Are your household finances running like a well-oiled machine? Does each member of the household know his or her role(s) in reaching your own financial planning strategies? Who’s your family’s CFO? Who’s got the COO role? Joining our roundtable to discuss financial planning strategies, we welcome Lacey Langford from the Military Money Show, PLUTUS award-winner Len Penzo from lenpenzo.com, and our own guy who knows how to run efficient systems, OG.
In the second half of the show, our panelists share some of their favorite tools and strategies for maintaining harmony with their partners. What financial planning strategies do they talk about during their family meetings? I mean… they’re experts, aren’t they? What do THEY do that we can emulate?
And finally, you won’t want to miss the latest addition to our ongoing year-long quest for trivia supremacy. Sure it may not be financial planning strategies that you’ll hear, but WILL be a race to the golden end-of-year trophy. Will Lacey’s return be history in the making by helping Team Paula take sole ownership of first place? Will seniority reign supreme in the form of Len reclaiming the lead? Will OG continue his improbable ascension from the depths of the cellar? Three will enter; only one will emerge victorious!
Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.StackingBenjamins.com/201
Enjoy!
Watch This Episode On Our YouTube Channel:
Our Topic: Are your household finances running like a well-oiled machine? How to make sure both partners work together for a common goal – each with his/her own area of expertise.
Your Marriage Needs a CFO and a COO (Wall Street Journal)
During our conversation you’ll hear us mention:
- How to adopt the right mindset to manage your money.
- Complimenting your skillsets with those of your partner.
- How to handle all of the above as a single person.
- The costs of “hidden junk fees.”
- Budgeting, goal setting, and money systems.
- Regular family budget meeting.
- Aligning where you are today with where you’re going as a couple.
- Checks and balances for each member of the family.
- Importance of clear, open, and frequent communication.
- Dealing with financial stress as a team.
Our Contributors
A big thanks to our contributors! You can check out more links for our guests below.
Lacey Langford
Another thanks to Lacey Langford for joining our contributors this week! Hear more from Lacey on her show, Military Money Show at Military Money Show on Apple Podcasts.
Len Penzo
Visit Len Penzo dot Com for the off-beat personal finance blog for responsible people.
OG
For more on OG and his firm’s page, click here.
Doug’s Game Show Trivia
- What is the biggest strike in US history in terms of cumulative days off the job?
DepositAccounts
Thanks to DepositAccounts.com for sponsoring Stacking Benjamins. DepositsAccounts.com is the #1 place to go when you’re looking to see if your rate is the BEST rate on savings, CDs, money markets, and even checking accounts! Check out ALL of the rates ranked from best to worst (and see the national averages) at DepositAccounts.com.
Mentioned in today’s show
- Manage and maintain your family’s budget by signing up for Qube Money (affiliate link)
Tune in Monday for a special Stacking Deeds episode as we kick off our REWIND week!
Curious about the secret behind navigating the world of construction? It’s all about relationships. Join us as we embark on a fascinating conversation with Mark Ellison that delves into the intersection of creativity, craftsmanship, and the ever-evolving landscape of the construction industry.
Miss our last show? Check it out here: Your Biggest Financial Topics (Live from Podcast Movement).
Written by: Kevin Bailey
Episode transcript
But out of that, a new holiday was born. A Festiv for the rest of us
live from Joe’s mom’s basement. It’s the Stacking Benjamin Show.
I am Joe’s mom’s neighbor. Duggan, how do you become the c f O of your own financial life? We’ll ask a woman who’s all systems and processes. She’s the mind behind the Military Money podcast, Lacey Langford. Plus, he’s got a Plutus Award, so you know he knows how to game the system. It’s Len Benzo and of course the guy who had to design a system because he owns his own company, industry Insider og.
But that’s not all. Halfway through the show, we’ll continue our year long battle between our contributors with my striking trivia question. And now a guy who uses toilet time to binge watch TV shows on his phone, that’s a heck of a system. It’s Joe Saw, see High.
Alright, that one might be a bridge too far, Doug. It might be just a
little bit beyond what people wanna do matching. I don’t think people even knew
you pooped. Hey everybody, welcome to the number two podcast in
America, humor podcast.
I’m Joe Sci. I average Joe Money on Twitter and Happy Labor Day weekend to all of you.
You made it the unofficial end of summer. Today, the official beginning of fall. We’re back to school, back to work, back to back to everything. And we gotta back to, we got a great
crew to get you there. Joe’s full of sunshine and rainbows today,
isn’t he? That guy’s singing the, the man who refused to smile and wave at the camera when, when, uh, Doug announced him.
Mr. OGs here. Sorry. I like how you were just stoic man. Just
stoic. Just in the zone for today’s topic.
He’s so ready. And the guy who’s ready deep under Los Angeles, Len Penso is here.
Yes. And I’m glad summer’s almost over. Lemme tell you, it’s hot as you can tell from my attire that I know, you know, it’s really got, uh, OG and, uh, Doug, uh, excited today with the, uh, sleeveless look.
So, uh, yeah,
for people not watching on YouTube, you’re missing, uh, lens Gun Show. Lens’s got a gun show going on, and, uh, Doug, he stole your parachute pants. Not a high caliber
gun. I do. I was waiting for that one that was
teed up. Those are, those are guns that have never seen the sun also
no.
Blinded by the light.
I appreciate it, Lynn. I thought it was for me,
so thank you. Thank you, Lacey. Thank you. Thank you. Checks in the
mail. And the woman who’s wondering why she’s back already, she’s like, I just left you people just a couple weeks ago. Lacey Langford is back. How are you? I’m
doing well. Thanks for having me. I see you guys couldn’t go along without me.
We can’t go without you. We can’t. We had to have you back right away. But you know what I thought about this topic about systems and processes, and I know your military money show system is unbelievable, but your money management system at home also, you rely on systems. I do
for a lot of things beyond money, but everything, it’s important to make sure you reach your goals.
Yes. She makes sure she has, uh, cold beer at the end of each day and uh, no. And dark chocolate.
There’s a couple of staples.
She’s got
those. So for the three people that don’t channel,
oh no, that’s not my jam. That is not my
jam.
Not it. Lacey’s. Like if it doesn’t blow up, right. Doesn’t blow up. Think a rock.
Right. Tell the three people that don’t know about the military money show what you do. ’cause it’s amazing.
Thank you. I help the military community with everything to make, save and invest money wisely. I think it’s an important part of serving to have a good financial background and understanding, to build wealth and make sure you stay outta debt.
So you could stay focused on what’s most important. Plus getting outta the military is no joke. So having a little bit of financial knowledge under your belt before you leave is really important. So that’s what the show’s all about. And
you can find it wherever finer podcasts are found. Yeah, everywhere.
Where
the
classy podcasts are. The classy ones. Absolutely. You know, there’s one system, Lacey, that we have here on the show that probably we should, uh, og. I’ve got a joke to tell. What? Like right in the middle of this entire show, you got a joke to tell. Okay, so we’ve got Lacey, we got le, we got og, we got Neighbor Doug.
So let’s
go.
All right. Today’s piece that made me really inspired to talk about this comes to us from the Wall Street Journal. It was written by Julia Carpenter earlier this month, and it’s about in marriage is needing A C F O and a C O O. And I kinda laughed when I saw this OG because I thought most people don’t think in terms of C F O or c o o, like to talk about having both of those roles in any relationship.
And we can even frankly get rid of the whole relationship piece of this and involve single people too, because we have times when we need to be C F O and we have times when we need to be c o o. And I don’t think we think about that enough. We think of, you know, I think we think about Netflix time, we think about spend money, time.
