Scandalous 8% Property Tax Hike

This is episode number 297, I think, of The Homeowner Show. It may be some other number. I'm not real sure.

It doesn't matter anymore.

It doesn't matter. Welcome. We're the podcast to listen to tonight because, uh, I screwed up the intro, but, uh, we're glad you're here. My name is Kevin. That over there's Craig, and he's happy to be here.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to Homeowner Show. I'm gonna pick it up from here. Thank you. Yeah, uh, so glad you guys could join us. We're live in the studio tonight. We got lots of fun stuff to talk about tonight. We're gonna be talking about tropical storms. We're gonna be talking about price increases on your property taxes here in Houston, Texas. Big scandal going on.

Oh my goodness, it's ridiculous.

So, uh, it, it's probably not gonna be as long of a show, um, but it's gonna be fun.

That's it.

Yeah. How you doing, Kev?

I'm, I'm doing all right. It's been a, it's been a long day, but it's all right. Things are good. Um, and I'm, I'm really excited. I really think that we're gonna get a little bit of a break in the weather soon. Looks like this week's gonna be a little bit cooler, and I think that's gotta be the turn.

That would be lovely.

That would be amazing.

So, um, I need, I need a nice cool front to move in.

Yes, exactly.

Before the end of October.

Okay. You need some dove to be flying.

I need some dove to be flying.

Yeah.

All right. We keep going out. Last time I went out, we saw 2 birds.

Oh no.

Like the whole— they were there for 4 hours.

And I was supposed to be with you. I'm glad I didn't go.

You were supposed to be with me. Now, to be fair, we weren't on my field. My field, I usually— like the last few times I've gone, we've seen like around 10 birds.

Okay, that's still not bad.

Which again, not, not a whole lot.

No, no.

But more to shoot at than 2.

That's true, that's true. Yep. So anyway, how you doing?

doing good, man. So we, we've got a good show for you guys tonight. Um, let's go ahead and kick it off with the sponsors, man.

Do it.

We, we've got, uh, first one up, uh, Lone Star Appliance Repair. Uh, guys, these have been our longest running sponsor. We love these guys. They do a great job. They have amazing techs, and they just wanna get your appliances back up and running. And listen, one of the most annoying things on the face of the planet is to have to go shopping for appliances.

Oh my goodness.

Especially if you took the time to curate a set of matching appliances, right?

Yeah.

The last thing you want to have to go do is to go get a mismatched appliance to go with all of your other appliances that now will no longer look like you wanted them to originally, right?

And even I found that people, even like in rooms of their house that they don't even have people come, right? Like, like the laundry room, for example. It's not typically a room that a lot of people show up to your house and Be like, oh, here's my laundry room, right? But you still want—

Let me guide you to this awkward closet.

That's right. But, but you still want matching washer and dryer for some reason. Well, and, and like sometimes depending on the— these new washers and dryers, they talk to each other.

That sounds scary.

I know, it's weird. But like—

Talking about like AI washing?

No, it's more like, it's more like, hey, this, these, this is this type of clothing, so now dry it in this type of way.

Oh, okay.

And so it's, it's a little bit of a—

So you don't have to adjust your settings when you're moving it from one device to the other.

Correct.

I got you. That, that makes sense.

It does. But so now, I mean, if you want that type of technology, well, look, you gotta have the same one.

Right.

So if one of them goes out, guess what? You gotta buy both. And I mean, there's so many reasons that it is way better, better for the environment, better for the, you know, all kinds of reasons to just get your appliance repaired.

Yeah.

9 times out of 10, they can repair it. Like, they're— and, and they're going to be honest with you if they can't.

Yeah.

And so at that point, you're out a service fee, but that's it to know I, I'm making the right choice. So give them a call, shoot them a text. Their number is 936-647-2364. Yep.

And our other sponsor tonight is True Texas Solar. Let me tell you guys, this is the company that is offering the trifecta of energy independence. I mean by trifecta, solar, home, whole home battery, generator.

That's it.

All integrated.

Mm-hmm.

All working together. Mm-hmm. To keep you up and running no matter what is happening. Yeah.

And we're actually gonna talk about tropical storms.

We're gonna talk a little bit about tropical storms tonight. Yeah. And like how they can affect your power supply. And like, look, here's the thing is a lot of people don't realize is if you have solar panels with a whole home battery, and a hurricane moves through, there's a good chance you're gonna drain your battery without having a lot of UV exposure to recharge those batteries as quickly as you normally could on a nice clear day.

Right.

So what would you do? Well, the best thing to do is to have a generator backup to recharge those batteries.

Right.

And what makes that great is, like, if you have a generator recharging those batteries, you don't have to run the generator as often as you do if the only option that you have is the generator.

Right. And most people are unaware of this. Your generator is not really built to run 24/7.

All the time. Yeah.

Yeah. And, and you do have to check the oil and make sure that, you know, things are running correctly. And if you could give it a few hours off to replenish its life a little bit—

It drastically improves the longevity of that device.

It absolutely does. And so there, there's, there's just a lot of reasons to do that sort of thing. And a lot of people might even say, Well, if, if I have to have a generator anyway, why wouldn't I just do that? And that way I've got, I've, you know, I can plug it right into my home and I can have electricity. Why wouldn't I just do that? But the, the reason you do that is if there's an outage.

