How much is too much of a good thing? How do we achieve the optimal balance between the two extremes of cheapskate and YOLO? Joining us for this extreme discussion we welcome the founder of the EconoME Conference and Doug’s ex-girlfriend, Diania Merriam; Doc G from our sister show, the Earn & Invest Podcast, and writer extraordinaire, Paulette Perhach. They’ll discuss what makes for extreme saving and extreme spending.
In the second half of this extreme roundtable discussion, we talk about how to find the right balance between the two extremes, based on your priorities and goals in life.
Finally, stick around for Doug’s extreme sports-themed trivia! With all three of our regular contributors MIA, who will walk away with the W as we enter the second week of the fourth quarter?
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: A Few Word Description
TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING — TAKING IT TOO FAR (mr-stingy)
During our conversation, you’ll hear us mention:
- The role of money in your life, and when it’s worth it to spend.
- Life priorities.
- Frugal vs. cheapskate.
- Spending money on what brings you value.
- Saving money vs. YOLO.
- Lifestyle design to get the maximum experience out of life.
- Getting pleasure from saving money.
- Achieving optimal savings/spending balance.
- How to give yourself permission to spend.
- Using goal-setting to guide your savings/spending balance.
- Importance of earning more money.
- How to know your worth, and how to react if you feel undervalued by your employer.
Our Contributors
A big thanks to our contributors! You can check out more links for our guests below.
Diania Merriam
Another thanks to Diania Merriam for joining our contributors this week! Hear more from Diania on her show, Optimal Finance Daily: Money Management & Financial Independence at Optimal Finance Daily: Money Management & Financial Independence on Apple Podcasts.
Register for the upcoming EconoME Conference March 15-17, 2024, in Cincinnati, OH. Use the exclusive discount code “stackingbenjamins” to get 10% off the price!
Paulette Perhach
Big thanks to Paulette Perhach for joining us. To learn more about Paulette, visit pauletteperhach.com and powerhousewriters.com.
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.
Doug’s Game Show Trivia
- How many holes are there in a standard NHL hockey net?
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
- Paulette’s recent New York Times article.
Join Us Monday!
Tune in for a very special Monday episode from Bali, where we’ll feature stories of Stackers doing AMAZING things, like Annie, who’s experimented with van life, and Tonia, who figured out she was ready to retire…by accident! And that’s not all…Joe’s got a special guest co-host from the Catching Up to FI podcast…Becky Heptig.
Miss our last show? Check it out here: Stop Guessing On Your Investment Choices (featuring Frank Legan) ep. 1420.
Written by: Kevin Bailey
Episode transcript
Hello?
Honey? I’m at the mall now
and I found this beautiful leather coat. It’s only a thousand. Can I get it? Well, sure, if you like it that much. Okay, um, I also stopped by the Mercedes dealership and saw the new model. You know, the one I really like. How much? A hundred and twenty. Well, at that price, I want it with all the options.
Great! Oh, and, and one more thing, the house we wanted last year is back on the market. They’re, they’re asking 1. 5. We’ll make them an
offer. But come in at, uh, 1. 4.
Okay! I love you, baby. I love you, too. Okay, bye. Um, does anybody know whose phone this is?
Live from Joe’s mom’s basement, it’s the Stacking Benjamins
Show.
I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and today this podcast goes to 11 because we’re talking about extremes! Saving too much, spending too much, and working too hard. And to help us dive in, we welcome the queen of the EconoMe conference, and my ex girlfriend. It’s Joe’s mom’s cousin, Diana! Plus, the guy who can actually raise his hand when a flight attendant asks, Is there a doctor on board?
It’s Doc G! And finally, a woman who puts the un in unlucky, It’s Paulette Perhatch! Joe wrote that. But that’s not all. Halfway through the show, I’ll share my holy trivia. And now a guy who we’re all lucky to have leading the show, it’s Joe Saul Sehy!
Hey there everybody, and happy Friday to you. I am Joe Saul Sehy. I average Joe money on x slash twitter slash thread slash whatever you want it to be. It’s a wonderful Friday because
we’ve, we’ve got, we’ve got a team
of fantastic contributors here today. All of which are familiar voices to you, but none of which are part of our…
Usual weekly round table. Let’s start with the woman in Cincinnati who’s bringing the economy conference to a city near you as long as you live near Cincinnati. Diana Miriam’s here.
How are you? I’m so good. How are you doing? It’s amazing to hear Doug being on this side of the mic. You know, I’m used to being in your seat.
So, um, you’re making me think I need to come with a little bit more enthusiasm next time.
You bringing enthusiasm would maybe have kept our relationship going a little longer. Is this going to get
awkward? Still a little salty about that.
Okay. I got the old, it’s not me, it’s you line.
I think Doug is probably completely you.
Diana, let’s transition off that topic really quickly. Uh, how’s things going? How’s things lining up for March? We’re coming to Cincinnati in mid
March. That’s right. So good. We are Very close to finalizing the speaker lineup. I have like two spots left, so I’m very excited to go to FinCon with you next week because I’m looking for my last two speakers and we are over halfway sold out.
So, um, looking really good for this far in
advance. I was, uh, I’m just home from Bali as Doug may know. Doug, did you know that I went to Bali? And I was at Amy Minkley’s retreat and all anybody could talk about, Diana, was getting back together for the reunion in Cincinnati. Go on. Yes, it’s the name Dynamaria might’ve come up about 50 million times and another name that comes up all the time because she filled in for a nearly a full year for Paula Pant on this show.
And it’s about time we had her back for a union. Paulette Perhatch joins us. How are you? Hi, I’m doing great. We have had this scheduled, I know, for a long time, Paulette, nearly minutes. You’ve been scheduled to be on the show. How have you
been? I’ve been really good. The software I’ve been working on for a long time is like almost ready to go.
And things are like, like, you know, being an entrepreneur, it feels really hard and hard and hard. And then you look around and you’re like, Oh, like we have systems set up and it’s feeling a little bit easier. And I’m kind of in that place in my entrepreneurial. And, uh, did my, uh, speaking of events, I did my first big speakers thing last weekend at a place called Creative Works.
It was so fun. I just, yeah. Love all that stuff. It was so ball y,
but yeah. But it was ball in. It was ball in, right?
I refuse to say that, but if that’s what you think,
that is fine. I’ll say it. And the man behind the microphone at our brother podcaster and an invest is here. Doc G, how are you, man? Good. And, and I’ll
say balling.
So something that you and I do, you know, maybe we’ll, we’ll go to FinCon
or something that’ll be ballin. There it is. Absolutely. Paulette’s going to be at FinCon as well. So excited. We’re having a reunion next week as it were. All right. We’re going to talk today about extremes. When does it, when, when, Doug
is just salty.
