It's time for a Friday Flight! These episodes are all about the week’s financial news and the impact on your personal finances. There are a lot of headlines out there, but we distill it down to specific takeaways that will allow you to kick off the weekend informed and help you to continue to make smart money moves. In this episode we cover some relevant and helpful stories like: if reusing return envelopes is frugal or cheap, the best credit card sign-up bonus available, an investing mistake to avoid if you’re considering entrepreneurship, avoiding single stock investing at all costs, crypto millennial millionaires, & making personal finance funny with Joe Saul-Sehy as we discuss his brand new book, Stacked: Your Super‑Serious Guide to Modern Money.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to How the Money. I'm Joel and I am Matt,
and today we are discussing investing mistakes, dumb millionaires, and
making personal finance funny. That's all right, we are going
(00:28):
to talk about funny stuff. We're talking about humor and
it's importance and personal finance. We're actually gonna bring on
our friend Joe saw see hi a little bit later
on the episode here after the break. But this is
our Friday flight, Joel, and this is when we tackle
some of the different headlines we've come across this week
and we're gonna talk about how they impact us. Yes,
we've got our money a few that we gotta get to.
(00:49):
I'm looking forward to that conversation with Joe, by the way, too,
he's um an icon in the personal finance space and
so and a good friend. Sort of looking forward chatting
with him. He's always wearing that iconic sweater as well.
Just like, come on, dude, I know, let other people
say it about you, Joe, don't say it about yourself.
But before that, I wanted to ask you a frugal
or cheap We haven't done one in a minute. And
I realized when I was doing this the other day
(01:09):
that I don't know, it might be cheap, but I'm
curious to hear your take. Right. Basically, you know when
you get sent like an envelope with payment required for
a medical bill or something like that. So yeah, and
there's the second envelope inside send it back in. You're
using those, well, I'm using those for my own personal mailings. Yes,
(01:31):
So like I'll pay that bill, let's say, via the
internet on my phone. I'll logg into the website and
pay it that way. But I'll horse on just some
of those envelopes and literally there's the there's the clear
opening on the front of the amblope, and I will
on a piece of paper write the address where I'm
trying to send my mail to, and I will tape
it inside of the envelope so that I can mail
my letter. Yeah, I was gonna say, because if it
(01:53):
doesn't line up perfectly, I'm sorry. It takes a little
attention to detail, right if you're just mailing something to
a friend, I guess if you're kind of like from
the it's eighties, Yeah, there's not it's not necessarily going
to align up perfectly. So okay, oh man, I didn't
know I've heard about folks reusing the envelopes like that,
but I haven't thought about it from the standpoint of
view having to tap to tape another piece of paper
(02:14):
up under there. I mean generally speaking, like, that's not
gonna take you very long, right, It's gonna take a
piece of tape, a piece of scrap paper. As I
was thinking about this, as you were talking about it, it
it got me thinking because like, I think this is frugal,
but I don't do it, and and so then I
start to feel guilty. I'm like, why don't I do that?
Because that's totally a frugal move. But then, like I
just started thinking through how the fact that there are
(02:36):
a lot of different things that we do differently. There's
things that I think are a great little money hacks,
like credit card sign on bonuses. I love credit card
sign and bonuses, and you're all right on them, right,
like you know you're not, but I'm not as dedicated
as you are. The chase a fire preferred right now
seven fifty dollars bally the welcome bonus. It's still an
incredible deal. But simultaneously, you shouldn't feel guilty that you're not,
(02:57):
you know, jump on every single credit card welcome off
or that you know that I let you know about. Uh,
And so I guess all that to say, there's different
strokes for different folks. There are different ways that you
and I can each find little money hacks that we
want to incorporate into our lives. So more power to you, dude.
I love that you're doing that, and Uh, to the
extent that you want to do that, I think that's great.
I will say, you're what you're doing, what you're dedicating
(03:19):
your time towards, is making you more money than mine
is saving me, because you know, mulots are relatively inexpensive,
and the amount of actual mail, yeah, and the amount
of actual mail I'm sending any year physical mail is
relatively small. But I guess it's one of those things
too where I just don't have envelopes on hand, and
so really it's more utilitarian than it is an attempt
(03:39):
to save money. But the amount of the purpose mental
capacity though, that that takes for you, like you're able
to do that while talking to Emily after the kids
are down and you're just you know, you're able to
knock that out. Whereas for me with the credit cards.
I mean, I have to keep up with my purchases
and make sure I'm making these payments. And how am
I going to incorporate this card and to the other
cards where I have everything optimized, like there's a system,
and it takes more time, it takes more brain power.
(04:00):
So there are trade offs, yes, yes, there are. All right, well,
I'm glad you think it's not cheap, dude. I love
that you do that. It's kind of brandom too. But
all right, let's move on to the Friday flight. Let's
get to those stories we found interesting this week and
talk about how they pertain to our collective personal finances.
And the first story we wanted to talk about has
to do with investments and entrepreneurship, and we discussed a
(04:24):
couple of weeks ago, Matt, how more folks are starting
their own businesses. We've seen just this massive uptick in
entrepreneurship during the pandemic, especially you know, in the past
six to nine months, and that's been encouraging. You know
that so many folks are leaving their jobs and they're
not quitting to sit on the sidelines. They're starting their
own business. And and yeah, I think we we think
(04:45):
this is great for individuals, it's great for families, it's
great for the country as well to see more small
business formation. But then the question gets to, well, how
do you start that business and and where do you
find the funds to get started? And it turns out
that some folks are turning to their retirement funds to
get seed money. And the New York Times reported on
(05:05):
this recently. But we would say that that can be
a precarious place to turn. It's not ideal, and in fact,
it's it's probably worse than not ideal. And here's why.
It's because if you're under the age of fifty nine
and a half, you'll have to pay tax and a
ten percent penalty on the funds that you take out, yeah,
of your four one K or your traditional I RA.
(05:26):
And at the same time, like, that's bad enough, right,
the tax and penalty, but those all important dollars that
you're pulling out, Uh, they immediately stopped compounding for your future.
So you're you're hurting your immediate self by being taxes
and penalties. You're hurting your future self by missing out
on potentially decades of gains and a tax tax advantaged account.
And basically it's just it's almost always a lose lose
(05:49):
to go this route to funding your business. Yeah, and
so instead we would like to steer folks in the
direction of getting started by just spending as little money
as possible. We'd recommend for you to check out episode
two forty seven for ideas on how to do that.
That's how you can start a business with no money.
And uh, yeah, it's true that some businesses do have
some hard costs that you gotta pay for in order
(06:10):
to get things off the ground. But you're better off
waiting to start that business and saving up the money
instead of cashing out your four oh w K in
order to start. Now. I just like how there's an
element of sacrifice. It's like, how badly do you want
to start this business? And if you feel like it's
something that you can easily just kind of click a button,
make a deposit, make a transfer, um pay some taxes
while you're at it, that's something that you know, in
(06:32):
my mind, is more painful. But there are ways where
it just seems almost too easy to start this thing,
And I almost believe that there needs to be some
sort of like sacrifice to a certain extent as well.
And we're all about investing in yourself as well, and
you know, specifically launching something that you're passionate about in
order to serve your community and to grow a profitable business.
But you just put yourself in such a difficult financial
(06:53):
position when you grab some cash from your four ohn
K from your IRA A early that we just feel
that it's something you should completely avoid. Now, you know,
taking contributions from your wrath IRA. That's a bit of
a different story because of course you don't pay tax
or penalty on those withdrawals. But overall, it's just best
to think of all of those accounts as untouchable something
that you want to avoid at all costs. Yeah, Matt,
(07:15):
hopefully that's a helpful p s A for any how,
the money listeners who are thinking, hey, I want to
start my own business, where do I get the cash?
Some time offering the holidays and they start dreaming a
little bit. You have a little bit more flexibility with
your schedule and and and that is not the place
you want to tap though, because it's going to lead
to future difficulties when it comes to your finances. And Yeah,
while we're talking about what not to do when it
(07:36):
comes to investing, Let's let's keep hammering that home. That's
actually gonna be kind of a first half of this
Friday flight. There's a bunch of things that you shouldn't
do exactly. There was this great article in the Wall
Street Journal from business writer Dennis Neil and his piece
was titled I Knew Better But about Tesla Stock, and Dennis,
as it turns out, I appreciated his honesty. He he
(07:56):
knows all the right things when it comes to investing.
