Something You Should Know - How to Have a Voice You Love & Proven Money Strategies for Every Day

Episode Date: January 15, 2018

Do you often find yourself in the slowest line at the supermarket? Me too. Is it bad luck or just your perception? I’ll explore what’s behind this universal annoyance and suggest a better way to handle this. It seems everyone hates the sound of their voice when they hear it played back. But what if you LOVED the sound of your voice? Vocal coach Roger Love explains how anyone can have a beautiful voice – you are not stuck with the one you have now. Listen to this episode and you will instantly have the tools to improve the sound of your voice. Then if you want to learn more, check out Roger’s program, The Perfect Voice at www.ThePerfectVoice.com. Have you heard that it is a good idea to let your cellphone battery run all the way down to zero? Supposedly that is to help it last longer and keep a better charge. Is it true? We’ll find out. All of us have asked some basic financial questions at some point such as: Is it better to own or rent a home; buy or lease a car; pay off debt of save money? Jack Otter, editor at Barrons.com and author of the book, Worth…Not Worth It? (http://amzn.to/2D5U68I) has examined these questions, done the math and come up with the answers. Listen as Jack may surprise you with what he has to say about what you should do with your money. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today on Something You Should Know, why it seems you always get in the slowest line at the grocery store and what to do about it. Then, if you don't like your voice, there are ways to make it better. Most people, when they speak, are actually holding their breath. So they're talking like this, as if they were holding their breath. But as soon as I do diaphragmatic breathing, it pushes so much more air out, which makes a thicker, more powerful, more resonant sound. Then, is it really good to let your cell phone battery drain all the way down to zero? Plus, the answers to important financial questions, like should you buy a new car or a used one? It's pretty clear that buying a used car is a better deal. And the reason is that those first year or two of depreciation

really takes a lot of the value of the car. So why not let someone else pay for that depreciation? All this today on Something You Should Know. As a listener to Something You Should Know, I can only assume that you are someone who likes to learn about new and interesting things and bring more knowledge to work for you in your everyday life. I mean, that's kind of what Something You Should Know was all about. And so I want to invite you to listen to another podcast called TED Talks Daily. Now, you know about TED Talks, right? Many of the guests on Something You Should Know have done TED Talks.

Well, you see, TED Talks Daily is a podcast that brings you a new TED Talk every weekday in less than 15 minutes. Join host Elise Hu. She goes beyond the headlines so you can hear about the big ideas shaping our future. Learn about things like sustainable fashion, embracing your entrepreneurial spirit, the future of robotics, and so much more. Like I said, if you like this podcast, Something You Should Know, I'm pretty sure you're going to like TED Talks Daily. And you get

TED Talks Daily wherever you get your podcasts. Something You Should Know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts and practical advice you can use in your life. Today, something you should know with Mike Carruthers. You know, I've said on this program before that I actually like supermarket shopping. I like going to the store. I have my favorite stores. I have my favorite aisles in the store. You know, as I hear myself say this, it really sounds ridiculous.

But I don't mind going to the grocery store. I enjoy it sometimes. But the one thing about grocery store shopping that I don't like is the checkout, because I usually seem to get behind that person who has, you know, 30 coupons, but one of them's expired. So now there's going to be a conversation about that. Or the person who pays in cash and takes the pennies out one by one, 37, 38. Or the person whose debit card doesn't work and they don't know what to do and they don't have any cash and their other credit card doesn't work either. So I don't know if you've had that experience of always feeling like you've gotten in the

slowest line before, but it's apparently a pretty common phenomenon with people. And it has been studied. and the reason it seems like you always get into the slowest line is because of these random interruptions, like a price check, or a chatty customer, or the person who's 38, 39, and that slows the line way down. And those interruptions can happen at any time and in any line. So if there are three check stands open in the supermarket, you have a two out of three chance of not being in the fastest line. And then the more check stands they open, the worse your chances get of being in the fastest line.

