Friday Flight - Child Labor, Equifax’s Idiocy & Utility Bill Hacks #549

this is our Friday flight. We were talking about the stories that we came across this week, the stories that we think are going to pertain most to your personal finances. And uh, oh, by the way, let's before we forget, let's announce the winners from the How Do Money giveaway. These are folks who not only left us a review on Apple Podcasts or podcast Addict wherever it is that you listen, but you sent us an email because that

is how you officially enter into the sock giveaway. Uh And we ran all of those names through the randomizer of everyone who reached out to us, and we've got five winners and they are Kindle m Matt w Amanda p and the handro s and Nate S. You are all sock winners and we will be reaching out to you for your mailing address to get those most beautiful socks on their way to your feet. There's some sexy socks.

I'm not gonna lie, and they're gonna look good on all five of you, So yeah, I'll ship those out. I wish I had five pairs, you and I. We only have one pair? Right, how many do we order here? We don't want to be wasteful. We we ordered a bunch of them, but we're also we're kind of we're kind of frugal, and so I think we're like, Okay, you get a fair, I get a fair. You want to reserve them for mostly for listeners? Should we save them for Fridays? Is that when we should always wear

our how To Money songs Friday? Like fun Friday stuff. But yeah, you folks can't expect to hear from us soon, and there will be other opportunity for everyone else out there to get a pair of custom performance crew how to Money socks. Right right before we get to kind of the Friday flight matt our listener David actually on the note of socks, sent us an email with a

story from the Washington Post story. Yeah, Okay, this guy, this customer of Bass Pro shops, had been buying the socks that were guaranteed for life, and so he would return them on occasion when they got holes in them, and and they would replace them, no problem. But it sounds like the last time he went there, they said, okay, well now you're exchanging them for ones that have a

a sixty day guarantee. No longer are they guaranteed for life, And so he is the complete doing They changed the sock, right, like the sock used to have a lifetime war two now the sock only it's the same sock. But they're just like, yeah, we're we're not going to guarantee it for life. And exactly, yeah, that's they're saying that this. We don't stand behind the product in the same way we used to. I guess what I'm saying is they

weren't targeting him. There were no they were like, oh, dudes, coming in again, we're targeting everybody because stick it to him. They're like, we're losing too much any on these socks, and people like this customer are going to run it out of been of this. So, yeah, what's what's your thought on that? Is it frugally or cheap to file a lawsuit against Basscrow shops when they kind of reneg

on their promise? Well for him to be upset about it, I think it's totally fine because I feel that way too. I've got a few pairs of I think I mentioned this last week, but darn tough. They've got lifetime warranties on their socks. And when I pay twenty dollars or maybe even a little bit more than twenty bucks, I am partly doing that because I want to be able to replace those socks down the road when they develop

poles in them, and that's something that they advertise. Were they to change that, well, that's the whole that's the whole reason I bought the socks in the first place. In insurance policy is a big part of the product you're buying, exactly, and and similarly, that's how this guy felt. And so like, would I file a lawsuit? I mean probably not like I sound like a snarky email or something like that. I would probably do that. But I think it's frugal for that guy if he wants to

do it. I'm happy that he's doing it, and I'm sure everybody else that has those socks are like, yeah, dude, because it's a class actually stand up for us lawsuit and they will. Hopefully I'll be able to participate in that. But I think this was a huge misstep on Bass Pro Shops. Party is bad press for them. Yeah, dude, they still could have treated the customers who maybe have already had those socks. Grandfather difficult to make create a

database or something like. I don't know, there there are ways for them to figure this out, but moving forward, Okay, now these socks moving forward will only have sixty days. I think there's a way that they could have found ways to cut costs. Is obviously that's what they're doing while still keeping a happy customer. When you have these are loyal instead of going cold turkey and just like

just chopping it off. Yeah, I feel like that's a loyal customer who says I'm buying your products because the guarantee and and yeah, you don't want a customer you want you don't want to upset the apple cart for something so small. Agreed, you can grandfather this guy in Bass Pro Shops do the right thing. Let's just let this guy have lifetime free free socks sending the right thing. Yeah, they're not doing the right Thing're gonna settle all right,

Let's get to our Friday flight. And the first story has to do with with miking. Google Maps has a new biking feature, a feature to help people bike better, and so there's a lot of bees going on right now. Well, we always say that the biking is basically exercise and the ability to save money all wrapped up into one thing. Although sometimes finding the right route that avoids traffic and some of the nastier hills out there can be tough.

