The COVID19 pandemic caused many aspects of every day life to change. Work life was not the exception. You have probably heard that our team records our episodes out of their kid's rooms.
Some parts of our lives are returning to "normal" but the new normal may look completely different. For some, our team included, a commute to and from the office is a thing of the past.
What implications will permanently working from home have on individual's budgets? How can you save money working from home? If you have been working from home for over a year now what have you been doing with the money you saved?
Our guys cover all this and more from their Talk Wealth To Me studios (their kid's bedrooms.)
The COVID19 pandemic caused many aspects of every day life to change. Work life was not the exception. You have probably heard that our team records our episodes out of their kid's rooms.
Some parts of our lives are returning to "normal" but the new normal may look completely different. For some, our team included, a commute to and from the office is a thing of the past.
What implications will permanently working from home have on individual's budgets? How can you save money working from home? If you have been working from home for over a year now what have you been doing with the money you saved?
Our guys cover all this and more from their Talk Wealth To Me studios (their kid's bedrooms.)
Welcome to Talk Wealth To Me, a safe space podcast, where we chat about anything and everything related to personal finance. The information contained in this podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. It does not constitute as accounting, legal tax or other professional advice.
Chase Peckham:And I remember at the beginning of this, Phil, when we were like, okay, I th this thing will end in June and we were all at we're like, no.
Felipe Arevalo:Right.
Chase Peckham:And then when somebody said, oh, he's like, ah, we're not now, it's going to be a long time. We won't, we won't be back at the office till after 4th of July. And we were all like, no way, well, here we are in 20, like literally three months away from 2022.
Felipe Arevalo:Right yeah.
Chase Peckham:Right. And for you and me, and for so many other people, we're still working from home.
Felipe Arevalo:Right.
Chase Peckham:And we found out we were one of the lucky offices that found out that working from home was efficient for all of us. Uh, the, our organization spends, uh, our, our, uh, employees spend a lot of time on the phone coaching and working with individuals, um, on personal finance and, and, uh, trying to figure out how to work with their debts and, and get those paid back. And, um, it turns out we could do that from home remotely.
Felipe Arevalo:Right.
Chase Peckham:And it was very easy for us to do. It was a little chaotic at first, Uh,
Felipe Arevalo:The set up. And the startup was a little bit of a chaos, but I think that was everyone's thing where all of a sudden, you had to make a shift from normal office life to wait, how does, how do you get everyone working from home ASAP? And it was a, it was a little chaos at first. You and I had the technology to the military veterans resource centers. I think I froze there.
Chase Peckham:You did it's okay.
Felipe Arevalo:I was saying, you know, it's one of the things from working from home is your internet freezes. Sometimes I can't tell if it's you internet or my internet.
Chase Peckham:Right.
Felipe Arevalo:It happens. And it's, but it's something where I was saying is that initial period where you're like, oh wow, get everyone home quickly, get them working efficiently. And you and I had the technology to work remotely. We'd never done it for a prolonged period of time,
Chase Peckham:Right.
Felipe Arevalo:But we, we had done it a little bit here and there at the, you know, when we're at the military veterans resource centers.
Chase Peckham:Right.
Felipe Arevalo:Around town, in the, in the LiveWell buildings, but you know, everyone else in the office didn't have that capability technology to go.
Chase Peckham:Nobody even really thought about it. Although I will say that our, our office was a bit progressive where they were starting to let,
Felipe Arevalo:That's true.
Chase Peckham:Uh, certain employees work from home, you know, three or four days a week, two days a week. In some cases, you and I didn't do that for whatever reason, but it was starting to go that way a little bit. And then it just kind of forced our hand with COVID and management. And they, you got to give them credit. They looked ahead and said, this thing is coming. And so they were prepared. They got us all out pretty quickly, got us all set up. You and I had already had our laptops and all those kinds of things. So for you and I, it wasn't like a major setting up.
Felipe Arevalo:Right.
Chase Peckham:But it was a major change for us in the fact that we had to learn where we did so much of our public speaking and training and coaching and all of that in live in person.
