SPEAKER_0 [00:00:00]
Dramas, please.
SPEAKER_1 [00:00:13]
Yeah.
SPEAKER_1 [00:00:20]
This is life
SPEAKER_0 [00:00:21]
with a twist of lemon.
SPEAKER_0 [00:00:25]
Hey. So I did something a little weird today.
SPEAKER_1 [00:00:29]
Okay. Do I wanna know?
SPEAKER_0 [00:00:31]
It's debatable. So do you remember
SPEAKER_0 [00:00:35]
do you remember what your first web browser was?
SPEAKER_1 [00:00:38]
Probably Netscape Navigator or something like that.
SPEAKER_0 [00:00:41]
Yeah. Good old Netscape Navigator.
SPEAKER_0 [00:00:44]
So I remember I used Netscape Navigator against my will in high school because it was the only thing they had on the Windows computers. For some reason, unbeknownst to me, they had locked down the ability to use Internet Explorer four.
SPEAKER_0 [00:00:58]
And
SPEAKER_0 [00:00:59]
if you rewind
SPEAKER_0 [00:01:01]
time,
SPEAKER_0 [00:01:02]
Internet Explorer used to be like pretty hot stuff, right? Then it became evil,
SPEAKER_0 [00:01:08]
and it's kind of gotten back into the like, you know, cool zone, if you will. But Internet Explorer four was just radical because it was like doing DHTML
SPEAKER_0 [00:01:17]
and all crazy JavaScript stuff,
SPEAKER_0 [00:01:19]
and HTML four was the new hotness.
SPEAKER_0 [00:01:22]
And, I was still a Windows guy, but at school, we used Netscape Navigator. So from there,
SPEAKER_0 [00:01:29]
at home, I would use Internet Explorer, and then
SPEAKER_0 [00:01:32]
came
SPEAKER_0 [00:01:33]
do you remember? What came next?
SPEAKER_1 [00:01:38]
I don't know, man.
SPEAKER_1 [00:01:40]
How old was I at this time?
SPEAKER_0 [00:01:43]
That's
SPEAKER_0 [00:01:44]
a good question.
SPEAKER_0 [00:01:45]
Younger than I was. So what came next was Firefox, right? Firefox came out of I
SPEAKER_0 [00:01:50]
should say nowhere because,
SPEAKER_0 [00:01:52]
you know, Mozilla was a thing and
SPEAKER_0 [00:01:55]
Mozilla used to actually have a browser branded Mozilla and it was a whole suite of tools including an email client.
SPEAKER_0 [00:02:03]
But Firefox was a standalone thing, it was awesome. It was fast. It was cutting edge.
SPEAKER_0 [00:02:09]
And I felt like, you know, it kind of ruled the roost for a long time. Yeah. I remember using Firefox a lot.
SPEAKER_0 [00:02:16]
Yeah. And then Chrome. Chrome comes along. Yeah.
SPEAKER_0 [00:02:19]
Right. And it just destroyed Firefox. And I think part of it was because Chrome,
SPEAKER_0 [00:02:25]
had that individual process per tab thing, you know? Right. Where Yeah. The speed was significantly faster
SPEAKER_0 [00:02:31]
originally. Yeah.
SPEAKER_0 [00:02:33]
Yep. Yep. And the individual processing meant that one bad website wouldn't, you know, crash all your tabs.
SPEAKER_0 [00:02:39]
I don't know if you remember the days. I remember those
SPEAKER_0 [00:02:45]
was like that's where tabbed browsing, I feel like, really came from, at least became commonplace.
SPEAKER_0 [00:02:51]
Maybe somebody else had it before then, probably Opera.
SPEAKER_0 [00:02:54]
But nobody
SPEAKER_0 [00:02:55]
was using it before Firefox.
SPEAKER_0 [00:02:58]
So anyhow, right, Chrome comes through, Firefox,
SPEAKER_0 [00:03:01]
it felt like just stopped improving itself,
SPEAKER_0 [00:03:04]
and I think they they just lost their
SPEAKER_0 [00:03:07]
user base. I, of course, being a Mac guy, I used a thing called Camino,
SPEAKER_0 [00:03:12]
which
SPEAKER_0 [00:03:13]
Camino with a c. If you Google it, you might be able to find a page about it. But basically, they took
SPEAKER_0 [00:03:19]
the engine for Firefox
SPEAKER_0 [00:03:22]
what was that called?
SPEAKER_0 [00:03:23]
There was a name for that. It wasn't Gekko, was it? It might have been Gekko.
SPEAKER_0 [00:03:27]
And they built an actual native Aqua interface over it. So I loved it, right? Like it felt like it was at home. And at that time, Safari was really bad.
SPEAKER_0 [00:03:35]
Eventually, Safari became good. Safari came to Windows.
SPEAKER_0 [00:03:38]
But it never really got, I think, the following. However, on Mac, the thing that has always impressed me about it was just used so much less energy.
SPEAKER_0 [00:03:48]
Right. Like, my battery just lasts so much longer.
SPEAKER_0 [00:03:53]
But, you know,
SPEAKER_0 [00:03:55]
the the tools available and the integrations available for Chrome are far superior. And they are superior for Firefox till today, which leads me to the weird thing I did today, which was I
SPEAKER_0 [00:04:06]
pulled up Firefox Quantum, and I used it, and I used it all day.
