Welcome to How to Money. I'm Joel Matt and today we're talking about people being content to rent, we're going to offer a gift card caution, and we're gonna talk about bitcoin bowls.
That's right, buddy. This is our Friday Flights, our weekly roundup of personal finance news out there, specifically how we think it's going to impact your money. But should we go ahead and tell folks about this news site that we came across that launched recently, Gallion.
It's a I don't even know where I saw it, but I was like, oh, this is really interesting and just kind of allows people to list their own home for sale, and they're kind of trying to create their own marketplace, avoiding the National Association of Realtor stranglehold the mls US, which has been kind of the lynchpin to where people can buy and sell homes and how homes get kind of thrown out there into the ether when they're for sale. And matt Zilla used to have this feature.
I don't know if they still do make me move. Is that still on the site.
Oh, I definitely remember it. Yeah, I'll be honest, I haven't spent as much time on Zilla which is probably a good thing for mental health.
Well, I used to love that feature because I think at some point there is a price that I'm willing to accept right for a home, even the home I'm living in, even if I love it. Well, if someone wants to come off me like two million dollars tomorrow.
Okay, sure as well just stick up there for five million if someone's willing to pay that.
No one would have paid me five million for it. But like, I like that kind of idea that you can at least kind of name a price if somebody says, I'm desperate enough for the place that you live in that I'll pay it. Boom, Like you're able to find a place where buyer and seller are willing to meet. And it seems like Gallion is kind of trying to create that marketplace and I think it's neat.
Yeah, searched our area. There's a couple dozen homes where. It's actually kind of funny too, because you can see how it's like there's little pockets of listings and it's like someone learns about it and then they tell a couple of their friends and they also get their house up there as well. I mean, bottom line the more competitors there are in the space, the more people are
a going to be talking about it. But then just there's just more competition, and I think more folks are going to be willing to go out there quote unquote, go out on a limb, as opposed to kind of going with the more traditional model of going with a listing agent, having an agent who's looking for a home on your behalf, because let's be honest, I don't know about I mean I do know actually about you, Like you are not only looking at the homes that your
realtor sends you. You are getting out there yourself, right, and so like the model has completely changed, at least when it comes to the work that's being provided, but the commission hasn't changed. And that's what that's the biggest sticking point. It's not that we don't think that realtors are providing value, it's just that maybe the way that they should be compensated should change. I still think that there is going to be a space a market for realtors.
It's still the most of item most people are ever going to purchase. But I think there's a lot of room in between four folks who maybe are looking at like a first time home purchase where they're not spending a ton of money, where they are going to be a little more engaged in the home search process.
But I think this site, at least what it's trying to do is go to the complete opposite and end of those spectruments and just line up buyers and sellers together through online listings on Gallion's website specifically, and maybe at least for some people they'll be able to find their perfect match. They'll be able to avoid paying any
real circ commission. And if this does reach critical mass where enough people are listing properties and searching for properties, this could be like a new way forward.
Yeah, and again, even the fact that it exists, I think it can be promising and hopefully can open up the housing market as things have slowed down significantly. Let's keep talking about housing, Joel. Sixty percent of people thought it was smart to buy a home four years ago, right, so sixty percent. Then only twenty percent think it's a smart move today, and man, rightly so. Starter homes they cost more than a million dollars in a ton of
different cities around the country. That's crazy to think, right, It's like, yeah, what kind of job you have to be able to afford a million dollar, million dollar starter home. Sticky high rates, they actually taken the wind out of the sales of a lot of folks as well, meaning they are becoming more content to rent for the time being.
There's your I like the rhyming better than the alliteration personally, but the truth is, in most markets around the country, you can rent the home that's equivalent to what you could buy and pay far less every single month, and by doing that, you retain that flexibility because you can always opt to buy if marketing conditions change. And of course you don't have you don't have the maintenance, you
don't have the repairs to worry about. So if you are in the twenty percent camp of folks who want to own a home, I totally get it. But renting maybe a little bit longer in order to juice your savings and hopes that barring rates, they you know, hoping that they'll take down or maybe if supply tacks up, or actually both would ideally happen at the same time. That could still be the best financial move right now for a lot of folks.
