The 404 1,471: Where if this, then that

It's Wednesday, April 23rd, 2014. I'm Ario Nunez, and from our CBS studios in New York City, welcome to the 404. [MUSIC] [LAUGH] All right everybody. This camera, Jill. [LAUGH] Hi. Jesus, I thought you were a professional. Well there's a camera right here. Those are two cameras. Oh God. And I want to hear your intro again. No. Watching Mr. Smartypants. Once it starts going, that is it. That's it. There's a point of no return. Let's start over. Let's repent. This is the point of no return. Fine, ready? Yeah. Three. Hey, welcome to the 404, I'm Jeff Bakalar. I'm Anne Jill sitting in for Justin Yu. Justin you should be very nervous. I am auditioning for Justin's job right now. Well, guess what? You got it. Nice. Just for today. [LAUGH] Justin is like a world traveler now. He's all over the planet. Yeah, but I don't care about that. I just want his job. Really? You. Really? Yeah. Why? I would do this job. And I have a schedule where I can do it. I feel like he would give it up, right Ariel? Like probably. No way. He loves you. I don't know about that. All you've got to do is buy him a pizza and he'll, he'll take the trade. All you have to do it give him a. I'll buy you lunch every day. A pizza and like a new bike seat. [LAUGH] Yeah. Do you think it would be a problem that I really don't know that much about technology? No because the- The foil to you, I could be the idiot. Well, I don't know as much as I- Pretend Come off like I do. I mean, and that will become very apparent in one of the stories I wanna talk about before we get into the financial stuff. But I want to thank you officially for being here today. I officially would like to Thank you for having me. Of course. Especially cuz I. This is what happens guys. I send an email to Jeff and Justin and say, can I come on the show? Well. And then, and then you say, okay. Right, it's not but it's not. It's not like you don't reach out for me and be like, oh babe where have you been? Yeah, but it's. We love you. It's clearly a, a, a like three week period that happens. Three or four weeks, right that- You know, like you, you must have some sort of calendar reminder that goes off. Or maybe it's like cranial sort of, sensational thing. You know what it is, it's like, I need those boys. Yeah. That's what happens to me. I definitely- Wow. When was the last time you said that phrase? You know what? [LAUGH] I can say almost in my entire life, never. [LAUGH] Even when I like boys, I never needed them. You know why we might need them for like a pick up game. Even when I liked boys. Yeah. Well, and I liked them. Yeah. High school. Right. Sorta college. Kind of. Times change, people change. There was that ex-husband, don't forget. [LAUGH] Just one. I love it, it's great. What do you do for a pick up game? Like soccer or some stuff? Yeah, well not so much soccer. For basketball. Basketball. Yeah. All right. It's hard to do pick up soccer. Yeah, I guess so. Good for me. But condolences to both of us about the hockey season. Yeah. Ours was worse. Yeah, yours was way worse. You know what though, it's been really good watching them. I'm a big, like, playoff guy. Who you rooting for? So my number one now is the Canadians, which is- How could you root for a Canadian team? Are you out of your mind? It's easy! [SOUND] It feels so good. It doesn't. They're the only Canadian team in the playoffs. They swept the Lightning, they're on to the second round. I understand that, but what I'm saying is you're American. You don't have any of that. You don't know. Okay Nationality. So now you're the Canadians, you've earn, you're on that bandwagon? I'm they they're my number one. Yeah. And my number two is San Jose Sharks. Really? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Okay, so my number one only because I am a complete ****. [LAUGH] Because this is, depends on which stations I do work with. [LAUGH] Okay. Who pay the most. Right. So Pittsburgh. Oh, that's- Bcause the Pitts, the Pittsburgh KDKA is a huge station, they use me all the time and I love them. Yeah, alright. And St. Louis. Okay, alright, they're doing alright. [CROSSTALK] They've like two crazy wins. Right, they have two one. Two overtime wins. Yeah, Pittsburgh I don't know. I know, Jackie is so unhappy about the Pittsburgh thing. She heard me say it on the radio, I'm like, I'm rooting for the. And she was like, what? Yeah you can't say that publicly though. I know, I did when I'm on the air with Pittsburgh they sure do. And my thing is like if, they, even though the Canadians are also very close to this area you can't, I don't know there's something about you know, aligning yourself with that. That team that peo, I happen to like the Penguins but. Alright. You know, routing for them is another thing. Alright I'll let you get on to your business now, I'll just have my coffee you just doing some work okay? Yeah, you just sip along. A couple things. Yesterday Russ Thrushig was here we were talking about, maybe you have like a better name for these things. And you might know that. Do you remember those like key chain view finders? Oh yeah, sure. Right? So here's. So I wanna think Aturio, Matt Scelarno, and like five other people wrote to me yesterday. Oh yeah, there they are. Here's what they look like, I have em up here on. Screen. Oh yeah, I've seen those. These are like the one frame. Yeah. Single photo viewers. Yep. And like, I couldn't put a, I couldn't describe them that well. I don't know, I think that we used to get them when you went to the circus. I think they used to give them out. Right. Or like at the boardwalk. You would go. Right REL this is them, right? Yes. That's exactly what it is. Yeah. Where you would go, you would be like, I had a kick **** time, a great adventure. Right. And they would give you one of these things that you would buy for like a dollar. And can I tell you that I never uttered those words. What? I had a kick **** time and great adventure. [LAUGH] Okay, come on. [CROSSTALK] It was like a wedding. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I [CROSSTALK] You know, they give them out at weddings or like the boardwalk. That's right. You know? Yes, it's a, it's a very, that's an excellent throw back item. Right. I, I like that. And, and this, and it's so funny how ridiculous this is though. Compared to like today's technology. Oh, yeah. How absurd- Oh yeah, but you know what, we were so amused and taken by that. I will say that with all the great technology it's always funny to see like a two year old kid sitting there like going into with keys. Right. [SOUND] It's the best thing in the whole world I love these. Yeah, my parents had a, had a keychain of like 38 of these. Really? Yeah. Just had, they collect, they went up to like Upstate New York all the time. [CROSSTALK] Ticky tacky little town. The Berkshires and all that crap and then they would just have a million of these so every time I would like come home I'd look at it and just see my dad with hair. Hey you know it's time for us to go out again with your wife and your parents, we gotta do that again. We're actually gonna have a podcast where we're gonna go have dinner. Yeah. Mic it up. And just put a 90 minute conversation on there. It's impossible because no one would believe it's not scripted. Right [CROSSTALK] There's no way your parents talked like that. Uh-huh. I like that. The next thing that I want to talk about is IFTTT.com. I-F-T-T-T.com. Right, it's my favorite site on the internet in the last twenty four hours. I don't know if you're gonna use it. You're writing it down like you're gonna go visit it later. ITT. Okay. So, it's brilliant. It's basically a logic web site right? Okay. That allows you to plug in certain things and have the have the service do things for you. So if you have like a Tumblr blog. Mm-hm. Or if you have some sort of, you know, idea in your head that you want to like, cook up. You can use this site as a tool to do it. And I know everyone who's listening who's heard of IFTTT for all these years, I'm very late to this party I know, but it's amazing because you say alright if I tweet something. Right. I want you know Tumblr to grab my tweet and post it. Or you're saying, or I've instagrammed something, I want Google maps to, you know, put a pin where I did something. How much, how important is it? It's not. Wait. It's just a very useful tool. No, no, no I understand that. I'm asking you a serious question. How important is it from the perspective of someone like you, you've got a show or someone who's in a brand business, right? And to be, to have a, a somewhat unique voice, depending on the social platform. In other words. You have to, yeah. Right? So Even if you don't want to, I'm learning very quickly. Right? And difficultly at that. So, so the idea that, like, I would tweet something without a little commentary or just it, it doesn't work on every platform, right? Right, yeah. So this doesn't necessarily address that issue this is just like having No, that's something like, that's something like HootSuite would help you out with, you know, like allows you to manage multiple social networks at once. Or it might be something where if you get an assistant, by the way, today is Assistant's Day. What use to be called Secretary's Day. Hey, when did, when did everyday start becoming a day? I'm just telling you right now. That I happened to notice it, because I was reading about it and I jotted off a note to my girlfriend saying oh, it's Secretary's day, it's now called Assistant's day, you better get your assistant something. It's, is that really a thing. Yes, I'm telling you that, if I were- I don't understand why every day has to be something. Last week was like siblings day, [LAUGH] I've never even heard of that, why is it siblings day all of the sudden. I'm telling you though. If you have an assistant, which we don't, but if you did have have an assistant, it would be nice to say instead of book my flights you know, to say oh, I got you a box of chocolates. Because I have to. Because it's the rule now. But what about a reminder to be, just to do something nice for that person? But what about, what about just being you know, polite every day? But I wouldn't, I dunno it's a nice thing, though. It, I guess, and it, it's all comes from a good place, but after awhile it's a little ridiculous. I know. Like today's taco, chocolate taco day. It is? And you're like what? What does that mean? And who decides all these days? I think these are Hallmark holidays. Yeah? Right? No one's buying a chocolate taco gift card. Do you know what I'm gonna do? It's gonna be podcast host day. And next time I will come and bring you the appropriate gift. [LAUGH] That is the one quasi profession that will never be honored with it's own holiday. [LAUGH] I think I will, in my May appearance, will make sure of it. All right. All right? See you know when you're coming on next. So ifttt.com. Check it out. I wrote it down. If you use multiple sort of you know web services, it's amazing. Cuz you can, it's open, it's like kinda open, you can create. They call them recipes right? Hm. So there was one really cool one where if you have any RSS feed. Like there's RSS feeds that, that tell you what new movies are coming out. Right. You can use IFTTT to sniff out that RSS feed and then populate new movie releases in your Google calendar. Hm. Just simple, trivial crap like that. That's kind of cool. Just make the internet better, a better sort of tool. Well I just want to point something out about technology. Can you see the papers in front of me, class? What is that? See these? This is new, this is paper. I've got a question for you. Yeah. I know we, we don't, we don't yet have the ability to zoom in. But. On actual stuff, but one day we will. Jill has, why are you printing everything in color? Oh, I don't know. I just forgot to, you know. That, you, I mean. You know what Monday was, it was Earth Day. I know that. I do and I've already signed up for the great East End Cleanup. So I'll be getting my bags together out in South Hampton. And you're only printing on one side of the page double spaced. Okay, wait a second, hold on. You hate this planet? This is my television. No, I don't. [LAUGH] This is a television Script. And so you cant do two page [CROSSTALK] television script it has to be double. [LAUGH] Okay anyway this one was in black. Great. And then the Gmail banner on top is in color. Oh my God I cant believe how much anyway. Yeah I'm giving it to you bad today. Yeah but I, I