Do you dream of conquering your financial goals and achieving true financial independence? In this episode, we’re diving into five BIG mistakes people make along the way to financial glory with money coach Bernadette Joy, who paid off a staggering $300,000 in debt and locked in a work-optional life by age 40.
Along the way, we’ll explore the importance of managing your budget during the notoriously tricky holiday season, share actionable strategies to curate your accounts, and highlight the common mistakes that can derail even the best-laid financial plans. You’ll also hear the wild story of Richard Whitaker, whose pursuit of a too-good-to-be-true 15.25% return serves as a cautionary tale for us all.
Whether you’re looking to tackle debt, sharpen your budget, or avoid financial scams, this episode is packed with insights to help you stack smarter.
Episode Highlights
- Kicking off with weekend escapes, Monday blues, and a salute to the armed forces
- Nostalgic nods to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
- Welcoming Bernadette Joy and diving into her inspiring journey to financial freedom
- Sharing personal stories and struggles that resonate with every money nerd
- Breaking through financial barriers on the path to independence
- Setting financial goals with inspiration from meeting Simone Biles
- Why comparing success stories can derail your progress
- The delicate dance between frugality and societal expectations
- Staying grounded amidst the curated realities of social media
- Avoiding the common mistake of giving unasked discounts
- Why accepting debt as a long-term lifestyle is a trap
- Choosing financial freedom over fear and hesitation
- The importance of diverse perspectives in your financial advisory team
- Preparing for the unexpected: Life events that test your financial foundation
- Exploring and questioning investment opportunities like Yield Wealth
- Understanding the gambler’s mentality and how it can lead to downfall
- Practicing due diligence to avoid falling for scams
- Lessons learned from the downfall of Yield Wealth and how to protect yourself
- Announcements about upcoming events and opportunities to connect
This episode is a mix of relatable stories, practical advice, and lessons learned the hard way. Tune in to start crushing your money goals and avoiding financial pitfalls—one smart decision at a time.
Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.stackingbenjamins.com/201
Enjoy!
Monday Mentor: Bernadette Joy
Big thanks to Bernadette Joy for joining us today. To learn more about Bernadette, visit Crush Your Money Goals® | Transform Your Money, Transform Your Life. Grab yourself a copy of the book CRUSH Your Money Goals: 25 Smart Money Habits to Save, Invest, and Fast-Track Your Financial Freedom
Our Headline
- ‘I Don’t Know Where to Turn or What to Do.’ His $763,094 Retirement Fund Is in Limbo (Wall Street Journal)
Doug’s Trivia
- Buddy Epsen of Beverly Hillbillies fame, was originally slated to play in the film Wizard of Oz, but was replaced by Jack Haley after he developed an allergic reaction to what color paint?
Have a question for the show?
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Other Mentions
Join Us Wednesday
Tune in Wednesday when we welcome from the Fire Safety Research Institute, Steve Kerber.
Written by: Kevin Bailey
Miss our last show? Listen here: Perfect Gifts for Financial Freedom Fans (SB1612)
Episode transcript
[00:00:00] Joe: Monday morning in December. And who wants to go to work? Does anybody wanna go to work in December? I wanna go play board games. Can we just, let’s cancel the recording. [00:00:08] OG: I was talking to a friend of mine the other day and he says, oh yeah, I don’t work on Mondays anymore. I went, well, of course not. But outta curiosity, how, who does, but why? [00:00:19] But could you share the, uh, secret? He saves up a lot of vacation time so that after Thanksgiving he takes Mondays off. Oh, that’s, so he always, oh, so for like weekend, just, just four weeks. Yeah, it does that for a couple weeks and then fades into the, you know, the week, week and a half off that a lot of people are able to, [00:00:34] Joe: let’s put in a request with, uh, HR, a k, a mom to see if we can start taking Monday off. [00:00:39] But for now, you know what? We’re here because Gussy was here all weekend while we were playing, was the men and women in our, we were [00:00:45] OG: horsing around [00:00:46] Joe: armed forces fates in [00:00:47] OG: the military. Yeah. Yeah. Holy cow. Suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post. [00:00:54] Joe: Let’s, uh, all raise our mugs to the men and women in the military like we do every Monday here on the Stacking Benjamin Show. [00:01:00] OG: Got this one. On [00:01:01] Joe: behalf of the, now there’s a mustache, man. Holy cow. Hashtag goals. Maybe we’ll talk mustaches later. On behalf of the men and women, I [00:01:10] OG: mustache you a question [00:01:11] Joe: at Mom’s Basement Making podcast and the men and women at Navy Federal Credit Union, here’s to our troops. Let’s go stack some Benjamins to get Thanks everybody. [00:01:23] Doug: Can we just, OGs mug just gave me PTSD flashbacks to the kid catcher from Chitty Chitty. Bang. Bang. That mug is terrified. Nobody’s [00:01:33] Joe: going to look up What the hell you just mentioned. I know [00:01:35] Doug: what you’re talking about. Yes. You chitty shitty Bang Bang [00:01:37] OG: is [00:01:38] Doug: nobody of a certain generation watched Chitty Chitty Bang, bang. [00:01:42] And wasn’t terrified of that guy by the kid catcher of, [00:01:45] OG: is that the boomer equivalent of the red balloon and the sewer? [00:01:48] Doug: Um, no, because that was from an actual horror movie. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was this light, I guess. [00:01:53] Joe: Family movie. [00:01:54] Doug: Yeah. Family movie. Dick Van Dyke. Yeah. Oh, I [00:01:59] Joe: mean, it is a little boomy. [00:02:00] It’s, can we make a podcast Gen X? Do you guys mind if we hit, uh, record on this thing? [00:02:04] OG: Well, you just start, we got some stuff to finish up. [00:02:06] Joe: Yeah. [00:02:09] OG: Hello, [00:02:11] bit: my name is You Killed. My father Prepare to Die [00:02:23] Doug: Live from Joe’s Mom’s basement. It’s the Stacking Benjamin Show. [00:02:38] I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Duggan, let’s get that budget in order, shall we? In our prep to roll into 2025, we welcome the woman helping you crush money goals, Bernadette Joy Plus, how does 15.25% get wronged sound? Well, it sounded great to one man, and you can imagine what comes next. We’ll dive in during today’s headline segment, and of course, we’ll rev the engines. [00:03:07] Oh, that’s the wrong sound on this podcast with some of my mind-bending money trivia. And now two guys who are locked, cocked, and ready to rock. Oh, oh boy. It’s Joe and Oh Cheese. [00:03:26] Joe: Hey everybody. Welcome to 1975, the podcast. I am Joe Saul Sea. Hi. It’s a good, it’s a great day. It’s, yeah, I think you had to be born in 1975 or earlier to another Chich Bang Bang Restaurant restaurant reference. [00:03:38] Chi Chi, big, big restaurant. That was an opportunity missed. Never heard of it. No kidding. That the interior decor would be amazing in that. So great. Anyway, for everybody that has no idea what we’re talking about, or even if you do, we’re gonna move on, sit back and relax. We’ve got an hour of money Nerdery coming your way. [00:03:56] And man, I can’t wait ’cause OG Bernadette Joy joins us. [00:04:00] OG: Happy. Happy Joy. Joy. I know. And she is, what’s that from? Renin. Stimpy. Isn’t that Renin? Stimpy. Oh yeah. My parents wouldn’t let me watch that. Your parents, you were a parent when that movie was out or a show was out. [00:04:16] Joe: That is. That is probably true. [00:04:18] That may be true. Two truths and a lie. Or we’ll just display one lie and a lie. And that’s, that’s the one Bernadette Joy, last time I saw her was on the main stage. She was the mc of the FinCon conference this year. [00:04:32] Doug: Sweet. [00:04:32] Joe: She’s got a great podcast then. She is somebody who listen, if you want somebody who has an amazing story like Jackie had last week for us when she was explaining the fire movement for beginners a great episode. [00:04:45] Bernadette can explain how to get outta debt. ’cause she paid off a ton of debt in a short amount of time and she’s got a process she’s gonna dive into today to help you. So I think it’s a good time for this. So, gee, especially in the month of December when this is the budget breaker month, to not just think about budget buster. [00:05:01] Yeah. Not to just think about not spending so much money, but to think proactively about your budget on a month when everybody else is spending money. Kind of, uh, doing a little bit of salmon, you know, swimming upstream this month. Good idea. [00:05:14] Doug: Can’t wait for her. Can we get Steve to play Bernadette by the Four Tops every time we mention hi her name? [00:05:20] I wish he could, we totally should. [00:05:23] Joe: Bernadette Steve would do it. Did [00:05:25] Doug: you leave? [00:05:27] Joe: That’s as close as we can get, uh, without having to pay a bunch of money to BMI or ascap. Speaking of sweet, sweet soul [00:05:34] Doug: music. Very good. Do you think many stackers have checked out my soul Christmas [00:05:40] Joe: playlist? You know what’s funny as we record this? [00:05:44] I was so busy, Doug. I did not make it public yet. We gotta get that done. That’s why I couldn’t [00:05:50] Doug: understand. We’ll [00:05:51] Joe: put a link in the basement, couldn’t understand [00:05:52] Doug: why it was at zero. I’m [00:05:53] Joe: so glad you brought that up. We will put a link in the basement and in the 2 0 1 newsletter for everybody. Those are the ways that we know how to reach. [00:06:02] Our, our listener. So if you’re not in our Facebook group or getting the newsletter, stack Benjamins dot com slash 2 0 1 for the newsletter. [00:06:09] OG: Where? Where? Where’s this at? [00:06:10] Doug: Uh, apple Music. Because Yeah. As, yeah, I know, but Joe’s gonna then figure out how I’m moving into Spotify. I’m moving into Spotify. [00:06:17] Joe: Yes. [00:06:17] Doug: It’ll [00:06:18] OG: be [00:06:18] Joe: in both places for 99% of our audience. I’m moving into [00:06:20] Doug: Spotify for [00:06:21] OG: all listeners except the six that are on Apple Music. [00:06:24] Doug: The whole reason I’m on Apple Music is your fault, Joe. Why’s that? Because 15 years ago, [00:06:32] OG: oh, hey. Do you guys mind if we make a podcast? [00:06:34] Doug: Oh, I just way back in the day when we were trading songs. [00:06:37] Well, and you gave me the gift of Apple Music like a subscription to it for a year. I didn’t know it was gonna drown you forever, [00:06:45] Joe: though. Some of us made the switch. I’m correct. Now, some of us, I would bet a hundred percent of our listeners who don’t know what shitty chitty bang bang is are on Spotify. I. [00:06:55] They’re all, there’s that one, one listener who knows Chitty Chi, who doesn’t know Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, who also uses Apple Music, says the guy who uses Bing. [00:07:05] Doug: Yeah. Well, there you go. [00:07:06] Joe: We, we got a great show. We got some sponsors though that make this show run. Bernadette Joe, I gonna help you crush your money goals today. [00:07:14] But uh, before we get there, let’s hear from our sponsors who make this free so we can keep on keeping on. And then Bernadette Joy, she is a money expert who offers such relatable advice on getting that financial freedom you’re looking for. Listen to this guy. She paid off $300,000 of debt in three years. [00:07:32] She invested enough to quote Retire by 40, make work optional by 40. She’s been on the TEDx stage, spoken at South by Southwest and the NASDAQ Exchange, and now she is on the Stacking Benjamin Show, I’m sure the highlight of her career. Let’s say hi to these sponsors. And then Bernadette Joy, right around the corner. [00:08:04] And I am super happy she’s making a repeat trip down to mom’s basement. Bernadette Joy is here. How are you? I love [00:08:10] Bernadette: being, [00:08:10] Joe: being [00:08:11] Bernadette: in your mom’s basement. It’s great. This party over here, [00:08:13] Joe: it is a party here. You grew up in a Filipino immigrant family in Queens, right? In Queens, New York, yes. Yeah, and I grew up in Redneck West Michigan, and I love you West Michigan, but when I talk about growing up in West Michigan, if I told you, if you lived. [00:08:29] Bernadette in West Michigan, and I told you where I grew up in West Michigan. You go, oh yeah, that’s redneck. That is, that is totally redneck. But I’m surprised because we have so many things in common. One big one is when you were struggling as a kid and kind of your early, you know, your, your, your parents wanna instill these values in you. [00:08:50] Your dad, my dad wanted to instill these values in you. Your dad said the same thing my dad said, which is you’re struggling. Do what? Work hard. Work hard, work harder. I remember my dad, my dad’s answer to everything was work harder and so was yours. [00:09:05] Bernadette: Oh yeah. I have a quick funny story. My dad would have to sign off on my report cards. [00:09:11] Do you have report cards in Michigan? I think so. Oh yeah. [00:09:13] Joe: Oh yeah. Hey, we’re not that redneck. We do, we did have report cards. [00:09:16] Bernadette: Okay, cool. So, uh, you know, on the report card, you know, you check off all of the things that the kid is doing right. And it’s like excellent, satisfactory, you know, whatever needs improvement. [00:09:26] And I got all ease. Except for two, which was in gym. [00:09:31] Joe: E then is exemplary. [00:09:32] Bernadette: Yeah, yeah. Like excellent. Like