The Money Habits to Keep and Ditch in 2026 (SB1791)

Some people kick off a new year with a vision board. We prefer a runway show in sweatpants from Joe’s mom’s basement.

Joe Saul-Sehy, OG, and Neighbor Doug throw personal finance into the spotlight and ask the question every Stacker secretly loves: What’s officially “so last year” in your money plan, and what’s worth keeping for 2026?

Because here’s the truth. You don’t need a total financial makeover. You need a few smart “wardrobe swaps” that fit your real life. The habits that quietly drain your progress (hello, lifestyle creep). The stuff people obsess over that doesn’t matter as much as they think. And the overlooked moves that make everything else easier.

The crew breaks down what’s out (financial habits that looked good but never delivered), what’s in (the practical moves that reduce stress and create actual progress), and why real financial planning isn’t just about investments but about building a system that holds up when life gets messy.

Also on the docket: a fresh start to the yearlong trivia competition with new rules, new twists, and the kind of competitive energy that makes you wonder if the trophy comes with a safety warning label.

What You’ll Learn:

• What financial trends are out for 2026 and why they weren’t helping anyway

• The habits that are in if you want more freedom, less stress, and fewer “where did my money go” moments

• Why real financial planning isn’t just investments but a system that works in real life

• How lifestyle creep sneaks in and a couple ways to stop it before it becomes your full-time hobby

• What tax strategy means for normal people, not just spreadsheet enthusiasts

• The money conversations you should have early in the year before life gets loud again

• A realistic take on housing in 2026 and what to focus on when markets don’t behave

• New trivia rules including a twist that changes everything if you’re not paying attention

This Episode Is For You If:

• You want to know what to stop doing so you can focus on what works

• You’re tired of financial advice that adds more tasks instead of clarity

• You suspect some of your money habits aren’t pulling their weight

• You want permission to quit the financial trends that never fit your life

• You’re ready for a few strategic changes that make 2026 feel more manageable

Questions to Think About:

What’s one money habit you’re officially retiring in 2026? If you could upgrade one part of your financial plan this year, what would it be: spending, saving, investing, insurance, or taxes? Drop your answers in the comments or the Basement Facebook group because this episode is all about figuring out what stays and what goes.

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

Enjoy!

Our Topic: What’s hot and what’s not in finance for 2026?

During our conversation, you’ll hear us mention:

Money “fashion week”
Dump 2025 habits
Add 2026 habits
Chasing performance
International equity hype
Diversification discipline
Written asset allocation
Annual rebalancing
Efficient frontier basics
Merriman fund portfolios
Gold return chasing
Crypto and meme coins
Investing vs gambling
Long term mindset
Review tax returns
Understand your 1040
Update payroll elections
Max HSA contributions
Dependent care accounts
Skip tax extensions
Paperwork batching system
Monthly tax check ins
Lifestyle creep spending
DoorDash convenience tax
Spending on purpose

Our Contributors

A big thanks to our contributors! You can check out more links for our guests below.

Jesse Cramer

Another thanks to Jesse Cramer for joining our contributors this week! Hear more from Jesse on his show, Personal Finance for Long-Term Investors – The Best Interest, on Spotify.

Learn how you can work with Jesse by visiting The Best Interest – Invest in Knowledge.

Paula Pant

Check out Paula’s site and amazing podcast at AffordAnything.com

Follow Paula on Twitter: @AffordAnything

OG

For more on OG and his firm’s page, click here.

Doug’s Game Show Trivia

In what year did Benny Goodman bring his jazz concert to Carnegie Hall for the first time?

Join Us on Monday!

Tune in on Monday when we share the story of one man who said forget it to corporate america and made the switch to focus on what was important to HIM instead of someone else…the host of the Marriage Kids and Money podcast…Andy Hill.

Miss our last show? Check it out here: Build Income Beyond Your Paycheck (SB1790.

Written by: Kevin Bailey

Episode transcript

[00:00:00] opener: In a world where overspending debt and keeping up with the Joneses rules us all, with the voices from the merchants, restaurants, and credit companies, Lord, over the common man, out of the darkness, like a beacon of hope comes a new voice. A voice that’s rich and creamy, like your favorite butter and delicious like cheeseburger pizza on your diet cheat day.

[00:00:31] opener: It’s the Stacking Benjamin Show.

[00:00:40] Doug: Uh, from the basement of the YouTube headquarters, it’s the Stacking Benjamin Show.

[00:00:55] Doug: I am Joe’s Mom’s Neighbor, Doug. And in the spirit of those fashion shows displaying what’s hot for the new year, we thought we’d do the same for personal finance. Consider this your personal finance fashion needs to episode. What was so 2025 that we highly recommend you trash in your financial plan?

[00:01:14] Doug: What hotness should you add to your game in 2026? Our panel will share. But that’s not all. Of course. I’ll also swoop in halfway to help our team kick off the new year long trivia challenge. Can Jesse hang on to his shiny new crown? Can OG reclaim his title? Is it finally the year of Paula’s? Big, big trivia win?

[00:01:40] Doug: I mean, maybe, uh, probably not. We’ll get the first clues today and now a guy who wants you to grab a high yield savings account because that’s so 2026. It’s Joe, so see hi

[00:01:58] Joe: high yield savings account. Good start for 2026. Hey everybody, I am Joe Salsey. Hi. Thank you for the intro, Mr. Doug. How are you

[00:02:06] Doug: man?

[00:02:06] Doug: Sorry man. I almost made it through without laughing. We write those scripts with the best of intentions and I like when we had it. I’m like, yeah, I can nail, I can get through this and nope, failed. This could be Paula’s

[00:02:16] Joe: here, it could be Paula’s here. Yeah,

[00:02:19] Doug: monkeys could fly outta your butt.

[00:02:22] Joe: Guys, this is gonna be a fantastic episode because we have a round table together for the first time this year.

[00:02:28] Joe: Of course, we had our Magic eight ball episode last week, and now we kick off. It’s like, I feel like we’re kicking off a new football season or whatever sport you like or thing that you like. It’s, it’s a brand new day. The slate is clean and everybody can win. That’s at the halfway point, but we’re gonna surround it.

[00:02:47] Joe: Doug, of course, with a great episode today, talking about all the 2026 fashion. You look fashionable. What? What’s on your t-shirt?

[00:02:55] Doug: I got my favorite Canadian t-shirt on.

[00:02:57] Joe: Look at that.

[00:02:58] Doug: My Canadian Superman shirt.

[00:03:00] Joe: Okay, dear.

[00:03:01] Doug: Don’t you know, you

[00:03:01] Joe: know how Canadian people love it when we do the, uh,

[00:03:04] Doug: sorry.

[00:03:05] Joe: Cultural appropriation.

[00:03:06] Doug: Sorry for interrupting.

[00:03:07] Joe: Hey, and a guy who is, uh, ready to start off a new year ’cause he wants to reclaim his title across the car table from me. Mr. OGs here. How are you man? You all rested up, ready to go.

[00:03:17] OG: Yeah, I literally woke up on the wrong side of the bed today, so. Perfect. It’s just a, you know,

[00:03:21] Joe: perfect.

[00:03:23] OG: The more things change, the more they stay the same.

[00:03:26] Joe: I wonder if we had DraftKings, like what the over under would be on OGs points this year, or what would the line be, Doug, on a, on an OG win for this year long trivia competition.

[00:03:39] OG: Uh, does he get cheated out of it? Like the previous year? I mean, oh,

[00:03:45] Joe: it started already.

[00:03:46] OG: What rules do we change halfway through to make shows? It’s like, it’s gotta be exciting. You can’t be up by 35.

[00:03:52] Joe: Why don’t we meet Doug? The current champion? The reigning champion, the

[00:03:56] OG: reigning champion,

[00:03:57] Joe: the guy who grasped it, it up

[00:03:58] OG: the, his trophy, although I did somewhat write his name on it already.

[00:04:02] OG: It’s hard to see, but I, but I definitely wrote Jesse,

[00:04:05] Joe: does that say Jesse?

[00:04:07] OG: It, it does. It’s just said OG so long that it’s almost carved in there.

[00:04:11] Jesse: This is gonna be the gag of 2026. It’s like, oh, I’ll, I’ll get the trophy. I’m taking it to the post office this weekend, Jesse,

[00:04:17] Joe: you know, no. November, Jesse. It comes to your house.

[00:04:21] Joe: It’s coming to your place. Happy New Year. Jesse Kramer.

[00:04:23] Jesse: Happy New Year guys. Very happy New Year. I think og I was thinking of, um, a, a day in the life. I woke up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across my head. That’s the Beatles. Is that the one you were talking about?

[00:04:35] OG: No. Something about a submarine or something.

[00:04:38] OG: Waking up on the wrong side of the bed. I’m not sure.

[00:04:41] Jesse: Got it, got it.

[00:04:41] Joe: He doesn’t know. He’s got no idea. You know who definitely knows it? ’cause it’s a pop culture reference. And she’s back. And this Doug, this could be her year. There was no need to laugh. Paula pant from afford anything’s here.

[00:04:53] Paula: Well, I do know the Beatles submarine song.

[00:04:56] Paula: I got that one. I can even tell you what color it is. If anyone were to inquire

[00:05:00] OG: Chartreuse

[00:05:02] Paula: Orange. It’s an orange submarine.

[00:05:05] Joe: Doug’s living in a yellow submarine today, isn’t he?

[00:05:07] Paula: Yeah, yeah, he

[00:05:07] OG: really is. He’s been in Florida for 11 hours and is completely burned. That’s just his natural color. Now. Sunscreen, who needs it

[00:05:17] Joe: as, as you could tell, stackers the team started off on the right foot.

[00:05:20] Joe: You know guys, it is fashion season. I know OG knows that. They was telling me earlier, backstage,

[00:05:26] OG: yeah,

[00:05:26] Joe: we gotta be ready for very fashionable in the fashion Weeks at

[00:05:28] OG: ease.