like it. Okay one more [LAUGH] yeah I can do 5 more stories. Alright IFTT.com. It's cool, you'll check it out and then you'll email me and be like, I can't use this. Alright. No, I'm going to make you do it for me. I know you will, alright, yesterday the NYPD decided to start a campaign on Twitter. Oh, dear. And they called out for twitter users to post photos with officers using the officers using the hashtag #mynypd. Well, guess what happens when the police department tries to do something with Twitter. Well guess what, Twitter is made up of nothing but Occupy Wall Street people. I love it. And people who wanna make a difference. Guess what this hash tag turned into? Oh. Nothing but police, well here's. So this was the one that came from- You know what? That dude looks like he's foreign, that's number one so. Oh, okay. No New Yorker would be wearing an NYPD hat. That's true. It's very true. No way. NY, at NYPD news Tweeted this out yesterday. And then. Nothing but police brutality photos. I like that spray gun one. There you go. Wow! Right. Police brutality photos populated the hashtag and. That is called your ultimate backfire. Yeah. [LAUGH] What the hell were they thinking? I don't know. What did you think was gonna happen? Your at the Internet hates Police [CROSSTALK] that hates authority. But let me ask you a question, why would anyone at the NYPD think that social media is a good thing for them? Exactly. What? What? What'd you? What's the point? We want you to like us. Right exactly, like wha, wha- I like them if I'm being robbed. Believe me, you want them. Sure, yeah I'm not saying we should not have police. No, we like them. But, they're just never gonna get that positive sphere. Forget it. Especially through social media. Mh-hm. Which is a demographic that historically does not like authority. Anarchists even. Basically. So it's just like, what are you thinking? Does NYPD need like a better PR person or something, do they even need a PR person? I don't think they, well they probably do when bad stuff happens. I will point out that a friend of mine was a captain in the NYPD and one of the most fun things that I ever did was to go through the park in a police car just riding shotgun with her. In a park. In, in like when it's closed. Oh okay. Turn the siren on she's like we've got to get across town, let's go through the park. Am like it's closed, she goes, not for me [SOUND] [LAUGH] Did you just like crash it through the barrier? Did she do that? It was just a high. Did she like, every time I, I think of like a cop car going through the park I, I, I, envision it like getting air. I don't think it got air. Somehow. No? Like going through the grass too? She it was fun. I'm tell you something. I would be dangerous. Like Die Hard 3. Or eight. When he drives through the Did you ever see Die Hard 3? No. With Samuel Jackson, that's like the best one. Really? One and three are the best. I saw one. All right, so that's the that's the bulk of the stories I got today I wanna reach those people. I love it. We've got two listener emails [CROSSTALK] that I screened out for you. Okay. You want to start with those? Yeah. Or do you wanna start with your thing? We'll start with email. All right first things first, this is Jake. Jake says, hey 404 crew. My wife and I file our taxes as marri, as married. Mm-hm. Filing separately because she's on an income based repayment plan for her federal student loans. Great. With undergrad plus law school this is not a small amount of money and her payments are based on AGI. Already. [CROSSTALK] Adjust the gross income. I don't understand what the hell is going on. I'm gonna translate it. So there [INAUDIBLE], so there are certain loans, that you can go to, you have federal loans, you can go to loanconsolidation.gov and you can consolidate your loans. And one of the things that you can do, if you're not making a lot of money, they'll give you a plan that's based on income. So it's like you pay 10% of your income, I mean you're not gonna pay this loan off anytime quickly, but it gives you breathing room. Right. But it's very important not to merge your financial life with someone who is making a lot of money cuz, because you'll lose it. So, it's based on the adjusted gross income, the bottom right-hand corner of your tax return. Okay. Okay. So I, but his question is, do we file separately? Yeah. Probably. Meaning neither of us deduct our student loan interest. Well, she's not gonna, I don't think she'll be able to. I'm not sure that she will. That first of all you haven't filed yet? So I guess you're on extension. Yeah, I, you know, this [CROSSTALK] came in like a couple weeks ago so. Alright, well chances are if you're on extension what I would do is ac, this is a good reason to go on extension, is to wait until the smoke clears. Go to a CPA and say, is the value of our deductions worth more than having a change in this income base repayment. Okay. It's a simple calculation. A, a CPA will be able to do it but a CPA in the height of tax season would not wanna do it. Right. So, it's like a big project. So yeah so, you know, it's it probably wouldn't be that much but even if you could pay someone, you know just say, you know what, could you help me with this. And that's, that's the way to do it. Alright. So there's that and then he follows up with something kinda interesting. Because that one wasn't to you. Well, no. I was. I mean, he, I guess he [LAUGH] the more, it wasn't, philosophical sort of question. Okay, alright. He goes I guess what I'm really trying to ask is. Why does being married and filing separately suck so much? And he says, is the government trying to promote a traditional family structure, or is there some actual financial reasoning behind the madness? Well, here's the thing. Married filing separately has a lot of implications. You usually find people doing it when it is the last year of their marriage, and they're getting divorced. Yeah. That's when I've noticed it the most. And I think it's out of like spite. I don't wanna sign your tax return. Right. Generally speaking, married filing jointly is a much, unless this is a special circumstance, is a better way to file because you don't lose certain aspects of deductibility. That said, we have the most crazy tax