Friday Flight - Prime Prescriptions, Gold Digging Dinner Dates, & Stellar Customer Service #624

past week. We do, that's what we do. Yeah, We we cover all of the relevant stories, in particular the ones that have to do with your personal finance, and we filter a whole money, a whole lot of crap out so that you only have to hear the stuff that matters and stuff. Yeah exactly, So, uh, that's what we're doing today. We don't read everything, by the way, there's a lot of stuff that probably slips through our cracks. And so if you ever find a cool story and

you think it's interesting, send it our way. Sending our way How the Money pod at gmail dot com. We help us out, yea, and to our research for us. Well, yeah, that we've got a lot of stories to get today. But real quick, I wanted to mention that give give a little round of applause. Well for my dad, for my dad. He uh so he is like he and my mom are about to retire to the spring, they're getting close. My dad already kind of retired, but he's working part time. But they're kind of like easing into

those retirement years. Yeah, but they're like, all right, where's the low hanging fruit the weekend where we can cut back as we get closer retirement. You had this fixed income, right, uh, and it's unlikely you're going to re enter the workforce, although that's they could if they needed to write. But about this awesome website, how the money don't I was like, listen to some of these things are I've been knocking

about it for a long time. But he took some meaningful steps, I will say, over the past couple of weeks to really reduce some of the bills in his life. And and one of the things I was shocked to see how much he saved on this. Well, we've talked about how much prices have gone up, how much rates have gone up on insurance like home homeowners and car insurance. My dad's car insurance in particular, our insurance in particular. He so he is going to save two hundred dollars

a month a month, Holy cow. So like a year with with car insurance, with with car insurance and home insurance together, I think, but it was mostly car insurance. I think that was the biggest by far, the biggest savings. Dude that uh yeah, yeah, right, Well you're saying to applaud earlier, and I'm like, I don't know, I'm not going to clap for until I know what i'm clapping for. No, So that's a lot of money, right that I will

clap for. Yeah, I just and it just bears repeating for our listeners out there who that that's always one of those low hanging places where you can save, and especially right now when we're talking about just kind of an environment where rates are going up in a big way. Some of our listeners in the Facebook group have said that their rates have gone up like thirty eight percent

in a year, Like, just I believe it insane. Yeah, And so but to see that, well, you know what, insurers have all sorts of different ways that they that they come up with their rates, and not everybody has the same algorithm. In fact, they all have kind of like different algorithms. Right, So people got their own secret songs. Yeah, so you might not be giving a ton of coverage, you might be getting the same exact coverage, but just saving a lot of money. And so it's worth it's

worth noting. And it's one of those things where, man, if you can save that much money, and even if it takes you a few hours of your time to do the shopping, to make the phone calls and to make the switch, it's like, who doesn't have a few hours if it's worth a couple of grand in the year, And in particular, those are savings that you're gonna be able to realize year after year instead of getting penalized for being loyal to the company that you've been with

shopping around and you'll get to see that premium decrease. Mad props to my pops, by the way. And also one other thing, well, we'll link to an article in the show notes about additional ways that you can save on insurance. Like, yeah, shopping around is one thing, but then asking for there's a lot of discounts that a lot of people don't know about. Will link to that article too, yes, right man, Yeah, So let's get to

our Friday flight. This is the quick sampling of the different stories that we found the most interesting this week and on Wednesday actually, so we talked about negotiating your salary and that was one of the ways that you can maximize your income. Listen back if you hadn't already listened to that one. But what about negotiating for how

much you pay for products? Consumer Reports they had an excellent article this week about which a big box appliance stores out there offer you the greatest ability to get a lower price just by asking for a better price. Uh. And first of all, if you are in the market for a major appliance, where it is that you shot matters when it comes to getting the best price as well as the best perks. A BT which I've never even heard of before. Evidently that they're up in the

