What actually separates people who build lasting wealth from everyone else? Not the tips. Not the apps. The habits. Joe put the question to a panel of financial planners, coaches, and bloggers — and turned it into a game. Seven habits, three rounds, two points up for grabs. Monica Scudieri, who paid off $257,000 in debt and reached financial independence in 10 years, joined OG and Jesse Cramer to find out how well the conventional wisdom matches what actually works.
What You’ll Walk Away With
- The seven millionaire habits Kiplinger identified — and which ones the panel nailed, missed, and argued about
- Why continuously educating yourself about money remains one of the highest-leverage habits at any income level
- The networking truth wealthy people understand that most people don’t — and why “who not how” changes everything about how you approach your career and finances
- Monica’s story: how she turned a divorce, $257,000 in debt, and three rounds of unemployment into financial independence in a decade
- Why living below your means isn’t about deprivation — it’s about creating the margin that makes every other habit possible
- The pay yourself first argument that actually holds up when your budget is genuinely tight
- Why OG thinks waking up early is the worst advice in personal finance — and what he thinks actually matters instead
- The book recommendations that shaped each panelist’s financial philosophy — including a deep dive on why passive investing still wins
- Why diversifying your income streams landed on the millionaire habits list — and what that looks like in practice
- The complete list of seven habits, revealed at the end — including the two the panel never guessed
Why This Matters Now
Millionaire habits get discussed constantly and followed inconsistently. The gap isn’t usually knowledge — it’s the unsexy reality that these habits have to run in the background for years before the results become visible. This roundtable is worth listening to not because the list is surprising, but because the people talking about it have actually lived it.
From the Basement
Joe, OG, Jesse Cramer, and Monica Scudieri from Grab Your Slice play two rounds of the millionaire habits game while the year-long trivia competition quietly shifts — Monica guesses closest on a 1940 McDonald’s complete meal price and earns Paula Pant’s first point in a while. OG extends his lead. Jesse goes 0 for the day and seems fine about it. Doug intervenes on the trivia question to add a milkshake, which turns out to be decisive.
Resources Mentioned
Stacking Benjamins “Benjamins After Dark” Meetups — stackingbenjamins.com/BAD
Grab Your Slice of Financial Independence by Monica Scudieri — available wherever books are sold
Monica Scudieri financial coaching — schedule a free 30-minute call at grabyourslice.com
Personal Finance for Long-Term Investors — Jesse Cramer’s podcast, wherever you listen; upcoming two-part series on the 14 risks retirees face
Automatic Wealth by Michael Masterson — recommended by Monica as her foundational book
A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton Malkiel — recommended by Jesse
The War of Art by Steven Pressfield and Essentialism by Greg McKeown — recommended by OG
The Truth About Money by Ric Edelman — recommended by Joe
Networking With the Affluent by Dr. Thomas Stanley — referenced in discussion
Stacking Benjamins Vault — stackingbenjamins.com/vault
Stacking Benjamins Community — stackingbenjamins.com/basement
Enjoy!
Our Topic:
7 Habits to Build and Maintain Wealth (Kiplinger)
During our conversation, you’ll hear us mention:
- Millionaire habits
- Financial independence
- Debt payoff
- Divorce recovery
- Job loss
- Money education
- Reading habits
- Favorite finance books
- Passive investing
- Fighting procrastination
- Doing the work
- Essentialism
- Risk management
- Waking up early
- Sleep routines
- Retirement purpose
- Personal rhythms
- Building networks
- Networking with millionaires
- Asking “who”
- Living below means
- Cooking at home
- Free entertainment
- Avoiding lifestyle creep
- Paying yourself first
- Emergency funds
- Sinking funds
- Investing early
- Wealth preservation
- Income diversification
Our Contributors
A big thanks to our contributors! You can check out more links for our guests below.
Guest Contributor Name Here
Another thanks to Monica Scuderi for joining our contributors this week! Learn more about Monica by visiting Grab Your Slice, LLC | Financial Coaching.
Check out her hit book Grab Your Slice of Financial Independence.
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 Spotify.
Learn how you can work with Jesse by visiting The Best Interest – Invest in Knowledge.
OG
For more on OG and his firm’s page, click here.
Doug’s Game Show Trivia
- On this day in 1940, brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald opened the first McDonald’s restaurant. If you walked in on opening day and ordered what Doug considers a truly complete meal, a cheeseburger, fries, soft drink, and milkshake, how much would it have cost you?
Join Us on Monday!
Tune in on Monday when we’ll show you how to turn concentrated stock into a diversified, confident plan.
Miss our last show? Check it out here: Why 67% of Americans Fear Running Out of Money More Than Dying (And What to Do About It) SB1840.
Written by: Kevin Bailey
Episode transcript
[00:00:00] opener: I, Maxwell E. Snavely, being of sound mind and body, do hereby bequeath the following: To my wife, Rose, who spent money like there was no tomorrow, I leave $100 and a calendar. To my sons, Rodney and Victor, who spent every dime I ever gave them on fancy cars and fast women, I leave $50 in dimes. And to my other friends and relatives, who also never learned the value of a dollar, I leave a dollar. [00:00:39] Doug: Live from the basement of the YouTube headquarters, it’s The Stacking Benjamins Show. [00:00:55] Doug: I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and what are the habits that truly make millionaires wealthy? Our panel of financial bloggers, coaches, and planners will weigh in. And of course, we’ll dive into another helping of our year-long trivia competition. Who’s bringing home today’s prize? You’re less than 30 minutes away from finding out. [00:01:16] Doug: And now, a guy who’s excited about finding out, it’s Joe Saul-Sehy. [00:01:25] Joe: Well, hey Doug, and happy, happy day everyone. I am Joe Saul-Sehy. And, uh, I’m, I’m mostly happy, Doug, and excited about, not the trivia competition, which is always fun if you’re brand new here, but I’m even more excited about the habits of millionaires, ’cause I think we can help a lot of people with those habits, Doug. [00:01:46] Doug: You just want me to tell you everything about my daily habits? Is that what this episode’s all about? That, that’s all we gotta [00:01:50] Joe: do. Yeah, we d- Well … we, we, we don’t need our special guest. We don’t need OG and Jesse. We’ll just ask Doug what he [00:01:57] Doug: does every day. Wake up at 10:45, make sure you play Wordle. Yeah, and then, uh, Map Tap. [00:02:04] Doug: Those are my daily habits, Map Tap. What is… I’ve never heard of Map Tap. What’s Map Tap? It’s a, a game on your phone where you get asked to tap on the globe for five different cities, and they give you a score of how close you are. [00:02:15] Joe: Have you ever heard- It really- … that thing about something doesn’t equal causation? [00:02:19] Joe: Uh, what is it? Correlation is not causation? Correlation. Just ’cause you do those things- Oh, yeah, right … may not be the millionaire habit. May not be. And the guy across the card table from me, who his millionaire habit is, uh, waking up to podcast with us, Mr. OG, is here. Or, or maybe not here Maybe not here He might not be awake yet. [00:02:39] Joe: Well, wait. Am I [00:02:40] OG: supposed to be here? Didn’t… I heard Doug say I don’t have to be here. Do I have to be here? He was taking off. He’s like, “Wait a minute. I don’t need to be here.” That’s [00:02:47] Joe: what I heard. I’m back. [00:02:48] Joe: So I gotta come back? What’s up, [00:02:48] Joe: man? All right, I guess I’ll come back. All right. Uh, and while we’re waiting for him to come back, let’s go to Rochester, New York, where Mr. [00:02:56] Joe: Jesse Cramer is joining us. Oh, luckily, he’s sitting in front of the camera. What’s happening, Mr. Cramer? [00:03:03] Jesse: That was fun. I really liked that trick, OG. I mean, it was like the, the bodiless voice. What’s that called? Embodied? Disembodied voice? Disembodied voice. Disembodied voice. That was a good look. [00:03:11] Doug: Paranormal Activity. [00:03:12] Doug: You [00:03:12] Jesse: like that? [00:03:13] Joe: Yeah. It’s a good trick, especially, Jesse, for an audio podcast. [00:03:17] Jesse: It works. It works so well. Right, the audio listeners right now will have no idea the magic trick that OG just pulled. [00:03:24] OG: Magic man. [00:03:25] Joe: Well, the magic trick we pulled is getting a guy with, uh, with super young kids here to record a Friday podcast. [00:03:33] Joe: How’s things going with the family, Jesse? [00:03:34] Jesse: Just fine, just fine. The little one, uh, turned five weeks old yesterday, the day before we’re recording, and we’re doing well. We are just, you know, taking it