What are the biggest fifteen items on most budgets that can derail your spending plan? One blogger, our friend Allison Baggerly at InspiredBudgets.com, made a list.
Today we use that list as the basis of a game show episode! Paula Pant (AffordAnything), Doc G. (Earn & Invest) and our own OG go head-to-head in a match to figure out which items made Allison’s list. The best part? Even when their guesses are wrong, they bring up MANY budget busters that can help all of us do a better job fixing the holes in our spending plan.
Topics we cover:
- Gifts
- Taxes
- Auto maintenance
- Pet care
- Holiday spending
- Medical deductibles/costs
…and much more. We also share MANY solutions to plug the holes in your budget.
AND if that weren’t enough, we pause at the halfway point of our conversation for our normal trivia competition (a competition inside of a competition? Meta!)
Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.StackingBenjamins.com/201
Enjoy!
Watch On YouTube:
Our Topic:
15 Items Missing From Your Budget [Updated 2024] (Inspired Budget)
Our Contributors
A big thanks to our contributors! You can check out more links for our guests below.
Doc G
Another thanks to Doc G for joining our contributors this week! Hear more from Doc G on his show, Earn & Invest podcast at Earn & Invest on Apple Podcasts.
Check out his book Taking Stock: A Hospice Doctor’s Advice on Financial Independence, Building Wealth, and Living a Regret-Free Life.
Paula Pant
Check Out Paula’s site and amazing podcast: AffordAnything.com
Follow Paula on Twitter: @AffordAnything
OG
For more on OG and his firm’s page, click here.
Doug’s Game Show Trivia
- What percentage of employers who offer a 401K plan, offer at least some amount of matching contributions for their employees?
DepositAccounts
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Mentioned in today’s show
Join Us on Monday!
Tune in on Monday when we’re joined by the host of the School of Financial Freedom podcast, Douglas Tsoi, as he helps us grapple with the bigger questions behind financial independence, specifically, is that all there is?
Miss our last show? Check it out here: How to Structure an Effective Emergency Fund (SB1533).
Written by: Kevin Bailey
Episode transcript
[00:00:00] Doug: Okay, right here it says right here in this, this account we have $401,000 [00:00:06] bit: check put. Nope. Uh, that says you have a 401k account. If you liquidate that right now, you’ll have, you know, maybe $5,000. [00:00:17] OG: So what happened to the other $396,000? [00:00:21] bit: What is wrong with the two of you? [00:00:28] Doug: Live from Joe’s mom’s basement. It’s the Stacking Benjamin Show. [00:00:43] Doug: I am Joe’s mom’s neighbor,, Doug. On today’s round table, it’s a game show. We’re gonna talk about you, your budget, and how to budget better with our resident physician, the guy who’s all fun in games until someone gets hurt. Doc G. Also joining us is the woman who will help you afford anything with any amount of money, but it better be in the budget. [00:01:06] Doug: Paula a pant, and finally a guy who’s seemingly unaffected by anything, budget or not. Oh gee. But that’s not all. Halfway through our game show, I’ll pause for another better game. My matching trivia question. And now a guy who always gives a hundred percent except when he is giving blood, it’s Joe. Oh, so sea high [00:01:33] Joe: it. I love that we go with the old standby Dad joke. Hey everybody, happy Friday to you. Welcome back to The Greatest Money Show on Earth, the Stacky Benjamin Show. We’re so happy you’re here. Sit back and relax because today is game show day, and when you have a game show, that means you need to have participants. [00:01:50] Joe: And so let’s meet them right now. I’m super excited because he’s from California, loves making smoothies and work it out. It’s Mr. Oh gee, [00:02:06] OG: neither 45, nor from California, but I’ll take it. But he loves smoothies. But you like smoothies. But the smoothie part is accurate. [00:02:14] Joe: And you hate working out. [00:02:16] OG: No, no. I, I get, you know, suns out, comes out [00:02:19] Joe: baby. [00:02:20] Joe: Yes. And she’s way, way, way young. Resides in Pasadena. Paula pay it from a four 90 thing. [00:02:29] Paula: Yes. I, uh, I don’t think I’ve ever been to Pasadena, but maybe this is my sign to go. Maybe it is. Maybe [00:02:36] Joe: that is very pretty. That is. And he’s the guy who said, who needs hair to be sexy. Oh, it’s lovely. From the Earn and Invest podcast. [00:02:43] Joe: Doc G joins us. [00:02:45] Doc G: You know, the hair comment is not the only reason I feel picked on, uh, given the fact that we know that trivia is not my strong suit. Joe, you put me on a show that’s a game show that we’re gonna be doing trivia the whole time. I mean, really, [00:03:00] Joe: I think this is great too. We got, uh, OG who has said that he’s the, uh, the put it on the credit card statement Hood and budget Paula, which is the, and YOLO [00:03:09] OG: that and budget and Yolo [00:03:11] Joe: and Yolo. [00:03:12] Joe: Uh, Paula, who’s the anti budgeter and I think Doc G you are the never Budgeter, correct? I [00:03:20] Doc G: try to stay away from [00:03:21] Joe: it, [00:03:21] Doc G: if possible. [00:03:21] Joe: Well, that’s why I actually thought this topic would be fun. So let’s get into it. But you know what, we gotta get into First Doc. What do we have [00:03:28] Doc G: to get into? ’cause I’m excited to hear, [00:03:30] Joe: oh yes, that this episode is brought to you by State Farm. [00:03:33] Joe: Of course, if you own a small business, whatever your business might be like running game shows. You need somebody who understands, and that’s where State Farm Small business Insurance comes in. State Farm agents or small business owners do, and they know what it takes. They can help you choose personalized policies that fit your budget. [00:03:50] Joe: Small business insurance from State Farm, like a good neighbor, state Farm’s there. Talk to your local agent today. By the way, state Farm is now our only sponsor. We have a couple great sponsors who make sure this show is always free, so we can bring it to you three days a week. And here’s a couple awesome sponsors right now. [00:04:07] Joe: We got OG Doc G, we got the Gs, we got Paula, G, non G, Paula, Paula P, Paula, P, doc, G, og, and Paula. Paula P are all here with neighbor Doug and me. So let’s get this party started. Oh boy. [00:04:29] Doug: The whitest rap ever performed. [00:04:34] Joe: I think that, I think that might have been a few people just, uh, got grossed out by it. My middle [00:04:38] Paula: initial is also P You could call me Triple P. Hmm. This is a PPP. No, that’s it. Sounds like you need a medication [00:04:45] Joe: for that. Might, might not want that. Yes, go visit your local urologist today. Today’s piece, I’m gonna give credit to the person who wrote this later. [00:04:58] Joe: She’s an amazing blogger and a YouTuber and podcaster, and she talks a lot about budgets, and she has this awesome piece that we’re using for today’s game show. 15 items missing from Your Budget. This will be for two points toward winning our year long competition because we’ll be playing for two points toward our year long competition, and another point for whoever wins today’s trivia. [00:05:23] Joe: So the winner, going home with maybe three points. This could break the tie wide open guys. Joe’s mom. My mom has, uh, six points. She never plays on behalf of herself. So Doc, today you’re playing for mom. That’s always a worthy cause. OG has six. Paula has six. Based on last year, the way we’re gonna do this is Paula will guess last OG will guess second. [00:05:48] Joe: And because, uh, mom’s taken over for Len Penso who won last year, that means doc, in the first round, you’re gonna go first. So we will do a one point round and then we’ll do a two point round later. 