Welcome to How the Money. I'm Joel and I am that Today we're talking crappy credit unions, contractor scams, and aldi everywhere.
Yeah, buddy, this is our Friday flight. I'm excited to talk about the most important personal finance story from this past week. And I know you've got a little note here about maybe buying a tesla. I don't'm not totally sure what this note means, but we First, Oh, I wanted to give a quick shout out to Todd R because he was out there referring our newsletter out to friends. So not only does he donate beer to the show, he's also spreading the good HTM word out there to
all of his friends. Appreciate you, Todd, Yeah, thank you, Todd. And of course, the ultimate prizes, How Money, socks and a beer hang with us. So hopefully more folks will get after some of those higher referral numbers.
So sign up for the newsletter if you haven't, and then tell your friends about it through the referral link inside of the newsletter when you get it. That's the way you kind of earn earned the shout out and then eventually earned the socks. Matt just a couple of things I wanted to discuss real quick before we get to the Friday flight and all the stories. I mean, I guess it is kind of newsworthy. Rivian announced they're two different less expensive vehicles.
Yeah, they did.
If anybody listens to the show, they know I'm kind of obsessed with Rivian that that. I think their vehicles are the best looking basically ever made.
Easily.
Yeah, they've got that kind of classic style but also modernized. But man, the first two vehicles they put out, they're only for rich people, right, Let's be honest.
They're really expensive. And so the news like seventy eighty thousand dollars for the R one and the T one.
Oh, well, the R one's gone down in price, but it was, I mean it was it was like basically six figures if you wanted it at the very beginning.
Yeah, it was.
I think it was like ninety five plus. So, oh, I think it's gone down in price a little bit. But the RW is going to be more like forty five, which is a heck of a lot less expensive, and the R three is going to be like thirty eight, I think is where it's going to start. And that's before the tax credit. So I put down because I've been talking about this for years and I do. I hate spending money on cars, but the one car consider spending more money on is like a Ribbean suv if
the price is right. And so I was like forty five grand with the federal tax credit after on top of that, I don't know, man, I could see myself doing it. So I put one hundred dollars refundable deposit down.
So that's what's so great. I'm like I might even do it too. The fact that it's refundable, like there's nothing to lose. Yeah, I mean literally, until I was reading the fine printks, I'm like, all right, what is because you mentioned it and I kind of dug into it a little bit more, and yeah, like until you place the order for your car, you can get your hundred bucks back and with the credit thirty seven to five after the federal rebate to potentially get your hands
on dude. Like I've been talking big about the Toyota, Toyota RAV four and some of those, and they're like three four years old. They're like thirty thirty, two thousand dollars, so like a few more thousand dollars and all of a sudden, you've got a brand new full like full EV that can go with three hundred plus miles. We might be uh Rivian twinsies.
We'll see they're super cool. I'm really excited to see with the future holds, because there's the electric car market seems to have seized up a little bit of slowing down. I know, Ford to stopping production of the of the electric f one point fifty demand. It's just not quite quite there. And part of it just because pricing is still so high, especially on some of the bigger electric electric cars. And so I'm glad to see Rivian hitting this price point that's gonna be a little more accessible
to a lot of people. There just aren't that many cheap EV's out there, and this still still not cheap. And I don't know if I'm actually gonna go through with it or not, but at least I have reserved the right to get one if I want to. Something else on the EV front, there was an article in the Wall Street Journal about this guy who said he paid for a Tesla with subscriptions he canceled. We talk about subscription stuff so much.
I don't really want to dial into that.
But it was just really really cool to see he like fleshed out all the subscriptions he cut and it really did come pretty close to equaling his.
Monthly car payment.
Which yeah, first off, that means he had a lot of subscriptions.
But basically it's a way for him to offset that. I mean sounds like he's financed it unfortunately. Yeah, but to minimize some of the expenses that you don't care about as much to get get us a sweet ride. Yeah, I'm all for that, man.
