Donor Advised Funds 101 (with Adam Nash) (SB1724)

What if there were a way to make charitable giving easier, more strategic, and—dare we say—more satisfying? In this episode of The Stacking Benjamins Show, Joe Saul-Sehy, OG, and Len Penzo welcome Adam Nash, founder and CEO of Daffy, to demystify donor-advised funds. Whether you’ve never heard of them or you’ve been meaning to set one up, Adam walks us through how they work, why they might be a perfect fit for your giving goals, and how they can help you be more intentional with your generosity year-round.

But that’s not all—we also turn the spotlight on an often-overlooked money moment: handling a car insurance claim. From gathering evidence at the scene to negotiating with your insurance company, the team shares smart, practical steps to make sure you don’t leave money (or protection) on the table. And, of course, Len dishes up his trademark personal finance storytelling straight from his new book, mixing in lessons you’ll actually remember with tales you didn’t see coming.

If you’ve been thinking about giving more, protecting yourself better, or just want to walk away with some clever, real-world money moves, this episode’s got you covered. Plus, you’ll leave with an extra nudge to make your charitable giving—and your financial safety net—as strong as possible.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• The basics of donor-advised funds and how they can supercharge your charitable giving
• Key differences between donor-advised funds and traditional giving methods
• How to prepare for and navigate a car insurance claim from start to finish
• Smart moves for documenting accidents and protecting yourself against disputes
• Why diversification in your giving can be as valuable as diversification in your investing
• How Len Penzo turns everyday money lessons into stories you’ll want to retell

Questions to Discuss with Your Fellow Stackers:

Do you think giving should be a scheduled part of your financial plan, or something you do more spontaneously?

Have you ever used a donor-advised fund—or would you consider one after hearing this episode?

What’s one lesson you’ve learned (the hard way or otherwise) from filing an insurance claim?

Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.stackingbenjamins.com/201

Enjoy!

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Our Headline

• Car insurance claims do’s and don’ts (Charlotte Observer)

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Doug’s Trivia

• In what city is the first American commercial radio station based?

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Want more than just the show notes? How about our newsletter with STACKS of related, deeper links?

• Check out The 201, our email that comes with every Monday and Wednesday episode, PLUS a list of more than 19 of the top money lessons Joe’s learned over his own life about money. From credit to cash reserves, and insurance to investing, we’ll tackle all of these. Head to StackingBenjamins.com/the201 to sign up (it’s free and we will never give away your email to others).

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Other Mentions

• True Money Stories: Madcap Musings About Family Life and Personal Finance (by Len Penzo)
• Len Penzo dot Com – The offbeat personal finance blog for responsible people.

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Join Us Friday!

Tune in on Friday when we’re rounding out our estate planning and gifting week with some SIZZLING takes, and we’ll ask our panel and YOU…are you IN or OUT on challenging options?

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Written by: Kevin Bailey

Miss our last show? Listen here: 3 Questions You’re Dying To Know about Estate Planning (SB1723)

Episode transcript

[00:00:00] Len: You know, I don’t understand this podcasting thing. How come you boys can’t have those keg parties and chase the girls like all the other nice boys do? Y’all are nerds.

[00:00:17] Doug: Live from Joe’s mom’s basement. It’s the Stacking Benjamin Show.

[00:00:31] Doug: I am Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. And how involved are you in your community? Creating a giving plan can be good for you, the organizations around you, and maybe even your tax strategy today. To help us dive into the world of donor-advised funds, we welcome the founder and CEO of donor advised fund firm Daffy Adam Nash in our headline segment.

[00:00:55] Doug: What steps should you take? If you are involved in an auto accident, we’ll share do’s and don’ts at the scene of a fender bender or maybe something worse, but the best decision you’ll make all day. That’ll be when you decide to partake in my amazing trivia. I’ve got one you’ll be sharing with all your friends.

[00:01:15] Doug: And now three guys who think SPF stands for Smart Portfolio Fundamentals. It’s Joe OG and Len.

[00:01:29] Joe: Hey there stackers. Happy Wednesday to you. Welcome back to the Stacky Benjamin Show. I am Joe Saul Sea. Hi. And SPF can have two meanings, Doug. It can have two, at least two absolutely. And uh, the guy with uh, two names. The first name and a last name, city. And cross the card table from me. Mr. OG is here. How are you my friend?

[00:01:51] Joe: I. 

[00:01:52] OG: So like three names or four names. I’m not sure, but, um, 

[00:01:56] Joe: yeah. 

[00:01:56] OG: Og what’s up? He’s, he’s good. And then I, I is good. I’d be good. Maybe we be maybe good. 

[00:02:05] Joe: Are you excited about charitable giving Wednesday OG 

[00:02:08] OG: as one could be as, as excited as one could be about giving things to other people, which is my favorite thing to do.

[00:02:17] Joe: And a guy who is a huge giver, he is giving his time for the next hour to you. Mr. Len Penso is back at the card table. How are you man? 

[00:02:26] Len: I’m good. If we can speed this up though. ’cause I just started my colon cleanse and uh, that should be kicking. We got about 60 minutes by my, oh my. Oh my. The clock is ticking.

[00:02:37] Len: Things are percolating, Jerry. So if, if you’re asking me, things are gonna be just great in about an hour. So, so 

[00:02:45] Joe: do we do a colonoscopy joke on Monday? We did. Like we did say you’re a man of a certain age without saying you’re a man of a certain age just by the type of humor you got. But Len, you’re not only here gonna help us with this headline and with the show today.

[00:03:02] Joe: Rumor has it, you’ve got a new book out. What’s that all about? 

[00:03:05] Len: Yeah, I, you know what I decided, I, what the hell Just join everybody else with putting books out. I decided I’d do that then. Uh, if Joe can do 

[00:03:13] Joe: it, so could I.

[00:03:17] Len: Hey, why not? You know, I, I noticed you started living a lot larger once you put your book out. So I was like, you know what? Yes he did. That’s. That’s the, maybe I can do the same. We’ll see someday lead. You could be just like me. You know? I will say that I, for breakfast, you know, I started having a favorite meal and it actually helped the writing process.

[00:03:36] Len: You know what that meal was? 

[00:03:38] Joe: Don’t say something. O brand or some old guy? No, not another old guy. Jokes. No, it’s, 

[00:03:42] Len: it’s cinnamon. Cinnamon buns. Buns. 

[00:03:44] Joe: Synonym. Oh my. Oh gee. Do you got the thing? Should we go 

[00:03:49] Len: back to the colon cleanse joke instead? Or are you looking for this one? Dougie’s shaking his head no. To both counts, 

[00:03:58] Doug: so I can’t even speak.

[00:04:00] Doug: It’s so bad. 

[00:04:02] Joe: You can tell it’s gonna be a fun day in the basement with Len here. But guys, we also have. As Doug, you so eloquently said, Adam Nash is here. He founded a little company that you might have heard of called Wealthfront. Not sure if you guys know that company, but then, uh, after of course, uh, Wealthfront becoming successful, Adam moved on and he moved on to this cool area called donor advised funds.

[00:04:27] Joe: What are donor advised funds? How can they help you in your charitable giving plan? Well, we got the man here because he’s now the CEO and founder of a company called daf E. Of course, DAF donor advised funds. Good times talking to, to Adam. Can’t wait to dive into that discussion. But before we get there, and to all this goodness, today, we have a couple of sponsors who make sure we can keep on keeping on and you don’t have to pay a dime for lens appearance for Adam’s appearance.

[00:04:57] Joe: Heck, even for og Doug and I sit back, we’re gonna hear from them. And then let’s talk to Daffy founder Adam Nash, about what are these donor buys funds all about?

[00:05:16] Joe: And we’re super happy. He’s on his way down to mom’s basement. Have a seat man. Adam Dash is here. How are you? Uh, good, good. Great to be here. Before we get into the mechanics, why are donor-advised funds exploding in popularity? You know, these have been around forever, but now I feel like finally we’re hearing about donor-advised funds.

[00:05:36] Joe: What’s, is this a money nerd trend, Adam, or is there something bigger going on? 

[00:05:39] Adam: No, there’s two reasons really that I think donor-advised funds are exploding in popularity. You know, going from thousands of accounts to millions. And they’re the best reasons of all it. It’s, you know, the first reason a huge number of Americans give to charity every year.

[00:05:53] Adam: A lot of us support our religious institution, our kids’ school, our alma mater, a cause we believe in, uh, most estimates are that between 50 to 60 million American households give to charity every year. So not surprisingly that’s a money issue, right? That’s money coming out of everyone’s budget every year, and yet most people don’t budget for it.

[00:06:13] Adam: And it just turns out that the second reason is that in general, it turns out Americans really like tax advantaged accounts. Like we spent 50 years talking about 4 0 1 Ks and IRAs, and 25 years ago we’re talking about 5 29 plans to save for college. And so most people, when they find out, hey, there’s a tax advantaged account for charitable giving.

[00:06:32] Adam: Most people are like, oh, tell me more. I didn’t, why didn’t someone tell me that this thing exists? And so I think what you’re seeing now is that we’re just hitting that knee of the curve that those other accounts kind of hit, where more and more people, um, are hearing about it. The, the big guys, the Fidelities, the Schwabs, the Vanguards are talking about it more.

[00:06:50] Adam: And so I think we’re all just getting educated about this great way to put money aside for charity. 

[00:06:54] Joe: Well, I’m so happy that you were available to walk through the one-on-one on donor-advised funds. So let’s just pretend that you’re my buddy and we’re at a neighborhood cookout. What, what is a donor advised fund while we’re grilling the steaks?

[00:07:08] Adam: Yeah, I appreciate that. And also I do appreciate invites to cookouts like that because since I like and love to talk about these financial topics, it’s, I’m not always the best right guest at the cookout, but you know, I love this stuff. I can’t help it. If you’re the type of person who gives to charity on a regular basis, you have organizations, it’s really useful to have one place for all your giving.

[00:07:29] Adam: We have separate accounts for different things. There’s a reason why we set up a separate account for our long-term savings or an emergency fund or a separate account for retirement or, or even for college savings. And so that’s all a donor-advised fund is, is it turns out there’s a, an account designed for giving to charity and it’s a really useful thing because you put money aside when it’s convenient for you.

[00:07:51] Adam: Most of us, you know, there’s ups and downs in our budgets. There’s ups and downs in our income and expenses, et cetera. But we like to support organizations on a regular basis. And so putting money aside when it’s convenient for you, having that money invested tax free and then when you want to give, just having it being a few taps on your phone or a few clicks with your mouse is just amazingly convenient.

[00:08:14] Adam: And I mean, the best part of the donor-advised fund is that when you put money into the account, you get the charitable deduction right away. 

[00:08:22] Joe: Can we dive into that first? Sure. Yeah. The tax advantage, ’cause we got a bunch of our stackers that when you start, and, and you mentioned this earlier, right? We love giving to these, uh, tax shelter plans.

[00:08:31] Joe: So walk me through the tax benefits of putting money into a donor-advised fund. 

