Friday Flight - UNstable coins, Ludicrous Layoffs, & Sweating to Save #513

I'm still a little bit behind. I need to catch up. I've sold a couple of things recently, but I'm still I think I've sold maybe like eight things. I'm supposed to be at what at this point, like twenty right in the late teens. I've been keeping it up, but I have not updated my worksheets. But if you have kept up with your sell your Stuff challenge, we would love to hear from you. In particularly, I want to know the kinds of things folks are selling in the

amounts as well. Because the reason I ask Joel, because we just I just listed a mid century bedroom set that we have had for a number of years now. We just paid a few hundred bucks for it back in the day. So you're asking top dollar, Well, I looked it up because it still has the name of the company on there, and so I just did a quick search and I saw that similar sets we're going

for over two thousand dollars. It's it's amazing how some antique sets, things that are fifty sixty years old, they just hold their value because they've gone from the junk after being owned for fifteen or twenty years, and now it's chic again to own some of that stuff that's, you know, fifty sixty years old. And some of that stuff isn't getting any younger, that's right, Like they're not making anymore exactly, and some of the stuff is just

made hearty, heartier than what's made today exactly. So I'm not asking over two thousand dollars for it, but I asked for close to that, and I'm just gonna knock downer us off it every single day until it sells. Let's see what you can get. I will let you know, I hope you do get top dollar, because yeah, some of those mid century sets in particular, I've just noticed how much more expensive some of that stuff has gotten. And one of my friends, Josh down in Florida. He

he actually buys themselves mid century furniture. That's that's his job, right, is literally to rehab refinished some of these pieces and he marks them up and he sends them all over the country and so it's it's but it's cool. He's not just ripping people off the he also finding these pieces that are prized and treasure. I mean, if he lives in Florida, where there are more of them than pretty much anywhere else, so he's got kind of access. He's at the he's at the source for that stuff.

And so I asked him recently to help me find actually a mid century piano because they're really cool looking. They're really hard to find, and I've noticed real out of the ground and roll wide like mid century furniture is well kind of they've got those like the stick legs coming out the front there. It's it's really I'll have to post a picture of the one that I actually ended up purchasing with this help. Yeah, fancy, So you don't even want to know what he sells midcentery

pianos for. When he gets one, they're they're definitely five figures um and yeah, and so he helped me find one actually locally that was a lot less than that. Um. But I just want to say, sometimes buying a piece that costs more money if it's an antique, or if it has just inherent value based on its age and the way it was made and the fact that they're not making more, sometimes it's more of a long term play.

Even even though it might cost you maybe more than a brand new piano one, it might last longer to it might have a higher resale value throughout the years. So those are the kind of things that are worth factoring in. I mean, like your bedroom set. I guarantee you you spent less on that bedroom set than what you're selling it for now. Yeah, what it's listened for. We'll see what you're hoping. Yeah, we'll see how it pans out. But with the most bedroom sets, that's not

the case. If Walmart ikea target wherever you get your bedroom set, guarantee you it's words less tomorrow than it is. Uh, you know, the day you buy, you are immediately losing money. Whereas this is something hopefully that not only will we be able to break even, but I think we yeah, we will be able to maybe double what we paid for it. At least. Just one more reason to buy vintage or used furniture as opposed to new furniture is the fact that it's worth different amounts of different people.

So you might find a great vintage set of furniture for pennies on the dollar, whereas somebody like my friend, my friend Josh is charging top dollar right for the pieces he's selling. But there's this whole those rare pieces he does, he does, but he's also taking care of them and the and they're nice. But you can find I found some great pieces for that were really inexpensive throughout the years. I've held onto him for a lot of years now, and I guarantee you they're worth more

now than when I bought them. Makes me think of a listener recently reached out to us on Instagram, and she was highlighting the fact that just how affordable it is to furnish your home by hitting up the yard sales. She she loves the thrill of the chase, the thrill of the hunt, but the ability to furnish her new place with virtually opinions on the dollar compared to what all that stuff would I think. I think yard sales are even better than Facebook Marketplace because you might have

to pound the pavement a little bit more. But the prices you're gonna get or even lower because the amount of eyeballs is detracting are are usually fewer. Nobody wants to get out there on a night Saturday morning when the sun starts beating down on you. Everybody wants to sit there from the comfort of their home. But that's not how you find the deals. Yeah, so alright, alright, just enough furniture talking, let's move on to the Friday flight.

