Do money gurus always have your best interest in mind, or are they spinning tales that sound good but don’t work in real life? In today’s roundtable, we dissect a viral blog post by financial dignity coach Christine Luken titled Four Lies Money Gurus Tell You. Are they truly lies… or just oversimplified advice meant to sell books and courses?
Joining Joe in the basement are Paula Pant (Afford Anything), Jesse Cramer (The Best Interest Podcast), and Doc G (Earn & Invest)—with Doug keeping things mature and trivia-laced as always. The panel debates each “lie” with humor, skepticism, and the occasional fruit-based visual aid. From budgeting myths to willpower and credit card shaming, nothing escapes the hot seat.
💥 Here’s what we cover:
- 💸 Why “you need a budget to make yourself behave” might be bogus… or brilliant
- ⚖️ The dangers of one-size-fits-all financial formulas—and how to spot a charlatan
- 🧠 Willpower vs. systems: What actually helps you build lasting habits?
- 💳 Does cutting up your credit cards solve overspending, or miss the real issue?
- 🗣 How to tell when a guru’s advice is gold vs. garbage
- 🎯 Why your personality may matter more than the advice itself
- 🍌 An alarming number of fruit cameos, including Jesse’s banana and Paula’s cherries
- 🦈 A trivia homage to Jaws and LaserDiscs (yes, that’s a thing)
📣 Shoutouts:
Big thanks to our YouTube audience (hi, Heavy, Carlos, and Rocky!) for joining the livestream! We’d love to have more Stackers join the fun—Wednesdays at 4 PM Eastern.
📬 Need More SB in Your Life?
Catch Paula every week on Afford Anything, where she dives deep into financial independence, lifestyle design, and money psychology.
Check out Earn & Invest to hear Doc G’s fascinating interviews—including his upcoming convo with Steve Eisman (yup, the real Big Short guy).
And follow Jesse on The Best Interest Podcast, where he’s doing deep dives (and giveaways) on everything from the Joneses to Warren Buffett.
🎧 Listen and Subscribe:
Available wherever you get your podcasts—and don’t forget to tell your friends who are tired of boring money shows. We’re the show that teaches while you laugh (and occasionally groan at Doug’s jokes).
Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.StackingBenjamins.com/201
Enjoy!
Our Topic:
4 Lies Money Gurus Tell You | Financial Coaching for High-Income Earners (Christine Luken)
During our conversation, you’ll hear us mention:
- Budgeting absolutes
- Anti-budget method
- Savings first
- Simplicity vs. complexity
- Budgeting for beginners
- Habit formation
- Behavioral change
- Curse of knowledge
- Financial dignity
- Frameworks vs. formulas
- Personalized planning
- Absolutes skepticism
- Rules of thumb
- Advisor red flags
- Process over product
- Cook vs. chef
- Emotional spending
- Systems over willpower
- Moderation vs. absolutes
- Personality-based strategy
- Credit card temptation
- Buy-now-pay-later
- FICO score updates
- Clickbait titles
- Fruit-based metaphors
Our Contributors
A big thanks to our contributors! You can check out more links for our guests below.
Jesse Cramer
Another thanks to Jesse Cramer for joining our contributors this week! Hear more from Jesse on his show, Personal Finance for Long-Term Investors – The Best Interest, on Apple Podcasts.
Learn how you can work with Jesse by visiting The Best Interest – Invest in Knowledge.
Doc G
Another thanks to Doc G for joining our contributors this week! Hear more from Doc G on his podcast, Earn & Invest, on Apple Podcasts.
Check out his latest book The Purpose Code: How to unlock meaning, maximize happiness, and leave a lasting legacy.
Paula Pant
Check out Paula’s site and amazing podcast at AffordAnything.com
Follow Paula on Twitter: @AffordAnything
Doug’s Game Show Trivia
- What year did the LAST LaserDisc hit the North American market?
Mentioned in today’s show
- I Will Teach You to Be Rich: No Guilt. No Excuses. Just a 6-Week Program That Works (Second Edition) by Ramit Sethi
- Set for Life: An All-Out Approach to Early Financial Freedom (Financial Freedom, 1) by Scott Trench
- Broke Millennial: Stop Scraping By and Get Your Financial Life Together by Erin Lowry
- The Purpose Code: How to Unlock Meaning, Maximize Happiness, and Leave a Lasting Legacy by Jordan Grumet (Doc G)
Join Us on Monday!
Tune in on Monday when we revisit a long-trusted financial rule of thumb whose creator says it outdated and often used incorrectly.
Miss our last show? Check it out here: Your Questions Answered: Saving, Investing & Estate Planning, Stacker Style (Episode 1700!!!)
Written by: Kevin Bailey
Episode transcript:
bit: So you’ll pick me up tonight at 7 45?
bit: Oh, well, no. I got a few things to, to take care of first, but what, why don’t we make it quarter to eight? Stop it. Okay. 7 45
Doug: Live from the basement of the YouTube headquarters. It’s the Stacking Benjamin Show.
I am Joe’s mom’s neighbor. Doug. What does mom say? There are liars and gang. And liars. And then there’s statistics. I don’t know about the third part of that, but today we are talking about lies that financial gurus tell us. What are they? How do we see through the lies? We’ll debate that on our Friday panel today, plus halfway through.
What’s sure to be the best conversation you’ve heard since Wednesday. We’ll pause briefly to see who’s this week’s champ in our year long money trivia competition. And now a guy who believes your financial future is brighter than your phone screen at 2:00 AM It’s Joe Saul-Sehy.
Joe: And you know it’s funny, Doug.
I know how bright the phone screen is at 2:00 AM because I just got home from Greece. Yeah. And they are eight hours ahead, so it’s like. I am wide awake at at 2:00 AM
Doug: like, hello? It’s like having a hangover. You can’t sleep and you’re like, damn, I’m gonna look at my phone. And even when you have the setting where it turns the brightness down a little bit, it’s still just glaring.
Joe: What was that little Jerry Seinfeld piece where he’s like, you’re up late at night and the only thing that’s still awake is your thumb is your flipping channels on the tv. Yeah, that’s right. The rest of your body’s asleep. But. We’re not putting you sleep on this, and we don’t want you to sleep, by the way, on any of the topics we talk about today, because we’re gonna talk about financial gurus and one blogger who talks about the lies, lie, lie, lies that financial gurus tell.
So we have a packed house of phenomenal guest today. Let’s meet our panel. Let’s start with a woman who joins us from the great state of New York. Paula Pant is here. How are you?
Paula: I am great. And you know what? I think line number one is I. That these guys have been traveling because show as you, as you just admitted to you, uh, you were in beautiful, beautiful Greece.
I’ve asked you if you
Joe: remember mm-hmm. I told that to the YouTube audience, not the podcast audience.
Paula: Oh.