But it probably all evens out over the course of time, over the course of all your trips to the supermarket. But what's actually more interesting is that the whole system is flawed. If supermarkets did what banks and airports and hotels do, you'd get out of the store a lot faster. And that is, you have one line and have the person at the front of the line go to the next available checker.

Why don't supermarkets do that? Well, room is a big problem. Where would that line go? Where would it be? But a bigger factor is that customers don't like it. We human beings like to think we're in control and that we can beat the system. We know which is the faster line if you give us the opportunity to choose it. We human beings like to think we're in control and that we can beat the system. We know which is the faster line if you give us the opportunity to choose it, even though we usually

can't and we usually end up behind that person whose coupons expired. And that is something you should know. Think about how much you use your voice and how often you use your voice and how important your voice is to almost everything you do. And yet, I would guess that most people don't like their voice very much when they hear a recording of it. And I'm sure you know people who have irritating voices. They're hard to understand. They don't speak up. They um and ah a lot. So the question is, is your voice your voice and there's not much you can do to make it better? Or is your voice something you can really work with to make it powerful and delightful and a joy to listen to?

Well, Roger Love is the go-to guy on this. He is certainly one of the most well-known voice coaches with many Hollywood celebrities among his clients, and he has a program called The Perfect Voice. You can check it out at theperfectvoice.com. And Roger joins me now. Thank you so much for having me. So I think it's a pretty universal experience that when people hear their voice back on a recording, especially the first time, they really don't like what they hear. They don't think they sound that way. They think it sounds terrible. In fact, I have an eight-year-old who wanted to make a YouTube video,

and he made a practice video, and when he heard his voice, he was so upset by it, he said he didn't want to make the video anymore, which I thought, I mean, that's a pretty dramatic reaction to hearing your voice. It's not surprising that when people hear the sounds of their voice played back, they are shocked. And this goes back to birth. So let me bring us all back to that place. We think that we were born with a particular voice and then we grow up and that's our voice. It sounds good or it doesn't sound good. I can sing or I can't sing. It's nasal or it's not nasal.

But the truth is, is that we are simply imitating from early childhood the sounds that are in our households. So if my mother has a nasal voice, I end up imitating it. If my father has an airy voice, I end up imitating. And we learn the sounds of the voice the same way we learn language. So I grow up sounding like my parents. And then what happens? Boom, I'm an adult and I've never really figured out what my voice is. It's just kind of a new incarnation of what my parents sounded like. So that's why I teach people techniques to figure out what their voice is actually capable of. And then we train

the voice like an instrument, forgetting about how your parents sounded and how you grew up and what you ended up listening to. And we start from scratch again and say, it's a musical instrument and you can go from low to high and you can have control over it. And you could have an incredible voice now as an adult. But it's also like an instrument in the sense that I don't care how good you are at playing it, you can't make a violin sound like a piano or a trumpet. There are some inherent limitations to the violin that's going to make it sound like a violin, and I think my experience is there are limitations to people's voices that they can make

it sound as good as they can make it sound, but it may never be as good as somebody else's. Yes, it's always nice when you're born with certain physiological things, and sound is dependent upon everything that sound can touch. So the size of your nose, the size of your lips, the size of your cheeks. But the truth is, if you were given a piano, if God forbid your grandmother passed away and she left you a Steinway grand piano and it is now sitting in your living room, now you own a piano. But if you sit down to play it and you have no technique to play it, you never learned how to play it, you're going to sound terrible.

And all I'm saying is let's even out the playing field. Let's learn how to use the voice like an instrument and then see what Mother Nature gave you and then try to put in a lot of what Mother Nature didn't give you by learning how to use it. So what's the low-hanging fruit here? If I want to improve my voice, what's the first thing I could do and start to get results? People don't speak loud enough. The reason that happens is because when they've heard their voice, they don't like it. So the last thing they're thinking about is, hey, let's make it louder and maybe people will like it more.

