Friday Flight - Ridiculous Car Refinancing, Occupation Consternation, & Ads Everywhere #1059

Before we get to all that, though, a quick little update from I think it was Greg who wrote in, and he was talking about the recision period that states allow specifically for time shares. So we recently talked about how you were like laying whether or not you're going to go to the timeshare pitch. You said no because ultimately they said your wife's gotta be there. I was like for it, and they were like, no, you're not not unless your wife comes. And I'm like, ah, man,

well she doesn't changes the game, which makes sense. Yeah, it totally makes sense to me, right because if it's just one person that's whole that seems like a financial optimizer, it's that's a divide and conquer kind of move there, right, Like like you are, You're you're approaching this very strategically, what are they doing it like that? But you pointed out if there's two people, is that if you go alone and then you go back to the room and

your spouse is like, what did you just sign up for? Yeah, that then those people are more likely the cancels, whereas if you make the decision together, you're unlikely to cancel. The time, there's like a commit there's something that happens from a commitment standpoint where there's two people, right, like so on, if it was just you, it would have been like the optimizer. But with two people that spend that amount of time and energy into it, it feels

like you've you've started something, You've run through the gauntlet. Yeah, like you've created relationships, you started to dream about what

this scould look like together. Yeah, there's like there's a sun cost fallacy involved right where it's just like, well, we spent all that time doing that and you are you're only looking at that as opposed to thinking about what this is gonna what this will cost you in the future, And that's at the core of I think what they're trying to Yeah, promote Actually, I spent two

hours here and I signed on the dotted line. I guess we're committed, and probably a lot of people don't even know about the recision period that exists, depending on what state you're in. It's somewhere between three and fifteen days after you've signed on the dotted line for that

time share. So you do have we actually let's link to that in the show notes, OK, for folks out there to know that you do have a cooling off period, or you can say, yeah, I actually don't want to do that, which is I think really important, especially because that is such a highly I think it's an emotional decision that's made emotionally so much of the time, because you understandably, the human instinct is you kind of want to please the person who's trying to sell you the

time share. They're spending that much time with you, you don't want to disappoint them. Right, you're sharing a meal together. They were probably really nice to you, and so you're like, all right, yeah, I and we'll get to take some vacations. Will be great. But time shares for most people don't make much financial sense. And even if you really want a timeshare, there are much cheaper ways to get a timeshare than paying full freight at one of those presentations.

That's right, So Joe, let's kick things off. You want to talk about affordable vehicles. Those don't exist anymore, man, I think that's an oxymoron if I've ever heard one. There are some out there. I get very few, very few. Yeah. I actually was looking up at the value of our minivan the other the other day, and I was like, oh, it's worth like less than six thousand dollars. Now it's affordable. It's basically hit that fully depreciated mark. I don't know

that's going to go down to value very much. So there are some cheap cars. You just can't buy mine. Sorry, yeah, you need that thing. Man, What did you put for the condition? Because that's I know what I know. Oh, it's definitely not excellent. Okay, but did you do pretty good or did you do four? Oh no, probably whatever's in the middle. Yeah, that's pretty easy. Yeah, it's got some things in that. At this point, I want to I want to think that mine's an excellent condition, but

I know it's not. Like in my heart it's an excellent condition, but there are certain things about it that I know are excellent. But then I know from an outsider's perspective, they would see all some of the busted up thing, some of the spray painted side view mirrors that creative fathers three on there in order for it to look slightly better. They might notice that, well, I think my sc it makes it sound so ratchet, which I think both of our fans probably are. At this one.

