What role does spending money play in your life: as a tool to live a better life or a yardstick of status to measure yourself against others? Our roundtable discussion centers around this, as we’re lucky to be joined by the dynamic duo Kitty and Piggy from the award-winning Bitches Get Riches podcast and blog. They join up with OG and Len Penzo to form the roundtable for this epic episode. Joe’s mom’s cousin Diania Merriam, founder of the EconoMe Conference, takes over MC duties for Neighbor Doug.
In the second half of the roundtable discussion, sponsored by DepositAccounts.com, we dig into each of our contributors’ favorite entry on Morgan Housel’s list.
Stick around for the next installment of our year-long trivia contest. Diania brings a Gillian’s Island-themed trivia to our panel. Will the Bitches use their advantage in numbers to take home the W for Paula? Will Len’s first-hand knowledge of Gillian’s Island, having actually been around for the pilot episode, give him the upper hand, or will OG use his superior financial planning skills to bring home the W?
Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.StackingBenjamins.com/201
Enjoy!
Watch On Our YouTube Channel:
Our Topic: The role of spending money in your life
A Few Thoughts on Spending Money (Collab Fund)
During our conversation you’ll hear us mention:
- Chasing achievement for yourself vs. seeking the approvial and admiration of others
- The danger of comparing yourself to others
- Chasing status vs. planning for your goals
- Valuing things vs. experiences
- Importance of setting your own priorities
- Do you own the things or do the things own you?
- The danger of burnout while you’re pursuing accumulating more money
- How to balance spending/living for today and planning for tomorrow
- Aligning how you spend your time and money with your values
- The perils of spending becoming a drug
- How the Hedonic Treadmill can impact your quality of life and sap you of your freedom
- Psychology of money
- How early experiences affect your perception of money
- Comparison
- The power of compounding
- Viewing money as an exchange for freedom and time
Our Contributors
A big thanks to our contributors! You can check out more links for our guests below.
Piggy & Kitty

Another thanks to Piggy & Kitty for joining our contributors this week! Hear more from Piggy & Kitty on their show, Bitches Get Riches at Bitches Get Riches on Apple Podcasts.
Check out their award-winning blog Bitches Get Riches.
Len Penzo

Visit Len Penzo dot Com for the off-beat personal finance blog for responsible people.
Follow Len on Twitter: @LenPenzo
OG

For more on OG and his firm’s page, click here.
Doug’s Game Show Trivia
- How many days were the castaways stranded on Gilligan’s island?
DepositAccounts

Thanks to DepositAccounts.com for sponsoring Stacking Benjamins. DepositsAccounts.com is the #1 place to go when you’re looking to see if your rate is the BEST rate on savings, CDs, money markets, and even checking accounts! Check out ALL of the rates ranked from best to worst (and see the national averages) at DepositAccounts.com.
Mentioned in today’s show
- Be sure to grab your tickets to this year’s EconoMe Conference, coming up next weekend (March 15-17 in Cincinnati). Visit EconoMeConference.com and use special code stackingbenjamins to save 10%!
- Sign up for Piggy and Kitty’s newest course on burnout by visiting Courses • Bitches Get Riches
Join Us on Monday!
Tune in Monday when you’ll learn how to organize, secure, and share the most important information in your life with security expert, Kurt Long.
Miss our last show? Check it out here: Forget “Think Different,” Think Remarkable for Results (with Guy Kawasaki) (SB1486) » The Stacking Benjamins Show.
Written by: Kevin Bailey
Episode transcript
 Is this your place? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I live with my mom. Oh yeah. You hungry. Hey Ma, can we get some meatloaf
live from Joe’s mom’s basement? It’s the Stacking Benjamin Show.
I am Joe’s mom’s cousin, Diana. Today we’ll dive deep into one famous writer’s thoughts about money with the bitches get riches. Ladies, kitty, and Piggy. Hi Plus, plus our own Mr. Howell og. And finally, the man who played the title role in Gilligan’s Island. It’s, wait, he’s dead. It’s just the very much alive, I think.
Anyway, is he moving? Yes, it is Len Pezo, but that’s not all. Halfway through the show, I’ll share my far away trivia question. And now a guy who’s the skipper? To my captain, it’s Joe Sulci. Hi.
Hey everybody. Welcome to Gilligans Island re prize week on the show. I am Joe Saul Ci. Hi. And what a start. Diana and Miriam, how are you?
I’m fantastic. How
are you? I am ready to be the skipper of this podcast ’cause we have a fine crew, as you know. Absolutely great crew. Let’s meet them. First of all, the guy sitting across the card table from me is always Mr.
OG here. Were you a big Gilligan’s Island fan back in the day? Watch the reruns.
I was gonna say that’s, you know, on the edge of like, old person talking, so I, I’m aware that Gilligan’s Island existed. You and Len probably saw the, the, the initial, what’s it, what’s it called? The pilot, you guys probably watched the pilot on, uh, a, B, C or whatever it was.
I dunno.
Let’s ask him. The guy deep under Los Angeles in his bunker, as usual, Mr. Len Pezo is here. Len, you, uh, did you watch the pilot of Gilligan’s Island?
I didn’t know Gilligan’s, I didn’t know there was a pilot on the island. I thought there was a skipper and there was gilian, but, uh, maybe I missed that.
It doesn’t get better than this. Yeah,
I’m not sure. Not get better. Yeah. How are you Mr. Penso?
Well, you know, I just had my 60th birthday and I know, um, holy crap, Joe. You’re a little younger than me, but, uh, it was kind of dramatic here and I’ve been reflecting and, you know, I used to think I was indecisive, but uh, now I’m not so sure.
Oh, my. What? And it’s still Thank you. Thank you. I’m wondering what the hell they’re doing here. They have not been with us since, uh, Diana, your economy conference where we did our live show. We’ve got the Bitches Get Riches, ladies back. The, the blog that I have said over and over is not aimed at me, but is my favorite plug on earth by far.
Piggy and Kitty here, how are you ladies?
We’re great. We are ready for this three hour tour. I
mean, we do have our agent on the phone complaining that we’re here, but yeah, if we are, we’re out. We’re out. We’re already in it. We already put clothes on so we’re here. We’re ready.
Well, it just so people know the voices ’cause this is there, there’s two of you playing on team Paula Pant this week and she couldn’t be here.
Mm-Hmm. Let’s do the voices so everybody knows in Audio Land. Kitty, how are you?
I am kitty and I wanna be the pant in the Paula
pant. And then the Paula in the Paula pant is piggy.
Yes, I am, uh, the Paula in this Paula pant. I am piggy. We are the bitches. And bitches get riches. And
by the way, um, oh my God, this is funny.
I started that sentence and I got halfway through it. I have no idea what I was gonna say.
By the way. It doesn’t get any better, does it, Len?
Unfortunately, no. And I’m significantly younger. I have, I have no idea. Well, I don’t know about significantly the memories. It’s a rounding error. I’m gonna keep
playing that card, Len.
I think Joe rounds to 60 at this point, so
I’m gonna keep playing that card. But anyway, uh, piggy and kitty, last time you guys regaled us with your theme song on Diana’s economy stage, that was fantastic. I was surprised your agent wasn’t talking to you. More about that, about like going on tour with Taylor Swift.
You know, we had offers, but at the end we just felt that there wasn’t quite synergy between our brands. You know, tons of respect and admiration for Taylor and what she’s doing, but, you know, we needed to, to go
our
own way. I’m so glad you used the word synergy, because it’s my least favorite word, and so I try to use it constantly.
I really
appreciate. You’re welcome. You’re welcome.
And we were on stage together at Economy. Diana, how’s Eco Economy Conference? I can’t believe it’s next weekend. How’s, uh, how are tickets
looking? It’s funny because I see an email come through. I shouldn’t be paying attention to this, but, uh, nice,
glad you’re here with this, Diana.
Two more tickets literally just sold, so it’s very exciting.
