Some episodes help you protect your money. Some help you protect everything your money makes possible. This episode does both.
Joe Saul-Sehy and OG welcome fire safety expert Steve Kerber from UL’s Fire Safety Research Institutes, who delivers simple, practical, “do this today” steps that dramatically increase your home’s safety. From upgrading outdated smoke alarms to understanding lithium-ion battery risks to spotting hidden hazards most people walk past every single day, Steve gives everyday Stackers the tools to keep their homes and families safer. This isn’t scare tactics. It’s straightforward guidance from someone who’s spent his career studying what actually prevents fires and saves lives.
Then the show shifts gears for the headline segment. Joe and OG unpack T. Rowe Price’s latest Global Retirement Survey to explore what savers around the world are most anxious about right now. How are people adapting to inflation? Are retirement expectations shifting across different countries? What can you learn from how others are handling the same fears you probably have? The data reveals patterns that might surprise you and insights you can actually use to build more confidence in your own retirement planning.
Between these two segments, you’ll get Doug’s trivia throwdown, a TikTok detour through airport lounge mythology, and a few classic basement moments that remind you why this show mixes serious topics with serious fun. It’s a wide-ranging episode packed with actionable takeaways and a good reminder that your financial plan works best when your home, your health, and your long-term outlook are all protected.
What You’ll Walk Away With:
- The small home safety upgrades that make the biggest difference in fire prevention
- Why smoke alarms fail more often than you think and how to pick the right replacement
- Lithium-ion battery safety covering where to store them, what to avoid, and which myths to ignore
- How real-world fire prevention thinking overlaps with smart financial planning habits
- What savers around the world worry about most when it comes to retirement
- How inflation, longevity concerns, and economic uncertainty are reshaping retirement expectations globally
- Practical steps to feel more confident about your long-term retirement plan based on what the data reveals
- Permission to take simple safety steps today that your future self will thank you for
This Episode Is For You If:
- You can’t remember the last time you checked your smoke alarms (or know they’re overdue for replacement)
- You’ve got lithium-ion batteries around the house but aren’t sure if you’re storing them safely
- You’re curious what retirement worries look like around the world and how yours compare
- You want retirement insights based on actual data instead of just one expert’s opinion
- You believe protecting what you have is just as important as growing what you’re building
Before You Hit Play, Ask Yourself:
When’s the last time you actually tested your smoke alarms or checked their expiration dates? And what’s your biggest retirement worry right now? Drop both answers in the comments because Steve’s fire safety tips and the global retirement data might address fears you didn’t even realize were universal.
Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.stackingbenjamins.com/201
Enjoy!
Monday Mentor: Steve Kerber
Big thanks to Steve Kerber for joining us today. To learn more about Steve, visit Steve Kerber – UL Research Institutes.
Our TikTok Minute
Our Headline
- Global Retirement Savers Study (T. Rowe Price)
Doug’s Trivia
- While playing Scrabble in 1979, photo editor Chris Haney and reporter Scott Abbott discovered missing tiles, went to Tim Hortons, played a little pond hockey, and sketched out the idea for what became one of the most successful board games of all time. What Benjamin and Borden stacking game is it?
Have a question for the show?
Want more than just the show notes? How about our newsletter with STACKS of related, deeper links?
- Check out The 201, our email that comes with every Monday and Wednesday episode, PLUS a list of more than 19 of the top money lessons Joe’s learned over his own life about money. From credit to cash reserves, and insurance to investing, we’ll tackle all of these. Head to StackingBenjamins.com/the201 to sign up (it’s free and we will never give away your email to others).
Other Mentions
Join Us Wednesday
Tune in on Wednesday when we’re talking charitable giving and welcome a guy who’s not only the managing director and vice chairman at asset manager PIMCO…he’s also the mind behind the Genesis Foundation, John Studzinski.
Written by: Kevin Bailey
Miss our last show? Listen here: Does More Money Actually Make Life Easier? (Spoiler: Not Really) SB1773
Episode transcript
Joe
Happy Honukah, gentlemen. Isn’t it Ch Chonukkah? It’s not Honukkah. Yeah, the multiple spellings thing. Eight crazy nights start today.
OG
It’s the same thing as like Mackinac or Mackinac. Right? Could you just find one way to spell it, please?
Joe
I know. Mackinac City is spelled differently than Mackinac Island, which is mystical.
Doug
Yeah, it’s only the city. Just only everything else is Right? I don’t get it. Everything else is right. The rest of the world is right. I want to know Uh about Hanukkah. There’s eight ways. The reason they I think they have eight days to celebrate is because they’ve got eight different ways to spell that that out.
Joe
Eight ways to sp it takes you eight days to get through every single one. Right. I think that’s what the menorah is for is the that they have to light a candle for each way they spell Hanukkah. Right. Could be wrong. No. Let’s just raise our glass. Let’s stop talking. Please God. We we gotta stop. It’s Yahweh.
Doug
So anyway, Navy Federal. Oh yeah.
Joe
Every Monday we salute our troops and on this special holiday Let’s salute the people that kept us safe all weekend and will keep us safe for the next eight crazy nights and beyond those people that serve our country or the veterans that have served our country on behalf of men and women serving our troops at Navy Federal Credit Union and our veterans and their families, and on behalf of the people making podcast in Mom’s Basement, big thanks to all of you. Let’s go make some magic now, shall we? Thanks everybody.
Doug
Live from Joe’s Mom’s basement, it’s The Stacking Benjamin Show. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor Doug, and what’s the best homeowner’s insurance? It’s the policy you don’t use. That’s why today we welcome fire prevention expert from UL Research Institute’s Steve Kerber with this year’s homeowners and maybe life-saving Holiday Fire Safety Tips. From holiday travel to fun at home, Steve’s here to mentor you toward a safer holiday season. In our headline segment, researchers at T-Row Price recently released their global retirement survey. How are we like other savers? And how are we different? We’ve got the results for you. Plus, a guy in China who’s already a legend in the world of frugal people. And you’d better believe it, I’m standing by with today’s fascinating money-themed trivia question. And now, two guys ready to help you kick off Eight crazy nights, it’s Joe. Oh and oh J.
Joe
Hey there stackers. Happy Monday to you. Happy Hanukkah. If you celebrate saying it that way. We are gonna be be celebrating good money habits today because we’ve got a fantastic show and let’s introduce you to this cast of characters. You heard one, my neighbor Doug, and uh across the card table from me is Mr. OG. How are you man? What’s up? I am super excited. You know, this guy, as you you guys already know, if you’re new to this show and you’ve never heard this episode, Steve Kerber Every Year brings it.
Doug
I know, and it’s funny, when I saw he was coming back. Makes me want to start a fire. I love this episode, but the first year we had him on, I’m like, really, Joe? Fire safety? It’s such a good episode. This guy’s awesome.
OG
So good demon Doug’s voice cracks.
Joe
Doug did great. It’s so good. Doug gets puberty back. It’s awesome. We’ve got a fantastic episode with Steve. I can’t wait today, guys, to share with you the TikTok Mimic that got sent. by Stacker Jen. This dude that Jen sent me this information about is a freaking legend. Just I’m I’m just gonna give it away. He is a legend.
OG
Okay.
Doug
Yeah.
OG
We’ll see.
Doug
I feel like he’s trying to skew our answer to is this brilliant or hashtag brilliant.