So I think that holds a lot of people back from maybe hopping on their bike because they don't know what the safest route is to get to their destination, and they're worried that on their non ebike, let's say, they might encounter We used to have a hill when I was growing up called Big Bertha, and they're like, like, if I if I get on Big Bertha, man, I'm gonna be sweating too much and I might not be able to get But I gotta walk my bike up and that's just not fun. So Google's new update to

Maps is making this this choice much easier. Pretty soon, you're gonna get even more granular data like the availability of like partial or full bike lanes on the path that you're going. You can see elevation changes on a particular street, and you can see how heavy the car traffic is likely to be on the streets you plan

to use. So I think this is really cool. We want more people to get out there on their bikes, to save money and to get fitter and to just enjoy where they live a little bit more, and I like the Google is making it easier first to do that. So I actually checked because I was curious if that's already been implemented in our area. Um, and I saw that. So the street availability or you know, whether or not there's bike lanes that isn't up to date, but at

the elevation is on there. And so personally, I've never looked much at it because I tend to just get on my bike and ride and figure it out. Basically a big birthday as like an additional channel like bring it on. I I dig that additional sweat. But you know, according to Google, we've seen increase in biking activity in the past few months, I'm sure that a lot, a lot of that does have to do with warmer temperatures

as folks have been able to get outside. But I'm glad to see that folks are actually using those bikes that they bought during the pandemic. Unlike pelotons and other pandemic purchases, the stationary ones are have now become a place to put your laundry. At least you can hang that towel on your on your stationtoor bikes. So they got to get used, come on. Absolutely. So we talked about the recession chatter last week for a second, Well, it turns out that credit card companies they aren't worried

about a recession. Uh, they are actually getting even more aggressive when it comes to acquiring new customers, and they're sending out solicitations like like candy. Basically, according to the Financial Times, there was a forty seven percent surge and paper and digital solicitations in Q one. Uh in Q two likely saw an even bigger increase. We just don't have those numbers yet, but sign up bonuses are getting richer on some cards in an effort to attract new

customers as well. And so yeah, what what what? Should you do as a how to money listener. Well, we are totally cool with you getting a new card in order to snag a sign up bonus that's often gonna mean free money or like a boatload of free travel points. But we only want you to do that if it doesn't increase your overall spend amount, uh, and if you pay that puppy off on time and in full every

single month. Yeah. So I just signed up for a new credit card mat in order to get the additional bonus because we gotta pay for the next semester of my wife's school and on the car exactly. It's like the perfect time because it's it'sn't that cheap graduate school. So when you can do that in one fell swoop, at least get yeah bucks, did you do the chase? No? I did the Capital one Venture card. So we'll link to that one in the show notes if you want,

if you want to check it out. But this is the kind of thing where you can take advantage of that's something we're gonna we're gonna pay for anyway, right, But anyway you'd already say about the money, you know that you're gonna be able to pay that off. So like you're going you're you're going into this purchase without a plan. Yeah, you've got a plan, You're gonna pay

it off. And I could have put it on one of the credit cards already had, But then I'm missing out on something like, you know, eight hundred bucks in free rewards, So why not get ten percent off basically on my life education. Oh and by the way, Matt, you mentioned just more and more solicitations coming in in people's mailboxes. If you're tired of getting that stuff, or if it attempts you to sign up for a card maybe that you don't need or want, just go to

opt out prescreen dot com. We'll link to that in the show notes too. But that's the where you can say, don't send that stuff my way anymore, and the credit card companies will stop. And speaking of credit cards, a new credit cards dot Com survey shows that young folks are actually the worst tippers. And it said even if they make a solid income. Right, So it was funny to me that it wasn't just based on Okay, people that make less money don't tip as well, that's not

