How Much Should You Really Save Without Hating Your Life? (SB1846)

Everyone wants to know the magic savings number. Is it 10%? 15%? Half your paycheck while eating ketchup packets in the woods?

In this Memorial Day basement hangout, Joe, OG, Doug, and Len Penzo cut through the personal finance nonsense and tackle the real question:

How much should YOU actually save?

Instead of guilt trips and impossible rules, the crew breaks down how real people build wealth while still enjoying life along the way. From automation tricks to lifestyle creep to using raises strategically, this episode is packed with practical ways to grow your savings without becoming financially miserable.

Plus:

Why most savings advice completely falls apart in real life
The easiest way to increase your savings rate
How automation quietly builds wealth
Why your income matters more than coupon clipping
The surprising power of “future you”
Estate planning basics you absolutely should not ignore
Why beneficiary forms matter more than your will
Doug learns what “intestate” means… and thankfully it’s less gross than he thought

Whether you’re just getting started or trying to level up your financial plan, this episode helps you stop chasing perfect numbers and start building momentum.

Key Takeaways

Why there’s no “perfect” savings rate
How to increase savings without wrecking your lifestyle
The psychological mistake that keeps people from saving
Why small automated habits beat big dramatic changes
The best places to find extra money fast
How raises can supercharge wealth building
The truth about lifestyle creep
Estate planning basics everyone needs
What happens if your beneficiaries are outdated
Why trusts aren’t just for wealthy people

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

Featured Tools, Guides & Resources

The Vault Budgeting App
Simplify budgeting, subscriptions, spending, and automation.
👉 stackingbenjamins.com/vault
Benjamins After Dark (BAD) Groups
Meet other Stackers in your area for accountability, networking, and money conversations.
👉 stackingbenjamins.com/BAD
Stacking Benjamins Basics Guide
Free guide covering financial basics, estate planning, tax planning, and more.
👉 stackingbenjamins.com/basicsguide
Len Penzo’s Blog & Book
Len’s financial writing and his book True Money Stories.
👉 lenpenzo.com
Retirement Calculators
The crew strongly recommends experimenting with retirement calculators to understand how compound growth changes your future savings needs.
AI Tools for Financial Organization
OG discusses using AI tools like Perplexity to:
Review leases
Analyze property tax appeals
Organize financial documents
Build research prompts

Articles, Topics & Concepts Referenced

Tax-Smart Retirement Withdrawals
FIRE Movement (Financial Independence Retire Early)
Lifestyle Creep
Automation & Auto-Investing
401(k) Auto-Increase Strategies
Estate Planning
Beneficiary Audits
Trusts vs. Wills
Probate Basics
Healthcare Directives
Durable Power of Attorney

Enjoy!

Monday Mentor: Len Penzo

Big thanks to Len Penzo for joining us today. To learn more about Len, visit Len Penzo dot Com – The offbeat personal finance blog for responsible people. Grab yourself a copy of the book True Money Stories: Madcap Musings About Family Life and Personal Finance

Doug’s Trivia

What does it mean to be intestate?

Have a question for the show?

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Check out The 201, our email that comes with every Monday and Wednesday episode, PLUS a list of more than 19 of the top money lessons Joe’s learned over his own life about money. From credit to cash reserves, and insurance to investing, we’ll tackle all of these. Head to StackingBenjamins.com/the201 to sign up (it’s free and we will never give away your email to others).

Other Mentions

Join Us Wednesday

Tune in on Wednesday when we’re joined by a guy who’s studied how to keep it all together in the face of uncertainty and will share his findings with YOU…. Simone Stolzoff.

Written by: Kevin Bailey

Miss our last show? Listen here: Where Are You Drawing the Line? How Smart Spenders Decide What to Cut and What to Keep (SB1845)

Episode transcript

[00:00:00] Joe: It’s a special day in America. It is Memorial Day. That means that we remember a lot, but on this show, we remember that, uh, Len Penzo is, uh, still operating.

[00:00:14] OG: On people?

[00:00:15] Joe: Yeah. Oh, probably not on people. Or on animals. Are you operating on, are you operating on those squirrels gone wild, Len?

[00:00:22] Len: You know what? My daughter is a, is a registered vet tech.

[00:00:25] Len: She actually sent me a photo. They, they did operate on a squirrel just the other day. She sent me a video of them, uh, uh, actually, when it was just under, it was under, uh, sedation. I thought she sent me a picture of a dead squirrel.

[00:00:36] Joe: Oh.

[00:00:37] Len: She’s like, “No, no, no, it’s under sedation.” Just sleeping. It’s like, uh, yes, but yes, they do do those things.

[00:00:41] Joe: They do those things. So we’re super happy you’re here on Memorial Day. What’s Memorial Day tradition in the Penzo family?

[00:00:48] Len: It’s the usual stuff, you know? We do the barbecue.

[00:00:51] Joe: Yeah.

[00:00:51] Len: I love it. It’s the kickoff of summer and, uh, you know, let’s get this party started. That’s what I say.

[00:00:56] Joe: Well, let’s do it. Let’s start this party off by remembering the men and women who kept us safe and are keeping us safe this extended weekend in America or this Monday if you’re someplace else.

[00:01:07] Joe: So raise your mugs, everybody. On behalf of the men and women making podcast in mom’s basement, the men and women Stacking Benjamins, here’s to the troops who kept us all safe. Thank you so much Let’s go stack some Benjamins in this holiday now, shall we?

[00:01:21] opener: Oh, it’s Monday, baby. It is Monday. Start of the new week.

[00:01:27] opener: There’s every reason to not be excited, but guess what, baby? We are excited. We’re motivated. We’re dangerous and disciplined. We have a new week in front of us, a new week to chase after every dream we want. A new week.

[00:01:47] Doug: Live from Joe’s mom’s basement, it’s The Stacking Benjamins Show.

[00:02:01] Doug: I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and on this US holiday, we’re going to answer a question many of you have asked Joe and OG: How much should I save? I know the answer, but none of you asked me. We’re gonna share common misconceptions, how to figure out your perfect savings rate, and how to find the money to get rolling.

[00:02:20] Doug: Plus, in our OG and Anna Basics segment, they’re talking estate planning. What foundation should you have for your loved ones when you pass away? We’ll share. And speaking of sharing, of course it wouldn’t be Memorial Day without a scoop of my incredible trivia, would it? And now, here come three guys who delayed the picnic long enough to help you find financial security.

[00:02:44] Doug: It’s Joe, OG, and Len Penzo.

[00:02:51] Joe: Hey there, Stackers, and welcome back to the greatest money show on Earth. We’re super happy you’re sharing your holiday weekend here in America with us, and the guy we’re super happy sharing the holiday weekend with us, Mr. Penzo’s back. How are you, man?

[00:03:06] Len: I’m great. I, you know, I had a, um, a little bit of a harrowing weekend.

[00:03:11] Joe: Oh, no.

[00:03:12] Len: Yeah. I, I fell off a 40-foot ladder, uh- Oh my God … on Saturday. Lucky for me, I was only on the first rung. Oh. But, um-

[00:03:20] Joe: Safety first Yes, that’s right … don’t, don’t climb the 40-foot ladder is the lesson there. Stay one foot off the ground and you don’t have to worry about it. Yeah. It’s like OG, that comedian talking about how the reason he doesn’t jog is ’cause in the news they’re always the ones that find the find the dead body.

[00:03:37] OG: They’re the ones that find the dead bodies, yeah.

[00:03:40] Joe: It’s a good reason not to jog. I mean, don’t get up on ladders. That’s right. Don’t-

[00:03:43] OG: Yeah.

[00:03:43] Joe: Well, we’re gonna climb the ladder of financial independence today, huh? Like that one. We’re gonna help you all climb along with us, because this idea of savings rates, you know, it is frustrating for people how much do, uh, we save, and you, you guys have all seen it.

[00:03:59] Joe: All these headlines, Len, over the years, you see it. What… It’s like an annual topic that comes up. What’s the right amount to save? We’ve got it for you, and it’s some rule of thumb number that people live by.

[00:04:12] Len: And you know what? Having me on today, if I… I don’t w- mean to brag, but I think I’m the right guy here because, you know, I started out with nothing and I still have most of it.

[00:04:21] Joe: Perfect. That is perfect. And people hear, people hear 10%, you hear 15%, save your age, right? Whatever your age is. Save until it hurts. If you skip lattes, you’ll own a yacht by next Thursday. Like all, all of these things. We’re gonna cut through all that noise today, so we’re super happy you’re with us. Grab something to take notes because we’re going to help you craft a better strategy.

[00:04:48] Joe: We only have two sponsor spots in our show. One right now, and one halfway through Doug’s trivia. We start off our sponsor spot with The Vault. Budgeting can be really easy. It’s even better if you’ve got the right co-pilot. Stackingbenjamins.com/vault gets you there. That and instead of having your phone have seven different apps open, put them all in one.

[00:05:12] Joe: Stackingbenjamins.com/vault. What a, what a great gift going into summer, which is generally for people the spending season. Getting on track with not just your spending, but with your subscriptions and everything else in your financial life. Great time to begin your automation journey. We’ve got a couple more sponsors here, and then Len, OG, Doug and I, we are going to dive into helping you set the perfect savings rate as we go into summer.

