Ever feel like your money questions don’t fit neatly into one category? One minute you’re thinking about retirement, the next it’s insurance, emergency funds, gifting money, or whether your workplace plan is helping or hurting you.
This is one of those episodes where Stackers bring the real life questions, and Joe Saul-Sehy, CFP Anna Allem, and Neighbor Doug help sort through the noise. It’s a true Q&A show built from the issues you’re wrestling with right now. No perfect spreadsheets. No one size fits all answers. Just practical guidance for making smart decisions when your financial life has a lot of moving parts.
You’ll hear how to prioritize when everything feels important, how to adjust your strategy as rules change, and how to stay flexible without losing control of your long term plan. College planning comes up, but it’s part of a bigger conversation about balancing competing goals, not the center of the episode.
What You’ll Learn:
• How to make better decisions when multiple financial priorities collide
• Smarter ways to think about life insurance when cash flow feels tight
• How to build or rebuild an emergency fund with inconsistent income
• What changes to 401(k) rules could mean for your saving and investing strategy
• When opting out of a workplace plan might make sense and when it’s a mistake
• How automatic enrollment and contribution changes can impact your future wealth
• The right way to gift money to kids or grandkids without creating tax or planning problems
• How HSAs fit into your bigger financial picture
• Why financial gridlock happens and how to break through it
• How to balance short term flexibility with long term security
• A clear explanation of FAFSA and financial aid, and how it fits into overall planning for families who need it
This Episode Is For You If:
• You’re juggling multiple financial priorities and not sure which one to tackle first
• You feel stuck because everything seems important and nothing feels urgent enough
• You want guidance that fits your messy real life, not just textbook answers
• You’re tired of financial advice that assumes you only have one problem at a time
• You need permission to prioritize imperfectly and still make progress
If your finances feel like a maze, this is your map.
FULL SHOW NOTES: https://stackingbenjamins.com/answering-stacker-questions-with-anna-allem-1792
Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.stackingbenjamins.com/201
Enjoy!
Doug’s Trivia
- Who was the literary genius born on January 19, 1809, who wrote “The Raven,” “The Tell-Tale Heart,” and “The Pit and the Pendulum,” yet filed for bankruptcy in 1842 and died practically penniless?
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
- Learn how to save big money and sign up for the Stacking Benjamins Vault
- Want to work with Anna as your financial planner? Go to stackingbenjamins.com/og to sign up for a meeting and be sure to note that you want to work with Anna
Join Us Wednesday
Tune in on Wednesday when our friend Dana Anspach joins Joe in the co-host spot and we tackle the topic of owning your time.
Written by: Kevin Bailey
Miss our last show? Listen here: The Money Habits to Keep and Ditch in 2026 (SB1791)
Episode transcript
[00:00:00] Joe: Hay stackers. You’ve heard us talk about our brand new product, the Vault, and I’m super excited that we are going to be doing some run throughs this week. So today, and this is Monday, January 19th, we are going to at 6:00 PM Eastern Time, going to be live on YouTube, diving into exactly how this Swiss army knife that is the bedrock, the foundation of your financial life, how it works, all the cool things that it does from protecting your credit to protecting your identity, to helping you run what if scores, and getting rid of your subscriptions. [00:00:39] Joe: So many tools. All in one spot together and we’re gonna walk through it now. If you can’t make it tonight, we’re also gonna be doing it on Wednesday. Wednesday at 4:00 PM Eastern, and again at 8:00 PM Eastern. So that’s five o’clock Pacific. If you wanna just take a look at it, head to Stacking Benjamins dot com slash vault and you will see not only the events that are coming up this week where we walk through it, but also you can take a look at it yourself and see why people are so excited about our newest ACU Benjamins product, the Vault. [00:01:11] Doug: So we’re walking through it, we’re walking through the vault, walk in, so there’s like a back door. We can go in like one door and walk out the back. We kind of gotta walk back out the same way we came in. Well that’s good. ’cause back doors generally aren’t a great idea. In a vault. [00:01:23] Joe: In a vault, yeah. [00:01:25] Joe: Especially this one. So we’re walking in and we’re turning right back around again. Lock solid. Absolutely. Okay. You’re gonna see how it locks it down and then, yeah. Okay. Uh, let’s talk about Navy Federal. This time if you’re new here, it’s time for our Navy federal shutout. This is the part of the show where we salute the people that kept us safe all weekend, our troops. [00:01:43] Joe: So on behalf of the Men and Women making podcast in mom’s basement, and the men and women at Navy Federal Credit Union who serve our active military, our veterans, and their families, here’s to you. Thank you for all you do. Let’s go stack some Benjamins now, shall we? Cheers. Thanks everybody. Brown. [00:02:05] opener: Bring out your dead. Here’s one. I’m not dead. What? Nothing. Here’s your inputs. I’m not dead. Yeah, he says he is not dead. Yes, he is. I’m not. He isn’t. Well, he will be st soon. He is very ill. I’m getting better. No, you’re not. You’ll be stone dead in a moment. I can’t take him like that. It’s against regulations. [00:02:29] Doug: Live from Joe’s mom’s basement. It’s the Stacking Benjamin Show. [00:02:43] Doug: I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Duggan, let’s move the spotlight squarely on. To you today, we’re taking your questions and turning them into answers with CFP Anna Allen. You’ve asked some great questions on buying life insurance, dealing with inconsistent income, opt-in versus opt-out retirement plans, gifting money and using tax shelters. [00:03:05] Doug: But of course we won’t just help you with those questions. I’ll pose my trivia question to you and I know you’ll be sharing the answer with your friends. The moment the show is over and now two people who got the lucky mission of being here with you while OG is having what’s probably a horrible time in the Caribbean. [00:03:25] Doug: Wait, is it Caribbean? Caribbean? Does it matter? You’re not it. It doesn’t matter. Are you actually asking you guys? Yeah, I was like actually asking you guys. I mean, I played some dead rooms before, but you guys are tough. We thought you were finishing. Is it the Pirates of the Caribbean or the Pirates of the Caribbean. [00:03:43] Doug: Oh, that’s excellent. Anyway, he’s there with all the pirates. So we’re here with Joe and C, FP, Anna, LLL. [00:03:55] Doug: Wow. [00:03:57] Joe: Hey, hey attackers. Happy Monday. Welcome to the show that helps you control the controllable and laugh at what you can’t. We can’t control the word Caribbean or Caribbean. Mm-hmm. Or, uh, whatever it is. It’s, it’s outta control. But we can help you with your questions and we got the right person here to do it. [00:04:15] Joe: Anna, M’s. Joining us. How are you? [00:04:17] Anna: Hey, Joe, I’m doing good. Ready to answer these questions? Get into them. [00:04:21] Doug: It might be you, Joe, because she sounds just as excited to talk to you as OG does normally. So maybe it’s just you, man. It’s okay. Hey, Joe. Yeah, [00:04:31] Joe: whatever. I [00:04:32] Anna: work with og, so I catch some of his vibes. [00:04:35] Joe: It’s starting to rub off. [00:04:36] Joe: Mm-hmm. That’s a scary thing, Doug. It’s very scary, but Anna, you’ve heard the questions. I heard the quote. We got some badass questions, man. People asking some good stuff here. [00:04:44] Anna: Yeah, [00:04:44] Joe: we do. I’m a little scared. Well, so you made it. You found us. Sit back and relax. Grab a sheet of paper or whatever device you take notes on, because we’re gonna be bringing it today. [00:04:54] Joe: We have a bunch of great answers, but before that, we also have a couple sponsors who help us keep on keeping on. We’re going to hear from them so that the Stacking Benjamin Show remains free and worth every penny. That was supposed to be funny, maybe not funny. Too soon. Not good. I feel like Doug now. [00:05:14] Joe: Anybody. What was the joke now? I was gonna say, now you know. [00:05:18] Anna: What was the joke? It’s free worth [00:05:20] Doug: every penny Worth. Every penny. [00:05:22] Anna: Okay. Okay. Sorry. [00:05:23] Doug: If you write in my script, laugh here, I’ll laugh. [00:05:28] Joe: We’re gonna hear from them. We’ll try to get a sense of humor together and we’ll be back with your questions here in a second. [00:05:43] Joe: All right guys. The team’s all limbed up. You guys ready to go? Ready to go Send it. Let’s say hello to Stacker. Well, actually, before we say hello to any stackers, if you have a question for the basement, bring those to us. The place to go and leave your question is stacky Benjamins dot com slash yell