Today, we’ll dive into an exciting financial education idea brought to us by award-winning columnist and host of The Money Life Show, Chuck Jaffe. Think Halloween’s kinda boring for kids and just a sugar rush? Not at Chuck’s house! Discover Chuck’s innovative ‘cash or candy’ concept, transforming Halloween into a fun and educational game that teaches kids about probability, risk management, and decision-making. This unique approach blends Halloween fun with important financial lessons, making it a memorable learning experience for children and parents alike.
In our headline segment, we explore some chilling retirement regrets shared in a compelling Business Insider article, highlighting common pitfalls and how to avoid them. We also discuss key strategies for better retirement planning, such as potentially delaying social security and being prepared for unforeseen emergencies. If you’re worried about not having enough for financial independence, this may be the segment for you.
Lastly, we wrap up the episode with Doug’s intriguing Halloween-themed trivia and a lively discussion about the NFL’s global expansion efforts, including a look at watching football games in Germany. Join us for a fun and educational journey into the world of Halloween-fueled financial literacy!
RUN OF SHOW
- Halloween Costumes and Banter
- Salute to the Troops and Halloween Plans
- Halloween Week Episode Introduction
- Halloween and Money Lessons with Chuck Jaffe
- Halloween Games and Economic Lessons
- Chuck Jaffe’s Halloween Tradition
- Money Life Show and Financial Insights
- Disturbing Ways to Make Money
- Trivia Question: a Murderer’s Profession
- Pineapple Drinks
- Headline: Retirement Regrets
- Discussion on Retirement Savings
- Client’s Early Retirement Story
- Janice’s Regrets and Future Plans
- Automating Savings and Easy Listening
- Community Engagement and Reviews
- NFL’s International Games
- Fun with German NFL Commentary
- Christmas Movie Horror Parody
FULL SHOW NOTES: https://stackingbenjamins.com/halloween-money-lessons-with-chuck-jaffe-1593
Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.stackingbenjamins.com/201
Enjoy!
Check Jaffe

Big thanks to Check Jaffe for joining us today. To learn more about Chuck, visit Money Life with Chuck Jaffe. Subscribe to Chuck’s podcast, Money Life with Chuck Jaffe by visiting Money Life with Chuck Jaffe Podcast Series – Apple Podcasts.
Our Headline
- Boomers Regret Retirement Saving Plans, Taking Social Security Early (Business Insider)
Doug’s Trivia
- What was Wallace Souza’s job that allowed him to brazenly tell everyone about the people he’d allegedly murdered?
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Join Us Wednesday
Tune in on Wednesday for a special Halloween edition of the show where we’ll help you pull back the cobwebs on your final expense plans with St. Paul-based funeral director Scott Mueller.
Written by: Kevin Bailey
Miss our last show? Listen here: What If You and Your Partner Aren’t On the Same Page Financially? (SB1592)
Episode transcript
[00:00:00] Doug: Doug, you know what OGs dressed as? Uh, he is a Martian Maybe. Uh, no. og. I’m Hawk dressed as a clown. Hulk. Dressed as a what? As a clown. A clown? Yeah. If the Hulk wasn’t scary enough, we gotta throw a clown in there too. The, the, the Hulk goes h Weaning as a clown. It makes perfect sense as if OG isn’t Nightmare Fuel all on his own. [00:00:30] Now we’ve got Clown Hulk. What are you? Doug? Speed Racer. You’re speed Racer. Oh, I’m must, well, I’m a ski racer. [00:00:37] Joe: No, it looks like speed racer. [00:00:39] Doug: It totally looks like, I mean, you can, do you wanna say that because it’s a white helmet, I guess. Yeah. I could see why you say, what do they [00:00:44] Joe: say? Very, and then very quickly, whose builder secretly is race Racer X And nobody knows. [00:00:50] Doug: Really? Is that a thing? [00:00:52] Joe: You, you never watch Speed Racer? Never once. Watch Speed Race. Every time Racer X comes on the screen. They’re like, and then the Racer X shows up who secretly is brother, but nobody knows every single time. Anyway, let’s race our glass. Uh, Hulk and speed Racer or ski racer on behalf of the men and women at Navy Federal Credit Union and the Men and Women Making podcast in mom’s basement, big Monday, salute to our Troops. [00:01:20] Ah, it’s Halloween. What are you doing week? What is in your hand? What’s in, whose hand? Your hand? Oh, dude, it’s my, uh, terrifying mug. Yeah, it’s the mayor of, uh, Halloween Town Mug from, uh, you never, you never once saw the Nightmare before Christmas. [00:01:39] Doug: No, I didn’t. I have not watched, I mean, of course I know. [00:01:43] Movie, but now I So there no idea who that is either? [00:01:46] Joe: No. So Gie Boogie on my head. And this is the mayor of Halloween Town. Yeah. Anyway, SL to our troops, Doug, Hulk, whoever you are, who secretly og, but nobody knows. Let’s go stack some Benjamins now. Thanks everybody. [00:02:06] bit: My plan is sound mathematically sound. It cannot fail. It’s perfect. Three months from now I will be worth $50,000. Independent for Life. [00:02:25] Doug: Live from Joe’s Mom’s basement. It’s a Halloween week episode of the Stacking Benjamin Show. [00:02:41] I am Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and what haunts are waiting where you least expect them. Maybe you are the surprise for kids in your community. We’ll talk Halloween and Money Lessons with the host of The Money Life Show with Chuck Jaffe. Chuck Jaffe in our headlines. Nothing is more Halloween. Horrifying than living a life of Regers. [00:03:03] One publication asked retirees what they regretted the most. We’ll share them all and if you still need more creepy in Crawley, I’ll share some absolutely GUL as trivia. And now two guys who are ready to put the nails in this coffin. It’s Joe. Oh and oh. [00:03:29] Joe: Ah, very scary. Welcome to you stackers. Uh, that’s not good. I’m Joe. You don’t count. Scary. I was trying to remember that. The old SCTV days scary. Oh, that counts. Oh yeah. That guy. Yeah. Very scary. So funny. It’s so retro. Uh, that’s what we call really old skits. Uh, all the Gen Zs out there. Never heard of it. [00:03:49] The SCTV, John Candy. Yeah. Bob and Bob and, uh, Doug and Bob [00:03:56] Doug: McKenzie Doug and Bob McKenzie. But it’s also where, I mean, there’s so many big stars, uh, got the, as many big stars that, you know, got their start there as SNL. [00:04:05] Joe: Yeah. Um, what’s her name from Schitt’s Creek. [00:04:08] Doug: Right. Um. Yeah, her and, and her and Big star, huge star. [00:04:13] We can’t even remember her name. And uh, also, um, also him, the dad. The dad from American Pie. Dad M and she, yeah. And from Chin’s [00:04:22] OG: Creek [00:04:22] Doug: Levy. Yeah. And from Schitt’s Creeks. Eugene Levy. [00:04:25] Joe: There’s a bunch. Yes, there are lots and lots. SCTV, the good old days, but welcome to the good new days because man, we got a great show today. [00:04:33] Opening up Halloween week. og do you have any, anybody in your neighborhood that gets a little fancy on Halloween? Maybe does something a little different than the rest of the neighbors? [00:04:45] OG: I feel like we talked about this last time because I already talked about hot dogs and cocoa and [00:04:50] Joe: Oh, we did. We did. [00:04:53] And that’s so yummy. It’s so good. I’m coming to your, I’m coming to your, uh, uh, neighborhood for Halloween this year. [00:05:00] OG: Awesome. I won’t be here, so, perfect timing. Perfect. Wait a minute. What are you doing [00:05:06] Joe: on Halloween? You’ve got hot dogs and then what, what does the other neighbor have? A bar [00:05:10] OG: beer. I’m gonna be south of the border for the next, I’m, I’m not even here right now, actually. [00:05:16] Oh, it’s, it’s a hologram. This is a, I’m, we’re using AI to put me in here. ’cause right now I am. What time is it? What time is it where you are? Whatever time it is. I have had 13 of those pineapple rum drinks already. Perfect. So whatever time, whatever time it is, that’s the, that’s the equivalent of how, how much I’ve had in my system at the all the time. [00:05:37] So [00:05:37] Joe: in the, in the mood to give great financial advice. The best financial advice is, uh, after, again, this all ai, [00:05:43] OG: after 13 of those, it’s whatever chat GPT decides today. [00:05:46] Joe: Well, not only do you have neighbors who do the hot dogs, who have the bar out front for the parents, um, in Chuck Jaffe neighborhood, he does economic. [00:05:57] Games for the kids, [00:05:59] Doug: the thing that makes kids run away and scare them the most. I was gonna say, so he gets, what, three visitors a, a Halloween night. [00:06:06] Joe: It is actually funny because every year we have Chuck on to talk about how he’s changed the game this year when Chuck began this, he even said that, uh, people were not that excited about it and now shocking. [00:06:17] He gets this, he gets this line of kids that want to, uh, wanna play Chuck’s game and it’s really cool. And now we’ve got some stackers across the country that are doing this. Fans of Chuck’s that do this too. So what’s this year’s Halloween game? How can you create your own Halloween game? We’re gonna talk about that today, guys, and then retirement with no reg regrets as Doug. [00:06:38] So lovingly said. But before all that, we love the fact that we can make this show free, but that means we have a couple great sponsors who make it free for you. Let’s hear from a couple of them. And then we’re off and running on this Halloween week Special episode of the Stacking Benjamin Show. Chuck Jaffe, not only the host of the Money Life Show back in the 1990s when I was a financial planner, Chuck was always the voice of reason wherever he wrote, uh, a syndicated