He's been writing for multiple finance publications for over two decades.
He knew that buying an individual stock is this speculative
play that it's like really risky, and his initial foray
into individual stock investing, he ended up buying some Ali
Baba stock. He he mentioned in the piece that he
had interviewed Jack Ma he was really impressed, and that
(08:18):
was maybe part of the reason at least that he
decided to to purchase. And the cool thing is that
stock went up eighteen the first day he owned it,
which is actually probably the worst thing that can happen
because you're like, oh, this is easy. Uh. And so
he held onto that stock hoping for even higher returns
and it's currently down more than from when he made
that initial purchase, and same thing he purchased Tesla stock.
(08:41):
His holding there is down almost twenty five in a
matter of six weeks because Tesla stock has not been
doing well as of late. And so, yeah, I guess
the question is what can we learn from this piece?
And the question you might ask yourself is, well, can
we make money buying individual stocks? Can I make money
on robin hood or in one buying single stocks? The
(09:02):
answer is yes, uh, But here's the problem. There are
so many difficult decisions that investors face when we decide
to go this route. Basically it becomes a psychological minefield
for us. That's right. Yeah, you have to ask yourself
like when do I actually buy? When do we sell?
Those are the primary questions. And while the stock market
it has been, you know, at or near all time highs, recently,
(09:23):
some stocks have been getting slaughtered, like mostly the ones
that were completely just popping off the charts earlier in
the pandemic, like Zoom and Peloton. But you know, that
raises the questions of buying the dip even you know,
could it be a great time to buy those damage stocks? Well,
you know, potentially, but they could also fall a lot
further generally speaking, owning individual stocks, like, it's not a
morally wrong thing, it's just that it makes investing so
(09:46):
much harder because you're constantly faced with, you know, decisions
that are easily avoidable if you were too out for
a dollar cost averaging UH strategy into index funds. And
so if you feel that you need to take a gamble,
you know, we would rather use think of it like
a trip to Vegas and just dedicate a small amount
of your portfolio, you know, in that direction. Just like
you said, Joel with Dennis Neil, the fact that he
(10:08):
saw some gains early on, like that's the real danger
because he's you start thinking, oh, okay, maybe I'm not lucky.
Maybe I'm smart. You know, I've got access to to people,
I know things that other people don't. It's like the
hook in the fish's mouth exactly. And the same thing
with gambling. You know, you want a few hands right
at the beginning, and you think, oh, gambling is easy.
(10:29):
Everybody else here is just stupid. Keep bringing the free drinks,
and so you start doing that and then you start
making worst decisions and then yeah, your luck runs out
reality has caught up to you, and hopefully you haven't
sunk just way more money in that direction, thinking that
you're going to be able to outsmart the market. Yeah,
that's what we call throwing good money after bad And
hopefully you can learn from like reading something like Dennis's piece,
(10:54):
as opposed to having to experience it firsthand. And I
think that's that's what's great about when other people share
the ways that they've messed up or the ways that
they have lost money, it can be a warning sign
for us and it can help us avoid the same fate.
And that's why, Yeah, we're big proponents of index funds.
It's it's not that you can't make money investing in
individual stocks. You certainly can, but the pitfalls are just
(11:15):
so much greater. And yeah, let's talk about another potentially
devious investing strategy here for a second, Matt. Let's talk
about cryptocurrency. There was a recent CNBC Millionaire study and
it found that most millennials who have a net worth
of greater than one million dollars have their cryptos dash
to thank for their wealth, and of millennial millionaires surveyed
(11:36):
said that they own some cryptocurrency We're okay with that,
Matt and I are totally fine with you having a
small percentage of your assets in crypto. But yeah, the
next stat is a doozy. More than half of those
millennial millionaires said that the majority of their net worth
is in various cryptocurrencies, so greater than fift of that
million dollars, they have over half a million dollars in
(11:59):
crypto and uh mad. At the risk of sounding like
old fogies, we're gonna say that's bad, right, that's not
a good thing. Yeah, so we are older. I mean,
we're we're both millennials, but we're like the geriatric millennials.
We're not the millennials who are still in their first
job they graduated a couple of years ago, who likely
have a lot more money or maybe a lot higher
percentage of their portfolio in cryptocurrencies. But the reason we
(12:21):
don't do that is because we believe that having half
of your wealth in any single asset, regardless of what
it is, is incredibly risky. Uh and crypto even more so.
You know, there's gonna be some big winners amongst the
investors who are going all in on crypto, but there
will be a lot of losers as well, and sadly,
we're probably going to see more of the headlines about
the big winners because those are the stories that people
(12:42):
want to read about, Like, those are the inspiring stories.
Those are the narratives that we want to emulate and
replicate in our own lives, because there's a lot of
people that see a story about something like the Shebu Sheba,
a new coin popping, and they're like, boom, I'm gonna
find the next one that that one goes to your coin,
I'm gonna be all over exactly. It's like those stories
inspire you to think that the next coin is gonna
(13:02):
make you a millionaire, but in all likelihood, you probably
just lost a bunch of money. Exactly. Yeah, chances were
we're not going to be able to do and not
much ink gets billed on those stories. Exactly. Yes, So
you know I'm that kind of bummer. Notes, let's head
to the break, but when we come back, we're going
to lighten things up a little bit. We're gonna talk
with our good friend Joe saw see Hi about the
necessity for humor and personal finance and more. All right,
(13:34):
we're back. Now we're joined by Joe Saucy. Hi. He's
host of the podcast Stacking Benjamin's and Joe has been
just a really good friend in the personal finance podcasting
space for a lot of years now, and he has
just released a new book. It's called Stacked, You're super
serious guide to money management. And Joe, thank you for
joining us on the show. Hey, guys, I can't believe
(13:57):
I made it right here. We are happy to have
you here, Joe. Uh. Let's talk about your book, man,
because you know in your intro of the book, you
write that treating money as only slightly less fun than
nicolonoscopy limits the reach of our collective voices. Your show,
Stacking Benjamin's, it's a ton of fun. We've really enjoyed
coming on because you don't take things too seriously. So
(14:17):
let's talk about humor. Let's talk about like, why do
you think that a good dose of humor is needed
within the personal finance space? Oh, it's funny, is and
I wish I had a funny answer, but but but
but I don't. It's that it is that I was
a financial planner for sixteen years. I've been doing financial
media now for twelve and as you guys, know as
a podcast that has a lot of fun that that
(14:39):
some I think to reach more people, we need to
lighten it up. Some I think that's and I'll give
you some statistics. There's a great, uh, there's a great
report from a group called nonfiction. It's called the Secret
Financial Lives of Americans, and in there they report all
these things that people don't tell each other. And one
big statistic that stood out to me was that over
a hundred and fifty million people report that they've cried
(15:02):
about their money. In America, almost half of Americans say
that they've cried. Now, you think this is people living
paycheck to paycheck, right, because I was there and I
remember how hard it was and how how much I
struggled and I cried. But it's not. I mean, almost
fifty percent of people making over two d and fifty
thousand dollars a year are crying. And I feel I
feel like there's a lot of people saying, you know what,
(15:24):
But if I had that little piece of information, if
I had that, you guys know, there's tons of podcast
there's tons of YouTube channels, there's you go to bookstore,
there's fifty million books out there, and we're still not
there's enough information, but we're still not reaching people. So
I don't think they're crying because central bank digital currency
might become a part of our life, right, And they're
not crying because you know, the mega backdoor roth ira
(15:46):
A might not make it, or Roth conversions might not
make it. Like that's not why we're crying. We're crying
because where where I was a long time ago where
I ran out of gas and I was searching the
this rusted out minivan seat cush to come up with
like eight two cents so I could walk him out
to a gas station and beg a dude to loan
me that little plastic gas can and he didn't want
(16:08):
to give it to me. Guy thought I was going
to steal the gas. Came like, what am I gonna
do with this plastic gas? Really? Trust where I think
the word is sketchy definitely, Yeah, well now I appreciate that.