[00:05:29] Joe: Fashion week going on this week in Florence, uh, starting up next week in Paris, men’s fashion week in Paris next week. So I thought, no,

[00:05:36] OG: I’ll be there

[00:05:36] Joe: because all the fashionable stuff happening in January.

[00:05:39] Joe: And this show is all about fashion. I mean, look at us. Doug’s in his best Canadian t-shirt. I’ve got my grandpa, Mr. Rogers sweater on, and Jesse, I’ve, you’re dressed, you’ve got, I actually has buttons. And then Paula wearing that, that stuff from that same sponsor that she’s in love with.

[00:05:55] Paula: Oh yeah, yeah. Quince.

[00:05:57] Paula: I’m, I’m head to toe shirt, pants, even socks. So literally head to toe.

[00:06:02] OG: That is the new thing thing, isn’t it?

[00:06:04] Paula: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It

[00:06:05] OG: was all under the tree this year for us.

[00:06:07] Paula: Nice.

[00:06:07] Joe: Well, we’ve got a fantastic show. We’re going to talk about what’s out, what fashionable, what was so 2025 that we gotta dump it so we can get cool financial habits in 2026.

[00:06:20] Joe: The team is ready with theirs. What are yours? Come join us. If you’re somebody who is watching us live on YouTube, share with us yours, what are some 20, 25 things we need to kick to the curb and replace it with good 2026 habits. We get all that coming up in just a second, but we got a couple sponsors to keep us.

[00:06:36] Joe: Keep on keeping on so that you don’t pay a dime for any of this. The Stacking Benjamin Show, always free Doug and still worth every penny. Just amazing. We’re gonna hear from those sponsors right now. And then the team and uh, fashion Week on the Stacking Benjamin Show.

[00:07:03] Joe: All right, let’s kick off this discussion. Paula, with you 2025, what was the fashionable thing in 2025 that we need to kick to the curb this year and then replace it with something cool in 2026?

[00:07:17] Paula: So I, I’d say the fashionable thing was chasing the much maligned, much ignored asset class that suddenly became hot in 2025.

[00:07:25] Paula: I’m talking about international equities.

Mm-hmm.

[00:07:28] Joe: Are you saying that we gotta dump international.

[00:07:30] Paula: I’m saying, is that what you’re saying? I’m saying chasing performance.

[00:07:32] Joe: Oh, chasing,

[00:07:33] Paula: chasing performance. Pre 2025. Everyone was like, man, why do we need international? It’s underperforming. It’s, you know, so, so there was this, this idea that you could put all of your money into US stocks, particularly US large caps, and just hold that one asset class and you’re good.

[00:07:51] Paula: And then 20, 25 comes around and boom, international is the big player. They’re the big outperformer. And so a lot of people who had previously been saying, we can ignore it, suddenly started chasing it. And I mean, so it’s, it’s good that they’re getting diversification, but it’s the right decision for the wrong reason.

[00:08:09] Joe: In just a second, we’re gonna ask you what you placed that with in 2026. But you know what, it’s not just international og. I mean, you, you as always, big fan of gold and gold went through the roof in 2025 and you’ve, you’ve been all about like chasing gold returns, haven’t you?

[00:08:31] OG: Yeah, I think I saw a thing the other day that said that the, uh, quiet, um, that the US maybe it was just the s and PI don’t know, whatever. The US market was actually last in a ranking of a pretty decent amount of developed countries returns, and we still did pretty good, right? 17 odd percent in the s and p.

[00:08:53] OG: But Paul is right. The thing about diversification is by the time you figure out that you should have had something in an asset class, if you don’t already have it, it’s already, it’s already made the headlines. It’s already, I, I don’t wanna say too late, but, but you, you miss the big opportunity and the easiest thing to do is just to pick your asset allocation, rebalance it once a year, now’s a good time, you know, beginning part of the year.

[00:09:17] OG: Good as time as any. Then just be done with it. I saw this commercial for, uh, online, uh, investment company with uh, I dunno, some football player. Anyway, it said that he doesn’t have to worry about his money because it’s automatically rebalanced. So that’s when it shows him cooking and making cakes and like doing all this other sort of stuff.

[00:09:36] OG: And I was like, that’s how your money should be. You should spend a little bit of attention to it, you know, and again, now is a good of time as any from a investment standpoint, beginning of the year, rebalance it and then just be okay with what’s gonna happen in the short run. ’cause in the long run you’ll be fine.

[00:09:51] Joe: Jesse, Paula mentioned international og, big fan of gold. Like we just heard, uh, they didn’t say anything about crypto and I know you’re thinking about rebranding personal finance for long-term investors, the all crypto, all the time podcast with Bitcoin down at the beginning of the year. I mean, don’t you think it’s a great time to chase that?

[00:10:10] Jesse: Well, you’re a couple versions old on the name. ’cause the new name that Doug and I have been toying around with is, uh, don’t be an idiot. Invest in Meme Coins podcast. Which if you think of the acronym, it does roll right off the tongue. Uh, picking the hot tech stocks, right? Crypto, it’s all the same. And it’s all this idea of of chasing the hotness, chasing returns.

[00:10:33] Jesse: It’s borderline like gambling in some ways where you’re like, well, I heard a story of someone who made a bunch of money this way and I’m gonna go push that same button.

[00:10:39] opener: Right?

[00:10:40] Jesse: And um, see, I was under the assumption, Joe, I thought we had to think like fashion designers. So I wrote, you know, picking hot tech stocks and, and instead of doing that diversifying for the long run, it might appear like that pair of nylon bell bottoms that you’ve had in since the seventies, Joe.

[00:10:56] Jesse: But instead it’s much more like that pair of old Levi’s that still grabs your ass in all the best ways.

[00:11:03] Joe: My god, Joe’s catching strains and he hasn’t said a word.

[00:11:09] Jesse: He’s got a nice pair of Levi’s

[00:11:10] Joe: and I do have to say that my Levi’s grab my ass in all the right places. I will say that that’s right.

[00:11:14] Doug: Those are your own hands, Joe.

[00:11:16] Joe: Every time I pass a mirror, I just, Levi’s

[00:11:18] OG: have the word juicy. Bedazzled on the bottom, apple,

[00:11:22] Doug: bottom Levi’s,

[00:11:24] Joe: I think I just threw up in my own mouth. Yeah, Paula, if that’s 2025. Chasing international chasing meme coins, chasing gold. What do we do instead? What’s 2026? What’s the hot thing for the Stacking Benjamins fashionistas

[00:11:41] Paula: absent of looking at recent performance.

[00:11:44] Paula: Pick your asset allocation, write it down, rebalance your portfolio into it, and then like OG said, forget about it. Joe, you’ve talked about the efficient frontier. Pick something along the efficient frontier or pick Paul Merriman’s four fund portfolio or eight fund portfolio and then just run with it.

[00:12:03] Joe: There it is. OG. Like that.

[00:12:06] OG: Yeah.

[00:12:07] Joe: Yeah.

Couldn’t

[00:12:07] OG: have said it better myself,

[00:12:09] Joe: Jesse,

[00:12:10] Jesse: I’m a big fan of, uh, you shouldn’t be flip flopping asset allocation all the time at all, so I’m in favor of that, of that fashion.

[00:12:17] Joe: Well, there’s our 2026 fashion. Jesse, we’ve got you front and center. Let’s have your first, what was 2025?

[00:12:24] Joe: What’s the thing that we got a kick to the curb That was so last year.

[00:12:28] Jesse: So, I don’t know if this was 2025 specific, but some of my fashion trends are almost decal in nature. Joe. They’re long term. So I feel like not reviewing your tax return is such a passe 2025 thing. Uh, that’s a Texas will never be in vogue.

[00:12:44] Jesse: Kind of like Doug’s fedora. It’s never gonna be invoked. Dude, fight me on this. But unlike Doug’s fedora, I know Doug, I know you’ll look back on your fedora in a few years, Doug, and you’ll say, OMG. What was I ever thinking? I think if our stackers look back on some tax review and tax planning in 10 years, they’ll look backwards and say, OMGI was such a smart diva

[00:13:05] Joe: not paying any attention to taxes was so 2025, you, you agree with that Paula?

[00:13:12] Paula: I think it’s evergreen. Like Jesse and taxes are never gonna be in vogue. So no one ever really pays a lot of attention unless you’re like super nerd.

[00:13:21] Joe: But you don’t think this is the year that should be more in vogue. ’cause you know that’s where he is headed next is, hey.

[00:13:27] Paula: You know, I think it’s like eating broccoli.

[00:13:28] Paula: It is always a good idea. Or flossing, right? Always a good idea. But let’s see if it happens.

[00:13:34] Jesse: Listen guys, I mean, this is a fashion podcast. We had a big, beautiful bill last summer. Beautiful. It could have been called the FFF, the fricking Fashion. I don’t know what’s an f word that had finance bill. But, uh, if there’s ever a reason to look at your taxes after such a big, beautiful event, it’s gotta be now Triple B.

[00:13:55] Joe: Oh gee, you talked about at the start of the year, it’s a good time to rebalance your portfolio. Good time to look at your tech strategy.

[00:14:02] OG: Well, there’s not a lot that you can do for 2025, but uh, obviously at the beginning of 26 there’s lots of stuff that you can do. And when it comes to taxes, I think a couple of things that I would do right away, which is I would make sure that all of my contributions are set up the way that I want ’em to be.

[00:14:17] OG: You know, all the numbers change for 2026, your employer contributions changed. Uh, maximum HSAs. Dependent care reimbursement accounts had a huge increase last year, first time since 1990 or something. Some it is, it hasn’t moved in

[00:14:34] Joe: forever.

[00:14:35] OG: Generation.

