Think the American Dream is slipping out of reach? Think again. In this episode of The Stacking Benjamins Show, Joe Saul-Sehy, OG, and Neighbor Doug tackle one of the biggest financial questions of our time: how much does it really cost to live the life you want — and is it still possible? Spoiler alert: it is, but it takes more than a paycheck and a Pinterest board. We break down fresh research from Investopedia, the rising price tag of everything from healthcare to college, and how smart planning (and a little basement wisdom) can keep your dreams from turning into financial nightmares.
But this isn’t just another numbers game. Along the way, the gang shares stories from the road — including Joe’s brush with baseball’s most entertaining team — and digs into the strategies that can help you fight inflation, outsmart rising costs, and make compounding interest your best friend. Plus, we tackle big listener questions, from how to choose the right financial advisor to the best ways to set young adults up for success in a tougher economic landscape.
And because life isn’t all spreadsheets and savings goals, we round things out with some binge-worthy TV and movie picks for when you’re off the clock. It’s part money masterclass, part basement hangout — and all about helping you take real steps toward your version of the American Dream.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode
- Why the “American Dream” isn’t dead — but why it may look different today.
- The real costs behind homeownership, healthcare, education, and retirement (and how to plan for them).
- Strategies for budgeting, saving early, and building systems that make your money work harder.
- How to vet a financial advisor and what red flags to watch out for.
- Smart ways to guide young adults toward financial independence.
- The power of compounding interest and how to use it to your advantage.
Questions to Consider (and Discuss with Fellow Stackers)
What’s one piece of financial advice you’d give to someone just starting their journey?
What does the “American Dream” mean to you — and has that definition changed over time?
Which costs (housing, healthcare, college, etc.) feel most overwhelming right now, and how are you tackling them?
Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.stackingbenjamins.com/201
Enjoy!
Our Headline
Doug’s Trivia
- What saint of lost causes did Danny Thomas say he’d build a shrine to?
Better call Saul…Sehy & OG
- Stacker John called in asking why different fiduciaries have different plans.
Have a question for the show?
Want more than just the show notes? How about our newsletter with STACKS of related, deeper links?
- Check out The 201, our email that comes with every Monday and Wednesday episode, PLUS a list of more than 19 of the top money lessons Joe’s learned over his own life about money. From credit to cash reserves, and insurance to investing, we’ll tackle all of these. Head to StackingBenjamins.com/the201 to sign up (it’s free and we will never give away your email to others).
Join Us Wednesday
Tune in on Wednesday when we’ll outline five steps to a better plan on today’s show featuring CFP Jeremy Keil!
Written by: Kevin Bailey
Miss our last show? Listen here: Strategies and Tactics to Maximize Your 401k (and common mistakes to avoid) SB1740
Episode transcript
[00:00:00] Joe: It’s Monday. I just spent the weekend guys. [00:00:02] OG: Wrong man. [00:00:04] Joe: Guess where [00:00:04] Joe: I was this weekend? [00:00:07] OG: Doug’s mom’s house. I don’t know. I was, it was it. I was visiting, of course, uh, at the second best place. Yes. Saying hello, don’t you visit other people’s moms from time, time, Savannah [00:00:18] OG: Bananas game in Houston. Yes. So I sat next to that dude on a flight and tried to score tickets like five separate times and he was not having it. [00:00:28] OG: He’s never had that happen before. I’m sure. Well, I didn’t, I wasn’t begging for tickets. I was like, oh, hey, are you affiliated with the team? And you know, he’s wearing a big yellow top hat all in yellow pants and yellow shirt. And he goes, yeah, I’m the owner. And I’m like, were you in a curious George story? [00:00:46] OG: You know, that’s what I wanted to say. But, um, he was, he was not in a great mood. I could tell. Like something was, you know, ’cause you see him on TV and he’s like, you know, he’s like, yeah on right. He’s like got this huge personality. And I could tell he was not in the mood for chatting. [00:01:01] Joe: Jesse Cole is his name. [00:01:03] OG: I said that I’d hope to catch a show one day. My kids were big fans and we weren’t able to get tickets in the Dallas show. And he goes, oh, okay, well keep trying. [00:01:10] Doug: Yeah. Look dude, you’re in first class. I think you can afford tickets. You don’t need me to give them to you. I think that’s what was going. It’s not affording ’em. [00:01:17] OG: They’re actually fairly inexpensive. Right, Joe? They are inexpensive. They’re hard to get, but they’re very inexpensive. That’s the shtick. He doesn’t charge ticket fees and he keeps every, I think the most expensive ticket that he sells is 60 bucks or 65 or something. [00:01:31] Doug: Well, that’s the thing. [00:01:32] OG: But yeah, that’s the thing. [00:01:33] OG: But they all sell out and they go to ticket brokers and you know, he hates that. And they’re 300. [00:01:38] Joe: He’s trying to also curtail that as much as he possibly can. Yeah, a hundred percent. [00:01:42] Doug: Yeah. [00:01:42] OG: But [00:01:42] Joe: anyway, [00:01:42] OG: great. Joe recommended to everybody, which is why obviously if you can get tickets so difficult to score tickets, score tickets, sit next to the dude on a plane, like how hard was that? [00:01:50] OG: Just be like, you know what? I can tell you’re a big fan. Oh gee. So here’s five tickets for your family. It’s right up the road. Here’s tickets. Come sit with me in the owner’s box. That [00:01:59] Joe: rough [00:02:00] OG: rider [00:02:00] Joe: stink. How hard would that be? Now that we’re friends, now that we’re buddies, it would be great. [00:02:05] OG: Hold on, let me get you another drink. [00:02:06] OG: Savannah Bananas guy. Uh, might I have another one for my friend? Put it on my tab like, sir, it’s included. [00:02:13] Joe: Can we start the show? You could tell what great friends they are because OG called him Savannah Bananas. Guy doesn’t even know his first name. Sorry. [00:02:20] OG: Hey, [00:02:20] Joe: Savannah. And [00:02:21] OG: the yellow hat. My bad. [00:02:22] Joe: This is my family and this is Savannah Bananas guy, man with the yellow hat. [00:02:27] Joe: But while I was partying in Houston with my spouse who was having her 21st birthday, again, there were people that were keeping us safe. And at this point in the show, every week, or as Doug said, sometimes a little sooner than this, we raise our glass and we salute our troops. So on behalf of the men and women, cheers. [00:02:45] Joe: Make a podcast at Mom’s Basemen and the men and women at Navy Federal Credit Union, serving our active duty and our veterans and their families. Here’s the people keeping us safe. Let’s go stack some s together Now, shall we? Thanks everybody. Simplify. [00:03:00] opener: Is this your place? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I live with my mom. [00:03:05] opener: Oh yeah. You hungry? Hey Ma, can we get some meatloaf? [00:03:14] Doug: Live from Joe’s mom’s basement. It’s the Stacking Benjamin Show. [00:03:29] Doug: I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and now the American Dream. A new USA today fee says it now costs a staggering $5 million. How will you achieve anything with that price tag? Don’t worry, stacker. We’ll help you pick the lock on this more elusive than ever. Goal. Plus we’ll answer a question from stacker John, who thought, you know? [00:03:51] Doug: I’d better call Saul, see, hi and og. He’s hiring an advisor and can’t figure out why. If they all have his best interest at heart, they all have different advice. Hang in there, John, because we’ll help solve this mystery in the second half of today’s show. But that’s not all. At the midway point of this whopper of an episode, I’ll share some of my glorious, glorious really, I mean, it’s pretty good. [00:04:17] Doug: Yeah, it actually, it is. It’s glorious money themed trivia. And now two guys who believe that while the weather is cooling off, it’s time for your net worth to be heating up. It’s Joe. Oh and O. [00:04:36] Joe: That’s exactly what we’re here for today, Doug. Get that heater running. Make sure the net statement is flying off the chart. Hey