Upper Midwest. They are beloved by their customers. Costco they ranked best for price overall and for some of those additional perks that I just mentioned. For some of those extras like delivery, they'll halloway your old appliance as well, which used to kind of be standard, but it's not anymore. So it does feel like approach. Yeah, who maintained that because this often does it costs extra, So make sure to factor that in. We want to make sure that

we are all paying the lowest amount overall. And man, that holloway service that they provide as well, that is clutch. Uh. And particularly if it's broke as a joke, and like you have to pay to recycle it. It's one thing. If it's one thing, if it kind of works, and you can maybe unload it for like you know, barely working fridge sixty bucks. All the shelves are broken, broken ins out of it. But I'm specifically they speak from

personal experience, Matt. Yes, well, I'm thinking of being a landlord. The ability to have a company show up haul off an old or completely broken appliance, install the new one. Oh my gosh, the ability just to be the middleman and coordinate the Okay, sounds like the guys are gonna be there between two and four this afternoon, so your your tenant knows when to be there. They show up, haul off the old one, hook up the new one. Your tenants happy. I'm happy. It's a win win situation.

Makes it easier for you for sure. And yeah, absolutely, a lot of these a lot of these guys now charge money for that additional halloway and and interestingly enough, Matt, you know you mentioned the negotiating for those products, well Um Home Depot Lows and Best Buy. The Consumer Ports said that sixty percent of folks who asked for a discount at those stores were able to get one, which is crazy. I was like, wow, that's a that's a

lot of people. Impressive, especially considering that these are national brands. Yeah, that where you would not think that they would have a whole lot of flexibility exactly. But here's the rub. In that same survey survey, only folks were willing to ask for the discount, so most people paid full freight, They paid the full uh sticker price of that item because they were too nervous to ask the question. But the folks who did, who put themselves in that slightly

awkward situation, they ended up getting it. And what was the average savings according to Consumer reports A hundred and thirty three dollars, which is not chump change, right, that's I mean when you think about what's your hourly wage and you're like, how many hours would have to work? When you just have to ask this simple question and there's a decent chance that they're going to say yes, Like how long would it take you to make a

hunter and thirty three tax free dollars? Right? And and how awesome is it that you can keep that sum of money in your pocket just by asking a simple question. We should all be asking for discounts more regularly, that's

for sure. Yeah, and yeah, there was an even higher percentage of success with more like some of those regional companies or more independent stores as well, because they obviously do how the most flexibility when it comes to the prices that they can unload certain items for and also something else that you can negotiate on the So the average internet bill it's cresting seventy five bucks, you should

also consider negotiating that bill down as well. Oftentimes you start service with a company, you get that new customer period of time or it's like the honeymoon phase bab right, Like they they wanna wine and dine you, sort of like going back to the insurance example, right, they want you to be happy. They want you to be warm and cozy with their with their company. That way, when

they raise rates, you don't go anywhere, right. And so when it comes time to negotiating this bill, first of all, you need to make sure that you are armed with information that's always gonna give you a little more confidence, and knowing that when you go and talk to your

current internet service provider that you've got hard facts. You can say that, hey, this is what so and so is charging, this is their rate, and this is the speed that they're offering, and be willing to walk right because if they're not willing to match that, hopefully they do match it, because that's the easiest thing to not

have to change your service. But also, I think it's important for us to all be willing to walk away, uh, knowing that, all right, well, if you're not gonna offer me that, I can take my business elsewhere for sure. We actually just wrote an article up on the site about how to go about asking for a discount, and we talked about specific places where you're liable to get a discount. So we'll link to that one in the show notes as well. But Matt, let's talk about drugs

for a second. You're not supposed to do drugs unless you're prescription drugs, and even then the doctor says you should. Yeah, you gotta be careful. If if the doctor says you should, then you should consider it. But at Prime. Prime membership continues to become more expensive, and I think it's a

hundred and thirty nine dollars for a year now. It's not cheap, but Amazon it feels like they have to justify that fee to their customers because of course they do, or else you would walk away if you're not getting enough value for that Prime membership. But uh, then they already offer a number of perks, right, You've got the music that you can listen to, there's you know, a lot of streaming television and movie options on Amazon. But they're always looking to add more to make Prime membership