what this survey found. And so specifically, uh, they're talking about millennials and Gen z ears, and you know, here we go again with everyone out there blaming us for all the wrong things in the world. But I guess I'm curious to know burning the world down with your avocado toast and and your inability to tip and your paltry tips. So yeah, what what's your what are your thoughts? Is there? Do we have some sort of moral obligation

to tip? You know, we've talked about this. I feel like at every turn, more and more places we're getting asked to tip um. And there's like the little iPad that gets turned around, and even at the coffee shop it's like do you want to tip thirty fifty or on those ursas? Sometimes it's awkward, But so how do you think about It's interesting that like the breakdowncurs between like zoomers millennials and then Gen xers and baby boomers seem to be like more way more generous with her tips.

And what's really interesting, if you think about it, is that is also where you see are just a massive divide when it comes to net worth, Like literally like zoomers don't even register unlike the percentage of net worth that they that they hold compared like millennials or something like six percent, and all the rest are older generations. And so what it seems like it's going on, or I don't know might be going on, is that there is what I would argue an inability to stomach bad

service by younger generations. Right Like, So I'm not making an excuse saying that, hey, oh, you can start leaving a tip once you've built up a big net worth. What I'm saying is, I think when maybe when you have a lot of money in the bank, you've got a substantial net worth, when you are presented with poor service, that you're still okay tipping, almost like you're immune to

bad service. Whereas if every dollar that you earn is incredibly valuable when you're younger, when you are a millennial, when you are a zoomer, and in those instances, I think it is okay to adjust your tip accordingly. And again I'm not saying that you should not tip at all. I still think there's maybe like that there should be a baseline, like I've never not tipped at least ten percent, Like I feel like, in my mind ten percent is like the new zero. Yeah, and tim percent for something

like counter service I'm cool with. I guess it's just it can be frustrating to see like options for tipping at a counter service style place that exceed and that's like the basic ask and that feels unreasonable to me. Yeah, like I'm gonna go in there with a custom amount if if that's what you got up there on the screen,

But in my mind, I don't know this. So this is a theory and proposing though that there is just more variance with tipping depending on the service that you are given, basically because I'm I'm happy to tip even more like I will tip if I've got if dude, if someone's like talks to us and engages and helps us to thoughtfully think about a menu or mix a recommendation on a type of beer, anytime that there's like really good beer talk going on, I'm such if they're like, oh,

have you had this? And if we're talking through a beer menu, man, they are, well they're totally gonna get of when it comes to the tip line. Yeah. I think the other thing that people need to think about is if I can't afford to tip, should I be going out to eat? If you can't And you're like I can't be generous um with with the server, and I'm gonna have to basically give them a short shrift that you should probably stay home and not go out at all. Agreed. Yeah, I think that's just a part

of that transaction. That's a part of what should be expected out of patrons. All right, let's talk about jobs. Uh, dude, is the Great Resignation even happening anymore? At this point? I feel it was. It was such every single headline. I'm not sure. I don't really care, honestly, But the reality is that a lot of folks who jumped to a new opportunity have been able to increase their pay in a seriously big way. And while you know the

job market it's it's softening just a bit. It's a it's like less raging bonfire, maybe more piping hot solo stove. That's another pandemic reference for a lot of people got sold. Even still, folks that are still changing jobs in order to increase their incomes. Uh. And thanks to everyone's new pal inflation, real earnings for workers who stayed put at their current positions actually declined by one point seven percent. But workers who pieced out they saw an average real

wage increase of nearly ten percent nine point seven. That is a healthy increase. And this is according to data from our our new besties over at Pew Research. And so we share this because we want to highlight that obviously money is not everything. Uh, And leaving a job just to make more money like that does not always make sense. There are a number of factors that you want to consider. But this is how the money, This is the show, and this is what we talk about

in money is a meaningful part of that equation. Uh. And so a lot of listeners out there we think could still get a substantial pay bump by finding employment elsewhere. We want that to be something that you are considering, just like when when we talk about different expenses in our lives. We want you to question everything. And I think it's always worth questioning, well, is this a job that I want to stick with? Is this where I'm going to continue to have my my bread buttered? Yeah?