OG
I didn’t tell you how he’s a little bit. The ratio of stuff on TikTok is like, or any of social platforms is like 9,000, whatever the percentage is of 9,999 to 1. That’s the ratio of content to good content.
Joe
Is it the one or is it the nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine?
OG
Take the bet. It’s like you’re laying 21, you’re not hitting.
Joe
We’re about to find out about that. T Row Price also went global talking about savers around the world and they sent us the data. We’re gonna find out how much you’re like other savers. So anyway, action-packed episode. Sit back, relax, grab your favorite beverage, grab something to take notes. We are going to hear from the sponsors who make sure we can keep on keeping on. You’re not going to pay a dollar for any of this stuff. So we’re going to hear from them and then we’re going to kick things off with the vice president and executive director from FSRI Institutes. You know, you see those things that say UL listed on all of your devices. This is the institute that does the research for UL. Steve Kerber is going to join us in the basement. And I’m super happy. He’s back in mom’s basement with us. Steve Kerber’s back. How are you, man? Doing great, Joe. Great to be back. Well, you know, holiday fire risk, Steve, as you know better than anybody than I know, any of my friends, always spikes this time of year. So from your research. at ULRI. What’s the real story behind this season that’s uniquely dangerous?
Steve
Yeah, this time of year a number of things change. People uh spend more time at home so there’s more opportunities to have uh people do things that aren’t the most intelligent in the world. Cooking certainly picks up. I mean the amount of holiday gatherings and things like that. People cook a lot more. Which means they tend to leave their cooking unattended and go to other rooms and stuff like that and forget it, or maybe they had a great time, had a few too many beverages and uh Pass out on the sofa and forgot that they were trying to cook themselves something that they wanted to fry up some fries or something like that.
Joe
Starts off as a good night, ends as a really bad night.
Steve
Exactly. Uh and then you got the heating. I mean certainly as a lot of the country gets cold, people don’t get their their heaters checked, people don’t check their fireplaces and stuff like that. And then of course you’ve got all the holiday decor. all the candles start coming out, uh all the Christmas lights with uh out the UL listing and they get frayed and they’re they’re coming out for the fiftieth season and they should have been retired a long time ago and You get that unfortunate incident.
Joe
You know, we always tie this around homeowners insurance. The first year you were on several years ago, Steve, people are like, what does this have to do with money? Well the best Homeowners insurance is never to use it, right? I mean, if we don’t have to we don’t have to file a claim that things are good, but what’s the hidden financial cost of a house fire that families never really think about until it’s too late?
Steve
We always talk about how you can’t put a price on people’s lives and you can’t people have priceless belongings and things like that, but I mean it it is incredibly difficult to recover from a fire. We’ve done a lot of work with the insurance industry lately, and a lot of what we see is that people are grossly underinsured. You buy your house, you get an insurance policy. Maybe you go ahead and shop it and get a good price and and you’re okay with that and you kind of ride it forever and and maybe you don’t revisit it. But we’ve seen a huge increase in the cost of materials to rebuild homes. So I would highly encourage people to go back and check their homeowners policy and look at, because again, it’s it’s replacement value, right? So as long as that replacement value is what you’re insured for, Do you know what that replacement value is? Have you had that discussion with your insurance company to make sure that should you have an incident now, that your rate that you locked in fifteen, twenty years ago, is that still gonna cover you if you have a total loss today?
Joe
It’s funny we always talk about the price, but we never think about what we get, which is the reason why we have owner homeowners coverage in the first place.
Steve
Absolutely. And uh I mean talking to some of my insurance friends, it’s it’s kind of a tough like the margins in that business are so small
Joe
And it’s become It doesn’t feel like it though, Steve, by the way. I mean everybody listening is like I’m paying a ton more, but the reason is I mean the expenses are much higher.
Steve
Yeah, the expenses go up, it changes, and everybody wants to shop it and everybody wants to to be able to click one button and be able to get a dollar amount and move on. Rarely do people take the time and actually look at what what will this cover? Will it replace my contents? What can I build back with? And We do a lot of research where we’ve examined, I mean we’re we’re leading the, we led the analysis of the Lahaina fire in Maui, that conflagration that took down thousands of homes. And we’re currently leading the analysis for the state of California on the Eaton and the Palisades fires. And a common theme between the two is under insurance. I mean, all these people that had total losses. And even Lahaina, one of the sad things that we saw there was you had multi-generational homes that had been paid off, and because they didn’t have a mortgage, they didn’t continue their insurance policy. I mean again, nobody thinks a fire is going to happen to them. And I think that is the biggest challenge here. It’s kind of uh we call it complacency and indifference. Either you don’t think it’s gonna happen to you or you just don’t think about it at all. the consequences can be incredibly devastating. I mean, it could wipe out generational wealth.
Joe
I had a neighbor across the road that did that. They paid off the mortgage. And I didn’t hear from them. I heard it from the fire chief later who was a friend of mine. Just a this fire was so big, Steve, that it it was on the fire chief’s wall. It was like his picture. And it was horrifying just watching the team. Uh luckily nobody died, but watching the firefighters risking their lives, watching the people crying in front of their house, their house burning down. Turns out they didn’t have any homeowners anymore because they’d paid off their mortgage. Back to the uh the things you mentioned at the beginning of this discussion, though, about the holidays, so we can hopefully eliminate some potential fires.
Steve
Yeah.
Joe
You mentioned like lights, candles, cooking, you know, we could even throw in there probably real trees. Is there one? I’m thinking about these like it’s a bar graph. Is there one piece of this graph that leads them all that’s the biggest offender?
Steve
We believe it to be cooking. The fire data in the U. S. is not the best, but Cooking is a big one. One of the problems is because of modern smoke alarms and stuff like that, that people get notified very quickly that there is an incident and hopefully they have time to act. Like if you you get a small fire on your stove, chances are you’re gonna hear your smoke alarm go off. You’re gonna go in there, you’re gonna put a lid on that pan, or you’re gonna turn the gas off to the stove. And yeah, there’s a little bit of smoke, you open your windows up, you blow the smoke out, and you and you go on with your life. That fire never gets recorded anywhere. So all we get to see is what the fire departments respond to. And they respond to millions of incidents a year. There’s 30,000 fire departments across the United States. But we we typically only get the data when something goes pretty bad, when it’s beyond your ability to control it. But we know there’s There’s millions of other fires that get handled by by people that luckily get notified, which is why it’s so important to have those smoke alarms, because that is your early warning, hopefully with enough time to act.
Joe
If I’m asking for maybe better smoke alarms from Santa Claus this year, Steve. The gift that keeps giving. 100%. Yeah. What am I looking for in a good smoke alarm?
Steve
So this is something that’s pretty neat. As of I mean smoke alarms have been about the same since the eighties. They haven’t really changed. There wasn’t a lot of technological advancements. Some new ones came out where you could connect them to your phone with an app so you could be notified on your phone and stuff like that. But As of last year, Underwriters Laboratories UL changed our standard that now requires smoke alarms to have multiple sensors in order to Detect a fire and the the cool part of that is they do a better job of not going off for nuisance alarms. So you burn the toast, uh, you fry the burger a little bit too hard, the steam from the shower, these things are being made smarter. Because what we were finding is most people that didn’t have smoke alarms was because they had it too close to their stove. It winds up in the drawer because they burnt toast and it never goes back up. What is it? 60% of fire fatalities did not have a working smoke alarm.
