How to Take Advantage of Free Stuff #049

parties to go to. Oh my gosh, yeah, which is partly why you and I both sound a little horse. We might have been making a little too merry maybe, yeah, man, and those actually we were at the same three parties last week, which sounds kind of ridiculous because I mean, we do have lives outside of our own relationship. Should we find some other friends or something like that. I

don't know, it sounds ridiculous. Uh, you've got something you're excited to to get for Christmas, like a gift, So I don't really have like a long list of gifts Christmas list, like like when you're tin I sent it to Santa. It was super thick, we'll see what I get. No, I mean, really my philosophy for asking for presidents for Christmas? I mean, well, first off, there's not much I need. There's not much I asked for, but my mom like texts me eight times like seriously, what do you want

for Christmas? And so I feel like I have to provide her something and that sounds familiar. So I just always asked for something that I wouldn't buy myself, but that I would like to have, And usually that's like a soccer jersey or some sort of he Laney United paraphernalia. So right, hoping to get hoping to get a jersey this this Christmas? Yeah, for me, I'm actually thinking of do you have an e reader, like something that you read digitally with or do you just stick with paper books?

Now paper books or articles on my phone or whatever it is? Guys. Yeah, I actually mentioned something to Kate kind of offhand, and I hope she heard me shared it with maybe a family member, because I don't think she was planning to get it for me, But an e reader or like a Kindle? Do you have an

e reader? I don't know. I don't I'm not I'm not really into that I read stuff on my phone sometimes just articles, but other than that, I'm reading paper books, saying I just never got into reading something on a screen. I feel like I'm in front of the screen too much anyway. Right, Well, that's the thing, that's why it's different, is because they use the e ink and I've seen it in person, and every time I see it kind of blows me away because it's not an actual, you know,

led screen, It's an e ink screen. It's kind of magic. Reminds me of Harry Potter with the map. I don't know how much Harry Potter lore, you know, but there's a special map and the ink moves on the paper. Oh yeah, I've seen the movie. Yeah, but I just haven't read those books, although i'd love At the point, I can't wait till my daughter grows up and she's got to read them and you have to, you're forced to read them to her, exactly. Yeah, I have hopes

that that will be the same for me. But yeah, just reading more stuff digitally, and I've been reading more PDF lately, and I would love just to have a just a little e reader, like something basic, but just to be able to either read a study or just a book. Again, like you said, it's something that I wouldn't normally get for myself, but if I think through it, I'm like, this would make my life awesome. Well not really,

but but I would really love it. Right. Yeah, I'll make sure to send a link to this episode to your mom, just as she notes, wink wink. But yeah, man, on that note, you said you're not a huge Christmas list kind of guy, how do you how do you guys do guests for for other folks? Like, do you have folks make the Amazon wish list or do you kind of leave it open and you're just like, all right, whatever you want to get get me, you know you

can get it for me. Whatever. Yeah, So, honestly, we don't really give many gifts to each other in our family. We've kind of button that down over the years and and so so really, you know, my parents will get me usually one thing, and siblings will give a little couple of gift, which is usually just a gift card to a local restaurant or something like that, or or a little experience in town that we know that they love.

But other than that, there's not a whole lot of gift giving on our side and too, I honestly don't really like to get lists from other people to to buy off of. I really like your a little more loosey goosey kind of guys. I want to be I want to be inspired, and I want to get somebody something that I know, the love that they didn't even ask for. That's kind of my goal in Christmas skift giving. I don't always succeed, but it's totally it's totally my goal.

And so this Christmas, Emily and I actually decided not to get each other anything. And what we're doing is we've actually we got a hotel room just yeah you did in Athens, Georgia, which is about an hour and a half away from us, and they've got like just a lot of cool stuff going on in Athens, so you know when that's a great town. That's my alma mater. Yeah, I know. I was actually joking about that because I saw you post that on Twitter or something about I

think it was with price Line. You're upset that they kind of did a bait and switch. Yeah, it's pretty ridiculous, and I was thinking, why the heck is he booking a stay in Athens, Georgia? Home of Creature Comforts, beer without me your co host. I was. I was a little angry. Sorry, buddy, well, good beer, good disc golf and Athens. But I'm only taking my wife, not you. Yeah, but I'm excited about that. That That should be fun. And

by the way, I decided to tell people. So yeah, there was this I'm not gonna like bash price line here. There's no reason, but there was kind of a little bait and switch. And I feel like, if every other website could get it right price line, who is the big dog and has all the technology the world to make sure they have the most accurate price reflected, currently, they just didn't. Um and I didn't really like that.

How you click through the website and then it says, oh wait, actually the price is forty dollars more when every other website seemed to have the accurate price represented. Were they the cheapest ones when they had their own comparisons? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It seemed a little dirty exactly. And so I ended up calling the hotel myself and I said, hey, these online retailers have a better price for hotel room stay than you guys have on your site, and I'd rather the money go into your pockets and not a percentage to one of these third party hotel sites. Um, you know, what's the best rate you can offer me? And they still had a Cyber Monday discount going on like a

couple of weeks later, fifty percent off rooms. So I got the sickest deal at this hotel that was way cheaper than even like a crummy Airbnb. And it's a really cool looking hotel. So I'm excited about that. Nice man, that's awesome. So sometimes you know, it's worth calling the hotel, calling the place, you know, before you end up booking one, just to see if they can match or exceed or maybe they've got, you know, promotion that's not published somewhere

on their site that you're not even seen. Because I was like looking on their site and looking at the dates and didn't see it anywhere. So it was really nice just to call up and ask. And like we had that one episode about asking for a discount, Man, it never hurts. It's got to ask. Just to ask. Sometimes you get consumer tip. And by the way, as we right before we get into this beer, Matt, we have to relish our victory our Atlanta United winning the

