Every year, Len Penzo prices out the exact same ten brown-bag sandwiches, using the exact same methodology, at the exact same time of year, and turns it into one of the most oddly reliable inflation trackers around. This year the numbers are ugly: double-digit jumps across the board, an 80% spike in one ingredient alone, and a genuinely surprising twist involving the humble bologna sandwich that Len says has quietly tracked economic downturns for nearly two decades. Then, a headline that should make every family pause: how one daughter used a single signed document to quietly drain nearly a million dollars from her own father.
What You’ll Walk Away With
- Which sandwich ingredient jumped a jaw-dropping 80% this year, and why it’s not the one you’d expect
- The strange, long-running correlation between bologna sales and economic recessions
- Simple substitutions, buying whole meats and block cheese instead of pre-sliced, that can meaningfully cut your grocery bill
- Why “nominally the highest price ever” doesn’t always mean “the most expensive it’s ever really been,” once you adjust for inflation
- How a single signed power of attorney document led to nearly $1 million disappearing from a vulnerable parent’s accounts
- The real difference between what your estate plan says and what your actual account beneficiary designations say, and why that gap can undo your entire plan
- A billionaire’s surprisingly simple family money ritual that keeps inheritance conflicts from tearing families apart
Why This Matters Now
Grocery prices are one of those slow, quiet costs that are easy to underestimate until you actually look at the numbers side by side. At the same time, the legal documents meant to protect aging family members, like power of attorney, only work as intended when there’s real transparency and real trust behind them. Both stories point to the same underlying idea: the clearest financial protection usually isn’t a clever trick, it’s paying close attention to the details that are easy to assume are already handled.
From the Basement
A story about a backyard grill fire escalates into a genuinely useful (and slightly panicked) lesson on fire extinguisher use, corrosive foam and all, proving once again that the best financial lessons in the basement don’t always come from a spreadsheet.
Resources Mentioned
Stacking Benjamins Field Kit — the all-in-one budgeting and financial tracking tool
LenPenzo.com — Len Penzo’s full 18-year sandwich survey and price history
How Kenn Ricci Runs Family Wealth Meetings — the Wall Street Journal piece on transparent family net worth meetings, referenced in the discussion
Our Mentor: Len Penzo
Big thanks to Len Penzo for joining us today. To learn more about Len, visit Len Penzo dot Com – The offbeat personal finance blog for responsible people.. Grab yourself a copy of the book True Money Stories: Madcap Musings About Family Life and Personal Finance
Our Headline
- Woman accused of stealing nearly $1M from father after gaining power of attorney, authorities say (19 News)
Doug’s Trivia
- On August 12, 1981, IBM released its first personal computer. What do the letters IBM stand for?
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Other Mentions
- Why this billionaire holds a family meeting about money once a quarter
- Field Kit Finance
- Stacking Benjamins Basement: Your Guide To Better Money Habits
- Benjamins After Dark
Join Us Friday!
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Written by: Kevin Bailey
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Episode transcript
[00:00:00] opener: We are back. We are back. We are getting Doug back
[00:00:06] opener: And we’re the three best friends that anybody could have. We’re the three best friends that anyone could have. We’re the three best friends that anyone could have, and we’ll never, ever, ever, ever, ever leave each other. We’re the best three friends that
[00:00:27] Doug: Live from Joe’s mom’s basement, it’s The Stacking Benjamins Show
[00:00:41] Doug: I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and how do you measure inflation? Well, we measure it by asking, how much does a sack lunch sandwich cost today versus a year ago? That’s right, on today’s show, Len Penzo is back with his famous school lunch sandwich survey. How much has the price of bologna gone up, or the bacon in that BLT?
[00:01:06] Doug: We’ve got answers. In our headline segment, one woman stole over a million dollars after a family member signed a pretty important document. What was it? We’ll share, because there’s a chance you’ve signed this document as well. And then I’ll help you sign your name to today’s trivia winner list. You’ll get this one.
[00:01:26] Doug: It’s interesting, yet easy. And now, two guys who think finance is interesting and often easier than people make it out to be, it’s Joe. Oh, and oh, j- j- j- j- jeez
[00:01:41] Joe: Interesting and easy is so much better than uninteresting and easy or-
[00:01:46] Doug: I
[00:01:46] Joe: didn’t say that- … uninteresting and
[00:01:47] Doug: hard … because if they get it wrong, their, their whole life-
[00:01:50] Doug: they’re just gonna be questioning themselves.
[00:01:52] Joe: But you’re not gonna have to, Stacker, because you’ve got this one. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Stacking Benjamins show. I am Joe Saul-Sehy. Happy Wednesday to you, and we are raring to go today because today’s show is sponsored by the letter A, A for affordability.
[00:02:09] Joe: Have you ever heard of that word, OG, affordability?
[00:02:13] Doug: No.
[00:02:13] OG: That’s not a- …
[00:02:14] Joe: that’s not a word I
[00:02:15] Doug: use. I don’t know the meaning of the word.
[00:02:19] Joe: Could I have a definition, please? Could you use it in a sentence? Yeah, affordability, the sack lunch. He’s back. Len Penzo every year, if you’re new to the Stacking Benjamins show, comes down to mom’s basement and does the best way to measure inflation.
[00:02:36] Joe: I’m so excited. Doug, what’s your prediction? We gonna have a BLT be more expensive or less expensive than last year?
[00:02:42] Doug: What am I, an idiot? Of course it’s more expensive. Prices don’t go down, especially not for bacon. It’s like
[00:02:48] Joe: saying- We’ve had some years where prices were pretty moderate, where, you know, the cost of bacon wasn’t a big deal.
[00:02:55] OG: Speaking of, uh, prices, I know you guys were waiting with bated breath. Uh, Carvana’s offer was 2,000.
[00:03:01] Joe: Ah.
[00:03:02] OG: So $63 more- Oh … than Kelley Blue Book.
[00:03:06] Joe: OG is wondering how to sell his vehicle and, uh- Uh-huh … looking at, uh, Carvana.
[00:03:11] OG: Yes. I think people- Wow … figured that out.
[00:03:14] Joe: Carvana, if you wanna sponsor this episode, the sponsor spot is coming up in just a second, so you’re gonna hear whether Carvana sponsored today’s show.
[00:03:22] Joe: I know that’s what you’re all worried about. We’re going to hear from them, and then Len Penzo. If you don’t know Len, Len is the proprietor of award-winning LenPenzo.com. He’s won so many awards with that site, from CBS Money Watch’s award for Best Blog, the Plutus award for Best Single Author Blog, uh, two times he won that award, I believe.
[00:03:46] Joe: Of course, Len frequently appears here on Stacking Benjamins, but maybe the tippy top of Len’s work is on his annual sandwich survey and the way he measures inflation, and we’re happy to shine a spotlight on that today. So we’re gonna hear from our sponsors here, and at the midway point during Doug’s trivia while you try to get the answer, although you might not need the whole sponsor spot to get this one, hopefully not, but if you do, then, uh, hey, we’re gonna give you an opportunity there.
[00:04:13] Joe: So we’re gonna hear from them, and then the Len Penzo back in mom’s basement. Stackers, it’s open. Finally, Field Kit is here. If you’ve ever wondered, how can I not just balance my budget like I do in other apps or track my net worth like I do in other apps, but also check my subscriptions, have them automatically canceled for me, keep me off those private black lists where you get all your email and physical mail in your mailbox.
[00:04:42] Joe: How do you get on those lists? Well, we know how to get you off of them and protect your credit. It’s all in the Field Kit. You wanna live your life on adventures. You don’t wanna think about every single money move. Field Kit’s got your back. Head to stackingbenjamins.com/fieldkit for Field Kit Finance to check it out
[00:05:11] Joe: And I’m super happy this guy is back And he’s back with the best way to measure inflation, Len Penzo’s here. How are you, man?
[00:05:20] Len: My pocketbook’s lighter after going through getting all these sandwich items, let me tell you. It’s, uh… What a surprising, not s- I guess it isn’t surprising, really.
[00:05:28] Joe: Oh. I
[00:05:29] Len: guess it isn’t.
[00:05:29] Len: Oh. But, uh-
[00:05:30] Joe: Foreshadowing Yeah … a little foreshadowing here.
[00:05:33] Len: Yeah. But no, I’m doing well, Joe. I’m doing well. Thanks for having me on again.
[00:05:37] Joe: Let’s talk about, for people that are brand-new Stackers, Len, and haven’t been to lenpenzo.com and seen this every year, when you, uh, started publishing this and I saw it, I barely knew you then.
[00:05:49] Joe: I was like, “Oh, my goodness, can we, can we please do this on the show?” You’ve been nice enough to not only publish it at the site where people can really dive in, but also to share it with us every year. How did this all start? How did you decide to s- begin measuring the cost of a sandwich?
[00:06:03] Len: Yeah, this is the 18th year.