everybody, welcome to. Why are you doing that, og? [00:04:48] OG: I just was thinking about this today. We live in Texas. You live a little north of me so you get little different weather, but I was reading a blog post about somebody in a flying community that I belong to and they’re like, oh, I was flying over the Rockies today. [00:05:02] OG: And the aspens are changing colors and their peak right now. It’s so beautiful. And I’m like, it was 97 at my house yesterday. I have no, I know. Like I can’t put in my brain that it’s fall somewhere. It just doesn’t feel like, yeah, [00:05:14] Doug: it’s not even really here either. Still just hoping for the great white north [00:05:18] OG: humidity to break. [00:05:19] OG: It’s [00:05:19] Doug: pretty warm here. [00:05:20] OG: Yeah. Yeah. Maybe tomorrow, Joe. Maybe tomorrow. [00:05:23] Joe: Well, while the weather’s staying hot, let’s keep your net worth getting hot because we are going to help you make some moula today. Welcome back to another week of the Stack, your Benjamin Show. Everybody sit back and relax because this is the, you can do it. [00:05:38] Joe: Monday show. We’re gonna dive into a headline that is gonna make you groan, but then we’re going to make that American dream come back alive. You’re gonna think that it’s dead when we first tell you some numbers, and then we’re gonna reel it back in and we’re gonna help you get moving toward, uh, getting whatever you’re dreaming about. [00:05:59] Joe: Drop in for this rollercoaster ride. It’s gonna be so, so, so fun. Before we get to that, we got a couple sponsors to make sure that we can keep on keeping on. You’re not gonna pay a dime for any of this. Goodness. Sit back, relax, grab some paper, grab your iPad, whatever it is you’re gonna do to take notes because the headline’s coming up right after this. [00:06:21] headlines: Hello Darlings, and now it’s time for your favorite part of the show, our Stacking Benjamins headlines. [00:06:28] Joe: Our headline today comes to us from USA today. This story rocked a lot of online community, so some of you may have seen this. The American Dream guys. The American dream. This according to Daniel Diva and Carly Procel, inflation has dim the American dream. [00:06:47] Joe: Say it ain’t so. According to Investi, according to new analysis from Investopedia. Wow, I almost said that wrong. I’m not familiar with that publication. [00:06:58] OG: Joe’s a lifetime subscriber. [00:07:01] Joe: The the American Dream now cost $5 million. [00:07:07] movie bit: I was just talking to my mom and she said, apparently he’ll leave me 5 million. [00:07:11] movie bit: Anyway. So I’m golden. Baby. You can’t do anything with five Greg five’s a nightmare. Is it? Oh, yeah. Can’t retire. Not worth it to work. Oh, yes. Five will drive you. Um, Poko Loko, my find father friend, poorest rich person in America, the world’s tallest dwarf, the weakest strong man at the circus. Mm-hmm. [00:07:35] Joe: From [00:07:35] Doug: the best [00:07:36] Joe: show of all time. [00:07:37] Joe: That, of course is from succession. Let’s break down the American dream here. I think it’s not really 5 million guys. I think that when we, more like 10 starting, I think it’s 14 million. Sorry. Poco [00:07:51] OG: Loco, my [00:07:51] Joe: friend. When we talk about the American Dream, the frustrating piece of this is that we’re using a bunch of averages and we’re also doing something that I think, especially in the personal finance community we don’t like, which is just spending lavishly on everything instead of just those things that we really care about. [00:08:11] Joe: So let’s break down the numbers. The way that they have them, they’re $5 million retirement. They say for the average American’s gonna cost you $1.6 million. So that’s the biggest chunk of it. Owning a house over your lifetime will cost you $957,000, raising two children, paying for college. $876,000 owning a new car, $900,000, healthcare, $414,000 yearly vacations, $180,000 pets, 39,000 a wedding, 38,000. [00:08:47] Joe: There’s a few of these numbers that I don’t think that we wanna mess with first. I don’t wanna reign on anybody’s retirement parade, og. So I said, okay, we’re not gonna touch this 1.6 million. If that’s your goal, that’s great. Can you do it on less? You certainly can, but why drive down your retirement dream just so that it costs less when there’s other things that we can easily cut? [00:09:11] OG: Well, and I think a lot of people will look at 1.6 million and say, well, geez. Using that 4% rule or 5% rule, I guess. Can we call it a 5% rule now? [00:09:20] Joe: I think we can. 4.27 [00:09:22] OG: seems too hard to do math on. Right? Thanks Bill. Couldn’t have just said five, but the 4% rule on 1.6 gets us what about a $65,000, 70,000 a year. [00:09:33] OG: And I think some people look at that and say, that’s not even close to the lifestyle I have envisioned. You know, that’s five, $6,000 a month. But you gotta remember, for a lot of people, you also have a little bit of social security and if you’re in a relationship, your spouse has social security. So it’s like, you know, that might be another four or $5,000 a month on top of that. [00:09:51] OG: So now we’re in the ballpark of 120. 130,000. That’s a pretty respectable lifetime income, honestly. I think so. So when people look at 1.6 and say, that’s not even close to enough, I think you gotta add those other guaranteed incomes on top of it and, and recognize, I think to your point, Joe, it’s like, well, it doesn’t have to be 1.6. [00:10:13] OG: It could be, you know. A million, you know? And you’re still making a hundred grand probably. [00:10:17] Doug: Yeah, very well. Could be. And you know that this 1.6 number isn’t surprising, especially because just recently that in itself made headlines just in the last couple of months. I know that was like, oh, now it takes 1.6. [00:10:32] Doug: And everybody was freaking out about that. But I think the way that that OG just explained it is, makes it pretty, I don’t know. Less hyperbolic. It seems reasonable. Uh, that’s not what surprises me on this list. What’s next, Joe? No. [00:10:48] Joe: And that’s why Doug, I don’t wanna mess with that number. Like we’re gonna mess with a bunch of these numbers, right. [00:10:52] Joe: But you know, if your retirement goal is your retirement goal, let’s keep it what it is. Maybe it’s 2 million. You want even more than that? Mm-hmm. Maybe it is a million. I don’t wanna mess with their 1.6. Yeah. The number I do wanna mess with that I’m sure is the one you guys wanna mess with. $900,000 for the new car. [00:11:10] Joe: $900,000, putting your kids through college is $876,000. Your car’s $900,000. I don’t know. That number screamed out to me. [00:11:19] OG: Is this that far off though? I mean, if I think back to like, you know how many cars we’ve had? I got a cart 22 at 25 at 28. I had a, a beater at 30, you know, another one at four. I I I bet in our family plus two for the kids. [00:11:33] OG: I bet we’re at nine cars so far. Yeah, and I’m 48. If the average price on each one of those is 40 grand. I mean, I’m at 3 50, 360 right now. [00:11:44] Joe: Cheryl’s at card number five and I’m on car number four. I’m on car number four. [00:11:52] OG: So y’all at nine and plus. How, what about for the kids? Uh, did you get cars for the kids? [00:11:57] OG: Two. So [00:11:58] Doug: you’re at 11, Doug? I, I, I feel like there’s a lot. I’m not doing this game. I’m gonna this one out. Okay. Alright. Alright. It sounds fun to hear you guys talk about it. Yeah. My numbers may vary slightly. Yes. I think there’s a lot of info that they’re not giving us. In the article, it talks about the figure reflects the cost of buying and financing a new car every 10 years from ages 22 to 75. [00:12:23] Doug: Right. In a two car household. Right. Okay. So it could be worse because we’re talking about kids. We’re, we’re more than, and a lot of families are more than two car households. They talk about the lifetime cost of a new car ownership. At a $811,000, 72% of Americans consider owning a new car component of the American Dream. [00:12:42] Doug: Um, and the average vehicle in the US is nearly 13 years old. Mm-hmm. So either it’s even worse than this or it’s uh, well, it’s actually there’s a lot of info. We don’t actually, it [00:12:54] Joe: actually could be better because they used 10 years, and to your point, it’s 12.6. So what I did, Doug, was I said, let’s say you just keep your car another 2.6 years, so it’s the average and instead of the average new car, you were able to get away with a used car instead. [00:13:14] Joe: Now [00:13:14] OG: slightly used. Yeah. [00:13:15] Joe: Yes. I use current CPI inflation, 2.9% per year. From the Bureau of Labor Statistics Cars at 2030 2.6 years old. 45.2. 