Does a hard life automatically mean you’re destined to struggle with finances? On today’s show, we’re all about mindset and how adopting the right mindset can set you on the path to financial success—and how having the wrong money mindset can hinder your financial progress. We’re honored to invite Tiffany Grant down to the basement to share her real-life experiences and struggles, and how having the right mindset helped her overcome the early disadvantages. Doc G from The Earn & Invest Podcast joins us to share his formative-years experiences with a hard life, and how his mother’s scarcity mindset affected him. And our resident gold bug, Len Penzo joins us to explain why he insists on preparing for economic doomsday by hoarding gold and cash.
We discuss the role habits play in mindset formation, as well as the importance of surrounding yourself with the right people and influences.
In the second half of the discussion, we dive into how you can make the necessary changes in yourself to improve your life situation. Spoiler alert: gratitude plays a big role in your quality-of-life.
And finally, Doug brings the heat with some trivia about a well-known budget-friendly food. With two of our regular contributors MIA, will Len use that to his advantage and inch ahead of Paula Pant? Will our guest of honor flex her budget-friendly food knowledge and give her soul-sister Paula the lead for the first time, I think, ever? Will Doc G throw OG a lifeline and the impetus to start a 4th quarter rally to emerge from the cellar? Three enter, only one will emerge victorious (unless there’s another tie). Tune in and find out what everyone many a few nerds will be talking about until next Friday.
Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.StackingBenjamins.com/201
Enjoy!
Watch On Our YouTube Channel:
Our Topic: How to overcome adversity, and how to turn the experience into a leg up in life
Life will always be hard (Money and Meaning)
During our conversation you’ll hear us mention:
- Mindset
- Habits
- Overcoming challenges
- Transforming past traumas into opportunities
- Confidence building
- The role of practicing gratitude in creating a rich life
- How our past influences the role money plays in our lives today
- The concept of “enough”
- The tools we use to create our life – money, time, happiness, etc.
Our Contributors
A big thanks to our contributors! You can check out more links for our guests below.
Tiffany Grant
Another thanks to Tiffany Grant for joining our contributors this week! Hear more from Tiffany and learn about how to employ the right money mindset by visiting her website Money Talk with Tiff.
Doc G
Hear more from Doc G by checking out his site and subscribing to his podcast: Earn & Invest.
Grab your copy of his hit book Taking Stock: A Hospice Doctor’s Advice on Financial Independence, Building Wealth, and Living a Regret-Free Life.
Len Penzo
Visit Len Penzo dot Com for the off-beat personal finance blog for responsible people.
Doug’s Game Show Trivia
- What year did Momofuku Noodle Bar first open?
DepositAccounts
Thanks to DepositAccounts.com for sponsoring Stacking Benjamins. DepositsAccounts.com is the #1 place to go when you’re looking to see if your rate is the BEST rate on savings, CDs, money markets, and even checking accounts! Check out ALL of the rates ranked from best to worst (and see the national averages) at DepositAccounts.com.
Mentioned in today’s show
- Ready, Fire, Aim: Zero to $100 Million in No Time Flat, by Michael Masterson
Join Us Monday!
Do you have dreams of a permanent vacation? Tune in to hear Joe’s discussion with two sisters who redefined the concept of a sabbatical from a limited-time endeavor to a never-ending one.
Miss our last show? Check it out here: Getting Zen With Your Money.
Written by: Kevin Bailey
Episode transcript
Nervous.
Yes. First time, no. I’ve been nervous lots of times.
Live from Joe’s mom’s basement. It’s the Stacking Benjamin Show.
I am Joe’s mom’s neighbor. Duggan, how hard is your life? Has that held you back financially? We’ll dive into hardships and money with a woman who is known for her informative Money Chats. Tiffany Grant, and also let’s welcome an amazing guy. It’s the man who created the number one budgeting app in the world.
Ah, scratch that. We just got Len Penso and let’s say hello to the man who’s always looking for ways to invest. Smarter, it’s Doc G, but that’s not all. Halfway through the show, I’ll feed you with my savory trivia question. And now a guy who orders milk at restaurants like a psycho, it’s Joe Saw Sea High.
Hey there stackers. I was this many years old when I found out that apparently you’re not supposed to do that. Like there’s something in the guidebook that says, don’t, maybe a manual I didn’t get that says don’t order milk at restaurants. Doug, you’re looking at me like, yeah. I mean,
everybody knows if you’re over nine or 10 years old, you can’t order milk at a restaurant.
It’s like you’re
like a serial killer figure. Why not do that, Joe? I can’t figure, I can’t figure out why not. Did you hear the joke? Did you hear the joke about the guy that uh, pulled over to pick up a hitchhiker? And the hitchhiker goes, says, uh uh, man, I’m surprised you picked me up. I could have been a serial killer.
Guy driving the car goes, no, that’d be quite a coincidence having two serial killers in one car.
Wait for it. Wait for it. I tried to hold back, but I couldn’t. The, is this thing on? We,
we, we got a great show today. We’re gonna introduce our guest of honor in just a second. I gotta get this thing moving. Len Penso, I believe, is here from his bunker deep under Los Angeles.
Len, how are you man? I’m
great. I, and I did wanna point out, you know, the milk thing, it’s like, I, to me it’s even worse when you order cereal at a restaurant for like, for breakfast. That to me, that is the, uh, ultimate weirdness more so than
milk. You mean like having somebody else pour your cornflakes for you?
I
knew you were gonna say that Joe, I just knew you were gonna say that.
I feel like there’s a, there’s an echo. Ja vu is a very real phenomenon for everybody.
This does this sound spontaneous. We’re trying to play this off, like this is all brand new, but we got about 15 minutes in everybody and we realized that we were not recording.
So for us,
this is the, our second time through this
discussion. Just fascinating, isn’t it? It Len? Fascinating. The cord flakes. Yes. Uh, I think, uh, we’re gonna talk about hardships today, but if, uh, somebody is having somebody else pour their, uh, pour their cornflakes, maybe they need a little bit more hardship in their life.
Next up, the man from the Windy City is here, the host of the Earn Invest podcast, doc G, how are you, man? Do you order milk at restaurants? I, I certainly
don’t because I have lactose intolerance and I think that would be more torture on everyone around me than it would be a pleasure for me, myself. But I’m wondering how of all the psychotic things you do on a daily basis.
Joe Doug picked the milk thing.
That
was the one, that’s where the line is. Dochy. That was the one of all the stuff he
does. If there’s one telltale sign that you should run away fast, it’s milk at a restaurant. As an adult,
I had no idea. Woman wondering why the heck she’s here. And it’s not to talk about lactose intolerance.
Believe it or not, she is the Queen by money. Talk with Tiff. Tiffany, grant joins us. How are you
Tiffany? I’m doing great. Happy to be here. I can see I’m going to, uh, get a ab workout. So good to be here.
Well, yeah, you’re gonna get a, a workout repeating everything over and over and over. ’cause we don’t even know how to record.
This is how the pros do it. Tiff, I don’t know if you know this, this is
exactly how the pros
do it. Taking notes. Taking notes. So my milk thing, I’ll say it again. Um,
and we’ll act surprised. We’ll be surprised.
So to keep that milk theme going, I’ve never ordered milk in a restaurant, but I’ve been lactose intolerant my whole life, so that’s probably why You’re kidding.
Really?
We had no idea.
So for the, it’s about time that we finally had you on. We’ve known each other for quite a while, but tell everybody about money, talk with Tiff because you’re juggling a lot of stuff, but one of those things is a podcast. People should hit pause, subscribe, or follow your podcast. But let’s talk what happens at Money Talk with
Tiff.
Yeah, so we have a lot of fun. Um, if you see this personality, no, I’m just kidding. Um, but Money Talk with Tiff is a financial education podcast. And so we cover the gamut. I have interviews, I also do solo episodes, but we talk about all things money, all things business. The premises, the way outta poverty is ideas.
So I figure the more ideas I can spread, the more people can be helped and we can go forth and prosper. So you’ll find a SSM Mortgage Board of things.