downstairs. [00:06:01] Joe: Stacky Benjamins dot com slash yell downstairs. Uh, we’re always yelling upstairs at mom. Now you get to yell downstairs at us. And Curtis first person to yell his question. Hey, Curtis, [00:06:15] caller: my wife and I purchased term life insurance on a 20 year level term about five years ago. Our situation at the time was 10 to 12 times our earnings, which I realize is just a rule of thumb, and Joe hates rules of thumb. [00:06:29] caller: But we did what kind of made sense at the time. However, our life has changed for the better. Both of our incomes have raised substantially. We’ve made a couple of moves since that point, and so now it represents about four to five times our annual salary. We’re looking at updating this by purchasing another term, but my question is, what’s the best way to go about updating policies? [00:06:54] caller: I don’t wanna cancel the current policy until I’ve made sure that we can get the same type of coverage and, and that nothing unexpected comes up. From a health perspective, we certainly don’t expect anything like that, but you never know. Is it best to go through your current provider and try to call and update your current coverage, or is it best to shop in a new location all over again and start the process all over? [00:07:19] caller: If you go that route, how do you settle out getting the new policy and then addressing the old policy? Thanks. [00:07:27] Joe: Hey Curtis. Thanks a lot for the question, and he, he’s right Anna, I, I truly do not like rules of thumb just because every situation is so much different and frankly, it’s not that hard to figure out the right amount of life insurance. [00:07:41] Joe: It is not that difficult at all. So why don’t we start, Anna, before we actually get to his question, what to do when he’s changing life insurances and he’s shopping life insurances to, first of all, finding that right number for life insurance. Like what’s the process that you use to help somebody figure out fairly quickly how much life insurance they actually need? [00:08:01] Anna: There’s two approaches to this. There’s the approach that Curtis is taking the human life value rule of thumb. We’re gonna do 10 to 12 times our income update that every so often. As your income changes, then there’s needs based, which is where you’re actually calculating exactly the amount of money that you would want in order to sustain. [00:08:24] Anna: The same level of living after you pass for your surviving spouse and family members. And so that’s more of the route that we go down when we’re making these calculations. And in addition, I think OG probably has talked about this plenty of times when mentioning life insurance, but we don’t just look at the person who’s being insured and replacing their income and replacing what they would contribute to expenses in the family. [00:08:50] Anna: But we also look at the spouse’s income as well. And we assume that if you were to pass away, your spouse could basically stop working indefinitely at that point. So this is, it’s not taking it to an extreme, I wouldn’t say, but it is on the extreme side where you have a lot more insurance. ’cause you really just don’t know how. [00:09:15] Anna: The surviving spouse is going to react when something like that happens, especially if you have kids, that is a huge transition that you’re gonna have to go through and you don’t know what’s gonna be in store with that. [00:09:27] Joe: Back when I was an advisor, I saw this in my practice all the time. Some people buried themselves in their work. [00:09:32] Anna: Mm-hmm. That’s [00:09:32] Joe: all they wanted to do was go to work. They didn’t wanna thank, they want to be around people all the time. Other people went the exact opposite way. We just talked to Tiffany Aliche during our greatest Hits week. People may have heard that just before New Year’s, and Tiffany went to Bali for six months and didn’t tell anybody where she was. [00:09:51] Joe: Like nobody had any idea where she, she just left she up and went away. So the time that you’re most volatile, I think is probably when your closest person to you passes away. [00:10:02] Anna: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So it’s important to have. The max number that you think you’re gonna need in place. I wouldn’t say like go less than that. [00:10:10] Anna: ’cause you don’t know if you wanna go to Bali, you’re not having an income and now you’re spending more money than you probably were previously. [00:10:16] Joe: I would, at the very least, I would look at that number. I know we’re gonna have some of our very, very frugal stackers that are already pushing back on, whoa. [00:10:24] Joe: Mm-hmm. That’s just, you know, that’s more life insurance than I really want. If we’re talking term life insurance and the difference is in the 10, 20, 30, $40 range between buying the minimum, minimum, minimum duct tape at all and hope for the best versus solve all your issues no matter what that difference is. [00:10:44] Joe: I think having those different numbers before you make the decision is an important thing to do. [00:10:49] Anna: Yeah. And it really comes down to what are you gonna be offered anyways? You might not even be able to get the max insurance that you’re looking for because of your health or just because of your income level. [00:11:00] Anna: You’ll have to go through the underwriting process in order to figure that out. [00:11:03] Joe: Yeah. It is interesting because especially when Curtis, when you’re looking at income streams for people that have a spouse that doesn’t have an income and they pass away, you’re not looking at the economic value of that person. [00:11:17] Joe: Like when my kids were in school, I was working from home and I arranged my schedule so that I could be there when my kids got home from school and that I could take care of them. And I did dinner three nights a week. Cheryl did dinner the other two nights a week. We would juggle our schedules that way. [00:11:34] Joe: Well, if I had been just a full-time at home spouse. Cheryl had been working all that time, there would’ve been nobody at home for our kids. [00:11:43] Doug: Mm-hmm. [00:11:44] Joe: The economic value that we still needed to need to look at, which is why I like looking Curtis at expenses versus looking at your income. Sure. And, and Anna explained, you already explained this about human life value, human life values. [00:11:57] Joe: Just taking what you make and saying, Hey, I wanna replicate that income stream. I want that income stream to continue. So look at raises. You’re gonna get over your lifetime. How much money are you gonna make over your lifetime? Present? Value that number and decide how much that that generally is gonna give you an even bigger number, I think, Anna, than your maximum needs base to cover all of, you know, not having to work. [00:12:19] Joe: I think that human life value number for a lot of people still is bigger and you kind of come up with this field goal and then you look inside the field goal at where do you wanna be. [00:12:26] Anna: Mm-hmm. [00:12:27] Joe: That sounds really complicated, Curtis. It’s not at all. In fact, there’s a website that I like to do this that’s free. [00:12:33] Joe: It’s Life happens.org. If you go to life happens.org, they have both calculators. They have a needs based calculator where it is put in, how much money you spend on different things. And then there is a human life value calculator. You can look at both of those numbers, look at both sides of the field goal, and then decide really where you’re gonna be. [00:12:49] Joe: And you can look at how much those different insurances cost for those different approaches. Now, when he talks about. Shopping it. He asked, let’s start with question number one. Does he look at the full field of insurers? Is it better for him to just go back to his current insurer? I think he’s assuming Anna, that the current insurer might be easier because the fact that he already has insurance through ’em. [00:13:09] Anna: It might be easier because if it’s been a specific amount of years, like they might not ask for full underwriting, full labs, all of that. But it’s definitely important to shop around. Insurance companies will change, like I’ve seen it year to year where it’s the same person and I think we’re gonna end up with one company and we end up with a completely different company ’cause they have better premiums that year. [00:13:32] Anna: So it’s definitely important to shop around. You’re also probably in a different age bracket at this point, and each insurance company is going to look at each age bracket as a different risk level and they’re going to put you in a different category based off of that. Time has changed. Maybe your health has changed. [00:13:50] Anna: If anything has come up, different insurance companies look at any sort of health issues differently, so that’s important to consider. Basically what I’m trying to say is you should definitely shop around. [00:13:59] Joe: Yeah, a hundred percent. Also, if you’re working with insurance agents or insurance brokers, make sure you’re asking what discounts you receive different. [00:14:08] Joe: You might get some affinity discounts depending