Beantown Podcast - Year 7 Tax Special ft. Matthew Fiedler (04112024 Beantown Podcast)

Episode Date: April 12, 2024

Quinn is joined by special guest and dear friend Matthew Fiedler to talk joint filing, the Manson Murders, and Naked & Afraid.

Hey, what's going on? It's Quinn David Furness. Welcome to my show. Quinn David Furness presents the Beantown podcast for Thursday. Big bells to start working on a Miller Lite over here. Tough start. April 11th, 2024. What's happening?

What's going on? How are you? My name is Quinn. I am the key grip, the Showrunner, Creator Producer, all that good stuff that you would know and love of this program, Queen David Furnace Presents, the Beantown Podcast. Shout out to Pakistan, the great Islamic Republic.

Thanks for making us the 112th ranked comedy podcast in the great nation of Pakistan. And listeners, Gresham is advised, we're going through all of it real quick right here because I don't want to bury the lead. When you're listening to Queen David Furnace Presents, the Beantown podcast, number one, will occasionally some language.

Number two, this podcast is objectively terrible. And get us across the finish line, thank you to our sponsors, Home Pie at Oregon, Cuts by Q, and the Samson Q2U series. Thanks for supporting this show. When God speaks, he uses a Samson. When God needs a home inspection, he calls Steve, 541-410-0316.

And when God needs a haircut... let me put a pin in that, because I'm going to ask our special guest about what type of haircut he thinks God would have, the Holy Father. So speaking of guests, it's been a hot second since we had guests on our program, but this is year after year one of my favorite programs.

Welcome back to the show for our seventh annual Bean Town Podcast Tax Special. Matthew Fiedler, welcome back. What's going on? What's happening? How are you? I'm doing pretty good. Glad to be back.

Seven years, man. That's wild. Congrats on all these consecutive years. I remember back in the day when you were talking about starting up a podcast. And out of sheer determination and stubbornness, you've kept it going. I know we started a joint podcast, and that's just about there. So kudos to you for being very consistent. I have a listener, big time fan. Happy to be on the show with you. And I always look forward to these even though I think that every year you give your disclaimers, I'll give mine as well.

I'm not a tax professional. I don't know if that's required in terms to hedge my liability here, but happy to be part of the show and share what little information I have. Always putting yourself down, but we know you're the tax expert here. He's not a licensed certified professional, but it doesn't mean he's not knowledgeable. I liked what you were saying about, wow, seven years.

It reminded me of certain things, particularly canned goods have what they call a shelf life. I like to envision the Bean Town podcast is that thing you've had on your shelf in the back of the fridge that you remember that it's there once a month, and you think about it for about 30 seconds and then you're like, eh, it doesn't smell yet so we'll just leave it there and it is clearly past its shelf life but. You need to put a different spin on it.

I would say it's more like a luxury car. When it first came out you didn't realize it was going to be a luxury car and an antique car but then as time's gone on you've aged like a fine wine. That's very kind. I appreciate that. I suppose I would rather age like a fine wine than a, I don't know, I would have to go into my fridge and see what I actually have.

I guarantee there's one or two things. I think I have a Sam Adams, like, pumpkin spice edition bottle of beer that I purchased in October of 2022 probably. And it's, do you know the Bill Burr Sam Adams SNL sketch where he's he's like tasting all the different pumpkin beer in the grocery store. It's a fake commercial and he's like, yeah, it tastes like shit, but whatever. It's free beer. So it's kind of, it's kind of how I feel about those those pumpkin probably probably it was probably on sale I probably got it you know after

after we passed Thanksgiving or something it was kind of out of style that's kind of my my strategy when I go to jewel I look for the red tags that tells you you're getting a big deal so yeah but it's it's tough to remember I mean it's it's been a year and a half, so who really knows? But yeah, I've been known to try some questionable drinks in the name of a good deal. I think that's just my furnace genes. Yeah, you and me both.