So they're called to look and see what you're spending.
Yeah, all right, Well, speaking of cars, we talked a while back about the some of the different privacy policies of the car manufacturers. They're pretty crazy. And the Mozilla Foundation they found this out. This is some research that they did. It was like follow last year, right, yeah, yeah,
sometime last year. But buying that new car, it gives the manufacturer the right to gather information on you, and not just information about how it is that you drive, Like there are very personal pieces of information that they're collecting. Like I don't know how they do this, but like your genetics, your sexual.
Activity as well, if you're the kind of person to you know, procreate in the back of the back of your car.
I guess, which I've Joel's been known to do.
I guess, I guess don't.
Give out my personal infodog. Enough of that. But now we know, and this is thanks to reporting from the New York Times, that they're not just actually collecting the data, but no surprise, they're also selling that information to the
different insurance companies out there without your knowledge. And that's the crux of the reporting here, which means that rate increases could be coming, and not just because the insurance market isn't turnoil, but because your insurance company now has knowledge to the tune of something like one hundred plus pages of documentation of your potentially subpar driving habits and other activities. Yeah.
I mean, it's freaky stuff, right when you dig in the fact that one the car companies know when they're collecting intentionally all this data on you, they're selling stuff. And then not only are they just selling this like anonymized data, they're also selling your personalized data to these insurance companies and people are finding out about it the
hard way when they get one of those rate increases. Basically, it's like if you break hard, or you speed regularly, you know you're going over eighty miles an hour, or you accelerate quickly. Those are the kind of things they're
looking for. And then they're telling the insurance companies they're tatling on you behind your back, like your brother or sister did when you were a kid, and like the for instance they mentioned in the Chevy Bolt, which is actually speaking of vv's the cheapest v out there on the market, one of the ones we've said take a look at well, GM seems to be at the forefront of this trend. So your insurance company is going to hear about how you're using that Chevy Bolt via the
third party website lexus Nexus. So Chevy sells the data to lexis Nexus and they sell it to whoever wants it. It's a crime system. And so we've talked Matt about before saving money on your insurance by allowing your insurance company to monitor you. I'm doing that on purpose right now, but it's a direct relationship with my insurance company where I stand the benefit where my rates could potentially go down if they see that my driving habits are decent.
Could they potentially go up?
No, they can't. That's specifically along the they outline that. They outline that specifically. What if they do go up? I mean, and they're like, oh no, no, it's not because you're driving. It's because that's just what's going on. That's when I sue, all right, I've done the same thing. I mean, let me say that your rates will drop somewhere between zero and thirty percent based on your driving.
Okay, how you drive, and you can.
Follow along and they've got like a little score and trophies and stuff.
So you can it.
Can they kind of incentivize you to be a good driver too, dude?
No, totally. Like a couple of years when I allowed this. Yeah that you like, download the app on your phone. It knows when you're driving, and it changes the way that you drive. Like when you have incentives like that, when you stand to benefit to financially gain from driving safer, well not only do you end up winning from an insurance standpoint, but like, Okay, this is kind of great because I'm also less likely to get into an accident because I'm driving like a granny. I am less likely
to have to pay a speeding ticket because I ain't speed. No, more. That's right, I kind of dig it. Yep, all the above, I agree, But again I'm we're willing consent exactly.
Yeah, we're doing it proactively on purpose, with a tangible reward at the end. But the fact that this is happening without our knowledge because of something very deep in the terms and services, because you basically said they're doing it without your knowledge, and that's essentially true because nobody reads and maybe we should, but we wouldn't ever get to do anything fun with our lives the terms and services, right, and so in our mind, I would say, it's another reason not.
To get a new car. Oh my gosh.
Yeah, you know, I need to check the terms and services of Rivian before in twenty twenty six when that comes out.