Yes. Uh, if you go to economy.com/. Uh, well economy.com and you use code Stacking
Benjamins economy conference.com and the code is conference Stacking, Benjamins, all one word. You get 10% off. Get it right. You’ve got any tickets left? Those could have been the last two that just sold.
I don’t know, I can’t keep track anymore.
Who knows? Well, we’ve got a great piece from the Morgan Housel, so we’re gonna dive into that in just a second. Uh, today’s, uh, round table discussion brought to you by State Farm. State Farm agents. Our small business owners too, so they know how to help you choose personalized policies that fit your needs like a good neighbor.
State Farm is there. Talk to your local agent today. They were, they were piggy a neighbor of yours, huh? Yes,
that is correct. I grew up in normal Illinois, which is right next door to their corporate headquarters. I ate a lot of very sad lunches in their cafeteria, so thanks. State
Farms.
Sad lunches brought to you by State Farm.
That’s not the marketing they’re looking for from us here, kitty. You gotta get that. No,
we’re throwing that
on top for free. That’s a bonus. Uh, by the way, what was on those sandwiches at State Farm?
I remember a lot of wilted lettuce. And keep in mind, this is the Midwest, so ranch dressing and cheddar cheese is what makes.
No mayonnaise. How come there wasn’t any mayonnaise? We’re working
on that. It’s Miracle Whip. It’s the Midwest. Midwest. Thank you. Miracle Whip. Miracle Whip. I believe it’s
pronounced aioli, whip, whip, whip. Not the native New Englander
like whoa, whoa, whoa. Back off. Midwestern people. Yeah. Well, uh, kitty, I’m sure you’ve done poetry Around A Miracle Whip.
Miracle Whip is its own poetry.
That was an amazing poem. Thank you for yelling us with it.
We’ve got Kita Piggy here. The bitches are with us, Diana, Miriam, and Lenzo. So let’s go
while our, uh, little intro is playing there. Len, you, you decided that you and OG need to be the bastards then?
Yes. I think that’s only appropriate. I feel a little left out. You know, you’ve got, uh, kitty and Piggy over here getting their own. Of course. Title I I want a title too. Yeah, the Bitches in the Bastards.
You with me og.
Uh, yeah, sure. Whatever, man.
And so where does that leave Diana? Piggy? You’re gonna be, you’re, you’re making her an honorary.
Oh, Diana’s an honorary bitch. She has been part of our family for quite some time. So, Diana,
I always thought of you as a huge bitch. I’ve been a bitch my whole life.
Actually,
you know what? She was Let’s, some people are born to bitchiness. Some have it thrust upon them. Mm-Hmm. And Diana, I think we can safely say was born to it.
Thank you. I’ve been working on my resting bitch face for this recording, so I hope you all enjoy that. I
think chef’s kiss.
Diana, do you wanna identify as a bastard?
You’re welcome. In our group. No, no, no,
no, no, no. We claimed her for hours. She’s hours. Len, back off.
I told OG before we started recording how much film we’re gonna have and I was like, I wonder if we’re ever gonna get to the piece. And I know that’s what everybody’s thinking right now. This is, uh, by I Morgan Hausel.
He has a few thoughts on spending money, specifically 13. Dunno if he thought about that unlucky number, but, uh, Morgan just published this at the end of January and I found these super interesting. Let’s start with just his first one. We’re gonna walk through a few of these. I’ll link to them on our show notes page at Stacking Benjamins dot com.
But you, you truly do not need to read along. We’re gonna give you everything you need and more. The place I wanna start is, Morgan says this, there are two ways to use money. One is as a tool to live a better life. The other is as a yardstick of status to measure yourself against others. Many people aspire for the former, but get caught up chasing the ladder.
I don’t know. Uh, kitty, let’s start with you. Is there ever a time in your life when you found yourself chasing the admiration of others by spending more money or chasing their love? I.
Well, Joe, first I wanna say that I agree that money is a tool, and I would know because I’m a huge tool myself. It’s true.
I have found yes, that for me, money is typically secondary. What I am often chasing is achievement. And those two things so often go hand in hand together. And it’s taken me 100% of my life and will continue to take me more to figure out what is the difference between an achievement that I really want for myself versus what is an achievement that is me trying to be the best little girl in the world who wants to prove that I’m worthy of love, worthy of respect, worthy of the space that I take up in the world.
And so I really feel that one in that way. Money often comes when you chase achievements, but uh, do you even really need it?
Well, it just makes me think, piggy that what Kitty’s saying. I feel like the internet makes it worse. Like social media makes it even worse, don’t you?
Absolutely. Oh, absolutely.
Absolutely. A hundred percent. And I mean, this is, if you have ever wanted to travel or you fo you follow travel Instagrams, or I believe the children are calling it the clock, the the clock clocky talk app, uh, TikTok, that’s the one, that’s the one that kids are on. Yeah. If you follow those traveling accounts, it can be really easy to, to look around and be like, oh, all these people are taking fabulous European vacations.
All these people are spelunking in Asia. Why? Why am I not doing that? Clearly? I’m missing out on something. So it can be really easy to derail your own plans and your own sort of purposes that you’ve set money aside for because you feel like you, you should be doing something that you’re not. You should be keeping up with the Joneses or in some ways living up to these aspirational social media accounts on, on that clock.
Ty,
Ty app. I think it’s possible to have a little bit of both here, where you’re using money as a tool to buy your freedom, but it’s also a little bit of a flex. So I’ll give you an example. I drive a 2010 Mazda three. Like there is no flex scoreboard when it comes to my car, right? But I had a bumper sticker on the back for a long time that said, my other vehicle is a 401k, which is actually a big flex.
So I think there’s a, a fun way to combine the two
there. Excellent finance pun, by the
way, I think it’s funny how a flex in our community is different. Like, my car’s got 250,000 miles on it. Bam. Like it’s a whole, whole different type of Flex. Len, you were young once upon a time, I heard, supposedly a long time ago.
Did you find yourself getting caught up in the yardstick of status to measure yourself against other people? No,
I’ve not at all. I’ve never been in. Pressed by displays of wealth or what, or supposed displays of wealth? Um, maybe it’s ’cause I realized that just because you can flash wealth or you have wealth, you are like a flashy car or something.
That doesn’t mean you’ve, you’re wealthy anyways. Does it, it could mean, and in many cases it probably means you’re just over-leveraged yourself with, with debt and your living paycheck to paycheck to keep that thing on the road and impress people. So, so for me, that’s never been an issue with me. I’ve, I bought my very first new car when I was 50 years old.
Which unbelievably was a decade ago from there. So I’ve never been, I’ve never had, I’ve never, never had that. And, and I, that’s fortunate for me, I think because it sure helped me save as much as I needed to retire when I did. How old were you when you retired Ly. I was
58 at a boy. Did you walk uphill both ways with no shoes to retirement?
Yes. Was it knowing,
you know what, folks work hard and save your money that way when you’re old like me, you can, uh, buy the things that only young people can enjoy. Like,
uh, squirrel watching cameras and apps. Yes. Yeah. Which our community can’t get enough of. And kitty and piggy have no idea that We’re not kidding Len.
Len has these cool squirrel watching apps. How
dare you think that in my household, we are not the kind of people who go running into the next room to say, oh my God, there’s a blue jay. There’s a blue jay. Hurry, run. We’ve got them.
Birds are one thing. I get birds, like they’re different and they’re colorful, but squirrels.
Kitty
squirrels, kitty. All you need is a camera. If you have a camera, you don’t need to run anywhere. You can sit in your couch and watch TV and then still pick up your phone and see the squirrel or blue jay
on the camera view. You’re so shame on me for wanting to burn a calorie. I will consider, uh, this an investment in in my future.
Thank you. Well, you see
this? We got you on the status thing right there, kitty. Like if you don’t have any status with us, you’re going to buy the squirrel cam. That’s,
that’s total. I’ve
gotta get a squirrel cam. Otherwise, what would the boys think of me?