They're thinking the louder they are, the worse everyone else hears the mistakes. But there's an issue when you don't speak loud enough. waves, invisible sound waves are supposed to leave your mouth and travel away from you and then vibrate the bodies of anyone that hears you. And that's scientifically proven. So you need a certain amount of volume to get those sound waves out of your mouth and vibrate the bodies of the people. And those vibrations are processed by their brains and, and that they turn those, those sounds and vibrations into thoughts and emotions and feelings about you. So most people aren't loud enough to actually physically connect with the people they're speaking to. Oh, I am, I am so with you on that. I actually have taken the time because it always bothers me how people don't speak up. And I've been accused of, well, maybe your hearing's bad. But I listen to other conversations and it's amazing how many times other people have to say, huh? What was that? Say that again. It's amazing how often people must repeat themselves because they're not speaking loud enough.

But let me ask you, when people say, and so many people say, I don't like the way my voice sounds, I hate the sound of my voice, what is it that they hate? What specifically is it that you find that people don't like about their voice, or is it that it just sounds different than the way they hear it? One of the things they don't like about their own voice is that it bores the heck out of them. When they hear it back, they think it sounds unemotional, lifeless, and boring. And the number one reason that is, aside from volume, is melody. Most people speak and they are acting as if they were just one little note on a piano. And they keep hitting that same note and they just talk on the same note as if they were only one key on the piano. And they realize that's the most boring song they've ever heard. And it that's the most boring song they've ever heard,

and it's also the most boring speaking they've ever heard. So people don't understand that you have to put some music into the voice, and the greatest place to do that is through melody, making sure that you're hitting some white notes and some black notes, and that you're moving around the range just like a song and that's the biggest problem people have one note boring one note totally lifeless i'm speaking with vocal coach roger love who has really become the vocal coach to the stars if you look at his website you'll see all the celebrities that he coaches or has coached in the past.

He also has a program for anyone who wants to improve their voice called The Perfect Voice. And it is available at theperfectvoice.com. Since I host a podcast, it's pretty common for me to be asked to recommend a podcast. And I tell people, if you like something you should know, you're going to like The Jordan Harbinger Show. Every episode is a conversation with a fascinating guest. Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests, but Jordan does it better than most.

Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman who was recruited and radicalized by ISIS and went to prison for three years. She now works to raise awareness on this issue. It's a great conversation. And he spoke with Dr. Sarah Hill about how taking birth control not only prevents pregnancy, it can influence a woman's partner preferences, career choices, and overall behavior due to the hormonal changes it causes. Apple named The Jordan Harbinger Show one of the best podcasts a few years back, and in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed critical thinker.

Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Jennifer, a co-founder of the Go Kid Go Network. At Go Kid Go, putting kids first is at the heart of every show that we produce. That's why we're so excited to introduce a brand new show to our network called The Search for the Silver Lightning, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. During her journey, Isla meets new friends, including King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table,

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So, Roger, give me a little mini lesson here in how to add melody and that kind of range that you were talking about to my voice. Most people, as I said, stay on one note the whole time. But you need to realize there are really three things to think about melody. You're either walking up the stairs, where the melody is going from lows to highs, low, higher, higher, higher, higher. Or you're walking down the stairs. Now I'm walking down the stairs. Going from high down to low. Or staying on the same note. Staying on the same note. Most people, when they try to use melody, they're always walking down the stairs. I really like my dog. I really like chocolate.

And they don't know that they're walking down the stairs, but that's called a descending scale, going from low to high. But every time you have a scale like that and go from low to high, you sound sad. It's my birthday. Nobody brought me any presents. So melody can either make the speaker sound happy or sad. So when the melody goes down, you sound sad.