SPEAKER_0 [00:04:11]
Nice.
SPEAKER_0 [00:04:12]
Do you even have Firefox Quantum
SPEAKER_1 [00:04:15]
on your Mac? I do not.
SPEAKER_0 [00:04:18]
Yeah. See, I,
SPEAKER_0 [00:04:20]
I had it. I don't remember when I installed it or why,
SPEAKER_0 [00:04:24]
but I did have it. And so I opened it up, let it update, installed a couple of, like, mission critical extensions I need, which is, you know, 1Password,
SPEAKER_0 [00:04:34]
Ghostery,
SPEAKER_0 [00:04:35]
and what else did I install? Oh, Pocket. No, no. Pocket's already built in. Pocket's because Pocket's now owned by Mozilla. So maybe that was just it. Maybe that's all I needed to get going. But
SPEAKER_0 [00:04:44]
I did that. I did that today. And
SPEAKER_0 [00:04:47]
much to my surprise,
SPEAKER_0 [00:04:49]
it actually works with Google Meet,
SPEAKER_0 [00:04:52]
which was one of the things that, like, stopped me from using
SPEAKER_0 [00:04:57]
Safari, you know, regularly at work. And and I just I did Firefox all day, it was actually pretty good. I don't have any complaints.
SPEAKER_1 [00:05:04]
Nice. Yeah, I heard that they really started focusing
SPEAKER_1 [00:05:07]
on Firefox again
SPEAKER_1 [00:05:10]
and trying to improve it probably
SPEAKER_1 [00:05:13]
eight months to a year ago.
SPEAKER_0 [00:05:14]
Yeah. Yeah. And it's I I think it shows. It is definitely faster.
SPEAKER_0 [00:05:19]
Everything about it feels more nimble. I watched on because I'm a I'm a nerd. I watched an activity monitor energy usage today while I was on,
SPEAKER_0 [00:05:27]
Google Meets,
SPEAKER_0 [00:05:28]
and it actually was using less juice than Chrome was on similar meetings. So that impressed me.
SPEAKER_0 [00:05:36]
I'm
SPEAKER_0 [00:05:37]
still not gonna do a lot of video chats, not hooked up to
SPEAKER_0 [00:05:42]
power, but, you know, whatever.
SPEAKER_0 [00:05:44]
I just I'm excited at the prospect of not using a Google product for the bulk of my day. And maybe that seems silly. Apologize to my Google friends out there, the people I know that work for Google and whatnot.
SPEAKER_0 [00:05:59]
I just I I I don't generally use Google products.
SPEAKER_0 [00:06:02]
I I have Gmail
SPEAKER_0 [00:06:04]
begrudgingly,
SPEAKER_1 [00:06:06]
but that's about it. Because people just keep sending you email there.
SPEAKER_0 [00:06:10]
Yeah. They do.
SPEAKER_0 [00:06:12]
Like, I I actually I actually think Microsoft has a really awesome email experience.
SPEAKER_0 [00:06:17]
Outlook.com, I think, is is really solid.
SPEAKER_1 [00:06:20]
Yeah. Until you install the Outlook desktop app
SPEAKER_1 [00:06:24]
try to You're run your own exchange
SPEAKER_1 [00:06:27]
bringing back nightmares from a former life of mine.
SPEAKER_0 [00:06:31]
So I have not done either of those things. I know that Outlook for Mac is supposed to be pretty solid, but I've never actually used it. I've got, I've got one friend out in Pittsburgh who uses it religiously. He absolutely swears by it.
SPEAKER_1 [00:06:43]
You're right, though. The $3.65 stuff, it looks nice, which is usually what's hard for Microsoft to do because they want it to do every single thing ever.
SPEAKER_1 [00:06:52]
And, yeah, the web interface,
SPEAKER_1 [00:06:55]
the Outlook web app,
SPEAKER_1 [00:06:57]
I could I could get around to that. I still think that the whole Google Suite for businesses,
SPEAKER_1 [00:07:04]
probably a little better.
SPEAKER_1 [00:07:06]
Really?
SPEAKER_1 [00:07:07]
Which part? More user friendly, maybe.
SPEAKER_0 [00:07:11]
That's fair. I mean, when you're in the
SPEAKER_0 [00:07:14]
do they call it off Office three sixty five admin or whatever where you're managing subscriptions and installs and stuff?
SPEAKER_0 [00:07:20]
That's I'm a little clunky. It's a little overloaded,
SPEAKER_0 [00:07:23]
I'll give you that.
SPEAKER_0 [00:07:24]
But I will say this, I think the Office tools
SPEAKER_0 [00:07:28]
through
SPEAKER_0 [00:07:29]
the web well as on iPad iOS,
SPEAKER_0 [00:07:32]
oh, I love those. On iOS, I think they're far superior to anything that Apple or Google has done. I mean, like, they're not even in the same ballpark.
SPEAKER_1 [00:07:41]
What do you use for presentations?
