Ever feel like there just aren't enough hours in the day? Join myself, Adam, and the astute Joe, as we unravel the mysteries of time management, proving that you really do have more time than you think. Together, we dissect the 168 hours that make up your week and expose the myth that being 'too busy' is anything but a state of mind. From rethinking daily routines to optimizing the hours you didn't know you had, we're here to equip you with tangible strategies to master your calendar and get back in control of your life.
Balancing the books while hitting the books can be a high-wire act for college students. This episode doesn't shy away from the nitty-gritty of navigating college on a shoestring budget. We discuss the trials of managing a full course load alongside a full-time job, and the art of living frugally yet realistically in the pursuit of education. The conversation takes a deep dive into smart budgeting and the value of family support, offering not just sympathetic ears but hands-on advice for those counting pennies and credit hours alike.
Wrapping up on a light-hearted note, we talk about the delightful tradition of naming snow plows, a cultural quirk that's snowballed into a phenomenon of public engagement. From "Plowy McPlow Face" to "The Truck Formerly Known as Plow," we explore how this whimsical trend brings communities together and sparks joy. My contribution to the mix, "A Plow with No Name," aims to add to the fun, reminding us all to take a moment to laugh amidst our busy lives. Tune in and join us for a hearty blend of life lessons, laughter, and the pursuit of mastering time and resources.
Ever feel like there just aren't enough hours in the day? Join myself, Adam, and the astute Joe, as we unravel the mysteries of time management, proving that you really do have more time than you think. Together, we dissect the 168 hours that make up your week and expose the myth that being 'too busy' is anything but a state of mind. From rethinking daily routines to optimizing the hours you didn't know you had, we're here to equip you with tangible strategies to master your calendar and get back in control of your life.
Balancing the books while hitting the books can be a high-wire act for college students. This episode doesn't shy away from the nitty-gritty of navigating college on a shoestring budget. We discuss the trials of managing a full course load alongside a full-time job, and the art of living frugally yet realistically in the pursuit of education. The conversation takes a deep dive into smart budgeting and the value of family support, offering not just sympathetic ears but hands-on advice for those counting pennies and credit hours alike.
Wrapping up on a light-hearted note, we talk about the delightful tradition of naming snow plows, a cultural quirk that's snowballed into a phenomenon of public engagement. From "Plowy McPlow Face" to "The Truck Formerly Known as Plow," we explore how this whimsical trend brings communities together and sparks joy. My contribution to the mix, "A Plow with No Name," aims to add to the fun, reminding us all to take a moment to laugh amidst our busy lives. Tune in and join us for a hearty blend of life lessons, laughter, and the pursuit of mastering time and resources.
Today on the Idiots Guide, we're talking about tick-tock, tick-tock, why we all suck at time management and how it's costing us more and more every single day. And if you're familiar with the names Taylor Drift or Beyoncé, you definitely live in Minnesota, where the snowplow naming event of the year has begun. I'm your host, Adam Richardson, aka the Profit Hacker, and I'm joined by the man in charge, mr Joe Haslam. Welcome to the Idiots Guide, all right.
Speaker 1:So for all of those people out there that are eager about what's going on with time management, why we feel like we never have enough time in the day or anything like that, and we just kind of like it seems like it's one of those things that's always fleeting. It's always one of those situations where you tell a friend you're like I just don't have enough time to do anything in the day. I wish there was more hours in the day. And you're like I only get 24. And you're like that, well, wait a second. It kind of sounds like a lot, but wait a second, it's not.
Speaker 1:Because if I do all the things that I want to do, all the things, then I don't get any time to do all the things and so I get frustrated and then I go on TikTok and I make a venting video on TikTok about how hard it is to do all the things that I want to do and I don't have enough time to do all those things because I got to go to work and then when I don't, when I don't work enough, you know like, or if I work my normal time that I'm supposed to work and I get that time and I put that time in, I should make enough to make a living and I can't even buy French fries at McDonald's. So I just I think today is going to be exciting because we are going to smack that around for a while and let the little children know that no, I'm not smacking children.
Speaker 2:I want to be clear about that, but I want to let.
Speaker 1:I want them to know that we feel for them, but we don't care, because the world doesn't care. And if you think there's not enough time in 24 hours, every single day, you're about to be shown you absolutely have more than enough time, you little lazy humans.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:Joe, now take it away.
Speaker 2:I know that sounds really harsh, but you know it's true. So when, when we were talking about this a couple days ago, we were talking about, how you know, back in the old days, you know these men would go to work, now, obviously, back then there were a lot fewer women at work, but we can even equate it to today, but back then men would go to work and, and even during World War II and other things, women would go to work at the factories. Yeah, they'd be working 12 plus hours a day easily.
Speaker 2:And that was just what you did, and it was expected of you to work massively long hours. Now, back then they didn't have television, they didn't have video games, they didn't have handheld devices that they could play crazy cupcakes for Brooklyn Nine-Nine fans. You know you couldn't do all these things. That took so much of your time. So, yeah, it was a lot easier to work 12 hours a day and it was tiring, but not feel that you were wasting your time because I did the maths.