on what programs that particular company has. I also want to address his question about when does he cancel the old coverage? ’cause I love that question, Curtis. People don’t ask that question enough, and I’ve seen people f this up. I’ve seen people really, they cancel the old one and then they don’t get approved for the new one and you’re like, oh my God, I have no life insurance. [00:14:32] Joe: So they clearly, Anna, I wanna make sure they got the new one in place before they cancel the old one. [00:14:36] Anna: Yeah, and the other way you can look at this too is something called laddering. So this is where, let’s say you have a million dollars in place today. That was the number that you came up with five years ago. [00:14:48] Anna: Now you look at it and the calculator is showing you need 2 million. Well, you had some health things come up. Now you’re five years older, you’re not gonna get the best rate. So go out and apply for that $2 million policy. See what you can get. If that premium is more expensive than the first million dollar policy, you can stack those two policies together. [00:15:09] Anna: Now, the caveat to this is on the backend, you’re gonna have a million dollars fall off five years before the other million continues. Typically, this is okay because hopefully you’re closer to financial independence, you have more assets, and you’re not gonna need as much life insurance to begin with. [00:15:27] Joe: Yeah, I forgot to mention that even when we were talking about calculating the amount of life insurance that you need, you’re gonna come up with these numbers, whichever calculator, you end up using Curtis, and you’re gonna come up with a number. But part of that’s gonna be covered by assets. So if you’ve been a really good saver, you’re gonna need a lot less life insurance or maybe a little less life insurance than you would if you didn’t have any savings at all. [00:15:48] Joe: So to your point, Anna, you get to that point in your life, fewer years to cover. Maybe it’s some dependence have dropped off so you don’t need as much money. So laddering it down so that you get less. Could be a great idea. [00:16:00] Anna: Mm-hmm. Pulling great ideas, Joe, [00:16:05] Joe: for people. The first of many today. [00:16:08] Anna: Mm-hmm. [00:16:09] Joe: She doesn’t get that from OG either. [00:16:10] Joe: No. Doug, some supreme confidence. [00:16:13] Doug: Yeah. The number of times I’ve heard him say great idea Joe is. Two [00:16:19] Joe: ever in, in all since 2012. [00:16:22] Anna: That’s so sad. [00:16:23] Joe: It is. We’re, we’re, we’re still coping with it, you can tell. [00:16:25] Anna: Mm-hmm. [00:16:26] Joe: For people out there that have a permanent life insurance policy, which I’m hoping isn’t a ton of our stackers, but you might, and if you do, you can call your insurance company and many policies allow you to just lower the amount of life insurance you have, which means that the cash value inside of it will work more effectively. [00:16:47] Joe: ’cause it’s trying to cover less overhead. So it, it’ll reduce the policy fees because there’s less outstanding need. Instead of canceling policies, you could just call and lower it if you have a permanent life insurance policy. Anything else we need to, we need to cover there for Curtis. I [00:17:04] Anna: think that was a great idea, Joe. [00:17:06] Joe: Well thank [00:17:09] Doug: Can Anna come back every show? I was gonna say, suddenly OG is gonna be a [00:17:12] Joe: guest host. Too bad OG Can’t make it anymore to the podcast. Curtis, uh, thanks a ton for the call and congratulations on, congratulations on all the positivity, like all the great things that have happened. It’s awesome to hear that, uh, life has been very good for you. [00:17:27] Joe: Sounds like the last few years. It is a good problem to have that he needs more life insurance. Yeah. Awesome. Well, and actually in hindsight, Curtis, if you haven’t changed your lifestyle, you might not. [00:17:38] Doug: Mm-hmm. [00:17:38] Joe: If you’re looking at a needs analysis, if your lifestyle has gone up, then maybe you do. So I would use those calculators. [00:17:46] Joe: Alright, let’s talk D who’s got a question for us? Hey Dee, what’s going on? [00:17:53] caller 2: Hi Joe and og. My name is Dee, and first of all, I love the show. My question is about money gifted to grandchildren. I have a $2,000 gift per grandchild and want to know the best way to hold slash invest this money for my grandchildren who are under 10 years of age. [00:18:12] caller 2: I want the money to have flexibility beyond education payments, and I would prefer that the money not be paid out directly to the child on their 18th birthday, but to have a more adulty adult be in control, any suggestions you have would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. [00:18:31] Joe: Hey Dee, uh, can you.me? I would love it if Dee wanted to give me, I was [00:18:36] Anna: like, peanut too. [00:18:37] Anna: I want Dee to be my grandma. [00:18:39] Joe: I know. What a fantastic idea. Mm-hmm. And paying it to grandkids, which is awesome. So let’s talk about some of the things that people do and what Dee’s really getting at here. So the first thing people might do is they might put it in a 5 29 plan, which is a college plan. How does that handcuff some people? [00:18:59] Joe: Anna? [00:19:00] Anna: Yeah. That might not be the best option for Dee since she said she doesn’t want it to just primarily go to college and wants the kids to have options, is how they use it. I don’t think Dee has a specific goal in mind. Like she doesn’t want it specifically for retirement, for college or a house. Like she didn’t mention that. [00:19:19] Anna: So I guess it’s just somewhere that has options. [00:19:23] Joe: Yeah. Well, and another place that has lots of options then that people will use is called an ugma Uniform Gift to Minor Zach or an UTMA account where you basically give them the money and you’re like a custodian on the account. Dee, but Anna, those, those have the problem that Dee talked about as well. [00:19:40] Anna: Yeah. I’m not gonna work for Dee again ’cause that will be gifted to the kids at 18. That’s out of the picture. [00:19:46] Joe: The other problem, Dee, with the UGMA and UGMA account is if they do go to college, that money counts very severely against financial aid. Mm-hmm. For college. So yeah, let’s say they were gonna get financial aid and you put it in the Upma UGMA account. [00:20:00] Joe: Uh, there’s that. Now what I have seen some people do, if they’re not worried about financial aid, they do put it in the UGMA or UGMA account. It is the kids’ money at 18. But I’ve seen parents that relied on the stupidity of the 18 year, not stupidity. Ignorance. Ignorance. Right. Not because they could be brilliant kids, they’re just ignorant about how the rules work. [00:20:20] Joe: I know parents that have, that have gone, Hey, uh, sign here. And the kid’s like, what am I signing? Well, you’re signing that you can take some of your college money out. You do wanna go to college, don’t you? Or you know, for your car, you do want the car, don’t you? And the kid’s like, oh, okay. And they sign whatever parent puts in front of them, not realizing the reason the parent is having them sign it is because. [00:20:40] Joe: The parent’s a hundred percent not in control. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It’s all just the kid’s money. If the kid finds out though, Anna and it’s theirs. Yeah. Grandparents outta the picture. [00:20:48] Anna: Yeah. And with a grandparent relationship, it might not be as much in control there. Right. And then you might have some angry parents because now these kids have a little pot of money. [00:20:57] Joe: Yeah. So I had an idea. I’d love to hear what your idea is. [00:21:02] Anna: I didn’t feel like there’s the best answer to this question. Like every, every type of account that you could potentially open, like has some sort of caveat to it. The best option is to have probably just a brokerage account available for the kids. [00:21:19] Anna: Now Joe, let me hear your thoughts so I don’t go down this rabbit hole. And you have something that’s brilliant. [00:21:26] Joe: Uh, well, I don’t have anything That’s brilliant. So here’s my thought. ’cause my thought’s exactly the same way I would’ve a separate brokerage account for each kid. I would keep your name on it as the owner D. [00:21:36] Joe: Mm-hmm. You would own the money, so you control it forever. Now, the downside, and I think Anna, this is kind of where you’re going, is that you can only give so much money per year to the grandkid without having to file what’s called a gift tax return. Mm-hmm. Which this year, it’s $19,000. So if you project out in the future, you’re like, I’m not giving ’em more than $19,000 in a year, then this might be a good option because you put them as the beneficiary, so you own the account. [00:22:04] Joe: It’s separate because each of these accounts has a different beneficiary as a different kid on it that’s going to get it. So in your brain, you’re able to keep it separate, and then when you gift them the money, assuming it’s less than 19,000, you do it whenever the hell you want and with whatever restrictions you want. [00:22:21] Joe: Mm-hmm. [00:22:22] Anna: The only other downside I thought about with opening up a separate brokerage account for each kid is we don’t know how many grandkids D has. She might have 18, 12 grandkids. Yeah. Yeah. 18 grandkids. She has 18, 10 90 nines every year to file. She has 18 or 19 accounts plus her own to just keep track of and go onto her Fidelity, Schwab, whatever, and look at and rebalance and take care of. [00:22:47] Anna: And so the other option too is to just put it into one account. You know, this is for the grandkids. You are just saving right now for all of them. And that’s just the purpose. They’re all under 10. Once they get closer to the age in which you wanna actually give money, you can start thinking about, okay, what is the number that I’m gonna give to each of them at that point? [00:23:07] Anna: And in terms of beneficiaries, just list them all equally. You’re really just putting money away for each kid right now. And if something were to happen, they’ll just equally get a, their share of the brokerage account at that point. I think both of them have caveats or not. Neither of those are like the best solution, but that’s really your only solution right now. [00:23:26] Joe: My dad had 16 brothers and sisters. Mm-hmm. And I think all of them, but two had kids. Imagine 15 different kids. The number of grandkids. I don’t even know how many cousins I have. Like I’ve never counted. Yeah. But there’s a ton of us out there. And I think for my grandma, that would’ve been a total nightmare to, yeah, that [00:23:46] Anna: would be Dee’s full-time job. [00:23:48] Anna: So I don’t know if that’s the best either. But [00:23:50] Joe: on the other side, so that’s the downside with my approach. The downside with Anna’s approach is that I’ve had people with this issue of fairness, which is the younger kids, the money bakes for longer and they get more compounding than the older kids got. So you’re gonna have to come up with a way to figure out what quote fair is. [00:24:08] Joe: Mm-hmm. But it’s your money. So doing that, you know, I, I don’t know the family dynamic. [00:24:13] Doug: You said it would be a nightmare for your grandmother to manage all of those different accounts. Joe, the nightmare happened when she delivered 18 babies. 17. 17. Yeah. You lose track. It’s crazy. I think she, nothing was gonna phase that woman after that. [00:24:30] Doug: I think she could handle managing, she could manage the accounts. [00:24:33] Joe: Yeah. Depending on how many kids there, rd. [00:24:36] Anna: Mm-hmm. [00:24:37] Joe: I think we’d like those two strategies and neither one and is perfect. [00:24:40] Anna: Yeah. I think the other, not to like make this more complicated, but the other option is a Roth IRA for each of the kids. [00:24:45] Anna: If they start to have earned income at all, you could put money in there and yes, it is theirs, but they can’t take it out. Like there’s a lot of rules around it. So then you have less risk of them actually pulling the money out. But there is limitations. This is for retirement at that point. [00:25:01] Joe: Sure. But if they decide to take some of the money out later on to buy a car, they can. [00:25:06] Joe: Mm-hmm. That means they really want to, you can discourage them against that. [00:25:08] Anna: Mm-hmm. [00:25:09] Joe: But there is a little bit of flexibility there. [00:25:11] Anna: Yeah. [00:25:11] Joe: If they don’t have income though, and I think she said they’re, they’re under 10, so they’re probably not, yeah, not working. Dee, thank you so much for the question and uh, congratulations on the grandkids. [00:25:21] Joe: And again, if you wanna adopt Anna and Doug and I mm-hmm. And add us to that mix, we promise we’ll be good with the money. [00:25:27] Anna: Mm-hmm. [00:25:28] Joe: We’ll do well by you. All right. We’ve got one more before we get to Doug’s trivia. I know Doug’s so excited about today’s trivia, but Chris is waiting in the wings. We gotta talk to Chris first. [00:25:38] Joe: Hey Chris, what’s happening man? [00:25:42] caller 3: Joe og. What’s up? Big D, double D. The D Hey Doug. Right on brother. I’m curious your guys’ thoughts on the new rule change of opting out of 4 0 1 Ks versus having to opt in. Love the rule for the average person out there, obviously. Probably not investing as much as they should be, but with more passive investors already in the market. [00:26:09] caller 3: And now with this new rule change of having to opt outta 401k investing, I would assume that pours even more passive investing into the market. How will that change the way the market moves? Will the lows be any less volatile with new passive income flowing in kind of regardless of the performance and market conditions? [00:26:31] caller 3: You think that’s gonna change the traditional measurements of priced earning ratios and all that? I’m not gonna change the way I do anything, continue to invest like low cost and keep adding to the pile. But I’m just curious what your guys’ thoughts are. Thanks. [00:26:49] Joe: Chris, I love these, uh, thoughtful questions. [00:26:53] Joe: These kinda, what if Anna, nothing about Chris’s situation, he’s not gonna change anything. But do you think it changes the game, so many people putting money passively into the market? Anna, do you think that means that indexing kind of drives stock prices up because so many people investing aren’t paying any attention to what’s really going on with the companies they own? [00:27:13] Anna: I actually was having this thought the other day and it didn’t stem from the rule change of opting into 4 0 1 Ks. It was more along the lines of like, we live in a time where there’s so many resources to education on investing and personal finance and all of that, and you have so many people to talk to about this. [00:27:34] Anna: And it had me thinking about how back when my dad, my dad didn’t have any sort of investing knowledge, his parents didn’t teach him any of this kind of stuff and he had to learn a lot of it on his own back in. Like the early nineties, like eighties is kind of when he started to like actually try to wrap his head around this and he had to literally like dial into the computer. [00:27:56] Anna: Like, and I don’t even know how to describe that. I don’t know what that means, but he had to get onto chat rooms with people to learn about investing. And meanwhile, 2026, I’m like outside with my headphones on listening to podcasts all the time. I’m at the gym listening to podcasts. I am on Instagram reels, tiktoks, all of these education resources coming towards me. [00:28:21] Anna: And I know that’s happening for a lot of people. And so we’ve gotten to this time where I know a large portion of the people don’t know about investing, but I do feel like a lot of people actually know the basics. And one being one basic principle, being like, don’t touch your money. Put it in and don’t touch it. [00:28:42] Anna: I, I had this thought like, will this change volatility at all? This past year? Not really, because on the, on the flip side of things, we know so much about what’s going on politically and what’s happening in the market that we’re still seeing a lot of volatility. But on the other hand, we have so many people who know, dump your money in and don’t touch it. [00:29:05] Anna: And so will that change things moving forward? Like we’re just going to learn more and more as we can get more access to educational resources and know more about how to be a prudent investor. And so it had me thinking the same exact thought. I don’t know the answer to this question, but it was kind of a funny thought and I, I don’t know, maybe opting into 4 0 1 ks automatically will also do the same thing as well. [00:29:31] Joe: Chris Jack Bogle’s answer to this before he passed away was, yes, certainly it could potentially create problems, but I also agree with his next take, which is, that is so far down the line. That is so, so, so far, mostly because while states now have financial curriculum in schools much more than he did even five years ago, there are so many more people, Anna, to your point, listening to podcasts like ours or reading books or paying attention, watching YouTube videos, whatever it might be, because there are so many more people that know and are educated. [00:30:08] Joe: We’re still just a long, long way from from that. I, I still feel like Anna, people’s ability to do dumb things with their money as more people opt in. Talking to HR people that I know, as we’ve, you know, we have this benefits guide and with our benefits guide. I talk to HR Pros all the time and they tell me that what has happened around opt out, meaning that you’re automatically enrolled in your 401k, is the number of 401k loans has gone through the roof. [00:30:40] Joe: Wow. ’cause people’s ability to do dumb crap with their money [00:30:43] Anna: mm-hmm. [00:30:44] Joe: They, they just can’t keep their hands on the cookie jar, Anna. [00:30:46] Anna: Yeah. [00:30:47] Joe: So we’re still a long, long way from anything like that. Some something where there’s the s and p 500, nothing else, or you know mm-hmm. So much more money centered there and nobody’s moving. [00:30:57] Joe: So it kind of gridlocks the stock market. I don’t think that’s anything we’re gonna see for. A long, long, long time. [00:31:04] Doug: You know, I, I’m sure Anna’s answer was probably great. I mean, most of the stuff she says is great, but I didn’t hear a word she said after she struggled to understand the concept of like, how her dad dialed up to the internet or like, I mean, his old a OL connection, his chat room. [00:31:19] Doug: Yeah. Just age shaming us. Like I, yeah, we’re supposed to, we’re trying to skew younger and skew cooler, and I’m sure she does that for us, but that was uncalled for young lady. Have Anna tell us we’re old without telling us we’re old. Gosh. [00:31:32] Anna: Well you, I didn’t say that You guys also were dialing up. I’m saying my dad was, we were before [00:31:37] Joe: that, Anna, [00:31:38] Anna: that’s the problem. [00:31:40] Joe: We weren’t before that. Like, dialing up does not sound like that long ago. Mm-hmm. That’s the sad news. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Oh [00:31:48] Doug: man. Sorry, Doug. You wanted to see a really cool picture of, oh, I don’t know, let’s say a car and you would have to watch it paint bit pixel by pixel slowly across the screen as you’re. [00:32:01] Doug: 28.8 Bo modem. Mm-hmm. Which was the newest, latest, greatest, fastest thing available? [00:32:07] Anna: Yeah, I can, I can hear cars is definitely [00:32:08] Doug: cars that I was waiting for it to paint. Was [00:32:10] Anna: that, was that what you were waiting on? It’s [00:32:13] Doug: a hundred percent all always cars. It’s the only thing I ever looked at on the internet back then was cars. [00:32:17] Doug: All, [00:32:18] Anna: I can hear the sound in my head. Really? And I can remember sitting in the living room being like, dad, what are you doing? You know? Right. You’re just like this little kid and you’re just trying to play with your Barbies. [00:32:29] Doug: Betcha He was looking at cars. [00:32:31] Anna: Mm. [00:32:34] Joe: You’ve got mail, no comment. And then after the, you’ve got mail came up, I would go get coffee because it would still take forever to finish loading whatever was happening. [00:32:43] Joe: Get coffee, come back. All right? Mm-hmm. I can now read my email. Okay. Enough old guy stories. Chris overall, here’s what I like. Let’s talk more Anna, not about the singularity happening and it ruining the stock market. Let’s talk about what’s good about this idea of opt out. So what opt out of your 401k means stackers is that when you go get a new job, you’re automatically enrolled in the 401k. [00:33:07] Joe: You wanna check with your employer when you get a new job, but generally they will enroll you and the amount that they put in is different all the time. But for a lot of people, I think it’s 3%. For many people, sometimes it’s up to six, but I see lots of different numbers. What I like about this, Anna, is you look at the difference between things in the United States and in Singapore, and I’m being very specific with Singapore, because we are a debtor nation and the way that our economy keeps going is the Fed lowers interest rates, which lets people borrow more money. [00:33:41] Joe: Mm-hmm. The way our whole economy operates is borrowing. We are a borrowing society Singapore, over a long period, and it’s a fascinating history. We don’t need to get into today, has flipped that. And they are a wealthy economy and mostly because of the fact that a long time ago people were required to save money that they couldn’t touch. [00:34:04] Joe: And now the average person in Singapore versus in the United States is pretty damn wealthy. [00:34:10] Anna: Mm-hmm. [00:34:11] Joe: It is a pretty wealthy country and that economy drives on the wealth and the savings rate of people. And it’d be awesome, Anna, to see us get there. It’s much less of a precarious place because I think when you’re dealing with people in debt, you’re um, you know, you’re gonna have people that help the economy more than others. [00:34:31] Joe: Mm-hmm. And it doesn’t end up being great for a lot of our stackers. [00:34:34] Anna: Yeah. That’s such an interesting statistic. I think the one part that worries me with the opt in. Or that you, you have to opt out, is that people are gonna be automatically opted in to their 401k and they’re not gonna know, and then they’re gonna leave that job and they’re just never gonna know that that account existed. [00:34:55] Joe: Oh, that sucks. [00:34:56] Anna: And I’ve seen that where we’re, we’re digging for accounts at old jobs for clients and, and trying to find those, and they don’t even know if they had an account there or not, right. If they had one. So that’s the only thing that’s like a red flag to me with this, if that’s gonna be the case. [00:35:13] Anna: I’d rather people just have the money and they have to make the decision to create the account so that they know that it exists out there. But it still is a good first step to get. People to start investing more. [00:35:23] Joe: It is, I like it better than the alternative still. Mm-hmm. I mean, truly at some point there still has to be some, um, uh, I gotta take care of my stuff. [00:35:31] Joe: Mm-hmm. I actually have to pay attention. But the fact that it makes it easier for people to pay attention and, and it’s one less decision, you know, I’m already opted in. Should I raise the amount instead of should I save it all? I feel like that floor got a little, little better for a lot of people. Yeah. [00:35:48] Joe: Coming up in the second half, we’re gonna take some great questions from John and from Alex. John wants to know about college and his family and about how college aid works and Alex. Has a big question about income that goes up and down and up and down, and emergency funds. So we’re gonna talk about that in the second half. [00:36:08] Joe: But Doug, I think we’re celebrating a big birthday today though. [00:36:12] Doug: Sure are. Joe. Hey there, stackers. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and you could probably tell from my morose disposition that yes, I, I did in fact just finish rereading the Raven for the first time. Rereading for the first time. I mean, yeah, it’s possible working here. [00:36:31] Doug: Let me continue. So I just finished rereading it for the first time. Very sophisticated themes and stuff. Lots of complex like, um, birds, uh, and darkness and stuff. Surprisingly not a word about the Baltimore football team. That is the last time I reread that book, Nevermore. Anyway. Today we’re celebrating a guy who, on this day, was born back in 1809. [00:37:00] Doug: You definitely know his name. He wrote the telltale heart. The pit and the pendulum and a bunch of other stories that’ll make you sleep with the lights on. Here’s the twist. Despite being one of the most famous writers in American history, this dude was terrible with money like Doug trying to day trade terrible. [00:37:20] Doug: In 1842, he f, look, I know my limits. In 1842, he filed for bankruptcy with debts listed at just over $2,000, which is like 70 grand in today’s money and get this. He never really recovered financially, spent his whole life famous, but broke. It’s like we’re brothers, pretty much so who was this literary genius who could terrify millions but couldn’t balance a checkbook to save his life? [00:37:46] Doug: I’ll be back with the answer right after I pitch Netflix, my new horror series, the Fall of the House of Saul Sea High. What? Dude, I’m right here. I know. It would be horrible. Wouldn’t it be a horror story if the House of Salt Sea High fell? It’s gonna be. About a shockingly handsome trivia host. Loosely based on someone you may or may not know, trapped in Joe’s Dank basement, emphasis on dank, desperately trying to escape before the property value tanks. [00:38:17] Doug: Terrifying. [00:38:30] Doug: Welcome back Stackers. I’m aspiring Horror Novelist and future Netflix showrunner. Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. Alright, so we were talking about a guy born January 19th, 1809, who wrote some of the creepiest, most influential stories in American literature. The Raven, the Fall of the House of Usher, the, I thought that one just happened. [00:38:51] Doug: Anyway, the pit and the pendulum story so good that Netflix just made an entire series based on his work. But despite all that fame, the guy died practically penniless, filed for bankruptcy, never stacked a single Benjamin. So who is it? None other than Edgar Allen Poe. That’s right. The master of Mac Cobb couldn’t master his money. [00:39:15] Doug: Kind of makes you feel better about your own financial mistakes, right? Like, like sure. I overpaid for that timeshare, but at least I’m not Edgar Allen Poe broke. Yeah, the lesson here, stackers, talent and fame don’t automatically equal wealth. Trust me, you gotta actually manage your money. Something Poe clearly never figured out. [00:39:35] Doug: Probably too busy writing about people getting buried alive and talking. Ravens priorities, Edgar priorities. And now back to two people ready to answer even more of your terrifying questions. It’s Joe and Anna Allen. [00:39:51] Joe: They’ve actually been very non terrifying. Thank goodness. Anna, have you read much Rela Poe? [00:39:56] Anna: I’ve run no rela Poe none. No, that’s not really