December 8, 2022 • 19 mins
There’s a new food category coming to your grocery stores… “thaw and eat” foods. The makers of Uncrustables and Hot Pockets are both offering products that can be ready to eat in a couple of hours with no microwave required. Think turkey and cheese or ham and cheese sandwiches. These are being targeted to adults who want grabbable, no-mess bites. Jennifer Kingson, chief correspondent at Axios joins us for what to know as food companies are throwing more resources at launching this new frozen category.
Next, the Good Morning America cheating scandal is proving that people still love an old-fashioned tabloid drama. While other scandals have been met with lots of negative emotion, there are some in the public that seem to be rooting for anchors Amy Robach and T.J. Holmes. They are both temporarily sidelined for now, but ratings have been up since the scandal surfaced. Aja Romano, culture reporter at Vox, joins us for what to know.
Finally, the data shows that married couples hold four times as much wealth as unmarried couples who live together. The leading thought as to why, is because they pool their resources together. Other research is now showing that couples who do combine finances are also happier. Julia Carpenter, personal finance reporter at the WSJ, joins us for what joining finances does in a relationship.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Thursday, December eight. I'm Oscar Ramiers in Los Angeles
and this is the Daily Dive. There's a new food category.
Come in to your grocery stores, fall and eat foods.
The makers of Incrustables and Hot Pockets are both offering
products that can be ready to eat in a couple
of hours with no microwave required. I think turkey and
(00:23):
cheese or ham and cheese sandwiches. These are being targeted
to adults who want grabb able, no mess bites. Jennifer Kingson,
chief correspondent at Axios, joins us for What to Know,
as food companies are throwing more resources at launching this
new frozen category. Next, the Good Morning America cheating scandal
is proving that people still love an old fashioned tabloid trauma.
(00:44):
While other scandals have been met with a lot of
negative emotion, there are some in the public that seemed
to be rooting for anchors Amy Robot and t J. Holmes.
They're both temporarily sidelined for now, but ratings have been
up since the scandal surfaced. Asia Romano culture reporter at
Vox joins us for what to Know. Finally, the data
shows that married couples hold four times as much wealth
(01:05):
as unmarried couples who live together. The leading thought is
to why is because they pull their resources together. Other
researchers now showing that couples who do combine finances are
also happier. Julia Carpenter, personal finance reporter at The Wall
Street Journal, joins us for what joining finances does in
a relationship, It's news without the noise. Let's dive in.
(01:29):
It's called deli wich. It's four a different type of
meat and cheese sandwiches that have a soft crust. They're
calling them cold pockets rather and very much like uncrustables.
You just leave them out somewhere for two hours and
then you can eat. Joining us now is Jennifer Kingson,
chief correspondent at Axios. Thanks for joining us, Jennifer. Hey, Oscar, Well,
(01:51):
you take a stroll through the supermarket, you go through
the frozen food aisle, and uh, you know mostly of
what you're gonna get there, you're either gonna take it
back home, put it in the microwave, put in the inn.
There's this new category. Actually it's been around for a
little bit, but this category companies are starting to put
more emphasis behind. They're calling calling them thaw and eat
or thaw and serve products and basically just take it
(02:13):
out of the freezer, let it thought out and you
don't have to heat it back up. We're looking at
things like uncrustables. We're looking at things like hot pockets.
They're calling them cold pockets. Jennifer tell us a little
bit more about it. It turns out there's an absolute
arms race in food manufacturers coming up with sandwiches that
you can take on the go, pop in a lunchbox,
(02:34):
eat at your desk without having to cook. This started
really with uncrustables in two thousand. People are familiar with
those A little peanut, butter and jelly sandwiches. I used
to pop up in my kids lunchbox. They're delicious, they're
really good. But now with the pandemic getting us used
to both eating meals at home and looking for things
(02:55):
that are easy that we can take with us in
our post pandemic lifestyle. Other company these are coming up
with competition first, and we had craft Hinds coming out
with their meat and cheese uncrustable type sandwiches in before
the pandemics started. They had launch Box but now Nestlei
is going full bore into this. Nestleie makes hot pockets,
(03:16):
and their new product is called deli Witch. It's four
different type of meat and cheese sandwiches that have a
soft crust. They're calling them cold pockets rather and very
much like uncrustables. You just lead them out somewhere for
two hours and then you can eat them. I was
surprised to find that saw and eat is actually a
product category and that it's growing. Now. Okay, we'll get
(03:39):
into some more of these products specifically, but I didn't
want to talk about kind of the branding, the positioning
of all this so neatly themselves. They're trying to at
least coin the term smeals, which is like small meals.