Felipe Arevalo:Right.
Chase Peckham:We now had to change and focus and learn how to do it online and do it through zoom and then keep people interactive. And everybody else was learning this as we go to students were learning how to use this to go to school. Uh, so many, yeah. I mean, zoom was probably most popular for the, uh, the, uh, tele tele video conferencing, happy hours that we all did.
Felipe Arevalo:Right.
Chase Peckham:At the beginning. Right. Because we, nobody is, that was the one way we could all see each other. We could hang out.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah that's how we would hang out.
Chase Peckham:Yeah. It was, it was a bit strange, but now that has become our, our reality and that's way that we have mostly our meetings and we do all our presentations. Uh, and fact we're, you know, we are online to do are the same amount of numbers that we did in person in 2019. Um,
Felipe Arevalo:We are we are back into our normal numbers.
Chase Peckham:And it's opened up a whole new world to us, but what's really interesting too.
Felipe Arevalo:I was gonna say, think of all the different places we've presented, we've, we've removed the barriers of geography. Whereas previously, I mean, we had the one presentation that the conference in Orlando, a few years back, we've had one or two in Riverside county,
Chase Peckham:Los Angeles.
Felipe Arevalo:One or two in LA. And, but we haven't really, obviously there's a limit to where we can go for a presentation, but since this we've done presentations in Buffalo, New York, Tacoma, Washington, and, and we, and we've done.
Chase Peckham:All over LA.
Felipe Arevalo:All over Los Angeles. Exactly. Uh, so it's something where we we've been able to expand geographically where we offer, you know, our, our presentation.
Chase Peckham:Yeah. That's been a really, that's been a very big positive for us because, and we have now put on the calendar, we are in 2022, it looks like we're going to be live and in-person does it's some events, but this is going to be here to stay for what we do. But what is really interesting is we moved out of our office and a few of us staff and, uh, that, that can, that can give the time, um, we've been in senior management has been going down and you've been great helping out, but working, um, and cleaning up and getting rid of desks and computers and these incredible, they did an incredible job.
Felipe Arevalo:We had awesome cubicles.
Chase Peckham:Yeah. They built, those was so nice and the wood that was in there. So, I mean, the craftsmanship was amazing and we've been there tearing it apart. Right. And it's kind of sad.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah.
Chase Peckham:That that whole office atmosphere, the comradery, you know, what do you get from, from, from not having that? And that's the very thing is, is I get to look at you as sitting in your kid's bedroom.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah.
Chase Peckham:Where you're doing your, and by the way, I'm doing.
Felipe Arevalo:Your in your kid's bedroom.
Chase Peckham:It from my kid's bedroom, which is our office. At certain points of the day when our kids are in school?
Felipe Arevalo:It's the best acoustics in here.
Chase Peckham:Yeah. Well, that's, and that's good for podcasts and for media, but there's so many other things that we have taken for granted and other things in the state of California have come up recently in that a lot of people are driving electric cars, uh, sources of funding for the state that usually got taxed in our gasoline. Uh, it looks like the state is going to try to figure out how to charge us per mile that we drive. Uh, there's a pilot going on down here in the San Diego county, which is thrown a lot of people up in an uproar, but it started to make me think of all the money that we could be saving or vice versa. Are we, or aren't we by working at home, like for those of us, and it made me think of this because when we're there are office buildings, there's like nobody, there.
Felipe Arevalo:Oh I know.
Chase Peckham:There might be eight cars literally in our parking lot, which used to be packed.
Felipe Arevalo:Remember there was no parking sometimes.
Chase Peckham:With hundreds and hundreds of cars.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah.
Chase Peckham:Yeah. And it seems that a lot of those businesses have not come back and i t makes me feel terrible for the real estate industry. And for those that are in the commercial management,
Felipe Arevalo:Commercial real estate.
Chase Peckham:Yeah. And that's going to have an impact, uh, sooner or later, but it is efficient for us. And I was thinking about how much gas money do I save by not driving to work every single day and especially you and I, who we would write off a lot of our mileage, uh, and, and, and, or expense it because we were driving everywhere and now we don't need to do that.
