With so much emphasis placed on saving and investing throughout your working career to insure a secure and wealthy retirement, sometimes enjoying your life today can take a backseat. On today’s show, we’re joined by author Frank Legan to talk about adding humanity and the need to live your life in the moment into your financial planning. It’s all about reaching a balance between planning/saving/investing for the future with treasuring and living your life today. In short, we’re talking about choosing your investment choices – not necessarily which ETFs or funds, but the investment choices of what are your priorities in life.
We all know that we’re responsible for our financial future, but at what point do we stop viewing “investment choices” as simply picking the right stock/ETF/fund/saving account and start placing a greater focus on choosing how much time we truly spend with those we care about and not always in the pursuit if more Benjamins? Make the right investment choices that align with your values, goals, and priorities!
In our headlines segment, we look into a all-too-common recurring theme: Americans and their penchant for spending. Talk about making investment choices in the wrong way! We throw out the Haven LifeLine to Jodi in Michigan who wants our take on annuities and how they can complement Social Security later in your retirement years. Could a deferred annuity be among the right investment choices for your finances?
And Doug brings it home by throwing out some investment returns-related trivia.
FULL SHOW NOTES: https://www.stackingbenjamins.com/financial-planning-for-your-life-frank-legan-1420
Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.stackingbenjamins.com/201
Enjoy!
Our Headlines
- Americans Are Still Spending Like There’s No Tomorrow (Wall Street Journal)
Frank Legan
Big thanks to Frank Legan for joining us today. To learn more about Frank, visit FrankLegan.com. Grab yourself a copy of the book The Humanity Factor: A Heart-Driven Approach to Your Finances and Your Future
Doug’s Trivia
- When comparing the risks of two different types of investments, what is the term for the outcome you’re calculating?
Need life insurance? You could be insured in 20 minutes or less and build your family’s safety net for the future. Use StackingBenjamins.com/HavenLife to calculate how much you need and apply.
- Jodi from Michigan wants our take on fixed income and longevity annuities as a possible complement to Social Security.
Have a question for the show?
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Join Us Friday!
Tune in to our special Friday roundtable episode when we’ll talk about extremes: saving too much, spending too much, and working too hard.
Written by: Kevin Bailey
Miss our last show? Listen here: Flipping Your Way Out of Debt and Into Financial Independence
Episode transcript
In a world where overspending, debt, and keeping up with the Joneses rules us all. Where 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 friends. and delicious, like cheeseburger pizza on your diet cheat day.
It’s the Stacking Benjamins Show.
Live from Joe’s mom’s basement, it’s the Stacking
Benjamins show.
I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and today you’ll learn how to design and pursue your dreams with certified financial planner. In our headlines, some good news for once, Americans are spending like there’s no tomorrow!
Wait, what?
That’s bad news? Maybe? Anyway, well, I don’t get it, but we’ll share our thoughts.
Plus, we’ll throw out the Haven lifeline to Stacker Jody. who wants to know about the perfect pairing. You know, like, what, Cabernet to pair with a good manchiga cheese? But in our case, Jody’s asking which type of annuity best compliments Social Security. And then I’ll share some risky trivia. And now, two guys who’ve taken risks so you don’t have to, it’s Joe
and O, J J J J G!
Hey, thank you very much, Doug. I do take a risk every time I hang out with you two dudes. Hey everybody, welcome back to the Stacking Benjamins show. I’m Joe Saul Sehy. They call me the sheriff in these parts. These, uh, two inmates got out on Monday. And, uh, well, we’ve, uh, all, order’s being restored, gentlemen.
Order being restored. How
fun was that? I don’t know. We’ll, we’ll, we’ll see. You know, once all the dust settles. We’ll see what the people want. I’ve already
gotten some incredibly positive feedback about that Monday episode.
We may, uh, encourage you to go on vacation
more, Joe. I heard you guys put the F U in fun.
So
I think it’s just
absolutely fantastic. Speaking of fantastic, we got a great show today when, um, financial commentator, Michael Kitsis joined us. He talked about advisors, which, Oh gee, I love that term, you know, not advisor, but somebody actually who gives advice. uh, certified financial planner, Frank Ligon with the new book, talking about, I know singing off your song, Shidoji, goal based planning and what it means to really put together a good financial plan.
So we’re going to dive into that with Frank, but before that we get a great headline. And even before that, I have prepared 97 slides of my trip to Bali. And I thought we could start with that. What do you guys think?
Uh, yeah, why don’t you start it? I’m gonna, I’m gonna go do this real quick. And, uh, just, just don’t
wait on me.
And my house is on fire. So I’ve got to go take care of that. We’ll be,
we’ll be right back. I’m going to help Doug.
And so that’s what the men’s room looked like at the airport. Let me show you. Now we’re walking toward the gate.
Hold on. Oh, look, it’s, uh, roared up again, Doug. We should probably begin the bucket brigade.
Yeah. Can you get
your garden hose too? Need help with
that?
I guess we got to save the rest of these for later because you guys aren’t really paying attention. No, no, no, no. Email me the rest of them. Yeah,
keep going. Keep
going, man. We got Frank Ligon coming down to the basement, but first a big headline.
So let’s get started. Hello, darlings. And now it’s time for your favorite part of the show. Our Stacking Benjamins headlines. Our headline today comes to us from The Wall Street Journal and is written by Rachel Wolff. Rachel’s headline, I think, says it all. Americans are still spending like there’s no tomorrow.
As Doug insinuated at OG, this is great news. It’s news. Concerts, trips, and designer handbags taking priority over saving for a home or rainy day. Rachel writes, consumers should be spending less by now. Interest rates are up. Inflation remains high. Pandemic savings have shrunk and the labor market is cooling yet.
Household spending, the primary driver of the nation’s economic growth, remains robust. Americans spent 5. 8 percent more in August than a year earlier, while outstripping less than 4 percent inflation. The experience economy boomed this summer. Delta Airlines reporting record revenue in the second quarter.
Ticketmaster sold over 295 million event tickets in the first six months of 2023, up nearly 18 percent year over year. And, uh, you know, the cool thing about Ticketmaster is not only do you get the event, but you get the 86 service charge
on top of it. It’s only 86, that’s great. I will actually, by the end of this year, have attended two concerts, which is completely rare.
Who are you?
There are more than
two boy bands touring right now?
Oh no, it’s the same guys. It’s just different places, different venues, different venues.
It turns out that John Denver tribute bands, very big in the OG
household. That’s a damn good
show. Beach boys. They’re, they’re back. They never left.
But OG, uh, you know, this shows that we truly aren’t tracking our spending because if we, if we were tracking our spending, we would know that there’s a danger in these waters.
I just wonder how long the, the pent up demand of like, I gotta take care of me is gonna linger. You know what I mean? Like there was so much of that, like self, self righteous is gonna sound a little bit too strong, but so much of like the self righteous spending of like, you don’t understand. And it was tough during COVID for me, so therefore I need to go to Bali.
I deserve to go to Bali. I deserve to go to Bali. And you know, it’s like, okay, cool. I get it. You’re going on vacation. That’s fine. And then it’s like, no, you don’t understand. I have to go to the holiday markets. I deserve to go to the holiday markets. It’s like, all right, we get it. You need this 300
Komodo dragon scale.
