Welcome to had a money. I'm Joel and I am that. And today we're talking about instant e bikes, sputtering savings and all these assent.
That's right, Aldi's going to the top. If I invested in the single stock stroll and if Aldi was traded publicly, I would own some Aldi's stock because they're qushing it right.
Yeah. Well, and just when you believe in the mission of a retail it's kind of like Costco. It's like owning some Costco stock or what do you own a little bit of Cosco? I do own a little bit of Costco. I feel like I should own a little bit, just because I'm so passionate about the company.
There was this I literally want to be invested with this company that I think treats people so well and provides a fantastic product for families out there.
There was a long form article in the New York Times just last week. I think about Costco and what makes them so different? What's the some apart? And it's it's a fascinating read. I mean, just as someone who's somewhat obsessed with Costco. But they kind of talked about the secret to Costco's success and even just kind of part of the secrecy culture of Costco. Had there are a lot of things that they just don't say out loud. You have the kind of intimate about what's going on
behind the scenes. But it's definitely one of the best run companies in the world.
Oh yeah, but uh yeah, this is our Friday flight. We hope everyone has had a fantastic week. Have you had a fantastic week.
Joel, It's been good. Yeah, been great.
So we will be talking about all the maybe Costco, but we will be getting to the other money stories that we think are going to be most pertinent to your personal finances.
So, Matt on Monday, we had a listener question about, Hey, I'd done this money challenge and had a bunch of money socked away after that, the envelope challenge, that.
One hundred envelope challenge, Yeah, specifically.
And so we were trying to help him figure out what should he and his family do with this massive chunk of change. And then I noticed in the how to Money Facebook group, which is a wonderful place, listener Jeff said, apparently he's not a fan of the envelope challenge. He's not a fan of some of these money saving challenges out there was a deal, all right, so he said, and I'm gonna quote here, he said, it's great if the money you quote unquote save comes from reducing your
expenses or increasing your income. But if you're just filling envelopes with cash taken from an account or that you have at home, you're not really saving anything. And so I totally get where he's coming from, because we were talking about how these savings challenges can be really great, they can help jump start something. But I get what
he's saying. If you have the money in a savings account, you just stuff it into an envelope instead, and you're not making any practical changes to your day to day spending, it can feel like a mirage of savings. So I don't know what's your take.
Yeah, well, I think what he said was was spot on right, Like it has to be a result of you not spending that money, which is I feel like that's that's kind of how we talked about it. But I also understand the criticism that it's not like you're magically appearing some money out of nowhere, like it's your money, You're just it's mental accounting and you're moving it, perhaps from one area of your life to another, and maybe a.
Place in your life where it would have been easier to spay. And now you're kind of siphoning it away and you're saying.
No designated, it's got a name, and that's what And we talked about this on Monday. But but that couple, I mean, they were saving that money without necessarily having a goal attached to it, and that can just make it so much more powerful, the ability to I don't know,
I assigned those dollars to a specific task. I also understand too, that not everyone is going to get behind the like just money challenges, like if you are super disciplined, if you don't like having fun with your personal finance, which is honestly, like, I don't really do money challenges because I've created this this wonka like budget, you know, machine in a.
Like makes it sound fun, well, but it's not fun.
It's just this contraption. It's just overly complex.
This is what I'm getting.
But like, all my income goes into there, and like I just crank it and at the end of the month, it tells me where it should go based on decisions that I have already made, but not everybody is like that. Sometimes folks need to they want to spice it up a little bit. For those folks, I think the money challenges can be fantastic. Agreed.
I think that's what money challenges can be for lots
of people. It's like it started. It's a pattern, right to basically base some of your decisions on, and whether it's a sell your stuff challenge or a fund your roth Ira challenge, like, typically that money is coming from somewhere and people are having to make changes to their budget and to their spending patterns in order to accrue those savings, because otherwise they would have been, you know, saving like in a pretty solid way month after month,
and they would have had some of those savings built up. But a lot of people have found, hey, this challenge at least helps me get that habit started doing the thing I want to do. But yeah, I again, I completely get jeffs beef with some of the money challenges. I guess I just also think that they almost always
come with some sort of lifestyle change. People are realizing, Hey, if I want to save this kind of money, I have to do something different in the spending area of my finances or it's not going to happen, like they're not just pulling it from one account and putting it into an envelope. Typically it means there's some sort of underlying change in order to amass that kind of savings and that sort of you know short or like that. That's true.
