00:03
Peter Dunn
So I'm sitting on the tarmac, and it's the time of the flight in which everyone is told to turn off their devices and put them on airplane mode. Of course, as we know, no one actually does that, right? That's not a thing. You don't actually put your phone on airplane mode until you're in the air and you can't get a signal anymore. Anyway, I look next to me. I'm seated in middle seat because my clout had run out, apparently. And the gentleman next to me is sending a message. Now, I don't want to turn my head and look down and try to read his message, especially with my terrible vision. So I do that thing where I tuck my chin and just move my eyes over to see what he's reading, and it turns out he's sending sexual messages to a partner of sort. And that's where we start.
00:48
Peter Dunn
Today's Pete the Planner show. Hello, Kristen.
00:50
Kristen Ahlenius
Hello, Pete.
00:51
Peter Dunn
Hello, dame.
00:52
Damian Dunn
That'll teach you for peeking on somebody.
00:54
Peter Dunn
Else'S phone, which is the who's? The weirdo, me or this person? I don't know if I should I tell you what he said.
01:08
Damian Dunn
Everybody is somebody else's weirdo Pete.
01:11
Peter Dunn
Wow. Yeah. So maybe he was like, hey, I'm sitting next to this Midwesterner, and I could tell his eyes were reading over my text messages as I was complimenting. And here's the other thing. This is an incredibly creepy conversation for our financial radio show. He was complimenting a woman to her. But what I couldn't tell is, was it his lady friend? Like, was it his wife, or was it someone that he was just simply flirting with? And does that matter?
01:47
Damian Dunn
That's just part of the intrigue that will rattle around in your mind forever at this point.
01:54
Peter Dunn
Anyway. Hello, everybody. I also had to get tough on a different leg of my flight. Some guy tried to walk off the plane from three rows behind me and passed everyone who was waiting their turn to sit down, like, sitting down, waiting to get up and go. So I had to stand up, and I was like, hey, we're all waiting. He's like, whoa. And I'm like, box him out. I boxed him out.
02:16
Kristen Ahlenius
Yeah, he was throwing bows in the plane. Wow.
02:19
Peter Dunn
Other strange travel thing. Now, this is as you might know, I'm quite sensitive to people's decisions when I travel. I'm what you might call tedious.
02:30
Damian Dunn
Judgmental.
02:31
Peter Dunn
Judgmental. Okay, so here's the move, and I've seen this go so many different ways. All right? So same flight as which the guy's sexting. I'm seated in the middle seat. A woman is trying to get into the row behind me, directly behind me. But she's got her bag. She's got her roller bag, and then she's got a full cup of coffee. No lid. Okay. She takes the coffee and sets it on the seat next to me, which isn't her seat. It's just the seat. She chooses to put her coffee on as opposed to her seat so she can take off her backpack and put her back up. And so I'm sitting there next to this cup of coffee, which is not only going to spill and warm up my pants if it were to spill, but it would ruin the seat of which she's not sitting in it.
03:22
Peter Dunn
And I thought to myself, and by the way, she didn't spill it, but I thought to myself, that's bold, to basically potentially ruin someone else's seat. Am I being oversensitive? Was I just missing my home? Damian, it's a bad move, right?
03:35
Damian Dunn
I think it's reckless at best. I think the move there was for you to pick up the coffee and take a drink and thank her for oh, I didn't realize that was what I thought it was for me. And she can get another cup of coffee from the flight attendant.
03:51
Peter Dunn
I don't know.
03:52
Kristen Ahlenius
You were so close, and then you missed it. The move was to hold it for her so that no one got coffee spilled on them.
04:00
Peter Dunn
What are you talking about? Yeah. You know how I travel headphones on, eyes straight down, reading people's.
04:07
Kristen Ahlenius
You make people like me nervous, though.
04:09
Peter Dunn
I'm minding my own business.
04:11
Kristen Ahlenius
Remember that?
04:12
Peter Dunn
I know the set of rules that we all have to live by.
04:15
Kristen Ahlenius
She didn't sell it. It was fine.
04:18
Damian Dunn
So people who have headphones on, locked into their own business make you nervous?
04:24
Kristen Ahlenius
Well, because I know that if I were her carrying all my stuff, that someone like Pete is judging me, and I would have been sweating as I was trying to get into my no.