[00:14:36] Joe: Yeah.

[00:14:36] OG: So all of those things have changed and if you haven’t paid attention to it yet, you’re about to get your first paycheck.

[00:14:42] OG: If you haven’t already by the time you listen to this and you know, you’re one of 26 paychecks in. So just review all that stuff and make sure it’s the way that you want. And the other challenge that I give to everybody when it comes to taxes for some reason there’s been this trend of people going like, oh, it’s so cool to like file my taxes in August.

[00:15:00] OG: It’s so awesome. Uh, don’t worry, I have an extension. It’s be, it’ll be fine. I, I like totally do it later. Stop, like do your frigging taxes now. Like get it over with like, don’t.

[00:15:12] Joe: Extensions are 20, 25. We’re kicking extensions,

[00:15:15] OG: I mean, to

[00:15:15] Joe: the curb.

[00:15:16] OG: I can add that into the list, but

[00:15:18] Jesse: that was a really good fashion voice.

[00:15:20] Jesse: Og,

[00:15:20] OG: did you

[00:15:20] Jesse: like that? You do that more frequently, please.

[00:15:22] OG: Yes, I will. The entire show from every show from now on, we’ll be like that. But I don’t know. I mean, I get it. Like there’s some things you have to wait for, right? You can’t, some documents don’t come or whatever. It is what it is. But if you’re just one of those people that is procrastinating for no reason to procrastinate, like, don’t get that stuff in CPAs over overwhelmed.

[00:15:40] OG: Don’t dump it on ’em on April 9th and expect to get your refund, your your return done. Get done.

[00:15:46] Joe: Jesse OG laid down a few of the things, but when you were thinking 2026 is the year of reviewing your taxes, what was on your mind there?

[00:15:55] Jesse: I mean, just, here we are. We’re a bunch of finance nerds, right? I mean that’s, that’s why we’re all here talking.

[00:16:00] Jesse: That’s why the stackers are here listening. If you’re really gonna be a personal finance nerd, at least having a finger on the pulse of your taxes is, is gonna be a pretty important skill. And so simply like, you know, if you can look over your 10 40 tax return when it comes back to you and go through it line by line and, and convince yourself, you understand what’s going on there, I think that’s a terrific, a terrific little arrow to have in your personal financial planning quiver.

[00:16:26] Jesse: And yeah, and, and part of it is because of some of these new changes, like some of the ones that OG mentioned, and sometimes it’s just to convince yourself that you understand how those numbers flow through your tax return. So that’s all I was saying. I think it’s the kind of thing that most people. They can learn a lot about personal finance, their budget’s under control.

[00:16:42] Jesse: They know what’s going on in their portfolio, and taxes tend to be maybe one of the later things, if ever, like Paula said, like it’s probably never gonna be in Vogue. So some people just never really get a handle on it, and I think that’s just so unfashionable now. I think fashion is changing. Taxes are changing.

[00:16:56] Jesse: Taxes are in this

[00:16:57] Joe: year. Taxes are cool. Well, tax avoidance is cool, right? Not paying a lot of tax

[00:17:02] Jesse: in some jurisdictions. It’s pretty cool.

[00:17:05] Joe: Some jurisdictions more than others. It’s funny because some people, Paula, I know get intimidated by all this tax talk, right? Mm-hmm. Especially if they’re new to this idea.

[00:17:13] Joe: When did you start getting comfortable with diving into what Jesse and OG have been talking about? You’ve been talking about now, how do you start getting comfortable with, okay, here’s some tax moves that could be in vogue for me in 2026?

[00:17:27] Paula: There are tax moves that you make throughout the year, but then there’s also just the doing the tax, the filing, the taxes, right?

[00:17:32] Paula: So the tax moves throughout the year. I like to think of it as a game. Back to a Roth contributions maxing out your HSA, I mean like it’s like playing a game and scoring a few extra points here and there. I think if you frame it in that regard where like, let’s see how close I can get to hitting the max.

[00:17:48] Paula: Let’s see how close I can get to X or Y or Z. I think that makes those moves throughout the year more engaging and more fun. But then there’s the administrative component, which I really struggle with a lot. It’s the gathering and organizing paperwork. And I don’t have a great solution for that because it truly, if you’re a very distractible person as I am, paperwork is sort of the bane of my existence.

[00:18:14] Paula: What I do, I’ll give myself a deadline. I will typically dedicate a weekend day. I don’t try to fit it into the crevices. I’ll give myself a full day and that’s just what I’m doing that day. And I try to anchor that day with like maybe a nice dinner out at the end of the day or something like that. But like it’s just one day of.

[00:18:35] Joe: Hell,

[00:18:35] Paula: hell yeah. One day of hell. And, and you, you rip the bandaid off. You swallow the medicine. You’re done.

[00:18:41] Doug: You’ve used all of the most disgusting analogies in that. Paula, can I just urge you to rethink how you’re framing that discussion? Because band-aids and crevices, no

[00:18:54] Paula: knock, go down

[00:18:54] Doug: making taxes sound as bad as they are.

[00:18:57] Joe: You know what’s funny? I found a different way that I solved this, Paula. ’cause I always hate that day. Mm-hmm. Like, I’ve always hated the one day where I’m really diving in there. So what I did, uh, the last few years is picked one day a month and just went through it for like an hour one day a month. And then when I got to January, it was almost all done.

[00:19:19] Joe: Like everything was was already in place and I didn’t have, oh my God, I loved it so much. Mm. It was, it was a, a fun way to handle it, but I’m like, you, I don’t wanna do it. I don’t want anything to do with all this paperwork and stuff. Oh, yuck. Og. Let’s talk finance and fashion. What was 2025 that we need to kick to the curb?

[00:19:41] OG: It was so hot last year. Lifestyle creep, spending willy-nilly. Doug’s got his will. Nevermind. I can’t say that. Nope. It’s a live show. Better be careful.

[00:19:58] Doug: DoorDash was off the hook.

[00:19:59] OG: Oh, I mean, it was, it was just, who cares what the categories say in Monarch. I’ll just spend as I want, do this, do that. It was so awesome, but not in 2026.

[00:20:12] Joe: We’ll get back to your 2026 solution. But, uh, Jesse, did you feel the income or the expense creep monster in 2025? All this fashionista. It’s so cool to spend. I

[00:20:24] Jesse: mean, maybe a tiny bit on a personal level, but at least on the anecdotal level. Yeah. And this, this is bordering on one of my fashion notes that I took down in my, my pre-show thinking session was the, the anecdotal thought is that, yeah, it just seems like a lot of people are, uh, a lot of people are spending a lot of money and, and some of the stories you hear from the personal finance community is, you know, Hey man, 600,000 isn’t what it once used to be.

[00:20:48] Jesse: I’m barely making ends meet. Damn. Right. And like, I think of that, I’m like, man, I, I know some cities are more expensive than others for sure. Don’t get me wrong. But that’s still a lot of money. Anyway, you cut the cake. So, um. I think, uh, OGs, honestly, you gotta some

[00:21:00] OG: taxes on top of that.

[00:21:02] Joe: I just think about, I saw your lovely holiday pictures that you had with your family, and I just think that as your daughter gets older, I don’t know for you, Doug did for me, I felt like spending got outta control.

[00:21:13] Joe: My kids turned like seven, eight. Just all of a sudden, sudden I’m on this rocket ship. Those are the

[00:21:18] Doug: rough years. Absolutely. Kind of early grade school through kind of mid high school. It gets rough in there. Tough to, and it’s, and talk about creep. I was just thinking about this during the holiday seasons with that, because when the kids are young, you feel like you wanna fill up under the tree because of the joy that you see on their faces when they’ve got all that stuff.

[00:21:36] Doug: And those gifts are usually a little, or can be a little less expensive, but as they get older to fill them up under the tree, the gifts get more expensive. And we finally just dialed it back this year. I mean, the, it, the creep that happens when, uh, kids are are young, oh, I should rephrase that. Um, the spending.

[00:21:54] Doug: The spending. There you go. Like a

[00:21:57] OG: Simpsons episode. I just saw. Pretty,

[00:21:59] Joe: thank you.

[00:22:00] Doug: It’s pretty easy to happen when the kids are I’m gonna just stop talking now. Please, please do. See, I’ll throw it over to you. Please

[00:22:05] Joe: do. I wanna keep a clean rating on this one. Paula, there’s another thing that was, so 2025, I mean.

[00:22:11] Joe: Living in New York City and when I came to visit you just over a year ago, like just the cost of going to a restaurant, we went to a cool restaurant. We went to a nice little, like relaxed, uh, club afterwards. That was, it was really fun.

[00:22:26] Paula: Oh yeah. The, the Brandy Library.

[00:22:27] Joe: Yeah. But the cost of living in the city and enjoying yourself, that can be some lifestyle creep really fast.

[00:22:35] Paula: It can be. New York specifically is a funny bird because most people don’t own a car. And if you primarily use public transit, then your transportation costs are almost nothing. And I think that, you know, for a lot of people, especially people who live in major cities. Where the cost of housing is high, but you are still required to own a car because it’s still a car dependent place.

[00:22:57] Paula: Those people get hit, they get the one-two punch of high housing costs and high transportation costs. Whereas in New York, you get the high housing costs and restaurants and groceries and things like that are a bit, a bit more than, certainly than what you would find in Texarkana. But you do get that relief with transit.

[00:23:15] Paula: So it, I think it balances out

[00:23:17] Joe: some. Yeah. I mean, especially if you’ll take the subway or the bus. Mm-hmm. Which I remember you found that out fairly early on, that like Uber will eat, you live in New York City.

[00:23:27] Paula: Yeah. I love the bus. It’s like an Uber, but for $3, it’s like a $3 Uber that takes you anywhere you wanna go.

