Getting Scrappy to Save on Streaming w/ Michael Timmerman #812

Welcome to Out of Money. I'm Joel and I am Matt, and today we're talking about getting scrappy to save on streaming with Michael Timmerman.

So, by my account, I think there are three ways to boost your net worth right, so you can invest more money, But then remember we are long term investors. It takes a while for that compounding to really kick in, so you can earn more money, which is a ton of fun. Who doesn't like getting promoted, who doesn't like earning a fat bonus at work? But again, this can take years of grinding it out at the very least months of hard work in order to stand up among

Today, human guinea pig. I like that. Thanks for having me, Matt, Thanks for having me. Joel.

I think you should add that to your bio now, Michael, just considering.

Absolutely it goes straight the top.

Well.

And by the way, Michael and I have worked used to work together for a lot of years, and now Michael's gone off to do his own thing, so so it's kind of fun to reunite here.

Michael.

The first question, as you know that we ask everybody who comes on the show, is what's your craft beer equivalent? Meaning what is it that you're spourging on while you're also doing the smart thing with your money, you're saving and investing. So what's your craft beer equivalent?

My friend?

You know, I knew this question was coming, but it's a little hard for me because I think I have a few craft beer equivalents. They might not be quite as frugal as hugual. It's not the one thing, no, I know, the one thing I'd say as my craft beer equivalent is has to do with plane tickets, and I've been researching a couple upcoming trips. When I'm searching on Google flights, I can never get that cheapest fare as much as I really want to. And I think

Based home what the prices.

And you live in a market where Spirit is heavy. But I'm guessing this means.

You don't fly no Spirit, no Frontier, and I getting those sweet deals.

That's true.

The nearest airport to me is all about the budget airlines. Their Spirit, Frontier, Southwest, a lot of Jet Blue. I will fly Spirit, but then that's kind of where this kicks in. It's like length of the flight matters. If it's five hours, I'm probably not gonna be sitting in one of those tight Spirits.

But no Southwest our favorite.

Oh no, I mean I'll it just depends. It depends on the flight jet Blue, I will fly a lot.

How fancy are we getting here, Michael? Are you ever doing like live flat beds across the Atlantic kind of thing?

Absolutely?

Not so for jet Blue is a good example. I think it's like basic. Those are the ones that I can't do. But then when it's that, I think it's blue. That's when I'll go for Jet Blue. I won't be the last to board. I can bring on a bag, I put everything in the carry on, and then I can choose my seat.

That's it.

That makes sense. Okay, Michael, I know you and Joel, y'all go back. You can trade war stories after we hit hop on the recording. But I get the impression that you've been for a long time. You are savvy with how you handle your money. What brought that about? When did that begin in your life?

You know?

I think it started for a lot of people who really get into this space with their childhood. My role model was my grandmother in particular, and she was always the one who really had it together with money. She was not wealthy, but she was comfortable, and it was because of the actions that she took, so I kind of looked up to her and like modeled myself after her. I even during college, I lived with my grandmother and

So it was like twenty some years ago.

So is that one two punch Grandma and Clark Coward?

Yeah, Grandma and Clark in my late scenes.

Okay, So with your grandma, I'm curious was it more osmosis? Was it like the way she lived or was she like offering verbal instruction too. Were you guys having discussions about money or was it just like dang, I see, grandma seems to have beyond to something and kind of the way she handles money, the way she lives, the silent type.

I guess yeah.

I mean, I don't remember having too many discussions about it. I do remember one thing I had. One of my first jobs, I was a waiter, at a Denny's in a resort community, and I would come home from work every day with a stack of dollar bill So this is before people were leaving credit card tips, and she would ask me to hand over my money and she would count my tips and like if I had over

So just just a really great mentor.

Just a great role model. The ability for her to aside from being a human teller machine like counting up your bills. I love that that she celebrated that with you. What a great way to kind of reinforce not only the fact that you're making and hopefully saving, but that you're just I don't know, doing a good job. It's like some additional fruit of your labor that's being that you're able to celebrate there together. Yeah, I like that, but sorry for calling you that human guinea pig.

By the way, actually pretty accurate.