columnist, Boston Globe. [00:07:07] Chuck has a long history. He was also, by the way, and I hate to say this, but he was the editor in chief of one of the most prestigious college newspapers in the United States. Guess what university that was with? The most horrible university, obviously [00:07:25] OG: the Michigan Daily [00:07:26] Joe: in the USA. Mm-Hmm. He was the editor in chief of the Michigan Daily, which is a, uh, big post. [00:07:31] You look at the number of people that have held that post, Chuck Jaffe is one of ’em. Let’s say hello to the man. The myth, Chuck Jaffe. [00:07:47] Well, there’s two ways that you know that it’s Halloween in America or heck around the world. Number one, spirit of Halloween shops show up all over the place. And number two, Chuck Jaffe is back on the Stacky Benjamin Show. How, how are you, Chuck? I’m great. It’s Halloween. It does not get better, like far and away. [00:08:06] My favorite holiday. It became better, as you know, when I heard about this magical thing you do to take my spouse’s favorite holiday and make it even better. So let’s, for people that are new to this whole. Tell us what you do and where this [00:08:23] Chuck: inspiration first came from. Well, so it’s now something I’ve been doing for nine or 10 years. [00:08:28] I’d have to actually count it to know, but I know it’s nine or 10 years. Basically what I started doing was offering, instead of trick or treat, it was cash or candy. So a kid comes up to your house and now they can get cash or get candy. Yes. But where it it, in its most basic form, I think it’s actually a great way to do some stuff and to help those people who live in places where you only get a half a dozen. [00:08:53] Yeah. Like I’ve got members of my audience on Money Life who say I get a couple of trick or treaters each year, and one of them says that what he does is he buys two six bar packages of Almond Joys because those are his wife’s favorite and he buys full-size candy bars. Well, his, [00:09:12] Joe: his wife can have ’em Chuck. [00:09:13] ’cause Almond Joys [00:09:13] Chuck: suck. Okay. Well, I, they’re horrible. They’re not my favorite either, but that’s what she loves. So he buys 12 Almond Joy bars, and then he brings out some envelopes and he puts a dollar, and then one of them has $5 and he says, you can pick a candy bar, full size candy bar, or you can pick an envelope. [00:09:35] You might get five, you’ll probably get one, whatever it is. And that way his wife has her favorite candy as his leftover, and he’s not spending a lot of money and there’s not a whatever, and it works great. I, I started more simply than that for years. If a kid came to my house, they got three pieces of fun size candy, and then I just said, well, wait, what if I offered you a chance to take some money instead? [00:09:55] Would you rather have candy to your money? Now that’s an easy one because they’re not getting offered money every place. So most of the kids would take the money, you know? Okay, great. Lesson learned for me, I immediately said, okay, let’s start to give choices and teach money lessons because you have to realize. [00:10:13] That kids are learning about money all the time, whether you’re teaching them or not. And candy at Halloween is currency. It really is. Sure. So you want to actually start them thinking about choices that they’re making. I live in a great neighborhood for Halloween. It’s basically you drive off the main dragon. [00:10:31] Every street ends in cul-de-sacs. There are Halloween decorations all over the place. People from the other parts of town bring their kids into our neighborhood ’cause they know there’s no through traffic. Once kids have trick or treated here, they really want to come. And now if they’ve been doing it for a while, they have cash or candy at my house. [00:10:48] And I change the exercise each year. I wish I could give what I do each year and pass it to my neighbors and just like. Everybody does what I did, and we have a whole block [00:10:57] Joe: doing this, but yours comes with not just the, uh, with the game now every year, which changes a little bit every year, but you also give kids a written explanation like of how this works, right? [00:11:08] Yeah. And so parents even get to see what’s going on. [00:11:10] Chuck: Yeah. The, they make their decisions in front of me, but depending on which decision they make, I really like it when kids are taking home envelopes that have an explainer in them as to what they did. And that way the parent understands what was happening. [00:11:25] We, by the way, have a tight neighborhood group, so I actually explain it to the parents in an email chain that goes on now. I, that’s been a thing that started in the last two years. ’cause parents were going, who’s the crazy guy giving away money? And, and I also point out, back off crazy dude, I’ll also point out that, that for me, one of the things that’s important, although we now were at Covid and lots of parents who are in the neighborhood and whatever post covid is that the neighborhood was getting. [00:11:49] Younger, but I’m older, I’ve been here, my kids are grown, and I didn’t wanna be somebody who, ’cause I’m at home all the time. The kids didn’t feel they could approach or whatever. Like, hey, that’s the old guy living. So that was another reason to do it. ’cause all the kids talk to me, every kid talks to me on Halloween. [00:12:04] Because you have to, because we’ve gone from, hey, you can have three pieces of candy or you can have this envelope, you know, pick an envelope and it’ll have some money in it and you might make 50 cents, or you might make five bucks. Like that’s where it started. In its most basic, [00:12:16] Joe: it’s not basic anymore. [00:12:18] Well, part of that game in the basic form though, is teaching kids about probability, risk management, these kind of things. Return on investment. Return on investment. You get dressed up, you come to my house, there is a return on investment for doing that. How good are kids in your estimation, at making those choices when they first come to your house? [00:12:36] Are they good at it or not very good at it? I, I think if you made [00:12:40] Chuck: the very basic choices and you didn’t go quite to what I’m doing. They’re very good at it. Oh, good, good. But when you get complicated, I will say there are kids who are overloaded by what we do. You can sort of see, okay, wait, I can’t quite figure this out. [00:12:56] However, the interesting thing is the kids who have that reaction tend to default to safe. And that means they’re either going to take the candy fine, that’s what they came there to get, or they’re gonna take the $1 bill that is your base option against candy. They’re not gonna trade me ’cause they don’t quite understand it and they’re not sure what they’re getting. [00:13:20] And like, wait, am I getting taken or do I really have a chance to win? Still they’re, they’re doing a risk management assessment in their head. It’s fascinating and I’ve had lots of discussions with kids. I’ve now had multiple kids who, when they get to where they’re aging out of trick or treating. Make a point of they’re doing the neighborhood and they tell me we’re coming back to you, and they come back to me last so that they can talk to me. [00:13:41] And I’m the one that they’re gonna be telling their kids, Hey, remember that time when I went out and I won 20 bucks? That’s fabulous. But even there, the first year we did the lottery option, we had a kid who won the lottery. He’s a neighbor boy. And this year will be his last year trick-or-treating in the neighborhood. [00:13:55] Oh, because he is, because he is aging out. And his parents just put their house on the market, right? Oh, so he won a couple of years ago, and he won. The first year, he won 20 bucks, and the next year he didn’t play the lottery option. [00:14:08] Joe: I remember this. [00:14:09] Chuck: I said, Liam, why are you not putting all his, what are the odds of me winning two years in a row? [00:14:15] Right? So he took the safe option, he went home with a buck or whatever it was that he got in the small envelope. The next year he came back, he played the lottery again, and he didn’t win and wasn’t real happy at not winning. There’s great lessons in there. Like the lottery’s great when you win it. It’s fabulous to get extra money, but oh, by the way, at the end of it, when you’ve traded me five pieces of candy and you’ve come away with nothing, [00:14:43] Joe: not so great, I’m headed to Vegas next week. [00:14:45] And it’s same lesson applies there, right? If the casino gives you money, don’t give it back. Yeah. So let’s talk about this year’s iteration, Chuck. Yeah. Come to your house. Trick or treat time. [00:14:58] Chuck: The big change last year was that I, and by the way, this only applies to kids third grade and up. If you are teenies, we give you three pieces of fun, size candy. [00:15:07] That’s the way it it goes. And it’s funny ’cause what happens is I buy very little fun size candy and then the kids who are trading me candy, fill that bowl up for all the little kids. What happens is, if you are third grade and up and you come to my house, well instead of three pieces of fun size candy, you now can have one full size candy bar that is a retail value of a dollar 50 or. [00:15:28] You can have a $1 bill, which has a value of $1, or you can trade me two pieces of candy, in which case you’re gonna be picking from envelopes that have anywhere between a quarter and $8 in them. [00:15:43] Joe: Wait a minute, so, so two pieces of candy from their bucket, their pale, their their, their pillowcase. Yeah. That came from somebody else’s house. [00:15:51] Chuck: Yes. Two pieces of candy that came from somebody else’s house. Fun size candy. I’m not taking a full