Welcome to had the Money. I'm Joel, I'm Matt. Today we're talking college cost cutting, predictive credit scores, and work perk pruning. Yeah, Joel.
The thing with pruning is I don't think a lot of people. Nobody likes pruning, right, but oftentimes it does lead to healthier long term.
Results if you prune it the right time.
Yes, if you punt at the right time, if you don't over prune, see some yard guys.
If you do it methodically, pruning too late in the season, you're like, no, no, man, you just the blooms are already on the flout or on the bush, like, don't, don't trim now. But yeah, it's I've always been amazed too, and how far you can prune certain things back and then how beastly they'll grow the next season. Still I'm just like, oh my god, you took it down to the nubs and it's still got huge. You're thinking of my hydrangees are like that, Well, yeah, they're made to be print back.
Hydrangees creat myrtles in a similar way where you're just like, that's not going to live. Yeah, and then next year you're like, oh my gosh, which I want to print them back even more. Thought you tuned into the lawn and Gardens show, didn't get everybody before you know, yeah, we'll start talking about this old house territory.
No, you want to talk about soccer. I just I just well, it's been fascinating to see. I just saw there was there are US tickets to the next US match in I forget what city they're going to be in, but there's still there's still tickets available. Do you want to know why they're still tickets available even though everyone's rabbit about this World Cup in North America because they're two dang expensive, super high prices and the World Cup man like FIFA just they're they're trying to see how
much money they can make on this. The other fascinating thing, people are spending so much money on World Cup tickets that they're reticent to spend big money on lodging when they're going to a town to watch some soccer. And so what I thought, like, low, where we live, we're gonna have some matches. I was like, man, this is gonna be It's gonna be awesome for anybody who wants is in the short term rental game. Yeah, the Airbnb game, and apparently it's not panning out as well as they hope.
There was an article that I saw about hosts feeling the pain. They've put a lot of money into upgrading their place listing and making a great listing and thinking, oh man, I'm gonna cash in during the World Cup and then I'll just keep keep this this place around for the long term afterwards. But they're crickets in terms of booking their place because people are just reticent to spend that much money on especially when the tickets cost
so much. So I don't know if they're going to like pitch their tent in downtown, like near the arena or something like that, but for those last minute deals maybe yeah. I'll be curious to see what happens. And I just wish that these events were not such a money grab and that people could go watch some great soccer and not you know, have to fork over their retirement savings to make it happen. I get it.
Do you think any of this has to do with just the uncertainty in the world as far as like the war? Maybe straight of horror moves, which, to be honest, I feel like we haven't heard much about folks.
Folks have kind of moved on from them. They're like, Okay, what's the next big story. It's not dominating the headlines like it was, but yeah, you know, there's still it still leads to a lot to be watching over.
There business uncertainty, which I think does trickle down to main Street, right where folks feel that uncertainty, aren't totally sure what's going to be going on. So maybe I should keep my money, you know, in my bank account and watch the soccer on TV. Perhaps, just yeah, I mean with travel costs, the cost of gasoline, you know, back back at all time highs jet Field, Yeah, I don't know, which.
We talked about on Wednesday with Kyle Potter and that's right. Yeah, man, so much good information if you're like, I'm trying to travel this summer and I want to do so cheaply. Kyle's pretty throber in his assessment thrifty traveler. Yeah, they know what's up over there.
All right, let's talk about higher education because we've been I feel like we've been questioning the value of a college degree more in recent years.
For sure here on the show.
When costs rise significantly, it's I think it's smart to question whether it's still worth a price, and in many cases it still is, but it's just not nearly as clear cut a decision as it used to be. And one way to steer the choice in your favor, specifically when you're looking at your personal finance, is to reduce the cost as well as the time that it takes to get your degree.
Time is money, Matt, That's that's what they say.
Some schools are offering a three year bachelor's degree now, which is going to appeal to many folks, But a lot of folks are calling.
