Collaboration is celebrated everywhere else. Musicians collaborate. Athletes have training partners. Businesses merge their best ideas together. But mention teaming up on your finances, and suddenly it sounds suspicious, like you’re doing something wrong. Joe sits down with Paula Pant, Jesse Cramer, and OG to ask why personal finance is the one area where going it alone gets treated as a virtue, and what exactly gets left on the table when nobody’s allowed to help.
What You’ll Walk Away With
- Why financial blind spots are nearly impossible to see on your own, no matter how much you already know
- A real story about a stranger who handed over his entire real estate renovation system, no strings attached, simply because that’s how a good community works
- Specific, practical answers for who to actually collaborate with on earning more, spending less, saving more, and investing better
- Why “the best collaborator” is sometimes the person most willing to tell you you’re wrong
- A surprisingly effective incentive system for getting family members genuinely invested in cutting shared expenses
- Why competitors can make some of the most valuable collaborators of all, if you’re willing to see them that way
Why This Matters Now
There’s a quiet assumption in a lot of financial advice that asking for help is a sign of weakness, that a truly capable person should be able to figure it all out solo. But nobody expects a musician, an athlete, or a business to succeed in total isolation, and money isn’t actually any different. The people who make the fastest progress usually aren’t the ones with the most willpower. They’re the ones surrounded by others willing to share a system, question an assumption, or simply say “that seems like a lot of money for fish.”
From the Basement
A fiercely competitive year-long trivia race gets even tighter with a question about the Volkswagen Beetle’s original 1949 price tag, complete with a brand-new (and delightfully cheap) trophy that finally dethrones the old one.
Resources Mentioned
Stacking Benjamins on OG’s calendar — for financial planning help
Afford Anything podcast — Paula Pant’s show, referenced episode featuring 9/11 survivor Michael Hingson
Personal Finance for Long-Term Investors podcast — Jesse Cramer’s show
Our Topic: Why Collaboration Can Improve Your Finances
Wait! Is Gap cool again? Its collab mastermind reveals his strategy behind the brand’s big comeback (Fast Company)
During our conversation, you’ll hear us mention:
- Financial collaboration
- Gap’s comeback
- DIY finances
- Money privacy
- Financial blind spots
- Outside expertise
- Budget feedback
- James Clear
- Second-order effects
- Roth vs. traditional
- Real estate investing
- Investor communities
- Career transitions
- Entrepreneurship risk
- Salary transparency
- Earning more
- Employer collaboration
- Client feedback
- Competitor collaboration
- Financial coaching
- Spending less
- Family budgeting
- Food waste
- Subscription cleanup
- College cost incentives
- Online communities
- AI spending analysis
- Professional budget reviews
- Increasing savings
- Accountability partners
- Investing together
- Challenging assumptions
- Choosing collaborators
Our Contributors
A big thanks to our contributors! You can check out more links for our guests below.
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
OG
For more on OG and his firm’s page, click here.
Doug’s Game Show Trivia
- When the Volkswagen Beetle first went on sale in the United States in 1949, how much did a brand-new one cost?
Join Us on Monday!
Tune in on Monday when we ask how little it really takes to retire comfortably and what challenges come with retiring on $500,000, $750,000, or $1 million.
Miss our last show? Check it out here: Todd Havens: Why Most People Don’t Have a Money Problem, They Have a Thinking Problem SB1895 | Stacking Benjamins.
Written by: Kevin Bailey
Episode transcript
[00:00:00] opener: At some point far in the future, historians will probably ask, “What was daily life like in the early 21st century?” Well, one thing we know for sure, nobody will ever point to these two clowns and say, “This was how you should have been Stacking Benjamins.”
[00:00:24] Doug: Live from the basement of the YouTube headquarters, it’s The Stacking Benjamins Show
[00:00:39] Doug: I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and on today’s show, if your boss tells you you’re a great collaborator, that’s a win, right? And if you work together on projects in your community or with your family, that’s also a win. So how come it’s so frowned upon with your money? Today we’ll talk collaboration and your cash.
[00:00:58] Doug: What are you losing by keeping your financial controls to yourself? But that’s not all. I’ll take the controls halfway through today’s show. Oh, thank goodness there’s an adult in the room. Am I right? And we’ll see who’s scoring a point in our year-long trivia contest. And now, a guy who just flew in from Minneapolis, and boy, are his arms tired, it’s Joe Saul-Sehy.
[00:01:28] Joe: Hey there, Stackers, and yes, I am just back from Minneapolis and Camp Fi. Had a great time. Got a little bit of a scratchy voice. But the good news is I’ve got some great contributors hanging out here with me. First of all, the guy across the card table from me, Mr. OG, is here. How are you, man?
[00:01:45] OG: Happy to be here.
[00:01:46] OG: Thanks for having me, Joe.
[00:01:47] Joe: It is good. First time caller, longtime fan, I know. Mm-hmm. So glad you could be a part of this. Uh, you and I have had a collab that some would say has worked on and off for maybe a few years.
[00:02:00] OG: Oh, uh, yeah. Yeah, it’s worked out really well for you.
[00:02:05] Joe: I pinch myself every day. And another one of my collaborators in, uh, Manhattan.
[00:02:12] Joe: I get to collaborate with her on the Afford Anything show, Paula Pant is here. How are you?
[00:02:16] Paula: I am great, and those are fun shows, the Q&A episodes.
[00:02:19] Joe: Those are fun shows, and I’m sure you pinch yourself that I’m on your show as much as I pinch myself about getting to work with OG, I’m sure, Paula.
[00:02:27] Paula: Constantly.
[00:02:29] Paula: Pinch.
[00:02:29] Joe: And the guy who we’re all pinching ourselves because we get to work with him nearly every Friday, from Personal Finance for Long-Term Investors, Mr. Jesse Cramer’s here. How are you, man?
[00:02:39] Jesse: This is a pinch-friendly environment. They’re… We’re very pinchy here. What’s going on with all this pinching? I,
[00:02:45] Joe: I don’t know.
[00:02:46] Joe: It’s a little creepy- Yeah … isn’t it? It’s not good.
[00:02:48] Jesse: I don’t know if it’s creepy. It’s just pinchy. It’s very pinchy.
[00:02:50] Joe: Collaboration, though, is a lot of fun, isn’t it, Jesse? I mean, I’ve, I’ve had so much fun.
[00:02:54] Jesse: Speaking of pinching.
[00:02:56] Joe: Yes.
[00:02:57] Jesse: Collaboration. It is fun. It is
[00:03:00] Joe: fun. I’ve had so much fun working with all you guys.
[00:03:03] Joe: And what’s interesting is, is that I was reading this piece in Fast Company. This is where this came from. It was about the Gap. You guys remember this, this company, the Gap? And the Gap went through this valley of death, where it got to this point a couple years ago where it wasn’t an outcast brand. I loved what one media outlet said.
[00:03:24] Joe: They weren’t an outcast brand, it was just that nobody cared anymore. It, it wasn’t negative, it wasn’t positive, just nobody cared. This piece in Fast Company was how Gap got brand new leadership. They actually brought in the CEO who brought back Barbie. They did all these interesting things. They brought back the same way they brought Barbie back.
[00:03:44] Joe: With Barbie, as you know if you saw the Barbie movie, they collaborated with some of the best people who make movies, the best… some of the… one of the best directors in Hollywood, some of the best actors, the best people, and they made a movie that was up for an Oscar. When it came to other collabs, Barbie collabed her way back into the zeitgeist, and now the Gap, according to Fast Company, it has been the same.
[00:04:11] Joe: And it just struck me that collaboration, as Doug, you said earlier, it’s celebrated every place. Like, businesses collaborate, scientists collaborate, musicians collaborate, athletes have training partners, right? If work, Doug you said this, if somebody says you’re a great collaborator, that’s, like, a huge compliment if everybody wants to work with you, but then we get to personal finance and suddenly it’s whoa, whoa, whoa, you can do this by yourself.
[00:04:37] Joe: Figure it out, and for God’s sake, don’t pay anybody, right? I, I mean, forget about asking friends, neighbors, whatever. If you pay somebody, that’s horrible. So I started wondering, why is collaboration a strength everywhere else but treated like a weakness with money, and what are we missing out on? So that’s the topic today.