I have. Yeah.
Yeah. How many of these trips are like just pent up demand versus like a shift in rational thought, you know what I mean? Like, like, how much travel can one person actually do? But dude, it’s a write off.
It’s a write off, bro. I have jet lag so bad. I
gotta go to New Orleans
next week. It took me the first few paragraphs of what OG was saying to realize you were talking about me.
Like, Bali? Wow,
Spain. I need to go to Spain next Tuesday. Damn it. I deserve to go to Spain again. There’s a stacker there who wants to have a beer. Yes. I’m gonna have a meetup in Nebraska or wherever the f you are.
Are you talking about our friends in Des Moines? Same state. Is that what you’re
talking about?
Same state.
That’s all the same state. I heard Nebraska’s beautiful. And if it’s anything like Des Moines, it probably
is. Congruous. I 80. Just a… One road sign after another. Wow, I love Iowa. I do too. Yeah, Nebraska’s got the College World Series Which is super fun. Good, good
stuff. Reel us back
in boys. So how much of this, you know We just kind of just making fun of this a little bit but just like how much of this is like I deserve versus like bad 1999
You know, this reminds me of one of my favorite interviews on this topic, Buffy Purcell, when she was on. Buffy had a great phrase that I like, which was the most dangerous thing a broke person Can say is I deserve it the most dangerous words But is it
that is it like I deserve it type stuff or is this still hangover?
Is this to your point about like not spend not not tracking our spending so we’re not paying attention to the rising cost of normal stuff and so You know, I think we’re seeing some credit card numbers go up. We’re seeing, you know, we’re seeing interest go up and, uh, Well, this could
be, this could be a boomerang, OG, because listen to this, uh, Ally Bank, who I use them for their high interest savings account.
And the cool thing is they let you create these separate buckets inside the account. And in this piece, Rachel writes that, uh, Ally Bank, which allows people to create savings buckets says users created about one and a half times more experience oriented buckets, such as travel and fun funds versus those associated with long term planning than they did in 2020.
So clearly just post pandemic, we’re going, you know what? I was cooped up long enough. It’s time for
me to hit the road. And that’s kind of my point. It’s like, how, how long can you play that card? You know, when we talk about planning with people and we look at their cash flow, one of the things that we take out of cash flow is all of your savings, all of your tax bills, and all of your debt.
So then you’re left with this, like, true number of here’s how much money is left over that you’re consuming every year. And sometimes we juxtapose that against what you think you’re spending. It’s like, well, the math says you’re spending 80 grand a year on lifestyle, and then you go, well, no, I think it’s, like, you know, 60, 000 a year.
It’s like, well, where do you think that other 20, 000? Well, last year we had to insert calamity. Yeah. Yeah. Last year, insert calamity. It’s like, okay, cool. One off. Two years ago, it was this calamity for 20, 000. Two years before that, it was that calamity. It’s like, well, that’s, that’s, now it’s just part of your spending, right?
It’s like, it’s like, now this is built into people’s expectations as it relates to, you know, traveling all over the that
going to affect some other things? And at what cost? You know, if you’re still reaching your goals, this is the crazy thing. If you’re still on track for your goals, fine, awesome. Have at it, buy all the purses and travel all you want. That’s the thing. Keep that economy propped up. You’re going to need it.
Joe
buying purses
now too? Hermes is how you say that. Hermes. Yes. So I think it’s really important to, to know how this correlates to your overall plan, because. Uh, you shouldn’t feel guilty about it if you’re on track for your goals,
for sure. There is a, uh, family in here, and I do love it when people are brave enough to, uh, say who they are and that they might have done the wrong thing.
Listen to this couple. Lindsay and Daryl Bradshaw went into credit card debt to finance a vacation to Maui this past spring. The couple booked the trip only a few weeks after Lindsay, 37, quit her job to be a full time caregiver to their… eight year old son who has special needs. So I love the fact that they’ve made a family decision that she would stay at home.
That obviously cuts into the income, but this is a quote from Daryl. We did not have the money and we were like, let’s just do this anyway. Daryl said a 39 year old general contractor in Seattle, the trip cost about 10, 000, including three, 1, 000 last minute plane tickets. So they didn’t decide to do this well ahead of time.
They did it. late 10 nights at a 385 a night four star resort and several elaborate meals. Good Lord. Even though the family decided to cancel subscriptions, that ain’t going to do it. And cut back on. We’re going to cancel Hulu. And cut back on dining out, Telboff set the bill. They say they have no regrets, especially since they got to see Lahaina just a few months before it was decimated by deadly wildfires.
Now
while that I think he got the tattoo that says like, no regerts. Right.
Ha ha ha. Well, maybe no regrets now, but how often, oh gee, when you leave something, you go, that was amazing. I created this great experience. You don’t regret it until like a year from now when all of a sudden that, that ball picks up.
Like, it’s not now you’re going to regret it. You’re going to regret it three years from now, four years from now, five years from
now. Listen, honestly, when it comes to the hierarchy of spending silly money, This is pretty low in the hierarchy of this because it’s an experience compared to like spending money and consuming it Right like consumption of I’m gonna go buy a new speaker system or you know Whatever like I don’t know whatever you guys are into.
It sounds like something Doug would do. Bitchin Camaro
Bitchin El Camino. Yeah. Yeah,
I mean I’d be okay. I’m more okay Looking at it from the outside in, I’m more okay thinking about this as an experience with a family, you know, again, hindsight is 20 20, could you have done 7 days instead of 10? You’re coming from Seattle, it’s like a 4
hour flight, it’s a deal.
Well, could you have done it 6 months from now and get a better plane ticket cost? Like the number of things Travel off season, maybe? The number of things they could have done to make this maybe just a little less hurt in the pocketbook. Yeah, could have helped. I also like to see during this thing, if the, cause this is a big time for them with, with her quitting her job and maybe there’s a celebration happening there as well for the family.
I’d like to see, you know, what is going to be different next year. So maybe we had to go into credit card debt now. to do it. But next year we’re doing X, Y, and Z and not just cutting Hulu OG. Maybe it’s, we’re pushing forward this trip to Disney. We’re going to take next year instead of going to Hawaii right now because this is a big moment for us.
So we’re, you know what I mean? We’re not going to do that. Or what’s the plan to get this back on track along with the 25 percent credit card debt?
Don’t know. And that’s really the biggest issue is that it’s, I think a lot of people are underestimating the amount of money costs. And how inexpensive money was over the last 25 years, 20 years, how it got less and less and less expensive.
And now You know, I mean you just have to look at I’m a avid watcher of Zillow, you know, like in realtor. com Look at lake houses all the time. And it’s funny when it says like, oh this payment is only, you know 6, 000 a month. You’re going wait, what? How is that possible? Well, that’s at 8 percent interest.
That’s what the mortgage rates are these days Yeah, it’s probably not gonna land at that forever but all of your adjustable rate stuff, right all of your line of credit things all of your Consumer debt is all adjusting at these higher rates. You’re seeing 30 percent interest right now. It’s pretty insane.
We talk about regret. I think part of the regret is when you actually are able to look at this versus your other goals. So, are you going to regret it when you figure out that, you know, this money was the critical amount I needed to save for X goal? And while… You know, there’s, people can talk a lot of junk about Susie Orman.