But to the point of all this, you know, obviously
they want the entire family to be eating them, but
it seems like they're targying adults more than the kids themselves,
and even in some of these products already they've seen
them take off better adults. Nestlie told me that they
(04:02):
were surprised that since in a few weeks and months
that they've introduced the deli Wich sandwiches, which are their
competitor to Uncrustable that more young adults are reporting eating
them than kids, and they're sort of attributing this to
the nostalgia factor. Young people who grew up with Ego
waffles and Uncrustable sandwiches love that convenience. It's tasty, it's easy,
(04:25):
it's something you can eat at work, at home, on
the go, wherever you want. So this is really a
big play for Gen Z and Generation Alpha consumers. For
those that are familiar with the Incrustables, we know them well,
but they've been around since two thousand. That's in the debut,
so they've been around for twenty two years already, and
you know, they're becoming this this own kind of unit
(04:46):
on its own. So the new offerings that we're talking about,
obviously Incrustables. They have some that are turkey and Colby cheese.
They have another one that's ham and cheese. We're looking
at the deli which ones with these are the ones
coming from Astley and Hot Pocket. They also have kind
of similar flavors. They also have another one that's pepperoni
and cheese. Now, on the face of it, I have
seen some of these in the stores already. On the
(05:08):
face of it, you know, I guess it makes sense,
you know, like a cold turkey and cheese sandwich, maybe
it could taste something like that. But I've seen a
lot of videos, seen a lot of pictures. Even looking
at them in the stores, they seem like they still
lend themselves like they should be cooked up, like they
should be put in the microwave or an air fryer
or something. Uncrustable says you shouldn't do that. Now. Interestingly,
(05:28):
this is a very competitive landscape here. Uncrustables is not
taking the competition lying down. Not only are they building
a major new factory to pump out the new uncrustables
which come in meat and cheese instead of just the
standard pbm J, they are building what they call a
state of the art R and D facility at their
(05:49):
home headquarters in Ohio to start experimenting with more different
types of Uncrustable so we can look forward to new
fillings and permutations in the years ahead. They're going to
open up their lab sometime next year start coming up
with new types of incrustables. They want to build that
into a one billion dollar brand within the next five years,
(06:10):
which really speaks to the strength of this thought and
eat market. Yeah, and to your point earlier, right, a
lot of things changed during the pandemic. We're stuck at home,
a lot people wanted that quick meal, you know, something
easy and all that, and so this kind of spurred
this innovation. Everybody saw this product opening, this category opening,
and said, let's go for it. Let's keep going. Ego
has one too, that's kind of you just let the
(06:31):
waffle thaw out. That one actually looks pretty good. It
looks kind of soft still and whatnot. So that one
looks like you don't you know, definitely don't eat the toaster.
But I'm sure you know some of these other ones.
As I mentioned the deli, which the ones that are
the cold pockets, those say you can heat them or
or leave them cold. That's right, that's right. And frankly,
for me, if I'm going to have a deli which
that says it's made from pepperoni and mozzarella, I'm probably
(06:54):
going to put that in the microwave. Definitely, definitely. Yeah.
I mean, just an interesting look at what's going on
with all of this stuff and how these quick foods
keep evolving. Really, so we'll keep an eye out for
all of these check them out in the supermarkets. Like
I said, they're already on the aisles now. Jennifer Kingson,
Chief correspondent at Axios, thank you very much for joining us.
(07:15):
Great to talk to you. I know t J. I've
worked with t J at um at CNN, so I
have nothing but love for him, and I hope that
he's okay. I don't know about this situation. I'm not
privy enough, but I just like to offer people love
(07:36):
and support, and I hope that they're okay, and I
hope I get to see them in person again soon
as I can give him. Is Asia Romano, culture reporter
at Vox, thanks for joining us, a thanks for having me. Well,
let's talk a little bit about what's going on at
Good Morning America. Obviously, we have been seeing for a
little bit now that their anchors Amy Robock and t
(07:57):
J Holmes were caught in a cheating scandal. They were
having an affair with each other. But what's going on
with this is kind of an interesting thing. So after
we got wind of it, ratings for that hour for
their spot shot up people were just really interested in
seeing what's going on, and it's a little different from
some of the other cheating scandals and affairs that we've
been seeing going on, we kind of started seeing people
(08:19):
in the public almost root for them. I guess that,
you know, maybe they grew so accustomed to seeing them
on TV they would hope hoping they'd be together. So,
you know, who knows what was going on, but he
should tell us a little bit more about what we're
seeing with this specific case. Yeah, I think it's really interesting.
You bring up the fact that people may have been
rooting for them because they were on TV. They were
Good Morning America anchors, and there's a long tradition and
(08:41):
morning show UM entertainment of the host being kind of
flirty but not too flirty. So I think there's a
lot of spillover from that tradition into what's happening here,
because you have a lot of fans who are really
happy to see them get together UM, And then I
think you also have a lot of non fans who
are just tuning in because of the scandal, who are
super interest in the drama and the gossip, and who
(09:03):
also just you think they're a cute couple. They were
exposed in the Daily Mail, So I think another aspect
of this is that we all learned about it together
from this like traditional, very classic tabloid journalist outlet. Right,
so it's like scandal of pictures, too many many pictures. Um.