Joe
Sixty percent. Man, that’s a big number.
Steve
Yeah.
Joe
You’ve shown too, by the way, you know, looking through some of the research on your website that the home materials layouts also burn a lot faster now, newer homes than older homes. What should the average family understand about how quickly a fire can spread?
Steve
Yeah, so here’s a hard hitter for you. So you you have the least amount of time to safely get out of your home if you have a fire today. than at any time in the history of the United States.
Joe
It’s incredible because it just seems to me with all the technological advances that you just quoted. That we’d have the same thing in building materials, but we have the opposite.
Steve
We have the opposite. So how how we build our homes and what we put in our homes. So think about it. We grew up you could like have a sofa that was actually made of like cotton. It would be a little lumpy, it wouldn’t be as soft to sit on, but it was made of natural materials. It was made of like cotton. It had a cotton cover. We had carpets that were made of wool. And uh we had like coffee tables and end tables and stuff like that that were actually wood versus today. It’s all particle board pressed together with glues and our sofas are polyurethane foam which is comfortable, it lasts a long time, you can sit on it, it sh it keeps its shape, but it burns like crazy. We’ve essentially replaced all of the natural materials with synthetic materials in our house. That are all made of synthetic materials. And that word synthetic means it was synthesized from crude oil, which means it burns. It has a very high energy release. So should you have a fire, the stuff that’s igniting burns a lot faster. So a lot of the comparisons we’ve did of old natural material, you had about like 30 minutes from a small flame on your sofa in your living room to that room is completely on fire. Today that number is like three minutes. Oh. Totally different ballgame. So if you if you have a fire, you have much less time to get out. That’s why we keep educating people on on having escape plans. Um have working smoke alarms. We talked about like it so if you have three minutes You want to know when that three minutes is starting as early as possible so that you’re on the front end of that three minutes so you can gather the kids, gather the stuff, get outside, call 911. And that’s why we want people making escape plans because if you think you’re gonna wake up from a dead sleep as soon as that smoke alarm goes off and you got kids in the house and you’re in different parts of the house And that house is filling with smoke immediately. You’ve got to know your way out. You’ve got to know where everybody’s going to meet. Everybody needs to have the same plan. Even if you have visitors. I mean, you got people sleeping with you for the holidays. They’re maybe not so familiar with your house. How do they get from that basement sleeping area outside and meet you at the front mailbox and stuff like that? How do how do you get out of mom’s basement safely and What happens if you go up the steps and you get hit with a wall of smoke? What’s your second way out? Because you now cut get your first way got cut off. Do you have a slider out the back and and things like that? These are things you don’t want to be figuring out in the moment.
Joe
Stackers, in the past, when Steve’s been here, we’ve during this interview, and we’re going to do it again right now. Just encourage you to do the same thing you did when you were in elementary school and you do fire drills. Like the home fire drill stuff, Steve, that people have sent us back after you’ve been on every year. Well, it’s the reason we love having you back on. People are like, it was actually a good time. the family doing it, like the kids have done it at school, but mom and dad have never done a fire drill at home. And just sitting down and doing it was a good, fun family activity. Better to have the fun family activity than the horrifying one later where You know, nobody knows what’s going on.
Steve
Of course. I mean, forever the fire departments have used kids as ways to get to the adults. I mean, the kids are they’ll listen maybe. They’re a little impressionable, especially if they’ve got a firefighter in gear standing in front of them in the elementary school. But us old people think we have it figured out and we take it for granted. We’ve got other things that we gotta worry about. We’re way too busy. We can’t push the test button on the smoke alarm and see if the kids even know what that sound means. I mean a a lot of kids sleep through alarms. They sleep so soundly that uh it’s gonna take the the parents to get to them and wake ’em up. I mean this brings in the the other message is we want people sleeping with closed doors. So we call it close before you doze. So if your house is filling up with smoke very quickly, say your living room’s on fire and your bedrooms are off of your living room or on the second floor. You don’t want to wake up with a layer of smoke over your head already. That’s not a good thing. So if that door is closed. That gives you the time to figure out where you’re at, why is this sound going off? What is going on? Get to the door Open that door, see if you have a path to get out. If you can see your way out, then absolutely get out. Get the kids get out. Make sure your kids know. If I go to my door and it’s full of smoke and I can’t see under it. to get out, keep the door closed, stay in the room. Call 911, let them know where you’re at. That barrier between you and where the fire is is going to buy you that valuable time for you to either find another way out, which whatever your plan B is, out the window onto uh onto a roof, or even to the window to call for neighbors and yell for help, or I know me as a parent, If I can’t get to my kid inside, I mean I’ve got a plan to go outside, grab a ladder, and then go to their window, and they know to keep their door closed. Because if that door is open, I mean you’re talking thousand degrees, you’re talking unsurvival amount of carbon monoxide. So it’s these little things that that people don’t think of that could be the difference between life and death.
Joe
If we do one upgrade other than the smoke alarm that you talked about earlier this year, what’s another upgrade we should be thinking about?
Steve
Oh, that’s a great question. If you’ve got the smoke alarms and they’re Meet the new standard. I mean, you mentioned smoke alarms for Christmas. I mean, these new smoke alarms have only been out for a year, like less than two years. Okay.
Joe
That’s the thing. When you’ve said that in the past, Steve, that blew me away. I had no idea that there was an expiration date. And right after you were on, of course It it’s it’s just my natural trust but verify right. Yeah I leave the interview, I say goodbye to you, I immediately go to my smoke alarm, and there it is right on the back. Like it is right there.
Steve
It’s required to be there.
Joe
Yeah, we had two smoke alarms that were expired and immediately.
Steve
Not suppressed. I mean most people think they come with the house and they live as long as the house. But it’s it’s just like anything else. The sensors in them start to deteriorate over time. I mean they’re made of plastic that’s like not always reliable, it’s gonna stay the same. So Get those new UL listed alarms to the eighth edition. Those are the only ones that can be sold now. So if you go to your big box store or Amazon and buy it. As long as it’s listed, then you’re going to be good to go. You’re getting the latest and greatest protection for your family. Other than that. I mean, let’s talk about what everybody’s going to be buying for the holidays, which is all the tech gadgets and all the power toys and all of that. They’ve got new batteries in them. These batteries are called lithium-ion batteries. Lithium-ion batteries are great because they they you can recharge them a million times. They hold their charge. They have a lot of power. But just like anything else, anything that has a lot of power in a in a small thing creates one heck of a fire hazard. So we’re seeing battery fires like we’ve never seen before over the last couple years. I was actually just on the phone with the head fire marshal of the fire department of New York. Last year I think they had eighteen fire fatalities because of battery fires. This year they’re down to one. And I asked them, Well, okay, what what’s the deal? They spent over a million dollars doing public education messaging. Telling people not to it was mostly because of delivery scooters and people with e-bikes and scooters that have bigger batteries that were causing these problems. And people were putting them by the front doors of their houses and their apartments, which was their way out. So the battery fire got so big so fast that uh people were getting trapped and and not surviving. So We started a new campaign a couple years back called Take Charge of Battery Safety. And the charge is an acronym. So the C is Choose Certified Products. So you want to make sure that that box or that device you’re buying off of Amazon, if it’s too good to be true price-wise, I can tell you it’s probably too good to be true.