One of my favorite things I ever heard Susie Orman say was, If you don’t think you can save for your long term goal now, think of the fact that you’re a year away, and now you haven’t saved any money. Like, how will you feel then? Like, put yourself forward towards some of these long term goals, and go, okay, now do you regret it?
If they could
do that, they wouldn’t be getting the Nova Gertz tattoo. I know, right? If they had the capacity to say, how will I feel in 17 years when I should be retired, but I couldn’t, they wouldn’t be spending
the money. Good point, Doug. It goes back to the Stephen Covey thing about the two ends of the stick.
We often, OG, pick up a stick, one end, and we don’t think about the other end of that stick. What’s, what’s going without because I did this thing. Interesting discussion, a great piece in the Wall Street Journal. We’ll link to it on our show notes page at StackedBenjamins. com. Of course, Wall Street Journal behind it.
Paywall. So you need a subscription to read this
one. Brought to you by Wall Street Journal. Go to stackingbenjamins. com slash WSJ for 10 percent off your Wall Street Journal.
I wish we had that. Yeah, that would be great. That would be good for people. Some quality writing there. Even better though, we’re going to dive into this whole topic of how do we juggle things to be able to get more experiences and not maybe go into credit card debt.
Kevin Bailey will pick that up for us. And tomorrow’s 201, which comes out every Tuesday and Thursday, absolutely free. And, uh, great newsletter stackofbenjamins. com slash 2 0 1. All right. Coming up next, Frank Ligon is a certified financial planner in Cleveland where he and his practice are all about starting with what’s the goal and then working backward.
Frank and his team call it the humanity factor. We’re going to talk about that, but before that, Doug, I think you got some trivia for us. Darn right,
Joe. Hey there, stackers. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. You know, I put on an incredible barbecue over the weekend. The best part? There’s tons of leftover food.
Potato salad, shrimp cocktail, some cream based casserole. We ate it pretty late and I didn’t get a chance to clean up. Maybe for lunch, I’ll have some of the tuna salad with one of those mini parfaits that Joe’s mom brought over. I wonder how long food can sit out before it spoils. Should I ask Joe? He, God knows me.
Joe would know this. Please know. Joe’s gotta know the expiration date on coleslaw. Hey, I’m a natural born risk taker, though. It’ll be fine when you think about it. Every risk you take could lead to several different outcomes. I’m always weighing pros and cons, like, is it worth it to tell Joe’s mom she’s got the wrong haircut for her face shape?
Or what’ll happen if I skinny dip in Joe’s mom’s hot tub? Although, I think she’d enjoy that more than I would. So on that note, today’s trivia question is, when comparing the risks of two different types of investments, what is the term for the outcome you’re calculating? I’ll be back right after I eat some
delicious leftovers.
Hey there stackers, I’m grill master and au naturel aquatic exerciser, Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. I just ate a ton of leftovers from yesterday, and I’m maybe starting to feel a little funny. Can’t imagine what it is that isn’t agreeing with me though. I mean, someone’s got to figure it out. They got to figure out like which foods can be left out for 10 hours and which ones can’t.
I mean somebody… Get on this, people! Work on it! Today’s trivia question was When comparing the risks of two different types of investments, what is the term for the outcome you’re calculating? The answer? Risk adjusted return. And now, here to teach you how to lean into your strengths to design the future of your dreams, it’s Frank Liegen.
And I’m super happy he’s joining us in the basement. It’s about time we got him here, Frank Liegen. How are you, man? Doing great. It’s so good to see you. Two days in a row. I know! For people that don’t know what, it’s like, what the hell is Frank talking about? We were a strategic coach together yesterday.
And then we’re here today. And just by the way, Frank, you know, it’s funny. You coach a lot of people with their money. I didn’t even mean to start here, but how important is it for you to get coaching?
It’s so important, really important. Uh, want to be a student of the game, want to Be the best I could possibly be really in all aspects of my life.
So I don’t think it would be genuine if we offered our services and areas where we feel like we have something of value to give and not look for others that, that have something to give to us.
It just makes me so much more, I don’t know, powerful and thoughtful. And I just encourage people all the time, get, get surround yourself with smart people, which by the way, that room.
It’s so full of smart people. I get as much of a vibe from talking to you yesterday and the people around me. It’s, it’s, it’s absolutely huge. But let’s talk about this. I want to, I really want to talk about your approach to financial planning, because as you say, in your, your new project, you are a numbers guy.
But financial planning is not a numbers game. What do you mean by that?
Well, oftentimes people in our business lead with the numbers first and mostly. Tell me when you want to retire, how much you want to live on, and we’ll do the math and figure that out for you. But what happens is, is that we lose context.
That really doesn’t tell me anything about who you are as a father, a husband, a mother, a wife. A business owner, a philanthropist, a creative, an executive in any way. It just doesn’t give any context. It doesn’t tell me what it means to be a member of your family. It doesn’t tell me anything about what’s important to you in your life, the people and the things that you care the most about because money or resources are just a way.
To help us get to the good stuff. It’s to get to those things, to be with the people that we want to be with and do those things that we love to do the
most. This I know is not something that you just, you know, say nice thoughts. That sounds great, Frank, but this is really personal. Your wife got a very surprising diagnosis a few years ago, and it even affected your financial plan about what is this all about?
Can you, do you mind talking about that?
Yeah, I think change in life is constant, and sometimes things hit you right between the eyes that you weren’t expecting. Shortly after our daughter was born, my wife was diagnosed with MS. We never saw that coming. And the plans that we had, and the life that we thought we were headed down, the path changed just completely overnight.
And not to minimize, because we… We freaked out, right? I mean, you just don’t know what it means, and your mind goes to some pretty dark places, but we found a moment of clarity where we really thought we’ve lived a really good life up to this point. Our plans, maybe they just need to be a little bit different than what we thought.
And a lot of those plans, we moved forward. We decided that, you know, why should we wait to do the things that we want to do when the future is uncertain? There’s a happy ending so far to the story. She’s good. Uh, you wouldn’t know, uh, that she has going on what she has going on. So we’re incredibly grateful for that.
But looking at things from a place of gratitude. And again, centering our plan on the things that we most want to do, we just decided to accelerate some of those things. So, you know, sometimes we don’t want to be in cold weather in January or February. So instead of waiting to be snowbirds, we’ve accelerated that plan and we’ll take a couple weeks a year and we’ll get somewhere nice.
And we don’t have to wait until we’re in our 60s to do that. So that’s just one small example of some of the things that we’ve. done as a family as a result of that.
I can’t believe as you were, as you’re saying that, I’m like, you know what? I never have seen a tourism poster for Cleveland come here in February.
Like,
come visit us when it’s dark. I haven’t seen that either.
The Guardian Bridge looks great during this time of year. But it does drive home a point. I mean, for the two of you, you got this diagnosis, which changed your plan and you kind of intimate though, that we all frankly do have that diagnosis, right? I mean, none of us, Frank, gets out of here alive.
So why delay this gratification later when you can do, when you can do the things you want sooner?