You're depressing the heck out of everybody. But on the contrary, when you're walking up the stairs, when the melody goes from low to high, you sound happy. I love my dog. I love happy. I love my dog. I love chocolate. I love my wife. And then you sound happy and you make other people happy. So people need to stop walking down the stairs of melody. They need to start walking up the steps of melody

and they're going to be surprised how much people are smiling at them, how much people like them more, how much people want to kiss them on the mouths more. But sometimes, though, when I hear this and it kind of drives me crazy, that people go up and they sound like they're asking a question when they're really making a statement. And there are a lot of articles over the last 10 years or so that talk about Valley Speak or up talk, how bad it is to go up when you get to the comma or a period that it might sound like a question. But science

proves that actually that is a bunch of bunk. Here's where that going up got a bad rep. Some people, when they scoop up as if it's a sentence, actually scoop. I really like my dog. Could I go with you? Is it okay? You hear I'm scooping up right before I go high. But if you cleanly, here I am speaking, and then I go up. Here I am speaking, and then I go up. Instead of go scooping up, if you just end the sentences or right before you get to a comma or a period, it just goes up. It doesn't sound like a question. And even if it did sound like a question, science supports that if you go up when you get to a comma or a period, the listeners think that it might be a question. So you've engaged their mind and they're more attentive thinking that if it's a question,

maybe they're going to be asked to say something. So if you're trying to keep someone's attention, the best thing you can do is go up when you get to a comma and a period and don't worry about whether it sounds like a question. That actually is keeping people more attentive. We were talking earlier about people not speaking loudly enough. And I think a lot of that has to do with the power in their voice. A lot of people don't seem to have much power in their voice and people like you and I've been told that we have power in our voice. And so I think we should talk about that. Where does that come from? First of all, I honestly love the sound of your voice. It has a bassy quality. It has some lows in it. And when

you feel like it, you go higher. It just has a really nice round tonal quality. So kudos to you. I believe I'll tell you exactly how anybody can do it. But I believe one of the reasons that you ended up with such a great voice is you record yourself a lot and you listen back. And just like any singer who records themselves in the studio, when they listen back, they say, oh, I don't like that part, but this part sounds a little better. And then they keep weeding out the parts they don't like by listening and then making changes and listening and then making changes. But here's how you and I have learned either by being instructed or just by happening upon it to get a stronger voice. We've connected the voice with breath. Let me explain what I mean.

Most people, when they speak, they are actually holding their breath. But we have a system called diaphragmatic breathing, a breathing system that we were all born with. So you don't have to learn it. Most of us just have to relearn it because as babies, we were all doing that. And diaphragmatic breathing is breathing into your nose instead of your mouth, pretending you have a balloon in your stomach area. And then when you

inhale, you let your stomach come forward and that fills the lungs with air. And then here's the, the, the answer to have a great voice. When you speak, you let your stomach come back in. Letting your stomach slowly come back in pushes just the right amount of air back out of your body. So that creates a volume and a thickness and a resonance for the sound to ride out on this beautiful solid stream of air that you cannot create if your stomach isn't doing that. So most people are, their stomachs are stationary. So they're talking like this as if they were holding their breath. So they'll never create thickness or volume or melody. But as soon as I do diaphragmatic breathing and my stomach comes in when I'm speaking, it pushes so much more air out, which makes a thicker, more beautiful, more powerful, more resonant sound that you'll like, and everyone who listens to you

will love a lot more. Let's talk about ums and ahs. I um and ah sometimes. I wish I didn't, and I've tried to work on it, and I'm better than I used to be, but why do people um and ah sometimes I wish I didn't and I've tried to work on it and I'm better than I used to be but why do people um and ah? and what's your take on it? is it benign? is it no big deal? or what? the smartest people in the world who use um

or uh or like non-words when they do that they are instantly losing the credibility that they created in the whole parts of the sentence before they got to that point. Here's why we do it. It comes back to what we spoke about in the beginning. Most people don't like the sound of their own voices. Most people have boring voices. So when they're communicating with people, they are afraid of losing the attention span of the person they're speaking to or the people

they're speaking to. So they use these placeholders so that there's always sound coming out so that the other person doesn't wander away and do something more interesting or just start speaking themselves. So if I'm speaking to you and I get to a place where I'm silent, the other person could either lose interest or jump in and start to speak. But if so, so my brain says here I'm speaking and instead of being silent, I'll fill it. And then I'll jump in once I've figured out what I'm going to say next. But most people believe it's because you're thinking about what you're going to say next. The truth is, I believe it's because you're worried about losing the other person's attention. But what you need to know and what everyone needs to know