Oh yeah. No, it is. I mean, uh, just looking at your, your last episodes, I switched careers and so can you, so for people wanting to switch careers, what job market trends are forging our future?
And then one, we’re gonna talk about struggles today, TIFF, we’re gonna talk about struggling with money. But, uh, you had on a gentleman who’s a playwright, a poet, but he was homeless. He really struggled with money.
Yes, yes. And that was Adrian Quas. That was his second time on the podcast. The first time we talked about mental health and homelessness.
And this time he came back because now he puts on plays locally. Um, he’s doing a lot of big things in the community and during Covid he actually put on some virtual ones. So that was interesting. That.
So a virtual play? What’s that? What’s that all
about? Tiffany, he said as if he’d never asked you that question before.
All right. So a virtual play. Um, it was very interesting. Um, you know, it was all over Zoom and all the actors and actresses, they had their scripts, uh, memorize. It was just like a regular play, but just virtual. Um, so it was like a acted out podcast, I guess you could call
it like a radio drama kind of thing, like a table read.
Wow. Uh, it’s
actually impressive how much of this you are remembering word for word from the first time we did it. Can we just stop and talk about your short term memory has no issues, Joe, because this is remarkable. Maybe, maybe that’s
the psychotic thing right there. Doug. Maybe that’s it. I don’t know.
Um, but Tiffany, when they do these radio plays, would they stop it like right about here and do this? Would they stop it right there and do that? Would they put
the ad there?
I guess, I dunno, I’m not an expert, but Sure.
Now you can tell we’re at the part where we caught the recording, so now we’re back into the real thing here.
Yeah. Now we’re in new territory, which means, uh, I think, I think they probably, Doug wouldn’t have put one here
either. No, they wouldn’t do that. Oh. But we would, and
we just did
Tiffany’s here. Doc Cheese’s here. Len, you know how like you’re with a friend and you’re trying to get out of doing something. So you’ll you’ll say to other like, just go with me.
Just follow me. Just, you know, just take my lead. Don’t ever do that with Tiffany.
Yeah. It’s not gonna work. I need like, all the background
Tiff. Right.
Alright guys. Uh, we got Tiffany, neighbor, Doug Doc, G Lead. Let’s get moving.
All right. Our piece that I use for inspiration for today’s chat is from, uh, Douglas Soy. And it’s, uh, from his Money and meaning blog. And I know Doc G you read this blog often?
I do. I’ve actually had him on this show and we talked about of all things psychedelics and financial independence. Oh wow. He is an amazing, amazing guy.
Just really, really
thoughtful. Yeah. This piece is called, life will Always Be Hard. And of course the big lesson is, is that life is hard for a lot of people. And I’m wondering, Tiffany, we’ll start with you as the guest. Uh, when you started off with money, before you were coaching people, was there ever a time in your life when money was really hard?
Absolutely. Um, is there anybody Well, no, that’s a lie. I, I know there is. Yeah, for sure. I was a teen mom, so I had my first son when I was, what, 18. From then on I realized that, Hey Tiffany, you really need to get your stuff together because you have a little mouth that depends on you now. So, you know, prior to that, actually I had a car payment at 16 because my mom said, oh, you have a job, here you go.
Um, so, wow. Yeah,
I never had seen the statistics around teen moms and teen dads, but financially. Now, Tiffany, maybe you’ve seen these too. The statistics are, are not great, like in terms of economic wellbeing. So just the fact that you went from teen bomb to be able to teach people about money is pretty, pretty amazing.
Yeah, for sure. Um, when I got pregnant with my son, I was a senior in high school and a lot of people told me I wouldn’t be able to do anything. I’d go flip burgers, you know, that type of thing. Which there’s nothing wrong with flipping burgers if that’s what you like to do, but a lot of people would tell me that, and I’m the type of person where if you tell me I’m not gonna be able to do something, I go ahead and do it.
Um, and so that’s kind of just the attitude that I have about
life. Yeah, I wanna definitely, we’re gonna dive into that today, DJI, I think you and I have talked about this before, you, you really haven’t had a struggle with money at any time in your life, have you? I’ve got a
little bit of that generational trauma, but not a lot distantly.
So my grandma actually was born during the depression and she was put up for adoption because her mom died during the flu pandemic in the 1918 era. So she handed on some of that trauma actually about not having food available, those kind of things. But interestingly enough, you know, I remember back when my father died, I was seven years old.
He was a doctor, but hadn’t got to that point in his career where he saved a lot of money. My mom was lucky enough to have been just finishing business school, so she was doing an internship at a big c p a firm and they gave her a job. But you know, my mom was planning on literally selling our house, moving into an apartment, and that was how she was gonna fund us going to college.
She eventually got remarried. She did really well with her business. My stepfather had a business. They ended up making a lot of money. So I didn’t have a lot of financial trauma, but I remember the fear and the anxiety, uh, my mom had. In fact, I remember when my stepsister graduated for college, my stepfather wanted to take the whole family out to like a five star restaurant, and it was exceedingly expensive, but they had plenty of money, right?
They were two very successful business people. And I remember my mom having a panic attack. At this idea that we’re gonna spend that much on dinner because of, I think a lot of that trauma. And I remember that trauma as a kid of just worrying where was the money gonna come now that my dad had passed
away?
Whoa. Len, you came from a family that really struggled with money, I think. Yeah, they
did. Um, matter of fact, I think I told the story before, I think there was a couple times when I was a teenager where my folks borrowed money from me. They actually borrowed money from me. I, you know, I had a, a pretty good job.
I was working at a grocery store and back then, you know, you could raise a family on what they paid. Grocery store clerks. I was making some good money as a teenager and they borrowed from me. But, uh, you know, I do remember there were times when they were late paying the bills and threatened to have the water shut off on our house.
I dunno if that’s ever happened to you guys, where if you’re late on that bill, they come up and they put a notice on your front lawn. Uh, it’s like they don’t even, you know, it’s like the whole world knows you’re late on your water bill. You know? So you had to go through that kind of shameful event every once in a while, you know, everybody know, oh, your parents haven’t paid their water bill.
So yeah, it was a struggle for them, which is maybe why ever since I’ve always overs saved and been over risk, overly risk averse. So I think that kind of, that’s one of the things why I am so. Um, save, save, save, save, save. And always have this huge cushion of money. ’cause you never know what’s gonna happen.
That’s funny. In this piece they talk about your money script and Tiffany, your money script started a certain way, but I thought it was interesting how you grabbed a hold of that money script and said, Hey, if you tell me I can’t, then I definitely do. If you really worked through your whole money script and when you work with people, do you talk about that as foundational like Douglas does in this piece?
I. Absolutely, because really money is more emotional and psychological than people realize. It’s not really the physical aspect of spending, saving, you know, whatever you’re doing with it. It’s really internal stuff that you have to work through. So it took me a while to even like connect the dots. For instance, I’m a super savor like Lynn, and the reason is because, you know, a, being the team mom, but then also seeing my immediate family go through bankruptcies and foreclosures, and also seeing that they were heavy spenders.
So I’m like, okay, if heavy spending is is what gets you here, then I wanna take the complete opposite route and I wanna be a super saver. But what I’ve also come to realize and learn is that, Being a super saver isn’t good either because all you’re doing is perpetuating these money scripts and financial traumas that you’ve been through.
And so really you wanna find a middle ground, um, between the super saver and the super spender, and that could potentially be your happy place. So it took a lot of internal work and I do a lot of internal work with my clients because that’s really, really where it all starts.
Yeah, it’s funny, doc g when she’s talking about being a super saver, that’s kind of where your, your mom was.
I mean, money was coming in the front door, but she was super afraid to let it go. Her money script was definitely, uh, forged.
Oh, for sure. I mean, there was a scarcity mindset and you know, it’s telling, because it sounds like all three of us had very different upbringings with very different stresses, and yet the end product is some of that frugality and the, some of that scarcity mindset and some of that fear.
And it kind of gets, I think, to what Douglas is talking about a little bit in his piece is. We don’t live each other’s experience, we only live our own experience and therefore we can only compare harder times with better times in our own lives. We can’t look at what someone else has lived through and say, gosh, what you live through is so hard.