Speaker 1:The maths, the maths, and what kind of math thing does maths do?
Speaker 2:Okay. So the hours available in a week, so seven days. So 24 hours a day, seven days a week, the hours available 168. 168 hours that is essentially if you work 40 hours a week for entire work weeks, for work weeks in any given week. If you were working all day every day, never slept, you would be able to have four jobs. Now I'm not saying that's reasonable, but that's how much time that is. So sleeping hours assuming eight hours a day, it's 56 hours of sleep a week. Okay, so you're getting your eight hours a day of sleep and you're not getting five hours, which everyone that complains about I don't have enough time talks about. They don't get to sleep enough.
Speaker 2:So that's still 112 hours We've still got 112 hours to do stuff outside of sleep. How many hours of sleep is the 56?
Speaker 1:That's eight. Yeah, eight hours a day, seven days a week Goodness. I mean, like most people past 30 would love that Right.
Speaker 2:So I mean this is assuming a lot of sleep. You're well rested, everything Okay. So you are awake 112 hours. Now let's take your main job into account. So you're going to work 40 hours a week. Okay, that's the quote unquote ideal work hours for the US. If you're in France, it's 20 to 30. Other areas in First World Nations don't see 40 hours as being a necessary amount of time to work. In the United States, 40 hours a week is the average work week. Now, sometimes we work a little bit more, things like that. But 40 hours average work week Okay, that still leaves you 72 hours. That is, three full days. Three full 24 hour days of free time. Yeah, after you finished your first full time job.
Speaker 1:Well, even if you break that up into every single day, like 72 hours of your whole day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, over seven days a week.
Speaker 1:That's 10 hours a day, all right. So let's chop it a little bit more, though, because there's things like man I was stuck in traffic. Man, I had to go grocery shopping, I had to make dinner.
Speaker 2:So I've got some additional hours. So, out of those 72, we're going to assume that five, seven days a week, you're going to spend an hour getting ready every morning. Now, I don't spend an hour every morning, I actually only take 20 minutes and yes, I know it's down to 20 minutes. 30 minutes for breakfast, which again I think most people probably don't do. 30 minutes for breakfast, but we're giving the benefit of the doubt. Okay, so an hour to get ready every morning, 30 minutes for breakfast every morning, one full hour of lunch every day and one full hour for dinner every day.
Speaker 1:So three and a half hours of every day Exactly.
Speaker 2:Three and a half hours doing prep food. All that, and then five days a week, one hour of travel. Okay, so that's half hour to half hour back. I think that's pretty reasonable, and so with all of that, that takes out 29 and a half hours for a given week.
Speaker 2:So now you are left with 42 and a half hours of free time. That is almost two full days of free time. Doesn't account for a job and you know you're working a full time job. You have a full time job of free time more. Yeah, 42 hours, not 40.
Speaker 1:That's generous. I mean your employer could take that yeah.
Speaker 2:And so you know seven hours you're looking at, or seven days a week, six hours a day of free time outside of meals, outside of work, outside of cleaning yourself in the morning, outside of travel. That is six hours a day for yourself.
Speaker 1:Okay, so here's here's. I'm going to back this up a little bit, because we just obliterated your you know like your average complaint in, I think, three minutes. Yeah, dismantled it with just talking about the hours in which you have available plentiful there every single day.
Speaker 2:There are plenty of hours, even if you add in a half hour of exercise. I think you know prep in the morning includes that half hour of exercise. You know the hour of lunch is going out and taking a walk around your building complex to get your 15 minutes of exercise break in the day. All those things you can fill in with exercise. Those of you that bike to work, that's your travel time and so all of these things filter into your getting your exercise. But let's say you even add on an extra half hour of exercise every day, that's still five and a half hours every single day of free time.
Speaker 1:So when I first thought about doing this episode. A big part of my mind goes to budgeting, yeah, and the reason why is because you know our society and what we're dealing with a lot of times is a cost of living concern, and the cost of living in comparison when you go like man, I just how can I make a living when I work at Walmart?
Speaker 1:And I'll use that as an example. I saw a reel that was pulled from a TikTok. That was a girl complaining about working at Walmart and not having enough money to move out from her parents' house to pay rent. So and I just said, okay, first off, you know like you look and I don't want to assume, but you know, holding a coffee cup kind of a thing working at Walmart, you have this bias that comes in, comes into play. But I still have to look at this and go. If I I remember what I did when I was living in my parents' basement I won, I didn't want to be home because it wasn't really that cool living with my parents, and you know so maybe I'm in my 20s, early 20s. I had two jobs. I had a race car and a Jeep and I so any other time I was gone, using that free time, but I had two jobs and I was going to school, so I utilized. I feel like I did a pretty dang good job of utilizing my hours to maximize the benefits from that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and, and one of the big things is, a lot of people will say that you shouldn't have two jobs. You shouldn't have to have two jobs. I say bull, and the reason I say that is you've got 40 hours, six or five and a half hours is that we decided five and a half hours a day of nothing.