Joe
So I’m looking specifically that it says UL certified.
Steve
Yep, it’ll say UL listed, there’ll be a little UL in a circle on the product. There’s other testing laboratories as well, but just make sure that it’s tested by a nationally recognized testing lab. I mean you’ll see they’ll use the language listed or certified. uh to safety standards. I mean that’s kind of the stuff that our organization does in the background that people don’t understand is actually happening behind the scenes So that’s choose certified products is the most important part. The second one is handle lithium-ion battery-powered devices with care. These things can’t be punctured. They’re not made to be dropped and abused mechanically. They’re not made to be heated really high and also used in the cold. So you gotta be careful with that. The A is always stay alert for warning signs. So if you smell a weird odor or the battery bulges, I mean we’ll see this a lot with like laptop batteries where it will start pushing its way out of the case of the laptop. That needs to go outside. You need to get rid of that. The other is recycle them properly. You can’t throw these in the trash. We are seeing huge instances of garbage truck fires and recycling and garbage facility fires because everyone just does they don’t know they have these things. Which they’re kind of ubiquitous now. They come with everything from a a single cell in a razor all the way up to a hundred cells in an e-scooter to thousands of cells in a EV. So it’s everything in between.
Joe
Where do you take them? Where do you dispose of them?
Steve
There’s recycling organizations. Call to recycle is one of them. You should be able to talk to your local waste management or recycling company, and they will have a separate stream just for those We’re starting to see boxes pop up in apartment buildings and office buildings that you can take. Tool batteries is a big one. A lot of the major big box stores will have bins. where you can take your tool batteries that are no longer functioning properly and uh dispose of them there and they’ll have them recycled. But uh yeah, this is a whole new thing. I mean it it used to be Man, our electrical fires could only start if something’s plugged into the wall. And now it can go anywhere. So you could have your cell phone catch fire in your pocket sitting on your sofa watching TV. We’re seeing it as big issues with airlines. Our sister organization, UL Standards and Engagement, just started a big campaign about traveling with batteries safely. The two big culprits there tend to be the power banks. So everybody traveling with one of those power banks to charge their cell phone or whatever while they’re on the go. And the other one’s vapes. A lot of poor quality batteries in VAPES are catching fire on planes. UL standards and engagement. They have a program where all of the airlines report to them when they have battery fire incidents. On average, there were two flights a week that had a battery thermal runaway incident happen in 2024.
Joe
Wow, two flights a week.
Steve
Two flights a week.
Joe
That’s just in the US.
Steve
It’s mostly US airlines that are reporting. So yeah, I think it’s pretty close to a US stat. And it’s and it’s probably underreported because not all of them are participating in the reporting process. But the big push is all the airlines now typically have messaging when you check in that says don’t put lithium-ion batteries in your check baggage.
Joe
Well they ask you. I mean I was just checking bags yesterday for a flight. And they they ask your, is there any battery inside of this? Is everything powered off?
Steve
Yeah, so you want no batteries whatsoever. Like the battery the device does not have to be on. to catch fire. These batteries can become unstable and you know how they toss baggage around. I mean you can have a laptop or a power bank that gets hit on something and and bursts into fire, or even worse, it it goes into thermal runaway while you’re in flight, not good. So the big deal now is, I mean, the same deal. You want to make sure you’re buying quality products. You want to keep those big batteries in your sight during a flight. So you don’t want to put your laptop and your power bank in the overhead bin. You want to put that in your backpack under the seat in front of you. So if something happens, you notice it right away.
Joe
You might smell it right now.
Steve
Exactly. You might smell it, you’d see some smoke. And then those flight attendants are getting training of how to deal with that. You don’t want that to go unnoticed in the overhead bin, and by the time that people realize something’s not right, that fires huge. You’re in trouble. We’re not trying to scare the heck out of everybody. We’re just trying to get good behaviors so that should something happen, uh, the chance of a bad outcome is decreased.
Joe
I was gonna ask you earlier. I was thinking about like if you had like a 60-second checklist, but guys, it sounds like Steve’s checklist is is very, very quick, which is check those smoke alarms. Number one. And then number two, when you’re buying new stuff and you’re bringing it into your house, just check and make sure that it’s all certified. Is there anything that with all this research that you do when we speak every year, Steve? That has surprised you to the point. Any stats you’ve seen that surprise you so much that has changed your own family’s behavior?
Steve
I mean, the power of these batteries has been mind-blowing. A single e-bike battery or scooter battery can fill a room with fire in like 30 seconds. It’s just such a huge amount of energy, and the batteries keep getting bigger. I mean that’s the part that’s concerning to me. I mean, you can get full-blown electric lawnmowers, zero-turn lawnmowers, and leaf blowers and These kids’ toys are starting to come where, I mean, you and I had a power wheel that one, we had to pedal it ourselves, but even if you were cool enough to have the battery one. it had a NICAD battery that like lasted three minutes and you could go two miles an hour. Now these bikes are doing like fifty miles an hour and the kids are going on the internet and figuring out how to put two batteries together to make it go a hundred.
Joe
Well, and that’s a feature, right? I mean the every year the new phone, hey, the battery lasts longer.
Steve
Absolutely. Batteries are getting bigger. I mean you can imagine, I mean there’s there’s a small cell in here, so if this went into thermal runaway, it’s gonna throw a decent amount of sparks. It’s gonna have a small fire, but it’s gotta light something else on fire. Like if this was on the sofa behind you, you’d be in trouble. But if it was in the middle of the floor or you’re outside and you throw it in your driveway, not a big deal. If your kid had a e-bike and instead of one cell and a cell phone, it’s got 50 cells, and you’ve got it charging right there by that sofa. That room is going. So you gotta know how to get out quickly. And fast.
Joe
Well, Steve, I love talking to you every year this time of year because I love the idea of a fun, memorable holiday season where people are in fear just because they took 30 minutes to listen to you and me, did a very quick inventory of the house and got their stuff together. And then you spend your time having fun versus thinking about this all the time. If only there were a place people could go to see research on this, to maybe help the family learn more about fire safety. I wish that place existed, Steve. Tell me that it does.
Steve
I’m going to give you two web addresses. The first one is closeyourdoor. org. So that’s the one that you go to to learn about the speed of fire, making escape plans, the importance of closed doors. And then I’m going to send you to the second one, which is batteryfire safety. org, where you can learn all the tips and all the things to look for to keep yourself safe as it relates to these lithium-ion batteries.
Joe
Steve, thanks so much for mentoring us on holiday safety and happy holidays to you and your family, man.
Steve
Likewise. Thanks for having me, Joe.
trivia bit
We’re looking for the answer and correct spelling. Old McDonald had a what? Farm. E-I-E-I-O.