That’s, I kind of imagine Len in this like Batman esque command center with like screens upon screens of squirrel cams displaying and cardinal alert.
Not yet.
Please tell me You have a squirrel picnic table though. We do. Oh, thank God. Absolutely.
And I painted on the side of it says nuts 5 cents. So it’s really cool in the video so you can see the
But those bastards don’t pay Len.
They don’t pay. I know. Well you know what’s funny is I always ask the honey pack because they leave a nickel this time. No, they never, they’ve never left a nickel.
Yes, because it’s the honor system. But squirrels have no honor.
Squirrels have
no honor. Well, we’re in for like $30 a month in nuts for these squirrels.
It’s uh, almost as expensive as a dog. Yeah.
This is the road to fire people like you heard it here for Put yourself a squirrel cam. Spend $30 a month on nuts and you’ll be at early retirement before you know it. No piggy. This
is the road to a podcast. Nobody listens to.
Welcome radio. Yeah. Oh gee, and I’m sure you see this all the time, is that people constantly, I mean, they will tell you when they’re in your financial planning office that they want a better life. And yet when you look at the things they own, it says, I want status. It’s
like the, uh, Maury Povi show, right?
Like you say that you are the father, the test results show you are not right,
or you know, whatever you say you’re interested in retirement, but however, yeah, you wanna
retire, but your, your spending pattern suggests that you wanna work till you’re 93. I think there’s a time and a place for all of these experiences and kind of the story arc of, I’m surprised, Len, that you said that it’s never happened to you.
And I suppose you’re probably in the minority.
Oh, I’m sure, yes. Vast minority. I’m sure I’m in the
minority. Yes. And he talks about, a little bit later, about like different types of money, like if you came from money or if you came from not having money that’s gonna maybe kind of pull you in one direction or another.
But we’ve talked a lot about the transition from things to experiences, and I think that at some level, like you just have enough stuff to not actually care about having more stuff, but instead you do wanna do those things. I stopped going on Instagram because of the Yellowstone Club. If you don’t follow Yellowstone Club on Instagram, you’re missing out on, on fomo like crazy because it is the most magical place in the world.
And Justin Timberlake has a house there, apparently, and Jerry Seinfeld, and you pretty much realize that there’s no chance that you’ll ever have $30 million to spend on one house. Not, not like 30 million total, but just like one house is 30 million. You’re like, holy crap. What? What do I not know? That ex doesn’t, you know, that exists.
Like, there’s so much out there. It’s too much. It’s too much. Just do you focus on what’s important to you. And if you wanna drive a fancy car, drive a fancy car. But don’t do it at the, at the expense of other financial goals. I think that’s the biggest thing when it comes to planning and kind of doing your thing, is that what I like to do and what I spend money on may be different than what you wanna spend money on, and that’s totally fine, but as long as you’re reaching your financial goals and I’m reaching my financial goals, who gives a crap?
Up near the top of this piece as well is, uh, this quote from Morgan Money’s a tool you can use, but if you’re not careful, it will use you. Sometimes the stuff you spend money on is so much influence over your autonomy and sanity that it’s not clear whether you own things or the things own you. Piggy, let’s start with you on that one, because.
I immediately thought of some stuff. I’m like, well, how does money own me? Like when you read this, how do you think w in what ways can money own you if you’re not careful?
I thought of one word and that word is burnout. I think a lot of people in the quest to, whether it’s to retire early or to achieve some lofty financial goal, they end up burning themselves out for the sake of accumulating money.
And we, we, the bitches are actually releasing a course this month on burnout, how to identify it, how to manage it, how to make sure it’s not ruling your life. But I, I think that that’s the biggest way that money can rule you is the mindless accumulation of it with no thought to how you are a, a living, breathing bag of, of blood along the way.
And that you, you have biological needs like sleep and you have emotional needs like rest and relaxation and hobbies and uh, whatever else. Floats your boat and rubs your Buddha. If we’re talking about money ruling us, the biggest thing we need to be worried about is being intentional. Uh, intentional not to just run face first into a wall of burnout and stress on our way to allowing money ruling us.
It’s funny, piggy, we had John AOV on the show back in mid-January, early January. Uh, actually I take that back first week of January and I asked him about burnout and he said this, he’s like, people talk about burnout is just doing too much. He said, burnout in his opinion is burnout is when those actions don’t meet your priorities.
When you realize that I’m doing a bunch of stuff like you, you don’t get burnout doing the crap you like, right? Yeah. You, you give, you get burnout when you’re like, I am doing so much stuff and none of this aligns with my goals, and I’m seeing you nod your
head.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You can do things that align with your goals, but there’s no way that one can work super.
And I say this as somebody who worked super hard to pay off my student loan debt. Like if there were times in that journey when I was so burned out and I was so tired ’cause I was working multiple jobs and I was putting every penny toward my debt, which is exactly what we tell people to do when they’re trying to get outta debt.
But there came moments where I was just like, you know what? If I spent. $6 on a beer right now. Like would that really hurt my goals that much? Not so much, but it would help me relax. It would put me in a position where I am in a place where I have nothing to do, nowhere to be, and I can just socialize and I can just relax.
Or, you know, spending a couple dollars on a bath bomb or whatever’s gonna relax you, that’s not going to set your goals behind that much. But it is going to do a lot for your ability to persevere and your endurance to get through without burning out and then losing way more progress
towards your goals.
But it’s funny though, we did a show a couple weeks ago where we talked about, you talked about having a beer not gonna hurt you toward your goals, but there are people on the big time, you know, I’m an overachiever, I’m working in this big organization, I’m trying to climb the corporate ladder that that one beer piggy turns into self-medication and then, and then it totally goes against what you’re trying to do.
Yeah, I think
that that’s totally fair, and I think that there was a time in my life when I was one of those people and oh, I totally was. Like Kitty can attest to this. Like, we’ve, we’ve all been there. I think it’s, it’s learning to moderate yourself. Like, do you guys know what Rumspringa is? It’s like when all the, okay, great.
I’m teaching you a new word. This is so fun. So
Amish kids, I learned about Rums Shaker listening to, uh, like, uh, what was that rap song in the early nineties? Inappropriate. This is a whole different thing.
Inappropriate,
inappropriate cut that, oh, that’s, that’s a different thing. Nope. Slightly different.
Slightly different. Uh, no. Rumspringa is what happens when Amish kids are in their late teens and they’ve grown up in this Amish community. They don’t have technology, they don’t have access to the internet. And their parents say, all right, for the next year, you’re going out into the secular world and you’re going to do whatever you want for that year.
And if at the end of the year you’re ready to come back and live the Amish lifestyle, great. And if not, also no foul. Like go on and, and live in the secular world. And what they find is a lot of these kids who have spent their whole life so restricted, living this very restrictive Amish lifestyle, they go out in the world and they go nuts.
They party, they drink, they do all these wild experiences, and, and they just have a great time. And then when they come back, they’re like, whew. Okay. I think I’m ready to buckle down. I think I, I really believe in our lifestyle and I’m ready to get to it and I, I feel like the concept of Rumspringa is just like if you bottle something up so much, like you’re way more willing to keeping it under pressure like a bottle of champagne.
You pop it and it just like all comes pouring out. So the point, and I do have one, is that if we are bottling up all our self care, all of our little tiny luxuries, like a beer after work or a. Bubble bath. Can you guys tell I really need a bubble bath? If you’re bottling all these up and you’re not engaging in even one small form of self-care, you’re far more likely to burn out and then like, just go nuts with using multiple beers as a coping mechanism or, or self-medicating in some way, which is why you need to engage in this very moderate, very planned, intentional form of relaxation and self-care as you’re on your financial journey.
’cause you don’t wanna, you don’t wanna have your rum springing a moment, which will totally throw you off your goals.
That’s wild. I had never, I had never heard of that and we had, the last
25 years has been that for me.
You sing a moment? Yes, absolutely.
Sing at 20 years. I’m ready to buckle down, guys. All right.