15 items. Here is the topic guys. You have your budget. You guys know this, you have your budget. Even if you don’t budget, there are these things that come at you out of the blue that even people that are good at budgets go, oh my God, I forgot that. [00:06:16] Joe: And it totally wrecks the budget. So 15 items that probably should be on your budget but are probably missing from your budget. That is today’s topic. And so 15 items on the list, doc, you’ve got first crack at it. What do you think [00:06:34] Doc G: is a budget buster? I think people forget taxes. I think they forget their taxes all the time and don’t include them, especially ’cause a lot of them are taken outta your paycheck. [00:06:42] Doc G: But then they’re things like property taxes, et cetera, and people forget to put them in the budget. [00:06:47] Joe: Ah, our taxes, [00:06:49] Doug: man, that’s a good one. Mm-Hmm. That’s a really good one. That is [00:06:52] Doc G: a good one. It’s the only one I got, so, [00:06:54] Doug: yeah. Yeah. [00:06:57] Joe: Unfortunately that did not make the list. And you know what’s funny is that you, you get these, uh, you know what surprises me Doc is not taxes in general, but it’s when the tax bill goes up. [00:07:07] Joe: I don’t know about you guys, but the last couple years I’ve seen my, just the tax bill, I’ve lived in the same house and oh my goodness, I get the new tax bill and I, I feel like I’ve moved. ’cause apparently I live in a different neighborhood than the one that, that I live in. What are the tax bills that get you Doc? [00:07:24] Doc G: I dread the property tax. Every six months when it comes, because it always goes up no matter how much I fight. You know, you get the lawyer, you pay the lawyer to go and fight it. In the neighborhood I’m in, I feel like I pay more in property taxes than most people pay for rent or mortgage in a given year. [00:07:41] Doc G: So scoreboard. What was that like? Nice flex dude. No, it’s not that. It’s not because I live in such expensive house. It’s just an expensive neighborhood. Yeah. Like it’s an expensive tax neighborhood. [00:07:53] Joe: Well that, that is interesting because you choose to live in a college town. That has a fairly high tax base, I would imagine, doc. [00:07:59] Doc G: Yeah, I mean I, I definitely, for the surrounding area, this, we pay more taxes than a lot of people do. [00:08:05] Joe: Have you ever thought about, we had a guy, even in Texarkana, if you live on the Texas side, the property tax is high on the Arkansas side, your payroll taxes much higher, but property taxes are lower. And we had a friend a couple years ago who moved, literally moved two miles just to lower the amount of tax that he pays. [00:08:24] Joe: Have you ever thought about moving because of the fact that your taxes is high enough? [00:08:28] Doc G: We’ve considered it, but on the other hand, I kind of was born here and grew up here, and it’s a place we like living. And the other thing is the whole county is high. So you’re not just talking about moving outta Evanston, you’re talking about moving outta Cook County, which is actually a much broader area. [00:08:41] Doc G: So I could move to, let’s say a neighboring county like Lake County, but that might be a 15, 20 mile move. So it’s just, it’s a bigger difference. [00:08:50] Joe: I think Paul, the reason why it might not be on this list is because a lot of people roll this into their mortgage. Doc pays is twice a year outside of the mortgage. [00:08:58] Joe: Mm-Hmm. So do you advocate for one or the other? [00:09:01] Paula: Well, I mean typically, oftentimes if you have a mortgage, it automatically gets rolled in. So if you, once you pay off your home and you own it free and clear, then yes, then it becomes something that you pay annually or bi-annually because you, and do not forget it because that’s the one way that you can lose your home once your home is free and clear. [00:09:19] Joe: But if you’ve got the option to not escrow, would you say don’t escrow? Or is it better budget wise to go ahead and have it just picked up by the mortgage company? [00:09:31] Paula: Mathematically it is better to not escrow, but behaviorally it is better to escrow. Yeah. And what I mean by that is mathematically, if you were to hold onto that, put it in into some risk-free or uh, low risk type of investment like treasury bonds, and then pay it twice a year. [00:09:49] Paula: Yeah. You, you could arbitrage a little bit, but behaviorally. It’s just another thing to manage. It’s cognitive overhead, it’s logistical overhead and behaviorally, you know, you can always just escrow it and, and decide that you’ve got bigger fish to fry and take that same amount of energy and spend it on building out a side hustle. [00:10:07] Paula: Well, [00:10:08] Joe: to doc’s point, that’s a [00:10:08] Paula: lot [00:10:09] Joe: of money to come up with it one [00:10:10] Paula: time. Yeah, exactly. OG you onboard with that. [00:10:14] OG: Well, one of the major downsides with escrow, excuse me, is the fact that the bank is the one that’s in charge of it. So not only do you lose the interest, you know, that you might make otherwise, which I agree with Paul, it could be quite negligible, but they also require you to have an extra reserve in your escrow account. [00:10:30] OG: So it’s not just, here’s how much your tax bill is, here’s how much your insurance bill is, and divide by 12, they’re gonna divide by 12 and then multiply by 30% more. So there’s an excess buffer in there. So they’re never caught with their pants down of like, oh geez, your insurance premiums went up. We didn’t know I. [00:10:47] OG: They get down the hook for it because if you escrow, then obviously they’re the ones in charge of making those payments on time. So yeah, I think, you know, from an ease of operation standpoint, it’s a lot easier to escrow it. But if you can budget it or if you can just pinch your nose and swipe the credit card twice a year, like, like Jordan does us, you know, and, and then pay it off the next month when the credit card bill comes, you’re probably okay. [00:11:13] Joe: Let’s move on. Part of the fun, by the way, if you’re new to our game shows, is that even we get an answer that’s not on the list. I love the discussions we have ’cause we always have, you know, some fantastic, uh, items that, that weren’t there. We’ll go to OG now there’s 15 things on the list that might escape the budget. [00:11:29] Joe: What do you think is on this list? [00:11:31] OG: Oh, I, I made a list while you were talking. ’cause when I have ideas, I need to write ’em down. I’m gonna say, oh boy, I have a couple of things I think are really good ones on here. I wanna burn ’em now. Um, I’m gonna say that most people don’t budget for gifts. I think, uh, birthdays, Christmas, Hanukkah, Easter, Valentine’s Day, flag day, everything comes up and it’s a surprise when it’s like, oh, there’s a party and I need to bring a gift. [00:12:03] OG: National [00:12:04] Doug: Cheeseburger Day. Cheeseburger day. Joe, [00:12:07] Joe: are you seeing what I’m seeing, Joe? Oh, that is on the list actually, Doug, not only is it on the list, I get two points that twice Doug tell everybody where it’s at. That’s the number one item on the list, Joe. [00:12:19] OG: I win show’s over everybody. Deuces. [00:12:21] Joe: I gotta say this was number one in my family when we started budgeting. [00:12:24] Joe: My kids were young when I was trying to get my financial house in order, and the thing that busted my early budgets were these two little proteges of mine would come home with a birthday party invite, and I realized I had to buy two damn gifts that were none in my budget for my kids to take to Chuck E. [00:12:42] Joe: Cheese. This writer says, it could be easy to overlook if giving when you sit down to write your monthly budget. So often I would sit down, write out what I thought was a flawless budget, and then I realized I forgot about a gift I needed for an upcoming event. Keep track of those dates. Reference ’em when you sit down to build your budget. [00:12:58] Joe: If you’re like me. When I started building my budget, I actually had to annualize this out because it’s too bumpy. I had to annualize it out, figure out how much I gave on gif per year, and then take the average for the average month. Paula, was there ever a time when you were budgeting more close to the vest and had to look at. [00:13:15] Joe: GIF giving, [00:13:17] Paula: gift giving. No. But closely related was travel associated with holidays, because oftentimes during Thanksgiving, Christmas, things like that, my family doesn’t typically give gifts, but we would like to see one another. The gift of each other. My gift is me. You’re welcome. So travel associated with holidays. [00:13:41] Paula: There was a, there’s a time that I would have to annualize that out. [00:13:45] Doc G: Yeah. Doc, how about for you? Since I never give anyone gifts, I never have issues with this, and you know, here’s the thing. If you never give gifts, you get invited to a lot less birthday parties and weddings. Bam. There it is. It’s a gift unto itself that never stops giving. [00:14:01] Doug: Joe, there was an easy, there’s a couple of easy solutions you could have had back then. One of which is don’t have your kid show up with no gifts, and then they’ll slowly stop getting invited altogether. Perfect. Or just tell the parent, you have to tell your kid to invite the favorite of my two kids. [00:14:16] Doug: Like make them pick the friends you get to, you get to invite one of my kids to your party. I will rent you one of my kids for