MLS Cup our beloved MLS soccer team. It's a beautiful thing. We were both there, super pumped to be there and uh to nothing victory over the Portland Timbers. It was so much fun. They were over seventy three thousand people. Our town came to life and just so exciting for Atlanta, who hasn't won a championship in since second exactly. But the Atlanta brais Man. When we were we taught seriously, yeah, we were super young. Do you you remember? I assume

of course I remember that. Yeah, yeah, not to spend too much time talking about soccer. But for our club to only be two years old and then to and just to walk away with it like like we did, makes me makes me so happy. But there's also a beer reason. I had to mention that our friend Dale is a Portland Timbers fan, came down to Atlanta for the match from Portland and cool dude brought us beer

for the podcast. So what's really cool is that it was after the match the next day that he came by and dropped the beer off to you, so extra pops to him for losing and then actually following through and bringing the beer. It wasn't a bet or anything, but he just was being kind. Yeah, of course. Yeah. I gave him some some local beers to just to, you know, to say thank you, and man, just I love beer trading and I love, love love getting to see other people try some of the stuff that I

love so much. So so Dale brought us Block fifteen Brewing Company, Sticky hands. I p a. So that's what Matt and I are going to be drinking on the show today. Yeah. Man, so he just poured this and cheers. Cheer's buddy. We're gonna try this again, Matt, because last week we both gave one word just an initial response to the beer. I'm gonna let you try it again because last week you picked a really weird word. What's your one word descriptor for this beer? You don't let

my words from last week? Jacket? It was just odd. So if people want to know why Matt referred to the beer is one is one descriptive word that he could use was jacket. Go back and listen to the last week's episode. So can my one word be tears? I guess it can, because I can't help but drink this Portland beer and not think of Dale's tears. Sorry, sorry, Buddy Dale, salty tears dropping in there. That's that's not a good descriptor. You do yours and then I'll do mine. Alright.

So the one descriptive word I would use for this beer floral? Oh really? Yep? Nice? All right, I'm gonna go with resinie. Okay, I like it. So if you guys want to hear the full beer review, stick around towards the end of the show, Matt and I will kind of give you our final thoughts on this beer. Alright, Matt, So onto the topic at hand, how to take advantage of free stuff? Yeah, And the reason that we're tackling this topic today is because there are so many free

resources available to people. But we're so used to consumption and just easy consumption, especially on a subscription basis, we don't even think to take advantage of these free resources that are available to us. Yeah. Man, you know, our culture and honestly, our technology, even it kind of steers us in the direction to spend money. And so chances are, you know, we're not taking advantage and we are overspending

because sometimes we just haven't given enough thought. And hopefully these resources will allow you to be smarter it'll help you to save money, and you know, honestly, it might even make you money overall, it'll just make your life better. Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of free resources, some of which are just gonna be kind of like duh,

I know that. But then I think we're gonna dive a little bit deeper into those resources too, because everyone knows about the library, right, But then it turns out the library has just a lot more resources than you thought they did. Libraries have even gotten with the twenty one century, and there are a lot of resources that the library offers that you probably don't know about, or if you do, maybe you forgot about them. You're not

taking advantage of them. I mean. And the thing is still I want to mention is that with it being the holiday or the Christmas season, we're not saying that

you shouldn't spend money, especially on others, right. Obviously, make sure hopefully you've budgeted to spend on others, but we're hoping this is something that you'll be able to take into your own life personally, kind of once the new year rolls around and you're back to your typical usual spending and you kind of fall back into your regular habits. It's always tough to start new diets, new disciplines around the Christmas season. But again, this is something that we're

kind of mentioning as you're looking forward into the new year. Yeah, and creating a goal to use more of the free resources at your disposal as opposed to consuming and spending money on entertainment. I feel like there's a lot of good stuff in here, Matt that we're gonna get to that kind of will help you accomplish that goal, like really make it easy for you to think about things a little bit differently and start implementing the use of

these resources into your life. That's right, man, We're gonna get to those examples right after this break al Right, Matt. We already mentioned libraries kind of at the top of the show, and libraries are the first example we want to give here. Obviously, there are books and libraries, right, That's the main reason people go to libraries. I was just there on Saturday with my girls. It was super fun because we could kill an hour hanging out with

the library looking for books. Were you were there on Saturday? Yeah, they had a book sale at our Yeah, those friends of the Library day. Yeah, so it was like, I com didn't know you were there. I don't know, I didn't see you. Well, I wasn't there personally, I was. I was taking it out. I didn't see your family either. Yeah, the in laws are in town and they took the big girls out for a little get out of the

house while it was raining. Kind of kind of deal. Yeah, and libraries like the perfect rainy day activity first off, right, So, yeah, so there was the library sale. All books were a dollar or two dollars, which was cool. We didn't buy anything, but we perused and then also we looked around for books to bring home you can check up. I asked Emily this because I didn't know fifty books at a time you can have out at the library, And honestly,

we don't come close to that. But we I swear we've got like fifteen books at a time because we we circled through them kids books mostly, right, We're circling through these books all the time at night, and then we just like sat in the corner and read books for a while too. It's just it's super fun to read in a different space with the girls, and just like all these books that they can go and choose

