Can you save too much? Spoiler alert: absolutely. On today’s episode, Joe, OG, and Neighbor Doug tackle a financial pitfall many Stackers don’t think about—oversaving. Yes, socking away cash for the future is important, but at what cost? People often work extra hours, miss family dinners, skip vacations, and end up with regret instead of memories. The real tragedy? You can’t deposit lost time back into your bank account.
We’ll share stories of people who saved so much they missed out on the life they were saving for, and we’ll dive into strategies to strike a better balance. From stress-testing your financial plan to understanding your personal inflation rate, we’ve got the tools to help you live for today and plan for tomorrow. And of course, we’ve got Doug’s trivia, a TikTok minute that might make you laugh out loud, and plenty of basement banter to keep things light.
What’s Inside This Episode
- Opening Laughs: Joe, OG, and Doug kick things off with a mix of jokes, announcements, and OG’s latest attempt to seem cooler than he is.
- The Real Cost of Oversaving: Stories of people who worked too hard, saved too much, and missed the moments that really mattered.
- How to Avoid Regret: Strategies to prioritize both your financial goals and your quality of life.
- Taking Breaks to Save Your Sanity: Burnout isn’t just bad for your mental health—it’s bad for your wallet too.
- The TikTok Minute: Doug’s take on energy conservation (or as he calls it, “saving money with style”).
- Trivia Time: Doug’s question of the day—proof that you never stop learning in the basement.
- Listener Question: How do you plan for retirement when inflation keeps messing with the math? Joe and OG break it down.
- Stress-Testing Your Financial Plan: Find the cracks now, so your future self doesn’t have to.
- Amazon Purchases vs. Amazon Stock: A fun exercise that might make you rethink those impulse buys—or laugh at them, at least.
- Wrapping Up: Final thoughts, laughs, and a classic basement sendoff.
Don’t Miss
- Why the “save everything” mentality can lead to serious regret—and how to avoid it.
- A hilarious dinner story involving Joe’s nephews and a lesson in why you never leave Doug in charge of the menu.
- A nod to Hell or High Water—because what’s a day in the basement without a classic callback?
Join the Fun
Ever feel like you’re missing out because you’re too focused on saving? Share your story with us, and let’s talk about finding that perfect balance. And don’t forget to tune in next week for more laughs, lessons, and, of course, Doug’s dubious wisdom.
FULL SHOW NOTES: https://stackingbenjamins.com/are-you-saving-too-much-for-retirement-1631
Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.stackingbenjamins.com/201
Enjoy!
Our Headline
Doug’s Trivia
- What iconic TV show featured a young, fresh on the road to stacking LOTS of Benjamins Ron Howard in a town called Mayberry?
Better call Saul…Sehy & OG
- Stacker Allison has a question about how to factor in the true rate of inflation when planning for retirement (not just the reported CPI-U, which doesn’t factor in food and energy costs).
Have a question for the show?
Want more than just the show notes? How about our newsletter with STACKS of related, deeper links?
- Check out The 201, our email that comes with every Monday and Wednesday episode, PLUS a list of more than 19 of the top money lessons Joe’s learned over his own life about money. From credit to cash reserves, and insurance to investing, we’ll tackle all of these. Head to StackingBenjamins.com/the201 to sign up (it’s free and we will never give away your email to others).
Join Us Friday!
Be sure to join us on Friday for the return of an annual favorite show: Len Penzo joins our roundtable to discuss this coming year’s predictions, according to a magic 8-ball, and we go over last year’s predictions.
Written by: Kevin Bailey
Miss our last show? Listen here: Taking Control of Your Life and Finances (with Anthony O’Neal) SB1630
Espisode transcript
[00:00:00] caller: So you’ll pick me up tonight at 7 45? [00:00:03] bit: Oh, well, no. I got a few things to, to take care of first, but what, why don’t we make it quarter to eight? [00:00:09] Joe: Stop [00:00:10] bit: it. Okay. 7 45 [00:00:18] Doug: Live from Joe’s mom’s basement. It’s the Stacking Benjamin Show. [00:00:33] I am Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. And wow. This year has been packing in lessons on earning, saving, and spending better. But what about balance? Today we’ll meet people who saved too much and we’ll help you pump the brakes to find your own happy ending in our TikTok minute. How much is all that energy conservation really helping? [00:00:56] One comedian, uh, philosopher has thoughts, and of course we’ll answer a call from a stacker who said, you know what? I better call Saul. See hi in og, and don’t you worry, because I’m sure to round out this power hour with some action packed trivia. And now two guys who always tip their Uber driver with personal finance advice. [00:01:20] It’s Joe. And oh, [00:01:26] Joe: I ask you, Doug, which one’s better? Maybe a few dollars today or me teaching you how to grow your dollars better so that dollars and dollars and dollars. [00:01:37] Doug: Have you guys noticed that it’s getting harder and harder to get Uber drivers to accept your ride requests? Have you, have you spotted that trend since you’ve tipped in advice? [00:01:45] It is. It is [00:01:48] Joe: just specifically for us, yeah. Was my rating going down? I never knew I had a rating, by the way, until. Maybe six months ago, and a friend of mine told me and some jerk gave me a four. Like, how do you give me, yeah, I’m a delight [00:02:00] Doug: in your backseat. Well, Joe, maybe showering once in a while can help out. [00:02:05] Joe: Hey everybody. Welcome to the Personal Hygiene podcast. I’m Joe Sal Sea. Hi. It is Wednesday, which means OG is across the table from me sitting at the microphone. How are you man? Okay. Yeah. Beautiful day. You are all beautiful. Fueled up. Ready to go. Just, uh, gobbled down something. You were hoovering that [00:02:23] OG: I was hoovering it. [00:02:24] It’s uh, O Ghost Pro. Today’s show sponsored by Ocos Pro. Get your 20 grams of protein with zero grams of added sugar. Oikos Pro [00:02:35] Joe: for the protein [00:02:36] OG: win. [00:02:36] Joe: Oikos, if you’d like to sponsor the show. Oh, Gee’s, a big fan. What are you waiting for? Of course we tried to do that with Solo Stove. And what did they do? [00:02:44] They went ahead with, with that one guy. I mean, that guy. Nobody knows. Snoop Dogg, doggy dog. Why would they, why would they do that versus all the love? I could put a little [00:02:54] OG: granola in it. I don’t know. You guys put granola in your yogurt, little honey. [00:02:57] Doug: I’m not a big yogurt guy. Yeah, Doug yogurt’s a waste of time. [00:03:01] It, it’s three spoons max, like yogurt is just. Not much Pisses me off more than like hell have a healthy snack. Welcome to the [00:03:11] Joe: Insights on how Doug Eats podcast. All that does is enraged the beast. Stop. [00:03:15] OG: You’re right. It’s not a half a pizza. It’s not a Costco pizza. You’re right. Apology, sir. Yeah. [00:03:22] Joe: Uh, you were talking about a on Monday, you know when you get a little fat [00:03:27] OG: to get a, to get a look at Doug’s blood work would be quite amazing. [00:03:30] Like, what is my blood work when I, all I eat is jerky and Costco pizzas, right? What do I get then? I mean, you get a good life, I guess Yolo, right? Happiness is what you get. Happiness. Yeah [00:03:42] Joe: sir. We just ran your blood type. It appears you are meats and marinara. Most people a negative, a positive nut. Doug. [00:03:51] He’s marinara. Yeah. We got a great show today. We’re gonna talk about, uh, now that we set the stage so far this year, we’re gonna talk about. You know, how do you enjoy a little bit of this along the way? And, uh, really a cautionary tale here about some people who realize too late, they might not have done the right thing, which, you know, we talk about saving money on this show. [00:04:13] It’s what we’re all about. But is there such thing as too far? These people will tell you that? Maybe there is, but before that, we have some sponsors who make the show go. No yogurt involved, sadly this week, as far as I know. But you know what? They do keep the show free. So we’re gonna hear from them and then into today’s headline, I. [00:04:36] Doug: From the makers of the HIT podcast, Stacking Benjamins comes a product so new, so hot, so salacious that you’ll immediately throw down your wallet and ask How hot is it? [00:04:49] fake ad: For years, investors like Earl in Peoria have been foaming at the mouth over five simpleton letters. V-T-S-A-X for you, heathens, you have not yet been exposed to the lights and the goodness of these five letters. [00:05:04] That’s the Vanguard Total Market Index Fund. [00:05:08] Doug: But here at Stacking Benjamin’s Industries, we ask ourselves, is there a better way? Can we ourselves create something with more [00:05:17] fake ad: torrid outcomes? And now after sweat filled minutes of groundbreaking work, the scientists at Stacking Benjamin have emerged in, are pleased to unveil the vantage dominant, super expensive index. [00:05:31] That’s right. We call it vd. SEX, [00:05:43] Doug: fill that hole in your portfolio in a hurry with some V-D-S-E-X, you’ll start off with some steamy returns. So good that it feels too good to be true, as you’ll be up 69 or more percent. Your results may vary and you’ll find what’s [00:05:59] fake ad: more. This thing grows like a rash. That’s right. V-D-S-E-X results that are truly infectious. [00:06:08] Soon you’ll have all of your loved ones joining in, in the sweaty action, packed fun and misery that only a ride up the stock market can bring. Get yourself a little something, something V-D-S-E-X. [00:06:23] Doug: A better way to say, I love you to your money. [00:06:32] headlines: Hello darlings, and now it’s time for your favorite part of the show, our Stacking Benjamin’s headlines. [00:06:38] Joe: Today’s headline comes to us from Business Insider. This is written by Noah Sheidlower. Noah writes, meet the over savers, older Americans who have plenty for retirement, but wish they work less and vacation more. [00:06:55] That’s not a good headline. We don’t like to read that. How do we work less and vacation more and still have enough to save? Well, let’s dive into that topic. To kick off today’s variety show Wednesday, Joshua Winston, Noah Wrights age 70, did a pretty good job preparing for retirement. He ran two successful veterinary clinics, made smart investments, and lived frugally. [00:07:18] But a week after retired May, he was diagnosed with cancer. Now, Winston said he regrets working such long hours during his career, often missing out on trips and date nights. Winston is one of a few dozen respondents to an informal business insider survey who said they worked too hard during their careers or focused too much on saving for retirement, sacrificing family time, travel, or other leisure activities. [00:07:43] When they were younger. All right, let’s set this up. Let’s frame this correctly, og, because on Monday I talked about the fact that there can be such a thing as healthy fear, right? That maybe we haven’t done enough and that’s a good fear to have. Also, maybe robots are coming for our job and I need to get more education. [00:08:03] That can be a healthy fear to have. But you know these people, you know these people that wake up every day afraid they haven’t done enough, only look in the rear view mirror and realize that time, time was the one thing they didn’t think enough about. [00:08:19] OG: Yeah, I guess that’s the one thing, right? Father, time comes for us all. [00:08:21] Is that what they Is that what they say? Yeah. Death [00:08:23] Joe: and sex. Yeah. I like that. I like what, uh, ALU Arthur said. She’s like, I don’t like to use the term terminal because we’re all terminal. None of us get outta here alive. [00:08:32] OG: Yeah, not yet anyway. Unless you eat yogurt. Maybe with the neuro link, maybe we’ll get that. [00:08:37] The little brain cryogenics where we. Freeze ourselves and come back later. I didn’t [00:08:43] Joe: see that on the 2025, uh, tech list on Monday. Huh? That was disappointing. [00:08:48] OG: Yeah. Oh, well, I don’t know. I, I think it’s good to have a healthy balance here, but I do talk to a lot of people that are, that stress about the minutiae, but not the big picture. [00:09:01] It’s like the big picture says, I’ve got a bunch of money, right. I’ve got X dollars, and you can run it through 50,000 different calculations and whatever scenario you wanna do, and you’re still good. Right? And then it’s like, man, should I buy the condo close to my kids or not? I don’t know. It’s, it’s gonna be, you know, the payment’s $1,500 a month and that seems like a lot of money. [00:09:22] And it’s like, hold on a second. We just did this whole big thing that showed there’s no chance of blowing up your plan and you wanna tweak this like one little teeny tiny thing. And that’s the thing that’s holding you back. Go hang out with your kids. Go, go do the vacation. Go. I don’t know. Tomorrow’s not promised to everybody. [00:09:41] Is [00:09:41] Joe: this where the numbers help og, like seriously talked about? We just did this plan. I mean, it’s not gonna help everybody, but for a lot of us is it just instead of using these rules of thumb, maybe we get our hands on some numbers that go, oh, I probably could take my foot off the gas pedal and I’m gonna be okay. [00:09:58] Like I will have enough. [00:10:00] OG: I think that the value of advisors is not necessarily in like, do this one thing to be successful. You know, we’ve obviously talked to thousands of people over the last 15, 16 years of us doing this and it’s like, you know, there’s plenty of people who are successful being entrepreneurs. [00:10:16] There’s plenty of people who are successful owning real estate. There’s plenty of people who are successful that buy stock that, you know, there’s like thousands of ways to be financially successful, whatever that means to you. But I think that. Our job is not necessarily to say, well this is the only way, this is the only solution that works. [00:10:35] But rather to make sure that you as the individual or you and your team or your spouse or whatever, you know, whatever your decision making group looks like, has the information so that you can confidently make a good decision that’s good for you. And so many times it’s like you see it on Instagram or TikTok or whatever, it’s like this is the only way to fund your kids’ college, or this is the only way to be financially independent and, and that’s not true. [00:11:02] But more to that, it’s like if you have the confidence in the data and you have the confidence in that, you’ve seen what the dominoes look like as they fall beyond the, the first one or two that are easy to see. You know, that gives you the confidence to make the decisions that are appropriate for what’s going on in your life right then. [00:11:21] And I think that’s what we really try to strive to do is to say like, there is no right solution here, but here’s what the secondary effects of. This information does or is. And then with that, you can make that, should we move across the country and be close to our kids’ decision? Because you’ve seen the whole thing. [00:11:39] You’ve seen the, the forecast of all the effects. [00:11:42] Joe: You know, the value for me, OG, isn’t so much the calculation. While that I do think that’s valuable, what really worked well for me and Cheryl was having it not be me and Cheryl telling us that when, when you have a third party who’s telling, you know it’s gonna be okay, somebody who’s done this over and over, obviously there’s some great calculators out there. [00:12:03] One of our most popular videos is the new retirement calculator, which is now the Bold Calculator. And that’s a wonderful calculator. So a lot of our smart stackers can go use the calculator and you’ll use the, you’ll do that. But man, just having somebody sit across, and I felt this like this when I was a planner too. [00:12:21] Just the fact that I was telling them is an outsider who’s not emotional. No, you’re gonna be all right. It’s gonna be fine. Like that was the value for me. [00:12:29] OG: Yeah, and, and ultimately the, you know, in this, in this guy’s case here about like working too hard and stuff like that. I read this piece over the holiday, you know, one of the things he says later on is he regrets not having, not not spending the money to hire an assistant. [00:12:43] So he didn’t have to be on call the whole time. ’cause he felt obligated to be on call for his patients, for his clients. Which as an entrepreneur, as a small business owner, you have that sensation of like, these people rely on me, so I need to be around. But it’s a little bit of a psychosis I think, right? [00:13:00] Of like, I’m so important that I can’t go anywhere. Maybe. Is there a little bit of that? A little, yeah. No, I better be around here. I better, you know, I can’t, I don’t know that anybody else can do this as good as me. I should probably, I’m pretty important, you know, I’m a pretty important guy. I don’t know if you know that or not. [00:13:15] So I’m gonna demonstrate my importance by not going on vacation or not doing these things. I don’t know what the word for that is, but it’s a little. Self-aggrandizing. Is that a good, that good? Well, in some ways it is. That’s giving me the nod. Okay. All right. [00:13:30] Joe: It is your ego. I mean, it’s your ego and it’s also your, yeah, there you go. [00:13:33] Your comfort level. Right. Feeling like you’re a person of importance. I feel like there’s a lot of internal stuff going on there, which is why I think tactically setting up at the beginning of the year, these are the big rock things. I’m gonna do that. Well, before I even get to that, realizing that your career’s a marathon, not a sprint. [00:13:52] Mm-hmm. And I feel like