size of anybody else in my neighborhood is crazy enough to give them out. [00:15:59] Joe: Right. Do they get to choose or do you [00:16:00] Chuck: randomly [00:16:01] Joe: go [00:16:02] Chuck: in? In the old days, I would reach in since Covid they get to pick and yes, some kids just reach in and grab two things and throw ’em in my sack. [00:16:08] Some of them pick the two things that they like the least. I don’t care. Yep. You’d have all the almond joys, so there you go. I would get all your almond joys. I’ve told you the story about the kid in the Snickers bars one time, so That’s right. They can refresh that and revisit that if we need to, but the average value of those envelopes is a dollar 50. [00:16:27] You could get as little as a quarter. And what it is, is that there’s a coin in each envelope. And then if there’s money in it, like you know, $8 is a dollar coin, a $5 bill and a $2 bill. Right? You try to make it that all of them seem [00:16:39] Joe: the same. A clarification, hold on before we move on. You said the average, we just a couple weeks ago had Ben Oron a wonderful man who’s a math teacher, makes math, math, fun, math, and bad drawings for all of our stackers. [00:16:51] If you didn’t hear Ben Orland, but you know, Ben and I talked about the difference between mean and median, right? So when you say the average, are we talking about the median number or we talking about, you know, you got a hundred dollars bill in there, Chuck. So you got a bunch of empty ones [00:17:07] Chuck: expected. No, we are talking about the expected value from picking one of those. [00:17:10] If you picked every envelope. Expected value, which is not the median. It is the mean. It’s the mean, yeah. Is a dollar 50. Okay. And it’s important because again, retail value on the full-size candy bar, not what I pay for them. ’cause I’m figuring out how to buy the most cheaply. But if a kid were to go to a candy store or go to seven 11, they’re paying like a buck 59 these days for a full-sized Hershey bar or whatever it is. [00:17:32] So a dollar 50 for the candy, a dollar in cash. Give me two pieces of candy, which does have a cost to get an average of a dollar 50. Right. But you could get more, you could get less. And then up until last year, the lottery option was 50 envelopes. One with a $20 bill. One with a $10 bill. So the expected return, if you picked an envelope, was 60 cents. [00:17:59] You had $30 spread over 50 envelopes. Well, this year the jackpot’s going up. It’s $25 and there’s only 25 envelopes. The expected value is now a dollar. So that matches the dollar in cash that you could get. But of course, you gotta pay me five pieces of candy to play the lottery, and there’s economic scarcity. [00:18:28] After all, we could very easily sell out of lottery tickets. [00:18:33] Joe: So that’s the change. What’s interesting to me, so the, you know, the issue is I think through this as some people call me an adult. I’ve been called not an adult by others. Think about this and I just think, okay, if that, if that candy bar is worth a buck 50, that is obviously the option. [00:18:52] But the problem is, is that I would have to be able to sell that for a dollar 50, which, because it’s already been at my house, it’s already looked like, I can’t imagine that a candy bar that I bought at the store, I can take Chuck and sell to you and go, Hey, I got this for a buck 50. Would you buy it for a buck 50? [00:19:07] I bet you know, most people are gonna go, no, no, no, thanks. So, and there’s the trouble, there’s your time. So at first I think, well, hell, the economically the best deal is to take the candy. But considering that I’m just gonna consume it and my, my economic opportunity with a Hershey bar is pretty much the taste of the Hershey Bar versus if I take a dollar, I’m getting less, but I can use it for whatever the hell I want. [00:19:36] It’s an [00:19:36] Chuck: interesting conundrum. Well, and remember again, candy is currency on Halloween. So good point. If you’re giving me two pieces of candy to play, like the lottery, to play the small envelopes, well you’re giving me something that has very little value to you. Like if you’re going home with a sack of candy, the dollar 50 value on the candy bar, it’s not worth a dollar 50 on the day after Halloween. [00:20:02] It’s worth a dollar 50 on the first day of spring, right? When you don’t have Halloween candy and all your friends don’t have Halloween candy, but you’re dying for a piece of chocolate, and oh, by the way, you’d have to go out and buy. Yes, that is part of it as well. But we want the kids to sort of have fun with the decisions. [00:20:21] And yes, we talk about all of these things. Wind up coming up, kids will be, I’m a risk taker. I’m not a risk taker. I wanna go home with something. I went home last year with nothing. I wanna win this year though you’re not guaranteed of a win. If you get a quarter, you know you didn’t win. No, you didn’t win, but your loss was negligible. [00:20:41] It’s fascinating to do, and by the way, you can do this. You don’t have to get all the way out to the way I do it. You can make it simple cash or candy. You can make it that it’s candy cash and do the lottery if you want. You can do it in other ways. When your kids bring home a big sack of candy and you don’t want ’em to have all of that candy, you can buy it back or make a donation. [00:20:59] Like if you don’t like, you can donate the candy. Well do something where you encourage your kids to donate the candy by, I’ll double your donation or whatever, but do it in a way that teaches value. So my kids, my youngest daughter, would eat any candy. My oldest daughter only ate pure chocolate. She wanted Hershey bars and Hershey kisses and things that were chocolate that didn’t have stuff in it. [00:21:23] So they’d get home from trick or treating and she’d start trading with her sister. Like, oh, I’ve got some Reese’s Cups. Yeah, I’ll trade those for your Hershey bars. But by the end, when her sister had three pieces of plain chocolate left and she had 25 pieces of other stuff. It was, I’ll take all your other stuff. [00:21:42] You can have these three, right? So the deal you can make and what you’re getting, those are economic lessons. Those are things that say, yes, when I’m buying candy, I’m not going to the convenience store to buy the full-size candy bars. But oh, by the way, if I’m really hungry six months from now and I am dying for chocolate and that’s the closest place I might do that and I make that economic decision at that point. [00:22:09] Those are the things that you teach when you’re doing this kind of stuff in ways that the kids don’t recognize that they’re learning. But I can tell you, when you see the kids come back, they can’t wait and they wanna engage and they wanna have the discussions and it’s wicked fun. Yeah. [00:22:23] Joe: I love this, um, type of introduction ’cause you know, I like games. [00:22:28] And whenever you can gamify this and make it that, it’s a good time for the kid and they don’t even think that they’re learning and you’re not pushing on ’em. The type of game I hate is when people try to push an educational game on me. Don’t push an educational game on me, but if the game teaches a lesson, it’s fun first, and I happen to learn something, then that’s, that’s cool. [00:22:47] But probability risk management kind of an introduction to statistics in a lot of ways. Yep. Right. You’ve got that. But there’s another lesson here, Chuck, that I really like, which is you, you know, this is, I’m gonna say this in the funniest way possible. In some ways, Halloween is like a socialist or communist activity, right? [00:23:11] Where, yeah, I go to your house with my handout and you just put my loaf of bread for the day in it and we all get the same thing. I mean, it is very much me, my brother, my sister. We’re all getting the same stuff for, from every house we go to. You change it. So it is, you’re asking the question out of life, what do I want? [00:23:35] Because really the kid that makes the best choice, it isn’t about taking the candy, taking the lottery, take it. If you begin with the end in mind, Steven Covey, you’re gonna get somewhere. So they come to Chuck’s house and you’re fundamentally asking them, what do you want from me? [00:23:52] Chuck: Yeah, exactly right. What can I, and and mind you, people say, well, it must cost you a fortune. [00:23:57] It doesn’t. I’m lucky in that at least so far it has not gotten to where, you know, three towns over, people are coming over. [00:24:05] Joe: Well, you’re also, Chuck, you’re looking at this as entertainment value. Absolutely. And I get to talk about, I imagine it’s [00:24:09] Chuck: worth every dollar. Of course it is. It absolutely is. I will say there’s one other change that’s happening this year. [00:24:15] Oh. Which is not in the odds or the money. We have noticed that we’ve given away more jackpots than we should have relative to the how many jackpots are there and how many kids are playing the lottery, if you will. And so this year when it’s 25, we actually are going to Gail, my wife, is going to randomly, you know, number all of the envelopes. [00:24:41] And the envelopes will be in a little tray and you can’t touch them. You’ll pick a number that corresponds to an envelope. Was there some feel in the envelope going on? There was, and you, you could constantly tell it where a kid would do whatever. And we’re gonna do that only on the big lottery option. [00:24:58] I’m not gonna do it. You wanna pick an envelope? You think you can tell the difference between a dollar and a quarter? Good luck to you because, oh by the way, a dollar coin and a quarter coin feel pretty much the same when they’re both been put in an envelope with a little piece of paper wrapped