A Friday Chat About Mattresses and Money Hoards

Also, customer service chatbots.

NICOLE: Happy Friday! I still haven’t even started shopping for my new mattress yet, and I totally should.

MEGAN: Happy Friday to you! You still have time to get that mattress, but dare I ask, what’s the hold up? WHY DENY YOURSELF RESTFUL SLUMBER??

NICOLE: I have to go to the mattress store, try the mattresses, discover the words I need to use describe the mattresses I like, go back online and look for other mattresses using those words at various price points, and pick a mattress? (Really “go to the mattress store” is enough of a hold up.)

MEGAN: Ugh, yes, I identify. There are a shitload of niggling little tasks that I have that involve engaging with a person/going to a store/doing something and honestly, I never, ever, EVER want to do them. Even if I make them my 1 thing, that’s still not enough motivation.

NICOLE: After I wrote about robot butlers increasing room service orders at hotels, it made me wonder whether there was data on how much orders of stuff — I was thinking food specifically, like takeout, but it could be anything — have jumped since we’ve started being able to do it without interacting with another person.

When Your Hotel Has Robot Delivery, You Order More Room Service

MEGAN: That’s a very good question. I feel like because everything is moving towards automation and apps and “click the button, buy the thing,” we should want to actually speak to other people, but I find myself dreading phone calls more and more, maybe because I feel I’ve forgotten how to actually talk? Like, if I have an issue with my internet, I will always opt to message a chatbot or whatever instead of talking on the phone.

NICOLE: You can do so much more with a chatbot or a customer service email! Like send screenshots of your problem! I love attaching a screenshot instead of having to describe what I think is happening. Plus you don’t run the risk of being misheard. Your words are there on the screen for reference.

MEGAN: Yep. And I’m often much calmer when I have the chatbot option, because if I make it to a real human on the phone, that means I’ve been on the phone for like, fifteen minutes mashing buttons and screaming TALK TO A CUSTOMER SERVICE REPRESENTATIVE. That alone makes me want to die.

NICOLE: Don’t you hate it when you go all the way through the phone tree only to hear the computer voice say “visit our website to learn more about this thing?” and you’re like I DID THAT, THIS IS WHY I AM CALLING YOU. And then you push zero five times and the phone hangs up on you.

MEGAN: I am not proud of it but I have certainly cried after experiencing that exact same scenario. My method is usually to just press zero repeatedly, cutting the computer voice off at the pass every time. If “they” hang up, I delegate the task to a roommate and lay face down for a while. Works every time.

NICOLE: So what else is on our financial minds this week? Budgeting apps? Accepting money from family? Pizza registries? Taxes?

MEGAN: Ooh, ok so I will make a confession. I made a big stink about flouncing from Digit because it wasn’t saving, and while I DID open a savings account, I’m very lazy and only put whatever the minimum was in there and haven’t yet taken the money out of Digit. It’s on my list, I know, I know, yes, I know. HOWEVER. Digit started saving money for me again. And now…help.

Maybe I’ll keep using Digit.

NICOLE: Did you tell Digit to stop saving money and it didn’t, the way you try to unsubscribe from an email list and you still get emails? Or did you just… not do anything and Digit kept doing its thing?

MEGAN: As is my wont, I didn’t do anything LOL. And after a month of inactivity on its end and regular financial activity on mine, Digit decided to wake up and started saving money for me again last weekend when I was away. Who knows why?! I technically didn’t spend any money that weekend because we handled the accounting for that trip after we all went home and tallied the receipts, and I was the only one to not leave the house on Saturday while everyone else was skiing. I just looked at Digit now, and I have $800 in there.

NICOLE: That’s enough to buy a mattress! I’m impressed. What are you going to do next?

MEGAN: Well, since it is clear that I despise exerting effort beyond the bare minimum, I think Digit and I are back together again. My whole deal with it was to save enough money to pay for a plane ticket to Taiwan in November, which is like $800-$1000 from New York. And here I am in February with enough money in there to get a ticket now, if I wanted to. But! I will still maintain my regular savings account just for fun and because everyone needs little stockpiles of money in various places to feel safe, right?

NICOLE: I have heard that diversification is the way to wealth, yes.

MEGAN: This is what fancy people tell me and I love listening to fancy people. Tell me about your mattress next steps, though. I’m very invested in your sleep.

NICOLE: I guess I have to go to a mattress store this weekend, and I’ll probably go to the one downtown, which is really a mattress section in a larger furniture store. But I’ll be downtown to see my friends play a show on Saturday, so I should go early, hit up the mattress store, AND shop at the new Amazon grocery where you take stuff without paying and it charges you via app. So I can write about it for The Billfold!

Amazon Wants To Make It Way Easier To Buy Things

MEGAN: OH SHIT THAT THING IS OPEN. I’m so excited for you! And for your weekend, which sounds very nice. Please be sure to let us know if you feel like you’re accidentally stealing when you ENTER THE STORE AND THEN LEAVE WITHOUT INTERACTION.

NICOLE: Maybe we’ll all start spending more money on groceries.

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