SPEAKER_00: 0:04

Welcome folks to the latest edition of J Bastards Exposed Beth Productions on this beautiful November 20th, 2025. I mean, it's a pretty out there that the rain is good, everything looking so shiny. And it's just, it's just, you know, it looks like it's ice. But hey, we take what we can get because what else can we do, right? Mr. Cobb is my co-host, but he is on assignment tonight. So I uh got Mr. Barry Furdy. Hey Barry, how are you doing tonight?

SPEAKER_01: 0:35

I'm I'm trying to stay warm down here. It's uh we got a little code snap with that rain, but it's uh it's all good. It's been nice week, really.

SPEAKER_00: 0:44

Yeah, well, we're a little chilly up here too, man. But I mean it's uh it's gonna warm up the next day or so, but it's been it rained, rain, rain last few days. It just sucks. So, but it'll get worse and get better, it'll warm up about March.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01

Well, you can't do anything about it, so anyhow.

SPEAKER_00: 1:18

We're going to uh discuss something tonight, guys. We're gonna take a break from uh bashing the VA and complaining about this or that or teaching people about the uh benefits and claims and things like that. We're gonna change up a little bit and we're gonna do something that I think is uh important for all veterans, not just 100% permanent total veterans, of course they've got some you know extra extra issues. But uh next week is Thanksgiving, you know. So I hope you got your turkey in the fridge or plucked and ready to go. Um then coming up right around the corner, you're gonna have Christmas and New Year's, you know. So this time of year, um could turn into be a kind of an expensive adventure, you know, for the veteran, especially, you know, if you're just a veteran that's on a VHX, you know, you're actually uh you're considered on a fixed income because they fix it for you, you know, that you have a certain amount and that's it. So, you know, you have to pinch pennies if you can and spend where you can and you know and do away with what you don't need. So I want to go through some things tonight to help you guys out. Um it's uh pretty pretty much cut and dry, but y'all need a pen and paper though, because uh there's some things I that I want to write down that James you to write down so you can follow some of these uh pointers that I've been that I'll tell you about. Um first thing I want to tell you is either have a smartphone or a computer, which everybody's got a smartphone nowadays. I mean, you know, I mean, I know if you folks got the old flip phones, but you know, or a computer with Wi-Fi access and internet, and what you know, you got that, and what you need to do is go into a website called ID Me. ID.me, and you go in there and look, and what you do is you pull out your credentials, you register for that site, and you show them your credentials, and basically they tag you and they say, Okay, you're verified. Once you do that, just put the information where you log in, things like ID me and put it up somewhere safe, you know. Write it down or put it up, or put it in your put it in your cloud or whatever, you know, somewhere safer that can't be hacked into. Then start looking, you know what this is good for. You can use ID me to actually log into VA.gov, you know, in the VA sites. If you can't remember your VA.gov passwords, and you can use ID me. Anything you see, like a discount for, like, say, for example, Chrysler for Solanus, I guess they call it. Let's say they offer a$500 discount on a vehicle purchase. Well, they're not going to give it to you unless you go into ID me and get a get a little number. They give you the number and you give it to them, then they'll give you the discount. Still saves money, you know, in the long run. Uh, everybody needs an ID me account because that's one of the base verification things they use to verify who you are, especially in the computer, you know, because you know you're not you're not you can't show me regular ID. Um, all these companies do ID me, you can look online, they can show you every discount they've got, and you can go there, they'll tell you you can look up whatever you need and look at the discounts. And if you want to buy something, you know, if you're looking for something and you want to save money, that's what you do. Um, I'm thinking the best discount. Uh, you got to realize, you know, Christmas is coming up and things like that. But if you are going to make a big ticket purchase that's for yourself or for somebody like that, um say you want to buy your wife a new television, or you know, you want to buy yourself a new television, but say you got it for your wife, kind of like a fishing bow I bought a few years ago. Just kidding. For your wife. Yeah. What you do is there's two websites. The first website is called Shop My Exchange. It's an AV, it's the exchange website, Army's Air Force Exchange APs. Um Barry knows this place pretty well because he probably drives by one every day, don't you, Barry?