Let's derailed its like, give you that sampling of stories we found interesting this week. Let's talk about energy costs first, Matt and and do what. We got a bunch of stories to get to today that are they're highly interesting, I think. But when it comes to energy costs, that's another we You know, we got new inflation numbers this week, but we're we're seeing higher energy prices alongside higher everything prices, it feels like, and so h yeah, prices are still

inflated across the board. We're obviously paying more for what seems like everything. Gas prices are still through the roof. But but I'm talking about energy prices in terms of heating and cooling our homes, and electricity prices are actually up eleven percent year over year. That's thanks in large part to a rapid increase in the price of natural gas, which is the largest source of electricity generation in the country. In a councilor about of the our electricity prices is

a lot. Yeah, and so the New York Times I actually interviewed a few different electricity grid experts. They stated that these price increases they're likely to continue for years to come, largely because of necessary costly upgrades to the grid. And so, yeah, these are gonna be taking place all across the country to make our grids safer and smarter. In addition to maybe the higher costs are gonna be

paying for some of these natural resources. And so it sucks to know that it's going to cost more to heat and cool your home. But I mean, at least there are some actions that we can take to combat these price increases ourselves, right, Yeah, totally. We talked about installation a couple of weeks ago. That's always a good idea, but setting your temperature higher during this summer is a big help as well. And I feel like this is a good reminder to get out there in front of

you before you start taking down the thermostat. Uh. This this might sound crazy, but the Department of Energy, they actually recommend setting your thermostat to seventy eight degrees when you're home during the day, eighty two degrees when you're sleeping, and then eighty five degrees when you're out of the house. I don't really care about I'm fine with two eighty two when you're sleeping. I think is pretty warm for for a lot of folks. And so if you actually

do this, mad props to you. I hope your family still loves you after making the all summer, after you have gone through sweating in order to save We're actually kind of on board with this idea for us at night, it's okay for it to take up a little bit

warmer you get to you let it give that point. No, we we need we got significantly higher than what we're willing to deal with during the day because during the day, I want the temperature to be cooler because we're moving around, the kids are moving und you're you're doing stuff, and it's easy for us to start feeling miserable. If if you start sweating and just trying to live your life. But at night you can just throw back the covers, turn that fan on. In particular, is how I think

we're able to stay cool. Like fans make a big difference. And I will say, my my thermostat Matt vacillates somewhere between seventy six and eighty, depending on whether or home what I'm doing, But that's usually the range of its depending on how you feel. You go over there and tweak it. But no, you said, it doesn't go below that. It does not go into like seventy five, seventy four, seventy three territory. Not nice. Unless my mom comes over and then she touches it. She she cranks it down.

Sometimes I'll crank it down in order to control humidity, because that's something that I feel like significantly impacts how it feels inside the house. If it's getting to just just wet too muggy, the i'l tn it down a little bit just to dry out the air. But fans, ceiling fans make a huge difference, like you said, and it can make it feel like ten degrees cooler in your house if you keep the fans on. So don't

forget about those. But making these adjustments to your thermostatic, cranking that temperature up a little bit, even if you don't go with the Department of Energies recommendations, will be

able to save you some tremendous amount of money. Yeah, that's worth noting, especially as we get into these warmer summer months where those electricity bills they're about the start getting real, right, and if it there's nobody out there who does like to crank it up to eighty two, I would like to hear from you, And I mean literally, I I would like to know some of the steps that you take, Like literally, are you wearing nothing in your house and all the fans are on full blast?

If so, and if that works for you, then more power to you. Yeah. Please, we you can write a blog post for how the Money dot com. We'd love to hear all about it. Well, Matt, that that just makes me think. I was actually emailing with a listener this week named Glenn and he he's actually written about putting solar on his house and we kind of went back and forth about that for for a minute. He wrote about it on his blog. I'll put a link

in the show notes to that article. But you know, it's obviously it's not cheap to install solar, right that changing your thermostat and putting in some instulation, those are pretty cheap to two free moves that you can make in order to save a little bit of energy. Well, installing solar is like a bigger project that you're gonna have to take on that requires some more dollars. But I did want to mention it can still make sense

if it's done properly and in the right location. And it's important to not forget that there's still a substantial federal subsidy for rooftop solar installs. You can say, if what this year, yeah, if in two, if you install solar next year, it's gonna be I think it's going down just a little bit. But that's pretty amazing, man, that that that the federal government is going to foot the bill for more than a quarter of your solar installation.

And so they obviously missed out on a marketing opportunity three three, they didn't hire us. It could have been like the flannel push, so everybody would have remembered that's right, well, especially as solar the costs of solar installs have gone down, the cost of solar panels has gone down. Now is like kind of the sweet spot for installing solar if you're so inclined. And it's yeah, it is a big step.

