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The Retirement Wall of Shame: Mistakes That Wreck Retirement Plans (SB1863)

The Retirement Wall of Shame: Mistakes That Wreck Retirement Plans (SB1863)

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Most retirement content talks about what to do. This episode talks about what actually goes wrong — and how often it happens to people who thought they had it figured out. Joel Larsgaard of How to Money, Paula Pant of Afford Anything, and Jesse Cramer of Personal Finance for Long-Term Investors each nominate their worst retirement mistake for the wall of shame. Some make it. Some get argued off. All of them are more common than you’d think.

What You’ll Walk Away With

  • Why “everything’s going to go according to plan” is the most dangerous assumption in retirement — and the gray swan events nobody sees coming that quietly derail otherwise solid plans
  • The difference between a black swan and a gray swan: why divorce, health changes, and job loss in your early 60s aren’t surprises exactly, and yet almost nobody plans for them
  • Why most people retire two to three years earlier than they expected — and why those lost years tend to be peak earning years
  • The pre-tax wealth trap: why the number in your 401(k) isn’t the number you actually get to spend — and the planning that closes the gap
  • Joel’s RV warning: why the most regretted retirement purchase is almost always the one that seemed most exciting at the moment of retirement
  • The copy-paste retirement: why doing what other retirees do — epic trips, vacation homes, the shiny version of leisure — often produces a quietly miserable result
  • Why the 4% rule is a starting point, not a sentence: how lumpy real-world expenses, medical costs, and changing needs make a fixed withdrawal rate more aspiration than reality
  • The lifestyle design question underneath all of it: why Fritz Gilbert’s polling of actual retirees found that finances barely make the top concerns list once you’re actually retired
  • Paula’s fix for the go-go years: how a dedicated travel bucket with a deliberate spend-down timeline lets you enjoy early retirement without quietly mortgaging the rest of it
  • Why the 18-month retirement honeymoon often ends in the biggest depression of someone’s life — and what to do before you retire to prevent it

Why This Matters Now

Every mistake on this wall is more common than it should be — and most of them are fixable with a little planning before the moment arrives. This episode is the conversation to have while you still have time to change something.

From the Basement

Joel Larsgaard, Paula Pant, and Jesse Cramer build the retirement wall of shame live, with Joe trying and failing to get anyone to argue anyone else off the board. Paula tries to win the trivia competition for the second week in a row with a guess of $500 on George Washington’s Continental Army salary — was she right???? Happy Fourth of July from mom’s basement, and Stephen Merchant has some thoughts about the holiday.

Resources Mentioned

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Our Topic: Building a “Retirement Wall of Shame”

During our conversation, you’ll hear us mention:

  • Retirement disasters
  • Spending plans
  • Gray swans
  • Black swans
  • Early retirement
  • Job loss
  • Health surprises
  • Divorce risk
  • Empty nesting
  • Relationship building
  • Emergency funds
  • Financial flexibility
  • Retirement off-ramps
  • Pre-tax wealth
  • Post-tax wealth
  • Roth IRAs
  • Traditional IRAs
  • Tax planning
  • RMD planning
  • Social Security
  • Deferred life
  • Core pursuits
  • Mini-retirements
  • Lifestyle design
  • Retirement purpose
  • Go-go years
  • Travel buckets
  • RV regret
  • Copy-paste retirement
  • Withdrawal rates

Our Contributors

A big thanks to our contributors! You can check out more links for our guests below.

Guest Contributor Joel Larsgaard

Another thanks to Joel Larsgaard for joining our contributors this week! Hear more from Joel on his show, How to Money Podcast at How to Money – Podcast – Apple Podcasts.

Learn more about Joel and How to Money by visiting Joel Larsgaard, Founder & Co-Host – How to Money.

Jesse Cramer

Another thanks to Jesse Cramer for joining our contributors this week! Hear more from Jesse on his show, Personal Finance for Long-Term Investors – The Best Interest, on Spotify.

Learn how you can work with Jesse by visiting The Best Interest – Invest in Knowledge.

Paula Pant

Check out Paula’s site and amazing podcast at AffordAnything.com 

Follow Paula on Twitter: @AffordAnything

Doug’s Game Show Trivia

  • How many Benjamins did Congress approve to pay George Washington in 1775 dollars as an annual salary to lead the Continental Army?

Join Us on Monday!

Tune in on Monday when we kick off our next installment of Greatest Hits Week!

Miss our last show? Check it out here: Can You Actually Make Money Buying a Franchise? (with Alex Smereczniak) SB1862 | Stacking Benjamins.

Written by: Kevin Bailey

Episode transcript

[00:00:00] Doug: How can I mess this up? We got a warehouse full of cash back here. We’re just Stacking Benjamins

[00:00:09] Doug: Live from the basement of the YouTube headquarters, it’s The Stacking Benjamins Show

[00:00:24] Doug: I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and retirement, it can be a time of unicorns and rainbows or dark days and stormy nights. Which will yours be? Like the top meteorologists at your favorite TV station, we’ll swoop in today and help you avoid retirement disasters. What are they? How should you prepare? We’ll be your guides.

[00:00:46] Doug: But that’s not all, because halfway through this discussion, I’m gonna guide you all toward our year-long trivia competition. Can Paula Pant win two in a row?

[00:00:59] Doug: Two in a row. I mean, it could happen, I suppose. We’ll find out. And now, a guy who just found out he’s saving a lot of money on his car insurance, it’s Joe Saul-Sehy 

[00:01:14] Joe: Thanks, Doug. Hey, happy, happy Friday, everybody. Welcome to the first episode in July. I am Joe Saul-Sehy, and, uh, man, the controls elude us today here in headquarters.

[00:01:27] Joe: If you’re hanging out with us live on YouTube, we’re just having some fun, but we’re gonna have some fun today because this episode is an emergency broadcast from the Department of Bad Retirement Decisions. If you claim Social Security because your brother-in-law said, “Hey, you gotta grab it before the government runs out,” please remain calm.

[00:01:45] Joe: If your retirement plan is, “I’m gonna work till I die,” well, stop operating heavy machinery. And if your entire portfolio is in your old employer’s stock because, quote, “It’s been good to us,” congratulations, you might be nominated into the wall of shame, which is what we’re gonna do today. We’re gonna create the retirement wall of shame.

[00:02:06] Joe: Of course, the guy who helped me kick off this show is a guy who’s not ashamed of anything that happens at his house. Mr. Neighbor Doug is here. 

[00:02:15] Doug: Are you kidding me? 

[00:02:17] Joe: No shame, ever. How are you, man? 

[00:02:20] Doug: Oh, we’re proud of our debauchery here in this house. I’m great, Joseph. How are you? 

[00:02:25] Joe: You ready to meet the team, Doug?

[00:02:27] Doug: I’m ready to meet the team. We have a new team member today that, uh, I am irrationally excited about having here. We need to spice things up a little bit in the basement, and this, uh, new round table member is gonna do it. 

[00:02:39] Joe: I’m super excited that they are with us today. But first up is the host of the show that reminds us that we can afford anything, but not everything, which is also what, uh, Mom says when I try to order both mozzarella sticks and, uh, refinance my mortgage.

[00:02:54] Joe: Paula, Paula Pant is here. Inflation’s hitting, Paula. And you’re on mute. 

[00:03:02] Paula: Helps to turn the microphone on. We’re, 

[00:03:04] Joe: we’re having a great day. If you didn’t think today was live- … when our special guest showed up right after the intro, for all the YouTube people, and then, uh- … I came on later. Paula, how are you? 

[00:03:17] Paula: I am great.

[00:03:18] Paula: I bet you could refi your mortgage and order mozzarella sticks with the money that you save by virtue of doing that refi, right? 

[00:03:26] Joe: The, the order matters. The order matters. It’s like sequence of return, sequence of expenses. The 

[00:03:31] Paula: sequence of mozzarella sticks. 

[00:03:33] Joe: The sequence of mozzarella sticks, right. Paula, you wanna find out who’s on the panel with you today?

[00:03:38] Paula: Yeah, I’d love to know. 

[00:03:40] Joe: Next up, he’s the host of Personal Finance for Long-Term Investors, which means he’s the person at the table who will say, “Actually, let’s model that,” and somehow he makes it fun. Mr. Jesse Cramer’s here. 

[00:03:53] Jesse: Well, what’s not fun about a spreadsheet, Joe? Spreadsheets are… If you don’t find a spreadsheet fun, I mean, it says a lot about you.

[00:04:00] Joe: We coulda just said, “Jesse Cramer, freakin’ the sheets, the spreadsheets.” 

[00:04:06] Jesse: That’s correct. Yes. I, I, I v-looked up from my microphone, and I don’t know how to finish that joke, because- … I don’t have a sense of humor. I’m a spreadsheet guy. 

[00:04:14] Joe: Yeah, that’s right. Well, I don’t know, man. I would say that, uh, you’re one of those freaks of nature that can do both.

[00:04:20] Joe: I don’t know. Don’t know how you do it, man, but you find a way. 

[00:04:23] Jesse: Speaking of freaks, though, 

[00:04:24] Joe: speaking of freaks- Speaking of freaks, would you like to meet our special guest, Jesse? 

[00:04:28] Jesse: I would love to. 

[00:04:29] Joe: Our special guest is the co-host of the How to Money podcast, a show about practical money, regular people, and occasionally, Jesse, beer.

[00:04:40] Joe: How about that? Which means this man’s unique and qualified to answer the question, is his retirement plan frugal, or are we just eating cat food with confidence? That’s right, he’s back. Mr. Joel Larsgaard joins us. How are you, man? 

[00:04:53] Joel: Good, man. If there’s not enough money for craft beer, you’re doing retirement wrong, that’s for sure.

