Amy Wilson and her husband did nearly everything right on the road to financial independence, and the one task they kept postponing turned out to matter most. She shares what happened when a sudden loss met an unfinished estate plan, how she rebuilt her financial life on her own, and what she’d want you to do this week. Then Joe Saul-Sehy and OG explain how a change in IRS guidance can turn marketplace premium help into a bill for early retirees and side hustlers, with a quick round of income detective to show what counts.
What You’ll Walk Away With
- Why “we’re married, so it all goes to each other” isn’t a plan
- How beneficiary designations and default rules can pull in different directions across accounts
- Why your state already has an estate plan for you, and how to find out what it says
- What mattered, and what didn’t, in the first hours after a loss
- Whether to do nothing with your money for a while or dive into the details, and how to tell which fits you
- What it’s like to go from saving to spending overnight, and why a money nerd hired an advisor
- The small clues that told her an advisor was the right one
- A simple allowance system that keeps spending steady and leaves room for big plans
- Why advance premium help is an estimate, not a price guarantee
- The change that removed the cap on repayments, the income line that can cost you the entire credit, and what to recalculate before year-end
Why This Matters Now
Plans get interrupted, and the paperwork we postpone is usually the paperwork that matters most. Year-end is when open enrollment arrives and good intentions pile up, which makes it a natural time to finish the estate documents and recheck your income estimate. If you worry about a mistake you can’t undo, this episode treats both as checklist items you can finish, not worries to carry around.
From the Basement
Doug’s trivia is about cacao beans as currency, which leads him to try paying for dinner at The Sizzler with a bag of chocolate chips. Then OG explains his Halloween policy of yogurt only, with a granola exception.
Resources Mentioned
Camp FI: in-person gatherings for the financial independence community, where Amy is a regular
Repayment caps eliminated for excess advance payments of the Premium Tax Credit: IRS guidance on the change
Questions and answers on the Premium Tax Credit: IRS answers on how reconciliation works
HealthCare.gov: where to update your income estimate with the marketplace
Our Mentor: Amy Wilson
Our Headline
Doug’s Trivia
- What could you get for 100 cacao beans in an Aztec-era marketplace?
- A. A hen turkey
- B. A bride
- C. A Ford F-150 crew cab
Have a question for the show?
Want more than just the show notes? How about our newsletter with STACKS of related, deeper links?
- 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).
ACA Marketplace and Premium Tax Credit Resources
- Repayment caps eliminated for excess advance payments of the Premium Tax Credit
- Questions and answers on the Premium Tax Credit
- Count income & household size
- How to report income and household changes to the Marketplace | HealthCare.gov
- Federal Poverty Level (FPL) – Glossary | HealthCare.gov
- What We Know So Far About 2026 ACA Marketplace Enrollment, Premiums, and Deductibles | KFF
Join Us Friday!
Tune in on Friday, when we celebrate Halloween by uncovering the financial nightmares lurking in YOUR shadows. We’ll shine a light on the money mistakes that can haunt your future and share ways to exorcise them from your financial life!
Written by: Kevin Bailey
Miss our last show? Listen here: How to Turn Trick-or-Treat Into a Money Lesson (and Choose a Pension Option) SB1915 | Stacking Benjamins
Episode transcript
[00:00:00] opener: So you’ll pick me up tonight at 7:45? Oh, uh, y- well, no, I got a few things to, to take care of first, but why, why don’t we make it quarter to 8:00? Stop it. Okay, 7:45.
[00:00:20] Doug: And from Joe’s mom’s basement, it’s The Stacking Benjamins Show
[00:00:34] Doug: I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and what happens when the plan falls apart? What do you do next? Today, Stacker Amy Wilson is here to share her real-life horror story to help you make good money decisions. Focused on retiring early or notching up that side hustle? In our headline segment, we’ll help you avoid owing a bunch of money at the end of this year.
[00:00:57] Doug: How? We’ll explain how healthcare rules work and are a-changin’. And then I’ll share some deliciously rich trivia you’ll wanna pass out to all your neighbors. And now, two guys who are a lot like a box of chocolates, one’s a little nutty and the other’s mostly just air inside, it’s Joe and O-J-J-J-J-G.
[00:01:23] Joe: Well, Doug, we’re gonna be filling that air with chocolate in just a couple days. Hey, everybody. Happy Halloween week. Welcome back to The Stacking Benjamins Show. We’re so happy you’re here. Sit back, relax. Grab a piece of paper though, because man, do we have a story that Amy Wilson’s bringing. And then B, if you’ve got a side hustle or you’re thinking about FIRE, financial independence retire early, if you’re gonna retire early, you don’t wanna get on the wrong side of, uh, some changes the IRS just announced to the ACA.
[00:01:54] Joe: A little piece of that. We’re gonna talk taxes in the second half of today’s show. But before the first half of today’s show, the very first thing we do is we say hello to my partner in crime here, Mr. OG. How are you, man?
[00:02:09] OG: I’m doing great. Thanks for
[00:02:10] Joe: asking. Yes. So how does it work at the OG household? Do you get the, get the candy that you want and then hope there’s a bunch of leftovers?
[00:02:18] OG: Uh, I believe we discussed this on Monday. Uh, we only allow Greek yogurt as candy. You can put any fruit. We do allow, for Halloween, a little smattering of granola, so it’s a big deal. Woo. Kids go crazy.
[00:02:33] Joe: Remember when, Doug, we partnered with that comedy podcast and we used that advertisement they had for Aristophanes yogurt?
[00:02:41] Joe: Oh, yeah. Greek yogurt, that’s different, OG, because it’s made by people who are either Greek or look Greek. The Greeks are good at tax evasion and making yogurt. Those are the, the two, the two things. And
[00:02:53] Doug: collapsing economies.
[00:02:55] Joe: It was so funny. Maybe we gotta dig that up and see if we can, uh, we can play that again soon.
[00:03:00] Joe: Well, one thing that we’re not playing around with is today’s interview. Amy Wilson is a woman that I got to meet at a Camp FI. She was actually helping Steven Boyer by running Camp FI, and I got to hear this incredible story that she has agreed very bravely to share with us on the show today, because life didn’t go the way that she thought that it was going to.
[00:03:22] Joe: She and her husband had lots of hopes and dreams, and things definitely changed. And on a week when we, on Monday and Wednesday, are talking about the fun of things going bump in the night, we all know that sometimes it’s not, it’s not fun, and there’s a lot of planning that really needs to happen and a lot of, a lot of reexamining your goals that needs to happen.
[00:03:42] Joe: So Amy Wilson coming up next, but before that, we have a couple sponsors who help us make sure we can keep on podcasting, so we’re gonna hear from them. But even before that, hey, one thing for you, we have a great way for you to get educated about your money besides the podcast after the podcast is over, and you can win a Solo Stove.
[00:04:04] Joe: It’s our Veterans Day giveaway. Sign up for the 201, and here’s what’s gonna happen. You will get financial knowledge in your inbox every week, and you can win a Solo Stove. But it’s a Veterans Day giveaway, so here’s the deal. If you’re a veteran or an active duty service member, where everybody else gets one entry, you’re gonna get three for the Solo Stove.
[00:04:26] Joe: So Doug, you’re a big fan of the Solo Stove, hanging out around a roaring campfire.
[00:04:32] Doug: I like burning stuff in cans.
[00:04:34] Joe: It’s a, it’s a great… Maybe not
[00:04:36] Doug: as- Let’s do a little doo-wop group. Get me and three of my best buddies around, and we start Singing some ’50s tunes. Yeah, I love it.
[00:04:43] Joe: This ends next Friday, November 6th, so go to stackingbenjamins.com/veteran.
[00:04:49] Joe: And by the way, if you’re a current 201 member, y- you already know how great the 201 newsletter is. You’re gonna get your entry and a chance to refer friends for more. So stackingbenjamins.com/veteran to sign up, get financial education long after the show’s over, and a chance to win a Solo Stove until November 6th
[00:05:16] Joe: And I’m super happy she’s on her way down to mom’s basement. I call her the queen of Camp Fi. Amy Wilson is here. How are you?
[00:05:25] Amy: I’m good, thanks, especially after that introduction. Thank you. I feel like I need a crown now.
[00:05:30] Joe: The only reason you’re here is for you and I to plot your takeover of Stephen Boyer’s wonderful event.
[00:05:36] Joe: It, is it- How is, how is it gonna go down, Amy? Are you gonna finally tell him one day, “Listen, we don’t need you anymore for Camp Fis,” and now you’re gonna run them all?
[00:05:45] Amy: Yeah. You know, word has started to get out. We’re supposed to be keeping that quiet
[00:05:48] Joe: We are …
[00:05:49] Amy: um, now it’s gonna be everywhere.
[00:05:52] Joe: Well, we know nobody listens to the Stacking Benjamin show.
[00:05:54] Joe: It’s mom and her friend, and that’s it. So, um, we actually aren’t here to talk about that, but just for a second while we’re on that topic, some people don’t know anything about Camp Fi. I think you and I share this love of getting together in person and being able to talk about these awesome topics, one of which we’re gonna talk about here, you and I today.
[00:06:13] Joe: What originally was the lure for you to go to a Camp Fi?
[00:06:17] Amy: Well, I was introduced by my friend Mindy Jensen to Steven Boyer, who owns and operates Camp Fi, because he was looking for speakers, and she knew that I had a story that was kind of interesting and, and could maybe be helpful, and that you and I are going to get into a little bit later on today.
[00:06:33] Amy: So my introduction to Camp Fi was as a speaker, and I was completely terrified. I had never been. None of my friends were going to this particular one. I don’t think I’d ever been to Colorado Springs before. I didn’t know the setting. I barely knew Steven. So it was very, very intimidating walking in. But I came away from that weekend with, like, I wanna say at least three, like, genuine new friends, and many, many conversations about substantial topics.