We think about gotta just take the credit card out time. We don’t think enough about these roles. I
think it’s important to also look at it from the perspective of the fact that you’re probably good at one of those things, and you’re probably, probably maybe not so great at the other one. And if you have a relationship or you have an opportunity to partner with somebody that is kind of a yin to your yang, that’s awesome, but if you don’t, you gotta think about how to
solve that.
Yeah, you truly need to have time and attention because those two roles, super important L Let’s talk about this, Lacey. What really is at stake here? The lack of a money management system, like in real cost. Any idea of what that might cost you?
A lot of money and mistakes and going in the wrong direction.
Especially if you’re in a marriage or a relationship and you don’t have a common goal that you’re working towards, not on the same page. You’re both probably gonna be doing different things, especially if you have a. Like OG was saying, a different skillset. Like you’re better at one thing than you are the other.
You’re both gonna be moving in different directions, so it’s going to take longer to reach your financial goals. Probably cost you more money and a lot more
fighting. Yeah. And if you’re not in a relationship, still fighting with yourself or doubting yourself or wondering why never have any money when everyone around you does.
I mean, it’s funny, Len, we think about some of these little decisions, right, that we make. We’re like, uh, Yolo. I’ll just spend a little extra today ’cause it’s Friday on whatever it might be. And if we don’t have those systems in place, this can add up to some real cash.
You know, over the long haul of time, a lot of little things add up.
And so you have to watch that thing. I mean, we always talk about the power of compounding and, and compound growth. If you let things go a little bit drip by drip by drip, eventually, you know you’re gonna feel the impacts and it usually just creeps up on y’all at once. Kinda like, um, uh, what was that, uh, earnest hemmingway from?
Uh, the sun also rises. Like how did you go bankrupt? Slowly at first, then all at once, right? Oh, yeah. But I mean, that’s how it works. I mean, if you let things go and you don’t pay attention and you let bad habits continue to build up, you, you don’t even know it. And usually until it’s too late. So, yeah, very important.
This is interesting for families that spend paycheck to paycheck and they talk about how in 2023, this is from a piece in Fortune 2023, cash Poor report, talking about middle class people, often with college degrees and six figure income. So this is not just people with, with low income. They end up spending, if you’re living paycheck to paycheck, 25 billion more in hidden junk fees.
Just the cost of little junk fees, not having a cash reserve, not knowing how your money system works, has just this, this huge number. And overall, overall, when it comes to junk fees, get this number worldwide, $415 billion in additional fees we pay because we don’t pay attention to the little numbers. So some big things.
Let’s dive into this. When you think money C F O then Lacey, what are some of the tasks like if I’m really taking seriously my role is c f O, some of the basic things I should do during this c f O time, I’m gonna set aside.
Well, I think budget planning, you know, getting, setting a goal, what is the numbers were you trying to do, and then creating the system to make that happen because you could talk about it all day long, but if you don’t have a plan of action in a way that you are able to implement, not how somebody else does something, I think is really important.
And then also to monitor that. You can’t just set something and forget about it. You have to have a plan of how you’re gonna do it, do it, and then fine tune it over time because nothing is gonna stay the same. You’re gonna change, your goals are gonna change. You know, if you’re single and you get married, that’s gonna change the plan too.
So I think making sure you’re monitoring it and making changes as needed is important.
Len, I know that even as we talk about this piece in the Wall Street Journal, that that your family operates this way, right? You’ve got, uh, C F O not only c f o time, but between you and the honeybee, you guys have your own roles.
Uh, and we have, since we got married in what, uh, 1997. So a long time, 26, 27 years. I’ve always been, and I’ve addressed it this way as the household c e o and, uh, the honeybee has been, my wife has been the C F O, the household C F O. And how we divided those duties up is, um, she’s responsible as the C F O for the shorter term, day-to-day financial management and planning.
And I have the task of the longer term strategic stuff. So the, the big stuff like, um, you know, retirement planning and investments and our, what our emergency fund allocation should be. And so, and where, where she’s working, making sure the bills are paid, that we have enough money in the checking account at all time, that we’re not falling behind on anything.
And of course, we, every month we, we meet and, and we collaborate and we discuss both of our duties and we make sure that we’re all on the same page. So, and it’s worked successfully for, you know, 27 years.
I’m glad you define those, Len, what each person did, because I’ve met you and I’ve met the honeybee and I would say that she’s the C f O and the c e o.
If you hadn’t, if, if you hadn’t told me that, like what
the roles were when c e o and title only, he gets to put it on his business card.
Is that how you asked to be
addressed? Yeah. It helps him get to sleep at night. Just let him have his little dreams.
So, you
know, I’ve written about this in the past, so, and I’m, I’m, I’ve got it right in front of me right now.
There are seven tasks for each of us that, that are defined. Do you want me to, real quick? I’ll, I’ll read these off just they’re bullet points, so don’t wanna, let’s bore anybody. Yeah, let’s dive. Okay. So for myself as A C E O, mine’s identifying the future household expenditures, categorizing those expenditures as either non-discretionary or discretionary.
So which ones are needs and which ones are wants. Developing our strategic, what I call our strategic spending plan. So our long-term spending out over the five, six year period, establishing the budget, you know, setting those budget limits. Then I’m also ensuring that my entire family now, not so much now ’cause my kids have grown up, but when my kids were younger, we had a family meeting and they understood.
What our strategic spending plan is and the budget. And they had inputs in the strategic spending plan, by the way. You know, ’cause you sometimes kids think of, yeah, sometimes kids think of things or have ideas that, you know, as a parent you don’t think of, you know, they like, they might say, Hey, I wanted to go to Disney World or somewhere that you weren’t.
Yeah. Most kids think of that, but I, I’m having trouble thinking of something. But they come up with some neat ideas.
Is this the deal, Len, where you hand Nina 10 bucks to bring it up in front of mom? ’cause you don’t want to. Yeah. Great. I
wish, where were you when I needed you for that, Joe? No, that’s, that’s a great idea.
The other two real quick are adhering to the strategic plan, making sure we adhere to the strategic plan and refining the strategic plan whenever necessary. So, and then real quick, as the C F O, what, uh, yes, the wifey did, it still does is, I think I’ve already said it. Mostly she maintains our, all of our records.
She maintains the spreadsheet that we track everything with, you know, she pays the bills, she. Balances the checkbook. She makes sure that we’re not falling behind on anything. And she also makes sure we’re adhering to the strategic spending plan. And then she also identifies any negative financial trends that are showing up in our budget and our spending.
So she’ll say, Hey, it looks like our electricity bill’s been going up steadily for the last three months. You know, we better watch that. Things like that. So, and that’s how it works. Pretty simple,
really. Yeah. And assuming OG that you’re on board with the stuff that Len just talked about, where do you really start there?
Because Len’s got this great system, right, of roles and responsibilities, but if I’m just starting out and I just heard everything Len said, I’m like, well that’s a lot. I don’t know how to implement that. Like where do we, where do we begin? I think
the first place to start has gotta be just in a conversation about money.
It’s, let’s be all on the same page around where are we today and what are the facts going on. You know, it’s interesting going through this conversation with people all the time about how much money do you make, how much is in your 4 0 1 k, how much, how much is your electricity bill, how much is your credit card debt?
And then wide range of answers that you can get from people that are in the same household about the same question as is mind boggling. Because it’s like, well, I don’t know. I think we spend, you know, 500 bucks a month on groceries and you look and you go, well, it’s actually 1500. Oh, okay, okay. Well that’s kind of the same.
