Smart Money Podcast — From Eggflation to Ghost Jobs: Roasting 2024’s Biggest Financial Turkeys

Welcome to NerdWallet’s Smart Money podcast, where we answer your real-world money questions. In this episode:

Celebrate 2024’s Financial Turkeys as we spotlight the year’s biggest money blunders and share tips to avoid them yourself.

Why are grocery prices so high in 2024? What are ghost jobs and how do they affect job seekers? Hosts Sean Pyles and Sara Rathner roast the year’s “Financial Turkeys” (pun intended), spotlighting the biggest money misfortunes of 2024 and offering listeners a chance to commiserate over shared financial frustrations. They share their own takes on this year’s financial flops and invite listeners to reflect on how these issues have affected their lives, turning financial woes into a shared laugh or sigh of relief.

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This transcript was generated from podcast audio by an AI tool.

Welcome to NerdWallet’s Smart Money podcast, where you send us your money questions and we answer them with the help of our genius Nerds. I’m Sean Pyles.

And I’m Sara Rathner. Sean, happy Thanksgiving.

Oh, and a happy Thanksgiving to you too, Sara. On this day of thanks, I would like to thank all of our listeners for participating in the grand Smart Money experiment. We love getting and answering your questions, and we appreciate all of you and your loyal listenership.

It really is a privilege to be here in front of the microphone interacting with folks, helping them with their finances. I have to say, I really enjoy hearing about people’s lives and the financial decisions that they’re hoping to get help with. And not just because I am a nosy person, but also because I just like to know what’s on people’s minds.

And how we can help people. It really is an honor. I’ve been answering the questions of Smart Money listeners for a few years now, and sometimes people ask if I get bored of answering similar questions over and over. And I always say no because in truth, each listener’s question is different. Whatever someone wants help with is informed by their own financial background and experiences and their current financial goals, and I just find that stuff endlessly interesting.

So do I. And besides, listeners join us at different points, at different episodes. So it is helpful to repeat topics once in a while. And if you’re making a really tough financial decision, sometimes you have to hear about it a few times before you feel comfortable actually taking any sort of action. We’re here to examine all sorts of money stuff from multiple angles.

We are all about informed decisions, and it’s our job to give you that information. For all of those great and wonderful episodes, today, we are handing out our 2024 Financial Turkey Awards. And by turkeys, we mean things that really missed the mark in the financial world. And let me tell you, there were a number of turkeys this year.

That’s true. So Sean, what do winners get?

A broken wishbone and unsalted gravy.

Yuck. Nobody wants those. That’s like getting socks—

Yeah. Well, in a moment, we bestow honors on the financial turkeys of 2024. But if you have a money question for the Nerds, we invite you to call us or text us any time, including holidays, on the Nerd hotline at 901-730-6373. That’s 901-730-NERD. Or email us at [email protected].

And if you want to nominate your own Financial Turkey of the Year Award, we’re all ears, so let us know. We’ll be back in a moment with our nominees and winners for financial or economic turkeys of the year. Stay with us.

Okay, we are back and ready with our nominees and winners of the Smart Money 2024 Financial Turkeys of the Year. Sara, what’s your first candidate?

If we’re going to talk turkey, let’s discuss grocery inflation. Remember eggflation? That was actually a 2023 problem. That peaked in January of that year, but it’s still really hard to get out of the store sometimes without spending 50 bucks on just a few items. And food prices are up significantly since 2019, thanks to everything from supply chain issues to bird flu to the war in Ukraine. And according to the USDA, as US household incomes rise, those households actually spend more money on food, but their food spending represents a smaller share of income.

So look at it this way. Looking at data from 2022, households in the lowest income quintile spent 31.3% of their income on food. That’s nearly a third of their household income. On the other side of the coin, households in the highest income quintile spent just 8% of their income on food. So this is a problem that affects US households across the board, but it’s affecting specific types of households much more seriously. So we’ll have to see how this continues to play out. High food prices can be hard to stomach…pun intended.

Good job, Sara. Love that pun. And a solid and on-theme nominee for the food holiday. By the way, I’m going to say I’m still upset about how much my cream cheese costs nowadays, although I will not give up my bagels. Okay, Sara, what’s your next candidate?

That’s a highly specific food item to be upset about, but okay. That’s fine. I love a good bagel and cream cheese myself. All right, so my next candidate: ghost jobs, and I am not talking about seasonal work as an actor in a haunted house attraction. These are job listings online that look completely real, but the role either doesn’t actually exist or it’s already been filled and the company’s still advertising it as if they’re still looking for candidates.

According to a May 2024 survey by Resume Builder, 40% of companies posted a fake job listing this year, and 3 in 10 companies currently have active fake listings. So why the heck do companies do this? Because this is really annoying. A couple reasons. One is to look open to new talent or make it seem to the outside audience that the company is growing. Sometimes they just like seeing what talent is out there so they can have a collection of potential future employees.

They might also be doing this to trick existing employees into thinking they’re about to get some relief if the company’s been understaffed. Or even worse, they’re doing this to remind their existing employees that they’re replaceable. I mean, listen, we all already know that AI is coming for us all, so we don’t need to be reminded of that year round. You know what I mean?

