It's Not About The Money

Steve has repaired a handful of appliances himself, but others he won't touch without hiring a professional. Why the difference, and what is he really trying to buy? 

Whether it's purchasing parts and watching YouTube videos to do the repairs himself (a little money and a lot of time) or outsourcing to an expert (a little time and a bit more money), sometimes he's buying peace of mind, sometimes hands-on experience, and sometimes convenience. 

When you consider your clients, what are they really trying to buy with your products or services? It might be different than you think, and it's worth considering. 

  • (00:00) - Steve's dryer
  • (05:14) - A/C disaster averted
  • (09:30) - What am I actually trying to buy?
  • (15:37) - How do you decide whether to DIY or outsource?
  • (17:07) - Trying to buy a green lawn
  • (23:59) - Hiring a milkshake
 

Links: 
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Steve Nay: 

Tyler Smith: 

Creators & Guests

Host
Steve Nay
Strategic tax advisor for solopreneurs. Enrolled Agent; Owner of Daybreak Tax LLC
Host
Tyler Smith
Financial coach for working professionals

What is It's Not About The Money?

Solopreneurs and small business owners: learn about leadership, operations, entrepreneurship, productivity, taxes, client creation, marketing, bookkeeping, and more.

Steve's dryer
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[00:00:00] Steve: So, Tyler, uh, my dryer kind of went on the fritz recently.

[00:00:06] Tyler: Oh, Steve, I'm going to stop you right there.

[00:00:09] Steve: Okay.

[00:00:11] Tyler: I have, I have strong feelings about this. Not about your dryer,

[00:00:14] Steve: All right.

[00:00:15] Tyler: but I feel like you've, you've fallen victim to the appliance industrial complex.

[00:00:21] Steve: Well, like I need a dryer, so

[00:00:23] Tyler: know, I know, I

[00:00:23] Steve: know what other alternatives there are.

[00:00:25] Tyler: Uh, me too. Uh, are you familiar with Wirecutter?

[00:00:28] Steve: Oh yeah, I like them.

[00:00:30] Tyler: product recommendation arm of the New York Times.

[00:00:32] Steve: Yeah.

[00:00:34] Tyler: Anyway, a while, a few years ago, I was researching which washer and dryer to get, and I was looking to reliability, because I've heard so many bad things, right? Well, and refrigerators, basically any household appliance, like everyone kind of, I've heard a lot of, you know, they don't last long, they break

[00:00:47] Steve: can talk about my fridge too.

[00:00:49] Tyler: Okay, okay. Anyway, you know, Wirecutter, in my experience, whenever I've read them, I've been pretty impressed by like their testing. They, you know, they test a lot of

[00:00:58] Steve: thorough.

[00:00:59] Tyler: They go pretty deep and their conclusion was basically like, we've tested all these washing machines and all these dryers. And unfortunately the state of reliability in the appliance industry is just a disaster.

Like they're all going to break down after a few years. There's there's, there is no most reliable. I thought that was just sad. So anyway, I'm sorry about your dryer, but you know, uh, planned obsolescence, right? I suppose that's my conspiracy theory is they, they want, they want you to have to replace it every few years.

Anyway,

[00:01:36] Steve: Hello there, dear listener. I am Steve.

[00:01:39] Tyler: And I'm Tyler. And this is, of course, It's Not About The Money, where we discuss a wide range of topics related to creating and running small businesses.

[00:01:49] Steve: Tyler and I both run small businesses ourselves, and we are just trying to make sense of this world one podcast at a time.

[00:01:59] Tyler: So Steve, I apologize, I cut you off there about your dryer. You're about to tell us a story about how your dryer broke down.

[00:02:06] Steve: All right, all right. Well, so we have had this dryer for, I don't know, eight years, something like that.

[00:02:12] Tyler: Oh, that's a long

[00:02:12] Steve: been a while, yeah, and I have had to replace several parts already. The, the heating element went out at one point, which that's not so surprising after eight years. Uh, that that would fail.