day by day and enjoying infant life for, for the ups and downs that come with it. [00:03:47] Doug: Are you one of those annoying parents that when somebody asks how old your baby is, you’re like, “Oh, they’re 97 weeks old”? [00:03:54] Jesse: You know, I think there’s some unwritten rules probably on this, Doug, where it’s like I would guess under three months it’s okay to measure in weeks, and then under two years it’s okay to measure in months, and then I think you just… You know what I mean? Like, if, if your child’s five months old, you probably can’t say, “Oh, 21 weeks.” [00:04:12] Jesse: You say, “Five months.” [00:04:13] Doug: Yeah, ’cause then I’m doing math in my head. Right. And you’ve just annoyed me. [00:04:16] Jesse: Right. And then once they’re two, it’s like two and a half, three. Audience, what do you think? I just passed my, [00:04:21] OG: uh, 581st, uh, month birthday. [00:04:25] Joe: It is funny. I had Jesse pegged as that guy who still measures it in months, but it turned out that it was my cohost- [00:04:31] Joe: who still measures it in months. Yeah. He’s about to celebrate his X number month birthday. Sure. 581st, [00:04:38] OG: just passed. [00:04:39] Joe: 581st. Just passed. Yes. And even though it’s always fun to have OG, Jesse, and Doug here, we have a special guest here with us today, guys, one that I can’t believe it’s taken us this long to have her on. [00:04:51] Joe: She is the woman behind Grab Your Financial… Grab Your Slice of Financial Independence. I almost said Grab Your Financial Slice of Independence. Monica Scudieri’s here. It, it all works. It all works. You can combine the words. As long as we grab the slice, Monica, right? Absolutely. Thank you for having me. [00:05:07] Joe: This is a lot of fun. I’m super happy you and I got to finally meet in person, and it was super fun- Yes … getting to hang out with you a little bit this last weekend. But I’ve been following your work for so long. The reason I really wanted to talk to you is, you know, your start wasn’t you were born saving money. [00:05:23] Joe: Like, you, you had a really rough time on the front end of this financial independence journey. [00:05:28] Monica: I did. My financial independence journey started after my divorce. My kids were little, they were three and five after the divorce, and I took on the marital debt of $257,000. And once the divorce was finalized, I lost my job, and that was the beginning- Oh [00:05:45] Monica: of my journey. I can’t imagine, “Hey, [00:05:48] Joe: I got a quarter million dollars in debt and I have no job.” [00:05:51] Monica: Yeah, yeah, that was… It was definitely a low, definitely a low in my life, but it did take me 10 years, and not only did I get out of debt, but I reached financial independence. And then there’s the one more year syndrome, which is a whole separate story. [00:06:06] Monica: But, but yeah, 10 years, even with that starting point. [00:06:09] Joe: We may get into that a little bit, but I’m really excited to have you here today, and I thought a perfect topic would be, like, the habits that took you from one end to the other. Because I don’t know if you felt this way, Monica, but for me, because I wasn’t great with money at first either, once I started to get the habits together, like, even though I wasn’t there yet and I wasn’t financially independent, I was so excited and I felt like I was in control, and it was a really fun journey. [00:06:34] Monica: Yes, absolutely. I did a lot of reading when I was unemployed, but once I did pick up the habits, once I decided that I had to take a look, that’s the first step, right, is y- you have to see where you are to know, “Okay, this is where I am. It’s just a point in time, and where do I go from here?” And then as you start to learn and start to dig your way out of that and build those habits, it does get really exciting. [00:06:58] Monica: It’s kind of like unlocking a secret. Yeah, yeah. That the little things really do, the little steps really do work. They really, really do work. [00:07:07] Joe: And the cool thing, and we’ll link to this in our show notes, is Monica’s also detailed this in a cool book. It’s, like, part inspirational memoir, uh, part how-to manual, also called, believe it or not, wait for it, Grab Your Slice of Financial Independence. [00:07:21] Joe: Yes. I’m consistent. Consistent. You are, you are consistent. Her coaching, her book, it’s all there. Well, we’re super happy that you’re here with us. We have a couple sponsors who help us keep on keeping on. We’re going to hear from them right now. We only have two sponsor spots here and in the middle of our gigantic trivia challenge today. [00:07:42] Joe: So we’re gonna hear from them, and then our roundtable team is going to talk about millionaire habits. I told our roundtable stackers ahead of time that they didn’t need to study for this because if you’ve been here before, you know what that sound means. It’s a game show episode on Fridays, and we’re gonna be playing two games, not one. [00:08:08] Joe: We have Doug’s normal trivia competition coming up at the halfway mark, but we’re playing another game. I have chosen a piece that I found online that includes several different habits that these wealthy people have said are the basis of their journey. Uh, they’re the habits they built up to get where they are today, and the way this game works, Monica, and OG and Jesse are already familiar with this, but the goal is to guess what this author said. [00:08:38] Joe: Now, Monica, I gotta tell you, and I’ll tell some of the stackers new to the show, some of these, uh, these pieces I find are really crappy. And you, you guys come up with way better stuff than sometimes they do. So the goal is to match, although the bigger goal is to see if we can learn a little bit from all of you about what it takes to really get your financial act together and reach financial independence. [00:09:04] Joe: So we have seven answers that are on the board, and we’re gonna play three rounds. We’ll play two rounds before our trivia break and one round after. Uh, w- we’re gonna give one point, Doug, if you don’t mind being our scorekeeper. Sure can. Uh, we’re giving one point in round one, two points in the second round, three points in round three for a right answer. [00:09:24] Joe: So as we narrow down the number that are left, well then, uh, then it’s gonna give … It might get interesting. Monica, stretch it out. She’s ready- Yes … to go. I’m ready. And actually, because you’re the guest and you’re playing for Paula, we will have you go first. Okay. What is one habit that millionaires say really helped them reach the finish line when it came to building that all-important financial [00:09:50] Monica: acumen? [00:09:51] Monica: Wow. Okay. There, there are a lot of things that come to mind, but I’m gonna say the most helpful thing to me when I first started was I did a lot of reading and educating myself. I think, you know, we all have our favorite books. I think, you know, all of us have read several books, and we’ve got some old ones and some new ones. [00:10:14] Monica: My favorite was Automatic Wealth, which is a really old book. I’ve never even heard of that. Who, who wrote Automatic Wealth? I’ve never heard of this book. It’s a gentleman by the name of Masterson, and it is an old book, yeah. But that one, I think, started me on that journey to a lot of other answers that are going to come up in this. [00:10:32] Monica: But educating. Education, I would say. Is [00:10:36] Joe: getting educated on this list- It is Monica. Yay. All right. Nice job. Can, uh, millionaires say that continually educating yourself about money is one of the most important things to do, so always be looking for information, and I’m glad you listed one. I’d love to hear, Jesse, what’s something that was a book on your journey that really helped out? [00:11:01] Joe: I will say [00:11:02] Jesse: A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton Malkiel was, uh, probably the second or third personal finance book I read, and very helpful and kind of transformational in developing my investment philosophy, so a really good book. [00:11:15] Joe: What was important about that, that if we had the TLDR, too long, didn’t read- Yeah [00:11:20] Joe: what’s, what’s a big takeaway from that book? [00:11:23] Jesse: I, I think the biggest one is just, uh, it- it’s kind of some of the academic underpinnings behind the passive investing revolution. It provides some pretty detailed kinda statistical, mathematical rationale for why passive investing works the way it works, why it’s probably the better way to invest for a lot of people. [00:11:43] Jesse: If you’re the kinda person who wants some, you know, pretty good academic rigor to justify the reasons why you’re making your investment decisions, it’s, it’s a good book for that. [00:11:52] OG: Oh, Gene, did you read this book, Random Walk Down Wall Street? No, I don’t think so. I mean, I may have. I was thinking you were gonna ask me the same question, and, and I’m completely drawing a blank, and I’m, like, just looking back at the bookshelf going, “Uh, just pick something. [00:12:07] OG: Pick any one of these-” “… and just say it’s the one, and no one will argue with you.” Uh, One