Speaker 1:Nothing. There's always those adages about like, or the old adage about like the idle hands, yeah, like, if you're just sitting still, what are you going to do? Probably more than likely now you're going to waste money somewhere.
Speaker 2:You're going to be spending, you know, those five and a half hours on TikTok. You're going to be, you know, going out and buying frivolous stuff. Yeah, I mean, you're going to be wasting your time and money by not utilizing those hours in the best way possible.
Speaker 1:Yep, now you're going to be filming yourself in the car with your phone.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Now, when I talk about those extra 40 hours, I'm talking about young, single people.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Okay, now, young single people generally don't have degrees. They are dating, so they maybe need a little bit more for you know, activities or things like that, but they don't have to take care of kids at home. Yeah, okay. So when I went through and I figured out budgets for all these different categories of people, and if you are 20 years old, working at Walmart with no degree, you shouldn't have kids. And if you do have kids, because you know a mistake that you made with the next boyfriend life, life circumstances led you there.
Speaker 2:Circumstances, whatever it was. Where are your parents? Your parents should be the ones that are assisting you while you go and get a degree. So I'm not talking about those young people that because they were stupid teenagers which happens. I'm not blaming the teenagers. Teenagers are stupid. Things happen. You heard it here. Folks, their parents need to step up. In those situations. It's four years, four years.
Speaker 2:Get that kid into I don't care what kind of college it is a local college get a bachelor's degree. You help take care of their kid, your grand kid. This is your blood. You take care of your grand kid for four years while you help your kid go to college. And now they have a college degree, which immediately improves the amount of money that they're making and I've gone through the budget for different scenarios for all of this. Then now they can afford that kid because they have the college degree. They have the better job to be able to afford more. So don't come to me complaining that you don't have anything. Well, you made the mistake to have kids and I know that sounds really rude to people out there.
Speaker 1:I would say this you know what assuming does? Right, it makes you look like an ass.
Speaker 2:There you go.
Speaker 1:Which version going back to you and me. But anyway, I always skip that part and just call you one.
Speaker 2:But I mean there are things that happen, but there should be a network there. Now there are people who don't have a network. There are people who don't have parents who are willing to help them, and there are a lot of programs for people in that situation to help supplement their income, to be able to pay for the needs of their child, to help with rent assistance, and I'm not just talking about government programs, I'm talking about nonprofit organizations. There are government programs, there are a lot of things like that that help, and that's why we need those government programs. It's not for people taking advantage of it, it's for the people that actually desperately need it.
Speaker 2:So off the soapbox on that one. What I'm talking about are specific stages of individuals, and you are a young, single 20 year old. Don't come crying to me that you are having to work two jobs to afford. Yet duh, you should be working two jobs. When you're married and have a family, you are working two jobs. Yes, you have your main job, even if you're a stay at home parent. I say even if a stay at home parent is a full time job.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:You're in a house, you are managing the household budget, you're keeping it organized. Meals and kids yes, you are. That is what you do as a stay at home parent. And then you have to have fun with those kids. That's the second job is taking them places, doing things with them, helping them with their homework. All of these things. Those are the second job that both parents share in a relationship. Okay, don't just complain. Oh, you know my spouse doesn't work. No, they're working.
Speaker 1:I feel like if they're working, I feel like dishes for me is a third job.
Speaker 2:And so there are a lot of these things that come up. You know, when you are a young single adult, you should be working two jobs, because otherwise, in my opinion, you're being lazy. Yeah, absolutely. You've got 40 hours a week that you're doing what I mean if you go out on dates. Okay, let's say that's two nights a week, maybe three hours each. Three nights a week, three hours each. You still got 30 hours, 30 hours a week where you're not doing anything.
Speaker 1:Well and I can say this like education wise even if you did get a college degree, you don't have a kid, you just have kind of a crappy job. So you're living at home, you have a job and you're going to college or whatever. Maybe you're going to a university and you're living in a dorm and you have that scenario. But usually you want some things, you want to be able to do things, and oftentimes school like in that sort of scenario is still expensive.
Speaker 1:So you have to look at options about maybe working at a pizza joint or working at, you know, back in the day it was blockbuster video whatever Any of those kind of scenarios of kind of like moonlighting at the end of the night with something that will bring in a couple things so you have some pocket change to spend.
Speaker 2:Now talking about college. This is another problem that I have. How many hours do you think a week you should spend on college activities? College education, about talking about? You know mixers, or whatever they call them, to do these kinds of things.
Speaker 1:Are you just talking about the actual school work, school and homework? I mean, if I was trying to get a degree, I don't even know Like I like it, maybe maybe an equivalent to a full-time job?
