Welcome to Had of Money. I'm Joel and I am Matt, and today we're talking low price ev leases, inflationary Amazon, and twenty four to seven trading. That's right, buddy.
It is Friday, and everybody who's listening right now knows that on Friday we talk about the best stories out there and how they pertain to your personal finance. So let's get after it. This could be their first episode. Maybe they don't know that. Well, that's what we do on Fridays. If you don't know, now you know, let's should we dally, should we stall, shall we tarry? Or do we move on?
Well, just a crazy thing that happened to me a couple months ago, and I'm wondering this is gonna be an opportunity for us to like really get after it. Joel, I'm wondering how you would handle this. So if you are cheap, at least in the South, it's kind of weird scame situation. Uh So in this people pinestraw on in their yards. That's like what we do, at least in some parts of the South. And it was on
my to do list for spring break. I was going to go to one of the home depot basically get a bunch of pine straw and tossed it down myself.
I grew up spreading pintes. That was just like the quintessential spring time. Yes, it's how you know it's spring right at least in Augusta, Georgia, because it's like the dawn of the arrival of Master's Week, which we didn't even.
Talk about masters a week a couple of weeks ago. But yeah, spreading pinestrawl, your dad pulls you by the ear, forces you out there to do it with the Yeah, yeah, no choice. So now I'm the dad. I have to do it myself. But this truck pulled by like literally the day I was going to go do it, and they had a bunch of pinestraw on the.
Back, and they said, hey, how convenient.
We'll do the pine straw for you for the low, low price. And they said eight bucks of bail. Basically, I think the price of buying the pine straws like four bucks of bales. So I was like, okay, cool, that's money included for your labor. He's like, oh, it's probably gonna be like twenty to twenty five bales. I did the math in my head I was like, great, okay, you're on go for it. You can take this task from my clutch. And then it's so weird. They did it.
It looked good, but then they come up and they say, yeah, it's gonna be nine hundred and something dollars, and I was like, wait a second. I just did the math. You said twenty ish times eight. I was ready to pay two hundred bucks at max.
I'm shocked.
And we obviously had no like signed contract or anything. So it became this really weird back and forth and I just didn't know what to do. I did not handle that, but I knew that, like I wouldn't have asked them to do this. If I knew it was gonna be nine hundred and something dollars, that sounds ridiculous. I would have done it myself. And so I won't say I met them in the middle, but I was basically like, listen, this is kind of crazy. I don't know what to do here. I'm happy, And I even
told the workers by that. I was like, I don't blame you. I blame your boss for sending you out here and like allowing you to take these tactics like it's on your boss, isn't this isn't on you?
Well, what does the price come to? So, like you said, twenty so on the low end, you're thinking one hundred and sixty bucks, yep.
But I was like, all right, maybe as much as like two hundred that's fine. Yeah, it's like a tiny bit more than that, that's cool. So when I ended up settling on with him, I said, I will pay you three hundred and fifty bucks and I will not pay him anymore. And if your boss wants to come over here and talk to me where, we can totally do that. But so I don't even know if I should have gone that high.
It was a weird situation, unfortunately. I mean, okay, there's multiple things that could be going on here, right, Like obviously one is that truly it was not a good estimate, and it's a very bad estimate, a very bad estimate, and perhaps there is a lack of an ability to communicate what it was actually going to cost, right, So like an honest error basically, but then gargantuan error. I know,
then that's five x error. And that's the thing if that is what you specialize in, not only in selling the pine Strull, but spreading it like you are going to have a pretty good idea of how many bales it's going to take to cover an area. So I'm assuming they had to use way more than twenty.
He told me they had to use a lot more than that, and he was like, you should have known it was going to take more than that. I was like, how am I supposed to know?
I don't know. Yeah, exactly. That is where I think it falls on them, because they should know. They should be able to look out a yard and as long as you were clear though, like hey, these are the beds we're talking about, they should pretty dang accurately know how many bails it would take. And so the so I already shared the honest mistake sort of path, but it sounds like it's more like they're just trying to they're trying to scale them scam.