So yeah, they kind of followed them all over upstate
New York and showed them, you know, holding hands and
(09:25):
laughing together and just being really kind of cutely crushing
on each other. And of course, like we're only getting
one side of the story, right, so we're just seeing
the happy part where this looks like a cute, happy couple,
but in reality they were both married. They're differing sources
in terms of whether they actually were cheating on their
spouses while they were all still emotionally engaged in their relationships,
(09:46):
or whether they had already separated by that point. We'll
get different versions of the timeline. So I'm not sure
we're ever going to know what the truth is, but
obviously people are very people are excited and happy for them. Yeah,
and you made mention in your article another recent scandal
this was with the YouTube channel The Try Guys, and
one of their guys ended up getting caught cheating on
(10:07):
his wife. But that elicited so much negative emotion, and
you know, a lot of people might not have even
known who the Try Guys were or followed the YouTube channel,
but that rose up in the media with such negative
emotion attached to it, and you know, to the point
of this story, this is kind of like a complete
opposite thing. Yeah, I think there are a couple of
different things going on there. I think the mode of
(10:28):
communication is part of it, because the Try Guys were,
you know, YouTubers first and foremost. So if you're familiar
with YouTube culture at all, you know that the vloggers
that came up through that space tend to form really
intimate para social relationships with their their fans, almost as
a matter of course, because that's how they build their brand, right,
And this particular member of the Try Guys had sort
of builed himself as the wife guy, like his whole
(10:50):
brand was about being a good husband. So there was
an immediate sense of betrayal and outrage directly among the fans.
And since they have lots of fans and lots of
followers of the years, that news really traveled swiftly into
you know, the mainstream news cycle, if you will, And
I think there was a sort of a pushback against
the amount of outrage that the scandal provoked because many
(11:14):
people were like, we've never heard of these people. Who
are they? They're just YouTubers, right, And one I think
with Amy and and and t J. Home, Amy Robot
and t J Holmes, you know, their first and foremost journalists,
and you don't really see a lot of that, so
they don't develop the same type of relationships with followers
and whatnot as as you mentioned, as some of these
YouTube personalities would exactly, you know, their journalists. Their role
(11:35):
first and foremost is to entertain and inform you, right,
It's not to cultivate their fan bases. And you know,
and there have been various outlets that have pointed out
that in fact, this relationship could have potentially groken contractual
obligations that they had to be network because many many
journalists and and anchor type celebrities do have contracts that say,
(11:56):
you know, you have to behave in a certain way,
you can't put forth in negative image. So a lot
of this is very kind of tricky when you get
into things like you know, in our office politics and
so forth. Yeah, and for now, Amy Robot, t J. Holmes,
they've been suspended temporarily suspended. As what we understand, they've
been replaced by Stephanie Ramos and Geo Benitez. But like
I've mentioned, you know, there was so much interest ratings
(12:17):
rose after the scandal broke. Who knows if the heads
up at a you know, at a Good Morning America
might bring them back. But you did also mention the
article there were a couple of other stories about t J.
Holmes maybe having other relationships there in the office that
could also complicate things, right, And I think that's maybe
part of why they took them off the air, not
because they weren't excited for the ratings to go up,
(12:38):
but I think as time unfolded, as they got more
information about the whole context of what was going on,
they probably said, hey, we need to pull back and
figure out what actually happened and if it broke policies,
and if there were other people invested or impacted by
all of this. So I think that was probably a
smart move, even though it seems kind of anathmactic and
it's probably disappointing people in the long run. Yeah, as
(12:59):
you mentioned that, to the point of the whole story, right,
it is kind of a classic tabloid story. The stakes
seem low. Um, you know, there hasn't been huge outpourings
or cries of wrongdoing. Obviously to their partners, their individual partners,
that's a completely different story. But yeah, you know, it
just seems like a classic tabloid story that everybody's kind
of enjoying for now. It's a weird situation when you
put it against the parrot against some of the other
(13:21):
uh scandals that have been going on this past year. Yeah,
and I think we we all like to, you know,
de ride and denigrade tabloid journalism for good reason. But
you know, but it stands the REALI Mail is one
of the most red media outlets in the world, right,
Like they know what side their bread has butted on.
And the fact that they went to such links to
get all of these pictures and and roll the story
(13:42):
the story out even though these aren't necessarily celebrities that
you might expect to to be headline grabbing news, like
they know they know what the public wants. All right, Well,
we'll continue to follow this story as it occurs. Asia
Romano Culture reporter at Vox, thank you very much for
joining us at pleasure. Might be a period of time
(14:09):
where you have one credit card that's just your credit card,
but to share credit card with your partner. Or there
might be a time where you combine all of your savings,
where might be a time where you always have separate savings.
