What’s really standing between you and your financial goals? In today’s mentor, Jessica Moorhouse—financial counselor, podcast host, and author of Everything But Money—joins Joe to dive into the mental and emotional side of managing money. Jessica shares her journey with therapy, how relationships shape our financial habits, and the role of self-talk in creating a healthier money mindset. Whether you’re feeling stuck or just want a fresh perspective, this interview offers practical tools to help you take control of your financial future.
In our headline segment, we explore the concept of a “no-buy” list—a clever strategy one woman used to pay off $34,000 in debt. Learn how gamifying financial goals can make saving more manageable—and even fun! Whether it’s cutting back on unnecessary spending or finding creative ways to save, this segment will inspire you to rethink how you approach your financial challenges.
Here’s what we cover today:
- Saluting our troops—and wondering why Doug still doesn’t have a Navy Federal mug
- Meet Jessica Moorhouse: Financial counselor, podcast host, and author of Everything But Money
- Unlocking the connection between your money mindset and financial success with Jessica
- How Jessica’s personal journey and therapy shaped her healthier money mindset
- Unpacking how emotions and relationships impact financial habits
- Understanding rational vs. irrational guilt—and how it affects your money decisions
- Recognizing irrational guilt and why it’s critical to tackle it
- Celebrating financial wins and overcoming the fear that holds you back
- Jessica’s book Everything But Money—and why it’s a must-read for anyone improving their financial mindset
- Sneak peek: What’s next on the More Money Podcast with Jessica Moorhouse
- Doug’s historical trivia: Financial lessons from the past
- Gamifying financial goals: Make saving and investing fun and rewarding
- Real-life success stories: The No Buy Challenge and how it helped pay off $34,000 in debt
- Join our community: Upcoming meetups and ways to get involved
- Final thoughts and takeaways: Simple actions you can start today to improve your financial mindset
Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.stackingbenjamins.com/201
Enjoy!
Monday Mentor: Jessica Moorhouse

Big thanks to Jessica Moorhouse for joining us today. To learn more about Jessica, visit Jessica Moorhouse | Canadian Millennial Money Expert. Grab yourself a copy of the book Everything but Money: The Hidden Barriers Between You and Financial Freedom. Hear more from Jessica on her podcast, More Money Podcast at More Money Podcast Podcast – Apple Podcasts
Our Headline
Doug’s Trivia
- Besides becoming the first woman to have four names on her checking account, in 1949,
Georgia Neese Clark Grey became the first woman to do what banking feat that had never previously been achieved by a woman?
Have a question for the show?
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Other Mentions
- Share what type of no-spend challenge you’re taking on in our Facebook Group, The Basement
Join Us Wednesday
Tune in on Wednesday when we’ll share lessons about target date funds, tax planning, retirement planning AND switching accounts!
Written by: Kevin Bailey
Miss our last show? Listen here: These Are Our Community’s Biggest Money Monsters (SB1635)
Episode transcript
[00:00:00] Joe: Let’s make it go. You guys ready? [00:00:02] Doug: No. [00:00:02] OG: I’m like a puppy dog. I still have peanut butter in my mouth. [00:00:05] Doug: How [00:00:06] OG: is that Like a puppy dog? [00:00:07] Joe: It’s the way we lure OG to the [00:00:10] Doug: microphone, put his medicine in the peanut butter. Come, come here, [00:00:16] Joe: come [00:00:16] OG: over to the microphone. You put peanut butter in the microphone. [00:00:18] Joe: Come on. [00:00:19] Come on. Come watch here boy. Here, boy. Yes. And you can tell when it’s crunchy peanut butter. ’cause that’s when he gets all foul. [00:00:26] Doug: You know, with, with one of our dogs, with Saul-Sehy, she kind of knows there’s medicine tucked in there. So now I have to, when she gets close, I like have to stick my finger in and put it in the roof of her mouth so she doesn’t have a choice. [00:00:39] ’cause she’s like, I’m not falling for [00:00:40] Joe: that. Again. She’s onto it. Someday OJ will catch on. Right? But you know what? Everybody catches onto the fact that we salute our troops every Monday. That’s what we do here on the podcast. So raise your mug. Raising my pineapple drink today. Or your pineapple drink? [00:00:55] Yeah. Oh, look at this. He’s got the New Navy federal mug. Oh, ooh. On behalf of the [00:01:01] Doug: men and women at Navy Federal Credit Union, who sent OG a free mug. WTF. How come I don’t have a cork bottomed in insulated mug? It’s kind of nice [00:01:09] OG: you got this too, right Joe? And Yes. Yes, I did. [00:01:12] Doug: Was cock [00:01:16] that was You woke up and chose violence this morning. That was so unnecessary. I bad with [00:01:21] Joe: the men and women. If it made me federal credit. You gotta say it quick now. And the men and women making podcast in mom’s basement with or without the mug, big sl to our troops. Thanks for keeping us safe. Let’s go stack some Benjamins now this week, huh? [00:01:35] OG: Uh oh. Sounds like somebody’s got a case of the mund. [00:01:44] Doug: Live from Joe’s mom’s basement. It’s the Stacking Benjamin Show. [00:01:58] Hey there Stackers. I’m Joe’s, Bob’s neighbor, Doug. And you know those money problems you’ve been having. What if I told you that it might be about something more than money? And what if I told you that today’s mentor knows all about digging deeper into your money mindset? And what if I told you it was none other than the host of the More Money Podcast, Jessica Morehouse? [00:02:21] And what if I told you that there was even more like my amazing trivia and fantastic headline? Are you kidding me? Wouldn’t that be awesome? And what if I told you. That it’s now time to say hello to those two guys, Joe and og, you’d be disappointed, right? I know you would. After that giant buildup, and all you heard me finished with was Joe and OG again, you’d be like, oh man. [00:02:49] Anyway, here they are. That’s the [00:02:51] Joe: highlight. That is the highlight. Doug. Hey everybody. Welcome to the highlight of your week. The moment that, uh, I get to say hello to my good buddy, Doug, and my good friend across the card table. Mr. Og, how are you, man? [00:03:07] OG: Yes. I’m not a buddy, just a friend, but, okay. [00:03:10] Joe: Is that, is that like the new, uh, just a friend? [00:03:14] I’m just a buddy. I don’t know. We got a great show. Gee, Jessica Morehouse is here. I heard. I know. What if, what if Doug told us what if it could be absolutely super with Jessica Morehouse? Because seriously, you know, when you, when you’ve, you’ve been meeting with people for a long time. Seems like [00:03:34] OG: highlight of my week. [00:03:35] Joe: The longer we talk about this, the more you realize it’s not about the math, it’s not about the dollars and cents. There’s always something else going on. [00:03:43] OG: Lack besa. Yes. It’s always something going on. [00:03:48] Joe: Always something behind the scenes. What, what is that? [00:03:51] OG: Insane [00:03:52] Joe: in the membrane. [00:03:54] Doug: Just a Morehouse is gonna be here. [00:03:57] So really you guys are like psychologists with people’s money, is that what you’re saying? Psychos yes. [00:04:07] Joe: Could stop right there. Uh, we got a great show. We’ve got, uh, the last week of January here. Can you guys believe this? [00:04:14] OG: Are your goals? One 12 completed? We’re one 12 through the year. Have you made it? [00:04:19] Sorry. I find that incredibly offensive when people post that stuff. You know, it’s January 31st. Are your goals on track? No, dude, I barely woke. Got outta bed so far this month. [00:04:33] Doug: It’s still of the calendar. It’s still like six 30 in the morning. Exactly. We’re just, we’re just getting started. Gimme a second. [00:04:40] Joe: Oh, she’s like the master of the two minute offense. I. He’s like, [00:04:45] OG: in more ways than, you know. [00:04:48] Joe: Hit me up the middle of June. Yeah, hit me up the middle of June about my goals. Mrs. OG agrees with that. I’m, I’m good. [00:04:56] OG: You’re not on track for your goals by August. Call og. He’ll fix you. [00:05:00] Joe: We get a great show. Jessica Morehouse is here. [00:05:02] We’ve got a fantastic headline. Speaking of, uh, getting your goals and be one 12th of the way there, how about some gamification? Let’s talk about gamifying the goals, but before all that, we have a couple of sponsors that make sure this is free so you don’t have to pay for any of this. Goodness. So we’re gonna say hello to them. [00:05:19] And then Jessica Morehouse, host of the More Money Podcast, and a woman who really has spent a lot of time interviewing people who like to think deeper about money and about what might be behind all those money problems that you’re having. Jessica’s got a great story of her own by the way that I know that she’s gonna share. [00:05:37] So let’s say hello to Jessica Morehouse. [00:05:52] And I am super happy she’s coming down the stairs to the basement. Jessica Morehouse is here. How are you? [00:05:57] Jessica: I’m so good. I’m so excited to be here and chatting with you. It’s been a while. [00:06:00] Joe: It has been a while, and I’m so happy that we finally get to catch up. You’re somebody that every time I talk to you, I feel like, like I know you way better than I do. [00:06:09] Jessica: Aw, that’s nice. [00:06:10] Joe: It is nice. But that’s all you. That is all That is all you. I wanna start here because I read, like you read for Your More Money podcast. I read a ton of opens to books. I read a, you know, probably, yeah, 50 personal finance books a year. Just I know for interviews and getting ready. Your book had the best note to a loved one at the beginning. [00:06:40] Jessica: Yeah. Book. [00:06:40] Joe: Because Jessica was so personal. Yeah, I felt like I was reading a line from a diary or something that was specifically to a person. I’m gonna find it here because for some reason I don’t have it open. Maybe you don’t [00:06:52] Jessica: have it. I’ve got a book