Just Keep Buying with Nick Maggiulli #499

Some folks just get all of the brains. But even though Nick he's had a heart for personal finance, it's only been in the past five years or so that he actually started seriously writing about money. And his new book, Just Keep Buying It actually comes out tomorrow. We were lucky enough to get an early copy and it is fantastic. Nick. We'se insightful stories with actionable advice that is gonna it's gonna help anyone who reads it. We can guarantee that

we're excited to talk about the book much more today. Nick, thank you for joining us today on the podcast. Appreciate that man. Thanks Joel for having me on. Yeah, we're glad to have you Nick, And yeah, we've been reading your block for a couple of years now at least, and it's it's definitely one of those that we go back to every single Tuesday when it drops. Um. So the first question that we ask anybody who comes on the show is, you know, Matt and I we like

to drink craft beer. Everybody knows that by now, but it's something that we splurge on right now while we're saving for the future and investing. Well, um, do you have something like that? What do you like to splurge on? I know you live in New York City. Is it just trying to find the best burger every week? Or what's your big splurge. I think my splurges restaurants, Like I like going to nice restaurant. It is burgers. It's more like dry age rib. I Like, that's really my splurge,

you know. So I'm I'm a little more fancy on that bar. But yeah, outside of that, like I'll admit I'm a little bougie when it comes to restaurants, Like I I'll buy like eight dollar you know, v Nex from Amazon. But then if I go to a nice restaurant, Like, I have no problem you know, spending spending good money there, especially post COVID, Like I really support the rest of history. So do you feel like you're missing out on that

splurge during COVID? Obviously a lot of restaurants in New York were able to kind of do the outdoor service, but there's only so many months that you can do that without freezing your tail off. Yeah, I mean that one of the reasons people live here is for like

that's like, you know why. It's like I used to cook, so I cooked a lot basically, you know, and the one of the reasons I live here is because, like you know, I could cook, but I just it's not going to compare to the chefs and all the people that are cooking here. They're just so much better at it. It's like, why would I do that when I like food. I'm a big foodie. So for me, it's like I'd rather just go to restaurants. So yeah, it was not the greatest during that period, but you know, and just

cook for myself and kind of went from there. So yeah, if if you give Nick a follow on Instagram, you can see his occasional plate of whatever it is that he's eating. Usually jealous and I see the post see at the different restaurants. But obviously you also post a lot about money, and that's what we're talking about today, Nick Um and specifically, you know, you begin the new book talking about your your grandfather, your grandpa who was

addicted to gambling. Can you talk about that something like was was that one of your earliest money memories? Yeah? And so I don't like remember him like I actually never remember seeing him like in the casino or anything like that. I was very young, but we um he would do that, and I've heard stories from my father. There's a lot it's a lot worse than what I painted it out to be, like stuff where like he

would like after he ran the money. I heard he used to like beg people at the casinos for more money. Just really just it's he had a he had a sickness, he really did, and it was it's unfortunate, you know, to to know that. And you know, he was a very good man. He was. He was a churchgoer, love, you know, very religious and everything. But at the same time, like he had his he had his demons, and I

was gambling unfortunately. But um I really saw it. I mean we would we go to the you know, I was a child go to horse races and stuff, and so that was me. I was. I like, because I was seeing a little horses runner. I had no idea it was all about gambling and money or any that, right. But so for me, most of those memories I just enjoyed because I was with my father r and like we would go to the county, the Pomona County Fair right in southern California, and or the l A County Fair.

Sorry it's some Pomona and we would just wash the horse races. In my grandfather they will be gambling or whatever. I didn't think anything of it, you know at the time. But yeah, he just gambled like his whole life. And like I said, I calculated it. When you see in the book, it's a lot of money that he gave away, right, you know, my father and I sat down, like he's gambling easily, over a million bucks easily, And it's kind

of crazy to think about that. I understand that's a lot of money in itself, but like just thinking about what that could have done for, you know, whither our family or for he could have donated some of that whatever.

It was, like, there's just a lot of money that was you know, it was just spend frivolously in my opinion, Right, do you do you feel like that that had an impact on you, like kind of in your earlier years and and certainly you know, I think kind of like our teen years is when we start to develop opinions and realize things about our past that start to shape us. Do you do you feel like that had an impact on you as you begin to grow up? Yeah, Like,

I never I never gamble. I've never gambled a single dollar. Like in my life. The only thing I've ever done is like I've done like poker game with my friends or something. But that's more like for the soul, paying the fifty bucks is like a social thing. It's not like I look at losing the money. I'm not like, oh my god, I'm gonna come out of here and make I just take it as an l and just

go in there and have fun. So um. But yeah, I think it affects just how you think about money and you realize like and then once once I started learning probability, and like, oh you know when you're gambling, there's a negative what we call expected value, like you're expected to lose money per play on average over the course of your lifetime. Right, So once you learn that, then you're like, oh, no, wonder, like this is how

all these fancy casinos were built, you know. And I really love Vegas as a kid because if you're in southern California and you don't have a lot of money, your vacation is you go to Vegas. Right. It's a four hour drive, you do it, and that's like your vacation. Right. So I used to go to Vegas. Line is love that, you know. I was a little kid. I wasn't gambling or anything. I was like just love the lights and

the casinos and how fun. It wasn't very family oriented in the early nineties, so um for me, it was like that's where we went a lot. And so I love that stuff. And now I know what how those casinos got built, you know, people like my grandfather gambling. Unfortunately. Well, thank thanks for sharing that, and yeah it does kind of it sets up your book in an interesting way. And but the main topic in your book you're really that you're really trying to combat, is that you know,

when when you buy matters. We're talking about investing, right, and so, um, we were joking before we started recording that I don't think anybody has like spilled more ink when it comes to the topic of buying the dip

than you Nick on your blog. Um. But yeah, let's talk about like kind of timing the market a little bit and and why is why is that something like if you go on personal finance Twitter, you're gonna see a lot of people like, you know, the markets down two percent today by the dip, and you kind of think that that's just um nonsense. So yeah, tell us, tell us why you're kind of against that mentality. I

think the whole issue is buying the dip. And I mean this this is I mean you're discussing the book I've written on this is basically like, if you have cash to buy the dip, that means you were you had all this excess like investable cash that is right sitting on the sidelines, not earning you anything, and you're waiting for this dip to happen. No, two percent dips are small to happen all the time, you know, so