Well, I wanted to ask you, before I forget, we were talking a little bit about cuts by Q and God's haircut. When you think of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, maybe separately, or God had three in one, I guess we have a general sense of what Jesus was rocking, haircut style. He was kind of long and flowy, not too dissimilar

from some of the styles you've rocked in the past. But when you think about God, what type of haircut are you envisioning? I think you're right. Jesus, I picture long, flowy locks. And when you say not dissimilar from mine, I think my hair was just long. I don't think that argument can be made that it was flowy.

It was also a very bad decision, as you probably can see going back. Just the other day, I saw a time hop on Facebook of how bad it was, and it was pretty bad. But that's a question that I've never been asked and probably will never be asked again, so I wanna give it a little bit of thought. I don't know, I think a good standard,

just bald head, right? I think that is standard is just bald head. Oh, god bald. OK. If God has enough to do, he doesn't need to be bothered with hair or anything like that. So that would be my guess, I think. OK. I don't know if it's a hot take, because I just

feel like any take is welcome in a bizarre question like this. But we'll make that our Beantown Podcast listener question of the week. Email us, beantownpodcast at yahoo.com. Again, that's beantown at yahoo.com. Let us know, hey, what hairstyle do you think God has? When you think of God? Mine is like, envision like, and I don't typically

try to name drop on this show, but I think this is a positive thing. I'm envisioning like a Paul Dixon kind of hairstyle. It's very neat. It's not distracting from the miracles and the creations and stuff, but kind of, I don't know, just very simple, classic, elegant.

So. A little kind of tight, not a whole lot of styling needed. Just kind of, yeah. And for, I guess probably about 90% of people who still hang onto the show probably do know who that is who I just mentioned. But just imagine like a very 60-year-old white man

kind of nice, clean, tight trim. You know, you would think that someone who owns their own boutique barber shop would be able to articulate hairstyles better, but I'm more of an imagery guy, so you pull up the Cuts by Q and... Yep, I say, you know, just show me a picture of what you look like and whether it's Malcolm, what's the Theo from the Cosby show, whatever his name is, he's got the high top or maybe like I don't know, Paul Abdul in the 80s or something. I'll do my best to make it work. So. I kind of envision, and this is nothing against Cuts by Q, but I kind of envision you come

in, you sit right down and you show a picture of what'd like, and you get what the artist wants you to have. Because I think that I might not know what kind of a masterpiece my hair could be. So I think that Cut Spite Q, you probably just go in, you probably do what you think looks best, right? I think that's accurate. I think cuts by Q is partially barbershop, you know, boutique, and then also kind of like a public art sort of expression. So that's kind of the spin that we have, sort of what sets us apart from the competition. I find a lot of people when they pay,

if you're willing to pay a $20 flat rate cut for your hair, you're probably willing to put up with some artistic expression if you will so you can see yeah how about we set a date a year from today and if we're gonna have another tax special next year this should be done through video with a haircut being done I think that would be a pretty solid setup who am I giving a haircut to? I haven't decided. I was going to bomb. It depends on what I have publicly going around that date.

But it can be me. Nine months before, nine months after. How about this? I have to provide someone that you'll give a haircut to. It could be me unless I find a sacrifice. I think that's fair. All right I might need your help with the tech aspect of it. But when it comes to actually cutting the hair

I will sharpen my steak knife and we'll be ready to go. So we'll put a pin in that. Well right before we got on air I promised Matthew that we would get right to it and here we are nine and 1 half minutes in. So we welcome Matthew onto the show every year on tax time, which is, what is it, April 15, something like that, one of those days.

Tiktok taxes. And we try to do different fun things every year. And we usually start with a semi-serious topic and then get into less you know, less serious things as we progress. So I have a couple different topics I want to hit on here and let's start off with kind of the most serious of the different topics I have. So I don't know if this is public knowledge yet, but I'll break the news.