the top thing. I got all E’s except for two, which was in physical education. And my dad, first of all, he comes to me, he’s like, why didn’t you get an E in physical education? And I’m like, I don’t know. [00:09:46] I’m a, I’m a tiny Asian girl. I don’t, I don’t know why I didn’t get it. And I was in fourth grade. And so he responds back, you’re supposed to write the comments on your report card as a parent. And he says, Bernadette has asthma, but, but she will try harder. [00:10:01] Joe: Wow. [00:10:03] Bernadette: I found this report card maybe like a couple years ago when I was moving ’cause I was like cleaning out all my stuff and I was just like, it’s not normal. [00:10:09] Right? I showed to my husband, he’s like, yeah, that’s. He’s like, that’s normal, but not normal at the same time. [00:10:15] Joe: Yeah, it’s so funny. My dad, I remember I was struggling with my first job with this boss and it’s funny ’cause my dad’s answer was, and and by the way, I’m 14 years old and I’m working at the Tasty freeze. [00:10:28] This little, you know, place serving soft serve ice cream. I remember this boss just hated me and my dad was like, just work harder. And so I worked harder and she still hated me and then I worked harder and she still hated me. But that was always my dad’s answer, be there, be their best friend. That is what I feel like a lot of families know. [00:10:46] Like your dad wanted you to be great at stuff. My dad wanted to be great at stuff and yet often parents just didn’t have the tools, you know, to help people get on their financial journey. [00:10:57] Bernadette: Well, I think they didn’t have the tools, but also the tools that they did have, they would work those same tools into the ground. [00:11:06] Like, you know, I, I think about if you’re using a screwdriver and you keep screwing the same screw over, like it’ll get stripped eventually. There is this idea, especially like you mentioned with like immigrant families of, all right, these are the major levers that we pull. We buy a home, we get a good job, and we work really hard and that should just set us up for life. [00:11:25] And actually, as you put out so graciously and generously in the podcast, there are many things that contribute to being able to stack your Benjamins. And it’s not just those three levers, but if you continue to pull those three levers, not only will your tools eventually wear out, but you’ll also be exhausted. [00:11:39] Joe: Well, and this is what’s interesting. So your family moves to Las Vegas and you write that you’re surrounded Bernadette than by a different type of people. And it’s always interesting to me. How much environment changes things, right? You start to see people working very hard, but also your kind of worldview changes when you move to Las Vegas. [00:11:57] How is that, [00:11:58] Bernadette: to clarify, so my parents moved to Las Vegas. I stayed in New York and then I moved to Charlotte, North Carolina. Ah. So I split time, basically, my family and friends were in New York. I was visiting Las Vegas several times a year, especially when my father got sick. And then. My primary residence was in Charlotte, North Carolina. [00:12:14] And so jumping from these different places and seeing the work cultures, I would say Las Vegas kind of almost being not, not the antithesis to New York City, but a way more laid back than New York City culture. And then Charlotte is kind of in between because Charlotte is also a banking hub and there’s plenty of people in suits here also. [00:12:33] I started to realize and notice that in Las Vegas especially a lot of Filipinos who immigrate to Las Vegas are working hospitality, it’s, oh, you’re working really hard, but now you’re making less money. At least when my dad was working really hard in New York City, like he was getting a decent salary as an accountant. [00:12:53] But in Las Vegas, there’s not that many corporate things. And so a lot of people are just reliant on the hospitality industry. My parents had someone who, they were kind of hosting a, a younger girl, a friend of my mom’s, uh, sent her daughter to the US to try to see if she could get a job in hospitality. [00:13:10] And so my parents were hosting her for almost a year, and she had to work three jobs. [00:13:16] Doug: Wow. [00:13:17] Bernadette: And she had to take public transportation. And if you know, Las Vegas public transportation, there is not a, is not efficient at all. And so I had this new found. Reminder. I knew it, but I’m like, wow, people work really hard. [00:13:30] Like the, the kind of hard work that I saw growing up was, you know, my, both my parents worked in like corporate jobs, but now I saw the working hard of like, oh, you have to get three jobs to make sure that you can survive. [00:13:43] Joe: Well, and on the other side, you’re in Charlotte. And I think is this, when you’re, you’re now entering the financial realm, you’re also in tech startups, so you’re seeing this group of people who are working hard, but they’re seem to be building something, I would assume, and then looking at what your parents are going through in Vegas and struggling to build anything. [00:14:04] Bernadette: Yeah, I mean, the main reason that my parents moved to Las Vegas was because they couldn’t afford their mortgage anymore in New York City. It was several years after. I found out my mom actually hid from me that she was cleaning houses in order to keep their mortgage in New York City. And that was like another weird thing that I had to grapple with is that there’s this idea that if you’re struggling financially, at least, I mean you can, I’m curious to hear your thoughts in, in Michigan, but this New York City, Filipino immigrant family we’re like, we can’t tell anyone that we’re struggling. [00:14:34] We can’t tell anyone that we can’t afford this mortgage, so I’m just gonna do these things and not even tell other people in my family that this is what we need to do. ’cause there was a shame around, oh, I worked really hard and then I still can’t afford stuff, so something must be wrong with me. And so that was very challenging to navigate as a first generation. [00:14:55] Like what do you do when my, me, myself, I’m working at, like you said, I’m working at these tech startups, I’m trying to build something on my own, and then your family is telling you like, we can’t afford. Did you stop? Like we can’t afford to live right now. And so I’m like, can’t afford to live. Like what do you mean? [00:15:08] Like what? We’re all working hard and we’re all doing exactly what we were told to do and all of us are anxious about money every day like that. This can’t be it. [00:15:16] Joe: I was in some ways the opposite when I started going to school in Charleston, South Carolina, some of my friends are fabulously wealthy and I started to get some maturity and to see that, oh, who I’m around is going to make a difference in my life. [00:15:32] And people have different trajectories and people’s parents are thinking about something different than just work hard. Now, I don’t want to shame my parents ’cause that’s, this is like a lot of parents, right? But to your point, there were more things than just that one screw. There were different solutions to problems. [00:15:48] In my community, there was much more of a, oh, you think you’re special? [00:15:53] Doug: Oh yeah. Oh, you [00:15:54] Joe: think you’re better than us? [00:15:55] Doug: Mm-hmm. Oh, [00:15:56] Joe: you said the shame went the other way. You know what I mean? Like, oh, look at Joe. Like, oh, so that was kind of ugly. But I do think there is this thing about proximity and the people you’re around and the things that they do. [00:16:08] Like I can just imagine this relative of yours moves to the United States, wants a job in hospitality, has to work three jobs. Her first feeling about the USA Bernadette has to be, well, hell, everybody’s got three jobs. ’cause everybody around her has three jobs. So she thinks that’s just a reality in the United States. [00:16:24] Bernadette: Exactly right. And I think that goes for a lot of us. And I think that is why it’s so great that you have a platform like this where people of different backgrounds can get together and share these experiences. Because for the longest time I thought, okay, you know, the ticket is, and again, so stereotypically Filipino, but everyone is a Filipino is like an accountant or a nurse or a doctor, literally. [00:16:43] I mean, if you go to your hospital, 50% of the nurses are Filipino. And so my thought growing up was like, those are the only paths. That’s it. That’s it. You get, you either work in healthcare or you either work at a corporate place and if you are one of the people who didn’t follow that, then you’re like this relative who has to work a lot of different jobs. [00:17:01] But we don’t talk about that. We don’t talk about that cousin. We don’t talk about that person. Right. [00:17:05] Joe: And well, or when we do, it’s the way that you just said it. When we talk about ’em, we just go, you don’t wanna be like them. [00:17:10] Bernadette: Exactly. I’m really grateful that with the financial journey that I’ve had, where I have been sharing more openly what I’ve been struggling with, that so many people and of all different backgrounds have reached out to me and said, similar to you starting this podcast episode saying, we actually have a lot more in common than I realized. [00:17:28] And if we can actually share the best practices and share the tips and share the best of what we’ve got, we can maybe find some combination of those tools that will work in our favor. And I’m really grateful that I constantly get to interact with people who are at different stages of their financial journey [00:17:44] Joe: even now. [00:17:44] Well, the big, the big thing you and I have in common is we were both, uh, FinCon MCs, which by the way, hard job, isn’t it? Oh, my, it was. I did that, oh, gosh. For three years. Bernadette. Oh my, uh, you, you did a kick ass job on the FinCon stage as mc. But I didn’t know when I first started doing that, how hard it was gonna be. [00:17:59] Bernadette: I was telling Jess, you know, I looked at the list of who were the FinCon MCs and then Erica and Andy were the years before and stuff, and I was like, really big shoes to fill. So there was definitely a little bit of like, oh, I can’t mess this up, because other people were really good here. People have an expectation of what it’s gonna be here. [00:18:15] Uh, so thank you. That means a lot to me that you said that it was hard in the aspect of, I, of course felt the obligation of making sure that people got their money’s worth by coming to FinCon. I do believe that whose MCs can very much set the tone for the conference in general, but it was also easy in some regard in the sense of. [00:18:38] I’ve shared that story before, but you know, in 2019 when I went to my first pin con, I had no business. I knew nobody. I was just walking around in my little backpack minding my own business, and to go and look back from 2019 to now five years later, that I knew half of the people who were on stage when they said, oh, you have to do an introduction of them. [00:18:56] I’m like, I can actually do an introduction for them that’s real. Not just reading their bio because I know them. And that felt really good. So it made it easier in that regard in the sense of, because FinCon grew such a community that I felt like I could actually interact with humans, that it made it easier to not feel like, oh, I don’t wanna mess up this person’s bio, or I don’t wanna mess up this thing, because they knew me as well and they knew I had good intentions. [00:19:17] Joe: We’re gonna talk about fear in a minute because it’s a big part of, of what you help people do is fight fear. Your work I think helps people break through fear. But I want to talk about, so you’re in Charlotte, you’re working on in tech startup world, working in finance. Ostensibly making good money. Your parents are working three jobs. [00:19:37] When did you figure out that it might be more than just hard work? Because you know, one of my favorite Bernadette Joy stories, and it’s at your expense, by the way, Bernadette, is that, is that you had this massive burnout. Like you’re like, oh, hey, wait a minute. I gotta pump the brakes here. When did you hit that wall [00:19:57] Bernadette: specifically? [00:19:57] It was. I had, well, not that you know the date [00:20:01] Joe: or anything. Not that you have a specific Yeah, there [00:20:03] Bernadette: was literally a moment, so it was January, 2016, I had a semester left to go in my MBA program that I thought was gonna be the silver bullet to what am I gonna be when I grow up. Uh, so I had decided that I wanted to do something different from the tech world that I was in. [00:20:17] I didn’t know what that was gonna be. Again, followed the very stereotypical Asian rhetoric of like, you know, what’s a solution to this? More education, more degrees. So I went back and got my MBA and then had this stark realization that I was two and a half years later now, $72,000 in student loans, and I still didn’t know what I wanna do. [00:20:35] And it’s looked like I would have to go back to doing the exact same thing I was doing before. And I was like, no, no, all this [00:20:42] Joe: work in no progress. [00:20:44] Bernadette: Actually even I would say. [00:20:48] Joe: Right, right, right, right, right. Yeah. Yeah. [00:20:51] Bernadette: This is before Zoom became really a thing, but I was in an online class about marketing. I decided to look at my student loan balance while I was in class, and I wish I had the recording of this class now, because imagining, you know, it’s like a Zoom thing with like 25 people in it, and I’m probably in there like everyone else is paying attention, and I’m like