from and pull off the shelf. So everybody knows that your local library has books, but maybe you forgot or maybe you've just gotten used to hitting the click button and buying books off of Amazon's right, But it turns out that a fifteen dollar book or a twenty dollar book, Man, that that gets expensive over time, So get on the waiting list. Emily does this all the time. She reads a lot more than I do, and so she'll be

on the waiting list for a books. She'll be sixty but you know what, it comes within like three weeks she's she's first on the list. And so I would, yeah, encourage you to sign up for books that you want at your local library, to go check it out and hunt for books that you're that that might interest you. Just use your library for what it's there for. It's like the o G Original Purpose books exactly. But it turns out there's a lot more resources that the library

offers too. Right. Well, one of the things I was most excited about, and I've only learned this this past year, man, is that the library has e books. You can show out e books, you can check out audio books, which is I knew that before because I used to be huge in audio books. We used to travel a good bit and spend a lot of time in the car, and especially before kids, man putting on a nice audio book.

Kate and I used to love doing that. And this is maybe before we were getting into podcast pretty heavy, but we would throw on an audio book and you listen to it for a while, and then you stop for gas and you talk about it for a little bit, talk about whatever you want, but then kind of fired back up. You love audio books, but now e books, now that I learned that, I think that might be

fueling my desire to want to get a kindle. Yeah, Matt, And so speaking of audio books and e books, there are easy apps that you can just log in with your library card info and just sign up and you can start borrowing e books for free and borrowing audio books for free from your library, so like instead of getting an audible subscription. There are just so many free e books and audio books that you can get lent to you via apps like Overdrive and Hoopla, and then

this the Libby app, which is another great one. Well, we'll link to all those app you know in our show notes, but those are great apps that you can use in order to get those free e book and

audiobook resources. Libby in particular, I think has the best selection of just those, and Overdrive and Hoopla actually kind of give you more media than just that libraries are lending now, like TV shows and movies at the same time, all the media basically, Like it's not just about libraries, because I guess they've realized that people aren't reading as

much as they used to do, which is too bad. Yeah, but I guess their mindset is, may as well get in on it because we're gonna have what people are going to consume. Yeah, And but the good thing is, at least on some of the streaming television shows and movies that you can download, there's a lot of educational stuff for kids. It's actually kind of interesting, that's really good that would cost you money elsewhere, So so I

would definitely recommend it to folks. So if you want to cut one streaming service out of your life, well maybe Overdrive and Hoopla can kind of fit that bill and give you the additional streaming stuff that you might want for yourself or your kids. Yea. I am actually super excited to utilize those apps because I'm gonna be able to magically have the new book appear on my e reader, and that's assuming I get one. But if I don't, it's okay, folks, don't worry about it. Do

this e readers like your red Rider bb gun. I'm having all my hope set on this thing. Let's do one more plug for libraries. In addition to media, they've got other things going on to like fitness classes or specifically, I know our library has yoga classes and they've got meditation classes, which are awesome, and I think that's just

an awesome way to get folks into the library. And I think that's all it really takes for a lot of folks just to kind of be surrounded by the books and they think, man, it's been forever since I've been in the library. Let me just walk the aisles and see what I can pick up. And before you know it, they're they're reading at home and watching less TV.

And everybody wins, Yeah, no doubt. Yeah. Often times, you know, the library has like a litany of events to like kids story times going on, so you can show up and there's someone that's reading a special book to the kids. They're also instructional resources like lectures and book clubs. Some of these libraries offer stuff like computer classes and job training,

resume build out resources, stuff like that. So if you're in need of training in any of those areas, library can be an awesome place to turn for for some of those instructional resources. And you and I are both lucky enough to be within a just right out a mile of our local library. So for us, there's just really no excuse when we can throw the girls on the bike pedal up to the library like a bunch of hippies and check out some books, fill our premier

bags up, you know exactly. But again, that's the life we want to live, and this is gonna help you to save money and spend less, So why not take advantage of the resources around you. Yeah, and one of the thing when it comes to digital media and television and movie shows and stuff like that, well, you know what, your local library probably offers a pretty decent selection of DVDs and blue rays and stuff like that as well.

I know our library does. And maybe the streaming library isn't amazing from overdriving hoopla, maybe you're not not going to find quite enough awesome stuff to watch entertainment wise, you know, on those apps. But I think you will find that, you know, some of the DVDs actually are quite current, and so you might find something that was released six months ago that's really solid movie at the library that you won't be able to find on Netflix

or Hulu, and that's free at your library. Hopefully your library is not rolling with bajusses anymore, because that'd be two old school. The hipsters are all about the cassette and VHS rentals. That's enough, how to you hipsters? All right, that's enough about the libraryman, Let's move on to other

free resources like nature. You mean. There was an article just a week or two ago in the New York Times and it talked about how the healthiest cities in America are the ones where almost all of its residents have a public park within a ten minute walk of where they live. And so it turns out, did you did you read the article, by the way, Yeah, it did. Okay, So it turns out that the healthiest city in America is, oh,

you're quisin me, Minneapolis. So interestingly enough, ninety of the residents of Minneapolis live within ten minutes walking distance of a park. And that is the best indicator essentially of whether citizens are going to be active outside and healthy. Yeah, and what was key about that Article two is not it's not just within ten minutes or or that it's just really close, but that specifically it's within a ten

minute walk. And so the accessibility of that outdoor in natural space was incredibly key for making that just a regular part of your life. Because if if you can walk to it in ten minutes, you're gonna go. But if you have to get in a car and load up and go, even if it's a ten minute driveaway, you're not gonna go to corf it's just really close by and there's just a massive freeway in between you