I think I had to replace a fuse once or a, uh, like a temperature sensor or something. Anyway. Uh, but this, this time it was, it was starting to make a very high pitched squeak, which my son could hear distinctly and I could sort of hear it.

[00:02:45] Tyler: Oh, no, sure.

[00:02:47] Steve: Uh, but anytime I would turn the dryer on, he's like, oh, dad, what is that horrible noise?

Uh, and you know, it turned out, okay, so there's, I, there's something wrong and it's starting to turn into other noises as well. Not just this high pitch squeaking. So like, I'm understanding there is probably a part that's about to fail and I would rather catch it early than like have to replace the entire motor or something,

[00:03:09] Tyler: Mm-hmm.

[00:03:10] Steve: uh, down the road.

So I watched a few YouTube videos and figured out, like, what are the common things that fail when the, when you observe these symptoms? And it turns out you can buy a kit that has, the, the most common parts. And so I bought that and then opened up the dryer to see what I would find. And inside this particular dryer, it's a Samsung and it's got four, uh, roller wheels on the drum, that they sort of look like rollerblades, rollerblade wheels.

Anyway, um, one of them had seized up and so it wasn't rolling very well. And then the other one had, had also seized up, but to the point that it had unscrewed itself out of its Uh, it's spot on the bulkhead and it was just lying there on the floor of the, of the dryer. Uh, so yeah, something, so yeah, something very bad was about to happen to this dryer if I had not repaired it.

Uh, but anyway, I, I was able to fix all of those things. So the total cost was like $26 for that kit and two or three hours of my time, taking it apart and putting it back together again.

[00:04:20] Tyler: Yeah.

Was the kit specific to this, like you had to find a kit for your model or brand, or was it just like a generic dryer fixing kit?

[00:04:28] Steve: Uh, it was at least specific to this brand. I think there are a few models that are, like, similar enough on the

[00:04:34] Tyler: Yeah, yeah,

[00:04:35] Steve: that they all use the same parts. Yeah. Yeah. So that was, that was better than what I thought I was going to have to spend, which was like, uh, find first of all, uh, an appliance repair person and then schedule them for, you know, a month from now to come out to the house and, and look at it and figure out what is even wrong in the first place.

And then, then who knows how much it will cost after that. And so I was like, uh, this is, this, this is too much. I don't, is it possible for me to do this myself? Uh, and turns out it was. But it, it cost me some time, so

[00:05:11] Tyler: Yeah. You're not going to get a service call for under $26 though.

A/C disaster averted
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[00:05:14] Steve: no, uh, and so this, this, this was a good trade off. Uh, but there are, I was thinking about this and all of the other, you know, uh, machinery that keeps modern life running inside a American house. Uh, and there are some of the things that

[00:05:33] Tyler: talking about the internet, right?

[00:05:35] Steve: uh, no, there's that too. There are some of the things that I just don't want to do myself.

Even if I could figure it out, I'm not interested. And I would rather hire someone to do that. And one of those is HVAC that I live in Texas and air conditioning is very important in the summer, especially this summer. It's been terribly hot and, uh, I don't want the AC to fail during the summer.

[00:06:05] Tyler: No, that would be certain death.

[00:06:07] Steve: And so we have a subscription to an HVAC company where they will twice a year come out and do an inspection for free once in the spring for the air conditioning, and once in the fall for the furnace, which is nice. And then they usually also try and upsell you on something. You know, during the inspection we found, we found this thing. And also there's this other thing that you could do that would be really great for your family.

But all of that is worth it to me. Just for the peace of mind of, uh, I know who I'm going to call if something breaks. Anyway, this particular case, uh, the, the AC was not able to keep up with the heat. And so I'm like, well, I, it seems like it, it didn't use to do this. It used to be able to keep the house cool properly.

And so there's probably something wrong. I don't know what it is. Let's have them come figure it out next time they come out for the inspection. And it turned out there was like a capacitor that was about to fail. In the, the, whatever the unit outside is. See, I don't even know what these things are.