All right. Just maybe one more weekend though, and then I’ll be back. Back gie and then I’ll be back. Maybe a Monday.
It’s funny, I love where you took that piggy, because that was not at all what I was thinking about Kitty. When you read this, what came across your mind for money using you?
When, when I read what, what I read,
we read something,
there was homework.
Were we, were we supposed to do this? When you, when you saw that money’s a tool you use, but if you’re not careful it can use you. I was like, what? I didn’t think at all what piggy thought, but I love that. What, what did you think? You
know, it’s interesting. What came to mind for me first was the number of people that I know who have set up a lifestyle where.
They feel that it’s necessary for them to spend an awful lot of money in order to not provide for themselves, but to provide for everyone around them. I think of the people that I know who take on a, a second job that they do on nights and weekends because they want to be able to afford to send their child to private school.
That is the kind of decision that people make because not only is sending their child to the best possible school, important to them, but it’s part of their identity that I want to live my values, and part of my values is that I’m going to be the best parent that I can be and I’m going to make sure that my children have every advantage that I’m capable of giving them.
But what is so interesting is when you see people who really like I. Over commit to providing the best of everything. You often end up with like, the consequence of that decision is like that this hypothetical parent then isn’t spending that time, those nights and weekends with their child, or maybe they’re going to the soccer game, but they’re like furiously typing on a tablet the whole time, which is
just so depressing.
Spending money instead of spending time. Yeah, yeah,
yeah. It just becomes a trap that I don’t know how to show the world or the people around me what my priorities are unless I’m spending money and time on them. And that is oftentimes, that is how we can show that something’s important to us. We spend our time and we spend our money on it.
Those are our two most limited resources. But the consequence is that can you show how much something matters to you without throwing money at it? Can you show someone how much you love them and how much you wanna provide for them? Without spending a dime, it’s, it’s challenging. And I don’t blame people who get stuck in a loop of thinking that, well, my child or my partner, or my family or my dog deserves the very best in life.
I just bought an 80 pound bag of dog food who is so expensive, and my old dog, who I bought it for to try to put weight on him, he won’t eat it. So, you know what squirrel these hangers on.
Look out for
yourself. That does the same thing for the squirrels. He takes the acorns and spreads peanut butter on every single one.
He’s like,
I’m saving room. They do get special treats. They’ll get it out avocado. Sometimes we’ll throw a little pecan in with the walnuts. Uh, they like, uh, some of ’em like bread, some, you know, the really, the nice French bread they
enjoy. Six weeks from now we’re gonna hear this story on len’s blog about how the squirrels got into the attic.
They ruined all the, all the
insulation. No, this is California. The squirrels don’t even bother. Let
squirrels eat better than I do. I know your avocado toast feasting
squirrels. My god,
they’re gonna rise up against you. Let’s bougie. You better be careful. Squirrels in the backyard, some
lattes. So Kitty, I love where you took that also, and that’s not where I took it either.
Lynn, how about you? What did you think when you saw this? Well, to
me it’s when you allow money to be a drug for you and you kind of abuse money, and most people abuse money by spending up to their income level. So, and then you get on that hamster wheel where you continually want. More, and you have to strive to make more and more and more and more just to keep pace.
So to me it’s, it’s like any drug. I mean, it’s a great thing in small quantities, but if you abuse it, it can end up being very addictive and it can actually backfire on you. So the quest for more money, and it comes down really to self-restraint. Um, I mean, there comes a point, uh, like I remember when I was younger, I had a goal in my, I remember when I first started working, I said, well, I wanna make X salary.
You know, if I can get to that number, I’m gonna be perfectly fine. I mean, life’s gonna be great. And usually that works as long as you’re willing to, once you get to that X number, you don’t continue. I mean, you spend way below your means. You live below your means and don’t expand your spending to get to that number.
Because if you continually expand your spending to match whatever your, your salary increases or your income, whatever it is, it, it kind of increases that hunger, that that drive for more money and forces you to probably work harder than you really. Want should be working to be healthy anyways, I got
this much and now I got this raise.
And so if I get the next raise, then I can buy X. And then you’re in this buy cycle loop. Yeah.
And you have to continually keep getting raises Right. To continue. And if you don’t, uh, you’re really up a creek too. So, um, it’s the
beginning of the rat race right there. Yeah. Yep. That’s the beginning of the rat race.
Still not, not what I was thinking. og. og, how about you?
It’s like a competition to try to read Joe’s mind. No, actually
it’s not at all. I was like, I was gonna go through
13 of these. Why don’t you just tell us what you’re thinking instead of asking all of us. No, the thing that popped in my head for this around having money control you was the experience that we had in the pursuit of all of the real estate that we owned.
I was thinking about this in a couple of contexts, both from the rental property standpoint of I’m investing into passive income, which was a crap load of work to get a little bit of income. Now it paid off in the backend
and the most on passive, passive investment you ever had. Yes.
And people talk about this stuff like, I retired when I’m 34 and I with all this money and look how great I am.
It’s like, well, yeah, now you make 300 grand a year blogging so. You know, you didn’t really retire, you changed jobs, which is a different way of, of saying it.
Yeah. I want
more people to talk about that. It
doesn’t bother me, you know? But don’t tell somebody you’re retire. I, you know, I mean, that’s fine. But my point is, I, I want
our blog to make 300 grand.
Can you hook us up with a, I know. Whatever that
was. Yeah, exactly. Well, as soon as we figure out how to do it,
kitty, here’s what you do. And it, and it worked for me. I did just get all your readers and tell ’em to click on every ad on your blog page. And I’m telling you, you can make a good chunk of change.
Does that
actively nickels roll in? Click here. Just click everything. Support the blog. Just click everything. Click everything. Yeah. He’s got a banner on the top. His, his website’s called Click everything.com. Yeah. Click everything.
Play penso.com/click
everything. Click here info. I love it.
It’s, we’re gonna play a game today, everybody.
Who gets the most clicks? How many of these ads can you click in a minute?
It’s called Pay my Water Bill. Here’s how it
works. Reminded me of the guy that sold a website for, had had a million pixels. It was a yes. What? 10,000 by 10,000. And you could buy each pixel with your brand for a dollar. And so people were buying, you know, five pixels and 10 pixels until he filled it all up and he had a million dollars we need to take.
Yes, he did. From one, oh my god. From one thing. But anyways, this whole pursuit of like passive income with rental properties was at anything. But it was like this huge expensive time. This huge expensive money and capital to allegedly free myself up from having to work for money. And it was like, well that didn’t work.
You know, because I spent so much time and energy trying to do all the time and energy as opposed to. The actual passive thing. Or another great example is, you know, you buy a lake house or something like that and you’re like, I have just done this great thing and what do you do? You have spent, you have to go work back to lens point, but you have to go work to afford the lake house that you can no longer.
I think Kitty was talking about this too, that you can no longer go to because you have to work. Mm-Hmm. To afford the lake house, but you’re now working extra time that you couldn’t do. It’s just like this weird cycle of more, which. It is really bizarre. So, I don’t know, Joe, was that what you were thinking about or were you thinking about something?
Totally. I was
ding different. Well, we’re outta time. Be closest to what I was thinking. Yes. And we’re outta of
time. Wait, do I get a turn? Yes. Actually I think I know what Joe was thinking. It doesn’t
matter what I was thinking. Save us, Diana. Save. I’m
loving what you guys were thinking. I don’t if, if anybody’s wondering, I don’t care what I was thinking.
I’ll, I will tell you what I was thinking, but it doesn’t matter. These are, it’s incredible though. I think what we’re getting is the number of ways money can control you. ’cause all those were different and money can control you in so many different ways. Yeah. And uh, Diana.
Yeah, well what I thought of this point of your money could own you is when you buy a bunch of luxurious, expensive things, now you take on, you know, you need to maintain them, you need to protect them.