the afternoon. Yeah. Forget about the [00:14:26] Doc G: therapy bills for Nick. Later. I would just show them my property tax bill and they’d feel so bad for me. They’d let me get away without a gift. [00:14:33] Doc G: That’s [00:14:33] Joe: it. I gotta pay these. I I live in Evanston. You have no idea. You, I can’t, can’t be giving gifts idea. Yes. Alright. Mom slash doc have zero OG scores a point. Paula 14 Still on the board. Where are you going? [00:14:48] Paula: I’m gonna say deductibles and copays. It could be for health insurance, it could be for repairs, things that are not covered by homeowners insurance, meeting those deductibles, car repairs that are not covered by car insurance. [00:15:02] Paula: She’s expanding her answer. Yeah. Hold on. Trying to get multiple answers. I [00:15:04] Doc G: was about to say you [00:15:05] Paula: just [00:15:05] Doc G: took like my top three. [00:15:07] OG: There’s lots of opportunity there. [00:15:09] Doug: Deductibles was really, why don’t we get [00:15:11] Joe: rid of deductibles and choose one? What? What, wait, say. Does she have to choose one? Doug? I think she has to choose an answer. [00:15:17] Joe: Damn well. Has to choose one. Yeah. Choose an answer. [00:15:21] Paula: So you mean between medical deductible? Uh, home deductible and car deductible. Choose one? Yeah, I’m gonna choose car deductible. [00:15:31] Doug: You have chosen poorly. [00:15:34] ?: Oh. [00:15:35] Doug: Oh, well hold on Joe, [00:15:37] Joe: what about number two? It’s gotta be number two. Yes. Yeah. Okay. [00:15:41] Doug: We’ll give her number two. [00:15:42] Doug: It’s [00:15:42] Joe: gotta be number two. Number two is car maintenance. That was my guess. Darn it. You stole it. But see, [00:15:48] Doug: well the re the thing that threw me was deductible car maintenance because it has more to do with like, insurance deductibles aren’t even the same [00:15:53] OG: thing. [00:15:54] Joe: It’s not even the [00:15:55] OG: same category. [00:15:56] Joe: It is the same thing. [00:15:57] Joe: You gotta fix your car [00:15:59] OG: is so dumb. Wait, wait. I’m already filing protests. When you [00:16:02] Joe: ran your car, when you ran your car through your wall, did you have to fix it? [00:16:08] OG: Yes. But that wasn’t automobile maintenance expense. That’s maintenance is tires and gas. And oil. [00:16:13] Joe: That’s still is carbon. No, no, no, no, no. That’s fixing your car. [00:16:17] Joe: Yes. No. Yes. Fixing [00:16:18] OG: my car from an accident. Is something completely different. Maintenance is meant to sustain its life over a longer period of time. Not to normal wear and tear. You’re not to solve the problem of a acute injury. [00:16:31] Doug: Unfortunately, the review board has already, if I was [00:16:33] OG: maintaining my body, is it because I had a whole bunch of broken bones that needed to get casted or because I am taking vitamins every morning, which one? [00:16:44] OG: Vitamins. The judges are incorrect. Yet again, I protest this outcome. I protested [00:16:51] Joe: another game show under protest. I just had, let’s talk about car bills for a second. We just had like a $4,500 car bill. Like that is difficult to realize in the budget. Was [00:17:02] OG: it due to an acute. Issue or a deferral of, uh, bunch of, uh, little things. [00:17:08] Joe: It was due to the fact that our car kept driving worse and worse and it was pulling to one side. And I don’t drive this car most of the time, so I took it to my favorite place and I said, I think I need my tires aligned too. And the guy said, well, we don’t do the, we don’t do the alignment, we just do the tires, but we got a place. [00:17:26] Joe: So I take it to the place and the woman at the place when I go to pick it up says, did you hit something recently? I said, no, we haven’t hit anything. She goes like, maybe a huge pothole. I’m like, yeah, but that was like three years ago. She’s like, well, it took out the front left spring and your tires. Like when I saw the, how our tire alignment had been since then. [00:17:48] Joe: And because we hadn’t had it fixed in three years, there was a ton of, uh, deferred maintenance. og, I think was the word you used. Hmm. That piled up, so, yeah. Yeah. Not good. Uh uh, OG you had a problem with door handles? I think at one point. Oh [00:18:02] OG: my god. 15 years ago, I suppose. Right? I can’t, I don’t even remember that. [00:18:05] OG: Was it 15 years ago? I don’t even [00:18:06] Joe: remember that whole story, but this podcast isn’t that old, but it sure feels like it was like three grand for this car. You had to replace the door handle. Yeah. [00:18:15] Doc G: Anyone who has a Tesla has door handle problems. [00:18:17] OG: Yeah. That’s the problem with car maintenance is you have to do stuff often. [00:18:22] OG: I was just looking at my son’s car as he was pulling out of the driveway and I was just like, those tires are bald. Like, what did they, when did the tires get bald? Like now I have to go do new tires. Uh, in, in his, he wouldn’t know that, you know, tires or getting an oil change when you’re supposed to, it’s an out-of-pocket expense. [00:18:39] OG: That you think is unnecessary, but if you would’ve fixed Joe to your point, if you would’ve fixed or taken the car in right away when that big pothole happened, you might have been able to fix the spring, which, or you know, the strut or whatever was broken immediately, and then save the wear and tear on the, on the tires. [00:18:58] OG: That’s why you rotate them. That’s why you change the oil in your car, change the, you know, blinker, fluid, all those sorts of things are super important to change. [00:19:07] Joe: Rotate the air in your tires. You forgot that one. Absolutely. Yes. Yes. Uh, Paul, our, our, our mutual friend, uh, Mr. Money Mustache Pete, uh, loved the idea of riding his bike wherever he goes. [00:19:18] Joe: Mm-Hmm. You these numbers, you’re somebody, I would think that in Vegas probably had a car when you lived there. Mm-Hmm. Maybe, maybe in Cincinnati, Atlanta. You had a car. I don’t think you have one now in Manhattan, do you? [00:19:29] Paula: No, I do not. When I moved here, I had one, and then I, uh, I actually gave it away for free to, to a good friend. [00:19:35] Paula: To my best friend. So, well, not like to a Orlando, [00:19:38] Doug: just [00:19:38] Paula: here. [00:19:39] Doug: Does your best friend happen to also have a 5 0 1 C3 designation? [00:19:44] Paula: She does not. [00:19:45] Doug: That was a miss. [00:19:47] Paula: I know, right? [00:19:48] Joe: Tell us about not having the car in your budget. What’s been the upside and downside of that? [00:19:53] Paula: Ooh, well, okay, so a place like Manhattan has amazing public transportation, and also it’s reasonable to walk to a lot of places, right? [00:20:02] Paula: So right now. For those of you who are watching on YouTube, I’m at my office, which is a 30 minute walk from my home. It’s reasonable in a place like New York to have places that are within a 30 to 45 minute walk, like a, a wide variety of places that are within walking distance. And for anything that’s not in walking distance, it’s very reasonable to take a subway or there are these city bikes like it’s just a great public transportation area. [00:20:29] Paula: And the reason that I emphasize that so much is because I know that most of the people who are listening don’t live in a good public transportation city. And that in a lot of places necessitates a car. Do you find it then a, a real pain in the ass when you leave Manhattan? Oh, if I leave Manhattan, it’s on an airplane, and if I need a car at that destination, I’ll just rent one from the airport. [00:20:52] Paula: They just rent one. [00:20:52] Joe: Yeah. [00:20:52] Paula: Yeah. [00:20:53] Joe: So still not a big deal. Well, that ends our first round. Our score after round one of today’s competition, uh, doc g slash mom have won, have zero. What am I talking about? OG has won. Paula has one, but you know what? Never fear Doc G. Second round, two points, two points for your answer in the second round. [00:21:18] Joe: We’ll have that in just a moment, but we’re gonna interrupt this game meta for another game. Our year long trivia competition that we have every single week here on the Stacking Benjamins Friday show. We actually do trivia every day, but it’s a competition on Friday between our contributors and we’re gonna play for another point here. [00:21:37] Joe: Doug, what do we got going on on today’s trivia Competition? [00:21:44] Doug: Hey there stackers. Gotta let you know Alan Acorn is back. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and once again, the unusual, noisy squirrel, Alan. That lives in my yard is terrorizing me. Once again. I hung all of my socks out to dry on the banister of my porch yesterday, and that little tree climbing, reman rodent went and took one of each pair. [00:22:11] Doug: I understand. Eating my plants, but my socks, what is he even doing with them? Unrelated. The neighborhood kids stopped by to hang out. Yesterday I was inside using the air fryer when I heard a few of them talking on the porch. Must have really startled them when I went out there because they all jumped. [00:22:28] Doug: They said they had stopped by to hang out since they think I’m so cool. I, I really, I really think they’re finally coming around seeing me as something of an uncle figure, you know? It’s just, it’s nice to see that change. I had to cut our chat short though because I was in the middle of cooking and I gave them all popsicles and let ’em hang out in the porch while I went back inside. [00:22:49] Doug: Next time I see ’em, I’ll have to ask if they happen to see where that sneaky Allen. I ran off with my socks that damn squirrel. Speaking of matching, today’s trivia question is what percentage of employers who offer a 401k plan offer at least some amount of matching contributions for their employees? [00:23:11] Doug: I’ll be back right after I finish ironing my underwear. As one does. [00:23:16] Joe: Of course, as you do, super. Doug’s gonna go take care of that, and that means also that Paula gets the last guest. Oh, gee’s. In the middle doc, you got first guest in this one too. What percentage of employers offer matching with their 401k? [00:23:33] Joe: 22% it. It’s spoken like a guy on a [00:23:36] Doc G: mission confidence. It’s [00:23:38] OG: on parallels. Either I [00:23:39] Doc G: totally know it or I have no flipping clue and I’ll let you decide which, and that means [00:23:45] Joe: that, oh gee, goes in the middle. What are you thinking, man? 22% from Doc High or low? [00:23:53] OG: Yeah, I wanna walk through my logic, but I don’t want to tell Paula what I’m thinking here. [00:23:57] OG: So I am going to take the other side of that, uh, number and say La LA [00:24:08] Joe: 80 wa 79%. 79. Wow. A wide mo there. Paula. You got 22 on one end trying to have Paula [00:24:18] OG: figure out where she, where does, which side is she gonna be on? [00:24:21] Paula: I’m gonna capture the upside. So my guess is 79.1%. You think it’s even higher? I think it’s higher, yeah. [00:24:29] Paula: Wow. I think with four [00:24:29] OG: one K, you mo most people are gonna do matching Mm-Hmm. Because of all the rules that are associated with it, so, Mm-Hmm. I was, uh, yeah, [00:24:36] Paula: and I, my thinking is, uh, you know, it costs an employer money to administer a 401k. Yeah. If you’re laying out for 401k administration, you’re probably gonna offer some sort of matching. [00:24:46] OG: I was trying to give you [00:24:47] Paula: a [00:24:48] OG: difficult choice. Would there have been a number, if I would’ve said like 87%, would you still taken the upside? I was trying to, honestly, [00:24:53] Paula: I was. If I had been the first to guess, I, I would’ve said 90. So yeah, I was gonna go. I was gonna go high. See, I would’ve thought it high would be [00:25:00] Doc G: much less than that. [00:25:01] Doc G: Maybe I’m way too low, but I’ve never had a job that’s matched 401k in all my life. So Score. Never had one ever, [00:25:07] Joe: ever. Never had a job. You’ve worked for a few different employers I would imagine too. Doc. [00:25:11] Doc G: Yeah. [00:25:12] Joe: Yeah. Well this’ll be interesting. Is Doc right? And it’s low are OG and Paula, right? And the number’s high? [00:25:18] Joe: I don’t know. We’ll be right back. Doc, you kicked this thing off by saying 22%. Apparently OG and Paula said, nay. Nay. What? What are you thinking? Are you right or are they right? Oh, they’re probably right. Let’s be honest. [00:25:34] Doc G: I have no illusions here, Joe. I have no illusion. [00:25:36] Joe: OG you said 79%. Paula immediately took the high side of that. [00:25:40] Joe: What are you thinking? Good or bad? [00:25:42] OG: Yeah, I, I think it’s in the nineties also. I was hoping to pick a number that would force Paula to take the under, thus giving me all of the upside. I, uh, my, my strategy was unsuccessful. [00:25:55] Joe: Paula, he’s a two time champion. Does that make you feel better? [00:25:57] OG: Paula’s got this [00:25:58] Joe: one. [00:25:58] Joe: I [00:25:58] Paula: feel good about this one. I [00:25:59] Joe: feel cnce in my answer. Well, Paul has felt confident before. That’s true. That didn’t really pan out. Let’s see if Paula is gonna, can I believe I’m saying this Is Paula gonna take the lead? Take the lead in this contest. Only Doug knows. I already [00:26:16] Doug: know, and it’s so good. It’s so good. [00:26:20] Doug: Hey there, stackers. I’m on unfortunate mismatching sock wearer and the number one job benefit of everyone I work with Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug Most em, you caught that, right? Yeah. Most employers offer at least some kind of benefits, whether it’s health insurance, stock options, or free pizzas on Fridays to help you forget that you’re being underpaid. [00:26:40] Doug: Today’s trivia question is what percentage of employers who provide a 401k plan offer at least some amount of matching contributions for their employees? According to the Investment Company Institute as of December, 2023, there are over 700,000 401k plans in the US by far the most common type of employer sponsored savings plan with roughly 70 million active participants. [00:27:05] Doug: If you’re lucky enough to work for a company that’ll match your contribution, judge Shing. If not, remember, this is just icing on the cake and you gotta save your own money anyways. A retirement plan is a nice tax shelter to help you toward financial independence, but what you’re really wondering is, what’s the answer? [00:27:24] Doug: Well, what I can tell you right now, this is OGs favorite part, is that Doc, so dumb was off. Doc was off by 29, just Scotia under Paula was over by 28.1, meaning OG was over by 20 eights. Because the real answer is of all the companies offering 401k plans, 51% will match your contribution in some way, which means OG is our winner by one 10th of 1%. [00:27:54] Doug: Oh, Paula, this one has to stay. [00:27:56] OG: Oh boy. Wow. Whoa. I, I would’ve said the nineties also. [00:28:01] Joe: Mm. Wow. They were all within 1% of each other. Yeah. Everybody 1.1%, but yeah. Wow. But, [00:28:08] Doc G: but I was more right than any [00:28:09] Doug: of you. Oh, no. 1%. You’re right. [00:28:12] Doc G: But you were more Right. Both of them really wanted to vote in the nineties. [00:28:15] Doc G: So by being a 22, I was closer. They were just trying to outplay each other and happened to win accidentally. Wow. The gamesmanship. [00:28:23] Joe: Barely won. OG wins. Barely. That was tight, man. All right. That all right? That was pretty, that was interest for Energize. Now I [00:28:31] OG: got some more interest in the rest of this show. [00:28:33] Joe: Yeah. [00:28:34] ?: Wow. [00:28:36] Joe: Well, can OG defend that lead? We’re about to find out because if you have short term memory loss, what you don’t remember was we were playing a different game. Second half of this game is brought to you by deposit accounts.com. Paula, you know what happens@depositaccounts.com? [00:28:50] Paula: You find out that the accounts in which you make deposits are nowhere near the best in class. [00:28:54] Joe: No, absolutely not. They could be so much better with many of the banks that are out there. No, I’m saying you’re right, Paula, you’re a hundred percent right. Ah, so head to deposit accounts.com and by the way, tune into Wednesday’s episode where we went through how much money you’re losing by not having money in a high-yield savings account and having a good emergency fund plan. [00:29:13] Joe: We walked through all that on Wednesday show, and then head to deposit accounts.com to see just how bad it is for you and how good it could be. Alright. Second half of this show underway. Doc, you are in last place, but you can move to first place. ’cause in the second round you get two points instead of one. [00:29:30] Joe: You could be the leader here, my friend. What’s another one that’s on the board? We got 13 left, [00:29:35] Doc G: so the deductible thing threw me off. But I’ll go with what I still think is the right answer, which is unexpected Healthcare costs. I mean, I think that people always underestimate what they’re gonna have to spend on healthcare. [00:29:45] Doc G: Yes, you are somewhat limited by copays and deductibles, but if there’s a new medicine, if you end up in the ER and you didn’t expect to. There’s always something there. You’re not expecting [00:29:54] Joe: our medical bills on the list. Ding, ding, ding, ding. Dinging, medical bills. Ding. Definitely on the list. Nice job. This got so bad, doc, that the credit agencies had to take this off of the credit report because so often it just became this mess of even trying to negotiate with hospitals. [00:30:14] Joe: I mean, you’re in this industry, so you know this better than most. [00:30:16] Doc G: Yeah, and it’s hard. I mean, I guess you could budget the maximum out of pocket every year, which would be a lot, you know, in including your healthcare premiums and then copays, deductibles, and kind of measure that out. But you know, there are a lot of healthcare costs, which also is just isn’t covered by your benefits. [00:30:34] Doc G: Like people end up buying vitamins, they end up buying all sorts of orthopedic type stuff like wrist braces and all sorts of stuff. A lot of times you pay out of pocket for that. A lot of people don’t go through insurance for those kind of things. And so yes, people get into accidents and have all sorts of things they don’t expect. [00:30:49] Doc G: But I think there are a lot of health related costs that we traditionally don’t even think of through insurance. [00:30:55] Joe: Oh gee, you found there was power in asking what the price is and maybe going arro. You had insurance, I think, and you decided to pay out of pocket before for a procedure. [00:31:05] OG: Yeah, I mean, this is one of the major issues that everybody has with the healthcare world or insurance reimbursement world, or whatever you want to call it. [00:31:13] OG: You know, whoever’s. Whoever the puppet master is of this, [00:31:17] Joe: we still don’t know. Nobody knows the cabal, [00:31:19] OG: nobody knows. It’s the fact that there’s no price before you have something done in, in, in the exception of an emergency type of an event. Doug was just talking about medical stuff that he has going on this weekend or this week. [00:31:33] OG: We’ve all had visits to our doctors or, you know, test procedures, whatever. And it’s like, cool. All right, sounds great. How much is it? Like, yeah, we don’t, [00:31:41] ?: we don’t really know. [00:31:42] OG: Well, what do you mean? You know, the case that you’re talking about with me was a child that broke his arm and they’re like, are you gonna pay cash or are you gonna bill the insurance? [00:31:49] OG: And I’m like, well, I don’t know. How much is it? And they’re like, we don’t know. I’m thinking, is today your first day? I’m many. I wanna, I don’t wanna be here anymore. I’m taking my kid to the doctor who has done this before. I. Like, oh no, we do arm, we do break. You know, we do a thousand broken arms a day. [00:32:05] OG: I’m like, then you must have some idea of how much it costs to do that. And uh, anyway, the long and short of it was, was we gave them 500 bucks as a deposit. We had to pay something right then. And, uh, they sent us a bill and said it was all covered, like our $500, paid it in full. And when I kind of pressed that button a little bit more, they said, well, if we were to billed your insurance, we would’ve billed 2000. [00:32:28] OG: And of course, since we have a high deductible plan, that 2000 would’ve come to us. Either way, I was writing a check, right? And so I’m going, well, why the heck would it be 2000 if I’m paying it because you sent this paperwork this way and it’s 500 bucks because I paid it when you sent that paperwork. [00:32:41] OG: That way, I just, and, and people in the industry will say, well, here’s the reason. There’s, you know, obviously there’s some, some method to the madness there, but this is a little mesmerizing. Uh, this is a good one, doc, because even if you do have budgeted as, as much as you can, really, the only thing that I found that’s successful here, or that can help here. [00:32:59] OG: Is if you happen to have a high deductible plan in an HSA to get to the point like live on luck for long enough that your HSA balance gets to the point that you can absorb a year’s worth of out of pocket, then I think you’ve got your lips above the water, so to speak, right? If you can build up your HSA, it’s sitting in cash and then start investing beyond that, that’s great. [00:33:20] OG: But, but if you can get your HSA to my Max family out of pocket’s, 13,000, if I can get my cash and my HSA to 13,000, I feel pretty safe about a one year massive healthcare bill that we can take. But that takes a while. It takes a while to build up to, and it takes a couple of years of not actually using it. [00:33:37] OG: Right? You know, like you, you got some healthy years in a row. Teenage boys, those don’t happen very often. [00:33:42] Joe: Paula, you had to design your own healthcare plan when you decided to go work for yourself. Uh, what were some of the factors that, uh, you thought about when looking at a, your budget on one side? [00:33:54] Joe: Mm-Hmm. The reason it’s here and these big, huge expenses. And on the other side, you know, building something that’s gonna make sure that you’re, you’re healthy. [00:34:03] Paula: Yeah. I’ve been buying my own health insurance out of pocket since prior to the a CA. Even back in those days, there were a lot of things that insurance didn’t cover. [00:34:13] Paula: The a CA didn’t exist yet. And so back then, my plan was that if I needed any type of major elective procedure, I’d have to leave the country for it. So, medical tourism, essentially, because that would be the most cost effective way to get any type of non-emergency procedure done. So, for example, prior to the a CA, the insurance plan that I had didn’t cover maternity. [00:34:38] Paula: It didn’t have any kind of coverage for pregnancy or maternity. And so I remember at the time thinking, okay, well, you know, if I were to start a family, then I would have to go to Thailand to make that happen. Right? Or I could, I mean, I could go to Mexico, or I could go to Turkey is another really popular destination, but that was always the plan. [00:34:54] Paula: Where that shifted now is. You know, now a lot more is covered, but now the expenses are so much higher. Mm-Hmm. The premiums are just massive, massive, massive. And in my own life, where that’s expanded is now I’m covering health insurance, not just for me, but also for full-time. Employees who work for afford anything, right? [00:35:14] Paula: We’re paying those premiums. And so that just has meant that a much, much bigger chunk of the budget goes to healthcare costs. [00:35:22] Doug: Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Your podcast has health insurance. And by any chance, do you need an announcer? [00:35:27] Doc G: We gotta [00:35:28] Joe: move on. [00:35:29] Doc G: It’s, it’s time to move on. Look at the time. Yeah. You know, Joe, if you stop it right here, I win. [00:35:36] Joe: That’s right. [00:35:37] Doc G: I think folks, it’s time to wrap it up. [00:35:39] Joe: He is like, and we are done. Game set match. By the way, we we’re gonna link this in the show notes. Uh, og back to what you were talking about. Scott Heiser was on the show. It was a great interview. He’s a guy who is a healthcare expert and talks about always ask, no matter who is covering it, ask what the procedure costs. [00:35:58] Joe: What does it, we need more people asking that question to keep cost in check, because often that person you talk to on the phone to your story Exactly. Has no idea. Partly ’cause nobody ever asks, nobody ever asks. Well, and the funny thing, [00:36:11] OG: I was just talking about health insurance, Paula, like you, we have a group plan for our employees, for our planning firm, and I was talking about the, the impact of negotiating against yourself. [00:36:21] OG: And I remember this, I remember this discussion a couple years ago with group plan and the, the insurance agent who kind of runs it for us, uh, it’s November and I’m sort of pestering. I’m like, Hey, I need the renewal stuff. We gotta get this to our team so they can make decisions, you know, whatever. And he comes back, he says, okay, we got the numbers. [00:36:39] OG: Uh, you know, I think we did really good. It’s an, it’s, it’s only an 8% increase. And all I said was I went 8%. Huh? That’s a lot. And he goes, yeah. I think I can get ’em to five. And I said five. And he goes, well, let, let me get back to you. And he called back a couple of days later and says, alright. I got him to a 4% increase. [00:37:00] OG: And I was just thinking to myself like, I wasn’t asking for a, a better price. I was just, I was just like, wow. Eight percent’s a lot. I just put it with a little, I just raised [00:37:07] Doug: my eyebrows and got a a hundred percent increase. I, I just went [00:37:10] OG: 8%. That’s a lot. 8%. Oh yeah, I know. Five, five. You