Holiday Special: 2025 Lessons, Risky Bets, and an Alaska Surprise (BONUS EP)

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, buddy, how's it going.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
I'm great, how are you? I always love it when
you start the episode. It's so different.

Speaker 3 (00:06):
It's so different than what we normally do. And when
listeners hear something like this, they typically know that besties
are on the way besty episodes and it's man, it's
like smack dab in the middle of the Christmas break
the holiday season, And I wonder if folks even noticed
that we had some excellent besty episodes lined up for you.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
We call them besties after all.

Speaker 3 (00:24):
Why not only because you and I are best friends,
but also because these are.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
The bestie episodes. These are good, still good. They're goodies.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Yeah, And if you haven't or if it's been a
long time since you've heard them, we hope that like
you enjoyed them, because, like gosh, there's still so much
good information, especially with the ones that we resurface for
like these are the Kreme de la Creme.

Speaker 3 (00:40):
There's some there's a good word in there. But that
being said, we did want to publish a little bonus
episode here for you. We thought folks might want to
hear some fresh content. Recently, we spoke with our friend
Joe saw Sea Hi over at Stacking Benjamin's the show.
Actually that we referenced.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
What I say in that three times fast. By the way,
it's not easy to say chose, I'll see, I'll.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
See, yeah, you got it, you got it any more time.

Speaker 3 (01:02):
But uh, he invited us on because he likes to
do a year and recap sort of episode, and we thought,
you know what, this might be a fun episode for
our listeners to.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Hear as well hear us getting interviewed and yeah, yeah,
talking about the really the things that we thought were
some of the most important trends of twenty twenty five,
how they impacted people's finances. And Joe haranged us about
losing to him in the Daffy Voices for Good challenge too.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
Did we call him out for having one donor in
particular who brought the big bucks? I think I did.
I don't want to. I don't want to appreciate that this
was a relative so I don't want to see too
much of a sore loser.

Speaker 3 (01:36):
And we're referencing the Daffy Voices for Good challenge that
we did, which our listeners did such an amazing job.
I mean, we already shared this with listeners, but I'm
so proud at the amount of money that we were
able to raise.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
And if we do it again in twenty twenty six,
he's going down.

Speaker 4 (01:50):
I'll say that I do.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
I do think so. But yeah, this episode a little
bonus episode for you.

Speaker 3 (01:55):
Here on Saturday. We'll have some more besties for you
next week. It's still the holiday season.

Speaker 4 (02:00):
But it though in the beginning of January.

Speaker 3 (02:02):
Yeah, yeah, come there early in January. That Monday, we
will be back at it excited to bring you the goods.
So until then, enjoy.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
We are kicking off our holiday extravaganza weeks and I
can't wait. The next two weeks are gonna be so awesome.
Oh gee, I noticed as you sat down, You've got
a phenomenal mug in front of you.

Speaker 5 (02:23):
Thank you, A lotion and cream. It keeps the wrinkles away.
I can't do much about the hairline, but the wrinkles
are gone.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
Just go to Turkey, like one of my family members.
Did just go go to Turkey?

Speaker 4 (02:36):
Not that important to me? I asked my barber.

Speaker 5 (02:39):
She said something about it one time, and I said, ah,
maybe I'll do something about that. She goes, no, you're not,
and I just said, oh, really, She goes, no, because
if you actually cared, you'd have done it by now,
Like it's asked. It's fixing at this point, like you
needed to care about this five years ago.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
I was like, the ship has left the dock.

Speaker 4 (02:56):
She said, all right, I guess Okay.

Speaker 6 (03:00):
There aren't enough dark alleys in Turkey where you can
get this fixed.

Speaker 7 (03:03):
Yeah, but out of that I knew Holiday was born
a festivus for the rest of us.

Speaker 6 (03:17):
Live from Joe's mom's basement. It's a stacking Benjamin show.
I'm Joe's Mom's neaghbordug. And on Friday, you heard what
our roundtable team thought we could learn from the events
of twenty twenty five. But what do others think today?

(03:40):
We welcome the hosts of the how to Money podcast.
Two dudes, you stackers beat like a guitar Hero drum
kit at a nine year old's birthday party last month
while raising money for charity. I mean to amazing, intelligent
and handsome dudes. Okay, that's a bridge too far. I
draw the line of intelligent all Lars Card and Matt

(04:01):
altmix In. Our headline segment will feature an ugly prediction
from Investment News about twenty twenty six. But don't worry.
I'll also share a TikTok minute about Ai yet again.
And I'll also share some incredible year end trivia. And
now two guys who Joe's mom says are the rear
ends of this podcast. Whatever that means, it's Joe and

(04:26):
oh Juju juja g.

Speaker 1 (04:31):
I think she means doctor. Here we are at the
rear end of twenty twenty five. Yeah, we are helping
people dive in. That's what she means.

Speaker 6 (04:39):
Yeah, you're you're right.

Speaker 1 (04:40):
Hey, everybody, welcome to the beginning of the holiday extravaganza
that we have at the end of every year. At
the Stacky Benjamin Show, I am Joe Salcahi, And across
the card table from me, it is the one and
only the mister og the number one Funkal indeed.

Speaker 5 (04:56):
Ogi numero rear ends. I was thinking looking like rump roast.
I was thinking like the prime rib roast.

Speaker 6 (05:04):
Joe, did you notice that the font on the number
one Funkal mug is the Godfather?

Speaker 4 (05:11):
Oh?

Speaker 8 (05:11):
It is?

Speaker 4 (05:12):
Oh it is it is.

Speaker 6 (05:14):
I mean there's a subtle hint there, Like they all know.

Speaker 1 (05:18):
We swear to God your fund, we swear to God
here right exactly, take a mug please please.

Speaker 6 (05:22):
They have to come into his darkened office every Christmas
Eve with their hat in hand.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
Well, let me tell you all what's coming up here
to round out twenty twenty five and kickoff twenty twenty
six today, of course, Doug, as you said, Joela Matt
joining us to talk about what their top five lessons
from twenty twenty five would be. We heard the roundtables,
now we'll hear theirs. We also have a TikTok minute
that is nearly as good as that guy from China

(05:50):
Airlines we talked about last week, China Airlines, that thing
that just happened that was really cool.

Speaker 6 (05:56):
Yeah, yeah, definitely is a true story.

Speaker 1 (05:59):
By the way, thanks to our stacker on Spotify, who
also sent us the link og that you sent saying, yeah,
that's a that's a fake deal, but this one's not.
This one is. We're gonna We're gonna protect some people
today in our TikTok minute. We also have a call in.
Anna's not here, and we have a call in today.
We normally don't do them without Anna here helping us

(06:20):
out with that, but today we're gonna take one because
it is You're end extravaganza. On Wednesday, Christmas Eve for
those who celebrate, we are playing Doug and the Three
ghost And if you haven't heard this story that we
totally came up with on our own about Doug being
visited by these three ghosts about his credit and its

(06:43):
happened and his money habits, not inspired by anything at
all in particular, just totally came up with it. So
that is then. And then on Friday we begin Friday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,
Friday of next week, we're gonna have six days, seven shows,
all kinds of goodness, some of our best guests from

(07:05):
twenty twenty three. We're diving back like we did last year,
three years and we're playing the best of three years ago.

Speaker 4 (07:11):
Because everybody already heard this year.

Speaker 6 (07:13):
Yes, we're hoping they forgot. It's like far enough back
that they forgot those and we're going to resurrect them
for them.

Speaker 1 (07:19):
Well, and I'll tell you these mentors, Doug are our
shows that you want to hear again. I got really
excited about those and some of our top episodes with
just the three of us, and then our number one
show from twenty twenty five. We'll also use to kick
off twenty twenty six, So a great, great year coming up.
But we've got one more thing before we welcome Joela

(07:41):
Matt to the basement. We're unveiling it, guys. It's about time.
The stacking Benjamin's Vault is finally open. Finally the ferrets
that spin the wheel here in Mom's basement have made
the master product. You thought the guides were good, You
thought that, oh geez, practice was good. Now you can

(08:03):
get the vault.

Speaker 6 (08:04):
Well, is this the thing? Like every guy has a
vault and when like and you've got your best buddy
and they're like, dude, if I ever die, Like, here's
where the vault is. It's all making you get rid
of it.

Speaker 1 (08:15):
It's isn't that? But with your financial information. We call
it the vault because we know how important it is
to protect your identity. Stay away from unused subscriptions, get
off the text and email list the people that are
selling all your data. You get all these rando texts, Hey,
so what are you doing for dinner? You know those
come from just a few places that are constantly selling

(08:36):
your data. Protect your credit, run credit what ifs. It's
all finally here the super tool that we created with
the team at Array who protects millions of people like you,
and I was super happy to team up with them
to bring you the Stacku Benjamin's Vault. So check out
Statue Benjamin's dot com slash vault see how it works.

(08:56):
Finally take control of subscription management, identity protection, getting he
removed from trash list, controlling your credit Stacky Benjamin's dot
com slash vault gets you there. I'm excited. I've been
waiting to say that line og for a long long time.

Speaker 4 (09:10):
We've been practicing at that's for sure.

Speaker 1 (09:11):
We began developing this with the team at Array back
this summer, and so it's good to finally get it
out there. All right, the two guys who were super
happy to talk to today, even though Doug you said it Stackers,
you guys kick their butt in the Voices for Good Challenge.
We're so proud of the fact that you raise so

(09:31):
much money for Gifting Sense wonderful, Karen Hollins's tool that
helps kids learn financial literacy and you you can go
to Giftingsense dot org and check it out. We also
thought it was probably tying to bury the hatchet we
kind of talk a little trash about them, So good
time to acknowledge two guys who are really good dudes.
You actually have a fantastic show out of Money.

Speaker 6 (09:53):
You better mute my mic because I still want to
dunk on them.

Speaker 1 (10:00):
From How to Money coming down to the basement in
just a moment. But while we're waiting for them to
sit down, we got a couple sponsors that help us
keep on keeping on. We're gonna hear from them, and
then we're kicking off the holidays with Joel Lars Guard
and Matt Altms And I'm super happy these guys are

(10:23):
in Mom's basement. In fact, we are ending the year
with the biggest stars we've had all year, guys that
finish second place.

Speaker 3 (10:33):
Oh my gosh, what a jerk. I'm leaving before this beginning. Say,
Joe brought us on just to drag us through the mud.

Speaker 1 (10:41):
Just to say that you guys could go now. No,
it's a good friends. From How to Money, Joela, Matt,
How are you guys.

Speaker 4 (10:48):
Not as good?

Speaker 1 (10:49):
Now? Do it? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (10:50):
I'll feeling pretty good about myself about our listeners, Joe,
until you just started rubbing our face and the fact
that that you kurb stopped us on the daff You're.

Speaker 1 (10:59):
Talking about the Daffy Challenge.

Speaker 4 (11:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:00):
Yeah, Stackers did a wonderful job. But you know what,
so did the How To Money audience. And what I
do want to say that was really Hey, it was
very hard trying to make fun of you guys for
a month. It's not easy making fun of guys that
I like as much as I annoyingly like you two.
But then the second thing is for a month. I
was like, when are all these celebrity podcasts that the

(11:22):
two of you and us that were going up againsthen
are they gonna catch us? Dude? They did?

