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How much money do I really need to live? · Stuff You Should Know

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  Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
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  Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff You Should Know
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  Speaker 1: stuff Works dot Com, available now exclusively on iTunes. Hey,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. Chuck is cracking up? What
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: is going on? Chuck? I just can't believe I said
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: that episode growth. Yeah, we can't repeat what Chuck just said.
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  Speaker 1: He's a dirty, dirty boy. They're all gonna wonder. His
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: name is Charles W. Bryant. My name is Joshua M. Clark.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: I go by Josh. He goes by Chuck or compass
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  Speaker 1: head and chuckers Um, and this is stuff you should know.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Thanks for tuning into our podcast. Are you on uppers? Yeah? Okay,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: I did a bunch of amial nitrate. Man, everything is weird.
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  Speaker 1: Good for you, Thanks so, Chuck Um. Times are tough
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  Speaker 1: right now. Indeed, as you know, they're particularly tough for me.
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  Speaker 1: I am broke all the time, right, I know that. Actually,
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  Speaker 1: we have this cool monthly Yeah you know that because
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  Speaker 1: I like to bump money off a chunk cords in
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  Speaker 1: a while. Um, we have this monthly expenses calculator on
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  Speaker 1: the side. Have you been on it? It's it's unnerving.
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  Speaker 1: It's got all this great stuff and you know, like
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  Speaker 1: how much you estimate how much you spend on gas
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  Speaker 1: a month, cable, your phone, insurance, all this, and then
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  Speaker 1: you put in at the top your your monthly gross income.
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  Speaker 1: Somehow I'm living on negative two and fifty four dollars
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  Speaker 1: a month. That's awesome. I have no idea how I'm
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  Speaker 1: still alive. But Uncle Sam has well, Uncle Sam's in
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  Speaker 1: trouble too, but they take quite a bite. Well imagine
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  Speaker 1: if I had put my net income in here, and
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  Speaker 1: I'd be in the hole like a grand every morning
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  Speaker 1: when I wake up. Um. But yeah, so, I mean,
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  Speaker 1: like I said, times of tough. We're all very very
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  Speaker 1: happy to be here at how stuff Works dot com.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: How stuff Works dot Com. We love this place. I
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: love it. Seriously. Please don't fire un exactly as we know.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Remember we met that guy Chris in our in our
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  Speaker 1: our podcast. Yeah, so no, I'm sorry. Our spoken word album.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: I just got the Crop the Kakai from our producer Jerry.
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  Speaker 1: She's like, I don't even say audiobook kid, um, but yeah,
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  Speaker 1: so so it's a little rough right now. One of
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  Speaker 1: the things I've learned is that as long as I
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  Speaker 1: have gas in the car, beer and cigarettes, I'm set.
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  Speaker 1: Because really, honestly, um, I have virtually discontinued eating. Like,
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  Speaker 1: I don't eat breakfast. I rarely ate breakfast anyway. I
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  Speaker 1: don't eat lunch um, and dinner is usually kind of small,
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  Speaker 1: that kind of thing. Uh. And it's amazing how quick
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  Speaker 1: your stomach shrinks, right. Um, you just I'm not hungry.
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  Speaker 1: I'm rarely hungry, usually by about seven, which is when
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  Speaker 1: I'll eat dinner. If I do, um, i'll be kind
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  Speaker 1: of hungry. But if I just say no, I'm not
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  Speaker 1: really hungry, it goes away. Sure, um and some coffee
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  Speaker 1: and that helps. But the problem is is there's like
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  Speaker 1: there's an arc where it's like, you know, appetitius suppressed,
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  Speaker 1: appetiti supress, and then all of a sudden, the caffeine
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  Speaker 1: just screams into your stomach and it really points out
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  Speaker 1: how empty your stomach is, so you have to know
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  Speaker 1: where the cut off point is, right. Um, but no,
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  Speaker 1: I've been writing a lot of health articles lately, and
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  Speaker 1: it turns out that there is a well known fact
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  Speaker 1: and the medical establishment this isn't crack pop fringe stuff
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  Speaker 1: that you're really unhealthy because you don't know that that
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  Speaker 1: I will probably live longer than I normally would have
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  Speaker 1: because of a calorie restricted diet, which we've talked about.