And I think actually when Matt and I when we
started How the Money four years ago, that was part
of the things that we talked about before we launched
was does the world need another personal finance podcasts? And
(16:31):
we were like, well, no, not really, Like there are
a lot of them out there, But does the world
need a personal finance podcast hosted by two buzz buddies
who drink a beer and try to have a lighthearted
way of communicating about the topic. And we're like, still
from our wives was no, but we tried it anyway
and here we are. But yeah, I think you're right. Like,
there's like a lot of like starchy shirts and ties
(16:52):
in the finance industry and it's off putting to people,
and they're like, I need something approachable. I need something
that is that I and you know and and that
that's the best compliment that we can get is when
a listener says, you know what it feels like, I'm
sitting down with two best friends and drinking a beer,
and it makes that learning a topic that otherwise I'd
be completely oblivious to I wouldn't care about. Just fun. Absolutely, No,
(17:16):
I think that. I think that when you make it
fun and you make it approachable, we start reaching people
that we would otherwise not reach. Yeah, but besides humor, though,
I'm I'm curious besides just infusing more of of humor
into the personal finance space, like tell us a little
more about the money philosophy behind your book, like what
else are you trying to get at? And and how
do you feel like it's unique or different? I think
(17:38):
the best way to answer that is to tell you
where the project, how the project got started. And I
was I had written a book, and I'd written it
over ten years, and uh, I don't know when you
guys write stuff if your spouses are are your your
alpha readers? But mine is. And so I hand this
book to Cheryl when I finally take it seriously get
it done. She read it for I think it was
(17:59):
like eleven and a half minut it and said, this
sucks like it was. It was. It was so over
the top, uh, hardcore finance, it was so boring, it
was preachy. It was all these things that Snacking Benjamin's
is not, and and it really didn't even sound like me,
like I think over they say that you find your
voice over time, and I definitely was not that person
(18:19):
that was in this book. And I didn't want to
give that type of advice. And I was not talking
to the audience. I want to talk to you, so
but I knew, but I knew I had something to say.
And so I'm out in Portland, Oregon, have you guys
been to this bookstore called Powell's in Portland's. Oh it's
and what I love for for creators like you, and
I like, we can totally get lost in this bookstore
and I get these ideas, which I'm sure you do too.
(18:42):
Knowing you guys that you go through and you get
you go into the photography session, or you go into
to to fiction, or you're in the wherever I get
these great ideas. I end up in the kids section
as you get two guys can believe, And so I
see the Hardy Boys Detective Manual. And I don't know
if you guys carried this around like I did, but
it was written. This was a legit book. It was
(19:03):
written with the help of a real, live, retired FBI
agent says it right at the beginning. And my brother
and I, when I was in fourth grade, we carried
this book everywhere, like everywhere, and uh, you know, my dad,
on like a muddy day would go to work and
we'd run out and we'd look at his tire tracks
so we could analyze that because the book taught us that.
(19:25):
And then like my mom would, my mom would touch
a door handle and I'd run over there. With Scotch
tape and you know we could, we'd get the fingerprint mom. Yeah,
you didn't know where mom was. And and I thought,
uh if if there was a book that people carried
around the top money the same way in this camp
be kind of style but but but was for about
(19:46):
financing for adults and be great, So that was the germ. Anyway,
I flew home and my mom had left all my
stuff fifty years old, guys. And at the time that
this happened, my mom finally gives me the stuff out
of the attic right there. She can finally trust me
with all this stuff. And one thing it was in
this box was the Cup Scott Wolf Guide. And and
you and I talk a lot about the importance of gamification,
(20:07):
about lightning it up, about making it fun, and these
the cup Scouts gamified stuff way before all these cool
fintech apps have, which I love, but they they start
off with tools you're gonna need. They succinctly tell you
how to do things at the bottom to show proficiency.
There's check boxes near do this, do this, do this,
and then there's a place for your mom to sign
and you get a badge. So so stacked is put
(20:31):
together that way. It's in four parts. It starts off
at the beginning, because I don't know where you're starting.
My co author Emily and I, Uh, we start off
with the basics, how to get out of debt, how
to put your budget together, it's super campy. We then
go into how to stack Benjamin, so how to invest
money and not get smoked. And then we go into
protecting your Benjamin's and then building stacks upon stacks. So
(20:52):
that last part about hiring advisors, tech strategies. Modern portfolio
theory is pretty complex, but the beginning is laying foundation,
so and it's it's totally built after those two things.
The cub Scout Wolf Guide meets the Hardy Boys Detective Manual,
but for adults about money. I love that. Yeah. Well, so,
speaking of you know, campy methods, at one point in
(21:12):
your book, you know, you kind of break out the
farm references. You say that investments are like crops. So, yeah, like,
what are you trying to teach with that? Illustration says
with the hay seed and right now here, let me
take that out for a second. We'll explain this. Uh
that you know, when we look at when we look
at and even if you're somebody that's always lived in
the city, you still know that that when you grow corn.
(21:34):
There have been thousands of years of research that show
when you put corn in the ground and when you
take it out, and you don't take it out too early, right,
and and and and kill the cold because you will
kill the corn and you don't put it in at
a different time than you should. So I think that
if we look at investments, if we start off with,
by the way, where are we trying to get? I'm
trying to get a bunch of corn? Okay, Well, then
(21:54):
I plant these investments which are not corn. There are
the stocks that grow the corn. I eat your investments.
You start with the end of mine, then you work backward.
You see what that growing season is, how long it is.
And instead of us experiencing fomo as, there's all these
great ideas in investing universe, Like when you think about
n f T, should I do Crypto? Should I like?
(22:14):
What should day? There's this hot meme stock? What should
I do with all these? It's not about good or
bad anymore. It's about does it fit my growing season?
And is it going to reliably grow the corn? When
I need the corn to be there. And I think
that that, for me takes this huge world of possibilities
that don't matter to me and helps me laser focus
and get really deep on the few things that do
(22:36):
fit my quote growing season. Yeah, that the crop reference
in the book. It actually evolves into you recommending this
thing you call time mining your goals and it's I
like it because it's it's complete with these cheesy illustrations
on there. But like tell us about like Martin, It's
it's lovely. I mean, I'm pretty sure you drew the
pictures in this book. It's it definitely shows. But yeah,
(22:58):
why why is that so helpful? The time on your
goals thing? And actually, yeah, the the act of physically
illustrating some of these things out. Yeah, great question, because
everybody's heard this, this idea of of starting with the
end of mine and writing your goals down. We've heard
that a thousand times, and yet bunch of us write
our goals down and we still get nowhere, especially this time.
You're right, I mean New Year's Eve, people are going
(23:19):
to be writing their goals down, writing these New Year's resolutions,
and we don't, we don't follow them. It helps so
much when I was a financial planner to make it visual.
We live in a visual world, so most people in
in the world are visuals. Then there's audios and kinesthetics,
and this is just the way different brains work. So
and because audios and kind aesthetics work in a visual world,
(23:40):
we're used to visualizing things, and our our unconscious brain
will help us get these goals and make them happen. Plus,
when we put things on a timeline, So let's say
that it's you you want to retire. You may want
a second home someday, or the ability to travel more,
so you put that on your timeline at a different
place when you want that, maybe want to switch careers,
(24:01):
go back to school. You put that on your timeline.
And you start seeing how these goals relate to each other,
and then you start asking these questions like, Okay, if
I'm saving for all these things, what's the most efficient
way to save for them all? And how we'll saving
for one impact the other one, and where we can
use these rules of thumb, like you know the four
percent rule or what is it now, the five percent rule, whatever,
(24:22):
the rule, the something rule, We could use that rule
and as you guys know that's going to directionally get
you there, or rule which is a different way to
kind of saying the same thing, or the rules seven
you know whatever. These different rules are using the shortand
robs you of these wonderful conversations with the people that
you're planning with, or just values internal conversations about what's
(24:44):
important to you and how do these things Like is
it more important than I put my kids through college
and I pay for a percent of it and I
retire later, or do I really want to retire now
and I teach my kids how to pay for part
of it? Or is college even relevant in our family? Like,
all of a sudden, I'm having these y conversations which
I think so many people skip, and visualizing in timeline
(25:05):
your goal solves all that. I was surprised by the
way I took his sneak peek at Matt's goal timeline
and there was a yacht on there like six years down,
and I was like, really, you think you're gonna get there,
but I'm I'm pretty ambitious. Did you guys see that
that there? There was back in the I think it
was an early TD meyor trade commercial or maybe E trade,
but it but it was this guy in his fifties
is meeting with his financial advisor, of course, some young
(25:26):
buck in a really expensive suit. And the financial advisor says,
you know, I see Villain Tuscany. And the guy leans
forward and goes, oh, yeah, that sounds great, and he
goes and I see a big old yacht. Guys. Oh,
that's even better. He goes, and I see financial independence
at age forty five. And the guy looks at him
and he goes, but I'm fifty three and the broke
and the broker goes, oh, we're talking about you. Uh
(25:47):
so okay, Joe, you know you're talking about meeting with
financial planners. You talked about how you were a financial
advisor in a former life. Like, I want to know
your take on average folks and advisors and so like
in your opinion, do you think that most people should
be paying for professional advice? Do you have kind of
a rule of fum for for our listeners today. Well,
I don't know about paying, but I do think we
(26:08):
should have advisors. And my definition of advisor, even though
I was one, is I think way broader than most people's.
