From Eggflation to Ghost Jobs: Roasting 2024’s Biggest Financial Turkeys
14:43 Share

Today's episode is supported by mint mobile with big wireless providers. What you see is never what you get somewhere between the store and your first months bill. The Price you thought european magically skyrockets with min mobile.

You'll never have to worry about gotch's ever again when min mobile says fifteen dollars a month. When you purchase a three months plan, they mean IT, one of our colleagues code, works behind the scenes on the podcast, and he and his wife switched to mid mobile family plan last december. Compared to their previous career, theyve saved more than twelve hundred dollars this year, and their meant mobile plants are already paid for through june twenty.

Twenty five. Code says the service has been just as reliable as before, with plenty of data for streaming without ever needing to cut back. All plants come with high speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5g network。 Use your own phone with any many mobile plan and bring your phone number along with all of your existing contacts to get this new customer offer at your new three months premium wireless plan for just fifteen bucks a month, I got a mid mobile dark com h smart money that's mint mobile doc com slash smart money, cut your wireless builds of fifteen buxa month at mt. Mobile 点 com slash smart money， forty five dollar upfront payment required equivalent to fifteen dollars a month, new customers on three months plan only speed slower above forty, good device on on unlimited plan, additional taxes and fees and restrictions apply, see ment mobile for details.

Welcome to nerve wallets smart money podcast, where you send us your money questions and we answer them with the help of our genius nerds.

I'm from piles and i'm sa rar, Shawn. Happy .

thanksgiving. Oh, and a happy thanks for giving to you too, Sarah. On this day of thin, I would like to think all of our listeners for participating in the grand smart money experiment. We love getting and answering your questions, and we appreciate all of you and your loyal leadership.

IT really is a privilege to be here in front of the microphone, interact with folks, helping them with their finances. I have to say, I really enjoy hearing about people's lives and the financial decisions that they're hoping to get help with. And not just because I am a noisy person, but also because I just like to know what's on people's minds .

and how we can help people. He really is an honor. I've been answering the questions of smart money listeners for a few years now.

And sometimes people ask if I get bored of answering similar questions over and over. And I always say no, because, in truth, each listeners question is different. Whatever someone wants help with is informed by their own financial background and experiences and their current financial goals. And I just find that stuff and lessons interesting.

so do I. And besides, listeners join us at different points, at different episode. So IT is helpful to repeat topics once in a while. And you know, if you're making a really tough financial decision, sometimes you have to hear about IT a few times before you feel comfortable actually taking any sort of action. We are here to examine all sorts of money stuff from multiple angles.

We are all about informed decisions, and it's our job to get you that information for all of those great and wonderful episodes. Today we are handing out our twenty twenty four financial turkey awards. And by turkeys, we mean things that really missed the mark in the financial world. And let me tell you, there were a number of turkey this year.

That's true. So shon, what do winners get?

A broken wishbone and assaulted gravy.

Look, nobody wants this. That's like getting something .

for your birthday. yeah. Well, in a moment, we've still honors on the financial turkeys of twenty twenty four. But if you have a money question for the nerd, we invite you to call us or text us any time, including holidays on the nerd hot line at nine o one seven three zero six three seven three at nine o one seven three zero N E R D, or email us at podcast at nor polite com.

And if you want to nominate your own financial turkey of the year, ward, we're all years. So let us know we'll be back in a moment with our nominees and winners or financial or economic turkeys of the year stay with us.

Okay, we're back and ready with our nominees and winners of the smart money twenty twenty four financial turkeys of the year. Sera, what's your first candidate?

If we're going to talk turkey, let's discuss grocery inflation. Remember egfr tion that was actually a twenty twenty three problem that peaked in january of that year, but it's still really hard to get out of the store sometimes without spending like fifty bucks on just a few items. And food Prices are up significantly since ce twenty thousand, thanks to everything from supply chain issues to bird flu to the war in ukraine.

