How to Turn Trick-or-Treat Into a Money Lesson (and Choose a Pension Option)
One doorstep each Halloween becomes a lesson in risk, reward, and generosity, and one listener believes it helped him land a job. Chuck Jaffe walks through the cash-or-candy game he’s refined over the years, including this year’s twist, and how to run a version whether you get a hundred trick-or-treaters or six. Then Joe Saul-Sehy and OG take a question from a listener with a military pension: how to weigh the survivor benefit, why the choice can’t be changed later, and what to ask before you sign. It’s a lighthearted start and a practical finish.
What You’ll Walk Away With
- The simple cash-or-candy trade that turns a doorstep into a lesson on risk and reward
- Why kids who never think about money will happily do the math when it’s a game
- How the game changes every year, including the lottery option and a choice that lets kids give something away
- How to run a version with a handful of trick-or-treaters and a few envelopes
- Why the dollar bill is the worst deal on the table, and why plenty of kids still take it
- How a doorstep wave turned into a jump start on the way to a job interview
- What a pension survivor option actually means, in plain terms
- How to compare a reduced pension against buying your own insurance
- What a “pop-up” provision is, and which questions to ask the pension office about a spouse’s health coverage
- Why a pension choice deserves far more research than picking a fund
Why This Matters Now
Some of the best money lessons are low-stakes enough for a fourth grader, and some of the biggest decisions are high-stakes enough that you only get one try. Both reward thinking early. If you worry about making a choice you can’t undo, or you want to give the kids in your life a calm, fun way to learn about money, this episode covers both ends of that range.
From the Basement
The basement debates candy corn versus Kit Kats, while OG volunteers to hand out Greek yogurt to trick-or-treaters. Doug’s trivia introduces a mule named Kevin and an Erie Canal that paid for itself in a year.
Resources Mentioned
Money Life with Chuck Jaffe: Chuck’s daily podcast, wherever you listen
Survivor Benefit Plan: Military OneSource’s overview of the military survivor benefit
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Monday Mentor: Chuck Jaffe
Big thanks to Chuck Jaffe for joining us today. To learn more about Chuck, visit Money Life with Chuck Jaffe. Check out his podcast, Money Life with Chuck Jaffe here Money Life with Chuck Jaffe – Podcast – Apple Podcasts
Doug’s Trivia
- What famous canal runs between Rochester and Albany, New York?
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Written by: Kevin Bailey
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Episode transcript
[00:00:00] opener: Hi, Milton. What’s happening?
[00:00:02] Doug: What’s up?
[00:00:03] opener: Um, I’m gonna have to ask you to go ahead and move your desk again. But, no. So if you could go ahead and get it as far back against that wall as possible, that would be great. No, no, because no room. So if you could just get to that as soon as possible, that would be terrific.
[00:00:20] opener: Okay? I could set the building on fire
[00:00:30] Doug: And from Joe’s mom’s basement, it’s The Stacking Benjamins Show
[00:00:44] Doug: Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and on today’s show, we’re kicking off Halloween week with this question: How can you turn trick or treat into a fun money lesson? Chuck Jaffe makes his annual stop to mom’s basement to share how he’s used the spooky day to take the fangs out of finance for area kids, and maybe you can, too.
[00:01:03] Doug: Plus, Joe and OG are back by the phone ready to answer your financial question. Today, we’re talking pensions and streams of income, like annuities. How do they work, and what is the right option? We’ll help a stacker in need, and then I’ll share some of what you need. You already know, that’s my sweet trivia question.
[00:01:25] Doug: And now, two guys who have already been upstairs raiding the candy dish- Taking all the corn … it’s Joe and OJJG.
[00:01:37] Joe: Did you just say we’re going after the candy corn first? ‘
[00:01:39] Doug: Cause you know that’s my
[00:01:40] Joe: favorite. Like, out of all the things in the dish, you can have all the candy corn. It’s all yours. I don’t know, unless my partner across the card table wants it. OG, you about the candy corn or no?
[00:01:50] OG: Uh, no.
[00:01:51] Joe: Yeah.
[00:01:52] OG: No. Immediately no.
[00:01:53] Joe: Good news, Doug, it’s all yours. Kit Kats go to me. I am first round draft pick on Kit Kat. What about you?
[00:01:59] OG: Are you talking to me?
[00:02:00] Joe: Yes. Well, we already know Doug’s is candy corn. Oh. I’ll take Kit Kat. What’s your first round draft pick?
[00:02:05] OG: Yeah, I don’t do, um, I don’t do candy. I’ve got the physique of a Greek god, so I’m gonna have some, uh, I have some yogurt maybe with a little tab of honey, uh, some fresh berries.
[00:02:16] OG: That’s c- that’s, uh, that’s what we’re giving out for Halloween this year. Come on over to OG’s household, we’re gonna scoop out a, a cup of 2% Fage yogurt- Oh my God … right into that basket. Who wants a a- acai bowl?
[00:02:29] Joe: Just, just, just skip the basket, go right to their gullet. I’m so
[00:02:33] Doug: annoyed- Just- … with the way he pronounced those words, I don’t wanna go to his house for free food.
[00:02:36] OG: I’m just gonna, I’m just gonna, like, just spoon all the kids into, uh, just, uh, just spoon-feed them, uh, Greek yogurt. And you
[00:02:44] Doug: just made it creepy.
[00:02:46] Joe: Yeah, Chuck Jaffe is here. He has a fun Halloween game, maybe slightly better than OG’s game that he’s –
[00:02:52] OG: Disagree, but okay …
[00:02:53] Joe: that he’s playing this year. Every year Chuck, uh, takes this opportunity to have some fun with the kids in his neighborhood, maybe teach them a little bit about money, and you can too.
[00:03:03] Joe: His original version of the game, not at all difficult. You can emulate it. We’ll show you how, and we’ll actually go through some of the cool money lessons kids have learned, and actually lessons that Chuck has learned from this game. Plus, we answer a question about pensions, specifically a military pension, OG.
[00:03:20] Joe: Uh, they wanna pick your brain on that. So we got a lot to do today, but speaking of veterans, join the newsletter, the 201, and for our Veterans Day giveaway you could win a Solo Stove. You could be just like me, don’t you? OG, you wanna be just like me, don’t you?
[00:03:36] OG: I am contractually obligated to say yes.
[00:03:40] Joe: It, it’s our Veterans Day financial education push.
[00:03:44] Joe: If you’re a vet or active duty, you’re gonna get three entree… Three entrees?
[00:03:50] OG: Mm. Mm. Wow. No, man.
[00:03:52] Joe: You get three entrees or entries. You choose. Everybody else signed up for the 201, you’re also gonna get entries. Current 201 member, you know how great it is already. You’re gonna get an entry and a chance to refer friends for more.
[00:04:05] Joe: So here’s where you go. Stackingbenjamins.com/veteran. That’s stackingbenjamins.com/veteran. Let’s help either our active duty military members, our vets, and everybody else in Stacking Benjamins land get more financially educated. All right, we’ve
[00:04:21] OG: got- Can’t wait to see a PFC in the Marine Corps win a Solo Stove and light that thing in the squad bay at-
[00:04:27] OG: Camp Pendleton.