Yeah, because it seems like you have tried every financial tool out there, like you tried wineab for a while. It sounds like you liked it ultimately, though it seems like you went with your own Google sheets you like. I don't know it was it the customization of creating your own thing, but it seems like you based it on like the wine ap principles. Can you share about how it is that you budget and keep up with your spending?

Well, I think this is kind of timely because I guess mint has just shut down and I use that for a whole lot of years, and then I started kind of looking at how I thought that wasn't working so well for me, and I guess the process with that In similar apps like it, I would just open up the app and see a reflection.

It was like looking in the mirror, just like how are you doing?

Whereas whine app, I think that system and the four rules it helps you really kind of train yourself to be more proactive I think with your money. So the way I adapted it is I really I mean my issue is I'm not crazy about a subscription service for a budgeting app, and I know a lot of them work that way for various reasons. But with the Google Sheets,

Got left to spend for the month, and then make the or just log it right away.

I always have that opportunity to kind of be like, Okay, do I really need to buy this?

Do I want to buy this? Like it's a.

Check on yourself that I don't think you necessarily get with the tools where you're just like I guess, putting everything on your credit card and then logging in to see, all right, what was the damage for the month?

Sure, yeah, there's you're spending on a delay like that is the downside of maximizing the different benefits that you get through using credit cards, which were huge fans of. But the ability for you to see sort of like that timely in the moment feedback that's huge. And this is something that you've been able to kind of work into your general workflow, like you've got a weekly financial checklist.

I guess one of the things, having been in writing about money since I guess it's now been twenty ten is one of the things people say to you is like, oh, you must be obsessed with money, and I'm not, And I really don't spend a whole lot of money on the budgeting, even though I'm logging those transactions with every purchase. So all I do is I set aside a few minutes on Fridays in the morning, I check to see

I like that when you have a system, you don't have to obsess over it, right, And so that's like, I think it's a really important takeaway there. On the guinea pig note, you're being kind of a guinea pig right now in a way. We talked about this right before we started recording, that you're seeking to earn extra money, but it also still allows you flexibility. I think gigwork is something Matt and I have talked about that lots

I agree with you.

I think a lot of the gigwork is trading time for money. And there's a couple of things that I've done just because I've got some things I'm saving up for. Just like everyone listening to this, in my case, it's something I'm not really excited about. I have to get a new fence, So I've found all these ways to kind of like motivate myself to save up for that, and one of them has been with gig apps and side apps. Rover's been the most successful for me. It's

So that's kind of what's worked out and based on.

Is this why you need a defence by the way, so you can watch these animals.

It's actually an investment.

YEA. Yeah, I've got a fence, but it's falling down, so I know that I've got to like replace replace the fence. But I guess it kind of is an investment.

There's a ton of apps out there.

Like thumbtack and if you're able to do to provide like you know, powerwashing or there's lots.

Of ways to make money through these apps.

And the beauty of the pet sitting apps with Rover is that you can take in animals, take care of them, but also be doing other stuff from your house. Like so for me with what I do with the YouTube channel, I can be editing a video and also caring for a pet.

Okay, I thought you're talking about like you're one of those guys and you've got like fifteen dogs on a leash, but you're also like filling out on your phone like as you're walking those that the ultimate multitask.

I'm not gonna and I did try all those those survey apps at one point. I think when I'm down to in terms of the kind of make money, save money apps, at this point, I still use iboughta that's a grocery one. I use Fetch that's also a grocery one. And this is more of a savings not an earning one. But have you guys ever talked in the show about too Good to Go?

Yeah?

Oh, is that that's the meal leftover meal apps?

Right?

Go pick yourself up some crossanltics that they're getting ready to.

Talk about that app is like my favorite, and I've I've found so many great places on there. I know it's going to depend on where you live, but it's like five dollars and you could have like a ton of food.

Yeah. I mean so basically, like you're talking about the difference here between active versus passive ways of earning money. And so obviously these are all more active, active ways, and it's important to kind of prioritize, and granted we will talk. I kind of led into this whole thing talking about ways that you can save money, because cutting your expenses that's like the most immediate thing. But you have highlighted some of the different ways that you can

Well, I mean, so here's the truth of how the channel came about. This actually ties into my full time job that I was working. I saw an opportunity for us to get into video when I was working for Clark Howard. They had a channel with a ton of videos, but I saw a different way to do it. But I kind of wanted to test it out because I wasn't really sure that my managers were all that into the idea. So I just started putting up random videos.