[00:05:44] Joe: Well, here’s the question, guys. I mean, there’s so much generic advice about saving, so many rules of thumb. Len, why is it that so much of this advice fails? ‘Cause I know whenever I’ve tried to use one of these rules of thumb numbers, I just can’t… It’s like putting a puzzle together and it just never seems to, to fit me.

[00:06:10] Len: Well, I think you kind of hit on it. It… Again, we always go back to it’s personal finance, right? And there’s no one size fits all answer. So I think what most people do is they might read something, they might- Go, you know, the, the age rule of thumb or other rules of thumb, they’ll try to apply it immediately without taking into consideration how that actually works for them al- you know, without any considerations.

[00:06:31] Len: To me, it’s always, you know what, you do what you’re comfortable with, and you… maybe you ratchet it up until you start feeling a little pain and you can’t take it anymore. That, that’s what I did, actually. You know, just ratched it up slowly un- until you don’t wanna go any higher. And that’s the way to do it, rather than taking somebody’s advice and not thinking about how that applies to you immediately.

[00:06:51] Len: ‘Cause that can get very discouraging if someone says, “Well, save 20% of your income” right off the bat or what- whatever. You go to do that, and you say, “Oh, I can’t do…” You know, it totally fails. You’re miserable, and then you say, “Well, then for that reason, I’m not even gonna try and save 5%.” So I think it’s best to start slow and, and ratchet things up.

[00:07:09] Joe: I thought you were gonna say it’s best to start slow and slow down more from there.

[00:07:14] Len: Well… If you, if you have to, you have to,

[00:07:16] Joe: but- That was, that was my strategy running. Start slow and then ease up. Yeah. OG, it can be frustrating. I mean, we see these boom-bust cycles, right? People get excited about finance.

[00:07:25] Joe: Maybe somebody’s listening to their first Stacking Benjamins show now. They’re getting all excited, and we forget that this is a marathon and not a sprint. And, you know, it’s not all about eating ramen noodles all day long.

[00:07:36] OG: Well, in the savings department in particular, there’s large swings in your, uh, cycle of life, let’s say, right?

[00:07:44] OG: Where, where it’s like different stages, and heck, even different stages within the same area of time. You’d say, “Well, I would expect that I’m gonna save more money when I’m at, when I’m 50 because then I’ll be making more money, and da, da, da.” What’s al- Well, you might also have more expenses that year. That might be the year that your both kids are in college, and that may just be a light savings year.

[00:08:03] OG: And part of financial planning and savings projections is to recognize the dynamic-ness-ism. Is that right, Doug?

[00:08:12] Doug: Dynamism.

[00:08:13] OG: Dy- dynamic-ism-

[00:08:15] Doug: Okay …

[00:08:15] OG: of the fact that, you know, life is, life is gonna change for you, and it’s not gonna be this set kind of, uh, standard up into the right chart. You know, you may have a period of time where you have lower income or a period of time where you have higher income.

[00:08:30] OG: And, you know, you can capture some of those gains in terms of savings to pull forward other financial goals that you have. And, and recognizing that it doesn’t have to be perfect. You know, you don’t have to have it exactly right every single time, but I think being intentional is more important.

[00:08:45] Joe: I think so too, and I also think that starting off with a rule of thumb is so difficult because, I mean, let’s take two, two people.

[00:08:54] Joe: A 22-year-old with roommates isn’t going to have the same savings rate as a 48-year-old supporting kids and helping out parents that are aging. Like, these are gonna be completely different situations. So I think there’s something to be said about just starting with the end in mind, OG.

[00:09:12] OG: Well, and, and rates and dollars are completely different too, right?

[00:09:15] OG: Oh, good point. Yeah. Your, your 22-year-old who’s saving 20% of their income and puffing their chest out, and the 50-year-old that’s peak earning years, but yeah, has all those other things, might only be saving 10% of their income, but that 10% is three times as much as the 20% of the 20-year-old. So, it’s hard to even use those percentages as rules of thumb because it’s contingent on what’s going on in your life.

[00:09:37] OG: And more importantly than all of that is what do you have to do for your financial plan? You know, if you’re looking at it from the perspective of, of, well, such and such a website said I need to save 15% of my income, and yet for your plan you need to save 20, it’s gonna suck pretty bad when you get to the end of your, you know, your end of your plan and you realize you’re short.

[00:09:56] OG: Versus a, uh, the, the person who is saving 15 but their plan means that they only need to save 10, and they get to their goal, they get to their, you know, the end of their plan, and it’s like, “Well crap, I, I, I have all this excess now,” and you s- it, it sounds like a great problem to have, but there’s a trade-off.

[00:10:14] OG: The trade-off is trips that were untaken or gifts that were ungiven or experiences that you didn’t have while you were at, at an age to do those things. And now you’ve got this big bucket of money, it’s fantastic, but you’re, you know, 90 years old, so what?

[00:10:29] Joe: I- I- yeah, it’s, uh, it can be so frustrating dealing with, with…

[00:10:33] Joe: I really think that is myth number one, that there’s this perfect savings rate. And I love what you said, Lan, about notching it up, right? About this idea that I save what I can. If myth number one is that there’s a perfect saving rate, myth number two is if I can’t save a ton it’s pointless. You see especially for some people chasing the FIRE movement, financial independence retire early, like, “I gotta save 50%,” that, that it doesn’t have to be that way.

[00:10:56] Len: Yeah, it doesn’t. And it really helps when you’re trying… When I say ratchet things up, what always helps is if you know first off your income and you know your outgo, and then you can go from there. And part of that outgo includes money that you set aside for, ahead of time for what you wanna, your, I’ll call it your splurges and your non-discretionary and your discretionary spending.

[00:11:16] Len: If you include that in your, in your plan, you spend that, and if you’re happy with that and you still have excess money left over, you know you can bring up your savings rate even more to cover that extra. Again, just tracking your spending and tracking your income, that can really help you make an educated guess as to where you should start.

[00:11:37] Len: And then of course, give it a month or two, and if you’re, like I said, if you’re uncomfortable, bring it down. If you’re more than comfortable and you have excess money, then ratchet it up. And you can always say, “Anything that comes in over and above what I am intending to earn for that year, I’m gonna set that aside as my savings.”

[00:11:52] Len: So, uh, you know, it’s, it’s not rocket science, but you do have to do a little effort to find that starting point.

[00:11:59] Joe: I like where you almost went there with, uh, non-discretionary. Oh, I missed it. When you, when you accidentally said non-dis- you know, splurges like housing- And groceries. Yes,

[00:12:09] Len: yes. The bills, the utility bills.

[00:12:12] Len: Yeah, exactly. Hey, you know, you can go two or three months before they really start shutting- Yeah … things down on you.

[00:12:17] Joe: When we start c- I wanna make that show. Like, that, here’s the key, here’s how you save. Stop paying for electricity. Who needs it? But to your point, Len, I mean, these small amounts can create momentum, and I think we often forget that.

[00:12:31] Len: Yeah, and it, you know what? Uh, here’s everything. The set-it-and-forget-it plan. My daughter’s been taking a foray. Uh, she’s been doing her investing, and I told her, I said, “Put in what, what you wanna put in once a month,” which she was, and I said, “And don’t even look at it. Just put it in and give it a year or six months, and you can take a peek.”

[00:12:49] Len: Well, she did that just a couple months ago, and she was absolutely shocked. It was like, “Dad, you know, I got, I got $10,000 in here already.” She goes, “I can’t believe it.” It’s like, yeah, I- there you go. So, you know.

[00:12:59] Joe: Automation.

[00:12:59] Len: It, it’s auto… And now she’s really enthused about just continuing that, that program of putting so much in every month and not tracking it too closely.

[00:13:09] Len: And it, before you know it, the money builds up really fast.

[00:13:12] Joe: Doug, your first professional job, did you start high or did you start low?

[00:13:17] Doug: Probably low. I mean, uh, at that point was still kind of operating on the notion of save what is left over instead of saving what I should.

[00:13:27] Joe: Save first, yeah.

[00:13:28] Doug: Yeah, probably low.

[00:13:29] Joe: That’s, that’s interesting. And then over time, what was it? As raises, did you save raises?

[00:13:34] Doug: Yeah, but I, I mean, to be totally candid, I can’t say that I saved 100% of the raise. It was probably- Sure … some portion of it because, you know, the, we had young kids. I mean, expenses were rising, too. So, you know, probably was not as diligent as I should’ve been.

[00:13:50] Joe: But no, but I love that you, uh, you know, shared it. Part of it is lifestyle and being able to live today, and the other part you saved, you save for later. OG, you haven’t told this story in a long time, so I’d love for our new Stackers for you to, uh, tell them again a- about what happens when you decide to do what Len talks about, n- notch it up with clients.

[00:14:12] Joe: Like, let, hey, let’s see if we can notch up your savings, and like Len said, you can lower it later. How many people, OG, come back and say they wanna lower it later?

[00:14:22] OG: I think it all depends on where you are starting from. And there’s different phases of income expenses, and these numbers change and based on where you live and, you know, that sort of thing, ’cause $100,000 in Manhattan is a heck of a lot different than $100,000 in Johnson City, Tennessee, for example.

[00:14:40] OG: So some of this is contingent on those sorts of things. But let’s assume that you have the ability to save, or you’re like in Doug’s shoes, you’ve gotten a pay raise or something like that. I think it’s a great opportunity to just twist that knob up and just see what happens because you can always, you can always come back.