[00:04:27] Doug: That’ll go well.
[00:04:29] OG: Staff Sergeant Joe said it’s cool. We’re roasting marshmallows.
[00:04:34] Doug: Is there a menu that comes along with that, Joe? Does it, like, I want the liver and onions. Like, what entrees are included?
[00:04:40] Joe: Oh, uh, you get the, uh, once a week in your email, you get this wonderful entree called the 201.
[00:04:48] Joe: Oh. Kevin Bailey writes it, fantastic writer, has, uh, worked for Vanguard and TIAA among others. And, uh, the response we get about the 201 is fantastic. So delicious, Doug, absolutely delicious. Speaking of delicious, delicious conversation coming up with Chuck Jaffe. We got a couple of great sponsors, though, who help us make sure we can offer this to you for free.
[00:05:10] Joe: We’re gonna hear from them. And then Chuck Jaffe coming down to mom’s basement to talk about brightening up and making even more fun maybe your favorite holiday, Halloween
[00:05:28] Joe: Well, Halloween week is here, and that means things go bump in the night. Th- the thing that you don’t want to go bump in the night is your kids when they’re adults and they bumped into bad money habits, bad credit , bad, bad overall money activity. And a guy who’s helping solve that problem, my good friend Chuck Jaffe from The Money Life with…
[00:05:51] Joe: Believe It or Not, Chuck Jaffe show. How are you doing, man?
[00:05:54] Chuck: I’m great, ’cause we’re getting to Halloween, and I have way, way, way too much fun on Halloween.
[00:06:00] Joe: You do have a lot of fun. Th- this is kind of a chicken or the egg thing. Did you come at your annual Halloween game from the aspect of you’re a money geek, you like having fun with money, why not make Halloween a fun thing?
[00:06:15] Joe: Or did you do it kind of like my economist friend, uh, Karen Holland with her, you know, does it make sense score and gifting sense, where she’s like, “You know what? Late elementary school and early middle school is the time when this part of the brain is forming that really can appreciate some of these money lessons, so I’m gonna use Halloween to get ’em.”
[00:06:37] Joe: Was it the chicken or the egg, Chuck?
[00:06:39] Chuck: I- it was actually a little bit different. When I started doing this, my kids were grown and out of the house. I had gone through a divorce, so I’m living in the house by myself, and I w- have worked from home for more than 20 years, and I did not wanna be the old guy who you don’t really see out, et cetera, when I could literally be a resource to anybody.
[00:07:01] Chuck: You know, I grew up in an era where in your neighborhood, there would be houses that had a shield sign on, in a window, and that was to tell the kids who were walking to and from school, “If anything’s going on, you can come to this door, and you will have a safe haven.” And I could be everybody’s safe haven.
[00:07:16] Chuck: I’m always here. I’m always at home working, and I was just watching a different generation of kids, and I wasn’t having any interaction with them. I might drive past them when they’re at the bus stop or something. So part of it was just wanting to have neighborhood interactions. And then it was this side that says, “Yeah, I’d be really curious as to what you could see, and I wanna do something different.”
[00:07:37] Chuck: What it has gone to is beyond anything I could have imagined. It’s
[00:07:41] Joe: spiraled out of control.
[00:07:43] Chuck: Well, but the other side of this is, for the folks who are just hearing about this, when you hear what I do, I’m not suggesting you go all the way to my level of crazy. But I do have a story that you’ve never heard before of a listener to my show who believes they got their job at the end of spring this year because they did their version of Halloween last October.
[00:08:08] Joe: Oh, that’s so great.
[00:08:08] Chuck: Yes. If you can teach money lessons, and you can do this stuff and have kids thinking about it and maybe have conversations with their parents, given what you and I do for a living, why would we not? So I kind of looked at it. I live one town over from Marc Brown, the guy who wrote the Arthur books.
[00:08:27] OG: Oh,
[00:08:28] Chuck: cool. And Marc Brown famously gives away Arthur books on Halloween. So when our kids were of a certain age, I don’t know if he still does it, but when our kids were of a certain age, everybody kinda wanted to get in cars and go over- Yeah … to be able to trick-or-treat at, at Arthur’s house or Arthur’s illustrator’s house or whatever.
[00:08:46] Chuck: I’m fine with that. If I’m that for our neighborhood, I’m good.
[00:08:49] Joe: You know, as I’m doing a lot of research on, uh, what are we really solving for for retirement, this idea of community, as you know, Chuck, ’cause you interview more people than I do, that community is nearly as important as money. Once you solve the money thing, if you don’t have community, you’re still screwed when it comes to your happiness in retirement.
[00:09:10] Chuck: Well, do you want the story? Like, shall we start with the story at the end? I
[00:09:13] Joe: didn’t… Well, I actually think we end with the story. Okay. Let’s talk a little about this. I actually made a note to make sure that we get it, but let’s start here because we get some stackers that are like, “Okay, I’ve mentioned it spins out of control.
[00:09:25] Joe: You said your level of crazy.” Let’s go crazy 101. Year number one, at its most basic level, the way you did your gain year one, how did you do it?
[00:09:36] Chuck: Cash or candy. You had a choice. So at that time, your return on investment for dressing up and coming to my house was three pieces of fun-sized candy. Not those little micro cheap bites, but not full size.
[00:09:48] Chuck: Three pieces of fun-sized candy, and I simply said, “Your option was three pieces of fun-sized candy or you could pick from an envelope,” and the envelope would have between a quarter and $5 in it. Always had a piece of paper that said what was happening and how it worked, and that also helps you even out weights of what you’re putting in an envelope.
[00:10:12] Chuck: And so it was, you know, quarters, 50 cent pieces, a, a dollar bill in, with a quarter in one of them or whatever, and I basically said, “You get three pieces of candy. The value there would’ve been about 75 cents or maybe a little bit less than that back then, versus you can take something where the average is 50 cents but you might only get a quarter.”
[00:10:31] Chuck: Right? And it was just a simple cash or candy trade, and if you’re the only house giving away cash in your neighborhood, guess what? Kids are taking cash.
[00:10:39] Joe: Word travels. Uh, d- did you let them know i- what the median amount was that they would get if they took the cash, that there was a little variability in it?
[00:10:47] Chuck: Yes. I’ve always let them know what the parameters were and what their choices were, and I’ve always, e- even in those first days, I would have my big bowl of candy there so that, you know, if, if you loved a certain candy bar, you could see what I was giving away. Nestle’s Crunch bars seem to be the ones that at this point do the most, but, you know, he’s got that, that’s what I want, take it.
[00:11:10] Chuck: So it was very, very simple, and what I will tell people is- In a place where you don’t get 100-plus kids, right? When people say, “Oh, I wanna do this,” the story that we’re gonna tell later is about a guy who lives in an area where he gets six to 10 trick-or-treaters.
[00:11:26] Joe: Oh, that’s me.
[00:11:27] Chuck: So you can do this in its own form with six to 10 trick-or-treaters.
[00:11:33] Joe: Okay. I think this year I’m in. Uh, especially since, as a lot of our Stackers know, I’m hobbled and I’m not going anywhere anyway, Chuck. So I got, I got plenty of time as my ankle heals from surgery. But this is fascinating, and what’s always fascinated me, Stackers, about Chuck’s game is just how much this education can do for a kid.