like this stickier proposition. And what's the latest on that front, Well, they're expanding generic drug offerings. They They're new offering is called r X Past and it's going to offer access to commonly prescribe medications for just five dollars a month, and the average cost savings for the typical Prime member could be in the hundred dollar range a year, according to the VP of Amazon Pharmacy. Is the average consumer're

gonna be able to say that much? It depends, right, It depends on whether or not one of the fifty prescriptions they offer is something you take on a recurring basis and how much you normally pay for it now. But yeah, if you do take a couple of those drugs, then the value of paying for Prime just went up for you. In all likelihood, you're gonna want to comparison shop and you're not gonna want to just assume that

this is best. But prescription drugs are typically kind of a thorn in our side price wise, And it's also just nice to have it shipped to you for five bucks a month. That sounds pretty nice. And if it's

if you have, it's gonna save you money Prime. And even for folks who aren't currently Prime members, if they're like, wait a second, five of the drugs I take, if you take a lot, you know, on a monthly basis, are on this list, Boy, that might have just made Prime membership worth it, right there, could be worth it. But also keep in mind this is coming from the

person the chart. Their their livelihood is depending on the success of the r X pass, which by the way, reminds me of like is it the fast pass or whatever it makes it. It almost makes it sound like you can get as many drugs as you can handle. Obviously, that's not the case. But that's what I think of when I hear r X pass. It's just like, oh yeah, it's just like their hanunds fun. They're handing out generic

drugs like candy. By the way, a new study that appeared in JAMA that's the Journal of American Medical Association. They found that the drug ads that we see on TV that they're often not any better than the drugs that are already on the market. Seventy percent of the drugs that you see pitched they have what's known as low therapeutic value. There's not much to be gained by going with those, uh those name brand drugs as opposed

to the generics. Interestingly enough, most other countries other than New Zealand, I think, have banned the sorts of direct ads that we see from pharmaceutical company and uh yeah, worth mentioning because I think we'd all be happier. We'd probably be healthier too if we took a similar approach. But don't buy into the marketing hype. And you know

what we'd recommend is to get those generics. You know, whether it be through Amazon or wherever it is that you can find those, they're gonna save you a boatload, And honestly, it's just dumb the way that drugs are marketed here in the US. It's actually so it's not dumb on the part of the pharmaceutical companies though, because

they're making money. They wouldn't be doing that if it wasn't them making a profit, right, And so really it's it's dumb on us as as individuals to respond to that kind of advertising as opposed to tuning it out and maybe going down the path that's going to be a little bit harder, like you know, you know, we've talked about the obesity drugs that have recently have they

been like officially approved think so, but for for young teens. Yeah, but it's ridiculous that we are always looking for, like quite literally the easy pill to take as opposed to doing like the things that are going to lead to more long term overall health, right, exercise, healthy diets, um, taking what's gonna be maybe the harder path that's gonna take a little little bit more disciplined, rather than thinking that we can take a drug to make us healthier.

I mean, in the money realm, isn't that exactly kind of what cryptocurrency did? Uh? During COVID. Basically, there's a lot of people who are like, hey, how can I like supercharge my path but in this easy Yeah, but in the end it's it's more like a stumbling block, and it actually screws you, screws up your progress totally more than if you were to take the slower but more proven route to success totally. Well, let's talk about

financial planning for a second match. The Times had an article this week about how financial planning is becoming more accessible, but they also said that this might not be a good thing. Why is that, Well, largely because there aren't

robust legal standards for calling yourself a financial planner. And the biggest is that there's still no legal requirement to be a fiduciary if you're calling yourself one, right, so, which that basically means that your financial advisor doesn't have to do what's in your best interest, which sounds kind of scary. Right, Hey, let me and trust you with all my money. Oh, you don't have to do it's in my best interest? Give it back, right, That's that's

how I would feel about it. There was a proposal to set that requirement in stone to make sure that everyone who calls himself a financial advisor has to be a fiduciary, But it didn't happen. This is a few years back, and so yeah, there are a fair amount of financial advisors out there who have conflicts of interest. Should they invest your money in a way that that's them the largest return or should they make sure that