right here. Let me grab it. Yeah. [00:06:54] Joe: Do you remember though. [00:06:55] Why this message at the beginning of the book? [00:06:57] Jessica: Okay, so I’m gonna read it out and then I’ll explain it. Yeah. So it says To my loving husband, Josh, if it weren’t for you, I don’t know if I would’ve ever gone to therapy. I mean that as a compliment [00:07:09] add that, just so you know what I’m talking about, you didn’t drive me to therapy, so I realize, oh, I have to do a little dedication and write the acknowledgements. No one, my publisher never asked me for them, so I’m not sure if I was supposed to hand those in while I gave my manuscript, but no one talked about it. [00:07:24] I’m like, shouldn’t I have those? So I was on vacation with my family in the summer and we were taking the train back from Quebec City to Toronto, and while I was there I’m like, oh shoot, I should probably send them something. And so I just was on the train and just. Thought that was really, I showed to my husband like, are you cool with this? [00:07:38] Is this funny? He’s like, yeah, it’s funny. And my parents are like, oh, okay. Like they didn’t quite get the humor and but so far everyone’s like, oh my God, that’s so funny. I’m like, it’s true though. I don’t think I would’ve been as open to therapy if he hadn’t gone first, because you have to be very vulnerable and, you know, don’t care what people think to make that decision. [00:07:58] ’cause there’s still a lot of stigma around it, unfortunately. And he, for the first time, went to see a therapist after his, uh, father passed away. And so he, he needed some help when he was, uh, dealing with his grief and it. Showed me that it’s okay to ask for help when you need help, and you can’t do it all on your own. [00:08:16] Like we go to doctors and dentists and other professionals for, uh, help. Why are we not going to a professional when we need mental health help? And I don’t know why it’s still such a taboo, but it shouldn’t be. And so I’ve gone to different therapists throughout my adulthood. It kind of started when we first moved to Toronto 11 years ago. [00:08:34] And I was having a hard time adjusting to this new city and making new friends and stuff like that. But I really did a deep dive into therapy while writing this book. And it, it did a world of difference, but especially in terms of, uh, better understanding my relationship with money, [00:08:50] Joe: which is wild because we will go get help with our money. [00:08:53] And you talk about this. Mm-hmm. There’s your podcast. There’s our podcast. There’s. Tons of books already out there about how to do a tax free savings account or a Roth IRA in America. Right? Yeah. There’s all these, these, uh, publications. You’re on the news a lot talking about this stuff. Mm-hmm. And yet the thing that controls it all is our brain. [00:09:11] And [00:09:11] Jessica: yeah, [00:09:12] Joe: to your point, there’s a huge stigma around that. [00:09:14] Jessica: Huge. Yeah. It’s, we don’t realize, and it really, it didn’t really hit me either, how important it is, what’s going on in our mind, but also in our bodies, our, our emotions, everything that is not reasonable and logical, which most personal finance books or investing books are about just do this, this, and this. [00:09:31] And then you will see results and you’re like, sure. But most people aren’t doing that even though they know better. Why is that? And that’s what I really want to explore is what are those, you know, the hidden barriers between you and financial freedom. There’s a lot going on inside. Yeah. [00:09:46] Joe: But even if we do it, even if we do that stuff, I like your bigger point. [00:09:50] We still show up. Yeah. And I’m still depressed and oh, guess what? Having more money, you’re doing this saving didn’t make me the happy person. I thought it was gonna be like, I still am the same either miserable or happy person that I was. I’d never realized you and I had something else in common. Mm-hmm. [00:10:06] Which is, I was surprised to hear that you get depressed around. I mean, we’re not that far from New Year’s Day, but you get depressed at New Year’s. [00:10:13] Jessica: Yeah. This is the one exception this year, ’cause I have some exciting things going on. Sure. I hosted a New Year’s Eve party that was actually fun, kept my mind occupied, and then I had a book coming out since I can remember, I’ve always gotten really low on New Year’s Day, and I think it started, I don’t actually know when it started, but I started really recognizing it as a pattern. [00:10:34] Back in, in 2022, I had to rewrite a proposal for this book and I got covid and I had to spend Christmas at at home with my husband as I was going to visit family. And we had to self isolate ’cause he didn’t have covid yet and had a lot of time to think. And I got really, really low around that time because I always feel like I could have done more looking back at what I did the previous year. [00:10:57] And then there’s also this realization that I’m like, oh, I have to start all over again. I have to do it all over again. [00:11:02] Joe: You said something like you’re a ninja at negative self-talk. [00:11:05] Jessica: Oh my gosh. I, I’m better at it now. I try to practice, but yeah, the negative self-talk, the things that I would say to myself, I would never say to anyone outside of me never. [00:11:18] ’cause there’s, there’s, yeah, they’re just like, you’re not good enough. You’re not this enough. This is this. When you write it down. It was interesting when I was writing some of those thoughts down, I’m like, gosh, that’s not healthy, is it? And I know it’s not healthy. And why do we do it? And a lot of people, a lot of people do it. [00:11:32] It’s, but because it’s internal, we just don’t really even recognize, I think that we’re doing it and then the big impact it has on your whole entire life. [00:11:41] Joe: The reason why I was surprised by that is A, because I do that too, and New Year’s is not my favorite holiday. Mm-hmm. Number one, we’re coming off the whole holiday season, which I love. [00:11:51] Jessica: Yeah. [00:11:52] Joe: You and I live in climates. Yours, it’s colder than where it is here, but it’s cold and it’s darker, and I wish people left their lights on. By the way, let’s get rid of the whole Christmas light thing and let’s just make ’em winter lights. Go ahead and take your tree down. Take all that stuff. Oh, I keep my [00:12:04] Jessica: lights on all of January and everyone in the neighborhood does. [00:12:08] It’s weird. I don’t know this neighborhood in particular, they keep their lights on for until like early February, and I keep my tree up The whole month of January, [00:12:14] Joe: I’m gonna be your neighbor. I’m coming because everybody takes theirs down here where I am and in Texas. And I just think, why do we do that? [00:12:21] Because it, it just. January, February. Just a slow, [00:12:24] Jessica: it’s so depressing. [00:12:25] Joe: Yes. So let’s get some happy, uh, when we have less sun, you know, there’s something to all that. But I get down to that. That’s all coming to an end. And also facing the new year feels like a whole uphill challenge. And like you, I think about the stuff I didn’t do, but I see your social media stuff. [00:12:41] I see how your show’s rocking. I see some of the cool things you do. I mean, the, the thing where you were trying to pay with all the different currencies a few years ago. Oh gosh. [00:12:50] Jessica: Yeah. You remember that? That was a wild Oh, that was so cool. Was but you’re doing all this. That was exhausting in my eyes. [00:12:56] You’re a badass. But it goes to show that world. That’s the highlight reel, right? Yes. No one knows what’s going on inside or, or behind. It’s Jessica Morehouse [00:13:03] Joe: I’m seeing on Instagram is not the real ju and we gotta remind ourselves of that. [00:13:08] Jessica: Yeah, we do. You generally, especially Instagram, which is such a big platform, it really is the highlight reel for everybody. [00:13:14] And I think Facebook, I kind of still is ’cause it’s an older platform. Not many people, especially younger people, use it anymore. I don’t really use Facebook, but that’s kind of where people go to complain. And then the Instagram is like your highlight reel, but there’s no space for you to just be honest. [00:13:28] Uh, it’s not that I wanna complain, but this is what I’m going through and I’m not asking for sympathy. And so you just keep that stuff to yourself and no one knows. And then you’re ashamed to even admit it to yourself, so you’re not gonna get any help. And so you can’t work through it. And so you’re just stuck in this situation not doing anything about it. [00:13:43] And that’s the space that I was in. I felt really stuck and unhappy. And I didn’t really like my life. I didn’t like how I was talking to myself. I didn’t like how I felt. You know? I just was never satisfied no matter what I accomplished. Even though I’d posted and be like, look at this, it would within minutes, or maybe if I was lucky a day it would dissipate. [00:14:01] And then I’d be like, now what? You gotta do something next. What’s the next thing you’re gonna do? Or, well, that’s in the past, like, you know, people are scrolling, they’re, they’re done with your thing, so you need to think of something new and you’re just, you can never just be satisfied by something you did. [00:14:16] And so, one thing I’m trying really hard to do is savor this moment. ’cause uh, this is bucket list thing that I have a book, I’ve worked on it for two years. It’s the most vulnerable, honest thing I think I’ve ever written. And I literally, I, of course I would love for it to be a bestseller and all these kind of things. [00:14:32] I honestly don’t care as long as I can. I’m just gonna spend this year getting it into people’s hands so they can read it and we can kind of connect in that way. But I’m just gonna savor the moment. ’cause I never used to, never allowed myself to, [00:14:44] Joe: I also had to, with my book, I had to think about individuals. [00:14:47] Yeah. If there’s somebody that this impacts that this helps. Just knowing. And by the way, your book already helped me. ’cause I’m like, I didn’t know that Jessica had this type of self-talk. So