Navigating Inflation, the Cost of Waiting, and Dad Jokes

Join Arsenal Financial advisors Doug Orifice and Jeremy Vaille as they open up their relaxed office conversations about various financial topics for everybody to hear. Today's episode is focused on inflation where you'll hear about:

• The financial and emotional cost of waiting
• Inflation was scary in the past too!
• How inflation is affecting real estate, car, and education prices
• How Doug and Jeremy plan for inflation
• Possible ways to hedge against inflation with where you put your pot of money

Then get into what's new in Doug and Jeremy's world:

• What's going on in Watertown and Hanover
• Jeremy's upcoming adventure race and Doug's summer hiking plans
• Dad jokes from Jeremy

Learn more about Doug, Jeremy, and Arsenal Financial at arsenalfinancial.com or call (781) 335-9100.

Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, a registered investment advisor. Member FINRA/SIPC. The information in this podcast is educational and general in nature and does not take into consideration the listener’s personal circumstances. Therefore, it is not intended to be a substitute for specific, individualized financial, legal, or tax advice. To determine which strategies or investments may be suitable for you, consult the appropriate qualified professional prior to making a final decision.

Transcript

Doug 0:11

So welcome to the very first Arsenal Money Clip podcast, giving the people a listenable podcast about money. So my name is Doug Orfis. I'm a financial advisor here in Watertown, massachusetts. Our firm name is Arsenal Financial. So today I'm here as a money guy, right, but this is not just a financial podcast and we don't want to be boring. We're trying to bring our office conversations closer to our clients and closer to whoever's listening out here, and I do say a we. I am here with my financial partner, jeremy Vale, who I share my days with in the office, but I'm here mostly with my friend, jeremy Vale, so we can kind of talk the way that we normally talk and our clients, they miss this stuff. So, anyways, hey, jeremy, how are you doing today?

Jeremy 0:54

Good, good, you have really good energy.

Doug 0:57

I do. It must be the coffee. You got a voice for radio. I appreciate that. Hey, there might be a couple of strangers out there, maybe one or two listeners that don't know you. So a little bit about you.

Jeremy 1:08

Jeremy Dale, born and raised in the South Shore, Hanover, Mass. I'm a recovering engineer. I come to my financial life as a second, maybe a third career, depending upon how you count them. Also a dad and aging former endurance athlete, I guess.

Doug 1:25

I think you're a current endurance athlete. I'll make sure that later on in this, this first episode, people know what you're up to in about a month's time.

Jeremy 1:34

Don't embarrass me. I will, I will, but I, you know, when we talk about our clients, I really like to be the financial bodyguard, right, I like to. I like to, you know, protect them from themselves and others, because really, we're our worst own enemy when it comes to this stuff. So that's what we get to do every day and that's what we talk about together, when we're together in the office and when we're with our clients.

Doug 1:59

And I think that's the whole point of us wanting to do this Right. It's not about preaching how smart we are, because maybe that's questionable, right, the best part of my day when I'm in the office with you. Jeremy and I have two offices, one in Watertown and one in Norwell, so we actually don't get to spend a lot of sharing the same room time together. In fact, even today, we're conversing on an iPhone, right, but I think our clients get to miss this stuff, right, which is you're talking to your clients, I'm talking to my clients. We're on Zooms all day long or meeting with people in person, or whatever it is. We've talked for years about the fact that you know you don't kind of get to share the I don't know. We consider the good stuff, which is like, hey, you know what's been going on in the room with your clients, what are you thinking, and we never record it. So that's why we're doing this.

Jeremy 2:45

It feels like once a week or so, we have what we call our loose investment committee, which is us two sitting in office with our morning coffee, chatting, catching up on things, and that's really what blossomed this idea, in a way.

Doug 3:01

So we're going to go on a I don't know a one-ish year experiment of doing these podcasts every single month, and it's going to work like this. We're going to try and take some of the conversations that we are having with our clients of course respecting client confidentiality and bring them to whoever's listening. So a core topic today is one that's not only in the news, but it's at every single kitchen table. Everybody's talking about it, everybody's feeling about it. What is it? Jb Inflation. It's inflation. Everybody loves talking about inflation.

Jeremy 3:33

Everybody loves it. Something we haven't talked about for a long time.