I would say my six four Runner is in mint condition. I'd put that in excellent, but would be excellent. So how long will it stay that way? We'll see do you feel like it's already gone downhill since you've gotten it a little bit. I'm doing my best, though, But they kept it in a garage. I don't have space in a garage for two cars. I have a one car garage. People, what if you can clear everything out, squeeze both those suckers in there. I don't think it's possible, really, Yeah, okay,

we can try one day. Okay, so I'll help you try it this weekend if you want. Let's talk about expensive cars. Though. We have cheap cars, but the average American is opting for really really expensive ones. And I'm over here reticent to spend you know, five figures on a car. But people are spending fifty k on average on new cars. That's the we've crossed that threshold now,

it's insane. But because of high costs and high interest rates, this means people are paying more for cars than ever before, which means that the vast majority find themselves on like

a debt treadmill for a really long time. And we've talked about this kind of ad nausea map, but there was a new there was some new stats that came out this week from Caribou who they help people refinance their loan and shop around and get a better deal, and they said that the most popular choice these days when people refinance a car loan is an eighty four month long loan, which I didn't know. I knew you

could get that out on a new car. I didn't realize you could refinance into an eighty four month long loan. It's crazy. So let's say you get a new car, you're in it for a couple of years, and then you refinance again into another seven year loan. Yeah, maybe you're able to save some money every month, and maybe you lowered your interest rate. You've probably done both of those things, but it means you're going to be in

the loan for even longer. Some of those folks are going to be in that like a car loan because they take one out and refinance for something like nine or ten years. It's crazy hard to really have them. Yeah, what's so the first thing I think of when I hear eighty four months? It makes me think of people who have like an eighteen month old. It's like, no, no, no, you need to go ahead and switch to my kids

a year and a half. He's two years old. Like they're trying to obscure the fact of how long of a period this is, I think by saying something like eighty four months. But the journal actually had an article about how repomen are actually busier than ever. They're basically working around the clock repossessing vehicles where folks aren't making a payments, a dangerous job. I had a friend who did that for I think he still doesn't actually, and

I believe it. He has a run ins man Like people do not like their car being taken out of their driveway in the middle of the night. But ye, when the payments aren't being made, this is going to take it is what happened. That's what you agree to and delinquencies on car loans are up across all income levels. But even with lower payments spread out over a longer period of time, way too many people are out there and they're unable to afford their ride. So just be

careful when you are buying a car. You do not have to pay an arm and a leg in order to get a good one. And in that article as well, a fascinating stat was that home debt, so they had like different types of debt, so like obviously auto loan debt, but then they had home debt, right, so like your

mortgage or home equity loans, they're down significantly. They're down something like fifty percent when looking at the same period of time, which is is just fascinating that it seems like something has changed in how it is that we view vehicles, which I kind of think is a good thing it. I guess one way to interpret the data is that more folks are seeing their vehicles more as a tool. They're seeing it as a more expendable thing.

And I think some of them might have to do with the rise of uber and left right, like it's just a way to get from point A to point B, as opposed to maybe having your identity so tightly tied to a possession like that too, to something like a vehicle, which have just really fascinating. The fact that, yeah, mortgage delinquencies, home equity loan delinquencies are down about this like fifty percent, whereas auto loaned delinquencies are up fifty percent over the

past fifteen years. Yeah. Crazy. Well, I mean I think, gosh, you want to keep a roof over your head stability, but it seems it's just interesting. Yeah, when you look at the same period of time, though, I think some of it also has to do with not to take it back to the pandemic, but stimmy checks, right, Like, we found ourselves with a lot more money in our banks.

It wasn't so much money that you went and bought went on like a home shopping spree, but it was more than just like going to your local RII and getting a few new items. You're probably thinking, oh, I can handle a bigger payment in my life. It seems like taking on a not alone that you couldn't afford me have been like the happy medium for a lot

of folks. Yeah, the activity du jure back in the Bay, Yeah, well, I mean I just yeah, I think when you're refinancing, the goal is should be not to pay the lowest amount in your monthly payment. It is to get rid of that loan as quickly as possible, or it should be so it's not like how little can I pay every month to get rid of this car payment? And who cares how long? It's how much can I pay in order to get rid of this car debt as

soon as possible? That really should be the thinking. We're payment buyers in this country, right, and that's not a good thing. On another nefarious car financing note, Matt More, car dealers are talking up the ten thousand dollars annual tax break that you can snag when you buy a new car finished in the good old US of A. And this was infused into the Build Back No what is it called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act? Right?