[00:08:37] Adam: Oh, happy to. And, and there are, um, there actually are three really big tax benefits to using a donor-advised fund versus just writing a check to a charity you support. First and foremost, like I said, is that when you put money aside into a donor-advised fund, you get that charitable deduction right away.

[00:08:53] Adam: Donor-advised funds like DFI where I work, is a 5 0 1 C3 nonprofit. So when you make that contribution, you’re actually making a donation to a nonprofit. So you get that receipt right away. It could be December 31st, right? And you wanna get that deduction in before the end of the year. You can do that with a donor-advised fund very easily.

[00:09:12] Adam: The second big benefit is that when you put money in a donor-advised fund, the money is invested. You have a whole selection of investment options that can match your charitable giving and and your goals. But that money is invested tax free, fully tax free. And so that’s a huge benefit by itself. 

[00:09:28] Joe: Sure.

[00:09:28] Adam: And then of course the third benefit is if you happen to be an investor who owns things like stocks or even exotic things like crypto, when you donate stock or crypto, you get this extra benefit where you never end up paying the capital gains taxes, but you get the charitable deduction for the full market value as long as you’ve held the investment at least one year.

[00:09:50] Adam: So if you were lucky enough to buy Apple stock at a hundred dollars a share, and now it’s $200 a share, a few years later, when you put a share of Apple into a donor-advised fund, you get a charitable deduction on your taxes for $200. You’ll never pay the capital gains taxes on that run from a hundred to 200.

[00:10:10] Adam: So really between those three benefits, it’s really kind of a no brainer if, if you give to charity regularly, you should have a donor-advised fund. 

[00:10:18] Joe: I would think everybody wins in the case of highly appreciated stock because the charity’s not gonna pay any capital gain. So they end up getting more money.

[00:10:26] Joe: You end up donating more money because you have more money available to donate ’cause you’re not paying the tax 

[00:10:32] Adam: well. And that’s right. It’s a huge benefit to everyone involved. It’s more money for the charity, it’s more impact for you. And it’s a smart financial thing to do. The real problem is that, you know, in the US alone, there are more than 1.7 million charities who’re a very generous country.

[00:10:48] Adam: And actually we have a lot of organizations doing a lot of good work. But the number of them that could take a stock donation or a crypto donation or something like that, it’s very few. I mean, most of these organizations are busy doing their mission. Sure. Right. They’re helping people. They’re, they’re doing things.

[00:11:03] Adam: And so the great thing about a donor-advised fund is that the charity doesn’t have to worry about that. It’s the donor-advised fund’s problem to get the cash to the charity, right? Ah, you can give stock to the donor-advised fund. You know, a mutual fund. It doesn’t have to be a stock, it could be stock, it could be an ETF, it could be a mutual fund.

[00:11:20] Adam: All that complexity, the donor-advised fund takes care of. And then when you say, Hey, I want this money to go to this charity, the donor advised fund gets the cash to the charity. And so it’s easier for them and it’s easier for you. 

[00:11:33] Joe: That was my next question because here in Texarkana, Texas, little town I live in Adam, I help build walking trails and it’s a 5 0 1 C3.

[00:11:41] Joe: I was thinking that very question like we’re a bunch of volunteers, like we have a budget of almost nothing. If somebody wanted to give us stock, like how the hell am I gonna do that? But you take care of that. 

[00:11:49] Adam: That’s right. Exactly. And in fact, as the number of instruments grows and techniques, there’s huge advantages.

[00:11:54] Adam: I mean, donor-advised funds like Daffy, you can link your bank account. If you just wanna move money over without any fees, you can of course use a card. I mean, we even accept Apple Pay. But for a lot of investors, if you invest and you’ve been doing it the right way for the long term, you end up with these investments after 10, 20, 30 years that have significant capital gains.

[00:12:14] Adam: Sure. And we don’t think about that. But the truth is, when you cash it in, the government gets paid like you’re gonna pay those taxes. And in some states, those taxes can be quite high. I mean, I live in California. Between state and federal, you can be over 50% in some cases, 

[00:12:30] bit: right? Yeah. 

[00:12:30] Adam: And so if you wanna see your money go to a good cause, you know, the ability to actually donate stock or an ETF, it can be Vanguard total market.

[00:12:39] Adam: It doesn’t have to be, you know, Nvidia or you know, some hot stock in the market. 

[00:12:42] Joe: Well, and even if you held that, like the total stock market index to the s and p 500, you’ve held it for 10 years. To your point, Adam, you got a huge gain, a nice gain. 

[00:12:50] Adam: And that’s the magic of compounding. And so I think in particular what happens is you end up with these investments.

[00:12:56] Adam: You also end up with these charities you want to support. For a lot of people like myself, I give regularly to schools that my children have been involved with. I like to support the community, et cetera. And there’s always that choice. I could write a check or I could take one of the investments that I’ve held for a long time, put it in the donor advised fund, and then have them send the money to the school.

[00:13:17] Adam: The only difference between the two, the school still gets the same money. The only difference is by donating the stock. I didn’t have to make the school deal with that. And by the way, that’s a hard thing for them to deal with. Sure. And second, I’ll never have to pay the capital gains taxes on that investment.

[00:13:32] Adam: And so for me it just seems like an obvious way to have your money go farther towards the causes that you care about. 

[00:13:38] Joe: Well, let’s talk one for our really nerdy stackers. I think if we talk order of operations, job one then is don’t ever give cash. I’m hearing if I’ve got anything that’s appreciated.

[00:13:49] Joe: Replace the appreciated asset with new cash and gift anything with a capital gain. 

[00:13:56] Adam: That’s exactly right. Um, I’ve actually written some pieces about this. It turns out your basic advice is the right one. If you can always give an appreciated asset. Right. If you’ve held an investment for more than one year.

[00:14:08] Adam: Right. So it qualifies for long-term capital gains. Yes. Use an investment. It’s always better financially for you. Yeah. And like I said, the only problem with it. It can sometimes be a timing thing. It can sometimes be the organization doesn’t support it. But the great thing about donor-advised funds is that it takes both of those problems off the table.

[00:14:26] Adam: Gotcha, gotcha. Right? So you give it when it’s convenient for you. You could be working with your accountant if you do your taxes yourself, et cetera. But if you’re sitting there thinking like, Hey, I normally give a certain amount to charity every year, it just becomes another thing for you, another financial goal.

[00:14:41] Adam: Right. To make sure that you’re funding. And actually, we see a lot of, a lot of our members actually use it that way. We actually encourage our members to actually set a goal, to actually look back, what did you give to charity last year, the year before? Most of us actually don’t even know the answer to that question.

[00:14:56] Adam: And the good news is actually most of us are more generous than we think we are because we do these donations one at a time when people ask. But if you turn it into a basic financial goal, you have a number on it, then you can plan for it. Right. And actually using appreciated stock ETFs, mutual funds, crypto turns out to be a very tax smart way to kind of fund that goal.

[00:15:17] Joe: I love a, the gamification of it, right? Let’s see if I can beat last year, and that sounds like fun for the family. How can we as a family, maybe even give more than we did last year? But second, I also like the fact that then it becomes part of the overall budget. And you think about it, I’ve just found in my life, the more I give, the more I get.

[00:15:34] Joe: You know, how does the universe make that? But I have no idea. But the more I give away, the more I feel like the universe gives it back to me. Uh, I sound way more woo woo there than I am, but it’s just been true. I wanna ask a procedural question because I haven’t been a financial planner for a long time, 15 years, but 15 years ago, this deal that I would have this stock or this fund sitting at Vanguard, fidelity, Schwab, wherever, and now I’m gonna give it to a charity, the whole ACAT transfer thing, you know, the account transfer thing of getting this share of stock from this custodian over to Daffy or whoever was a real pain in the ass.

[00:16:08] Joe: I gotta believe you being a guy that’s between finance nerd and tech nerd, Adam, you must have picked the lock on how to make this. Much easier. 

[00:16:18] Adam: Yeah. Well, I’d like to think that we have made it easier, but unfortunately I’ve been in this industry long enough to tell you it is not. I still want it to be faster.

[00:16:26] Adam: Like we, we, you know, actually we just rolled out a new version of that this year, but we’re always working on that problem. 

[00:16:31] Joe: Maybe that’s where all our gray came from though, Adam. 

[00:16:34] Adam: Yeah. Okay. Exactly. But the biggest advantage of using a donor-advised fund, you know, one of the problems is setting up those transfers is hard enough.

[00:16:41] Adam: Yeah. Setting up those type of transfers to 5, 6, 7 organizations, I mean, the headaches involved you, you, you would need a financial advisor to, to help you do all that work. The great thing about having a donor-advised fund is you kind of set it up once. And once you’ve set it up, it’s very easy to do. We have automated for a number of the largest brokerages out there, but actually any broker who can actually, uh, DTC stock over supports it.

[00:17:05] Adam: And actually many of them have specific menu items for charitable giving. And so we do think we’ve made that much, much easier to do. I mean, a lot of the reasons we invested in the technology at DFI as we looked out at the other providers and said, wow, these, these organizations are doing a great job with their mission and helping people give, but we could do more with technology.

[00:17:24] Adam: I mean, when we launched DFI a few years ago, we were shocked to find out we were the first fully functional donor-advised fund in the app store. 

[00:17:31] bit: Wow. I mean, the app store’s 

[00:17:33] Adam: been around for a long time. Yeah, right. I mean, I’m, I, I, my first job outta school was at Apple, so I mean, oh, was it? The App store has been around for a long time, like 15, more than 15 years.

[00:17:41] Adam: Charitable Giving’s a wonderful space. A lot of good people and good organizations who have really great intentions. But it has tended to lag in, in terms of technology. And so if teams like ours can help make this even easier, our philosophy is if we make it easier to give, we can help people be their better selves, you know, to be more generous, more often.

[00:18:00] Adam: It is a great feeling, you know, um, having it on your phone means that you know, when, when someone asks you to give, you’re motivated. You see something that’s happening on the news that you care about, or it’s a local thing, right? Like a, your local school is raising money for a new computer lab for the kids, et cetera.

[00:18:15] Adam: The ability to pull out your phone and go tap, tap, tap, and the money’s already put aside. It’s not for anything else. It really makes it easier to give, and that’s what we hear from our members is that what they love about having a donor-advised fund is that they can focus on the giving part because the financial piece of what?

[00:18:32] Adam: Part of your budget, right? How much money you get has already been taken care of. 

[00:18:37] Joe: I wanna ask you about myths, and I also want to talk about. An issue that I see with donor-advised funds and get your take on it. But let’s talk about myths. What you, you gotta hear these myths about donor-advised funds all the time.

[00:18:48] Joe: What are some of the, what are some of the ones that really need to be dispelled, ASAP? 

[00:18:53] Adam: Well, the, the biggest myth out there, and it’s not unique to donor-advised funds, but it’s very heavy in the category, is that we’ve just in the last 10 or 20 years, become very fixated on the wealthy and the ultra wealthy.

