Chris Hutchins, How To Master All The Hacks: Life, Finance and Health

Summary

In this engaging conversation, the hosts delve into a variety of optimization hacks, including financial, health, and travel tips. They discuss the art of earning and utilizing credit card points for premium travel experiences, explore the world of biohacking for health enhancement, and share personal experiences with medications and diagnostics. The discussion also touches on the importance of data privacy and cybersecurity, offering practical advice on protecting personal information in the digital age.

Takeaways

• 💡 Utilizing credit card points for travel can significantly reduce costs, as demonstrated by the speaker's experience using points for a luxurious first-class flight.
• 🌟 The power of relationship building and research can lead to better outcomes without spending money, a concept the speaker emphasizes throughout the conversation.
• 🛫 Singapore Airlines' first-class experience is highlighted, showcasing how points can be used to enjoy premium travel experiences.
• 💪 The conversation touches on health optimization and biohacking, with personal experiences of using medications for weight loss and health improvement.
• 🧬 The importance of Dexa scans for accurate body composition analysis is discussed, as well as the value of monitoring health metrics such as blood pressure and cholesterol levels.
• 💊 The use of GLP-1 inhibitors like Ozempic and Wegovy for weight loss is mentioned, along with the speaker's personal experiences and the potential for muscle loss when not properly managed.
• 🥇 The pursuit of longevity and health optimization can be a strong motivator, especially when influenced by family considerations and the desire to maintain an active lifestyle.
• 🧊 The benefits of cold plunge therapy are discussed, including its potential impact on sleep quality and overall well-being.
• 🏠 Property tax savings can be achieved by appealing property assessments, with services like Onwell helping to streamline the process and secure savings.
• 🔍 The conversation emphasizes the value of proactive healthcare and the potential benefits of full-body MRIs through companies like Poovo, which can detect early-stage issues.

Q & A

What led the person to research and optimize various aspects of life, including finance and health?

The person's desire for better outcomes without spending money led to a life of research and optimization in various fields, including finance, travel, and health.

How did having children impact the person's interest in health and biohacking?

Having children motivated the person to prioritize health and longevity, leading them to explore biohacking to ensure they could live a healthier, longer life to be there for their kids.

What was the person's experience with using credit card points for travel?

The person expertly used credit card points to book luxury travel, such as a first-class flight with Singapore Airlines, by maximizing the value of their points.

How does the person view the use of AI in the context of their work and life?

The person sees AI as a powerful tool for optimization and research, leveraging it to find better deals, improve efficiency, and enhance decision-making in various aspects of life.

What was the significant health concern mentioned, and how did it affect the person's approach to health?

The person discussed having a small brain aneurysm and high blood pressure, which led to a more serious and proactive approach to health, including exploring biohacks and medical treatments.

Can you elaborate on the concept of 'vest in peace' as mentioned in the script?

'Vest in peace' refers to the idea of employees waiting passively for their stock options to vest, often with the hope of avoiding active work commitments, like commuting to the office, as much as possible.

What strategy does the person employ to minimize expenses while maximizing lifestyle benefits?

The person employs strategies like using credit card points for travel, optimizing health and wellness hacks, and constantly researching to find cost-effective solutions to improve their lifestyle.

What impact did biohacking have on the person's life, and what specific changes were made?

Biohacking significantly impacted the person's approach to health, leading to changes like monitoring and adjusting diet, exercise, and possibly using medication to improve health metrics like blood pressure and cholesterol levels.

How does the person's expertise in optimization and life hacks translate into their professional work?

The person's expertise in optimization and life hacks translates into professional work by creating content, such as podcasts, that share insights, tips, and strategies for optimizing various aspects of life, from finance to health.

What approach does the person take towards managing personal and family health information and security?

The person takes a proactive approach to managing health information and security, including using services to remove personal data from public databases, securing sensitive health information, and ensuring that their family's privacy is protected.

Outlines

00:00

🚀 Introduction to Life Hacks and Personal Experiences

The speaker discusses his journey into life hacks, finance, health, and biohacking, emphasizing his desire for better outcomes without unnecessary spending. He shares personal experiences, such as flying first class on Singapore Airlines using points and dealing with health issues through research and optimization. The conversation also touches on their history of starting a company together, selling it to Google, and their attempts to avoid commuting by faking injuries.

05:01

🌟 Luxury Travel Experiences and the Art of Points Optimization

The discussion delves into the details of luxury travel experiences, such as flights with Singapore Airlines and Etihad, where the speaker utilized credit card points to enjoy premium services. The conversation highlights the importance of understanding and maximizing the value of points and miles, as well as the different strategies employed to achieve these experiences. The speaker also shares insights on how to make points go further and the potential costs associated with luxury flights.

10:03

💡 The Power of Credit Card Points and Personal Finance

The speaker shares his expertise in credit card points, discussing strategies for earning and optimizing their use. He talks about the importance of having the right credit cards for specific spending categories and the concept of card optimization. The conversation also covers the speaker's personal experience with accumulating points, the impact on his credit score, and strategies for maximizing the value of points through high signup bonuses and smart card management.

15:04

💸 The Debate Between Cashback and Points for Ultimate Savings

The speaker explores the benefits of cashback cards versus points-based rewards systems. He discusses the potential of using cashback to purchase airline points during sales, the value of having a high cashback rate on everyday expenses, and the advantages of certain cards for earning more points per dollar spent. The conversation also touches on the speaker's personal strategy for using points and the considerations for those who prefer cashback over points.

20:05

🧬 Biohacking and Personal Health Optimization

The speaker delves into his journey with biohacking, sparked by the birth of his children and a desire for longevity. He shares his experiences with different drugs and medical interventions aimed at weight loss and health improvement, as well as the importance of maintaining muscle mass. The conversation also includes personal anecdotes about dealing with health issues, the use of online platforms for medical advice, and the DIY approach to splitting medication doses for cost-effectiveness.

25:07

🏠 Property Tax Hacks and Privacy Concerns

The speaker discusses strategies for reducing property tax by appealing assessed values and the potential savings associated with these efforts. He also talks about his experience with data broker services for removing personal information from the internet, emphasizing the importance of privacy and security in the digital age. The conversation highlights the various methods available for protecting personal data and the potential risks associated with information being readily available online.

Keywords

💡Life Hacks

Life hacks refer to any strategy, technique, or shortcut that increases productivity and efficiency, making daily activities easier. In the context of the video, life hacks are about finding better outcomes without spending extra money, leading to a life of research and optimization. The host discusses various hacks, including finance and health hacks, to improve one's lifestyle.

💡Finance Hacks

Finance hacks involve clever methods to manage, save, or invest money more effectively. The video discusses how the host used finance hacks, such as accumulating credit card points, to pay for a first-class flight using points instead of money, which exemplifies the concept of maximizing the value of one's finances.

💡Health Hacks

Health hacks are techniques or practices aimed at improving one's physical well-being or longevity. In the video, the host talks about biohacking as a new area of health optimization, which includes using certain drugs to control glucose levels and promote weight loss, as well as other health-related strategies.

💡Biohacking

Biohacking refers to the self-experimentation of interventions designed to optimize or enhance various aspects of one's biology and health. The host discusses personal experiences with biohacking, such as using drugs like OIC and Mounjaro for weight loss and health improvement, as part of a broader effort to be healthier and live longer.

💡Credit Card Points

Credit card points are rewards earned by using credit cards for purchases, which can often be redeemed for travel, merchandise, or statement credits. In the video, the host shares experiences of leveraging credit card points to afford luxury travel experiences, such as first-class flights, by strategically using credit card rewards programs.

💡Optimization

Optimization refers to the process of making something as effective or functional as possible. In the context of the video, the host is portrayed as a 'Swiss army knife of optimization,' indicating a broad expertise in improving various aspects of life, from finance to health, through research and strategic planning.

💡Travel Optimization

Travel optimization involves planning and arranging travel in a way that maximizes benefits and minimizes costs. The video discusses how the host used his knowledge of credit card points and airline reward systems to optimize personal travel experiences, such as achieving a first-class flight experience at a fraction of the usual cost.

💡Singapore Airlines

Singapore Airlines is an international airline known for its high-quality services and amenities. In the video, the host mentions using credit card points to pay for a luxurious first-class experience on Singapore Airlines, highlighting the airline's reputation for excellence in customer service and comfort.

💡Etihad Residences

Etihad Residences is a premium class of travel offered by Etihad Airways that includes private suites with full-height doors, a separate bedroom, and en-suite bathrooms. The host compares these luxurious accommodations to the first-class experience on Singapore Airlines, emphasizing the high-end travel optimization strategies he employs.

💡Brain Aneurysm

A brain aneurysm is a bulging, weakened area in the wall of a blood vessel in the brain, which can leak or rupture, leading to a subarachnoid hemorrhage. In the video, the host mentions having a small brain aneurysm, which prompted a more proactive approach to health and biohacking to manage and mitigate potential risks associated with the condition.

💡Property Tax

Property tax is a tax imposed on real estate by local governments, based on the assessed value of the property. In the video, the host discusses a property tax hack where he looks into reducing his property's assessed value to lower his annual property tax bill, showcasing yet another area of life where he applies optimization strategies.

Highlights

Discussion on life hacks, finance hacks, and health hacks as a way of optimizing life outcomes without spending money.

Mention of using Singapore Airlines flight in first class paid for with points as an example of successful hacking.

The importance of identifying and nurturing one's 'superpower' or area of expertise for personal and professional development.

Biohacking and health optimization, especially after having children, becomes a priority to ensure longevity and good health.

Personal anecdote about dealing with high blood pressure and a small brain aneurysm through unconventional methods.

The various methods and hacks Chris Hutchins has explored and shared through his podcast and other platforms.

The concept of turning a hobby or specialized knowledge into a full-time career or business.

Using credit card points and various strategies to maximize travel experiences and minimize costs.

The idea of 'skill of spending' - optimizing on bigger, more impactful aspects of life rather than small savings.

Advice on dealing with property tax by appealing assessed values and potentially saving a significant amount each year.

The importance of data privacy and security in the age of AI and cyber threats, and steps to protect personal information.

Using services like Delete Me to remove personal information from data broker sites and protect against identity theft.

The potential risks of information on the dark web and how to monitor and protect oneself from such threats.

Practical tips for securing one's home and personal information, such as blurring house on Google Maps and adjusting delivery settings.

The concept of unclaimed money and how to check and claim money owed to individuals by the state.

The value of reaching out to banks and services to upgrade security measures and protect against fraud.