Yeah, I hate them, maybe dismay that people feel like, all right, I guess I'm gonna take buying off the table. But I also think in a lot of ways it's smart because the market is pretty ridiculous. As someone who's especially for first time home buy it's if you're selling one home buying another one, I think it's like, oh, well, at least I'm making out like a bandit on the sale potentially, and even though I'm paying out the nose
for the next house. But it makes us a whole lot of sense financially speaking, for a lot of folks to say, you know what, I'm gonna wait to buy for the time being. Another reason I think to be dubious of buying a home these days is rising home owners' association fees. Some homeowners Matt they're seeing just ridiculous increases in their HOA dues. And this again, this kind of
makes sense too. It jives with what's going on. The cost of insurance has risen significantly, so is the cost of repairs and maintenance and so up keep for the pool, the tennis court, it's all that kind of the common areas. It's not as cheap as it used to be. And you know, for associations that weren't good at planning. Some are really good at planning. They've got money banked and
they've been, you know, just raising hoadus steadily over the years. Well, those year over year bumps might not be too bad, but for a lot of other associations who weren't good at planning, those bumps can be significant or worse. Maybe there's some sort of special assessment that gets levied that can be thousands and thousands of dollars. Those can be considerable. And then you know, I know, some folks prefer to live in neighborhoods that have in HOA. They like the
well maintained public spaces. They like the idea that their neighbor can't paint their door hot pink or something like that. But it's called self expression, I know. But in hoa's you're not allowed to have that self expression. So I think a warning here, just be careful before buying a home in a neighborhood that has an HOA, or buying a condo right where there's a homeowner's association, which are
typically is in condo communities. It's harder to do these days with I think a third of homes are a part of an HOA, and when we're talking about new builds, the vast majority are. But if you're going to do that, if you are going to buy a home that does have a homeowners association, dig into the financials of the HOA before you buy, because you might be like, oh, this is a reasonably priced monthly fee. Well, it might
not stay there for long. There was a local example, Matt of a twenty nine thousand dollars assessment per person in the community to fix a dam that was owned by the community. And that's just shocking. I mean, we've seen what happened has happened in Florida too, homeowners associations jacking up rates significantly. So hoa's they can be good and they can help protect your home value, but they can also be quite expensive.
Yeah. So what do you think about manufactured homes as being a potential solution. Prefab manufactured homes they get hauled on site, you know, normally they're like split down the middle, yeah, and then they I guess get bolted together.
I think those have come a long way actually in recent years, and maybe twenty years ago, it wasn't, as you know, worthwhile a solution. But no, I guess I think they could be part of the solution to high housing costs.
Yeah, it makes me so. We on the show, we've talked before about the problems with nimbiism, you know, where folks who are like not in my backyard. We've talked about zoning laws that prevent building new homes in much of the country without a lengthy process, and those remain hurdles to increased building. And if we as a country incentivize adding more supply, I think that would reduce prices over time. But manufactured homes, I think that could actually
be a part of the solution as well. It's funny how things have changed over like one hundred years, because like the Seers catalog where you could buy the home kits, like our old neighborhood that we used to live in, I think like half of the homes, half of the bungalows in that neighborhood were essentially you could look at some of the old Seers kits and see your home an illustrated version that was one hundred years old, yeah, drawn in there.
And those kits what used to cost like one thousand bucks. I mean those insane to think about how cheap and how cool those homes actually are.
They look really cool. But those days are seeing a resurgence. You can buy a manufactured home on Amazon. You can even buy one on Facebook, although you know they I don't think they hold a candle to the old bungalows of your But zoning laws all right, So it comes full circle here. Zoning laws often prevent folks from putting
up manufactured homes on their property. So if you are living in a community, I can understand why some folks are wanting something that's not like cookie cutter homes, but something that feels a little more uniform and where you can't just stick whatever you want on that property.