Fish, Two Fish- Yeah … Red Fish, Blue Fish. Goodnight Moon. Um, I think, you know, from the book standpoint, I th- I, I spend more time thinking about important things to focus on, so if you asked me, like, kinda top five books, I absolutely love War of Art from Steven Pressfield. [00:12:30] OG: Really, anything from Steven Pressfield’s pretty good. Um- And what’s the too long, didn’t read point about The War of Art? That book is so short, you have no excuse not to read it, so you should read it. Every page is a separate thought, you know, in it, or mostly one page, and it’s, it’s really around, like, doing the stuff that is, you know, not exciting, not interesting, doesn’t get a lot of recognition. [00:12:57] OG: He talks about it in terms of resistance. Some people think about it in terms of procrastination. But it’s really, like, just doing the thing. The next book in the sequence, or one of the books in the sequence, is called Do the Work, so it’s like that’s kind of the line of thinking, like, just, you just have to do stuff, you know? [00:13:11] OG: And, and so- Fighting fear and procrastination. Yeah, so the money side of it is really just, like, just sit down and invest your money, you know? Or build your budget. Like, do the unsexy stuff. Like, people wanna day trade options because that’s, like, really fun and exciting, but that’s not where, that’s not where the money’s made, you know? [00:13:28] OG: The money’s made in discipline And I absolutely love Essentialism from Greg McKeown. More specifically, I like listening to him because he’s got a really, uh, what… Great voice. What kind of accent is it? Is he Scottish? Scottish maybe. I think he’s Scottish. It just, it just sounds like a guy you’re like, “Oh, I gotta listen to this guy. [00:13:45] OG: Like, he knows what he’s talking about.” But anyways, those are probably my top two books. Not money-related whatsoever. [00:13:51] Joe: A big one for me that was formative was, uh, Rick Edelman’s book, The Truth About Money. I think it’s a really even-handed book. It, uh, look at all the different areas of financial planning, and the way he talks about risk management. [00:14:02] Joe: Really, if anybody’s heard me talk about risk management, I always try to attribute that to Rick because it, it opened my eyes when he said that, you know, the risks to think about, not necessarily buying the insurance, but the risks to think about are the ones where actuaries have priced it really expensively. [00:14:18] Joe: Because these are really smart people who are trying to make sure that the insurance company stays in business, and if they make it expensive, then it’s a risk you really need to worry about. If they price it very cheaply… And yet when we buy insurances, we often buy the cheap ones. Like, you know, we have a desk job where we work on a keyboard, and we buy accidental death and dismemberment, which is never gonna pay. [00:14:38] Joe: There’s a reason it’s cheap, is that, is it’s never gonna pay anything. So love, uh, The Truth About Money. Plus, Rick’s got a pretty good sense of humor as well. All right, Monica takes the early lead. Jesse is now on the board. There are six left. I just wonder, Doug, before we get to Jesse’s pick, i- if we go three rounds, we’ve got nine. [00:14:57] Joe: There’s only seven on the board. We, we, we may have a, a math problem going here, but we’ll see. I think you’re assuming [00:15:04] OG: that we’re all gonna bat 1000 here, and, uh- … yours truly, the- these are not the ones that I’m good at, so I’m gonna go 0 for 3. So don’t worry, I got you. [00:15:12] Joe: All right, Jesse, six left on this particular list. [00:15:16] Joe: What’s another habit that the wealthy point to? [00:15:19] Jesse: I, I’m thinking about some of these, um, gurus, if you will, who talk about the habits that have made them who they are, and I feel like that one, one that comes up a lot has to do with either working really late or waking up really early or sometimes both. [00:15:35] Jesse: And so I think I’m gonna go with waking up early. [00:15:39] Joe: Is waking up early on the list? [00:15:43] Doug: Hmm. That is stupid advice. [00:15:47] Doug: When did that ever do anybody any good? [00:15:50] Monica: I will say, when I was writing my book, I was getting up at 5:00 in the morning to, to work on the book before I went to work, and it did work. It did help. [00:15:59] Joe: Yeah, for me, if I don’t work out before my brain wakes up, Monica, I’m in trouble, to your point, you know? I- if there’s a thing I really don’t wanna do, if I let my brain think about it, it’s done. If I tell you I’m gonna work out in the afternoon, that is a lie. Mm-hmm. Just looking at, looking at, at, at my history. [00:16:15] Joe: What’s also interesting, though, is when you talk about that… Well, Jesse, let’s ask you, why did you say waking up early? [00:16:21] Jesse: Well, I guess two reasons. I mean, the first one is, as you alluded to in your intro, Joe, there have been times where these lists of yours aren’t exactly- what maybe most people would think or, or it’s like there’s this meta game, right? [00:16:33] Jesse: My job isn’t to guess what I think the seven habits are, it’s to guess what the author thinks the seven habits are. And that’s part of my logic, was like, I feel like waking up early shows up a lot in those lists. But then also, uh, selfishly, and like, again, thinking just through my own, uh, frame of, of looking at the world, is like, I get a lot of my best work done in the early morning hours if I’m waking up early. [00:16:55] Jesse: Yeah. So some of it, too, is just that point of view of just like, it’s a habit that has, I think, been beneficial for me. But yeah, maybe I’m just, I don’t have what it takes to be a millionaire. That, that could also be the takeaway. [00:17:08] Joe: Just ’cause it works for some people, not sure that it’s, that it’s right for you. [00:17:12] Joe: OG, you like that one? Wake up early? [00:17:14] OG: Waking up early is the worst thing imaginable. [00:17:17] Jesse: Yeah. [00:17:17] OG: I get up at the crack of 8:15 every day- … whether I have to or not. Actually, no, it’s, it’s more like 7:30 nowadays or 7:45, but kind of the similar time period, obviously. The way that I think about rest or, or the way that I think about waking up is it’s all really about rest, and I’m also a big believer in, like, sleep and recovery and optimizing that as a byproduct of the rest of your day. [00:17:46] OG: So I’m very protective around, you know… And I know you guys like to make fun of me, like, “Oh, it’s 9:45. Time for OG to go to bed.” It’s like, well, that’s why I’m gonna live to be 150 years old and you guys are not, because, you know, that’s how I feel about it. But I also kind of think, like, if you get up at the same time every day, like, you get a little bit of, uh, that rhythm, and I think, Jesse, maybe that’s kind of where you’re going, is like, I feel like too many people, like, burn the candle at both sides and then show up on Sunday and, like, sleep till 11:00 in the morning. [00:18:13] OG: And then, you know, can’t go to bed on time on Sunday night, you know, and lie awake all night, like tossing and turning, going, “Oh, my God, I’m gonna be tired tomorrow. I got a busy day. I got a busy day. I’m gonna be tired.” It’s because you didn’t prioritize that, all that stuff along the way. So, so absolutely not well I get up early. [00:18:29] OG: And if I have to get up early, then I’m going to bed super early, ’cause I do not like being tired. That is not my favorite thing. [00:18:36] Joe: Christine Benz just had an interesting book that came out last fall. Christine Benz from Morningstar fame. In her first chapter, she talked about, Monica, the importance after financial independence or in retirement of still treating it like a job, but a job that you really love. [00:18:51] Joe: And maybe it’s not waking up early, but it’s, it’s being diligent and putting fencing around these specific times. You’ve been around a lot of people that, that are financially independent. Have you seen that to be a successful trait? [00:19:05] Monica: Absolutely. You have to have purpose. I mean, I, I think the most successful retirements are people who it’s not you’re leaving a job because you hate it or it’s you’re burnt out, but you’re leaving a job because you’re going towards something else, another purpose, a new chapter in life, and I think those are the most successful retirement people. [00:19:27] Monica: I mean, I think if you don’t have that, I’ve seen it where people will go back to work because they don’t have anything to do. There’s nothing to occupy. They haven’t given it a lot of thought, and so they end up going back to work. And then they realize, “Wait a minute, I don’t, I don’t wanna do this either.” [00:19:42] Monica: And so, uh, that I think sometimes it takes people maybe two or three times to launch. But purpose I think is really important. [00:19:50] Joe: There’s a few interesting productivity books that I’ve read that are really about, OG, to your point about maybe it’s not about waking up early, but it is about knowing your, uh, body, knowing your rhythms. [00:20:00] Joe: Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? This is my peak time. And what’s