Matthew got married in between the time you heard from him last year on the show and and today so congratulations are in order first and foremost to matthew but one of the things i've always uh... legitimately been curious about and don't feel like i know that much about i don't think it's super complicated necessarily but i really don't know much about it getting married and what it means for your taxes so matthew talk to us a little bit about joint filing,

what it is, pros and cons, anything there you got insight into. It would be great to hear your perspectives there. Yeah. Very fresh take here. Considering, yeah, thanks for the congrats, considering that I recently was able to find someone who would like to spend the rest of their life with me, which was a big accomplishment.

But yeah, taxes are a large part of this conversation. Sometimes it can be beneficial, and sometimes there can be some drawbacks in filing jointly with your spouse. Joint filing, it's obviously a tax filing option that's available to anybody who's married. In the event that you have a different household structure, there could be a better tax filing for you, probably ahead of household or something of that nature. But the benefit is you can combine both your incomes and also the exemptions, any deductions, credits, and things like that. So whereas, you know, if I were to file my taxes as a single,

just, you know, one W-2 type of employee, I might not be able to get itemized deductions. I'd probably take a standard deduction, which is just a flat rate that everybody would take. Essentially, what that does is it takes the income that you've earned all year, and the government says, there's this portion that we're not going to even tax you on. We're going to cut that off the top, and then you'll just be taxed on the remaining amount.

If you can increase the amount of deductions that you have to surpass that standard deduction, that's to your benefit. And there's a plethora of things that fall in those itemized deductions, but sometimes it's a lot easier if you and your partner have separate, you know, things that qualify as deductions to kind of pool those together, if you will. So sometimes it can be beneficial,

sometimes it's not too dissimilar than if you, you know, were both to file separately. And what I would say is it kind of depends each year. Your tax picture will look a little bit different each year depending on what you have in terms of interest expense, medical expenses, donations, and things like that. But there is a potential for lower taxes. So if you combine incomes, it could put some married couples in a lower tax bracket, which is great, right? That's kind of the goal. If you can swing it to be in a lower tax bracket, but then maximize your take-home pay. And one of the other benefits of filing jointly is And one of the other benefits of filing jointly is there's different benefits that come with that.

There are different tax credits like the earned income tax credit is one. Child and dependent care I believe is another credit that's still available to people. And it just it makes you easier it's easier to qualify with those higher income thresholds for for joint filers And another plus is if you're going to two different Accountants or the same one you might save a little bit of money on the the tax filing fees and tax prep because you're filing one return a post to post a two right a Drawback I guess I would say is and I obviously this is for a marriage where both people like

each other, but both parties are equally responsible for the tax bill at the end of the day, especially if you're filing together. Both your names are on that piece of paper that's submitted to the IRS. If there's any audits or penalties or anything like that, the IRS will be going through both of your finances, you know, in the event that they're not merged to that degree. So that's maybe a slight disadvantage potentially. I've never seen this personally, but there's been situations I've heard of where, you know, there might be a spouse who actually has a good job, W-2, you know, is on the up and up of where there might be a spouse who actually has a good job.

W-2 is on the up and up, and then you have a spouse who maybe sells things that they shouldn't. Street corner, things like that. Just from a liability perspective, I would say file separately. It's not worth it. There's maybe a legal headache in there. And as an accountant or a tax filer, it's not, we have a fiduciary role. I don't believe you'd rat them out to the legal authorities. I think there's a little bit of ethics in play there.

But the recommendation in that type of situation should be filed separately. In fact, for me personally, my spouse has a little bit of student loan debt and we pushed our legal marriage date into 2024, opposed to getting married into 2023, just so we could kick out basically the income driven repayments for her for her loans. So instead of you know filing jointly and her the federal loan administrator saying hey we've got two incomes here we can basically just pay income driven repayments under her income because she'll be filing separately for 2023 and I have as well.