Right.

There's so many other reasons to have solar on top of that. So here's the thing. If you're even remotely curious about it, and it really doesn't matter if you're in a residential or a commercial setting, they can help you with either one.

Either one.

Give 'em a call. Just talk to 'em about it. One of the things I love about True Texas is they're out there for education as much as anything else. And I think—

Exposing scammers as well.

Oh yeah. Then there's, there's a ton of 'em. And so I, I think the one of, one of the things I love about True Texas Solar is they're, they're trying to truly help the system. And oh, by the way, if you're in the Houston area like we are, the grid is awful. It is absolutely awful. And if you want some independence, I mean, I'm telling you, there are certain companies, and we're not going to name them right now, that are currently in a lawsuit because of everything that happened with the recent, uh, most recent hurricane.

Mm-hmm.

And there's a way to get out from under that mess. So give them a call, let them help you out. Their number is 936-286-8325. Yep.

And speaking of people who are potentially going to be losing power, there's a guy on Facebook, and I'm just going to let you guys know who he is. His name is Alan Lamay. He's probably one of the best meteorological prediction guys out there that I've seen. And I don't even know that he's a meteorologist. What his job is, is predicting the weather for oil companies.

Okay.

I've been following him for a while, but there is a tropical storm forming in the Gulf of Mexico currently. And this right now, it's September 22nd, and he's looking at it going like in the next 10 days, we're probably looking at ramping up. It's probably going to be a Category 1, Category 3 hurricane, but it's probably going to be making landfall somewhere between Louisiana and Florida. So at least where we're at in Texas, we're probably going to be okay, at least according to the models that he's looking at. But there is currently a tropical storm forming in the Gulf of Mexico, and it's probably going to make landfall somewhere on this, you know, the southern United States in the Gulf.

So, like, you know, prayers for the people who are going to be encountering that thing. Hopefully it doesn't come here because, like, God knows we don't need another one.

Oh, right.

Or any kind of storm right now. But neither does anybody else.

Right.

And so hopefully it stays very small and insignificant compared to where it lands. and, and does very little damage. But like, you know, it's, it's hurricane season, man.

It is.

Um, you know, it's a little late in hurricane season, but, um, yeah. So I mean, like, we, we base— there's basically like 2 models right now that they're looking at where it's gonna hit the, the tip of the boot in Louisiana or the, the, the tip of the, uh, what do you call that?

The—

not the bottom handle, the panhandle of Florida.

Yeah, yeah.

So not right in the farthest western portion of the Panhandle, but right in the middle is looking like where it's going to go.

Right.

So I guess that's just a little due east of Destin area.

Yeah.

But the good news is there's going to be a lot of rain hitting the East Coast of the US, which I know they probably definitely need.

Yeah, for sure.

So anyway, big story tonight that we're not breaking, but this one was actually out of the Houston Chronicle written by Jen Rice, who I'm sure is a lovely gal. Never met her. She's welcome on the show to explain herself if she wants to.

Yeah.

But here's the headline: Harris County approves 8% property tax increase and $2.6 billion budget for 2025. Um, this was making the rounds right in Houston, in really like Southern Texas, for like 3 or 4 days, and people are still talking about it, right? I'm still getting messages. Uh, we, we had a message on our, our page, um, from, uh, Loanne Cason Elliott. That's a lot of names. I know her. Oh, do you? Where's she from?

She's from— she lives down in Pearland. Okay. Yep.

She said along with this tax hike, they also approved a 9.2% salary increase for themselves.

Yeah. Perfect. Yeah. Right. Congratulations.

So frustrating. Yeah. And like, here's, here's, here's the gist of what's going on is the commissioner's court approved a tax rate uh, bump of 8%, which is illegal.

Okay, what is— what is legal?

I think, and I'd have to go back and, and double-check, but I, I did some reading on this before. It's supposed to be like max, like capped out at 3.5%.

That's what I— that seems more reasonable. And it seems like anything beyond whatever that number is should have to be voted on.

I would think so.

Right?

I would think so. And even, even at 3.5%, that still seems like giving the middle finger to like every homeowner in Harris County.

That's significant.

Because like, hey, what's the most we can do? 3.5%. Let's do 3.5%.

Right.

Like that, that, that really seems like an F you to like just every homeowner in Harris County.

And oh, by the way, as if people didn't need another reason to move out of Harris County.

Right.

And so not only is this pissing people off in Harris County, this is pissing people off in Montgomery County and Matagorda County.

Because they know it's going to raise their taxes here.

That's exactly right.

Because people are going to be evacuating like crazy.

They are.

And here, okay, here's what makes me mad about a situation like this is like, I know for a fact that there are people who can't afford to leave Harris County.

Oh yeah.

And so they're going to have to figure out how to deal with this 8% hike. you know, because they, they literally don't have the means to leave. They have a property they've been in for years, right? And now they're just sitting on something that they're going to have to be paying gobs.

8% is less than buying a new home somewhere else for that, right? And yet, yeah, like you said, paying gobs of money, right, on something that they had no control over, right?