This degree hacking, most overused word in the English language US, but still we've been using it to describe anything I feel like for the past eight years in particular. But this is apparently a thing.
Some online universities are now allowing people to take unlimited classes, leading to some folks who enter the program to finish their coursework in months, not years. So the University of Maine is one of the leaders who is offering this. It's this they're calling it your Pace program, and they've reported that some folks are even finishing it in eight weeks, which makes me think that.
I'm not totally sure if it's sinking in much did you really learn? Yeah? Yeah?
How much did you actually use chat to do all of your coursework for you? This is an argument for the Hey, a degree is not the same thing as an education, right, Like, you are there on one hand, you're getting credentials, but what we're looking for here is competence. And I think there's a whole lot of folks who maybe entering the workforce or feeling like they're there. Certainly are investing in their careers, but are they more competent.
I don't know.
To me, it feels a lot like cramming for a test and just being able to regurgitate the information as opposed to being able to engage with the ideas, right like where you're grappling with some of the concept that concepts that you've learned and thinking through how can I apply these principles to better myself, better my company, better the world.
I think when most folks go back to get a higher education, they are looking for competence. They're not just looking for the credential. They're not just looking for the degree and more of the letters after their name. But I do think some people just want the credential and yeah, that makes sense, Like I kind of understand that. So you have to just understand what it is that you're looking for. You know, we've talked about how teachers can
make more money. Let's say if they have a master's degree to their name versus just an undergrad and hey, if I can get that done in eight weeks, just like going hard, I care more about the credential potentially in that case, I don't. I'm just like, not everyone is looking for the same thing, and so I think it's kind of cool this exists that you can save a lot of time and money and still get that degree.
But it's certainly it's certainly not for everyone. And I am curious to see if maybe some of these universities look into maybe they were like not expecting people to finish that that fast, and they're like, maybe throw some more guardrails.
This is not what we intended. But congrats, I'm setting a course record, is.
Againness world record. Congratulations. Well, and if you graduated a while back and you have student loan debt, you're you're obviously not alone, right, This is a regular feature of modern American life and refinancing into a private student loan has always come with big potential pitfalls. It's something we don't talk about a lot because for most people, especially during the pandemic and the years of not needing to make a payment, it didn't make any sense, right, it
was like just completely it wasn't worth discussing. But the benefits for some might outweigh the downsides. Right now, some lenders are advertising rates as low as three percent, actually some even a touch below three percent on private student loans the twos, which is crazy. It's impressive. Who thought you were going to see a rate like that, right, it feels like it feels so twenty eighteen, But federal rates are close to six and a half percent. So
it just shows what a disparity there is. That's like somewhat misleading though, because most people don't qualify for the best rates many often there's like one guy that qualifies for those.
Yeah, it's like for the rates as low as two point six five, there's this one guy called one guy.
So you need to know that, Hey, those headline rates are not always widely available, right, and so you have to have you have to be a highly qualified borrow in order to get there. So often you need a highly qualified co signer to get the best rock bottom rate, So maybe we would not if if your mom called us and was like, hey, should I co sign, we
might tell her to think again. But if you can find someone who's highly qualified to co sign with, you could help you get the best rates, and you know, a REFI could be a brilliant move if you can qualify for some of those rates. You're gonna need great credit right a low DTI ratio. You're also gonna need to choose a shorter loan, so you're gonna to be
able to pay back that loan more quickly. But it is, i will say, for the first time in a long time, worth looking into, especially if you like don't owe a ton more on your student loans and you're looking to get rid of them as quickly as possible. Reducing the interest rates significantly by opting for a private student loan
could make sense. Again. Yeah, there's borrow protections that you lose, know the trade offs before you commit, but it's just interesting to see this space come alive for the first time in a long time. Yeah.