They send you like a blood sample kit and they like pick your thumb and then that's how they get the DNA genetics. Maybe maybe it really does make me think twice about like it does make me think back to getting like an eighties land cruiser or something like that, to where you don't have to worry about any of that stuff and.
Then you just have to worry about it breaking down all the time.
Well, you gotta take care of it. But do you ever think about that, the fact that all of our cars today it's nothing but computers and electronics.
Oh yeah, And you know this is making me think about that even more. It's just, hey, maybe I'm even more worried about upgrading to a newer ride because there are all these other downside potentials Like.
What if there's a nuclear attack on our country and there's an EMP that's the electromagnetic pulse, Yeah, fries all of our cars and then we can't high tail it for the hills. Well everything about it.
Dude, That to all cars, because even not just modern ones.
I think, like the older cars, they don't have actual likes. It's all physical, like a carburetor that's a mechanical device as opposed to a computer that I don't know. I'm like, I'm not a car guy, then that's smart enough to know that me neither.
But I am smart enough to know that this is ridiculous and car manufacturers need to change their tune on this cause it makes everybody uncomfortable. And if we find out as consumers that hey, this the brain in particular is the one selling our information behind our backs, causing us costing us money and down the line within our insurance companies. Then we're not going to buy your herds. I mean, it is as simple as that.
Hopefully that is not the case with Rivian, Yeah, our beloved Rivian. But okay, So there's actually a website where you can input your your vin and you can see what you're making models security risks are and so the website is Vehicle Privacy Report dot com. We'll make sure to link to that in the show notes. So in news that bums two best buds out Joel, the average personal savings rate continues to go down. It's now shy of four percent. That is certainly worse than the historical
savings rate, which is around six ish percent. It's not all that great either, to be honest, but it's gotten worse, far short of some of the Asian countries like Japan, right or yeah or yeah, Sweden. I think it's like in the twenties or something there. Okay, I feel like they do everything right over there. The consumers are spending, they're propping up the economy, but it also harms individuals' ability to then deal with potential money emergencies that might arise.
It prioritizes buying stuff today unfortunately over the freedom that they could be purchasing for themselves tomorrow. And it's our belief that the minimum savings rate for most folks should be around fifteen percent. That's our gold standard. And it's no wonder that Americans are they're living on the financial edge. They're on the precipice when they dedicate so few of their money to future planning, allows them that luxury to not have to worry about living on the edge.
Sorry, three point six percent, it's not going to cut it right. It's you're not going to gain much ground that way. And obviously that's the average matt some people are living. They're spending more than they make, and that's where credit card Deck gives it. But having a three percent to four percent savings rate, you're gonna get nowhere quick. You're gonna be spending your tires. Those money goals that you have for your future, you're not gonna be reaching them.
And I'm not saying it's it's easy, especially in an era of high inflation that we're coming off of.
Literally, saving threety four percent is just keeping you above above water. That's just keeping you afloat.
That's right, So we got to do more, and this show is dedicated to helping you do that. And by the way, if you've been listening to How To Money for a while, hopefully hopefully you're not in that boat. And we also believe that basically every American can tighten their belt to increase that all important financial breathing room. And Matt, on that note, we talk regularly about earning more on your savings, so hopefully you have enough in
your savings to make it worthwhile. But we consistently mentioned some of our favorite online banks that pay competitive rates. But and I've just noticed this recently, small banks and credit unions are offering solid rates that are incredibly competitive with some of these online products. And I saw one of my local credit unions paying five point twenty five percent on a CD, which is essentially that's better than anything I'm seeing from any of the online banks, which
are now in the upper fours. So it's worth of at least looking into community banks and credit unions to see what they're paying. So yeah, like, do a quick search for a few credit unions in your area, hop onto their website. Typically they post their rates publicly and that way you don't have to go driving around talking to people in person or anything like that, because who wants to do that?
But like, what wants to do that? Yeah, so hop online check it out.
You might find that actually, wait a second, the local small bank or credit union is actually offering better perks maybe than just some of the national players.