sprint means burnout and we end up in these jobs that we might love. It isn’t easy to find a job you love, but even with a job you love. After a while, you just need a break. Like from anything, you need a break. And so taking that break, I remember we had Laura Vanderkam on who’s studied all kinds of time management and she says it takes roughly seven to 10 days before you completely recharge that battery on a vacation. [00:14:21] If you can do that once a year, if you’re lucky enough to be able to do that once a year, that’s phenomenal. But setting those big milestones about things that you wanna do along the way every year to enjoy, um, means you’re not gonna look back, I think with regret. And you can still work the long hours, you know what I mean? [00:14:39] On one hand, you can still work. The long hours on the other hand go, but I still took the trip. I still, you know, took the kids to Cedar Point, or your analogy, always Disney or whatever it might be. [00:14:49] OG: How many people do you know that I just, I just had this happen to me today. As a matter of fact, I sent an email to somebody and I got the bounce back email, Hey, I’m on holiday. [00:14:58] I’m not coming back until the seventh or whatever day it was. You know, I won’t be checking my email till the eighth. Okay, fine. And then I got a reply. Yeah, Hey, thanks for, [00:15:07] Joe: oh no. [00:15:08] OG: And I’m like, I wanted to like jump through my computer and like strangle the person. Like, what are you doing? You’re, you’re on the last day. [00:15:16] And I get it, like, I dunno how you guys feel about this, but there’s a little separation anxiety that happens like the first couple days, like vacation or time off. You’re like, woo, that’s awesome. And then like, as time goes on, you’re like, I wonder what’s happening in my email. You know? And it takes like strong intestinal fortitude not to look at it. [00:15:32] And then the day before you’re coming back, you’re like, well, I could probably get a head start, right? I could, yeah. You know, I can, I can look. But let me tell you a little secret about messages. Nobody sends emails on Sunday afternoons that, that are good. You know, they all start with, I’ve been thinking, you know, there’s nothing good that comes after I’ve been thinking for two straight days. [00:15:51] You know, so all you do by checking your email on Sunday night before you go back to work, c to get ahead of the day is ruin your Sunday night. ’cause you found the email that your boss sent late. You found the, the client email that they sent over the weekend. You found the product that’s been unreliable for the last three days. [00:16:08] And people are complaining about, like, you’re, you’re basically setting up Sunday night for failure. Which by the way, you’re probably not gonna do anything about, you’re gonna look at and go, well that sucks. Not my whole Monday shot. [00:16:21] Joe: Yes. ‘ [00:16:21] OG: cause I’m gonna have to deal with this problem. And all you’re gonna do is stew on that for seven hours. [00:16:25] Joe: Well, we said Anthony O’Neill on a Monday talking about sitting at the head of your table. Now, whose table are you sitting at the head of Monday morning. First thing you get to work, whoever that person Yeah. Is you’re, you’re sitting on the, they’re sitting at that of their table and you’re working for them because I do like what Van der Cam said. [00:16:42] Uh, and I’ll link to, uh, both of her appearances on the show or maybe she was even on three times. But I love what she said about Sunday night doing the stuff though. That is the stuff that moves your ball forward. Like forget about the email, don’t do anything reactive. But getting your to-do list down and putting yourself at the head of that table, like Anthony said, and doing the stuff that’s gonna advance the ball. [00:17:04] ’cause then you come in Monday morning and you’re just roaring. But man, if I’m coming in Monday and I’m putting out the fire, I found out about Sunday night, not always Monday ruined, my whole week’s ruined. [00:17:13] Doug: That’s it. Right? Or if you come in Monday and all of those things that OG just described are waiting for you, at least you’ll have the comfort of knowing I did some stuff that advances my own goals, not. [00:17:25] Somebody else’s. Yeah. And so, yeah, I’m just, you know, violently agreeing with both of you. [00:17:29] OG: I just don’t think that, except for the very few of us, and, and not us us ’cause we don’t have any of this stuff, but very few people have such important work that absolutely is critical that it gets done in the manner in which it gets done, in the time in which it gets done. [00:17:44] Right. Like the guy who’s in charge of like the nuclear launch codes or whatever, like, he got a pretty important job. You know, if he gets a phone call at 6:00 AM he should probably answer the call. [00:17:52] Doug: Pretty sure he’s a stacker. [00:17:54] OG: Well of course he is. But heart surgeon, that dude gets a call at two in the morning on a Saturday on his day off. [00:17:59] He gonna go fix somebody’s heart. Like that’s, that’s, he can’t be like, well eh, three days until Monday. Email me the problem and I’ll check it out on Monday morning when I get on my drive in. You know, they got stuff to do. But for the vast majority of people. Butcher’s, bakers and candlestick makers, you are subjecting yourself. [00:18:16] Uh, I love that, Joe. You’re subjecting yourself to other people’s priorities when you’re reacting to, to the chaos of other people’s life. Do you remember, what was it two episodes ago? You mentioned the One Minute Manager book. What, what did you Spencer, uh, [00:18:28] Joe: who Moved My Cheese, which is part of that series Who Moved My [00:18:30] OG: Cheese? [00:18:30] Okay. Yeah. Same, same guy. Spencer Johnson. Yeah. So, do you remember the book, the One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey? Do you remember that one? I love [00:18:37] Joe: that book. That might’ve been my favorite book in the entire series. The monkey, [00:18:40] OG: Doug, do you remember the One Minute Manager meet? No, I don’t know that one. I still refer to the monkey all the time. [00:18:44] The monkey? Yes. It’s like Herbie from the Goal. It’s basically, the concept is, is that people come into your office and go, Hey, I’ve got this problem, and they take the monkey off of their back and they throw it to you and then they run out and now you’ve got their monkey. [00:18:55] Joe: Well, and it’s even a little more than that OG, because in your example there, you’re not taking responsibility as the manager because what the person actually says is they walk into the office and they go, we have a problem. [00:19:06] OG: Yeah, we have a problem. Immediately [00:19:08] Joe: strapping one arm of the monkey over you. The two of us have a problem. And the first thing they teach you in that book that a good manager does is says, no, no, no. You have a problem. Throws back the monkey on their back. But what most of us do as managers, and I’ve certainly done it a thousand times, is you go, okay, I’ll take care of the problem. [00:19:27] Then the person leaves. So the person comes and says, we have a problem. Then the manager goes, I’ll take care of it. Got it. And the person walks out. Mission accomplished. I don’t have a problem anymore. My manager does. Yeah. I [00:19:38] OG: don’t have a problem anymore. Yeah. And so you’re working on other people’s priorities all the time instead of yours, like what you said there? [00:19:42] Yeah. [00:19:43] Joe: Yeah. This piece really dives into some people’s, quite a few people’s stories, but I wanna stick with this guy, Mr. Winston and his veterinary clinics because Dr. [00:19:53] OG: Winston, to you, sir, [00:19:54] Joe: something, or I don’t know if he owns them and manages them, or if he’s actually a doctor. It doesn’t say in here anywhere that he’s actually, I. [00:20:02] Uh, the doctor, well, we’ll call [00:20:03] OG: him doctor Mr. Just to be safe. [00:20:05] Joe: We will Dr. Mr. Winston, [00:20:07] OG: Mr. Doctor, [00:20:07] Joe: what I wanna point out here, well, let me read the piece and then I’ll point it out. Winston, who lives in Arizona, spent much of his career in veterinary work throughout his life. He drove modest vehicles, lived in an upper middle class house, and was cautious about making larger purchases. [00:20:22] He retired with about $3 million, but wished he’d spent some of that money on an assistant for his practice so he wouldn’t need to work nights running an emergency vet helpline. [00:20:32] OG: Yeah. What I was talking about, one [00:20:33] Joe: of the only places I got pushback about Ozzi was somebody said that Alex Hormoze was talking about making money, but we need to talk about how we spend money too, which we did then later on with Jen and Jill. [00:20:46] But Hormoz said something og really important during that interview, which is exactly what Winston’s dealing with here. Remember how he said that? Part of knowing what your one thing is and what your