Speaker 1: Bill Handle Show.
Speaker 2: Neil Savadri here with the Morning show Gang, Happy Thursday
Speaker 2: to you.
Speaker 1: You know what that means. You hear that soundtrack, that.
Speaker 2: Means Joelar's guard is swaggering in Are you swaggering?
Speaker 3: Sir? Always bring the swagger every time.
Speaker 2: I have a host of Out of Money Sundays noon
Speaker 2: to two pm. Great show if you haven't heard it,
Speaker 2: and of course you can find him at How to Money?
Speaker 2: Joel How are you, sir? Oh, I'm phenomenal, Neil. It's
Speaker 2: good to be talking with you. Nice talk to you.
Speaker 2: Still seven feet tall with a dozen.
Speaker 3: Kids trying to be Yeah, not a dozen yet, but
Speaker 3: working towards it.
Speaker 1: We'll get there. It was your family like.
Speaker 3: Vikings, Well from the realm of the Vikings, that's for sure.
Speaker 3: There's probably Vikings in our history. There's probably a bloody,
Speaker 3: gory past I don't know about. You're like a tall
Speaker 3: guy and you are making minions. I love it, which
Speaker 3: is why you've got swinging an axe, yeh, which is
Speaker 3: why you got to protect your money so social security.
Speaker 2: You have been talking on your show about people freaking
Speaker 2: out because of tariffs and the like and doing this
Speaker 2: kind of preemptive buying. Right, You're talking about them going
Speaker 2: out and buying cars or doing things because they go, oh,
Speaker 2: the price is going to go.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 2: Now there's another concern, and that's people claiming social security
Speaker 2: early out of fear.
Speaker 1: What's going on?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean when you think about it, Neil,
Speaker 3: a lot of us do things out of fear instead
Speaker 3: of really taking the time to assess the situation and
Speaker 3: say what's in my rational best interest. There's a whole
Speaker 3: lot of uh. And I think part of this is
Speaker 3: news media. It's headlines. It's the twenty four hour news cycle,
Speaker 3: and so you see stuff about, oh man cuts up
Speaker 3: the Social Security administration. Oh man, I can't I can't
Speaker 3: get anybody on the phone there.
Speaker 1: And then on top of that, you see the.
Speaker 3: Perpetual headlines that are just saying, hey, social Security Security
Speaker 3: is moving towards insolvency. And so people are like, wait
Speaker 3: a second, like is that money going to be there
Speaker 3: for me? And so people who are retiring now they're
Speaker 3: in their sixties, they're saying, I'm going to get the
Speaker 3: money while it's there, because I don't know if it's
Speaker 3: going to be there in the future. And so what
Speaker 3: this is leading to is people doing the thing that's
Speaker 3: actually not in their ultimate best interest because of worry
Speaker 3: and fear, And so they're taking the Social Security bird
Speaker 3: in the hand at age like sixty two instead of
Speaker 3: waiting more years because they're just like thinking, I don't
Speaker 3: know is the money going to be there if I wait?
Speaker 2: You know, out of all the things, you know, I
Speaker 2: like coupling, I love being married, I love it. I
Speaker 2: love having a partner in life. But out of all
Speaker 2: the things that my wife and I talk about, we
Speaker 2: talk about that fear factor with money.
Speaker 1: How people lead with fear?
Speaker 2: What is it about money that makes like everything is is.
Speaker 1: Fear based with money, which is a weird. I never
Speaker 1: want to be that guy.
Speaker 2: I just never want to be that person make more money,
Speaker 2: but you know, I don't want to make myself crazy.
Speaker 1: So how can we lead with fear? So well?
Speaker 3: One of my favorite quotes from a financial writer named
Speaker 3: Morgan Housel is that you should invest like an optimist
Speaker 3: and save like a pessimist because there is some room
Speaker 3: for pessimism right in money, because we all know unexpected
Speaker 3: things can happen, and so it's you don't want to
Speaker 3: have this like rose colored glasses Pollyanna view of the
Speaker 3: world and just say, like, what will be will be,
Speaker 3: and I don't have to worry about tomorrow. I want
Speaker 3: you to plan and think about those things. But yeah,
Speaker 3: but if you can invest like an optimist and say
Speaker 3: our better days are ahead, but also save in such
Speaker 3: a way where you're like I am planning and I
Speaker 3: am prepared for things to come down the pike. I
Speaker 3: talked about this with Amy on Tuesday for a quick minute.
Speaker 3: Vanguard basically found, Hey, if you have at least two
Speaker 3: thousand dollars in the bank, you're going to reduce your
Speaker 3: financial stress significantly. You're going to be more prepared for
Speaker 3: an emergency. Just two thousand bucks, Like the stakes aren't
Speaker 3: even that high, but obviously I want people to have
Speaker 3: even more than that in savings. But it's amazing how
Speaker 3: just a little bit of money and samey's can really
Speaker 3: reduce a lot of that fear.