Right. Um, oh, this is fun. I just, I see that part of that budget is that constables will get a 17% raise after, because they filed salary grievances, which I like.

Look, I— They probably need a raise.

They probably did.

Yeah.

17%.

That's, that's high.

I don't know.

Yeah. But let's put this into perspective. 8%. Right.

Right.

So for a homeowner— this is in the article, you can go read it yourself, we'll, we'll link it up at the show notes— but for the article, um, it says for a homeowner, uh, for the owner of a home valued at $400,000, the increase will add a total of $256 in taxes, right? And so when, when you start, when you start looking at, at that amount, I realized that on some level there are some people out there going, $256? It's not that much, but $256 is, it's a lot of money.

Yes.

It's a lot of money.

For a lot of people.

Yeah. Okay.

I, I, I'll give everybody an example. And this is just because I know, I, I know some things. Um, my, my sister is losing the house that she's been renting for the last 7 years because the guy that owns it is, has decided to sell it.

Okay.

And I, I, I'll just say that, like, it's, it's in a great location, but it's a trash heap.

Okay.

Like, it, it needs a lot of repairs.

Yeah.

Um, and most likely whoever buys it is gonna raise it and, and then build like some 3-story monstrosity.

Right.

Most likely.

Mm-hmm.

Okay. When the, the, the tax assess— assessment on that property is only around like $230,000.

Okay.

He's selling it For $400,000. Oh, right.

Okay.

So, and this is the thing I think the Harris County district is, is kind of banking on, that as people move out, there's going to be people moving in. And as they move out, the tax assessment on those properties is gonna get raised because they're gonna be selling them for more than what they said that they were worth.

And they, and, and the tax assessor will come back and go, it's now worth this because it sold for this.

Yes.

It's easy to prove that.

It's easy to prove that.

Yep.

And, and so they're going to have that paper trail to now say like, okay, well now at, you know, the 8% increase, you now owe us this much in property taxes, which probably will double the taxes that they're receiving on those properties currently.

Sure.

Most likely.

Yep.

So there's that. Right? And like, when, when that happened to my sister, she was like, well, maybe I'll just buy it from him, thinking that it was going to be selling for what she knew that he had valued it at.

Right.

But he's not stupid.

Right.

He's going to get everything he can for it, which every property owner should.

Sure. Agreed.

If you can, if you can get $400,000, sell it for $400,000.

Absolutely.

So no, I mean, like, look, no, no animosity towards him at all, but like, it immediately pushed her out.

Sure.

Of being able to purchase that property.

Yeah, yeah. Home— homeownership for her in that area, at least the place that she's been at for how many years?

7.

7 years is no longer an option, right? Yeah, at all.

No, you know, and so like, I think this is what a lot of people are going to be looking at.

Yeah. And, and, and so what's gonna happen? I mean, there, there's a reason that she lives there. She likes the area. She likes where she's at, proximity to the places that she wants to be. People, people buy in areas for a certain reason. Oh, by the way, I mean, I, I know, I know a little bit of what she does for a living and she needs to be in that area.

Mm-hmm.

So, um, now what winds up happening is it pushes people out And it winds up being that now there's more commuters. There's, there's more people on the streets, which is awful, right? I mean, there's already plenty of people on the streets. There's this ripple effect is, is my point of what happens whenever people can't live where they're at and have to move. They're— they can't move closer, they got to move further, right? It's just statistically speaking, that's that's what people have to do. If you're forced to move, you, you have to find something cheaper, and the only way to do that is go out.

Yeah.

So, yep.

Well, okay, so let me tell you about this. Um, I mean, talking about like why people live there, my wife and I went downtown for a date night on Wednesday.

Okay.

And we ended up at the Eden Plant Company. You ever heard of this place?

I have not.

Um, it's in the East End, and My wife, this was like a surprise for me.

Okay.

She was like, hey, we're going out for a date on Wednesday night. I know we're doing regular date nights, but just so you know, I win date night for a long time now.

I saw that she posted that.

Yes.

After y'all were there.

Yeah.

Okay.

And she did.

Tell me more.

So on Wednesdays at the Eden Plant Company, they have what they call Jazz in the Jungle. And if you know me, I love jazz and blues. It's my jam. I mean, if anybody's been watching the show, you're like, hey, you wear a cowboy hat. What's up with that?

Look, whatever.

I'm a complicated guy.

Yeah. No, that's an understatement.

It was awesome.

Was it?

And it was part of this whole complex, which, by the way, we got to go.

Okay, I'm down.

So, like, people live there.

Oh.

And, like, let me— well, okay, let me get back. Eden Plant Company. I think the tickets were, like, $50 apiece.

That's reasonable.

And we had our own table.

Okay.

And we each got a glass of wine for having the table.

So $100 with wine?

Yeah. And then there was, like, live music with, like, vocal jazz. And there was 2 sets, one at, I think it was 7, and then another one at 9.

Yeah.

And it was good. It was good jazz.

Okay.

And it was like a little trio of piano, bass, and drums, and then a vocalist.

Okay.

And they killed it.

Nice.

Absolutely killed it. And they had little charcuterie boards that you could buy. They were like $20.

All right.

And they were good.

Nice.

But in that little complex, one, there's, like, apartments upstairs, and there's, like, a Tesla that people that live there have access to just for living there.