Speaker 3 (11:28):
So I think once you are a celebrity, you're allowed
to I mean, you're opening yourself. You are opening yourself
up to criticism just the fact that you have a podcast, right,
But if you are a true celebrity, okay, you are
open to all attacks. And I was were super disappointed
and the fact that like you've got some of these
other shows, these are like legit stars folks who are

(11:48):
on shows who what was it like one kid was
the voice on like how to Train Your Dragon or
is or something like a family favorite And I don't
know truly. I don't know much about these folks individually,
but uh yeah, it was a little the pointed to
see that they didn't seem like they're encouraging their audience
to participate, because I think if they had, they would
have seen some a bit more participation and more good
put out there in the world. But yeah, I guess

(12:10):
that's more our lane giving personal finance and being smart
with it and being generous.

Speaker 1 (12:14):
But yeah, I think it's a bit disappointing.

Speaker 3 (12:16):
Maybe we should just also say congratulations Joe stacking, Benjamin's
well done.

Speaker 4 (12:21):
Proud of you guys.

Speaker 1 (12:22):
You know what, he's rolling his eyes.

Speaker 3 (12:27):
I did hear Joel say, Matt, you know it was
only like one or two big donors that Joe had.

Speaker 4 (12:32):
It wasn't all dude.

Speaker 1 (12:34):
You should have seen.

Speaker 3 (12:35):
I swear it was. It was his relatives. He called
his uncle like he just like browbeat people around the
Thanksgiving dinner. That's what you did, Joe, Know how you
did this?

Speaker 1 (12:43):
My dad does have sixteen brothers and sisters, so we
do have a large family. See, but I'll say this
that we had, as you guys did, we had a
huge number of people that gave. I was super excited
to see our community, your community. And even though you said, Matt,
that's our lane side of personal finance communities, we're not
known that way. Like people think that the reason you

(13:04):
listen to a money podcast is because you're a little
greedy and you want more and more and more for me, me, me,
and you you guys, And I know that's not true,
and I think we really did a great job proving it.
We were raising money for financial literacy, you guys were
raising money also for some cool, cool costs of stuff.

Speaker 6 (13:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (13:23):
My big thing is unfortunately Sam Bankman freed drug tru
what was the effective altruism through the mud a little
bit speaking of dragging people through the mud, But I
mean my whole approach is for folks who are looking
to I mean, from a personal finance standpoint, you're looking
for the most value, right, and.

Speaker 4 (13:38):
So the charities that give well assesses.

Speaker 3 (13:41):
And more of the money that you're giving to them
is going to impacting lives and saving lives specifically.

Speaker 1 (13:47):
So for me, I don't know, it makes it.

Speaker 3 (13:49):
I like the ability to not have to research it
and the fact that they have gone through this vetting
process and yeah, such a thorough way makes me feel
good about every single cent, like on a global standpoint.

Speaker 4 (13:59):
But then if, of.

Speaker 3 (14:00):
Course, you know at least space when it comes to
being able to give locally, whether with you know, Joel
and I both give to our church, local schools, different
things like that. To be able to participate in locally,
I feel like that's like the that's the duality. I
like that approach, right, like on a grand scheme where
your money can really go far to literally save lives
as opposed to Okay, how do I want my personal

(14:21):
life and the people around me to be able to
benefit from my own charity?

Speaker 1 (14:25):
Yeah? One hundred? Can we can we talk for a
second because I think our stack or audience might not
know what charities you guys were supporting. Joel, who was
Who are you supporting?

Speaker 2 (14:33):
Yeah, I'll just say one of my favorites. It used
to be called rip Medical Debt. They changed their name
to Undo Medical Debt. I don't know why they changed
their name because rip medical debt such a yeah social
ring to it, right, They're all about eliminating medical debt
that people have accrued. Right, So think about like some
of the what we hear right from from listeners, what

(14:53):
what you see as just a nationwide terrible trend is
people have more debt than they've ever had before, is
what it feels it. And medical debt is one of
those things that puts people on shaky ground. People don't
know how to negotiate it down. And so that's one
of the nonprofits I was particularly trying to raise money
for us to help relieve people of that debt because
it can be sold for pennies on the dollar. And

(15:14):
that's what this organization does. They buy the debt and
then they forgive the debt, and so that person they
get a letter in the mail and it's like, hey,
guess what you thought you had twelve thousand dollars in
medical debt. You don't have it any longer. And it's
and undo medical debt. Didn't spend twelve grand. They spend
a whole lot less than that. So they can give
medical debt by the insane number. So that's that was
one of the nonprofits.

Speaker 3 (15:35):
That's another way that feels like your dollars are going
a lot further because it's like, on paper, this is
how much that has been forgiven, but in reality, this
is how.

Speaker 1 (15:42):
Much one hundred debts. Oh my gosh, yeah, that's super
cool that what was one of yours.

Speaker 3 (15:46):
Let's see so give well was the organization that was
vetting some of the charities like so New Incentives Helen
Keller International. Both of these are international charities, where mosquito
netting was another one as well. But again, just the
ability for a very small amount of money to be
able to provide supplements where kids are avoiding some of

(16:07):
these lifelong diseases.

Speaker 4 (16:09):
These insert athletic greens commercial here.

Speaker 3 (16:11):
I know, I finally, dude, I try some ag one,
but you know, I mean, these are core nutrients and
minerals that we take for granted here in the very wealthy,
developed Western world. That's other parts of the world that
they don't have, right, And something as simple as mosquito
nets to prevent kids from getting malaria, and it takes
so little money to be able to set these individuals

(16:33):
and these families up, providing incentives for mothers to bring
their kids in to receive some of these supplements.

Speaker 1 (16:39):
It's just it makes a huge impact.

Speaker 3 (16:41):
And again, when you're looking to change the world, there's
only so much money that I have.

Speaker 1 (16:46):
Joel's got a lot more than I do. It's true
so I'm trying.

Speaker 3 (16:49):
To stretch my dollars, you know, just too little butter
over too much bread perhaps.

Speaker 4 (16:53):
But yeah, do we hold it over him all the time?

Speaker 1 (16:55):
What we can? It was such a fun way to
spend a month and such a warm feeling that on
our last show of the year that we're talking about
being able to give and our ability to give and
how helpful our communities were. You guys have been able
to help our stackers today too by being our guest
of honor in the seat of sharing. What were the

(17:16):
in your minds five of the biggest things that happened
in twenty twenty five that we can maybe learn some
lessons from you guys? Mind if we do these like
David Letterman style? Did you put them in? Oh?

Speaker 4 (17:25):
Let's do it and like it? Oh?

Speaker 3 (17:27):
Yeah, we weren't watching a whole lot of late night
TV back in the eighties and nineties.

Speaker 2 (17:30):
Can we start with the clearest, most obvious one though,
it's the cracker barrel logo?

Speaker 4 (17:33):
Change Joe, Like, that's the one I learned the.

Speaker 1 (17:36):
Most lessons from. Watch your PR and marketing. Yeah, maybe
do a little PR marketing stuff before you have to
handle the emergency PR firm later to change it.

Speaker 2 (17:46):
Harry and Space. That was another one that to me
really resonated deeply this year.

Speaker 1 (17:50):
You know, Katie and I both cried after that, so
that I believe. Oh man, what was your number?

Speaker 5 (17:58):
Five?

Speaker 1 (17:58):
Gentlemen? Oh, are these in any particular order?

Speaker 4 (18:01):
Which one written out?

Speaker 3 (18:03):
We'll start with maybe some more of the empty promises
that let's just talk about politics, Joe speaking of can
we do religion, speaking of cracker barrel and alienating your audience.

Speaker 1 (18:17):
We're just going to cut to the chase.

Speaker 6 (18:19):
I think there are so.

Speaker 3 (18:20):
Many people who are looking to government on both sides
of the aisle, right Like we saw this in previous administrations.
We see this now and they're looking to the government
to fix all their problems. And what I love about
personal finance is we hardly ever get into that stuff
because it's not about policy, Like we need to pay
attention to how certain things that are actually changing, how
they impact your tax fraggate and different just the different

(18:43):
laws pertaining to your money. But when it comes to
just the oh they're floating this idea, Oh you got this,
you got that.

Speaker 1 (18:51):
Sometimes it's fun.

Speaker 3 (18:51):
To talk about because it allows us to sort of
lash onto a deeper, more substantial truth than what that
means for individuals and how they handle their money. But
for the most part, what we talk about are things
that individuals can do, and there are constant whether its
student loan forgiveness like last administration, or whether it's you know,
at this point in time, additional health savings accounts or

(19:13):
or there city.

Speaker 2 (19:14):
The tariff freebate checks right that were floated dish just right,
everybody's going to get two thousand dollars and which is
funny because it's like a problem that's then the solution
is the creation of the problem has been done by
the people in charge, and then it's like, let's create
a solution of the problem that we created. This is
like a perpetual thing in the world of politics. So
sorry to start off on a political note, but it's

(19:35):
just one of those things.

Speaker 1 (19:37):
Getting it out of the way.

Speaker 2 (19:37):
There's promises right and left, and you just have to
be discerning. And while it might sound great, like is
it actually going to come to fruition And yeah, the
student loan forgiveness thing didn't that was struck down. The
tariff thing, don't think that's going to happen. The tariffs,
I guess are another one of those things that was
like one of the big big things of this year.

Speaker 3 (19:55):
Yeah, we actually don't have that one down, but that's
another one where yeah, should you invest based on what
you think what tariff aren't or aren't going to come through?
And yeah, I'm sure a lot of folks were thinking
that back in April.

Speaker 1 (20:04):
But yeah, when I said yeah there, I didn't mean
yes you should. Yeah, I agree. And when I was
a financial planner, people would come into my office and
they'd see these headlines and the first thing they wanted
to talk about is, oh, like, pretend it's today, what
do you think about tariffs? What do you think about
the fact that even the government saying that the cost
of our healthcare is going to go sky high next year?

(20:24):
What do we do about the fact that, you know,
with the FED, the changing of the FED chairman, like,
what do we do about all that? And they come
in with all this stuff, and when we to your point,
would look at the financial plan and go, hey, you
know what, I'm not sure about that. We'll get back
to it. Let's put a pin in that. But in
the financial plan it says that by today your accounts

(20:46):
needed to be at the let's say eighty five thousand
dollars for you to be on track to be on
the ladder toward your goals. Are you ahead or behind
on that number? And then all of a sudden they
get off the idea of all the crap they can't control,
and they start digging through, you know, looking up their
four to one k, looking up their investment accounts, and

(21:06):
they go, oh, we're a little bit ahead or we're
a little bit behind. Then all of a sudden, we'll
talk about what do you have to do? Yeah, and
not about what is somebody else gonna have to do?
And you know what's cool, all this third party crap
never came back again. You just focused on what we
could do.

Speaker 2 (21:20):
There was a recent survey of CFP professionals and it
found that more of their clients are coming in and
politics is one of the top line items on the discussion.
I think people are like, hey, this seems to be happening.
This is like what's going on? How is this going
to impact my finances? And the truth is, like, we
see legislation that dramatically impacts like whether it's a raising

(21:41):
of the standard deduction, whether it's the new Trump accounts
for kids, right, whether it is some tweak to the
tax code that really does change the incentives for what
we do around the margins. Like those things matter. That's
why our Friday flight exists to talk about the headlines
how they're going to impact your finances. We do it
every week. We think it's really important. But of course
the most important thing is the evergreen stuff that you're

(22:03):
doing with regularity, no matter who's in the White House,
no matter whether the Senate's sixty forty in favor of
red or blue. The actions we take are pretty consistent
throughout the years, even though there are tweaks to being
made around the margins.

Speaker 1 (22:16):
Yeah, great stuff. That's a great place to start. Even
though you freak me out of politics, guys like Masts
for president.