And and just because the job market is softening a little bit doesn't mean you can't still jump ship and get a massive raise. That there's still a lot of opportunity out there, and Matt, it just there's a new York Times article this week on on the job market, but the job market for teens, so that's the child labor parneer are headlines today, but it actually it talked about how the best extracurricular activity for many high school

students maybe getting a job. And I gotta say, I like where they're headed with this one, because I agree wholeheartedly. Of course, there are some teens right where they're in a situation that requires them to get a job to help their family out. They don't have the luxury necessarily to choose between getting a job and doing more school activities.

But regardless of the reason why a teenager gets a job, there's just so many different lessons that kids can learn, we would say, working part time totally during those years that they're unlikely to learn in most classrooms at most schools. Uh man. I got my first job at fourteen. I mean I was working and before that, even in the neighborhood mowing lawns and stuff like that, probably from the

age of twelve. But my first legit job at the age of fourteen, I was like eleven year old pool boy, could barely swim, Yeah, just kidding, next to clean your pool and yeah, so I think my my my first job, I was getting paid five dollars and fifteen cents an hour. But it was right across the street from my high school. Right when I got off of got out of school. I would go walking across the street and throw in

the uniform work for a few hours. And this is one of those things I like, I learned so much. And I remember my manager her her go to phrase was if you had time to lean, you got time to clean. And so I thought I was taking a break in the classic line. She wasn't having it. And so I learned a lot about about responsibility really and kind of how to work with superiors and peers exactly

during those days. And I'm sure she was probably just a fine boss, right, But like, I think that's one of the things that you learned when you do get a job at a young age. You learned how to what it takes to work under somebody maybe who isn't so great. A lot a lot of bosses out there are fantastic, but there are some are a lot of managers who aren't so great about working when you don't

necessarily want to write because you're on the schedules. Yeah, you're on the schedule, and like you said, working with others, there's a certain amount of teamwork that comes into play with folks where it's like, man, you didn't choose these, Like these aren't teammates that you chose for a class project, you know, Like these aren't even folks who were taking

the same class as you. Like who knows like the backgrounds of the folks that you're working with, but you still have to work together to get the job done. There's there's the type of learning that takes place within a like a workplace environment like that that's just so robust, like you said, like that does not happen within a within like a school setting. One of the most important

things we're talking about inflation and wage inflation. There's been even more at that bottom end of the scale, and so teenagers can make like, like I said, my starting salary was five dollars fifteen cents. Now a lot of teenagers can get a job making something like fifteen, sixteen, seventeen dollars an hour pretty easily with you know, nothing

on their resume. So that's just kind of another pointer in the right direction, like, oh, go cool, I can actually make some real money going out there and getting a part time job. Yeah, and I think there are a lot of parents who are you know, are they're a little worried because they're thinking, well, I want to make sure my kids are focusing on their grades, that they're able to get into the college that they want to get to get into. And we asked the question

on our Wednesday episode, is college for dummies? And I think that desire over the past multiple decades of parents just shuttling their kids down that college path has led a lot of folks to not even consider an after school job because they are focusing on their But the

fact is not everybody has cut out for college. And so what that means is that there's an entire, I don't know generation of of people right now who maybe didn't end up going to college, or if they did, didn't graduate, and they also missed out on the benefits on that sort of informal education of becoming a well arounded person. What they would have learned had they started working under a great manager or a fantastic boss at the age of fifteen, which are some incredibly formidable years.

And even if your kid is going to college, it doesn't mean that some work history in high school isn't helpful to them because it is you're learning a lot of real life skills before you got to get into real life. And and I don't think you should necessarily be making your high school or work thirty hours a week, but I'm like, you know, eight to ten hours, like two three shifts. It can be. Yeah, it can be a nice balance. It can help them learn some skills,

make a little bit of money. And so I don't think it has to be all or nothing. It's like, oh, they can only focus on school. They can do both, right s seventeen year olds, they are equipped to do both. So we we think more kids should be going in that direction. We agree with the New York Times. But man, we got more stories to cover on this Friday flight, including um, some egregious actions by the credit bureau Equifax. We'll talk about that and more right after this break.