true focus is, is knowing exactly how to spend money as well. He didn’t spend a ton of time there, but he did dig into a little bit. [00:21:07] If you go back and listen, you need to know how to spend money. And you said, I remember during our discussion about that interview that that’s an investment. Right? It’s an investment because it’s gonna pay you back. Yeah. Winston, in this case, had he been more open to spending money, man, that investment would’ve paid so many life dividends to just get an assistant. [00:21:27] OG: Well, again, it sounds back to the value of your time. It sounds really silly to say that you have to try to get rid of all of the $10 tasks if you want to do $20 work, you know, or get rid of the $20 work if you’re trying to do the $50 work. And that can be extreme. I’ve, I’ve also seen really obnoxious pieces about people who say like, oh, well, you know, going grocery shopping is, is a waste of my time because that’s a $10 an hour task. [00:21:51] And it’s like, okay, so I [00:21:53] Joe: see we were there the year at FinCon where there was one of the YouTube influencers there walking around with an entourage of like eight assistants. It was stupid. [00:22:02] OG: Yeah. It was, you know, it’s, it’s like the person who’s like, hold on a second, I can find the fund that’s 0.02 instead of 0.03. [00:22:09] Ha ha ha. I win. Like, okay, all right, meanwhile, I’m not saving enough. But it saved a penny per thousand on uh, cost. But so you can kind of abuse that. But at some level, you know, what Alex is talking about with, with Winston’s talking about here too, is I think about all the time and goodwill that he would’ve created with his own circle of people, whether that was his family or his other, you know, extended community or church family or whatever. [00:22:32] If he would’ve said, well, I’m gonna invest $20,000 or $50,000 a year into this employee who can triage 90% of this stuff along the way, plus you and I know this from our strategic coach work. The other piece that happens, and this is just really hard for people to believe before they do it, is that it frees up your mental capacity to solve bigger problems. [00:22:54] If you’re looking at your career and you’re saying, I want to be in charge of bigger issues, I wanna solve bigger problems, because solving bigger problems generally means you’re in charge of more stuff, which generally means you make more money, which kind of advances your career, right? That’s problem solvers. [00:23:08] If you want to do that, you have to be in a creative space to be able to think about solutions. You just simply can’t be doing the monkey manager thing, like putting out fires every single day and still have the mental bandwidth to tackle the big problems that are going on in your organization, your career, whatever it is. [00:23:27] So there is some truth to saying, I need to invest in these people who are capable and able to solve these other problems so that I’m freed up to solve bigger problems. And it’s really hard, especially if you’re an entrepreneur, it’s hard to like sign off on that because sometimes we look at those numbers as expenses, right? [00:23:44] It’s like every 50,000 I give to an employee is 50,000. That’s not coming to me. Yeah. [00:23:48] Joe: And you know, that’s exactly what he was thinking, but. Listen to your point, OG to the life he was giving away. This is from, uh, Mr. Dr. Winston. He says, uh, that sucked up a lot of oxygen in my life. I could never watch a movie when I went out with my wife because I would get a dozen phone calls. [00:24:04] Winston said, though, he acknowledged the helpline, help make his practice successful. What was his success also became his anchor because he didn’t have people to help him with. Imagine being married to that person. I mean, trying to go to a movie with them or go out to dinner and they’re constantly walking away from the table or walking out of the movie theater because they’ve gotta take yet another call. [00:24:24] And the people you love not getting the piece of you that they, that they truly want. I will link to this in the show notes. I love the piece about having somebody else tell you that it’s okay, verifying them. First of all, I like using a calculator versus the rule of thumb. That’s number one. More granular you can get about your numbers, the easier it’s gonna be. [00:24:44] Number two is if you still don’t believe it, have somebody else tell you. Look at your stuff and tell you somebody that’s been there knows what they’re doing. That, you know what, you can do this and it’s still gonna be okay. And then I like the idea of scheduling ahead of time, those big rocks that are outside of work. [00:25:01] What are the vacations I’m gonna take this year? What are the thing? And then make those to your point. Oh g make ’em off limits. Don’t, don’t return emails during that vacation. Uh, which I know is hard. It’s incredibly hard. Strategic Coach has us take free days and free days are brutal. Like it’s, it’s, it’s often so hard to, I’m not gonna look at it. [00:25:20] I’m not. I’ll just look at it just a little bit. Very difficult. [00:25:23] OG: Yeah. It’s taken me a long time to get to the point where. I feel comfortable not having email on my phone. [00:25:29] Joe: It’s so, so, so hard. [00:25:30] OG: But 20 years ago we didn’t have email on our phone, so I know, right? Yeah. Did. Okay then. Isn’t [00:25:34] Joe: that funny? What did we do then? [00:25:36] How did we make it through vacation? Without that, we had to go all the way back to the office. Oh. To remember doing that on your vacation. Oh, wait, that never happened. Well, [00:25:45] OG: I was gonna say, I do remember one time, I have a funny story about that. Maybe later [00:25:50] Joe: time for our TikTok minute, this is the part of the show where we shine a light on a TikTok creator who’s either doing something brilliant or air quotes Brilliant. [00:25:57] Doug, this one, do you think we’re gonna hear brilliance or air quotes? Brilliance. I know what this one is. Oh, I shouldn’t have asked you. You gave this to me. Yeah, you shouldn’t [00:26:05] Doug: because I sent this in probably Brilliant. Yeah. If I sent it, [00:26:10] Joe: and this is not as, you know, a TikTok creator. It, it was presented on, uh, one of the social media pages. [00:26:15] But this is a clip from comedian, neighbor Gotti’s, uh, recent Netflix special, which you saw the whole thing and said it was watched, the whole thing. [00:26:23] Doug: It was good. Not great. Yeah, I mean look above average by most comedian standup comedians standards, but not his best stuff. [00:26:31] Joe: This is pretty damn good though, the piece that you sent me. [00:26:34] And, uh, I think a lot of our stacker community’s gonna feel maligned by this guy because listen to this. Heresy, [00:26:40] bit: heresy. She’s the cheaper one of us as well. Not in a bad way, you know, she likes the lights being off. Turn the lights off. It’s a little lights off. It’s a fun time being in that environment. [00:26:53] Turn the light on, find your seat, get a stick, knock the light back off. Sit in the dark and be sad and just be just sad all day. But you’re saving nickels upon nickels, [00:27:10] right? When I get in bed. Did you turn that light off? I can’t tell. That’s on, well get outta bed. Turn it off. 80 years we’ll give a daughter to $37 from all the nickels we saved. [00:27:23] Joe: We’ll give my daughter the 37 bucks we saved of 80 years of doing this, what inheritance [00:27:29] OG: that would be. He’s done a great job of leaning into his personality, I think. [00:27:35] Doug: Yeah. It’s a hundred percent delivery for him. Uh, it’s 92% delivery. But, [00:27:41] Joe: but it’s also a great commentary on the stuff we’ve been talking about, leading with purpose. Is your purpose really? The lights, although I do have to say Cheryl must have been channeling his wife last night. ’cause she’s like, oh, we, we, we still, by the way, our Christmas trees are coming down this week. [00:27:56] They’re coming down this week, but she’s like, before Valentine’s Day. Yeah. I see. I see a light in the other room. Did you leave the Christmas tree on? You gotta turn the Christmas tree off. Like, why do I, number one, why do I have to turn the Christmas tree off and she doesn’t have to turn the Christmas tree off? [00:28:11] Because I remember if we wanna replay the tape, if, if we wanna replay, and I, I throw the challenge flag, which I would never do ’cause I’m not gonna win the challenge whether I’m right or wrong. If I did throw it, we rewound the tape. I didn’t even plug in the tree. I had no business around that tree. So of course I go out in the other room, you know? [00:28:28] You know what it was. We had a very strong moon last night and you could see the moon coming in the window of the Yeah. It was your [00:28:36] Doug: responsibility to go check on the moon. Yes. To make sure that, did you put the toilet seat down? Why are we the ones who have to put the toilet seat down? You don’t see us going, did you put the toilet seat up? [00:28:46] Yes. Yes. Let’s start that movement. We’re starting that right here. Let’s get one of [00:28:51] OG: these. Joe, you’re about that age. [00:28:58] Joe: Oh, coming up next we’re gonna take a call from a stacker who, uh, needs some help from us. Allison needs some help guys. But before that, Doug, I think you’ve got today’s amazing trivia question. [00:29:10] Doug: Uh, listen, I just wanna sing that song, Allison. All right. Hey there, stackers. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor Doug, and this week back in 19 and 74, the Iconic Show Happy Days was born starring one Ron Howard, who later went on to direct some of the most iconic films of all time. [00:29:32] You know what? Now that I think about it, Ron and I have a ton in common. That’s right. He directed Apollo 13 and there was that time I told Joe’s mom, Houston, we have a problem. When I melted her crockpot trying to make Apollo brownies. You nailed it. And, and remember Howard’s a Beautiful Mind. Yeah, I got one of those. [00:29:51] Just ask me about my strategy for finding the perfect parking spot at Walmart. It’s brilliance. Speaking of brilliance, here’s a brilliant question for today’s trivia challenge. What iconic TV show featured a young, fresh on the road to Stacking lots of Benjamin’s, Ron Howard in a town called Mayberry. [00:30:10] I’ll be back right after I called NASA to see if they need a backup crockpot operator for their next Apollo mission. I think I got what it takes. [00:30:29] Hey there, stackers. I’m Mayberry historian and amateur kitchen fire starter. John John’s mom. Who the hell’s John? John? Could be John’s mom too. We don’t know. Maybe my neighbor on the other side. John’s mom, neighbor. Doug. I can’t stop. Amazing myself. About how much director Ron Howard and I are alike. Oh, you’re so alike. [00:30:54] We are. I mean, take his film. The Da Vinci Code. I once solved a mystery involving Joe’s mom’s secret stash of Oreos. Spoiler was hidden behind the hot water heater. Tom Hanks ain’t got nothing on me. And how about Backdraft? Oh, I’m all over that. I single handedly saved Joe’s mom’s basement from a fiery disaster when I accidentally set the toaster on turbo mode. [00:31:19] Smells like heroism and eh, a little bit like burnt Pop-Tarts, but hey, disaster averted. But today’s question was this. What TV series launched Howard’s career when he played a young boy in a fictional town called Mayberry? The answer, it was on the Andy Griffith show that we first met Ron Howard. Did you get it right? [00:31:41] Go and whistle that Andy Griffith theme song while pretending your snowblower is the squad car. Bonus points. Nobody does that. Bonus points if your neighbors join in. Mine never do, but. Never say never stackers. [00:32:02] And now back to two guys. One of which I think just back drafted, Joe and og, oh boy. Gotta [00:32:08] Joe: have the fart joke right at the end of that. It’s amazing to see how many great movies run Howard has, has written. But Mayberry, if you’re not like 180 years old, I think a lot of people don’t know what that is. But the second you start whistling that, Doug, I think even the youngest among us, go, oh yeah. [00:32:25] Doug: Oh yeah, people are gonna be swearing at me all day long now ’cause that is stuck in your head. [00:32:30] Joe: It’s an annoying earworm that theme. [00:32:36] Hard enough of that. I’m gonna do that just quietly in the background. Guys. Do not do that. Please God, do not do that. Just to distract, Doug, it’s time for us to answer a call from a stacker who said, you know what? We better call Saul. See hi and og. And uh, if you’ve got a call by the way and you’d like help from us, it’s stacky Benjamins dot com slash voicemail. [00:32:55] Head to that link and it’s very easy. You’ll just press the recorder button and on whatever device you’re on, your phone, your computer, just start talking and it will record your question for us and somebody who demonstrated that. Today. For all of our stackers is our new friend Alison. Hey Alison. [00:33:18] caller: Hi, Joe OG and neighbor Doug. This is Allison from California. I’m a longtime listener, first time caller. I was listening to your show the other day and you made a comment about how the consumer price index doesn’t account for inflation on food and other basic necessities. My question is, if we’re planning our retirement based on an assumption of inflation based on the CPI, how would I be able to comfortably retire with possibly experiencing 10 to 20% increases on basic necessities annually? [00:33:50] Thanks for answering. See ya. By the way, I’m a women’s medium. [00:33:58] Joe: Thanks Alison for that. And you know what I, I don’t want to get back into the CPI stuff again, but inflation, og and what measure to use for inflation and to understand how inflation’s going to impact you, I think is, is an important and fair question that all of our stackers need to know. [00:34:15] OG: It’s a good question around inflation and there’s a lot of different definitions of that on the government website, BLS website, you can get inflation that is just for energy or just for food, or excluding food and energy, which is what they call core inflation or you know, there’s all these different variations of it. [00:34:35] You’ve gotta pick a number. I think it’s fair to use the historical kind of 30 year number and maybe round up a little bit, but it’s also probably a good idea from a planning standpoint to model out different scenarios of higher inflation. Like what if the last 30 years has been, let’s say 3%, what if it is 3.5% or 4% for the next 30 years? [00:34:54] And see what that does to your plan. I think financial planning is more about the activity of the thinking exercise of what do we do if than it is going? This is the only solution because the reality is, is that inflation may be 4% for the whole 30 years, or it might be two and a half percent for the next 30 years. [00:35:11] Nobody really knows until it’s been 30 years. Right. But the exercise of thinking about what are we gonna do? Were this to be the case? You know, what are the decision points in terms of our guardrails or our glide path of retirement? When are we gonna have to make a decision if our portfolio behaves in this manner? [00:35:29] And it’s the same thing you would do if you were looking at, Hey, I think my portfolio is gonna grow at 7% a year, but what if it does six? I think my portfolio is gonna grow at eight. What if it does seven? You put these different scenarios in there to stress test it, right? That’s basically what you’re doing is stress testing it. [00:35:43] So I think it’s a good exercise to stress test all, all components of your plan. Not just an inflation number, but all pieces. I mean, what happens if social security is half as much as you’ve forecasted to be? You know, what if they change the retirement age to 70 instead of 67? I mean, these are all things that you can model out in your, in your analysis and hopefully that, uh. [00:36:04] You kind of come to a consensus of like, okay, I’m good under most of these circumstances, but if these four happen, then I’m, I know I’m gonna have to make a change. Right? Like, where’s the breaking point? And that’s really how I think about stress testing is when do I have to really be worried about this? [00:36:18] Joe: We call these in the business, uh, I like the phrase stress testing, but we often call them what if scenarios. What if this happens, what if? And, and I really like that way of thinking. ’cause you then get into the whole what if game, which I think going back to our headline today, og, just imagine if, uh, Dr. [00:36:37] Mr. Winston had done some of this. What if I hired the assistant and I paid out the X amount of money? Where would I end up then can I really afford to take that time off? And not only that, if he says, what if I hired the assistant as a, or as you know, a manager running these veterinary clinics, he then also says, well, if I do, then I’m also gonna have to train them on. [00:37:00] Almost like when you start opening your brain to these what ifs, then you begin to find a much stronger plan. But if Mr. Dr. Winson was able to, what if, yeah, I can hire the assistant. Yes, I, I can afford that. And if inflation goes up and I’m okay, well then, you know, yeah, I can safely make it through the movie without taking five phone calls, I’m gonna be okay. [00:37:25] Right? [00:37:26] OG: Yeah. We look at these, what if scenarios or these stress tests as like all these different levers and how many of them have to go against you before you have to do anything, right? So you go, well, I think my plan’s gonna grow at 7%. Well what if it was six? Okay, we’re still good. What if I does five? [00:37:39] Okay, we’re still good. Alright, so that really isn’t a stressor. What if social security gets cut in half? Okay, I’m still good. What if my portfolio grows at six and social security gets cut at half? Uh, issue. So now, you know, like, okay, if both of those things happen, you know, you’re