[00:07:00] Amy: And a lot of just, like, fun, going hiking and listening to content, some of which was very important and intense, and some of which was a little more lighthearted, um, and less strategic. And it was just this really lovely format for people to get together who are interested in this common thing, financial independence or maybe retiring early, and to just kinda hang out.
[00:07:21] Amy: And so that was in 2024, my first one. And the next year I went back and I did two, and then the year after that, which is this year, 2026, I did six. Wow. So yeah, it’s been quite an upswing since then, and I’ve gotten a little involved in the back office stuff. Steven let me put together a Camp Fi New York in New York City, um, last February, and that was incredible.
[00:07:42] Joe: My friend, uh, Paula Pant was at that one.
[00:07:44] Amy: Yes, she definitely was. She was one of our speakers, and it was wonderful to have her there. So it was… A lot of people thought we were crazy going to New York in February, but you really can’t turn off the frugality button and the, the deals you can get on hotels in February.
[00:07:57] Amy: Let me tell you. It would’ve cost three times as much to do that in June. So that’s why that happened. Well, the other
[00:08:02] Joe: news is, if I remember right, everybody got a bonus day in New York too, because wasn’t there a snowstorm at the end?
[00:08:08] Amy: There was. Uh, not just a snowstorm, it was like a, a genuine historic blizzard.
[00:08:14] Amy: They said it- … the kind of snow that happens maybe once every 10 years. Central Park got 19 inches. Oh. So we actually, a bunch of, I wanna say like 30-some of us, went down to Central Park the morning after the biggest part of the storm, and it was- like nothing I’ve ever seen. So I will, I will take that, like, treasured memory to my grave.
[00:08:35] Amy: Campfire New York was genuinely, like, a top five life experience for me, and the blizzard was no small part of that.
[00:08:40] Joe: It’s funny, the number of top five experiences I’ve had. I’ve had 15 top five experiences at Campfires. Just you’re in some great conversations, and you’re like, “I can’t believe this.” And to your point about friends, Stackers, make sure you get to community events.
[00:08:54] Joe: Get face to face. E- even if you’re a introvert like I am, get out there. You know, I, I drove in with Doc G to the Campfire where you and I met in Minnesota, and we stopped off at a microbrewery just because I was too afraid to go, and I’d been to several. And we stopped ’cause I wanted to get a beer in me before we, before we went.
[00:09:16] Joe: But if you’re an introvert, just put on your big boy, big girl pants and go. And you know what? Five minutes into it and you’re like, “What was I afraid of? This is so absolutely fun.”
[00:09:27] Amy: Totally. And you can also bring your own beer usually to camp itself, so-
[00:09:32] Joe: Oh, I wanted the guardrail of just having one in m-…
[00:09:35] Joe: Well, maybe I should have. Maybe. He was driving, so I still don’t think open container we should do that. But- Probably … Amy, I mean, we’re gonna talk about some difficult stuff today on Halloween week, and most of our week is about Halloween experiences that are goofy and fun, right? Chuck Jaffe was here on Monday talking about having games with kids, and on Friday we’re talking about all kinds of funny campy things on our annual Halloween special with Paula and Jesse and the gang.
[00:10:03] Joe: But today we’re gonna be a little bit more serious. But I wanna start before any of this serious stuff happened. Take me back to life with your husband Phil. Like, who were the two of you? What did your life together look like?
[00:10:13] Amy: Oh. Well, we met at, uh, what was then called a hacker space. Now it’s m- more usually called a maker space.
[00:10:21] Amy: That tells you a little bit about both of us. It’s the kinda place where there’s, like, a metal shop and a wood shop and a craft room and all these big tools and expensive tools that you wouldn’t necessarily have either the money or the space for in your own home, but you pay a membership fee, and then you get to go to this space and hang out with people who are working on cool things.
[00:10:41] Amy: And it w- it was really fun. So Phil was actually a founding member of the one where we met, which was in the Detroit area. It’s called I3 Detroit. And so was, uh, one of my high school friends. My high school friend was like, “Oh, come to our grand opening. You know, we’re having the mayor cutting the ribbon,” which was, like-
[00:10:57] opener: Oh,
[00:10:58] Amy: cool
[00:10:58] Amy: a blowtorch and a chain- … I think is how they did it. I went and then I started kinda hanging out there some more, and that’s how Phil and I got to know each other. So we were both, like, very hands-on kinda DIY people, and actually our first date was… It’s very fitting. It was on Halloween. Oh. There was a Halloween party that a friend was giving, and I’d been, like, dropping hints and, like, “In groups of people, you guys should come.
[00:11:21] Amy: La, la, la.” And he was like, “Yeah, yeah.” He didn’t really say anything. And then a couple days before I Facebook stalked him, sent him a message with my phone number, and was like, “In case you change your mind about the Halloween party.” And I didn’t hear from him. And I was like, “Okay, well, that- that’s not going anywhere.”
[00:11:37] Amy: And then on Halloween, like, evening, I’m, like, getting ready, my phone rings, and it’s him, and he says, “Okay, I’m ready to go to the party now.” I was like, “I didn’t know you were coming to this party with me.” So I picked him up, and he was like, he had all this makeup on. He was dressed like a skeleton in a black suit, like Jack Skellington.
[00:11:56] Joe: Okay.
[00:11:57] Amy: That was it.
[00:11:58] Joe: You ended up then dating and got married after how long?
[00:12:01] Amy: We moved in together after about six weeks. Wow. So things moved pretty quickly, but then we didn’t rush the marriage part. We got engaged after about two years, and then married about a year later. So it was about three years.
[00:12:13] Joe: When it came to your money, who did what?
[00:12:16] Amy: We had, like, a very graduated system over time. When we were first married, we kept totally separate finances. We came into our marriage with different financial positions. I had some, like, credit card debt. I had some student debt. He had managed to, like, buy a home very early, and he had more savings than I did, and I, it just felt very natural to both of us.
[00:12:35] Amy: I wasn’t coming in trying to be like, “Okay, what’s yours is now mine.” Like, the, we had a much more egalitarian approach to it all. But then over time, you know, years go by, and you’re buying and selling houses, and we moved states, and after a while, things got blurrier and blurrier until we did totally functionally combine, but he did all the money stuff, like- I brought us into FI and FIRE.
[00:12:59] Amy: I found Mina- Mr. Money Mustache in 2015, and then I was like, “Hey, look at this,” and we really got into it and really kicked it off and made some massive net worth spreadsheets and projections and it was great. But he was the one who was deciding, like, the strategic stuff. Like, okay, how much are we holding in, in what kinds of stocks and, you know, which index funds are we in and which bank are we going to be with, and which credit cards have the best rewards for us right now, and all that kind of thing.
[00:13:24] Amy: I had different duties in our household that I was better suited to, and so that, that worked pretty well. We had monthly check-ins where we would update the net worth spreadsheet and get excited about how much closer we were to early retirement. And I knew what was going on. I know about the 4% rule, you know.
[00:13:40] Amy: I read all of Mr. Money Mustache when I first got into it. So it’s not like I was totally clueless, but-
[00:13:46] Joe: Yeah …
[00:13:46] Amy: he was an engineer. He was better suited to it. He ran with it, and it, it worked for a really long time.
[00:13:52] Joe: Well, let’s talk about that because I think there’s an important distinction there, right?
[00:13:55] Joe: Because there’s this thing couples do all the time. We both know what’s going on, but what some people really mean is, “Well, I know that Phil knows what’s going on.” But this wasn’t you. You knew what was going on, and Phil knew what was going on. You just had different people pulling the levers, it sounds like, in different parts of your life.
[00:14:12] Amy: Totally. Just like he knew that I was making the grocery lists every week and going to the grocery store and cooking the meals, and, like, he knew and could trust that, like, nutritious food would show up on the table and be in the refrigerator. He didn’t really have to think about it, but, like, conceptually, he knew that it was going on.
[00:14:28] Amy: Yeah. The same thing was happening on the money side. Like, I trusted him. He knew what was happening, and I kinda knew what was happening, and that was enough for us.
[00:14:37] Joe: We talk about these quick money meetings on Stacking Benjamins, and we had Jill Schlesinger on. She talked about a monthly meeting, right? Did you guys have an official money meeting, you know, during those years that you know you’re making the big moves?
[00:14:50] Amy: We did, yeah, and it was every month. Not always on the same day, but it was, like, after the previous month had wrapped up, then we could really update all the spreadsheets and everything. And it was an exciting meeting because it was like, “Look how much more money we have now.” Like, we were lucky that this was taking place during a market run-up, but also we were in high earning years.
[00:15:09] Amy: So between those two things, those balances were going up every month. So that’s part of what made this meeting fun. It was great. It was just like we were tracking the percentage closer we were to FI, how many more months we had left. It was a really giddy just fun time.
[00:15:26] Joe: You finally made it, right?
[00:15:28] Amy: We did.
[00:15:29] Joe: Yeah. Do you remember that moment?
[00:15:31] Amy: Yeah. In our case, it was kind of interesting because my husband had worked for startups, and one in particular was acquired, and we knew that this was very likely, but we never knew how much money we could count on from the sale of, of that company. So we were trucking along to FI.
[00:15:49] Amy: I wanna say we were, like, around 83, 84% of the way there. And then all of a sudden, we got this big piece of great news where it was like, “Oh, hey, you’re now at 120%.” So it was, um, it was an exciting day. We opened a bottle of champagne.
[00:16:06] Joe: That’s, that’s exciting. That’s so fun. But did you feel any different? Did you feel like a different person that day?