Well, you mentioned having a great credit score and how important that is. Let's continue that thread because more states are considering eliminating the use of credit scores in determining insurance premiums. So a few states Iowa, New York, Pennsylvania,
and Oklahoma. They are all weighing bills that would eliminate credit based scores from being allowed to determine how much your premium is only a couple states or a few so California, Massachusetts, and why only those three states currently banned the practice of not taking credit scores into account and insurance companies they use credit scorses as part of
their modeling right. They use it as part of their methodology for determining risk across most of the country, but that ends up creating disparity, and folks with low scores they pay far more in premiums. There's a report and it shows that there is a sixty nine percent difference between having a good versus bad credit score in what
you're going to pay, which is in your premiums. Man, it's just a bad credit score or you talk about well, instead of paying thirty two hundred dollars, you know, every six months or annually for my car insurance, I'm paying fifty one hundred dollars and that's that's just a lot more money. Yeah, so this is one of the reasons we talk about maintaining a healthy high credit score, and
we'll keep our eyes on whether these bills pass. But no matter what your your credit score, it still matters, even if insurance companies in your state might no longer be allowed to consider that when they're assessing risk, which then begs a question, right, like, how are they going
to assess risk? Because even though this may may not be a perfect system, it's still a known way for you to pay attention to the some of the factors that that they're going to take into account when when they're trying to try to determine whether or.
Not they can stay afloat. Essentially, right, when you look at the quotes from people in the insurance space, they're like, this isn't good for us, Like we need this data. Would you like us to continue to operate in your state? If so? So?
I mean, that's one of the potential knock on downstream off of not being able to take credit score into account. I mean, and again, they're gonna look at other things. I'm guessing they're probably going to be more likely to look at some of the instances on your clue report, right, like how often do you file acclaim? When it comes to property homeowners insurance, They're probably going to be sending more drones out right, and it's like, oh, I hate
the drones. I hate that they're telling me what to do. And it's just like, well, they got to find a way to make sure that everyone is paying their fair share essentially, so yeah, we'll.
See and yeah, the most highly qualified folks in those states are likely to see their premiums go up meaningfully, and so yeah, it's really is a pick your poison sort of mentality here. How do you want your insurance premium formula to come about? And I do think the
credit score is helpful and it makes sense. And of course, yet you might be like Joel, you're so naive, like the of course the insurance company wants to be able to use credit scores, but I understand why they do, like it is a piece of data that that does tell us something about you as a person. And so yeah, we'll see what happens there. And speaking of credit scores, Fanny and Freddie are not using predictive credit scores to
determine mortgage loan eligibility. These scores taken into account a wider range of activity than kind of the normal old school scores, including stuff like on time rent payments and whether you pay your utility bill. As agreed, I like this. I like having more information shoved into the credit score and still using the credit score right as a helpful barometer, but just having more inputs that have to deal with maybe less archaic stuff like did you pay your rent
on time? Like that is a pretty good indicator.
That include surveys of like your best friend be like, hey, did he pay you back on time?
Right? Did he cover drinks last night? Oh?
Man, he's such a generous person, Like he gets a if they starts crossing over from like just financial to like social score, like the Black Mere Episodeka a little.
Bit, well yeah, I mean I'm even thinking like if they had data about whether or not you used a gambling app. They're not, this is not included, but think about how helpful that would be if you're trying to determine privacy. But to get into privacy issues, yes, so, I mean we know this. We talked about this regularly. The credit scoring model is not always intuitive, and a lot of folks assume that just doing the basics well, like paying their rent on time every month will improve
their score. But for the longest time, it hasn't. That stuff isn't included. It doesn't impact how their know, how their credit score goes up, or what it looks like. It's I think we should be adjusting the scoring models, not on purpose to make unqualified buyers look better, but we should be incorporating more information that indicates whether individuals tend to pay bills and debts on time and so. Yeah, I think the use of these predictive credit scores is
actually going to be a good thing. Buy Now, Pay Later is going to be more incorporated too. That's not going to help everyone, but it will provide a clearer picture when we're talking about risk assessment.
Yeah, especially as more folks are using buy Now, Pay Later, even though it's not our favorite, it's like, Okay, you're gonna start considering the data from that. I see now how that might actually end up being able to not only serve individuals, but then some of these companies as well, who are trying.