gonna have to kinda get back into the plan and start making some adjustments along the way. [00:37:59] So I think it’s good to do all of these things, including, to your point, Joe, what if I lived to be a hundred and what if I die at 72? [00:38:07] Joe: Right? Yeah, I hadn’t thought about that, [00:38:10] Doug: but is there, uh. I’m just gonna challenge a little bit. I think I know the answer that you’re gonna say, but is there a simple answer for her? [00:38:18] Is there a simple answer to say, don’t use the CPI use this number? Or do we have to have multiple what if scenarios? I don’t think that’s the, I should have one default one, right? I don’t think that [00:38:30] Joe: that’s the point and the reason I don’t think so, Doug, and the reason I’ll challenge your challenge, how about that? [00:38:35] Sure. Is that, is that the government No, takebacks? Well, the government number doesn’t matter. What matters is what happened with you. OG and I both have talked about our love of Monarch money. I think that’s, you know, I’m so happy that they sponsored the show because we both have been in love with that product for a long time. [00:38:51] But no matter what you use, this is part of the upside of modeling what things have cost for you, because then you can see the true CPI doesn’t matter as much as your personal inflation rate. What rate of inflation have I had in my life? And if I can look at what happened to me last year and then look at what happened to me this year now, I just saw Doug go, oh, that sounds hard, dude. [00:39:14] You just put on [00:39:14] Doug: a huge amount of work on my plate. I have spreadsheets for everything in my life, but I’m not measuring the inflation of my certain categories of spending. It truly, [00:39:24] Joe: it’s super easy to see what inflation has been in your life. It might not be today. And if you’re like, no, it isn’t, Joe, and the reason it isn’t is because you haven’t started tracking your expenses. [00:39:32] So sure, you might not be able to do it this year, but doing it next year, not that hard. Not that hard at all. And I think that number is far more valuable in some government statistic about what it is for the person down the road and the person living in another city. That’s, I mean, the cost of living in, in Texarkana versus the cost of living in New York City, two totally different things. [00:39:53] Texarkana is higher by far, [00:39:55] OG: to your point, Doug. I almost think about this like, oh, what’s the phrase from accounting class? What is it called? When you look at it as a percentage of the overall total? Do we, do you guys remember that from accounting? I don’t remember. But anyways, you know, your income is a hundred percent, you know, a hundred, and then your gross margin is this, and you know, it’s whatever. [00:40:16] Anyway, there’s a phrase for it. So you know, you don’t have to keep track of all your expenses, Doug. You could just say, here’s how much money I made. Here’s how much money I paid in taxes here, much money I saved. Here’s how much money I spent. And the next year do that same calculation. Here’s how much money I paid in taxes. [00:40:30] That’s easily findable. Here’s how much money I put my 401k easily findable. Here’s how much money I spent easily deduced by subtracting those other ones, right? And now you say, well, last year my percentage of my income was 46% that I did on expenses, and now it’s 47%. What’s the delta between those two, and what’s the rate of change You can see. [00:40:50] Assuming that, you know, accounting for one-off type things, right? You said, well last year I went to Scotland. Okay, well take that out. Except for the fact that every year you’re gonna do something like that. You know what I mean? You may not go to Scotland every year, but I bet you have a, a fun experience with your kids. [00:41:05] Or if you don’t do it this year, you do it twice next year. You know what I mean? Like kind of all evens out. So you don’t have to track every expense, but you can take out the known knowns and solve for the rest. That might be a way to do it. [00:41:16] Doug: Alright, I will allow that answer. [00:41:18] OG: I’ll, okay, thank you. And the other piece of this too, well I [00:41:21] Joe: think there’s a bigger framework before you get to the other piece here, og. [00:41:24] The bigger framework is this. I feel like when you use rules of thumb and use these big global numbers, the more you can get into what, what it is that you are doing and what you want, the more reliable your plan’s gonna be. And this is really, I think the heart of Allison’s question is how to make my number reliable. [00:41:41] Well track you, stop tracking the government, stop tracking other people, track yourself, and it’s going to be a much more reliable position. [00:41:50] OG: Og. Well, I was just gonna say this dovetails into why you absolutely need to continue investing in things that are gonna rise and grow with the economy throughout your retirement. [00:42:00] And this idea of being conservative when you get to retirement is so, so full of crap because we all recognize that expenses are gonna go up and in. And in recent years they’ve gone up a lot in periods of time. And so we feel this concept of inflation now where we hadn’t before. But if you don’t have your money in a place that’s outpacing that, you’re not gonna be able to keep up with it. [00:42:22] And the only thing that outpaces inflation is the ownership of the biggest companies in the world. Lending to them doesn’t work. Putting your money in a savings account doesn’t work. Although you need to have money in a savings account for emergencies, but you’re losing purchasing power. And this is a very real example of how that can affect you in a short period of time. [00:42:41] If you look at just your regular income. I make a hundred thousand dollars and inflation’s higher this year, I feel squeezed, right? I just read an article the other day about federal employees got a 2% pay raise, and their health insurance went up like 17%. So the average, the average federal employee has a net lower paycheck this year than last because their healthcare costs went up more than their pay raise did. [00:43:04] So they actually got a net. You know that, imagine that happens every single year if you have a fixed income. If you have an income that’s like, okay, I’ve got this a hundred grand and I’ve got this margin of safety right now, every year that’s gonna get more and more compressed. You need to find a solution in your retirement through your retirement earnings that that income isn’t gonna be fixed. [00:43:23] It’s gonna continue to grow with the economy because when you have inflation. That manifests itself in profitability to companies. Mm-hmm. Like you, you know, again, back to my thing from a week ago of like, everybody’s in it for themselves. Do you think Coke goes well? Sugar went up. Uh, I guess we take it on the chin this quarter, guys we’re screwed. [00:43:42] No, they go Coke’s an extra quarter. Like they just raised the price except for the guy from Arizona Tea. He’s, he’s like, whatever, I’m good, but well, we all accept it. ’cause for Coke you go, well, it’s logical. It’s the [00:43:51] Joe: smart thing for them to do. [00:43:53] OG: Yeah. Why wouldn’t you wanna be an owner of that? If you were an owner of a business and you made soda and, and all of a sudden your cost of aluminum and sugar went up and syrup and water, you’d be like, well guys, we can’t sell this thing for a dollar anymore. [00:44:06] We gotta sell it for a dollar 10. Hold [00:44:07] Doug: on. There’s aluminum and coke. [00:44:10] OG: Yes, there’s tons of, there’s [00:44:12] Joe: Coke and Coke. Woo. You know, I love that TikTok minute we did a while ago about the preacher who was standing in front of a bunch of people saying, all of you’re wearing, you know, you’re wearing Nike, you’ve got coach bags, you’ve got all this, you know, you’re wearing these brands and these keep going up and up and up in price. [00:44:27] Wouldn’t it be better if you own those companies? Because they go up and up and up in price. Instead of you walking around thinking you’re cool because you are sporting the logo. Instead, you are the person making cash out of all these people sporting the logo. Pretty badass. [00:44:41] OG: I have a fun exercise that I’m working on right now. [00:44:43] I just have to figure out the program. ’cause I’m not gonna do it by hand. Several weeks ago, Doug and I were doing the, how much did you spend on Amazon? Yeah. Download last week. We have our numbers. I’m gonna figure out how to do this. I’m gonna buy Amazon stock with every Amazon purchase I did over the last 20 years instead. [00:44:58] Oh. Just to see the impact of, you know, the latte factor as it were, which I know is gonna be mind melting in terms of dollar amounts. Nevertheless, not like you could go without all those things, but I’m sure you could’ve gone. So, hold on. So [00:45:11] Doug: Amazon right now is at 2 21, so every time you buy something on Amazon, are