[00:16:12] Amy: No. In fact, besides the champagne, almost nothing changed. We definitely chatted about like, “What now?” That was a point at which I decided to go back to school. It had been a goal of mine, and was kind of going to fit into our, our FI life. That’s what I decided to do. For Phil’s part, he had recently started with a company that was new to him.
[00:16:34] Amy: It was in the ed tech, education technology sphere. He really, really loved it. He finally had the manager and the team that he had been grappling for his entire career. He, he really struggled sometimes with startup culture, and with feeling like his work wasn’t making the world better. But in education technology, that changed.
[00:16:56] Amy: It was a much more mission-driven space for him. Sure. And the money wasn’t as good a- as, as, you know, the FAANG companies at the time, but he felt better about it, and he wasn’t ready to give it up yet, so he decided to keep going for a bit. So I went back to school full time, so, uh, my time was still occupied.
[00:17:12] Amy: His time was still occupied. We kept having our money meetings and updating our spreadsheets, but not a whole lot about our life changed.
[00:17:20] Joe: But it is interesting that you start th- thinking about the portion of what you do that lights you up, instead of just, “What do I have to do to bring in money?” Now I’m thinking about, “How do I continue to bring in money, but secondarily to what’s my purpose, what’s my mission?”
[00:17:36] Joe: Which is awesome. September 2021 happens. Tell me what happened in September 2021.
[00:17:43] Amy: Yeah. We were in a really great place. By that point, we had been FI for over a year. I was deep into my academic venture, and he was still with, um, his company that he was really enjoying. Uh, the weather was beautiful. We had bought a house here in Colorado where we live.
[00:18:02] Amy: Um, we rented at first, and we weren’t kinda sure if we would stay, and then we were like, “No, we’re putting down roots.” Longmont here has such a wonderful FI community, and we’d started to make those connections. He’d also gotten really connected with the local cycling community because he was an avid cyclist, and one of his friends from that group, whose name was Jake, had called him up that week and been like, “Hey, uh, you know, the weather’s great, and soon, you know, it’s Colorado, we’re gonna get snow in a few weeks probably in the mountains.
[00:18:29] Amy: Do you wanna go bike camping up in the mountains, do an overnight trip?” And Phil was like, “Yeah. Amazing. Yes.” And he just told his boss like, “All right. I’m, I’m going away for a night,” and his boss was great with it. And so, um, before he left, Phil and I went out to lunch. We had one of those conversations that w- was not unusual for us, but I, I have gotten the sense since that it might be not super common.
[00:18:53] Amy: Um, that it’s just kind of like a life check-in, like a, you know, “How we doing? How you doing? How am I doing? Did we do the right things here? Did we move to the right place? Did we build the right life?” And the, the answers to all of those were yes. We were like, “This is, this is so great.” Like, our, our marriage had never been stronger.
[00:19:12] Amy: The facts of our lives had never been stronger. We had this massive bank account behind us that made us feel protected from the world and safe. We knew we could take a big hit and still be fine. I had a class later that afternoon. He packed up for his biking trip. I had made scones earlier in the morning, and he put ’em in his bag, and then away they went.
[00:19:31] Amy: And later, I got a text that was like, “Hey, we’re going up Sugarloaf Mountain. I’m not gonna have signal, and my phone’s low on battery, so I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” I slept terribly that night. I, I barely slept, which was strange. And the next morning, uh, I was brushing my teeth and my phone rang, and it was a number I didn’t recognize, and I had to spit to answer the phone.
[00:19:58] Amy: And the only reason I did answer it is because we were expecting a contractor that day, um, to rough in a new chimney, and I thought it might be them needing directions or something. I didn’t wanna miss the call. But it wasn’t them, it was his friend Jake, and his voice was very, very shaky, and he told me that there had been an accident and that I should get there.
[00:20:19] Amy: So I’m asking questions, and I’m asking, like, “Is he conscious?” Um, you know, and, and Jake said, “He’s not conscious. There’s an ambulance here, and they, they have his heartbeat.” And I went to the hospital, and it turned out they had transported Phil there by helicopter. I, I’m in the waiting area, and two people walk out toward me.
[00:20:39] Amy: One is in scrubs, obviously a medical professional, and the other one’s in street clothes. And so they take me into a room in the back and of course, you know, you have a million things running through your mind, but you’re hoping it’s not what you think this is. And then the doctor came, and he started explaining a lot of things that I wasn’t really processing at all, and it was still COVID, so I had a mask on.
[00:21:02] Amy: They had masks on. You know, you’re kind of seeing each other but not really. Uh, and the doctor just felt like he was just droning on and on, and I interjected at one point, and I was probably louder than my normal voice, but I just said, “Is he gone?” And the doctor said, “Yes, he’s gone.” And that was it. He died that morning.
[00:21:23] Joe: I just can’t imagine, I just can’t imagine how everything is going so, so, so well, and then all of a sudden the rules change, the world changes, and y- you’re in a completely different space. I don’t even know, Amy, what do you do first? What did you do first?
[00:21:41] Amy: Yeah, so this is like a scene we’ve all seen in the movies, and you don’t know what it would be like if that was you.
[00:21:48] Amy: And in my case, I, I’m a very practical person, probably to a fault. I have an extraordinary ability to disconnect from my emotions if I need to, and so that was kind of what happened. Like, I did not break down in tears in that room. I remember blinking a lot, not because, like, of tears, just like, just from being stunned.
[00:22:10] Amy: And I called his dad from that room, which was a terrible phone call to make, and then I started walking out of the hospital, and then I ran into his friend Jake in the vestibule of the hospital, and he was like, “Oh, is he okay? Is he okay?” And I was like, “No, he’s not.” And it… Those were the first two times I had to deliver this news, right?
[00:22:33] Amy: That this person that, you know, not just me, but lots of people loved, had died in this, like, shocking and sudden way. But I immediately dove into practicalities, uh, for the most part. I drove home, and the sheriff came and brought me Phil’s phone and his wallet, and also his helmet. Um, he’d been wearing a helmet, but it was split clear up one side.
[00:22:57] Doug: Ugh.
[00:22:58] Amy: And you’re, like, you’re, you’re just not processing this stuff as it’s going on, right? My neighbors are coming out and asking why there’s a police cruiser in the driveway. I had to make other calls, you know, to his mom, uh, to my family. The organ donation people called me after a little while, and that’s, uh, that’s usually not in the movies, but he- my husband was an organ donor, and that’s denoted on his driver’s license, so they know to call you.
[00:23:22] Amy: But immediately they launch into this, like, 30-minute questionnaire that’s extraordinarily personal and feels invasive. And you’re just in the first minutes and hours of processing this, but it’s important. Like, he wanted to be an organ donor, and I wanted that for him, but I also learned that as his wife, I could, I could dismiss his wishes if I wanted, which I thought was so strange.
[00:23:44] Amy: I could have said, like, “No, we’re not doing this,” and that would have ruled the day. So that was interesting. My friend Joe came over. He helped me call mortuary services, and we had to arrange cremation. And it was a, it was a clobbering, stunning time, is the way I can put it, and I don’t think on that day that I thought about money at all In the days following, it, I definitely was taking comfort from the fact that whatever this meant in terms of hospital bills or funeral expenses or whatever, I knew that wasn’t
[00:24:23] Amy: That didn’t have to worry me. I was very thankful for that, so that did bubble up to the surface relatively early.
[00:24:30] Joe: It is wild how in the background, ’cause even when you said that line, it kinda stunned me about … I didn’t think about money that day. I was like, “Well, duh.” B- but then I realized that in, in the back of our minds though, it always is looming in the background.
[00:24:44] Joe: Either what am I gonna do, or financially I will be okay. I’ve got a lot of other areas where I might not be okay, but in terms of the money piece, I’m gonna be all right or I’m, or I’m not gonna be all right. I know there’s this flurry of things that you have to do right away, and as you said, you’re checking boxes and going through all those things.
[00:25:03] Joe: But then, longtime former financial planner here, Amy, advice I’ve given people for a long time is you then, after that flurry of must-dos, you should probably do nothing for a while. You should probably not make any sudden money moves. You’ve been through this before. I have not been through it before.
[00:25:25] Joe: I’ve given the advice a lot. Is that actually good advice, that you really shouldn’t look at your money, you shouldn’t think? Y- y- you should just do the other things that you need to do, and then deal with your money situation later.
[00:25:39] Amy: That’s a really good question. I have a hunch it may depend somewhat just on who you are and, and what your personality is like.
[00:25:46] Amy: For me, I ultimately ended up deriving comfort and safety from diving into those financial details. Oh. Hmm. Because I wanted reassurance. Because of the way our financial life had been set up and the way that m- many people’s is, it, it’s sort of fractured. It’s like, oh, well, I have this 401over here, I have a brokerage account here, and then he’s got his there.
[00:26:08] Amy: Everything is in different pieces and lots of places, and there was something about that in those early days that I had a strong drive to, like, consolidate. I wanted to look at, at all the numbers in one place. I didn’t wanna be logging into a million websites. I wanted the safety that comes from seeing that balance and saying, like, “I will be all right financially, if in no other way.”
[00:26:32] Amy: I didn’t make changes. I wasn’t altering our financial strategy and s- I wasn’t, like, going and investing in real estate where we had never done so- … aside from our primary residence. I wasn’t buying penny stocks. Uh, nothing like that, but I was absolutely diving into and familiarizing myself with the details because that felt like a thing I could control to a certain degree.
[00:26:53] Amy: I, I could derive some measure of steadiness from knowing what was going on because before that he was handling the details of the money. I had a high level view of what was going on, but now I knew that it was going to come down to me in one way or another, and I, I’m sure partly it was a distraction technique, too.