There's so much individualism and that Joining us now is
Julia Carpenter, personal finance reporter at the Wall Street Journal.
Thanks for joining us, Julia, Thank you for having me. Well.
Last time we talked, we're talking about finances between married
(14:32):
couples and finances between people who lived together but aren't married.
We were talking about how married couples hold four times
as much wealth as unmarried couples who are living together.
Now we're looking at some more research that basically says
that couples who do combine their finances are generally a
little bit more happier. So why don't more do it? Obviously,
(14:53):
it's a lot of people's cases and it might not
be the right time. It could be that big step
in the relationship that they're just not ready for. There's
a like I said, there's a few studies that have
been looking into this, So Julia, tell us a little
bit more about it. I was first intrigued by this because,
as as you said, I've been writing a lot about
relationships and money and marriage and the effects that all
(15:13):
of these things have on our wealth, and I kept
talking to researchers and experts who said that combining finances
has a lot of benefits, and you're absolutely right that
the downsides are pretty enormous. It's you know, this definitely
isn't an early relationships step. This has something to do
when you trust the person you you're with, when you
have a shared goal with the person you're with, when
you know that combining your finances is for a greater purpose,
(15:36):
whether that be buying a house you're saving for retirement,
or accomplishing some goal as a household. When I was
when I was talking to researchers about this, three things
from tou to you immediately. One is that people who
combine finances and one study show greater relationship satisfaction, so
they're happier in their relationships. They also say that sharing
finances leads to greater accountability. And then the third thing
(15:58):
is that it leads to greater wealth, so the accountabilit
me in the relationships at its action. Were two really
interesting pieces to me, and real quick for some of
the breakdown. What we're seeing is that a couple said
they have only joint bank accounts, say they had a
mix of joint at separate accounts, and then said they
keep their finances entirely separate. This is from a survey
(16:20):
from credit cards dot com. Is this all? Is this?
Married couples are just couples in general? Married couples very couples.
It's interesting too, because there's not a lot of information
out there as to how many people do this. Because
as one person mentioned in my story, Jesse Kramer, he's
a relationship specialist, he works in finance. He mentioned, it's
a spectrum. You know, it's not as simple as just okay,
(16:41):
we put everything in one pot, or we have everything
black and white and it's separate. There's a spectrum of this.
It evolves as your relationship it evolved. It evolves as
your marriage evolved. So there might be a period of
time where you have one credit card that's just your
credit card, but to share credit card with your partner.
Or there might be a time where you combine all
of your savings, or there might be a time where
you always have separate savings. There's so much individualism in this.
(17:02):
Let's talk a little bit about the accountability because a
lot of times people would think, oh, you know this,
this could lead to a greater conflict. Hey, I'm seeing
you spend money on this. You're spending it on this,
you know we should be saving there. But some of
the research that we're looking at doesn't necessarily show that
there's a lot of greater conflict because of the shared accounts.
That was so interesting to me and talking with people
(17:24):
about this, talking about how they should talk about money
with their partners. That really seems to line up that
it's not that you feel that you're being judged or watched,
or conversely that being judged or watch actually helps you,
so you're not as likely to spend that money in
a way that feels frivolous or out of line with
the goals you said as a couple when you know
that your partner can see it. And then one of
(17:46):
the other things to you spoke to a couple of people, actually,
you know who are kind of in the early stages,
maybe not early stages of relationship, but early stages of
joining finances or or having haven't not done it just yet.
You spoke to a waiter bartender living in Brooklyn, and
then well, you know they have a living partner. They
haven't done it just yet. They do split a lot
(18:06):
of bills and rent and all that stuff, but they
just haven't taken that plunge yet. And one of the
main things seems to be having a shared goal. You
want to combine finances with this other person when you
are further along in your relationship and you trust them
obviously most importantly, but also when you have a shared
goal when you say we're going to combine finances or
share our money in order to do this, whether it's
(18:27):
helping one partner through a difficult time in their employment,
or buying a house or achieving some of their milestone,
that seems to be key. One of the experts who
spokes to uh, you know, we're talking about how obviously
everybody's situation is different. Sometimes people walk into a relationship
and have money trauma, so you know, things might have
gone bad with money before, but in combining finances, a
(18:50):
lot of times it does benefit more of those who
are are less wealthy. You know, obviously you're pulling things
together now you have something bigger to play with. There
are so many sings, you know, houses, other savings for
a retirement. These these traditional money milestones that we hold
up that are getting more and more expensive, and for
many people it is not feasible to achieve those milestones
(19:11):
on their own. They have to combine finances. They need
another person in order to check that off their list.