SPEAKER_0 [00:07:45]
Well, at work, I use Google Presentation
SPEAKER_0 [00:07:48]
we
SPEAKER_0 [00:07:49]
we're all in on the Google's at work. Right? Yeah. And
SPEAKER_0 [00:07:53]
so, know, we just that's what we do. But I I I can't remember the last time I had to do a presentation. It's probably at a higher things conference on my own,
SPEAKER_0 [00:08:03]
and there, I'm pretty sure I used Keynote.
SPEAKER_0 [00:08:05]
Not proud of that. I'm I'm not gonna like I'm not gonna own that, but I will say this too. I think Keynote
SPEAKER_0 [00:08:11]
is a it's a little easier to get into
SPEAKER_0 [00:08:14]
than PowerPoint.
SPEAKER_1 [00:08:16]
Yeah. It's easier to design stuff that looks awesome faster if you don't know what you're doing. Yeah. PowerPoint PowerPoint just has so many options.
SPEAKER_1 [00:08:26]
Right.
SPEAKER_1 [00:08:27]
Yeah. And that's kind of
SPEAKER_1 [00:08:29]
Word too is like that.
SPEAKER_0 [00:08:32]
Yeah. Yeah. That is true. I like,
SPEAKER_0 [00:08:35]
what what was I doing the other day? Was doing a multi column layout,
SPEAKER_0 [00:08:39]
and I tried
SPEAKER_0 [00:08:41]
I think I tried doing it in pages. Why? I don't entirely remember. Maybe I I didn't
SPEAKER_0 [00:08:47]
To convince yourself that Word really was better. It could that could very well could be. But it was like I I fought it and fought it and fought it and I was like, forget this. Pulled up Word and I did exactly what I needed to adjusting all the little margin
SPEAKER_0 [00:09:00]
thingies and and everything sort of looked exactly the way I wanted to. Right. It printed looking exactly like it did on the screen and I was done. Like I I got to move on to the next thing and didn't have to sweat it anymore. So
SPEAKER_1 [00:09:12]
And Excel beats numbers hands down.
SPEAKER_1 [00:09:15]
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like Yeah. It's not even comparison.
SPEAKER_1 [00:09:18]
Excel is the way to go if you need to use that kind of thing for anything. Right. Right. Yeah. And I mean, do people still do spreadsheets? I think that's the big question.
SPEAKER_1 [00:09:29]
Sure.
SPEAKER_1 [00:09:30]
I'm sure there's lots of people who use spreadsheets for things that spreadsheets should never be used for.
SPEAKER_0 [00:09:38]
I meant people besides you, John.
SPEAKER_1 [00:09:40]
Well, I I just still budget in a spreadsheet because I'm not all in on giving all my financial data to Mint like you are.
SPEAKER_0 [00:09:48]
I mean, listen. Do you do you file your taxes online?
SPEAKER_1 [00:09:52]
I do.
SPEAKER_0 [00:09:54]
Who do you use? So they probably
SPEAKER_1 [00:09:56]
no. I actually use, based out of Cedar Rapids, Tax Act.
SPEAKER_0 [00:10:01]
Okay all right well as to say if like most americans you use turbo tax
SPEAKER_0 [00:10:06]
into it already has already has it yeah plus
SPEAKER_1 [00:10:11]
plus probably did use
SPEAKER_1 [00:10:16]
did use TurboTax
SPEAKER_1 [00:10:18]
probably
SPEAKER_0 [00:10:19]
five years ago and before and then switched over to TaxAct at that point. You're already in the system man they know everything about you you gave me your social security number and you know all that stuff. I
SPEAKER_0 [00:10:31]
don't know. I like, it's a it's a fair point. Right? Giving all of your
SPEAKER_0 [00:10:36]
bank credentials
SPEAKER_0 [00:10:37]
to a single place
SPEAKER_0 [00:10:39]
Right. Is a little scary.
SPEAKER_1 [00:10:41]
I think do you change your password on that?
SPEAKER_0 [00:10:44]
On Mint or on the services I use?
SPEAKER_1 [00:10:48]
I guess Or both. Probably both.
SPEAKER_0 [00:10:52]
Let me think here. I have changed my password on most of my financial things, I don't know, once
SPEAKER_0 [00:10:59]
every
SPEAKER_0 [00:11:00]
twelve to eighteen months.
SPEAKER_1 [00:11:02]
Okay. Yeah. I change those about once a year too. Sometimes I think I should probably move that up to like every six months, but
SPEAKER_0 [00:11:10]
Mint, it looks like it looks like the last time I changed it was about a year ago. Yeah. So I, you know, I I don't have like a I don't have a routine where I go through and
SPEAKER_0 [00:11:20]
just update them all. What what I generally do is I look at one password and and kinda sort by date sometimes.
SPEAKER_0 [00:11:27]
Right. And we'll work through the old ones.
SPEAKER_0 [00:11:29]
But it's not it's not like
SPEAKER_0 [00:11:32]
it's not ceremonial.
SPEAKER_0 [00:11:33]
It's it's more accidental.