that's nothing major. But most of the time as you're waiting for this dip, and if it never shows up, you end up sitting in cash for a very long time. So, you know, I think it's more of like the by the dip movement is more of like a cultural thing in an actual great investment strategy. I think it's funny um itself. But I mean, if you're sitting I'm saying, if you're sitting a lot of cash, I'm waiting for

the next big tempercent dip. Statistically, by the time that dip comes, you're gonna be buying higher than when you bought when you could have bought originally. And I think a good example of this is I remember I was writing, you know when I wrote, I actually wrote a post

called just keep Buying. You know, it's literally gonna come out, so five years to the day of when I wrote that post in April, five years later, the book comes out very ironic, right, It just because perfect It's funny because the book was that my book is actually was coming in February, but because the supply chain crisis, there was on paper all the stuff that happened. You so has kind of all that stuff you got affected everything because of that. It got pushed two months and I'm like, oh,

that's weird. And then I looked I was like, wait, that's the exact same day, like perfect, Yeah, that's wild. Your books all the ever, given it was probably stuck on that. Yeah. Um So basically, like I wrote that five years ago, and people then were like, markets are

over value, this is crazy. You can't be buying since then, the markets up has double basics, right, And even if you're the craziest part, even if you had the foresight to know, hey, mar is gonna be the biggest dip we've had in the last you know, decade, I'm gonna wait.

So even if you had waited since I wrote that post, you know, or beginning of twenty seventeen, and you had waited until March and you had bought, then you still would have purchased at a seven percent higher price on the lowest day during the biggest crash we've had in the last decade than if you had just bought at the beginning of seventeen, like I originally said. So, of course that's not always gonna happen, right, If you had bought in twenty nineteen, you would have been better to wait.

But you're not gonna know when the bottom is. You're not going to know how Like this is a ridiculous Like I'm already setting up the premise as being a ridiculous you know, a statement in itself right, And the fact it's like if you knew the future, Like, if you knew the future, you would have like underperformed. It would have been suboptimal to wait that long. You could

have just bought earlier. You know, So if you knew the future, you wouldn't have bought that final Combrady touchdown football, you know. Yeah, a couple of quotes that you give when you're talking about that in the book, you say, buy investments like you buy food, which I think is just like a really good way to think about it. And then you go on to say, even God couldn't

beat dollar cost averaging. And it's like, you know, and when we talk about dollar cost averaging, can you can you define that for us and maybe just kind of yeah, give your thoughts on just like doing it consistently and

why that's just the best route to go. Yeah. So the I have a little bit of a uh beef with the term dollar cost averaging, not in a bad way, but because there's technically there are two definitions when people say dollar cost averaging, there's there's two different forms of dollar cost averaging, right, the dollar cost averaging and I support, which is like you're just buying consistently with as you

get money. So basically, if you're buying your four one K every two weeks or whatever every once a month, that's call I consider that dollar cost averaging. But we're really doing is you're taking a small lumps some payment putting it in every time. The other definition, which a lot of people use as well, is like let's say you just sold a company and you have a million bucks or something. You've gotta inherit in some hundred thousand

whatever it is. Instead of putting that a hundred thousand dollars into the market right now, you slowly average into the market. So I'm very specific in the book. I call that averaging in versus dollar cost averaging because it's very confusing. When we say dollar cost averaging, people mean two different things. So when I talk about dollar cost average, I'm just talking about just buying over time. It's like,

just keep buying. They're basically the same thing. I just think the branding of just keep buying is a little bit better and there's less syllables, so that's helpful. Marketing matters, Yeah, marketing, any marketing matters, and so to say dollar cost averaging, that doesn't make any sense. But just keep buying a little bit clearer, and that's basically just rebranding that and trying to show with data why that's true. But um

so I believe in. It's just like you're buying over time, and generally most markets you know, across the planet go up over time. There are are there a course exceptions. I know them all. Don't worry. You know you're gonna be like, what about Crease and you know, oh eight, I know about that. What about Russia in the last two months it went down? I know about that. But Spain, see yeah, I know, like Japan, like I trust me. I've known them all. I've studied them, I study the nightmares.

They they happen, but they're rare. And so most markets, most of the time, is across the world generally go up. So if you're diversified investor, you'll probably do find even if you have a couple of markets that don't do as well. So that's kind of the main main theory of owning assets. If you're betting on that downside too, like and you then it's it's less about like when to put money in, and it's more like you should be putting your money towards a root seller and non

perishable foods, right, yeah, exactly, Ken Goods, guns and ammo. Yeah. Right, Well, one of the alternatives to investing, nick is just taking that money and sticking it in the bank. So we kind of wanted to talk about savings here for a second because in your book, chapter one, it's subtitled why saving is for the poor and investing is for the rich, and then you follow up in chapter two saying that

you should be saving less than you think. And so, yeah, I talk to us a little bit about your essentially your disdain we're saving money. I would say, there's a sting. I don't know, Okay, I caught it loud and clear. Yeah, I think. So when I say savings, let's there's a lot there to impact. So when I say savings for the poor, investing is for the rich. Um, you'll you'll see in the first chapter it's that is a relative statement,

that is not an absolute statement. So when I say, savings for the poor, you have to like every person, I basically create this idea called the save invest continuum, and everyone is on this continuum, like, regardless of you know, what they're doing their financial life, everyone's on the continum. You gotta figre out where you are. And the question is like, Okay, how much money can you save in

the next year. That's like a dollar amount. Let's see, you could save you know, five hundred bucks a month over the next twelve months. Okay, six grand? Okay. The other option is okay, how much money can my investments earn me in the next year. So let's say you have twenty grand invested and you own and you're gonna get you know, five percent here, let's say, right, that's a thousand bucks. Remember you could save six grand or

your investments can earn you a thousand. So it sounds like what you need to do is you need to get your investments to earn you more. Right, they need to earn you more money. You want to remember trying to move to more passive income. You're trying to become financially free. All of that is like moving money from one calling to the other. You want, you want more

investment income. To do that, you have to save more money and you have to invest that money, right, And so savings for the poor is like when you're relatively poorer or when you're like younger, especially, you're not gonna have much investment income, so you need to focus on your savings and you just spend a lot of time thinking about how to save money whether and I think that's really gonna come from income, but you're gonna save money, get invested that, and then over time that's gonna build

and you're gonna start earning a lot more from your investments. So that's one piece of that. So I'm gonna I want to say savings for the poor investings for the rich. By the time you're like have a lot of money coming in from investments, Like basically the rich have to care a lot more about their investments because their savings can't affect like their lifestyle as much anymore. You know, like like like Elon must savings rate has no impact

on his lifestyle. Yeah, it's like, oh my gosh, I need to you know, cut out my spending here, Like no, it doesn't matter. It's all about what happens to Tesla and all the other investments, right, like seven houses and he, you know, got like a hundred thirty million. I'm like,

that means nothing, man, Yeah, exactly. So I'm saying I can use extreme examples, like someone that has no money, all that matters to them is how much they can save, Like they can have the greatest investment portfolio in the world, but thousand dollars to invest it's irrelevant, right, So that's that's that point, right, So that those are obviously on the extremes, it's very obvious for most of us were not on those extremes, are probably somewhere closer to the middle.