57.8, 70.4. And your last one at 83? [00:13:31] Doug: No, no. We’re gonna, we’re gonna disallow that one, that last one. That one at 83. Yeah, you don’t get that one. No. [00:13:37] Joe: That’s when you have the family intervention. [00:13:38] Joe: Joe, I think its time. Sorry mom. We’re taking the keys. I think it is time. So using the cost of a used car instead of a new car. Average used car today, 25,000 $180. That means the next one at 32.6 is gonna cost you just over 36,000. The one at 45 gonna cost you about 51 7. The one at 58 years old-ish is gonna cost you around 75 grand. [00:14:03] Joe: The one at 70 years old gonna be 106,000. The one at 83 years old, $152,000 lifetime total, by the way. Then we just cut from 900,000 to 446,000. We cut that number in half by cutting your, your car from 10 years to 12.6 years, which is the average already. Now the part of this that is magic that I will agree will give some people some. [00:14:31] Joe: My role is I’m keeping a used car for 12.6 years. Like, is that really gonna happen? I don’t know. But the point is, if you can keep it 12.6, you’re gonna reduce that number. If you go used car versus new, maybe [00:14:44] OG: you’re trying to extend every so often. Instead of getting a new one, every 10, see if you can make it 12. [00:14:50] OG: You gotta affect one end or both, and you’re doing both. But even one end of that, making it 10 to 12, even if you bought a brand new one, will still save you one cycle over your lifetime, right? Because instead of doing every 10, you do it every 12. You save one car. It’s the last one you save, right? It’s the, it’s the most expensive one that, that you don’t get the one [00:15:10] Doug: your kids aren’t gonna allow you to buy anyways. [00:15:13] OG: Yeah. [00:15:14] Doug: So it might be the second to last one. Small change, [00:15:16] OG: big impact. That’s your point. Yeah. [00:15:17] Doug: I think that’s the takeaway that we talk about in a lot of these financial situations in terms of long-term planning is small changes can have huge impacts over time. Yeah, [00:15:25] Joe: for sure. Well, and you, you know, the discussion that the three of us have had over the years, over and over and over, the fight that never ends the fight, that just keeps giving used car versus new car, right? [00:15:34] Joe: Because the used car ends up needing big time maintenance. But if you go the used car route, I think this also proves how important it is to get the Carfax ahead of time, take it to a certified mechanic to have it looked at. Because man, if you can extend the life of that used car by making sure you don’t step on a lemon. [00:15:57] Joe: There’s some important work and I think a lot of people think, well, I’m just gonna go with the cheapest car that I can get and that’s gonna save me some money. Well, maybe over the short run, but I think what we’re showing here is if you can make the used car work over the long run Yeah. That truly can bring home the bacon. [00:16:15] Joe: What other number on here do you guys want to go after next? ’cause I’ve got a few. [00:16:19] Doug: I feel like the raising two kids number is criminally low. [00:16:23] OG: I was gonna say, all these numbers seem really low to me, honestly, so I, I dunno that I’m gonna be one with the people on any of this. [00:16:30] Doug: I keep hearing these stats. [00:16:32] Doug: Like if you have a girl, it costs like $17 million to raise her through high school with prom dresses. I looked at that one. Kids [00:16:41] Joe: and college, it looks like the original college assumption in that 876,000 guys is around $300,000 per kid. Clearly if we focus on a college aid strategy and we can try to bring down that retail cost of college, and we actually think through, you know, and we’ve had guests on the show talk about this, the true ROI of college. [00:17:09] Joe: ’cause college isn’t for every kid. Yep. We could reduce the college piece of that maybe significantly. [00:17:18] OG: Well there’s, from a college standpoint, especially if you have two kids, right? So you’re thinking public in-state tuition right now across the country, for our planning purposes, what we use for clients is averaging about $28,000 a year. [00:17:31] OG: All in room board, books, fees, tuition, the whole enchilada package, right? So, can I round and say 30 just to make the math easy. So in today’s dollars, you’re talking about 120,000 a kid. So two 40 times one. I’ve got a really simple way of how to cut college costs. Just have one kid. Well there. There you go. [00:17:51] OG: So easy. There’s a hundred thousand. [00:17:53] Doug: How about buy a couple more condoms? Mom and dad? [00:17:56] OG: Yeah. In reality, I think some of this is, you know, especially around the college costs, is the planning that you do starting in high school, you know, with your children and that is making sure as best as you can, that you’re taking advantage of the advanced learning opportunities that are available in your school district. [00:18:14] OG: And I understand that not all school districts are created equal. Some have opportunities, some don’t. That’s totally understandable. We were fortunate enough to be able to have our oldest take some AP classes that knocks down his total number of college credits by 29. [00:18:29] OG: Wow. He [00:18:30] OG: started college with 29 credits, which is like almost being a sophomore now it’s not gonna exactly be one for one because of the way Sure. [00:18:37] OG: Degrees overlap and that sort of thing. But if we save 20 credits, that’s a semester ish of tuition, that’s a semester ish of room and board potentially. Then if you layer on top of that things like, Hey, you know what, 18 year olds don’t really know exactly what they wanna do with their lives. Maybe they should do their math and science and English classes at the community college where it’s, you know, a hundred dollars a credit hours instead of 600 at the big university. [00:19:03] OG: For some reason, that’s somewhat poo-pooed. Like, oh, you don’t want to go to community college, then you’re lesser than. It’s like, that’s the smart way to do it from a money standpoint, you know? Yeah. There’s reasons not to do it. I get that. But you know, if you’re looking at this from a pure cost standpoint, starting as a freshman in high school saying, how can we knock out if our school district has it, you know, the math and the English and the science, like first year stuff, go to community college for years, one and a half and two, and then transfer to the big university. [00:19:32] OG: I mean, that’s, that’s $50,000 a kid each easy, [00:19:36] Doug: and this is all still assuming that our kids have to go to college. Yeah. Which is, it does becoming less and less Yeah. Of the automatic. This is the next step after grade 12. That’s right. Don’s don’t forget that now it’s just a great idea to start saving. [00:19:50] Doug: ’cause you don’t know what is right for your kid. What was right for our kids was the standard or larger four year university. But it’s not right for every kid. I have a lot of friends grew up in a great school district where every other kid was going to school and they realized it’s not right for my kid. [00:20:04] Doug: And the kid realized it’s not right for them. And so they went into a trade and they’re doing great. [00:20:09] OG: Yeah. Public in-state school, one of your kids went to a public in-state school. One went outta state, but probably had a lot of scholarship. ’cause he is smart. It was actually smart was actually [00:20:17] Doug: cheaper than the in-state school. [00:20:18] Doug: When he went outta state, [00:20:20] OG: took after his mom. It was super smart. [00:20:22] Doug: Mm-hmm. [00:20:22] OG: So those things are the things that you can control and start talking about that stuff as a, you know, freshman in high school, the time to think about college planning. What we’ve learned isn’t when your kid’s a junior going, what essays do you wanna write? [00:20:35] OG: It’s the course schedule and the rigor that you take starting as a freshman, and that’s just the college stuff. [00:20:41] Joe: Yeah. I think there are a lot of opportunities on the college side, of course on the just child rearing side, you know, a lot of families now to cut costs are having family members help take care of kids, uh, versus the expensive daycares. [00:20:55] Joe: Mm-hmm. Or, um, you know, and this is so difficult because there also is a quality of life component to this. I always am reticent to change these numbers too much and go, oh, you know what, just don’t move to the bigger house. It’s so much [00:21:09] OG: easier. Have grandma do it. [00:21:11] Joe: Yeah. And it just, the quality of life piece is, is not something that we wanna mess with. [00:21:16] Joe: I also don’t wanna mess with the owning a home. If your goal is to own homes that during your lifetime equal almost a million dollars, then that’s. That’s your goal. I don’t wanna mess with that number either, but let’s take a look at this. $38,000 for a wedding. I know that that’s the bottom one here. [00:21:33] Joe: Pretty [00:21:33] OG: low, right? [00:21:34] Joe: Well, it’s pretty well though. 