So it kind of depends, I guess is the main thing. And as near as I can tell, and I would say consult you know with your your tax professional, but there isn't a requirement if you file jointly to file jointly the following year. So it's something that each year you probably should to file jointly the following year. So it's something that each year you probably should evaluate with your tax professional. And there's benefits and there's maybe some drawbacks. I think on average, most married couples who have shared finances will probably

file jointly for that reason. But you can also file married separately as well. And I suppose you could envision a situation where, you know, it's April 12th or something. It's the weekend. You get a glass of wine. You cuddle up next to your lover. You break out your W2s.

It's a big day. Yeah, it's a great day. I like that. I like that. It's always easy to have those kind of those built-in activities. I would say make sure you get all the numbers entered and all that good stuff before you get your second glass away.

You know what I mean? We want to be accurate too. So we don't want to fat finger anything as the night carries on, right? Yeah, that's a good call. That's a good call. Very, very informative stuff from our seasoned tax, not a tax professional, a tax expert, if you will. I got another tax topic I wanted to ask you about. Again, something I'm genuinely curious about

is I'm not a public policy expert, but I know you've dabbled in it. You've probably heard of public policy before. So I'm going to ask you this question. There are five US states that currently don't have sales tax. And to me, five is enough, or it's not just kind of one random, one of those US states you never heard of. And it's like, well, yeah, who cares

if they have sales tax or not? Five seems like what we would call in the industry a critical mass. So I'm curious, what's your take on it? Why do you think there's five states out there that have chosen to have no sales tax versus the other 45 who do have a sales tax? I think there's trying to be different.

There's probably more to it than that. There's a few things that I can maybe think of as to why. But I'll say this, you mentioned, I mean, full disclosure, so you gave me a heads up that this might be a question that's asked, right? And to be fair, I did not know which states that were off the top of my head, except for I think I got two of the five.

So not a great batting average there. But a lot of these states are states that half of them. Are we doing a poll for the listeners, or are we going to let the cat out of the bag on which states actually don't have sales tax? Well, sure. They could probably already play along in their heads with the headline of the question.

But yeah, if you're playing along at home, you're listening, you want to guess what the five US states are and play along in their heads with the headline of the question but yes if you're playing along at home you listen you wanna guess what the five u.s. states are that don't have sales tax you can uh... pause your your podcast here and have a think over if you will uh... but matthew i'll let you proceed yeah so the five states that don't have sales tax currently are al, Delaware, Montana, those are the three that I got, but I did not guess New Hampshire or Oregon.

So all of those have generally no sales tax. And the interesting thing about this is it's not 100% accurate. There is sales tax on certain items. We would call them basically like the SIN tax. So anything, any sale of alcohol or tobacco, that would include a sales tax as well. But there's a few odd reasons maybe why states would not have a sales tax. And a lot of this is just because maybe they already have There are a few odd reasons maybe why states would not have a sales tax.

And a lot of this is just because maybe they already have already diverse revenue streams. A lot of states use sales tax to supplement their funding for whether it's infrastructure or a lot of the municipality grants that are afforded and things like that. But if there's other sources of revenue for that state, such as higher property taxes or higher income taxes, we don't see Florida on here as booting on sales tax. So there's certain things that those states will probably keep in mind just in relation to their revenue streams, right? So thinking at it from an operational standpoint, they probably can carry on without those sales taxes. And I'll say there's two parts. It could be part marketing, part economic philosophy. I think some people argue that not having sales tax

encourages spending and attracts business and consumers and people from states around that area to visit and go there more frequently. And that kind of helps boost the local economy. You can see that with Alaska for sure, right? And some of these less traveled states. So I think that's kind of part of it too. It kind of makes them stand out a little bit.

The one thing about Florida when you're talking taxes, I feel like everybody is under, you know, understands that there's no income tax there on a state level. And that's a great marketing move for anybody who wants to or is considering moving to Florida. Consider that in your tax planning and your, overall maybe your retirement picture as well. I think that would be beneficial.