[00:11:57] Joe: And, and you know, it’s not even presented as education, Chuck, and that’s what I… Maybe that’s what I like about it best. Not presented… Education is presented as kind of this fun challenge, and you’ve told us stories over the years about the number of kids that have really embraced the challenge. Like, they get excited about taking this challenge, and yet they’re learning about probability, they’re getting an introduction to statistics, they’re getting an introduction to the weight of this versus that decision, right?
[00:12:23] Joe: I, I mean, there’s so many little micro-behavioral lessons all wrapped into something that they just think is fun.
[00:12:30] Chuck: I was walking my dog last week in my neighborhood, kind of around the corner, and out in the front yard was someone relatively young who I don’t really know. I’ve seen him before, et cetera.
[00:12:41] Chuck: And I made a comment about she was doing some really nice yard work or whatever. I made a comment and she goes, “You’re Chuck. You’re the guy on Halloween.” And I said, “Yes.” She goes, “Last year was our first year in the neighborhood, and our son is in second grade, and it’s, like, all he’s been talking about ’cause you don’t play until you’re in third grade.”
[00:12:57] bit: Oh. “
[00:12:58] Chuck: Is coming back to play, and how he wants to have a good costume, and he can’t wait to go to your house.” So how do you get community? I now know one more of my neighbors that way and, and whatever. And yeah, there’s… The, the feedback is amazing. And- We’ve tried so many things, and the kids, especially once they’ve gotten used to it, they come thinking that they know what the game is gonna be.
[00:13:21] Chuck: But I have changed the game every single year. Every year,
[00:13:23] Joe: yeah.
[00:13:24] Chuck: And, and we’ll walk through some of the things if you want me to, but I will tell you, this year’s change is the most exciting change, I think, ever. And I’ve said that about some other things, but I’m super excited for where we’re going.
[00:13:34] Joe: And this is what I love about Chuck Jaffe.
[00:13:36] Joe: If you go back and listen to every year’s iteration of the game, he says that every year. He’s so excited about the next iteration.
[00:13:42] Chuck: But last year’s, last year’s was horrible. Last year’s we thought was really cool, and then we hated it.
[00:13:48] Joe: Well, you hate it when you see what happens on rollout, right? It’s almost like you and I, and you get done with some project, like some of the social media stuff we’ve been on.
[00:13:55] Joe: They’re like, “This is gonna be great.” And then ever, you know, nobody watches it or whatever. Uh, big question, though. You mentioned that Nestle Crunch is, like, the go-to bar right now. For me, it’s always Nestle Crunch or Kit Kat. Like, if you got Kit Kat, that’s probably the one that beats Nestle Crunch. If you’re the one choosing between money or the game, what, what’s the candy bar that is, uh, Chuck Jaffe’s kryptonite?
[00:14:19] Joe: Well, not kryptonite. Mm. The, the opposite of kryptonite. I, I
[00:14:22] Chuck: don’t know. I guess the one you’re gonna go with. Nestle’s Crunch, Nestle’s Crunch would be high on my list. Snickers bars, Reese’s would be high on my list. Snickers is good, yeah. But I will tell you that as the guy who is providing this, I buy whatever I’m getting on sale.
[00:14:33] Chuck: I’m very aware of the retail value, ’cause I’m telling the kids the retail value, ’cause that’s what they would spend. The thing that we have with Nestle’s Crunch bars is that now … So it, it morphed over time. First we started to go from just cash or candy to you can trade us. Right. Then we put in a, a lottery option.
[00:14:51] Chuck: We, like, gave you different odds and different expected returns. We had ways that you could go away with nothing. Talk about you wanna feel like the Grinch on Halloween, you have the neighbor kid who’s barely gone trick-or-treating, they come to you first, and you take all of their Halloween candy- … and they go home with nothing.
[00:15:07] Chuck: I’ve had that happen. And yet my house was not egged by those neighbors or their children.
[00:15:13] opener: That
[00:15:13] Chuck: is good. Although you couldn’t have blamed them if they had. So we’ve done a variety of iterations. At some point after COVID, we went to full-size candy bars, again, for kids in third grade and up. A, a little kid gets three pieces of fun-sized candy.
[00:15:29] Chuck: The base for us is now you can come and take one full-size candy bar, retail value about $1.79, or you can take a $1 bill. Or then you can get into trading us, and this is where the fun really starts. But when we went to full-size candy bars, what we have found is that, I think we’ve now done it for three years, w- two years we’ve had Nestle’s Crunch bars, and we’ve never had one of them left.
[00:15:58] Chuck: So when a kid is forced with a decision and they go, “Wait, I’ve got something that I really value,” they take that. But whatever the other… It’s always been two different choices. You could choose between two different things. Whatever the other one is, that’s what I’m eating the day after Halloween.
[00:16:10] Joe: That’s why I only buy Kit Kats.
[00:16:12] Joe: I don’t care if it’s on sale, I’m looking for the leftovers, Chuck. I’m like- Well- … “Well, somebody’s gotta eat this” …
[00:16:16] Chuck: when we explain to you how you do this, how, uh, this whole story, getting the candy that you like is really important if you have a small group. It’s a, a lot less important… For us, part of the fun is that as we start trading with kids…
[00:16:32] Chuck: So we’ll, we’ll let you in on, on what we were doing at least last year. We’ll tell you what worked out bad and what we’re changing. Again, a dollar, a full-size candy bar, or you could have traded me three pieces of candy to choose from envelopes that had anywhere from a quarter to $8 in them, I wanna say was the high number- Okay
[00:16:52] Chuck: last year. But the average was $1.70. Now, it was the same as the candy bar. So you were paying three pieces of candy, and your expected return was the same as if you just took the candy bar. You could get more, you could get less, but you were giving something up, and candy is currency on Halloween, to get something that you could have gotten without giving anything up.
[00:17:15] Joe: So the dollar bill itself is the worst value of the three. However, however, that’s mitigated by the fact that a dollar is taken everywhere. I mean, that comedian that talks about how he hates gift cards, ’cause you take money that’s acceptable anywhere and you turn it into money that’s only acceptable at Applebee’s or wherever the place is.
[00:17:35] Joe: So th- there’s this mitigating factor of, yeah, you get less, but it’s currency.
[00:17:40] Chuck: But it’s not the worst choice, because after that we had the lottery option. And the lottery option is you trade us six pieces of candy And you get to pick, and we do it now where you pick a number. The number corresponds to one of 25 envelopes.
[00:17:59] Chuck: One envelope has $25 in it. 24 envelopes have nothing but a paper that says, “Sorry you didn’t win, and here’s what your choices were. Make better choices,” basically. We don’t, we’re not, we’re not mean about it, but- Right … again, the average value is a dollar, but you gave me six pieces of candy, which means you pretty much put up a dollar to play.
[00:18:22] Chuck: And by the way, those six pieces of candy go into my candy bowl, so I come away from Halloween with, like, everybody’s candy.
[00:18:29] Joe: Ah.
[00:18:30] Chuck: I, like, I get to try things that I wouldn’t necessarily always have. I get to do whatever, et cetera. But you can trade me six pieces of candy to play the lottery. The lottery was $25 for the jackpot winner, and we’ve given away several jackpots, but last year, 25.