Doug
Hey there stackers. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor Doug, and when the weather gets cold, leave it to our friends in Canada to get inventive. While playing Scrabble back in 1979, photo editor Chris Haney and reporter Scott Abbott find some missing tiles. Wait, can you find missing tiles? Aren’t they missing? Anyway, so what did they do? They went to Tim Hortons, played a little pond hockey, and apologized for something nice they did for. Total stranger and then sketched out the preliminary ideas for one of the top board games of all time. Some people play as teams and other play solo. What Benjamin and Borden stacking game is it? Maybe one that this segment even owes a little gratitude for? We’ll be back right after I figure out whether I’ll categorize this segment of the podcast as arts and literature or science. Suck at both of those. Hey there stackers, I’m Pie Lover and guy always trying to add just one More slice, especially during the holidays, Joe’s mom’s neighbor Doug. We’re kicking off the beginning of Hanukkah with a game lots of stacker families will find themselves playing this year, even though it was designed way back in 1979. Friends Scott Abbott and Chris Haney make millions on their invention of a game about what? Of course, it was about things that truly were random and scattered categories of facts. Trivia! The game, Trivial Pursuit. Retail sales in the USA began in 1983 and within five years the game had racked up $750 million in sales. Of course, now it’s a worldwide classic played by people all over. And now, the answer to the question, who are the two guys about to rock your world with an amazing headline segment? It’s Joe and OG.
Joe
I was just thinking, Doug, it’s actually been a long time since I played Trivial Pursuit. We used to When you and I would road trip uh through Canada, we’d take trivial pursuit cards and have a blast.
Doug
It’s funny you bring that up. I found those in my glove box. years after that trip you and I took because they just it was so much fun. I just left them in there for any future car trip. It’s a great way to kill time. It it totally is.
Joe
OG, when’s the last time you played Trivial Pursuit?
OG
Never.
Doug
I think it was, wait, let me think never.
OG
I do know that we have one at the cottage, and I remember it being very funny to whip the game out like, you know, it’s rainy, cold, whatever, let’s play. Let’s play, yeah. Let’s play trivial pursuit. It’s like the like the 1987 edition or something. It’s like the current president of the United States. And you’re like, oh, I know that one. You know, it’s like wrong. Ronald Reagan. You’re like, wait.
Doug
What famous baby got caught in a well? Well, which one?
OG
That’s happened like nine times since how many planets are there? How many states are there that were like, you know Yeah.
Joe
The tallest building in Chicago is Nope, you’re wrong. It’s the Sears Tower.
Doug
It’s not the Willet. It’s dude, it’s still the Sears Tower. I do not care. How many people buy that thing? It’s the Sears Tower. It’s so great.
OG
They haven’t even burned Chicago down yet when they trivial pursuit that I that I had.
Joe
Before we do our headline today, and once again, big thanks to Steve Kerber for just a fantastic amount of knowledge that guy brings every time he comes back. to the basement. But let’s do our TikTok minute, shall we? TikTok minutes where we shine a light on a TikTok creator who’s either doing something brilliant or air quotes brilliant. Oh gee, you seem to think this one is air quotes brilliant when I uh let off this show today by telling you that uh this dude that Jen sent me is a legend. Just a hundred percent legend. Yes. So is he doing something brilliant or air quotes?
OG
Legendary. I mean there’s never anything good on social. Like I I I I I try to find it. It just doesn’t exist. It is just pure idiot.
Joe
We found it a few times in this segment. I don’t think so. So this one actually that Jen sent me, it’s from Dasim Pilot, who wrote this, and I actually had to read it and screenshot this. This guy in China pulled off a stunt that sounds like it’s straight out of a comedy sketch. And this is something that, Doug, and you said this during your open, our frugal Stackers are just gonna love what this guy did. So here’s the story. He buys a refundable first class international ticket He goes to the airport every day and that ticket allows him to eat at the airport lounge. So he has dinner at the airport lounge. Two hours before his quote flight is going to take off. And because it’s refundable, when he finishes eating, he moves the flight to the next day. And then the next day, he shows up two hours before the flight. He eats dinner at the airport, in the airport lounge for free, and then changes it to the next day. This guy was able to get away with this. 300 times at the Cheyenne International Airport spelled X-I apostrophe A-N. I just simply don’t believe it. 300 times.
OG
Oh, it was on the internet, so it has to be true.
Joe
Without boarding a single flight. Don’t buy it. Here’s the deal. So he gets done Somewhere in the two eighties, two nineties, they finally get onto him because the dude either flies every day or he’s just in the lounge the same time every day. And the staff starts giving him a hard time. They legally cannot kick him out because he has a ticket and in the rules. He is allowed the day of his flight.
OG
Also false. They can 100% kick you out of a lounge anytime they want.
Joe
Well, they can kick you out, but they can’t not allow him back in the next day. Trust me. Back in the next day. So they start giving him a hard time. It’s on China Eastern Airlines, which gave him the lounge at access. Each time he’d show the ticket, walk in, enjoy the buffet like any first-class traveler. Instead of boarding, he’d just reschedule the flight for The next day, repeated the cycle more 300 times, dining for months without ever taking off. The lounge offered a spread of Chinese and Western dishes. Staff eventually grew suspicious, leading to an airline investigation when confronted He canceled the ticket for a full refund. Never paid a dollar. Ate 300 days in a row.
OG
Yeah, I find this really, really, really hard to believe. But you know, if it was on Facebook or TikTok, uh, then absolutely it has to be 100% true. Secondarily, have any of you been to the airport? Like how is this even a logical idea.
Doug
Yeah.
OG
You know? So you have to go stand in line at secure. First of all, you have to drive. I mean, I live as close to the airport as any normal person should, and it’s still 25 minutes. Did you see the pictures of DFW on on Thanksgiving? There was people were, for those of you who don’t know, DFW is actually a really great setup of an airport. in that there’s multiple like separate terminals with a bunch of different security lines at each one. So unlike let’s say Atlanta or Orlando or Seattle Where like everybody kind of funnels, they funnel you through security and then they break you out into wherever your gate is. At DFW, you’d start in the section where your terminal is and then you, you know, you separate from the gate there. And It’s all interconnected. So if you, you know, get in line, you’re like, holy crap, this is ridiculous. I’m never going to make it. You can I’ve had times where I can like literally go back out to my car, drive to another terminal, get in line at that security gate. Get on the train on the other side of security and still make it to my gate. Like, you know, there’s still enough time to do all that. But at DFW, there’s one road that passes through the middle of it. So you go through um a toll booth on either end. north north to south or south to north. Anyways, the traffic was so bad. People were getting out of their car and walking miles to try to get to the security because there was no it’s just a pure traffic jam. My point is, how in the heck is this a reasonable idea for anyone to save friggin? $8 on a on a dinner meal?
Joe
I don’t know that the Cheyenne Airport is set up like that. Like I have I have no idea.
OG
I certainly have no idea either, but it but you know you have to still go through security. We don’t know. No, they don’t have lounges on this side. Who knows?
Doug
No, we don’t know if they even have security. Maybe they don’t.
Joe
Who knows? Jen, thanks. Thanks a ton for sending that in.
OG
Stop sending us crap, Jen.
Joe
I’m sure we spend enough time talking about that. Let’s talk about it with the biggest. How much are refundable?
Doug
I was gonna say he’s still fronted. Five hundred bucks or you know whatever. He fronted a decent amount of money. Lost interest on it for he refunded it three hundred days later.
OG
Yeah. This is an awful idea.
Joe
Thanks, Jin. F How many Wow, on TikTok that somebody had an awful idea.
OG
What a waste of energy that whole section was.
Joe
Yeah.
OG
And yet you just took the bait so hard. Just from Googling this, apparently this story has been going on since 2014.
Joe
He’s been eating there since 2014. No.