Transcripts

we're going to talk about life hacks

Finance hacks Health hacks you're kind

of this Swiss army knife of optimization

of all things oh this is the thing I

like having better outcomes and I don't

like spending money on it and that's led

to a life of research and you put me on

a Singapore Airlines flight that was

first class first class it was crazy

because you paid for it all in points if

you want to make your points go really

far something like what you did in

Singapore sweet oh here's what you

should do that's your superpower

basically let's talk about some of the

other hacks that that you've been up to

biohacks this is kind of new for you I

don't know that you've been a massive

biohacker having kids really jump

started this like I need to be healthy

and so that's pushed me to say what do I

need to do what do I need to dial in

what kind of exercise do I need to do

November of last year my blood pressure

was high I have a small brain aneurysm

and you were like oh dude I got this

crazy hack this is some crazy yeah

so Chris great to have you man dude I'm

excited to be in this new studio this is

the first time I've actually broken in

the studio in this way this is the real

setup we got the lights got all the

multiple cameras like you're the first

real guest this is a real thing the real

thing thanks for flying down yeah I'm

excited to be here so for people that

don't know I mean we you and I go way

back we have like started a company

together we sold it to Google we ended

up working at Google together uh lot lot

of commutes yeah lot of commutes we we

talked about faking our own injuries so

we wouldn't have to commute and we could

work from home before before you that

was a thing they called it vest in peace

remember where like you would just like

vest your stock and like try not to um

have to do the commute down to Google

because it was an hour and a half to get

down there from San Francisco if we were

lucky it was brutal traffic was bad yeah

but um I will say since then obviously

you've gone to do your own thing you

have your podcast now all the H all the

hacks with Chris Hutchins y um you that

made complete sense to me I remember

when you were first talking to me about

doing a podcast and and you know you

have always been someone where every

friend of yours hits you up it must be

all the time about like little tiny

things little tiny hacks that are both

life

optimization uh travel optimization like

you name it you're kind of this Swiss

army knife of optimization of all things

would you is that accurate or how do you

how do you frame it I like having better

outcomes and I don't like spending on it

and that's led to a life of research and

optimization and relationship building

to try to get to the bottom of it was

the first time that you actually had a

breakout moment was that when you wrote

that credit card piece what was the

first time where because I remember some

news Outlet started to pick up something

that you had written or what was the

first time you realized this was going

to be like broadly applicable to a lot

of people I think I knew that it was

broadly applicable early on so I

remember just having dinners and people

are like leaning in asking questions I

was like oh this is the thing and I

encourage everyone listening what I do

isn't your thing but whatever that thing

when you're having dinner with friends

and they all lean in and they ask you

questions think about that thing more

because for me I probably now like you

said oh it makes total sense it took me

like 20 years to figure it out and all

my friends knew it but I never asked

them so everybody listening ask your

friends what's that thing that I'm known

for maybe there's a business you could

start there that's your superpower

basically it's like when people lean in

you're like okay I'm good at this one

thing maybe I should expand that yes and

so for me I remember writing a blog post

I actually looked I I've started a Blog

three or four times and I wrote a post

on credit card points and that just

wasn't the medium so I knew it was a

thing that I like to talk about but I

had never found the medium until I'd

been on a bunch of podcasts and I was

like I like this medium let's try it

from the other side and it worked um but

before I thought I tried posting tweets

about life optimization credit card

points and Miles personal finance I

tried writing a blog post it just never

clicked so even though I thought I knew

the thing I didn't know how to kind of

turn it into what I guess now is like a

career yeah it's your full-time gig now

it's my full-time gig it's my wife

joined fulltime and we're doing it

together and it's like our family

business kind of that's amazing uh the

one time I will say the first big aha

moment for me that you helped me out

with was when I was going to Tokyo with

my wife yep and I remember um I done a

home renovation and in SF and I had a

bunch of points just like you know as

you do with credit cards and buying

stuff just sitting there and everybody

at this point in your career I mean this

was years ago but at this point people

knew you as like oh I've got points what

do I do with them how can I help

Traverse all of the like multi-point

jumps that you can do to get like the

best like upgraded you know business

class first class things like that you

put me on a Singapore Airlines flight

which which was first is that first

class that I first class first class and

it was crazy because you paid for it all

in points I think I maybe paid like a

what taxes or something usually maybe

100 200 bucks a person in taxes but not

a lot right so it was a couple hundred

bucks in taxes um this flight just so

you and we'll show a picture of this in

the video this flight comes with if you

get two seats next to each other you can

fold down the center column you can join

the beds together and then they have

closing doors so you essentially have

your own like was it like I would say

it's like a queen bed like close to

queen size full double but it's a decent

sized bed they put like rose petals on

the bed and like it's it's as close as

you're going to get to like free free

range like my high club like go for it

kind of like situation in the air yeah I

think the downside is for everyone's

imagining this right now if you're

listening on audio you're like wow of

course the only downside is I think it's

like six or seven feet tall or maybe

like six feet tall I think it's like six

feet right so someone really wanted to

peek over they could yeah so it's not

fully enclosed if you were to fly on the

Etihad residences so Etihad has the

apartments and then the residences you

have a fully enclosed room with a bed so

I had never heard of etad before what

what is ET OD so ET od's an airline

based in Abu Dhabi there's kind of three

or four big airlines that all compete

Emirates Etihad um Kat based in Kat yeah

and like those airlines are all

competing for the best cabins Kat has Q

Suites um I don't think e emirat has

anything they just call it first class

but it's very nice we flown it together

yeah we we went and talked at a

conference together and you got us

upgraded free first class from the

conference providers and Emirates which

was nuts because they had a shower on

the plane like you could literally go

and shower on the plane by the way but

this is a shared shower in the etot

residences you have your own shower wait

so you mean mean wait you're how many

showers are there on their plane I think

on uh Emirates there's one or two for

all the first class people you go in you

have like 10 or 20 minutes and all that

in the residences you walk in and you've

got a bench and what your chair you've

got a TV you've got a private bathroom

and then you have a bedroom this is all

yours what does it cost to fly something

like that so if you were to say I want

to fly this for the sole purpose of

flying it and you're like I'm just G to

fly from Abu Dhabi to Mumbai do they

have any Stateside travel or is it just

uh so there was a window of time where

they took it off and then they put it

back on so I I can't say exactly what's

running for for a while was JFK to Abu

Dhabi had this um the cheapest way to

fly it would be to fly these short

routes so if you just want to tick the

Box you could fly you know a few hours

from Abu Dhabi to Bombay or um Columbo

and Sri Lanka or something like that but

if you want to fly from JFK I we're

talking 20 $30,000 each way per seat per

mer that's insane it's insane and so and

and it's one of the kind of elusive

white whales of these things because you

can book it with points and I just

looked at it before this but it's going

to take you like three million points

which not to say three million points

you know is the worst deal for something

that might cost 30 or $40,000 but

there's a lot better way to redeem your

points so as much as I would say if

someone listening is like I want the

absolute best way to join the mile high

club in privacy at you I mean you might

as well fly private also

uh etod residences would be it however

if you want to make your points go

really far something like what you did

in Singapore site yeah I think it was

like 120,000 points so you could do that

30 times right so yeah the Singapore Air

was great and they had fantastic food

and all that and it was just like I

never knew you could have your own

little private dwelling where they close

the doors and everything which was which

was awesome and and just to get that

purely on points and spend a couple

hundred dollars it's fantastic yes um so

just had curiosity like can you get

kicked off an airline for like because

they you're kind of when they put rose

pedals on the bed they're kind of saying

like it's a you know nod to like have a

romantic time blah BL blah so can you

get kicked off an airline for that I

mean people can get kicked off Airlines

they're not going to you know Alaska

Style just open the door and let you go

right but but I mean I imagine they

would ask you to stop before they you

know aborted the flight and landed so i'