is that those silent spaces when you get to a comma or a period and you're supposed to be breathing with the diaphragmatic breathing that I just taught you, those blank spaces are your gift to the person or people listening to you. I call it the power of the pause. When you speak and you get to a comma and then you're silent, it gives the person who's listening to you the opportunity to process the words you said in the sentence up until that time. And that's your gift to them so that they stay with you. And then you jump back in, you get to another comma, silence, you breathe, they think about what you just said. That's how to really connect with people. But when you fill it, they don't know what to think about

and they lose their direction. For example, if I say, I really like the color red, um, I like green, um, and I like yellow, um, you're wondering what the hell green and red and yellow, um, is. But if I say, I really like green, I also really like yellow. Every time I took that pause, you thought about green or yellow. So we really connected. And then I got into your brain more than me just filling it with a lot of ums and uhs and you thinking that I'm not as intelligent as you'd hoped I was. Well, it's not only an interesting and universal topic.

I mean, everyone has a voice and they're conscious of it. But it's an important topic because people judge you by the sound of your voice, especially if they can't see you. But even when they can, I think your voice either projects the right image or the wrong image. So this is great information. Roger Love has been my guest. If you're interested, Roger has a program to help you improve your voice. It's called The Perfect Voice, and you will find it at theperfectvoice.com. Thanks, Roger.

My pleasure. Reach out anytime you want. People who listen to Something You Should Know are curious about the world, looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives, and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared. I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives, and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared. It's the podcast where great minds meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity, wellness, and a lot more. A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, discussing the future of technology. That's pretty cool. And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker John Ronson, discussing the rise of

conspiracies and culture wars. Intelligence Squared is the kind of podcast that gets you thinking a little more openly about the important conversations going on today. Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for. Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts. Do you love Disney? Then you are going to love our hit podcast, Disney Countdown. I'm Megan, the Magical Millennial. And I'm the Dapper Danielle. On every episode of our fun and family-friendly show,

we count down our top 10 lists of all things Disney. There is nothing we don't cover. We are famous for rabbit holes, Disney-themed games, and fun facts you didn't know you needed, but you definitely need in your life. So if you're looking for a healthy dose of Disney magic, check out Disney Countdown wherever you get your podcasts. At some point in your financial life, you've most likely pondered the same questions we all have.

Is it better to rent or own a home? Is it better to buy or lease a car? Is it better to save money or pay off debt? And depending on who you ask, you'll get different opinions. Well, Jack Otter has crunched the numbers, and he's come up with some pretty solid answers to some pretty common financial questions. Jack Otter is an editor at Barron's.com. He was previously executive editor at CBS Money Watch, deputy editor at Rodale's Best Life, and former articles editor at Smart Money.

Jack is also the author of a book called Worth It, Not Worth It, Simple and Profitable Answers to Life's Tough Financial Questions. Hi Jack, welcome to the program. And so let's start with credit cards. Should that be priority number one? I mean, that's pretty common advice, pay off your credit cards. Make sense? That is very solid advice for anybody who carries a balance. Because, look, there's no investment that's going to get you back the 12%, 15%, 17% you might be paying on interest charges for a credit card. So rule number one, abolish that credit, get rid of it, pay it off. Once you've done that, though, I think credit

cards are a very good tool as long as you pay them off in full each month. So for instance, if you take a debit card and use that to buy gas, if you just get say 30 bucks worth at the gas station, the gas station might actually put a hold on $80, $100, which would be the average fill up. A hotel will also do the same thing. So not only your room charge, but they might add a little extra because the average guest, say, uses the minibar or the gym or orders room service. And once again, until you actually go down, check out, pay your bill, you've got all that money on hold.