[00:19:05] Adam: You know, it’s the billionaire focus. And so I think there’s this misperception that if you’re not a billionaire, that the donor-advised fund isn’t for you. And nothing could be further from the truth. You know, it turns out all the research actually shows most of the giving in this country is actually just from individuals, you know, people like you and me.

[00:19:25] Adam: Like I said, those 50 to 60 million American households who are very generous and believe that some of their money, hard earned money, is not just for them, it’s to actually support others. Right. That old fashioned idea of, of helping people less fortunate than yourselves, it’s still very universal. And so the idea of having a donor-advised fund is just a smart money thing of having this separate account for your giving.

[00:19:46] Adam: So that’s the biggest myth that I, I see all the time. I think the second myth that I see about donor-advised funds is that somehow it’s incredibly difficult, right? Or sophisticated. Like if you don’t have a professional financial advisor, it’s not something you could do, but it isn’t, right. Most of our members, you know, they open up an account, they film their information.

[00:20:03] Adam: I mean, Daffy is free under a hundred dollars and it’s only $3 a month. Otherwise, there was a time where setting up a bank account was a whole arduous journey. But you know, that was solved online 20 years ago. People open up accounts online all the time. Now. There’s nothing super difficult about having a donor-advised fund.

[00:20:20] Adam: You just have to know that they exist and actually take a few minutes to do it. You know, our mission is to help people be more generous, more often. It turns out, I mean, I teach this class at Stanford in, in personal finance, and I, I actually start the class with behavioral finance, all the emotions around money.

[00:20:36] Adam: Money. My favorite part. Yeah, of course, by far 

[00:20:38] Joe: my favorite part. 

[00:20:38] Adam: It turns out that, you know the same reason why, if you wanna save for retirement, well, right? You want that money coming outta your paycheck automatically. You make that smart decision once, and then you automate it. It turns out the same research that shows why that works for retirement also applies to giving.

[00:20:54] Adam: It turns out, if you just set a number, whatever the number is, no judgment. Everyone’s different on how much they can and how much they think they should give. But just picking a number and automating it turns out to lead people to be more generous. In fact, the, the research says that people who pre-commit, who, who set a goal for their giving.

[00:21:10] Adam: On average end up giving 32% more. 

[00:21:13] Joe: Wow. Which is why 

[00:21:14] Adam: we built the platform. We did. 

[00:21:15] Joe: It’s why goal setting works in general for anything. Right, exactly. You actually gotta set it down, put it in writing, and do it. Also, I think, you know, sometimes I get pushback from people about the idea of bucketing, about there’s, you know, there’s more efficient ways to do things and setting up these buckets.

[00:21:29] Joe: But I think behaviorally, Adam, what you’re talking about makes a ton of sense. If I bucket this off and I have this set spot, like in my head, which most of my problems investing are between my ears in my head, I know exactly where my giving is. I feel like even if it’s not quote the most efficient, and I don’t know why in this case it wouldn’t be, it, it just works so well.

[00:21:50] Adam: Yeah, and there’s no question, I mean, bucketing is a form of, as you know, mental accounting that we do. We like to label things. We’re humans. We label things. We, we give them narrative. We give them stories. This money is for this, this money is for that. And what I teach my students is that that it, it’s not a good or bad thing, but it is a powerful thing.

[00:22:07] Adam: You have to respect it. It’s a powerful thing. And so if you’re gonna label money, label it for something that matters. So if you’re gonna label this money for retirement, or label this money for your, your children’s college education, those are generally good things I’m supportive of because those are meaningful goals for people and labeling gives them more power.

[00:22:23] Adam: The same thing applies for charity. Most of us, when we support organizations, we care about supporting them. Like I said, you know, if it’s your church or synagogue, if it’s your child’s school, if it’s your alma mater, um, we actually feel bad if we can’t make those commitments, if we can’t fulfill. No one likes to say, oh, I can’t give this year because of X, Y, Z, et cetera.

[00:22:42] Adam: And so just recognizing that a important to you, labeling it turns out to have a lot of value because once again, it lets you plan for it. When it comes to money, no one likes surprises, and money is stressful enough, especially budgets and making sure that you have some put aside for yourself and your loved ones.

[00:23:02] Adam: And so I love the idea in general of, of extending that to charity and just being honest. Uh, and like I said, I recommend most people just look, um, you know, what did you give to charity last year? We do that scramble at the end of the year anyway, for those donation receipts for taxes. It’s the last 

[00:23:15] Joe: week of the year.

[00:23:16] Adam: Everyone’s searching their Gmail or they have the printed out receipts somewhere on their desk in a folder. But like instead of just doing that for taxes, just add up the numbers and then instead of treating it as a one-off thing, just put aside, we make it very easy for people to put aside money every week or every month if that’s the way you prefer to do it.

[00:23:34] Adam: Some people prefer to do it end of the year. Right. You know, we, we try to rebalance our portfolios. We were just talking about stock. That’s the great opportunity whenever you rebalance the portfolio, something outperformed, something, underperformed. Those outperformers, you could sell them to rebalance the portfolio.

[00:23:50] Adam: Those are also good candidates to actually donate and get that great capital. Yeah, exactly. 

[00:23:55] Joe: Donate to rebalance. Yep. This is an issue. I’ve heard people in charitable giving talk about that they’ve had with donor-advised funds, and you’ve heard this before from other places. The latest data I could come up with is 2023.

[00:24:12] Joe: I like that you started this with where charitable we want to give to a charity. If you put a donor-advised fund in the middle of that continuum, you can do it much more efficiently. You can create this bucket that makes it easier. But a lot of places you, you know Adam, a lot of people don’t start there.

[00:24:29] Joe: They start with, Ooh, I get the tax break. I’m gonna put the money in the donor-advised fund. I’m not sure where it’s gonna go. I’m not sure where I want it to be. And people in charitable giving go there is, and this is as of 20 23, 53 $0.77 billion sitting in donor-advised funds that hasn’t been allocated.

[00:24:48] Joe: How do we solve this issue that we’ve got these wonderful charitable organizations that need this money. And we’ve got these people with donor-advised funds that seemingly can’t make up their mind like how I’m gonna disseminate it. 

[00:25:01] Adam: We were talking about myths earlier. I think there’s a myth there about donor funds good because the donation rates out of donor-advised funds are so much higher than foundations or other institutions, which are usually keyed around 5%.

[00:25:14] Adam: I mean, at DFI alone, last year, over 38% of the money that had been contributed the year before ended up going out in donations that year. Oh wow. So the, the donations actually move very, very quickly. I do think it depends though, a little bit on how the software is designed due as it encourage you to give.

[00:25:32] Adam: But the donation rates are very high. You know, we spent a lot of time talking to nonprofit organizations and I will tell you there’s some truth to the fact that, you know, look, they’re raising money. They’d always prefer some money now. They need money now for their budget more now. Right. But let’s be clear, these institutions, if you really talk to the development officers and the people who run them, what they really need is ongoing support.

[00:25:53] Adam: If there is a reason why universities have endowments and why, if you want to actually fund a mission or an organization for the long term, you need continuing support. The way I think about donor-advised funds is it’s kind of like having your own mini endowment where you can, instead of just one off making the decision every year, you can set up a recurring donation so that that organization you support is getting support to pay their people to fund their mission every year, not just the one time they asked you.

[00:26:23] Adam: And I, I think if you talk to most organizations, one of their top priorities right now is actually just that is getting recurring support. But once again, to the financial conversation, it’s very hard providing recurring support to an organization if you don’t fund it. And that means you need an account somewhere.

[00:26:41] Adam: I actually think that more and more organizations are realizing that donor-advised funds are the key to them, not just getting a one-time donation. Having an ongoing relationship with their donors, which is really easy. Then the 

[00:26:53] Joe: budget, then every year figure out what their, what they got coming in. 

[00:26:57] Adam: Well, listen, I’ve been on the board of several nonprofits.

[00:26:59] Adam: I will tell you there’s this good news, bad news. Sometimes you get a really big donation. Someone comes through maybe something meaningful. Maybe they had a, an event in their life, maybe someone passed away. But you get this big donation. It actually creates this problem for the organization that they have to deal with because there’s this urgency to try and spend the money now to use it, because people wanna see that.

[00:27:18] Adam: But actually the mission of the organization is not just for this year. Like there’s no charity out there who’s just focused on 2025, right? If they’re feeding hungry people, they need to feed people in 2026 also and 2027. And so we really encourage people when they set up their accounts, to think about the organizations they support.

[00:27:36] Adam: And instead of just making a one-off donation, we make it very easy to create a recurring donation so that you don’t forget. I mean, we all busy. A lot of things happen in life, family work, et cetera. It really is meaningful for most people to know that the organizations that they support, it’s gonna be on an ongoing basis and that way they can be more connected.

[00:27:56] Joe: This goes back Adam to behavior, right? I mean, if I’ve gotta remember it, it’s not gonna happen. If, if I’ve got it set up on a recurring basis and then I can adjust it once or twice a year, I think much more, much more likely to happen. I want to ask one more one-on-one question, which is, I move the money to DAF E, or I move it to any donor-advised fund.

[00:28:16] Joe: A lot of our stackers may not know this if I haven’t chosen where to put it, or I am trying to build that foundation, quote unquote, to build a pile of money. I can invest the money while it’s inside the donor-advised fund, correct? 

[00:28:30] Adam: That’s correct. Different donor-advised funds offer different options for doing that.

[00:28:35] Adam: At Daffy, we try to make that very easy for people to do because people have different intentions for the money, right? Like if, if you plan to give it away very quickly. Maybe it belongs in a money market fund or a portfolio of bonds and fixed income. If it’s for a longer period of time, a diversified portfolio of index funds might be the right option.

[00:28:53] Adam: We have different levels of risk for some people who wanna see their money grow, so they have more to give. We even support crypto and, and other options. We really try to make it flexible. In fact, one of our most popular features we rolled out last year is we’ve greenlit over 460 ETFs so that if you really have a meaningful sized account and you want to actually make some recommendations about how that money is invested for the long term, we support it.

[00:29:17] Adam: Advisors actually love that feature. Sure. Really what we see is that different people have different levels of comfort and different senses of risk when it comes to money. That’s for charity, like I said, it’s amazing the psychology around money, um, and we’re not judgmental about that, but whatever you prefer, some people wanna see that money grow so they have more money to give and they’ll, they’re willing to take more risk with it.

[00:29:38] Adam: Other folks, this money is, is for a good cause. I don’t wanna see $1 lost. So in general, you can make those choices with a donor-advised fund. It’s very flexible. 

[00:29:47] Joe: I’m glad you transferred a little bit into Daffy because I do want to talk now about, specifically about your organization. What was the moment, Adam, that made you go, or you and other people go, you know what, I’m gonna start Daffy.

[00:30:00] Joe: Like, where did this come from? 