Joe: Oh. ’cause everybody’s like, what are you talking about?
Paula: Ah. Oh, oh, oh. This has been selectively ninja. Collective Lies ninja. Now we gotta
Joe: start over. We’ll fix it in post. So what’s going on Paula? What did you do?
While I was gone for a whopping 18 days.
Paula: Oh man. I am trying to make it through the heat wave in New York. It’s, I think about a hundred degrees today. I’ve got my thermostat set literally to 80 degrees, and the, the air conditioners chugging like it’s running nonstop just to try to cool the apartment to 80.
Joe: I head to Detroit tomorrow. It’s like 93 there. Doug, you’re a, you’re I think in Detroit, uh, right now, aren’t you?
Doug: I am. I’m just outside of Detroit. Yesterday actually, the thermometer on my back porch got to 101. It was pretty rough. It’s been pretty rough here, but we’re, we’re getting through it. Took the dogs to the river today, let them get dunked a little bit and.
Figured out. Welcome to Stacking
Joe: Benjamin’s. Weather on the eights. Yeah.
Doug: Weather and traffic.
Joe: And a guy who also has a heat wave in Rochester, New York, because I think it’s probably, what was it? 16, 17, 18, 20 degrees there, Jesse, like super hot,
Jesse: 20 degrees Celsius. Right now it’s about 70 degrees Fahrenheit. The snowbanks are shrinking.
For now. They might return soon. No, it’s been, it’s been really warm. It’s been in the nineties for the last two or three days, man. It’s gonna break tomorrow. We’re gonna get down into the eighties Fahrenheit tomorrow, no longer in Celsius. That would be too hot. But, uh, yeah, this has been, uh, chemistry on the nines
Joe: and the guy who is the 10 on this podcast from Chicago, Illinois.
Doc G aka Jordan Grumet joins
Doc G: us. How are you man? I’m doing well. I’m just staying cool here in our nice new air conditioning. We just mostly finished like a year long remodel and the air conditioner’s actually working, so we’re good. And it’s usually cool there on the lake in Chicago,
Joe: but uh, not today. I would imagine
Doc G: it is in the summer.
It’s really nice. In the winter or as it’s like springtime, everyone’s getting to the seventies and eighties and we’re still in the sixties, so, you know, it is what it is.
Joe: Man. Well, let’s tell everybody what the mission is here today. This blogger, Christine Luken, wrote a piece called Four Lies Money Gurus Tell You.
Are these lies and are money gurus spouting these all the time. We’re gonna talk about these lies. We’re gonna dig into all four of them that Christine talks about. I think we’ve got a lot of meat here for the next hour, so sit back and relax before we get to this piece. We’ve got some sponsors that make sure we can keep on keeping on.
You don’t pay a penny for any of the goodness that Jesse, doc g, and Paula bring to the show. So we’re gonna hear from them and Doug.
We’re gonna hear from them. And then let’s talk about four lies. Money Gurus tell you
there are four here, so I thought a great format is we’ll talk about two, then we’ll break for our year long trivia competition, guys, and then we’ll cover the last two. This is the intro to the piece from Christine Luken. It’s at christineluken.com. She’s a financial dignity coach. You might be avoiding your financial issues because of the lies money gurus tell you.
Christine writes, maybe you think that rescuing your financial dignity is going to be the equivalent of crawling across broken glass. Rather than the amazing adventure that it is. Here are the four lies money gurus tell you and the real truth about rescuing your financial dignity once and for all.
Paula, let’s start with you, uh, here on lie number one, you need a budget to make yourself behave with money. She says that is a LIE.
Paula: Do you agree or disagree? I am in total agreement. Total agreement. Now, I will say, do what works for you. If the advice is a budget can work for some people, sure, I would agree with that.
But when the advice, which you so often hear is phrased as everybody must need a budget. No, not everybody needs one. And in fact, I’m a big proponent of what I call the anti-budget, which is you pull your savings off the top first. And in this context, savings is anything that improves your net worth. It could be extra payments towards a debt above and beyond the minimum.
It could be retirement contributions. It could be literal cash and a savings account. But any net worth improvement, you pull it off the top first and then you spend freely with whatever.
Joe: I couldn’t disagree with you more, Paula. Ooh, I agree with everything that you said, except when somebody is trying to crawl out as she writes and get some financial dignity.
I’m thinking about somebody just starting out. I don’t know. Jesse, do you agree that everybody to crawl out of the gutter needs a budget crawl of the gutter? Oh my God, what am I talking
Jesse: about? You need a budget to make yourself behave with money. That’s the way the lie is phrased. You need a budget.
To make yourself behave with money? Uh, yeah, I suppose that’s a lie. But again, just directionally, again, if this is black and white, I think most people are better off in some form or fashion measuring their money. You can call it budgeting. You can call it anti-budgeting to some extent. You’re doing something intentional to divert money, to measure your money in some way, and then react accordingly based on what you’re measuring.
So I, I’m not sure if I. Uh, you know, she alludes in this explanation. The, the author alludes that, um, she was doing financial coaching at a church. Oh, maybe she says this in line number two. She was doing financial coaching at a church. I. Based on a course from a well-known money guru. I have a feeling I know who that money guru was.
Right? Right. And I know that Money Guru does espouse. Budget, budget, budget, budget. I, I think there is a lot of benefit to be had from budgeting. Uh, one side note though, I don’t know if I’m the only one when I read this article, I’m given an ad that looks to be a permanent ad. It’s for reprogramming your unconscious mind.
With hypnosis. And so again, if we’re talking about gurus to me, hypnosis, you know, uh, William Bernstein says, people say guru because charlatan is too hard to spell. So anyway, I’m a little, uh, on edge right now when it comes to, these lies. But the budgeting one, wait a minute. Are you
Joe: saying that hypnosis won’t help you reprogram your unconscious mind for financial abundance
Jesse: That.
I have questions, Joe. I’m just here to ask questions.
Paula: You are getting very rich. Exactly, exactly.
Joe: I’m not sure that’s how hypnosis works, but it looks good in the movies. Doc G, are you on board so far? We’ve got, Paula says, yeah, I think that’s a lie. Jesse’s like, yeah, kind of qualified to lie. Where do you come down?
Doc G: I agree. You don’t have to have a budget. In fact, for some people not having a budget works really well. You know what I don’t really like actually is some of the reasoning she goes into like kind of the more prosperity view as of, you know, if we’re thinking budget, all of a sudden it feels scarcity, but then if we do it outside of a budget, maybe we’re thinking more prosperity wise.
I think it comes down to simplicity. I think some people like me are bad at budgets because I don’t like complexity and so I don’t wanna keep track of three or four or five or six different categories. For me, it’s just easier to say, I’m gonna spend this many thousands of dollars this month, put in a bank account, and that’s how I know how much money I have to spend and I’m gonna save this much.