And so you have to figure out where you are and where you spend your attention. I, for example, I have to spend time on both. Right, I'm at a point now where, like you know, I can I basically can save as much as my investments earn me. But like there's a really bad year in the market, like on paper, I will lose more than I could save in a year, you know, So and that really depends, right, And that's kind of scary. But that's where you have to think about both of them, right, And most people

you should see that early on. You shouldn't spend that much time on your investments in terms of like, yeah, I get them, you know, figure out what to invest in, buy some stuff, low cost index funds, et cetera, but don't obsess over them. What you should be obsessing over is your career and other things you can do to earn more money. That's what I think you should be obsessing over when you're young. As you get older, you can care less about that and more about your investments.

I was just like, can we talk about growing the income, because that's something you talk about a lot too, right, is is you do talk about making more money, earning more money, and how frugality maybe is even like overdone. Maybe we talked about that too much in the personal finance space. And and how growing the you know, how much you're bringing home every single month, every single year,

How maybe that's even even more important. Yes, I think if you if you look at the data from the Bureau Labor Statistics, basically you just like look at, okay, how much if you look at the bottom of households, like they spend more than their income than they bring in, right, and you look at like actually put the amounts in there here, what wuch they spending rent here, they spending food, etcetera. The amounts aren't ridiculous. These people aren't living these lavish lifestyles.

And it's like, oh, you know why if they just cut their spending, they would be rich. Like it's not true. It's just the data is not there. It's just a lot of these people, like how they spend more than income. Will they take out debt and that's how consumer credit card debt and different types of debt, or they borrow from friends or something. There's debt there. Right, it's the only way it can be done. You know. Obviously the bottom households changes over time. Some of those people are

college students. They'll get jobs later. Some have a low paying job, I get a higher paying job. Right. People are always moving out of you know, where they are in life. But if you look at the data, like spending, cutting spending works a little bit um, but for most people, it's not going to be the way you build wealth. Like like I love the examples like, oh my gosh, like look at these celebrities like you know, Lindsay lohand

or um Nicholas Cage. All these people like went bankrupt are almost bankrupt multiple times because of all they're spending. It's like it's all about spending. It's like, yeah, you have like five or six or maybe even ten examples of celebrities and bankrupt, But like, what data do I have? I have every other celebrity. Every other celebrity is not bankrupt, Like why because they have high income? So like, yes, if you have really bad spending habits, like yes, you can,

you know, get into ruin. But for a lot of people, it's income. Really, it's income that's driving that. And I think the data is pretty clear, right, And so like a lot of the arguments I try to make is based on what I know and not like what we assume. Like like we can be like, oh, you know what the Rock you know how he's so rich because he has a great money mindset. It's like, no, the Rocks

rich because he has an incredible income. And I can tell you that there's his money mindset might be average at best. We have no idea, but what we do know is he has a high income. Right, And so that's a lot of my arguments like what's actually true that we know versus like what's assumed about people. That's like why I'm kind of I'm not against frugality at all. Obviously,

some people are just like that. Like even now when I go to the McDonald's, I still hold off the dollar menu even though I can afford, because like I did that with my father, and I still order off the dollar when you're like it's a weird thing, Like I always did because like we didn't have a lot of money, and so I was like, oh, yeah, you

always order off the dollar ring. So to this day, I still get like the mcdouble and the chicken and all that stuff, like wait till they start having some of that dry aged steak, the dry age McRib but that and so, and then getting back to one quick question earlier, you were talking about like, oh, do I have a disdain for savings? And I just need to look at some of the data. They're like, I think

a lot of people save too much. I mean only one in six retirees are drawing down principle, which is kind of shocking, but like from so security and everything else, like if you have money like in these accounts, so many people end up their assets grow as they retire, and you're like, what should you be spending your money to? Everyone talks about using the four percent rule spending your money down. You look at the data, most people aren't doing that. Like most people take their rm d s

and they just reinvested. Their wealth is growing over time. I mean, Michael Kitty's at this thing where it's like your wealth is is just as likely to four rex as it is to go to zero. Like that's how like, that's how crazy it is, Like they're equally likely, you know, for someone who's using the whatever, the four percent rule or some some rule like that. So I'm just like, it's not that I'm against saving. I just think I know people that are doing very well and they they're

acting like they are not doing well at all. And I think if the data you realize just like how fortunate so many people are. And like, I think people obsess over too much. Yeah, I know, I I agree, especially as you start to build more wealth, it can be difficult to get out of that mindset, right, And

that's the problem that those retirees are dealing with. They have spent their entire lives going in one direction and all of a sudden they have to kind of on a dime switch, like like, how are you supposed to go from from ford like even going forward your entire life, and now you got to flip it into reverse. The you know, the backup beap starts beeping and you feel like that something is wrong, like mental gymnastics to start drawing down on the funds you've been u investing in

saving up for you know, four plus decades. That's that's so, that's a big reason why here on the show, I mean, we often talk about finding balance in our lives even when we are most clearly in that wealth building stage, but like you still have to incorporate some little splurges, whether that's craft beer, whether that's right age stake and Nick, we're actually going to talk about some of the different ways that we can spend our money, some of the ways it can maybe be healthy, but some of the

ways too that it could lead to our financial downfall. And we'll get to all of those questions right after this break. All right, we're back in the break still talking with Nick Majulie. We're talking about why you should save less money because saving is for dummies and you should just keep buying. I'm I'm putting lords in your mouth. I'm sorry, Nick, You're you're not saying that, and I know I appreciate it. We just keep buying everything else

that can restrict redacted from the record consulting terms. So no, I I think that the nuance you provided there is is really helpful. And and you know what you're talking about two is basically maximizing the enjoyment of your dollars. And I think it's a great way to think about it. And you know what Matt was alluding to, how, you know, we we want people to strike balance in the here

and now while they're being smart with their money. And that's something maybe or one of the criticisms that we've had of the fire movement over the years is there can be this nose to the grindstone for ten, twelve, fifteen years to reach this one goal and you're burned out by the end of it, and it's really hard to shift gears. And so you should be enjoying along

the way. Um, And so, yeah, what's your take on maybe a lot of the chatter in the personal finance space around deprivation and then yeah, talk to us about your views on guilt free spending. Yeah, so I think the biggest wake up call for me I think was co of it in a big way, not for me personally, but just from what I saw. Like, imagine, you know, you're six years old, you're out in the Alps, you know you maybe you're gonna retire in a year or two.