SPEAKER_01: 6:00

Well, I uh I make it a point to try to get by them when I can, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 6:09

Well, these uh places, the Army Air Force Exchange, or if you're a Navy vet near a Navy base, the Navy Exchange. Basically, it's the same joint, just different management and a little bit of different inventory. You can get online and you can buy anything on the website you want, as long as you use the ID me and put you in there, they'll let you in. Pick what you want, you can order it, and usually it's no shipping and things like that to your house. And but the biggest advantage of that is no sales tax. So for example, say I buy a$1,300 TV, and I look at the TV online and I see how much it is, the same model number, and I go to Costco and look at their TV and see the same model number. The TV could be the exact same price, or within you know, within close proximity to each other. And it depends on what the sales tax is in your state. Depends how much money you save. So it's the same price. You're still getting the TV for the same price, but you're saving money because you're not paying the sales tax. They ship it to you free, it's no big deal. But say you get a$2,500 TV, and that's if you sell taxes 6%, what's 6% of$2,500? That's gas money, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 7:36

Yeah, and it's it's all it's nine, it's nine and a half percent in 10th league. So, you know, if you get an ID me discount, you probably get a 10% discount with that, and then 10% on your tax 20%. Yeah or 19.5%, you know, so that adds up. Yeah, it is. That all saves money.

SPEAKER_00: 7:58

Uh, but that's where you do most of your Christmas shopping and things like that. Of course, no, most people want to use Amazon, but Amazon don't offer military discounts. If they did, they would be, you know, everybody'd be out of business. And we love Amazon. I mean, you know, Amazon was on my street three days a week or three times a day, I'm sorry. We got some little quiet site.

SPEAKER_02: 8:21

You see those little electric trucks, beep, beep, beep. Do you have those up there?

SPEAKER_00: 8:29

Yeah, they got them up here now at the hoodie. Anyhow, now I'm gonna tell you sticking with the exchange and the navy exchange. If you go on their website and you look down, you see a thing called Marketplace. The marketplace is a list of stores that have an agreement with the exchanges that you're allowed to shop at that store. They've got automotive parts, they've got the sporting goods and things like that. And you can look that up and you can check through there, and when you buy something, it goes into your Navy Exchange card, which is good. You know, I mean, you can look at anything you want. A little bit pricey sometimes, but still it's gonna save you money in the long run. Uh, this is a new thing, it's not very old, only been out a few months that I can see. Both the Navy Exchange and the uh APs Exchange, Armed Force Exchange, have a new marketplace store. It's called Home Depot. So if you're looking for a new appliance, or if you're looking for anything that Home Depot has that on the site, say you and the wife take your trip to Home Depot and walk around the store. If you're looking for something, look around, look for it. Pick out the model number you want, things like that. Take a picture with your cell phone or write down the information on this on the tag. You can just get the label, it's get the part number, the item number, what you need. You write all this stuff down, get enough pictures, and you write it on the list, and when you get home, you fire up the old interweb. You plug in the Navy Exchange or the Air Force Army Exchange, you log into it under ID menu, you put in there, click on the Home Depot, it says shop. You click on the shop button, you go up, it pulls Home Depot's website up on the exchange part of it. You go up there in the top and start entering numbers. Okay, it pulls that number up, you add the cart. Go to the next thing, look at it, add the cart. Next thing, add the cart. It'll total it all up nice and pretty for you, and you realize, well, god, my this is six thousand dollars. We realize you look at it and you saw all of a sudden you see your Home Depot price versus your Navy Exchange price is another 10% off of it, right? And then you realize there's no sales tax on it because when it goes back to the Navy Exchange cart, the sales tax is off of it. That saves you most of what 900 bucks right there, isn't it? Next thing you know, you hit it, you pay for it, and a couple days later it's a big truck pulls up and all your appliances then showed up to your front door. You go there and buy it, you're gonna pay shipping. You're gonna they're gonna pay call charge charge delivery fee.

SPEAKER_02: 11:31

You know that's another what 120 bucks, 150 dollars. Probably 150, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 11:46

That's what you do, you know. Even I mean, you can buy any big ticket item or anything in that store, you know. But if you need it quick, you gotta go in and get it. I wish they had an option to where you could do that and let the store hold it and you go pick it up. You know, I like to see that option available for people to do that, you know. And uh, but they're cracking down uh lows and starting to crack down on this uh 10% discount they're giving out because they've had uh one understanding they've had a lot of vets that own businesses and certain businesses like maybe they're builders or remodels, things like that. So they're using their discount to buy their lumber and things like that. They're buying it by the buying it by the ton. And uh, you know, so I see a lot of places are.