So as to why, I don't know 100%, but those are kind of my gut feels on why it would be those states and maybe why. Again, private debt, more diverse revenue streams that they're pulling in outside of sales tax dollars and then more of an economic philosophy on how they want to approach it as a state. This probably varies from state to state. But let's say you live on the border of New Jersey and Delaware, and you want to make a Costco run across the border and stock up on some goods

and then drive back home. Is there anything technically illegal about that? Or does it really vary from state to state? Or is it perfectly legal? I think it's perfectly legal. I do it all the time. I used to live in the northern, I mean I still live in northern Illinois, but just a little bit south from where I was in the north. But yeah, I'd go up to Wisconsin all the time for cheap gas, you know, obviously different tax rates on that. There's no requirements. It's different than what you would see as an income tax, where that's based on residency, where a sales tax is just where you buy the product.

So all the, your retailers will be remitting that sales tax, or should be remitting that sales tax to the appropriate state and kind of taking care of all that due diligence for you. Right when you hand over your card or the cash. So no issues from a consumer standpoint on that. One more thing here. Do you ever land on that luxury tax space in Monopoly? I hate it. I think it's between Park Place and Boardwalk. It's interesting, though, because I forget. I've played the digital or the version on the Switch probably the most frequently. And it seems like that's just a flat rate of like $75

or something like that. In the actual game, I thought it was a percentage. Well, the luxury tax, if I recall correctly, is 75. But there's also income tax, which I think is maybe in between the purples right at the beginning. And that's either, I think, if you pay 200 or you pay 10% of your bank, I think is how it goes. So yeah, I think that's the one where you kind of, that's the-

And to be fair, that's all wonky because I don't know how time works in Monopoly, right? But I assume if you go around the board one time, is that the equivalent of a year? You're not paying taxes every year. It feels like it takes a year to go around when you're playing Monopoly. That's my least favorite board game. But yeah, therein lies the flaw, right? So you're not paying taxes every year or every turn. And then the second part is you're not

paying based on your income. You're paying on what's in your bank account, which would be scary. And that would probably, I mean, if that was the case in the US, it would force all of us probably to invest in real estate or other assets so we don't have cash lying around to be taxed on. Yeah I could buy one one hundredth of a house in Sagatuck we were talking about that earlier.

We can make that up one percent. Yeah exactly. Well I got I got one more game one more trivia we like to finish with some lighthearted stuff here. And listeners from last year's program will recall our groundbreaking game, Tax, Facts, or Wax. So it's going to be a little, this is more of a traditional trivia game this year. There's no translations involved. But it's tax season.

So I thought I would ask Matthew five questions about what I'm calling Tex season actually I have five questions this is a Tex trivia about Charles Watson member of the Manson family and well no that wasn't one of my questions, so you should be good. But you're taking all the low hanging fruit. Now you're not going to have any good answers to the rest of these questions. You know, I think there's at least three of these. I feel like you have a good shot at getting without knowing anything about Charles Tex Watson. And I'm not trying to hold you to that standard and not saying you can't get more or less, but just look.

I'll do my best. I think there's one here. Spoiler alert, it's a second question. That seems really tough. And maybe it's just because I am not familiar with this at all. But we'll see how you do. I got a good feeling. I believe in you.

So are you ready for question number one? I'm ready for question number one. OK, so as his name implies, Charles Tex Watson was from Texas. And when he was a kid, a teenager, he attended this state college in Denton, Texas, known at least in my circles largely for its music program. Which school did Tex Watson attend in Denton, Texas

for college? What the hell? I have no idea. I'm going to be honest. Ever since graduating school and not applying, my exposure to colleges, I'll say this, I haven't watched a single March Madness game either. You missed it.

So, my wealth of knowledge here is very poor. Okay, I'll give you, let me give you the initials, okay? Remember this is a public state college in Texas, so here are the initials, OK? Remember, this is a public state college in Texas. So here are the initials. U-N-T. Sorry, I was turning on cracker. University of Texas. But was it U-N-T?

N as in nocturne. N as in north? Yeah. OK, awesome. That would be it. University of North Texas, very good music program. They're in Denton, Texas. Tex himself wasn't much of a musician.