And the problem is that you can actually overdraw your account, even though you have the money, because that money is effectively frozen. So you're much better off in those cases using a credit card, and then you get the bill later and pay it off. Great. Rent versus buying. I think, you know, it's part of the American dream to own a home. But lately I've heard, you know, if you're somebody that moves around a lot

or isn't really settled in your life yet, then maybe it's better to rent. So what do you say? So I come down on the side of buying, and it has as much to do with human behavior as it does with finance. And one economist called buying a house essentially getting a piggy bank that you can live in because we all pay off the mortgage every month and it's enforced savings. So after 30 years, you put all this money in and you own a pretty solid asset. If you were to rent for those 30 years and take every penny that you save because renting is

cheaper, every penny you save and invested wisely, you probably would end up with more money than you would owning a house. The problem is we don't do that way. We actually go out to a nicer dinner or buy a new car or get a fancy pair of sneakers when we have extra money lying around. And so at the end of 30 years, you'd still be renting. You'd have no extra money than you would if you bought the house. So I say buy. One big caveat, however, I think there's this sense, even after this housing crash,

that you're not really a grown-up until you buy your first house. You know, the American dream is still alive and well. And I don't think that's right for everyone, especially a young person who might benefit from the flexibility of renting. You know, one of the problems in the job market right now is that the workforce is not as mobile as it should be. You could get a job offer halfway around the country, and if you rent, no problem. If you own and your house is underwater, you've got a tough decision there. Do you pay off the bank for letting you out of that mortgage, or do you just sit tight and hope for a job in your location? So there's a lot of reasons why I suggest people don't rush into buying unless you're really settled down. And once you are, hey, you're buying a depressed asset at less than 4% with other people's money. It's a good deal. Should you buy or lease a car?

So except for people who are using their car for business purposes, it might allow them to either deduct the cost or you might actually keep it on one side of the balance sheet rather than putting it under the debt column, which might detract from your business. Most people are much better off buying because, among other things, it's a lot more straightforward. When you buy a car, you know exactly what the sticker price is. Add in any interest charges you might be paying if you're borrowing money. That's the monthly cost, period. You know what you're getting, and at the end of it, you own the car. With leasing, it's a lot tougher to tell exactly how much you're paying,

what is interest, and what is renting, basically, when you're renting a car. And then finally, it all depends on how many miles you drive. So leases, for the most part, assume you're driving 10,000 to 15,000 miles a year. If you drive far more than that, you might get hit with a very steep penalty for those extra miles. If you drive a lot less, you're actually giving the dealership a gift. You're returning that car with low miles and less depreciation than you've been paying for, and they're able to sell it for more money. So buying is usually the better deal. And then once you decide to buy, do you buy new or do you buy used? Because, you know, I think we've all heard that buying a new

car for all the thrill that it gives you isn't a great deal because, you know, the car loses 20, 30 percent of its value the minute you drive it off the lot. It's pretty clear that buying a used car is a better deal. And the reason is that those first year or two of depreciation really takes a lot of the value of the car. So why not let someone else pay for that depreciation? If you like that new car smell, you can get a pre-owned certified car with low miles that's a pretty recent vintage. And you might even have a little bit of new car smell, but you're paying less for it. Plus, it's still under warranty, so you get those guarantees, but your nut is a lot smaller. But there is something about that new car smell and that new car feel that's very intoxicating.

Look, I have owned new cars. It is very nice to have a new car. I just think people need to realize what you're paying for. Look at the math and think, okay, this is going to cost me an extra couple thousand bucks. Is that smell worth it? And that way, at least you're making a conscious decision rather than just sort of falling into the trap, oh, my car is old, I'm going to need a new one, so I'll go to the dealership and buy one. And then you recognize, you know what? You have to weigh off the cost of that new car versus the other things you could use that money for. Maybe it's $2,000 you could use to take the family on a vacation,