Yeah, So, as you said some of the different challenges, I remember that I did participate money challenge, which was the cellar stuff challenge.
Will is a great one. It is a good one, and that's one where you literally are making money appear.
It didn't work for me, Like I tried because I thought, Okay, here's a cool way that I can unload a bunch of stuff that we have make some money on the side. But yeah, I had a difficult time sticking with it.
It also has the double impact of decluttering, which is like, well, that's.
Why I wanted to I mean that specifically is why I was looking to take that challenge on, but then I found it. It also had like part time job like qualities, which is part of why I fell off the wagon. But Joel, let's talk about one of the ways folks are spending less on their transportation. Car free communities they are becoming more of a thing. More people outside of just New York City are looking to be less dependent on their vehicles in order to get around.
There's this fairly new community. It's called Cul de Sac. It launched a bit outside of downtown Phoenix a few years ago, and the design of this planned community is all about being car free from the get go, as they attempt to be close to public transportation and one of the ways they're able to decrease the number of cars that folks who live their own. They've also got a fleet of e bikes, which is pretty awesome, yeah, and pretty much everything else that you want one on
hand just to live a happy personal life. They've got a lot of things built into the infrastructure of the little community, like gyms, grocery stores. I think I saw a cream convenience store, which was a big win in my book. They're planning to build a couple more of these Cold de Sac communities in the near future, including one in the Atlanta area, and bottom line, we think
this is pretty cool. Folks out there who are into personal finance might recognize the name of the community from Pete Adney, also known as mister money Mustache as this is something that he has written about. But we're huge fans, especially of relying on bikes in order to get around. There's a reason why our first episode that we ever created it was a terrible episode because it was literally the first one you want to go back, and it was all about why it is that you should be
biking more. We are huge fans silver bowlt in personal finance, but if there was one, I think bikes are pretty darn close to as as it gets.
It's the lifestyle factor, it hits the fitness factor, it hits the money saving factor. Riding your bike more just makes sense. I ran into a dad on also riding taking his kid to school this morning on the cargo e bike. There's a sense of solidarity. Yeah, I feel like we're best friends already and I just met him.
We should grab beers me right from the same cloth, exactly right, Kindred spirits new body friend come on and then he pedals off assist level five to get away from you. That's right.
I keep it on level one so I couldn't catch up. I saw this too. Matt Los Angeles is apparently trying to go car free for the Olympics. I don't know if you'd seen this as well. It's kind of fascinating because you think of that as a city that is purely dependent on the freeways, right, Yeah, So it'll be interesting to see if they're able to pull that off.
I know they're they're trying to put the venues as close to their current metro as possible, which I love the and they're also installing more bike lanes, so go LA. I hope it. I hope it works out.
Yeah.
And by the way, while Culdesex is kind of an expensive place to live, Matt, it's it's not one of the cheaper apartment complexes around. Because they put this forethought into it, it's going to be a more expensive community. But if you are able to ditch a car or cars completely, it can actually allow you to come out ahead from a financial perspective, especially you know, we know what cars cost these days, and what they cost to ensure,
what they cost to maintain. Not having cars in your life I means you can spend a little more on housing and still rocket with your finances, you know, all while being able to live in an incredibly delightful community. And there's been this growing recognition I think that making the automobile the center of our existence, it just doesn't
deliver the healthiest results for humans. I'm not an advocate for going back to the horse and buggy days because apparently there was a lot of poop in the streets, Matt, and that wasn't really very fun to live in either. Can you imagine living in you.
Know, plumbing. I'm also a fan of that, right.