I think for me to get where I want to go,
no matter what it is, I want to have good
coaches in my corner and I want to pack hunt,
meaning I want to be surrounded by people who are
going in the same direction, like minded people. And I mean,
(26:28):
that's why your listeners listen to how to Money and
they participate in your Facebook group, is because they want
to be around like minded people. And I think that's
so important because you know, I don't know what my
blind sides are. And I think that while I can
design my financial plan by myself, having somebody who's not
emotional about my goals, who I know has my back,
and who's been there before. Like when I was a professional,
(26:50):
I would I would get people across the finish line
maybe on average nine or ten times a year, you know,
so I got to see hundreds of people retire and
the average person we want to do this one time.
So I believe in diet coaches or or groups. I
believe in in having people when it comes to working out.
(27:11):
You know, when I joined a Jim, I paid this
money to join the gym and I didn't go, But
the second I paid extra for the personal trainer, I
went all the time. Like I I want to make
sure that Nathan was not sitting around waiting for me,
and now I'm cursing, right exactly, that's right. Uh So,
So when it comes to advisors, this is my take.
(27:32):
I think if you have an advisor, Matt, where you
have delegated stuff to them, and you're like, yeah, hey,
you hey, money person, you take care of this, and
I'm gonna come back in six months and we'll see
where I am and if and if we're not where
I want to be, I'm gonna get angry, like that's horrible.
You need to know everything yourself, and your advisor should
help you go faster. And I'll give you an example,
Mary Barra running General Motors. General Motors isn't the top
(27:54):
tech company. But the story of taking this legacy company
that was so stodgy in their ways and turning it
to stay relevant, I think it's a great story. And
Mary has done a hell of a job in my opinion.
But Mary Mary, because she's got all these great people
running these divisions, Like she doesn't show up once a
quarter and goes, okay, car people, what are we doing? No,
she goes to all the meetings, she knows everything about
(28:15):
how the car runs. She's incredibly conversant about it. But
then she has people that are smarter than her about
all the pieces of the car that surround her and
give her advice on how they should could move faster.
So I really like advisors, whether you're planning your budget,
whether you're you're you're trying to get your net worth
in order. Of course, like everybody, if you're going to
(28:36):
hire a financial planner, a CFP who gives you unbiased advice,
who's a fiduciary, make sure you ask that question. I
think those are I think those are really important. But hey,
as a beginning thing, if you're struggling to to just
get moving, find somebody that you know and take them
to breakfast and say, hey, I know that at one
point you said you struggle with debt, and now look
(28:57):
at you. How did you do it? And having some
of those people in those conversations, I think it's going
to also help movie in the right direction. I think
it's a great point. And I think so many times
it's either it's either like all or nothing. It's like
you go hire the expensive financial planner or you go
it alone. And you're right, like a community can be
the building block and and being able to rely on
each other. And that's what I don't want to just yeah,
(29:20):
and I don't want to overplug the Facebook group. But
it really is like I love when people post in
there like hey, how the Money community or how the
Money Family, and it's like people are helping each other
out constantly. You don't have to go it alone, which
I think is beautiful. I do want to be wary
of one thing whenever you're in a community. And I
know because I'm in the how the Money community, and
I I love seeing the post. But just remember that's
somebody that spends all day on Facebook. Earl in Peoria
(29:46):
who can't zip up his own pants, is giving me
vice about my four oh one k Like, well, I
have the community. I really like the idea taking somebody
that knows me to breakfast even more than that. But
like them both together, I can still I can still
in the Facebook comm ay, I can reaffirm like you've
like I've seen this week in your community, people reaffirming
what they've heard, asking people, and there's a wisdom in
(30:07):
crowds that's also nice. Yeah, and that's why that, like
you said, Joe, that personal relationship is so stink and
important because you need somebody that knows you, that knows
what you're going after, because otherwise you're gonna have different goals. Right.
Not only is it about finding the right relationships, Uh,
not only is it about having something beyond just a
few rules in place, like X your annual expenses. But
(30:27):
it takes relationship, and that takes time. That's where META isn't.
I think it's gonna fall flat because the ability for
us to get to know each other oftentimes in our opinion,
does take place over a craft. I was thinking, that's
gonna be my way to avoid you. You're gonna log in,
I'm gonna be sitting there waiting on you. When you
guys say that we'd meta, do you throw up in
your mouth a little bit? Like a little bit? Yeah? Yeah? Well,
(30:48):
and two things. People a gonna hire a financial advisor
if you're meeting with them and you're actually going to
their office, which I kind of like, Um, I do
like the face to face relationship. Um. Whoever, if they
actually have somebody scheduling the appointment, I'll tell you, having
been in tons of financial planner offices, if the receptionist
is uh is disgruntled at all, leave because I've been in.
(31:12):
I've been in so many offices and whenever the reception
is disgruntled, that stuff comes from the top. Um. And also,
by the way, if they've got like Cramer yelling about
stocks on a TV in the lobby, run because like,
I want the travel channel, right, I want something that's
about dreams and aspirations. Yes, And you know, if you're
(31:34):
calling them or online, like i'd really look at their website.
What are they emphasizing. They're emphasizing their hot stock trader.
Once again, don't love that. If they're emphasizing that achieving
what you want for yourself, I super like that, so
pay pay. It's weird because you know, when you think
about yourself and other people, we think that we look
at things differently, but online we kind of study show
(31:54):
we look at things like other people. And if your
spiky sense gets a little tingly that I don't know
about this, you're actually probably right. Yeah, Joe, uh love
this combo man. I love what you're doing in in
the space. I love what you're doing with this book,
infusing humor into a topic that often goes completely without
so thank you so much for joining us. Where can
our listeners find out more about what you're up to
(32:14):
and about the new book. Yes, absolutely, thank you so
much guys for a great conversation about your changing budget
and you I know that both of your voices have
been cracking with your budget and that's uh, it's a
difficult time. But no, you can find me at the
Stacking Benjamin Show every Monday, Wednesday, Friday. After you listen
to How the Money, you can tune into us. You'll
hear that you've heard Joel the matt on there at
(32:35):
least what two three times? Yes have been on I
think for sure, and it's always a blast, Yeah, helping
us and we have a good time. And then uh
for Stacked anywhere books are sold. I like two things.
I like number one independent bookstores. Uh, support those places
that are disappearing around the United States. I also like,
if you're just started out, starting out, even though you
can't dog ear it like I did my Hearty Boys
Detective Manual. I like the library to begin, you know,
(32:57):
stack a few Benjamin's first and then go buy it
and year. So are you reading the audio book by
the way, I am. You know it's funny. Is the
woman who plays my mom had I had to fire
my mom because she sounds too young, which is it
was so embarrassing. I'm like, Mom, you sound too young.
She's like, whatever thought to you? I know. But the
woman who plays my mom my friend Julie Ray Harrison,
who runs this nonprofit I'm a part of building walking
(33:19):
trails in our community. Julie Ray has this beautiful voice.
And when Penguin Random House went went to me and said, hey,
is your mom going to read the mom parts? I went, oh,
my goodness, really, and so I went to my friend
jule m like, you want to play my mom again?
So you'll hear Emily open up the chapters. I do
most of the reading, and then the mom parts are
read by my friend Julie Ray Harrison, who's my mom.
That is awesome. Awesome, dude. Well, I enjoyed the physical copy,
(33:42):
but I'll have to check out the audio book now.
And yeah, Joe, thank you again so much for joining us. Man.
We appreciate it. Thanks a ton, guys. Have a happy
New year you as well, my friend. That's right, Happy
new year. That's not something we even addressed. It's about
to be the new year twenty two. Hopefully it'll be
a good one. I'm expecting better things than one, although
you know it was in the we said though I
(34:03):
love Joe, I love his mission to make personal finance fun,
and he's just he's doing an awesome job in that space.