Speaker 3 (22:23):
I'm just tigued to go ahead, read the bandad off,
get it out of the way. But I like what
you say, like you're talking or maybe you said to
just focusing on what you can control, right, is it?
Stephen Covey The seven habits, like the circle of influence
and then finding ways as you learn more about personal
finances and like you are expanding your circle, and those
are things that you then have and impact a direct
impact over when it comes to your personal finances and
what it is the kind of difference is that you

(22:44):
can make in your own life that are going to
lead to substantial, lasting change versus the headline of the day.

Speaker 1 (22:51):
Well, we got off to a great start. What's number
four on the list?

Speaker 3 (22:54):
All right?

Speaker 2 (22:54):
Number four is this past year was a year of
riskier financial products, talking about private equity inside of four
one k's we're seeing a rise in people day trading options,
We're seeing a rise in alternative investment opportunities out there,
and we've seen some of those things come crashing down.

(23:16):
So I think when we talk about kind of the
simple ways to invest often being the best, when people
are exposed and allowed to invest in more financial products
and there's a wider array more now than seems like
ever before, oftentimes those lead us astray, and they lead
to higher fees, they lead to man think about even
just some of those the alternative investment real estate platforms

(23:40):
and how people have lost most if not all of
their capital investing in real estate online. And so it
seems like this thing I'm going to diversify, Right, That's
like a way that you might even convince yourself that
this is a smart move.

Speaker 3 (23:51):
I'm it's just a bit more sophisticated. It's like, you
know what, I'm not going to do what everyone else
is doing at work with a four one K is
kind of boring.

Speaker 2 (23:58):
Right, the index funds, like I've heard about those things.
I'm doing that with some but man, I really I
should be doing something beyond that, right, Let me delve
into some of this stuff that's going to produce higher returns.
And of course when you go to the homepage of
any of those alternative investing sites, it sure looks like
you're going to the moon a lot faster. But what
happens is people to look at the fees, they don't
look at the details, and they don't realize that their

(24:18):
capital is at risk. And so we've seen a lot
of I think that come back to bite people on
the investing side.

Speaker 1 (24:23):
It's really wild to me that on one hand you
see everybody on Wall Street saying, this is a good idea,
all these private equity investments inside four to one case,
we definitely need to do that. At the same time,
equity multiple, the real estate company I think you're talking about,
is blowing up right. I mean they now have had
to change their name, which is just whatever a company

(24:45):
has to change their name. In fact, the network you
guys are on had to change their name because.

Speaker 2 (24:51):
Matt had to change his names multiple time because some
of the things he did in some of the towns
that he had to leave.

Speaker 1 (24:56):
It's true. Yeah, yeah, it's absolutely horrible. Like are you
kidding me? So what's it about? Then? Why are so
many people talking heads that you see on CNBC or
Fox Business? Why do they keep saying this is a
good idea, we need this you hey, you got all
these opportunities out here. What do you think?

Speaker 3 (25:13):
I mean, there's an element of novelty, right, Like, are
we or are we not more distracted more ADHD and
we're looking for the next new, shiny, bright thing. It's
either that or the fact that they're behind and they're
looking to make up lost time.

Speaker 1 (25:26):
Right.

Speaker 3 (25:27):
They didn't start investing when they first heard about compounding interests,
you know, in their early twenties, and maybe some folks
maybe they never heard about it. And I feel for
those folks. If you are in a situation where you
missed out on some of those early years. Yeah, maybe
maybe you are trying to pick up lost ground. But
I think more than anything, it's just folks. It's like
a novelty. It's a stimulus sort of environment that we

(25:47):
live in, right, Like we are used to the algorithms,
we are used to fifteen second clips of video. I
was talking to a comic recently and he's been in
some major movies and him and his.

Speaker 4 (25:57):
Wife Chris Rock.

Speaker 1 (25:58):
You heard it, Yeah, Chris Ruck. I can't believe by
the way, he didn't just go ahead and name drop j.

Speaker 4 (26:04):
Yeah, he usually does, Truck. I'm a humble guy.

Speaker 3 (26:07):
But like we were talking about this sort of series
that him and his wife created on YouTube, and then
he's just like, you know, it's how it is that
we create content and has changed, and like he's like,
I mean, I'm doing it to myself, Like you come
chop it up and create the small, quick, little hits,
but nobody's necessarily incentivized to go and watch the whole thing.
They kind of are fed the interesting, novel, entertaining thing,

(26:29):
and then they essentially move on. That's the environment that
we're in. You take that and expand that beyond entertainment,
and if you're talking about investments, I think we tend
to expect the same kind of that same dynamic. I
think we're looking for that same dynamic in other areas
in life, and a lot of ways, I think that
can lead to incredibly poor outcomes. Right Yeah, new and

(26:50):
shiny and novel and better and.

Speaker 2 (26:54):
Actually always better just a shortcut, right. I'm thinking about
the game Shoots and Ladders that I play with my son.
He cheats every time we play, Like dude gets every
ladder and never hits a slide.

Speaker 1 (27:02):
And it sounds like it It just sounds like an
excuse for losing to your kids. It is, it is,
And I berate him for this.

Speaker 3 (27:08):
Joe, No, I know, but you want to catch all
the ladders, but man, yeah, there's all these potential slides
that can send you back tumbling down. And if you
look for the shortcuts, just watch out because there's certainly
a way that that shortcut could come back to bite you.
And like we're talking about like leverage gtfs, those are
something that have seen kind of more dollars, more influence,

(27:30):
and people don't realize that, like a couple bad days
of being in this tesla leveraged ETF, I could lose
all my money that I put in, it's very different
than just buying Tesla, because you think Tesla's a great
company that's going to stand the test of time and
be a good investment for years to come. So I guess, yeah,
just with many more risky financial products at our fingertips,

(27:51):
it's even more incumbent on us to be wary, to
be careful what we invest in.

Speaker 4 (27:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (27:55):
The thing is too is like a lot of the
companies that are pushing these things are like you've got
to love hate relationship with right, So I'm thinking of
Robinhood in particular, and they've.

Speaker 4 (28:03):
Got some awesome stuff.

Speaker 3 (28:04):
The fact that they're offering a match for individuals on
roth irays like that is incredibly attractive. That's when I
started paying to have an account with them, because I'm like,
you know what, I've never had a match in my
entire life other than what we pay when we put
on our employer hat to ourselves. But truly, that is
being provided by another entity. And even their three percent
credit card flat across the board cash back, that's really attractive.

(28:26):
I'm using that card is on my phone right now.
But then they're also saying, hey, did you know that
you can leverage investing, you can large securities, all of
these these behaviors that I don't want to see more
of our listeners, more of the stackers out there partaking in.
And that's where it comes down to us as individuals,
kind of going back to the first point, right, to
take ownership and responsibility for our own money.

Speaker 8 (28:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:49):
I think on my side, guys, I think the reason
we're seeing so many people on Wall Street say this
is a good thing, it's just a money grab. I
mean it totally is a hey, we need this. I mean,
the more we can get regulators out of our way,
the more money we can make more quickly. I get
my bonus. It's fantastic. I'm like, are you kidding me?

Speaker 4 (29:05):
Was it that?

Speaker 2 (29:06):
The whole point of Tony Robbins's latest book, right, was like, here,
here's how you get outsize returns by going with this
company I have a special relationship with. And you're like, oh, okay,
Like this is an advertorial in book form.

Speaker 1 (29:18):
It's incredible and a long read too, Like a thick
book for an advertorial made it seem very professional. Yeah. Yeah,
the frustrating thing for people that are bored. Matt, to
your point, you know and they think, well, maybe I
maybe I'm missing something, Maybe there is a shortcut. Just
go look for people that have been through that before.

(29:39):
Because man, the number of stories we've seen people in
their fifties even who found a way to cobble together
a retirement, even though they started late and they didn't
do any of those things, they didn't do any of
those shortcuts. They actually built a foundation, which was super
cool to see.

Speaker 3 (29:55):
Yeah, that comparison too. I think that we're all comparing
ourselves to people, but we don't know more than ever before,
and that makes it easier to justify.

Speaker 2 (30:04):
Man, I started too late. I gotta like, I gotta
what's the catalyst to get me going? And oftentimes it
is riskier products, higher returns. Your eyeballs get bigger and
you're excited about that, then your and ultimately what happens
is it puts you further behind so much of the time.

Speaker 3 (30:18):
Yeah, and Joe, so I'll segue us to number three
because you're talking about how like our parents and the
older generations, they built this foundation. They didn't partake in
any of those things. And one of the things they
did partake in is home ownership. And yes, that's how
a lot of folks were able to build wealth because
and that's it's still the number one asset that Americans have,
their their personal network tied up in right their home.
But that is changing and that's something that I think

(30:40):
we've continued to see this year. And so that's our
number three is that renting is not throwing away money.
And just because individuals our parents' generation, and there are
plenty of folks who'll die on this hill and they said,
you guys understand how much of my wealth is because
of this amazing property that I have.

Speaker 1 (30:56):
And I'm not at all saying that, No, that's not true,
but I am.

Speaker 3 (30:58):
Saying that because of how easy it is for folks
to invest, because of automatic enrollment in four one ks,
it's easier than ever four folks to use platforms like
said Robinhood.

Speaker 4 (31:11):
This is why we have like a I've got a
love hate relationship with.

Speaker 3 (31:13):
Them, because they do make it so easy for you
to invest in the market in a way that was
inaccessible to our parents and their parents as well. And
so the fact that individuals can now find a great
place to live that's affordable, that they're going to rent
without having to save up tens of thousands of dollars
in order to put down a decent down payment. I
think that's incredible.

Speaker 2 (31:33):
They are receiving a good So a place to live
depends on economic cycles, right we talk about buying verse
renting in twenty eleven and buying verse renting in twenty
twenty five. They're completely different discussions based on prices, based
on interest rate, based on market trends. So you have
to also just kind of like lick your fingers, stick
it up to the wind and be like, where what's

(31:53):
going on right now? And the discrepancy between what you're
going to pay when you buy a house for that
mortgage and what you're going to pay in rent for
a similar single family home, You're going to save a
lot of money renting. In twenty twenty five and twenty eleven,
that wasn't the case, And so you just have to
like understand also, like what's happening in the market. The
housing market is in an interesting spot. Rents have been

(32:14):
declining in a lot of places, in particular in certain
markets like Austin or Boise that experienced extreme run ups,
and so I think that's really important to not just
be like assume that owning a home is the pathway
to building wealth, Like that's the way I'm going to
make it and realize, well, actually, a lot of people
that bought homes in the past year are kind of
kicking themselves, are having a hard time, hard go of it.

Speaker 1 (32:36):
Well, I think that is the data changes, right, I
mean in the amount of money it takes for a
down payment now just continues to go sky high. I
was speaking to a gentleman in southern California. When he
bought his first house, he put down ten thousand dollars
maybe it's twelve thousand dollars now. For his daughter, who
has a good job making I think eighty five thousand

(32:57):
dollars right out of college, you know, nice solid start.
She's got to accumulate, you know, five times that just
to live anywhere close to that neighborhood, yeap, just to
sniff a house, right. Yeah. And then there's another thing too,
because I love the fact that Joel you mentioned economic
conditions are changing. But really, even with the old metrics
of don't buy a house unless you know you're going

(33:19):
to live there seven years, the statistics even have changed
from twenty eleven to twenty five when it comes to
job stability. Yeah, I mean people are working more jobs,
moving more frequently than they have even in twenty eleven.