you're invested in what's best for you. Well, it's it's a shame that this is even up for debate and that we don't have a more consumer friendly standard still, but I think the Times reinforces a great point something we've always said on the show here Matt that if you are looking to hire a financial advisor, don't do it unless they're willing to sign a fiduciary oath to you, and if they're not, walk away that's right. Yeah, it

really is a big problem. It kind of gives the financial advisor, the financial planning community a black eye because you get a few bad actors and all of a sudden and they've got to ruin the party for everyone. But there are ways to find a financial advisor who is a fiduciary, and that's largely by going through some of the different networks out there who met them we in particularly like x Y Planning Network a whole lot.

If you're looking for an advisor, that's definitely a great place to look, but it's also a good idea to question whether or not you need an advisor before forking over your dollars for advice, even if it is to a lovely fee only financial advisor who does happen to

be a fiduciary. Because while you know many financial advisors out there, they seem to be offering more and more services, they're obviously not free and oftentimes you're not going to be cheap either, and so we think that there's a lot of sort of more d I Y steps that

you can take before you get to that stage. So whether that's reading a book or even hiring a money coach just for a couple of hours of their time, that can oftentimes offer a better payback in many circumstances as opposed to saying, all right, financial advisor, you're a fiduciary,

sign me up, you're you are now my person. Yeah, it's amazing how just like a financial coach or a budgeting coach, there's so much cheaper, but oftentimes that's the kind of handholding that people need, not the full fledged financial advisor who comes with all the bells and whistles, right, many of which you don't even need, YEA. Oftentimes you just need someone to walk alongside you. And this's awtent times what those different financial coaches out there are able

to provide for sure. All Right, now, we've got more to get to, including man scams apparently on one of your favorite social media sites are through the Roof, and those scams could part you from your money. We'll talk about that and more right after this. All right, man, let's get the Friday flight roll, and this is our sampling of the different stories that we came across this week. And you just alluded to the the rise and scams. I was just thinking we should have called that segment

Scamsters Paradise. I think we made way too many cool Leo punts though on the show already. I didn't know if you'd like maybe not this episode, but just on the show. Yeah, not this particular episode. But let's get to our ludicrous headline of the week. This is from the New York Post and the headline reads, I went on six dates so and didn't have to buy groceries

for two years. This comes from a TikTok influencer out there who admits that she actually embellished her ability to save money on food by going out with a ton of guys over the course of a couple of years. The article and in some of her quotes actually were way less offensive than that actual headline. But that being said, this this segment, it's all about ludicrous headlines. So, Joe, what do you think was this person was was this influencer?

Was she being frugal or cheap to try and go on as many dates as possible in order to lower her food budget? Okay, I'm gonna say cheap. I'm gonna say it's yeah. So I think coming down hard. Alright, Sorry I am. And I was glad when I actually read the article and I was like, Okay, she's not completely taking manage of people to the tune of what

this headline made it seem like. But I think if you are truly trying to find love and the other person offers to pay for your meal, if you're going on dates, that's totally fine, Like if that's generous, and you should take somebody up on their generosity. But to me, it's kind of like praying on some much generosity. If you are just going on date after date after date, you're not really trying to establish a meaningful relationship with someone. You're just in it for like the free food and

for the free drinks. That feels to me, that feels cheap, and that feels it feels uncol Well, isn't that what it? What it's like when you sign up? Well, like when you writ your email down at like some sort of like festival and there's tents and they're like, hey, does give us your email and we'll we'll give you this free blah blah blah like whatever. It is like you've got no intention of actually signing up for their service.