OG
The first story of this was in 2014. That’s incredible. So what an amazing guy. Uh and then the last story was uh two months ago on Facebook.
Doug
Be better, Jen. Vet this stuff before you send it to us.
Joe
That’s not what the TikTok minute’s all about. Vetting stuff. What are you talking about? Let’s go to something that was vetted. How about our headline?
headlines
Hello, darlings. And now it’s time for your favorite part of the show. Our stacking Benjamin’s headlines.
Joe
T Row Price out with a brand new study where they looked globally at savers around the world. We’ve got all the information. What’s interesting about this study that was completed last month, these are 7,000 people around the world who turned in the results of this study. Global retirement savers, their number one worry around the world right now. OG, what do you think that it is? I don’t know. Inflation. Inflation number one. It just strikes me, OG, that I mean you answered that very quickly. It seems very obvious that it’s inflation. But if we had said four years ago that inflation worldwide was going to be the thing people were worried about when four years ago Remember, we couldn’t get people excited at all about thinking about the fact that prices go up. It it wasn’t on I remember I think there was a fidelity study we talked about four years ago. It didn’t even make the top five. things that people worried about. Now it’s number one with a bullet.
OG
The other thing that people around the world expect And now inflation really isn’t a thing, which is as much, which is kind of interesting.
Joe
I’m sorry.
OG
I said now inflation really isn’t happening as much as it was when it was happening. That is a hugely hot take. People I mean, I mean it’s not. It’s it it did. And During the time that, you know, like you’re talking about that four year ago period is when the inflation happened. It’s just we had all the excess cash from COVID and people were like, woo, is uh, you know, everybody, including governments and everybody was doing that from the quantitative easing type stuff. Yeah, I think we’ve definitely now it’s the result of it. And now it’s like the cash is gone. The result hat stayed. Nobody cared that they were buying vacation houses 40 or 50% above what the price was nine months earlier when they bought them. They were like, they nobody said, oh This house, uh, this vacation house that I’m buying is like $900,000. That’s a little crazy considering, you know, like six months ago it was like $600,000. No one thought that was a bad idea when that happened. But now when the taxes have increased and your your insurance has increased to match the pricing, and now you don’t have that extra cash flow of COVID and this not just consumers, this is governments too going on spending sprees. Like this is the result of it. So the inflation happened four years ago. Now it’s the effect.
Doug
But carry on. I don’t know if you’ll allow this, Mr. Moderator, but I would like to keep talking about this for a minute because I’ve wondered about this. Most economists uh I think from whatever school of thought they’re from, agree that a small amount of inflation is actually good for any economy anywhere and generally accepted is about two percent. Yes. About two percent is what you’re going for. And I think I saw uh maybe if a month ago, let’s say, I think we’re our trailing twelve months right now is like two point eight, just under two point nine percent.
OG
Yep.
Doug
Yeah. So why is everybody freaking out?
Joe
Oh, because it’s the fallout, because people didn’t notice it when it was happening, and now that the money’s been spent. I mean, people don’t track their budget. So because you don’t track your budget, you have this slow slipping that happens every month and you don’t feel it, you don’t feel it, you don’t feel it until all of a sudden you go, man, I don’t have any credit, I don’t have any money. What’s going on? Then you go, well, the reason is is now I go to, you know, two people go to a restaurant and the bill is easily 60 bucks for two.
Doug
I thought that was the start of a joke. Two people go to a restaurant. Yeah. Two guys walk into a restaurant and it’s $60. Ah! They start screaming. Isn’t that hilarious?
OG
So funny.
Doug
Without drinks.
OG
I mean, it’s a little bit like the insurance market in certain areas. You know, for those who don’t know, let’s take just, you know, homeowners insurance. Joe, you and I live in Texas. Prices of home insurance is ridiculously high. I think I saw that it was the third highest in the country. Part of the reason for that is natural disasters, right? And we can argue about why those happen, but they happen. But also part of the reason is that the the bureaucracy associated with raising rates, insurance rates, is It’s not on demand, right? So Allstate has to go to the insurance commissioner and say, hey, here’s our books. Here’s what’s going on. We just hit a big tornado. Destroyed half the town. We paid it out. Like We need some more money. We we have to raise rates. And then the insurance commissioner goes, eh, we’re not sure. You know, we’ll think about it. And then the next year, Allstate goes, hey, big flood. We paid it out. We need to raise rates. And so You see these like little things that happen and then finally the premium gets adjusted, right? And so all of a sudden people feel that. And I think that’s the same thing that’s happening with all other sorts of things, Doug to your point about like how do people not see this? Because Like Joe said, when you just slowly have like little changes, you don’t really notice it. You know, when your electric bill is $100 and it’s $105 and then it’s $110. You don’t really register that as a change until you see that there was a bill for 100 at one point. You know, when you’re paying 150, you’re like, oh, my electric bill is 150, I guess. I don’t know. But then, but then somebody goes, yeah, but like four years ago it was 100. You’re like, yeah, what the heck, man? Inflation’s killing me. It’s like, well, only because you noticed it now. But if your income doesn’t rise with that, then you use up the whatever margin you have, whether that margin is cash. Or what happens to a lot of people, that margin is credit. And it’s like, well, this is the first month I didn’t pay off my credit card bill, but that’s okay. It’s Christmas. And then January comes and it’s like, I still didn’t pay off my Christmas bill and I charge a little bit more because it’s like slowly eating into me. And then when you get to that point, Like Joe said, when you get to that point, you go, what is going on? And you finally go, okay, I gotta look at this. I gotta look at this crap. See what’s going on, what’s what’s happening? You go, when did it get to be $60 for two people to go out to dinner? It’s like, well, I mean last week it was 58, the week before that was 56, the week before that was fifty-four, you just didn’t pay attention this whole time. That’s what happens. That’s why it feels like people are It’s top of mind, even though technically year over year price change hasn’t been that much right now.
Doug
It’s also the 20% service fee that the restaurant owner sneaks in there with on every bill.
OG
Well, yeah, I mean that’s a completely different thing.
Doug
I’m joking.
Joe
We’ve got four areas that T-Real Price looked at. First was economic outlook. This is not something I want to spend a lot of time on. Global retirement savers have mixed economic expectations. Half of them expect a recession to begin by. Mid next year, among the other half, 41% anticipate growth. Fewer than one in ten are unsure. By the way, women, two to one more likely to be unsure of where things are headed, men more likely to predict where they think things are going. Nearly two-thirds of Japanese retirement savers believe there’s a recession. Canadians are pessimistic. People in US, Australia, and the UK slightly more optimistic. with less than half bracing for a near-term recession.
OG
And this is another example of why sometimes, or I should say this is the opposite example, of why sometimes not paying attention actually helps you. You know, if you’re worried about the stock market, for example, and that’s your proxy for the economy, and that’s your proxy for a recession. And you look at it every single solitary day, you’re gonna reinforce your own belief system. You’re gonna see all of the bad news. I mean Absolutely. There’s never good news, right? Turn on your local news and just make a little tick mark of like good story, bad story, good story, bad story, and see what the tally is at the end of the day. They’re never like, in other news, eight puppies were born today. And that’s awesome. It’s like it’s like eight puppies were born in a forest fire and you’re like, oh geez, that sucks, you know, or whatever. So still puppies. Yeah, but they’re still puppies. But at the end of the day, everything is going to be skewed toward that downside anyway. So if you’re paying attention to it every single day, you’re going to reinforce your own belief system of things are going to hell in a handbasket. And you’re going to see it because guess what? The stock market does go down on occasion. You’re gonna reinforce all of the stuff that you’re already thinking because the stock market does go down and it goes down, you know, every so often. And so you’ll see that And reinforce that and that drives that thing. However, if you just looked at the beginning of January and you look at your portfolio today, you go, oh, it’s a pretty good year. Pretty good year, all things considered. Not awful.