freaking out. [00:21:10] Doug: Oh, [00:21:10] Bernadette: just freaking out of just, oh my gosh, this is how much student loan debt I got, and I have 10 weeks before I graduate. And I don’t have a clear plan other than to go back to doing exactly what I was doing before. And I’m sure at some point you just don’t see anyone. You just see no bird of debt with my background because I’m freaking out so much that I hide under my desk. [00:21:29] Joe: You don’t want people to see you. [00:21:30] Bernadette: I realize. I’m like, oh shoot, I’m on camera. Wait a. I hide under my desk because if you turn off your camera, then the professor really knows you’re not paying attention. Yeah. So I was pretending that I dropped something on the floor and just like slowly just hid. And so I was literally on the floor of my office, my home office that day and thinking, wow, I really messed this up. [00:21:53] I’m really at a wall. I don’t know how to get out of this debt that I accrued that doesn’t feel like it was for progress, and now I’m gonna have to go back and do more of the stuff that I don’t like doing. So that was now eight years ago. [00:22:05] Joe: Well, and this feels very congruent as well, and this is where I think our paths also cross, is that you had this, this, if I just work harder, AKA get more degrees, it’s gonna solve everything Mine was. [00:22:17] If I just make more money, things are gonna go, go great. I don’t have to be great at budgets. I don’t have to understand my financial statement. I don’t have to even worry about my debt. If I just make more money, it’ll solve it, which was Bernadette for me. A gigantic lie as much as for you more degrees, was going to, was, was gonna solve the thing, which I guess gets down to this, you say often that, uh, financial literacy is fantastic, but what I love is you’ve got this whole chapter that’s like, financial literacy isn’t the answer. [00:22:51] We want more than that. What does more mean? More than financial? We don’t just wanna know what we need to do. What do we need? [00:22:58] Bernadette: Yes. Uh, well, thank you. Wow, you really read the book. That’s awesome. Um, I, he [00:23:03] Joe: actually studied, [00:23:05] Bernadette: I do get frustrated actually when people say, oh, she teaches financial literacy. ’cause I actually don’t think that I do. [00:23:09] And the parallel that I, I make with people, ’cause I also grew up watching a lot of sports despite my s in physical education, [00:23:17] Joe: was, um, it means you’re still satisfactory Bernadette, no matter what your dad says. You’re still satisfactory there. [00:23:23] Bernadette: I’m still bitter about it. Financial literacy, to me, the analogy I make to people is saying, you understand the rules of the game. [00:23:30] So if you’re a basketball player, then you know whether or not you’re supposed to be inside or outside of the paint, whether or not you, what to foul, like all of those things. But financial independence, which is what I believe that I teach, is how to win the game. How do you actually strategize and how do you have the right team and do you have the right coaches or mentors? [00:23:51] And the playbook. To actually win the game. I do have a strong opinion about it where I do think financial literacy is a well-intentioned initiative for a lot of places and organizations. But one of the things that I even, I was talking about with a good colleague of mine this morning was that right now a lot of the big investment companies are now targeting women all of the sudden, and all of the classes or the courses or the things that I see gear towards women around investing are always like. [00:24:22] Investing for dummies, investing for beginners, investing like basics. [00:24:27] Doug: Oh, good. [00:24:28] Bernadette: And I’m just like, you didn’t understand that a third of women are actually eligible to be an accredited investor. Why is there nothing for them? Including myself. You know, when we talk about financial literacy, we, I, I just don’t think we can hang out in that space very much longer because people right now are thirsty for what they need to do, not just what they need to know. [00:24:46] Joe: That is, uh, a hundred percent, you hit that nail on the head because I get frustrated with people. I call broke professors, people that know everything. They know all the rules. They read all the books. Heck, they’re listening to, maybe listening to you and I right now, after they’ve listened to 16 other people’s podcasts, ’cause they’re looking for the silver bullet. [00:25:04] And the silver bullet is never Bernadette. What? You know, it’s not what you, and don’t get me wrong, you gotta know first, but then you gotta do something. And I love that impetus that let’s actually do something with this knowledge. [00:25:18] Bernadette: And even for myself, I shifted in the last year specifically around information versus habits. [00:25:25] What I realized, what I actually think I have a gift in is because I have a way of bullying people into being better people. You’re gonna be better person. You’re gonna like it. Yeah, exactly. You are not gonna like this right now. It’s gonna be really hard, but too bad. We got stuff to do. Let’s go. Which a lot of people said at think on, they’re just like, I feel like if I don’t do this right now, like you’re gonna come after me. [00:25:51] I’m like, that’s right. Like, go make some money and go be, go be the light in the world. Thank you. See you later. Right. And we’re [00:25:57] Joe: gonna start calling you, uh, Bernadette Ramsey. You know, like Gordon Ramsey. Bernadette Ramsey. [00:26:01] Bernadette: Honestly, I have a little bit of that vibe and I think also it catches people off guard because when you first meet me, I’m like, oh, I’m bubbly and like. [00:26:08] Friendly or whatever, and then you, if I like you enough, then I will bully you into stop. Like to stop doing the stuff that isn’t helping you. I [00:26:15] Joe: feel like such a good friend of Ettes because I’ve been bullied by her. [00:26:18] Bernadette: Exactly. It’s true. Because if I see you doing something stupid and I don’t like you, I’m just gonna tell you. [00:26:24] I just let you just keep doing stupid stuff. Right. So what I am really excited for is I, I had that epiphany a year ago where the difference when people said they came through my coaching and came through my programs is that they felt like they needed to go do something. A lot of times people like will go to a webinar or whatever. [00:26:39] I’m like, oh, that was good information, and then just go about their regular day. But I’ve had people come to like a webinar of mine and then a week later said, I paid off my car. And it’s like, oh great. [00:26:48] Joe: Good. Fantastic. Go do [00:26:49] Bernadette: something else. [00:26:50] Joe: Yes. Versus I learned about the difference in interest rates and not paying that interest. [00:26:54] Oh, good. Great. But mm-hmm Where did it go? Let’s talk order of operations then. So if we’re gonna bust out of this, you and I talking together and I’m gonna go do something, order of operations, what’s the first thing that I should do to get rolling? [00:27:11] Bernadette: This is also shows the evolution of how Crush came to be. [00:27:14] So Crush is the five, literally the order of operations that I tell people to do. And a couple years ago I fell into the trap of many other women, financial literacy people that were like, you have to change your mindset, change your mindset. And I. Certain degree. I agree with that, but I realized the only way that you change your mindset and you change the mentality of around money is to do something. [00:27:33] Get moving. [00:27:34] Doug: So [00:27:35] Bernadette: yeah, get moving. And so the order of operations I teach people first is to go and curate your accounts. Go actually collect every account that has money in or out of it and get it into a tool like Monarch Money, for example, where you can see it all in one place and then you can see, okay, actually this account is doing nothing for me. [00:27:52] It’s been sitting around here. I didn’t even know this 401k was. You know, I have so many people who have 4 0 1 Ks that are from an old company and they haven’t looked at it in. Decades. So go ahead and curate those accounts and get rid of the ones that are not serving you, and then rename the accounts that you do have as to what their real purpose is, which is really fun for me. [00:28:09] ’cause then this is where I get into using emojis and lots of other fun things. But most people don’t look at their finances that way. They’re just like, oh, I’m just looking at the money in my bank account. Maybe the money in my savings account. And now I’m making choices on my entire financial future based off of what, how much money I made versus how much money I have. [00:28:26] So I get really excited about that because people feel like they’re already moving forward when they’re like, I didn’t know I had this much money. Or I didn’t know I had these accounts. And then they actually, even just the act of deleting one of those accounts or closing one of those accounts give people such a sense that they are getting momentum and then they start moving faster. [00:28:45] Joe: It’s so exciting. And you know the, there’s these unintended consequences too. The unintended thing that I always saw back when I was a financial planner when we would do this is that just by listing them out too, your subconscious brain starts working on all the stuff you’re talking about. What is this for? [00:29:01] Am I doing this right? Is this like you start asking these questions you would’ve never thought in a million years and they’re not questions that I don’t think you can go search for. I think they’re questions that find you when you curate the account. I think that’s, that’s, that’s a [00:29:15] Bernadette: great way to put it. [00:29:16] The questions find you once you put it out there. Absolutely. [00:29:19] Joe: Now people make mistakes as they’re going and you list out five mistakes and I thought a great use of our time here, Bernadette, would be just walking through. The mistakes that people make so that we find the road number one on your list of mistakes people make, they’re juggling too many goals. [00:29:34] You say, tell me about that. [00:29:37] Bernadette: Well, I’m sure you got this as a financial planner before too. People will come and say, Hey, I need help with my finances because I want to pay down my debt, also buy a house, fund my kids’ college funds and be able to retire and I want it now. I’m like, cool. Uh, here’s your magic wand. [00:29:54] You can’t do that. [00:29:55] Joe: Right? I have your ruby slippers. Click these three times. [00:29:58] Bernadette: Yes. So the way that I have been able to address kind of that, that stuff, the first question is, the first thing is to let people know it’s just not possible. You cannot do all of those things all at the same time, even though a lot of people will try to convince you that. [00:30:13] And when I said I have a lot of degrees, I have three degrees, I have. Two business degrees and a psychology degree. And the psychology degree taught me that humans are not good at multitasking. It is a lie. What people are actually doing when they think they’re multitasking is actually just doing multiple tasks in very fast increments and just switching between them. [00:30:34] They’re not actually doing two things at one time. If you extrapolate that out to your financial goals, then the question then becomes, well, how do I get to do all these goals? I just can’t do it at the same time. So there’s a priority list that we have to do, and the way that I tend to prioritize people is to say, and this is why I do, you know, appreciate the financial independence movement to some regard, is if we are able to calculate how much you would need to become financially independent, even if you never hit that goal, then I’m kind of gonna use what you said now going forward is like the questions we’ll then find you to say then yeah, if your fastest path to financial independence is paying down your debt, then that’s probably what we’re gonna do first. [00:31:14] Or if you’ve already paid down your debt and the financial path, the fastest path to financial independence is in fact buying that home or increasing your income at your job, or in fact getting your kids to college. You can get them outta the house and sell your house. Whatever it is that you need to do, then that will clarify it. [00:31:30] The good news is I tell people, you can have all those goals. You can’t do it. You just can’t do it at the same time. And so we have to decide which goals really stay and which goals really go. Oftentimes, I especially people, millennials, like are obsessed with buying a home, and then when I ask them, why do you wanna buy a home? [00:31:44] They say, and I have gotten this response multiple times. Like, that’s what adults do. [00:31:48] Joe: Yeah. We just have it built in. [00:31:49] Bernadette: Yeah. It’s not, it’s not actually because they want it. [00:31:52] Joe: It’s like this, uh, I’m supposed to. [00:31:54] Bernadette: I’m supposed to. And so we question which goals stay and go, and then we order those in the pursuit of financial independence. [00:32:01] Joe: I think that what you’re saying, Bernadette, is focus on like what your biggest constraint is, and we get that. So if that’s the biggest constraint, eliminate that constraint. Mm-hmm. And now that opens up the floodgate more for the second than the floodgate. More for the third than the floodgate. More for the fourth versus to your point, if I’m trying to get three things at one time, it’s not 33%. [00:32:20] 33%. 