I talked about how I paid off my mortgage.

On one of the earlier properties that I lived in, and things just kind of took off. And I also had some of that content that I do now, which is the testing of the streaming phone plans internet services. So it was really I've just an experiment for work. I never expected some of those videos to take off.

Yeah that's super cool. Yeah it's amazing. So it is active in one sense because you kind of still need to continue to create content in order to keep new viewers coming in. But then some of the videos you made a long time ago still have a lot of juice, which is really cool. Do you have any tips for someone out there who maybe has like a burning desire to share their knowledge and they think they've seen what mister Beast is able to accomplish, and maybe also you've

Sure, I mean I think what you said is where I would start share your knowledge. It's much easier to share your knowledge than it is to share your life. So that would kind of be the difference between a channel that has more of an informational and educational view as opposed to one that is a look at me type of channel. So if you think about problems that people are going through, and you have the solutions.

So I'll give you an example.

I had someone came over a few months ago and helped me install a couple ceiling fans, and he had never dealt with this brand before. So then I went on YouTube and I searched and I was like, wow, there's like no video about this. But if you look up some of the other brands like Hunter, let's say, there's like millions of views of people just filming themselves swapping out a ceiling fan. So this guy, like a

Yeah, well, I mean you say it's not super exciting, but like I think for a lot of people, I think what you said about knowledge versus life, right, the ability to share either a passion or some information that you have as opposed to feeling like you have to bear all tell all fabricate drama. I think there's a lot of folks who might actually find that incredibly interesting

But I also like kind of how you said you look to see, oh wait, there's a nobody's covering this yet, and we can be the first. We can be the pioneer here. And if you're the pioneer on that video, that you have more of a chance to stand out right, Whereas if you're kind of saying the stuff that everyone else is saying, like you got to kind of find

The way that I've heard a lot of YouTube gurus boil it down is it's the audience, and I do agree with that. I think usually when I put the most effort into the videos and they're based on things that I know people have either reached out to me or I've done the research and I find they're interested in those are the ones that do the best short

But I do think that's a place to.

Start, is your your own interests. And back to what you said about being original, maybe you're doing okay content, but it's been done by too many people in too many different ways.

That makes sense. Okay, So, Michael, I don't know if how you feel about sharing this, but like, how much of the revenue that you're able to generate from YouTube? What percentage of your expenses would you say that that covers?

Sure?

Well. YouTubers can make money through various income sources. The one people talk the most about is probably ad sense, which is just the ads that.

Run on your video.

You turn them on and then you don't do anything else except collect the check. That can vary. It can go up and can go down depending on the months. For a channel my size, that can be pretty healthy. I'll use my second I have a second channel as an example. It's much smaller that has about three thousand subscribers and I want to say sixty thousand views a month.

And YouTube, of course is the second largest search engine

Right we are back from the break talking with Michael from Michael Saves. And I guess it's zooming out a little bit the savings that we used to experience, Michael, Like, when it came to cutting the cord, it used to be significant, Like it used to be, like it was a no brainer. Like I've never paid for cable TV in my entire life, except for when I was in college because my roommates insisted. But like, ever since I was in charge of my TV options, I've never paid

Because what Netflix is, what twenty two bucks a month? Now if you want the top tier.

It's so stinking extensive now. But I guess I'm curious to hear if you think it's a slam dunk decision anymore. How are you approaching that question with folks?

Well, I think you're right, it's definitely not the type of savings that it was five years ago. But I do think that cutting the cord is still the way to go. I don't hear from people who are going back to a cable or a satellite TV subscription. It's just changed, and that's a lot due to the way that there's just so many services and people are having to pick and choose, and the shows they want.

To watch are so spread out.

But in addition, it's a lot due to the sports being so spread out amongst multiple services. So now you have to kind of create your own bundle as opposed to with a cable PATV provider, they're just delivering this one option for you.

Sure, so even if you cut the cord, basically, I think what you're saying is there are live equivalents to cable that are a whole lot less expensive.