So I’m gonna look at my own experience and not be traumatized by it. It doesn’t work that way. We’re traumatized by what we go through. There’s a relativity there, but we only know what each one of us goes through. So our very three different upbringings of the three of us here, you know, on this show, but we had some common threads and it traumatized us in some of the same ways.
Yeah. Len, it’s interesting, you know, with you becoming a super saver because your parents didn’t save. Have you ever found times when you thought about what Tiffany’s talking about? Maybe I was saving too much. Maybe I, I need to loosen up the purse strings a little bit.
Yeah, I, I think when I, we had our kids, that’s when I realized it’s like, you know what?
It’s time to let loosen some of this money you’ve got and spend it, go on vacations and do things. Because I eventually, I came to the realization, and I, it seems obvious, but life is meant for living. And, you know, money is a tool to help you live. Right? And if you’re just holding onto that and you’re not spending what you’re, you’re earning from your, you know, the fruits of your labor, you know, why are you, why are you working?
You know, that’s why we work. We work to live, to spend money and to enjoy life. So, you know, you have to, there’s a balance there. And it took me a while to, to learn that.
Tiffany, you have family around you that is experiencing bankruptcy, so you’re experiencing all the motions of that. You’ve got another mouth to feed besides yours.
You’re working, you’re going to, I mean, you’re juggling so many different things. I don’t know, I’m just thinking about people listening to this podcast now. There’s probably some people listening to this podcasts now that are really struggling and they’re like, well, it’s easy to be philosophical now. But it also seems to me that, that you were kind of philosophical at that time.
Like how did you, how did you have the wherewithal to think outside of this, this world of, I just gotta bring in a paycheck today so people eat.
Joe did not pay me to say this, but I used to listen to the Stack and Benjamin show every single day I used to listen
to. Brilliant. You’re amazing.
But it’s real though.
She’ll be back. It’s real though. We like to welcome our new weekly contributor. That’s right. That’s right.
You’ll not be hearing Paula Pan anymore on the show ever again.
No, but seriously, for real. I used to listen to a bunch of financial podcasts, um, read Money Magazine, Keplinger, personal finance, different finance blogs, all of that stuff, and just dove into all of that information.
And you know, they always say when you know better, you do better. Not quite, you know, you can, you can learn as much as you want, but it’s the implementation and for me, I grew up with this philosophy where I just do, right? So instead of ready, aim, fire, I fire ready, aim, or something like that. Anyway, um,
you get the
point and everybody ducks,
everybody ducked.
No, but seriously, like I was able to get all the education that I needed and therefore take the necessary risks and things that other people were honestly scared, more scared than I was. So, for instance, whenever I needed to, you know, when the year rolls around and they’re doing all the increases, usually it’s like 3%.
I was like, you know what? I’m gonna see if I can get another job. And I used to give myself raises, but that was because I had the financial education. And also having my budget, you know, my money in order where I’m like, I know how much I need to survive. Let me see if I can get more. I feel like that is another piece, like when you’re constantly in a state of having to put food on the table and things like that, you can’t really think creatively, um, you can’t really think past that situation.
So it’s definitely a lot of internal work. I’m very woo woo. I tell my audience I’m very woowoo because I do a lot of this internal work, um, for myself.
So, yeah. But it is funny. Back when I was a financial planner though, TIFF, to your point, everybody wanted to get to the fun stuff, the sexy stuff, the investing, the, the, you know, Hey, let’s get saving money.
Let’s get, and I’m like, if we don’t work through all this stuff first, It’s gonna kick our butt. Neither do people go, okay, all right, whatever. And then later on, once they saw that, that informed every decision we made. Being a little woo woo up front is the, is the perfect place. But, but, but I, I just have to ask, you know, money magazine, financial podcasts, like getting into all this stuff, how did you find it?
I mean, how did you all, all of a sudden one day hit on this gold mind of surround sound?
Honestly, I’ve always been like, money conscious, at least a little bit. So like, I remember being like six and cutting coupons, like nobody ever used them. But I just like going through the motions and I’m like, I’m looking at ’em and I’m like, these little pieces of paper are worth like a dollar.
Oh yeah. You know what I’m saying? Um, and so I have always been money conscious. And even when I was 16, you know, I’m grateful that my mom was like, here’s your car payment. Because I became one of those extreme couponers, like the ones that you see on tv. That was me at like 16. I would have a shopping cart full of stuff for like $20, and the cashiers are like, who the heck is this kid?
Like, but it, it’s just for me and. After knowing more of my story, my dad was a heavy couponer. I didn’t know that at the time, but it just goes to show that a lot of this stuff can perpetuate through generations as well. I just thought that was interesting, just looking back how, ’cause nobody else on my mom’s side who I was living with, nobody coupon.
Like they would look at my little piece of paper like, what do we need this for doing? Swipe whatcha right? But seeing that my dad was heavy into saving money and very frugal as I got older, I was like, ah. So that’s where I get it from. But it’s just interesting to see how these different cycles can happen.
Douglass uh, doc DJI dives into this idea of pain and he talks about some of the pain that Tiffany was talking about earlier. Len was talking about, you’re talking about, and he’s got this great phrase where he says, I’ve come to see that whatever pain life has given me, it was mine to carry and hopefully transmute.
Yeah. Is he saying, I think what he’s saying is the pain is good. The pain is actually good.
I don’t even think he’s saying the pain is good. I think what he’s saying is the pain is there whether you wanna ascribe goodness or badness to it. I mean, listen, no one really escapes unscathed. We all carry our trauma with us, and it’s silly to think you won’t.
What really makes the difference between someone who’s probably successful and happy and lives the life they wanna live is what type of meaning do we ascribe to that trauma, to that pain? People who tend to be happy and to move forward tend to take care of their money and take care of their lives.
They tend to look at the pain of their past and they ascribe meaning of being a hero who climbed out of this bad situation and made the best of what they had. And so if you can take that pain, which all of us carry, Find some real meaning in it. I think it propels you forward to feel much better about your present and future.
And once you start feeling about good about your present and future, it’s easier to save, right? It’s easier to ask for that raise. It’s easier to then start doing those things that are really healthy for us.
Let me take this from a, to, from another angle. This might sound cliche. Obviously life is a journey and, and it’s how, what kind of lessons we learned from our lives.
So, so far we’ve taken this from, okay, we’ve been poor, we’ve had some trauma financially. All of us here have, and it affected us and how we treated money going forward in the opposite direction. It works as well. And if you don’t learn the lessons in the opposite direction, it is just as bad. For example, somebody who’s grown up in a wealthy family where money is always available and you’re young growing up, a lot of people will not learn.
You can’t just spend money, uh, you know, people go bankrupt who are wealthy because they
can’t control themselves. Just the true, the true value of a dollar you’re talking about, right? So there’s no lesson. So
even if you do come from a family with money, there’s a lesson to be learned that you have to learn or you’re gonna learn it the hard way going forward.
Usually it goes both ways. So, and there are lessons that have to be learned and you have to, you know, you have to learn from both
directions. One of his key points in here, Tiffany, is just the concept of gratitude, about having gratitude for everything that happens no matter what it is. Do, do you feel gratitude toward those early struggle days that
you had?
Absolutely. Um, like I said, I’m grateful that my mom said, here’s, here’s a car note for you. Um, now that you have some money coming in, because it taught me how to, you know, at least have a smidgen of budgeting. It taught me how to make my money stretch. So that’s why I turned into an extreme couponer.
’cause I mean, when you’re a kid, your parents pay for everything. So, you know, I was wearing all the name brands, you know, all of that stuff. But then when it came time for me to pay for, for it, I’m a whole different story. Like, okay, need to slow down on the right, let’s pause for a minute and let’s see how much money you really have.
Um, so I was grateful. I’m grateful for all of life experiences and, you know, kind of to Doc g and Lynn’s point, life is not what happens to you. Life is your reaction to it, right? So how you react to what happens to you is what shapes your trajectory and what shapes where you end up. There’s a lot of things that we all go through, but really how we reacted to those things is what’s shaping our future.