It’s like that’s not the same. Those are different numbers and neither of ’em are Right. Right. It’s not, and, and to your point, LAN, about the electricity bill going up, it’s not like you’re gonna run around and. You know, Jack, the ac, you know, up to 80 and turn all the lights off and all that sort of, you’re just gonna go, okay, this affects other things.
It’s not, we’re not being punitive in the analysis. It’s not like, oh my gosh, the electricity bill’s higher. We have to do all this catastrophic stuff. It’s just, we need to be aware of it so that we can adjust other areas in the, in the plan to make sure that we stay on track with the other things. Yes,
that’s it.
But I’m surprised by that because I thought that you were gonna say, not where we’re at today. Og I thought you were gonna say it. Really the first conversations about where we need to, where we’re going. ’cause I think none of that even matters if we don’t know where we’re going. Well,
I mean, I think those two kind of sort of go hand in hand and, you know, chicken or egg type of thing in terms of, begin with the end in mind and, and kinda recognize where you are.
But as I work through financial plans with people, the way that we look at it is really clearly identifying kind of where all the bodies are buried today. Because when you have a clear understanding of where everything is, now we can start making decisions about the future. And so we, we, you know, obviously it’s important to be on the same page for goal setting.
And you know, one person in a relationship is like, I think we should pay for all of our kids’ college expenses. And the other person is thinking, paying for all of it means just the tuition and they’re gonna find their own housing. You know, you gotta kind of flesh that stuff out and make sure that the words that we’re using are the same.
But at the very beginning of this process in my book, it’s really, you know, how much is in your checkbook right now? I don’t know. Like you, nobody knows the answer to this. Nobody knows how much credit card debt they have. They have an idea, but it’s a widely disparate answer between family members.
Lacey, uh, you just heard Lens system is your system.
Did you hear things that are similar to yours or is your system vastly different?
I think there are some things that are similar, some things that are different. I definitely do both of those roles, the majority of those roles in my household, but strategic planning is definitely both of us. That’s, you know, a conversation that we’re having about where we’re at, where we wanna go, how are we gonna get there because both of us have to have buy-in in that it, you know, my, my husband’s idea of where we should go might be completely different or you know, I think we should go, it might be more boat and all of these other things.
Versus I might be like, let’s go do experiences and things like that. So I think that strategic or just even a plan of what we want. ’cause we both have different values that we, you know, wanna spend our money on and the things that we want for the kids and like coming together, you know, what are we on the same page for?
Like OG was saying like, both of us don’t wanna pay all for all of college for our kids, neither of us. You know, had college paid for ourselves. So we’re definitely not, you know, doing that for our kids. You know, we found value in working our way through that on our own. So, but I think the system that I use in doing both of those roles is definitely communicated to my husband.
I don’t just do those in a vacuum. I always give the talk to make sure he is paying attention. And I say, okay, this is a if I die kind of thing. You need to know like, this is the system that we’re using. This is where everything’s at, this is how you do it. So even though I might be doing a lot of those roles, he’s able to step in and do those things.
And he knows the plan.
You’re handling
the minute to minute, but he knows every step of the plan. Yep. Now, if one of the two of you leaves the house with the credit card, and let’s say there’s something that comes up, how do you know where the parameters are around what is a good expense and what is not?
Uh uh. I mean, for you, because you’re in it minute by minute. Right? And you know the numbers, it’s probably easy for you going, yeah, I can’t swipe for that. But for him, how are there checks and balances in your family for everybody else in the family?
Well, I think the first thing is we’ve had those discussions so we know this is the plan and if you’re gonna deviate from it or take a hard left, probably gonna need to have a discussion or a phone call about that.
But also making sure that he’s aware of what we have and what’s in the budget and what’s not in the budget. And then if it’s something that we need or want, then we’re adjusting, okay, how are we gonna get there? What do we need to change? What are those things we need to give up or adjust fire on in order to be able to accomplish that spending goal?
But I think for us, we’re big on communication. I think that comes from the military and us spending a lot of time apart with deployments is that we have always had to stay in constant communication about running our household kids, but also the money.
Len and your family, if the honeybee handles that, how does she, same question.
How do you guys handle it? If you leave with a credit card and you need new tires and you realize I’m right by the place.
Well now it’s easy. You just, when you have financial freedom, you know, that kind of stuff, those are easy. But when you’re first starting out, it’s more difficult. I, you know, the, the easiest way or the is, it’s not really easy, but the most efficient way to determine what are real wants and what are real needs, you know, what’s discretionary and what’s truly non-discretionary when you do what we, I used to do, you know, I was always under the threat of a layoff in my job profession, always.
So I was always, we were always having fire drills. And by always, I mean, maybe every other year we do a, I called a, a layoff fire drill where we assumed that I was laid off. Maria had the spreadsheet and I have my, the same spreadsheet, and I said, okay. There’s our list of expenses. I want you to tell me which ones are going, if I’m laid off tomorrow and the income stops go down that entire list of every expense and, and our spread, and we have every penny is accounted for, and we have it all laid out in our, in that spreadsheet.
I want you to go through every one of those things and you say, which ones are absolutely, we are not cutting from the budget, and I will do the same. And then we will compare our answers. And it was really eye-opening to see, you know, the differences between what she thought were absolutely non-negotiable expenses versus what I thought were non-negotiable.
And you, you come and you, you just talk it over and you come to, you eventually come to a consensus of what the real non-discretionary purchases are. It’s eye-opening and it, it’s slightly stressful at first, but I mean, it’s, if you do it, handle it rationally before you’re laid off, that’s when I recommend you do it.
It really helps, uh, the relationship.
But, oh gee, this fire drill kind of thing, that len’s talking about isn’t just great for married people. I mean, if you’re single, just going, what are my non-negotiables? What do I need? And running through that could save you a lot of pain if you end up laid off. It’s funny that
you call it a fire drill.
We call ’em lifeboat drills, but it’s kind of the same thing. And if you’re working through it either together or separately, it’s also a really good exercise for deciding what is the first order of business if something doesn’t go your way. And that’s really when people are gonna make bad money decisions.
It’s, it’s generally not when things are going awesome. Right. It’s, it’s when the stress of all the other externalities happen when you go, oh, uh, we just gotta get outta stocks right now. You know? And you go, wait, hold on. That’s not part of the plan. Don’t do that yet. Or, we need to sell everything and move it to cash because I don’t know what I’m gonna need the money.
It’s like, well, if you’ve thought through this and you’ve done the exercise lens talking about now, you go, well, no. Our, our need number is this. We have this in emergency fund, which we’ve calculated because of this exercise. So we have six months in order to sustain ourselves so we can make decisions over a six month window, not Friday afternoon at four o’clock.
’cause I got laid off on the way out the door this week and now I’m stressed out for the whole weekend. And I wake up on Monday and, and do some irrational things that seem rational in the moment, but are irrational in the long term. So there’s a lot of benefit in pre-gaming. It, your mind is very, uh, uh, tricky if, if you’ve already, if you’ve already experienced something, it’s not as scary the second time and your brain doesn’t know the difference between imagination in reality, right?
You’re gonna a roller coaster. You, we just, just took my boys to the, to Cedar Point and Sandusky, and we watched all the videos. And it helped a little, but I bet it would help if I went a second time on some of them. You know, I’m not as brave as I once was, I don’t think. But you know, there were a couple where I was like, this one’s gonna freak me out.