You need to, that’s what
I was
thinking. Yeah. Right there. Like, I think about, you know, shortly after I bought my house. Six years ago we had some break-ins in the neighborhood. It ended up being like some young kids that were just like stealing electronics. But a lot of my neighbors went and like got expensive security systems.
We gotta protect our stuff, you know? And I remember talking to my neighbors about it and then looking around my house and being like, what are they gonna take the toaster? You know, like I don’t, I don’t have anything of real value that I’m like worried about anyone taking, and I actually think there’s a lot of freedom in that.
If I had a bunch of like expensive things, now I gotta worry about protecting them and buying even more stuff to protect my expensive stuff.
Diana, how could you say that with Buddy in your house?
It’s like drive a beater car. You can, uh, have, keep the windows down wherever you go. You don’t have to lock the car, nothing.
Just, yeah, get right to wherever you’re
going. Just, it’s awesome. Just steal me on the
side. No insurance. It’s beautiful.
I don’t know if you heard what Kitty said, but you have Buddy, uh, who is the most irreplaceable, valuable thing in the world. So, and the
first thing I’d steal in your home, to be honest, yes.
I’d
just be like, come here buddy. Come here buddy. Have this
T-bone. He would like welcome you in and show you where, where his most prized possessions are.
Oh, thank you for this raggedy old chew toy. Thank you buddy.
He’d actually escort you right over to the toaster and say, please take it. Right. No, what I was thinking, Diana, very similarly, I immediately thought of this, uh, Henry David Thoreau quote, which I had to pull up so that I get the exact line.
The fancy Thoreau, yeah. Uh, flex here. The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life, which is required to be exchange for it immediately or in the long run. And I don’t know what age I was, but I finally realized that everything that I bought, more stuff that I bought meant either it would sit in a corner doing nothing and it does nothing for me.
So then why do I buy it? Or I’m gonna actually spend time with it, doing something with it, and then I’m actually spending this currency, which I have finite amount of, which is time I can get more money. I can’t get more time. And so for me, that’s how money ended up using me. But it was amazing, all these different ways that we could be used by cash.
Thanks
for throwing that out there. By the way, I was sitting on it. I was sitting on it. I was sitting on it de near a word you said. So excited for my pun. Once
again, you’re accepting applications for Kovich. Uh, we’ll be replacing Kitty.
And there it goes. We’re gonna come back to this and maybe we’ll get through two more of these, 13 in the second half, but at the halfway point of every Stacking Benjamins Friday round table episode, we have this epic competition between our three frequent contributors, Len Penso, OG, and Paula Pant.
And today, kitty and Piggy, as we said earlier, you are team Paula, which means kitty. There’s good news and bad news. Do you want the good news first or the bad news? Oh, the bad news. Well, the bad news is, is that Paula is doing what she does every stinking year in this competition, which is she’s in last place.
You did not have to tell me that. I love Paula so much and part of my love for her is knowing she is coming in last place in a trivia contest. Always. Yeah. No surprise
there. I
think her brain is full of all the big stuff.
It doesn’t really, it really is. Remember that time she like was gonna present on a stage in front of like 500 people at economy conference and she only shaved one of her legs and had to go running back to her most relatable moment
to shave her other leg.
Mm-Hmm. My God. I was like, I, I’ve never related more to a public figure.
Was the other leg that hairy? Could you actually see the hairy, the non saved leg from the, the audience? It was that. We declined to comment.
We declined to comment.
I don’t think my legs are that hairy. We’ll get that for Paula
next week.
Eat
your
Wheaties. That’s right. Oh gee. Wasn’t live with us that day. He said it was because he missed his flight. True story is he didn’t shave his left leg. That was Oh no. og. Exactly how that happens. Yes, that’s what really happened. But anyway, Paula has one so far this year. OG has two and our reigning champion, Len has three, which the good news then Kitty, is that you and piggy get to go last because you’re in the last place.
Okay. OGs gonna guess second. Glen guesses first. But we need a trivia question and that’s where Diana comes in. Diana, what are we guessing today?
Hey there, stackers. I’m Joe’s mom’s cousin Diana, on this day in 1921, actor Alan Hale, who played the beloved skipper on Gilligan’s Island, was born in Los Angeles to two actors, Hale’s parents were both successful, appearing in a combined 300 plus films, mostly silent now. Those are lines I could remember.
No problem. Gilligan’s Island, my dream Life. Just a group of friends laying around on the beach all day with nothing to worry about. What an easy life. As much as my family would miss me if I was stranded on an island, it would be nice for me to not have to pay bills for a while. Plus I’d still be earning on my investments.
Do you think
the credit card companies would give up on you? Diana, if you’re on Gilligan’s Island, they might like, at some point they’re like, this was a three hour tour.
This is a three hour question. Lemme get through
it. Joe. Sally May. Sally Mae would probably find you on Gilligan’s Island. Yeah. I think that’s how
you’d get rescued from the island is Sally Mae would come find you.
That’s exactly, but that was before the student loan crisis. Diana continue,
but I don’t have debt. I’d still be earning on my investments. A steady income with no bills. Sign me up. If Mr. Howell, the most financially savvy of the Castaways had invested a thousand dollars in the stock market on the day before they set sale September 26th, 1964, he would’ve come back to a nice chunk of money, assuming a return of 8%, and of course, no additional contributions.
It would’ve been worth $3,172 and 17 cents on the day they were rescued. Today’s trivia question is, how many days were the castaway stranded on Gilligan’s Island? I’ll be right back after I find my Swiss Army knife and flares jeans. That is,
of course, you gotta have your flare jeans of
its 19. Oh my God.
Yeah. What was the interest rate? 8%. 8%. Okay. Is the interest rate okay. Are we allowed to use calculators?
Nope. Uh, the calculator in your brain, you get to use,
it’s been broken since I, I used it to write boobs in eighth grade.
The question is, how long were they on the island before they were rescued?
Right? How
many, how many days? 8% rate of return. Mr. Howell starts with a thousand. He’s got 3,700. What? Wait a minute. Hold on.
$8. What’s that? Got to? What’s the rate of return have to do with how long it’s been since they were rescued? How many days
they were, let’s not fill in, but because on the day he was rescued, it was worth 3000.
How much was it, Diana? I don’t remember.
$3,172 and 17 cents. So started with a thousand. Got over 3008% return. Okay. How many days did it take to get there?
Okay, so you’re, if I wanna do the math, I can work in reverse and, and figure it out. I have no freaking clue. Are you asking what is your end point? For how many days?
How many days When they were rescued? Is it how many days the show ran? Or from the day? The first premiere to the, to the
last? No,
hypothetically days. Were they on the island?
Hypothetically, and it’s in the storyline. They were maroon for X number of days. I’m sorry.
I fell asleep in the middle of that.
It was
long.
Len. I agree. He was distracted by,
and we cut it down, by the way, it was the squirrels. They distracted him. Leave the
man alone. Let me write this down. 8% return. It started with a thousand and they ended with what,
3,172 and
cents.
Wait, wait, wait, wait. He’s writing it down. I don’t know if that’s a battle.
Well, it’s a,
it’s a, it’s a math problem now.
Yeah, but I, I can’t use a calculator. Listen, I haven’t done paper
violates the spirit of the treaty, I believe. Oh, I, yeah.
Alright. I tend
to agree, Lynn. Okay. Uh, 8% return a thousand dollars. You finish with 3,172. Okay. I’m gonna have to be quiet about how I’m doing this because if I say how I’m doing this, then everybody else is gonna be, uh, I’m gonna say, uh, uh, double
this.
Okay. This is riveting radio, by the
way. Yeah. Rule of 72. Yeah. Rule of 72, your investment doubles. If it’s 8% return, eight divided by 72 is what? Uh, 13. 13 years. So wait, uh, nine years. Nine years. So a double at nine. And then another nice strategy, another half double at nine and another half is 13. I’m gonna say.
Uh, just 13 years.