According to the U. S. D. A, as U. S. Household incomes rise, those households actually spend more money on food, but their food spending represents smaller share of income.

So look at at this way, looking at data from twenty twenty two households in the lowest income quintile spent thirty one point three percent of their income on food. That's nearly a third of their household income. On the other side of the coin, households in the highest income quintile spent just eight percent of their income on foods.

So this is a problem that affects U. S. Households across the board, but it's affecting specific types households much more seriously. So we'll have to see how this continue to play out. High food Prices can be hard to stomach, but i'm chain punk .

intended to and a solid and on theme nomi for the food holiday. By the way, i'm going to say i'm still said about how much my cream cheese nowadays, although I will not give up my beagles. okay. So what's your next candidate .

and a highly specific food item to be upset of? Okay, that's fine. I love a good big one room cheese myself, right? So my next candidate, ghost jobs, and I am not talking about seasonal work as an actor in a haunted house attraction.

These are job listings online that look completely real, but the role either doesn't actually exist or is already been filled in. The company is still advertising IT as if they're still looking for candidates. According to a may twenty twenty four survey by resume builder, forty percent of companies posted a fake job listing this year, and three in ten companies currently have active fake listing.

So why the heck two companies do this? Because this is really annoying. A couple reasons. A one is to look open to new talent or make IT seen to the outside audience that the company is growing.

Sometimes they just like seeing what talent is out there so they can have a collection of potential future employees. They might also be doing this to trick existing employees into thinking they're about to get some relief of the companies been under. Or even worse, they're doing this to remind their existing employees that they're replaced.

I mean, listen, we already know that I A I is coming for us all, so we don't need to be reminded of that. You're around, you know. I mean, anyway, what really is terrible about this is that some companies will go as far as actually interviewing job candidates with zero intention and moving forward with them in any way. And I know a number of people who are job right now and ghost jobs are a huge waste of their time. That's time that they could be spending on interviews that could actually lead to real job offers.

Wow, sorry, I got to admit I had not heard of the ghost job phenomenon, but IT is really messed up. What a cruel way to play with people who are desperate for employment in some cases. Yx, so sir, you've given us your nominees. Which one wins your twenty twenty four financial turkey award?

I've got to go with ghost jobs. And like you said, IT is cruel to toy with people who are just trying to find a way to support themselves and their families. Don't list compensation companies .

a solid winner. Unsolved gravy for all of the ghost job posters.

May those recruiters be covered in unassailed gravy the way people will get slimed unicode dian.

yes, I would love that.

You're right, Shawn. So those were mine. Omnes.

what are yours? First up, I would like to nominate one of the most protests, turkeys in the financial world, scams and scammers. We did a special series about scams earlier this year and heard from people, including my own dad, who have been put through all kinds of hell trying to recall laim their money and their lives after they were financially assaulted by scams. And IT seems like every week there is yet another report about a big data breach, which means that we are all exposed, yet again, two scammers who are trying to make a buck off of our personal information.

This is a solid nomination shown is so easy to fall for us. M, and none of us are immune.

yes. So as we always say, folks freeze your credit report and regularly monitor your accounts for any funny business. You can sign up for your free credit score and get credit building inside personalized to you when you register at our world that com. So we will put a link to that in today's showing outs.

Nice plug shown.

I see what eat IT there. Yes, i'm just trying to get folks useful resources, as always, onto my second turkey. It's slightly conceptual to stay with me. IT is the gap between how we are all told the economy is doing and how we feel about the economy. We saw a load of economic report throughout twenty twenty four showing that the job market continued to be resilient, even if IT cool a bit, and inflation certainly slowed.

But things still don't feel great, right? Like you are saying earlier, Sarah, a gross free shopping is not enjoyable, experience is painful, and there is some data to back this up to, you know, credit card linked ency rates are as high as they ve been since twenty eleven, according to the federal reserve bank of state Lewis. The economy just continues to feel really weird, weird, kinder, like how a turkey looks weird. It's both majestic and lumbey at the same time.