code in the universe where, for some reason, when you are married and you file jointly there are certain benefits that single people don't have. So I've always felt like, why should two single people who live together not have the benefits of, of the it, it shouldn't just be every single person files a separate tax return. Okay. And, you know, if you're married, it's just those separate returns divided by two. Or you know what I mean? Yeah. Like it's not that big a deal. So it's an arcane system and they don't like filing separately, because I think it encourages it, it might encourage people to do a little hokey pokey on their returns. Gotcha. That, that's the official, hokey pokey. No, no, that makes sense. All right. That's a good answer. And then Joe from Gainesville writes in, he wants to know about this guy, Ramit Sethi. Yes. You ever heard of him? Yes. I've interviewed him. Have you? Yep. Well his website Ramit. Ramit, his website is I don't like the name of his website. iwillteachyoutoberich.com. I already like, don't like that. I know, he's a young guy. It seems useful. Yap. I wanna know Jill, Jill's opinion of this guy, and his book, and whether or not she gives it her stamp of approval. So he's a smart guy. And some of his advice is good like most people who are trying to cash in on a certain demo. He is a young guy who says I know how to speak to young people. Right. I actually find it kind of interesting because he's very successful on the speaking circuit. And he's, you know he's gotten, he's gained some success. And I just don't think that young people need young people to tell them about everything. It's like saying I only want to go to a doctor who is 28 years old. Right. That's just sort of weird to me. I think that people just wanna connect to, to you. So I don't, I think he's generally a decent guy. Buy do you think - I think that, I think that he is naive. Yeah. Yeah. Because of perhaps, he hasn't lived a lot. Sure. and, you know, I have this problem with a lot of people who write books. And by the way, I hope to write a book some day and pump it out like everyone else. Of course. Yeah. And be like, yeah, buy my book. But a lot of the people who write books and give financial advice have never given financial advice for a living. So what I find is there is a disconnect before they say, you know these people who are like, it's black and white. It's not black and white. Life is not black and white and when you have a client who's sitting in front of you and crying, you don't sit there and say well you really screwed it up and this is the way it should be. You say, I gotta do the best I can in this situation. Right. And I find that, some of the people who have never really done it for a living, either financial journalists or people who are self anointed experts. They're a little judgmental. Mm-hm. Finger pointy. You know like my Susie thing? Dave Ramsey thing. Yeah. And I think it might be, like they make people feel bad about, things, sometimes you put yourself in a bad position, I get that, but sometimes bad stuff happens. Right and they make you feel guilty for that. And they don't and they make you feel bad about it, so I'm not into that. So, he's okay. Of the pantheon of idiots out there doing stuff. He's a decent idiot. Okay. So he's like the, the king of the losers is what you're saying. I wouldn't say the king of the losers but he's a decent guy and if you can relate to his stuff. Yeah. Then, you know, that's cool. So do you think? I'm not going to steer you wrong. So would you recommend reading his book? I would recommend, you remember my friend Jack Otter? Yeah. I like Jack's book better. He's awesome. I had lunch with him yesterday. Oh cool. You should, his book is better. His book is called Worth It Not Worth It. Okay. Pull that one up RL, you'll like that. And if you, his area is. Mr. Jack Ada. I like his book because A, he's smart B, he researches stuff, and C, he had three people who were like me, financial planners, read through it and make sure. That everything was right. That's good. And so it's well, it, he's a great writer, and it's an easy book, and it's a great graduation gift. I think so. All right, well there you have it Joe. How about that. Why don't you check out, Worth It Not Worth It. Check out Jack's book. Officially endorsed and read through by Jill Schlesinger. Jill Schlesinger, exactly. [CROSSTALK] I found something cool to share with my 404 friends. All right, what. I'm gonna talk about it on TV tomorrow, but I'm gonna do it with you live here, today. Me? Very nice. You know we always get tons of questions about credit scores. Sure, yeah. Right, so the FICO score is the most famous one. It, it ranges from 300 to 850. But 300, it's like the SATs. Like no one gets a 300. Yeah. But it's. 300's, terrible. It's impossible. Right. He's, he declared bankruptcy like 25 times. All you've done is score money, yeah. So this score is really important, right, because it determines, the higher the score, the better credit risk you are, the lower the interest rate, right? Right, gotcha. So, what's been hard about this is that people know they need a good credit score, they have screwed up credit and they don't know how to fix it and they get lost in the, in, in this process. Okay. So first of all, here's the three most important factors that determine your credit score. Number one is your payment history. You pay stuff on time. You pay a lot of bills on time. Most of your bills on time. How late are they? Is it on time or, or how much of the balance? both. Okay. As a matter of fact. Good question. Yeah. Total debt outstanding. Maybe you got $5,000 available to you. Are you at $5,000? You've maxed out your card? Or are you at $1,000? How many inquiries are made? So, there's something called a soft inquiry, which is like you checking your own credit report. That doesn't count against you. A hard inquiry is like I'm gonna buy a car, I need a loan, a mortgage. That does count against you. As does the length of your credit history, and when you put it all together, it's funny. Like, you need a good mix of credit. You don't need 15 credit cards, but it's good to have some credit cards and some installment loans and it kinda gives you the score. Mm-hm. Alright. So