Right exactly. But yeah, you don't necessarily need to move to this planned community in order to live a life that's less dependent on a car. I think it's important to point that out as well. There's this new e bike attachment Matt that attaches to your regular non electric bike. It's called clip, and so you don't even have to buy an e bike. You can literally just turn your current bike into an electric bicycle with this device. It's
like five hundred bucks. And the cool thing is, you know, e bikes are allowing people to commute longer distances more comfortably than ever before. Think about actually, listener Gary who's talked, He's reached out and told me about his commutes on his e bike and how he ditched a car, and man, it's been so great for his you know, physical life and just he's just enjoyed that commute every day on
the e bike, which I feel the same way. I'm like, there's a smile on my face every time I'm on mine, And I think I still prefer Matt after looking into this clip device, I still prefer the ground up e bikes. I'd rather spend a little more for something like that, especially if it allows you to ditch your car. But I think the clip device might work for a bunch of people too.
Maybe you are a fan of actual e bikes because the clip is ugly. It is ugly because of what I I was reading up on it. I was like, okay, uh, because like there are a lot of electric bike manufacturers and they're making them more affordable. Now, Like you've got like literally your e bike is by rad Power Bikes, and like they make some of the most affordable e bikes out there. Electric is like it's like electric without
the E on the front or whatever. But like they're they're making some really afference sort of what Bucks bikes as well as seven eight hundred bucks something. So when you think about that, it's like not that much more for something right new, and you're able to add another your bike, add another bike to your stable, I think is huge and also if you've got the room. We've talked about bikesdirect dot com, which is a fantastic place to go for traditional bikes. I checked it out. Guess
what they're selling now, e bikes? Bikes really Yes, so I haven't actually so I've purchased other bikes from them before. I can't vouch for their e bikes, but if anybody has hit us up, let us know. I would love to think that they are just able to be another competitor providing just a great means of transportation for a lot of folks. But that being said, if you really want to drive, we'll get a Toyota, and not just
because we told you to see cars. They had a recent longevity survey and they found, unsurprisingly that Toyota they had six of the top ten most durable models that were were out there. I think it was like they had seven of the top ten spots if you count Lexus, which is basically a Toyota with leather, and they took all five of the top spots. And so that raises
the question, well, what is durable actually mean? Fellas basically the cars or trucks that rank highly have a dramatically higher likelihood of hitting the two hundred and fifty thousand mile mark. It's like the holy grail. I think that's that's what they're gunning for. You'll also be paying less for repairs, and you'll be at your mechanic shop less often, and that car is likely going to depreciate at a slower rate. But you know, consumer reports they've been seeing
this for a while. I see cars, they're agreeing with them on this. Toyota. They are gonna save you time, They're gonna save you money. Hassle. I've got a little bit of foam, to be honest, the fact that I own a Honda and not a Toyota in large part because all the Toyotas are high as well, and I wish I had some of the additional savings associated with paying less at the gas pump.
It's also interesting Toyota is seeing so much success right now because there's kind of a consumers are giving the heisman to electric cars right now, where it felt like every company was pivoting so hard into the EV direction, and a lot of folks out there saying, I don't know, I think I'm down for the hybrid right now, maybe I'll hold itself on an Evyteps and Toyota they're kind of the hybrid kings, So that's another reason why Toyota's
are so popular. But then to add on top of that that your Toyota is just based on the numbers, based on the stats, it's just going to last a whole lot longer and give you far less trouble. It makes sense that you would opt for one of the most reliable cars in the game, because reliability means money savings, especially when we're talking about a company that makes fairly accessible cars. From a financial standpoint, Matt, let's talk about
ATM fees. I don't know the last time I went to get cash from an ATM, but I know this is something that people do. And so a new bank rate survey finds that fees continue to climb at ATMs around the country. The average fee to gain access to your cash is now just below five bucks. I think it's four dollars and seventy seven cents every time when you want to use an ATM. That's at least like the average fee you're going to encounter, which is a
lot of money, Matt. Let's say you're pulling out forty bucks, that's like an eleven percent fee or something like that. That's incredibly expensive to take money out. And yeah, if you're going to an out of network ATM that isn't the bank you do business with, you might be paying two fees. You might be paying one to your bank and one to the ATM owner. So that could be really frustrating. And again, I don't really use an ATM.
They're kind of like checks for me, Matt. We talked about this recently, how people a writing fewer and fewer checks and more businesses are saying we're not even going to take them at all. But I do business with multiple banks that have ATM networks that don't charge any money at all for withdrawal. So I can't go to any ATM necessarily that I want.