[00:18:49] Chuck: And so last year, the thing that didn’t turn out was kids would always ask for a second chance. So we put together a second chance lottery, where you had to give me another six pieces of candy. You were picking from a second set of envelopes, but those envelopes, your maximum jackpot was only 20 bucks. So now, the average per envelope was 80 cents.
[00:19:08] Chuck: This is worse.
[00:19:10] Joe: Oh,
[00:19:10] Chuck: my goodness. We’ve just beaten you out of your money.
[00:19:12] Joe: And your
[00:19:13] Chuck: candy. And we’ve beaten you out of your currency, your candy. Do you wanna do this again and probably lose again? Oh. Several kids immediately were doing the math, going, “Well, the first one I could understand taking the chance, but the second one, that’d be
[00:19:27] Chuck: Like, I’d be stupid.”
[00:19:28] Joe: Yeah. “
[00:19:28] Chuck: The odds just got worse.” And I’m like, “If you’re talking to me about odds, you’re winning.” But we didn’t like the second chance lottery, so the second chance lottery is gone. Which brings us to the change this year.
[00:19:40] Joe: All right. We need a drum roll, Steve.
[00:19:45] Chuck: This year, you have all those choices.
[00:19:47] Chuck: A dollar, a full-size candy bar, three pieces of candy to pick from envelopes where you could make more, but your average is the same as the candy, the lottery option, or take nothing and I will put a $5 bill in an envelope that’s going to the local food bank when Halloween’s over.
[00:20:05] Joe: Wow.
[00:20:06] Chuck: So we now have the, you wanna have the biggest win?
[00:20:10] Chuck: You can have it. You just can’t take it home with you.
[00:20:13] Joe: It’s the biggest win for your community.
[00:20:15] Chuck: If you want to do for the greater good, take nothing, give the money away.
[00:20:22] Joe: It’s gonna be interesting to see what a fourth grader does with that.
[00:20:25] Chuck: Exact- Well, it’ll be interesting to see what an eighth grader does with that.
[00:20:28] Chuck: The eighth grader’s like, “I wanna win the 25 bucks. I don’t much care about the candy.” The fourth grader might be saying, “Well, you know, it’s not like I’m paying for my own movies yet or something.” So who knows?
[00:20:41] Joe: It is interesting, though. I mean, y- you know, the adult me thinks, I’m like, “Okay, I’m out here for, you, you know, maybe a good 90 minutes trick-or-treating.
[00:20:49] Joe: What’s one house? This is a 10-minute interaction, and I can do $5 of good for somebody else. I’m gonna do that, and I’ll make up for it by maybe hustling my butt a little faster.”
[00:20:58] Chuck: Well, I mean, Joe, I don’t know for sure that you are old enough to remember or that where you were trick-or-treating, but I’m certainly old enough to remember Trick or Treat for UNICEF, where kids used to, to carry along little boxes, little, you know…
[00:21:11] Chuck: It was Trick or Treat for UNICEF, and people would put cash in their, in their box, whatever pennies they had or whatever, and the kids would take that back to school-
[00:21:20] Joe: That’s right …
[00:21:20] Chuck: the next day.
[00:21:21] Joe: I do remember this.
[00:21:23] Chuck: The difference is that if you were trick-or-treating for UNICEF, you got your candy, and you got somebody to stick some money in.
[00:21:31] Chuck: And that’s not happening at my house. At my house, you’re gonna give up the right to play the game-
[00:21:37] Joe: Well, I like this … for the
[00:21:37] Chuck: chance
[00:21:38] Joe: to do this. Every, every choice, like real life, is a trade-off, and this is a very low stakes environment for a trade-off, which I think is a w- phenomenal lesson for kids to learn.
[00:21:48] Joe: Last year, how many kids played the lottery?
[00:21:51] Chuck: Uh, not quite 25. We had something like n- 18 or 19. I, I don’t have the stats in front of me today.
[00:21:57] Joe: Quite a few though, really.
[00:21:58] Chuck: Oh, yeah. No, the lottery is a very popular option here, and we gave away the jackpot last year. Two years ago, we didn’t give away the jackpot, but we had kids who had gaslighted us into thinking that they had won.
[00:22:11] Chuck: That was wild. Because we don’t want you to open your envelopes near us. If you’re taking an envelope, I don’t care which envelope it is. If you take a low stakes envelope but you get the eight or $10 that would be the best you could do in the small level trade, I don’t wanna know, ’cause I have to pitch it to everybody evenly.
[00:22:27] Chuck: So if I know- You wanna have a, you
[00:22:28] Joe: wanna have a poker face.
[00:22:30] Chuck: I… Yes. And we did have a year where they got, like, off our property, and you hear the kids screaming and yelling, and you’re like, “Okay.” And then he’s yelling back, “Thank you, Mr. Jaffe.” Right? Like, you’re like, “Okay. Well, I guess, I guess everybody else who comes tonight is losing, and I gotta try to convince them to do that even though I don’t really wanna do that.”
[00:22:50] Chuck: So you, you try not to know. But we had some kids who got- a little bit away from the house, got to the end of the cul-de-sac, and were screaming like they had won. And like when they came back around to our, as they’re leaving the cul-de-sac, they’re like, “Oh, that was so much fun. Thank you so much.” And we were a little surprised to find that the money was still in the envelopes when we- Then, ’cause we don’t even know which envelope it’s in.
[00:23:13] Chuck: That’s the funny side. That’s awesome. My wife loads the money in one of the envelopes that I’ve already put stuff in, and then she mixes all the envelopes up, they’re all sealed, and then we write numbers on them. So we don’t even know which one it’s in.
[00:23:25] Joe: Didn’t you say before she put something in the other envelope so it looks like there might be money?
[00:23:29] Chuck: Well, I do that. Yeah. Well, what we’ve done, so this year we will not have any with coins because that was kind of getting to be a pain. Yeah. And I had to go find, you know, where am I getting silver dollars or, you know, $1 coins and half 50 cent coins. And kids would go, “Oh, I only got a coin.” I’m like, “Can you tell the difference between a quarter and a $1 coin in an envelope with paper in it?
[00:23:50] Chuck: I don’t think so.” So the problem was that the coins could make it that you… A- and also depending on what you were doing with dollars, you had an envelope that was a lot heavier or a lot thicker or whatever. And while we tried to make it reach in, touch it, take it, don’t play around, that’s why we had to do the lottery with a pick a number and the number corresponds to an envelope.
[00:24:11] Joe: Okay, so here’s the big question. By the way, congratulations on the new step. I love the new step too. I’m excited to see how community-oriented is a fifth grader or a seventh grader. It’s gonna be cool. Somebody that got a job because of this. What’s this all about?
[00:24:26] Chuck: Yeah. It’s a listener to the show in Kansas, and one of the things I say every year is, “Look, I’m huge on building community.
[00:24:34] Chuck: I believe we need…” You know, one of the biggest problems we have in this country is a lack of civility, and find ways to be civil, find ways to meet your neighbors. And, you know, good neighbors are a blessing, but you don’t know everybody in your neighborhood. And so, uh, the late great Rich in Orchard Beach, Maryland, he had decided many years ago, “I don’t have a lot of people coming to my house.