[00:06:04] Len: Unbelievable. I’ve… Just the thought of that, 18 years of doing this, is just crazy. But 18 years ago when my kids were small and I was pinching pennies, and I wanted to know, well, is it cheaper to just give them the school lunch, or is it… Should I, you know, do the brown bag thing? So that’s what I started doing.
[00:06:20] Len: I said, “Well, what’s the cost of a brown bag lunch- The initial question … for my kids?” Yeah. That was the initial thing that started it all off. Basically, I think I started with bologna and peanut butter and jelly. I said, “Well, let me just take those…” And then I was thinking, I was like, “Gosh, I should just do a whole…
[00:06:31] Len: all the sandwiches and let’s see. And we can make a…” You know, back the time the blog, uh, blogging was big still, and I was like, “That’d be a great blog post.” And- Can
[00:06:38] Joe: we say something about that, though? Mm-hmm. And I don’t know if this is why you decided to do all the sandwiches, Len, but I know from your initial findings that the delta between the cost of a school lunch at school and the brown bag was huge.
[00:06:51] Joe: Like, there was this big- Yeah … big price difference between the two and the nutritional value. I mean, go into that.
[00:06:57] Len: Yeah. But, well, it was huge. Uh, and it, now it depends where you live, and I can get into that. But back in the day it was, um… The nominal savings over these 18 years haven’t changed much. It’s still roughly for, you know, assuming you have two kids, it’s like, uh, $1,200 I think for two kids, basically.
[00:07:16] Len: If-
[00:07:16] Joe: $1,200 a school year.
[00:07:17] Len: A school year, yeah. Uh, let me see here. Wow. Yeah, 1,260. And that number’s gone up and down just a little bit over the 18 years nominally. Nominally, right? Of course, $1,200 18 years ago bought a lot more than $1,200 today.
[00:07:31] Joe: And don’t think, by the way, Stackers, if you don’t have kids that we’re not talking to you, because I went through periods, Len, when I started packing the brown bag lunch and the sandwiches, and I did it for a while and then I’d get lazy and my- Mm-hmm
[00:07:42] Joe: my I’d drain my bank account, then I’d go back to it. Like, this is a lot less expensive too for you going to work every day.
[00:07:49] Len: That’s true. I would go into work, too. I, I’d pack my lunch, too, ’cause it was cheaper than going to work. Especially with your coworkers. They’re like, “Hey, let’s go out to…” You know, they’d want to go to these expensive places for lunch.
[00:08:00] Len: It’s like, uh, I’d be like, “Nah,” you know. I, I, I didn’t wanna do that. So I, uh, going back to the schools, I will say this. In California now, and I just, just found this out this year, California- Apparently school lunches and breakfasts are free for all kids.
[00:08:17] Joe: Oh, wow.
[00:08:18] Len: Yeah, regardless of your income.
[00:08:20] Joe: Just for food security for some of the kids.
[00:08:22] Len: Yeah, so in a way maybe you might say, “Well, that’s irrelevant because I live in California.” Well, maybe so. What I can’t speak to is, you know, the quality of those lunches that the school’s giving out compared to, you know, I, I don’t know if it’s junk or, or what it is. I, I remember back when my kids were little, those lunches didn’t look very good or appetizing.
[00:08:40] Len: So what if it’s free? I think it’s still better for you to make your meals at, at home, your lunches for the kids.
[00:08:46] Joe: My mom would let us have the pizza. She would give us some money- Oh, yeah … so we could get pizza, pizza day, and I remember, Len, to the point of how good is it, it was always fun to lick the grease off the pizza-
[00:08:58] Joe: before you ate it. Like, that’s how bad that’s how gross the pizzas were.
[00:09:04] Len: Hey, sometimes a little grease is okay, but, uh, yeah, they can definitely overdo it where it’s pooling in the middle, and then you’re really getting- Ugh … it’s getting kind of gross. Yeah.
[00:09:11] Joe: So you ended up with a bunch of different types of sandwiches.
[00:09:15] Joe: Mm-hmm. 10 sandwiches.
[00:09:17] Len: Yeah, and I was struggling for a while. I was like, uh, for a while I only had nine sandwiches, and I couldn’t think. I was stuck on that, and I was like, “God, I gotta get 10.” You know? Any good list has 10 of something, right? And I couldn’t think of it, and then, uh, one day we were… the wife, uh, Honey Bee, was saying, you know, uh, “Hey, what do you want for dinner tonight?”
[00:09:33] Len: And I was like, “I don’t know.” And she was going, “Well, I was thinking BLTs.” And I was like, “There you go. BLT- There it is … there’s sandwich number 10,” and the rest is history. So that’s one of our 10 sandwiches.
[00:09:44] Joe: You will appreciate this. Knowing that, uh, we had this coming up and waiting on the results, I had BLTs last week- Fantastic.
[00:09:53] Joe: Hey- … just specifically because of you
[00:09:55] Len: You know, in the summer, Joe, we, we alternate in, in the Penzo household in the summer. It’s BLTs one Friday, and then the next Friday it’s pizza. So speaking of pizza that you were just mention- That’s the Fridays in the Penzo household in the summertime
[00:10:08] Joe: I’ve had Italian food at Penso house, though.
[00:10:10] Joe: You’re not licking the grease off the top of the- No, there’s no grease
[00:10:13] Len: on- … Penso pizza No, no, it’s… No, no, not at all. No. No, that’s right. And thank you, Joe. Thank
[00:10:17] Joe: you very much. Delicious Italian food at the Penso household. All right. Let’s dive in. So we’ve got peanut butter and jelly, which last year was number one.
[00:10:25] Len: It was the champion.
[00:10:26] Joe: Bologna last year was number two. Salami was number three. These are in terms of lowest cost. American cheese, which is borderline child abuse. How, how many years have we been doing that joke now? Somebody told us that American cheese sandwiches were borderline child abuse, and then we’re like, “Have you ever heard of a grilled cheese sandwich?
[00:10:41] Joe: Come on.”
[00:10:41] Len: Exactly.
[00:10:42] Joe: What are you talking about?
[00:10:43] Len: Happens every year, Joe. Happens every year. It’s also… That goes right up there with the people complaining, “Why don’t I pick strawberry jam instead of grape jelly,” you know- Oh … “in my sandwich?” Those are the two biggies.
[00:10:53] Joe: That’s a hill to die on.
[00:10:55] Len: Yes.
[00:10:56] Joe: Number, number five.
[00:10:57] Joe: Like, I don’t care about your politics. I don’t care about any of that. Strawberry jelly, who are you? Egg salad sandwich number five last year. Ham and Swiss number six. Turkey and Swiss number seven. Roast beef and cheddar, there’s a sandwich- Mm … number eight. And tuna salad, which I think last year was a big mover, but, but that wasn’t the big mover.
[00:11:18] Len: No, it was salami, Joe. Salami went from number seven in 2024 to number three, the third least expensive, or I should say most affordable brown bag sandwich in 2025.
[00:11:30] Joe: And then BLT at number 10. And BLT, by the way, to be clear, has BLT been the most expensive of the 10 sandwiches most years?
[00:11:38] Len: Every single year.
[00:11:40] Len: It has never been out of that number 10 slot.
[00:11:43] Joe: Yeah.
[00:11:44] Len: It’s a special sandwich. I mean, it’s still healthy for you. Yes, it’s the most expensive sandwich year in and out, year out, but it’s probably one of the most… It’s probably one of the healthiest, I think. And, uh, yes, even if t- even though it has bacon on it.
[00:11:56] Len: And let’s always keep in mind that the most expensive sandwich on this survey, the BLT, is every year always cheaper than the average price of a Big Mac in the United States.
[00:12:07] Joe: Which is incredible. And it also, by the way, is why I also like this survey better than the Big Mac survey that I hear about, uh, every year.
[00:12:16] Joe: I’m always like, “That’s trash. I like the one that’s out.” Yes, that’s my
[00:12:17] Len: chief competition. Let’s not mention that too much,
[00:12:20] Joe: Joe. I know. I know. But seriously, who wants to go to- I went to McDonald’s on Monday, it almost killed me. And I’m not kidding.
[00:12:27] Len: There goes that sponsor.
[00:12:30] Joe: There, there is a… Well, it wasn’t McDonald’s actually that was the problem, but we don’t need to go into that.
[00:12:35] Joe: Too
[00:12:35] Len: late.
[00:12:35] Joe: Let’s chat about your methodology, because it’s important that you have the same methodology every year at looking at all these different ingredients. How do you try to ensure that you get pricing that is consistent?
[00:12:49] Len: Okay. My philosophy throughout all this is if I’m pinching pennies, and I’m always concerned about affordability, I’m always gonna buy whatever’s the cheapest at the store regard- So there’s multiple types of peanut butter.
[00:13:02] Len: There’s Skippy and Jif and the store brand and, you know, on and on and on. I always buy whatever the cheapest is in terms of servings per container every year. Okay, that’s the goal, just what is the cheapest type of that? I also maintain that I keep all the… Obviously, the ingredients stay the same, and I always try to do the survey within one week, one direction or the other, same time every year.