And then you get to the top of the hill, you go over, you do the thing, you go, okay, I was safe. I didn’t throw up, I didn’t, no one threw up on me. You know, it’s like all, all my biggest fears were okay. They, none of them materialized. And that’s the same thing about working through these exercises, these fire drills or lifeboat drills, is you get the opportunity to kind of experience it and then decide how to handle it.
So God forbid it actually does happen. You’re replaying the scenario, not creating it for the first time. I love that. Thank you.
How much time should people expect if they’re just starting to think about being the c f O of the family? Uh, on C F O duties, on planning the budget, Lacey, about how much time?
How much time should somebody really try to carve out to make sure that they’re doing a good job of this?
I would
think you should do at least an hour a week where you kind of assess everything, make sure it’s on track. There might be things that you have to look up until you have muscle memory. It’s gonna take longer to do something.
The more you do it, you’re gonna be more efficient at it. So I would say an hour is manageable for people.
Do you a set time on your calendar, like set
out, not time, but on On Fridays? Yes. Okay. Where I try to do things for you, it has to happen on a Friday. Yes. And if it’s not gonna be able to happen on a Friday, then try to do that in advance.
But I think that’s really important too, to schedule things like if not, it’s just gonna get lost in the
weeds.
Len, what about in,
in your house? Yeah, ours is the first of the month. We make sure all the bill, everything’s totaled up at the end of the month, and then the first of the month we do it. And nowadays it’s like, it’s a five minute conversation between me and honeybee.
But, uh, when we were younger and just starting out, it was a longer conversation. There was a lot more, it was much more serious and drawn out because we hadn’t figured things out yet. We were, you know, it’s constantly refining process. It’s not like you set it and forget it. You’re constantly updating changing goals and, and those meetings would be, you know, 20 minutes, a half hour sometimes.
So, I mean, but you
like, but then she had stuff she was doing beyond that meeting. So do you like Lacey’s an hour a week kind of expectation? Yeah, I think
that’s reasonable. And it goes fast. I mean, I, if you’re doing the, what I call the C F O duties, the day-to-day, I mean, that, that takes time to get all that stuff and record it and yeah, I’d, I’d say that’s
good.
Cheryl and I have our weekly money meeting that is capped at 20 minutes. But Lacey, to your point, when we first set out, we would always spill over like it was setting it up and now we can easily stay within 20 minutes. But almost like Len, you said it’s five minutes now. Yeah. You know, that’s Lacey. I like your term of
memory.
The only you get, it’s hard to last a while, Joe.
There’s a pill for that. Does your budget meeting last more than four hours?
So you get a serious problem.
This budget meeting won’t end call your financial professional if your budget meeting last. At first I thought this was
a great thing, but the spreadsheet stayed open, if you know what I mean.
Og Uh, do do you like that hour week?
It, it’s funny that you guys are talking about this ’cause I just, I’m, I’m looking at a piece of paper here that I was writing down our kind of, uh, budget, cash flow, whatever you wanna call it, has uh, gotten a little squirrely. This year for different reasons. And so I just started jotting down like big numbers down that I could kind of off the top of my head going, oh yeah, you know, well there’s house insurance.
That’s a number, you know, we pay for life insurance and you know, wine and you know, all this other, these big, these big ticket
items. I like how wine makes the first four. Yeah, I know bread food does not make utility. Bill doesn’t, but wine makes it.
No wine did. But to Lacey’s point, if you don’t, if, if you just go back every so often, like it took a while to kind of sort through all this, like, okay, I gotta get out the credit card statements.
I’ve gotta download it. I need to categorize it and see, you know, ’cause the way Amex categorizes stuff is different than how we might do it. So I’m sure
they don’t put wine way up there.
Well, They do categorize it by, by purchase amount, and you go, huh, wow, number four on the list. Weird. Like, should get a Christmas card from these people.
Anyways, the the point is, is that it’s taken a lot longer because we don’t do this and we just kinda let it, let it go away after a while. And now kind of going back to it is a much more arduous process of getting all that data back to what I was talking about at the beginning, getting all that data and just going, all right, let’s just level the playing field where all the bodies buried right this minute.
I think
that’s an important point that OG makes, Lacey, that you’re not gonna get this right right away. And I think you kind of alluded to this earlier too, just be aware, everybody, all of our stackers listening to this, trying to set this up, you’re gonna screw this up. Oh yeah.
Nobody’s perfect. Everybody like OG was saying, like sometimes it gets away from you, things get busy life, things change, like.
We have kids now that are starting to drive and different expenses for sports crash. They’re starting to crash. Yeah. There’s so many things that get added on that now we have to adjust our spending because of these things and, and prepare for different things in the future. So I think that you do have to fine tune it over time.
I think that’s just really important. Like it will never be the same. Yeah. It’ll never be good. And I also want to touch on the timing too. Like if you know you’re in a relationship and you’re trying to have these discussions and it’s not a good time to just like, right. When somebody wakes up, like, let’s dive into this right now.
Like, let’s get out all this paperwork. I really, this is my moment. Such sweet
pillow talk. Yes. Like, hey, I know you just woke
up like my cat, cat Cooper, I wake up yesterday and he’s staring at me with his face right in my face. Like he’s plotting my death. Like, don’t do that. Yes. Yes. Do you wanna talk
budget?
Which I wanna talk budget. Yeah. Let’s talk about your spending right now. Now that I have your attention. Yeah. Now that I have a captive
audience, I do think setting a time and making a fun, I mean I talk about this in stacked about if you don’t make it fun, If you don’t make it a little fun or at least a little lively, you know, I mean, we talked about this earlier, pancakes or wine is generally for Cheryl and I, uh, 20 minutes and it was the pancakes or wine that made it palatable when we began, and now it’s just part of the joke, it’s part of the fun.
Coming up. In the second half of this conversation, we’re gonna go into some of the tools you guys use that you recommend. We’ll talk about maybe how some of these meetings go that you have. I’ve noticed that, uh, obviously all of our meetings are a little bit different the way that we handle these things.
So we’ll give people our best advice. But before we get to that, if you’re new to the Stacking Benjamin Show, you don’t know that at the midway point of every Friday episode, we have this epic year long competition between our three contributors, OG Len and Paula Pant. Who? Lacey, you’re sitting in for Paula today.
So your team, Paula Pant, no pressure. And Lacey, that means, uh, we’ve got some good news and some bad news for you. Which one would you like the good news. The good news is somehow, some way Paula Pant, who is always perennially in last place, is tied for first with Len at 11 points, which means that you get to go second because Len won before Paula did.
So that’s the bad news is you have to guess. Second, uh, more good news is OG who’s won the last two years in a row is in last place with nine, but there is other news there, which is OGs won the last two weeks in a row to close it from 11 11 7 to 11 11 9. So is that gonna continue? We’re about to find out because Doug, you’ve got, uh, today’s trivia question.
Hey there, stackers. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and I believe it’s Labor Day weekend. I’ll celebrate by throwing a cookout for my friends in Joe’s mom’s yard. You know, as long as she’s not home. Last year was a total disaster. Who knew that hot dogs needed to be refrigerated ahead of time? Well, I’m thankful everyone escaped.
Okay, and speaking of thanks, here’s some history. Turns out we can all thank Grover Cleveland for the three day weekend, although I guess we can’t actually thank him because you know there’s a pretty good chance he’s dead by now. But not only was Cleveland, the guy who signed the law that made Labor Day an official federal holiday, but he also was the only US president to serve two non-consecutive terms.
I guess he really was a big fan of taking a hard earned break to celebrate Labor Day. Let’s talk about labor in America throughout Cleveland’s second go at the presidency and beyond. Membership in labor unions rose steadily peaking in the 1950s, even this summer. Hundreds of thousands of union members across the United States are currently on strike.