At least the Wikipedia article didn't mention anything about that. But maybe he was. I don't know. Maybe he was in the pep band not sure but okay Manson actually I don't know a ton about him but he was friends with one of the Beach Boys and was trying to make his music career back before things got a little squirrely. OK, that might come back later.

Who knows? Question number two. This is the tough one for me, at least. But if you get this, it's five extra bonus points. So here we go. In 1967, still in Texas, Tex began working for this now defunct airline. Wow. Now defunct airline?

What airline was around? And I'm going to just... 1967. 1967. I'm going to, you know, we don't have the same brain, but I'm going to let you know that I've never heard of this defunct airline. There's probably a good chance that I've never heard of this defunct airline It looks like it would be Scottish perhaps based off of the name

It's not I'm just I'm assuming you don't have any guess is here and I this is this is one of those where I can't think of anything that would be like oh this will make it easier so the answer for question to the airline that is now defunct is called Braniff International that's B R a and as in nocturn I F F international I never would have guessed that yeah me neither there were there were limited things on his Wikipedia article so this was just what I asked about

was uh what did he do there? was he a uh he was like a baggage handler luggage or something like that oh that's how he got so strong. I got you. I don't think that there's probably more strict limits on how much you can, or maybe it's I'm thinking the other way. I think that things were probably were different back in the day. Obviously, the security protocols weren't as high.

So maybe you could just whatever the hell you wanted you could bring. So your skis, your bowling balls, all that kind of stuff. So yeah, maybe that was good cardio for them. Well, especially down in Texas, anything goes. Yeah, everything's bigger down there. So I can imagine. Bigger skis, bigger bowling ball.

22 pound bowling balls. 22 pound bowling ball. 22 pounds. How much skiing do you think they do down in Texas? It can't be much. Sand skiing. All right, down a gentle hill. OK, next up, I think you're on this one.

I think you got a good shot here and this was news to me but it sounds like maybe it came in knowing this one so Tex was first introduced to the Manson family when he picked up hitchhiker Dennis Wilson from this band. Oh, Beach Boys. There you go, ding ding ding ding ding. Nice. Yeah there we go.

You're two for three. So is that how, I wonder if that's how he got into the Manson. That's exactly what happened. Dennis Wilson, I read this yesterday, and I didn't really retain it. But he knew Charles Manson, or they had connections together something like that out in Los Angeles and that's that's how Tex first got introduced have you ever have you ever seen love and mercy know when he played brian wilson i don't think i have that came out fairly fairly recently right like within the last five years or no

i think at this point it's been closer to like six or seven but i think within a decade um i've never seen it either but i like paul danno and i've heard that it's really good and i don't know that much about brian wilson so i should set aside some time to check it out when I get the chance alright and there's there's another brother too I think but Brian yeah yeah he kind of did everything and then everyone else was kind of just there to perform is my understanding of it okay we're gonna jump way into the future here like 50 years and this is very recent and I think it's kind of a I don't know weird question but I think you can get it in May May 2023, from prison, where he still is, if you can believe this, Tex began the Abounding Love podcast, which featured a series of these, delivered between 1977 and 1984 at the Chapel of the California Men's Colony. What did he deliver that he

then featured on this podcast he started last year? Poems? Not poems. It's more appropriate to the setting where he was at a chapel of the men's colony. Music. It's like music but without the music. Focus more on the words. Oh. Acapella. I have no idea. Focus more on the words. If you had words but it wasn't music. In a church setting. So he preached?

Yeah. Sermons is the answer. Yeah, that's the word I'm looking for, he preached. It's a good word. Yeah, he did a series of sermons. Apparently he's a born-again Christian now. I haven't personally checked out the Abounding Love podcast, but I might. we'll see but there you go yeah you can have a prison for podcast I guess maybe once you've been in prison for like 60 years they give you a little bit more leeway with the recording technology all right I got one more question for a year I'm not sure if you've seen this give you a little bit more leeway with the recording technology. Yeah. Yeah, maybe. All right.