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  Speaker 1: We have, and I have found out quite happily that
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  Speaker 1: I accidentally fell uh backwards, thank you backwards, I'm like
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  Speaker 1: hung up on profanity, uh into a calorie restricted diet
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  Speaker 1: and I will live longer even smoking cigarettes. Well, good
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  Speaker 1: luck with that, my thanks. But the point is is
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  Speaker 1: I've found that you can't get by the very little money,
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  Speaker 1: and um, that just so happens to be what we're
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  Speaker 1: talking about right now. That was the longest setup in
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  Speaker 1: the history of stuff. You should know, which is good
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  Speaker 1: a new records. I wasn't knocking it. Did I get
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  Speaker 1: a medal of it? Because I would totally pawn it
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  Speaker 1: right now, Yeah, to my cigarette. So yeah, Josh, you
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  Speaker 1: can get by then I think, what's the name of
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  Speaker 1: the article? How much money do I Really Need to
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  Speaker 1: Live Written by Jane, our colleague Jane McGrath, who is
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: our fine, fine financial and money writer, and she also
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  Speaker 1: has her own podcast, Stuff you Missed in History Class
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  Speaker 1: with Candice Gibson at the Tricks Extraordinary. Actually, no, it's
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  Speaker 1: not Candice Gibson any longer. Our dear Candice got married
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  Speaker 1: Candice Keener. Candice Keener now c K So, Chuck, what
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  Speaker 1: what do we How much money do we need to live?
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  Speaker 1: I know how much I need to live, But I mean,
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  Speaker 1: as far as the government's concerned, don't they have some
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  Speaker 1: sort of estimate that I may have heard of. I
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  Speaker 1: think you're talking about out the poverty threshold. Yes, which,
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  Speaker 1: again reading this article, that's a very little money that
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  Speaker 1: the government considers the poverty line, right. I looked it
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  Speaker 1: up in two thousand nine. For for a single person,
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  Speaker 1: the government thinks you can get by in ten thousand,
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  Speaker 1: eight hundred and thirty dollars a year. Yeah, you actually
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  Speaker 1: lived below the poverty line one year? You didn't. I
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  Speaker 1: did not too long ago. Wow, Chuck. This is when
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  Speaker 1: I was in the film business and I was working
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  Speaker 1: as a p A and I made very very little money.
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  Speaker 1: But like with this article. I had very cheap apartment.
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  Speaker 1: I had l a Yeah, there's such a thing there
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  Speaker 1: was at the time. I've had a really good deal
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  Speaker 1: going and uh, you know how it works, dude. I
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  Speaker 1: didn't buy much food. I thought really cheap food. Uh,
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  Speaker 1: and I was able to do it. I was shocked
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  Speaker 1: when I got my UM statement at the end of
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  Speaker 1: the year. I was like, you gotta be kidding me.
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  Speaker 1: I lived on that and I didn't feel like I
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  Speaker 1: really missed out on that. That's crazy. Well, it's because
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  Speaker 1: you're hanging out with Matthew McConaughey the whole time. True, Yeah, Maddie.
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  Speaker 1: So that that's that's for one person, ten grand and
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  Speaker 1: thirty dollars um. That's absolute poverty, which they've been Uh,
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  Speaker 1: they've been looking at this kind of stuff since the
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  Speaker 1: nineteen sixties. Right. Well, let me say, also, a family
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  Speaker 1: of four as far as in two thousand nine supposedly
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  Speaker 1: can get by on two thousand, fifty dollars. A family
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  Speaker 1: of four. That's insane to me. But yeah, so this
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  Speaker 1: is this is uh, this all comes from the sixties.