You know, you've got zero intention, but you're willing to go ahead and jump through this little hoop in order to receive the foot That's that's a willing exchange right there. And if the person know the person might know, well, I guess i'llgument that I'm making is that this chick isn't necessarily making guys go out with her claiming that she is interesting. I guess sort of what you said

is true. It comes down to her intention, because if her intention is to only go out with guys because she wants to be able to get free meals, and she's like, where are we going to night? Oh? McDonald's. Yeah, I'm sick, I'm gonna guy who's taking me to the seakhouse? Yeah. If she's just doing it for the food, then obviously she's being cheap. But as long as long as she's open to the idea of entering into a relation, like if she was already dating a dude and going out

with other guys, obviously that would be super cheap. But as long as she's open to like finding the right one. That honestly, even if she wasn't open to it right because I could see someone being like, you know what, I am not looking for finding a life partner right now. You never know what happens though. You might sit down with a dude and you're like, oh my gosh, this

guy's actually like we're really hitting it off. Boom, you're with him for a few years, maybe you get married, you found Mr Wright And so it does come down to intentions. But I think even if her intentions aren't in the right place, I think there's still the possibility because guys know that, right, like they know that there's a chance that this and maybe she's into me, maybe she's not. But that's the first dates of the game. You don't know what's gonna happen, right, and you never know.

I mean, granted, it's been a long time since I've been on a first date, Matt, but you often offered

to pay. There's a risk involved, and you know there's risk involved that that there's a chance you never see this first again, and that you're out bucks or whatever whatever you're spending on dinner, which, by the way, makes me think about this other article I saw in the Wall Street Journal just I think towards the end of last year, about cheap dates and how they're kind of coming back into vogue, and I was like, this is

good news. Uh. It seems like people are are less willing to spend big bucks on the first date, and it makes more sense to to spend a fair amount less on those dates because you never know what if you're not willing to get that risk, and you might be going on a date with a serial data who only wants the free food, and so you gotta protect

your finances even when you're out there dating. And I think I like to see this trend because if you're just going out the coffee, are you going out for a beer or you go out for lunch, I think those are better options for saving or just just meeting up at the local park and taking a stroll. Like frugal dates don't have to be bad dates. And so

I want this trend to continue. And how to money listeners if you're out there in the dating pool trying to avoid people who are only taking advantage of you for free food, and the one way to do that is to see who's genuine by going on less expensive but still intentional and wonderful dates where it makes it more about the relationship and less about what you're getting

out of the relationship, which is not getting to know someone. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, It's about that dynamic between the two of you as opposed to the goods, right, which, so let's like I want to make another case for this girl, Like let's flip the table a little bit, because I think there's a lot of dudes who did the exact same thing in a different kind of way, right, Like they're not necessarily out there looking for like, Okay, she's not really

life material, but these tons of dudes out there who are just looking to hook up and in the same way, does that mean you opt to not be on the different apps and platforms altogether. Well, I think that's up to the individual to decide, but to know that that's the possibility. Uh. And not just dudes, I mean girls do the same thing as well when it comes to how long term. Yeah, and just the kind of relationships

that they're looking for. But I don't know, we don't want to, We don't need to keep going down the relationship corner. I mean, we could start a new like spinoff show Man. We could like give a dating advice two old guys who don't know anything about it. But that's definitely something. Let's quickly discuss the story that's the opposite of a ludicrous headline. And let's talk about a company. Let's get them some props for doing business the right way.

The journal they profiled a small olive oil company that apologized to its customers via email. Uh. And so you know your parents, they probably told you that honesty it's always the best policy, but most businesses tend to dodge that advice when they make a mistake. Uh. And this company, I think it's so grazza, I don't know, I don't know.

It's a tiny olive oil startup. They shipped a bunch of badly packaged items, many of which arrived after Christmas, which was a problem for folks who were planning to give the olive oil as a gift. But the CEOs email, it was titled learning from Our Mistakes evidently was well received by customers because, you know, he apologized, he addressed the problem's head on, he took full responsibility. Uh, and

guess what authenticity worked in this case. It actually deepened the connection that many of those let down customers had with the RAM. He even offered apparently like a coupon code for people who are impacted, and a lot of people said, listen, I'm gonna order from you again, but I'm not going to use the coupon code because I so appreciate your apology exactly, being upfront, honest, taking responsibility