Honestly, I don't think i've ever heard majestic and lumpy and the same thing it's before. Honestly, I hope to never hear that again. So thank you for that moment. I never wanted relive R H, on what's your winner for the twenty twenty four of financial turkey.

Or it's got to be scams and scams, the people who perpetrate these scams. And this is something that we are all vulnerable to all the time. It's super scary, and not enough is being done to protect us from these criminals. So everyone, stay a violent. Yes.

just assume that everyone's out to get you and make them prove their legit. Let all weird calls go to voice mee and only call them back of their real screaming. Your calls is a time on our tradition that goes back to the days of answering machines. And I say, we bring you back and .

do what you can to protect your personal information. Do not go giving out your social security number, Willy. Nearly, even if you might be already out there.

Honestly, probably is. Yeah, I laugh, but really, I cry on the inside.

I know IT is that and scary? We'll share IT now that we have handed out some turkeys. How about we go at around? Or I guess in my quasi vegetable, an household, i'll go eat some net love.

What they hold is a netlog.

It's exactly what that sounds like. It's a big mush of nuts and mushrooms, and it's really good lot of cheese and IT too.

Oh no, every time you've mentioned another ingredient .

you make IT worth, I swear these things taste Better than they sound.

They got ta ren me IT. They need to yeah, the branding .

round that love could be improved. I'll give him that. But I swear it's it's really, really good. Anyway, that's all we have for this episode. We hear a smart money. Wish you and yours a very happy thanksgiving and a wonderful holiday season to come and remember, of course, that we are here for you and you are money questions. So send them our way color or texas on the nerd hot minet nine o one seven three zero six seven three you can also email us a podcast at nerva doc m. Visit nerva dock home flash podcast for more info on this episode and remember, you can follow the show on your favorite podcast APP, including spot five apple podcast and I hear t radio to automatically .

download episodes today. This episode was produced by test v and edited by Shawn. Make an power mixed o and here's our brief declaimer. We are not financial or investment advisers. This nurse info is provided for general educational and entertainment purposes and may not apply .

to your specific circumstances. And with that said, until next time turns the nerds, no, it's good. I swear IT IT oh my god.

it's got the worst name. I just know IT just sounds so blind.

It's like it's not blind. It's full of a umi flavor. It's mushrooms and cashes one. I think there are some almonds in there, lots of cheese. It's like fifty percent cheese.

I am i'm down fifty percent cheese. But you know those like there have been an old twitter account to this that was like weird recipes from like new century.

Oh yes.

And if that sounds like one of those things that people eat for dinner in the sixties.

although I am pressure to contemporary recipe and people will look back at like mid ots and twenty twenty recipes and be like what the hour they doing.

I'll like in the night .

you how you you like.

To this episode, supported by amazed fit for those who crave adventure is part of their lifestyle, but don't let IT define them. Meet the amazing fit. t.

Rex three, the ultimate ready for anything adventure. Watch whether you're hitting the trails are saying yes to that spontaneous night skiing invite. The amazing fit t.

Rex three is ready for at all. It's more than just a start. Watch, it's your personal guide to exploration.

Discovery and the thrill of the unknown adventure is calling and it's time to enter with the amaze fit t. Rex three, i've been testing out the amazing fit t. Rex three and IT is jam packed with features. IT has an ultra long battery life.

The less for twenty seven days when I wake up, IT hits me with a run down that includes the day is weather forecast and upcoming schedule, along with my a readiness score, which basically tells me of that extra episode of TV last night was worth IT. Plus, you can download extra apps like fitness tools and meditation timers for when my adventure is just surviving a trustful monday. Amazing fit is trust by forty two million users, and their devices are available at major retailers, including best by target, walmart and amazon.

But as a smart money listener, you can get fifteen percent off your next purchase on amazed fitz website using promo code. Smart money. Just visit U.

S. That amazing fit dot com slash smart money, but U S. That amazing fit dot com slash smart money and enter promote code smart money to get your next smart wearable able.