38,000. That is a number we could easily cut in half. Og you could easily cut that number. I have no [00:21:43] OG: experience with that recently, so I’m gonna stay out of that. But I do wanna talk about your vacation budget, Joe. Uh, I feel like this 180, we could probably cut that a whole bunch. [00:21:52] OG: Don’t think we’re [00:21:52] Joe: leaving that the same, the vacation budget. Are you sure? I don’t know. Let’s, [00:21:55] Doug: I think, I think [00:21:57] OG: how many trips to Greece does one need? Joe’s like [00:22:00] Doug: cut the college education, triple the vacation [00:22:03] Joe: budget. It’s not $180,000 a year for God’s sake. That would be fantastic. It’s $180,000 over your lifetime. [00:22:10] Joe: Ah, and look at Shemen last week talking about how important it’s to take time away from work. [00:22:15] OG: What about the healthcare cost number [00:22:17] Joe: $414,000 for healthcare. [00:22:21] OG: Healthcare total costs. I mean, obviously the vast majority of that is. It’s forecast to be on the backend. It’s hard to put into calculations exactly how much a long-term healthy lifestyle saves versus chronic illness and medication and that sort of thing. [00:22:36] OG: And some stuff you can’t avoid, you know, it’s just your family DNA. But I think taking advantage of discounted healthcare options, paying cash instead of using insurance, which would be a little bit less expensive sometimes. Uh, prescription discount codes. And, you know, I, there’s a medicine that I take that is very expensive. [00:22:58] OG: The doctor’s like, I don’t know, you know, it’s just really expensive. There’s two different ways to take this. And I said, well, is there anything that you can do, uh, discount coupons or anything? And he goes, well, let me call the pharmacy and ask. And it went from $1,800 a month to 150 just for the, from the doctor calling the pharmacy going, is, is there any movement on this? [00:23:16] OG: And they went, yeah, we can do one 50 a month. Instead of 1800, are you kidding me? Well, yeah, just ask. You never know what it’s gonna be, but um, I feel like taking advantage of, you know, the pretext stuff with HSAs and that sort of thing will help kind of heat into some of this cost. [00:23:34] Joe: We talked to industry experts, Scott Heiser on two different occasions about this, and he said, always question the Bill og. [00:23:42] Joe: A lot of times people will go, no, my insurance pay for it. [00:23:44] OG: Healthcare bill you’re talking about? Yeah. [00:23:45] Joe: It is still being paid for Whenever you receive healthcare question, the bill ask about the line items on the bill. And part of the problem, according to Scott, which I, uh, tend to agree with, is that we don’t know what we’re being charged. [00:23:58] Joe: Mm-hmm. We have no idea what we’re being charged. And we think that because I have insurance, that there’s no, um, there’s no pushback. I don’t need to push back. Well, it’s still coming outta your pocket, either as increased premium later on or outta your pocket up front. And there have been a few times that I’ve had that happen. [00:24:15] Joe: Uh, I remember once I took my son to the dermatologist, he got some medicine that was obscenely expensive. After I went to the pharmacy, I just came right back and said, is this, is there anything else we can do? And without even thinking about it, OG they just go, oh yeah, I’m sorry. We could have done the generic, it’s, you know, one 10th of the cost. [00:24:35] OG: Yeah. It’s 10 bucks a month instead of $150 a month. You’re like, well, [00:24:38] Doug: why would I want to not do this? Right. It’s like the pizza place that can’t give you the discount unless you ask for it. Is there one of those? Oh yeah. Knows [00:24:45] OG: all of those places? [00:24:47] Doug: Yeah. Oh, trust me, I got a whole Excel spreadsheet of all the right questions to ask. [00:24:51] Doug: That’s like, I don’t know [00:24:52] Joe: anything about healthcare, but I do know about this. I do know, do [00:24:55] OG: you know where the discounted pizzas are? I think the biggest thing, when I look at all this and I see this number, you know, maybe you add it up and you say five millions on par. It seems right. Sometimes people might look at this and say, it seems a little light. [00:25:07] OG: You know, I could totally spend 2 million in retirement and a million on my house and a million and a half on cars if I’m like Doug and you know, and all of a sudden this number five to 10. But even, [00:25:17] Joe: even trying to reduce it, we just tried to reduce it. I don’t think we can get this number below 4 million. [00:25:24] OG: Yeah. Depends, right? There’s, it depends on what’s important to you. But I don’t know. I look at this and I think if I see the number 5 million and I’m 40 years old and I got 200 grand in my 401k, I’m thinking there is zero chance I’m getting 5 million. Okay. So the goal isn’t to get to 5 million. Right, because you’ve already consumed some of this. [00:25:46] OG: This is the total consumption, the benefit that you have that offsets all of this cost down the line potentially is the power of compounding. And just by saving or investing a little bit every single month toward these goals will totally radically change your, your out of pocket as it relates to how much it costs for school or how much it costs for retirement. [00:26:12] OG: Yeah, I get it. You might spend 1.6 million in retirement, but you don’t save 1.6 million. Right. You save 400,000 and then compounding adds the other million. Right. You don’t save $200,000 to send your two kids to school. You save 70,000 and compounding takes care of the rest. [00:26:33] Doug: Yeah. I, I love this. I’m so glad you’re, you’re going down this path, og, because I, I feel like we in a, in a way. [00:26:39] Doug: Either we fell for the clickbait on this article, or we’re anticipating our listeners falling for the clickbait on it because the numbers look so impossible and so unattainable. And I like the way that you are explaining it now that it is, doesn’t have to be as a, yeah, you can do some things to reduce some of those big numbers through your consumption habits, but it’s also not as bad as you think because of, yeah, because of planning your investment policy statement and compounding. [00:27:06] OG: One of the things that we just kind of glossed over on the car stuff was, as you were reading it, Doug, you said buying a new car and financing it every 10 years. [00:27:14] Doug: Ah, it’s [00:27:14] OG: like if you don’t finance it, that’s the interest payment. I’ve talked about this a lot recently. It’s somewhat top of mind as I’m working through some stuff with some family, but it’s like if you didn’t pay interest, we look and say, oh, you know, I can put this on my charge card. [00:27:28] OG: It’s only, the payment’s only $500 a month and it’s, I got all these like little $500 a month payments, right? And maybe I’ve got $2,500 a month of payments. $2,500. How much money do you have to make to pay $2,500 of payments? You know, you gotta make 4,000 a month to pay taxes and your benefits and all that other sort of nonsense to net 2,500 to pay for all this stuff that’s getting used up. [00:27:55] OG: You know, that’s, it’s already consumed, right? Like whether it’s groceries or the night out on town, or the vacation you already did or something like that. So much of that is interest and delayed gratification. If you can just hit pause on that for a short period of time, whether you do that in your twenties or thirties, just to get your head above water instead of your lips above water. [00:28:15] OG: This totally changes that trajectory. I know, Joe, you did the calculation on. Okay, so what, so I need $5 million by the time I’m 65. Okay, cool. I’ll bite. What does that really mean in terms of savings? I just graduated high, or I just graduated college. 