would say

if you want to experiment and they get

upset I wouldn't keep going uh but I

don't know I mean there I've heard

definitely people who are you know try

to sneak two people in the bathroom and

get in trouble but they're not going to

land the plane over it they're just

going to be like stop um fun hack all of

the bathrooms on airplanes can be open

from the outside so there's this little

metal thing that says laboratory if you

flip it up you can see the latch so yeah

not as much privacy as you want yeah

it's funny cuz if uh I saw somebody

actually do that where they were

knocking on the door the person wouldn't

answer and I was like oh how's this this

flight attendant going to get in and it

that little sign it looks like a little

placard yeah you just take your

fingernail underneath it and pull it up

and there's a slider right there to

unlock any lavatory like restroom like

instantly yeah and I it's actually a

good tip for parents because I imagine

there's an age where your kids's like

well I want you to walk me to the

bathroom but I don't want you to come in

with me and if they lock themselves in

there you're safe yeah so you used to be

a big kind of points person in terms of

like that was you wrote about it

uh people are probably wondering you

know when you think about gosh 100,000

points is still spending $100,000 to get

those points right like well I guess you

can get three for one or four for one

like do you still play that game anymore

where like if you get the ultimate

credit card you get more points and you

can TR transfer transfer them to travel

or is is that are you kind of done with

that I'm still playing the game I just

did an episode a couple weeks ago what's

in my wallet for 2024 where I'm like

here's all the categories here's the

cards I'm using uh here's where I'm

personally focused I've got probably 15

million points points right now so I

probably need to work more on the

spending than the earning but you didn't

you didn't like spend $15 million to get

15 million points I have $5 million it

would be a very big problem so how did

you get 15 million points so I think

something interesting and I want people

to not get too caught up in you know

seeing the forest for the trees so you

could get the perfect credit card that

gives you the most points on gas there's

wind the Windam business earner card is

like 8X points on gas however like if

you don't spend a lot on gas are you

really over optimizing for the wrong

thing right now there's I think AMX

Platinum has a referral offer right now

that's 150,000 points if you spend I'm

gonna probably miss it it's like $8,000

over six months which I would think the

average person is probably able to spend

$8,000 on cred well that's going to get

you that Singapore Air private room

right there right that's amazing and so

when I think about points and I think

about people getting into the game I

think there's look if you spend a lot of

money on certain categories why not make

sure you have the right card to earn the

most but I built this this big tool I I

called it like my card optimization tool

and you could download it for $1 at all

the hacks.com card tool I think and I

put all these cards in and then I went

to go get uh there's Bureau of Labor

Statistics data I think on how the

average American household that earns

over $100,000 spends their money and I

went down the list of how everyone

spends their money I calculated the

cards and I was like what is the perfect

combination of cards and where do you

start to see real diminishing returns

yeah and like really optimal two cards

every third fourth fifth card you add

really starts to diminish the return is

that because you're paying a a annual

fee for some of these cards or like

what's it's a little bit the annual fee

and it's a little bit like okay if I'm

going to earn 2x on everything and

there's a card that's going to give me

3x when I rent cars like you're not

really spending enough on the rental

cars to make it worth it so the the

killer combo was the MX gold which is 4X

on dining and groceries and the Capital

One venture or Venture X which is 2x on

everything and that earned on average

for the American household I think

around 2.65 points per dollar based on

how you spend you could add MX Platinum

ear 5x on flights if you spend 50 Grand

a year on business flights it's worth it

to get a card that's going to you know

take your flights from 3x to 5x yeah but

if you buy a couple flights a year like

it it's it's not really there however

let's take this example let's say you

spend

$110,000 year on flights and the card

you have today earns 3x points and there

is a card that earns five so you're

going to get extra two points on $10,000

so you're going to get 20,000 extra

points on flights yeah if you just open

the AMX Platinum right now with a

referral link you're going to $150,000

points right which is years worth of you

know You' have it' take you seven years

of all those spending on flights to earn

earn that same number of points so the

most accelerated way to open uh a an

account and a mass a lot of points is to

focus focus on really high signup

bonuses and I would say in general 75 to

100,000 point plus bonuses and I've done

one for 250,000 which is probably the

highest done one for 190,000 and I've

done lots for 100,000 plus and so that's

the easiest way to start racking up

points uh I won't go as far down the

rabbit hole as we could on the impact on

your credit score and all that but it's

surprisingly not that bad there are

people who've opened up between them and

their partner like 25 cars in the course

of 18 months and their credit scores

went up over time I'll send you a link

to this graphic it's crazy like they

opened up all these cards and their

credit score went up now are they

closing them though afterwards like are

you redeeming it and say say there's a a

signing bonus of 100,000 points you do

it they say you have to stay with them

what six months a year so here's my rule

of thumb never close a card in the first

year okay because they have these rules

that you know they're basically like if

we catch you closing them in a year

we're going to maybe red you know put a

red mark on your name so always close it

if you don't want it close it in the

13th month annual fee posts the second

year if you cancel it within 30 days you

can usually get it back almost always so

close it in the 13mon if you don't need

it but there's a lot of cards out there

like Chase Sapphire preferred and

Reserve you can downgrade to the Chase

Freedom unlimited or the Chase Freedom

flex and those cards have no annual fee

so there are a lot of cards where you

you get a really expensive United card

that gives you access downgrade it to

the free United C so you call in and

you're like rather than cancelling

getting a ding something like that you

call like ah this card's not for me

anymore gotta or you say this happened

to me with the MX Platinum one year I

called in I was like I'm just not

getting the value and they're like who

you've been a customer for so many years

we really want to keep you what if we

just wave the annual fee this year I'm

like okay like we'll punt this decision

a year so you can call and say I'm

thinking of canceling this card is there

anything you could do for me and you can

live chat that if you don't want to get

on the phone and a lot of times they'll

be like well if you can spend two grand

we'll give you 20,000 points or

something and maybe it makes it worth it

so cancel the card is like the last

resort yeah because you know if you can

get a free card or if you can end up

getting the the annual fee comped great

um but General I'm I'm opening cards to

get points I'm opening cards because

they have Perks I might not never spend

on them but it might be worth it for the

perks or I'm opening cards because it

really impacts my spending bonuses not

if it just kind of impacts my spending

bonuses the the one thing um you know I

I had said to you before is like I I I'm

not thinking in every situation like I'm

at dinner I'm like okay I probably

should but like I'm not like okay AMX

Platinum 4X dinner you know it's it does

take a little bit of a a a mental load

to remember oh

I'm in this situation I should pull out

this card right it's not hor that's why

I like the two card solution it's like

you have two cards dining groceries and

everything else yeah but what about

somebody that just wants like the

ultimate cash back they're like I I

don't want to worry about anything I

just want like the highest percent of

just straight cash back so I don't I

don't know when this will come out I'm

going to try to make the case for cash

back because one of the things that's

interesting you bring up we brought up

Singapore like what a great deal because

that flight probably would have been

$20,000 and you ended up getting it for

like 120,000 points so you're getting

almost 20 cents a point that's unreal uh

maybe it was $10,000 maybe it's 10 cents

a point but that's a lot of cents per

point right if you have a card that's

getting you two points and you're

getting 10 cents that's like 20% cash

back on everything right now if you

wouldn't otherwise pay for first class

then you're not really getting that

value right it's not saving if you're I

would spend a th on economy now I can

get a free first class upgrade great but

you didn't really save 20 grand right um

but a lot of airlines sell miles and

points and they go on sale all the time

so you have access to buy 100,000 points

on some Airlines for $1,000 so I'm

starting to think what if you just maxed

your cash back and then you could buy

tickets with cash or you could buy

tickets by buying the points on the

airline and booking the flights I

haven't recorded this episode so I'm not

ready to definitively say how how the

Steelman argument comes out but I will

say there are a couple cards that I'm

really intrigued by this year so the US

Bank altitude Reserve card uh because

you can get 3x they call them points but

it's just cash back you get 3x points on

mobile wallet payments so anytime you

can use Apple pay which if you're using

Safari on a Mac there are a lot of

websites where you can use Apple pay

online um and the way they allow there's

a way that they let you redeem those

points for one and a half cents each

which means four and a half% cash back

anytime you use Apple pay wait how do

you get to four and a half% because you

had 3% so you get 3x points and they let

you redeem them for one and a half cents

okay and it's this weird thing called

realtime rewards where it's like anytime

you purchase something in travel there's

a way to get kick it back so I don't

want to go four and a half% on

everything that's better than so when

you on Apple pay on Apple pay but still

you use Apple pay for most things yeah

Costco yeah Amazon Prime uh that card

gives you 5% with a Prime Membership so

that's like the best online that I know

of there's there's not there's no way I

know of to get more than 5% % cash back

in in in except for in a few very edge

case scenarios um but the like kind of

tried and true cash back card for a lot

of people is in the Bank of America

premium rewards card and so they have

this whole status thing where if you

have uh over $100,000 parked in Bank of

America or Marl Lynch which can that be

equities too be you could buy stocks in

a meril brokerage like it doesn't have

to be anything that you're losing money

on by keeping it there so you can

transfer some your Nvidia stock or

whatever and then you just you got old

Roth IRA put it there um and so they

have this card earns one and a half

points on everything or cash back but

one and a half and then I think it earns

two on travel and dining but you boost

that by 75% if you have 100 Grand in

these accounts which makes it

effectively you're getting 3.5% cash

back on travel and dining and

2.625% cash cash back on everything else

that is like the one card solution

everything it's pretty good yeah now if

you're using a lot of Apple pay maybe

the altitude reserves better but those

two cards uh have me

thinking if if I can make the cash back

worth more than the points which I'll

I'll provide the argument against then

there are cards that can basically make

sure you're probably averaging around 3%

cash back on everything yeah throw in

the Amazon card you're getting five

there um you know you get the target

debit card which you don't even have to

impact your credit score you get 5% off

at Target like you could probably get an

average a little above 3% but I took

this example that I wrote down because I

want to get it right of booking a flight

to borabora which I've done twice on

points the flight's almost always in

business class around 55500

$6,000 and so if you want to just book

it any any of these Airlines lets you

use your points to book in their travel

portal for one cent a point so the

general rule of THB is one cent a point

is the floor Flor there's some ways that

you could use gift cards and it's like

even less but one cent per point is the

floor yeah so it's going to be half a

million points so then Chase if you have

the chase Reserve card they'll give you

one and a half cents so you can get it

down to 365,000 points but if you

transfer that point to United and book

on United's website for a United flight

I've I've booked it for about 140,000

points which means 3.8 cents per point

but if you transfer to Air Canada and

you book it for 110,000 you get about 5

cents per point so I've pretty

consistently been able to get more than

two cents per point so from my

perspective if I'm using a card like the

MX gold 4X on dining 4X on groceries and

I'm getting two cents per point or more

and in this example I got five yeah then

I'm getting eight plus percent cash back

that's insane so that's why I love

points right there's an extreme example

of booking like the perfect flight for

10 or 15 or 20 cents per point where I

mean this sounds so crazy but AMX

Platinum 5x points 10 cents per Point

50% cash back like yeah that's nuts so I

still love playing the points game but

and I just get to do things I wouldn't

do would if I had cash back would I

really spend it to fly in first class to

Japan could I pull the trigger on on a

$6,000 flight no I mean you know me I

there's no way I could pull the trigger

on that yeah so but when they're the

they're just sitting there as points and

it makes it seem like it's funny money

you just you're willing to spend it so

um let's talk about some of the other

hacks that that been up to um the

biohacks this is kind of new for you I

don't know that you've been a massive

biohacker in the past no because I think

there's there's two really compelling

reasons to go down this path one is to

be healthy that's fine and then you have

kids and you're like now I just want to

live longer to see my kids like I want I

don't want to you know see myself fall

apart and my body fall apart and so