Is that right?

A whole lot?

I don't know, I mean slightly. Is where it really depends on what you're looking for. If you're looking for a full replacement for what a PATV provider like an Exfinity or DirecTV offers, it's not going to be a huge savings because those live TV services are making deals with the exact same companies that the other PATV operators are.

It's really just the entertainment networks.

Like, do you have a general philosophy of how you think about streaming, whether like in your own life or just when you talk about streaming content like generally speaking? And what I mean by that, like, do you have like a few different platforms or subscriptions that you always have that you always pay for, or are you being more strategic, like are you targeting platforms for specific shows or certain sports or whatever it is. I'm curious how it is that you approach it.

Yeah, So what I generally do is I have one of those more expensive live TV services for about half the year, and that's coming up.

I've already paused it.

So the next billing cycle that goes off, that's seventy five dollars a month right now, so that I won't pay for until September. And that's mostly because of Live TV, so a mix of sports and news that I like to watch on that service. So now I'm entering a period where I feel like I have more options, So I'll go into some of the cheaper services that I haven't had throughout the year. Netflix is one of them.

So I do. I do rotate the subscriptions.

That's part of the benefit of cutting the cord, but I also know that doesn't.

Really work for everybody.

If there's someone in your house who wants to watch a show and you cancel it, you're going to be hearing from that person like they're not going to be happy with it.

Part of the benefit of the new model is that we can take that rotational approach that there are no year long, two year long, multi year sort of conqu that are forcing us to pay somebody year after year even if we're not getting the same value out of it. But we're still treating I think or a lot of Americans are still treating their streaming service like they're handcuffed too.

And I think that's what that's why when I hear people have this debate about like, oh, it's worse than cable, now, nobody is thinking like, oh, I want a cable guy to come over to my house and spend half the day to install it, or the same for a satellite. So the technology was always going to change because of

That same issue.

They're just not making the same amount of profits as a PATV bundle, which for decades was extremely profitable for the major media companies.

So I would think the people that save the most money in the streaming world or people who just don't watch a lot of stuff, and also people who don't care about sports at all. But if you like sports, especially now, I feel like it's getting harder and harder almost by the month too, because now Apple TV has or Apple TV plus whatever it's called, has the MLS soccer Peacock I believe has the European soccer leagues.

Right.

It used to be that, Okay, at least you subscribe to this one thing and you get all the sports. But that doesn't even seem to be the case anymore. So what would you tell sports lovers when it comes to streaming about kind of what services to have and then how to make sure that they're not spending like a ridiculous sum of money to watch the sports they love.

Sure well, the sports consumers, the ones who are especially into multiple types of sports, are always going.

To be paying the most.

Because what most people don't really understand is with that old PATV model, the price of that was the price that it was because of sports, and it would have been even higher if people had the option to opt out of sports.

So in a way, the sports.

Programming has always been subsidized by people who don't watch a whole lot of sports. It's not what people want to hear, but that's that's the.

Truth of it.

Because like ESPN wouldst would cost the cable companies ten bucks a month, Yeah, just that one channel and then all these other channels you might pay, They might pay them thirty three cents a month or something like that. Nothing, So ESPN is, yeah, it was the big behemoth in.

There, and and there's changes with that too.

So later this year there is going to be a service that's going to include ESPN as well as a bunch of other sports networks. The estimated price, nothing officially yet, is forty to fifty dollars a month. And then in twenty twenty five there's going to be a standalone ESPN and that price is reportedly going to be twenty five to thirty dollars a month for ESPN and then all

That's what I was going to say, that's all over the air.

I think people forget about the antenna and they forget about all the channels they provide. I swear with my antenna, I log in, and I'm shocked at the number of channels I get. I assume that a good many of them are just kind of garbage channels, but there's never been more free content that you can get over the air.

Sure, and I agree with that. And when I paused the subscription, the first thing I did after I paused it is I put my antenna back up. I've just got one of those indoor antennas, and just like you said, it's got like one hundred channels because it's all the locals.

And then they have.

These digital subchannels with a lot of content that I think you also see on similar services like the free stream meet services Pluto, and Roku channel and two B. There's a lot of overlap there.