All right, we're back, and we will talk about how Equifax still sucks next time. Say it like Arnold Schwarzeninger. Oh yeah, I'm not gonna do that, only because you just told me to. On the contrary, and uh no, we're gonna get to our ludicrous headline of the week, right now, man, And this headline read US Bank mind thirty seven and a half million dollars for opening fake customer accounts. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, they just the CFPB.

They revealed this at the end of last week. And it turns out there's another bank out there who's trying to be like Wells Fargo. And you know, you'd think that after all that Wells Fargo went through US Bank, maybe they would have learned from Wells Fargo's mistakes, But it turns out that didn't happen because it was going on basically at the same time as all the Wells

fargers happening for a decade exactly. Yeah. The CFPB said that the U S Bank not only opened up unwanted checking and saving his accounts for its customers, but also credit cards in the lines of credit. And I know we say this a lot that I think it bears repeating, and that is the big banks suck. We would not recommend that you do business with them voluntarily. Generally speaking, big banks their rates are inferior, Their customer service sucks.

Their fees are typically higher, and you know, you might just find yourself getting treated even more poorly in the case of being a Wells Fargo or a US bank. Customers stay away from those big names. Yeah, I'm glad they're being held to held to account with lead. Their feet are being held to the fire. We're here talking about another case in which companies are not being held

responsible for their actions in just a second. But first, since we're talking about fees, Matt, there was an article in the Wall Street Journal about the ways hotels are increasing fees on their customers this week. That they're charging guests anywhere between two dollars just to reserve a chair by the pool so that you can ensure that you've got a spot on a Saturday morning. That struck me as nice. It's sometimes to have a spot by the pool.

Not for that kind of money though, that's crazy. But yeah, these aren't even necessarily some sort of fancy cush loungers sometimes just basic pool recliners and so um, yeah, when we're talking about we don't really like fees, Matt. Maybe this is something we should dedicate a whole episode too in the near future, because I think we've done a fees episode. We have, but there's I feel like it feels too long ago. There's a whole new generation of

fees exactly. There's more more fees popping up. And so even when it comes to like resort fees, right, that's something that's happening at hotels more and more frequently, something like forty bucks a night. They're making that mandatory because yeah, it's a resort fee, and what does it actually cover, Well, we don't really know, but um, it's the WiFi, Yeah, cover your coffee makers. Yeah maybe, I guess. So, so that's what they say. But it's like, no, this is

just you being able to pat your profits. Yes it is. And so before you take your next trip, check out the hotel's website for more information on the fees they charge, and read reviews on a site like trip Advisor, because oftentimes those reviewers will point out how ridiculous the fees might be at a particular place. It might help you steer clear of some of those unexpected fees. Now, we just went want a trip last weekend to just outside of Nashville to the operus Land Hotel, which is a

beautiful hotel. By the way, my father in law like paid for everything. He had some some points and stuff like that. But when we got there, we realized parking was thirty three dollars just self parking, no valet. It's just it's parking in a parking lot and you like pull up, unload the car and then park it across the street at like the McDonald. That's don't across my mind. Unfortunately, my father in law had paid for it ahead of time,

and I was like, okay, all right, thank you. Um. But that's one of those things where you have to be aware of stuff like that, Like that that adds a whole lot of money, a whole lot of expense to just kind of a fun family trip. But I will I will say, I mean, I do, I agree, I hate fees, but I'm thinking about like reserving some chairs pull side, like at the Bellaggio, if going to Vegas and splurging in that way, if if that's your thing, if that's your craft beer equivalent, then like what I

would says, have at it. You know, I'm not gonna yuck on your yum. As long as folks have options, you know, and as long as there is price transparency, because you know, there's also this reality where these new hotel fees could end up saving some money savvy travelers money like it makes me think of jumping through all the different hoops within discount airline like Spirit or Frontier. How that's gonna, you know, help you to get to your destination for far less money than the other airlines.