Build Back Better? That's all these BBB's, right, which just sounds so enticing when you're buying a new car and the FNI person is saying, hey, this is such a great deal, like you're going to get a tax break of the ten thousand dollars. Yeah, yeah, yeah, tax breaks. Look how great this is? And they're making it sound like it's the best thing since sliced bread. Holy callous. A lot of money, right, But it's kind of like the homeowner's tax break, right that many people don't actually get.

Something like ten percent of homeowners actually get the tax break, but many more think they're getting a tax break for owning a home. And the truth is you're only going to get the highest annual tax break if you buy one hundred than fifty thousand dollars car. Finance is seven percent one hundred and fifty thousand dollars car. So who do those exist? I'm sure, yeah, of course they do. But like you're a psycho, if you're like or you're incredibly rich much you have much more money, yeah than

the two of us. But on a forty thousand dollars new car purchase at the same interest rate, your tax savings would be a little over five hundred bucks. So think about that. Are you going to go buy a forty thousand dollars new car finance it at seven percent in order to save five hundred bucks a year? I mean,

that would be foolhardy. You Also, you know, you don't qualify if you're single making more than one hundred thousand dollars or if you're married making more than two hundred thousand dollars, can't imagine buying one hundred and fifty thousand dollars car if you know that's where you're how much money you're earning. Also, a lot of makes and models don't qualify, so you got to check the vin first.

You can do that on the NITSA website. But you know, while this tax break is better than nothing, I guess I think it's actually the offering the wrong kind of incentive to people, Matt to get Hey, yeah, finance that car so you can get a tax break for it. And really it's still a drop in the bucket of the cost of your new cars. So this is just bad math if you're buying a new car because you think you're gonna save a little bit of money on taxes.

That's right, man. I wonder if we are now at a tipping point in the job market, because obviously sound like there tipping point. It was a popular book. Man. I'm thinking about like the post pandemic times, right, like that was a killer period of time for workers. Getting a new job was just leading to record pay increases

because the demand for employees, it was incredibly steep. The supply of folks for those jobs was limited, But then we've seen that level out and unemployment numbers are still actually good historically, but the job market just feels a little stagnant, and we've seen more recent reports of just bigger name companies out there cutting head counts by significantly, like tens of thousands of employees. I'm specifically thinking of

Ups and Amazon who target maybe too. And at the same time, worries about artificial intelligence, how that's going to impact the job market, Those questions abound, and we do see the signs that it is impacting young folks, specifically at entry level jobs, and I think it's a problem that could compound even more as those entry level jobs lay are typically the gateway into more permanent, more higher

paying jobs. Right. You don't typically take some of those initial jobs because you think it's just a fantastic job, but it's the opportunity and it being more of a stepping stone, and that's that feels like a problem, that's just kind of that we're speeding towards, still off pretty far off the distance, but especially as some of these during workers are trying to just get their foot in the door and to get into some of these companies

that they want to work. For sure, it's yeah, it's a little worrisome to see college grads getting a degree and then coming out in a time where it feels like some of those starter jobs are harder to come by, because you're right, those starter jobs lead to careers that eventually lead lead to moving up and lead to earning more. And if you can't get the starter job, it's hard to get on that track. How they get out those lower percentile income brackets. Yeah, still, I don't think I

would overreact to some of these headlines. I think far fewer people think that AI is a threat to their job then think it's going to impact the job market in general if you look at the statistics, so kind of like so many other things in this life, it's less personal pessimism like oh AI is going to mess me over, and it's more of like a general wariness. I'm not sure how AI is going to impact the

job the way jobs function in this country overall. And I'd say the two of us, Matt, we're banking on the fact that AI is going to make workers more productive kind of like the computers kind of like Internet, an internetimistic here, Yeah, and that it's not going to be an existential threat to labor as a whole, but they're going to be growing pains, and I think we're