[00:04:57] Joe: That’s right. I, I thought you were gonna say the deluxe cat food, then you’re doing retirement wrong. 

[00:05:02] Joel: I mean, if you have to resort to cat food but it allows you to drink the best beer on earth, that’s fine. Like, that’s a worthy trade-off. 

[00:05:08] Joe: I’m super happy you’re back with us on a Friday. What’s been going on at How to Money, man?

[00:05:12] Joel: The norms. Uh, th- there’s nothing to talk about in terms of money, right? Like, everything- No. … is staying stagnant. Like, just really nothing interesting to discuss, so we’re pretty bored over there, I’ll tell you that. 

[00:05:22] Joe: Well, we’ve got a super fun show today, and I’m super glad that you could join us because today we are going to be chatting about, uh, retirement.

[00:05:31] Joe: And so many people make retirement mistakes, and the ones that we’re not gonna talk about today are the cute ones, like forgetting your 401password, right? That’s a neat one. But the monster ones, the ones where you find people googling, “How do I do a reverse mortgage?” at, like, 3:00 a.m., which is, by the way, something you usually don’t wanna do.

[00:05:49] Joe: We, uh, we’re gonna address mistakes like that. So we’ve got Joel here, we got Jesse here, we got Paula here, Doug’s here. We are going to take one quick break. We only have two advertiser spots during the show. We’re gonna have one now, and we’re gonna have one in the middle of our trivia competition. Can Paula Pant win two weeks in a row?

[00:06:10] Joe: We’re gonna find out, but first we’re gonna hear from our sponsors, and then Joel, Jesse, Paula, Doug, and I, we’re gonna build this retirement wall of shame

[00:06:26] Joe: Okay, team, here’s how this works. We have a board full of retirement disasters, right? Imagine you’ve got this huge board of retirement disasters. What’s gonna happen is each member of our panel’s gonna nominate the mistake they think deserves a spot on the retirement disaster hall of shame. You’re gonna have to defend your nomination, and everybody can agree, they can object, you can heckle politely, or you can ask, “Is that really worse than buying a timeshare?”

[00:06:50] Joe: Like, which, which one is it gonna be? So for every disaster, we’re gonna give you an emergency kit, what to do next, and what to check next, when to call a professional. So the first thing we’re gonna do, we’re gonna start with pre-retirement mistakes, and then after the break, after the trivia contest, we’re gonna do post-retirement.

[00:07:09] Joe: So let’s lay out the scenario This is the biggest, biggest problem for people in pre-retirement widely, retiring without a spending plan. We have no spending plan at all, and I think all of these things go to that point of not having a spending plan. We don’t have plans in all these different places. So Paula Pant, we’ll start with you.

[00:07:31] Joe: What are you gonna nominate for the pre-retirement wall of shame? 

[00:07:35] Paula: With regard to not having a spending plan? I don’t think I understand the, the rules of this game. So, like, wall of shame about not having a pre-retirement spending plan? 

[00:07:44] Jesse: Margin call. 

[00:07:45] Joe: No, I

[00:07:49] Joe: think- Mar- margin call. I think everything… I, I guess the reason I brought up the spending plan is just because I feel like all these are gonna wind up with being a part of I don’t know what retirement looks like. I don’t have any idea what retirement’s gonna be like. So I have this mistake. 

[00:08:04] Paula: Okay. All right.

[00:08:05] Paula: So mistakes that people make because they don’t know how to plan for retirement. 

[00:08:09] Joe: Exactly. Thank you. Paula Pant, new co-host of this show.

[00:08:15] Paula: Inadequately guarding against, like, gray swan or black swan events, um, because they, again, don’t know how to adequately plan for it, and because there are so many variables and so much that’s unknown with regard to your health, with regard to your family’s health, et cetera. 

[00:08:31] Joe: So not guarding against black swan events.

[00:08:33] Joe: So, wait a minute. So you’re talking about… Are you talking about both in the economy and the world, like- Oh, I- … 20- 

[00:08:42] Paula: I, I was thinking 

[00:08:42] Joe: more in- … 2008? 

[00:08:43] Paula: I was thinking more in terms of personal life, right? Like- 

[00:08:46] Joe: Yeah, like all of a sudden disaster hits. 

[00:08:47] Paula: Yeah, yeah, exactly, you know, and you don’t have, uh, adequate levels of protection for any kind of personal disasters.

[00:08:53] Joe: Oh, gotcha. So everything’s gonna go perfect syndrome. 

[00:08:57] Paula: Exactly. 

[00:08:57] Joe: Yes. Joel, you like that one for the wall of shame or not? 

[00:09:02] Joel: I do. Can I piggyback on that just a touch? I just wanna say, like, uh, that w- my first thing I was gonna go to was just assuming that you’re gonna be employed where you’re working until you wanna retire, right?

[00:09:11] Joel: Mm, mm-hmm. And that’s the kind of, like, black swan event maybe you’re referring to, Paula, is just, yeah, I’m, I’m gonna work until I’m 70, and then I’ll m- you know, ride off into the sunset. But if for some reason your f- your health fails you or your employer says, “Uh, actually not so fast, we’re gonna, you know, cut bait at 64,” then you’ve got a lot to figure out.

[00:09:29] Joel: And so just assuming that you’re gonna work as long as you want to is kinda one of those potential black swan events that could befall. So I’m gonna say yeah, that goes on the board. 

[00:09:36] Joe: I’m glad you brought that up, Joel, because there was a study that, uh, we covered recently on the show, and you guys, I’m sure you saw this come across your desk as well, which is I think the average person retires about two, two and a half years before they expected.

[00:09:49] Joe: For one reason or another. Either something in their life or the boss decides to let them go, age discrimination, you know, all the above. Pick a thing. People don’t go when they think they’re gonna go. 

[00:09:57] Joel: It’s not usually because they won the lottery and they’re like- … “All right, I guess I’m getting out early.”

[00:10:02] Joel: It’s usually because they’re out for some other reason, unexpected reason, and those extra couple of years, right, that means potential lost investment returns if you have to start tapping things early. It means lost income that could have gone towards padding your investments. There’s just a whole bunch to figure out.

[00:10:17] Joel: And, and oftentimes for a lot of those people, those are peak earning years, right? It’s not, it’s not some of those like, uh, early 20s earning years that are a little bit lower, so that can really complicate things for a lot 

[00:10:26] Joe: of people. Well, and in the early 20s when it’s easier to change jobs, frankly.

[00:10:28] Joel: Right. Yeah. Yeah, you can pivot a lot, a lot more easily. 

[00:10:31] Joe: And Doug, thinking about this, I think, ’cause this was on a Monday show, I believe, the average person said they want to retire at 65, and they retired- Right … at 62 and some change. 

[00:10:41] Jesse: Right. 

[00:10:41] Joe: Yeah. Right. I think that was the number. Jesse, you think this goes on the wall?

[00:10:45] Jesse: I do, and I, I do, and I had a question for Paula. Hmm. I don’t know the answer to this one. Did you say gray swan 

[00:10:51] Paula: as well? 

[00:10:51] Jesse: Gray 

[00:10:52] Paula: swan, yeah. 

[00:10:53] Jesse: So what is a gray swan? 

[00:10:55] Paula: Okay, so a gray swan would be something like a divorce, which is statistically probable. You can’t really call it a black swan because it, it’s common enough that you could reasonably expect it, and yet no one expects that it will actually happen to them.

[00:11:12] Paula: So if it does happen to you, you’re shocked. 

[00:11:15] Joe: I bet it gets more statistically probable the closer it gets. 

[00:11:19] Paula: I, I mean, it depends on the relationship. Some people are really caught off guard. Sure. Yeah. You know? If there’s a cheating spouse, like they discover an affair. 

[00:11:26] Joe: Yeah. 

[00:11:26] Joel: Or like, “Hey, we’ve been together 30 years- Yeah

[00:11:29] Joel: and I didn’t expect that this was gonna unravel.” But the kids move out of the house, and it’s like, “What do we talk to each other, each other about?” Mm. Because we haven’t been, been working on our relationship for the last couple decades. 

[00:11:38] Joe: Have you seen Joel… So speaking of statistics, every time Joel says something, I go, “Have you seen the statistics on that?”

[00:11:43] Joe: But seriously, kids move out of the house, Joel, that’s, uh, work on my marriage time because this is when divorce hits for a lot of people with kids. 

[00:11:49] Joel: Yeah. Yeah, and I mean, it goes to the point that like for a lot of people w- we’re, we’re so focused on building, you know, money to be able to retire. We’re so focused on…

[00:11:59] Joel: A lot of that involves work and trading off time for money in order to get there, and we’re less focused, especially for those decades in your 40s and 50s so often, on building the relationships that matter, that are gonna ultimately be where you find a lot of joy and meaning in retirement. And so if you like let those fall by the wayside, your retirement could be like far less enjoyable than you assumed it was gonna be.

[00:12:22] Joe: Yeah, it was definitely the hardest time in Cheryl and my relationship because you go from spending a lot of your time parenting to just being the two of you. Mm-hmm. And, um, ended up, you know, s- more solid than ever before, but man, we had to, we had to really get through a lot of stuff when it was, when it was then just the two of us.

[00:12:38] Joe: So Jesse- Mm-hmm … you were saying it goes on the wall of shame. Yeah, and it- Even, even with the gray swans and the blue swans- 100% … and the yellow swans and the… 

[00:12:46] Jesse: I’m even more convinced by the gray swans I think than the black ones, only ’cause, you know, part of the whole black swan definition is that it’s, it’s risks that are so out there that maybe you couldn’t even be expected to think of them or prepare for them in the first place.