[00:14:57] OG: You know, it’s almost like I don’t know why I’ve got this in my brain, but it’s like the David Goggins approach to finance. Maybe we should ask him to be on the show, and he can, like every other- Swear at us … word will be a swear word Just do the hard thing. Like, just turn that knob all the way up and see what happens.

[00:15:12] OG: You know, what, what happens to your cash flow? I know you can, on paper, see what will happen. Especially once you get a little bit of margin in your cash flow, your life can kind of ebb and flow as to what’s going on in your bank account, you know? And that’s not true if you’re making 50 grand. I get that, right?

[00:15:27] OG: 50 grand, every dollar is accounted for probably. 60 grand, 100 grand, whatever. But, like, there’s some number as your income grows where you’re like, “Yeah, there might be a little fudge in there,” right? There’s a, there’s a little extra DoorDash. There’s a little extra, you know, I don’t… We’re not super paying attention to our Amazon orders at this point or, you know, we stop using coupons at the grocery store.

[00:15:46] OG: You know, there’s… That happens to evolve. And so give yourself the stress again on the other side of it of like, “Well, this money has just been reduced in our bank account. See what happens.” So I’m always a big fan of let’s crank that up and just see what happens, and then work backward, as opposed to trying to ratchet it up, which I think is a great strategy also, by the way.

[00:16:05] OG: You know, adding 1% every six months to your 401, auto-increasing it. You won’t even miss it. You won’t even know it’s there. Yeah, it’ll take you five years or eight years to get to the full contribution, but you’ll be there. You’ve got a path to get there. You’re automating the increase, which is super easy.

[00:16:20] OG: Or just turn that knob all the way up to the, to 10 and just see how loud it is.

[00:16:26] Joe: Well, I do wanna play the other side of this too. While, you know, notching it up a little bit at a time is great, and, and, OG, to see how far you can go is, I think is a great way to speed things up, there’s also this danger of thinking, “Well, I, I don’t have enough money.”

[00:16:43] Joe: I mean, Doug, you even said it in your answer. Your thought was, “We have kids. We have a young family, so I will save more later.” To some degree, that’s great, but also, Len, I’m sure you saw this, lifestyle creep is a real thing, right? Raises disappear fast if you don’t grab part of it and start saving it right now, and future you is not gonna be, like, magically more disciplined than current you is.

[00:17:09] Len: It’s a weird thing, but the, the money that you earn, the, the windfalls, and that includes raises, that I can… I- if you can shunt that stuff before you actually start spending it, it’s much easier than if you spend it before you just… And then start trying to pull away from it later. So I know when I was younger, all of my raises, especially early on, they went to my inc- up my 401deductions until I got that up to the max, and that took a few years.

[00:17:40] Len: After that, I was still shunting raises to big, what I call big-ticket items for the family, whether that be trips somewhere abroad or a home, big home improvements or things like that. So I was always finding reasons to, to shunt more money away- every year into savings. Now, that didn’t mean all of my income increases went to that savings, but I took a good chunk of it.

[00:18:07] Len: And before you know it, uh, honest to goodness, within 10 years, 11 years of doing this, and I know when you’re young, in your 20s, that seems like forever, oh, my God, but within 10 or 11 year- you are set, man, with your savings. And then you get to a point where you don’t have to shunt anymore. You can actually say, “You know what?

[00:18:21] Len: I’m in a good place, and every raise from here on out I can really put towards fun things and, and more discretionary spending.”

[00:18:29] OG: I think, Len, you’re talking about something that’s really interesting. If you think about the dynamics of this, the absolute dollar numbers. Say, for example, you’re 25, and you’re making 80 grand a year, and you get this fantastic new job that gives you 90,000.

[00:18:44] OG: That’s a big change. Like, percentage-wise, 80 to 90 is a big percentage, and obviously you pay some taxes there. But if you can capture that all now, even just… And, and, you know, live, like, live like a little bit of a pauper right now, right? And say, “Hey, I’m, I’m gonna take all that excess, and I’m gonna save it.”

[00:19:00] OG: And then when you’re 50 and you get the promotion, that age 50 promotion isn’t a $10,000 increase. That’s going from 225 to 325. You know, to your point, you go, “Well, now we have th- I, I just paid for all of my kids’ college in one year of excess.” Or we can do those big, giant trips that we’ve wanted to do because I make 100 grand extra.

[00:19:22] OG: I don’t have to worry about, like, going, “Okay, thankfully, finally I have some savings opportunities for the next 10 years of my life. To top it off, I’ve been saving that 10,000 extra from when I was 22,” and that 10,000 is worth way more than the $100,000 it is when it’s 50.

[00:19:36] Len: Yeah, it’s hard to believe when you’re younger.

[00:19:38] Len: It really is. I, I- Yeah … ’cause I was there. It’s like you just can’t picture it. But honest to goodness, if you just keep at it, by the time you’re 40, in your 40s, and, and if you’ve done all the work up front, you’ve set it and forget it, good things are coming to you. You just gotta be patient and trust, trust the plan, and stick to your convictions.

[00:19:57] Joe: We’ve had two quotes that really I remember over and over from people being on this show that help motivate me, and one that you guys are kind of alluding to is one that, uh, the late, great Jonathan Clements said. He was the Wall Street Journal personal finance columnist for a, a long time. Passed away last year.

[00:20:16] Joe: But on one of Jonathan’s appearances, he said, “You really have a choice in life. You can play early on and have a great time, and enjoy your 20s, your 30s, fantastic, but just realize there is a piper that’s gonna be paid later. So you can do that, and that’s fine, or you can be really diligent then, and you can play later.”

[00:20:38] Joe: Now, there’s obviously a downside to that, which is we don’t know what the future holds. Obviously, Jonathan didn’t know what the future was going to hold, and yet it’s funny, when he wrote some of his most eloquent work here in the last year, he talked about how he didn’t regret being diligent up front because what he also learned was- He’s pretty happy on a frugal budget now because in his 20s and 30s he learned to be happy and have a high savings rate at the same time.

[00:21:05] Joe: Where if he had really YOLOed, he wouldn’t have had that. He wouldn’t have been as happy camping, you know, let’s say. So I find that interesting. And I also am reminded of when Suze Orman was on the show, and Suze said, “If you feel like you can’t save in your 20s and 30s, just in your brain think of you at 65 and you’ve done nothing.”

[00:21:30] Joe: And all of a sudden when you think about that, your priorities change. You’re like, “Oh, my God, I gotta get saving now so I don’t have to, I don’t have to do it later.” I don’t know, some of those games I think help.

[00:21:37] Len: Yeah, and by then it’s too late. It’s too late. Right. I can just imagine being 52, 53, and you’re going, “Gosh, I gonna…

[00:21:44] Len: I wanna retire in 10 years, and I’ve got nothing saved.” And then you look at the numbers that you have to do just to catch, to get to the point where you can retire at 65. It can be daunting.

[00:21:56] Joe: Yeah.

[00:21:56] Len: Well, so don’t… Why would you wanna put yourself in that position? Don’t do it.

[00:22:00] Joe: Yeah, you c-

[00:22:00] Len: Don’t do

[00:22:00] Joe: it … you can do it.

[00:22:01] Joe: If you’re 55 and you’re listening to this, you can do it. You- Yes … you, you can. It’s just, it’s pain … it’s doable. It is a- It’s

[00:22:07] Len: paying

[00:22:07] Joe: the

[00:22:07] Len: piper. Yes.

[00:22:08] Joe: Yes, and if you’re 55, you already know how hard it’s, it’s going to be, but hey, it can, it can get done.

[00:22:13] Len: Thankfully they do have the laws there for when you are older you can save a little extra in your 401, and, and, and so it does help, but I’m…

[00:22:20] Len: it’s painful. It’s gonna be more painful.

[00:22:22] Doug: You know, the later you wait, the longer you wait, you’re gonna get yourself to a point where you need to save, like, 90% of your income. You know, I’ve tried it, a- and it turns out it’s not as much fun as it sounds to live in the woods and eat ketchup packets.

[00:22:35] Joe: Oh, that doesn’t sound delightful.

[00:22:38] Doug: I, I mean, it’s, it looks great in the brochures, but it just doesn’t play out that way. We’ll put

[00:22:43] Joe: those things one thing, one, one at a time. I think that then to create the perfect savings rate, so let’s take all of these myths and let’s start in a different place because, oh, gee, it strikes me that a lot of people are starting with how much money I have available, what the perfect rate is, but it seems to me that maybe we should start with why.

[00:23:04] Joe: Like, why am I gonna save any money at all?

[00:23:08] OG: Are you asking me to answer the question of why do you wanna save money ever?

[00:23:12] Joe: No, it seem… That is… It does sound like that, doesn’t it?

[00:23:16] OG: I mean, it sucks. I’ll put it that way. You know, living today is fun.

[00:23:19] Joe: Yeah, I just think about, like, Simon Sinek, “Begin with why,” right?

[00:23:23] Joe: Mm. And I think that if we ask ourself or if we’re trying to come up with the perfect savings rate, ask why am I saving? Because now I’m like, oh, financial independence. Oh, I need, I need a car at some point. Oh, I want to have a second home. I wanna educate kids. Whatever it might be, it seems like if I start with why instead of what, I’m gonna begin to come up with that perfect rate.