Doug 3:37

No, we haven't. We really haven't talked about it for like three minutes. Oh, you meant before inflation came back. Yes, yes, three minutes. Oh, you meant before inflation came back. Yes, yes, yes, you know when we're talking with our clients, right? I think the way that we're framing the inflation discussion is the fact that inflation was pretty quiet for 12, 13 years, right, really after the financial crisis hit in 2008 into 2009,. Interest rates were all-time lows legit zero and inflation was fairly low along with it. We ran at about a one and a half percent inflation rate really for a decade, right? Not that way anymore.

Jeremy 4:17

Really technically 40 years right. We had a blip during the global financial crisis, but even since the 90s it's been pretty low.

Doug 4:25

True, true. So our main goal during the week is we're financial advisors, so we are trying to work with folks to navigate their maze to wherever they're going, whether it is somebody who is 45, trying to get to 60-something and retire Gosh, we're talking to a lot of clients adult children now and helping them set the foundation for where they're supposed to go, and my average client's 62 years old, which means I got a bunch of retirees who are seeing inflation for the first time too. So every puzzle is different. I think that's what makes it fun for us, right, is you know?

Doug 5:00

we never, really have a boring day. It's never once once been the same. I've never had the same day in 25 years, right? So you know, from a financial planning point of view, I think part of what we'll talk about is how do we deal with it, right? But maybe let's back up a step and and talk about, like, what inflation is and kind of, where it comes from. Jb, you want to, you want to give your thoughts on not just the 3 000 year history inflation, but maybe just put it into understandable context.

Jeremy 5:26

Give it a crack. So in preparation for this, I was doing a little bit of research on recent history. I went back to the 70s 80s and a lot of the high inflation levels at the time were blamed on the 1973 oil crisis and, as a result, if you're 60s 70s, you probably remember living through that. If you're in your 30s, 40s, 50s, you remember hearing about that or being the children of people that lived upper teens and I bet a lot of people 60s, 70s remember buying that first house at 17, 18% interest rates.

Doug 6:13

Sure, it's funny. You mentioned that too, and I think maybe this is where we can give the first example of looking back. Every once in a while, jv and I are doing our morning coffee and we put something on social media, right. So we've had a lot of conversations about home buying, because home buying is ridiculous right now. So for you know, just in case you're in Wyoming somewhere bumping into this podcast here, we are very close to the city of Boston and housing prices are just exorbitant. In the Boston area. It is really hard to buy a home for a number of reasons. There's not a lot of homes for sale. They're extremely expensive. Your average home price in the Boston area is getting pretty close to $800,000. It's a number that makes my head explode, right.

Doug 6:53

So we have one of these social media post mornings where it's like huh you know, 40 years ago, during the time period that you're talking about JB, it's like what was it like for a home buyer? Was it scary? I don't have the figures right in front of me right now, but I remember some of the rough figures. So the average price of a house in 1984 was about 80 grand. The average wage in 1984 was about $16,000.

Doug 7:25

And the average national mortgage rate. 30 year mortgage rate was about 13.8%. National mortgage rate. 30-year mortgage rate was about 13.8%. That sounds pretty scary. Yeah, Right, the average house price is five and change times your salary. Mortgage rate's at 13.8%, right, so maybe that's lesson number one from inflation, and applying that to one of your goals is that A there's an example of inflation, right, Inflation means that things constantly go up, but they go up at different rates, and that's really what the conversation is is that prices have generally always ground upward. It is the rate at which they grind upward.

Jeremy 8:00

Well, what's supposed to happen to houses or house prices when interest rates go up?

Doug 8:06

Well, if interest rates go to like 15%, right, your payment buys less house. So if it buys less house, the value should be less, right? Has that happened here in 2024? No, it's scary. It's scary, but we think about that like 40 years have gone by, example. It was scary then, it's scary now. Hey, I'll throw a question your way right, because I know you've had these conversations and so have I. What are you saying to either first-time homebuyers that are struggling with the rising cost of homeownership and this could be like somebody who's doing their very, very first home purchase after renting for 10 years or it could be that person has been trying to trade up for 10 years. What do you think? What's your conversation like?