[00:30:02] Adam: It probably goes without saying, you know, I’ve had a long career in technology and most of the products I’ve worked on have been asking this question of, Hey, has technology progressed far enough that we can take an existing problem and help people with it better in some meaningful way?

[00:30:18] Adam: And the last 10, 15 years, I’ve spent a lot of time in FinTech in financial technology. ’cause I’m really passionate about helping people with financial problems. I, I used to be a CEO of Wealthfront. I was on the board of a company called Acorns. But it really struck me one day, I mean, I have four children.

[00:30:33] Adam: They all went to a school where every Friday they brought spare change to their class, put in a little piggy bank. And they would vote on which charity every quarter to give that money to which local. I thought it was a great way to teach kids about giving. I mean, if you search Amazon, all the piggy banks, this is the money you can spend.

[00:30:49] Adam: This is the money to save for a rainy day and this is the money to give. Yeah. I mean we, we care so much about giving that we teach our children about. 

[00:30:57] Joe: It’s a piggy bank behind you. One of those, by the way. 

[00:31:00] Adam: Oh, that’s right. We do have a piggy bank up here. Thats right. Right. 

[00:31:02] Joe: For people watching the YouTube version of this, you’ll see the piggy bank right behind Adam.

[00:31:06] Adam: Yeah, yeah. But it really struck me that it’s so important, but all this great technology, think about the number of new financial products in the last 20 years. Things to help us save better, spend better, invest better. Where was the product to help us give? And so my co-founder, Alejandro and I really felt like we could use all this incredible technology the last 10 to 15 years.

[00:31:26] Adam: But instead of focusing it on giving people, you know, excitement when they buy a stock or. You know, you mentioned goal saying we could use all those same techniques to help people do something good, which is to help them give. And so that’s where DFI was born. We try to keep it simple. I mean, DFI stands for the donor advise fund for you.

[00:31:42] Adam: I mean, if you ask an engineer to name a company, you kind of get something like that. I’m just, I’m just letting you know that’s what you get. But no, it’s been a wonderful journey because it, it turns out to be true. There is so much opportunity to make this easier for people. So many people don’t know about the tax benefits.

[00:31:56] Adam: So many people don’t realize that they can have the money invested. And to me and, and my co-founder, that was just a, uh, in some ways that was a, a product problem, right? Like we could build a better product to help people. And so, you know, whether you go to daffy.org, we try to make it easy to get started.

[00:32:11] Adam: You can download the app off the app store if you want to get a little extra money, even it turns out, we will give you an extra $25 if you refer someone to, to give to the charity of your choice. So these all sound familiar because we’ve seen them around the web for all these services. I mean, I. Still spend too much online, so Sure.

[00:32:28] Adam: Right. That’s still a thing, 

[00:32:29] Joe: but referring people to do the right thing, that’s pretty cool. 

[00:32:31] Adam: That’s right. So that’s where the energy really came from and then we got the team together. We were grateful to get enough funding to be able to build a great team and launched the product almost four years ago.

[00:32:42] Adam: And it’s just been a phenomenal, you know, the first year we watched people put aside about 20 million for charity. The second year we, that number grew well over a hundred million. Last year we ended the year with over 300 million put aside for charity. Wow. It’s rewarded our faith in the fact that millions and millions of Americans actually care about giving.

[00:33:01] Joe: You mentioned earlier, and I’m glad you did this, about the account fees, how those work. I did want to ask you, what’s the differentiator between DAF E and other donor-advised fund platforms? 

[00:33:12] Adam: Oh, I mean, there are several, but actually we talking about the fee is a good one. So one of the biggest differentiators between DAF E and the other services is.

[00:33:19] Adam: Almost all the other donor-advised funds out there are offered by large financial institutions that are investment services. You know, the Fidelitys, the Schwabs, the Vanguards, and these are great institutions, but they borrowed their business model from those institutions. So they charge a percentage of assets.

[00:33:35] Adam: I mean, I love Vanguard, I really do, and I a huge fan of that organization. Their products, everything. But even Vanguard charges 66 0 basis points on their donor advised fund up to $500,000. And by the way, their minimum is $25,000. 

[00:33:52] Joe: It’s a very un vanguard like number. 

[00:33:55] Adam: Well, it turns out if you make that your business model, it creates a little bit of conflict because you’re gonna go after the largest accounts, right?

[00:34:02] Adam: The, the truth is, the fees off the million dollar account really are about a thousand times more than a thousand dollar account. And so we set up dfi, we looked around the nonprofit sector and said, you know what? A lot of great institutions are built off membership. So actually Daffy, instead of, we don’t charge a fee on assets.

[00:34:19] Adam: Instead we just charge a flat transparent membership fee. We’re free for under a hundred dollars. Most of our members pay $3 a month for families that actually wanna involve their children or maybe their siblings or parents or grandparents in giving, we have a family plan at $5 a month, and at the high end, if you really are giving larger amounts of money, um, we charge $20 a month.

[00:34:39] Adam: And that comes with like the custom portfolio, et cetera. The other big differentiator for us turns out to be just the technology. It’s really noticeable, right? It’s not just the app. In the app store. We’re located in Silicon Valley. We have some of the best engineers and designers out there. You know, they don’t just have to be building the next iPhone or, um, you know, the next social network or anything like that.

[00:35:00] Adam: It, it turns out you can use those people to actually help build great interfaces, to help people give. Um, and so I think those are the two biggest differentiators. I will say we have a lot of new features that are unique. We let people do things like send gifts. Instead of giving someone a hundred dollars, you can actually send them a gift card where a hundred dollars they can give to the charity of their choice and it comes outta your donor advise fund.

[00:35:21] Joe: That’s cool. 

[00:35:22] Adam: You know, most recently we’ve seen a lot of activity around Daffy campaigns, right? So if instead of giving to your kids’ school, you wanna say, Hey, I’ll match a thousand dollars, the next thousand dollars that people give to the local school, you can do that right outta your donor advise fund.

[00:35:38] Joe: We had a stacker, we were recording an episode yesterday that people will hear on Friday, which kind of rounds out this week. And a generous stacker named Paul. Paul wrote me right afterwards, and I could see his Daffy, uh, his Daffy donation to partnership for the Pathway, which is this pathway building organization.

[00:35:55] Joe: To me, he goes, this is just to support you and to do part of my charitable giving this year. I was like, what an honor for everybody. That’s fantastic. Yeah. It was so kick ass. Well, that’s, thank you, Paul, by the way, 

[00:36:06] Adam: that’s our whole philosophy. So we built DFI around this basic concept that it’s not really about the donor-advised fund itself.

[00:36:14] Adam: It’s about actually doing what people want to do, which is to be generous and just helping them make that easier to give. And so we in general, if, if supporting crypto makes it easier for some people to give, I mean, most institutions don’t support crypto still, right? Yeah. None of the major donor advised funds do we support every crypto that Coinbase Doess.

[00:36:33] Adam: So if, if you happen to have been in that market, we’ll support it. Um, like I said, the gift cards, the campaigns, we are always using our energy to try it. How can we make it easier for people to do the smart financial thing and the most generous thing with their money? And so, um, I love that story.

[00:36:49] Joe: Recently, uh, on the show, uh, Jesse Kramer, one of our contributors, was talking about fart coin. And now we know what you can do with all your fart coin. You just just, you know, just donate that away. 

[00:36:59] Adam: I don’t have a specific position on that, that specific asset, but if some of it went to charity, I gotta think that’s better than some alternatives might be a better, 

[00:37:07] Joe: might be a better use.

[00:37:08] Joe: You know, you’ve thought a lot clearly, uh, over the last half hour about philanthropy. You could have one dream dinner guest that you’re gonna talk philanthropy with. Who would that be? 

[00:37:19] Adam: Oh, that’s a wonderful question. I think I, I’m thinking of all these incredibly generous people who’ve actually built foundations over the years, et cetera, and which ones have stood the test of time and giving.

[00:37:31] Adam: I don’t know if I have a specific name, but I, I will tell you that I’ve been really fascinated with the giving that happened a little bit more than a hundred years ago, where people really set up institutions that we now all depend on, right? Like generations later, you know, there’s that old expression, uh, you know, when’s the right time to plant a tree while the right time was 10 years ago?

[00:37:51] Adam: You know, the second best time is today. And, and so I, I have that feeling where I see more and more people who really wanna have, not just impact today, but over very long periods of time, meaningful impact that help their children, their grandchildren. And there are some of those big donors from a hundred years ago who are just so, they had so much foresight about the institutions they set up.

[00:38:13] Adam: So, I apologize, I don’t have a specific name, but that’s kind of the category that I’m thinking of. 

[00:38:17] Joe: That’s fabulous. We were just talking about, uh, recently Andrew Carnegie, one of those people. 

[00:38:21] Adam: That’s a good example. Yeah. Yeah. It’s, uh, it requires a certain level of thinking, really long-term thinking, which unfortunately we’re.

[00:38:27] Adam: Maybe short supply these days to really thinking about not just what’s meaningful today or this year, this decade, but what’s gonna be meaningful on an ongoing basis. I mean, some of the universities that we all treasure and, and depend on weren’t just accidents of history. They were intentional desires to set up institutions that have stood the test of time.

[00:38:46] Joe: Well, and this gets back to that $53 billion question I asked and how that can be a driver of, I mean, that could just be a sun that gives off heat of so much money to so many organizations. I like your answer to that question. Adam, thank you for mentoring our stackers today on donor-advised funds. Man, I appreciate the work that you do so much and really appreciate your time.

[00:39:07] Adam: No, Joe, and I appreciate the podcast and what you’re doing and, and thanks for having me on.

[00:39:16] Doug: Hey there, stackers. I’m Joe’s Bombs neighbor Dug, and today we embrace our forefathers in this newish industry of podcasting. With a look back to today’s date in 1920, that’s when the first commercial radio station was founded in one badass American city. Only 11 days after it was created, this radio station began encouraging its listeners to hold wireless parties in their homes to hear the first US broadcast of election returns.

[00:39:45] Doug: A month later, this same radio station aired radio’s first vocal program, a soprano singing the last rose of summer. You remember that old hit, don’t you, Joe? This station still on the air today and broadcasting a signal that reaches across the Midwest emanates from which American city. Here’s a clue. It isn’t WKRP in Cincinnati and it isn’t Pittsburgh.

[00:40:11] Doug: The fact that this station we’re focused on had been called the first was poo-pooed by Pittsburgh Station, KDKA, but the National Association of Broadcasters ruled that KDKA was 10 and a half weeks younger than the station we are talking about. So which city is this radio station from? I’ll be back with the answer right after I see what’s playing on old time radio.

[00:40:45] Doug: Hey there, stackers. I’m radio lover and guy with a voice for tv. Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. Wait, what? Today we’re celebrating the birth of America’s first commercial radio station way back in 1920. This station quickly scored lots of other firsts. According to Time Magazine, it claims to have broadcast the first play-by-play accounts of baseball and football games, world Series game prize fight, and full symphony concert.