know, like he just, what was really interesting to me in that discussion was even the insurance people are full of crap. [00:37:22] OG: No offense. Like, it’s like they, they’re just like, yeah, whatever. I think we can, I think we can get ’em for four grand a month. I think we probably, okay, fine. Let’s say I think four grand a month would be good. Just by asking that question. It saves some money. I have a prescription medication and the doctor was like, it’s gonna be a thousand a month. [00:37:39] OG: And I was like, I think you need to find a better idea. That’s a. The plan dude, like try something new. A couple days later they called. They said, well, we found a pharmacy that will ship it to us and it will be this instead. It was much, much lower. So, uh [00:37:54] Paula: oh. Is it a Canadian pharmacy? [00:37:55] OG: It is not, no, it’s in the United States. [00:37:58] OG: It’s a specialty, but, um, I don’t know how long the discount will be. Like it’s, you know, some sort of, some sort of discount. It’s a [00:38:03] Joe: pharmacy run out of a guy’s van down by the river. [00:38:06] OG: Yeah. It’s the same guy that Doug uses for his pharmacological needs. [00:38:10] Paula: The ice cream truck. [00:38:12] OG: The ice cream truck, and a bunch of cash discounts. [00:38:15] Paula: My cat’s asthma inhaler comes from a Canadian, oh my God. Hold on. Stop [00:38:21] Doug: everything. We’re talking about that. I want to know what it looks like. I wanna know how you administer this. I wanna know how you seal the cat’s lips around the [00:38:30] Paula: inhaler. It’s gotta be a nebulizer. It can’t be an inhaler. [00:38:33] Doc G: It’s gotta be a nebulizer. [00:38:34] Doc G: I want all of the details. [00:38:35] Paula: Uh, it’s, it’s a normal asthma inhaler. Just the same, the same kind that humans use. But there is, uh, an attachment. It’s called the acat. It’s a chamber. So you put the inhaler on one side of the chamber, you puff it right. That puff travels through the chamber and into like a mouthpiece that forms a tight seal around the cat’s nose and mouth. [00:38:56] Paula: Now the hard part is getting the cat really comfortable with not moving her head. You think [00:39:04] Doug: you’re not gonna guess this. The hardest part is, is not having your face ripped off by your cat as you try to fix the mask onto the cat face. Looks like [00:39:18] Doc G: hamburger. Go ahead, Doug. Just keep running out the clock. [00:39:22] Doc G: Just run that clock. Not to not, [00:39:24] Joe: not to disrupt this fascinating conversation. Leave, but, but another thing Scott Heiser said, Paula, to your point earlier about medical tourism. Was. Mm-Hmm. You don’t even have to go outta the country sometimes. He talks about the big difference. He’s in the Detroit area. [00:39:37] Joe: Just the difference between a clinic on one side of town and the other side of town. Like when you start asking what the price is, you might be able to lower your prices there. And we’ll link to that fascinating episode about an area that really hurts a lot of people’s budgets. All right, doc G In the lead with two, that means we go to og. [00:39:56] Joe: Can OG take the lead away from Doc? [00:40:01] OG: I got two on here. ’cause we loosely gave Paula the auto expenses one. [00:40:06] Joe: Well, here’s the deal. Let me tell you why that is. ’cause now we have ’em both. She’s like, well, your auto deductible or your medical deductible, medical deductible is gonna be your big cost for medical bills. [00:40:16] Joe: That’s gonna be your big cost. But she said medi. She actually said medical first. Then she said auto and then we asked her to pick one because medical would’ve been on there. Kind of agree about auto. But then she went with auto and so is medical [00:40:28] OG: deductible on there? Is that what you’re saying? [00:40:29] Doug: Yeah, we already, she already did it. [00:40:30] Doug: We already just got it, doc just got it. [00:40:33] OG: Oh, [00:40:33] Doug: it was like half an hour ago, so you probably forgot. [00:40:36] OG: Yeah, I was still stuck on cat inhaler for Canada. [00:40:40] Doug: It’s the greatest, greatest story ever [00:40:42] OG: told. I, I love, I love all of God’s creatures. I’m not sure that I love them cat inhaler from Canada that much. I don’t think so. [00:40:50] OG: I, I just, I feel like it would be time to. Have my cat visit Dror. It would [00:40:55] Joe: be exactly OG what you said when your doctor said it was gonna be a thousand bucks. If my doctor said that Cooper, our cat needed the asthma inhaler, I would’ve said We need a [00:41:07] ?: Wouldn’t have said that. Yeah. Here’s what [00:41:09] Doug: I imagined happened prior to the prescription was, well, it turns out your cat’s allergic to itself and so it has asthma. [00:41:20] OG: That is Doug loves cats, so I’m sure that’s exactly what he thought. [00:41:26] Paula: Cat has to pop a Zyrtec whenever it’s around other cats. That’s, we got [00:41:29] Joe: 12 more on here, og. [00:41:33] OG: Oh goodness. Um. Can I generically say kid stuff? I wanna say like kids. And here’s kind of generically where I’m thinking like, uh, kids like sporting events, uh, like, you know, school activities where they have to, you see us running it out as much as you can. [00:41:51] OG: Just, it’s all kid related. It’s just, I’m just saying like, you know, you, you said electricity having to do with kids. Is there anything, is any sort of expense that comes out of your account that would be directly or indirectly child related expenses? [00:42:09] Joe: Well, gee, this is pretty unbelievable, but Doug, what is number 12 on this list? [00:42:14] Joe: Kid expenses. Ugh. Literally it is kid expenses. Kid expenses add up quickly. This writer says you can easily get nickel and dime with kids’ expenses like field trips. School lunches and snacks. Miscellaneous school, what I’m talking about, summer camps, sports fees, college tuition. Check out your kids’ school and extracurricular calendars before you write your budget for your next pay period. [00:42:38] Joe: This one got me, [00:42:39] OG: this is kind of an interesting thing because a lot of schools have gone to like an annual athletic fee, an annual school pack fee, so to speak. So like, let’s say your kid’s going into fifth grade and the teachers say, well, I need markers and a ruler and a, you know, all this stuff. And so instead of you going and get all those things, they go, well just buy from us. [00:43:00] OG: It’s 250 bucks and we’ll have it. On the kids’ desk day one, you don’t have to do anything. So, you know, look, I don’t know that they’re making a profit on it, but I’m sure they’re not shopping like the least expensive markers or the least expensive box of tissues. You know, you have to bring two boxes of Kleenex and five colored pencils. [00:43:16] OG: Did they even give you the either or not in our kids’ skull. No. It’s just part of the onboarding, you know, it’s like here and then Oh, oh, fall sports activity fee, $300. You know, so that’s your gym equipment, and if you play basketball or you know, whatever it is, it’s just, it’s just the added thing. And then, yeah, when there’s field trips and summer camps, my son’s in a essay writing camp this week for, for, uh, he’s gonna be a senior, so college applications start August 1st. [00:43:42] OG: So they’re, you know, the, the writing department at a school is having a essay writing camp to help with his essays and it’s, you know, whatever. It’s a couple hundred bucks. A bajillion dollars. Yeah. [00:43:52] Joe: OG takes the lead. Paula, you’ve got a chance here to send it to overtime. Ooh. Well you can go for [00:43:58] Paula: the tie on the subject of cat asthma inhalers coming from Canada. [00:44:03] Paula: Veterinary costs [00:44:05] Joe: is veterinary cost on their, the answer, it’s a little shocking. Broader than that, it’s actually pet expenses. I think she was pretty clear [00:44:15] OG: about vet expenses though. Honestly, [00:44:20] Doug: these are bribes. You have to pay to your vet to get the [00:44:24] Joe: good for your cat, or one with medical needs like a cat inhaler. [00:44:30] Joe: You need a pet fund. Vet bills can get expensive quickly. Even if you don’t have pet insurance, you don’t be cut off guard. For pet medicine or surgery. We actually had a pet that we, that we had a cat and it turned out that our cat swallowed an eraser. And when we looked at doing the surgery, my dad’s like, how are we gonna tell the kids that, uh, I love my dad telling the story. [00:44:53] Joe: Uh, how are we gonna tell the kids that the cat’s a member of the family until the cat has a medical issue? Like, is is my little sister, Nikki gonna think, well, we gotta put her down the second that things go bad. Your