my self-talk, I. Is, uh, I’ve met my match, but yeah. But it is so helpful to know and to your point, to be, to be honest, what I like that you did at the beginning, you had to go through and you had to look at some of your relationships. [00:15:10] Mm-hmm. And go, are these relationships healthy? Talk to me about that. ’cause you had to back away from some people and how do you do that? [00:15:16] Jessica: Yeah, I mean, I’ve always been good actually, like picking men. I honestly, I’ve only dated two men, one of them being my husband and he’s a great guy. I’ve been together. [00:15:24] Almost 18 years, but picking friends, I was just terrible at picking the right friends. Part of it is my own attachment style. Part of it is just getting stuck in certain cycles based off trauma and things like that. But I just was terrible at picking friends that would lift me up that would like me, just for me. [00:15:42] I never felt like I was good enough, which played into other things I was already dealing with, and so. It really wasn’t until I started doing, you know, more therapy and, and, and personal growth that I recognized that, yeah, I, I need to stop picking the same types of people. I’m very good at that now, recognizing there’s certain energies I’m really attracted to and I always get burned and I still learn those lessons sometimes ’cause I always wanna give people a chance, but there’s something that I needed to really Yeah. [00:16:10] Work through. And because of some of those experiences, at a certain point I just kind of shut my walls and, and kind of put up the drawbridge and said, fine, no more. I’m just not gonna be open to anybody. I don’t wanna get hurt anymore, so I’m just gonna have surface level. Friendships or just be very careful who, so keep my circle really small or just not let anyone in. [00:16:32] And that was kind of my way of guarding and protecting myself. And when you do that, you’re missing out on a lot of joy because the ways that actually make you happy. The biggest spoiler alert is community and friendship and being around people. And I completely blocked myself off from that. So I look back and like, oh wow, I really, you know, missed out on maybe creating deeper relationships. [00:16:59] That’s something that I’ve been working on the past two years and I feel really good about it, but I wasted a lot of time not doing that. [00:17:05] Joe: It’s so interesting. Last year I had a, uh, I have a friend that every time I would ask him for help, it’s always negative. Yeah. And I realized that I never feel more confident when I ask this person for help. [00:17:21] headlines: Hmm. [00:17:21] Joe: Uh, I ne I always feel less confident. And then I realized that it truly had more to do with that person than with me. Yeah. But I live off confidence. Like for me, if I’m confident, I will go do something. If I’m not confident, I’ll go study it for 10 days and I’ll never do anything. [00:17:35] Jessica: Yeah. [00:17:36] Joe: And so shutting that relationship, not all relationships. [00:17:39] ’cause man, when I saw that in your book, I was like, oh man, [00:17:43] Jessica: yeah, that was a bit extreme. I wouldn’t recommend, [00:17:45] Joe: don’t do that. I wanna shut it all down. But I got, but I do to say, going through and selectively going, you know what? I’m gonna be friends with this person. I’m just not gonna ask ’em for advice anymore. [00:17:53] Yeah. Because every time I ask them for advice, I never get anything that mm-hmm. Truly, I mean, might be good for some people, but for me I always feel less than I was. Yeah. Speaking of by the way, taking control, you have this client early on in your work that you call Raya. Mm-hmm. Uh, can you tell us Raya story? [00:18:11] ’cause I think this is good for where we’re going today. [00:18:14] Jessica: Yeah. So she was one of my first one-on-one financial counseling clients. Such an inspiration ’cause she was able to make such progress, but I didn’t realize at the time that I saw myself in her. And that’s probably why I was so attached to her and probably spent way more time than I should have for free working with her. [00:18:29] But I recognized that she had the same patterns of negative self-talk and, and didn’t think she was good enough and she. Used money in a way, partly to self-soothe, but also to do things so she could get things that she was lacking, such as she wanted the attention and love and care. She just wanted to be seen and heard by her family and friends. [00:18:49] That’s why she got into debt and that’s why she had a spending problem. That’s why she also maybe didn’t take as many risks as she could have with her career to make more money ’cause she didn’t think she was good enough. It was interesting when we were initially working together, she just wanted to pay off her debt and curb her spending. [00:19:04] But what we recognized was there was something deeper going on and that was really the kind of catalyst for me doing this book is this was one person and then I got to interview a ton more people. And I since then worked with a ton more clients. All of them have a story. They all have a particular money narrative. [00:19:20] They all do things with money that may not, they’re not being served by this and they need to change, but they don’t know how to change. Because again, a lot of the, I. Information when you’re looking for solutions are are practical, how to money things, but it’s like, well this is actually not a money issue. [00:19:37] Sure there’s something else going on under the surface that if we can fix that, then it’ll be a lot easier to stick with your budget, to not wanna spend money in that way. To take risks that are calculated so you can improve your financial life. [00:19:49] Joe: Yeah. Raya is working on everybody but Raya. [00:19:51] Jessica: Yeah, she was definitely that people pleaser and I think maybe we’ve been like that or we know someone like that that put everyone but themselves first. [00:20:01] I really like the analogy of like the, you know, you’re on the airplane, you have to put your mask on first before helping someone else. I don’t think a lot of us, especially women, we were always told to help first and then us. ’cause we saw that, like I saw that with my grandmas. They would always be the last eat dinner, always cleaning up after everyone and never took care of themselves. [00:20:20] ’cause they’re taking care of everyone else. We need to take care of ourselves so we can better help others. [00:20:25] Joe: Somebody pointed this out the other day, you and your husband go over to somebody’s house, let’s say for dinner. [00:20:30] Jessica: Mm-hmm. [00:20:31] Joe: Women generally offer to help out. [00:20:33] Jessica: Yeah. [00:20:34] Joe: With whatever’s going on, the dudes go out in the other room. [00:20:37] Mm-hmm. It’s the way we, we’ve always. Dudes go watch tv. Yeah. We’re just [00:20:39] Jessica: replicating what we saw with our parents and our grandparents. [00:20:42] Joe: Yeah. But it is, well how we don’t think through all that stuff. And it’s funny how, how much this is a one two punch. We just talked to Anthony O’Neill a couple weeks ago about getting your seat at the table and taking care of you. [00:20:53] If you start off with your email first, at the beginning of the day, you’re taking care of everybody but you, you gotta take care of what is gonna move you forward first. And such an important thing you list as one of the first things. We need to do as we’re unpacking, really our money story is to get it down in writing. [00:21:13] Jessica: Mm-hmm. [00:21:13] Joe: Why is it so important that we put a name on this battle that we’re having? [00:21:19] Jessica: So, there’s a couple things that I talk about. First is labeling how you feel with money. Because most of us have never been asked, how does money make you feel? So that’s important, but it’s also important to put that into words. [00:21:30] ’cause when you label something, when you give it words, it gives it power, it gives it some weight to it that I think normally we’d probably brush on the rug. And so we really need to, there’s, [00:21:39] Joe: there’s even a science to it. Your brain, you point out I didn’t know that. [00:21:43] Jessica: Yeah, there’s, yeah. I have some case studies and research that shows that there’s, there’s science behind it, how it really impacts you putting a label on your emotion. [00:21:51] It just makes it more real, I think. And so we go through all the different, uh, not all the different emotions, but some of the most common ones, such as shame and guilt, anxiety, envy, despair, things like that. I got lots of those words from doing a, a survey with my audience to find out how does money make you feel? [00:22:07] And those words kept on coming up. And so it’s important to see where you fit in. I give a lot of real life examples of this is how shame can show up in your life in this way. And it’s not just about, you know, being gr growing up with no money and having shame about that. If you grew up with money, there may be shame associated with that. [00:22:24] So no matter how you grew up or, or how much money you have now, you may still have envy or guilt or all those kinds of things. So it’s important to give that a name. And then the other part of it is once we figure that out, we need to do some digging to find out, okay, where do are beliefs or values or feelings? [00:22:41] All of those things stem from what’s our kind of money origin story. And so. I go through an exercise that’s all about helping you elicit your first money memory. And I think that’s really interesting ’cause that might be the first time that emotion, that feeling will have showed up in your life and how that connected with money and then still is connected with money in adulthood. [00:23:01] And I give an example of myself being a kid, stealing a gumball, being called out for that from my mom. Fair enough. And feeling ashamed about it. And shame has always been a very big part of my money story. And so I’m like, oh, there’s the connection. And so getting you to do the same may give you some aha moments. [00:23:19] Joe: What’s wild about your story? So you’re in the uh, bulk food section because you’re looking at like this Willy Wonka world of just stuff and your