Yeah, that's the way it felt, because at the end they're like, hey, let's get my boss on the phone, and literally the phone noise like it says boss in on his iPhone or whatever when he hits ment to talk to his boss, and the guy's like, oh, I'm sorry they didn't coach you correctly, but come on, please kind of thing. Maybe it awkward, so awkward, so awkward, And I'm like, listen, this is my max, and if you want to come here and talk to me in person,
we can talk it out like two adults. But I'm just not going to be in this like middle I like that. Yeah. So they went about their way, and when I said, they were like, what's the other solution? I was like, take all your pinestraw back? Can you take it back? Yeah? Which is crazy. Obviously that's not really a solution either. But I felt really awkward as a homeowner to be put in that position. And maybe that's on me for like not getting more details up
front or anything like that. But they made it sound like it was super easy, super quick, and hey, we're going to be in and out.
But yeah, I mean, if you're thinking, like on the high end, maybe to a little over two hundred bucks and then you ended up paying three fifty, that's a pretty generous contingency like that. There's enough room there that if it was an accurate quote and they did go over a little bit, that it would have covered their cost. But like you're talking it being like three times that as far as what they're actually looking to charge.
So oh, it was basically five x because if I'm thinking one sixty, they asked for nine to sixty. Right, Well, I guess three x what you actually did end up paying. But yeah, either way, Yeah, I think I think I would have done something similar to.
To which you. Okay, maybe even paid less to be honest, because I think I would have done the math. I would have said, yeah, like, okay, I'm almost thinking one sixty, guys, maybe two hundred. Uh, let's account for a twenty percent overage. Okay, I'll give you guys two fifty. Yeah, tops.
And I felt more less frustrated about the money and more frustrated about kind of the position they put me in. Yeah, and it also made me want to go post in my neighborhood Facebook group pay gotcha watch out for these
Pinestross gamber dads. It's uh yeah, just a terrible aiy to do business, obviously, and my guess is they're going to get somebody else to pay a whole lot more than they should probably, So yeah, okay, but enough about that, Let's move on to Friday flight Saplings of stories we found interesting this week, and they pertain to your personal finances.
Let's start off by talking about EV's and a topic that we don't usually sing the praises of very often leasing the best way though to get an inexpensive ev it just might be And this goes counter two with so much of what we talk about most of the time when we talk about cars, to lease it. That's true normally, Matt. Of course, we're not big fans of leasing. It's more of a lifestyle choice than a smart financial one.
When you lease a car, you're saying, I just like to upgrade by ride every couple of years, and I don't mind paying for the privilege of doing this. That is literally what you're saying when you lease a car. Most of the time. There are, though, exceptions to almost every rule that I can think of, and this is the same thing is true when we're talking about leasing. There are times where a lease can actually potentially make
a decent financial sense. For example, Matt, you and I recently saw this and I had you, like, you know, looking into this hardcore. There's a Subaru electric vehicle that was being offered at two hundred and forty one dollars a month on a lease with zero down and by the way, you got to pay attention to that because sometimes like it's like, oh, that's it's a low monthly lease amount, but you got to pay down, right, so then that's not a deal. But this was zero down
to forty one a month. That's pretty good. The Hondai Ionic is two hundred and twenty five bucks a month right now, with two hundred and twenty five down at least in some places. Yeah, Also, that's a good look
at EV too. Yeah, yeah, it's a great deal. Yeah, it's no Chevy bolt Man a right, it's a hun day And Tesla just announced that they've reduced rates on some of their leases too, So I guess that if you're like, I don't know, I'm kind of like EV curious, well kicking the tires a little bit, might at least want leasing on your radar. Yeah, so many least EV's they still qualify for the seventy five hundred dollars federal tax credit, which is why that you're able to get
that drastically reduced monthly payment. Basically, the dealers they receive those savings and they're able to pass that alone to you and reduce payments. And so if you've been considering EV, but you haven't wanted to take the plunge. Leasing one of the less expensive models might be a good way to test the waters. Just one of the numbers because they can make a lot more sense than they normally
would do some calculations. See how much you might be saving in fuel costs, especially if for you to charge your EV at home. Yeah, that's where a lot of the savings happen.
Absolutely.
If you're charging on the go, you're paying a lot more per kill a lot or Whateverah.