Anyway, what really is terrible about this is that some companies will go as far as actually interviewing job candidates with zero intention of moving forward with them in any way. And I know a number of people who are job hunting right now, and ghost jobs are a huge waste of their time. That’s time that they could be spending on interviews that could actually lead to real job offers.

Wow. Sara, I’ve got to admit, I had not heard of the ghost job phenomenon, but it is really messed up. What a cruel way to play with people who are desperate for employment in some cases. Yikes. So Sara, you’ve given us your nominees. Which one wins your 2024 Financial Turkey Award?

I’ve got to go with ghost jobs. And like you said, it is cruel to toy with people who are just trying to find a way to support themselves and their families. Yeah, don’t mess with compensation, companies.

A solid winner. Unsalted gravy for all the ghost job posters.

May those recruiters be covered in unsalted gravy the way people will get slimed on Nickelodeon.

Oh, yes. I would love that.

All right, Sean. So those were my nominees. What are yours?

First up, I would like to nominate one of the most grotesque turkeys in the financial world, scams and scammers. We did a special series about scams earlier this year and heard from people, including my own dad, who have been put through all kinds of hell trying to reclaim their money and their lives after they were financially assaulted by scammers. And it seems like every week there is yet another report about a big data breach, which means that we are all exposed yet again to scammers who are trying to make a buck off of our personal information.

This is a solid nomination, Sean. It’s so easy to fall for a scam, and none of us are immune.

Yeah. So as we always say, folks, freeze your credit reports and regularly monitor your accounts for any funny business. You can sign up for your free credit score and get credit-building insights personalized to you when you register at nerdwallet.com. So we will put a link to that in today’s show notes.

Nice plug, Sean. I see what you did there.

Yes. I’m just trying to give folks useful resources, as always. Onto my second turkey. It’s slightly conceptual, so stay with me. It is the gap between how we are all told the economy is doing and how we feel about the economy. We saw loads of economic reports throughout 2024 showing that the job market continued to be resilient, even if it cooled a bit. And inflation certainly slowed. But things still don’t feel great, right? Like you were saying earlier, Sara, grocery shopping is not an enjoyable experience. It’s painful. And there’s some data to back this up too. Credit card delinquency rates are as high as they’ve been since 2011, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. The economy just continues to feel really weird, weird kind of like how a turkey looks weird. It’s both majestic and lumpy at the same time.

Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever heard majestic and lumpy in the same sentence before. And honestly, I hope to never hear that again, so thank you for that moment I never want to relive.

All right, Sean, what’s your winner for the 2024 Financial Turkey Award?

It’s got to be scams and scammers, the people who perpetrate these scams. And this is something that we are all vulnerable to all the time. It’s super scary and not enough is being done to protect us from these criminals, so everyone, stay vigilant.

Yes. Just assume that everyone’s out to get you, and make them prove they’re legit. Let all weird calls go to voicemail and only call them back if they’re real. Screening your calls is a time-honored tradition that goes back to the days of answering machines, and I say we bring it back.

And do what you can to protect your personal information. Do not go giving out your Social Security number willy-nilly, even if it might be already out there.

Yeah. Honestly, it probably is.

I laugh, but really, I cry on the inside.

I know. It is sad and scary. Well, Sara, now that we have handed out some turkeys, how about we go eat some of our own, or I guess in my quasi-vegetarian household, I’ll go eat some nut loaf.

What the hell is a nut loaf?

It’s exactly what it sounds like. It’s a big mush of nuts and mushrooms and it’s really good. Lots of cheese in it too.

Ew. Oh, no. Every time you mention another ingredient, you make it worse.

I swear these things taste better than they sound.

They got to rename it. They need to… Oh, oh, nut loaf.

Yeah. The branding around nut loaf could be improved, I’ll give them that. But I swear, it’s really, really good. Anyway, that’s all we have for this episode. We here at Smart Money wish you and yours a very happy Thanksgiving and a wonderful holiday season to come. And remember, of course, that we are here for you and your money questions, so send them our way. Call or text us on the Nerd hotline at 901-730-6373. You can also email us at [email protected]. Visit nerdwallet.com/podcast for more info on this episode. And remember, you can follow the show on your favorite podcast app, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and iHeartRadio to automatically download new episodes.

Today’s episode was produced by Tess Vigeland and edited by Sean. Megan Maurer mixed our audio. And here’s our brief disclaimer. We are not financial or investment advisors. This nerdy info is provided for general educational and entertainment purposes and may not apply to your specific circumstances.

And with that said, until next time, turn to the Nerds.

It’s good. I swear it is.

It’s got the worst name. No, it just sounds so bland. It’s like…

It’s not bland. It’s full of umami flavor.

It’s mushrooms and cashews, walnuts. I think there’s some almonds in there. Lots of cheese. It’s like 50% cheese.

I mean, I’m down with 50% cheese. But there must have been an old Twitter account that did this. It was like weird recipes from mid-century.

And it kind of sounds like one of those things that people ate for dinner in the 60s.