[00:13:26] Len: It’s either the last week in July or the first week in August every single year, year in and year out, to try and get rid of seasonality issues that might occur, especially with, like, the lettuce and tomato.
[00:13:37] Joe: Right. Right. So there we have it. That’s the setup, everybody. It’s time to dive in. Let’s talk about prices that actually went down or stayed the same.
[00:13:48] Len: Okay.
[00:13:49] Joe: What went down?
[00:13:50] Len: Yeah, not a lot. So there’s 18 items on this, on my sandwich survey ingredients list. 18. Four of them went down. Four. That’s it, not much. Two of those were the condiments, mustard and mayonnaise. The third one was eggs, which I will say eggs are more affected… Th- that’s a regional thing.
[00:14:12] Len: So egg prices in one area of the country can be low while others can be high, because the eggs are dependent on the, the local flocks. So if, if, if you’ve got some local flocks that aren’t producing, maybe there’s a, some flu, bird, the flu that went through, through them and reduced their production, you know, you’re gonna…
[00:14:31] Len: It’s gonna be more regional. But anyways, eggs, the mustard, mayo, and then the only other thing that dropped, and it barely dropped, was bacon, 3%. So not a lot to scream about there.
[00:14:43] Joe: You had a few that stayed the same as well.
[00:14:45] Len: Yeah, uh, peanut butter, jelly, American cheese, uh, there was no change at all. And then Swiss and cheddar cheese barely crept up 3%.
[00:14:55] Joe: And the jelly, again, is strawberry.
[00:14:57] Len: Strawberry. Yeah, sorry, folks, I like strawberry jelly. That’s-
[00:15:00] Joe: I just- … the way it is … I just get angry every time you say it. But I’m kidding. I truly… I’m an equal opportunity. I love them all. Strawberry, grape, both favorites. The rest of them went up.
[00:15:11] Len: Yeah, they went up and they went up, not just up, but, uh, we, we were kind of talking before we went on and you were mentioning, “Oh, there’s a lot of red there.”
[00:15:18] Joe: I did. When you first sent these to me, that was my first-
[00:15:21] Len: Yes …
[00:15:21] Joe: comment back to you.
[00:15:22] Len: Yes. Uh, here’s the thing. Yes, there’s a lot of red, but there were years, many years, where there was a lot of red on the board. But in this year, there is a lot of double-digit increases in, of the red items, and I mean not just barely double digits.
[00:15:36] Len: I’m talking 30, 40, 50, 80% increases in ingredients this year. I mean- Let’s
[00:15:44] Joe: start with the 80%. What’s the biggest offender at 80%-
[00:15:47] Len: Yeah …
[00:15:48] Joe: increase from
[00:15:48] Len: last year? It’s ham. Ham this year, up 80%. Now, to be fair, this is the… In nominal terms, it was a dollar per serving for the ham. A dollar. So before you even throw the bread and the condiments on, your ham sandwich is a buck.
[00:16:03] Len: That’s a dollar in nominal terms. To be fair- In 2012, adjusting for inflation, this is the inflation adjusted price, it was 99 cents. Okay? Okay. It was actually 70 cents back in 2012, but you adjust for inflation using the CPI, it was 99 cents. But that’s the only other time that ham was even close to being this expensive.
[00:16:23] Len: So- Have
[00:16:24] Joe: you generally over the 18 years seen huge fluctuation in the price of ham?
[00:16:28] Len: Not this huge, no. Right. No, it, it would go over, like two or three-year period it would run up maybe 30%, then 20%, then 10… You know, you’d get 80% over a three-year run. But not 80% in a year. Just absolutely jaw-dropping.
[00:16:41] Joe: When you and I have talked before, I think the one that is the most volatile pricing, isn’t it the tuna, the albacore tuna, that generally- Yes, yes
[00:16:48] Joe: is the most volatile?
[00:16:49] Len: Yes. Tuna is wildly volatile. It went up 90… Okay, so what, what is it this year, Joe? I’m not looking at the number here.
[00:16:55] Joe: It’s $3.
[00:16:56] Len: It’s $3 a serving.
[00:16:58] Joe: On the nose.
[00:16:59] Len: Yeah, it went up 44% this year, $3 a serve. So again, there’s tuna, just for a tuna s- you’re three bucks out of the gate for tuna this year.
[00:17:07] Len: In 2022, tuna itself went up 97% in one year, almost doubled over- Yeah … in one year.
[00:17:13] Joe: But- I was gonna ask, is that the biggest jump you’ve seen?
[00:17:16] Len: In your
[00:17:16] Joe: time doing it?
[00:17:17] Len: Uh, I think it is. I don’t think something’s ever more than doubled. So yeah, that has to be the probably the biggest jump ever. But again, it’s volatile, right?
[00:17:25] Len: So it went up 97% in 2022, and then over the next two years the price retreated 90 cents. So and I don’t know what that is in percentage terms.
[00:17:33] Joe: Sure.
[00:17:33] Len: And now, here we go again. The last two years it climbed 44%, but that’s after rising 30% last year. Wow. So tuna’s a big mover. It swings in wild directions, and I don’t know what that…
[00:17:44] Len: I guess that’s just, you know, it’s, it, it all depends on how they’re doing out there fishing and how the tuna, the tuna… What is it? What are they? Schools- Community? The tuna community- … is doing. Yeah, I don’t know. However the fishermen- The
[00:17:58] Joe: tuna vi- tuna village?
[00:18:00] Len: Yes, the tuna villages- Or- … how, how they’re doing out there-
[00:18:02] Len: in tuna land. So yeah, but the, yeah.
[00:18:05] Joe: Well, that is the number three. So ham at 80% is the most egregious rising price. Uh, 44% with tina, uh, with tuna rather, is number three. Three.
[00:18:16] Len: Yeah.
[00:18:17] Joe: The good news is we can stay away from tuna if we want. We can stay away from ham if we want. We could go with that strawberry jelly.
[00:18:23] Joe: We could do a bunch of other things. The bad news is number two, Len, we can’t do anything about. Nope. If we’re gonna have a sandwich-
[00:18:28] Len: Yep …
[00:18:29] Joe: it’s, it’s defined by number two.
[00:18:31] Len: Yep, it’s the bread. Another, this is another 50% increase in the price of bread this year. So that means everybody right off the bat, your main component in any sandwich, the bread, or, or it’s the most, most critical it, it went up 50%.
[00:18:45] Len: So you’re, we’re already behind the eight ball just starting off getting the bread on the table.
[00:18:49] Joe: And think about when you go to a restaurant, you know, when I go to a restaurant lately, I’m sure you and the Honey Bee are the same way, Len. I’m like, “Are you kidding me?” Every time I get the bill I’m like, “Are, are you kidding me?”
[00:18:58] Joe: I feel like an old guy, but man, the prices are so much higher. But think about how ubiquitous bread is. Yep. Every restaurant, every sandwich you eat.
[00:19:06] Len: So I, I’ll give you a little history on the bread. So again, the bread was, uh, 24 cents a serving this year. So 20… You wanna get your sandwich, you’re starting off at 24 cents.
[00:19:16] Len: That’s the most expensive ever, 24 cents a serving. However, in 2011 and 2013 bread was actually more expensive in terms of current purchasing power.
[00:19:27] Joe: Purchasing power?
[00:19:28] Len: Yeah. So in 2011 it was 20 cents a serving, and if you adjust for inflation, that’s 29 cents in today’s dollars. And in 2013 it was also 20 cents.
[00:19:37] Len: Uh, that’s 28 cents in today’s dollars using the CPI. So yes, it’s high, it’s incredibly high, but it’s not unprecedented, and it’s actually in terms of purchasing power it’s been more expensive in
[00:19:48] Joe: the past. Been here before, okay. Uh, next, next down the list is the tomato at a 33% jump- Yeah … I believe.
[00:19:56] Len: That’s ouchie, yeah.
[00:19:57] Joe: Salami back up 25%- Correct … for the course of- Yep, giving away- … big time
[00:20:01] Len: low … giving away all the gains it made last year, yes.
[00:20:04] Joe: That’s not surprising, though. I mean, that could’ve been a point in time, and so the rebound, that doesn’t surprise me. Turkey up, up 20%.
[00:20:11] Len: Mm-hmm.
[00:20:12] Joe: Roast beef then up 14%, and then I believe- Yeah, I mean, these
[00:20:15] Len: are still, those are huge increases here.
[00:20:17] Len: It’s just jaw-dropping.
[00:20:18] Joe: Yeah, when you’re looking at a CPI, you want to be between 3 and 4%. Yeah. These are some monster numbers.
[00:20:22] Len: Yeah, so you’re losing out to inflation.
[00:20:25] Joe: Let’s put it all together in terms of sandwiches. We know that the BLT is the most expensive sandwich on the list, but how has that changed from last year?