and said park. You're not gonna sprout wings. Is this where there's saying you're not just gonna magically hop over there because we just drink some red bull hop over to the park. You know, Yeah, it's got to be accessible. But on that note, to man, one of my favorite things are like state parks and national parks even as well, but just being able to take advantage of the beauty that's around you. There's just so much that we have in our country, and we just don't think about it

enough when it comes to vacationing. I think a lot of times you think, oh, we're gonna go to Europe, and at least I know for us personally, that is just not something we're doing as much, especially with our family. Yeah, we've got young girls, we've got young kids, and taking advantage of national parks that we can drive to is going to be a huge money saver for us over the in the coming years because plane tickets are expensive, and you can get a national park pass for a

year for pretty cheap. Yeah, for pretty cheap. Or if you know that, okay, there's m we want to hit up Yosemite later this summer. Okay, well it's not gonna cost that much, you know. I can't imagine if you did a comparison of like you like a national park, try to compare that to Disney World for the same amount of time. There'd be no comparison, right. I bet you could literally add a zero onto the total cost

and it would probably be pretty accurate. What do you think five bucks to go out west and go camping and hiking versus five thousand maybe if you go to Disney World. Probably seriously, dude, it's gotta be like a factor of tin like that Disney costs over a hundred dollars today per person. Now that ends up real quick if you want to take your family for a week. So we're talking about free stuff on this episode, right, and national parks typically costs money. So we gotta put

our money in our mouth. Is we got to fulfill our obligation to the listener tell them about how to get in for free. And it turns out that national parks there are over four hundred of them, they do offer fee free days on occasion, and so they have

a list on their website. And the five days coming up in twenty nineteen which you'll be able to access your national National park site for free is January twenty one, m okay April for the first day of National Park Week, August September, in November eleven for Veterans Day, So check that out nice. We'll we'll put a link to the National Park Service website too, so you can see a list of those dates. But it's great playing around that.

It never ceases to amaze me the very topography, the amazing country that we live in, and then the national parks are truly a treasure to get to go see you know, one or two or three great national parks in your life is still an amazing thing to do because we have so many of them, but I swear each one I've been to just blows my mind with with how different it is from the last one and how amazingly diverse our climate is here in the United States,

that's right, man. And even on top of that, aside from state parks, which in Georgia, a lot of them do cost money, but just I mean compared to the relative cost of entertainment, right, they're still substantially cheaper. But even in addition to state parks and national parks, there's just a lot of trails locally. There's nature preserves and there's community gardens that you can just take part of and go hiking. And that's man. We just love doing

that with our girls. Yeah, And I think especially like nature preserves. Really there are, at least where we live, there are a lot of them, and so I'm not sure about where you live if that's the case, but try to find a local nature preserve because those are often free places to go with an awesome playground and a cool nature walk and you'll get to see some stuff that you don't normally get to see. Uh. We have enjoyed taking the girls on like a Saturday morning

to a nature preserve. We can't walk to those, right, it takes a drive, but it's worth it because it's this awesome free day where we get to get outside and go for a little hike together and just kind of explore nature. And the girls always find something interesting under a rock or honestly just find rocks interesting. Right, So that's just always that's always fun, all right, man, So that's nature being outside. Next to stop about museums. A lot of museums and we've talked about this actually

recently too. I just remembered, but a lot of museums have free days. Uh. The second Sunday every month for us here in Atlanta is the free day for the High. And dude, we love hitting up the High. It's a great museum. Yeah. And even aside from that, were just like being on the grounds around the High it's just so nice. I mean, the grounds themselves are almost a park like Unto Unto itself. It honestly makes me think

of going to Europe. You go to different cities in Europe, and they've got chairs kind of scattered all over the cities in public spaces, and they're always full because folks are sitting around enjoying the weather, enjoying the landscape, the scenery, whatever it is. And I kind of feel that way when I'm at the High because it's fancy and they've

got like really nice European looking chairs. Maybe I don't know, but every time we're hanging out up there, I think to myself, man, this is so nice, Like we don't even need to go inside the museum, but just kind of being up here seeing the architecture of the of the building itself and then just letting the girls hang out in the in the lawn and having a picnic for us. That is I mean that in and of itself is an activity for the day. Yeah, no doubt. Yeah.

And the cool thing bringing them back to libraries. Oftentimes libraries will have access or free vouchers for you to go visit your local museum and so not a museum, but recently our wives took advantage. They went together, they took all the girls free day at the zoo. And so there's this DVD at the library. Field rent it and watch the DVD with your kids and bring it back. You get a voucher to take two adults and like five kids to the zoo. And so they did, and

they had a blast. It was a free entrance to the zoos. So maybe your library has something like that. Lots of libraries, lots and lots of libraries offer free access to local museums if you will watch a DVD or check out a book or something like that, and so that's kind of cool too. Or donate plasma. That's a separate thing. I don't think libraries will take your plasma, Matt. That's a different kind of library. And now that's a

bank lib bank. Our wives are so smart, by the way, I just wanted to mention that, like they're always taking taking advantage of the little deals like that, you know,

I love that. Yeah, it's all those little things, right that they truly do add up, and especially rely when those resources are so awesome and can provide so much fun and value for your family, Like, take advantage of them, right, um, take advantage of that freezoo day, take advantage of all those free books, and take advantage of those museum right

the free days of the museum whatever it is. Especially you know what I love doing, man, I love going to Washington, d C. That's one of my favorite cities. And the reason is because all those amazing museums are freaking free. It's incredible, Like I could spend four days at the National Art Gallery in d C. There's just a never ending supply of incredible art just to stare at.