SPEAKER_01: 12:42

Uh it cuts you off at some amount.

SPEAKER_00: 12:47

But you go through the uh you go to the exchange, that's different. Right. Yeah. So I'm beginning to see certain things too. They're starting to split hairs again on percentages. So they start offering discounts to a certain say the veterans a hundred percent permit total vet versus whatever lower percentages I'm seeing to start to get back on that kick again, you know. And uh there's a lot of places doing that right now, you know. You have to be a total they're basically they're wanting to see active duty military, retired military, or a hundred percent total disabled veteran. That's all they want to really say. Something else, some stores are doing that now. Um for a discount like that, but they have to be the same way. You have to be retired or and some places you say 20 year retired, and I can do it. That's it. You know, they could care less if you're a veteran or not, you know. They tell you to go pay on sand, so but we can tell them the same thing, you know. Who's your competition? Okay, we'll be over there shopping, you know. So this is all about saving money. You can still save 10% at load, but you can't do it on appliances or lumber because we take it off of it. Um beef on loads are basically just very similar stores, mostly just made, you know, overseas. A lot of stuff made in China. Um, there's other stores out there too that I don't know if they offer military discounts or not, but this one's called Menards. It's up in the central way. You've seen a Menard store, right? M-E-N-A-R-D.

SPEAKER_01: 14:42

They uh, you know, we don't have any down here. The closest one's probably uh Southern Indiana, they're up towards uh Atterbury.

SPEAKER_02: 14:51

But they're they're good stores.

SPEAKER_00: 14:54

We got one south of here a little way. No, they put it in here a cut last year. And it's a busy store. They put it right across the lows. It's a darn good store, guys. Menard is uh menard gives you an 11% discount of everything you buy. You do that and it's send a little card into you, and they'll send you the thing back, and you gotta go um, you know, save you money off what the next thing you buy. So, you know, people buy something like that, save some money. But uh pretty good store, they sell everything, just about furniture and everything in a pretty good store. I don't think they offer military discount or not, you know. But uh, you know, Walmart, they don't really offer much military discounts. It's uh, you know, Walmart, Walmart. Um most of the toy stores have gone under.

SPEAKER_01: 15:47

Yeah, they're they're not around. Now, Walmart's really good to our veteran organizations here, you know, they donate uh pork butts and stuff, and you know, but they limit you to so much by department, but it's uh we've got some good managers and so they'll go to different departments and get whatever we need. So they've they've been real good to the veterans' organizations, but they don't give you a discount if you just stand there and retail.

SPEAKER_00: 16:14

Well, yeah, but you're looking too. I mean, you're talking about stuff like the VFW and things like that and uh different organizations. Yeah, okay. You know, so I yeah, I can see them doing that. I mean, that's basically that's a tax reduction in many ways in a corporate situation. So that's pretty good. It is really good.

SPEAKER_01: 16:31

Yeah, it is. But you know, they'll furnish, they'll give us pork butts if we're having a barbecue for picnic or whatever. So boom, my goodness.

SPEAKER_02: 16:44

Well, I'll tell you what, man, now I like it. Pull pork, that's good stuff.

SPEAKER_01: 16:49

Yeah, they gave us uh we had uh uh we always feed there after our Veterans Day uh commemoration we have here. We always feed everybody lunch that wants to come out, and they donated uh five pork butts, you know, for us to cook for that. Uh got them from Walmart, and then Food City uh does good sometimes too. They help us and the Legion both. But uh, like you said, you're not gonna get a discount if you walk in there just an individual to buy anything.

SPEAKER_00: 17:24

Yeah, I've been to Food City in Alabama, ain't been one in Tennessee. We won't have any up here. And uh so uh the only store down south is because it's encroaching up here is uh uh publics. They're coming up here now. Oh well, yeah, yeah. And uh we got two of them now, one of them built and one's being built. Of course, this is Kroger country, so everybody up here's got that Kroger Plus card, you know. It's uh kind of a brainwash card. They think you make you saving money on gas, but their gas usually 40 cents a gallon hiring everybody else. So, you know, what are you saying? That's like speedway, I call that greed way. I like saving money though, guys. I mean, I you know, I'm kind of thrifty in that way. Uh, you know, if you try to get more bang for your buck, do what you can do, save what you can.