[00:20:33] Len: The good news is, is it actually, it’s in the top three amongst least amount of change, I guess we could say. It still went up, but the price went up 8%, which is not too bad for the BLT. No. Not too bad at all, especially compared to all the other sandwiches. There’s only one sandwich on the list that actually fell this year.
[00:20:51] Joe: What is it?
[00:20:52] Len: It’s the egg salad, down 18%. That’s… I mean, if you wanna, you know, make up for, uh, last year and, and gain some ground on last year, eat egg salad sandwiches all you
[00:21:02] Joe: want. But again, that’s gonna be maybe the most regional.
[00:21:04] Len: That’s correct. Uh, uh, absolutely right. I’m sure some of you are in… I’m in Southern California.
[00:21:08] Len: Maybe some of you are, who knows, in another part of the country going, “Yeah, you’re crazy, Penzo. Egg prices have gone through the roof.” It’s like, well, here in Southern California they’ve, they’ve actually fallen quite a bit.
[00:21:18] Joe: Yeah, so your mileage may vary.
[00:21:20] Len: Yes.
[00:21:20] Joe: Number nine on the list is the tuna salad sandwich.
[00:21:24] Joe: How does that look versus last year?
[00:21:26] Len: Uh, well of course we just mentioned how the price has just go- gone crazy. It, it’s went up 37% this year, so $3.42 for the cost of a tuna salad sandwich this year. $3.42.
[00:21:38] Joe: Wow. Wow. A third higher.
[00:21:40] Len: Yeah.
[00:21:41] Joe: All right. Number eight on the list, it was also number eight last year, roast beef and cheddar.
[00:21:45] Len: Correct. At $2.29 per sandwich. It rose not too bad compared to every- relatively speaking. Still kinda gets your attention though, 13% higher than last year.
[00:21:55] Joe: Right. If you told me 13, a price of a sandwich went up by 13%, I would’ve said, “Oh, that’s probably in the top three.”
[00:22:01] Len: Mm-hmm.
[00:22:01] Joe: You know?
[00:22:02] Len: Exactly. But
[00:22:02] Joe: that-
[00:22:02] Len: Exactly
[00:22:03] Len: that
[00:22:03] Joe: doesn’t
[00:22:04] Len: even- Yeah, we don’t usually get these kind of increases. Not this many anyways.
[00:22:08] Joe: All right, the price of ham up the biggest, the price of bread up second biggest. Ham and Swiss, oh, this is gonna be ugly I bet.
[00:22:17] Len: Yep, up 44% this year. Ironically, it only fell one position from six to seven this year, but it’s at $1.68 a sandw- still fairly reasonable.
[00:22:26] Len: But, uh, you can get three of the cheapest sandwiches for the price of one ham and Swiss.
[00:22:31] Joe: We should give you stackers the real numbers on these by the way. Len’s cost of a BLT is $4.55, a tuna salad $3.42, so more than a dollar less, and that’s been fairly steady. That it’s, there’s a big difference between BLT and everything else.
[00:22:45] Joe: But still you think about it, a quality sandwich like a BLT $4.55, again, on Monday I had a Big Mac, it was a lot more than $4.55.
[00:22:55] Len: Yeah, and you know what, yeah, I don’t know about you, but I feel a lot better when I eat a BLT than after I eat a Big Mac. 100%. You know, you
[00:23:00] Joe: get that…
[00:23:01] Len: Yeah.
[00:23:01] Joe: Roast beef and cheddar, uh, $2.29.
[00:23:05] Len: Hey, uh, I’m gonna br- Um- I’ll, I’ll maybe bring something up real quick on the roast beef and cheddar. My, uh, I was in, uh, Indiana and, and, uh, southwestern Michigan, uh, last week and I have, um, my nephew has a, a little store, a little s- out there in, uh, New Troy, Michigan. He specializes in sandwiches. He makes his own bread and makes his own sandwiches.
[00:23:22] Len: So, uh, he, uh, made me a, one of his roast beef and cheddar sandwiches, and he put grilled onions on it, and it was fantastic. Oh. I never even thought of that before, just absolutely fantastic.
[00:23:33] Joe: Let’s go right now. He’s almost turned it into a Philly beef, you know, sandwich.
[00:23:37] Len: Almost. Almost. Yeah, yeah. But
[00:23:38] Joe: it, oh, it’s
[00:23:39] Len: delicious
[00:23:40] Joe: It’s a great thing.
[00:23:41] Joe: Now, the reason I brought roast beef and cheddar early, roast beef and cheddar, by the way, up 13%. Starting with ham and Swiss though, Len, all of the rest of the sandwiches on this list are still less than two bucks.
[00:23:52] Len: Yeah. Uh, I mean, let’s put this all into perspective. Compare this to fast food or somewhere.
[00:23:55] Len: These are all bargains. Yes. This is all good stuff. It’s just… But if you’re ranking them all, uh, compared to each other, obviously we, we have to rank them. Sure. So, but yeah, these are all still great deals. All of them.
[00:24:06] Joe: So ham and Swiss went up one spot to $1.68, uh, passing by turkey and Swiss, which, uh, is $1.41.
[00:24:14] Joe: Yeah. What happened with turkey and Swiss?
[00:24:16] Len: Well, they swapped positions. The price of the turkey only went up 20%, but the cheese didn’t budge at all, so 3%. It managed to hop above, uh, ham, which we just mentioned ham is just, the price of ham went crazy, so turkey and Swiss slipped back into the number six spot this year.
[00:24:32] Joe: And turkey by itself already less expensive than ham, so… Next up, it went all the way from number six to number three, back to number five at 93 cents, salami.
[00:24:42] Len: Salami’s back. Still a great deal. Uh, up 29% this year. Last year there was only four sandwiches under a buck. Ironically, this year f- there’s five sandwiches under a buck, even though the price of the average sandwich rose 17% this year, so.
[00:24:59] Joe: 17 was the average.
[00:25:01] Len: 17. But if you take all the price of all the sandwiches and you divide by 10 and you compare that to the previous year, yes, the price went up 17%, but ironically, we have five sandwiches under a dollar. Now, you know, there was only one year that was worse that the average price of all 10 sandwiches.
[00:25:16] Len: That was in 2022, where it went up 27%. Okay? So and we all know what happened with- The big
[00:25:23] Joe: inflation year.
[00:25:23] Len: Yeah, there was the pandemic and all that- Yeah … and, and a lot of things, so. But yeah, that was the only worse year where prices went up higher.
[00:25:31] Joe: Egg salad then 89 cents. American cheese- B- b- pork, pork loins
[00:25:38] Len: Maybe I should just call this the grilled cheese sandwich.
[00:25:40] Len: We should I prob- You know what? Maybe we should just do this. Change it to grilled- Grilled … grilled cheese. I know everybody’s wincing every time you say American cheese.
[00:25:48] Joe: I wonder if that person’s, is still listening and hears us- … crack the joke every year. It just… If you’re gonna give us criticism- … think for just a second.
[00:25:57] Joe: It’s okay to give me criticism, but think for a moment.
[00:26:00] Len: And now this leads us to the final two, which by the way, have been the perennial number one and two in one position or the other for all 18 years of the survey. Okay? So-
[00:26:11] Joe: Drum roll …
[00:26:12] Len: if it’s not one, it’s the other. So, and, and we will say this, usually the bologna sandwich is usually a indicator of recessions.
[00:26:21] Len: So actually, bologna use actually goes up during recessions because it’s so cheap. Okay. You know, the, the, the old wives’ tale is that bologna isn’t a very expensive meat, you know? But it’s actually not when you com- looking at it from the sandwich perspective.
[00:26:35] Joe: Wow, I didn’t know any of that.
[00:26:36] Len: Yeah.
[00:26:36] Joe: And I, and I wonder if w- have you seen over the past 18 years, like, the price of bologna fluctuation do anything in terms of correlation with the stock market at all?
[00:26:46] Len: You know what? I don’t, I don’t know. Actually, this year, the price of bologna was 28 cents a serving. This is hard to believe, but that, nominally, that’s an all-time high In 2012, it was way more expensive in terms of inflation adjusted. It was 27 cents a serving back 14 years ago, which comes out to 38 cents today inflation adjusted.
[00:27:11] Joe: Wow.
[00:27:12] Len: I don’t know what was going on in 2012, but yeah, price of bologna went up. It’s… Yes, it’s high, it’s the highest ever nominally, but we can’t hold a candle to 2012.
[00:27:21] Joe: So bologna, uh, number two at 60 cents, which means number one…
[00:27:27] Len: Was PB&J. That’s two years in a row now. It is the, uh, most economical sandwich, and it’s only the fifth time in 18 years that bologna did not have at least a share of the crown.
[00:27:40] Len: So, I mean, and it was still a mild upset, but there you go.
[00:27:45] Joe: It tightened slightly, though. Tightened a little bit. Up 18% versus up 15% for bologna.
[00:27:49] Len: Yes.
[00:27:50] Joe: 52 cents wins the day.
[00:27:51] Len: Still not too shabby for a pretty good tasting sandwich.