33%. Because between the switching and our ability to not multitask and the disorganization we have around trying to chase three things, and the fact that I can’t apply all this leverage ’cause I’m not getting rid of the debt first or whatever it is, it’s more like mm-hmm. 20%, 20%, 20%. Like instead of a hundred percent to one, it’s 20%, 20%, 20% to three. [00:32:42] Bernadette: And I would also say there’s 20%, 20%. 20%. But then also there’s a leakage of time and energy and money because even in those small spaces where you’re switching in between those tasks, then you’re, you are getting inefficiency out of it. Right. And uh, yeah. The reason that some people end up winning gold medals in the Olympics is because that’s all they focused on. [00:33:01] Joe: One thing, [00:33:02] Bernadette: one thing most of us in the world would say, I would never spend that much time on one thing. I just went to see Simone Biles in real life. I was like, I gotta see her one time before, you know, she officially retires, she’s won multiple medals and she is literally the goat in, in this particular sport. [00:33:20] No one would ever say to her, that was a waste of time to focus on that one thing for so many years. Right. So I tell people at most, we’ve got three goals to work on that are, if you had to drop. Everything else in service of just these three financial goals, what would they be? And then how do we stack them in priority order that would actually lead towards your financial independence. [00:33:41] Joe: Number two is comparing to the wrong success stories. You write that you have done this as a creator, and I certainly have done this as a creator. I’ll compare Stacky Benjamins to other brands. I’m like, why can’t I be Bernadette Joy? If I could, things would be so much better. But we do that and you know, my mom always says that comparison is the thief of joy, but you, you say it’s even more than that. [00:34:02] I [00:34:02] Bernadette: think it’s the thief of your money really, aside from joy. I think it is literally stealing from people’s bank accounts in how much of our decisions are based on either what we think we should be doing compared to other people or trying to impress other people. And I know we’ve, we’ve heard that that rhetoric before, that’s not new. [00:34:22] But I think what has been very eye-opening to me in the last year is that a lot of the people. Who had something to say about how I was living my life before, meaning, I’ll give you kind of a prime example. When my husband and I decided the debt was the thing that was our constraint, we had to get rid of it. [00:34:42] We were pretty frugal. And you and I talked about this, where our love of board games came from that time period where, ’cause we just weren’t going outside. So we just played a lot of board games. Perfect. And during that time I was thinking, oh my gosh. And again, I’m like in my late twenties, early thirties, I’m like, oh my gosh, I’m such a loser. [00:34:57] ’cause all my friends are at the breweries here in Charlotte and they’re all out on Friday nights. And me and my husband are inviting, our two also broke friends to come over and play board games with us. And also those two broke friends are the only ones who understand the rules of these games and we don’t have to explain it to them. [00:35:11] And all of right. You know, we would spend literally. Five bucks each. ’cause we would, this is true story, me and these two friends and my husband, we would just say, what’s in your fridge? What’s in your fridge? What’s in your fridge? And then let’s like figure out what we can make with everything in our fridge. [00:35:25] And maybe we have to buy like, probably like a potluck [00:35:27] Joe: meal. [00:35:28] Bernadette: Yeah. Maybe we have to buy bread or something just to like fix it up. All of those people who I was worried that they were gonna think I was a loser for like never going out and just being nerdy, to be honest. Also playing board games. I started getting all these texts from people being like, why don’t you invite me to your board game nights? [00:35:44] Why don’t you? And I was like, wait, what? You’re posting pictures of you being drunk at the club? Like, why do you wanna come to my board game nights? [00:35:51] Joe: That’s so good. [00:35:52] Bernadette: Yeah. So it was really fun for me to realize that a lot of the stories that people are actually putting out there, especially in social media. [00:35:59] Aren’t even real. They aren’t even, they aren’t even really happy. [00:36:02] Joe: It’s so hard though, and I actually feel about this even with what I said earlier about comparing myself to other brands and other stuff. Like when I worry about quote, growing the brand or I worry about being as big as X brand or whatever, you know what happens? [00:36:16] That’s good, Bernadette. Nothing. Nothing good happens. But when I focus on, there’s one person listening to this conversation whose life might change because Bernadette and Joe had gave them this aha, this courage to go do it. That’s when good shit happens like that. Mm-hmm. That when I focus on one person versus all this other stuff, it’s so wild. [00:36:39] How, I don’t know. You really gotta be intentional about you. What you put into your brain and comparing it to other people through social media or whatever is just the wrong place. [00:36:49] Bernadette: Joe, you just saying that yourself. I don’t know how much you realize that means to creators like me, where you are one of the brands and I’m just like, I’ve gotta be as smart as Joe and I gotta make sure all my stuff is together. [00:37:02] And he’s been doing it for a long time. And I said this to you in email, but I have to really reiterate it, is that, you know, you gave me some really good mentoring advice to say, I basically said like, I don’t know that I wanna do this part of my business anymore. And you, you basically gave me permission to follow my curiosity and I was just like, and it was such an aha moment where I was just like, wait, I can do something. [00:37:24] Just ’cause I like doing it. Like I don’t have to monetize it or get more followers or, and get a sponsor. I can just talk to people, [00:37:33] Doug: what, [00:37:33] Bernadette: that’s what happened that night. Oh, that’s right. I could just talk to people and I don’t even have to record it and make it a podcast. I could just talk to them. [00:37:41] Joe: It’s crazy. [00:37:42] Talk Bernadette. [00:37:42] Bernadette: That actually switched me in a way that I have to like really Thank you for, for opening that up for me. Well, you, because we, we, we forget sometimes. Thank [00:37:48] Joe: you. Stop. Keep going. Stop, keep going. Stop. Number, number three. Number three on our list. And this one, man. How many times have you and I both seen this one giving out discounts? [00:38:01] Nobody asked for. [00:38:04] Bernadette: Uh, I, I just saw it yesterday. A client of mine who became a friend, she’s an interior designer. She has a friend who’s opening up a salt cave. Have you ever been to a salt cave, Joe? I’m hoping you’re [00:38:14] Joe: saying salt cavanaugh. A salt cave. [00:38:18] Bernadette: Salt cave, yes. SALT. Oh good. [00:38:21] Joe: Because alliteration, there is everything. [00:38:23] The first one, salt. I’m in salt. I probably don’t want anything to do with [00:38:27] Bernadette: No, we salt and cave together. Never a good combination. Right. So it’s literally. These places where they build these rooms or caves just entirely built out of salt, the things that people come up with. But I’ve been to two before and it sounds crazy, and I’m not trying to, I’m not trying to like now sell people on salt caves, but point being is that salt cave you, you go there, you sit there, it’s, you know, tech free. [00:38:51] So it just forces you to sit with yourself and your own thoughts, which can be another thing. Um, yeah. But there is benefits of just redeposit these minerals back into your body because most people are deprived of minerals and stuff. They’re dehydrated. Most people are dehydrated. Long story short, the owner yesterday comes to me and they’re gonna open up in a couple weeks. [00:39:09] This is a business. She’s like, oh, here’s the memberships. And you know, but since you’re a friend of a friend, like I would offer this discount forever. And I. [00:39:22] Because you worked really hard. I’m, I’m literally watching this thing get built. There’s all of these bricks of salt being laid one by one on this thing. I’m like, you’ll get paid, ma’am. And then she was like, uh, I know Marie, my client told me to stop giving out discounts. Nobody asked for it. And I’m like, so, you know, and you still did it. [00:39:40] Joe: We think as a new business owner, I feel like between our ears, we think nobody’s gonna come. Nobody respects me. I’m the new person on the block, so what’s the first thing I have to do? I have to sell it for less. [00:39:53] Bernadette: And so I was like, no, no, no. I will pay full price and stop doing that. [00:39:58] Joe: But we do that. Even our stackers out there, Bernadette, that work for somebody else. [00:40:02] I mean, the number of times I’ve, uh, the study every year the study comes out that your boss wants to give you a raise and you haven’t asked. Mm-hmm. Your boss wants to give you the raise. Your boss isn’t gonna give you the raise because she or he or they’re, they’re just busy doing other stuff. It’s not that they don’t care, but if you went and asked, then yet, we don’t do it. [00:40:22] Or we say, yes, you talk about this too. We say yes to 50 things when we need to be doing that one thing. [00:40:28] Bernadette: It’s happened to me more recently around speaking engagements where, and it’s nuanced right? I will say that I always start out with my full price and then if we have to negotiate from there, so be it. [00:40:38] But I won’t do the negotiation for them on their behalf by offering the discount right up front. [00:40:44] Joe: I think the key there is that nobody’s asking for. Mm-hmm. Number four, accepting debt is a long-term lifestyle instead of a short-term solution. You write that in 2023, according to Forbes, the average interest rate in America, 27.81%. [00:40:59] You know what I think of? Yeah. For people just listening to the audio podcast, she’s gagging big time on that number. What I think of though, I think about the other side of that equation, and this was powerful for me, is that I used to be on the 27.8% side, paying that out. Now I’m on the other side of the equation. [00:41:21] No debt investor. I take that back. I have a mortgage because it’s at a stupid low interest rate, so I decided to do that. Mm-hmm. Uh, we have a car payment again because I got 0% financing and I figured out how much money can I borrow and make it $300 a month. But that’s just because, and I take that back. [00:41:38] We paid it off last month, that’s now gone. Mm-hmm. But even then, I had debt as a opportunity because the interest rate was so low, not at 27.8, but there was a time when I was at 27.8 Bernadette, and then I realized that somebody’s on the other end of that equation, you can either be the person paying it or it could be the person receiving it. [00:41:59] I’m like, oh, how great would it be to be on the other side of this? [00:42:03] Bernadette: That’s exactly right. I did an exercise with my crushed bootcamp where it comes up every, every cohort of mine of like, but what about the credit card points? What about the credit card points? And I’m like, yeah, I mean, credit card points are great, don’t get me wrong, but. [00:42:17] I showed them, I said, okay, I have two credit cards. I have a business credit card and I have a personal credit card, and I pay them off weekly. And I haven’t had credit card debt in a very, very long time, even at the best. And I spend a lot of money on my business credit card because I’m putting my rent on it, I’m putting my, you know, all of my subscriptions on it, putting all my travel on it. [00:42:37] So I got a lot of points, and I said the equivalent of how much those points were equated to was around like a thousand dollars in this last six months, which is pretty great. Like to get a thousand dollars of free, quote unquote free money, whatever feels great. Great. Then I showed them how much money I’ve made in my interest from my CDs, from my high yield savings account and from my money market and from my dividends. [00:43:03] None of them are like hugely, you know, like 10, 20% or whatever. They’re like very conservative things. I made $10,000 in. All of that interest combined. I said even the, the thought of you trying to hack these points right now, take that same energy and figure out how to hack an investment, figure out how to hack an asset. [00:43:24] Like if you can figure out credit card points, which to me is very complicated on how to hack all this travel because there’s people who make entire careers out of that. Imagine if you took that energy and figure out how to put money towards things that actually make you real money. And people are just like, oh, I get it now. [00:43:38] Yeah. I can [00:43:38] Joe: create my own reward point. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Or three or six. [00:43:43] Bernadette: Mm-hmm. [00:43:43] Joe: Last one is, uh, choosing fear over freedom and making money choices. I said that we would circle back to fear, and I really want to end here ’cause as our longtime stackers know, I’m a guy that feels a lot of fear. You’ve got the three main ones, fight, flight, or freeze, or people’s responses to fear. [00:43:58] But you say there’s two more financial freak out is one. I don’t wanna talk about that one. This is, was one was a new one to me. Fawning fa And by the way, I’ve done this before. I have totally done this before and I didn’t even realize that it was a fear response, and then you were writing about it and I’m like, oh crap. [00:44:17] This is totally a fear response. What is fawning when it comes to fear? [00:44:21] Bernadette: I can’t take credit for it. It’s a psychology term. Again, that psychology degree, I guess it did pay off in some regard. Fawning essentially is it’s, it’s often found in people who’ve experienced some sort of trauma, and it’s a way to cope with the potential aggressor or the thing that’s causing you the fear to placate it. [00:44:42] It’s a learned behavior to say, well, if I just like tell you you’re great, and tell you you’re amazing, and tell you I’m gonna do all the things, even though I know I’m really not gonna do it, then it dissipates the thing that’s causing the fear. So a prime example for women a lot of times is. I hate to say this, but like, you know, I’ll tell my husband like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you’re totally right. [00:45:03] And I’m like, no, you’re not, but whatever. Like, I don’t wanna get into an argument. I I don’t have the energy to begin an argument with you, so Yeah, you’re right, you’re right. And I just move on. But that’s kind of an example of fawning, [00:45:13] Joe: but sometimes Bernadette, you gotta admit, ’cause I do that with Cheryl sometimes, or I’m like, yeah, no, you’re totally right. [00:45:18] And I’m like, lose the battle, win the war. Like this is not, this is not the hill to die on. [00:45:23] Bernadette: Oh yeah. There’s, there’s some of those, but a lot of, and that’s what I said specifically for women. Yeah. We’re trained to not create conflict. Women are trained to say your values based on people liking you. So fighting is a way to get people, to get someone to not like you. [00:45:36] So you’d just rather not fight. And so what is very interesting about the fear responses when it comes to money, I’ll give you an a a prime example. I have a client who has $10,000 owed to her in taxes. Rightfully. She doesn’t wanna go talk to her tax person. Because she doesn’t want him to think that she’s a bother. [00:46:00] Joe: This kills me. Oh, this kills me, [00:46:04] Bernadette: kills you. Imagine me like I’m like her. We’re money coach. She’s good enough of a friend of mine at this point, and I can just use whatever words I need to say. I was like, excuse me, and start comment here. Go get your money right now. This is ridiculous. But I have to say, I understand where she’s coming from in the sense of like, she’s been talked down to before in the past by people who managed her money. [00:46:27] Like she’s literally been told like, oh, don’t worry. Your pretty little head. Like I’ll take care of it. The oh gross kind of thing. I’m like, this is not right. You’re owe 10 grand. This guy has not done crap. Right? So it really does show up in people’s finances and not even in, in just little things. We’re talking about tens of thousands of dollars that are potentially going to waste because a lot of people are afraid to say what they really wanna say or ask the right questions because it’s easier to be perceived as being likable. [00:46:54] Joe: Yeah, but you gotta have the guts to be the CEO of your financial situation. Like ’cause. Mm-hmm. Because that person’s not gonna be there when you run outta money, when you don’t have the wherewithal to get where you want to go. Yeah. And by the way, speaking of financial advisors, you make a point of saying that, frankly, I know the numbers on financial advisors, we need more good advisors in general, but you make a great point of saying, we need more diverse advisors. [00:47:20] We need more advisors that look like a lot of the community that they serve. And that’s huge. If there’s somebody listening to you and I right now go into financial planning, there’s a moat to swim. But man, there’s so many people that need help. There’s so many underserved communities, Bernadette. [00:47:35] Bernadette: There’s so many people who need help, there is room for everybody. [00:47:39] I really do believe that we talk about that at FinCon. You would think at a place, at FinCon, we wouldn’t be sharing secrets and we wouldn’t be mentoring each other because we could be considered competition in a lot of ways. But I have never felt threatened by another person entering into the spaces that I am in. [00:47:54] And then particularly like you said, when it comes to financial planning, is I didn’t have a financial advisor for a long time because up until very recently, nobody wanted to work with me because I had no money. Then when people realize I had money, they’re like, oh, I want you to be my client. And then when I had finally had a financial advisor, he said to me, point blank, I’ve never had a client like you before. [00:48:13] Every quarter I was supposed to go to his office and he would buy me lunch and he would show me a bunch of graphs. And so I would ask, well, what does that mean? And do I really need that? And so NO’S ever asked me these S before, I’m like, excuse me, nobody’s ever asked you. Anything. They just took the lunch and then said thank you, and just like went on their way and he’s just like, pretty much, and I was just like, okay. [00:48:35] So there was that aspect, but also the other aspect of where I don’t think I reflected any of his clients was that most of his clients were just older. [00:48:41] Doug: Yeah. [00:48:42] Bernadette: They were in their fifties or sixties. And I was saying I wanted to retire in my forties. And he was like, I’ve never had a client who wanted to retire in their forties. [00:48:47] And I was like, oh, well, hello, I’m here. [00:48:50] Joe: No, it is so wild. The number of, you know, during the 16 years that I did that, the very few questions I got, the number of people that were willing to completely 100% delegate stuff. And my job was to not let them delegate everything. The, in other words, I would take care of your stuff, but it’s still your stuff. [00:49:10] And I would. That’s right. Try my hardest to impress upon you that this is not my stuff. This is, you need to be the CEO. You have to be the C, but then you gotta have smart people around you and have your client question you is the best thing that could happen. ’cause as a great financial advisor, I could then flex back in the day all the stuff that I knew and all the stuff that I’d thought of. [00:49:30] But by the same token, then my client left the meeting feeling empowered. So, man, don’t, don’t be afraid to ask all those questions. I love these Bernadette, because I think that just by identifying these five mistakes, we’ve really helped people a long way toward reaching their financial goals. But for you, that’s just the start. [00:49:52] Because believe it or not, I know people are gonna find this shocking. You’ve actually written a book about this whole thing. It’s called Crush Your Money Goals 25 Smart Money Moves to Save, invest, and Fast Track Your Financial Freedom. And I’m assuming. It’s available everywhere. [00:50:05] Bernadette: Yes, it’s available on Amazon. [00:50:07] I just finished the audio book, which was, uh, whole experience. I’m really excited about it. And as we talked about, I decided to focus on this book on simple things you can do. And I might give you a little bit of background as to the information as to why you should do it. But if you’re looking for a book, especially in the new year of things that you actually want to change in your behavior versus just learning new information that you could find on chat, GPT, uh, this is a fun book for people to read. [00:50:35] And what I’m really proud of is that almost every habit has a story of someone other than me who tried the thing and it worked for them. And so if you’re looking for, uh, some other stories of how it was actually implemented versus like, Hey, go do this thing and then. You don’t know if it’s gonna work or not. [00:50:54] Uh, there’s a lot of other people who can attest that these habits have actually changed their finances, not just their mindset. [00:51:01] Joe: I love the stories. I think it’s gonna give a lot of people a lot of courage, Bernadette, and I just think people having a framework to work from as they go do this stuff and that push from Bernadette Ramsey that they’re gonna like so much. [00:51:13] Thank you for, for mentoring our stackers today. I super, I appreciate you so much. Thank you. [00:51:19] Bernadette: Well, thank you. I’m actually gonna go by Berna at Joe instead of Berna Joy and I’m gonna channel you. [00:51:29] Doug: Hey there, stackers. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and happy birthday to Margaret Hamilton. Who is she? You ask? Well, let me tell you. You and I thought that OG was the scariest person alive. No, not true. Margaret’s character, the wicked witch of the West. Frightened generations of kids before someone created a Tale for Broadway. [00:51:50] And now for the screen just to restore Margaret’s good name and flip the ending. I’m sure the fact that they’ve made a BA B BA bajillion dollars is just a side effect. Margaret Hamilton, who had sadly already died, is now remembered as the Good Witch. Now if someone here would just do that for OG storyline, maybe he’d be less cranky and we’d all be rich too. [00:52:14] Here’s today’s question about this whole Wizard of Oz thing. Buddy Epson of Beverly Hillbilly’s fame was originally slated to play in the film, but was replaced by Jack Haley after he developed an allergic reaction to what color paint. I’ll be back right after I go write the script. Make OG the good Guy. [00:52:34] Wait. I’ll also star as Doug nda, the good podcaster man. This is gonna be awesome. [00:52:50] Hey there, stackers. I’m movie lover and new script developer, Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. Man, writing a script, turning OG into a good guy. It’s tough. I mean, how many times are you allowed to say before this becomes rated R might have to come up with a new word. Kind. I don’t know. Sadly, in today’s trivia, celebrating the Wicked Witch of the West posthumous birthday we’re focused on the huge Benjamin making classic Wizard of Oz. [00:53:21] Margaret Hamilton’s co-star was supposed to be Buddy Epson of Beverly Hillbilly’s fame until he developed an allergic reaction to what color paint. Well, buddy was slated to become the Tin Man, so they needed to paint his face silver, clearly a no-no. On another topic. Og, how many dance numbers would you be open to doing during this production? [00:53:45] I mean, not for nothing, but, okay. All right. Fine, fine. No, don’t need to give me that look. I’ll just throw this back to Joe. Maybe I’ll find a stand in. I wonder if any of the Dancing with the Stars people are available. [00:54:00] Maybe Kevin Hart. Kevin Hart would be a good stand in for og. You perfect [00:54:06] Joe: little angry guy. Same size. Yeah. Always yelling. What’s up with this? I do feel sad for Margaret Hamilton because had she been alive long enough to see Wicked come out, I mean, what a redemption. Right? Because you gotta know the rest of her life. [00:54:24] Everybody’s like, oh, you were an actor. What were you in? Oh, I was in the Wizard of of Oz. Oh. Oh my goodness. So many great parts. What were you? Yeah, I was the wicked witch of the West like man, when I was a kid, had I met Margaret Hamilton, even just as the actor who played the Wicked Witch of the West. I would’ve been so afraid. [00:54:43] Doug: And you know, another cool piece of trivia about Margaret Hamilton and how ironic it was that she was the wicked witch of the rest was before she became an actress, she was a kindergarten teacher who was, by all accounts, the nicest person on the planet, like one teacher of the year award. She does look like a loved her [00:55:00] OG: kindergarten teacher, didn’t she though? [00:55:01] I know she totally does. When did, when did she pass away? ’cause the book that Wicked was based on, uh, came out in the early nineties. 