Companies have gotten frighteningly good at removing friction from spending. One click, stored payment info, a box on your porch before you’ve even had time to regret the purchase. Today’s episode flips that same idea around: what if you engineered your own financial life the same way, making good decisions the path of least resistance and bad decisions just annoying enough to make you pause? Joe and OG close out Financial Action Month with a genuinely useful framework for building systems that work even on the days your willpower doesn’t show up.
What You’ll Walk Away With
- Why discipline isn’t a personality trait, it’s a system you build once instead of a decision you make every day
- A simple “make it easy or make it hard” test you can apply to any financial habit, from retirement savings to late-night online shopping
- Why automating your savings rate removes the single biggest source of decision fatigue in a financial plan
- A smarter way to handle windfalls and bonuses, deciding your split between saving, debt, and fun once a year instead of every single time
- Why canceling a subscription is deliberately made difficult, and the workaround that neutralizes it
- A four-step “financial action ladder” for turning financial knowledge into permanent, lasting habits
- Why waiting a day before a big purchase, and other small friction points, can save you from regret without requiring any extra willpower
Why This Matters Now
Knowing what to do with your money has never really been the hard part. The hard part is doing it consistently, especially when life gets busy, stressful, or just plain boring. Building your environment so the smart choice is also the easy choice takes the daily grind of willpower out of the equation entirely. That’s not a lack of discipline, it’s actually the most disciplined move available: deciding once, automating it, and letting the system do the work every day after that.
From the Basement
A goofy but genuinely fun “make it easy or make it hard” game plays out across everything from emergency funds to concert tickets, and a National Trail Mix Day detour delivers exactly the kind of nonsense only this show could make delightful.
Resources Mentioned
Profit First by Mike Michalowicz — the book referenced on flipping the save-then-spend default
Stacko Financial Action Month board — the interactive game with a money move for each square
Stacking Benjamins Field Kit — the all-in-one financial organization and subscription-canceling tool
Our Headline
- The simple mental tricks that make us better with money (Wall Street Journal)
Doug’s Trivia
- What company makes M&M’s?
Have a question for the show?
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Other Mentions
- StackingBenjamins.com/stacko
- https://www.stackingbenjamins.com/fieldkit/
- Profit First: Transform Your Business from a Cash-Eating Monster to a Money-Making Machine (Entrepreneurship Simplified)
Join Us Wednesday!
Written by: Kevin Bailey
Miss our last show? Listen here: How Many of These Ad Slogans Can You Still Name? (Paula Pant, Len Penzo, OG Play Along) (SB1890)
Episode transcript
[00:00:00] OG: Stack ’em. Stack ’em. Let’s get some stacking going
[00:00:10] Doug: Live from Joe’s mom’s basement, it’s The Stacking Benjamins Show
[00:00:25] Doug: I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and it’s been Financial Action Month here in the basement. And on graduation day, let’s top it off with the point. Let’s help each other stop making horrible money moves. Today, we’re talking not just dumb spending, but how can you creatively convince yourself to save more?
[00:00:44] Doug: But that’s not all. As we put a point on Financial Action Month, let’s pull one last tile from the Stacko game board to help you win big by making some money moves while everyone else is already thinking about Labor Day weekend. And you know that’s not all. Of course I’ll regale you with some of my incredible trivia.
[00:01:04] Doug: This one, oh, you’re gonna love it, because it helps us celebrate today’s big national holiday. It’s National Trail Mix Day, of course. And now, two guys who are ready to lead you down the trail toward better money habits. It’s Joe and OG, G, G, G.
[00:01:25] Joe: Well, hey there, Stackers, and happy Monday. Can you believe not only is it the, uh, last, last Monday in August, it’s also the unofficial last week of summer, uh, for a lot of families?
[00:01:36] Joe: And, uh, we celebrate that here in the basement with National Trail Mix Day. Usually, August 31st is part of Labor Day weekend, so we’re, we’re not here, so you don’t get to see Doug’s Labor Day weekend extravaganza, which-
[00:01:51] Doug: Oh, it’s a banger …
[00:01:51] Joe: oh my God, we got trail mix for everybody here. Doug is, uh, getting out the trail mix bush.
[00:01:59] Joe: Not sure what the trail mix bush is. I
[00:02:00] Doug: haven’t shaved in two weeks getting ready for this day.
[00:02:02] Joe: It’s, it’s a crazy day here. Been a lot of doors. And of course, because it’s a crazy day, and the unofficial last week of summer, and graduation day all wrapped into one, we’ve got Mr. OG here to celebrate. It’s like, you know how you got the president of the university who comes at the end in the robes and everything?
[00:02:19] Joe: That’s why we have OG here. Are you ready to crown some graduates financial successes today, OG?
[00:02:26] OG: I mean, I don’t hear the music, but that’s okay. I’m just humming it in the background. Dun, dun,
[00:02:33] bit: dun, dun,
[00:02:34] Joe: dun. And now that we’ve heard it- Dun … we can never get rid of it. It is, it is going to be in your head the rest of the day.
[00:02:41] Joe: I’m sorry, Stackers.
[00:02:42] OG: You’re welcome, America.
[00:02:44] Joe: We’ve got a great day going through some money moves that you can make here. We’ve talked financial action all month. I found a piece in the Wall Street Journal that really is the cherry on top of this entire month. OG, Doug, and I, we’re gonna help you think about how to trick yourself into making better money moves.
[00:03:02] Joe: We’re gonna do that after we’ve got a couple sponsors who help us keep on keeping on. We’re gonna hear from them, and then Doug, OG, and I, we are helping you wrap up Financial Action Month with how to think about making better money moves coming up next.
[00:03:29] Joe: Well, all month long, Stackers have been talking about financial action. We created Stacko, you’ve been checking boxes. More on that later. Moving money, checking insurance, looking at investments, doing all those little things we constantly tell ourselves that, “You know what? I should probably get around to that.”
[00:03:43] Joe: Today, last day of financial action month. So today we’re gonna ask a different question. What happens tomorrow? Because we could teach financial literacy forever. That’s why we created financial action month, because you can teach financial literacy, you can explain compound interest, you can explain credit scores, you can explain Roth IRAs.
[00:04:02] Joe: But what good is knowing any of that if you don’t do anything about it? I was reading this lovely Wall Street Journal piece from Julia Carpenter called The Simple Mental Tricks That Make Us Better With Money, and the idea that grabbed me was friction. Technology has become incredibly good at helping all of us remove friction from our spending.
[00:04:22] Joe: You know, one click, tap here, card already stored, buy now, pay later. Barely even have time to regret the purchase before it’s on a truck headed toward your house. I mean, Doug, case in point, what purchase arrives at your house often enough that the UPS guy knows where mom keeps the spare key? There’s gotta be something.
[00:04:40] Doug: The one I can tell you about is coffee. We’ve got coffee beans on subscription, and it’s just like every time I open the front door, there’s a box with coffee beans in it.
[00:04:51] Joe: I was there with you until two weeks ago when, uh, the doctor said, “Maybe, maybe you need to back down the caffeine, Joe,” which I tried to tell him I’m not a quitter.
[00:05:01] Joe: He’s like, “Oh, you’ll be a quitter.” “You will be a quitter if you don’t slow that down.” But I love it. I get now, d- d- I had to back it down to twice a year that I get these coffee beans from V- Vermont. Where do they come from?
[00:05:13] Doug: Our coffee beans?
[00:05:14] Joe: Yes.
[00:05:14] Doug: Oh, they come from the Amazon rainforest, Joe.
[00:05:17] Joe: Oh, do they
[00:05:19] Doug: Direct from the A- Joe … I mean, the box even says Amazon right on it. The Amazon rainforest. That’s where our coffee beans come from.
[00:05:25] Joe: It is-
[00:05:26] OG: Touché. Well done, Doug.
[00:05:27] Joe: It is incredible. I like it. So if companies like Amazon can engineer our environment to make spending effortless, why don’t we engineer our own environment today to make good financial behavior effortless?
[00:05:39] Joe: So here’s the question, OG. Why do we insist on building our lives around willpower? I’m gonna remember to save, I’m gonna remember to invest, I’m gonna remember to check my subscriptions. Isn’t that a terrible system?