But especially if you are.
Further out, the ability to spend significantly less on a manufactured home, I think that could be just an awesome way to consider saving a ton of money. Just make sure to check local rules. But new building methods as well as manufactured homes, I think could if done in conjunction with zoning reform, it could provide a lot of relief on the home buying front as folks are looking to especially if for folks who are looking to get their first place.
Yeah, it's like we have to look into all of those areas. Let's keep talking about real estate, Matt. There's something that people are doing in order to combat the high cost of real estate where they live, and this is actually something that I think is ill advised, and it is buying a home with friends. So people are pulling their assets together. They're saying, hey, Sarah, hey Steve, whatever your best friend's name is, and they say, I can't afford a home on my own. I know you
want to buy a home too. Why don't we, with the money that we've both been able to save, put this down payment on a single family home and we'll both we'll co own it.
What could go wrong?
What could go wrong? Right? And when you look at the stats, there's a lot more people who are actually opting to do this. This is kind of it's a trend these days, I think, Matt. Part of that has to do with people getting married later in life, and so they're like, I don't know, sure, I'm in my late twenties. Why not buy a home with a friend,
since maybe I'm punting marriage until my mid thirties. And the next thing you know, you're making offers together, but getting into that purchase is actually fairly easy if you have the funds and you have the desire. The tough thing is getting out of the purchase, right. It's so much harder to get out than it is to get in.
And so if living together with the person you have bought this home with isn't working out, or even if you just want a portion of the equity because you're moving for a job, or that you do decide to get married, your co owner or co owners, if you're doing this with multiple people and not just one other person might not be in the financial position to oblige
your whim. They might say, oh, sorry, I can't actually by this portion of the home out, or we'd have to do a cash out refinance, which is also a tough move to do. Even if they want to help you out, oftentimes they can't. So the Wall Street Journal had a profile of people who are combining assets to buy homes and just like how sticky and how difficult it can be, and how it can lead to hurt relationships.
You might be the person who gets lucky in is able to make it work, but this kind of arrangement can hurt your personal finances, and it can hurt your relationships too. So I think our advice typical would be a stay clear, don't buy real estate. Well, these are the people most of the time.
Well, it's different too, if like you are doing this with your spouse, because you that's a very different kind of relationship than yes, like even to your bestie, but let alone. Definitely just like your buddy, right Like, when you are married, you've literally taken vows, there are witnesses. Maybe you even threw a big party afterwards called a reception.
Yeah, the like stakes are ramped up.
It's a stickier relationship, you are more committed, and so it makes sense that, oh, yeah, we are going to buy a house together. It's a lot different to do that with a friend. And a much better solution, I think, would be for there to be a single buyer and then hey, maybe you'll rint out that extra room or
rent out two rooms or rent out three rooms. But the ability for a single individual to go in there and make that purchase, and chances are if you're the one listening to the Personal Finance Money podcast here, that person is probably you. Yeah, and so just to think creatively about this. Typically on the show, we call this house hacking, but back in the day, it was just called roommates, and that's just certainly a way to get your housing costs down. Why still being able to purchase that.
House, and you might even be able to provide your friends like a slightly below market rent. Say you're gouging there, right, Hey, I'm buying this place, and yes, I know your rent's pretty expensive. And once you move into the bedroom of the place I'm buying, and hey, then but then it just it creates less of that you're not commingling your finances to this overwhelming extent. And you're right, man, it's not overwhelming if you're married, but it can be overwhelming
if you're just friends. And then both of you want to go separate.
Ways, and you can like wade into those waters. It's so easy to wait in those waters. Like you can just say, hey, let's just try this out for three months, Like you don't have to even sign it, like create a lease, and hey, this is up to you, by the way, as the landlord, and as the owner of the property, you get to decide how long you want them to be there. So you could say, hey, let's try this out for three months. We only met last year, so I'm not totally sure how this is going to
work out. And three months in it's like, hey, let's do this. This is working out really well. We literally that's what we did here with our office, the studio that we rent. It's a carriage house and they'd never done that before, and so we're like, let's just try it out. Let's just give it a few months. We came back to the table, talked about it, and we've been here for like, we're on our third year now at this point, Joel, and we've only had one rent increase.