having kids really jump started this

like I need to be healthy I want to be

able to you know we had kids in our

mid-30s late 30s even so like I want to

be able to you know run with them and

you know we all probably see people and

whether they're our parents or our

parents generation some of them are like

running around the track playing tennis

and some of them are very sedentary

right totally I want to be that former

group yeah and so that's pushed me to

say what do I need to do what do I need

to dial in what kind of exercise do I

need to do uh and it's it's taken me on

a path that previously sound like

biohacking is new you know but I was

like eh who cares now I have a purpose

yeah so I you and I both did the same

thing which we should talk about y uh

it's a little embarrassing it's not

necessarily the thing you want to admit

to everyone but

yeah I mean so I'll I'll tell you what

happens on my side so about um let's

call it two and a half years ago maybe

three years ago uh my kind of longevity

doctor uh Peter AA was investigating

these new class of drugs um these gp1

inhibit that essentially are um glucose

control drugs but they also one of the

big side effects is that people are

losing a lot of weight on them right so

OIC probably being the the biggest one

in the category y um

he uh you know for me at that time so my

issues has never been I haven't been

like super obese but like you as you

know like visceral fat is is is a bad

type of fat and like I've always had you

know call it 10 lbs just to kind of get

rid of and my blood blood pressure uh

for me personally is uh severely

impacted by EXT plus or minus 10 to 15

pounds like it it's higher if I'm

heavier right and so um I I I said I'll

try it I'm I'm so a couple years ago I

went on o zic just to see what what

happened for you know just uh I think I

did it for about a month uh I got super

nauseous um you had bad reactions yeah I

just got really nauseous and you know I

did drop that 10 pounds which is great

but I didn't really enjoy it I mean it

just didn't didn't sit right with me I

just like didn't like the fact that

there was this nausea that came along

with it I was like ah screw it and then

later aa's team had done the research

and said hey we're also noticing via

dexa scans which are these low radiation

scans that you can get done on your

entire body which shows bone density it

shows visceral fat shows muscle mass

it's like insanely accurate body scan

that you can get done um he was showing

muscle loss and I I think the majority

of that I I'd have to talk to about it

but the the majority of that is like

you're literally not eating any protein

like you're you're you're kind of not

hungry at all right you're not eating

anything so it would it's not really

surprising that you would lose some

muscle mass as well but muscle mass um

you know if you've read aa's latest book

outlive it is very important to maintain

you know over your lifespan like it's

it's very important uh piece to

longevity so um there has been new drugs

that have come out since uh one of them

is called uh Muro and joro is is is a is

a slightly more elegant drug it works a

little bit better um it's still a glp1

inhibitor but it's also like a dual GP

and by the way to anyone listening we're

not doctors we're not giving medical

advice no none of this is medical advice

but we'll just tell you our our our our

kind of path through this so um you know

November of last year uh I I was in the

same predicament where I was like okay

I'm probably 15 PBS overweight I broke

200 for the first time which I was like

not proud of

breaking 200 it's like there's something

for me it's just we got to make a change

yeah exactly so I'm normally at like 185

and so I broke 200 and I'm like okay

this sucks and of course my blood

pressure was high I have a you know

small brain aneurysm that you know they

keep an eye on and the thing that causes

brain anisms to grow and why you hear

they're so dangerous is what if they

grow they burst and if they burst you

have a 50% chance of survival and it's

not good so you got to keep your blood

pressure tight tight tight so uh anyway

I talked to n about my my primary care

physician I was like hey

like can you hook me up a little bit

like I I just need a little little juice

just to like get me get me on the right

path right like if I can get like a

little few shots in the side and drop a

tener then I'm like good to go into the

new year right and so um he's like okay

I got you so I went in and since then

it's been approved for weight loss it's

now coming out under a new brand name as

well um but you know with the sole

purpose of getting my blood pressure

down and you know I got it off label so

obviously it was not not off label but

um off prescription so obviously it was

not paid for um I used a coupon that I

found online so you can get for 500

bucks a month and uh it's expensive but

I did it and of course you know I lost

that like you know call it 10 12 pounds

and Then followed up with cardio protein

all the bright things and then now you

know working back into getting into good

shape again so that was great I talked

to

you and you were like oh dude I got this

crazy ha like this is some crazy I

tell me what you did yeah so similar

experience except instead of having a

doctor that I could talk to about it

there's probably 20 startups now that

you go online you fill out a profile and

if you meet a certain number of

requirements they will hook you up with

a doctor that helps prescribe things for

weight loss so like Ted do yeah tedoc

but they're specifically designed I

won't say I mean they are buying OIC and

Manjaro keywords on Google they're not

out there saying like click this button

and we're going to prescribe this drug

because what they're going to do is

click this button talk to a doctor and

the doctor's going to find the right

solution for you right solution is often

gop1 Inhibitors but like it's very clear

what keywords they're buying on Google

uh in their advertising so I went to one

and I was like hey I'm in a similar post

cross 200 want to do this I didn't have

the blood pressure I had the cholesterol

and so it's usually helpful to be PR

like from a diagnosing these things it's

like there they want like maybe one

other thing to improve so whether it's

cholesterol or pre-diabetes or blood

pressure

and so prescribe majo and there was a

coupon what was the name of the the site

that you used I think I used one called

Alfie okay um there's there's a lot of

them now yeah uh you know I haven't used

them all so I can't you know I I had to

find experience but there was a coupon a

year maybe last year or sometime where

it would bring the cost down to almost

nothing and but that coupon no longer

works now it brings it down to like $500

I haven't tried this out since then but

went on for three months I had a very

different experience to you which was

did you get nausea I didn't get any

nausea with majar at all none yeah and I

went from like 207 to like 175 or

something lot of drop 90 days and I I

didn't put a lot of thought into it I

wasn't doing all the like protein

research so that was it and I but I

ended up stopping it a little early and

then I had in the fridge I still had

like a month or a month and a or two

months of Supply left I was like well

I'm not going to use this now like I I

hit this Target one thing that's really

important to realize is because you're

consuming so few calories your metabolic

rate goes down significantly so a lot of

people get off these drugs and they gain

the pounds right back uh because if

you're used to consuming 800 calories a

day for 90 days and then you get off and

you're like well now I'm hungry and

you're eating 2,000 you're going to gain

it right back could you see ABS at that

point were you like getting shredded no

no I was not shredded okay um and so you

weren't working out though either right

no see you just like basically just lost

a lost a bunch of muszle weight and you

were just like flabby like just like no

I mean I wasn't that you were doughy

though you weren't like buff no I wasn't

working out yeah um and I probably went

back up to 185 at the end it stayed

there for a while and I was like that

was great it like I wasn't one that was

consistently gaining weight so it was

like I just needed to do a little reset

and then we had another kid and just the

end of like all this stuff started

happening I was like it's happening

again and I wasn't serious about

exercise this year I have been um like

pretty diligent about stuff and then I

was like you know this time I'm I'm

going to I want to get the last little

use out of the stuff that's in the

fridge let's do another one but I didn't

want to go through the Hass of another

prescription and I started looking on

online and the crazy thing is mararo you

can get it in 2.5 to 15 milligram

dosages okay so when when you when you

mention that so what people should know

is that the way that you take manaro is

that it is a subcutaneous shot it's a

single-use pen and so it looks like you

know I mean it could be like whatever a

bul pen or whatever you push down on it

when you push down on the end of it it

shoots a needle that is a super fine

little tiny needle about a quarter inch

into your fat so you kind of pinch your

fat push it down you hold it there for

what about 5 Seconds it pops back and it

pops back out it's done you throw away

the whole cartridge and you're done onto

the next one and you do that once per

week so that's just a little primer of

of how it's used and they make pens like

that I think a zic might even be where

you can ratchet the pen that's right you

can adjust the dosage what's crazy about

mararo is you can't adjust the dosage

but the cost for 15 milligrams is the

same as the cost

and maybe I'm off by a couple dollars

but like relatively the same as the cost

for two and a half but they never want

to start you with that crazy they want

to start you with 2 and scale scale up

and because i' done this for 90 days

they scaled me up to 10 okay um and you

know I don't know if I need to be on 10

I felt like I was fine at five yeah so

when I was like let's go back I was like

I have these pens at 10 uh it seems like

a total waste I don't need 10 but

there's only one way to do this and I

just search online and there are people

that are showing you how simple it is to

basic basally take a little wrench open

the pen up and put into you know what it

was sterile vials add bacteriostatic

water to help with the longevity of the

medicine and to kind of increase the

number of cc's of liquid or milliliters

of liquid and then use a the same needle

but as a diabetes syringe kind of thing

to basically split doses there a lot of

people out there who either by dosing up

or by just being honest with their

doctor and saying this is a super

expensive medicine I would like to use

it can you help me get to a 50 milligram

prescription and I'm going to dose it

out um there are other crazy people who

are buying peptides from China and like

trying to batch themselves Manjaro

equivalent yeah screw that that seems

crazy well even the it seems crazy to

like so what you're saying essentially

is that like you can buy the 15 mil the

actual you know pins y if you crack them

open you can extract two and a half and

by crack open just to be clear you're

like you're taking there's nothing

breaking you're not like

liquid out of a glass you're taking that

same needle and the way the pen actually

works if you take it apart is there's a

plunger just like any normal syringe

that pushes down and it pushes the

liquid inside the medicine out the tip

of the syringe but it pushes down so

fast and it's spring-loaded it's crazy

when you take it apart if you release

the spring the little plunger will shoot

40 feet across the room like it is a

serious amount of force from that spring

so when you take it apart you remove the

spring why can't you just put it right

into to an empty uh vial and shoot it

all right in so there are people that do

that and if you go read all these redit

threads people are doing that there two

reasons that you don't want to do it is

one these vials have a very small area

to hit through so if you don't line it

up perfectly right you might damage the

needle you might miss the top and lose

the medicine and then two peptides are

very sensitive so people are like well

when I did that it starts foaming a lot

and it's like the medicin was still

worked but like they're very sensitive

medication so

I thought it would be safer to not shoot

it in and have it have some sort of

reaction that creates foam I don't like

I'm not a doctor I don't know what what

to but it seemed safer to do it a little

slower uh and so we just I just split

the tens and added each pen is about 50

milliliters or is that right 50

milliliters yeah I think so or 50 CC's

and so I had to take a yeah proba 50

CC's and then you take 50 CC's plus 50

cc's of water and then you're doing the

same then you're mixing it up and you're

just taking 50 out which now has half

the medication gotcha uh and so now you

got to be I mean again we said it before

but this is we're not saying to try this

at home this I'm not endorsing this this

this is probably you know no one would

probably recommend this no not at all

because there there is a a world where

you can contaminate this stuff yeah so

I'm like I have like my little table I'm

like wiping it down with alcohol wipes

I'm washing my hands I'm wiping down the

top of the vial I'm wiping like I'm you

know I'm taking a lot of precautions

what made me comfortable with this was

when my wife was going through IVF we

had to do all the same stuff so had a v

so if you had told me this pre IVF I'd

be like this is insane I'm drawing you

know medicine out of a syringe and

injecting my that seems crazy right but

we went through this whole thing at UCSF

when we were doing IVF and they're like

all right here's this medicine and I

need you to take it out and I need you

to put it in this other vial and mix it

with this other thing and mix it up so

the medicine can and then take it out

and then inject it and this was some of

those were subcutaneous and some of them

I think it was progesterone was like a

massive needle in the butt like massive

intramuscular yeah and uh speaking of

back to our old privacy on airplanes

thing I remember you're supposed to take

it the same time every day so we weren't

in the middle of trying to join the mile

high club but I needed to stick a needle

in my wife's ass like to inject his

medicine and the time was in the middle

of a flight to Tokyo and so we're like I

remember we didn't have sweets so I like

made a tent out of a blanket and had

like a little flashlight from my phone

cuz I was trying to give her this shot

cuz like you know we're not going in her

seat or did you go to the bathroom in

her seat is the bathroom on a regular

it's too small like so uh yeah so that

made me comfortable with the process