The most well-known among those is probably the Writer’s Guild of America, which hit its 120 third day of striking today, and whose membership includes roughly 20,000 television and film writers across the country. I bet that’s about how many people got to see Whitesnake on their last tour of all the state fairs.
I knew Len would like that one. Today’s drew me a question is how long was the biggest labor strike in American history in terms of cumulative days off the job? I’ll be back right after I finished transforming my bathtub into a giant cooler for the weekend. You, uh, you do refrigerate the beverages. Hey, I know some
safety food rules kind of as long as we don’t, uh, reprise what happened last year.
That was awful. Doug.
There was a hospital nearby. I mean, just relax. Just, just
awful. Lacey’s going second. Len, you’ve got first shot at this, the longest strike in terms of consecutive days off of
your job. No. Cu No, no. This is an important distinction, Joe. Cumulative days off. Cumulative worker days off the job.
So length of the strike times the number of people striking. Oh yeah.
Wow. Oh, so we gotta take the number of people striking and then multiply times the number of days. Wow. Okay. Well that’s very clever.
So total worker
days off, it’s a big number. It’s
bigger than seven.
Okay. Okay. Well that’s interesting.
Um, wow. First I gotta think who, what? Union would’ve gone on strike and then kind of estimate the number of people in that union. Mm-hmm. Then I have to take a stab at how many days they were off. Wow. Doug. Oh yeah. You’ve outdone yourself this week. Um, boy, what would’ve been, what would, what, who’s gone on strike for a long time?
It’s probably, is it a truckers, is it the teamsters? And you said the Writer’s Guild was like 14,000? I think the, I’m gonna say it was
truckers. Nice. Short term memory.
I just said it was 20,000.
Okay. 2014. It was like 42 seconds
ago. Okay. Well, I’m old. First thing to go, you know, short term memory. Uh,
biceps are the first thing to go biceps.
Yeah. Well, thanks. Thanks, Ji. I don’t know. I, I’m gonna say, let’s say the union of a hundred thousand and then they were off on strike for most strikes. Gosh, I can’t imagine a strike lasting more than eight. Well what the, Hey, maybe it did last, let’s say 10 months. So 10 months times 30 days is 300. Is that right?
3000? No, 300 days. Hold on. 300. 300,000. 300 times. What did I say? A hundred thousand. A hundred thousand people. So that’s three. And then all those zeros. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Put the commas in that. Wow. I don’t know, man. This number seems unreasonable, but I’m gonna say it ’cause that’s what I came up with.
30 million man hours. Days, man. Days, man days, man days. 30 million man days.
Lacey, we’ve got, uh, 30 million.
I don’t even know how to process this question.
That
was my goal.
You did say it was bigger than seven.
This is the wildest question. Since how many tubs of popcorn does it take to fill the Empire State Building?
I don’t think we’ve had one. Like I think it’s a good
Labor day question, though. Talking about it is, I’m
having
to labor for an answer. ’cause
you’re doing labor, right? I mean, we heard Len doing the LAMA method a second ago.
He’s breathe.
Breathe. Yes. I think this is just a stab in the dark, but I don’t think that many people went on strike for that long.
So I’m gonna say I just, it’s a lot of pressure. I don’t wanna let Paula down. I just, I’m very nervous. Very nervous. But
I’m gonna go with, did you know what we’re playing for Lacey? It’s really not that big of a deal. Oh, it’s a huge deal. Og, do you wanna point it out? That trophy
that you’re pointing to your family.
I was like, whoa.
Stakes
sky high. We’re playing for OGs. Three kids
who gets to pay for their college.
All of a sudden everybody’s like, I think the number’s two, I, it’s two dive
dive. Especially since you’re redoing your budget. I don’t know that I wanna win that. Alright. Yes. I’m gonna go with 5 million.
She
goes with, wow, we got 30 million and we’ve got 5 million. Og. Yeah, I,
I’m with Len on this one. This is gonna be a big number. I thought Teamsters, my dad was a truck driver. I was thinking auto workers. I’ve never heard that
before. Yeah, that’d been another, that’s a good one too. I feel like, I
feel like the u a w was on strike for a really long time when I was a kid.
’cause that’s kind of, sort of also related to where my family worked and there was a lot of financial stress going on when I was really young. What are there, are there like a million u a w workers? There’s, I feel like there’re, is there really
what I, my number’s
itlo.
I, I think, I think Ju Doug’s saying, no, there’s not a million
billion there.
They don’t even, there’s not even a million people working at Walmart. Why are you helping him? Doug. They’re the largest employer after. Sorry. I don’t know why. Because what are you doing? I don’t know.
Love doing. I, if you’re gonna help anybody, it would’ve been me. You’re right.
No, I’d like you the best
by far.
Listen, here’s the deal. The number’s greater than 30 million, so I’m just gonna say 30 million in one. I, I feel like the right answer is probably somewhere in the 70 million, 70, 80 million range. So that’s my unofficial answer. My official answer
is 30 million in one. Oh, you’re doing the Doc G again? Yeah.
And then you’re gonna, yeah, you’re gonna do the circle dance after you win. And like Doc G, remember Doc G said, oh, I nailed it. But he, Chelsea Brennan, uh,
yes. Sucks to suck in
Chelsea, Brennan, Tiffany, and Tiffany, you get back up here on top. Then I’m gonna Chelsea, Brennan, you.
This just started sounding weird, getting hot.
Who’s
we’re just playing for that trophy?
Nothing like arguing over who’s gonna be on top. Oh,
alright. But speaking of
the laborer.
Yeah. Alright. We would love to tell you who is right between 5 million, 30 million and 30,000,001, but you’re gonna have to wait a minute. We’ll be right back. Len, you started off this shindig by saying 30 million people.
How you feeling now? Uh, I just got
Chelsea Brennan. No, I’m not feeling good. I think, I think Josh is right. I think it’s, it’s probably more. I, I had no idea there were unions with a million people in ’em. But you, they probably were back in the
day. Uh, you know, Josh could be right. OG could be right. One of the two.
Uh, Lacey you said 5 million.
I’m not feeling great about it. Feel a little weak. But I’m gonna stand firm and see it through.
We’ll, we’ll, we’ll see. OG you feeling as confident about your pick as it seems like everybody else is, is, uh, feeling, uh,
I’m feeling pretty good. I feel like I’ve won just, I, I don’t oh goodness know why, but I feel Oh,
my, just being with all of us.
You’ve already won.
I just, uh, yeah, I’d love to see if this is overconfidence Doug, uh, please tell me it’s overconfidence. Who’s our winner?
Hey there, stackers. I’m makeshift, cooler pioneer and maker of fine craft bathtub liquor Joe’s, mom’s neighbor, Doug. The biggest single union labor strike in US history in terms of cumulative days off work took place when all 400,000 members of the United Mine workers went on strike from April, 1946 to December, 1946 to demand a health plan for workers and retirees.
So how many cumulative days off the job did that massive strike? Cause OG quickly uses his calculator? Well, you know, I’m not gonna just give you that answer first. I’ve gotta embarrass our contestants publicly by telling you how ridiculously far off their guesses were. So, What was the biggest strike in US history in terms of cumulative days off?
Let’s just say it this way. Lacey was off by a mere 65.4 million. Len was off by 40.4 million, and OG was off by like 40.3 9 9 9 9 9 9 million. OGs our winner because the answer is 70.4 million cumulative days
off work. Unbelievable.
What, what did I say?
My right answer was You did, you, did you, you almost
nailed it.