Most of the time, you just gotta know how to work the system. You have to know what they're charging, as long as they're being transparent and as long as you know that. Well, if I don't want to deal with that, if if I want to kind of maybe spend, spend a little bit more and go with Delta or go with United, you know that that's an option for you.

I just want folks to have options. And you know what if some of these fancier hotels are charging in some cases a lot of money for folks to not have to get up early in the morning and circle around the pool and throw down the towels, like I hate that sort of that game, you know, and I think there's a lot of folks. How much is that going to cost you? And do you need the primo hotels or can you be like three rows back at the pool? I don't know, like part of it on

what you want. And sometimes those fees are just so sneaky you don't know they exist, and you pull up and your like, the sneakiness not cool. I had no idea. Definitely not down with the sneakiness it makes. It makes your you can throw a wrench in your experience and kind of make your trip costs a lot more than you thought. So it's something you need be proactively, proactively

thinking about exactly. Ye. All right, let's get to that story about the credit bureaus, and this is just one more negative story we have to discuss on the Friday flight today. It could have also been the lucrous headline of the week. Yeah, we've got like three ludicrous headlines. Yeah, crapping stuff happening, right that folks need to be aware, right, Well, The Wall Street Journal published an exclusive article earlier this week about the extent to which the bureaus make egregious

mistakes affecting consumers everywhere. Noticed that we didn't say affecting their customers, because we aren't their customers. We we are the product that's being sold all over the place. And so the Wall Street Journal reporters they found that Equifax, in particular, scent inaccurate credit score information to lenders, not a few times, not hundreds of times, millions of times. And so we're not talking about just like this whoops up, sorry,

screwed up, heard a couple of people. We're talking about repetitive incompetence that resulted in higher interest rates and denied applications for a bunch of individual borrowers. And so if Equifax didn't thoroughly earn their place in the pantheon of most hated companies with their massive data breach of they're certainly there. Now that they are up there, there might be worse than the big banks. Uh. In a in a lot of ways, to see this story was just

so frustrating. It made me sad for all those people they got screwed over. But it's also just kind of tough to stomach these repetitive, bone headed moves that cost all of us a lot of money and and and headache. Yeah, saw the the Equifax CEO. He had the nerve to say that these errors were not something meaningful to Equifax, which, yeah, dude, of of course it's not going to really affect you all because you seem to be immune from any negative backlash.

It's the American people who are getting screwed over and who it's becoming a problem for. And you know, although the government taking over credit reports uh and scores like how that has been floated as an option, I'm not sure that that's is going to be the best way to proceed as well. But just the you know, the current model is just so severely flawed though, uh. And you know, like you're talking about earlier about US Bank having their feet held to the fire, that also needs

to happen with the credit bureaus. They need to be held responsible for these mistakes when it comes to responding to these issues that everyday folks run up against as a result of their mistakes and their incompetence. But on a brighter note, it seems that technology seems to be making our current school worring models maybe feel a bit antiquated, which is welcome news. But companies like Ultro, they are seeking to create new models based on how it is

you pay recurring subscriptions. Some credit cards out there, like Pedal Card X one, they are underwriting folks based on alternative means like like income and your bank transactions. They're actually looking at your data and treating you like a human being rather than being fed the score straight from the credit bureaus. And so hopefully some of these young fintech upstarts will be able to create some some healthy competition in the space, because the credit bureaus, you know,

I feel like they're they're sort of like dinosaurs. They're right for extinction. The writing seems to be on the wall, and I'm certainly glad that there's more competition cropping up. It also makes me think how maybe the byin pay later companies, this is a service that they might be able to provide. But it seems what's going on is they're starting to It's like they're paying tribute by sending their data to the credit bureas rather than maybe creating

their own ecosystem. And I would much rather see uh competition than them just getting brought to the fold. And I don't mind jumping through the hoops as long. When it comes to the credit scoring model, we've talked about that how do you get a good credit score? And we've talked about here, Well, here's the scoring model. Here's how it's set up, and here's how you ensure that you play by the rules in order to get a good credit score. It's always gonna be rules no matter what.