Going back to your question, gratitude. I practiced gratitude every single day. Um, it doesn’t matter what I’m going through, I always see a silver lining. Even when I had c o d back when Covid was there, I was like, you know what? I’m grateful that I had asthma my whole life because it taught me what I needed to do when I had covid, you know?
Um, and so I took that negative and turned it into a positive, and that’s something that I practiced. All day, every day. Um, because even us sitting here talking, even the listener that’s listening right now and breathing and listening to this conversation, that’s something to be thankful for. That is abundance.
You know? And so for me, I’m just grateful for all of the moments in my life and all of the lessons that I had to go through and that I learned from.
But, you know, Tiffany, how at, at least it was for me, I, I can’t speak for you. It was damn hard sometimes to have gratitude For the moment I was in, I was just like, this sucks so incredibly bad.
But I do feel like once I got some gratitude that things got better much
faster. Absolutely. Because you can go on a negative autopilot where, let’s say for instance, you wake up in the morning and you’re, let’s say, on the wrong side of the bed. I know that’s cliche, but let’s just say that’s what happens.
You wake up, you’re like, oh, how did I get over here? Stop my toe. Oh. Like, so everything throughout that day now is negative. But if you just woke up and said, you know, I’m on the wrong side of the bed, but it’s okay. I have a bed. I have somewhere where I get to lay my head. Then now you can be on positive autopilot for the rest of the day.
And honestly, even though I’m so full of gratitude and I’m usually very positive, there’s times even before we hit record today, I’m like the first time or second time
before
all the times. Um, but I was just sitting there like, dang, what the heck? ’cause I started a PhD program and I’m like, wow, I think I bit off more than I can chew.
And I was almost in tears, but I said, you know what? I’m grateful for all of these opportunities that I have. And then I started being able to think strategically about how I’m gonna get all of this done. I think what
Tiffany is talking about really does echo a lot of what Douglas is saying. It’s this idea that when you ascribe meaning to your trauma, you turn that kind of generational trauma into generational growth.
Which is actually exactly what you’re doing with gratitude, is you’re, you’re almost giving a bit of thankfulness for the struggle because the struggle is what hopefully gets you to this higher place today. And, and I think that’s a lot of what
Douglass is trying to also say, Glen, to close out the first, uh, half of this discussion, Douglass writes, we don’t study money to study money.
We study money to study ourselves. Do you agree with that? That, uh, that money’s just a reflection of studying who we are? Uh, that’s a good
question. Um, you know, money is entwined in our lives. I mean, you just can’t remove it from our lives. I mean, it, you can’t live without it. You need it to function. So I think it is, it’s totally entwined in our lives.
Uh, your attitudes towards it are going to be shaped growing up one way or another. And I think it’s just up to you whether you’re gonna take lessons or reflect on that or not. And I think a lot of people don’t reflect on it. I think more people. Likely more people are likely to reflect upon it, who are in, who come from trouble getting, having money early on or struggling than those who do have it.
But I, I think it’s, it’s imperative that everyone kind of look at money and, and reflect on what it is. I think it has to be done or, or you’re gonna learn a lesson,
a hard lesson. We’re gonna talk about some of those lessons after our break. But if you’re brand new to the Stacky Benjamin Show, at the halfway point of every show, we have our trivia challenge between our three frequent contributors.
Len Penso is here playing as Len Penso and Doc G today is on Team og. So we’ll keep the GS together. And Tiffany, you are team Paula Pant today. And Tiffany, that means I’ve got some good news for you and I’ve got some bad news for you. Which one would you like? Let’s go with the bad
news first.
Well, the bad news is you’re gonna be guessing in the middle.
Because for some weird reason Paula Pan’s not in the last place, which is where she’s been forever and, and this year she’s tied for first and only because of the fact that Len has won more recently than Paula has. Does that mean that Len has to pick first? So Len, so far this year has 11. As we move into the fall, Paula has 11 and OG has eight.
OG got uh uh, doc, your team og. You guys got one closer last week. He was down by four. Now he’s only down by three. So moving into the fall, can Doc G asking, asking Doc G if he can do this? By the way, for anybody that’s ever listened to, doc G’s frequent appearances on this show is like there’s no way in hell doc that you’re gonna help OG get closer.
We
got a streak going,
baby.
A streak. You did win last time, didn’t you? You were on. Did I? I can’t
remember. It must’ve been, it might’ve been so
mind blowing that I don’t even remember. I think
you did. So maybe you do have a streak. Well, either way it’s a streak for better or worse. But to find out who this week’s winner is, we need a trivia question, and for that, we turn him a good friend, Doug.
Hey there, stackers. I’m Joe Bob’s neighbor Doug, and I’d like you to join me in the Stacking Benjamins time machine. The year is 1958. The US is experiencing a sharp rise in unemployment and across the globe. A man by the name of Mabo Fuku Ando is busy inventing what will later become a staple food of the unemployed.
Instant Ramen initially nicknamed Magic Ramen. This dummy proof meal was an instant hit and the people of Japan later voted it the greatest Japanese invention of the 20th century. Really? People like ever heard of a Walkman. Anyway, MoMA’s inv, MoMA fuku innovations in affordable, easy to make food, continued with his invention of cup of noodles in 1971.
It’s crazy to think people who spent the 13 years in between those two inventions pouring, boiling hot water into like these flimsy plastic bags. Anyway, years later, finance guy turned, chef David Chang opened his own restaurant in New York City and named it, of course, Momofuku ’cause That’s a great word.
Noodle Bar. Momofuku Noodle Bar as a nod to the man who I’m not afraid to call the greatest inventor of all time. So today’s trivia question is, What year did Momofuku Noodle Bar first open? I’ll be back right after I figure out how to work these dang chopsticks.
Uh, Momofuku. And by the way, true story. Part of the reason David Chang liked the name Momofuku was because it just sounds Doug like you’re swearing. It sounds, it so, sounds like it. If everybody’s ever listened to David, every
Messed up my toe.
Mama Fuku. Well, if anybody’s ever heard David Chang speak, David Chang says the real version of Mama Fuku a lot.
A lot. Yes. Yes, he would. We’d have to beep half the show off if we ever get David Ch By the way, David, if you wanna come on the show. I’m sorry. We’d have to do what Joe, we’re, we’re open to it. We’d have to beep it out.
Beep. I thought you said. Okay. Nevermind. So, so,
uh, we start then with Mr. Penso MoMA Fuku Noodle Bar.
They have one of those in la Have you been? No. Uh,
no I
haven’t. No, it’s good food. I just went to the one in Vegas a few weeks ago. Really? Interesting.
Very good. Ah, well, let’s see. Let’s say, I don’t know, 1977.
- Tiff. Well,
uh hmm. To Doug’s point though, you know, ramen still exists. Walkman’s do not. So good.
Good point. Ramen might be the good point. I’m gonna
say. Well, Doug still has his, just to be fair, and he actually doesn’t have the Walkman to be even more fair, he’s got the one with the CD man, which skips as you walked out the street, walked
down,
like whoever decided to put a CD player in a, in a or do, do you remember those?
Those were sweet. My two old.
Yes.
Yes. Anyway, have you been to a Mama
Fuku? I have not, no, have not, I have not been Mama Fuku, but I will say 1980, let’s say 80.
- Len, what was your guess? 76 7 77. 77. 77. So we got ’em close together there, doc G. So if I remember, David Chang is not that old. Have you been to Mama Fuku?
I haven’t, but I’ve heard of it and I’ve seen him on TV shows. So I’m gonna say my, my original guest was somewhere around the two thousands, so I’m gonna say 19. She said 1980. So I’m gonna say 1981. Giving me all the upside above that. ’cause I could’ve sworn that he’s younger than that and it’s, it’s
more recent, but you think it’s
way later.
Did you just hit me with a price is right? Like Yes.
Yes. Oh yeah. I don’t know if you know that. Tiff, we call it uh, Chelsea Brennan in people named after the wonderful Chelsea Brennan. But my
guess was 2003 was like what came off the top of my head. So I’m gonna guess 1981.