SPEAKER_0 [00:11:35]
But, yeah, that is a fair point. I think
SPEAKER_0 [00:11:38]
for I don't know. How do I say this? For me, Mint allows me to get everything into one place with as little effort as possible. And a big thing for me, right, is having my wife be able to see the same things about
SPEAKER_0 [00:11:53]
our money state as I do. Right. And so advantageous there, right? Like,
SPEAKER_0 [00:12:00]
I don't have to worry about her giving me receipts when she goes grocery shopping so I can plug it in someplace. I don't have to worry about like, you know, hey, could you split the Walmart receipt into these categories or whatever? Right. She can just do it and we all share the same view. So it's been nice there.
SPEAKER_0 [00:12:16]
I
SPEAKER_0 [00:12:17]
definitely
SPEAKER_0 [00:12:19]
am inclined to be frustrated with giving over all my credentials, but again, it's Intuit and I am inclined to think that they have pretty good security, I hope.
SPEAKER_0 [00:12:29]
They have all my other stuff anyhow, right? You know, the IRS has good security too, Stan. Oh boy, yeah.
SPEAKER_0 [00:12:37]
And Equifax too. Right. They've got Equifax hardened security.
SPEAKER_0 [00:12:42]
No. I you know, I sometimes you just you you trade off your
SPEAKER_0 [00:12:48]
convenience for security.
SPEAKER_0 [00:12:50]
Yeah. That's what you trade off, Stan.
SPEAKER_0 [00:12:53]
I
SPEAKER_0 [00:12:54]
mean, it is, right? And I will say this, I do
SPEAKER_0 [00:12:57]
have a master spreadsheet that has the budget,
SPEAKER_0 [00:13:00]
and I replicate it into
SPEAKER_0 [00:13:03]
categories in Mint,
SPEAKER_0 [00:13:06]
Mainly because, again, I like to see
SPEAKER_0 [00:13:10]
where things are flowing into when we kind of, you know, reach those bounds, those limits that we've set. I like being able to see that in real time without having to get too involved with it. I know there are other products out there. I used to be a religious user of iBank.
SPEAKER_0 [00:13:23]
Yeah, I remember
SPEAKER_0 [00:13:25]
it was a pretty good product. Before that, I actually used Quicken for Mac
SPEAKER_0 [00:13:30]
way back when, we're talking like over a decade ago,
SPEAKER_0 [00:13:33]
and that was a pretty, like I was pretty passionate about that as well. The one common theme here is that they all automatically pull transactions from my bank, and that was important.
SPEAKER_0 [00:13:43]
I've
SPEAKER_0 [00:13:44]
looked at You Need a Budget.
SPEAKER_0 [00:13:46]
Lot of people I know love You Need a Budget. I
SPEAKER_0 [00:13:50]
just couldn't get into it. Don't know what it was. I think the initial setup was a little much for me. I've got this other thing that's working. I don't really want to spend a lot of time setting up a new system, so that's another factor too. Yeah that might be part of the reason why I never got into Mint either. Well originally they didn't support my local credit union that was basically where all my income goes
SPEAKER_1 [00:14:12]
and then I move it around from there. So that was
SPEAKER_1 [00:14:16]
a no go there. I think they do support them now. Actually, I'm fairly certain. And then secondly is it's either
SPEAKER_1 [00:14:23]
changing my mind about budget categories to fit the mint categories or to
SPEAKER_1 [00:14:29]
basically go through and set everything up and make sure it's all going to the right place?
SPEAKER_0 [00:14:34]
Well, alright. Let me ask you a question about that. How many categories do you have in your budget?
SPEAKER_1 [00:14:41]
Keep talking, Stan. Let me pull it up so I can look. Because we've
SPEAKER_0 [00:14:45]
talked a little bit about this before, but basically, I used to have tons of budget categories and over time, I've been collapsing them
SPEAKER_0 [00:14:54]
into
SPEAKER_0 [00:14:55]
larger buckets. And I've actually found that to be pretty advantageous.
SPEAKER_0 [00:14:59]
I
SPEAKER_0 [00:15:00]
think the micro categorization
SPEAKER_0 [00:15:03]
made it harder to get value out of it initially, but nobody like, when you open a min, right, there's a thousand categories. Right. And they they do two levels. You can't change the top level. You can only change the bottom level. Right. And it's it's a it's a mental model shift. But let me see here. I'm looking at So I have 15 categories.
SPEAKER_0 [00:15:21]
- How do I open this up in
SPEAKER_0 [00:15:24]
I opened it up in Dropbox. I should open it up in
SPEAKER_0 [00:15:28]
Excel.
SPEAKER_0 [00:15:30]
We should talk about file storage sometime too, John. Dropbox?
SPEAKER_0 [00:15:34]
The devil.
SPEAKER_0 [00:15:35]
Yep.
SPEAKER_1 [00:15:38]
Alright. Come on. Come on. Find my budget. I just have data in too many different places at this point.
SPEAKER_1 [00:15:44]
I think Yeah. It's crazy. I need to consolidate
SPEAKER_1 [00:15:47]
and be security minded again.
SPEAKER_1 [00:15:50]
So Alright. All our listeners, go change your password. If you aren't using a password manager,
SPEAKER_1 [00:15:55]
there's no excuse at this point.
SPEAKER_0 [00:15:58]
Yeah. That that's just that's that's bad that's bad food. Like, dirty pool. Right?
SPEAKER_0 [00:16:03]
Right. Gotta do it. And I think do you are you using one password or are you using something else?