Absolutely. I think balance is really important. We want to take advantage of today because we don’t know what tomorrow will bring. And so our job is to figure out how do we accelerate some of those things or make some of those things possible, but not necessarily at the future expense of Mr.
and Mrs. Smith or whoever it is that we’re helping. But that balance is so important. I totally agree.
Before we get to your actual process, then let’s talk about the consequences of doing it the other way, right? Of not looking to see, are there things that I can speed up? Is there some things I can do today?
You tell a story about some people you were working with. They came to you after, I believe the husband had created some, Technology gadget. They had had quite a lot of money. They went to an advisor who promised big returns and they point out that this person had big returns. That was partially you explained because this gentleman’s spouse believed that while they had a bunch of money, they didn’t have enough yet to do what they needed to do.
So starting with the dollars they need to make and the returns they need to make really kind of messed up their plan.
100%. So they had already won the money game, Joe. I mean, they were, they were set. They were convinced that they needed to earn a high income off of their dollars. And the person that they were working with was just the person to do that for them.
What they didn’t fully understand was that high income comes with high risk. And when things weren’t going so well, They really panicked. And the reason for that is, is that they had no context. They didn’t really realize that they had more than what they needed to live the life that they wanted to live for the rest of their lives.
But they were caught up in, I need to put big numbers on the scoreboard. I need to grow this more, more, more, because we don’t have enough. And had they just gone through an exercise that showed them that they had enough, and that there was a different way of going about being stewards of their resources, They could have saved themselves lots of aggravation, anxiety, stress.
And fortunately for us, uh, we were introduced to them and we took them through our process and… We created that context for them. Well, they created it for themselves. We just led them through a conversation that allowed them to think through where they really were in life, how they wanted to live their lives.
And then the resources became
secondary.
This is where the math comes in though, then Frank, is that the math isn’t at the beginning. Like we’re looking for this rate of return. You prove to them that. you know what, we can take a safer path to these goals than you’re taking, have less of a roller coaster ride.
And when you leave with your dreams, now you can get all these dreams much more safely, much more comfortably.
Absolutely. The comfortable path is so important because we try to keep our clients invested, right? We want them to stick with our well thought out plan. So we’re aligning their assets with their goals and their resources, and we want to do it in a way that they’re going to stick with it.
What the other advisor failed to do was understand that and didn’t know that when things weren’t going according to plan, that they wanted to hit the jack button and, and they. Right. And that sometimes causes even more damage than, you know, what might be happening in that moment. So we really need to be mindful of what it is that’s important to the, to the clients, what their goals are, and make sure that the plan is in alignment with that so that they’re likely to stick with it.
And when, when that plan is aligned with fill in the blank of what’s important to you, a comfortable retirement, an education for your child, more time with your grandchildren, that gets a lot stickier than, hey, I want to beat this benchmark, or I want to do better than my neighbor, or, you know, my brother, whatever the case may be, you know, as nice as it is to kind of win some of those games.
What does that, what does that really get you at the end of the day?
Let’s go there because my least favorite thing back when I was a financial planner, Frank, and it’s been a long time, but my least favorite question was how am I doing against everybody else? And you just brought that up again, right?
Like why do we all, why are we so passionate about what everybody else is doing? Yeah, I don’t know. There’s
some behavioral psychology, but we just get asked it all the time. You know, am I doing okay? Like, are my balances in line with people my age? And, um, who cares? The answer really depends on what it is that is important to you and your family.
You know, one of the examples I love to give is that if, if you’re talking to a paramedic or a teacher who has a pension, They don’t necessarily need the huge nest egg that somebody doesn’t have something like that in their life needs. And so they might compare themself to somebody that doesn’t have that as part of their plan and feel bad about themselves when really the person who doesn’t have that pension just needs to accumulate a lot more than the other person.
So context really matters.
You have a, you have another example in the book and I don’t remember the exact words, but it’s something like you and your neighbor can make exactly the same amount of money. And they like, and I don’t think you had this in the book, but so this is a Joe analogy. They like high end trips.
They like lavish spending. They buy the most expensive artwork to fill their house. And you’re more frugal, you like camping, you feel very comfortable with a more moderated lifestyle. Even though you both make the same amount of money and you’re the same age, they need a lot of money. for their retirement goal to live the same.
And you need a lot less. I mean, even if I look at somebody who I work with next to work in the, you know, in the next cubicle, if anybody, does anybody go to cubicles anymore? I don’t know. I’m the person next to you on the zoom call, I guess, is Frank we’re going like those people. It is so irrelevant. It
is.
I’m so glad that story resonated. with you. I liken it to when I was a younger person in grade school and you get invited to a friend’s house for dinner or up, you know, to play, to, to hang out. And you look around and you’re like, wow, you know, this family does it way different than we do. Like it’s, it’s not exactly the same.
Not that there’s anything wrong with the way that they do it, but they just have like a different style than you. And so your, your point is so well taken. You can have two people. With the same family makeup, the same income, the same net worth, the same everything, and you could create a plan for one of those families, but if the neighbor walked through the door on the first day of their retirement with the other family’s plan, They’d say this is…
Not right. This
is way off. Just wreck it. Absolutely wreck it. We had friends of our kids when they were in kindergarten or first grade, Frank, came over to our house and the daughter, you know, kids don’t know what they’re saying, but the daughter goes, this is so cute. It’s just like our family’s cottage.
Oh, geez. It was our primary residents. Like they were living a whole different life than we were. I was like, yes, that’s our goal is to be about the same size as your, your parents cottage. These are some of the questions you ask. Who, these are very light questions, Frank, by the way, when I, when I read these, who am I as a human being?
I’m like, what is that? Well, what are you getting at with who am I as a human being?
You know, what are your values? What’s, what’s most important to you? People spend their dollars, they utilize their resources based on what’s important to them. So that might mean that philanthropy is, is really important.
Philanthropy for people might mean their family. It might mean that, you know, mom and dad maybe aren’t in a place where I am financially, and maybe they’re going to need help, and I want to step up and help them. Or maybe it means that You know, I had to make my own way in life, and what I want for my kids is that part of that has to be true for them too, and so I’m not just going to give them everything on a silver platter.
So it can mean a lot of different things, but how you grew up, how your family talked about money, how your family handled money, and how you want to do it yourself, it’s super important for us to know that in order to create a good plan that really honors you as the central figure of
the plan. You start off with these questions.
You have names for all three of these pieces. Walk me through the first, well, let’s walk through all three pieces of the Humanity Factor. Where do you start usually?
Yeah, so we start with Mind Your Bliss and it’s about gratitude. It’s about looking backwards. So you think about somebody that shows up at their cubicle every day for 40 years with their head down, working as hard as they can.
There might be points on that journey where they feel like they’re just not getting anywhere. They just feel like, man, this isn’t where I want to be. It’s going to be 25 years of marriage for Laura and I, uh, next month. And when I think about where we are today, relative to where we were 25 years ago.
We’re light years ahead of where we were then. Uh, have we hit all of our milestones and done everything that we want to do? No. But if our focus was just on the horizon, and on this kind of perfect life that we have envisioned for ourselves, well, by definition, that perfect life is unattainable. We’re never going to get there.
So if our measurement is there, That leads to frustration and a feeling of like, Hey, we’re not getting it done. But if you look back at what you’ve accomplished over the course of your life, even if we just look back three years, a lot has happened during that period of time and there’s a lot for us to be grateful for, I mean, who would have thought collectively that we’d all be sent home, not allowed to work.