[00:27:14] Joe: Well, because money’s your jam. I mean, because if money’s your jam, you bury yourself in your jam.
[00:27:19] Amy: Yeah.
[00:27:20] Joe: You know, the other thing we talk about a lot here is making sure your beneficiary designations are the way that, that you want them to be. Get the estate done, and Phil’s the perfect case study of this.
[00:27:31] Joe: You never die at the end of your story. You die right in the middle of it. It happens in the middle. So many cases, our mutual friend, uh, Doc G, Jordan Grumet, has talked about people on their deathbed saying, “Oh, who’s gonna feed the cat tomorrow?” Like, you’re not gonna be here tomorrow. Yeah. I- it’s always the middle of…
[00:27:47] Joe: It’s always the middle of your story. So estate plan, will, beneficiary designations, did that piece all go smoothly?
[00:27:57] Amy: I so wish that I could say that it had, um, but it did not, and it, it led to a, a significant financial and relational fallout in my life
[00:28:07] Doug: Oh, no
[00:28:09] Amy: We were not prepared. Everybody’s heard the advice, right?
[00:28:13] Amy: Like, you should have a will, you should have a trust. Especially as our assets grew, I started to become more uncomfortable. Like, we don’t have children. We were childless by choice, but as our assets got bigger and bigger, I did think about usually it was like, what happens if we both die, like, in a car crash or something?
[00:28:29] Amy: Like, what would even happen to a- all of this money we’ve just piled up? Like, we, we did not have clarity on that, and so I pushed us toward doing something, and Phil kept putting it off and, and saying, like, “You know, whatever, it’s fine. Like, we’re married. What are the chances we’re gonna die together,” right?
[00:28:45] Amy: “But if one of us dies, everything’s fine. Like, obviously it just goes to each other and it’s okay.” After his death, um, I think it was maybe five days later is when I started to learn that that was not necessarily true, that just because you’re married it doesn’t mean everything goes to your spouse. So that was a big initial shock.
[00:29:08] Amy: Because of the way our financial picture had been set up, you know, some accounts were in his name, some accounts were in my name, um, some beneficiaries were designated, some weren’t. Some of the ones that weren’t, those companies had a default sort of hierarchy. Okay, it goes to the spouse first and then this and then this, and so they just applied that, and as the spouse it worked out in my favor.
[00:29:28] Amy: Others were subject to the laws of the state we lived in, which was Colorado, um, what they call intestate succession laws. What it ultimately meant in our case, in my case, was actually that his parents got to walk away with a fairly significant portion of his estate because we had neglected to set up either a will or a trust or to correctly designate our beneficiaries.
[00:29:54] Amy: And initially I had some conversations with them explaining like, “He did not will you this money. I, I just want you to know,” like, “we were totally caught off guard here.” And they were reassuring about it and they were like, “Okay, of course,” like, “we want what he would want and we know you’re the best person to know what that is and you guys had your plan and we don’t wanna interfere with that, so of course we’re not gonna take this money.”
[00:30:15] Amy: And then later they found out how much it was and then they took the money. So as a result I, I don’t have a relationship with my former in-laws anymore and that was, that was also a big loss, right? We had all experienced this, this terrible tragedy together and then we, we couldn’t be together anymore because I, I couldn’t keep them in my life.
[00:30:36] Amy: I didn’t see, I still don’t see five years later a way that I could ever would’ve done that.
[00:30:42] Joe: It is so frustrating to me the number of times I’ve seen money just drive people apart. And even in my own family, some financial horrible things that have happened in my family that have driven me from people that otherwise I got along with great before then.
[00:31:00] Joe: I got along with phenomenally well. And then financially all of a sudden money rears its ugly head and people do the, the, the weirdest . They do the, they, they do the stuff that you just wouldn’t have expected in a million years.
[00:31:14] Amy: Agree. I think there’s a lot of mental gymnastics that go on, right? Ways that people justify why they should get this or- Yeah
[00:31:21] Amy: why you shouldn’t get this, and I just kept coming back to this central fact of like this is my husband. Like, we had been married at that point for nine years. His mom told me, maybe it was like the day after he died, she was crying, she was sobbing to me on the phone and she said, “You’re the best thing that ever happened to him.”
[00:31:40] Amy: It was wonderful to hear, but then it was shocking later for her to do this, to pull this strange move of like, “Well, you’re the best thing that ever happened to him- Right. … and I’m gonna reach my hand into your pocket right now because what I, what was y- what belonged to you and my son, now I think I should get a piece of.”
[00:31:58] Amy: So it was awful. It remains awful. And it’s different depending on what state you’re in, right? Each state has different laws that govern intestate succession. Prior to living in Colorado, we’d been in California for a year. If he had died when we were in California, it’s a community property state, I would have inherited everything.
[00:32:18] Amy: It wouldn’t have been a question. Prior to that, we were in Michigan. Michigan has slightly different math on the way they do it, and in Michigan it’s something like on a million dollar estate they would have walked away with an even larger portion, to the tune of about 130,000 more. So it, it’s really a roll of the dice, and I encourage everybody to look up their state.
[00:32:40] Amy: You know, there’s a saying that goes around, you know, in the financial world a lot about prenups, and it’s like, oh, if you don’t have a prenup, your state has one for you. Well, the same is true of wills and trusts. If you don’t have one, your state has a plan for you. You just may not know what it is. So if you’re curious about what that might look like in your state
[00:32:56] Amy: And I should also say this gets changed. It depends a lot on whether you have kids. Even if you do have kids with your current partner, if one of you had a child or children from a previous marriage, the math changes wildly. It could be that those kids inherit some of that money but that you as the surviving parent can’t have any control over it whatsoever.
[00:33:15] Amy: Maybe it goes to your spouse’s ex-wife or husband. So it, it gets very, very complicated very quickly.
[00:33:21] Joe: I like our Stackers, Amy, being excited to explore a lot of things. Here’s what I’d encourage you to do, Stackers. Do not dive into this. Just don’t roll the dice. I love your roll the dice analogy. Just don’t roll the dice.
[00:33:32] Joe: Get it done. Get it done now. I can’t tell you how, how- I don’t know if the feeling is relieved or what it was. I felt so good the day I walked out of the attorney’s office with my estate plan in hand when I got it done. I, I was the guy who was recommending this for a long time. I hadn’t done my own, and when I walked out of there, I felt so much better than I thought I would.
[00:33:54] Joe: Like, it was amazing. And the cool thing is, then I don’t have to worry about what… We were Michigan at the time, so I I didn’t have to worry about what the laws in Michigan were anymore. I’m like, “Nope, I took control of it.” You don’t have to roll the dice. Don’t have to get curious about how the laws work.
[00:34:07] Joe: Just get it done, Stackers. It is so important to get this done. Let’s move on to afterwards then. So now you have this y- you know, financial independence party for two, where now it’s a whole new world, Amy. Tell me about now you moving into, really back into, the person who is choosing investments, the person who is dealing with all of the, uh, uh, every I and every T in your financial situation.
[00:34:38] Joe: Like, going from two to one, tell me about that.
[00:34:43] Amy: Yeah. Not only was it going from two to one overnight, but it was also going from accumulation to decumulation overnight. So it was two really big double whammies. Because he’d still been working and we’d been living on that income, we had not been drawing down any investments.
[00:35:00] Amy: We, we didn’t need to. All of a sudden, overnight, I was thrust into a place where that was necessary, and I know we have a lot of conversation in the space about decumulation now, and in particular, setting yourself up for it. There’s often moves you’re making months, maybe even years in advance to position yourself so that when you get there, things will be lined up in the proper way.
[00:35:23] Amy: I did not have that advantage, obviously. Like, it just happened in the blink of an eye. So I knew very quickly that I was going to need help I ended up being referred by my bank, which is one of the large, you know, Fidelity, Schwab, Vanguard ones, to a wealth management firm that had a, a large staff of financial advisors.
[00:35:43] Amy: And I know this can be rather taboo in our community, but they are assets under management advisors. Uh, you know, I know the party lines on that. I know that it’s not the most efficient way to monitor your wealth, but also I was in no position to be like, “Okay. Hey, I’m gonna dive into all the blogs and all the textbooks, and I’m gonna learn how to do this myself.”
[00:36:03] Amy: Like, in the weeks and months and, and even years after my beloved husband had died tragically, like, uh, there, there’s no way that was going to happen. I was … My brain capacity was a fraction of, of normal. So I started talking with these advisement firms. I interviewed several, and I went with one that I liked the best, and I have not looked back.
[00:36:25] Amy: I happily pay that percentage every year. I know exactly what I’m paying them, and I am so happy that I don’t have to worry about money. It’s not … The math part is not a strength for me. Like, I could do it, but it’s, it’s not a strength. I think I could maybe get, I estimate, about 80% of the way there to, like, doing it right, to being perfectly optimized, to doing the tax planning.
[00:36:50] Amy: 80% is very far from 100%, right? So whatever I’m paying my advisement firm, I have ultimate faith that they are getting me, like, more than I could get myself. Maybe some people would say that I’m selling myself short, but honestly, it’s some of the best peace of mind that I’ve ever bought. And I think an angle that a lot of people don’t consider in, in my particular situation maybe, when your spouse dies, you lose so much of your collective knowledge and skills, right?
[00:37:24] Amy: In any household you have a division of labor, and maybe it’s cooking and cleaning and, and financial management and who’s taking care of the car. There’s other things too about, like, who’s, like, arranging the holidays and who’s buying gifts and who’s, you know, planning the next renovation. Like, there are so many things, and so many of those I didn’t have a choice about taking on.