Jeremy 8:47

I mean, I think in general it's. I can. I can empathize with how hard it is. You know, as a 20 something trying to buy my first house, I know how hard it was then and how hard it is now. And just yeah, the prices continue to rise, they continue to inflate and now it costs even more than it ever did. But there is a cost to waiting too. Tell us about that. So let's just think last year. We're teleported back to April of 2023. 30-year mortgage rate is 7%. Let's just say the home price is, call it, $600,000. You're thinking, okay, I'm going to wait a year until interest rates come down again, because that sounds like that's going to happen. Let's just push and rent another year and see what happens.

Jeremy 9:32

Fast forward April 2024,. Your house just increased in value in Massachusetts by 8.7%. Your house inflated almost 9% in price and oh, by the way, the 30-year fixed mortgage is now 7.01. So it's gone up. So not only did you not buy that house when interest rate was a little bit lower, also the price was lower at the time. So now you've kind of hamstrung yourself with an even worse situation. So there is a cost to waiting to do it. I mean emotionally, mentally you're thinking okay, I want to wait. But when you talk dollars and cents, that isn't always the best choice.

Doug 10:11

Right, right, I think my lessons from that is number one there's no crystal ball, right, because I think a year ago everybody thought rates were coming down, so that no crystal ball applies to gosh most of your financial decisions. Right, I've had these same conversations too and I know you can relate with this, and I think sometimes the greatest weapon against maybe forced waiting because sometimes the opportunity doesn't come up is just being disciplined about saving for that goal, whatever it is right. So if the opportunity doesn't present itself, get laser focused on having a down payment. Get laser focused on okay, you know what? What would it be like if?

Doug 10:52

If we actually bought a home next month, what would our budget be like? Cool, let's start living within that budget. Let's pretend we're paying mortgage payment, home insurance, real estate tax and that we have to sock some money away for maintenance that we don't have to do in an apartment. So it's hard, it's scary, but maybe the takeaways are hey, there's no crystal ball, we don't know if rates are going down or not. So you're right, maybe waiting is not always the answer. 40 years ago, it was scary you bought your first house when, man, it was 2005, or 2006?

Jeremy 11:21

2003.

Doug 11:22

2003. Were you scared.

Jeremy 11:24

Scared to death, still scared. It still makes me scared.

Doug 11:32

So I'm sitting right now on Mount Auburn Street in Watertown, massachusetts, six miles from downtown Boston, about three quarters of a mile down the road. That's where I bought my first condo and I was terrified when I bought that. Mortgage rates in the mid-2000s they weren't low. I had two mortgages at 6% and 8%.

Jeremy 11:47

Terrifying.

Doug 11:48

So maybe another takeaway is buying real estate. Buying a home is never easy and until we start building thousands and thousands and thousands of new home and, by the way, if you've spent very little time inside the 128 belt, as they call it here in the Boston area, that's kind of the area that loops around the city of Boston, route 95. There's not a lot of space to build new homes. So I think when we're coaching clients there might be a cost to waiting that supply and demand factor. It's hard to get new supply on the market in the areas in which we serve folks, right.

Jeremy 12:23

So maybe waiting and hoping with fingers crossed for prices to drop, maybe that doesn't happen, because at some point interest rates will drop and then you can refinance that less than ideal mortgage right. But you got the house that you wanted, right. So if you see that house and you have the opportunity to get it, you may not want to wait for interest rates. You don't let the interest rate drive that decision fully.

Doug 12:49

Oh, you said drive that decision. That makes me think of another thing. That's actually increased in prices, man, yeah, isn't it crazy that that car prices for like 15 years really didn't budge?

Jeremy 12:59

Yeah.

Doug 12:59

Because there is a ton of supply out there right, unlike houses, can pump out a ton of cars. What happened during COVID buddy?

Jeremy 13:06

Oh, used car prices. Car prices way up. That was driving that inflation number for a long time.

