The Holiday Kickoff Special: 2025 Lessons, Risky Bets, and an Alaska Surprise (SB1777)

It’s the most wonderful time of the year in the basement, and we’re kicking off the holiday season with our biggest, most packed episode yet.

Joe Saul-Sehy, OG, and Neighbor Doug welcome Joel Larsgaard and Matt Altmix from the How to Money podcast for a year-end celebration of everything that mattered in money during 2025. Think of this as the holiday parade of personal finance episodes. There’s a lot happening, it’s all connected, and you’ll want to stick around for the whole thing.

First up, Joel and Matt join the crew for their Top 5 Lessons from the Events of 2025. From AI’s real impact on everyday work to market surprises nobody saw coming, this segment unpacks the money moments that actually changed how we think about our finances. These aren’t just headlines rehashed. They’re the insights that’ll help you make smarter moves in 2026.

Then the show shifts to a fascinating trend everyone’s noticing but nobody’s quite figured out yet. Why is everyone suddenly betting on everything? Prediction markets are exploding, retail investors are taking bigger risks, and the line between investing and gambling feels blurrier than ever. Joe, OG, Joel, and Matt dig into what’s driving this shift, whether it’s brilliant or reckless, and how to think about risk when it seems like the whole world just discovered the casino.

But wait, there’s more. Nick from Alaska calls in with a real-world budgeting challenge that proves even the most prepared Stackers face seasonal money surprises. His situation sparks the kind of practical, helpful conversation this show does best.

And because this is a holiday kickoff episode, we’re wrapping with big news about the Stacking Benjamins Vault, the new tool designed to help you organize and protect your most important financial documents without the headache.

This episode has everything. Big ideas, real questions, legendary guests, surprise calls, and the energy of a show that knows the best episodes are the ones where there’s almost too much good stuff to fit in. Welcome to the holiday season, Stacker style.

What You’ll Walk Away With:

• Joel and Matt’s Top 5 Money Lessons from 2025 that actually matter going forward

• How AI really affected work and income this year in practical, not theoretical, ways

• Why prediction markets and betting culture are suddenly everywhere and what it means for investors

• Whether the shift toward riskier investments is smart adaptation or dangerous groupthink

• Nick from Alaska’s budgeting challenge and the solutions the crew offers in real time

• An inside look at the Stacking Benjamins Vault and how it helps you organize what matters most

• The perfect energy boost heading into holiday episodes and a new year of smarter money moves

This Episode Is For You If:

• You want the year-end money recap that feels like a celebration, not a lecture

• You’ve noticed everyone’s suddenly betting on elections, sports, and markets and wonder what’s going on

• You love episodes with special guests, surprise calls, and enough happening to keep you engaged the whole way

• You want to head into the holidays feeling smarter about money, not more anxious

• You’re ready to kick off the season with the Stacking Benjamins crew at their absolute best

After You Listen, Share This:

What was your biggest money lesson from 2025? And have you noticed yourself (or people you know) getting more comfortable with risky bets lately? Drop your thoughts in the Spotify comments or the Basement Facebook group because this episode kicks off our holiday run, and we want to hear what’s on your mind heading into 2026.

Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.stackingbenjamins.com/201

Enjoy!

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Our Headline

• Expect changes in investor behavior in 2026 as prediction markets expand (InvestmentNews)

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Doug’s Trivia

• What do investors call the surge in stock prices during the last five days of trading?

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Better call Saul…Sehy & OG

• Stacker “Santa Nick” calls in with the question: “How do I cut when there’s nothing left to trim? What would you do if you were me?”

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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).

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Other Mentions

• Undue Medical Debt — Donor-powered medical debt relief, liberating everyday people. (Formerly “RIP Medical Debt”)
• Helen Keller Intl – Continuing Her Work
• Gifting Sense® – Early Financial Education
• New Incentives

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Join Us Wednesday

Tune in on Wednesday!

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Written by: Kevin Bailey

Miss our last show? Listen here: What 2025 Taught Us About Money (And What Actually Matters for 2026) SB1776

Episode transcript

[00:00:00] Joe: We are kicking off our holiday extravaganza weeks, and, uh, 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. 

[00:00:13] OG: Thank you. I, uh, lotion and cream, it keeps the wrinkles away. I can’t do much about the hairline, but the wrinkles are gone.

[00:00:20] OG: Wow. 

[00:00:20] Joe: Just go to Turkey. Like one of my family members did just go, go to Turkey. Not that 

[00:00:25] OG: important to me. I asked my barber, she said something about it one time, and I said, eh, maybe I’ll do something about that. And she goes, no, you’re not. And I just said, oh, really? She goes, no. ’cause if you actually cared, you’d have done it by now.

[00:00:38] OG: She’s like, it’s passed. You missed the window. It’s, it’s past fixing at this point. Like, you needed to care about this five years ago. I was like, 

[00:00:44] Joe: oh, the ship has left the dock. She said, all right. 

[00:00:47] OG: I guess, 

[00:00:48] Doug: okay. There aren’t enough dark alleys in Turkey where you can get this fixed. Yeah. 

[00:00:53] Joe: The answer wasn’t, oh, no, you’re very attractive like this.

[00:00:56] Joe: The answer was, the ship is sailed. 

[00:00:58] OG: She’s like, yeah, it’s, sorry, not happening. 

[00:01:01] Joe: I think you’re pulling it off, but, uh, chevres, watch it on video. The cool mug. 

[00:01:06] OG: I got this from my, uh, nieces and nephews. 

[00:01:08] Joe: I, I would’ve had no idea it was from nieces and nephews. It says, number one funk. You give them money, don’t you?

[00:01:13] Joe: I like the funk 

[00:01:14] Doug: though. I too. You give them what? You give them money. There’s no way they give him that mug. Number one fun call if they’re not financially incentivized. I am the fun uncle. 

[00:01:24] OG: I am the fun uncle. We are gonna have tons of fun. I don’t care what anybody says. God dang it. 

[00:01:30] Doug: The 

[00:01:30] Joe: yelling will 

[00:01:31] Doug: continue until everybody agrees.

[00:01:32] Doug: We’re having fun. 

[00:01:33] OG: Yeah, we are. We are having fun. And you will like it 

[00:01:36] Doug: as much fun as our, uh, men and women in the service. 

[00:01:40] Joe: Yeah. Well the reason I was wondering about the mug in the first place, Doug, was because if you’re new here, we celebrate the beginning of our Monday episodes by saluting the men and women who kept us safe all weekend, and we’ll keep us safe through the holidays.

[00:01:52] Joe: Michigan 

[00:01:53] OG: State mug, that’s kind of like a middle finger though, isn’t it? 

[00:01:56] Joe: Come on, man. Our basketball team, we’re in basketball season now. They’re a basketball school. We’re in a good spot. Always have 

[00:02:01] OG: been. So is Purdue apparently. Absolutely. I 

[00:02:04] Doug: Well, we’ve never feigned being anything else. 

[00:02:06] OG: Ah, IES would like a word, but that’s okay.

[00:02:09] Doug: So on behalf of 

[00:02:09] Joe: the men and women, make a podcast at Mob’s Basement and the men and women at Navy Federal Credit Union, who serve our troops, the veterans and their families. Thank you for keeping us safe. Let’s go stack some s now, this holiday season, everybody else is fed them. Let’s go stack ’em. 

[00:02:27] Doug: Thanks everybody.

[00:02:30] bit: But out of that, a new holiday was born a Festivus for the rest of us.

[00:02:41] Doug: Live from Joe’s mom’s basement. It’s the Stacking Benjamin Show.

[00:02:55] Doug: I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. And on Friday you heard what our round table team thought we could learn from the events of 2025. But what do others think today? We welcome the hosts of the How to Money Podcast. Two dudes You stackers beat like a guitar hero drum kid at a 9-year-old birthday party last month while raising money for charity.

[00:03:16] Doug: Uh, I mean, uh, two amazing, intelligent and handsome dudes. Okay, that’s a bridge too far. I draw the line of intelligent. It’s Joel, Lars Guard and Matt Alt Mix. In our headline segment, we’ll feature an ugly prediction from investment news about 2026. 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.

[00:03:41] Doug: And now two guys who, Joe’s mom says are the rear ends of this podcast, whatever that means. It’s Joe and oh,

[00:03:56] Joe: I think she means Doug, that here we are at the rear end of 2025. Yes. And we are helping people dive in. That’s what she means. Yeah, you’re you’re right. 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 Saul-Sehy.

[00:04:13] Joe: And across the card table from me, it is the one and only the Mr. Og. The number one fun call 

[00:04:20] OG: indeed. Oh gee numero uno. The rear ends. I was thinking like rump roast. I was thinking like, uh, the prime rib roast 

[00:04:29] Doug: that Joe, did you notice that the font on the number one fun mug is the Godfather? Oh, it is. Oh, it is.

[00:04:38] Doug: It is. So, I mean, there’s a subtle hint there. Like they all know we swear to God you’re fun. We swear to God here. Right, exactly. Please take a mug. Please, please. They have to come into his darkened office every, every Christmas Eve with their hat in hand. Well, 

[00:04:52] Joe: let me tell you all what’s coming up here to round out 2025 and kickoff 2026 today.

[00:04:59] Joe: Of course, Doug, as you said, Joel and Matt, uh, joining us to talk about what their top five lessons from 2025 would be. We heard the round tables. Now we’ll hear theirs. We also have a TikTok minute that is nearly as good as that guy from China Airlines. We talked about last week, each China Airlines. That thing that just happened, that was really cool.

[00:05:21] Doug: Yeah. Yeah. Definitely is a true story. 

[00:05:24] Joe: By the way, thanks to our stacker on Spotify who also sent us the link OG that you sent saying Yeah, that’s, uh, that’s a fake deal. But this one’s not. This one is, oh, we’re gonna, we’re gonna protect some people today. We, our TikTok minute, we also have a call in. Anna’s not here, and we have a call today.

[00:05:41] Joe: We normally don’t do them without Anna here helping us out with that. But today we’re gonna take one ’cause it is year end extravaganza on Wednesday Christmas Eve. For those who celebrate, we are playing Doug and the three ghosts. 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, uh, about his, uh, his credit and his, it happened and his money habits not inspired by anything at all in particular, just totally it.

[00:06:13] Joe: 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 2023. We’re diving back like we did last year, three years, and we’re playing the best of.

[00:06:35] Joe: Three years ago, 

[00:06:36] OG: because everybody already heard this year. 

[00:06:37] Doug: Yes. We’re hoping they forgot. It’s like far enough back that they forgot those and we’re, we’re gonna resurrect them for them. 

[00:06:43] Joe: Well, and I’ll tell you, these mentors, Doug, are our shows that you want to hear again. I got really excited about those.

[00:06:50] Joe: And, uh, some of our top episodes with just the three of us and then our number one show from 2025. We’ll also use to kick off, uh, 2026. So a great, great year coming up. But we’ve got one more thing before we welcome Joel and Matt to the basement. We’re unveiling it guys. It’s about time the Stacking Benjamins vault is finally open.