And all of those Smithsonian museums are are free. So if you're looking for even like a cheap vacation to take with a family or your partner or whatever it is, d C is an awesome place to do it because once you get there, after you paid for the travel in the hotel room, Man, so much of your entertainments just free. And even one of our favorite restaurants here real close by, Homegrown. They have this local, small kind of folk art gallery in the back, and it fits

perfectly with a restaurant. Why do you think it's my favorite breakfast place, Matt, It's awesome, dude. I love you both purchased art from there, right, Yeah. I love that place because, yeah, it's got the little folk art gallery. It's also got like a five and dime kind of

thrift store in the back. So not only do I get the best dang breakfast in town, but I also get to peruce some awesome art and just like check out the random thrift store kind of knickknacks they got in the back, and sometimes there's a guy there on the on the big xylophone playing I don't know this guy, you've never been there with the know how I missed him? I don't know. You need to go in them the days that I go, I guess. So, all right, there's

so much culture to your local freakness place. Sometimes well in another thing, another way to go see local art, if especially if you live near an urban center, there's so much good, amazing street art so many places, and there's web resources for you to look up where that street art is, and so that's that's one of my favorite things is go hit up those places where there's a bunch of free street art, and Emily and I will just go for a stroll on date night and

just look at all the awesome stuff. Because there are these amazing murals that are up I think you mentioned that a couple of months ago. Yeah, they're just free and you and they're beautiful, and so yeah, I think I would recomm that's anyone too. That's a great thing to do. You know, we'll just get a beer or get a quick dinner and then go for a stroll

and look at the free art. All right, Matt, The next free thing you have to take advantage of is the Internet and free information because there's so much out there, and I feel like this is like a duf thing. Yeah, that's what's gonna say. But let's leave people just a little bit further into that. Because the Internet has a lot of free resources for you to take advantage of, and there's a lot you can get hung up on that's not actually helpful and not really I wouldn't consider

it a resource. But there's a lot of cat videos and something you just get you get stuck, you know, playing and auto playing videos and the endless loop of cavideos that's free but not helpful. So yeah, let's talk about free resources on the Internet that are actually helpful. Well, first, I did want to say that it's something that we totally take advantage of. It's something that we honestly take for granted, right because for in our life it's pretty

much always been around. Actually, have you did you have an encyclopedia on your computer at home, like the Encarta Microsoft totally. Yeah, yeah, I remember the first we had an Apple back in the day. I think it was called the Rollier Encyclopedia. But it's such a big deal because before that you had to pay to get a full encyclopedia set, and that was sort of a dawn

of having information free. Yeah, there are a lot of things that, like thirty years ago, you would have had to go find a class if you wanted to learn some sort of information, you would have had to pay and take the time out of your day to go to a specific class with a teacher that had the

knowledge you were looking for. But now, with the advent of podcasts and professional YouTubers and there are PhD level folks putting out free information via podcast and YouTube and writing blogs that you can access through Google, it's kind of made that paying for classes for certain things way less important, and I kind of love the democratization of information. I've learned so much about different topics that I honestly

never would have had access to. I never would have thought about just some of the topics that I enjoy thinking about if it weren't for access to your free podcasts, freelong form lectures on YouTube, just hearing professors and interesting people, modern thinkers, people that are just major influencers in the world.

Been way information for free, Whereas, like I said, thirty years ago, it would have been someone teaching at a major academic institution and you're paying tens of thousands of dollars a year to go to that school to learn from this professor. But now that's just not the case. And they can reach so many people at one time with podcast, YouTube and Google. I mean, even aside from that, man, how much money have we saved just searching on YouTube

for how to fix something? Like we? I mean, I We've fixed our air conditioning units, We've fixed our water heaters. I've made a repair on my dishwasher before I fixed a leaking refrigerator. Yeah, dude, there there's just so many things that again, these are ways that it is able to save us, save us money, keeps us from having to hire someone that's a little more specialized. Obviously, if it's something that's a bigger deal or a bigger project,

we're gonna hire a pro. But when it comes to finding these little fixes to to kind of hold us over and even not even hold us over, but to make a legitimate repair man. YouTube specifically is an incredible resource, and on that note, to just more organized and more professional classes. So aside from actual free content on YouTube, but you can take online courses as well. There's just free courses at places like course era and ed x

and you to me as well. These are classes that you would take in on a more academic level, whether it be like at a community college. But some of the instruction and some of the courses that you can get on these websites are offered by legit universities, and not just University of Phoenix, but like bigger actual universities that that that have a single campus where they were

founded like two hundred years ago, um. And and to have that at your fingertips, to have that as an option to try something up for free is just an

incredible resource. And yes, a lot of them are set up in a sort of model where if you want to take higher level courses and or even get a full degree, you're able to do that, and there might be fees associated with that, you might pay a little bit more, but still to be able to get your foot in the door and to learn without having to commit and without having to you know, pay tuition or enroll and show up at whatever time you know, eight

am classes. I know those were the worst. They were totally the worst for me, I as so many of my A M. Classes. But to have again, have these courses online you get a little curious and you kind of are interested in at a certain topic, to be able to explore that without enrolling formally and sort of disrupting your your life, that's just so amazing that we have that available to us today. Yeah, and in some of these classes, Matt, you can take purely for your

own edification. I want to learn the skill, or I'm just curious, right, whatever it is that kind of makes you interested or want to enroll in that free online class, like do it? Why not? It's free, check it out. That's just amazing to think that things have changed that much, you know, since we were born, that we almost take

for granted now. Um And so yeah, I would recommend anybody who's looking for just to do it for purely their own benefit, or to learn a new skill that they think will be beneficial in their job, potentially help them achieve a promotion or kind of help benefit them in their career. Like these resources, these free resources can be a benefit to you for lots of reasons, man. And then so lastly, when it comes to just the

Internet and free information, our phone apps. We've all got these tiny little computers in our pockets called cell phones. And there are now just so many apps that are out there dedicated towards education, whether it be du a lingo. I mean, there's tons of coding apps like for all ages. But you know, I was specifically looking into it for kids.