I think it's just because we're great tenants. Thanks Andrew. Joe, you want to talk about I know you're not a fan of gift cards. Do you have some evidence? Do you want to you want to talk about gift cards especially I guess this time of year.
Feel like this is something we debate at least once a year, typically right around this.
Time, the bi annual conversation that we have because well, this is this is the time of year where people are most enticed to buying gift cards. They're an incredibly popular purchase this time of year, which makes sense, and they I've always understood why people are attracted to buying gift cards. I feel like they they seem like they're are an incredibly thoughtful gift. They're seen as more intentional than giving just cash, which some people think of is
is ghost uncouth. Yeah, say right, And that might or might not be true. I think it depends in the eye of the beholder. But when you buy a gift card, you're I've always said this, I made this argument. You're trading US dollars that can be spent anywhere in the world, essentially definitely anywhere in the United States, into a plastic card. They can only be spent at one retailer. So it doesn't really make a whole lot of mental sense for me to do that. That's not my favorite thing in
the world. But making matters worse, Matt And this is the this is going to help prove my point. Hope, I hope you listen to me.
Here. What happens if the retailer that you buy the gift card from experiences financial trouble. Right, So, for instance, TGI Fridays, which I know is your favorite restaurant, go there every Thursday. Right, They're not doing so hot right now. They've shut down dozens of locations and we just don't know how long the company as a whole is going
to be around. And if you have a TGI Friday's gift card, and there's fifty million dollars worth of unspent gift cards that are earmarked for TGI Friday's use, that a lot of those people are going to be completely out of luck. They're not going to be able to find their gift cards in time. They've already misplaced them. Some of these gift cards are twenty years old, They've been in an underwear drawer, or they got tossed in the trash. So I think that's what happens with a
lot of gift cards. When you look at the overall amount of unspent gift cards, a lot of it is just misplaced forgotten. Oh I got this gift card to a retailer I don't like or I don't go to, and so I just didn't spend it. And that to me is the worst part of gift cards. So people don't usually forget to spend one hundred dollars it shows up in their hands, but they do forget to spend gift cards.
I totally agree with the fact that getting a gift card that it limits your options, But like, I wonder if for you, if it's less about that you don't like the concept of a gift card as opposed to you not liking the biggest retailers out there that tend to benefit from gift cards, right, So, like, I don't think you're a huge fan of Starbucks, but they've got Starbucks. I've heard this is like an airline, an urban Legends stat or something like that. But they're like Starbucks is
like the third largest bank in America. I think it's true when you consider the amount of outstanding dollars that are out there on Starbucks gift cards. And so is it like for you, is it more or that's and maybe to prove my point, like, would you rather have somebody give you a Huckberry gift card? So Huckberry it's like one of your favorite men's clothing retailers, online retailers.
Would you rather get a Huckberry gift card? Or would you rather have someone get you something from Huckberry that you may or may not be able to take.
I'd rather have the gift card, yeah, than a clothing one. And because you're right, like, maybe it doesn't size is not the right size, or maybe it's not the right.
And you don't want to have to go to the hassle of making the return, but even better give me cash. But then, like in that case, like for you and your wife, are you y'all gonna say, okay, let's just both give each other one hundred dollars? Then what it's happened?
Like literally, I'm gonna buy her something I know she'll like because that's how I roll, and I know her well enough to do that. But I guess I think some people think, oh, well, I'm going to get the teacher a gift, or I'm gonna go get I'm gonna get a friend, you know that. I kind of sort of know we're gonna swap. Guess I'm gonna get them a gift card because it feels like, oh, there's some element of thought in it. But really, do you know if that person actually likes that store or not?