He’s just salty. Are you not going Doug?
Back on. That’s where we first
met. I know.
Uh, we’ve got Paulette here. We’ve got Diana. We’ve got Doc G. You know what, Paulette? It’s been a while since you’ve been on. I think we need to maybe review what’s changed since the last time you were here. You want to go over that?
No. Well, I do. So hold on. Let’s, let’s do that right now. But that’s only the half of it. Hold on. Wait, there’s more.
Oh, God.
Not the response I was, I was expecting. Who does your blurring?
That response might’ve been extreme, but Paulette Perach is here. Diana Miriam, uh, Doc G. Jordan Gromit joins us. Let’s, uh, let’s chat.
I’m here
too. I’m here.
Today’s piece comes to us from a website that I don’t think we’ve, uh, gone to before for this. Mr. Stingy. com, getting the most out of life. Uh, Mr. Stingy, AKA Aaron, has a piece that is called too much of a good thing, taking it too far. And it seems like, let’s start with you, Doug, that some of the things that we’re going to go over here, saving, spending, and earning.
All fantastic stuff, until you maybe, maybe go a little too far. You know, it’s all
about the sweet spot. There is no black or white. There are lots of shades of gray. And so when we look at things like savings and spending and even earning. The problem is, you can go just about too far with everything.
Yeah, this piece begins, Aaron writes about the jackfruit, and about how people love it because its texture feels like meat, it contains a large amount of protein, packed with other healthy nutrients.
Well, in July of this year, a 39 year old Russian vegan influencer, who’d been living reportedly on jackfruit and durian without drinking water for years, suddenly died. Turned out that he had, he had too much, too much jackfruit. But also,
no water? Like, don’t you think that’s a part
of the problem? Like, anything plus no water is like, I don’t think that was about the
diet.
To his benefit, the fruit does carry lots of water in it,
right? I don’t know. And have you guys ever smelled durian? No, what does it smell like? Oh my God. I’ve never even met him. It’s yeah. You ever sat next to somebody that has funk like B. O. funk, durian smells like funk. Doug is right here, Joe. If you, if you’ve gotten no water and you’ve been eating just durian and jackfruit, just imagine the sweat of that person.
Oh God. I don’t know. Not much of a Russian influencer. Who is he
influencing? Thanks. Stinky people. Yeah,
I don’t know. Well, let’s start off here with Diana with reducing expenses. That’s where he goes first. Uh, let’s talk about the sweet spot. Reducing expenses can be a great thing. I mean, I remember lots of times in economy, people talk about reducing expenses.
The guy last year who talked about riding your bike every day, lives in Minneapolis, riding your bike, that guy. was taken reducing expenses to a whole new level and was just speaking about reducing expenses and the joy of reducing expenses.
Yeah. Well, I think it’s highly personal for me. I think what the line is is when it starts to feel like deprivation, right?
And that line is going to be really different for everyone. For me, I just don’t like riding bikes. Right? I don’t enjoy it. So, like, he clearly
Doug is like, I just don’t like exercise. Exercise? Yeah. Totally
overrated. No, I’m like a hiker and I like hot yoga. Like getting on a bike, it’s just, I’ve tried it plenty of times.
It’s just not my thing. Right? And Minneapolis is
the one place I’ve seen like an ice scraping vehicle for sidewalks. Like, not riding a bike there. Yeah. Every day.
Exactly. Exactly.
But remember how happy he was about it,
Diana?
No, he was. But that’s what I mean by it’s, it’s highly personal, right? Like when it starts to feel, to me, when it starts to feel like deprivation, then you know that that’s that line for you.
But I think you also need to question, why does something feel like deprivation? Is it because it’s something that. You know, I truly am not enjoying, or is this due to my cultural conditioning? So, for example, we were talking about the podcast I host, Optimal Finance Daily, and I just read an article this week from Liz over at Frugal Woods, and she was talking about minimalism in her home, and that for years, she had all these throw pillows.
on her bed. And they hated these throw pillows. Like they took them off the bed every night. They put them back on every morning. They had to like store them in a box when they were sleeping. You know, it was just this dance that they did because they thought you’re supposed to have throw pillows that literally no one ever saw in their bedroom.
And so that to me is like, you know, would she feel deprived if she didn’t have throw pillows? No, because she didn’t want them to begin with. So I think we have to kind of question why do we want what we want? Is it because it’s a cultural norm or is it because it’s something that we
actually enjoy? Are you saying that no throw pillows is a good thing?
I don’t have any. Well, I got to go grab Cheryl. I’ll be right back because we got throw pillows and I’m like, why do we have this stuff? I have no idea. She’s like, because they’re great. They’re fantastic. They’re horrible. Um, I’m on, I’m on team, uh, Liz Frugalwoods on that one. Paula, you must have, in all the writing you’ve done though, written about gamification because Diana’s talking, you know, she doesn’t like the bicycle.
The gentleman’s name was Jeremy, right? Was his name Jeremy? No, Kevin Ha. Kevin. Swing and a miss.
Was his name Bill?
I couldn’t have been further off because Paula, Kevin loves Bicycles Diana doesn’t does this come down to just mindset to me? It
comes down to about negative three degrees. Um, so I would not do that.
But yeah, you know, it’s like I have lived in tiny places and you know, when people say, Oh, I could never do that. And you learn to do things by just doing them, you know, and I think there’s a big part that’s like, for me, it’s really important to acknowledge like, yeah, You know, I just heard this statistic again, that to reach the global 1%, you have to make 32, 000 a year, right?
So anything we say like, Oh, I could never do that. It’s like, okay, well then why do millions of people do it? Right? Like they have to. So if you could do it, if you had to, you can do it if you choose to. And I think it just is how it feels. So I have a roommate and like, I actually really like that. I freelance, I work by myself all day.
So I don’t really mind having someone around as long as they’re not. You know, we
all know, no, it’s gotta be somebody you can match up with.
Well, yeah. And I’ve had, I’ve been lucky like twice with the last two ones. It’s been so fun, you know, and it’s like a dinner buddy, a grocery shopping buddy. I don’t really need a really nice car.
And there’s stuff where I spend a little extra. I’ve actually started buying myself nicer clothes. And I’m like, you know what? Like I’m a professional and I’m like the face of my brand. And I like this investment and it feels good, so I am going to do that, right? So, whereas some people would look at my balance and be like, Oh, I would be saving up for a house way before I bought a new dress.
I’m like, I literally don’t even know if I ever want to own a house again. So yeah, I don’t know. It’s just all about, yeah, where it feels good for you or doesn’t.