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  Speaker 1: There's an analyst named Mali Orshansky, and he came up
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  Speaker 1: with the poverty line. Right. Basically, what he did was
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  Speaker 1: he estimated the total annual cost of a healthy diet
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  Speaker 1: in America, and then he multiplied it by three because
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  Speaker 1: he'd read in nineteen fifty five U. S. D. A
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  Speaker 1: Report that said that Americans spend about one third of
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  Speaker 1: their income on food, So that would make sense. You
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  Speaker 1: figure out how much food you need and then multiplied
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  Speaker 1: by three, and then you have the poverty line. That's
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  Speaker 1: the least amount of money you need to make. And
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  Speaker 1: the bureau adopted that. They like, this is a great job. True,
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  Speaker 1: and unfortunately they've been using it ever since with very
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  Speaker 1: little adjustment. Right, they ad just for inflation, the inflation
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  Speaker 1: of uh increases in in the price for food, that
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  Speaker 1: kind of thing. But really it's still based on that
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  Speaker 1: original formula, right, with the one third number. I think
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  Speaker 1: that's what's causing a lot of issues. Some people think
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  Speaker 1: say that one seventh of your income is what you
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  Speaker 1: actually spend on food now. And also you have to
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  Speaker 1: take into account like back in the in the fifties
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  Speaker 1: and early sixties, you didn't have to get a loaned
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  Speaker 1: by a car, right they become exponentially more expensive. You
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  Speaker 1: also didn't have cable TV. You also didn't have wireless internet.
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  Speaker 1: You also didn't have cell phones any internet for that matter.
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  Speaker 1: That is true, Thanks for that one. We have so
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  Speaker 1: many more bills today that the formula should have been
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  Speaker 1: changed years and years ago, right, but the bills. I
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  Speaker 1: think this is the crux of the matter is want
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  Speaker 1: versus need, And that's kind of the crux of the
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  Speaker 1: article is do you need wireless internet? People think they
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  Speaker 1: can't live without their cell phone, but not too long ago,
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  Speaker 1: all of us lived without a shell phone and it
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  Speaker 1: wasn't that big of a deal. Well, there's this thing
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  Speaker 1: called the relative needs. Do you remember when we talked
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  Speaker 1: about the five day weekend? We talked about relative needs
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  Speaker 1: and it was, uh, like, say your neighbor gets a
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  Speaker 1: really big TV, and all of a sudden, you need
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  Speaker 1: a TV. But you need a really big TV. Right,
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  Speaker 1: that's a relative needs. But not all relative needs are
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  Speaker 1: kind of want to grabby needs, like I need to
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  Speaker 1: beat my neighbor. They also reflect the competitiveness that we
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  Speaker 1: have in the marketplace and in the labor force. Right,
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  Speaker 1: Like if you have a cell phone and the guy
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  Speaker 1: who's up for a job next to you has only
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  Speaker 1: a landline, and has to go home or use a
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  Speaker 1: pay phone to stay connected. Who's going to really come
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  Speaker 1: out on top or you might just miss the one
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  Speaker 1: call that you need, you know. Sure, Yeah, So I
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  Speaker 1: mean there there are certain things that you can say, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: that's kind of frivolous. We did without them, but the
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  Speaker 1: fact is everybody else has them. You kind of have
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  Speaker 1: to have him to stay competitive. Like, um, I've been
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  Speaker 1: trying to find any way I can to cut down
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  Speaker 1: on a monthly expenses. In one clear way is to
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  Speaker 1: just get rid of my cable. But I'm not going
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  Speaker 1: to get rid of my cable entirely because I still
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  Speaker 1: need wireless internet because I work at home a lot,
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  Speaker 1: you know, and we we have a research based job,
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  Speaker 1: so we need the internet exactly, and and the cell phone. Like, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: you can pare it down, like I could have a
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  Speaker 1: pretty bare bones um uh cell phone plan and it
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  Speaker 1: would save a few bucks, But if you really look
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  Speaker 1: at it's like, oh, I'm saving like thirty forty bucks
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  Speaker 1: a month, which technically adds up over the course of
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  Speaker 1: a year, but really you're like, ah, that I just
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  Speaker 1: went through that in gas, you know. So it's kind
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  Speaker 1: of a frustrating balancing act, trying to pare down monthly expenses. Right, yes,
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  Speaker 1: absolutely so. So what are some of the things you
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  Speaker 1: can do their chuck if you want to really look
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: at how to live on the least amount of money. Well, Josh,
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: I was raised by my mother and father, but namely,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: my mother raised our family of five on a elementary
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: school principal salary. In the it was just your dad working,
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: just my dad. My mom quit teaching to raise the
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: kids and then went back to teaching later once I
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: was older, and she did a sterling job. By the way,
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: thank you, thanks mom. But my mom is and what
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: wasn't is a master um economist micro economist. She was
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  Speaker 1: able to She clipped coupons, which is one of the
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: things that we highly recommend. I mean, she had a
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  Speaker 1: box filed with coupons, alphae tized, it was already organized.