[00:24:57] Chuck: But the way I’m gonna do the Halloween thing is I will buy six full-sized Almond Joy bars,” because Almond Joys are my wife Allison’s favorite. And then I will put together six envelopes. Four of them will have a $1 bill, one will have a $2 bill, ’cause that’s cool and kids don’t see it, and the last one will have a $5 bill.
[00:25:19] Chuck: And I will spend the evening trying to talk the kids into not taking the candy so that I can give it to my wife and she can have no guilt about eating it. But I win either way. No matter what happens, I win.” So he started doing this, and he never got more than, like, six kids on for Halloween. And so I said, “You know, you can do this even when you don’t have many kids.”
[00:25:39] Chuck: So fast-forward to the, the listener in Kansas who last year does this for the first time and sends me a note right after Halloween and says, “Chuck, it was awesome. I live on a very busy street. I got a chance to chat with neighbors. They all wanna know where this came from, what was going on, and we had a chance to chat Okay.
[00:25:59] Chuck: And he’s like, “And I will never do Halloween. As long as I live in this house, we will do something like this.” He’s like, “I wanna make it a little more for next year.” And I’m like, “Okay, you, you found out it’s a lot of fun.”
[00:26:09] Joe: Yeah.
[00:26:10] Chuck: So he writes me in May, and he goes, uh, “Sa- Halloween saved my bacon and got me my new job.”
[00:26:16] Chuck: And I’m like, “What are you talking about?” He had been laid off, was doing some other things, had a job interview. His wife is off with the kids or whatever. He’s dressed in his suit, goes out, car won’t start. Pops the hood, calls AAA, looks as frustrated as you and I would look if we were going, “Oh my God, I got a job interview.
[00:26:37] Chuck: I don’t think I’m gonna make it.” And while he’s doing that and walking around trying to arrange AAA, up pulls a neighbor who lives a couple of doors down. He’d lived near that neighbor for years, had talked to that neighbor one time. That was on Halloween. The guy pulls up and goes, “Looks like you need a jump.
[00:26:55] Chuck: Are you okay?” And he goes, “Yeah, I could use a jump.” And he said, “Chuck, I got a jump. I got to my interview. I got the job, and I do not believe that he stops to help me if I don’t give cash or candy on Halloween.” He’s like, “I truly do not believe.” He goes, he would’ve come with his kid. He escorted his kid and, and walked on.
[00:27:18] Chuck: And since then, you know, have we had a lot of contact? No. But we wave when we see each other, which we never did before that. That’s what conversations do. You wanna build community, you wanna do whatever. When I started this, I just wanted to make sure the kids in my neighborhood were not scared of the old guy who doesn’t have kids going to the bus stop.
[00:27:38] Chuck: I didn’t want them to somehow fear my dog or me when we’re walking around, going, “There’s that guy, he’s got gray in his beard. He could be, you know, whatever.” I don’t wanna be that guy. He truly believes he got his job because he didn’t miss the appointment, and he didn’t miss the appointment ’cause the neighbor saw somebody who looked like they were in trouble, and they now cared.
[00:27:58] Chuck: I’ll take it.
[00:27:59] Joe: I’ve known you for a long time, Chuck. I’m still afraid of you. I just have to admit it. That is a wonderful story, and, and yeah, the wave starts everything. It just, it doesn’t have to be like we’re best friends right away, right? Just the neighborly wave.
[00:28:13] Chuck: Yeah. And that’s really what it’s all about.
[00:28:16] Chuck: And the kids love it. You know, what happens to me now is that if I’m out playing with the dog, the kids come up to see the dog. They say hi, they do whatever. They wave at me when they’re, when I’m driving and they’re at the bus stop because they’ve all had a conversation with me
[00:28:30] Joe: In a few weeks, Stackers, we will have the results of this year’s competition.
[00:28:35] Joe: Can’t wait to hear how this year goes, Chuck. What’s going on at Money Life with Chuck Jaffe? By the way, Chuck is one of the few people that when we say we’re three days a week, he can go, “Oh, how cute. That’s so cute.” But if you, if you need a daily fix, ’cause you don’t get it here, listen to Money Life with Chuck Jaffe.
[00:28:52] Joe: But what’s on tap, man?
[00:28:54] Chuck: We’re about to turn the year to get to all of the forecasts. You know, we’ll get into November and December, and we’ll be talking with every major firm about what they see happening. But you can already get a sense of what we’re gonna be hearing. And it’s funny, I, I did an interview today that will be appearing, I think, before our conversation does, with someone who said, “You know, every December, this is what I hear from talking heads.”
[00:29:20] Chuck: And I said, “Yeah, that’s also what we heard from you last year, you know. Are we gonna hear something different?” And I think what you’re gonna hear is market’s gonna rally into the end of the year. We’re gonna have good first quarter earnings. Then things maybe will slow down a little bit. But you’re not gonna have too many people who are gonna look at 2027 in their year ahead forecast and go, “Oh, bull market’s about to end.
[00:29:42] Chuck: Buckle up.” Now, that doesn’t mean that they’re gonna be right. That just means that that’s the sense I’m getting from talking to people as we’re still in the prepping for the year ahead outlook.
[00:29:54] Joe: Two prognostications I want you to make before we say goodbye. Number one, the Fed, they move up again?
[00:30:02] Chuck: Yes, I think they do reluctantly, but I don’t think they do this from the standpoint of- We wanna truly stop inflation.
[00:30:12] Chuck: I, I think at some point the Fed’s gonna have to make a decision to accept inflation being higher than 2%, because if you don’t accept it, and I talked to a guest today who said, basically, “Look, if you wanna get inflation to 2%, it’s a really simple solution. Create a recession. That’ll do it.” Right? They don’t wanna create a recession, and yet they want inflation there.
[00:30:38] Chuck: At some point, they’ve gotta basically say, “We’ll accept it at two and a half and leave it be.” But, oh, by the way, I’m not worried about the Fed raising rates and creating the recession until you get to about the fourth or fifth hike if they’re doing them in 25 basis point steps. So the first one didn’t do anything in terms of curtailing inflation or creating a recession.
[00:31:01] Chuck: Second one won’t either. I’m more worried about the Treasury than I am about the Fed.
[00:31:04] Joe: Hmm, that’s another conversation, because my second question was, a year from now, Chuck, do you and I have jobs? Are all the podcasts run by AI this time 12 months from now?
[00:31:14] Chuck: We have jobs. Some of our friends probably don’t.
[00:31:20] Chuck: The real question is whether or not people recognize the value that we provide as podcasters, and it’s not blowing smoke up our respective whatevers. You and I do something where, where we are unique, not because we’re podcasters, but because of access. So here’s the thing about AI. I told you I did an interview earlier today.
[00:31:45] Chuck: It’s gonna air. I could release any of that this afternoon at 4:00. We’re taping at 3:00. An hour from now, I could say, “Tomorrow on Money Life, this expert is gonna say this.” I’ve been writing, I’ve been paid to write for media organizations. I’m 64. I started 50 years ago this month. I was 14 years old the first time I got paid to write for somebody.