We exist in this, uh, this rare community where people brag about how bad their car is, right? That’s not a bad thing. That’s a fantastic thing.
Aaron writes in this piece, Doc, Hetty Green was once the richest woman in America. She was also known for being a miser. Legend has it that her son, Ned, had to have his leg amputated because she was too stingy to send him to a proper hospital. Like we have the one audience in America, and I’m not talking about the Stacking Benjamins audience.
I’m talking about the financial podcast audience in general has a lot of these people in it. What’s, what’s up with the extreme here where we’re like, no, I’m not paying for that. Make my life better. I’ll still
pass. My favorite story, and this comes directly from the financial independence retire early community, was the people who use credit card points to go on this luxurious vacation, but when they got there, they didn’t want to pay for breakfast, so they bought a loaf of bread and used the iron to toast the bread.
This is a true story. This is real. This is real. So, I mean, The truth of the matter is, right, there’s a calculus, and so the idea behind saving money is so that you have money as fuel to do the things you want to do, live the life you want to live. So what happens if the process of saving actually causes you to do things you don’t want to do, and live the life you don’t want to live?
And so I think there’s a calculus there, like we understand this idea of deferred gratification, I love this idea of being smart and saving and only buying things that are important to you. And that’s all great because we’re thinking about the future. But if you live too much in the future and then you’re despising or loathing your current situation, it’s no good.
Two of my favorite stories, Doc, back to your ironing, ironing the bread. Yeah. I read in one of the online personal finance forums, somebody who had kids and they were playing sports and they had to bring the Gatorade. And the Gatorade, they said, was super expensive, so they wanted to know how to make your own Gatorade, so we didn’t have to buy it.
Like, if you’re making your own Gatorade. And then my favorite of all time was the gentleman that said, Am I the only one who goes to a car dealership on the way to work for free coffee? Like if you’re, if you’re stopping by a car dealership to steal coffee, cause you don’t want to pay for it. It’s
like, it’s kind of a level of like contribution, right?
Where it’s like, I think that there’s ways to do things on the cheap. Like last summer I was in Seattle for five weeks. And so, you know, I pet sat a little bit, I hosted a writing retreat. And then there was like times where I was at. You know, my good friend’s house is for like five days. I wasn’t just there to like, steal housing.
I cleaned their house or I made them dinner. And I don’t love this, like, how can I sneak through the world with this attitude of I’m going to contribute the least, get the most out of it. Like the car dealership, that’s obviously there for people who are buying cars. Right. So I just, that to me is the difference between like frugal and cheap.
Like I hate cheap is like this me, me, me, my, like, I’m not going to like let it flow
at all. I feel like some people, Diana, in the fire movement have kind of made it like a race to the bottom. You know, well, seriously, the fire movement, you know, at its core is about learning about value and what really makes sense to you and spending money on those things.
And yet in that community, I feel like there’s that subset that I can make my life suck worse than you can make your life
suck. I definitely think that they’re out there from. You know, going to a lot of events and hosting economy and the people that I meet in person, I don’t see a ton of that. I think that that kind of cheapness where you’re stealing coffee from a car dealership like that, to me, they exist, but they are rare.
They just have the loudest voices online, I think, and they contribute to this perception of the FIRE movement that we’re all that way, or that’s the way you save such a large percentage of your income. But no, I think where this comes from is there is a bit of a thrill in optimizing, right? There is a bit of a thrill in how can I get this need met in the most efficient way possible.
It’s kind of like extreme couponers, which I don’t do that either. I don’t really use coupons unless it’s like super easy for me, like while I’m at the store, but people that are super into extreme couponing, I would say a small percentage of that activity is about the money they’re saving. I think they really get a thrill out of the game of it.
Is there
a way to pull at, if you’ve got people like this in your life, anybody who’s hanging out with us, listening or watching on YouTube? Is there a way to get through to these people that, you know what, your life could be so much better if you didn’t iron your toast?
Yeah, I don’t, and I want to say like, that hasn’t been my perception of the fire community as a whole at all.
I have a hard time because I’m so extreme on the other side, and that’s chilled out quite a bit. So I’m kind of medium at this point.
But on the other side, meaning you spend, meaning I’m such a spender. Yeah. Yeah. You’ll get the foo foo
toast. I will get, I’ll put avocado on that toast.
So going crazy over here, high roller, high roller, you know, and so someone could be like, okay, miss, you know, NSF fee, like Don’t tell me how to spend my money. I think we all need to go for that happy medium. But one thing that I see is like how it alienates you from other people, right? Does it, does it alienate?
Like, for example, if I say, Hey, instead of going out to brunch, why don’t you just come over? Let’s sit on my porch. I’ll play us some music. I’ll make us French, right? That saves as much money. As or maybe not as much, but a level rather than, Hey, let’s sneak into this, uh, hotel and put breakfast on a, on a, like a room.
That’s not ours, you know,
maybe you just got to find different friends.
There’s a thrill in that, too, though. I mean, you’re getting a big entertainment adrenaline rush trying to put it on the Rosen Rosen’s tab. The Underhills.
The Underhills. The Underhills. Wow, you’re the third guest of the Underhills here at the Courtyard by Marriott this morning.
Yeah, it’s weird. And you’re all making your own waffles. The second one on this piece is about saving money. And obviously, Doc, back to you. I love what Aaron says here. The greatest thing. The Financial Independence Retire Early Movement taught me, you don’t work until 60. And in my latest keynote talk, I spent a lot of time talking about this.
We have learned that you don’t have to wait until you’re well, well, well into your senior years to enjoy life. I mean, I think that, uh, the fine ears who are going to be on the show soon, they’re going to actually be hanging out here. And Texarkana with me for a couple of days. It’s going to be super fun, but they talk about this about, you know, don’t wait until later.
So saving money, you clearly from these people have this great, great middle ground. Talk about that, about saving money versus, you know, people tracking their savings rate.
So I used to be a big fan of only saving, right? And I think the opposite of saving is YOLO, right? You only live once. And I thought a lot about this because I was very anti YOLO for a long time.
One thing for me, though, is I also happen when I’m not podcasting and talking about finances. I’m a hospice doctor. And so you start realizing when you’re dealing with dying people that they would give anything to have just another experience or another moment where they could go out and enjoy themselves and not worry about things like money.
So my stance has changed a little bit. And I think as you’re talking about the pioneers and a lot of us really are moving towards lifestyle design. So the idea is how do we both save some money, defer a little gratification, but also be in the moment and allow us to use the money we have to truly enjoy ourselves.
And so I think, again, this gets to that messy middle of trying to figure out how to both be savvy enough to not have to work till 60, 70, or 80. But also to realize that money was meant to be spent and these moments passed and once, once those moments are past or those seasons in our lives are gone, it’s hard to come back to them.
