Friday Flight - Missing Stimulus Checks, DIY Home Projects, and Flights to Nowhere #255

well as several others. Buddy, Yeah, you know one thing I saw actually that had to do with something we talked about a couple of months ago. We talked about the ARII campus that they built. It's like the super fancy theme out on the West coast. This is less money, this is more just like something we found interesting. Yeah, but are I was like, oh, man, with because of the pandemic, we're not going to move in to this building. The kind of like a summer camp building for like adults.

Because of how well it was designed, you know, and how well it integrated to the outdoors. Makes sense for a company like ARII. Yeah, the renderings looked super cool, Like I wanted to go to work there, Man, I was looking looking to see if they have any job postings, you know. But yeah, they ended up selling the campus to Facebook because apparently has a couple of buildings like around the area. Um, and yeah, it sounds like ari I actually turned a profit on this one. So way

to go. Are nice? Are you a member of ari E? I? I am. I have been for a number of years. Nice, So I We've never done that. But in order to get the discount when I got my bike earlier this year, back in the spring, you know, and I was looking to spend some of my stimulus money, you got a discount if you were a member as well. So I

went ahead and joined. And so while that's great, I'm actually looking forward to the tim percent back because at the end of the year they do like a profit sharing thing where their members get ten percent of what you spent. Is that right, right? Yeah, Yeah, it's a co op and so yeah ari I, I mean I love their model. Their model is all about serving their customer well. And yeah that that co op model just

is a business model. It's not often used, but it serves the customers well, and I think it creates a lot of customer loyalty to Yeah, totally. Man, I'll be interested to see if we maybe overspend now at Aria, because you know, because once you do have a membership somewhere, you tend to think about it more. And so hopefully that doesn't change my behavior, you know, and how we actually do spend our money. It's kind of what Costco

banks on, right. People pay the sixty bucks or the one twenty and then you're you're a member now, so you want to get your money's worth, um, and Costco does pretty well with with that sort of membership model too, exactly. Man, all right, so let's get to our Friday Flight. This is our quick sampling of stories that you know that you and I found interesting this week. And Man, one of the reasons we call it the Friday Flight is it's a little nod to our love of craft beer.

So we had a quick story here on Beer News, Man, we saw that Yengling is expanding their distribution out West. US beer sales they fell last year according to the Brewers Association, So it seems that this is an interesting move for America's oldest brewery to reclaim some of that decline in their and their fans and their customers. But I mean Yeling is so interesting because I feel like

a lot of people talk about Yengling. I mean, they are the oldest brewery in our country, right, but like we've even got family out west, and if they go out of state, because I guess they don't sell it where they live, but if they go out state and they can get their hands on some England, they buy tons of it and they bring it back home because they love it, which is funny because it's not really a craft beer. It's it's it's not really it's like a standard beer. Like I mean, if I were to

someone were to say, like describe Bengling, I would say beer. Yeah, it's just normal beer. I think it's better than like the other macros, but there's nothing really special about it. Um. But yeah, America's oldest brewery. That's they're claimed to fame. Uh. And then actually one of our local breweries, Creature Comforts, that are out in Athens, Georgia, they just announced that

they are opening up another location in Los Angeles. Speaking of yeah, expanding out west, which is just another just massive craft beer town. Lots of great breweries out there. But yeah, so for all of our l A listeners who want to try some good Georgia beer. Well, pretty soon you're gonna be able to to try some Tropicalia

or some Athena. So yeah, there are some favorites Athena Paradiso, the one with cherries cranberries so good, so it so yeah, l A l A listeners start stalking Creature Comforts on Instagram and follow how you know, their their builds going. Uh, that's something to look forward to for sure. Yeah. Yeah, Engling pretty good but not too special. Creature Comforts very special. Yeah,

that's something else I found really interesting. This week. There were a few stories about different airlines starting to sell tickets for flights to nowhere, and uh, that's just feels like so uh so weird that it's happening. There was Does it feel like two thousand, you know, like back when gas costs nothing and you would just kind of go cruising and go driving around in your car for

a ride. Yeah, maybe a little bit like both, but it it just, you know, everything in twenties so freaking weird that the idea of getting on a flight and not actually going to another place, because you know, a lot of these airlines are doing it because you can't go anywhere like, uh, the Quantis in Australia. Actually they sold out a flight in ten minutes that takes off from the Sydney Airport and then lands back at the