Well, you gotta give us days. The question is days
13 years times 365. Can somebody please
matter? So please put lead out of his visitor
and it doesn’t matter ’cause these guys are gonna sandwich me. So I did all the
work. Promises.
Promises, huh? Uh, 15, uh, 19, uh, a thousand and then, uh, 365.
And so that’s, uh, 4,765
days. 4,765. og, what do you think of that number?
What was lens number?
4,000 765 4
7 6 5. Uh, so in case you don’t know the right way to play this is one of us picks the higher number. One of us picks the lower. Yes. Yep. And especially with this, we just kinda, we got yellow it out. Do you guys have a preference?
Would you prefer the over or the under? I’d really
love the over please, if that’s what I’m writing you. Yes. I’ll take the under. I’m looking out for Paula.
I’ll take the under. So whatever lens was minus as well. I’m
more of an I love Lucy person, so this is a big challenge. Yeah, yeah. Sucks to
suck, Lynn.
The last time I thought about Gillian’s Island was when I was like in a college literature course and I realized that you could sing all of the poems of Emily Dickinson to the Gilligan’s Island theme. That’s true. Yeah. Iel in possibility. Fair House Pros. More numerous for Windows. Superior for doors.
Art school
guys, it’s a steal. Only
$45,000 a
year. Okay, so, gee, I’m gonna, I’m gonna need you to say a number. What is your number then? My number is
one less than lens.
One less than Lens,
okay. Yes. 47. 64. 64. Yes, sir. Sounds great. And the bitch is steak 47 66. I’m hearing, yes.
Yes, that is correct.
And len’s shaking his head.
What’s wrong with,
I’m just wondering why I was even part of this question since I, I have no
Thank you for your sacrifice.
Next time I get to choose first, I expect a question with a very small number that I know the answer to. So it won’t matter what these other
two do. All right, we’ve got Len Penso locked in like a sa We got a penso sandwich going on in mom’s basement.
Love to tell you who is, uh, gonna get this one right. Might not be Len, but we’ll be right back. You
don’t think,
Len, you kicked this off by saying 4,765. How you feeling about that? Guess?
Well, you mean I did all the work is what you’re saying? Yes, I did all the work. Well, you’re
saying you, you, you probably nailed it though, so if you did the, if it’s a math problem, then you nailed it.
No, it’s not. It’s not the quite, there’s it, it, I’m off by some small amount, so, and is it up or down?
I don’t know. Yeah, I’m bitter. I’m bitter.
Ooh, OG in this sandwich you took the bottom. You like being on the bottom?
Uh, I took the under because I was a scholar and a gentleman and asked, uh, the bitches if they would prefer the over, uh, which I actually think is the answer. I think, I think the answer was greater than 13 years.
I don’t know why, but that’s, uh, well, remember
the rule of 72 is actually the rule of 69. So I, I, I, I kind of, uh, probably
also known as the rule of four 20. That’s right. Speaking of
sandwiches,
just too, too far, too many sandwiches. Feeling confident you getting Paula back in this race?
I’m feeling very confident
as far as expertise in vintage shows about being trapped on stranded islands.
We are likely a bit stronger on our lost. However, we’re feeling really good. Yes, we’re ready to
represent. Good one. We lost, but can you do Emily Dickinson to the lost theme? I don’t think so. The
lost theme is, it’s just
warm. It’s
a,
by the way, wasn’t lost. Wasn’t that kind of anticlimactic? The, the whole ending. You, you went, they strung us out for like seven years and then I know the end
was like, that’s, I waited like five years to watch the last season, and by the time I watched it, I was like, okay, this is, this is adequate. This does the job.
But at the time I was too angry to watch it.
Oh, piggy. When I heard an interview, maybe in season three with the writers, the writers were like, yeah, we don’t even know where it’s going. I’m like, I’m not investing time in this. Yeah. Like, if you don’t know where it’s going, why am I gonna write it? Clearly they were making it up near the end.
I figured out how lost ended because it was in a movie. It was like in, um, this is 40, that funny kind of Mm-Hmm. Comedy movie with Paul, uh, what’s his name? Paul Rudd Rudd. And the daughter was watching it and she found out how it ended and. It was just aplastic over the ending. So just watch, uh,
just watch.
We are 40 and you’ll get it. Speak of that. We’re gonna be 40 years older. When we get to the answer to this, Diana,
who’s, who’s gonna win this thing?
Diana?
Hey, there’s stackers. I’m survivalist and bitch who do well on dates, even on a deserted island. Joe’s mom’s cousin, Diana. During the break, I applied to be a contestant on the show Survivor.
It was a long break. You had plenty of time.
They ask you all kinds of personal questions like your birthday, your height, your weight.
There’s a good chance that like Doug often does. They’ll think I’m lying about my dimensions and throw out my application. If I don’t hear from them, I’ll know what happened. Some people just can’t accept perfection. No. Today’s trivia question is, how many days were the castaway stranded on Gilligan’s Island?
The answer, the close knit group of seven included the professor who was a science teacher during their time on the island. He built a number of things, including a washing machine, an electric generator, and a lie detector test, an odd collection of things to spend time on. When he could have been fixing the boat accounting for leap years, he would’ve been able to work on it for either 5,478 or 5,479 days.
Now I thought it was so interesting watching Len do these calculations because I knew the answer and the math was matting until he gave me his answer, which is 714 days under the actual answer, which means that the bitches are our winners.
Woo. Yay. You’re welcome. I’m looking for the music. Where is the music here?
It’s nice job ladies.
Thank you. Good work. Thank you. Thank you. We would like to thank Len, um, for bothering to do a little bit of math in his head. Uh, and we would like to thank OG for letting us choose the over or the under. We truly couldn’t have done it without both of you, but really, uh, we think Paula has us to thank for Yeah,
we definitely could not have win, except that you two both lost,
you know, as the bastards that we are.
og, we really, uh, we fought each other and look what happened. Anybody but Len with the Bitches win, that’s the Bitches won.
That’s the name of my, the Bitch is always great Trivia strategy for 2024. It’s either me or not Len. Those are my two options.
Piggy to add to your thanks. I’d like to thank deposit accounts.com for waiting forever until I mention their brand.
So we finally made it to the second part of this show. Kitty, you know what happens when you go to deposit accounts.com,
um, you’re probably going to get a better experience than having, um, everything made out of coconuts.
Slightly, slightly better. You can compare more than 275,000 deposit rates from over 11,000 banks in credit unions for free.
Pinch me. If you go just to deposit accounts.com, you’ll see the current rates on savings accounts, CDs, checking and money markets, and get this, the national average. As you’re reading this, check this out The day that you hear this ’cause we’re recording a little early national average on a savings rate, it’s 0.51%, top one IIII
0.53%.
It went up while we were doing this last trivia thing because it
took us so long. Uh, the top 1% is 4.98% if you’re in the top 1%. So that brick and mortar bank might not be doing all it can. Head to deposit accounts.com to compare, ditch, switch and save. Alright. All right, let’s go over some of these. We, we covered two of them.
Which one really spoke to you? Uh, kitty, why don’t you kick us off? Oh, hold on
one second. I actually have to lean closer to see it. Um, okay. There was one that I liked, um, which is the one, uh, the, which one is the one about? Uh, oh, here it is. Okay.
Um, she’s doing so well you guys, but again, I am looking for replacement.
So again, piggy@bitchesgetriches.com.
Okay. So I really like, um, could, could someone with their screen closer to their bodies read the bit about how someone’s psychological wounds can influence how they spend
their money. Me too. How you spend money can be a reflection of what you’ve experienced in life.
That one kitty. Yes. To someone who grew up snubbed by poverty. Owning a fancy car might be the ultimate symbol of what you’ve overcome to an old money family. It might be the ultimate symbol of ego and insecurity. I. People don’t just spend money on things they find fun or useful. Their decisions often reflect their psychological wounds of their life experiences.
Kitty, this is so true.