[00:41:14] Doug: Tons of stars made their radio debut on this iconic station. What American City is this station in? Now known as WW J. The first American commercial station was and still is located. In the historic Fisher building in Midtown Detroit, sorry, as we say, locally, Detroit and now two guys who are pioneers in podcasting from a basement and bragging about it.

[00:41:43] Doug: It’s Joe and OG and Oh yeah, that Len guy too. He’s pretty good. 

[00:41:49] Joe: Yeah. Len gets to brag about it with us today. It’s always fun to brag, Hey, guess which basement I’m in today? But at least we own it. You know how many podcasters don’t own it, that they’re really a mom’s basement. 

[00:42:00] Doug: You know, I have to, when I tell people about the podcast, I often have to say, because podcasting is now such a thing, that’s just, I mean, it’s a normal part of everyday life.

[00:42:10] Doug: Even people who don’t listen to podcasts know what they are. I have to explain that when we started this, we were owning the stigma that it was just. People who were still living and two dudes living in their mom’s basement who, you know, couldn’t actually do the things they were talking about. So they just decided to talk about it, you know, like if you can’t do teach kind of thing.

[00:42:31] Doug: But that was the stigma way back in the early days. 

[00:42:34] Joe: Was that an episode, you and me together? OG when, uh, the stack of books holding up your microphone fell over, like we were in the middle of a podcast. 

[00:42:41] OG: I mean, it’s happened, so Yeah. 

[00:42:46] Len: Oh, the good old days. Do you still have the old episodes? One and two and three, because I, I have the recordings.

[00:42:51] Len: At least the ones Do you. Well remember because we had to record our own parts. Yeah, that’s right. So at least I have my parts. I don’t know if it records, but if you ever want ’em for your archives, I can send them to you. 

[00:43:00] Joe: I have like, well, you know when the trivia comes for us. I was gonna say, when the Smithsonian calls, we’ll let you know.

[00:43:06] Joe: That’s right. We’ll be, we’ll be right on that. Hey, uh uh, let’s do a headline, guys. 

[00:43:12] headlines: Hello Dobbing. And now it’s time for your favorite part of the show, our Stacking Benjamins headlines. 

[00:43:18] Joe: Our headline today is brought to you by Nitsa, more on Nitsa in just a moment. But this is from the Charlotte Observer.

[00:43:26] Joe: And it is car insurance claims dos and don’t. I found this really interesting because uh, maybe some of our younger stackers have never been at the scene of an accident. I remember my first accident and not knowing what the heck was, was going on, what to do, what, what do I do? What don’t I do? I’m high tailing it outta there.

[00:43:49] Joe: Yeah. Like what do you do? What don’t you do? I remember standing on the side of the road with this guy that we’d had this, uh, fender bender in the ice and the guy comes over to me and he goes, uh, what are we waiting for? And I said, well, we’re waiting for the police. ’cause I called it in and the guy goes, um.

[00:44:06] Joe: We’re inside Detroit City limits. The police aren’t coming. He’s like, there will be no police coming. They, they are not. We just need to exchange information and get outta here. And by and large, I ended up later on talking to my dad and then talking to our insurance agent at the time. And, uh, they said I didn’t do it completely right, but we got, we got part of this right.

[00:44:28] Joe: So car insurance claims dos and don’ts, number one, do report the accident. You’re legally obligated to report any auto accident that results in death, bodily injury, property damage of $1,500 if all vehicles are insured, or $500. Otherwise, when police officers arrive at the scene, provide factual statements about the moments leading up to car accident.

[00:44:48] Joe: You’ve been an offender bender, Len, I bet 

[00:44:51] Len: I certainly have. I think my last one was about, um, 12, 13 years ago on one of the Southern California’s. Wonderful freeways. Yes. Nobody got hurt, but, uh, did some damage to my car and, uh, luckily the person in front of me who I rear ended yes, it was my fault, didn’t have any damage.

[00:45:08] Len: So, um, for them, but it, wow. I had a crumpled hood and, and, uh, yeah, I was able to, uh, get the car home, limpid home. 

[00:45:17] Doug: I was involved in one, like 15 days ago. 

[00:45:19] Len: Did you 

[00:45:20] Doug: really? 15 days ago. Yeah. Seriously. I hit well, you know, give or take. Yeah. I hit a deer. Well, the deer hit me. 

[00:45:26] OG: Yeah. 

[00:45:26] Doug: Seriously. I mean, it was minding 

[00:45:27] OG: my own business in the middle of the road.

[00:45:30] OG: When this deer ran out, 

[00:45:31] Doug: the deer, the deer ran, I mean, just sprinting. She just out of tall weeds. Bizarre. It’s not even rut season. So I don’t even know why she was running the way she was and it was daylight or, you know, dusk. So that’s when the activity’s high. But, uh, yeah, she, it happened so fast that my reaction time, uh, which is lightning quick, you know, I was hitting the brakes after the deer was already spinning out back into the field from whence she came.

[00:45:58] Doug: But as far as reporting it, what I found out, this is the second time I’ve hit a deer. The first time I did it, it was at about. One in the morning and I wasn’t quite, I limped home, wasn’t sure what to do. I’m Googling, what do I do if I hit a deer? And you do need to call the police if you want to submit an insurance claim.

[00:46:17] Doug: They need a report number. Yeah. So, you know, this could be helpful to some people because you, a lot of times you just think I only need to do that if, if it involves like another vehicle or you know, people. But yeah, if I did that, my deductible, because it was involving an animal dropped to a hundred dollars, which I understand is pretty, pretty common across insurance carriers that your deductible is.

[00:46:39] Doug: So is that comprehensive 

[00:46:40] Len: or collision? Is that filed under comprehensive or collision insurance? I 

[00:46:44] Doug: believe it’s collision, but I actually that’s a great question. I don’t know. You guys, 

[00:46:49] Len: we should find out because a lot of people don’t carry comprehensive, you know, they’ll carry the collision and they’ll pass on the comprehensive or whatever.

[00:46:55] Len: Yeah. You know, so 

[00:46:56] OG: yeah, we have it all. But in our town. The cops said to, uh, my son after he was in an accident, if there’s no injuries, you don’t have to call the cops. We didn’t witness it, so we’re not gonna be able to give you sort of information around, you know, we can just say, it appears that Car A and car B, were in an accident.

[00:47:16] OG: We will have no opinion as to how it happened or why it happened, or assigned blame or anything. If there’s an injury, you do have to have the, the police present for obvious reasons. But yeah, the police officer in my son’s accident said, what are you guys waiting for? Kinda the same thing for you, Joe.

[00:47:31] OG: What are we doing? Yeah, like we exchange insurance and off we go and, and that sort of thing. I 

[00:47:36] Joe: was told though, and this was true in Detroit, I had to drive to the nearest station with all that information and I did, had to have to file a police report. 

[00:47:44] OG: It seems like you would need to have one for insurance purposes.

[00:47:48] OG: The only times that I’ve been in an accident have been pretty profound, so we weren’t going anywhere. It was Oh, your were doozies. Yeah, we, the last accident that I can remember was, uh, we were driving home from fireworks, stone cold, sober. You know, sometimes the good Lord works in mysterious ways, but you know, you’re at like a beach barbecue party.

[00:48:09] OG: You’re inevitably gonna have a beer or two for whatever reason. That day I was like, I’m good, I’m good. It’s, we’re driving home, it’s 4th of July, it’s late. I’m good thankfully. ’cause this guy came blue through the stop sign as we were coming through. There was no, no stop sign for us. He went through, I swerved and he hit the car, spun it around.

[00:48:28] OG: One of the kids started crying, the other one went cool. Dad, do it again. Oh my. Wow. ’cause we’re driving 65 miles an hour down the road. Oh, that’s so neat. And did a bunch of, of donuts in the middle of the road. 

[00:48:40] Len: You know? Full speed. You’re lucky og Because when I was 16 going, when we were going to, me and my buddy were driving to high school.

[00:48:47] Len: It was an early in the morning, it was really foggy. We were at a red light. You could barely see the lights. 

[00:48:51] bit: Mm. We 

[00:48:52] Len: got the green light. We went into the intersection and we got T-boned on my side of the car. And I was in one of those, remember those early Honda? I call ’em roller skates, the little teeny Hondas.

[00:49:02] Len: They were very small. Almost like those, um, 

[00:49:04] OG: you ended up in your buddy’s lap, I bet. 

[00:49:06] Len: Oh, I put me in the hospital for two weeks. Oh wow. Wow. The guy hit us. So it was, yeah. ’cause I took the brunt of it. So you’re very fortunate. They estimated the guy was only going 35 when he hit, and that’s, that was enough to put me in the hospital for two weeks.

[00:49:18] OG: Yeah. I, two 

[00:49:19] Len: surgeries 

[00:49:20] OG: I swerved as I saw him like away from it. And that gave us just enough space to hit the back quarter panel as opposed to smashing the side of the SUV. And it was just, it was like a pit maneuver as a cop. Like he literally, like, we went like, and ended up not in the ditch, but like on the shoulder.

[00:49:38] OG: And I’m like, whew. You know? And my wife started crying and one of the kids started crying and the other kid was like, that was awesome. Dad, do it again. Yeah. That’s quite a shock. 

[00:49:47] Joe: I wanted to verify this before I said anything earlier. And I just did hitting a deer, typically covered under comprehensive, not 

[00:49:54] OG: creation.

[00:49:55] OG: Yeah, that makes sense. 

[00:49:55] Joe: The second do on this list is do seek medical treatment. Even if you feel like you’re gonna be okay, if you have anything, anything at all. A lot of the time you’re so shocked by what happened that you’re like, yeah, I’m good. And things don’t appear until a day later, two days later.

[00:50:12] Joe: So car accidents can result in serious injuries they write, including broken bones, traumatic brain injuries, spinal cord injuries promptly seek medical attention, best way to protect your health. Third, do collect information when you’re at the scene, including the other driver’s, insurance information, their address, their driver’s license number, and their vehicle information.

[00:50:29] Joe: Collect the names and phone numbers of any witnesses. I think the witness piece guys is really important. My son had an accident where he was not at fault. There was a guy on a motorcycle who was driving super fast. It’s kind of complicated how it happened, but. Not my son’s fault. And the dude on the motorcycle was in a group of four motorcycles.

[00:50:52] Joe: And guess what happened? All three of the dudes in the other motorcycles said that Nick was at fault. Wow. Mm-hmm. What do you know? There were a couple other people who came up to Nick and said, I saw the whole thing. Do you want me to be a witness? And Nick not wanting to, it’s his first time ever having something like this happen.

[00:51:07] Joe: He goes, no, I think we’re good. I think it was pretty obvious that it was, well, at the scene it was obvious, but when he’s got three guys saying, wasn’t him, Nick ended up, uh, taking the brunt of that accident. 

[00:51:18] Len: Oh no. You know, your best witness you can have is a dash cam. Front and back if you can do that.

[00:51:23] Len: Yep. That’s what my daughter had the same thing. She was hit, it wasn’t her fault. The guys told a different story than what happened. 