interesting, one of our guests who was talking about this topic discussed how sometimes we think that… Monica, you, you, you pointed to writing in the morning. Mm-hmm. But people who study creativity actually have said that you’re sometimes more creative in the afternoon ’cause your brain’s a little foggy, and so your brain is making crap up because it really doesn’t wanna, [00:20:23] Monica: doesn’t wanna- [00:20:24] Joe: No [00:20:24] Joe: do [00:20:24] Monica: the work. Definitely not for me. I’m more like Jesse. My best writing is first thing in the morning. In the afternoon, there… Nothing I write is anything anyone wants to read. I guarantee it. All [00:20:36] Joe: right, Monica’s got one. Jesse falls a little bit behind, but we, we do round two and round three for more points. [00:20:43] Joe: OG, you’re on the clock. There’s six left. What’s another millionaire habit? [00:20:47] OG: Well, you know, I’m playing the game like Jesse has here. I was thinking tactical money things, but I think I gotta go way bigger broad brush stroke of what does the author think the answer is? I happen to think this one, to some degree also, um, but I’m gonna go network. [00:21:04] OG: Like, grow and build your network of people around you. That is gonna catapult you to, uh, f- life success, not just money success. Networking, or like growing your network. Okay. Is [00:21:19] Joe: grow a network on this list? [00:21:22] Jesse: Bang-a-rang. It is. I knew it because I saw Doug’s face. Doug looked disappointed. He looked frustrated. [00:21:28] Jesse: He was like so [00:21:29] OG: mad. I could tell right away, so. [00:21:30] Jesse: I knew he was getting ready to play the nice sound effect. [00:21:32] Joe: Actively rooting against OG. Ree, ree, ree, ree. We either gotta send Doug to black screen- … or we have to start a poker game with Doug where we get to take his money, ’cause you’ll know exactly what’s in his hand every single hand. [00:21:46] Joe: But building a strong network. [00:21:47] OG: Yeah. [00:21:48] Joe: When I was a financial planner and I would work on referrals, you know, wealthy people network with wealthy people. [00:21:55] OG: Uh, listen, I think a lot about my kids in particular, and you know, what their life is like and some areas of their life that are easier than mine was, basically all of it, but also like how, what are they gonna do in the future? [00:22:09] OG: And I think about it from the context of like how can I accelerate that for them? I am not ashamed to like lean on nepotism for my kids- To say like, “I know that guy. Let me get you in that conversation.” And I think there’s a little difference between, like forcing that to happen because, you know, it’s like you got the job because your dad knows somebody. [00:22:30] OG: You know? That’s, you didn’t earn it. Like, that’s BS. But I will 100% try to get my kid in the room, you know? And, uh, I mean, a perfect example of this, and I talked about it on the show a couple years ago, was I met, at that time, the head of TCU, and I’m fully convinced that that was what got Alex in the first conversation with him. [00:22:52] OG: Now, he ultimately did not get the scholarship and that sort of thing. They’re just highly competitive. But I’m very convinced that just having that conversation with him on the airplane was the value that, or, or was valuable enough that that guy said, “Okay, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll entertain talking to this kid.” [00:23:10] OG: Alex showed up, right? He had the grades. He had the test scores. He, you know, he did his part there, too. But, you know, if I wasn’t sitting on that plane and I wasn’t talking to this dude, does he get that same thing? I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not. I don’t care that he did because of me. It doesn’t hurt my feelings at all. [00:23:27] OG: So, so I think people look at networking as, like slimy, or they look at it like, “Well, the only reason you got this, ’cause you know that person.” It’s like, well, yeah. Maybe that is the reason why I got that. Mm-hmm. But I’m also gonna prove it now that I’ve got it. I don’t know how else to say that differently, but that’s, um- Well, and it can be- [00:23:45] OG: that’s how I feel about that stuff … [00:23:46] Joe: it, it can be the reason why you got in the door, but how many times have we seen people where the door’s wide open and they still don’t go through it? Yeah. You still gotta go through it. Monica? [00:23:55] Monica: That’s exactly what I was going to say. I mean, there’s plenty of times when, you know, you meet somebody, and they give you this golden opportunity, and then don’t act on it, you know? [00:24:03] Monica: And I, I’ve seen it myself and it, you know, and so that does happen. And so meeting somebody doesn’t necessarily mean success, but it’s, it’s the actual action, the follow-through, that is what makes the difference. You still gotta put in the work. [00:24:16] Joe: Yeah. Jesse, did you ever read The Millionaire Next Door? [00:24:19] Jesse: I don’t think I finished it. [00:24:20] Jesse: I know I have a copy of it over on my bookshelf. That’s, uh, Thomas Stanley. Is that the gentleman’s name? Thomas, [00:24:24] Joe: Dr. Thomas Stanley, yeah. I mean, [00:24:25] Jesse: I know it’s, I, it’s not that it wasn’t good. I just think I got, like distracted midway through it and never picked it back up, but I, it’s just- You were, [00:24:31] Joe: you were too busy implementing [00:24:33] Jesse: Right? Well, it’s funny. I get, you know, I, I love answering listener questions, and one question I’ve gotten before is, how did I end up here on Stacking Benjamins? And the answer is, I actively- I was drunk … I actively avoided meeting Joe at FinCon. We ask that question a lot. Yeah, exactly. We ask ourselves, how’d I end up here? [00:24:48] Jesse: You [00:24:48] Joe: avoided meeting me at FinCon? Like what? 100. I just, [00:24:50] Jesse: exact- I did everything I could to not meet Joe, and then I just happened to fall into this chair. That’s what happened, right? No. It’s like, of course. You, we met at a conference. We hit it off. We got along, I think, once upon a time, right? If memory serves me well, like, you gave me an, a opportunity once to appear on a Friday. [00:25:05] Jesse: We all had fun. It turned into another opportunity and, and, and like the dominoes, like there were a lot of dominoes that occurred in between that very first time we met and then when you guys extended me this invitation. A lot of stuff in between. But that first domino never would have fallen down if we hadn’t met. [00:25:22] Jesse: And so it’s like, come on, you gotta meet people. We’re social animals. Like, you gotta meet people, and the more people you meet, all else being equal, like, the better off you’ll be. I like that one. [00:25:30] Joe: Yeah. We had to meet. You gotta get on the person’s radar, and then you have to show up. I remember, Jesse, how prepared you were, how excited you were, uh, how many dumb dad jokes you had, which was- Yeah, lots [00:25:41] Joe: perfect for our show. [00:25:42] Jesse: Lots. It was [00:25:42] Joe: just amazing. All the above. But the reason I brought up Dr. Tom Stanley was a lot of people don’t know that he wrote a couple other books that were for financial professionals. One was called Networking With the Affluent, and what he said was, “Affluent people know how to ask this question,” that, OG, you and I have learned through coaching, which is ask who, not how. [00:26:05] Joe: Ask who the person is who knows how to get this done. So affluent people know they don’t have time to be in YouTube hell watching some video with a screwdriver in their hand. They’re gonna ask, “Who knows me? Who knows the right person, who charges the right amount, does a great job?” Bam. And the key to, by the way, success if you’re networking with millionaires, is not to, and Stanley talks extensively about this, not to charge them a ton of money. [00:26:34] Joe: ‘Cause people that, that are trying to sell to the affluent for the first time, I don’t know if they think that… I don’t know. I, I don’t know if they don’t realize how affluent people became affluent, but it’s not charging them a ton of money. It’s charging them a fair amount, but then doing a hell of a job, and you’ll have a customer for life, ’cause they don’t have, they don’t have time to shop you. [00:26:53] Joe: T- they don’t have any time. Be phenomenal, and now you never have to look for the next client again. But I think that really points to every, every, you know, super successful person I know, Jesse. [00:27:05] Jesse: I agree. Your network is your net worth. That one. I mean, I think who not how is better. [00:27:10] Joe: Yeah, and you and I were just with a group of people that were like this. [00:27:13] Joe: These are pretty powerful people that are in a room together helping each other figure out all the pieces of their life, you know, to make sure that they are able to have a better life, help the charities they wanna help, like, do all these cool things. Yeah, and I th- Did you guys [00:27:28] Jesse: go to that… Uh, sorry, Monica. [00:27:29] Jesse: Was this at, like, some robed conference, like Rothschild Europe? Is this some, is this some conspiracy