[00:07:16] Tyler: you're the wrong podcast. If you came for home repair tips. Although that's not true. Steve is very handy. I will say.

[00:07:23] Steve: yeah, well, I, I can repair a few things as evidenced here. I've got so many stories to tell. Maybe we'll get to them all. Who knows?

[00:07:30] Tyler: Okay.

[00:07:32] Steve: But anyway, uh, I, I'm not interested in figuring these things out on the AC. And also I don't want to work in my 120 degree attic either. So I'm happy to spend the 1, 500 and the 30 minutes of talking to this technician who then went and did all of the work for however many hours it took.

And, and it's all just working now and I don't have to think about it.

[00:07:55] Tyler: Seems like a good trade off.

[00:07:57] Steve: Yeah. So sometimes the trade off is, uh. I will spend a little bit of money and a bunch of my time do something, and sometimes I will spend a bunch of money so that I don't have to spend my time or energy figuring something out.

[00:08:13] Tyler: Oh yeah. That's interesting.

[00:08:15] Steve: Uh, yeah, so I've been, I've just been kind of thinking about that lately.

[00:08:19] Tyler: You know, that actually reminds me of, I think it was a Freakonomics podcast episode from many, many years ago. I listened to, remember when like, uh, the music industry was in crisis because people could do peer to peer. Sharing, like no one was, Napster, no one was going to buy music anymore, all this stuff.

[00:08:38] Steve: yeah.

[00:08:39] Tyler: Uh, I don't, anyway, somehow that was related to this concept that they talked about, but which is like for young people, younger people, typically they value their, uh, like money is more expensive to young people. They don't have as much of it. But they've got plenty of time, and so they're going to dink around on the internet and find all kinds of ways to do things for free, right?

They'll spend hours and hours trying to get their favorite TV episode for free instead of paying 99 cents for it on iTunes or

[00:09:05] Steve: Oh, I see. Yeah.

[00:09:07] Tyler: But as we get older and our income goes up, like that balance shifts a little bit and we, we start to value our time more than money. And so we're willing to spend money to kind of buy back some of our time. Anyway, it's just an interesting concept. I remember I heard it way back then when I was in college and it stuck with me to this day and I found it to be true.

[00:09:26] Steve: Yeah. That makes a lot of sense.

What am I actually trying to buy?
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[00:09:30] Tyler: So what else have you said? You've, you've got other stories about fixing things around the house. What else do you got?

[00:09:38] Steve: Uh, well, let's see. Uh, my, my fridge is around the same age as the dryer and washer. The washer, surprisingly, has not had any problems in all of those eight years,

[00:09:49] Tyler: Amazing.

[00:09:50] Steve: kind of amazing. But the fridge, uh, like the, one of the, the lights are broken. They were flickering for a while and I just ripped them out and tried to get a replacement part and it didn't, it didn't fix the problem.

So I gave up on that one. Half of the drawers are broken. They don't slide in and out properly anymore. Like the rails have just snapped off.

[00:10:11] Tyler: All that, that high quality plastic in there,

[00:10:14] Steve: exactly. But, but like to get, to, to, to purchase a new drawer is like 50 to 80 bucks, depending on the drawer. Which is, uh, I, I don't, I don't know why, if it's just the shipping?

Because it is a large volume, it's not, not much material there, I don't know. Anyway, the, the water dispenser, uh, went out recently. Uh, well it was, I should say, it was leaking. It just started dripping a little bit. And then it started dripping a lot. And then, uh, and so I finally just shut off the water to the fridge.

And so we could figure out what it is. Anyway, watched some videos and figured out there's um, there's a solenoid valve in the back of the fridge that controls the water coming into the ice maker and to the water line that goes out to the front. And you can buy the parts for that and just replace it.

And it was... Quite easy once I got the parts.

[00:11:17] Tyler: Interesting. Interesting.