22 years old. What is this gigantic sum of money I need to save? [00:28:31] OG: I mean, it must be astronomical. $800 a month. I gotta save 800 bucks from the time I’m 22 till I retire at 65. [00:28:42] Doug: Yeah. [00:28:43] OG: And I got 5 million in my account and I get it. That’s not the same 5 million as the consumption we’re talking about, but in the grand scheme of things, 800 times, 12 90, 600 bucks a year. [00:28:54] Joe: And think about this, the retirement goal alone is only 1.6. [00:28:59] Joe: It’s not, yeah, it isn’t $5 million. [00:29:02] Doug: Right. [00:29:02] Joe: Right, right, right. So the retirement goal alone is a fraction of that. So even if you can’t save 800 and you can save less than that, you’re still, [00:29:11] Doug: yeah. You’re gonna be doing great. And the, I think there’s people listening right now that are thinking, I don’t have 800 bucks extra. [00:29:17] Doug: You might not right now. There were a lot of years in the early part of our marriage, and when our kids were younger, we did not have an extra 800 bucks. But another thing that you need to remember and discipline yourself for is there are gonna be months. Years coming up where you have 1500 and you gotta capitalize on that. [00:29:34] Doug: You’ve gotta adjust your lifestyle so that when you get that flexibility in your budget, you can start making up as much as you can. I know it’s hard to make up for lost time with when you miss out on that compounding, but you still have to set up your budgeting and your discipline so that you can add more than 800 a month when you’ve got the opportunity. [00:29:51] Joe: Well, and I like even more than discipline, Doug, I like systems. Set up your systems so you can catch these so it’s like better trip wire and you’re able to take advantage of it because if you’re able to just be 10% better on all these things, owning a new car, if you’re 10% better on owning a car strategically, like we talked about earlier. [00:30:14] Joe: 900,000 goes down by $90,000. You’re more strategic about your healthcare. Maybe you pay some out of pocket and let the HSA accumulate. You might save $41,000 over your life on that. Raising your kids and deciding what really is important for the kids and what’s aren’t important. That might be another $87,000 being more strategic about your housing instead of 957,000. [00:30:39] Joe: You know, 95,000 goes out the window. The yearly vacation we’re not gonna touch ’cause that’s really important. But we can cut these other things. We can cut all this other crap. Buy a bunch. I’ll link to this piece in the show notes. You’ll find that at Stacking Benjamins dot com. And also, uh, coming up on Wednesday, we’re gonna continue the retirement discussion because. [00:31:02] Joe: CFP, uh, Jeremy, Kyle joins us. He’s got just a five step framework to helping you think about planning your retirement, and I can’t wait for you to hear that and to join us, uh, on that show. But let’s, uh, go to what we do here at the half way point of every Stacking Benjamin Show. We make it so you can brag around the virtual water cooler. [00:31:23] Joe: You’re on your next Zoom meeting, waiting for the meeting to start. You can throw a zinger out like this one that Doug’s about to share with us. Doug, what’s on tap today, man? [00:31:35] Doug: Hey there, stackers. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and if you’re feeling rejuvenated after that headline and now think you can actually afford the American dream again, here’s something else you can afford. The philanthropy on today’s date. In 1953, Danny Thomas start in a sitcom called Making Room for Daddy, which later became the incredibly successful Danny Thomas Show, which ran until 1964. [00:32:00] Doug: Before that success, when Thomas thought he couldn’t afford the American dream, let alone eat the next day, he promised himself that if he ever found success, he’d open a shrine to the saint of lost causes to help others who thought they were lost, which he definitely did. What Saint of Lost causes did Danny Thomas say he’d build a shrine to? [00:32:22] Doug: I’ll be back right after. I see if getting some of Joe’s mom’s cookie dough is a lost cause. [00:32:37] Doug: Hey there, stackers. I’m Cookie Dough lover and guy who’s now sugared up for the second half of this podcast. Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, Danny Thomas, wasn’t just a successful actor. He also founded one of the great nonprofit institutions in the USA named for the Patron. Saint of Lost Causes. Something he thought he was when he was a starving actor. [00:32:59] Doug: What is the name of the patron Saint of Lost Causes? Who also graces the name of the institution Thomas founded. That would be St. Jude. And now the St. Jude Children’s Hospital gives hope and care to many families in the USA at no or minimal cost. And now speaking of lost causes, here comes Joe and og. [00:33:20] Doug: Back to the microphones. [00:33:23] Joe: Thanks, man. St. Jude, the St. Jude Marathon in Memphis. Was my fastest marathon ever. I’ve never run fast than that, but I will tell you to [00:33:36] OG: just under, just under five [00:33:36] Joe: hours j just under a hundred hours. It was, uh, it was, it was great. What set, I’ll share what sat about that time in a second, but I will say this, that mile 22 or 23 ish, you run through the St. [00:33:51] Joe: Jude campus. Oh. And the kids come outside. Kids that are healthy enough to come outside and they have their hands out and you can’t stop crying as you’re, oh my gosh. As you’re slapping hands with these kids and they’re cheering you on, I’m like, I should be cheering you on. I know. Know what’s going on there. [00:34:10] Doug: Wonderful. Yeah. Wonderful institution. Oh, sorry. The entry fee for this marathon is $5,000. Sign me up. I mean, it’s just what a, what a cause the other, speaking of that, and this, it may not be related to St. Jude’s, but it’s just so easy to get behind. Uh. Iowa football. Maybe the greatest tradition in college football is when they all wave to the kids in the children’s hospital. [00:34:29] Doug: Oh, that’s great. They can see the stadium. Mm-hmm. It’s just fantastic. I love that. [00:34:34] Joe: So the, if you go look at the Memphis Marathon year after year, you will not find my name with my fastest marathon. My buddy Hal was signed up to run this marathon and then his friend dropped out and then he got hurt a few weeks beforehand and I didn’t have anything going on. [00:34:53] Joe: It always wanted to run it, so I went as Hal Lauer to this marathon. Hold on. And what was [00:34:59] OG: unlikely excuse, [00:35:00] Doug: hold on. This is a, a pretty elaborate story to say. No, trust me, I really did run a marathon. Just, you won’t find my name anywhere, but [00:35:08] Joe: No, you won’t. But, but what’s even funnier, Doug, is that they give you, you know, your number and so I’ve got my number and as I’m running along, like I’m running and I’m running and you know, you get far enough along and you just get a little bit delirious and you’re like, what? [00:35:21] Joe: You know, 26 miles. But mile 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 people along the way, they keep cheering for this dude named hell. They’re like, come on Hal, you can do it. And I’m like, who’s this Hal that’s running behind me? It was only like mile 18 that I realized that my first name was right on my right, on my number. Like in big letters. [00:35:44] Joe: It said Hal and uh, yeah. I was like, oh, this guy Hal keeps follow me like he’s running right behind me. Quit [00:35:51] OG: pacing me, [00:35:52] OG: bro. I know. Quit pacing me. [00:35:53] Joe: I keep looking behind me for this mysterious Hal. Yeah, so sadly Hal Lauer ran a hell of a marathon ’cause I was much faster than Hal. Good. Good stuff. All right, let’s move on to this. [00:36:07] Joe: We just got a letter. We just got a letter. We just got a letter. Wonder who it’s from. Today’s voicemail letter comes to us from John. Hey John. [00:36:21] caller: Hi guys. Thank you for taking my call. I’m in the process of interviewing financial advisors to start managing my assets. All of these claim to be fiduciaries when I speak with them. [00:36:34] caller: Each one has a different plan or a different process that they follow. I was under the impression that a fiduciary would act in my best interest. With that being said, my best interest should have one possible solution, whereas good solutions or good plans could have many iterations or many variations. [00:36:55] caller: Can you please explain why different