Lenny did the same thing, doc she did last week.
Yeah. This is a, this, uh, no, you can’t take credit for nailing if you’re gonna Chelsea, Brennan, you get no credit for nailing anything. Okay. No, no, no.
And it is unbelievable how fast this has become a game. All of a sudden, just a couple weeks later after we’d written OG off, it’s now 11, 11 10, yeah.
Amazing. Into September. It’s,
man, it’s the power of the Chelsea Brennan. It is worth something. It is definitely
worth something. Oh, going last. And yes, he’ll struggle again once he’s going first. Yes. But you’re right. It’s hard being first. Being able to, being able to do that. It’s not easy. I
would’ve said 70 million.
If you’d gone first. Yeah. Yeah.
And then I’d just said seven, then I’d have said 70, 69, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9.
And you would’ve still lost. And,
oh, 70 million 1, 1, 1, 1.
Let’s move into the second half of our show. Uh, the second half is brought to you by deposit accounts.com. Lacey, you know what happens when you go to deposit accounts.com?
No,
but I want you to tell me, oh, I’ll, I, so will it. Just right there. Good job,
Lacey. You’ll find that you could compare more than 275,000 deposit rates from over 11,000 banks of credit unions, all for free against each other. And you really, really might want to, is we record this. Let me give you some of these rates.
If you’re in just the national average savings account, you’re earning a whopping 0.43%. Woo-hoo. But if you’re in the 1%. The top 1% average is 4.65% a p Y CDs, top one percent’s at 5.54 or one year cd, national average all the way down at 3.67 in money markets. Top 1%, 4.46% a p y, while the national average is 0.74.
Big move. If you get up to the top 1%. Head to deposit accounts.com and, uh, compare your deposit accounts. Let’s get that money moving people. Uh, speaking of get moving, we talked a little bit about how much time I wanna go into some of the tools that you, so Lacey, let’s start with you. For your budget tracking, for your C F O duties, what’s maybe your favorite tool of all that you use to get this thing going?
Just
Excel or Google Sheets? Simple spreadsheet. Yep. Because also there’s two of us, so I need to create a A method that my husband will actually use and if it’s a complicated app or something that he just isn’t into. So I think when you’re looking at, ’cause if you’re looking at creating systems, using a budgeting tool like Excel or an app or things like that, those are tools you’re using in the system.
But if two people are using it, you need to make sure that it’s a tool that both of you are gonna be willing to use and the other person’s gonna be willing to step in if you are incapacitated or not willing to perform your duties anymore. So I think I’m more into keeping it simple and easy for us to use and that’s, you know, what we’ve become
accustomed to.
Do you use any of the automation? I mean, I know Tiller money. Automates your spreadsheet. So you use your spreadsheet, but then every day it, it, it puts the new values in for you. Use anything like that. Joe, she pretty
much just said it. She married a chipmunk. He can’t handle that level of complexity, so she has to keep it really simple.
She can’t use,
she just said it Doug Doug’s about to get a knock on his
door, say, I will be sure to relay that. I was like,
wow. Wow.
I didn’t say it. I’m reiterating what she said. It needs to be simple. We can’t use an app or anything. My husband needs to be able to understand
it. Yeah, I think you were thinking caveman, not chipmunk.
I, I think that’s the way all of our spouses talk about his behind our back. By the way, you should see I’m married to that Joe. Yeah. Len, what type of, uh, do you use any, any apps, any, uh, fun tools to get there? Unfortunately,
no. I, I like, just like Lacey, we use the spreadsheet and I will in defensive spreadsheets being simple.
Yes, they are simple to implement at the basic level, but the beauty of them is they’re truly, they’re very powerful and they’re customizable to you, to a level that other apps, they, I’m sorry, they just can’t, you can’t customize ’em, like a spreadsheet can be customized. And the beauty of these spreadsheets are over time like, After, well, I was using these before way, way before in my career, but let’s say you’re just starting out and you’re using ’em only for your personal finance management.
Over time you will become an expert if you want to, and you’ll discover all of the cool things that a spreadsheet can do. Uh, the spreadsheet I have now is if, if I do say so myself, it’s absolutely amazing. I have that thing, that thing breaks out spending in pie charts, and I’ve got things tied to other things, and it’s, it’s like com.
It’s just amazing what, how powerful it is now after 27 years of continually upgrading it over time, slowly, and it’s just amazing. Um, and I highly recommend it. I I just think one, nothing can be as customized more than that spreadsheet. I mean, you can design that thing to do so many things that I don’t care what’s, what’s out there.
The, you can’t beat a spreadsheet,
but back to you for a second. Lacey. You know how many people in our community swear by programs like Y Nab. Or maybe every dollar or you know, I’ve played with Cube money. You guys don’t use any of those systems. Have you tried any of those systems?
Yes, I, I’ve tried, I think Cube, I’m not sure which other ones, but to me it’s, it’s learning something new and then that also requires my husband to learn that something new.
And if it’s not broke, don’t fix it. I am not as skilled with Excel as Len is. So I will say mine’s very basic. I don’t understand Excel to it’s fullest. But then again, like I don’t need to like it. What we’re doing works. And then also too, some of those things that you have to pay for or there’s temptation to pay for a higher threshold of whatever that product is.
And I feel like. Keeping it simple with everything related to money is the best way to go about it. Because when it gets more complicated, it gets confusing. Mistakes get made. And then also you actually have to do these things. You, you can’t use tools that you’re not comfortable with using or easy, so that when you sit down, you’re ready to do it.
Not dreading using that tool that you, you’ve put your information into and then hoping that it’s, it’s gonna reach your goal. Hey,
by the way, real quick, real quick. Before people say, well excel the cost, you know, because now it’s, it’s expensive If you pay for Excel, a license every, every year. Yeah. Get, there’s something out there called the Apache Open Office.
It is. I virtually identical to Excel, virtually identical. And it’s absolutely free and it’s open source and uh, that’s what I use. So it works. It’s identical and
free OG either in your household or with clients. You know, we see people use some of these cool apps that are out there using any of
those. I was just struck by what Len said in 27 short years, I could be an expert at Excel by, uh, keeping track of all of my expenses and everything for, for 27 years.
Uh, sign me up.
Well, it doesn’t take you 27 3. No, no, no. It doesn’t take you 27. You could be an expert in a year if you put, you know, it doesn’t take 27 years to be an expert in Excel. You just, you know, but I’m just saying over time, the average person, they can a little bit at a time, a little bit at a time.
And before they know it, they are an expert. Not, it doesn’t take 27 years. I think
you’re talking to, uh, I mean, Len, you’re giving OG a lot of credit. You, you’re saying that every man would take a year,
it would take me like 28 years. Just drop
everything you’re doing.
Yeah, exactly. You can do do it in a year.
No, I mean, from a budget standpoint in, in our family, it’s just, it’s just really not a thing that we do. We try to keep track of kind of what the AMEX bill is every month and are aware of that amount. I mean, we kind of take the. Paula’s approach, and she’s not here to defend herself, but kind of, sort of the anti budgett thing.
It’s like, just put money where it needs to go and then spend whatever the hell is left and don’t even care. Because, because we know that from a goal standpoint, everything else is taken care of, um, long term. And I think, although there’s some big downsides to that, I don’t wanna like make that all sound like, you know, roses and sunshine that like, oh, I have no care in the world.
I don’t have to do 27 years of spreadsheets. The downside is that it can get outta hand and that’s kind of, sort of what’s going on right now. And it’s not really out of hand in a negative sense, it’s just there’s more stuff going on. At least he was talking about kids that are driving and that sort of, they just, you know, like all those other things are starting to creep up and uh, and we’re inside of two years now till Alex goes to school.