[00:23:44] OG: Hm. Yeah, I mean, ultimately when it comes to any sort of financial goal, for me personally, I always have to have something on the horizon that I’m looking forward to, otherwise I get pretty complacent pretty easily. A lot of times people confuse that with, like, not being happy with, you know, what’s going on in my life or, or like, geez, you just seem to never be…

[00:24:05] OG: You’re always, you’re always kinda s- striving for the next thing. But that’s just kind of internally how I stay, you know, upright, is Bon Bons and, and the couch are pretty comfy and tasty. So I would, uh, prefer to do that if I didn’t have anything else tied to the future. So, so I always have these things in my mind of like, when I do this, then I’ll do this.

[00:24:23] OG: When I get here, then I can do that, you know, type of thing. You know, in the context of savings and in terms of just life planning for me personally. You know, that’s just how I project. So I think a lot of it is aspirational. You know, if you’re just saving money for the sake of saving it, some people really find that interesting.

[00:24:41] OG: For me personally, I need to have something tied to it, you know? Just the other day, as a matter of fact, we were doing some financial planning updates for breakfast. Nerd. Me and Lissa. And it was like, you know, I was like, “Hey, look, we crossed this milestone, and on this path we’ll cross this other milestone at this point in time.”

[00:24:58] OG: And that was just fun to see, you know, because, ’cause we start thinking about, like, what that means in the future, you know, if we stay on the path, basically. Um, so for me, the only way to find the motivation is to actually have something on the, you know-

[00:25:14] Joe: What

[00:25:14] OG: was your- … at the end of that tunnel …

[00:25:15] Joe: what, what was your motivation, Len?

[00:25:17] Len: My motivation for what? For saving?

[00:25:19] Joe: Yeah. What was your why?

[00:25:21] Len: Well, I didn’t wanna be in retirement eating cat food, so that was one of the… m- h- honestly, that, that was really one of m- my biggest motivation. I was able to look into the future and figure out where I didn’t wanna be to start. I’m one of those people, I just love playing around with calculators, and there are retirement calculators out there.

[00:25:38] Len: If you wanna have, especially if you’re in your 20s, this is a really fun thing to do. Playing around with retirement calculators can be really eye-opening, and maybe… I, I like where OG was talking about milestones. Say for example, y- you can go in there and pick a milestone where you think you might wanna be in, in r- a retirement age at 65, th- whether it’s 2 million or 3 million or 5 million, whatever.

[00:26:00] Len: And then play around with it and figure out how much you have to save starting at your age, and it’ll tell you at a certain compound, at a certain rate of return on your investments. You’ll be pleasantly surprised to see, especially if you’re younger, it’s not as bad as you think it is if you let that return on investment compound every year.

[00:26:19] Len: These numbers are achievable, especially in your, your younger age. So play around with the retirement calculators, and you can figure things out pretty quickly that way. Um, I, I, I just, just recently I did it. I was saying, what if I had put in… Gosh, I forget what it was now. What if I

[00:26:34] OG: had? Oh,

[00:26:34] Len: those are tough.

[00:26:35] Len: Yeah, what if… Uh, when I was younger. I, I… Gosh, I can’t remember anymore what it was. What it was, I, I put away a year. It was, um, uh, it was a few thousand dollars a year for seven years starting at, like, tw- age 18, I think is what it was. I can’t remember what it was. But, uh, if I did that only for seven years And then I didn’t save another dime.

[00:26:53] Len: By the time I was 65, if I was earning 8% on that money that I was putting in for the first seven years, I, I think I was at a million dollars just at 60. Mm-hmm. If I didn’t put another penny in, I’m pretty sure it was just a th- $1,000 or $2,000 a year. Yeah. It wasn’t much. Yeah.

[00:27:08] OG: Well, it’s a little bit, like yeah, the compounding is pretty profound.

[00:27:11] OG: Thinking about like milestones and stuff like that, I like setting up these little things where I’ve, like I just find interesting break points. So for example, I like finding out when my money has grown by the same amount of money I put in. Yeah. So let’s say that you’re putting in $10,000 in your 401, there’s gonna come a year when your 401will grow by 10,000.

[00:27:34] OG: You say, “Well, that might happen in kinda like year one, because I put in 10.” Well, yeah, maybe. It could happen pretty quickly. But now when does the portfolio return grow the same amount as my contribution? Then when does my contribution become like a, like relatively meaningless component of that? So when does my money now make as much money as I make?

[00:27:55] OG: Yes. That’s a fun day, right? Yeah. So your million dollars makes $100,000 this year, and your salary’s 100K. You’re like, “Oh, snap. Now, you know, now we’re cooking with gas, baby.” You know, I got another me. Yeah.

[00:28:06] Len: And honestly, it’s very encouraging when you see that stuff. Just play- like I said, just playing around-

[00:28:11] OG: Yeah

[00:28:11] Len: with calculators, I mean, you can see things aren’t as daunting as they seem, especially when you’re young. Youth is so powerful. To use your, your youth and not let it slip away, use that to your advantage. It c- it’s huge.

[00:28:25] Doug: Use your youth for good instead of evil.

[00:28:27] Len: That’s right.

[00:28:29] Joe: Well, and it’s funny, Doug says, “Use your y- youth for good instead of evil.”

[00:28:32] Joe: I was gonna say build habits, but it, it could be both. Same, same.

[00:28:37] Len: Then I’ve got my father-in-law who always says, “Youth is wasted on the young.” So- Oh, yeah …

[00:28:41] Joe: that’s, yeah. Build- Yep … build those great habits in the 30s and 40s. Increase… I love how you were able to, Len, increase your savings just by taking advantage of raises and not, uh, not getting the raises.

[00:28:55] Joe: I wanna move on to one more idea, which is how to find some money to save, because I’m sure there’s some people walking the dog right now going, “Hey, it’s, this is all cute, saving more money. But where do I actually find more money?” And I think, oh, gee, this is not in the little, you know, guilty coffee or cutting coupons, these tiny things.

[00:29:15] Joe: Mm-hmm. You know, people say your biggest wins come from housing, cars, insurance, taxes, and income increases. Like focus on, can I make a big change over 50 small things? That’s the way I look at it anyway.

[00:29:27] OG: Yeah, and the biggest one here, I think in our personal experience, and I think maybe you guys would have this as well, is, uh, radical changes to your job.

[00:29:36] OG: The things that you can do to control your top line, you can only cut so much stuff. We’ve talked about this ad nauseam in 15 years on the show. Like, you can cut expenses, cut expenses, cut expenses, but guess what? The electric bill’s the electric bill. You know, you can say, “Well, I’ll just not turn on the air conditioning.”

[00:29:51] OG: You know, okay. You know, fine. Like, sweat your ass off at night. That’s on you. But is that gonna be enough to help you reach your retirement goals? Probably not. So instead, why not increase your skills or get another job or another promotion so that your income radically changes. Sometimes changing and staying in the same job but changing companies can radically improve your, your income.

[00:30:15] OG: I mean, hell, just ask your boss for a raise. You know, this is kind of the time of the year when sometimes that stuff is happening. We’re getting some… I just filled up my car the other day. It was $115. I don’t drive a lot, so I noticed that. I was like, “Holy shi- sees, that was a lot of money.” This is a reason you should get a pay raise.

[00:30:35] OG: You know, I mean, hell, just inflation should be something. And if you’re doing more, doing more work. So radically increasing your pay, I think, is probably the easiest… Mm, nay, not the easiest. It’s the most effective. You know, walking to your boss’s office and asking for a pay raise is not easy. But, um, or getting a new job, not necessarily easy.

[00:30:55] OG: But I think it’s the most efficient way. I don’t like cutting expenses. I, I like making more money. That’s way more fun way to live life.

[00:31:02] Joe: Well, and on the surface of this, it seems easier to cut expenses, but it really just, th- these little expenses, but it really just… I mean, don’t get me wrong. If you don’t appreciate it, don’t spend the money.

[00:31:14] Joe: I think values-based spending, there’s something to be said for that. Yeah.

[00:31:17] OG: And look, uh, we just got our house insurance renewal. And I went through it with a fine-tooth comb, and I went, “Oh, I think I can adjust this. I think I’m in a position where I can change that deductible.” I did it because I was like, “I think I can save 300 bucks a month here.”

[00:31:30] OG: But that $3,600 is not gonna find its way to a savings account unless I do it in- in- intentionally. That 3,600 is merely for, like, this’ll just be in my cash flow now that will help offset Alex’s tuition increase this year or something. Like, I’m doing that because I want to just not foolishly spend, send money to USAA- Sure

[00:31:50] OG: every single month. Actually, probably is gonna offset the Geico increase for having two teenage boy drivers. That’s probably where all that ends up washing out. But don’t get me wrong, saving 3,600 bucks a year on insurance, that’s a good ROI on the hour that I spent digging through it.

[00:32:05] Joe: If you’re listening to this show though and you don’t know where to save And you’re able to do that versus the lattes or clipping coupons.

[00:32:11] Joe: I mean, think about how many lattes you’d have to not drink to equal that one. Yeah. How- how long did it take you, an hour? You know. Yeah,

[00:32:17] OG: it was about an hour sitting down and going through. The other thing that we did right now was we protested our property tax increase. By the way, a fantastic use of AI, I might add.