04:34
Peter Dunn
One else on that plane has a radio show to have an outlet like I do. So I just have to sit and observe. I'll tell you this, and this sounds aggressive, but I believe I should win a Nobel Prize for travel. I'm locked in, and it's travel season for me. I'm out. So I am locked in with efficiency.
04:50
Damian Dunn
Kristen, what percentage of people that you meet during the day do you feel like are judging you?
04:55
Kristen Ahlenius
Most of them.
04:57
Peter Dunn
How about you? The course of your day, what percentage of people do you feel are judging you?
05:02
Damian Dunn
Well, seeing as how most of the people I usually meet during a day are my family, all of them, I.
05:08
Peter Dunn
Have zero sensitivity as to people I encounter in general. Public are judging me. Zero. Don't care. Never even think about it. So, Kristen, that's a thing for you.
05:17
Damian Dunn
That's an age thing, primarily, though, isn't it?
05:20
Peter Dunn
I'm an older man. Yeah.
05:22
Kristen Ahlenius
I think it's anxiety girly thing. I think that's what it stems like, do I ultimately care? I mean, maybe a little bit, but I can't help but wonder, do I care?
05:37
Damian Dunn
Yes.
05:38
Peter Dunn
Let's do a financial show here. All right. So we're going to do Apple is a bank now, question mark. We're going to do an email from a former podcast guest for this show. And then we're going to do a little game I created called I think there are five good reasons why people are in a good mood right now, and Dame and Kristen are going to say cap or slap? I don't know. I do want to say this, too, real quick. I switched to packing cubes. I now pack in packing cubes, and I changed my life.
06:14
Damian Dunn
Really?
06:15
Kristen Ahlenius
Yeah, I believe.
06:17
Peter Dunn
Unbelievable. Mrs. Planner got me on that. Okay, here we go. In three, two oh, no. I'm not ready for oh. Hello, everyone that's saying hi. Pilot Jeremy Hello. I was looking for you on my flight yesterday. You weren't there. But then again, I don't know if I've seen your face, so I didn't want to stare too deeply into someone's soul to see if we connected, so I'm not sure it was you or not.
06:42
Damian Dunn
I'd love to get Pilot Jeremy's real take on. When do we have to turn off our cell phones? But I don't know if he can do that.
06:52
Peter Dunn
Yeah, he says he's always looking for me, too. I love it. All right, in three, two, one. This week on The Pete the Planner Show, we answers your money questions. That's right. It's a financial show in which you answer your questions. You're thinking, oh, great, what's the 1800 number I can call? Ain't that sort of show, folks. You got to use a different technology. You can either fax us or what you can do is you can email us. Askpete@petetheplanner.com that's askpete@petetheplanner.com and we'll answer your question. Sometimes we answer our own questions. And by we, I mean kristen Ahlenius, director of Education at Your Moneyline and Damian Dunn, Vice President of Advice at Your Moneyline. You two folks met up at a small cafe in northern Indiana this week. Got to hang out with each other in person. How was that?
07:38
Kristen Ahlenius
It was a great time.
07:41
Peter Dunn
Well said. All right. So, Dame, I don't know if you read the news this week, but it turns out that Apple, the iPhone company, the Apple Watch company, the headphones, I don't know what they do. They're a bank now. But they're not really a bank. They're working with Goldman Sachs, and they are offering, as part of Apple Pay, their Apple card over 4% interest for holding your funds with Apple. Did I report that accurately?
08:12
Damian Dunn
For the most part. I don't want to pat myself on the back too hard, but when all the stuff went down with SVB a few weeks ago, I believe I said, what is preventing Apple from becoming its own bank now? They're not there quite yet. They're still partnered with Goldman Sachs. But why in the world would you set up your own infrastructure when you could hire a bank to do it for you? So, yeah, they opened savings accounts. I don't know if it's specifically for people who hold the Apple card or if anybody can apply for it yet. I haven't looked quite that far into it. But it's an interesting use case because one of the benefits of Apple's credit card is they give you cash back like a whole bunch of other credit cards. What they're purporting to do is they'll let you put that cash back directly into this savings account, getting 4% interest.
09:02
Damian Dunn
So it's an interesting little savings feature where you actually get interest on your money instead of the 10th of a percent at your local bank.
09:10
Peter Dunn
I will say you did call that. And when I read the news this week, I was like, wow, I should have listened to Dame. They are holding somewhere around $50 billion of cash and over $200 billion of either cash or cash equivalents in terms of investments. So they can probably make good on a lot of these deposits. Kristen, do you think in any way this is a risk for Apple to pay out handsomely on deposits onto this sort of banking product?
