← The Rundown
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- [00:00]
A
Welcome back to the Rundown, one of the top business podcasts in the world. In today's episode, we are talking to the incredible Morgan Housel. Morgan is an incredible financial writer. He's written a couple great books, and he's about to release his third book called the Art of Spending Money. His new book covers the topic of spending money from a psychological perspective. So in today's conversation, we talked about a ton of topics, including how to make tiny adjustments to spending that can make you feel richer, the role that social media plays in wasteful spending, and. And how parents can teach their kids to have a good relationship with money. This was one of my favorite conversations that I've had so far. There was a point where I started choking up and getting emotional. I hope that makes the final cut, so hope you guys enjoy this conversation. By the way, we know a lot of you guys are already big fans of Morgan Housel, so we're gonna give away 100 copies of his new book. The instructions on how to get a free book will be at the end of the show. So I hope you guys enjoyed this conversation with Morgan and make sure to stick around to the end for a chance to win his new book. All right, guys, today we are talking to the legend in the finance space, Morgan Housel. He's the author of the Psychology of Money, one of my favorite finance books that I've read. He also has an awesome podcast, and he's now coming out with his third book called the Art of Spending Money. Morgan, thanks so much for being on the show today.
- [01:24]
B
Thanks for having me.
- [01:26]
A
First of all, again, I want to talk about how awesome your first book was, the Psychology of Money. I have to give it props. I remember reading this book back in 2020, and not only is the book fantastic, but I also have to give a shout out to the COVID This might be like, this might go down in the hall of fame of, like, one of the best book covers, at least in the finance space. So shout out to the artists who did this.
- [01:45]
B
You know what's. Thank you. And you know what's interesting about that? The publisher, Harriman House, when we are doing cover design, they came up with three, Three examples. Three, three options, one of which was the brain made out of money, and the other two, I, I, I really didn't like. I didn't like that much. But I put it to my friend. I, I texted probably 20 friends, many of whom are authors, and I said, which one of these three do you like? And the Money brain was the least popular by Far, by far. It wasn't even close. And a lot of people are like, don't, don't do the, don't do the money. But it was one of those things where it's like, yeah, but, but I like it, and I just have to run with that. And I, I, I was very satisfied with the COVID as well, so I'm glad you liked it.
- [02:25]
A
Oh, man. This was like, the COVID is probably 50% of the reason why I bought this book. It was just so good.
- [02:31]
B
Yeah.
- [02:31]
A
So I'm glad you stuck with your gut there because, yeah, it's so good. Speaking of which, you got a new book coming out, the Art of Spending Money. Why did you feel like talking about the subject of spending was something that you wanted to tackle?
- [02:46]
B
I think it was really two things. The first was I started asking, you know, I've been a finance writer for 20 years or so, and I started asking myself a question personally that I had never really asked myself, which was, what is my spending philosophy? In this house with my wife and I like, what's our philosophy for spending money? The answer is, we really didn't have one. We've always been, we've always lived well within our means and just bought kind of what we wanted, but we don't want that much, and it's never been an issue. But, But, Dwight, if you asked me, what are my investing philosophies, I could talk for hours. But if you said, what are my spending philosophies? I'm like, I don't know. And what's interesting, as I started just doing this as a personal exploration, was looking into this and realizing that there are literally tens of thousands of books written on investing and how to grow your money, and almost none written on spending and how to spend money. And I think at least one of the reasons why that is is because most people intuitively assume that nothing needs to be said about the topic of spending money, that the solution is obvious. Just spend more, buy bigger things, nicer things, faster things, shinier things, and then. And that's better. And I think that might be true around the edges. Like, that's, it's, that's not false, but it's so much deeper than that. And just like my first book, the Psychology of Money, I don't tell you how to invest because I don't know you, and you and I are different. But here's a look at what happens inside people's heads when they do invest, and maybe you can try to map that to your own life. I think that's what I tried to do with this book as well. I'm different than you are. We have different needs, different family situations. We're different in every aspect. Everybody is. And so this book does not tell you how to spend. It's a look at the psychology of what happens when you spend money. The psychology of envy, of jealousy, of contentment, of being satisfied. Like those kind of topics that tend to be universal across the spectrum regardless of who you are, where you're from, how old you are.