[00:04:55] Joe: We’re gonna ask Jesse, Paula, and OG their thoughts on this. But first, we have a couple sponsors who help us give this to you for the premium price of, wait for it, zero. Oh my goodness, are you sitting down? We’re gonna hear from them right now, and then we’re gonna talk about collaboration and your wallet
[00:05:24] Joe: I like the YouTube name of this, uh, Using Somebody Else’s Brains to Get Rich, How to Get Rich With Other People’s Brains, which really is I think what collaboration is because everybody is lifting each other up and getting ahead. Paula Pant, is there a financial cost to this obsession we have in personal finance of doing it yourself?
[00:05:43] Paula: There is, yes. There’s a few reasons behind it. Number one, money is often kept private. People don’t like discussing money. Even inside of their own household with their own family members, people often don’t like talking about money and are more comfortable talking about other, other salacious subjects before they would discuss money.
[00:06:03] Paula: But to your question, what are we missing, just like every example that you listed, like if an athlete didn’t have a training partner, they might not train as hard or reach their full athletic potential. If a musician didn’t collaborate with another musician, they might not cross audiences and, and might not be discovered by as many people.
[00:06:23] Paula: And so in that same way, like if you’re not collaborating with other people on all of the questions of personal finance and, and financial planning and financial management, you have unknown unknowns. You have blind spots, and in general, you’re not progressing to the maximum of what you could be doing.
[00:06:41] Joe: I had this class on short story writing, Jesse, in my junior year of college, and what we did was s- you would bring your story, and you’d share it with the class.
[00:06:53] Joe: Somebody else would have to read it out loud, not you, because you would give inflection. They wanted it as written. Like if, if OG was gonna read the story and Paula wrote it, he’s just gonna read what’s on the page, not what Paula intended, right? And so it was really interesting because we all got better by giving each other feedback and by hearing our own work being discussed by other people.
[00:07:17] Joe: Imagine, Jesse, what would happen if we did that with each other’s budgets. Like how good would your budget be if we had to discuss it in a group setting?
[00:07:26] Jesse: Yeah, my mom was a English teacher, so as you’re telling this story, Joe, about your, your short story, your writing class, I think like, now what if we approach the, uh, you know, the English language just like DIY it?
[00:07:36] Jesse: Just, you know. And it is… It’s kind of funny ’cause you’re like, well, if you read a bunch of well-written books and you choose to expose yourself to smarter people who speak the language really well, like I suppose you could, you know, through osmosis get a pretty good grasp of the English language. But I was listening a couple days ago, Joe, to an interview with James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, and he was- Not
[00:08:00] Joe: familiar with that guy.
[00:08:01] Jesse: Right? No
[00:08:01] Joe: idea.
[00:08:02] Jesse: How about this? Here’s a crazy stat, and then I’ll bring it back. Atomic Habits is like the somewhere like it’s about the 75th best-selling book of all time. It’s currently getting beat by books like the Bible and Harry Potter. It’s 75- Never heard of those either … one of the amazing book, best-selling book.
[00:08:16] Jesse: Uh, but he was talking about how for many years James Clear wrote all of his own blog posts himself, just a one-man band But then for the book, especially for the editing process, there was like eight full-time professionals who did nothing but help him finalize and edit and rethink some of the chapters for like a two-month period of time.
[00:08:36] Jesse: And he talked about how much of a better end product it was because of that outside expertise, the fresh set of eyes. You can’t see the picture if you’re standing inside the frame. You gotta believe that something similar applies to us and our finances, ’cause it is, it can be such an emotional topic and, and not to mention there are some difficult objective parts about financial planning.
[00:08:55] Jesse: So I would think that outside help collaboration can only be a positive thing.
[00:09:00] Joe: I’m only, I’m only laughing because I had that same team. So James Clear’s editing team was my, was, was, was my editing team. Scoreboard. Uh, w- well, it would be scoreboard if mine was the ninth most read book of all time, or 25th, heck, 25,000th most, most read book.
[00:09:21] OG: You’re probably in the top half, Joe.
[00:09:23] Joe: While you’re cracking some funnies, OG, you know, we talked about avoiding mistakes, but what opportunities are you missing out by not having somebody look at your work or collaborating with other people?
[00:09:34] OG: I was just thinking about your chat about like having somebody go through your budget, like oh my goodness.
[00:09:40] OG: But you know, it’s personal, so what I spend my money on is maybe different than what you guys do. Doesn’t make mine right or wrong. Um, when I think about financial planning or all the ancillary things that come off of financial planning, I, I think that the biggest thing that we can do for clients is help them identify the second and third order effects of decisions.
[00:10:03] OG: That just comes through practice and, you know, s- some skill and understanding of how all those different areas of the financial planning world work together. So if you’re only looking at one particular thing, and you don’t have the skill set or you don’t have the expertise or you don’t have the resource group, people, whatever, to help explore those other things, you’re obviously gonna be leaving money on the table.
[00:10:25] OG: Or just like a perfect example is, you know, somebody who says, “Oh, I heard somebody say that a Roth 401is better than a traditional one, so I should do that.” Maybe they’re maxing out their 401s, so you got 24,000 bucks that’s going into pre-tax. All of a sudden you got two people that are doing th- you know, basically $50,000 that’s into the Roth.
[00:10:44] OG: Sounds great, except now all of a sudden there’s a, what, 12, 16, $20,000 tax bill that’s due because of that decision. That doesn’t make it a wrong decision, but not knowing that that’s coming or not understanding that that is gonna have some secondary effects, I think is a big miss. So I think even, even for us, like Jesse and I in particular, like are in this 24/7, 365, there’s still stuff that you just go, “Wait a second.
[00:11:13] OG: There’s something here I need to ask about.” You know, try to find somebody that has a little bit better special- skill set specialization in that one particular thing.
[00:11:21] Joe: It is so exciting when a different set of eyes comes to any problem. I remember, Paula, you and I at a breakfast that you don’t remember in New Orleans-
[00:11:30] Joe: that changed the course of this podcast when you decided that we were all gonna be called Stackers.
[00:11:35] Paula: Yeah.
[00:11:36] Joe: When you’re like, “Hey, we should call everybody Stackers,” and, and Paula’s like, “Wow, I did that? I do not remember that.”
[00:11:43] Paula: Based on what you’ve told me, I think I remember parts of the conversation. The reason that that was such a helpful conversation is what was happening in the moment was that you were getting, you were getting lots of advice from a lot of different voices, but those voices were giving you generalized advice that wasn’t necessarily a fit for you.
[00:12:02] Paula: And so at that particular point in time, there was a lot of, of push towards, like designing a, a brand that was really for the algorithm and for- A funnel. A funnel … yeah, it was like a funnel, like-
[00:12:18] Joe: Ugh …
[00:12:19] Paula: something that was v- really funnel-based and systematized and algorithm-driven. And I was like, “Joe, that’s not what you’re building.
[00:12:26] Paula: What you’re building is a community. You know, you’re building the Stacking Benjamins community,” and, and-
[00:12:31] Joe: I think you called it like a rock and roll brand.
[00:12:33] Paula: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And that, and that’s a very different thing than building like some algorithm-driven funnel, you know? And so, and that’s where the whole concept of, you know what, call them Stackers.
[00:12:43] Joe: And have it be somebody that knows you, though, somebody that knows the brand, knows who you are. Yeah. Instead of this… You know, Jesse was talking about, um, you know, you can read books, uh, and get access now to some of the greatest minds. You can watch their TikTok videos, but just still to be able to have that back and forth with people is huge.
[00:13:00] Joe: I’m gonna stick with you for a second, Paula. What is one money win from your own life that wouldn’t have happened without somebody else?
[00:13:08] Paula: When I started investing in real estate, there were a handful of people that I met who were just tremendously helpful. So one is Jay Scott. He actually doesn’t do… to my knowledge, doesn’t do rental properties.
[00:13:21] Paula: He’s a flipper, so he flips houses, residential construction. Uh, we were both in the Atlanta area. He would take me on a tour through something that he was renovating as a flip, and he was really instrumental in teaching me how systematized it all needed to be, you know? And he had, like, these inventory sheets, his specs, where he would walk through his house and be like, “All right.
[00:13:46] Paula: I need two of those, two of those, three of those, one of those, two of those, one of those, three of those.” His inventory sheet was, like, um, manufacturer, description, SKU code, you know. So all he would have to do is fill in the quantity, and that was it, and then he was done. And he actually gave me some of his sheets.
[00:14:05] OG: Wow.
[00:14:05] Paula: That is just such an incredible level of, like, “Here. Here is this system that I have developed. Have it. Just take it.”
[00:14:14] Joe: That’s incredible, and I wanna put a pin in this, ’cause I wanna come back to it later, but I love the fact that he was in a related field but not the same field. Right. I feel like often we think we gotta go to somebody who’s doing exactly what we’re doing, and in this case, it wasn’t somebody doing exactly what you’re doing.