Felipe Arevalo:Right.
Chase Peckham:And so commuting, whether you live in San Diego or in Southern California, where very few people take, uh, public transportation, but if you live in New York city or you live in the, in the, you know, the big city, San Francisco and those that were people do, you're still gonna save money a lot from bus passes, train passes, all those kinds of things, your commuter passes, MetroCards, whatever they might be, you could be saving a ton of money.
Felipe Arevalo:And time.
Chase Peckham:And time. Yeah.
Felipe Arevalo:Right. Because that's the, one of the big things in, you know, you can reinvest that time. However it is, you want to reinvest it, but it's something where, you know, you save that money. You save that time by not having that commute. And I know in some places, you know, bigger cities, you mentioned like New York city or San Francisco, some of those companies that have decided they're going to work from home permanently, some of their employees left that area for more affordable living places in the suburbs nearby, or sometimes not even nearby.
Chase Peckham:Yes. We've seen that in San Diego. We've seen a lot of the San Joaquin valley up there,
Felipe Arevalo:The transplants.
Chase Peckham:Coming down here, because believe it or not, it's cheaper to live down here, which to us is crazy.
Felipe Arevalo:And we have the beach.
Chase Peckham:Cause it's expensive as all get out. And it's beautiful. But these, you know, San Jose, San Francisco, the peninsula there sa, I mean, those areas are extraordinarily expensive and have been crazy expensive. So to them moving to Del Mar or moving down to San Diego, that's cheaper for them.
Felipe Arevalo:Right. It's something, or you froze up there. So I missed that point, but it is cheaper. You know, when, if you change it, especially with the housing market, doing what it did, um, it might make it, so it makes it so that, you know, all of a sudden you had more equity and you can cash out on that equity and move somewhere cheaper. That equity would go a lot further.
Chase Peckham:Yeah, absolutely. And so it started making me think about all the different ways that we are saving money or, or are we saving money. And that was the conversation that I wanted to have because I had to be, I was looking in my closet and I would wear suits and I would wear nice shirts.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah.
Chase Peckham:And I'd wear nice pants.
Felipe Arevalo:Shoes.
Chase Peckham:I haven't worn pants since we live in Southern California, I haven't worn pants. I don't know, six, eight months
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah since last winter.
Chase Peckham:Been a while. But If I'm in a business meeting or whatever, I'll put on a nice shirt, but it's from the, it's kind of like news media, right. They're wearing from the top up and wearing shorts down below. Um, it happens. So we've gotta be saving money in clothing, in just what we wear to work on a daily basis.
Felipe Arevalo:I think that's that you definitely saved money. There's the just everyday wear and tear that you put on your clothing where eventually you'll have to repair or replace the clothing.
Chase Peckham:You know what has gone up. And what people are spending money on is, is like athleisure,
Felipe Arevalo:Oh yeah.
Chase Peckham:Where you're not seeing people buying suits. You're not seeing as much of that, but you're seeing people buy, uh, things like, uh, Lulu lemon and VROE and all these like nice wear it out athletic type outfits, um, which are not cheap either. So it goes both ways. I swear my wife spends more money now in her athleisure wear than she ever did on her dresses and her skirts and suits for work. Well, I buy like the cheap t-shirts I could find, and then the cheap Amazon basketball shorts, but there's just the wear and tear on shoes that, I mean, like you said, you're not going to put on your shoes to walk around your house.
Felipe Arevalo:Right. So you dress shoes. And if you're wearing different suits, you have to have different pairs of dress shoes because you kind of color coordinate them and match them and whatnot. Uh, so there's that added expense. There's the dry cleaning for the suits. There's
Chase Peckham:I feel sorry for those industries.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah.
Chase Peckham:And there can't be nearly as much dry cleaning as there once was.
Felipe Arevalo:I would imagine there there's been a big reduction in, in what, uh, in business, because there's just not as many people wearing a suit. I mean, when's the last time you put on a suit, I haven't put on a suit in quite some time.