[00:37:45] Amy: Like, I just had to. I, I, I couldn’t really farm out certain things, but this one I could. Like, you can actually pay for financial intimacy, for lack of a better term. I can pay someone so that I have someone to call at any point to be like, “Hey, I’m thinking about finishing the basement. I think this is what it would cost.
[00:38:06] Amy: Can we look at what this would do to the long-term plan?” And they will run the calculations, and they will talk me through it, and they will be sensitive, and they will tell me that ultimately I get to decide, but this is what they would recommend I, I feel like a broken record, but I just cannot put a price on that kind of safety and reassurance.
[00:38:25] Amy: That’s the route that I’ve chosen to go.
[00:38:27] Joe: When I moved over from being a financial planner a long time ago to the financial media side of things, I noticed there was this, what I call now r- a real straw man argument, which is, “You know what? You’re smart enough to do this yourself.” I mean, you are smart enough to do this yourself.
[00:38:43] Joe: I’m smart enough to do it myself. It, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t surround yourself with really smart people, like you should. And whether it’s people on your payroll or going to Camp FI, or in the case of you and me, both, right? I do both. I know what’s going on, and I have pretty kick-ass people in my corner.
[00:38:59] Joe: It just makes a bunch of sense to me. And the over, the overemphasis on how we pay them, you need to make sure that it is, that you’re getting a benefit that is commiserate with what you’re paying, and above, that you’re getting a bunch. But this ridiculousness that before we even walk into somebody’s office we ask, “How much is it?”
[00:39:26] Joe: when I don’t even know what they do, I don’t even know how they’re gonna help me, is exactly that. It’s ridiculousness. And so when I was a financial planner sometimes, often people would hire me just on a fee-only basis, and then they’d go away for three months, we’d get back together, and nothing had gotten done.
[00:39:43] Joe: Nothing had gotten done. And I was like, “How long are we gonna do this before we actually do something?” It really comes down to you. It comes down to you and who you are and what you need. And whenever people ask online about, you know, what’s a good financial advisor look like, it begins with what’s your issue?
[00:40:01] Joe: You know?
[00:40:02] bumper: Mm.
[00:40:02] Joe: What are you trying to solve for? And then find the advisor that helps to solve for that. So somebody who’s a great advisor for me might be bad for you. But that’s, that’s so wild that you came to this, that, that you went and sought out help, especially as somebody who’s a money nerd, right?
[00:40:18] Joe: Who’s in the forums, who knows all of this, uh, fire inner chat, that you went and go, “You know what? I need, I need some help.” What was it about the interview with these people that you liked? ‘Cause you interviewed a few different firms. What was it that you liked, and what did you not like about the other firms that you interviewed?
[00:40:40] Amy: Hmm. Good question. Um, maybe this isn’t fair, but I knew I didn’t want somebody who was very young So I wanted someone who was at least in their 30s. You know, I know we’ve got brilliant kids coming out of school at 22, and maybe they could handle everything that I needed, but they also don’t have, like, the life perspective.
[00:41:02] Amy: I- I needed somebody who could at least conceptualize the shoes that I was in, and to me, a, a 22, 23-year-old right out of school wasn’t gonna be that person. Yeah. So that was one piece. I’m not going to pretend that I’m above the kinds of details like, what does their office look and feel like? And are they quick in their communication?
[00:41:24] Amy: You know, do they get back to me in a timely manner? All of those things are very important. You know, you don’t wanna go into an office and see somebody, like, slouched down and wearing ripped jeans, or like, “Hey, man, what are you do-” Like, that would be an alarm bell, as it should be. My guy usually is wearing sweater vests, and no, that does not tell me everything I need to know about him, but it’s like a teeny piece of, like, “Okay, we’re serious people here.”
[00:41:50] Amy: I know that sounds tough.
[00:41:52] Joe: No. I did this piece many years ago that went fairly viral, which was how all these little tiny clues, Amy, that add up to a great advisor experience. Like, as an example, if you walk into an advisor’s office and they’re playing CNBC or Fox Business, you need to run. Like, you need to…
[00:42:11] Joe: We were very adamant that the Travel Channel was going to be on the TV. It was gonna be about hopes and dreams, not about what, what are we freaking out about today. And it was accumulation of these… We were not gonna have me in a high-backed chair, like the king of the universe, and you’re sitting in this uncomfortable piece-of-crap chair across the desk from me, like I see all the time.
[00:42:31] Joe: We’re gonna be at a round table, like Knights of the Round Table. I was gonna have a whiteboard next to me so that if I had to get up and draw something out for us, but we’re all on the same team, and my job’s to be just your teammate who’s smart about this stuff. Like, to your point, sweater vest doesn’t tell you doesn’t tell you everything.
[00:42:49] Joe: But it is 1/1000 of a piece that you were looking for.
[00:42:54] Amy: Yes, it’s a data point, and, and I’m a person who’s very impacted by aesthetics. Like, not just the sweater vest, but the, the look of the office. Like you’re saying, the round table, the not having Fox and CNBC in the background. Like, these are all data points, you know, on a continuum.
[00:43:09] Amy: Of course, we talked about, like, how they actually handle money and what their philosophy is, and the tools they use, and their security protocols. Like, we handled all of that stuff too. I don’t wanna make it sound like I’m just, you know, picking it based on the color of the free pens in the lobby.
[00:43:23] Joe: Right.
[00:43:23] Joe: What, what type of coffee do they serve?
[00:43:27] Amy: Right. I was happy the day they started stocking Diet Coke, I will say that. Yeah, but the biggest thing I would say was the questions that they were asking me. That’s really how I made my decision. They, they were asking me about my priorities. They knew my situation.
[00:43:43] Amy: They knew it was a sensitive time. They were proactively looking down the road. They were talking about some various tax statuses for qualifying widows and whatever that at that time I had no idea about. They weren’t presumptuous. The company and the individual I ended up going with, to this day we have a great relationship.
[00:44:05] Amy: In fact, I’m seeing him tomorrow. They always offer me the option of meeting on Zoom, but they have an office nearby in Boulder, and I almost always go into the office. I just enjoy it. I- it’s like a nice check-in to be actually physically in a room with someone.
[00:44:22] headlines: Yeah.
[00:44:22] Amy: You know, I know about his wife’s health struggles, and I know the names of their pets, and when I refer them people, he sends donations to the Longmont Humane Society in my name.
[00:44:33] Amy: Like, we just … We’ve developed a, a system of knowing each other now, and it, it brings me a lot of comfort and peace
[00:44:42] Joe: Uh, onto the way you manage money on a daily basis because when there’s an accountability partner, which it sounds like you and Phil were really good at doing together, and then the accountability partner goes away, you had your normal meetings then.
[00:44:57] Joe: Do you now schedule meeting times with Amy where you’ve got this set meeting on the calendar where you’re gonna go over your daily finance picture?
[00:45:07] Amy: You know, I have experimented over the last handful of years with different ways of doing this, some levels of expense tracking where on a monthly basis I would go in and review some stuff.
[00:45:19] Amy: But for the most part now I’ve, I’ve let it go. What happens now is I have a system where I get an allowance, you know, from my own investments on a certain day of the month. That’s the money I have to spend, and I stay within that, and I use one primary credit card, and everything’s fairly automated. There are still times, especially when the market’s doing very well like it has been this year, where I’m like, “Well, maybe I’m gonna go on this FinTalks cruise to Antarctica, so I’m gonna pull out an extra 16 grand right now so that if the market tanks between now and that cruise in February 2028, then I won’t feel bad about going on a really expensive cruise.”
[00:45:57] Amy: So, you know, I do things like that, and I talk them over with my advisor, and he’s aware of what I’m doing. It’s not always such a big expense. Sometimes it’s just like, “I’m gonna take out another couple thousand dollars this month because I’m doing a project around the house. I’m, you know, redoing the mulch and the weed fabric on my pumpkin patch,” or, you know, it could be anything.
[00:46:14] Amy: But I do know that I am very capable of living within that allowance, and I feel like I know and have a good sense of when it’s okay to go above. And we’ve been lucky, right? The market has been doing very well. Sure. So it’s, it’s felt safe to do that. I do have questions about what if that day does come where we’re down 25, 30, 40%.
[00:46:35] Amy: How’s it going to feel then on my own? How will it feel then paying an advisor with those new lower numbers? I have guesses, but I don’t have answers. Um, my hope and belief is that I would stay the course. I can scale back expenses where I need to. I, I have faith in myself about that, but it is still a very different prospect to think about doing those things on your own, right, versus having that person next to you.
[00:47:01] Amy: So that’s where my advisor comes in, but even he, you know, he, he’s not my husband. He can’t be. It’s not like that. So there’s a limit even to what help he can provide.
[00:47:12] Joe: Yeah, it sounds like, Amy, what you have is a budget similar to what my friend Paul Laphan talks about, which is kind of the anti-budget.
[00:47:19] Joe: I’ve, I’ve made sure the goals are good, and then I have this money to spend, and don’t tell me how to spend it. I, I’ll spend it however I damn well choose this month. So you’re not gonna have a weekly check-in to guilt yourself over the, the Mexican restaurant that you can easily afford.
[00:47:35] Amy: Totally, yeah.
[00:47:37] Amy: Yeah. It’s just worth it to me to have that little extra freedom, and honestly… So I, I gave a talk at one of the Camp FIs earlier this summer, during which I mentioned that there are some silver linings to being widowed, and a very brave soul, her name was Becky, asked during the Q&A, “What are some of the silver linings?”
[00:47:57] Amy: And being in total control of the money is one of them. There’s nobody else I need to justify any expense to. Like, that $16,000 Antarctica cruise, n- like, my advisor might coach me a little, but nobody can tell me that I can’t do that, or nobody can tell me that I can’t go to the Mexican restaurant five days a week with my book at lunch, which is, like, a thing that I do.