09:40
Kristen Ahlenius
I don't think it's a risk for Apple at this point. I mean, maybe things get a little concerning before they get great for I mean, Dames called it and then when he said it, I was nodding like, it's not the worst idea.
09:56
Damian Dunn
I don't even know if that's exactly how it's functioning. Goldman Sachs has their own high yield savings account called Marcus, and I have a feeling this is just a white labeling of Goldman Sachs's own product for Apple's service.
10:08
Peter Dunn
Yeah, I did read that Goldman Sachs had to consider and is considering how much they're going to hurt themselves here by people withdrawing from their own products to then make the deposits back through this feature, this vehicle.
10:28
Kristen Ahlenius
It does say in the fine print provided by Goldman Sachs. So I would assume the other thing too is it a bait? And because like back when there were competitive interest rates in the savings account space, it was like your rates subject to change at any time and they would give you this high introductory rate for a month or two and then they would drop that rate. We haven't seen that as much because we're in a rising interest rate environment. But is that a possibility here?
10:57
Peter Dunn
Well, to your point, Dame, yesterday, I guess Betterment, which is an online investment platform, just cranked up their rate again. Now they're paying 4.35%. And it's hard to think that wasn't in a direct response to Apple's news this week.
11:14
Damian Dunn
I think it's entirely likely. Betterment has been pretty aggressive on raising their rates. There are still a couple of companies out there that have higher rates. I think there might even be a couple online where you can find 5%. But I'm sure there come with stipulations on amounts of deposits that you have to get that rate. I think the really interesting perspective of this is the local banks, the small town credit unions, the regional banks, they're getting a lot of pressure and they're losing a lot of deposits because people are finally making the jump into other products. Whether they're Treasuries, whether they're CDs or online bank accounts, they're starting to lose customers because their interest rates aren't keeping up. And there was an article in the Wall Street Journal, I believe, at the beginning of this week, saying there's potential trouble there and they're being forced to raise their rates potentially before they are ready or comfortable to yeah.
12:04
Peter Dunn
Kristen that's interesting, right? Because if the SVB meltdown was because they didn't have the deposits to match the loans, and now what we're hearing is people are losing deposits, then banks which were once not struggling and then did have the right sort of balance sheet all of a sudden. Don't wow. Damn. I hadn't really considered that. Right. Kristen so there's this idea that banks declared themselves safe, but this massive move by Apple, which so many people have exposure to, it can make those banks not safe. Is that how you're thinking about it?
12:41
Kristen Ahlenius
Yeah. Maybe. I'm a little biased, though, because when I think about my local bank that's paying me like 0.1% or something ridiculous on my savings account, I don't have a savings account there for that reason. I have a savings account there so that I have something local that I can go in and have access to cash immediately, which I can't do with betterment. By the way, that cash reserve account, you cannot get money immediately. So it wouldn't cause me to move the dollars I've already decided to put in my local bank because that's not.
13:16
Peter Dunn
The purpose you buy that dame most.
13:19
Damian Dunn
People of a generation older than Pete and I don't really bother with online savings accounts. There's no reason for that. What they do track, though, what they do pay attention to, CDs and Treasuries, that means that money is no longer on deposit. If you can get 4% in something of an equivalent and safe product versus your let's just call it a quarter percent in your savings account, there's a lot of people that are going to move that money. So whether it's Apple, whether it's CD, whether it's treasury, they're going to start losing deposits.
13:53
Peter Dunn
Let me offer this idea that the Apple card at one point made credit sort of sexier, right? It made it more approachable. Now what they're asking their users to do is to deposit big sums of money. Do these same people who use the feature of the Apple card because it's a fun way to use credit, do they have that much money to deposit? I mean, are we even talking about a massive move here?
14:21
Kristen Ahlenius
That's what I mean. Go ahead, Dan. I'm sorry.
14:25
Damian Dunn
No, it's fine. I don't think that's really the initial push for what's going to happen. I think it's going to be for individuals who use the Apple card. Maybe they'll bring some money over. Apple hopes they certainly do to get them tied into their burgeoning banking system, but I think this is just an addition to the services they provide. And if they can be that much more intertwined into somebody's life, be it financially or otherwise, all good for them.
