Speaker 1: Let's say good morning now to the host of how
Speaker 1: to Money on KFI.
Speaker 2: It's our buddy Joel lars Guard. Morning Joel, morning, Amy.
Speaker 2: We know you are going.
Speaker 1: To head out for vacation because this is the last
Speaker 1: time we're going to talk to you for a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks.
Speaker 2: Where are you guys going? So we are going to
Speaker 2: head over to Hawaii.
Speaker 1: Nice.
Speaker 3: Yeah, my wife's best friend lives there, so we'll be
Speaker 3: staying with them for a few days and we'll hit
Speaker 3: up the Big Island for five.
Speaker 2: Or six days.
Speaker 1: And look at that how to Money Joel has figured
Speaker 1: out how not to spend money on a hotel room
Speaker 1: in Hawaii.
Speaker 2: Stay with a friend, especially in expensive places like Hawaii
Speaker 2: to go.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's talk about these new cell services, their mv
Speaker 1: n O. What does m v NO stand for.
Speaker 2: Mobile Virtual Network Operator? And what is yeah? Okay, so basically.
Speaker 3: It's all of these these new name brands are trying
Speaker 3: to establish themselves as name brands. The big three are
Speaker 3: you know, Verizon and AT and T and T Mobile.
Speaker 3: Those are the ones you see the ads for everywhere.
Speaker 3: And if you've been if you're a little more online,
Speaker 3: you've seen the ads for companies like mint Mobile, which
Speaker 3: is an mb and o that runs on T mobiles network.
Speaker 3: But there have just been a proliferation of these mb
Speaker 3: and o's and they're essentially, you know, buying space from
Speaker 3: the big three and then they're reselling cell service at
Speaker 3: a much cheaper price to the general public. And so
Speaker 3: if you don't fall for the advertising when you're watching
Speaker 3: your favorite sports team, then you're you're actually doing your research.
Speaker 3: You could save a ton of money on cell phone service.
Speaker 3: And it's amazing. It's one of those things where in
Speaker 3: the era of inflation, we have seen a downward trend
Speaker 3: in prices on cell phone service, and so what used
Speaker 3: to be a good price three years ago, even you're
Speaker 3: you're overpaying if you haven't reshopped your cell phone service.
Speaker 3: So it's it's really important to re shop. They're Mint Mobile.
Speaker 3: I just mentioned they're a great one. Us Mobile is
Speaker 3: my current favorite, and they've got some of the best plans.
Speaker 3: We're talking about unlimited cell phone service with talk, text
Speaker 3: and data as well well. For the low low price
Speaker 3: of seventeen dollars and fifty cents a month if you
Speaker 3: prepay for a year, that's pretty incredible.
Speaker 1: Okay, that and you pre pay for a year, so
Speaker 1: it would be about two hundred bucks, right, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I pay almost that in a month.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm always shocked by this, but when you look
Speaker 3: at the stats of what the average I'm always baffled.
Speaker 3: I'm like, there's no way this is true. The stats
Speaker 3: show that the average person pays something like one hundred
Speaker 3: dollars a month for cell phone service, and I'm like
Speaker 3: that that can't be right because I'm paying not much
Speaker 3: more than that for cell phone service for a full year.
Speaker 3: So if that is true, if those numbers really are accurate,
Speaker 3: then some people must be paying much more than one
Speaker 3: hundred dollars a month. If I'm paying a whole lot less,
Speaker 3: and I think a lot of folks think amy, well,
Speaker 3: then I must be getting this inferior product. I'm getting
Speaker 3: this third rate cell phone service. And you do have
Speaker 3: to look at the fine print. For instance, with US Mobile,
Speaker 3: yeah it's unlimited data, but after ten gigs, they're going
Speaker 3: to throttle you, so you're not going to get as
Speaker 3: fast as speeds. The truth is also that most people
Speaker 3: don't use even ten gigs in a month because they're
Speaker 3: on Wi Fi at work, they're on Wi Fi at home,
Speaker 3: and unless you're watching like copious amounts of YouTube videos
Speaker 3: when you're driving around in your car or walking the
Speaker 3: streets of your neighborhood, you don't need that much data.
Speaker 2: And there are other options out.
Speaker 3: There too, like Google's Google has a pretty good cell
Speaker 3: phone service as well that works well overseas. So there
Speaker 3: are lots of options in the NB and O world.
