Friday Flight - Content to Rent, Gift Card Caution, & Bitcoin Bulls #906
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O, I scribe the. Club on your air, and sometimes you can forget it's there, but is not going to work. If this clip kind of crazy, I can bring my music with me, whatever I go, and just make life easier and seem less without interaction to be able to have the music without any interaction. Great check out to welcome how .

money I and today we're .

talking about .

people being content to rent, going to offer a gift card. caution. They were going to talk about bitcoin bulls.

That's right. But this is our friday flight, our weekly round up of personal finance news out there, specifically how we think it's going to impact your money. But should we go until folks about this new site that, that we came across at launch recently? Gallian.

sure. It's I even know where I saw, but I I was like, all this is really interesting and just kind of lows.

People to list their own home for sale and they're kind of trying to create their own marketplace, avoiding the national association real to strangle hold the ml s, which has been kind of the linchpin to where people can buy until homes and how homes get kind of thrown out there into the either when they're for sale in mazilla used to have this feature. I know they still do make me move. Is that still on the side?

I would definitely r IT I I, i'll be on. So I haven't spend as much time on zilla, which is probably a good thing for my mental health.

I used to love that future because I think at some point there is a Price that i'm willing to accept, right for for a home, even the home and living. And even if I love IT, well, someone wants to come from me.

like, two million dollars tomorrow, okay, as well. Just stick up for five minutes. I want to pay that.

No, what would you pay me? Five million four. But like, I like that kind of idea that you can at least kind of name of Price if somebody says i'm desperate enough for the place that you live in that i'll pay IT boom like you're able to find a place for buying and cell or are willing to meet. And this seems like galan is is kind of trying to create that marketplace.

And I think I see I searched our area, there's A A couple dozen homes, war folks. It's actually kind of unna too, because you can see how it's like there's all pockets of listings and it's like someone learns about IT and then they tell a cup of their friends and and they also get their house up there as well.

Let me want to mind, the more competitors there are in the space, the more people are a going to be talking about IT, but then there's just more competition. And I think more folks are gonna be willing to go out there. Couldn't quite go out on a limb as supposed to kind of going with a more traditional model of going with a listing agent, having an agent who is looking for a home on your behalf because, let's honest, I don't know.

I mean, I do know actually about you like you are not only looking at the homes that your real will send you, you are getting out there yourself, right? And so like the model is completely changed, at least when he comes to the work that's being provided. But the but the commission hasn't changed, and that's what that's the the biggest cki points.

Not that we don't think that realtors are providing value is just that may be the way that they should be compensated, should change. I still think that there is going to be a space, a market for reuters. It's still the most expensive item most people are ever going to purchase. But I think there's a lot of room in between for folks who maybe are looking at like a first time home purchase, where they not spending a ton of money, where they're going to be a little more engaged in the the home search process.

Yeah, but I think this site, at least what it's trying to do is go to the complete opposite into the spectrum and just line up buyers and sellers together through online listings on galliant websites specifically. And maybe at least for some people, they're be able to find their perfect match. They'll be able to avoid paying any real circumcision. And if this does reach critical mass or enough people are listing properties and searching for properties, this could be like a new way for d yeah.

And again, even the fact that IT exists, I think I can be promising and hofus ly can open up the housing market as things have slow down significantly. Let's keep talking about housing, joel. Sixty percent of people thought I was smart to buy a home four years ago, right, to sixty percent.

Then only twenty percent think it's a smart move today. And men, rightly so. Starter homes, they cost more than a million dollars in a thousand of different cities around the country.

That's crazy thing, right?

Like, yeah, what kind of job you have to be able to afford a million million dollars starter home? Sticky high rates. They actually taken the wind out of the sales of a lot of fox as well, meaning they are becoming more content to rent for the time being.

There's I like the array ming Better than the illiterate personally. But the truth is, in most markets around the country, you can run the home that's equivalent to what you could buy and pay far less every single month. And by doing that, you retain that flexibility because you can always ought to buy if mark n conditions change.

And of course, you don't have don't have the maintenance, you don't have the repairs to worry about. So if you are in the twenty percent came of folks who wants to own a home, I totally get IT, but renting maybe a little bit longer. Notice a juicer savings and hopes that borrowing rates, they you know hoping that they will take down or maybe if supply takes up or actually both would ideally happen at the same time, that could still be the best financial move right now for a lot of folks. Yeah.