Speaker 2:No, Really, yep. So the thing is average students take anywhere from 12 to 18 credit hours per semester. Okay, that's the expected amount. More than that, you're doing too much. Okay, less than that, you're not doing enough, and I think you're considered under 12 a part-time student. Okay, 15 is about average. Okay, and so the way that they categorize credit hours is how many lecture hours per week. So if you're getting 15 credit hours so let's say you take five classes that have three credit hours each okay, then what you're doing is you are in class 15 hours a week, okay, okay. So actual class time is 15 hours a week. Now you should spend maybe an additional 30% of time doing homework. It's not an equivalent time because you're spending again. You've got five classes Each week. You're in that class for three hours, and anyone who has been to college knows that you're not actually in that class for three hours.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:At least not most of the time. Some professors will keep you there To the minute, but most professors I could never stay awake in those classes.
Speaker 1:That's the problem for me.
Speaker 2:Most professors, most instructors recognize that after like two hours, two and a half hours, you're done.
Speaker 1:I never even knew I could be so bored in a math class until I went to a college math class. But they're so long, yes.
Speaker 2:Now sometimes they're split between two days and then maybe sometimes you're there a little bit longer. But even then even in a split class where you're there for an hour and a half, usually you're really only in the class for an hour.
Speaker 2:So, you're really not even spending a full 15 hours a week in your college classes, and so then you should spend maybe an additional five hours a week doing homework. That's about an hour per class, which is reasonable per week. We're not talking about an entire semester, we're talking about every week. You set aside an hour to do your homework in each class. Okay, that's reasonable. You have an English class, or when you're doing a report, usually you have three or four weeks to do a report. I think four hours is enough time to write a report, a college report. Now, if you get into the high I'm talking about undergrad, so up to the bachelor's degree After the bachelor's degree, it does become a little bit different, because the classes become harder. Generally you're doing fewer of them, but still so 20 hours a week 20 hours a week is all you're spending on college.
Speaker 1:What about like a? Final or a paper, writing a paper, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:That's what I'm talking about writing a paper. If you plan your time right, you're not spending more than an hour per class.
Speaker 1:Which still fits into.
Speaker 2:you could have a full-time job, in that you can have a full-time job, spend 20 hours on college and you still have 20 hours a week of free time. What about that frat party? 20 hours a week of free time, that's 20 hours a week of free time, and generally you're not getting eight hours of sleep. If you're at the frat party, you're gonna get like two, and so that frat party just took your six hours of sleep. That's what you transferred it for, and so the reality is it's just laziness that's causing us to think that we don't have enough time in the day. There is plenty of time, and so, if you're in college so I did the maths okay, if you're in college, you generally are not gonna be paying for your own the full rent for wherever you're staying. So let's say you have an apartment.
Speaker 2:When I was in college, I had three roommates, so we shared a three bedroom apartment. It was not, it was a big three bedroom apartment. I did the same thing. Yeah, it's great. You know, half the time I had no idea who was in the apartment Because it was always just it was just an open door. Ours was like the party house, and so it was just constantly people filtering through and you really never knew who they were. You know a few people you knew because they were kind of somewhat connected to your group of people, so friends of the roommates, not friends of friends or anything like that. So sometimes you knew them but yeah, I hardly ever knew who was even at our place.
Speaker 1:Mine were all return missionaries and geeks, so like they would have land wars. So anytime that there was, it was somebody else plugged into the network that they were running through the whole house and playing Like I had one. My room was. I was not either one of those, okay, but I had a sliding glass door that accessed from the ground level into my room of the apartment and so I paid a little extra in rent because I had that space and so I was like it made it, so I had a private entrance for my. You know my manner in which I lived.
Speaker 2:Well, the crazy thing is, I mean three of us were studying accounting and so, but ours was the party house, so I mean we were nerds, but we weren't that nerdy so yeah. So you're looking at if you're making, if you're working 40 hours a week, okay, and if you're only making 40 hours, working 40 hours a week at $9 an hour, you're getting your college paid for. It's just I mean, through grants that's not even right student loans. If you're making that little and you have no other support system, then everything's paid for you.
Speaker 1:Especially right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, there's no question. So I don't have college tuition on here, okay, because you're not paying any. But you will, though no, you won't Not, in that that's not you, that's. I mean that will qualify you for income needs.
Speaker 1:If you don't have any family supporting you. No, I mean in the future, you'll pay that tuition back, don't worry.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean it's, it's taxes. But this is a call out to all adults out there. Stop treating your kids like they need to pay for college themselves. You have the money. Help them. You are their parent. Get them to the next stage in life. Don't tell them I struggled so you have to. That is the stupidest thing in the world. You want them to succeed.
Speaker 1:On the next episode. Okay, we're going to talk to the parents.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly that was a preview. So anyway, that's just, I have a hard time with parents to do, but anyway, so during college and $9 an hour, lowest of the low, okay, that is a really really low wage. I looked at comparisons. Okay, yeah, I may bring this up later Walmart starting pay $14 an hour. Mcdonald's starting pay $10.50 an hour. Domino's starting pay $11 an hour.
Speaker 1:Are these national averages or are these like local?