[00:32:10] Chuck: And always being first, being there, being first, being ahead of the curve was important. Well, let me explain to you what AI can and can’t do. It can listen to an interview that you do, and it can then regurgitate and go, “This guy said this on Stacking Benjamins.” It can come to me and say, “This guy said this on Money Life.”
[00:32:31] Chuck: But it can’t do that until we publish. And the amazing thing to me about today’s media is that they have almost no concern anymore for being first. They have concern for being easiest. And so if you wanted to be first, I’d be writing stories every single day going, “Tomorrow on Money Life, this guy says this.”
[00:32:54] Chuck: And most of the media outlets would rather for that guy, after he talks to me, to write a commentary that comes out every two weeks, and then to feed it into an AI model and go, “Give me a summary on this.” And maybe they put enough care in to go, “We’ll send him an email and get a fresh quote.” You and I provide fresh content, and there will always be a market that likes fresh content.
[00:33:18] Chuck: There will always be a market that will not be satisfied with somebody else doing a Joe Saul-Sehy Stacking Benjamins knockoff. They’re gonna go, “I wanna hear it for myself the first time it’s out there.” So I do hold out hope for you and me.
[00:33:36] Joe: Chuck Jaffe, fun as always. Happy Halloween, my friend. And, uh, can’t wait to hear how it goes.
[00:33:41] Chuck: Yeah, I wanna hear how you do it this year, Joe. It’s time. It is. It’s time. Can’t wait to come back and let you know.
[00:33:48] Joe: It is time. Amen, brother.
[00:33:50] Chuck: This is Daryl from Pennsylvania. When I’m not busy arguing with a four-year-old, I’m stacking benjamins.
[00:33:57] opener: No, Daddy.
[00:34:03] Doug: Hey there, stackers. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and sit back so old Uncle Doug can share a little history lesson. See, it was on this day in 1825 that America celebrated the completion of one of the most ambitious construction projects in its history. Eight years of digging, 363 miles across an entire state, all to create a giant waterway connecting the Great Lakes to the Hudson River.
[00:34:27] Doug: And not everybody thought this was a good idea. In fact, political opponents of Governor DeWitt Clinton, who championed the project, called it Clinton’s Big Ditch, which frankly sounds like the kind of nickname I, uh, somebody gets after an unfortunate incident at a fraternity party. But here’s the amazing part.
[00:34:45] Doug: Before the canal, moving goods across the state was expensive. A mule could carry about 250 pounds on its back. But put that same mule on a towpath pulling a barge through the water, and suddenly it could move as much as 60,000 pounds. 60,000 pounds! I’ve been doing some math, and I think I just figured out why Joe’s mom won’t let me buy a mule.
[00:35:07] Doug: One mule could move everything in her house, including refrigerator, the piano, and that stupid concrete goose she keeps on the front porch. I mean, Mom, does it really need a new outfit every season?
[00:35:20] Joe: Every season.
[00:35:21] Doug: And if we timed it right, she’d come home from poker night and the whole house would be empty.
[00:35:26] Doug: I’m not saying I’m gonna do it. I’m also not not saying I’ve already named the mule Kevin. No offense, Kevin. Anyway, this massive canal opened in 1825 and helped transform American commerce. So here’s today’s trivia question: What famous canal runs between Rochester and Albany, New York? I’ll be back right after I see if Kevin can fit through the basement door.
[00:35:49] Doug: Come, mule.
[00:35:57] Joe: Well, this year on Halloween, you know, maybe some kids are coming as Superman. You know, it’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s Superman. Well, guess what? This year you can give yourself a very non-scary gift. Dive into your money with Field Kit. It’s a budgeting app. Cancel subscriptions, protect, helps you build credit, tracks your net worth, and so much more.
[00:36:16] Joe: Check it out at stackingbenjamins.com/fieldkit
[00:36:26] Doug: Hey there, Stackers. I’m certified mule logistics consultant and guy who once tried to expense a bag of carrots as vehicle fuel, Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. The IRS rejected it, and they asked me to stop mailing them pictures of Kevin. He’s so cute, though. Talking about the mule. Before the break, I told you about a massive waterway that critics called Clinton’s Big Ditch.
[00:36:49] Doug: Well, that ditch turned out to be a pretty great investment. Before it opened, shipping a barrel of flour from Rochester to Albany cost about three bucks in 1825. Afterward, just 75 cents, which is impressive because nowadays I can’t even get a pizza delivered without paying a service fee, a convenience fee, a delivery fee, and somehow tipping a guy named Billy who carried my pizza under his arm like it was his algebra textbook.
[00:37:16] Doug: Oh, who are we kidding? Billy can’t even spell algebra. And the answer to today’s trivia question, the canal that helped connect the Great Lakes to the Hudson River and paid itself off in the first year of operation was the Erie Canal. See ya.
[00:37:33] Joe: One year of operation paid itself off. That’s a pretty good deal, Doug.
[00:37:36] Joe: God,
[00:37:36] Doug: if only all our public works projects could do that. It’s amazing.
[00:37:40] Joe: Cha-ching. H- have you gone to, like, uh, Cuyahoga National Park and seen some of the locks there, some of the old-time towpaths, that kind of stuff?
[00:37:50] Doug: In many places. I’ve been to Cuyahoga. Uh, that is not the Erie Canal, but, uh-
[00:37:55] Joe: No, but it is a canal, though.
[00:37:56] Doug: It’s one of the, the- It is a canal, and, uh, it’s just an amazing… That technology has been around for so long, and it still astounds me every time I see it, that somebody figured out how to raise and lower ships- Me too … in a canal. It’s unbelievable.
[00:38:08] Joe: Yeah,
[00:38:08] Doug: yeah. There’s actually even a… You can see a disused Erie Canal along the New York Turnpike as you’re, as you’re going west to east.
[00:38:17] Doug: You can see one of them. It’s, it’s right on the side of the highway. It’s very cool.
[00:38:21] Joe: It is all fascinating, just watching how at that time how disruptive that was, right? Yeah. We’re talking about AI now. Back then everybody’s like, “Oh, my God, the Erie Canal changed
[00:38:29] Doug: the world.” Yeah. And there were canal projects all over the country that didn’t end up getting finished because it was right before the railroads took over.
[00:38:37] Doug: As soon as the railroads hit, that technology was like, “Why are we digging these ditches when we can just do it a lot easier and faster?”
[00:38:44] Joe: It comes, it’s new, it’s great, and then it’s gone.
[00:38:46] Doug: Like CDs.
[00:38:48] Joe: Yeah, right , exactly. Well, even MP3s, you know, now with streaming, right? Yeah. Yeah. You fill up your hard drive with MP3s.
[00:38:55] Joe: Hey, let’s take a call because somebody said, “I better call Saul.” Sehy and OG, this is the part of the show where we shine a light on a Stacker in need. This person, um, didn’t give us their name, but they’re in the military, so that must mean… Who was a superhero that was in the military? That would be, uh, Captain America, right?
[00:39:14] Joe: We got a call, OG, from Captain America.
[00:39:19] caller: Hi, Joe and team. My question is regards to military retirement. I am 50 years old and way behind on retirement and focused on paying off debt. However, I do have the advantage of having the military retirement. I will retire at 35 years with significant, uh, rank, and will bring in a, a monthly retirement of 14,000 before taxes.