But I can go to almost any ATM though, Yeah.
Any all point essentially right, that's what who Capital one partners with. I can go to any of those and night there's even a spot on the app where I can see, Okay, where's the nearest one to me? And so basically, if you're a frequent ATM user, you're not just being nickeled and dimed. You're being like bludgeoned over the head with fees, you're being five spotted, right, Yes, so they are just really easy ways to eliminate these
fees from your life completely. Just make sure you're paying attention to what you're actually paying, and then you're doing business with the bank that's going to say, hey, we actually don't charge ridiculous fees for you to access your own money.
Yeah, and there's sort of like this barbell like effect that's happening within banking, right, And so yeah, some banks are raising fees, they're reducing perks for savers, but a lot of banks out there are completely eliminating fees and they are raising their savings rates. And the truth is, like all the different fees that the banks charge out there, so atm fees, overdraft fees, different account fees, they are going up, but only for those who are allowing it,
who stick around for that party, right. Fees across the board are being demolished, and perks are becoming more generous for people who are savvy, for folks who are paying attention and not just kind of going along with the flow. But obviously for folks who aren't handling their money judiciously, they're gonna find themselves on the flip side of the equation. Instead of free cash withdraws, well, they're paying a pretty penny instead of rewards for credit card usage. They're going
to be massively penalized for using plastic. And so we just want to remind folks to pay. It's not just the savings rate that the bank is paying you. There are all these sort of trickle down, knock on effects that end up costing you more money in the end. And I want you to be picky in who it is that you're banking with.
Yeah, so I think ally Matt, I think they refund ten dollars a month worth of atmfs that you might occur, which is pretty cool, no questions ask. We're just gonna if you do encounter a five dollars fee twice, we're gonna cover it more than that. The rest is on you. I think Schwab is you know, investment firm, low cost investment house. They also have a bank attached, and pretty sure Schwab will cover any and all ATMPs might incurrent
a given month. So if you are a high frequency atm user, look into those banks that prioritize, you know, taking care of their customers in that way. All right, let's talk about savings rates, Matt for a second while we're on this note. Are those super high savings rates going away? There's more and more stuff being written and more and more people talking about the fact that as the FED is looking to cut rates, well, savers are
going to get penalized again. And the answer to that is maybe, like I do think there's a chance that savings rates are going to go down. And actually when you look at the numbers, rates have already climbed gone down just a little bit. When we're talking about rates on savings accounts, rates on CDs.
Started getting baked in a little bit.
Yeah, yeah, already that just reality that is likely coming down the pike. Has impacted what banks, credit unions, other financial institutions are offering. And Bloomberg had this jarring headline about why you should ditch your HYSA, dit your high YELD, save these account is what they were saying. Basically, what they suggested was to put your savings into CDs because rates are likely to continue going down. And guess what
if you toss it into a CD? You're maintaining that rate for six months, twelve months, whatever it may be. But should you put the money that's in your savings account in a CD maybe, I mean if you don't need liquidity, But most folks, Matt keep cash in savings
specifically because they might need that money. And so the only way I think it makes sense for you to stick money that's in a high old savings account into a CD is if your savings is for more medium term goals, you might consider locking it up for a little bit in order to preserve that higher rate for a bit longer. But other than that, I think high old savings is the place to continue to keep money that you need access to, you know, it's an emergency
order a rise or something like that. And by the way, I think it's also important to take these rate predictions with a grain of salt, because there were a lot of rate predictions, you know, six seven, eight months ago, Matt that turned out to be incredibly wrong, as inflation was a lot stickier than a lot of people assume.
So our rate's going to decline precipitously in the months ahead, maybe who knows, And so yeah, you might want to take a bird in the hand and capture some of these you know, higher than average CD race right now. You also might not want to. It just depends on your personal situation. That's true.
I think I saw that. It seems like the six month CD right now is sort of the sweet spot. But we've got more to get to. We're going to talk about unlocked cell phones, maybe the return on investment of higher education. We'll get to those stories and more right after.
This a we're back from the break map. Now it's time to get to the ludicrous headline of the week. This one comes from Sherwood News, which is Robin Hood's new news arm. They've kind of it's.