And it gets, you know, whooshed off into my. Investing account. I don’t even see it. So for me it’s more of a simplicity. It’s not about prosperity. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with budgeting. I don’t think it’s a negative thing. I don’t think it’s a scarcity thing. I just think when it comes to complexity versus simplicity, I always choose simplicity and some people are gonna do better with that.
Joe: I. I dunno. Here’s where I come down on this. Doug, you worked in corporate America. Did you ever do that thing that productivity experts would have you do? They’d have everybody in your department write down what you did like in a 15 minute increments to see like where time might be bleeding through? Yep.
Did you guys do that? Oh
Doug: yeah. Absolutely.
Joe: Did you find that
Doug: to be effective? I hated every second of doing it, and I did find it effective. Me too. Wow. A hundred percent kicked and screamed. Argued with it. I would just be the biggest pain in the ass in the room. I know that’s difficult to believe. Bear with me.
But then I finally just got on board and I look back on it and shoot.
Joe: Every time I boss at American Express brought one of those to me. I’m like, hell no. Right. No, no, no. And every time I was like, huh. That is very insightful. That was very insightful. I think when we first start out, Paula, I think having a budget just for a little while so that you apply some science to this so that you can see where the cracks are.
I agree with everything you said, but I think that’s for somebody who already kind of knows where the holes are. Mm-hmm. But my problem was when I was bad with money, I just didn’t understand how fricking big the leaks were. I thought when I just used my ATM card, like, oh, this is just a one-time thing.
Then when I started keeping track, I found out the one-time. Thing. It was like a 25 time thing.
Paula: Yeah, yeah. I think we’re both saying the same thing because I think of budgeting as something similar to like calorie counting, which is, to do that long term is very, very difficult.
I mean, to use measuring cups, you know, to, to weigh and measure, to use like a little kitchen scale and measuring cups to weigh and measure every single gram of food that you eat. You can do it for a couple of days. You can do it for even a couple of weeks, but it’s incredibly difficult unless you’re a, a professional to do that year in and year out.
Jesse’s holding a banana. But Jesse, have you weighed that banana on a scale? Well, that’s what I, that’s why
Jesse: I was holding it up here. It’s, I didn’t, but maybe I should.
Doug: I can’t tell. I feel like I wanna disagree with you guys, but I can’t really tell where you’re landing and I can’t really tell. It, it’s, it’s stated so succinctly by the author.
You need a budget to make yourself behave with money. I read that and I hear an, an implication that you’re not already good with money. And I think you guys are also, I. Ingrained in personal finance that you forget the time except Joe. Joe’s still right on the edge. You’re being good with money and not good money someday.
We all have a
Joe: dream.
Doug: I don’t think you remember when you guys really sucked with money. You need major behavioral changes. And I think to do that, it probably takes a good year or more, not a couple of weeks or a couple of months. I think it probably takes a year or more. Really trying to constrain yourself with something that looks like a budget before then you can do Paula’s famous anti-budget, which is how I live right now.
Paula, like I’m with you. I do the same thing. I kind of check in on it once a year, make sure I’m allocating proper things to investments and savings. Mm-hmm. And then I just spend whatever the hell I wanna spend. Right. Because I’ve automated all the rest of it. But when that wasn’t the case, when I was just kind of getting smart with my money, I had to force myself to use a budget.
So I. I don’t think it’s a lie the way the author has stated it. I think you do need to have that to change your behavior. Mm-hmm.
Jesse: Um, hot take two. Thoughts for you, Doug. I mean, the, the curse of knowledge is what you kind of just described there, which is like, once someone knows things like Doc G might be familiar with this, with med school stuff is like, once you know something and you’re like an expert on it, you forget what it was like to no longer to not be an expert and like that’s a well-documented thing, the curse of knowledge.
Then the second one is, uh. Only a Seth deals in absolutes. Right. But it’s like, to some extent, you know, this a nerd, this lie. Exactly right. Didn’t we have a Star Wars trivia recently? Super. This lie is an absolute, you need a budget to make yourself behave with money. Thinking back to this guru who this author is probably referring to, who deals in a lot of absolutes in your defense, Doug, a lot of that guru’s audience needs absolutes to really provide these guardrails for them to get out of the trouble that they’ve, the financial trouble that they’ve found themselves in.
So there might be some, some efficacy there.
Joe: I think that brings up something big, Jesse, too, which is, you know, when these people are talking to large audiences, you know, you look at the size of Dave Ramsey’s audience, Susie Orman’s audience, Jim Kramer’s audience, they’ll speak in much more black and white terms because they have to, because they’re talking to these huge numbers of people where I feel like on our shows, we’re able to kind of get into the gray area a little more.
I mean, I actually enjoy being more in the gray area. Like it’s not an absolute all the time. But I do think that any money guru telling you when you first start off to get a budget, that’s not bad advice. And the implication, the title to me, Jordan, is that, you know, she’s saying lies. I think it’s a good thing to tell somebody who’s not good with money.
Why don’t you do a budget for a while?
Doc G: Yeah. I mean, again, I think we can always find someone who doesn’t fit. In what the rest of us look like. But I, I, I agree. I think, again, you don’t have to have a budget, but it’s not a bad place to start. Let’s say
Joe: hello to the stackers hanging out with us on YouTube as we make this show.
We’re here a day early. We were on Tuesday and we still had some cool people show up. Carlos here from North Carolina Heavy is here from Minnesota. Uh, in fact, Minnesota’s here twice. Mike is here from St. Paul, so we’ve got Minnesota in the house, heavy. Says it was 110 degrees heat index in Minnesota. Wow.
Of all places. Wow. Minnesota. They
Doc G: can take everything. Wow. Minnesota goes coldest to the cold and hottest of the hot, and they just smile. I. And heavy
Joe: Also, Jesse Echoes, uh, Doug saying you’re a nerd
Jesse: that’s coming from heavy, who we know who heavy is. I mean, that’s quite the insult, right? Mr. Video games playing in the background.
I see you, Chris,
Joe: which is, which is why, why we love you more, Jesse. Exactly. Love the street cred. Let’s go to lie number two on this list. You know what doc? We’ll stick with you here. Lie number two, follow this exact formula and get these results. She’s saying gurus out there pedaling exact formulas.
Doc G: Oh, they are.
And the reason why is because they have that formula all formulated for you and for just 1999. You can buy it from them. So I, I think this is very consumer oriented. I think anyone who’s coming at you saying, this is a hundred percent the way to do it, and I’m the only one who can tell you how to do it, and this is exactly how you do it.
They’re selling you something. And we all know that people’s lives are different, their budgets are different, their income is different, their needs and spend is different. so it’s really hard to encapsulate everyone in one specific plan. It’s just too regimented.
Joe: I’m gonna assume, Paula, that you agree.