[00:23:35] Paula: Um, but I say that only because buses are so, like, there’s so many of ’em. You can get ’em so quickly, like they’re pretty much as efficient as taking an Uber. So there’s a big time trade off there. Yeah. And again, I think that’s where the, the discrepancy between New York and other cities comes in.

[00:23:51] Joe: Yeah.

[00:23:52] Joe: That’s interesting.

[00:23:53] Paula: Yeah.

[00:23:53] Joe: So og, that’s 2025. Keeping up with the Jones’ spend to spend, spend, spend, spend. What’s the hot new fashion you’re introducing for 2026?

[00:24:03] OG: Oh, the 2026 new line of spending is, uh, very, very, very sexy. It’s spending on purpose

[00:24:10] Joe: what

[00:24:10] OG: it’s, uh, paying attention to every dollar for a little bit of time.

[00:24:14] OG: We just had a, this discussion at our house. We are gonna test out. I will report back, but we are gonna test out if we want to have a night out, we have to go get the food. So no delivery. You have to pick it up yourself. You know, I already know social media is the devil, but I’m pretty close to saying DoorDash and Uber Eats are the devil.

[00:24:35] OG: Also. I

[00:24:36] Joe: think so too.

[00:24:36] Doug: Og I’m not clear, is spending on purpose high wasted because I look great in those. In the high wasted.

[00:24:43] OG: Uh, it can be. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you can get him tailored however you want.

[00:24:46] Joe: Yeah. We always talk about Doug getting wasted

[00:24:49] OG: high and wasted at the same time, whatever.

[00:24:52] Jesse: Yeah. I, I, I also had a clarification for og ’cause it sounded like he was saying, he said.

[00:24:56] Jesse: When you wanna have a night out, you have to go pick up your food. So do you guys consider driving to a restaurant to pick up food? Is that a night out? Like is that your social take

[00:25:05] OG: out? No, I’m saying

[00:25:05] Jesse: like a fun social activity.

[00:25:07] OG: No, no, no, no, no. I’m saying

[00:25:09] Jesse: like, we’re gonna drive the Chili’s. It’s a night out.

[00:25:10] OG: I mean,

[00:25:11] Jesse: then we’ll drive back home five minutes later,

[00:25:12] OG: drive back home. No, I’m saying like just eliminating the food delivery stuff, you know? ’cause the markup and like how bad do you want it? Yeah. How bad.

[00:25:20] Jesse: Have you ever tried public bus eats? It’s not Uber Eats, it’s public bus eats.

[00:25:25] OG: You just get your food and ride around on a $3 bus.

[00:25:27] Jesse: Some random person on a bus drops off food at your house like 90 minutes later.

[00:25:31] OG: Yeah. We don’t have the service.

[00:25:32] Joe: In all seriousness. Have you had somebody do that to you on a plane where they get in with, apparently they ran through the airport at the last minute. They’d grab McDonald’s. They’re

[00:25:40] OG: like sardines.

[00:25:40] OG: Of course.

[00:25:41] Joe: Yes. And then they, they write, then they sit down right next to you.

[00:25:45] OG: I mean, that doesn’t really happen to me when I fly, but,

[00:25:48] Joe: right. Of course. Of course. We’re not gonna hear about that from OG Doug. We’re not gonna hear about change of. Habits when he’s, uh, when he’s riding around in his plane.

[00:25:57] OG: Transportation costs are a little extreme. I will, I will cop to that.

[00:26:01] Joe: Oh, Andy Baum says, DoorDash is definitely a budget buster. My husband door dashing ice cream. Can you imagine door dashing ice cream?

[00:26:08] OG: Well, I was telling you guys a couple of, uh, months ago, we are just outside the range of the drone delivery.

[00:26:15] OG: There’s a place up north of us and it’s just kind of moving further south and you know, in terms of its range. At my friend’s house just north of us, we did air deliver ice cream and it was still cold. It came in like a little cooler thing and it was like nine minutes. It was less time to get it via that than it was to like actually go out and get it.

[00:26:34] OG: But I think it was like, you know, whatever, $50 or something stupid to get like a bunch of little ice cream things for all the people at the party. So that’s the point. It’s like the convenience of it is I’m challenging the convenience factor versus the exponential cost increase. How bad do you want the ice cream?

[00:26:53] OG: Like I’m not saying that you can’t go get $50 ice cream. I’m saying if you’re gonna go get $50 ice cream, like

[00:26:57] Joe: go get

[00:26:58] OG: it. Go get your ass some $50 ice cream.

[00:27:00] Joe: Yeah, yeah. Nope. The challenge is in having to put on pants

[00:27:04] OG: and then bring it back home and

[00:27:05] Joe: go get it.

[00:27:06] OG: At least go through it. Drive through on your own.

[00:27:08] OG: Wear slippers. It’s okay.

[00:27:10] Joe: Kevin Bailey, who is the amazing writer of our 2 0 1 hanging out with us live on YouTube, along with, uh, some other fun stackers and he said, these are the newest fashion moves. Sign up for the 2 0 1 newsletter. Its writer is so hot right now. Said. The writer, check out the SB Vault to get your financial house in order.

[00:27:27] Joe: Check out the Stacky Benjamins guides. That’s 2026 right there. You know what else is 20, 26 guys at the halfway point. This was 2025 too. We transitioned to our year long trivia competition, but this year we got some changes. We are changing up the game a little bit. We’ve been doing this game now since 2013 ish, I think 2013, 2014, time for a change.

[00:27:52] Joe: And so the rules committee, AK Neighbor, Doug, and I got together and we have come up with some changes to the competition. So if you’re new here, we have a year long trivia competition where we ask our panelists a ridiculous question that you will never most. Always never know the answer to. Sometimes they get it, but usually they don’t.

[00:28:14] Joe: And then whoever’s closest gets the point for the week. And at the end of the year, we award a trophy. Jesse is our reigning champion. Oh, gee’s. Been a champion a number of years. Paula is someday. Someday.

[00:28:25] Paula: How I been doing this since 2013 and have never won once? Is that,

[00:28:30] Joe: I have

[00:28:30] Paula: no idea. I think that might, if any longtime listeners know otherwise, but I think that might be the case.

[00:28:35] Joe: This is like the Boston. Remember how the Boston Red Sox had that curse forever? The curse of the babe. It’s like maybe when Greg McFarland left the show a long time ago, he cursed you. Paula. I don’t know. Like something, who knows? Have I

[00:28:48] Paula: lost for 13 consecutive years? Oh, I guess it would’ve been 12 consecutive years.

[00:28:52] Paula: This would be lucky. 13. Your

[00:28:53] Doug: resilience is inspiring.

[00:28:55] Joe: Really? This is Alright. So those rules stay intact. We’re still going to have. Paula will get to guess last today because she finished last, last year. OG will go in the middle and, uh, Jesse has to guess first, but we have a couple of changes. We had a half point last year because Jesse and Paula were on both sides of the number.

[00:29:17] Joe: We didn’t have a rule, so we called it half a point each. There will be no half points in 2026. In the case of a tie, we’re going to price his right rules, which is the one that was under It wins. Paul,

[00:29:32] Doug: close this without going over.

[00:29:33] Joe: Yes.

[00:29:33] Paula: First of all, I’m flattered that new legislation has been passed due to me and Jesse.

[00:29:38] Paula: That’s, that’s a first. I have never, I have never triggered that before. However, now that this new legislation is passed, it is subject to judicial review and I have a question as to how strict the interpretation is. Is it because the rule is, you know, are we going by the letter of the law or the spirit of the law?

[00:29:56] Paula: I don’t what

[00:29:57] Doug: you make case by case basis and I’ll decide when we get there. ‘

[00:30:00] Paula: cause the rule is no half point. The rule is not no fractional point.

[00:30:07] Jesse: I’ll give you two thirds of a point here. Paula. Let me have a last third.

[00:30:11] Paula: No, I’ll give move on. I’ll give you, I would like to donate to you two thirds

[00:30:14] Joe: of a point.

[00:30:14] Joe: You cannot gift points. No zero. You cannot. What the hell is going on here?

[00:30:18] Jesse: I also had a different memory I thought the half point had to do with you guys getting the answer wrong.

[00:30:24] Joe: Easy

[00:30:24] Jesse: thinking that Paula got it right live and then after the fact realizing that I got it right.

[00:30:28] Joe: That is,

[00:30:29] Paula: I agree.

[00:30:29] Joe: That is a horrible, probably wrong.

[00:30:32] Joe: It’s

[00:30:32] Jesse: a fake news.

[00:30:33] Joe: I would say it’s probably wrong. I agree

[00:30:35] Paula: with Jesse.

[00:30:36] Joe: I can’t imagine a world where we would get the trivia. Thing wrong, Perry, Joe Jimbob said we should just give everybody a participation award. Why don’t we do that? We just skip the segment all year, all year long. Uh, we have another rule though.

[00:30:49] Joe: This is the big rule change this year. Each of you are going to get once a quarter you can send a margin call out. So a margin call for those of you new to stocks is where you get this call from your broker going, Hey, guess what? You gotta pony up some money. Well, in this case, you’re ponying up part of your stack.

[00:31:08] Joe: You are ponying up part of your point. So you have to have margin call against somebody who has a point. That is rule number one. They have to have a positive point value. Then as Doug’s reading the question, the first person to say margin call and you have to have one available. So you can say it right in the middle of Doug’s question.

[00:31:27] Joe: Margin call will stop the question. You will say who the margin call is going to be against. And if that person doesn’t win, they lose a point that week. But if they do get it right and you put pressure on them, you lose a point that week. And that is how the margin call works. Use it carefully because you only get one per quarter.

[00:31:50] Joe: Don’t wait till the last week because of all three of you’re screaming at once. It’s just gonna be whoever the first person is that we hear. And obviously Doug and I are gonna decide who we heard first,

[00:31:59] Doug: or the one who has pissed us off the least.