[00:48:20] Amy: I, I don’t wanna give the wrong impression here. Most of being widowed is, like, freaking horrible, and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.
[00:48:27] Joe: Right, you’re not advocating for it.
[00:48:30] Amy: I am not advocating for it. You know, I’m sitting in my pink guest room/office right now- … which I would never have been allowed to paint a pink room in the house, um, when I was married.
[00:48:41] Amy: So you find the upsides where you can, and you laugh about them when you can because what other choice do you have?
[00:48:47] Joe: Yeah. I can see you painting it pink, laughing at Phil, going, “Hey, guess what, man? Guess what I’m doing today?”
[00:48:54] Amy: 100%.
[00:48:55] Joe: This is interesting. You told me, at one point you said that your relationship with Phil is still evolving today, and you gave quite a few interviews a couple years ago on this topic.
[00:49:08] Joe: How has your relationship then changed in the last couple years with Phil?
[00:49:12] Amy: I’d say it’s changed in- Maybe two primary ways. One of them is that unlike those earlier interviews I gave, I have a stronger faith or knowledge now that I’ll be okay. That was not necessarily true three years ago. Um, in the sort of widow timeline, it’s kind of common-ish knowledge that, like, the first year you’re, you’re so blindsided and you’re getting through every milestone and holiday, and it’s just like your head is spinning And it’s actually pretty agreed upon that the second year is worse because, okay, I’ve gotten through the first, you know, his, the birthday and, and w- wedding anniversary and deathiversary and whatever, and now they just keep coming and oh my God, this is my life now.
[00:50:01] Amy: Those first two years, which is the time period during which I gave most of those interviews, were really, really rough. I feel glad and, and thankful that I have some distance from that timeline now, where there are many more things that have brought joy into my life, and I’ve felt able to, to take and experience that joy, like my involvement with Camp Fi and Camp Fi New York.
[00:50:27] Amy: Like, you know, making new friends and doing lots of traveling and signing up for FinTalks cruises and all the rest. So that’s a change from now to then. I, I have much more faith now that life is not always going to be terrible. I won’t say that there are never bad days, because there are, and this time of year in particular is challenging because it contains not only his deathiversary, but our Halloween, you know- Experience
[00:50:50] Amy: initial first date-
[00:50:51] OG: Yeah …
[00:50:52] Amy: anniversary, and then, you know, Thanksgiving and my birthday and New Year. And it’s just, it’s a gauntlet that sometimes is, is still difficult. But on the whole, the trajectory is up and to the right. And then the second way I would talk about the way that my relationship with him has, has evolved, it’s strange because time in this context for me feels like distance, right?
[00:51:16] Amy: This is now a person that I haven’t spoken to in live and in person for five years, more than five years. And so that’s an interesting roller coaster. But this part about us not having our ducks in a row and the beneficiaries not being right and him being resistant to having a will, I think earlier on a lot of people or maybe the, the interviewers I was talking to, they might have had the expectation that, like, I would
[00:51:44] Amy: I might get over that eventually, especially after it turned out that I would be fine. Even though his parents got to walk away with a piece of money, I still had enough to be fine, to remain retired. And that I would, you know, forgive and let it go. I’m not sure what it says about me, but that, that is not true.
[00:52:01] Amy: Like, I’m still mad about it. I still cry about it sometimes. I still feel betrayed by it. I still feel like, damn it, how could you have let this happen? So it’s a mixed bag, we’ll say. I still sometimes talk to him out loud. It’s not that, you know, because of the time and distance and because I’m still mad at him that I’m like, “Oh my God, you’re the worst person,” and not…
[00:52:24] Amy: Like, he’s still- He’s still the person I chose to spend my life with. Yeah. But I have changed so much since he died. A thing I, I said in my Camp Fi talk this summer is that the Venn diagram of who I was before and who I am after has very little overlap So if I were to meet him today, I don’t know how it would go honestly.
[00:52:47] Amy: I know that there’s still stuff about him that I would, you know, immediately be drawn to. I don’t know if we would end up, you know, being life partners again, which is a weird thing to think about. It is wild. So it’s, it’s strange.
[00:53:00] Joe: Yeah. Wow. Wow. It is amazing how your relationship just continues to evolve and how, um, you know, the end is not the end.
[00:53:10] Joe: He’ll always be a big piece of your life, and especially this week. Amy, thank you so much. You help so many people. I know how gut-wrenching it’s gotta be to tell this story, but hopefully you and I together helped a lot of people either deal with something similar or to be prepared a little bit ahead of time when things happen.
[00:53:28] Amy: Thank you so much.
[00:53:30] bumper: Hey, it’s Matt from Gainesville, Georgia, and when I’m not delivering on his consumerism in a big brown package car, then I’m stacking Benjamins.
[00:53:42] Doug: Hey there, Stackers. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. Today is National Chocolate Day, a holiday I celebrate every week, uh, year by eating an entire bag of fun-sized Snickers. But here’s something you might not know. Hundreds of years ago, chocolate wasn’t just something you ate when you were feeling sorry for yourself.
[00:54:01] Doug: It was money. That’s right, the Aztecs actually used cacao beans as currency. You could walk into a marketplace with a handful of beans and buy yourself, like, dinner or maybe one of those cool hats or some electric hedge trimmers. I don’t know. Which got me thinking, I got a couple of those giant Costco bags of chocolate chips in my pantry.
[00:54:21] Doug: By my calculations, I’m sitting on a fortune. So yesterday, I went down to The Sizzler and tried to pay for my steak with a Ziploc bag full of chocolate chips. But Todd, the manager, told me they don’t accept chocolate as payment. And I said, “Well, Todd, maybe you should familiarize yourself with the monetary policies of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica.”
[00:54:40] Doug: To which he responded, “Doug, this is the third time you’ve tried to pay with food you brought from home.” And that, Todd, is why you will never be promoted to regional manager. Anyway, historical records tell us that back in the 1500s, you could purchase not just the shrimp appetizer, but a whole bunch of cool stuff with cacao beans.
[00:55:01] Doug: So here’s today’s trivia question: What could you get for 100 cacao beans in an Aztec-era marketplace? Is it A, a hen turkey; B, a bride; or C, a Ford F-150 crew cab? One of those is my favorite. I’m not gonna tell you which. I’ll be back right after I see if Todd accepts payment in chocolate-covered raisins.
[00:55:23] Doug: I mean, come on, Todd. Those are practically gold bullion
[00:55:36] Doug: Hey there, Stackers. I’m internationally certified chocolate economist and guy who once tried to open a Roth IRA with a bag of M&M’s. Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. OG said I couldn’t do it. Something about qualified contributions and the Internal Revenue Code. Fine, OG, but when the dollar collapses and we’re all trading Hershey’s Kisses for gasoline, don’t come crying to me, man.
[00:55:59] Doug: Is that the way the world collapses is that all of a sudden we’re all trading Hershey’s? I- that’s how I see it in my crystal ball. And then Hershey’s Kisses, you’re just hoarding them.
[00:56:07] Joe: My pockets are stuffed. It doesn’t matter who’s got the guns, it matters who’s got the Hershey’s.
[00:56:11] Doug: Absolutely. Before the break, I told you that cacao beans were once used as money in ancient Mesoamerica, and according to historical records, you could even buy yourself a whole bunch of stuff.
[00:56:23] Doug: Now, I don’t know what the exchange rate was for a Butterfinger, but with what I got stashed away in my trailer, I imagine that would’ve gotten you a sweet resto-modded El Camino with a 454 under the hood and dual four-barrel Holley carbs. Oh, man, some of those Yosemite Sam mud flaps. Well, so w- w- what could you get for 100 cacao beans in an ancient Aztec market?
[00:56:50] Doug: The answer is a turkey hen That laid golden eggs, which they thought just made better omelets. And here’s my favorite part, historical accounts also describe people making counterfeit cacao beans out of clay, which means- … even hundreds of years ago, somebody was out there hustling, trying to go coast fi. I guarantee Todd would’ve spotted those immediately, though.
[00:57:15] Doug: That man can identify a counterfeit coupon from 40 feet away. Ask me how I know. See ya.
[00:57:22] Joe: Even a counterfeiting operation back in the day.
[00:57:25] Doug: Yeah.
[00:57:26] Joe: Can you see a bunch of guys off in the ne’er-do-wells.
[00:57:30] Doug: Ne’er-do-wells in the dark nether regions of Mesoamerica. Rolling tiny bits of clay between their hands- Yes
[00:57:37] Doug: to make those little balls.
[00:57:38] Joe: That’s all you gotta do. You just trick them long enough that they trade for the turkey, and then you’re good. Or the F-150. I thought it was the F-150. Imagine that. Where’d you get this? The future. Big thanks to Amy Wilson for sharing that story, and clearly just another reason to make sure, A, everybody on the team is involved in the financial planning, uh, as you go.
[00:57:59] Joe: And then number two, to have your estate planning documents done. Number three, to think a little less about optimization and much more about flexibility, about the ability to be flexible with your goals, ’cause you never know when things are gonna change. Let’s do a headline.
[00:58:14] headlines: Hello, darlings. And now it’s time for your favorite part of the show, our Stacking Benjamins headlines.
[00:58:20] Joe: Well, our headline today is especially important to anybody who is thinking about r- retiring early. If you retire before Medicare age, this applies to you. It also applies to you if you’ve been notching up that side hustle, and oh gee, maybe you’re in the early years of side hustle, not making much money yet, and you’re using the ACA Marketplace for your health insurance.