SPEAKER_01: 18:16

And uh but that ID me, you know, that ID me changed uh, you know, really, even if you're not planning on saving money, you need to get that because uh now, you know, VA.gov really the only way you can get on there is ID me or the DS log on. If you don't have a CAC. So and that DS logon is aggravating because you have to have a 15-character password and you have to change it every 60 days, and you can't remember it where they go. This IDB, like you said, you can use it every, you know, there are a lot of you can buy motorcycle parts and a lot of retailers, you just log in with that IDB and you get automatic free shipping and discounts, like a getting a piece of titles and places like that. And uh then you can add on racketon or something and get a extra check. You know, I got a check today for twenty dollars from them for buying some Harley parts online and got my discount plus guys. So uh you just have to chop around, make it work, you know. But that the ID me, the IRS is even using that now. So if you go on to pay your taxes, you have to do so. So that's a good thing to have, even just across the board.

SPEAKER_00: 19:42

Well talking about the government with that. You can also go on to V dotgov on your computer or on the app. You got the app? Have you got the app, Barry? I usually have V dot Gov app. Okay, because it isn't I use it for my mouth. It's quicker.

SPEAKER_01: 20:04

I do it both ways. I've got the app or I'm on my computer. It depends on uh it's a little easier if you try and set up an appointment or get some records on the computer, but uh you know the the the only thing you either have to use a fingerprint or uh you gotta have dual authentication. So I just get them text me a code every time I log on and put that code in.

SPEAKER_00: 20:30

Um what's in there though? If you got you know, I mean you can do ID media get on the VNGO website, but you can also use the uh not the DS logum, but the other one.

SPEAKER_01: 20:41

Um well I think they cut the other one.

SPEAKER_00: 20:45

Yeah, login.gov.

SPEAKER_01: 20:47

I think they cut it out first of least the first of uh November.

SPEAKER_00: 20:52

No, what's going out is uh DS login.

SPEAKER_01: 20:55

Oh, is it okay?

SPEAKER_00: 20:56

I have a fire. No, but if you go ahead and create your login.gov account, you gotta take a picture of your ID. You're gonna send it, you know, you're gonna upload the computer so they can look at it and put it in there and they'll put you in that way. Uh save information somewhere else in the cloud or whatever, you know, it's safe. That is your key to every government website. So if you want to get into it, like for example, social security, IRS, anything like that where you need to, you know, where you want to look like find my, you know, like what's it called? Uh my social security account, my my social security.gov or uh my IRS account, things like that. You know, you can pay your taxes or whatever you do. Um the office of personal management. Say you're a federal employee, you want to go in there and do some stuff. Uh, you want to open season, you got to change your insurances and things like that. Uh Medicare, if you want to change my Medicare, you want to, you know, make your uh different decisions. Uh ID me can still get into most of those sites, which is okay. That's a good backup to have. That's what ID me is a really good backup. So I mean, plus you can save money with ID me. Um, there's all kinds of stuff. In veterans' organizations, too. You look at this too. You've got like uh the DAV, you got the VFWs, American Legion, things like that. Everybody's got their own membership criteria and things like that. Uh, they also have, I guess, uh, riders, a company that save money, they give you discounts, like motels and things like that, rent a car. Uh used to have a lot more things to change since COVID and everything else. People start, you know, companies started losing a lot of money. But um another benefit. ID me again. You folks that use Apple products. What kind of phone you got, Barry?

SPEAKER_01: 23:03

I'm I'm all Android and Windows. I don't have any Apple.

SPEAKER_00: 23:08

He don't have Apple. He must have been the worm in too. I don't know what it is. Let me um limb here. Do a search in your search engine on your computer. Type in Apple Military. It'll pop up. You confirm yourself with ID Me. When you do that, you confirm yourself with ID me. It pulls you into Apple site. It shows all their stuff at your military price. They give you a discount on everything in the store. So if you're older or your new iPhone, you know, you pick it out, what you want to do, or whatever, your phone. You look at the prices and things like that, and you put it together. If you got one to trade in, you put the trade in the information serial number on there, and you get done. Add the bag. And you have a choice of having it shipped to your house, sent to you, where you can pick it up at a store, an apple store, which I don't know. You got an apple store in Murphy's borough, you know of? I I don't even know where the closest one is.