Doug 13:13

Yeah, most people have been through some form of this in the last four years or so at least looking at if not purchasing or leasing, a car that is significantly more expensive than it was in the mid-2000s or mid-2010s. Part of that is because the supply of new and used vehicles cratered and it's still a little bit tight right Another example of inflation, but maybe an example of a price of a good that is more likely to come down right. So we get two examples here. We get the house in the Boston area, which is going to probably have a harder time grinding downward because of the limited supply, but we'll have years where there's too many cars that get made and they got to be sold and that actually drives car prices down right. So I'll throw this out there. Man, when we have clients that buy a whole bunch of stuff they're buying cars, they're buying houses, they're buying food how are you dealing with this as a financial planner?

Jeremy 14:12

There are a lot of expensive things and I'd be remiss if we didn't mention college tuition.

Doug 14:17

Oh my God, let's back up and talk about that.

Jeremy 14:20

Right. I mean, when you think about prices of houses, your prices of cars going up, I kind of liken the college concept to houses. Because of the supply issue, right, we talk with clients like, let's just say, for instance, we take Northeastern right, it's a college in the Boston area I think the latest numbers are the 2023 numbers where there were 100,000 applicants for 5,000 placements, right. So think about the supply versus the demand issue that we're talking about there, and it costs upwards of $100,000 to go to these schools now. So that's something that we've felt inflation on.

Doug 14:56

All of us in our mid-40s, 50s we know that the cost of college has gone up dramatically over the interesting because it's a third wheel too, and we're starting to have these conversations not just with our clients, but with our friends and our neighbors and our family. You know, if you need to drive somewhere, it has to happen in a car, right, and if you live somewhere, it has to happen inside a home. Educating yourself.

Doug 15:25

There's a whole bunch of ways to do it and we're starting to hear different conversations for different folks, because you can do the a hundred thousand dollars a year at Northeastern with room and board for five years, by the way, not four, you know or you can do online education or you can go to a trade school. So it's really interesting the conversations that we're having and just watching people and listening to people rethink the trajectory for their kids. You know, but I think you know it all boils down to how do we deal with this when we have, I don't know, a married couple that's 40-something a couple of kids. They want to stop working someday and we have to help them figure it out right. So, from a financial planning point of view, we're trying to bake in projected inflation for everything right, and we've also been doing this for a long time too. You know it's interesting.

Doug 16:15

Along with inflation in stuff that we buy, there actually has been inflation in the other side of the coin, which is wages have gone up. Social security has gone up. For our clients that are on social security right now and have been for the last five years or more, they've seen a 20% increase in their social security payments to their bank account. So I think one take that we have is always baking in inflation to our planning, no matter what, but also try not to be too rosy about things. So when we plan forward for what they call the cost of living adjustment for social security, jeremy and I plan forward at a percent and a half.

Doug 16:55

Historically it's 3%. It's been 20% total over the last three years. That's unsustainable. Yeah, we get a big math problem on a federal level, right. So I think it'd be irresponsible for us to plan for large increases in Social Security going forward. You know, at the same time historical interest rates had been three and change percent. So we project forward three and change percent inflation rates, even though it was at one and a half to two for 10 years, right.

Jeremy 17:22

Yeah, I want to hammer home on the point too, that inflation we always are planning for inflation Right, it's just the rate, the rate at which right, Because inflation is, by definition, is the rate of change. Right, it's not that there is or isn't any.

Doug 17:37

Right, exactly. So, in other words, what you're saying is just like how much or how fast it goes up, right you?

Jeremy 17:45

know Right, and in college planning we know know we bake in that Right. But when it comes to like goods and services, we've we've had that kind of low spot for a long time. It's. It's very different than, say, deflation or disinflation, right, which is the lowering of that rate of change Right. Way too technical.

Doug 18:05

Yeah, too technical. Yeah, so I guess, to maybe wrap up the inflation piece right. The one thing that we haven't talked about and it's a good chunk of what we do with our weeks is making sure folks' pots of money keeps pace with or outpaces inflation, right.

Jeremy 18:25

How do you do that? How do you hedge against inflation?

Doug 18:27

Great question, and I feel like we'd be remiss not to talk about money that's kicking around in bank accounts right now. So, whether Jeremy and I are talking to clients or talking with each other, we often talk about big banks. I'm a product of working for a big bank, which shall remain nameless for the moment. Maybe I'll out it later. I don't know for the moment. Maybe I'll out it later, I don't know. But big banks are sitting on tons and tons, literally billions and billions and billions of dollars of checking account and savings account deposits, which are yielding people zero or next to zero, right? So let's get Bank of America as an example. The average amount of savings that they are paying to one of their customers right now is a little bit north of 0.1%. Why is that? I thought interest rates were going up, right? If Bank of America felt like being generous next week and raised their average savings rate to 3%, they would be in the red and telling their shareholders they'd be losing money every quarter for as long as they stuck to that decision, right? Because their deposit base is that big.