Speaker 2 (33:34):
Yeah, yeah, that's true too. I know people are worried
about the job market. We're still relatively low unemployment historically speaking,
but the job market, I think it also feels like
a whiplash because, like post COVID, it was an employees
market and it was like, are you gonna pay me
thirty percent more than my current employer? Then I don't care,
I'm not interested. So in some ways that was really
cool to see because we hadn't seen that much power

(33:56):
in the hands of workers, the ability to demand more,
the ability to jump and get paid a whole lot
more than they were, and that has changed. I don't
think it's maybe as bad as some of the headlines
want to make it sound, but I do think it
is obvious. It's clearly tougher than it was a few
years ago. But we've also had much more labor markets
in the United States and we're experiencing right now.

Speaker 1 (34:15):
Joe, how many children do you have?

Speaker 4 (34:16):
I have three.

Speaker 1 (34:17):
If your kid's ever seen you make that head motion
when you're like uh uh, probably when I'm dancing with
their mother. They think you're the coolest dat on earth. No,
not at all. I'm surprised because with moves like that,
my friend, ever.

Speaker 3 (34:29):
Since he grew out the mustache, I think they he
clicked up a couple of notches.

Speaker 4 (34:33):
They do like the mustache. The kids are a fan
of it.

Speaker 1 (34:36):
I will say that, I said while we were sitting
here at the card table before we went live. I
even told Joel he just looks like a private detective.
Like I just I don't know the mustache really does it.

Speaker 2 (34:45):
I should probably wear a monocle. Maybe that'll add even
more to the mystique.

Speaker 3 (34:48):
You could be alongside Benedict Cumberbatch. There, Yeah, she'll lock
Holmes reboot.

Speaker 1 (34:53):
I didn't even want to think about that. So let's
move to number two again. What's second on our list
of twenty twenty five topics. We're going to go back
to p its briefly.

Speaker 2 (35:01):
Here show Yes super fun the government shut down, longest
government shut down in the history of our country, and
it just points to something so freaking basic but so important,
which is to plan ahead for bad times.

Speaker 3 (35:17):
This is obviously the emergency fund. Uh, everybody who listens
to this podcast knows about that. It's also something we
call the bare bones budget, which is planning ahead and
saying like, what could we cut in case of emergency,
And it's really important, we think, to have done that
due diligence ahead of time, because guess what really sucks
to get laid off on a Friday and then Saturday
be like, well, what are we gonna cut? You know,
and having done that exercise, I think puts power into

(35:41):
your hands to be able to know exactly what you're
going to do in the face of uncertainty and in
the face of not knowing when you're going to get
another paycheck, and so obviously tough position for a lot
of people on the government payroll for what nine hundred
thousand people to go through and to not know when
this is going to end and feel like it's a
political football and you are the football being kicked round.
That sucks, But there are ways to make that hurt

(36:04):
a little bit less with some solid personal finance planning. Yeah,
and it's kind of going back to what you're saying too, Joe.
I mean, it just highlights the fact that in my mind,
if you would have said twenty years ago, oh, I've
got a government job that's sort of synonymous with stability,
with an inability, I don't know, inability to.

Speaker 4 (36:23):
Lose your job.

Speaker 3 (36:24):
Something that feels very stable and upwards and kind of onwards,
like being.

Speaker 4 (36:27):
A tenured professor or something.

Speaker 6 (36:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (36:29):
Yeah, but for those folks, that's maybe one of the
biggest lessons learned. And of course, not ignoring the current
administration's stance towards the size of government. But like, aside
from politics, like I think it's fair to assess and
ask the questions, Hey, what jobs, what departments are necessary?
Is there a way for us to be more efficient?

(36:49):
I mean that's we do that constantly in our own lives, and.

Speaker 1 (36:52):
So businesses do it. We reward them.

Speaker 2 (36:54):
Yeah, yes, And both sides of the aisle care about
that and have done different things at different points in
time to reduce wasteful spending. Right is that where I
say right s Yeah, yeah, only if you agree, Joe.
I well, no, I mean like it not to get political,
but it happened back in the Clinton administration, and it's happened.

Speaker 4 (37:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:14):
Both Republicans and Democrats have at a certain point given
at least lip service to the fact that they care.

Speaker 7 (37:18):
Start.

Speaker 4 (37:19):
Yes, that's the thing. Yeah too.

Speaker 3 (37:20):
I mean regarding lip service, it seems like it's just
more is is it even lip service now?

Speaker 1 (37:24):
Because that's the thing.

Speaker 3 (37:25):
Like again, man, we really are to like dive into
the politics here, sorry Joe, But like where do we
try to take We try we talk about it. We
try to talk as a political and as both sides
of the aisle as possible. But when you've got to
current administration that says, oh, yeah, this is something that
we care about, and they created this entire new department,
and then you see the kind of spending that's going
on on.

Speaker 4 (37:45):
Some ridiculous stuff.

Speaker 3 (37:46):
It makes you question, that makes you scratch your head
and you start to wonder, oh, it's hardly even lip
service anymore. Like there is no concern from a fiscal
responsibility standpoint, Like we are so far past the days
of the Tea Party and any sort of semblance to
what taking a personal finance approach from on an individual
level and trying to apply that to the government. Like
in hindsight that I feel so quaint, doesn't it feel

(38:08):
so quaint?

Speaker 4 (38:09):
It just nobody cares about that anymore? Yet nobody does.

Speaker 1 (38:11):
Yees, I was thinking about even reversing that. Guys just
taking this idea of let's cut wasteful spending and just
rather than fight with people I don't know on Facebook
or x or wherever, pick your place, look inward and go, okay,
if I'm holding myself accountable here, rather than fight about

(38:31):
stuff I can't control in Washington, where are my wasteful
spending places? Yeah, and by wasteful, I don't mean being
judgy because there's stuff that I love, Like I'm not
cutting out my Andy's ice cream, Like I freaking love
Andy's ice cream. Those people know me. I got to
keep that business afloat. It's a focus helping the community
and everything. You know, I literally have a line item
on my budget.

Speaker 3 (38:51):
Joe, when this new brewery that opened up in town,
and I said, you know what, craft beers having a moment,
Like in a tough moment, right, there's more breweries that
are closing that close this year.

Speaker 1 (39:00):
It's our number one.

Speaker 3 (39:00):
It's it's craft beer related. Just kidding, but I want
to make sure that they succeed, right. And so to
intentionally spend your money in a way that some people
would call wasteful, and we call that the craft beer
equivalent but I literally do that with a local brewery
and guess what, every date night, my wife and I
we swing by there and we have.

Speaker 1 (39:16):
A beer and we chat and you love it and
we love it.

Speaker 4 (39:18):
It's so great, not wasteful at all.

Speaker 1 (39:20):
But when you're blowing cash on stuff that you don't
care about, door dashing some reheated meal or whatever that
you truly don't care about, you know, what are you doing?
Love that? What was the point of number two where
we where do we begin?

Speaker 2 (39:34):
It was like government shut down, Be prepared. There's stuff
that can come out of left field and just kind
of smacky in the face. Most of the time. You
can't be like you don't have fore warning, but you
know what, you do have the ability to plan for
the unexpected.

Speaker 1 (39:49):
This is also where I think, you know, the argument
of uh, don't pay down debt that has a low
interest rate, continue to just make payments on it also
falters because it's really focusing on free cash flow during
that time. Like people that had a lot of free
cash flow, I'll bet had a ton easier time getting

(40:10):
through the shutdown if they lost their job than people
that needed every single penny of that paycheck.

Speaker 2 (40:15):
Yeah, that's true, although when you think about it, if
you're making extra payments towards let's say a low interest
rate mortgage, you're taking some of what you could have done,
which is kept it liquid in the case of an emergency.
You've given yourself optionality with that money, and you're not
losing much in the process. If it's in a higal
savings campaign three point seventy five and your mortgage is
three and a quarter, prepaying the mortgage, not only does

(40:36):
it not make a ton of math sense, but it
also cost you liquidity in the case of one of
those unforeseen circumstances coming down the pike.

Speaker 1 (40:43):
Yeah. I like both sides of that argument. I like
my side better, but you know, whatever on my side's
probably yeah, But well, yeah, I do like the idea.
I do like the idea joll of this. This is
what I used to tell my clients that were paying
down debt directly to their loan, which was, if your
one payment away from paying your house off and you

(41:04):
can't afford to make that last payment, do they only
take away the one piece, little tiny chunk of the
house that you didn't pay or do they take the
entire house and they take the entire house.

Speaker 4 (41:16):
It's true.

Speaker 1 (41:17):
I still like the idea of it's not always about
the interest rate discussion. It is often about free cash flow.
I mean, we evaluate stocks based on free cash flow.
We'll evaluate you know people, healthy living is free cash flow.
And if I can create more free cash flow in
my life, how cool is that? Because then I can
go with Matt to the to the brewery and keep
them in the bilging ice cream after the fact too,

(41:39):
beer and ice cream. We'll get all the we're healthy
folks over here in the basements. Can't imagine? All right,
we're up to the number one. I got goosebumps, just
can't wait. Okay, what is the number one thing we
should have learned from in twenty twenty five? Do you
want to switch it up? Do you feel like we
need to go big or something that impacts We're gonna
go out. What are you gonna do? You're gonna pull

(41:59):
something instead of it kind of impacts everything?

Speaker 4 (42:03):
Okay?

Speaker 1 (42:04):
Sorry?

Speaker 3 (42:04):
Is it okay that we're having an on air conversation
as to what's show we should actually deliver on the radio.

Speaker 1 (42:10):
It's great radio. Everyone loves to know how the sausage
is made.

Speaker 4 (42:13):
Jude, Yeah, they do.

Speaker 3 (42:15):
I think AI like it's got to be at the top,
right because not only have we seen its impact when
it comes to investments, I mean, is or is not
the stock market run up? Does it have more or
less to do with the mag seven and pretty much
all the games that we've seen this year has.

Speaker 4 (42:30):
To do with that.

Speaker 3 (42:31):
Are we in a bubble? There's a lot of folks
who are saying that that that might be the case.

Speaker 1 (42:36):
What do you think, Joe, bubble? Yay, nay. I think
at some point the stock market always comes down. Yeah,
that's what I think. I think it's not a matter
of if, it's a matter of when, and so if
you're prepared that it's going to happen. I don't know
if it's gonna happen tomorrow, next week or three years
from now. But it's always funny people like, do you
think the market's going to go down? Yes?

Speaker 4 (42:56):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's just a matter of when and
how much?

Speaker 1 (42:58):
Right, Yeah, yeah, so I think I don't know. That's
about my pay grade.

Speaker 2 (43:01):
So from the macro level, from the stock market level,
AI certainly one of the biggest stories of the year,
and then on the micro level, when it comes to careers,
how AI is implemented, how that's impacting the job market.
Also when it comes to using AI for personal finance,
there's pros and cons to that in some ways, like

(43:22):
I was asking it about five twenty nine accounts in
my state and it totally led me astray and told
me that I could contribute half as much as I
was able to and get a tax break. So I
was like, glad, I know better than you. But then
there are other ways in which I've seen people be
able to use it effectively, Like one of those instances
being like I got this like really insane medical bill.

(43:42):
What do I do in response to this? And we
have podcast episodes about that with like experts. I know
you do two Joe, that's a really important topic. But
AI can help you like fight the man and clutch
your money back from the system that's trying to steal
your dollars because there's so much inefficiency in the healthcare
system and there's so much like overbilling, and there's so
many ways that you can go about even as simple

(44:05):
as like well how much money I do do I make?
And do I qualify for a full forgiveness of this bill?
That I've received in the mail. So I think AI
is one of those things where I'm curious to see
where it goes over the coming years. There's some pausities,
but there's some negatives, and again, discerning individual like that's
what so much comes down to, Right, You just have
to be discerning in the age of AI because there's

(44:25):
like a lot of fake stuff out there, and then
there's some helpful parts of it.