85. [00:55:08] Joe: 85, yeah. Yeah. Oh [00:55:10] OG: yeah. [00:55:10] Doug: Well [00:55:11] Joe: just [00:55:11] Doug: missed it by [00:55:12] Joe: that much. Hang on just a little bit longer, Margaret. But hopefully Margaret somewhere smiling down on all of us because she definitely, uh, got the better treatment later on. [00:55:21] Hey, let’s move on to our headline. [00:55:23] bit: Hello Darlings. And now it’s time for your favorite part of the show, our Stacking Benjamins headlines. [00:55:29] Joe: Today’s headline comes to us from the Wall Street Journal. And this piece is written by the Jason Swig, who maybe, I don’t know, og, do you, would you put him or Jonathan Clements is your favorite columnist out there. [00:55:44] I think these two guys kind of run very much in tandem. Pretty close, [00:55:49] OG: yeah. Yeah. Neck and neck. Too close to call as the, uh, election officials said [00:55:53] Joe: pertinent stuff. Well, not this year, was it? I don’t know where to turn or what to do. His $763,094 retirement fund. Well, let’s talk about what happened to it. [00:56:07] Jason Wright. Richer Whitaker’s life turned upside down in 2023. First, the industrial mechanic in Pasadena, Maryland got laid off from his longtime job. Let’s start with that, og. I’m just gonna pause here. We’re gonna stretch out what happened, but you never know when this stuff is gonna happen. This was a. [00:56:26] Long time job. I’m sure if you’ve been in a job forever, like every day you show up and you’re like, okay, I feel like I’ve got maybe a little bit of certainty. And even if you kind of see the bus coming at you, I know for a lot of people, even if you see all the writing on the wall, if I’ve been there 20, 25 years, you’re, you’re like, yeah, probably not gonna happen to me, but it does happen to you. [00:56:51] OG: Yeah. And there were some articles that I read here recently about how corporations are shifting around kinda leadership levels and basically eliminating that whole middle manager type of role in some positions. And if you’ve been in a job for a long time and you’re transitioning, you know, trying to transition to a new one or get laid off and you’re trying to find another one. [00:57:12] The concern in the article, at least the, the, what the author was saying was there’s not as many of those upper middle level management jobs to be had anyway, because there they’re kind of. Tightening the belt in some places. [00:57:26] Joe: In my extended family, I’ve got a, uh, a young family member who’s maybe getting close to 30 and we were having a discussion over Thanksgiving. [00:57:36] He’s had three bosses during his professional career. Loved the job at first ’cause he had an extraordinary leader. The second boss, he had almost made him leave the company. [00:57:48] Doug: Mm-hmm. [00:57:48] Joe: Because this job, just based on one, not even getting rid of the full layer OG of people and that type of downsizing, just changing one person changed his view of the entire organization. [00:57:58] Now luckily, that person got changed again after about eight months of being his leader. And he got a new leader back that he likes a lot again. And he’s realized at a fairly young age that just that one person, yeah. Affects how you feel about the entire company that you work for. [00:58:16] Doug: There are study after study after study that says people, at least in white collar jobs, and most even blue collar jobs, don’t leave because of the work they leave because of their direct manager. [00:58:26] ’cause of the people, not even like their boss’s boss. It’s their direct leadership is what causes them to leave. [00:58:32] Joe: So I think for all of us based, Doug, completely on the studies that you mentioned, we, we gotta think that, well, we’re only a couple days away. It’s not even stuff you decide or the company, the company might make the decision. [00:58:44] To your point, OG Doug, to your point mm-hmm. Your leader might decide to, or get promoted or decide to take some other job that just pays more and all of a sudden you’ve got a new leader that you didn’t know that you were gonna have and your job changes. Well, it gets worse for richer because soon after he gets laid off, he was diagnosed with colon cancer. [00:59:02] We also don’t know, oh gee, when, when life’s gonna hit, when uh, our health is going to go bad. I was surprised by the story we did. How long ago was this guys? Maybe six, seven weeks ago. We did a Friday round, let’s, maybe six or [00:59:15] OG: seven weeks ago. We did, [00:59:19] Joe: we, we did a Friday round table that talked about how, you know, the average healthy life expectancy, not life expectancy, but healthy life expectancy is what, 66 years old in America? [00:59:32] So we think, okay, I’m gonna live to be maybe 85, but starting at around 65, I might not be that healthy. [00:59:40] Doug: Oh, you’re saying that’s not okay. I got it. I thought you meant if you lived a really healthy life, you’re still gonna kick it at 66. No. Well then F it. I’m out. This [00:59:48] OG: stuff starts breaking, basically. Kind of where you guys are. [00:59:51] It’s like right around the corner. Ooh, [00:59:54] Joe: Doug, do you wanna reach across the table and strangle him or should I, [00:59:56] OG: no, he’s scared. I don’t think you guys have the strength anymore. So [00:59:59] Doug: we have brittle bone syndrome. [01:00:02] OG: I know, I know. I haven’t seen a lot of milk going down those gullets in a while. Better be careful. [01:00:06] Those hips are quite fragile from what I understand. [01:00:09] Joe: That actually isn’t funny because I did have an MRI yesterday on my foot. Don’t feed him, don’t help him. And the doctor even said, but anyway, [01:00:19] OG: like it’s just wore out. It’s like that. Uh, Gaffigan bit. Just wore out. [01:00:23] Joe: Just wore out. There is though a point here that you don’t know. [01:00:28] Okay, your job goes great. You don’t know when your health is gonna take a turn for the worst. Yeah. You probably see that OG over your career. How many times have you seen that? Just with clients outta the blue, something comes along. [01:00:39] OG: I mean, thankfully, not a ton, honestly. Um, we’ve been pretty, pretty lucky to have to work with a bunch of people who, who have been pretty healthy. [01:00:47] But I do notice, especially as you get a little bit older, that honestly stuff does start to break. The healthy client that was always very spry, so to speak. All of a sudden you notice, wow, I haven’t talked to him in six months, and maybe a little slower all of a sudden. And then you find out six months later he is in a nursing home and has dementia or so, you know, you just go, wow, that seemed to have progressed very quickly. [01:01:13] We’re noticing that with our immediate family. I mean, with my mom and my dad and my in-laws, it’s like we see them in like little spurts of time, and then it’s a little bit of time between that, right? We see ’em in the summer and then they come down in the fall, and then we see ’em again at the holiday, you know, and it’s like you see ’em in these little isolated times and you go, God, these people are getting old. [01:01:34] What the [01:01:34] Joe: heck is going on? This is not the point of this piece, but this is definitely the reason why the emergency fund is important. Just ’cause you don’t know when this stuff’s gonna hit [01:01:43] OG: well, and all this stuff that’s related to it. Life insurance never happens. 28 year olds never get hit by cars, you know, and every single weekend in Dallas, I read a story about some idiot that was driving the wrong freaking way on the highway, probably intoxicated and smashes into a family. [01:02:00] You know what I mean? It, it’s just you. You hear about these things and you go, geez Louise, we had a wrong way driver on the toll way or on the toll. Toll lanes. There’s a highway in Dallas that has, you got the normal highway and you can take the express lanes. [01:02:13] Joe: Yeah. [01:02:13] OG: And they’re open in one direction or the other. [01:02:16] Joe: And it’s only one lane with almost, no. Yeah, [01:02:18] OG: it’s two. Okay. In the section I was, but yeah. And sometimes there’s one, I was passing a car over a hill, so there’s a little ridge. We came over the hill and just by, you know, I just moved back over to the right lane. Within 10 seconds of moving over, over the next crest came the opposite driver. [01:02:36] And how many times do you see people that go to pass you or you pass somebody and just stay in the left lane? [01:02:40] Joe: Oh God. You [01:02:41] OG: know, it was like one of those things where it’s like you should go over to the right lane now. And I’m like, I should go over to the right lane now. It’s like, these aren’t the droids you’re looking for. [01:02:48] It’s like, you know, you just kind of moved over and all of a sudden, boom, here comes this car. I’m going, good night man. Five seconds later, if we would’ve just stayed in the left lane or that guy would’ve sped up and not let us pass or you know, whatever. ’cause sometimes that crap happens. I. You dunno, you dunno. [01:03:03] You don’t know. You just injury, illness. I have one of [01:03:05] Doug: the stories. Can I tell it? Yeah. It didn’t actually happen to me, but I was at a friend’s house, uh, outside of Chicago and her sister came home completely just broken, crying, blathering shaking. It was like she was having a breakdown. It took us a little, a few minutes to get her to tell us what happened. [01:03:25] She was on, I think the Dan Ryan behind a trailer full of boats where you, if, if you ever see ’em shipped, they’re mm-hmm. Kind of on an angle stacked up. And, uh, she just had this premonition that she should not be behind this and within three seconds and she couldn’t really like pass the truck ’cause there was so much traffic. [01:03:43] But she just moved over Elaine and within like five seconds she said two of the boats fell off. Oh. And would’ve would’ve crushed her. [01:03:50] OG: Yeah. Yeah. LY had a really bad accident on the tollway, you know, a couple years back and, you know, some car flipped over and landed on top of her car [01:03:58] Doug: on the [01:03:58] OG: highway and it was, you know, I forgot about that. [01:04:01] Wow. Yeah, it was, it’s crazy. All that to say you should have disability coverage when you’re healthy. You should buy life insurance, you know, when you’re 40 because it’s, you should have your estate plan done. We were talking to somebody, uh, a couple of months ago and they’re like, well, I’m young, I’m good. [01:04:16] Like, I don’t need to have my estate plan done right. I’m healthy. Well, I mean, I get that it’s maybe not the most pressing issue, but it’s like a colonoscopy. When you’re 45, you’re probably okay, but you still have to go do it, you know? Yeah. It’s like. Go do it. You dunno when it’s gonna hit. It’s cheap insurance, so to speak. [01:04:32] Joe: This is what I love about Jason’s wig articles is that every piece I read by him has all these things that come up. Mm-hmm. Because we had whole discussion. We just had And [01:04:40] OG: that’s And then hold my beard. Yes. Because here’s the rest of the story. This [01:04:45] Joe: is what happened to Richard Whitaker next gets laid off, diagnosed with colon cancer and then, and then the, that I’m sure OG is a working advisor. [01:04:54] Me as a former advisor. This next sentence just puts the pit in my stomach because Jason writes then outta nowhere, it seemed that a single investment would put Whitaker’s life back on track. And you go, oh God no. [01:05:09] OG: Oh God no. [01:05:10] Joe: Yep. Through a friend, he heard about a firm called Yield Wealth. Ah, course. And the quote, guaranteed 15.25% return, it was offering to investors on some products, quote. [01:05:26] I figured this is an amazing opportunity and I’ll be set for life. Recalls Whitaker 60. And by the way, it’s easy for me because my first thought is really Richard Whitaker. Really? And then I’m like, what type of bravery does it take to let yourself be the subject of a cautionary tale by the Wall Street Journal’s preeminent columnist like Richard, thank you for telling your story. [01:05:58] ’cause it takes balls to tell this story that, Hey, I thought at the time, well, he talked about it so obsessively, says his wife Kimberly, that despite her misgivings, good for you, Kimberly, she eventually told him, it’s your money. I have no clue. I don’t care anymore. Do what you gotta do. [01:06:14] OG: Yeah. And on top of all the stress and anxiety associated with, I haven’t been working, I. [01:06:19] I have this medical condition that I’m dealing with. It’s like all these other pieces fit into the puzzle of, well, how does, how does this get past the gatekeepers? How do we not see this? It’s like, well, you might have absent all of the other stresses in your life, right? But we’ve got all these other stresses. [01:06:39] And then this thing shows that you’re like, ah, I gotta do something with the money too. Ah, gee, no, no. Here’s an easy solution. Oh, okay. One less thing. Awesome. Let’s do the one less thing. And with, without a lot of due diligence and research, because. It’s the easy button [01:06:55] Joe: and I know OG because I’ve been there. [01:06:57] The further down that rabbit hole you get, the more of a gambler mentality you get. You are like, you know, I just need one thing to go right. I just need Could be, yeah. The number six horse and the number three race to win and things are gonna be on the right track. [01:07:10] OG: Hold on, lemme write that down. Six horse, three [01:07:13] Joe: race. [01:07:14] If one thing happens to win, to win, this is what we’re doing. If the team play in the Detroit Lines finds a way to cover the spread, we’ll get there. [01:07:24] OG: Shh. No, you would want Detroit to cover the spread You do want Detroit semantics. I get it. Yes. I, I don wanna correct your betting strategy if what’s working for you buddy is working for you. [01:07:31] Joe: But no, what I’m saying is it doesn’t work, but you’re like, if it happens one time, [01:07:35] OG: yeah. You know, I just need this eight way parlay to play out once and then I’ll be good. That’s [01:07:39] Joe: it. Then my life is better. All my money in Bitcoin. I mean it, it’s all in that sentence that Richard says here. I figured this is an amazing opportunity and I’ll be set for life. [01:07:48] There it is. Yeah, that’s the gambler mentality right there. So in March, Whitaker withdrew his entire 401k from Fidelity, [01:07:53] OG: withdrew, withdrew, withdrew, seven or [01:07:57] Joe: 63,000, $94 21 cents. Rolled it over. He rolled it over into an individual retirement account. So, okay, he didn’t pay any tax. Good. It’s a taxable event, which means you’re gonna get something from the IRS saying that you did it, but there will be no tax due. [01:08:16] And the IRA with yield, which was affiliated with a firm called Next Level Holdings, not this level, next level, what Richard didn’t know is it was Next level down, which is hell, right? [01:08:27] OG: Yes. [01:08:29] Joe: Next level’s run by Paul Regan, whose history of financial infractions I detailed in columns on August 30th and September 20. [01:08:37] Wig has already written two pieces about this. Dude, [01:08:40] OG: I went back and read those two as part of this. It’s mind boggling. How this person’s not in prison. I, I just don’t understand it. I, I mean, I get that we’ve got other criminals doing other bad things and resources are snug, you know, in jurisdictions. [01:08:58] Where does this rank in the hierarchy of like, we’re solving a murder case And I mean this is kind of, in my opinion, the same level. Like this person has to be off the streets, you know, it’s the equivalent of that. How much money did he abscond with? Does it say [01:09:14] Joe: Now Whitaker, like