Speaker 2:These are local positions. Okay, so in Utah is known as having one of the lowest job wages Right, and so these are low.
Speaker 1:That's the reason why I'm asking that is because in context it's not necessarily it's still going to be low where you're at in context, but the demographics and economics of that area dictate you're still within that same range.
Speaker 2:So, like Walmart, starting wage goes from $14 to $18. So $18 would be like a California market or something like that. So we're really talking Utah markets here. Okay, so going back to this $9 an hour If you're getting $9 an hour, you did not work hard enough to find a good job. True, because you had to look for a cheap job to get $9 an hour.
Speaker 1:My son is making more than that an hour and he's 15. Exactly.
Speaker 2:Exactly. You have to look for a job this low Okay, so you're in college. You have one roommate in a two bedroom apartment, okay, okay. So those are scenarios. So you're making about 15, 60 a month, so 1,560 a month. Your taxes, and I worked out all the taxes on all these. I went through all of the circulars, the publications, state and federal, to work out the exact tax amount on these.
Speaker 1:I did the maths, you weren't letting anything slip through. I am not.
Speaker 2:So your total taxes on that is $202 a month. So your take home is $1357. I assumed a rent of $1,400. Okay, that's reasonable.
Speaker 2:Yeah $1,400 is actually kind of a high end apartment for a two bedroom. You could probably find something cheaper in a really kind of lower economy area, yeah, even in our region, yeah. So I think $1,400 that's reasonable. So you've got one roommate, not two roommates or three roommates, just one other roommate. You're sharing the rent, so you're paying $700 a month in rent, $75 a month in utilities, $50 a month for your cell phone, $25 a month for your streaming services, cause you didn't want to pay for. You're paying for the commercial free versions of your streaming services, $250 for car and transportation. So my estimation is you went out and bought an $8,000 car and because your credit sucks, it is a 15% interest rate. Ew, ew, yeah. So again, I'm estimating high on some of these things. That's bad, okay so. But you've got a car, an $8,000 car. That's a nice car. Yeah, it's used, but it's still a nice car.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's gonna get you places.
Speaker 2:And it's gonna have good gas mileage. It's gonna not need a lot of repairs, so you're generally good at that rate. So $250 a month for car and transportation, $225 a month for groceries it's about $50 a week, which I think is reasonable. Yeah, clothing $50 a month, and then for this one I've got 5% sent to savings. Normally you'd do 10, but you're in college so you're only doing five. Okay, so at the end of that you are short $85 a month. Cut back on some streaming services, maybe get a cheaper car, you're good, and that's. While you're in college you can survive on $9 an hour at 40 hours a week and pay for your streaming services Disney Plus, hulu Plus all these different things, so that you get these streaming without commercials. And I mean that would be like, I think, three services right there. That would give you ESPN, Disney and Hulu in their bundle package for no commercials. Okay, you're kind of living it up here, you only have one roommate.
Speaker 2:So realistically that's not that bad. And that's an $8,000 car At a job that you had to look for something making very little money. Okay, now we're going to bump that up. I know we're running out of time. You're giving me the look.
Speaker 1:I just want to run through a couple of these All right.
Speaker 2:So in college, bumping it up to $11 an hour. So more reasonable Wow, high roller, I know Two dollars more an hour. This is the more reasonable wage that you're going to be making while you're in college 40 hours a week, 20 hours actually doing your college stuff, with 20 hours of free time to go and do whatever you want to do in college. Okay, that's outside of sleeping, that's outside of transportation, that's outside of eating and any. With that I mean transportation is not going to be an hour a day, so that gives you an extra hour a day, right. So all that you're making $1,900 an hour or $1,900 a month, $1,600 take home all the same expenses. You end the month with $81 in savings and $167 leftover. With an $8,000 car putting 5% into savings, getting all your streaming services working 40 hours a week, that's it. If you're working 60 hours a week at $11, you are putting $230 into savings every month. That's 10% of your take home. So you're putting $230 into savings every month and you have $730 leftover at the end of every single month. That's fun money, play money. All your bills are done. $730. It's almost 30% of your take home pay that you just get to do whatever with. After all, your bills are paid If you have a roommate. If you don't have a roommate, same thing. 60 hours a week, $11 an hour. You're short 46 bucks but that's putting 230 in. So you drop that down to say a 5% savings rate until you get a better job. You're still saving, but you're working up to get that better job. Then you are now positive about $100. There is no way, even at $11 an hour, that you can't afford to live a reasonably nice life. Go to college. These aren't even college rates. These are people who don't go to college, these are people who don't have anything. You can live a comfortable life Even if you on that split rent.
Speaker 2:One, you're married, you're dinks, you're bringing in because you're going to split everything in half. So you get double everything at that point. Two cars, double the groceries, everything. You're still bringing in $1,400 a month combined after savings, after saving $450 a month together. That's if you're dinks working to 11 or I guess that would be more than two. But for $11 jobs working 60 hours a week and you still have 20 hours a week for fun, okay, there is absolutely no reason to complain.