[00:07:14] Joe: 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 OGs practice was 

[00:07:25] Doug: good. Now you can get the vault. Well, is this the thing, like every guy has a vault and when like, and you’ve got your best buddy and you’re like, dude, if I ever die, like, here’s where the vault is.

[00:07:38] Doug: It’s all that and make sure you get rid of it. It’s, that’s all that. 

[00:07:40] Joe: 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.

[00:07:55] Joe: Hey, so what are you doing for dinner? You know, those come from. Just a few places that are constantly selling 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 Stacky Benjamins vault.

[00:08:17] Joe: So check out stack you Benjamins dot com slash vault. See how it works. Finally, take control of subscription management, identity protection, getting removed from trash list. Controlling your credit. Stacky Benjamins dot com slash vault gets you there. I’m excited. I’ve been waiting to say that Line OG for a long, long time.

[00:08:34] Joe: We’ve been practicing it, that’s for sure. We began developing this with the team at Array. Back this summer and so it’s good to finally get it out there. Alright, the two guys who we’re super happy to talk to today, even though Doug you said it stackers, you guys kick their butt in the Voices for Good challenge.

[00:08:54] Joe: We’re so proud of the fact that you raised so much money for Gifting Sense. Wonderful. Karen Hollins tool that helps kids learn financial literacy. And you, you can go to gifting sense.org and check it out. We also thought it was probably tying to bury the hatchet. We kind of talked a little trash about them.

[00:09:12] Joe: So good time to uh, acknowledge two guys who are really good dudes. Yeah, actually I have a fantastic show out 

[00:09:18] Doug: of money. You better mute my mic ’cause I still want to dunk on him. 

[00:09:24] Joe: Joel and Matt 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.

[00:09:31] Joe: We’re gonna hear from them and then we’re kicking off the holidays with Joel, Lars Guard and Matt Alt Mix.

[00:09:46] Joe: And I am super happy. These guys are in mom’s basement. In fact, we are ending the year with the biggest stars we’ve had all year. Oh, shut up. The guys that finished second place. Oh 

[00:09:57] Matt: my gosh. What a jerk. I’m leaving. I’m leaving before this begins. Yeah. Say say, Joe brought us on just to drag us through the mud.

[00:10:06] Matt: Just 

[00:10:06] Joe: to say that you guys could go now. No, it’s a good friends from How to Money Joel and Matt. How are you guys? 

[00:10:12] Matt: Not, not as good Now. Do it. Yeah. I was feeling pretty good about myself, uh, about our listeners, Joe, until you just started, uh, rubbing our face and the fact that, that you curb stomped us on the, uh, the Daffy.

[00:10:23] Matt: You’re talking about the Daffy Challenge, right? Yeah, 

[00:10:25] Joe: yeah, yeah. Stackers did a wonderful job. But you know what, so did the how to Money audience and, and what I do wanna say that was really. A, 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.

[00:10:40] Joe: But then the second thing is, for a month I was like, when are all these celebrity podcasts that the two of you and us that we’re going up against, when are they gonna catch us, 

[00:10:50] Matt: dude? Okay. They never did. So I think once you are a celebrity, you’re allowed to, I mean, you’re opening yourself up. You are opening yourself up to criticism, just the fact that you have a podcast.

[00:11:01] Matt: Right? But if you are a true celebrity, okay, you are open to all attacks. And I was super disappointed in the fact that like you’ve got some of these other shows, these are like legit stars folks who are on shows. Who, what was it like one kid was the voice on like, how to Train Your Dragon or or something like that?

[00:11:18] Matt: Yeah, a family favorite. And I don’t know truly, I don’t know much about these folks individually, but uh, yeah, I was a little disappointed to see that they didn’t seem like they’re encouraging their audience to participate. ’cause I think if they had. If they would’ve seen some, uh, a bit more participation and more good put out there in the world.

[00:11:33] Matt: But yeah, I, I guess that’s more our lane giving personal finance and being smart with it and being generous. But, um. I think it’s a bit disappointing. 

[00:11:41] Joel: Maybe we should just also say, congratulations, Joe Stacking Benjamins. Well done. Proud of you guys. You 

[00:11:47] Matt: know what? In your listeners, 

[00:11:48] Doug: plus he’s rolling his eyes.

[00:11:51] Matt: I did hear Joel say, Matt, you know, it was only like one or two big donors that Joe had. It wasn’t, oh, 

[00:11:58] Joel: dude. You should have seen, 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. That’s, we know how you did this.

[00:12:07] Joel: That’s, that’s how it went down. My dad 

[00:12:08] Joe: does have 16 brothers and sisters, so we do have a large family. See, but I’ll say this, that we had as, as you guys did, we had a huge number of people that gave Yeah, I was super excited to see our community, your community, and even though you said Matt, that’s our lane outside of personal finance communities, we’re not known that way.

[00:12:28] Joe: Like people think that the reason you listen to a money podcast is ’cause you’re a little greedy and you want more, more, 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 causes.

[00:12:46] Joe: All sorts of stuff. 

[00:12:47] Matt: Yeah. My big thing is unfortunately Sam Bankman freed drug, truist, uh, what is it? Effective altruism through the mud a little bit, speaking of drag, 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, you’re looking for the most value.

[00:13:03] Matt: And so the charities that give well assesses and more of the money that you’re giving to them is going to impacting lives and saving lives specifically. So for me, I don’t know, it makes it, I like the ability to not have to research it and the fact that they have gone through this, this vetting process, such a thorough way, it makes me feel good about every single cent for like, on a global standpoint.

[00:13:24] Matt: But then of course, you know, leave space when it comes to being able to give locally, whether with, you know, Joel and I both give to our church, uh, local schools, different things like that to be able to participate in in locally. I feel like that’s like the, that’s the duality. I like that approach, right?

[00:13:38] Matt: 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 life from the people around me to be able to benefit from my own charity? But yeah, 

[00:13:50] Joe: a hundred percent. Can we, can we talk for a second? ’cause I think our stacker audience might not know what charities you guys were supporting.

[00:13:55] Joe: Joel, who was. Who are you supporting? 

[00:13:57] Joel: 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 changed. They changed their name ’cause RIP medical debt had such a, yeah, such a nice Got it ring to it. Right? They’re all about eliminating medical debt that people have accrued.

[00:14:13] Joel: Right. So think about like some of the, the, what we hear right from, from listeners what, what you see as just a nationwide. Terrible trend is people have more debt than they’ve ever had before. Um, is is what it feels. And medical debt is one of those things that puts people on shaky ground. People don’t know how to negotiate it down.

[00:14:31] Joel: And so that’s one of the nonprofits I was particularly trying to raise money for was to help relieve people of that debt because it can be sold for pennies on the dollar. And that’s what this organization does. They buy the debt and then they forgive the debt. And so that person is able to, I love that they get a letter in the mail and it’s like, Hey, guess what?

[00:14:47] Joel: You, you thought you had $12,000 in medical debt. You don’t have it any longer. And it’s, and undue medical debt didn’t spend 12 grand. They spent a whole lot less than that. So they can forgive medical debt by the insane number. Um, so that, that’s, that was one of the nonprofits. 

[00:15:00] Matt: That’s another way that it feels like your dollars are going a lot further.

[00:15:02] Matt: Yeah. ’cause it’s like on, on paper. Yeah. This is how much has been forgiven, but in reality, this is how much a 

[00:15:07] Joe: hundred x. 

[00:15:08] Matt: Oh my gosh. Yeah. That’s super cool. Matt, what was one of yours? Let’s see. So GiveWell was the organization that was vetting some of the charities, like so new incentives. Uh, Helen Keller International.

[00:15:18] Matt: Both of these are international charities where mosquito netting was, 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 these lifelong diseases that it’s insert Athletic Greens commercial here. I know if only dude, I, I’d try some, A 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 other parts of the world that they don’t have.

[00:15:49] Matt: Right? Yeah. And something as simple as, as mosquito nets to prevent kids from getting malaria, and it takes so little money to be able to set these individuals and these families up providing incentives for mothers to bring their kids in to receive some of these supplements. It’s just, it makes a huge impact.

[00:16:05] Matt: And again, when you’re looking to change the world, there’s always so much money that. That I have, Joel’s got a lot more than I do. It’s true. Yeah. And so I’m trying to stretch my dollars, you know, just, uh, too little butter over too much bread perhaps. But yeah, do what? I hold it over him all the time too.

[00:16:20] Matt: Do what we can. 

[00:16:21] Joe: 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 in 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.

[00:16:41] Joe: In your minds, five of the biggest things that happened in 2025 that we can maybe learn some lessons from. Do you guys mind if we do these like David Letterman style? Did you put them in? Oh, 

[00:16:49] Matt: let’s do it in like an order. Oh yeah. We weren’t watching a whole lot of late night TV back in the eighties and nineties.

[00:16:54] Matt: Can we start with the clearest, 

[00:16:55] Joel: most obvious one, though? It’s the Cracker Barrel logo change. Joe. Like, that’s the one I learned the most lessons from. Watch your PR in marketing. 

[00:17:04] Joe: Yeah. Maybe do a little pr uh, marketing stuff. Yeah. Before you have to handle the emergency PR firm later to try to Katie Perry 

[00:17:11] Joel: in space.

[00:17:12] Joel: That was another one that to me, really resonated deeply this year. You know, 

[00:17:15] Joe: Katie and I both cried after that, so that was 

[00:17:18] Joel: that I believe. Oh 

[00:17:21] Matt: man. 

[00:17:21] Joe: Uh, what was your number five, gentlemen? 

[00:17:24] Matt: Oh. Are these, uh, in any particular order? Which one? Uh, let’s, let’s, we got ’em written out. Let’s, we, we’ll start with maybe some more of the empty promises that there, let’s just talk about politics.

[00:17:34] Matt: Joe speaking of, oh good. 

[00:17:35] Joe: Is religion next? Can we do religion after that? Yeah. Speaking of 

[00:17:38] Matt: Cracker Barrel and alienating your audience, we’re, we’re just gonna cut to the chase. I think there are so many people who are looking to government on both sides of the aisle, right? Like we, we saw this in previous administrations, we see this now, and they’re looking to the government to fix all their problems.

[00:17:54] Matt: 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 bracket and different RMD, just the different laws pertaining to your money. But when it comes to just the.

[00:18:12] Matt: Oh, they’re floating this idea, oh, you got this, you got that. Sometimes it’s fun to talk about because it allows us to sort of latch onto a deeper, more substantial truth and 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 const, whether it’s student loan forgiveness, like last administration, or whether it’s, you know, at this point in time, additional health savings accounts or 

[00:18:38] Joel: subsidies.

[00:18:39] Joel: There was the tariff rebate checks, right, that were floated this year. Oh, that’s right. Like everybody’s gonna get $2,000 and is, which is funny ’cause it’s like a problem. That’s then the solution is the, the creation of the problem has been done by the people in charge and then it’s like, let’s create a solution to the problem that we created.

[00:18:56] Joel: This is like a perpetual thing in the world of politics. Sorry to start off on a political note, but it’s just one of those. Which is getting out of the way. There’s promises right and left, and you just have to be discerning. And while it might sound great, like is it actually gonna come to fruition? And um, yeah, the student loan forgiveness thing didn’t, that was struck down the tariff thing.