I can’t see you disagreeing with that, with that statement. So let me ask you the next thing, which is, how do you know though? Because when somebody has either a podcast or a YouTube video or a book, and they’re telling you, this is how you get more successful. Like, I feel like when I look at lie number two, I then go read Ramit Sethi’s book, which I think is really good, or mm-hmm.
Scott Trench’s book, or Erin Lowry’s book or some of the, you know, great Joe Saul-Sehy’s book. You can go Doc G’s book. You can go and look at these books and you can go, oh, I was told that they’re lying to me. What’s your kind of rubric to know that some guru’s formula is sending me on down the right path versus the wrong one.
Paula: You know, I think I would have to echo what Jesse said about only a sith deals in absolutes, even though I don’t know what a sith is, but I assume it’s something bad. But I think that’s the rubric, because if the statement is made as an absolute, and particularly if the warning is like, if you don’t follow this, then like there will be hell to pay.
Um, it will be, you know, you, you can’t do X or Y or Z, or you know, it’s. I think that when that is presented as follow me or there will be consequences otherwise, oh, you know, I think that’s sort of the, the, that’s the major red flag.
Joe: You’re focused on the my way or the highway aspect of that.
Paula: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
You know, whereas I think, and I like what they say in this article where if advice is presented by taking, peeling back the onion and taking a deeper look at the why and the motivation that’s underpinning some of the behaviors. Then it’s likely to be more effective.
Joe: Jess, you work at a financial planning office.
Yeah. How do you get people to kind of peel back that onion so you know where to start?
Jesse: Uh, peel back the onion so I know where to start. I mean, I suppose having them just share all their financial details, income expenses and assets and debts and goals and timelines and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Social security numbers.
Exactly. Mothers Ma, exactly right. Exactly right.
Joe: What elementary school you went to?
Jesse: All the security passwords, second cat’s first name, uh, all that kind of stuff. But I mean, I don’t know, going back to what Doc G was saying, it’s like the, there’s the lie itself as it’s presented, and then there’s the explanation of this lie.
And when I think of some of the quote unquote exact formulas out there, especially some that are espoused by some gurus, I think of things like the order of operations or, these proper ways to kind of save money or maybe in retirement. The general rules of thumb about how to withdraw money and when to take social security or like some of those questions, and I’m like, well, it’s okay to have these general frameworks, these general rules of thumb with some explanation behind them to act as guideposts so people can kind of understand directionally what they ought to be doing.
I don’t see that as a problem per se. I mean, granted, I I, to your point though, are there some true gurus out there, some actual charlatans who are espousing a specific formula for 49 99 and and promising the world with this? I’m sure there are, but there are other parts of personal finance and financial planning that are very much like, Hey, this is well trodden ground and we know the best way to approach this problem.
Here’s the framework. Here are the steps you ought to take. And I think it’s kind of good that we’ve gotten this far in personal finance.
Joe: I wanna focus on what you said at the very beginning. I liked all of it, but I really wanna focus on what you said at first, Jesse, ’cause I think that’s really important.
I think a good advisor is somebody who asks you first what problem you’re trying to solve, a bad financial advisor. It tells you I have a solution to all your problems for 1999. Do you use Jordan Jordan’s thing? And Roger Whitney said this on the show several weeks ago now. He said, if an advisor leads with product, you need to run, right?
If they lead with process, to your point, Jesse, here’s the process. We use this as a framework. Here’s the why and here’s why. We might violate that for you because of the fact that you’re different. I think that’s a much, much, much better way to handle it. Jordan, any more thoughts on line number two here?
Doc G: I think something I hear you Joe say all the time is you’ve gotta kind of know the rules, when to know to break them. So the only positive thing I can say on the other side of this is what I think Jesse was pointing to is I think a lot of these rules and these stepped plans are really good for us to understand and then we can decide whether they really fit our situation or not.
So it’s not that having a method is bad, and so to give a little credit to some of these quote unquote gurus, I mean. Finding simple ways to help people organize their thoughts and plan for the future is a good thing. And I think we should pay attention to that. But then our big question should be, does that fit us?
Does it our fit our situation? And when does this not work for us? And then know when to break that rule.
Paula: Can I add to that? Because listening to you describe that, it makes me think of. the metaphor of the cook versus the chef, right? Mm-hmm. You a cook might follow a recipe exactly as written, whereas a chef would look at a, a variety of different recipes, figure out what some of the common underlying themes or trends or, you know, what are they really trying to get at in the construction of this, and then riff on that to come up with something original.
Joe: That’s fantastic. You’re making me hungry. Well, luckily what I’m hungry for is trivia. How about that? We’re halfway through. We’re halfway through. Great transition. Today’s show. That would be the worst fricking segue ever. Mm-hmm. Until I’ve gone a couple weeks at halfway point of every show, uh, stackers, we dive into this year long trivia competition.
And Paula, what are you, uh, holding up to the camera?
Paula: Oh, it’s, say it’s a box of cherries. It’s a box. It’s, it’s not exactly the same as a banana, but I mean, that’s. Three outta the five of us are just sitting here with fruit. Two outta the five. Two outta the five. Oh
Doc G: my God. I was about to say, I need to hold up like a piece of pizza or some chocolate or something.
What’s going on here? What does this happen
Joe: on our show? Why I can’t figure it out? How
Doug: am I not supposed to make a joke about that? Mm-hmm. A box of cherries. A box of Cher. Seriously, you cannot do that. To me, a box of life is like a box of chocolates. Is is? Yep. Oh yeah. That’s what I was thinking. What and what?
And Jesse holding up his banana. Yeah.
Joe: Is that what you’re saying? Exactly. You guys are killing me. Wow. Doug is 12 years old. He is seriously 12 years old. We at that way point of every show we call a HU, to the incredible discussion that we’re having because we have this year long trivia competition between our three frequent contributors, which include OG and uh Jordan.
You’re playing on behalf of OG Today. Which means like last time you were here, dude, you have one job to lose.
Doc G: To
Joe: lose.
Doc G: But I didn’t do it last time, did
Joe: I? You did not do it last time. And Paula and Jesse and Doug, you’ve got the score between Doc G slash og, all the Gs, and Jesse and Paula, what is the score so far this year?
I do, at the moment,
Doug: OG has a commanding lead with eight, and Jesse and Paula are trying, uh, they’re running neck and neck at 5.5 points, so five and a half points
Joe: and two of those points. Come down to Dr. Jordan Grumet who, uh, just, just WWI dunno what happened that day. That was a dark day in Stacking Benjamin’s history.