You're like out, you know, somewhere in Italy on a vacation, and this new pandemic breaks out, you get it. You unfortunately pass away, and it's like you had your entire you know, twenty thirty years ahead of your retirement now gone, right, all this you did, all the saving and all that, and so think about just how tragic that is. And of course, like you're doing a vacation, you're spending your money.

Obviously it's good, right, So, but I think there's a lot of people that are just setting up this thing of like, okay, like I expect to live to be eighty nine or whatever. You have something, you run all these numbers and you expect all this stuff, and of course you should act as if you're going to get there, but at the same time need to be somewhat reasonable too, of like you're you're doing all this for something, like

why are you saving your money? I think a lot of people just do it because that's what they see everyone else doing and they don't actually think about it, and they don't know like what am I saving for? What am I? What do I really care about? You know? And so for me, I think spending money personally just like figuring yourself out. I think it's really tough. I think,

like even myself, like I wouldn't. I never really considered myself a foodie, like historically I would like someone asked me, I'm like, I'm not a food but then I realized, like, I, oh, actually kind of am, Like I like trying new restaurants, like doing it like no wonder I live in New York City. It's like all these things you start to figure out about yourself. And so I think this is really more of an introspective thing. You have to think about,

like what are you really doing this for? And I think a lot of people don't really know because like, Okay, you want, oh I want free time to do whatever I want? My Okay, well, what's whatever you want? Okay? Let's say let's say I could I have a magic want I grant your free time? Right now? What are you gonna do all day? You know? I'll tell you what I do. I'd still be writing, I'd still be doing the same stuff. I'd still be wanting to probably

work in the financial services firm. You know, I'd probably don't work with my firm. I like, I like trying to help people. I believe in our mission, like you know, so I think you have to figure that out. And once you figure that out, then spending the money is easy. Like, oh, I care about these things, so I'm willing to spend big, which is like why I love that question you I start every pod with it's like what are the things you like to support on? Because you're you're grounding in

like do you know yourself? Really there's a question, yes, And so I think you guys both know what you guys like to spend money on. I'm like, I think a lot of your median I'm assuming he knows, Like you know, we were like spending money in a couple of categories. But figuring out those things I think is the most important. So UM, in terms of guilt free spending, UM one of the rules I like to use, and I think this is a very simple rule. It's just

called the two X rule. And basically, if you're safe, if you want to splurge on something. Let's say I want to go out to like a really nice like um sushi tasting and oh macasa right, it's gonna be like two h fifty bucks a person. And so like, let's say I'm going on a date with this girl or something. We've been seeing each a little while. I'm like, Okay, we're gonna go out. So I spend five dars on this.

You're like, that's crazy, that's so much money. I'm like, well, before I spend that, you know, let's say it was an anniversary dinner or something. Before I spend that, I'm going to save up another five dollars. I'm going to invest in the market, or I'm going to donate it or something like that. You save up additional two x what you're supposed to save so that when I spend that five hundred dollars, I don't feel guilty about it.

I'm gonna say, you know what, Yes, I spent more than I probably should have normally, but at the same time, I invested somebody. So I'm doing something to kind of pay off my guilt basically, so you don't have And so I do this all the time, and I don't

have guilt about how I spend money. I really dope and I used to, especially like when I was, you know, much younger, I used to feel guilty about I remember even I was at a music festival once and I didn't want like the beers were nine dollars because it's a music festival, you know, that's how it is, right, And I was like, I want to spend nine dollars on a beer. That's crazy. And I ended up not doing that, like we end up like doing it, you know. I was like, I was like, why did I do that?

Like looking back now, it's like a regret at like I should just spent the nine dollars on a beer or whatever. But it's like thinking about that, it's like that. It was that mindset of not not kind of just hey, just enjoy the moment. It's just nine bucks, like that, how much is that nine dollars gonna change me? Now? Not at all. Yeah, in the moment, that's a really

fun thing that you get to enjoy. And I agree, Like I was so frugal, especially in my early mid twenties, and I still like think frugality is a great thing and something we talked about here a lot on the show, because I do think that's an important part of the puzzle, especially when you're like broadcasting to a whole bunch of people, Like a lot of people need to know how to live more frugally, um, and there are specific ways to

do that better. But at the same time, I had to realize, like, well, what am I saving this money for? What am I investing for the future? Four? And you have to be able to enjoy the here and now at the same time. And if you're not doing that, and if you feel guilty every time you try to spend money on something you enjoy, it almost like drags it down and makes it way less fun. Um. It's almost like it's just like a mental bummer, a big drag on the joy that you're trying to get from

the money you have worked hard to earn. And so you have to find that balance and it's you know, it's not always easy, but I think it's something people should strive for. And I like your too actual because it does kind of allow people that mental freedom to enjoy the things that they actually do love while they're you know, while they're doing trying to you know, be smart with their money. Yeah, exactly, So that's that's what I say, and just focus on things that provide you fulfillment.

So whatever that is. It's for some people. I think there's this whole like experience. There's a war on like buying material goods, and it's like, oh, you know, only experienced experiences. The data shows experiences. And don't get me wrong, I understand the data. I've seen it, and it looks like people prefer buying so any more experiences than good. But that's not true of everyone. I mean that's an average result. Like some people really like nice cars. I'm

not one of them, so people do. And I think if you're one of those people, like, don't feel bad sporting on a nice car. If you're one of the people that likes a nice handbag, don't feel bad about that just because the data says, well, nine, you know, people prefer this. You might be an exception to that rule. So like, don't get me wrong, I love using data, relying on data, but it's not perfect. Remember it's only

gonna get the average result, right. That's why experiences might be great for extroverts, and since most people are extroverted, that's gonna look great there but there's gonna be a small subset of the population that's much more introverted that won't get as much out of experiences in the same way. So you have to really know yourself. I think that's more important and then optimizing for that with your money versus like just taking what society says all the time. Yeah,

well I is extroverted. Well there's as far as folks are willing to spend on experiences. And I mean, you're you're kind of getting at this nick but like, how would you recommend for somebody to ask themselves that question? Like, I mean, what we're talking about here is like serious like real soul searching essentially and to you know, for us to determine and to figure out what is it that bring brings us fulfillment? Like do you have any