[00:32:04] Joe: So margin calls, we’re gonna have some margin calls there, so there will be no margin calls today ’cause nobody has a point yet.

[00:32:10] Joe: So maybe next week, whoever gets it right this week could have a margin call against them to have that point taken back again, uh, next week. So we’ll see what happens with those new rules in effect. But for week number one, we’re gonna get the show on the road. We need a trivia question. And Doug, you’ve got some big doings today.

[00:32:28] Joe: We’re celebrating a birthday.

[00:32:29] Doug: We sure are. And a whole musical movement. Joe, Hey there, stackers. I’m Joe’s Mobs neighbor Duggan. I know all of you wait for the sweet sounds of my Maif Lewis tenor during trivia every Friday, which is why today we’re celebrating the birthday of Jazz and Soul Singer Sharday, born in 1959.

[00:32:48] Doug: She’s known for Benjamin Stacking hits like Smooth Operator and no Ordinary Love, both of which I’m said to have inspired today. Also, marks another Jazz Meets Money Day in history for the first time. Benny Goodman brought jazz to Carnegie Hall while today Jazz is known as a classic sound in music. Back when the idea of performing at Carnegie Hall was introduced, Goodman laughed it off.

[00:33:15] Doug: He thought they’re never gonna let that happen. So here’s today’s question. In what year did Benny Goodman bring his jazz concert to Carnegie Hall for the first time? I’ll be back right after I go fire up some charade on Joe’s mom’s record player.

[00:33:30] Joe: Oh, I love the old crackly sound of the record player.

[00:33:33] Joe: Jesse Kramer. Benny Goodman at Carnegie Hall. I know that, uh, that’s Benny Goodman your favorite. You listen to Benny Goodman nonstop on Spotify, I’m sure.

[00:33:45] Jesse: Right? I I feel like I know some, like old Jazzy people. I’m not sure I know Benny Goodman. I feel so that’s where I think to myself is, is is Benny Goodman from before my time.

[00:33:58] Jesse: Or before the time of the people who I do know, you know, like the Louis Armstrong types. So I’m gonna say, uh, Benny Goodman’s so old, I’ve never heard of him. And therefore the year was 1924.

[00:34:12] Joe: 1924. If my pen worked, I’d write it down.

[00:34:17] Jesse: I also didn’t know that’s how you pronounce Sharday. Is that like a silent R, isn’t it?

[00:34:21] Jesse: Oh, it is. Okay.

[00:34:22] Joe: It is, absolutely.

[00:34:24] Jesse: Yep. Never knew that.

[00:34:25] OG: Sad. Get it, get it right,

[00:34:27] Jesse: right. Sadie

[00:34:30] Joe: 1924, og. If we wanna pronounce it s, we should probably pronounce it. Og. What year did Benny Goodman play Carnegie Hall?

[00:34:40] OG: Well, I think there’s some nuance here. Carnegie Hall was named after John Carnegie, who didn’t die until 1930.

[00:34:49] OG: Something like during the depression sometime. So I doubt they would’ve named something for him while he was alive. You know, like the Kennedy Center. It’s weird that they’re renaming it, but like, guy still alive. Okay, let’s

[00:35:08] Doug: keep going.

[00:35:09] OG: I didn’t, it doesn’t happen very often is what I guess I’m saying. So I don’t like 1924, but I gotta give Paula something to work with here.

[00:35:19] OG: So I’m gonna say, uh, 1939, slightly after John’s death is when, you know, we’re still bebopping. It’s maybe the beginning of, uh, still roaring twenties music still, but old Johnny boy still, still warm in the ground and they, uh, they just named it that. And here comes, what’d you guys say? The guy, the guy’s name was

[00:35:42] Joe: Benny Goodman.

[00:35:44] OG: Benny, yeah.

[00:35:45] Joe: Benny Goodman.

[00:35:45] OG: He shows up in 1939.

[00:35:46] Joe: Orchestra. All right, Paula, you’ve got 1924 and 1939. You’re a big Benny Goodman fan.

[00:35:54] Paula: Yeah. Yeah, I definitely know who that is. You know, when I first heard the question, even before Jesse gave his answer, the number that popped into my head was 1923. I think the reason it popped into my head was because I was sort of imagining like beginning of the roaring twenties, you know, before the great crash of 1929, before all of that began.

[00:36:19] Paula: That just seemed like a, a good time to go out and listen to some music. So I’m gonna go with 19 23,

[00:36:26] Joe: 23. She takes the under.

[00:36:28] Jesse: Do you wanna follow your gut this year, Paula?

[00:36:31] Paula: I know, right?

[00:36:36] Joe: 13 years of, of Follower Gut. What could go wrong, Jesse? What could go wrong? I’m saying no idea. All right. The ballots have been cast. Let’s see who wins this thing right after this. All right. We kicked off our first week of trivia with a question about the Benny Goodman, who Jesse, I know is your favorite of all time.

[00:37:02] Joe: 1924 was the year. You’re feeling pretty good now that Paula took away the under.

[00:37:08] Jesse: No. Yeah, I mean, I wasn’t feeling great before. Now. I’m feeling about half as not great as I was. Not half of my chance is gone. I also, well, I’ll, I’ll save my second point until we find out what the answer is. I’ve got a concern, but we’ll go, we’ll go for the, uh, I’ll wait for the end.

[00:37:24] OG: You don’t think it was named after John Carnegie who died in 1930 something?

[00:37:28] Jesse: I was just gonna say, I, I had some questions about that one.

[00:37:33] Joe: I think that was all made

[00:37:34] OG: up. I said it was such confidence though, Jesse.

[00:37:36] Jesse: Correct? Correct. So now if OG ends up being right for all those stupid reasons, I’m gonna protest this entire year

[00:37:44] Joe: because he made up all his facts.

[00:37:47] Jesse: Yeah, it’s right. It’s Andrew Carnegie.

[00:37:49] OG: No, it’s his long lost brother John. I’m telling you. Oh, Johnny boy. He couldn’t remember what the guy’s first name was. He broke

[00:37:56] Jesse: bus around New York City. They named the hall after him.

[00:37:59] Joe: Uh, OG 1939. Feeling good. Not

[00:38:03] OG: in the least bit.

[00:38:05] Joe: No, I, and then Paula, Paula’s a big fan.

[00:38:08] Joe: I do know that Benny Goodman, he was known, uh, to play the clarinet, right? I think he played back when clarinet was a thing in, uh, these jazz music clubs. I mean, don’t get me wrong, clarinet iss still a thing, but he was like leading songs with a clarinet. Right. Doug? Doug, he was the original nerd with a clarinet.

[00:38:25] Joe: Yeah.

[00:38:26] Paula: Hmm. Wow.

[00:38:27] Joe: Hot take. Uh,

[00:38:27] Paula: I have a question. Will the winner of this year’s competition get a cake?

[00:38:32] Joe: I don’t know. You know what’s funny is that, uh, we did not talk to Eric who donated the cake in previous years until this last year was over. So Jesse, uh, J Eric hit

[00:38:43] Doug: me up, man.

[00:38:43] Joe: Jesse kind of got, Jesse didn’t get a cake.

[00:38:45] Joe: It’s like, wait, there was cake. Oh,

[00:38:46] OG: man. You missed out, bro. Those were great.

[00:38:48] Joe: Yeah. So I don’t know if, if Eric or somebody else’s listening that wants to donate a cake this year, we can put that on the table as well, or whatever else you might have for, you know what goes

[00:38:57] Jesse: well with Cake is a nice, tight fitting pair of Levi Jeans.

[00:39:02] Paula: I thought you were gonna say DoorDash ice cream.

[00:39:05] Jesse: That too.

[00:39:06] Joe: All the above, all

[00:39:07] Jesse: drone cream.

[00:39:09] Joe: Paula, you feeling good with 1923?

[00:39:12] Paula: I am. I am feeling good at

[00:39:13] Joe: 1923.

[00:39:14] Paula: Your

[00:39:14] Joe: gut was right. Why not trust your gut? Who cares if you, even if it hasn’t worked for this long, who cares?

[00:39:21] Paula: Just probabilistically Random chance says that at some point.

[00:39:25] Joe: At some point. Right. By the way, Andrea hanging out with us, the cake is a. I don’t know if everybody knows that reference, but great reference. Well done.

[00:39:32] OG: Well done. Andrew. Take is a lie deed.

[00:39:34] Joe: Alright, Doug, who’s taking home the week one? Trophy for this year’s competition.

[00:39:46] Doug: Hey there, stackers. I’m Sharday Appreciator and Smooth operator, Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, to celebrate Shar day’s birthday and those smooth jazz sounds we’re talking about the date when jazz legend Benny Goodman brought his jazz orchestra to Carnegie Hall, a place that until that day it had seemed ludicrous that the now iconic musical sound would be played in that hallowed hall.

[00:40:10] Doug: However. It was a huge hit. And now jazz is considered cultured music, a big change from those times. So what year did Benny Goodman first play Carnegie Hall? Well, I’m not gonna tell you the answer straight up, but I will tell you it was 15 years after August margin. Paul,

[00:40:30] OG: this should have been written into the rules. Doug has to have a new way of saying who wins. This is so 2025.

[00:40:38] Doug: It was 14 years after Jesse Guest and just one year sooner than OG Guest because the correct answer is 1938, making OG our winner.

[00:40:49] Jesse: John Carnegie gets that point, not og. Oh,

[00:40:52] OG: Johnny. Johnny C is, does he like to be called back in the day?

[00:40:55] Doug: Was that right? Right after he died,

[00:40:57] Joe: og,

[00:40:57] OG: he was still warm in the ground when they finally named it after him.

[00:41:00] Joe: He fictitious person. Passed away. Hey, Paula. The, I mean

[00:41:06] OG: wild as, yes.