Julia Carpenter, personal finance reporter at The Wall Street Journal.
Thank you very much for joining us, Thank you for
having me. That's it for today. Join us on social
(19:34):
media at Daily Dive Pod on both Twitter and Instagram.
Leave us a comment, give us a rating, and tell
us the stories that you're interested in. Follow us on
I Heart Radio, or subscribe wherever you get your podcast.
This episode of The Daily Dive is produced by Victor
Wright and engineered by Tony Sargentina. Hi'm Moscow Ramirez and
this was your Daily Dive
It's Thursday, December eight. I'm Oscar Ramiers in Los Angeles
and this is the Daily Dive. There's a new food category.
Come in to your grocery stores, fall and eat foods.
The makers of Incrustables and Hot Pockets are both offering
products that can be ready to eat in a couple
of hours with no microwave required. I think turkey and
(00:23):
cheese or ham and cheese sandwiches. These are being targeted
to adults who want grabb able, no mess bites. Jennifer Kingson,
chief correspondent at Axios, joins us for What to Know,
as food companies are throwing more resources at launching this
new frozen category. Next, the Good Morning America cheating scandal
is proving that people still love an old fashioned tabloid trauma.
(00:44):
While other scandals have been met with a lot of
negative emotion, there are some in the public that seemed
to be rooting for anchors Amy Robot and t J. Holmes.
They're both temporarily sidelined for now, but ratings have been
up since the scandal surfaced. Asia Romano culture reporter at
Vox joins us for what to Know. Finally, the data
shows that married couples hold four times as much wealth
(01:05):
as unmarried couples who live together. The leading thought is
to why is because they pull their resources together. Other
researchers now showing that couples who do combine finances are
also happier. Julia Carpenter, personal finance reporter at The Wall
Street Journal, joins us for what joining finances does in
a relationship, It's news without the noise. Let's dive in.
(01:29):
It's called deli wich. It's four a different type of
meat and cheese sandwiches that have a soft crust. They're
calling them cold pockets rather and very much like uncrustables.
You just leave them out somewhere for two hours and
then you can eat. Joining us now is Jennifer Kingson,
chief correspondent at Axios. Thanks for joining us, Jennifer. Hey, Oscar, Well,
(01:51):
you take a stroll through the supermarket, you go through
the frozen food aisle, and uh, you know mostly of
what you're gonna get there, you're either gonna take it
back home, put it in the microwave, put in the inn.
There's this new category. Actually it's been around for a
little bit, but this category companies are starting to put
more emphasis behind. They're calling calling them thaw and eat
or thaw and serve products and basically just take it
(02:13):
out of the freezer, let it thought out and you
don't have to heat it back up. We're looking at
things like uncrustables. We're looking at things like hot pockets.
They're calling them cold pockets. Jennifer tell us a little
bit more about it. It turns out there's an absolute
arms race in food manufacturers coming up with sandwiches that
you can take on the go, pop in a lunchbox,
(02:34):
eat at your desk without having to cook. This started
really with uncrustables in two thousand. People are familiar with
those A little peanut, butter and jelly sandwiches. I used
to pop up in my kids lunchbox. They're delicious, they're
really good. But now with the pandemic getting us used
to both eating meals at home and looking for things
(02:55):
that are easy that we can take with us in
our post pandemic lifestyle. Other company these are coming up
with competition first, and we had craft Hinds coming out
with their meat and cheese uncrustable type sandwiches in before
the pandemics started. They had launch Box but now Nestlei
is going full bore into this. Nestleie makes hot pockets,
(03:16):
and their new product is called deli Witch. It's four
different type of meat and cheese sandwiches that have a
soft crust. They're calling them cold pockets rather and very
much like uncrustables. You just lead them out somewhere for
two hours and then you can eat them. I was
surprised to find that saw and eat is actually a
product category and that it's growing. Now. Okay, we'll get
(03:39):
into some more of these products specifically, but I didn't
want to talk about kind of the branding, the positioning
of all this so neatly themselves. They're trying to at
least coin the term smeals, which is like small meals.
But to the point of all this, you know, obviously
they want the entire family to be eating them, but
it seems like they're targying adults more than the kids themselves,
and even in some of these products already they've seen
them take off better adults. Nestlie told me that they
(04:02):
were surprised that since in a few weeks and months
that they've introduced the deli Wich sandwiches, which are their
competitor to Uncrustable that more young adults are reporting eating
them than kids, and they're sort of attributing this to
the nostalgia factor. Young people who grew up with Ego
waffles and Uncrustable sandwiches love that convenience. It's tasty, it's easy,
(04:25):
it's something you can eat at work, at home, on
the go, wherever you want. So this is really a
big play for Gen Z and Generation Alpha consumers. For
those that are familiar with the Incrustables, we know them well,
but they've been around since two thousand. That's in the debut,
so they've been around for twenty two years already, and
you know, they're becoming this this own kind of unit
(04:46):
on its own. So the new offerings that we're talking about,
obviously Incrustables. They have some that are turkey and Colby cheese.