around them that tells you what you were doing. [00:25:13] And the other thing that I would tell you that’s important for me. We try very hard to make sure the kids do not open their envelopes near us. And it’s not because I wanna be the grumpy guy who says, go home and learn your lesson. It’s because I have to sell this to the next kid who comes up and I want to be able to do it, honestly. [00:25:30] Yeah, you can’t say that the grand prize is gone. Exactly right. You have to look on your face, even betray you. When Liam, the neighbor child won, he came running back to tell me that he had won. Oh no. And he was like the third kid that we had seen all night. So now I’ve got kids and I’m like, please, you know, I’m like, I gotta tell you what you’re playing for, but I’m like, please don’t really play the lot. [00:25:51] Like I know that you’re odds of winning the lottery are now half of what they were, you know? Yes. So I don’t wanna know for that reason. I would not tell you that every kid complies with that. That doesn’t, that’s not a thing. And we don’t let kids play twice. We, like kids will go, I’ll give you five pieces of candy and do this and two pieces of candy. [00:26:09] No, no, no. You get one shot at whatever you’re doing. That’s it. Third grade and up. We have made two exceptions, right? This year will be our second exception for second graders, neighbor kids who know what’s been going on and have been waiting for years because they’ve got older siblings who wanna do this. [00:26:26] So other than that, we’ve never made an exception down the scale because again, at second grade we’re too complicated. Second grade, you could say, do this or not. And remember that a couple years ago you’d talk about the value of candy. A couple years ago during the pandemic, it was candy or a dollar 50 gift certificate to the local ice cream shop, which you could bike to from our neighborhood. [00:26:49] That should have been better. And the first year that went really well during the covid year, that went really well. But the year after, well, I mean, not that I was complaining, Joe, but to make it happen, I bought a bunch of ice cream gift certificates that I wound up using myself. [00:27:02] Joe: Oh, that’s, boy, that sucks. [00:27:04] Yeah. [00:27:06] Chuck: It’s not like I miss much ice cream the rest of the year. By the way, you can look at me and tell that that’s true. The fact is you can play this game any way you want. You can make it that the ice cream shop was thrilled with us because we were creating economic impact for them. Because you have a little kid who says, yes, I’ll take the ice cream. [00:27:23] And the parents were, you know, the kid was going, Hey mom, can we go get ice cream? I got that gift certificate. Sure. They’re buying three more for everybody else in the family. Exactly right. And I’ll point out that the ice cream shop, after we did it the first year, they were so happy that what they did is they said, look, you’re gonna buy a, you know this, but one of the things that kids love here, there’s a place called, used to be called Wilbur’s. [00:27:41] They still make what they call Wilbur Wheels. And Wilbur Wheels were like a dollar 75. And they said, we’ll make it that your gift card is for a buck 50, that’s what you’re paying. But it can be for a dollar fifties of ice cream or it can be for a Wilbur Week. Oh, cool. Right. So they were getting involved and helping to participate that much more. [00:27:58] And to me it’s really cool. And what I would love to see is somebody who does it at a trunk or treat event. And literally puts five of them up in a row, right? Like, you know, for Stacking Benjamins it would be Stacking candies and, and it would be, here’s the basic, here’s the next one. Like when you come to each one, you can get your candy or you can go home with a little bit of money, because that would also change things if you had five in a row doing it. [00:28:24] I came to get candy and I always tell the story, we, the Snickers bar story is the first year that we were, you could trade in your candy. We had a group of seven girls that came and the first six of them were like, take a handful of candy. No, just take the three pieces. I put ’em in my jar. We get to the seventh girl and she’s like, I, I want candy. [00:28:44] And she picks three Snickers bars. And I go, I gotta know why. When six of your friends just said, lemme give you the money, I’ll do what I can. And then she was like, I go out to get Snickers bars. I. It’s my favorite candy. My parents and I have a deal. They will not take any of my Snickers bars. They may eat some of my other candy. [00:29:02] This kid’s brilliant. They will never take a Snickers bar for me. It is what I come for on Halloween. It’s the thing I most wanna get. And you were just reaching in and like all six of my friends lost a Snickers bar. So yeah, somebody gave ’em to us like two houses ago. They’re on the top. I get three Snickers bars here ’cause she was watching me put ’em into my candy jar. [00:29:23] It’s exactly what I want economically. That’s genius. It’s super, that’s genius. And by the way, what she should have then done is go, by the way, can I give you this handful of candy for like those other three Snickers spars that are sitting right at the top, like, yeah. You know, that’s the kind of stuff that you can learn here. [00:29:42] If your kids have too much candy and you wanna take it away, make a donation. There’s charities that will give it to the troops, make a donation. But talk about what, Hey kids, if you’re gonna give that away for every. You know, the, the candy that you like least I’ll add a dime, you know, we’ll make a cash donation on top of what you’re doing. [00:29:57] I’ll add a dime to it for everyone, you know, teach them whatever the lesson is. Or I’ll put money into your piggy bank if you are gonna give away some of your candy. Help them understand money lessons in ways that they don’t actually, as you said, feel like we’re, you know, Hey kid, learn about money. [00:30:13] Joe: Well, and and you’ve had over the years, money Lifers write you telling you that they’ve, they’ve done exactly what you’re talking about. [00:30:19] I’d love to hear, absolutely. I’d love to see our stackers. And if you do, write me Joe at stacky Benjamins dot com and tell me and I’ll pass it on to Chuck. ’cause we’d love to hear your stories emulating this. Well, and [00:30:29] Chuck: like I said, that’s how I know that there’s the guy who Rich in Orchard Beach, Maryland. [00:30:34] I know exactly who it is, who winds up buying. He’s like, we don’t get enough trick or treaters. But if the worst that happens is I’ve got those Mond Joys, I. My wife loves cool and he is like, I never wanted to, I don’t wanna forget about Halloween ’cause the year that I don’t get it is the year some kid’s gonna show up. [00:30:51] ’cause I don’t know who’s changing, et cetera. But our street’s kind of busy. He goes, I always have it out there. And he goes, I’ve loved it. He goes, the five kids that come in any given year, it’s so much nicer than what it used to be because, wait, we’re talking thanks so much for coming, whatever. Now it hasn’t turned into a thing where those five kids told a bunch of others and now he’s got 20 kids. [00:31:10] And he is like, what’d you do to me? So for anybody who worries, like I said, I’ve been doing this for about a decade now. It’s [00:31:16] Joe: fabulous. [00:31:16] Chuck: And while there are times when you get a line at the table where a group comes up and you gotta kind of manage it, and it is a little chaotic at my house, what it’s going on. [00:31:25] It’s a [00:31:25] Joe: blast. If there’s anybody who likes the chaos, it’s Chuck Jaffe. I, I also gotta tell you, Chuck, so if you ever go back to the ice cream thing, and you have to, I love the in air quotes, have to end up redeeming them yourself. Just remind people that, no, that’s not my tummy. That’s a protective coating for my rock Hard abs. [00:31:45] Just tell them you’ve got this nice protective coating that’s, that works for me. What the heck is going on at Money Life these days, my friend? Tell everybody what’s going on with the show and let’s, uh, let’s create some new money lifers. Well, you know, [00:31:59] Chuck: Joe, what we’d like to tell people is that if you love Stacking Benjamins and you wanna get a lot more financial talk, money Life is five days a week. [00:32:07] We’ve been doing this. He’s like [00:32:08] Joe: one of the few shows that goes three days a week. How cute. That’s cute, Joe. [00:32:11] Chuck: Yeah. You, you, there was a, there was a thing in a group that we both belong where it’s like, Hey, we’re putting up our 14th hundredth show. We’re like slacker. That’s right. Because we’ve celebrated our 12th anniversary. [00:32:23] We do 250 shows a year, so you can figure it out. We’ve done over 3000 shows. [00:32:27] Joe: Holy cow. It’s [00:32:28] Chuck: an hour of talk a day. We work very hard. We have a, a field that’s a little bit more like radio than maybe the standard podcast. Mm-Hmm. We’re doing three to four interviews every single day and we’re talking to the best and brightest minds in the investing world. [00:32:40] And the idea is once you’ve decided what you wanna do, you wanna be able to hear from smart folks about, okay, you know, this is making me nervous. Who’s talking about it being a recession, a hard landing, a soft landing? What do the things gonna happen? We do some technical analysis. So you like guys come in and going, here’s where I see the market going, consolidation. [00:32:56] You know, it might be this happening, et cetera. We do fundamentals, we talk about sectors, you know, we’ll bring in experts like you wanna learn about banking? Here’s the banking guy. Next time it’s the technology