- [04:34]
A
Yeah, that's a good point. Because I think a lot something that you said in the book is that like a lot of times spending comes down to trying to appease other people, right? And, and not necessarily trying to appease yourself. And that obviously is something that everyone can relate to, is like, oh well, if your neighbor gets something, you want to get something just as nice. And so that's a good point. I want, I mean, I was reading through the book, I got an early copy of it, I was kind of skimming through it. I can't wait to read the, the hardcover when it comes out. You say that the tiny adjustments in spending and on a bigger paycheck are often what makes life feel richer. And I thought that was an interesting point that you were making. Why do you think that is? And can you give us an example of that?
- [05:13]
B
Well, I think what's true is that whenever you get this is true for so many different aspects of life, not just money, you gain happiness, you gain pleasure. Out of contrast, it's not necessarily the lifestyle that you're living. It's a contrast between what you have now and what you used to have. And if you want a good example of this, find someone who has always been wealthy for their entire life. A rich kid, a trust funder kid. Do they enjoy their material goods as much as you would if you were to gain those things tomorrow? If you woke up tomorrow with the mansion and the private jet, you and I would be overwhelmed with joy for a period of time. The person who's had them forever does not that when you don't have them, it seems like the most important thing in the world. When you have them and have had them for a long period of time, it can feel like nothing to you. It just feels like your average everyday life. To that point, the average median everyday American in the United States lives a life that is indistinguishable from magic to someone who would have been born 100 or 200 years ago. We have penicillin, we have Advil, we have chatgpt we have air conditioning, all these things that we have, cheap travel by jet, all these things that 150 years ago, people would be like, what you. You guys are magician. You guys are living like literal kings. But we don't feel like that, nor should we feel like that, because it's just what we've always had. It's. It's always been there for most of our life. We've always had penicillin. We've always had air conditioning. And so you all, you appreciate the contrast in what you have. I think that's important when you are treating yourself to a nice dinner, a nice new jacket, a new vacation, whatever it might be. What feels good about it is the contrast. And it would not feel as good if. If you are getting those things all the time. And so I used a very extreme example. Sometimes you have to use extreme examples to make a point of this guy. I know he's very wealthy, and he has a private chef. The private chef comes to his house and makes him three meals a day. Like Michelin star meals. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Exactly. That's my reaction too, is, wow, that is so cool. If I had, that'd be amazing. But here's the thing. He's had this for, like, decades. And so do you think he actually gets much pleasure out of it? It's just a meal to him. It's not wow. It's just this is what I get every day. There's nothing unique about this. And so when what makes us happy is contrast, the reason it's wow is because that's a contrast to what you had. The breakfast that you and I. I just ate a bowl of cinnamon toast crunch.
- [07:38]
A
Yeah.
- [07:38]
B
And so. And so. And so the. The pride the private chef would have been. Would have been amazing. But when you have it every day, it doesn't feel like that. And so that's an extreme example. But you gain the most happiness out of contrast. That's always true.
- [07:51]
A
So the. The what comes to mind for me is like, someone that upgrades an iPhone every year versus someone who waits like four years to upgrade an iPhone. Right. Like, the contrast is so much bigger when you're going from like an iPhone 12 to a 17 versus going from an iPhone 16 to a 17. You kind of appreciate, like, the upgrade and the quality in the cameras and all that stuff so much more after, like, a few years.
- [08:15]
B
That's exactly right. And a unique example with Apple, because every time they upgrade, it's the same damn phone anyways. There's no difference. So. So it feels the same.
- [08:22]
A
Yeah, that's a good point. But do you think that, like, with, like, obviously social media now, you know, you mentioned envy earlier about how, like, we want what other people have. You know, social media is just showing all these flashy things to people, especially young people. Do you think that, like, that has changed the way that people view money and that's impacted spending habits, especially for younger people?
- [08:50]
B
I think not only is the answer yes, it is profoundly yes. It is a, a generational chasm of yes. Because when, when I was a kid, not, not to date myself too much, but there was no social media. There was barely the Internet. And so when I compared myself and my family, I compared myself to the town that I lived in and maybe MTV Cribs, if you're old enough to remember that show, that was the one thing. But here's what's interesting about MTV Cribs. We knew they were celebrities. We knew that this guy plays for the Chicago Bulls. He's not me. What is pernicious about social media is that we are viewing people who we think ostensibly are peers. And therefore, if that person looks like that, driving, that smiles like that, I'm not, so I'm falling behind. And that's that. It's a very powerful feeling. The sense of no matter how well you're doing, statistically, there's already, there's always somebody on Instagram who's doing better, who looks happier, who lives in a bigger car, who's, who, who's, who's, who's driving, who lives in a bigger house driving a, driving a better car. That's always the case. And I think, I think my generation is old enough to know that because we remember the world before that. But I think if you've always grown up with social media, you don't, you think you've grown up your entire life opening up your phone 17,000 times a day and being hit with this message of you're, you're falling behind. Other people are doing it better, faster, prettier, happier than you are. And so I think it's, it's a, it's a major thing. If there's one sense of hope here, maybe it's that after stewing in those emotions for their entire life, maybe Gen Z will finally, who knows when this will happen, will finally just say, enough, I, I, I'm happier when my phone is turned off and, and then there'll be like a riot against it. That's kind of the optimistic take.