[00:05:53] OG: It’s interesting. I was just putting together a clip for some training that I’m doing for this other group that I’m in.
[00:05:58] OG: I found this great clip about discipline and success
[00:06:05] bit: These people who are influential right now, Goggins, Jocko, Rogan, everybody is fit and disciplined. Is there people who are not fit and not disciplined who are influential?
[00:06:16] bit: Well, think about it this way. Do you think that the most successful people in the world became successful and then got disciplined?
[00:06:22] bit: Or do you think that they became disciplined and then- Right … got successful?
[00:06:25] bit: Yeah, obviously the latter, yeah.
[00:06:26] bit: Correct.
[00:06:27] bit: Yeah.
[00:06:27] bit: You know, it’s an outcome. Now, that’s not for me to say that there aren’t undisciplined people that have managed to get super, super successful. Like, we all know that there’s flukes out there.
[00:06:34] bit: However, most people are going to win- Discipline … by, through discipline.
[00:06:37] Joe: Okay, so you make a point for discipline, but my question was about willpower, that I’m going to willpower my way to financial success.
[00:06:45] OG: I mean, I think they’re somewhat related, right? It’s like willpower is the opposite of discipline.
[00:06:51] OG: Discipline is doing the thing all the time. Willpower is like, “I don’t have to eat the cookies even though they’re sitting on the table.” Discipline is not buying cookies.
[00:07:01] Joe: Right. How do I make the good decision earlier and make the bad decision slightly harder, I think is the key here, Stackers. In this world of no friction, sometimes it’s important to make friction and sometimes it’s important to get rid of friction.
[00:07:17] Joe: So Doug, we’re gonna make this a game, this whole segment.
[00:07:21] Doug: Make friction, make friction. I like making friction.
[00:07:23] Joe: Doug’s all about making friction.
[00:07:25] OG: But it’s sometimes fun to, like, eliminate friction also. I can see both sides of these.
[00:07:30] Doug: The yin and the yang to that.
[00:07:32] OG: It’s very, uh, top and bottom, very… It’s the Mobius loop of think.
[00:07:36] OG: That’s what we talked about earlier.
[00:07:38] Joe: I don’t even wanna tell you what the name of this game was. The name of this game is Make It Easy or Make It Hard, and I shouldn’t have- Slap and tickle I realize you’re 11. I realize you’re 11. Just get over it. So Doug, I’m gonna give you a financial behavior, and you tell me whether we should make it easy, remove friction because we want it to happen, or make it hard, add friction because we want time to think before it happens.
[00:08:04] Joe: And then we’re gonna… In this game, we’re not gonna just walk through it like we normally do. We’re gonna have OG explain the system that, that we’ve got. All right. Ready? Saving for retirement, make it easy or make it hard?
[00:08:16] Doug: Make it easy
[00:08:16] Joe: Make it easy. Correct. So OG, how do we make saving for retirement easy?
[00:08:23] OG: Yeah. A couple of things. The first one, obviously, is automate it. So if you can have it come out of your paycheck automatically, maybe that’s two things, honestly. That could be out of paycheck one, automate two, or- It could be three … kind of merge
[00:08:35] Joe: those
[00:08:35] OG: together …
[00:08:35] Joe: payrolls, right? Just the fact that payroll’s easier than even setting up- Yeah
[00:08:38] Joe: with your bank.
[00:08:39] OG: Yep. I mean, those are probably the two biggest things. If it can come out of your paycheck and, you know, number one, and number two, if you can set it up automatically out of your bank account on a frequent basis, the same frequency that you get paid, life is good.
[00:08:52] Joe: I thought about a couple more, too.
[00:08:54] Joe: Uh, sign up if it’s available for the automatic annual contribution increases- Mm-hmm … where it will just automatically do that. Don’t think about it. Set it up ahead of time that, yep, it’s gonna automatically go up. Now, that doesn’t stop you, OG, from raising it more if you want in the future, but it sets you on this escalator to better results.
[00:09:13] Joe: And then the last one that I had is, uh, getting the employer match. Just, you just press the-
[00:09:18] OG: Yeah, I thought about adding that, too. Yep
[00:09:20] Joe: So instead of deciding 26 times a year whether to save or not, you get to make that decision one time. Mm. One time. Round two, Doug, buying something random from the Amazon rainforest at 9:47 PM.
[00:09:34] Doug: I like when they make that easy. Yeah Let’s make it easier
[00:09:38] Joe: But we wanna make that difficult
[00:09:41] Doug: We
[00:09:41] Joe: do what? I’m gonna say the word difficult. We do wanna make it difficult. OG, how do we make the midnight run to the Amazon monster more difficult?
[00:09:49] OG: Break your phone.
[00:09:53] Doug: Break it.
[00:09:54] OG: No, no, I mean, like- Throw it
[00:09:55] Doug: into the solo fire pit- Yes
[00:09:57] Doug: of hell.
[00:09:57] OG: No, no, I mean, I don’t wanna, like, literally break it. I mean, there’s things that you can get that, like, literally turn your phone off. You can set up restrictions on your phone of, like, I can only be on social from this time to this time, and if you miss that window, tough patooties. You’re adding another layer of complexity.
[00:10:16] OG: Same thing for- So- Same thing for the Amazon, you know? I’ve
[00:10:18] Doug: done that. Yeah, I’ve done that. I’ve, I did it for some social, and it’s really nice. It comes up with, uh, like, okay, and it’s just gonna close that app. Or it’s got ignore for 15 minutes or ignore for the rest of the day. Which one do you think I pick?
[00:10:33] Joe: Ignore for 15 minutes, and then every 15 minutes- No, for the rest of the day, dude … you make the decision again to do the wrong thing.
[00:10:38] Doug: No, no, no, I ignore for the rest of the day immediately- Wow … ’cause
[00:10:41] OG: it’s more efficient. I basically do that for your guys’ texts. Like, I’m like, I will allow texts from Doug and Joe sometime around 8:00 to 8:02 AM.
[00:10:49] OG: And after that- … they go into this, like- Oh, now we know the
[00:10:51] Doug: window …
[00:10:52] OG: they go to this, like, little repository that I call the circular file.
[00:10:57] Joe: Doug, this is such great news. I thought we weren’t loved at all, but we’re loved for two minutes a day. It’s so good. While
[00:11:03] Doug: he’s still sleeping-
[00:11:04] Joe: It is
[00:11:04] Doug: so- … from 8:00 to 8:02
[00:11:06] Joe: so good.
[00:11:06] OG: It’s just so that when I wake up, I get all the good news all at one time.
[00:11:10] Joe: Yeah, break your phone, remove the shopping apps, get rid of your stored payment information that makes you put it in every time.
[00:11:16] OG: Ugh.
[00:11:17] Joe: Like
[00:11:17] OG: that. That’s annoying. I’m never doing that.
[00:11:20] Joe: But if you-
[00:11:20] OG: I get mad when they don’t use Apple Pay because I like to swap cards because, you know, depending on bonuses and stuff like that.
[00:11:26] OG: And if it doesn’t use Apple Pay as a payment option, I’m, I’m, I’m peeved off ’cause I want double click go.
[00:11:33] Joe: Yeah, I find Cheryl’s getting more, “You don’t have Apple Pay? W- where, what are you? Like, what are you doing?” Put items in the cart and wait. You guys ever do the wait till the next day thing?
[00:11:43] Doug: Yeah.
[00:11:44] OG: Yeah.
[00:11:45] OG: I do. Especially, not on Amazon, but on other places ’cause you’ll likely get a code within 24 hours that’s like, “Hey, did you forget this? By the way, we’ll give you a 15% off- Mm-hmm … if you, uh- Mm-hmm … put this code in.” Yeah. Good for the next day.
[00:11:57] Joe: I do like the cooling off period for large purchases as well.
[00:12:00] Joe: Amazon wants you doing one click purchases. In your financial plan, remember Stackers will appreciate 17 click purchasing. Round three, Doug. Okay. Building an emergency fund. Make it easier, make it difficult.