[00:19:14] Joel: Don’t think that’s gonna happen. But tariffs, I guess, are another one of those things that was like one of the big, big things of this year. Yeah, we actually don’t have that one 

[00:19:20] Matt: down, but that’s another one where, yeah, should you invest based on what you think, what tariffs are or aren’t going to come through.

[00:19:26] Matt: And I’m sure a lot of folks were thinking that back in April, but 

[00:19:29] Joe: yeah, when I said yeah, there I did mean yes you should. Yeah, I agree. And I love this one guys because of the fact that 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.

[00:19:44] Joe: Yeah. What do you think about terrorists? What do you think about the fact that even the government saying that the cost of our healthcare is gonna go sky high next year? 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.

[00:19:59] Joe: 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, let’s put a pin in that. But in the financial plan, it says that by today your accounts needed to be at the, let’s say, $85,000 for you to be on track, to be on the ladder toward your goals.

[00:20:21] Joe: 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. Yeah. And they start digging through, you know, looking up their 401k, looking up their investment accounts and they go, oh, we’re a little bit ahead, or we’re a little bit behind. Then all of a sudden we’re talking about what do you have to do?

[00:20:39] Joe: Yeah. And not about what is somebody else gonna have to do. And you know what’s cool? Yeah. All this third party crap never came back again. Yeah. And we just focused on what we could do. 

[00:20:48] Joel: 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.

[00:20:57] Joel: I think people are like, Hey, this seems to be happening. This is a, like, what’s going on? How’s this gonna impact my finances? And the truth is like we see legislation that dramatically impacts, like whether it’s a raising of the standard deduction, whether it’s the new Trump accounts for kids, right?

[00:21:12] Joel: 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 gonna impact your finances. We do it every week. We think it’s really important. Of course, the most important thing is the evergreen stuff that you’re doing with regularity.

[00:21:31] Joel: No matter who’s in the White House, no matter whether the Senate’s 60 40 in favor of red or blue, the actions we take are pretty consistent throughout the years, EE, even though there are tweaks to be made around the margins. 

[00:21:43] Joe: Yeah. Great stuff. That’s a great place to start, even though you freaked me outta politics, guys, like Matt’s running for 

[00:21:49] Matt: president.

[00:21:50] Matt: I, I just figured we’d go ahead, rip the bandaid off, get it out of the way, but I, I like what you said, like you’re talking, or maybe you said too, just focusing on what you can control. Right. Is it Stephen Covey, the seven habits? Sure. Like the circle of influence and then finding ways as you learn more about personal finances and.

[00:22:04] Matt: You are expanding your circle, and those are things that you then have an impact, a direct impact over when it comes to your personal finances and what it is, the kind of differences that you can make in your own life that are going to lead to substantial lasting change versus the headline of the day.

[00:22:17] Joel: Mm-hmm. 

[00:22:18] Joe: Well, we got off to a great start. What’s number four on the list? 

[00:22:21] Joel: Alright, number four is, this past year was a year of riskier financial products, and we’re talking about private equity inside of 4 0 1 Ks. 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.

[00:22:43] Joel: 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.

[00:23:02] Joel: Think about even just some of those, the alternative investment real estate platforms 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 gonna diversify. Right? That’s like a way that you might even convince yourself that this is a smart move, I’m gonna, it’s just a bit more sophisticated.

[00:23:20] Joel: Yeah. It’s just like, 

[00:23:21] Matt: you know what? I’m not gonna do what everyone else is doing at work with a 401k is kind of boring, 

[00:23:25] Joel: 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 gonna produce higher returns.

[00:23:34] Joel: 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 don’t look at the fees, they don’t look at the details, and they don’t realize that their capital is at risk. And so we’ve seen a lot of, I think that that come back to bite people on the investing side.

[00:23:51] Joe: 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 4 0 1 Ks. We definitely need to do that. At the same time, the equity multiple, the real estate company I think you’re talking about is blowing up. 

[00:24:07] Doug: Yep. Right?

[00:24:07] Joe: Yeah. I mean, they now have had to change their name, which is just when, whenever a company has to change their name, in fact, the network you guys are on had had to change their name because 

[00:24:18] Joel: people, well, Matt had to change his names multiple times because some, some of the things he did in some of the towns that he had to leave.

[00:24:23] Joel: That’s true. Yeah. 

[00:24:25] Joe: Yeah. It’s absolutely horrible. Like, are you kidding me? So what’s it about them? 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, you, Hey, you got all these opportunities out here. 

[00:24:40] Matt: What do you think? I mean, there’s an element of novelty, right?

[00:24:43] Matt: Like are we, or are we not more distracted, more A DHD, and we’re looking for the, the next new shiny bright thing. And I think folks are looking, it’s either that or the fact that they’re behind and they’re looking to make up lost time. Right? They didn’t start investing when they first heard about compounding interests, you know, in their early twenties.

[00:25:01] Matt: And maybe some folks, maybe they never heard about it. And it’s, I feel, for those folks, if you are in a situation where you didn’t get the, the information early on and you missed out on some of those early years, yeah, you may, maybe you are trying to find some time. Trying to make up lost ground, but I, I think more than anything it’s just folks, it’s like a novelty, it’s a stimulus sort of environment that we live in, right?

[00:25:22] Matt: Like we are used to the algorithms. We are used to 15 second clips of video. I was talking to a comic recently and he’s been in some major movies and him and his wife, this guy Chris Rock, you heard of them? 

[00:25:32] Joe: Yeah, yeah. My good friend Chris Rock, I can’t believe by the way, he didn’t just go ahead and name draft Joel.

[00:25:37] Joe: You had to do it for 

[00:25:39] Matt: him. He usually does. I try, I’m a humble guy, Joe, 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 our, you kinda chop it up and create the small quick little hits, but nobody’s necessarily incentivized to go and watch the whole thing.

[00:25:59] Matt: They kind of are fed the interesting, novel, entertaining thing, and then they, 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 in life, and in a lot of ways I think that can lead to incredibly poor outcomes.

[00:26:22] Matt: Right? Like just think about. Think about relationally, think about food, just other things that we partake in. Yeah. New and shiny and novel and better. 

[00:26:32] Joel: And just a shortcut. It’s actually 

[00:26:33] Matt: always better, 

[00:26:33] Joel: 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.

[00:26:38] Joel: Like dude gets every ladder and never hits a slide. It just sounds 

[00:26:42] Joe: like, it just sounds like an excuse for losing to your kid, Joe. 

[00:26:44] Joel: It is. It’s, and I berate him for this, Joe. No, I don’t. Uh, but it’s, you wanna catch all the ladders, but man, yeah. There’s all these potential slides that can send you back tumbling down.

[00:26:56] Joel: 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 in ca, like talking about like leveraged ETFs, those are something that have seen kind of more dollars, more influence and people don’t realize what they’re signing up for.

[00:27:11] Joel: Maybe on like one good day, you’re, these are meant to be short-term. Products. And even that, they’re very risky at that. And you, you don’t realize that like a couple bad days of being in this Tesla leveraged ETFI could lose all, 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 gonna stand the test of time and be gonna investment for years to come.

[00:27:33] Joel: So I guess, yeah, just with many more risky financial products at our fingertips, it’s even more incumbent on us to be wary, to be careful what we invest in. 

[00:27:42] Matt: Yeah. Well the the thing is too is like a lot of the companies that are pushing these things are like, you’ve got a love-hate relationship with, right?

[00:27:48] Matt: So I’m thinking of Robinhood in particular and they’ve got some awesome stuff. The fact that they’re offering a match for individuals on Roth IRAs like that is incredibly attractive. That’s when I started paying to have an account with them. ’cause I’m like, you know what? I’ve never had a match in my entire life other than.

[00:28:03] Matt: What we pay when we put on our employer hat to ourselves, but truly that is being provided by another entity. And even their 3% credit card flat across the board, cash back, that’s really attractive. I’m using that card, it’s on my phone right now. But then they’re also saying, Hey, did you know that you can leverage investing, you can leverage securities.

[00:28:22] Matt: All of these, uh, these behaviors that I don’t want to see more of our listeners, more of the stackers out there, uh, 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. 

[00:28:37] Joe: Yeah. 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.

[00:28:42] Joe: 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 

[00:28:52] Joel: you kidding me? Was it that the whole point of Tony Robbins’ latest book right, was like, here, here’s how you get outsized returns by going with this company I have a special relationship with.

[00:29:02] Joel: And you’re like, oh, okay. Like this is an advertorial in book form. 

[00:29:06] Joe: It’s incredible. And, and a long read too, like a thick book for an advertorial made it seem very professional. 

[00:29:12] Joel: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:29:14] Joe: The frustrating thing for people that, that are bored, Matt, to your point, you know, and they think, well, maybe I, maybe I’m missing something.

[00:29:22] Joe: Maybe there is a shortcut. Just go look for people that have been through that before. ’cause man, the number of stories you guys have seen, the number of stories we’ve seen of 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.

[00:29:41] Joe: They actually built a foundation, which was super cool to see. 

[00:29:45] Joel: Yeah, that comparison too, I think that we’re all comparing ourselves to people we don’t know more than ever before. No. And that makes it easier to justify, 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.

[00:30:01] Joel: Your eyeballs get bigger and you’re excited about that. And then you’re, and and ultimately what happens is it puts you further behind so much of the time. 

[00:30:07] Matt: 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.

[00:30:15] Matt: And one of the things they did partake in is home ownership and that. Is the past. 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 net worth tied up in, right? Their home. But that is changing, and that’s something that I think we’ve continued to see this year.

[00:30:34] Matt: And so that’s our number three is that, uh, renting is not throwing away money. And just because individuals, uh, our parents’ generation and there are plenty of folks who will die on this hill and they said, you, you guys don’t understand how much of my wealth is because of this amazing property that, that I have.

[00:30:48] Matt: And I’m not at all saying that, no, that’s not true. But I am saying that because of how easy it is for folks to invest because of automatic enrollment in 4 0 1 Ks, it’s easier than ever for folks to use platforms like said Robinhood. This is why we have like a, I’ve got a love hate relationship with 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, and their parents as well.

[00:31:12] Matt: And so the, the fact that individuals can now find a great place to live that’s affordable, that they’re gonna 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. 

[00:31:25] Joel: They are receiving a good, so it’s the place to live depends on economic cycles, right?

[00:31:30] Joel: We talk about buying verse renting in 2011 and buying verse renting in 2025. 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 going on right now?

[00:31:46] Joel: And the discrepancy between what you’re gonna pay when you buy a house for that mortgage and what you’re gonna pay in rent for a similar single family home. You’re gonna save a lot of money. Renting in 2025. In 2011, that wasn’t the case. And so you just have to like understand also like what’s happening in the market.

[00:32:03] Joel: The housing market is in an interesting spot. Rents have been 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, uh, owning a home is the pathway to building wealth.

[00:32:19] Joel: Like that’s the way I’m gonna 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. 