- [10:36]
A
I wonder if that's going to happen with Gen Z, because they're already kind of entering adult adulthood or if that's going to happen with like my kids who are, you know, 7 and 2, like the gen Alpha range. Because, you know, you see like the rise of things like sports gambling. You see the rise of things like zero day options and this financial nihilism. That's a term that gets thrown around and I wonder if, if that's, you know, that's because of everyone seeing all this stuff on social media and you see like the 23 year old crypto millionaire, you know, jumping into his pool in his Miami mansion and they're like, well, if I'm going to get there, if I'm ever going to own a house, let alone a Lamborghini, I better just start throwing like 12 game parlays to try to make this happen. So I wonder, I wonder, simply put, is Gen Z cooked or like, is there some sort of hope that, that, that they're going to get out of this? Is it just. Yeah, go ahead.
- [11:30]
B
No, definitely they are not cooked. Because I think this is. If you go back literally hundreds of years, no Generation handles their 20s with a lot of grace and dignity. It's a very difficult period to go through. It was not that long ago that millennials, my generation, were treated with the same thing 10 or 15 years ago. Every article, every newspaper, every other day published an article about how millennials were cooked. That we didn't have the ambition, that we were ruined by our phones and whatnot. And, and, and by and large, of course, there's a lot of exceptions. We ended up okay as we, as we, as we made it into our 30s and 40s. Now we've ended up okay, go back and look at the 1970s when the baby boomers were in their 20s and 30s. That was not their finest hour. Like, like, nobody handles this with a lot of grace and dignity. 20s are very difficult. The transition from childhood into full blown adulthood is not easy on. And even if you went back to the 1930s, you would see that the baby boomers parents themselves were also chastised for not having what it was going to take to make their way in the real world. And we ended up calling that generation the greatest generation. That's literally what they're called, the generation who fought in World War II and survived the Great Depression, whatnot. So even the generation that became literally the greatest started out in their 20s as looking like they were going to be the rotten falling behind generation. So this is a timeless problem. I don't think it's Anything different now?
- [12:56]
A
That's a good point. I also remember like, you know, like the rise of like the Occupy Wall street movement and stuff. There was an anti capitalistic movement even with millennials, I think. But what scares me the most now is just there's so many more tools. Maybe not tools right there, but there's so many more ways for people to like, lever up now and just try to hit the home run. When it comes to financial success, whether that was, you know, crypto, NFTs, parlays, it's just all happening at the click of a button. And that's what scares me now of like, how can you kind of break out of that mold of just not being so down about other people's success, not getting caught up in this stuff because you're exposed to it so much and it's hard to turn it off. Before you could kind of just like turn off the TV and not watch TV and be okay. But now it's so hard to turn this off because it's in our faces 20, 20,000 times a day.
- [13:53]
B
I think you're not wrong. And it would be stupid to minimize that issue and to say, oh, it's not that big a deal. It's a huge deal. I'm confident they'll eventually overcome it. And to the idea, there's a quote from Daniel Kahneman, the late psychologist, won the Nobel Prize, where he says, when all of your options look bad, people become very risk seeking. And so to the extent that a young person tells himself a narrative, whether it's true or not, that there is no path for me to work hard, work my way up the corporate ladder, save for the long term, if they think that path doesn't exist, then the 12 game parlay becomes very appealing, doesn't it? And so I think, I think there is a sense of that. I also, back to the optimistic side. Nobody can continue burning, losing buckets of money indefinitely. You eventually say, what the hell am I doing here? And it is way better to learn about the downside of risk when you're 19 than it is when you're 47 and putting your kids through college. So the idea that hopefully they will burn their fingers when they're young and then figure, by the way, my generation did that too. We didn't have the tools and it wasn't 24 7. But in the late 90s is when day trading became penny stocks. Penny stocks. That was a thing.