seeing some of those growing pains. They are going to be layoffs in some sectors, probably specifically in the tech sector, but I'm pretty sure we're also see companies that let too many workers go because of AI like rehiring in the coming years. I think they're going to be like, oh, hey, it's going to change everything. Let's call the workforce, and

then they're going to realize we hold too much. We need some of those people back, and I think they're gonna regret some of the some of the layoffs that they made. So's it's a little consolation for current job seekers serving a tough time. But I just don't think these hiring frees are gonna last forever sure, or the folks who are getting cut right, because it is it feels like a tailff two job markets right, because it depends on it totally depends on the type of job

you have. If it if you are in a more administrative, more data review or of job that involves a lot of digital monotony, not monotony, but like digital repetition, Like these are one hundred percent the types of jobs that are going to be replaced, and so if you are in that kind of a field, you probably are thinking no, no, no. For me, this is totally personal, yeah, as I play paralegals, like that's a job that's like up for extinction as opposed to the jobs that are going to be more

difficult to replace, like healthcare or skilled skill trades or you know, teachers even right, like I could one d percent see AI being more of like the assistant in this in a similar way that we can't envision our

life now without the Internet. And that's so much of it too, man, the fear of the unknown as we look ahead, Like you mentioned that the Internet being a good example, Well that's easy now as we look back and we are able to directly see all the industries and jobs that have been created because of the Internet. But we're at the very beginning of this as we're projecting and looking forward, and it's just for a lot of people it's scary because we like the creativity and

the clairvoyance to know what's actually going to happen. I don't know, but there will likely be some of that creative destruction taking place and brand new sectors of jobs that we're not even that aren't even on people's radars. You think about the impact of the Internet, like you think about the dot com bubble and all of the companies that we're trying to do something novel because the Internet now existed, and so many of those companies no

longer exist. Like there is even in particular, as new technologies are coming into the mainstream, there are a lot of new startups like vying to be the next successful company that are gonna that they're gonna they're they're gonna change right how we all interact with AI. Some of them are going to be highly successful, and many of them will fall by the wayside, and that is kind of part of how the economic cycle of new technology works,

and they're winners and losers in it. But that's like cool comfort for somebody in the job market who feels like put out the pasture directly under threat. Yeah, it feels they're geting the heisman when they're looking for jobs because the market's tough and because there's a lot of kind of AI turmoil happening, a lot of these companies

are looking to get leaner. On a related note, did you see the Business Insider story about folks who are basically taking like their side gigs and not side gig as in like driving for Uber or Left or whatever, but like a side business finding ways to diversify their income, essentially because they are a little concerned about the prospects of their future at that company. And this is something

we've talked about it's like for a while. Yeah, essentially, the reason you and I initially started investing in real estate was to happen like another stream of income, not just like building up money in our four oh one k's, but saying, like, okay, what does it look like that it makes it easier than to launch out and start your own small business because you're not fully reliant on income from your day job exactly, which we felt personally when we launched the podcasts almost a decade ago at

this point, no, not quite that long. But I do think it comes down to the individual because it makes me think about some folks who are more like like they're more of the renaissance man or a woman, right, like they're more of a polymath, and if you are the type of person who can take on different roles, who can be more adaptive to the changing markets out there, I think that this is a path that you could take that could serve you well. But I do think

that there are some folks who are specialists. They're experts in their given field, and were they to divide their attention away from their job, you would essentially lose that edge. And so it's almost a path of Okay, which path do I want to take? Given the constraints of time, right, I can't do it. Also, which one am I going to choose here? And I think a highly personal question.