Speaker 3: What's interesting too, is there these companies. They are new
Speaker 3: ones springing up, like the SmartLess podcast the Jason Bateman,
Speaker 3: Will Arnett and Sean Hayes. They're creating a SmartLess cell
Speaker 3: phone service. I guess it's just easier than ever to
Speaker 3: create one of these companies. You know, the President has
Speaker 3: a new ish MV and O cell phone service that
Speaker 3: they announced just a couple of weeks ago. But just
Speaker 3: be careful, be wary what are you getting and how
Speaker 3: much are you paying? Because I do believe the President's
Speaker 3: is like forty seven dollars a month, and like I said,
Speaker 3: I'm paying seventeen dollars a month, So look at the
Speaker 3: trade offs between what you're getting and because yeah, I
Speaker 3: wouldn't buy it because my favorite podcast host launched one,
Speaker 3: I'm looking for the best value cell phone plan and
Speaker 3: US Mobile Mint Mobile. Those are typically two of the
Speaker 3: top two. I would recommend people check out Okay Perfect.
Speaker 1: And then you know, we're doom scrolling all over the place,
Speaker 1: and one of those places is TikTok. And so people
Speaker 1: are now getting financial advice from TikTok.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean this has been a growing problem right
Speaker 3: where there's something about financial advice in sixty seconds that's
Speaker 3: cast out to everybody everywhere where.
Speaker 2: There's just it's hard to find nuance.
Speaker 3: And so there's a lot of people saying, well, I
Speaker 3: heard this on TikTok and I applied it to my
Speaker 3: life and it turns out, actually it didn't work for me.
Speaker 3: Think about getting tax advice from TikTok. I mean, it's
Speaker 3: so specialized your tax situation and what makes sense for you, you know,
Speaker 3: the tax maneuvers that are actually going to help you
Speaker 3: save on your taxes versus your neighbor. A lot of
Speaker 3: it depends on your how you make your money and
Speaker 3: do your own real estate right, all these other things.
Speaker 3: And if you're taking your tax advice from TikTok and
Speaker 3: they're trying to apply it directly to your life, you
Speaker 3: could be making a mistake. And then there's just all
Speaker 3: sorts of fraudulent claims on TikTok as well. And again,
Speaker 3: I have friends in this space.
Speaker 2: Do what I said shocking?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know right well, And I have friends in
Speaker 3: this space, and they really aren't. They're smart, they're good,
Speaker 3: They're delivering good content, good advice on TikTok and on Instagram.
Speaker 3: So I'm not like castigating everyone who creates content on
Speaker 3: these platforms. I think there are some really well intentioned
Speaker 3: people who do offer good advice and who do try
Speaker 3: to create the nuance that's necessary. It's just that there's
Speaker 3: a lot of people who aren't doing that. And there
Speaker 3: was this trend going around lately, and especially with kind
Speaker 3: of what's happening with student loan repayment now, where the government,
Speaker 3: the current administration is saying, yeah, you got to start
Speaker 3: paying your student loan bills again after three and a
Speaker 3: half years of not having to, and people are like,
Speaker 3: I didn't remember I had student loans.
Speaker 2: How much do I owe again? What's my monthly payment?
Speaker 3: And you know, a lot of people are shocked, and
Speaker 3: so a lot of people haven't, you know, because they
Speaker 3: haven't been paying. They're not paying and their credit score
Speaker 3: is getting dinged, and so you're looking for anything, you're
Speaker 3: grasping on to hope that somehow, some way you don't
Speaker 3: actually have to pay that student loan, and TikTok is
Speaker 3: more than happy to oblige and interesting theories of how
Speaker 3: you can avoid paying your student loan. And The New
Speaker 3: York Times wrote about this recently and they're basically saying, Oh,
Speaker 3: you can file acclaim based on privacy, or you can
Speaker 3: dispute a student loan record, and this is a way
Speaker 3: that you can get your student loan debt erased. And man,
Speaker 3: if only it were that easy. In fact, student loan
Speaker 3: debt is one of the hardest things to get rid of.
Speaker 3: There are special exemptions for student loans where you can't
Speaker 3: get rid of them even in bankruptcy court typically. So, yeah,
Speaker 3: if you follow this advice on TikTok, you might be
Speaker 3: excited to think that you can get rid of your
Speaker 3: student loan debt, but it's not going to happen in reality.
Speaker 1: Okay, So basically think twice before following financial advice that
Speaker 1: you get from a platform known for recipes and dance moves.
Speaker 2: Yeah, stick to the recipes and dance.
Speaker 1: Moves all right. How the money on KFI, it's Joel Larsgard.
Speaker 1: You can hear him every Sunday from noon to two.
Speaker 1: Have a wonderful vacation. We'll talk to you soon, all right,
Speaker 1: Thank you, Amy, all right, take care,