Chase Peckham:Yeah. It's been, been very much a long, long time. Uh, my child, uh, we're lucky enough that my son and daughter get to go to this incredible private school that my wife works at. And they have Clay has to wear a tie and I tie it for him, but it's so funny. I say, you wear it a heck of a lot more than I ever wear a tie. And he only has to wear it like three days, three days, four days a month, but they still have uniforms. Um, but he dresses up more than, than I do. And it's just funny that that's not the way my whole career was up to that.
Felipe Arevalo:Right.
Chase Peckham:Up to this point.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah. It's something where, you know, there there's the clothes there's also, for me, one of the big ones is eating out. I'd gotten better about it, but you know, there's times you forget your lunch, you don't pack a lunch. Um, or you're just kind of feeling like a snack and there's nothing in break room. Although we did, they did a really good job of keeping the break room stocked, but you, maybe you were feeling something else that you'd go to the deli or on the way from a presentation stop and get gas. And, oh, I'm just going to pop into the seven 11 real quick and grab a chips while my tank fills up.
Chase Peckham:Right.
Felipe Arevalo:And it's something like that just doesn't happen anymore. You know, it's just, I'm not going to go get in my car and drive to seven 11 to get chips.
Chase Peckham:Right.
Felipe Arevalo:I just don't eat them and I eat less of them if I just don't add them to my regular grocery then, and they're just not there and I don't go out and oh, you know, oh, that looks really good. Let me just swing by that drive through real quick.
Chase Peckham:Right. And you think about the fact that people, a lot, a lot of workers would that didn't make their lunch, bring their lunch, uh, would, let's just say they bought a food for 10,$15 every day. Right?
Felipe Arevalo:Right.
Chase Peckham:Whether it be snacks and a drink and then, uh, it might be a lunch. Um, now you're going, let's just say$75, a hundred dollars a week. That's 300 or$400 a month that you're no longer spending. And think about how many people that weren't eating out all the time. How many people lost weight by working from home? Maybe not initially, maybe not during the beginning of COVID because it was a, it was a big shock to the system and all of us probably changed our lifestyle a bit. Uh, cause we felt like we never, every day was Saturday, even though we were working.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah.
Chase Peckham:Because you didn't get up, leave Mondays. Aren't the same as they used to be.
Felipe Arevalo:No, cause you're not getting up and getting in that morning commute. Although I do have a morning commute now because I have to go drop off Ignacio with my mom.
Chase Peckham:You have a routine.
Felipe Arevalo:And then come back and then drop off Barrington at the before and afterschool program and then get to start work at home. So I have a commute now in the morning and a commute in the afternoon, but it's not the same. It's not as long one because his school is just down the street.
Chase Peckham:Right.
Felipe Arevalo:And it's not like we didn't have to bring Ignacio to my mom's beforehand. It was just Sarah used to do it. And now I do it.
Chase Peckham:Yeah. And it's so many those routines, those things. But I mean, we talk about it with a lot of the individuals in the, in the groups that we talk to that so much of what we charge or expense is habitual. You know, it's it's routine. We do it on a, on a regular basis without even really thinking about it. It's just kind of what we do. And we don't really think that well, uh, yes, I guess that is$400 a month and going out to lunch, but what is the alternative? Well, the alternative is when you're at home, you're, you know,
Felipe Arevalo:Make a sandwich.
Chase Peckham:It's a sandwich or, or, uh, you know, soup, whatever you like, but it's going to be a heck of a lot cheaper. It's going to be a lot less expensive than whatever you've been doing.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah.
Chase Peckham:Prior to, and, and, and in the same manner, a lot healthier.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah. Like today, I, what did I do for lunch? I made a sandwich, it takes two minutes to make a sandwich. And then you sit there and eat it. While, you know, you watch TV or you step away from screens all together. And it's something where I wouldn't have been able to make a sandwich at work.