Doug 19:30

So we don't want to give direct advice on this podcast, right? We want to make observations and talk about areas that maybe you can take a peek at and whatnot. But if we've agreed that the price of stuff is always going to grind higher in general right, certain things might go down, certain things might go up, but on average the price of stuff goes up you got to make sure your pot of money goes up with it, right? So let's start with the foundation, which is your bank account, your checking account, your savings account. It's a lot easier to go and demand a higher rate. Every bank out there has certificates of deposits. There's ways that you can invest your money and get interest and dividends on bonds or bond funds. We're not going to get too deep into that, but I think there's some ways that you can look at your cash look what you're getting paid without giving specific and direct advice.

Doug 20:21

Just be a very, very vigilant consumer about how your savings, and especially your savings that you're not going to use in the next six to 12 months, is behaving.

Jeremy 20:33

Yeah, a decision we didn't have two years ago.

Doug 20:36

This is something else that amazes me sometimes. So I've had some clients for upwards of 20 years and I'm talking to, in some cases, their 31-year-old kid, who I knew about when they were 12, right, one-year-old kid who I knew about when they were 12, right, and it dawned on me that their entire kind of nevermind working life, but aware of money life and aware of banking life, it's a new concept for them that banks actually pay you interest right so.

Doug 21:02

I almost feel like you and I have a responsibility to make sure that our clients, kids, or even our younger clients who are in gosh, you know, mid thirties are dealing with this kind of new concept of banks paying money and taking advantage of it. Right, because if the cost of stuff is going to go up by three-ish percent, it's not that hard to go get a return of 4% or more from a bank.

Jeremy 21:26

It's not too dissimilar, for, like when we know that interest rates are going down, we're letting our clients know hey, it might be a great time to refi.

Doug 21:33

Right.

Jeremy 21:33

Right, we're also letting our clients know. Hey, it might be a good time to think about an alternative to sitting in a very low interest-bearing account. Right, that you've been used to it didn't matter two years ago, but now it does.

Doug 21:45

Why does this matter? Right Now it does. Why does this matter, right? Let's just think about it. If I'm buying a thing that cost a thousand dollars and it's gone up by 5% over the course of a year, right Now that same thing costs a thousand and 50 bucks. My thousand dollars was sitting at 0%. My thousand dollars is still a thousand dollars, right, right. And if it was somewhere earning even 4%, right, my thousand would have been a thousand 40.

Doug 22:13

So you know, imagine something more expensive and imagine waiting several years of this inflation compounding. That's the stuff that we worry about, right? Is that? Prices kind of get away from you. Inflation happens and you don't have your pots of money keeping up with the cost of stuff.

Doug 22:32

So let's wrap up this inflation piece, right? Maybe there's a few bullet points here. I think we've landed on one thing. So inflation. Even though it's been really shocking to us over the last few years, inflation has come down. But, as my friend Jeremy tells me, it doesn't mean inflation's gone away. It's just gone from 8% per year to 6% per year, closer to a more normal 3% per year, and I guess, from what I understand, our friends at the Federal Reserve would really like to get that to 2% per year. So we're somewhere in the middle of that journey down to a more reasonable quote target inflation level of 2%. We're not there yet, but even when we get there, I guess lesson number one is expect prices to grind higher. And as we plan for purchases, as we plan for goals, as we do our job as financial planners, we always have to assume for inflation right.

Jeremy 23:27

And two, make sure we're keeping up with that inflation right. So, even when those rates are coming down to the mid twos, three, we need to get our money to grow at least two, two and a half, 3% to keep up and make sure that our purchasing power, our ability to buy those goods and services, remains level at least.

Doug 23:45

And I'll throw a final and third bullet point out there, and I want to just take a cue from what you brought was that concept of cost of waiting right?