Sydney Airport seven hours, so ridiculous. And they're they're saying that, you know, you'll get some low flying views of the Great Barrier Reef, which is which is cool, but overall, it's still pretty odd that you would buy a flight and you top on and you're not really going anywhere, man, You're just kind of like going for a little tour of you know, part of your own country. Yeah, except that, like, planes aren't made for sight seeing, right, Yeah, I saw

that the windows are kind of small. I saw it's gonna be on the Boeing seven eighties seven And I don't know when the last time you've been on a seven eight seven, But those are really wide planes where a lot of the people sit in the middle. There's only one seat that has an actual window seat like on normal planes, right on each side. Don't matter how long you get if you're sitting the plane, it's a folks are just gonna get on this plane, cruise around

and it's gonna be such a disappointing flight. It would be a disappointing flight in my opinion, because it's all about going somewhere and so then land back at the same airport that you took off from Man, I would be so bummed. I'm not doing it all right. So that's a little bit of news or the weird. But there's something else that's a little strange to man. Over nine million Americans who may qualify for a stimulus check. Remember those back in the spring, um they still haven't

registered to receive their money. And the thing is, most individuals they didn't need to register because we filed our taxes in nineteen. But for those who aren't required to file a tax return, they had to actually go online and register in order to receive that money. And so the I R S they're gonna be sending out notifications next week to those individuals um as they now only have until October fifteen to register UH in order to

claim that money. And so if that's you, if you've been maybe living under a rock, UH, you can go and do that on the I R S websites. That's where you can go where non filers can register and will make sure to link to that page in our show notes and at different times on the show, Matt, we've talked about kind of an increase in scams during COVID. They're they're just a lot of people trying to take

advantage of people's concerns about health and finances. Right now, well, there's also been a rising scams related to those economic impact payments. So the i r S has issued a statement clarifying that they will not reach out to you via email, phone calls, or texts. So if you get anything electronic in nature in i r S communication, it's not the actual i r S. It's a scam artist. So the only place to go is i RS dot gov in order to register for that stimulus check payment.

And man, I just can't believe nine million people. That that a lot of people that are missing out on their money. Yeah, and I'm sure they're they're probably still wondering where it is. Yea. So maybe this hits you and you were supposed to get one, you haven't gotten one, and now you can go and register to get that money. Or or maybe you know somebody who doesn't file a tax return and you think they probably qualify. Well, it's best to to let them know about this so that

they can receive that money too. Yeah. Well, speaking of simulus checks, let's talk about how Americans who actually got their money, how they use that money. According to a new study, less than half of the money was actually spent, and then one third of that money was used for rainy day fund. That is certainly in line with other news that we've seen about the increased cash on hand due to the first round of stimulus checks, and then in addition to that to another chunk of money was

used to pay off debt. And so it's awesome to see that, you know, Americans are using this influx of cash wisely in most cases, you know, even if it didn't necessarily accomplish the goal of maybe stimulating the economy through more consumer spending. But that also did happen to you know, And so I don't know, I feel like there's a certain level where folks are putting themselves in a better financial position, and that gives them the confidence maybe to go out and buy a new bike like

I did. Yeah, I think Americans as a whole needed up their savings right right. There seems to be a special emphasis on hoarding cash at the moment and we think that's great. We think people should be considering their own personal financial situation. That's crucial because we don't know exactly how long or how difficult this storm, the COVID storm, is going to be, and most folks planned to stick to that trajectory of saving actually based on a recent survey,

until there's a COVID vaccine. And I can't blame them, man, I mean, having that solid six months of living expenses in your emergency fund. That's always been an important thing to have going on when it comes to your personal finances. But but it's even more important to shore up those savings now. Right even though rates on savings are pretty bismal, it's important to keep those savings intact. And I know that's something that a lot of our listeners struggle with, Matt.