Speaker 1 (44:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (44:27):
Yeah, So like, so we're talking about it at an
investment level, you're talking about it like on a personal level,
how you can use it as a tool, but then
just from a workforce standpoint as well, Right, And there's
reports about it that it's capable of replacing currently twelve
percent of the current workforce. I think that's something that
we've got to really wrestle with and trying to figure
out for And folks are like, I think that's one

(44:50):
of the encouraging things too, Right, the fact that people
are responding to it, Like you see folks who are
applying to be computer science majors, like you are seeing
people respond to the writing on the wall, and there's
saying Okay, yeah, I don't see I don't see a
future I thought I was going to do that, but
let's maybe let's pivot a little bit, and I think
giving I think as individuals we have to be especially

(45:11):
if you are in an industry that is a bit
more dynamic right now, you got to be away. You
can't just like blindly enter into that and assume hope
for the best. Like, these are decisions that we have
to make, trade offs that we have to make and evaluate,
like what is this going to mean for me for
my industry as well? Not just using it like a tool,
which I think everybody's pretty much doing right, Like there's
no we're not going to argue one way or the

(45:32):
other there.

Speaker 4 (45:33):
Like it's like essentially it's replaced Google for.

Speaker 3 (45:35):
Me, right, Like these are the same dumb questions of
like if you look at my history, it's like stuff
that I should know, but I just Google because I
want to help a double check.

Speaker 1 (45:42):
Don't look at his history you don't want you don't
want to know Joels is Katy Perry in space? Yeah
it is. I love those memes, all the memes. I'm
here for them.

Speaker 2 (45:51):
But there's something like thirty year olds are saying, like,
but I was told to go to college and then
everything would be fine. And I think we're seeing a
generational shift too, where jens Ze teenagers are like, I'm
seeing what's happening up there. I think I might need
to take a different route. I'm seeing the writing on
the wall with AI. I'm seeing what happened to the
generation that went before me. And it's not that we
would never suggest that like college is like a ripoff

(46:14):
or a ridiculous idea for most people. But again you
have to think twice, think about, well, how much is
it going to cost, what sort of.

Speaker 1 (46:20):
Education am I get? What am I going to be
able to do with that education?

Speaker 2 (46:22):
At the end of the day, in the world of AI,
you have to ask those questions in a much deeper
way to make a good decision. And I think in
particularly the cost of it matters so much. If you
can go to college for one hundred and fifty grand
or if you can get that same degree for twelve
thousand dollars, there really is that level of disparity between
different schools that you can choose to go to, when
it comes to scholarships, when it comes to financial aid,

(46:43):
when it comes to prestige and getting the degree for
a whole lot less matters even more now I.

Speaker 1 (46:48):
Think a great stoic perspective on everything you guys just said.
It just makes me think of if, at any time
in my life I feel complacent and like everything is safe.
This year proved that that may be wrong. Yeah that
you know, my job is safe because I'm a lawyer.
Look at the destruction AIS had on the bottom layers

(47:11):
of legal firms, in the number of jobs that got
replaced there very quickly. Look at what's going to happen
to truck drivers over the next several years. Is he's
self driving trucks? You know, come online more and more
and more. Look what's largely happened in well, shoot, pick
a ton of fields in journalism where you know this
Pakistani newspaper just got caught leaving the prompt at the

(47:34):
bottom of the article that was supposedly written by a human.
Oh this was great. It's just stellar journalism where it
says write a piece for me x YZ. Well.

Speaker 4 (47:47):
The great thing is it can't touch podcasting, right.

Speaker 1 (47:50):
No, not at all, And yet this year we saw
have you seen have you seen those fake podcasters? And
how good they are? I haven't?

Speaker 3 (47:58):
Are they good?

Speaker 4 (47:58):
Like Google? The notebook, I should be worried.

Speaker 3 (48:01):
It's it's really impressive because they can imitate what people
come to expect out of a podcast. But honestly, like,
I mean, I'm not personally too concerned. Maybe I should be, Joe,
you let me know after the fact, we'll hit, we'll
stop recording, and then you let me know if I
should be shaking in my boots.

Speaker 1 (48:17):
But I just think we should always be concerned. I mean,
there should always be I think it's a great perspective,
right when you plan, plan for the worst, and then
when the best appens, you're always grateful.

Speaker 3 (48:26):
Yeah, yeah, I guess there's an element of always looking
over our shoulder. But like what I'm speaking to is
the fact that so much of what and I'm sure
you've seen this, right, like so much of what we
talk about. Yeah, we're talking about personal finance, but we are, man,
this is going to start getting really insider baseball.

Speaker 1 (48:39):
But like we're drawing on personal stories.

Speaker 3 (48:41):
It's about stuff that we're doing today, things lessons that
we have learned as individuals.

Speaker 1 (48:46):
You don't get that with no large language models. I
don't know like it does.

Speaker 3 (48:49):
All is Gemini placing an instacart order and learning that
it's paying fifty percent more, you know, for it's all
the order.

Speaker 1 (48:57):
That's something that I.

Speaker 3 (48:57):
Literally I learned recently, you know, that really pissed me off.

Speaker 1 (49:02):
Like I was always embarrassed to share that because.

Speaker 3 (49:04):
I'm like, I'm like the frugal Aldi leftover eaten son
of a gun that doesn't throw any of his leftovers away.

Speaker 1 (49:13):
And then I was like, oh my gosh, I got duped.

Speaker 3 (49:16):
They fooled me, They tricked me, And that's not something
that happens to computers, right, Computers.

Speaker 1 (49:19):
All nice, and you went to Aldi in the first place,
got ripped away from you.

Speaker 3 (49:23):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's something about that that feels doubly bad.

Speaker 1 (49:26):
Like if it happened at Whole Foods, I'm like, yeah,
what do you expect?

Speaker 3 (49:30):
I was like artisanal beef jerky, of course I was
going to pay premium for that, but not for my
what's it the Aldi egg brand.

Speaker 1 (49:37):
Or whatever something Happy farms.

Speaker 3 (49:39):
Not for Happy Farms, Like come on, if I treat
you like that, I'm getting Happy Farms cheese, Like I'm
expecting to pay slightly more than like government cheese prices,
you know, like, come on.

Speaker 1 (49:50):
Those are the types of stories that AI doesn't give you,
but you do get on the How the Money podcast. So, guys,
thanks for sharing five stories that we can learn from
this year. Let's talk about what's going on and how
to Money. You guys know both our listeners are probably
asleep at this point, so say something that you normally
wouldn't stay on air about what's coming up, Like some

(50:12):
big reveal of some big topic that's going to happen
at How the Money that the Stacker universe will know.

Speaker 3 (50:20):
First, Matt's going to start live streaming on Rumble, but
he's going to do a nude and I just think
it's going to be really appealing to a wide trying
to supplement the how to Money income with a little
bit of additional Holy fans kind of revenue is just
streaming in.

Speaker 1 (50:33):
Here, Matt, here's my wallet, damn it, Just sign me up.

Speaker 3 (50:37):
I just got a notification that, like a Joe Joe
ss just.

Speaker 1 (50:45):
So seally benefit here is that I don't.

Speaker 4 (50:50):
Have to pay taxes because that's a tip.

Speaker 1 (50:51):
That's right, see that we both win both ways.

Speaker 4 (50:57):
I love it, amen.

Speaker 1 (50:58):
Yeah, all because of the new government, what's coming up
on how to many guys.

Speaker 2 (51:01):
Dude, we're going to keep podcasting. We're going to keep
until the AI takes over.

Speaker 3 (51:05):
Till they read our microphones from our hands, the necessity
for us to exist in any way for or fashion.
We're gonna keep doing it and just keep interviewing interesting folks.
We answered listener questions and the Friday flights I think
are my favorite, or we're just like talking about stuff
like this, like what is top of mind this week?
How does it impact your money? And then typically and
then we try to give like an evergreen sort of
lesson that comes from it. Well, here's, yeah, here's how

(51:28):
might impact your finances. But then what's the long term
approach to that, because that's honestly how you win in
personal finances taking that long term approach. Every time I
try to go like the short term route, man, I
end up screwing things up, whether it's like a home
rento or like, yeah, like trying to get a gift
from my wife and I'm like, I'm just gonna make
it super quick, and then it's like a crappy gift
and she's like, why'd you get this for me?

Speaker 4 (51:47):
Don't do that.

Speaker 1 (51:48):
That's that's at the how to Buddy Podcast, where finer
podcasts are found.

Speaker 4 (51:53):
True story.

Speaker 1 (51:54):
Thank you so much for mentoring our stackers guys. Glad
to be here, Thanks for having us.

Speaker 4 (51:58):
Great to see you. Joe.

Speaker 6 (52:03):
Hey, they're stackers. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Dug, and today
I'm putting up the stockings. So when Santa climbs his
fat button down our chimney, he'll know exactly what to
do first. I put my own stockings squarely in the middle,
of course, with Joe's way down at the end. That
dude's getting cold anyway, so it doesn't matter. But speaking
of Santa Claus, here's a term our newest stackers might

(52:25):
not know. What's the term involving Saint Nick, which describes
the upsurge of stocks that happens at the end of
many years during the last week of December. I'll be
back right after I go check out my own stock portfolio.
Let's see. Uh, well, it looks like I've got beef
stock and chicken stock. That's incredible. Damn they expired in

(52:47):
twenty nineteen. I have to call my broker at the
Piggy Wiggly. Hey, they're stackers. I'm souper lover and guy
who insists chicken and Stars is way better than chicken
noodle fight me, Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug, I gotta admit

(53:10):
I'm feeling warm and cozy here in Joe's mom's basement. Heck,
this hot water heater puts off enough heat that only
three of my toes aren't even numb. But speaking of heat,
the stock market often heats up the last week of
the year, and investors have a Saint Nick related term
for it. What do they call this surge in stock
prices during the last five days of trading? It's called

(53:31):
the Santa Claus Rally. And now here come two guys
rallying back to the mics to finish out twenty twenty
five in the strongest way possible. Well, you know, for
them it's Joe and Og. Good effort, guys, good effort.
You'll get back out there and try your best. Mom's
proud you can.

Speaker 1 (53:50):
Get the participation trophy you participated in the Holiday's good
for you.

Speaker 6 (53:54):
I cut up a whole bunch of oranges for you later,
super do I get.

Speaker 1 (53:58):
A Caprice son as well. By the way, Doug, I
haven't had chicken and Stars since I was like nine, og,
whin's the last time you had Chicken and Stars?

Speaker 4 (54:05):
Maybe? Never?

Speaker 1 (54:06):
Actually, it's so.

Speaker 6 (54:07):
Much better than regular chicken and noodle?

Speaker 1 (54:09):
Is it? When's the last time you had it? Doug?

Speaker 6 (54:11):
Probably in the last two months. Really, we buy it regularly.
I love chicken and Stars, Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (54:19):
Now now I want to buy it.

Speaker 6 (54:22):
I just you're gonna be like, he's right, damn it.

Speaker 1 (54:25):
It's gonna set me back a dollar twelve and it's
on you.

Speaker 6 (54:27):
That's crazy that that can of soup is a buck twelve.