[00:14:27] Joe: OG, how about for you? What’s a financial win that wouldn’t have happened or happened as quickly without another person?
[00:14:34] OG: Well, I mean, I can just point to the whole Stacking Benjamins community and the Stacking Benjamins show. I mean, you and I have had obviously a lot of years doing this, but before that, I don’t even know what kicked off the fact that we got to know each other.
[00:14:51] OG: And you look at that domino effect of, you know, what’s happened in, at least I can speak for myself, in my business and my life and my relationship with other people that are because of the fact that we knew each other or because we got introduced to what… You know, like however that started in, like, 2003 or whatever.
[00:15:13] OG: It’s really wild to think about all of the things that had to cl- had to come to fruition at the exact right moment for all of those dominoes to fall. I just read an article, completely unrelated, but I just read an article about, like, people who are choosing to not have, either purposefully or for whatever reason, not having children, and there’s a lot of emotion that goes with that obviously.
[00:15:35] OG: Like it said, like, think about all the, all the, like, sequence of events that had to have happened for you to get to this spot. Like, how many generations and generations and generations of, like, you didn’t get botulism, you know? Right. Like, that great, great, great, great, great-grandpa didn’t die in that war, you know, or whatever.
[00:15:55] OG: Like, like, how many things- Or remember- … had to transpire. It’s just, it’s mesmerizing … remember we had Mary
[00:15:58] Joe: Kate, General Mary Kate Eater on the show. Yeah. Remember her? Mm-hmm, yeah. And because her grandmother, or, uh, it wasn’t her, it was one of the women who was up for an Emmy gave a speech, where her grandmother was going to be shot and killed by the Nazis, and because her grandmother stepped out of line and ran for the woods, she actually was up there giving a speech.
[00:16:18] Joe: Had her grandmother not done that, she would have never… Yeah.
[00:16:21] OG: Yeah. I mean, just, uh, y- you never know what’s happening, like, why people are where they are. You know, I mean, I just got done doing another bike race a couple of weeks ago, and the only reason I even thought about doing that was because of a relationship that I had through flying.
[00:16:41] OG: How does flying have anything to do with cycling?
[00:16:44] Joe: Bicycles, yeah, yeah. It’s weird. It’s so wild. Jesse, how about you? What’s a money win from your life that wouldn’t have happened or wouldn’t have happened as quickly?
[00:16:52] Jesse: Yeah. I mean, first I was thinking about this story, this anecdote comes to mind. About 23,000 years ago, Ug Ug-
[00:16:59] Jesse: uh, collaborated with this wooden club to kill a saber-toothed tiger, and if not for that, I wouldn’t be here. So we’re going b- you know. OG’s great-great-grandfather collabed with penicillin and, and that’s why OG’s here. And, uh, so anyway, shout out to Ug Ug.
[00:17:21] Jesse: Sorry, a little facetious
[00:17:22] OG: I’m trying to take it s- be serious, Jesse And that is about- Wow … as deep as I could get, by the way, of, of gratefulness.
[00:17:30] Joe: OG has one I love you sincere moment, and Jesse just makes sure- Yes … he will- And Jesse’s like … he will never hear it again on the show. Oh,
[00:17:37] OG: yeah? Well, I remember this one time my grandpa told me this story about a saber-tooth tiger.
[00:17:43] Jesse: I will say the… No, okay, being serious, the, the ripple effect, I mean, yeah, I think if more of us paused a little more often to think about the, the ripple effect, the butterfly effect into our past, and just like you said, OG, whether it’s just the relationships you formed in your own life and, and the cascading effects of where they’ve gotten you, or, I mean, I’m sure we all have some pretty interesting stories of what our ancestors did or didn’t do that led us to where we are today.
[00:18:09] Jesse: But some collaborations that I think of would be like, when I was first kind of learning the ropes early, early on, what was I doing? I was, I was reading, uh, websites, like the Afford Anything website, and I was tuning into podcasts, like this one. A- and so I, I just remember thinking like, “Well, there’s some pretty good content out there of experts who are doing stuff and, and educating the public.
[00:18:30] Jesse: Let me go…” Th- that was kind of my collaboration, right? It was the one-sided collaboration that maybe some of our audience members right now feel like they are participating in, and that was really helpful and, and influential for me.
[00:18:41] Joe: I still don’t think of that as a collab, though. I really think it takes the next step, Jesse.
[00:18:45] Jesse: Maybe. Maybe.
[00:18:46] Joe: I mean, that’s an influence.
[00:18:48] Jesse: Yeah.
[00:18:48] Joe: I think that’s a great influence, but I don’t think that it’s a collab. Is there somebody along the way who said, “Hey, d- hey, d- you know…” W- well, okay, so let me ask you one very personal question then.
[00:18:58] Jesse: Mm-hmm.
[00:18:59] Joe: You went from engineering to financial planning.
[00:19:02] Jesse: Yeah.
[00:19:02] Joe: Was there somebody that you collaborated with who… ‘Cause that was a huge money change in your life. Yeah.
[00:19:09] Jesse: Sure. I’ll… A quick 30-second anecdote. Shout out to Dave. I’ve told this story a few different times on a few different podcasts, but he wasn’t a finance guy. He was just a guy I went to college with who, after grad school, he could have gotten like a pretty highfalutin engineering job, but instead, he decided to start his own company, like from scratch, and it ended up being a wild success for him.
[00:19:29] Jesse: I asked him, I was like, “Hey, how did you think about the risk of like not going and getting a corporate job and instead diving into entrepreneurship?” And he was like, “Well, if the entrepreneurship fails, I still have my master’s degree in biomedical engineering, and a bunch of places are gonna hire me.” I was like, “Oh, that makes a lot of sense,” that his downside risk wasn’t really that bad, and that thought process is exactly what I leaned on and, and helped me leave my engineering job and become a financial planner.
[00:19:54] Jesse: ‘Cause if I fail at being a financial planner, it still could happen. I think I can go back and get a job as an aerospace engineer and be okay. Is that an okay collab?
[00:20:04] Joe: Yeah, it still isn’t 100% a collab because of the fact- Okay … that it, I mean, you asked his opinion, he influenced you, but he, uh- Yeah … there was really nothing in it for him.
[00:20:12] Joe: I mean, as an example, let’s shift to Paula for a second. Paula, what was in it for him to give you that tour? Mm-hmm. Why would he give you that tour? How does he win in that collab?
[00:20:23] Paula: So that was part of a broader community of people, Atlanta real estate investors, who would all meet up and tour one another’s homes.
[00:20:33] Joe: Oh, cool
[00:20:34] Paula: As a group, not necessarily in the one-to-one context, but as a collective, everyone would routinely meet up and discuss issues related to real estate investing, and then we would always meet up usually in the middle of a renovation. They would do a walkthrough, and we would see like, “Oh, cool. We’re, we’re standing on subfloor right now.”
[00:20:55] Paula: So we just got the benefit of like seeing example after example after example across different neighborhoods throughout the Atlanta area, and then just talking broadly to like a whole community of investors.
[00:21:07] Joe: He’s sharing his expertise. He knows you’re gonna share yours. Somebody else is gonna share theirs, so there’s this-
[00:21:13] Paula: Yeah
[00:21:13] Joe: there’s this back and forth. By the way, a lot of collabs, Jesse, as you brought up, often start with just somebody who helps influence a decision. If it’s somebody who shared what they earned. I remember Bola Sokunbi on the show talking about how when somebody, a coworker, told her how much they were earning versus how much she was earning doing the exact same job, like that was huge influence.
[00:21:34] Joe: Maybe not a complete collab, but the person had to be open to do it. Somebody who recommended a job, showed you a better way to invest, introduced you to somebody, uh, split an expense, challenged their spending. I know as creators, we try to introduce people to people that we think might be good guests on our show or people that might be good people to know in the business of podcasting.
[00:21:56] Joe: All kinds of good stuff. Let’s do this. I’d like to throw out a few different financial goals, and what I’d like to do is ask you guys what type of person would you collaborate with to make this easier? Think about our average stacker. Like, you know, it could be, oh, you know, I talk to my friends about this, talk to my neighbor, talk to my coworker, talk to my cousin, talk to people in different industries, somebody 20 years older than me, younger than me, whoever it might be.
[00:22:25] Joe: Let’s walk through a few of these. OG, if we wanted to earn, if you wanted to earn $20,000 more next year, and you’re the average person listening to this, who’s a good likely person to collaborate with on that?