I hate that maybe dismay that people feel like I guess i'm gonna take buying off the table. But I also think in a lot ways it's smart because the market is pretty ridiculous as someone who, especially for first time home bias, you're selling one home, buying another one. I think it's like at least i'm making out like abandoned on the sale potentially and even on paying out the nose for the next house.

But IT makes us a whole lot of sense, financially speaking, for a lot of folks to say, you know, i'm onna, wait to buy for the time being. Another reason, I think, to be dubious of buying a home these days is rising homework is association fees. Some home owners matter their thing.

Just ridiculous increases in their H O, A. do. And this again, this kind of make sense to IT drives what what's going on.

The cost of insurances recent significantly shows the cost of repairs of mainland. And so upkeep for the pool, the ten is court is all that kind of stuff. The common areas, it's not as cheap as they used to be.

And you know for associations that weren't good at planning, some are really good at planning. They've got money banked and they've been just raising H O A do steadily over the years. Well, those year over year bumps might not be too bad, but for a lot of other associations who work into planning, those buns can be significant or worse.

Maybe there is some sort of special assessment that get levity that can be thousands and thousands of dollars. Those can be considerable. You know, I know some folks prefer to live in neighborhoods that have an H O way.

They like the the world maintained public faces. They like the idea that your, their neighbors paint their door or hot bank or something like that. But the through .

is called self expression.

I know, but in atos you're not allow to have that self expression. So uh, I think a warning here, just be careful before buying a home in neighbor od has a natura or buying a condo right where there's uh a homeowner association which are typically in condo communities. It's harder to do uh, these days with a third of homes are a part of an H O A. And when you're taking my new bills, the vast majority are.

But if you're not going to do that, if you're are gone to buy a home that does have a homework, social digg into the financials of the ha before you buy, because you might be like all these are reasonable Prices, monthly fee, what might not stay there for long? There was a local example matter of a twenty nine thousand dollar assessment per person in the community to fix a damn that was owned by the community. And that's just shocking.

I mean, we see what s has happened in ford's to home associations. Jacking is significantly so asia ways they can be good and they can help protect your home valley, but they can also be quite expensive. Yes.

what do you think about manufactured homes as being a potential solution? Prefab manufacturer homes, they get IT hot onside. You Normally they like split t on the middle yeah and then they, I guess.

get bolted together. I think those have come a long way actually in recent years and maybe twenty years ago. Wasn't as you worthwhile a solution? But I don't know. I guess I think they could be part of the solution .

to high housing costs. Yeah IT IT makes me. So we on the show, we talked before about the problems with nimbi. M know where folks were like, not my backyard.

We've talked about zoning laws that prevent building new homes in much the country without A A lengthy process and those remain hurdles to increased building. And if we as a country incentivize adding more supply, I think that would reduce Prices over time. But manufactured homes, I think that could actually be a part of the solution as well. Sunny, how things have changed over like one hundred years because like the year cardiac, where you could buy the home kits like our old igher hood we used to live in, I think like half of the homes, half of the bunglers in the neighbor od were essentially you could look at some of the old serious kids and see your home an illustrated version that was hundred years old, yeah, drawn in there.

And those kids, what you cause like a thousand box, I mean, those insane to think about how cheap and how cool those homes actually are.

They were, they look really cool. But those days are seeing a resurgence. You can buy a manufactured home on amazon.

You can even buy one on facebook, although I don't think they hold a candle to the old bang lows of your. But zoning laws are so comfortable. Circle ler, zoning laws often prevent folks from putting manufacturing homes on their property.

So if you are living in a community, I can understand why some folks are wanting something that's not like cookie cut our homes, but something that feels a little more uniform and where you can't distin whatever you want on that, especially if you are further out the ability to spend significantly less on a manufactured home. I think that could be just an awesome way to consider saving a tune of money. Just make sure to check local rules.

But new building methods as well as manufactured homes, I think could if done in conjunction with the zone reform IT could provide a lot of relief on the home buying front as fox or. Look into especially perfect. You are looking to get .

their first place like we have to look into all of those areas. Let's keep talking about real state match. There's something that people are doing in order to combat the high cost of real estate where they live.