But then other things like con Academy. You know, we've talked recently about limiting the amount of screen time that our kids have and not necessarily introducing that to them. But in researching this episode, man, I was kind of curious, and you know, I wanted to see what was out there. And there are is just so much out there that you could use if you're active in your child's education, to compliment and to sort of act as just another

outlet for your kid to learn. And yeah, I was honestly shocked at the number of apps that were out there, and not just the quantity of them, but the quality. They were just so freaking good. Yeah, and think about due Lingo write something like that where you can learn another language for free be an app on your phone. Yeah, super cool, it's a great that's crazy man, at your

own pace, however you like to learn. And I love that because I took a lot of Spanish growing up, in middle school, high school, in college, and right now my Spanish is trash, dude, Like, I need to get better at it, I miss I want to get better. I want to go, you know, be immersed in it, and I want to I want to be down in South America more and like using my Spanish skills, but

they're almost non existent at this point. So I need to download some due Lingo and just kind of start learning Spanish all over again and get better at it because it's free and why not. And I just love that. If you're getting ready to take a trip somewhere and you just want to learn the basics or you want to dive deep and try to learn a full language, there's a free way to do that, and it's at

your fingertips. I wonder if they have sort of a competition based version of due Lingo, like could we both started at the same time and then sort of kind of try to outperform each other. Well, that'd be amazing if so, let's do it. Yeah, I totally like I'm kind of into learning Spanish too, so all right, let's fire it up. I'll take you down espaniol ce senor. It's like zero Spanish, so you'll probably totally kick my butt.

All right. At the last category example we wanted to go over was general community resources and so whether it be entertained mint or culture based or educational based, there are a lot of free resources that you have access to in all likelihood in your community, and so specifically in the entertainment category, and there's like free concert series in lots of towns. Maybe there's like jazz bands that play on Friday nights at your local amphitheater or whatever

it may be. In Atlanta, throughout the years, we've had a free concert series in the summer that would take place once a week for like six or eight weeks something like that. And there's also like free fireworks on the Fourth of July and New Year's Eve stuff like that.

We had a tree lighting just recently in in the downtown of our neighborhood, so just really cool stuff that if you know what's out there and you check your local paper, you check website of your local community board, You'll you'll know what's going on, you'll know what the free stuff is it's coming up, and and you'll be ready to take your family to that stuff. That also makes me think of just festival season in the spring

in Atlanta. Once it's once we hit Memorial Day, there's basically a festival every single stinking weekend and it goes all the way into the fall, and there's just so much stuff you can do for free that you don't have to pay for that's just kind of provided by the community, that's provided by the city, and yeah, take take advantage of those things. Yeah, my favorite part of

those festivals is just the people watching. Honestly, like just walking around and seeing everybody looking at the steth of vendors have like it. It's not all about buying a bunch of stuff, but just hanging out at the festival for a few hours. We just we just have a blast walking around those things with as a family. Nice man. Something else that you can find kind of generally speaking in your community are tool banks. Uh. I know we've

got one here in Atlanta. I've never personally used it, but I have used just online communities like Facebook are awesome for reaching out into your sort of local neighborhood and your community. And I've personally borrowed lots of tools that way, and I've also had folks borrow stuff from me that way. And so aside from having an actual organized tool bank where they keep the tools clean and you can go in there and check it out and stuff, kind of reaching out to your community that way is

a way to save money and utilize that resource. Yes, so we'll opposed to link. There's like a National Tool Library organization and they kind of have a map of all the ToolBanks and you United States, so you can see if there's one in your area. I too, have not used the local tool bank, and probably to my great chain, it's because I don't do enough work with tools. I should work on that. But yeah, I've definitely borrowed some from friends and neighbors and that's just kind of

nice to have. And I think that's another just another great point, just that we often don't use those resources, like posting in our Facebook community group to say, hey, does anyone have an air raider that I can borrow because I'm about to fertilize my law on as opposed to going out and buying something A quick post could save you, you know, big money on just borrowing a tool for a day. I too, have lent out my own tools and and happy to do so for friends

that want to borrow it for a weekend. I love the fact that I'm saving them, hopefully from having to go buy something, and and hopefully other friends, you know, will save me from having to go buy something that I'm only gonna use, you know, once or once in a long while. Alright, Joel. So that was a few examples that we gave of resources that are free that

you could be taking advantage of. And so after the break we're gonna come back and we're gonna cover some specific and these are things that you can do right now, right away in order to take advantage of these free resources. All right, Matt. I think one of the most important reasons to stress and why we want people to take advantage of these free resources is it oftentimes you're kind of already in some way former fashion paying for them.