mom, I guess she turned her back and so you grab like a blue gumball. You would’ve gotten away with it if it wasn’t blue. I think because your mouth is full of this blue all of a sudden. [00:23:37] Little how old? You said you thought you were maybe four years old? [00:23:39] Jessica: I was like four. I was like really young. Really young to not quite know that stealing was bad. I knew it was sort of bad, but I was testing. I’m like, I don’t know. Is it really that bad? Yeah. That’s how young it was. Yeah. [00:23:50] Joe: Well, and you said you’re like, I had seen adults go, by God, my father-in-law would do this all the time. [00:23:55] He test out the grapes, right? Yeah, yeah. Just goes in as a grape or two, you see people in the, you know, just popping a thing or two in their mouth. So you do it. What was wild to me though is how you identified that it wasn’t shame on one level. Mm-hmm. Like there’s you being ashamed and learning from your mom that you need to be ashamed, but really the shame that your mom kind of taught you, you’re bringing to the whole family if you effed it up. [00:24:17] Yeah. [00:24:17] Jessica: I did the exercise myself so I can elicit that memory and the feelings that came up was shame on for stealing that shameful. But also the feeling of we don’t wanna look like, we can’t afford that, and the only way we can get it is to resort to stealing. We can afford it. We don’t have a lot of money, but. [00:24:34] We only buy things that we can afford. And so looking like we’re stealing and, and we’re, we’re doing something that’s outside of our narrative. It’s a bad look. We don’t wanna do that. And so I was ashamed, I was ashamed of making my family feel bad or, or look bad in, in front of all of our peers in the nineties. [00:24:49] And so there’s a lot of different levels that you may kind of discover. You may have one feeling that may come up in a, a bunch of different ways. [00:24:56] Joe: I had a couple of early memories that, uh, really affected me when I started making money and it was in, in my family, a lot of people hadn’t made a lot of money and it was kind of shame that you were making money that, oh, who do you think you are? [00:25:08] Mr. Uppity? Yeah. You [00:25:09] Jessica: think you’re better than me or what? Or you know, like, you think you’re hot now. Yeah, a hundred percent. That’s the common one I hear often. Yeah. [00:25:16] Joe: What do you do with this once you unpack it? Once you put a name to it and you kind of identify with it, what do we do next? [00:25:21] Jessica: You wanna find out what are the things, especially when you’ve written it down and written down, where did this come from? [00:25:27] What were the things I learned directly or indirectly from my caregivers? And then you wanna be able to take a step back and see what are the things that are holding me back and not serving me, and what are the things that are helpful? And I will continue with that. Mm-hmm. I learned a lot of amazing things, especially for my mom who was like the family money manager about spending within your means. [00:25:48] Don’t get into debt. All these things that have very much helped me with my money growing up, but there’s a lot of other things that. I adopted from her, but also from my grandparents and just greater family, uh, that ah, yeah, they don’t serve me anymore. Such as aversion to risk taking and, you know, only investing in really conservative investments ’cause they have certain traumas from their past that, that made sense to only keep it in cash or very conservative investments that if I were to follow suit, I’d be in a worse financial position. [00:26:17] So I’m like, I need to leave that and realize that risk does not mean you’re putting all your chips at the casino. You, it’s, it’s being calculated and having a strategy and knowing what you’re doing. So I need to take risks with my investments, but also my career. Like I, I got a lot of flack, uh, or not flack I would say, but a lot of questions about, are you sure this is the right choice when I decide to leave? [00:26:39] My job, I used to work in, um, marketing for a big corporation and decided to go off on my own eight years ago now, so it seems like forever ago. But when I decided to quit, everyone’s like, are you sure? Like, that seems really scary and dangerous. What if you can’t make any money? And all these, there’s all these dangers. [00:26:56] But for me it was again, a calculated risk. And I knew there was a plan B and C if this didn’t work out, but if I hadn’t made that choice, I’m in a much better financial position, make way more money than I ever did working for someone else. So I had to learn along the way and learned a lot more while going through this book, but along the way of what things are serving me and which ones do I have to leave and just rebel against. [00:27:20] Joe: I love that, that when things occur, you know the signs. [00:27:24] Jessica: Yeah. And [00:27:24] Joe: it makes it easier. It’s like these signposts along the way, you’re like, oh yeah, that’s, don’t need to go down that road again. And then your natural reaction too to things that you got from your parents about, oh no, we can’t afford it. [00:27:35] Jessica: Oh, yeah. [00:27:35] I still, there’s still that thing. Honestly, I was, I’ve been buying some more clothes over the past couple weeks and every time I like go to buy something that I know I can afford, there is that little voice inside me being like, are you sure it’s not on sale? You sure you wanna do that? Sure. You don’t wanna wait until, but I’m like, if I wait, then I won’t have it and I need it. [00:27:55] Yeah. And I can afford it. So why do I feel guilty for buying something that is absolutely fine. It’s just this, it’s still in there, but now I’m more aware of it and then I do it anyway. Well, I, I’m like, I’m buying it. [00:28:09] Joe: Actually, it’s funny, I had to learn this from our friend, uh, Paula Pan, where she’s like, my goal in life was to get to the point that I don’t care about the sale to have enough money that if I need it, I get it and I don’t need to. [00:28:20] And then that gives her confidence. [00:28:22] Jessica: Yeah. [00:28:22] Joe: You know? Yeah. That, that she’s like, yeah, I’m not gonna wait for the sale. I’m gonna buy it ’cause I want it now and I can afford it. Like, that’s a, yeah. I haven’t [00:28:28] Jessica: reached that level. That’s a mind shift. I’m like, I’m still, I don’t know. I, I think part of it is ’cause I learned that you were kind of a sucker for buying it not on sale because you know it’s already marked up. [00:28:39] Yes. So it’s like, who cares if you can afford it? I know. Matter. Buy it. [00:28:43] Joe: I know that’s somebody else’s game and hey, if I help them, that’s fine. That’s great. Yeah. You know, I gave them a little more, more profit and I could afford to do that. So that’s. Also makes me feel good if I look at it differently. Uh, I wanna kind of end here because a lot of people don’t know exactly what we’re talking about when we talk about putting this down. [00:28:58] And this is a great way to start your year. So on 2025, you can identify these things when you see them come up. But let’s start. So I feel like these are Dante seven deadly sins, right? It’s like the seven layers of hell, all of these. But it’s interesting how, as I was walking through these, it isn’t about what happened to you. [00:29:18] It’s about how you respond to it is what you please are. Exactly. [00:29:22] Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. So one thing that I talk about, and I I, I often see the tone or the messaging from some. I call them like curmudgeons, basically with a microphone. These kind of experts out there that have been around for a while, and they use things like shame and judgment as a means to motivate you to change your habits. [00:29:39] Yeah, I don’t find that negative motivation is only helpful for such a short amount of time. We need positive motivation. It’s not about victimizing yourself or using your situation, what happened to you as an excuse. It’s an explanation. We just need answers. That’s what people want, is we want answers on why am I still doing this when I know better, I know better and I just can’t help myself. [00:30:02] There’s something else going on that we need to figure out. This is what’s pushing you into this way, or this is what keeps triggering you and you don’t have tools to do the opposite or to, to go against what you think is your instinct, but it’s not really your instinct. [00:30:15] Joe: I love your rant. You’ve got a huge rant for people that haven’t read the book yet. [00:30:17] You’ve got a huge rant about empathy. I do. About, you know what? I’m sick of people just bitching each other online when you don’t know the whole situation. Like we just need to have a little bit of empathy. I swear to God, I say that every day when I jump on. Well, Facebook especially. [00:30:30] Jessica: Oh yeah. But when [00:30:31] Joe: I jump online, I’m like, can you read the comments of any of these things? [00:30:35] And you’re like, oh, [00:30:35] Jessica: insane. What people will say anonymously online. But you’re like, you are talking to a real person. I mean, probably [00:30:43] Joe: it just drives me crazy. [00:30:45] Jessica: Yeah. Especially like, I don’t go on Reddit for a reason. People are like, people are nasty. People can be helpful, but also, woo, little too honest. [00:30:54] Joe: I, I learned that a long time ago. [00:30:55] I lurk, I will read. Yeah. But I do not, yeah, I [00:30:57] Jessica: read, I do not post anything. No. I don’t want them to know I’m there. [00:30:59] Joe: Yeah. Yeah. Redditors, I’m there, but I’m not there. Uh, the shame. Let’s talk about shame because there’s the shame of growing up with less. I think we’ve all seen that around. If it’s not us. But there’s also the shame of growing up richer than everyone else. [00:31:11] The fact that you are the person that has more, or the shame of being, I actually had this one, the shame of being the poorest rich kid. Yeah. You, you’re, you’re parsing these things. But this was truly me. Yeah. I went to this Catholic College Prep high school that was really highly regarded in the area. I was a kid from a middle class family. [00:31:31] I