And this is actually something that I think is is ill advised. And IT is buying a home with friends. So people are pulling their assets together. They are saying, hey sera, hey Steve, what your best friend's name is and they I can't afford home on my own. I know you want to buy a home too. Why don't we, with the money that we've both been able to save, put this down payment a on a single family home and will both go on this?

What could go wrong?

What could go wrong? right? And when you look at the stats, there's a lot more people who are actually opting to do this.

This is kind of it's a trend this day. I think, matt, part of that has to do with people getting married later in life and they're like IT down also. I mean, my late twenty is why not buy a home with a friend since maybe on punting marriage until my majorities. And the next thing you know, you're making office together but getting get IT that purchase is actually um fairly easy if if you have the funds and you have the desire, the tough thing is getting out of the purchase, right? It's so much harder to get out and IT is to get in.

And so if living together with the person you've bought this home with isn't working out or even if you just want a portion of the equity because you're you're moving for a job or then you do decide to get married, your co owner or co owners, if you're doing this with multiple people, not just one of the person, might not be in the financial position to oblige your wim. They might say, oh, sorry, I can actually buy you, buy you this portion of the home outdoor. We'd have to do a cash out refinance, which is also a tough move to do, even if they want to help you out, often times they can't.

And so the wall street journal had a profile of people who are combining assets to buy homes. And just like how sticking, how difficult to can be and how can lead to hurt relationships, you might be the person who gets lucky in is able to make you work, but this kind of arrangement can can hurt your personal finances and IT can hurt your relationships too. So I think our vice typically would be, stay clear, don't buy real estate people.

Most of the time it's different too. If like you are doing this with your spouse s because you that's a very different kind of relationship and like even you're busy but let alone definitely just like your buddy, right when you are married, you've literally taken vows. There are witnesses.

Maybe you even threw a big party afterwards called the reception stakes are rampton. It's a sticking relationship, you are more committed and so that makes sense that, oh yeah, we are going to buy a house together. It's different to do that with a friend. And a much Better solution, I think, would be for there to be a single buyer.

And then hey, maybe you will run out that extra room or run out two rooms or run out three rooms, but the ability for a single individual to go there make that purchase and chances are if you're the one, listen to the personal finance money podcast year, that person is probably you. Yeah and so just to think creatively about this, typically in the show we call this house hacking the back in the day I was just called remakes. And that's just certainly a way to get your housing costs down while still being able .

to to purchase that, how you might need build to provide your friends like a slightly below market rent, say legging, right? I'm buying this place and I know your rents pretty expensive and you want to move into the bedroom of the place time buying and hey then but then I just IT creates less of that. You're not calming ly your finances to this overwhelming extent and your right man is not overwhelming if you're married. But IT can be overwhelming if you're just friends and then 特 特别 go several .

ways and you can like weight into it's so easy to weigh in those waters like you can just say， hey, let's just try this out for three months like you don't have to even sign IT like create a less and hey, this this is up to you, by the way, as the land lord and the oh or the property, you get to decide how long you want them to be there. So you can say, hey, let's try this out for three months. We only met last year.

I'm not totally sure how this is going to work out and three months and is like, let's do this. This is working out really well. We literally that's what we did here with our office, the studio that we rent.

It's a caracoles and they never done that before. And so we're like, let's just try IT out, just just give IT a few months. We came back to the table talk about IT, and we've been here for like this one our third year.

Now this quite, joe, and we ve only had one rents increase. I think just because we're thank you. You want to talk about I know you're not a fan of gift cards. You have some evidence you want to you to talk about gift cards, especially, I guess.

this time year. This is something we debate at least once a year, typically rather around this.

this time to buy annual conversation.

We have this. This is the time of year where people are most enticed to buying gift cards. They are incredibly popular purchase this time of year in which make sense.

And the i've always understood why people are attracted to buying gift cards. I feel like they they seem like they are incredibly thought gift there seen is more intentional than giving just cash, which some people think of is gosh uncool. yeah.

So right. And that matter might not be true. I think IT depends the eye of beholder.

But when you buy a gift card, you i've always said this, I made this argument. You're training U. S. Dollars that can be spent anywhere in the world, essentially definitely anywhere in the united states into a plastic card that can only be spent at one retailer. So IT just doesn't really make a whole lot of mental sense um for me to to do that.

That's not my favorite thing in the world but making matters worse, man, and this is, this is going to help with my point. I hope, I hope you listen to me here. What happens if the retailer that you buy the gift card from experience this financial trouble, right? So for instance, T, G, I fridays, which I know what you, your favorite restaurant go there every thursday, right? They're none doing so hot right now.