But where there’s a will, there’s a way. Jordan, you can get back. I, I promise I won’t win again. You can get back your mojo, but Doug, we need a question this week. What’s going on? On today’s date,
Doug: Hey there, stackers. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor Doug, because it’s hotter than beach sand in the afternoon, and everyone’s thinking about how fast they can run from their towel to the water. Let’s celebrate the one thing that made everyone get to the water’s edge and say. Nope. The movie Jaws was released 50 years ago last week, and broke sales records across the world bringing in tons of money for Steven Spielberg.
Yes. Audiences across the world went to the theater, their pants, and never visited the beach again. Not a joke. Beaches across the world lost tons of traffic and all on account of a fake shark that barely worked enough to complete the film. So here’s today’s question. Marking this anniversary, jaws was the first movie widely released on a format called Laser Disc.
These LP sized. Discs doubled the resolution of popular formats of the day like VHS and Betamax, and was also the first to include CD quality, digital audio, and surround sound. While laser discs didn’t end up making nearly as many Benjamins as creators had hoped. It stayed around four. Well, there’s a question.
What year did the last laser disc hit the North American market? I’ll be back right after I go find a pen to rewind this cassette tape. Hey, gen X. Explain that one to all the young punks listening, would ya?
Joe: Alright. Jordan, you are up first. I have no clue what was the last year a laser disc was released in the USA
Doc G: last year, A laser disc. This is just for movies. I mean, last year a laser disc was released in the USA, um,
Joe: well, uh, north America, I’m sorry,
Doc G: north America. I’m gonna say 2008. 2008.
Joe: And I have no reason.
I have no reason for that. Jesse, you think that, uh, early or late?
Jesse: I was born in 1990 and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a laser disc.
Joe: There it is. So I’m
Jesse: gonna say 1990. And, uh, that’s my reason why
Joe: 1990. ’cause they were extinct to Jesse already. Have you seen the laser death since, or you’ve never seen one?
Still have never seen one. I, I don’t think I’ve ever seen one.
Jesse: I’ll Google it after this and just see if I recognize what it looks like.
Joe: I think I read Doug, there were 2 million people in the United States that had one, I believe in Japan. It had 10% of the population actually embraced that technology just so they could make sure they had to get rid of all those before they went to, to DCDs and DVDs and, you know, on onto the next thing before streaming.
But I think I knew Doug, one person who owned a laser disc player. Did you know anybody? I only knew
Doug: I saw one once. Yeah, yeah. I was at somebody’s house. They had one, and I thought, well, that thing’s huge. Jordan, you ever see
Doc G: one? I’m having trouble figuring out the difference between a laser disc player and a CD player.
A laser disc is like the size of an lp. Like it
Joe: was seriously huge.
Doc G: Okay. A CD is, you know,
Joe: much, much, much smaller.
Doc G: I’m vaguely remembering them, but I think Jesse’s more, right? I think it was probably gone by the nineties, but I’m vaguely remembering that.
Jesse: Could you guys give some more context and hints to Paula before she gets, are we gonna get
Doug: Paula’s answer here?
What the heck are we doing?
Jesse: Oh, sorry, I
Joe: forgot.
Paula: Oh, Paula, I
Joe: guess that, that you should probably go too.
Paula: Well. Okay, so in Doug’s question, he mentioned that Jaws was released 50 years ago, so that would’ve been 1975.
Joe: Ah, that was the first one.
Paula: That was the first one. So if the first one was 1975. The question is how long would a given piece of what then was new technology?
Well, like what is the lifecycle of a piece of technology from birth to death?
Joe: Um, that kind of is what we’re asking Paula.
Doc G: Yeah, I think, I think she talks herself out of getting the right answer. Go ahead,
Doug: ask Joe. How long has Microsoft Zoom player last game? And that’ll give you an idea, both of the ones that he owned.
Paula: Back in those days, tech didn’t iterate as quickly as it does today, so. I’m going to take the over and say 1991.
Joe: Hmm. 1991. All right. We got 2008, 1990. 1991. I love how the people last like cannibalize each other. What are we doing? Take the under. Take the under. Um, doc. Let’s see. Let’s see who’s right. We’re gonna get to that in just a minute.
We’ll be right back. Doc G You kicked this off with 2008, Jesse and Paula said Nay. Nay. They think it was way earlier. What do you think? You feeling confident?
Doc G: I don’t know. I was feeling unconfident and then I was looking at Doug’s face and he seems kind of bummed, so maybe I’m, maybe I’m closer than I thought.
Joe: I don’t know. I see
Doc G: his poker face. Yeah. Jesse,
Joe: how are you feeling at 1990?
Jesse: Uh, not as good as I was before Paula’s guess, but, uh, yeah.
Joe: So you think it’s after 1990?
Jesse: Well, I just think that half of my, half my probabilities just got cut off, you know? That is true. I’ve, I’ve been bisected. Yeah.
Joe: Paula, what guy?
Why? Like,
Jesse: like a shark. Like a shark. It’s like, jaws just cut me in half. You know,
Joe: Paula, how you feel it?
Paula: You know, I’m, I’m, I am maybe regretting a little bit. I, maybe I should have just taken the average between the two, right? Maybe I should have just gone for like 2000 or something, you know, square, I mean, not, that’s not the exact average, but somewhere in the middle.
Joe: Paula, 12 years of futility at this. Can’t be wrong. I mean, why change your strategy now? Why turn over a new leaf today,
Doug: Doug, who won this thing? Oh God. This whole answer is gonna be so painful for me to do. I’ll just go to bear it here. Hey, there’s Stackers. I’m home movie lover and guy who probably owes Blockbuster about 145 bucks in rewind fees.
Joe’s Mom’s neighbor Doug. It’s the anniversary of the hit movie Jaws. Which came out an incredible 50 years ago, last week. One stat about the film because the mechanical shark didn’t work right? That forced Spielberg and Company to create a better soundtrack and allusions to the shark without showing it until about an hour into the movie because you didn’t actually see the shark.
It actually made the film that much more frightening. Speaking of frightening. One thing, laser disc owner speared was the death of their beloved machines while collectors still dot the landscape. What year did the last laser disc hit the North American market? Well, the correct answer is paramount bringing out the dead on October 3rd.
I’m not gonna tell you the actual year, but I will say Jesse was off by 10 years. Paula was off by nine years. This sucks so bad. Oh, gee. Slash doc was off by just eight years because the correct year was 2002.
Doc G: I’m gonna throw up. Oh boy.
Doug: Why are we inviting this guy back?
Doc G: I’m telling you, Doug’s face said it all. That’s the only reason I thought I was totally off. And then Doug kept on, he kept shaking his
Joe: head. He just kept on shaking his head. If you’re not with us on YouTube. You totally missed the best video of Doug’s face.
I’m so
Doug: pissed. I dunno, how hard is this? I dunno who to be mad or at Doug or Paula. Because Paula, seriously,
Paula: I can’t believe I actually prefaced that by saying I regret not choosing 2000.