What?

There's a pizza and bar just next door.

You had to meet pizza.

And, and, like, wood-fired pizza.

Oh, nice.

And, and if you wanna go get pizza and drinks from the bar next door, you can go get that and bring it back into the plant store to listen to the jazz.

Wow.

And then on the outside, again, still same part of the same building. There's a chocolate shop that has a secret speakeasy behind it. And then next to that is a James Beard Award Thai restaurant that was packed the whole time we were there listening to jazz. We wanted to go eat Thai food.

Sure.

We're like, we don't have time. We were here for the— we're here for the jazz. We're here for the wine. We're here for the charcuterie. Right. you know, the, the whole, the whole shebang. And like, just a cool little, like, just like— and there's nothing else around it, right? It's like the only thing happening in this neighborhood. Yeah, super cool, man. Um, and, and, but like, all that to say, that's down in Harris County, right? And guess what?

We now all of a sudden, the cool places that— this is a problem.

It's a problem because like, where they get Where the businesses like that, where they get their money, is locals having access to them. And locals are not going to want to have access when they're having to pay an increase of 8% on their property taxes. Right.

No, I mean, and that's that. So, so y'all, not, not saying that people won't drive from Conroe, Montgomery, The Woodlands, or whatever to go down there, because obviously you did. But how often are you doing that?

Not often.

Not often.

It takes us an hour to get down there.

Right. And but if you lived closer, how often would you go?

More.

More. And I don't know what that number is and doesn't really matter, but the, but the truth is you're exactly right. They're getting the majority of their clientele from people that live in the area. You, you push people out—

Oh yeah, everybody we were there with was, was like a local, right?

As soon as you start pushing people out those types of places die.

Yep.

And there's some— look, I've been doing like little, little deep dives here and there onto some of the places that are in like in Houston. They've got— there's some cool places.

There's really cool places, man.

Have you heard about this, uh, this, uh, diner that's down in, in Houston?

Are you talking about the new one?

Baby, Baby Something. And it is a— it's Baby— type in Baby Something Diner in Houston and you're gonna see it is a unbelievably cool diner. They serve Carvel ice cream, which, if you don't know what Carvel is—

Buttermilk Baby.

Buttermilk Baby. That's it. And, um, Carvel is kind of like the Blue Bell up in, like, the Northeast area. It's a, it's a, you know, a really good—

I mean, like, it looks really, like, uh, kitschy. And yeah, I mean, like, which I'm all for. Yeah.

But, um, I, I saw a guy do a review of like their, their food. It looked amazing. And it's just unique.

Yeah.

You know, and, and there, there are places like this all over the Houston area. And, and again, there, there's a reason that people go into some of these areas inside the loop. I'll put it that way.

Yeah.

Inside the loop, be— because there's, there's a crap ton of people out there, first of all. And, you know, They're— but, but again, they're going to have the hype just like everybody else is, right?

No, it does look— I'm, I'm looking at it right, looks like a cool place. Yeah, but it looks like burgers, chicken fingers, and stuff like that, but they do have the Carvel.

Yeah.

Um, the outside is what actually looks really cool.

Yeah, it does. Like, what—

Looks like they have like an AstroTurf dining area outside.

And what I, what I was told when in the review that I watched is they spared no expense when it came to like authenticity of of like the diner feel. So, you know, the, the neon lights are actual neon lights. They're not LEDs.

Yeah.

Like they're, they, they, they went all out.

So that kind of stuff, like, you know, it's just, you know what they need at like places like that? They need a guy who's like the Biff character. Oh man. That goes around and just like, McFly, told you not to come in here. Just like, just randomly calling people McFly and like just leaving. Yeah. Just like randomly bullying people. That's what you need. But that's more like a Dick's.

Oh, yeah. Last resort. That would be funny. That would be funny.

I would go.

Sure, I would too. I mean, I'm probably going to go anyway. You want to get me back? Show up and call me McFly. Yeah, that'd be hilarious. It'll work.

Yeah, it'll work. But I mean, if we had to predict what this is going to— Okay, here, here, here's what I'll predict I think is going to happen. Okay. I think, and I don't know when, like, the next election cycle is for, uh, judges, right, in Houston.

Okay.

But if whoever wants to run against these people wants to keep this in the forefront of their campaign, I think they're going to be able to flip some seats.

Well, yeah, it would be—

Especially if you can run on like, hey, Do you remember when such and such voted? Which, like, we, we have the voting record as to how this went down. Like, look, do you want however many more years of this where they upped your property taxes by 8% in one year?

Which, by—

I don't even know that we've talked about, like, how they were able to do this. No, we haven't. Yeah. Um, but, like, just staying on the political side of things, like, if you want more years of this, by all means, vote them back in.

Vote them back in.

But, like, if you want somebody who's going to promise to vote against this and actually lower your property taxes, then vote for me.

Right.

That's an easy, easy decision from just about— and, like, it wouldn't matter if you ran in the Martian Party.

Well, that's, that's the thing. I mean, obviously, this was a, this was a Democratic Party.

Yes.

The Republicans voted against it.

All of them voted against it.