[00:12:59] Jesse: Whereas the gray swan events, especially now that I understand the better what they are, yeah, I mean, some of those are the events. I think another one could be just like health concerns. Sure. Like when you’re healthy, all you ever really think about is like, “Man, I’m so healthy.” And then I could see when you’re approaching retirement and at those ages, there are a lot of sneaky health concerns that can come up and really derail your retirement plan in some way.

[00:13:20] Jesse: So not considering those gray swans I think could definitely be a reason to be up on the wall of shame, so I, I like it. 

[00:13:27] Joe: All right, Paula, so now it’s time for our fix. It’s up on the wall of shame. Congratulations, you made it through the nomination process. Woo-hoo. What’s our first step to fix this? 

[00:13:36] Paula: I would sit down, and if you have a partner, maybe this is like a, a couples exercise, or if you’re single, do it by yourself or do it with a financial advisor.

[00:13:44] Paula: But like sit down and brainstorm a list, or I guess you could do this with AI too. Brainstorm a list of like what the gray swans are and what the black swans are. Once you’ve brainstormed that list, then kind of write out, all right, if this, then that. Like, if this were to happen, what would I do next?

[00:14:01] Paula: Actually write it out because that’ll give you an idea of how prepared you are. 

[00:14:06] Joe: Paul has got it, I think, on a strategic level, Joel, but let’s do some tactical things like the moves I can make that will reduce my chances of having a problem. What’s one move I maybe can make that can help me get through black swan and gray swan events?

[00:14:20] Joel: Yeah, I mean, I think one is, like, flexibility, right? And for a lot of people, they’re, like, moving in a certain direction, and the idea of pivoting, the older we get, the harder that becomes, like, to kind of shake things up or make a change. And if you’re only focused on, like, this one way of moving forward, and you don’t have enough flexibility to your financial plan and to your life plans, the ability to talk with your spouse if you have one or just say, “Hey, listen, um, I, I’m going back to the drawing board on what I actually want out of life or what retirement, a great retirement actually looks like for me,” you, you have to be willing, I think, to, to make a shift, to make a change if things don’t go according to plan because things al- I mean, there’s always gonna be a wrench in your plan, right?

[00:15:01] Joel: It’s that Mike Tyson phrase about everyone’s got a plan till they get punched in the face. Punch to the 

[00:15:04] Jesse: face, right. 

[00:15:04] Joel: Yeah, and I think the, like, the gray swan is like a punch in the face, and you can just, like, sit there and take more punches, or you can, like, reassess your game plan, and that’s gonna be part, I think, of what it looks like to move forward and, and make changes and still be able to retire well.

[00:15:17] Joe: It sounds like, though, if you’re talking about that, like, I’m… like, I’m thinking really tactically. You’re saying emergency fund. I mean, interpreting what you’re saying. You’re saying emergency fund ’cause that gives you the ability to pivot. You’re saying stop over-optimizing money into retirement accounts, maybe keep some money in a flexible place?

[00:15:32] Joel: Yeah, I think some of that, but then I think it’s also just truly, like, well, I mean, do I really f- feel like I have to retire at 66, or do we both need to retire at the same time? Do our travel plans for those first couple of years have to look as ostentatious as maybe we were planning or hoping? Or, like, can we pivot and do something?

[00:15:52] Joel: Can we take the truck around the country, like, and hit some campsites? Like, can you make other changes, I guess, if something happens? That doesn’t mean… Yeah, an emergency, having a beefed-up emergency fund is great and just ha- having more financial flexibility, but then I think al- also having more flexibility when it comes to your plans and what will make you happy, what you’re gonna be okay with in terms of lifestyle.

[00:16:12] Joe: Gotcha. It, it reminds me of, I heard a comedian talking recently about his structure, and he’s got, like, a series of jokes, but he also has an off-ramp if that series isn’t going well. Yeah. Like having your own… If things aren’t going well toward retirement, knowing what your off-ramps are. Same, similar thing, I think.

[00:16:29] Joel: Y- y- yeah, exactly, and that’s, as a comedian, like, you have to have that on stage, right? ‘Cause if you’re bombing, you gotta make a pivot, and you gotta, like, please the audience in another way, and I think you’ve gotta figure out the same thing… Like, l- life lets us down all the time. Like, I love being a dad.

[00:16:42] Joel: Like, we just, you know, Father’s Day was just a, a minute ago. But, like, man, being a dad has its, like, share of aches and pains at the same time, and, uh, it’s, it’s not always the way I envisioned it. It’s not always like a Hallmark greeting card. So, what does it look like to engage with my kids and to have a lovely time, even if it’s, like, different than how I envisioned it?

[00:16:57] Joe: It’s not a unicorn or rainbow to be Joel Larsgaard every day. 

[00:17:00] Joel: That’s right. Come on. It’s harder than you think, guys. 

[00:17:02] Joe: Wow. Jesse Cramer, your time to, uh, nominate somebody for the wall of shame- Mm … or, uh, something for the wall of shame. Pre-retirement, what are you thinking? 

[00:17:12] Jesse: Uh, s- yeah, so for pre-retirement, I think that the assumption that your pre-tax wealth will resemble or even be identical to your post-tax wealth is a very common mistake that pre-retirees make, especially because a lot of people, their easiest avenue to saving for retirement is through a pre-tax account.

[00:17:34] Jesse: There’s probably an employer match there. People often end up with a majority of their assets in a pre-tax account, and they never actually think to themselves, “Wait a second, I’m gonna have to pay some taxes on a lot of this money.” And so, they do all their retirement calculations just looking at the pre-tax number.

[00:17:50] Jesse: They don’t actually take taxes into account, and they end up making a pretty big retirement mistake. 

[00:17:55] Joe: It’s like our friend Ed Slott says, you’re still sharing it with the government, Jesse. 

[00:17:59] Jesse: That’s correct. That’s correct. And, and Ed is right, and, uh, of course there are things you can do to try to minimize that impact and, and plan around it.

[00:18:06] Jesse: That’s what good planning does. But it’s very hard to avoid altogether. 

[00:18:10] Joe: Actually, now that I think about it, Ed doesn’t even say, with the Fourth of July coming up, uh, this is an, an apropos quote. He doesn’t say the government, he says, “You gotta share it with Uncle Sam,” and you know what, Joel? He’s not even your real uncle.

[00:18:20] Joe: Not even your real uncle. 

[00:18:22] Joel: I know, we’re not even related, man. That makes it even harder 

[00:18:24] Joe: to stomach. And you’re sharing your 401with that guy? 

[00:18:26] Joel: That’s right. 

[00:18:26] Joe: Do, do you think this belongs on the wall of shame? 

[00:18:29] Joel: For sure. For sure. I mean, I think when you’re looking at th- there’s a huge difference between having a million dollars in a traditional IRA versus a Roth IRA, and there are understandable reasons why people would make different choices, I think, on the contribution side of things.

[00:18:43] Joel: Uh, but then when it comes to planning how you’re gonna be able to spend that money, you gotta factor in, well, what is my tax burden going to look like in retirement? And so if you are maybe thinking more along the lines of, “Well, yeah, I got all this money, and I’m gonna start planning out my spending,” and you’re not thinking about where the tax man’s gonna come in and enter the situation, then it’s just poor planning on your part.

[00:19:04] Joel: And yeah, that’d be a, a big time retirement fail. 

[00:19:06] Joe: Paula, we need a dissenting opinion here. Come on. Tell me Jesse’s isn’t going right up on the wall. 

[00:19:13] Paula: No, no, I, I’d place it on the wall. Yeah 

[00:19:16] Joe: How do we fix it, Jesse Cramer? 

[00:19:18] Jesse: Yeah. There’s no substitute for good planning, and it just starts with maybe some education of just, you know, we, we’d wanna make sure that the average pre-retiree investor, stacker, anyone listening right now, is simply aware of how their various accounts could get taxed, uh, and kind of how those accounts and withdrawals from those accounts could, um, kind of play in concert with one another.

[00:19:40] Jesse: And, and simply, you know, you can even go online and use some free tools that are fairly ru- rudimentary, some paid tools which are much more intricate. Uh, you can work with a, a planner, which is obviously something you would pay for. But there are a lot of avenues that you can use to try to figure out, okay, how much in tax would you owe on average in any given year during your retirement, how it changes throughout retirement, you know, before you claim Social Security and after, maybe before the first spouse retires or after both spouses retire, before and after RMDs start, all those kind of things.

[00:20:11] Jesse: The goal being, of course, to, you know, minimize your lifetime tax bill in a way. Or maybe the other way to think about it is maximizing your lifetime after-tax wealth. There are a lot of avenues that you can use to, to figure that out. It starts with education, and then probably the next step is a good calculator or persons who help you do the calculations.

[00:20:29] Joe: Joel, do you have a calculator that you prefer for this kind of thing? 

[00:20:32] Joel: Hmm. Uh, no, I like to use my brain, uh, Joe. I just like to go solo on this one, you know? 

[00:20:38] Joe: I’m a ninja. 

[00:20:39] Joel: Yeah, exactly. Uh, when I’m talking about Roth IRAs in particular, this is something that where, like, young people, people in their 20s and 30s, like let’s say maybe they’re, they’ve got a lot of room left to run when it comes to earnings, and when you have the availability of a Roth IRA before, let’s say, maybe you make too much money and you can’t put money in a Roth IRA.

[00:20:57] Joel: It’s a great problem to have, but it’s still a sort of problem I’m so glad when I was in those young years, and I couldn’t even max it out, but I was sticking money in the Roth IRA, and I was just, like, trusting that it was gonna save me money on future taxes. And then to see that thing grow, and then to be like, “That’s tax-free money at some point.”

