bubble Joel.
Okay, I don't care about the bubble colors, but I know some people do. Let's keep talking about second homes, Matt, because here's the thing. If you've got the cash on hand and you you really want a vacation home to make family memories in or whatever, go for it. It's okay to splurge in that way, we'd say, but do not think of it as an investment unless you're actually going to rent that puppy out on Airbnb for most of the year, Like I have a buddy. He did
that in Chattanooga. He lives in California, but man, he does well with it, and he gets to use it every you know, or two or three weeks a year. And so the truth is homes require repairs, maintenance, and upkeep, and a beach home in particular, because that saltwater and stuff like that is going to deteriorate the paint and the HVAC even quicker, so you're going to have to spend even more to keep that home up. All your hardware is rusted, like everything is rusted on the outside
of a beach exactly. And so, you know, buying a second home that's purely for family fun, it can be a great goal to have if that's what you're into. But please don't read articles like this and assume that a vacation home is your ticket to wealth. It's not. It might be the opposite. Actually, in a purchase like this, it really is just a lifestyle play because there are just so many superior investment strategies that also come with
fewer headaches. I also know, Matt, some people who own that a vacation home, when they take a trip there, it feels less RESTful because they're seeing all the things that they need to do to fix up their own place. Whereas if they rented it off to go there for a work week, yes, to kind of basically open the house back up. I have heard these phrases. Yeah, it's like if you it said, if you rented for a week or two on Airbnb or burbo, it's like you can go hassle free. So I mean, it's up to you.
But it's more than anything. It's certainly not some sort of winning investment that's gonna put you over top and make you a millionaire overnight.
That's right. Yeah, there are certainly worse ways to spend your money. Like I'm thinking of folks who go out there and I like, you buy a new car, the minute you drive it off the lot, you lose like ten percent, right because it's no longer a new car, it's a used car. But I don't think there's folks who are buying new cars who are fooling and convincing themselves. They're not delusional into thinking that, oh, this is an investment.
And oftentimes I think when it comes to vacation homes, that is the mindset where you are fooling yourself into thinking that you've essentially talked yourself into making that purchase. Thinking that it's a wise financial move. It might be, but again there, like you said, there are better investment options out there for folks.
It's not that it won't go in value. It probably will, but it's probably still not a great financial move. It's not a great investment if you're doing it just to grow your net worth. There are better ways to do that.
That's right. Let's talk about buying more affordable stuff online. Not not houses per se, but watch out for final sale items when you're making purchases online. We're seeing more and more retailers who are resorting to this method in an attempt to avoid those costly returns which are eating into online retailer's profits. Yes, you might get a better price if you see something that's marked as final sale.
But what if you don't like the fit? What if you don't like the item because it's not something you've ever ordered before, right, Like, if that happens, like you are stuck with that item and you were out the money, and you.
Thought it was mustard yellow on the site, but it turns out it's pute green and.
You're like, dang it, no, wait, this is a this is canary. We have talked about how like a lot of retailers they're already cutting down on free returns or they're making you jump through more hoops in order to return an item, like returning it to a designated location, a physical location of their choosing. But the uptrend in final sale items that could catch a lot of folks
off guard, costing them a lot of money. You know, I think it's it's probably only worth it if you know that specific brand or if you know that style
really well. I think that's an advantage to a more boring approach to clothing, which I feel like I've taken up recently, is that once I find it like there's only a few shirts or shorts or paints that I own that I actually wear or that I really like, and so whenever those things those bad boys go on sale, I know the exact size, I know the exact thing to get, and I'm there's no risk there. You're just
buying a backup. It's just a backup because eventually this one's and sometimes I'll you know, I don't even wait. It's not like I wait for one to wear out. I've got like different versions of them, the same thing. I've got my different Matt uniforms, but certainly an advantage to a less adventurous form of clothing yourself.
Which I mean, I think is probably better suited to males who do wear more boring wardrobes. I don't know, it depends on the person. I guess depends on the.
No the ladies out there doing the capsule wardrobe where they're keeping things simple as well.
So which, Yeah, I like that approach. And I think final sale, like you said, could save you money, but it also could cost you if you're like, eh, I don't really like this thing. The other thing too. I guess maybe if you're great those return policies. Yeah, if you're great on eBay, you might be able to flip it for a property. I mean, i'd say, Okay, if I don't like this, well, they're only charge with me
twenty bucks. I know I can get thirty on eBay, then okay, if you don't mind going through that jump through those hoops, give it a shot. But speaking of shopping, Matt, there was a c NET article and it was talking about specifically buying TVs, and they were suggesting that you go with the older model, which we've talked about in the past. Two like Hey, when new models come out, the old model gets discounted. Why not save a few bucks?