[00:12:15] Doug: Hmm, let’s make that slippery and easy
[00:12:21] Joe: OG, how do we get that done?
[00:12:23] OG: I mean, building an emergency fund, I mean, this is the same as the retirement savings, right? It’s like put it in a different bank. Although I know you said you like that. I, I, I actually find that to be relatively annoying. This is definitely know yourself type of category, right?
[00:12:37] OG: If you’re gonna get into, you know, your savings because it’s easy to transfer, then you need to put it somewhere. But if your savings is a thing that needs to be transferable because, you know, you’re just kind of building it up, don’t put it so far away that you’re gonna get a frigging overdraft fee because you’re, like, trying to protect yourself from yourself.
[00:12:55] Joe: I don’t know. I think this is pa- this is past me versus present me. Past me needed it in a different bank because if I did not put it at a bank across town, I would not have saved it. It would not have stayed safe ’cause I tried-
[00:13:09] OG: Sure, but that’s also because back in the 1800s when you guys were saving money, you actually had to, like, go to the bank.
[00:13:14] OG: Now you can just do all this stuff on an app. Like, it doesn’t matter that your- Yeah … money’s at, you know, Bank of America versus Chase. Like, it’s still transferable within a day, so, like, you’re just adding layers of stupidity where you could just, you know.
[00:13:27] Joe: No, here’s what I did even during the day that you could still do.
[00:13:31] Joe: It was not 19-aught-something. It was, I still got rid of the debit card at the time. Later on in the early 2000s as, uh, having banking on the internet was more ubiquitous, I made sure I couldn’t do online banking. A- at the time before online banking, they even had call-in where you could just call and transfer money.
[00:13:51] Joe: I got rid of that. I built friction to make sure that it- Wow … stayed around.
[00:13:55] OG: Tell us you’re old without telling us you’re old.
[00:13:57] Joe: Well, no, seriously. Back in the day
[00:13:58] OG: before it w- there was online banking.
[00:14:00] Joe: But my point is not the old guy story, OG. No, I know. I know, I know. It’s the building friction. Even today with online banking, get rid of the ability to transfer to that account.
[00:14:08] Joe: Get rid of that ability.
[00:14:09] OG: Yeah, I’m gonna disagree with this. I think that your cash in your cash account needs to be very liquid and very easy to get to. Couldn’t be- And-
[00:14:16] Joe: Couldn’t be more wrong for people that are just spendaholics.
[00:14:21] OG: Stop being a spendaholic.
[00:14:22] Joe: How did I stop being a spendaholic? My money wasn’t available anymore.
[00:14:26] Joe: My money was not available. But now it’s, like- I had to drive across town and think about it the entire way. I know,
[00:14:31] OG: but there’s… But it’s not that way anymore. Like, and I’m not being old guy joke. I’m saying, like, because of Apple Pay, because of all this stuff, like, I think getting rid of the one-click pay on Amazon or, like, unlinking, you know, not creating the login to Chipotle where you, like, can just order a burrito like that, like, I think that’s useful if you have spending problems.
[00:14:54] OG: If you have spending problems, you probably also don’t have a lot of cash on hand, and so if you are frigging putting your cash in different places, you’re gonna add complexity that is gonna cost you money, I bet, in the long run. That’s just my take.
[00:15:06] Doug: You guys are so far from the original question, which is should we make it easier to create an emergency fund?
[00:15:12] Joe: I 100% agree.
[00:15:13] Doug: Yeah, and not that this isn’t a valid topic, but you’re just… I mean, have a train of thought and stick to it. My God, boys.
[00:15:20] Joe: Well, no.
[00:15:20] Doug: So isn’t this-
[00:15:21] Joe: I think there’s a I think there is a big point here, which is I think I agree with OG in one part of that, which is know yourself. And I think that the human brain has not changed since the 1940s, 1950s.
[00:15:33] Joe: Human brain is the same human brain. If you put money in a place where you have creative friction, then, then it’s, uh… But whatever, however you decide to do that. Next round, pulling money out of the emergency fund to buy concert tickets.
[00:15:48] Doug: Like what concert?
[00:15:49] OG: Fair. Fair question.
[00:15:50] Doug: I mean, I think that’s an important piece of information I need to answer this question.
[00:15:54] OG: Yes.
[00:15:55] Doug: If it’s Menudo, yeah, you gotta make that easy. Do you
[00:15:59] Joe: make that difficult? But like
[00:15:59] Doug: Backstreet Boys, Barbra Streisand, make it really hard.
[00:16:02] Joe: Well, and I think, Doug, you bring up a great point because if this truly is a bucket list moment, that is what the emergency fund is for. ‘Cause as you know, OG, I don’t think you and I really love the term that, that has become ubiquitous, emergency fund.
[00:16:15] Joe: I like it to be an opportunity fund as well. So if it’s a, you know, concert for your favorite band, then do it. Do you like having a separate bucket for that than the, quote, “emergency fund”? Like emergency fund, and then opportunities are over here, or is that more know yourself?
[00:16:31] OG: I, I, I’m a simplifier. The bucket idea sounds really cool on paper in my mind, where it’s like, okay, I can say, hey, you know, my property taxes are due once a year.
[00:16:41] OG: I know I gotta save $500 a month so that I can pay my property taxes. Some people like seeing those things filled up. To me, that’s just another system that is gonna break along the way. You know? Yeah. It’s like, it’s… I don’t know.
[00:16:59] Joe: Here’s a little bit of a trick round. This’ll be fun, Doug. Canceling subscriptions.
[00:17:04] Doug: Should we make that easier or harder? Well, yeah, we should… But why is this a trick? It should be easy to cancel subscriptions
[00:17:13] Joe: It should be. The reason it’s a trick, right, this is the one area where the company puts a ton of friction. Like Leo said last Monday, Leo Mann, if you d- if you miss Leo Mann and the contracts- Yeah
[00:17:23] Joe: like the dude who put the word certified mail on canceling your gym subscription, that dude got the world’s biggest bonus when he thought of that. That was the best thing for gyms everywhere. They’re like, “Oh my God, certified mail.” I was just reading through my gym subscription. It’s gotta be in person or certified mail.
[00:17:43] Joe: Hadn’t read it before, which was another point Leo made, was that you should probably read that to get out of my subscription.
[00:17:49] OG: Or just close your bank account and open a new bank account, and then come at me, bro.
[00:17:54] Joe: And tap it. Well, in the, in the, uh, agreement, which I did read, they got several ways that they will come at you, bro.
[00:18:00] Joe: Legally they will come at you, whether they decide to do that or not, because people are constantly changing it to something different. FieldKit does that. For those of you that have FieldKit, just go in and make it really just press the one button- Super easy … and it will take care of it for you. There’s other apps that do it, of course.
[00:18:15] Joe: FieldKit’s our all-in-one app, but p- plenty of ways to make that easy. Nice job, Doug. I think you got all those right but one, so good work. But
[00:18:25] bit: one.
[00:18:26] Joe: Let’s fix some defaults, OG, because the world has been changing the game. The world’s been making us have these defaults. Instead of income, spending, what’s ever left gets saved.
[00:18:36] Joe: I like this book by Michael Makowitz, which is for entrepreneurs, Profit First, right? I think we should have a profit first mentality, which is let’s get safe first and then spend the rest as default number one
[00:18:48] OG: I like it. Yeah, I mean, it’s, uh, a lot easier to save a bunch of money when you have a lot of money in your bank account on payday than it is to wait until the end of the month when you are f- the furthest away from payday and, uh, trying to, you know, save what’s left.
[00:19:02] OG: So if you… E- e- especially once you get past that kinda threshold of, like, living expenses are covered. If you’re kind of under 80-ish thousand of income, you probably are spending a lot of energy around budgeting and making sure that every dollar has a purpose, which is a really good idea. As you get past, you know, into those $100,000 incomes and $200,000 incomes, your life is expanding into whatever money you have.
[00:19:24] OG: Just be honest with yourself. So build the plan about, “Here’s how much I need to save to reach my goals,” set that up on autopilot, and then have fun and YOLO what’s left. Still a lot of money.