Speaker 2:I even went through and I did single with a college degree, dinks with a college degree, and families with a college degree, families where only one person works and you're only working 40 hours a week Okay, it's all doable.
Speaker 2:The hardest one is when you have and the house I did for these budgets so, if you're single, 40 hours a week at the average, the low end rate.
Speaker 2:So this is when you're starting out Okay, $17 an hour with a college degree, with a bachelor's degree, working 40 hours a week at that job and 20 hours a week at an $11 job, okay, okay, so that's just a part-time job you have. If you're single, left over in that nice apartment, not sharing two bedroom, nice life, good car, you still left over with $650 a month, hmm, if you're dinks, so double income, no kids, so, and you go out as soon as you get married and you buy a $650,000 house in today's market, paying 7% interest rate Plus all the stuff that goes on to that, you will be making at the end $1600 of leftover money and $800 and savings, $900 and savings every month With that kind of house, two cars as dinks, okay, both of you working 60 hours a week. That should be the standard. Yeah, if you are in a family and you're only working 40 hours a week. This is the one where it's the hardest, because you've got that same huge house $650,000 home.
Speaker 2:It's a pretty nice home, I look at the average is that's four to five bedrooms, three bathrooms yeah, pretty big house. On that budget you are short. $2,500 a month, yeah, that's the only one. When it gets difficult is because you've got this huge house and you've got one person working and no second job, because you're spending that second job time with, yeah, and so that's where it gets difficult.
Speaker 2:If you are a family, the minimum you need to be making on this budget so to afford a $650 home, to have two cars, to have basically this very nice lifestyle not rich, not many mansions or anything like that, but a very nice lifestyle you would need to make $123,000 pre-tax every year. Okay, 123,000 a year. Okay, so that's your gross wage. So when you're looking at you know that's not after tax. After tax it would be what is that about? 100,000? To be able to afford that, okay, so pre-tax 128,000.
Speaker 2:You want to know how much managers make? A Walmart? How much? 128,000. A manager almost as if they've done the math A manager at Walmart. At Walmart, which does not require a degree, by the way, I looked this up, managers at Walmart do not require degrees. It requires them to go through training, through education, through Walmart, having worked in management at Walmart for a period of time, 128,000 plus bonuses, plus all the extra stuff that's not included in the 128. A manager at Walmart, which anyone can grow into yeah, can afford a $650,000 home to cars and afford everything that we would expect as a nice lifestyle, as a great living arrangement and only working 40 hours a week.
Speaker 1:All right. So it makes me curious how I mean I don't want to burst everyone's bubble because I feel like that's what we just did is we were like nope, yeah, that's nope, doesn't that either? Nothing you know and like that's good. But I also want to make sure that we leave them with some, some positive spin on this. So if you were sitting down, mr Heartless, if you were sitting down with this young person that was complaining about their Walmart job and after taxes they get their paycheck and they don't have enough to move out how would you guide them in you know kind of some first steps? I have a couple of things that I'm going to add to this, but I want to ask you, like you know, where would you? Where would you point them first? Write it down, okay.
Speaker 2:Because one of the biggest problems that people have with budgets is and I'm not talking about write down a budget that you're strictly adhering to, because that actually causes constriction and that runs into problems neurologically. You don't want to, you know, constrict yourself. Just write down how much you're actually making. Write down how many hours you're working.
Speaker 2:Yeah write down the actual rent of where you want to go to. Because the problem is, we create these abstracts in our brain that this what is it? $600 a week that I'm making in this job isn't enough to afford anything. Well, that's because we're seeing 600, not 2400. Yeah, which is four weeks of work. We think, oh, apartments are so expensive. Well, did you actually look at apartments? Did you write down how much that would be? Did you write down how much a car payment would be? Did you write down how much your streaming services would be? Once you actually write it down, it becomes more concrete in our brain and we realize, oh, it is doable.
Speaker 1:Oftentimes that's where my wife and I have found holes in our budget, sometimes where we've got overspending somewhere. But we also have holes where we like we go, oh well, we're not overspending, but we have this much excess after everything's paid and it just takes every once in a while for us, but once a quarter we go through and we go through our bills, obviously monthly, and make sure everything's continued to be maintained. But then once a quarter we go through and like thoroughly, almost like audit it so that we can see we're like, oh wow, this is like. This is maybe a change, this is an improvement. This is where we're. We've got a spending hole, we're losing money over here, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's that's the big thing is, when you write it down, it becomes concrete and becomes much more doable and you realize wait, this can happen I can do this.
Speaker 2:And the other thing I say don't think that 40 hours is enough. 60 hours is a more reasonable work week for the average person. Now, for any of you who think that you know I'm the man in charge, the rich guy who doesn't work enough, I work 80 hours a week and I do have a second job, and so it's not because I don't make enough off of my first job. I own my own company. I need to fill all my time. I have a problem not filling my time, and so I fill that time with a part time job and I love it.