And so I think we have to be cognizant, especially those of us who listen to podcasts like this and people who tend to have investments and savings and are really more savvy and thinking about these things, we probably have to push ourselves actually to spend more. Because most of us will probably die with too much money as opposed to the other way around of dying with not enough.
Well, well, Paula, you’ll appreciate this because I know you come at this from the exact opposite side, right? About trying to get money saved. You’ve talked about very publicly. In fact, Lisa Curry, who’s writes a good piece of this show now, she’s like, people have this problem. They actually save a lot of money.
Like, who are these sickos? Like, like you struggle with that middle ground of, I actually got to put some money
away. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And I recently did a piece for the New York times about ADHD and figuring out that I had ADHD and then seeing all the ways that that affected that. And it was so amazing to write that piece.
And it really helped me, like the research helped me really have like a lot of self compassion. And there’s even a neurodivergent finance group where, you know, I just saw my same story over and over, like, why can’t I save money, you know? And it’s like, cause it doesn’t produce dopamine and our brains are like starved for dopamine.
So having that, I was like, Okay, I can work with that. I can understand that structure. And yeah, because I’m like super YOLO and you know, what if I die before I see Machu Picchu or do this? And it is, we just like, we’re all just rolling the dice with how long our lives are going to be, how long we’ll have the opportunity to do things, you know, and we don’t want regrets, but we also don’t, you know, we don’t want, want regrets on either side of the coin.
Is that what you had to do? Did you have to up the second side of that game? Like, I don’t want to regret not having money later. So I got to put some money away.
Oh yeah. Oh my gosh. And I mean, I do like the slow and steady, you know, just like that weekly payment to my retirement. And you know, I mean, the thing is that when you’re an entrepreneur, you don’t really put a dollar amount on your business unless you want to pay to have your business valued, which you can, but I mean, I’ve put like 20 to 40, 000 into an app for writers.
And like, now I have a piece of software. Right. So. I have been creating assets. It’s just not on the balance sheet. So, but just making sure that I, you know, I want to be safe and happy and comfortable in my retirement.
Yeah. When I figured out that my business was sellable, that changed the game a ton and changed the game a lot.
Doc? I was just going to say, you know, Paulette brings up an important point. Like there are ways to YOLO responsibly, which sounds funny because there shouldn’t be such thing as YOLO responsibly. But what a lot of people do is what Paulette was talking about is, you know, they kind of pay themselves first, right?
So that portion of their paycheck goes away into savings or investing before they see it. And so that takes care of some of the savings so that if they do YOLO with the money that is sitting in the checking account. They’ve already started being responsible. So the idea of walling off a certain amount of money to be spontaneous, to enjoy yourselves, to splurge a little bit, but doing that within a structure that also supports saving and
your future.
I feel like there’s another letter there. It’s like YOLO kinda. Is it YOLO? YOLO? I don’t, I don’t know. Diane at Economy, you see these people all the time, right? People saving 50 to 70 percent of their salary. I get fired up when I see this, but is that, is that the wrong
approach? It depends on your circumstances, right?
If saving 50 to 70 percent of your income means you’re eating rice and beans every day and you’re miserable, then yeah, it is too much. I think it really depends on, you know, your income and your expenses and how do you play that dance of making sure that you’re living for today but also saving something for tomorrow.
I think that in the FIRE movement there is Obviously, you know, a celebration of savings and people bragging about their savings rate and how long it’s going to take me to reach five. And I see a lot of questions in the forums about like, Oh, this thing happened. It’s going to delay me reaching my fine number.
And what that says to me is, you know, I think that there’s this. perception that once I reach my Phi number, I’m going to give myself permission to live differently. And that is not how it works, right? You are building habits that are going to be ingrained for long periods of time. And so it’s not just like you reach your magical Phi number and flip a switch and all of a sudden you’re able to enjoy spending, you’re able to enjoy the fruits of your labor.
I think that’s a skill that you need to build slowly on your path to reaching your Phi
number. This goes back to Doc G giving yourself permission to spend some. Yeah, I mean, for
sure. And I think that’s the way Diana just put it. It’s perfect. It’s like you have to build in those habits of giving yourself permission and enjoying, right?
Because it’s a boon. Having extra money is a boon. And if you don’t actually eventually use it to, have a better, happier life than you’re kind of wasting the whole purpose for doing it in the first place.
Paulette, I think you were in on the round table that we had this spring with Wes Moss, where you guys were kind of on the, we were talking about your twenties.
Do you remember this conversation? Yeah. Where Wes was like, I think you should really work your ass off in your twenties. Try to save as much money as you possibly can. And actually we had Jonathan Clements on the former personal finance columnist for the wall street journal. Jonathan said, it’s Easier to be frugal when you’re in your 20s than it is to have to frugal when you’re in your 70s, right?
The fact that living in a campground when you’re in your 20s and 30s is fun. Living there because you have to in your 70s and 80s is no fun. So. If somebody’s in their twenties and they’re listening to this, would you tell them go for that 50 to 70 percent lifestyle and learn to dial it back later?
Um, yeah.
And like, get your friends in on it. You know, I think that’s the big thing where it’s like, let’s have this focus on this big fun. Let’s all say, Hey, we’re actually going to go to this one cheap night. and do this so that we can all spend a summer in Europe in three years, right? So kind of just creating a culture of that, but not just being like the cheap friend who never wants to do anything, but really helping your friends understand and like visualizing together because you guys are creating a culture around your spending together, and that’s a really big deal and
affects you a lot.
I love the visualization part of that because it’s not the race to the bottom or the race to the top, right? It is a race towards some end goal, which I think is fabulous. And that way then delayed gratification, the fun is getting to that goal. So, I mean, doing creative stuff to make that happen is awesome.
We got one more topic here, which is earning. We’re going to talk about that after our break at the midway part of the show, though, for people that are new to the Stacking Benjamins universe, we have this amazing, Competition between our three regular contributors, all of which have stand ins today, uh, Len Penzo, Paula Pant, and OG.
Man, we got quite a competition that you’re all in the middle of, so let’s go through this. Paula, you usually were the surrogate for Paula Pant. Mm-hmm. and Paula has done amazingly well on her own this year. I have no idea what happened. You left her in a great spot, but she has actually maintained it, which is not the Paula Pant way.
Paula. Paula’s. Paula is amazingly smart, but when it comes to our trivia competitions, usually in the last place. She’s got 12. She’s tied with og, which, uh, we’re gonna put, uh, Diana in the OG shoes today. So, uh, you’ve got 12 and Doc. You’re going to be Len Penzo today. You’ve got 13. So the score is Doc G Len Penzo 13, Diana Merriam and OG 12 and Paula slash Paulette 12 so.