[00:19:34] Joe: Default number two, setting up $100 a month is nice. That’s a great thing, but 10 years from now, OG, 100 bucks is still 100 bucks.
[00:19:43] Joe: You still… And with purchasing power, that number went down. So let’s improve that system by creating ways to automatically increase it whenever possible, or at the very least, to remind yourself to make the increase because 100 bucks is not gonna be five years from now what it is today.
[00:20:02] OG: Yes, I mean, obviously the, the 90% solution is saving the $100.
[00:20:06] OG: Uh, the 10% is tomorrow saving $100 and $101, and the month after that $102, and so on and so forth. If you can automate that, that’s even better, but if you can’t, just do something every time you get a pay raise or a bonus.
[00:20:19] Joe: And the last point, which we spent a lot of time on today, so we won’t, uh, spend a lot of time here, but put guardrails on your spending.
[00:20:26] Joe: Have alerts for unusual spending- Boo … waiting periods to think about it, removing the safe cards, OG doesn’t like that one, separating the accounts for your goals, reviewing recurring charges, and give yourself some intentional fun money. Point isn’t to make spending painful, the point is to build your stack and to not let, uh, not let the companies do all the movement when it comes to how your money gets spent out of your wallet.
[00:20:53] OG: I think the biggest thing that we’ve ever done in our life in terms of having the permission to spend money is taking the extra money which comes in however it comes in, sometimes it’s a bonus, sometimes it’s a pay raise, it’s whatever, and predetermining at the beginning of the year how are we gonna a- attack or how are we gonna use those extra dollars?
[00:21:12] OG: ‘Cause the monthly salary, that’s accounted for, right? Like, that’s got the food and the p- you know, house taxes and the kids in college fund and all that sort of stuff. But where people get squirrely is when they get a little extra money for whatever reason, and if you spend it without being intentional, you feel guilty about the spending.
[00:21:28] OG: If you save it, you feel peeved off because all you do is save money and never have any fun. You know, there’s, there’s like all these different emotions. So instead, we’ve, we’ve established at the beginning of the year, here’s how much we save, here’s how much we use to pay down debt, and here’s how much we save for fun or use for fun things.
[00:21:43] OG: And that percentage is the same whether it’s a $500 bonus or a $5,000 bonus. And so we can very quickly apply that, that policy to here’s that extra money. We know very clearly here’s how much gets saved, here’s how much get invested, here’s how much we’re using to pay down the, uh, house faster, and then the third bucket is like, sweet, we got 800 bucks to do whatever the hell we want without any issues.
[00:22:04] OG: And our percentages are different to other peoples, but if you think about that in advance, take away the decision fatigue of, like, every single time trying to think about what you’re gonna do with that extra money. Yeah. Do it one time at the beginning of the year, commit to it, and tell me in a year from now if you don’t feel great about all the spending you did, because it’s all guilt-free, the saving that you did, which is extra beyond what you were originally gonna do, and the debt pay down.
[00:22:24] OG: Everybody loves it. Use it.
[00:22:26] Joe: And this is where the discipline comes in. The discipline doesn’t come in in every single thing that comes along. The discipline is to create a system once and to stick to it.
[00:22:38] OG: Percentage one time, yep.
[00:22:44] Doug: Hey there, Stackers. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. Today we’re celebrating one of America’s great culinary achievements, National Trail Mix Day. Ah, trail mix, the perfect snack for people who wanna eat candy but also want everyone around them to think they’ve got the AllTrails app on their phone. You know, I actually keep a bag in my El Camino at all times.
[00:23:05] Doug: You never know when you’re gonna get stranded somewhere between the Sizzler and home and you need 4,000 calories to survive until the Saint Bernard shows up with one of those little barrels. Trail mix used to be called gorp, which supposedly stood for good ol’ raisins and peanuts, but that leaves out the best part of trail mix, the M&Ms.
[00:23:24] Doug: And honestly, without the M&Ms, trail mix is just the stuff your grandma put in little bowls when company came over. So on this very special holiday, Stackers, riddle me this. What company makes that delicious goodness, the M&M? I’ll be back right after I pick all the raisins out of this bag and return them to nature
[00:23:45] trivia bit: We’re looking for the answer and correct spelling. Old MacDonald had a what? Farm. E-I-E-I-O.
[00:23:57] Doug: Hey there, Stackers. I’m platinum REI member and guy who considers the walk from the couch to the pantry moderate terrain, Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. Before the break, someone down here in the basement, and I won’t name names, but I absolutely could, had the gall to ask me what’s so special about trail mix.
[00:24:15] Doug: What’s so special? First, you got your raisins, which are perfect for flicking at squirrels while you’re out hiking. Then you got your peanuts, which you can drop along the trail behind you so you can find your way home. And Hansel and Gretel figured this out hundreds of years ago, I assume. I mean, I didn’t read the book.
[00:24:33] Doug: And once you’ve gotten rid of all that garbage, you look down and you realize you’ve got yourself a whole bag of M&M’s. And more importantly, you earned it. Which brings us to today’s trivia question. I asked you what company makes those delicious little pieces of chocolate. If you said Hershey, oh, they wish.
[00:24:53] Doug: The correct answer is Mars Incorporated. So congratulations if you got that one right. Celebrate responsibly tonight. I’m headed upstairs to help Joe’s mom string raisins across the trail mix day bush. Later we’ll exchange peanuts and gather around the campfire to tell stories about people who actually hike.
[00:25:11] Doug: See ya.
[00:25:12] Joe: I’ve never seen you more excited about a holiday. Every single year- So good … the thing we hide here- So good … in mom’s basement is that Doug is just over the moon when it comes to National Trail
[00:25:20] Doug: Mix Day. You just feel so good about yourself when you’re eating trail mix. It’s health food.
[00:25:24] Joe: It is.
[00:25:25] Joe: Especially the way you eat it where it’s just M&M’s in a bag. Hey, we have the robes on, for those of you not on YouTube. Welcome to- Can you
[00:25:34] Doug: close yours a little bit?
[00:25:37] Joe: Welcome to Stack O’ Graduation. You don’t like all the chest hair popping out? Both of my chest hairs? All month long, Stackers, you’ve been taking action, and I hope you’ve filled up your Stack O board.
[00:25:50] Joe: But here’s what I don’t want. OG, Doug, and I, we don’t want you to finish the month, put the board away, and go right back to knowing a lot about money and doing absolutely nothing. So today, in honor of your graduation, we’re gonna turn some of those Stack O squares into permanent systems. We’re gonna do that, we’re gonna give you a financial action ladder, and then at the end of today’s episode, you have graduated from Financial Action Month.
[00:26:19] Joe: Congratulations. So let’s talk first, guys, about system one. I’ve created some systems. System one, know where you stand. How often, OG, do people avoid action simply because they don’t know what’s going on? Like, they don’t even know which action to take. Like, I feel like that happens regularly.
[00:26:41] OG: Well, and, and inaction is just an action of doing nothing, in my opinion.
[00:26:46] OG: Inertia’s very powerful, yeah. It’s tough to overcome.
[00:26:50] Doug: Not making a decision is a decision.
[00:26:52] Joe: But I like how you handle this, OG, using the ability to look at everything. Like, okay, I’ve got my net worth statement, I’ve got my cashflow, my spending, I got my debt, I got my credit, I got my financial accounts. I’ve got this all in a dashboard in front of me.
[00:27:06] Joe: Now, then I can look and see where my strengths and where my weaknesses are. I feel like that’s gotta be… If you have not done that, Stackers, this month, that alone will help you figure out what the right moves are versus spinning your wheels on coupon clipping, as an example. I
[00:27:21] OG: mean, knowing where you are on the map is a critical component to trying to figure out how to get to where you wanna go.
[00:27:28] Joe: Then number two, look at what your recurring problems are. Where are you having difficulties in your financial plan? I just don’t, can’t seem to be able to get any money saved. I feel like my asset allocation, because I’ve only got one fund, I got everything in one fund, or in a target date fund, or whatever that might be.