Yet to be determined if they are biased towards high frequency trading, but I think there's a chance we could take a guest, so we'll see.
Yeah, all right, so this headline reads why your parents should buy you a house, So they are at least biased towards your parents give being you money. I guess who wouldn't be right, Like, Okay, yeah, my parents wanted to buy me a house, and maybe they had the money to do it. I don't know if I'm gonna
argue with them or try to change their mind. But this article, it was really all about how much money boomer parents have as a generation and how expensive it is to buy a home right now, and so shouldn't those rich adults by the younger, less affluent adults a home to live in. Wouldn't that be nice? And yeah, those things are both true. I think you know. New stats show that one in ten homes in the US
now costs more than a million bucks. So if you're looking around on Zillow or Redvan, I guess depending on where you live, in some places it's like a million bucks that's not going to get you anywhere, and in
other parts of the country a million bucks. Like we don't have homes for the Governor's mansion exactly, but we know that that housing affordability has been torched in recent years, and so young folks who want to buy their first home, they kind of feel like they're running into a brick wall, especially over these past few years, as prices continue to go up and up and up, interest rates went up to and at the same time there just wasn't much supply on the market in a lot of competition, it
felt like it basically impossible to buy the home that you wanted to get and so apparently the hits are according to this article, was to ask mom and dad to help fund that purchase, and depending on your relationship with your folks, I don't know, might not work out too poorly. They might be into this. But it's also
important to mention that money can complicate relationships. Expectations are often involved when money is changing hands amongst the loved ones, and so in this article, Matt, they highlighted, or maybe it was another article I read, but parents vetoing the home that somebody wanted to buy because it's like, hey, listen, if I'm gonna help profer the down payment money for this purchase, I want to be able to say yes to this one or no to that one, or maybe proximity.
It starts getting so missed, it really does. Yeh, yeh. The problem. Yeah, you need to be incredibly if if this is something you're considering, you need to be incredibly cautious as to how it is that you approach some of these conversations. But the author of this article uses the but everyone else is doing it line, so they which I've heard from my kids some of the stats
that they shared. One third of gen Zer's and a quarter of millennials have received some financial help for the first time purchase, which, again, if you are receiving that, hey, no shame there. But there's just a big difference between something that's being offered to you and something that is being expected by you. So one thing worth mentioning here is that some parents are willing to help you out but for an equity stake, which it depends on how
it is. I guess you want an approach buying your home. It kind of feels like a more like a business deal. But I mean, I guess that could be a reasonable approach where it would allow you to buy when you otherwise wouldn't be able to. But hey, you're offering an
incentive to your folks at the same time. Regardless how you arrive at this conclusion and how it is that you go about, this transaction is going to have a massive impact on not only your finances, but your relationship to some of the most important people in your lives, your parents, and so just be careful as you are
entering into these murky waters. It's interesting because I don't see this as some sort of panacea to housing affordability, because it is this benefit, Well, it benefits the lucky folks that happen to have parents who are wealthy enough to like give them a ton of money. Is it actually positively impact affordability for everybody else? Nope, yep, And
in fact it does the opposite. What does it do because all of a sudden, these high prices that are being demanded are being met because if you have a population, if you have a market that's willing to pay what it is that others are offering, that's that's going to continue to drive prices up.
And I don't know about you, this was never an option for me tap in the bank of mom and dad to try to get some down payment help.
It was, and I honestly think my parents would have laughed at me.
And I realized it's a different environment right now buying a house than even when we were buying our first homes. But man, it was. I was so proud to be able to save that money myself and buy that first
house and basically like make it my thing. And I will say this too, there's just so many examples that I've been very close to of family doing business with family, helping somebody out with the loan or something like that, and the sour grapes that come from a mishandling of that often like oh, being laid on payments or whatever. There's a lot of examples I could give that I won't give publicly, but they can be Yeah, it's just
your side or her side, let's not tell you. But these are the those are the kind of things that really can lead to her relationships. And it seems like a smart thing at the time. It's like, oh, you know, well it'll scratch both of her backs to a certain extent, and then you just kind of never know where things are going to go when you're joining finances.
Like things can go south quickly, okay, Matt.