[00:27:55] Joe: Yep, for a sandwich that I enjoy every time. I don’t have them enough. I could eat those all day.
[00:28:00] Joe: I generally don’t have one. I will have one, and then I’m like, “You know what? I gotta go back and have a second one.” So there it is, a $1.04 for me.
[00:28:06] Len: Oh, I love it. And a big glass of milk to go with that. Mm.
[00:28:09] Joe: Oh, heaven. Any big takeaways either this year or just in general, then, from the, the survey?
[00:28:16] Len: Yeah. Well, from the survey, yes, prices are up to all-time highs nominally.
[00:28:21] Len: Some items are a little cheaper. They’re not… Uh, they’ve been more expensive in the past. But there’s no doubt about it, if you think your grocery bill has not been going down, it probably hasn’t. I mean, this was quite a year in terms of inflation on sandwiches.
[00:28:37] Joe: I’m thinking in terms of tactics and takeaways- Oh, okay.
[00:28:40] Joe: Yeah, sure … because you always have some good tactics and takeaways as well.
[00:28:42] Len: Well, one of the, the biggest, and this remains true, and you know, Joe, I’ve been doing the store brand versus name brand taste test challenges. You know, people tend to think don’t get the store brand because it doesn’t taste as good.
[00:28:52] Len: That’s not always true. Sometimes it tastes better. So you can keep the prices down by focusing on the store brand stuff. You can, when it comes to ham and turkey, buy it whole and slice it yourself. That will greatly reduce the price. My pricing is on sliced stuff right out of the deli counter. I mean prepackaged stuff.
[00:29:09] Len: I mean- Yeah, right … these numbers could, will drop even more if you buy like a whole turkey breast or you buy a, a, a canned ham and you do the slicing yourself. These prices would be even less. Same thing with block cheese as well. Instead of buying the sliced cheese, the pre-sliced, buy the block cheese, slice it.
[00:29:26] Len: You’re gonna save a lot of money. Of course, grow your own tomatoes. Who, who doesn’t like a homegrown tomato? I mean-
[00:29:31] Joe: Even the vegetables, like the carrots that you’ll put on the side sometimes. Yes. You know what’s funny? I didn’t pay any attention to that until you and I were friends, and now Cheryl still will go over and buy the pre-cut stuff.
[00:29:43] Joe: I’m like, “What are you doing? I can cut a watermelon.” Like I can… Why am I buying a pre-cut watermelon?
[00:29:47] Len: That’s really expensive. Yeah. The… And they put that front and center in the produce section, all that pre-cut stuff. Yeah. It’s, it… Yes, absolutely
[00:29:54] Joe: There is plenty more, and I’ll bet, I will bet you money that you may have written about this someplace where our stackers can go back and can, uh, find all the results of this year’s study.
[00:30:05] Len: Yes. It’s thepersistentitch.com. No. AKA
[00:30:10] Joe: Len Penzo.
[00:30:11] Len: Also known as lenpenzo.com. Yes, it’s all there for you. You can look at all the dirty details. I, I have the per serving cost of all the sandwiches by year from 2009 to 2026 for you to look at if you really wanna get into that kinda pain. But it’s all there for you, so you can dissect it, you know, six ways to Sunday.
[00:30:30] Joe: Super. Not only save a bunch of money on the lunch, but also get your, your closet spreadsheet geek on.
[00:30:37] Len: Yes, exactly.
[00:30:40] Joe: Len, thanks for mentoring us again this year on inflation. I super appreciate it.
[00:30:44] Len: My pleasure as al- I always look forward to this every year. It’s always fun.
[00:30:49] opener: Hey, this is Pete the Planner, USA Today money columnist and host of the Ask Pete the Planner podcast.
[00:30:55] opener: When I’m not fixing the weirdest financial situations you’ve ever heard of, I’m stacking Benjamins.
[00:31:06] Doug: Hey there, Stackers. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and it was on today’s date back in 1981 that IBM released the first personal computer. It was an amazing machine that featured a whopping 16 kilobytes of memory, which is about what Joe’s mom says I have left. Hey, don’t laugh, Len. She says you got 14, man.
[00:31:29] Doug: Here’s today’s trivia question: IBM is one of the great companies of our time, but what do the letters IBM stand for? I’ll be back right after I go look up the answer. You know, ’cause I can’t be wasting what memory I got left on trivia
[00:31:56] Doug: Hey there, stackers. I’m professional memory filler and guy looking to clear his cache, Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. It’s funny, some of the most iconic companies of our time use initials. UPS is Untied Parcel Service. Uh, AMD is Advanced Micro Devices. Some are more fun. BMW is… Actually, I don’t think this is right.
[00:32:19] Doug: Bayerische Motoren Werke. What? No. How about Bavarian Motor Works? That’s definitely what it was originally called. A&W is short for Allen & White, founders Roy and Frank’s last name. How about 3M? Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing, which is funny because they don’t mine anymore. Maybe my favorite, though, is IKEA, which is short for…
[00:32:44] Doug: This is, this is gonna be awesome. Ingvar Kamprad, Elmtaryd, Agunnaryd. Nailed it. Ingvar Kamprad is the founder. Elmtaryd was his family farm. It’s like I’m on Game of Thrones or something. Agunnaryd was his hometown. He just put them together to make a name that’s as understandable as the instructions to put the furniture together.
[00:33:09] Doug: But today’s a little bit easier. What does IBM stand for? Of course, that’s International Business Machines. And now, back to two guys who are machines at podcasting, Joe and OG.
[00:33:28] Joe: I was maybe just a year younger than I am right now when I found out that IKEA was an abbreviation, that it actually was those four letters put together.
[00:33:38] OG: Did, did Doug say that UPS stands for untied parcel services?
[00:33:42] Joe: Untied.
[00:33:43] OG: Okay. Just wanted to double check. Pretty
[00:33:45] Joe: sure that’s it. Nice catch. Yeah. But did you guys know IKEA was a, was an abbreviation?
[00:33:52] OG: I know that it’s, uh, crappy furniture that you have to put together yourself. Also, that you get lost in the store. That I know. The
[00:34:00] Joe: def- the definition of crappy furniture is anything OG’s gotta put together himself.
[00:34:04] Doug: Yeah, anything that requires him breaking a
[00:34:06] OG: sweat. Absolutely, because you end up with, like, 32 screws left and a- You don’t
[00:34:10] OG: it’s a two-by-four, and you’re like- You
[00:34:11] Doug: don’t. I- …
[00:34:12] OG: I don’t understand why, why- I
[00:34:14] Doug: gotta
[00:34:14] OG: be honest … why is this chair all wobbly?
[00:34:16] Doug: I was super skeptical of IKEA, and, and then we got our first piece ’cause we had gotten a cottage, and we just needed to get some furniture in there and- Gotten
[00:34:23] OG: our first piece, like he’s at Sotheby’s.
[00:34:26] OG: It’s like- Like, “Oh, we’ve acquired our first piece for our- Our first piece … up north home.”
[00:34:31] Joe: It’s called the
[00:34:31] OG: HEMNEFOT. “Our lakefront establishment, uh, we’ve acquired a piece.”
[00:34:36] Doug: You know, look, it’s still
[00:34:37] OG: furniture you put together. “Lot 667, then.” It’s, it’s not Henry Bendel. “Uh,
[00:34:41] Joe: to the gentleman in the back.” It isn’t 667 if you’ve ever been to IKEA.
[00:34:44] Joe: It’s 667 through 672.
[00:34:49] OG: Yeah. Don’t forget all these parts you’re needed to buy.
[00:34:52] Joe: Gotta buy the
[00:34:52] OG: four different boxes. I can’t believe you said, “We acquired a piece.” That’s funny.
[00:34:56] Doug: It’s better than you’d expect. It’s, it’s probably the best put-together furniture you could buy. It’s the Cadillac of put-it-together-yourself furniture.
[00:35:04] OG: Solder desks, IKEA. One’s just one notch above. Got it.
[00:35:10] Joe: I’ve got a nice, uh, bookshelf in the office that’s an IKEA bookshelf, and to your point, Doug, not that hard to put together, but man, to OG’s point, what a pain in the ass. Just-
[00:35:20] OG: When you have to put together the drill that then you have to plug in, you have to…
[00:35:24] OG: You n- you, you need electrical work.
[00:35:26] Joe: You gotta wait
[00:35:26] OG: 12 hours- You gotta, like- …
[00:35:27] Joe: to plug
[00:35:27] OG: the drill in … fashion a hammer with steel and f- No … fire and, like, a kiln and everything. It’s intense.
[00:35:33] Joe: OG’s gotta plug the drill in because he uses it once every three years, whether he needs
[00:35:37] Doug: to or not. Exactly. That’s why it’s hard for you.
[00:35:40] Joe: Right.
[00:35:40] Doug: Using muscles you’ve never used.
[00:35:42] Joe: Let’s do a headline.
[00:35:44] headlines: Hello, darlings. And now it’s time for your favorite part of the show, our Stacking Benjamins headlines.