[00:27:45] Joe: I don’t have any insurances. Figure out where your hotspots are with these recurring problems, and focus on what’s the system, not what’s the one time, OG, but what’s the system I can create to get rid of this recurring problem. I have trouble paying my bills on time. Autopay. Set up autopay- Mm-hmm … as an example
[00:28:04] OG: All I can think about right now is the fact that in the time that we’ve had this, uh, conversation, I’ve had four different Amazon delivery guys show up at the front door.
[00:28:13] OG: It’s not landing in the OG household.
[00:28:15] Joe: I wonder what the… I wonder, Doug, what the recurring problem is.
[00:28:18] OG: There’s a recurring problem of we order a lot of stuff from Amazon, apparently.
[00:28:22] Joe: And there’s another recurring problem, which is their inefficiency of not being able to figure out how much you do in a package in one thing.
[00:28:28] Joe: I suspect
[00:28:29] OG: that these guys are super efficient, actually. I don’t know why they sent four guys here, but I suspect they’ve got a method to their madness. They’ve, they’ve, they’ve figured it out.
[00:28:37] Joe: I think the next system, and the last system that we’ll put out here before we go to your ladder of like how do I think, think this first, this second, this third, is make the next action obvious.
[00:28:50] Joe: I feel like people don’t know what the next move is. They know, like, “I should understand my benefits. I should do something about retirement. I should think more about my kid now is 12 and I haven’t thought about college.” Think about these major pieces of your life and at least have a plan around those.
[00:29:09] Joe: When you start thinking about these major blocks instead of, “Oh, my God, I got 50 things going on,” here’s what happens. Instead of, “I need to figure out college,” you go, “You know what? I’m gonna check the 529 balance,” or, “I know I should have a 529. I’m not sure how they work. Let’s look into that.”
[00:29:25] OG: Yeah, so what you’re saying is as opposed to thinking about the magnitude of all of the things that are maybe a little off-kilter, like just pick one and just-
[00:29:34] Joe: Amen
[00:29:34] OG: spend Saturday kind of thinking through that, make a decision, put it away, move on to the next thing next week, basically.
[00:29:41] Joe: What, what do I do next? What’s the obvious thing? So stackers, put those three systems in place. Get going on the one thing. Get organized and give those recurring problems. Look at the fact that you got four Amazon packages on your porch and figure out, “Okay, how do I-
[00:30:01] OG: I mean, to be fair, I have five people in my house, so clearly one person didn’t order anything yesterday, which is-
[00:30:06] Joe: That’s the problem
[00:30:06] Joe: a big
[00:30:07] OG: win.
[00:30:07] Doug: They’re,
[00:30:07] Joe: they’re off their game. That’s, that’s the problem I wanna end this with our financial action ladder because OG, I think Financial Action Month comes down to four levels. Let’s talk about these and tell me what you think. I think level one is know what to do. This is financial literacy, right?
[00:30:23] Joe: The reason we created Financial Action Month this month is because I think financial literacy’s not enough. Like, you can listen to our show nonstop, but if you don’t do anything, it drives me crazy. The number of professors you and I have met over the years that know everything to do and haven’t applied any of it is just constantly astounds me.
[00:30:39] Joe: So action- Mm-hmm … number two is actually do it. That’s why we created the Stacko board. We’ll keep that around for a few weeks. Stackingbenjamins.com/stacko, so you can see some easy moves to make to get you on the right path. Level three then is automate. So if level two is do, you can’t do everything, so auto- figure out which of these actions I can just automate.
[00:31:02] Joe: And then step four is then review the flywheel to see, okay, is this really working the way that I intended? I think that’s the whole game.
[00:31:11] OG: The good news is this isn’t a full weekend commitment every single weekend for the rest of your life. Maybe you do one of these things for a few hours and then let it run for a while, then come back to it six months from now and say, “What’s, what’s working?
[00:31:27] OG: What’s ahead? What’s behind? What do I gotta tweak?” A lot of times, I’ll give you a perfect example of this. People get stressed about getting their budget exactly right before they… “Well, I don’t even know. Can I save $50 or s- or $500 this month? I don’t know.” Well, guess what? Pick a number, because if you’re saving it, it’s going in your savings account, and here’s a great l- test.
[00:31:47] OG: If your credit card bill, if you get stressed out at the end of the month, you’re like, “Oh, my gosh, my credit card bill’s like $300 more than it normally is. I don’t… Uh, I’m stressed,” well, guess where that money should be? It should be sitting in your checking or your savings account ’cause you’ve just been saving it.
[00:31:59] Doug: Unless you put it in a bank across town and you can’t get to it.
[00:32:02] OG: Don’t start that, Doug. Oh, my God. We’ve put that to bed. Come on. See, we can’t have him anywhere, Joe. I, I was perfectly fine with how I left it. I would’ve
[00:32:09] Joe: spent it ahead of time if it wasn’t in the bank ahead of time. If it wasn’t in the bank, I would’ve spent it.
[00:32:14] Joe: Oh, boy. Even if I knew that the credit card was happening.
[00:32:17] OG: See what you did, Doug? I’m sorry. I was making a very good point. Joe was nodding even to my point. I’m sorry. And now he’s completely disagreed with my point. See? I saw an opening. Son of a gun.
[00:32:26] Joe: I agree with the point. I don’t agree with Doug’s take on your point.
[00:32:29] OG: But what, what, where I was going with this is you don’t need to have that be perfect. Pick a number. It’s changeable. You know, I don’t know if I can save 6% in my 401or 10 or four. Well, friggin’ pick six and see what happens. You, you can test it. You can test these things out. None of these are life sentences.
[00:32:45] OG: You know, there’s a few decisions in your life that are kind of life sentences, you know, picking your Social Security option, picking a pension. Those you should spend a lot of time on. But, like, how much should I put in my 401? Just pick a… Just friggin’ save 5% and see what happens to your cash flow in the next week If it’s too much, knock it down to four.
[00:33:02] OG: If you got a little extra, kick it up to six. Six works, kick it up to seven. You know, these are just, you’re just moving the boat in the right direction.
[00:33:09] Doug: We’re just spitballing here.
[00:33:10] OG: Yeah, just move the boat in the right direction. Well,
[00:33:11] Joe: I like this idea of, you know, gamify it.
[00:33:14] OG: My biggest thing when it comes to financial planning, and you said all of this, and I don’t think we put enough energy on this, uh, Joe, it’s action.
[00:33:23] OG: It’s doing a thing. You can have all of the information that you want. You can have all the books and all of the resources and all of the podcast episodes and all of the downloads. We have every transcription of every show we’ve done. I’ll send them to you. It’s, uh, millions of words of content. None of this matters until you literally log in and go, click that button.
[00:33:43] OG: You have to do that. Just doing a little thing and evaluating how it works, do another little thing, evaluate how it works, this is how you make progress in your long-term financial goals. Nobody gets it right when they’re 18. Nobody sets it up for the first time at 22 and goes, “Oh, thank God, that’s done. I never have to think about that ever again.”
[00:34:01] OG: Because life changes. You just make a little change here and there. Take action.
[00:34:06] Joe: It’s fun. OG, one of the best sessions I had with a m- mentor, I sat with this guy over coffee, and I got to just quiz him. It was a guy that my dad knew. He said, “The thing to remember is that I have failed more than the average person has tried.
[00:34:26] Joe: I’ve failed more often than the average person has even tried.”
[00:34:29] OG: I like that.
[00:34:29] Joe: Yep, go ahead and fail. And he’s like, “Because I just make decisions quicker.”
[00:34:34] OG: It’s all learning.
[00:34:35] Joe: Good stuff. That is going to wrap up graduation today, Stackers. Congratulations on, uh, the Stackaboard and filling it out. If you’re delinquent in your homework and you have not filled out your Stackaboard, I think now is the time to get that done.
[00:34:52] Joe: Thanks for spending time with us. If you know other people that need a financial action system, uh, have them listen to this episode. Also, by the way, we’ve been making graphics on our social media pages which correspond with the lessons from our Monday shows. Today’s graphic will be that financial action ladder.