And so yeah, we'll post a link to his his
new book. It just came past his podcast all that stuff,
everything about Stackton Benjamin's. Yeah, I'm finding our show notes
up on our website at how to money dot com.
That's right, So, Matt, until next time, which will be
next year. Till next year, Buddy, best Friends Out, Best
(34:24):
Friends Out,
Welcome to How the Money. I'm Joel and I am Matt,
and today we are discussing investing mistakes, dumb millionaires, and
making personal finance funny. That's all right, we are going
(00:28):
to talk about funny stuff. We're talking about humor and
it's importance and personal finance. We're actually gonna bring on
our friend Joe saw see hi a little bit later
on the episode here after the break. But this is
our Friday flight, Joel, and this is when we tackle
some of the different headlines we've come across this week
and we're gonna talk about how they impact us. Yes,
we've got our money a few that we gotta get to.
(00:49):
I'm looking forward to that conversation with Joe, by the way, too,
he's um an icon in the personal finance space and
so and a good friend. Sort of looking forward chatting
with him. He's always wearing that iconic sweater as well.
Just like, come on, dude, I know, let other people
say it about you, Joe, don't say it about yourself.
But before that, I wanted to ask you a frugal
or cheap We haven't done one in a minute. And
I realized when I was doing this the other day
(01:09):
that I don't know, it might be cheap, but I'm
curious to hear your take. Right. Basically, you know when
you get sent like an envelope with payment required for
a medical bill or something like that. So yeah, and
there's the second envelope inside send it back in. You're
using those, well, I'm using those for my own personal mailings. Yes,
(01:31):
So like I'll pay that bill, let's say, via the
internet on my phone. I'll logg into the website and
pay it that way. But I'll horse on just some
of those envelopes and literally there's the there's the clear
opening on the front of the amblope, and I will
on a piece of paper write the address where I'm
trying to send my mail to, and I will tape
it inside of the envelope so that I can mail
my letter. Yeah, I was gonna say, because if it
(01:53):
doesn't line up perfectly, I'm sorry. It takes a little
attention to detail, right if you're just mailing something to
a friend, I guess if you're kind of like from
the it's eighties, Yeah, there's not it's not necessarily going
to align up perfectly. So okay, oh man, I didn't
know I've heard about folks reusing the envelopes like that,
but I haven't thought about it from the standpoint of
view having to tap to tape another piece of paper
(02:14):
up under there. I mean generally speaking, like, that's not
gonna take you very long, right, It's gonna take a
piece of tape, a piece of scrap paper. As I
was thinking about this, as you were talking about it, it
it got me thinking because like, I think this is frugal,
but I don't do it, and and so then I
start to feel guilty. I'm like, why don't I do that?
Because that's totally a frugal move. But then, like I
just started thinking through how the fact that there are
(02:36):
a lot of different things that we do differently. There's
things that I think are a great little money hacks,
like credit card sign on bonuses. I love credit card
sign and bonuses, and you're all right on them, right,
like you know you're not, but I'm not as dedicated
as you are. The chase a fire preferred right now
seven fifty dollars bally the welcome bonus. It's still an
incredible deal. But simultaneously, you shouldn't feel guilty that you're not,
(02:57):
you know, jump on every single credit card welcome off
or that you know that I let you know about. Uh,
And so I guess all that to say, there's different
strokes for different folks. There are different ways that you
and I can each find little money hacks that we
want to incorporate into our lives. So more power to you, dude.
I love that you're doing that, and Uh, to the
extent that you want to do that, I think that's great.
I will say, you're what you're doing, what you're dedicating
(03:19):
your time towards, is making you more money than mine
is saving me, because you know, mulots are relatively inexpensive,
and the amount of actual mail, yeah, and the amount
of actual mail I'm sending any year physical mail is
relatively small. But I guess it's one of those things
too where I just don't have envelopes on hand, and
so really it's more utilitarian than it is an attempt
(03:39):
to save money. But the amount of the purpose mental
capacity though, that that takes for you, like you're able
to do that while talking to Emily after the kids
are down and you're just you know, you're able to
knock that out. Whereas for me with the credit cards.
I mean, I have to keep up with my purchases
and make sure I'm making these payments. And how am
I going to incorporate this card and to the other
cards where I have everything optimized, like there's a system,
and it takes more time, it takes more brain power.
(04:00):
So there are trade offs, yes, yes, there are. All right, well,
I'm glad you think it's not cheap, dude. I love
that you do that. It's kind of brandom too. But
all right, let's move on to the Friday flight. Let's
get to those stories we found interesting this week and
talk about how they pertain to our collective personal finances.
And the first story we wanted to talk about has
to do with investments and entrepreneurship, and we discussed a
(04:24):
couple of weeks ago, Matt, how more folks are starting
their own businesses. We've seen just this massive uptick in
entrepreneurship during the pandemic, especially you know, in the past
six to nine months, and that's been encouraging. You know
that so many folks are leaving their jobs and they're
not quitting to sit on the sidelines. They're starting their
own business. And and yeah, I think we we think
(04:45):
this is great for individuals, it's great for families, it's
great for the country as well to see more small
business formation. But then the question gets to, well, how
do you start that business and and where do you
find the funds to get started? And it turns out
that some folks are turning to their retirement funds to
get seed money. And the New York Times reported on
(05:05):
this recently. But we would say that that can be
a precarious place to turn. It's not ideal, and in fact,
it's it's probably worse than not ideal. And here's why.
It's because if you're under the age of fifty nine
and a half, you'll have to pay tax and a
ten percent penalty on the funds that you take out, yeah,
of your four one K or your traditional I RA.
(05:26):
And at the same time, like, that's bad enough, right,
the tax and penalty, but those all important dollars that
you're pulling out, Uh, they immediately stopped compounding for your future.
So you're you're hurting your immediate self by being taxes
and penalties. You're hurting your future self by missing out
on potentially decades of gains and a tax tax advantaged account.
And basically it's just it's almost always a lose lose
(05:49):
to go this route to funding your business. Yeah, and
so instead we would like to steer folks in the
direction of getting started by just spending as little money
as possible. We'd recommend for you to check out episode
two forty seven for ideas on how to do that.
That's how you can start a business with no money.
And uh, yeah, it's true that some businesses do have
some hard costs that you gotta pay for in order
(06:10):
to get things off the ground. But you're better off
waiting to start that business and saving up the money
instead of cashing out your four oh w K in
order to start. Now. I just like how there's an
element of sacrifice. It's like, how badly do you want
to start this business? And if you feel like it's
something that you can easily just kind of click a button,
make a deposit, make a transfer, um pay some taxes
while you're at it, that's something that you know, in
(06:32):
my mind, is more painful. But there are ways where
it just seems almost too easy to start this thing,
And I almost believe that there needs to be some
sort of like sacrifice to a certain extent as well.
And we're all about investing in yourself as well, and
you know, specifically launching something that you're passionate about in
order to serve your community and to grow a profitable business.
But you just put yourself in such a difficult financial
(06:53):
position when you grab some cash from your four ohn
K from your IRA A early that we just feel
that it's something you should completely avoid. Now, you know,
taking contributions from your wrath IRA. That's a bit of
a different story because of course you don't pay tax
or penalty on those withdrawals. But overall, it's just best
to think of all of those accounts as untouchable something
that you want to avoid at all costs. Yeah, Matt,
(07:15):
hopefully that's a helpful p s A for any how,
the money listeners who are thinking, hey, I want to
start my own business, where do I get the cash?
Some time offering the holidays and they start dreaming a
little bit. You have a little bit more flexibility with
your schedule and and and that is not the place
you want to tap though, because it's going to lead
to future difficulties when it comes to your finances. And Yeah,
while we're talking about what not to do when it
(07:36):
comes to investing, Let's let's keep hammering that home. That's
actually gonna be kind of a first half of this
Friday flight. There's a bunch of things that you shouldn't
do exactly. There was this great article in the Wall
Street Journal from business writer Dennis Neil and his piece
was titled I Knew Better But about Tesla Stock, and Dennis,
as it turns out, I appreciated his honesty. He he
(07:56):
knows all the right things when it comes to investing.
He's been writing for multiple finance publications for over two decades.
He knew that buying an individual stock is this speculative
play that it's like really risky, and his initial foray
into individual stock investing, he ended up buying some Ali
Baba stock. He he mentioned in the piece that he
had interviewed Jack Ma he was really impressed, and that
(08:18):
was maybe part of the reason at least that he
decided to to purchase. And the cool thing is that
stock went up eighteen the first day he owned it,
which is actually probably the worst thing that can happen
because you're like, oh, this is easy. Uh. And so
he held onto that stock hoping for even higher returns
and it's currently down more than from when he made
that initial purchase, and same thing he purchased Tesla stock.