because I was like if doctors are going

to prove this process which is almost

identical in this other way and we had

success we now have two children so it

worked yeah uh it made me comfortable

with it not saying everyone should be

comfortable but you know if you're if

you're getting the medication for the

same price with more medicine and you

split it out it ends up being cheaper

per month yeah this is not a drug that I

want to take for you years right it's

not a Dr I plan to take again um but

it's been an interesting experiment I

started tracking my macros though and

like how much how many calories am I

consuming and the first week back on it

I was like oh my God I consumed 500

calories in a day that's insane that's

insane well I mean that's why you're

losing the weight and I'm sure there's

water weight there as well and sure but

but I was still working out so then I

got really aggressive about protein and

I was like okay I'm going to be

consuming a lot of protein I'm not going

to just consume 500 Cal like the

calories can be low but the protein has

to be high because I didn't want to do

the muscle loss so I started trying all

these protein

cereals we could put a link to a video

we were talking last night about making

protein ice cream with the ninja creamy

yes yes uh which I have yet to buy uh

and use but there are some great recipes

using like protein powder uh sugar-free

pudding mix and whole milk and you can

make these like a couple of my friends

do this like delicious ice cream that is

like 100 calories and super packed with

protein um and using the n ninja creamy

I got to get a ninja cream which is like

an at home ice cream maker uh me by the

ninja folks yeah the blender blenders

all that yeah so now I'm aggressively

focused on protein because I don't want

to have muscle loss I'm working out a

lot I'm doing a a pre- and post dexa

scan to see how the effects of that are

uh that's good yeah and I started

getting into these Diagnostics I read a

lot of AAS stuff and there are some

things you could just change for me

cholesterol got a cardio I mean anyone

who's has high cholesterol the craziest

thing about cholesterol which I just

don't understand it is the way our

medicine system works is until you have

like a 10year likelihood above X of

getting a cardiovascular event they do

nothing and then when you cross that

camp they treat it like it's a a huge

problem right it's too late when in

reality you could start a lot earlier

right and so I went and did a calcium

score test which I think if you do it

depending on the place but Stanford has

a pretty inexpensive one like hundreds

of dollars uh you can find out do I

already have calcium in my arteries yeah

for people that don't know calcium in

the arteries is just a sign that damage

has occurred and so there's

calcification deposits inside the Aral

uh the AR artery walls and if anything

comes back meaning like you get the scan

done and it's not zero that means like

all hands on deck you need to a bad

thing has like having high cholesterol

increases the propensity for plaque in

the arteries and this means that not

only is their plaque but it's calcified

you can't really remove it like it's

there but if you catch it early enough

you can really start to be aggressive so

I did this I had one of four arteries

had a score of two and it goes from like

zero to it could be over a thousand so I

had the best worst outcome right like

the best outcome is a zero everywhere

the best worst outcome I guess would be

a one in one artery and I had a two and

did you do that with contrast or no so

then I was like okay I want to know how

much soft plaque there is so I met with

a cardiologist at UCSF and he's like

well if there's a lot of soft plaque and

it's about to be calcified that's even

worse and I went and got a CT and

which is a more expensive thing which I

have no idea why but was covered by

insurance and I don't think it was

supposed to be but you know I'm not not

questioning that uh and it came back

with a zero on all four arteries that's

so crazy and then I asked if they could

review like I said could you have the

person I did the same facility I was

like could you have the person that did

the first one yeah and the second one

talk because it doesn't make sense that

I got mixed results and they were like

the results are within the margin of

error so there's no point in doing this

so I don't know if I have a two or a

zero but having a zero on the CT

angiogram makes me feel pretty good but

my uh primary care physician which is

not a fancy it's a one medical doctor

was like we're GNA put you on statins

and we're gonna lower your apob we're g

to lower your LDL apob is a huge one

we'll put a link in the show notes to a

lot of aa's yeah he's done a bunch of

stuff here we're not I'm not an expert

on cardiovascular disease and all this

stuff but that set me on this aggressive

path so I was like okay I think

everybody should be doing their

Diagnostics like where's my blood work

um you can change your apop by taking Li

statins which is what I've done and you

can change your LDL and all this stuff

there are a few things that I'm now

pretty interested in because they take

longer so testing your V2 max testing

your bone density your visceral fats

those things you can't change those

overnight with a drug that takes time

yeah but you got decka to give you the

accurate results on that those dexa

scans are where to go yeah and so

there's a company called dexa fit which

I'm working with uh right now I'm

actually meeting the founder this week

uh because they have facilities all over

the country uh and I mean my goal by the

way with podcast and I think I'm going

to help push you to this goal is there

are a lot of podcasts out there that

have you know sponsors from whoever

wants to pay them my approach to

sponsorship which I think if you have

sponsors on the show will be the same is

I'm just gonna find all the companies I

love I'm gonna reach out to all of them

yeah and I'm gonna work with them that's

the only way to do it I I I've done

hundreds of podcasts you know I mean the

Kevin Rose shows now um obviously I took

a little Hiatus there but you know it's

it's like 50 episodes plus deep never

took a sponsor and it was because I I if

I ever take a sponsor I always want to

be something I can truly back and get

behind and believe in cuz otherwise

you're just killing your own reputation

it's it's horrible um one of the things

I want to ask you about real quick

though is like in in spirit of all this

you know cardiovascular health one of

the things that many people point to you

know uh Peter especially Ronda Patrick

uh the scientist who done a lot of

research on this front is the benefits

of hot sauna usage yeah and I know that

you just built a sauna um I have a sauna

here that's a piece of crap we we we

looked at it last night it was it came

with the house it looks beautiful looks

beautiful but it it's it's it was built

for beauty not for Comfort wait how does

it work built for it was it was just it

was built for someone to buy a house for

Comfort not for yeah it was built for

someone to buy a house so it's got a lot

of glass and it looks fancy but it's

it's actually a pretty shitty sa it

doesn't get hot enough um I will say you

went really deep we were talking about

this last night on how to build a SAA

you built one you were sending pictures

along the way you were doing it your is

outside right in your backyard yeah yeah

I've got my studio a sauna and C plunge

and we'll get to C plunge later but yeah

so let let's just talk real quick about

like you know this the data is out there

Ronda Patrick if if you look at our show

notes there'll be a link to Ronda

Patrick sauna um uh she has a multi-page

PDF that she talks about the benefits of

it the reduction in all cause mortality

the reduction in dementia risk the de

reduction in cardiovascular disease it's

really meaningful a lot of these studies

are in Finland and they look at like

people that go four days a week and

we and like they are living

longer but but one of the key things in

her document is that you need to it

looks like the sweet spot for this is

about in in Fahrenheit is 175 degrees

Fahrenheit um at the chest level um 20

to 25 minutes per session and that's

pretty hot like most American saunas in

fact there's there's these Governors on

some of the saunas that won't let them

even go that hot um you did the research

you went in like studied like the papers

tell tell us about that document that

you found from the fins like what did

you figure out so funny if so Finland is

probably the the place to go if you if

you're like I want to feel what real son

this word and I'm going to mispronounce

it called ly l o y l y is uh is like the

Finish word for that experience and the

feeling of being in a good sauna and it

doesn't translate perfectly just like

it's like the Umami of sauna it's like

there's no perfect translation you just

know it when you feel it right and what

the fins say is that 90% of saas in

North America are bad and then 10% are

even worse right like and and I

experienced this when uh I was talking

to people about how to build saas people

love these Barrel saunas and then you

look at the actual way the sauna is

structured and you're like what's going

on and so there's this guide that we can

link to in the show notes called

trumpkin's guide to sauna building and

then within that doc there's other pages

that are you know the guide to

ventilation and each one of these guides

is probably 50 60 pages and I've gone

through all them read all these details

and I was like this is the son I want to

build and there are a lot of of rules to

building a good sauna but the kind of

most important things if you want to

just visually be like what's the most

important feet above the stones because

how it generally works is there's a

heater and the heater off puts heat and

I think everyone probably knows that

heat rises and so if you're sitting on

the same level as the heater the Heat's

going up and you're not in that cavity

of warm air right so you need to have

your feet above the you need to have

your feet above the stones and and like

not in that cold Zone and then you want

proper ventilation and you want

ventilation in a way that's kind of

funny we were looking at your sauna and

your sauna is like the exact opposite

way that you should ventilate a sauna

you want this intake coming from above

the heater and you want an exhaust

coming from like the other side of the

room on the floor and what that does is

it's pulling the air that's right above

the heater the hottest and circulating

it around the sauna so you have a nice

even feeling of warmth well one question

there because in in my head if the if

the intake is above the heater and heat

rises why wouldn't that just be turned

into the outtake and the heat would just

go out that way there's fan in like we

we're putting we have a fan in each so

the fan on the intake is blowing in and

the fan on the exhaust is blowing out so

it's it creates this cycle and there

there's some cool ways to visualize it

you see it like kind of circulates a

little it creates this and the fans all

have vents on them so you can kind of

it's not like you you know someone's

hooked up an exterior you know uh what

are those like lawn blower things

blowing air in it's not that extreme um

and and that that's that's the basics

obviously there's like 70 pages that

will L to and you can go deep

but if you look at a lot of these saunas

yours and is a great example a lot of

the barrel saunas out there your feet

are on the ground right and the heater

so like you're you're you want your feet

above the stones but a lot of these

saunas you don't even have your chest

above the stones and so that was what

was really important so you need a sauna

that's like probably ideally seven eight

feet tall so that you can put a heater

on the ground and then be above it and

so I was I was trying to figure out what

to do and I found this company that made

a barrel sauna that usually Barrel

saunas you sit on the sides and they did

one that was narrow and you sit on the

back wall and I was like okay this kind

of works it's not ideal but it's okay

and I was in this signal group with a

bunch of people who've sold companies

and two guys just happened the day

before I was going to check out on this

SAA company we're like we're launching

the sauna company um it's called haven

sauna and they haven't they haven't

launched yet so there's a a landing page

but and I was like oh let's talk to him

like I've just gone so deep on to do

what like inst build build saas like

like the preab saunas that you can

customize a bit and put Outdoors um so

think if you remember that one of the

Airbnb Founders launched this Adu

company where you can customize an Adu

in your backyard you know you choose

like five or six different things but

it's not a full custom build right right

and so I talked to them it's prefab

essentially like yeah with with a little

bit of change it's not it's not like a

Tough Shed where you just buy the model

but done the right way and so I they get

it and I talked to them and they were

like talking about trumpkin and I was

like oh you you guys know your stuff and

they're like yeah we want to build the

best saunas but we want those saunas to

be very high quality and actually a good

experience because the longevity studies

of saunas in Finland you know if you

create a sauna and you think it's 175

but it turns out like if you didn't have

a thermometer in yours at chest height

you can set it to 175 but at chest

height it might only be 100 degrees

because oh yeah I mean I brought I have

these uh I went on Amazon and and bought

um literal like remote meat probes that

you can sticking to stakes and like you

know they're they're they're Bluetooth

and so um and I brought it in the sauna

and I just set it at my chest height it

wasn't touching it so I wasn't heating

up myself and it was like 110 and I'm

just like this is this is not your was

probably set to like 200 well at the

ceiling it was like 230 or whatever

that's the other thing too we should

talk about because most saunas um that

you buy in the states they have a

maximum heat of what 190 yeah so there's

there's this like universal code UL

thing and there's and there's all these

rules rules about how hot things can go

and shut offs and so a lot of American

saunas if you import heaters or if you

buy heaters built to sell in the US you

also want to vent under the heater to

keep the heater elements at the bottom

of the heater cool because that'll

prevent them from tripping and shutting

off for 10 15 minutes and you could read

a lot about that in this guide also uh

there's a company called Hume huuum

which sells sonah heaters but I think

technically they're classified as

baseboard heaters and so they don't

follow that regulation TBD whether

that's on a burned your house down how