you buying a share of Amazon? [00:45:18] No. No. I’m [00:45:18] OG: saying instead of spending the money on Amazon, if I would’ve said, I don’t need that, and I spent $11 and 19 cents that day, what would that have bought me in in Amazon stock that day? Buying the fractional shares? Yeah. All the way from 2001 till present. That’s gonna be an ugly number. I think it’s gonna be a real ugly number. [00:45:34] So it’s because I spent a hundred grand in the last 20 years on Amazon. So I’m, I’m no expert of Amazon stock, but I’m thinking that it’s gone up in the last 20 years and if I’d have put in a hundred grand, but the most of my spending has been recent, relatively in the last [00:45:48] Doug: five years, it’s gone up 134%. [00:45:52] Joe: Shut up nerd. Jeff Bezos sees, uh, OG in public and just refers to him as profit margin. Hey, profit, [00:45:58] Doug: how you doing? What’s up? PM all time, which is, I mean, 1997, you said 20 years. So shave a little bit off of this all time. Amazon’s gone up 255000%. [00:46:11] OG: Just owning the company. Everybody knows this. It’s gonna be a pretty mind boggling miss on my part. [00:46:17] headlines: Yeah, [00:46:17] OG: but it’s also gonna be eye-opening of like, you know, instead of doing this for the next 25 years, maybe, maybe, maybe gonna change my ways. I’m gonna change my ways a little bit. [00:46:29] Joe: I think Allison, this does one other thing too. Well, and for all of the rest of our stacker family and this OG improves your focus. [00:46:37] We’ve talked a lot so far in 2025 about focus, but I think in two areas, number one on the news that you follow, there’s so much incoming data and I know a lot of people, and I remember me when I first got into the stock market, I’m like, yeah, CNBC’s talking about all this data. What do I, well, geez, what do I care about? [00:46:53] Well, once I know where my threats are, right. When I know exactly what my numbers are and which ones could potentially sink my ship, I’m gonna pay more attention to those and I’m gonna tune out stuff that I don’t care about because you can’t focus on everything the closer you get to focusing on very few things and know what those drivers are. [00:47:10] I think that’s it. Number two, og to your point, it also focuses investment opportunities that I hear about because I think too many of us spend time, and I see this in our numbers, right? When we’ve got a sexy title of a podcast episode, the numbers go up and the people listen to that. The, the number of people looking for the magic bullet increases. [00:47:30] And instead, if you go, yeah, you know what, that’s an opportunity, but it doesn’t fit the profile of what I need to get that goal because I know that I’m looking at X inflation number. I know that my, what if scenarios are, you know, these are the threats that I have. I think, uh, being able to just focus and be able to say, you know what, that’s a great investment opportunity. [00:47:49] It’s just not for me. I. It’s a wonderful place to be. ’cause I think Warren Buffet said it best. There’s no such thing as a called strike in investing a baseball analogy where you know the umpire can call you out if you don’t swing the bat. You never have to swing the bat at the wrong pitch. When it comes to investments, you can certainly wait for the right thing. [00:48:05] OG: Expanding my thinking on Amazon. What if every mortgage payment I make to chase, I would’ve bought JP Morgan stock? [00:48:12] Joe: Now he’s gonna start thinking about it globally. [00:48:14] OG: Yeah. Uhoh. [00:48:16] Joe: Uhoh. We’re gonna end this episode pretty soon before OG Pisses himself completely off. Where [00:48:21] OG: does see his head [00:48:22] Joe: explode? [00:48:23] OG: I would be a gazillionaire and Mama said we wouldn’t have to worry about money. [00:48:26] No. Mo. [00:48:28] Joe: What am I doing in my life? Uh, lots of years of therapy. This segment was brought to you by Better Help. Good stuff. As always, we dive into all of these topics on our show notes page at stack you Benjamins dot com, and also in the 2 0 1, our newsletter that comes out weekly. It’s always free stack you Benjamins dot com slash 2 0 1 gets you to get you to the 2 0 1 newsletter. [00:48:55] Doug, out to the back porch. Just briefly, uh, Philip in the basement, our Facebook group at stacky Benjamins dot com slash basement gets you there. It’s a long URL to get there. Uh, Philip says that car commercial, some of you, one of you guys was talking about the song days go by. Somebody’s talking about the song days go by. [00:49:14] I was referring to the song that was in a bunch of car commercials. Philip showed the YouTube video. This YouTube video is so uncomfortable. It’s a 2003 Mitsubishi commercial and this woman’s like in the passenger seat doing the robot dance and it looks so stupid. It looks so, and Tracy in the basement says, uh, my family would give me so much stuff if I tried doing the robot in the car while wearing a beret, which is what this woman’s doing. [00:49:46] I could imagine Doug on a road trip, those road trips, Doug, we used to take to, uh, upstate New York, if you’ve been doing the robot in the passenger seat, what if I would’ve done the robot in the passenger seat? You would’ve like pulled over and I’ve been like, what? You’ve been like, get the hell outta of my car. [00:49:58] Doug: And you were wearing a beret so it would’ve worked. I always wear a beret. It’s my signature Look. 20 years ago, God. Yeah. Somebody posted recently. I’m just gonna leave this here. The year 2000 was now 25 years ago. [00:50:14] Joe: Shut the front door. That [00:50:15] Doug: is so un that’s just unnecessary violence when you post stuff like that. [00:50:20] We, [00:50:20] Joe: we do not need to hear that from you at all. It’s disgusting. Even bring it up. Great stuff. All right, I’m coming to Seattle stacky Benjamins dot com slash retire meet. If you wanna join our book club. I going through this so fast. If you wanna, uh, hang out with me and a few other stackers and do a deep dive into your financial plan over 10, 90 minute sessions. [00:50:41] We’re gonna fire that up, uh, here in February. Stacky Benjamins dot com slash book club for that. I believe that’s the back porch, Doug. Let’s get outta here. Let’s slow it down for a second. Yeah. What things should be on our to-do list from today’s show? [00:50:56] Doug: Well, Joe, I’ve got three. First, take some advice from our headline. [00:51:01] Saving is great, but so is enjoying today scheduled time for those things that light you up along the way, not just for more overtime. Second, that light that’s on. Yeah. That might save you 37 cents, but come on, focus on the big things. Speaking of the big lesson, saving money is great until it means stumbling through the basement in the dark because OG turned off all the lights again. [00:51:29] Turns out broken toes are not cheaper than electricity, man. [00:51:37] This show is the property of SB Podcast LLC, copyright 2025, and is created by Joe Saul-Sehy. Joe gets help from a few of our neighborhood friends. You’ll find out about our awesome team at Stacking Benjamins dot com, along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots. [00:51:57] Come say hello. Oh yeah. And before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don’t take advice from people you don’t know. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I’m Joe’s Mom’s neighbor, Duggan. We’ll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show. [00:53:14] Joe: Oh gee. I think my nephews are taking lessons from Steak Brother. Oh yeah. Three of my nephews came down from Michigan, and these are guys that when I took them to a restaurant called Bubba’s, which is new in Texarkana, it is a spinoff of Texas Roadhouse, locally owned, along with Texas Roadhouse right next door. [00:53:35] It’s a cool place. It’s kind of a [00:53:36] Doug: mid-level, like fast casual type. [00:53:38] Joe: Yeah, it’s like a fun sports bar. Have [00:53:39] Doug: you been to one Doug? Yeah. Not Bubba’s, but I know that. I know the type. [00:53:43] Joe: Yeah, no, that’s exactly what it was. I ordered some onion rings and my one nephew said. These onion rings are only slightly better than Applebee’s. [00:53:51] So that, that’s the caliber restaurant my nephews like to eat at. However, one of my nephews just got out of the, uh, Navy Cullen Hoorah. I was super excited. We were taking ’em to Fort Worth, which as you know, oh geez, just a badass town. Just such a cool place. And it’s their first time in Texas. Take ’em to the Stockyards. [00:54:08] And while we’re there, because it was Colin’s birthday, and to celebrate that he was leaving the Navy, I took them to a place called Lonesome Dove Restaurant, which has a phenomenal chef and, uh, in TripAdvisor, my two favorite restaurants in Fort Worth. It says there’s 2000 restaurants in Fort Worth that rated number seven, number eight, and this was number eight. [00:54:30] So the other one I like is Reta, which I think og you and I have been to Ada, haven’t we? No. Oh, we