And Plus I'm thinking about too, just like as technology advances, like you aren't stuck with an EV that's massively outdated. It makes me think of is it Moore's law that says like every couple of years, technology like doubles and speed or essentially something like that, And that's not always true because like just look at cell phones right and the costs go down to there is a drastic increase
in capabilities and speed, and same thing with computers. But I feel like when it comes to evs, we are just in the beginning like phases, the beginning cycles of that and the ability to lease it means you're not stuck with something that you pay tens of thousands of dollars for where before long it feels like you've got like a dinosaur on your hands. And here's the thing which.
Has how anybody feels if they've got a twenty sixteen niece on leak.
Yes, exactly, and it's not that. What we're proposing here is that you need to go out there and have the latest and greatest features in the latest colors on the on the ev It's truly because of the fact that the range has increased so much in recent years.
It's literally so you can go where you need to go.
Yes, which is the ability to save money. This isn't And so what I'm highlighting here is the fact that we're not looking at this through a lifestyle lens. This is where like we're viewing this through a financial lens, and by doing that it looks like it could make sense for a whole lot of folks.
Yeah, and I still think about the Toyota announcing they've got the solid state battery techno exactly what I'm thinking Of'm talking about nine hundred plus miles potentially that you can get on a charge with the batteries that are going to be rolling out in a few years. Maybe that's the kind of game changing technology that makes evs just prone to some sort of massive adoption cycle and
costs going down as well. They continue to go down, and so guess what, you least for a couple of years because you want to go EV, you want to save on the gas, and you kind of want to test the waters. Well, then at some point a few years down the road, when the technology is even better and maybe the prices have gone down even more, that's when you pounce.
In you by, Yeah, it seems that there's like the potential or massive depreciation in the coming years, which is why as a potential EV buyer, I think you should maybe be a little hesitant if you are thinking about plunking another change to purchase one rather than perhaps to lease it, which again sounds crazy because we've always been against that.
So yeah, yeah, well, and I think one other point on that is that we know the federal tax cardit is going to be around for many many years to come, and so it's not like that time's running out on that or anything like that. So when you buy one maybe four or five years down the road, guess what, you're still going to get that price break on that too.
This true, right, since we're talking about EV's there was an article in Bloomberg about energy nerds who obsess over their electricity bills and they do anything they can do to reduce it. Matt, I don't know if you felt a kinship with some of those people. That seems like sounds like something I could see you going down that rabbit hole.
It's funny because like the kids will go off to school, and certain days of the week, I am at home alone before I walk to work.
Can I guess what you do? Do you turn off all the lights in the house.
Well, it's just always such a rush in the morning, and so like there are multiple fans going on in east room, all all the different lights are on, and I just a lot of times they haven't flushed.
The toilet as well. So I just like to leave the house again to know it's not just my kid, but I just like to leave the.
House in a good state. You know, when I leave to go to work.
I'm not going to say, like the closet lights are on or the bathroom locks on, like I.
Go turn them all off before I leave. Like that.
That's just a weird quirk that I have. And apparently you do too. Therefore we are energy nerds. Okay, yeah, we're not alone. We're guys energy dad nerds. Well, obviously it's true that you could buy different gadgets right to help you reduce electricity consumption and to monitor what you're
using more thoroughly. You know, you can get solar panels or batteries for storage, and it's neat to see the way some of those guys are implementing some of those devices in their homes in order to reduce energy consumption. But I think one of the other things worth noting is that one of the easiest ways to save is to change your pricing plan and then change your habits Accordingly. We've talked about this before, Matt, but it's been a minute.
There are, of course off peak plans that a lot of utility providers offer that will charge you more for using electricity during peak hours and then far far less for using electricity during off peak times. So even if you don't drive an ev by the way, you might find that you're able to reduce your electricity bill by what's known as load flexing, basically doing your laundry, running the dishwasher at night. That kind of stuff, and if you.
Do have when you should be doing them anyway, because the noise associated with I mean, I would you run your dishwasher?
Is it like typically over nine default? Yeah?
Yea, And I feel like it just naturally fits within people's lifestyle anyway.