Speaker 1:Well, and oftentimes, if I don't fill my schedule with things of value, then I'm going to burn up more than necessary. Like I like playing video games and if, if I don't have anywhere to be, I can be there all day, like it will be the whole day is gone, I might have to plug the controller in because it's run out of battery. That's, that's how I could burn that clock, well, I mean. So part of that's a discipline to really say like look, I need to be aware of this. There's some time, there's some things that when you say write it down, and like you want to make sure you're not writing down everything, I would you write down everything.
Speaker 2:You just don't be strictly adherent to it.
Speaker 1:I it's. It's writing it down to be visible, like to make a visual cue of what you're, what you're dealing with. And so the same thing goes with time management and the reason why like we talked about losing time and why it's costing you so we've reverted now to time is money. You know, because it truly is, and in both ends of the means it's a cost or it's an income, and so you know it's something that needs to be considered constantly. Take the time to do this. There's things called a time audit you can do. Do a Google search, find a self time audit and it literally gives you just a piece of paper, big white piece of paper like this, and it has charts, and you basically like a food diary. You write down what you did that day, from the time you woke up to how long you took in the bathroom, to you know the end of your day and how long your lunch break was, whatever it is.
Speaker 2:Hence why I know it takes me exactly 20 minutes to get ready every one.
Speaker 1:And so doing that every once in a while just like I said, my wife and I do this on our budgeting every quarter gives you a good glimpse of the holes that you're losing in what reason, you know, and even if you, if you feel like you're doing okay, where you have this luxury, where you can, you can use some of that time. Consider doing this just for the sake of going. How could I be more effective with the time that will allow me other other benefits elsewhere. So you know, for example, if you find that you have an extra couple hours a day, that that you're that you can, you can use somewhere. And instead of going and playing video games, you go on to an education program. You know, I mean, heck, you could go to YouTube and look up education stuff, yeah, and teach yourself how to do an entirely new world physics.
Speaker 1:Get the next man on the moon Don't care what it is, it's there and get on there and learn something valuable that will apply and and and improve your life, and you're going to see a really drastic change in how you feel about. You know, instead of being defeated, now you've really taken charge of your schedule, your time, your time management, your sleep, your eating habits, your, your financial situation, and you have complete visibility. You write it down and you now have almost a tangible. You can touch this and know I have better control, because I can see everything, because oftentimes that's where we lose.
Speaker 1:It is, you know, my, my daughter has, she's learning to tell time. She's like oh, it's you know, it's you know, to 14. Okay, she's like 14. So it's two o'clock and then 14, and she's like watching her try to do this math, you know, and it's absolutely adorable Because I'm like it's not that complicated. Come on, figure this out, child, you're seven, you should know. No, just, my 15 year old has no concept of time either. So, but it's, it's this idea of, like you, once you get that time, once you realize what time and how valuable it is, you can appreciate the value even more when you see it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and, and stop letting time pass you by. Yeah, use the time. So I am one of those wonderful people that doesn't require eight hours of sleep at night. I never have. If I get eight hours of sleep, I'm actually more groggy than if I only get five hours of sleep. So some people are lucky that way. When I was younger, I could get away with three hours of sleep at night and cognitive function all perfectly normal, capable of doing complex math and all the complex stuff that would be expected of you, and so I'm just, fortunately, one of those people that get five hours of sleep, and that's all my body needs. Well, that gives me three hours extra a day to fill in, and so that's why I work 80 hours a week and not 60 hours a week is because I've got those three extra hours and I've still got plenty of time.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so fill your time. Don't complain about not making enough money when you're sitting around not doing anything. There are so many possibilities, so many growth opportunities, so many ways to become better than you are today by utilizing that time and getting the best out of it and not just wasting it. Now I do play video games, but not wasting it. Playing video games all day, every day. Yeah, it's fun every now and then, but don't make it your life Although I guess eSports is a thing, but I mean, if you're in that range, maybe make it your life. And there are other things Maybe do accounting for fun on the side. I don't know. But that's the idea Use the time that you have in the best way possible, because you're going to find so much more success out of it, so much more.
Speaker 1:So I think one of the things that probably is a good waste of time.
Speaker 2:Oh, here we go.
Speaker 1:Is voting, and I know you weren't even ready for that one. I was not, oh goodness, yeah, well, first off, you should vote. Yeah, I don't think it's a waste of time, but I'm not talking about that. Oh okay, I'm talking about voting for names. Wait a second, it's still.
Speaker 2:It applies, it's universally Okay, we're not there yet.
Speaker 1:In Minnesota. They've. They've been doing this for a number of years now. Actually, I don't even know if it tells me like the beginning, oh, in 2020. No, yeah, in 2020, they started this and they were naming the names of all of their snow plows. They have 800 snow plows, so they've got some work ahead of them, but each year they pick a few you know a dozen or so that get to be named, and then all of the public gets to vote on it.