my genre. I stick to like historical fiction. Maybe a little thriller, but not Ed Gro po Thriller vibes, [00:40:08] Joe: but didn’t watch either the Netflix show based on the, uh, what was it called? It was something about the fall of the House of Usher. [00:40:14] Anna: No, but maybe I’ll turn that on after the Mask singer tonight. [00:40:18] Joe: It’s [00:40:18] Doug: kind of wild though. [00:40:19] Anna: There aren’t, [00:40:21] Doug: wow. She’s too highbrow for us, Joe. She’s a little, [00:40:25] Joe: a little a fetus, I think. Uh, it is, it’s a very dark show, especially when you realize that every episode one member of the family’s gonna die. Like every single episode, like I’m telling you right now, that it’s x number of episodes long and the deal is, is one of them dies every episode. [00:40:43] Anna: Okay. I won’t be watching that after the Messer for sure. [00:40:46] Joe: What was cool, and they may have this in, in a town near you, but even in Texarkana, we had this cool thing that ground post speakeasy where Cheryll and I went with some friends and, uh, there were four people working and it was in this nice. Cool space that they made to look kind of macabre. [00:41:03] Joe: And what happens is you sit down and they give you a drink based on a ground post stuff. So it has like a fake eyeball in it, you know? Or, or something fun. I think we had four drinks, one before each of the four performances. And the same people, we didn’t realize this at first, the same people that take your tickets, that show you where to sit that are serving you the drinks, they go up one by one and they each tell an egg post story in front of everybody. [00:41:28] Anna: That’s cool. It was [00:41:29] Joe: a campy fun night. Yeah. If you get a chance to go to the egar post speakeasy, if it comes to your towel, so [00:41:34] Doug: like instead of an olive in your martini, you get an eyeball. [00:41:38] Joe: Yeah. [00:41:38] Doug: Or like a dead bird in your beer. [00:41:41] Joe: Right. Sounds awesome. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Not a real one. Everything was that. I don’t remember what the eyeball actually was, but it was a good, like sugary, you know, it was like a sugar cube that was part of the drink. [00:41:51] Joe: How do you know that’s not how, what they taste like I’ve, that’s true. I’ve never tasted eyeball. I’ve never had that. Moving on quickly, John is joining us. Hey John. [00:42:03] caller 4: Hey, Joe and OG and Doug. I guess this is John a Coeur d’Alene. I have a FAFSA question for you For the last decade plus, I have been maxing out my wife and i’s Roth IRAs and then contributing some to my Roth 401k with my employer. [00:42:15] caller 4: Currently have one child away at college, but I have four total and at its peak I’m gonna have three in college simultaneously. I know that the FAFSA looks at the last two years of my tax returns, so I’m a little behind on any changes. But my question is, does it make sense to shift my retirement investing for the next several years to first making sure that I’m maxing out my traditional 401k with my employer and thereby reducing my A GI and FAFSA SAI index? [00:42:40] caller 4: I know that in some cases retirement contributions get added back, but I’m not actually sure I understand how or when that happens. So maybe this wouldn’t help. Further, as a shareholder and member of a Midlevel leadership group and my employer, I’m paid pretty well since the limit for those of us under 50 is only 24,500. [00:42:57] caller 4: Is there a point where my income is so high that sheltering some income in a traditional 401k contribution won’t even move the needle that much with fafsa? Bottom line. What are some things I need to think about when deciding whether or not to shift my retirement contributions? And if it’s worth the trouble, [00:43:13] Joe: we should define and thanks for the question, John. [00:43:15] Joe: And we should define some of these terms that John used for people maybe that have young children or they’re thinking about going to school themselves. So the FAFSA is this form that people fill out to try to get financial aid. And the way that financial aid systems work is easy to think about if you just think about everything flowing downhill. [00:43:35] Joe: So individual colleges have their programs. A lot of independent places have their own aid programs or, or scholarships that they want, but they wanna coordinate it with the school. So we’ll start there. Individual places go, you know what? I’d like to coordinate things with the school. So we’re gonna run this through the school financial aid program. [00:43:56] Joe: We’re gonna be associated with X school, and so we’ll coordinate it with them. And the school says, well, you know what? We’ve got only so much money we’re gonna coordinate our stuff with whatever the state will do. Especially if it, I mean, if it’s a state supported institution, we’re going to coordinate it with the state. [00:44:14] Joe: The state has some money, might have some programs depending on what state you live in. The state goes, yeah, we only have so much money. We’re gonna coordinate it with the federal government. We’re, we’re gonna see what the federal government will give you. And the federal government has, this has two things. [00:44:28] Joe: Number one, the student loan program, but also the Pell Grant program, which are grants that you don’t need to pay back. And so the FAFSA at its heart is the application to get a Pell grant. But 99.9% of the schools out there use this because everything flows downhill. You apply for a Pell grant, you get it or you don’t. [00:44:51] Joe: They pass it on to the state. The state gives you money or they don’t, they pass it on to the school. The school gives you money or they don’t. The school then shares your numbers and, and whatever there is with uh, any need-based places that wanna coordinate with the school, they give you money or they don’t. [00:45:07] Joe: One program that kind of all flows downhill. So that’s what the FAFSA is. You wanna make sure that you fill it out. I know a lot of people are afraid of the fafsa. I remember my parents wanted nothing to do with it. When I filled it out a long, long time ago, apparently, according to Anna, Doug and I are dinosaurs, but even as early as five, six years ago, it was much more difficult than it is now. [00:45:30] Joe: The FAFSA is now, the world’s easiest thing to fill out is super easy and you should fill it out every single year. People don’t get aid when their kid or when they are a freshman, so they give up. They don’t do it again. Do it when you’re a sophomore, when you’re a junior, when you’re a senior. This is interesting, Anna, my daughter, did not get any aid her freshman year. [00:45:50] Joe: If we would’ve given up, she would’ve never gotten aid. She got aid her sophomore year and then she got more aid her junior year and the same amount her senior year. So had we not filled out the FAFSA every single year, we would’ve missed out on some money her sophomore year and much, much more money her junior and senior year. [00:46:06] Joe: So make sure you fill it out every, every single year. [00:46:09] Anna: Joe, the other part that the FAFSA can provide too is subsidized and unsubsidized loans. And so if you’re going the loan route and you fill out the, the FAFSA and you don’t get any sort of aid, you might qualify for subsidized loans, which can be super helpful for your child who’s in college not having a, uh, interest of being accrued while they’re actually in school and just having to worry about that. [00:46:34] Anna: Once they leave school and I think it’s, you know, six months after they actually graduate. So those are really helpful too. [00:46:40] Joe: But even if you don’t get subsidized loans, the unsubsidized loan program is also through fafsa. Mm-hmm. So getting those loans also, I think, uh, yeah, the FAFSA is something you definitely wanna do. [00:46:51] Joe: The second thing that he mentioned was the SAI, and this is the Student Aid index. This replaced something that was called the Expected Family Contribution, the EFC. So this is a calculation that the government makes to decide how much money you’re going to get. And this is where Anna, his question comes from, should I switch from Roth where more of my income is showing up on the SSAI, showing him making a bunch more money if he goes pre-tax, it’s gonna show him making less money this year. [00:47:24] Joe: And he’s wondering if that makes sense. [00:47:27] Anna: Yeah. We don’t really know. What that’s going to do to your financial aid or your eligibility for different types of loans. It’s going to depend on who also is submitting the FAFSA and who also needs aid. And the decisions are made year to year. That’s why Joe is saying in one year his daughter got aid, or one year she didn’t get aid. [00:47:49] Anna: The following year she got aid. It’s not because Joe’s income went down, I would assume it’s just because of the different applications that they’re looking at in that year. [00:47:58] Joe: Yeah, and the things that she got, the aid that she got, Anna, was specifically for sophomores and then for upperclassmen? Mm-hmm. [00:48:07] Joe: Okay. So there’s different aid