Yeah, And we don't have an EV anymore, although Rabbi in twenty twenty six, baby, but when we do, Matt, this is perfect for folks like that. We've talked to listener Greg who spends almost nothing to charge his EV overnight because he charges it overnight, and he's on one of these flex plans. And so I love the idea of being able to save money just by being on a different plan and changing our usage just when we
use certain features of our home. That's a nifty way to save money that most people don't think about.
Yeah, you said he pays next to nothing. He pays one point eight cents per kill a lot hour. And I actually I rechecked it because I was curious because I crushed the numbers not too long ago. But I'm like, all right, let's see if that was just like a something like a promotion, perhaps no still around, Well it was one point seven, so yes, it did go up, but now it's one point eight per kill a lot hour.
But when we're saying, like when we're talking about EV's and potentially leasing them, and when I say to crunch the numbers, we're not just talking about the difference in leasing an EV and just purchasing an EV, but also compare it to your gas bill, because you're going to see a dramatic savings when it comes to the amount of money you're able to save in what you spend
at the gas station every single month. Because I know for us, at a minimum, based on the daily commute for school, we're spending two hundred and fifty dollars a month. Like all the no's pretty evenly on gas depending on what the price per gallon is.
Super Release basically pays ourselves.
Yes, that's the thing. When you like, those same number of miles traveled via an EV would be and I've got it on my spreadsheet six dollars and fifty cents a month a month, which is incredible and so literally when you are looking at being able to charge your vehicle at night from at least here in Georgia it's from eleven pm to seven am, it literally cost one
point eight cents per kilo kill a hours. So those are the kind of numbers we want you out there to be crunching as you're considering something like this, because it truly could save you a ton of money.
Yeah, and if someone came to you and said, hey, listen, we'll cut your electricity bill in you know, by two thirds. But you just got to make this, this and this change and only run these devices at this time of night. A lot of us would do that. But the truth is that offer is available for us. We just you know, go to your local utility provider's website and see what they've got. I bet they've got an off peak plan that might be able to suit your needs.
Yeah, it's just crazy. And just to think that some of the monthly least amounts are so low, and when you are taking energy costs into account, you might be thinking, well, why don't I just get an EV because it's like it's almost like you're paying me to drag this EV around except for the cost of insurance.
Which is the downside. One thing that other people and you as well well, Matt, might want to think about if you opt to go this route is to install solar panels. So guess what, maybe maybe you're not even paying the utility provider a dime.
Maybe truly, overall, they are paying you not just to drive the ev but also to provide the grid with electricity from your home.
Yeah, exactly. In some places you can make money for selling the electricity you're creating at your home back to the utility provider. But okay, solar panels. I saw this story in I believe it was the financial times are becoming so cheap that people are using them as fence panels in the Netherlands and in Germany. They're not able to capture rays in the same way when they're installed as when they're installed on the roof, but it's also a lot cheaper because you don't Yeah, it cuts down
the cost of installation. That's one of the most expensive parts now of installing solar is the people who actually do the installation, because basically, when you look at the numbers, a solar panel cost eleven cents per watt at the end of March or but and that's half the price it was at the same time last year. So the price of solar panels is just dropping like a rock.
And of course this doesn't mean we're ready to upend some of our traditional energy sources yet, but the rapid decline in the cost of solar and then these ingenious approaches to using solar panels. I love this man. I think this is a great sign. Instead of putting wood privacy fences up in your yard, make them solar panels because guess what, it might be cheaper and then it might actually pay back in the long run. Two, because
you're able to generate some extra energy. Even if it's not the most optimized way, it's still pretty optimized.
Yeah. I love the scrappiness. And you were talking about the federal tax credit for evs. Don't forget about the tax credits that you might qualify for when doing some
of these different green upgrades around your house. Basically we've talked about this before, but many of these energy efficient changes that you can make, they come with a roughly thirty percent discount, but there are also annual caps, and so it's important to keep in mind to maybe make some of these changes in consecutive years if you're trying to score the max tax rebate that's available to you. And then remember as well, some of the most impactful
changes that you can make. They aren't all that tech forward. They're pretty simple, straightforward, like adding insulation that can make a big difference in your electricity bills. But it's certainly an unsung hero. Just remember, many of these tax credits are going to be around again until twenty thirty two, just like with the federal tax credit for EVS. There's
no rush. And we actually talked about some of these different energy efficient upgrades that you can make back in episode six fifty six, kind.