Right The National park System, State park system, the library that's in your neighborhood, the local parks, those are funded by your tax dollars, right, So you are in in one way, you're paying for these resources to exist, and I think by not taking advantage of them, by not using them to their fullest extent, we're doing ourselves a disservice. We're leaving something amazing on the table that we've already paid for and we're putting it in the back of

the closet, so to speak. These are things that we're going to discuss and they're not crazy complicated or super sophisticated, right, but we're hoping that by us going over these things that and you're hearing them, that you will actually take the steps necessary in order to to actually take advantage of these things. So specifically your local library. Go up there and get a library card. You need to check it out. See what they have, see what classes, what resources,

what different events that they have going on. These are all things that will make your life richer. It will allow you to feel more connected to your community. And plus, man, it's just fun, Like it's just a lot of fun. And then this is something that we've like our family has felt challenged a little bit, you know, by you guys. But to see you guys taking advantage of it. It's it's awesome we see that, not I think, man, yeah, we need to do that more often too. Why are

we not doing that? And it's because you just don't think of it. It's it's not something that rises to the top. And in our sort of society, you don't hear people saying, yeah, we're gonna go to the library. You wanna come with us. It's not like this thing that we do as as family is it's not something I even really did as a single person. And so for us to kind of bring light to it and kind of shine a light on it, hopefully it's yeah, jogs people's memories of like, oh, yeah, there is a library,

like right there, I pass it every single day. Why am I not going there? And oftentimes as you walk into your local library map there's like a bulletin board or a white board or something like that with event information on it. And so next time you go into your library, check and see what events are happening at your library. There's also probably a posting of events on your local libraries website, so check that out. It might not be happening at the library right next to where

you are. Lots of times there these libraries are in a system, right, which means that you have access to books that aren't just at the library next to you, which is great, but also it might mean that you'd have to travel to an awesome event at a little bit bigger library a little bit further away from here, because like the library by us, it's awesome, but it's also pretty small, so we don't have all the resources

at a bigger library might have. How do I go to the library with the swimming pool, Oh, that would be nice and the beer tasting all right? Also, Matt, we want to encourage people to get outside. Check out your state tourism website to see what sort of events are going on or what park days are free to get into your state parks. We already mentioned, you know, the national parks in the free days that are happening, and also the city hall for community events like the

local tree lighting or a community festival. Yeah, and I wanted to touch on that real quick too. When it comes to taking advantage of the state and national parks, I think a lot of times people think I'm not I can get out there and go hiking for you know, however many miles or hey, I've got kids, How's that

gonna work out for me? We'll start small, right and so for us, we saw some families when Kate and I went up to a Kadia National Park and they had the little kids hiking up the same freaking mountain that we were hiking up and we were wind ye were? I mean? Kate and I looked at each other and I thought, how the heck do we get our kids

to do what those kids are doing? And what we realized after talking about it was that we just gotta start small and so and that means starting at your local park and just walking around the park and then stepping it up to like a little small mountain that you can go visit for free, and then before you know it, then you can hit up the biggest state parks and then you can hit up the big national parks.

We're actively pursuing that because we have a bigger goal in mind, because our bigger goal is that we want to be able to take our entire family and go on these multi day hikes, or at least some solid hikes.

Doesn't have to be multi day. If we want to go back and spend the night in a hotel, that's fine, But to be able to get out there and have them enjoy it, not only to be in shape, but just for them to know that this is fun and to see why it's fun, and to understand the time that they're able to spend out nature and with their family.

To us, we found that that's so important because Kate and I we feel rejuvenated and we love that time that we get to spend together, and so we're trying to start young and brainwash our girls so that they know that that's what is also fun. Right. Yeah, that's that's great, dude. I love that idea of starting small and working towards that bigger mountain to climb, and that's

very good. Yeah, that's super cool. So it just it makes me want to go do the same with my girls, take them out and do a couple of smaller hikes and just kind of get them used to get kind of break their legs in as it were, but hopefully no actual broken legs. Yeah. And Jel, you already mentioned, you know, to check out resources in your area, and that's the the downside, right is that some of these more local things, it's gonna come down to what's specific

in your town or your neighborhood or your county. You know, we all share the national parks, but whatever is happening on more on a local level, it's gonna come down to just what's going on around you, So be sure to look around and see whoever it is that publishes a list of those free activities local happenings. Often times it's gonna be, like you said, dull, like a local bulletin board, maybe at the library. But if not that,

you know, you've always got the paper. And a lot of times there's different entertainment periodicals and papers that exist as well who focus on those different kind of events, So be sure to pick one of those up if you haven't already. Yeah, man, Another easy way to kind of find out about local happenings is to ask your friends. I feel like I learned about so many things that are happening in our neighborhood that I didn't even know about before until my friends tell me, or I ask, hey,

what are you up to this weekend? Oh, we're going to this or this for that. That's so much of the way I stay in for him is by just hear what people are up to, and so I would yeah, and just just by being human, right, talking to folks. So so yeah, ask your friends, ask your neighbors, Hey, what are you doing? Hey, what's the last cool free

thing you did in town? What are your favorite free resources you know nearby where we live, and you know, starting to as those questions and can make you aware of some cool free resources that you had no idea

that they even existed. And you know, honestly, what I love about the different free resources is that they tend to push you out into the world, like out in the public, which is something that I love because I feel that so much of our consumeristic culture focuses on you as an individual, and so when you're making these purchases on your own, by yourself, without consulting others, you're just by yourself because you have everything that you need,

and it leads to isolation and you're by yourself, and that's not really healthy as well. Certainly, there's introversial extroverts. People have different levels of time that they want to spend around other people, But generally speaking, there is something incredibly healthy about being sort of pushed out into the world, being surrounded by your neighbors and like minded folks and folks who aren't like minded, right, Like, this is all

part of a full rich community. Anybody can take part in a resource that's free, and so you're gonna cross paths with somebody that you wouldn't normally cross paths with. Yeah.