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  Speaker 1: We shopped at the discount to clothe the ears, like Marshall, Like,
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  Speaker 1: my mom was pretty good like that too. And she
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  Speaker 1: could never understand why I would I just refuse to
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: wear nights of the round table clothing. She's like, it
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  Speaker 1: looks exactly the same, Like, no, see that that's a
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: little flag was supposed to be the polo. It looked
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: just like the polo thing, except instead of a polo mallet,
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: the top of the mallet it was a flag. And
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, when you're eleven, every kid around
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: you sees that flag. Hero win on that flag. Well
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: try me, buddy. I Not only that, but in my family,
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  Speaker 1: we shopped at the store that had the the flaws
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: in the clothing. Oh an outlet store. Yeah, well now
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: it was an outlet store. It was called I can't
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: remember what it's called, but factory store. No liquidator, No
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: I don't, I'm out of It's basically like you'll it'll
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: be the name brand and be like, hey look at
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: those Converse shoes, but they're missing two eye holes, or
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: your your your genes are missing a zipper, that kind
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: of thing. Well, what's funny is as I've grown older,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: I've come to see the value and stuff like that.
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  Speaker 1: Absolutely like who pays full price, who pays retail? Not me?
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  Speaker 1: And that goes back to my point is growing up,
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  Speaker 1: I always felt like I was maybe missing out here
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: and there, and not that we were I mean poor
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  Speaker 1: by any means. Always felt like I had everything I needed,
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  Speaker 1: but I didn't get the members only jacket, and I
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: didn't get the parachute pants, and now it's no no.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: I think, God yeah for my mom not getting you
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: those things. And the end result is as an adult,
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  Speaker 1: I have a natural inclination toward being a little more
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  Speaker 1: frugal and watching my money in some ways. But I'm
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: also my father's son who is notorious for blowing money
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  Speaker 1: on flights of fancy, so I always I also have that,
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  Speaker 1: So it's a nice balance. That is a good balance.
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  Speaker 1: Like I won't I'll walk around behind my wife turning
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: out lights, and I'll try and recycle everything under the
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: sun and reuse it. But I'll go out and like
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: blow five hundred bucks on the guitar without even thinking,
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: and he will people I have been there with him
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: when he did. It was a great guitar. What was it? Uh, well,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: it's a nice guitar. Okay, he Chuck's afraid you're gonna
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: break into his house and take his guitar, So coupons wait.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: Let me also say that I want to give a
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: shout out to my mom, who was a very very
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: great woman at being thrifty but also making her kids
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: feel like we were rich as I've grown older, I've realized, Yeah,
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: not everybody ate turkey loaf and drank green kool aid
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: for dinner, you know what I mean. Yeah, So now
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: I'm kind of like, hats off, it's off the mom's
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: mother stays approaching. Let's just yeah, here's two more So,
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: clipping coupons is a good way, Josh buying generic. I know,
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: I go that was a great grocery store in Atlanta
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: called Kroger, and I think I don't know if they're
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: nationwide another and yeah, they're pretty big. But man, I
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: buy the Kroger brands. It's always cheaper. It's just as good.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: Especially they're delicious private stock brand, right, Chuck, do you
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: remember the generic? Like the generic brand. There's a brand
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: that was like it was a like it was a
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: white box and it would say in black block letters
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: brand Flakes and then there was a UPC code and
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: that was it. Did your see the beer? No, it
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: was great. My first this is when my brother lived
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: in Los Angeles, my first visit ever to l A.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Me and some friends from U g A went and
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: stayed with my brother. We went to the store and
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: to get some beer, and literally the first thing where
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: I went to was the six pack of white cans
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: that said beer and we loaded up. It was awful?
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: Was it bad? Could you stomach it? Did you finish it? Well?