14:56
Peter Dunn
Kristen, should a person deposit money with what I'm calling Apple Bank? Because I don't actually know what it's.
15:03
Kristen Ahlenius
Called, I would probably say maybe not yet. But then my question back to you is, when is this an integrated or attractive enough product that you make the jump?
15:14
Peter Dunn
Me old man.
15:16
Kristen Ahlenius
Pedro old.
15:19
Peter Dunn
Man.
15:21
Kristen Ahlenius
What do they have to do?
15:23
Peter Dunn
All right, can I be honest for a second? I have a savings account, our emergency fund, at a bank, but then I don't want to mess with it. And then our life is so chaotic financially right now, I'm not stacking a lot of extra savings right now, so I don't have a lot of money to throw at it. I'm being honest.
15:44
Damian Dunn
Think of all the potential more extra data Apple's going to get out of.
15:48
Peter Dunn
OOH, I love that. Dame is, like, our tech reporter now.
15:54
Damian Dunn
That's me.
15:56
Peter Dunn
All right, here's what we're going to do. After the break, I wrote an article about why I think people are in a good mood financially right now, like this moment in time. And I've got five compelling reasons why I think that's the case. And coming back after the break, our tech reporter and Kristen are going to decide whether I'm full of it or not and whether they're real things. That's next right here on the Pete the Planner show. I'm Pete the mean. I don't want to set up another bank account. I mean, that's where I don't chris, my money is just don't I don't need a huge return on it.
16:32
Kristen Ahlenius
I'm not disagreeing with you, but what if they bring in an attractive checking option as well? And you could just do all your banking at the bank of Apple? It's on your phone. Apple, pay. Bingo. Bingo. You're done with the whole thing.
16:47
Damian Dunn
I got to tell you, Pete, I have an Apple card. This was the easiest bank account I've ever set up.
16:53
Peter Dunn
Okay, well, now you're so let's say a brother has $50,000 set off to the side in an emergency fund. Is it worth the $2,000 interest that you will gain to make a move?
17:07
Damian Dunn
Not if you've already got another online high yield savings account. I don't see any advantage in doing that whatsoever.
17:14
Peter Dunn
Okay.
17:15
Damian Dunn
Sorry. Tim Apple.
17:17
Peter Dunn
Tim Apple. Okay, let's do the five reasons why I think people are in a good mood, which could actually stretch two segments. You never really know. All right, you guys ready? I pulled up the calculator app to take time. You know, we're almost to the 500th episode of our podcast.
17:44
Damian Dunn
We are?
17:44
Peter Dunn
Yeah.
17:45
Damian Dunn
Are we going to do something special? Have a special guest or something?
17:48
Peter Dunn
Maybe, but that would require me to remember the week before that. It's the 500th episode.
17:55
Kristen Ahlenius
That's fair. Yeah. Mrs. Planner makes a guest appearance.
18:00
Peter Dunn
Don't tell her. We did that once, and I was really nervous.
18:05
Damian Dunn
It's on YouTube. You can go back and watch it.
18:07
Peter Dunn
I'm really nervous. I don't really get nervous. I was very nervous during that episode. My life was colliding with my professional life in a deeper way than I'd ever imagined, and I did not like it.
18:17
Damian Dunn
He asked for people to submit questions that he could ask Mrs. Planner on the air, and I submitted one. I think this was before I worked officially for you. And you read it. It was great. It was something about who was the rank in order of the most mature people in your house.
18:34
Peter Dunn
Oh, boy. All right, let's do this. In three, two, one. Back on the Pete the planner show. Kristen, dame, I think people are in a good financial mood right now. So before I give you the five reasons why, which you can agree or disagree with individually, and I want you to know, on the surface, do you think kristen, I want you to be able to win. Do you think people are in a good financial mood right now? The week of April? Something, something. Do you believe that's true?
19:08
Kristen Ahlenius
I don't believe that's true.
19:10
Peter Dunn
Okay. Damian?
19:13
Damian Dunn
Based off of some of the conversations I've had with some acquaintances, I would say yes. There are people out there spending like there's no tomorrow.
19:20
Peter Dunn
Okay. All right. So this game here's how it works. I'm going to give you individually five reasons why I think people are in a good mood. And what you have to do, Kristen, and what you have to do, dame, is you have to evaluate each one on its merits and say, okay, I can see that. I think that actually would lead to someone being in a good mood. Or you can say, I don't buy it. I'm not making a deposit in that apple savings account. I don't know. I was trying to blend the two segments, but you know what I mean. What do we call this, kristen, yes or no? We got to call something.