- [15:04]
A
That's right.
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B
And all, all of my friends were doing it. It was not as you, you, you didn't have the leverage or the opportunity that, that today's version does. But let's not pretend that Gen Z today is any different than any generation who came before it, who was attracted to that kind of thing. I've done a lot of like financial study sessions, consulting with high school students and two things always stick out. One is that they are smarter than we were when we were in high school because they have so much more information than we did. They know everything about everything. The second thing is every single group, without fail will ask me some version of the question, what penny stock should I buy tomorrow to get rich this week? And I just think that is, that is the natural intuition that was probably my and your intuition when we were teenagers and that's what it is for people today. So I, I, I, I don't, I don't think anyone should look down upon today's generation for going down that path because every generation not only would have, but did their own version of that as well.
- [16:02]
A
I love it that, that, that's a good dose of optimism right there. And you are so right about the penny stocks thing. I remember I was doing this when I was, I was 18 years old. I got my Scott's Trade account. I don't remember Scott trade. Of course, Scott's Trade put a thousand bucks into it of all my allowance money and the first thing I did was buy some penny stocks that went to zero within a week. So made that mistake at 18, but then obviously learned from it and then was able to make some good financial decisions in my 20s and 30s. So you're spot on. So I like the optimism. What, what does, going back to the bit of a pessimistic side is like the, the concept of home ownership though. I think, I think all of this really comes down to the housing. You know, that's like a theory where like it's all downstream of housing just being absolutely unaffordable. Right. Even when we were growing up, housing was you, I, I thought is buying a house was something that I could reach and I did eventually buy a house at 30 years old. Now it just seems out of reach. And if you can't buy a house, how are you going to start a family? And that to me is like the biggest issue right now is like how can we make housing more affordable for the, for the next generation.
- [17:06]
B
Yeah, you're absolutely right. I think it is, without an exaggeration, the biggest social problem that we face in America because there are so many other problems that are downstream from housing. For example, if Housing is atrociously expensive as it is by definition, a slice of society is going to become homeless. That's almost just a definition. What do those homeless people do to gain a little bit of comfort when they become homeless? By and large, very common heroin. And so you can draw a direct line from the housing crisis to the drug crisis. One other social problem that is huge in the United States, all over the world, in fact, in the developed world is the lack of childbearing, the decline in fertility over time. People are having way fewer kids than they used to by. It's a very complicated topic. I don't want to say this is the only thing causing it, but your.
- [17:56]
A
Next book is going to be on this. Come on.
- [17:58]
B
Right, we'll see. But, but so many families, so many couples say I don't want to have kids until we own a house. It's that that was true. That was by and large true for my wife and I. You want to feel like you have a sense of stability and roots before you have a child. And if you are 27 and recently married or whatever it might be, and you are, you think you are ready to have kids. You are emotionally maturity is, is ready to be a parent, but you don't, but you can't afford a house. It is very easy to just delay, delay, delay, delay. That's a very common thing too. So it is an enormous social problem because so many what seemed like unrelated problems stem from that.
- [18:34]
A
Yes, and that's exactly right. Yeah. I think it all is downstream from that. And you can't really like save your way to a house. It feels like anymore you're just, you're just not going to get there. It's just the prices are out of control. But I do want to talk about kids because you brought that up. And I have two kids right now, you know, a six year old and a two year old. And something that I stress about is teaching them about money and having a good relationship with money. They're still pretty young, but what are something that parents can do to have so their kids can have a better relationship with money and not feel like I'm spoiling them all the time by giving them the toy they wanted to buy from Target. You know, we go to Target, oh, she wanted a ten dollar toy. I'm like, oh, it's ten bucks and I buy it. How do you, how do you think that parents can can instill like good money skills with their kids even at a young age?