[00:11:18] Steve: So, but the, the thing I've been thinking about with kind of all of these stories is like, what was I trying to buy

[00:11:24] Tyler: Yeah.

[00:11:25] Steve: when I did this? And the, in the fridge's case, what I really wanted is that the, the water dispenser should not leak.

[00:11:36] Tyler: Right.

[00:11:36] Steve: the, oh, the other thing with the fridge is the, the hinge on the door was, was broken.

So the door wouldn't shut by itself. You had to close it completely or else it would just kind of hang open a couple inches. and all the cold air gets out. So that was another

[00:11:49] Tyler: helps with the, uh, that helps with the, uh, air conditioning problem, I suppose.

[00:11:52] Steve: Yes. Heat up the house. Uh, yeah. So, so what I was trying to buy there was like, the water dispenser should not leak. The door should close itself properly. Uh, and then I am willing to pay with my time because the parts are not super expensive to fix that. And it's a relatively easy repair. So that was a good trade off for me there.

But like, the AC, I want the house to be cool, I want the air to be clean, I don't want the machinery to be at risk of catastrophic failure for something that I, that could have been prevented with proper maintenance, and that is, like, such a big, uh, area of knowledge that I don't know much about that I would rather outsource that one.

[00:12:41] Tyler: Yeah. Interesting. Uh, this reminded me of a story. That happened to me recently that your question, what am I actually trying to buy, really triggered for me, which is, uh, over the winter, I got rear ended in a snowstorm

[00:13:00] Steve: Oh, no.

[00:13:02] Tyler: and it wasn't too serious, you know, but you know, I had, my car was in the shop forever because I don't know, supply chain, I guess still, um, and so.

Um, they fixed my car and they had a, a guarantee, right? Like we'll make your, it's, your car will be like new or we'll fix it. Right. At the body shop. And so it was pretty much like new, except for one thing, the struts that hold the trunk open when you open the trunk, like had failed basically. And so my trunk wouldn't stay open when I opened it.

And so

[00:13:34] Steve: Mm.

[00:13:35] Tyler: I really wanted them to honor their promise and make it whole, right? Like that wasn't a problem that I was experiencing before the accident. Something occurred when they took apart the car or whatever, you know, now it's not working. And I was so stubborn, Steve, I was calling them. I'm like, you guys, you know, like I, it started nice.

I'm like, oh, I just noticed this wasn't working. They're like, sure, sure, sure. We'll order the parts and fix it for you. Right? But then they never did. And they never did. And I would call and I would call, you know, it was this game. And so I started to get kind of like, uh, petty about it and kind of bitter

And so, and at this point, what I was like, what I wanted is like, it was like causing me issues like, Try going grocery shopping and loading up your trunk when you have to hold up your trunk with one hand and like load the groceries with the other hand or like, you know, it's like hitting you in the back of the head.

You're getting goose eggs. It was like serious stuff. Right. And after months, like months, six, seven, eight months of them just like kind of giving me the runaround, I was like, you know, I'm just going to do it myself. And the part cost me 20 and took me five minutes

[00:14:35] Steve: Oh, wow.

[00:14:36] Tyler: and I felt kind of like an idiot because they probably thought I wasn't an idiot for like, dude, why doesn't this guy just leave us alone and just like change the stupid struts.

But you know, I didn't know, but you know, as soon as I did, I was like, okay, well, I could have saved myself a lot of consternation. If I just like looked into this a little earlier, but I was so like hellbent on having them fix it, right? Because they caused the problem

[00:14:58] Steve: Mm hmm.

[00:14:59] Tyler: anyway. So, um, yeah, I guess, um, what was I trying to buy there?

Relief from my misery and like an end to this conflict. With the body shop.

[00:15:11] Steve: Okay.

[00:15:12] Tyler: More than anything, I guess. I just wanted to get that off of my chest because it was really frustrating for me. So there you go. There's my story.

[00:15:18] Steve: So, like, originally you were trying to buy a car that functioned as well as it did before the accident, but it kind of morphed into this, uh, that has, you know, has been taken care of as well as we can, and now we have this conflict, and I would like the conflict to be gone.