SPEAKER_1 [00:16:10]
So I kinda am doing a hybrid. So I use one password for work, and I've slowly been using a bunch of personal stuff in there too. And then I still have LastPass running as well.
SPEAKER_0 [00:16:21]
Okay. Yeah. I've I've never really got into LastPass.
SPEAKER_0 [00:16:24]
I used 1Password for a long time. In fact, I think it was one of the first apps. Like, remember when 1Password landed on the iPhone,
SPEAKER_0 [00:16:33]
I bought it immediately, that's when I kinda came into the ecosystem. Actually, just recently, I upgraded to the rolling subscription service.
SPEAKER_0 [00:16:41]
Nice. Yeah.
SPEAKER_0 [00:16:42]
Which we could talk about that some other time too. But so real quick, pulling it back to the budgets. I think I've got about 18 categories myself, maybe 19, depends how these break down. Which you would since you have children and a house and Yeah. Yeah. All that good stuff. But so here here's what I here's what I changed recently. Right?
SPEAKER_0 [00:17:01]
I I used to have a separate budget for electricity,
SPEAKER_0 [00:17:05]
gas, sewer,
SPEAKER_0 [00:17:06]
water.
SPEAKER_0 [00:17:08]
What else? What other utilities do have? Like those are the big ones, right? Right. And I broke them down each month. I've never done a budget plan, so I've always had variable
SPEAKER_0 [00:17:16]
amounts.
SPEAKER_0 [00:17:18]
And it's invariably
SPEAKER_0 [00:17:19]
like messy,
SPEAKER_0 [00:17:21]
right? So I start with what I think the budget might be and then I shrink it down when I get the actual
SPEAKER_0 [00:17:27]
bill or sometimes I increase it. And as I started to look back over the last couple of years of budget data I have, I realized that when you take all of those things together,
SPEAKER_0 [00:17:37]
they kind of fit
SPEAKER_0 [00:17:39]
a certain range
SPEAKER_0 [00:17:41]
nicely,
SPEAKER_0 [00:17:41]
right? Like they when gas bill is higher, the electric bill is lower. When the electric bill is higher, the gas bill tends to be lower. You know, when water
SPEAKER_0 [00:17:51]
goes up, other things go down, that kind of thing. And so now I switched to just a generic utilities budget. It's a larger line item, right? Right. But I just I put them all in there.
SPEAKER_0 [00:18:02]
And the things that are static costs, so Sarah's cell phone, my home internet, those I just put as their own budget item. Maybe I could lump them in elsewhere but they don't change so it's okay to lock it in.
SPEAKER_0 [00:18:16]
Mortgage, you know, that's its own thing. Groceries is a big bucket. I used to try
SPEAKER_0 [00:18:21]
to
SPEAKER_0 [00:18:22]
like break that down more. That wasn't worth it.
SPEAKER_0 [00:18:26]
Eating out also,
SPEAKER_0 [00:18:27]
I used to try and break down between like fast food, coffee shops, restaurants. Oh And now it's just the whole thing. Like, it's just a bucket. Groceries and dining out are still separate. Right?
SPEAKER_1 [00:18:38]
You don't lump it into food? Okay. That's what I do as well. But there know there are some people who just
SPEAKER_1 [00:18:43]
lump it all in.
SPEAKER_1 [00:18:45]
Yeah. It's If you're eating out, it's a whole lot more expensive than if you're running over to Aldi or something and buying groceries.
SPEAKER_0 [00:18:51]
It is. And I think if I had one lump for all of them, it would be really easy for me to burn through
SPEAKER_0 [00:18:57]
Right. All of it, right, eating out pretty quickly.
SPEAKER_0 [00:19:00]
Granted, we don't we don't eat out a lot. I've got three kids, so eating out is a big deal.
SPEAKER_0 [00:19:06]
When I eat out, I tend to not go to the McDonald's.
SPEAKER_0 [00:19:09]
I tend to go to
SPEAKER_0 [00:19:11]
is it, Mimi's Blue Meatballs in Indianapolis. You should check it out, it's awesome. But that's a more expensive meal, it's a better meal,
SPEAKER_0 [00:19:18]
and
SPEAKER_0 [00:19:20]
I can't do that every week, right? That's just not going to work out. That's why we split it off.
SPEAKER_0 [00:19:26]
With three kids, you know, five miles total, we got a lot of groceries to get. Here's something I did used to do. I used to split out my coffee and my,
SPEAKER_0 [00:19:35]
like, beer and wine items separate. Now That's just put that all in the same pool.
SPEAKER_0 [00:19:40]
It it is I don't know. Like,
SPEAKER_0 [00:19:43]
just gets weird because if we got company that comes and visits, right, we wind up spending more on those and just I I wind up shuffling stuff back and forth. And again, it was like it all came out to roughly the same usually.
SPEAKER_0 [00:19:55]
So so why not, you know, do the big buckets?
SPEAKER_0 [00:19:58]
But
SPEAKER_0 [00:19:59]
I don't know, man. Budgeting, I think, is important.
SPEAKER_0 [00:20:03]
I don't think enough people do it is is my general sense.
SPEAKER_1 [00:20:07]
Yeah. I could see that.