I think one other thing. We want to encourage people to challenge yourself and desire to grow, especially when you're using technology, right like the apps that we talked about, or YouTube or podcast there's a tendency to even use those things as a way to veg out or just mindlessly consume and considering like the vast amount of amazing resources that you have access to, the amazing people that you have so much information to give and they're giving

it away for free. I would challenge you, when you're looking at the next podcast you want to listen to, or the next YouTube channel you think you want to subscribe to, whatever it is, try to find something that isn't just going to gratify your immediate desires to be entertained, but instead trying to find something that is going to help you uh to learn a new skill, or achieve something that you've never achieved before, or learn something that

you've always wanted to know about but you've never dove into it before, but now you have access for free because of those Internet resources. So challenge yourself to do that with those free resources, because it's just really easy to abuse them. Dude. I love that just because there's lots of stuff out there that is free doesn't mean you should be consuming it, right, Well, I mean essentially

that's what you're saying. But just because there's this unlimited buffet of entertainment like cat we're joking about cat videos earlier, but but seriously, just because there probably more cat videos on YouTube than I can even watch in an entire lifetime, Yeah, dudeful.

For me, it's it's less about the cat videos. And there's more of these sort of like crash videos that are popping up, like either dash cam where like a semi truck almost like tips over onto this unsuspecting Kia, like driving next to it on the interstate, and like for me, that's yeah, it's less about the cats. It's more about the near misses that kind of suck me in. If I was gonna start a band, I call it unsuspecting Kia. Can I play bass? You got it, buddy,

our Matt. So let's get back to the beer. We're drinking Block fifteen brewing company Sticky Hands. Sticky Hands, Sticky Hands, brought down to us by our friend Dale from Portland. But yeah, Matt. At the beginning of the episode, we each gave one word to describe this beer. Yeah, man, mine was resume or resin and what was yours? Mine was floral? Floral you wanna kick it off? So floral. Yeah. I just felt like this beer had a bouquet of

smells coming coming off of it, which is awesome. You just get a ton of hops, you know, a rollm up coming up through the nose. You know. I thought based on the smell that it was going to be even more dank than it was. But I feel like the hot taste actually, to me, tasted a little more florally. I've definitely had the pine, the pine backbone, but it also had like some nice floral florales. Yeah, light and

and yeah it's super tasty. Yeah, I'm with you a lot of times when you like the danker sort of, I p a is have a sort of a wet basement kind of a heavier feel to it, and this kind of sits light up there. But for me, yeah, it did have sort of a resume. It got that classic kind of West Coast I p A where there's resins, piney. But I totally get what you're saying about the about

the florals though. It's a delicious I p A. And it's kind of nice having something like this too in the middle of the winter when we've been drinking some bigger stouts, some bigger beers that might seem a little more appropriate for the winter, But dude, I'll drink an I p A any day of the year, any day for sure. All Right, Matt, we're both on untapped, which is an app that is free for super beer nerds like this. I like to keep track of the beers

they're drinking and see what their friends are drinking. What would you rate Sticky Hands on Untapped? Yeah, man, I think I would give this four point. Oh It's it's not a style that I always gravitate towards, like more of the West Coast I PA. But you know, it tasted great, nice florals, like you said, And maybe because the name Sticky, you know, it kind of made me feel like there's just enough sweetness in there that kind of kind of pulled me in. And maybe want to

drink another one. So yeah, I'll give it a four point Oh yeah, I agree, I mean I thought it was you. I'll give it a three point seven five. It's super solid. I agree you had a lot going on. It's really kind of fun to drink an ipa that's completely different than what we normally get and I really dug it, and so yeah, solid three point seven five from me. Yeah, great beer, all right, Joe, So real quick,

let's go ahead and give our final thoughts. The whole reason that we're talking about this is because oftentimes there are free resources out there and we do not think to use them. Once we do, we really as that it is just a much smarter and a more efficient way to use the resources around us. As mentioned, it will save you a good bit of money, So be

sure to take advantage of those free things all around you. Yeah, Matt, these free resources are just gonna make your life better, really, So get outside, find a list of free activities of the local happenings. You'll find that resource and tap into it, and also make sure to ask your friends. Ask around of people in your community that you know are doing cool stuff, of your neighbors who you know are taking advantage of some of these free resources. Hey, how are

you doing it? Where you finding out about these things? And and what are some of your favorites? And those are great ways to kind of get started down the rabbit hole of finding out what free resources are available and then tapping into them, because you don't want to leave these things on the table, right, They're free, and

they're awesome and they can benefit you in so many ways. Yeah, man, and real quick, this actually makes me think of the episode we just did about talking to your friends and family about money. What a great ice breaker to actually start talking about money with your friends then just to talk about like what cool festivals are you going to go to next week? Like when you have something like this in your real life that you're able to point to and ask about and share with your friends, then

you can start those discussions about money. And it's really easy to do, no doubt. Man. So thanks everyone for listening. Our home on the web is how to money dot com. We'll have links up for all the things that we mentioned on this episode. Yeah, that's right. And if you like this episode and have found it helpful, please consider

leaving us a review. We would love to to hear how this podcast might be helping you and your financial journey, so consider leaving a review, and while you're there, hit subscribe our buddy. Until next time, best Friends Out, Best Friends Out,