And that here we are still making it. We figured it out. I think there’s a lot to be
grateful for. It’s so weird, Frank, even to hear you say that today. I’m like, did we really go through that? Yeah. Surreal. I like that looking in the review mirror because we often look at the horizon. I mean, this is a strategic coach thing that you and I, I.
Yeah, I’ve gone through. We were so busy looking at the horizon that we get frustrated. And yet to look at the process that we made, I think is so important. And I want all of our stackers to hear this too. And in, in Frank, in your, in your process is our good friend, Roger Whitney says, when an advisor leads with process, that’s, that’s what you’re looking for.
If they leave with product, Frank hasn’t even, we haven’t talked product at all. We’ve been talking for quite a while already. And. Yeah. There’s no product. The product’s the commodity. We don’t start there. We start with, we start with this, which fires me up. Once I do that, then what is the second step in the game?
Yeah. So,
you know, coming to a place of gratitude, it really. Gets you in the right mindset when you think about making a big decision in your life, you don’t want to be coming from a place where you’re twirly, right? Or anxious or stressed or feeling like you, you haven’t done your best, so it gets you in the right mindset so that the second piece, and we kind of talked about this at the top of the conversation is around coaching.
We call it cultivate your contributions. And the idea is, is that there’s not necessarily one person that is going to be the answer to all of the different questions Aspects of somebody’s plan. There’s only a finite amount of knowledge that I have in my brain. And I’m fortunate enough to have partners who are really smart and good at what they do at the firm, outside of the firm coaches, right?
People that are really good at what they do. And we want to make sure that you have a community of people. with a common purpose, working on your behalf. And that common purpose is you. It’s whatever it is that’s important to you that you’re trying to accomplish as a family. We want to make sure that you have the best resources available to you to help you get
there.
This sounds like, Frank, something we talk about a lot on the show, which is just improving your decision making ability, right? By surrounding yourself with good people. That’s right. Once we’ve done that, then there’s a big, important third part.
The leadership lever. And that’s where, you know, it’s great to go through a process where we identify what your needs are and we put a plan in place to get you there.
But if we don’t execute, what, what good is that worth? Uh, what good is it worth? So we need to be working on our client’s behalf, even when we’re not together, we want to hold each other accountable. And the thing is, What is important today, this again, the example of my wife and I might not be important tomorrow, things change, our lives evolve and they change and you need somebody there by your side to help you through those times when things don’t go according to plan, in good ways and
bad ways.
Let’s talk about things not going according to plan because where is that in this three step process, the whole. You know, before we build a road, we look at all the things that could go wrong and protect against those. Where does the whole protection planning thing fit
in? You know, Joe, we talked about being athletic earlier and, um, I wish I could spreadsheet out the rest of my life.
Like I’ve tried, you know, I’ve, I’ve tried to do that.
Of course you’re a money guy. Of course you are. But you can’t do that, right? Your wife comes and finds you in the dining room at 3 a. m. with the spreadsheet. Like, Frank, what the hell are you doing? Nothing.
Yeah, just, just planning out the next 25 years.
Yeah. So, um, some of us have had life experiences. That inform us. So if you’ve had a loved one die early, you might think that it’s really important to have life insurance to protect against maybe that happening to you or your spouse. If you have a parent or an older relative who’s gone through a big health event, you know, you might think about long term care is part of your planning that might, you know, like that might be part of your consciousness.
So it’s our job to try to figure out what can spoil something that’s already good. And we’re not going to be able to protect against every potential outcome, but just having a conversation about it is really important because, you know, they’re not comfortable conversations to have. You don’t want to lead with those kinds of things, but it’s important to be prepared.
and to understand where you’ll go in the event that something unexpected
happens. I want to end with a story on how this all works together, Frank. You, you detail this couple who they’re, they’re both, uh, in the upper echelons of some pretty big companies. They work these high stress jobs. Tell us about these people going through your Humanity Factor approach.
Yeah, so, uh, At their core, they are just so much fun. They’re just really, you know, lighthearted, great people. And over the years, as they would come in, you could just feel the stress when they would walk into the room in terms of what was being asked of them, rules changing at work, you know, the bar keeps getting raised higher and higher by management, and it was just sucking the life out of them, and they felt stuck because, you know, golden handcuffs are golden handcuffs for a reason, right?
Like they throw money at you, options, more responsibility, but if you don’t take the time, to step back and think about what are we doing this for? Like, are we just trying to accumulate as big a pile of money as we possibly can? For what purpose? And, the husband in this couple had suffered a health scare.
And it really caused him, pause, to kind of step back and say, Why are we doing this? And so, what we did is we put a, uh, You know, work optional plan together for them to show them that they really pretty much had what they needed right now. They were in their early fifties. They, you know, very successful couple.
And so they didn’t have to, to work in this way, so they could go out and find something that would be fulfilling and meaningful to them with 10 percent of the stress of what they had going on. So, you know, it’s just. Stepping back and asking yourself why you’re doing what you’re doing before it’s too late, before you do have a health event, or you know, you don’t want to find yourself in a position where you reach some arbitrary age that you feel like you need to retire, or you have a health scare, or something materially changes in your life and you’re not able to live it the way that you had thought, You don’t want to be in a position where you look back and say, well, what was all that for?
Why, why did we subject ourselves to that level of stress when we really didn’t need to?
I love that. Just even for people, Frank, you need to talk about, you know, you, it does, does to be a health scare, man, if people start living their lives in their twenties and their thirties, thinking that like, why am I really doing this?
I mean, I know that, that’s pretty deep for a 25 year old who maybe just needs to get out there and start hustling. But man, if the more you get that arrow early, the
better. It just leads to a better quality of life, and I think it leads to better outcomes, just more intentional, thoughtful, and not doing it just to do it because that’s how you’re supposed to do it.
That’s what they tell you. You know, you get a job, you work hard, you put your money away, and you need to understand the why behind what you’re doing. for what you’re doing to be meaningful and to get to the good stuff faster.
I love that as an end, let’s all get to good stuff faster. Speaking of the good stuff, people can read about this in your new book, The Humanity Factor.
It came out just a couple of weeks ago. and immediately went to the top of the Amazon charts. Congratulations, man.
Thank you so much. We’re, uh, super excited about it. Can’t, can’t believe it. It’s awesome.
We will link to the Amazon link on our show notes at stackybenjamins. com, but if somebody just wants to talk to you and your team, how do they get ahold of you, Frank?
So frankliegen. com is the easiest way. F R A N K L E G A N. com. And, uh. We’d love to chat.
Dude, thanks for talking about process based financial planning and goal based financial planning. My favorite topic. Thanks so much. Thank
you so much, Joe. Honor to be here.
Hey, Nick Loper here from the Side Hustle Show.
When I’m not helping people earn money outside of their day job, I’m stacking
Benjamins.
Big thanks to Frank for stopping by. Thanks, Frank. Begin with the end of mind, OG. Begin with the end of mind. That’s what you’re supposed to do. Hey, let’s throw out the Haven Lifeline and tackle some of life’s biggest Most important questions.