They've ut down dozens of locations and we just don't know how long the company as a whole going to be around. And if you have A T, G, I friday is give card and there's fifty million dollars worth of on spend gift cards that are earmarked for A T G I friday's use that a lot of those people are going to be completely at luck. They're not going to be able to find their gift cards in time.

They've already misplaced some of these gift cards are twenty years old. They've been an underwear drawer. They got tossing the trash. So I think that's what happens with a lot of gift cards. When you look at the overall amount of unspent gift cards, a lot of IT is just misplaced, forgotten or I got this gift card to A A retailer I don't like, I don't go to and so I just didn't spend IT um and that that to me is the worst party gift cards like people don't usually forget to spend one hundred dollars that shows up in their hands, but they do forget to spend gift cards.

I totally agree with the fact that getting a gift card that that IT limits your options. But like I wonder if for you if it's less about that, you don't like the concept of a gift card as opposed to you not liking the biggest retailers out there that tend to benefit from gift cards, right? So like I don't think you're huge fan of starbucks, but they have got didn't starbucks I heard this is like a line, an urban legends stat or something like that.

But they're like starbuck is like the third largest bank in amErica when you consider the amount of outstanding dollars that out there on on star box gift cards. And so is like for you, is that more that? And maybe to prove my point, like would you rather have somebody give you a hackberry gift card? So huck berry, like when you're favorite mens cloth, the retailer s wine retailers, would you rather get hucker berry gift card? Or would you rather have someone get you something from hugger ry that you may or may not be able to take, rather have to give card?

Yeah exactly. Then a clothing I am because you're right. Like maybe IT doesn't the size is not the right.

maybe it's not right and you don't want to have to go to the hassle of making the return.

but even Better, give me cash.

But then like in that case, like for you and your wife are Young going to say, okay, let's just both give each other hundred dollars like literally i'm .

going to fire her something I know show like because that's how I roll and I know her well enough to do that. But I guess I think some people think, oh, well, i'm going to get the the teacher you give, i'm going to i'm going to get a friend know that I kind of sort to know we're going to swap. Yes, i'm going to get them a gift card because IT feels like out there's some element of thought in IT. But really um do you know if that person actually like that store or not?

I think there's somewhere in between like like you can envision you giving a great gift to your wife. But then on the like far other extreme, you can envision someone not giving any thought to a gift to a, and getting them A T G, I friday as a gift card and like there's somewhere in between where is just like, okay, I know that they, i'm pretty sure, are a big fan of a local coffee shop that's got this tiler cute interior that everyone falls over. Like that's the kind of gift card that would like one hundred percent that used is just, I feel like there are more grey areas when IT comes to the gift card conversation, which I feel like you tend to, I like you embrace the great.

Typically when IT comes to the gift card ds.

I will end another element. I think it's more of the stats, the fact that there like millars, yeah, that's. So it's less the gift card is more the behavior. And that comes down to us as individuals to modify behavior, not necessarily to say that gift .

cards are from what I done the same thing there are the devil body to I think we are more apt to do that with your cards. We are cash like we're not going to leave cash on spent, but we will leave give cards on spent. And so I guess I just don't want to feed into that cycle.

But the one exception, and we do see more discounting on gift cards this time of year. If there is a discount for your favorite restaurant for amy, costco cells discount give cards so much at the time you spent seventy five or eighty dollars and you get one hundred dollars with a gift cards. If you're getting a deal cards as when I think it's I think that's actually I can really smart move, then just make sure you actually use them .

yeah especially if you do IT for yourself because because if you know like that's the problem, whether or not the things going to get redeem as individual, if you're saying, hey, we on an annual basis, we spend at least five hundred dollars at the local restaurant. Well, the ability to get a twenty percent off gift card, that's a slam down. No sort of decision.

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right? We're back to the break math. We will get some of those other topics here in just a second. But you got you to the ludicrous address of the week.

This one comes from a publication called coin telegraph and IT reads, bitcoin gained ninety hundred percent in trumps first term. Will be tc Price hit one million dollars this time? And I know you've been following math since the last we can have.