19:57
Kristen Ahlenius
Yeah, we're calling it yes or no.
19:59
Peter Dunn
I don't know. All right, the first one. Are you ready? The first 1 march was a three pay month for people who get paid every other week on a 26 pay system. So therefore, the last two and a half weeks, three weeks have been people realizing they have more money at the end of a month than they typically have. Kristen, do you buy that would contribute to someone being in a good mood? Yes or no?
20:31
Kristen Ahlenius
You know how I feel about that 24 pay and the 26 pay. So, yeah, I agree with that one.
20:37
Peter Dunn
I know. Dame, do you agree that would contribute to someone being in a good mood?
20:41
Damian Dunn
I am obligated to say yes, because Kristen just beat me over the head with this thing yesterday, talking about 26 versus 24 pay years. So, yeah, for fear of my own personal life, I have to say yes. I have to.
20:56
Peter Dunn
Welcome to our new segment. Next segment is going to be called will kristen ever let that go? Will kristen ever let that I'm right so far? I'm right. Number two. Number two, kristen, it is tax refund season. So as we sit here today, every moment people are having on average, like, what, $2,800 deposited into their checking account, which grows their balance even more because it is tax refund season. Do you think tax refund season puts people in a good mood, yes or no?
21:37
Kristen Ahlenius
I do think that tax refund season puts people in a good mood. However, I think that people who are accustomed to getting refunds just expect them. And I think more people just in our anecdotal experience have been hit with surprise tax bills. And I think that their ability or them being disgruntled far outweighs the happiness of the people that are used to getting their tax refunds.
22:06
Peter Dunn
So that is the longest no I've ever heard in my life. And I've been told no a lot. I barely could get to prom. Dame, yes or no?
22:14
Damian Dunn
I remember refunds. They were great.
22:18
Peter Dunn
Dame's got some different problems than we have, but dame, we're talking about the general population. Are people in a good mood this time of year because of tax refund?
22:28
Damian Dunn
Kristen's made a really interesting point because I don't know if it's so much as a good mood or as just a sense of relief because they expected it. They've probably already got that money spent on something else and they're counting on this money to come through. There's a ton of anxiety leading up to filling out those taxes, seeing what that number is, to come back and see if that number is going to match up with all the other obligations that you've counted on that money to fund. So if people are in a good mood, it's because their expectations were met. I have a feeling, but we've heard tons of stories about there being some very unfortunate surprises for people this year.
23:07
Peter Dunn
Okay, so I did not get affirmation on either of those points. We're moving on to number three, and this one might be specific to the midwest, but when I mentioned this in south carolina yesterday and the day before, people nodded their heads and not because they were falling asleep, because they agreed. Coming out of the doldrums of the winter where gray skies and a chill in the air bring on seasonal mood disorder, I find that the spring can put people simply in a better mood. And therefore, as the sun shines and the air warms, people are naturally in a better mood and it might improve the outlook of their finances as well. Kristen, do you buy that or do you think it's phony?
23:48
Kristen Ahlenius
I buy that.
23:50
Damian Dunn
Dame I'm buying that the smell of fresh cut grass, the sound of a baseball popping the leather of a glove and better look on your finances. Yeah, I can see that.
24:02
Peter Dunn
Okay, your boy is doing pretty well so far, I just got to say. Number four, the March inflation report was great and inflation is coming down. Wholesale inflation prices came out yesterday looking great, and specifically grocery prices are improving and in some cases pulling back. They are actually decreasing because the fear with inflation is always that it ratchets up and never ratchets back down. But in some cases, like eggpocalypse, we're seeing the prices ratchet back down. Energy prices are coming down a little bit, but seasonal energy prices, because there's less demand, because it's warming up, are also lowering people's bills. So, Kristen, do you buy a little bit of inflation relief? Is one of the reasons people might be in a good financial mood right now?
24:59
Kristen Ahlenius
Yes, if they agree that they feel the relief. I think those are two different things.
25:07
Peter Dunn
Well, yeah, you're right about that, but I see I always think there's a delta between what is reality and what people feel, and I feel like sometimes that's an informed feeling, but most times it's an uninformed feeling. But I don't know, I just wanted to seem snooty for a second. Dame do you buy that inflation subsiding is putting people in a better mood right now, or do you think that is yet to come?