(08:41):
His holding there is down almost twenty five in a
matter of six weeks because Tesla stock has not been
doing well as of late. And so, yeah, I guess
the question is what can we learn from this piece?
And the question you might ask yourself is, well, can
we make money buying individual stocks? Can I make money
on robin hood or in one buying single stocks? The
(09:02):
answer is yes, uh, But here's the problem. There are
so many difficult decisions that investors face when we decide
to go this route. Basically it becomes a psychological minefield
for us. That's right. Yeah, you have to ask yourself
like when do I actually buy? When do we sell?
Those are the primary questions. And while the stock market
it has been, you know, at or near all time highs, recently,
(09:23):
some stocks have been getting slaughtered, like mostly the ones
that were completely just popping off the charts earlier in
the pandemic, like Zoom and Peloton. But you know, that
raises the questions of buying the dip even you know,
could it be a great time to buy those damage stocks? Well,
you know, potentially, but they could also fall a lot
further generally speaking, owning individual stocks, like, it's not a
morally wrong thing, it's just that it makes investing so
(09:46):
much harder because you're constantly faced with, you know, decisions
that are easily avoidable if you were too out for
a dollar cost averaging UH strategy into index funds. And
so if you feel that you need to take a gamble,
you know, we would rather use think of it like
a trip to Vegas and just dedicate a small amount
of your portfolio, you know, in that direction. Just like
you said, Joel with Dennis Neil, the fact that he
(10:08):
saw some gains early on, like that's the real danger
because he's you start thinking, oh, okay, maybe I'm not lucky.
Maybe I'm smart. You know, I've got access to to people,
I know things that other people don't. It's like the
hook in the fish's mouth exactly. And the same thing
with gambling. You know, you want a few hands right
at the beginning, and you think, oh, gambling is easy.
(10:29):
Everybody else here is just stupid. Keep bringing the free drinks,
and so you start doing that and then you start
making worst decisions and then yeah, your luck runs out
reality has caught up to you, and hopefully you haven't
sunk just way more money in that direction, thinking that
you're going to be able to outsmart the market. Yeah,
that's what we call throwing good money after bad And
hopefully you can learn from like reading something like Dennis's piece,
(10:54):
as opposed to having to experience it firsthand. And I
think that's that's what's great about when other people share
the ways that they've messed up or the ways that
they have lost money, it can be a warning sign
for us and it can help us avoid the same fate.
And that's why, Yeah, we're big proponents of index funds.
It's it's not that you can't make money investing in
individual stocks. You certainly can, but the pitfalls are just
(11:15):
so much greater. And yeah, let's talk about another potentially
devious investing strategy here for a second, Matt. Let's talk
about cryptocurrency. There was a recent CNBC Millionaire study and
it found that most millennials who have a net worth
of greater than one million dollars have their cryptos dash
to thank for their wealth, and of millennial millionaires surveyed
(11:36):
said that they own some cryptocurrency We're okay with that,
Matt and I are totally fine with you having a
small percentage of your assets in crypto. But yeah, the
next stat is a doozy. More than half of those
millennial millionaires said that the majority of their net worth
is in various cryptocurrencies, so greater than fift of that
million dollars, they have over half a million dollars in
(11:59):
crypto and uh mad. At the risk of sounding like
old fogies, we're gonna say that's bad, right, that's not
a good thing. Yeah, so we are older. I mean,
we're we're both millennials, but we're like the geriatric millennials.
We're not the millennials who are still in their first
job they graduated a couple of years ago, who likely
have a lot more money or maybe a lot higher
percentage of their portfolio in cryptocurrencies. But the reason we
(12:21):
don't do that is because we believe that having half
of your wealth in any single asset, regardless of what
it is, is incredibly risky. Uh and crypto even more so.
You know, there's gonna be some big winners amongst the
investors who are going all in on crypto, but there
will be a lot of losers as well, and sadly,
we're probably going to see more of the headlines about
the big winners because those are the stories that people
(12:42):
want to read about, Like, those are the inspiring stories.
Those are the narratives that we want to emulate and
replicate in our own lives, because there's a lot of
people that see a story about something like the Shebu Sheba,
a new coin popping, and they're like, boom, I'm gonna
find the next one that that one goes to your coin,
I'm gonna be all over exactly. It's like those stories
inspire you to think that the next coin is gonna
(13:02):
make you a millionaire, but in all likelihood, you probably
just lost a bunch of money. Exactly. Yeah, chances were
we're not going to be able to do and not
much ink gets billed on those stories. Exactly. Yes, So
you know I'm that kind of bummer. Notes, let's head
to the break, but when we come back, we're going
to lighten things up a little bit. We're gonna talk
with our good friend Joe saw see Hi about the
necessity for humor and personal finance and more. All right,
(13:34):
we're back. Now we're joined by Joe Saucy. Hi. He's
host of the podcast Stacking Benjamin's and Joe has been
just a really good friend in the personal finance podcasting
space for a lot of years now, and he has
just released a new book. It's called Stacked, You're super
serious guide to money management. And Joe, thank you for
joining us on the show. Hey, guys, I can't believe
(13:57):
I made it right here. We are happy to have
you here, Joe. Uh. Let's talk about your book, man,
because you know in your intro of the book, you
write that treating money as only slightly less fun than
nicolonoscopy limits the reach of our collective voices. Your show,
Stacking Benjamin's, it's a ton of fun. We've really enjoyed
coming on because you don't take things too seriously. So
(14:17):
let's talk about humor. Let's talk about like, why do
you think that a good dose of humor is needed
within the personal finance space? Oh, it's funny, is and
I wish I had a funny answer, but but but
but I don't. It's that it is that I was
a financial planner for sixteen years. I've been doing financial
media now for twelve and as you guys, know as
a podcast that has a lot of fun that that
(14:39):
some I think to reach more people, we need to
lighten it up. Some I think that's and I'll give
you some statistics. There's a great, uh, there's a great
report from a group called nonfiction. It's called the Secret
Financial Lives of Americans, and in there they report all
these things that people don't tell each other. And one
big statistic that stood out to me was that over
a hundred and fifty million people report that they've cried
(15:02):
about their money. In America, almost half of Americans say
that they've cried. Now, you think this is people living
paycheck to paycheck, right, because I was there and I
remember how hard it was and how how much I
struggled and I cried. But it's not. I mean, almost
fifty percent of people making over two d and fifty
thousand dollars a year are crying. And I feel I
feel like there's a lot of people saying, you know what,
(15:24):
But if I had that little piece of information, if
I had that, you guys know, there's tons of podcast
there's tons of YouTube channels, there's you go to bookstore,
there's fifty million books out there, and we're still not
there's enough information, but we're still not reaching people. So
I don't think they're crying because central bank digital currency
might become a part of our life, right, And they're
not crying because you know, the mega backdoor roth ira
(15:46):
A might not make it, or Roth conversions might not
make it. Like that's not why we're crying. We're crying
because where where I was a long time ago where
I ran out of gas and I was searching the
this rusted out minivan seat cush to come up with
like eight two cents so I could walk him out
to a gas station and beg a dude to loan
me that little plastic gas can and he didn't want
(16:08):
to give it to me. Guy thought I was going
to steal the gas. Came like, what am I gonna
do with this plastic gas? Really? Trust where I think
the word is sketchy definitely, Yeah, well now I appreciate that.