There's gonna be instructions on how to play the game. But my biggest problem is when you play by the rules, but there's so much incompetence by the folks running the game that you get screwed over even though you've done the right thing. And that seems to just happen on and be happening on a scale that's far too large

for my comfort. It's it's something specifically with ex Yeah, something like a quarter of credit reports have an error on them, and when we talk about the response rate of these credit bureaus to people who do have an error on the report, it's it's negligible, Like they don't

even get back to people who have an issue. And then they do something like this, and it's like, Okay, we've just seemed far too many mistakes to make me feel any level of comfort with them being in control of not only our information but also our ability to, you know, get the loans and financial products that that we then we need totally. And I feel that we can maybe be a little bit harder on Equifax since they're here in Atlanta, we're able to It's kind of

like punching your younger brother. It's like, you can do that, but you your neighbor better not. I don't know. We could be like a how the money protests in front of that facts headquarters. Maybe next week ip here. All right, enough of the negati. Let's let's turn to the positive. There's the story on c nets site and they are reporting that you could save money by simply changing the

temperature on your hot water heater. Uh. And you're probably thinking, you know, a big deal, this is probably just chump change, But no, it turns out you might be able to save like multiple hundreds of dollars over the course of

a year. And that's because the Department of Energy estimates that's your hot water heater is often responsible for fourteen to eighteen percent of your homes utility bills, and most water heaters are set to a temperature of a hundred forty degrees when a hundred and twenty degrees will typically suit most families just fine. And so yeah, we'd recommend for you to check that out. If for some reason that bumped down and tump. If it's not working out

for you, you can always bump it back up. No harm, no foul, but if you're all about a quick way to to start saving uh some serious money, you know, well eventually it'll be serious. Right now it's immediate, but over time it'll be serious. Man. If you say, by turning the dial down on your hot water heater, that's a reasonable amount of money. Like that's I literally went read this article and I went straight into my crawl space and I literally run away. Yes I did so.

My some are have like a digital display and you can like just put the arrow down and get it the tempature you wanted to. Mine had to pull out a couple of screws and then turn the dial down a little took a picture of the black knob. No it's not a knob. No, it's like a little dial and you've got to use a screw driver to turn it down just a little bit. So I'll send I'll

send you a picture that I took. I haven't even looked at the hot water here at our new place, like at my old at the thing is I mean, we're family is six, and so we have run out of hot water before. If we've all gone hiking, we come home and everyone stinks, everyone's hot and sweaty. It's like, okay, we're all taking showers or baths. Literally every bathroom is being occupied, and we've gotten to where we've run out

of run out of water. But if I don't know, if you're a family, if it's just you in your place, or you've got a small family, just got one kid, I think you could totally you've got big enough. Yeah, exactly, And that's where tankless is. Obviously, it's like it's better in a lot of ways, but it's also more expensive.

But word of the wise, if if you haven't checked it lately and you're like, I can stand to save some money, and no, we never really run out of hot water, and you know what, it actually is pretty scalding when it's on the hottest level. For most folks,

somewhere in that five range will work just fine. Both it turns out like you don't want to go less than one twenty because bacteria, bacteria, exactly if he goes less than one twenty, um Legionella evidently is the bacteria that causes what diseases, which if we're if we're picking favorites, legion Legionnaire's disease, if we're picking favorites, that's my favorite

bacteria but legionella. So I mean I mentioned that because I don't want folks to get so cheap with it that they're they turn their water here down too much. And now you've got pneumonia and you're in the hospital, and it's like it's a real disease people die from. It's it's rare, like legon. You can still take a cold shower if you want, but it's but it's real. Yeah, So anyway, don't go too cheap. But that's what we're here for, helping you to save money and not die.

If you could say fifty bucks a month by turned down your water heater, make it happen. Uh and just like I did. So all right, that's gonna do it for this episode again, we'll send those socks out to the folks who want Thank you to everyone who who left a review. We really appreciate it, and we hope to see you back here on Monday for an upcoming Ask how the Money episode. We get some good questions line up for you. That's right, buddy, So until next time, best Friends Out, Best Friends Out,