It’s a tight one as we are now in the fourth quarter of the year, fourth quarter of this competition. We need a question. Doug, what tribute do we got today? Sure do,
Joe. Hey there, stackers. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and happy Friday the 13th. I’m going to kick off the weekend by watching all the Friday the 13th movies in order.
Speaking of Jason Voorhees, I’m so glad hockey season started this week. It’ll make it a lot more sense for my neighbors now that they see me mowing my lawn in a hockey mask. You may already know that the version of the game we’ve come to love today was invented in Canada, where the first ever indoor tournament was played in 1875.
Since then, there have been lots of crazy incidents in the sport, from players teeth being knocked out, heck, that’s like every game, to a guy’s throat being slit by a skate mid game! Don’t worry, he lived. I guess whoever thought of incorporating knives into a contact sport really liked to live life on the edge.
See what I did there? Like Diana’s breakup talk, you guys probably saw today’s question coming from a mile away. It’s super obvious! Here it is. How many holes are there in a standard NHL hockey net? I’ll be back right after I see what other blade related sports I can sign up for. It’s
gonna be awesome! Oh, yeah, that’ll be that’ll be fun.
By the way, Diana, I don’t know if you know this, but the word toothbrush was created by a hockey player. Did you know that? Now I do. Yes, because if any other person had come up with it, it would have been called a teeth brush. Just full. Anyway, sorry. Let’s wait for it.
Wait for it. Give it a couple. I
know Len’s not here, but you don’t really have to take over.
Somebody had to fill in Paulette. I had to. Hey, uh, so a lot of people making lots of money playing hockey, hockey, big time, Benjamin stacking sport. Doc G, the average hockey net has a bunch of holes in it. How many are there? I
have no idea. How the hell am I supposed to know that? So average, so you’re talking about the net and the goal, right?
The goalie
net? You’re in Chicago Blackhawks country. Of course you know it.
I’m going to take a wild guess because I have zero clue and say
- 350, he says. Uh, now, OG is last year’s champion, which means that Paulette, you get to go last. So, even though there’s a tie. OG goes second, so Diana, 350 is what Doc G says, what do you think, more or less?
I definitely think
it’s more. I’m not a sports person, I don’t watch hockey, but when I think about the net, like, isn’t it pretty big? It’s definitely taller than, like, the person standing in front of it. It is not.
I will tell you that it’s not. Wait, wait, wait. That’s cheating. Hey, hey, hey.
Sorry. What’s going on
here?
Okay. So I don’t know what I’m picturing. I’m probably picturing like soccer. Think of
a soccer goal.
Yes. That’s what you should be thinking.
Okay. So now I’m thrown off.
Thanks for the help, doc.
Oh, okay. Okay. All right. Now I’m picturing. They kick the puck over
it to get an extra point. You know
the net at the end of golf driving ranges by the highway?
Okay.
So now I’m thinking. That maybe it’s less. You said 300? And 50. 350? He said 350. I’m gonna say
- 150? Wouldn’t it be funny, Paulette, if there were no holes in a hockey net, if it really was like, made of, I don’t know, rubber or something? It could be a rubber
net.
Anyway.
I, so Doug, you said 350?
350 and 150 for Diana.
All
right, I’ll do the classic
move. No, don’t do it. Don’t do it.
3 5 1. Ugh. You said 3 5 She goes for more holes, three, five, one. All right, we’ve got three guesses. 351 locked in for Paulette, 350 for Doc G, 150 for Diana. One of these guesses not like the other. We’ll be right back. Doc, you kicked it off with 350.
Feeling pretty good? No, I’m feeling horrible.
Why? I lost all my upside and I lost most of my downside.
What could possibly be wrong with that?
That sounds like most of my life here.
I’m feeling uncomfortable. Well, Diana, when Doc said the upside that he lost, Paulette went really close with 351, but you’re way further down with 150.
You feeling good? Less holes? Clearly you’re a big fan of hockey.
Well, given that I couldn’t even picture what the, uh, the size of the net, not feeling great about it. No. If,
if Diana
wins and OG gets this one, this’ll drive me crazy. Just nuts. Uh, Paulette, 351 on a hockey net. You watch a lot of hockey? Oh,
all the time.
Yeah. I have it on the background right now.
Seattle Kraken fan
from back in the day. Uh, no, but I. I’m reminded of when my mom won the like count the beans contest at a Pickwick when I was little, winning five years of free coffee and 500 lottery tickets, which is why I don’t play the lottery. But I was like, if you count up and count across and multiply, I feel like it’s going to be more than 350 pretty easily.
Well, let’s see if… Depends on
the size of the hole.
You guys are really lobbing some at me, and it’s taking a lot of control, and I’m doing pretty good so far, but one more and my head’s gonna explode.
We’re trying to get… Oh, let’s break her! Let’s break her! Come on,
gang! We’re trying to get the Paulette back that wrote some of the…
Best jokes we ever had on the Stacking Benjamins show. Uh, Doug, you’ve got it from here, man. Who’s right? I sure
do have it, Joe. Hey there, Stackers. I’m a hockey fan and knife sport innovator, Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. Friday the 13th has long been considered an unlucky day. One of the unluckiest players in the history of hockey.
was Frank Brophy, who holds the record for the most goals given up to the opposing team at a whopping 16! Considering the average goals scored by a team in a typical game is 3 4, it’s no surprise that was Brophy’s first. And last season to play professionally. I bet he wore his hockey mask to work the next day so he could hide his identity.
While Frank Brophy let every puck through the one big hole on the front of the net, today’s trivia question was, How many holes are there in the back of a standard NHL hockey net? The answer? While hockey nets come in different sizes for varying levels of play, a regulation NHL net has 162 more holes than Diana Guest, 39 fewer holes than Paulette Guest, and 38 more holes than Doc Guest.
It has 312 holes, which means Doc G… Is our unbelievable winner. Like how did
this
happen? Three times in a row, baby.
Three wins in a row. The guy who’s so bad at this all of a sudden, maybe, maybe this was a trap. Maybe this was the, you know, like you’re playing pool against the person that can’t play. And then all of a sudden they’re like, Oh, let’s start playing for money.
Like Doc G all of a sudden has been money. I’ve been messing
with you guys
forever. I don’t know anything about hockey. You lost a
semester of tuition money
doing that once. Congratulations, Doc. You would like to make an acceptance speech.
I’m, I’m just so over the moon happy about winning since I never, ever, ever won before, and especially not three times in a row.