Not everyone's necessarily into, but it bears mentioning, and so yeah, it's it matters not only how much electricity you should you're gonna be able to replace, though, but also how your state or municipality treats the excess electricity that you generate. And in some states they pay pay you a or rate. Others don't. Others kind of say we'll pay you a

pittance for the extra solar you generate that you don't use. Literally, like in Mississippi, it's a discounted rate, and so they pay you very little when you actually send electricity back to the grid. It's worth looking into before you opt to kind of go all in and drop fifteen or twenty grand on a solar install at your house. But again, with that federal tax credit, it could make sense for

a decent chunk of folks, that's right. Yeah, So while we're talking about utilities, actually let's talk about a related subject, which is scammers who are out there and you might be wondering how that's related. Well, we've talked about this before, but a Detroit Free Press article brought utility scams back

to the forefront of our minds. Crafty scam artists out there are using color I D to impersonate your utility company telling you to send the money immediately or they'll be forced to turn off the power to your house or to your business. And almost all of the folks who are scammed sent money via ZEL, which means that that is money that they likely won't be able to claw back after they've realized that they've been scammed. Yeah, and ZEL is usually it's within your banking app right,

whatever major bank you do business with. Sale has partnered with most of those big banks. It's it's kind of like a Venmo alternative. And so people are always trying to get you to pay money that way because you can't call it back, that's right, And so we want you to avoid becoming a victim of some of these scams. So a few tips. A utility company, Uh, they're going to reach out to you multiple times before threatening to

cut your power or to shut off your water. And so if this is the first that you've heard of this reach out and contact your utility company directly yourself, like they're they're not going to just show up out of the blue demanding to be paid right away only via zell or Venmo. We want you to challenge whoever it is that's that's calling you or even showing up. There have been some instances of folks showing up, uh

knocking on folks doors up there in Michigan. But we want you to ask for more information and if it seems fishy, then we would recommend for you to report it to the Better Business Bureau scam Tracker and we'll have a link to that up on our website. Yeah, that that is one of the worst scams because especially if you're a business and you've got customers coming in and out and someone calls you and they're like, we're

going to turn your power off. Now, Yeah, that's a threat because you are gonna you're gonna lose business, customers are gonna walk out, and you have that that that response that's based on fear. That's right, that's what they're that's what they're praying exactly, and they want you to send the money immediately and then guess what you have been taking advantage of you can't get that money back. So it's definitely something to be on the lookout for.

But Matt, we've got more stories to get to, including we're gonna talk about a company who just raised one of their fees by a big margin and it actually makes it more difficult to get your money back, and we'll talk about that and more right after this break. All right, we are back from the break, and before we get to the ludicrous layoffs storage, well, we've got the ludicrous headline of the week, which are we even

allowed to attribute that description to other stories? I will check with our trademark lawyers, our copyright attorneys, and I'll get back to you. It goes against our how we do things concern on how the money. But this one comes from CNBC and the headline reads Terra stable coin, which is meant to be pegged to the dollar, plummets below thirty cents. And well, obviously a lot of folks have maybe realized this if you own any cryptocurrencies, but they have not had a great start to the year,

similar to the stock market. But what happened in the stable coin worse uh this week points to an issue that we've had with some of the crypto offerings for a while. Stable coins are supposed to be no surprise

here stable uh. They aren't supposed to fluctuate in value the way that many of the other coins do uh and without being the case, some folks out there have decided to stash their savings in stable coin accounts because they were paying really hefty rates of interest, like in the seven to eight percent range, which sounds pretty incredible until that promise ends, and disaster get did for many earlier this week, and so we would recommend for you to not put money that you need, you know, your

savings in stable coin accounts. That money needs to be in an actual f d i C insured savings account with a real bank. So we share the story because we want you to know that volatility isn't limited to just individual coins like doage coin uh stable coins they pose real risks as well. We've shared how it is okay to put up the five percent of your overall portfolio within cryptocurrencies, but that five percent should include not only actual individual coins, but these stable coins as well.