practical suggests for folks to determine that for themselves? I mean, this is a question that they've been asking for centuries and millennia. Realis is a philosophical in good life myself? Right? Like this is like you know, like stoicisms coming back with Seneca and all these philosophers, and it's like is he these are old ideas that we've been asking asking ourselves as humans for a long time, and so I

don't know. I think the a lot of this is just like exploration, trying your things, seeing what you like, what you don't like, figuring out what systems work for you what doesn't. I mean, that's really it. So for me, I mean, that's why I have generally lived in big cities, because like there's a lot of experiences, a lot of things you can try, and you figure out what you

like and what you don't like. And that's kind of it, really, And if you never kind of explore certain things, you'll never know really And so of course you can't explore everything. It's it's impossible to explore every option. Like I've never lived in Atlanta, for all I know, that could be my favorite city in the world, right, Like I have no clue, you know, come on down. That's how I

get myself invited down. But there's limits to this, obviously, but there's within that you know, you can still say, like, Okay, I know I like this I don't like For example, I know I don't love driving. So it's gonna be really tough for me not to live in a place where I have to drive, you know, or an hour every day, you know, or something like that. So like just knowing yourself and knowing what you care about, like oh, just being able to like, you know, my gym is

two blocks away, my grocery stores three blocks away. Like everything near me is a block or two away. And so for me, I care about just being able to walk to everything, and so like that's I value that so much. And so I don't have a car all that and I paper in rent. You pay, you're paying for it somehow. You've gotta figure out where you're paying for right So for just knowing what you want, I think is the key. So just I mean, spend time

on it. There's no real there's no easy way. I wish I could be like, oh yeah, when I was twenty two and you know, I want three, I had no clue. It took me a decade to even get to hear. And I'm still learning every day. So it's a process. Yeah, Like it's not like one day you wake up the scales fall from your eyes and you're like I get it. I know it, Like it's all about right now, and so it is a yeah, it is, Uh, it takes time along on a continuum to find more

and more what you're into. But I think part of the key is not just blindly or numbly doing what everyone else around you is doing. I think that is a pattern people fall into. Well, my neighbor Bill just got about I guess it's time for me to do something similar. Um and yeah, and and kind of really

marching marching to your own drummers part of it. Yeah, And just to add onto that too, Nick, I mean, what I hear you saying is in what you're saying to Jill is that you don't have to like, don't beat yourself up right like, like you said, like, we're not going to get it right away. It takes a number of years to figure this thing out, and we're gonna make mistakes, you know, and we're gonna look back

into our past and say that was that stupid. I can't believe I spent that much money on X on that car or literally still look back to when I bought a second Dreamcast from my friend growing up, and I'm like, what a waste of money? Because I did. I had really such an idiot played it for like three weeks, and I'm like, what if I had that hundred fifty bucks back and really like, those are the

kind of things you don't know exactly. You don't know, and that's that's why you hear Nick saying though, is like, yeah, I think let it inform your future though this is this is informing my big takeaway from the end of the upset. But like, yeah, be willing to experiment here, and I appreciate what you're saying there, Nick, Yeah, And there's gonna be waste when you do that. There's gonna

be waste. You know. It's like if I remember a friend who was like really into watches and he bought a bunch of different watches and then he only wears one now he like never wants the other one. I was like and it was like, oh, yeah, you waste all that money, But no, he figured out, oh, I just want I like this watch the best, and I don't like wearing it, and so you just got rid of the other one. So it's like, you're gonna there's gonna be waste involved in the process. You're not going

to optimize it perfectly. Trust me, as someone who's like cares about optimization and like always thinking about that stuff, Like you have to just let it go. It's some costs that happened. So yep, yep, all right, well you already kind of uh, you've created one piece of financial personal finance heresy and kind of how you talked about savings for a second, but you you keep putting words I do, I do. I'm sorry, Nick, I'm sorry. He's

never coming back on the show, and I don't. But you you share some some interesting thoughts on debt and why you actually mentioned that credit card debt isn't necessarily an awful thing, and so all right, I want to hear your reasoning behind that, because that is kind of a surprising take. I got your reasoning in the book, but can you guys share it with your our listeners. Yeah, so I think, and no trust me. I mean, this is a big preface. It's an exception based on it.

So generally credit card debt is not a good thing. I will say that, And that's all obviously true. Most people know that already. Not everyone knows that, however, For example, let's say there's someone that has a thousand dollars in their checking account and they also have five dollars in credit card debt. Looking at this, you'd say, well, if you're paying art year on that credit card debt, you should just pay that off. Right, you have a thousand

bucks cash, five bucks in credit card debt. You know you net that out, You're gonna have five dollars cash, no credit card debt. Isn't that better? Right? It's very obvious. The problem is in that particular example, it actually might make sense for that person to have credit card debt. What they're called in the academic literature is borrower savers because they're borrowing, yet they have cash that they could pay off their debt with. And the reason is, like

it might be a liquidity issue. Let's say all of a sudden, a week later, they get hit with a you know, the car breaks down. They have to spend seven d dollars, right, and if they don't spend that seven ars, they can't get to work and they can't earn their money. So now, if they only had five hundred bucks, they can't do that now, But with five dollars in credit card and a thousand dollars they can. So it's a it's more of a liquidity problem. And so I think there's a lot of times where we

make blanket claims in the personal finance space. And of course, remember this argument is obviously extreme. I know this in extreme argument, but I'm the point I'm trying to make is there's a lot of times we make blanket claims like debt is bad, or credit card debt is bad, or max for four own k, and we can get it all of that. A lot of these things are blanketed, and I think there's exceptions where they're not always true, and just to think about, like when do those exceptions exist?

And you know, just just to I like to challenge like a lot of the fundamental principles and personal finance because I feel when everyone's saying the same thing over and over and over again, we need a question whether that's actually right. Once in a while. It's kind of goes back to first principles. I'm not saying like it's wrong. I think generally, yes, credit card debt is bad and you should not be racking up a ton of credit card debt. So like that's like to me, that's very obvious.