- Wait a minute, hold on a second.
Doug is Doug Xi actually
confident. Was that confidence? It sounds it’s like a whole new man.
That should scare you. That should, that should tell you that it’s, I’m even more likely wrong. It’s gonna be like
1905
Ji is one badass MoMA Fuku. I guess so. Yes.
We will be right back after we play some MoMA Fuen ads for you.
Len, you opened up the bidding at, uh, at 1977. So the good news is if it’s pre 77, you got it, man. I don’t
think I’m get this one,
Tiffany. As long as it’s in like a two year range. You’re
good. Yeah. Yep. I’ve been prices. Right? So here we’re,
if it’s, if it’s what? Uh, 1980 or 79. You. Well, she’s got it. She’s
got it.
No, she’s got it from 80 to 90. 1990
roughly. No, he went, no, he took 81. You
did? 19.
Oh. Oh, I thought you said 2003. Oh, thats right.
$1. Like, okay.
Alright. Alright. Like, he just thinks it’s 2003. Yeah. Yeah. You’re feeling
a shortness of breath, Tiffany. It’s ’cause you’re getting squeezed
right now. I feel it. I’m like, why did I even agree to this?
No.
Yep. There.
There it is. Doc G. Feeling good? I
feel good. Which actually scares me more because then it’s gonna be embarrassing with how off I am. But yeah, I’m, I’m feeling a little more
confident on this one than you. Okay, let’s play a game then. People, how off is Doc g Doug? Let’s go.
Hey there, stackers.
I’m Uncredited Sport inventor and Instant Ramen connoisseur. Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. Shortly before his death in 2007, MoMA Fuku Ando fulfilled a long time dream with the creation of one last iteration of his fame noodles. Space noodles, which I’ve come to learn, are not noodles from space. Anyway, today’s trivia question was, what year did the Michelin rated restaurant Momofuku Noodle Bar first open in New York City?
The answer, well, we don’t just give it to you. I gotta make you do some math. I will let you know that Len was just off by 27 years. Tiffany was off by 24 years at Doc G off by just 23 years, meaning Doc was our winner because Noodle Bar opened in 2004,
which I was very close to. By the way. It was my 2003.
Yeah, you should have just guessed. 2003. This is, record this. I’d say record this, but I know we’re recording this.
You know what, doc? You can’t do that. You can’t say you were off by one year when you said
1981, right?
You were off by now. That’s a sore loser. 23. Now that is a sore loser. Len. I know you’re not feeling good about yourself right
now.
It’s okay. Doc wants to get
to it. Okay. Remember you still have 11 and OG only has
nine. I like how Doc has already done the math for him. He’s like, and I have nine, and one of those is mine. But can I tell you.
It’s a streak of two.
Babe,
we may never see this in the likes of trivia again where Doc G gets two in a row, right?
Wait a minute, does that mean that Doc G is streaking? Does that mean you’re streaking? Is that we’re streaker? Is that something else? All time For the second half of this show, uh, the second half, Tiffany is brought to you by deposit accounts.com. You know what happens when you go to deposit accounts.com?
What happens? She,
she looked like, I have no idea she’s
answering a question with a question. You can’t do that. Please
tell me, Joe. Yes, that is, uh, you’ll find that there are more than 275,000 deposit rates from over 11,000 banks of credit unions that you can compare one against each other at, uh, deposit accounts.com.
Listen to this. Uh, savings accounts. And of course this is, uh, several days before you hear this, so just go to deposit accounts.com to check these out for yourself. But as we record this, the national average on a savings account in America, 0.43%, 0.43, but the average of the top 1% savings accounts 4.66% over four points higher.
CDs top 1% average 5.53, where the national average is 3.67 money markets, top 1% average 4.49, national average 0.74. So you just go to deposit accounts.com and you can check those out for yourself and maybe score yourself a much higher rate on your savings. Alright, uh, let’s save people. Let’s not save them some money.
Let’s save them some frustration because I think Doc g we’ll start with you. We talked about starting by looking inward, right? And Tiffany talked about being woo woo. But I think for you, I feel like this idea of gratitude is all over your book taking stock, which is these messages from people when they’re dying.
And one of the messages I think is, is the woo woo’s the place to be.
I think what we realized very quickly, and you know this sounds in a sense, very privileged, right? But this idea is that money is manageable, right? Whether you have no money or lots of money, there are techniques, there are rules, there are places to go learn and figure out money.
It’s eminently knowable. The problem is how we deal with our own trauma and how we use that money to make life better. It’s a lot more gray, it’s a lot harder to figure out for each of us, what truly makes us happy, what fills us up, and then how to build the financial framework around that. In order that we can kind of be living our best lives.
And so that’s why I think it ends up in the woowoo. Like you, you can’t get there unless you also do some of the hardcore financial work. But the ending place is trying to figure out what all this means and how to integrate it into a fuller sense of self. And I, and, and so it is, it’s hard. It, it’s, it’s not something that you can just go find on a blog post about how you invest in order to make a million dollars.
It’s a little bit more
complicated than that. Len is funny. He brings up this idea in this piece, uh, Douglas does, he talks about maturity. When we would mature, and he didn’t say this, but I thought about this, about money, money maturity, right? Was was there a time when you transitioned from more and better, you know, doc G was just talking about making life better for ourself to I have enough.
I mean, is maturity knowing what enough is? That’s an
interesting question. Um, I’ve always managed my money. So I was always in a position that, well, I guess I’ve had enough. As long as I kept working, I had enough, I was good. And, and that includes saving for retirement and going forward. And then I think back to when I finally retired, and you know, this, Joe, it was a struggle for me to retire.
I mean, it took, it, it was hard for me to pull that trigger. Remember? I mean, you guys were saying, when are you gonna do it? You know, I was like, yeah. And I had enough probably for two years. Uh, but it, I was afraid. Again, there’s that fear factor that comes in. Maybe I thought I didn’t have enough, but I really did, and I just needed to pull the darn trigger.
I mean, you just have to, it’s hard, especially if, like, if you’re someone like me who’s always, you know, you wanna live way below your means and, um, you’re just overly cautious. So, yeah, I think, uh, it’s hard. I guess good for you if you can do it when you’re younger. I, the mistake is though, thinking you have enough.
And you really don’t. So I mean, that’s the mistake you gotta watch for. I mean, ’cause that can be, I mean, you can always go back to work I guess, but um, and I’ve seen a lot of people do that, think they have enough and they retire and then they unretire.
Yeah. But don’t you just think our brain overplays that though?
Like I feel like our brain plays that hard, way harder than it ever happens. Like there are far, there are far more ghosts and demons in my head than there are out there really waiting for me. It’s
amazing. Like when you do retire and you do, you cut back. Well, at least I do, I’ll speak for myself. We cut back on our spending, obviously.
And you don’t spend as much as when you’re working. I mean, when you’re working and the money’s coming in, you know, you spend a lot freer, you adjust when you retire and you don’t need as much. You really don’t, you don’t need as much when you retire. You need a fraction of what you, of what you had when you’re working.
At least I did. So, um, and even then I was saving most of, most of the money that I was spending, I found out getting close to retirement. I was just socking it away. So, you know what I’m saying? It’s like most of my income was being socked away anyways. It’s like I really wasn’t living large. I was just, I was just saving a ton.
That’s what it was. And, and you know, you don’t really realize that until you’re retire and you’re like, well wait a minute. All that money, where was it going? Well, it was going into my savings, you know, investments and all that
good stuff. It’s like when your children leave home and you realize that some of the expenses, uh, for me anyway, uh, for college, were actually a cost transfer.
Like college was, don’t get me wrong, college was expensive. But for the part that, that we paid for, like meals is an example. Yes. We were already feeding my kids. So yes, that bill, I was paying that bill anyway and, and, and we made it through college years much easier. I mean, I feel like there’s some of that cost transfer that happens when you retire as well, or you know, you don’t gotta wear the, the whatever you dressed in your, whatever uniform you were to work anymore.