guy or the semiconductor guy. We talk about all kinds of surveys out there. So when we’re trying to make sure you understand what people are thinking about and doing with their money, every now and again we do something really wacky, like the weird financial news. [00:33:17] Mostly it is talking about the best and brightest minds in investing and giving you ideas. And what we say is the disagreement makes a market. And we know that to be true, that you know, if you’re, if you’re saying, I love this idea, I wanna go buy it, there’s somebody on the other end selling it and it doesn’t make a difference what that is. [00:33:35] We are looking right now at, say Nvidia, it is far and away the most important stock in the world right now. No matter what. You never heard of it. You think of it, well here’s what you need to know. On the MSCI all World Index, 64% of the companies of the value comes from US companies. Just under 5% comes from companies in Japan. [00:33:59] If you add together Germany and France, they have 4.4%, which is roughly equal to the value of Nvidia. Oh man. Okay. So, oh man. Literally talking every company in the world. So that means their half of Nvidia, each individually, every company in France and Germany that’s in there is smaller than Nvidia, let alone the US portion of it. [00:34:26] And so you have to understand that. What does that mean? That means that on a week, like the one where we’re recording this Nvidia dropped 4%, 4.5%. On Tuesday, it was 45% roughly of the stock market’s action that day. And oh, by the way, it picked up. Three and a half percent on Wednesday. You need to understand what that does. [00:34:47] And then when you go, wait, I love Nvidia. Do you really want, like, it’s already a big weight in your portfolio. Yeah. So we’re gonna talk about, yeah. Even if you’re, even if you’re an indexer, you’re going where Nvidia goes to some degree. Absolutely. You have no choice. And you might think, oh, I’m being well diversified. [00:35:01] But again, you buy an all world index and Nvidia has more waiting than every company you’re getting out of Germany and France [00:35:13] Joe: combined. That’s crazy. Surround yourself with smart people stackers, which is why I’m so pleased that, uh, I get to call Chuck Jaffe, my friend. Chuck, thank you so much for hanging out and sharing this year, this year’s version. [00:35:27] You and I are gonna have a discussion here in the next couple months. We talked about it before you hit record. You’ve got a great pet insurance story to share and we’re gonna talk about that soon. Stackers. I, I would, I would not call it a great. [00:35:43] Chuck: Well, yeah, good point. I would not necessarily call it a great one, but it does involve my puppy. [00:35:49] His name is Maho. There he is. Yeah, it it involves my puppy Maho. Yeah. I would not call it a great, but I would call it educational. Good point. And I long felt, Joe, that most of the bad things that happen in the financial world have to happen to me so that I can write about them and talk about them. And it’s far better if it happens to me than anybody else. [00:36:11] So you can learn from my experience and Ma Ho’s misery [00:36:16] Joe: spoken like an award-winning journalist. Thanks a touch, Chuck. Always a pleasure, Joe. [00:36:25] Doug: Hey there, stackers. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and I’ve been looking for easier ways to make money than working with these two dorks. Let me, sure. The benefits are good. I get get all the t Joe’s mom likes to spill, and I’m also waiting for the whole enchilada. Joe keeps talking about, you know, like when he says, someday Doug, you’ll get the whole enchilada. [00:36:45] Man, that’s gonna taste great, isn’t it? Unfortunately, while looking and probably appropriate for Halloween week, I found some truly disturbing ways to make money. How about this one? Back in the early two thousands, Wallace Sosa was suspected of killing lots of people in Sao Paulo, Brazil. In fact, Susa often pointed out to everyone that the murders had taken place. [00:37:09] So here’s today’s question. What was Sosa’s job that allowed him to brazenly? Tell everyone about the people he’d allegedly murdered? I’ll be back right after I go tell Joe’s mom that no matter what happened upstairs, I didn’t do it. Promise. [00:37:39] Hey there, stackers. I’m morbid job seeker and guy with a plot twist. Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug Wallace Souza, is suspected of killing many people in Brazil back in the early two thousands, but he died from chronic liver disease before being brought to justice. Today’s question was, what was SU’s profession that helped him make money off all of these murders? [00:38:03] Sponsor? [00:38:04] OG: What does your profession, [00:38:07] Doug: okay. No, he wasn’t kidding about all of those pineapple, no room drinks. Was he, I he’s already more wine from, uh, 300. Yes, but that has nothing to do with my trivia. You don’t say it [00:38:20] OG: like that. If you’re gonna say, what is your profession? Don’t you have to say it like Leonis. [00:38:24] It’s an involuntary response whenever you hear that question. I, I think out of the two of you, one of you would get that. [00:38:30] Joe: Well, I’m just saying it’s, it’s pronounced leonis like the town of Michigan. [00:38:34] OG: Hmm. [00:38:35] Joe: No. [00:38:35] Doug: Yeah. No. Too soon. [00:38:36] bit: Okay. [00:38:37] Doug: Wow. We’re off on like three shiny objects right now. Can we get back to the answer that everybody is waiting for? [00:38:44] Yeah. Wallace into their seats. John Philip Souse. [00:38:47] OG: He was a tuba player, [00:38:48] Doug: right? Well that was his cousin. Oh. But his more infamous cousin Wallace was the host of a popular Daily. Oh, stop. Oh my God. Freedom [00:39:06] bit: William Wallace. As soon [00:39:07] Doug: as I said it, I’m like, oh God, just keep going. Doug. ’cause he’s gonna invoke, he did it and he did it. [00:39:13] OG: It’s William Mullet [00:39:15] Joe: trivia. Off the rails. Does this ever happen? Oh my God. [00:39:18] OG: Pineapple drink. Pineapple drink. What else do you got for me? [00:39:24] Doug: Spill a little in the glass next time, bartender. [00:39:30] Okay. I’m gonna just say the answer and I’m not stopping. So about [00:39:34] OG: Scotsman, what did he do for work? [00:39:36] Doug: Yes, the Freedom Fighting Scotsman In Brazil, Susa was the host of a popular daily television show called Canal Lire, a hard copy true crime type show that was successful because SU always seemed to beat the other news crews to the scene of the murder. [00:39:56] And often police do. Su not only blamed a rival show of framing him, he also wait for it made income as a state senator as well. Talk about a guy who loved cruelty and now two guys who kind of remind me of Casper, the friendly ghost, you know, ’cause they’re both really white and round and cuddly. Back to Joe and og. [00:40:23] OG: So this guy, this guy was like the Chris Hansen. Of, yeah, Brazil. [00:40:30] Joe: He totally was. Yeah. Except he was also the creepy guy. That was [00:40:35] OG: Chris Hansen was the creepy guy. Oh, good boy. That’s what happened. He ended up, up being the guy, I forgot that cuts [00:40:42] Joe: to the chase Joe. [00:40:43] OG: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:40:44] Joe: He was the Chris Hansen. [00:40:46] OG: Although Chris Hansen was a little bit more, uh, he was more into the kiddos, I think. Oh, okay. Yuck. Check please. No, I mean that’s what, that’s what the show was about. Yes. The show was about exactly. To catch a predator. That’s what it was called. Yeah. He was the predator. You’ll never catch me on, on the other side of the camera. [00:41:04] I’m the guy pointing out everybody else. You know what? When you point your finger at somebody else. There are three fingers pointing back at you. Pointing back at you. [00:41:12] Joe: Hey, let’s, uh, let’s jump into our headline Doug. Great, great, great idea. [00:41:19] headlines: Hello Doling. And now it’s time for your favor, part of the show, our Stacking Benjamins headlines. [00:41:26] Joe: Our headline today is something creepy. Imagine that you get to retirement dun dun, and you don’t have enough money. Baby boomers now spilling the tea. As Doug said, they regret retirement savings plans and taking social security early. This is, uh, from Business Insider written by Noah Scheider. Noah writes responses to an opt in. [00:41:52] Bi Reader survey along with interviews with 20 respondents suggested that preparing for retirement while juggling life’s many obstacles is often a trial and error process. Many said they couldn’t crack the code on balancing how much to save, where to invest, when to retire, and how to be fiscally responsible when raising a family. [00:42:08] Others said they took social security payments too early or didn’t pursue career opportunities that might’ve led to to higher pay. I think the one thing, og, as we start to dive into this headline, what we don’t want to do is get to our, get to our retirement and be filled with regret. [00:42:27] Doug: Yep. [00:42:31] That was a fastball grooved right down the middle. [00:42:35] Joe: Correct. [00:42:38] OG: Go on. [00:42:40] Joe: And that’s a wrap, folks. Janice Carroll 79 said she was in the middle class for much of her life. Made decent wages, but now she’s struggling to live comfortably on about $25,000 in social security payments each year, and she’s down to $35,000. [00:42:58] Mm-Hmm. In savings. That’s a tough thing for Janice OG is that, you know, when you’re 79 years old and you’ve got 35,000, that 35,000 was your last 35,000. You’re not going back to work at 79 years old. Yeah, probably not. Like what do you do? And I know there’s a bunch of people out there who are 30 years