25:31
Damian Dunn
I feel like there's a concept, people understand the concept and they see that inflation is coming down and they like that. But I think, as you mentioned in the last point, we're moving into spring and summer and there's going to be a lot of other activities going on. I don't know if they're going to feel necessarily that they've saved much money because they're just going to be redirecting that savings in other places. I think there's still going to be a pinch in those areas.
25:56
Peter Dunn
Kristen, final point here, and this one's sneaky that some people don't even feel or see, but it's the truth. As of the publication of that column, the S and P 500 was up 8% so far this year, which is quite different than what we dealt with in 2022. And so it might feel as though they're making progress towards their financial goals, 8% often being the target for a year in terms of the rate of return people like to see. Do you buy that the market has people in a reasonably good mood?
26:28
Kristen Ahlenius
I can buy that.
26:30
Damian Dunn
Dame again, I think it's just more of a I'm comfortable with what's going on. I don't know if it's driving somebody's good mood unless you are active or you work in the financial industry or you answer to people because you work with their money, but I don't know if it's driving people feeling good, but it's definitely not hurting them.
26:51
Peter Dunn
So what I've heard is I'm right. Here's why I wrote about it, though, because let's say the media just constantly tells you a recession is coming. And let's say that the debt ceiling debate is about to heat up and people are about to feel much worse about everything in their financial lives. What we can't have people do is to act on this good feeling and go and spend like a sailor on leave. Right? That these natural ebbs and flows of how you feel about your finances. I think people feel pretty positive right now and want to go out and act on it, but I think there's a danger in doing that because I think the more prudent move would be to take advantage of that opportunity and make tomorrow easier as opposed to spend some of that money today. Dame, do you agree or disagree with that idea?
27:44
Damian Dunn
Yeah, I think there's there 61% chance there's still a mild recession, according to the Wall Street Journal.
27:50
Peter Dunn
I thought those were your own personal calculations, Kristen. Does this hold water?
27:53
Kristen Ahlenius
I think it holds water, yeah.
27:56
Peter Dunn
All right. Coming up after the break, an email question from Askped@peteeplanner.com. That's next right here on the Pete the Planner show. I'm Pete the planner. I wrote a reasonable column. Is, what is the takeaway here?
28:08
Damian Dunn
I'm so impressed with chat GPT.
28:10
Peter Dunn
Oh, stop. I want our listener to know I have never used Chat GPT to create content for the masses, and I never personally will do that. That is my commitment to you, chat PTP. Thank you, Daniel, for that joke. Will never happen. You will always get my bad take, not a computer's good take.
28:39
Damian Dunn
I would love just to see the output. If you put in, like, ten of your articles for it to learn and see if it come up with any.
28:46
Peter Dunn
Jokes, it would just sped out a bunch of adverbs. I think I've talked about this on the air when I read once that people who use a lot of adverbs are bad writers, I was like, oh, I love adverbs. Sure, it took me 25 years to figure out what an adverb was, but after that, I use all that.
29:09
Kristen Ahlenius
Okay, Caitlin, she's trying to call me out.
29:17
Damian Dunn
What are you buying?
29:19
Peter Dunn
What are you buying, Kristen?
29:20
Kristen Ahlenius
I'm trying to get her to go have these on this 80s jet ski. Like the kind that you have to stand up to ride and she won't do it.
29:29
Damian Dunn
Death machine.
29:30
Peter Dunn
Yes. Yeah. Those things will kill you.
29:32
Kristen Ahlenius
I'm not getting any younger.
29:35
Damian Dunn
Did you move away from the small British convertible?
29:40
Kristen Ahlenius
That small British convertible, I'm told, is junk.
29:44
Damian Dunn
Well, most small British convertibles are.
29:46
Peter Dunn
Speaking of wanting to spend money, if I can have a moment of transparency here. I have nearly spent a lot of money twice in the last six weeks on two different items that I've so far successfully talked myself out of buying. That. I convinced myself I need but I really don't need. And I want to highlight what those are right now.
30:08
Damian Dunn
Yes.
30:10
Peter Dunn
Number one, a new travel backpack, because I am going to win a Nobel Prize for travel. I love efficiency. I love every pocket to have what I want in it. I want to be like, I got to move. And there's this travel backpack based out of this company in Seattle called Tom Ben Bihn, and they're known as the best travel backpacks in the world. And I have successfully not purchased that pack prior to going to London. And even though I've got a tremendous amount of business travel coming up and I just got all of them this week, I have not made that purchase, and I'm very proud of myself. Dame, good decision.