Joe
There’s always a reason to do the wrong thing. There’s always some good reason why you shouldn’t do the right thing, which is to keep up with the plan, keep going with the plan. The things people are worried about, inflation was the biggest one, 42%. Geopolitical events, 30%, interest rates, 27%. They make a note that 44% of those people who worry about interest rates are also worried about inflation. 20% of people who are interested in the world.
OG
Which one do you want? Unemployment interest, not interest. Do you want inflation, not inflation? You know, no, I just want it to be perfect. I want lots of money in my savings account. Right. Lots of high interest.
Doug
I just grip to you when the Fed cut the rate. I’m like, damn, there goes my high yield savings rate. Yeah.
OG
I mean it’s just I mean they’re not exactly correlated, but enough to over time. Yeah enough to see for sure. But this is interesting.
Joe
The stock market was the bottom of things that people were worried about, but younger savers much more concerned than older savers, which gives me some hope, OG, that around the world, older savers are just, hey, you know what? The stock market does what the stock market does. So I don’t need to be as concerned about that, but Gen Z concerned much more than baby boomers or Gen X.
OG
Or statistically, most people don’t have any money in the market, so they don’t care.
Joe
The big the well the well these are among people that are investors.
OG
Oh, okay.
Joe
Yeah. Savings and investing was the next thing that they looked at, which is that uh financial objectives around the world much more alike than different. In each of the five countries they studied, more than ninety percent of retirement savers said that their goal is to maintain an acceptable quality of life and overall have financial peace of mind. However, Most people report that their progress toward that in twenty twenty-five was modest, that they didn’t feel like they actually. made any headway toward that. I find that interesting, OG, because on a daily basis, I think that reflects all of our lives, that in those early years of saving, you’re doing a lot of lifting and you don’t feel like you’re getting anywhere. And then as you get older. You go, whoa, where did that pile of money come from? It was that daily little tiny list.
OG
It’s an interesting theme that we uh seem to have come back to, which is Paying no attention to it is the best result because you you don’t get to see the effects of compounding in real time. I mean, in every single solitary thing in your life, this bears true. I was talking to my son, who, you know, he’s not uh 48. He’s trying to gain weight. When I was explaining to him about, you know, you have to track it and you have to, you know, weigh yourself every day. And And he’s like, I did. And yesterday I lost weight. And so I was describing how I want the chart to go, right? And I was like, I was like, yeah, you want the chart to look like this. And he’s like But isn’t that me losing weight? I’m like, sorry, that’s the way that I want my chart to look. Sorry. You want your chart to look like I’ve been have it so ingrained in my brain of like But I track it every day, but I don’t evaluate it every day. You know what I mean? Like I want to see what the trend is doing. And when you’re doing Your financial goals, it’s the same thing. If you look at this every single solitary day, you’re not going to see the progress in real time. I mean, even if it was a day where all the dividends paid out, you know, which is kind of about now for most people in their ETFs and mutual funds, it’s about that time of the year where the where the last little dividend or capital gain, you know, contribution. Even if you saw that that day and you saw the cash come in, It’s still not gonna be enough to move the needle in your mind over like I made progress right now. But in reality, if your whole plan is based on market-like returns, You would expect to get what 7%, 8% a year? Is that what your plan is built on? And this year the SP is up some number greater than that. 15, 16? 16, yeah. But if you look at it on a daily basis, you’re going like, oh, I’m just not making any progress. But if you look January to December, you go, oh, it’s okay. If you looked January of 2015 till December of 2025, it’s it you’re a different person. It’s a completely different plan. This is the power of keeping your financial planning records. One of my favorite things, I don’t know, Joe, if you ever did this, but my one of my favorite things to do. is to like literally pull up a plan from 10 years ago. Hold on a second. Let’s let’s look about let’s look at what we were talking about in 2015. What was really important back then? Well, we were really working hard at getting up to 10,000 in your savings account, and they giggle because they have 50,000, and they’re bellyaching because they don’t have 75. Oh, we were really hoping to get the full 3% in our 401ks that year. And now we’re maxing out two 401ks, right? As was doing a hundred a month in my Roth. Now I do two Roth IRAs for a couple. You know what I mean? Like you see that progress when you look backwards over long periods of time. You do not see it moving forward. And you certainly can’t project it in your brain. Every single solitary person that we’ve we’ve ever worked with, when you sit down and you go, okay, you have this much money and you’re going to save this much, you have this much time, it’s going to grow at this rate. Look, you’re going to have $2 million. They go, nah, I don’t think your math is right. Oh, you’re gonna have five million. No, nope, nope, math is wrong. It’s like, no, the math is right. We just don’t believe compounding in our brains. It’s impossible to see. Measure backwards.
Joe
When it came to sources of advice, uh Workplace is the leading source of advice. People get more advice from where to save from their HR department. than than any place else. The company managing workplace retirement plans leads is the most relied upon source, but what people really want is outside advisors who understand their workplace advice. Nearly neck and neck is an outside advisor with advice from the workplace. And what people truly want, OG, is somebody who is outside. Not tied to the workplace if they can get it, but that isn’t just helping them with their life outside of work, but they can also handle helping them with the stuff at work. So somebody doing stuff much more holistic. And of course, people looking at retirement planning and goal setting. If they can get help with goal setting efficiently and ordering their goals, and if they can get help with retirement planning, those are the two biggest things. that people are looking at. Finally, they looked at retirement expectations of savers around the world, retirement optimism. Pretty low. Only about 31% of respondents expect to maintain or improve their standard of living in retirement, while a full 17% fear running out of money. Workers in the UK were most optimistic, uh, while Japanese and Australian workers most pessimistic. Concerns about financial security run deep. Just over one-fourth of workers feel confident they could weather a major financial shock. You know what’s funny though, OG, we could we could switch that around. That means 73% of people say that they could walk through a financial shock.
OG
It’s funny that you said that. That was my initial thought when you’re like 31%. I was like, but that means that’s 69%.
Doug
Yeah.
OG
Odd that we both came to the same conclusion on that.
Doug
Well, and actually that speaks back to your comment about there’s no good news. Like they’re designing the headline to make it look like a shock worthy negative thing. And if you flip it around It’s pretty good. Sixty-nine, seventy-one percent of people think they’re in decent shape. If you put that headline out there, I’m not clicking on that article.
OG
Yeah. Retirement expectations. Hold on. Talking about headlines for a second. I wish I would have screenshotted this because it was, I mean, it was perfect. It was like literally one headline on Apple News. One headline was like You know, economists fear global recession in the works or something like that, you know, some blah. And then the literally the next headline from the same company. Financial Times, something layered in Apple News. The next thing was stocks at all-time highs, investors optimistic on the future. Yeah. It’s like they’re like, just we don’t know. We’re just gonna throw stuff out there and see what you guys like.