We want you to only gamble, only speculate with money that you can afford losing. That's right, man. A lot of these stable coin accounts, the way they're talked about, the way they're marketed is like it's not gambling. Is that it is like it is the same mus account, It is kind of a sure thing, but the reality is it's not and it's not ensured in the same way. It's not it's not the same thing as the same use account, no matter what the websites say or purport

these accounts to be. And we found that out of people found it out the hard way this week. But while we're talking about crypto, it turns out that most folks who have invested in bitcoin, the most popular cryptocurrency, they have a stash that's actually worth less now than what they initially invested. And so I can confirm that myself. Same here, you and I We both have relatively small steaks in mostly bitcoin and ethereum. But yeah, both of

us are what we initially put in. Well, our position is now worth less than the amount we bought in for and and and that is because we were, like a lot of the other folks who jumped on the bitcoin back bandwagon when it was close to all time highs late the average price of bitcoin, I believe last

year was right in the forty seven dollar range. And that's when bitcoin was like water cooler talk, right, like you you hopped in your uber and that was kind of instead of the weather, people talked about bitcoin or your coworker, instead of talking about what they were up to this weekend, they talked about investing in crypto, and

so everybody seemed to be getting in on the crypto craze. Well, well, now cryptos having its icorous moments, and folks who you know bought in last year are kind of kicking themselves because bitcoin, Matt, it felt in value in just the last week alone, and it's been cut more than in half from its all time highs. And so I know we say this regularly, and Matt, you just said it

to but keep your crypto exposure in check. There are probably a lot of how to money listeners who would be best best served by having zero exposure to the crypto asset class. But but for folks who do want some, keep it small. And if the past year in general, in the past couple of weeks specifically haven't proven that out that, I don't know what will, but I think it's I think it's crucial that folks really trim and

make sure that they're not overexposed. Uh, so they're not freaking out when weeks like this happened, because crypto is still volatile, as I'll get out. That's right. Yeah, let's talk about where most folks bought their bitcoin. Coin Base was a big one, robin Hood was another. In robin Hood, they actually just announced that they are increasing fees for taking money out of your account outbound transfers of your money from robin Hood to another broke, which will cost

you one hundred dollars starting in July. That's a decent chunk of money. Of course, we hate fees, and so this is a pretty crappy move. It's not that robin hood doesn't have a pretty slick app. It's an incredible interface, and honestly, if and whenever they get some roth ira accounts or ira A options within their platform, we will

probably be pretty excited about that. But the fact that they're trying to strong arm their customers by keep keeping them locked into their ecosystem, by penalizing them, uh to even think about transferring that money to to somebody like Fidelity or Vanguard, that is something that we don't like feel like it feels like coercion exactly. Yeah, yeah, they're they're they're forcing you to stay, whereas like Fidelity and Vanguard, they both charge you zero dollars for outbound transfers and

that's probably because their customers they're not going anywhere. They're very happy with the offerings that Fidelity in Vanguard offer And honestly, we've talked about this before, but maybe it shouldn't be so easy for you to hop into an app and mess around with your retirement savings gown. And it's not like you and I are against great user interfaces, and we can readily admit the Robin Hood has the best user interface in the business. The love hate relationship. Yeah,

it's it's pretty cool. But the problem is what that

what that incentivizes people to do. And a lot of people have realized over the last year or two, and especially in the last few months that maybe some of the trades they made because the user interface was so easy and it was so simple to toss some money in there start making some trades, that maybe they did some stuff that they wouldn't have in a more complex system in with let's say Vanguards, Uh, two thousand three sort of user interface where it's like old Internet and

it's really hard to get things done. There is actually just a certain benefit to that, even though it looks clunky and ugly. At the very least, just delete the app from your phone. Right If you have a robin Hood account and you're kind of weighing whether or not you should you pay the hundred or pay the seventy five bucks now or risk paying the hundred dollars down the road to make that outbound transfer. At least, at the very least, just delete the app. That way, you

are not tempted to make any day trades. Yeah, and we hope robin Hood reconsiders because that's just that's just too hefty of a penalty, and they're basically penalizing their own customers for wanting to transfer money out even partial transfers, which is which is not cool. Yeah, I'm pretty sure the average user, the average robin Hood user has two

thousand dollars of US in their account. That's five of their Money's ridiculous, it's ridiculous, it's absurd, it's not Okay, all right, let let's keep talking Matt about companies behaving badly because there's one company that you and I have had mostly good things to say about that we have to throw onto the bus today that is Carbona and Carbona that's where I bought how that's where I sold my niece on Leaf which I was unnamed. So it

was a decent experience selling my car there. You had a good experience buying with Carbona when they kind of kind of started a revolution in the way that people buy and sell used cars, which is cool. We've always thought that that kind of the way they may buying cars on the internet used cars on the internet just easy and providing that seven day no worries or turn policy, I've I've thought that was great. But what's not cool

is the way that they treat their employees. Apparently it turns out they fired folks via a prerecorded zoom message this week, and and Matt, this is eerily similar to the way Mortgage Refinance Company Better handled layoffs a few months back. The CEO kind of took some time off after that because yeah, he kind of got uh put through the wringer in the headlines after the way he handled, yeah, laying some folks off, and so so honestly, here's my take.