now, let's say that you blew it. And you know what, people make mistakes again. Right? It happens, sure. So what do you need to do? The first thing that will actually help you improve your credit score almost immediately, is to pay your bills on time. Just start doing that. Just do it. It's crazy. It's like the weirdest thing, like amazing to me. Well, doesn't it not, when you say on time. I don't wanna give people the wrong impression but from personal experience and through the experience of like other people, it seems that, that is like this gray kinda area. Well it, okay, when I say on time the most important thing that you can do is, is. Let's say you've got a big credit card balance and- Right okay I owe $5000. You owe five grand and you're not gonna make the, the Full. You're not paying $5000 off. Right. The minimum balance let's say is a hundred bucks. Yeah. You should set up an automatic payment two days before, that thing is due. Yeah. Two days before. So it says say, March 15th on your bill. Right. On March 13th you want it out of your account. Sure. And do it for 150 bucks. Right. A little bit more than the minimum. And then of course you want to do as much as you can, but you want to at least do that much automatically, so it just keeps you ahead the game in terms of your credit score. Gotcha. Okay so So you gotta, so you have to pay your bills on time, keep an eye on how much money you are actually pulling down. Mm-hm. The top credit scores, they only use 7% of their available credit. Okay. Now for everyone else, just so you know, 30% or less is fine. You want to be very careful with new credit cards. New credit cards, it'll **** you. You're sitting there in Bloomingdales with your wife and they say oh, Stacy, if you open up a Bloomingdale account we'll give you and extra 15% discount. And in that moment, what do you do? Open the account! Yeah, sure, why not? Every time you open up a new account, it will hurt your credit score. So, especially if you're going to either go out and buy a car, or, a house, you know, you're getting, no, mortgage, be very careful about opening up new accounts. And, by and large Wait around for the sale because you don't need to open that new account. I feel like it's, it's kind of crazy that, I, I, maybe I just don't understand the logic why that would hurt your credit score. Well. Like if you open another credit card and you pay that. Right, why should it matter? Why should it matter? Every time, don't forget, every time there's a new inquiry. Yeah. That hurts your score. It won't kill it. And that's a hard inquiry. That's a hard inquiry. Once you've had that extra available credit. Right. Right, that changes your score a little bit. Now, the thing that's also weird about it and this is why it's screwed up, the credit industry. Conversely, you pay off your Bloomingdales credit, and you say, I don't want this card anymore, don't close the account. Right, right, right, you see that a lot. So don't close the account. The last thing I have to say I've done a little bit of research on this. Do not hire a firm to repair your credit. Yeah, okay. It is a ripoff. It's like. It is a ripoff. So why are they legal? Well, I mean anyone can sell you anything. I mean. That's, that's what I'm saying. They're not saying it right. It, it seems like and obviously before the, you know, economic meltdown. It seemed like that was just like, the case all the time. But it seems like there are so many things out there, that are specifically designed to F you. I know. And this one is really specific one, and it works. Yeah. Because what happens is, a friend of mine at CBS Radio calls me on the fly, and he says, I'm in serious hock up into my eyeballs. Yeah. You gotta help me out. He goes, I'm about to hire this company, and I said, what company? He tells me the company is, I said, wait a second. You've got, and this was serious, like, dude had like 50 g's in credit card debt, okay, and I said, have you gone to the credit card companies. And, asked for them to reduce your interest rate. Right. He says no, I can do this? Yes you can. Well that to me there's like a grey area there. You can kind of like. Yes. You can negotiate. Yeah. So, he calls me back and he says they dropped all the, the interest. I mean, it, it really just happened because he lost his, his wife lost her job. Mm-hm. Right? So they got behind on stuff, now she's got a job, now they can pay again but they need a little breathing room. Right, right. So you're gonna go hire some cracker firm to go do the exact same thing you can do yourself. RIght. So don't hire these folks. So I found, so I know these guys over at a website called credit.com. Okay. Ariel? Easy enough. Mm-hm. Get ready for this one. I like these guys. so, credit. These guys at the bottom here? That's the guys you like? No. They're the. No, not those guys. But All right, so this is a, this is a site where they are, they make money by, from advertisers. Okay. Okay, but what is kinda cool about it, is they've got a new tool that you can use. Where you can get your credit score. And you see that thing? It says a personalized action plan to optimize it? Yeah. I went through it with them yesterday cuz I knew I was coming on the show and I wanted to like work through it. And it's kind of interesting because what it does is it kinda, it goes through and it says, here you are, Jeff and Stacy. Here's what your score is. Here is what's going on in your life. Here are the three things you, you need to do to improve your credit. Gotcha. And it's finite. It doesn't give you 25,000 things to do. So I like it because, it, there was a lot of clarity. The other thing that's interesting is. For people that have a lot of debt, that if you go in there. They, so, so here's how they make money, right? They have advertisers or credit card companies right? And par says, here's all the credit card companies that would give cheaper rates than yours, then the one you have. Click on it, and if you click on it, open an account they get paid, right? Of course. Well, I don't really care about that, cuz in my mind, like if it's cheaper, it's cheaper. Right. So it not only gives you an action plan, it also gives you the ability to maybe consider, doing something different to reduce your interest