fiduciaries would have different plans and what I need to look for when hiring an advisor? Really appreciate all your guys help and insights that you have. Thank you. [00:37:09] Joe: Hey John. Thanks so much for the kind words and. Oh gee, this, you know, you’re out there and you’re doing the work, you’re putting in the time you’re interviewing different people and these plans, one’s going left, the other one’s going right, and yet all these planners supposedly have John’s back because they’re what’s called a fiduciary, which means they are required to work in John’s interest. [00:37:32] Joe: How come there’s so much variation? [00:37:34] OG: Well, I, I would be curious to know what the differences are, but I wonder if it’s something as simple as could be. It could be different assumptions, right? It could be something like, we are gonna assume 8% and someone else assumes seven, and therefore I think you need to save $500 a month instead of 600, or whatever. [00:37:52] OG: It could be something as simple as that, but it could also be something as simple as a product and say, Hey, my doctor recommends Crestor, your doctor recommends Lipitor. Is there a profound difference between the two? Not really. They’re both statins and they both lower the bad cholesterol in your body, so. [00:38:09] OG: Sometimes one is better for a different reason because it interacts better with other medicine. And does the doctor take the time to explain that to you or just go, your cholesterol sucks and I know that you are also on this other medicine, so I’m, you’re getting Crestor. Like, I’m not gonna, does he need to go into all the 32 reasons why he thinks it’s better than, than Lipitor? [00:38:30] OG: I don’t know, but I wonder what the big delta is. There can also be some wildly disparate answers as it relates to product, depending on what type of person you’re going to. Sadly, if you are working with the person who specializes in annuities, then a lot of the answers are gonna be annuity based products or insurance based products. [00:38:51] OG: Life insurance or something like that is gonna be the solution to a lot of stuff that’s more of a charlatan than a financial planner, honestly. But, um, but does that person [00:38:59] Joe: have the ability to say they’re a, they’re a fiduciary. You [00:39:03] OG: can say whatever you want. There’s no crime against it. That’s why that word is so useless. [00:39:07] OG: It’s, it’s ridiculous. I’m, I’m a fiduciary, says who and who, who comes after you? The fiduciary police. If you are lying, no one, there is no law that says you have to tell the truth to somebody about your registration status. And what’s funny is, is that even people who are legally not able to be fiduciaries will still say that they are. [00:39:29] OG: But here’s where I come down on this. I actually think that the vast majority of people are doing the right thing. And the term is largely useless anyway, because I can say I’m a fiduciary and totally do bad stuff, and I cannot be a fiduciary legally, like unable to be based on my registration status and do completely the right thing for you. [00:39:51] OG: And that doesn’t make me worse of a person because I can’t say the word, you know? So in my opinion, the word is completely useless anyway, because. Nobody knows how to use it correctly and, and that’s okay, but it’s not a differentiator, if that makes sense. I would be more looking at the differences, John, between the plans and you know, frankly you could just ask these people, Hey, why is yours that direction and this one is that direction? [00:40:18] OG: Like, what’s the material difference here? And see if, you know, see if it makes sense to you. Like if they say, well we, we like to use Vanguard stuff because A, B, and C, and this guy likes to use WisdomTree because of X, Y, and Z. Okay. You know, is there a profound difference between Vanguard and WisdomTree? [00:40:35] OG: No, there’s not. That’s not a hill to die on. Maybe they just have better experiences with that or better connection with the company. Totally fine. If one guy’s like, well we use whole life insurance because A, B, and C, and this guy goes, we use low cost passive ETFs because of X, Y, and Z. Then you know the profound difference. [00:40:53] OG: Right? And you can kind of investigate that a little bit. [00:40:56] Joe: One thing that I heard you say, John, that is a reason that I wouldn’t hire an advisor. You said, I’m looking for advisors to manage my assets and while I may have them manage my assets, I don’t think that’s the primary reason that I go. I want to build a great plan, and then the money management then is a piece in service of that plan. [00:41:20] Joe: So if I’m going in to meet with a financial advisor, just have them manage my money. I think there’s a whole group of people that call themself financial advisors that do that, that are much more just product people and investment managers. More like brokers, almost investment focused and broker focused. [00:41:39] Joe: Yeah. Joe, [00:41:40] OG: that could be a reason why all the, the plans, air quotes are different if it’s like, well, I went to the Fidelity office and they recommended this allocation and then I went to the Schwab branch and they recommended that allocation. Why in the hell are they different? Well, because Schwab guy’s gonna tell you Schwab’s better and the fidelity guy’s gonna tell you Fidelity’s better. [00:42:00] OG: Neither of them are, are better or worse. They’re probably fairly identical. But as my second grade teacher used to say, you’re focusing on the wrong slab. [00:42:08] Joe: Yeah, that’s great. Second grade teacher for the win, by the way. Yeah, it’s a [00:42:13] OG: fun little thing that I remember from second grade. I also had my name on the board several times with little check marks and every check mark meant a recess you didn’t get to go to. [00:42:20] OG: Thanks for that. Um, [00:42:22] Joe: you remember both of those things? I remember. So lab and check marks ve nice. You got over [00:42:27] OG: it. Yeah. It was a rough year for og. A lot of, not recess time, but again, if you’re just focused on the product, I can tell you 15 reasons why this product’s better than that. And I can tell you 15 reasons why that product’s better than this one. [00:42:40] OG: You know, it’s just, uh, does it really matter? Yeah. So [00:42:43] Joe: John, what I think a great financial plan is gonna do, number one is help you look at. Am I saving the right amount of money based on my goal? If I’m not saving the right amount, how do I then, then come up with the right amount, either more or less? [00:43:00] Joe: Where does that money come from Based on what I value and based on my current spending? Do I have a debt strategy, not just debt? And am I allocating enough money to debt service without over allocating money there? ’cause I gotta remember to also invest it for my future. I need to look at insurances. And really even bigger than that, I need to look at my risk management plan. [00:43:23] Joe: What if the wheels come off the bus partway to my goal? How do I cover that? That’s gonna start with your biggest insurance, right? It’s gonna be your emergency fund, and then you’re gonna have just a plan for if different things happen to you. Then what’s my retirement number? What are my different income streams? [00:43:40] Joe: And then once I know what those are, then I have a much clearer picture of what investments fit my goal and which ones don’t fit my goal. And then what you’ll find is that the advisors are gonna line up a little better. Now, product wise, oh gee, you’d nailed this one. Where, you know, one person’s gonna say Wisdom Tree, one person’s gonna say Dimensional. [00:44:00] Joe: One person’s gonna say Fidelity, somebody’s gonna say Vanguard. What’s the difference? So maybe the advisor is just, they’re more of an expert in that fun family. That’s what they use a lot. If the advisor is going to manage money for you, you don’t want to have your money in spots where there are other clients are not, because you can’t be great at every single investment that’s out there. [00:44:23] Joe: To some degree, you actually want some mass customization, meaning if you’re hiring an advisor for that, you wanna make sure they’re on top of what’s going on with that fund company, what the heck’s going on with these different products so that if something does change, that the money I’m paying for this, which is good money, I’m paying for this, I’m getting something for it. [00:44:45] Joe: I often get frustrated when people want to have a different