Yeah, but all the note of credit unions, some really discouraging information came out recently about the high cost of junk fees at many local credit unions. We're shocked to see this, to say the least. Yeah. So typically, I mean, credit unions are nonprofits and they're supposed to be a respite for customers to avoid fee laden tactics of the biggest banks that we rail on pretty regularly. But unfortunately it's not as much as we had hoped the benefits
of the credit unions. So there's data, and this comes from the state of California, which is actually the only state that requires credit unions to disclose how much revenue that they generate from fees, and it's actually quite a lot. The worst offenders are earning around ten percent of their overall revenue from overdraft and late fees. Banks, on the other hand, of the average less than half of a percent.
This is a massive, stinking gap, and part of it I think is in part due to the fact that big banks they're under the magnifying glass, right, Like, I think there's more scrutiny that's being paid to them and so they've had to kind of straighten up a little bit, whereas I think credit unions are slowly. The article is great. They talk about mission drift and how they're sort of getting away from sort of their original mission and like
they're starting to name stadiums after these credit unions. There's like private jets that the different credit unions have purchased, which sounds more like bank behavior to me.
Now, no local credit uniting to read about and to see how bad it's gotten and fee You would think fee reduction would be one of the main goals at a credit union would have for their members. And the thing is too, some of the proposed rules from the CFPB wouldn't apply to a lot of these credit unions
because they're just so small. Typically it's a like, oh, banks with over one hundred branches or something like that, So most credit unions would skate underneath that and still be charging customers ridiculous fees.
Sure well, so obviously credit unions they've got perks right, like lower rates on credit cards. Often you can get a better car loan mortgage rates their helock rates. But now, joining a credit union does come with a warning, and honestly it's always been a good idea. You still need to make sure you are aware of what you're getting into, and I do think it's still a good idea to have a relationship with a local credit union for those
different products. But when it comes to the majority of your banking, we have always recommended going with an online bank that's paying a higher rate on your high yield savings accounts, the ability to earn more on your emergency fund while being able to avoid some of these fees that you're going to get hit with were you to overdraw your account. Yeah, that seems like the best path forward.
Capital one ally discover CI Those are the the ones we mentioned most consistently as some of the best online online banks to be with. It just goes to show too that not all credit unions are credit equal, Matt. Some of these credit unions are taking advantage of people even though they have this rate.
Yeah, like that's the other part of it. I don't want to. I don't. I hate for folks out there who love their local credit union or folks who even work for their local and they're saying, dudes, that's not us. Yeah we know, yeah, we totally understand.
But there are some bad players out there, and they're given the whole industry of black eye sadly because of the ridiculous number and amount of fees they're charging to a lot of their customers. So credit unions that are doing that, we call for you to shape up, all right, and Matt if you're if you're trying to up your savings rate, we're just talking about savings rates a second ago,
maybe don't take this tactic. There was a there was a couple posted something on TikTok the other day that they split a cup of coffee when they got to breakfast.
Did you see this one? I did?
Okay it, I don't know it. Just I'm all about increasing your savings rate. What are you going to go from three point six to three point sixty five percent? Like when you're doing that? Come on, that's just that's definitely the definition of cheap, not frugal. Oh, unlimited refills on the one cup and just keep drinking out of the sand.
That's just sorry. Guys.
If you can't afford two cups of coffee of drip coffee at two dollars and fifty cents, probably better to make your coffee at home.
Yeah, here's the question. Though, This is all not all that different than was it last year that I talked about how oh your whitewater thing went six Flags? Yeah? When we took we took the kids to six Flags. We were there all day, the whole family, and we bought one of those refillable plastic cups with a little lanyard like a handle on it and stuff like that. Which the reason we got one, and the reason we were willing to pay twenty four dollars for the thing
was because the free refills. And so the question is, how is that do you feel? And what about when y'all went to Disney you got the popcorn bucket, and your whole family's split in this popcorn bucket free refills as much as you want.