[00:35:50] Joe: Our headline today comes from… Man, we’re talking about Cleveland a lot lately. Not on purpose. Cleveland- cleveland19.com, uh, Channel 19 Cleveland.
[00:36:01] Joe: This is a scary story. Mom sent this one to me, guys. Uh, woman accused of stealing nearly $1 million. Guess who she stole it from?
[00:36:11] OG: Me, again.
[00:36:13] Joe: Yes.
[00:36:14] OG: Is this about my mom?
[00:36:16] Joe: She stole it from her dad. Uh, this is actually originally out of Omaha, Nebraska. A woman in Nebraska accused of stealing nearly $1 million from her own father after dad signed a form.
[00:36:29] Joe: OG, guess what the form is?
[00:36:31] OG: I’m gonna say the power of attorney form.
[00:36:33] Joe: Power of attorney. Her dad gave her power of attorney, and apparently she’s never read King Lear where the kids just steal all the stuff and leave Dad out to dry. Patricia Dacey, 60 years old, booked on charges of abuse of a vulnerable adult and theft of more than $5,000.
[00:36:53] Joe: Slightly more than five grand. Wow. S- so her dad was in a memory care facility-
[00:36:58] OG: FYI, that’s the cutoff in Omaha, apparently. $49.99- … steal away.
[00:37:04] Joe: Wow. Yeah, that’s the rule of thumb. If you live in Omaha, only steal $49.99.
[00:37:10] Doug: That’s giving out… That’s just us giving out more good, useful information that you can use every day.
[00:37:16] Joe: Dad was living in a memory care facility and was pressured into granting her power of attorney. According to an affidavit, Daisy retired shortly after. Of course. So, Dad gives her power of attorney, she retires almost immediately with Dad’s money, and a relative noted her lifestyle improved dramatically, Doug.
[00:37:36] Joe: Can you believe it?
[00:37:37] Doug: Wonder why. That’s… What’s the correlation there?
[00:37:40] Joe: It is so strange. Listen to how kind she is. She began giving away large sum of money to select family members, so you know, buying favors- She’s a giver … from select family members.
[00:37:50] Doug: Just a giver.
[00:37:51] Joe: She bought new houses, cars, and pools. She took her kids on expensive vacations and bought one of her daughters a new car, pool, and house.
[00:37:59] Joe: How could they even tell that she was living a different lifestyle? I d- I, I don’t know. About $770,000 in withdrawals were made over four months from her father’s account, a family member said. Damn,
[00:38:11] OG: that’s spendy. That’s even more than I could pull
[00:38:14] Joe: off. After other family members were denied access or given only partial access to the trust account, investigators met with the dad and believed he was a vulnerable adult suffering from memory impairment, and they said that the father expressed shock.
[00:38:27] Joe: Oh, gee, this power of attorney document, this is a dangerous thing. You really gotta think long and hard before you hand power of attorney to somebody, and, and yet, in some cases, y- you really do need to use this document. So how do you draw this line in a way so that a family member doesn’t use and abuse it?
[00:38:47] OG: I mean, that’s the crux of the issue is you need to have somebody that you can trust that will handle your affairs in a proper way, but it’s hard to have a backup to the backup. You know what I mean? The solution that we have in our plan for our estate plan is we actually have two people who are kind of in charge of the money with a third as a tiebreak, an independent third party trustee who is kind of the third tiebreak person.
[00:39:17] OG: What we’ve done, anyway, is talk to people in our trust that would be in charge… This is a little different than power of attorney, but still same concept, people who would be in charge of the money for our kids while they grow up, and said, “Here’s, you know, what we’d like to have happen.” But when you get older- You know, I mean, who, who are you gonna trust more than your daughter?
[00:39:36] OG: Like, I mean, that’s the … I’ve had that happen to me. You know, when you’re talking to somebody who’s thinking about being a client, they go, “Well look, I would love to work with you guys, but my son is in the business and, you know, I, I know he’s new, but I, you know, I- Wanna support him … I gotta support my kid.”
[00:39:55] OG: And you go, “Yeah, of course. You know, my mom supported me when I was starting.” That’s how sometimes this stuff starts, right? So who are you gonna trust more than your family, you know? So it’s an awful situation.
[00:40:07] Joe: I like the idea of the independent trustee, somebody who’s not beholden to the family, they’re not emotional about the family.
[00:40:12] Joe: They can just look at things with an objective eye. The pushback that people always have, of course, OG, is twofold. Number one is the overstepping independent trustee. We’ve seen where the, the stuff is written in a way that the independent trustee then can just charge a bunch of fees, is uncontrollable themselves.
[00:40:31] Joe: So how do you-
[00:40:32] OG: Most notably the story here in Dallas of the wife of the American Airline CEO who passed away and, you know, had hundreds of millions of dollars in trust at Chase Bank, and they wouldn’t … They purposefully rigged … If you guys don’t remember this story, this is what? Maybe 10 years old now at this point.
[00:40:48] OG: I don’t. I can’t- They purposefully rigged the families against one another so the families would fight, which would-
[00:40:55] Joe: Increase their
[00:40:55] OG: fees … trigger a clause in the trust document that said nothing can be done until all the families agree, but all the families were fighting. But the whole purpose of this was so that Chase could keep billing their, you know, 2% management fee on- Wow
[00:41:07] OG: hundreds of millions of dollars While the wife of the, you know, had no access to, couldn’t pay the property taxes on the house because she had no access to the hundreds of millions of dollars that her husband left her when he passed away because everybody was fighting. It was all orchestrated. They got sued and lost a billion dollars or something like that in a judgment, but took 10 years.
[00:41:26] Joe: And that brings up both of my questions. Number one is how do you make sure that doesn’t happen in writing? Like, how do you, how do you ensure that doesn’t happen in your trust? And then number two is, you know, people often look at the fees associated with the independent trustee. E- even if they do the right thing, they’re like, “I just don’t want to pay somebody to, to do that.”
[00:41:44] Joe: Yeah. Talk about both of those things.
[00:41:46] OG: Well, I mean, when money’s on the line, it makes people go crazy. Doug and I were just talking about this. We’ve got a family situation, kind of extended family situation that we’re talking, that, that, that we’re loosely affiliated with in our family. From the bleacher seats watching it, you can see how this thing is transpiring, right?
[00:42:04] OG: The people who have never had any money can s- literally smell blood in the water. “Grandma’s gonna die, so it’s time to everybody sharpen the knives because, you know, I gotta make sure I get mine.” You know, which is just awful, and it’s really, really bad to see. So is that preemptive education? Is that conversation with your kids ahead of time?
[00:42:24] OG: Is that, like, making sure that everybody’s on the up and up? I was reading a story. Is this the Wall Street Journal story with the guy who started Flexjet? D- is he the one that says that he does a family net worth meeting every year? That’s cool. And so- That’s great. I don’t know
[00:42:38] Doug: about that, but that sounds like a great idea to be that open.
[00:42:41] OG: I think this is him. I thought this is where I heard this, but, you know, he’s got adult children, and they set financial goals and business goals for themselves. They all have their own businesses and families, and then at the end of the year, he goes through and goes, “Hey, how did you do? What was your goal?
[00:42:53] OG: How did you achieve it? What did you learn?” Whatever. And, and then he discusses the family net worth from his perspective, and that’s when he does his gifting and, you know, that sort of stuff down to his kids. And, and he’s been very clear, and he was public on this, uh, Wall Street Journal article, uh, or interview that he said, “Each one of my kids aren’t gonna be equal.
[00:43:11] OG: They all have different needs and different stuff, and it’s, you know, we’re not dividing this by three. It’s … And they know it, and that is what it is. Like, that’s how we’ve decided to do it.” So I think all of this starts early on. If you’re the type of person that hides money under a bushel and you’re … I think, I think it’s always fun to see those stories, right?
[00:43:29] OG: When … Or interesting to see the stories where it’s like, you know, the librarian donates $11 million to church, you know, and they go, “I, I didn’t know that Jack had that kind of money.” The
[00:43:38] Joe: custodian at the elementary school.
[00:43:39] OG: Yeah, at the school or whatever, right? It’s just kind of an interesting thing, and I suppose if you’re by yourself, you don’t have any relatives, that’s probably how that turned out But if you think that the best solution is to not tell your family about money, or at least your immediate family about learning about money, this is what happens.
[00:43:56] OG: You know, and I’m not saying that this, this is the guy’s fault because- Right … this sounds like this woman’s a- Yeah … psychopath and deserves to be in jail for a long time. But because she thought a million dollars was a lot of money and it would never run out, and, you know, it’s like some of that is education, some of that’s upbringing, some of that’s not being exposed to that stuff over a long period of time.
[00:44:15] OG: So I think part of it is that, to answer your question, Joe. I think some of it is having checks and balances as best you can.
[00:44:21] Joe: Yeah, I think you need to read the, you know, a lot of times we hire attorneys to write this stuff, which I think is really important. You want to choose a good attorney and have discussions with them about what you really want.