So this is, this is, this is my Emmys and Grammys all
rolled up in one. And I’m happy that we’re moving on to the last part of this conversation, the second half of the show, brought to you by deposit accounts.com. You know, Diana, what happens when you go to deposit accounts.com? I
imagine that you deposit something, well, you,
you, you get a deposit of some knowledge.
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Listen to these. And this is, we’re recording this, uh, Three days before you’re going to hear it. Savings account top 1 percent average 4. 88. You know what the national average is? 0. 47. The average person is getting less than half a percent on their savings account, but the top 1 percent of people earn an almost 5 percent at 4.
- Uh, checking accounts top 1%, 2. 96%. National average, of course, most people don’t get any. on their, on their checking account, but 0. 25 national average. You can find stats like that and compare actual savings accounts, CDs, checking money markets and pick one at depositaccounts. com. Isn’t that great, Diana?
Thrilling. Amazing. Let’s, let’s talk about what’s even more amazing, which is the third part of this earning more. And you see this Diana sticking with you. Earning more makes a ton of sense. Like this is when I was a financial planner. A lot of people would come in and they’d say, Hey, I’ve tried to cut my budget, cut my, I can’t cut anymore.
And you know, they were a hundred percent right. They just needed to earn more money earning. I feel like Diana’s the piece of the conversation not enough people talk
about. Absolutely. And I think the reason is because When you’re first cleaning up your finances, it is easier to look at your expenses and see what can I cut, you know, earning more.
Maybe that means you’re looking for a new job. You know, you’re switching companies, you’re putting together a plan to ask for a raise. So I think it can be more challenging, but there’s definitely a lot of value in, you know, building that gap between your income and expenses by increasing your income. It definitely makes things easier.
It’s easier to save when you’ve got more income coming in.
Somewhere in the recess of my memory, I think you’ve either told me a story before or you’ve written about like when you asked for a raise one time and it was a really weird conversation.
Oh, you’re talking about when I quit my job. Yeah, maybe.
No, I asked for a raise to be more in line with my fellow employees. I did all the research of like, what is my market value? I had, you know, put together a whole case of, you know, what I’ve done for the company, what I’ve earned for the company. And, um, it was denied. And so it, that really kind of started me thinking, probably time for me to move on.
Which is funny because, you know, Paulette, not getting the raise isn’t always a bad thing. Like in that case, especially when you’re an entrepreneur, like going, you know what? This isn’t my market. I shouldn’t be working on this stuff because I’m not getting paid over here.
Mm hmm. I wouldn’t know anything about that Cuz
you always get paid I got
the joke, yeah Yeah, I mean, I mean, you know, it’s like failure what we might call failure is always a good lesson But I think that is a really good, you know, like that makes me so mad I think especially because we see how women are just so, you know less valued in the workforce and sounds like Diana you really like had the argument, you know, and then it is like, okay, well, if you’re not gonna give this to me, like, yeah, I’m headed somewhere else.
So did you get another job after that? You liked more and made
more money? No, that’s when I just decided to work for myself really and focus on economy and the podcast. I love
not having to ask anyone’s permission to make more money because how hard you work. Seems pretty disconnected so often from how much you may get companies, right?
To me, it’s such a tricky thing because if you ask for a raise and you don’t get it You send the message that I’m just willing to settle than less than I’m worth And then if you also don’t get it, you know, they they think you’re not happy there and you’re looking for something else Right. It’s I think if you’re really unhappy with your pay sure you should try to ask for a raise but Really, I think you should just look elsewhere.
Like if you don’t feel like you’re getting paid what you’re worth, I think the best solution is to look
elsewhere. Because the leap can be so much higher than whatever 10 percent they’re going to give you at your current company.
Well, and also if you play the game of pitting someplace else against your current situation, even if you stay, lots of HR people go, you’re the first person who’s going to get cut because they don’t think you’re on the team.
Oh yeah. Flight risk. And by the way, uh, statistics from, uh, nonfiction research. 64 percent of us think that we are underpaid. And if it Paula, to your point, if we just make that women, the number jumps up to 75 percent of women are pretty sure that they’re underpaid. So that’s a lot of us talking yet earning more can become toxic.
You know, you study the dying. I remember one of my most frustrating clients. Um, people that I just loved, he found out that he had a terminal diagnosis. All of a sudden he decided he was going to stop working right then. His spouse and I had tried to tell him to stop working forever before that. Cause he had enough money and he’s like, but there’s overtime.
And when the overtime goes away, that’s when I’ll stop working. And we’re like, please stop working now. So he gets this terminal diagnosis. decides that they’re finally going to go to Alaska. This big trip they’d had in their head forever. He’s going to stop delaying that. He’s going to start living his spouse and I super excited.
He goes for a second opinion, finds out that the terminal diagnosis was wrong. And he’s got this very rare condition where he might have a little pain, but he’s going to live for a long, long time. Guess what he did. Went back to work. Went back to work. Immediately. Darn it. It was absolutely horrible, but studying the dying, Doc, I mean, talk to me about this.
This earning more thing is fricking frustrating. No
one on their deathbed says, I wish I worked more nights and weekends, right? No one says, I wish my net worth made it to 2 million, but it only made it to 1. 75 million and boy, I’m a failure. Like, those are not the kind of things you will regret when you’re on your deathbed.
So the big question comes down to, yes. Earning more money. Again, working harder. Some of this hustle culture can be good, but it gets to the point of extremes. And so the question is, are you, is it a fair trade? Is it a fair trade of the time you’re giving up? And time is incredibly precious and it can’t be commoditized.
It just passes. So is it a fair trade? You putting in that extra time, those extra hours, that extra energy for the amount of extra money you’re going to accrue. Is it worth it? And I think we have to really come to terms with the fact that if you really want to be in like the very highest upper tier echelon of earnings, that’s going to take a lot of time and energy.
And if you don’t love what you’re doing to get there, then you’re doing it wrong. And so that’s why we love to focus on savings because savings is a lot easier, right? You can, you can save. You can cut back on some things, you can be careful, and it won’t take up all your time, it’ll allow you hopefully to do some of the things you want to do, but if you really get into that kind of hustle culture of I’m going to make more and more and more, it can really consume a lot of your free time in your life, and you’ve got to be careful of that, because ultimately, again, it all comes down to the fact that the purpose you’re doing this for, the reason you’re doing it, is to use that money to do things you want to do, and if you stop doing the things you want to do because you’re too busy making money, I don’t know if that necessarily fills your needs either.
Diana, you and I have talked about this before. I can’t stand all the pet names in the fire movement, but what I’m wondering is this concept of coast fi. So let me explain that to people who don’t know what the hell that means. That means getting enough so that you can just live and forget about saving.