It's very personal. I think it just takes knowing yourself what kind of satisfaction you're getting out of your job. Because I think for some folks to hear to see the business, because they profiled all these success stories of like, oh, man, he's making more money now with the side business and it doesn't really matter that Microsoft let him go. I think if there's someone who hears that and thinks, well,

that's what I need to do. But maybe for that person, man, they are so well suited for their role in this big company. And in fact, if they gave it a little more attention to a little more effort. They could lead this entire department. That kind of thing I don't want to discount. Even though I'm highly entrepreneurial, there are some folks who aren't. And like you said, I think it

is personal. It's good to know yourself agreed. Yeah, And even just kind of thinking ahead about well, if you're worried, if you are in that camp who's a little bit worried about what's going to happen with AI, specifically in regards to your job. I think planning ahead for a layoff. We've got content about that up on the side of how Tomney dot Com makes a lot of sense, like financially getting your ducks in a row so that a layoff doesn't hit you as hard as it otherwise. Would

you want to make hay while the sunshining right? You want to the calm before the storm is the time to prepare the ship, Matthew. So I just it's a good smart to start thinking about that, whether that's streams of income, whether that's saving more money, all the above. We got more to get to on this episode, including lunch is expensive. We'll get through that and more. Right

after this, sorrybody, we are back from the break. It is now time for the ludicrous headline of the week, and we have a selection this week from market Watch. Headline reads, We're spending over one dollars a week on lunch. How did ordering food at work become a luxury? Which? Man, this article rubs me so the wrong way. I hate it. I'm suppose you don't have like a tattoo of leftover somewhere on everybody because you love leftovers more than anyone.

With my little deli container takeout plastic, yeah, is it the is it the small, the medium or the large? Most of my leftovers are in the medium. That would be a cool tattoo. You should get that, Yeah, somewhere. That's just way too committed to the whole the leftover game.

And no, this just rubs me the wrong way because of the like, honestly, the expectation that this should be something that someone should be able to afford, right, Like, there's like this lifestyle entitlement that I so highly dislike. And it's totally fine if you want to go out there and spend that kind of money all lunch, but you gotta be okay with it. You got to be able to afford it. You got to know that you're not going to be able to funnel those dollars towards

some other financial goal in your life. But to think that it's this basic human rights so that that someone should have seems preposterous. I think that's the thing that hit me with this too, was like, how did ordering food to work become a luxury? And it's like, eating out for lunch every day of the week has always been luxury. Yeah, of course that's a luxury. That's the very definition of a luxury. Yeah, it's not a coach handbag or something like that or whatever. It's a fancy

air Maze scarf. But it is totally a luxury to think that you can eat out every single day and not feel a massive impact on your budget. And one hundred bucks a week, yeah, that's you're talking about like four hundred plus dollars a month on food for lunch.

I can't imagine. I would love to run the numbers on how much you and I spend on our lunches, Like it's be hard to factor out because most of the time it is leftovers from the dinner the night before or for most folks, unfortunately, they're just like, yeah, that's not worth keeping, and they just like scrape it off into the trash can as opposed to sticking it. It's like, Okay, no, that's a that's a medium deli container size leftover that plus a couple eggs. You fry

it up. You got a nuke the leftovers, fry up a couple eggs. I mean, that's like the definition of decade of eating right there, with a yolk running over the leftover braced beef that you oh my gosh, Like I'm getting hungry. We haven't eaten lunch yet. I'm getting hungry even thinking about that. Yeah, I think leftovers are the answer here. And I think it's just also potting yourself in the frame of mind to realize what is

a luxury and what isn't. I think if you and maybe the only way you could go out to eat lunch every day, Matt and not break the bank is to go to the Costco food court. If you're doing that. If you're doing that, you can probably forford to eat out, But then you might not be the healthiest. You may not be Oh my gosh. I was just talking Kate, And now we're looking at pictures of like us, me specifically back in the day, like before Kate and I got married and I was poor man, like I was broke,

and I'm thinking through what did I eat? Because I could tell from looking at the pictures that I'm my skin didn't look at I was really skinny, and I told her I was just like I didn't really cook at home. I think I was just eating bowls of cereal and like once a week I might go out to McDonald's because back then they had like the value menu. I get a cheeseburger, a side so expensive now I know, a side salad, and then I'll get a parfait and those three items, thinking that that was like a well