old right now and they’re thinking, I can’t afford to save. [00:43:19] But I love, this is actually a Susie Orman line that I really like a lot. I can’t believe I said that as a sentence. It must be Halloween week that I super like a lot. And it was, if you’re 30 years old and you hear this and you think you can’t save, now imagine you’re 79 and you have only $35,000 in savings because you didn’t save all of a sudden. [00:43:39] Oh gee. The priorities seemed to change for the 30-year-old. [00:43:42] OG: Yeah, I, you know, I hear that stuff and I just think there’s. I, I, I feel like it’s impossible to put yourself really in those shoes unless you’re experiencing it. Right? Like if you have the opportunity to see that firsthand, if you have a parent or a loved one or somebody that you are close to that is experiencing kind of those things, then you get an idea of what that really looks like. [00:44:06] ’cause you can’t, when you’re 30 or 40 or 50 and you say, well, imagine if you don’t have money at center. It’s like, yeah, yeah, whatever. It’s no different than like health related things, although people still make bad health choices. But I feel like it’s like if you have the opportunity to witness stuff firsthand, you’re more likely to go, oh, geez, I probably should do a different thing here. [00:44:26] Like, my parents smoked all the time when I was a kid, and now I only smoke like every other day because I’m like, I don’t wanna be like them. I thought you were talking real life. I’m talking real life. You’re always out of the back porch. Just, yeah, just have, just have one cigar a week, not three packs of cigarettes a day. [00:44:45] Right. But my point is, is that when you see different behaviors, especially early on, especially if it has some sort of impact for you, then you’re less likely to, to wanna repeat that and more likely to, to do something about it. So this whole, like imagine if you can thing, I think that’s, I don’t know. I don’t, I don’t really sign off on that. [00:45:04] The problem with compounding, the problem with saving money is that it’s really hard to see the benefits of it in real time because it’s such a small amount. I don’t care how much you’re saving, whether you’re saving a hundred dollars a month or a thousand dollars a month or whatever, it just seems like it’s taking forever to really turn into real money. [00:45:20] And because we measure everything in this, and our senses are around how much money we earn and the people around us earn, you know, so if you’re out there and you make $80,000 a year and you’re putting $500 a month in Europe. Roth, IRA, at the end of the year, you have $6,000, right? Plus maybe a little market growth. [00:45:38] And so you see that and you say like, or 7,000, you’re like, I just, that’s, that’s, you know, I make 80, that’s 7,000. Like that’s nothing. But it’s not the seven that matters. It’s the fact that you do it for the next 30 years. That matters. And it’s really, really, really hard to see the results of it. And it’s the same thing. [00:45:56] I hate to go back to it, but it’s the same thing as like eating healthy or working out or whatever. You know, you just don’t get to have a week of no carbs and be shredded, you know what I mean? Like, you have to do it. You, you have to do that every day from now until forever. And then you look really good. [00:46:12] I think you have to take away the idea that this is a short term thing and recognize that this is who you are now as a person, you know, I am the person who saves 5% of my income, 10% of making 15. Like this is what I do now. I don’t, I’m not doing this for a short term, and then I can go back to my old ways. [00:46:31] Joe: Let’s also talk about the flip side of that too. The regret thing I don’t like either though og, because you are where you are, you know, you did what you did. [00:46:39] bit: Yeah. [00:46:39] Joe: You’ve landed today. We can’t go back and do anything with that. So let’s be hopeful and optimistic about where we are now and move forward because the, the regret just ruins your chance of getting any chance you have of getting on your feet and going forward. [00:46:56] OG: I had a client who became a client after he was an, a client of another advisor who had retired and he was already retired. He retired early based on the advice of this other advisor in the early two thousands. And, um, he was, I don’t know, 50, 47, 48 years old. Very early retirement by even today’s standards. [00:47:14] But, you know, think back 25 years ago, way, way, way, way [00:47:18] Joe: shockingly retired. [00:47:19] OG: Yeah. It was all based on the premise that, hey, during the nineties the market grew at, you know, 30% a year. So as long as, as long as you only spend 10, you know, life is good. He had about a million dollars and his lifestyle was a hundred thousand. [00:47:32] Well, obviously we know how this story ends. He retired in 2000 and you go through 2000, the two thousands and you can see that portfolio dwindling. And I had a conversation with him maybe five or six years ago as he was kind of wrapping up all of his money. He was, had basically spent it all, it took 20 years. [00:47:49] He said, I want you to know I don’t have any regrets. He said, I know, I know. You know, you’ve been working with me for 20 years and you trying to stretch this out as long as we can. We’ve had lots of conversations about, you know, lifestyle and increases inflation and all this other sort of stuff. He goes, but I don’t have any regrets. [00:48:04] I retired when I was in the prime of my physical life. I was 50 years old and I got to hang out with all my kids and my grandkids and do all their stuff. And now I’m 70 or 72. I just had knee surgery. You know, now I’m in this stage of my life and I’d be really upset if I would’ve worked those 20 years. [00:48:24] I’d be super rich, but I have still at bad knees at 72. And I wouldn’t have been able to go skiing with my kids and grandkids and, you know, do all the stuff that I was able to do. So I’m not mad that I did it. I wish it would’ve turned out a little differently, you know, money wise, like maybe just one or two better market years along the way. [00:48:40] But, um, but yeah, I’m, I’m with you. I think if you have some sort of regrets around a decision that you’ve done in the past, there’s no energy there to make a decision moving forward. Right. You need to look at it and just say, we are where we are, and now what, what do we do with the information we have now? [00:48:58] Because I’m, I’m firmly convinced nobody wakes up in the morning and says, I’m gonna try to figure out a way to make really bad money decisions today. Yeah. You know, you just live your life. You do what you can do, and life is how it is. Now we can all look back and make, we maybe wish we would’ve done different decisions, but. [00:49:12] You know you are where you are. So now it’s about here’s where I am, what do I have to do with this info moving forward? [00:49:19] Joe: It’s, it’s funny. On that point, Janice looks back on some of the things that she regrets and there are three of them specifically, and then she points to the future, and I’d love to run these by you because I feel like all these things that she worries about should not have the same space in her brain. [00:49:43] The writer says though, she retired over a decade ago with enough to get by. She said, number one, not being savvier with investing. Two, moving too frequently and three, draining an individual IRA to buy a home she lost $50,000 on contributed to her fears about the future. I would suggest you don’t need to be that savvy of an investor. [00:50:08] Yeah, I was gonna say [00:50:09] OG: the first one, I was thinking like, savviness doesn’t have anything to do with it. You know, you just have to be disciplined and patient [00:50:14] Joe: moving too frequently. Maybe some cost. Okay, maybe a little. But taking $50,000 outta your IRA, I [00:50:22] OG: was gonna say that the moving part does have a lot of impact, you know, and, and whether it’s moving because you’re, I, I think, and maybe, you know, this is how I’m interpreting it. [00:50:32] I’m, I’m thinking moving as in I’m upgrading, right? Rich dad, poor dad stuff. Oh, right. You know, of like, oh, I, I got another, I got another promotion. I can move a block closer to the lake. I can move a block closer to the school. I can, you know, I’m just resetting this rat racing. The whole thing, and this is also true with mortgages and refinancing. [00:50:49] There is a direct correlation between financial independence and mortgage refinancing. Like, the likelihood of those things happening are on the opposite ends. If every time your house goes up in value, you’re going back to the bank going, Hey, I. How do I get a hundred grand out of this to remodel the kitchen? [00:51:03] How do I get a hundred grand outta this to put a pool in? How do I get a hundred grand outta this to buy, you know, a new car or whatever? If you’re dipping back into that and you haven’t made any progress on that note, I see that as a, as a direct correlation to financial insecurity, I guess is a good way of saying it. [00:51:21] But that last one, take it. Taking money out. Yep. [00:51:23] Joe: Taking $50,000 outta your irate to buy a house. That’s the mistake. Yeah, that’s the mistake. And again, she is where she is. Yeah. I’m sure she enjoyed the house. [00:51:31] OG: It all depends on when she did it, obviously, but Sure. Um, but yeah, I, I, I don’t understand, I mean, I know why it’s because it’s just like kind of beaten to our skulls from birth. [00:51:41] Like, oh, you get married and you buy a house with a white picket fence and you have 3.2 kids and you know, it’s like all those things. We’d like to think we have to have that stuff. And