Speaker 1 (54:30):
Yeah, and it's so basic. How about that. That's a
blast from the past. Thanks to Joela Matt for hanging
out o Gee, I saw the look on your face.
Not surprising to you at all that they also thought
AI the big news from twenty twenty five. Do you
think it's gonna be I think it's gonna be even
bigger in twenty twenty six.

Speaker 5 (54:46):
I'm waiting for it to do something magical. I think
right now it's at some level souped up Google. And
I find it funny that when you Google something now
it's like the AI answer is this.

Speaker 4 (54:57):
It's like, so the other Google answer is this?

Speaker 8 (55:00):
Right?

Speaker 4 (55:00):
You know?

Speaker 5 (55:01):
Like it's just an in depth Google answer. It's supposedly
you know AI.

Speaker 4 (55:06):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (55:07):
It does try to be crazy when you ask Siria
questions like would you like me to ask chat GPT? Well, no,
I was hoping you could just answer it. I don't
care as long as you give me the right answer,
do whatever you want.

Speaker 6 (55:17):
Everybody is talking about and kind of bitching about the AI.
That's more consumer facing, I'll say, with all the crazy
videos that are getting made or you know, the chat
shpet type answers. But the real miracle part that most
of us aren't talking about, seeing thinking about is all
of the coding that it can do, all of the

(55:38):
heavy lifting on basic code structures to create apps that
we never see the people are able to do now
with almost no or much less coding experience. Stuff has
to get cleaned up by more experienced technologists, but there's
a lot of fundamental foundational tech stuff that it is
doing that unfortunately, Yeah, it's making away some entry level jobs,

(56:02):
but that's where I think the real impressive stuff is happening. Oh,
we still see, we see all the other st.

Speaker 1 (56:07):
We're seeing the chrome, just the chromer on the edge. Yeah, Yeah,
there's a bunch going on under the hood. Well, let's
pivot away from that to our next segment, which is
Pivett time, Nenbett time to talk to somebody who said,
you know what, I better call Saul see I and Og.
This is the part of the show where we shine
a light on your questions. Normally we've been tackling these.

(56:30):
In twenty twenty six, we'll be teckling with our friend
Anna Ellam and we're going to be doing those a
lot in twenty twenty six. So Stacky Benjamin's dot com
slash voicemail and we already have a few, but we
can always use more. But we do have a special
one that Mom's Frank Gertrude said we should probably listen to today.
This call comes to us from Nick.

Speaker 8 (56:56):
Hello, Joe and Og. This is Santa hmm, Nick calling
from the North Alaska. I have to say I travel
around the world once a year and love catching up
on the show. It's a jolly good time, even though
I don't learn a thing. Here's my question. I've got

(57:20):
terrible budget problems. Several years ago, I told them missus
that I give presents to a bunch of kids. I
don't know pay it forward. She said, you will become
a legend. That sort of thing. Well, I have to
say it's gotten out of hand. Oh every stink in year,
I load up my sleigh in my pickup with all

(57:44):
of these toys. It used to be trucks, trains and barbies,
but now they want iPads, xboxes and thousand dollar phones.
I mean, I give these ankle biters everything they ask for,
and they always just come back. I'm asking for more.
I know what you're going to say, og, and before

(58:05):
you say it, I've already tried to cut my costs.
We had the great idea of stuffing things in socks
to limit the amounts, but before you know it, that
just became an add on. And now these rascals all
expect a sock full of junk and their silly presence,
oh greedy little and all for what all I get

(58:27):
in return is a few Christmas cookies, And now they're
all gluten free. Where's the fun in that? Between us?
I've even gone so far as to hire a bunch
of undocumented workers. They're out in my workshop behind the
house making knockoff purses and jewelry as we speak. I
wouldn't be surprised if the Feds knock on my door

(58:48):
tomorrow and shut us down. And if that weren't a
big enough problem, we used deer in our delivery system,
and the animal rights people about breathing down my neck.
I really truly don't know what to do anymore. So
here's what I need to know. How do I cut

(59:10):
when there's nothing left to trim? What would you do
if you were me? Thanks, guys.

Speaker 1 (59:17):
That always sounds familiar.

Speaker 4 (59:18):
I feel like we've heard that before undocumented workers.

Speaker 1 (59:22):
But what do you do, o gee, when you're just
trying to control your cost and you're really not sure
where the income's coming from?

Speaker 5 (59:29):
Just say no? Tried that this year. My mom got
all super mad. I called her and I said, Hey,
I need you to do one thing for me when
I was a kid, and tell me how this worked
for you guys, Because Joe, you guys, you had a
big family. Doug not as big of a family. I
don't think with the nieces and nephews. Did you guys
have big like Grandma Grandpa holiday parties where all the
aunts and uncles, cousin's, nieces and nephews are at one place.

Speaker 4 (59:50):
Did y'all do that.

Speaker 1 (59:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5 (59:53):
What was the rule on the kids getting presents? Which
adults got what kid it's presence? And when did you
stop being a kid? Any idea? Was it firm or
was it just kind of whatever? In my house, it
was always a pretty firm cut off. Oh, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:00:09):
I felt like sometime during college years, oh it just
went yeah bye bye.

Speaker 6 (01:00:16):
Yeah, I would agree.

Speaker 4 (01:00:17):
Was very very crystal clear.

Speaker 5 (01:00:20):
Eighth after high school, you didn't get any presents except
for Graham and Grandpa will get your president obviously, but
you know, because before that, there was you know, aunts
and uncles, we had godparents. That's how we did it.
Was the godparents would give you gifts because we had
lots of cousins. But yeah, it was very clear. It
was like, once you're out of high school, we're done
with that. Now you're just here as an adult to
enjoy the company.

Speaker 4 (01:00:41):
Basically.

Speaker 6 (01:00:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:00:43):
And so I sent that to my mom.

Speaker 5 (01:00:44):
I was like, hey, you know, this is what i'd
like to do, and she's like, you deal with that
with your siblings, and I'm like, well, the only person
that affects is me, because I have an eighteen year
old in college and my other brother who has like
his kids are thirty and I'm like, I just I
don't want there to be any surprises. And since you're
the grandma.

Speaker 1 (01:01:02):
It should come from you declare it.

Speaker 5 (01:01:04):
Go this is how it's gonna be because it's my party.
We've got a fight about it, but but yeah, that's
what I would do. I would just go, No, you're thirty, man,
you're not getting anything from I'm not the funcal for you.
I'm the funcal for like the five year old ones.
That's how I control costs.

Speaker 6 (01:01:18):
Well.

Speaker 1 (01:01:18):
I think sometimes it's also an income problem, right, I
mean it truly is. You got to just go look
for income opportunities, look for a way to kind of
score Rais maybe all these different houses he stops at,
maybe he gets a little something something from them.

Speaker 6 (01:01:30):
At my house, he's turning around that little screen that says,
I'm just gonna ask It's just gonna ask you a
couple of questions.

Speaker 4 (01:01:35):
Exactly does that happened to you?

Speaker 8 (01:01:38):
Guys?

Speaker 1 (01:01:38):
Yet?

Speaker 5 (01:01:38):
On the with the UPS Guy, he's like, I just
need the name and quick signature, and I'm just gonna
ask you.

Speaker 4 (01:01:43):
A quick question right here.

Speaker 6 (01:01:44):
Not with a UPS guy.

Speaker 4 (01:01:46):
Oh, now it doesn't happen with you.

Speaker 6 (01:01:47):
No, no, oh, no, I haven't had that.

Speaker 1 (01:01:50):
Thanks for the call, Nick. If you've got a call
for us, we're happy to help stacking Benjamin's dot com
slash voicemail.

Speaker 5 (01:01:56):
These ankle biers. G don't want to get no presence
for no ankle biers anymore. I'm trying to get out
of it. My mom won't help me.

Speaker 1 (01:02:05):
If there is a tradition here, that segment may be
one of my favorite traditions. Let's do a quick headline.

Speaker 7 (01:02:12):
Hello, darlings, and now it's time to your favorite part
of the show.

Speaker 5 (01:02:16):
I was stacking Benjamin's headlines.

Speaker 1 (01:02:19):
Our headline today comes to us from Investment News again.
We had one last week, and I'm turning there again
this week. O G because this piece written by Greg
Greenberg expect change and investor behavior in twenty twenty six
as prediction markets expand. And I'm like, what is prediction markets?

(01:02:40):
Prediction mar Elsie.

Speaker 5 (01:02:42):
If you think gambling is is a dictave, this isn't
gambling at all. This isn't sports betting. It's sports predicting.
It's way different.

Speaker 1 (01:02:51):
This is a whole piece. It's a whole piece on
sports betting moving further into the mainstream and now prediction
markets and platform forms like robin Hood and Stackers. You
just heard me let Matt talk about his love hate
relationship with Robinhood without saying a word. Aren't you proud
of me? I waited until they left before I'm saying anything.
But they are accelerating into the space this year, adding

(01:03:13):
these new features and so features. This whole piece o
cheage is advisors talking about how do you work with
clients to avoid this place where many of the brokerages
seem to be headed.

Speaker 5 (01:03:31):
The question is how do you tell clients not to
do this? Is that your question?

Speaker 8 (01:03:36):
Well?

Speaker 1 (01:03:36):
But what if they continue to do it? You know
what I mean?

Speaker 4 (01:03:38):
Care?

Speaker 5 (01:03:39):
I mean, I mean it's on you. Well, okay, so
at some level, this is no different than sports betting.

Speaker 4 (01:03:46):
Right.

Speaker 5 (01:03:46):
The headline that I got out of this was, I mean,
not out of this particular piece here, but just this
whole industry is this is a spin off of sports
betting for the states that don't allow sports betting. It's
like there's different apps and you know, because like, oh
well this is fantasy sports. You can do that here
for money, you just can't bet on how many touchdowns
your favorite player is going to have. It's like, Okay,

(01:04:08):
what are we doing. It's like when they little crass.
It's like when they banned all the websites in different states.
They're like, you can't go to those websites anymore unless
you use a VPN, right, and then you can.

Speaker 1 (01:04:19):
It just reminds me of just it just reminds me
of growing up in Michigan and there were no alcohol
sales until noon on Sunday because John's position changed on alcohol.

Speaker 5 (01:04:31):
Exactly at noon is when Jesus said, and let there
be drunks.

Speaker 1 (01:04:36):
This is when the water changed into why on the.

Speaker 5 (01:04:38):
Eighth day he said that must be drunk after the
first quarter at the end of.

Speaker 1 (01:04:43):
Some of these arbitrary rules just cracked them.

Speaker 5 (01:04:46):
Yeah, I spend my life looking for incongruencies, so that
those types of things really cracked me up. But this
is basically nothing more. I'm going to use the sports
betting piece of it. This is nothing more than a
futures contract that you can do with.

Speaker 4 (01:05:01):
Your favorite team.

Speaker 5 (01:05:02):
And so the question is is this profoundly different than
any other sort of futures or options trade. And as
long as you understand that the mathematics are the same,
which are an insane return if you're correct in exchange
for zero dollars, not zero return zero dollars if you're incorrect, right,

(01:05:23):
and the likelihood of being correct is you know whatever,
and then that's how it's priced. So this is gambling
at its finest. And if you do this with your
investment portfolio as a way to entertain yourself, so be it.

Speaker 1 (01:05:38):
One of the advisors in this piece, Rob Wolfe said
that emotion and confidence routinely overpowered discipline probability thinking when
you're either doing sports based betting or you're doing these
now these predictive market things. Adding client sport.

Speaker 5 (01:05:57):
Just say sports betting because it's the same, but there
are other areas.