Our friends at Haven Life Insurance Agency, Doug, they put what you value first.
A good bottle of bourbon or scotch right then now this time of year, Joe. Just warming up in a cold evening because it’s starting to get chill, pretty chilele here. So, uh, that’s what I value right now. A little artificial
heat.
Is that what the kids call it, chilele? It is. It’s your loved ones and your time and your chilele. That’s why they made buying quality term life insurance actually simple. You go to StackingBenjamins. com Love what they’re doing at Haven Life because their prices are affordable. Their application is simple.
It’s online. They’ve taken out all the difficult parts. You get that stuff done very quickly and then spend your rest of your time with your Chilean life. You like that
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StackingBenjamins. com. Slash. Chile Life. No. StackingBenjamins. com. Slash.
Haven Life. Uh, today we’re going to throw out the Haven Life line to Jodi. Hi Joe, OG, and Doug. This is Jodi from Michigan. I listen to every show on my drive to work and your friendly banter helps get my day started with a smile. You know, I remember a few discussions on the show around annuities. They never seem to have a positive tone.
In realizing that there are different types of annuities, I was hoping to hear your take on fixed income and longevity annuities, you know, as a possible complement to social security. Thanks for all the laughs and personal finance helpful tips. Oh yeah, Doug, I would try putting in a good word for you to get a t shirt, if I thought it would do me any good.
No! Take care. I like how she paused. Doug, I would… I got
my hopes up, but… And then she brought out the sledgehammer.
Jody, thanks for calling and for the kind words. And, uh, OG… She’s looking at longevity and fixed annuities. Let’s talk about annuities. For people new to the annuity game, maybe we start there and then let’s tackle the question exactly.
Yeah. So,
so you think about an annuity, it’s like backwards life insurance. So life insurance pays you if you’re dead, annuities pay you if you’re alive. So exactly. Oh, I like annuities better.
I’ll take two. I’ll take two of those. Uh, run by insurance companies, and the way that annuities generally work, or how they’re supposed to work anyway, is you give them a lump sum of money, you say, okay, here’s my 100, 000, and they say, okay, based on how old you are, and your gender, here’s how much money we can pay you for the rest of your life.
And so they have lots of actuarial data to say that a 65 year old will live statistically to this age. And if you live longer, you keep getting the paycheck every single month. If you die on the way to get the first mailbox, or on the way to get the first check out of the mailbox, they keep all your money.
So it’s a really touchy subject of like, well, am I going to live too long, or am I going to live not long enough to break even? The nice thing about it is that it’s predictable, guaranteed income, guaranteed from the insurance company. And they’re regulated by the states and the local government, so they’re pretty secure in terms of their payouts.
So
far, sounds like a lot to
like. Yeah, the downside is, is that when it comes to the payout, it’s generally going to be fixed. And so you think about your lifetime of, you know, I retire at 65 and I live to be 95. And let’s say that my annuity payment is 5, 000 a month. Well, 5, 000 a month is probably pretty good at age 65.
Not as good at 75. Not as much money at 85 because of inflation. By 95, you know, the spending power of that has been cut in half. So there’s generally not an increase. And so there’s a lot of bells and whistles that insurance companies have put around annuities in order to make them more appealing. The problem with the bells and whistles is that they’re not free.
And so now we start adding some additional costs on top of this. to make this more of a palatable product. There’s a lot of studies to suggest that the only reason annuities get sold is because of the big fat commission that are paid. And when you take away the commission, you take away the annuity sale, which is not a great thing.
That means that they need to do better at their product and their pricing because there is a market for this safety and security, particularly around what Jody’s talking about here, longevity annuities, which sound. A little different. So a longevity annuity is an annuity that you purchase today. Say you’re 65, you put your money in and say, I don’t need this money until that inflation stuff is kicking in.
I want this annuity to start at 85 in the future because you know, I I’m good from, from the next 20 years. My concern has. living too long, which is a very real trending concern for a lot of people. Healthcare, you know, getting better and lifestyle getting better and all that sort of stuff. The issue isn’t running out of money because I died too soon.
The issue is running out of money because I live too long. And so where longevity annuities come in and where this kind of fits is to say, I’m going to take a lump sum of my cash today. I’m going to invest it in this insurance company and 20 years from now. So the back half of my retirement time, if I don’t get there, they.
pay it back to my estate and that sort of thing. All of this to say that most annuities are based on fixed interest rates. Some sort of fixed type interest rates. If you have any sort of annuity that’s tied to the market or anything like that, it’s really just tied to the market with a fixed interest rate.
There’s no such thing as the opportunity to get market rates of return and guaranteed outcomes. You know, think about this from a completely different product, your bank savings account. The bank isn’t going to say, we’ll give you stock returns and also guarantee that it’s here tomorrow. Right? Your savings account pays a lower rate than your investment portfolio because, or a lower expected rate, because it’s guaranteed.
Right? So you have this guarantee, if I can show up at the bank tomorrow, withdraw my money in cash, and it’s always going to be there. And in exchange for that, they give me a little interest. What happens with your stock portfolio? You put the money in? Eh, maybe it’s there tomorrow, maybe it’s down. You know, maybe it’s up, maybe it’s down.
Maybe it’s gone completely, right? You invest in a company that doesn’t exist anymore, like Kodak or something. So, you can’t have both high rates of return, and guarantees. And, uh, the downside to the annuity conundrum is that most of them are centered around guarantees, which is an important component of an overall financial plan, but you’re not going to get the growth that goes with it.
And I think a lot of the salesmanship around Hey, this is a great product revolves around a little deceptiveness around the expected returns If I was doing a calculation around what I expect my annuity to grow by I’d pick a number really low like 3 percent I’d say I expect this money to grow at 3%. It would be a part of my asset allocation.
That’s more Aligned with my fixed income portfolio. So if you want to have an annuity you want the guarantees That’s where I think totally fine Account for it as part of your fixed income portfolio of your plan if you’re gonna use fixed income And then the rest of your money is, you know, invested like it normally would.
If you go, well, no, I’m kind of all equities all the time, like OG talks about, I don’t know that annuity is really fit there because you can get the same exposure in your stock portfolio and your mutual funds and ETFs and that sort of thing. So there’s a place for it. The place is on longevity insurance.
But even then, I think the risk is, is that it’s still not going to keep up with inflation in a manner that a regular, you know, a regular, uh, brokerage account or regular investment account would over that period of
time. Here’s another problem I just thought of that Jody has. She just got fired because she’s sitting in her car in the parking lot listening to us give her this advice about annuities and she’s late for work and she just got canned.
So now she doesn’t have income. So what, should she still get the annuity because she doesn’t have the income?
She’s because she because she got canned from canned from her job. I mean, it’s a good alternative not maybe at all alternative It’s a good addition to social security The downside is is that you have to know what your life expectancy is gonna be and that’s really the trade off I mean only one way to know that Well, my, my point is, is that if you have health issues, if you, you know what I mean?
Like if you, if you have a sense of what’s going on versus like my grandfather lived to be 97, my grandpa was born in 1919. You think about life expectancy for a child born in 1919 and he lived to be 97. So I’ve got some pretty good odds on my, you know, on, on my side, despite the way that I abused the internal workings of my liver.