gotta go to Reta. Yeah. Good stuff. But fun Western vibe, but also kind of a. Next tier place. Well, we go to the stockyards and then we open up the door to Lonesome Dove and it’s immediately dark. There’s candles on the table. [00:54:53] And my nephew who made the comment about Applebee says, oh, romantic Uncle Joe. ’cause it’s so dark with the candles. And we sit down and I have to tell him right away, you don’t sit with your elbows on the table. And he takes ’em off like he’s, he’s really getting into it. We order differently than we ordered at Bubba’s. [00:55:11] We order for, you know, there’s all kinds of menus at the end. She said, I’m gonna take the Chargers out of the way in just a moment. Kids go, what are the chargers? I said, well, these, these plates they’re gonna take away. And again, that same nephew really excited about it. One’s in college. This is the one in high school who’s asking all the questions. [00:55:28] And, uh, my nephew coming outta the military is really having fun. He and I ordered a Manhattan called a Willie, which, uh, Doug, I was explaining to you what a Willie was before. It’s named after Willie Nelson. [00:55:39] Doug: Oh, it wasn’t wet. It was not, yeah, [00:55:42] Joe: that’s the other one. No, that was, [00:55:45] Doug: that. That was not going to, that was that special bathhouse you took them to before the steak. [00:55:49] Not going to occur [00:55:51] Joe: on this trip. No. You [00:55:52] OG: mean [00:55:52] Joe: an exorcism? That’s right. Uh, but it’s named after Willie now sitting, you know, they, it’s, it’s smoked, so they have the, they have it smoking inside with a lid on and open it up right in front of us. And my nephew and I really had fun. I’d had this drink before. [00:56:08] They also at Lonesome Dove. Highly recommend this restaurant, by the way. It’s all, not all, but a lot of it is wild game bison. Elk. We had rabbit [00:56:18] Doug: just wandering around between the table. Yeah. And then they [00:56:21] Joe: shoot it in front of you. [00:56:21] Doug: It’s amazing. You done it. You kill it, you chop it. Eat what you kill restaurant. [00:56:28] Won’t that be wild? Everybody’s chasing chicken around. Sounds like Fort Worth. You said it was a badass town. It it totally the [00:56:34] Joe: wild west, the old wild west rattlesnake rabbit sausage we had. So a lot of good stuff, but we’re looking at the menu and the high schooler. Ethan says, you know what, I think I’d like to get the elk ribeye. [00:56:51] And he looked down at the bottom of the menu where it said $13 and 50 cents. However, that is per ounce. It’s hand cut and there’s a minimum of 10 ounces, but he doesn’t see all that. I look up where it’s a menu item, not hand cut, just made off the menu. It’s 91 bucks the next highest. Menu item is $65. And so I see that my nephew’s going after the $91 thing and I go, you know what? [00:57:24] I’m not sure you’re gonna really like the bison that much. I think you’d actually have you tried the rabbit stew? I think you would like the beef tenderloin. You know, I think you really would. And I, and by the way, I wasn’t being wrong. I think he would like it as much. You [00:57:39] Doug: know, it’s muskrat season. [00:57:44] Joe: I said to him though, I said, you’re just like Nick, my son. It seems like every restaurant we went to, he would always pick just like Steak brother, og. He would pick the most expensive thing on the menu, right? Oh yeah. Totally. Gonna go after the mo. Every single place we went. Nick, my son would always go, oh yeah, I want this. [00:58:00] What do you want? That? What? You talk, oh, I really, so the rule with Nick. I told my nephews this, I said, if you look at the rest of the menu and nothing else is gonna make your day, and this is the only thing that will do it, well then order it. You know, I’m happy you guys are here, then order it. But look at, look at the rest of the menu first. [00:58:22] ’cause man, there’s, look at this. Look at this, look at this. It’s great. So Cullen, the oldest one orders, he gets the ravioli $38 for this elk ravioli, my nephew Ethan orders, he orders the eight ounce beef tenderloin for 65 bucks or the eight ounce. I order the six ounce for like 50 bucks. And then the middle one, Gavin goes, I’ll have the elk ribeye, the 91 thing that I just got done telling them you probably don’t need to get. [00:58:58] And as he’s ordering it with a straight face, the high schooler on the other side of him. Puts his arm out and starts patting me on the back and says it’s gonna be okay, uncle Joe, because I think you could see on my [00:59:11] Doug: face, what the hell are you doing, man? What are you doing to me? You brought this on yourself though because you prefaced it by saying if that’s the thing that’s gonna make your day and make you go, wow. [00:59:24] The question, the question that I [00:59:25] OG: have is, did he eat the elk ribeye? [00:59:27] Joe: Well, what’s funny was he tasted Ethan, the youngest ones beef tenderloin. You know what he said? That’s really [00:59:33] Doug: good. [00:59:34] Joe: I would’ve liked that better. [00:59:36] Doug: Oh my God. Yeah. [00:59:38] Joe: Yeah. For two thirds [00:59:39] OG: the price, I would’ve liked that better. Twisting the knife. [00:59:42] Yeah. We went to this place for my birthday. Did we talk about this already? [00:59:46] Doug: No, but we talked about the before. I want to hear the review after. [00:59:51] OG: Oh yeah, so we went to this place in Plano. It only has seven tables. That’s right. We did talk the before. You know, you walk in, the guy’s like, Hey, I’m the owner, Jeff, the whole kitchen kit. [01:00:02] Caber. Sommelier, yeah, [01:00:04] Doug: dishwasher. [01:00:05] OG: Yeah. I mean it was all those things. One other person working behind the bar and the one other server, everything’s family style and your choice is strip or ribeye and F1 or F two Wagyu. Those are your two choices. Like you just, and it comes out on this huge platter. It’s a giant 20 ounce steak. [01:00:25] It’s all cut up and there is no, it’s not cooked to your liking. It’s cooked to whatever he wants to cook it at. So he’s like, our steaks are cooked to 134 degrees, so Wow. Eat it. Deal with it. Deal with it. Yeah. Comes with a couple sides. Bread pudding. You know, the wine was, he’s like, do you want cab or are you a pinot person? [01:00:47] I said, oh, do you have wine list? He goes, do you want cab or peanut? I’m like, they just pour it. There’s no bottle. There’s no long discussion about it. It’s just like, this is the wine we have. It goes with this meat. We’ve picked it on purpose. You’ll love it. Well, and the review. Yeah, it was fantastic. I would a hundred percent go back. [01:01:06] I mean, I just love supporting like little businesses and also ones that are like ballsy enough to be like, this is what we do. You could have steak or steak. Would you like potatoes? You know, or green beans, you know what I mean? Yeah. Like that. Those are your choices. And for dessert, red or red? Yeah, we have, well, you could get white. [01:01:23] There was an option for white, you know, but there weren’t cocktails. I mean, maybe there were, but it was just like, here’s your meal and get outta here. And it was the same price as going out to like a Del Frisco’s or Three Forks or something like that. And it was a thousand times better. I, I thought I loved it. [01:01:39] It was really good. [01:01:39] Doug: So what’s the scene from hell or high water where the waitress says You want. What are the two options? [01:01:45] OG: It’s like that. What don’t you want? What are the two options? Oh, the for hell or high water or for, for hell or high water? Well, she says, what don’t you want? That’s how the scene starts. [01:01:55] Yeah, that’s, yeah. She says, what don’t you want? That is uh, for those curious, if you watch that scene, if you’re curious what my grandmother sounded like, look like, acted like and was exactly the same personality and facial and everything features, that was central casting of OGs. Grandma, we should find that clip in that mo. [01:02:14] It was like seeing a flashback. It was crazy. ’cause that’s how I. That’s how grandma was. [01:02:37] bit: Ma’am, how you doing today? Hot. And I don’t mean the good kind. So what don’t you want? Pardon? What don’t you want? Oh, well, uh, I think I’ve just, uh, you know, I’ve been working here for 44 years. Ain’t nobody ever ordered nothing but t-bone steak and a baked potato, except this one hole from New York tried to order trout back in 1987. [01:03:08] We don’t sell no damn trout, T-bone steaks, so either you don’t want the corn on the cob. Or you don’t want the green beans, so what don’t you want? [01:03:26] I don’t want green beans. I don’t want green beans either. Steaks cooked, medium rare. Can I get my steak cooked? That what? No question. All right. I tea for you boys iced be great. Thank you ma’am. Uhhuh. [01:03:48] Doug: And [01:03:49] Joe: there you have it. [01:03:50] Doug: That worked. No question. [01:03:53] Joe: I love [01:03:54] Doug: it.
Leave a Reply