that might affect your insurance I'm not

sure um but in general you know there's

a lot you can do to make a good sauna

yeah I'll back up and say if you buy a

sauna from Costco which by the way

Costco is one of the best deals for

saunas you can get a nice four-person

non Barrel sauna for $4,000 on Costco

that I would say is pretty good even a

barrel sauna is not going to be the

worst sauna in the world I know lots of

people that have them and love them so

I'm saying you could go as far as you

want you could buy really nice

headphones or you can buy $2 earbuds

there's there's a spectrum and I think

you're probably going to get a decent

amount of the value from a longevity and

especially relaxation standpoint in any

sauna but you know I like my focus is on

better outcome so like how do I get the

best sauna and so you went with that

Hume so Hume heater uh it's called Hive

mini and it's great it's got It's I

think it's beautiful also but it's very

functional it gets the room hot um and

yeah so I worked with this these two

guys uh Zach and Ross who started the

sauna company and you know we were kind

of like a demo of experimenting and so

we built the sauna it's up and running

it's fantastic what what Allin price

like so you could have done that or you

could have gone Costco what's what's the

all-in price I would say the range in

saunas is probably somewhere between

$2,500 would be like I mean they have

these weird saunas you can buy on Amazon

that are like basically like a heater

and a bunch of material that you can

wrap around your body and head out the

whole like you could probably get a

sauna for $300 yeah and those work too I

have a friend that does that that

actually has one of those body ones that

they just lay in a sleeping bag type

situation they sweat their ass off and

it goes up to their neck and but you

know like she can't afford to have a

$4,000 sauna that's fine yeah for the

health benefits is there any one of

those that you like do you know ien I

haven't tried one I haven't used one

I'll I'll put a show not to the one that

my uh my friend uses she she swears by

hers and she sweats her ass off in it

part of the reason we love the sauna is

Amy my wife and I we go in the sauna

after we put the kids down for like 20

30 minutes at night and we have this

uninterrupted no devices time for us to

talk to catch up to relax like you know

all kinds of so like that you're not

going to get that in like a sleeping bag

with a heat heating unit um so that's

part of the reason we want it but I'd

say the low end you could find so so

Costco has these great I don't know how

they get away with this there's this

company Almost Heaven you could buy an

almost heaven son on the Internet or you

could buy it at Costco and you're going

to save way more than the $65 Costco

membership just by buying it through

Costco so if you're thinking to buying

it on it get hot enough yeah it has has

good heaters like all this stuff it's a

great sauna okay um our problem was we

had a very specific uh place we wanted

to put it and the the dimensions weren't

correct yeah and you know the design

element like it it I wouldn't say it's a

beautiful modern design if you go to

Havens saa.com and see kind of what

they're building it looks different all

and those could be in the range of 20

$25,000 yeah and so it's a spectrum um

you know if you're focused just on the

health benefits you don't need to go all

the way up if you want to focus on

Aesthetics and you you could spend a lot

more yeah but I think if you're spending

more than $30,000 on a sauna like

there's probably a lot let's talk about

cold plunge um one of the things that I

I started doing you saw me this morning

I jumped in my pool which was um

freezing uh and then I did the contrast

with the with the jacuzzi went back and

forth uh you did not join me this

morning um I didn't know it was

happening I'd already showered I know

but it was it was great it's it's funny

because um i' done the Wim Hoff method

you know 10 years ago and the Wim Hoff

method is you know the Iceman he trains

you on how to endure kind of cold

exposure I had so much energy and just

felt amazing after doing that by the end

of the Wim Hoff method I was 15 minutes

up to my neck in ice water in a bathtub

so like I bought 10 bags of ice I put it

in the bathtub and I I think in terms of

like probably like the the best

comparable I can give you would be like

a couple cups of coffee like it just

like gives you that energy in the

morning and that Clarity that is

beautiful you feel amazing I know

there's not as much longevity data on

the science side to support the coal

plunge but I will tell you just like

just for me personally and people that I

know that do it um they love it and so

you know I know Tony Robbins I've talked

to him about it he's he done it he

talked about about that on my podcast um

you know uh Joe Rogan's done it um he he

continues to do it uh he I just saw post

about his you know obviously Tim's done

it a bunch of our our friends have done

this I'm really enjoying it it's kind of

like my thing that I'm getting into you

told me last night because I was telling

you I'm using my pool for this right now

but the pool you know summer months it's

going to be warm to where I'm not really

going to get the benefits right like

that I really want the really cold cold

yeah you want that excitement you want

that kick in the gut in the morning ex

yeah exactly so I I'm wondering you know

you said that you had done a little bit

of research or you know of a company or

two that does you mentioned two

companies last night when we were

chatting um what have you heard on the

cold plunge front what are people liking

what are some of the brands that that

you think are doing a good job yeah

there's a again a wide spectrum here

right like cheapest take a cold shower

like walk in your shower at the coldest

temperature I mean that's what they have

you do with uh the Wim Hoff method when

you start it's like it's like hey turn

the shower on the coldest possible

setting for 30 seconds and then that's

like day one yeah

and I think that's a good way before you

drop the cash on an actual big ass

plunge and spend a lot of money see if

you can get through the first couple

weeks the off method to know if you like

it I I will say there's something that I

don't know why but feels easier about

just like jumping into the water as

opposed to like I don't know walking in

a cold shower is just no you're right

it's like cheaper but mentally I think

it's pretty hard yeah um and so that's

one end you can buy you know freezers

like chest freezers and and like

retrofit them the way most cold work is

there's a chiller and it's a thing you

plug into the wall use electricity

Cycles water through and keeps the water

cold and so you hook up a chiller to a

bath either by buying a chiller and you

know connecting hoses in a Home Depot

setup to a freezer or other methods yeah

just so people know that that chest

freezer hack you can find them online

they're those little mini freezers that

you can get to like store meat in your

in your garage or whatever you know

they're like the sideways freezers not

like the vertical freezers and if I've

seen people retrofit those CU in theory

they're waterproof they're sealed um I

don't know that they can I've seen

people like do all kinds of like water

additional waterproofing two of them and

then turn them into these freezers where

they plug them in the wall they let the

water get to temperature and then they

climb in the important thing to note

unplug the freezer before you get into

it you do not want to use a device like

that like that's plugged into the wall

oh it's a it's you got to do it cuz like

they're not meant to be no no no I just

I've seen some people they just use it

as an insulated thing with an external

Chiller right but using the freezer as

the chiller I've seen people do it as

I'm like you're going to get

electrocuted because ultimately there's

going to be a leak and it's going to hit

that freaking 110 and you're going to be

fried so not good and then there's

there's a company called ice Barrel

which sells just it's literally like you

know those blue drums it's just like a

drum but then you got a B ice Bean Dice

and so I mean you use your bathtub and

ice but you got to buy an ice maker or

you got to go you know drive to the

store and buy ice all all the time and

so there then there's some really

high-end ones but the company that's

probably the most well known for this is

called the cold plunge or plunge I think

they used to be the cold punch now they

the brand is plunge and they make a

beautiful white tub kind of looks like a

fancy bathtub and they have a chiller

either external or integrated into the

unit you can keep it down to 39 you can

keep it at 55 whatever you want it has a

filtration system like a hot tub like

you put you have one of these so I have

a cold plunge from plunge okay and the

integrated one or the external one the

external one the integrated one hadn't

hadn't been built when we when we did

that and it's great the water's always

at the right temperature uh you treat it

like a hot tub like you put the little

strip in you see what the chemical

levels are you add is that pain in the

ass though so here's what's funny we

have a hot tub and we have a cold plunge

and the hot tub I feel like I'm always

adding chemicals to it and the cold

plunge I feel like I'm always testing it

with a strip and very rarely is it out

of balance pH is good alkalinity is good

uh so I add like a tablespoon of

sanitizer once a week or twice a week or

once every two weeks just kind of

depending on the level of uh I think

it's bromine is what they recommend it's

not that much like they they also have a

I forgot what it's called but it keeps

the water clear but the water's already

clear so I don't even I don't are you

talking about the UV light stuff because

they no no no this is um I can't

remember what the name of it is but

there's a thing that makes water clear

and the thing that makes water clean um

and so it's really not that much like

hot tub maintenance to me feels 10 times

more than and it has a cover for it you

C they even send like a thing to attach

a phone to hang over the edge um which

we actually use in the sauna we suction

cup it to the wall so we can look at the

baby monitor for while we're in the

sauna um and it's great it's at the

right temperature we're using it more at

night sauna hop in the cold plunge for

five minutes hop back in the sauna um

that contrast therapy is amazing it's

great we love it uh I don't use it that

much in the morning uh like you do to

Kickstart my day yeah but at night it's

great I feel like are you using it like

five times a day day like or a week or

oh we probably three four times a week

okay um you know I probably should get

to four from all the data on the studies

but uh you know we're using it and man

you sleep you do sauna and cold punch

and go to bed you sleep so well yeah

it's amazing it's amazing the impact on

sleep is great and so yeah cold plunge

and like I said earlier you know we got

to get you set up with deals for your

listeners also but I think we got deal

for cold plunge hopefully we got one for

dexa fit I'm just going to plug all the

hacks.com deals I'm not going to plug

all these URLs but if you go there yeah

any company that I love I've tried to

Source a deal for sweet um you mentioned

uh we've talked about using chat gbt uh

for all kinds of stuff in our life over

especially over like the last it feels

like you know six months to a year uh

you mentioned uploading your blood work

to chat jpt yeah I mean it's just so

funny I I got my blood work done for

cholesterol three years ago and I went

to my doctor real doctor like has an MD

and I was like what do you think I

should do and the doctor's advice was

like you know eat healthy and exercise

yeah and I was like okay but it's been

this way for a long time and and finally

there were other doctors that were

telling me other things and so I found

that chat GPT for almost anything is

great as a sounding board and it doesn't

cost anything so I'm like I took a

screenshot of my biomarkers took the

screenshot uploaded to chat GPT as a PDF

uh as an image image okay and then I was

just like what can you tell me about my

bi you say act like you're Peter AA and

give me oh that would have been even

better

go do go read Peter's website and now

give me advice I prob could have done

that and I was like tell me what you see

and then I was like tell me if looking

at it comprehensively instead of

individually are there any things you

notice because certain multiple things

are out of whack um what kind of what

other Diagnostics could I take if I

wanted to drill into this thing um I'm

not using it to replace the doctor but

I'm using it to come up with a series of

ideas and questions and things that I

can come to the doctor and be like hey

these three things are high these are

three Diagnostics that might help which

one would you prioritize and the

question I loved asking my doctor was

because I think doctors so often are

focused on what's going to be covered by

insurance and a lot of these things

aren't right you want a whole body MRI

not covered you want to do a Grail test

for which is a blood test for different

types of cancer not covered by insurance

so I went to the doctor and I was like

if I'm going to spend $1,000 this year

on my health that's not covered by

Insurance where can I have the most

impact either treating or testing

something um because so often the advice

they're they're trained to give is the

advice on what they know is going to be

covered because doctor doesn't want to

be like oh here's what you should do

this thing not covered right now also by

the way many of these things biomarker

tests are all FSA and HSA eligible so if

you work at a company that lets you

contribute to an FSA you could throw

money in there tax deductible if you

have a high deductible Health Plan

that's HSA eligible you can put money

there use it there so there are ways to

get a lot of these costs down from a tax

standpoint um and so you know he

recommended the calcium test he was like

that seems like if there's dollar for

dollar given your history spending $500

here would be probably the most valuable

thing you could do so I did and sure

enough it was a incredibly uh great

suggestion and so I like that question

yeah um I also think by the way this is

just a a side note but when it comes to

medical bills I don't know if everyone

knows are negotiable like if you go to

the doctor and it's a certain price you

can say hey I'm paying out of cash is

there a better price uh if you get a

bill from a hospital you can negotiate

it I did an episode with uh this guy

Marshall Allen who is a journalist he

wrote this book called never pay the

first bill and you know I can link to it

we won't go through it but basically