And as long as your money earns what it. frankly has earned historically if you’re an index funds, you’ve saved enough, assuming that you’re able to let it sit and just make enough to keep paying the bills for today. Is Coast Fi maybe a better goal for a lot of us? This, this idea of just getting to that enough point.
Yeah, it’s definitely been a switch for me. You know, when I first started pursuing FIRE, I was very much like going the traditional path, trying to get there as fast as possible and reach that, you know, 25 times your yearly expenses. And I think my experience with my last employer really kind of had me looking at my finances and saying, Okay, maybe I’m not full fi, but I have too much money to tolerate bulls t, right?
And I think at a certain point, your risk flips from running out of money to running out of time. And that line is going to be different for everyone, and everyone has a different comfort level of how much money they need, but You know, I decided to kind of take a bet on myself and take an, you know, have an exploratory period.
I’m relatively young, so I could always change my mind later and go back to work if that’s what I decide to do. You know, Coast Fi allows for this element of flexibility that I think is really helpful for people to wrap their heads around.
Paula, you’re going to have the last word in this discussion, but I want to ask you, is the lesson here to just enjoy the journey?
Yeah, I hope
not
because you’re not enjoying the
journey. I try. I’m in a constant, yeah. And I, I think it’s more like, you know, it’s almost like meditation where you just catch yourself when you’re off on either side, right? Where it’s like, Oh, I’m coasting too much toward working too hard. Oh, I’m coasting too much toward, um, you know, slacking off and YOLOing and door dashing and ordering on Amazon all the time.
And just like coming back to that balance between, you know, I don’t. People are going to have their extremes for sure. And I don’t think being like, I’m going to enjoy the journey. It’s such a, it’s a lot of pressure, but knowing that you’re building on a foundation that is neither like wasting your entire life, trying to amass money that is essentially useless if you don’t spend it or putting yourself in the poor house when you’re older.
I think that’s the base, like a safe base on which you can build enjoyment.
That is a great place to leave it. I like the idea of guardrails on both sides and gets to this. We can not save earn or, uh, or reduce expenses enough. And on the other side, we can, we can totally wreck ourselves by going overboard.
I want to talk about what each of you are doing in the amazing spaces where you work. Let’s begin. Like we. did at the beginning of the show with Diana. Diana, tell everybody where they can dig into the, well, first of all, for people that don’t even know what the economy conference is all about, we talked kind of around that at the beginning.
Let’s talk about what people are going to get and then how they find out to sign up and join all of us in Cincinnati.
Yeah. So Economy is a yearly party about money that I host in Cincinnati this year. Well, next year it’s happening March 15th through 17th of 2024. Tickets are available at economyconference.
com. And for this show’s audience, you actually get a 10 percent discount with the code stacking Benjamins, all one word. But really what the conference is about is community and inspiration for people on the path to fire. You know, I think when we all first get into it, we’re like gung ho and really enthusiastic, and then we’re in that messy middle, that kind of boring middle, I guess you could say, you know, we’re just saving our money and our index funds and reading the same things online.
We want something a little different and new, and I think tapping into this community for me personally has completely changed my path. And so, um, yeah, come hang out with us and party in
Cincinnati. It’s so fun. I’ve been in the last two years, uh, Doc G’s been there and it is super fun. We got to wrangle Paulette into coming at some point.
Uh, maybe we can get her this year. Speaking of Paulette, Paulette, what are you working on now? Another amazing like flex Oh, I wrote for the New York times or whatever.
Yeah. So I’ve been contributing fairly regularly to the personal finance section of the New York times. I wrote that story on ADHD and money and I’m working on one about female Bodyguards, as the layperson would call them, Executive Protection Specialists is what they’re actually called, which is the career my sister is in, so that’s how I know so much about it.
Of course, I could not interview my sister, sadly, but that is my next story I’m working on and how people make a living by being… You know, bodyguards
as women. Then, if people need a great writer in their
corner… Yeah, they should find one. That’s really hard, though.
You’re as good as Len Penso at the, at the, uh, the sales. PaulettePerHatch.
com Yeah, PaulettePerHatch. com, ThatWriterPaulette. com FootFinder, slash… Big Blonde Amazon.
Deal. Doc G, save us, man. What’s going on at the Earn and Invest podcast? So still
busy doing the Earn and Invest podcast, uh, Jonathan Dio on Mindful Investing is his new book.
Uh, last episode was about the Wealth with Purpose episode. The other thing that I’m doing is I have a mastermind which connects to Earn and Invest called Wealth with Purpose. And last but not least, working on my second book. So all those three things, keeping me
busy. Well, you got so much keeping you busy and you’ll find an invest where finer podcasts are distributed as you’ll also find Optimal Finance Daily, where you’ll hear Diana Miriam on a daily basis, right?
Five days a week.
Absolutely. Seven days a week.
Seven, seven days, five days a week is for like the only person, one of the few people on earth that can make me feel lazy at three days a week. Talk about extremes, Diana. There’s extremes right
there. Well, it’s 10 minutes or less. So, there’s the qualifier there.
There it is. Joe can’t talk about his trip to the airport in 10 minutes. Let alone where
he went. Time for our last segment of the show, The Back Porch. Doug, we got any community stuff on the calendar today? Oh my god, I wasn’t prepared for this. Well, then no.
The answer is probably that. Well, you’re probably
traveling somewhere. Coming up next week. They can find most of us at FinCon. They’ll find Doc G at FinCon. They’ll find Diana Merriam, Paula Perhatch at FinCon. We’ll all be in New Orleans except for Doug. Yeah. That’s the
third time we’ve reminded him on this episode.
That’s our community. You’re not
coming, Doug. salt pouring it right into my flesh wound, my sucking stomach
wound. We reminded him of what, Diana, that he’s not coming to FinCon? Is that, is that what you’re saying? I’m
pretty sure. Was it the FinCon thing? Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s what it was. The one
in New Orleans.
Yeah. That he’s, that he’s not going to be at. I did want to ask you guys, because we were talking about earning more about, uh, fun jobs. Cause I know that Paulette has, is working on another, uh, fun job, but Diana, most fun kind of weird job. Cause we’re going to be headed that way with, uh, perhaps here in a second.
Okay, so I only did this for like two weeks in college. Oh boy, I don’t
know
stuff. We all experimented in college. That’s
right.
It was such a weird job. I would like do kids birthday parties, like dress up in these huge costumes. But the first one I did was like, I was Mickey Mouse for this like one year old’s birthday party, but they didn’t give you like an assistant or anything.