Don’t Costs are down commuting costs. Yeah.
Yep. There’s all kind of like Joe for this job. I save a ton of money on pants compared to my previous job.
He doesn’t wear any pants. Let’s seats stand up. Doug please. Doug. Yes. Yeah. And there go the YouTube ratings. YouTube ratings are done and we’re done.
Tiffany, when you’re working with people, what does, uh, money maturity look like to you?
Yeah. So here’s the thing, right? Everybody wants more. It doesn’t matter how much you have, everybody wants more. Um, I’ve seen millionaires, they want more. I’ve seen people that make $10 an hour. They want more. Everybody wants more.
But I think where you reach the maturity, and I’ll do air quotes factor, is when you have a comfortable place for you. So let me give you an example, right? Right now, doing what I do, I make less money than when I was in corporate America. But guess what? I have way more fun. I’m way more happy. I’m not as stressed, that type of thing.
So for me, I feel like I have reached maturity, air quotes, because I’m at a place where I am happy and comfortable at the same time. So, I feel like, and I know I sound so woo woo, but I feel like once you get to that point where you feel comfortable, that’s when you have reached maturity. ’cause you know, we see on Twitter and all that stuff all the time where they’re like, oh, you can’t survive off of a hundred thousand.
And I’m like, I can and I know a bunch of other people that can too. And so it’s really all about perspective. And for me, I’m like, right now I’m comfortable. Am I making as much as I was in corp uh, corporate America? No. But my life, my quality of life is so much better and so happiness. Yeah, I would pick this over Anything else.
You know, it’s funny, doc, what Tiffany’s talking about, and this has been, you know how, I don’t know, every year I feel like there’s different things in the zeitgeist, there’s different, uh, topics that are flowing down the river. And the one I keep hearing a lot this year is this idea of currencies. That money’s one currency, but there’s these other currencies that we need to buy.
Like, you know, Len, the currency that you can’t get back because you stayed another year at work because of fear. Is that time, you know what I mean? That time is another currency. Happiness is a currency like doc. I feel like, I don’t know if you’re seeing this on earn and invest as well, but the this currency idea keeps coming up again and again and again.
I use the term tool, but it’s the same. We make the mistake of thinking that money is the only tool, but we have other tools, right? I don’t like using the word time only because time is unchangeable. But we have our youth, we have our knowledge, we have our connections, we have our passions. All of those also are tools or currencies that we can use.
And I think a mistake that a lot of people make is they put off living the life they wanna live. ’cause they feel like they don’t have enough of that currency that they call money. And sometimes they’re not using some of those other currencies to design their lifestyle today the way they want it to be.
And I think that’s actually maturity. Maturity has nothing to do with how much money you have. It’s knowing the place, the role that money plays in your life, and then fulfilling the gaps left by maybe not having enough money with other currencies, other tools, other things that you can use to hopefully start doing those things you wanna do in life because money only gets you so far.
It just is a great tool. But
that’s it. I. I, I wanna end this with another side discussion that he had, which is his cousin Kitty talked to him about, you know, these people that you’re around and everybody, and Tiffany, you said this earlier about everybody’s son has a different struggle, and Dr. G you really echoed that a lot, that we had all different things going on.
When he was talking to his cousin Kitty, his cousin Kitty, was talking about how there are family members, there’s people who are not in the same place, they don’t have gratitude, they’re not happy, they don’t feel fulfilled. He talks about them having a hole in their heart. I feel like Len, there’s, there’s a lot of room here for those of us that listen to financial podcasts to realize that there’s actually a lot of people with these hidden struggles land and that, you know, we don’t see them right away.
You don’t see these struggles outwardly. So maybe we gotta have a little bit of, uh, grace when we’re around our fellow man as well.
You know, that’s something I still gotta work on. It’s like, you know, you’ll see people, people that’ll, I. Have a bad day or something, and you, and you’re like, gosh, man, what’s, what’s wrong with you?
You know? It’s like, get a grip, you know? But you know, I, you know, you, you’re right, there’s always a story behind everybody’s reactions to things. Yeah. Grace is a good word there, Joe. I, I, you know, it just benefits all of us just to carry a little more grace in our lives.
Well, and this is the part that I deal with, Len right here.
You don’t have to react. Kitty told him, you don’t have to react, you don’t have to take everything personally, which I totally do. That’s just, that’s just the way they are. Everybody’s acting and the way they know best. You can’t expect them to act differently. Did any of this, Tiffany, speak to you as well?
Yeah, and I mean, to that point, we tell ourselves stories all day, every day. And this is something, ’cause I teach at a local university and I teach freshmen and we talk about this. I’m like, you know, if you’re walking down the hallway and you see your favorite professor and you’re like, oh hey, but they don’t say anything and they keep walking, you immediately go to, oh, they must not like me.
Or, you know, something like that. Yeah. What did I do? Right, exactly. But the actual situation is that maybe they had their headphones in, maybe they didn’t see you, maybe they didn’t hear you. But we tell ourselves stories all day, every day. We’re excellent storytellers. But I feel like we have to realize when it’s a story that we’re telling ourselves versus when it’s a true fact.
And a lot of people that come to me, they’re like, oh, I’m horrible at money, or I don’t know anything about money. And I’m like, oh, I don’t know if that’s true because you know, you’re here right now and you know, I’m sure you know more than, let’s say your kid knows about money. We don’t give ourselves enough credit on a day-to-day basis with what we have, what we know, what we, what we’re blessed with, you know, that type of thing.
So yeah, you,
you, you must have actually seen this last one on the list doc with patients, if someone is difficult, they are actually the ones who are suffering.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it’s a great message and. This goes back to what Tiffany was says, was talking about too, is the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves and about our world.
And so you will find that you are more calm, more happy, and you have a lot more grace if you start telling yourself the story of this person is interacting in such a way that doesn’t feel good to me, not because I did something wrong, but because it’s a reflection of their inner turmoil. And so when you do that, I mean, of course we should also look at ourselves and be introspective enough to know when we’re doing something wrong.
But in those cases, when people rub us the wrong way and we’re like, look, I didn’t do anything, A lot of times it’s a reflection of their inner turmoil. So if you can have some grace for that, it just makes you less angry. It makes you question yourself less. But it also allows you to give some people some space and time.
And I think it’s just a generally healthy way to look at the world and it, it is self preserving as well as being graceful towards other people. It’s self preserving because you are not. Developing all those bad hormonal feelings we get when we
feel like people are being mean to us. Those stories Tiffany’s talking about that we tell ourselves all the time.
Yeah,
yeah, yeah. I gotta share real quick, I, I had a product here at home that broke, and so I called a company and I got attached to the customer service rep and I, and he was, we were going round and round and I was getting upset, okay? So I was trying to keep calm, but eventually I, I called it, you know, this damn product, what it was.
I go, this damn product that’s like, I paid good money for that and, and you know, it shouldn’t have broken and you guys should have to fix it. And he’s like, sir, calm down. If you’re gonna use the D word, I’m gonna hang up on you. And I’m like, that word’s used every day. I, I wasn’t it directed at you, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
He goes, sir, if you can’t be more professional, I’m gonna hang up. And I was like, me be, you know, I’m the
customer, you’re the, what the hell, you’re the customer service guy.
Why do I have to be more professional? So I thought that was hilarious. The guy was telling the customer to be more professional. It’s like, no, you gotta put up with my, with my frustration.
I got in trouble for that once too, Len, I was, uh, on my book tour and I I was, there was a location and, um, this location sent me a contract that was not at all, was not at all fair. And I wrote back, I said, Hey, so and so you put my feet to the fire with this, but because we’re closing in on the date, there’s nothing I could do.
So I’m gonna sign your stupid bad word. Mm-hmm. Contract. I said, but just, I just wanna let you know that I’m not happy about it. Woke up the next morning and uh, the guy’s manager said, nobody swears at my employees, you’re not coming here. You’re not coming here. And I wrote back to him, I said, I wasn’t swearing at your employee.