SPEAKER_1 [00:20:09]
Like A lot of So here's here's my advice to those listeners who don't currently budget.
SPEAKER_1 [00:20:16]
Just take a month and keep track of where your money goes.
SPEAKER_1 [00:20:21]
Like Yep. Month or two. Just see where your money's going
SPEAKER_1 [00:20:25]
so that you can actually
SPEAKER_1 [00:20:27]
realize this. And then from that, you basically,
SPEAKER_1 [00:20:31]
hey. If something's out of hand, you can see that pretty quickly and you scale that back. But otherwise, hey. There's your starting budget amount for the month.
SPEAKER_1 [00:20:39]
And then you can kind of prioritize from there.
SPEAKER_0 [00:20:42]
Yeah. I think that's a good that's a good way to get going.
SPEAKER_0 [00:20:45]
Let me ask you this. Have you ever done the envelope system?
SPEAKER_1 [00:20:48]
No.
SPEAKER_1 [00:20:50]
Just because I don't like carrying cash. I find it much easier to swipe a debit card and have all of the transactions
SPEAKER_1 [00:20:57]
tracked automatically
SPEAKER_1 [00:20:58]
rather than me trying to keep track of how much I have left or whatnot.
SPEAKER_1 [00:21:03]
Yeah. I just like that automatic paper trail there. I know that Dave Ramsey would is all about paying cash for everything because apparently cash hurts more, but my bank account balance
SPEAKER_1 [00:21:15]
hurts just as much when it goes down, which I think we talked about last episode.
SPEAKER_0 [00:21:19]
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So it's
SPEAKER_0 [00:21:22]
I have I'm I'm with you. Right? Like, I prefer
SPEAKER_0 [00:21:25]
using plastic and then, you know, we don't carry credit card balance or any of that. We just we make sure it's always paid off. But I I don't like carrying cash in general, so plastic is the way that we go, and I categorize as it comes in and it's not ever been a problem. We did though,
SPEAKER_0 [00:21:40]
when we first moved to Seymour,
SPEAKER_0 [00:21:43]
I don't remember why, but we decided we were going to do the envelope thing,
SPEAKER_0 [00:21:47]
right? So we got a crap ton of cash at the beginning of the month after my check cleared.
SPEAKER_0 [00:21:52]
We put in a bunch of different envelopes and as the month went through, you know, of like took the 10 from this envelope, moved it to the other envelope and that And kind of
SPEAKER_0 [00:22:00]
it was an interesting experiment and I think it was helpful for like
SPEAKER_0 [00:22:03]
just really focusing us in on more precise budgeting because my budgeting definitely improved.
SPEAKER_0 [00:22:09]
My budgeting accuracy
SPEAKER_0 [00:22:11]
definitely improved after that exercise.
SPEAKER_0 [00:22:13]
But I hated carrying the money, my wife hated carrying the money, hated having the money in the house, right? Right. Like it just, it was not something that we were comfortable doing so we stopped doing that. But I do see the benefit in people
SPEAKER_0 [00:22:26]
doing that if they have a problem with spending more than they take in, you know? Right. Yeah. Definitely. It adds a certain tangibility to it.
SPEAKER_1 [00:22:36]
We kind of live in the digital world as is. So, like, our days are productive based on
SPEAKER_1 [00:22:42]
digital things. Like, we aren't actually
SPEAKER_1 [00:22:44]
producing anything that you can hold in your hand. I mean, you can hold a cell phone in your hand and then see it. But
SPEAKER_1 [00:22:51]
Yeah. Yeah. So that might be part of our mindset too.
SPEAKER_0 [00:22:54]
I I think, you know, Dave Ramsey has a lot of interesting
SPEAKER_0 [00:22:58]
ideas. I think the the folks that he tends to cater to
SPEAKER_0 [00:23:03]
are not already
SPEAKER_0 [00:23:06]
living fiscally responsible.
SPEAKER_0 [00:23:08]
And so maybe
SPEAKER_0 [00:23:09]
discipline is an issue. I don't know. Like, I'm speculating here, but that's my hunch. And I can definitely see where
SPEAKER_0 [00:23:16]
if you live paycheck to paycheck,
SPEAKER_0 [00:23:19]
carry a lot of credit card debt, these kind of things,
SPEAKER_0 [00:23:23]
We're going all in on the envelope system in the traditional fashion
SPEAKER_0 [00:23:27]
with actual physical envelopes and physical cash. I
SPEAKER_0 [00:23:31]
can see how that would be, you know, helpful, right? It helps create a habit and a routine.
SPEAKER_0 [00:23:37]
I
SPEAKER_0 [00:23:38]
think for me I just
SPEAKER_0 [00:23:41]
I've just never
SPEAKER_0 [00:23:42]
had those concerns at that level.
SPEAKER_0 [00:23:44]
Even when I was in college I think I and I had like no money even then I I just kept track of what was coming in and never spent more than I got.
SPEAKER_1 [00:23:57]
Yeah. I
SPEAKER_1 [00:23:59]
don't know. Did
SPEAKER_0 [00:24:00]
you see Go that
SPEAKER_1 [00:24:01]
ahead. Did you see that refinery twenty nine article, money diary article about the girl who was, like, interning in New York City
SPEAKER_1 [00:24:09]
making, like, $4,000 a month, and then her parents were paying all her expenses?