which might be a better use of your money. I think one of the big financial mistakes we all make is we put things in silos. So you need a car, right, and you just assume that a certain amount of money is going to go to that, and you rarely weigh the options of, oh, wow, I could get a less expensive car and put that money into college savings or going on vacation or repainting the house. And the last thing about cars is when you rent one, should you get the pay for the extra rental insurance? So this is a frequent question, right? You're renting a car and filling out the paperwork, and they ask you whether you want the liability insurance. And they give you this look that is scary. And you think,

if I say no insurance, I'm taking a big risk here. But the fact is, the vast majority of people don't need that insurance. It is redundant. If you own your own car, then you're insured for driving that rental car. Plus, many credit cards actually give backup insurance. So, for instance, your deductible, the credit card company might actually pay that. It's certainly worth checking with your credit card company to see exactly what their policy is with rental cards. And if you carry a couple different cards, then you can use whatever one has the best rental insurance whenever you rent a car. But really, as long as you have your own automobile policy, you do not need to pay up when you rent a car. So let's talk about investments now,

and specifically, you know, should you buy mutual funds, which pretty much leaves it to someone else to invest the money, or is it worth it to take the time and buy individual stocks? Academics have actually looked at it and shown that you are not paid for the risk when you buy an individual stock. In other words, so many things can go wrong in a company. You know, you're sure that it's undervalued and they make a great product and more people are going to buy that product. And then it turns out that the CFO was having an affair with someone in the stock tanks. There are just so many things that can go wrong. On the contrary, when you buy what I like is an index mutual fund that owns the entire market, you don't have to worry about that specific company risk. You own the market, and you're also paying rock-bottom fees, which is key, because actively managed funds, that is a stock picker who tries to outsmart the market, costs you a lot of money.

So the stock picker actually has to beat the market by, on average, more than 1.3% a year to actually break even. The fact is, most people cannot do that. So picking stocks is really a loser's game, even for the professionals. So the idea that you, with a full-time job and a family and kids, can keep up with the stock market and actually beat the pros at their own game, it's a real long shot. You're much better off owning cheap mutual funds and then spending the time you would have spent researching stocks doing something else. And do you think people can do that themselves?

Or if you're really looking at investing or having a lot of money over time invested in something, that you're better off having a professional do it for you? Well, the only thing you can control when you're investing are the fees you're paying. You can't control the market. Everybody has theories as to what the market's going to do, what interest rates are going to do. But the fact is, no one knows. That's what makes the market. So, first of all, you want access to the entire market at low cost.

You might, however, need help with your overall finances. So it's not just what specific investments, but how much insurance do you need? How should you allocate, say, your retirement funds versus your college funds? And for those purposes, I do recommend hiring a professional. And I think you should do it on a fee-only basis. Now, that means you're going to write a check to this person, and that's painful. But you don't get the hidden cost that you would when, say, you buy a mutual fund from a stockbroker and you pay what's called a load. It's a sales charge that is actually deducted from your investment. And you won't know it unless you inspect your statement very

carefully. So hire an advisor, but use a fee-only advisor and make sure that they are fiduciaries. That's a fancy word, which means that they are legally obligated to put your interests before their own. And a stockbroker is actually not obligated to do that. I'm not saying they're all crooks, but lacking that legal obligation, they don't have quite the protection that you get when you hire a financial advisor who is a fiduciary and who is paid on a fee-only basis, so they get no commissions. And that means they have no commission, no incentive to sell you something that might not be in your best interest. What about life insurance? Should you have just plain old term insurance, or is whole life insurance where you build up cash value, is that ever a better choice or what? This is an easy call that is

complicated so often by frankly salespeople. The vast majority of people more than the 99 percent 99.5 percent of people are better off with term insurance and and the reason is why do you need insurance in the first place? You need it to replace your salary for your dependents in case something happens to you. So if you are a father or a mother with children and they are going to depend on your salary for the next 20 years to pay for their lives, then you need term insurance. Once they graduate from college and will have their own salaries, they don't need your money.