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: Of course I was in college. I have never seen that.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: I would love. I'm going on eBay find well, it's
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: not around anymore, and somebody's got it in their garage somewhere.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: Probably yeah, some Yeah, we could probably find some Billy
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: beer on there. Oh yeah, from Billy Carter some alright,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: so check, we've got coupons, we've got generic. There's also
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: a Cooking at home is huge. Number one. If you're
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: like out and about and you're not cooking, but you're poor,
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: you're say goodbye to vegetables in your diet because you know,
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: no fast food place sells vegetables, and if they do,
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: they're no longer nutritious. They have been slathered in fat
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: and deep fried so long that you might as well
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: just eat, you know, blocks of cheese. That's it. Um.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: So yeah, you if you can cook at home. Number one,
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: it's cheaper. Number two's healthier. Um. And in the article,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: uh Jane cites a source that that says that if
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: if you bring your own lunch to work every day
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: you can, you can save about nine and sixty bucks
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: a year. Struck me as very low, because don't hear
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: you can't get lunch for less than ten bucks. I
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: let's go with ten because the mass a lot easier.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: But that comes to if you go out every day,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: which there's a lot of people who work with us
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: that do um and that's like bucks a year. That's
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: a lot of cheese. I feel guilty when I eat
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: out lunch, Yeah I do. I feel like it's a
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: complete waste of money. If I don't like bring my
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: sandwich or something and I'm forced to eat out, I'll
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: try and skip lunch. But yeah, it makes me like
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: I don't want to go home and say, you know,
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: it's been twelve dollars on lunch. Yeah, yeah, no, no,
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: I don't. I don't either. I know what you mean.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: I value a buck. I'll treat myself sometimes generally I
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: don't eat lunch. I'm a Gordon Gecko adherent. But let
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: me give you a little tip. And I know you
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: already know this. If you ever happen to be hanging
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: around the courtyard downstairs around twelve twelve thirty, you see
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: rocks in read strike up a conversation with her because
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: she has a policy of buying lunch or whoever she
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: runs into while she's out there. She bought me lunch
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: one day, she bought me lunch twice. Well, we just
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: needed time. This better alternate. Yeah, we can both just
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: be there with big dough eyes like hey Roxanne. So yeah,
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: need versus want, Josh. That's what it comes down to.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: If you're uh suffering in these tough times, I think
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: what you need to do is take a good hard
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: look at your finances, break it down, line it, out
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: it and buy item and really think about it. Do
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: I need a cable or can I get rid of
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: it for the next six or eight months? Especially with
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: the new digital transmissions apparently that opened up If it works,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: it opened up a lot more channels than than it
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: was available with just ravities, and it's a lot clearer too.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: So that's something. I went without cable a couple of
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: times in my life for extended periods, and I thought
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: I was gonna miss it, man, But after a little while,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: you you can just kind of forget. It's like not eating. Yeah,
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: I've done it a bunch of choice before, and you
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: get used to it really quickly. Right, Although we're not
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: saying that you should not eat people that's Josh's bag. Nice,
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: thanks Chuck. It's not healthy. We're not encouraging that. So yeah,
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: I think the irony is in this article we never
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: really say how much it takes. It's more like a
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: relative thing. Yeah, So, as you were saying, I think
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: it's it is time for us to take a good
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: long look at our finances. It seems like we we
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: were coming out of a phase where, you know, just
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: conspicuous consumption is a thing in the past. See somebody
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: riding around in a hummer, It's like, did you miss
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: the memo? Like, I realize you can't sell that thing
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: to anybody or give it away for free. But it
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: seems like at least the US is kind of taking
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: this new tech where we're getting a little more frugal,
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: and you know it, there's a big difference between you know,
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: being wealthy and rich and and you know, being able
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: to take care of yourself and your family. And it's
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: good that it's in I feel it. Feel good about that.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: And the other thing is is don't forget to save.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Saving is huge. It's an important thing where you are
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: not a nation of savers, and apparently it's we're becoming
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: more and more of a nation of savers, which is heartening,
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: is a good thing. Yeah. You know what I hope, dude,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: is that this whole recession blows over and that we're
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: all better for it in the end. Ultimately we will.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: But you know, like the uh, the Great Depression era