I haven't following because I own some big okay.

what's happened in the post arena and that political arena has influenced the financial arena in some instances, and cyp to currency in general. Big coins specifically have been kind of the Prices on some of these coins. Big coin particular has been popping in a massive way, hitting all time hires, even all time highs adjusted for inflation.

Doge coin, which started out as a joe currency that has been slammed as well. And that what happens when Prices are soaring in the groups of currency space, a lot of people who have been on the sidelines started to come off the sidelines. They start to invest in the cyp to currency.

They get drawn in by the fear missing. No, yeah, exactly.

Is the formal and just only fuels the cypher of researchers. But this headline is, be going going to like ten ex in the next four years. I don't know.

Do you know that? Like, no, I know is IT likely to happen. I I would say proudly not. But I mean, again, I don't know and I wouldn't take a significant amount of my wealth on IT. And the truth is like when we look at history, we don't have very much data when IT comes to cypher to currency, not nearly as much as we do with the stock market.

And so I guess a word of caution, if you have to put too many eggs in the crypto currency basket, yeah maybe you get lucky, maybe you find yourself sitting on massive gains because maybe some of these predictions are right, but there's also significant risk. And going that route of the headlines, they're all about cyp to going to the moon again. But yeah, our advice is always is to invest for the long term in especially in the cypher space, only invest what you can afford to lose.

That's true yeah. And the reason is blown up is largely because the the cyp to community sees trump as being sympathetic to their cost based on what he said and he says a whole lot. So you maybe anything grain assault, but they see fewer constrains, fewer regulations within the ecliptic to space, just generally speaking moving forward. He's even mentioned the possibility of a like this national strategic a bitcoin reserve, sort of like what we have with oil like just like a stock pile coin base. They've actually even benefited handsome late from the election to as more folks are, there's more interest in cypher.

It's like also in their pointing towards like cripp bless cyp to regulation, more interesting crypto and more of like a government support of crip .

is a whole lot more excitement and trust is continued to build in bitcoin, in particular as a store value. Black rocks bitcoin etf. IT has more now in assets that is gold etf, like actual physical gold, something that you can hold. And so how should you react while our advice hasn't changed? Uh, crypto, especially when IT comes to the mean coins are incredibly speculative assets and having some exposure to IT IT can be a reasonable choice.

But still, please keep IT to five percent or less of your overall portfolio if this is something that you are interested in and just take all market and financial diction with a Green of salt because we have no idea like, yes, trust is growing. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that it's even last of this long not be my perceptions of uh, a crypto, especially bitcoin, is slowly changing, is slowly morphing over time. And that has in large part to do with there's a track record, there's a history that you can look back at and what is the value of currency, if not just the mutually trust yeah like the collective trust of everyone looking at IT in saying that this is something that we believe in and often times that come to a time. So that's an argument, I guess, for IT or why I still hold some bitcoin, but is by no means a recommendation to go out there.

give you some of that. That's right. Or unless you're keeping IT to a minimal portion of your overall portfolio. So yes, I think that's that's kind of we've said for a long time, and I think you and I have probably soft in our stance on on big point in particular over the past few years, but we still don't want people to make IT a major holding in the retirement accounts.

Anything like so almost say saying this, but like another argument for IT. I feel like a bitcoin bowl now, but I feel the first wave was individual investors getting in a bitcoin. But then what we see four years ago, we saw institutional investors start to step into the game.

And I do wonder if more countries start to come on board, especially the U. S. Because as the U.

S. Goes, so does the rest of the world. Often times that comes to countries. But I wonder if that's a part of frothy headlines that we see regarding bitcoin this time around. Know.

suck my cars. We talked about actually some of the repercussions of horrendous weather events in the south recently, namely the severe damage in florida, georgia, north Carry liner from hurricanes hale and milton, and met the my body was just an astro like working on his property, like it's still so much clean up, so much devastation from the flooding as a result of that hurricane.

But another result that could impact literally everyone listening to the show, no matter where you live in the country, is the hundreds of thousands of cars that sustained flood in those storms as well. And that's not overseeing like that. There's a ton of cars who experienced flood damage where there was like some sort of insurance can made and flood damaged cars are getting cleaned up and put in quotation Marks to cleaned up, and then they are being shipped to far reaching domestic destinations.

But just because they got cleaned up doesn't mean they're actually in good condition. The the damage that happens from the flooding often leads to like electrical issues, engine malfunctions, rust on the vehicle. They lead to just prolonged issues over the course of you, only their vehicle.