To assess risk.
The fact that you that they're calling this the predictive models made me think of the pre cogs from Minority Report.
Did you ever watch that? Yeah, we talked about.
That before, so that's you know, and I mentioned that the Black Mirror episode, right, Like, that's where it actually does start feeling a little dystopian a little bit, where it's just like, oh, we're going to use this data and project into the future whether or not you're going to do what you've intended, and where do you draw
the line? So like, I don't know if folks haven't seen the movie what like, they end up getting rid of that program because of the ethical moral dilemma of like, well, they didn't actually do it yet, so even though they were pre cogging, you know, telling the future that actually, no, you were going to commit and there's commit murders, there's yeah, there's one thing about pre cogging someone like you were going to commit that crime. It's like, yeah, but I
haven't committed it yet. But it's another thing to say, well, let me look at some of your path you've actually done, so I can determine and whether or not I should loan you lots of money for this house you're looking to buy or this car you're looking at.
It's called due diligence. That's due diligence, like you just you have to have a system like that, or ultimately what's going to happen is people aren't going to be able to access some of the modes of debt that they've gotten accustomed to using. And I don't know, in some ways that would be ultimately better for a lot of people who have too much rope to hang themselves.
Right, But that's amount that. Yeah, that's when that's when you're like, well, this is why we can't have nice things.
Yeah.
And I'll also say there's a big difference between committing murder and paying your utility bill. Ye, right, one of these is much more frowned upon in our society than the other. You don't go to you know, go to jail for not paying your rent.
No, no, you don't. Uh, okay, let's talk about scams about the FTC had a few helpful pressure releases recently, that one about credit cards. One was to warn people against like completely ridiculous offers to lower your credit card interest rate. Basically, if you had a call from a helpful person who wants to lower the interest on your credit card, just hang up on them. It's a scammer. You might think It might sound like it's someone from
your credit card company, but it's not. It's basically they're after personal information or they're trying to get you to pay them money with promises to help reduce your debt or your interest rate. It's totally fake. The flip side of this, Matt, is that you actually might be able to get your interest rate lowered on your credit card. And I'll tell folks, if you call your credit card company. Yeah, so you're just speaking of the wrong person when the
scammer calls. You call your credit card company. Don't wait for them to come to you, because that's the wrong person. Yes, you need to be the proactive party here. And I love the idea we've talked about just credit card interest rates going up like clockwork, which has definitely been the case over the past five or six years. But you really might be able to legitimately get an APR reduction
just by asking, just by calling up. We want you to pay off your debt quickly, but asking for a real lower rate directly from your credit card company, that could help you make more progress faster. Yeah.
The problem is that I think the type of behaviors that would cause someone to do that right, being proactive, like coming up with the plan, finding the number to call the bank or the credit card company, and navocate for yourself. Those same behaviors. I feel like we tend to see folks away from getting into credit card debt.
In the first place.
So it's unfortunate that the folks who probably need it the most of who who would be best served, unfortunately aren't the folks who are naturally doing that to begin most likely prey unless you've been asleep at the wheel of your personal finances, and we would say, oh, welcome to the party, and this is called how to money. This is how you do it, and we would encourage you to make sure that you don't steer your car
into this oncoming cliff. Yes, that you've been barreling towards with you down without even realizing it while we're talking about scams. Well that we hate credit cards, but just like if you if you have a way that you've been put it down, yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like we need like a David Goggin sort of like wake up call for these people, like what are you doing. You're just sitting there in your comfy soft chair and these are out working. You man, they're out out there.
They're taking your money. Gosh, they are, and they are. I mean, that's that's what's what's going on, and you need to not being a slave some plastic. I was gonna say, we're talking about scams, but the FTC they also had a warning about expiring rewards or the different points that folks are running. More and more folks are getting texts about their rewards expiring soon. You're sent a link to quote unquote savior points. But of course it's a phishing scam. It looks like a real sight, but
it's not. They're attempting to get your personal information from you.