Sometimes they're like, Man, my my same use accounts paying point four or five now, and it's a bummer, and I just think I can do better, And I understand that desire. But at the same time, it's so crucial to have those liquid funds in a bank account that you could draw on it any time, because you never know what a worst case scenario could look like. That's why it's so important. Yeah, man, you can't beat that piece of mind. And speaking of cash, we've talked about

this before, but the coin shortage that has continued. There are fewer coins in circulation as a lot of folks don't typically use them, but also too as businesses, uh sometimes have stopped accepting cash. But we saw that coin star. You know the machines like at the grocery store, you can dump the change in there. Uh, they will pay you more for your coins. Right now, there's never a fee to trade your coins in for an Amazon gift card.

But now you can get a thirty five dollar gift card for thirty dollars and change, which is really sweet. And so if you know that you have a recurring expense or something that you may be always purchased via Amazon, this is a great way to optim eyes and to to maybe unload some coins that you have laying around the house. We've seen here to in Atlanta that some Chick fil A locations are offering or we're offering a

free sandwich. If you traded in ten dollars and change for a ten dollar bill, you get a free sandwich, which is pretty sweet. And so you know keeping out for that. Some of your favorite local businesses might be offering coin payment specials as well. Keep an eye out for those deals. Yeah. I'm not one of those people that has a giant coin jar, but I know a

lot of people do. Man. They just like take the extra pennies and nickels out of their out of their pocket every day, stick them in that jar, and they're saving for something big. And right now it might be a good time to trade those in because coins are super valuable to a lot of businesses who are struggling to find the coins they need in order to make change.

That's right, all right, man, Well we're gonna take a quick break, but after the break, we're gonna talk about saving money by d I Y work that you can do it around your home, and we're gonna talk with our friend Tim Harmon with the U Can Man podcast, and we'll get to that right after the break. All right, we're back in the break and let's jump into some do it yourself talk d I Y d I Y. And due to the pandemic, we're all in our homes more right, and we're deciding to spruce them up, make

some changes. Make you feel a little more livable in home depots and lows. They've actually reported really strong earnings because of the d I Y craze. It's happening. So in that vein, We've brought our friend Tim Harmon from the U can Man podcast on to discuss all things d I Y on this episode with us. So, Tim, thanks for joining us on the show today. Man, Hey, Hey, good to be here. Yeah, Joel, you've known Tim for

quite a while longer than I have, actually Tim. I met you maybe like a decade ago when it came to like within the photography industry, which is something that neither you or I are doing necessarily full time at this point. Right sitting here with you guys at this table, it's just a culmination of a very long time when I found out that Joel new Matt. Matt new Joel, and I'm like, whoa, what has happened? World's collide, World's collide here. I'm like, Joe, how in the world did

you meet Matt? And so I got the whole story. That's a weirdo. So none none these jokers for quite some time now, and so glad to be sitting here at the table talking about some do it yourself stuff. That's great. Well that's yeah, that is what we're gonna talk about. We're not going to dive into our histories, into our past. Uh it's and we're all about the

ying it around the house to save money. But for you know, others out there, can you make a quick case, like a quick argument for why folks should be doing more projects themselves instead of hiring someone else you know for that job. So we are all about doing things yourself, but it's not always about saving money. What we say is what one man can do, you can do as well with a little help from your friends and the proper know how nice. So I will say to not

what you can man like. Also, there's ladies out there who are very handy or even aren't handy that or you can pick up a tool and figure out how to do something. We actually have a really active Facebook group that's steadily growing and we've got tons of ladies in the two So yeah, so doing things you're elf. Um, it's not always about the money. Like I mentioned, we like to think that tackling d I y projects gives