I was swearing about this stupid contract. Yes,
exactly, exactly. That’s why I wasn’t the, it wasn’t directed at the customer service person at all. It
was directed at the product. You know, I said the dude was
fine, he was fine, but this practice is still stupid. I don’t care about coming or not. This is dumb.
This is highway robbery. So
anyway. Yeah, and I mean, to Lynn’s point, I used to be that person on the other side. You know, I used to be a customer service rep. It was for Xbox. So it was dealing with the angry parents because their kids like spent a ton of money on the Xbox. But the thing is, when people were nice to me, yeah, I was able to work with them more.
Oh, I, yeah, if they came on, of course, of course. And they were just screaming and yelling and you know, cursing, all that stuff. I did the same thing. We had the same script. Calm down, or I’m gonna hang up and you know, we’re allowed to hang up if it continues. And so for me, if somebody had the same issue but they were nice about it, I would work with them, maybe give a refund, you know, whatever.
If they had a attitude, oh, that was it. I already shut down at that point. And so here’s a tip to save money. Be nice to your customer service reps.
Oh, I totally, totally agree. And you know, what, had I not said that bad thing, instead gone, Hey, let’s just keep negotiating, you know? ’cause there’s no way I want this in there.
We probably would’ve done our event at that place, but because I got hotheaded, it went off the rails totally on me. And Totally. I can just imagine, Len, you’re never a hothead. I bet.
Well, I told you I, I did. But I mean, it was frustrating. I mean, I didn’t start off hothead, it was a long conversation that was going nowhere and I got frustrated.
Yeah.
Yeah. It’s a great place to leave it. Be kind to your customer service reps. Uh, let’s find, let tip your weight staff. They’re here all week. Uh, let’s find out what’s happening, uh, where all of you guys work, the, the cool projects you’re working on. We’ll have our guest of honor Tiffany go last. So Len, what’s coming up@lepenso.com this week
we look at, have you ever looked at a dollar bill?
Have you ever, like, especially at the back of a dollar bill, all those weird symbols and stuff that are on there. And there’s a lot of fascinating history and trivia about some of those symbols and things that are on that back of a dollar bill. So if you’re a big Trivia Pursuit fan or you know, you, you play trivia games, stop on by lenzo.com and you can, I’ll tell you all the secrets there are to know about the dollar bill.
For example, did you know on the back of the dollar bill there is what some people call an owl? Others call it a spider, but you’d have to look very hard to know where it’s at. So I actually took a picture and I circled it. You can see it. So those are the kind of things I share with you.
Good to see the Owl spider, but only if you go to len penso.com.
Yes. Hard hitting personal finance@lenpenso.com.
Do I remember this right after the movie National Treasure, where Wasn’t There stuff hidden on the Dollar Bill? And, and so I remember after watching National Treasure Nicholas Cage diving into that, don’t
watch National Treasure. Wait, come to my block.
Don’t go
to National Treasure. I, I did not mean to upstage lin pencil.com, which is clearly better than a Nicholas Cage movie Duck. Come on dji. What’s going on at Earn and Invest? Man, we
just dropped an episode with Steve Adcock at Steve on speed on X or Twitter, I don’t know what you call it nowadays.
Steve on speed. Steve, that’s the name of his Twitter account. Oh, at Steve on
speed. He did a, wait a minute. He’s an awesome dude. He did a
thread about hard love or tough love for people in their twenties, and it’s a series of financial points that people in their twenties miss and what he’s learned in his forties about what he should
have done.
Good stuff from Steve Cock on the Earn and Invest Show where finer podcasts are distributed and
not so fine ones too.
Wherever you find your podcast, fine or not. Tiffany, it’s about time. We got you here. Let’s make sure we do this more often, if that’s all right with you. Yeah, sure. Happy
to. She, she’s
like, accept the trivia part.
I just know I need to guess last so I can hit the $1. But, um,
yes, it’s easier.
Always easier. She’s like, tell me when I’m playing for the person who’s in last place and that’s what I’ll come on. Right. So,
exactly. Gotta be
strategic. If you don’t mind, let’s talk specifically about the podcast. What’s
coming up A bunch.
A lot. Um, we cover a bunch of stuff, but really I was, I wanted to talk about the blog though. Ah, do it because, yeah. ’cause I’m doing a whole bunch of career articles because I realized that now is a great time for people to switch careers if they wanted to do so. Um, I talked about it on my last pod, uh, couple of podcast episodes ago when I talked about the job market.
Now is a great time if you want to switch. So I’m doing a lot of content around switching careers, how to navigate, uh, raises, negotiations, things like that. So you can find that on money Talk with t.com.
Awesome, and we will link to that on our show notes. Stacky Benjamins dot com. By the way, shout out to here to, uh, Douglas Soy for this amazing piece.
We’ll also link to that, uh, life will always be Hard from the Money Meaning blog. All right, that is a luck Doug. You got it from here, man. What should we have learned today? Well, Joe,
first take some advice from Tiffany Grant and find simple ways to make good money habits part of your daily routine.
Second, be careful you aren’t perpetuating past financial traumas through frugality. Instead, be grateful for past money lessons so you can make adjustments to your behaviors to break free of those traumas. But the big lesson, don’t throw a whole cup of noodles against the wall to see if the noodles are cooked unless you’ve got two cups of noodles.
Thanks to Tiffany Grant for joining us today. You can find out more about her work at Money Talk with t.com. We’ll also include links in our show notes at Stacking Benjamins dot com. Thanks to G for joining us today. You can find his podcast, earn and Invest wherever kind of Okay Podcast are found. And thanks to Len Penso for joining us today.
You can find Len penso@lenpenso.com slash I paid my water bill. This show is the Property of SB podcasts, L L C, copyright 2023, and is created by Joe Sulci High. Our producer is Karen Repine. This show is written by Lisa Curry, who’s also the host of the Long Story Long podcast. With help from me, Joe, and Doc G from the Earn and Invest podcast, Kevin Bailey helps us take a deeper dive into all the topics covered on each episode in our newsletter called the 2 0 1.
You’ll find the 4 1 1 on All Things Money at the 2 0 1. Just visit Stacking Benjamins dot com slash 2 0 1. Wonder how beautiful we all are. Of course, you’ll never know if you don’t. Check out our YouTube version of this show Engineered by Tina Eichenberg. Then you’ll see once and for all that I’m the best thing going for this podcast.
Once we bottle up all this goodness, we ship it to our engineer, the amazing Steve Stewart. Steve helps the rest of our team sound nearly as good as I do right now. Wanna chat with friends about the show later? Mom’s friend Gertrude and Kate Kin are our social media coordinators, and Gertrude is the room mother in our Facebook group called The Basement.
Say hello when you see us posting online to join all the basement fun with other stackers, type Stacking Benjamins dot com slash basement. Not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don’t take advice from people you don’t know. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor.
I’m Joe’s Mom’s Neighbor, Doug, and we’ll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show.
Tiffany, welcome to the after show. This is the part of the show that doesn’t exist. What? What happens here stays here. Did you, when you used to listen to our show, did you find the after show? Of
course. Did you know it was here? I listened to the whole thing from beginning
to end. It always cracks me up though when people are like, I’ve been listening for six months and I just found it.
What? Awesome. Which is, wait, wait. There’s an after show. What? Perfect.
Perfect. But see, that just goes to show that they don’t binge it enough. ’cause if you binge it, it’ll automatically get to the after show.
I swear to God, Doug, I owe Tiffany like 20 bucks for the gracious references. What you missed
before you even came on the first time before you forgot to hit the record button, was Tiffany saying that we need to have a whole episode of Doug outtakes.
Oh no, my God’s, why? That’s the moment that she became my
manager.
Don’t make his head bigger than it already is. Holy, you have no idea what you’re doing. You’re creating a monster. Well, he
was telling us about all the stuff that doesn’t make it on the show, and I’m like, oh, I love Doug’s stuff usually. So a whole episode.
I will say, Joe, lately as I’ve been listening to the finished product, I’ve, I’m remembering our conversations when we record it and I think, oh, there’s something funny coming up and then gone, no Doug anywhere. Funny comment, evaporated.