And you know, like we.
Talk about scammers, they are winning the battle against young folks in particular, largely because and I will consider us in this category, Jewel, we're on our phones a lot more and we're a bit more prone to mistakes, and we are less attentive. When we're out on our phones. We're you know, got our kids pulling out. You oh, we got to go over here.
And you see a.
Text and you're thinking, oh, no, my whatever it is like my big coin's at risk, Oh my credit card's been hacked, or you know whatever, the thing might be for you split second decisions exactly. Don't click those links if you are concerned about that. Make sure you are going to the u URL yourself, log into the actual app that you have used in the past that's on your phone. Don't fall prey to these fishing scams.
All right, we got more we get to Matt, including free ice cream, talking about that right after this. I love that free ice cream story. But first, joll you know it has to do with wone addiction too, so we'll cross look at it. I love that. That's right.
Of course, we've got our ludicrous headline of the week to get to first. This week is from Business Insider, who writes PTO parental leave pensions, even the most prized benefits are on the chopping block. And context here is that the job market has been a bit more resilient than Mini had predicted over the past year. But even still, if you look closely, there are signs of things now being as good as they once were. I feel like we're past the what felt like the I don't know
the golden age. I don't want to say golden age, but a clear indicator is when companies start reducing the benefits that they offer workers, right, So they're not No one's getting fired, folks aren't getting paid off.
They are in tech companies, Yeah, well they are Facebook, and and what's what's the other app with the with the ghosts or the yellow and the ghost Oh snapchat, Snapchat. They're laying people. Well, people aren't people are snapping chatting. I don't know. I never did snapchat. I never never. That was not one that I was into.
Yes, there are some of those prominent examples, but for everyone else, you're thinking, oh, I feel like we're maybe we kind of made it through that storm. They're looking around at all their coworkers and everyone's here, everyone's intact. But what's happening is that your company is reducing the four one K match or they're scaling back on the parental leave dates or a number of dates or weeks that you're allowed to take. So this is just a
reminder to factor those into your total compensation. If your employer is out there reducing perks, this might be a sign of a bigger issues potentially on the horizon. So it's just worth I think maybe even prepping your resume, maybe starting to generally tap your network a little bit maybe starting your search. This is an instance where if you start to see some of those signs, right maybe.
Writing on the wall.
Payroll came in late this month for the first never had that happen before. This is like one of those instances of just being a little alert to what's going on there at your company.
Yeah. Yeah, And I've worked at companies where this has happened, and it's demoralizing to the workforce even just to be like, hey, we're taking away the four one K match right now, and people like, oh my god, really and so yeah, and it also might be a sign of things to come. So it's worth at least preparing making sure you know if things get worse, and it's not just the chopping of benefits, and it's the chopping of your position that you are in a good position to like move forward.
Let's get to that free ice cream story, Matt Fair story all week and you were just talking about a phone addiction. Well, like Jonathan Hype, cal Newport, other tech minimalist evangelists, they've they've gotten through, I think to a lot of people. We especially when it comes to how we treat phones with our kids, with young people and
school school aged. We're just like making big changes. There are states who are, like at the state level, not just even at the school district level, attempting to ban phones in schools, which I think is probably good for everyone, right, and the young people are happier too when nobody has phones out at school. And some Chick fil A locations are trying to promote more phone free family time by
offering free ice cream. I believe they actually call it the ice dream, Matt, if you're a Chick fil A fishing ono or if.
You are an ice cream affishing on it because it technically does not have the proper amount of fact.
Yeah, considered ice cream custard fan than ice cream, and like extra whole for ice cream so good, it's so good. You usually get it from the chains that are based out of Wisconsin because that's we're custard. It's originally from a Culver. Culver's is one, ok, just one called Freddy, so it has a good custard too. So yeah, it's just it's just more delicious than ice cream. But I still like ice cream.