[00:15:34] Tyler: Yeah. So anyway,

[00:15:36] Steve: Okay.

How do you decide whether to DIY or outsource?
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[00:15:37] Tyler: yeah, I mean, it's kind of, this is really related to what we talked about in our episode about outsourcing, which I think you mentioned earlier, right? It's like, you know, what, what's worth it. What's worth more to you, your, your time and putting in potentially. The effort to develop a new skillset or just not worrying about it. Well, what do you think like goes into that equation though? Other than just the time and the value of, of the money, like I think interest, like how, you know, natural interest in certain things must go into it.

[00:16:11] Steve: Uh, yes. And I think, uh, for me on the appliance repair, uh, side of it, part of me, uh, my ego wants to be the kind of person who can repair things around the

[00:16:23] Tyler: Yep. Mm hmm.

[00:16:23] Steve: so there's a little bit of pride there of, I don't want to hire somebody to do that. I could do it myself. You know, I just got to figure it out.

So there's probably some of that too, but, uh, I have enjoyed knowing how the machines work, the ones that I have been willing to repair. And it's just, it's interesting to open them up and see what's inside there. And then, and now I like, I, I'm not afraid of one of the parts in the dryer failing because I understand roughly what's going on in there.

I, and I think I can figure it out if something does break again in the future. So that's nice.

[00:17:02] Tyler: It's a confidence booster if nothing else. Right.

[00:17:04] Steve: Mm hmm.

Trying to buy a green lawn
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[00:17:07] Steve: So here's a, A slightly different story that a client told me recently, uh, he has sprinklers in his yard and, uh, it was spring maybe, so they hadn't been on all winter. Uh, he was pretty sure one of them was broken just maybe from freezing over the winter or something like that. So he hired a sprinkler repair company to come out and fix the sprinkler and they did.

And, uh, then he, uh, a week or two later. Notices that the lawn is still yellow. The lawn has not greened up, even though the sprinklers theoretically are working now. And he goes out in the garage and notices that the, uh, the sprinkler, uh, timer controller thing either wasn't on or it hadn't been programmed correctly.

I don't remember. Which, but, um, he, you know, that eventually got solved, but he realized in this process that what he had wanted to buy when he hired the sprinkler repair company. Was a green lawn.

[00:18:20] Tyler: Hmm.

[00:18:21] Steve: didn't necessarily like the sprinklers need to get fixed in service of having the green lawn, but he also wanted them to take care of like, let's make sure that they're going to come on at the proper times that the, the lawn is going to get sufficient water.

Like he didn't want to have to worry about all of those details. He just wants a green lawn. And so if you're somebody that can do that for him, then he'll gladly pay you for it. Uh, but what the sprinkler repair company heard was there's a sprinkler that's broken and he needs us to fix it.

We know how to fix it. We can do that. And then the job is done.

[00:18:56] Tyler: so are you saying. Or do you think if they would have more like, well, I don't know if they would have understood his true desire better, maybe they could have sold them. Like, I don't even know. I like, you know, how to, how to, no, I don't know. Like lawn care. No, they probably don't do that. But like maybe offer to set, maybe it's not a, maybe it's not an upsell.

Maybe they'll offer to set the timer for him. Right. Or like program the, the timer or I don't know.

[00:19:26] Steve: Yeah. Well, no, it's a good question.

[00:19:29] Tyler: Like, was there an opportunity there that the company missed or was there a, was he disappointed, I guess, in the results?

[00:19:36] Steve: Uh, uh, yes he was. Um, I don't know whether there was like necessarily an opportunity for them to upsell him into a higher service level, package, something, I dunno. But, but just that he, his expectations were that they would also do some other things that they I either didn't think about or had not built into the, the statement of work.

[00:20:02] Tyler: Yeah. Well, that's interesting. This reminds me of a saying that, uh, somebody wise in my life once said, can't remember who, but it's stuck with me forever, which is all disappointment comes from unmet expectations.