SPEAKER_0 [00:24:15]
No. I did not see that.
SPEAKER_1 [00:24:18]
I think the Federalist talked about it too. I'm not a huge fan of most of what the Federalist writes. But
SPEAKER_0 [00:24:25]
Send hate mail to John.
SPEAKER_1 [00:24:28]
Yeah.
SPEAKER_1 [00:24:29]
I I'm actually not a fan of any news source whatsoever. Am I, Stan? Can you think of anything that I'm a fan of?
SPEAKER_0 [00:24:36]
Wait. Wait. Wait. Either that you're a fan of or any news source that you're a fan of? Any news source that I'm a fan of.
SPEAKER_0 [00:24:41]
No. I I mean, you don't you don't seem like a news geek to me in general.
SPEAKER_1 [00:24:46]
Do you even know, like, what's going on in national news at any point in time? I heard that there was something going on with Russia again last week. Apparently, that was a big deal.
SPEAKER_0 [00:24:55]
Just just something going on. No big deal.
SPEAKER_0 [00:24:58]
Yeah.
SPEAKER_0 [00:25:02]
So I I don't I have no point of like, no frame of reference for that kind of lifestyle. Right? Never
SPEAKER_0 [00:25:09]
been my situation. I don't know how often that happens. I know that, you know, no one's going to write an article
SPEAKER_0 [00:25:15]
on The Federalist or on CNN or The Washington Post or anything about, you know, me over here living within my means
SPEAKER_0 [00:25:24]
as a, you
SPEAKER_0 [00:25:25]
know, just average Joe American. Like, that's that's not an interesting article. So you never hear about people who are fiscally sane. You realize that this is our whole podcast episode right?
SPEAKER_1 [00:25:37]
Did you just call us boring?
SPEAKER_0 [00:25:39]
We are boring John and think about it all all two listeners, hi mom,
SPEAKER_0 [00:25:44]
you know are gonna know that we're boring so we can revel in that together.
SPEAKER_0 [00:25:49]
That's
SPEAKER_0 [00:25:51]
Go ahead. I don't even remember where I was going with that. I it was it was it was profound until I lost it. You were boring and nobody's ever gonna write an article about you for being fiscally responsible. Oh, right. The other thing they're never gonna write an article about is those that can't live within their means and don't have assistance from people. Right? Because it's not radical. And so there's no reason to write an article about that individual
SPEAKER_0 [00:26:17]
other than maybe as a statistic in some other, like, how screwed up the country is fiscally kind of thing.
SPEAKER_0 [00:26:24]
And that's more likely to be a national review than anything else. Right? Right.
SPEAKER_0 [00:26:29]
So I don't know. I
SPEAKER_0 [00:26:31]
I hope
SPEAKER_0 [00:26:33]
it's it's interesting. I I hope that
SPEAKER_0 [00:26:35]
our generation
SPEAKER_0 [00:26:36]
is not as
SPEAKER_0 [00:26:38]
deranged about
SPEAKER_0 [00:26:41]
budgeting and fiscal
SPEAKER_0 [00:26:43]
things as it seems,
SPEAKER_0 [00:26:45]
but I'm I like, I'm not real encouraged.
SPEAKER_0 [00:26:48]
You know?
SPEAKER_1 [00:26:50]
You know, I don't
SPEAKER_1 [00:26:52]
people
SPEAKER_1 [00:26:53]
buy into all this generational
SPEAKER_1 [00:26:55]
stuff.
SPEAKER_1 [00:26:56]
Like,
SPEAKER_1 [00:26:57]
you got people on both sides of pretty much everything
SPEAKER_1 [00:27:01]
in all the generations that I've known. You know? Sure. So
SPEAKER_1 [00:27:06]
you get the fiscal responsible ones, and you get the crazy ones.
SPEAKER_1 [00:27:10]
I I don't think that there's as much weight in the generational. I mean, maybe the people who are loud who make the news, maybe that swings back and forth.
SPEAKER_1 [00:27:19]
But, like, apparently, we're lazy millennials, Stan.
SPEAKER_0 [00:27:23]
Well, there are times I feel lazy. Keep in mind,
SPEAKER_0 [00:27:27]
just to be clear, keep in mind,
SPEAKER_0 [00:27:30]
I texted you fifteen minutes before we started recording from the pool where I was writing on my lap top for work. So lazy,
SPEAKER_0 [00:27:38]
I mean, I I will I will own that. You you had the laptop by the pool working on stuff, Stan.
SPEAKER_0 [00:27:45]
I was by the pool, John. No. There's no way that we skin this cat where we can't get past the fact that I was lounging by the pool with my shoes off listening to Backstreet Boys while working on a document for work.
SPEAKER_1 [00:27:57]
Alright. Fair enough.
SPEAKER_0 [00:28:00]
By by the way, did you hear that apparently the Backstreet Boys have a new song?
SPEAKER_1 [00:28:03]
Yeah. Didn't I tell you that? I heard it on the radio. Tell me that? I haven't heard it. So I I'm pretty sure that I told you that. No way.