[00:22:39] OG: Oh, um, oof, off the top of my head, I would say probably the person that employs you. If you’re self-employed, maybe your top five clients, your top five customers.
[00:22:52] OG: Find out, you know, what really moves the needle for them. I think a lot of it boils down to can you create a lot of value for somebody or some other thing to get what you need out of it? So if you want a $20,000 raise, say, you know, you work for regular company, then you gotta put in the work. So who best to ask for what work do you have to do than the person who’s in charge of your day-to-day, uh, work life stuff?
[00:23:15] OG: Okay. Say, “Hey, this is what I’d like to do. How do I get it done? What do you have to see from me to make this happen?”
[00:23:21] Joe: All right, Paula G, check the boss box off. Mm-hmm. Or the your top client box if you’re self-employed. Who else do we collaborate with?
[00:23:28] Paula: So I would, uh, actually, this is a conversation that I’m having with someone right now, but I’ve been talking to someone about us doing a joint workshop together.
[00:23:38] Paula: This person is also in the personal finance space but has more of an investing focus, like more of a markets investing focus. It would be a true collaboration where I, I bring my audience. He brings his knowledge. You know, we cross-pollinate audiences. The focus would be much more on, like, more markets investing, which is not…
[00:23:59] Paula: Like, I’m, I’m stronger on real estate, and I’m more of an index fund person. He’s much better at, like, stock analysis, and so it would be that.
[00:24:08] Joe: So somebody who has similar skills but not the same. Right. Like, you’re looking at your skill set and looking at how can I, uh, supplement those to earn more money?
[00:24:18] Paula: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And it’s, it’s like you could refer to this person as, quote-unquote, “a competitor,” but why not just turn your competitors into your collaborators?
[00:24:26] Joe: Well, and especially if they have a focus that’s a little different than yours.
[00:24:29] Paula: Right.
[00:24:29] Joe: I think that makes both of it… It brings something to his audience.
[00:24:33] Joe: Right. It brings something to your audience that are way different.
[00:24:35] Paula: Exactly.
[00:24:36] Joe: All right. So we took, uh, your biggest competitors off, Jesse. I saved the hardest one for you.
[00:24:44] Jesse: How about a coach of some sort? Is, would that be a collaboration or is that not a… I’m not sure.
[00:24:51] Joe: It could be, like a coach on what do I need to do to make more money.
[00:24:54] Jesse: Correct, ’cause what I’m thinking… And, and not n- not necessarily a money coach. I guess I’m thinking from my point of view, which is like, I feel like I have certain strengths. I also feel like I have some weaknesses, and sometimes from a business point of view, it’s like, okay, do I double down on my strengths, or are some of my weaknesses actually these, like, bottlenecks that no matter how strong my strengths are, that bottleneck is always gonna choke down my capacity?
[00:25:18] Jesse: I could see myself kind of, uh, uh, maybe collaborating with someone who can be that outside expert to help me through that, and I think that would potentially unlock some earning potential that right now I, I haven’t tapped into.
[00:25:31] Joe: Yeah, I love how it, it took you being the third person to get to a person that we pay, but I think this is an important person that we could pay because we can get in the right room with the exact right person who maybe knows us, knows the marketplace, and you already know based on the results they’ve had for other people whether they’re gonna work or not.
[00:25:52] Joe: That’s a pretty powerful thing. We’re gonna continue this. Who would you collaborate with on some other areas, such as if you want to save more money, if you want to invest better, if you want to maybe cut back on your spending? We’ll talk about things like that in the second half of today’s show. But at the halfway point of our Friday episodes, we have a year-long trivia competition, and it is heating up now, and, uh, let’s take a quick look at the scoreboard.
[00:26:20] Joe: It appears that it’s getting much closer. OG has 10, Jesse has eight, and this must be a typo, but I think Paula has seven. Is, is Paula one point out of second place?
[00:26:31] Paula: Wow.
[00:26:33] Joe: And is Paula only three points out of first?
[00:26:35] Paula: Incredible.
[00:26:37] Joe: What is going on here? OG started off the year hot, but Jesse and Paula have been reeling him in.
[00:26:43] Joe: So let’s see what’s… Paula?
[00:26:46] Paula: I, I was gonna say, have we unveiled the, uh, trophy?
[00:26:50] Joe: We have… We have… I totally for- it’s in the other room. It’s
[00:26:53] OG: still right here. Yeah.
[00:26:54] Joe: Oh, no, no. Paula has a different one now. It
[00:26:56] OG: just has Jesse’s name on it. Right. Where’s my
[00:26:58] Jesse: trophy?
[00:26:59] OG: It’s right
[00:26:59] Joe: here, buddy. You can see very clear. If you’re with us on YouTube, can you hold it close to the camera so you can see how clearly it says Jesse?
[00:27:05] OG: It just said OG in, like, permanent ink. It was hard to write over it, but it says Jessie
[00:27:10] Joe: Yes. One, one, one Paula Pant submitted a new trophy- Ooh. Which in some ways is better, in some ways is worse. It is in a lot of ways dumber, which is perfect. Which is absolutely perfect. I gotta remember to do that next week.
[00:27:26] Joe: I am so sorry that’s in the- … that’s in the other room. I didn’t think about it. And, and I’ve been sitting on it for how long, Paula? Like three months? Something like that, yeah. Yes, yes. We do have a new trophy this year, which makes this even more epic, but we can’t have an epic year-long competition that’s heating up without a question.
[00:27:43] Joe: Doug, what do you got?
[00:27:48] Doug: Stackers, I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. And on this day in 1963, a little band from Liverpool, England, called The Beatles released their very first album, Please Please Me. You may have heard of it. 14 songs that helped launch one of the biggest bands in music history. And because I’m a highly trained trivia professional…
[00:28:09] Doug: I can’t even say it. I am a highly trained trivia professional, I’ve spent literally minutes searching for a smooth transition from Beatles to Beetles. Couldn’t find one, so let’s talk Volkswagens. 14 years before John, Paul, George, and Ringo started the British Invasion, a funny little German car had already begun its own invasion of America.
[00:28:33] Doug: In 1949, the first Volkswagen Type 1S, what we’d eventually know as the Beetle, went on sale in the United States, and America responded by buying, well, almost none of them. We’ll get to just how few in a minute, but Volkswagen was trying to sell Americans a tiny, 25-horsepower German car at a time when Detroit’s basic design philosophy was like, “What if the hood were the size of a regulation pickleball court?”
[00:29:02] Doug: So here’s today’s question. When the Volkswagen Beetle first went on sale in the United States in 1949, how much did a brand-new one cost? I’ll be back right after I ask Ringo if he knows how to change a fan belt.
[00:29:18] Joe: OG, you are first. We’re going back to 1949. The Volkswagen Beetle arrives on the shores of America.
[00:29:25] OG: Just to clarify, you said that their goal was to… It was less than the normal car? Is that what… What was said?
[00:29:33] Joe: Their goal was to sell a car that was a 25-horsepower car to an American public that had Detroit-
[00:29:40] OG: Yeah …
[00:29:41] Joe: more steel, more car- I thought you said
[00:29:42] OG: something about it being less expensive than a normal car.
[00:29:44] OG: Okay.
[00:29:45] Joe: Yes. No, no, no. Their goal was to make it inexpensive. Absolutely, 100%.
[00:29:49] OG: I see. Okay. You… So, so that was read in the question?
[00:29:53] Joe: I do not know, but I will give you that.
[00:29:55] OG: Oh, oh. I, I was kind of listening to Doug. Sometimes I listen. Sometimes I just kinda tune out the whole storyline until I get to the question.
[00:30:05] OG: Okay, so 1949, Volkswagen Bug. I mean, it doesn’t matter what I pick because unless I hit it right on the number, somebody’s gonna F me over I’m gonna say they wanted to sell it for $1,199. 1,199-
[00:30:27] Joe: No,
[00:30:27] OG: I’m gonna change my mind. I’m gonna make that $999.
[00:30:31] Joe: 1,999.
[00:30:32] OG: No, no, just 999.
[00:30:34] Joe: Just 999. A three-digit number.
[00:30:37] OG: Yep. All
[00:30:38] Joe: right.
[00:30:40] Joe: Jesse Cramer.
[00:30:42] OG: Okay, you- this isn’t hard, guys. 1,998. Let’s go.
[00:30:46] Jesse: No.