[00:39:45] caller: My question is actually is in regards to the survivor’s benefit plan and whether or not that is worth it. If you’re not familiar with it, it acts as an annuity and paid to spouse upon my death. If you can provide some insight onto that. Thank you.
[00:40:01] Joe: Hey, thanks for the question, and thank you for your service.
[00:40:05] Joe: OG, we can actually open this up because while he has a military pension, this is the same type of question that anybody with a pension that might have a spouse or a partner is gonna really want to examine before they make their choice.
[00:40:19] OG: Yeah. I mean, really what you’re trying to calculate here is the value of the benefit that the survivor spouse would get.
[00:40:26] OG: So when you look at your pension statement, you’re likely gonna see a couple of different options, and they come in different forms and fashions depending on the company and the organization and all that sort of stuff. Basically, it’s like this. You have an option that is what’s called single life only.
[00:40:42] OG: Might say single life only, might say life only, might say just your benefit. Basically, what it’s implying, this will be the largest number here. It’s saying, “If you get hit by a bus, all payments stop.” Period. Done. If you live to be 150, we’re gonna keep paying this number for as long as you’re alive. This number is probably the largest of all of them.
[00:41:03] OG: Then there’s gonna be some variation of a second or third or fourth option, which involves some sort of combination of your benefit, your stream of income, and then if you pass away, somebody else’s stream of income until they pass away. And those numbers could be joint and 100%, which means I’m gonna get some number, and my spouse will get the same number if I predecease them.
[00:41:25] OG: It could be like joint and 50%. I get 10,000, my spouse gets five. So there’s a lot of different numbers in there that they’re joint and 60%. The companies and the calculations are all gonna be different on how the company decides to do it. But effectively, what’s happening is two things. Number one, if you take the delta, the difference between the life only benefit.
[00:41:46] OG: So in this guy’s case, he said it’s 14,000. I’m just gonna make up numbers just to make the math simple. But he said, “Hey, if I retire with my pension, I get 14,000 a month.” However, if I also wanna insure my spouse, so if I get hit by a bus, my spouse keeps on getting money, we might each get 10,000. So I can take 14 now or I can take 10, but then my spouse also gets 10.
[00:42:08] OG: So the calculation, the question that we have to ask is, is $4,000 a month worth $10,000 a month of survivor benefit? And there’s a formula here. You can just sit down and kinda calculate this and say, well, here’s the question. I’m 55 years old. If I take my pension at, uh, ful- you know, full 55 or whatever the, 65, whatever number you feel like using, what’s the worst that happens?
[00:42:32] OG: Well, the worst that happens is I get hit by the bus on the way to the mailbox before I’ve deposited the first check.
[00:42:37] Joe: That’s a bad day.
[00:42:38] OG: Well, I mean, maybe. Depends on, depends on what you’re dealing with at home. You know, the old battle ax maybe like, “This is war now.” Don’t have any more
[00:42:45] Joe: bad
[00:42:45] OG: days. But let’s say it’s a bad day, right?
[00:42:48] OG: So that’s the worst scenario that could happen. You never cash a single check, and my spouse gets benefit from day one. So my spouse is 65. They’re gonna live to be 100, 35 years of 10,000 a month. You can do the math on this and go, “Well, how much money do I need to have in a bucket to provide 10,000 a month of benefit for 30 years?”
[00:43:06] OG: Well, you can figure that out, and I don’t know what the number is off the top of my head, but let’s just say it’s $3 million. Okay? So here’s the question: Can you buy $3 million of life insurance for 4,000 a month of premium? In the example that I gave you. I don’t know. I don’t know your health. I don’t know your medical history.
[00:43:24] OG: If you’re a service member, like this guy’s case undoubtedly has some service-related stuff going on. You know, if you’ve served for 30 years, you don’t do that without having a few bumps and bruises along the way. So you have to kind of evaluate all that stuff. I would also say this is the only place or one of the only places that permanent insurance works.
[00:43:42] OG: Because effectively, that’s what the, well, that’s what the pension company is doing. They’re taking your difference, your delta between, in this case, 14 and 10, and saying, “We’ll just buy a life insurance policy on this dude.”
[00:43:51] Joe: Yeah.
[00:43:52] OG: Combined with all these other people that are doing the same thing, we have one big giant life insurance policy basically, and that’s how we do it.
[00:43:58] OG: Now, the reality is, is that the numbers are not that drastic, generally speaking. It’s not like 14, 10, where you’re like, “Holy crap, 50 grand a year of life insurance? Yeah, I could totally buy that.”
[00:44:08] Joe: Yeah.
[00:44:09] OG: It’s probably like 14,000 and 13,100.
[00:44:14] Joe: That’s so funny. I was about to say 12, nine before you
[00:44:17] OG: said it. Yeah.
[00:44:18] OG: Yeah, it’s closer, so it’s a more realistic calculation. You know what I mean? And so you have to evaluate that. You have to do all of this, by the way, before you file for your pension benefit because once you select your pension benefit, most places you’re locked into that for life. You can’t change that.
[00:44:31] OG: Here’s the other thing to know that helps tilt this in one way or the other. What happens if you select the spousal benefit? So I take the 10,000 and my wife also gets 10,000 in the example we were given before, and she predeceases me Now what happens? Do I get to go back to 14? Which is what they would write that up as, is they call it a pop-up provision.
[00:44:52] OG: Do I get to go back to 14? Or am I stuck paying $4,000 of life insurance that I will never get it, that no one gets a benefit forever? Because you can’t add another person after the first person passes. So th- there’s a couple of different questions and, and combinations here, and this is worth a very thorough and thoughtful discussion with a planner, with your pension team to get a clear understanding of all the numbers, and in conjunction with all the rest of your retirement income, right?
[00:45:19] OG: Your 401assets, your Social Security benefits. In this gentleman’s case, retiring from the military also probably has, uh, VA benefits, disability benefits, and there’s gonna be some of that that kind of comes into this, into this as well. And so you put all that together to decide, is it worth paying the premium, air quotes, the premium for the insurance benefit, so to speak?
[00:45:39] OG: Or am I okay taking the higher number because these other supporting assets or income streams are good enough to support the family outside of it? It’s a really fun problem to work through from a planner’s standpoint. Joe, I’m sure you remember having more of these. They’re pretty few and far between now-
[00:45:56] Joe: Yeah
[00:45:56] OG: you know, in today’s day and age. But, uh, but this was a very intense, you know, fun problem to work through.
[00:46:02] Joe: But even then, that, you know, maybe one-fifth of the time, the permanent life insurance strategy worked. Yeah. I would say about 20% of the time. About 80% of the time
[00:46:12] OG: it didn’t. Yeah, it has to be per- it has to be permanent because you have to have that benefit for your whole life to make it pay off.
[00:46:17] OG: If you just did like a 10-year term policy- Yeah … and you’re 75 and die, well, now what?
[00:46:22] Joe: Yeah. And, and definitely with your pension team you gotta ask a bunch of questions, like, “If I take the survivor only, what happens to my health insurance for my spouse?” as an example.
[00:46:31] OG: Oh yeah, great question.
[00:46:32] Joe: Yeah.