[00:58:43] Joe: But imagine this: imagine you do have a better financial year than you expected, and you discover that your health insurance discount now comes with a bill. Well, if you buy coverage through the ACA Marketplace and get help paying the premiums, this is gonna be worth checking out, especially if you freelance, you own a business, or retire before Medicare.
[00:59:04] Joe: The IRS has updated its guidance, and here’s the headline, guys. The IRS has updated its guidance on subsidy repayments. We’re gonna show you where the danger is, and three things to check before tax season. Here is what’s changed. Let’s start with the part that’s easy to miss. When my monthly insurance payment gets reduced, OG, what’s actually happening there?
[00:59:26] Joe: This’ll kind of lead us into why you might end up having a problem at the end of the year that you didn’t expect.
[00:59:31] OG: Yeah. So when you sign up for the healthcare plan, right, there’s a window of time that you’re signing up for it, unless there’s a qualifying event. But let’s say you’re just like everybody else and you’re gonna sign up at the end of the fall here, uh, you know, around December time.
[00:59:46] OG: You’re requested to put in your estimated income, and based on your estimated income, uh, household income, they’re gonna help calculate here’s how much your premiums are gonna be. But that’s really just an estimated premium payment to help with cashflow, keeping your cashflow level and, and forecasting it.
[01:00:02] OG: Because what actually happens then is after you go to file your taxes a year later, all of that stuff is reconciled and then recalculated to decide whether or not you paid the right amount.
[01:00:12] Joe: So the number on the application then, to be clear, when you sign up, that is a forecast, not a price guarantee.
[01:00:19] Joe: Like, you just can’t just lowball your number and go, “Yeah, okay.”
[01:00:23] OG: Yeah, and I’ve seen people that talk about this on TikTok and Instagram and, you know, all those faux financial experts that are like, “Oh, just put in 30 grand and your premiums will be zero. Bada boom, bada bing, free healthcare.” And you could do that.
[01:00:37] OG: You can put in that your income is zero and, or a low number, and your premiums will be zero, and you’ll have health coverage. But what happens at the end of the year when you go to file your tax return is all that gets reconciled and it shows up as a, uh, a, you know, as payment due basically on your tax forms
[01:00:52] Joe: First, and this is to be really clear, it wasn’t free.
[01:00:57] Joe: You have to repay the full amount of any excess advance credits that you were, that you were given. Those old repayment- Yeah … caps are gone.
[01:01:06] OG: Yeah, uh, and, uh, it’s kind of interesting how they say that, advanced credits, because that’s basically what it is, right? It’s, it’s the government saying, “We are go- w- instead of, instead of making you pay $1,000 a month for your healthcare, and then giving you $6,000 back at the end of the year, ’cause it should have been 500, we’re just gonna help you kinda pre-estimate this, and we’re gonna say it’s 500.
[01:01:28] OG: And, you know, as long as your estimates are correct, then it all comes out in the wash.” And it do- I mean, that would help with cash flow quite a bit, obviously.
[01:01:35] Joe: 100%. And, and this is news, Stackers, because there used to be these repayment caps. Those are gone now in the new IRS- Yeah … guidance. They are completely gone.
[01:01:45] Joe: Second, there’s an income ceiling again, and if you cross this income ceiling, your federal premium tax credit can disappear immediately. The second you cross it, $1 more, OG, bam, all of a sudden- Completely
[01:01:58] OG: gone.
[01:01:58] Joe: Yep … yeah, you’ve got a big tax bill.
[01:02:00] OG: Yeah, that’s obviously for people that, you know, if you get a, you know, a surprise bonus.
[01:02:05] OG: I, honestly, I think this is why you have to know your numbers, and you have to have a plan for this because in the real world, unless you work for a big, giant organization, if you work for a small business and your boss says, “Hey, great news. I’ma hit you with a bonus before Christmas” you could be like, “Whoa.
[01:02:19] OG: No, no, no, no, no, no, no.” Ugh. January would be a great time for a bonus, not in December.
[01:02:24] Joe: Right.
[01:02:25] OG: Because you gotta kinda know that. Now, the reality is is that that’s not on them to not pay you. You know what I mean? Like, ’cause they’re maybe paying a bonus to avoid taxes on their own situation, right? But- Yeah,
[01:02:34] Doug: you can’t dictate that.
[01:02:35] Doug: Yeah …
[01:02:35] OG: but even, even if it’s not something like that, you pick up a part-time job. You originally thought you was gonna be a single income household, and now your spouse starts working in August ’cause the kids are back in school. And you know what? I can pick up a couple shifts after all, and it just enough to kinda kick you over that number, you know.
[01:02:50] OG: But that’s true with a lot of federal credits. Uh, you know, this isn’t a new concept for tax credits and tax deductions and that sort of thing. It’s just, it’s, it’s a slight shift on this particular one, but this is true for everything else as well. It’s like, you know, boom, you toggle over this line in the sand.
[01:03:06] OG: All of a sudden, you know, there goes this credit, or there goes that deduction It’s just a similar thing, and it’s a much smaller number unfortunately, and a much bigger impact I think.
[01:03:15] Joe: Yeah. Let’s put some real numbers to this, stackers, so that you understand what we’re talking about. Let’s say there’s a made-up couple, they both retire before Medicare, so they’re the, b- early retirees.
[01:03:25] Joe: They expected $80,000 of income under ACA rules, so they put in 80,000 bucks and assume their marketplace plan, then they get $1,000 a month in advance premium credits. What that means is they have $1,000 credit that they’re not gonna pay. It gets credited because of the $80,000 that they put in ahead of time.
[01:03:48] Joe: That’s $12,000 a year. But when everything gets counted at the end of the year, their final household income is 85,000 bucks. The ceiling for a two-person household in most states is 84,600. So they went over by 400 bucks. What just happened, OG?
[01:04:06] OG: Yeah. They have to repay all of their, all their subsidies that they got in advance.
[01:04:10] Joe: 12,000 bucks. It’s
[01:04:11] OG: like it never even happened.
[01:04:12] Joe: $12,000 have to be repaid. Not just the assistance for that one month they went above it, the entire thing- Mm-hmm … has to be repaid. That can be a big, big, big deal. So just to make sure that our stackers know, uh, how this works, let’s play a game. Doug, you get to play a game with us.
[01:04:30] Joe: How does that sound?
[01:04:31] Doug: I love it. This is my favorite part- … whenever we do this. It is my favorite part of the show.
[01:04:35] Joe: You’re gonna be the income detective, my friend. I’m gonna give you three situations, and you tell us whether the money counts toward the income that determines this insurance help. All right?
[01:04:46] Joe: So does the money count or does it not count toward money that’s going to go into your paycheck at the end of the year? So if you’re an early retiree, you’re looking at all the places that you can take income out of, right? To not-
[01:04:58] Doug: Yeah, yeah …
[01:04:59] Joe: bump up against this, this number.
[01:05:01] Doug: Can you hold on just a minute while I go get my pipe and that cool hat that has the brim-
[01:05:06] Doug: on both the front and the back? If I’m gonna be detective.
[01:05:08] Joe: You are the detective. I gotta get my equipment. All right. Here’s the deal. You convert $5,000 from an entirely pre-tax traditional IRA into a Roth IRA in this year. You don’t spend a dime, you just do the Roth conversion. Does that money count?
[01:05:23] Doug: I don’t think so, because it’s Roth.
[01:05:27] Doug: Right? It’s all pre-tax dollars
[01:05:28] Joe: It does count because- Post-tax, sorry … OG, because of the fact that you made the conversion. The money’s gonna count even though you didn’t spend it.
[01:05:38] OG: Uh, yes. Uh, you asked me m- and then answered the exact same thing I was gonna say, so- … exactly what you said.
[01:05:44] Joe: Correct. OG, am I right?
[01:05:47] OG: Yes.
[01:05:49] Joe: Second, you sell stock in a regular brokerage account. It totals 5,000 bucks. You paid $4,500. Does all $5,000 count?
[01:05:59] Doug: This one I know. It’s no. Just the 500 bucks, just the capital gain.
[01:06:04] Joe: OG?
[01:06:05] OG: Yep. It’s the difference between your cost basis and the amount that you sold it for.
[01:06:10] Joe: Let’s do one more, Doug. You take a qualified tax-free $5,000 distribution from a Roth account.
[01:06:18] Joe: So your money comes out of the Roth, you’re allowed to do it for whatever reason. It’s completely tax-free, 5,000 bucks. Does that $5,000 count?
[01:06:29] Doug: This one I know, and more importantly, this means I’m batting .750 after this question because this is a, this is a hard no. This is kind of what I thought you were asking in the first question because the distributions you’re taking was already counted as income once before, so it’s not gonna get counted as income again.
[01:06:43] Joe: Who is this guy, OG?
[01:06:45] OG: Well, uh, he’s quite the baseball statistician to bat .750 with three at bats- Three questions? … and getting two hits. But, um, you know, I, I think I figured out why Doug’s, um, you know, high school yearbook is, uh, not quite as, uh, g- glorious as he remembers the season being. Um, but, um, like, “Oh, my on-base percentage was 1300, guys.”
[01:07:07] OG: Like, “Okay. All right, buddy.”
[01:07:10] Joe: So when you look at this, let’s give our stackers some jobs. When you look at this, when you look at your full year income and, and kind of look at where you’re gonna land, OG, maybe the beginning of December?
[01:07:19] OG: Well, I mean, y- the application process is gonna happen. I think the opens, it wi- uh, the window opens maybe November 15th and ends December 15th.
[01:07:28] OG: It’s right around that time. There’ll be a big public announcement, and you can, uh, look for the open enrollment time. But when you do that, it, it makes no sense to fib, right? It d- it makes absolutely no sense to fib on your number because it’s all gonna be washed out at the end of the next tax year, you know.