Speaker 1: So I think that's.
Speaker 3: Part of it is you have to and you also
Speaker 3: have to just like look at the data. When you
Speaker 3: look at the data around something like social Security, the
Speaker 3: benefit is like seventy five percent higher if you wait
Speaker 3: to claim social Security until age seventy instead of taking
Speaker 3: it at age sixty two, and to break even point
Speaker 3: for a person who takes socialit party, you have to
Speaker 3: take a lot of other circumstances into account, including are
Speaker 3: you married and how's your health? That kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: But a lot of.
Speaker 3: People are claiming at age sixty two and their fit
Speaker 3: as a fiddle, and they're expecting to live hopefully till
Speaker 3: they're ninety, and they would have been better off waiting,
Speaker 3: at least from a financial perspective. And this makes something
Speaker 3: like a six figure difference for a lot of retirees
Speaker 3: over the course of that extra Decade's.
Speaker 2: So funny you mentioned that because I heard you listening
Speaker 2: to Wake Up Call with Amy, and I immediately told
Speaker 2: my wife when we you know, debriefed for the day
Speaker 2: at the end of the day about that, and like,
Speaker 2: you know, okay, where are we healthy, where do we
Speaker 2: feel we're healthy? And do we have enough in the
Speaker 2: bank and those types of things. You know, in California,
Speaker 2: two thousand bucks in savings is gas money, sure, but
Speaker 2: you know, but we looked at we used that to
Speaker 2: jump off and to look at everything and to where
Speaker 2: we are. And you know, it's funny you were talking
Speaker 2: about how you don't take things for granted, and you
Speaker 2: have to be a little pessimistic when it comes to money.
Speaker 2: A really wonderful word of wisdom from my father in
Speaker 2: law one time. You know, this was years ago, and
Speaker 2: things were shaky. I know they're always shaky in radio,
Speaker 2: and I said, I don't worry, because I would do
Speaker 2: anything to feed my family. I would, you know, manual labor,
Speaker 2: whatever it is. And he put his hand on my
Speaker 2: shoulder and he goes, I know you believe that, and
Speaker 2: I know in your heart of hearts you would, but
Speaker 2: there'll be a day when your body can't back that up.
Speaker 2: And it's like he said, and it hit me, Yeah,
Speaker 2: there's physically you know, I would dig ditches, I'd do
Speaker 2: whatever it takes. But he said, yeah, but your body
Speaker 2: won't be able to do that. So you have there's
Speaker 2: just there is some forethinking and all of this to
Speaker 2: make sure that when your body does not work at
Speaker 2: its prime anymore, you have that you have this to
Speaker 2: fall back on. Any any prognostication as to what's going
Speaker 2: on with Social Security and when there might be a breakdown.
Speaker 3: Well, so all the predictions are basically saying that the
Speaker 3: Social Security Trust Fund is going to run out in
Speaker 3: basically a decade, and so what happens though when that's
Speaker 3: the case, Well, there are still a whole lot of
Speaker 3: people like you and me who are working and we're
Speaker 3: paying into the Social Security system with every paycheck that
Speaker 3: we get, and so because of that, it's not that
Speaker 3: Social Security goes away completely. And this is something that
Speaker 3: people should be planning for, especially younger people. If you're
Speaker 3: in your thirties and forties, is like, well, if long
Speaker 3: into the back end of Social Security's website, they'll project
Speaker 3: what you're likely to get when you reach retirement age,
Speaker 3: and that benefits likely to be cut by twenty five
Speaker 3: percent when we reach that date if nothing is done
Speaker 3: in the meantime. And the tough thing is Congress and politicians.
Speaker 3: They've they've had very little stomach to address the issue
Speaker 3: of Social Security. So it's not that, hey, everything's rosy
Speaker 3: and the Social Security the way Social Security is constructed
Speaker 3: is totally flawless and everything's going to be okay. That's
Speaker 3: not what I'm saying either. I just I think specifically
Speaker 3: for people in their sixties, waiting extra years makes sense
Speaker 3: from an extra benefit perspective. For younger folks, you do
Speaker 3: have to be aware, and we have to hold our
Speaker 3: politicians feet to the fire and say, hey, what are
Speaker 3: you going to do about this to make sure social
Speaker 3: security is actually going to be around, And there's a
Speaker 3: number of things that likely need to be done in
Speaker 3: concert to ensure that social security stays around for centuries
Speaker 3: to come.
Speaker 2: I feel, you know, I don't know why, Joel, but
Speaker 2: I feel like I've been hearing that ten year date
Speaker 2: or over and over.