But the Yeah, the Sodi's Crackle that's another one.

I feel Crackle's good too.

Yeah, and I read recently that antenna use is actually on the way on the way up.

It's now like one in five households.

And hey, maybe if the prices go up more people will give it a shot.

Exactly. It makes sense when you see how affordable these intendas are, Like you're spending twenty thirty dollars for like the extra long range one. You get it positioned in a window, tape it up there or whatever. Like at our old house, we literally like thumb tacked it to the wall high the TV so you literally couldn't even see it and it just blended in with a dark wall. They make them like flat. I mean, it's just like it's like a sheet of notebook paper with a cord

As well, but it canopy as well. Right, Yeah, that's a whole other who's got your library card?

Yeah, it's a whole other thing. But I'm curious what your thoughts are, like, is it worth the hassle or the time to go looking for some of that free content via some of those free apps.

Sure, it's worth the time, especially if you don't want to pay, and there's a lot of people who don't want to pay. Those apps have a ton of content, and it's in that traditional TV feel like there are some people who open up a pay service like Netflix and they get totally overwhelmed with the options and they end up watching nothing. So you can open up Pluto and it has a guide that looks just like your old cable guide and it'll serve you a bunch of

You just are gonna have ads to break it up, all right.

You mentioned the overwhelmed opening Netflix. I think a lot of people feel that, and it is your there's a deluge of content. Specifically, I think Netflix has or at least used to prioritize the amount of offerings over the quality. And it's not that they didn't have some quality stuff, but there's just a ridiculous amount of content to sort through.

Well, I mean my approach is very simple.

I use the watchless features within the apps, but also I'm mostly a Roku guy, and they have a way to create a watch list across multiple apps. So you go into your save list and then you just pop up whatever you haven't.

Checked out lately.

And then I'm sure you guys can relate to just people in your life recommending shows to you that you've never heard of. So instead of just being like, I'll just put them in my notes app on the phone, Yes, so've I mean, I've got plenty of stuff that and when it's time to, you know, check out that service, whether it's a free, year, paid service, whatever it's on, then I'll already know what I want to watch because I'll have something to talk with my friends about.

Yes, I love it, Michael, That's exactly I've gotten more organized about that over the past year because I realized I had this one particular note where I would jot all of this down, and so I said, you know what, like I literally did this last year, I want to start making this official, and so at the top I added a title and it's called consume, and it's where I put everything that I want to either read, potato

But I love to tell the Matt about Tokyovice.

It's great.

Have you heard of that one, Michael.

No, I haven't. Well, now I'm gonna have to add it to my list.

It's underrated. It's a max max and I've got max right now.

So one other tip that I have, which is not going to work for everyone, but it works for me. Uh, if you have a Roku, you know there are those four keys on the bottom that are basically advertisements. So what I've done is I don't use those, so I've basically put labels over top that show the services that I do have. So it ruins the functionality of those keys, but it's a reminder of the services that I'm paying for right.

On my romote.

So sort of like when you write like a spending category on a specific credit card.

That's exactly what inspired me to do it, is it really it's putting like a sticker on a credit card that says you're a percentage.

That's why I was like, I need to do this for my streaming.

Services come from the same cloths. Yes, for sure. Okay, what's your take Michael on ad supported versus AD free plans? Because you can save a lot of money by watching some ads, and they're not as bad. I think people get a note with them, but they're not as bad as traditional TV was. I mean, we are old enough to remember the twenty one minute show that fits inside of a thirty minute half hour. That's because there were nine minutes worth of ads.

Guys like, that's.

Why and now when you when you watch these and I get that kind of we fell out of the habit of watching ads, and it sucks to go back. But the it seems like the gap has grown significantly between the ad free and the ad supported plans. And I think you've said too that that some are worse than others.

Right, sure, absolutely, And I'm almost forty. I think you guys are right there with me, so I'm I have that same experience of I know what it was like to have to sit through those ads, and if you didn't have a VCR, you weren't skipping through any ads.

You just had to stick with the ads.

I love that you didn't go back to just the what they call it with the TVR. Yeah yea, yeah tea, it's not DVI. You ha'd a VCR man. I never had one of those.