Doug: Yeah, yeah, I know. So do we. If you had said, Doug, can I change my answer? I would’ve implored you to change your answer.
Joe: Anyway. Well, that was fun. Let’s, let’s rinse and, uh, get back to the piece, shall we? Doc G, congratulations, man.
Doc G: Right. G’s gotta be setting me a gift. I think,
Joe: like I’m just
Doc G: hand, I’m just handing this one to him, by the way. It’s
Joe: 2000 for the US and in Asia where there was more penetration in the market. It was 2001, I swear to.
I just, it’s Wow. You can’t say anything without just the, alright. Uh, let’s see if we can rera this conversation with two more lies from Christine looking speaks.
Lie number three, exercise your willpower to save money and get outta debt. Jesse, we haven’t started with you with one of these lies yet, so let’s have you take this one. Is this a lie? Exercise your willpower to save money and get outta debt?
Jesse: I’m not sure how that’s a lie, to be honest with you because I, I think in order to make decisions good or bad in life, you need some willpower to get off off the couch and and do stuff.
I just see the truth, the truth. In opposition to this lie is to utilize the power of emotion and habit to easily save money and pay off debt,
Joe: which sure sounds like willpower.
Jesse: Well, I don’t know. It just, it sounds like, it sounds, exactly, it just sounds like a little bit of semantics, a little bit of word play, like don’t use willpower, just use emotion and habit.
Right. I, I don’t know. So this is a lie. I, I can’t, uh, I think this lie is a lie.
Doug: It also directly contradicts line number one, which is don’t use budgets, which all that is, is a tool to build habits. Right?
Jesse: Yeah, I agree. So this, this one did throw me for a bit of a loop.
Joe: I don’t know though. It’s funny, Jesse, I do think that this is, uh, a lie.
I do think it’s a lie. Paula, what do you think? I.
Paula: I think the waterfall is number one, automation, number two habits, and then number three, willpower. So first, automate anything you can, and then if you can’t automate something, try to form a habit or a system around it. And if you, it’s something that you can’t form a habit or a system around then.
Willpower is what’s required and, and sometimes willpower is what gets you from step three to, you know, kind of up the waterfall. I guess that’s where the waterfall analogy falls short. Nothing moves up a waterfall, but yeah.
Joe: Hey, we’ve had lots of great analogies that didn’t work so far today, so you’re throwing another one on the fire.
Paula: Alright. Throwing waterfall on the fire.
Joe: Jesse, that was totally my thought too. Is that like in the hierarchy of things? Mm-hmm. People that think, and this is what I thought, I thought I just gotta have more willpower and be better with money. It wasn’t until I developed systems and I realized the power of systems and not leaving it to willpower.
’cause willpower was too easy to break, you know? I mean there, there were too many opportunities for me to go spend money, but once I set up system, so I never had any money. It was way better. That was where I thought this was actually a lie.
Jesse: Yeah, I mean, I don’t disagree with the explanations that you guys have provided.
I’m just trying to sit here to myself and just try to understand how someone can I. Get started on these kind of journeys that we’re talking about here. Again, kind of going back to, going back to basics, going back to square one. We’re talking to people right now who are just trying to get behind the eight ball and, and kind of reorient their financial lives and to think that willpower isn’t gonna play a role in that process.
I, my, my just gut reaction is like, well, what do you mean it has to play some role? You have to want to improve and it’s gonna take a little bit of willpower to initially, initially break your bad habits, for example. Well, that’s gonna take a little bit of willpower, so it’s not necessarily that you guys are wrong with your explanations, it’s just that this lie is written.
I’m, I’m not. Fully in agreement that it’s a lie.
Joe: It’s funny, it’s kind of the basis of a David Box book, which is about people focus too much on willpower and not enough on systems. Uh, doc G
Doc G: Yeah, I mean, I, I think the mistake we’re making here is the author is saying whether they’re saying right out or not, is that.
Gurus believe in absolutes and absolutes don’t work, but then the author themselves is putting out a whole different opposite set of absolutes. I mean, the truth of the matter is it’s both, right? You have to be able to budget and not budget. You have to be able to follow what other people do and not follow what other people do.
I mean. You have to be able to do both. You need willpower, but then you also have to save yourself from having willpower all the time. I think that’s where this article becomes what it’s criticizing.
Joe: But this is the difficult part for me, is that I hear exactly what you’re saying, Jordan, but I also think, I’m like, okay, if I’m sitting here listening to us talk about this, we say this all the time, right?
We’re like, well, that works for some people. It doesn’t work for other people. So, and then, you know, you get to the end of the episode, you’re like, what the, what the hell do I do? Like, where do I go with this then? So, Paula, if I gotta know when it’s an absolute, when it’s not like, again, how do I. Frame my, starting point.
Paula: the author, Gretchen Rubin, I think has very good advice about this. She talks about how, start with your personality, because some people are better at having absolutes and some people are better at living in kind of a, a world of moderation, right? So, for example, some people. Go back to the diet analogy.
For some people it works really well for them to just have a rule that says, I will and never eat dessert, or I will never eat chocolate. And that level of absolute is what allows them to stick to it. Because if it were, if it was a, sometimes maybe. Then it would devolve. And there are other people for whom it’s the opposite.
There are some people who just, their personality is, if it’s an absolute, I’m gonna rebel against it. So I think Gretchen’s point is start with that self-knowledge of I. Are you the type of person who thrives with absolutes or who thrives with moderation and gray area, and then take it from there?
Joe: You’re, you’re nodding your head, Jesse.
You agree with that?
Jesse: Well, a lot of what Paula was making sense, especially, I was thinking about my own diet and I was like, yeah, I certainly, it’s just funny too, how different, kind of like realms, so diet versus finances versus something else. I, I feel like in finances I can thrive under moderation. I can be like, I know what the rules are and I know that 90% of the time I’m supposed to do this, but yeah, 10% of the time I’ll break that rule and I’ll be fine for it.
And I won’t devolve into this bad slippery slope habit like Paula was saying. But on the diet side, I feel like if I don’t have absolutes, then I devolve pretty quickly. Like I, I could be on a, a good diet for a week and then it’s like, whatever. Yeah, I’ll, I’ll just have some chips and salsa. I’ll break my rule because I, you know, it’s, I’ve had a good week and next thing I know, like a day later, the whole bag is gone.
That’s just me. But it’s just funny too, you know, in one area, in one realm, I’m okay with moderation. And in the other one I need some absolutes to really stay focused. But, uh, so I agree. I agree with was Gretchen Rubin? That’s, that’s good. Gretchen
Joe: Rubin. Yeah.
Jesse: Good thoughts. It is
Joe: funny though, when you talk about like, Hey, I’m just gonna have the chips and salsa or whatever, and it’s the thing that goes directly against your diet.