programs that are available just for people in different programs in different years. And so there were fewer people competing for that upperclassmen money her junior and senior year than there were her freshman year. Mm-hmm. So yeah, it’s a hundred percent competitive. [00:48:20] Joe: John, now that said, it is first come first serve, so they have deadlines for the fafsa, so. They’ll look at everyone who applies when the due date comes, and you’ll be competing against those people. If you are behind those people, if you’re later than those people, you may be somebody who qualifies. But these different programs ran out of money, so you wanna make sure that you meet the due dates, pay. [00:48:49] Joe: Mm-hmm. Specific attention every year to the due dates. And by the way, and this is not an ad for our guide, but our guide does have a calculator where you can look at the, your SAI calculations. There’s SAI calculations all over the internet, so you don’t need to buy our guide for that. But we also every year keep up with what the dates are. [00:49:06] Joe: Those are always in our guide. Stacking Benjamins dot com slash guide, and you’ll see all of our guides. But our college planning guide that we work with the college investor on has all of these numbers and kind of what Anna and I are going through right now for you. But yeah, Anna, it’s pretty competitive. [00:49:24] Joe: And when you say they look John at the last two years, they really don’t. They look at the year before last year. So it’s two years back that they’re looking, which means it would’ve been better had you gone pre-tax earlier. It would’ve affected your child in college now, but if two years from now you’re in the same situation that you are today, then yes, by all means, I might go pretext. [00:49:51] Joe: I think though, Anna, when it comes to like looking at the rest of your financial plan, not just college, I know that people tend to look myopically at just one area of their financial plan, right? They go, oh college, let’s see if we can get aid. But really, if he’s got a lot of money pre-tax already, he might be saving a few dollars in financial aid today, or maybe none, depending on how competitive it is, uh, may not get anything and may end up creating a big tax trap in retirement. [00:50:18] Anna: Yeah, you don’t wanna be messing with something for like a short-term result that’s going to mess up your long-term plan. However, if you do have a good balance and it sounds like you’re maxing out your Roth, I think it was, yeah, contributing to your, your pre-tax. If you have been doing that, you probably have a big bucket of Roth and you probably feel okay on that end. [00:50:40] Anna: And my other thought was you have your hands full with up to three kids at one time in college. That’s gonna be very expensive regardless of what kind of age you get, regardless of what kind of loans you get. It might be good to switch to pre-tax to begin with just so that you do continue to save, but you’re getting a little bit more tax savings today in order to beef up your cashflow just a little bit. [00:51:04] Anna: It might do a little something while you’re still being able to save and put the kids through college. [00:51:09] Joe: If tax rates don’t go up, John, and you’re making a, a good income now your tax rate might be lower in retirement. So having money in that pre-tax position could potentially help you a lot. I know when we had our good friend Sean Mullan on, he went against the grain of everybody that we’ve talked to at slot and other financial experts and he said he likes for, especially for a lot of our stacker listeners, he likes pre-tax better than the Roth. [00:51:37] Anna: Mm-hmm. [00:51:38] Joe: I just find, you know, an OG and I, and I don’t know how you feel about this Anna, but we’re like, don’t even play the game ’cause you don’t know. You gotta predict future, future tax who can predict future tax rates. So don’t play the game. Takes one bird in the hand today and uh, put some money in the Roth for tomorrow. [00:51:53] Anna: Yeah, it’s good to have a balance between the three categories being Roth. Pre-tax and taxable brokerage. [00:52:02] Joe: Yeah. Flexible money. [00:52:03] Anna: Yeah. Having a balance between that. We don’t know if tax rates are gonna go up. If they do. Yeah. Obviously better to put it into Roth today. But they could stay the same, like you said, and then your actual tax bracket. [00:52:16] Anna: You’re making less money, you’re in retirement. You could be in a different tax bracket. So even if rates go up, potentially you might just be in a lower tax bracket at that point. And pretax would’ve been a better move today. So we don’t know what the future holds. That’s why it’s good to look at all of your accounts, put them into the different buckets, look at it today and say, what do we have in each of these buckets? [00:52:40] Anna: What should we prioritize for the next couple of years? And then we’ll re-look at it. And we’ll say, okay, where do we need to adjust at that point? And then you can throw in the college stuff. I mean, that’s a huge part of your life, and this is having four kids through college. That’s a lot. So this should definitely play a role into like the decision making around this too. [00:52:59] Joe: A hundred percent. We also like the brokerage account, even though it’s taxable, so it has a little bit of tax friction. We like it because how many times people over optimized and then they’re in a position where they just need money and everything’s locked up in tax shelters. [00:53:12] Anna: Mm-hmm. [00:53:13] Joe: It’s so much better when you have some money that you can go to and just grab if. [00:53:17] Joe: Mm-hmm. If things change, which. The one constant, I feel like when I was a financial planner was change. Like people were always coming in with something new. Like, guess what changed in our life? Something that we didn’t expect. Uh, John, thanks for the question. By the way. One thing that used to you might’ve read before was that having multiple kids in college really helped your financial aid score No longer does with the SAI when it was expected family contribution. [00:53:41] Joe: I think the government, maybe Anna had a little more empathy. Mm-hmm. Now they’re like, Hey John, that’s your problem that you have four kids in college. So good luck with that man. Yeah. [00:53:53] Doug: Should have kept it in your pants, John. [00:53:57] Joe: I wasn’t gonna say [00:53:57] Doug: it. [00:53:57] Joe: The government could have put some velvet on that hammer. I think a little bit. [00:54:02] Joe: Alright, we got time for one more and that means Alex is, uh, last but not least, I love Alex’s question. Why don’t you share with the stackers what you’re thinking? [00:54:13] caller 5: Hey, Joe and og and I guess I should acknowledge that Doug is there too. Thank you for taking my call. Uh, here’s my situation. I’m 25 years old. [00:54:23] caller 5: I’ve been married for about four months, and I’m starting to realize married life is slightly more expensive than Bachelor life. My wife and I are in the process of building an emergency fund, but over the winter when our photography business is slow and we rely fully on my income, we have next to nothing at the end of the month to put in the emergency fund. [00:54:42] caller 5: We also have one car that’s probably gonna need to be replaced soon. Since we have no debt, I would like to keep it that way and pay cash for our next car. Currently, I contribute $164 to my HSA per week, and we have about $5,000 in it right now before the company. Profit sharing goes into my Roth 401k. [00:55:02] caller 5: This year I have about $41,000 in a Roth 401k and contribute 8% with a 50% match up to 6%. From my company every week to put some money back into our hands for the, at least for the next few months. Would you rather see me reduce my 401k or my HSA contributions? [00:55:22] Joe: Thanks Alex. Thanks so much for the question. [00:55:26] Joe: And by the way, great job of saving. Fantastic job of saving and I love the fact that you have an HSA available and that you’re contributing to it. So that could be a triple tax advantage because the fact the money goes in pre-tax and if you do it right, you may still be able to take it out tax free. So that piece is awesome. [00:55:44] Joe: I do wanna shine a light, Ann, on the fact that he said married life is more expensive than being a bachelor. Is this a passive aggressive way of saying your spouse is a spender? Yes. I felt a little passive aggressive there. [00:55:55] Anna: I wanna send this episode to his wife and say, it’s not your fault. [00:56:00] Doug: Yeah, he’s calling you Expensive. [00:56:03] Doug: Put the Amazon down. [00:56:07] Anna: Alright, Anna, what do you think he does here? It really depends on like where your emergency fund is at right now. Are you at $0? The great thing is, is that like you aren’t in debt right now and you’re starting some, some really good practices by saving into your 401k, saving into the HSA, already having the HSA number or a value there, so that’s awesome. [00:56:30] Anna: I would say start by pulling back on the HSA, considering there’s no like match to an HSA. Yes, it has the, uh, triple tax advantage