[00:44:31] Joe: But I think you also need to read it. Next week we’re gonna have legal week here on the show, and I’m really excited about that. But our guest on Monday, Leo Mann, next week, is gonna dive into this a little bit, that we sign so many things that we don’t think about it. Man, your estate plan, you wanna know how that works.
[00:44:47] Joe: You wanna know what you’re signing up for with the independent trustee and think, “What could the Achilles’ heel be in this, uh, thing that I’m agreeing to?”
[00:44:58] OG: Yeah, I mean, if it’s your estate plan, you can write whatever you want in there.
[00:45:00] Joe: You can, yeah.
[00:45:01] OG: I’ve seen some things where people say, “If you disagree with this, then you get cut out.”
[00:45:06] Joe: Wow Wow. By the way, I looked up the Wall Street Journal piece. His name is Ken Ricci, R-I-C-C-I. And Ken says, and I’ll link to this in the show notes, “I start the meeting by showing my net worth, and I show them where the assets are, what companies we own, what Liquid Bunny is,” all the stuff you talked about, OG.
[00:45:23] Joe: But what I like is what you said next, “I have all them expose their net worth, and then they tell their siblings what they invested in and what they’re spending their money on.” And typically, then at the end of that meeting, he will, he and his spouse then pass on some of their wealth to their kids at the end of that meeting, but everybody’s very transparent.
[00:45:40] Joe: Yeah. Very, very, very cool.
[00:45:42] OG: Helps to have a couple billion dollars to, like, be transparent about.
[00:45:45] Joe: Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know. But does it matter? I mean, seriously, if you’re gonna give your kids a couple hundred bucks, you could still have that meeting and then have a couple hundred bucks- Yeah … that you give them.
[00:45:54] OG: No, I think it’s really important to make it that there’s no surprises. I mean, we uncovered this issue with a family member last fall. This family member said to me, he said, “Hey, I got a question for you, money question. Are you on the clock?” And I said, “Yeah, sure, whatever.” He says, “Why do I keep on getting letters from Fidelity that says I don’t have a beneficiary on my IRA?”
[00:46:14] Joe: Oh, my God. “
[00:46:15] OG: I’m pretty sure I did that.” And I’m like, “Well, Fidelity’s pretty sure you didn’t.” Yeah. “No, no, no, I did it.”
[00:46:24] OG: It’s like, “No, you didn’t. They’re not in the habit of sending forms to people, you know, to, to, ‘Psych, just kidding, we got
[00:46:30] Joe: it.'” It even could be you did it, but Fidelity never received it.
[00:46:35] OG: Yeah, you didn’t hit submit, or you hit submit- No … and the internet glitched. Or
[00:46:38] Doug: I did it because I did an estate plan with my attorney.
[00:46:41] Doug: Well, that doesn’t mean Fidelity got it. That, like, that’s two totally separate
[00:46:44] OG: things. That, that, that actually, actually, Doug, that was the argument. A lot of times financial transactions or financial things require two sides of the, of, of transaction, right? Just ’cause you went and got your estate plan done, and your estate plan says, “Hey, this is how I want all my stuff distributed.
[00:46:58] OG: I wanna create this trust. I got, I, I got this beautiful plan,” you have to tell the people that have your money the beautiful plan. And there’s a way to do that. You make the plan the beneficiary. So you make your trust the beneficiary. You can’t just say, “Well, no, no, my estate plan’s already done. Fidelity will do what my estate plan said.”
[00:47:16] OG: No, Fidelity has their rules that are governed by what the courts say and what the government says. And in this case, this, this family member was remarried. Each side had adult children and so on and so forth, and it was like, “Well, no, my plan is that my money goes to my kids.” It’s like, “Well, Fidelity’s plan is if you die, your money goes to your wife.”
[00:47:34] OG: It’s like, “Well, no, no, no, she knows that it goes to my kids.” I’m like, “That’s, there’s not a mechanism for that transfer.” Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, you can’t give a, give a million dollars of IRA money to some rando person Absent a withdrawal and tax, like it’s a big, big mess. Anyway, we got it solved.
[00:47:51] OG: But, um-
[00:47:51] Doug: So as usual, I opened up a can of worms. Does that mean that the beneficiary designation on any of certain accounts takes precedent and priority over what you might have in your real es- or your real estate plan, your estate plan?
[00:48:04] OG: Yeah. Yeah, your beneficiary designation is the gold standard. It’s whatever it says.
[00:48:11] OG: If you have that listed as I want this money to be distributed to my kids, it’s going to your kids
[00:48:17] Doug: Well, hold on. Let’s be a little more specific. Your beneficiary designation with the organization that’s holding onto the money, because you’ve got two different beneficiary- Yes … designations. I’ve got one in my estate plan that my attorney helped draft up.
[00:48:31] Doug: Yes. But there’s also beneficiary designations with my 401’s and my IRA’s and real estate… Um, I keep saying real estate. Why is that on my mind? My life insurance, et cetera.
[00:48:40] OG: I mean, I wouldn’t say
[00:48:40] Doug: that you’re- So it’s those beneficiary designations.
[00:48:42] OG: Yeah, I mean, I don’t use that term in my trust. That those are…
[00:48:45] OG: Well, I guess maybe they are trust beneficiaries. Yes. The, where the money is, is what takes precedent. Yes.
[00:48:52] Joe: On your 401, what you write at Fidelity, your 401holder, whoever it might be, that takes precedent over- Bank
[00:49:00] OG: account …
[00:49:00] Joe: what you did …
[00:49:01] OG: your brokerage account, the 529s, the life insurance. Whatever that says is what happens.
[00:49:08] OG: And if you want it to, like, dovetail into your estate plan, then you need the beneficiary at Fidelity and Ally Bank and Schwab and whatever to say, “Go look at my estate plan.” And there’s a way to do that.
[00:49:21] Joe: Next week we’re gonna dive into that way to do it. We’re gonna talk more about, uh, your estate plan.
[00:49:26] Joe: That’s called a tee
[00:49:27] OG: up, Joe. See what we did
[00:49:28] Joe: there? It’s just so awesome. All week next week, we normally only have one mentor a week. We have mentors on Monday and Wednesday, as we take you through contract law on Monday, and then on Wednesday through estate planning rules. So gonna be a fun week.
[00:49:41] Doug: I- I’m glad that you pointed that tee up out, OG, because what I’ve noticed is you gotta tee it up a little higher sometimes because it’s easy to whiff if you don’t have the ball teed up a little bit taller.
[00:49:52] Doug: Like, you stand up through your swing, and you just swing right over the top of it. Like dad, like
[00:49:54] OG: you probably. I’ve seen you golf.
[00:49:58] Doug: Joe’s like, “What the hell are you talking about, man?”
[00:50:00] Joe: This sounds very much like a personal attack. I have no idea what just happened. Let’s move onto the back porch, where we talk about some of the cool things our stackers are doing.
[00:50:09] Joe: And man, there’s some exciting stuff. It seems like, uh, one member of our basement community, our Facebook group, The Basement, you can join that at stackingbenjamins.com/basement. Well, one person’s having some very vivid dreams.
[00:50:25] Doug: Let’s be honest, Joe and everybody, n- at this point, don’t we assume everybody’s having dreams about me?
[00:50:31] Joe: I… Well, when I, when I read the top of this, I was like, “Oh, my goodness.” Normally we would have Doug read this stuff, but I’m gonna read this one. And by the way, before we even get to that
[00:50:43] Doug: one- But, but Doug’s blushing right now …
[00:50:44] Joe: we got some great feedback on our five days a week. We thank you very much for that.
[00:50:49] Joe: We had a lot of fun putting it together. I also like, though, what Stacker Eric said, uh, “Though it’s not sustainable.” Eric is 100% right. We will… Don’t be expecting… While we will have special weeks from time to time, we will not be going five days a week, uh, nonstop. But Jennifer says- I really hesitated to post this, but it’s too weird and funny not to, and I know this group will appreciate it.
[00:51:14] Joe: “I had a dream about Neighbor Doug. No, not that kind of dream.” Oh, gee. “Neighbor Doug handed me a stack of cash, mostly tens, hidden in a rolled-up newspaper. He said they were asking loyal stackers to balance their books for them. Inside the newspaper was also a stack of dot matrix paper with a list of people that owed them money.
[00:51:32] Joe: Which, by the way, you know, this sounded really exciting and young Doug, and Doug’s ego was really attached to that until, Jennifer, you said dot matrix paper and that Doug had dot matrix paper, showing Doug how old she thinks you are, so.
[00:51:47] Doug: Yeah, that one hurt a little bit, Jen.
[00:51:48] Joe: Yeah. “I have no idea where this came from, but I’ll blame the heat and some long-distance traveling on why my brain decided to throw Neighbor Doug in there.
[00:51:55] Joe: Get out of my head, Doug.” Jennifer, thanks for sharing that. It was pretty good. Dylan said, “That was not a dream. Doug’s actually hit me up with the same offer.” Marsha said, uh, “I hope that’s not a recurring dream.” You
[00:52:10] Doug: don’t need to get hateful, Marsha. Come on. Marsha, Marsha, Marsha.