you confidence in every area of life. So tackling something that I may never have dreamed that I could do myself. Like one thing that really got me started down this road years ago was taking out a large load bearing wall in my house. And before that I thought, I can never do this. It's only for the experts, only for the experts. I'm my house is going to fall down, for sure. If I tried to do this, it's going to fall down. But I had a really good friend and he had done it before, and so he showed

me the ropes and was like, look man. And he's actually the reason why I call it you can man, because he would always say, what one main man can do, you can do as well, and that's right, right, right, And so that's what really got me started, and that gave me a lot of confidence to then start tons of other d I Y projects. So I love teaching people that, hey, you can do this. You know you need the right know how, you need some help, but you can do this yourself. I think that's so true.

And that's something that Matt and I kind of talked about with money. There's something about the behavior that you do over a period of time turns you into the person that you're becoming, Like a self fulfilling prophecy like the more you do it, the better you get at it, and it just fulfills itself. You start to save. Now I'm a saver and um, and then you can label yourself that and then you kind of continue to do

that in a ramped up way. And and I think the same thing I think you're right is is true with the I Y. The more you tackle, the more you're like, oh yeah, that's I can get into more areas of that. Uh So, so, Tim, what are what are some of the most expensive things maybe that people typically pay for when it comes to D I Y or or home renovation and they should actually be doing themselves instead to save money. Okay, I'm gonna say one thing that really just adds up. And you guys have

talked about it. In fact, I think you had an entire show about this. I'm not mistaken. Maybe earlier on, I'm not quite sure. Do it yourself. Past control, yes, Okay, Now, look, you're gonna be spending so much money every single quarter paying the past control guy. And if you'll like me, years ago, same kind of thing that I was talking about with the load bearing wall removal, I thought I can't do this myself. Don't you need a license to get all these chemicals. I'm not qualified to handle that

kind of material. No, there's this there's this website. It's called Amazon, and you can actually get all of these chemicals yourself, the ones that the pet control pros actually the exact ones. Yeah. And actually I had a friend of mine um that had hired somebody to come to do mosquito control, and I said, hey, I want you to ask the guy the exact chemical that he's using. Sure enough by finthrine. You can buy that on Amazon. And it's such an easy thing, and it's just something

that adds up really really quickly. I would say do it yourself. Past control another thing. Now, I'm gonna get a lot of flak for this, but I love changing my own oil car now as a test, I never have anybody to do my own oil. So today, before I came on the show, a little show prep, I called up Jiffy Loup. But I was like, all right, two thousand twelve Toyota see and it's a V six. I know I need six point four quarts of oil.

How much is that gonna cost me? Full synthetic dudes like, well, it's gonna be eight nine and then it's ten dollars for every corp over that, so you know, and then you got the point four so it's gonna be fourteen more dollars. Okay, So basically I'm out the door there like a hundred and five bucks now an oil change for an oil change within with the filter, with the filter,

but now Kirkland Costco brand Kirkland. Now you're talking about language. Yes, yes, it's aldimic oil because I would buy it if they do, they probably will. But so a year or so ago, Amazon came out with their own oils. It was like sweet, so I started to use them that. But then Man Costco came in and just blew Amazon out of the water.

And so does it cost you? Now? So now I can get that done myself for about twenty three dollars three dollars so, and a lot of people are like, hey, it's not worth it, it's messy, you know, But to me, I would rather do that myself. It gives me a chance to get up underneath the car see if there's any other things going on. So it's not always about the money. It's about you know, checking in on things that are happening in my car. But yeah, I mean,

you think about it. If you're the type of person that really values especially a full synthetic oil change, do it yourself. Save a lot of money. That's why I drive electric at all. Well, so you're talking about cars,

let's let's sing it back towards houses. You know, when it comes to small home projects like a bathroom, you know, renovation or remodel, if we hire others to do the job, we're not necessarily going to see the return on our investment, you know, at least from a money standpoint, right, and so what like d I Y jobs will will have the best r o I for us when it's time