Doug
They’re even doing it to the weather now. 28 million people in the path of this snowstorm. That’s true. Okay, first of all, that means three hundred and forty million people have got good weather. And secondly, just weather. It’s always been happening. There’s not 28 million people about to die.
OG
70 million in the cold front. Yeah, but they definitely do that down in Dallas. Like ridiculous. It’s gonna be so cold today. It’s gonna be in the 40s, for God’s sake. Layers, people, layers.
Doug
How many times we have to tell you?
OG
I saw this talking about the weather real quick. I saw this funny video about teenagers in the weather. And it’s like my kid going to school in August in Dallas. And it’s like sweatpants, hoodie, you know, sneakers. And it’s like, dad, I’m fine. And it’s like pulls the hoodie up. My kid going to school in Dallas in December. It’s like 28 degrees. Shorts, flip-flops, t-shirt. Dude, I’m fine. Yeah. That’s exactly how kids are. But uh yeah. I’m gonna start doing that from now on. I’m gonna take the screenshot of the uh weather channel where it says, you know, 60 million people in in line of the storm. I’m scribbled out and be like 280 million people enjoying sunny weather.
Joe
Retirement expectations also change with age. This doesn’t surprise me. Younger workers, of course, more optimistic about their timeline, especially when it comes to their retirement age. 63% of workers age 50 or above expect to retire after 65 compared with just 42% of workers between 18 and 34, suggesting younger generations, of course, that just think they’re gonna retire earlier. And and that of course could be for a number of reasons. It’s not just because you have to. You might be in work that you like and you enjoy and you just want to work longer. I think people get much more pragmatic about what their retirement age is as you get closer to that.
OG
Yeah.
Joe
And if you just, you know, tell somebody who’s young, well, yeah, I’ll probably retire early. Uh why not? Lots of stuff, as you can see, packed into this. We will link to this T World Price study on our show notes page at stackingbenjamin’s. com for people that want to really, really dig in because we hit just some of the big highlights of what they talk about. I always like these companies when they come out with these numbers and walking through them like we did today. So thanks guys. Let’s Mosey out onto the back porch. Doug, what do you got, man?
Doug
I have a pretty promising review that I feel like it’s important that we talk about here. This review is from Sizzler Stuffed. Intriguing. Caught my eye. It’s titled The NDS. I’m like, what the heck’s the NDS? I’ve been a longtime listener to the neighbor Doug Show. Ah, my goodness.
Joe
No wonder he wanted to read this one, OG.
Doug
I’ve been a long time listener to the Neighbor Doug Show and his trivia has saved my marriage. Every week my wife and I listen to Doug’s Friday trivia, and whichever of us is closest to the number gets to pick dinner. Little does my wife know, but I have been listening to the live version of YouTube, so I had the answer weeks in advance. But aren’t we both the winner with 12 weeks in a row at the Sizzler? Thank you, Doug. And I guess to the lesser extent, Joe. For the key to my happy marriage, me constantly being correct and getting to choose dinner every time. So yeah.
Joe
Okay. Maybe the dude in China is not as ninja as I may have implied, but this dude So good. Yeah, very, very good. Thanks for that. And by the way, I have had a few of you write me because don’t give us a review for a book, but if you do give us a review and send it to me, I always get books sent to me uh on behalf of the show for research and I can’t keep them. So our intern Debony has made a nice list of them and I will send you on. So that I can keep some sanity in my house and in my marriage, because my house will be just full of books if I don’t continue giving them away. So please uh send those to me as you get them. Coming up on Wednesday, man, do we have a great guest? How about the executive director of a little fun company called Pimco OG? John Studzzinski joins us. He’s not going to be talking about what you think the head of Pimco would be talking about with us. He’s going to talk about his favorite topic, which is. doing good in the world. And he has some definite ideas around using your talents to help in your community. And I can’t wait to talk to him. about this. Especially at a time like now when so many people are thinking about charitable giving. How do you do it? Well, John definitely has an opinion and I really can’t wait for you to hear it. That’s coming up on Wednesday, but coming up right now, Doug, you’re going to walk us through what the top things are we should have learned from today’s episode.
Doug
Sure will, Joe. Here’s what we should have learned today. First, take some advice from Steve Kerber. Upgrade those smoke detectors. It’s an inexpensive way to ensure that you’ll keep those smoke detectors running and those nuisance alarms away this holiday season. Second, saving for retirement, it’s about security first and then finding wealth. So take care of the little things and the big things will take care of themselves. But the big lesson. Don’t be OG’s partner in trivial pursuit. He’ll want just sports and leisure questions on every turn. Emphasis on leisure. Gotta go for the whole pie, OG. The whole pie. Thanks to Steve Kerber for joining us. You’ll find resources at batteryfire safety. org. And we’ll have even more resources in our show notes at Stackingbenjamins. com. This show is the property of SB Podcast’s LLC Copyright 2025 and is created by Josal Seahide Joe gets help from a few of our neighborhood friends. You’ll find out about our awesome team at StackingBenjamins. com, along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots. Come say hello. Oh yeah, and before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don’t take advice from people you don’t know. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor Doug, and we’ll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show.
Joe
Stacker Rob posted this today. We were talking earlier, guys, about retirement. And this retiree says, I’ve often been asked, what do you old folks do now that you’re retired? Well, I’m fortunate to have a chemical engineering background, and one of the things I enjoy most is converting beer, wine, and vodka into urine. I do it every day, and I really enjoy it. Chemical engineer. Got it. OG, what’s going on with you, man?
OG
Uh okay, so which one of these two do you guys want? I’ve got uh something that makes fun of ChatGPT, and then I’ve got something that is uh a drinking one. Drinking.
Joe
Well, we let off with a chemical engineer, so I think we got to stick with the theme. We have to go drinking.
OG
Okay. Saw this the other day, and it was basically what happens if you had a post-game Like sideline interview after going to the bar. You know how they interview the quarterback or whatever.
Doug
So we just gotta stay true to our game. We gotta deal with focus on what we do best.
OG
There you go.
bit
Harry, amazing session. Two early pints, struggled a bit, but then finished with twelve. How do you do it?
bit
Yeah, well it’s that two pint mark where uh most people call it a night, but I focus hard on the third and from there they didn’t touch the sides. So uh listen to that crowd they love you mate. Guys seriously the reason I do it I mean thanks to everyone that came out stayed the full six hours despite having uh jobs and families. These are the guys that lifted me up and I needed it most.
bit
Let’s talk about that for a second though mate. Uh you struggled a bit across the day.
bit
Yeah round rate was a bit of an issue you know but I got a word sorry red rate. Even at one stage Tom stole my seat, so I found a stool closest to the bar. But that’s why we’re professionals.
bit
We can deal with it, okay? So don’t celebrate too hard because you’ve got a big day tomorrow. It’s Saturday. How do you prepare?
bit
You know You want the big stage and that is Saturday, I mean it’s a mate from works bucks party tomorrow. It’s gonna be huge. Those guys are completely f
bit
Big round of applause for Harry Fitzgerald. Everyone’s rooting for you, mate, for the Saturday final. And then you can watch that live on Channel 10 and the ESPN from noon tomorrow. That should stretch into 2am or maybe 3 if there is overtime.
bit
Hey Harry, how are you getting home? I’m driving, gos.
OG
And then it says Harry died.
Leave a Reply