Of went through the laundry list of them.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, So listen, I will look to that in the show notes if you want to listen back to some of these different moves that you can make, which you might be thinking of as it's kind of heating up outside of your thinking, oh man, I can kind of feel the heat radiating from the ceiling upstairs. Yeah.
And basically for a lot of these things, it's a straight up thirty percent discount, but because the federal government's going to pitch in and cover a decent portion of some of those upgrades you make. But kind of like you said, Matt, the devil's in the details. You got to read the fine print and make sure when you're upgrading certain things and how you're upgrading certain things that you're jumping through the right hoops. Let's talk about Amazon
for a second. Have you heard of that company, Matt. It's you know, it's a big one. Some people buy stuff online from that website. Well, there is a claim from a new book about this massive internet retailer from a Wall Street Journal reporter that came out this week. First, let's talk about the bad. Amazon makes up forty percent of online retail which is kind of scary. The fact that they sell forty percent of the goods of people
buy online kind of mind blowing statistic. Another one to eighty percent of homes have Amazon Prime.
I found that to be more shocking. That's that's incredible.
Crazy to think that they're not only just buying a significant amount of their goods on Amazon, but that they also pay a massive annual fee to Amazon for the privilege of getting the shipping, even though the quick shipping is becoming pretty ubiquitous around the webs and Matt the book, it also discusses the fees that Amazon charges sellers who want to list items on their site. It's a lot of money, Like, it's not cheap to list your stuff
on Amazon apparently, and it's getting more expensive. But I'll also say those sellers have the option to sell elsewhere, to create their create their own direct to consumer website like many many other businesses have, they don't because Amazon is where the customers are, and so they're willing to pay the fee to sell their goods there because that's
how they're actually gonna make money. And recent data finds, by the way, that Amazon has increased prices slower than the rate of inflation, and that price growth might actually be negative on Amazon dot Com in twenty twenty four, which actually resonates with what some other retailers are saying, like Costco they've made similar remarks. And so I don't know, Matt, is Amazon inflationary? That's kind of the question that Axios asked this week. And to me, it doesn't seem like
they're so big that they tip the inflation scales. Yeah, it's kind of scary how much of the Internet traffic and that they get in the retail environment. But I also don't think that like we can point to Amazon and say just because they're big, they're bad and they're causing prices to go I.
Think that's what's going on here, is that oftentimes folks are looking for some sort of scapegoat and who doesn't want to hate on Amazon because you know, not a lot of folks like the Bezos. But there is still plenty of competition out there for us to choose from. This is why we don't think first of all, that Amazon isn't inflationary, but also they're not a monopoly, because that's the other sort of phrase here tossed around when they have these kind of numbers. Because there are other options.
We opt for Amazon because of convenience, like I literally can't remember or can't think of, like what our life would be like and if we didn't have Amazon, and the convenience that comes with being able to order a giant thing of toilet paper because she's like, I got other things to carry out of the store when I'm going to go to Costco or go to Aldie.
Come on, okay, you gotta do better.
But bottom line, you can avoid Amazon if you don't want to support them, and.
Some people are.
They're opting for even cheaper Chinese alternatives like like t Mu Sine or Shine Shine.
I don't know how to announce out.
But you don't necessarily have to go cheap. You can buy higher quality goods via local retailers. You can go with internet retailers who specialize in the specific products that you're looking to buy. But whatever you're looking for you can find not only on Amazon, but you can find elsewhere. And yeah, Amazon, and it's a big company. That being said, I'm not going to necessarily pin them for the inflationary sort of environment that we find ourselves in. I think
it's more like the stimichecks. It's more like the government spending versus just what it is that a giant corporation decides to charge their small businesses who want to sell products on their website.