[00:32:29] Joe: Well, I think that as the data changes, right? I mean in the amount of money it takes for a down payment now. Just continues to go sky high.

[00:32:36] Joe: I was speaking to a, a gentleman in Southern California when he bought his first house, he put down $10,000, or maybe it was $12,000 maybe now, for his daughter who has a good job making I, I think, $85,000 right out of college. You know, nice, solid start. She’s gotta accumulate, you know, five times that just to live anywhere close to that neighborhood.

[00:33:00] Joe: Yep. 

[00:33:01] Joel: Just to sniff a house. Right. 

[00:33:02] Joe: 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 gonna live there seven years. The statistics even have changed from 2011 to 2025 when it comes to job stability.

[00:33:20] Joe: Yeah. I mean, PE people are working more, jobs moving more frequently than they have. Even in 2011. 

[00:33:26] Joel: Yeah. Yeah, that’s true too. I know people are, 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 ’cause like, uh, post COVID, it was an employee’s market.

[00:33:40] Joel: Yeah. And it was like, are you gonna pay me 30% more than my current employer then I don’t care. I’m not interested. So in some ways that was really cool to see. ’cause we hadn’t seen that much power in the hands of workers. The ability to demand more, the ability to trump ship and get paid a whole lot more than they were.

[00:33:54] Joel: And that has changed. I don’t think it’s maybe as bad as some of the headlines wanna make it sound, but I do think it is obvi. It’s clearly tougher than it was a few years ago. But we’ve also had much worse labor markets in the United States than we’re experiencing right now. 

[00:34:08] Joe: Joel, how many children do you have?

[00:34:09] Joel: I have three. 

[00:34:10] Joe: Have your kids ever seen you make that head motion when you’re like, uh, 

[00:34:14] Joel: Uhuh? Probably when I’m dancing with, uh, their mother. They 

[00:34:16] Joe: think you’re the coolest dad on earth. 

[00:34:17] Joel: No, not at all. 

[00:34:19] Joe: I’m surprised ’cause with moves like that, my friend, ever 

[00:34:21] Matt: since he grew out the mustache, I think they, that’s true.

[00:34:24] Matt: He clicked up a, a couple notches. I, they do like the mustache. The kids 

[00:34:27] Joel: are a fan of it. I will say that, 

[00:34:29] Joe: I said while we were sitting here at the card table before we went live, I even told Joel, I, he just looks like a private detective. Like I just, I don’t know. The mustache really does it. 

[00:34:38] Matt: I should probably wear a monocle.

[00:34:39] Matt: Maybe that’ll add even more to the mystique. You could be alongside Benedict Cumberbatch there like a Sherlock Holmes reboot. 

[00:34:46] Joe: I didn’t even want to think about that. So let’s move to number two. Okay. What’s second on our list of 2025 topics? 

[00:34:51] Joel: Uh, we’re gonna go back to politics briefly here, Joe. Yes. Mm-hmm.

[00:34:54] Joel: Super fun. The government shut down longest. Oh yeah. Government shutdown 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. This is obviously the emergency fund. Duh. Everybody who listens to this podcast knows about that.

[00:35:13] Joel: It’s also something we call the bare bones budget, which is planning ahead and saying like, what could we cut in case of an 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, what are we gonna cut?

[00:35:28] Joel: You know? And having, having done that exercise, I think puts power. Into your hands to be able to know exactly what you’re gonna do in the face of uncertainty and in the face of not knowing when you’re gonna get another paycheck. And so obviously tough position for a lot of people on the government payroll for what, 900,000 people to go through and to not know when this is gonna end and feel like it’s a political football and you are, the football being kicked around.

[00:35:53] Joel: That sucks. But there are ways to make that hurt a little bit less with some solid personal finance planning. 

[00:36:00] Matt: Yeah, and it’s kind of going back to what you were saying too, Joe. I mean, it just highlights the fact that I, I, in my mind, if you would’ve said 20 years ago, oh, I’ve got a government job that’s sort of synonymous with stability, with an inability, I don’t know, an inability to lose, to lose your job.

[00:36:17] Matt: Something that feels very stable and upwards and kind of onwards. Like being a tenured professor or something. 

[00:36:21] OG: Yeah, 

[00:36:22] Matt: 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, hmm, what jobs, what departments are necessary?

[00:36:40] Matt: Is there a way for us to be more efficient? I mean this, we do that constantly in our own lives, and so 

[00:36:45] Joe: businesses do it and we reward them. 

[00:36:47] Joel: 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. 

[00:36:57] Joe: Is that where I say Right.

[00:36:58] Joe: Do we say? 

[00:36:58] Joel: Yeah. Yeah. Only if you agree, Joe. I was, well, no, I mean like it, uh, not to get political, but it happened back in the Clinton administration and it’s happened. Yeah. Both Republicans and Democrats have at certain point, given at least lip service to the fact that they care. 

[00:37:12] Matt: Yes. That’s the thing though too.

[00:37:14] Matt: I mean, regarding lip service, it seems like it’s just more. Is it even lip service now? Because that’s the thing, like again, man, we, we really are like diving into the politics here. Sorry Joe, but like we’re, we try to say, feel free to about this section. We, we try, when we talk about it, we try to talk as apolitical and as both sides of the aisle as possible.

[00:37:29] Matt: But when you’ve got a 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 some ridiculous stuff, it makes you question that. It makes you scratch your head and you start to wonder, oh, it’s hardly even lip service anymore.

[00:37:45] Matt: Like there is no concern from a fiscal responsibility standpoint, like all we are so far past the days of the Tea Party and any sort of semblance to what. Taking a personal finance approach from an on an individual level and trying to apply that to the government, like in hindsight, that that feels so quaint.

[00:38:01] Matt: Oh yeah. Doesn’t it feel so quaint? Nobody. Nobody cares about that anymore. Nobody. Yeah, nobody does. Yeah. That’s the problem I was thinking 

[00:38:05] Joe: 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, if I’m holding myself accountable here rather than fight about stuff I can’t control in Washington, where am I?

[00:38:27] Joe: Wasteful spending places. 

[00:38:29] Doug: Yeah. 

[00:38:29] Joe: And by wasteful, I don’t mean being judgy. ’cause 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 gotta keep that business afloat. It’s a focus helping the community and everything. 

[00:38:42] Matt: Dude. You know, dude, I literally have a line item on my budget, Joe, when this new brewery that opened up in town and I said, you know what?

[00:38:48] Matt: Craft beers having a moment, like in a tough moment, right? There’s more breweries that are closing, uh, that closed this year than that’s our number one. It’s uh, it’s craft beer related. Just kidding. But I wanna 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.

[00:39:06] Matt: And guess what? Every date night, my wife and I, we swing by there and we have a beer and we chat. And you love it. And we love it. It’s so great. 

[00:39:12] Joe: Not wasteful at all, 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?

[00:39:23] Joe: Uh, love that. What, what was the point in number two? Where did we, where 

[00:39:27] Joel: did we begin this? We just, it was like government shutdown down. Be prepared. Oh, cash, just no cash on hand. There’s stuff that can come outta left field and just kind of smack you in the face most of the time. You can’t be like, you don’t have forewarning, but you know what?

[00:39:39] Joel: You do have the ability to plan for the unexpected. 

[00:39:42] Joe: 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. Mm-hmm. Also falters, because really focusing on free cash flow during that time, like people that had a lot of free cash flow, a bet had a ton easier time getting through the shutdown if they lost their job than people that needed every single penny of that paycheck.

[00:40:08] Joel: 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 has 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.

[00:40:23] Joel: If it’s in a high yield savings account, paying 3.75 and your mortgage is three and a quarter. Right. Prepaying the mortgage. Not only does it not make a ton of math sense, but it also costs you liquidity. In the case of one of those unforeseen circumstances coming down the pike. 

[00:40:36] Joe: Yeah, I like both sides of that argument.

[00:40:38] Joel: I like my side better, but you know, whatever. No, 

[00:40:40] Joe: my side’s probably better. Mm-hmm. But we’ll, yeah, ladies, 

[00:40:43] Joel: ladies go up. But I do 

[00:40:43] Joe: like the idea, I do like the idea, Joel, of this, this is what I used to tell my clients that we’re paying down debt directly to their loan, which was if you’re one payment away from paying your house off and you can’t afford to make that last payment, do they only take away the one piece, a little tiny chunk of the house that you didn’t pay?

[00:41:06] Joe: Or do they take the entire house? Yeah, and they take the entire house. It’s 

[00:41:10] Joel: true. 

[00:41:10] Joe: 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.

[00:41:22] Joe: And if I can create more free cash flow in my life, how cool is that? Yeah. Because then I can go with Matt to the, that’s right, to the let go, grab the beer, the brewery, and keep them in business. We’ll grab some 

[00:41:31] Matt: ice cream after the fact too. 

[00:41:33] Joe: Beer and ice cream. We’ll get all the 

[00:41:34] Matt: hi caloric intake. We’re uh, we’re healthy folks over here in the basement.

[00:41:37] Matt: I just 

[00:41:37] Joe: can’t imagine. Alright, 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 2025? 

[00:41:47] Matt: Do 

[00:41:47] Joe: you wanna switch 

[00:41:47] Matt: it up? Do you, do you feel like we need to go bigger? Something that impacts, oh, you gonna go out, what do you gotta do? You gotta pull something random.

[00:41:53] Matt: We do AI instead of, uh, Carlos because it kind of impacts everything, you know? Okay. Sorry. Is it okay that we’re having an on-air conversation as to whether what we should actually deliver on it? It’s just good radio. 

[00:42:03] Joe: It’s 

[00:42:03] Matt: great radio. Everyone loves to know how the sausage is made, Joe. Yep. They do. I think ai, like it’s gotta be at the top, right?

[00:42:11] Matt: Because not only have we seen its impact when it comes to investments, I mean is or is not the stock market run up. I mean, does it have more or less to do with the Mag seven and pretty much all the gains that we’ve seen this year has to do with that. Are we in a bubble? There’s a lot of folks who are saying that, that that might be the case.

[00:42:30] Matt: What do you think, Joe Bubble? Yay. Nay. 

[00:42:34] Joe: I think at some point the stock market always comes down. 

[00:42:37] Matt: Yep. Agreed. That’s what 

[00:42:38] Joe: 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 gonna happen. I don’t know if it’s gonna happen tomorrow, next week or three years from now, but it’s always funny.

[00:42:47] Joe: People are like, do you think the market’s gonna go down? Yes. 

[00:42:49] Joel: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s just a matter of when and how much, right? Yeah. Right. Um, yeah. And so 

[00:42:53] Joe: bubble, I don’t know, that’s above my pay grade. 

[00:42:55] Joel: So from the macro level, from the stock market level, ai certainly one of the biggest stories of the year.

[00:43:02] Joel: 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, uh, I was asking it about 5 29 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.

[00:43:26] Joel: 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. What do I do in response to this? And we have, you know, podcast episodes about that with like experts.

[00:43:41] Joel: I know you do two Joe, that’s like a really you 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 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?

[00:44:05] Joel: 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 positives, 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. ’cause there’s like a lot of fake stuff out there.