then it’s like, well, the housing costs are more expensive and they’ve risen higher than infl income and you know, all this issue that goes with that. [00:51:55] So instead of just going, okay, well I just have to wait a few years, we just. Press the easy button and say, well, I, I, I gotta have a house now. I gotta have a house. So I’m gonna forego, you know, this, in this case, let’s say that she did it early on, you know, it’s 50 k compounded into years and years and years of, of market growth. [00:52:15] For what? A place to live. I mean, you can live in an apartment in the same community probably, but again, she is where she is. Yeah. I mean, that [00:52:23] Joe: is, that is done. Once you make that move, it’s done. Let’s talk about the present. This is what Janice says about the future. She’s considered returning to work, but worries. [00:52:33] It would be too physically and mentally taxing. Of course, it’s 79 years old, I think og, nobody wants to do it, but you know what I think, I think people contemplate this stuff. Like if you think that you want to go back to work, what’s the downside? Go back to work, see if you can handle it. And if you can’t stop, then three weeks later just go. [00:52:53] I couldn’t do it. Like sitting around worrying about it. [00:52:55] OG: Yeah. [00:52:56] Joe: Isn’t solving anything. My advice to Janice would be, if you think going back to work is gonna help solve your problem, then try it. There is literally no downside. What is somebody gonna do? Write bad stuff about you on the internet that you were a bad employee, you’re 79 years old. [00:53:10] Yeah, who cares? [00:53:12] OG: Well, and there could be some work that’s adjacent to what you already enjoy spending time with. For example, you could help out at church or work at the store that you shop at a lot or you know, I mean there’s lots of adjacent things that you’re already doing that you could do potentially you could look at potentially doing for money and to your point, at the end of the day, like, yeah, just ready, fire, aim, go do something and see what happens. [00:53:39] Like what out, what’s, what’s the worst that happens is, is you work for two weeks, you get a little paycheck for two weeks, you go, yeah, this sucks. I’d, I’d rather be [00:53:47] Joe: sitting at home. I think when it comes to making money, putting money in your pocket, just go try something. [00:53:53] OG: Yeah. [00:53:54] Joe: I think that on the other side, when it comes to like the secret that could have maybe saved Janice, and again, I don’t want Janice to regret more than she clearly already does where she is, automation automate. [00:54:07] If you think you can’t save, automate it. I love the strategy that you’ve used forever. OG in meetings where you help people just raise their automatic savings by just little bit say, let’s try it. I love that strategy. It’s so good. Let’s just try it. Hey, let’s, [00:54:21] OG: let’s, let’s find out where you’ll break. [00:54:22] Joe: Yeah. [00:54:23] Just like with Janice, Hey, if it doesn’t work, guess what we do? [00:54:25] OG: Yeah. [00:54:26] Joe: We, we move it back. How many times have people ever called you to say, let’s move it back? It never happens. So amazing. [00:54:32] OG: Especially when you do it in like small dollar amounts, right? It’s like $25 a month. It’s like, okay, [00:54:37] Joe: yeah. Automate it. [00:54:38] Automate it. Make a move. Pause the podcast right now at stackers and do the scariest thing possible here on human on Halloween week and let’s automate it. And we’d love to hear from you about how you automate it. We’re challenging you. You think this ain’t a challenge. This is a challenge, stacker. Go automate it. [00:54:56] OG: For every stacker that automate something, I will have another pin, pina colada, [00:55:01] Joe: and getting caught in the rain. Or maybe not. I don’t like that song. It’s so weird. No. A song is so, it’s a dumb story. It’s a weird story. So, hey, my spouse and I are cheating on each other. And then we realized that, that while we’re cheating on each other, we find somebody on Tinder or Hinge that we thought was awesome. [00:55:18] And it turned out it was the person I was with. Right. It’s sweet. It’s a nice, sweet story. [00:55:23] Doug: It’s the news is you can’t [00:55:24] OG: be mad at one another then. [00:55:26] Doug: Right. You are already with probably the best person for you. It’s horrible and you just have to realize it and, and think. Yeah. It’s a sweet story. [00:55:34] OG: Have you seen those videos where they take things and turn ’em into what they’re not So they take like, like frozen and turn it into like a horror film or? [00:55:44] I sent Doug one succession. Oh, the succession one, that’s, yeah. Just by the [00:55:47] Doug: editing. [00:55:48] OG: Yeah, that’s, yeah. The succession. They turned into a love story between, between Greg and um, what’s his name? Who’s, who’s the? Tom Craig. And Tom? Tom. Tom. Success one was a love story. Great. With names today. I’ll see if I can’t find that. [00:55:59] And we can play maybe a little, [00:56:00] Doug: and by the way, Joe, I’m glad you brought up easy listening because that’s gonna come up later on the back porch. Oh boy. We, uh, when you talked about, you know, like an easy listening song, pina Colada, just wait, it’s coming back. [00:56:12] Joe: Maybe I’ll go from Mr. Sad Mayor to Mr. Happy Mayor. [00:56:16] When I hear that story, these are frightening. og, nice pick with this headline. OG sent that to us a couple days ago and fantastic headline. If you wanna dive more into this, Kevin Bailey’s got your back because he writes our 2 0 1 newsletter comes out tomorrow and twice a week. Not only do you get, by the way, great tips in your email box, but we also then are able to send you when we’re going on the road and coming up. [00:56:41] I’m going to Vegas baby. I’ll be in Vegas next Thursday night at Las Vegas Brewing. Head to uh, stacky Benjamins dot com slash meetup if you’re in the Las Vegas area next Thursday. It looks like we already got a nice, uh, group of people coming. Which is, is gonna be fun. Cannot wait to hang out with our stacker community. [00:57:01] I talked to people at Las Vegas Brewing, they’re gonna put us outside. And uh, just a beautiful time to be in Vegas this time of year. So looking forward to that stacky Benjamins dot com slash meetup to tell us that you’re coming. Doug, let’s go Speaking to the back porch. Let’s go to the back porch. [00:57:17] ’cause man, we got some stuff happening in the basement and elsewhere. [00:57:20] Doug: Well we do. First of all, Gertrude brought this up online not long ago, but unbeknownst to me. ’cause I’m normally sleeping when I’m not on air. We celebrated nine years with a basement group on Facebook. [00:57:34] Joe: No, you mean like nine days, don’t you? [00:57:35] That’s been around for nine days I think. [00:57:37] Doug: Yeah, no, I know. It feels like yesterday, but it has been nine years. We must have started the basement group like the day after Zuckerberg started Facebook. ’cause that’s a long time. Have a. [00:57:47] OG: Yeah. What is, what is the Facebook? [00:57:51] Doug: The Facebook, [00:57:53] OG: it’s like, uh, Kmarts Fords, right? [00:57:56] Someplace I never visit. [00:57:57] Doug: You need to finally kill your MySpace account. OG move. I can upgrade, move over to the Facebook. I can [00:58:03] OG: only handle one thing at a time. It’s like hinge or, so [00:58:09] Joe: he could drink his pina coladas. [00:58:10] OG: That’s [00:58:10] Joe: exactly, I’m sorry, babe. I thought I was finding you like this song. Instead, I found I was looking [00:58:15] OG: for you. [00:58:16] I found all, all these other people time. I was swiping right this whole time looking for you. That’s a different thing. I had to go on those five dates. I, I had to check and make sure they weren’t you. [00:58:26] Doug: Can we focus here? [00:58:27] OG: No, I’m wearing a clown hat. [00:58:32] Doug: And what’s new? Do you think somebody’s had too much Halloween candy? [00:58:36] I. I think there’s a little sugar buzz happening nine years. And that’s not the podcast, that’s just a subset of our podcast years, but nine years with a really strong community on, on Facebook called The Basement. If you’re not in the basement on Facebook, you gotta join. ’cause there’s nearly as much good information and discussion going on there as there is here today. [00:58:59] Joe: We’ve [00:59:00] Doug: had some great, [00:59:00] Joe: yeah. Great discussions lately. Yeah. People asking questions about credit card points. I know we had, we had that recently. We had somebody asking about moving and Right. Uh, the Hive Mind’s done a great job of helping LA people’s concerns plus, uh, uh, good helping and dad jokes, which I, which I’m always [00:59:18] Doug: appreciative of the basement’s. [00:59:20] Awesome. Unfortunately, Gertrude censors most of my comments. All the good stuff That’s weird. Doesn’t make it through. Uh, I’ve got a little, little beef with her about that, but I’ll go get ya. [00:59:30] Joe: But thanks all of you for hanging out with us online, for hanging out with Doug and I not, oh gee, who’s quote too good [00:59:38] Doug: for, he’s not out there as much. [00:59:40] And, uh, our Facebook group, another place, Joe, where people say a lot of great things regarding. Just personal investing in general. It’s on the reviews for our show. Can I, can I read you some of these great reviews we’ve gotten recently? There’s a ton. Well, let’s go with the one for now. Oh, I wanna do like seven. [00:59:58] Okay. Let’s do one. How about if we meet you halfway and do one? No, I’m, I’m not gonna abide by that constraint that the man is putting on me really fast. Um, I’m gonna read this one only because the username is