Doug 23:52

So you know, nobody knew that waiting from 2023 to 2024 for a home price would bring higher home prices and higher interest rates, right, I wouldn't have bet on that. I love that you brought up the cost of waiting, because there is a cost of waiting and it's not just applicable to that home example, it's applicable to your behaviors, right? So, like, I think of that cost of waiting, mostly in our world JV, as encouraging people to save, right? So if you're not saving X into a retirement plan for a potential retirement which is 25 years away today, at the right rate, do it, you know, because the cost of waiting is huge right? Right, if you're not tucking away X amount per week or per month for the thing that you want to buy, whether it's, you know, my son that would really like to buy an electric guitar, or if it is somebody who is waiting for that first home purchase, right, somewhere in the Boston area, there's a huge cost to waiting and not starting to tuck away for that goal.

Jeremy 24:56

And on top of that, it's not just a financial decision. We talk a lot about this lately as we are kind of now in our midlife and that's another year. You didn't do the thing right If you wanted the thing and you defer it, you delay it. There's a cost to that right, and not financial cost. It's beyond that right. So when you don't go and do the thing or buy the thing or invest in the thing, you're waiting for something, deferring down the road, which is the antonym to what we usually talk about.

Doug 25:27

Right, right. So you're saying from like a lifestyle and a life point of view. Sometimes it just makes sense to do the thing you've been waiting to or planning to do, right the T-shirt would be. Go for it right. Every once in a while, like I feel like you and me have to.

Jeremy 25:43

Maybe YOLO.

Doug 25:46

That's, you only live once. To those who are, you know, maybe just above our tender ages right.

Jeremy 25:52

It seems like we're constantly and correct me if I'm wrong, but with my clients right, we're either encouraging them to defer and save and not spend everything. On the other side, oftentimes we're encouraging them to do it Okay, you've saved, you've done and now do it.

Doug 26:10

Yeah, absolutely. It couldn't be more true. Hey, JV, let's transition to some fun stuff, right? A little bird tells me that you get an endurance sports event coming up. You want to tell our listeners about that, especially if you've got some clients listening today.

Jeremy 26:23

So it is. It's called an adventure race in Maine. First time I'm doing something like this. You go as a team of four and it's a 24 hour event and you mountain bike, you trek and hike with map and compass. Only you paddle in a kayak and I think that I think that's it, let's hope that's it and you do it for 24 hours with your team and you go and you find these checkpoints All right, so they have different stages and you do this for 24 hours and the most checkpoints you get at the end that's the winner of the of the adventure race. Sounds amazing. So none of us have ever done this before. We all have various backgrounds in endurance sports, but you know the name is right. It should be an adventure.

Jeremy 27:08

Great thing is that you have your estate plan in place, you know if I get lost, lost in the woods in Maine or eaten alive by mosquitoes. Yes, yes Uh.

Doug 27:17

I I can't wait to hear the debrief you know, yeah, what about you?

Jeremy 27:23

Uh, what's going on in New Hampshire?

Doug 27:24

Oh, my goodness. So, uh, new Hampshire is very close to my heart. The last few summers have been really busy. You know, what I haven't done enough of is enough hiking. One of the things I do want to hit is, at some point, to get all of the 4,000 foot mountains in New Hampshire, of which there are 48. So there's 48 4,000 footers.

Jeremy 27:42

How many do you think you've done?

Doug 27:43

I think I'm like maybe 18 in. That's pretty good. So I got some, but I got some to go this summer a little bit more bandwidth Might be. So this summer, a little bit more bandwidth might be able to get up there a little bit more. So I think one thing I'd like to do is I'd like to outline five of those 4,000 footers that I hit this summer. May or may not be new ones, right, Because there are some ones that I really enjoy. I'd love to knock down the Franconia Ridge Trail again at some point this year. And for those who don't know that, one go look that up Trail again at some point this year. And for those who don't know that, one go look that up. The Franconia Ridge hits a 4,800 foot peak, a 5,000 and a 5,200 foot peak all along the Appalachian Trail. Beautiful, beautiful view. Haven't done that in a number of years, so I'd like to go do that again.

Jeremy 28:25

I might want to do one of these with you.

Doug 28:27

Good, you're invited right now and it's recorded All right.