I didn't either, we had a But as far as the ad supported services, the best ones and I've tested them all as far as the lightest AD load are now Amazon Prime, which is added advertising, Netflix Max, and Peacock. Those are the ones that I find the most tolerable. And especially it also depends on what we're watching, So sometimes I'll catch a movie and they'll just have two minutes of ads before the movie.

Starts, and then no ads through it. So for people who are really.

Concerned about the ads, I say, just like, give it a try for a month. You can always switch back to those plans that are ad free. But as far as managing costs, the ad supported plans are the best for the companies. So those are going to be priced lower because between the AD revenue and the subscription price they actually end up making these companies more money than the ad free plans.

And one last tip the piggies back on that is the sales that happen often around Black Friday are for the ad supported plans. So I've got Hulu for a full year for ninety nine cents a month. Granted the Hulu ads are more annoying than they are and a lot of the other streaming services, but I otherwise just wouldn't have Hulu. But twelve bucks a year to be able to watch even just two or three things on there, I mean, that's it seems like a what.

Do you think, Michael, twelve dollars a year to have your cheap or you're film interrupted by like a guy going have.

The same deal.

I will say that that's one of the apps that has stuff that I like to watch. But I would open it a lot more if there were fewer ads. Hulu and Paramount Plus are very aggressive with their ads.

Yeah, that's that's the downside. If it was just a couple ads at the beginning, it's like, okay, you know what I can fine, I'll watch five minutes of ads if I can do that while I go pop the popcorn. Right, But to have a movie interrupted in the middle, that's as you're watching there with the kids. That like that kind of thing, like on a Friday night, that's that kind of bums me up.

Someone once told me they do push ups during all the commercial breaks, So I immediately thought, they're not watching Hulu because there are would be really sore.

They would be just right, that's at least stay so healthy, Michael. But so these are ways that you can save monthly, right, like when it comes to some of the different UH streaming subscriptions. But there are some other ways that you can cut expenses every single month. We'll get to a few more of those right after this.

All right backwards, I'll talking with Michael Timmerman talking about getting scrappy to save some money. And Michael is nothing if not scrappy, and I'm hoping that we can all learn and adapt how we handle our monthly bills thanks to his ability to test some of these services and offer his best advice.

Just to avoid paramount, that's what I paramount.

Yeah, don't do that one and just go back and see what you're paying, man, because you might be paying for stuff you're not even using. You might not have even realized that that is just like low hanging fruit tip right there. But Michael, in addition to streaming services, you you test other things too. Streaming is kind of I feel like what you're known for, and I appreciate all the information you just shared, But talk to me

Well.

I'm using them right now, so things have gone pretty well so far, and right now I think I'm communicating with you on the Verizon one, but I've got both of them, I've tested them long term. I think they will work for a lot more people than you might realize, and that's because they let you connect to the internet, surf the web, you can check your emails, on your home security, some forms of gaming. I think that is where things can kind of break down with the five G home internet services.

But people, I think in.

General, think they need the highest speed, and that's because they're marketed that constantly on television. They need gig speed when most households do not. I'm sitting in a two thousand square foot house. This little box from Verizon and the same for the one from T Mobile.

They work throughout the whole house.

Very impressive.

You just plug it in and go right. And what are the speeds? What is the price point and how much savings does it represent over maybe traditional home internet.

So you mentioned seventy five to eighty I think for and I think that's in line with what a lot of people tell me they've paid maybe fifty to seventy five. These newer options are around fifty. They're cheaper if you have a phone plan with that phone company, but that is going to be a post paid wireless plan. You need an expensive phone plan to get a savings on the home internet.

Which might be worth it if you are looking at the bigger picture. Right, the ability to look at your overall holistic financial picture as opposed to getting the absolute cheapest cell phone provider. But now, uh sorry, you're stuck paying Exfinity Internet and you know they have it retard your call in like two or three mins.

I don't want to.

I don't.

I want to wear this as a badge of honor. Matt and I. We pay twenty five bucks here a month through Exfinity for I think we get one hundred and fifty to two hundred makes of speed.

Well they just did like a speed upgrade.

They upgraded it. Yeah, yes, so you get that you're on the lowest plan.