dad’s [00:45:04] OG: all like me, me. [00:45:09] Joe: So we have the expensive surgery. It turned out our cat ate an eraser shaped like a dog. [00:45:14] Joe: So the joke in our family was the cat ate a dog. That’s why. That’s why it needed the expense. All right, we’re going to overtime. I don’t know why she swallowed [00:45:21] OG: a dog. [00:45:21] Joe: It’s overtime here, doctor, you can sit back. Mm-Hmm. Because we have a bunch of lovely partying gifts for you, my friend. But here’s what we’re gonna do, a little bit of a speed round. [00:45:31] Joe: We have, uh, how many left on the board? I think we have 11. Right? Left on the board. We have, uh, 10 left. Paula, you’ll get first. Guess because you came behind OG last year in the first round. Then we’ll flip it if we go another round. What’s another one that’s on the list? [00:45:48] Paula: We’ve done gifts, we’ve done kid expenses. [00:45:51] Paula: We’ve done pet expenses, we’ve done medical, we’ve done car. [00:45:56] Doug: Didn’t you say this was a speed round, Joe? [00:45:57] Paula: No, [00:45:59] OG: I know. I’m thinking the same way. I’m like, thank God they picked Paula first. I’m thinking, I have no idea either. We might both have to take half a point for today. Time has [00:46:07] Doug: expired. Moving on to Doc G. [00:46:10] Doug: That’s [00:46:10] Paula: right. Doc’s got chance to get back in it. Okay. Okay. I’m, I’m gonna say fixing stuff around your home. It is fixing stuff around the [00:46:18] Joe: home. On the list, it’s number seven on the list is home maintenance cost. OG that puts you in the hot seat, my friend. Yeah. [00:46:30] OG: Yeah. Uh, okay, so, uh, pulling a Paula here. So we’ve done gifts and we’ve done auto expenses, cat inhalers, medical expenses. [00:46:44] Doug: Oh golly. [00:46:44] OG: House kids. Can’t figure out why [00:46:46] Doug: our episode was three hours long. [00:46:47] OG: Cars, does anybody have airplane expenses? No, that wouldn’t be it. Um, [00:46:53] Joe: yeah, airplane expenses. [00:46:54] OG: I mean, they’re a lot, they’re unbudgeted. I can, this one’s not gonna be on there ’cause everybody budgets it, but it’s, the only thing I got is, um, travel, you know, like vacation, unexpected travel. [00:47:06] OG: Things [00:47:06] Joe: is vacation on the list show is, oh [00:47:11] OG: my [00:47:11] Joe: gosh. It’s on the list. [00:47:12] OG: People don’t budget for their vacations. Funerals. They [00:47:15] Joe: do, but here’s the reason why it’s on the list. Is that, what’s that? Doc? [00:47:19] Doc G: Funerals. You don’t budget for funerals. People thought you gotta fly. You see ’em kind of like vacation. [00:47:23] Doc G: Funerals. A [00:47:23] Joe: vacation. What? What kind of sick vacations you taking? Wow. Doc doc’s. Like, I don’t even know the people. I just walk in. You’re, yeah. No, what the reason it’s on the list. Oh gee. And you’ve seen this before. You get to the nice place, you’re having a great time and you decide to splurge. So even if you have a vacation fund set aside, this is a place that normally the expense comes up and everybody looks and goes, no, we gotta go to see the greatest, uh, the biggest underground lake in Tennessee, which we totally did because we, we happen to be here. [00:47:54] Joe: So a vacation fund over expense, that means we go to another round. og, you’re still on the clock then. We now have eight left. [00:48:04] OG: All right. So what else haven’t we covered yet? It wasn’t taxes. That one can blow it up. Um, how about, um, like debt payments, credit card payments, interest on said credit cards. Uh, cost of borrowing. [00:48:21] OG: There we go. Cost of borrowing. All encompassing answer of cost of borrowing [00:48:26] Joe: is cost of borrowing on the list. [00:48:33] Joe: However, that’s a good one. I think, oh, gee, when people do that back of the envelope math, they always forget that payment. They always forget the extra. I remember I did when I had my credit card debt issues, I’m like, that’s so much solace. [00:48:44] OG: Thank you. But okay. [00:48:45] Joe: I’m like, I’m gonna put $500 toward this and I’ll $500 available. [00:48:48] Joe: Apparently that’s not the way it works. Paula, chance to win. I can’t believe I’m saying that out loud. Woo. [00:48:55] Paula: I’m gonna say upgrading your technology, like upgrading your phone, upgrading your laptop. [00:49:00] Joe: Phone, laptop technology. [00:49:06] Doug: That’s another good [00:49:06] Joe: one. [00:49:07] Paula: Not on the list. Paula, you get to go [00:49:08] Joe: again. [00:49:09] Paula: Okay. Spikes in utility bills that happen seasonally, so I, depending on where you live, either your air conditioning, if you’re in Florida, you’re air conditioning spikes. [00:49:19] Paula: In the summer, if you’re in, I dunno, Wisconsin, you’re heating spikes in the winter. [00:49:26] Doug: Just keep your finger on that button. Joe, [00:49:32] Joe: welcome to the 30th hour of our game show. These are all good. I wish we could talk about ’em. Might be time [00:49:39] OG: to just, uh, call to tie. [00:49:40] Doc G: I think you ask me and you let me give a shot and have them vote if they think I’m gonna get it right or wrong. And that way someone wins. [00:49:48] OG: IIII will delegate my answer to, to Doc G. [00:49:52] OG: Nope. Nope. As my proxy? Nope. [00:49:53] Joe: No, no. Next round we can go to a, uh, tiebreaker methodology. Oh. So I have to think of something? Yep. Okay. You think of something. Alright. Uh, [00:50:02] OG: so kids stuff, travel insurance, we already talked about. Um, insurance, uh, house maintenance. Does yard maintenance count as house maintenance? [00:50:12] OG: Probably. I mean, do people, do people not budget dining out? I wanna say food. Yes. You know, dining out is, it seems like a budget that it should be on. Your budget [00:50:23] Joe: is dining out on the list. Yep, [00:50:27] ?: for sure. [00:50:28] Joe: Entertainment, money, baby. That’s a, [00:50:29] ?: that’s like a budget buster [00:50:31] Joe: Entertainment. Mon overdoing that on the entertainment money. [00:50:34] Joe: Again, much like the vacation fund. You’re out, you’re having fun and you’re like, let’s just get a second round of drinks. Let’s just get the Oh Steak brother. We can get the really expensive steak entertainment overdoing it. The [00:50:48] OG: special [00:50:48] Joe: Paula forcing the tie. No, no, no, no. That was the end, I think. No, [00:50:55] OG: I think [00:50:55] Joe: that [00:50:56] OG: was not the end. [00:50:56] OG: That was the next round. We both bunked out before that. It went me and Paula got it. Paula missed it and then I got it. Did Paul miss two in a row then? Yeah, yeah. [00:51:05] Paula: Yeah. I, I missed the utilities one and I also missed technology. What did I say before? Utilities? Technology. Technology, yeah. Yeah. Upgrading your phone. [00:51:11] Paula: Mm-Hmm. Oh my God. [00:51:12] Joe: She did. That’s right. [00:51:14] Paula: Yeah. The winner is, [00:51:15] ?: can still go for a tie. Just to be nice, thank God. But no, good. I won. OG gets three points. That means the [00:51:19] Joe: winner is [00:51:23] Joe: og. Take it home. We can’t even keep track of it because we’re, we have no idea now that that other ones guests, we’re all the winner [00:51:30] Paula: can. I guess just for, uh, funsies, can I tell you what my next guess would’ve been? It wasn’t [00:51:33] Doug: fun before, but now it is. [00:51:37] Doc G: S TD clinic. [00:51:41] ?: I was gonna like hair haircuts. Oh, personal care is haircuts. [00:51:45] Doc G: Haircuts, [00:51:46] Joe: haircuts [00:51:46] Doc G: and personal care. On the list. It’s on the lists, typically haircuts. How about legal costs? I mean, you don’t always have them, but it is legal costs. [00:51:53] Doug: No, the other one’s [00:51:56] Joe: on the list. Number 15, by the way. It is just a buffer, so there truly were only 14. Clothing, overdoing it on your clothing budget. [00:52:06] Joe: Blowing out the clothing budget was one. Memberships people always forget. Oh, [00:52:10] ?: subscriptions, [00:52:11] Joe: memberships. Subscriptions. The holidays. This was always a big one. When I was a financial planner, the holidays killed [00:52:18] Doug: people. One of you said that when you were rambling through possibilities, somebody said holiday gifts. [00:52:23] Doug: Gifts and stuff. Yeah, I said gifts. [00:52:26] OG: Yeah. So speaking of subscriptions, funny story. I, I have never looked in all the years I’ve had Hulu, I’ve never looked at the receipt. Like, you get an email that says, here’s your Hulu receipt, and I was like, whatever. And, and I was deleted. And so for whatever reason, I accidentally clicked it on my, on my phone. [00:52:43] OG: And I have two Hulu subscriptions, one