They have another one that's ham and cheese. We're looking
at the deli which ones with these are the ones
coming from Astley and Hot Pocket. They also have kind
of similar flavors. They also have another one that's pepperoni
and cheese. Now, on the face of it, I have
seen some of these in the stores already. On the
(05:08):
face of it, you know, I guess it makes sense,
you know, like a cold turkey and cheese sandwich, maybe
it could taste something like that. But I've seen a
lot of videos, seen a lot of pictures. Even looking
at them in the stores, they seem like they still
lend themselves like they should be cooked up, like they
should be put in the microwave or an air fryer
or something. Uncrustable says you shouldn't do that. Now. Interestingly,
(05:28):
this is a very competitive landscape here. Uncrustables is not
taking the competition lying down. Not only are they building
a major new factory to pump out the new uncrustables
which come in meat and cheese instead of just the
standard pbm J, they are building what they call a
state of the art R and D facility at their
(05:49):
home headquarters in Ohio to start experimenting with more different
types of Uncrustable so we can look forward to new
fillings and permutations in the years ahead. They're going to
open up their lab sometime next year start coming up
with new types of incrustables. They want to build that
into a one billion dollar brand within the next five years,
(06:10):
which really speaks to the strength of this thought and
eat market. Yeah, and to your point earlier, right, a
lot of things changed during the pandemic. We're stuck at home,
a lot people wanted that quick meal, you know, something
easy and all that, and so this kind of spurred
this innovation. Everybody saw this product opening, this category opening,
and said, let's go for it. Let's keep going. Ego
has one too, that's kind of you just let the
(06:31):
waffle thaw out. That one actually looks pretty good. It
looks kind of soft still and whatnot. So that one
looks like you don't you know, definitely don't eat the toaster.
But I'm sure you know some of these other ones.
As I mentioned the deli, which the ones that are
the cold pockets, those say you can heat them or
or leave them cold. That's right, that's right. And frankly,
for me, if I'm going to have a deli which
that says it's made from pepperoni and mozzarella, I'm probably
(06:54):
going to put that in the microwave. Definitely, definitely. Yeah.
I mean, just an interesting look at what's going on
with all of this stuff and how these quick foods
keep evolving. Really, so we'll keep an eye out for
all of these check them out in the supermarkets. Like
I said, they're already on the aisles now. Jennifer Kingson,
Chief correspondent at Axios, thank you very much for joining us.
(07:15):
Great to talk to you. I know t J. I've
worked with t J at um at CNN, so I
have nothing but love for him, and I hope that
he's okay. I don't know about this situation. I'm not
privy enough, but I just like to offer people love
(07:36):
and support, and I hope that they're okay, and I
hope I get to see them in person again soon
as I can give him. Is Asia Romano, culture reporter
at Vox, thanks for joining us, a thanks for having me. Well,
let's talk a little bit about what's going on at
Good Morning America. Obviously, we have been seeing for a
little bit now that their anchors Amy Robock and t
(07:57):
J Holmes were caught in a cheating scandal. They were
having an affair with each other. But what's going on
with this is kind of an interesting thing. So after
we got wind of it, ratings for that hour for
their spot shot up people were just really interested in
seeing what's going on, and it's a little different from
some of the other cheating scandals and affairs that we've
been seeing going on, we kind of started seeing people
(08:19):
in the public almost root for them. I guess that,
you know, maybe they grew so accustomed to seeing them
on TV they would hope hoping they'd be together. So,
you know, who knows what was going on, but he
should tell us a little bit more about what we're
seeing with this specific case. Yeah, I think it's really interesting.
You bring up the fact that people may have been
rooting for them because they were on TV. They were
Good Morning America anchors, and there's a long tradition and
(08:41):
morning show UM entertainment of the host being kind of
flirty but not too flirty. So I think there's a
lot of spillover from that tradition into what's happening here,
because you have a lot of fans who are really
happy to see them get together UM, And then I
think you also have a lot of non fans who
are just tuning in because of the scandal, who are
super interest in the drama and the gossip, and who
(09:03):
also just you think they're a cute couple. They were
exposed in the Daily Mail, So I think another aspect
of this is that we all learned about it together
from this like traditional, very classic tabloid journalist outlet. Right,
so it's like scandal of pictures, too many many pictures. Um.