[00:32:27] OG: You know, put that into Perplexity computer and say, “Here’s what’s up. Build me a prompt. I need you to go research this and make a case, and here’s all the supporting details.” I don’t know if it’ll be successful, but again, a good use of an hour- Good use of time … you know, to, if I can lower my property taxes by 1,000 bucks or 2,000 bucks this year.

[00:32:43] Joe: Yeah, think about it that way- But- I 100% think about it that way, Len. Like, one good car decision equals five bajillion coupons.

[00:32:52] Len: Yeah, the thing with cutting, you’re never gonna cut your spending to wealth. You know? It’s just, there’s a floor there. There’s only so much that you can cut. It- it’s always better to focus on increasing your income.

[00:33:02] Len: So I, I mean, I totally agree, agree with OG there. Um, OG, you better be careful though, ’cause I think the tax man is also using AI probably to counter your property

[00:33:11] OG: tax, so. We have in-person with a, you know, like a public review board, so they might have it. But- … the good news is, I mean, at least this is what AI said.

[00:33:20] OG: Look, I don’t know how true it is. I will also tell you that it screwed up something that I found. It was like, “Oh, your, your HVAC unit was, is not as old as you think. Here’s the serial number. That’s the, the, the code means this is when it was manufactured.” I’m like, “Dude, I’ve lived here since 2019. We have not gotten new HVAC in 2019.

[00:33:37] OG: I’m pos-” I asked Lisa. I was, like, going through my emails. I’m like, “Did, did I glitch out in 2019?” No, the HVAC company changed their serial number coding- Oh my God … in like 2015, and AI was still using, is using the new one, not the old version, because ours is from like 2010. And so I literally went to the website and I typed in our serial number, and it’s like, “Oh, this is the old version.

[00:33:58] OG: This is from a 2010 model.” So AI didn’t know that, so it was not accounting for that in terms of its value. But it did pull up a code in Texas about the per square foot average. Yours can’t be more than X percent more than the average of similar homes in the area, and ours is more. And so it’s a fairly, I don’t know, AI thinks pretty cut and dry, uh, appeal, uh, based on their logic.

[00:34:23] OG: We’ll see. I’ll, I’ll report back, because this is what I think this is used for. Asking it like, “What’s the weather in, you know, Kansas tomorrow?” Like, I think is a real stupid use of data centers- Yeah. … and all the power that’s, that’s required for that. But saying, “Hey, put together this review package or re- my benefits or something like that.”

[00:34:41] OG: I put my kid’s school apartment lease in there. “What, what are the important dates in this lease that I need to have on my calendar?” Like, oh, you need to renew by this day. You need to make sure that you have your, you know, utilities booked by this day. It’s like thinking tools.

[00:34:56] Joe: I think, uh, three easy places to start as we help you build some tactics around this I think dealing with automation first is a great place to, to go because instead of deciding, “Am I gonna save this?

[00:35:07] Joe: Am I not gonna save this?” Just automate it. Doug, you, it sounds like that’s what worked for you early on, was automation, just starting in your 401.

[00:35:15] Doug: Yep. Yep, for sure. That was really what got the ball rolling for us.

[00:35:19] Joe: Yeah, and Len, sounds similarly to you. You started with a 401automation. That’s automation,

[00:35:24] Len: and the raises too.

[00:35:25] Len: I, I mean, yeah, all the raises went to the 401, uh, almost all of them. There’s s- some years there where I took maybe a percent for myself, but I was pretty, uh, militant the first few years there. It was all, all my raises went to my 401, uh, contributions.

[00:35:37] Joe: Well, and I think even Doug’s approach, you know, where you save part of the raise-

[00:35:41] Len: Yeah

[00:35:42] Joe: is a nice place to start. If you can’t save… Well, heck, if you can save all of it, do it. I mean, let’s do extraordinary things.

[00:35:47] Len: You know, there’s simple ways too that, I mean, you’re not gonna make huge gains, but you are gonna save if you wanna save money. And even if this isn’t for retirement, if this is saving for, you know, special things you wanna have at the end of the year for a small, small or big-ticket item, take change.

[00:36:01] Len: Like, I knew, uh, there was a, a lady who wrote an article at my blog once. She saved, whenever she got a $5 bill in cash, that went instantly into her savings jar.

[00:36:10] Joe: Oh, that’s fantastic.

[00:36:11] Len: My mom and dad used to use their laundry as a savings vehicle. So they would have, you know, maybe a high hundreds or maybe $1,000 at the end of the year.

[00:36:20] Len: When they did their laundry, they would put every load of wash and every, uh, dry, they would put a quarter or 50 cents, and at the end of the year, they had the money for their Christmas fund. So I mean, there’s, there’s fun ways to save too that, that aren’t very painful if you just, uh, just think about it.

[00:36:34] Len: That’s

[00:36:34] Joe: really cool. That extra money around the holidays- Yeah … uh, and gamifying it, I think is fantastic. So automate increased savings with raises, I love gamification, and then last, audit those recurring expenses. But start with the big ones, the insurances, the big decisions, then go on to your subscriptions, which are, uh, you know, easy places.

[00:36:52] Joe: And then finally, if you like dining out, if you like, uh, convenience spending, then keep doing it. If you don’t, then cut that out of your life. We’ll continue this conversation in our show notes at stackingbenjamins.com. Also, our community in the basement, and by the way, our meetup groups around the country, we call them Benjamins After Dark groups or BAD groups.

[00:37:12] Joe: If you wanna hold yourself accountable, we may have a group of people in your backyard that want accountability too, and meet up with like-minded individuals. Stackingbenjamins.com/BAD gets you there, Benjamins After Dark.

[00:37:26] Doug: You know, Joe, it might not just be accountability. You could just say, “I wanna go hang out and have some fun.”

[00:37:31] Joe: Yeah. Well, and it, it- I mean … for people who have been to BAD meetings, it could be that too Yeah.

[00:37:35] Doug: They’re, they’re not standing there with, like, canes from out back of the woodshed. That’s

[00:37:40] Joe: right. You can’t handle this savings rate.

[00:37:42] Len: We’ve been waiting for you. You

[00:37:44] Joe: don’t

[00:37:44] Doug: have to run the gauntlet when you walk into the bar.

[00:37:47] Doug: You could just go have a- They said

[00:37:48] Joe: this would’ve been a nice meeting.

[00:37:51] Doug: They told me this was a happy place.

[00:37:57] Joe: And at this point, we pivot because- Pivot … Doug is going to open up the week with some of his, uh, phenomenal water cooler, uh, fun discussion-starting trivia.

[00:38:14] Doug: Hey there, stackers. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor Doug, and as OG and Anna stretch out their, their quads and their flactoid muscles, getting ready to share estate planning basics, they’re probably working on ankles too, they handed me a note to help them.

[00:38:29] Doug: You know, uh, prime the pump so you’re all excited and ready to roll. See? This is exactly what I should be doing down here, not wasting time bringing cookies downstairs or just reading the open. Now we’re actually blending more into the show. I like it. Okay, let’s see here. Uh, uh, the note says that one thing people should avoid in their estate planning is being intestate.

[00:38:51] Doug: Gross. Really? Intestines in the trivia question today? What’s this got to do with finance? Intestate. So, okay. All right. Today’s question, let’s just run straight at it, what does it mean to be intestate? I’ll be back with probably a really gross answer just as soon as I go look it up.

[00:39:19] Doug: Hey there, stackers. I’m trivia creator and guy with a lot of intestinal fortitude. Don’t you worry about old Doug. Joe’s mom’s neighbor Doug. Well, I just got a note back from OG about what this whole intestate grossness is about. If you don’t remember, they had me ask you what it means to be intestate.

[00:39:38] Doug: Gotta admit, I’ve never been intestate, but one time I did have some horrible Montezuma’s revenge after trying the water at a taco joint in Puerto Vallarta. Know what I mean? OG says that to be intestate means you don’t have a will or estate planning document, so the state steps in with their rules.

[00:40:00] Doug: They’ll probably test you. I bet you how they, it’s how they got the word intestate. Anyway, really? No intestinal stuff in there? That is great news, stackers. Not being intestate, but, you know, uh, that we stuck to finance for once in a question. And now two people ready to help you with financial basics, OG and Anna.

[00:40:22] OG: All right, Anna, we’re gonna talk a little bit about estate planning. Dovetails a little bit with life insurance from last week. I need everybody to put down what they’re doing, raise your hand, even if you’re driving down the road, raise your hand if you’ve got a will, a power of attorney, healthcare proxy or healthcare directive, and you’ve checked your beneficiary on every one of your accounts in the last two or three years.

[00:40:43] OG: So raise your hand if you did all four of those. I don’t see a lot of hands. Uh, oh. My hand’s up. Anna’s hand’s up. I don’t see a lot of other people’s hands are up. Some people miss one or two, some people are missing all of ’em. And look, the cost of being incorrect here isn’t, like, uh, you know, some abstract number.

[00:41:00] OG: It’s costly in time, it’s costly in court fees, it’s costly in delays, and it’s really costly if your money goes to people you don’t actually want to have the money. So let’s kind of go through each one of these. So w- kind of four segments on estate planning. What are we thinking about for estate planning today?

[00:41:15] Anna: So the main documents that we’re thinking about when we think about estate planning or segments, I guess, is your will, most important, your-

[00:41:27] OG: Tell me what the purpose of the will is.