And this is true when we're talking about clothing, right last season's clothes, they often go on sale, like if you buy them right when they hit the website, there's no discounts yet. That right, but right now, if you're buying a winter jacket, you might save more money than you would come like September. But yeah, c Neet talked about how TVs are pretty similar to smartphones in a whole lot of ways, that the improvements are just minor
and incremental every single year. So going with an older model, a twenty twenty two model will save you a lot of money and you're not really sacrificing very much. And so the other thing to remember here is that November in January or the two best times to buy a TV. Our suggestion would be own fewer TVs, maybe just.
One, and don't us TV in general.
Yeah, and don't work for the bear for the bear.
But evidently it's Joel and Matt.
Approved, which means you know it's good two thumbs up, or like Siskel and Eber.
A lot of the way, or should we start reviewing reviewing shows, we'll think about. It kind of goes counter to what we're saying watching watching TV, right, which, yeah.
But man, I had the same TV for ten years before we upgraded. It was one like the first flat screen I bought back in a Black Friday, like two thousand and six or something like that. And one other thing I wanted to say. We've talked about Telly and the basically how you can get a free television from Telly that's going to display ads across the bottom. I actually I signed up. I'm gonna see if I can get one.
So did you really?
Yeah, I'll let you know what happens. I kind of changed my tune on it and I was like, why not free TV?
I don't care?
And I got one of my buddies said, well, what if you put like tape across that bottom advertising screen? You put just like a big black piece of paper over it. And I was like, yeah, actually that could work. So we'll see if I get one.
It sounds like Joel's taking the more ratchet approach, but I like it. I like it, but I also hate it because like this makes me think about is it the time you survey that shows that Americans like like, aside from sleeping, which kind of mentioned earlier, Like the number one thing that they do is watch TV. Like it's literally America's number one hobby. It's it's like America's pastime, which I hate, like it kind of makes it makes
me sad. But I think there's a lot of folks who are talking themselves maybe into making some of these upgrades and getting the newest model because to them it's the craft beer equivalent. Yeah right, they're thinking, well, this is this I love TV because of that, they're maybe one of the newest models. And maybe they're justifying it too because TV's are pretty cheap, they're pretty affordable. They've only gone down and they've only gotten done in price.
It doesn't cost you much money, but it costs you in a whole lot otherwise. Yeah, it costs you your soul something like that as much TV. Let's talk about the auto industry because the car market is softening. We all knew that use car prices that they wouldn't continue to appreciate in value forever, but we also didn't know
how long this odd trend was going to last. There are now more unsold cars onto dealer lots than we've seen in years, and this is typically measured the unit of measurement that the use is called the day's worth of supply, and so that is up to fifty three days, which is a seventy five percent increase from a year ago. And an abundance of evs is the main reason why we've already I think the number of evs on lots, if you only look at that sector, it's something like
one hundred. It's over one hundred days. We've already seen Tesla prices drop like a rock.
And by the way, I think the average just so people know, is like sixty days. So we're still not back even to normal supply on most car lots, but we're trending, but we're we're heading in that direction exactly. And we're also at an overabundance of eve.
Ev specifically because well, it makes sense because the car manufacturers have figured figured it out. But folks, I think there's a lot of folks who are unwilling because of the infrastructure. The technology isn't quite there. They'll allow you to do like a cross country road trip feasibly, and then the infrastructure, like there aren't as many charging stations as there are gas stations, and I think that's going to be the tipping point that allowed that gives people the peace of mind.
I think price was another factor, although that's starting to change too.
Yeah exactly. I mean also forward, they just announced a ten thousand dollars price cut on the Lightning, on the entry level Lightning, after having jacked up the prices significantly
after the truck debuted. But more ev models are coming down the pike, which just means that prices are likely going to decrease even more as more competition enters the market and overall with the car, the car market, you know, we may not be back to pre pandemic levels, but at least we are finally moving past the upside down car market that we've been in for a few years now. Hopefully it'll become a little more affordable to replace that old ride if you've kind of been limping along there.