[00:21:12] Joel: Yeah, yeah. And then having that balance as well. Like, some people, like, maybe o- like, they, they just talk smack about the traditional, and they’re like, “You should put everything in Roth.” But really, I think what Jesse’s alluding to here is that it’s, it’s a difficult conundrum because you’re talking about trying to save as much taxes you can over, across the whole span of your life, and it’s really hard to predict all that stuff out, so you’re doing your best.

[00:21:33] Joel: But I think one of the best things you can do, especially for younger stackers, is to prioritize the Roth IRA in those early years. And then you can make changes as you move on, but the goal ultimately is hopefully to have, like, a balance where you can kind of draw from both traditional and Roth accounts later on down the road to try to hit that sweet spot and thread the needle.

[00:21:51] Joe: And so when somebody gets all adamant about one, I’m like, “You can predict the future?” Right. That’s amazing. It’s so, so, so difficult to do. Joel, you have the last, the last one. There’s still a ton. Ooh. There’s a ton of stuff out there that people mess up pre-retirement. What, what do you think- All right … is a big one that goes on the wall?

[00:22:10] Joel: I’m ready for this one to get smacked down, but, uh- Perfect … so I see the, the stink eye coming from Jesse over there. Uh, I’m, I was gonna say, like, putting all your eggs in the retirement basket. I think especially people who listen to shows like this, shows like How to Money, like shows like Afford Anything, you’re trying to be so thoughtful about your financial future.

[00:22:27] Joel: And it’s really easy to be like, “Oh yeah, I’m, I’m reading, like, about the massive impact that compounding returns can have.” And then we’re nose to the grindstone so hard for so long that we’re missing out, kind of like what Wes Moss would call core pursuits. We’re not pursuing those hobbies on steroids.

[00:22:44] Joel: In the meantime, we get to retirement, and we’re like, “Crickets. Like, what do I do with my life now? Because I’ve been spending it working, and I’ve done all the things that everyone told me to do, but my goodness, I think I missed out on the payoff that retirement can have because I wasn’t practicing it along the way,” whether that’s, like, mini retirements or whether that’s just being overly focused and not having enough flex, financial flex to be able to enjoy some of the here and now.

[00:23:08] Joel: So that’s maybe long-winded, but I’m gonna nominate that. 

[00:23:11] Joe: No, Benjamin Brandt talks about, um, Retirement Begins Now, about experimenting, living your life. Like, if you go on a vacation, if you think you wanna live in Florida, go on a vacation or two in Florida and see if you’d actually- Yeah … actually like it there.

[00:23:24] Joe: Oh my God, it’s the surface of the sun in July. Who knew? All right, Paula, does this one go up on the, up on the wall? 

[00:23:32] Paula: It, it, it does, and, and the way that I would summarize it is I would say that it’s the mistake of living in the future rather than simply planning for it. 

[00:23:42] Joel: Mm. Oh, what do you mean by that?

[00:23:43] Joel: That’s a good way to say it. 

[00:23:44] Paula: There’s a distinction between delayed gratification versus deferred life. And delayed gratification in the conventional sense of that phrase, I actually kinda don’t like that phrase either, ’cause I think that saving and investing is inherently gratifying. But the phrase delayed gratification is meant to indicate that saving is simply delaying spending a pile of money until a future date, right?

[00:24:12] Joe: I see what you’re… Yeah. So you find spending to be fun, but if you’re cranking away at something that you absolutely detest doing just to build a tomorrow that’s better that’s not assured while you’re wasting today, that’s not good. 

[00:24:25] Paula: Right. Yeah, exactly. So the distinction is deferred life is, like, you’re deferring your entire life.

[00:24:31] Paula: You’re not enjoying the life that you have today because you’re building towards what you hope will be a better life tomorrow, but, like, at the expense of having a sucky life today. 

[00:24:41] Joe: All right, you can’t let Joel get away with this one, Jesse. You, you gonna smack this down? 

[00:24:46] Jesse: Um, I find it very hard to smack it down.

[00:24:49] Jesse: I was thinking about, you know, a lot of times when people write a manifesto, it’s kind… There’s kind of a negative connotation there. But our friend, if it’s a retirement manifesto, you think of Fritz Gilbert- You do … who lives just north of Joel, I think, down there in the, the great Peach State, ’cause Fritz had some really good data points that he put together a few years ago about this very subject.

[00:25:11] Jesse: And, like, that’s, that’s one of those things that I always come back to, and, and it’s about that subject of… The one that I really love is Fritz and another colleague of his ran a big poll of Fritz’s audience, and I think there was, like, hundreds if not over a thousand different retirees participated in it, and the number one concern for all the pre-retirees was financial.

[00:25:28] Jesse: It was just making sure they had their finances in line for retirement. But then when they polled all the post-retirees, people who had already been retired for a number of years, like, finances was, like, number six on their list, and all of the top concerns on their list all had to do with lifestyle and, and, and making the most out of retirement, and, uh, like, it had to do with kind of the, the soft side, right?

[00:25:48] Jesse: It… The soft side of retirement. So, the idea that Joel is pointing out, I think, is that a lot of pre-retirees really index for the future. They really index for their finances. They, they think about all the numbers and all that stuff, and most of the time, what Fritz’s data points out is that most of the time, that concern is kind of misplaced.

[00:26:08] Jesse: Like, once your numbers are good enough, you really have to start thinking about the soft stuff. T- there’s a great stat. It’s like 28% of all retirees at some point feel depressed or… I’m probably butchering it, but one of the data points is that retirees actually get depressed pretty often, and, and part of it might have to do with, well, did they prepare for all the soft side of retirement?

[00:26:25] Joe: Yeah, I haven’t seen Fritz’s numbers, but I have seen, uh, retirement expert Ken Dychtwald’s numbers, and Ken says that the average retiree will have 18 months of pure bliss when they first get into retirement, and then the biggest depression of their life, especially, Jesse, to your point, if they haven’t thought about this enough- Mm

[00:26:42] Joe: or if they haven’t made that transition. So Joel, uh, it’s time to apply the fix then. How do we stay off the wall of shame? I 

[00:26:48] Joel: was gonna say, uh, follow-up to your question, after that honeymoon period, a lot of people go back to work, not because they need the money, but because they need the connection, and they haven’t built those connections, right?

[00:26:55] Joel: Finding the 

[00:26:56] Joe: purpose, yeah. 

[00:26:57] Joel: Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. And so I think it’s really important in your 30s, 40s, and 50s to, yeah, take those, take those mini-retirements, maybe, like, longer vacations. Like, what is it gonna look like? What do I want my days to look like? Who do I want in my life, and how do I build those relationships now?

[00:27:13] Joel: Whether that’s, like, a running buddy or somebody you do woodworking with, or like whatever your hobby is, have a couple of those hobbies too that, that you’re not just like, “Yeah, I’ll get to that when I’m 65,” but you do along the way so that you have connections, right, in… W- with other people who are interested in the same stuff you are.

[00:27:31] Joel: But I think so often, like- There’s just, especially, I, I, I’m thinking about, like, my dad’s generation, right? He was working so hard for this far-off future that he’s often missing some of those connection points along the way, and he’s done a great job of building that up in retirement. Oh, that’s good. But it can be.

[00:27:46] Joel: Yeah. It can be for a lot of people, a really… Like, it can take a long time, and it can be really hard to actually get there if you’re not kind of conscientious and being thoughtful about that along the way in those decades leading up to retirement. 

[00:27:57] Joe: Yeah. There’s this fork in the road at retirement, really between people that have spent a lot of time thinking about what they’re gonna do and people who haven’t, and it can either be the best or the worst.

[00:28:07] Joe: And by the worst, it’s men over age 70 that have the highest rate of suicide of all age groups. So it can be a really, really tough time. All right. They all went up on the board. I’m hoping for better next time, guys. We gotta start smacking these things down. But in the second half, we’re gonna talk about traps, uh, during retirement.

[00:28:24] Joe: What do you guys see then? But at the halfway point of every Friday show, we have this year-long competition between our three frequent contributors. OG, who’s not here today, so Joel, you’re Team OG. Done. And of course, Jesse and Paula. And, uh, Joel, we’ve got good news and bad news then when you play for OG.

[00:28:42] Joe: You want the good news or the bad news? 

[00:28:44] Joel: Go bad news first. 

[00:28:45] Joe: Well, the bad news is you’re gonna have to guess first, which I never like the guest to have to do, but the good news is it’s because you guys are on a record pace. The record is 18 wins during a year, and Doug, how many does OG have? 

[00:28:58] Doug: OG has nine points as of today.

[00:29:01] Doug: I will say that he has been stagnant of late. Joel, maybe you can break him out of that. He hasn’t gained a point in a few weeks because Jesse and Paula screaming up, uh, in his rear view mirror. Jesse has seven points, and Paula has now four points, at least one of which she earned by herself. 

[00:29:22] Joe: Herself. She owes Sarah Catherine Gutierrez two of those points.

[00:29:27] Joe: Yeah. So all right, uh, now you know the stakes, Joel. Big, big stakes to try to stay in the lead as Jesse and Paula are coming for you. Doug, you’ve got today’s pre-4th of July trivia question. What are we talking about?

[00:29:45] Doug: Well, hey there, Stackers. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and just like I’ve come halfway through this episode to take command of the podcast, today I’m shining a light on a man who took command of the Continental Army way back in 1775. Yes, nearly one year before the U.S. officially declared for free agency, George Washington was put in charge of the whole shebang.

[00:30:08] Doug: Of course, you know, it wasn’t like a shebang so much as it was like a clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk. I mean, the troops were pretty poorly equipped, their supplies were running out all the time, and the British looked more unbeatable than Joe’s mom at a poker table. Here is today’s question. How many Benjamins did Congress approve to pay George Washington in 1775 dollars as an annual salary to lead this mess of an army?