[00:41:29] Anna: So the will is typically just gonna tell you, like, where your assets are all gonna go, for the most part. Okay. So generally what you want.

[00:41:37] Anna: There’s also durable power of attorney, which is if you are still alive but you are in a coma, you’re incapacitated at some poin- at some point, and someone needs to be making financial decisions for you at that point, that is where durable power of attorney can come into play.

[00:41:53] opener: Okay.

[00:41:54] Anna: There’s also that aspect, on the flip side, healthcare power of attorney where someone can make healthcare decisions for you.

[00:41:59] Anna: That’s also important, but different than the durable power of attorney.

[00:42:03] opener: Mm-hmm.

[00:42:03] Anna: There’s also healthcare directive, which basically just says, like, what you want when you’re in end of life care or any sort of care. If you can’t communicate that yourself, like, those documents have that written down. And then there is your beneficiary designations, which is where you need to go through all of your accounts, bank accounts, retirement accounts, brokerage accounts, life insurance, everything that you have, and make sure that there is a person listed, or f- we’re gonna talk about trusts in a minute, or the trust is listed on those accounts.

[00:42:37] Anna: Because that is always gonna override Your will. So-

[00:42:41] OG: Hold on. We got to highlight that little piece of it right there. The, what you write down on that piece of paper matters more than anything else you write anywhere else.

[00:42:50] Anna: Yeah, people definitely forget that. Their will might say, “Everything goes to my brother,” whatever.

[00:42:57] OG: Mm-hmm.

[00:42:57] Anna: But you have all of these random accounts that have, like, your cousin and your friend, and you just picked who you wanted- Your ex-wife … you know, 15 years ago, yeah, when you were in that stage of life. And so it’s really important that those beneficiary designations are listed because if you don’t have them listed, not to get into the, the nitty-gritty here, but they’ll go through probate with the will, and everything is public through that.

[00:43:23] Anna: So it’s really important that those are listed, and then your will is kind of that backup document.

[00:43:29] OG: Kind of a backup of, like, the stuff that really, you can’t really tag a beneficiary- Yeah … to grandpa’s old watch- Mm-hmm … that you inherited before or the china set or something like that. Yeah. China sets, is that still a thing for you guys?

[00:43:43] OG: Oh, no. We got rid of our china sets. Yeah, okay.

[00:43:45] Anna: No, my plates are from Target.

[00:43:47] OG: Okay, all right. Ours are from Crate & Barrel, so ours are much nicer than Target.

[00:43:54] Anna: Okay, well, one day.

[00:43:55] OG: So aspirational, Anna. Yes. Someday. Someday you too can be like, like us. Okay, so we got to do this beneficiary audit. This is something that we do in our practice with clients every three years like clockwork, but if you’re doing this at home, what are we doing here?

[00:44:09] OG: What’s the… How do we work through this?

[00:44:11] Anna: If you’re listening to this, you probably have your accounts, like, consolidated in some fashion, whether that’s a, an app or whether it’s stored on a spreadsheet. I would just go through those, maybe make a separate spreadsheet that’s blank and it has all the accounts listed, and you’re going to sign into every single institution’s login, and you’re going to look and see who is listed for what.

[00:44:33] Anna: Write it down, check it off, and you need to go be- going back through this every three years, kind of the same cadence that we do. Things change often.

[00:44:44] OG: Yeah, and, and, and, you know, I know people are saying, “Well, I just, you know, I did this a couple years ago with my 401. I’m good. I don’t, I don’t have to worry about this,” but we’ve seen where we have done it- With the client on Zoom, made sure it’s correct, hit save, hit submit, it’s there.

[00:44:59] OG: Two years later it’s incorrect again. ‘

[00:45:01] Anna: Cause two years later, like we’re at a new custodian, and the beneficiary didn’t transfer over. Yeah. Something like that. Like s- random things happen, and you just forgot.

[00:45:09] OG: Or people lost the paperwork, or you thought it was saved and it wasn’t- Mm-hmm … or God knows what.

[00:45:14] Anna: Yeah.

[00:45:15] OG: So yeah, it’s a great check to do every, uh, every three years. It’s, you know, a 30-minute timetable, right? You’re spending 30 minutes sitting down on a, on a Monday afternoon- Yeah … like today. But today’s a great day to do it. Okay. Um, so let’s talk a little bit about each one of those other tools. You know, these, uh, these are great to have, right?

[00:45:35] OG: Wills. Uh, one of the things you didn’t say about wills are making sure you’ve got guardians for your kids. Mm-hmm. If you have kids that are under the age of 18, you need, you, you wanna have some input on that probably. So I’ve got them all done. Let’s say I did them all. I wrote… You know, I hired a lawyer, or I had an online tool that I liked and, and it was good.

[00:45:52] OG: What’s generally the missing piece that we see about that thing? Or, you know, having it done versus what?

[00:45:58] Anna: Signing it.

[00:45:59] OG: Signing it, and then I think the other piece is telling the people-

[00:46:03] Anna: Mm-hmm …

[00:46:03] OG: who you put in there that they’re the people.

[00:46:06] Anna: Yeah.

[00:46:06] OG: You know, when you, when you say, “It’s my brother-in-law,” but then you never tell your brother-in-law that he’s the one that gets to make the end of life decisions- Mm-hmm

[00:46:13] OG: how the heck is he supposed to know, A, that he’s the one in charge, and B, what it is that your wishes are, unless you sit down and give it to him.

[00:46:20] Anna: Yeah, that was something I, I ran by each person before even signing- Mm-hmm … just to be like, “Are you… Do you feel comfortable with this? And is this okay with you?”

[00:46:29] Anna: Because that’s a really hard situation. Obviously, you might have your spouse as the first person, but they could dip and be like, “This is too much for me. I can’t do it.” Yeah. And so you have a friend or a sibling or something, and like that’s a really, really tough decision at that point.

[00:46:44] OG: When I was doing my first estate planning before I got married, you know, my brother was the one in charge of end of life decisions.

[00:46:52] OG: And so the lawyer sent him an email and said, “Hey, if something happens to Josh, you need to call us ’cause you have some stuff to do.” That was kind of their SOP then. So he called me, and he says, “What’s this about?” And I said, “Well, you know, I don’t think it’s fair to ask Mom to pull the plug, so I’m asking you to do it.”

[00:47:07] OG: And he said, “Cool, when do I get to do that?” So brotherly love at its finest. So

[00:47:11] Anna: then you switched it.

[00:47:13] OG: I was like, “I can’t wait to get married and make my wife have to decide.” Which wasn’t better, ’cause she was like- … “When do I get to pull this?” I-

[00:47:18] Anna: Yeah.

[00:47:19] OG: Okay. And then the final piece on estate planning, other than telling everybody and getting it done, is this fancy word trust.

[00:47:25] OG: Mm-hmm. I think there’s a lot of misnomers on what a trust is, does, helps with, doesn’t help with. Who needs a trust? What really does it do- Yeah … in terms of tax planning, tax benefits, privacy? Lay it out for us high level.

[00:47:42] Anna: Yeah, I think more people need trusts than they think. Like, they think that this is for people who have, like, hundreds of millions of dollars, but no, it’s, it’s very useful when it comes to a lot of different people, one being anyone who has minor kids.

[00:47:59] Anna: Mm-hmm. You don’t… You want the assets to go to them ultimately, but you want it to be managed by the person that you designate. You want them to maybe not get it at 18. I don’t know about you, but if that happened to my daughter, like, I don’t want her getting everything the minute she turns 18. I know what I was like at 18.

[00:48:18] Anna: Mm-hmm. That’s not gonna happen. Um, so you can have very specific intervals of distribution, and so that’s number one. If you have minor kids, then super, super important. The other thing is, uh, privacy. So I think we mentioned before, wills go through probate. They are made public. Your assets at that point also go through probate.

[00:48:38] Anna: If you have a trust in place, those assets then flow through the trust. They do not go through probate, and they are just flowing through the trust. So anything outside of the trust would go through probate, but everything within the trust would flow privately through there. No one would know about it except for the executor, trustees, all of that, beneficiaries.

[00:48:59] OG: None of this revolves around, “If I put money in a trust, I get to save taxes.” And look, at some level, from a federal estate tax standpoint, maybe you do. The federal estate tax limit’s now closing in on 30 million, so you know, if you got a skosh over that, maybe you… You know, well, it’s 15, but for a couple it would be 30.

[00:49:18] OG: But as it relates to taxes from an estate planning standpoint, some states are enacting their own estate tax on top of that. So again, this is more state dynamic. Mm-hmm. If you have property in other states, this could be, a trust can be helpful. Blended families, it can be helpful- Mm-hmm … to kind of think through this.

[00:49:37] OG: I’m, I’m a big fan of tech tools. We use a lot of tech stuff here, both with Stacking Benjamins and in our planning firm, of course. I don’t think estate planning is a tech tool project. No, no, no, no. I think you need to have somebody that you can sit with, go through your plan, and have them document it state-specific for your state, you know, knowing your l- your laws in your area.

[00:49:58] OG: So- Mm-hmm … probably not DIY for that. Maybe DIY for a will, maybe DIY for a healthcare proxy. Speaking of healthcare proxy, there was one piece of, of advice we had on the healthcare proxy stuff. I forgot to get to it, and that is make sure you give it to your doctor

[00:50:15] Anna: Yes

[00:50:17] OG: Again, you went through this exercise of like here’s what I wanna do, here’s how I feel about end of life care, here’s who I want to be in charge, and then you put it in a binder and you bury it on your shelf looking at you OG, ’cause I’m staring at the thing right there.