[00:41:07] Paula: It’s a warmup. That’s all right. This is a warmup.

[00:41:09] Joe: The good news is next week you can march and call og ’cause he has a point.

[00:41:12] Jesse: Boom.

[00:41:13] Joe: So there, there, there it goes. It’s a setup

[00:41:15] Jesse: og.

[00:41:17] Joe: Alright, back to our discussion about fashion week and let’s go in reverse order this time. Og, you went last, last time. So let’s have you go first kick off the second half of this discussion. What was another thing that was super 2025 that we wanna kick to the curb?

[00:41:33] OG: Mm, super 2025 as it relates to money is just looking at one area or focusing on one thing as it relates to your overall financial picture, I think is, so 2025, whether it’s taxes, whether it’s your investments. Just focusing on one thing. It’s just so old. Get over it.

[00:41:53] Joe: Paula, you and I had this discussion earlier today, people being so myopic, just really we nerd out so much, especially financial nerds in one area that we don’t think we know enough and yet if we broaden the view a little bit, we could do much, much better.

[00:42:07] Paula: Yeah, there are definitely a lot of instances of the tax tail wagging the decision dog. Uh, there are a lot of instances of people getting so hung up on, let’s say, asset allocation, that they’re not thinking about making more contributions. You can overfocus on some element of financial planning and miss the forest for the trees.

[00:42:25] Joe: Why do you think that is, Jesse? Do you think it’s because we tend to focus on what we’re good at or we think it’s overwhelming so we just pick one? Why do you think we do exactly what OG ISS talking about?

[00:42:35] Jesse: Well, I think one way to answer the question is just, ’cause like investing is the cool, sexy thing.

[00:42:38] Jesse: Talking about fashion, like investing is Victoria’s Secret and you know, who doesn’t get nearly as much press as Victoria’s Secret is like darn tough socks. They’re not nearly as cool as Victoria’s Secret, but a good pair of socks, you know, you know what I’m saying? Doug, you know what darn tough socks are?

[00:42:53] Jesse: Mr. Uh, Northern Michigan. Do you have a pair? Oh, I’m wearing some right now. That’s

[00:42:57] Doug: a fine product.

[00:42:59] Joe: And don’t get me wrong, it’s not that Doug isn’t wearing Victoria’s Secret too.

[00:43:02] Jesse: Correct? You can have both. And that is, that is the message here is you can wear your, you know, negligence and have thick woolly socks on at the same time.

[00:43:12] Jesse: In fact, some would say it’s a better experience that way. I digress. Now, I, I had a listener question. This made me think of a li listener question I just got, and the, it’s really simple, is a portfolio and a financial plan the same. Like, what a good question. But part of it is like when, when most of us say the term financial planning, it’s like, right.

[00:43:29] Jesse: A lot of the population probably don’t even really know what that means,

[00:43:33] Joe: right?

[00:43:34] Jesse: So sometimes it’s just going back to that basics. The building blocks the foundation and explaining what we mean when we say things like that.

[00:43:40] Joe: How many times have we heard people say in the community just say, I don’t think I need a financial planner because I buy index funds.

[00:43:47] Jesse: Right?

[00:43:47] Joe: Like, you’re like, you’re, you’re dealing with one little sliver of what a financial plan is. I think that’s pretty wild. So og how do we make it all dovetail in 2026 then? How do we get more big picture in 2026?

[00:44:00] OG: I, I’m just going back to darn tough socks. I need to Google that.

[00:44:05] Jesse: Yeah, maybe they can be a

[00:44:06] Joe: sponsor and when you do, you will buy some,

[00:44:08] OG: I don’t know.

[00:44:09] OG: I like Bombas. I’ve got Bombas

[00:44:11] Jesse: another, they’re good

[00:44:11] Joe: option. I got Smart wool. I’m a big smart guy.

[00:44:14] OG: I did Smart Wolves for a while too. I’ve Quince Quince. Yep. Everybody. It’s all the rage. Um. So the question was, what’s 2026? 2026 is, uh, you know, layers. It’s layers. It’s, it’s not just all quince. Mm-hmm. It’s a little re it’s a little bombas.

[00:44:30] OG: It’s a little bit darn tough. It’s a little quince. It’s like, uh, you know, putting a little bit of everything on. It’s paying attention to all the different areas, even the not sexy ones, like your freaking estate plan or your stupid insurance, or, oh, cash reserve, blah. Or maybe pay off your debt. You know, or those sorts of things.

[00:44:50] Joe: Some financial planners, og, and maybe you were the one that even told me this. They will, during their client meetings, focus on one of the areas of financial planning and like, make time for each one. Is, is it, was that you talking about that?

[00:45:03] OG: Yeah. Yeah. That’s what we do in our planning process for clients is, you know, the CFP board says there’s six different areas.

[00:45:10] OG: Seven, if you count behavior, which okay, fine, whatever, but six main ones in my opinion, and I think it’s important to allocate time to each one of those, even if it’s nothing more than just going, yeah, I looked at it like Paula was, or Jesse, maybe you’re talking about with taxes, like going through it and going, okay, this is right, this is right.

[00:45:26] OG: This is good, this, okay. All right. I’m good on insurance. It’s making sure that you got the right amounts and the beneficiaries are correct. If you go through each one of those every six months or one of those every six months, it takes you three years to go through the cycle. There’s a lot of stuff that can happen in three years.

[00:45:43] OG: I mean, there’s, there’s a lot of changes that can happen over the next, I mean, in three years from now, we’ll be in the last year before 2030. Right.

[00:45:51] Joe: Shut up.

[00:45:51] OG: Yeah. How about that? Keep that to yourself. Back your pipe and smoke it.

[00:45:54] Joe: Wow. Just imagine though if you said every year of your financial plan, I check every three years, which sounds kind of complicated, you know, it’s almost like Paula making the day for your taxes because you hate doing it.

[00:46:05] Joe: How often do you wanna talk about your estate planning? If you just do it once every three years? Yeah. By making it part of this cycle. Mm-hmm. Now estate planning taken care of. Pretty cool.

[00:46:14] OG: And read it. When was the last time you read your estate plan?

[00:46:17] Joe: Uh, every night when I’m trying to get to sleep.

[00:46:20] OG: Yeah, exactly.

[00:46:22] Joe: It is so thrilling. Jesse, let’s kick something else from 2025 to the curb. What’s next on your list?

[00:46:29] Jesse: So, uh, speaking of hot things, I think, you know, we’ve, we’ve had some pretty hot years in terms of comfortable employment numbers and really supportive capital markets. Inflation’s coming down. We’ve had reasonably low interest rates in the historical sense.

[00:46:44] Jesse: And while I, I don’t know if this is gonna go outta style in 2026 or not, but I, I’m preparing for the day when some of those things start to go outta style. Everything goes outta style, eventually, including some economic things. So yes, that hotness will eventually end. And just like, you know, hey, I’m high school class of 2008.

[00:47:02] Jesse: There was a time when I know that,

[00:47:03] OG: wait, hold up.

[00:47:04] Jesse: Wait,

[00:47:04] OG: what?

[00:47:04] Jesse: Yep. High school class of 2008.

[00:47:07] OG: Oh my God.

[00:47:08] Jesse: Yeah. What were you guys doing in 2008 other than, you know, applying for a a RP?

[00:47:13] Joe: Oh my

[00:47:13] Jesse: God. I was high school class of 2008. I didn’t say

[00:47:17] Joe: anything and I keep getting,

[00:47:20] Jesse: Hey, you’re here. I’m sorry.

[00:47:22] Doug: And I hate him.

[00:47:24] Jesse: But I, I remember, you know, some of my late 2000 sisters, they were, the, the whale tails were, you know, sticking up from the back of their low wasted jeans. They thought it was a good look. I’ll be honest, I, I can be a little nostalgic for that look, but eventually everyone will be wearing a pair of pants that ends up at their rib cage with some granny panties underneath.

[00:47:43] Jesse: That’s just the way that fashion trends ebb and flow. So, uh, anyway, were, were you talking about personal finance before?

[00:47:49] Joe: I don’t even know. What is your 2025 point? Has he made one yet?

[00:47:55] Paula: I think wide leg jeans,

[00:47:56] Jesse: sometimes bull markets will end, sometimes our wonderful job numbers end up, we enter a recession, right?

[00:48:03] Jesse: We have negative GDP, we have bad job numbers, inflation can go up. And my point is that we’ve all, in my opinion, a lot of people have got complacent with how wonderful maybe the stock market has been for the past few years. And, and I’m just saying that will go outta style eventually. I don’t know when, but it will go outta style eventually, even if only temporarily.

[00:48:24] Jesse: And I want, uh, our stackers to be prepared, prepared for that eventuality.

[00:48:29] Joe: It’s pretty wild, Paula. I mean, just to think that so too, this must end, and yet whenever it does, we always seem to be so damn surprised.

[00:48:37] Paula: Generally speaking, the market goes up more years than it goes down. So just probabilistically any one random year, the market is more likely to go up.

[00:48:48] Paula: And I think when you take that and you couple it with recency bias when the market has gone up and you couple that with maybe some optimism bias, it creates a, a perfect storm for really believing that as I think some people are starting to believing that the market is a high yield savings account, which of course it is not.

[00:49:06] Joe: Is it optimism bias though, if you have a long-term view, a good thing?

[00:49:10] Paula: Yes. It, it is because you know, if you’re a permeable, you have statistical probability on your side.

[00:49:17] Joe: Yeah.

[00:49:17] Paula: Versus if, if you’re a perma bear, you don’t.

[00:49:19] Joe: Yeah. Perma bear’s gotta call their shot og. It is interesting when you look at the stock markets, I mean, how many times do you and I get asked the question, will the stock market go down?

[00:49:28] Joe: And your answer invariably is,

[00:49:30] OG: yeah,

[00:49:32] Doug: yeah.