[01:07:46] OG: And that’s the other thing, honestly, that kind of sucks about all these things is, you know, you’re deciding in December what you’re gonna pay January through the next December, but then gets reconciled the following April. And it’s like holy mo- I mean, we’re … You know, I get it. Ugh. It’s kind of out there.
[01:08:00] OG: So yeah, I would take last year’s tax return, and I would- Another good use of AI, honestly, if you feel like doing it. And just say, “Hey, what are we forecast to do in 2027?” So here’s the problem. The last tax return you did was ’25. You have data from ’26 but no tax return data, ’cause it’s December, you haven’t done your taxes for ’26 yet obviously, and you’re trying to guess what your income’s gonna be in ’27.
[01:08:25] OG: This is gonna take a few minutes to sit down and, and pencil out to see what works, and give yourself a realistic number. If you’re in retirement, you definitely have to consider where all the sources of this income are gonna be, and, you know, work with your planner to make sure that the distribution plan that you have is commensurate with where the money is and then, you know, the tax credit type stuff.
[01:08:44] OG: And where the ceiling
[01:08:45] Joe: is, yeah.
[01:08:46] OG: So you have to know what those things are. So you wanna include all of your income. If you’re a business owner, you got side hustle money, you wanna include your profit obviously Look, at the end of the day, it’s just like Roth conversions. I wouldn’t try to get right up to the number.
[01:09:01] OG: You know, if the number’s 85,000, I wouldn’t say, “Well, I think I can get 84,999.” I’d be at, like, 75,000, 70,000 to give yourself plenty of wiggle room because you know what you can do is in December of next year, you can always say, “Oh, I’m 15 grand under. I can do that Roth conversion now for 10,000.” I’m a little light in the final quarter of my income because I’ve been really watching it, but I, you know, we got that trip we’re trying to do, or we’re gonna go to see the kids at Christmas or something, and I need to have a little extra.
[01:09:31] OG: You can recalculate this in the fourth quarter of next year to see exactly where you are. Also, you can figure out, like, “Oh, crap, I’m over. Is there something I can do to lower this number to get under it?”
[01:09:41] Joe: Right.
[01:09:42] OG: You know, if you’re a business owner, maybe you have some bus- uh, other expenses or, you know, whatever.
[01:09:45] Joe: Let’s say that it’s gonna be way over, OG, and I’m only halfway through the year. Can I report that right now to the marketplace to make sure I don’t have this big oh crap bill at the end of the year?
[01:09:54] OG: Yeah, it would help to recalculate it and, and let the, you know, healthcare.gov people know, uh, and they can adjust the premiums.
[01:10:01] OG: And it’s kind of like, you know, people say at the end of the year like, “Well, my CPA got me a $1,000 refund.” He didn’t get you anything. He filled the form out correctly that resulted in a $1,000 refund. You overpaid. You know, so at the end of the year, all this is gonna be washed out one way or the other.
[01:10:18] OG: If you’re way over, you can fix it now, or you can fix it in April. Either way, it’s gonna get fixed. Dealer’s choice.
[01:10:24] Joe: Yeah. Any credit, by the way, that you don’t get that you were eligible for, you’re still gonna get on the tax form.
[01:10:30] OG: Yeah, if you… And that’s another point, I think, like, let’s say that you’re look- you’re doing it and you’re saying, “You know, I think I’m gonna be over.
[01:10:36] OG: I, I think I’d rather just plan on being over, and if I get a surprise under…” Well, that works to your benefit also where, you know, the, the… In your example earlier, I’m at $85,000. I think I’m gonna be at 85,000, so I don’t take any credits, you know, in, in the cash flow. Turns out my income’s 72,000. Well, guess what?
[01:10:55] OG: You’re gonna get a credit because now you, when they reconcile it, they’ll, you know, you’ll, you’ll do the math, and you’ll get a credit for the difference.
[01:11:02] Joe: We ran Doug through the definitions, some of the definitions of what income looks like and what counts and what doesn’t count for an early retiree.
[01:11:11] Joe: Let’s talk about people that are self-employed, OG, because for them, they have to also know the right definition, right? If you’re looking at your gross income, that’s gonna be vastly different than the number that you’re really reporting.
[01:11:23] OG: Oh, on the top line of business income, you mean?
[01:11:24] Joe: Yeah.
[01:11:25] OG: Like revenue?
[01:11:26] Joe: Yeah.
[01:11:26] OG: Sure. Yeah, I mean, this is gonna be the number that flows to your tax return with some slight adjustments, but, you know, it’s not your business revenue. This is revenue minus your necessary and ordinary expenses to get to your net profit.
[01:11:37] Joe: So Stackers, there’s your homework. If you’re either self-employed, you know somebody who’s self-employed using the ACA, or someone who is an early retiree, you want to make sure that they’re aware that the guidelines have, uh, have shifted a little bit.
[01:11:50] Joe: There’s a bigger opportunity to get a surprise than there was, uh, just a couple months ago.
[01:11:56] OG: I mean, this is why financial planning doesn’t happen kind of in these individual things. All of this stuff works together, your investment strategy, your tax planning, your retirement income, your health insurance plans, uh, your, uh, savings and investing contributions, location where all that’s go- Like, all of that goes together to have an outcome in that tax year.
[01:12:18] OG: Everything counts
[01:12:20] Joe: We will link to resources on this in our show notes page at stackingbenjamins.com. Kevin does deep dives on topics like this in the 201. And now, Doug, not only can you get yourself educated with the 201 through next Friday, you could also win a Solo Stove.
[01:12:36] Doug: Solo Stove, baby.
[01:12:38] Joe: How great is that?
[01:12:39] Joe: If you’re… The whole family got involved.
[01:12:42] Doug: We’re all excited.
[01:12:43] Joe: All right, it’s time for us to segue onto the back porch, Doug. What’s going on in Stacker land this, uh, Halloween weekend?
[01:12:52] Doug: Well, Joe, in Stacker land, I think the big news is… Or don’t we have some big updates to the guides coming out?
[01:12:57] Joe: Yeah, we had some big updates on, uh, two things for this year.
[01:13:01] Joe: OG, you and I just talked about one, but two more that went out last month with the guides. If you have student loans, and we mentioned this on the show, if you have student loans, you’ve till the end of the year to get a 1% reduction in your interest rates on your student loans- Mm-hmm … depending on what type you have.
[01:13:17] Joe: That was in our guide update this last month, how that works. Also, uh, FAFSA instructions, step by step how to do the FAFSA. Not the ogre that it used to be. We’ve got two different videos that went into the college guide. On the tax front, man, big year if you’re a retiree. If you have no income, there is this last chance opportunity by the end of the year to roll $47,500 from a traditional IRA over to a Roth IRA and not pay any tax or penalty.
[01:13:49] Joe: Now, Anne and I went over you might not wanna do that a couple weeks ago on the show. We walk through all that in the guides. And on the benefits guide front, we take you through a workflow, really easy worksheet, if you’re choosing here during open enrollment season, if you’re choosing a type of healthcare that’s best for you, which one is best, and we walk you through that in the guide.
[01:14:11] Joe: Stackingbenjamins.com/guides. And the next update, to, to your point, Doug, looks to come out, uh, early next week, so we’re gonna have a lot more coming for the guides. And of course, we have Scout in the guides, right? Who you can just ask your question now. You don’t gotta read the guide. Nobody wants to go read a full guide.
[01:14:26] Joe: Just ask Scout. And instead of asking AI a question that you’re nebulous about and you’re not sure how it works, Scout only knows our Stacking Benjamins guide, so the chance of her hallucinating on the answer and giving you the wrong one, uh, much, much with closer to zero than if you just ask ChatGPT or Claude or your, your favorite AI.
[01:14:44] Joe: Yeah,
[01:14:44] Doug: and Chat and Claude are gonna badmouth me. Scout doesn’t do that.
[01:14:48] Joe: Scout has been trained not to.
[01:14:51] Doug: She likes me.
[01:14:52] Joe: Well, that might be pushing it, but, uh, we’re, we’re pretty close. Great lessons in today’s show. Big thanks to Amy Wilson for sharing that story. By the way, if you have questions for us, stackingbenjamins.com/voicemail, and, uh, we’re gonna continue answering questions here in the next couple weeks.
[01:15:10] Joe: Last but not least, if you’re not here just because you wanted to know about the ACA and the changes, or you didn’t wanna hear just about Amy’s story about plans changing, you really need your plan to change. OG and his team are taking clients already right now, booking for 2027. So make sure that you get in before spots are filled.
[01:15:34] Joe: Stackingbenjamins.com/OG gets OG’s calendar. Man, it’s the fourth quarter of 2026. If you’re looking at the calendar and you’re like, “Man, I didn’t do all the stuff I needed to do,” get some better help in your corner. Stackingbenjamins.com/OG. All right, that’s gonna do for today. Doug, you’ve got it from here, man.
[01:15:52] Joe: What should we have learned on today’s show?
[01:15:54] Doug: Well, Joe, first, take some advice from Amy. You never know when the plan will change. Complete your estate plans and stay flexible. Second, relying on the ACA for health insurance, recalculate your income near year-end so that you don’t end up with a huge surprise bill from the government.
[01:16:11] Doug: Nobody’s talking about this, which makes the surprise even worse. But the big lesson, never tell Joe’s mom you’ll pay her in cacao beans for services rendered. She’ll share that the currency in this house is measured in manual hours worked, not chocolate, and she doesn’t care what cultural American reference you make to support your argument.
[01:16:34] Doug: You’re gonna do the time, buster. 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. Come say hello.
[01:16:56] Doug: 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
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