That is the thing that you crave at the end of the week because you did really well. I. You know what I mean? How ridiculous that is. Mm-hmm. I just wanna break the thing that is working, like if I could stop doing the thing that’s working, that would be really, really great. We see results and then we, I dunno, we undercut ourselves.
Yeah. Line number four on here. Our last one is cut up your credit cards to keep from overspending. Paula, what do you think?
Paula: I disagree with the author. I think that if a person. Has a difficult time with managing their spending than getting rid of credit cards, or at a minimum, sticking them in a, you don’t necessarily have to cut it up, but stick it in a jar of peanut butter.
Stick it in a block of ice, give it to a friend to hold onto. It’s disgusting. You know, basic, you’re creating friction around your
Joe: ability to use it. You’re like, Paula, that’s your eighth peanut butter and jelly sandwich of the day.
Paula: So that that way if there’s truly, truly an emergency, you can still get to it, but it has to really be an emergency.
Doug: It would take you like 20 minutes to clean the peanut butter off of that, to buy that lipstick on Amazon. Oh, come on. It would take Doug four
Joe: minutes. It would take you four minutes, Doug, if it
Doug: were crunchy.
I love crunchy peanut butter.
Joe: I’m gonna stick it in the crunchy one. Yeah. The diet goes to hell, but hey, the credit card’s safe. It’s all protein for four minutes.
Paula: Use it to buy more peanut butter.
Joe: Doc G, cut up the credit cards. Is that a good prescription?
Doc G: Um, I can go either way on this. I, I don’t think you have to get rid of the credit cards, but I guess again, you need to know yourself.
And so if having credit cards around is something that’s gonna attempt you to no end and you’re gonna spend more, then you gotta get rid of ’em. On the other hand, if you can manage it, credit card points. Travel stuff. All the good things credit cards can do for you and you can still budget and plan and be wise.
Just depends who you are.
Joe: Be those points, Jesse, are what? Get new, new people to credit cards into trouble quicker. I.
Jesse: Yeah, I mean on net, we’ve probably talked about this here before, but the only reason why some of us are able to benefit from the credit card points game is because there are other people on the other side who are losing the credit card game terribly and, and they’re in debt, right?
Their debt payment, their debt service to the credit card company is what funds our points.
Doug: Yeah. So
Jesse: there’s definitely some losers to the game. Yeah. Do you disagree? I mean that’s, well, you guys were American Express guys. Am I wrong on that?
Joe: No, not at all.
Jesse: Yeah. What were your thoughts, Doug? I could hear your voice there.
I was saying, yay, like I’m
Doug: glad those SAPs are out there. Absolutely. Keep sucking America.
bit: You heard it here first.
Joe: Doug’s like, why aren’t we lying to people every meeting we have? He is like, we need to lie so that we can keep ahead of somebody.
Jesse: I did like the truth here in lie number four. ’cause it, it kind of resonated with me.
The payment method is rarely the problem. Ah, yeah. And I was, I was thinking about that and I’m trying to think to myself like, well, one of the problems with credit cards is just the access to easy credit. Or it’s almost like in investing, it’s like the access to easy leverage or like in the whole sports gambling thing, like here’s some free money.
Go bet. The access to easy anything can be a problem. But then I’m like, okay, so if, if this person gets rid of credit cards, do they sell the way to do like buy now, pay later? Because that’s the same thing. It’s access to easy credit. Even if you remove credit cards, I think some people would still have a spending issue that they would need to somehow resolve.
But you are taking away one of those avenues to easy credit, which probably on that, is going to help a lot of people,
Doug: in fact, to support, uh, the notion that the payment method is rarely the problem, or maybe it’s the opposite. But FICO just announced they’re gonna be incorporating BNPL data into their credit score.
Algorithm. Wow. So it’s, yeah, it’s the same thing really when you think about it. Yeah, they should. It’s just another name for credit. They absolutely should.
Joe: Sure. Totally. It’s a hundred percent credit. I mean, Klarna equals credit. Affirm equals credit. You, you know, I, I’m glad you talked about this piece, Jesse, again, because right below what you read, listen to what she says.
I do have some clients who know they can’t trust themself with a credit card, so they choose not to have one, which is kind of where I come down. You should choose not to have one. So cutting it up I think is a great idea. But then she says, I recommend that if my clients do decide they can handle a credit card responsibly, they keep one card with a reasonably low limit and pay it off in full monthly.
Jordan, isn’t this pretty much the same thing as cut up your credit cards? I mean, is isn’t she really saying yes?
Doc G: Yes. I mean, I, and this is, I had the problem with this, is it, it, there’s, I don’t know if the point actually holds on, on number four. I think she’s kind of speaking out of both sides of her mouth.
And the reason why is ’cause there’s really not an argument to be made. I mean, again, we’re talking about nuance. Uh, really people are different. And so it’s hard to give one specific rule that fits everybody well.
Joe: It’s funny. So on point with all four of these, Paula, where do you come down? Are these generally lies or are they not?
Lies are these lies? You’re seeing
Paula: a bunch of money gurus telling you lies is a strong word. Number one, the word lie implies intent. It implies the intent to mislead. I think what these truly are, are statements that are often phrased as absolutes, but that actually when you unpack them are, um. Statements that ought to be presented in a more nuanced manner.
Doc G: They’re good discussion starters, right? Mm-hmm. They’re just good discussion starters.
Jesse: Yeah,
Doc G: absolutely. Yeah.
Jesse: My, my first instinct was this is a great clickbait title.
Joe: A hundred percent, right? Mm-hmm.
Jesse: I think if the, if she threw a MFR in there too, it would’ve made it even better. Here are four lies that dirty m Fing money gurus tell you, sign me up.
Right? I’ll read that article every day. No, I totally agree with what Paula said and, and what d she agreed with. Like, these are four pieces of general guidance. That certainly applied to a large lot of people, but it’s just like presenting them as absolutes. What this is is a straw man, right? Presenting them as absolutes and then coming in and beating the piss out of these absolute rules.
That is definition straw man arguing. It’s still fun conversation. I’ve had a blast today. Have you seen my banana? But the podcast audience will be, they have no idea what’s going on here on the video merchant. But, uh, anyway, it was a good article in terms of. Just like Doc G said, great conversation starter.
Joe: Yeah. I thought that when I, when I saw this, I was so angry when I read it. I’m like, this is a bunch of, oh wait, this is a round table. So good. Wanna say a shout out to some more stackers hanging out with us? Rocky. Rocky says, uh, don’t you like your new background? Uh, apparently Rocky watches the house stalk much rocky
and, uh, Leonis. Annette is here from Pennsylvania hanging out. Glad you guys are here and anybody else hanging out. usually we are doing these on Wednesday afternoon around 4:00 PM Eastern time. Do the math on your time zone, and we’d love to have you and tell friends that maybe need to get their financial house in order that it’s a fun way to chat on these episodes about.