Yeah, I think there's somewhere in between, like because like, like you can envision you giving a great gift to your wife, but then on the like far other extreme, you can envision someone not giving any thought to a gift to a teacher and getting them a tgif right as a gift card, and like there's somewhere in between where it's just like, Okay, I know that they I'm pretty sure are a big fan of the local coffee shop that's got this killer cute interior that everyone falls over.
Like that's the kind of gift card that would like one get used. It's just I feel like there are more gray areas when it comes to the gift card conversation, which I feel like you tend to. I feel like you embrace the gray typically, but when it comes to the gift.
Cards, I will add another element of gray.
I think it's more the stats, the fact that they're like US dollars. Yeah, and that's it's so it's less the gift cards. It's more the behavior. And that comes down to us as individuals to modify our behavior, not necessarily to say that gift.
Cards are from but I've done the same thing. They're of the devil body. I think we are more apt to do that with the gift cards than we are with cash, Like we're not going to leave cash on spent, but we will leave gift cards on spent. And so I guess I just don't want to feed into that cycle. But the one exception, and we do see more discounting on gift cards this time of year. If there's a discount for your favorite restaurant, for I mean, Costco sells
discount of gift cards. So much of the time you spend seventy five or eighty dollars and you get one hundred dollars worth of gift cards. If you're getting a deal on gift cards, that's when I think it's I think that's actually like a really smart move. Then just make sure you actually use them.
Yeah, especially if you do it for yourself, because if you know, like that's the problem, not knowing whether or not the thing's going to get redeemed. But as an individual, if you're saying, hey, we on an annual basis, we spend at least five hundred dollars at this local restaurant. Yeah, well the ability to, like you said, get a twenty percent off gift card, Well that's a slam dunk, no brainer sort of decision. Joe, we got more to get.
So we're going to talk about flooded out cars, ripped jeans and more right after this.
All right, we're back to the break. Matt We will get to some of those other topics here in just a second, but you got to get to the ludicrous headline of the week. This one comes from a publication called coin Telegraph, and it reads Bitcoin gained nineteen percent in Trump's first term. Will betc price hit one million dollars this time? And I don't know if you've been following Matt since the last week and a.
Half, been following because I own some bitcoin? Okay?
Well, A lot's happened in the political arena, and that political arena has influenced the financial arena in some instances, and cryptocurrency in general and bitcoin specifically, have been kind of beneficiars. The prices on some of these coins, Bitcoin particularly has been popping in a massive way, hitting all time highs, even all time highs adjusted for inflation. Dogecoin, which started out as a joke currency that has been slamming as well. And Matt, what happens when prices are
soaring in the cryptocurrency space. A lot of people who have been on the sidelines starting to come off the sidelines. They start to invest in the cryptocurrency.
They get drawn in by the fear of missing out.
Yeah, exactly, it's the fomo and it just only fuels the crypto resurgence. But this headline is is bigcoin going to like ten x in the next four years? I don't know, do.
You know, Matt, Like no, I know, is it likely to happen?
I would say probably not, But I mean again, I don't know, and I wouldn't stake a significant amount of my wealth on it. And the truth is, like when we look at history, we don't have very much data when it comes to cryptocurrency, not nearly as much as we do with the stock market. And so I guess a word of caution if you're to put too many
eggs in the cryptocurrency basket. Yeah, maybe you get lucky, maybe you find yourself sitting on massive gains because maybe some of these predictions are right, but there's also significant risk in going that route. The headlines, they're all about crypto going to the moon again. But our yeah, our advice is always is to invest for the long term, and especially in the crypto space, only invest what you can afford to lose.
That's true, Yeah, And the reason that's been blown up is largely because the crypto community sees Trump as being sympathetic to their cause based on what he said, and he says a whole lot so you know, maybe taking as many things grain of salt, but they see fewer constraints, fewer regulations within the crypto space just generally speaking. Moving forward, he's even mentioned the possibility of a like this national strategic Bitcoin reserve, sort of like what we have with oil,
like a just like a stockpile coin base. They've actually even benefited handsomely from the election too, as more folks are there's more interest in cryptocurrency.