But if someone has a thousand bucks and they have five dollars in credit card debt, if you're like, you know what, you should pay off that credit card first thing, maybe not, maybe get your emergency fund first and then consider paying off the credit card debt. Is it optimal mathematically No, but it's probably optimal from a risk perspective, right, And so it's like figuring out what are we actually

solving for if we're trying to maximize dollars. Yes, you should pay off the credit card first, but there's a chance that you get hit with something and now you're even in a worst position than you were beforehand, right where you don't have liquidity and you can't pay for something, and now you lose your job, et cetera. Now you're really in a bad spot. So that's kind of the

example I give. And I don't know how many of your listeners or in even something like that or even close to that, but it's just the point of thinking about this more critically, which I think is kind of lost in the personal finance space. Sometimes. Yeah, there's there's also just like some peace of mind right with cash on hand that comes along for people, and and so yeah,

I think you're right. I think sometimes maybe um, we rushed because we've heard that blanket advice and and yet there is it's it's so tough to just give blanket advice to everyone, because um, there are so many specific nuances in situations. I think I don't know which our favorite favorite episodes are, but we love the listener Questions episodes because it gives us a chance to kind of take a more nuanced approach to a topic because we

have a specific situation we're dealing with. And and you know, blanket advice doesn't apply. Always have the general first principles still hold, but in your case, let's tweak it a little bit because this is what it sounds like would be, you know, optimal for you. So all right, hey, Nick, We've got a few more questions we want to get to you for you, including mostly mostly about investing, and

we'll touch on crypto as well. You left it out of your list of investable assets in your book, so we're gonna talk about why you did that and more right after this break. Alright, we're back from the break. We're talking with Nick mc julie. His book Just Keep Buying is what we're discussing today. Um, and Nick, you know, like Joel mentioned, we want to talk about investing a little bit more specifically. Like one of the main questions

that we get here on the show. Oftentimes it's for folks who want to save up for a big purchase, which usually means they're saving up for a down payment on their home. So, like everyone out there, they want sort of like a magic bullet answer when it comes to how they can grow their money without there being any risk. But what advice would you give for folks

who are looking to purchase sometime soon? Yes, so if you're purchasing, I mean I looked at some of the data on this over you know, going back to like twenties in terms of like what returns are you've got if you had invested that money in bonds or in

stocks while you're saving, etcetera. And generally, my my rule of thumb is that if if you're plan to do the purchase in the next three years, it should be in cash because I mean, most of the time, yes, it probably would have been better to be in bonds, like, but there's some risk involved. You may have to save a couple extra months in case, you know, something happens in bond prices crash in some way, right versus cash

that's not really gonna happen. Yes, there's inflation, so that's why it generally takes a little like one month longer on average to save up for I don't know. Let's say you know grand then it would take if you're doing in bonds. So under a three year period, I say, use cash. You're doing three to five years, you know, I need to start having bonds or some other sort of instruments, and then five years beyond you might might have some stocks. Right, So that's kind of like the

the go to way of thinking about it. I think it all comes down to risk, right, It's like what risk are you willing to take and win? And so that's why I generally recommend, you know, if you're saving up for something, just put it in cash. I know right now that's gonna be really scary because like while inflations, you know, seven point five percent or eight percent a year, and so it's like your cash is being eaten away and that sucks. But you know, you could be putting

into something else where it's very risky. And so that's true. Now we don't know what the future is gonna hold because inflations a percent now, does that mean it's gonna be a percent next year or higher or lower? We we don't necessarily know, so that's why I kind of go to is like use cash, okay, and when when we talk about just keep buying, like you you're basically a big fan of buying index funds, which you know,

Matt and I we feel the same way. But why I want to hear your take on why you think they're best for most folks like UM, because yeah, there's a whole lot of things people can invest in, and index funds certainly simple, easy to understand, but yeah, why why do you think they're so great? I think low low cost index funds and ETFs are the way to go for most people because they're easy, they're generally cheap if you find the right ones. I'm not gonna put

any names out there. There's plenty of providers that provide cheap exposure to UM, both US and international equities, UM and reads, which is real estate and many other assets. Right. You can get you can get farm land reads, you can get all sorts of exposure different asset classes for very cheap. And I like because it's just it's easy. I mean literally just go into a brokerage account. You know, you go into your your Schwab or your Chase, your whatever,

et cetera. What our fidelity, whatever you have, you go in there and you just you know, put in the symbol and you buy it right as as as easy as it could be. You know, of course you can do that with mutual funds and other things. But I think the tax efficiency there's a lot of benefits that you know, I don't want to get into all that right now, but like there's a lot of benefits to just low cost index ones that just makes it really easy.

You're getting cheap diversification, and that is that's the key. Cheap diversification. Yeah, we like cheap especially. I mean again, I keep thinking about just my mind keeps going back to the conversation around frugality, and oftentimes it is such an important thing to keep in mind, especially early on when you aren't necessarily making a ton, but as your wealth grows over time, Like that's not something you need

to pay much attention to, but it does. It is something you need to need to pay attention to as your portfolio grows as well, because when you start looking at expense ratios on large sums of money, that is some serious amount of money that can that you can be separated from over the years so you mentioned index funds. I also appreciate Nick how you share your single stock

picks on Instagram. You you you highlight some of your you know, some of your stinker uh investments, for instance, Rent the Runway. Can you do you mind sharing a little bit about those and kind of how you view those individual companies like you gotta so I need. I don't have any relationship with these companies. Um So, for for the record, Chapter twelve is called don't buy individual stocks, and this is an example why so No I did this for funds. So I I own two individual stocks, and I'm not

saying this to pump them. I'm not saying they're down badly. So they're down like sea, So I'm not worried about that. What I'm saying I own two individual stocks. One's Matterport, one's Rent the Runway. Matterport's like an augmented reality thing. Anyways, I don't recommend invidual stocks because I think it's very difficult to be performance wise and also you don't know

if you're actually gonna be good at doing it. For like a professional standpoint, however, I put you know, one percent of my investable assets and into these two companies. So a very very small percent, you know, one percent of everything I own, so not risking the farm, so

to speak. And I kind of talk about this in the book, but um, I got into Matterport because I had a bunch of friends getting into it, so we kind of did it as like a social thing and it was kind of a you know, a thing we laughed about and stuff, so it was like kind of cool, but also it's like an investment. And the other one rent the runway. I remember I was like, oh, this

is my Peter Lynch moment. Like I remember my next girlfriend who was always using it, and this was like pre COVID, and I was like, as soon as the thing I po is, I'm gonna buy it, no matter what I know. Right now, COVID still happening, and like it's probably not the best time to buy it because people aren't going out again, but like, I'll just do it anyway. So I did. I put a little bit of money in there, and it's down badly. Both they're