it's like you can almost negotiate all

these medical bills and people have

saved tens of thousands of dollars

negotiating their medical bills um what

do you say do you just say like hey I

can't afford this he has scripts for

this both if you have have a bill that

has happened and you've already had

service there are some rules in many

states that like facilities can't charge

more than what the average price is it

doesn't mean they can't it just means

that when you fight them they're going

to have to lower so I went to I thought

I had something go wrong I didn't know

what it was turns out it was shingles

but I didn't know oh I remember that and

I drove down to you were in so much pain

I was in so much pain it felt like

battery acid was like leaking in my body

so I drove to the emergency room and the

bill was like

$111,000 to do a couple diagnostic see a

doctor and get some ibuprofen and

fortunately my insurance covered that

but if my insurance didn't cover that

I'm fairly certain I could have

negotiated uh that price in fact one of

the things that showed up and this is

what's crazy about our medical system I

made sure that I went to an ER that was

in network right because I have an EPO

only covers in network and I go to the

ER and the ER was in network but the

doctor that worked at the ER was out of

network and they tried to charge me for

it and I fought that and I didn't pay

for it um and so I would say if you if

you have a medical bill go negotiate it

if you have a really high deductible on

your health plan and you're paying out

of pocket most facilities have a cash

rate that's better than the insurance

rate because they have to go through a

lot of hassle to accept insurance so ask

for that cash rate um speaking of

spending $1,000 dollar and getting the

most bang for the buck um healthwise the

thing that I have been doing um that

caught my brain aneurysm was a company

called P poovo yeah and so poovo does

full body MRIs you don't need a

prescription for it you don't need to

talk to a doctor you can go and sign up

directly on the website they've got a

handful locations here in the United

States now they're opening up new

offices all the time it's like a couple

thousand dollars yeah it's basically

$9.99 just to get the Torso done head

and torso $ 17.99 and then whole body is

$24.99 but you know it's one of those

things where they can catch you know as

early as stage one solid tumors like

they can get stuff really early and I

was chatting with one of the doctors

over there um one of the radi ologist

and they said like he goes you wouldn't

believe the number of unopened bottles

of wine I have sitting on my shelf from

people that you know send him thank you

saying hey you caught this at stage one

and because of that it was curable we

have a mutual friend who we worked with

that would not be alive today had he not

caught a cancerous tumor brain tumor

yeah from from a peruo scan yeah so like

I didn't know it was cancerous oh maybe

it wasn't I it was a brain tumor I don't

remember if it maybe it wasn't cancerous

but caught a brain tumor that would have

killed him had he not caught it when he

did yeah it was it was in it's insane

what it what it shows now there could be

some false positives there as well like

yeah there's a lot of uh controversy

over this because you might find

something that left untreated would be

fine but like forces you you can't stop

thinking about you know I have a friend

who has a tumor that's actually not

something that is worth operating on but

if you found out you had a tumor in your

brain like it could drive you nuts I

mean this is what happened with me I had

the brain aneurysm and they're like it's

not big enough to operate on and plus if

you operate on an aneurysm it is you

know it's a scary procedure and there's

things they can do it's almost like um

uh it's not a stent but it's kind of

like a stent where you can put these

things in there that prevent them from

like you know blowing up like which was

what you don't want and now you're

sitting there being like you know either

worrying about it or thinking about it

and so you know you go back and get

scans and if it doesn't grow you're all

good if it grows and you're like oh

now I have a taking time bomb you know

so there is some downsides to to that

but that said you know I'm glad I know

because now when it hits I think it's

around 5 to 7 cmet when it gets to that

size then they can go and operate on it

and take care of it versus you just

waiting for it to to blow up and and not

ever having known about it right um I

don't know if this is still possible but

I reached out to peruo when I wanted to

do a scan and I was like is there a way

to get a better price I mean I do this

for everything right like first of all

there's this awesome thing uh I learned

I interviewed this doctor his name is

aiz gazipura and he talks about

rejection therapy and like as a way to

build confidence and a great rejection

therapy tactic is just always ask for a

discount because you never know what

happens uh and you know I don't ask it

in an aggressive way I'm just like is

there a way to get a better deal perovo

owns these machines to do MRIs and the

only cost to run them is the electricity

and the administrator which is not

$2,500 right but you know it's kind of a

market price right they came back to me

and they were like if you are flexible

enough to book it within 12 hours then

there's so they get a cancellation

they're paying for a tech to be there

anyway so I just sat on standby it's

about 20 minutes from my house and they

were like hey we have some spots

tomorrow if you want to go and I got it

for I think about half price it's

amazing which is a great deal for them

right like otherwise it would go empty

there are a lot of people who don't have

flexibility in their day to just drop

everything on a few hours notice and go

to a scan so I'm not saying that's

possible uh I'm talking to them right

now about setting up a deal for all the

hack members and listeners that maybe by

the time this airs I'll put on the page

but uh I would say if you have a lot of

flexibility it could be worth asking

them if they still do something like

that they might stop they might have

stopped doing it but it's worth an Ask

yeah I should talk to I met the founder

he's a super nice guy this was maybe two

years ago um he came in to say hi when I

was getting my first scan done maybe

three years ago and uh yeah he was

expanding and they're they're doing

great great work I mean this is the the

the the cool thing about this is like

you may beist to this episode and say

like well that's nice guys you got 2500

bucks to blow or whatever even half that

I don't have that and that's that's not

the point the point is that if they can

get to scale here and especially with AI

coming to do not a lot of the analysis

as well it's like there is a world where

these get down to $500 or $700 and like

you know a price point where hopefully

it can be something that's just part of

your annual physical and it's not that

big a deal and insurance covers it you

know yeah we we live in this reactive

Healthcare you know health insurance

system which is a little frustrating

because it's like you know if we could

prevent a lot of these things then the

cost of care would go way down in the

future I we're not going to have an

episode about changing health insurance

uh I did a whole episode on picking a

plan yeah and what's crazy about

policies is actually they know that

people are so scared to take care of

themselves that I was looking at two

plans the best plan for me cheapest plan

if I wanted to spend all the money in

the you'd think if I wanted to spend a

lot on health Healthcare would be the

Platinum plan the cheapest plan was the

Bronze plan the cheapest plan was

actually like Allin even if I met all

the deductibles cheaper because they

know that people on that plan aren't

actually going to pay out of pocket to

get those services so if you know that

going to see a doctor is going to cost

you $500 most people aren't going to do

it the challenge is I might not do it

right like I I like being able to see a

doctor for $35 because I'll do it if I

knew I had to pay $500 to see a doctor I

don't know if I would and so I I

literally pay a premium to fight a

psychological I know problem that I have

but one day hopefully they'll start

covering these preventative things uh

and the preventative things will get

cheaper um I want to chat a bit about a

couple other life hacks before we let

you go uh one of the things that it may

not be applicable to everyone but we can

touch on it quickly is the you're going

through a property tax hack right now

can tell tell people about that

especially right now with interest rates

being so high it's like it's a shitty

time to obviously buy a house and people

are spending a lot of money or they're

locked into an existing house like and

property taxes are this constant like

just like suck of cash and capital every

year yep what what what did you discover

on on this front that I thought it was

really interesting yeah so you know I

love figuring out ways to save money

it's great downside of high interest

rates you know if you get a house right

now your mortgage is expensive uh

because that mortgage is expensive you

know we both looked to buy the same

house we own now at a higher interest

rate could cost depending on how low the

interest rate when you got it could be

almost double mhm so like if you were

thinking I want to buy a $800,000 house

now the interest rates might be two

three four times what they were when you

looked maybe you can only afford a

$450,000 house right that reduces demand

brings down prices which I guess is good

if you can afford it but in when

interest rates change the nice thing

about a mortgage is you can refinance so

I would say it's not it might in the

long run be a better time to buy now I

also don't think we should expect

interest rates to go to two and a half%

for mortgages for a really long time so

we're going to eventually you'll have to

accept a new normal um but your property

tax in in certain States is determined

in different ways in California it's

your the amount you paid for your house

uh in some states it's based on what an

assessor thinks and in some states it

changes every year and in some states

it's locked in and just adjusts for kind

of some growth rate or inflation rate um

you can appeal that and most people

don't know this so you know right now I

was looking at houses selling in our

neighborhood and I was like if you look

at the price per square foot of houses

that are like the house we bought three

years ago it's lower and if you convert

the average price per square foot of

houses built around the same year our

house was built uh about the same size

you adjust for square footage our house

should probably be like 25% less uh

today

now there are probably a few comps that

I could pick that wouldn't be as great

examples of a I'll drop in property

value so you left those out yeah I left

those out I I picked well I tried to Pi

three fair but good examples and it it I

think the assessed value of my home

should be about 20% less than what does

that save you like net net like what

well if you just take a house let's say

a house cost is worth a million dollars

on the on the property tax registar

property tax I don't know it's very

dependent on where you live but let's

say like 1.2% you'll pay 12 Grand in

property tax you reduce that by

25% uh you know you're going to save

somewhere on the order of $3,000 a year

mhm that's not nothing yeah that's not

nothing um you have a $5 million house

it's even you know you're going to save

$155,000 a year yeah um so any I think

it scales with the price of your house

which probably scales with the impact of

$ thousand dollar on your life so I was

looking into this and it all started

because I got this letter from a company

called protax which I never even heard

of they was like hey we want to file

this thing to say your house is worth

less and I was like who are you how does

this work and they're like well we're

going to file this we're going to take

35% of what we save you and I was like

okay but you you gave me the form my

consentant can I just do this myself

like why do I need you to do it it turns

out you file a form and then in

California they schedule a hearing and

between the hearing date you can

negotiate with the assessment appeals

appeals person uh the assessor and if

you can come to an agreement great if

not you go to a hearing I'm hoping I can

come to an agreement because I don't

really want to go to a hearing and

prepare all this but these companies

will go to I want to see you go to a

hearing are you ask I kind of do I like

I kind of want to because they give you

the recordings of those too right after

they might even be live stre you know

like it's like a lot local cban is like

here's Chris is hearing um but I was

searching around and I found this

company called onwell and they're

basically like a better Modern version

of protax and you type in your address

on their website onw well.com and you

just search and they'll say here's what

we think your house is worth what did

you pay for it they can actually see in

the property tax register what it costs

and they'll be like we think we can save

you money we'll just do it all for you

and we'll take 25% of what we save you

this year so they don't get it in

perpetuity they so if they do that let's

just say it does go to court are they

send they're going to go to the hearing

for you don't have to go no oh that's

amazing and so if they were going to

save you $3,000 they would take

$750 in California where your property

tax kind of because of Prop 13 just

adjusts not every year at a market rate

but at inflation you're going to lock

that in for a long time in Texas they

adjust it every single year so you might

have to go through this process every

single year uh and it could be

frustrating yeah but it's going to be a

fixed amount in Texas upgrade right like

they're not going to like readjust it

back to its old amount or do they just

do a percentage Texas is really

interesting because a lot of the comps

aren't public so you actually as the

owner might have more you have an

information Advantage whereas in

California everyone has the information

and they have to prove that your

information is wrong and they don't have

access to necessarily all the

information so there's a world where

Texas has some advantages the downside

being you have to do this every year but

there are a lot of states where you can

fight this I reach out to the founder

and I was like hey one tell me about

this industry because I'm curious two

like help me understand this process and

three let's get a deal for everyone that

that's a listener and so he was like why

don't we do this why don't you go

through this process so you can feel it

and you mean go through it on your own