[00:52:14] Joe: Mika says, “I just need Doug to know that you can now ask for your fries at Culver’s extra crispy, and Culver’s now is the perfect fast food restaurant.”
[00:52:23] Joe: I can’t… I… Even this goes off the rails in the basement, Doug.
[00:52:28] Doug: Well, first of all, uh, it’s Micah, not Mika. Micah. You’re welcome. Sorry, Micah. You’re welcome, Micah. And I did know that. I have not… I’ve only done that once. I usually forget, ’cause I’ve got my order stored in my app, and it’s just, like, order favorite.
[00:52:42] Doug: And it, you know, it knows no mayo on the burger and et cetera. Like, it knows how I like everything. I need to change that to crispy fries, because I did that once. It is lovely.
[00:52:53] Joe: Yeah. Shout out to Stacker Andy, who also has a fun piece that says, “A family’s money on Travelball, $200,000 OG they spent on Travelball finally paid off with their son’s $500 college scholarship.”
[00:53:11] Doug: Yeah. That’s about right.
[00:53:13] Joe: All that Travelball- That
[00:53:14] Doug: math
[00:53:14] Joe: checks … fin- finally pays off. It wouldn’t be funny if it weren’t so damn true. Mm-hmm. Right?
[00:53:20] Doug: That’s right.
[00:53:21] Joe: Thanks to all of you for some fun conversations lately, and to, uh, our friend Jesse Cramer for kinda stirring the pot as well in mom’s basement. On how many windows are in your house, oh, my goodness, we had quite the discussion on the number of windows in your house.
[00:53:35] Joe: Hey, if you’re a member of our meetup groups, make sure that you check the local Facebook pages for those because we are doing our quarterly members only meetup group on the Efficient Frontier later this month. But to make sure you get signed up and you know when it is, head to the local meetup group.
[00:53:50] Joe: And by the way, if you’re not in one of our local groups, go to stackingbenjamins.com/bad, Benjamins After Dark. So it’s stackingbenjamins.com/bad to join us for that. All right, Doug, you’ve got it from here, my friend. What should we have learned on today’s show?
[00:54:06] Doug: Well, Joe, first, take some advice from Len Penzo.
[00:54:09] Doug: Pack a lunch. Sure, prices are going up, but it’s still much cheaper and probably healthier than that cafeteria lunch at work or school. Second, power of attorney, yeah, you may need it, but make sure you read it and be careful who you give it to. But the big lesson, speaking of careful, always share today’s show results with Joe’s mom.
[00:54:30] Doug: You got it. It’s BLT night in the basement. #winning. Look, I know what I’m doing here, people. Thanks to Mr. Len Penzo for joining us today. Want to see the whole sandwich survey? Of course you do. You’ll find it at lenpenzo.com. We’ll also include links in our show notes at stackingbenjamins.com. This show is the property of SP Podcasts LLC, copyright 2026, and is created by Joe Saul-Sehy.
[00:55:01] Doug: 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. 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.
[00:55:20] Doug: This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and we’ll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamins show
[00:56:28] Joe: Welcome to the after show. This is the part of the show that doesn’t exist. What happens in the after show, Stackers, stays in the after show, so, uh, we don’t talk about it. But, uh, OG, you’ve got some after show material, and we have special guest Anna Elum today with us for the after show. What’s
[00:56:44] Anna: up?
[00:56:45] OG: I was just curious for you guys when the last time is that you used a fire extinguisher?
[00:56:54] Anna: I’ve never used a fire extinguisher But I recently just checked all of my fire extinguishers. I have a document where I go and check all of my, like, um, fire alarm, carbon monoxide, all of the things.
[00:57:09] Joe: That’s good. Doug, our fire guy every fall, Steve would send Anna a gold star.
[00:57:15] Doug: Yeah. He would. That’s a much better episode than you would expect.
[00:57:19] Doug: It’s worth going back and listening to.
[00:57:21] Joe: There’s a piece of this that is, like, good writing. I was watching… And, and Doug, you’re gonna appreciate this. I finished season three of The Night Agent. I liked it every bit- … as much as I loved season two. Th- this show just great show. Absolutely loved it. I think season one was the worst season.
[00:57:38] Joe: You still haven’t gotten back to it? I would strongly advise you to go back to it. It’s so good. But in the last episode, one of the characters notices that there are these tanks that are clearly flammable, and I paused it and I said, “You don’t have a character look at the tank without later blowing up the tank.”
[00:58:00] Joe: Like, these tanks are clearly gonna blow up, ’cause she stops to look at them. So OG, why did you ask about using a fire extinguisher?
[00:58:09] OG: Well, I was just curious if you guys have ever… Have you ever used one? Anna’s never used one. Have you guys ever used a fire extinguisher?
[00:58:14] Joe: Once.
[00:58:16] OG: Okay. And your experience was?
[00:58:18] Joe: Not good. Like, there’s the foamy crap all over the-
[00:58:23] OG: Oh. Yeah.
[00:58:23] Anna: Oh. OG, did you have to do that this weekend?
[00:58:26] OG: Just wondering if Doug wants to participate in this conversation. I- I’m getting the sense no, he does not. I, I said no. First of all, I don’t know that I’ve ever used a fire extinguisher, uh, until yesterday, and, um, it is not pleasant.
[00:58:40] OG: I would not advise it. It makes a giant mess. It’s also very hard to breathe. I know why firemen wear those little mask things now it turns out. Fire extinguishers are meant to, like, suck all the oxygen out of the area. So, um, that was cool. Um, it gets everywhere, and I learned that it’s corrosive, so that’s fun.
[00:59:03] Anna: Can you back up and tell us why you had to use a fire
[00:59:07] OG: extinguisher? Yeah.
[00:59:07] Doug: Oh, sure. That’s the story.
[00:59:09] OG: We started a small fire meant to cook steaks, and, uh, turned into a big fire that was meant to cook a house.
[00:59:17] Anna: Are you talking about on a grill or on a bonfire?
[00:59:20] OG: No, no. Uh, on, on our grill.
[00:59:22] Anna: Okay.
[00:59:22] OG: Yeah. Yeah, so light the grill, everything’s fine.
[00:59:25] OG: You know, gotta heat it up and then we’re gonna air fry some potatoes and cook some steaks. And I’m sitting on the couch, and my grill is, uh, new-ish. It’s probably, I don’t know, less than 10 years old, I think. It’s a, a little built-in thing. But there are parts that need to be replaced now. And I was, I, I was paying attention to that and, and, and, and I was thinking, “Now might be the time.
[00:59:48] OG: I don’t really wanna spend the money, but it is what it is.” And I literally had the page open to buy the new bricks. It’s, like, got a little thing that the bricks set in. And Joe, you know our grill, you know, ’cause you’ve stayed at our house. It was, it was, like,
[00:59:58] Joe: 2020 you got it, I think.
[01:00:00] OG: Yeah, maybe. It sounds about right.
[01:00:02] OG: Yeah. Um, so maybe it’s only six years old. Anyways, so I’m, like, sitting on the couch, and we’re talking about what kind of potatoes we’re gonna make and, and Lissa says, “Well, when are you gonna put the steaks on?” I said, “I don’t know, in, like, five minutes. I just gotta heat the grill up.” And she kind of peers over her shoulder and she goes, “Whoa, that’s a lot of smoke coming from the grill,” which is nev- there’s never any amount of smoke coming from a grill that’s good.
[01:00:23] OG: If you can picture our backyard, Joe, ’cause Doug, I think you’ve been there, too. So, like, you go out the back patio, the grill’s on your left, and there’s, like, kinda where the fireplace is, a little, uh-
[01:00:32] opener: Yeah …
[01:00:33] OG: you can’t see the pool, that’s how much smoke there
[01:00:35] Joe: is. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my God.
[01:00:36] OG: And I’m like- Oh … “Oh, boy.”
[01:00:39] OG: So I go outside and, um, obviously there’s a fire to… Now, I’m, I’m pretty sure it was a grease fire, but the gas, the… So we have gas that’s pumped in from the main line to the house, so there’s no… Like, it’s under the grill. I’m not turning that thing off, you know, with a fireball going. Burn the heck out of my fingers.
[01:00:58] OG: So finally get the gas off to the burners, but like, fi- fire is shooting out of the burner knobs, like, five feet, you know, like, woof.
[01:01:07] Len: Wow.
[01:01:08] OG: Like, oh, boy. So anyways, long story short, uh, a little fire extinguisher love, um, and a hose, and, uh, some American ingenuity got that all squared away. So, uh, I would advise cleaning your grill from time to time.
[01:01:22] OG: That is the moral of this story. So you guys should do that. There are two types of learning in this world. Anna knows this phrase that I say. There’s your learnings or there’s other people’s learnings. Learn from other people’s learnings right now and go clean your grill
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