just getting crossed. So if anything, you know, even when you write a book or a chapter about how you should by individual stocks, some people still do it. So I wish i'd just listen to myself. So that's all I'm gonna say. So that's my only thing to say. And I'm not trying to pump these companies or anything, right, right, obviously you're not trying to trying to pump them or anything like that. But I mean, the way we approach it is like honestly, one percent like like like you're saying,

that is nothing. And if that keeps you from making larger, more costly mistakes down the road, if if that keeps you on track with the you know, with the rest of your portfolio, then a one percent pressure relief valve can be an incredibly help helpful thing that keeps you from just exploding the instant. Yeah, yeah, if you're gonna do it, if you want to do it, do it for fun. Take a small percentage your portfolio. You know we even okay, up to five percent, whatever you want

to do, that's fine, but keep it small. Do that have most of your money and you know, things that are not going to decline and stay down for a very long time. So index funds generally don't do that. They have only once and recorded history, and they may do it again, of course, but it's unlikely. And so you know if that's happening, I think your investment pool, father is not even the biggest piece of your worries, to be honest with you, right right, right, Yeah, you're

worrying about how your job the job. Yeah, we're talking about go back to the can goods and guns and all that stuff. Yeah, yeah, So I don't know if that is that your bike stockp on came goods and guns or now yeah. No, no, I'm saying no, you should be. So this is that's actually a controversial. It's not a controversial. It's a you should have like at least like I know, point one percent of your net worth or wealth in like some sort of prepper gear. Like you know, I have like twenty eight days of

striped of dried food. Like in my apartment. I have like a life straw, so of like that's something you can like take dirty water and you can drink and like I could drink out of a puddle in New York City with this thing, right, and so it's like and it'd be clean. So it's a very small amount of money. It's been a couple hundred dollars whatever doing this, And I remember it's so funny during COVID, Like right when COVID happened, I had a by chance, I had

a chemical spill kit. And you're like, why why that could you need? There's a chemical attack er. I mean it's crazy, obviously it's not. But I had this chemical spill kit and in there was a D ninety mask, an actual and ninety five, and I was wearing a mask back and like you know, early March, when everyone's like, yeah, you don't have to wear masks, I'm like, I don't. I don't believe that. I'm like, I'm putting this on. Like I've seen like Age has been wearing masks forever.

I'm like, I'm taking a mask. And I had this thing on in New York City, and I honestly think it like prevented me from getting it, if I have to be honest, Like, after watching Station eleven, it makes me want to Yeah, there's you probably watch those guys in Traverse City, Michigan, and all of a sudden you're like, oh, I'm going to hang onto this mask exactly. Yes, I think having a little preppertiveness is okay, just a little though I don't I don't like have a bunker or anything.

Like that or siege but like a little okay, you're having some extra water having it's silly, but it's silly until it's not right, and then it's yeah. So yeah, alright, So let's talk about crypto for a sect. Because you didn't include cryptocurrency on in your list of investable assets like you made a list in in your in the book, you know, you talked about a couple of things already, index funds reads. Why why did you lift leave crypto off?

And do you feel about crypto like the same way would you say about like individual stocks that it's just supposed to be confined to just a small amount or yeah, what's what's your what are your thoughts there? Yeah, so I think most of individuals will should be an income producing assets, and so those are things that can obviously

producing gum. That's like obviously equities, businesses, farm land, there's a there's a host of assets I discussed in the book, and I didn't put things like gold, art, wine, cryptocurrency under that because they're not InCom producing. Now that doesn't mean you can't make money in them, of course you can write. The issue for me is just I just it's hard for me to you know, have most of my wealth and something that I have no clue whether. I mean, we're the price completely based on what other

people think it's worth. That's it. Obviously that's true with equities, right even at the end of the day, people are still determining what what the price of business as. Right, But if there's a business producing profits, there's something there that we there's some tetheror to reality at least something right, and you can go back. And because that warm Buffin

initially got rich. He was he was finding businesses that we were called net nets, where after you sold everything, you basically you buy the business for less than what you could sell everything for. That's like buying a suit ace that you know has a thousand dollars in it for five hundred bucks. You know there's a thousand dollars in the suitcase and someone selling it too for five hundred bucks. Like you would make that trade all day.

And that's what warm Buffett did, right, So I think there is some tether to reality and that the money in the suitcases is profits, is income. Right now, the problem with crypto and art and all these other things, and I put them all in the same bucket is that you know, we don't know what's going to happen. I have no idea whether these are gonna be worth

things in the future. Right, Does that mean you shouldn't own any No, So I have about ten to fiftent of my assets spread out through um some physical art um, crypto and you know, yeah, so there's like the two main ones I do. It is probably about ten percent there and so yeah, so I think you can own something like I own some bitcoin and own some ethereum and things like that, but I don't think it should

be a bulk of your portfolio. And I think there's even a lot of people in the crypto space that are like, yeah, I keep it to five percent because it's extremely risky and like and as it goes up, you need to rebalance, Like I at one point, you know,

crypto is two or three of my portfolio. It got up to like eight percent of my portfolio, right because I had a bitcoin and I sold half of my bitcoin to kind of rebalance down, and people laughed at me and said it's crazy, and you know, how can you sell It's gonna go to a million bucks of

coin and it may still do that. Who knows, but I think you need to be prudent and still rebalanced and do all the things you normally do, regardless of what's happening to underlying price, and right at the price I sold it at, just by chance, you know, is higher than where bitcoin is at, well, at least at the day of this recording. I have no idea where it's gonna be in a month, right, who does? Yeah? So like it. It could be a hundred thousand, it

could be a twenty thousand, No one knows, right, so exactly. Nice. Well, Nick Man, this has been a fun conversation. We appreciate you again sharing the book with us ahead of time. And if folks are interested in checking it out, where can folks find Just keep buying Amazon, Yeah, just go to search. Just keep buying on Amazon. Otherwise you can

get through a publisher at Harriman House as well, So awesome, man. Yeah, you can check out Nick's weekly blog post Tuesday mornings right on of dollars in data dot com to Yep, that's it, we'll be there. Awesome, Nick, Well, thanks for joining us, man, We really appreciate it. Yeah, thanks Matt, thanks to appreciate you guys. Sweet awesome, man, what a

great conversation with one of our favorite writers. Just the serie again, the way Nick writes, it's so enjoyable to read somebody who feels like he's he's connected to us as like normal people. I think a lot of times finance writers, folks who write about money, they could it almost seems like they're just a little too quant like a little too head in the clouds. But the way that Nick approaches money in particular, it just really resonates with me. So check out his sight, like we mentioned