[00:44:20] Joel: And then there’s some helpful parts of it. 

[00:44:21] Matt: Yeah. 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, from a workforce standpoint as well, right? And there’s reports about it’s that it’s capable of replacing currently 12% of the current workforce.

[00:44:37] Matt: I think that’s something that we’ve gotta really wrestle with and trying to figure out for. And folks are like, that’s I, I think that’s one 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 they’re saying, okay, yeah, I don’t see, I don’t see a future.

[00:44:56] Matt: I thought I was gonna 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 if you are in an industry that is a bit more dynamic right now, you gotta be, 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.

[00:45:18] Matt: I don’t know, what is this gonna mean for me, for my industry as well? Yeah. 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 other. There like, it’s like essentially it’s replace Google for me, right? Like I, these are the same dumb questions of.

[00:45:32] Matt: Like, if you look at my history, it’s like stuff that I should know, but I just Google because I wanna double. I double check. Don’t look at his history. You don’t wanna, you don’t wanna know. Yeah. 

[00:45:41] Joel: Uh, Joel says Katy Perry in space. So yeah, it is love those memes. All the memes, I’m here for them. But there’s something like 30 year olds are saying like, but I was told to go to college and that everything would be fine.

[00:45:51] Joel: And I think we’re seeing a generational shift too, where. Gen Z. Teenagers are like, ah, 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, and we would never suggest that like college is like a ripoff or a ridiculous idea for most people.

[00:46:11] Joel: But again, you have to think twice. Think about, well, how much is it gonna cost? What sort of education am I get? What am I gonna be able to do with that education? 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 particular, the cost of it matters so much if you can go to college for 150 grand or if you can get that same degree for $12,000.

[00:46:31] Joel: Like there really is that level of disparity between different schools that you can, you can choose to go to when it comes to scholarships, when it comes to financial aid, when it comes to prestige and getting the degree for a whole lot less matters even more now. 

[00:46:43] Joe: I think a great stoic perspective on everything you guys just said.

[00:46:47] Joe: 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 that may be wrong. 

[00:46:59] Doug: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:46:59] Joe: That, that, you know, uh, my job is safe because I’m a lawyer. Look at the destruction AI’s had on the bottom layers of legal firms and the number of jobs that got replaced there.

[00:47:10] Joe: Very quickly, look at what’s gonna happen to truck drivers over the next several years. Is he 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, in journalism where, you know, this Pakistani newspaper just got caught leaving the prompt at the bottom of the article that was supposedly written by human.

[00:47:32] Joe: Oh gosh, I didn’t see 

[00:47:33] Matt: that. 

[00:47:33] Joe: Oh, this was great. It was just stellar journalism where it says, write a, write a piece for me. X, y, Z. 

[00:47:42] Joel: Well, the great thing is we can’t touch podcasting, right? No, 

[00:47:46] Joe: not at all. And yet this year we saw. Did, did, have you seen, have you seen those fake podcasters and how good they are?

[00:47:52] Joel: I, I 

[00:47:52] Matt: haven’t. Are they good? Good. Google X? Yeah, the notebook. I should be worried. 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, you let me know after the fact. Uh, we’ll hit, we’ll stop recording and then you let me know if I should be shaking in my boots.

[00:48:12] Matt: But, um, I 

[00:48:13] Joe: just think we should always be concerned. I mean, mean there should always be, I think it’s a great perspective, right? When you plan, play ’em for the worst and then when the best happens, you’re always grateful. 

[00:48:21] Matt: 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, and man, we’re, this is gonna start getting really insider baseball, but like we’re drawing on personal stories.

[00:48:36] Matt: It’s about stuff that we’re doing today, things, lessons that we have learned as individuals. You don’t get that with No, yeah. Large language models. I don’t know, like, does a. Is Gemini placing an Instacart order and learning that uh, it’s paying 50% more, you know, for its Aldi order. That’s something that I literally, I learned recently that we talked about and you know, that really pissed me off.

[00:48:59] Matt: Like I was almost embarrassed to share that. ’cause I’m like, I’m like the frugal Aldi leftover, eaten son of a gun that, uh, doesn’t throw any of his leftovers away. And then I was like, oh my gosh, I got duped. They fooled me. They tricked me. And that’s not something that happens to computers, right?

[00:49:15] Matt: Computers all know me. The only reason you went to Aldi in 

[00:49:17] Joe: the first place got ripped away from you. 

[00:49:20] Matt: Yeah, yeah, yeah. There’s something about that that feels doubly bad. Like if it happened at Whole Foods, I’m like, yeah, what do you expect? I was like, artisanal beef jerky. Of course I was gonna pay premium for that, but not for my, uh, what’s it, the Aldi Egg brand or whatever, something Happy Farms not for Happy Farms.

[00:49:37] Matt: Like, come on, if I wouldn’t treat you like that. Yeah. If I’m getting Happy Farms cheese, like I’m expecting to pay slightly more than like government cheese prices. You know, like, come on. 

[00:49:47] Joe: Those are the types of stories that AI doesn’t give you, but you do get on the How to Money podcast. So guys, thanks for sharing, uh, five stories that we can learn from this year.

[00:49:57] Joe: Let’s talk about what’s going on at How to Money. You guys know both our listeners are probably asleep at this point, so say something that you normally wouldn’t say on air about what’s coming up, like some big reveal. Of some big topic that’s gonna happen at how to money that the stacker. Universe will know first 

[00:50:17] Joel: Matt’s gonna start live streaming on Rumble, but he is gonna do a nude and I just think it’s gonna be really appealing to a wide spot.

[00:50:23] Joel: I’m trying to 

[00:50:23] Matt: supplement the, uh, how to money income with a little bit of That’s right. Uh, additional OnlyFans kind of revenue to start streaming in 

[00:50:29] Joe: here. Matt, here’s my wallet. Damn. 

[00:50:32] Matt: Just 

[00:50:33] Joe: sign 

[00:50:33] Matt: me up. Oh, I just got a notification that some like a, a Joe’s,

[00:50:40] Matt: uh, Joe Ss just, uh, Joe 

[00:50:42] Joe: Sealey, 

[00:50:44] Matt: who 

[00:50:44] Joel: could pronounce that 

[00:50:44] Matt: name. The benefit here is that, uh, I don’t have to pay taxes. ’cause that’s a tip. That’s right. Choo. It’s perfect. 

[00:50:51] Joe: See that We both win. We both win. I, 

[00:50:53] Joel: I love it. Amen. Yeah. 

[00:50:55] Joe: All because of the new government rules. Yeah. 

[00:50:57] Joel: What’s 

[00:50:57] Joe: coming up on how many 

[00:50:58] Joel: guys?

[00:50:58] Joel: Dude, we’re gonna keep podcasting. We’re gonna keep until the AI takes over, until iterates rip the microphones from our hands. I think the necessity for us to exist in any way, form or fashion, we’re gonna keep doing it. And, uh, just keep Yeah. Interviewing interesting folks. We answer listener questions and the Friday flights, I think are my favorite.

[00:51:14] Joel: 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 in that, we try to give like a evergreen sort of lesson that comes from it. Well here’s, yeah, here’s how it might impact your finances, but then what’s the long term approach to that?

[00:51:27] Joel: 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 ended up screwing things up. Whether it’s like a home reno or like yeah, like trying to get a gift from my wife. And I’m like, I’m just gonna make it super quick.

[00:51:40] Joel: And then it’s like a crappy gift. And she’s like, why’d you even get this for me? Don’t do that. 

[00:51:45] Joe: And that’s, and that’s at the out of Bunny podcast. We’re finer podcast, our found true story. Thank you so much for mentoring our stackers, guys. 

[00:51:53] Matt: Glad to be here. Thanks for having us. Great to see you, Joe.

[00:52:00] Doug: Hey there, stockers. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and today I’m putting up the stocking so that when Santa climbs his fat butt down our chimney, he’ll know exactly what to do first. I put my own stocking squarely in the middle. Of course, with Joe’s way down at the end, that dude’s getting coal anyways, so it doesn’t matter.

[00:52:18] Doug: But speaking of Santa Claus, here’s a term our newest stackers might not know what’s the term involving St. 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 oh, well, looks like I’ve got beef stock and chicken stock.

[00:52:41] Doug: That’s incredible. Damn, they expired in 2019. Time to call my broker at the Piggly Wiggly.

[00:52:57] Doug: Hey there, stackers. I’m soup 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, 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.

[00:53:15] Doug: 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 the Santa Claus rally. And now here come two guys rallying back to the mics to finish out 2025 in the strongest way possible.

[00:53:38] Doug: Well, you know, for them it’s Joe and og. Good effort guys. Good effort. Now get back out there and try your best. Mom’s proud of you. You get the participation trophy. You participated in the holidays. Good for you. I caught up a whole bunch of oranges for you 

[00:53:52] Joe: later. Super. Do I get a Capri Sun as well? By the way, Doug, I haven’t had Chicken and Star since I was like nine.

[00:54:00] Joe: Og. When’s the last time you had Chicken and Stars? 

[00:54:02] Doug: Maybe never. Actually, it’s so much better than regular Chicken and noodle. Is it? When’s the last time you had it, Doug? Probably in the last two months. Really? We buy it regularly. I love chicken and stars. Absolutely. 

[00:54:15] Joe: Now, now, now I wanna buy it. I just hope it’s, you’re gonna be like, he’s 

[00:54:21] Doug: right.

[00:54:21] Doug: Dammit. 

[00:54:21] Joe: It’s gonna set me back a dollar 12 and it’s on you. That’s crazy that that can of soup is a buck 12. Yeah, and it’s so basic. I mean, chicken noodle and chicken. Chicken and starts. How about that? That’s a blast from the past. Thanks to Joel and Matt for hanging out, og. I saw the look on your face not surprising to you at all, that they also thought ai, the big news from 2025.

[00:54:42] Joe: Do you think it’s gonna be, I, I think it’s gonna be even bigger in 2026. 

[00:54:46] OG: I’m waiting for it to do something magical. I think right now it’s at some level, uh, souped up Google. And I find it funny that when you Google something now, it’s like the AI answer is this. It’s like, so the other Google answer is this, right.

[00:54:59] OG: You know, like it’s just a in depth Google answer supposedly. You know, ai, I don’t know. It does drive 

[00:55:06] Joe: me crazy when you ask sir questions. It’s like, would you like me to ask chat GPT? Well, no. I was hoping you could just answer it like, I don’t care. 

[00:55:14] Doug: As long as you gimme the right answer. Do whatever you want.

[00:55:16] Doug: 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 CHATT type answers, but the, 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 heavy lifting on basic code structures to create apps that we never see that people are able to do now.

[00:55:44] Doug: Sure. 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 taking away some entry level jobs, but that’s where I think the real impressive stuff is, is happening.

[00:56:05] Doug: Oh, a hundred percent. We just don’t see, we see all the other stupid stuff. We’re 

[00:56:07] Joe: seeing the chrome, just the chromer on the edge. Yeah, 

[00:56:10] Doug: yeah. 