[00:51:30] OG: And your dash cam can be used in other people’s correct accidents Also, there’s some weird thing about that and every state’s a little different, but there’s like, I remember somebody telling me, maybe it was you, Len, ’cause it was, it wouldn’t be surprising that you would know this.

[00:51:43] OG: I think you can sell your dash cam video to another. Accident victim, but like only if it’s like you sell it to the lawyer or something. I don’t know. There’s some weird, oh my gosh, there’s some weird thing. Didn’t that one that you can, you know, basically you should have a dash cam ’cause it might be worth money someday.

[00:51:57] OG: That’s the TLDR that I got out of it. Some property or personal injury lawyer gonna call and go, what are you idiots talking about? 

[00:52:03] Joe: It’s actually a true story OG that lends actually created a new website only dash cam and people can pay $10 $20 a month and watch dash cam footage from lens. Uh, sounds pretty awesome.

[00:52:18] Joe: You know, on 

[00:52:18] Len: YouTube there are so many cool dash cam YouTube channels that you can see crashes after car crashes, some real and some really other stupid stuff. 

[00:52:26] Doug: They’re all in Russia. They’re all in Russia. It’s amazing. It seems like, like it’s a requirement in Russia to have dash cams. ’cause it seems like that’s all of the footage I see.

[00:52:35] Doug: You may remember this happening to the fin turn, but a woman ran a red light when fin had just gotten his license months before the car got totaled. Yeah. There were witnesses that came out of nearby businesses and said, we saw the whole thing. Police were there. I mean it, it was pretty ugly. He was remarkably fine.

[00:52:54] Doug: That’s not the point of my story. Where I’m going with this is that the car was totaled and what I didn’t know until, this is the first time that ever happened to me where a car had been totaled was that when the insurance company is offering you or telling you here’s what your car’s worth, they’re offering to buy it and you get to negotiate.

[00:53:12] Doug: I never 

[00:53:13] Joe: knew that. Yeah, that’s coming up here. Oh, sorry. No, that’s fine. That is perfect. I mean, it’s a great segue that the insurance company’s protecting the insurance company’s interest. So when they give you a number, 

[00:53:23] Doug: I just figured that’s the number. Like that’s what you get. It never even dawned on me that I could, that I could push back and say, no, I think it’s this much.

[00:53:31] Doug: And the good news was is because it was summertime, it wasn’t the car that I relied on or my wife relied on. It was just an extra car in the house and they didn’t need to get anywhere that we couldn’t get them. We had the luxury of waiting out the insurance company. And so that price went up and up and up.

[00:53:47] Doug: And I did pretty, I’d been pretty okay on that deal actually for a totaled car. 

[00:53:52] Joe: That’s wild. Yeah, that’s good to know. You know, next up on their list. And Lynn, I think I like the dash cam idea better, but do take pictures. The accident seats can be cleaned up pretty quickly. Take as many pictures as can.

[00:54:04] Joe: The other cars involved. All property damage. The accident scene, the cross streets. Skid marks, broken auto parts, tire treads, other physical evidence. That’s a big one. Any signs that might be relevant to the claim? And then review your one. One thing, 

[00:54:16] Len: Joe, one thing I wanna jump and take pictures, even if there’s no damage, because what they’ll do is they’ll come back at first and they’ll say, oh yeah, I’m fine, I’m good.

[00:54:25] Len: You, you like, like in my case, I hit the guy in front of me. There was no damage to his car. My car took all the money, but I took pictures with my phone of everything of the area I hit. So if he came back and said, Hey, I, you know, there was a, he did something to his car later, scratched it or whatever, and he wanted a new paint job, whatever.

[00:54:41] Len: I had proof that said, no, this was what your car was when I hit it, and it was in good shape. So do that too. Take pictures even if there’s no damage. 

[00:54:51] Doug: I’m supposed to take pictures of my skid marks. Is that what I heard there, Joe? 

[00:54:55] Joe: And then we might be referring to different marks. Oh, do review your insurance coverage.

[00:55:01] Joe: You wanna do this ahead of time if possible. Everybody reviews what they pay for, but you don’t know what you get. Review both your coverage and your exclusion sections of your auto insurance policy if you have a good understanding of what your policy covers. Then you can fight. And this is to your point, Doug, to receive the full value benefits you’re entitled to under your claim.

[00:55:18] Joe: So the insurance company should do a good job of representing themselves fairly about what you get. But if you know in writing what you have, there may be even more that they’re not telling you. On that note, do save receipts, medical bills, cost to repair, replace your vehicle, uh, future medical treatment, lost wages and reduced earning capacity, pain and suffering, mental distress.

[00:55:42] Joe: The mental distress one is the one that always kind of gets me. ’cause I don’t know, sometimes I’m just in mental distress hanging out with you guys, dude, like, what’s, what’s that number? How do you come up with that number? They also talk about, by the way, if you’re really not sure that the insurance company’s treating you right and they’re really negotiating hard, that’s when you go see a personal injury attorney and get a second opinion or get a, an opinion of, of an attorney that’s, that’s dealt with these types of claims before.

[00:56:12] Joe: The don’t, don’t speculate or volunteer extra information. Well, what I think was happening was this. The second one, don’t admit fault. Even if you suspect you were at fault, you don’t know the law and you could very well be wrong. 

[00:56:28] OG: Do not self incriminate. Yeah. 

[00:56:31] Joe: And don’t negotiate directly with the other driver.

[00:56:34] Joe: I had this happen once I, I actually did negotiate with the other driver. I went back and looked at my car. My car was fine, his car was a mess. He clearly did not want the cops to come. He did not want the cops to come. We’re good bro. He took, I think it was $700 out of his wallet and just goes, do you think this is enough?

[00:56:52] Joe: He goes, he goes, your car doesn’t have a scratch. And I looked at my bumper and it was a used old car, Doug, you remember the old Ford Aerostar? Oh, it was such a great car. I think that car was worth 700 bucks. So he shows me, he shows me $700. I’m like, done. You’re outta here. I don’t know what you’re running from, but I don’t really care.

[00:57:14] Joe: Yeah, I actually had somewhere to be too, so I needed to get to an appointment as well. 

[00:57:18] Len: Yeah, the bank. Yeah, the bank, exactly. Deposit that money, 

[00:57:22] Joe: but don’t negotiate with the other driver. And then finally, don’t give the insurance company written statements before you review your policy. Know what you’re actually talking about.

[00:57:31] Joe: Don’t do anything to make your injuries worse. I don’t know why you will do that. And then this is the big one, Doug, that you talked about. Don’t accept an insurance agent’s valuation without question. 

[00:57:41] Doug: Yeah. I mean, get on KBB, get on whatever valuation tool you can get on and, and get a couple of different estimates.

[00:57:49] Doug: And, and you can, you can negotiate. You mean I got lucky. Like I said earlier, I got lucky and was able to wait it out and then through some administrative process errors on that side, it lasted so long that some pretty senior person finally said, what are we doing? ’cause they were paying storage for that total vehicle at a collision shop the whole time.

[00:58:08] Doug: We, I was waiting this out and they realized they were just losing money hand over fist. So I ended up getting a pretty good deal just to have them get it off their books. So every situation’s different, but, but definitely, uh, don’t just take what they offer. 

[00:58:20] Len: Can you see the negotiation with the insurance guys though, that you’re gonna say, Hey, look, KBB says my, you know, excellent.

[00:58:24] Len: My car’s in excellent condition, it’s worth 35,000 and the, the insurance guy’s gonna go look at your car. It’s a total wreck. It’s not worth, you know, that’s, I, that’s poor condition at best. So you’re lucky to get what I’m gonna give you. 

[00:58:36] Joe: You know, it’s definitely gonna be a back and forth. I mean, this to me is why, why it frustrates me when people just look at their car insurances and they look at what.

[00:58:46] Joe: Do I pay? They don’t think about what do I get? And maybe it makes sense to put in your budget maybe a little bit more for one of these reputable companies versus, versus just the cheapest thing that I can get so that you’re, you’re covered later. I mean, og, we’ve talked about this on Monday with Tim Sero with the attorney.

[00:59:05] Joe: These insurance policies aren’t really where you start, like start with what’s the magnitude and how is this gonna affect things? 

[00:59:11] OG: Yeah. You know, as you’re looking through your insurance coverages, we all shop on price, but you gotta shop on what your exposure is and then once you get a sense of what your exposure needs to look like or what your risk management is, then you can go and say, okay, I can compare apples to apples.

[00:59:27] OG: We’re doing a comparison shop right now for business insurance that we have. The person called and said, Hey, can I quote you a new policy and I know yours is coming due and all this stuff. He, because he goes, look, I save you guys $4,000 a year. I said, great, send it over. And he sends it over and it’s. The minimum coverage for a bunch of stuff.

[00:59:45] OG: And then the headline number’s the same. So it’s like, you’re covered here, but all this other stuff, don’t pay attention to this. So I sent it back to him and I said, this isn’t apples to apples. I can’t, you know, I’m not convinced I need that higher coverage, but I need you to explain to me why I wouldn’t, and also gimme a quote that’s apples to apples.

[00:59:59] OG: ’cause I can’t, I, I don’t know how to look at this without having a fair comparison. So be careful when you’re shopping on price, ’cause you’ll get the lowest price. You know, it’s like, yeah. Right. When you’re, when you’re buying a car and the guy goes, how much do you wanna spend? He’ll get your price to 300 a month.

[01:00:15] OG: You know? Yeah. There’s a way to do it. It’ll take you 700 years. 

[01:00:21] Joe: And that’s why if you’re like, well, you know, my budget doesn’t handle more. Insurance coverage. I mean, maybe it’s time to sit down and look at other areas of your budget. You really gotta sit down and go through your budget more ably. Yeah. Do you have a Mercedes 

[01:00:32] OG: then, you know, maybe you should be driving a $8,000 car.

[01:00:35] OG: I mean, honestly, that’s not wrong, right? It’s like, and we were just having this conversation with William because we got a Corvette for his birthday and he is like, how much would this cost? You know? And he started pricing. He goes, dad, this is only $30,000 for this car. And I said, yeah, how much does it cost to maintain it?

[01:00:49] OG: How much does the insurance? We looked it up and the insurance was $24,000 a year. It’s like, it’s not the 30 that gets you, it’s the two grand a month of insurance for a 16-year-old on a Corvette. So looks like you don’t have that kind of money to afford. You gotta piece all that together. The answer isn’t necessarily go make more money.

[01:01:07] OG: Although that would be fine too. It’s maybe you shouldn’t drive a Corvette at 16. 

[01:01:12] Joe: Speaking of budget, Doug, before we hit record, you said you had a story about budgeting. 

[01:01:17] Doug: Joe. I knew a guy who did his budget while he was high. He listed snack runs under fixed expenses. 

[01:01:23] Joe: Oh my God, somebody got the mpu. That is exactly why you don’t drive or make financial decisions when you’re impaired.