Yeah, it is really interesting to think, like what when we look back at it seems like it's pretty easy to see actually kind of what led to big parts of the inflation that we've seen in this country and around the world. And the culprit. Yeah, it doesn't seem to be Amazon, even though they seem to be taking a lot of heat right now. But I think the other thing too, Matt, like this should cause us to maybe rethink our prime membership, maybe rethink how much you're
spending on Amazon. Sometimes it's this knee jerk thing, and so it's not even necessarily they're contributing to outsized inflation. But it's just the fact that we buy more stuff than we should because it's so darn easy. Maybe that that's the problem, at least from an individual consumer standpoint, is that we're buying things that we could probably avoid purchasing altogether, but we just do it because it's you know,
it's super simple, as right at our fingertips. It's just a behavior change, I guess that we need to make. But Matt, we've got more to get to on this episode, including what if you could trade stocks all day, every day, including on Christmas. Well, that might be in the cards in the near term future. We'll talk about that and more right after this.
All right, man, we are back from the break. We're gonna get to that twenty four to seven stock trading story here in a minute. But first we have our ludicrous headline of the week, and this one is from the Journal. The headline reads the headache at the end of the Costco Gold Rush, and not surprising that there's a story about gold. It's pretty hot right now. It's actually been on a tear as of late.
And of course hot like Hansol from wess Lander.
And the price of something goes up, the interest to invest in that thing it increases dramatically as well. And good folks over at Costco, they started selling gold bars last year sometime, and because of Costco's business model, they actually don't mark things up much at So what that means is that these bars are selling out in minutes when they go on sale. And interestingly enough, gold it's actually done better than the SMP five hundred over the past five years, like not by like a ton, but
it has performed better. And so you might be thinking, all right, this is it time for Matt and Joel to finally change their tune a little bit. Are they going to start Hey, precious metals from from here on out? No, bury them in your backyard. That's not what we're here to say. Because when you zoom out, even though it's outperformed the SMP in recent years, but like zoom out ten, twenty thirty, zoom out one hundred years, let's say there's no competition at all, the SMP stocks outperform gold by
a significant margin. Not that we're investing for a century from now. But history shows that productive companies that they are going to offer better returns than just a shiny object that we dug out of the ground that we decided is worth a whole lot of money.
With the gold people, they come out of the woodwork at times like this, Matt and they are it seems like they have more credibility, more gravita, and more people end up listening to them because guess what, when gold has been outperforming, it makes our case seem more credible. But the whole point of this article was that it's hard and costly to get rid of your gold bar. So let's say even the S and P and gold continued to kind of march in lockstep for a little while.
Similar returns. Where where do you sell the gold that you're buying Facebook marketplace? I mean that sounds like you're going to get robbed if you're doing that right. Gold is a very ill liquid asset, and it's an inefficient market for buying and selling, and so if you sell your gold online, you might get a low ball offer and then have to pay for shipping and insurance fees on top of that, which means that even if the price is gone up you don't get basically the entire
price increase of the gold you purchase. And so although yeah, we've seen price the price of gold go up significantly in recent years, that doesn't mean that it's a no brainer through out there and buy physical gold. Even if it's sold via a site like costco and you're getting a decent deal on it, it'd be better to buy it in a low cost etf if you really feel
like you need some exposure. We don't own any of these funds ourselves, but I Shares have some inexpensive gold funds if that's your jam, but you probably already have, or you're probably going to hear more pitches for gold and for gold funds and.
As long as it continues to increase.
But I think, just like drugs, Matt, you just say no, let's talk about Wall Street, because some changes might be coming to how it is that you can trade the New York Stock Exchange.
They're taking a pull on weather or not they should offer stock trading twenty four to seven basically, and that's because it seems that more folks want this. There's a trading platform called twenty four Exchange. They are petitioning the SEC to try and become the first platform that allows for around the clock buying and selling. And you might say, well, guys, doesn't Robinhood already do this? Don't sound like news. This
is something that you've discussed before, and that's true. But while you can buy and sell off hours on Robinhood, it's not full unfettered market access all the time. Those trades, they're conducted in a few different ways, like including trades with Asian countries where it's daytime. But bottom line, we're just not fans of this attempt. I think an always open trading window obviously it's going to incentivize more trading
because it's twenty four to seven. Just like, let's see, would there be anybody going to Walmart in the middle of the night if they weren't open twenty four to seven? No, people like the reason somebody is there at three in the morning is because it's open. But then, how do investors lose money? Well, they well, listeners here at How to Money know that the more often you trade and speculate,
then pay attention to the news. The more often, the more frequently you trade, the more likely you are going to be to lose money in the short term as opposed to being a long term investor.