I got one more question for you here. I'm not sure if you've seen this movie. I'm going to guess you have, but it's the most recent media depiction of Tex Watson. So Tex was portrayed by this actor in Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood? I have not seen this movie actually. It's on my list. I have not seen this movie. It's going to be a much tougher question then. Yeah, I have no idea. I know that Brad Pitt is in it.

And I'm spacing out on the name of the other main actor. Leo. Leo, okay. And Brad Pitt is the stunt double for Leo, correct? That's right. That's about all I know about Leo. When you hop off this call, go check out the cast list because it's absolutely insane. But I can get you to the answer on clues. I'll say this. You probably, there's a good chance you hadn't heard of this guy, let's say, two years ago. But he really burst onto the scene in a very heavily publicized biopic that came out last year that involved a lot of music

and a guy from Mississippi. A lot of music and a guy from Mississippi. A very larger than life star. They made a biopic about this guy and this young hotshot actor portrayed him in the film. Oh, Austin Butler? There you go. Austin Butler portrayed Tex Watson in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Interesting. Wow. What's the connection of him to the movie, I guess? Is he like a pastoral character or?

Oh no, Tex Watson? Yeah. No, he was deep in the Manson family with Squeaky Fromm. And Oh, no, no, no, no. Yeah, yeah. But once upon a time in Hollywood, what's the connection?

Is that a large part of the storyline? Oh, you've never seen it. OK. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is about the Manson murders. OK. All right. Yeah.'s a great ending the third act is classic it's a long film like three hours as you know many Tarantino pictures are Yeah, I, it's wild that I've come down this side of 2024 and didn't realize that that was the plot line

of one of the larger movies. What, it came out like two years ago? Uh, it came out in 2019. Oh, okay, so a little bit more. See, I feel like I'm always bad with movies when I, I'm always, I always think it's more recent than it is, and I just let time slip without catching up on all these films. That happens to me all the time with people who've passed away, celebrities.

And I'll be like, oh yeah, that happened last year, right? And then I look at Wikipedia and it was like 2020. And I'm like, wow. The days are long, but the years are short, right? That, that hits home. That feels very true. Well, I only, you know, I'm going to, we're going to hop off in a second here. Way over time. That feels very true. Well, I only... I'm gonna hop off in a second here. Way over time, I apologize for that.

But I mentioned I might ask you about this. Not the O.J. part, but... reality TV, I know you've been known to dabble here and there from time to time, which is different. It wasn't a thing for us growing up. I don't want to speak for you, but there was no sort of reality TV in my household growing up and now I watch a lot of the housewives Vanderpump rules I got a watch last night or two two episodes ago I'm curious anything you're

watching lately that we should maybe check out take. If asked, if you were to ask my significant other if I watched these shows, she would say yes, and I'm very invested in them. I don't feel like that's the case. I feel like I'll be working in the office and come out and these shows are just on, when she's off of work and winding down for the night. Even if I start working out there, anything could be on the TV and I would get distracted. That's just the type person I am. So there's my disclaimer, but on a very real note, I'm aware that she's watching Vanderpump Rules and most of the Housewives at this point. I just can't keep all the Housewives straight. They all look

about the same, to be fair. And then one of the interesting things that we watched recently was Naked and Afraid, but it was like Lone Survivor or something like that. So we we benched through that after a while you can't tell that they're naked they blur out a lot. But it's basically like them dropping I don't know if it was 12 people, like in the middle of nowhere. And then they had to survive for 30-something days just with maybe one or two essentials. And that's pretty interesting. It's like Survivor, but to the next level. Are they still making that show? I think it's still on. They have different seasons where it's just like fans,

but try to see if they can do it. Some people get like dysentery. Some people, it's tough. Yeah, but it's interesting. Like Oregon Trail. Yeah, I feel, this is the, basically the side of me that's not grounded in any semblance of reality.