So yeah, they kind of followed them all over upstate
New York and showed them, you know, holding hands and
(09:25):
laughing together and just being really kind of cutely crushing
on each other. And of course, like we're only getting
one side of the story, right, so we're just seeing
the happy part where this looks like a cute, happy couple,
but in reality they were both married. They're differing sources
in terms of whether they actually were cheating on their
spouses while they were all still emotionally engaged in their relationships,
(09:46):
or whether they had already separated by that point. We'll
get different versions of the timeline. So I'm not sure
we're ever going to know what the truth is, but
obviously people are very people are excited and happy for them. Yeah,
and you made mention in your article another recent scandal
this was with the YouTube channel The Try Guys, and
one of their guys ended up getting caught cheating on
(10:07):
his wife. But that elicited so much negative emotion, and
you know, a lot of people might not have even
known who the Try Guys were or followed the YouTube channel,
but that rose up in the media with such negative
emotion attached to it, and you know, to the point
of this story, this is kind of like a complete
opposite thing. Yeah, I think there are a couple of
different things going on there. I think the mode of
(10:28):
communication is part of it, because the Try Guys were,
you know, YouTubers first and foremost. So if you're familiar
with YouTube culture at all, you know that the vloggers
that came up through that space tend to form really
intimate para social relationships with their their fans, almost as
a matter of course, because that's how they build their brand, right,
And this particular member of the Try Guys had sort
of builed himself as the wife guy, like his whole
(10:50):
brand was about being a good husband. So there was
an immediate sense of betrayal and outrage directly among the fans.
And since they have lots of fans and lots of
followers of the years, that news really traveled swiftly into
you know, the mainstream news cycle, if you will, And
I think there was a sort of a pushback against
the amount of outrage that the scandal provoked because many
(11:14):
people were like, we've never heard of these people. Who
are they? They're just YouTubers, right, And one I think
with Amy and and and t J. Home, Amy Robot
and t J Holmes, you know, their first and foremost journalists,
and you don't really see a lot of that, so
they don't develop the same type of relationships with followers
and whatnot as as you mentioned, as some of these
YouTube personalities would exactly, you know, their journalists. Their role
(11:35):
first and foremost is to entertain and inform you, right,
It's not to cultivate their fan bases. And you know,
and there have been various outlets that have pointed out
that in fact, this relationship could have potentially groken contractual
obligations that they had to be network because many many
journalists and and anchor type celebrities do have contracts that say,
(11:56):
you know, you have to behave in a certain way,
you can't put forth in negative image. So a lot
of this is very kind of tricky when you get
into things like you know, in our office politics and
so forth. Yeah, and for now, Amy Robot, t J. Holmes,
they've been suspended temporarily suspended. As what we understand, they've
been replaced by Stephanie Ramos and Geo Benitez. But like
I've mentioned, you know, there was so much interest ratings
(12:17):
rose after the scandal broke. Who knows if the heads
up at a you know, at a Good Morning America
might bring them back. But you did also mention the
article there were a couple of other stories about t J.
Holmes maybe having other relationships there in the office that
could also complicate things, right, And I think that's maybe
part of why they took them off the air, not
because they weren't excited for the ratings to go up,
(12:38):
but I think as time unfolded, as they got more
information about the whole context of what was going on,
they probably said, hey, we need to pull back and
figure out what actually happened and if it broke policies,
and if there were other people invested or impacted by
all of this. So I think that was probably a
smart move, even though it seems kind of anathmactic and
it's probably disappointing people in the long run. Yeah, as
(12:59):
you mentioned that, to the point of the whole story, right,
it is kind of a classic tabloid story. The stakes
seem low. Um, you know, there hasn't been huge outpourings
or cries of wrongdoing. Obviously to their partners, their individual partners,
that's a completely different story. But yeah, you know, it
just seems like a classic tabloid story that everybody's kind
of enjoying for now. It's a weird situation when you
put it against the parrot against some of the other
(13:21):
uh scandals that have been going on this past year. Yeah,
and I think we we all like to, you know,
de ride and denigrade tabloid journalism for good reason. But
you know, but it stands the REALI Mail is one
of the most red media outlets in the world, right,
Like they know what side their bread has butted on.
And the fact that they went to such links to
get all of these pictures and and roll the story
(13:42):
the story out even though these aren't necessarily celebrities that
you might expect to to be headline grabbing news, like
they know they know what the public wants. All right, Well,
we'll continue to follow this story as it occurs. Asia
Romano Culture reporter at Vox, thank you very much for
joining us at pleasure. Might be a period of time
(14:09):
where you have one credit card that's just your credit card,
but to share credit card with your partner. Or there
might be a time where you combine all of your savings,
where might be a time where you always have separate savings.
There's so much individualism and that Joining us now is
Julia Carpenter, personal finance reporter at the Wall Street Journal.
Thanks for joining us, Julia, Thank you for having me. Well.
Last time we talked, we're talking about finances between married
(14:32):
couples and finances between people who lived together but aren't married.
We were talking about how married couples hold four times
as much wealth as unmarried couples who are living together.