[00:30:37] Doug: I’ll be back right after I go help Joe’s mom get ready for our 4th of July celebration. She’s readying a bunch of fireworks for the neighborhood kids as we speak. Not sure that’s a great idea, Ma. 

[00:30:50] Joe: You always got to remind Mom that somebody’s gonna lose a finger doing that, Doug. Yeah. Like settle, settle down.

[00:30:55] Joe: Remember 

[00:30:55] Doug: Stevie? 

[00:30:56] Joe: It is horrible. Joel, how many Benjamins? That’s the key. We’re talking numbers of Benjamins in 1775 money did Congress approve to pay George for leading the Continental Army? 

[00:31:13] Joel: I’m gonna say eight Benjamins. 

[00:31:15] Joe: Eight Benjamins. 

[00:31:16] Jesse: Mm-hmm. 

[00:31:17] Joe: All right, uh, Jesse. Joel throws down the big eight. What are you thinking about that?

[00:31:23] Jesse: Yeah, I’m trying to do some mental math here. Yeah, I think it’s a pretty good guess is my, is my… I’m gonna go higher, though. I’m gonna go, um 11 Benjamins 

[00:31:35] Joe: 11 Benjamins. This army goes all the way to 11. Paula? 

[00:31:43] Paula: First of all, do you remember the episode where OG recommended reading the book 1776? 

[00:31:49] Joe: Yes. 

[00:31:49] Paula: So I actually bought the Audible version, the audiobook version of that- And?

[00:31:55] Paula: at, upon OG’s recommendation. I know where this 

[00:31:57] Doug: is going. 

[00:31:57] Paula: And I’ve listened to it, and I have zero recollection of any numbers. 

[00:32:02] Doug: Well, that’s because this happened in 1775, Paula. So it didn’t make … You need the prequel. 

[00:32:11] Paula: Um, part of me wonders if this is a trick question, because Benjamins technically did not exist at the time, for a number of obvious reasons.

[00:32:22] Doug: Yeah. Look, I’m a jerk. I’m not that much of a jerk. 

[00:32:27] Paula: I will take the under. I will go seven. 

[00:32:29] Joe: Take seven. Okay. So we have Paula at seven, Joel nice and cozy there at eight, and, uh, Jesse with 11. Who’s got it? We’re gonna find out in just a minute. We will be right back. All right, Joel. How you feeling about that guess now?

[00:32:47] Joel: So confident. I’m gonna crush these people. 

[00:32:50] Joe: Eight. OG, 

[00:32:51] Joel: I got 

[00:32:51] Joe: you. Eight Benjamins, gonna nail it. Actually, uh, wait a minute. Yeah, Jesse, you said 11. 

[00:32:58] Jesse: I think, I think I said 11 

[00:32:59] Joe: Benjamins. 11 Benjamins. How you feeling? Everybody came in less. Paula came in down at the bottom. I’m 

[00:33:03] Jesse: feeling good. I was doing some inflation math in my head.

[00:33:06] Joe: Well, generally, Paula trusts her gut, you know. She, she probably should’ve taken the over and didn’t, so you gotta feel good about that. 

[00:33:12] Jesse: Gotta feel great. 

[00:33:14] Joe: I don’t know. Feel great about that. But Paula, last week, your gut was right. Yeah. 

[00:33:18] Paula: It, I know. I mean, it’s, it, sometimes it comes around. If only I could remember what the book said, ’cause I, I listened to the book.

[00:33:26] Paula: I just don’t remember any of it. You did the 

[00:33:28] Joel: homework. 

[00:33:28] Paula: I did the homework. Oh, I did the homework. OG gave me the assignment. 

[00:33:34] Joe: Well, we’re gonna find out. Is it a Fourth of July miracle, Doug? Is Paula gonna win two in a row?

[00:33:43] Doug: Hey there, Stackers. I’m George Washington fan and guy who’s all about independence. In fact, I’m so independent Joe told me I’d really thrive in an independent living facility. Uh, I don’t know what that means. Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. George Washington, father of our country, hero of the Revolution, underpaid guy in charge of the Continental Army.

[00:34:05] Doug: Well, was he underpaid? Let’s find out. My question was this: how many Benjamins made up Washington’s annual salary when he signed on to head the new Continental Army? Well, I’ll say this: these are three of the worst answers I’ve ever heard- … on this show. 

[00:34:23] Joel: Ah. 

[00:34:25] Doug: Wow, guys. It was 493 more Benjamins than what Paula guessed- Wait, what?

[00:34:32] Doug: 492 more than what Joel guessed. No, it’s 

[00:34:34] Joe: Benjamins, Doug. Doug, it’s Benjamins. Okay. $100 bills, dude. 

[00:34:39] Doug: 480. 

[00:34:40] Joe: No. It is oh my God. It is, it is, uh, Paul- uh, uh, uh, who guessed 11? Jesse? 

[00:34:50] Jesse: It’s six less than Jesse and three less than Joel- It’s six less than Jesse … and two less than Paula. 

[00:34:54] Joe: Yes. 

[00:34:55] Jesse: Is the answer five Benjamins, I assume?

[00:34:56] Joe: Yeah, six Benjamins less than Jesse. 

[00:34:59] Doug: Well, we’ll have to get back to having a pre-show meeting about- … this show so I’m clued into that. The correct answer is five, making Jesse our winner. 

[00:35:09] Joe: No. Uh- Making Paula our winner. 

[00:35:12] Doug: Paula? 

[00:35:12] Joe: That makes Paula our winner, Doug. 

[00:35:15] Doug: All right, take over trivia, Joe.

[00:35:20] Jesse: Sorry, Doug. Sorry. Well, can I ask a question of clarification? Could you tell us the answer in dollars just so we’re sure? 500 bucks. 500 bucks, okay. I would assume that means Paula wins. 

[00:35:34] Paula: Right. 

[00:35:35] Jesse: Nicely done, Paula. 

[00:35:36] Paula: Yes. Thank you, thank you. 

[00:35:38] Joe: How did that happen, Paula? 

[00:35:40] Paula: Tw- I mean, it… Sometimes there is a turnaround.

[00:35:43] Paula: Is it, isn’t that, like, the plot line of every, um, you know, Goliath comes up upon David- No, David comes up upon Goliath kind of a plot line movie thing? I’m asking you ’cause I think you’ve- You’re sneaking up … you’ve seen movies. I have not, but I have been informed that in movies ultimately, ultimately the underdog prevails.

[00:36:07] Joe: Is this gonna be a Christmas miracle, like, at the end of the year? Are we gonna have that 

[00:36:10] Paula: happen? It’s a Fourth of July miracle. 

[00:36:11] Joe: It is a Fourth of July miracle, but I’m saying is this, like, the beginning- Maybe … of, like, the big second half run? It’s gonna be super. 

[00:36:17] Paula: Maybe. I don’t wanna make any predictions.

[00:36:20] Joe: All right. Speaking of super, we’re in the middle of a super discussion about… See what I did there? We’re in the middle of a- Oh … super discussion about retirement, and we got this wall of shame, Joel. So now we’re into retirement, and, uh, well, what’s, uh… I’m, I’m, I’m gonna call these largely. Like, I thought most of what you were gonna tell me was about not having a spending plan, and in some ways it did because, Joel, you said it was the fact that we would have no clue what we were gonna do, so we don’t know what we’re gonna spend, right, in retirement.

[00:36:50] Joe: We don’t think about what we’re gonna spend just ’cause we don’t know what we’re gonna do. Paula, you talked about black swans, which is w- we have no idea if we’re gonna have to retire early, if we can retire now, which is also, has a lot to do with spending. And Jesse, the fact that money isn’t all yours.

[00:37:05] Joe: Also, we think we get to spend X, and instead we’re spending Y. So I’m gonna call these, I’m gonna predict ahead of time that yours are gonna be timing traps, that these are gonna be, we d- we’re not sure about the timing of these different things. But Joel, let’s, uh, try to put one on the board. What are you gonna nominate?

[00:37:22] Joel: All right. I’m gonna say, and only because I’ve known people who have done this, is thinking that the retirement nest egg you built up, it’s ready to be spent once you reach retirement. You’re like, “Well, it’s, it’s, retirement’s in the name of the funds that I’m, like, investing and saving up, and I’ve reached retirement, so boom, it’s go time.”

[00:37:39] Joel: So I’ve just seen people make big mistakes accessing way too much of their money way too quickly in retirement, and then being, like, deer in the headlights afterwards. 

[00:37:48] Joe: Going, “Wait a minute.” Yeah. And, and then when you try to pump the brakes, it’s too late. 

[00:37:52] Joel: Right, yeah. And they’re like, “But they said it was for retirement.

[00:37:54] Joel: I’m retired. I started using it,” and it’s like, yeah, but y- s- so, so poorly, like, with zero methodology behind it, and, uh, uh, just blowing vast sums of money really quickly right after you reach that point of not working. 

[00:38:06] Joe: Jesse, does this go on the wall? 

[00:38:10] Jesse: It does. It goes on the wall, I think, for a couple reasons.

[00:38:16] Jesse: There’s a, there’s a location reason, and then there’s an allocation reason that I think of as, as Joel was describing this. And the location mistake is there are some people out there who are like, “Yep, I’m 12 months away from retirement, so when that day comes, I’m gonna move all that money from my 401into my bank account.”

[00:38:29] Jesse: C- ’cause that’s what you do, right? I’ve reached retirement. Now it’s time just to, to put the money somewhere safe. It’s– I no longer will invest it. I’m gonna put it in the bank account. And that should make us then think of the allocation reason, which there are some people who say, “Yeah, well, um, retirement is one year away, and I’ve listened to podcasts like Stacking Benjamins or How to Money, and they say that one year isn’t enough time to really be invested in stocks.