Yeah, And I think and EBE is starting to make more and more sense. Is financially speak for a minute, those prices were soaring a couple of years ago, and it was even though you were going to save potentially on maintenance costs and gas costs, it just didn't make financial sense. It might make more financial sense for more people now when they get certain models, especially when you
factor in the federal tax credit on top of that. Right, but let's something else on the car front, Matt, Lenders are getting more cautious when they're giving out loans right now. We talked on Wednesday about the importance of having a good credit score and the massive downsides to having a
bad one. Well, it can impact you in a number of ways on your personal finances, right and so it's even more important right now to have a good credit score because banks are tightening their lending standards, and close to one in five folks to apply for an auto loan right now, they're being rejected straight up. So that should be kind of enlightening to all of us, letting us know that we should do a few different things if we're looking to buy a car. One, improve your
credit score. If you want to know more about that, go back and listen to Wednesday's episodes if you haven't, and we've got other resources on how to money dot com to teach you how to increase your credit score. Also, save up more money. The more cash you have on hand, the less you have to finance. Maybe maybe even you can pay for that car fully in cash, which would be awesome. So the next thing, that's what we recommend,
buy a cheaper car. If you get turned down, it's like, hey, maybe you're looking at for something that's too expensive, that's out of your financial wheelhouse. So opt to find something that's cheaper, that's a little older maybe but still in good condition. And then also have a good relationship with a local credit union. You're going to get better rates that way. Anyway, credit unions are the best place to turn for financing for most things, including oftentimes new and
used cars. So follow all those tips and hopefully this tightening lending standards in the auto industry, they're not going to impact you negatively.
Yeah yeah, and again, just save up cash and you can avoid that headache all together because you're not Joel. Have you ever paid interest to on a car? Note therefore, boom.
See if I financed a car one time because I got a zero percent though, and it was it was a new car. Is the only new car I've ever purchased, but it was an EV and it was back when there was a state and a federal incentive to buy it.
You're able to.
Double dip normally though, I don't know if you'll ever catching a new car ever again. Yeah, well not only a new car, but again just the the financing part of it, because you are it's just a bad move because you are financing a depreciating asset, and so I get. I just want to end on that note with as we're talking about cars and lending, because like, I don't want to beat around the bush, like it's just a much much smarter financial move. You can save up cash
buy that thing outright. But while you're doing that, you might be thinking, well, how am I going to get around? How am I supposed get around if I don't have a car at all? Well maybe you could take the bus.
Yes, in our mind, bus travel it never went away, but apparently it's back with a vengeance. We've talked before about Megabus. That's a pretty solid company. They offer fairly an expensive bus trips around the country.
Have I detailed the time I went round trip to New Orleans? I think for eleven dollars round.
Trip, I think like back in the day, Yeah, eleven dollars though that's like I was like twenty ten prices.
So yeah, I haven't taken megabus in I don't know, probably.
Do they still have the like where they sell off the first few seats for like one dollars yep, that's amazing. Yeah, And it's like the Costco dollar fifty hot dogs thing. It's like, yeah, a deal that you are can't be beat.
And some of those decently comfortable seats and Wi Fi on board that kind of stuff, So it's it's really not that bad. I know most people are like the bus, what are you talking about?
But we want folks to consider it. There's nicer buses now well, and especially given the problems that the airlines have experienced this year, it seems that folks are even more keen to stay on the ground when they travel. So Flicks and Greyhounds, it's they're owned by the same company,
but they both experience a significant serve and writership. And obviously it's probably not going to be as quick as the flight in most cases at least, but it could be a whole lot cheaper, especially for folks who may not have a car. I think for a lot of folks who live in major cities like New York or something like that, you might be thinking, oh, the only way I get places is either take the subway or
I fly somewhere. Nah, consider the bus. It's at least worth considering, checking the prices and seeing if it's worth the different trade offs for sure.
All right, that's all of good stuff today, Matt. And if you ever have a suggestion, by the way, a story you want us to cover, or in particular a ludicrous headline you think we should mention on the show, we'd love to.
These are always fun.
You can always reach out. Our email is how to Moneypod at gmail dot com, and you can find show notes and links to some of the stuff we mentioned up on our website at howtomoney dot com.
That's right, And if you like the show and haven't left us a review yet, head over to Apple Podcasts or or wherever you listen. It helps us to get the word out. Just click the five stars on Spotify. That helps. It's so easy to do. But we hope everyone out there stays cool, stay hydrated during this weekend. And Buddy, that's going to be it for this one until next time. Best Friend's Out and best Friends Out