conference that you guys were at? It was, it was a [00:27:35] Joe: secret conference- … in a secret location. Wait, wait, [00:27:37] Jesse: there were some powerful people. There were some- That’s right … powerful people. [00:27:40] Monica: It’s, it’s not like that. [00:27:42] Monica: But no, but it is- Good stuff … a fun group of people, and not everybody in the room has achieved retirement. One of the cool things about this group is that you have people that come in who are looking to get to that level. And so you have this nice mix of mentors and mentees that, you know, the door is open. [00:27:59] Monica: And so these, y- you know, people come to share their experiences and learn from each other, and, and it is. It’s, it’s just kind of a free-flowing conversation, just kind of like this is right here, and you’re just learning from each other, and it’s- It’s just fantastic, you know, and it’s just one of those opportunities. [00:28:14] Monica: Yeah. So it is a fun group of people. I don’t know if it’s so nefarious the way Joe makes it sound. [00:28:20] Joe: We sh- I, I like the super secret. [00:28:22] Jesse: Yeah, [00:28:23] Joe: yeah. But it also speaks to finding your group, right? I, I mean, finding that network, OG, like you talked about. All right, we just heard Doug from Dottie in Wichita, and she’s like, “This has been a phenomenal conversation,” but unfortunately she has cut round three. [00:28:36] Joe: We only are gonna have time- Yeah … for two rounds, sadly. Not surprising. Otherwise, this is gonna go about 17 hours, which fascinating 17 hours, but I think we’ll stop right there. At the end of round one, what’s the score, Doug? [00:28:51] Doug: Well, uh, we have Monica with one point, we have OG with one point, and we have Jesse with a big fat donut on his face. [00:29:02] Joe: Can Jesse come back? We’re gonna find out on, uh, two point, second half of the show. But we have to interrupt this contest with our year-long contest for people new to the Stacky Benjamin Show, every Friday we have a contest between our three frequent contributors, OG, Jesse, and Paula Pant, and, uh, this year OG is trying to break the record by having more wins than anybody else. [00:29:31] Joe: Monica, there’s good news and bad news when we tell you you’re playing for Team Paula Pant. Would you like the good news or the bad news? Oh, no, hit me with the bad news. Always the bad news first, I like that approach. Doug, what’s the bad news for Monica? Well, [00:29:46] Doug: the bad news for Monica is that she is in last place. [00:29:51] Doug: Yes. You, uh, you kinda suck right now, Monica. We need you to work on yourself a little bit. We’re gonna [00:29:56] Monica: turn it around. We’re gonna turn it around. Just apply, [00:29:59] Joe: just [00:29:59] Doug: apply [00:29:59] Joe: yourself. Monica, we’re so disappointed- Geez … in you. Yeah. I know you haven’t been here yet, but it’s all your fault. In fact, Paula every week blames it on Monica. [00:30:07] Joe: I don’t know what’s going on. Oh, yeah, yeah. I [00:30:08] Jesse: think I did hear that once. [00:30:11] Joe: Uh, that is the bad news. The good news is, though, because you’re in last and Paula is perennially in last, Paula always gets to go last, which means you’re gonna hear OG go first, and you’re going to hear Jesse go second, because Doug, what is the score? [00:30:26] Doug: The score right now, Joe, is, uh, Monica, as we’ve well established, is sucking swamp water at the moment- … with two points. Uh, Jesse is just creeping out of the morass onto dry land at three points, and OG is up high on the mountaintop in his guru cave, uh, looking shabby, by the way, but he does have eight points. [00:30:49] Joe: Eight points. So OG trying to, uh, really bring it home here as we round into, uh, well, really the middle of Q2. Those are the stakes, Monica, OG, and Jesse. We need a question, Doug. What do we got? [00:31:08] Doug: Well, hey there, Stackers. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and today is a huge day in history for foodies. Sure, you can Michelin star this and celebrity chef that, but you and I both know, Stackers, that you ain’t living until you’ve had the meal from heaven, served in a tray and served with a smile from under those golden arches of heaven. [00:31:30] Doug: That’s right, I’m talking about McDonald’s. The first McDonald’s was opened by brothers Richard and Maurice “The Gangster of Love” McDonald on this date in 1940. Swear to God that was his nickname. So here’s a question: If you ordered a complete meal from McDonald’s on opening day in 1940 that included a cheeseburger, fries, and a soft drink, what would your… [00:31:54] Doug: Whoa. Hold on. Joe, what the hell is this question? Wait, what’s wrong? You think I’m just gonna read anything? I mean, I know the joke. You say, “Oh, he’ll read anything that you put in front of him.” That’s… You really think that, don’t you? Well, I kinda do but… With… What… Yes, correct. But what, what’s wrong with the question, though? [00:32:12] Doug: The question, you said a complete meal. That’s not a complete meal. Cheeseburger, fries, and a drink is not a complete meal. I mean, like, unless you’re the CEO of McDonald’s who fills up on, like, half a bite of the Archburger or whatever it is. You haven’t had a complete meal until you’ve washed it down with a milkshake. [00:32:30] Doug: Oh. So let’s… We’re gonna try this question again. On opening day in 1940, how much would a complete and total satisfying McDonald’s meal set you back if you ordered a cheeseburger, fries, soft drink, and a nutritious milkshake? I’ll be back right after I write a strongly worded note to Joe for him to read after the show is over about making sure the trivia is relevant and useful. [00:32:58] Doug: And this one is, now that I’ve intervened. [00:33:02] Joe: Thank goodness for Doug and his intervention. OG, you are first. It’s opening day at McDonald’s in 1940. Cheeseburger, fries- [00:33:11] OG: Yeah, I mean, fun fact. The actual McDonald’s was in my hometown. Can’t even do that anymore with a, with a straight face. But now I happen to know how much McDonald’s costs now. [00:33:21] OG: I took my daughter and, uh, son to McDonald’s, and it was $87. Yeah. So, um- I was gonna ask how the mortgage [00:33:28] Joe: application went. [00:33:29] OG: Well, I, you know, I just, I got the line of credit open, so it’s good. So that was cool. And, uh, you just have to, like, subtract out… Now, they didn’t, you know, they didn’t have nuggets and that sort of thing. [00:33:39] OG: Just back out 80 years of inflation, and it’s pretty simple. It ends up being about 20 cents. So I’m gonna say 20 cents is, uh, what got you home. 20 cents for the complete meal. Absolutely. Exactly the number. Including the shake. Yeah. I mean, it’s probably like $2, but I’m gonna say 20 cents to, like, throw you guys off. [00:33:58] Joe: Jesse, you’ve seen his games before. I have. What are you thinking, man? [00:34:02] Jesse: I thought OG was gonna say, you know, he worked at the first McDonald’s. Uh- [00:34:06] OG: I’m not as old as Joe and Doug. Settle down. Oh, [00:34:10] Jesse: hey. Doug, did you say morass? [00:34:13] Doug: I did. I used the word morass in a complete sentence. [00:34:15] Jesse: Great word. You must have done well on the SAT. [00:34:17] Jesse: Now, is there a space in that phrase, or is it all one word? [00:34:20] Doug: When I’m talking about you, yes. [00:34:23] Jesse: Just checking. [00:34:24] Joe: He’s talking about what happens when you go to McDonald’s too much. [00:34:28] Jesse: I’ve seen that movie, The Founder, right? Founder? Mm. The, The Founder. [00:34:32] Doug: Very good movie. Yeah, Michael Keaton. Great- Very good … Michael [00:34:34] Jesse: Keaton. [00:34:34] Jesse: Great movie. And I swear, the, the hamburgers at that first stand, at least in, when the movie is being shot, I think were like 10 cents each. So I don’t think OG is that far off, but I think he’s a little off, and I’m gonna say 45 cents. 45 cents [00:34:50] Joe: for cheeseburger, fries, drink, and milkshake. And a milkshake. [00:34:56] Jesse: 1940. [00:34:58] Joe: All right, Monica. [00:34:59] Doug: That is an important distinction. Cheeseburger. Yes. [00:35:01] Joe: Yes. ‘Cause that’s where they get you, is with the cheese, Jesse. That’s where That’s a good- Oh, 47 cents. [00:35:08] Jesse: I take it. No, I’m kidding. I’ll go with 45. [00:35:10] Monica: 45. We’ve got 20 and 45, Monica. Okay. Well, since there is no pressure, because I’m already at the bottom, I am going to go with… [00:35:23] Monica: Oh, pressure. The pressure. I think you guys are pretty close, but the milkshake, it’s the milkshake that’s throwing me off. So I, I think I’m gonna go just a, just a smidge more and say 49 cents. [00:35:38] Joe: Oh. That was… It- and you know Monica wanted to say 46, Jesse, and she was being nice. I, I [00:35:43] Jesse: appreciate that, [00:35:44] Joe: Monica. [00:35:45] Jesse: I, I do. [00:35:46] Monica: I got you. Don’t worry. [00:35:47] Jesse: Thank you. 48. Thank you. We, we need some camaraderie here against the Palpatine on the show. There you go. It’s okay. I feel like I’m [00:35:54] Joe: gonna… All right. Is OG bringing home another win to go up to nine, get to double digits before the second quarter’s over? Uh, he’s got 20 cents, Jesse 45, Monica 49. [00:36:06] Joe: We’ll be right back and find out. All right, Stackers. They locked in their guesses. That complete meal at McDonald’s in 1940 on opening day. Cheeseburger, fries, drink, and milkshake. OG, you said 20 cents, and both Jesse and Monica went significantly higher. Uh, what are you thinking? You got this one? [00:36:28] OG: No, it’s probably in the 30 cent range or something, but is… [00:36:31] OG: I, I think from 20 to, well, he said 45, so I got till 32. You do, yeah. So, you know, it gives me some wiggle room, but I don’t think enough. Jesse, you still got that middle ground as [00:36:42] Jesse: well. Are you feeling good? I’m feeling okay. I’m feeling okay. I’m hoping it comes in at 46 cents. I’m hoping that’s the answer. [00:36:49] Monica: Uh, Monica, 49 cents You know, I’m, I’m sticking to my guns. I’m gonna say 49 cents. It’s a milkshake. [00:36:58] Joe: Y- y- you know what? Yeah. Paula has been doing this a long time. She always sticks to her guns, and look at where it got her. Doug, you’ve got the answer. Who’s bringing home the win? [00:37:13] Doug: Hey there, stackers. I’m cheeseburger lover and guy who always qualifies for dessert. I eat my green beans. Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. The McDonald’s brothers had lightning in a bottle when they created their first McDonald’s back on today’s date in 1940. But of course, they didn’t know it. It wasn’t until shake machine vendor Ray Kroc saw their operation and bought in that McDonald’s became the worldwide success it’s become today. [00:37:39] Doug: So here is the question. If on opening day in 1940 you purchased a tempting cheeseburger, these are their words from the actual 1940 menu, not my, my adjectives, they’re their adjectives. Tempting cheeseburger, golden fries, a thirst-quenching Coke, and a triple thick milkshake. Triple thick. How much would it have set you back? [00:38:02] Doug: Well, I’m not gonna tell you the correct answer, but I will tell you a cheeseburger cost 19 cents. Fries meant you spent another 10. Soft drinks, another 10. And the- Ah … piece of resistance, the milkshake was another 20. That means- Oh, hey … it, it was 39 cents more than what OG guessed, 14 cents more than what Jesse guessed, just 10 cents more than what Monica guessed, because it’s a total of 59 cents proving yet again, Paula cannot win a point for herself, but her guests can. [00:38:36] Doug: There you go, Paula. Monica brings it across the finish line. [00:38:42] Joe: It’s been a collection of, uh, smart women who have gotten her her points. Sarah Catherine- That’s right … uh, Gutierrez, Monica, and, uh, Jackie all scoring points for Paula. Yeah. Congratulations, Monica. Nice work. All right. [00:38:54] Jesse: Thank you, Monica. Good work. [00:38:56] Joe: Thank you. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you. All right, back to the real contest today, because Monica’s leading that one, too. Well, she’s tied with OG, anyway. We’re gonna go in reverse order the second time around. So OG, we’ve got, uh, the seven things that, that, uh, the wealthiest say are the habits that made them wealthy. [00:39:21] Joe: What’s still on the list? We’ve got five left. And so what have we covered so far? We’ve covered- Continually educate yourself about money and build a strong network were the two that you got … waking up early. Waking up early was- Yeah … not on the list. [00:39:38] Monica: But a good, good idea. [00:39:39] Joe: Very good idea. [00:39:40] OG: All right. Um, let’s just take it. [00:39:43] OG: I, I think, uh, kind of a easy one, money one off the table. Um, I’m gonna go with, um- Uh, you know, managing your expenses, uh, living, what- whatever that’s called. I don’t know what it is. What’s the word I’m looking for? She’s signaling it. He’s- Below your means. There you go. None of us understand what he’s saying. [00:40:00] OG: You’ve [00:40:00] Doug: never said it before in your life. [00:40:02] OG: I’ve never done this once, but apparently millionaires say it’s a good idea. [00:40:07] Joe: Yeah. Living below your… Living below your means. There you go. Living below your means. Yeah. OG’s like, “I’ve heard that’s been done.” [00:40:14] OG: I’ve heard that’s a thing. I’m unaware of how to do it successfully, but, um- [00:40:19] OG: but apparently it’s a thing. [00:40:20] Joe: Is living below your means one of the millionaire habits? It is. Br-ling. Live below your means. Bangerang. Nice job, OG. Okay. Thank you. Bringing home another point. Monica, when you were- Two points, isn’t it, right? … when you were turning your financial situation around, two points, yes, that takes you to three, how important was this on your ability to [00:40:41] Monica: move the needle? [00:40:42] Monica: Oh, extremely. Extremely important. Because I went on… Well, the first five years, I was on unemployment three times, so it was two years of unemployment. And so making sure that you live below your means and stretch your dollars meant, meant everything. Do you remember what you cut? Uh, we didn’t go out to eat, did a lot of cooking at home. [00:41:02] Monica: I, I, I wrote in the book that, um, a sack of flour and a, a carton of eggs, we would make pasta at home. Mm. And we would do a lot of home cooking, you know, just, just simple things. Simple things. But yeah, that was a big one. Any kind of entertainment was at the park, at the library. We’d hang out at the bookstore, those kinds of things. [00:41:23] Monica: If we traveled to my mom’s house, we ate the food out of her fridge, we borrowed her car, and we lived in her house, uh, so it would make it very inexpensive. That sounds like the, the way we [00:41:34] Joe: operate here, Monica. Mom’s basement. [00:41:36] Doug: That’s [00:41:36] Joe: exactly, that’s exactly what we go for. It works. It does work. Yes. And Mom’s happy to have us here. [00:41:41] Joe: She knows where we’re at. We’re not out someplace else. Jesse, how important has this been in your life? [00:41:48] Jesse: Foundational. Foundational. To me, it’s, it is one of the foundational personal finance habits that, you know, just like a cinder block, right? It’s super-duper boring and no one’s ever gonna write, you know, soliloquies about it, and yet every foundation is built out of cinder blocks. [00:42:03] Jesse: And similarly, it’s like if you’re not living below your means, unless you’re planning to get an inheritance, which by the way, I might make that my guess, is just, like, be born in the right family. Uh, but for most of us, it’s like, yeah, you gotta live below your means and invest the difference. [00:42:18] Joe: I would love to see if that’s on the list. [00:42:20] Joe: Is be born lucky on the It is interesting because as a guy who’s a spender naturally, I have to remind myself of that all the time, that it’s not, it, it isn’t what you spend, you’re spending money, and to me that’s not as big a dopamine rush anymore as it used to be. I mean, it used to be this quick hit, you know, that you’d get by spending money even when you didn’t have it. [00:42:42] Joe: What did, uh, Buffy Purcell say, Doug, when she was on the show? The three worst words broke people say, “I deserve it.” Right? [00:42:49] Doug: Oh. I- that’s not what I thought. What I remember her saying to me is, “You should bathe more often.” Well, both. It could be both. [00:42:56] Joe: All right. OG has three, which I think means Jesse, unfortunately even though you’re up, Jesse’s been, uh, eliminated. [00:43:05] Joe: But you could get second ahead of Monica. Hey. How many points do I get for that? [00:43:09] Doug: Yeah. Are these worth two this round, Joe? [00:43:13] Joe: These are worth two. Okay. So OG is moving at the very least into overtime against Monica if she’s able to tie him at the end. But Jesse, you can try to take one off the list here. [00:43:25] Jesse: I know. [00:43:26] Jesse: And I was thinking about that. I was like, do I, do I make Monica’s job harder by eliminating opportunities? Oh. Or do I just say something funny, and, you know, maybe frustrate OG a little bit as far as, you know… OG’s not a big gamesmanship guy. Uh, it’s funny- … I was actually born in the town where gamesmanship was invented. [00:43:44] Jesse: Oh, you were- A little-known, little-known fact. Yeah, yeah. Born in that town. [00:43:47] OG: As soon as Doug has a question about Madonna- … I’m gonna say, “Fun fact, Madonna was born in my town.” He’ll be like, “Okay, whatever,” but, but she was. [00:43:55] Joe: But she was. You’re, you were also, by the way, uh, was it, was it Bay City, Michigan, OG? I mean, I was born [00:44:02] OG: in Saginaw, but yeah. [00:44:03] Joe: Yeah. But Bay City, Michigan, uh, most, uh, bars per capita in, uh, Michigan, right? [00:44:08] OG: I don’t know that. I mean, if you count, like, everybody’s backyard, sure. Right. You know? Yeah, [00:44:14] Joe: yeah. [00:44:14] Jesse: Anyway, Jesse, back to you, man. I’m gonna take this, this one’s on my list, and so I’ll just throw it out there, and if I’m right, I’m sorry, Monica, for taking away one of your possible guesses. [00:44:23] Jesse: I’m gonna say that- He’s asking [00:44:23] Monica: everybody in the YouTube chat what he should do here I