It's like all signs are pointing towards like crypto, less crypto regulation, more interesting crypto, and more of like a government support of cryptocurrency.
There's a whole lot more excitement and trust. It's it's continuing to build in bitcoin, in particular as the store of value black rocks bitcoin ETF, it has more now in assets then it's gold ETF like actual physical gold,
something that you can hold. And so how should you react, Well, our advice hasn't changed crypto, especially when it comes to the mean coins are incredibly speculative assets and having some exposure to it, it can be a reasonable choice, but still please keep it to five percent or less of your overall portfolio if this is something that you are interested in, and just take all market and financial predictions
with a grain of salt because we have no idea. Like, yes, trust is growing, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that it's even lasted this long.
I'll be honest. My perceptions of crypto, especially bitcoin, it's slowly changing, slowly morphing over time, and that has in large part to do with the there's a track record, there's a history that you can look back at, and what is the value of currency if not just the mutual trust, Yeah, like the collective trust of everyone looking at it and saying that this is something that we
believe in now and oftentime. That comes with time. So that's an argument I guess for it or why I still hold some bitcoin, But it's by no means a recommendation to go out there and get you some of that.
That's right, or unless you're keeping it to a minimal portion of your overall portfolio. So yeah, I think that's that's kind of what we've said for a long time, and I think you and I have probably softened our stance on bitcoin in particular over the past few years. But we still don't want people to make it a major holding in their retirement accounts or anything like.
Sure, so I almost hate saying this, but like another argument for it, I sound like a bitcoin bowl now, but like like I feel like the first wave was individual investors getting into bitcoin. But then what do we see four years ago? We saw institutional investors, yeah, start to step into the game. And I do wonder if more countries start to come on board, especially the US, because as the US goes, so does the rest of
the world, oftentimes when it comes to countries. But I wonder if that's a part of frothy headlines that we see regarding bitcoin this time around here. Maybe.
So all right, let's talk about cars, Matt. We talked about actually some of the repercussions of horrendous weather events in the South recently, namely the severe damage in Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina from Hurricanes Helene and Milton, and Matt, my buddy was just in Asheville, like working on his property. Like it's still so much clean up, so much devastation from the flooding as a result of that hurricane. But another result that could impact literally everyone listening to this show,
no matter where you live in the country. Is the hundreds of thousands of cars that sustained flood damage in those storms as well. And that's not an overstatement like that. There's a ton of cars who experienced flood damage where there was like some sort of insurance client made and flood damaged cars are getting cleaned up. I put that in quotation marks so cleaned up and then they're being
shipped to far reaching domestic destinations. But just because they got cleaned up does mean they're actually in good condition. The damage that happens from the flooding often leads to like electrical issues, engine malfunctions, rust on the vehicle that lead to just prolonged issues over the course of you owning that vehicle. And those problem ridden cars, they often get sold for less money to scammers who are trying to flip those cars to unsuspecting consumers in other parts
of the country. So then maybe they're maybe they're shipping them from areas in the southeast where they experience the flooding, they're shipping them over to the southwest, to the northeast, something like that, And people just don't assume that this car had any sort of flooding history. And this doesn't mean that you should buy new cars to avoid like
the potential for buying a flood damaged used car. But always, always, always get a used car that you're looking to buy inspected by a mechanic you trust, because they're going to be able to pinpoint and point out, say, listen, actually, here's why you probably shouldn't buy this one. They're gonna be able to see flood damage and kind of help point you away from buying a car that has it.
Yeah, I mean, I think it's worth spending a minute and talking about how much of a game changer it is to buy a used vehicle as opposed to a new vehicle. And so to argue our point, Joel, I've got some numbers that I've crunched.
You always pree the numbers.