balanced meal. But in a similar way, you would also be fooling yourself if you were going to the Costco food court thinking that you're getting something similar. But any just that, I think it's a really important thing to mention though, it's just fast food is so crazy expensive now too. You think you're going to save money by going Okay, at least I'm gonna get fast food for lunch instead. Sorry, no, that's expensive now. A big knac

meal is probably eleven or twelve dollars, and so you can. Yeah, leftovers are way cheaper than that. By the way, I didn't crush the numbers. I thought you were going to say, we should run the numbers on knowing what our lunch costs. Yeah, I'll tell you what it costs. What is costing you? Were you to go out to lunch every day at work instead of taking that one hundred dollars and investing it over a forty year career, you are looking at over one million dollars in the bank over a typical

forty year career from that. Oh my gosh, I don't know what is and that's yeah, it was almost over a million dollars even with the seven percent return, but way seven hundred dollars. If one hundred dollars a week, four hundred a month invested, those returns compounded in forty years, you're gonna have I forget what the number was. That's crazy. At eight percent was like one point something, and at seven it was nine thirty four nine hundred and thirty

four thousand or something like that. So seven and a half percent got you just over that one mil mark? Dude, are we too frugal? So impressive. Sometimes I wonder are we too frugal now because we've got other goals. There's other things that we want to pursue. And oh, actually there's an article. Okay, so the frugal Habits article. You want to one. Yeah, so folks who are like watering down their dish soap, their toothpaste even I think, right stretch,

I don't. I'm all cutting the toothpaste tube open. I know our friend Maggie does that. I've never done that. I've never done that either. I mean to each their own, you know, like you need to be able to spend your money where it counts. But I'm all for folks assessing their spending, figuring out what moves the needle for them, and in the areas where it's not, to be able

to cut back ruthlessly. Man. And it's hard not to judge other people spending, But like, I love it when they profile people because it gives you an insight into how it is that people are spending their money. And there's like a they talk about a lady She's like, yeah, we've had to cut back on our dogs toy subscription. I know that was the thing, and I'm not going to hand on the pets. You know, I don't even know people know that I used to have a great Dane way back in the day, and that great Dane

ate a lot of food. I'm all for pets, but a toy subscription where like toys are getting delivered to this house on the rag for the pet it just seems so insane. Man. Well, I think this article too. It was highlighting people who are going like kind of super hard in the frugal direction, almost to like an insane degree that most people would not do. And I feel two ways about that, because in one way, I'm like,

I mean, I'm not gonna do that. I'm not going to water down my soap that's probably one step too far, or cut up with my toothpaste tube. But I think in the other vein, when you're paying that close attention to the resources that you're using and how much you're spending on even everyday basics and necessities, you're just going to make a lot more progress on the money goals

that you have. So I'd be curious to know from how to money listeners like how far they're willing to go in the frugal the most extreme things done baffle me, send us an email how to money pot at gmail dot com. Let us know how frugal you're getting, because yeah, I think in some ways, I'm like, yeah, it's a

little weird, it's a little off putting. I'm not one of those super cupon oter types, but I do think some people really get into it and they can save a lot of money, and then, you know what, it allows them to spend money in the ways that they care about while they're still able to save and invest. And the other people out there are just lamenting why does it cost so much to eat out now? While they're still eating out every day, they're not really questioning

their choices. Yeah, you got to question that. So while we're talking about soap, you know, the real way to save when it comes to closed detergent is to make your own I have I told you that we do that. So this is an effort that was spearheaded not by me, but by my wife because she was so sick of because it's really expensive when you buy like this, even the big ones from Costco's, it costs a lot of money and you just it's like, what forty cents a load or thirty I don't know. She felt that we