[00:38:53] Jesse: So I’m just gonna move all of my retirement monies into bonds and cash.” And they don’t realize that retirement is gonna be a 30-year-long process, and some of that 30 years is pretty much, that’s, that’s long term, and you can stay invested in the stock market if you want to for, for at least a, a good amount of your money.

[00:39:07] Jesse: So anyway, I, I hear what Joel is saying, and it belongs on the wall because I think those are two wr- nah, the first one might may not, might not be that common, but the second mistake, the allocation mistake I think is very common. 

[00:39:19] Joe: All right, Paula, I’m gonna throw some dirt on this one. Ooh. And you tell me what you think, which is that we had Dana Anspach on recently talking about how, you know, you’ve got your go-go years, your slow-go years, and then your no-go years.

[00:39:32] Joe: Why wouldn’t you go ahead and spend more money during those go-go years? Joel be damned. 

[00:39:38] Joel: You’re not the only one who said that. 

[00:39:40] Paula: The, the best solution that I heard for this is to take a separate bucket of money, let’s say it’s maybe your travel fund, right? And in this very specific separate bucket of money, you say, “This is the bucket that is allocated specifically for traveling during the first 10 years of retirement.”

[00:39:59] Paula: And so then you allocate exactly what that budget is, and you have a bucket that is just that, and cool, now you can manage that bucket for the express purpose of traveling during that first decade. That’s a way that you can manage the go-go years. A- and the goal is to spend down that bucket within the first 10 years of retirement.

[00:40:20] Paula: You want that bucket to be zero at the end of year 10, right? So that’s a way of managing a specific bucket for the go-go years so that you can, like, enjoy… You know, th- there are things that you can do, uh, that many people can do in their 60s that they can’t do in their 80s. You know, you can enjoy your 60s, but you’re not misallocating your 80s and 

[00:40:41] Joe: 90s.

[00:40:41] Joe: So are you saying then that there actually still is some planning for the amount that goes in here, so you’re saying it is going on the wall? 

[00:40:49] Paula: Goes on the wall. 

[00:40:50] Joe: Oh, damn it. Joel, what’s going on there? 

[00:40:54] Joel: That’s how I roll. 

[00:40:56] Joe: Paula had a fix. Do you like Paula’s fix or do you have another one? 

[00:41:00] Joel: Well, I want you to know I paid Jesse and Paula ahead of time to agree with me.

[00:41:04] Joel: Just to mess you up. Uh, so- You 

[00:41:05] Joe: gave them five Benjamins? 

[00:41:07] Joel: Right, exactly. Uh, so yeah, I mean, this is one of those things where you just have to realize, like Jesse was alluding to, that there’s many decades of retirement. And so just, like, wham, pulling, like, buying an RV, right? That’s, like, a massive expense, and that’s the kind of thing that maybe a new retiree would pull the trigger on, even if it absorbs, like, far too much of their retirement funds.

[00:41:30] Joel: They haven’t planned well for that purchase, and they’re just saying, “Well, hey, li- listen. YOLO. Uh, these are the years where I’m, like, young and reasonably fit, and I can get out there and do this.” And then they realize pretty quickly, wait a second. I don’t like RVs, and driving across the country is actually not my jam.

[00:41:47] Joel: And I dropped 250 grand on this super fancy RV, and now because of the way depreciation works on it, it’s worth 150 when I try to resell it. And so there’s this kind of belief too where like, “Hey, I got Social Security coming down the pike. My home’s alm- is getting close to paid off. Why don’t I just use a big chunk of this money now?”

[00:42:05] Joel: And I’m with Paula, like it’s a great idea. If, if that’s a, something you’ve tested and tried already and you know, “Hey, RV, that, that RV lifestyle really is my jam. It’s gonna light me up and make me happy, and I’m, we’re gonna be doing that for, uh, you know, a bunch of many years,” that’s great. It’s worth spending the money on.

[00:42:20] Joel: Just make sure you’ve planned ahead for it, and you’re not like dipping into a huge chunk of the investment nest egg that you built up. Because you need that money to keep working for you for decades, and you need to be able to use it to live life, you know, for, for many, many years. 

[00:42:35] Joe: I had clients when I was a financial planner, Joel.

[00:42:36] Joe: I, I swear you must know them, because it was George and Gail, world’s nicest people. When they retired, they bought, uh, an RV that at that time cost about $100,000. And this was maybe 1998, so think about that in today’s dollars, right? Just a beautiful RV. They lasted two and a half years before they were in my office going, “It was too small.

[00:42:57] Joe: I love my spouse, but, but this is not enough room, and we don’t like traveling as much as we thought we did.” Yeah. So it goes back to the same thing that you talked about earlier. The way that Dana, by the way, solves this is just replanning every couple years, “How much can I spend? How much can I spend?” And roll it out there.

[00:43:13] Joe: You were gonna say something else though, Joel. 

[00:43:15] Joel: Well, just the last thing too is to know whether, how do you know whether or not that that purchase is gonna make you happy? You have to like test drive it in smaller ways. There are a lot of people who will make… I think the RV has to be one of the most regretted purchase decisions that anyone makes after like a timeshare, right?

[00:43:31] Joel: Like, it’s just, they’re, they’re way too many. It sounds great. And like traveling the country and parking at these camp sites and it just sounds awesome. I mean, it sounds awesome to me, but then I’ve experienced so many people who have done the thing, and they didn’t really like it very much. I’m like, “What am I missing?”

[00:43:46] Joel: So what I’ve gotta do then if I’m, if I’m thinking it might work out for me, is to rent one for a while. Borrow one from a friend for a couple weeks. Test out the lifestyle. My wife and I, we’re, we’re just on vacation. We’re like, we, every time we go somewhere we’re like, “I could totally move here.” And we start thinking through what it would look like for us to move to that place.

[00:44:02] Joel: And then the more I think about it, we’re, we’re like, “But if we bought a place here, every time we come we’re gonna have to think about like all the fixes we have to make.” Yeah. And well, how often are we gonna actually be here? And what if we wanna take a trip somewhere else? We’re gonna feel obligated to going to the house that we bought in- 

[00:44:13] Joe: It’s a whole different experience.

[00:44:15] Joel: It’s a whole different experience, and it’s actually, when you run the numbers, much cheaper to book the hotel room or the Airbnb in the place where we wanna travel, and have the freedom to go wherever we want. RV locks you down. Owning the vacation property locks you down. And I just think for a lot of people, they haven’t really thought through it well enough, and so they make, sadly, a mistake with a lot of their money that doesn’t pay off the way they thought it was going to.

[00:44:37] Joe: Paula, what’s next to go on the wall? 

[00:44:39] Paula: Kind of piggybacking off of what we were just talking about with the RV and the travel, like the underlying assumption under all of this is that when people retire, they want to travel, or when people retire, they want to engage in hobbies. And I think that like having a copy-paste retirement…

[00:44:57] Paula: Yeah, I would say having a copy-paste retirement. 

[00:45:01] Joe: Having a copy-paste retirement. 

[00:45:03] Paula: Yeah. 

[00:45:03] Joe: Yeah. Jesse? 

[00:45:05] Jesse: Joe, I could tell by that little, that you had a little hint in your voice right now that, that you really don’t want me to put this up on the wall. I could, I could hear it in you. I could hear it in your voice.

[00:45:14] Jesse: Joe just, Joe just wants a cage match here, you know? Yeah. Me too. Like, J- Jesse, this is the one, Jesse. This, did you, did you- This 

[00:45:19] Joe: is, this is it, Jesse … take out 

[00:45:21] Jesse: the folding chair, Jesse. Let me, let me… I’m ch- I’m climbing up on the ropes. Um, let me ask you, Paula. Mm-hmm. So you, you just mean that retirees are looking to the way that other retirees live their life, and they’re like, “Well, I wanna do the thing that all those other retirees did.”

[00:45:37] Paula: Yeah, ex- 

[00:45:38] Jesse: Is that what you’re saying? 

[00:45:38] Paula: Yeah, exactly. A- and I think that w- oftentimes, and, you know, social mimicry is natural. There’s this guy, Luke Burgis, and he writes this book all about like what’s called mimetic desire, and that is like a very innate human… You see it even as, in young children, like we learn what, what to want by observing others.

[00:45:59] Jesse: Fidget spinners. 

[00:46:01] Paula: Yeah, exactly. 

[00:46:02] Jesse: Frozen yogurt. 

[00:46:03] Paula: Right. Yeah, exactly. And so it is a, like very intrinsically human trait, like mimetic desire, but the issue in retirement is that oftentimes that can come at the expense of- Of purpose, of community, of these things that are well documented to actually correlate to longer lifespans and greater self-reported life satisfaction.

[00:46:26] Paula: So if you’re going to Tahiti but your grandkids aren’t there or your friends aren’t there, sure, it looks great on Instagram or whatever it is that you’re using when you’re 70, but it’s a goal that came about from copy/paste, not that came about from, like, a deeper place. 

[00:46:44] Jesse: Put it up on the wall. 

[00:46:46] Joe: Oh, come on.

[00:46:48] Jesse: She’s totally right, Joe. I don’t know what you want me to do. Paula’s right. 

[00:46:51] Joe: She is right, but the problem… Jesse, you’re done. Cut me off. But the reason, Joel, it shouldn’t go on the wall, I think, is because it’s the same thing you said about pre-retirement. Like, you didn’t do enough of this planning and living ahead of time, which creates what Paula said, uh, later on.