- [19:23]
B
I think there's two things to keep in Mind here one is a truthful but unfortunate answer that I've come to believe, and this is obviously outside of my zone of competence, but it's something that I believe is that the majority of your personality is forged at conception and there's not much you can do about it as a parent. Now that's, that's a much broader topic. But I think there are some people that are naturally wired to think about long term saving and investing and delayed gratification. They can do it much easier than others just because that's how they're wired. Warren Buffett talked about people who have the money mind. Some people have the money mind and these concepts of investing, they just get it instantly. You don't have to teach them. They came out of the womb getting it, they understand it. And other people, no matter how much you teach them, they can't do it. Charlie Munger put it more starkly. He said, when teaching money matters to young people, they either understand it instantly or never. I think that's, that's, it's probably too harshly said, but I think it's directionally true. And so one thing that is related to that is as a parent, you really can't teach your kids that much about money. What you can do is lead by example. And when you lead by example, the first thing you need to recognize is that they are always paying attention. From the time your child is probably three years old, every time that you say, we can't afford that, we value this, we're envious of that. Whatever you what, every little tiny comment that you make, they're making a mental model in their head of how money works. And by the time they're a teenager, even if you have never sat them down and taught them how to balance a checkbook or what compound interest is, they have a very strong mental model, either positive or negative, in their head about the behaviors that are right and wrong. And so you always have to lead by example. You can't lead by humiliation of trying to teach your kids about money by saying, mom and dad live like this. You need to work your butt off, you need to go out and do this. It's usually done in a well meaning way of parents saying, I want to teach my kid grit and the value of hard work. It's well intentioned, but very often what the child hears is, I'm below mom and dad, they're better than me, they're up here and I'm down here. That's not by and large the message that you want to send. And so leading by example and leading the life that you think is a life worth leading. I mean, it's similar with health. If you are a parent who is in poor health and all the various different aspects of poor health, and then you sit your kids down and you teach them the value of diet and exercise, that's not how it works. What you need to do is exercise and eat well, and they will watch you do that and form a mental model in your head. I think that's the only way to teach your kids about that money. Race the rudders. Raise the sails. Race the sails. Captain, an unidentified ship is approaching. Over. Roger, wait. Is that an enterprise sales solution? Reach sales professionals, not professional sailors. With LinkedIn ads, you can target the.
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- [23:20]
A
That is so fascinating because I was thinking about my personal example. So my parents were immigrants. They came here and, you know, growing up, they had, you know, we had a small business And I remember, like, you know, working at the small business with them at a convenience store, and they were able to kind of instill, like, the frugal immigrant nature into me. That's kind of how I grew up. My kids have a totally different upbringing. You know, like, I have a. More of a corporate background, and they didn't really have to, like, work at a convenience store or struggle. So I always worry that, like, by not having, like, that gritty upbringing, that I'm just making them soft and. And, you know, like, I'll give you a good example. Growing up, do you remember book fairs as. As a kid, like, in school? So when I was growing up, you know, when there was book fairs happening in elementary school, my parents would be like, no, you're gonna go to the library, get a free book, and that's how you're gonna read your books. They're not gonna pay 12 bucks to buy a Harry Potter book. My daughter, on the other hand's like, well, dad, there's a book fair happening. All my friends are gonna want to buy books. The next Taylor Swift color book or whatever. Can I have 15 bucks? And I'm like, yeah, sure. And so, like, that. That. That's a perfect example of, like, my. My sister was giving me a hard time. She's like, we never got book fair money. Like, you're giving your kids book fair money. And I just thought, I'm like, oh, yeah, maybe I'm making them too soft.
- [24:31]
B
I think what. There's. There's a truth to what you're saying. I totally get it. There's also something so beautiful without even knowing you or your parents, that I'm willing to bet that your parents worked their tails off so that their granddaughter could have the $15 Taylor Swift book. That's why they did it. Like, this is not a problem. This was the goal. The goal was to work so hard and become so successful that we. That the biggest problem in our life is spoiled children. Like, how fortunate are we to be in that position that the issues that we're talking about is, are my kids just surrounded by so much abundance that they're going to be broken? Like, this is. This is really top of the food chain problems that we're talking about.
- [25:10]
A
That. That is. That is beautifully said. Almost made me tear up. You're absolutely right. And that's actually what they say as well, because whenever I see them spoil her, they're like, yeah, that's what we're supposed to do now. You know, that's what the money's for.
- [25:20]
B
I remember an article in the New York Times a couple years ago profiling a guy who. A Chinese immigrant who had a. A Chinese food store. And once his kids were grown and out of the house, he closed the store. Even though it was doing fine, he closed it. And he. There's a line in there I loved. He said, I cooked noodles so that my kids wouldn't have to. And it was just like, it was just. He was just like, look, I worked my butt off so that my kids would not have to work their butts off as much as I did. Isn't that every parent's goal is that we can be so fortunate to get to a point where our kids are surrounded by abundance? That's.