know what you’re gonna say. Go ahead. Go ahead, say it. [00:44:28] Jesse: I’m gonna say grab your slice. No, I’m kidding. No. I’m gonna say, uh, eat well. Eat well, focus on health, some- something like that. Some version of- Wake up earlier … focus on your health. [00:44:40] Jesse: You already asked this one. Uh, I did, but eating well is different, ’cause you see, I mean, some people, for example, OG, some people, they might sleep in and they eat poorly. Other people sleep in, but they eat well. Uh, so they’re two different things. Understand. [00:44:55] Joe: Is eating well on the list? [00:45:00] Doug: Yep. Cool fact- It’s like you’re not even trying, [00:45:03] Joe: man. [00:45:07] Joe: Come on. All right, Jesse, we’re coming back to you after the game’s over for a real one- Okay … ’cause we’re gonna want a real one. All right. Monica, no pressure here, uh, ’cause you’re already, uh, solidly in second place. Solid. But to send it to overtime, there’s still five left. What’s another one of the millionaire [00:45:24] Monica: habits? [00:45:25] Monica: Honestly, I thought Jesse was going to say something really boring like pay yourself first. Oh. Oh, pay yourself f- I’ve never heard that. What’s that all about? Pay yourself first, like put in your 401, get the match, put your money toward your Roth, uh, put money in an emergency fund, use those sinking funds, health savings account. [00:45:46] Monica: Pay yourself first. This is another one we’ve heard a, a million [00:45:49] Joe: times. A million times, yes. But do millionaires say it a million times? They do. Pay yourself first is on the list, and, uh, I don’t know, Monica, back to, you know, when you were turning it around, ’cause this was the case for me, I was trying to pay everybody else and then pay myself. [00:46:09] Joe: When I decided I needed the emergency fund first and my creditors were gonna have to wait, and don’t get me wrong, I still paid them off, I’d never declare bankruptcy, but man, it was, it was powerful. ‘Cause when the muffler was dragging behind the car, I didn’t have to go [00:46:21] Monica: get help. Yeah, I definitely needed the emergency fund. [00:46:24] Monica: It’s like an only thing that helped me sleep at night is to know that was there. And so when it was really lean, I would just pay the minimum and just kind of skirt along. But, you know, you can get really creative with your finances when you don’t have a job and you’ve got expenses. I definitely kept that emergency fund and stretched it as much as I could. [00:46:44] Joe: We only have three left, so Doug, we went back to Dotty in Wichita again, who hasn’t heard from us as much as she’s heard from us this season with all of the things. But there’s, there’s only three left, so here’s the deal. If both of you get this one right, it is half a point each- No half points … because there won’t be enough- We already talked about this [00:47:04] Joe: left. We, w- we are going to have- No … half points. No. [00:47:07] Doug: I- it’s not us. OG, it’s Dotty. You don’t argue with her. I will argue- That’s right … with [00:47:12] OG: whoever Dotty is face to face. Well then, how do you [00:47:17] Joe: propose that we do the [00:47:19] OG: final point? Let’s just see who wins, and then we can decide if all- Let’s- … this is necessary. [00:47:24] Joe: Well, it might not be. All right. Monica, uh, you get to go first in, in overtime as, A, the guest, and B, you are behind OG, so you get to, uh, guess from the widest swath. We still have three left on this list. What’s another millionaire habit? [00:47:41] Monica: You know, I’ve got, I’ve got a whole list of things that I would love to say, but, um- I, I would honestly, I would say- Yeah, let ’em have it, Monica Wow. [00:47:48] Monica: Hey. Tell [00:47:48] Jesse: OG what you really think. [00:47:50] Monica: Back off, lady. There, there are so many things- … but I would say something that was really helpful to me was, was creating a budget. And, and when I say that, not just a budget of what you think you’re spending, that’s where I made the mistake the first couple of times, but making a budget based on your cashflow that you actually spend, and then build a budget from there. [00:48:13] Monica: That way I think it gives you the most control over your money. So I’m gonna say make a budget. Is make a [00:48:19] Joe: budget on the list? [00:48:22] Doug: Oh. Oh. It is not. [00:48:26] Joe: No. Although I do think especially, Monica, when you’re starting out, man, getting, getting your head around all your expenses is super important. [00:48:33] Monica: Yes. Oh, 100%. And you know, when I went through the divorce, dust settled, I think it took me a good, I don’t know, four, six months before I could finally get the courage up just to see what the numbers looked like. [00:48:46] Joe: Isn’t it funny? It’s a little like, um, going to the dentist. There’s trepidation, then you go and you’re like, “Oh, this is so good.” Yes. This is [00:48:53] Monica: great. It’s not as bad as you thought or, you know, like, I can, I can do this kind of thing. Yeah. [00:48:58] Joe: Yeah. Super. All right, OG, this will be for the win then. Three left on the board. [00:49:04] Joe: What are you thinking? So these [00:49:04] OG: have all been, like, fairly broad-based things. I, I liked the budget one. I thought for sure that was gonna be a winner. I thought it would’ve been on there too. I thought that was great. I’m gonna say in the spirit of, like, millionaires who love to do weird things with money, what I wanna say is, “Don’t have debt,” but I think I wanna change that to, “Use debt effectively.” [00:49:26] OG: Because there is, like, this tranche of people that still drink the Kool-Aid of like, “Oh, if I owe the bank a million dollars, it’s my problem. If I owe them a billion, it’s theirs.” You know, whatever. But, um, so I’m gonna say debt effectively. What I wanna say is, “Avoid debt,” but let’s say using debt effectively. [00:49:44] Joe: Sounds like another good [00:49:45] OG: one. [00:49:46] Joe: Is it on the list? Oh. [00:49:49] Doug: Awesome. Does [00:49:51] Joe: that mean I get to [00:49:51] Jesse: come in and, like, steal the point and win this competition? Yes, [00:49:54] Joe: steal it from everybody. We have not made that rule, Doug. Let’s go, uh, next round faster. Uh, we go in reverse order now. OG, still three on the list. See if we [00:50:04] OG: can grab one. [00:50:05] OG: Let me just think through. So we talked about cashflow and budgeting, that wasn’t there. Uh, we talked about investing. Did we do an investing one? We kind of had an investing one. Oh, yeah, but you said pay yourself first, so that’s investing. Retirement, estate planning. Oh, I’ll do estate planning. Broader brushstroke than estate planning. [00:50:22] OG: Let’s say, like, taking care of your- Protection planning. So estate planning, I’m just gonna say as many words as I can to get all of it together. Protection estate planning. It’s protect your estate planning, or it’s, it’s protection planning for your estate. I don’t know, whatever. Protection planning? [00:50:44] Joe: Is that what you’re, is that what you’re going with? [00:50:45] OG: Yep. [00:50:45] Joe: Sure, okay. Is protecting it on the list? The c- the words were preserve what you built. Work to preserve what you built, which is a combination of insurances and your estate plan. [00:51:01] Jesse: Slash live longer and focus on your health. You wanna preserve it. Yes. [00:51:06] OG: Yes. Get up early- Jesse has a valid complaint … so you are preserving your daylight hours. [00:51:12] Jesse: Dottie in Wichita, bail me out. I will send you some Marlboros. [00:51:16] Joe: Monica, there’s [00:51:17] Doug: two left. Do we make this, uh- Joe, how many, how many points did wordsmith over there get for that cor- are we in the third round, so he got three points for that? [00:51:27] Joe: Well, it, it truly doesn’t matter because Monica’s either going to tie him or, I mean, we could call it three. [00:51:31] Joe: Yeah. You wanna call it nine? [00:51:33] OG: 90 bajillion. [00:51:34] Joe: Well, [00:51:35] Doug: yeah, [00:51:35] Joe: OG’s at, we’ll make him at six points now. There we go. Yeah, so Monica to tie with six. There’s two left, Monica. [00:51:43] Monica: I’m going to say thinking long term. And, you know, the reason I say that is because, like, in the beginning of my journey, you know, y- a lot of times you think, oh, it’s, you know, y- this is the journey. [00:51:52] Monica: Your, your net worth, everything just skyrockets. Yeah. But it’s not like that, and it can be discouraging when you’re starting out and your net worth goes down a little bit before it turns around and you get on the road. So that’s what I’m gonna say is, is planning long term, thinking long term. [00:52:06] Joe: Is thinking long term a millionaire habit on the list? [00:52:11] Doug: It is not. Oh. Although, [00:52:13] Joe: Monica, I will say at this wonderful little gathering that you and I were at, some of the presentations, people telling their stories, it was those little wins that over the long term turned [00:52:23] Monica: into the big wins. Absolutely. Absolutely. I know, the, the case studies, that was a lot of fun, people sharing their journeys. [00:52:30] Joe: Yeah, [00:52:31] Monica: and it was always these [00:52:32] Joe: little things they did at the beginning and thinking long term. Yes. So Monica, nice job. Finishing second and wins the trivia. Jesse, there’s two more on the list. You wanna take a dive- Uh… … at what the, the last two are? [00:52:45] Jesse: Focus on tax efficient- Tax advantage accounts. Max out tax advantage accounts. [00:52:52] Joe: Is tax advantage accounts on the list? [00:52:54] Doug: Okay. I’ll see myself out. It is not one of these- You haven’t [00:52:58] Joe: gotten a single one right. This list came from Kiplinger, and it’s, uh, written by Ben Luthi, who, uh, I thought this was a really good list. One of them is a little bit of an overlap, but I can see how he, he kind of slices between these two. [00:53:11] Joe: Pay yourself first is about the act of putting money away, but invest regularly and early, which Monica points to long-term, right, over the course of it, but it was the fact they started early, the fact that they started early that won the day. And certainly, Monica, for you and I, we didn’t start as early as some people did, but you know what? [00:53:34] Joe: You could start as early as today if you’re listening to this. And then the last one was diversify your income streams. Diversify your income streams, also a good one. So congratulations to all of you. I think we helped a lot of people with that today. I’m so happy that, uh, you guys all participate, and even with the bad answers, well, y- you know, even healthy eating, Jesse, which I know you were throwing it, [00:53:57] Jesse: it was still- Hey, it’s funny, I actually contributed to this Kiplinger article, and I still didn’t get any right. [00:54:02] Joe: Did you really? No, I didn’t. Did you really? I’m [00:54:04] Jesse: kidding. I’m kidding. Just [00:54:06] Joe: got me. I wouldn’t admit to that. Totally, totally got me. All right. Let’s find out what you guys are all doing this… I, I can’t believe it’s May 15th already. OG, what do you got going on this fine weekend, my friend? [00:54:19] OG: I am doing a, uh, bike ride around Dallas tomorrow, and then, uh, hanging out at home w- first kind of… [00:54:26] OG: Well, it’s not the first weekend that Alex is home, but largely at home because, uh, Alyssa’s got a golf tournament this weekend. So I’m gonna- Oh, cool … knock out my, my riding early and then, uh, and then hang out with the kiddos. And then be the cheerleader. Yeah. Yeah. A little bit of cheerleading maybe, but, uh, more sitting by the pool and cheerleading myself into some Michelob ULTRAs. [00:54:44] OG: But yeah, same thing. [00:54:46] Doug: He’s helping by not being near her when she golfs. Pretty much it, ‘ [00:54:50] OG: cause otherwise it’s like- … “Hold on. Is your grip the way [00:54:52] Doug: that you… [00:54:53] Joe: Are you sure?” I looked at that bike ride around Dallas. It, it looks really, really cool. I did the bike ride around- You should come … New York City just a couple weeks ago. [00:54:59] Joe: Yeah. So register. [00:55:00] OG: Let’s [00:55:00] Joe: do it. I, uh, I would love to. We’re out of town. I totally would love to. Like, busy, [00:55:04] OG: busy, busy. Can’t hang out with OG. Can’t hang out with OG. Like, a week ago he was in my town at, like- Oh, sorry … all day, and apparently had no opportunity to stop by, but, uh- No, I got to your town at [00:55:13] Joe: midnight. [00:55:15] Joe: Yeah. And then got to drive home at 3:00 AM. That was a good time. A likely [00:55:18] OG: excuse, but okay. [00:55:19] Joe: Monica, thanks so much for joining us. I’m super happy we finally got this done. No, absolutely. This has been a lot of fun, and, [00:55:26] Monica: and, uh, thanks for having me. Well, so what’s going on at Grab Your Slice right now? So with Grab Your Slice, um, Bill Yount and I from Catching Up To Fi, we are working on a children’s book I like how he was, [00:55:38] Joe: he was hanging out with us in the chat and just wanted to make sure that you mentioned that, so- Yes [00:55:43] Joe: Bill. It’s a good reminder. Thank you. [00:55:46] Monica: But yeah, no, it’s, it’s, uh… We are excited, and, uh, yeah, so we’re just chipping away at it. It should be ready before the end of the year. That’s what I was gonna ask. Any idea exactly on release date, though? Exactly? Eh, it’s kind of a… That’s kind of a fluffy answer- Yes … to that. [00:56:01] Monica: But before the end of the year, I’ll just say. Well, [00:56:03] Joe: make sure well before that you let me know when the release date’s locked down, and we’ll have you and Bill on to chat about the book, ’cause I really like, really like this project. It’s really cool. Talking to kids early about money is, you know, so important. [00:56:16] Joe: Yes. [00:56:16] Monica: Yeah. So we are. We’re having a [00:56:17] Joe: lot of fun with it. And then if people want to get ahold of you for financial coaching, they just go to grabyourslice.com? [00:56:22] Monica: Yes, absolutely. They can go to grab yourslice.com, um, and just schedule 30 minutes, and, uh, you can do that right on the website. [00:56:30] Joe: It’s awesome, and working with Monica, I have to believe, is every bit as fun as hanging out with her in a Orlando-ish area for, for the weekend. [00:56:42] Joe: Jesse Cramer, what’s going on at the Accepting New Podcast Names podcast- … or otherwise known as the, uh, Personal Finance for Long-Term Investors podcast? [00:56:51] Jesse: We have a, a little series coming out in May, a two-part series, the 14 risks, uh, that retirees face. Uh, it could be more than 14, but long story short, I took that Charlie Munger-ism of, uh, invert, always invert. [00:57:04] Jesse: Like, if you wanna solve your problems, y- first you figure out your biggest risks, and then you kinda work backward from there. So I decided to approach retirement really by thinking about the, the biggest risks that retirees face and then working backward from there to think about, how would I battle against each one of these risks? [00:57:19] Jesse: And, uh, two, two episodes came out of it, so that’s what’s going on in May. [00:57:23] Joe: Oh, that’s cool. Wow. Is a risk eating, like, bad food? [00:57:26] Jesse: That, that could totally be one. Eating bad food, uh, going to bed too late, waking up too early, all those kind of things and more on Accepting New Podcast Names the podcast. [00:57:37] Joe: In fact, you, uh, you live in the town where the guy woke up earliest. [00:57:41] Jesse: That’s correct. That’s correct. Uh, Bob Rochester- … used to wake up at 12:01 every single day. They named the town after him. He had a few grandchildren, one of them OG. [00:57:52] Joe: Oh. Little known fact- True story … [00:57:53] Jesse: trivia. [00:57:54] Joe: True story. Yes. You heard it here first. Well, thanks to everybody for hanging out with us on YouTube. [00:57:59] Joe: If, uh, you are free on a Monday afternoon, we love pretending it’s Friday on Mondays here, so come join us Monday afternoons at the Stacking Benjamins YouTube channel. If you subscribe and you hit the little bell, it will actually alert you when we go live, which is generally just after, uh, 3:30 Eastern Time, so between 3:30 and 3:45 most weeks. [00:58:20] Joe: And [00:58:20] Doug: usually right before Joe’s internet goes out. [00:58:23] Joe: Just… My internet reliably goes out- … which is how we’re always closer to 3:45 than 3:30. Yes. All right. That’s gonna do it for today. Doug, you got it from here, man. What should we have learned on today’s [00:58:34] Doug: show? Well, Joe, first, take some advice from Monica. If you wanna jumpstart your journey to financial independence, you need to read. [00:58:42] Doug: Doesn’t matter what you read, just read. I’d recommend Reddit. Personally, they always give out- … great advice there on the internet. Wait a minute. Second- Well, there’s read it, but if you already read it- Yeah … do you have to? Do you have to read it again? I don’t know. I don’t know. Second, don’t forget what OG said about checking your privilege at the door, man. [00:59:01] Doug: You may have an opportunity because of who you know, but you better show up prepared to walk through that door that just opened. But the big lesson, some people just aren’t great at accepting compliments. I need to figure that out. I just saw Joe’s mom upstairs and said, “Girl, you thicker than a McDonald’s milkshake.” [00:59:19] Doug: Next thing I know, there’s a coffee mug buzzing past my ear. She didn’t take it that well. Thanks to Monica Scuderi for joining us today. You’ll find her coaching work at grabyourslice.com, which sounds delicious, frankly. We’ll also include links in our show notes at stackingbenjamins.com. Thanks to Jesse Cramer for hanging out with us today. [00:59:41] Doug: You’ll find his amazing podcast, To Be Named Later, uh, currently known as Personal Finance for Long-Term Investors wherever you listen to finer podcasts. And finally, thanks to OG for hanging out with us today. Looking for good financial planning help? Head to stackingbenjamins.com/og for his calendar. [01:00:01] Doug: This show is the property of SB 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. [01:00:28] 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.
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