Speaker 1: It's like the h in the seventies.
Speaker 2: Excuse me when they started the Earth Day and they
Speaker 2: said they we had a decade before all hell was
Speaker 2: going to break loose and the world was going to implode.
Speaker 2: And here we are still saying in ten years the
Speaker 2: world's going to implode. But you really feel like if
Speaker 2: something's not done in ten years, is the top of
Speaker 2: that heap?
Speaker 3: I do, And again, I don't think it's an implosion, right,
Speaker 3: So I don't want to make it sound like that,
Speaker 3: but there is.
Speaker 1: There is a fear monger, Joel large guard fear monger.
Speaker 3: No implosion will take place, but it will be a
Speaker 3: cut in benefits that is effective immediately once we get
Speaker 3: to that point. And so people it's it's and I
Speaker 3: believe that that that would be from what I've seen,
Speaker 3: that that iteration of Social Security with like a reduced
Speaker 3: payout would be totally fine until like the year twenty
Speaker 3: eighty five or ninety. So it's again, it's not some
Speaker 3: sort of implosion or doomsday cliff. But it is important
Speaker 3: for younger folks who are investing for their future to
Speaker 3: be more cognizant of the fact that social security might
Speaker 3: not be there in the same way.
Speaker 1: That it is now.
Speaker 3: But for retirees or for people who are in their sixties,
Speaker 3: I wouldn't rush to claim at sixty two or sixty
Speaker 3: three just because I'm worried about that future social security spiral,
Speaker 3: but I would so. And by the way, there is
Speaker 3: this cool software. It costs like forty five bucks. I
Speaker 3: want to say to check out maximize mysocial security dot
Speaker 3: com and it could.
Speaker 1: Be well worth you looking into that.
Speaker 3: If you're trying to figure out when is the best
Speaker 3: date for you to claim, they'll ask you a bunch
Speaker 3: of questions. You can kind of calculate when your highest
Speaker 3: benefit is going to be. And I think it's worth
Speaker 3: it because you're talking about so much in potential money
Speaker 3: that you could be missing out on if you don't.
Speaker 2: Okay, so we moved from social Security onto cars. Tariffs
Speaker 2: at all, rising prices is going to cause a whole
Speaker 2: other problem with our finances.
Speaker 1: Tell us about that.
Speaker 3: I mean, nobody's tired of hearing or talking about tariffs,
Speaker 3: are they They're just it's really fun every time to
Speaker 3: keep talking about. Although fortunately there's been a little bit
Speaker 3: less in the headlines about tariffs and I don't know, man,
Speaker 3: where do things go from here is a big question,
Speaker 3: but it's interesting. One of the things that we talked
Speaker 3: we have talked about is kind of the pre buying
Speaker 3: phenomena that people are saying, well, the tariff riding is
Speaker 3: on the wall, maybe I should go ahead and buy
Speaker 3: stuff that I was like otherwise going to hold off,
Speaker 3: maybe buy a few months from now, or I don't know,
Speaker 3: maybe it wasn't even on my radar. But tariff's kind
Speaker 3: of going back to the fear thing that we discussed Neil.
Speaker 3: It's well, if they're coming down the pike, I'm getting
Speaker 3: a little scared. Maybe I should buy something now and
Speaker 3: it'll save me money. And this is kind of the
Speaker 3: Black Friday mentality that's kind of been beaten in to
Speaker 3: all of us as American consumers is like, well, buy
Speaker 3: it when it's a deal, or before it gets more expensive.
Speaker 3: And there was this article in Bloomberg basically saying, hey,
Speaker 3: that sort of mentality is leaving people with a debt problem,
Speaker 3: because yeah, maybe it's not the worst idea in the
Speaker 3: world if you have the cash, if you were going
Speaker 3: to make that purchase anyway, and you're like, hey, a
Speaker 3: few months from now, it.
Speaker 1: Is going to get more expensive.
Speaker 3: But for a lot of people, they don't have the cash,
Speaker 3: and they weren't necessarily prepared to make a big purchase,
Speaker 3: especially on something like an automobile. And so yeah, if
Speaker 3: it comes with a nine percent interest rate attached to it,
Speaker 3: and you bought more than you can actually afford, and
Speaker 3: you signed up for a seven year car loan, well,
Speaker 3: beating the tariffs wasn't really a win.
Speaker 1: And I think there are a lot.
Speaker 3: Of people kind of taking that sort of mentality, let
Speaker 3: me go ahead and beat the tariffs, and ultimately what
Speaker 3: they're doing is like self immolation. Wow, maybe too extreme.