[00:50:30] Anna: Uh-huh.

[00:50:30] OG: Like who’s gonna know to go find- Yeah. … that black binder with gold lettering on it, thumb through to page 641 to grab the document out, you know?

[00:50:38] Anna: Yeah, you’re in a coma, your spouse is like, “Oh, let me go home to the bookshelf really quick”

[00:50:42] OG: Hold on, let me go grab the bookshelf. Yeah. Yes.

[00:50:45] Anna: No.

[00:50:45] OG: So make sure you do that.

[00:50:46] OG: Okay, so all of this, again, kind of this checklist of things and some action items there are all found in the guidebook, stackingbenjamins.com/basicsguide will get you to the email page, and you know, we’ll send it to you, and we’ll just send you all of them. So as we create, you know, season three, which is coming, we’re working on it right now.

[00:51:05] OG: We’re… it’s, I think it’s gonna be a lot of Q&A for season three, ’cause we are getting emails, um, out the yin yang. That’s a phrase.

[00:51:12] Anna: Out the wazoo.

[00:51:13] OG: Wazoo. Next week, by the way, we are gonna get to tax smart withdrawals from retirement. So we talked in season one about tax control, and the buckets and that sort of thing.

[00:51:24] OG: We’re gonna talk a little bit about tax withdrawals in, uh, episode four. So Joe, back to you in the studio.

[00:51:31] Anna: Back to you in the basement. That’s what you should say.

[00:51:33] OG: Or basement. Yes. Hey,

[00:51:36] bumper: this is Joe Crane, host of Veteran on the Move podcast, and when I’m not helping veterans transition to entrepreneurship, I’m stacking Benjamins.

[00:51:44] Joe: Nice job, OG. Good work, as usual.

[00:51:48] OG: Mostly Anna, but okay.

[00:51:49] Joe: Well, you know. Uh, since she already went upstairs I thought we should, uh, thank you. Thank Anna on our behalf. Hey, let’s step out on the back porch and see what’s going on in the community. Doug, you’ve got some good stuff from, uh, Hans? Is it Hans Gruber from, uh, Die Hard?

[00:52:05] Doug: It was. It was Hans. You know, we welcomed I think eight new people into our basement Facebook group recently. Oh, cool. And we always ask, yeah, we always ask, uh, you know, “What’s your story? How did you come to find Stacking Benjamins or the basement?” And, uh, recently Hans said he’s a listener from Australia.

[00:52:26] Doug: D- do all Americans ha- like we can’t see the word Australia and not say it with a really bad accent. It’s involuntary. It just happens. Anyways- I think most of- Hans said-

[00:52:36] Joe: Most of us can, but Doug can’t.

[00:52:38] Doug: Doug. Asking for a friend, ’cause I mean, I can resist, but anyway, Hans said his story as a listener from Australia, so technically stacking Johns and Nellies.

[00:52:49] Doug: Yeah. That’s weird. His goals- are comfortably retire around 60 years old and build our dream home before then so we can live in it during that phase of our lives while living a rich life on the journey. How I found, uh, Stacking Benjamins was at, uh, Glenn James from Money Money Money Podcast Glenn

[00:53:08] Joe: James.

[00:53:09] Doug: He interviewed John about a year ago. Didn’t he also in- uh, interview you, Joe, about a year ago?

[00:53:14] Joe: That’s okay. I’ll go by John. That’s fine.

[00:53:17] Doug: Huh. Interesting. But apparently this John guy really made an impression on him. John probably said something about Stacking Benjamins, and he’s like, “I should go check that out.”

[00:53:28] Doug: Hopefully you didn’t, like, ruin all of that good vibes when you were on-

[00:53:31] Joe: John is fine because you, you just got it wrong. The one, as you know, Doug, that cracks me up is my uncle, who I’ve known my entire life. When my Aunt Ruth passed away, my uncle started sending out the cards and the correspondence from his family, and I think I was 45 years old, and he wrote the note to Joel-

[00:53:51] Doug: Joel

[00:53:52] Joe: Saul-Sehy and family. Yeah. J-O-E-L, has known me for 45 years and thought my name was Joel. And that still happens a lot. I don’t know if it’s just ’cause Joe Saul-Sehy, you know, the L there. Yeah. But I got called Joel again last week in an email from somebody, and that’s okay. That happens a lot.

[00:54:07] Doug: I can tell you’re over it totally.

[00:54:08] Joe: Oh, I’m totally

[00:54:09] Doug: over it.

[00:54:10] Joe: Doesn’t bother you a bit. No. It just, it astounds me that my, my uncle could do that. Like, you’ve known me how long, and you still- That

[00:54:19] Doug: one does cut a little deep.

[00:54:21] Joe: Yeah. Whatever, dude. But Hans, we’re glad you’re with us. Thank you so much- Right … for hanging out with us. Great to have you in the community, and I just love it when people take the time to tell their story.

[00:54:34] Joe: ‘Cause Glenn James- Yeah … if you’re an Australian listener, Glenn James is a fantastic personal finance authority and, uh, just an all-around good guy. He’s also hosted the Plutus Awards twice. So he host one more time, he’s caught up with me, Doug. Han- So we gotta-

[00:54:48] Doug: Hans Gruber has hosted twice? Plutus? Glenn

[00:54:51] Joe: James.

[00:54:51] Joe: Maybe

[00:54:51] Doug: I should go to those.

[00:54:52] Joe: Has, yeah.

[00:54:53] Doug: Oh, oh, I see. Okay.

[00:54:54] Joe: Yes.

[00:54:55] Doug: Gotcha.

[00:54:55] Joe: Hans Gruber hosted a party at, uh, uh, Naka- uh, what, what’s, what’s the name of that building?

[00:55:01] Doug: Nakamichi Tower? I don’t know.

[00:55:02] Joe: Naka something Tower. Naka- Nakatomi. Nakatomi Tower.

[00:55:06] Doug: Nakatomi. Nakatomi. Sakatumi. Uh, I also gotta shout out to Mike, Stacker Mike, who put a great meme up that I thought was really on brand for us.

[00:55:16] Doug: And, and it just asked a simple question, “Did I save enough money for retirement?” Alcohol. I mean, that’s a question- … you need to… Like, when you want your why- … I think that’s a good question to ask yourself.

[00:55:26] Joe: We always say start with why, and there – Yeah … there’s the why. Who cares if I got a roof over my head?

[00:55:33] Joe: Do I have enough for the alcohol? Mike, nice job. Mr. Penzo, thanks for hanging out with us, man

[00:55:39] Len: A pleasure as always. I’ve got a plane to catch

[00:55:42] Joe: Yeah, people want your musings. Oh, it, see, he flexes. How many times has he told us he’s going to Hawaii, Doug? How many times?

[00:55:49] Doug: Uh, four maybe?

[00:55:50] Joe: Every time we stop the recording, “We gotta hurry along ’cause I gotta go to Hawaii” And he says it really slow, “Hawaii.”

[00:55:57] Joe: It’s tough. I feel so bad for you, Mr. Penzo. Yeah.

[00:55:59] Doug: I wanna make him miss his flight.

[00:56:01] Len: I know. Let’s just keep talking I feel your pain. Maybe I’ll send you a postcard.

[00:56:03] Joe: But, but the good news is the blog is open while you’re gone. People can still go there. They won’t even notice that you’re in Hawaii.

[00:56:11] Len: That’s absolutely true.

[00:56:12] Len: It’s there, and again, please, people, click on the ads, would you? My income has been dropping precipitously since this AI thing came out, since nobody goes to blogs anymore. So just stop by poor old lenpenzo.com’s blog and, uh, and, uh, click on every ad you see. Wow. Click on the finance ads and click on the credit card ads, ’cause those are the ones that pay the most for me, so.

[00:56:34] Joe: He’s kinda cute when he begs.

[00:56:38] Len: I have no shame, Doug, you know

[00:56:40] Joe: that. And if you wanna laugh like this and learn about money, you’ve got a fantastic book that people can pick up.

[00:56:47] Len: Yeah, True Money Stories. You can buy it at, uh, it’s at Amazon. Just look up Len Penzo, True Money Stories.

[00:56:53] Joe: Yes, or you can find it also at lenpenzo.com.

[00:56:55] Joe: It’s at the blog,

[00:56:56] Len: yeah.

[00:56:56] Joe: You’ll see- Click on the

[00:56:57] Len: ad at the top of the page- … it’s a Len Penzo ad.

[00:56:59] Joe: It’s the other ad. But that time, buy. He doesn’t care if you buy the credit card. Just buy the, buy the book, yes. All right, Doug, you got it from here, man. What should we have learned today?

[00:57:09] Doug: Well, Joe, first, take some advice from Len, OG, and you.

[00:57:13] Doug: Setting your savings rate? Set it high. You can always back it down, and if you’re able to keep it high, before you know it, you’re rolling in Benjamins. Oh, I see what you did there. I got you, Joe. I see what you got. Rolling in it and we’re high, yeah, yeah. Okay, second, estate planning? No matter how few assets you have now, you’ll feel far better when you know you have a plan and haven’t left your survivors in a lurch.