How to have more money. And by the way, the chat doesn’t end here. It also is on the channels that these fine contributors of ours have of their own. So let’s find out what you guys got going on. ’cause it’s always fun. Paula, what’s happening over at Afford Anything?
Paula: Oh, well, of course every other episode ish.
Uh, of afford anything. You join me, Joe, every other
Joe: episode, asterisk
Paula: ish. Mm-hmm. Well, you’re, you’re on most of our Tuesday episodes.
Joe: Yes. So,
Paula: yeah, most Tuesdays, uh, Joe joins me and we answer listener submitted questions. Then on Fridays we interview guests. Typically, on Fridays we interview guests. And so Katie from Money with Katie joins us.
He talks about just a, a wide, wide variety of like personal finance ideas. Um, later, JL Collins is going to be joining us. We have an hour and a half at least close to two hours conversation where we unpack the a simple path to wealth.
Joe: Wow. J Collins getting deep. That’s weird. That’s strange. That guy doesn’t have any feelings about any of this stuff.
Yeah, that’s fantastic. And that’s all at Afford Anything? Yes. Jordan. What’s happened at the Earn and
Doc G: Invest podcast? So as always, on Mondays I do my 10 things episodes. That can be 10 things about anything, but usually have something to do with the Thursday interview. I’ve got all sorts of Thursday interviews coming.
I am interviewing Steve Eisman, who is played by Steve Carrell in the Big short. And so I’m looking forward to asking him all sorts of questions, like was, was Steve Crow a good representation of him? Yeah. So he was an investor and he shorted the real estate market. Yeah, he was one of the big winners. But if you watch The Big Short, which I re-watched recently, you know, he really is more the ethical one who thinks like all sorts of horrible stuff is going on and he’s kind of.
Taking the money, but it’s almost a sugar pill because he feels really bad about it. ’cause he sees the system breaking down and hurting people. And so it’s a really interesting character. I’m looking forward to talking to him personally about how much of that reflects who he is.
Doug: Can you also ask him his plans to bring the Detroit Red Wings out of irrelevance?
Because I think he’s also the general manager of the Detroit Red Wing Wings, isn’t he, Joe? So that’s man,
Joe: not Ice man. Oh, I knew Doug was going there. I could see in his face, like if he Oh, Eisman. Oh,
Doug: I got one. Yeah.
Joe: Whole different party, but that’s fantastic. I remember the scene where he stood up at the shareholder meeting and he’s just like questioning the dude going, yes.
You don’t think these are going underwater.
Doc G: Yeah. That’s what I wanna ask him. When I interview him, I’m like, did this actually happen? Were you actually standing there? Like questioning? ’cause oh, it should be fun.
Joe: Was he in the scene where they interview the woman who works at the, at the strip club?
Doc G: Yes.
That was him. Yeah. That was him interviewing the woman at the strip club.
Joe: Yeah.
Doc G: That was Steve Carrell. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And
Joe: they’re, they’re asking all these different people. It was so crazy. Wow. Yeah, it was, it was
Doc G: a fun, I mean, it was a really fun movie.
Joe: That’s it. Earn
Doc G: and
Joe: invest. And last but not least, of course, Jesse has the incredible personal finance for long-term investors podcast.
What’s going on at the PFLT podcast?
Jesse: Yeah, I’m still working on that. I need a good word. I need a good acronym.
Joe: The Pivotal.
Jesse: Hey listeners, there’s a competition. I will send you a free T-shirt if you submit. A winning acronym to me. Oh, there we go. You heard it here first. Zach Benjamins.
So, uh, recently, uh, last week released a, a cool keeping up with the Jones’ episode featuring I think it was six unique spending stories and it’s been really well received so far.
So I might do more episodes like that Those were fun stories, by the way. It was
Doc G: all because he had such good guests.
Jesse: It’s exactly, exactly that’s what it was. Exactly right. Next week is going to be a deep dive owed to Warren Buffet, uh, where I, I kind of go into eight individual kind of ideas of his that he just contributed so much wisdom to over the years, like circle of competence and margin of safety and some other investing ideas.
And we do a deep dive there.
Joe: I love what all you guys do. It’s just so fun to see like where your brains take you and the people that you talk to and the way that you interview them, and it’s super fun to follow. So we will link to all those on our show notes page at stacking Benjamins dot com. But as always, Doug’s got the last word on Friday to end the week.
Doug, what should be on our to-do list as our takeaways today?
Doug: Well, Joe first take some advice from our sith Lord Jesse, don’t fall victim to the laws of absolute. There are no specific formulas that work for everyone. Understand and follow the general frameworks and you’ll be fine. Second, hopefully you heard the sage advice from Doc G.
Make sure you know all the rules of the game so you know where you can cheat without getting caught. Just like he’s cheated in the last two trivia tech jumps that he’s been on.
Joe: That might not be the takeaway.
Doug: It was for me, key learning for me. But the big lesson, don’t tell Joe’s mom, you’re headed to the beach.
She’ll immediately begin lecturing you about appropriate sunscreen and appropriate bathing suits and how to prep a cooler full of gin and tonics. Well, she got one out of three of those right? I was talking about the bathing suits. Thanks to Doc G for joining us today. You’ll find his show earn and invest wherever you are listening to this podcast.
We’ll also include links in our show notes at Stacking Benjamins dot com. Thanks to Paula Pant for hanging out with us today. You’ll find her fabulous podcast. Afford anything. Wherever you listen to finer podcasts. And finally, I’ll slow things down a little bit here. Thanks to the Jesse Cramer for joining us today.
His amazing podcast, personal Finest for Long-Term Investors, is also available amazingly, wherever you’re listening to us today. You know what? I’m gonna also make sure, personally, that this show is added to our show notes. You’re completely welcome. Don’t mention it. This show is the property of SB Podcast LLC, copyright 2025, and is created by Joe Saul-Sehy.
Joe gets help from a few of our neighborhood friends. You’ll find out about our awesome team at Stacking Benjamins dot com along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots. Come say hello. Oh yeah, and before I go. Not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don’t take advice from people you don’t know.
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. We’ll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamins Show.
And finally, I’ll slow things down a little bit here. Thanks to THE Jesse Cramer for joining us today. His amazing podcast, personal Finest for Long-Term Investors, is also available amazingly, wherever you’re listening to us today. You know what? I’m gonna also make sure, personally, that this show is added to our show notes.
You’re completely welcome. Don’t mention it. Wow. Woo. Get all of that. I just really wanted to promo Jesse. I wanted to make sure that people got all the details so they could go listen to the PFLT Podcast.
bit: That’s the first submission. Not gonna make it very far. Dog. I think you’re eliminated in the first round of the bracket.
Joe: You gotta put the eye on the end of it. PFLTI, PFLTI, PFLTI. The podcast.
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