allocation than everybody else that an advisor works with. ’cause an advisor is just like you. They can’t, they can’t have 9,000 different allocations for, you know, let’s say they work with a hundred families and every allocation is a hundred percent different. [00:45:03] Joe: Imagine all the different things they have to try to be an expert, be hard to keep track [00:45:06] OG: of. [00:45:06] Joe: No, you don’t really hire them for that. But it still is the end of the road is deciding where to invest, not the beginning of the road. That’s where I would start. How are they gonna help me put a plan together? [00:45:18] Joe: And, uh, to your point, oh gee, I think if they are planners, it’s gonna look, it’ll look a little more uniform. I think if they start from that part. Thanks for the question, John. You got a question for us? Bring it. Stacking Benjamins dot com slash voicemail gets you to the hotline and we’re happy to answer your question like we did. [00:45:37] Joe: Uh, John. So John, we’d love to hear more, either, number one, would love to hear what you’re hearing different about these advisors if you wanna call back and let us know that. Uh, and then number two, when you find somebody, let us know what it was that you really liked about, uh, about that particular advisor. [00:45:53] Joe: Would love to hear how the story ends. That’s Stacking Benjamins dot com slash voicemail. Alright, we have one more segment at the end. John is a member of the community. Just called in, but let’s widen it even further. Doug, uh, community members chatting away in other places. [00:46:11] Doug: Yeah, Joe, out on our, uh, on our basement group on Facebook a couple of weeks ago, we had a great post from Jimmy and I just, I, I’ve said it before, but I love it when our community uses each other. [00:46:22] Doug: To look for advice on how to approach, you know, usually it’s personal finance, sometimes it’s other stuff. But in this case, Jimmy said he is got a question for investing for 18 year olds. Coworkers have twins. Uh, they just turned 18. Uh, he knows these kids pretty well. Looks like he coached them in baseball. [00:46:41] Doug: And uh, it was just looking for other people’s advice on, on what do you do to help or guide, I’ll say late adolescents, early adults, young adults on, on how to invest. And we had some great responses to that question that Jimmy asked. Uh, Michelle said since she was 16, my daughter’s been investing 15% of her income using the M1 app. [00:47:00] Doug: Every time she changes jobs or gets a raise, she adjusts the amount she puts in to maintain the 15%. She’ll be 25 soon and only has a Roth IRA at the moment. [00:47:09] Joe: But it’s cool. By the way, being 15 years old and having a Roth IRA is great. You have to have some income. Yeah. So take that summer job money, put that into, into a Roth, if at all possible. [00:47:20] Joe: Right, and I like the M1 app. Uh, I use the M1 app for my sandbox account and it’s super easy to use that app. [00:47:26] Doug: And as is true with any community, you have people who come at things from completely different directions. Uh, and so we had somebody else named Frank who said, do not have them wasting their time with cutesy apps like Acorns or Stash or some savings account, merry-go-round that is not investing and actually impedes the acquisition of knowledge about it. [00:47:46] Doug: For that reason, they should also have a regular brokerage account and use the money market fund there as their primary cash savings vehicle, even if they have no other investments in it to start with. [00:47:56] Joe: Frank is such a nice guy, by the way, in person. Just sometimes need to put some velvet on his hammer [00:48:04] Doug: when he’s, when he’s, when he’s commenting. [00:48:05] Doug: But that doesn’t necessarily mean he is wrong. Right. It just means different perspectives on how to get after this stuff. [00:48:11] Joe: Yeah. I like the Acorns app. I think that learning to just, uh, squirrel away the extra money and round up, I think that’s fine. You can also track the investments that are on Acorn, so you can do that. [00:48:22] Joe: But yeah, I also like Frank’s idea of the brokerage account. It kind of echoes Doug, what Chuck Jaffe said when he was here on Labor Day, which is, you know, he likes kids having individual stocks to dive into. These are actual companies that you own and getting used to tracking individual companies, so don’t hate that advice as well. [00:48:43] Joe: Although I can also see people going to your point, Doug, I can see people going the other way and going, you know what, I’m gonna teach ’em that indexing diversification is important. The piece I like best isn’t what you choose. The piece I like best there is that you’re spending time with your kid teaching them. [00:48:58] Joe: Agreed. That’s great. Agreed. Jimmy always has such great thoughtful post, Jimmy. Glad to see that you posted that question, and thanks to everybody for answering that. If you’d like to join our community on Facebook, Stacking Benjamins dot com slash basement is the quick way to get there. It’s like joe slash mom slash basement. [00:49:18] Joe: Like a bunch of stuff you put in, just go to Stacking Benjamins dot com slash basement. It’ll take you to the page to join our community of a nearly 7,000 people hanging out in mom’s basement. Thanks for sharing this hour with us. We absolutely love that you spend this time with us. If you’ve got questions about the show, you’ve got comments about today’s show. [00:49:40] Joe: Not only is there our community, but you can also write to me Joe at stacky Benjamins dot com. On Spotify, we often have great discussions and some wonderful comments, and I love chatting with people on the Spotify app as well. And from time to time I’ll put poles up there and sometimes mom’s friend Gertrude, who manages our community, will put poles up there that you can dance on. [00:50:04] Joe: What [00:50:06] Doug: you almost made it out of that nice and clean, straightforward. I often dance on the poles. Oh, [00:50:12] Joe: just gotta keep, uh, limbered up. Two more things. Number one is if you know somebody that needs this pep talk around the American dream and they can do, maybe, you know, you don’t gotta do 50% better, just 10% better. [00:50:26] Joe: Refer them to the show. And for more deep dives into topics like this, we have our newsletter, the 2 0 1 Stacking Benjamins dot com slash 2 0 1. The show is 1 0 1 and the newsletter, which comes out once a week, is the 2 0 1. And it’s just absolutely fabulous. Love, love, love our newsletter and the great response we get to our newsletter. [00:50:48] Joe: All right, that’s it for today, except for this. Doug, what are the three things that should be on our to-do list after today’s show? [00:50:55] Doug: The three and only three things you should have taken away from today’s show, Joe. First, take some advice from our headline. The American Dream is Dead. Sure it is. If you need 900 K for new cars and a name brand college for two and a half children and an early retirement, that’s why beginning with what you value and spending money on that while cutting the rest will help you not only achieve your dreams, but also appreciate them more. [00:51:22] Doug: Second, a true fiduciary is someone who will fight with you and who may not share the same opinion as other fiduciaries. The key is to find one who meshes well with your situation and learning style. But the big lesson, boy, Joe’s mom, latched onto the whole lost souls theme of my trivia today. She’s ready to start a fund to raise money for lost souls herself. [00:51:46] Doug: Weird, because I don’t even think she knows any lost souls. I mean, who could she be talking about? Huh, weird. More on that to come. This show is the Property of SP podcast, LLC, copyright 2025, and is created by Joe Saul-Sehy. Joe gets some 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. [00:52:16] Doug: 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 is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I’m Joe’s Mom’s neighbor, Duggan. We’ll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show. [00:53:30] Doug: Welcome [00:53:31] Joe: to the after show. I am going to play. I know, Doug, you love this. I’m gonna play a trailer, but I think when everybody hears [00:53:37] Doug: this, yeah. Can it be like four or five minutes long? That doesn’t, you’re gonna [00:53:40] Joe: know exactly what I just went to see. [00:53:47] trailer: It’s hard to accept that it’s time to go. Your friendship has never been more important to all of us, but the