would go to events at people’s houses. Mm-hmm. Jessica, their houses had names. [00:31:37] Jessica: Oh, [00:31:37] Joe: their house. That’s when you know your Ritz. Yes. And they have a [00:31:39] Jessica: name. Yeah. My [00:31:40] Joe: house didn’t have a name. My street had a name, but our house didn’t have a name. The shame of not having earned your own wealth. Yeah. The shame that I’m falling behind, this is the New Year’s day thing that you and I do. [00:31:52] Yep. And then you go into guilt, the rational guilt, spending more than you’re earning consistently over budget, spending money to sell soup because you’re exhausted, hungry, stressed, sad, jealous, or angry, not saving for retirement. But then there’s these irrational guilts. Yeah. Why do we have the irrational guilt? [00:32:09] ’cause you see these all the time too. [00:32:10] Jessica: Yeah. So like the rational guilt, like that’s actually a helpful, these feelings are not bad. They’re actually helpful. That’s why they exist. They’re telling you something and so guilt can help you change your behavior for a good reason. But there’s also a rational guilt where you feel guilty for no reason. [00:32:25] I mean, I, I talked about how I grew up Catholic and that was one of the things that we learned early on. We feel guilty about everything all the time for no reason. Maybe that’s [00:32:32] Joe: why we’re ninjas at this. Maybe [00:32:33] Jessica: that’s why there’s some of that connection. Like, oh, I just feel bad about everything all the time. [00:32:36] Does not everyone else feel like that? No. My husband’s like, no, that’s not normal. Like buying something that is not on sale that’s irrational. That doesn’t change anything. It’s not hurting anyone. It doesn’t make any sense that is irrational. So we need to recognize what are some of the things that we feel guilty about that are completely irrational. [00:32:55] So we can also like write those down to be like, yeah, that’s ridiculous. I went. Make someone feel bad for doing that. So why would I make myself feel bad for that? And we need to leave that there and stop doing that. And it’s a practice. You have to remind yourself, no, this is okay. This is fine. We know it’s fine. [00:33:10] This is an irrational thought. We need to just get it outta here. [00:33:13] Joe: Oh yeah. Some of the irrational ones that I’ve seen in my life that you kind of point out. We don’t celebrate things ’cause we’re afraid of how it will impact other people. So I don’t want celebrate wins or you know, the one year more syndrome. [00:33:25] You see people in the working world, older people, yeah. That are getting ready to retire. I’m gonna work one more year. ’cause I irrationally just God knows they’re not making more time. Yeah, I know. I just, I only have so much more time and I’m gonna stay on it. Some of the others you have fear again. [00:33:39] Rational, irrational fear, anxiety. MV despair, and this is, as you pointed out, just the beginning, but I love the idea here early in the year stackers. Mm-hmm. Get it out. Get it out in the open, identify what it is. So as you’re chasing those goals this year and along the way that you know what the, what those things out there are gonna cross you up. [00:33:59] The book is called Everything But Money because it truly is about everything but money. The hidden barriers between you and financial freedom. It’s available everywhere. I think [00:34:09] Jessica: it is in the US, Canada, worldwide. You can find easy links@jessicamoorehouse.com slash book. But in the US it’s available. You know, Amazon, bards Noble, target, wherever. [00:34:19] And Canada Indigo’s our big bookstore here. So check it out. [00:34:23] Joe: I will by the way, link to the website because I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask you what the heck’s coming up next on the More Money Show. [00:34:31] Jessica: Listen, okay. I don’t know. Um, I like what’s next. You’re like, I literally just put out a book. Give me a minute to brief. [00:34:38] No, I’m continuing, I’m doing season 20. I did not do a pause at all from last season to this season. And so what we’ve got looking forward this year is the first couple weeks, um, I’m releasing, uh, excerpts from the book. So reading it out so you get a little taste of the audio book. Sweet. And then doing a bit of a re-listen some of my top and favorite episodes from the past 10 years. [00:34:58] ’cause June, it’ll be 10 years since I started my show. And then I’m gonna sprinkle in a few, uh, new interviews with guests as well. So that’s what’s, uh, happening now, season 20. [00:35:07] Joe: 10 years. Doesn’t it feel wild that we’ve been doing it this long, Jessica? [00:35:10] Jessica: Yeah. I was 28 when I started, I guess. Or 29. Yeah, and I’m, I don’t, I don’t wanna think about it. [00:35:16] And you’re still 29. [00:35:17] Joe: Wait, wait, wait. How old am I? How are you still 29 today. [00:35:21] Jessica: How am I still 29. I don’t get, how does that happen, [00:35:23] Joe: Jessica? Great seeing you. Thanks for being our mentor today. [00:35:26] Jessica: Thanks so much for having me. [00:35:31] Doug: Hey there, stackers. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. And today’s a great day in history because way back in 1949, Kansas born actress and banker, Georgia Niece Clark Gray, became the first woman too. Well, you know what? Let’s make that the question. Besides becoming the first woman to have four names on her checking account, she became the first woman to do what? [00:35:54] Banking fee that had never previously been achieved by a woman. I’ll be right back after I raid Joe’s mom’s purse for all the dollar bills to see whose name’s on them. [00:36:10] Hey there, stackers. I’m person, inspector and guy who just got his hand slapped. Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. What a misunderstanding. All I wanted to do was see whose name appeared on all the bills in Joe’s mom’s person. Well, I thought that might be easier to do if they went in my pocket and I took ’em out to the El Camino where the light was better. [00:36:29] It’s just, it was a big misunderstanding and I had no idea that the same name might be on a hundred dollars bills as I maybe 20, which is why I took samples of each. But one name that didn’t appear on them was Georgia Niece Clark Gray, but they used to be Gray. Had been an actress on stage working with the great Charlie Chaplin and others before the talkie movies. [00:36:52] Cut short her career. Luckily she could fall back on her banking experience enough that Georgia became the first woman in history to be the treasurer of the United States. Oh. And there you have it. I know, right? Let’s get back to Joe and og and now you know the rest of the story. Yeah, that’s a, that’s interesting. [00:37:13] I mean, how come we don’t know her name more? Her name’s plural. ‘ [00:37:16] Joe: cause you gotta take a, a break halfway through saying her name said the guy with three names. I’m like, oh my goodness. Four. [00:37:25] Doug: I can’t, uh, there’s no hyphens in there. It’s very like, which one do I emphasize? Georgia Niece, Clark Gray. You can tell you’re really [00:37:32] Joe: bored, by the way, when you’re looking at the names on the, on your dollar bill. [00:37:37] Yeah. [00:37:37] Doug: Oh look, somebody signed this. That’s when you forgot to take your phone to the bathroom. You’re reading names on the bills, man. You are out of material. There’s an [00:37:46] Joe: eye on the top of this pyramid. What is this all about? It’s the Illuminati. Big thanks to Jessica and obviously so much so, so, so much going on with our money and that’s why we paired it nicely today, like a fine chardonnay. [00:38:03] This headline. [00:38:05] headlines: Hello Darlings, and now it’s time for your favor, part of the show, our Stacking Benjamin’s headlines. [00:38:11] Joe: Our headline today comes to us from USA today. What a no buy list. [00:38:19] OG: Yeah, I don’t have one of those. [00:38:22] Joe: Greta Cross, right? Do you have a no buy list for 2025? One Creator said it helped her pay off $34,000. [00:38:30] I. In debt y You know, it’s interesting. You know, this morning at the gym, I will often gamify my workout just to make sure that I can, that I can get through it, right? And so often when we turn these things into a game, we’re much more likely to get some of these goals that we didn’t [00:38:49] OG: think that we could get. [00:38:50] Doug, can you picture Joe at the bench press going, looks sexier than OG. Looks sexier than OG looks sexier than og. And it’s like this trainer’s like, it’s not possible dude, but keep pumping. Good job. Good job. Two more reps. I, [00:39:02] Joe: I don’t, uh, no. Dunno that I’ve ever said that, but, uh, [00:39:06] Doug: because you’ve never been on a bench press. [00:39:07] OG: Yeah, [00:39:08] Doug: but he [00:39:08] OG: has, [00:39:09] Doug: has, [00:39:09] OG: you can imagine what it’d be like. [00:39:12] Joe: Anyway, this piece writes, if you write out New year’s resolutions to goals, but on the butt blast [00:39:16] OG: or 3000, then you’re totally like, look sexier than OG money Cut [00:39:21] Joe: leotard, maybe at the top of your list. New social media trend, encouraging goal setters to be more rigorous. [00:39:28] When it comes to putting away their wallets, I don’t really care about the social media trend. I, I do like Ji the idea though of gamifying some of your money habits. [00:39:35] OG: I was thinking just as, uh, you read this headline, the thing that popped in my mind was, uh, there’s a real famous book a couple of years ago written by, um, personality. [00:39:43] His name is Peter Atia. He’s a physician. He’s got a podcast and kind of a wellness health, you know, longevity type guy. And his book is called Out Live and it’s, it’s actually pretty good. One of the things he talks about in there in terms of eating healthy is there’s really only three things that you can do. [00:40:01] You can have calorie restriction, you can have time restriction, or you can have thing restriction, which is ipso facto calorie restriction. And he is like, and most of the time you should have like two of those, right? So you should say, like, for example, I’m only gonna eat 1500 calories. I’m only gonna eat between the