Speaker 1 (01:06:00):
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. This is gonna spill over
into what do you think the Dow's gonna do? What
do you think that you know who's going to win
the election? Who's gonna you know, you can bet on
whatever you want. Adding clients often underestimate how quickly small
repeated losses add up over time. So we go from
this thing where our brain this discipline probability thinking of hey,

(01:06:22):
I'm gonna stick with the index fund because the probability
is I'm gonna win much more often than I lose.
And all I need to do is get these small
incremental wins far more often than I get the small losses.
But I love what Wolf says here, which is these
tiny sometimes small losses, oh ge, they just add up quickly,
and all of a sudden, now it turns into well,
I just got to bet a little bigger to quote

(01:06:43):
win it back.

Speaker 5 (01:06:45):
There's a whole town but built on this thinking. And
you only have to go to Las Vegas one time
with an open mind and say, these fine folks here
did not.

Speaker 4 (01:06:55):
Borrow this money to build this big building. They've got
a pretty good system here for extracting capital from the
average citizen.

Speaker 1 (01:07:03):
Yeah, they know the ROI before they break round.

Speaker 4 (01:07:06):
I mean, the other day the power ball was at
a billion.

Speaker 5 (01:07:09):
I don't know what it's at now if anybody won it,
But you know, did you guys play it?

Speaker 4 (01:07:13):
When I was at a billion?

Speaker 1 (01:07:13):
One hundred percent played it absolutely?

Speaker 4 (01:07:16):
You know why.

Speaker 1 (01:07:17):
Somebody's got to donate to that thing to make it
keep going up? Why not me?

Speaker 4 (01:07:21):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (01:07:22):
Well, the reason that you buy the three dollars ticket
or whatever, or thirty bucks worth of tickets because you
bought ten of them, is because you go, some idiots
got to win this thing. It's one in a trillion.
But you know what, some a hole gets hit by
lightning every year too, so so far, you know, might
as well be me.

Speaker 1 (01:07:40):
I walk out in the parking lot, get hit by lightning,
and I won. But in a different way.

Speaker 5 (01:07:44):
Yeah, that's how it works at the casino. That's how
it works in the options market. I mean, the Internet
is littered with people in the last five years who
have figured out option trading, not figured out who have
learned about option trading, and you see, just like everything else.
This is why I absolutely abhor everything about social media,

(01:08:05):
because you only see the stuff that people want you
to see, you know, I mean, just look at it
from like a reality TV show, right, What is the
most exciting part about the reality TV shows? Just generally speaking,
what do you like the most?

Speaker 1 (01:08:19):
Just the fact that it's unpredictable, what's going to happen next?

Speaker 4 (01:08:22):
That's not the answer. I is looking for Doug car crashes.

Speaker 5 (01:08:25):
Yes, absolutely, you want to see the big wins and
the big losses, like you want to see the relationships
that blow up because you know, you got the little
sneak peak camera and you didn't know that Betty was
cheating on Joe with Alan, and now Alan's gonna you
already know, and you're waiting for that thing to come
to a head, right because you want to see the
trainer broadly specific on social media. We want to see

(01:08:48):
the wild extremes. Nobody videotapes their day and goes, yeah,
so today I got up at seven fifty like I
always do, and it took a little longer shower than normal.

Speaker 4 (01:08:58):
It was fifteen minutes in.

Speaker 5 (01:09:00):
Yeah, I know, I ran out of cheerios, so today
I just didn't have breakfast, you know. And I reacted
to that like a normal person did and went, I'll
have a pop tart instead, and then I had a
cup of coffee and then I sat and watched the news.
It's like, no, that's what real life is. But when
you see people who, for lack of a better term,
like to just brag about what's happening, they don't talk

(01:09:23):
about all the boring stuff. They go, Hey, I put
one hundred bucks in this option trade and made a thousand.
I put ten thousand in this thing and you see
all these big wins, these big giant success stories, because
that's the interesting thing. When you're on Reddit. The stuff
that they feed you is the stuff that you linger on,
which is the stuff that is the most exciting stuff, right.

(01:09:45):
I like reading the story of the idiot that put
a thousand bucks in something and turned it into one
hundred thousand. That's interesting to me. I go, Wow, what
a lucky sob. That's pretty cool. But I also know
the other side of that same thing. With Instagram, you
see the stories about the people who you know, had
the miraculous weight loss, or fly the private airplanes or
whatever whatever it is, you know, shoot the great golf score.

(01:10:05):
You don't see the story of the person who sat
on the range for fifteen hours a day all summer
to have the one good round.

Speaker 4 (01:10:12):
You know. It's just it's not the thing that's exciting.

Speaker 1 (01:10:15):
Well, it's why when you see when they're playing poker.
When you watch poker on TV, they only show you
the cool hands. They don't show you the hours and
hours between the big hands.

Speaker 5 (01:10:25):
The casino system is built on there's got to be
some idiot out there that's going to pull this lever
and win a million bucks. Somebody's gonna do it, I
might as well be me. And I'm gonna put a
dollar in and see and I'm gonna put another dollar
in and what's what's ten dollars? And if I just
do you know, I just do ten dollars a day,
like that's not a lot.

Speaker 1 (01:10:42):
I like the analogy around options that it's always been here,
but I also think it's far more accessible than it's
been because options were so opaque to so many people
and now it's in our face, Robinhood, you know, gamification masters.
In fact, one of the advisors, Taylor knovs as as
a result of gamification, the culture has shifted, and I

(01:11:03):
see people as likely to talk about this beating the
market as they are a football game, like people are
going to go oh on my app. I invested in
the fact that I thought the market was going to
go up tomorrow and guess what it did, And so
I turned this amount of money into this amount of
money and it's so cool. And again, because of social media,
we're only going to see the wins, but it's going
to be far more often on these platforms than we

(01:11:25):
did with options, because what the hell's a put what
the hell is a call? People got lost in the names,
So let's talk about what really to do about it?
What these advisors are talking about? Rob Wolf again says
most of his clients og have some type of quote
entertainment investment that captures their attention even for a brief time.

(01:11:47):
And he says he's got this section of the portfolio
he and his client have carved out called the entertainment
capital bucket. So it just is entertainment. It's almost like
when I go to Vegas, I set money aside and
I'm like, I don't care if I win or lose.
This is entertainment money. I'm just having fun with this money.
This is not capital. If I lose it all, it's

(01:12:08):
just the cost of entertaining myself. So how much money
do I put in this? But his big thing is
whether it's traditional day trading, collectibles, crypto, other more speculative stuff.
He says he wants to make sure his clients label
it correctly. It's not about whether you do it or not,
Like it is a losing battle for advisors to go, yeah,
you shouldn't do that, Well, they're going to freaking do

(01:12:30):
it anyway. Instead, label it correctly, so in your brain,
you don't cost yourself your entire future.

Speaker 5 (01:12:37):
Ultimately, this comes back down to your planning. And I'm
a big believer in once the plan is good to go,
then everything else is fair game. Because some person, to
your point about entertainment, some person's entertainment is going to
the movies and having a bag of popcorn and a
cherry coke, and that's like a fine Tuesday afternoon. Some
other people like to go skydiving, and some people think

(01:13:00):
think that's a good way to spend a Tuesday afternoon.
I'm not the judge of what you value as excitement
or entertainment. If you like to go on vacation, and
your vacation is I go to my lake house and
I like to drink a cup of coffee and watch
the sun come up over the lake. Some people say
that sounds really super boring. I like to go on
vacation and you know, do a big hike, or I

(01:13:21):
like to go on vacation to these exotic locations. That's
what really gets me excited. There's nothing right or wrong
about that. What's wrong is if you do that and
your plan is blown up. And it doesn't matter if
you're blowing your plan up because you're you know, day
trading crypto or betting on you know, football outcomes, or
because you're blowing too much of your money on exotic

(01:13:43):
trips that are nuke and your plan. All of that
leads to the same graveyard, right, same outcome. If your
plan is good, then the rest of it doesn't matter. Now,
reasonable people can disagree as to, you know, how one
should spend their free time and their access capital. And
some people would say, just like anybody who goes, oh,
skydiving is really stupid, and I can't believe you'd waste

(01:14:05):
your money doing that. And that's the parlance we use, right,
I can't believe you'd waste your money doing that. And
I know people do skydiving, so that's not wasting their money.

Speaker 1 (01:14:13):
Like that's the best experience they could ever have.

Speaker 5 (01:14:15):
I love every second of it. That's what they want
to spend their money on. Some people like to go,
you know, and flaunt trips down the Rhane River.

Speaker 1 (01:14:22):
Who would do that, right, by the way, the Rhyan
the Rhane would be next time? Probably?

Speaker 5 (01:14:29):
Yes, Okay, all right, some people think that's a waste
of money. Some people like to spend it right. It's
just I don't have any value judgments in how you
spend your money. What I will tell you is if
you're nuke in your plan because you think that, oh, well,
this is my investment account, I'm investing in future trading.

Speaker 4 (01:14:46):
No you're not. You're gambling, and you might be right.
That's the dangerous part. Honestly.

Speaker 5 (01:14:51):
I told the story a couple summers ago about when
it was raining at the cottage and I went, holy crap,
you can gamble in Michigan on your phone slots.

Speaker 1 (01:14:58):
That's a slippery slope.

Speaker 4 (01:15:00):
The worst thing that happened happened.

Speaker 5 (01:15:01):
I won eight thousand dollars on my phone on a
Tuesday afternoon. I mean it was I guarantee I've given
all that back and all the visits back to Michigan.

Speaker 1 (01:15:11):
Happened with my son. I taught him how to play
craps in Vegas. He thought it was the greatest thing. Luckily,
he lost before we left town.

Speaker 5 (01:15:18):
My kid did the same thing too. He went to
the casino as soon as he turned eighteen. He won,
you know, a hundred bucks, and he's like, that's the
easiest hundred dollars I've ever made I'm going tomorrow. I'm
going tomorrow. He went like a whole bunch and then
he ended up losing it all on one chair. He goes,
that's the dumbest thing ever. That really sucks.

Speaker 1 (01:15:33):
My son came back to the hotel room and slammed
the you know, the hardest to slam a hotel door,
and he still manage to slam the hotel door. And
Cheryl's like, thank god he lost. Thank god it's so hot,
and go Nick. He was on a hot streak. A
fascinating story. And I do think I do think this
is sticking around. Basically that's the morning. I do think
investment news is on the sude. This is gonna get bigger.

(01:15:55):
This is going to be big news in twenty twenty six.
I don't think they're run willing to it on our
show notes page at Stacking Benjamin's dot com. And people
want to dive in more. And if you want to
dive in even more to topics like this, the two
to one newsletter you can sign up for. And man,
we got a lot of great While we're giving out kudos,
let's give some kudos to Kevin Bailey, who writes the
two oh one, always following up and digging in deeper

(01:16:17):
to these curated topics from the same topics that we
talk about on the show. It's always free. You also
then will know when we're going live on YouTube. If
you sign up for the two to one, you'll also
see when our bad groups, our Benjamin's after dark groups
are meeting up. You'll get all the latest stack benjamins
dot com slash two oh one. By the way, let's

(01:16:39):
while we're talking about community wandering out on the back
porch our our Benjamin's after Dark group in Minneapolis, Saint
Paul had their end of the year party. I don't know, Doug,
did you see this? What Chris Luger and Veronica Barness
and our stackers They had an ugly christmaswater party, people

(01:17:00):
aged and axe throwing, which I've always wondered ax throw, Like,
what's the liability insurance on that place?