It's like a Fidelity study back in the day map that found that the best investors were folks who actually.
Passed away were dead.
Yeah, because they weren't tinkering with their with their portfolios. They stayed the course. And there is a power in staying the course. And so yeah, if you're incentivized to be on the app more, trading more regularly, you are going to come out, typically in the losing position. As someone said on Reddit, yes I did look in the Reddit message boards on this one. They said, think of all the time you weigh sleeping, you could be scoring
free dopamine hits. I think that's true. I mean, that's why I think people opt to you know, opt to download those apps and trade on the rag. It's not typically because they think they're going to get rich. It's because it's a source of fun, I think. But that
source of fun often leads to losing money. And I think if this does happen, it's up to us as individuals to tune it out right similar the way, Yeah, we have to tune out the twenty four to seven news cycle because there's really not that much news that we really, actually, truly need to know. There's a lot of repetition and sensationalism that's not good for our human brains.
But heck, they've got time slots to fill. So similarly, just because you might be able to trade stalks whenever the heck you want it doesn't mean that it's a good idea. Will this come to fruition? I don't know, but I guess yeah. I'm rooting in the please don't do this game. He is going to break more people's brains.
By the way, So you mentioned downloading the apps and where you might be addicted or pulled or lured into trading more often, and I know you've got Robin Hood in your crosshairs are as you're making that comment.
I'm trying to hate.
The reason I'm mentioning this is because this is I guess the last week. Yeah, because by next Friday flight, when we be yes the match, the IRA match will be over. And so if you have been considering that, you've gotten until the end of April, at the end of this month, so you don't have very many more days to take advantage of an IRA match from a brokerage that is not your employer. As long as you can avoid trading the stonks.
It's just like Joel said, you got to be able to tune that out or it's not worth it. It's not worth it because you'll lose more than you gained. All Right, Matt I heard from a listener this week about where to keep investing dollars that he's keeping on
the sidelines for now. So he's got one of those fun money accounts that we talk about where it's less than five percent five percent or less of his overall assets, and he's got but he's been investing for a long time, so he's got a decent chunk of changing in there. And he's got thirty to forty grand he said, that's sitting on the sidelines. He's not really to invest it in a stock yet. He's like doing his due diligence,
doing his research. But he was with a brokerage that didn't pay almost anything on the money that he had on the sideline. So I had to encourage me to talk about how yields on money market funds have shot up to the five percent range of some of those brokerage firms these days.
Right, So if he was with Robinhood. Again, that's truly where this is my last plug for this episode for robin Hood. I'm pretty sure it's that five and a quarter right now for uninvested money.
They also have never sponsored hot money, so this is they never have goodness of your.
Heart, and over time I just have changed my toom and what it is that they're offering.
I just I want to just direct people to that though, because if you do have money sitting on the sidelines at a brokerage firm, that's fine, Like you don't have to invest it at tomorrow if you're kind of waiting while around while you do some research, but make sure that you know that your money is actually receiving some sort of reasonable interest payment while it is sitting idle. And so you want to make sure you're earning something
while you're trying to figure out how to proceed. And yeah, five percent is a rate you should expect I think now, like Betterments five and a half percent, Robinhood five percent fidelity is basically five percent too. And I guess the other thing to mention here as well is to not let money linger on the sidelines for too long, because I think a lot of people said ooh, earning five
percent on savings. This is great, And money that they would have otherwise invested, they kept on the sidelines, Matt, And that is not where you want to find yourself because as the market's been roaring, you don't know when to get in. Didn't find yourself trying to time the market.
That's not a great place to be. It's nice to have five percent returns, but make sure it's five percent returns on savings, not for money that should have been invested, but that you've been kind of just waiting too long to do.
Yeah, short term goal cash that you're planning to spend in the near term, yep. Perfect. Otherwise, make sure those dollars are invested so you're not missing out on some of those big gains. And speaking of wasted money, do you see the story Americans are throwing away like sixty eight million dollars in coins each and every year. Wow. Yeah, so this is I think just another reason to go
digital perhaps, but a sustainable waste processing company. They're making a business out of separating coins from trash in an attempt to save these coins and to make a profit. And in seven years they've collected ten million dollars in profit, which I gotta say, that's a it's a lot of money from picking up change from the side sidewalk.