do the comps fill out the paperwork

negotiate with the assessor go to the

hearing but we'll be a resource if you

if you have some questions I'm happy to

help you I go through this process I'm

like everyone should just hire a company

to do this like do really it's fun but

it's also fun to just look at the

process they went through build the M

the models build the regression analys

how much is your time Worth right like

because you're going to be spending you

get the 25% and it's like for one year

you get forever uh so I'm glad because I

like to be able to talk about how this

stuff works that I went through it yeah

but keep in mind that's my job like my

job is to create content about

optimizing your life so in a way going

through the process was work for almost

every person listening going through

that process will not be their job yeah

uh and so I would highly recommend I

haven't used the service but I would

highly recommend looking at Outsourcing

this instead of doing it yourself uh and

so we'll see you know if we we're not

going to get through all the agenda

topics we have today if I come back I'll

tell you how it goes after after I get

through these negotiations but I've just

found that there are a handful of

services out there where trying to do it

yourself isn't worth the time yeah and

and there are these companies that will

just do this thing and when there are

companies that'll do it as a Frugal

person it's hard for me to pay someone

to do a thing I can do but I think as

I've learned what what I call the skill

of spending it's like don't not optimize

optimize on something bigger so instead

of optimizing on saving 25% of one

year's property tax savings why don't I

optimize on building my business 20%

Revenue growth why don't I optimize on

you know having a better family life

like there are millions my health like

this year so I've tried to stop

optimizing for the best delivery grocery

site that for each individual shopping

order that I have like who has the

cheaper oatmeal or or blueberries or

something and start optimizing on bigger

better more impactful things on my life

uh and this is one that's awesome

anything else you'd like to cover while

we got you here I mean if the one other

example where I went through this

completely long and ridiculous process

I'm going to pull two things for that we

talked about together one is AI and uh

and in what I think it might the impact

it might have on us and maybe especially

our parents uh when it comes to privacy

and cyber security and fraud and all

that and a manual process so anytime you

go online we've probably put our address

on the internet thousands of times yeah

and there are companies like Amazon who

I'm pretty sure aren't going to go sell

my address and then there are a lot of

companies that I'm 100% sure have sold

my address and there's all these data

broker websites that put it out there

and so it's pretty crazy if you search

your name or your parents name and then

put your street address like if you live

one 123 Main Street search last name

quote one two3 main end quote you're

like wow my address is out there then go

search for your phone number oh my phone

number's out there and then think okay

there's all these data breaches from

Equifax somebody probably get my Social

Security number like

I think it's almost impossible to

prevent your information from being

found but it's very possible to make

yourselves not an easy target I feel

pretty good you know when I get the

fishing emails when I get the texts that

are like oh can you someone sending a

wire can you call to us to approve I'm

pretty good about that I'm not sure that

my parents especially as they age

especially as AI could probably voice

generate especially with a podcast could

probably listen to my episodes voice

generate my voice call them in my voice

and ask them this stuff so I've really

started to think what are all the ways

is that people could get more aggressive

about protecting their and their

family's information so one of them is

these data Brokers and so uh I was

asking around who's the best company to

use to get your information removed

online and there are a lot of companies

that do this I went with delete me they

became a partner of the show after I

used them they actually have a list

here's how to do it they give you a DIY

opt out guide you want to do this

yourself you can so I started going

through this process myself and there's

like 100 data Brokers and you go to the

website you find listing you fill it out

you ask them to remove it you follow up

if they don't and I'm I'm like 20 hours

into this process maybe 10 hours in and

I haven't even made it through the list

and I'm like this is insane they charge

couple hundred bucks a year even less as

you start adding your family this is

crazy I signed up they got it all

removed I reached out to them I was like

can we work together like this product's

awesome and it's called delete me delete

me okay um we've got a deal on that same

deals page uh on the all the hack site

and it's been great like I I signed up

for Christmas I was like I got all four

of our parents are now on delete me all

their information's removed yeah I just

could imagine a world where one of my

parents or Amy's parents gets a phone

call that's like hey uh your daughter X

is in the hospital she was injured uh

she's not coherent but we can't run her

insurance to be able to operate until

you can give us a her driver's license

number or her social security number

it's like of course they're going to

fall for that but what if I could just

make sure that that information's not

there your siblings your address your

phone number your email all that stuff

remove it and then I went through what

else should I do uh you know we talked

about homes when you go to buy homes the

MLS websites like you know Zillow and

redin they'll have pictures of your

homes and even if You' sold your home or

bought your home years ago a lot of them

are still up there for some reason

realtor.com seems to keep the pictures

up the longest some sites can you

request to have those removed so you can

request to have them removed and in fact

I recommend everyone when you're buying

a house put a a contingency just so you

don't have to fight about it later that

everyone removes everything so like the

website that your realtor whoever sold

the house to you had they probably put

up one two three main street you

know.com and there's a website with the

floor plans of your house with all the

pictures inside your house like with all

of this information about the house do I

do I feel like I'm such a Target that

someone's like sitting in their basement

mapping out the floor plan inside my

house and planning like which Windows my

kids no I'm not like you know building

bunkers and being like that paranoid but

it just seems like why not remove all

the pictures of the inside of your house

off the internet right right it doesn't

seem like there's upside so do you have

to go directly to like a red finan or a

realtor is there a I went to the

Realtors and said can you pull it from

the MLS and that took care about 90% of

it the last 10% I had to reach out to a

couple of those but delete me has these

custom requests so if you find

information of yours somewhere they'll

just do these so I went to delete me I

was like can you just go rent.com or

apartments.com just had this like I it

wasn't getting removed I was like can

you just go get this removed did they do

it can yeah yeah and they'll go do these

customer requests and submit them on

your behalf like when you sign up for

any of these Services you're effectively

giving them like a limited power of

attorney to act on your behalf to go get

this stuff removed and so that was one

the other thing I was going to tell you

you may not know about this but when you

pay for Google one do you know Google

one it's like where you pay for their

extra hard drive space and all that

there is an option in the security

settings for dark web monitoring Y and

you can put in your phone number your

address and all of that and they will go

out they hash it so they don't actually

keep it but then they compare it to all

the other hashed uh stuff in the

database and they've shown me exactly

which sites were compromised and when

that had my phone number my address and

so on so you can see if anything is out

there yeah um and you can see exactly

what was compromised to get your data

out there y so even though it's deleted

from some of these sites there's still

dark web databases out there that have

your your information on them you're not

I mean I know people who have a PO box

and they don't send any mail to their

house they send it all to a PO Box cuz

they just don't want their address out

there but I'm like ah you know that's

kind of a hassle you can send the Amazon

packages right there are people who have

you know we probably know some of them

that buy another house in their

neighborhood to have their door Dash

delivered to so that no one finds their

address or they just create their door

Dash account with a different name

there's a degree to how much you want to

inconvenience your life for privacy and

security but I think personally there's

a degree to which it's not that hard uh

you can remove a lot of search results

on Google if you find a search result

that's revealing information you don't

want you can ask Google to un unlist it

if it's your personal information Google

has like Advanced security protection or

whatever that thing is where you can add

more security done that um I've talked

to all the banks and Services I use and

I've been like can I change the way like

can you upgrade my security can you can

I replace my mother's ma name with an

arbitrary password so that because my

mother's made name is probably pretty

easily find like you could take these

steps to just prevent yourself from

bring It talk you can get a second SIM

card for $5 a month and have that be

your two-factor code instead of your

primary code I do yeah um so I just

think there you could blur your house on

Google Maps like you could request it

although you can't undo it so uh you

know I that's an option there's a lot of

stuff you can do the one that keeps

getting missed and and I'm not going to

out who this was but I was walking down

the street in our neighborhood and

there's some security cars in front of a

house and I was like security car is

being like like like a private security

where there's two people 24/7 in the car

looking at this house and it's a bit

unusual like our neighborhood is not one

where you would expect that but you're

in silon Valley so you never know yeah

but you know I was like who is this

person

and I was like I want to know and they

obviously if they're going to spend

money to hire private security they're

going to do all the stuff they did the

data broker stuff they hired these

things but the one place that a lot of

people don't look which has a dual

benefit like you can both protect

yourself and make money is the state

unclaimed money database and what

happens is you know anytime there's

money owed to you after a certain period

of time that money gets passed over to

the state to handle uh so you know for

example once I had a Delta $50 gift card

that we just didn't use in a long enough

Peri of time that they transferred over

the state well Delta transferred over my

name and address to the state so that I

could go look in this database so anyone

who knew my name and the city I lived in

didn't even need my address could just

search or anyone could search by address

so you could go search the address which

I did of this house in my neighborhood

and there were five names and five so

five people had lived at that address

who had unclaimed money I mean this is

crazy how many people haven't gone

through this process and and it was like

a $20 thing so I totally get it I I

looked up the five names four of them

were did had very few results on the

internet and then one of them was like a

CEO of a tech company I was like H I

wonder which one which one this person

is and and I reached out through a

mutual friend to this person and was

like hey just so you know you've got a

security hole you should clear it up and

a lot of times people look at this and

they're like well I'm owed $5 from pg&

for like a house I haven't lived in in

10 years that got forwarded to my new

address is it really worth the hassle of

filling out this form and sometimes get

it notorized to get my $5 back no well

if you claim it does it get removed from

the datab the database but sometimes

when you don't think about it from a

privacy standpoint you're like is it

worth my time to go get a notorized

document for $5 no I've had listeners

five 2500 to $3,000 so like one you

should just check because you might hit

the jackpot what do people Google for

because every State's different right

unclaimed money unclaimed money Texas

unclaimed money California unclaimed

money it'll take you to the government

state database so you don't want to go

to some third party website you go

directly to the state all the state

databases are easy to find uh my party

trick is anytime we're going to

someone's house for an event I'll just

search if they're owed money and I'll be

like come to dinner I'll be like ah I

don't really do this but like I didn't

bring you a bottle of wine but I found

that the state owes you $180 that's not

creepy at all no no I love that uh but

you can find check your parents check

your cousins check your siblings and

you'd be surprised that I bet at least

someone in your immediate family has

like $100 plus owed to them um that they

forgot about didn't know about and can

collect and so it was a pain in the ass

cuz I was owed less than $5 and so I had

to get a document notorized to be able

to claim my less than $5 but now there's

not an easy place to search my name and

the state of California and find out

where I live yeah amazing so that's one

I made a list of like 20 other things

we're not going to get to it today all

right well we'll have you back on the

show um Chris this has been awesome uh

you're always bring at least two or

three things where I'm just like I'm

going to go do this immediately after

chatting with you so I have my list uh

renegotiating my mortgage would be

definitely high up there where can

people find more about you in your

podcast yeah so all the hacks.com is the

website that's where you can find deals

links to all the cards if you want to

support us uh that would be awesome and

then wherever you're listening we got a

podcast all the hacks every week I'm

going deep on something whether that's

Insurance cell phone plans all the kinds

of stuff we talked about but just like

10 10 miles deeper you know you know all

that stuff so check it out scroll till

you find something you want to learn

about and let me know what you think

it's a great show we'll have you back on

soon thanks sounds good thanks for

having me