Jeremy 28:31

I once had a goal to do an endurance race anything a 5K or more in every state.

Doug 28:37

Oh, that's cool.

Jeremy 28:38

That started back in my 20s probably, I've not made much progress.

Doug 28:42

Sounds like you should do the thing.

Jeremy 28:45

I'm working on it, but I've already done Maine, so I'm doubling up already.

Doug 28:50

Oh man, you know, one thing that is really important to the two of us is being involved in our backyards and our communities, right? So we have two offices, one that's on the South Shore and, again, if you're in Idaho, the South Shore is really the area south of Boston, right on the way down to Cape Cod, and we have an office in Norwell, mass. And Jeremy's hometown is in Hanover, mass, and I'm here in Watertown, mass, just west of Boston, jeremy, I'd love to know what's going on in Hanover or the places that are important to you this summer.

Jeremy 29:18

Big thing coming up. End of the month, june 21st 22nd is Hanover Day. Okay, we have this every June. It's put on by the Hanover Chamber of Commerce. There's a 5K, there's music, food trucks, vendors, vendors, old car show jimmy v he'll be there in one of his 70s vehicles jimmy v is is jeremy's dad who should be on a podcast.

Doug 29:41

You know, we've we've stuck to this commitment of doing this for a while.

Jeremy 29:45

Right, he'd be a great guest, he'd be a great guest.

Doug 29:47

Yeah, he's got a lot to talk about on the life side of things so just in case, just in case somebody's listening to this in september of 2024, hanover day is every june june yeah, sweet, sweet, yep.

Jeremy 29:59

What's going on up there?

Doug 30:00

with you, oh, my goodness. Well, you know it's. It's june. Here. You and I both are youth sports coaches, right? So maybe a couple of people listening up there have kids who play youth sports. Jeremy's got a guy who plays soccer. I got a baseball and a basketball and a soccer guy. I'll tell you what's happening right now is wrapping up baseball season and I think I'm ready. I think I'm ready, you know ready to move on?

Doug 30:24

Yeah, Ready to move on to some summertime. You know, as parents you mostly have parents as friends in our community. It's about what our kids are doing during the summer. So there's a whole bunch of neat camp options here in Watertown. Our producer, Matt Hanna, gave a little shout out to the camp that's going to be held at the Mocessian Center for the Arts. Bunch of great camp options here in Watertown. My son will be doing a bunch of those different things to give us parents a little bit of bandwidth.

Jeremy 30:49

So, speaking of dads, I have a good dad joke for you today.

Doug 30:53

What is it? I want to see how fantastic or horrible this one is.

Jeremy 30:58

What does Jeff Bezos do before bed?

Doug 31:03

Probably a lot of things, but I mean, I was going to say counts as money.

Jeremy 31:10

Think about launching to space right.

Doug 31:11

Yeah, I don't know.

Jeremy 31:13

He puts his pajamas on.

Doug 31:16

Oh, that's awful, I love it. I love it you like this one, though.

Jeremy 31:22

While driving with my dad, pearl Jin came on the radio. He said ah, it doesn't get any better than these guys.

Doug 31:30

Which one's worse. Well, hey, as a debut podcast, I think this went okay. I don't think it went too far off the rails. I'd like to thank our producer of this podcast, Matt Hanna. I'd like to embarrass Matt for a second. Matt is an artist here in Watertown, a musician and just a huge asset to the community, especially our arts and culture community. So Matt's here on the road. I'm going to give him a little bit of applause over here. Matt, Thanks for encouraging us to do this and helping us to do this, and thanks for what you do here in the city.

Jeremy 32:03

So yeah, that's a wrap.

Doug 32:05

All right, hey JV, this has been fun.

Jeremy 32:06

Yeah, I got an idea. I got an idea. Let's do it again. Let's do it again, all right.

Doug 32:12

Well, with that we're going to wrap this up. Thanks for tuning in to the Arsenal Money Clip Podcast. If you have any questions, please check out our website, wwwarsenalfinancialcom. We have blogs on a whole number of topics. If you click on our blog section, if you have a question about anything, you can reach us at info at arsenalfinancialcom or you can give a buzz to the office at 781-335-9100. Thanks for joining us and we'll see you next time. Thank you.