So, you know, it’s a very significant expense that’s coming in 23 months from now, which just sounds mind boggling to say, but you know, just being aware of that. Is one of the downsides of like going, eh, I’m just gonna, I’ll just save money. I’ll do that thing and then I can spend wherever I want. Yeah, there’s some freedom there.
But then with freedom comes great responsibility.
Well, and I think, I look at, I look at og the stuff that Len talked about, the c e O roles. Really a lot of that is in a business would be the really cool stuff. The C F O does, like, as you know, the C F O can change what a quarterly report looks like to Wall Street just by knowing how to use that pen, right?
And, and so your ability to get to some of the bigger stuff, I think becomes more difficult if you don’t have that weekly cadence going, you know? Yeah. It’s the little things. Find a way to take care of themselves. The big things then truly do get lost, which is why I like taking the time. I wanna ask, uh, you guys, one more question before we say goodbye, and that is, how much of this is about setting the time aside to either communicate or just get your ducks in a row versus actually writing out the budget?
So how much is actually technique versus actually being proactive In thinking about this, if you had to give it a percentage, you know, 60% communication and putting the time aside, 40% actually doing it or whatever it would be, where would you put those percentages, Lacey? I
would say
80, 85. Thinking about it and planning it and 20% doing it.
It’s like anything in life, you give it some more attention sometimes than you do other, like, you know, your weight. Like you might have let yourself go a little bit, but you’re like, all right, my clothes are a little
tight too soon. Macy, too soon. What? What?
Speaking of letting yourself go, have you seen
this swimmer’s
builds.
I know. Geez, I’ve been working hard all summer. Gosh, I didn’t
get this V-shaped figure letting myself go with the bon bonds.
Yeah, didn’t get the
donut cheese. No. Dad bots here. Just summer bonds.
Got it. Right. Exactly. But anyway, Lacey, continue. I’ll stand
up if you need me to. Promises, promises.
Switching back gears reversed. No, but sometimes you give things more attention and when you give something more attention, the needle’s gonna move. You know you’re gonna make things happen because you’re putting your effort in that spot. And so a lot of times you may have not made money. The main focus, like you’re getting focused on your health, you’re getting focused on work, your career, your kids, and then it’s like, all right, we need to get back on track with this.
And so you’re paying a lot more attention to it. So I think it just depends on where you’re at and what the new goal is for your
money. So it’s like, oh gee says uh, but you know, the hardest part of working out is, is lacing up your shoes, which is why he doesn’t have any shoes. He just got rid of ’em all.
Just Crocs. True story. That’s right.
Just crocs,
sandals and socks. Len, what do you think those two percentages are for have been for you guys between thinking about setting the time aside versus the actual doing it? Well,
the doing it part, I, I’m, to me, I’m not gonna minimize that. That’s important. You’ve gotta do it.
So I mean, just setting something up like a y a or or, or your spreadsheet or whatever, set it up first and then that gives you some, a basis to talk about things. Once you get it set up, yes, then I agree it’s more conversation and discussion and, and then the, the tool will take care of itself after that.
I mean, with your, with your inputs. But yeah, I think you have to set something up first and have a form of basis for like your conversation. Uh, I think that makes the conversation more meaningful. Um, even if it’s some of the inputs are wrong or incorrect. I mean, it gives you a basis to something to start working around rather than just theoretically start talking about it and then doing the planning first.
I, I, that’s, that’s me though.
Yeah.
We have a new sponsor on the show, uh, Monarch Money, which is very much a cool way to look at all this stuff. It is. One of those shiny apps. But I have to say, as a guy who’s played around with a lot of stuff, I’ve used Cube money, I really like it. I’ve used Tiller. I really like it as a guy who’s played around with a lot of budget apps and actually likes having that stuff right in front of me.
I super like those. But what’s been fun though, about this new sponsor of ours is I’m going back and resetting all the basic stuff up that I’ve already had in my other apps. And you’re right, that process of just setting it up is giving me ideas and is giving me, yes, it’s like putting stuff in my head as I go through and, and work through some of these details that I already had, you know, elsewhere.
Oh, g for you guys, uh, thinking about those two percentages,
well, Lacey’s probably right, as always, you know, the, the time spent sharpening the saw versus cutting down the tree is, is proportionate. I, I, I suspect that having the conversations about it, I. Starting to put the structure in place is most important.
The more time that you spend building out the system, the less time you have to spend implementing the system after you’ve got it running, you know? So what you were just talking about there, Joe, about like, Hey, I gotta put all my stuff in there. I’ve got, yeah. I mean, if you’re doing an app, right, you’ve gotta use, get your credentials out and remember what bank is, is where, and you know, all these different things that that just take time to do.
But once it’s there, then it’s in maintenance mode. Yeah. What you do with that information is probably more important.
And that’s where the communication piece, the 80% so much more important, showing up for that meeting. The huge number. People who told me, well, you know, I’ve got Mint so I’m good. I’m like, well you did you open mint?
That’s always a whole different story. It’s not about having the app, it’s about what you’ve, what you do. I think that’s a great place to leave this discussion, guys. That’s fantastic. I hope some people this holiday weekend take an hour and start setting up maybe better controls for their money. ’cause as we saw early on, it can have a huge, make a huge difference.
I can’t believe $425 billion wasted because we’re not paying attention to stuff. Let’s, uh, find out what’s going on, where all you guys are. Og big plans for this, uh, labor Day weekend.
Uh, yeah, got some travel this week and then, um, home on Sunday and Monday for, for Doug’s party, for family time. For
Doug’s party.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Uh, Len, how about you, man? Uh, what’s going on@lenpenso.com and you got big planes this weekend.
No, no plans. It’s gonna be a quiet weekend for me. Um, those are
my favorite kind of plans, by the
way. Yeah, you know what? I like ’em too. Yeah, they’re very nice. Relaxing, uh, sad. I’m not going to get out there and jump in the hustle and bustle.
You know what I’m gonna do? I, I’m gonna put on my website, the article I was talking about my, how I run my household. Yeah. Like a business. I’ll, I’ll for anybody who wants, is interested and they can come see. And I have it all spelled out. Everything’s there and you can just, it’s real quick read and, uh, you can reference that.
Beautiful. Fantastic. We’re gonna link to that. We’ll link to the tools we shared and we’ll link to the Military Money Show, uh, on, uh, on our, uh, our show notes. Why can’t remember the word show notes on our, something on our show notes page at stacky Benjamins dot com. So Lacey, thanks for hanging out with us again.
Thanks for having me. It’s always a good time.
You guys have, uh, big plans for the holiday weekend. I.
Just grilling out. I’m looking forward to that. Not with Doug. Just chilling out. Grilling out. Not with Doug. We like to keep things, meat products, especially refrigerated, breaking my heart. Perfect. Did you leave out like potato salad as well?
That would be even worse with mayonnaise,
coleslaw. So just,
Joe likes coleslaw. No, don’t too soon. We don’t even need to go there. Yeah, way too soon. Uh, it’s been what, five years and it’s still going on and on. But what’s coming up at the military Money show?
I have something big coming will be announced my birthday weekend or birthday week.
I do a big show on September 15th. So there is a big change coming for the military money show. Ooh. And I’ll be making the announcement then.
Can’t wait. Yeah, you have
to stay tuned. Zes. Nobody listens to the show. You can give us a preview. Just a little preview.
No, something big coming. Lacey
Lacey’s reenlisting.