And so you, you want to, you want to get a wave of Republicans actually starting to get voted in, it's a pretty good way.

Harris County.

Yeah.

Which would be nuts.

Would be absolutely nuts.

I mean, look, there's the Michael Berry who has been hosting the local radio show, and I think he even has, like, national syndication now.

Right.

I mean, he ran as a county commissioner— not a county commissioner, city councilman.

Okay.

City councilman. That's what he ran as. He ran as a city councilman and lost. And he is massively popular.

Yeah.

I mean, like, he, he has— what is it? The, the, he has, like, some restaurants and stuff that he's opened.

Oh, okay.

But, like, and he, he features local businesses.

Like, he's a name.

He's a name. Like, there's— he, I think he even, like, guest hosted, like, the Limbaugh Show at one point in time. Like, he— and he's very good. Sure. He's a very good host. And he's very, very smart. He knows his stuff. And, like, he couldn't win.

Yeah.

He couldn't win. Yeah. But I bet you, I bet you if he ran now, and said like, hey, 8%, do you like that?

No.

Because I'll take it away.

Yeah.

Just, just put me in there.

Right.

I bet you he'd win.

It really doesn't matter if they actually do that, right? Because he's a politician. But just saying it.

Sure.

Because this is what they're dealing with. Yeah. I mean, this is—

and then, oh, by the way, like, they create— they, they increased your property taxes by 8% and then gave themselves like a 9.2% increase in their pay, right?

And do you, do you know what the, uh, the budget is for 2025?

It's like $25—

It's $2.6 billion.

$2.6 billion.

Billion with a B. Yeah, that's nuts. It's— I mean, yeah, it's an absolutely nutty number. Now, number 3 largest city in America, I get it, it's a big city, right? But $2.6 billion with a B?

Yeah.

It's a lot of money.

Well, and, and, okay, so getting, getting back to like how they were even able to do this, we had 2 natural disasters occur in 1 year, right? That's the loophole that they're using. So when you have 2 natural disasters occur within 1 year, what they allow you to do is increase property taxes in order to help provide relief for those natural disasters. Look, nobody in hell believes that the property tax revenue that they're going to be receiving from this 8% is going towards anything related towards natural disaster recovery. No. And like, sell it to me all you want. We all know, like, look, all I have to do is go, okay, like, you just increased salaries by 9.2%, and you want me to

believe that you're increasing property taxes in order to pay for disaster recovery? Right. I don't think so.

Yeah.

Nobody believes that.

The timeliness does not add up.

It's a freaking loophole.

Yeah.

in order to increase property taxes. Right. And people around here are furious.

Yeah. It's bad.

And, and the problem is, you, you have places like Kingwood now.

Mm-hmm.

That are Harris County.

Yeah. Right. They've, they've annexed them.

They've annexed them.

Yep. And, and so against their will.

Yes. And, and so, like, here, Kingwood's gonna be paying an extra 8% in property tax.

Exactly.

Texas. Who, like, if you're a real estate agent in Kingwood right now, you should be pissed.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Because, like, Kingwood's one of the nicest areas to live in.

It absolutely is.

It's one of the best established communities in the Houston area. Has a good commute to downtown if you wanna work downtown. But, like, if even if you don't wanna work downtown, there's a lot of nice amenities living in Kingwood.

Yep.

It's a nice, quiet, big community.

That's it. That's—

it's a good place to live. Good schools, all that kind of stuff. Who wants to pay an extra 8%?

No. If I— who has—

who has an extra 8% right now?

Nobody.

That's the problem.

Nobody. I'm having to buy gas and I'm having to— I mean, my insurance is getting taken away for my roof.

It's like buying fruit in the Virgin Islands, man. This is stupid prices.

Like buying fruit at Kroger or HEB. Like, it's— I mean, food is gone up astronomically. Like, everything's gone up astronomically, right?

I mean, who, who on a family of 4 is not spending $100 minimum every time they go to the grocery store? And you're probably going to the grocery store 2 and 3 times a week.

Easy.

If you're going 2 and 3 times a week, you're spending at minimum $300 a week on groceries.

Yeah.

Right? What, that's $900 a month, right? Minimum on groceries.

I went to Sam's the other day. $326.

Right.

And my basket was not overflowing.

Yeah.

I mean, now, we, we hadn't been there in a while. We need to restock on some stuff that we, we use.

Uh-huh.

But $326.

Got the value pack of the Birdie's Beard Balm.

Yeah, we feel like we have to almost, you know, like—

Bert's Beard Balm. Sorry.

Yes, I'm sorry. I knew what you meant. Um, but like, I mean, we, you, you almost have to buy in bulk these days in order to get any type of discount whatsoever.

Even buying in bulk. Oh, it's, you're not really, I mean, like, look, you're saving, are you saving that much?

I don't know. I, I know that I'm still spending, I mean, my, our grocery budget is off the roof.

What would be an interest? I would, I would, I would be interested to see somebody actually run the numbers on buying in bulk from like Sam's and Costco versus Subscribe and Save?

Okay, on Amazon, I, I will tell you the biggest, the biggest issue with buying in bulk is you— most of them, the, the only way you really get major savings is if you're buying their brand.

Mm-hmm.