SPEAKER_0 [00:28:13]
Alright. Well, I apologize then. Didn't I did was not paying attention when you told me that. I so right before I left the pool, somebody told me, like, hey. They've got a new song on the radio or whatever. And I was, like, really? The Backstreet Boys? I thought, like what's his name? AJ's off doing, like, a country solo career now and stuff. So I I I'm real curious to hear this song. When I when I get off the podcast with you, I'm gonna hopefully find it on Apple Music. If it's not there, I don't know what I'll do and and listen to it. But
SPEAKER_0 [00:28:40]
is it any good?
SPEAKER_1 [00:28:43]
It's the Backstreet Boys.
SPEAKER_0 [00:28:46]
Alright. I don't like, does that mean you like it or not? I don't I don't know where this is going.
SPEAKER_1 [00:28:51]
Yeah. I'd say it was fine.
SPEAKER_1 [00:28:53]
Okay. I mean, it's still boy band pop.
SPEAKER_1 [00:28:56]
It's nothing compared to LFO Summer Girls.
SPEAKER_0 [00:29:00]
Oh, it's a great song. That is such a great song. Wait. Is this Don't Go Breaking My Heart, the remixes?
SPEAKER_0 [00:29:08]
Is this what is this what we're talking about? This is the only thing they released in 02/2018.
SPEAKER_1 [00:29:12]
Yeah. So that's gotta be it.
SPEAKER_0 [00:29:14]
I feel like I mean, maybe maybe this is cliche, but I feel like Don't Go Breaking My Heart has to be a song they made back in, like, '97.
SPEAKER_0 [00:29:24]
Isn't it? I don't know.
SPEAKER_0 [00:29:27]
I will have to I will have to investigate this. It's just one song too? Are you kidding me? Yeah. It was just one song.
SPEAKER_0 [00:29:36]
Alright. Well, I I will listen to this. We can we can talk about it in some future episode and,
SPEAKER_0 [00:29:42]
yeah, go go from there. Remember New Kids on the Blanc? I do.
SPEAKER_1 [00:29:47]
New Kids on the Blanc had a bunch of hits.
SPEAKER_0 [00:29:50]
Chinese food makes me.
SPEAKER_0 [00:29:56]
Nineties music. Oh, so get this. Here's another thing that happened to me at the pool. Maybe I texted this to you. I can't remember. Someone
SPEAKER_0 [00:30:02]
heard me playing my Backstreet Boys, they they shouted out, hey. Is that oldies?
SPEAKER_1 [00:30:08]
Well, I guess so.
SPEAKER_1 [00:30:12]
Oldies is like thirty years ago. Right? Getting pretty close. No.
SPEAKER_0 [00:30:17]
No. No. No. No. No.
SPEAKER_0 [00:30:21]
No. Millennium. No. No. Millennium was When you were in high school,
SPEAKER_1 [00:30:24]
was oldies?
SPEAKER_0 [00:30:27]
For me, probably still sixties jams.
SPEAKER_0 [00:30:30]
K.
SPEAKER_0 [00:30:31]
But I it was probably more like late seventies,
SPEAKER_0 [00:30:35]
early eighties stuff, I guess. Yeah.
SPEAKER_1 [00:30:38]
So
SPEAKER_1 [00:30:39]
what's the time frame there, Stan?
SPEAKER_0 [00:30:42]
Oh, you're killing me, John. Basically Twenty? Basically, you're talking twenty years. Right. Twenty years. So in the nineties,
SPEAKER_0 [00:30:49]
my dad's Frank Zappa was oldies is what you're telling me, that's probably true.
SPEAKER_0 [00:30:55]
Wow. We're old, So
SPEAKER_0 [00:30:57]
this explains why last time I saw Nick at night, the Fresh Prince of Bel Air was on.
SPEAKER_0 [00:31:04]
Back in my day, we watched I Love Lucy on Nick at night.
SPEAKER_0 [00:31:09]
Yeah.
SPEAKER_0 [00:31:10]
Is this gonna become an old man yells get off my lawn kinda podcast?
SPEAKER_1 [00:31:15]
I hope not. I feel like
SPEAKER_0 [00:31:17]
we're relatively optimistic people most of the time. Maybe. I don't know, though, that I would be totally opposed of being an old man get off my lawn. Oh, I definitely wouldn't.
SPEAKER_1 [00:31:27]
Like,
SPEAKER_1 [00:31:28]
sit outside on the porch, smoke my pipe.
SPEAKER_0 [00:31:32]
I would I would beard.
SPEAKER_0 [00:31:34]
Look like candle. There
SPEAKER_0 [00:31:36]
you go. I would sit on my porch sipping LaCroix. How's that? Is that hipster enough? There you go. LaCroix. I don't like that stuff.
SPEAKER_0 [00:31:44]
My wife brought it into the home, and it's been growing on me, so I don't know. Just drink regular water, Sam. It's good for you. I I do, but I like the bubbles.
SPEAKER_0 [00:31:57]
Alright. Think on that On that note note,
SPEAKER_0 [00:32:00]
yeah. We'll we'll save my bubbles discussion for another time.
SPEAKER_0 [00:32:04]
Alright. We'll catch you next you later, buddy. Bye. See you.