[01:01:30] Joe: If you feel different, you drive different. Did you know that driving under the influence of marijuana is illegal? And if you drive while you’re high law enforcement can definitely tell. If you feel different, you drive different. Drive high, get a DUI Paid for by Nitsa. Definitely you’ll be speculating at the scene of the, of the grind if you’re, here’s what I think happened, man.

[01:01:53] Joe: I know exactly what happened, but really slowly and relaxed. Yeah. Yeah. Not great. It’s time for us to wander onto the back porch before we say goodbye and find out what’s going on in the neighborhood. Doug, what do we got? 

[01:02:06] Doug: Joe, you got a great live webinar coming up. We should probably talk about and a great meetup coming up.

[01:02:12] Joe: Well not give some details, not that great ’cause you guys aren’t joining me. Wasn’t wanna drive up to Portland and Yeah. Yeah. I invited you again on Monday and again today I was, I was uninvited. Yeah, well that is true as well. But Lynn, you wanna drive up to Portland, Oregon? 

[01:02:27] Len: You know what? I’ll start hitchhiking and if I get there in time, uh, you know, I’ll be there.

[01:02:31] Len: I’ll see you. You 

[01:02:32] Joe: just gotta be there by September 9th. Okay? We’ll be at Broadway Grill and Brewery 6:30 PM And that’s so you have till September 9th. I mean, that’s enough time to get there. Alright, well, right after the show I’ll go out. 

[01:02:43] Len: Well, actually I got my colon cleanse, but when that’s all done, and by the way, I think I feel something coming on.

[01:02:49] Len: Um, yeah, after that’s all done, I’ll go out to the corner here and I’ll, I’ll stick my thumb out and we’ll get going. Head to stacky 

[01:02:55] Joe: Benjamins dot com slash meetup. You’ll meet me, maybe Len, if he makes it in time. Uh, the team from catching up to Phi is joining us on this and our own. Uh, Jesse, Jesse Kramer’s gonna be there.

[01:03:06] Doug: People have to check out these. Broadway Grill And Brewery has the best URL you could possibly get if you were a restaurant. Really, it’s just, it’s this simple. Drink beer here. Dot com. Dot com. How good is 

[01:03:20] Joe: that? How is that still available? Drink beer here. I know. Let’s go onto the live webinar. If you know, you’ve heard us talk about HSAs and you have one available, but you’re really not sure how they work, we’re gonna do HSA Basics for beginners.

[01:03:34] Joe: So this is aimed specifically at people just starting out or don’t understand HSAs, how to use a health savings account. Not gonna be advanced, it’s gonna be the 1 0 1. So if you know somebody that has an hsa, doesn’t really get how it works, stack your Benjamins dot com slash hsa. That’s gonna be on September 3rd, 5:30 PM Pacific.

[01:03:55] Joe: That is 8:30 PM Eastern. Do the math if you’re central or mountain. And I, I think the third thing is, Len, we’ve had several people talk about your new book, dude, so let’s dive in. What’s it all about? Well, you know, 

[01:04:09] Len: I got into blogging, what was 17, 18 years ago, and even that was kind of late for blogging.

[01:04:14] Len: But I jumped in and that was at the peak of the blogging. High point, basically where people were coming and for the next several years, you know, that if there’s a point where I was getting almost 2 million people a year coming to my blog, well, let’s face it, podcasts have totally overtaken blogging.

[01:04:31] Len: Well 

[01:04:31] Joe: and now and, and now. Then 

[01:04:32] Len: podcasts got 

[01:04:33] Joe: hit last 

[01:04:34] Len: year. 

[01:04:35] Joe: Well, and so now you’re, 

[01:04:36] Len: everything’s cyclical. But yes, and it’s just, you know, over time the number of people coming to my blog is just dropping just because blogging is not the thing that it was anymore. And I figured, well, over the years, I’ve had like 3000 articles.

[01:04:48] Len: Now not all of them were written by me. As a matter of fact, maybe only half of them were written by me. The other half were people come in, putting in, wanting guest post. I thought you were about to 

[01:04:56] Joe: get a big reveal. In fact, only three of ’em are actually written. But the other 

[01:05:01] Doug: 2,900, I 

[01:05:03] Len: wish I’ve 

[01:05:03] Doug: thought of that.

[01:05:04] Doug: Children in Indonesia writing my 

[01:05:06] Len: financial 

[01:05:07] Doug: stuff. 

[01:05:09] Len: But it’s at the point now where it’s so big, I, there are so many articles. It’s so hard. I figured, you know what, why don’t I. It’s kinda like salvaging an old car, you know, for, for parts almost. Uh, what I decided to do is I said, you know what, I’m gonna take the best articles, the most popular articles, uh, from my blog over these 17 years.

[01:05:28] Len: Uh, the ones that got picked up in syndication, they were put on all the, the sites on the MSN, they were Kiplinger, they got put everywhere, highly popular. I thought they’re, you know, really well written. And I said, I’m gonna compile them into a book. And basically there’s like a hundred sixty five hundred sixty six of my best posts.

[01:05:44] Len: They’re all pretty much my, you know, my usual irreverent fashion. Nothing’s very serious in it at all. Everything’s very funny. At least. I think they’re funny anyways, but you might think differently. And if you do think differently, don’t, please don’t leave a review. Okay. I added just only five star reviews, please.

[01:06:02] Joe: I don’t know. The back of your book is full of, uh, one star reviews. 

[01:06:06] Len: Well, you know what, should I go over some of those reviews here? I’ll give some of the, because I’ve had enough, I even put these on the back of my book. These are actual reviews. I didn’t make these up. These are actual reviews of your website Over the years?

[01:06:16] Len: Yes, over the years. These are reviews from my website. People left comments, and I actually decided to put these on the back of my, you know, most people put fawning reviews. I, I did the opposite. This is just, a few of them says, I’m not sure if Penso is an idiot or he is just talking about something he knows nothing about.

[01:06:31] Len: That’s from Kathy. Thank you. Kathy, you’re on, you’re in my book on the back cover. Here’s another one. Penso seems oblivious to the fact that he’s more often than not, so very wrong on so many things, and that was somebody didn’t have the courage to put their name. They just said, no. Name please. Oh, well no name, please.

[01:06:46] Len: You are, if you’d have put your name, you’d have been more famous. But whatever. Uh, Sunil says, what did I just read? So that was what Simpson, and then Randy in Salina, here’s one from him. He says that here in Kansas, we’re tired of the dumbing down of America by morons, and it appears Penso fits in that category.

[01:07:04] Len: So Randy, congratulations. You made my book. So anyways, that gives you a flavor of how dumb my book is and why you should probably waste some money and come to Amazon and check it 

[01:07:14] Doug: out. I must be on hundreds of back book covers. Then if these are the kind of reviews that get put on back book covers. 

[01:07:21] Len: Joe, do you want me to read the one you put?

[01:07:23] Len: Or or not? 

[01:07:24] Joe: Yes. Yeah, I think mine was the most important one of all. Yes. 

[01:07:27] Len: Joe did make the back cover as well. His was. I was so bored that I had to stop reading after the first a hundred words and return the money He paid me to review the book, and that also made the back cover. 

[01:07:36] Joe: Thanks, Jeff. I know for a little while I thought five bucks is five bucks, but then I realized I couldn’t, couldn’t keep the cash.

[01:07:42] Joe: You’ve done a lot worse 

[01:07:43] Doug: for five 

[01:07:44] Joe: bucks. I didn’t know what would make the cover, but when I, for when I wrote you that note, uh, what’s your personal favorite story of these? Oh 

[01:07:52] Len: gosh. Um, probably the one where I was at the restaurant, uh, and I couldn’t make up my mind between, uh, blue cheese dressing and ranch dressing.

[01:08:02] Len: It’s one of the, uh, this is the high quality stuff you’re gonna get in this book. Believe it or not. I actually, all of these stories I turn into, there’s actually lessons on personal finance. This isn’t, you know, a stupid book where you don’t learn. It’s everyone 

[01:08:14] Joe: is laugh, laugh, laugh, but then there’s a very serious message.

[01:08:17] Joe: Yes, 

[01:08:17] Len: there’s personal, every story has a personal, almost every story. Some of ’em are completely stupid, but there’s personal finance lesson in all of these. But this is a story about, uh, I couldn’t make up my mind. I was at the restaurant. Struggling between ranch dressing and blue cheese dressing, and it happens to be all the time.

[01:08:35] Len: Basically it turns into a story about what’s better, credit or debit. So it kind of goes into, we work on, you know, the choice between credit or debit and the, but anyways, when you get to the end, and I’m not gonna spoil the ending, but I let the honeybee actually choose which one of those dressings I had.

[01:08:49] Len: And, and you’ll have to just see, she was very clever in, in her how she chose for me between blue cheese and ranch dressing. 

[01:08:56] Joe: I was gonna ask if it mattered, if your decision making involved what kind of mood the, uh, honeybee was gonna be in? Yes. 

[01:09:02] Len: Well, the honeybee was getting irritated 

[01:09:04] Joe: whether she might smell your breath later, if you know what I mean.

[01:09:07] Joe: Like if she’s, if she might smell your breath later, then you gotta go with the ranch. But the blue cheese, 

[01:09:13] Len: no. And actually all of these stories, this is very family oriented, so. Almost all of these stories involve either, either the honeybee or my kids, their issues with personal finance and how they overcome them or didn’t overcome them.

[01:09:27] Len: Not all of these have happy endings, but they all have humor in them. I also bring in the kids, neighborhood, kids. I have my taste test challenges, my most popular taste test challenges in here. I have, um, all kinds of things about budgeting and and what have you. All of them are tied to stories related to family.

[01:09:45] Len: So, so it’s all family oriented. 

[01:09:47] Joe: Is this the way that you recruit some of that huge amount of money you had to spend on your kids over the years? You like get it back by making them characters in your book? 

[01:09:55] Len: You know what, it certainly helped. I mean, the popularity of the blog was because I, I made it so family oriented.

[01:10:00] Len: So most people who follow my blog a lot, I mean, they already know my family very well. Uh, nothing was held back. Remember I gotten criticism a lot from people saying, gee, your kids are gonna read this in 10 years and they’re gonna. You know, you’re showing all their flaws or what have you. It’s like, no, it’s not anybody’s flaws, it’s just this is personal finance and their kids, and people are growing up and just how they learn it.

[01:10:20] Len: You’ll see their evolution in the book on how they’ve started off with personal finance from very young. For example, I, I interviewed the kids that called the, uh, uh, interview with the Bank of Dad, my kids’ loan interview. I offered to give them, uh, some money they could apply for money at the Bank of Dad.

[01:10:37] Len: And I gave, and I sat down and I actually interviewed in like a banquet interview, an adult. And the, the time they were like nine and seven years old, the answers at the time are quite funny. When you get a, a young kid’s, uh, answers to certain questions about how much do you make a year, how much do you think.