with ads and one without ads. Oh. So for god knows how many years I’ve been paying for two Hulu subscriptions and I can’t even tell you the last time I turned on, uh, Hulu. [00:52:57] Doug: Well, there’s a lot of good stuff on Hulu. You should. [00:53:01] Joe: No, the last time he’s turned on Hulu with ads stuff. [00:53:03] Joe: Oh, gotcha. Or without, for that matter. [00:53:05] OG: But it’s all lumped together with other things. Now you can, you get Hulu with Spotify or get it with Verizon, Disney or something. [00:53:11] Joe: Yep. [00:53:11] OG: You get it with something. [00:53:12] Joe: Next up, and this is a big one, how many times does you’ve, you’ve house guests, house guests that come to town and you end up splurging because the guests are there. [00:53:21] Joe: And then, uh, last personal spending money. That, uh, you’ve got this personal spending money, whatever it might be, that’s your thing du jour that you do. Yeah, those are it. By the way, this is written by Alison Bagley. It Inspired Budget. Big thanks to Allison for this piece. It was nice when I saw this. I went, Ooh, we’ve got a game show here. [00:53:40] Joe: So thanks to Allison game show idea and we will, uh, link to Allison’s piece here, but let’s also link to what you guys are up to. Oh gee, what’s going on this fine post weekend after Father’s Day weekend. Back to regular weekend. [00:53:53] OG: Another beautiful trip up to Michigan. Went to Michigan last weekend, Michigan this weekend, and Michigan next weekend. [00:53:59] Joe: Oh, that’s fun. That’s that. Don’t get me wrong when you get there, it’s beautiful. But that travel schedule, the trifecta. Yeah, [00:54:05] OG: we’re doing the trifecta. We’ll be up for good, uh, next week. [00:54:09] Joe: So beautiful this time of year. And if you, as they always said, in West Michigan where I lived. If you love it, shut your mouth. [00:54:17] Joe: That’s right. Tell nobody Paula, what’s going on at the Afford Anything podcast. [00:54:21] Paula: So on the Afford Anything podcast, we did a monthly economic update talking about what’s happening in the economy right now. Everything from the latest Federal Reserve meeting to the CPI to the jobs report. So did you talk about how OGs family is really propping up the economy? [00:54:36] Paula: Yes. Single handedly propping up the, uh, it’s amazing. [00:54:40] Joe: One family in Dallas. [00:54:43] Paula: So that’s all in the monthly economic update. We also have an interview with Brian class. That one is audio only. You won’t find it on YouTube. Love that guy. But if you go to Spotify or Apple Podcasts, interview with Brian Klas, who talks about basically chaos theory as it applies to real life or as it applies to events. [00:55:02] Paula: Um, so he talks about. The randomness of life and how we can plan and make decisions despite the randomness of life. And then we also have a star from the Bachelorette, Jason Tarik. He was, I think season 14 of the Bachelorette. He got like eliminated in week nine, but before he was a bachelorette star. He was a banker with an MBA and he joins us to talk about, uh, relationships and money. [00:55:30] Paula: I remember [00:55:30] Joe: him and that one you will [00:55:31] Paula: find [00:55:31] Joe: on YouTube. And he’s, is it, speaking of, we were talking about uh, maybe, um, was it today or Wednesday? Talking about handsome people. He’s a handsome dude. [00:55:38] Paula: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Very good looking dude. Very smart too. Like smart. He really, he knows finance very, very well and he knows, especially ’cause of the Bachelor, if you think about like and hair products, banker turned bachelorette. [00:55:51] Paula: It is the perfect intersection of money and relationships. Yeah, absolutely. Joe. It [00:55:55] Doug: was Wednesday show, Joe, and I said that’s how I pick my, uh, investment funds is by how hot the fund manager is. That’s [00:56:01] Joe: right. [00:56:02] Doug: If he or she is good looking, that’s the clear because people are more successful. So if there’s ever a criteria, that’s why Jason was so successful and why he’s on Paula’s show. [00:56:11] Joe: Paula, we were talking about on a Wednesday show about how somebody gave somebody advice online that you’d look at the expense ratio first, and Doug said, no. You look at how hot they are first. That is clearly the rubric. Doc, thanks for hanging out with us again, man. [00:56:27] Doc G: Yeah. Another loss at the trivia. I’ll, it’s alright. [00:56:31] Doc G: I’ll live through it. But yeah, you were only [00:56:33] Joe: 1% away when it came to the middle trivia though. You were right there, man. [00:56:36] Doc G: I know, but sometimes 1% is lethal. It’s a vast number. It compounds over time. 1% can really kill your wealth. Yeah. [00:56:46] Joe: Well, let’s talk about making people money by listening to earn and Invest. [00:56:49] Joe: What do you got? [00:56:51] Doc G: Sure we, this week we have Rose Lounsberry on talking about our book, the Achievement Addict. We talk about how achievements can serve us, but sometimes they don’t. And some people have the personality trait of being addicted to achievement and how it doesn’t always get them what they want. [00:57:06] Doc G: And then later after the show, my next episode will be Kirsten and Julian Saunders from Rich and Regular talking about, of all things FinTech, something we don’t spend. Wow. Spend a huge amount of time talking about on my show. Uh, and so we had a really good conversation about it. [00:57:19] Joe: The rich and regular team talking FinTech. [00:57:21] Joe: Yeah. Yeah. That’s pretty cool. And we’ll be in their neck of the woods for FinCon this year. We’ll be in Atlanta where they are. Yep. Which will be fun. Paula Beck and her old stomping grounds in hot Atlanta. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Should be great. And that is on the Earn and Invest Podcast. Again, we’re a finer podcast. [00:57:38] Joe: Our founder will link to earn and invest and afford anything on our show notes page at stacky Benjamins dot com. It’s time for us to say goodbye. Thanks to everybody who hung out with us on YouTube. If you wanna hang out with us on YouTube and watch this, uh, train wreck get made, we, we had so much fun making it. [00:57:54] Joe: Come join us and say hello. You can find out the time and day. In our Facebook group, which is called Mom’s Basement, just put in Stacking Benjamins basement and you’ll find us and, uh, come join us on YouTube. Thanks to everybody who’s here. Alright, that’s gonna do it for today, Doug. You got it from here, man. [00:58:11] Joe: What, uh, what’s on our to-do list to take away from today’s episode? [00:58:14] Doug: Well, Joe, here’s what’s stacked up on our to-do list for today. First, take some advice from the concept of today’s game show. By knowing what can knock you off your budget. You’re more likely to include these items so that when bad times come a knocking your budget doesn’t start a rocking. [00:58:31] Doug: I just made that up on the spot. High five, high five. Second, don’t forget about making a budget in the first place. Sure, you might forget a few items, but the important thing is to get started on understanding what your monthly spending is. But the big lesson. Don’t bother asking Joe’s mom to match your inheritance from her to Joe’s inheritance to him. [00:58:54] Doug: I mean, apparently being like a son and being a son come with completely different benefits. What a double standard ma. Thanks to Doc G for joining us today. You’ll find our partner show, earn and Invest wherever you are listening to us now. We’ll include links in our show notes at Stacking Benjamins dot com. [00:59:15] Doug: Thanks to Paula Pam for hanging out with us today. You’ll find out more about her cat’s inhaler and other feline maladies on her fabulous podcast, afford Anything featuring our own. Joe, Saul-Sehy. Once a week, wherever you listen to finer podcasts. I’m wheezing just thinking about that. Thanks also to Alison Bagley who wrote the piece that inspired today’s chat. [00:59:36] Doug: You’ll find more pieces about your budget@inspiredbudget.com. And finally, thanks to OG for joining us today. Looking for good financial planning help. Head to Stacking Benjamins dot com slash OG for his calendar. This show is the property of SB podcasts LC copyright 2024, and is created by Joe Saul Sea High. [00:59:58] Doug: 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. 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. [01:00:20] Doug: This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I’m Joe’s Mom’s Neighbor, Duggan. We’ll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show.
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