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: grandparents that everybody gripes about, it's like kind okay, yes,
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: I understand, you can use this coffee can for eighty
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: different things, and you have been. We're that generation, dude,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: we're in in the making. We're going to annoy the
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: kids that come behind us badly. Yeah. It always works. Yeah,
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: So look forward, you whipper snappers to hearing from Chuck
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: and I because we're gonna tell you all about how
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: bad it was. And opp nine. I'd like to also say,
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: if you want to learn more about, um, how much
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: money you need to live, you can go to UH.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: You can type that into how stuff works dot com
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: in our handy search bar, and there's a monthly income
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: or monthly expenses calculators and there's a bunch of really
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: great personal finance links in that article. It's a good one.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: By again by Jay McGrath. Um, so let's do the
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: blog thing, Chuck, right, Uh, speedy plug. We have a
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: blog now. We've been writing on it. We have people
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: uh posting comments and it's a lot of fun and
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: we encourage you to check it out on the right
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: out of the homepage. And also, I'm glad you said
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: that because you just gave me my new hotel pseudonym
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: what is it? Speedy Club. That's pretty good. We actually
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: had a bunch of people right in with suggestions for Yeah,
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: we need to do that for listener mills because there
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: were a lot of them that were French. Didn't you
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: notice that? No? Ye, so should we? And quickly our
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: audio spoken word record album are spoken word album called
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: The Stuff You Should Know, super Stuff Guide to the Economy.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: It's up on iTunes worth every penny we're coming to realize, um.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: And you can type in super Stuffed and the search
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: bar of your iTunes while while you're searching the iTunes
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: store and it should be the first thing that comes up.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: And if you want to buy it, great for you. Right,
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: help support Josh and Jerry and Chuck. So we begging
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: for Nichols anytime soon is it time. It's time for
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: listening rail. Okay, Josh, I just have one today. This
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: is from Patrick. Yeah. Uh. Patrick was writing in about
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: dejab wu, the deja episode. He wanted to respond because
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: we talked about biological deja vu, and he has some insight.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: He has an affliction and this is really odd. He's
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: had it since he was twelve. Now, occasionally I'll experience
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: an intense sensation of deja vu, almost like a dream.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: I remember some senior dialogue that feels incredibly familiar. It
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: sounds like normal dejab It's so far right. However, during
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: this episode, I feel dizzy, start to mumble, and I
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: usually need to brace myself against something for about twenty
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: to thirty seconds. I recover. I have a slight headache,
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: and the dizzy spells occur in clusters, so I'll have
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: five or six of these in a given day and
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: then not experience them for a month or so. However,
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: I'll just have one really intense deja vu episode that
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: will cause me to completely lose consciousness for about thirty seconds. Okay,
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: can I interject here? What is this person named Patrick? Patrick?
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: I would like to strongly urge you to go see
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: a neurologist, like, immediately, I'm not done, okay, pay attention
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: to things. Uh some other weird traits. These happen once
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: a month, almost to the day, which is interesting. After
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: the episode is over, he can't remember anything about it. Uh,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: no memories of it. He attempts to write things down
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: or describe them while they're happening, but it's just gibberish.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: Usually happens in the morning, but in all kinds of situations, standing, sitting, running, stressed,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: calm whatever. He's gone to the doctor. No one can
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: explain it, he said to E. E. G. S And
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: an M. R. I. And various theories have included seizures
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: in her ear problems, salt deficiencies, and low blood pressure. Luckily,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: it doesn't interfere too much with my daily life, aside
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: from interrupted conversation every now and then. Patrick. Long story short,
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: Patrick is the stigmata? Is he? I think? So that's
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: my theory. He's very open. I appreciate Patrick here. Doctor,
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: I hope you don't have anything really wrong with you.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, as long as you're not going bonkers or
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: you know, it's not you're not hurting yourself, that's that's cool, right,
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: so yeah, that's my professional medical opinion of course my
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: formal trainings and pediatrics. So right, he did actually ask
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: us to, uh to posit a opinion on it, but
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: we can't do that. I did no idea, I already did. Yeah,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: but that's funk. Okay, So that was that. That was Patrick.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: We appreciate you, Patrick the Stigmata and uh, if you're
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: a stigmata, you suffer from some sort of religious affliction,
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: or you just want to say hi, you can send
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: us an email to stuff podcast at how stuff works
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: Is it how stuff works dot com brought to you
• 22:42
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• 22:46
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