Speaker 3: I don't know, No, I love it. I love it that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's a good way of financial self emolation. Yes,
Speaker 2: I got it. I was hoping it wasn't that. I'm like,
Speaker 2: are you holding the axe right now? But yeah, it's
Speaker 2: an interesting thing to watch because I have a lot
Speaker 2: of hobbies in like manufacturing and creating and building at home,
Speaker 2: so you know, a lot of three D printers and
Speaker 2: the like they're coming out of China and watching this
Speaker 2: whole thing unfold. I went to buy some parts the
Speaker 2: other day and I looked from like Timu or something,
Speaker 2: and I looked and I'm like, that price is not right.
Speaker 2: And I looked on Amazon and the exact same product
Speaker 2: was half the cost on Amazon because they must have
Speaker 2: had you know, local you know, local warehouses that have
Speaker 2: the stock or inventory in them or something, but.
Speaker 1: Half the price. And I was like, wow.
Speaker 3: And what you're what you're getting to is the fact that, hey,
Speaker 3: these tariffs have been implemented and and yes, some of
Speaker 3: them have been rolled back a little bit, but there's
Speaker 3: still widespread tariffs on most of the countries.
Speaker 1: In the world.
Speaker 3: And and you're right, like some of these businesses pre
Speaker 3: bought a lot of stuff, they have stocked up on
Speaker 3: some of the items that are most important to their business,
Speaker 3: and and they haven't yet had to raise prices, but
Speaker 3: slowly but surely those prices are going to go up.
Speaker 3: And this gets to kind of the comment that President
Speaker 3: Trump made about how many dolls eleven year old girls
Speaker 3: should own, and and so the thing that he's been
Speaker 3: kind of unwilling to admit, but in a moment of
Speaker 3: candor actually kind of came out of his mouth was like, well, yeah,
Speaker 3: maybe everyone should be okay with with owning less stuff.
Speaker 3: And from a minimalist perspective, I totally get that. I
Speaker 3: think if it's a personal choice to say, I know
Speaker 3: I'm gonna I'm gonna make an informed decision to buy less,
Speaker 3: to consume less and save money and save the planet,
Speaker 3: I think that's a wonderful thing. It's something we talk
Speaker 3: about on the show often. I think it's I think
Speaker 3: it also that sort of ingrained frugal mindset can help
Speaker 3: you save and invest more, gives you more optionality for
Speaker 3: your future. But if it's this sort of forced imposition
Speaker 3: that tariffs are going to put on us of like
Speaker 3: you won't be able to buy some of the things
Speaker 3: that you wanted to buy, I think that's going to
Speaker 3: be pretty untenable. And I'm curious to see how this
Speaker 3: shakes out. But but you're right, like we're starting to
Speaker 3: see that trickle trickling in of higher prices and how
Speaker 3: high they go and how widespread those higher prices get,
Speaker 3: and how it's going to impact how consumers feel about
Speaker 3: the policies.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: On that note, I'm a big fan of repair and
Speaker 2: refurbish and I wish we'd get back to some of
Speaker 2: those skills that we had, yeah, you know in the
Speaker 2: day's past.
Speaker 1: I really do.
Speaker 2: Some things are made very we've gotten very disposable, especially
Speaker 2: with electronics, and you're.
Speaker 3: Spot on, spot on, and there's this you're right, and
Speaker 3: that is one of the things I think that some
Speaker 3: of the cheaper goods that come out of China, it's
Speaker 3: like we think of them as throwaway devices, like the
Speaker 3: toaster that you get or whatever.
Speaker 1: Sure, and there's I love the idea.
Speaker 3: There's kind of the buy for life thing that happens,
Speaker 3: whether it's like darn Tov socks or or whether it's
Speaker 3: like speed Queen washers and dryers.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know about that.
Speaker 3: But yeah, they have like an epic warranty and they're
Speaker 3: built differently, and so yeah, they cost more upfront. But
Speaker 3: I'm all about people paying a little bit more upfront
Speaker 3: for something that's hopefully going to last a heck of
Speaker 3: a lot longer. And yeah, I hate the kind of
Speaker 3: planed obsolescence.
Speaker 2: Yes that a lot of our electronics go oh my gosh,
Speaker 2: just just google that term and the light bulb and
Speaker 2: you will go down a rabbit hole.
Speaker 1: But all right, my friend.
Speaker 2: Always good to talk to you, Joel, and I really
Speaker 2: do enjoy the show and all the wisdom you guys
Speaker 2: throw out in a fun way. You and Matt so
Speaker 2: a host of how to Money Sunday Noon to two.
Speaker 2: How To Money Joel is where you can find them
Speaker 2: on the socials there. Thanks buddyreciate you.
Speaker 1: Appreciate you. To Neil, thanks, we'll talk again soon.