of dollars in data. Yeah, I agree, he uses like a lot of graphs and a lot of data in his writing, but but it's still approachable. It's very approach exactly. And there are a lot of people who are a lot of like super wonky blogs where they're using um, a lot of charts and language that's almost impossible to comprehend even for someone who digs money and finance. But Nick's is kind of like that uh, perfect presentation to a wider audience with some of that you know, nerdier

data include is that's right? Man? So yeah, so on the note do you do you have? Are I kind of already hinted at what my big TAKEO is gonna be, So I'll let you get to yours first. Okay, I think mine literally is to just keep buying, Like that's the title of the book. But it's also one of those things is where if you put money in every single paycheck for a long period of time, it is going to have massive impacts on your ability to retire,

on your ability to become financially independent. Like literally those three words I think are so impactful and it sounds so simple, and you can even start small, um perfectly, it starts young. Like the younger you start, the better

off you're gonna be. But if you can just keep buying, like week in, week out, every paycheck and and setting some money aside for your future self, like the difference it makes because there are so many people who who just like think, I don't have that much to be able to invest right now, I can buy I can only buy a little, so I'm not gonna buy any But you should buy a little, and you should get started, and then you can you should keep going, keep doing

the same thing. And so it's kind of like how getting one percent better every day at the end of a year you're like, I don't know three or sixty five better, right, and like it just it compounds on itself and and that is one of the things that your money in did is able to do for you. So just keep buying, keep buying those index funds, do it regularly, and you're gonna be surprised and even potentially amazed years and years and years down the road. So

simple but awesome. That can just be your morning mantra every morning when you when you wake up, that's what you say to yourself, just to center yourself a little, myself in the mirror, do that, do the hume alone, slap of the face, and yeah, just keep doing it. Okay. So my big takeaway it was gonna be when it comes to uh, discovering or figuring out whatever it is

that you are going to spend your money on. We kind of touched on how retirees how a lot of I think Nick said, like one in six their portfolios are growing, they're not actually drawing down, And we gotta figure out what it is that brings us joy, Like, what are the things that are going to bring us joy? What are the things that we're gonna spend some money on? And we don't always know, especially right off, about what those things are. And so he Nick mentioned a few things.

But first of all, know yourself. Work on getting to know yourself and what it is that you are finding joy and satisfaction. But realize that you're gonna have to do some exploration. Realize that there's gonna be some trial and error along the way where you're not going to get things right. No, that waste will happen, Like there is going to be money that that goes to waste, there are going to be inefficiencies, and especially for someone like someone like myself who's a nerd, I don't want

there to be any waste. I like for everything to be perfectly rationed, to be portioned out, uh and for nothing to go to waste. And so that's kind of a difficult pill for me to swallow. But I know that that those attempts at perfect optimization mean you're missing out on enjoyable things you could have otherwise participated in. Absolutely. Yeah, So kind of having an open mind and being willing to just try new things, I feel like it's just

a good approach to life as well. Just be willing to say yes to things, especially if you've never experienced them before, it's like, why not, let me let's give that a shot. Once you experience it, and once you've learned sure, it would be error upon error for you to continue to say yes to that thing. But before that happens, I think you need to be open to

some of those things. All right, let me just off from one mini tip on top of that, if it's a really expensive thing, try reading it first, see if you like it. So if you're like, I'm pretty sure jetski is gonna make me happy, or if you're like I'm pretty sure like having own fifth wheel is gonna make me happy. Whatever it is, like we're going to see the country. Um, there are affordable ways to experiments. Give it a shot, experiment before you decide like I'm

all in. Uh, it's when you're talking to huge sums of money. That's when you want to be careful before you take the plunge ahead of time. Wise words, Yeah, there's there's a way to trial without error. Trial trial and rent exactly. Because if the rental costs you five hundred bucks or a thousand bucks, and it's ten thousand or a hundred thousand, yeah, those are big mistakes and you're gonna lose a lot of money on them. All right. Well, yeah, that was a great combo with Nick and great takeaways.

But yeah, let's get back to the beer that we had while we chatted with Nick. And this one is called La Folie. It's by New Belgium, and this is just like maybe the initial classic sour beer of all time. Matt, what was your take on this one? You know, I think it's about where I remember it. It's happened in a few years. It's been a minute, Yeah, it's been it's been a few years. I remember always enjoying. Um, I think it was that's how war That was a that was a great one. That's like a similar it's

bakes like a sister beer to this one. It's very similar to this. But but yeah, like that said, the sour notes that you get with this when like they're

in my mind, they're a bit more tart. At one point I almost tricked myself into thinking I was drinking like a little bit of cranberry juice, you know, you know I'm talking about so like there's there's like a tart dryness that sets this beer apart, Like there's no doubting that this is a sour, but personally I wish it was a touch sweeter, maybe a touch more funky nous. I think that's maybe one of the things that you get with a lettour is that there are just like funkier,

more barrel like woody notes. And so while I enjoyed it, it it definitely wasn't my favorite beer. But it is a good introduction to sours, in particular if you've never had one before. I think this is a great intro, and especially if you like oak tones. I do think it has a lot of oak forward flavors going on and on the on the label actually says that it's got like green apple flavors going on, and I'm like, yeah, that's actually that's actually true. I'll see that. I'll say

that that is accurate. That description makes sense to me. But it's also I think it's like velvety smooth. And so if you're looking for and I'm sure, yeah, you can get this beer and probably all fifty states. So if you're like, I've never tried sour beers, I've heard Matt and Joel raping about them, and you're like, well, which one should I start with? Well, This one is probably a great one because it's it's a nice middle of the road sour, easily accessible, easily drinkable, not too harsh,

not too crazy, not too funky, but still delicious. So this is probably one of the first ones I ever had. Quite literally, it was the first hour I ever had. Remember thinking there's no way that people drink this. Yeah, the first sip you're like, uh, they're crazy, and then you quickly acquire a taste because it is delicious stuff. Um, And this is definitely a good one to start with. And it's also not terribly expensive. So even though I will say they I don't think they used to put

it in this format. It's like, and they used to have it in big bottles, in seven fifty bottles, and this is a tiny, little three seventy five, and it had the cork, it had the cage. It's like they're partaking in a little bit of shrink flation over here, a little a little bit less beer for maybe close

to the same price. You know, you're probably right. I think the big bottles used to be like twelve or thirteen bucks, and this one was nine at half the size, So you're right, just like it is everywhere else, but yeah, that's gonna do it for this episode for folks who want the show notes will put links to nick site and Nix's book on our website at how to money dot com. That's right, and so that'll be it, Joel, until next time, Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out,