- [25:52]
A
I mean, that's beautifully said. And again, I think about this stuff all the time as, as a parent of young kids. And, and yeah, that, that, that's a good point. No, that's. Yeah. Sorry, I'm just kind of getting a little emotional there. That's. I'm really happy that you, that you brought that up. I do have some lightning round questions to, to wrap this up. Sorry, I lost my train of thought there, man. That was. You're getting me to tear up a bit. All right, here we go. Oh, sorry. I wanted to ask you about. Real quick. I wanted to ask. I wanted to get your opinion on now with AI. Kind of like the rise of AI. You know, we're a finance podcast. We have to talk about AI. Do you think that AI will play a role at all in any of this stuff? Do you think that AI might be contributing to some of the issues that we're dealing with when it comes to young people's feelings about the economy? You know, there's, there's data of, like, how young people can't get jobs right now because entry level jobs are being replaced with AI. You know, you can make the case that with AI you're. It's supercharging social media with more of that type of content that's making people feel envious of other people's success. Do you see AI? How do you see AI playing a role in all of this?
- [26:58]
B
I think, of course it plays a role. And it's not even a forecast anymore. I think the data now shows that it's impacting the job market for entry level white collar jobs. It's. It's already a thing. It's not even a forecast anymore. So that answer is yes. It's also the case that there is such a long history, a century long history of Forecasts of new technology going to put, permanently put people out of work and that becoming just distinctly not the case. John Maynard Keynes talked about this in the 1930s. He called it technological unemployment. Where back in the 30s, it was machinery in the factory, it was the Henry Ford assembly line that was going to make it so that the car factory only needed 100 workers instead of 700. And the biggest, where this probably had the biggest impact by far was the late 1800s, when 70% of Americans were farmers at that period of time. And all of a sudden you had tractors and machinery and, and combines and whatnot. And all of a sudden you had 70% of Americans were like, what am I going to do? I like, there's, there's not gonna be any more work for me. Like, the farm used to require 100 people, now it requires 10. What are we gonna do? And the answer, we know this in hindsight. They didn't know at the time. The answer was a lot of you are gonna go work in factories. And then after the factory jobs went away, it was what are we gonna do? And the answer was not all, but a lot of them got white collar service jobs. And so there's always in. Historically, there has always been an answer to the problem, what are people going to do? It's also true that at that period of time, without the benefit of hindsight, you have no idea what that answer is going to be. They could not have known in 1890 that they were all going to go work in factories. That was an unknowable variable at the time. It was not foreseeable in the 1970s that people were by and large going to find service jobs. That was not foreseeable at the time. So I have no idea what the answer is going to be next. And maybe this will be the exception to that. Maybe there is nothing that follows here. And in all of those historical examples, the transition was not easy. The people who got, who didn't have a farm job anymore did not just waltz over to the factory and get a great job. There was sometimes a generational long slog into that transition. But there has been an answer. Maybe this is the time where there is no answer, but historically that's been the case.
- [29:03]
A
No, I tend to agree with what you were saying. I think technology tends to end up, you know, adding more jobs and then then cutting jobs. And we saw this historically. I mean, I think about, you know, I have an engineering background. I think about like the rise of CAD software. I'm not sure if you're familiar with cad. But like there, there used to be people like, used to draft up like engineering blueprints and now you had CAD software that could do it 100 times faster. And so people ended up, you know, losing their jobs, but that got replaced with other kinds of jobs. So I feel the AI is going to have the same impact. It's going to ultimately lead to more economic growth. But that, that, that, that unknown period is scary, especially for the younger people right now because they're the ones that are feeling the most amount of pain.
- [29:44]
B
Absolutely. It's, I mean, and that's always been the case that that transition is, even though that transition takes place, if it takes place over 20 years and, and you get stuck in that 20 year window of not really knowing what you're doing, or you have a college degree for a skill that is not in demand anymore, nobody should minimize how painful that can be.
- [30:02]
A
Yeah, absolutely. Just a couple lightning round questions to wrap up. What do you think is the biggest waste of money that you see people making right now?