[00:35:07] Joe: Can’t wait for you to see it. So spread that, uh, to people who you know need to see the financial action ladder as you go about your business today. As, as you hit the button going, ignore your social media moratorium for the rest of the evening, for the rest of the day. If you’re gonna ignore your system, at the very least while you’re ignoring it, pass along the gift of better financial habits.
[00:35:31] Joe: All right, that’s gonna do it. Doug, tell us, what should we have learned from today’s episode?
[00:35:37] Doug: Well, Joe, first take some advice from our main topic today. Saving is a mental game, and you can easily win when you begin gamifying your financial life. Try it this week and let us know how you did. Second, it isn’t all mind games, though.
[00:35:52] Doug: You can also win by using that wonder of the universe, automation. Don’t trust yourself to save money. Make it happen whether you decide to or not. Your bankroll will thank you. But the big lesson, don’t invite OG over for National Trail Mix festivities. That guy likes trail mix without the M&Ms. I mean, his version of roughing it is playing a golf course without a beer cart.
[00:36:16] Doug: What a heathen.
[00:36:21] Doug: This show is the property of SP Podcast LLC, copyright 2026, and is created by Joe Saul-Sehy. You’ll find out about our awesome team at stackingbenjamins.com along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots. Come say hello. 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.
[00:36:47] 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
[00:37:51] Joe: Welcome to the after show. This is the part of the show that doesn’t exist. OG had to catch a flight. He is not as addicted to movies and TV shows as Doug, you, and I are, so- No … let’s do some reviews. Let’s kind of do a, uh, back and forth, if you will.
[00:38:06] Doug: Oh, okay.
[00:38:07] Joe: Would you like to go first? Give us one, either a good, bad, or ugly.
[00:38:12] Doug: Hmm. Uh-
[00:38:14] Joe: Well, don’t- Well, I think the, the- Don’t tell me good, bad, or ugly till the end of the review. Tell me first what the show is, and then- Well, the- … at the end tell me if you’re gonna rate it good, bad, or ugly.
[00:38:24] Doug: Okay. Oh, that’s different. That’s a different approach than I would have thought.
[00:38:29] Joe: Show or movie, I don’t care.
[00:38:31] Doug: The first one I will talk about is a movie called Pressure.
[00:38:37] Joe: Pressure?
[00:38:38] Doug: Yeah. You haven’t heard about this, huh?
[00:38:41] Joe: Oh, I have. We talked about this, Art. This is the weather movie.
[00:38:45] Doug: We did talk about
[00:38:46] Joe: this? This is the World War II weather movie.
[00:38:48] Doug: Yeah, it is.
[00:38:49] Joe: Yes. Starring Brendan Fraser as, uh, as the, um-
[00:38:55] Doug: Ike …
[00:38:55] Joe: as Ike
[00:38:56] Joe: Eisenhower. And they’re getting ready to go across the channel.
[00:39:01] Doug: D-Day.
[00:39:02] Joe: And they’re trying- Yeah … to figure out the weather. And this wonderful… I, I don’t know this guy’s name, ’cause I didn’t know you were gonna say this, but this wonderful Scotsman who plays the main dude, uh, so good. He played Moriarty in the Benedict Cumberbatch versions of Sherlock Holmes.
[00:39:17] Joe: He’s been in so many good things, but he’s the protagonist who’s this British weather person.
[00:39:24] Doug: Yeah. His name is Andrew Scott. He is very good.
[00:39:27] Joe: A couple friends and I here have had vehement disagreements about this movie, so I can’t wait.
[00:39:32] Doug: Andrew Scott is excellent. He, he should be a more… Like, as soon as you see him in this movie or, I mean, you’ll be like, “Oh, yeah, I know that guy.”
[00:39:40] Joe: Yeah.
[00:39:41] Doug: He’s been in some good stuff, but he’s just for whatever reason not one of those names that’s gonna stick in your, in your mind. Yes, Brendan Fraser I think was miscast as Eisenhower. He’s a good actor.
[00:39:52] Joe: 100%.
[00:39:53] Doug: Yeah. He’s a good actor, but he was very miscast. Who knows? Maybe he’s got a great agent. Like, I don’t know how he got this role, but it just wasn’t the right role for him.
[00:40:02] Doug: Carrie Condon, criminally underused in this movie. She is a remarkable actor, and I just feel like- She plays his
[00:40:10] Joe: secretary.
[00:40:11] Doug: She plays… Well, I think she’s almost, like, Eisenhower’s chief of staff.
[00:40:16] Joe: Oh, may- yes.
[00:40:16] Doug: Or, like, her, his main admin assistant there at the- You’re right. I guess that’s
[00:40:20] Joe: what I meant by secretary.
[00:40:22] Joe: She, she’s like his right-hand person.
[00:40:24] Doug: Yeah, she’s the right-hand person. handles everything. She handles everything
[00:40:26] Joe: for him.
[00:40:27] Doug: Right. But she’s just way too good to waste on that role, and maybe… I mean, I know, like, this is a true story, and at the beginning they talk about how there were, like, hundreds of people involved, and they had to sort of create some fictional characters in order to, to, you know, make it screen worthy- Make a story, yeah
[00:40:43] Doug: and easy to follow. So maybe that was a fictional role, but still she is so good, uh, that she needed heavier scenes that really could’ve, where she could’ve flexed her acting muscles. Chris Messina, the guy who was, like, the foil, he was the American who Eisenhower trusted. I guess he was good because you freaking hated him.
[00:41:04] Doug: He
[00:41:04] Joe: was a jerk This is… Yeah, the story here, Stackers, is he’s the British guy who’s in charge. There’s an American weather guy who’s incredibly cocky. They’re supposed to work together. They can’t work together from the beginning. The British guy, kind of a jerk though, from the very beginning a jerk, but you still hate- I like him
[00:41:21] Joe: the American guy too. But did, did you like him at the beginning? I didn’t. When he’s just- Oh, yeah … he comes in and he just, he’s not gonna play by anybody’s rules but his. He wants it exactly his way. There’s no teamwork at all. Like, it is a horrible way to run a team. Yeah.
[00:41:35] Doug: I, so we should briefly, and we’re not, I’m not giving anything away.
[00:41:38] Doug: We kind of screwed this whole thing up because it sh- we should have told you at least four sentences about what the movie is before we got into what, who the actors are. This is the decision about when to actually- Go … do the D-Day invasion, and it’s heavily, heavily dependent on weather, which is kind of, it was a new science at the time.
[00:41:59] Doug: So there’s a lot hinging, uh, I mean literally everything. Lives. Life and death in every conceivable way is dependent on this weather forecast. And at the headquarters at the command center, which is at this in the old English estate that got turned into a command center for, for D-Day. I’m, I’m drawing a blank on which one it is.
[00:42:22] Doug: Not Sandringham, but it was a different one. Eisenhower has this whole, you know, military command staff- As well as his weather forecaster, which he’s been using for years with great success, the American. And they bring in a British guy, kinda last minute, at least the way the movie is portrayed, kind of last minute, and he just comes in and he is all business.
[00:42:45] Doug: And that’s the part you didn’t like, apparently.
[00:42:48] Joe: I just didn’t like the fact that there was no camaraderie. Uh, I think he learned later on that he needed to use his team more. Um, ’cause he, ’cause he- Yeah … ’cause he gets beat up, he gets beat up a lot by everybody about the fact that he’s not a team player.
[00:43:02] Joe: He’s my way or the highway. But Ike is also, Brandon Frazier, is reticent to make the… He wants to make sure he makes the right decision, ’cause they really also show a decision he’d made earlier that, uh- Right … cost a bunch of lives in a training exercise we don’t need to go into. Here- So they, th- they try to put some stakes.
[00:43:21] Joe: Uh, and there’s already huge- Yeah … stakes, right? It’s D-Day. There’s huge stakes.
[00:43:24] Doug: R- right. As if you needed more stakes. Right. My wife loved this movie. I mean, loved this movie. I’m like, I’d have given it like a seven. Six and a half or a seven is probably where I’d give it. It felt a little light, i- ironically, for a movie called Pressure, it felt a little light to me.