In those problem ridden cars, they often get sold for less money to scammer who are trying to flip those cars to unsuspecting consumers in other parts of the countries, so that maybe there maybe they are shipping them from areas in the southeast where they experience the flooding. They're shipping over to the southwest, to the northeast, something like that. And people just don't assume that this car had any sort of flooding history.

And this doesn't mean that you should buy new cars to avoid like a the potential for for buying A A flood damaged used car. But always, always, always get a used car that you're looking to buy inspected by a mechanic you trust because they're going to be able to point, point, point out they listen, actually, here's why you probably shooting by this one. They're going to be able to see flood damage and kind of help point you away from buying a car that has IT.

yeah. I mean, I think it's we're s spending a minute and talking about how much of a game changer IT is to buy a used vehicle as opposed to a new vehicle. And so to argue our point jole.

i've got some numbers that i've crunched.

The average monthly pay on car today is seven hundred and thirty four dollars. Now that wasn't the case sixteen years ago, but let's just say he was, and I want to say sixteen years ago because kate, now that's when we moved from a two car family down to a one car family. Had we invested that monthly payment for sixteen years, up to today, we would have around three hundred and sixteen thousand dollars.

Pretty nice where we to continue to invest that seven hundred and thirty four dollars because guys, swain, the future that new car payment is actually going to be higher than IT is right now though another ten years, we're looking at a million dollars just from not having a new car. And I don't think that, that some sort of straw man and argument either because a lot of people do this. A lot of people kind of to get locked into this new car cycle.

They're always making a payment on a vehicle and Normalize. It's Normalized and is jesenia as a lifestyle, not an upgrade. But this is something that people are used to.

And if you can afford IT, if you've got the money on hand, if you have the money on hand, you should be buying the vehicle new, first of all. But I think some people see IT as like, hey, this is something, this is like my one thing that I like to spend money on. If you can afford IT, I think that that that that can be OK, that can be a decent argument. It's at least worth running the numbers, occasions and just facing the facts and how much this is actually gona cost you over the long hair. Were you to instead go with something that's used and something that you pay cash for as opposed to paying out the nose for a new vehicle?

Every single trade us, or the ultimate reality of personal finance, and at least no, with ice wide open, the trade off you're making. And that, to me like, is kind of a shocking statistic to think that just investing what you would have spent every single month on on a car payment, assume you had one every single months for all those years for less than three decades. That becomes a million dollars twenty six years? yeah.

Yes, pretty crazy to think about. And at least you should bank, you know, ire. The car set in a dry way, a little more wireless, be like way to second, you know how much money you're cost to me. Think about that if you .

are able to look at a through a different lids like you're put on, i've got to want you to always be where in the money and the money goggles like you as you're looking at expenses in your house, like you shouldn't stinted vely see .

like dollars like your child look much fuguing git reality where like .

you've got a program that automatically stales how much sometimes is causing you.

I would actually be pretty dope, like metal classes with something this kind of yeah software they could put in.

The virtual reality i've never been afraid of, but augmented reality, I feel like, actually has potential the ability to marry the digital world. And like the actual reality that we're in, I see that being a well, maybe a useful, useful application .

perhaps I let's talk about fashion for a second man. At the risk of sounding like an old man, i'm willing to dip my toes in this. Why are people still .

buying grip jeans? Here's joo her.

shake his fist at the sky. Get off my lawn. people. When this is, actually, this was the title of a recent new york times article.

Why are people still buying ripped jeans? And I just agree with this question because I ve never really understood why people do this. I've never been a fan of the rip genes phenomenon. I think I have a pair of genes that have a rip in IT, but only because they are like .

fourteen years old.

because you rip, because I earned that rip. Yes.

that's such a Better way of thinking about IT. Is like my living created that rip, like me getting down on my knees to pick up my kid for the fifth time is cause that that wear that thread bear patched. They are on the knee, right, which eventually leads to a beautiful riot.