hundreds of other investors who altogether put up at least 50 million of these products, he wonders if he’ll ever see his money again. [01:09:22] Yeah. Could have run away with up to $50 million. [01:09:25] OG: Yeah. Hundreds of people with 50 million. Right. So that tells you how many victims there have been. And they’re not profound amounts of money per person. If it’s a hundred people in 50 million, right? That’s 500,000 per person. That’s probably not 10% of that person’s portfolio. [01:09:44] It’s a hundred percent of their portfolio. It’s, it’s a hundred percent of their, it’s, it’s most likely all of it based on those numbers. And if it’s hundreds of people, then it’s an even lower dollar per average, even more victims obviously, and a higher likelihood, in my opinion, that it’s some total of all of their money. [01:10:03] Doug: But this guy can’t be all bad. I, I mean, let’s look at the other side of this. He has to be the greatest salesman of all time. This guy has skills [01:10:14] OG: too soon, Doug. Too soon, buddy. Oh, way too soon. [01:10:17] Doug: I mean, I want him on our team. Let’s not [01:10:19] OG: quite give him the Jordan Belfort treatment quite yet. Yeah, let’s let, let’s let him go to prison for a while, then, then redeem himself and then come out as a public speaker against atrocities. [01:10:29] I’m going to that seminar, right? [01:10:30] Joe: Paul Reagan wakes up every day and he’s got two pictures on his wall. Jordan Belfort and, and Bernie Madoff. I can beat him. I know I can do better. I got it now. Whitaker, like hundreds of other investors, so they put together, you know, about $50 million. Here’s, here’s the question, og, was there some research? [01:10:49] ’cause this is what everybody wants to know. Was there some research that Whitaker could have done that would have beyond 15.25? Right. I mean that’s lesson number one that I’m sure everybody’s, if you hear 15 2.5 guaranteed, don’t do it. There’s no such, there’s no such product. Yeah, [01:11:06] OG: and I’ll explain why it’s not, why it’s not possible [01:11:09] Joe: logically. [01:11:10] Well, let’s do that first then. [01:11:11] OG: Well, what else were we gonna ask? Is there some other research and is there [01:11:13] Joe: some research? Could they have found Paul Regan and the fact that this guy had been in hot water before? Was there a way that with some research, Richard already [01:11:21] OG: banned? Already banned from the securities industry and subject to these other articles that Jason wrote in August and September? [01:11:30] If you go back and read those two, like they just called them, they’re like, dude, what are you doing? Aren’t you supposed to be banned from the industry? And then he plays coy for a while and he goes, yeah, my bad, you’re right. Uh, I probably shouldn’t be doing this. Like he cop to it right away. When the Wall Street Journal guys called him, I think he used his middle name and last name or something, or his first initial and middle name and last name instead. [01:11:52] You absolutely have to go on FINRA’s Broker check. This is not a be all end all because if you don’t know the layers of the people, the other complication with this particular story is this Paul Regan fella, who’s the ultimate bad guy. He wasn’t the guy selling the stuff, he was selling it to insurance agents who were selling the stuff. [01:12:16] So, so you got a couple layers there to dig through and I don’t know that it’s reasonable to assume that you could get to the Paul Regan guy on broker check or you know, whatever, because insurance products are not licensed by the Securities and Exchange Commission or finra. They’re registered at the state level and anybody can print a prospectus or a whatever and go, yeah, it says right here, registered with the state of Texas says it’s good. [01:12:42] Like I’m sure there’s a repository somewhere in some database someplace in Austin that you can go, is this product actually, you know, does the state of Texas know this exists? But I think that’s beyond the expectation of the reach of most people. But if you’re a professional and this stuff is being pitched to you, which is constantly, I get hundreds of emails a week from companies going, Hey, we have the greatest thing in the universe. [01:13:09] All the s and p upside, none of the downside. It’s unbelievably frustrating to hear pros sell stuff to other pros saying things like all of the upside and none of the downside. That literally cannot be possible. It absolutely 1000% cannot be possible because if that existed in the world, no one would do anything but that. [01:13:35] It’s the same thing as like saying, well, my cousin Jack, he picks all winners in the stock market. Well, why the F isn’t cousin Jack managing $700 trillion? Because if he’s the only person in the history of mankind who can pick stocks accurately every freaking time, he would manage all the money [01:13:51] Joe: and we’d have all kinds of books about him like we do about Warren Buffet, [01:13:54] OG: Benjamin Graham. [01:13:55] It doesn’t make any sense to me. So when you hear these numbers, there’s two things going on, and one of them is I think people feel like there’s not enough time. And you know, you’re 50 years old, you’re 60 years old, you have $700,000 and you’re going. That’s it. This is all I have. I don’t, I don’t have anything else. [01:14:12] I don’t have any else to do. I have to hit a home run on this pitch because for the last 50 years I didn’t, you know, I recognize I didn’t do what I was supposed to do. I didn’t save millions of dollars before retirement. I’m at 500 k, I need one home run. To your point, Joe, I need the third horse, sixth race or whatever you said. [01:14:29] I wrote it down for later. But to win, which is a really bold statement. I mean like usually just take the win place or show you just take some money. Yeah, but you’re going all in. [01:14:37] Joe: I’m not going with show, man. I’m going with win. I need to win. [01:14:40] OG: As you feel this pressure of like, I’m 58, I only have 700 k, da da, da. [01:14:44] Look, you have time. Is it going to be the most amazing financial independence time of your life because of where you are? Probably not. Do you get to retire when you’re 58? If you have 700 grand in the bank? Probably not. That’s just part of the deal. But you also don’t have to try to hit a grand slam on every pitch. [01:15:00] That’s where you start getting in trouble. Number one is just the recognizing you have enough time. You’re 50 years old or 60 years old, your money’s gonna double in the next seven or eight years. Yeah. Do you have to work till you’re 67? Okay, fine. Does that suck? Probably. But plenty of people do it and you can’t get, your social security is 67 anyway. [01:15:18] That’s when you get your biggest check. So just work for seven more years. Back to your original point. Maybe that’s not easy. It’s easier said than done. But anyways, you have enough time. The second thing is, is when you see these numbers that are wildly disparate from what real life is, the s and p averages 10.1% a year. [01:15:40] Small company stocks average 13.3. That’s it. If your buddy says, Hey, I’m going to build an ice cream shop and I want you to be an investor, and you say, alright, cool. How much money do you think we’ll make? And he says, I think I can return 5%. What do you tell him? You go, I can do better, bro. I can make five in my freaking savings account. [01:16:03] I’m good. I don’t, I don’t need to take that level of risk to have that level of return. If I’m gonna take the risk of owning a little teeny tiny ice cream shop in a tourist town with you, I need to get some juice. I need some cash, man. Like, that’s where the risk return thing goes. So you get that concept right? [01:16:23] We understand that if I’m gonna own a, a piece of a really, really, really small business, in order for me to take the risk of owning that business or a part of it, I need to get a huge return. Everybody good with that? This is the part where you guys not, oh, that rhetorical positive affirmation. You know, [01:16:41] Joe: I thought you were asking stacker land. [01:16:42] I’m like, of course. We’re down with it. [01:16:43] OG: Yeah, we’re good with it. Okay, so that’s one data point. The other data point is we know that if you own the 500 biggest companies in the world, or at least in the United States through the s and p 500 I-V-V-S-P-Y, take your pick. You’re gonna get 10% a year. [01:17:01] Historically, that’s the number. Okay. So if we own a little bits of the 500 biggest companies in the world, Coca-Cola and Apple and Nvidia and all those really great companies, we get 10. And if we own a part of an ice cream shop in a tourist town, we need a number bigger than 10. We need these projections to be like 25. [01:17:17] If somebody says to you, I can get you blank with no risk, just look at it in then that matrix. The no, like if I said to somebody, if I said to you, Joe, I can get you 4.25, no risk. What do you think? You go, yeah, no shit. Sherlock, that’s the IC insured, it’s called. Put it in my savings account. Right? Because that checks like that’s where that level should be. [01:17:40] US Treasuries 4%. That’s why your savings account gets 4% and it’s guaranteed you put the money in as long as it’s under 250 K guaranteed by the government. You’re gonna put your money in tomorrow. You can take it right back out. Everybody’s good with that idea [01:17:52] Joe: by Bing. [01:17:53] OG: So when you see these numbers that are much higher and are attached with the guarantee. [01:18:00] You have to immediately call bs. There is no such thing in the universe where you can get returns greater than the biggest companies in the world with risk equivalent to the bank [01:18:11] Joe: and for people who wanna nerd out. OGM, what you just said, there is a concept that you just explained, and I love how you did it without using the jargon, but the jargon that you’ll hear in the financial universe is called a risk premium. [01:18:25] It’s a risk premium. How much more money are you going to get for the additional risk that you’re taking? So if individual stocks, big company stocks are at 10 than if I’m getting 15, there’s a risk premium. There’s not a risk decrease. There’s a risk premium. [01:18:41] OG: There’s, yeah. Here’s, here’s some facts of the case. [01:18:44] So if you think about this and you say, all right, hold on a second. Go back to the part where you said 13. I’m interested in that 10, 13 is greater than 10. Why is everybody hammering on IV, V and S, PYS and P? Shouldn’t we just go all small cap Russell 2000 IWM, that average is 13, like problem solve, bro. 13 is greater than 10. [01:19:04] There it is. Absolutely. To your point about risk, here’s the trade off. So you get 13 on average. What do you have to endure to get that 13? And this will be in perspective to that 15 number you heard earlier. You have to be okay with every so often losing 70% of your money on paper. So you have a million dollars and you put in your million dollars into the small cap stocks ’cause you want that 13 ’cause thirteen’s better than 10. [01:19:32] You have to be okay with over the course of a one year period, waking up and finding out that your million bucks has turned into 300 K and also you can’t do anything about it at that moment. I. Now at 300, you don’t get to change. It’s gone. Now you wait it out. No, it’s not gone. You just have to wait it out. [01:19:50] Well, it is [01:19:50] Joe: gone. If you cash it in, it moves, but nobody in real life does that. [01:19:54] OG: Yeah. Nobody in real life does that. It’s like we forget history and we just don’t see it in the context of what’s happened. I. Tech stocks is a great example of this right now. People are like, it never goes down. Tech stocks never go down. [01:20:04] It’s like, well, I don’t know Joe. I think you remember Doug, you remember they kinda went down for 13 years it went down. [01:20:12] Doug: But in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and all of that, I mean, pain avoidance is a very real thing. And so people are gonna make those irrational decisions because pain, that kind of pain hurts and they want it to stop and they figure making a stupid move like that. [01:20:25] Well, that’s my point. [01:20:25] OG: Exactly. That’s why you can’t have your whole portfolio in small cap value. Yeah. Trying to get 13 because somewhere on the ride from a million to 300 K, you cry uncle, and then you miss out on the average of the 13. [01:20:37] Joe: And you also have to know that that is how bumpy that ride is ahead of time. [01:20:41] Yes. ’cause if you know how bumpy that ride is ahead of time, then the pain that you’re talking about, Doug, when you expect that it’s not as painful. ’cause you’re like, oh, this is normally what happens. If it’s normally what happens, then I’m staying in there. But if I’m like, yeah, I just lost, what A, you’re never gonna put that much money in it because it loses that much. [01:21:01] And then B, the money you do put in there, you’re gonna ride for two reasons. A, because you didn’t put your old portfolio in it and B, because you know that that’s the expected glide path. [01:21:10] OG: Yeah, and what I was gonna say as I kept on trying to get more of my words in edgewise you today is, yeah, [01:21:16] Joe: I, I think he’s met his word quota for like six weeks. [01:21:18] Doug. [01:21:19] OG: Yeah. This is your favorite thing, Joe, is, is the efficient frontier. You sprinkle those things in and you can see, you get a little bit more return. So you go, my portfolio is this, and now if I add a little bit of small cap, what happens? Oh, you get a little bit, you know, a little bit more return, a little bit more risk. [01:21:33] Like you see that adjustment kind of in, in the graph, if you will. Look, I