[00:30:47] OG: So
[00:30:47] Jesse: That’s not fun. That’s not fun. I was doing some inflation math in my head trying to think, you know, what it… So for 1949 till today, 77 years, pick up inflation rate, use rule of 72 to figure out how many times. So I’m gonna say inflation, I’m gonna say it was like a 12X, 12X factor from then till now.
[00:31:11] Jesse: Does that sound right? So a gallon of milk, instead of being $4 was 30 cents maybe. And if a Volkswagen today, maybe a new one costs 18… I’ll go with, uh, $1,400.
[00:31:23] Joe: $1,400.
[00:31:25] Jesse: Yep.
[00:31:26] Joe: Look at Jesse playing nice. Yeah. Paula Pant, you’re not nice. Come on.
[00:31:31] Paula: Oh, dear. Now I have some choices to make.
[00:31:35] Joe: Oh, wait a minute. Let me guess what the choices are.
[00:31:39] Paula: I mean, the first choice is do I play inside of that zone, or do I take the upper or lower bounds? And if I do play inside of that zone, do I play squarely in the middle, or do I hug a corner? It’s a lot of, lot of choices here. And I’m historically not that good with that. Hmm.
[00:32:03] Paula: Jesse, your answer was what, 1,400?
[00:32:06] Jesse: Yeah, 1-4-0-0.
[00:32:08] Paula: I’m gonna go 1,399.
[00:32:11] Joe: Ooh. There she goes, taking the middle, 1,399. We got 999, 1,400, 1,399. Who’s right? We’re gonna find out in just a moment. We’ll be right back. All right, OG, you opened at 999 expecting the 998 and, uh, 1,000 onslaught, but instead your competitors decided, Paula decided to go after your competitor.
[00:32:36] Joe: You feeling good?
[00:32:37] OG: Uh, no, I’m not feeling good.
[00:32:39] Joe: Jesse, you still have everything over 1,400. You feeling good?
[00:32:44] Jesse: My very initial guess before OG said anything was 800 bucks. But once he went low to 1,000, I, I didn’t feel like kind of limiting my window of opportunity, so that’s why I went high. So I don’t know how to feel.
[00:32:59] Joe: Paula?
[00:33:00] Paula: Well, I don’t know, 1,400 seems a little high, especially if they wanted it to be an inexpensive car. But I also have a fairly narrow band, so I don’t know. I, I’ve mixed feelings.
[00:33:16] Joe: Well, let’s see if Paula’s gonna get a point. Is she going to move into a tie for second? Is Jesse gonna move one closer to OG?
[00:33:24] Joe: Is OG going to pull away? Doug, you’ve got the answer.
[00:33:33] Doug: Hey there, Stackers. I’m the guy who’s ASC certified in imaginary European auto repair and who just found out Ringo charges 180 bucks an hour. Like- Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. The Volkswagen Beetle eventually became one of the most successful cars ever built. But that first year in America, Volkswagen sold two.
[00:33:56] Doug: Not 2,000, two cars. That’s less of a nationwide dealer network and more like somebody losing track of a couple cars at the port. But spoiler, things did eventually improve. By 1968, the Beetle’s biggest US sales year, Americans bought 399,674 of them, which is especially impressive for a car whose 1949 version had 25 horsepower and a top speed of 62 miles an hour, and it took you 42 seconds to get there.
[00:34:28] Doug: 42 seconds. You didn’t merge onto the freeway in a 1949 Beetle, you mailed the freeway a letter of intent. But what we’re looking for is the price of one of those first Beetles when it arrived in America in 1949. Well, when the Volkswagen Beetle first went on sale in America, you could drive one home for just $1,280, making- Oh
[00:34:54] Doug: Paula our winner. Dang. Wow.
[00:34:58] Joe: Barely.
[00:34:59] OG: I almost nailed it on the go. I had it.
[00:35:02] Joe: OG had it and took it back. I changed
[00:35:05] OG: my mind. Wow.
[00:35:08] Joe: Doh. OG had it and took it back.
[00:35:11] Jesse: Well, OG, what’d you, you said 1,200, didn’t you?
[00:35:13] OG: I said 1,250.
[00:35:14] Jesse: You said 1,199. No, I said
[00:35:15] OG: 1,250.
[00:35:16] Joe: Yeah. His, his first one was 1,250, then he went 1,199, then he said, “No, 999.”
[00:35:20] Joe: Wow. I
[00:35:20] Jesse: mean, if you would’ve gone 1,250, Paula would’ve said 1,251.
[00:35:24] OG: She probably would’ve. You’re probably
[00:35:27] Jesse: right. Congrats, Paula.
[00:35:28] Joe: Nice job, Paula Pant.
[00:35:29] Paula: Oh, wow. Does this mean I’m tied for second?
[00:35:32] Joe: It does.
[00:35:33] Paula: Ah.
[00:35:34] Joe: How does it feel up here in the upper stratosphere- Oh- … of second place? … this rarefied
[00:35:38] Paula: air-
[00:35:39] Joe: Yes …
[00:35:39] Paula: of being in, one of two people in second place, out of three?
[00:35:44] Paula: Is
[00:35:44] Jesse: it too late for me to margin call, just to give Paula an extra point? Give her the momentum, you know? You take nine, I’ll go back.
[00:35:51] Joe: Just go, just go. Yeah, maybe next week. Who knows? Man, we are now two points between first and third as we round the corner into the Q4. Wow, uh, it’s getting closer. All right.
[00:36:05] Joe: Uh, what’s very close though is the second half of today’s show. In fact, it’s gonna start right now. How about that? We were talking about these different collabs, guys. If you wanna collab with somebody on earning more, we talked about that. You guys had great suggestions. Let’s go with, if you wanna collab on spending less, let’s say that you wanna spend less money.
[00:36:25] Joe: No. I’m not going to OG first.
[00:36:27] OG: Terrible idea.
[00:36:28] Joe: Well, but it could be on a specific thing. Like, let’s say, OG, you wanna spend less on a car, you wanna spend less on a house. You know, it doesn’t have to be on Woodford or- Or I don’t know, the family Amazon account. Jesse, let’s start with you this time since you went third last time.
[00:36:46] Joe: So if you want to spend less, who’s a good person to collaborate with?
[00:36:51] Jesse: Um, potentially your, your spouse or significant other. Uh, maybe your kids. That’s probably where I would start, ’cause assuming you share your finances in some way, it’s gotta be a team effort to spend less money.
[00:37:04] Joe: I do like that. It always drove me crazy when I was a financial planner, seeing people that were on separate pages.
[00:37:10] Joe: Mm-hmm. One was, “Well, let’s go spend more money,” and the other one was frustrated. But man, when those teams got working together, it could be super exciting. And when you get the kids involved, Jesse, it gets even better.
[00:37:20] Jesse: We’re trying to get our older one involved. She’s just not on the program, so if any parents out there wanna chime in, I’m all ears.
[00:37:28] Joe: At the, the ripe old age of?
[00:37:30] Jesse: Uh, two, two and three months.
[00:37:32] Joe: I can’t believe she’s not on the budget
[00:37:34] Jesse: yet. Yeah. Applesauce is a huge budget item. It’s ridiculous.
[00:37:38] Joe: My son was a big fan of blueberries. That was, uh- Yes … oh my goodness. Yes. Blueberries. I might as well refinance my house. OG, let’s talk to you. You wanna spend less on some item.
[00:37:52] OG: Oof. Uh, spending less. Spending less. You know, I will say that, um, you know, Jesse said, you know, spouse or partner or whatever. I do think it’s interesting in my relationship with my family how my kids are a little different and how, you know, my wife is a little bit different. So William, my middle kid, is a lot like me, right?
[00:38:13] OG: Just like, whatever. Like, there’s always money in the banana stand, right? Alex, on the other hand, is like, “Yeah, I went to Costco, and, um, I’m not sure that I wanna spend $15 on chicken today, so I just, I just got whatever, like frozen chicken instead for five bucks.” Just got
[00:38:32] Joe: ramen, right?
[00:38:33] OG: Yeah, or whatever. And he’s very cognizant of that even when it’s not his money, which I think is very respectful.
[00:38:40] OG: You know what I mean? Like, he knows that we’re covering his college costs, which is including his grocery bill, but he’s very respectful of it, which I appreciate. I do have a strong emotion around wasting money and resources, and so maybe this is a better way for me to think about it as opposed to like spending less, but just being, you know-
[00:39:01] Joe: Less wasteful
[00:39:02] OG: not wasting it. It does drive me crazy when, when I see stuff getting thrown out of the refrigerator. You know, it’s like, well, what, what did we buy a whole drawer full of vegetables for if we’re gonna just let them all turn to goo, you know, and throw them out six months later? Like, that’s not awesome, you know?