were ripping through those so like too quickly. So now I don't know exactly what I'll have to ask her over the weekend. But like you, it's borax. It's like washing soda. You put like a drop of whatever essential oils you want, and we've been doing that for like months now. Okay, I will ask her and see what the actual breakdown is per load. But she's like, oh, we are sitting. According to her, we're saving a ton of money by making our own clothes detergent. You gotta

share this kind of stuff with the world. That's what I'm doing. Let us know the recipe. Yeah, we'll post it or something. Yeah, we'll post it. I speaking of doing chores, Matt, we're not paying a robot to do your chores. How would you feel about that? You don't talking about the neo? Yeah, so this is one is

interesting because it's insane. This is like, I don't know, I'm not really necessarily interested in having a robot in my home, but I think it's probably going to become more common in the coming years, not just because of the price tag, right, twenty grand how much this robot cost her? I think you can pay like five or

six hundred bucks a month to lease it. Crazy, yeah, But it's also the dystopian vibe vibes, like can't you imagine treating that robot telling you to do all the chores and then it just being like super pissed that you treated it like Cinderella choking you out in your sleep or something like that. That's the That's the image I have in my head. I'm not worried about it, but it's just it does feel so far removed that it just is dumb, yeah, you know, or the current abilities.

The Wall Street Journal tech writer had spent a day with this robot and it couldn't do anything like it fumbled every task, so so stupid. This is I don't get it. It's ridiculous. I couldn't be any less interested in getting something like that, Like I couldn't. We did rumba like the little Robot vacuum and even that, and granted we had an older version of that thing, but even that struggled at times to do a very specific

task that it was very much created to do. I've been hoping that the robot lawnmowers would get those Evidently are they okay, because it seems like that would save a ton of money in time, Like that seems like a great spot for a robot. But inside my house doing my dishes and like I don't know, tending to my children, just getting in the way, Like no, no, here, here's the problem. So yes, the fact that it costs so much money is ridiculous, but the whole equation needs

to be reversed. They like, they need to pay me to be able to test drive this thing in my own because I feel like they are now currently in the game of acquiring and gathering data. This is why Tesla is so great, right, Not only were they able to create a successful EV company, but now they've got these driving robots essentially like all across the country gathering

data for Tesla, and they use that data. I mean, think about the amount of video data and experience that they have in their servers and the ability to then iterate using that data on future products to be able to make them even more and more seamless. Like that is the model, not this clunky yeah robot that the user had asked to crack open a walnut and it couldn't do it or something like that. Yeah, Well, in early adopters always pay too much and get an inferior product.

And if you just wait, if you wait a few years and you really want one of those robots to do your chores for you, I guarantee you it's going to cost a heck of a lot less money, and it's going to be so much better than it currently is. So maybe just don't not for the first gin totally agree Jo. Let's talk about averag and this is given the caveat that our show is of course ad supported, so you know, we'll discuss the story with that acknowledgment.

But advertisements, ads, they're popping up in places that you wouldn't have found them in the past. How do you say, so, Ted, He writes a substack Joya, I believe is it? Joya? I always always see it's a weird ge I always want to say Geo because I always read his stuff, but I never hear his name being said. But all right, he's got one of the best substacks out there. He's really smart, really thoughtful. But he he wrote about this recently. Ads they're popping up on the screen of your car.

This is on jeep specifically. There it's highlighting the extended warranty. Well, those warranties are thousands and thousands. They're so expensive they're hardly ever worth it. But also Samsung has these really expensive fridges now where ads are popping up there, so you're you're you know, you're dropping thirty five hundred dollars and then you've got it displaying ads. Yeah to you. You got a screen on your fridge because you thought it was cool, and now it's just serving you ads

all the time. Yeah. Yeah, I think this is an argument for going low tech, writing things down on a sheet of paper maybe instead of having the I don't know, the day's agenda projected onto the front of your your fancy fridge. And this is no, this is not a knock against Samsung. I think they're a fantastic company. We've got a lot of Samsung products, but I will not