like that. I mean, we bash on companies a good bit, and so it's fun to kind of highlight a company who's doing the right thing, who's taking responsibility like that, And that's a drum that we beat all the time, right, like personal responsibility. But hopefully that you can take this on a personal level, you can be encouraged to know that, you know what, sometimes we don't need to kind of dodge and try to navigate our ways away from conflict

as opposed to just you know, facing those things head on. Hey, my bad, my fault. Sometimes if you just admitute, it defuses things so much more quickly, And it's just nice to see a business do the right thing. It kind of it makes me want to go out there and buy some of this olivel I thought you're gonna say it makes you want to apologize. What are you gonna apologize? Forma sorry? Do you like olive oil? So? I mean, I mean I we cook with all of those times.

I will say. I was looking at their branding and their squeeze. They're so cool. I was like, Okay, I might want to get some olive oil for the same bottle also because they're nice. It's the same bottle that my Japanese barbecue sauce comes. Okay, it's like the plastic too, with a little like mustard style top twist up or whatever. Um. Literally, last night I was cooking dinner and we had some oven roasted like those little white creamy potatas I'm talking

about with a real thin skin. Had roasted some of those, and we busted out some truffle olive oil finishing oil. For the first time there is that from Costco. I think it was from all ads that I really like truffles. If I like truffles, I don't know if I'm fancy enough to have had them. You've had truffle, like truffle, I guess I've had like a little bit. Yeah, it's that stinky. It's not my stinky garlic key kind of Oh, man, I love it. Sometimes folks were like, it's described sometimes

as stinky feet. Yeah, I'm into that. You a creep like that. So well, let's move on, man, Let's talk about scams here, because in case people were worried that the world is just too nice a place and there's too many business is doing the right thing by by everyone, No, that's not quite the case. In Facebook marketplace, they actually saw a hundred and eight increase in the number of folks who got taken advantage of on their site. So it's worth taking a minute to quickly outline maybe how

a bunch of these scams work. When you're in marketplace, because we've talked about how it's one of the best ways to buy and sell used items. It's especially for bigger items that are that are more difficult and that you can't ship and that you you don't want to sell an eBay. But most of these scams involve either a seller receiving fake payments for an item they've listed, or a buyer who made a legitimate payment for an item that they're looking to score, but then the seller

never delivers the goods or they go silent like it ghosted. Yeah, but part of the problem is that you made that payment from afar, you didn't go see the item in person. Evidently this happens a decent bit with fake home or apartment rentals, which used to happen on Craigslist, but now that scams move to Facebook marketplace. But the landlord accepts a deposit and landlord I put that in quotation marks they're not the real landlord, but they accepted a positive

ahead of time. Do they never show up at your new place because it's not actually their place? They stole the pictures And the same thing is true with pets, right we're an excited uh potential pet parents they're willing to pay chunk of change for a new puppy, but then they never hear back from the seller and super sad. We don't want you to fall prey to these scammers. And it seems like there's just more and more scams happening and Facebook's having a tough time tamping down on them.

That's true, Yeah, and unfortunately this seems to be an instance I think where where technology it's only exacerbating the situation. Again, responsibility, I think it ultimately rests with us as individuals. But some of the different payment apps out there, like Zel, they should make it easy to send payments before victim has fully thought through what it is they're doing, right, Like like they're not thinking of scams. They just want

to adopt that that frenchy, that French bulldog. Um. And especially on Facebook, it can just be so easy for a scammer to set up a profile with pictures and information. You know, it's like, oh, I see their smiling face. Oh is that a picture of the kid? Uh? They're

their family. It's like, oh, I trust this person. They look like a really upstanding person that they're willing to trust rather than someone they should be slightly skeptical of right like that where there should maybe be some slight suspicion or the very least they should maybe perform some due diligence. So the easiest way to avoid all of this headache is just to always make sure to see or to hold that item that you're looking to buy

in real life before you pay. Meet up in person, do it somewhere public, and if you were the seller, if you're trying to unload some stuff you're trying to maybe you're thinking about doing some spring cleaning, make sure that you've actually received payment in whatever app that you're using. I'm certainly not opposed to using some of the different apps. It makes life a lot easier. But just don't trust uh an email notification because oftentimes that's how some of

these games work. That person will send an email that is impersonating Zel or cash app or Venmo, and it says, oh, so this much money has been deposited into your account from this person, and it happens to be the exact amount that you just sold that item for, but they just had that sent over, but that money hasn't actually shown up in your account. Make sure that that money shows up or better yet, you can just use cash.