[00:56:10] Joe: You know, and some of these applications. Our friend, uh, Carl Jensen, a friend of the show, Carl and, uh, his spouse, Mindy, who’ll be back again for our round table episode early next year.

[00:56:22] Joe: Carl was driving from Colorado to California. He drove 480 miles without touching the steering wheel Once. Self-driving car. 

[00:56:31] OG: Yeah. Never in a frigging million years. 

[00:56:33] Joe: What’s that? 

[00:56:34] OG: I said, never in a frigging million years. 

[00:56:36] Joe: WW would you do that? 

[00:56:38] OG: No. Yeah, 

[00:56:39] Joe: he sat by the steering wheel with his hands off the steering wheel and just went down the highway and he didn’t, he didn’t touch a thing.

[00:56:46] Joe: Talked about that on social media this last week. So times are a changes. Well, there’s 

[00:56:49] OG: a difference between like adaptive cruise and self-driving. I’ll put the cruise on that has, you know, it’s got, it knows the car lengths behind that I wanna follow and it’ll dynamically adjust the speed. So, you know, you’re at your, you’re driving 70 and then, oh, I hate that car cuts in front of you.

[00:57:05] OG: It’ll slow down a little bit to, you know, but you still have to pay attention to it. Otherwise you end up in the left lane going 62, 3 car lengths behind the car in front of you. That’s also going 62, you know? Yeah. Like you have to, 

[00:57:15] Joe: yeah. 

[00:57:16] OG: I got pulled over one time because I, you know, a cop was like, why were you riding that dude’s rear end?

[00:57:21] OG: And what I realized after the fact. I didn’t get a ticket because I was like, sorry, I, you know, thought he was driving too slow. But what I realized was I had that adaptive cruise thing on while I was kind of overriding it by driving a little bit closer Yeah. Than what it wanted me to, you know, if you don’t maintain that, your foot on the gas so that you’re that distance and you like, let off the gas just a little bit, it goes, oh, Josh wants us to be in charge again, and it slams the brakes on.

[00:57:48] OG: And so from behind it looked like, I was like, oh, but I really wasn’t. I was maybe a car length behind going, Hey, knucklehead, get out of the way. So the 

[00:57:57] Joe: cop thinks you’re angry, man. Yeah. 

[00:57:59] OG: He was like, you can’t drive that aggressively out here. You know, and he was, he was actually quite nice about it. But I was like, I was thinking to myself, yeah, this is the, this is not a moment to explain anything.

[00:58:08] OG: Just, 

[00:58:08] Doug: yeah, 

[00:58:09] OG: just yes sir. And Roger that, right, and take your ticket and move on. But then I realized that that’s, that’s what he saw behind me, you know, as he was coming up, was. That, uh, aggressive behavior, which obviously I wasn’t doing on purpose, 

[00:58:21] Joe: but interesting. I, I’m with you guys. There’s a bunch going on under the hood.

[00:58:24] Joe: I know 

[00:58:24] OG: people that don’t even like, you know, the lane keep assist. Have you ever tried to like swerve outta something hate and that, oh, I hate it. The lane keep trying to get you and you’re like, I’m trying to avoid the tractor tire my way. You know, this is the one I need to go on the shoulder for. 

[00:58:37] Joe: It’s so interesting OG because Cheryl just got, uh, a new ride and immediately turned off the lane assist.

[00:58:44] Joe: She’s like, I can’t stand it, but I’m headed on a cross country road trip as soon as we get done recording to go hang out with my sister for Christmas time, and I’m turning it on just because I’m driving by myself and I’m gonna be in the car for a long period of time. So having that little. Extra safety precaution.

[00:59:03] Joe: I keep 

[00:59:03] OG: it on. 

[00:59:04] Doug: I like it. So Cheryl gets the new car and you get to immediately take it on the long road trip. It’s a pretty good deal, isn’t it? Wow. 

[00:59:10] Joe: Hey, speaking of that, let’s do a TikTok minute. ’cause this might have a little something to do with that in the TikTok minute. If you’re new here, this is where we shine the light on a TikTok crater who’s either talking something brilliantly financial or air quote, brilliantly financial, uh, og uh, what do you think about?

[00:59:27] Joe: I don’t know. I’m not even gonna ask him. Doug. I, I asked him last week, and, uh, Doug, do you think this is gonna be brilliant? Or air quotes brilliant air quotes, air quotes, it’s gonna suck. Well, this is dude dead and he’s really protecting us from a bunch of scammers happening, especially here around Christmas time.

[00:59:44] Joe: So, uh, you gotta watch out for these people. And dude, dad sounded the alarm. 

[00:59:49] TikTok: Hey guys, just a warning to be super careful this Christmas. There is so many scammers out there. I just ordered my wife this pair of diamond earrings and when they showed up and I opened the box, it was a 2025 transition smuggler and juniper green with pike forks and Dior components and they don’t take returns.

[01:00:09] TikTok: Ha 

[01:00:10] Joe: uh. Doesn’t that suck? I was wrong. His favorite bicycle shows up instead of the diamond earrings that he bought on purpose for his spouse for Christmas time and they won’t return it. That’s a 

[01:00:21] OG: tragic story. People need to find some new content. 

[01:00:23] Joe: There’s scammers all over the place. So the dude protecting us all.

[01:00:28] OG: Wow. Look out for all the scams. They are real.

[01:00:36] Doug: Well. Okay. Have killed you to just act a little bit. 

[01:00:40] OG: I’ve been told to read this. Oh my god, that was so funny. 

[01:00:46] Joe: Thanks, dude. Dead for the warning. At least one of us is appreciative that you sent us the warning. Let’s pivot away from that to our next segment, which is pivot time. Pivot time to talk to somebody who said, you know what?

[01:01:01] Joe: I better call Saul. See, hi and og. This is the part of the show where we shine a light on, uh, your questions. Normally, we’ve been tackling these in 2026. It’ll be tech with our friend Anna Ellum, and we’re gonna be doing those a lot in 2026. So stacky Benjamins dot com slash voicemail. And, uh, we already have a few, but we can always use more.

[01:01:22] Joe: But, uh, we do have a special one that mom’s friend Gertrude said we should probably listen to today. This call comes to us from Nick.

[01:01:35] bit: Oh, hello, Joe and og. This is Santa Nick calling from the north, uh, 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 terrible budget problems. Several years ago I told them, Mrs.

[01:02:05] bit: That I give presents to a bunch of kids. I don’t know, pay it forward. She said, you’ll become a legend. That sort of thing. Well, I have to say it’s gotten out of hand every stinking year I load up my sleigh. I mean, no. My, uh, pickup with all of these toys. It used to be trucks, trains, and Barbies, but now they want iPads, Xboxes, and thousand dollar phones.

[01:02:34] bit: I mean, I give these ankle biters everything they ask for, and they always just come back asking for more. I know what you’re going to say og, and before 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.

[01:02:58] bit: And now these rascals all expect a sock full of junk and their silly presents. Oh, greedy little and all for what? All I get 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.

[01:03:26] bit: I wouldn’t be surprised if the feds knock on my door tomorrow and shut us down. And if that weren’t a big enough problem, we used deer in our, uh, delivery system and the animal rights people are 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 when there’s nothing left to trim?

[01:03:53] bit: What would you do if you were me? Thanks guys. Ho 

[01:03:58] Joe: that voice sounds familiar. I feel 

[01:04:00] OG: like we’ve heard that before, undocumented workers. 

[01:04:03] Joe: But what do you do OG when you’re just trying to, uh, control your cost and you’re really not sure where the income’s coming from? 

[01:04:10] OG: Just say no. I tried that this year. My mom got all super mad.

[01:04:14] OG: I called her and I said, Hey, I need you to do one thing for me when I was a kid and tell, 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, cousins, niece and nephews are at one place?

[01:04:31] OG: Yeah. Did you, did y’all do that? 

[01:04:32] Doug: Yeah, yeah, yeah, 

[01:04:34] OG: yeah. What was the rule on the kids getting presents? Which adults got? What kids’ 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 cutoff. 

[01:04:48] Joe: Oh. I don’t know. I felt like sometime during college years.

[01:04:55] Joe: Oh wow. It just went bye-bye. 

[01:04:57] Doug: Yeah, I would agree. It was somewhere it was late. Yeah. Ours was 

[01:04:59] OG: very, very crystal clear. 18 after high school. You didn’t get any presents except for grandma and grandpa will get you present obviously, but yeah. You know, ’cause before that there was, you know, aunts and uncles, we had godparents.

[01:05:10] OG: That’s how we did it, was the godparents would give you gifts because we had lots of, uh, 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, the company basically. 

[01:05:23] Doug: Yeah. 

[01:05:24] OG: And so I sent that to my mom. I was like, Hey, you know, this is what I’d like to do.

[01:05:27] OG: And she’s like, you deal with that with your siblings? And I’m like, well, the only person it affects is me. ’cause I have an 18-year-old in college and my other brother who has like his kids are 30. And I’m like, I just, I don’t want there to be any surprises. And since you’re the grandma, it should come from you.

[01:05:44] OG: Declare it, go. This is how it’s gonna be. ’cause it’s my party. We got in a fight about it. Yeah, that’s what I would do. I would just go, no, you’re 30 man. You’re not getting anything from, I’m not the funko for you, I’m the funk for like the five-year-old ones. That’s how I control costs. 

[01:05:59] Joe: Well, I think sometimes it’s also an income problem, right?

[01:06:01] Joe: Right. I mean it truly is. You gotta just go look for income opportunities. Look for a way to kind of score, raise maybe all these different houses he stops at. Maybe he gets a little something, something from them. 

[01:06:11] OG: Well, subscription cost. He should start a subscription. 

[01:06:14] Joe: Yeah. That that, that’s a good idea. 

[01:06:16] Doug: 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.

[01:06:21] Doug: Exactly. 

[01:06:23] OG: Does that happen to you guys yet? On the, with the UPS guy? He is like, uh, I just need the name and, uh, quick signature and, uh, I’m just gonna ask you a quick question right here. 

[01:06:30] Doug: Not with a UPS guy. 

[01:06:31] OG: Oh, not, doesn’t happen with your UPS guy? No. No. Oh. 

[01:06:34] Doug: No, I haven’t had that. I’ve 

[01:06:36] Joe: seen that before, but I saw it with golf clubs.

[01:06:38] OG: Bang, shots fired. 

[01:06:40] Joe: Everybody’s wondering what the hell I’m talking about. No, no idea. Thanks for the call, Nick. If you’ve got a call for us, we’re happy to help. Uh, Stacking Benjamins dot com slash voicemail, all these ankle biters gets you. 

[01:06:53] OG: It gets you. Uncle og Don’t want to get no presents for no ankle biters anymore.

[01:06:57] OG: I’m trying to get out of it. My mom won’t help me. 

[01:06:59] Joe: If there is a tradition here, uh uh, that segment may be one of my favorite traditions. Uh, let’s do a quick headline. 

[01:07:07] headlines: Hello Darlings. And now it’s time feel favorite part of the show. Our Stacking Benjamins headline. 

[01:07:13] Joe: Our headline today comes to us from investment news again.