for us to sell the house. You know, there's certain things that we can do and that we justify sometimes when we say that, oh, this is gonna be great for resale, when in reality is that's not going to be the case. So what projects would you recommend that do have a financial monetary reward down the road? Yeah, so no big surprise here, it's gonna be kitchens and bathrooms. I mean, and your listeners probably know that, they probably heard you say that before. But when you're breaking those

kind of projects down and thinking about saving money. Uh, the one thing that came to mind is, look, you're you're probably gonna want to have like an expert to to lay the new tile in the bathroom. However, you probably don't need an expert to take a sledgehammer to

the old tile. That's a good point. So you know, maybe get some quotes and part of that quote is going to be demo, and then when you're in the negotiation phase with that contractor say, okay, how about if we x off demo from here, how much would you take off for that? And then do that yourself. You know, get you a bagster and do it yourself, you know, Baxter, and that's like that. You can buy that at Lows

and filled up with trash. It's like a small sister basically, and you could fit most you know, average sized bathrooms. I would I would think in a bagster. So that would be a really really easy thing to do, would be demo demoing yourself. Now, there there are considerations you gotta turn off the water and all kinds of stuff

like that. So yeah, you need to do your research, but then you don't have to go may have learned the hard Maybe we'll share this on the show, but disaster seeing it was gonna link it out onto the floor, you had to cut it off at the main. Hey, you figured it out though, you got that water key. That's all we did. A we did a little serious on our podcast called new House Nohow, and one of our big things was always always always know where your

main water shops are, where the circuit breaker is, right. Yeah, And I was helping a friend and he was he was about to demo some stuff in his kitchen, and sure enough, he broke a pipe while he was doing. I'm like, and it was a new house, where's your where's your water? Shut up? And I'm running around frantic, and he's trying to, you know, stop the stop the bleeding, if you will. And then I'm down to staying serious, and I just hear him, you know it's hot, it's

hot water. So then I knew, Okay, well I knew. I knew where is hot water or where's water heater was so there's a valve at the at the water heater, so I wouldn't turn it off there. Well, we always know where that is. I will say, the next thing about doing reno yourself too, is you don't have to go see a psychologist for for a few weeks at least,

because it takes out all your aggression. It's a beautiful way to to kind of, you know, unleash that aggression in a way that you normally don't get to and handle that. Demolition people pay for that now exactly. People go to break rooms where they pay I don't know how much money you can get break stuff office space style exactly. When you can do that in your own home and save money, yeah, yeah, And you might even

be able to sell some of your old fixtures. I mean, if you've got an old exactly forties, fifties, sixties house, when we renovated those old sinks and stuff, yeah, I mean we we have a bathroom where we have these We had a lavender toilet and and tub and sink. So man, some people want those pictures. That's two. That's true, all right. And to like, it's not always about resale, it's not always about money oftentimes, Tim, we're we're doing reno jobs just to enjoy our home more now, right,

And and it's not always about dollars and cents. So you've done some loft beds for your kids and that's kind of been one of those things that you did yourself. Instead of buying something pre made, you created something. And yeah, so, um, tell us about how the loftbeds are working out for you, and then, you know, are there any other things that we should think about when we're doing things just purely

for enjoyment in our home? Yeah, you cannot beat the space savings in a kid's room with nothing else but a loft bed. I mean, it frees up so much room when you go walk in your kid's room right now, Uh, look at the floor space it's taken up by beds, especially if you've got kids that are sharing a room. And what if you have three of those single beds in a single room. Exact, man, we need to we need to go check out your check out your room,

and get you some loft beds. Well. So, I mean the reason we wanted to ask you about this is specifically, like, I mean, if you can reclaim some floor space in the room, I think that could kind of keep you from maybe doing a more costly renovation down the road where you feel like you have to add multiple bedrooms, right uh, and so like that's where the cost savings would would come in. But I know, like your son, he has been in the loft bed that you made for him for a few years now. My concern is