But my point is, is that if you’ve got a long life expectancy and you’re thinking about, You know, market returns and the longevity of time. I think you’re going to be better off searching for market esque returns versus going, I’m concerned about running out of money. So I want to lock this money up and be guaranteed.
This is definitely
an area then where it’s know yourself, right? Because the only thing that will wreck your long term investing strategy is you getting off and on and off and on. So, um, if you’re a very conservative person, you worry a lot. Maybe the freedom from worry is, is it, you know, Doug, in, in your trivia, you talked about risk adjusted return.
OG, I think this is a great pairing there. Is it worth the much, much lower return on your money that you would get with the annuity to have freedom from worry.
And you know, all of those other things come into play as it relates to your family dynamics and you know what your longterm goal is for your portfolio and for your family wealth and that sort of thing.
All of that plays into it. But I will leave you with this. If you’re 35 and you’re thinking about investing for your retirement, which is like maybe age 65, you’re thinking what? Pretty aggressive or pretty conservative? Ah, you’re thinking aggressive. I got 30 years, right? Why would that change when you’re 65 and you’re thinking about, well, I’m really concerned about that timeframe from 90 to a hundred.
Well, that’s also long term investing, isn’t it? It’s just, you know, we think about it differently because we go, Oh, that’s my retirement money. I get it, but it’s still a long time. It’s 25 years away or 20, you know what I mean? Like that’s, you could still have a portion of your portfolio that’s invested for that time horizon.
Absolutely. When you’re 65, you need 66 year money. You need 67 year money, but you also need 87 year money. and 97 year old money. And that stuff largely should be invested in, in things that are going to outpace inflation over time, which is ownership
of companies. Jody, thanks a ton for the question. If you’ve got a question for us, head to stackybenjamins.
com slash voicemail. We’re sending Jody a t shirt. Uh, Stacking Benjamins, Haven Life, Greatest Money Show on Earth shirt because she was so comfy. I’d wear that
shirt into, into work next time, Jody, and see if you can get your job
back. Pretty perfect. All right. This is the part of the show where we talk about stuff going on in the community.
We talk about stuff going on here. We talk about how, uh, Doug’s not in a dress rehearsal. He’s in the real thing.
Enjoy life, Joe. It’s not a dress rehearsal, says Anonymous. Oh my
god. I wish it was a dress rehearsal. So
what was so great about that you texted me? I mean, it’s a cool looking mug. Is it the mug, or is it the, uh, It’s the contents of the mug.
The
hooch? What you got in there? Bardstown. Fusion series. It’s a wonderful dark
beverage. Have you transitioned, speaking of transition, have you transitioned, Doug, into dark liquor now that the, uh, the sun is beyond the, uh, such and such a, uh, tropic of Cancer, whatever, whatever judgment you have around when
it is below the age of Aquarius or something like that.
I don’t know, but it is 44 and rain. It almost looks like there’s snowflakes out my window right now. So it is a hundred percent scotch season. Or pumpkin
spice latte. PSL’s. PSL
baby. Duh. So we’re talking about booze on the back porch, Joe, but we’ve got some, uh, some of our Folks in the basement are talking about other things.
Oh! Jimmy A says, I didn’t think this was ever possible. Len Penzo’s response when asked to plug his website at the end of the show. This is a recent episode, recent Friday episode we had, folks. Uh, at the end of the show made me laugh out loud so much I was crying. I was definitely motivated to check out his website only to discover no ads, despite his pleas to make, to click on at least three ads.
It was well played, Jimmy A says. Definitely going down as one of my… most favoritest episodes ever. For
people that missed that episode, I asked Len, what was coming up soon at the Lenpenso. com blog. And Len said, I don’t know, just please go there and click a bunch of my ads so I can make some money.
Nice.
So good. And of course, uh, Jimmy went there and there were no ads. There’s no ads. Yes. Which is Lenpenso doing his Lenpenso, which was amazing. I also got a, uh, I got a great email guys from. Craig, stacker Craig, who was pointing to a Vanguard article. Uh, he says, Hey Joe and all the Stacking Benjamins crew. I saw this on Vanguard’s website.
I know the asset allocation is important, but asset location for tax strategies. Is this just a case of the tail wagging the dog? Thanks for all you do, Craig. Thanks for that note, Craig. And, uh, Craig is pointing to an article, O. G., from Vanguard called Asset Location Can Lead to Lower Taxes. Here’s How to Get More Value.
It’s written by Mark Vandenberg, a certified financial planner and… uh, financial advisor, I believe with Vanguard. And he talks about working with sophisticated and successful investors and actually what type of a shelter, tech shelter you have your investment in actually matters. Craig wonders if this is just tail wagging the dog.
I’ve never seen a tail wag a dog before, but, uh, you know what the, you know what
the phrase means.
Wasn’t there a movie that was called that? There was a movie
just called wag the dog. Wag the dog.
Wag the dog. Yes. Political movie. Yes. Yeah. Very interesting movie. Way back when. I don’t think that that’s the case.
I mean, obviously you run into the scenario where there’s a little bit of selection bias. Like if you did it right, or if you did it by accident, then you’re like, well, look how great it was. You know, there’s, there, there could be the case there, but, but I mean, you think about the different places where you can put money taxable, tax deferred, or tax free.
And if you’ve got a, uh, an investment that historically is going to grow at a rate greater than some other investment, you know, you think about your asset allocation. Why would you not want to put the thing that’s going to grow the most in the thing that’s going to be tax free forever? To me, it sounds pretty
logical.
Well, and you also want the stuff that throws off a lot of taxes to maybe be tax sheltered, if at
all possible. Yeah, your dividend payers, maybe, you know, make sure they’re qualified dividends and that’s a better tax rate on your taxable stuff or, like you said, defer that perhaps. Hold on.
Are we still on the back porch?
We actually think that this, yes, we actually think, Craig, that this, this is a… This
is a money topic, honestly. This is what? I said this is a money topic. I thought we…
Yeah, what the hell? This is not… We’re supposed to be drinking beers, kicking ass.
Yeah, Craig. What are you doing? We’re supposed to be talking movies right now, Craig.
Craig.
Yeah. Craig, way to
be a Bills kill, giving us feedback on actual stuff that matters. Craig
said, uh, what’s, what’s that video where they’re all talking about all the refs are talking about the fantasy football thing and they go, yeah, Bill, Bill,
Bill. I don’t
know. I haven’t seen it. Okay. Well, we might have to find it for later.
Yes. There’s no
later. We’ll find it for now. We actually don’t think this is tail. I certainly OG wouldn’t start here. I wouldn’t start with, okay, what’s my thing. But if I’ve got a bunch of investments looking at what the right home is for them, it actually is a good enough thing that Doug, we did a whole episode on this featuring the wonderful Christine Benz from Morningstar.
And lately, 1394, 1394. Thank you. Lately, we’ve been numbering the episodes. We can actually send people back to them. I know that’s crazy.
What a novel idea. I remember them all. I’ve got like that idiot savant knowledge. That’s
what they call it. I distinctly remember the argument about not numbering them for different reasons.
Emphasis
on idiot, but yes, we’ve, we, we
got that. I think it’s a good thing. I don’t know. It is.