It's not free, you pay for every revell, but it's just cheaper refills.
Oh that's right. Yah, Yeah, it's like three dollars as opposed to twenty five. Yeah, So I guess the question is is there a difference between something like that. I think there is, versus is when someone's waiting on you. I like, you're actually different sit down service expectations around that. I think I think it's different. I do.
I think it's different. So and maybe I'm not. Maybe someone will write in and say, no, you gots, they're both, they're both terrible, or actually they're both Okay. Everyone's probably gonna come down in a different place on this. But I just don't think that's a saving hack. I just think that's being that's being cheap.
You're definitely saving money, like by definition, you are saving money. But I agree though, because I think there is something different about walking around, like it's a more communal kind of activity. I guess, like if you're at a theme park doing doing something like that, as opposed to sitting down at a restaurant, like at a breakfast place, and it's expected that, oh, you get a meal, I get a meal, you get a drink, I get a drink.
It's not like it's I mean one of the thing that, yeah that if you.
Were sitting down to eat and you ordered waters for all your kids, but you pour the waters out in the plants or whatever, and then I order a soft drink and I fill up all their cups with my soft drink.
That that's cheap.
That's exactly what this is, right, And so I think it's I just think it's different.
I guess I'm thinking about I don't know for somebody, because it just depends on the situation. Because like I picture, like, obviously a nice coffee shop like the one we go to, they don't offer free refills on the coffee because you know, it's like nice coffees. But I think the kind of place that offers a free refill, it's not a huge deal. It's like, you know, like even waffle House, a lot of times they'll top you. They'll come by, they'll top you off, of course, and it's not like it's a
huge infringement upon their overall profit. They're at the waffle House, don't know. So you're with this TikTok couple. I think if they want to do that, that's it's up to them to decide whether or not that that's gonna fly, because I think all situations are a little bit different. Personally, I'm not doing that, Yeah, I will split the thermost thing at the at the six Flags that will fill up with lemonade and let all the kids.
Yeah, I think those are different because nobody cares how you're consuming that.
But when you're at a restaurant, they often do. They're different. More's different expectations around sit down't service, skip the coffee, make it at home.
All right, we got more to get to, including we're talking about kind of food a little bit. We'll talk about groceries and some good news that could lead to you saving a lot of money on groceries. We'll get to that and more right after this.
All right, Joel got more personal finance stories to get to today. But first we have our ludicrous headline of the week and Gary, Yes, what are you angry about this week? Matt? I'm not that angry ever about anything, but listener, Gary, he emailed this one to us. This was from a local TV station WTC. That's I assume
how they say their their handle or announcement. But the title reads, or the headline reads, a couple's home dreams crushed after losing four hundred thousand dollars in alleged contractors scam and to summon up. This was a honestly it was a sad story of a couple who wanted to build their dream home, but then they ended up with a project that was barely started. It was basically installed
out in like the framing part of construction. But this isn't something that just happens locally there in Arizona, I think, is where this house was.
And let's say that it was stalled out, but largely because not because the contractor was having tough time subcontractors or because they were they were stealing the money.
Yeah, it was a scam. But the key lesson from the story though, is to only do business with trusted contractors, and by trusted contractors, how do they become trusted contractors? Will you talk to actual clients who have actually used them,
get to see their actual work in person. This is something that Kate and I at the beginning of the year do we talk about maybe we're thinking about doing something to the house, but we're sort of vetting this contractor and guess what he's doing work literally across the streets. So the ability to we're not only seeing his work, but we're seeing like the why behind his work, like some of the background stuff and how he's his pace, his progress. Yeah, yeah, and just having like more casual
conversations when he's when he's stopping by as well. I feel like that's a massive benefit for us to get to know that one in particular. But on top of getting to know a contractor and making sure that you're vetting them properly, the other piece of advice here is to not pay contractors exorbitant sums of money up front. This is certainly what they did where they were requiring
like hundreds of thousands of dollars. And then it's like, oh, you want to you want to build a guest house as well, Well, you know what if you just go ahead and pay for that upfront as well, we'll give you a.