[00:47:08] Joe: Hey, you’re 

[00:47:08] Joel: stepping on my toes here, Paula. 

[00:47:10] Joe: That’s right. That’s right. 

[00:47:11] Joel: But it, I mean, we know this is true, like talking about Froyo, whatever it is that’s like the popular fad of the moment. Stanley Cups a few years ago, right? Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm. Oh my gosh. Totally. Those things are the biggest pain in the ass ever, of all time.

[00:47:23] Joel: And by worst, you mean- They’re the worst drinking vessels … ‘

[00:47:25] Joe: cause they’re so damn big. 

[00:47:26] Joel: And they’re huge, right? But, like, everybody was like, “Oh, I gotta get six shades of it,” and they take up so much space in your cupboards, and they’re like, they’re the worst, and yet everybody bought into it. And this is, like, we’re humans.

[00:47:38] Joel: Like, this is human nature, right, which is what Paul is alluding to. It’s, I think it comes from a lack of self-knowledge oftentimes about what actually makes us tick, what we actually like, because we’re constantly looking toward the world around us to tell us what we should be liking, and it’s harder than ever to kinda get off of that sort of, out of that way of thinking, out of that mindset.

[00:47:58] Joel: But I agree that for like, if you want an unsuccessful retirement, try to do what every- what, what it looks like is making everyone else happy. ‘Cause I think so often behind the scenes, what looks like it’s making everyone else happy is putting people into lots of debt, is making them pretty miserable, maybe behind the scenes.

[00:48:16] Joel: And those epic trips, like sometimes they’re great. Like I, I’m not even… You know, I think travel for a lot of people really does, like, light them up, and it’s worth the effort. It’s worth the expense. But then for a lot of other people, they’re doing it in an attempt to mimic what the successful retirement should look like instead of deciding what is it that a successful retirement for me looks like.

[00:48:36] Joe: All right, Doug, you’ve got the deciding vote ’cause I don’t think it goes on the wall, but it sounds like, Joel, you’re saying it does go on the wall.

[00:48:45] Joel: This is… Don’t make me do this, Joe.

[00:48:51] Joe: Doug, you don’t care. Does this go on the wall or not? I think it does. I think it does. Oh, man. 

[00:48:59] Joel: You’re the odd man out here, Joe. 

[00:49:00] Joe: Oh, man. Sorry, Paula. It goes on the wall. We’ll, we’ll go ahead and put it on. It isn’t that I disagree, because I definitely agree. We don’t spend enough time thinking at a time about what we wanna do, and we look at all the pretty stuff, like you said so eloquently.

[00:49:13] Joe: It, um, it is definitely a b- big problem. And, and it’s funny, the longer that all of us do this, we talk about money less and we talk about lifestyle design more. Uh, listening to all of your shows, we’re always tying it more and more to lifestyle design. As we get more research, we find out just how absolutely important this is.

[00:49:29] Joe: Whether you have a Roth IRA or not, pretty important, but whether you think about retirement, far, far, far more important. So we’ve got Paula’s, we’ve got… Who else went? Who did I lead off with, Joel? 

[00:49:42] Joel: I went. 

[00:49:43] Joe: Yes. All right. Here he is, the man, the myth, the legend. Jesse, you’re bringing us home. 

[00:49:50] Jesse: My thought is that, I’m looking over at my notepad, it’s when people assume a constant withdrawal rate.

[00:49:56] Jesse: Like a lot of, you know, you’re pre-retirement, you’re going into retirement, you’ve run your retirement math, you, you read a book by, you know, Bill Bengen or something like that, and you’re like, “Cool. I’ve got two million bucks. Bill Bengen says I can withdraw 4.7% per year, 94 grand a year, inflation adjusted every year.

[00:50:13] Jesse: I’m golden.” The fact of the matter is, though, like that withdrawal rate is not gonna remain constant for the 20 or 25 or 30 plus years of your retirement. There’s gonna be this one year where you need to sink some money into your house to replace some stuff, and you actually need to buy a new car, and on top of that, you need to withdraw all your normal lifestyle costs, and that’s totally okay, and that’s totally normal.

[00:50:36] Jesse: But if you’ve convinced yourself that you’re locked in to this, you know, prescribed, uh, uh- Number … uh- 

[00:50:43] Joe: Yeah … 

[00:50:43] Jesse: a number, right, withdrawal rate, then you are going to throttle down your own lifestyle. You’re gonna self-limit how you can live, and it’s, it’s all because you entered retirement, and you’ve been living your retirement with this false understanding of how safe withdrawal rates work in retirement.

[00:50:59] Jesse: It’s never gonna be a constant number, and you can still analyze your way to a really happy place, accounting for the fact that your withdrawal rate will change over time. That’s totally okay. That’s my nominee for the wall. 

[00:51:11] Joe: Okay, so Paula, I saw head nods from you, which means you want this not on the wall.

[00:51:15] Joe: That’s what you’re trying to say. 

[00:51:17] Paula: It is on the wall. It is so on the wall, ’cause it’s true. The whole premise of the 4% withdrawal rule is steady drawdowns, 4% adjusted for inflation every subsequent year. That is not… It’s just not how humans live, you know? And so you go into retirement modeling this thing that sounds great on paper, but that just has absolutely no basis in the real world.

[00:51:42] Doug: Isn’t that like saying that a budget isn’t real world? ‘Cause if you, if you set a 4% of your funds for that’s your income for the year, that’s your budget, but that’s not how people live. I guess I’m not understanding. 

[00:51:56] Paula: Um, if you… When you’re planning for retirement- If you’re in a position where you are unprepared for retirement, you wake up one morning and you’re like, you’ve just turned 50, and you have zero saved, and you’re like, “Oh no, this is an emergency.

[00:52:15] Paula: I need to start doing something.” And you have to figure out what is going to be, like, the, a bare bones, like, here’s the budget that I’m gonna live on, and this is gonna be really hand-to-mouth. Okay. Cool. Like, I, I get the this is your s- quote, unquote, salary, and you live on it in the same way that you would live on a salary.

[00:52:37] Paula: That’s something that you might have to do out of necessity, but if you are, in a forward-looking way, planning for the retirement that you want, which might include replacing your car, it might include upgrading your kitchen, it might include taking a trip to Alaska or Hawaii. Like, it might include all of these discretionary expenses.

[00:52:57] Paula: Those are going to come at, like… They’re gonna pop- Lumpy … they’re- 

[00:53:01] Doug: It’s gonna be lumpy. 

[00:53:02] Paula: Yeah, it’s gonna be lumpy, and the part that we’re n- not talking about, um, medical spending, and that medical spending is also gonna be really lumpy. 

[00:53:09] Doug: Oh, yeah. 

[00:53:09] Paula: You know? And that’s something that for the 50-year-old who has zero saved, they don’t really have a way of dealing with that medical spending.

[00:53:17] Paula: Like, if their budget is the, the 90,000 a year that they can live on, that better include a huge amount for medical spending, ’cause if it doesn’t, like- 

[00:53:29] Doug: Heart transplant or something. 

[00:53:30] Paula: Yeah. Like, they have no bandwidth to deal with those lumpy expenses when they come up. 

[00:53:35] Joe: All right, Joel. You already said not thinking through your expenses.

[00:53:39] Joe: I mean, Jesse’s is really just a modification of yours, so clearly it doesn’t go on the wall. 

[00:53:44] Jesse: Yeah. Joel, you’re, you’re a kind of guy though, Joel, who isn’t easily manipulated. You know, you’re too bright to be manipulated- Who would 

[00:53:52] Joe: manipulate him, Jesse? … so just keep that in mind too. Who would manipulate him?

[00:53:53] Joe: But that’s true. I’m just pointing out a truth. 

[00:53:54] Joel: Yeah. You should’ve seen me in the Stanford Prison Experiment, man. Like, it was not good. And this totally goes on the wall, and this has m- made me think about even just my parents’ situation. When they, when they first retired, we kind of had a plan thought out, and then we get a medical diagnosis for my mom that’s not great, and you have to make a pivot.

[00:54:13] Joel: Like when it comes to even, hey, when are we, when are we taking Social Security? Part of our thought process early on was like, well, we can take more than 4% a year, maybe even take 7 or 8% out of your portfolio in an effort to hold off on taking Social Security. And then guess what? At this point in time, when you start taking Social Security and you also have a paid off mortgage then, then you can take less.

[00:54:33] Joel: Like, like it’s okay to expend more of your portfolio a little earlier on in order to achieve these other goals. And then when a diagnosis comes down the pike, you maybe make a bit of a different decision and you say, “Well, actually it makes more sense to claim Social Security now, and to withdraw less of my retirement funds.”

[00:54:49] Joel: So there’s always, I think there’s different things at play, right? And there, there are all of… There, there’s a million different things that can change and tweak your plan. You’re probably not most of the time making dramatic overhauls, although sometimes I think that’s necessary. But that idea that like 4%, uh, just like set it and forget it, kind of like those old school rotisserie, uh, rotisserie cookers on the infomercials.

[00:55:11] Joel: Like, that’s not how it’s… That’s not the right approach. I mean, I think it’s, it’s good to have that rule of thumb in the back of your mind, but then you, you have to be willing to make changes along the way, too 

[00:55:21] Joe: I love doing these live on YouTube. And, uh, J Edwards Dev hanging out with us says, “Bill Bangen and the Stanford prisoner experiment?

[00:55:31] Joe: Y’all are nerds. I feel so seen.” Like, you finally found your people. I remember first time I went to FinCon, and I’m having a discussion with Steve Stewart and another guy about term insurance versus permanent, and I’m like, “These are my people. This is amazing.” Yeah, so welcome. If you wanna hang out and be a part of this nerdery, just join us on Monday afternoons, which is super, super, super fun.