[00:43:43] Doug: It, it probably could have been, I, I could have felt the pressure a little more than I did. But it was a great angle on one of history’s, certainly modern history’s, most significant moments. It was a different angle on that than I was previously aware of. I knew the weather was a big deal, I knew the- they’d canceled and put off D-Day by a day because of how bad the weather was, but I didn’t realize that backstory, that battle that was going on between the two forecasters.
[00:44:13] Doug: So that was cool. It was news to me. So
[00:44:16] Joe: you’re gonna give it kind of an ugly.
[00:44:19] Doug: If, for only doing that?
[00:44:21] Joe: Good, bad, or ugly? I
[00:44:22] Doug: mean, at six-and-a-half, that’s above the five. Fi- below a five would be an ugly and
[00:44:26] Joe: above the- It’s a little ugly. I mean, you’re giving it a little ugly. This was a disagreement I had with two friends here, Jason and Mike, who you know, Doug.
[00:44:34] Joe: Our Stackers know these guys. Yeah. I thought it was very good. I’m with Jen. I agree with everything you said. I thought Brendan Fraser did a really good job because halfway through the movie, I was actually seeing Ike and hearing Ike, uh, versus Brendan Fraser.
[00:44:52] Doug: Did I say his name right?
[00:44:54] Joe: Brendan Fraser?
[00:44:54] Joe: Brendan. It’s
[00:44:55] Doug: Brendan.
[00:44:55] Joe: Brendan Fraser. But I thought it was a horrible casting. I thought it was rotten. I’m like, “But he doesn’t even look like him. He’s way bigger. He’s just a much bigger dude than Ike was.” So-
[00:45:04] Doug: Yeah, Eisenhower was, was, for a, this huge figure in history, Eisenhower was actually not a big guy at all.
[00:45:10] Joe: No, so I didn’t like that. I liked the fact that they took a little tiny piece of World War II instead of these big gigantic pieces, and they made it, they made it work. I thought it was good. Mike and Jason- He loved it … were like, “It was stupid. It was just stupid.” They thought it was so miscast and it was so light, to your point, that it took- It was a little light
[00:45:33] Joe: these serious events and it was like, it, it, it was like a freaking cartoon of the events. There was no…
[00:45:38] Doug: Oh, see, that’s going too far. There was no comedy in it. They, I mean, maybe once where there was like a snarky reply or something, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say it was a light cartoon. But we’ve all seen movies where you were just, you had anxiety attacks watching, you know, the movie.
[00:45:54] Doug: This could’ve been done that way, and they didn’t, and I thought they should have. Uh, contrast that, though, with, uh, which we watched the next night because I thought, “Well, if you liked that,” now I’m kind of excited that she was interested in something relative to World War II. You went to Greyhound. Let’s watch Dark- Let’s…
[00:46:11] Doug: No. Oh, no. Greyhound would’ve… Actually, that would’ve been a good one to go to because I think that was similarly-
[00:46:16] Joe: Yes …
[00:46:17] Doug: it, it had a similar feel to it, but we, uh, uh- A small
[00:46:19] Joe: piece of World War II. Yeah.
[00:46:21] Doug: Yeah, a small piece of World War II, a story you didn’t know, Tom Hanks, everybody loves him. That probably is where we should have gone.
[00:46:27] Doug: But no, I took her to Darkest Hour, which was- Gary Oldman doing one of the best pieces of acting you’ll see out of the last 25 years. He played, uh, Winston Churchill. Oh. And you 100% believe that he was Winston Churchill. This
[00:46:44] Joe: was an Academy Award movie.
[00:46:45] Doug: Yeah, Academy Award movie. And it’s him. It’s literally the first, like, month he was in office.
[00:46:51] Doug: It’s May of 1940, and w- uh, you know, right on during the, uh, Battle of Britain, the Air Battle of Britain, and he’s gotta rally the nation to get behind going to war instead of trying to get, sign a peace treaty with Germans.
[00:47:07] Joe: Appease the Germans,
[00:47:08] Doug: yeah. And, and he knew as soon as we go to the negotiating table, we’re done.
[00:47:11] Doug: It’s over. And so he had to convince everybody we gotta go to war, and that was pressure and that was amazing acting. Would strongly recommend. If, if you’re into the true history side versus the entertainment side, watch Darkest Hour. So, so good.
[00:47:31] Joe: 100% agree. Darkest Hour, one of the finest World War II movies of all time.
[00:47:37] Joe: Per- period, full stop. And I don’t think there’s any disagreement about that among anybody.
[00:47:43] Doug: It’s just science.
[00:47:44] Joe: Yeah. It is. It is.
[00:47:46] Doug: We
[00:47:46] Joe: don’t make the rules. It’s just, it’s just better. It is better, yeah. I, by the way, thought Pressure was better than Greyhound. I like Pressure better than Greyhound.
[00:47:54] Doug: I’ll have to go re-watch Greyhound.
[00:47:55] Doug: It’s been a while.
[00:47:57] Joe: So my two, Cheryl dragged me to see the, uh, the new Spider-Man, Spider-Man 5. And I’m over Marvel movies. I only went to see it because I love my spouse so much. Um, and she picks part of the time, and I pick part of the time, and there’s times I’ve dragged her to movies, and she got to drag me to one.
[00:48:16] Joe: I’m like, “Oh, God no.” And so we go see the… I hate the multiverse. The multiverse got so bad that Wolverine and Deadpool, that Wolverine and Deadpool movie, which she also… well, actually, other friends were going, and we just went socially. So we went to the movie with them and out to dinner, so it was what it was.
[00:48:33] Joe: But Deadpool, in that movie, Ryan Reynolds looks at the screen and goes, “Oh, my goodness. Marvel’s doing another multiverse. Isn’t this great?” Mm. So even Marvel knows how much we freaking hate the fact- Mm … that there’s these different iterations of these super… It’s so dumb. Anyway, superhero movies just not for me.
[00:48:54] Doug: So ugly.
[00:48:55] Joe: This movie was great. Ah. This movie was really, really, really good. I love the fact that the villain had a motivation that I saw, and it was a noble motivation. Wow. It was a really good motivation, and I agree… I didn’t agree with the way they were handling it, but, but I agreed with it. I also loved the, some of the twists in the movie.
[00:49:17] Joe: I didn’t think that the violence… There’s been so many Marvel movies where they start up the violent scenes, including Wolverine and Deadpool, where I just go, “Oh, God. Set my alarm for five minutes, I’m gonna go to sleep,” and then all this senseless violence is over. Yeah. Like, I don’t mind violence, but I want it to mean something.
[00:49:34] Joe: And of course, there’s some violence in this movie, but it always has some stakes. It always means something. And I was in it. I was in it from beginning to end. Zendaya is great. Who can’t like Tom Holland?
[00:49:46] Doug: Yeah. Right?
[00:49:47] Joe: Like, you can’t not like this guy.
[00:49:49] Doug: I know it.
[00:49:49] Joe: Tom Holland is great. The guy that plays the…
[00:49:52] Joe: All the people. The woman… Uh, one of the, the, the kids from Stranger Things is one of the characters. Everybody’s great. The whole movie, I was in it for two hours solid. Marvel, I’m still gonna have to be dragged to the next one, but if you wanna see a good movie this summer, I’d go see Spider-Man 5. Can’t believe I’m saying that.
[00:50:12] Joe: Wow. Or not Spider-Man 5- Wow … Spider-Man whatever the new one is. Brand new.
[00:50:15] Doug: 22.
[00:50:16] Joe: Yes. Go see the new Spider-Man. Then, uh, you know, we’ve been hearing all this stuff about The Odyssey. Yeah. So Cheryl, again, excited to see The Odyssey. I frankly didn’t care. This movie’s been reviewed so much and so many people with so many just…
[00:50:31] Joe: Even without seeing it, some of the dumb opinions that I’ve seen, like, “This doesn’t follow history.” This is not a historical document, right?
[00:50:38] Doug: What? Did it ever?
[00:50:40] Joe: Yeah, you haven’t seen those reviews, people up in arms going, “This doesn’t follow history.” This
[00:50:45] Doug: is- Tell me you’re an idiot without telling me you’re an idiot.