I feel like when I hear custard, it just makes me think it's got more egg in it.
For some reason it does. Is that accurate? That sounds right? Okay, I don't just know what's delicious.
I personally like ice cream because it's so icy and refreshing. It is good, especially down here in.
This AUTH kind of tastes like homemade vanilla ice cream if you've had a like hand turned or whatever at home, which I think that's why I like it. I think so delicious. I think that's the appeal. So you can go get some, at least at some Chick fil A locations if you stick your phone in a box the whole time while you're having your meal. And I like this, man, because I think we get all we can all use some incentives to do the right thing right. Maybe this is like the kick in the butt we need to
have better boundaries when they're having meals. And then you take it home when you have a box there and you don't get free ice cream for it. Maybe, but at least it just sizes you. Yeah, I think that's I.
Love I overall. I didn't realize that this was as why it spread of a practice. I thought this was more of like a local thing here in Georgia. But I mean a lot of it's not called a lot of locations. You can't call it a chain because it's not.
It's different than the franchise McDonald's model, right sure, but a lot of the locations there are a lot of folks who are participating in this, and I think from a culture setting standpoint, and that's one of the things with Chick fil A is they're trying to promote, you know, whether or not you agree with this or not, like, according to their definition, wholesome family values, and this is
a way to do it. And I am one hundred percent on board with this promoting conversation, right as opposed to folks just on their phones scrolling, not talking to each other, Like that's not the that's a sad world, you know, and that's not the kind of world I want to live in.
Well, I think culturally, the kind of family meal has been degraded and it doesn't happen nearly as often as it used to. And I do think that is one of the places families used to come together predominantly to talk about their days, to talk about there, to talk about all sorts of things, and it is it's a shame that we do that less and less as a culture and something we care about a whole lot in our family. I know you guys do too, and so trying to bring that back. Man, give free ice cream
as a reward. I'm all about it. Man.
While we're talking about food, not surprising, it seems like AI might be helping when it comes.
To food waste.
Of course, food waste remains a problem for us, not only like on an individual level, but just when it comes to just like the I don't know what do you call it, the grocery industry or whatever, But there's a new AI tool that's targeting the supply chains and the sort of macro problem by helping grocery stores.
To dial in their ordering.
So there's a tool now called a Fresh and it's helping to solve the complicated and expensive problem through data and learning. It's taking like we were talking about credit scores and how like more data is better, but it's just how do you sort through all that data?
How do you weigh that data? How how do you take that.
Data and use that to create informed and driven actions? Right, And so it's taken pieces of information like even the weather. It's taken like when people are receiving food stamps and demonstrating how that is going to impact shopper behavior, and some stores who have implemented this have seen a twenty to twenty five percent reduction in food waste, which is tremendous.
Man.
And on an individual level, you think about how much I think the American each American household ends up losing something like three thousand dollars a year in food just straight to the garbage, just straight to food that was wasted, and so on a personal level, I think the best ways that we can save are to plan our purchases, get better about meal planning, and of course to eat your leftovers, which is something you're gonna hear me talk about all the time. And actually maybe I'll share a
way that I've failed recently. You are, that's that's rare. You're the leftover man.
I am.
I am, and just generally avoiding some of those impulse purchases, which I will say I am not good at whenever I go into the grocery store because I haven't flexed that muscle as much like Kate is our primary food purchaser in our home, and whenever I go, man, I'm.
By random solf. I'm such a sucker. Yes, I really am. I'm real flabby when it comes to avoiding the things that we don't normally buy. I think that is actually one of the selling points for buying your groceries online if you can, you know. But like that curb pickup or whatever, and curbs I pick up is probably wait wait, wait better because you're not paying nearly as many fees and they bring it out to you. But it's like
the happy medium. That's right exactly. But that and it's because we're often our own worst enemy when we go into the groceries.