The average monthly payment on a new car today is seven hundred and thirty four dollars. Now that wasn't the case sixteen years ago, but let's just say it was. And I'm going to say sixteen years ago because Kate and I that's when we moved from a two car family down to a one car family. Had we invested that monthly payment for sixteen years up to today, we
would have around three hundred and sixteen thousand dollars. Dang, that's that's pretty nice, right were we to continue to invest that seven hundred and thirty four dollars, because guess what, in the future, that new car payment, it's actually going to be higher than it is right now. True another ten years, we're looking at a million dollars just from not having a new car. And I don't think that that's some sort of straw man argument either, because a
lot of people do this. A lot of people kind of get locked into this new car cycle. They're all always making a payment on a vehicle, and we.
Just normalized it so much.
It's normalized and it's just seen as a lifestyle up not an upgrade, but it's just something that people are used to and if you can afford it, if you've got the money on hand, if you have the money on hand, you should be buying that vehicle new first of all. But secondly, I think some people see it as like, hey, this is something this is like my one thing that I like to spend money on if
you can afford it, I think that's that. That can be okay, that can be a decent argument, but it's at least worth running the numbers occasionally and just facing the facts and how much this is actually going to cost you over the long haul, were you to instead go with something that's used and something that you pay cash for as opposed to paying out the nose for a new vehicle every single year.
I mean, trade offs are the ultimate reality of personal finance, and at least know with eyes wide open the trade off you're making. And that, to me is kind of a shocking statistic to think that just investing what you would have spent every single month on a car payment, assuming you had won every single month for all those years, for less than three decades, that becomes a million dollars
twenty six years. Yeah, that's pretty crazy to think about, and at least it should make you, I don't know, I you're the car sitting in your driveway a little more warrely be like, wait a second, you know how much money you're costing me? Think about that?
Like if you are able to look at it through a different lens, like you're putting on Like I don't want you to always be wearing the money lens, the money goggles, like you know, as you're looking at expenses in your house, like you shouldn't instinctively see like dollars side it's like.
Look at your child, Look at that much food you're eating. Expensive.
Augmented reality where like you've got a program that automatically tallies how much something's costing you. That would actually be pretty.
Dope, like the meta glasses or something. There's kind of yeah, exact software that could they could put in their virtual reality.
I've never been a fan of, but augmented reality I feel like actually has potential, the ability to marry the digital world and like the actual reality that we're in. I see that being Ah, that maybe a useful uh useful application.
Perhaps, all right, let's talk about fashion for a second.
Matt.
At the risk of sounding like an old man, I'm willing to dip my toes in this. Why are people still buying ripped jeans?
Here's joll over here shaking his fist at the sky.
Get off my lawn. People. Well, and this was actually this was the title of a recent New York Times article Why are people still buying rip jeans? And I just agree with this question because I've never really understood why people do this. I've never been a fan of the rip jeans phenomenon. I think I have a pair of jeans that have a rip in it, but only because they're like fourteen years old. You rip the whole them because.
I earned that rip.
Yes, insane buying.
That's such a better way of thinking about it. Is like my living created that rip. Like me getting down on my knees to pick up my kid for the umpteenth time. Is what caused that? Where that threadbare patch there on the knee right, which eventually leads to a beautiful rip?
Well, And as The New York Times highlights in this article, it's the funny thing is that it's luxury brands. Those are the ones that are specializing in creating these these these coveted pairs of ripped pants that people are into. So not only are people paying for jeans with rips, which doesn't make sense to me at all, they're also not getting them at a reasonable price because they're buying them from luxury retailers who charge more for ripped jeans.
So it's not like, oh, let me go get this pair of rib jeans from Walmart because they're eighteen dollars. It's like, let me get the Balenciaga rip jeans that are seven hundred and ninety five dollars.
Yeah, if it was like, hey, you're gonna get a discount because these genes are ripped, it's like buying ugly food or dented produce at the grocery store. That's like, it's still good, but we'll give you a discount. Yeah, if you take this off our hands.
I might be willing to partake if it was exactly discounted, but it's not right. So I don't know that you or I are icons of style anything like that. Speak for yourself, but forking over big bucks to the fancy brands to buy rib jeans doesn't make really much sense to me at all.