Chase Peckham:Yeah there's a lot less, a lot less stress, you know? Yeah. You're not like, okay, I got to eat at this time. I got to eat at that time. And now it's just in between meetings or, you know, in between presentations, in between podcast recordings, uh, it's a lot easier. And the same thing goes for working out.
Felipe Arevalo:Right.
Chase Peckham:It's amazing. I used to wake up the only way I was going to remember. I used to talk to you about it all the time and the only way that you can have a routine and I'd be up at five o'clock in the morning and I'd work out at 5:15 to six o'clock and then my routine would happen. Getting kids. Now I can work out at really any time in between meetings,
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah.
Chase Peckham:In between classes, because I I'm, I'm at home, I'm in an office in my home, but I'm working. I can work till six o'clock, seven o'clock at night in between different things that I have to be at. And in that way I don't pay. We bought a Peloton. That's been paid off for a long time. So we have the monthly subscription between Kerri and I for$30 a month. And that's nothing compared to the 45 or whatever 50, we were paying.
Felipe Arevalo:Each.
Chase Peckham:Each at our local LA fitness. Right. And then we don't have to make time to go. I don't have to wait for people to work out. I can, it's just made things so much easier. And when I work out, I also realize I don't eat as much. I don't crave the crap food that you would do,
Felipe Arevalo:And you can work out while your kids do their homework. You can work out while your kids are older, they can do their own thing. But like, for me, I can work out while they're sitting there playing cars or where are those sitting there, watching cars, whatever they're doing in a given day. And it's some thing, everything revolves around cars right now. Um, you know, and, and it gives me more flexibility to do that. Now that I'm in the afternoons I get off and I'm home, you know, you don't, you don't get off and then go driving, you get off and then you're you're home. Or if you start, you don't have to account for, for me. The biggest thing is I used to drop off Barrington every day at 6:30 in the morning at the before school program. But that's it, depending on the traffic, any given day, I'd be rushing in, I'd be in a little bit after seven. It is just, and there's nothing I can do cause you can't drop them off before 6:30 and you can't control traffic. So it was just kind of, it's so much nicer when you can drop them off at six 30 and I get no traffic on the way home because it's just a couple blocks.
Chase Peckham:You led me right into that because childcare is a huge one and a big part of the reason beyond the fact that we were doing well and people are acclimating from home is, you know, during that time and COVID childcare kind of just went away. So we were taking care of our children, which was really hard to, to work all day long and have children around for the. Those with children, it was more difficult. Uh, and I, I have to tell you, I mean, it was hard for me to watch my little daughter try to figure out school online,
Felipe Arevalo:Right.
Chase Peckham:And then I'm trying to work and I'm trying, and I, you know, she needs help, whatever it might be. But my kids are now at an age where they're, it's the same time.
Felipe Arevalo:All competing for the same Wi-fi.
Chase Peckham:So we don't have those childcare expenses. Now we have offset those expenses with sports and extracurricular activities that they do. So you think those are going away folks? No, they're not. Um, but it's still cheaper than the day-to-day daycare that we were paying for.
Felipe Arevalo:Right.
Chase Peckham:Uh, when, when they were super young, before they went to school, that's still an expense. But now, you know, those parents who have been dealing with that all the time and they're working from home, that's an expense that they can take out of that unless they choose. They're like, look, I can't have the kid at home all day, but still it's probably going to be,
Felipe Arevalo:I couldn't have them at home all day.
Chase Peckham:Cut back. No, it'd be very Hard, very difficult.
Felipe Arevalo:Uh, it w we did for that first like month or so, and then it's like, this is not long-term feasible, but you know, for some people, there was the added expense where they had to set up their home offices.
Chase Peckham:Yeah.
Felipe Arevalo:If they didn't have a desk, if they didn't have, and we had a desk area, it was tough in the apartment. It was a lot harder in the apartment before we bought the house. It's just a space wise. There's only so many places you can hide.
Chase Peckham:Right.
Felipe Arevalo:And go to, um, we had a little corner desk, so that went straight to Sarah and then, and then it's like, well, where where's my desk? And it's something. I was like, well, we don't have room for a whole nother desk. So I would move dining room table.