It's a decent argument for it. No, okay, So I'll share one of the ways I failed. Kay and I we have been trying to incorporate more fruits into our diet because we're like, man, we don't we don't we eat great or proper amounts of protein and veggies and you know everything else. I was like, we don't eat
a ton of fruits. So we've been amping that up, and it's just man, I'm like, all right, we got all these blueberries and strawberries and pears and whatnot, and you start you leave them in there for a little bit, and before you know, they start getting soft and I'm like, I'm stuck eating all those all this fruit that I'm just like, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna toss it. But there have been a few casualties.
The moldy blueberries. I'm anyway, I gotta do it.
No, blueberries never go bad in our household. Really, they're my absolute favorite. But it's just it takes work, and that's why. And because you have to you have to prep fruit. You gotta wash it in some cases if we're putting it in kids lunches, like you gotta you gotta chop it up a little bit, and it's so much easier to grab it, even a thing of nuts, right, I'll take the cap off, you just dump.
It in your hand and you're eating.
So there's additional work that's involved, and that's what it takes when it comes to if you're if it's an emphasis on nutrition and variety of diet, it takes a little more work. Or if you're being driven from a financial standpoint, if you are looking to cut back on how much money you're wasting because you're not actually eating the food, it takes a little bit more work, but it's worth it, and produce just goes bad more quickly, right, Like, yeah, raspberries not as shelf stable.
I swear, like three or four days in. We gotta eat them quick, and so you just have to Also some one of the solutions for food food waste might be buying less and making more grocery runs, which sounds frustrating from a time standpoint, but might be better from a food waste tank. True, yeah, depends. But the Wall Street Journal Matt detailed how Americans are kind of going the young adult route, taking the college college frat boy
I guess approach to how they imbibe alcoholic beverages. Right now, they're pregaming. You know. Pregaming was totally a thing you'd go to a concert or a show. It's better than binging. Yeah, better than binging, But you drink a couple of beers beforehand. Direction I thought, you're going, oh no, not not a pinging, but like you pre game because you want to drink a couple of beers beforehand so you don't have to buy the expensive beers at the venue. Just I get
behind that. That's just smarts right there, right, that's just smarts. But people in our age now are doing the same thing because they're just realizing how expensive it is to go out and order a beverage.
That's because it's the same frat boys from twenty years ago. I guess, well, it's because of inflation. And you're just I think you're just if you're not shocked at the price of a booze or.
A beer when you go out to see a show or concert or a sporting event, now, then you're not paying attention. You're forking over way too much money. You and I were find ourselves drinking less in general. What's just saving us money? But enjoying a beer or a cocktail before the event you're attending it will lead to massive savings. I was just starting to a buddy he went to see a concert at an outdoor amphitheater locally.
I don't remember if he said the beers are twenty two or twenty five dollars, but they were crazy expensive and the cocktails just as much, if not more. That sounds about right, and he bought it. Anyway. I'm the kind of guy who's like, not when I go to shows.
I've talked on this show about how I'm going to more concerts, and guess what, I'm just not drinking, like I'll maybe have a beer before and if I'm at a restaurant this close by, or I'm just like abstaining because it's so expensive and I'm just not willing to spend that much on a beer.
Yeah, So the issue here is frequency, And what you're doing is you've recently been increasing the number of shows you've been going to. Right, But if you and so I don't know how many shows you're gonna go to this year, but let's just say you're going to one show a month, like those you know, all those expensive beers, they start adding up and you're just like, oh, geez. You know, it's not just one hundred dollars on concert beer.
It's not just the ticket price. It's also everything else that goes into make I can get a special evening as opposed to someone like me, where like I'm going to.
Like one, maybe two shows a year, and.
When i go, guess what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna get even if it's a twenty five dollars beer dual, I'm probably gonna get the twenty five dollars beer because it's just a part of what makes it special. In that rare instance that that I'm gonna do that. It kind of makes me think about movie theaters. Did you see that we've crossed the threshold now for the fifty dollars movie theater ticket or whatever. And I view it
in a similar way. I think more folks are willing to pay these high dollar ticket prices because this is in the data. People are not going to the movies as often, like ten twenty years ago, we haven't had the bounce back. Yeah no, yeah, yeah, I mean it was a big.