We got so much. I got to tell you guys about, uh, I don’t know if you know this, but I just went to Bali, but we’ll, oh, for God’s sakes, we’ll talk about that another day.
This back porch of all time. It’s gonna be like a two hour back porch.
We’ll have two people’s back porches on this back porch.
Sorry, the OG that you’re reaching is no longer available.
I only have 162 slides to show you guys. Come on. Please check
the number and try again later. Message 6 1.
Just two more things here before, Doug, we ask you to bring us home. I will be on an Instagram Live on Thursday, now that I’m back in the country.
Weird flex. For a couple of days. Come on and join me. stackofbenjamins. com slash welcome tells you all the places where we are. Our YouTube channel, Instagram, all kinds of places. But tomorrow, 5pm Eastern, you do the math on your time zone. I will be hanging out Thursday. Late afternoon, early evening, wherever you’re at.
Last but not least, though, if you’re not here to hang out on Instagram live, you’re here because you need to make better decisions as we fly into the end of the year and set a course for 2024. I can’t believe I’m saying 2024. I
know. Head to StackyBenjamins.
com slash OG. OG and his team are taking clients, and that’s linked to their calendar, gets you scheduled for a meeting so you and O.
G. and his team can talk about making better decisions as you go forward. StackYourBenjamins. com slash O. G. Alright, that’s it for today, I think, for the back porch. Uh, Doug, man, what should we have learned today? So, what
should we have learned? First, take some advice from Frank Ligon and become a more active participant in building out your ideal future.
Second, start with a spending plan and you’re a long way toward financial and life success. Without one, you’re mortgaging your future. But the big lesson? Turns out, that wasn’t cottage cheese I ate after all. God, I gotta go lay down.
Thanks to Frank Ligon for joining us today. You can find out more about his book, The Humanity Factor, at frankligon. com. We’ll also include links in our show notes at stackingbenjamins. com. This show is the property of SB Podcasts, LLC, copyright 2023, and is created by Joe Saul Sehy. 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 Invest podcast. Kevin Bailey helps us take a deeper dive into all the topics covered on each episode in our newsletter called The 201. You’ll find the 411 on all things money at The 201.
Just visit stackingbenjamins. com slash 201. 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. Wanna chat with friends about the show later? Mom’s friend Gertrude and Kate Yunkin 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 stackingbenjamins. 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 Benjamins show.
By the way guys, Steve specifically slacked me, I don’t know when, maybe two weeks ago, and said when you guys say 3 2 1, give like a full second pause after you say 3 2 1 before you start your thing. Oh, tell Steve. I
know, he’s a f ing
princess. That’s what I think it’s clear we work for Steve, so just humor him.
Stay in your lane,
Steve!
Needy,
spelled with two
E’s. Here you go. Here you go, guys. And that brings up third down with the Utah Whites leading the L. A. Traffic 17
14 with a little over three minutes to go in the fourth. McDickman lines up shotgun. Screen pass to Treshawn DeAndre on the right side. He dodges Crushman, makes his
way to the end zone. Touchdown, Traffic! a flag on the play. Alright, you guys got holding on number 97,
right? Yeah,
definitely. Alright,
make the call, Dick. Dick?
Yeah, I mean, it was holding. Alright, so make the
call. Or… You know, we say the flag was for an excessive celebration, so they can keep the touchdown and apply the penalty to the kickoff, huh?
What are you talking about? I didn’t see excessive celebration. You sure? I coulda sworn I saw a little nae nae
going on. Dick, what’s going on with you, man? Alright, look, guys, I gotta be
real with you. Treshawn DeAndre just scored that touchdown, okay? I have him on my fantasy team this week. I
need these points.
Are you kidding me, Dick?
I’m
not kidding you, Bill. I’m playing against my family. father in law this week, and if he doesn’t score this touchdown, I lose. Well, I’m not gonna let you make a bad call because you’re in some fantasy football league. Make the call. Craig, no. If you make one bad call This works out perfectly, Bill.
I started the quarterback who threw the touchdown pass. We’re gonna have to ignore the holding call. Well, guys, I have the kicker, and I was kind of hoping that it wouldn’t convert on third down, so we’d have to kick the field goal.
What’s the hold
up, fellas?
So,
basically, there was holding on the offense, so the touchdown should get called back.
However, I started Trey Sean on my fantasy team this week, and I need these points. Which works out for Craig, because he’s starting the quarterback, and it was a reception. But, unfortunately, Bill started the kicker, so he was kind of hoping… We’d make the stop, force him to kick. What a pickle. I gotta be honest, guys.
I’m gonna side with Dick and Craig on this one. Let him keep the touchdown. What? You have three minutes
left. You’d lose the game. Yeah, I know.
Sucks. But I started Treshawn in my league too, and the league I’m in is no joke.
150, buy it. Yo, no way,
bro. I low key started your defense in my league this week.
Yeah, man, I was hoping you would strip the ball from my hands on that last play. Then I hit that crucial ass spin move on you last practice round, and I
was like, f k, you know? The
hell’s going on here, guys? Alright, coach, so basically, it was a holding call. But these dudes started me in their fantasy league, which is cool, because these dudes started our quarterback.
But, he started our kicker, and I started their defense, so… It’s kind of a pickle.
Are you sh tting me
with this sh t? Compromising the integrity of this game with your fantasy football leagues? Listen to me. If there was holding, you make that holding call. I don’t care if it was on our team or not. I care about this game too much to let you Coach, you started their defense too, didn’t you?
Yeah, you definitely started
their defense.
Right, I did. You’ve been killing it for me this year. Corey, f ck
yeah. We still have to make a call.
What do we do? This just got way too complicated. I’ve got it. Here’s what’s going down. Corey, you talk to your team. You guys are gonna decline that holding call.
Done. Ya’ll wait, but then Hold on! Treshawn, once we break this huddle, you’re gonna get out there and do some crazy celebration. I’m talking some humpies, whatever you gotta do, you do it. Okay, I got you. I’m gonna call on sportsmanlike conduct on the celebration, giving the Whites a better field position after the kickoff.
Coach, I need you to talk to your team about letting them run that kickoff back. Why would I do that? Think about it. Defense, special teams, it’s all one. You let them run that kickback, both your defenses get six points. Nice. Great job, Dick. Way to use your head. Okay, everyone good here? Yeah. Nope.
Once again, my kicker is getting no love.
Oh, shut up, Bill!
Your team is in first place, and you’re over here b about your kicker. Plus, you’re about to get an extra point for the PAT. Yeah, don’t be greedy, Bill. Stop being greedy, Bill. Bill. Fine. Bill. Yeah, Bill. I said fine. Bill.
Bill? Yeah, Bill! F you, Bill!
Alright, let’s do this. Get out there.
Wait a minute, uh, Treson comes in with a very delayed celebration
here.
Oh wow, I’m pretty sure that’s gonna be a
Yep, there it is!
Another flag
on the play. Multiple flags
on the play.
Holding. Offense number 97.
That penalty was declined. Touchdown. After the
play, unsportsmanlike conduct. Offense number 22. Penalty will
be applied to the kickoff.
This has got to be one of the strangest calls…
That son of a… You
playing against Dick this week? Yeah! Could be worse, man. When I played against him, he ejected all my
players. to run back the kickoff
for a touchdown! What?!
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