Absolutely. I think you cannot just like snap your fingers and, oh, I have an abundance mindset now, even though I, I grew up without enough food to go around. And so much of the money spending behavior that we can see in people that look so illogical, it has its own logic. They’re not just being like, sort of like, I’m the mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland.
I’m wacky for no reason. Um, instead they, they are doing something that makes sense if you could view it within the context of their entire life and how they grew up and what they value and what was denied to them at formative times in their life. So that one really touches me because I think we, we always touch on the fact that like, personal finance is personal.
What matters to one person is not even a, a remote priority to another, but like wounds, the wounds that someone carries is a really interesting way to put it.
It’s funny when you talk about looking from the outside in somebody’s expenses, you might think they’re crazy the way they spend money. We had an expert on recently who had a great point when they said that, um, instead of leading with, that’s stupid lead with if you’re gonna say something at all to someone say, how did you start there?
Like, what happened? And this person said, there’s always a story behind it, kitty. There’s always a story. And once you know the story, you, you get this whole different perspective you didn’t have before you asked that question. Absolutely. Yeah. Diana, it’s interesting because I’m thinking about some of the speakers you’ve had on the stage at economy and some of their stories, like money is so often much more psychological and much less, I don’t know, fact-based or much, you know, practical than we think it is.
Oh yeah. I mean, I think about just because you have money doesn’t mean that you are enjoying the emotional benefits of having money. Like I think about even Carl Jensen on the Economy stage, and we’ve all heard that historic interview that he did with Ramit, where you know, him and Mindy are what, sitting on $4 million and they have trouble spending it.
There can be a tendency when you have financial goals to be overly fixated on those goals. But the goal isn’t to sit on a pile of money. The goal is to use money as a tool to build a life focused on what actually matters. But money isn’t what actually matters. It’s almost like you have to get a bunch of money before you can realize that.
And I feel like I’m in this community where I’m surrounded by millionaires who look up at their net worth and all they feel is fear. And it’s kind of, it’s madness. You know? I think we, we have to start enjoying the security that can come from having a financial safety net, but we gotta go use that money to do stuff.
We can’t just sit on a pile of it. Yeah. ’cause
while you’re sitting on that pile of it, you’re wasting again that commodity that we can’t get back the time. Piggy, which one of these spoke to you?
Well, first off I wanna say don’t like speak for yourself when you say you can’t sit on a pile of money.
’cause I can sit on a lot of things. My butt is wide and flat and Italian. I can sit on.
Like, like a bird on a nest? No, I, the one that really spoke to me was near the bottom, where Morgan Housel says, there’s no such thing as an objective level of wealth. Everything is relative to someone else. I really feel like that speaks to me because I wrote a piece years ago about the subjectivity of expensiveness and how to some people things are really expensive, and to other people, they’re really not expensive, based on your net worth, how much income you make, et cetera, et cetera.
And I feel like. The same thing applies to wealth. And a lot of folks have a bad habit of only looking up when comparing and not looking down. And what I mean by that is if you, uh, are evaluating yourself by other people, very often you’re like, oh my gosh. Well, I’m gonna look at this person over here who has a really nice car, a really big house.
Like they can afford a cleaner, they can afford nice haircuts. And they’re not looking at the person below them on the great staircase of financial inequality and going, oh, well I can afford things that this person can’t. So the objectivity of wealth is non-existent because to the person below you, you are quite wealthy.
But to you, you know, you’re not looking below, you’re comparing yourself to people above. So you might be like, I’m not wealthy, I can’t afford my house being cleaned four times a month. Can you tell that like, my house needs to be cleaned? That really spoke to me. ’cause again, I, I need to look at the, you know, the mother of.
Twins panhandling in the grocery store parking lot when I’m feeling down on my luck and not the person who lives in my neighborhood and has an immaculately manicured lawn in a much larger house.
Well, and this is og what Strategic Coach OG and I both get coaching from this group called Strategic Coach.
They caution us on because people, as explained by Strategic Coach, oh gee, they keep moving the goalpost, right? I mean, if you don’t sit and stop comparing yourself and just look at what you’ve accomplished, you’ll always move the goalpost. Mm-Hmm.
Well, I think it’s important to continually work on yourself.
Sometimes that means having higher aspirational goals, but by the same token, there’s some limit of. Enough, you know, when it comes to just generally stuff, and we work with a lot of clients on long-term financial planning, and Len was trying to do some math in his head about the power of compounding. And it’s really profound.
It’s, it, we just can’t do it in our heads to, to forecast. If I save this money for this, you know, my entire lifetime, how much money will I have? And you do the just an Excel worksheet and you see, oh, it says I’m gonna have $25 million if I do this, or you know, some big number. And my contention along the way with all this is that you’ll never see that because hopefully someone in your corner, whether that’s somebody like us or other people around you, will go like, hold on, time out.
You don’t need to die with $25 million. Like, it’s cool to build the hospital now, like do it now. Like have the fun or have the experiences, or make the difference or do whatever’s important to you right now. While you’re able to enjoy that, while you’re able to see the benefits of it. Um, there’s a very popular book, the Die With Zero Book, and we were just talking about this with a client a little bit ago.
I don’t particularly like the idea of dying with Zero. That’s a gamble that I don’t want to take. Plus, I think that we get the benefit of time and why would I wanna rob my kids of the fact that I had 90 or a hundred years to save money ahead of them and like to give them that power of compounding that I took the first a hundred years on.
I think that’s a great gift, but I don’t think that’s the message of it. I don’t think the message is like literally die with zero. It’s like try to make it a, an impact on the things that are important to you while they can be important to the people that you’re trying to make an impact on. You know?
Yeah. If you go out and ask the, Make-A-Wish people, would you rather have $10 million in 50 years from now? Or would you rather have my $10,000 contribution today? Every day of the week, they’ll say, give us the 10,000 today because we’ve got a kid right now we can send to Disney World. And 10 million in a hundred years would probably great too.
But we’ve got kids now that need to benefit
from, you probably won’t be able to get into Disneyland for $10 million 50
years now probably. Right? If you’ve been there recently, I can attest to the fact that it’s gone up. That’s how I think about a lot of this stuff is it’s not a either or. It’s a, this is a continuum of decision making and all of this stuff kind of resonates with I think people who are thinking about financial planning the right way.
What’s interesting, the thing that I think about as I think about OG what you said and to what the piece that you brought up and this piece piggy is, you know, that old kind of trite phrase that comparison is the thief of joy, but it also is the thief of what makes us different and how it is this personal journey, like you talked about OG earlier, that, you know, for you buying individual properties was horrible for my son, it’s a hundred percent what he’d rather do and would rather do.
Nothing else owns these rental properties and he’s gonna actively buy more. He doesn’t think of it as he. Passive quote, passive income. I think that’s kinda laughable, but he certainly thinks of it as his path to financial
independence. It’s, that’s why I think it’s so important to recognize that everybody is in a different place and can be successful in different things.
You know, there’s, there’s, especially when it comes to money, there’s so many different paths to financial independence or financial stability or whatever the case may be. Some people take one path and then we’ve gotta be careful to not be on that on one side and go, well, that side’s stupid. It’s like, well, no, there’s plenty of people who are fabulously wealthy buying real estate, and some people are really great with day trading, penny stocks.
I mean, it’s not what I would do. It doesn’t make my way good and they’re way bad. It’s what’s good for you and the skillset that you have and the capacity that you have to, to get better at whatever it is that you’re. That you’re working
on. So, Len, give us one more.
Uh, let’s see. The one that resonated with me was the unspent money by something intangible but valuable.
He says, freedom, independence, autonomy, and control over your time. This is his writing. It says, every dollar of savings buys a claim check on the future. That’s one way to look at it. I like the reverse way of looking at it, and that is when you’re spending money that you don’t have, you’re actually buying into indentured servitude.
So you’re actually limiting your choices in life. So look at it that way. That’s less choices when you’re borrowing more choices when you’re saving. That being said, if you have to borrow, make sure you always borrow from a pessimist.
Well, why? Why?