[00:39:19] OG: Like, before we went on vacation this week- Six months. I
[00:39:22] Paula: was just thinking that too.
[00:39:23] OG: No, no. Six months. Let me tell you something. I’m telling you, let me tell you this from this… Let me, I’m just gonna tell you this from this summer. I was home ’cause I went and did the race, and then I came home, and Lyssa and Caroline were gone.
[00:39:33] OG: And then we were all gonna be gone for a couple weeks, so I was like, “All right. I’m just gonna go through the fridge and through the pantry to make sure there’s no surprises when we get home.” There was a sweet potato. I absolutely despise sweet potatoes. I think they should, we should… You know how they’re trying to figure out how to kill mosquitoes to like never breed again, whatever?
[00:39:50] OG: Like, it would not hurt my feelings if they’re like, “Well, there’s no more sweet potatoes. We… They’re extinct.” Be like, “Okay. Oh, well, shucks,” you know? They’re awful. Terrible food. But my wife likes them, so sh- she gets what she wants. This thing was still in the bag, and I swear to God, when I picked the bag up, it was bubbling
[00:40:07] Jesse: Ooh.
[00:40:08] OG: It was, it was like literally like a boop-boop, boop-boop-boop-boop-boop. It was doing something. There was some chemical reaction going on in real time as I went to take this bag out to the trash.
[00:40:20] Joe: So is the answer to collaborate with your science teacher?
[00:40:23] OG: My message here on not wasting is I wasn’t upset about the fact that it was bubbling.
[00:40:29] OG: I was u- upset about the fact that that thing probably costs like $4 and it sat there and nobody touched it for God knows how… How long does it take a sweet potato, like literally the thing that lasts all… Like, like you could, you could buy one today and eat it next Christmas, and it’s probably still fine.
[00:40:45] OG: It’s just like why, why are we buying this stuff?
[00:40:48] Joe: I was very inspired by, uh, Brian Sudduth when he was on the show talking about food- Yeah … waste and gamifying that. And, uh, Cheryl and I, since that episode, OG, like you guys, I mean, we’ve been on this tear of let’s eat all of the leftovers in the fridge.
[00:41:01] Joe: Let’s eat-
[00:41:01] OG: Yeah … all the leftovers.
[00:41:01] Joe: All
[00:41:02] OG: the freezer. Like eat whatever, whatever’s frozen. Yeah, we went through that. So, like those sorts of things where it’s like obvious wasteful laziness maybe is a good way to put it. You know, it’s just like I, I don’t know.
[00:41:16] Joe: Well, so your collaboration partner then would be Mrs.
[00:41:19] Joe: OG. Oh, yeah. That
[00:41:19] OG: was, that was the question.
[00:41:20] Joe: Yeah, the partner would be Mrs. OG, so maybe we gotta go with roommate or, um-
[00:41:25] OG: Yeah, that or business partners. Again- Or business part- business partners, yeah … like back to like wasting money or like being smart about it.
[00:41:30] Joe: You and I have gone through that a few times.
[00:41:32] OG: Yes. Well, I was thinking about my business in particular, the planning side, because now that you’re bringing this up, I’m, I’m able to like put some things together here. By putting other people in charge of it, it removes my, my emotional piece of it. You know what I mean? Like when I, I tell everybody, “Hey, if you find a subscription that we don’t need anymore in the business, and we cancel it because, you know, whatever, it’s useless, like I’ll just split the annual cost with you.
[00:41:57] OG: Like I’ll just give you a bonus of, you know, hey, we just saved $3,000 on that subscription. Cool, here’s 1,500 bucks.” That’s a win-win, right? Like we don’t need the subscription. We save money. They, they found it, so people are actively looking for that. We’re doing that with William for college right now. He applied to a bunch of colleges.
[00:42:15] OG: Our standard is like here’s what A&M costs, public in-state tuition. If you go to a school that costs less than that, I’ll split the difference. Like if you get a better scholarship, whatever. I don’t know. I’m kind of, like you said, gamifying it a little bit. Like to me- Yeah … that makes a lot of sense. Sure.
[00:42:29] OG: Like people have some buy-in there. So if you’re looking for… It’s really anybody, if you’re trying to save money, I guess it’s, it’s really anybody that touches your money, right? If you have a business, it’s all your business people, it’s all your customers, it’s your shareholders, it’s your family members.
[00:42:46] Joe: No, I really like that. Paula, how about for you?
[00:42:49] OG: Mm. Stream of consciousness for like eight minutes.
[00:42:51] Joe: Sorry. It, it, it, it is so good by the way. It takes him like four minutes just to roll into it, but once he gets going, baby, it’s fine.
[00:42:57] OG: Like, like cut the cord Chatty Cathy.
[00:43:01] Paula: In terms of saving money, so I’ll, I’ll take this in the totally opposite direction and go to strangers on the internet The tips, the advice that you find is incredibly creative.
[00:43:16] Paula: Um, and of course, obviously, use your judgment. Is this right for your life or not? But some of the tips and advice that you find online is, um, a lot of stuff you never would’ve thought about on your own.
[00:43:28] Joe: But how can you talk to those people? I really want this to be collabs. Yeah. So how do we, how do we make it to that a collab though?
[00:43:34] Paula: Well, I mean, forum threads. I don’t know if you would consider that to be a collab, but- Okay … a, a forum thread is an example of, of lots of people coming together to, you know, discuss a thing.
[00:43:44] Joe: I think it could be if you started a post, like at the, uh, you know, the Afford Anything community, or here, like at the Stacking Benjamins community, and you said, “Hey, I wanna put together a challenge of people that are gonna spend less every month.
[00:43:55] Joe: Who’s in?”
[00:43:56] Paula: Right.
[00:43:57] Joe: Fan- fantastic.
[00:43:58] Paula: Yeah. Every year we do a 52
[00:44:00] OG: tweaks. I have another idea.
[00:44:01] Paula: Mm-hmm.
[00:44:02] OG: Well, after you get through Jesse. I don’t wanna steal one in case Jesse’s gonna take it, ’cause then he’ll be screwed.
[00:44:07] Joe: Jesse, did you something on
[00:44:08] OG: this?
[00:44:09] Jesse: No, no, no. Go, go right ahead. Go right ahead. Steal away.
[00:44:12] OG: I think this is a great use case for AI.
[00:44:15] Jesse: Mm. Mm.
[00:44:17] OG: Again, it’s data, right? You know, AI, Chat, Claude, whatever, Perplexity, love spreadsheets, love digging into that sort of thing. And you could just dump your … I mean, you could do your bank statements, maybe your Amex statement, whatever. Just be like, “What’s going on here? Talk to me like you would a small child.”
[00:44:36] OG: You know? It’s like, it’s like, “What’s happening?” You know? And it’s like, “We don’t know what Sea Smoke is, but you spend a lot of money at it.” “So you should probably, you should probably go there less or do that less or whatever that is.” Because there’s no emotional attachment to it, right? They’re just reporting the facts.
[00:44:55] Joe: Yeah, I like AI, but for this episode, I’m really looking for collaborations with others.
[00:44:59] OG: Oh, damn. I thought I had a good answer.
[00:45:01] Joe: No, I think it is a good answer, and, and-
[00:45:02] OG: No, no, you don’t have to placate me. It was a bad answer. Just say it. Just say it sucked.
[00:45:06] Joe: No, I’m gonna pretend I’m ChatGPT. That was the best answer ever.
[00:45:09] Joe: Way better than the way we were going with this episode. I like how you reframe that. ‘Cause now it isn’t just about collaborations, Colon. It’s about even bigger things.
[00:45:21] OG: It’s not this, it’s that.
[00:45:23] Joe: It … Oh, man.
[00:45:24] OG: Mark is AI slop.
[00:45:26] Jesse: I think we can play off what OG just said, and like, I could sit down with a friend and be like, “Hey, here’s what I spent in the last quarter.
[00:45:33] Jesse: And no judgment. Like, feel free to criticize me. I won’t take it personally. What do you see here that you’re just like, ‘That’s kind of a dumb thing to spend money on?'” Something like that, or like what jumps off the page is like, oh, you spent how much at, what was it called, Sea Smoke, OG?
[00:45:47] OG: Yeah.
[00:45:47] Joe: Jesse, I’m glad you brought this up because- I think, and I know, OG, how you are about, listen, no judgment about your budget, and I feel the same way.