Chase Peckham:You were kind of the nomad of the working at home experience. You were kind of anywhere anybody wasn't
Felipe Arevalo:Exactly. Yeah. The recording in the room with the, from the little kiddie table, I still actually really enjoy recording from the little kitty table.
Chase Peckham:It's a little warm and fuzzy.
Felipe Arevalo:Um, I can I get, it was just, it's easy to move around. I could set it up, I can move it and I put it away in their closet. So it's out of the way. And I just bring it out to present and do the podcasts nowadays, but it was hard in the apartment because there's no room there there's like, but now that I have a little bit more room, I still move from around the house from time to time, just to kinda change it up. I might say the dining room table for a little go to my desk. And now I'm in, in my kid's room. But you know, for where I'm going to laptop, if I was on a computer, I wouldn't be able to, I'd have to set up a desk and just stick there. Um, but you know, for those people, there was that initial expense. Um, most people already had internet. So I don't think there is that added expense for
Chase Peckham:But was their internet good enough to handle streaming and on the phone all the time and the type of.
Felipe Arevalo:That's true.
Chase Peckham:Power within the wifi. Was it strong enough to handle what you needed to have to do your job? And in that case, our organization did upgrade people's wifi and paid for it.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah.
Chase Peckham:And so from that end, some people could be saving money or getting better wifi than they had originally. But that's, you know, that should be taken care of by the organization. Cause you're asking that person, you can't ask that person to do their job and pay for their own wifi. And there's other things like that, which are very strict.
Felipe Arevalo:There's other expenses that come up that people's expenses may have increased. Obviously you're going to have like a little bit more water throughout the day. Just is your home, uh, definitely more electricity because you've got more things plugged in and on throughout the course of the day then, I mean, if Sarah and I were both working, um, you'd have probably three or four less lights on you wouldn't have computers on you wouldn't have,
Chase Peckham:Right.
Felipe Arevalo:You know, just throughout the course of the day, there's just more usage. Um, so there could be that expense, um, air conditioning, if you're living a really hot area and you used to take advantage of the great air conditioning at your office, then all of a sudden you want air conditioning, you're going to turn on your own air conditioning. You know, that could be a big expense in, in some areas where the heat plays a bigger role. Right. Um, but you know, another thing that people save money on, for example, my kids have a cold this week. Uh, I started up Friday in the little one's still going. Um, and Barrington has gotten better. This would have been time that Sarah and I had to figure out how to take time off.
Chase Peckham:Yeah.
Felipe Arevalo:That we both had to use a little sick time on Friday because we had to get Ignacio COVID tested and he had doctor's appointments, check his ear infections and whatnot.
Chase Peckham:Right.
Felipe Arevalo:Um, but if so Friday, it would have been a miss anyways, but yesterday, one of us would have had to have called out and been at home with Barrington. Who's sick and can't go to school, even though he's better, he's got the runny nose. He can't go. And you know, COVID times. Um, and then one of us would have had to call it out today. So there's that Ignacio is still at my mom's because that's where he got sick. And they're all sick over there anyways. Uh, but with Barrington, it would have been, have to find some sick time and have to use some, some sick time or just Sarah. And I have her having a runny nose and being stuffy. We can't go into the office and get everyone else sick. So we would've had to have taken time off just where I can work through a cold, but at the same time, I don't want to, you know, if I go into the office back in the day with a cold, I can get you sick. I can get Katie sick and then I can get, you know, everyone else at the break room sick right now, I get a cold. I can work through it.
Chase Peckham:Right. Cause you're not infecting anybody.
Felipe Arevalo:Not getting anyone else sick.
Chase Peckham:Right. And you, and you have the ability to do your work from home when we didn't before,
Felipe Arevalo:Right.
Chase Peckham:If you stayed home, you stayed home. There was really no way to, to do your work. And unfortunately, and fortunately we, those days of being able to get away from the office and when we're on vacations and that kind of stuff, I'll admit it. I'm one that even when I'm on vacation, I'm looking at email, I'm looking and I shouldn't be, I work very hard. I'm trying very hard to not do that because.