Only on Lacey’s Show. Something big coming.
Something big
coming. Wouldn’t that be awesome? I just saw Craig Morgan. Wait, what? What
would be,
what Tell are you guys talking about?
Don’t. Oh, I thought Lacey would,
don’t talk as your legal advisor. Len, I’m, I’m advising you to stop talking.
Just
taking notes here.
Yeah. Gosh,
no idea what’s going
on right
now. I’m not sure where I was, but I’m making a, I’m making a big announcement about the Military Money show on September 15th. So
tune in.
Yes. All right. That is going to do it for today. A lot of, uh, takeaways there, Doug, but, uh, what are our top three?
Well, Joe, first take some advice from Lacey Langford and don’t let your money intimidate you. Set up systems. Realize you won’t get it right on day one and set off Second, if you get to choose between being the C f O and c o o, always choose being the c f o. That way you can hide all the fishing and skiing gear purchases.
You know, I myself heard like guys talk in the, in the locker room anyway, but the big lesson, wait till the day of your big holiday bash to turn your tub into a cooler. Otherwise, turns out you’ll end up having to bathe in the kitchen sink. One limited time like a little baby. Thanks to Lacey Langford for joining us today.
You can find her podcast on the Innerweb. We’ll also include links in our show notes at Stacking Benjamins dot com. Thanks to Len Penso for joining us today. You can find Len at Len penso.com/excel expert in a year. Thanks also to OG for joining us today. Looking for good financial planning. Help head to Stacking Benjamins dot com slash OG for his calendar.
This show is the Property of SB podcasts, L L C, copyright 2023, and is created by Joe Sulci High. Our producer is Karen Repine. This show is written by Lisa Curry, who’s also the host of the Long Story Long podcast. With help from me, Joe, and Doc G from the Earn and Invest podcast, Kevin Bailey helps us take a deeper dive into all the topics covered on each episode in our newsletter called the 2 0 1.
You’ll find the 4 1 1 on All Things Money at the 2 0 1. Just visit Stacking Benjamins dot com slash 2 0 1. Wonder how beautiful we all are. Of course, you’ll never know if you don’t. Check out our YouTube version of this show Engineered by Tina Eichenberg. Then you’ll see once and for all that I’m the best thing going for this podcast.
Once we bottle up all this goodness, we ship it to our engineer, the amazing Steve Stewart. Steve helps the rest of our team sound nearly as good as I do right now. Want a chat with friends about the show later? Mom’s friend Gertrude and Kate Kin are our social media coordinators, and Gertrude is the room mother in our Facebook group called The Basement.
Say hello when you see us posting online to join all the basement fun with other stackers type Stacking Benjamins dot com slash basement. Not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don’t take advice from people you don’t know. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor.
I’m Joe’s Mom’s Neighbor, Doug, and we’ll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show.
What’s amazing, what’s amazing to me about Spotify already, I like because of Discover Weekly, like every Tuesday they have music and it’s either right on, it’s like, Hey, here’s a bunch of songs we don’t think you’ve heard before that we think you’d like. It’s either spot on and I like ’em all, or it just sucks from beginning to end.
It’s just horrible. But now they’ve taken this whole AI train that everybody’s doing and they’ve got their, they got their Spotify dj. Who talks directly to me Listen to this.
Alright, you wanna change it up? Let’s do it. I got r e m a few other artists in that zone
and so I just, I just hit the button, but if I don’t, he’ll come on like every three or four songs like a DJ does and say something like this.
Alright,
let’s move on to a mix of rock Next. Radiohead
leading the way. Like you’ve got your own personal dj. That’s he needs It is so cool. He leads off like every day going, Hey Joe, how’s your Friday going so far? It’s your good friend. Oh, so guys use your name. He uses your, he does.
Oh, about Joe. I got you Joe.
You like that teenage girl music? I got you. He speaks directly to me.
Yeah. I had to play, I had to play a bunch of, uh, male music for a while. Just,
you know, I say that’s me, Selena Gomez,
so I, oh, geez. Yeah, I’m, I’m way into her music.
Uh, chef’s Kiss, Selena Gomez, uh, the new season of Murders. Murders in the building is out.
Yeah. I do not like that. Show.
You do. Of course you don’t. ’cause everybody else likes it because you, because you do. Yes. I haven’t watched it, but Cheryl
loves it. We, we watched two episodes and it just, you know what it, it was a little bit like, marvelous Miss Maisel, where. Actually I like that. I like the first two seasons of Marvelous Miss Basil a lot.
The
last, the last season of Marvelous. Miss Basil was
amazing. I drifted off in, in season three. But anyway, murders in the building. It feels very New York, stagey Broadway. It just feels, you know, like that to me. And that’s never
been my thing. That’s gonna live in my memory. You doing? Broadway?
Broadway,
jazz hands?
Jazz hands.
Lacey, by living in your memory you mean, you mean in your nightmares? She’s gonna have a
nightmare. She’s gonna wake up. I’m trying to find out what’s going on with Lens’s. Uh, tomato, tomato, lens’s sleeves. Lens’s got
I’m sun’s out. Guns out going on. Am
I scaring you? Am I scaring you?
Og? No, I’m not scared of anything.
I just, no, that’s
not the word. You know, repulsing maybe. No, it’s, I know.
You know
what? It’s freaking hot out here, man. Let me tell you. You don’t air conditioning.
I like the vibe you putting now, Len. I like the vibe you’re putting
out. Oh, it’s so hot. Thank you, Lacey.
Thank you. So last week I was, um, at the airport and uh, there’s a guy that I do some business with there in his office.
I was there and, uh, he had a box of, he has a box of, uh, peppermint bark. And for Christmas last year, he gave everybody that he, uh, every one of his clients, a box of Williams, Soma Peppermint Bark. And I’m like, dude, what’s, this is August. What’s going on here? And he goes, ah, somebody had taken it. I go, well, I’m taking it.
I’m, it’s August. Nobody’s claimed it. I’m, they’re, it’s mine. So I’m like, sweet. Threw to my backpack, took off, uh, to go do a thing. Oh no. Oh no. Took off to go do a thing. It’s a mask. It’s in my backpack, it’s in, it’s in the car. I
go aging perfectly.
Yeah. So I do my thing that this, uh, uh, university that I had to go to anyways, do the stuff, get back home late that night, and the wife asked how it was and, and, and I’m like, oh yeah, that’s great.
I’m like, oh, by the way, I got you something. And I reached into my backpack, something special. I reached into my backpack and immediately recognized that this is, this tin is hot to the touch. It’s, I mean, I’ve been home for 30 minutes and I’m like, oh, oh boy.
I got you a tin full of poo.
So minty poo, peppermint poo.
Guess what happens to a box of or tin of peppermint bark when it’s 106 outside and you leave it in your backpack? Oh no. It turns into a block of. Bludge. It’s just all blew. Put it in the freezer. So now, so now I’ve got chunks of frozen peppermint bark. So delicious. I bet it’s good. Delicious. Yeah, it’s not bad.
It’s gonna break a tooth, but pass some over
here. Lemme to help your confidence. If I said it scared me.
Who? I scared you?
Yes. With your guns. My
look. Yes. You’re gonna do that. You gotta get a pump on before.
Yeah, you gotta get vascular. You gotta get vascular before you get on here, man.
You, you gotta pump out some reps.
I mean, you did some of it, you shaved your arms, which is a good, good effort. But you know, if you’re gonna, if you’re gonna do whole thing, you got, thank
you. Thank you for noticing you. You wanna know what else is shaved?
I would love to know.
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