[00:45:57] Joe: But back when I was a financial planner, I had clients that would walk into my office and go, “Our goal is to trim some costs. That’s what we wanna do. You see people’s budget every day. Can you help us?” And they would hand me stuff. I think whoever your financial pro is in your corner, asking them. I remember one couple, I don’t even remember what the number was, but I’m like, “I know you love fish, but I’ve never seen anybody spend this much money on fish ever, ever.”
[00:46:23] Joe: Like,
[00:46:23] Jesse: pets or food?
[00:46:25] Joe: Food. They ate a lot of fresh fish. And so- Hmm … it actually started this great conversation, ’cause I didn’t say, “Cut the fish,” I just said, “This is one of the areas where that number jumps off the page.” They started discussing how they were gonna buy their fresh fish in the future.
[00:46:42] OG: My mind immediately went to, you know, like, the 20 years later scene of, like, the husband and wife, like, lying in the hospital bed with, like, coronary heart disease- Oh, interesting
[00:46:51] OG: because they’ve switched over to, like, low-end beef. Because Joe, 20 years ago, made them stop the Mediterranean diet- Joe … where they’re like, they’re drinking, like, olive oil, fresh-pressed olive oil, and, like, perfectly seared halibut every day, and their arteries are nice and clear. And then, and then Joe comes in and is like, “We gotta cut the-
[00:47:09] OG: we gotta cut the fat. No more fish.” They’re like, “Okay. We’ll just have bacon. It’s nice and cheap.” I didn’t- Joe’s killing old people one right after another. It’s like, I didn’t- Bacon’s the cheap… It’s the other white meat.
[00:47:27] Joe: I didn’t say they had to cut it. But I, but I do think that professionals that see a lot of budgets- Have you tried
[00:47:33] Jesse: broiling pork
[00:47:34] OG: belly?
[00:47:36] OG: It’s every bit as good.
[00:47:37] Joe: How about a different collab? Let’s go with a different collab. Paula, what do we do if we want to save more? Mm. Who do you collaborate with?
[00:47:46] Paula: Uh, again, so we talked about strangers on the internet. I would also say if you’ve got some friends, like, okay, let’s say that you have a group of friends with whom you have a habit of, like, going out, I don’t know, to a restaurant every Friday night or whatever.
[00:48:00] Paula: If you wanted to save money, like, “Hey, everyone,” like, “how about I host? You know, we, we hang out at my place this time.” And it’s like your friends, especially if you are friends who spend money together- They would then have to be collaborators in coming along on that ride
[00:48:18] Joe: Oh, by saving money, I didn’t mean spend less money like we were just talking about.
[00:48:22] Joe: Oh. I meant actually getting money saved. Like you have a fine budget, but it never seems to reach your bank account, right?
[00:48:27] Paula: Ah.
[00:48:28] Joe: But I do like friends still, Paula, ’cause I think that’s an innocuous question. It’s going, “Hey, guys, I’m trying to increase my savings rate. What do you guys do?”
[00:48:35] Paula: Mm, right. Yeah.
[00:48:36] Joe: That’s actually a decent bar night conversation for money nerds.
[00:48:40] Paula: Yeah. Yeah,
[00:48:42] Joe: yeah. Jesse, how about you?
[00:48:45] Jesse: Uh, da, da, da, da. Yeah, I don’t know. I, I guess I’m still stuck on the whole fish story. I don’t know. I was up over here looking up the cost of Gorton’s. You know, did you… Is that what you did, Joe? Did you introduce them to Gorton’s by chance?
[00:48:58] OG: I- Fish sticks, frozen fish sticks instead of friends.
[00:49:02] OG: Have you guys tried to take your fish and bread it and then deep-fry it? It’s so much more filling. I
[00:49:07] Joe: would not- Like- I would not subject my family to Gorton’s. Oh. We are a Mrs. Paul’s family.
[00:49:14] OG: Obviously.
[00:49:15] Joe: Period. I, I
[00:49:15] Jesse: see. Yes. You’re pandering to the audi- you’re pandering to the current crowd.
[00:49:19] OG: Oh, gosh, that’s so funny.
[00:49:21] OG: I saved this couple hundreds of
[00:49:23] Jesse: dollars. I know it’s Paula, not Paul, but still there’s, there’s that name recognition there where I think Paula just heard that and was like, “This is…” You know?
[00:49:29] Joe: She doesn’t even know there’s Mrs. Paul’s Fish Sticks.
[00:49:32] Paula: I, yeah, no, I had no idea. Is that, I assume, a brand of frozen breaded fish.
[00:49:38] Jesse: Sticks. Fish sticks.
[00:49:39] Paula: In, in – Fish sticks … yes, in vertical form.
[00:49:42] Joe: Yes. Yes. Can we talk about who you collaborate with about saving more money there, Jesse?
[00:49:46] Jesse: Yeah, we totally can. I mean, do you mind, Joe? Cue me up with a question again, and I’ll, I’ll run with it.
[00:49:51] Joe: Yeah. I’m just wondering who else we might collaborate with when it comes to
[00:49:58] Jesse: Your local grocer. Uh, no, just kidding I, I, I don’t know. Um, yeah, so I guess, okay, how do I think about this? How do I invert this like Charlie Munger and think about the ways that we spend money, and therefore the things that we can do? Can you think of things like, okay, how do you spend less money on your car?
[00:50:14] Jesse: Do you carpool more? Do you collaborate with some people and form a little bike group going to work? Maybe that’s one way. We definitely all spend a lot of money on food. I love Paula’s idea of, “Hey, instead of us all going out, what if we do a potluck and do more eating like that?”
[00:50:29] Joe: But this is about increasing your savings rate.
[00:50:31] Joe: So let me ask this a different way. Do you think that having an accountability partner works in this area?
[00:50:38] Jesse: Yeah, you’re gonna have to lead a horse to water. You’re gonna have to lead me to water on that one. Here’s what I
[00:50:41] OG: want you to say. Um, repeat after me, Jesse.
[00:50:45] Jesse: Yeah.
[00:50:45] Joe: Or is, or is automation just, just better?
[00:50:48] Jesse: Yeah. It feels to me, Joe, like you’re asking about accountability partners. Is that fair to say?
[00:50:53] Joe: Am I? Yeah.
[00:50:55] Jesse: Uh, yeah. I’ll tell you what, on the personal health point of view, I have thought and, and even enacted many a, many a time some form of accountability partner in order to improve my personal health habits.
[00:51:09] Jesse: And I just think there’s so much overlap between health and wealth. I mean, maybe they’re different muscles and, and some of us can be perfectly successful in one arena and yet struggle in the other. But I think that having that kind of accountability partner, as long as you’re both in, you’re both into it, and you’re both, uh, you both feel kind of invigorated by the idea of holding one another accountable, it’s a free and easy way of improving your savings rate.
[00:51:33] Joe: I’ve got, uh, a couple just rapid fires here before we say goodbye. Let’s talk about investing together just briefly. Just want a very quick one sentence or maybe one word, your choice, one-sentence answer. Four friends decide they’re gonna become better investors together. Great idea or absolutely terrifying to you, OG?
[00:51:56] OG: Hmm. Usually that means, like, we’re gonna go put our money together and go do something really dumb with it. So I say kind of terrifying. But if it’s in the sense of, um, see, ’cause, ’cause you already, you already said the accountability thing, so it seems like that we’re trying… We’re gonna say that twice now.
[00:52:11] OG: But if it’s in the sense of, like, trying to see who can save the most money or, you know, whatever, I think that’s a good idea.
[00:52:20] Joe: Paula?
[00:52:21] Paula: I would need more detail. Does this mean we are all Boglehead index fund investors, and we want to make sure that we’re all asset allocating properly, or does this mean the four of us are all gonna go in on an apartment complex together?
[00:52:38] Joe: Jesse?
[00:52:39] Jesse: I, I think it’s a great idea. I, I think it, it can only help, in my opinion. If, if you have a couple people in your corner who can talk you down off of stupid ledges, I think it’s a great idea.
[00:52:50] Joe: Yeah. Even as I was putting these questions together, I thought this could either be the best idea or the worst idea.
[00:52:56] Joe: Like, this could end up horrible, almost like OG was talking about. Here’s another quick rapid fire. Is the best collaborator sometimes the person who thinks that you’re completely wrong? Paula.
[00:53:09] Paula: Yes, because you need somebody who will question your assumptions, point out your flaws. Like, you need somebody who will challenge you.
[00:53:19] Joe: Is there anybody, OG, that you should never talk to about money?