[00:55:53] Joe: Speaking of fun, this was a great discussion, although I am a little annoyed that they all went on the wall, but actually, in truth, they were all really good. So thank you for that. I think we need a second one, though, because I actually have a list of, like, eight more that I was thinking you might say, and I didn’t hear any of those.

[00:56:08] Joe: So the list is long, a mistake, so maybe we can help people in a future Stacking Benjamins episode with more of these. But let’s find out what’s going on where you all are working. And, uh, Jesse, you got something? 

[00:56:21] Jesse: Just a question, Joe. Uh, can you run polls in the YouTube chat? 

[00:56:26] Joe: I, I don’t know. Doug, can we run polls, do you know?

[00:56:29] Doug: I don’t know how to do that. Oh. I, I haven’t ever seen it before. Doesn’t mean it can’t be done, but I don’t know. ‘

[00:56:35] Jesse: Cause it’s hard for us, when we all know each other and we’re facing each other live, to vote each other to not go on the wall. But for the audience to anonymously decide- Ooh … you know, it’s, it’s kinda like, you know, it’s a little more Roman Coliseum thumbs up, thumb down.

[00:56:49] Jesse: Mm-hmm. I mean, that could be interesting, you 

[00:56:50] Joe: know? Oh, that could be interesting. Wow. If we get the ability for that, that would be fantastic. Yes, 

[00:56:56] Jesse: yes. Joe, Joe, 

[00:56:56] Joel: you’re really trying to breed some enmity here today. 

[00:56:58] Joe: I, I was. It is- I 

[00:57:00] Joel: don’t know what that’s about … 

[00:57:01] Joe: it’s so annoying, we get to the end of the episode and you guys all still like each other.

[00:57:04] Joe: Like, what’s up 

[00:57:04] Joel: with- Go to, go to therapy, Joe, okay? 

[00:57:06] Joe: What’s up with that? Joel Larsgaard, thank you so much for joining us today. 

[00:57:10] Joel: Thanks for having me. Always a joy. 

[00:57:12] Joe: What is going on? What’s coming up? Give us the scoop, man. What’s coming up at How to Money? 

[00:57:16] Joel: Oh, dude. So I’m trying to take my own medicine, and the month of July, I’m out of town, baby.

[00:57:21] Joel: Like, no, no, no work. So you might… If you’re coming over to hear How to Money, it’s a lot of replays in July. Um, but I hope, if you haven’t listened before, it’ll be new to you, so enjoy. 

[00:57:32] Joe: It’s greatest hits. That’s 

[00:57:33] Joel: right. That’s right. We 

[00:57:34] Joe: actually know what’s funny is, we have greatest hits coming up on Stacking Benjamins next week as well.

[00:57:38] Joe: People are gonna hear Scott Galloway next week. We’re gonna hear- There you go … a great round table discussion, so some stuff that maybe you haven’t heard before. But you guys, what you talk about, very seriously, though, what you talk about is so evergreen. Like, these tips, uh, th- they’re not things that go away tomorrow, Joel.

[00:57:52] Joe: You don’t talk about, like, the fads. 

[00:57:54] Joel: No, I mean, I will say on our Friday episodes, we call them the Friday Flight, those are where we try to tackle the, the timely news stories of the week and how they pertain to your personal finances, ’cause- But you’re 

[00:58:02] Joe: not gonna replay any of those? 

[00:58:04] Joel: No, no. Yeah. We won’t, we won’t.

[00:58:05] Joel: But, like, yeah, so most… The stuff you’re gonna hear, if you haven’t heard it before, is gonna feel still fresh or new. We try to pick the ones that, that make the most sense or some of the, our favorite episodes. 

[00:58:14] Joe: Awesome. And, uh, that is at How to Money, where finer podcast are found. Paula Pant, what’s coming up at the amazing Afford Anything show?

[00:58:23] Paula: So on the first Friday of every month, we host, uh, an episode in which we take a look at the economic landscape. And so for our July 1st Friday episode, we go deep into the New York City rent freeze and unpack what’s happening there, what the consequences are. We kinda lay it out, ig- you know, explain first for people who might not be acquainted with how rent works in New York City, ’cause New York is kind of a different beast.

[00:58:52] Paula: We first lay out, here’s how the rental system in New York works, here is the new freeze, and here are all of the downstream implications 

[00:59:02] Joe: The quote of the day, New York is a different beast. We had no idea. Yes. It is fascinating to watch it work, not work, in between. Always, always fun. And that’s at Afford Anything, where the finest podcasts are found.

[00:59:17] Paula: Absolutely. 

[00:59:18] Joe: What’s going on, Mr. Kramer, at, uh, Personal Finance for Long-Term Investors? 

[00:59:22] Jesse: Uh, wrapping up June, another good month. La- couple days ago, Frank Vasquez stopped by, and I peppered him with some risk parity questions, including, you know, managed futures and gold. Like, how do we incorporate these assets that other people might see as suboptimal into a portfolio that ends up being, you know, quote, unquote, “better” than a traditional retirement portfolio?

[00:59:43] Jesse: So it was a, it was a good conversation. Frank’s got really good answers to any question you could possibly lob his way. So I tried to lob some good questions his way, and he had some good answers. And then next week we’re doing an Ask Me Anything episode exclusively about Roth conversions, uh, a very popular topic that I get questions about.

[00:59:59] Jesse: And so I just compiled a bunch of questions into one- Wait a minute … one, one episode You said ask me 

[01:00:03] Joe: anything, but about exclusively one topic? 

[01:00:05] Jesse: Ask me only one thing. 

[01:00:09] Joe: Would that be a- 

[01:00:10] Jesse: Good point, Joe … 

[01:00:11] Joe: A-M-O-T? 

[01:00:13] Jesse: It’s an AMOT. It’s an AMOT. 

[01:00:15] Joe: And that’s the Personal Finance for Long-Term Investors podcast. Well, guys, thanks a ton.

[01:00:21] Joe: And by the way, hang out after, after the credits, because our last show… Before Independence Weekend, we always like to end our show with one of my favorite pieces from one of my favorite comedians, Stephen Merchant. So we’re gonna say goodbye, and then, uh, you’re gonna hear a little clip from Mr. Merchant talking about…

[01:00:40] Joe: He, he’s, by the way, a British comedian, which will give you an idea of kind of where we’re headed. But Doug, what should we have learned on today’s show, man? 

[01:00:48] Doug: Well, Joe, first take some advice from Joel Larsgaard. Maybe test out your retirement plans before you devote a giant pile of money into, say, an RV.

[01:00:57] Doug: That’ll get real small, real quick. Second, heed Jesse Kramer’s warning. Your pre-tax wealth will not be reflective of your retirement wealth. Don’t forget, the tax man cometh. But the big lesson, if you just bought a shopping cart full of fireworks, remember that no matter how much they beg, none of those belong in your neighbor’s pants, especially the sparklers.

[01:01:20] Doug: Those things are hotter than the stereo in my El Camino Thanks to Joel Larsgaard for joining us today. Get to know Joel a little better by checking out his podcast, How to Money. We’ll also include links in our show notes at stackingbenjamins.com. Thanks to Paula Pant for hanging out with us today.

[01:01:37] Doug: You’ll find her fabulous podcast, Afford Anything, wherever you listen to the finest podcasts. And finally, thanks to Jesse Cramer for joining us. Jesse is the host of the Personal Finance for Long-Term Investors podcast. Check it out. It’s filthy. 

[01:01:51] Joe: And also big- 

[01:01:53] Joel: Ask him anything. 

[01:01:55] Joe: Big th- ask him one thing. Yeah.

[01:01:58] Joe: A big thanks to neighbor Doug who wrote the credits today because, uh, our writer forgot. So big thanks to Doug for filling in some potholes. Happy Fourth of July everyone in the US, and, uh, happy weekend for everybody else. 

[01:02:13] bit: Oh, happy Fourth of July, America. Ready to fire up the grill and celebrate our victory over the Brits?

[01:02:19] bit: Well, I’m not. Because despite that incredibly convincing American accent, I’m one of those Brits. Now, I’ve acted in film and TV for years, but my greatest performance is acting like I don’t care that every summer you gobble down tube sausages and celebrate kicking our arses, or butts as you say incorrectly.

[01:02:37] bit: Do you really still have to celebrate your emancipation from us? I mean, that’s like your girlfriend breaking up with you and then celebrating with fireworks every year for 300 years. It gets my goat, but what really gets my goat is imagining how great America would be if we were still in charge. Oh, America, if we’d won the war, you’d have better comedy, news, TV programs, and way better rude words.

[01:03:02] bit: Oh, I’m talking fanny, trollop, minger, tart, minge bag, bleeding, sodding, blooming, cocked up, get stuffed and of course wanker. Imagine how sophisticated you’d sound when you’re insulting someone. “

[01:03:14] bit: Oi, Brad, your wife’s a slag. Now piss off, you wanker.” 

[01:03:19] bit: See how classy that sounded? With our accents and your American self-confidence, you’d be unstoppable.

[01:03:25] bit: Yeah, you’d have to pay a few more taxes, but you can’t put a price on that. Great Britain too would be the greatest country on earth. Your lawyers would all wear powdered wigs, so criminals really respect them, and you’d have all the mushy peas you can stuff down your bloody great gobs. Oh, and if you get sick, you don’t need to worry about medical insurance because with the National Health Service, a doctor will see you for free in about two years.

[01:03:50] bit: Plus, your taxes would be spent on things you really need, like a royal family who do the tough jobs no one else wants to do, like being driven around in a really nice car while waving. Y’all wanna eat some apple pie, then shoot some hoops and have a hoedown? bollocks

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