rate or to change the, the time it takes to pay it off. I think these are kind of good tools. This is tough stuff. I know it sounds kind of wonky and annoying but these credit scores dominate things in your life for a long time. Yeah. You bored with me? No. I, it's just that. I feel like you're getting mad or something. I'm not getting mad. I just, like it pisses me off that the, like a guide like credit.com. Which, you, you're endorsing it pretty, you know, heavily. [CROSSTALK] Yeah, I'm just saying, that's the deal. I just don't think it's fair that people get bombarded with this, like money mutual freaking sites where like- Yeah. If you need it, like, they're like, aw, you need 1000 bucks? We'll, we'll give you 1000 bucks. I know. And then you'll pay for that $1000- Forever. forever. And I just I don't understand. I, you know, I want. We want them to use credit responsibly. I want people to not live a life where they say I'm only gonna use my debit card. But then you actually, when you need credit, and you can't get it. Yeah. That sucks. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So you get free credit reports at annualcreditreport.com, once a year. If you've got serious credit issues. Mm-hm. You might want to go and use this tool. It's not the be all end all. Right. But you know there aren't that many tools out there to get you on the road to paying it down, and I'm not so great at that. But I'm just saying that in, in my mind, we want useful information that's gonna help people avoid getting deeper into debt. For sure. Get, get onto the right path, you know, get onto the right track. Okay. Alright, so, well, there's a Jersey guy started the site. Relax. He did? Yeah. He did. That doesn't make it any better. Yeah, right. I'm just saying. [LAUGH] And that's what I got for you on that. Alright, cool. Now, two other things and I'll shut up. Apple earnings after the close. Facebook earnings after the close. Okay. Are you? Now, I've. I'm not familiar with their earnings report. So, let me just say one thing. I'm putting my glasses on to read this to you. Yeah. Because wrote this down questions for you. Sure, okay. Alright. Let me just. What happened to Apple releasing new products? They've kind of stopped doing that. Right. Well, that's like one of the things they get criticized for a lot. What happened? I don't know. I think a lot of it has to do with maybe the stagnancy in the market for some of their stuff. I-I feel like you know, June's right around the corner and they'll announce new, new computers. Like actual laptops and stuff like that but you know. Amazon kind of beat them to the punch with doing a new, you know, TV thing. Right. I still think there will be a traditional TV set that they do sell. But, yeah. They haven't really released a lot of stuff lately. They do. They're. They're a little stagnant. And then it comes back to the iPhone. You see that? You see that? But they do that. They do that once a year. They do it every fall. September. Yeah. Supposedly. Yeah. He gave a big speech. I'm just gonna get on my high horse here. Get on there. I want him to, look, first of all, I want him to be a little bit more out, cuz he is a gay guy, and he's the- Tim Cook? Highest-ranking, yeah, he's the highest-ranking- I didn't know. Yeah, the highest-ranking gay guy in a, of a publicly-traded company. Like, the biggest company, right? Okay. So, I mean, he's sort of out and everyone knew it, but he's not like, out and proud. You know what I mean? I guess, it's sort of like Ellen Page, like I feel like everyone kind of got the vibe. Right. You know? But it would be great, anyway, so he's out now, whatever. Anyway, so I, I wanted to do well because I want my gay brother to do well. That said. He's said that he was going to get. He's doing well. He's doing well. You don't have to worry about Tim Cook, like, not making payments. He's doing, he's doing well. I would like Apple to give me my big fat new screen in September or October so Ariel and I can get- There's rumors our phones There's rumors Ariel. Our phone is coming. There's rumors though. Can't wait. Why? What's with you and big screen for? You want a He wants a new one. I just want this fixed. Mine, mine is running super slow now. Yeah. Which one do you have? I have a five. You have a. I have a four. Yeah. You're a, a cave woman. I know it. Wait. You have a, a five and it's slow? Yeah, yeah it keeps lagging on me. Really? And it's crashed a couple times now. Alright let me tell you another question I have for you. You know this woman they hired from Burberry? No. Okay this is like the big question to me. Angela Ahrendts, I think that's how you pronounce it, A-H-R-E-N-D-T-S. Okay. She was the CEO of Burberry. She completely made this company over. She was supposed to be Apple's retail chief. They make this big announcement last fall. Where the hell is she? What happened? Maybe there's, like a, you know? She didn't pass the physical. Oh my God. You know? Like, when, when they sign a new player. The drug test. The drug test. The drug test. [CROSSTALK] Failed the drug test. Or maybe she has to sit out sometime, like, a non compete or something. But, like, how Burberry competes with Apple, I'm not sure. I mean, look at this. I pulled up the first return on on her. Yeah. She's pretty right? Pretty, pretty woman. Yet to announce a date she's leaving Burberry. But that's crazy. I don't know. Alright, so we'll see about that. Maybe she's sticking around to collect like a bonus. Oh look, it says she might collect $8 million pounds in June. Maybe I would hang around for that. $8 million pounds. 