It's certainly an argument to keep some of that cash around because folks oftentimes or unsure of how am I going to deposit cash that I receive with my online bank, Well, don't just kind of hang on to some petty cash that that allows you to give a couple of bucks to the neighborhood and lemonade stand or the hot chocolate

stand and that the kids are doing. But also it allows you to buy some of these smaller items that you can buy used via somewhere like Facebook market We still like Facebook Marketplace because there's really nothing equivalent to it, especially when you're looking for things locally that are larger. Right, Like Craigslist still is around, but the worst Yeah, it's not. It's not what it used to be. Not that it was great to begin with, but yeah, I think Facebook

is still worth using. You just have to use those precautions to make sure you don't get taken advantage of, you don't lose money, so that you're not a victim of one of these scams that are proliferating. But now I was talking about work from home for a second. Like last week we talked about Disney how they're old slash new CEO. He's you know, back back into action. Uh, he's calling for workers to return the office four days

a week. And that trend I we said, we think it's going to accelerate, and it turns out just a lot more information came out this week showing that that's what's gonna happen. Right, Um, A lot of workers are going to be happy about this because another stat just came out this week showing that work working from home saves the average person seventy two minutes of commute time every single day. That's a whole lot of your life back in your life, and it's it's but again, the

ability to listen to podcasts. Yeah, I kind of treasure the time that I have commuting in I mean yes, honestly, Like luckily we're like we're able to bike, you and I both, but the ability to kind of have some of that personal time to either listen to an audiobook, listen to a podcast. I don't mind driving as long as I'm not sitting in traffic, and so I think, but the problem is progress a lot of that commuting is sitting in traffic, Like we talked about with congestion

about last week. Yeah, so um, Yeah. The truth is remote jobs are dwindling, so that these a lot of CEOs are saying come on back four days a week minimum. But at the same time, there are fewer remote jobs being posted on basically all the job sites linked in Indeed and zip recruiter. They're dropping like a rock. There's just fewer, fewer of them, more of the jobs being posted. They're being pickier about wanting you to come in on the reg and so remote work it's certainly not extinct.

We don't want to give that impression. But if you're dead set against having a commute, but you're also looking for a new job, just know you're gonna have fewer options to choose from. Yeah, and new stats have also come out about how engaged workers are in their job, And so if you're one of the growing number of actively disengaged folks at your workplace, it may be time to when you look at me when you said that man,

to find find another job, to find something else. If you haven't had a chance to listen to Wednesday's episode, you can likely use not liking your job to find something that's going to be more fulfilling that also pays more. Don't sit around doing something that you don't enjoy doing. Find something that is going to give your life some more meaning. And you might have to go into the office, but hey, if it's an employer that's got a solid culture where you're able to meet some new folks, it

could be a lot of fun. Yeah, and those are that's always an important question, ask like what kind of what kind of employer is this, and what do they expect, what's the work life balance like? And and that's we're reading reviews about that employer on a site like glass door can be helpful, can give you some information so you don't end up. Oh yeah, the salary is great and they want me to come in, but man, everybody

hates it. These aren't my people. Yeah, exactly, you don't want to sign up for that, So alright, Matt, that's gonna do it for this episode, though, we will put links to all the stuff we mentioned in our show notes up on our site at how to money dot com. That's right, and we're talking about work. But on Monday we are talking with a guest and we're gonna talk about the opposite of work. We're gonna be talking all about travel. Specifically, we're talking about frugal travel, how you

can do it on the cheap. Looking forward to that one. But we hope everyone has a fantastic weekend and Joel. Until next time. Best friends out and best friends Out