is he tired of it? Right? Because if you're gonna go through all this effort, all this time and some money as well in creating this thing and then have the kids change their mind to where it's not something they're enjoying anymore, So how are you specifically approaching that. That's funny you should say that, because I so I have my son's loft bed that I did and he's

had it for I don't know, like two years. And then I just built these like just epic loftbeds for my girls, and I had a friend say, so, what are you gonna what are you gonna do when you have to take those down to two years? I was like, bro,

these are grandkid beds. They're they're not going anywhere. And so yeah, we did think through them being teenagers and the US, and I kind of, especially with my girls beds, built them in such a way that they have they're gonna have some privacy, So we're gonna put up curtains and that sort of thing. But as far as I'm getting tired of it. I don't know, we'll just have to cross that bridge when we get there. But I could take the thing off the wall. I mean, especially

my sons, and I'm a girl's man. It's like custom built in that it is not going anywhere anytime at least. Yeah, And in fact, one of the walls that I kind of built in addition to the loft beds is kind of like a load bearing wall. Now it's crazy. I don't have any after pictures up yet because I just kind of recently finished it, So I'm gonna have to have to get those up, get that posted before this

comes out. Yeah, for sure. Hey, Tim, I want to ask you to about like resources where you go when you're kind of stuck on a project, Like do you have any places like when you're in the middle of something and things are falling apart or you're not sure where to go next, Where where you go in order to learn how to proceed? Um? Or are you just like hitting up YouTube like the rest of us pretty much build things out of Lincoln logs and like like, okay,

well this work with my connects with my kids, get eggs. Yeah, I'm I'm a huge YouTube guy. I mean, I, yeah, I definitely go to YouTube for sure. But I would also say that having good friends that know things that you don't is super valuable. So I'll have a ton of friends that will call me up and just say, hey, my car is doing this, or this is happening on

my house. And so a part of one of the things that that we're really big on with you can man is sharing what you know, and so having those friends and reaching out to them that know things that you don't, don't be afraid to do that you know, reach out and then when you have an expertise, be free to share that with others. But I have to remind myself that not everybody has that friend. And so when you don't, YouTube is your friend. YouTube? Maybe some

message boards too. There's some good message boards out, oh, I mean all over the place. Read it. Everything. My go too is if there's something I don't know how to do, and chances are I'm like Jill, probably doesn't know what I'm less d y s happy than you are.

Next time, I'll reach out of YouTube. But in the past I've yeah, I do a little YouTube search and I watched three about three videos, and you know, you kind of get three different kind of views on it, and I feel pretty confident after that typically, But Tim Man, this has been a fun conversation. Is going to kind of have you over and if anything, this is just a good excuse to hang out in person. But Man, where can folks learn more about the different projects you

guys are tackling? Where can they learn more about your podcast? Yeah, you can go to U can Man dot com and check out all the information there. I did want to mention that we're not just about d I Y stuff. So we've done a series on, you know, how to become a Chick fil a owner operator. I had always wondered that myself and I've got a good friend who's an owner operator, and so we did a little series on that. We recently did a show on a guy that beat the world record for the cannonball run. It's

like a coast to coast car race. Interesting. Yeah, So we've got all kinds of different stuff besides just d I Y stuff. So if you're interested in those sorts of things as well, check us out you can Man dot com. Perfect. All right, Well, Tim, this has been great. Thanks for coming to hang out with us today. Man and I really enjoyed getting to talk about d I Y. It's a subject that a lot of people are thinking

a lot about right now. Yeah, this is a great topic for us to cover, man, as folks are looking for more ways to save money, as we are all spending more time around the house. We'll put our show notes up on the website at how to money dot com, and we'll make sure to link to some of those articles and episodes that Tim mentioned during this interview. Yeah, and today's Friday. It's the weekend coming up. Perfect time to try tous out your d I Y skills. So

get going, all right, Matt. Until next time, Best friends Out, Best Friends Out.