hours of 11 and 7:00 PM or whatever. [00:40:21] Right. Or I’m not gonna eat any processed carbohydrates. That’s thing restriction and I’m only going to consume my meal, you know, in the afternoon or something, you know, whatever. And by doing those things, you’re, you’re focusing on the thing that really matters, right? Which is calories in, calories out in some level, and giving your body time to kind of process it and energize and all that sort of stuff. [00:40:45] I was thinking about the concept of a no buy list in the sense of that’s like a thing restriction, right? That’s like somebody saying, I don’t want to eat white bread this year or this month, you know? Or I’m not gonna eat pasta. You know? You’re not saying, I’m not gonna eat pasta for the rest of my life. [00:40:59] You’re just saying for this period of time. I want to focus on, you know, I know that’s an empty calorie. I know that’s really not gonna help me reach my health goals. So for this period of time, I’m not gonna really track anything else. I’m just not gonna eat pasta. And if I don’t eat pasta, I’m likely to have that calorie restriction that leads me to, you know, whatever. [00:41:17] And honestly, we’ve thought about this. We, no, I’ve thought about this with my obsessive compulsive, uh, wine buying habit, and I start the year anew. And I think, okay, this is the year I, I’m not gonna buy any wine this year. And I might not. That’s, I mean, I’m, I’m, Hey, you know, I’m a month in and I haven’t bought any yet, so I’m one 12th of the way there. [00:41:37] Joe: Are you one 12th of the way through your non wine buying? [00:41:40] OG: Yeah. But it’s like Marriott points or Amex points, right? Like, what’s the point of having a million of those things? Like they become worth less as time goes on. Right? Because Marriott says, Hey, you wanna stay in that hotel? It’s 20,000 points a night. [00:41:52] And then next year they go, it’s 25,000 points. It’s [00:41:54] Joe: 24 yet. [00:41:55] OG: Yeah. You know, it’s like they don’t give you interest on your points. So, uh, uh, unless you have a specific thing, use use for it. There’s no significant reason to just sit at and accumulate it. And I was talking to a friend of mine who’s, uh, got a basement full of wine and he’s like, I could honestly drink a bottle of wine a day for the rest of my life and still have wine left over, yet I keep buying it. [00:42:21] And you go to what end? That kind of hit me, you know, [00:42:24] Doug: like, sweet buzz. That’s what the end is. Yeah. [00:42:26] OG: Well, sure. But wouldn’t you be good enough to stop buying it at that point? It’s almost like being, you know, coast FY with wine. [00:42:38] Doug: There’s the next conference, [00:42:42] OG: like, you’re good. Right. You know, until you consume all this stuff. [00:42:45] I mean, if, if it takes, we have piles of it. I’m using this from my own perspective here. You know, we have, we have, you know, a bunch of it and it’s like we just drank in a normal pace. It’s like, it’s gonna take us years to get through it anyway. The stuff that I’m hanging onto will be great in five years. [00:43:00] You know, like, why? Anyway. [00:43:02] Joe: Well, sometimes with these collections too, the, uh, buying becomes the compulsion. Yeah. You know, just the, oh, there’s a new year of X out. I, I really need one of those. I gotta try. Yeah. I gotta try out the new vintage. I gotta try out the new thing. It’s the same thing with my board game. [00:43:17] Crack addiction. It’s like, oh, I heard about this new game. Oh, oh, I gotta, I gotta get that. I can’t. Someone [00:43:23] OG: who’s made a new game and I like their old game, so I’ll probably like their new game. Yeah. I should get it. [00:43:27] Joe: Yeah. And then I look at my closet and I’m like, why would I, again, I could play a board game, play game a day with your, we could combine these two, we could have all of your wine for the rest of forever. [00:43:37] All my board games to the rest of forever. [00:43:40] Doug: This smacks to me of your love of focus on the process. Not the results. I’m less like that. I’m, I’m more focused on the results and I’m a little less concerned about the specific process steps. I see the merit of both, but it seems to me that if you, I, you maybe think of this OG when you, you talked about, I’m not gonna eat process carbohydrates today. [00:44:03] I just need to get through one day, and if I can do that, you know, and, and then I can do it again the next day. It, it’s more, if you focus on the process, you’ll eventually get that result that you’re looking for. And it, it’s, it’s a lot easier to think about that than this big, huge unattainable thing of, I need to, you know, save $3 million. [00:44:21] So [00:44:21] OG: I get, the thing is, is you can’t see, we’ve talked about this before, but I had another aha moment on this a week ago. You know, you can’t see compounding in advance. You can’t believe that it’s gonna happen because our brains just don’t work that way yet. You see it in the rear view mirror all the time, but even though you see it in the rear view mirror, you won’t believe that it’ll happen again. [00:44:41] Right. Using your $3 million example, Doug. You watched your money go from a million and a half to three and you went, okay, yeah, it doubled. And I get the concept of it doubling. I just don’t believe it’s gonna happen again. In my lifetime it happened. I get that it happened, I just don’t think it’s gonna happen again. [00:44:58] And most of that is because we just don’t, we, our brains just can’t process that. And I was sitting in the pool a couple of weeks ago, uh, wife and I went on a little trip. I was reflecting on the fact that around Thanksgiving I thought, Hey, we’ve got this beach trip coming up. I probably oughta tighten a little for the pool just to have some self-confidence. [00:45:17] And then you look into the future, you go, so you can look [00:45:19] Joe: as good as me while you’re on the bench press going, I wish I looked as good as Joe. That’s, I was sitting there [00:45:23] OG: on the bench press going look as sexy as Joe. But it was around Thanksgiving. And I remember thinking like, oh, that’s like 10 weeks from now. [00:45:29] Like, you know how much commitment it takes to be healthy for 10 weeks, my God, during the holidays. Are you crazy? Right? And then you get there and you look back and you go, that was just 10 weeks ago. Wasn’t that wasn’t that long ago. Like Thanksgiving was just, you know, a few week, it wasn’t even that long ago, like I can remember what was for dinner, but into the future. [00:45:48] When you look into the future right now, and you say it’s the 1st of February weeks. Yeah, it’s the 1st of February. It’s gonna be, it’s gonna be bathing suit season or an hemisphere. Pretty soon I better tighten, you know, you go, ah, that’s 10 weeks away, that’s 15 weeks. That’s a long time. But when you get there in the summer from now, you’re gonna look back and go like, oh, I could’ve done that. [00:46:08] 10 weeks back [00:46:09] Joe: was mid-November, which feels like yesterday, 10 weeks forward is mid-April, which feels like forever to go. And it’s the same amount of time. [00:46:19] OG: Yeah. When you get to it, you’re gonna go, oh, I could have done that. [00:46:23] Joe: Yeah. And this idea of gamifying it and taking it one day at a time, I mean, I like your Peter Atia analogy where, you know what? [00:46:29] I’m not gonna focus on everything. I’m just gonna say pasta. ’cause that’s gonna cover 70% of it. Like, it really makes it fun. This woman, uh, Alicia Berman, she’s, uh, 35 years old, tried this no buy challenge in 2024. It helped her pay off $34,000 in credit card debt, just turning it into a game. I’m just gonna stop doing this one thing. [00:46:49] Mm-hmm. And you know what’s funny is when you start these games, it’s the latte factor. Yeah. When you start these games, they feel hard, right? Because it’s all you think about, like, don’t think about elephants. Well, I wasn’t thinking about elephants until you said, don’t think about elephants. And now I’m thinking about it is, I’m not gonna buy this. [00:47:01] I’m not gonna buy this. But when you successfully do it for a few days in a row now it becomes, your brain gets on board When I’ve done this in the past and you go, oh, let’s see if I can keep this up. It’s like my running challenge that I did for several years in a row. I’m gonna run a mile a day for what? [00:47:17] Uh, almost, uh, four years. Every day it became a, oh, let’s see if I can just do one more day if I can keep this thing going. I, I think it was like that building milestones when it comes to reaching my goals. Like these big goals. Everybody looks at these big goals. I need $2 million. I need x amount of money. [00:47:34] I saw a woman yesterday, by the way, who said she retired at 56 years old with $500,000. She’s got a huge YouTube channel talking about how she did that. I’m like, well, this is great. Now I can’t wait to see what it’s like. Yeah. But she said, this is how I ran outta money. [00:47:48] OG: Well, it’s all about spending, right? [00:47:50] I mean, if she’s got sure half a million dollars in a $3,000 month pension and or a social media platform that produces a few thousand bucks a month of income, it’s just gotta, [00:47:59] Joe: if you form a YouTube channel to everybody how you did it, you are able to breach the gap. But instead of looking at $2 million or a million dollars, looking at where do I need to be by June of this year? [00:48:11] Right. Then the delta is so much smaller and you’re like, oh, I can reach that. Uh, again, this compounding number that you talk about, og, it looks impossible. And yet if I just look at what I need to do to get that compounding number by June of this year, I can easily, easily do that. Gamification for the win. [00:48:29] Let’s link to this on our show notes page at Stacking Benjamins dot com. Also, you know what stackers, I’d love to hear from you in our Facebook group, the basement. Let’s challenge each other. What are you gonna do? What type of no spend challenge would you like to do? Or, or maybe it’s not a no spend challenge, maybe it’s some other type of challenge. [00:48:47] Let’s, uh, let’s talk about it in our Facebook group, the