Another article that was also vying I think for the ludicrous headline of the week this week came from the Wall Street Journal and the title read rental creams for preteens sound safety alarm and I don't know about you, because they cost.
Too much money.
Well that's part of it. Can be expensive, but you can like mess their faces up, right, Like because these these more of a social issue, Yeah, but there there are financial ramifications attached, right. I think that I've noticed it with my eleven year old daughter. She's not really into this, but some of her friends are super into skincare right now, and it's kind of sad to see
like they're spending money on this. That's what they're asking for for their birthdays or something like that, is creams and stuff.
So she's like, sunscreen, yeah, not sun screen, like like, yeah, I don't think they're doing like wrinkle cream, botox or anything like that.
That well that'd be malpractice too. Yeah, but she kind of thinks it's silly, which I appreciate. But yeah, this this story I thought was sad for multiple angles. I think the fact that young people think they need to use these anti aging products at such an early age it reflects poorly on us as a society. And social media,
of course is part of the problem. But then a lot of these products are made specifically for adults, not for children, and so young girls are in particular, are putting these these creams on their faces and it's not formulated for their faces, and so maybe they're having actually worse skin issues. Well they think they're actually doing something to help themselves. So and at the very least it's a financial waste.
So yeah, it is a finish waste of money at the end of the day, dude, I was having a conversation with their friends.
And not for that. Adults can't use certain skin creams or whatever to I'm fine with that, but just I hate it for the young kids feeling like they have to.
Well, that's the problem. And you mentioned social media partly to blame.
I think it, dude.
I mean, maybe this is another opportunity to plug the anxious generation. Jonathan Height read it, folks, if you've got a preteen, a kid, anybody that's got a kid. It's an incredibly eye opening book. But it's not just social media though, it's also parents. Like I was talking to a buddy and we're talking about how it just seems like parents the days are just kind of like rushing their kids into adulthood as opposed to just letting them
be kids. They're getting hit from both sides of it, right, Like, not only is it it seems like sometimes it's happening at home, but also when they're not at home, when they're on social media.
I know, I let my eleven year old still into like baby dolls and Woods's or whatever and stuff like that, and it just makes it wazy. It's like a little woodland creature at all. Yeah, they love that stuff so and I just I love watching them. They'll play for hours still, and that's just such a superior way to be as an eleven year old than trying to keep up with all the latest face stream trends.
That's that unsupervised, undirected play that Jonathan height Wes's right would recommend. Well, hey, let's talk about cell phones because the FC I see as proposing some new rules out there for unlocking cell phones. We've already seen the decline of business friendly contracts or network friendly contracts that keep customers and consumers stuck with a particular carrier.
Gen z ers probably don't even know about those, like multi year contract days.
Yeah, well, it's the combination of mbnos so mobile virtual network operators that combined with eSIMs have just made it easier than ever to switch to a lower cost carrier in minutes. And this is something that you and I we've literally have been experimenting with. We'll probably talk more about it in the future. But some sell service companies who want to sell you a discounted phone, well they
want to keep you tethered to them. Like well beyond the end of that actual transaction, keeping your phone locked for an extended period of time, which just means you can't take it to another provider if you wanted to. And if the FCC gets its way, what that means is that providers they won't be able to keep devices locked for more than sixty days. You get two months before you can switch over.
Basically if you have no handcuffs. That means you can jump ship basically whenever you want. But that'll also mean fewer deals on handset, so it's important to mention that too. But we've always suggested for many many years on the show, pay full price for your phone. I mean, yeah, wait for a sale if you want or something like that,
But like find the cheapest service you can. People always they want to they want to get a good deal on the latest model iPhone or something like that, Matt, But the best thing to do buy a cheaper model that you can afford, and prioritize cheaper ongoing service. And so even some of the discounters offer phones for less than full price via this method. I think we're actually likely to see a lot less of that if this
rule is finalized. So, like I think even right now, Mint Mobile has you can get the newest pixel phone for a few hundred bucks off or something like that.
So nine is that the new one?
I think so.
Yeah, it's supposed to have an awesome camera.