[00:57:39] Doug: This is especially important to think about on Memorial Day. But the big lesson, well, well, intestate didn’t mean what I thought it meant. Joe’s mom is making bratwurst tonight, and I can’t help but think some poor pig is intestate tonight.

[00:57:59] Doug: Big thanks to Len Penzo for pitching in today. You’ll find Len’s musings and his new book at LenPenzo.com. This show is the property of SP Podcast 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.

[00:58:25] 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.

[00:58:54] Doug: Intestate.

[00:59:42] Joe: Behind the scenes we were talking about, uh, OG, you going out and watching your kids play sports. That’s a pretty good time.

[00:59:49] OG: Uh, I, you know, I like it. I, I really, uh, enjoy watching them play, and, um, I love that they’re competitive, you know. I mean, honestly, I really do. And Caroline in particular is wildly competitive, um, and she’s still at the age where she likes to have me talk about it.

[01:00:04] OG: William is at the age where he’s like, “I don’t wanna talk to anybody about anything.”

[01:00:07] Joe: Not at all. Yeah. Len, did you watch your kids play sports?

[01:00:12] Len: I not only watched them, I coached them.

[01:00:14] Joe: Oh, you did?

[01:00:15] Len: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[01:00:16] Joe: Oh. Were you good cop coach or bad cop coach?

[01:00:20] Len: You know what? I was mostly the good cop coach. I, you know, I, I have parents watching me.

[01:00:24] Len: I don’t, you know, it’s … I’ve gotta, for my own protection, I’ve gotta be nice to these kids, so. Although there were some times I wanted to, uh, I wa- I wanted to go nuclear on a few of them there, but no. Yeah, no, I was a good guy coach.

[01:00:37] Joe: Doug, you did travel baseball coaching. There’s nothing competitive there at all.

[01:00:41] Doug: No, and the parents don’t care that much

[01:00:42] Joe: either.

[01:00:44] Len: No.

[01:00:44] Joe: Oh,

[01:00:44] Doug: yeah. They just kind of sit back with their red Solo cup. They don’t care who you play. Like, they don’t care if their kid starts or not. It’s really… And you never get phone calls after the game. That’s the best part about travel. I think I coached somewhere between 25 and 30 different teams between summer ball and fall ball- Gosh

[01:01:02] Doug: and two kids. Oh. And I did a lot of coaching. And, uh- You’ve seen every

[01:01:05] Joe: type of parent.

[01:01:07] Doug: Yeah, you do. And there are some that’ll surprise you that you would have thought were gonna be quiet and weren’t. You know, I used to have a meeting before every season started, or, you know, we would start winter practices indoors, so probably f- late, late February or March timeframe, and I would always give it the same kind of speech, and it was usually around, “Look, the odds of any of our kids getting a D1 scholarship, let alone going pro at any level, are virtually a million to one.

[01:01:37] Doug: We don’t have any 6’6″ Venezuelan 12-year-olds on this team, so it’s pretty unlikely that, that your kid’s going anywhere. Our goal here is to teach the kids as much about how to deal with failure. This game is a game of failure at its core. And so, uh, what my ideal would be as a coach is to set up our season not to have an amazing winning record.

[01:01:57] Doug: I don’t expect us… In f- in fact, I screwed up if we have an 800 winning percentage. I’d really like us to have about a 600 winning percentage. I want every one of those wins to be come-from-behind wins so the kids learn never to give up. And, uh, you know, my job as a coach is to make sure we have a chance of winning, which means I’ve got to have every kid play, because if they’re riding the bench and one of our starters, one of the better kids, gets injured, we don’t have a chance of winning if that great kid, probably your kid,” and they would laugh and chuckle, “um, gets injured.

[01:02:29] Doug: I- we have to have some ready backups. So every kid is gonna play. The best kids are gonna play the most.” You know, I’d go on and on. Everybody’s heads are nodding emphatically. “Oh, sounds great, Coach. Yeah, I love it.” And sure as hell- Way to go, Skipper Oh, yeah. And then they

[01:02:43] Joe: forget it two minutes later,

[01:02:44] Doug: as soon as you’re done.

[01:02:45] Doug: They, they forget it by like the second week of the season- … when you’ve lost three of your first, you know, five games, and you’re getting phone calls. But, uh, in, in… I mean, it was unbelievable. I always felt so great, like, “Oh, this is my parent group. I got them this year. They’re, they’re all on board. They know ex…

[01:02:59] Doug: I’m setting the tone, I’m setting expectations,” and it’s just out the window because they feel like you’re gonna ruin my k- my kid’s in eighth grade and s- college scouts are gonna come watching soon. No, they’re not. Yeah. They could care less what your kid’s record is.

[01:03:14] Len: Hey, I will say this. I have my one claim to fame, uh, is that in Little League I actually coached a, uh, player who’s in Major League Baseball right now.

[01:03:22] Len: Oh, wow. Bailey Falter. So, uh, he’s a, a pitcher. Wow. I think he’s fr- keeping playing for Kansas City right now.

[01:03:27] Joe: That’s

[01:03:27] Len: because of you. Cool. So, and, and he got there nothing c- from nothing that I did, by the way. It was… I had nothing to do with it. Oh, no, it was all you. This kid was good. It was all you. No, his dad was, he was a travel baller and his dad was a…

[01:03:36] Len: But, but I still like to take credit when, when people- Yeah, absolutely I coach Bailey Falter

[01:03:42] Joe: We have a good friend whose son is a pitcher for the, uh, Kansas City Royals. His name’s, uh, Michael Knauck.

[01:03:49] Len: Oh, well, there you go. So he’s teammates with, uh, Bailey right now.

[01:03:52] Joe: That’s interesting. You know, I’d never want to be that parent, Doug or Len, where, you know, I’m the one yelling at the coach.

[01:04:00] Joe: And so you find ways to just be supportive and to try to, to try to make the time go by. And I remember both of my kids in swimming, and because I had twins, they would always have the boys of one age in the morning and then the girls of the same age in the afternoon or vice versa. So I end up at the swimming pool all day long, and my friend Greg had a similar situation with his family.

[01:04:27] Joe: So- That sounds

[01:04:28] Doug: rough …

[01:04:29] Joe: Greg and I- That’s really- … would sit at the pool all day long. So, uh, I don’t know h- how f- how many years in a row we did that before we finally realized how to spice it up. And, uh, this is I, I just feel like I’m going to hell because I, I realized, you know what would be more fun? If when these kids come out for the next heat, there’s like 9,000 heats, and your kid is in like two, right?

[01:04:53] Joe: We’re gonna be in two heats in the morning and two heats in the afternoon, and there’s hundreds of heats. The next group walks out, and you just try to ignore it. Well, instead it was more fun, I’m like, “You know what would be a good time is if Greg and I bet- Yeah … on every heat.” So I set the bar very, very low ’cause with 100 heats, like who knew?

[01:05:14] Joe: So I said, “You know, let’s just go a dime to make it fun.” And it is amazing how it goes from the most boring sport of all time to intensely fun by the third heat when the kids are coming out and you’re evaluating how tall they are. You’re eva- evaluating- … how muscular these-

[01:05:31] Doug: I got the kid in lane two. He looks buoyant

[01:05:34] Joe: these kids in lane eight. You’re screaming for kids you don’t even know as they’re coming down the stretch like like you’re at Oaklawn or, or, or d- Churchill Downs screaming at these kids. So all of a sudden it’s intensely fun, and Greg is beating me by about 80 cents when this I ge- I get this tap on my shoulder, and this woman, this older woman, she may have been 80, she goes, “Uh, excuse me.

[01:06:01] Joe: Excuse me.” And I do not even wanna turn around because we’ve been getting a little rowdy and having a little too much fun. The woman finally finally, “Excuse me, excuse me.” And I go, “Uh, yes?” And she leans forward and goes You gentlemen are betting on junior swimming, are you? And I, you know, I don’t, I don’t… W- what’s that phrase?

[01:06:25] Joe: I don’t lie ’cause I don’t have a good enough memory. I just go, “Y- yeah, yeah, y- yeah, we are.”

[01:06:31] Len: She said, “You want in on the action?” Well-

[01:06:33] Doug: To which she replied, “Yeah, can I get in on that action?”

[01:06:35] Joe: Well, you know what she said? She goes, “I thought you were, and you better… My granddaughter is in the next heat.” “So I better hear somebody, uh, betting on lane five.”

[01:06:46] Len: Getting tips.

[01:06:47] Joe: And so I got stuck with lane five, which this is, like, the horse with, uh, only three legs. The one it was- I, I just took one for the team on that kid because, uh, Grandma was sitting right behind me. Still not over that one.

[01:07:06] Doug: It reminds me of one of the first couple of episodes of The League. Did you ever watch The League?

[01:07:12] Joe: The Le- where they’re fantasy football

[01:07:14] Doug: players. Fantasy football. And one of their kids had a birthday party, and so they set their… Nobody knew it. Nobody else knew it except the dads who were in the league, and they set their draft order based on how the kids finished in the flour sack racing. And they…

[01:07:32] Doug: It’s just an innocuous, tame kid’s birthday party, and the dads are going crazy over these kids in the sack races.

[01:07:40] Joe: Yeah, we don’t take it too seriously at all.

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Monday Mentor: Len Penzo

Doug’s Trivia

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