8 million pounds. I would stick around for what is that, like 12 million bucks? I'd stick around for that. Oh yeah. Alright I'd take that. Alright, let's get her off the. Okay, last iPad. Yeah, so I- Flat [UNKNOWN] Gross. Flat. That makes sense to me. Because? Because in my opinion the four. The fourth generation iPad compared to the iPad air was not barely a horsepower increase. Hm. The biggest thing was the form factor. It, it's a little more narrow and obviously Air, it's one pound. If you've, if you hold one you're sort of like, I don't even understand how this is a real device. Right. If feel, it feels like science fictiony. That's cool. It's cool. But it makes sense to me that like if I own a four or even a three I guess the three to the Air is a big jump. But four to the Air is not a big, it's not significant. I'm just smiling cuz you know which iPad I have, because remember when, Wilson- Which one did you have, Two? Remember when Wilson reprogrammed it, it was my father-in-law's, and after he died, I'm like, Jackie, I'm taking your dad's iPad. [LAUGH] Screwed up. It's a number, one! Wow. It's heavy. It, it's heavy you can't be hanging around with an iPad One, I mean, come on. That's, a little antiquated. It is, right. I mean, it, it's I'm sort of antiquated right now, I guess. I've got paper. It can't run anything! I don't need it to run [UNKNOWN] I just need to write, read a book. Alright But it's a little even heavy for that because when you're falling asleep. [SOUND] What are you doing? Get a Kindle. Do I even know this? Get a Kindle. I'm gonna do that. Alright Get a Kindle, they're basically free. Okay Last question Facebook. So, what are you thinking about Facebook these days? Because here's, here's from an investor perspective. Stock, in the last year, I don't know if you remember this, was actually trading in the low 20s. Yeah. It's trading at like 62 now. Yeah, it's up. It got as high as 72 but this is a company that, is it, is it truly going to be able to continue to grow- Yeah. At this massive pace. I don't know. Or will it just have to buy the What's Apps of the next 20 years to deliver those growth projections? We talk about that a lot on the show. About how they do a lot of preventative acquiring. Mh-hm. And they got WhatsApp because they saw the writing on the wall. I don't think the future of Facebook is people logging into their website. The future is mobile and the future is their extracurricular endeavors and how they all are able to seamlessly integrate that into this like Facebook ecosystem. Right. Which is kind of what Google's been able to do what Amazon is doing, what Apple has done. Like, that's what it is, it's more than just like a product, it's a lifestyle sort of thing. Right. So they have to, they have to get over the hump. I don't, it's, I think, like I don't know a lot about the stock market, clearly. But Facebook to me is one of those very precarious companies that I just don't know what they hell's gonna happen with them. They bought this Oculus Rift company. Right. They bought WhatsApp, they seemed to spending billions of dollars. Like they would flip change into a fountain. I think it would happen was the board sits down and says to Zuckerberg, you know, stocks up a gazillion percent in the last year. If we use stock to buy some of these companies. It's like playing with a house. It's money right? I get that. So that's the only way I can sort of rationalize the whole thing. Yes. I don't know how all these little seemingly unrelatable parts fit together in their whole business plan. Yeah. And Mark Zuckerberg is not a stupid dude. He's got the keys to the house and he knows what's up. I just don't know how he's going to do it. He's way smarter than anyone I know. So I, you gotta. Present company excluded. Right of course. But you have to, right, I mean, like, no one goes to facebook.com. They either use it on their phone. Right. Or they're using it through an API or they're using it some other way. I know their mobile ad revenue apparently is really good. Mm-hm. But, beyond that, I don't have a black and white answer. Do you feel, let me give you my last, last question. It's tough you know like a lot of strange things, even the whole Apple thing is a little unsettling. It feels like, well, you know, in the last, from the end of February to the end of March or until just like the last five or six days ago the technology sector was really falling, and the stock price was. And then has recouped a bunch of that since then. And, and I always get suspect when people say, well, you know, you got to own it. You know, like you have to because that's the stuff that's going up. And then at some point, it stops going up and then everyone says, oh my God, I can't own it. Yeah. So you know it's been a long time since the stock market had a full on correction, for real, like more than 10% down. So I'm glad that things are going well. I'd like the economy to improve. I also feel the same way, I'm like a little defensive right now. Yeah. That's my words of wisdom. Before I go to my big fancy lunch, with LinkedIn. Oh yeah? Yeah. You are quickly, I still don't know what Linkedin is. Hm. Like I clearly know what it is, and I'm sure that's like horror to your ears. No, I, I, I just, I think it's funny that I'm like sort of. Doing stuff for them. You're like the. You're like a face for LinkedIn. I am. I'm a, one of the one of those influencers. I don't know what the hell I'm doing with that website. Every day I get a familiar face in my inbox that says oh, Jared Smith wants to connect with you. I know Jarrett Smith. I went to college with Jarrett Smith. Right. He was an okay dude. Connect. Connect, what did I just do? You didn't really do anything. I think that like most, first of all, 70% of this website, the revenue is derived from search, right? The the, like HR department is paying them to do more sophisticated kind of search. So, really if you talk to any major employer, they are so hooked into LinkedIn, it's weird. Like. They, no one is sending a resume anymore. I always felt that it was like cheating. Yeah, it is. I always felt that LinkedIn, and I, I had a job before, LinkedIn was a thing. Right, right. But I always felt like whenever I heard about it, like oh, man. I said the same thing. But you know what? It's like sort of a job application, cheating your way [LAUGH] [CROSSTALK] into bed with somebody. Exactly. Well I felt the same way. Except then I started talking to some of the people who are using it from the other side, the employer side. And I was like oh, these dudes are really using this. Like. Don't you think it, it's unfair. Like I guess maybe You mean that they. There's no such thing like real life is unfair and job searching is unfair. Are you say, suggesting. And you have to know people. But are you suggesting that it's unfair because it discriminates against someone who is either poor or doesn't have access to