What's got all the AI? Yeah, I could care less about it, but yeah, you might have to look at the fine print. You might have to keep that phone on that network for a specified period of time. But either way, you know, we are in the golden age
of service competition and cheap cell phone service. I feel like Matt every time I look, I'm seeing cheaper and cheaper prices for unlimited, unlimited everything down to you know, fifteen to eighteen bucks a month now, which is insane, Like think about what it used to cost five, six, seven, eight years ago, and prices are just so much more consumer friendly these days.
That's true. So in the hunt for an affordable phone, and we've shared Kate's issues that she had with her iPhone, but when we took the phone in and they were looking at it, they noticed that the simcard tray, like the little slat that pops out, that it was after market, which is so fascinating because we purchased that phone on eBay quote unquote new in box, like it was wrapped in plastic. Interesting, guess what, There's no way it was because it would not have come from Apple with an
aftermarket tray. And so we think that that has a lot to do with why it took on water to begin with, because of the fact that it was maybe it had been repaired or something like that afterwards. So all that being said, I won't be buying any new iPhones in the future from eBay literally only from Apple referbed, refurbished because of what we learned, I guess the hard way. So keep that in mind. Phos.
Yeah, where you get that phone matters, and there are certain places where they're referbed and they're gonna be there's they're held to a different standard if you're buying from the manufacturer of the phone, Apple.
But it was new that again, it was the whole new in box aspect of it. It was like sealed in plastic, and so the assumption was that, oh, this is this is just an old phone that they had, Maybe it was laying around in a warehouse or something like that, and we're a couple models moved on, so I thought nothing of it. I didn't think twice about the fact that, well, this is being sold by some third party seller. I guess they got the shrink wrap machines and they're making
those things like brand new. In reality, these are phones that had been repaired and we're not held to the same standard, which totally sucks.
Shrink wrapping isn't that heart of a process.
I guess, But like it's just one of those small things that you see as like a sign of oh, this must be legit. Yeah, it's never been opened. It had been a quick college story here for folks. NPR they just had an interesting article about the potential downside of community college. The main one is that most folks who opt to take that route, they don't end up
getting a degree. A big part of that problem is that most of the students who enrolled at a local community college, they find that some of the credits that they've worked really hard for that they don't end up getting transferred to the next school, which just prolongs their ability to graduate. And so one of the results of that is only thirteen percent of community college students will get a four year degree within an eight year timeline, which is paltry numbers. Let's to be honest, you know,
like that's the worst time. I suspect it's pretty low. So we like the idea of community colleges reducing the overall cost of getting a college degree, but you know, the stats show that that might not be the case. And if you're planning on going back to school at a community college, I think it's just really important to know what the credit transfer rules are.
That's like the most disheartening thing. Think about going through all those classes, paying the money, taking the time, and then saying, oh, now I'm ready to move on to a state school. And if many many of those classes don't transfer to the state school, you just wasted a lot of that time and money. How infuriating is that? No wonder people are left in the lurch not actually getting these degrees at the end.
Of the day. Simultaneously, like I don't want folks to take the wrong lesson from this as well, because like if this is like a community college hit piece, then I don't like it because think of like what is a community college. It's a more affordable way, it's local, so it's not like you have to even leave town,
like wherever you're living. The barriers to entry to get into a community college are much lower than a state school or like an ivy, right, and so what that just means that there are gonna be fewer folks who actually graduate from that school at all. But that being said, you still want to make sure, especially if you've got bigger aspirations, if you are ambitious and you plan on
going to transferring those credits to another school. You just want to make sure that you're going about it the right way.
That's all. And if you watch the show Community, you're gonna find some really cool friends there too, because and you're gonna have a lot of antics that are gonna be I don't know, made for TV moments, I'm guessing. But that just also proves the point too, met that people who go to college but don't get a degree, they find themselves in a really tough position because they're out the money they paid for all those classes, and then they also don't have the degree that allows them
to accelerate, pay or endeavor in a new career. And so yeah, just make sure if you're going to go to school, finish the drill, even if it's a degree from what you consider to be an inferior college. That degree matters a whole lot in your ability to make progress with your finances and to increase your income. And interestingly enough, colleges that are attracting the most interest right now are the ones that allow students to essentially graduate
with a job in hand. Because as the value of a college degree continues to be more widely questioned, understandably so amongst Americans, the schools that have like co op progress programs, really solid internship programs, they're drawing more attention. Northeastern matt is one of the schools that constantly gets held up as one of the having one of the best co op programs where essentially almost everyone that graduates gets a high paying job in the career of their choice.