aspect of it, and that’s really, really awesome. But by not contributing to your HSA, you’re not leaving money on the, the employer contribution like you would with a 401k. Then what I would do is I would still reduce your 401k contributions down to at least the match that you’re getting so that you continue to get that match. [00:57:02] Anna: But you are now taking home whatever was on top of that and you’re saving that. Those would be the first two places I would start. If you’re in a more dire situation, your emergency fund is at zero. I would even consider reducing your 401k contributions to zero for the time being. It might be six months just to get a little bit off the ground with the emergency fund. [00:57:24] Anna: Then you can start contributing back to the 401k and I wouldn’t contribute anything over the match until you’ve reached, you know, your three month number. And I know this also is kind of going down the line of like, you do need a car and you wanna pay cash for it. That’s not your emergency fund. That’s completely different account that you can work on after you hit that emergency fund number. [00:57:46] Anna: The other part of this is your wife having variable income during the winter months or during her slow season. You guys are barely paying your bills and maybe what you need to do is create an account that she gets paid into and then you guys pay yourself out of that. You make it so that you’re getting a stable income. [00:58:07] Anna: So if you know that she’s gonna make X dollars per year, but it all happens in six months, you put that into account and you divide that by 12, and then you guys pay yourself out so that you’re getting a little bit more consistency throughout the year, and you’re not in February hurting and needing to put money on the credit card and starting to go down that route. [00:58:28] Joe: Those were the only two things that I had was, this worked really well for me and when I was a financial planner, getting people on a much more stable paycheck. So you could bet on that paycheck all year long. Listen, when you’re an entrepreneur, you know, there’s this emotional rollercoaster of what the business is doing and it’s not doing, you don’t need your own paycheck on that same roller coaster. [00:58:49] Joe: So try to take it off that roller coaster. So, Anna, I a hundred percent agree with, give yourself a smaller paycheck that you know will last the rest of the year. And then if your spouse ended up making more money that year, then give yourself a bonus maybe once every six months where you take extra money out or give yourself a raise for the following year so that you, you know, you, you see more money in your paycheck every two weeks, every month, or whatever you decide to do during that timeframe. [00:59:16] Joe: Because in the future, Anna, that emergency fund is gonna solve a lot of ills. [00:59:20] Anna: Yeah. Especially with the variable income that you have going on. Not even just the slow season, but like, you don’t know what could pop up and yeah. And so that’ll be really important to have that in place. [00:59:32] Joe: Alex, thanks a ton for the question. [00:59:34] Joe: By the way, thanks to all of our stackers for the questions. Uh, what a, what a great diverse group of questions and mm-hmm. You guys are doing some amazing things. Great job of savings, Alex. Incredible. Nice work on the passive aggressive nature of your question too. That was Ninja John [00:59:52] Anna: crushing marriage already. [00:59:53] Anna: Yeah. Yes, [00:59:55] Joe: John crushing having a lot of kids, uh, de crushing, having a lot of grandkids. We’re crushing life insurance today. We’ve got so many, so many cool things. [01:00:04] Doug: I’m not really that happy though with the call ins, except for maybe John who gave me my proper due in the, when we got the Big D, we got, well, how do you feel if you’re [01:00:16] Joe: Anna? [01:00:17] Joe: Nobody said, [01:00:17] Doug: Hey, Anna. Yeah, [01:00:19] Anna: she’s the new kid. She’s gotta pay your dues. The day that somebody writes in and says, Joe OG and Anna, [01:00:28] Joe: oh, you the [01:00:29] Anna: best day. [01:00:30] Joe: That’ll be [01:00:30] Anna: definitely need to celebrate [01:00:32] Joe: rub a lamp. Well, let’s talk about today being a great day because our stackers are up to a bunch of good stuff. Uh, Doug, let’s wander out on the back porch. [01:00:39] Joe: This is the community part of our show. Before we say goodbye and, uh, the community’s active, Doug, we got a bunch [01:00:46] Doug: going [01:00:46] Joe: on. [01:00:46] Doug: I’m actually gonna make this quick, but I do want to just say thanks for the kind words from stackers, Jim and Nancy, who were, uh, a few of the early adopters of the Stacking Benjamins vault. [01:00:59] Doug: Jim writes, I love your Swiss Army knife analogy. This is well worth the money and I love the peace of mind. I was able to take my name off of bunch of spam sites and he apparently found $125 in annual subscriptions that he dropped. He just saved him over $1,500 a year, and I’ve barely scratched the surface on what this tool can do. [01:01:17] Doug: Thanks for creating it. Thank you, Jim and Nancy. Glad to hear you had some success and hopefully other stackers can too. It [01:01:25] Joe: is so tough to go through in a short amount of time, all the things that the vault does. So later today, if you’re listening to this on Monday when it comes out, 6:00 PM Eastern, 3:00 PM Pacific, we’re gonna be on YouTube. [01:01:37] Joe: We’ll also do it twice more. We’ll be answering questions on Wednesday. That will be at 4:00 PM Eastern, 1:00 PM Pacific, and then again at 8:00 PM Eastern, which is 5:00 PM Pacific. Just join us at the Stacky Benjamins YouTube channel and uh, we’ll be answering your questions about the vault. Or if you just wanna go take a look at stacky Benjamins dot com slash vault. [01:01:59] Joe: Excited to hear already, even though it’s barely been out, some of the cool success stories people have had. And I love hearing people fighting 1500 bucks. Boom, right away with the vault. I feel like we should get a commission. Isn’t that [01:02:11] Doug: kind of how that whole thing’s supposed to work? Well, I think they pay for the, they pay for [01:02:16] Joe: the vault, so we kind of do. [01:02:19] Joe: Well, I don’t see a dime of that. Yes. Yeah. Anna, thanks so much for joining us again. It’s always so much more fun working with you than og, but don’t ever tell him I said that. [01:02:29] Anna: I will. Thanks Joe. It’s been a pleasure to be here. You should [01:02:31] Joe: absolutely tell him. You probably should tell him. [01:02:35] Anna: Mm-hmm. [01:02:35] Joe: Maybe it’ll make him a kinder, gentler, og, but if people want to get on your calendar because you are taking new clients, how do they find you? [01:02:44] Anna: You can go to Stacking Benjamins dot com slash og. Just note down that you wanna talk to me, [01:02:50] Joe: absolutely. Stacking Benjamins dot com slash og. And you know what? We’re here in January, let’s, uh, create a better financial trajectory this year. If you did nothing in 2025, time to get moving stackers. All right, that’s gonna do it for today, Doug. [01:03:06] Joe: We’re gonna have you give us, why do I always send this to Doug? And I have no idea. Well, why do we have Doug give us his top three? This always scares me, but Doug, what are the top three things we should have learned based on today’s discussion? [01:03:18] Doug: Because you have no idea what’s coming and you just hope I get it right. [01:03:22] Doug: Well, let’s roll those dice again, Joe. First, take some advice from Anna and Joe looking at life insurance options. Start with your expenses and work backwards to what you’ll spend. Don’t face your life insurance on what you earn unless your goal is just to continue that same income stream. Second, need an emergency fund and have inconsistent income. [01:03:42] Doug: Build yourself a set paycheck and keep the rest in a buffer account. That way you can consistently budget instead of living the roller coaster of, maybe I get paid this month, maybe I don’t. Let’s see. Get off that roller coaster, but the big lesson. Don’t tell Joe’s mom that today’s trivia was about Edgar Allen Poe. [01:04:02] Doug: She starts sharing all these stories about when she and Eddie, as she called him, used to go out to the bars together back in Baltimore. Holy Joe, how old is your mom? Thanks to CFP Anna Allam for joining us today. Anna and OGs team are taking clients. So if you need help beyond, uh, just a call to the stack or hotline in the basement, find their calendar at Stacking Benjamins dot com slash og and we’ll also include links in our show notes at Stacking Benjamins dot com. [01:04:32] Doug: This show is the Property of SP podcast LLC, copyright 2026, and is created by Joe Saul Sea High. You’ll find out about our awesome team at Stacking Benjamins dot com, along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots. Come say hello and oh yeah, before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don’t take advice from people you don’t know. [01:04:58] Doug: 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.
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