be myself paying for that really fancy Samsung fridge. And I think the problem the rub is when you pay full price for something and it still comes with ads. I don't mind having the trade off, like the streaming services, right, yeah, you pay more for something so you don't have to see the ads, right, And this is like the yeah, and I love that the opposite. Hey, there's that trade

off and you have to decide for yourself. It makes me think of you remember when we talked about Telly, which was this fifty five inch television with like ads at the bottom. I signed up where they never sent me one. I don't know what happened to the company at this point, but that I was willing. That's like an informed trade offf where you're like, you're giving me the TV for free, and yes, I'm subjecting myself to

more ads because of it, but I didn't pay. I'd be really upset if I paid full price for a nice TV and then they start popping up ads while I'm not watching something like that would be incredibly frustrating. But if they're going to give me the TV for free and say, hey, ads are going to be on whenever you're not watching your show, I think I would be far more okay with that. That'd be kosher to me.

You're making that informed decision, yeah right, yeah, And like we just end up paying with our attention so much of the time now when these endless ads are served our way. When it comes to social media, something estimates show that four and ten posts are now ads, which

makes me question why we still use these services. Man. Well, yeah, when you're thumbing through scrolling through Facebook or Instagram, yeah, maybe you see a little bit of like your friend's contents, but so much of its like influencers you don't actually care about, or it's ads that you are not thrilled to see something. It feels like half of the content isn't the content you actually came there for. I totally agree. And do you want to know a solution for that

aside from just deleting completely? Oh? Man, I totally saw all. This is the kind of stuff that's fed to me. This guy created like this five pound phone case and it's basically like a weight that you stick your phone in and this makes it look like the giant Zach from the Save by the Bell phone essentially except for your iPhone. So that's one way you can do it. Another well, specifically on Instagrams, I've basically been off of it for a solid year, and I think I've been

much happier because of that. But I've been on there recently helping Kate because she's watching some ceramic arts stuff on there, and we've been talking more about social media and I came across the same thing. I was like, oh my gosh, I'm scrolling through my feed. I'm like, I don't follow this person. Why is this showing up? Yeah, here's another ad, here's another sponsor post. You want to know the secret why this is gonna be great for everyone out there who is on Instagram. Go to the

top of your app where it says Instagram. Right, it's like written in the script at the top middle of your screen. Tap it and it'll drop down and you can change it to your followers, like who it is that you are following, I'm sorry you're following, and it'll change the feed to just those actual folks, no ads, no suggested posts. Does this seem illegal? And like I even hasn't seem illegal. I just shocked. Why would that be there? Yeah, because no one touches that. I guess

I don't know. It's crazy, like it's it's something like it's either your your start or favorite posts or people or something like that. But then it's literally just Also, one of the other options is following, so only the people that you're following don't serve ads. So I literally did this last night. That's why I was excited to share it because I was looking into it because I was getting so fed up with why I was I'm like, is there a way to see less of this other crap?

And that's evidently a way that you can do it. Now that I've like spoken the system, spoken it into the universe, I'm afraid that it's going to be disappearing soon. But for all the how to Money listeners out there for the time being, try it out there you go, You're welcome. All right, Matt, that's gonna do it. For this episode of How Too Money Podcast, I think we should always refer to ourselves a we how too Money Podcast? Should we say our actual corporation name and how we

file our taxes and in what state were incorporated? All right, but we hope you found this helpful. You can find links to some of the stories that we mentioned on this episode up on our website at howtomoney dot com. That's right, tons of other resources up there for you as well. But until next time, Buddy, best friends are best friends out? No ads, dude, that's crazy Boom. I just went through my whole feed from the past twenty

four hours. It's amazing. It's not that bad. Then it is a workaround because you have to do a couple additional steps. But I'm guessing. I'm guessing that most people aren't taking those additional steps to avoid it, right, And I think there's going to be more widely known though I don't know. I've never heard anybody talk about it. Yeah, but it's amazing