[01:07:17] Joe: We had one last week and I’m turning there again this week, og, because this piece written by Greg Greenberg. Expect change in investor behavior in 2026 as prediction markets expand. And I’m like, what is prediction markets? Prediction markets. It’s the new thing. Yeah. 

[01:07:37] OG: If you think gambling is, is addictive, right?

[01:07:40] OG: This isn’t gambling at all. This isn’t sports betting. It’s sports predicting. It’s way different. 

[01:07:46] Joe: This is a whole piece. It’s a whole piece on sports betting, moving further into the mainstream, and now prediction markets and platforms like Robinhood and Stackers. You just heard me let Matt talk about his love hate relationship with Robinhood.

[01:08:00] Joe: Without saying a word, aren’t you proud of me? Mm-hmm. I waited until they left before I’m saying anything, but they are accelerating into the space this year. Adding these new features and so features this whole piece, OG might be a bug, is advisors talking about how do you work with clients to avoid this place where many of the brokerages seem to be headed 

[01:08:25] OG: Is the, the question is how do you tell clients not to do this?

[01:08:29] OG: Is that your question? 

[01:08:30] Joe: Well, but what if they 

[01:08:31] OG: continue to do it? You know what I mean? Don’t care. I don’t, I mean, I mean at some it’s on you. Well, okay, so at some level this is no different than sports betting. Right? The headline that I got out of this was, I mean, not outta this particular piece here, but just this whole industry is, this is a spinoff of sports betting for the states that don’t allow sports betting.

[01:08:53] OG: 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’s gonna have. It’s like, okay, 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.

[01:09:12] OG: Right. And then you can on it just reminds, reminds me of, come on. It’s just so stupid. It just 

[01:09:16] Joe: reminds me of growing up in Michigan and there were no alcohol sales until noon on Sunday. Yeah. Because mean that’s God’s position changed on alcohol. Yes. At 12, exactly. At noon is 

[01:09:27] OG: when, when Jesus said, and let there be drunks, 

[01:09:31] Joe: this is when the water changed into wine on 

[01:09:33] OG: the eighth day.

[01:09:34] OG: He said, that must be drunk after the first quarter of the NFL game. Some of 

[01:09:38] Joe: these arbitrary rules just cracked me up. 

[01:09:40] OG: Yeah. I spend my life looking for incongruencies. So that those types of things really crack me up. But this is basically nothing more, I’m gonna use a sports betting piece of it. This is nothing more than.

[01:09:52] OG: A futures contract that you can do with your favorite team. And so the question is, is this profoundly different than any other sort of futures or options trade? And, and as long as you understand that the mathematics are the same, which are an insane return, if you’re correct in exchange for $0, not zero return, $0 if you’re incorrect, 

[01:10:17] Doug: right?

[01:10:18] OG: And the likelihood of being correct is, you know, whatever. And then that’s how that’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. One of the advisors in 

[01:10:33] Joe: this piece, Rob Wolf, said that emotion and confidence routinely overpower discipline probability thinking when you’re either doing sports-based betting or you’re doing these now, these predictive market.

[01:10:49] Joe: Things, adding clients, sports 

[01:10:51] OG: betting. Just say sports betting. ’cause it’s the same thing. Well but still, but there’s other areas. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s what I’m saying. 

[01:10:56] Joe: This is gonna spill over into what do you think the Dow’s gonna do? What do you think that you know who’s gonna win the election? Who’s gonna, you know, you can bet on whatever you want.

[01:11:04] Joe: Adding clients often underestimate how quickly small, repeated losses add up over time. So we go from this thing where our brain, this disciplined probability thinking of, Hey, 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.

[01:11:28] Joe: But I love what Wolf says here, which is these tiny, sometimes small losses, og, they just add up quickly and all of a sudden now it turns into, well, I just gotta bet a little bigger to quote, win it back. 

[01:11:40] OG: There’s a whole town built on this thinking and you only have to go to Las Vegas one time with an open mind and say.

[01:11:48] OG: These fine folks here did not borrow this money to build this big building. They’ve got a pretty good system here for extracting capital from the average citizenry. Yeah. 

[01:11:58] Joe: They know the ROI before they break ground. 

[01:12:01] OG: I mean, the other day the, the Powerball was at a billion. I don’t know what it’s at now if anybody wanted it, but you know, did you guys, did you guys play it when I was at a billion?

[01:12:08] OG: I a hundred percent played it. 

[01:12:09] Joe: Absolutely. You know why somebody’s gotta donate to that thing to make it keep going up. Why not me? 

[01:12:15] OG: Yeah. Well the reason that you buy the $3 ticket or whatever, or 30 bucks worth of tickets ’cause you bought 10 of ’em is ’cause you go, some idiots gotta win this thing. It’s one in a trillion.

[01:12:28] OG: But you know what, some, a-hole gets hit by lightning every year too. So, so far. So, you know, it might as well be me. 

[01:12:35] Joe: I walk out in the parking lot, get hit by Lightning and I won, but in a different way. 

[01:12:39] OG: Yeah. That’s how it works at the casino. That’s how it works in the options market, I mean. The internet has littered with people in the last five years who have figured out option trading, not figured out, who have learned about option trading.

[01:12:52] OG: And you see just like everything else, this is why absolutely abor everything about social media 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?

[01:13:14] Joe: Just the fact that it’s unpredictable. What’s gonna happen next? 

[01:13:16] OG: Um, that’s not the answer I was looking for. Doug car crashes. Yes, absolutely. You wanna see the big wins and the big losses. Like you wanna see the relationships that blow up because you know, you got the little sneak peek 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.

[01:13:37] OG: Right? Because you wanna see the trainer. It’s broadly specific. On social media, we wanna see the wild extremes. Nobody videotapes their day and goes, yeah. So today I got up at, uh, seven 50 like I always do, and, uh, took a little longer shower than normal. It was, uh, 15 minutes instead of 12. Are those those Cheerios?

[01:13:55] OG: Yeah. I, I, no, I ran outta 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, nope, that’s, 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 about all the boring stuff.

[01:14:19] OG: They go, Hey, I, I put a hundred bucks in this option trade and made a thousand, I put 10,000 in this thing. And you see all these big wins, these big giant success stories because that’s the, that’s the interesting thing. You’re on Reddit, you. The stuff that they feed you is the stuff that you linger on.

[01:14:36] OG: Right? Which is the stuff that is the most exciting stuff. Right? I like reading the story of the Idiot that put a thousand bucks in something and turned it into a 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.

[01:14:50] OG: 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. You don’t see the story of the person who sat on the range for 15 hours a day all summer to have the one good round. You know?

[01:15:07] OG: It’s just, it’s not the thing that’s exciting. 

[01:15:09] Joe: Well, it’s why when you see, when they’re playing, uh, 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 

[01:15:20] OG: the casino system is built on. There’s gotta be some idiot out there that’s gonna pull this lever and win a million bucks.

[01:15:26] OG: Somebody’s gonna do it, it mi it might as well be me and I’m gonna put a dollar in a seat and I’m gonna put another dollar in and what’s, what’s $10? And if I just do, you know, I just do $10 a day, like that’s not a lot. 

[01:15:37] Joe: I like the analogy around options that it’s always been here, but I also think it’s far more accessible.

[01:15:44] Joe: Then it’s been because options were so opaque to so many people and now it’s in our face. Robinhood, uh, you know, gamification masters. In fact, one of the advisors, Taylor Nav says, as a result of gamification, the culture has shifted. And I see people as likely to talk about this beating the market as they are a football game.

[01:16:03] Joe: Like people are gonna go, oh, on my app. I invested in the fact that I thought the market was gonna 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 gonna see the wins, but it’s gonna be far more often on these platforms than we did with options because what the hell’s a put, what the hell is a call?

[01:16:24] Joe: 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. And he says he’s got this section of the portfolio he and his client have carved out called the entertainment capital bucket.

[01:16:49] Joe: 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 just the cost of entertaining myself. So how much money do I put in this?

[01:17:07] Joe: 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, like it is a losing battle for advisors to go, yeah, you shouldn’t do that. Well, they’re gonna freaking do it anyway, instead label it correctly.

[01:17:27] Joe: So in your brain, you don’t cost yourself your entire future. 

[01:17:32] OG: 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 gonna the movies and having a bag of popcorn and a cherry coke, and that’s like a fine Tuesday afternoon.

[01:17:50] OG: Some other people like to go skydiving and some people 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.

[01:18:10] OG: Some people say, that sounds really super boring. I like to go on vacation and, you know, do a big hike, or I 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 trips that are nuke in your plan.

[01:18:40] OG: All of that leads to the same, 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 your money doing that.

[01:19:01] OG: And that’s the parlance we use. Right? Can’t believe you’d waste your money doing that. And I know people who do skydiving so that that’s not wasting their money. Like that’s the best experience they could ever have. They love every second of it. That’s what they wanna spend their money on. Some people like to go, you know, and Flaunt trips down the Rone River.

[01:19:17] OG: Who would do that? The Rh, or whichever. By the way, it’s pronounced 

[01:19:19] Joe: Rh. The Rhine River. Oh, the Rone would be next time? Probably, 

[01:19:23] OG: yes. Okay. Alright. Some people think that’s a waste of money. Some people like to spend it, right? It’s just, I, 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.

[01:19:39] OG: I’m investing in future trading. No, you’re not. You’re gambling and you might be right. That’s the dangerous part, honestly. 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. That’s a slippery slope. The worst thing that happened happened, I won $8,000 on my phone on a Tuesday afternoon.

[01:20:00] OG: I mean, it was. I guarantee I’ve given all that back and all the visits back to Michigan 

[01:20:05] Joe: happened with my son. I taught him how to play craps in Vegas. He thought it was the greatest thing. Luckily he 

[01:20:11] OG: lost before we left town. My kid did the same thing too. He went to, he went to the casino. As soon as he turned 18, he won, you know, a hundred bucks.

[01:20:17] OG: And he’s like, that’s the easiest a hundred dollars I’ve ever made. I’m going tomorrow, I’m going tomorrow. He went like the whole bunch and then he ended up losing it all on one trip. But he goes, that’s the dumbest thing ever. That only sucks. 

[01:20:27] Joe: My son came back to the hotel room and slammed the, you know how hard it’s to slam a hotel door and he still managed it to slam the hotel door.

[01:20:34] Joe: And Cheryl’s like, thank God he lost. Thank God. So how’d it go, Nick? Yep. He was on a hot streak. A fascinating story, and I do think, I do think that, so is sticking around 

[01:20:46] OG: basically that’s the moral of the story. Yeah. I do think 

[01:20:47] Joe: investment news is on to stuff. This is gonna get bigger, this is gonna be big news in 2026.

[01:20:52] Joe: I don’t think they’re wrong. Willing to it. On our show notes page at Stacking Benjamins dot com, if people want to, uh, dive in more. And if you wanna dive in even more to topics like this, the 2 0 1 newsletter. You can sign up for. And man, we got a lot of, uh, great, uh, while we’re giving out kudos, let’s give some kudos to Kevin Bailey, who writes the 2 0 1 always following up and digging in deeper to these curated topics from the same topics that we talk about on the show.