- [30:12]
B
I, I, I will struggle to answer that because it might seem, something might seem like a waste to me, but gives you a lot of pleasure and vice versa. So I, I, I don't know what exactly my answer to that would be. If I came close to a universal thing, it's probably on the investing fee side in which the idea that you are going to gain a lot of benefit from paying higher end investing fees is so rare. It's not zero, but it's so rare and uncommon and so easy to overlook because you're not writing a check for those fees, they're just automatically deducted that they become out of sight, out of mind. And it might be one, literally one of the largest line items in your budget. If you have, if you are, particularly if you are a retiree and you have a million dollar portfolio and you're paying an extra 1% in fees, that's, that's 10 grand per year. That may be more than you spend on groceries and travel and all that and you don't even know it and you're not gaining anything from it. That's probably the most common. Even if it's not black and white universal.
- [31:10]
A
All the wealth managers listening to this are going to be into my DMs just saying, I know. No, that's not, it's totally worth, these fees are worth it. But I actually do agree with you.
- [31:17]
B
Well, here's the thing, I will follow up. Lots of them are worth it. This is not like, oh, they're all Bad. There are a lot of advisors who charge 1% and earn every cent of it. Those exist. There are a lot that don't. And when you are stuck with one who is not adding the value, by and large, you don't even know it.
- [31:35]
A
This is a very personal topic for me because my dad had a similar situation where the wealth manager was not adding any value. And it wasn't until I kind of like got in there and been like, this is. You just dropped. Wasted so much money over the last 10, 15 years. So very personal topic for me. I'm happy that you brought that up. Last question. What is the worst investment that you ever made? I'm going to start first actually here for me, I bought an NFT back in 2021 of a LeBron James dunk. I spent more than $1,000 on it. I'll leave it at that. That's the worst investment that I ever made. What is the worst investment that you ever made, Morgan?
- [32:08]
B
I'm gonna, I'm gonna cheat on this question because I invest in index funds and I never sell them, so I don't have a lot of examples to pull from. But I'll tell you one example of the investment that I did not make. 2008, I lived in Los Angeles and a brand new company that nobody had ever heard of called Tesla opened up its first store in Los Angeles and it was a showroom. You could go in and see what was at the time the Tesla Roadster, the first car, and you could sit in it and talk to the salespeople. And I went there with my girlfriend, was now my wife. And we went there and we sat in it and we talked to the salespeople. And I remember thinking, there is no way this does not become huge. There is, it's one of the only times in my life where the first time you see a product you're like, this is it, this is, there's no way this doesn't work. And what did I not do? Buy Tesla stock. And so, and so it's one of those things where it's like, it's, I'm cheating on your question by telling you the investment I didn't make. But it's one of those times where it's like, this is not hindsight. I knew it at the time, I knew it at the day. This is no hindsight here. And I did nothing about it.
- [33:11]
A
Yeah, it's like, it's not like the same thing as someone saying, oh, buy Bitcoin, even though, like you didn't really Believe in it. It's like you. You saw it up and close at the time.
- [33:18]
B
I have one more example about that. 2004, I lived in Orange county and I think it had actually been open for a while, but I had never heard of this new Mexican restaurant called Chipotle. And I went over and got a burrito and I took my first bite and it was the same feeling. I was like, this, this place is gonna. This is the thing. This, this is the thing. And of course, I went home and did not buy Chipotle stock. So I think those are the two times in my life when I tried a product and I knew in my gut that this company was gonna be huge and I did nothing about it.
- [33:47]
A
Well, next time you find one of those products, I know you're only investing in expense, let me know. Let the audience know because I will definitely throw, throw some money at that. On your behalf, Morgan, thank you again for your time. This was a fantastic conversation. I'm so excited to get to get a copy of your new book, the Art of Spending Money. It comes out October 7th and it's available for pre order, I believe on Amazon and every place that sells books.
- [34:09]
B
You got it. Thanks so much for having me.
- [34:11]
A
Thank you. Well, all right, guys, hope you enjoyed that fantastic conversation with Morgan Housel. He's such a fun person to talk to and hopefully he's going to be on the show again soon. Soon. Now remember, we are giving away a hundred free copies of Morgan Housel's new book, the Art of Spending Money. If you want his new book sent to you, all you have to do is email us your name and the address you want us to ship the book to the rundownublic.com the first 100 people to send us that email will get the book sent to them for free, no strings attached. So send that email as soon as you hear it again, just email the rundown@public.com with your name and address and we'll send the book your way. We'll also put the email address in the description as well. And while you're at it, let us know in the comments on Spotify or YouTube on what you thought about this interview. And if you guys think that we should do more giveaways like this in the future. Thank you guys so much for listening, watching and commenting. Shout out to Mike and Connor for all the work behind the scenes and we'll see you guys back here on Monday.