[00:49:32] OG: It’s gonna

[00:49:33] Joe: gonna come down.

[00:49:33] OG: With all that enthusiasm I can muster.

[00:49:36] Joe: Do you think there’s a bad day coming, og? Is there a bad day coming?

[00:49:40] OG: If my back doesn’t get fixed in the next couple of hours before I go to bed, tomorrow’s gonna be a bad day.

[00:49:46] Joe: Oh, that’s not good.

[00:49:47] OG: Jesse doesn’t know this. So this is one of the benefits of getting old. Like you literally will wake up with a back spasm at five in the morning and you’re just up then that’s just when you wake up. That’s it’s time for coffee and watching the news in the weather channel because it’s, that’s the time you get to wake up

[00:50:03] Doug: and holding your breath on every inhale.

[00:50:06] OG: Yeah. Yeah. Welcome to the party pal.

[00:50:08] Joe: A friend of mine posted recently that you know, when you were a kid, you fell out of a tree or you fell off your bike and that’s how you got skinned up. Now you just woke up funny, you

[00:50:15] OG: sneezed,

[00:50:16] Joe: got outta bed too fast, you sneezed. It’s a whole, whole different world. How

[00:50:20] OG: did you pull your back out?

[00:50:21] OG: Were you rock climbing El Capitan? Oh, close. I, uh, rolled under my shoulder from my back. Yeah. Um, and I didn’t have my support pillow with me. So

[00:50:32] Joe: either that El or El Capitan. It could have been either, could have been either one. Maybe a little bit of both. Jesse, how are we, how are we solving this? What’s the big thing we’re doing in 2026?

[00:50:41] Joe: Then what’s the new and improved?

[00:50:43] Jesse: I really appreciated both what Paula and OG there said, because the answer is not to become a perma bear and, and what you said, Joe, not you, Doug. I appreciated everything you guys said. Not you, Doug, just to be clear, but mm-hmm. The answer is not to become a perma bear.

[00:50:57] Jesse: Right. It’s simply to find that maybe more of a realist position where you say, right, I invest in stocks for the long run. Not because they go up every year guaranteed, because they don’t do that. They’re not the high yield savings account that Paula mentioned, but over the long run, I believe that they’re an asset where I wanna put my long-term dollars.

[00:51:14] Jesse: So it’s just kind of tempering that permeable. Certainly not becoming a perma bear and ending up somewhere in between.

[00:51:21] Joe: How about in 2026 we’re finally gonna match the timeframe with the investment type?

[00:51:25] Jesse: Mm.

[00:51:26] Joe: That would be craziness,

[00:51:28] Jesse: wouldn’t it? I love that. Some asset liability matching.

[00:51:30] Joe: That’d be craziness.

[00:51:31] Jesse: Mm-hmm.

[00:51:32] Joe: Paula, let’s finish this off so all the models are out, you know, and then the big finale give us the big last, kicking this 2025 trend to the curb.

[00:51:45] Paula: So I think 2025 was a year of a lot of pessimism around housing and real estate, both from the buyer and the seller side. Buyers weren’t buying, which meant sellers weren’t selling, so everybody was having a bad year.

[00:52:00] Paula: People felt locked in. People who were already homeowners who bought their homes prior to 2022 felt locked into their low interest mortgage. So there’s a lack of mobility because of the lock in effect. People who wanted to sell were selling into a market where there weren’t a lot of buyers because housing prices have gone up so much.

[00:52:19] Paula: Plus the housing prices, plus the interest rates packed that one two punch, which scared a lot of buyers outta the market. So then even the sellers who wanted to sell were finding that their properties weren’t moving. Meanwhile, buyers, a lot of them felt priced out of the market because, because home prices have gone up, because interest rates are high and because there’s the expectation that interest rates are going to decrease relatively soon.

[00:52:42] Paula: So nobody wants to get the mortgage, you know, lock into a mortgage that you are just gonna have to refi in a year. So it, it was a really bad year for housing transactions.

[00:52:54] Joe: I am interested to see how you take this thing that, to me, seems pretty damn systemic. Can you turn over a new leaf? We’re gonna fix all that in 2026 because I know og, even Dave Rams.

[00:53:07] Joe: Dave Ramsey, who never talks about government programs, was like, this is an area where maybe we need the government to come in and, and, and fix it. I was like, what? What the hell? Even Ramsey saying that, uh, these big companies going in and buying tons of real estate is kind of helping the market suck.

[00:53:25] OG: Well, I mean, I certainly can’t speak intelligently about that, but I do know anecdotally some other weird things like Zillow buying their own stuff and like propping up the price and I’ve heard stories of that sort of thing. I think the answer to this is being okay with where you are, not necessarily where your neighbors are or where you think you deserve to be, because I deserve to have this thing and it’s not fair that these people got to have this experience in 2021 and I didn’t because of insert whatever reason.

[00:53:59] OG: Here you are where you are. It’s okay. You know, some people want to own houses, some don’t. Some people should own houses. Some shouldn’t. Some people should have big fancy houses. Some people should have smaller ones. There’s no right answer. There’s no, the reason that you have this hierarchy in your brain is because of you.

[00:54:19] OG: It’s not because, I mean, obviously it’s because of social pressure too, but that’s letting those things bother you. The way that you solve this is saying, I can afford a $300,000 house on today’s interest rates. Not saying, well, that’s bs I should be able to get a $600,000 house because my friend got one five years ago.

[00:54:40] OG: It’s like, okay, well that’s how it was five years ago. I, I, you know, that’s just, there was a lot of other crazy going on five years ago too, just to remind you, you know, it wasn’t all like rainbows and lollipops. It was, it was a little bit of crazy also.

[00:54:54] Joe: What’s that old Jack Welch line you’re talking about then?

[00:54:56] Joe: Face reality the way it is, not the way you wish it or hoped

[00:54:59] OG: it could be. Yeah, that’s okay. I, I don’t know that one, but, but it’s just kind of a resetting maybe of where you are and being okay with where you are. I guess. You know, there’s, trust me out of the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, there are five of us here. I guess I’m counting myself.

[00:55:14] OG: That’s good. Outta 1, 2, 3, 4. The screen’s set up a little differently on my side, so I see you guys a little different, but, and I was like, wait, am I on the screen? Am I counting myself out of the five of us? Trust me, I’ve got the FOMO more than anybody, right? Like I have a wishlist of you wouldn’t believe.

[00:55:32] OG: And in some ways that’s healthy because it gives me some drive and inspiration for the future. But too much of that can be detrimental also. And you could just have this like pity party of like, woe is me, and then you don’t get anything done.

[00:55:43] Joe: Watching on social media, all these people that are supposedly living a better life than you, and

[00:55:48] OG: half of it’s ai man.

[00:55:49] Joe: It’s like

[00:55:50] OG: there’s some funny stuff on, on with ai now I’m liking people’s creativity on comedy with ai and that is, that is making my day. So keep that coming.

[00:56:01] Joe: They’re

[00:56:01] OG: getting pretty good. Be where you are. How’s that? That’s how you solve it.

[00:56:05] Joe: Well, but Jesse, there’s some people that in 2026 they wanna buy a house and while OGs like, be okay with where you are and just don’t move when, when the system’s all locked up, how do I begin saving for what is now feels like a ginormous down payment to get that first house.

[00:56:22] Joe: If there’s no intergenerational wealth in my family?

[00:56:25] Jesse: I mean, that’s a tough question. I, I’m not sure exactly how to ans I don’t think there’s a silver bullet, right? I mean that’s the kind of question, Joe, where it’s like, it’d be nice if there was a silver bullet answer. That doesn’t sound like it. It’s kind of like someone saying, you know, how do I.

[00:56:39] Jesse: How do I really get in shape? I feel like I’m surrounded by unhealthy food choices and I’ve gained weight every year for the last, how do I get in? It’s like, well, you start eating broccoli and you start working out in Paula’s podcast studio. The the gym in her apartment.

[00:56:53] Paula: That’s,

[00:56:54] OG: yeah. Like my doctor said, my last physical in August, I was like, you know, I feel like I’m having some success, but not some success.

[00:57:01] OG: And I said, yet I need, like, what are you think? And he goes, eat more less.

[00:57:04] Jesse: Yeah.

[00:57:04] OG: I was like, what? And he’s like, eat more, less. Like, you know how you’re like, oh, I should have more of that, do that. Less, like a lot less.

[00:57:12] Jesse: Perfect. And, and the funny thing is,

[00:57:13] OG: okay,

[00:57:14] Jesse: you know, the silver bullet, it’s like if anything 2025 showed us that there maybe is a silver bullet in terms of food and diet and it’s called GLP drugs or whatever they’re, yeah, right.

[00:57:22] Jesse: GLP one, I’m not sure there’s a silver bullet here to save more money for that down payment for your house when housing prices seem to just be running away from you.

[00:57:31] Joe: Shane hanging out with us says under the 50 year mortgage. I mean, if you wanna buy a house. And you’re tired of renting. Is a 50 year mortgage a good thing then, Jesse?

[00:57:42] Jesse: I don’t think so. ’cause I remember, I don’t know if we talked about it here, but it’s like, depending on your interest rate, I think a 50 year mortgage reduces your monthly payment by like three or 4% compared to a 30 year mortgage. I don’t think a 50 year mortgage is the answer.

[00:57:55] Joe: Not that big a difference.

[00:57:56] Jesse: No.

[00:57:57] Joe: Bummer. Let’s wrap this up then, by getting Paula’s shot in the arm. You brought up something that to me sounded pretty systemic. Mm-hmm. Hey, properties aren’t moving. How are we fashioning this up to be hot? 2026.

[00:58:11] Paula: Yeah. Well, specifically I, I said that the thing of 2025 was the pessimism around it.

[00:58:16] Joe: Be optimistic about the fact that nobody’s buying houses.