Well, in, as the new york times highlights in this article, is the funny thing is that it's luxury brains. Those are the the ones that we're specializing in creating these covered pairs of ripped pants that people are into. So not only are people paying virtue to the rips, which doesn't make sense of to me at all, they're also knocked ting them in a reasonable Price is are buying them from the luxury retailers who charge more for rip chains. So doesn't like, well, let me go get this pair rip chains from walmart because their eighteen dollars it's like, let me get the bilin ciao of genes that are seven hundred .

and ninety five doll yeah if I was like, hey, you're going to get a discount because these genes ripped like an ugly food dented produce, produce that is good, you dig if I might be .

willing to protect if I was exactly discount, but it's not right. So I don't know that you or I are icons of style. Anything like that, speak for yourself. But forking over big books to the fancy brand to buy rip jeans doesn't make really much sense to me at all.

I don't even like the distressed IT makes me think back to the eighties like the eighties is, is that when like asset wash came in or stonewashed, that's what I was called stonewashed. And IT was to make the genes look like there are somewhat broken in. Because as a kid, I remember the absolute worst thing was getting a pair of, like, brain new genes that we're like, dark blue like that was lame.

And so I can understand from a kid's perspective. But now as an adult man, like those, like those, are the nice genes, right? Like the japanese salvage, dark blue raw denim.

I love going to hear this because this almost like a blank canvas. Like you said, you have to earn those warehouse ines. You earn that whisky come about .

naturally over time.

Yeah yeah that's and you're pay more in that case. So on those kinds of genes because there's selvage. And so it's A A nicer denim.

I don't know all everything that goes to do, but it's a nicer fabric. It's a it's it's heavy. It's like the heavy weight have our many answers. I am not like a denoir ad or anything like yeah but like you are literally getting more there's utilitarian.

You're getting something that's higher quality and will last longer as opposed sed to gaining something that is an attempt to .

being treated exactly. okay. So speaking of spending money on crap, maybe try and avoid amazon's new line, amazon's hall. This is amazon's effort to compete with the the cheap chinese sites like tmo over there. Nothing is Price more than twenty dollars.

And you might be, listen to the show and thinking that, man, these money saving host of the podcast they'd be all about and is on hall. But we're actually not because these couldn't get affordable products are they're often made incredibly poorly. That means are going to break quickly.

If it's a fashioned item, IT means is going to unravel quickly or fade or it's going to pill and you're going to start seeing more prompts to check out amazon hall over on their site or on the APP, especially here on the holiday. But avoiding IT is likely the best policy. We like getting a deal. We like the Prices, but we are certainly down to pay a little bit more for quality for something that we think is gonna the actual long hole. I know I didn't really wrap that up cleanly, but you know i'm saying, yeah, the reasons called dams on hall too is IT because because they want you to have to think that directly from china to avoid the it's likely going .

to take mutio weeks to get your stuff just because yeah IT is this direct direct from china sort of to avoid the terrorists? Yeah, I am literally that's .

like when you are when they are shipping IT directly from china.

like they are charge much, much less, they know, hey, where maybe competitive with a lot of american retailers, but we're not as competitive with t moshing. Like those kind of company. And so this is their attempt to be competitive on that front.

But in in their attempts to be competitive with some of those chinese retailers, they are going to have to reduce quality the product. They are reducing the Price. Yeah but a lot of these things are just going to be cheap chat kees ah that you should avoid because they're not going to last very long.

Especially meant similar clothing. I am think about how i've never bought anything from any of those chinese sites, but I kind of I refused to like i'm not not interested and I know some people like are addicted to them and they get suffer super ti proceede. But I just don't think this deep discounts are .

are worth the Price we pay joes by an .

american made, only joe a made, but like going to avoid the .

absolute cheapest crap out there.

Yeah I mean, everything I read about the experts of the coding items but I think about like that all the plastic drunken stuff, it's a lot of its like completely needless stuff in word what is wild by the Price and so we buy but how long is that thing actually last? And is this something that we use for longer than a few days? I know yeah we are literally .

in the myths of having conversations with familiar I know as we're trying to figure out what guess are you going to look like around the holidays in Christmas in order to keep know just all that stuff that's going to end up breaking or that we're not going to find a whole lot of value to a minimum? Yeah, those are important conversations to have right now. I mean, let's do a quick newsletter referred shot out to Britney.

k. Britney, thank you so much for being a kind of money newsletter reader as well as disseminator. You've sent IT out to some your most loved friends and family, so thank you for spread in the word no .

doubt we appreciate your Britney or matters going to do IT for this episode will put links in the cherney to similar stuff that we mentioned. And there's always more money saving information of had helped to money to com. But until next time, best friends are our best friends out.

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