And I don't even like the distressed. It makes me think back to the eighties. Like the eighties is is that when like acid wash came in or stonewashed. That's what it was called stone washed, and it was to make the genes look like they were somewhat broken in because as a kid, I remember the absolute worst thing was getting a pair of like brand new genes that
were like dark blue. Like that was lame and so I kind of understand from a kid's perspective, but now as an adult man, like those like those are the nice genes, right, Like this Japanese salvage dark blue raw denim. I love getting a pair of those because it's almost like a blank canvas. And like you said, you have to earn those wear lines. Yeah, you earned that whiskery.
It's coming about naturally over time.
Yeah, yeah, that's a and you're paying more in that case though, on those kinds of genes because they're salvage and so it's a it's a nicer denim. I don't know all everything that goes into it, but it's a nicer fabric. It's a it's heavier, it's like the heavyweight. However many ounces I don't.
I'm not like a.
Denim head or anything like that. But like you are literally getting more. There's a utilitarian.
You're getting something that's higher quality and will last longer, as opposed to getting something that is an attempt at at being trendy exactly.
Okay, So, speaking of spending money on crap, maybe try and avoid Amazon's new line, Amazon Haul. This is Amazon's effort to compete with the cheap Chinese sites like Timu over there nothing is priced more than twenty dollars. And you may be listening to the show and thinking that, man, these money saving hosts of the podcast, they'd be all about Amazon Hall, but we're actually not. Because these quote unquote affordable products are they're often made incredibly poorly. That
means they're gonna break quickly. If it's a fashion item, it means it's gonna unravel quickly or fade, or it's gonna pill and you're gonna start seeing more prompts to check out Amazon Hall over on their site or on the app, especially here around the holidays. But avoiding it is likely the best policy. We like getting a deal, we like the prices, but we are certainly down to pay a little bit more for quality for something that
we think is gonna last the actual long haul. I don't know, I didn't really wrap that up cleanly, but you know what I'm saying. Yeah, So the reason it's called Amazon Hall too is it because it's because they want you to They have to send it directly from China right to avoid the it's likely going to take multiple weeks to get your stuff, just because yeah, it is this direct from direct from China sort of to avoid the teriffs?
Yeah?
Literally, I guess like when you are when they're shipping it directly from China, like.
They're in Amazon much much much less. They know, Hey, we're maybe competitive with a lot of American retailers, but we're not as competitive with Timu Sheian like those kind of companies. And so this is their attempt to be competitive on that front. But that in their attempts to be competitive with some of those Chinese retailers, they are going to have to reduce the quality of the product.
They're reducing the price. Yeah, but a lot of these things are just going to be cheap chot keys that you should avoid because they're not gonna last very long, especially man, some of those clothing items. Think about how I've never bought anything from any of those Chinese sites. Man, I kind of I refuse to, Like, I'm not interested. And I know some people like are addicted to them and they get stuff for super duper cheap, but I just don't think the deep discounts are worth.
The price we pay. Joel's buy an American made only, Joel's a Patriot.
I'm American made only but like my goodness.
Avoiding the absolutely cheapest crap out there.
Yeah yeah, I mean everything I read about the especially the clothing items, but like think about like the all the plastic junkin stuff. It's a lot of it's like completely needless stuff. And word, we're just wowed by the price, and so we buy. But how long does that thing actually last? And is it something that we use for longer than a few days?
I know. Yeah, we are literally in the midst of having conversations with family right now as we're trying to figure out what gifts are going to look like around the holidays in Christmas in order to keep you know, just all that stuff that's gonna end up breaking or that we're not going to find a whole lot of value in to a minimum.
Yeah, those are important conversations to have right now.
Yeah, man, let's do a quick newsletter referral shout out to Brittany Ka. Brittany, thank you so much for being a how to Money newsletter reader as well as disseminator. You've sent it out to some of your most loved friends and family, so thank you for spreading the word.
No doubt we appreciate you Brittany. All right, Matt, that's gonna do it for this episode. We'll put links in the show notes to some of the stuff that we mentioned, and there's always more money saving information about how toomoney dot com. But until next time, best Friends Out, Best Friends Out,