[00:50:48] Doug: I mean, it’s-
[00:50:48] Joe: Oh, it’s so stupid. Commentators on national TV have said this. Oh, boy. So I’m like, whatever. And I’m not a huge Christopher Nolan fan. Even b- even before that I’m like, yeah, Christopher Nolan movies are okay. I thought Dunkirk was fine. I thought Tom Hardy in Dunkirk… Was Tom Hardy in Dunkirk?
[00:51:06] Doug: Yes. Yeah.
[00:51:07] Joe: Yes. Yeah, Tom Hardy in Dunkirk. He was the pilot. I was just hoping I got the right movie. Tom Hardy was great. Um, the guy that plays the ship captain’s great, like some of the roles.
[00:51:15] Doug: Yeah.
[00:51:15] Joe: I thought it was good. I thought Dunkirk was fine. Uh, some of the other… You know, I didn’t love Oppenheimer. I know a lot of people call it his number one movie.
[00:51:24] Joe: Eh, didn’t, didn’t really love it. Thought it was good, not great.
[00:51:27] Doug: Yeah, me too.
[00:51:28] Joe: So let me give you the quick review of The Odyssey. Watching The Odyssey is an odyssey. It is an overwrought, overly emotional, overly long, should have been edited pile of heaping-
[00:51:44] Doug: Wow …
[00:51:45] Joe: just did not love it.
[00:51:48] Doug: Doo doo.
[00:51:48] Joe: I, I thought by the way- Stinking
[00:51:49] Doug: doo doo?
[00:51:50] Joe: Here’s the funny thing. Tom Holland, Zendaya, and the guy that plays another one of the p- the, the main stars, and I haven’t looked up his name, but almost the entire cast of, of Spider-Man is in this movie. And I would rather see them in Spider-Man than in this movie. But everybody acted great. Matt Damon is great.
[00:52:12] Joe: Tom Holland is great. Zendaya is great. Uh, she has a minor role. Anne Hathaway is great. Just the fight scene at the end, Doug, which is a major part of the movie and the sale of the movie, somehow Christopher Nolan decides to play music under the fight scene. Oh. And it just continually gets louder and louder and louder.
[00:52:33] Joe: Like, this is so damn dramatic. Oh my God, this is dramatic. Man, three hours of this… Ugh. Oh. So, uh-
[00:52:44] Doug: Wow, three hours, long time. I wonder, do you think it would be any different if you saw it in the IMAX?
[00:52:49] Joe: It is so funny because friends of ours went on Thursday, ’cause it was the last day locally you could see it on IMAX, and so they went to the IMAX.
[00:52:57] Joe: She thought it was overwrought. He liked it, but didn’t love it.
[00:53:01] Doug: Hmm.
[00:53:02] Joe: I don’t know. I mean, it was already big and spectacular. I like that we saw it on a big screen, but- Yeah … I don’t think I would’ve loved it more, ’cause the problems I had with it were not the cinematics.
[00:53:12] Doug: No, but sometimes- The cinematics were beautiful
[00:53:13] Doug: you can get fooled. When your senses get overwhelmed visually and auditorily, you know, you can get fooled a little bit, that the whole experience- Yeah … feels better. But yeah.
[00:53:23] Joe: I think it’s… I, l- let’s put it this way. I do think it’s gonna be worse if you stream it. It’ll be even worse. The stuff that I dislike- Yeah
[00:53:29] Joe: I think you’ll like even less- It probably will then … if you stream it. So I don’t know. Odyssey, bad.
[00:53:35] Doug: Yeah.
[00:53:37] Joe: You wanna put icing on this cake, Doug? Give us a fifth one.
[00:53:40] Doug: Oh, I guess we did four because we branched off talking about from Pressure into Darkest Hour, and then you just did- Yes, I thought
[00:53:47] Joe: you were going into a second one with Darkest Hour.
[00:53:49] Joe: No, not
[00:53:49] Doug: really. We just… I just used it as a comparison- Oh, I thought you said you went- … to my main review, which was Pressure.
[00:53:54] Joe: Okay. Well- That’s, that’s- … either give us number four or five. I’m not sure what our
[00:53:58] Doug: number is now. Yeah. I’m gonna do five and then a quick half. Maximum pleasure guaranteed, which I think- Oh
[00:54:05] Joe: my God That’s the name of the movie?
[00:54:09] Doug: That’s the… It’s a series. It’s a ser- And it’s totally clickbait. Like, they named it that just to get you to go, “Oh, what’s this about, huh?”
[00:54:16] Joe: Yes. “
[00:54:16] Doug: Oh, how about a little, a little spicy time?”
[00:54:19] Joe: Yeah.
[00:54:20] Doug: I mean, not really. So I wanna say this is on Apple. It’s like a series that doesn’t know what it wants to be. Is it a thriller or is it a little bit of a comedy?
[00:54:30] Joe: Wait, so what’s
[00:54:30] Doug: it about? Which is, which is a weird, uh, combination. So it’s a woman kind of in the midst of a divorce or a custody battle, and she is a fact checker at a newspaper in New York. And she gets scammed by a little spicy online cam boy that she’s got a thing going with. So that’s where the maximum pleasure guaranteed thing come- Like, that’s it, and there’s actually very little of that.
[00:54:59] Doug: That guy scams her into thinking, “If you don’t give me $25,000, I’m gonna die.” And, uh, she then tries to track him down, and it turns into a real-life murder mystery thing. Wow. And it, it… The, the plot gets bigger and bigger. It’s not just her. It becomes this big organization. And it gets more than just getting cash out of people.
[00:55:26] Doug: It gets into, like, some political-type stuff.
[00:55:29] Joe: But the tone’s all over the place,
[00:55:30] Doug: huh? Bare- Barely. The tone’s all over the place. There are actually some funny lines, but you’re like… I remember thinking to myself, “I probably would’ve laughed at that if this were more of a comedy.” But it just didn’t belong in this.
[00:55:41] Doug: It’s like the music under the fight scene. You’re like, “What? What are we doing here?” And so, uh, I don’t know. It’s clearly set up for a second season. My wife liked it, so we’ll probably wa- watch the second season. But to me it was just, like, I had my phone and I was scrolling while I was watching it, so that’ll tell you that.
[00:56:00] Doug: My half, uh, which I’m only gonna bring up because I’m only five episodes in, and I’m like the last person to the party on this show, ’cause the rest of the English-speaking world I think feel like watched this.
[00:56:11] Joe: Diet
[00:56:12] Doug: Agency and Church?
[00:56:15] Joe: Night Agent season two? No.
[00:56:17] Doug: No, not Night Agent season two. Uh, I, I failed.
[00:56:21] Joe: Broadch- you haven’t seen
[00:56:22] Doug: Broadchurch? No, I hadn’t seen Broadchurch yet. Oh, my- I know it. I know. That, that, like, physical reaction you just had is what every listener is doing right now. Broad- ’cause Broadchurch is, like, I think the biggest show in, maybe not in British history, but certainly in ITV, which is one of their big networks, uh, in England.
[00:56:39] Doug: It’s fantastic. It’s amazing. Uh- It’s- … we’re only five episodes in, and I’m like, “This is…” I- in, in the middle of episode one, I’m like, “How did I have not, have I not seen this? This is incredible.”
[00:56:49] Joe: My friend Jason, who disagreed with me vehemently on Pressure to begin this after show, he and I agree, this is some of the best TV you’ll ever watch.
[00:56:59] Doug: Yeah.
[00:56:59] Joe: You’ll ever watch.
[00:57:00] Doug: And, and my wife is great at picking British crime procedurals. It’s the only thing she picks well, including her choice in me. And, and she ha- I don’t know how we didn’t stumble on this, ’cause we’ve watched a ton of these genre of shows and we’d never watched Broadchurch. So I’m super excited, like, literally every night, can’t wait to have dinner and go watch a couple episodes.
[00:57:25] Joe: Oh, it’s so good. Yeah, the whole thing.
[00:57:28] Doug: Is this the longest after show we’ve ever done?
[00:57:30] Joe: I think it is, but it makes up for the fact that we had a very short show today ’cause of graduation. So there you go, Stackers.
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