would love to collect all of these nonsense things that show up in your inbox if you’re an investor. If you’re a stacker and you get pitches from people that sound like this, I would love to know about it because I feel like the platform that we have, you know, some people, I’m on Reddit, sometimes I don’t do it on social media, but I go on Reddit, you know, and um, [01:22:03] Doug: we found the loophole. [01:22:05] OG: That’s right. I think I kind of feel like I did, [01:22:07] Joe: oh, it doesn’t say stealing pencils specifically in the Bible, so I guess that’s okay. Yeah, [01:22:11] OG: exactly. So I follow some flying stuff on Reddit and there are occasionally training facilities that are a little bit shady. And the comment that everybody makes is name and shame, you know what I mean? [01:22:23] Like, we need to out these people, so if nobody else goes to that training facility and gives them a hundred grand and they go away, you know what I mean? If you’re getting pitches like this, I wanna hear about it because I want to dissect them. Here so that we can try to, at least in our little ecosphere of tens of thousands of people, our little community prevent. [01:22:44] So that maybe if you hear us talking about it and then you get a pitch and you’ve got a lot of stress in your life and you’re like, oh my gosh, this would be really great. And you, and you just hear the word and you go, wait, I’ve heard this before. And you look at about Stacking Benjamins and there’s a podcast about yield, whatever the f this place is called, maybe you just go, oh yeah, this is a scam. [01:23:03] I don’t have to do this. Um, and we try to save some people. So if you get ’em, I wanna hear about ’em. Send ’em to me. Og Oh geez. Is gonna docs the fund managers. I will. 1000%. Yeah. I mean, I’ll do my research to make sure it’s not whatever. [01:23:15] Doug: Here’s where their kids go to school. [01:23:17] OG: Yeah. I mean, I’m not gonna dox ’em. [01:23:19] Not that I’m not gonna do that, but I’m just gonna say, this company’s a piece of trash and here’s why. Oh, game on. Well, here’s [01:23:24] Joe: the eff, here’s the effect of this. And I’m, I’m just gonna speed through this because this is the consequence of I. This betting action that Richard was brave enough to tell his cautionary tale about after the August piece that Jason Swe wrote about this man, the company that holds his IRAs called American IRA, reads this realizes that they are in bed with this person. [01:23:48] Meaning that you bought your IRA through yield using their IRA device American, their platform. Yep. Yeah. An American as a platform kicked them out. We did the story about Robinhood, a company that I’m not in love with, uh, a week ago, and a new platform for financial planning that they use. Right. So, [01:24:09] OG: very similarly. [01:24:10] I I have a completely unrelated but funny thing to that. Uh, so again, on Reddit. When that news broke. So we talked about it obviously, and then the news broke and somebody wrote all these financial planners waking up to tell all their clients that their money’s now at Robinhood. [01:24:26] Joe: I got good news and bad news. [01:24:29] OG: I didn’t think of it from that perspective. Anyway, carry on. Go ahead, sorry. [01:24:32] Joe: But America reads this and rightly so, they kick out next level. They go, we [01:24:36] OG: can’t be, we can’t be party to this. You’d lied on your application, which is what he did. American and I on the platform. [01:24:41] Chief executive [01:24:41] Joe: Jim hit says he broke things off after learning from Jason s week’s column, that in 2004, Reagan and been barred for life, quote. If we’d known that we wouldn’t have done business with Next level in the first place. So they kicked them out. Now the bad news is they don’t hold any of the money. [01:24:55] Og. No. And now your money is nowhere because, and this is also companies doing good business. No other company will let them in. Nobody else will let them in. So now any money they do get back is going to be subject to income right now. Or there’s the possibility that it’s no longer sheltered like they’re an IRS limbo on top of this thing because they bought a product that, uh, just a mess. [01:25:23] It. I [01:25:23] OG: mean, it just doesn’t, it’s, yeah, it’s not real. It doesn’t exist. It just gets worse and worse. He took 700 grand out of his 401k. [01:25:29] Joe: We’ll link to this in our show notes. Obviously it’s Wall Street Journal, so you’ll need to be able to get your hands on on that. That is a, uh, a pay platform. So if you’ve got either Apple News, you’ll be able to read it or if you’ve got the Wall Street Journal subscription, you’ll be able to read it. [01:25:44] But, uh, dive in. It is, uh, horrible. But what a story here. And I’m glad that hopefully we stopped a couple people today from making that type of mistake. I. Hey, that’s about all we’ve got for today, except, uh, a little journey out to the back porch. We’ve got a couple things that I wanted to talk about, which is we just opened up spots for the Stacked Book Club, which is something we debuted last year. [01:26:12] This isn’t for everybody. This is for a small group of people. 10 sessions, 90 minutes each. We walk through all the achievements and stacked, and we help you get all those achievements, which means I help you. Over 10 sessions really work toward building your financial plan. So we have 90 minutes, 10 sessions, we record them. [01:26:31] If you can’t make that exact time, you’re in a group with last year’s cohort and your current cohort of people between those sessions to ask questions of each other and of me. If you want to work on designing your own plan, with my help and the help of a very small group of dedicated people, we don’t have a lot of space. [01:26:49] It’s Stacking Benjamins dot com slash book club Stacking Benjamins dot com slash book club. It’s gonna begin at the end of January, but we just opened that up today. Those spaces are now open. Second, I’m headed to Seattle to our friends, Tom and Don from the Talking Real Money Podcast. They have a great event with guys like Paul Merriman is going to be there and I get to be there hanging out with them too. [01:27:12] It’s called Retire Meet. Retire, MEET Go to retire me.com. Use code Stacking. And our friend Tom says, you will get, uh, big savings on your ticket. And, uh, we’ll be hanging out in Seattle. That’s the first weekend in February. And for more details on that, once again, go to retire me.com and, uh, come learn a lot about finance from a lot of good people. [01:27:35] Really, really like those guys. That’s where Joe will be. You can come hang out with Doug in mom’s basement. Hang out with OG in Dallas for tickets to those events. [01:27:50] OG: Talk to Doug or OG OGs house is located at. Yeah, that’s right. You [01:27:55] Joe: wanna, [01:27:55] OG: and he has a guest room and unlimited supply of wine. [01:27:58] Joe: It’d be fantastic. Come on over. Well, we’ll see if it’s unlimited. I’ll take that dare. [01:28:02] OG: I think we’re about there. Honestly, I think, I think we’ve reached peak wine. I have a funny story that I’ll, that maybe I’ll share in, in a couple of days about, uh, about that fun, fun stuff. [01:28:13] Joe: Anyway, if you’re not here to hang out with me in Seattle or to dive into the book club, you’re here because you need your financial plan really to dovetail and you need experts in your corner on an ongoing basis to help you get there. OG and his team are taking clients, so head to stack your Benjamins dot com slash og and make better decisions in 2025. [01:28:33] And, uh, I promise the thing you’ll never hear from OG is it’s the number three horse in the sixth race. [01:28:41] Doug: Guaranteed. Wait, I thought it was the sixth horse in the third race. [01:28:45] OG: I’m so confused. That’s what he’d probably [01:28:47] Joe: say. [01:28:48] OG: I’m taking both just to be safe. So confused. [01:28:51] Joe: All right. On that note, thanks stackers for hanging out with us again on a wonderful Monday. [01:28:57] We’ll be back here Wednesday. Guess who’s coming up on Wednesday, guys? Steve Kerber, Santa Claus. We well close. This is one of our favorite segments of the year. Steve Kerber from the National Fire Safety Institute. A division of ul. You know how your, your electronic devices, say UL listed? Mm-hmm. Uh, Steve Kerber every year talks about our plan. [01:29:15] And you know what? We talk about insurance. The best insurance is having a good plan, which is what we really dove into today with your investing strategy. So, Steve Kerber on Wednesday and a bunch more, but let’s stick with today ’cause there’s a lot to unpack. Doug, what are our top three? [01:29:31] Doug: Well, Joe first, take some advice from Bernadette Joy and get started Crushing your goals. [01:29:38] Future. You will. Thank you. Second, feeling like 15% guaranteed is a great deal. As Joe’s mom says, if someone wants to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge, tell ’em you’re from Missouri. It’ll confuse them and they’ll probably just walk away like I usually do. But the big lesson. Don’t call Netflix after you’ve written the outline for your transforming OG Tale. [01:30:02] Apparently they aren’t as excited about this script as the rest of us are. Thanks to Bernadette Joy for joining us today. You’ll find her new book, crush Your Money Goals wherever books are Sold. We’ll also include links in our show notes at Stacking Benjamins dot com. This show is the Property of SB podcasts LLC, copyright 2024 and is created by Joe Saul-Sehy. [01:30:27] Joe gets help from a few of our neighborhood friends. I. You’ll find out about our awesome team at Stacking Benjamins dot com, along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots. Come say hello. Oh yeah. And before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don’t take advice from people you don’t know. [01:30:49] This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I’m Joe’s Mom’s neighbor, Duggan. We’ll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show [01:31:06] Born Dad. I don’t know the rest of the, of this song. I just gotta scream. [01:32:03] Can we talk for a minute about Josh’s beard? Like this is beyond just, oh, I’m not shaving for a couple of days. [01:32:09] OG: Oh yeah. No Uhuh. I’m not gonna shave for a long time. [01:32:13] Doug: This is just the new look for you. I. I kind of do it every year at this time. Yeah. Okay. I don’t remember it being quite this lush. [01:32:22] OG: Oh, you ain’t seen nothing yet. [01:32:24] Wait, wait until January. [01:32:26] Doug: Okay. [01:32:26] OG: I’m gonna look like a homeless guy. [01:32:28] Doug: Not looking forward to that. You’re gonna look like, you know what he’s gonna look like. Joe. Is Mandy Patinkin on Homeland? [01:32:35] OG: Yes. That’s a good look. You [01:32:37] Doug: killed my father Prepared to die. Yeah. [01:32:38] OG: Yes. Name is. You killed. My father prepared to die. [01:32:42] Well, he [01:32:43] Doug: didn’t have the beard then, but in Homeland he mustache any, I’m like, who is that guy? He looks kind of familiar, like holy shit. That’s the guy from Princess Bride [01:32:53] OG: that was at a football game this year and the ceremonial coin tosser guy. You know how they bring out a former player or alumni or something like that. [01:33:02] Yeah. It’s [01:33:02] Doug: been me several times. I’ve done that a bunch. Yeah. I [01:33:05] OG: doubt that highly. But, um, and [01:33:07] Joe: now from the Stacking Benjamin Show, ladies and gentlemen, esteemed [01:33:09] OG: alumni who [01:33:11] Joe: makes the wheels run. [01:33:12] OG: Neighbor Doug. Neighbor Doug. But it was a pilot for like a B two fighter, bomber squadron, you know, alumni person. [01:33:23] Wow. You know, and he looked like a top gun pilot. Six three, just a slender guy, but had the most amazing mustache. I was so enthralled with his mustaches on like one of those all time [01:33:36] Joe: Raleigh fingers kind of comes up the edge. No, just real, [01:33:39] OG: real thick all the way. I mean, just like you would see in like a Top Gun movie. [01:33:43] I was, I was very impressed with the quality of the, sir, it’s sir, time to flip the [01:33:45] Doug: coin. What? Yeah, sir. Flip the coin. It’s time. Can I touch it? Can I touch it? [01:33:55] Joe: And so now you had to try to grow your own is the [01:33:57] OG: point. It’s gonna take a long time, but [01:34:01] Doug: we’ll [01:34:01] OG: see how it goes. [01:34:02] Doug: We should post my best ever the result of my best ever no shave November. I did all, everything you’re doing. And then once I got like midway through December, like, alright, I can’t do this anymore, but I shaved everything except what I called my prison stash. [01:34:16] And it just went here down and then all the way down I had tails that went all the way down my neck and it was spectacular. Chopper. [01:34:23] OG: Oh my goodness. Yeah, I’ve done that. You you do the chopper, you do the lamb chops. I [01:34:28] Doug: haven’t [01:34:28] OG: done that. [01:34:28] Doug: No. You’re already [01:34:29] Joe: scared the neighborhood kids so much. Doug. I mean, that’d make it even worse. [01:34:33] Well, [01:34:34] Doug: if I post this photo, everybody will realize why I had to move. [01:34:38] Joe: Yeah. Yeah. I tried to do no shave November, but then it got all bushy down there, and so I finally had to [01:34:44] OG: Oh, for God’s sakes. Well, we were gonna be able to use this for the, uh, [01:34:48] Doug: yes. [01:34:49] OG: After show, but, uh, [01:34:50] Doug: how does the, uh, does the ly comb go through that easily, Joe? [01:34:54] Oh boy. Or is that, does it tweak ’em a little bit? [01:35:03] We’re using it now. [01:35:05] Joe: Let’s go scene right there. Okay. Then.
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