Because like, for example, if you go in and you buy I don't know, a certain, a certain item. Let's say you're buying green beans. You can buy, you can buy boxes of like 6 or 8 green beans in a package.

I'm for it. I love green beans.

I do too. I eat them all the time. But the only kind you're getting is the Del Monte brand. That unless you decide to get like some massive jar of their Member's Mark or whatever the Costco brand is, which I don't shop there, so I don't know what their brand is. Uh, actually I do. I forgot what, uh, which, which store are you talking about? At Costco. What is their—

Oh, I don't know what their store brand is. I haven't shopped there in years.

Yeah, we do Sam's anyway. But my point is, you're a lot of times you're still paying name brand pricing only at a bulk price, which is still more expensive than buying the store brand at a non-bulk price. So you have to be real careful to, to just assume that it's a better price because a lot of times it isn't, right? Um, I will tell you where a lot of those places wind up really being a cheaper value is in their meat.

Okay.

A lot of times their meat is, is a much better value. Now you have to buy a lot more of it, right? But it's still, it's still a lot of times a better value. But nevertheless, the, the point being everything in life is more expensive. today than it was 4 years ago. And so because of that, uh, we're just in a scenario where it's like, okay, now you want this too? You want this too? You want this too? Like, it becomes unreasonable. And, and so here in— we're in election year.

Mm-hmm.

And there are places all over the place that are, that are requesting tax increases. The thing that you need to, to be aware of is like some of those are really good, right? Some of those tax increases are, if you vote against them, it is gonna be detrimental to, to the area that you live in. And we, we've actually got one in Montgomery right now that, that I believe is absolutely detrimental if you don't choose to, to vote for it. But this isn't something I got to vote for if I live in Harris County.

Right.

This was done before the election. I didn't get a chance to vote, and it was just kind of sprung on everybody. And that, I think, is one of the most egregious things about the entire conversation.

Yeah.

There's just no— you have no control over it. And I don't know, that just bugs me. If you want to put this on the ballot, Let people have a choice. Okay, if it passes, fantastic. But that's not what happened, right? So lots of, lots of, lots of people mad. And I get it. Yeah, totally get it.

Well, before we wrap up, I mean, you and I were kind of talking about this, this crazy Kamala Harris clip.

Oh yeah.

Which we're not going to show because we didn't, we didn't have a chance to load it up. But she, she had a sit-down interview with Oprah.

Yeah.

And they were talking about guns.

Yeah.

And I mean, really, the controversy— she brought it up. She brought it up. And the controversy— I don't even know that it's controversy because it doesn't bother me at all.

Right.

Like she said, if they come in my house, they're going to get shot. Yeah. And she, she prefaced that by saying, I'm a gun owner.

Right.

And Oprah, Oprah was just like blown away.

She had no idea.

She had no idea that she was a gun owner. And she's like, yeah, somebody comes in my house, they're going to get shot.

Yeah.

And she says it like that, for one. Two, that she has been this proponent of getting rid of what they call assault rifles.

Right.

Which, who knows what that is?

Right.

They use broad terms so that they can just make it whatever they want.

Right.

But I think the reason people are gravitating towards this is they're like, okay, this seems like a double standard.

Yeah.

Where, like, you get to have protection for yourself and your family, which is really just her and her husband.

Right.

To, like, kill people if they come into your home.

Right.

And I understand people's frustrations with that because she has a particular political bent. And she, she, like, for, for those on the right, it seems as if she wants to take away rights. that you have towards firearms.

Yeah.

On the other hand, like, the statement makes complete sense to me.

Yeah.

Because we now have Trump who's been shot once in the head.

Yep.

Where the dude clipped his ear.

Right.

You know, like, couple, like, an inch and a half to the right, he's a dead guy.

Right.

And another guy—

An attempt.

Posted up on the golf course.

Yep.

And they didn't catch it until the last second. The guy had been there 12 hours.

Yeah.

before they actually realized what was going on.

Right.

That's the crazy part.

I know.

And it's like, you know, he could have been— he could have wandered in there at any point in time because Trump plays golf all the time.

Yep.

Could have shot him again.

Yep.

And this guy, kind of a crazy deal. Like, he's gone and, like, been in the Ukraine, like, recruiting for them. It's a whole weird thing. Yep. It'll be interesting to see if that guy even survives in prison.

Yeah.

I mean, because they like to make those kinds of problems go away. That's right. But like, the Kamala statement makes complete sense to me.

Yeah.

Because look, every— everyone on the right wants to believe that all the crazies are on the left, and everyone on the left wants to believe that all the crazies are on the right.

Right.

There's crazies in both.

There are.

And 100%, like, she has to have a sense of if there are people on the left, on my side, who are willing to attack Trump and try and kill him, for whatever reason, and we could, we could get into that. I mean, like, there's all sorts of reasons. I think that they've— like, the left has actually caused some of this. Sure. I think the right has riled up enough people on their side that she, she ought to be concerned.

Yeah, I would be if I were her.

You know, and I'm not saying like I know things or anything like that, but like, it makes sense.

Sure.

That like in a, in a heated political climate that like some radical from the right might try and take a shot at her.

Yeah. I mean, That's— that might have been her little CYA, right?

Like, like, yeah, come at me.