[00:53:26] OG: And get advice from? Ooh, it’s really hard to get advice from broke people.
[00:53:31] Joe: Yeah.
[00:53:32] OG: Really hard.
[00:53:33] Joe: Yeah. Jesse, uh, we’re gonna end this with you. Should you collaborate with people who are more like you or less like you?
[00:53:43] Jesse: That’s a really good question.
[00:53:45] Jesse: I’m gonna go with l- less like you, and I’m gonna invoke that wisdom of Jim Rome maybe, about the, the five people that you surround yourself with. Less like you… You wanna collaborate with people who you s- feel like are better than you in specific arenas, and collaborate with them so that you can raise yourself to their level.
[00:54:07] Joe: Guys, I love this topic so much. I’m so happy that you guys collaborated with me to make this, to make this episode. Some- sometimes
[00:54:13] OG: you were pulling us along though, Joe, so.
[00:54:16] Joe: I had to there at the end when you got hung up on fish sticks. I think we had to. And
[00:54:19] OG: I’m very hungry, so I could put down… Jesse, how many fish sticks can you put down in a sitting?
[00:54:24] Jesse: I’m good for eight to 10.
[00:54:26] OG: Yeah, I bet. Are you… Are, do you just, just raw dog it, or do you ketchup and-
[00:54:30] Jesse: I, I ketchup it. I ketchup
[00:54:32] OG: it. Ketchup it.
[00:54:33] Jesse: Yeah.
[00:54:33] OG: My kids do ranch.
[00:54:35] Jesse: That’s
[00:54:35] OG: solid. It just seems like a-
[00:54:36] Jesse: Tartar and ketchup are the, kind of the go-tos,
[00:54:38] OG: I think. Yeah, that seems like the normal go-to. Yeah.
[00:54:40] Jesse: Right. Right.
[00:54:40] Jesse: See,
[00:54:40] Joe: Paula, they even collaborate on fish stick- Nice … recipes and-
[00:54:44] Jesse: Yeah …
[00:54:44] Joe: best uses.
[00:54:45] OG: Have you guys seen, like, Lady and the Tramp with the, the spaghetti thing? Spaghetti. Jesse and I do that with fish sticks.
[00:54:53] Jesse: This is jumping the shark, pun intended.
[00:54:55] Joe: And on that note, I think it is time to end. Thank you everyone for collaborating really to make this episode, and I know how difficult it is.
[00:55:05] Joe: And on a day like 9/11 when we are reminded how much we need each other and how much we are a community, on this type of a day I thought it was a great topic for us to contemplate, this idea of collaboration. All right, let’s find out what’s going on where all of you are. OG, what are you doing this, uh, this fine weekend?
[00:55:25] OG: Ooh, a little, uh, uh, after-school activity on Saturday. Just finished some after-school activity yesterday. Double dip of after-school activity this week, and then I’m going to California. to a little conference called Future Proof, where I get to see Jesse Cramer talk to me about marketing. So that ought to be fun.
[00:55:43] Joe: That’s exciting. Jesse, we know what you’re doing this weekend.
[00:55:47] OG: Are you playing golf with us, Jesse?
[00:55:49] Jesse: I wasn’t, uh-
[00:55:50] OG: On Sunday?
[00:55:51] Jesse: Oh, I w- I’m not flying out till Monday anyway. I’m su- my invite got lost in the mail, though. My invite got lost in the mail. But,
[00:55:56] OG: um- Well, I’m inviting you right now. Like, uh, come out on Sunday.
[00:55:58] OG: Take the early flight, and then you can golf with us on Sunday.
[00:56:01] Jesse: I appreciate that. I’m not, I… I’ll be out there Monday. I’ll be out there Monday. Hanging out with the family this weekend. I was, I was kidding … getting some family time in.
[00:56:08] OG: We weren’t, we weren’t inviting you.
[00:56:09] Jesse: Yeah. You needed a caddy, didn’t you?
[00:56:11] Jesse: Is that what that was?
[00:56:12] OG: I mean, yeah.
[00:56:12] Jesse: Here’s my bag. Here’s some fish sticks. Here’s my bag. Fish sticks. Uh, but yeah. So I’m flying out to Future Proof, and then I’m driving from Future Proof to FinCon in Palm Springs. Jazzed for both of them, and I’m just, I’m really ex- That’s one I
[00:56:26] OG: wasn’t invited to,
[00:56:27] Joe: FinCon.
[00:56:28] Joe: Well. Oh, yeah.
[00:56:29] Jesse: Yeah. Come on out.
[00:56:29] Joe: Moving on from that, what’s coming up, Jesse, on, uh, Personal Finance for Long-Term Investors?
[00:56:34] Jesse: So, uh, I recently had a couple cool episodes that I’m jazzed about. One of them has to do with kind of this gray area of passive investing and how that deals with benchmarking. So I think it’s kind of a, a nerdy investing episode that some people might like.
[00:56:49] Jesse: And then I had a big announcement on a recent episode, depending on when it actually comes out, so I don’t wanna bury the lead too much. But, uh, just see if it’s come out yet. There could be a big, fun announcement that I’ve recently made.
[00:56:59] Joe: Oh, awesome. Can’t wait to hear that. Paula Pant.
[00:57:04] Paula: Mm.
[00:57:05] Joe: What’s happening at the Afford Anything show?
[00:57:08] Paula: Michael Hingson was on the 78th floor of the North Tower at 8:46 AM on September 11th, 2001. I flew out to Victorville, California, and sat down with him, and he recounts the events of the day. Question that you might ask is, why did I go to California to talk to him when I live in New York City? It is because Michael Hingson is a bit different than most of the other people who escaped the building on that day.
[00:57:39] Paula: He is, in his words, not light dependent, meaning he is blind. And with the help of his guide dog, Roselle, his guide dog led him down 78 flights of stairs, and in the process provided a great deal of comfort to the thousands of other people who were also in the stairwell on that day. And so that interview is on the Afford Anything podcast today.
[00:58:05] Joe: That is so powerful. It’s a story that needs to be told, and, um, it doesn’t sound like you’re passionate about it either- … at all, Paula.
[00:58:12] Paula: It’s such a powerful story.
[00:58:14] Joe: Yeah. And that’s on the, uh, Afford Anything show today.
[00:58:17] Paula: Yes. That’s on the Afford Anything podcast today. Uh, you can listen on every major podcast player, and then if you go to our YouTube channel, you can actually watch the video, um, we, we recorded from Michael’s living room.
[00:58:31] Joe: Well, thanks to all of you who hung out with us today on YouTube. We’re here most Mondays on YouTube at around 3:45 PM Eastern Time. Do the math where you are. I’d love to have you come and hang out and watch the show being made. Thanks to all of our contributors. Doug’s gonna take it from here. Doug, what should we have learned today?
[00:58:53] Doug: Well, Joe, first take some advice from our team. Collaboration, we don’t do it nearly enough. You’ll get answers more quickly by finding collaborators who know your learning style and what you’re really asking. Second, collaboration has more benefits. It’s more fun to work with someone who has synergistic goals.
[00:59:12] Doug: By working together, you both may be able to go further, faster, and also in a way you both enjoy. But the big lesson, when talking to Joe’s mom about the Beetle, remind her that it’s a Volkswagen. She continually reminds me that there was no Beatle named Volkswagen, only Ringo, George, John, and Paul. Boy, that is commitment to misunderstanding the point right there, Ma.
[00:59:38] Doug: Thanks to the Jesse Cramer for joining us today. You’ll find his podcast, Personal Finance for Long-Term Investors, wherever you’re listening to us right now. We’ll also include links in our show notes at stackingbenjamins.com. Thanks to Paula Pant for hanging out with us today. You’ll find her fabulous podcast, Afford Anything, wherever you listen to finer podcasts.
[00:59:58] Doug: And thanks also to OG for joining us today. Looking for good financial planning help? Head to stackingbenjamins.com/OG for his calendar This show is the property of SP Podcast, LLC, copyright 2026 and is created by Joe Saul-Sehy. You’ll find out about our awesome team at stackingbenjamins.com, along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots.
[01:00:25] Doug: Come say hello. And oh yeah, before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don’t take advice from people you don’t know. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and we’ll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamins show
[01:00:52] OG: What was that?
[01:00:53] opener: It’s called
[01:00:53] Doug: the
[01:00:54] opener: medium
[01:00:54] Doug: sketch.
[01:00:55] OG: The medium sketch?
[01:00:57] opener: Yeah, it wasn’t rare, and it certainly wasn’t well done
Leave a Reply