[00:20:17] Steve: Mm.

[00:20:18] Tyler: So, you know, you got to really work on managing those expectations so that you can. Please people instead of disappoint them with your work.

Mm

[00:20:27] Steve: Mm hmm. One thing I've heard from a lot of clients so far, uh, uh, I do taxes for them. And what they often say is that the, the reason they were dissatisfied with their prior tax professional was that they didn't communicate well or timely, or they didn't explain things in a way that they can understand.

Uh, those kind of things that, that all come down to communication and like, there's not, you don't need a whole lot of like technical knowledge for that. Like that's just, uh, people skills, soft skills that anybody can develop. But if the technician is not good at those things, that's going to impact the customer experience.

[00:21:15] Tyler: Yes. I mean, uh, for some reason that reminded me of Chick fil A because I feel like, okay, this is going to make me unpopular perhaps, but I don't find their food particularly amazing. Sorry. But, uh, I do find the experience of going there to be pretty good, isn't it? You know, cause they're very, they're trained to be very polite and like, you know, give you a good customer experience.

Right. So that's an example to me personally, where like a positive communication experience can even overcome subpar, uh, deliverables.

[00:21:52] Steve: Mm hmm.

[00:21:53] Tyler: Please don't come for me. Do you like Chick fil A? I don't know. Like, this is not about Chick fil A, but like, it's, it's fine. It's good. It's good.

[00:21:59] Steve: It is. Yeah. The food is good. I feel like it's a bit overpriced, but I think the reason is that you're getting a really good

experience when you go there. And so

[00:22:09] Tyler: Oh, maybe you're

right. You just know it's going to be clean. They're going to be friendly. You're going to get good customer service, all that stuff. Okay.

[00:22:17] Steve: So I think, I

think that's kind of the value proposition

there. It's

[00:22:20] Tyler: It is good. I

[00:22:21] Steve: necessarily like people will probably fight you on the statement that, uh, it's not the best chicken sandwich in town. Fine. That's, you know, you can have your

opinions there, But, But, uh,

[00:22:31] Tyler: Yeah.

[00:22:32] Steve: you're, you're, you're buying a, an experience as well.

[00:22:35] Tyler: I can think of countless examples in my career, in my job where. This principle applies, right? Communication and setting of expectations is the, is the cause of the issue, not necessarily the deliverable of the thing itself.

[00:22:52] Steve: Yeah.

[00:22:53] Tyler: And that those, and, and that like very positive communication can overcome, you know, deficiencies in, in the

[00:23:01] Steve: Hmm. Yeah. Uh, now that you mentioned that I had a, a client who hired me to review their tax return that their prior, uh, person had done just because they weren't confident that it was accurate or complete or that they had gotten everything that they were expecting out of it. And so I did the review for them and, uh, it was, it was good.

They had done a good job. I didn't have anything that like needed to be fixed, but the, the fact that their prior tax pro was, uh, was not great at the communication piece impacted their experience where to, to the point where they're looking for someone new. Who can just, even if it's just to communicate better, because the technical work was fine.

There was no problem

there.

[00:23:47] Tyler: Right. But something about their communication, uh, introduced

doubt.

[00:23:52] Steve: Yeah, uh huh.

[00:23:54] Tyler: Wow. Yeah. It's a big deal.

Hiring a milkshake
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[00:23:59] Steve: This reminds me of Clayton Christensen, author of, um, Innovator's Dilemma had a concept called jobs to be done, and he talks about milkshakes. And they, the, the folks going through the drive thru, uh, might be, if it's like morning commute time. Somebody might be going through the drive thru because they want something to sip on, on their long commute to work.

And so if it takes a long time for the milkshake to be consumed through the straw, that's good. That's kind of the point. That's what they want it for.

Uh, and there's a different set of people. Who are buying a milkshake for their child to consume, and they do not want it to take an extremely long time to sip through a straw.