[00:58:19] Paula: Well, I think so in 2026, first, there are a lot of variables that we don’t know. We, we don’t know, you know, we know that the unemployment rate is 4.6% coming into 2026, which may or may not trigger the Fed to lower interest rates. Um, you know, to have a few more rate cutting cycles. We don’t know how many more rate cutting cycles are ahead of us, or how low interest rates are gonna go.

[00:58:41] Paula: Like all of that is to be determined. Over the course of this upcoming year, we have seen some price softening in more than 40 outta the 50 major metros. You know, we don’t know if that’s going to continue. Like there are a lot of variables that we don’t know, but all of those variables point to a more buyer and bike extension, seller friendly market relative to where we were in 2025.

[00:59:05] Paula: So there’s some room for cautious optimism. But with that said, I do think to your question earlier about like what’s the solution? Is there a silver bullet? Getting creative house hacking, buy a duplex instead of a single family home, co purchase with another family, or get a roommate or slash Airbnb type of situation.

[00:59:27] Paula: You know, like those are some of the things that even back pre pandemic people were doing. But I think we’re entering an era where more people might need to do that in order to be able to get into that first home.

[00:59:40] Joe: If you think creatively, I love that part. I just really like that part. And you know what, that’s not just real estate.

[00:59:46] Joe: I think that’s a lot of your financial plan. Like when you think you can’t do something, think a little bit more creatively. What’s a way that I could, I could, I could make this happen. We got such a great year that we just kicked off today, round table. Can’t wait to see what happens with you guys in the trivia and love your suggestions for 2026.

[01:00:05] Joe: Speaking of, let’s see what’s going on with you this early week in 2026. By the way, before I ask og, we’re gonna start with you before we ask you what, uh, you got coming on this weekend, I just wanna say congratulations are in order to Mr. Og, his firm, Bannerman Wealth, he had no idea that Newsweek was doing a listing of top personal financial planning practices in the country.

[01:00:30] Joe: And, uh, OGs firm was among those top firms in the USA, so to even beyond that list. Great job.

[01:00:37] Doug: Yeah. I hope it’s okay, og. I gave them the passwords to your company files so they could look, look through and do the evaluation. Hope that was cool, but I wanted you to get the recognition.

[01:00:45] OG: Totally fine. Yeah, so many of those are, for lack of better term, pay to play.

[01:00:50] OG: And somebody had sent it to me, so it wasn’t anything that we applied for or, uh, or bought the plaque, like, buy this plaque and we’ll put you on this list. Uh, it was who, who, it was kind of a shock, I think. Doug, what did you say when I texted it to you? You say it

[01:01:05] Doug: was a, was that a coach’s poll or a writer’s poll?

[01:01:08] OG: I thought that was, that was kind of cute. But, uh, it’s a cool thing to find out. Yeah. It just goes to show that being boring and doing the right thing over a long period of time for clients pays off.

[01:01:17] Joe: So, Andrea hanging out with us here on YouTube suggested that not only do we say the award-winning. Og personal financial planning firm.

[01:01:25] Joe: But when we talk about ’em, we should also say, if you’re looking for financial help in 2026, yes, Oog can count to five. Five as well. Women, you’re

[01:01:33] OG: staring right at five different faces and wondering if one of those is yours. Trying to figure that out.

[01:01:40] Joe: Uh, great job to you and Anna and the whole team. Yeah, just, uh, uh, great, great stuff.

[01:01:45] Joe: What do you got going on this weekend, man?

[01:01:47] OG: Well, it depends on what day today is.

[01:01:49] Joe: Today is the 16th.

[01:01:51] OG: Oh, well, uh, celebrating my big win on the trivia today by, uh, my wife and I are actually in, uh, the Cayman Islands right now. Believe it or not. It’s gonna be weird that I transport myself there. Uh, we go every year, this time of year for, uh, food and Wine Festival that they have done there, which is.

[01:02:09] Joe: Sounds so fun.

[01:02:11] OG: A little r and r after a vacation from the vacation, kids are finally back in school.

[01:02:16] Joe: Fantastic. Jesse Kramer, personal finance for long-term investors. What’s on the docket here in early 2026?

[01:02:25] Jesse: Well, we’re coming off of a banner year in 2025. Maybe we can call that now. A bannerman year, you know, evoking excellence.

[01:02:31] Jesse: Yeah, I had a bannerman year. Yeah, in 2025, and I’m hoping to continue the momentum into 2026. Started the year with, uh, an a MA episode all about retirement topics. And then, uh, I think next week or maybe the week after, I’ve got a fun one coming out. The loose draft name is some dumb financial moves that I’m a hundred percent fine with.

[01:02:51] Jesse: Uh, wow. So that should be a fun episode too.

[01:02:52] Joe: There’s some click bait right there. Dumb financial moves on fire. I like that title.

[01:02:57] Jesse: And don’t be an idiot. Invest in meme coins.

[01:03:02] Joe: Pull a pant way to start off the new year by losing trivia again. So

[01:03:09] Paula: there’s a certain comfort in continuity

[01:03:11] Joe: There is. It’s like a warm blanket.

[01:03:13] Paula: Exactly. Cozy winter with a warm blanket. Things are familiar. Things are predictable. Life feels safe because there is that continuity.

[01:03:21] Joe: It was funny during the second half of today’s show, stacker Aaron hanging out with us. On YouTube. And by the way, if you want to hang out with us while we make the show live, come join us Monday afternoons.

[01:03:30] Joe: And if you are a subscriber to the 2 0 1, we’ll send you an email most weeks telling you when we’re going live or we try to put it in our basement Facebook group as well. But Aaron said, star getting on late. Come on Paula, you can win this year.

[01:03:43] Paula: Aw, but

[01:03:43] Joe: he, he didn’t know you’re already one behind by the time he said

[01:03:47] Paula: that.

[01:03:47] Paula: Well, that’s, that’s okay. There’s 52 weeks in a year.

[01:03:49] Joe: There’s only 51 to go.

[01:03:51] Paula: Yeah, we got some time. Well, I mean, we, I don’t think we do all fif,

[01:03:54] Doug: you know,

[01:03:55] Paula: probably at least 47 or 48

[01:03:57] Doug: ish. Yeah. Joe, when we do our rewind weeks, let’s just make sure we pick a Friday episode where Paula actually got a point like seven years ago.

[01:04:03] Joe: Do you remember what that

[01:04:04] Doug: happened? And

then it’ll

[01:04:05] Joe: remember when this happened,

[01:04:06] Doug: right?

[01:04:07] Joe: Everybody can get the warm fuzzies for our greatest hits weeks. Paula, what’s on the greatest hits of afford anything content This fine week?

[01:04:14] Paula: So we’ve got Barry Ritholtz on the show.

[01:04:17] Joe: I love that, man.

[01:04:18] Paula: Yes, Barry is incredible.

[01:04:20] Paula: So intelligent wise, um, he talks about how not to invest. So if you would like to learn what not to do, how not to invest, all the things that people get wrong, Barry is. Such a role model, one of my absolute idols in the world of financial planning, and I cannot say enough positive things about him.

[01:04:39] Paula: Absolutely brilliant guy.

[01:04:40] Joe: He was such a gentleman when I met him, and we had so much fun together. What what strikes me about him though is that you can tell. People by the people they’re surrounded with. Mm-hmm. And so many phenomenal people work for Barry Riddle. Yeah. Nick

[01:04:54] Paula: Majuli.

[01:04:55] Joe: Yeah. Nick Majuli. Josh Brown now is co CEO.

[01:04:58] Joe: Right. You’ve got all these big names that work with Barry who came up in the world under Barry. That what a, what a heck of a dude.

[01:05:06] Paula: Exactly. He’s a, a great guy who surrounds himself with great people.

[01:05:10] Joe: Yeah, fantastic. And that’s not afford anything this week. All right. We’ll link to both of those in our show notes.

[01:05:15] Joe: Kevin Will, who’s here with us today on YouTube as well. Thanks Kevin for hanging out with us and for all you do on the 2 0 1. Alright, Doug, you got it from here, man. What should we have learned on today’s episode?

[01:05:27] Doug: So, what’s stacked up on our to-do list for today? Well first take some advice from our team.

[01:05:33] Doug: While you don’t have to keep up with all of the personal finance trends, knowing a little about how to tweak your portfolio to stay current, we’ll go a long, long way. Second trivia competition. Sounds like this year’s gonna be a battle of wills between all three of these yahoos. I can’t wait to see what happens as 2026 evolves by the big lesson.

[01:05:58] Doug: Don’t tell Joe’s mom, you’re doing a trivia competition. We’ve been doing it all these years and she’s just now catching on. I had to keep muting the mic this whole time because she kept yelling downstairs. You didn’t phrase it as a question. Wrong show ma. You’re thinking of the one hosted by that sexy Ken Jennings.

[01:06:19] Doug: Thanks to the Jesse Kramer for joining us today. Listen to his personal finance for Long-Term Investors podcast. Wherever you are hearing us now. We’ll also include links in our show notes at Stacking Benjamins dot com. Thanks to Paula Pant for hanging out with us today. You’ll find her fabulous podcast of Ford, anything wherever you listen to the Finest podcast.

[01:06:40] Doug: And finally, thanks to OG for joining us. Looking for good financial planning, help from an award-winning firm. Head to Stacking Benjamins dot com slash OG for his calendar.

[01:06:52] OG: Say it again, Doug, but just a little slower this time.

[01:07:03] Doug: You’ll find out about our awesome team at Stacking Benjamins dot com, along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots. Come say hello and oh yeah, before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don’t take advice from people you don’t know.

[01:07:22] Doug: 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.

[01:07:37] ending bit: Ugh, that was so bad. It locked up my computer. Quick. Let’s get outta here before it finds the key. No, I mean it. Alright.

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