Felipe Arevalo:You got to hide the little icon though,
Chase Peckham:Yeah.
Felipe Arevalo:Because the, that you've seeing the little notification.
Chase Peckham:I need to just move the app, I need to just move it away. So I'm not seeing the little, you have 2, 3, 8, 15 emails and you're going o geez, I don't want to go through that,
Felipe Arevalo:It's just me updating the calendars.
Chase Peckham:Is it something I need? Right. oh Boy, does somebody, is it really important that I get to this? And the real and the answer is most of the time, no
Felipe Arevalo:People get the out of office. So they know Chase is on vacations. he'll get back to me when he gets, when he gets back.
Chase Peckham:Yes. And I think and this goes back to the working out. This goes back to all kinds of things, but finally time is money,
Felipe Arevalo:Right.
Chase Peckham:That old adage, that whole time is definitely money. And when you're literally, I think about it, I'm not, I'm spending an hour less a day in my car, just getting to and from work.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah.
Chase Peckham:Um, that's a big deal. That's an extra hour in my life that I can then fit something else. Uh, and, and I think that's, as long as I'm not spending it all at Target or eating out or happy hours, then I've, you know, that's a good thing.
Felipe Arevalo:Right.
Chase Peckham:But I'm finding, I don't do as much happy hours with, because it would be, we would say, Hey, we're going to go for a drink after work. You want to go with me?
Felipe Arevalo:After work right.
Chase Peckham:We're not doing that anymore. Now. That's not as much fun. Cause you don't get to see those people and you don't have that social aspect of it. And that is a cool thing. But at the same time, you know, you can do it virtually. But I found that I am saving a ton of money on not doing those happy hours and those kinds of things.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah. Or even just with buddies, like, you know, your buddy works in the area and they get off around the same time and be like, Hey, on the way home, let's swing by this place or that place. And now it's just like, they're already home. I'm already home. We're not going back out to go, go grab. So there's no like middle ground. Like, Hey, when you go through Grossmont center, cause I know you take the eight to go to Spring Valley, I take eight to go, you know? And then it's like, oh, we can meet up there. But now it's like, he's already home. I'm already home. We're not going to meet up for a drink. We'll just grab it some other of time. But you do miss that, you know, that social aspect because along with it, um, it's changed the, the it's changed the way things are done. And you mentioned zoom earlier, just out of curiosity, I looked up the Zoom, uh, stock price. And if you look up the zoom stock price in like January of 2020, you know, the beginning of 2020, it was about 60 something, 70 something dollars in January. And then now it went up as high as$511. Yeah. Uh, and now it's currently at about$257. So they may have on money on zoom or zoom, you know, gained a lot of value if you just, by looking at their, the, their stock price.
Chase Peckham:Right.
Felipe Arevalo:And how much they've gone up. It's just ridiculous. Um, and it's like, man, if you'd have seen it real quick, I mean, you know what, the zoom thing is really gonna take off.
Chase Peckham:Oh yeah.
Felipe Arevalo:Should've made a good, a chunk of change investing on there.
Chase Peckham:I'm sure somebody did.
Felipe Arevalo:I'm sure.
Chase Peckham:And it's not just us as the, the employees, uh, that saved money. A lot of companies can save a lot of money. And we talked about this in our office. I mean, some people, you know, they'll, they could decrease 30% of their costs in real estate. Uh, cleaning services, food in the break room is bad for us, but there's not free coffee for us anymore. I have to expand, I have to buy that on my own, I can brew it at home but you know, we don't get it in the, we don't get snacks, free snacks in the office anymore, but that could save the company a lot of money, um, in that way. So there are
Felipe Arevalo:Utilities.
Chase Peckham:Absolutely.