technology. Yes, that's what I'm saying. Is that what you're saying. Right. Yeah you're right. Right, and like. But that's life, unfortunately. That is life and I get it and you know. That sucks. I get you, I get your point. Like it's inherently, It's, it's like a class [CROSSTALK] exclusionary. Yeah. Yeah. So, that to me is cheating. Where like everyone has access to like the ability to make a resume pretty much. Yeah. But you know even, I guess every, anyone can go to a library and make a LinkedIn. right, [CROSSTALK] and, and I think that what's really interesting is that what they're trying to do, more and more at LinkedIn is to go and reach out to younger people. Cuz it was really like an old fart social website in a weird way right? For sure It's like yeah, a 68 year old guy just got kicked out of his job and now he can like at least go to a place where like, his wife's going of Facebook and he can go there. Baby boomers who are like unemployed later in life and that's where it [CROSSTALK], yeah And they've really started to do some different things with it. Anyway. It's cool and I'm getting a free lunch from them so what do I care. Hey that's all I. Are you giving me a free lunch? No! You didn't offer me a free lunch, I got a free lunch offer from LinkedIn. You see what I'm saying. The budget for the 404 show is not what we thought it would be. I know because you know what? Because we had to pay for this studio. Again and again and again. It's a capital expense, they, they're, it's got nothing to do with you budget. I'm just starting to learn all about that crap, I promise to. And I don't want to get into it. I know. Alright, listen. Number one, I love you. Yeah. How did I do on my audition? You did great. I, I don't know if you're gonna get a call back. But I can't promise anything. Why don't you, could you You gotta talk to REL. He's the brains behind the operation. REL pan over to the couch and see if I need to go over there. [LAUGH] You can't. You can't do that yet. Even though this camera has that remote ability. Yeah, I thought that you have Yeah but do you see anyone operating that remote. Thank you Ariel. Oh man, there it is. Ghost town Wow. I"m here. Hi honey Wow. Hi here we are. This is a darn beautiful studio. I'd like to say that I broke this studio in for you way back when. Five years ago. You did. Oh my god that's right, cause People don't know this used to be the Money Watch studio. Yep, exactly. Yeah. When I used to work there. So all right. I guess we gotta stop like, we gotta start like explaining ourselves a little bit with what's happening with the studio just because we keep alluding to it. Over the summer nothing's happening to it but it's moving locations within the office. Oh! Is that right? Yeah, so it's not a big deal. There's a huge renovation going on. So full transparency. CBS interactive is renovating our entire office floor. Like right now, it's half empty because a lot of people have been shuffled around in the city. Yep. We got to stay here because we have a show to do every day. In July, sometime in July, the show is going to move, I To Jeff's bedroom. [LAUGH] Right, to my closet. So it's gonna move to where we shoot first look videos and what we're gonna do, and again, this is three months away. What we're gonna do in there is we'll have like a different sort of set up, Ariel, Justin, we'll all still be there, you're still gonna get audio and video. It's just gonna be a different looking thing, they're taking this studio and just moving it 200 feet. North or west, wherever the hell it is. Okay. And, and, this, our studio's going to be like the certerpiece of the new office. Like when you walk into the office, you're gonna be like, oh man. [CROSSTALK] Of course it is. It's going to be like the Today Show, right? Yes. We're gonna have, like, a glass, like, wall and crap. [CROSSTALK] Nice. You get Al Roker down here, and do some meet and greet. Maybe. That's NBC. I dunno about that, g/ Jill, but. [CROSSTALK] Whatever. Wrong network. Alright. I'm excited about this. [CROSSTALK] But yeah, that's what's happening. Okay. Cuz we sort of said, you know, not for long, and I got one through So I was, like, No. Tell us your studio's getting shit-canned again. I'm, like, No. It's not. It's just it's like. It's exciting. The studio's actually gonna be bigger. And it's like when they, move those houses. You ever see that. Right. Like, when they move an entire house. And you see it, like, going. I wish is was that easy. You see that wide load. Right. Right. Yeah. No. And it goes down the street. It's not like that. That's pretty wild. This whole things, like, modular. Well, it's about to be modular. Yeah. So, they're going to chop it up. It's all going to be wired better. It's gonna look. Alright. We're going to put some lights in the shelves and stuff. So, it's going to be nice. Do you want me to is there anything that I could bring in, a knickknack from my childhood? I would love for you to. See if I can get the Barbie van. I'm not sure we need the Barbie van in the set. Why? Because you might need some of your. All right, I'll bring something. Something. I just keep knocking my shirt here geez. I'm sorry. That's, this table has that. How about sand this thing? Jesus. Well, you know. Life is imperfect. All right. I've got to go. I love you. All right. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Follow Jill on twitter. at jillonmoney. Go to jillonmoney.com to listen to the radio show and all that. Absolutely. Junk. Yeah. That's not junk. Send us an email at the404@cnet.com. Follow us, myself, and everyone else on Twitter, Reddit, Instagram and all that good stuff. Oh. One more plug. If you've got real financial questions if you feel like a more a lengthier one than the tweet askJill@Jillonmoney.com. And you really do answer every one. Every single one. It's scary. You're, you're the best. And these and I get a lot of people on the radio show. And you have tell Jill the 404 sent you there. Yeah just say, just say Ann Jill then you know its 404. Then you know its Alright. Alright we're back here tomorrow ith a brand new show until then I'm Jeff Backalar I'm Ann Jill. I'm Mario Nunez This has been the 404 show High Tech, Low Brow. See you guys tomorrow, bye-bye. [MUSIC]