future of Downton Abbey is now in Mary’s hands. [00:54:03] headlines: He will be a sensation. [00:54:08] Joe: And so the grand finale, uh, has come to theaters as we say goodbye to Doubt Abbey. And you know what’s funny is I could give you a long review of this. [00:54:17] Joe: I’ll just say this, 10 minutes in, because it’s been so long since I’ve seen The Last Doubt Abbey movie. I was like, I think I moved on. I think that too much time has passed and I’m just not in this universe anymore. I used to love Downton Abbey. And then I got to an hour in and I just whispered to Cheryl, I’m like, could this be a 20 hour movie? [00:54:36] Joe: ’cause I just wanna spend more time in this universe with these people. I loved it so much, it was so good. But you know what? I’m not gonna spend a lot of time there because either you are like me and you loved Doubt Abbey and the Gilded Age and all the stuff that, that the same team has created, or you don’t. [00:54:53] Joe: And if you don’t. Why go see this movie and if you do, you probably, were already gonna go see this movie anyway. I think there’s this hard line between the downtons and the non-doing. And so if you’re a doubting, you have to, it’s so good. If you’re not a doubting, well don’t watch this movie. Go back and start from the beginning because you’re just gonna be confused by the movie. [00:55:17] Joe: So, bigger thing. Bigger thing for me was I started watching a new TV series, but Doug, you’re in the middle of a TV series right now. [00:55:25] Doug: Well, we’re, we just finished one and I’m in the middle of one because stupid HBO doesn’t release ’em all at once. They make you wait a week by [00:55:33] Joe: week. I don’t mind the week by week. [00:55:36] Joe: I don’t like the Netflix thing that we did with Wednesday that we just finished. And I’ll talk about that later. You can binge half of ’em. Oh, and then they stop. Yeah. Either go week by week so that I get this cool musty tv every Thursday night or whatever it is. You know, like the old days or, or just give them to me. [00:55:54] Joe: All at one time. The 50 50 thing, I can’t stand. [00:55:56] Doug: Yeah, I agree. I guess it speaks to how much we like the show when I get frustrated that they’re only releasing an episode of task every Sunday night at nine o’clock. So what is task about task is in the, uh, mayor of East Town universe, if there is such a thing. [00:56:15] Doug: Uh, I’m not prepared to answer this in depth, but the writer and director of that show has produced actually a lot of shows set all around where the, a character in the show almost is the environs around Philadelphia. [00:56:31] Joe: Mayor of East Town won a ton of awards. [00:56:33] Doug: Yeah. And de deservedly so. And I think this show will as well, task is fantastic. [00:56:39] Doug: The, the place and the setting is as important as the plot line, but you care about the characters. There’s anti-heroes that you really care about. In fact, even the hero is almost an anti-hero. So it, you know, it’s a bit dark, a bit dim, not, it just literally visually it looks dark and dim. It’s sort of always cloudy outside. [00:57:00] Doug: Oh. But it’s not depressing in any sense. It’s just, it’s just a little bit like Ozark in that sense. Which I’ll use as a transition to the other show we just finished, which was Black Rabbit and has a very much an Ozark feel to it. Being led by Jason Bateman will do that. But I I, I got to the final episode last night and said, why hasn’t he won more awards? [00:57:26] Doug: ’cause Jason Bateman is so, so good in this, he’s so natural. This black, the new one with Jason Bateman and Jude Law. And Jude Law. Yes. And, and it, it just, they keep on making bad decision after bad decision. And you just, you care about them enough to say, what are you doing? Why would, you know? And, and are there moments where you think, oh, that would never happen. [00:57:47] Doug: The cops would never just chase, they would radio or whatever. Of course there are, there are in a lot of those kinds of shows, but the show is good enough that you don’t dwell on it in your mind. It never took me out of being. Mentally and emotionally in the show. Like you think it for a quick second, I made a comment, but then I’m right back in it and I didn’t really care that this one part was a little bit unrealistic. [00:58:09] Doug: It was so well written, so well acted, would strongly recommend Black Rabbit. [00:58:13] Joe: Jason Bateman is that actor though, to your point, that you just love forever. Like every, everything he’s in. Yeah. I [00:58:20] Doug: wouldn’t say he’s remarkably different. You know, he is not Daniel Day Lewis, like he, that guy just morphs. He’s a shapeshifter. [00:58:26] Doug: Jason Bateman’s not that actor, but he is just so good and so believable. You kind of forget that he’s playing a character. [00:58:34] Joe: I think he’s more like, like Denzel Washington that way, where I see Denzel Washington, but I’m like, yeah, I wanna see more of this guy. [00:58:41] Doug: I think that’s a fair comparison. Yeah. [00:58:45] Joe: I saw another movie that was recommended. [00:58:48] Joe: By friends of the show, Nathan and Catherine, by the way, Nathan and Catherine, I owe a big public thanks to when we went to Portland. They invited Cheryl and I and our friends to go to their family Italian restaurant. Think about how bad this would stink, guys. Yeah. We go to this restaurant that’s been in their family. [00:59:07] Joe: We actually met Nathan’s dad, who is in his seventies, I believe, came over and chatted with us at the table. The waiter, this hilarious guy from France, uh, just brought food. Nathan, who, you know, knows all the best stuff on the menu, told us what to order, ordered wine. I don’t know how much wine we drank, but, uh, but it was my fair share of wine and they were just excellent wines. [00:59:32] Joe: They’re wine list, the restaurant’s called Ricardo’s. It’s in Lake Oga, which is a suburb of Portland. A nice area, but we sat out on this patio and just had a great time with these people. They, even, these people import pans that are cookware that’s made for individuals, but is chef grade. And they sent Cheryl and I a couple, I mean, this is crazy. [01:00:02] Joe: It [01:00:02] Doug: was so nice. I had a similar experience in Portland, Maine. When you sent me there, Joe, [01:00:09] Joe: I’m like, wait, what? Yes. Yeah, I’m so, I just said Portland and I thought you’d do the other one. I gotta give a shout out to their company though, by the way. Because it’s, uh, deter, is that how you pronounce that word? [01:00:20] Joe: Cina. C-U-C-I-N-A. Is it Cina? Cina? I don’t know. Cina. C Co. Terina, yes, but beautiful pans. Thank you so much. You’re worried about how you pronounce that, [01:00:32] Doug: but you can’t say Lake Oswego correctly. You’re focused on Cina or Cucina and everybody yelling about the’re. Happy to say Lake Oga. [01:00:43] Joe: Everybody’s yelling at their device in the Portland area. [01:00:46] Joe: Joe, you got it wrong, but long way of not just saying thank you, but Nathan also told me I should watch this, this series that came out in 2023 called The Law. According to Lydia Poet, it got a hundred percent on Rotten Tomatoes, a hundred percent. And it’s a Netflix series, so it’s not like a little thing. [01:01:05] Joe: It’s this woman who in real life was the first female attorney in Italy. But the show is very fictional, very, very much fiction. There’s no way this is real life. She’s a, uh. Almost like a Sherlock Holmes. It’s like a Sherlock Holmes episode after episode. The episodes are really fun. Uh, we like, and it’s weird because it’s an Italian series, so it’s dubbed like a bunch of Netflix series and a lot of those I can’t watch because I can’t dub Is it over dub dubbing in English? [01:01:36] Joe: Yeah. Yes, dub. But you know what, dude, this show is one of just a very small handful. I don’t mind. It’s really good. The Dubbings really well done, but I can see why it’s got a hundred percent Rotten Tomato score the law according to Lydia po. I’ve watched two episodes, Nathan, after you told me to watch it. [01:01:54] Joe: It’s been great. So, oh gee, I think even you would like this one. [01:01:58] OG: Wow. [01:01:59] OG: Okay. [01:02:00] Joe: He’s [01:02:00] Doug: like, [01:02:00] Joe: great. I don’t think he believes you. [01:02:02] OG: All I heard was, uh, Italian food and Free cookware, so I know where I’m going for dinner tonight. Flying to Portland. [01:02:09] Joe: Watch out Nathan and Catherine OGs on his way. I.
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