Watching these shows, it's like, oh, I feel like I could do that. I mean, I prefer clothes. But the survival things, I feel like I could do. In reality, I would probably die on day three or four. But it is an interesting show. I feel like it's a little bit more fun to watch than some of the Housewives. I'll say this, I think that if they have like one or two big fights a season and they're carried on way too long. I think these people just need to kind of forgive, move on, or just stop being around the people that are pissing them off. That's my take from an outside observer,

but you don't get reality TV that way. You got to have the drama. You got to have the drama. Excellent. Well, thanks so much for coming on the show, Matthew, seven years in running really, and you've been on other podcast episodes and Beantown Unplugged, a great concert if you haven't checked that out you know tax days it was everything really came

together I was getting sick and I think that was when you put some whiskey or something in coffee and it got cold. And then I still tried to drink it and just not a good. It was tough. It was tough. But you're always a great team player and a better guitarist. Appreciate you coming on that program. Gosh, that's already been six years probably.

But tax day, a couple of days away, any last second tips before we close the show yeah make sure your taxes are filed that's kind of the main thing another closing thought I guess would be worst case scenario if you always get money back like a refund and I hesitate to even say even say this because this road should be an option But there aren't late penalties for filing your taxes late if the IRS owes you money Something to be mindful of but I would always shoot for trying to hit that that April 15th deadline And then I guess just more big picture for a personal finance standpoint

because I just feel like in my time as an auditor and on the benefit plans and just the state of the world we live in today, my guess is if things are trending the way they are now there's a chance that you know you and I Quinn will never see Social Security at least in the same capacity that maybe our parents or our grandparents have seen it right. So being more proactive in your retirement savings is important. I saw a figure the other day if you are 20 years old if you put a dollar away and invest it in the S&P, a blended or an index fund, that has the opportunity to be $88 when you're 65. And when you're

$30, a dollar you put away has the ability to be $23 when you're 65. So it's not too late. If you're 30 or 35, honestly, anything you put away today, obviously consult with your company. I'm sure that if there's a 401k plan or a 403b or any type of retirement plan that's offered by your employer, you should have the ability to connect with an advisor to see what funds best serve you, but make sure you put money away. I think we're under the pressure from inflation and all these things that are pulling us in different directions, especially you and I, Quinn,

at this stage in our life. Our lives look a lot different than they did five years ago and 10 years ago. So maybe making ends meet could be harder. But a few ways to look at it would be invest in yourself for the future. A lot of people want to put away money for maybe their kids someday, and that's great,

that's awesome, that's awesome. But I think having a well-rounded retirement plan will serve you and potentially your kids well in the future. I don't think you want to raise children to maybe take care of you financially in the later years of your life. And a lot of the statistics that have come out recently seem to indicate that that might be where a lot of Americans are headed. So being mindful of what you're spending and a lot of that can come down to just being tracking your expenses in a budget app

or just being very you know proactive and reviewing things that you're spending and have a strict budget that you stick to. But that's another thing I think that's very important as a takeaway. I think tax planning and planning for your retirement are things that nobody likes to do them, maybe. Some of us do, I guess. But by and large, I think that most people don't like to do that. But I think if you just invest a little bit of time,

a little bit of money in the future, you'll be happy that you did. Excellent. Sage advice is always from our seasoned tax expert, Matthew Feather. Matt, thanks again for coming on the program. I'll keep you on for one second here as we hop off the recording. But thank you again. Appreciate your time. For all of us here at Beantown Podcast, Beantown Networks,

my name is Quindy Fernes. Don't forget, email us, beantownpodcast.yahoo.com. We have our horse special coming up in just a few short weeks here. Get your listener suggestions in for our top 10 list that goes for you too Matt you got any horse names you've been saving up now is the year to got a whole backlog all right everyone thank you for supporting my show thank you for listening and hope you stay safe stay sane no outro music yet still low

budget we'll talk to you next time bye