Because and now it's becoming as competitive to get into that school as it is to get into one of the Ivy League institutions. Because hey, guess what, what's more important than having Harvard on a piece of paper, It's having the job that's waiting there for you when you graduate. And so a diploma used to be enough for a lot of years, it's not necessarily in our culture these days.
We're living in a different world now, and so opting for a college that prioritizes seeing its students get into the career they studied for for years is smart in our book. And so yeah, check out. We'll link to this in the show notes. But the college scorecard, it's a Department of Education website and you can see you can look up specific schools and how are they doing on this front? Are they actually graduating people who end up making getting lucrative jobs in the career that they chose,
or are they not? And I think that's a legitimate standard to hold your institution to. If they're graduating people with degrees that aren't paying off in the real world, you might want to quite should have value that degree.
And to go back to bat a little bit. For community colleges, I actually I didn't know this until I was exploring around and clicking some on the college scorecard. But the guess, do you know what the median graduation rate is for four year colleges? So community colleges was thirteen percent. So what do you think the typical four year graduation rate is. I'm gonna say twenty eight percent. Oh yeah, I feel like you're such an optimist, like
in this case, like I would have. I feel like I would have guessed like ninety percent or something like that, where folks are like, oh, yeah, you go to college and you graduate. It's somewhere in between us. I guess it's less than sixty percent. I think it was fifty eight percent, which kind of puts into perspective. Yeah, that's a lot more than community college. But at least the way I was thinking about it, it was a whole lot less than I would have expected for kids that
are going off to school. But uh, okay, last, but not least, we got some Aldie news for folks. Aldi. They are currently in transition mode after buying up when Nixy. This is a sale that went through I think is the end of last year, or it was maybe approved at the end of last year, and it was finalized
this past spring. Aldi has already opened forty new stores and they plan to open eight hundred more, and all these spokespersons said that growth has doubled in just the past six years, and now more than twenty five percent of Americans shop at an Aldi, which is just music to my ears. I'm just so happy that there are more folks out there who are learning about the glories of low cost shopping, grocery shopping at ALDI and what
this means is competition in the grocery space. It continues to be fierce.
Their growth.
All these growth is great for consumers. It adds another low cost option out there. It keeps other grocery store chains on their toes. And this is just speculation as well, but I think it has the potential for folks to realize higher quality products as well. Like we're talking about costco and how they're able to negotiate because of just how much I mean, not only do costco buyers buy in bulk, but costco buyers in bulk. Well, I guess
that's what corporate buyers do. They go and they say, hey, we're gonna you know, we're looking at buying this much from you. But when you are opening that many more stores, you're able to move more product, and I think you have the ability to negotiate better deals. And I just I think maybe better deals, but higher quality products. And
this is the speculation part. Over the past few months, we've always gotten all these big old fresh salmon filet or whatever I swear and over the like, over the summer, it has been better than ever it's like so fresh, and sometimes with fish it's a little fishy kind of smelling, which is not duh, of course it is good smells, but you know what I'm talking about, Like old fish smells different than fresh fish, Like fresh fish almost doesn't smell like fish. And that's what i've as of late,
the as we've been getting those these salmons. Before I grill up there, you always got to check it for the pin bones, make sure, you know, make sure there's nothing in there. It smells so good, and I'm only encouraged by the fact that maybe they're able to negotiate some better product. That's well.
I think you see, when Kroger launched an organic private label, we started to see the price of organics come down across the board. Last time I was at Costco, I noticed that the organic olive oil was cheaper than the non organic, and I think we're seeing organics become cheaper, more readily accessible. Aldie is playing a big part in that too, So I love seeing that. I think you're right.
I think you're getting higher quality, you're getting lower prices, and all these expansion is only a good thing, even if you don't shop at Aldie.
That's right.
All right, that's going to do it for this episode. We will link to some of the resources we mentioned off on the show notes on our website at howtomoney dot com.
That's right. We hope you have a great weekend. We'll see you back here on Monday. And until next time, best friends Out, Best Friends Out,