Speaker 1:Well, the first year this came out, they had, I think it was like 100. Now I'm going to look, let's see here, 24,000 submissions and 122,000 votes. Wow, I mean, that's like that. That's significant. That's a lot of submissions. And then now, granted, it's dropped a little bit, they're down to about 8000 votes. Okay or sorry submissions in the last contest. I'm pretty sure they're pretty close to the same amount of votes.
Speaker 1:You don't have to be a citizen of Minnesota. So if you want to chime in here and be like I want this plow to be named, then you can. You can vote all over the country, and some, some other states have actually taken on some of these same kind of ideas about naming snow plows. So the names that I used at the very beginning, beyond slay, was a winner about a two years ago. I was one that was was done. Taylor drift is in consideration this year and Clark W Blizzwald is is another one, but I I really I was quite entertained by this is. This is a. This is an ongoing thing and it's being adopted by a lot of different. Nebraska started doing this. New Mexico has started to do this. They have snow. I thought the same thing.
Speaker 1:I was like I guess they've got some mountain areas in the southern cities that I could say in little towns. But so there's plowy McPow, face and Darth Blader. Those were winners over the last few years, blader, I can see that.
Speaker 2:Blizzard of Oz.
Speaker 1:You have scoop dog and Han Han Snow Lowe.
Speaker 2:Well then, the top names were F.
Speaker 1:So this is a Minnesota connection to it. F salt Fitzgerald, it's a nod to F Scott Fitzgerald Also, the truck formerly known as plow, recognized for the music. Okay, the Prince, that was my favorite. I like that one.
Speaker 1:So so, honestly, there's a, there's a lot of states there's Alaska and California are considering these and and and have started to do their own contest for this Ohio, massachusetts and, like I said, new Mexico. Some of the names in New Mexico they had 1500 submissions this last year, 23,000 votes and 12 names for 400 of their plows. Okay, winners included sleetwood Mac, mr Plow it all and Billy the skid and Billy the skid. Yeah, I mean these are pretty creative. I like these.
Speaker 1:I'm going to throw one out here. Okay, A plow with no name, I you know.
Speaker 2:You can just imagine the plow driver I plowed through the streets in a plow with no name. So one of the things that in it and for you, for for knowledge for you is.
Speaker 1:You can still go on. For the Minnesota one it's active right now.
Speaker 2:I might do that, okay, active when this broadcast, but the vote is is happening. You can, you can go in.
Speaker 1:I don't know if it's a submission that you could submit, but maybe I would. I would definitely do it, At least consideration for maybe for next year, maybe for next year.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't get this happening here.
Speaker 1:Like I don't know why we don't have names and what happens is like they don't just they don't just vote for a name. Like this is the forever name of these plows and so it's painted in character on the side of each plow. Nice, like well, I don't know if it's painted in character Like this one up here is plowy Mcplow faces the pictured one, and it's just printed on the side of the dump, on the back of the whatever, whatever you call it, the dump, the big, big truck bed, but anyway, like I think it's just really super cool how like they've gotten creative with these. You know you used to name these. You know you name your ship it back in the back in the day, and you know I always my wife, she has a black SUV, she calls it Betty, like black Betty, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:My car's name is Bell yeah.
Speaker 1:My car is silver and I think my wife she. What's the name of my car? And now I can't remember Sophia from the Golden Girls.
Speaker 2:The really, you know, I know. So my daughter may name my wife's car Felicia. Our other SUV, which is red, was called big red.
Speaker 1:Big red yeah.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, you name vehicles. This is great. Yeah, All right, so you know you're out there. You have to go on and submit a plow with no name for anything that is going. We'll see how popular we are.
Speaker 1:If we can get this going. Lincoln, lincoln, nebraska. They have one that won this last time. Let's see here held their first one and the one that took the most was Cleopatra All right, or Cleopatra Nice, and some of these are tricky to like. I read it and I'm like this is playing tricks with my mind. And then the plowy McPlow face one actually was it. Basically there was a British polar research vessel and this is what really motivated them to start naming their, their plows up in Minnesota In 2016,. This there was a vote that they did, an online, online voting sort of situation, and somebody voted for Bode McBoat face, yeah, and they declined that one. They rejected that after it won in the vote, but so they decided to name it Sir David Attenborough or the. I think. Yeah, they named the, the ship after Sir David Attenborough, and so he's just a naturalist, yeah.
Speaker 2:He's the British guy that talks over all of the nature videos. So when you're watching the old nature videos and you hear him talking, that is. Sir David Attenborough.
Speaker 1:I am Sir David Attenborough and I bid you farewell, just anyway. Whatever, I hope you liked watching these monkeys eat and throw poop at each other Exactly what. It would be All right, join us next week, as we know. We have reached the end of our show, but of course, before we go, I need to mention that life is just too short. Don't take yourself too seriously. Don't condemn yourself. If you're, if you're dealing with time and budget issues, just take a minute, spend some time and take a look when you write it down. Keep laughing, keep learning and remember idiots have way more fun. Just take a minute, spend some time and take a look when you write it down.