So it would be awful if something happened to you, but you would have lots of savings that would be passed on to them, and that's that. With whole life insurance, you pay a much, much higher monthly or annual fee, and that insurance is guaranteed. So we're all going to die, and so whole life insurance ultimately will pay off. The problem is it is so expensive that most people can't afford to get enough to cover their dependents in the event that they die young. And some people can't even afford to keep up with that payment with their cash flow changes, and they end up forfeiting the policy. So buy term insurance, and you might need to buy a lot of it. A million-dollar policy,

for instance, if you should die tomorrow and your heirs would get a million dollars, that would actually only generate at best about $40,000 a year of income for your heirs. So when you think of it that way, you need a lot of insurance, but you don't need it for a lifetime. You just need it for as long as your dependents would have been relying on your income. So from your experience as a financial journalist and writing the book and looking at these questions, is there something that really surprised you or stood out or like, wow? One of the things that struck me the most was something that I already knew, but I had no idea how big an issue it was until I actually sat down with a calculator and figured it out.

And that is the fees that people pay for mutual funds. And one of the reasons that this is so important is that we don't actually see it. Most people are unaware of it. But in your 401k, for instance, you look at the mutual funds, and most people probably look at their past performance or what the fund holds, and they make the decision based on that. What you really should make the decision is based on fees. Because I took a very simple mathematical example that may not apply exactly to your own case, but if you understand the numbers, then you can apply it to yourself. So a 30-year-old couple, I figured they got married, and they each brought $50,000 to their retirement fund. And they didn't invest any more until age 65. So they had $100,000 total. They didn't put a penny more in. They invested entirely in stocks.

At age 65, if they had owned the average mutual fund, which charges an expense ratio of 1.3%, and they got an 8% return, again, I might be optimistic, but for the sake of math, we'll stick with that, they would have almost $1 million of retirement, which sounds pretty good. However, if they bought ultra-low-cost index funds and got the same 8% return, they would have $1.5 million of retirement. So the difference between a 1.3% expense ratio and 0.07%, which is close to the bottom of the barrel, is half a million dollars at age 65. I was so surprised by the size of that number that I actually went and did the math all over again on a different calculator just to make sure I had gotten it right.

So if your listeners can remember one thing, it's to check expense ratios on all their funds in their retirement account or wherever else they might own them, and go for the rock-bottom expense ratios. They will save enormous amounts of money over their lifetime. Well, if that's the kind of money at stake, it certainly makes a lot of sense to take the few minutes it's going to take to review that and see if you can save yourself some money. Jack Otter is editor at Barron's.com,

and he is author of the book, Worth It, Not Worth It, Simple and Profitable Answers to Life's Tough Financial Questions. There's a link to his book in the show notes for this episode. If you have a cell phone or a tablet or a laptop, you probably think a couple of times during the day about the battery charge. And you've probably heard that you're supposed to let the laptop or the phone battery drain down to nothing once in a while to prolong the life.

While that used to be true, it's really not the case anymore. Older devices had nickel-based batteries, but today's batteries are lithium-ion, and these batteries are better off with the occasional shallow discharge, meaning draining it down to about 50% and then plugging it in for a recharge. It's still a good idea to unplug your device once it's fully charged up. That does help prolong the battery life. The operating sweet spot for today's batteries are between 40% and 80%.

So you should try to avoid those convenient overnight charges. They charge the phone while you're sleeping, but they really do tax the battery. And that is something you should know. Check us out on Facebook and Twitter. We're there, and we are posting additional information above and beyond what you hear in the program. And feel free to email me anytime you like. You can email me at mike at something you should know dot net. I'm Micah Ruthers. Thanks

for listening today to Something You Should Know. Hey, hey, are you ready for some real talk and some fantastic laughs? Join me, Megan Rinks. And me, Melissa Demonts, for Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong? We're serving up for hilarious shows every week designed to entertain and engage and, you know, possibly enrage you. In Don't Blame Me, we dive deep into listeners' questions, offering advice that's funny, relatable, and real. Whether you're dealing with relationship drama or you just need a friend's perspective,

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