Discount, yes, And that feels so you're like, oh great, great, Yeah, this is we'll pay them up front and that way we're gonna have to pay less overall. But in the end, you've lost a ton of money, yes, and you've got like almost no progress to show for it. On a major project like that, like, you'll likely want to pay
as you see progress. You pay in installments. What do they call it, like a release schedue, not a release I forget what they call it, but basically this person whatever, Yeah, different dispersiments as the work is being performed in percentages
along the way. Typically you pay something, yes, upfront when you sign the contract, but hopefully then, like like you said, Matt, you've seen their work, you've actually like talked to people who have worked with that contractor you feel very comfortable now because you've seen the work in person. Also, and you don't mind paying them ten percent at the signing.
And ten percent's fine, but not like half of it or a ton of money upfront before any work gets done, right, And that's what was happening in this case.
Yep, And that should be written out in the contract when those dispersements happen at different periodic processes along the way, So make sure you're doing that. Don't pay with cash either. That's something else it's important to mention. It's it's pretty hard, if not impossible, to get money back after a scam like this occurs, which is why you need to do your due diligence on the front end.
Paying cash is a bad move. Well, it's not that like paying using a credit card is going to allow you to flag it as a fraudulent charge because likely, just like the time windows that it takes for work to get done out of property, you're oftentimes you're out of that window to be able to flag, like, you know, a charge or let's see an expense that wasn't delivered upon. But it's the fact of what that's more indicative of, which is like shady business. Right.
There's no paper trail either, which is just nice to have a paper trail, especially for legal matter.
Yeah, if you've got to pick care of that, who comes by and they're like, oh, yeah, you know, we're gonna unclog the drain and do some toilet work or something like that, four hundred bucks, great, Okay, if you want to ven mail them, that's fine. But when we're talking about large sums of money like this, this isn't something that you should be It should be like wiring money over as opposed to, like you said, something that's
really that's spelled out. That's where the terms are made clear in a legit contract agreed all right.
On the housing note, new data finds that houses are being built smaller these days, which is something I cheer. They're being built by smaller by about three hundred square feet. So town homes are being built in larger numbers as well, and we're even seeing matt I think this is in San Antonio, tiny home subdivisions popping up.
I love like.
They get more like six to seven hundred square feet sorts of homes, but like a whole subdivision of those things. And I don't know if you've ever seen like that. There's some YouTube channel tiny Houses. This guy takes tours of tiny houses and they're all just so cool, so unique. I love the way that people use space. It's so creative.
Guessing they utilize the white angle a whole lot. I'm sure they do.
I think the host is from New Zealand, so he just seems genial and cool. But yeah, this really is changing a decades long trend of bigger is better. That felt like kind of the American new home builders Mantra. Smaller homes we think are great for a lot of reasons. They bring down the price point obviously because not as many materials, they're just smaller footprint, but they're also more affordable to maintain, right to heat, to cool, to furnish.
And then, of course, when homes are smaller and they aren't massive, mansions right on giant tracks of land. You can build even more houses, increasing supply to meet the demand. Isn't that what we need in this country right now? So the housing market, it obviously doesn't change on a dime, it doesn't change super quickly. But these shifts are a good sign for the American housing market in the future. I love I love to see this trend and hope it continues.
Yeah, like you're kind of touching on density there as well. And so add to that zoning changes that are happening in many cities across the country, and I think we have a more of a recipe for success and more affordable homes in the future. N PR they highlighted that recently, and we've been talking about that for years, the fact that zoning changes are in our future. If we're looking to increase density.
They're in necessity, and we've made it too onerous to build multifamily to build more density in a lot of cities across the country, and that is starting to shift.