And I think actually when Matt and I when we
started How the Money four years ago, that was part
of the things that we talked about before we launched
was does the world need another personal finance podcasts? And
(16:31):
we were like, well, no, not really, Like there are
a lot of them out there, But does the world
need a personal finance podcast hosted by two buzz buddies
who drink a beer and try to have a lighthearted
way of communicating about the topic. And we're like, still
from our wives was no, but we tried it anyway
and here we are. But yeah, I think you're right. Like,
there's like a lot of like starchy shirts and ties
(16:52):
in the finance industry and it's off putting to people,
and they're like, I need something approachable. I need something
that is that I and you know and and that
that's the best compliment that we can get is when
a listener says, you know what it feels like, I'm
sitting down with two best friends and drinking a beer,
and it makes that learning a topic that otherwise I'd
be completely oblivious to I wouldn't care about. Just fun. Absolutely, No,
(17:16):
I think that. I think that when you make it
fun and you make it approachable, we start reaching people
that we would otherwise not reach. Yeah, but besides humor, though,
I'm I'm curious besides just infusing more of of humor
into the personal finance space, like tell us a little
more about the money philosophy behind your book, like what
else are you trying to get at? And and how
do you feel like it's unique or different? I think
(17:38):
the best way to answer that is to tell you
where the project, how the project got started. And I
was I had written a book, and I'd written it
over ten years, and uh, I don't know when you
guys write stuff if your spouses are are your your
alpha readers? But mine is. And so I hand this
book to Cheryl when I finally take it seriously get
it done. She read it for I think it was
(17:59):
like eleven and a half minut it and said, this
sucks like it was. It was. It was so over
the top, uh, hardcore finance, it was so boring, it
was preachy. It was all these things that Snacking Benjamin's
is not, and and it really didn't even sound like me,
like I think over they say that you find your
voice over time, and I definitely was not that person
(18:19):
that was in this book. And I didn't want to
give that type of advice. And I was not talking
to the audience. I want to talk to you, so
but I knew, but I knew I had something to say.
And so I'm out in Portland, Oregon, have you guys
been to this bookstore called Powell's in Portland's. Oh it's
and what I love for for creators like you, and
I like, we can totally get lost in this bookstore
and I get these ideas, which I'm sure you do too.
(18:42):
Knowing you guys that you go through and you get
you go into the photography session, or you go into
to to fiction, or you're in the wherever I get
these great ideas. I end up in the kids section
as you get two guys can believe, And so I
see the Hardy Boys Detective Manual. And I don't know
if you guys carried this around like I did, but
it was written. This was a legit book. It was
(19:03):
written with the help of a real, live, retired FBI
agent says it right at the beginning. And my brother
and I, when I was in fourth grade, we carried
this book everywhere, like everywhere, and uh, you know, my dad,
on like a muddy day would go to work and
we'd run out and we'd look at his tire tracks
so we could analyze that because the book taught us that.
(19:25):
And then like my mom would, my mom would touch
a door handle and I'd run over there. With Scotch
tape and you know we could, we'd get the fingerprint mom. Yeah,
you didn't know where mom was. And and I thought,
uh if if there was a book that people carried
around the top money the same way in this camp
be kind of style but but but was for about
(19:46):
financing for adults and be great, So that was the germ. Anyway,
I flew home and my mom had left all my
stuff fifty years old, guys. And at the time that
this happened, my mom finally gives me the stuff out
of the attic right there. She can finally trust me
with all this stuff. And one thing it was in
this box was the Cup Scott Wolf Guide. And and
you and I talk a lot about the importance of gamification,
(20:07):
about lightning it up, about making it fun, and these
the cup Scouts gamified stuff way before all these cool
fintech apps have, which I love, but they they start
off with tools you're gonna need. They succinctly tell you
how to do things at the bottom to show proficiency.
There's check boxes near do this, do this, do this,
and then there's a place for your mom to sign
and you get a badge. So so stacked is put
(20:31):
together that way. It's in four parts. It starts off
at the beginning, because I don't know where you're starting.
My co author Emily and I, Uh, we start off
with the basics, how to get out of debt, how
to put your budget together, it's super campy. We then
go into how to stack Benjamin, so how to invest
money and not get smoked. And then we go into
protecting your Benjamin's and then building stacks upon stacks. So
(20:52):
that last part about hiring advisors, tech strategies. Modern portfolio
theory is pretty complex, but the beginning is laying foundation,
so and it's it's totally built after those two things.
The cub Scout Wolf Guide meets the Hardy Boys Detective Manual,
but for adults about money. I love that. Yeah. Well, so,
speaking of you know, campy methods, at one point in
(21:12):
your book, you know, you kind of break out the
farm references. You say that investments are like crops. So, yeah, like,
what are you trying to teach with that? Illustration says
with the hay seed and right now here, let me
take that out for a second. We'll explain this. Uh
that you know, when we look at when we look
at and even if you're somebody that's always lived in
the city, you still know that that when you grow corn.
(21:34):
There have been thousands of years of research that show
when you put corn in the ground and when you
take it out, and you don't take it out too early, right,
and and and and kill the cold because you will
kill the corn and you don't put it in at
a different time than you should. So I think that
if we look at investments, if we start off with,
by the way, where are we trying to get? I'm
trying to get a bunch of corn? Okay, Well, then
(21:54):
I plant these investments which are not corn. There are
the stocks that grow the corn. I eat your investments.
You start with the end of mine, then you work backward.
You see what that growing season is, how long it is.
And instead of us experiencing fomo as, there's all these
great ideas in investing universe, Like when you think about
n f T, should I do Crypto? Should I like?
(22:14):
What should day? There's this hot meme stock? What should
I do with all these? It's not about good or
bad anymore. It's about does it fit my growing season?
And is it going to reliably grow the corn? When
I need the corn to be there. And I think
that that, for me takes this huge world of possibilities
that don't matter to me and helps me laser focus
and get really deep on the few things that do
(22:36):
fit my quote growing season. Yeah, that the crop reference
in the book. It actually evolves into you recommending this
thing you call time mining your goals and it's I
like it because it's it's complete with these cheesy illustrations
on there. But like tell us about like Martin, It's
it's lovely. I mean, I'm pretty sure you drew the
pictures in this book. It's it definitely shows. But yeah,
(22:58):
why why is that so helpful? The time on your
goals thing? And actually, yeah, the the act of physically
illustrating some of these things out. Yeah, great question, because
everybody's heard this, this idea of of starting with the
end of mine and writing your goals down. We've heard
that a thousand times, and yet bunch of us write
our goals down and we still get nowhere, especially this time.
You're right, I mean New Year's Eve, people are going
(23:19):
to be writing their goals down, writing these New Year's resolutions,
and we don't, we don't follow them. It helps so
much when I was a financial planner to make it visual.
We live in a visual world, so most people in
in the world are visuals. Then there's audios and kinesthetics,
and this is just the way different brains work. So
and because audios and kind aesthetics work in a visual world,
(23:40):
we're used to visualizing things, and our our unconscious brain
will help us get these goals and make them happen. Plus,
when we put things on a timeline, So let's say
that it's you you want to retire. You may want
a second home someday, or the ability to travel more,
so you put that on your timeline at a different
place when you want that, maybe want to switch careers,
(24:01):
go back to school. You put that on your timeline.
And you start seeing how these goals relate to each other,
and then you start asking these questions like, Okay, if
I'm saving for all these things, what's the most efficient
way to save for them all? And how we'll saving
for one impact the other one, and where we can
use these rules of thumb, like you know the four
percent rule or what is it now, the five percent rule, whatever,
(24:22):
the rule, the something rule, We could use that rule
and as you guys know that's going to directionally get
you there, or rule which is a different way to
kind of saying the same thing, or the rules seven
you know whatever. These different rules are using the shortand
robs you of these wonderful conversations with the people that
you're planning with, or just values internal conversations about what's
(24:44):
important to you and how do these things Like is
it more important than I put my kids through college
and I pay for a percent of it and I
retire later, or do I really want to retire now
and I teach my kids how to pay for part
of it? Or is college even relevant in our family? Like,
all of a sudden, I'm having these y conversations which
I think so many people skip, and visualizing in timeline
(25:05):
your goal solves all that. I was surprised by the
way I took his sneak peek at Matt's goal timeline
and there was a yacht on there like six years down,
and I was like, really, you think you're gonna get there,
but I'm I'm pretty ambitious. Did you guys see that
that there? There was back in the I think it
was an early TD meyor trade commercial or maybe E trade,
but it but it was this guy in his fifties
is meeting with his financial advisor, of course, some young
(25:26):
buck in a really expensive suit. And the financial advisor says,
you know, I see Villain Tuscany. And the guy leans
forward and goes, oh, yeah, that sounds great, and he
goes and I see a big old yacht. Guys. Oh,
that's even better. He goes, and I see financial independence
at age forty five. And the guy looks at him
and he goes, but I'm fifty three and the broke
and the broker goes, oh, we're talking about you. Uh
(25:47):
so okay, Joe, you know you're talking about meeting with
financial planners. You talked about how you were a financial
advisor in a former life. Like, I want to know
your take on average folks and advisors and so like
in your opinion, do you think that most people should
be paying for professional advice? Do you have kind of
a rule of fum for for our listeners today. Well,
I don't know about paying, but I do think we
(26:08):
should have advisors. And my definition of advisor, even though
I was one, is I think way broader than most people's.