SPEAKER_01: 24:23

I think the hunts one.

SPEAKER_00: 24:25

Mm-hmm. And how far is that? About what 45 minutes?

SPEAKER_01: 24:29

Yeah, about 45, about 40 miles. Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 24:36

We got one here, it's about 20 minutes across town. So, but uh the traffic here is a bad though, 20 minutes. You can go 10 miles here, it's still not getting nowhere. We got the Harvard Wallbangers driving school, we got uh uh uh uh rec central, we've got uh uh this place is built after uh a big circle going around the city, the road goes around the city, and it's called New Circle Road. Well, basically it's built after Indianapolis Speedway because it's about the same size, as it and everybody's going around it at 160 mile an hour. You try to get on there and uh you ever seen a double diamond crossover, Barry?

SPEAKER_02: 25:22

You still with us, Barry? Anyhow that's a way to save money on the phones and uh I don't know if um there's a discount.

SPEAKER_00: 25:45

If you like to clock shop with the clothes and you wanna buy Christmas gifts for the kids or whatever in the clothing store, take your take your ID card, go to Lowe's or Coles and shop on Monday. What's the discount on the Coles? 15 15 is that over and above the Coles Bucks and things like that?

SPEAKER_02: 26:07

I think so. Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 26:09

That's a dish for 15%. So if you got Lowe's cash or buddy caught Lowe's bucks or whatever, you can save a lot of money there too, Coles Bucks, I'm sorry. That'll save you money too for Christmas shopping. Um do a whole lot for toys and things like that, you know.

SPEAKER_02: 26:29

The big electronic stores.

SPEAKER_00: 26:40

Target's got a couple of good deals. You check with them. I mean, they've got a fifty dollar coupon with a verified military ID when you sign up for Target Red Card. You might be able to use that to do some shopping for the kids. Um, we got travel information. Um you can go to Disney, you can go to SeaWorld, just look them up, look at some military discounts. Uh, not as good as they used to be. Back when I was when I my son was young, we go to Disney, we got the military tickets for$99. Now they're uh a lot more expensive than that. But they offer discounts, SeaWorld, things like that, you know. If you want to take the kids down there for the wintertime for Christmas, it's expensive, though. I guess they black Christmas out, you know, the dates and stuff because you know it's a crowded. Um clothing, you like Carl Hart jackets and clothes and jeans. You get 15% off, just go to the website, ID me, Carl Hart website, sign in, log into it, and you can buy what you want and you get their discount. That's year-round, too. So I'm just thinking of the big stuff, you know, the saves is the biggest amount of money, that's what we do. But uh, that's really about all we have tonight, guys. We were going to discuss this other stuff too, but uh we got some technical problems going on right now.

SPEAKER_02: 28:09

Um that's true too.

SPEAKER_00: 28:18

When we talk about Verizon, you get uh 25% off of all accessories and things like that in Verizon. Just go over there and do your IDME with them and they'll hook you up. You gotta be them, you gotta be the veteran to do that, though. And unless you're a federal employee and you get a you can get the federal employee discount too, but I mean it's all the same, so that's pretty cool. Most companies will offer at T Mobile's got its own veterans program, which is you know it's pretty good. Uh it all depends on where you're at in the country as to what coverage is what, you know, some are better than others in some places, some are better than other than other places. So and uh which you go to Apple buy that phone and then take it over to Verizon and get it activated. Or they can probably activate it right there at uh Apple. But Verizon will charge you a fee of what do you call that uh activation fee? More bang for your bucks, folks.

SPEAKER_02: 29:18

More bang for your bucks.

SPEAKER_00: 29:33

But uh we're gonna go ahead and shut her down. I hope this information was informative. And uh next week we're gonna have the one and only Mr. Alex Graham. He's always a big hit. And uh we're gonna the show will be next Wednesday because uh Thursday during this time we usually uh sleep after eating all this turkey. So uh I don't I'm not gonna stop that tradition at all. But this this is John. We'll be shutting her down for now. We'll see you next week.