Oh, I don't want to shoot you. If you say I don't have any guns, well, you're opening yourself up to be a target.

Well, yeah, I mean, some crazy guy on the right was like, well, she's against guns, she's not going to have any. She's like letting everybody know, like, look, you come to my house, I'm gonna shoot you, right? And good for her. Sure.

Like, she— And guess what? That's your right.

Exactly. That's her right to protect herself.

It is.

That's the reason that exists, right? is so that she has a chance at protecting herself against an assailant.

Right.

And she should do that.

Legitimate.

And I hope she's had training. I hope she's had situational training.

Right.

I hope she knows how to use the firearm that she has.

Yeah.

You know, or that she's at least gone to the range with it.

Right.

So that like if some nutball, God forbid, should like try and take a shot at her, that she'll fire back and kill that SOB.

Right.

Because that's unacceptable in this country, man.

I agree. That we kill our political opponents or anybody. But still, anybody.

Anybody for sure.

But for real, we're talking about our leaders. I don't care if you like them or don't.

Yeah, I don't like her.

No, I don't either.

I would never want anything bad to happen to her.

Absolutely.

ever.

I agree.

Like, that would be horrible.

It would be.

And this, this is the, this is the weird thing that I keep seeing, man, is like when people talk about someone taking a pop shot at Trump.

Yeah.

There are people who are willing to go, well, that wouldn't have been so bad, right? And I'm like, what's wrong with you, right?

Why? In what world is that suddenly okay if he just disappears because someone shoots him, right?

No. And that was the, that was I don't know if you remember me talking about, like, the guy Destiny.

Oh, yeah.

He was— he was— he went on a— I think he went on Piers Morgan.

Okay.

And was talking about how he didn't feel bad for the people standing behind Trump that got shot.

Right.

Because they never should have been there with that lunatic in the first place. And so he would never feel bad for anybody that got hurt because Some guy, some crazy guy took a shot at him.

What is wrong with you?

And I'm like, really?

Yeah. What is wrong with you?

Like, you are a horrible, horrible crapfest of a human being.

Yep.

That you would disgrace somebody's dad.

Right.

I mean, because that's what happened.

Oh, absolutely.

There's a guy that died.

Yeah.

And, and several other people that got wounded. So we, like, we know, like, at least rudimentary how many shots were taken.

Right.

At Trump at that rally, and it was like 6 or 7.

Right.

Something in that neighborhood because we know how many other people got shot.

Right.

And wounded.

Mhmm.

It, it's difficult to tell exactly because, like, like, the one that hit his ear.

Mhmm.

I mean, like, did that hit somebody else?

Deflect or whatever.

I mean, like, you just don't know.

Yeah.

So, like, we, we have a good idea as to how many shots got popped off before they actually took the, the guy down.

Right.

There's other crazy stuff with that whole situation.

Yeah.

You know, he was, like, cremated, like, 2 or 3 days later. No.

Yeah. No, I did not hear that. Yeah. That's quick.

I mean, like, like, like, how do you do an autopsy? How do you do like a good autopsy?

You don't. Yeah, I don't think you do.

I, I don't know.

Yeah.

It's, it's a weird situation, man. So, and it's a weird world we're living in.

It is.

8% increases on property taxes.

Who wants that?

9, 9.2% increases on, you know, salaries in Harris County. I mean, like—

17.2% with the constables.

Yeah. And like, here's, here's what's interesting.

I, I'd be interested to hear from our listeners in other, other cities. Yeah.

Like, are you seeing similar things happen in your counties, in your cities? Like, what's, what's going on there?

Right.

I mean, is it, is it just us? Is our town the one that's just like going bonkers? Or like maybe y'all's have gone bonkers for years and that just feels like normal now.

Not, I'm, I, good, good question to ask.

I mean, because like we hear big picture stuff on the show. We don't hear like we don't hear the small town aftermath of some of these kind of things.

Yeah.

And I'm wondering if it's been like that in San Francisco for a long time, if it's been like that for a long time in Chicago or Dayton, Ohio. I don't know. But I'd be interested to hear what your leaders in those cities, in those larger towns, are doing, right? Are they raising your property tax? And like, maybe they're, I don't know, maybe they feel like they've got some juice because like interest rates are coming down. I don't know. I, I don't know. And it's a stretch. Well, man, I was, I was listening to somebody today talking about inflation and interest rates and they're like, they were saying like, you know, inflation's so high and interest rates are so high. historically. And I'm like, those are not

historically high interest rates.

Right.

These are normal interest rates.

Right.

Normal interest rates.

Right.

The problem is, is we have a culture that doesn't save.

Mhmm.

You know, and, like, we, we— there's a reason that people used to save the 20% before they bought a home because they wanted to avoid the PMI.

Right.

Because the interest rates were so high. It was the only way they could afford the home.

That was it.

You know, and they're sort of putting about a, a huge amount of cash down in order to purchase these houses so that they could afford the mortgage on them.

And, and here's the thing. If you're gonna sit here and tell me that people were able to save more back then because things didn't cost the same amount.

Baloney.

Everything, everything is based upon a certain other thing, right? So it's, it's all in perspective.