[01:10:51] Len: Your house is worth, uh, some really funny stuff. So it’s all, uh, revealing on how family is and, uh, personal finance and it, it’s just, it’s just fun, lighthearted stuff. But each, almost every story has a, a lesson on personal finance that you can take away. 

[01:11:06] Joe: It’s true money stories. Mag kept Mus about family life and personal finance on Amazon through ezzo.com.

[01:11:12] Joe: Go to either one of those. We’ll have a link in our show notes. Len, man, thanks for hanging out with us again. Good seeing you. Thank you. A pleasure as always. Doug, you’re gonna finish this thing off for us. We got a big long to-do list after today’s show with Adam and Len. Uh, what are our top three? 

[01:11:28] Doug: Well, Joe first take some advice from Adam Nash thinking about charitable giving.

[01:11:34] Doug: By understanding the rules, you can gift stock shares or appreciated assets and give far more than you might’ve thought. Second, on the scene of an accident. Don’t speculate as they say on old cop shows. Just the facts, ma’am. But the big lesson, we’ve been all over the place today, guys. How do you tie all this together?

[01:11:56] Doug: How about this? Charity starts at home. Len writes about it. And when your car is in the shop, make sure your loaner has enough trunk space for all your tax receipts. Wow. That’s what you should have learned. Thanks to Len Benzo for joining us today. You’ll find Len’s Hot New book. It’s hot. So hot. True Money Stories Madcap musings.

[01:12:17] Doug: It’s practically stolen. It’s so hot. It’s called True Money Stories. Madcap Musings about Family Life and Personal Finance on Amazon or through len pezo.com. I mean it, it’s stolen like you stole my time as I was reading it. You know what? Because I like you guys. I’ll have mom also include links in our show notes at Stacking Benjamins dot com.

[01:12:41] Doug: This show is the Property of SP podcast LLC, copyright 2025, and is created by Joe Saul-Sehy. Joe gets help from a few of our neighborhood friends. You’ll find out about our awesome team at Stacking Benjamins dot com, along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots.

[01:13:01] Doug: Come say hello. Oh yeah. And before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don’t take advice from people you don’t know. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I’m Joe’s Mom’s neighbor, Duggan. We’ll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show.

[01:14:12] Joe: You know, Len, the name of your book, true Money Stories, madcap Musings about Family Life and Personal Finance. Whenever anybody says the word true to me, like they start off with a story with, you know, this is a true story. I’m like, okay. So the rest of these were lies. Like everything else you’ve told me, like I, did it ever occur to you to maybe call this fake money stories?

[01:14:34] Len: You know what, every single one of these are true. Maybe I embellished a little bit. Okay. I embellished maybe a little bit. Sure. But if I embellished, I always did call it out in the book. The parts where I embellished, I did embellish, but, uh, I, I wanna bring one, one more little story at the, I mean, some of the things I did, for example, I, I found a story about Tiger Woods’ House.

[01:14:53] Len: What he paid for his mortgage and all of his home costs for okay. So I decided to compare that and I put it in a chart. His home carrying costs and his maintenance fees and his lawn yard, all that compared to mine. So you’ll see that right in there. You’ll have it, it’ll be in a nice Excel spreadsheet, how much he spends on his house, his mansion in Florida that he owns versus mine.

[01:15:16] Len: And we go step by step all the way down to maintenance fees and uh, what I pay on insurance versus what he pays on insurance. And what, and that’s basically true. It’s all stuff that I pulled off the internet. Well, it’s gotta be true. If it 

[01:15:27] Joe: was 

[01:15:28] Len: on the internet, I can’t remember the exact source for that one, but I think it was like People magazine or something like that, that had that stuff listed.

[01:15:32] Len: And I said, oh, that’s kind of cool what he was paying for his house. So I, you know, that’s the kind of stuff I, I did the same thing with weddings too. Remember I compared my wedding to remember the Chelsea Clinton got married, it was like a $10 million wedding. So I put her wedding costs, I had it all broken down compared that to uh, my wedding cost.

[01:15:47] Len: So you can see that, those 

[01:15:48] Doug: kind 

[01:15:48] Len: of two comparison. Did you do those two 

[01:15:49] Doug: things as a percentage of your income? Because I bet you they look a lot more frugal than you did. 

[01:15:57] Len: You know what? It wouldn’t have been as good if I did it that way. You know what? It wouldn’t have been as good. Doug. 

[01:16:03] Doug: Uh, that’s interesting, Joe, when you were, when you were asking about, you know, Len title of his book or even a subtitle could have been like, stories of personal finance, three of which are true.

[01:16:14] Doug: It just reminded me, it reminded me of the billboard near Kalamazoo for the, uh, gentleman’s club. Shall we say Deja vu? Do you remember the billboard that said Oh yeah, 

[01:16:26] Joe: like 99 Beautiful women and one Ugly one. Yeah, one ugly one. That’s kind of smart actually. And 99, you, you should have named it. 99. Great stories of one horrible one.

[01:16:37] Joe: I shoulda done. I 

[01:16:37] Len: should have done that. Uh, where were you when I needed you, Doug? 

[01:16:42] Joe: I’m thinking that, you know, holiday seasons, this could be an early gift with it. You’re gonna give somebody for the holidays or maybe their birthday or whatever. It makes me wonder, with all those phenomenal reviews you read, Len, like, guys, what is the worst gift you’ve ever received?

[01:16:56] Joe: Like if somebody gives this as a gift and they’re like, oh, great, thanks. Doug, what’s the worst gift you’ve ever received? 

[01:17:04] Doug: Uh, I’ve been asked this question more often than you’d think, and my answer’s always the same. It was the bacon bowl maker. I forgot. The bacon bowl maker. Remember that thing? And you, it sounds great in theory.

[01:17:19] Doug: Oh God. But you end up with just a, do you know the story 

[01:17:21] Joe: of the bacon bowl maker? ’cause we haven’t told this story in seven or eight years. I do not. I don’t even know what a bacon bowl is. What is a bacon bowl? Oh, Doug describes this thing. Maybe we got time for one story today. 

[01:17:32] Doug: No, no, no. I, I mean, I don’t know how much depth that’s required.

[01:17:34] Doug: I, the name describes the thing you, it’s a pan. Think of like a muffin pan, but it’s a pan that allows you to wrap, not pre-cooked bacon, I’ll say real bacon. The floppy, nasty, you know, all slimy. ’cause it’s full of fat. You put that in each of these individual bowls and when you bake it, the, the bacon sort of crisps up in that shape, hardens in the shape of a bowl.

[01:17:57] Doug: And then you can put all of your healthy food in it, like cream, uh, sour cream cheese, more cheese. Right. Your taco salad. Yeah. Yeah. That’s, that’s how, but it was just. The Bacon’s like flopping inside it. It cooks in its own like pool of grease and I, I mean, how do you screw up bacon? That’s how you screw up bacon.

[01:18:21] Len: Len, what’s yours? I’m not topping that one. I just can’t top it. No, no. 

[01:18:25] Joe: I got, for our wedding, we could not figure out who gave this to us, but we got a crystal frog for our wedding. I don’t know what it’s for. I don’t know what it does. The name attached to it got separated. We tried to go through all the other gifts and figure out like who came to the wedding that gave us this crystal frog that didn’t have a name attached.

[01:18:47] Joe: We have no idea. I just, Cheryl and I have laughed about it. Do you, you still have it? No, the crystal frog. Finally, when we had our estate sale, when we sold everything and we left Detroit because we thought we were gonna be nomads, turned out I didn’t love that the way I thought I would. We finally sold the crystal frog, but for maybe 20 years, Len.

[01:19:06] Joe: We would open up a cupboard and there’s the crystal frog, and we’d laugh because like who looks at you and goes, you know what? I think you need Lynn. 

[01:19:15] Doug: I 

[01:19:15] Joe: think a 

[01:19:15] Doug: crystal frog. My, my God, Joe, you have absolutely less depth than I thought you had. What do you mean? Frogs and grasshoppers are symbols of good luck and fertility.

[01:19:28] Doug: So you will, that’s why people give frogs either for, oh, those bunnies, birth gifts or wedding gifts. Yes. And if you’re ever in somebody’s house and you see a little grasshopper of any kind next to their fireplace, that’s where you’re supposed to put those. But that’s also a good luck thing. Um, and so are upside down pineapples.

[01:19:47] Doug: It turns out, outside of somebody’s door. 

[01:19:49] Joe: Put, put those in your card around the grocery store 

[01:19:54] Doug: and see how much good luck you run into, 

[01:19:56] Joe: or 

[01:19:56] Len: bad 

[01:19:56] Joe: luck because it might be. 

[01:19:57] Len: But I’m serious about the frogs and the grasshoppers. Do you have any wedding gifts that you still use? Because one thing in my book that I actually mentioned, I have called out the 10 best wedding gifts that I was still using.

[01:20:08] Len: We’ve been married 30 years. We still have 10 wedding gifts that we’re still using at our house. Wow, nice. And they don’t, they didn’t cost a fortune. So I mean, people have to think about it sometimes. Wedding gifts, I mean, it’s the modest things that actually be, that are great wedding gifts. 

[01:20:23] Joe: One of mine is a griddle that goes on my stove.

[01:20:25] Joe: Uh, it just goes over the burners of my stove and makes a nice, nice grid. Those are awesome. You’re still using it? I that 

[01:20:31] Len: you’re 

[01:20:31] Joe: still using it? Yeah. That’s what for me it was 

[01:20:32] Len: a casserole. We have a casserole dish. We’ve been using it for 30 years, just a fan. And it probably was a very modest gift and I still think of the people who gave it to me every time I use it.

[01:20:41] Doug: Yeah. We had, uh, my sister-in-law and brother gave us, but let’s be honest, she was the one who picked the gift. Sure. Uh, they gave us a set of plates and dishes, which was incredibly useful and helpful. And they last, like you, Len, I mean, they lasted maybe not that long, but it was a good 10, 12 years. But eventually you get chips and some of them break and we got one left.

[01:21:03] Doug: But I think of them all the time, whenever that one plate makes an appearance. 

[01:21:07] Joe: People have been listening to the show for a long time, know that I just love this entire series. We’ve played other ones, but I think it’s appropriate, Doug, that you brought up Taco Salad that we gotta finish with this. 

[01:21:17] bit: Oh yeah.

[01:21:18] bit: Bud Light presents real men of genius, real men of genius. Today we salute you, Mr. Giant Taco salad inventor, Mr. Giant Taco salad, inventor ground beef. Fri beans, guacamole, cheese, sour cream, and if there’s any room left. A few shreds of lettuce. I see no lettuce. A culinary creation that baffles the human mind.

[01:21:47] bit: A 12,000 calorie salad. I some may ask, is your taco salad healthy? Of course it’s, it’s a salad, isn’t it? You can eat that deep fried crunch bowl, so crack open a nice cold bud Light conquistador of the calorie. You put the feast in Fiesta Mr. Giant taco salad in bed. 

[01:22:12] Len: They don’t make ’em like that anymore.