Yeah, there's a reason that housing prices are consistently higher in California, while they've fallen by something like seven percent year over year in cities like Austin, Texas. And it's all about the rules. It's all about the regulations for building, especially multi family homes, in order to boost that density.
We have seen construction of ADUs accessory dwelling units for instance, like those are booming in California, But other construction of new housing is it's more arduous and it's slow because of all the red tape. So what we're saying here is that more supply, which is often hampered by zoning ordinances and regulation, we think that that is the answer to the expensive housing situation that we found find ourselves in.
Yeah, it is that little first day of high school econ one oh one, Right, the supply and demand, and if we are making it incredibly hard to build new homes and to create more density, then that supply is going to remain low and that's going to keep cost high. That's going to keep prices up, which meanwhile.
Domain is reaching all time highs. As there's an entire generation, right, a massive generation of millennials that want to own a place. I was gonna say millennial families to raise and kids.
The older folks in the gen Z, in the gen Z demographic, they're wanting to buy homes too. It's pretty hard. And so man, we should all be pushing for changes where we live to make it possible to build more and even just more rental units too. More apartments coming online too, is going to help solve the crisis that
we're facing as well. One more story that's worth discussing in the housing space is that bans are increasingly happening on short term rentals and cities across the country with the assumption that it's going to help reduce the high cost of housing. And so, Matt, you and I were talking about a bunch of different ways to reduce the high cost of housing. Well, maybe wouldn't we be in favor of these things too?
Not quite right.
Research from the Harvard Business Review finds that these bands on short term rentals aren't really doing anything or they're doing very very little to change the price that people pay in rent. And so here's a line from their findings from this recent article they published. They said, put simply, restricting Airbnb is not going to be an effective tool for solving the housing affordability problems in many US cities. Unquote, and so, yeah, does banning Airbnb's increase the supply of
single family homes for rent. Yes, it does, and more supply drives down costs, but it's such a small percentage that the impact on long term renters is minimal, and so the other stuff we just talked about is way more impactful. I guess that when people focus on the one percent problem over the like ten twenty fifty percent problems.
I get why you're you're thinking about that, but let's not make the short term rental market be the scapegoat for the bigger problems that we face, that are actually that are leading to the real affordability problems we face.
That's right, all right, jil. Let's get to my favorite story from this entire Friday flight. Let's talk about Aldi and the good news is that they are opening eight hundred stores over the next few years. Many of those are going to be brand new locations, but others are going to be converted when dixies. Now that they've finalized that acquisition.
We talked about that when that happened, we weren't sure how they were going to proceed with them.
Yeah, I'm plutely less optistic about those because I feel like a big part of the advantage of all days is how they're constructed, smaller footprint. Yeah, yeah, exactly, they're smaller, but hopefully there is an Aldi coming to a town or to a location near you, and the great news is that Aldi's expansion. What's fascinating about them is that they put downward pressure on pricing at other grocery stores as well, where it forces them to be more competitive.
They have to free market harder work matt I love it.
They have to cater more to customers who are priced sensitive. Even though you yourself may not want to be visiting or shopping at an Aldi, you're likely to see lower prices at your favorite local growth.
So basically, all the other grocery stores, the publixa is the Ralph, the Kroger's whatever, they're shaking in their boots when it Aldi comes near and they are forced to lower prices pretty quickly.
It's just like when the discoun airline comes to a new market like Southwest or Frontier or Spirit. When they show up the major is United Delta American, they're all like, ugh, okay.