And still and it's twenty five bucks a month and it's plenty of speed. So it's I think you don't necessarily have to go to one of the new fangal things. I mean, maybe it works better for you where you live, but it's it's all about shopping around and kind of pitting them against each other. That's that's also going to lead to say.

And some people just don't have those options though, jol Like, some people don't have another option to pit against Exfinity, so they may pay that twenty five dollars, but it's for one year and then that doubles the next year. So that's the if you're willing to switch every couple of years, Yeah, you're gonna be able to keep your internet bill twenty bucks thirty bucks lower than that average you mentioned.

Again, it's all about being scrappy. So, Michael, one last question for you. I think you've tried something like fifteen different phone plans over the.

Years, so maybe more than that. I think I definitely at least fifteen.

Some of them no longer exist or they've merged, there's been some consolidation.

In that space.

Okay, so over the years, like what have you learned and specifically, like what are the best discounters that you typically recommend and who are you currently using? Are you using Verizon in order to gain access to that five G box?

I don't have a post paid plan and I haven't for a very long time.

I have now Visible, which.

Is owned by Verizon, and that does get you a discount on the Verizon Home Internet. So that's a little bit of a savings sack. You get a better discount with the Verizon post paid servery cool.

So you're yeah, you got the Verizon network, you're paying discounted through Visible, but you're getting the Verizon Home Internet.

For it, Yeah, and for a discount, so it's I think it's a ten dollars a month discount on the home Internet.

What other cell phone providers in the discount space do you typically recommend. I know some people tend to think, oh, the discounter, it's got to be inferior quality, right, it's I'm gonna be my calls are going to drop more frequently. Matt and I talk about how the NBY and o's there on the backbone of the major networks, So that's not the case. You shouldn't You shouldn't have to worry about that. There are some minor trade offs, but yeah, do you have any other favorite discounters out there?

I think what you said is a lot of that is just dated information. When I started reviewing these, Sprint was still around, and a lot of the same companies today that the MVN knows today used to use Sprint, and Sprint's reputation is just not good. I know you used to have it, Joel.

Right, that was the lowest amount I've ever paid. We had ten lines on.

There's ten friends.

Yeah, and literally people I didn't know and their cousins, and we were paying one hundred and something dollars a month, low low hundreds, like one hundred and fifteen after taxes and everything. So and that was back when you had to have multiple lines in order to get a substantial discount. You get a solo line. Sorry, you're paying seventy bucks a month, like there's no way around it. But that's

And also with the with Sprint no longer around now, and there's not that one carrier with inferior coverage who kind of put a whole I think put a stain on the MV and OS Now, I think it's really just a matter of figuring out who has the best

Okay.

And what about Google five for international travel?

Yes, I mean if you travel a lot, But if you're traveling, if you're planning a trip two years from now, you don't need Google five. There's other ways that you can get data coverage when you're overseas.

Literally the Esis right, yeah, he said, is a great way to do that. Okay, Michael, very very last question for real, are you just doing this this profession to get the tax right off on the streaming services in the owner that you would have otherwise paid for and paid full price?

Well, absolutely not. It's really, uh not that not that big of a rite off.

This is this is fun for me and personal finance just I mean, personal finance is a passion of mine. I wouldn't call it an obsession of mine. But I'm just sharing people what I'm doing to save money. And it's gonna work for some people. It's not gonna work for everybody, right though. That's the thing about this space and what you guys do is that people can listen and they can pick and choose what will actually work for their life.

Yeah, that's right, without going completely crazy because there's a two minute ad in the middle of the movie, like at the most inopportune time.

Some folks will put up with that. Other well, some maths won't.

Yeah, but Michael, we appreciate you coming on the podcast today. Working folks. Check out the different products and services that you are reviewing and talking about.

Sure, Michael says dot com. Michael says on YouTube.

That's how you find me, and you can email me too, Michael at Michael says dot com. I do free personal recommendations.

Very cool.

Michael, thanks for joining us, my friend. We appreciate it.

Thanks guys, to talk to you soon.

All right. Great conversation about slashing your streaming. Should we have called the episode that Joel instead of you like the scrappy like scrab you? Uh no. Fun conversation with Michael Timmerman again.