hilarious. The review is just funny and educational all in one, but the username, not sucky. [01:00:15] Small town. They must live in Texarkana. This be somebody here. And then I promised you that we were gonna talk about like, easy listening again. We had a, a review from Ven oh three. It sounds kinda like Avenger, but anyways, Avenger oh three. These guys give a very easily to listen to and entertaining news on personal finance. [01:00:39] If you wanna build a solid foundation, but don’t need to save 5 cents on bread, stop here. So we’re probably like the Yeah, I know. We’re the Linda Ronstadt and James Taylor of financial podcasting. ’cause we’re easy listening. It’s, that’s so good. And there’s, there’s so many good ones. But I wanna read one more because I. [01:01:01] Who was it? It was as Nate. Oh, sorry. Asset. Nate is the username money Magic. Listen to the, did you almost call him [01:01:09] bit: as, as Nate? [01:01:10] Doug: Well, I don’t know. My glasses on. And that’s what the username jumps out at you. Yeah. You just see a, it, it’s a Latin Bam [01:01:15] OG: ass at Nate as asset. Nate. [01:01:18] Joe: Yeah. I thought it was like magic Mike as Nate. [01:01:22] That’s where he is going. He’s he’s going with his, uh, nighttime job. [01:01:26] Doug: Yeah. Uh, anyways, ask Nate, uh, says, listening to these guys and you’re actually gonna. Gonna think that’s his name. When you hear me read this title, money Magic, listening to these guys is like listening to your grandpa and great uncles tell you a story. [01:01:40] Oh, oh man. Could be you guys. Not saying you’re old, but wise, the jokes are edgy enough to make ’em funny. Plus it makes it entertaining while learning about money. I tune in every MWF to, is that an acronym for something to listen to the magic. He doesn’t know what MWF is. I’m not explaining it. You explaining it. [01:01:59] I think that sounds naughty. No idea. There’s so many other good ones, but I had to read those. [01:02:04] Joe: Well, thank you so much Nate. And uh, that’s, uh, thanks to, uh, not sucky small town for the nice reviews and I’ve been, I’ve been also sending out a few books to people, so if you sent me an email, they’re starting to roll out. [01:02:18] Finally I’m in town and I finally got caught up from being a little bit behind after I went into the, outta the country. I dunno if I told you guys, but I went to Peru. [01:02:29] Doug: And that’s a wrap. Very, very, [01:02:30] Joe: very good Type quick, the horror story’s beginning and scene. He’s in the house, right? All right. That’s gonna do it for today on Wednesday. [01:02:42] It is another very special Halloween week show. We’re gonna leave that a surprise, but you’ll definitely wanna tune in on Wednesday. So Doug, finish it off man. What, uh, what should be on the Tu tudo lou list? Tudo Lou List today. How about that? [01:03:01] Doug: No, I’m just gonna ignore that. Here’s what’s stacked up on our to-do list for today. [01:03:06] First, take some advice from Chuck Jaffe. Wanna have some fun, help your neighborhood and teach kids money lessons. Create a fun game for your trick or treaters. Heck, if you do write to us and tell us how it went, we’d love to know. Second, take some advice from our headline. You don’t want to regret, sorry. [01:03:24] Ret your retirement time. Time to research as many stories as possible. Take social security later. Plan for emergencies and things that go bump in your retirement. Oh, I see what you did there. Like bump in the night. The bump in your Halloween. I got it. Okay. But the big lesson, don’t tell Joe’s mom, you love her new witch costume. [01:03:49] Turns out that’s just her normal nightgown. Yeah. Ouch. Thanks to Chuck Jaffe for joining us. You’ll find Chuck’s podcast five days a week at the Money Life Show, where you’re listening to us right now. We’ll also include links in our show notes at Stacking Benjamins dot com. This show is the property of SB podcasts LC copyright 2024, and is created by Joe Saul-Sehy. [01:04:18] Joe gets help from a few of our neighborhood friends. You’ll find out about our awesome team at Stacking Benjamins dot com, along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots. Come say hello. Oh yeah, and before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don’t take advice from people you don’t know. [01:04:40] 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, Duggan. We’ll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show. [01:05:43] bit: I’ve noticed [01:05:44] Joe: that the NFL has been selling out these football games, not just, not just the ones that are in, you just noticed [01:05:51] OG: this [01:05:52] Joe: what in London, but also the ones that are in, also the ones [01:05:56] OG: in [01:05:56] Joe: America, German, the ones in America. No, I’m talking about when they go overseas. Uhhuh. I’m like, I didn’t know there were that many NFL fans, like American football fans. [01:06:05] There’s not, but man, they’re selling. Are those just expats? Are those just Americans? Yes. That packed the stadium. [01:06:11] Doug: In fact, from a business perspective, and I learned this from the, uh. Our sister podcast called Acquired. It’s a little tiny podcast that, uh, our sister podcast. It’s not that successful yet. [01:06:23] Those guys don’t owe everything to us. But those guys are smart and they do a lot of research. They’ve learned, you know what, they, their research techniques from us, of course, but they did a whole amazing episode on the NFL. It’s not very old. So I think it’s still relevant data. And they actually have incredibly few people, locals going to those games in Europe and, you know, and, and other countries, Mexico, I think they did one in Brazil this year, if I’m not mistaken. [01:06:49] But, uh, it’s almost all either expats or Americans flying. Let’s go see a game in Germany. That’ll be awesome. So it’s a great idea though. It is, except that it’s the real goal of trying to make American football an international game is largely failing. Yeah. It has almost no uptake in those other countries. [01:07:10] You know, they’ve tried to have, uh, like, uh, I was gonna say junior leagues, but like minor leagues of football. They aren’t getting no attendance at those. It’s not taking off like w os Yeah. Not taking off like the NBA’s international efforts, which have, you know, truly made that game global. [01:07:26] Joe: But man, they keep, they keep trying. [01:07:29] I saw a video the other day, which was, this was, uh, a game from Munich. This was Baltimore against Cincinnati. Listen to listen to NFL Football. Even if you’re not a football fan. Listen to NFL football craziness in German. I. And it’s more fun if you don’t speak German [01:08:08] bit: for the show Isaiah, like, God does this, does this good of the PlayStation men star. [01:08:17] Doug: I wanna listen to an entire game with just fumble in. I like fumble in, fumble in Z [01:08:24] Joe: football. [01:08:24] OG: Fantastic. [01:08:25] Joe: Yes. [01:08:26] OG: That’s pretty funny. [01:08:27] Joe: But I don’t know, man. I still feel like I’m kind of being yelled at with that German accent, don’t you? [01:08:31] I’m like, I didn’t do it. It wasn’t me. I swear. That’s fun. So good listening to, uh, German guys get excited about Lamar Jackson escaping after a fumble and, uh, and making a touchdown. [01:08:46] OG: There was that, uh, I don’t even know what movie it was in, but it’s a scene that Hitler is getting really mad. Do you know what I’m talking about? [01:08:53] Where they dub in the American lines, like as if that’s the translation and they’ll always make it about something completely nonsensical, like, you know, Alabama lost to Georgia or something like that. But it’s like, you know, I’ll, I’ll find it and I’ll, I’ll, I’ll post that for you guys. But I have, I have something else that’s a little bit more relevant. [01:09:11] This is one of my favorite Christmas movies of all time. During Halloween week, [01:09:19] Doug: you’re playing a Christmas movie. You know it’s okay. [01:09:27] bit: Yeah. Mr. Hobbs, go ahead. Yeah, I think someone sent you a Christmas gram. [01:09:36] Excuse me. I’m here to see a Walter Hobbs. Dan, I walked all day and night to find you. You look like you came from the North Pole. It’s exactly where I came from. [01:09:53] Doug: It’s a little complicated, but it’s nothing that we can’t [01:09:55] bit: handle. What he thinks. She’s an elf. [01:10:01] headlines: I’m sorry, what? [01:10:05] OG: It says, taken as a child [01:10:07] bit: was adopted, but you didn’t know. I’m [01:10:09] OG: tortured, twisted, [01:10:15] bit: and, and broke it. Guess what? I love you. I love you. I love you. You get the hell outta here. [01:10:27] What do you want some money? No, I just wanted to meet you. I thought you might wanna meet me. You saw that guy. He, he’s certifiably insane. Looks like a Christmas tree. He’s probably just reverting to a state of childlike dependencies. What? What are we gonna do? We can’t. We can’t leave him alone. What he needs is to be nurtured. [01:10:46] They’re [01:10:46] headlines: just having a little [01:10:47] bit: fun. Fun. So felonies are fun. Introducing to Emily and Michael. Go away. Once he comes to terms with reality, he should drop the whole hell thing and move on with his life. I can’t go to sleep unless I get tucked in [01:11:09] Joe: office. Psychological [01:11:10] OG: horror. You know, the Seymour, he goes, I can’t, I can’t go to sleep unless I get tucked in. And then he goes, took a fight. Like they cut right as he like grabs him. Like, [01:11:23] very scary. Yes. [01:11:25] Joe: Okay, og, come tuck me in now. [01:11:27] OG: Don’t [01:11:27] Joe: threaten [01:11:28] OG: me with [01:11:28] Joe: a good [01:11:28] OG: time.
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