Parties over guys, that's right, Yeah exactly. They have to continue push those fairs downwards to compete, and the grocery stores have to do the same when it aldi comes in the neighborhood, and so they Yeah, they are a massive disruptor. And I think I read somewhere that ninety percent of all these offerings are private label, which is a huge I mean, there's so many different things they do to cut costs. We could probably talk about that
for like fifteen minutes. It's the quarter and the cart reduced number of workers, and those workers work really hard, and they pay those workers more than I think the average grocery store associate make. So all they does all these things to make sure that costs are low for their customers, and so more, all these across the country can only be a good thing. I think Walmart, by the way, they might start on the opposite end of
of the spectrum. They might start charging folks to use their self checkout lanes, which sounds kind of annoying, right, It sounds pretty dumb. Yeah, at least in some of their stores. Starting at the end of last month, Walmart Plus customers are the only ones who are going to be allowed to use those self checkout lanes at certain stores.
And tart vip self checkout lane, right, Yeah, and so Target it seems like an oxymoron.
Target's doing something similar. Yeah, you think it's all just about speed and helping customers, but I want to help certain customers. But again, the main reason it seems to be that a high enough percentage of folks are stealing or ringing up cheap items and putting a more expensive item in their cart. And so I guess I understand that, Like I do think that maybe self checkout hasn't been
as great of an experiment. I know some people love it, and it's nice when you're only checking out for a thing or two so you can blitz out of the store faster. But I think that era of ubiquitous self checkout might be coming to an end.
We'll see.
It's gonna be interesting to see how that shakes out well.
And Plus, if you want to self checkout so you can get out of their faster, the real solution is just to go to Aldi. I've talked about this before, the ability I'm gonna time myself one to these days, next time we go to the store, we go to Aldi. You maybe we'll time it. But the ability for me to go and grab milk and eggs, I feel like that's always when I'm running out to get milk and eggs. I swear I can do that in like less than ninety seven right.
We'll do like a supermarket sweep style video.
Gone in sixty seconds style, like if Nick Cage can do it, I think I can do it, all right. I want to see this something else that's happening. When you check out at the grocery store donation solicitations, you're often asked if you want to make a one dollar donation, right, or five dollars donation to the charity of choice that the store is partnering with, or even just to kind
of round up your purchase. They kind of are jumping on the Acorns model there, And I think there's nothing wrong with giving money away in that fashion, in that style, if that's your jam. But the story here it highlights that the reason, of course that many give at the checkout is because of guilt. So we're here to let you know that we don't want that to be the
driving force behind why it is that you give. We want you to proactively give, make a plan to be charitable to the different causes that you care about.
We'll link to some different reasons which as something is put right in front of your face at that time.
Yeah, we don't want you to be reactive as opposed to just being a little more thoughtful with your money. But in the show notes for this episode, we'll link to some different resources on how does it you can vet charities and how you can give more effectively. Yeah, that'll be in the show notes up on the website at howtomoney dot com. Yeah.
I know some people nitpick or say who cares, dude, give twenty cents the round up to me? And I know it's not that big of a deal, but I just want to be incredibly proactive in my giving. I want to have and I don't feel any guilt when I say no because I know that I'm giving in other ways, in incredibly pre planned ways. And I think you can alleviate that guilt by having a giving plan. If you don't have the giving plan, though, you might feel guilty and be like, well, I guess this is
my one good deed for today. I'll round up the purchase price. Ll Yeah, sure, here's five bucks, even if it's not a charity you care much about or aligned with your mission.
Yeah. I think the other thing, too, is that you could potentially be a more generous giver if you did make a plan, because I think there's also like the psychological element of okay, I've check that box. Even if it's just a round up, you think you almost see yourself as like better than you actually are, perhaps where you're like, oh, I'm always so charitable, I'm always rounding up. But in reality, you're just letting yourself off the hook
as opposed to giving it in a more significant way. If you are in a position that you've seen financial success where you do have the freedom and ability to maybe give a little more generously, that's all all right.
Just by the way, quick heads up, Matt and I are going to have a giving competition pretty soon that you guys can participate in. More to come on that next month. All right, thanks as always for listening. We appreciate it. We hope you have a great weekend. Don't forget to sign up for the how to Money newsletter at how to money dot com slash newsletter of course. But Matt, that's going to do it for this one until next time. Best Friends album Best Friends Out