Blame
it on Steve, either, Joe, just blame it on Steve. He
just,
let’s just put it this
way, that, that if half of, uh, Doug’s outtakes made it on air, uh, he wouldn’t be able to run for public office again.
Again. That’s right. If we need him to, we need him to run in, uh, 2024. By the way, Len, just a quick note to you. We’ve had two people so far that have emailed me saying, Hey, can I get one of your CDs? So I, I probably shouldn’t say this out loud with the thing running ’cause we’re gonna get a run on them, but I need to give you some addresses for people, for some CDs you should be charging a lot of money for.
And by the way, somebody else in the basement said you can actually find the tracks. Apparently I haven’t verified this myself, but on Amazon, on Amazon Music, You get Amazon? Do any of you use Amazon music? I
have, but not in a while. I’m gonna look it
up. You can find, you can find Len’s Band. The relics.
What? Uh, on Amazon music. Did you know that Len? No way.
That can’t be. That’s impossible.
A dude said he had your song that he had Vancouver and he added to his on Amazon Music
playlist. It’s
the
internet on Amazon.
Music is possible. I I sense copyright infringement going, going wild right now because I get nothing from
Okay.
Flynn? Yes.
When I get the results, the only three artists are when I type in the relics. Is it R e l i c s? Yes. Yeah, I just get Pink Floyd Relic and
Relic
Hearts. There you go. That’s good. That’s what I wanna hear. Yes. Someone’s just
lying. Someone in the basement’s lying. Yeah, that’s not true. They’re just making stuff up.
Yeah,
it’s on my playlist. I swear to God. I am gonna put
it on Apple Music though. I I will, I might as well do it after 25, 35
years. I should, yeah. Pink Floyd’s got an album
named Relics. Yeah. But
we did have, we did have a after show a little while ago, we were talking about music that we’re listening to.
And a lot of people like that one, like some music recommendations. So, uh, why don’t we do that again? If everybody’s got like a song that they listened to that, um, people might not know. Yeah, we just did
that. We just did that, didn’t we? Wasn’t that
long ago. We did that a few weeks ago. Yeah, like a month ago.
Time flies Len. Yeah. Okay. It’s been, it’s been about a month,
but Len there is, you go to Apple Music and search the relics. There is a band out there called the Relics. It’s recent. They’ve got a single, they just released about two months ago called Vancouver. Um, top songs. Tonight’s the Night Roundabout Standing Tall.
It’s all right.
Uh, they cut
Baby Blue. Well, they, they’re not the original I 35 years that band’s been around. Well, my band 35, the Relics. So,
uh, I
would sue their pants off.
Watch out. Relics lens coming for you. Doc G got a song you’ve been, uh, pinching at lately. This is embarrassing,
but I’ve been listening to a lot of Sabrina Carpenter lately.
I
don’t even know who Sabrina Carpenter is. She has a
song called Nonsense. It’s kind of fun. Pop. She’s a, you know, I dunno, but I like the, I like her
album actually. So it’s very pop music.
Yeah. She’s a actress, singer. If you ever had a, if you have kids, the show Girl Meets World, like this was like 10 years ago or so.
She was in it and then she’s like a pop star in her twenties, thirties.
Yeah. Tiff?
Well, uh, my kids call me a boomer, uh, so
Okay, boomer, right?
I listen to a lot of what they consider older music, but really it’s just like the two thousands. Um, so I listen to a lot of, like, er, Badu and Lauryn Hill, you know, that type of Yeah.
Flow. So that’s the type of stuff I listen to. I was actually looking at my Spotify, trying to give y’all a good one, but, um, just along those lines, I’ll come
back to you or just jump in if you got one. Len, what, what’s been on your playlist lately? Oh, lately it has, it’s
been a lot of jazzy stuff, you know?
Oh yeah. The old, uh, I hate to bore everybody, but, uh, smooth Jazz, which I just saw. There was a survey, the genres of music that are most popular. Where did I see that? Gosh, it was like, uh, Rock and roll was, was rock and pop was number one, and then hip hop was there. Oh. Country. Then hip hop, and then at the very bottom, like only like 12% of the people is the smooth is the jazz.
It’s, that’s it. It’s the jazz. Yeah. Jazz
stuff. Did I, I heard you say Smooth jazz though, Len.
Well, there’s two kinds. You know, there’s, there’s like the felonious monk stuff, the real hardcore stuff that, and, and then there’s the, yeah. The smooth stuff that’s more palatable for people that
David Sandborn
Lee rit, that kind
stuff.
Yeah. David Sandborn stuff. Stuff. Yeah, exactly. Stuff
like that. So you can’t tell which way Len leans on this one. You know, the stuff that’s more palatable that humans could listen to. Well, for most people it doesn’t. We can barf. No, no. The other stuff’s really good
too. I mean, it’s technically incredible who needs Coltrane.
Yeah. But
yeah. I love the old forties jazz. Like that station on, um, on xm. Cheryl will, uh, make me turn it after like an hour. She’s like, can we listen to something that’s not from our great grandparents age? Doug. How about you man? Well, it’s funny
that Len brings up jazz. ’cause I listened to the Barie, uh, unpalatable, uh, really they call it cool or bop from the fifties in the first part of the sixties.
But a lot of lately a lot of cannibal adderley, a lot of West Montgomery, um, some Oscar Peterson. So I’m also a big jazz fan. I went through a regrettable, smooth jazz period myself. I mean, we all have done it.
Yeah, you don’t
really wanna admit that. I mean to, I mean it’s the Kenny G and stuff like that.
Yeah, yeah. Don’t, don’t
talk about that. Oh my, well actually he was the one guy that was banned, but I have. Hundreds, if not thousands of dollars of smooth jazz CDs in my collection. So I I, I’m pretty well versed in that cra I mean that stuff. But, um, you know, the other thing, Joe, that, uh, lately with the death of, uh, Robbie Robertson, I got back.
I’ve always been a Robbie Robertson fan, but for anybody who’s listening, who hasn’t spent any time with his first solo album from 1987, It is remarkable, the production quality. You look at the, uh, cameos of the people who are so, so, um, respectful of Robbie Robertson and would do anything to participate in an album.
Bono Sings backup on that. Sting sings back up. Boines are on that album, Joe. Oh yeah. I mean, people are just like, can I play with you? Can I play with you? Mm-hmm. And the big track from that album was somewhere down the Crazy River, which got a lot of airplane and a lot of you may remember, but honestly, the other.
The other tracks on that album are as good or better than that one. So that’s what I’ve been spending time with. Robbie Robertson’s first solo
album. I love how Tiffany’s thinking. My kids call me a boomer in this music Everybody else is talking about is way right.
Like,
y’all are making me look
real good.
Yeah. Where are my kids? Get in here. Listen to these idiots.
Yeah. By the way, two recommendations I have. Uh, one combines, uh, jazz with my love of, uh, all things Disney. Uh, Dave Diggs Disney, which is Dave Brubeck. Talk about good jazz. Oh yeah. Oh wow. Dave Brubeck has a fantastic, uh, album of him doing Disney songs.
And another one, Doug. You’ll appreciate this one. I’ve been watching The Bear trying to catch up with Doug on this, this great series. The Bear, Tiffany, familiar with the Bear? No. Chicago, uh, restaurant. They’re opening a restaurant in season two on Hulu. Yeah, it’s a really good series, but the soundtrack from the Bear is an amazing soundtrack.
You
watched that show with Shazam open on your
phone? It’s all over the place. I mean, there, there’s a little bit of everything on this. I mean, yeah. It’s, it’s pretty well,
so I’ll give, well really quick, like, um, do it. I’ll give one, uh, and actually found this on Facebook, so, you know, I was just mindlessly scrolling, uh, but it was called Lucky by Tish Hyman, and it kind of goes in theme with the whole theme of today’s show.
But, um, it’s really good. I really like it. And so I played in the morning as like my, you know, I feel good today. Get you going.
Mm-hmm.
A little bit. Yeah. Oh, that’s cool. Mm-hmm.
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