Yeah. Go look at like what the average salary was, right? Among— and like how many of those homes were single-income homes versus how many of those homes are like dual-income homes now?

Yes. And so you, you add all of those things together and everything's on a sliding scale as far as that goes. But the truth is we, we live in a day and age because of technology where everything is at our fingertips all the time. Mm-hmm. We, we have a, we have a higher spending rate than we've ever had. People are buying things at a higher rate.

Oh, credit card debt is like at an all-time high.

It's, yes. because people are buying things that at one point people saved. Because you know what? I didn't know what people across the country had.

Right.

I didn't know what the trends were. I had no idea that this fancy new thing would do this new cool thing at my house. And if I didn't have it, then I would feel left out.

Yeah.

I didn't know what it was. For me, it was the next-door neighbor, my friend that I, you know, worked with. Those are the only people I had to compare myself to. Right? So people were able to save because there was a culture of saving. There was a culture of I don't spend every dollar that I've got on all of this stuff that doesn't matter. Now we're in a place where it's like if we have it, you spend it. If you don't have it, you spend it. Right? It doesn't matter. So it it's not that people couldn't save today. So you choose don't to.

You choose. Yeah.

You choose don't to.

I can't choose don't to.

But but it's true, right?

You should be a t-shirt.

You just don't. You choose don't to. You just choose don't to. Don't you? You don't to. I can't speak. But I, I think that's, that's the point though, is like, you'll do whatever you want to, and it doesn't matter if the interest rate's at 2% or 25%, which is where it's been before.

Yep.

Um, people are still going to buy houses.

Yeah.

And you're going to figure it out one way or the other. Now, where that money is going to come from, that's the real question. That's kind of the deal with this 8%. It's got to come from somewhere.

Got to come from somewhere.

So There you go.

Yeah. Who's— and who's gonna pay it? That's, that's the question.

Yeah.

Who's gonna pay it?

Yeah. I mean, because what are you gonna do if you can't?

Well, I mean, like, so, so many times we— they do these things and like, we're going after the rich.

Yep.

The rich are gonna figure out how to avoid it, man.

Yeah.

They're gonna figure it out.

Yeah.

And, and so who's it go— it's gonna go back on the working class.

Yep.

Every single time it's gonna go back in the work because they can't afford the accountants.

Right.

They can't afford the attorneys. That's it. They can't afford all the people. They, they can't afford the CPAs. Like, what are they gonna do? Like, they're gonna sit there and read tax law and, like, figure out what the— and, like, and they don't even have access to the, to the breaks that the rich have.

No.

And so, like, they are literally passing tax law to benefit the rich because they know that the rich can avoid it.

Right.

And it's not gonna hurt them.

Nope.

It's gonna hurt everybody else.

Yes, it is.

And they're gonna break the backs of the working class in order to pay for whatever it is that they're after.

Mhmm.

Probably their 9.2% increase.

Mhmm.

in their pay scale, you know, and like, to hell with them, right?

Right. Because, and, and, and here's the truth, a lot of people dog on the rich because they don't get it. They dog on the rich for avoiding taxes or, or getting out. They don't, they don't pay taxes. Well, look, the majority of people are rich because they own businesses. Yeah, the, the majority of people are, and, or, or their families own businesses somehow, right? And, and frankly, the reason America works the way it does is because of businesses that people own.

Yep.

And, and America, the government has incentivized people that own businesses to pay less taxes. They've incentivized them. So is it easy for them to not pay taxes? Absolutely it is. Do they have to get, you know, go through some work to make sure they don't? Sure they do. But If you have money, you can figure that stuff out, right? The, the people that really get hurt, and that— I mean, and again, you can dog on the rich for, for being rich. I, I don't care if you want to do that, but the truth is they're rich because they've made a choice. And are there reasons that people can't get rich? Sure, we can have that conversation all day long. But the rich, they're not gonna pay taxes,

right? And if they do, they're not gonna pay much. And in comparison to the amount that they pay versus the middle class or the, or the low income, uh, class, it's not even close.

Yeah.

And, and so who gets screwed? The people that can't afford it.

People that can't afford it.

Yep.

Um, so anyway, you know, do, do what you will with that information, y'all.

That's it. We're just bringing it to you. Yeah, that's it. And, uh, look, we didn't start out the, the show very good, but we're gonna end it good. There we go. And here we go. Subscribe to our channel, please. Like our channel if you haven't already done that. What are you doing? Why are you still listening to us?

Nope.

You probably aren't.

Look, here's what I'll say. Let's, let's get to 4,000 subscribers on YouTube.

We're close.

And I will do a full Two Bourbon Craig episode.

Okay. So, all right, we're not too far. Go ahead over on YouTube, please like and subscribe and, um, show us the love. And if you haven't already left us a rating or review on Apple Podcasts, Please go do that. You can also do it on Spotify. You can also do it on IMDb. Actually, I think we're over there. We're on all kinds of places, right? Cue the music because we got to get out of here. Thank you for listening. We appreciate all of you. And if you have information to give us about this tax hike, please send it over to info@homeownershow.com. We will read your email.

Like signed affidavit.

Absolutely.

You know, something.

Whatever you got to do. Whatever you gotta do. Thanks for being here. Till next time, see you later.

See ya.