What do they do? They take like big sacks and take it to the coinstar machine.
They filtered out, you know. But so this leads me to ask you, Joel, I doubt you are bending over and strain your back to pick up a single penny. But how big of a coin does it need to be before you're reaching for it on the sidewalk?
Depends how dirty it is. I guess it's a clean quarter.
You know what, Even if it's a clean penny, I would pick that up. But yeah, like basically the dirtier it is, the higher the payoff needs to be because of the yuck factor. If it's a.
Filthy dollar, I'll pick it up.
Would you really?
Yeah, I mean it depends on not the filthiest if it's like it really really well, It's like when I there's a filthy, wet money that was that I picked up this is several months ago in the street.
Well that was like multiple bills. You better believe I'm gonna pick that up. Yeah, Like I didn't care what it was sitting in and wash it and wash it. But yeah, I think you're right. It very much has to do with how dirty or how clean it is.
Yeah, it was just interesting to see some of the pictures of how they they clean some of the coins that they find, and actually a decent chunk of the coins even after cleaning, they're like unusable because they're destroyed to that extent. But yeah, really really interesting.
Speaking of destroying money, I've I've been promising the kids that we would go up to the road track and tape some coins to the track that next some of the train platinum. I'm sure that's like illegal and you're actually not even supposed to do that, but I just remember doing that as a kid. Yeah, and I feel
like that's the kind of that's a good wholesome being. Yeah, isn't it like be very careful, like stay away from the tracks when they're I don't know, I'm sure somebody's gonna criticize me for talking about playing around the road tracks with kids.
Well, we also just need to do away with the penny. By the way, We've been talking about that and that's been talked about for a long time, but pennies cost more to create eight then they're actually and it's just it's silly that we still have pennies. Can we just get rid of them? Please? Maybe even the Nichols at the same time, just abolisher both down with Nikels. But we don't need them.
There were five cents. We have five fingers on each hand.
I don't know.
Something about that seems.
Right, Okay, it's probably good for counting purposes, helping your kids learn how account but other than that, but pennies are just.
Like completely all right.
Well, last story, real quick, don't miss out on free French fry Friday. You gotta download the Wendy's app to participate, and you have to buy something to get the free fries. Have to sacrifice your personal information. Man, you remember Wendy's fries used to be the worst. They used to be trash. I think they've oupgraded them. I think they've gotten better in recent years. But I don't know. Maybe it's not even worth it.
They're fine with me. Did you ever get Did you ever get the Wendy's Frosty key tag? Oh yeah, kitchen tag.
For like a buck, you get ten pre Frosty's.
No, it's like I thought it was a couple of Bucks, and then every time you placed any order, you just show them your tag and you get a free Frosty. And there's one year that Kate is when we're doing photography and we're spending a lot of time on the road, we're eating a decent amount of fat food, including Wendy's. You better believe that we took full advantage of our frosty keysag dude, Oh yeah, I don't think it was
very good for our health though, No, probably not. I mean literally, I don't think I've ever eaten so many frosties. Then I did that because, especially in the summer when it's hot, who doesn't want to wash it all down with a nice frost.
I'm with you, They're delicious, one of the best things on the Wendy's menu.
I wouldn't do it now though, I feel like I'm too much of a I'm turning into a health nut and the thought of that now just kind of it preemptively makes me feel naxious.
Yeah, that's just how I am. Now, all right, that's going to do it for this episode. Thank you as always for listening. By the way, we just celebrated our two year newsletter Adversary this week and so if you haven't signed up with the How of Money newsletter, it's going strong more than ten thousand readers. Please do go sign up at how to Money dot com slash newsletter.
It's free, comes to your inbox every Tuesday morning. Well. Also, I have show notes up on our website with links to some of the articles we mentioned at how tomoney dot com.
That's right. I have a great weekend. We'll see you back here on Monday. Until next time, Buddy, best Friend's Outum best friends ends out.
Remember the junior cups. You don't feel too bad. M