basement. [00:48:51] Doug: The other thing I’d love to hear about is not just what you’re challenging yourself with to not spend on or, you know, whatever that specific thing is, but how you’re doing it. Like what unique ways are you finding to prevent yourself from whatever it is? [00:49:06] Because that’s the, that’s the tough part. It’s not that we all have the thing we need to stop buying wine, but, but it’s how do you restrict yourself and, and I think that’s what I’d personally be more interested in learning about. [00:49:21] Joe: Yeah. Stacky Benjamins dot com slash basement. Uh, is the link to our Facebook group. [00:49:26] Or just go to Facebook in the search engine, put in Stacky Benjamin’s basement. We’d love to, let’s challenge each other. Let’s hold each other accountable. That’ll be fun. Also, we’re gonna dive more into this and more topics in the 2 0 1, our newsletter. Uh, ticket, the newsletter, it’s free. Comes out once a week. [00:49:40] Stacky Benjamins dot com slash 2 0 1 for that Doug. Time for us to wander out to the back porch. Man, I’ve got one thing myself for the back porch. We figured out where the Seattle meetup is. I don’t know if you guys figured out where the meetup’s gonna be around heavenly, but, uh, we, we [00:49:55] OG: have a date and a time and, uh, working on the location, if we can just pull it off at the, uh, you know, kind of hotel ish area that Doug and I are staying at. [00:50:04] Joe: Excellent for the Seattle Meetup. We’ll actually be in Bellevue, which is where the Retire Meet Conference is, uh, going to be held. It’s at Tapur Bellevue. That’s, uh, Thursday, February 6th, 6:30 PM Come join me and other like-minded individuals. We always have so much fun in the Seattle area. Uh, to make sure that we tell Ster that you’re going to be there and we have a big enough area, head to stacky Benjamins dot com slash meetup and then click the button to reserve your spot. [00:50:33] Of course, uh, we’re gonna have a great time. Should be a lot of fun seeing people on Thursday, February 6th in Bellevue and OG for our. Heavenly Meetup. [00:50:45] OG: Yep. So Doug and I will be in Heavenly, we have a big corporate retreat that we’re doing. Uh, have to say that so that the trip is deductible. Big Stacky Benjamins corporate retreat. [00:50:55] Yes. Finally [00:50:56] Doug: getting my bonus. [00:50:57] OG: Yes. Finally, finally. Corporate retreat. Um, we are gonna meet you. Get a mug. [00:51:02] Joe: Yeah, [00:51:03] OG: I did get a mug. Uh, we’re gonna be in heavenly for the, the week after, uh, president’s Day. So President’s Day is, uh, February the 17th. Doug and I will be out there on the 18th and we’re gonna meet up with anybody who wants to meet up on the 19th. [00:51:16] So that’s a Wednesday. Uh, we’re thinking six to eight local time, and we just have to find location. So I’m not sure if the police that we have has a, has a. Apre ski vibe? I don’t think it does. I think it’s more of a [00:51:29] Doug: Yeah, [00:51:30] OG: you know, sleeping thing. I don’t think it does either. [00:51:31] Doug: But you know what’s, and we, we’ve got a couple of stackers I noticed in the, in the basement who have already said, oh, I used to ski at Heavenly all the time. [00:51:38] So if you’ve got some thoughts, chime in. But right now I see right up the street, OG is Mcpe Tap House. That’s an Irish pub. That’s got strong possibilities. So, uh, you know, that’s a, that’s a leading candidate in the clubhouse right now. I would say. We’ll find pretty close find, we’ll find [00:51:53] OG: a place and put it online. [00:51:54] I think Tina can probably do that for us, right? [00:51:56] Joe: She can. That’ll also be at stacky Benjamins dot com slash meetup. You’ll see that also links to our monthly meetup of our Stacky Benjamins group in the Twin Cities. So if you’re in Minneapolis, St. Paul every month, uh, a bunch of stackers gets together there. [00:52:10] They have a great time. They did, uh, ugly sweater and axe throwing as a Christmas party [00:52:16] Doug: at the ugly sweaters. Yeah. Well, I don’t understand how you combine the axe throwing and the ugly sweaters. [00:52:21] Joe: Well, luckily, I, I heard the second hand I couldn’t make it, but I heard that they didn’t throw the axes at each other, which was great. [00:52:28] It’s always a step up. Always a nice, nice, nice, unlike us. Alright, uh, I think that does it for the back porch, Doug, you got it From here, man. What should we have learned on today’s podcast? [00:52:39] Doug: Well, Joe, here’s what’s stacked up on our to-do list for today. First, take some advice from Jessica Morehouse, worried about your spending, saving or financial controls. [00:52:49] Look beyond the dollars and cents for the real truth about how your habits have materialized. Second, a no buy challenge. What will you forego in 2025? But the big lesson, don’t ask Joe’s mom about a no buy challenge idea. She says she’s gonna avoid buying anything to do with those chocolate chip cookies. [00:53:09] I love the ones with the m and m in them. You know, this doesn’t have to be punitive, ma, how come I’m paying for your no buy challenge? Thanks to Jessica Morehouse for joining us today. You’ll find Jessica’s book everything but Money wherever books are Sold. We’ll also include links in our show notes at Stacking Benjamins dot com. [00:53:32] Just had to say that different I get so bored saying at Stacking Benjamins dot com. So I’m just gonna switch it up a little bit. This show is the property of S SP podcast, LLC, copyright 2025, and is created by Joe Saul-Sehy. Joe gets some help from a few of our neighborhood friends. You’ll find out about our awesome team at Stacking Benjamins dot com. [00:53:54] Do do 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. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. [00:54:17] I’m Joe’s Mom’s neighbor, Duggan. We’ll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show. [00:54:27] I’m not, I’m not doing an intro. I’m totally protesting this. [00:54:32] headlines: I got no mug. [00:55:19] This is [00:55:19] Joe: a pleasant surprise. Doug, you and I watched a show that is all the Rage Aji. Have you watched, uh, American Primeval yet? [00:55:29] Doug: I never heard of it. It’s your show. This is a show for you. [00:55:33] Joe: Let’s give you a little preview. [00:55:55] OG: Okay. [00:55:55] Joe: That’s the preview. This one I get for not watching it ahead of time. [00:55:58] OG: I mean, I do like the rendition of, uh, glory. Glory, glory. Hallelujah. [00:56:03] Joe: Oh, they do that a lot. The whole last episode, I don’t know if you noticed this, Doug, but in the background, the music was America the beautiful. [00:56:11] headlines: Yeah. [00:56:11] Joe: They kept playing it in the background over and over and over as stuff was happening. [00:56:15] So this is a series on Netflix bringing together three groups of people. The first group is the American military. The second group is the Mormons, led by the new governor of the Utah Territory, Brigham Young. And then the third group is the Native Americans, mostly the Shoshone, but there’s other groups, of course there is a fourth fringe group, um, which is just regular people settling. [00:56:43] And that’s who the story kind of uses to focus on when you look at this, uh, this clash of the Mormons trying to. Protect their territory, protect their lifestyle, protect themselves. The Shoshone tried to protect themselves, protect their lifestyle, protect everything that they’ve got going on, and the military trying to ensure law and order in this, uh, lawless place. [00:57:09] Doug: That fourth group you mentioned, Joe, they last about 12 minutes into the first episode. They are canon fodder. [00:57:18] Joe: Yes. The entire episode, by the way, the events of this episode, and a lot of the people in this episode are true life characters, very fictionalized. The whole thing is, is a hundred percent fiction. [00:57:31] But it’s interesting when you dig into the history of this, the massacre that occurred really happened. It didn’t happen at all. At all, like what they depicted in this film. And I call it a film because. Even though it’s 6 35 to 55 minute episodes, it truly is like a five hour movie is what you’re really watching. [00:57:54] Doug: Yeah, I agree. [00:57:55] Joe: And it starts off with this woman and her son who are coming ostensibly to meet, uh, the boy’s dad in this town. Winter is coming. Sounds like Game of Thrones. Winter is coming, but winter is coming. And everybody’s like, you shouldn’t go because winter’s coming and they’re trying to make it and everybody’s telling her not to go. [00:58:14] And then you find out more about the woman, you find out more about what’s really going on, and then you find out more about, about all the characters, some of which begin as unsympathetic and then become sympathetic. Others begin as sympathetic then are unsympathetic. The way you feel about people throughout these six episodes changes a ton. [00:58:33] I don’t know. Doug, what else should we, should we say about it before we get into whether we liked it or not, like describing it? [00:58:37] Doug: I, I would say it is dark visually. Is this, is this [00:58:41] OG: contemporary piece like a futuristic, like what if, or is this a, is historical. This is [00:58:47] Doug: a, this is a western set. It’s a western in the, yeah, this is a western set as we’re breaking into the west. [00:58:53] So it’s [00:58:53] Joe: roughly the 1850s. 1860s, yeah. Yeah. That we’re looking at that period. It’s dark and intense. And by the way, by dark. By dark. Doug doesn’t say that dark enough. Like if you think dark, go like eight degrees darker and then you’re probably there. [00:59:12] Doug: Right. But you know what I mean? I would say even my wife liked this, even though it is dark and intense and there are some definite scene, mature scenes of gore and killing in this, somehow it is still, I. [00:59:28] Very watchable. It’s not, I wouldn’t say it is, people are gonna laugh or choke when I say this. It didn’t seem gratuitous to me. In most cases, it seemed necessary for the overall vibe of the, of the film. As you say, Joe, musically, it’s dark. I mean, you’ll notice like by the end of the first episode or two there has been this deep baseline