Like you had to go to some guy’s house and grab the costume out of his like garage. And then you drive to the party and you have to like, get yourself dressed, but you don’t have like, I couldn’t see anything out of this big head. And I’m trying to maneuver in a place I’ve never been. I think I only did like two parties and I was like, yeah, this isn’t
for me.
I was asked Diana to Jellystone campground. My kids were little, if they would always have a dad who was camping at the campground, if he wanted to play the part of Yogi bear. And I said, yes, not realizing it was like 80, it was like 88 degrees and humid. We were by Mammoth Cave, Kentucky. And the first thing they did was they put this big belt around me that was made of ice.
And I’m like, why do I need the ice? The guy’s like, oh, you’ll know like five minutes in the stupid thing. Like it’s hot as hell in those.
Oh yeah. And, uh, this guy definitely didn’t clean those costumes. That was another. Yeah. Gross. It was really gross.
It smelled like durian. Oh yeah. Yeah. We, um, I remember, so I come out of this, this house, you know, in the outfit and I jump on the hayride and this one little kid, his dad’s sitting right next to him, will not quit yanking on my f ing tie.
Like he just keeps. And so I’m trying to, some guy’s playing the guitar and I’m trying to clap and be like all happy and into it. And all of a sudden. I just get jerked down to the left, like just so quickly. And I looked down and there’s this little kid and his dad sitting next to him and his dad’s doing nothing but laugh.
And the kid just keeps doing it. And had there been a YouTube, you know, I’m glad YouTube wasn’t around. I didn’t do anything, but I came very close to having a viral YouTube video about Yogi Bear
taking down
a seven year old. Or maybe the seven year old’s dad. I don’t know. Yeah. So no wonder Yohan did that for two weeks.
Yeah, it was a very
short stint. Stinky Mickey Mouse costume. Doc, most fun, uh, quirky job? I don’t
know if I’ve done any. Well, so I guess it’s basically pretty lame, but I worked in an ice cream store for a number of years and I loved it, like making shakes and eventually like behind the grill, etc. How are you so
thin?
How? What? I don’t know. Like, I
would wait. We used to, we used to, so of course this was horrible that they hired all the high school kids, and we had like shake eating contests. Can you imagine how much money this place was losing? So when we weren’t busy, I must have drank like 10 shakes. We would like throw peanut butter in there, bananas, and whatever, like, you name it, we threw it all in, and we would, we would eat
like, 10 shakes.
Joe would still be
farting now if he was in that.
I’m so lactose intolerant, it’s not funny. But my, my, uh, it reminds me, Doug, of the Jim Gaffigan, uh, piece about how he’s pretty sure he’s, uh, Lactose intolerant because he just drank five milkshakes and boy, he feels like s t, must be lactose intolerant.
Paulette, that was all a lead up to, you’ve got a really fun gig right now. You’re writing reviews of a fun product? Uh,
yeah. Um, masks and snorkels. Snorkels? Yeah, that comes from like my last trip to New York, you know, just doing that like networking, going around talking to editors and she’s like, yeah, we really need someone to like, Update our snorkel article.
I was like, sure, just like one of those random, reminds me of the day that like a model contacted me on Instagram and was like, I’m going to be interviewed for Glamour Bulgaria and I need someone to help me write up my interview questions. I was like, what? And it was real. She paid me a dollar a word, did it that day.
I was like, that’s a random day.
So what do you do? Do you like fill up your bathtub and stick your face down there with the snorkel and test it
all down to Key West and try it out with my friends in Key West.
Oh, that sounds tough. Oh, and then you write off the whole trip as research? Please, obviously.
Duh. By the way, what do you write about snorkels? Like, how many words does this piece need to be? I have
written 4, 000 words about eye makeup remover. I can write anything. If you had asked me if that was possible before, I would have been like… No, it is
not. Speaking of comedians, writing about snorkels reminds me of Brian Regan talking about refrigerator salesmen.
Let’s have a listen to this.
refrigerator
for
our new
place. And I, I’ve never bought a refrigerator in my whole life. I went into the appliance store, there’s like 900 of them lined up, there’s a salesman there. What’s this guy supposed to say about refrigerators? Well, you have this refrigerator right here.
This keeps all your food cold for 600.
You’ve got this refrigerator. This keeps all your food cold for 800.
Check this out. 1, 400 keeps all your food cold.
So this guy’s working me on this one. I’ve never seen a guy work so hard. This one is a very nice refrigerator. It has a meats drawer and um, what you do with that,
you would, you would put meats.
Whatever varieties that, that you would choose, these would be your meats. So there’s no… Requirement on the types of meat you could pick. Bacon, .
I can imagine Paulette coming up with words to describe the snorkels. This snorkel set costs
35 bucks and it lets the air through lets you breathe underwater.
It’s all about that. I don’t know. I’ll figure it out. Listen, yeah, you’re gonna know what kind of snorkel would be best. This one’s strawberry flavor. That would be amazing. A flavored snorkel.
They’ve got flavored other things that don’t require flavoring. So, oh boy.
You went
there, not me, man. Can’t take that guy
anywhere.
And we’re done. There’s another thing that goes there. We’ll go here. Doug, what should we have learned today? Well,
Joe, first take some advice from Diana. Cutting expenses isn’t always the answer to reaching fi. Sometimes you need to find a way to increase your income. Just be sure you don’t take it to extremes.
Second, heed Paulette’s sage advice. If you can limit yourself to just six waffles in a hotel lobby, they won’t kick you out before they realize you’re not a paying guest! But the
big lesson?
Sword dancing is a lot harder than it looks. Which reminds me, time to make my annual pitch for health insurance to our podcast, Big Wigs.
Ouch.
Thanks to Diana Miriam for joining us today. Come join her in Cincinnati on March 15th to 17th. Head to economeconference. com to reserve your spot. Hey, you know what we’ll do? We’ll help you get a discount to the conference. Just enter promo code STACKINGBENJAMINS, no spaces. Know what else we’ll do? We’re going to include links in our show notes at stackingbenjamins.
com. Thanks to Paulette Brach for joining us today. Looking to up your writing game? Of course you are! Trust me, you need to. Learn more about how Paulette can help you at pauletteperhatch. com. Thanks also to Doc G for joining us today. You can listen to Doc G’s award winning Earn Invest podcast episodes wherever you’re listening to us right now.
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 was 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 Ikenberg. Then you’ll see once and for all that I’m the best thing going for this podcast.
Once we bottle up all this goodness, we ship it to our engineer, the amazing Steve Stewart. Steve helps the rest of our team sound nearly as good as I do right now. Want to 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. Oh, oh,
oh, oh.
What’s wrong with you? Uh,
it’s either this show or indigestion. I hope it’s indigestion. Why? It’ll get better in a little while.
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