Felipe Arevalo:For the the office
Chase Peckham:Air conditioning that keeps everything going all day. Yeah.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah. All the repairs, all the it's just wear and tear, replacing office equipment and everything that goes along with it. It's just like
Chase Peckham:Bottom line for the employee is you have to take a look. There's a lot of times we think we're saving money in one area, but we might turn around and add an increase in other areas that we didn't normally do it just because of pure fact of our life changing. Um, and our situation's changing. So it's, it's, it's important that you do still, you take a look at the budget, you take a look at what you're spending, but that budget might've changed a lot because of COVID it what you.
Felipe Arevalo:It did there are a lot of other things.
Chase Peckham:Put into the budget itself, but there could be expenses that you didn't have before and now expenses that you were paying on that you'd not in anymore. So it's, it's important that you do take a look as your life changes and that's bottom line.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah. It's something where if you look back at it and you say, wow, I should be saving this much money worth of gas. Where's where's that money going?
Chase Peckham:Right.
Felipe Arevalo:You know, it should be there if it's not there, that means you're spending it on something else. Where did you redistribute it to your budget?
Chase Peckham:Exactly.
Felipe Arevalo:Or where are you saving it?
Chase Peckham:Right.
Felipe Arevalo:It's really what it comes down to.
Chase Peckham:Exactly. So if you're one of the lucky ones or one of those few that is really excited that you get to work from home, you are saving money. And there's a lot of people like myself that don't I miss an office atmosphere. I really do. Um, I think I've been in it a long time. I don't think the younger generations gonna miss it as much cause they just didn't experience it. And I do. I'm a people person. I do miss that. I do like the comradery, but there are, there are a lot more benefits to working from home, uh, I think than, than the other way around. But, uh, I, I, there are a lot of things that I do miss.
Felipe Arevalo:Um, I do miss the office. I do miss that. Just.
Chase Peckham:Interaction.
Felipe Arevalo:Going in your office, Hey, Chase. And then, or just, you know, people would walk over and be like, oh, I thought you were talking to yourself. No, I was talking to Katie.
Chase Peckham:Yeah right.
Felipe Arevalo:We were talking to each other. We were just in our own little cubicle separated by a wooden wall, but we were still having a conversation.
Chase Peckham:And the separation from church and state, right. It's basically the idea of I work where I work and I, and I'm at home. I do my family, my personal stuff. And now there's kind of a blurred deal, which is why after COVID, now that the family's gone, my wife goes back to work at least two, two weeks a month because when she's on chemo, she doesn't work. She works from home when she's on chemo weeks. Um, and so we get, but I don't have to work out of my, uh, dining room anymore because my daughter and my son are in their rooms and my wife's got her office. And so I actually just kind of moved into, I've kind of adopted my daughter's room as my other office because I wanted it. And this is thing. Hear me out here. This is a place that I never go to. I honestly say good night to her and I might dump off some laundry every once in a while, but it's not a place that I spend a lot of time in until now when she's gone. And so when I am done with work, I close this up. I clean up the area and I'm going a different door to the house. That's right. So it feels like I'm coming and going. And it does give me a fresh approach. It makes me feel better.
Felipe Arevalo:It makes a big difference to have your little work area. If you're working from home and you haven't done it, hopefully it's a possibility, but set up your little work area where you can just kind of work and be at the quote unquote office. Um, and then when you're done, you can put it away. And I think that makes a big difference just from having worked from where all the different, random places in the apartment to being able to come here and have a desk and they work area, um, it makes a big difference in just being able to work and then being able to turn it off. And like you said, don't have it blur with home life. So it's not, you know, all the, it's not all the same, how you used to always say you didn't like the dinner table, the dinner table I worked from the dinner table as well. It's not fun. I do it sometimes now it's good lighting. It's nice fresh air in the morning, but, but then I walk away from it and go back to my desk. It's just, it's different.
Chase Peckham:Yeah. It most definitely is. It most definitely is. So bottom line is, is I think that we can look at COVID it was a terrible thing, but it did bring out so many different things that have changed our life for both the better and not, um, or I think people knew that they were going to be moving in hybrid directions and a lot of people were doing that. Uh, but it moved a lot more offices quicker than they thought. So, yeah. It's definitely something that, that if you do it right, and you keep track of your budget, you could see yourself. Definitely