Isn't there a cartoon animal name scrappy scrappy Scooby Doo?

Yeah, Yeah, that was it.

Scooby Do's like little bro or what was oh scrappy doo?

Yeah, scrappy Do. Okay, he's like the little guy Okay, do you have a big takeaway from our conversation.

I do.

I do. It's you hate advertisements on services, at least at least in the middle. You don't mind them on the front end.

So we didn't even talk about this, but I hate them so much that I would rather cut all the different services. Like we literally don't pay any any subscriptions to any of the different streaming services right now. We decided to go cold Turkey basically, and we're kind of saying how long we can go go before the kids revolt because that's that's essentially where we are right now.

Okay, so not even Disney Plus for the kids, No, we have it.

Like literally, they were looking to watch something the other day and to the younger girls were like, can we just rent this one movie? We're willing to pay. It was like I think it was four dollars for the renolds, like three to nine, and so each there's two of the girls and they each chipped in two bucks so

Forced great depression at Matt's house.

It's the ability to value your money in a way, just aligning your spending.

With your values. It's more than money. It's not the seven bucks a month even necessarily.

I would imagine it's a combination of everything. And it's a little bit that p Yeah, it's a little bit of the financial, but also like how can we better spend our time perhaps as a family.

And by the way, you can't skip those ads, so easy to skip the podcast ads, which I appreciate.

That's true.

Okay, So I want to say my big takeaway is when Michael talked about his weekly financial checklist, and I think it's the systemization of things means you don't have to constantly be worried about money or constantly be thinking about it. When you have this kind of Friday morning routine that he has, he can check in on his money and he can very quickly assess kind of what's going down, how things are shaping up. I like it, and you know what changes he needs to make, and

No, I think it's I think, yeah, it's so true if you feel like it's some that it is something that is sort of taking over your mind, the ability to kind of partition it and to put it into silos so that way you like, all right, it's money time, you attack it and then you let it go.

It kind of like the flight of the concords. It's business time, but it's money Time's money time. But for him, Yeah, I really liked.

A part of that was his weekly credit card payoff, which stood out to me because most folks, or at least myself, I'm looking at it month to month, but he's checking in on it every single week, and I think that's so smart. The ability just to stay on top of your spending, because you could potentially, let's say you forget and it builds up, you don't realize how much you've actually spent, let's say on groceries or and entertainment, and by the time you get to the end of

I love what he did with his remote taping. I mean like, there are all these little different things you can do, so I think, remind yourself of what you're paying for. And I love the seasonal nature of his aproach too. He's like, yeah, I'll have a target it. It's not always on the expensive live TV. It's YouTube TV for six months and then he's doing away with that seventy five or whatever it is dollar bill. So yeah, I think that that's a good way to think about things.

We'll see. We'll talk about it later this year. Man. But the beer you and I enjoyed today was called a buzz Fest. This is a beer by Infinite Ale Works, a seasonal ale. Yeah, is this this is when you picked up.

I picked this up down in Okalla, Florida. Actually have a really cool little micro brewery there, just outside of downtown Okaala, and I was like, they only had two package beers, so this was by default kind of the choice. I meant, right, I'm getting yeah, but no, I like this one. It's it's got October Fest sort of vibes, kind of a multi light brand beer.

But it's got like multi multi a nice.

Sweetness too going along with it. So yeah, if you like the October festival sweetness, and you can tell that's when they brew this. So we maybe were drinking this, you know, six months past.

Past Prime has been sitting well, we've had such great listeners sending in amazing beers that this is one that we've literally just kept in the fridge all these months. But yeah, super maulty, super bretty. It reminded me we've been thrown down a bunch of English muffins recently. I know we've all been on the Nooks and Crannies original bread, and this totally reminds me of that a whole lot.

It's better than the nukes and cranny.

That's so good. It's so good. But yeah, this German amber pilsner. Is it a Pilsner Marsley Mars But it's like a like the bass maybe the bass beer, I don't know, but either way, enjoyed it. Thankful that you picked this one up for us, Buddy, but we'll make sure to have show notes up on the website at how the Money dot com. We'll link to Michael site his YouTube channel as well. But Buddy, that's gonna be it for this episode until next time.

Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out.