Speaker 6 (01:17:06):
Yeah, I don't know how they stay in business, you,
I really don't.

Speaker 1 (01:17:09):
I always wonder.

Speaker 6 (01:17:10):
I do know. I walked into one one time and
when I saw how much it costs, No, I'm out.
I can do this in my backyard for free.

Speaker 1 (01:17:18):
The meetup group team they came up with cupcakes. The
cupcake is a regular green frosted cupcake with an elf,
and they have they put my face in the place
of the ELF's face.

Speaker 6 (01:17:37):
I don't like the suggestive way you're straddling that candy cane, Joe.

Speaker 1 (01:17:40):
That is scary as hell. I'm afraid it's my face,
Like ook, God, get that off there. Big thanks to
our Benjamin's After Dark Group leaders who make financial literacy
and just hanging out with like minded people so much
more accessible. Right now, we have groups of Minneapolis, Saint
Paul in Seattle, groups coming online in southern Minnesota and

(01:18:02):
in Boston in the near future, and we're talking to
people in Dallas right now, and had somebody reach out
from Tucson. If you want to know more about starting
a group, a bad group, Benjamin's After Dark Group right
to meet Joe at Stecken Benjamins dot com.

Speaker 6 (01:18:19):
If the Tucson group gets together, I absolutely will go.
I have a strong connection as long as at least
one meetup is at Tanya's because they have Who's tekness
burrito known to may Oh excellent. Yeah, if you're anywhere
in the state of Arizona, go to Tanya's for the
breakfast burrito in Tucson. It'll change your life.

Speaker 1 (01:18:42):
Oh gee, I love Doug's Bay. He's like, if you
have it in Tucson, and if it's on the day
that I already plan to be there, I'm not coming special.
And if you have it in the morning so we
can get a breakfast burrito and it's at Tanya's. Wow.

Speaker 6 (01:18:55):
Well, the great thing is they serve the breakfast burrito
the whole time they're open.

Speaker 5 (01:18:59):
I mean to be fair. That's kind of how That's
kind of my travel plans too. We're having a meetup,
sounds great. As long as it's on the day that
I'm going to be there and want, I can get
there in the manner in which I please, and it
starts on I want, and I get to leave whenever
I want.

Speaker 1 (01:19:13):
It sounds great.

Speaker 4 (01:19:14):
I'll be there.

Speaker 6 (01:19:15):
I will go better than that because I can get
to Tucson relatively easily. So yeah, put the group together,
make it happen. Babor, Doug will be there. Just make
sure that there's a Tanya's breakfast burrito waiting for me
wherever you have your meetup.

Speaker 1 (01:19:29):
Two more things we want to talk about, community wise,
but waiting for six months to finally release the Stacking
Benjamin's Vault. So to keep your money safe, your credit,
your privacy, your ID protection, get you off not just
the normal subscription list that is sucking money out of
your pockets, but also get you off of those lists

(01:19:50):
that are sending you all kinds of spam and well
and even worse than spam, frankly, the places where a
bunch of the scammers go to buy your information. Get
off all of those lists and more. There's so many
things that you can do with the vault. We'll be
talking about it over the course of next week. Stecku
Benjamin's dot com slash fault. We have had some nice people, Doug,

(01:20:11):
who've also said very kind things about us on podcasting platforms,
and Doug, you've been raving about this one all day.

Speaker 6 (01:20:19):
I do mostly because I love who it came from. Joe.
This is from Curly Q twenty twenty four. Can we
just can we pause for a minute to talk about
how great this person's fries are. They are absolutely the
better fries Curly.

Speaker 1 (01:20:31):
I love Curly fries every chance. Do you want the
regular fries to the Curly fries?

Speaker 6 (01:20:36):
No question, that's not even a question.

Speaker 1 (01:20:38):
Okay, how about this one. One of our new restaurants
in town is a place called Bubba's. They have a
few of these around the South. At Bubba's, Doug, you
can get regular fries, season fries, or tater tots.

Speaker 4 (01:20:52):
Oh, tater tots.

Speaker 6 (01:20:54):
Yeah, until you said tater tots, that was an easy decision.
But now I know. And if it was season tater a.

Speaker 1 (01:21:00):
Season tater tots for the win. If they make cur
absolute tots.

Speaker 6 (01:21:07):
Like okay, take my wallet fight blown, Well, here's what
the master of all fries said to us in a review.
He said or she they said. A fun and valuable
finance podcast, Stacking Benjamins delivers valuable financial insights without feeling overwhelming.
The advice is practical, the hosts keep things entertaining, and
the guest interviews are always worthwhile. A great listen for

(01:21:29):
anyone wanting to improve their financial literacy. It's like they
stole our mission statement.

Speaker 1 (01:21:35):
I feel I can thank you so much, Curly Cue,
and I can't wait for you to hear some of
the holiday extravaganza coming up this week. Because the best
ofs that we chose from twenty twenty three so relevant today,
so so so relevant today, and we're excited to I thought.

Speaker 6 (01:21:52):
For sure you were going to say, and I can't
wait for you to invent curly tater tots.

Speaker 1 (01:21:57):
Please and it does have to be their oard, say
it and go do God's work inventing curely tater tuts.
All right, thank you so much for spending the year
with us, Stackers. We've got so much more to come.
We can't wait for you to hear it. Coming up
on Wednesday, It is the Talest, Oldest Time Doug and

(01:22:19):
the Three Ghosts. Doug speaking to Doug. What are the
three things we should have on our to do list
after hearing today's episode?

Speaker 6 (01:22:26):
Well, Joe, first, take some advice from Joel and Matt.
If you focus on what you can control, the events
of twenty twenty six and beyond won't control you. Second,
how about our headline, Huh, betting on where the stock
market heads next is awesome. If you want to lose money,
let's stay with a winning hand. As Kenny Rogers said,

(01:22:47):
you got to know when to hold them, and that's
ninety nine percent of the time. By the big lesson.
You didn't think I was going to sing that, did you?
But the big lesson don't share it any betting analogies
with Joe's mom. She'll brag that she's got two to
one odds that I'm definitely loading the dishwasher after dinner tonight.

(01:23:07):
Two to one. You can't say no to that, lady.
It's one to one odds. She's like a cartel controlling
the betting line here in the basement. I don't even
really know what a cartel is, but I bet it
looks a lot like her. Thanks to Joel and Matt
for putting on their big boy pants, painting on a
brave face, and shuffling down to the basement to join us,

(01:23:28):
even though you all pounded them like a keyboard during
tax season. During the Voices for Good Challenge Great Job Stackers,
you can hear their great show How the Money wherever
podcasts are streamed like wherever you're listening to us right now.
This show is the property of sb Podcast LLC, Copyright
twenty twenty five. It is created by Joe Salsea High.

(01:23:51):
Joe gets help from a few of our neighborhood friends.
You'll find out about our awesome team at Stacking Benjamins
dot Com. Along with the show notes and how you
can find us on YouTube and all the usual social
media spots. Come say hello, oh yeah, and before I go,
not only should you not take advice from these nerds,
don't take advice from people you don't know. This show

(01:24:13):
is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions,
speak with a real financial advisor. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug,
and we'll see you next time. Back here at the
Stacking Benjamin Show.

Speaker 1 (01:24:26):
Welcome the after show, everybody. This is the part of
the show where we talk about important financial stuff and
to end the year. I started the recording midway because
talking about cleaning up, I was telling Og and Doug
that I'm in the grocery store and you know, we
buy the industrial strength packet a toilet paper, so I

(01:24:47):
don't often pay attention to the price. And uh, there
was an end catch tech with these mega.

Speaker 6 (01:24:54):
Roles, tell me how rich you are without telling me
how rich you are.

Speaker 1 (01:24:57):
Remember, remember we did the show a couple of weeks
Togo the Friday episode o Gee, where you're talking about
would you make over X amount? You know no longer
worry about the restaurant what number is it? Where you
just don't pay attention to the price of the toilet paper. Oo. Come,
that did make your analogy, but right on the end
Cap has said on sale for twenty five bucks. It

(01:25:18):
was the stuff I like, the ultra cushy absorbent. Yeah,
super strong, just the stuff that feels nice. You know,
I don't need to have the Doug truck stop toilet
paper because when they give you those narrow toilet paper rolls,
you're like, you're not fooling anybody. I'm gonna wrap this

(01:25:40):
thing eighteen times to make up for the fact that
you decided.

Speaker 6 (01:25:43):
To go hold on, no, no, no, you don't do that,
do you?

Speaker 1 (01:25:47):
What do you mean? What do you do?

Speaker 6 (01:25:49):
It's a five square maximum purple No in our house, yeah,
five squares.

Speaker 1 (01:25:54):
Even if you go cheap as.

Speaker 4 (01:25:55):
All get just talking about the truck stop.

Speaker 1 (01:25:57):
I'm talking about you go cheap with that narrow stuff.
I'm sorry your five square rules gone.

Speaker 6 (01:26:02):
That's my complaint is that ours, while it's charming and
it's supposedly the you know, quilted and the thick and
all of that stuff, it's narrow and I don't get it.
And you go look up on lot because I've been
to other people's houses that have nice wide rolls of
toilet paper, like I want that, and then I like,
I measured mine, and I go online and see how
wide there's the whatever the other brands are.

Speaker 1 (01:26:23):
This would be a great like Larry David skit, you
walk out of somebody's bathroom just with your measure. You're
at a holiday party and you're just going off. Where
do you find this?

Speaker 5 (01:26:32):
It's like American Psycho, but instead of the business card,
it's paper.

Speaker 6 (01:26:37):
And I'm still I'm still so I haven't pulled the
trigger because like OGE, we're on subscribe and say I
have been since COVID, so it's just too easy to
let it roll and have the giant box show up
on our doorstep. I feel like I might be ready
to switch brands to get that extra eighth of an
inch width.

Speaker 1 (01:26:52):
Gotta tell you it's worth it.

Speaker 5 (01:26:54):
My grandpa used to tell me that you only need
one little square. And what you did was you poked
a hole in the middle, right, and you took that
little piece and you held on to that and then
you'd use your hand, and then the paper was to
wipe off your hand. And then that little that little
that little piece that you poke through, which is the
part the grandpa told you that.

Speaker 6 (01:27:20):
This explains so much.

Speaker 1 (01:27:23):
If you speaking of you only knew speaking of say
you're wealthy, say you're red.

Speaker 5 (01:27:28):
Thick, without saying this is grandpa all right?

Speaker 1 (01:27:33):
Speaking of another thing, did you guys notice how much
I I was kind of squirming around as I sat
down at the card table.

Speaker 4 (01:27:40):
My belt was thick as ply as you thought, huh
my not working?

Speaker 1 (01:27:45):
No, how does your how does you say you've eaten
too many Christmas cookies without saying you've eaten too many
Christmas cookies?

Speaker 6 (01:27:52):
Were digging in belt buckled, digging in a little bit.

Speaker 1 (01:27:54):
Wait, no, it broke it. My belt completely broke. Look
at this, it is completely busted. Like it is busted.
You broke the leather, dude, I broke No, no, no,
it's the it's the little metal piece.

Speaker 4 (01:28:08):
Worse, it's the steel part.

Speaker 6 (01:28:09):
He broke the steel part. Time to put the shortbread away.

Speaker 1 (01:28:14):
Yeah, so talk about say your whatever without say or whatever,
Oh my god, not good.

Speaker 4 (01:28:19):
Well, sort of problems in your house show.

Speaker 1 (01:28:21):
I'm not a quitter, though, so let's bring back out
the Christmas cookies.

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