30:48
Damian Dunn
I've got to be honest. I love a good backpack, and I've been starting to poke around and see what other bags are out there, potentially for another. So I understand the pressure and the desire to buy another bag, but great. Good job.
31:01
Peter Dunn
They are pricey. Kristen, good decision. I mean, you don't seem like a backpack sort of gal.
31:05
Kristen Ahlenius
I am not a backpack sort of gal, and I'm a do with what you got kind of gal. Do the best you can with what you got. So good job.
31:12
Peter Dunn
It was weird seeing you in the airport with a stick with a handkerchief tied into a bundle to keep your things into.
31:21
Damian Dunn
And a pot on her head.
31:25
Peter Dunn
The second thing that I've so far successfully avoided, although this one's scary.
31:32
Damian Dunn
Sounds like there's cracks already formed.
31:34
Peter Dunn
There's been cracks. I held these in my hand just yesterday and then put them back. I want some new noise canceling earbuds for travel. So I've got earbuds that aren't noise canceling, and I got over the ears, which are noise canceling, but my daughter sort of broke them, so I'm like, I could talk myself into it. I've done a lot of research, but I don't want to drop the coin. Dame where do you line up on this?
31:58
Damian Dunn
Buy them. They're amazing.
31:59
Peter Dunn
No, sorry.
32:00
Kristen Ahlenius
No, wait.
32:04
Peter Dunn
How's the person trying to talk someone into buying a stand up jet ski? The voice of reason.
32:07
Kristen Ahlenius
All of a sudden, it's like, $700. It's junk.
32:12
Damian Dunn
Sounds reliable to me.
32:14
Peter Dunn
Yeah. Good decision. She's a director of Miseducation here at your my life.
32:20
Kristen Ahlenius
Her boyfriend is so mechanically inclined, he could get it running. It would be fine. I am using a pair of these deals that went through the washing machine, like, three years ago, and the left headphone has not worked since, so I cannot support that decision.
32:42
Damian Dunn
What's that got to do with him?
32:43
Peter Dunn
Yeah, what's that to do with Nobel Prize winning travel? Peter Dot?
32:47
Damian Dunn
So he goes deaf on an airplane because he's only got one noise canceling? That doesn't make any sense. He's got to have both those ears protected.
32:55
Peter Dunn
All right, let's start. So, anyway, like I said earlier, no, I don't want people to but this is very real. This is why I showed I'm in a cash flow crunch. Like, I am just in a cash flow crunch because of kids stuff and just, like, the time of year. So I don't actually have any extra money to spend on these things. So I think more than anything, despite the fact that I want them, I'm just I don't have the money, and I'm not going into debt, right. So it's I mrs. Planner knows about the backpack, and she knows that my daughter broke my headphones, but she doesn't know that I'm on the hunt.
33:33
Damian Dunn
Those would be really easy to hide from her, too.
33:35
Peter Dunn
Oh, I don't hide things. Jeez, dame, do we need to get Mrs. Advice on here to see what all the things that you've hidden from her.
33:45
Damian Dunn
She wouldn't know because I hide. Kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding, honey.
33:51
Peter Dunn
Oh, boy. All right, let's do a thing. I'm going to read it. Got it. In three, two, one. Back on the Pete the planner show. We got an email. Hey, Kristen and company. Okay, no, we aren't buying a baby, but my wife and I are beginning the adoption. Know, when I read that sentence for the first time, I was like, man, that's a little on the nose, right? I'm not super sensitive person. It's funny. It's kind of funny. It's not funny. The agency says to expect around a $25,000 cost, and between the tax credit and my wife's employer's assistance, we believe the whole cost will eventually be covered. Whoa. Wow. Yeah, it does look like we should qualify for the full tax credit, but both this credit and the work assistance wouldn't be paid out until the following year. Okay. With rates as they are, would we be crazy to take a HELOC to cover the out of pocket costs until they reimbursed?
34:57
Peter Dunn
We owe 200,000 American dollars on our home that is worth conservatively $300,000. So they have I'll do the math $150,000 of equity. I'm thinking in the worst case scenario, we would spend around $2,000 on interest. Thank you all sincerely for the wonderful