Because they need to make better movies, and you make better movies, but it's nice to be able to watch a movie at home. Everyone's got big screens, but a lot of folks even got the sound system, and you're like, wait a minute, I can make my own cocon rum with my own popcorn and it's just delicious.
And it's because of that folks are looking for a more premium experience, and personally, I can actually get behind that because in a similar way, I'm not going to go to see a movie all the time. I might go to one or two movies over the course of the year, and when I do, I do want it to be a better experience than when I'm going to experience at home, Like, I'm really comfortable at home, so it better be there needs to be something special about it, which.
Means it needs to be a fancy lay back seat.
Oh it's or this like The Odyssey right fully shot in Imax, Christopher, No, like it's it's that sort of experience.
When does that come out, by the way, this summer? I think summer. I think it's over the summer. Oh yeah, yeah, yah, I'm actually pretty that one. I might go see you in theater. Dude, you want to go see it? I'm pumped about that. But that's the sort of thing that I'm willing to shell out for as opposed to the run of the mill sort of show or I'm sorry movie. It's like, I'm going to wait until that that shows
up at home on streaming. So it's just shocking because I think the average price of a ticket is still I mean it's still expensive, like sixteen dollars maybe for sure the average admission to a movie, but the typical price any one ticket to a movie cancross your field. That was very crazy. Yeah, that's like the Imax the new release run.
Yeah, opening night, it's that whole it's you know, they're going for folks who are looking for that cachet, which is what made something like movie Pass so appealing to people who love to go to movies because you could go see unlimited movies or at least a few a month for a really reduced price.
I think movie Pass came back. I don't know if they're still around now, though I'd be curious to know if any how to money listeners use movie Pass or I have a way to save money where they're going to movies. Holler at us. We don't really go to many, but we're happy to relay that on the show. Just when Yeah, it's hard to go out for a night, and I get why people would say, ah, man, I'm gonna buy five tickets if we get any concessions now too, we're one hundred dollars range for a family to go
to the movies. Let's stay at home, get some nice snacks, and just I'm telling you hang here exactly all right, last, but not leasse, Let's talk about flights for just a second. Talked about that with Kyle on Wednesday. So much good info there. But it's been like this common wisdom in the travel industry that Tuesday is the cheapest day to buy flights. Looking to purcha that plane ticket for your next trip, do it on Tuesdays. But and there's a
lot more that goes into it than just that. But Expedia found that that's actually not as true as it used to be. They found that Fridays tend to have the best deals nowadays, Sundays are actually the most expensive days to book. But even still, like, the discrepancy is not enormous between those days. I think it's like a three percent difference on average, minimal. Yeah, but here's the big thing that I took away from this report, Matt,
Airfare is changing all the time. The average fare changes something like one hundred and thirty five times a year, So if you check two days ago, the fair is probably different than the last time you looked. And this is why air fair alerts and rebooking like Kyle talked about on that episode to get airfare credits if you overpaid initially is a smart way to proceed. And the other thing is not just booking on Tuesday, which is no longer the best advice, but flying on Tuesdays will
still on average save you money. So you're trying to Yeah, trying to leave on a different day of the week, you might spend a little more leaving on Tuesday. If you go Tuesday to Tuesday, it's actually probably the best, the best way to say money tell you that not only three percent, maybe six percent savings. So take that vacation instead of like Monday through Friday and be like, I'm gonna go Tuesday to Tuesday, dude. Nice.
All right, Well, that's gonna be it for our Friday flight. We hope everyone has a wonderful, beautiful weekend. We'll see you back here on Monday with a fresh ask how to Money episode, and you can find any well all the stories that we mentioned during this episode up on our show notes up on the website, specifically at howtomoney dot com.
That's gonna be it, buddy. So until next time, best friends out and best friends Out,