[01:21:17] Joe: It’s always free. You also then will know when we’re going live on YouTube. If you sign up for the 2 0 1. You’ll also see when our bad groups, our Benjamins, after dark groups are meeting up, you’ll get all the latest stack of Benjamins dot com slash 2 0 1. By the way, let’s, uh, while we’re talking about community wandering out on the back porch, our, our, our Benjamins after dark group in Minneapolis, St.

[01:21:41] Joe: Paul had their end of the year party. I don’t know, Doug, did you see this? What? Uh, Chris Luger and Veronica Barnes and our stackers, they had an ugly Christmas sweater party. People engaged in ax throwing, which I’ve always wondered, ax, like, what’s the liability insurance on that place? 

[01:22:01] Doug: I don’t know how they stay in business.

[01:22:02] Doug: You, I really don’t. I always wonder, I I do know I walked into one, one time and when I saw how much it cost, like, yeah, no, I’m out. I can do this in my backyard for free. The meetup group 

[01:22:14] Joe: team, they came up with, uh, cupcakes. The cupcake is a regular green frosted cupcake with, uh, an elf. And they have, they put my face in the place of the elf’s face.

[01:22:32] Doug: I don’t like the suggestive way you’re straddling that candy cane Joe. 

[01:22:35] Joe: That is scary as hell. I’m afraid. It’s my face like, oh God. Get that off there. Big thanks to our Benjamin’s after dark group, uh, leaders who make, uh, financial literacy and just hanging out with like-minded people. So much more accessible.

[01:22:51] Joe: Right now we have groups of Minneapolis St. Paul in Seattle, groups coming online in southern Minnesota. And in Boston in the near future. And we’re talking to people in Dallas right now, um, 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, uh, write to me Joe at Stacking Benjamins dot com.

[01:23:14] Doug: 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 the best. Whoa, gee. Who’s Tanya Breakfast Burrito known to man. Oh, excellent. Yeah. If you’re anywhere in the state of Arizona, go to Tanya’s for the breakfast burrito in Tucson.

[01:23:35] Doug: It’ll change your life. Oh gee, I love Doug’s 

[01:23:38] Joe: ba. He’s like, if you have it in Tucson, and if it’s on the day that I already planned to be there, I’m not coming special. And if you have it in the morning so we can get a breakfast burrito. Oh, and it’s at Tanya’s. 

[01:23:49] Doug: Wow. Well, the great thing is they serve the breakfast burrito.

[01:23:52] Doug: The whole time they’re open. I mean, to be fair, 

[01:23:54] OG: that’s kind of how, that’s kinda my travel plans too. Oh, we’re having a meetup sounds great. As long as it’s on the day that I’m gonna be there and, uh, I can get there in the manner in which I please and I can, and I, it starts when I want and I get to leave whenever I want.

[01:24:08] OG: Sounds great. I’ll be there. 

[01:24:09] Doug: I’m I, I will go better than that because I can get to Tucson relatively easily. So, uh, yeah, put the group together, make it happen. Neighbor Doug will be there. Just make sure that there’s a Tonya’s breakfast burrito waiting for me wherever you have your meetup. 

[01:24:24] Joe: Two more things we wanna talk about, uh, community-wise.

[01:24:27] Joe: We’ve been waiting for six months to finally release the Stacking Benjamins 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, uh, sucking money outta your pockets, but also get you off of those lists that are sending you all kinds of spam and, uh, 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.

[01:24:58] Joe: There’s so many things that you can do with the vault. We’ll be talking about it over the course of next week. Stacking Benjamins dot com slash vault. We have had some nice people, Doug, who’ve also said. Very kind things about us on podcasting platforms. And Doug, you’ve been raving about this one all day?

[01:25:13] Doug: I do. Mostly because I love who it came from. Joe, this is from Curly Q 2024. Can we just, can we pause for a minute to talk about how great this person’s fries are? They’re absolutely the better fries, curly q fries. I love curly 

[01:25:27] Joe: fries every chance. Do you want the regular fries? The curly fries? No question.

[01:25:31] Joe: That’s not even a question. 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, seasoned fries or tater tots. 

[01:25:46] OG: Oh, tater tots. 

[01:25:48] Doug: Yeah. Until you said tater tots, that was an easy decision. But now.

[01:25:53] Doug: I know. And if it was season tater tots the season tater tots for the win. If they made curly Oh, absolutely. Tater 

[01:25:58] Joe: tots. I’d be like, okay, take 

[01:26:02] Doug: my wallet. Find blown. Well, here’s what the master of All Fries said to us. And a review. He said, or she, they said, A fun and valuable finance podcast. Stacking Benjamins delivers valuable financial insights without feeling overwhelming.

[01:26:18] Doug: The advice is practical. The hosts keep things entertaining and the guest interviews are always worthwhile. A great listen for anyone wanting to improve their financial literacy. It’s like they stole our mission statement. 

[01:26:29] Joe: Wow. I, I feel like it. Thank you so much Curly q and I can’t wait for you to hear some of the holiday extravaganza coming up this week.

[01:26:38] Joe: ’cause the best ofs that we chose from 2023. So relevant today. So, so, so relevant today and we’re excited to play notes. I thought for sure 

[01:26:47] Doug: you were gonna say, and I can’t wait for you to invent curly tater tots, 

[01:26:51] Joe: please. And it doesn’t have to be either or. It’s and and go do God’s work inventing curly tater tots.

[01:27:00] Joe: 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 tale is Old as time Doug and the three Ghosts. Doug, speaking of Doug, what are the three things we should have on our to-do list after hearing today’s episode?

[01:27:21] Doug: Well Joe first take some advice from Joel and Matt. If you focus on what you can control, the events of 2026 and beyond won’t control you. Second. How about our headline? Huh? Betting on where the stock market heads next is awesome. If you wanna lose money, let’s stay with a winning hand. As Kenny Rogers said, you got to know when to hold them, and that’s 99% of the time.

[01:27:48] Doug: But the big lesson, you didn’t think I was gonna sing that did you? But the big lesson, don’t share 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. Two to one. You can’t say no to that lady. It’s one to one odds.

[01:28:06] Doug: She’s like a cartel controlling the bedding 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, even though you all pounded ’em like a keyboard during tax season, during the Voices for Good Challenge.

[01:28:28] Doug: Great job Stackers. You can hear their great show, how to Money, wherever podcasts are streamed, like wherever You’re listening to us right now. This show is the property of SB podcast LLC, copyright 2025, and is created by Joe Saul-Sehy. 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.

[01:28:58] 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.

[01:30:07] Joe: Welcome to 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 we’re talking about cleaning up. I was telling OG and Doug. That I am in the grocery store and you know, we buy the industrial strength packet of toilet paper so I don’t often pay attention to the price.

[01:30:31] Joe: And uh, there was an end cap that’s tag one percenter with these mega rolls. 

[01:30:36] Doug: Tell me 

[01:30:36] Joe: how rich 

[01:30:36] Doug: you are without telling me how rich you are. Remember remember we did the show a 

[01:30:40] Joe: couple weeks ago, the Friday episode og, where you’re talking about when you make over X amount, you no longer worry about the restaurant.

[01:30:47] Joe: Yeah. What number is it where you just don’t pay attention to the price of the toilet paper? How come that didn’t make your analogy, but right on the end cap It said on sale for 25 bucks. That was the stuff I like the ultra cushy stuff. Absorbent. Yeah. Super strong. 70 grit. Just the stuff that feels nice.

[01:31:09] Joe: You know, I don’t need to have the Doug truck stop toilet paper. ’cause when they give you those narrow. Toilet paper rolls. Yeah. You’re like, you’re not fooling anybody. I’m gonna wrap this thing 18 times to make up for the fact that you decided to go cheap. No, hold on. 

[01:31:26] Doug: No, no, no. You don’t do that, do you?

[01:31:28] Doug: What do you mean? What do you do? It’s a five square maximum per pole. No, in our house. Yeah. Five squares. 

[01:31:35] Joe: Even 

[01:31:35] Doug: if you go cheap 

[01:31:36] Joe: as all ghetto. Joe, talking 

[01:31:37] OG: about the truck stop. 

[01:31:38] Joe: I’m talking about you go cheap with that narrow stuff. I’m sorry. Well, your five square rule’s 

[01:31:42] Doug: gone. That’s my complaint, is that ours, while it’s charman 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.

[01:31:51] Doug: And you go look up online. ’cause I’ve been to other people’s houses that have nice, wide rules of toilet paper. Like I want that. And then I, I like, I measured mine and I go online and see how wide is the, whatever the other brands are. This would be a great, like Larry David skit. You walk outta 

[01:32:06] Joe: somebody’s bathroom, just furious with a tape measure.

[01:32:09] Joe: You’re at a holiday party and you’re just going off. Where do you find this? It’s like 

[01:32:13] OG: American Psycho, but instead of the business card, it’s paper. 

[01:32:18] Doug: And I’m still, I’m still, I, I haven’t pulled the trigger because like OG, we’re on Subscribe and save have been since COVID. So it’s just too easy to let it roll and have the giant box show up on our doorstep.

[01:32:29] Doug: But I feel like I might be ready to switch brands to get that extra eighth of an inch width. 

[01:32:33] Joe: Gotta tell you, it’s worth it. 

[01:32:35] OG: My grandpa used to tell me that. Um. You only needed 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 onto that and then you’d use your hand no.

[01:32:48] OG: And then the paper was to wipe off your hand. Oh. And then that little, that little, that little piece that you poked through, which the part that you put your nail, there’s way your 

[01:32:56] Joe: grandpa 

[01:32:57] OG: told you that that is a hundred percent what my grandfather 

[01:33:00] Doug: told me. No way. This explains so much if you, speaking of say if you only 

[01:33:06] OG: knew, 

[01:33:07] Doug: speaking of say 

[01:33:08] Joe: you’re wealthy, say your redneck without saying your redneck.

[01:33:12] OG: It is, that is grandpa. 

[01:33:13] Joe: Alright. Speaking of another thing, did you guys notice how much I, I was kind of squiring around as I sat down at the card table. My belt broke. It 

[01:33:22] OG: wasn’t as thick. Thick as ply as you thought. Huh? 

[01:33:24] Joe: My belt broke em. Cream’s not working. No. How does your, how does your say you’ve eaten too many Christmas cookies without saying you’ve eaten too many Christmas cookies.

[01:33:33] Joe: Oh, digging in belt buckle. Digging in a little bit. Wait, no, it broke it. It would, my belt completely. 100% broke. Look at this. It is completely busted. Like it is busted. 

[01:33:44] Doug: You broke the leather, dude. 

[01:33:46] Joe: I broke. No, no, no. It’s the, it’s the little metal piece. Worst. It’s the steel part. He broke the steel part. 

[01:33:52] Doug: Time to put the shortbread away.

[01:33:55] Joe: Yeah. So talk about, say your whatever without say or whatever. Oh my god. Not good. All sort of problems in your house, Joe. I’m not a quitter though. So let’s bring back out the Christmas cookies.