Well, ’cause they, they never expect you to pay
it back or borrow from Paula Pan.
Didn’t Paula say when she loans you money, it’s a gift? Yeah. So I immediately asked her for five grand. You should have heard. I mean, that didn’t happen. I was kind of, I’m like, come on, Paula. It’s amazing. Um, Kenny, when you go and buy something, do you think about it in lens’s terms? Do you think about it?
Of, I’m, I’m getting rid of freedom, I’m exchanging this purchase for freedom tomorrow? I have
never thought of money any other way. I remember very vividly that my very first job was as a camp counselor, uh, for a kids’ summer camp. And I had to wake up at five in the morning to be at the camp by six. And there was only one place in our tiny, tiny town that was open at that time, which was Krispy Kreme.
So me and all of my coworkers would converge at the Krispy Kreme at the same time, at the crack of dawn. And not to date myself, but this means that I would’ve been making 6 25 an hour, um, would’ve been the minimum wage at the time when I would buy a donut and a coffee. It was almost 6 25. And so every morning I went in knowing that.
I just spent my first hour of labor just to feed myself enough to get up the energy to chase these horrible children.
You know what though, Katie, that is a great way of teaching kids about the value of money as well. I’ve, I’ve always, I still do that with my kids, even though they’re grown up, but I’ve always done that since, Hey, it’s gonna take you two hours now to make of work to pay for what you just bought.
And it, that seems to really sink in with kids. So I, that’s, uh,
great. Well, but I was gonna say, kitty, working at a summer camp for kids, no wonder you chose something that’s like 90% sugar. I. Just to give yourself the energy to chase those kids around.
They were coming for me on the Foursquare Court and I needed to defend my status as the king.
So I really needed everything I
could get. Children are a
blessing. Back then Kitty’s blog was called Bitches Get Stitches.
That’s right. True story. Come for me. You’re gonna find out what asphalt feels like on your face.
I think that’s a great place to leave it. Don’t come for Kitty. We’re gonna finish right there.
Let’s find out what’s happening, where all of you are at. We’ll have our guest of honor go last. So og what you got going on this weekend? This week is
leading into spring break. So my oldest actually tomorrow is uh, taking his SATs and then I’m gonna go skiing for a couple of days. I gotta stay home ’cause I’ve got real work to do, but.
Oh, shucks. I have the house to myself. Well, it really bums me out. I’m not gonna be able to hang out with my family for a week. Bummer. But, um, uh, yeah, so that’s what’s going on. A, a quiet week around the OG house.
Fabulous. Len, what’s going on@lenpezo.com? Man,
you know, every once in a while I do have something useful on the blog.
And this week, uh, we talk about, there’s actually an allocation that’s been a portfolio allocation, not the 60 40, but there’s one out there that, uh, with a mix of four different assets that some people call the perfect portfolio, uh, diversification scheme. So what are those four assets? Stop by len penso.com and you’ll find out that they, that the returns over a a hundred year period have been, the proof is in the pudding.
Uh, and they’ve done very well, actually better than the 60 40 asset allocation. Wait
on, wait, I think I got ’em. Len, you do. Lottery tickets, cigarettes, and I don’t have the other two. Well, that’s good. Candy,
candy, canne, candy corns, bumpers, and blow.
I’m glad you didn’t reveal the other two, Joe. But Ellen, one last thing is when you do stop by, please click on those ads.
Uh, mold two or three at least, uh, would be very helpful to me as a retired
person. It’s a fun game for the whole family. Get the whole family over there. Let back, just click everything. Yes. Oh, uh, kitty and Piggy. So glad you guys spent time with us again. That was so fun. Thanks for hanging out.
Our pleasure.
Our pleasure.
What’s happening, a bitches get rich is I just spent some time maybe a week ago going through all the different ways to pay down debt that you had, you, the snowball method and the, and I, by the way, anytime that you can put poetry in there and rag on, uh, Mr. Ramsey a little bit and have some fun.
That was a good time.
Thank you very much. And you can enjoy more of that@bitchesgetriches.com at any time, you can find all of our social media there. Um, but no, we have kind of something exciting that I mentioned earlier. This month we are launching our burnout course. It is incredible. It is a two hour, uh, video and 75 page workbook with practical actionable exercises and advice on how to identify, manage, and heal from burnout.
Um, specifically career burnout, though we do talk about interpersonal burnout and caregiving burnout as well, and people can check that out at our website. Bitches Get riches.com/courses. Awesome. Uh,
you’re leaving at the most important thing, which is that it’s very funny.
Oh, it is so funny. It’s the funniest.
It is the funniest. I
wrote it at 3:00 AM and I think it’s
hilarious, and I edited it so that it actually
is
betrayal, top 10 anime betrayals. Just kidding.
You’re very, you’re very, you’re very funny dear. Thank you. I love you and I show it without money.
I’m just imagining kitty waking up at like six 30 next to her laptop with the vodka spilled over and she’s like, was that a fever dream or was I brilliant?
And she looks at the words on the screen and goes, Nope. It was brilliant. The closer
we
get to Dawn, the more confident I become in all of my jokes.
Which confidence is everything, especially in writing. Oh, especially. Awesome. And we will link to that. It’s at bitches Get riches.com/courses. Alright, we’ll link to that.
We’ll link to Mr. Zos four asset classes, which may or may not include cigarettes and lottery tickets. Uh, thanks everybody for hanging out with us today. Diana, you’ve got the last word here. What should be on our to-do list?
So what’s stacked up on our to-do list for today? First, take some advice from the bitches and don’t let your financial goals lead to burnout.
It’s just not worth it. Second, as our headline today pointed out, there’s no such thing as an objective level of wealth. So stop comparing yourself to the Kardashians and look how far you’ve come. But what’s the biggest to do? I’m gonna invest a thousand dollars in the stock market today just in case I find myself stranded on an island one day.
That way, I’ll have enough to retire to a different island after I’m rescued.
You can find out more about Piggy and kitty@bitchesgetriches.com. We’ll also include links in our show notes at Stacking Benjamins dot com. Thanks to Len Penso for joining us today. You can find len@lenpenso.com. Are you looking for more fun? Join me and a ton of other money nerds at the Economy Conference next weekend.
If you hurry, you still might be able to get in before we sell out. Head to Economy conference.com and use Stacking Benjamins, one word for a 10% discount. Thanks also to OG for joining us today. Looking for good financial planning. Help head to Stacking Benjamins dot com slash OG for his calendar.
The show is the Property of SP podcasts LC copyright 2024, and is created by Joe Sulci High.
Our producer is Karen Rein. This show is written by Lisa Curry, who’s also the host of the Long Story Long podcast. With help from me, Joe Kate Yakin, Karen Rein, and G from the Earn and Invest podcast, Kevin Bailey helps us take a deeper dive into all the topics covered on each episode in our newsletter called the 2 0 1.
You’ll find the 4 1 1 on All Things Money at the 2 0 1. Just visit Stacking Benjamins dot com slash 2 0 1. Wonder how beautiful we all are. Of course you do, but you’ll never know if you don’t. Check out our YouTube version of the show Engineered by Tina Ichenberg. Then you’ll see once and for all that I’m the best thing going for this podcast.
Once we bottle up all this goodness, we ship it to our engineer, the amazing Steve Stewart. Steve helps the rest of our team sound nearly as good as I do right now. Wanna chat with friends about the show later? Mom’s friend Gertrude Stacey Doe and Julia Garib are our social media coordinators, and Gertrude is the room mother in our Facebook group called The Basement.
So say hello. When you see us posting online to join all the basement fun with other stackers, type Stacking Benjamins dot com slash basement. For more interactive fun, join us on Instagram every Tuesday and Thursday for our Instagram lives. Kate Yakin and Joe host those weekly. 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, Duggan. We’ll see you next time Back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show.
Ugh, that was so bad. It locked up my computer. Quick. Let’s get outta here before it finds the key. No, I mean it. Alright.
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