thumping or drums thumping in the background for most of the first two hours. [00:59:57] You watch this thing. It just gives you this weight as you’re watching it. [01:00:00] Joe: The last episode, Doug, when they’re playing America the beautiful while nothing beautiful is happening. [01:00:05] Doug: Yeah, [01:00:06] Joe: like the juxtaposition of the music, right. This beautiful, beautiful music and the horrible crap happening. Yeah. You know, man’s in humanity to man, [01:00:15] Doug: but you care about the characters. [01:00:17] I mean, you do get to care about each of the characters in. Ways you’re not expecting that you would care about them, or you’ll start to hate characters you thought you liked at, at first to, to your point a minute ago. And it just pulls you in. You wanna know what happens next. Uh, it’s beautiful to watch. [01:00:32] It’s great cinematography. This is probably one of the my favorite things that I’ve watched in the last several years, and it reminds me of another show that listeners are tired of hearing me recommend called Godless. It’s probably my favorite Western series I’ve watched, watched. I thought this [01:00:48] Joe: was even darker than Godless. [01:00:50] Doug: It is a bit darker than Godless, but gosh, godless opens with some pretty, uh, godless. Godless, [01:00:56] Joe: another fantastic Michelle Dockery, uh, Jeff Bridges. Uh, not Jeff Bridges. Jeff Daniels. Sorry. Jeff [01:01:03] Doug: Daniels, right? Yeah. [01:01:04] Joe: Every time Jeff Daniels gets on screen, you’re sure somebody’s gonna die and godless. And you know what’s funny when you talk about it not being gratuitous violence. [01:01:14] What I liked about the violence, which is a horrible phrase, what I liked about it, Doug, dis sentence [01:01:19] Doug: you’re not supposed to say. [01:01:20] Joe: But what I liked about it was, you know, when the stakes are high enough and the stage is set correctly, then you get this violence that I completely understand why it’s happening. [01:01:31] Well put, and by the way, when violence happens, you can see it coming from a mile away because it’s supposed to happen. [01:01:37] headlines: Yeah. [01:01:37] Joe: You’re about to put these people together in a scene that, you know, when they get together, bad juju’s going to happen. You know, you’re like, I don’t wanna see this. I don’t want this to happen. [01:01:49] But what, what choice do we have? Oh, my, and, and how emotionally attached I was. There’s a scene in maybe the fourth episode where the woman. Who is trying to get out west to meet the boy’s father. She insists for the second time on doing something really stupid and I am yelling at the screen. Oh God, yes. [01:02:10] And just the fact that I’m so emotionally involved that I’m yelling at the screen. I’m like, listen to Isaac. Yeah. The hell are you doing? Listen to Isaac. And she doesn’t do it. And then it’s funny, later on when she Miles, I’m sorry to him, I laughed out loud. I was like, [01:02:27] Doug: you’re not sorry enough. [01:02:29] Joe: You cannot be sorry enough. [01:02:30] Doug: Yeah. You know, and I’m glad you brought up her. This didn’t dawn on me until probably three quarters of the way through this whole thing pivots around two very strong female characters. I mean, that could be a reason why my wife enjoyed it. And it’s similar for Godless, but it is great to see two really strong female characters that most of the storyline pivots around, either directly because of them or, or indirectly. [01:02:57] So, you know, I cared the least about, probably was the Kid. And you, you, I probably should have cared the most about the kid, [01:03:03] Joe: but I like the kid’s relationship with the guide. [01:03:06] Doug: Yeah, yeah, sure. I thought [01:03:08] Joe: that was a nice, the storyline, the attachments. The pairings of people. Okay. I mean, the relationships between people. [01:03:14] Jim Bridger in this story, I really like as a character. I love [01:03:17] Doug: that guy, that actor, the way he portrayed him was [01:03:20] Joe: fantastic. And the dude that got to play Brigham Young. Amazing, amazing actor because he [01:03:26] Doug: was like, you hated him. [01:03:28] Joe: You absolutely. Oh God. 100% hated him. Oh, he was just gross. Yeah. So absolutely ruthless. [01:03:36] But then you think about the position that he’s in, where he is trying to ensure their ability to continue as Mormons. ’cause everybody’s trying to kill them. Mm-hmm. So he’s doing this shady behind the back stuff, but in his head, it’s all. Righteous because the ends justifies, ends justify these horrible, horrible, horrible means. [01:04:01] Darkness wise. By the way, I would put this on par with Peaky Blinders. I think it is Peaky Blinders. Oh, that’s a good comparison. Peaky Blinders Dark. So Cheryl got grossed out by Peaky Blinders, would not watch Peaky Blinders after the first couple. She’s like, it’s just too dark. She much like your spouse, Doug made it all the way through this and she said the longer it went, the more she liked it. [01:04:22] Mm-hmm. The first episode, she didn’t wanna watch the second episode. She was, that turned off the second episode. She’s like, okay, I’m in. And the third episode she’s like, oh, this just gets better. And at the end. But man, we got to the, we got to the end and. And we both, we turned it off. We’re like, that’s maybe the darkest shit we’ve ever watched. [01:04:42] It’s just [01:04:43] Doug: so, so, so dark. Yeah, it was surprising and I’m glad to hear you say that Cheryl had a similar response. I mean, my wife has a pretty strong bedtime. She sticks to her bedtime pretty closely within, give or take 20 minutes. And I think we got through episode four and we were like 30 minutes away from her bedtime and she wanted to watch the last two episodes, like she was gonna stay up for all of it. [01:05:06] That’s how much she had gotten pulled in. She didn’t like, Nope. As your doctor, I need to advise you. That’s not, ’cause there was still like an hour and a half left, but, uh, yeah, that’s how much she, she really liked it. [01:05:18] Joe: The body count in this movie’s incredibly high. And what’s funny is, is that to your point, Doug, it’s not the body count that I think about. [01:05:25] You know? And it’s not like somebody I was reading, somebody talking about, oh, Joe didn’t like another Marvel movie, like somebody rolling their eyes at me. But I don’t like the fact that it’s just gratuitous violence and I don’t care. Right. I cared every time there was violence. [01:05:39] Doug: I think that’s well put. [01:05:40] And a good observation. I didn’t really think of it that way, but they set the stakes up. In a way that there might’ve been one or two scenes, somebody listening to this is gonna go watch it and say, are you kidding me? What about the scene with the Yeah, there might’ve been one or two, but it doesn’t stand out as, yeah. [01:05:56] I never like detached myself from the show to the point where I’m like, oh, come on. What did you do that for? That was, you know, ’cause when I’m watching movies and I detach myself like that, that’s the minute I’m out. Yeah. Agreed. And I’ll, I’ll finish it. But yeah, because I’m so far into it, but that never happened to me in this show, [01:06:12] Joe: and that is to the person that, you know, rolled their, oh, Joe didn’t like it. [01:06:15] It’s just that, that one thing I need to care about what happens. And you’re right, I’ll watch the rest of the movie, but I’m like, oh yeah, nope, I, I just, okay. [01:06:25] Doug: But it sounds like we both agree this is a show for og, like he will a hundred percent he’ll like this. Yeah. [01:06:31] Joe: The history in the show, even though it’s fiction. [01:06:34] I felt like the, um, attention to detail in the show. Oh [01:06:38] Doug: gosh. Yeah. I mean, you, you feel like they took a camera back in time. Oh. Talk about incredible attention. It is incredible how, and the beautiful [01:06:45] Joe: shots, the, the gorgeous, gorgeous way that this was shot, like the cinematography [01:06:51] headlines: Yeah. [01:06:51] Joe: Is just in incre. [01:06:52] They paid attention to everything. I thought this was incredibly, incredibly well done, by the way. One more thing, Doug, just, just for you. What did you think about the, uh, I’m gonna try to put this in a nons spoilery way. What’d you think about the Romeo and Juliet kinda ending on one character’s story arc? [01:07:12] Doug: I loved it. I loved it, and I loved that they waited so long to make that happen to, to not only make the Yeah, I’m, I’m glad they waited so long because I, if it had happened sooner, I would’ve been, I probably would’ve rolled my eyes. [01:07:28] Joe: Yeah. [01:07:29] Doug: So I thought it was true to her character and. I, I just, I can’t think of any, there wasn’t the, there’s probably one scene that’s coming to my mind right now that I, I thought could have been removed. [01:07:41] Didn’t think it was super necessary, but, um, when that little girl with the doll baited the group into the camp. Yeah. Yeah. That was the one I thought we probably could have done without this, and it wouldn’t have taken anything away from the show. But other than that, yeah, I just, uh, I’d watch it again. [01:07:58] Honestly, it was that good. [01:07:59] Joe: That’s interesting because I didn’t think about that, but you’re right. That had no bearing on anything at the end. I don’t think so, no. I mean, I already felt like, uh, events were moving along. [01:08:09] Doug: Possibly. I mean, there was a scene where it showed it, it added depth to her character for what she was willing to do, for what she wanted to accomplish. [01:08:18] ’cause she went. I would say a connection, almost willingly [01:08:21] Joe: connection between the main characters as well. [01:08:24] Doug: Yeah. So I mean, there’s a li but you could, it would like we were already headed there. You, they were already accomplishing that. I don’t know that that thing was necessary, but other than that, I can’t think of too much. [01:08:34] I’d pull out. [01:08:34] Joe: Yeah, so there it is. Dacker, American Prime Evil. Doug and I apparently hated it. [01:08:41] OG: I think you guys talked about that for longer than the show was.
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