Now we're looking at some more research that basically says
that couples who do combine their finances are generally a
little bit more happier. So why don't more do it? Obviously,
(14:53):
it's a lot of people's cases and it might not
be the right time. It could be that big step
in the relationship that they're just not ready for. There's
a like I said, there's a few studies that have
been looking into this, So Julia, tell us a little
bit more about it. I was first intrigued by this because,
as as you said, I've been writing a lot about
relationships and money and marriage and the effects that all
(15:13):
of these things have on our wealth, and I kept
talking to researchers and experts who said that combining finances
has a lot of benefits, and you're absolutely right that
the downsides are pretty enormous. It's you know, this definitely
isn't an early relationships step. This has something to do
when you trust the person you you're with, when you
have a shared goal with the person you're with, when
you know that combining your finances is for a greater purpose,
(15:36):
whether that be buying a house you're saving for retirement,
or accomplishing some goal as a household. When I was
when I was talking to researchers about this, three things
from tou to you immediately. One is that people who
combine finances and one study show greater relationship satisfaction, so
they're happier in their relationships. They also say that sharing
finances leads to greater accountability. And then the third thing
(15:58):
is that it leads to greater wealth, so the accountabilit
me in the relationships at its action. Were two really
interesting pieces to me, and real quick for some of
the breakdown. What we're seeing is that a couple said
they have only joint bank accounts, say they had a
mix of joint at separate accounts, and then said they
keep their finances entirely separate. This is from a survey
(16:20):
from credit cards dot com. Is this all? Is this?
Married couples are just couples in general? Married couples very couples.
It's interesting too, because there's not a lot of information
out there as to how many people do this. Because
as one person mentioned in my story, Jesse Kramer, he's
a relationship specialist, he works in finance. He mentioned, it's
a spectrum. You know, it's not as simple as just okay,
(16:41):
we put everything in one pot, or we have everything
black and white and it's separate. There's a spectrum of this.
It evolves as your relationship it evolved. It evolves as
your marriage evolved. So there might be a period of
time where you have one credit card that's just your
credit card, but to share credit card with your partner.
Or there might be a time where you combine all
of your savings, or there might be a time where
you always have separate savings. There's so much individualism in this.
(17:02):
Let's talk a little bit about the accountability because a
lot of times people would think, oh, you know this,
this could lead to a greater conflict. Hey, I'm seeing
you spend money on this. You're spending it on this,
you know we should be saving there. But some of
the research that we're looking at doesn't necessarily show that
there's a lot of greater conflict because of the shared accounts.
That was so interesting to me and talking with people
(17:24):
about this, talking about how they should talk about money
with their partners. That really seems to line up that
it's not that you feel that you're being judged or watched,
or conversely that being judged or watch actually helps you,
so you're not as likely to spend that money in
a way that feels frivolous or out of line with
the goals you said as a couple when you know
that your partner can see it. And then one of
(17:46):
the other things to you spoke to a couple of people, actually,
you know who are kind of in the early stages,
maybe not early stages of relationship, but early stages of
joining finances or or having haven't not done it just yet.
You spoke to a waiter bartender living in Brooklyn, and
then well, you know they have a living partner. They
haven't done it just yet. They do split a lot
(18:06):
of bills and rent and all that stuff, but they
just haven't taken that plunge yet. And one of the
main things seems to be having a shared goal. You
want to combine finances with this other person when you
are further along in your relationship and you trust them
obviously most importantly, but also when you have a shared
goal when you say we're going to combine finances or
share our money in order to do this, whether it's
(18:27):
helping one partner through a difficult time in their employment,
or buying a house or achieving some of their milestone,
that seems to be key. One of the experts who
spokes to uh, you know, we're talking about how obviously
everybody's situation is different. Sometimes people walk into a relationship
and have money trauma, so you know, things might have
gone bad with money before, but in combining finances, a
(18:50):
lot of times it does benefit more of those who
are are less wealthy. You know, obviously you're pulling things
together now you have something bigger to play with. There
are so many sings, you know, houses, other savings for
a retirement. These these traditional money milestones that we hold
up that are getting more and more expensive, and for
many people it is not feasible to achieve those milestones
(19:11):
on their own. They have to combine finances. They need
another person in order to check that off their list.
Julia Carpenter, personal finance reporter at The Wall Street Journal.
Thank you very much for joining us, Thank you for
having me. That's it for today. Join us on social
(19:34):
media at Daily Dive Pod on both Twitter and Instagram.
Leave us a comment, give us a rating, and tell
us the stories that you're interested in. Follow us on
I Heart Radio, or subscribe wherever you get your podcast.
This episode of The Daily Dive is produced by Victor
Wright and engineered by Tony Sargentina. Hi'm Moscow Ramirez and
this was your Daily Dive
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