[00:46:32] OG: There’s all those other ancillary things that happen based on your decision there, too.
[00:46:36] OG: So it’s not just, not just gonna be about the money of the pension benefit or whatever. It can-
[00:46:41] Joe: But and this is the- … it can cascade … and this is the big thing, OG. No matter which one you choose, there’s potential gotchas, right? I mean, you just walked through- Yeah … gotchas no matter what you choose. But knowing all the different options.
[00:46:51] Joe: And certainly, you know, you said that you’re starting late with savings or you haven’t, um, that you’re gonna maybe have to be more aggressive with savings. How long will your savings last with your surviving spouse? I don’t know. I don’t know how that works. A lot of that’s gonna be based also on your own-
[00:47:05] OG: Yeah, I mean having a pension of-
[00:47:07] OG: income needs … you know, $180,000 a year is, we ought to be able to make it work with that.
[00:47:11] Doug: Do you get to change your mind? Like I know we’ve talked a lot about when you’re picking beneficiaries for life insurance policies, like make sure you do it, but if you have to you can change your mind or make sure you update it if you get a divorce and all.
[00:47:20] Doug: Do you get to change your mind on some of the structure that you’re putting in place?
[00:47:25] OG: Well, like we talked about, once you pick your pension option, you’re locked into that from the pension company This
[00:47:30] Joe: is one of those-
[00:47:31] OG: All the other things after that- Yeah … you can, you know, if, if your wife predeceases you and you want your kid to be the beneficiary of the life insurance policy from now on- Okay.
[00:47:39] OG: All right … you can do that for sure. But the pension, you know, is locked in. That’s why you gotta… This is what we, we, we kind of classify financial decisions, you know, on our team and kind of talk to clients about this. Like, you’ve got your changeable decisions. You know, should I pick this fund or this fund?
[00:47:53] OG: It’s like, well, we’re just gonna pick one that makes the most logical sense right now, and if we want to change it tomorrow, we can. Pick this one or this one. That’s a changeable decision. The irrevocable decisions, the ones you cannot change, we have to spend all of our time and energy on those because once you make it-
[00:48:08] Joe: Yep
[00:48:09] OG: that’s it
[00:48:10] Joe: Great question. And by the way, uh, Doug, you mentioned it at the open, annuities. This is the way annuities work too, OG, is that you can have, you can have joint survivor annuity, you can have, uh… So if somebody’s doing, like, a longevity annuity strategy, you’re doing the same stuff. You’re deciding if you want it based on your life, based on a couple different lives.
[00:48:27] Joe: It works, uh, very, very similarly.
[00:48:29] OG: I don’t think, uh… Do you think this gentleman here is a little upset that we probably gave him a rank too low? I know. I was thinking about this- Captain America … if he was in the Navy, a, a captain in the Navy, probably not quite as high as, uh- But
[00:48:40] Joe: does that badass shield make up for it and the fact that you got to save the world on several movies?
[00:48:44] Joe: Like, that’s… Wow.
[00:48:45] OG: Could be. Or, you know, the other thing that I’m thinking is, like, this is a Marine Corps, like, first sergeant. This has just been around for 30 years, just a- Grizzled … grizzled, grizzly veteran, you know. Doesn’t wear his Kevlar helmet out in battle. Just stands there and, like, points at people.
[00:49:00] OG: Strap
[00:49:00] Doug: dangling like John Wayne.
[00:49:02] OG: Yeah. Yeah. Just totally, like, just grizzled, old, grizzled, old dude, right? So- Yeah … so maybe a captain did promote him a little bit, but I have, I have a, I have a sneaky feeling we kinda undersold it a little bit.
[00:49:13] Joe: I think we, I think we might have, yeah. Thank you for the call again.
[00:49:17] Joe: And, uh, man, if you’ve got a pension, I think that’s really important advice there, OG. All right, let’s head out to the back porch for just a moment, Doug, because we’ve got meetup groups meeting all across the nation. If you’re somebody who is in either the Twin Cities… well, heck, if you’re pretty much anywhere in Minnesota, if you’re in Seattle, if you’re in Tucson, Arizona, if you’re in Boston, we’ve got a meetup group for you.
[00:49:42] Joe: Uh, head to stackingbenjamins.com/bad, Benjamins After Dark. Stackingbenjamins.com/bad gets you there. Remember, by the way, and I’ll, I’ll… Th- this contest is gonna end next Friday. It’s our Veterans Day Get Educated contest. You can be as cool as me and have a… You know, y- you guys know, Solo Stove is just so amazing.
[00:50:06] Joe: It’s so incredible.
[00:50:07] OG: Can use it four whole days in Texas. Get to pick which four you want.
[00:50:12] Joe: I use it for months on end, and, uh, have a great time sitting out by the Solo Stove, watching Monday Night Football with a nice campfire going. Doug, you’ve sat by my Solo Stove back when I was in Michigan. We hung out at the Solo Stove a couple times.
[00:50:27] Doug: We did, and then you made it awkward and I had to leave early, but I mean, for a few minutes there, it was great. And then, then you got the wandering hands.
[00:50:37] Joe: It just… You know, you’re a good, good-looking fella. Thank you to all you good-looking people, by the way, for hanging out with us today. Coming up on Wednesday, we’re gonna go from having fun with Halloween to a true-life unfortunate story.
[00:50:50] Joe: The good news is there is a as happy of an ending as you can get, but we have a real-life story from our friend, Amy Wilson, who has agreed to share her story about, um, well- Things that happened, OG. Planning, we call it planning and not forming a plan because things change. And when things change that you don’t expect, all of a sudden plan ripped out from under you, time to get back up and, and make things happen, and Amy did that.
[00:51:17] Joe: She’s gonna tell her amazing story that’s so helpful on Wednesday. And then on Friday, our big Halloween party with OG, Jesse, and Paula. Hope you get to join us for both of those episodes on this special Halloween week. Doug, you got it from here, man. What should we have learned today?
[00:51:36] Doug: Well, Joe, first take some advice from Chuck Jaffe.
[00:51:39] Doug: Halloween can be fun, and you can teach the neighbor kids a little about money at the same time. Who knew? Second, pension options, those depend on your unique circumstances, and are one of the few irrevocable, irrevocable, uh, moves you’ll make in life. So, begin your research early so you can make the best choice for now and later in retirement.
[00:52:03] Doug: But the big lesson, can’t believe you couldn’t hear all the Kit Kat wrappers flying all over the basement. Someone’s gonna pick these up, and it ain’t gonna be me, Joe. Okay, it’s probably gonna be me. It’s definitely gonna be me. But this is the last time. Thanks to Chuck Jaffe for stopping by. Looking for a great show that’s daily?
[00:52:26] Doug: Try Chuck’s The Money Life with Chuck Jaffe, wherever you’re listening to us now. Hey, Chuck, help a brother out over here. Pick up a couple wrappers, man. This show is the property of SP Podcasts LLC, copyright 2026, and is created by Joe Saul-Sehy. You’ll find out about our awesome team at stackingbenjamins.com, along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots.
[00:52:54] Doug: Come say hello. And oh yeah, before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don’t take advice from people you don’t know. 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
[00:53:26] bit: I was gonna make espresso
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