They would rather it be maybe thinner and easier to eat quickly.

[00:24:50] Tyler: Mm hmm.

[00:24:53] Steve: So being able to understand the different jobs that this milkshake is being hired to do can help you tailor the customer experience and the product for what people are actually trying to buy with this, which is something to occupy them on their long drive, or something to give to their kids for a treat that won't take forever, or maybe something else entirely. Uh, but that's always kind of been an interesting concept to me. And I think it applies here. We've been talking about like, what, what were we actually trying to buy with a subscription to an HVAC repair company that will come out and do inspections every once in a while?

Or what am I trying to actually buy with this repair kit for my dryer?

[00:25:40] Tyler: absolutely. And you know, this is highly applicable to personal finance as well, if I may say so, because, you know, this is a question that, that, that can be very useful when working with someone who's. Maybe trying to find ways to reduce their spending because, you know, people buy all kinds of stuff. And if you ask them this question, like, what are you, you know, why are you buying this?

And then you get to the bottom of it, right? You can often find out, well, if you're, if you're buying the food or the toy or whatever to fulfill, like, what's the root cause? That you're trying to solve, right? Just find something else that fulfills that same need that's cheaper, basically. Right? So you can kind of go through those exercises and, and, and kind of work through those things.

So they're meeting the need that they want met. Uh, they're doing it cheaper and it still feels good to them because it's that underlying, it's, you're, you're kind of getting to the root, the root of the problem instead of

the symptom.

Right?

So anyway, interesting.

[00:26:36] Steve: Yeah. Okay. That makes me think of

another, uh, example I have, uh, where, um, I, so I have a phone that supports wireless charging and when I'm at home, I usually charge it wirelessly. But sometimes I'm out and about, and I have a battery pack in my bag, but it's got a cable on it.

And so if I need to charge while I'm out, it's got to be through the cable.

Uh, however, that had started to become less reliable. I'd plug it in and then if I bumped it the wrong way, you know, it would stop charging.

And that's irritating because I don't know, I can't trust that I plugged it in. It's going to charge. And so I went, you know, looking on Amazon, what would it take to buy a battery pack?

That's got a wireless charger in it. And all that. And that was, uh, exciting. Like, oh, I gotta, gonna, gonna buy a new toy here. And then I went,

I, I said, okay, so here's what I'm gonna get. Let me go check YNAB and see if I can, if I have enough for that. And, well, it turned out I didn't, or I didn't want to move the money into that from other places.

And so I was like, well, okay, so let me Google. Uh, how do you clean the lightning port on an iPhone? And it turns out you can just get a toothpick and clean. And I got a shockingly large amount of dust out of this lightning port with the toothpick. And now the cable seats in there. It clicks in and it stays and it charges and it's, it's great.

And so I saved myself. You know, what, 50 bucks or something,

uh, of a, of a new toy. And it only cost me five minutes.

When, cause the job was really, I just want my phone to be able to charge no matter where I am, no matter which charger I have with me.

[00:28:14] Tyler: Yeah, I've had similar experiences. And I want to ask you this, when you realize that you could get the same result without buying a new toy, were you at least

In any way, disappointed, like

a little bit because

[00:28:25] Steve: Well, a little bit. Yeah. I still would like to go buy this, uh, this battery pack with the MagSafe charger.

[00:28:30] Tyler: right,

[00:28:31] Steve: Uh, cause that would be fun. Uh, but, but I know that like the novelty of the new gadget will wear off eventually. And so it's not actually going to be like, it's not going to make my life any better to have this thing.

So, uh, you know, I'm, I'm kind of okay with that for now. I'll probably buy it eventually, but

[00:28:48] Tyler: Yeah. That's awesome. Well, cool. Those are great stories and great examples of some of the trade offs that we make every day in our lives and how they relate to, uh, the bigger

picture.

[00:28:59] Steve: yeah. Well, thanks for indulging me. That was fun.

[00:29:01] Tyler: Yeah, it was. Thanks, Steve.