I think for me to get where I want to go,
no matter what it is, I want to have good
coaches in my corner and I want to pack hunt,
meaning I want to be surrounded by people who are
going in the same direction, like minded people. And I mean,
(26:28):
that's why your listeners listen to how to Money and
they participate in your Facebook group, is because they want
to be around like minded people. And I think that's
so important because you know, I don't know what my
blind sides are. And I think that while I can
design my financial plan by myself, having somebody who's not
emotional about my goals, who I know has my back,
and who's been there before. Like when I was a professional,
(26:50):
I would I would get people across the finish line
maybe on average nine or ten times a year, you know,
so I got to see hundreds of people retire and
the average person we want to do this one time.
So I believe in diet coaches or or groups. I
believe in in having people when it comes to working out.
(27:11):
You know, when I joined a Jim, I paid this
money to join the gym and I didn't go, But
the second I paid extra for the personal trainer, I
went all the time. Like I I want to make
sure that Nathan was not sitting around waiting for me,
and now I'm cursing, right exactly, that's right. Uh So,
So when it comes to advisors, this is my take.
(27:32):
I think if you have an advisor, Matt, where you
have delegated stuff to them, and you're like, yeah, hey,
you hey, money person, you take care of this, and
I'm gonna come back in six months and we'll see
where I am and if and if we're not where
I want to be, I'm gonna get angry, like that's horrible.
You need to know everything yourself, and your advisor should
help you go faster. And I'll give you an example,
Mary Barra running General Motors. General Motors isn't the top
(27:54):
tech company. But the story of taking this legacy company
that was so stodgy in their ways and turning it
to stay relevant, I think it's a great story. And
Mary has done a hell of a job in my opinion.
But Mary Mary, because she's got all these great people
running these divisions, Like she doesn't show up once a
quarter and goes, okay, car people, what are we doing? No,
she goes to all the meetings, she knows everything about
(28:15):
how the car runs. She's incredibly conversant about it. But
then she has people that are smarter than her about
all the pieces of the car that surround her and
give her advice on how they should could move faster.
So I really like advisors, whether you're planning your budget,
whether you're you're you're trying to get your net worth
in order. Of course, like everybody, if you're going to
(28:36):
hire a financial planner, a CFP who gives you unbiased advice,
who's a fiduciary, make sure you ask that question. I
think those are I think those are really important. But hey,
as a beginning thing, if you're struggling to to just
get moving, find somebody that you know and take them
to breakfast and say, hey, I know that at one
point you said you struggle with debt, and now look
(28:57):
at you. How did you do it? And having some
of those people in those conversations, I think it's going
to also help movie in the right direction. I think
it's a great point. And I think so many times
it's either it's either like all or nothing. It's like
you go hire the expensive financial planner or you go
it alone. And you're right, like a community can be
the building block and and being able to rely on
each other. And that's what I don't want to just yeah,
(29:20):
and I don't want to overplug the Facebook group. But
it really is like I love when people post in
there like hey, how the Money community or how the
Money Family, and it's like people are helping each other
out constantly. You don't have to go it alone, which
I think is beautiful. I do want to be wary
of one thing whenever you're in a community. And I
know because I'm in the how the Money community, and
I I love seeing the post. But just remember that's
somebody that spends all day on Facebook. Earl in Peoria
(29:46):
who can't zip up his own pants, is giving me
vice about my four oh one k Like, well, I
have the community. I really like the idea taking somebody
that knows me to breakfast even more than that. But
like them both together, I can still I can still
in the Facebook comm ay, I can reaffirm like you've
like I've seen this week in your community, people reaffirming
what they've heard, asking people, and there's a wisdom in
(30:07):
crowds that's also nice. Yeah, and that's why that, like
you said, Joe, that personal relationship is so stink and
important because you need somebody that knows you, that knows
what you're going after, because otherwise you're gonna have different goals. Right.
Not only is it about finding the right relationships, Uh,
not only is it about having something beyond just a
few rules in place, like X your annual expenses. But
(30:27):
it takes relationship, and that takes time. That's where META isn't.
I think it's gonna fall flat because the ability for
us to get to know each other oftentimes in our opinion,
does take place over a craft. I was thinking, that's
gonna be my way to avoid you. You're gonna log in,
I'm gonna be sitting there waiting on you. When you
guys say that we'd meta, do you throw up in
your mouth a little bit? Like a little bit? Yeah? Yeah? Well,
(30:48):
and two things. People a gonna hire a financial advisor
if you're meeting with them and you're actually going to
their office, which I kind of like, Um, I do
like the face to face relationship. Um. Whoever, if they
actually have somebody scheduling the appointment, I'll tell you, having
been in tons of financial planner offices, if the receptionist
is uh is disgruntled at all, leave because I've been in.
(31:12):
I've been in so many offices and whenever the reception
is disgruntled, that stuff comes from the top. Um. And also,
by the way, if they've got like Cramer yelling about
stocks on a TV in the lobby, run because like,
I want the travel channel, right, I want something that's
about dreams and aspirations. Yes, And you know, if you're
(31:34):
calling them or online, like i'd really look at their website.
What are they emphasizing. They're emphasizing their hot stock trader.
Once again, don't love that. If they're emphasizing that achieving
what you want for yourself, I super like that, so
pay pay. It's weird because you know, when you think
about yourself and other people, we think that we look
at things differently, but online we kind of study show
(31:54):
we look at things like other people. And if your
spiky sense gets a little tingly that I don't know
about this, you're actually probably right. Yeah, Joe, uh love
this combo man. I love what you're doing in in
the space. I love what you're doing with this book,
infusing humor into a topic that often goes completely without
so thank you so much for joining us. Where can
our listeners find out more about what you're up to
(32:14):
and about the new book. Yes, absolutely, thank you so
much guys for a great conversation about your changing budget
and you I know that both of your voices have
been cracking with your budget and that's uh, it's a
difficult time. But no, you can find me at the
Stacking Benjamin Show every Monday, Wednesday, Friday. After you listen
to How the Money, you can tune into us. You'll
hear that you've heard Joel the matt on there at
(32:35):
least what two three times? Yes have been on I
think for sure, and it's always a blast, Yeah, helping
us and we have a good time. And then uh
for Stacked anywhere books are sold. I like two things.
I like number one independent bookstores. Uh, support those places
that are disappearing around the United States. I also like,
if you're just started out, starting out, even though you
can't dog ear it like I did my Hearty Boys
Detective Manual. I like the library to begin, you know,
(32:57):
stack a few Benjamin's first and then go buy it
and year. So are you reading the audio book by
the way, I am. You know it's funny. Is the
woman who plays my mom had I had to fire
my mom because she sounds too young, which is it
was so embarrassing. I'm like, Mom, you sound too young.
She's like, whatever thought to you? I know. But the
woman who plays my mom my friend Julie Ray Harrison,
who runs this nonprofit I'm a part of building walking
(33:19):
trails in our community. Julie Ray has this beautiful voice.
And when Penguin Random House went went to me and said, hey,
is your mom going to read the mom parts? I went, oh,
my goodness, really, and so I went to my friend
jule m like, you want to play my mom again?
So you'll hear Emily open up the chapters. I do
most of the reading, and then the mom parts are
read by my friend Julie Ray Harrison, who's my mom.
That is awesome. Awesome, dude. Well, I enjoyed the physical copy,
(33:42):
but I'll have to check out the audio book now.
And yeah, Joe, thank you again so much for joining us. Man.
We appreciate it. Thanks a ton, guys. Have a happy
New year you as well, my friend. That's right, Happy
new year. That's not something we even addressed. It's about
to be the new year twenty two. Hopefully it'll be
a good one. I'm expecting better things than one, although
you know it was in the we said though I
(34:03):
love Joe, I love his mission to make personal finance fun,
and he's just he's doing an awesome job in that space.
And so yeah, we'll post a link to his his
new book. It just came past his podcast all that stuff,
everything about Stackton Benjamin's. Yeah, I'm finding our show notes
up on our website at how to money dot com.
That's right, So, Matt, until next time, which will be
next year. Till next year, Buddy, best Friends Out, Best
(34:24):
Friends Out,
Hosts And Creators
Joel Larsgaard
Matthew Altmix
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