If if you don't have the decency to treat your employees with respect, then the likelihood that you're gonna treat

your customers, well, well, it's not that great either. I am of the firm belief that happy employees equal happy customers, and so I would say, think twice before buying a car from Carbonna, until they write the ship here, until they apologize, until they figure things out, because yeah, if you're just gonna like willy nilly file hired you know, ten percent of your workforce through some sort of prerecorded message showing them little to no respect, I feel like, well,

are they actually going to show their customers respect? Are they actually gonna uphold their end of the bargain with you buying something as big as big of a purchase as as a car. That's true, I think it would be a stretch to think that they would treat customers any differently. On that note, we're actually seeing more signs

of a changing labor market. It's not just Carbonna who's laying folks off Peloton, Netflix, Wells, Fargo, UM and the aforementioned Rebbin and they're they're also laying off a lot of their staff the labor market. It remains hot. Overall, there's still an average of two jobs for every individual who is out there looking for a job, and so this does continue to bode well for you if you're looking for a job. But we also don't expect these

conditions to endure forever. So what we're saying is, if you're planning an exit, it's even more important to make sure that you have a solid place to land. I also see this as a warning that the grass isn't always greener. On the other side, we reach only dedicated an episode to quitting your job the right way, and a part of advancing in your career is moving along to other companies. But as we've seen, there have been a lot of companies over the course of the pandemic

the pandemic. Darling Company is like Peloton and some of these other folks who saw explosive growth, higher tremendous numbers of people. But there are a number of things to keep in mind, not just the pay, not just the salary that you are expecting from this new company. We want you to make sure that you're making these decisions for all of the right reasons, and that you're not just looking at the bottom line dollar amount that you're

looking to get paid. Yeah, Obviously, our work, what we do every day, who we work for, who we work with, has a major influence on our quality of life. And so you don't want to take a lot of things into consideration before you jump ship. And and it's also just important to note that who who knows how long

this hot labor market is going to persist. I wonder if maybe these these these firings, are these layoffs, are actually signs of more of this kind of behavior to come cooling off the job market in a real way. We'll see. But let's talk about debt for a second, mat And let's we haven't talked about buying now pay laters a whole lot lately, but it's something that we touch on occasion. And and it turns out, buy now,

pay later companies are leading more millennials into debt. And we've had kind of an issue, although we've kind of come around a little bit recently when it comes to companies like a firm and Clarna and and the San Francisco Gate just published a great article about how some of those companies are making it just obviously easier to buy things over installments and how that leads to over consumption.

That's our big problem with it is that it makes it easier to buy things over months instead of immediately, and so you're like, you become a payment buyer and you buy more stuff than you need, more stuff than you can afford. It's not that the word against consumption. We're just against that thoughtless consumption. And when different companies like this make it easier for you to partake and thoughtless consumption, that's what we have an issue with. That's right.

And Americans actually bought more than twenty billion dollars worth of goods via these buy now, pay later services last year, so much money and and so yeah, especially for folks who are looking for an inexpensive way to boost their

credit score, these companies can actually be helpful. That's something we've talked about recently as they're starting to report to the credit bureaus activity for For some people who are looking for that boost their scores in the five hundreds or six hundreds or low seven hundreds, this can be a way to include a new installment loan that actually

can boost your score if used well. But still, even though that's the case, extreme caution is necessary when opting to use by now pay later at checkout, and we think that most folks should stay away altogether because of the way people are using it. It's really hard to use these things well, to use them sparingly, and so

they still present a huge risk for for lots of people. Totally. Yeah, we're seeing some scary increases actually in the amount and types of debt that folks are taking on recent months. One of our least favorite debth methods, personal loans, are actually pretty hot right now. They're hotter than mom jeans. Folks are taking out your mom's not not I, but my wife does. A lot of folks are taking out personal loans at increase over last year, which is not good.

These numbers are a sign of debts overload, and we're actually going to talk more about that. We're gonna talk more about debt next week and how we think that you should think about the role that debt plays in your life in this shifting economy where rising interest rates are having a pretty massive impact. And so you can expect to find that episode in your podcatcher on Wednesday. On Monday, we'll have a new Ask How the Money episode lined up for you and until then, we hope

that you have a great weekend. And so Joel, that's going to be a buddy until next time. Best friends out, Best friends Out.