Are you on the same page with your significant other? Financially speaking, of course! Given that money is the leading cause of divorce in the US, it’s a topic worth working on together. And money talks in relationships don’t just apply to romantic relationships – it can extend to include parent/child, etc. relationships. We’re talking money and relationships on today’s roundtable. Pull up a chair with Paula Pant from Afford Anything, OG, and special guest Doug Cunnington from the Mile High FI Podcast. This is an episode you don’t want to miss!
In the second half of the show, we dive into the sensitive topic of what to do when you and your spouse can’t agree. You won’t want to miss this!
Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.StackingBenjamins.com/201
Enjoy!
Watch On Our YouTube Channel:
Our Topic:
When You and Your Spouse Can’t Agree (Family Today)
During our conversation, you’ll hear us mention:
- The importance of financial alignment in relationships
- How to handle financial friction with a partner
- OG’s structured financial check-ins with clients and couples
- Balancing financial goals with life events (e.g., travel, family emergencies)
- The role of a third party in facilitating financial discussions
- Financial planning reviews and how they bring clarity
- Recognizing when financial goals need to be adjusted
- The importance of understanding each other’s financial habits
- How life changes (e.g., a family member’s illness) can impact savings goals
- Recognizing non-verbal cues during financial conversations (e.g., body language)
- Paula Pant’s personal experience with a partner who had a different financial background
- The challenge of dating someone with a vastly different net worth
- Evaluating financial habits vs. financial status in relationships
- Paula’s story of dating someone who immigrated with a lower net worth
- Financial priorities in relationships: habits vs. current wealth
- OG’s reflection on how he and his wife aligned their financial goals
- The importance of flexibility and open-mindedness in joint finances
- Doug Cunnington’s marriage and money experiences
- How Doug and his wife sought outside help to align on financial goals
- The role of mindset and shared goals in achieving financial harmony
- Paula’s lighthearted commentary on her partner’s spending on sports tickets
- The value of looking toward where your financial goals are headed
- Handling large financial decisions together as a couple
- Navigating spending differences and lifestyle choices in relationships
- Joe’s insight on the value of outside perspectives, including financial planners and therapists
- How different financial upbringings affect relationships
- The challenges of early retirement and aligning long-term goals
- OG’s upcoming team retreat and its importance for team building
- Paula Pant’s upcoming podcast series with financial psychologist Dr. Brad Klontz
- Doug Cunnington’s upcoming interview with Mr. Money Mustache on his Mile Hi-Fi podcast
Our Contributors
A big thanks to our contributors! You can check out more links for our guests below.
Doug Cunnington

Another thanks to Doug Cunnington for joining our contributors this week! Hear more from Doug on his show, Mile High FI at Mile High FI Podcast Podcast Series – Apple Podcasts.
Paula Pant

Check Out Paula’s site and amazing podcast: AffordAnything.com
Follow Paula on Twitter: @AffordAnything
OG

For more on OG and his firm’s page, click here.
Doug’s Game Show Trivia
- According to the famous retail chain, how many cups of coffee does Dunkin Donuts sell every sixty seconds?
Mentioned in today’s show
Join Us on Monday!
Be sure to tune in on Monday when we’ll talk Halloween and money lessons with the host of the Money Life Show with Chuck Jaffe.
Miss our last show? Check it out here: Should You Look at “Risk” Differently? (with Len Penzo) SB1591.
Written by: Kevin Bailey
Episode transcript
[00:00:00] Doug: Ladies and gentlemen, we have a big show, a real big shoe [00:00:08] live from the basement of the YouTube headquarters. It’s the Stacking Benjamin Show. [00:00:24] I am Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. And what do you do when the people around you, friends, relatives, or even your spouse aren’t on the same page about your goals? We’ll ponder that topic and drive towards solutions with a guy behind the Mile HiFi podcast and the guy with the world’s best first name, Doug Cunnington, and joining him from the place where you can afford some goals, but not all of the goals. [00:00:52] It’s Paula Pants. And a guy who’s all about laying out a map toward your goals. And even if you don’t want them, you are getting in this car right now. Mr. It’s og. That’s not all. Halfway through this fascinating discussion, we’ll take a quick timeout to test our panel’s. Genius with my scintillating trivia question. [00:01:13] And now a guy who’s happy it’s Friday because that means college football is right around the corner. It’s Joe Saw Sea High. [00:01:24] Joe: Thank you Doug. And yes, we got a big college football weekend. We got the interstate rivalry. So let’s say hi to the guy on the other side of this matchup because he went to that awful, awful university in Ann Arbor. [00:01:37] Mr. OGs here with me. How are you dude? Formerly my brother og. Just uh, now my living the dream man. Nemesis [00:01:44] OG: one. Day at a time. It’s gonna be a big game this weekend. I don’t think so. I think it’s gonna be you. You probably don’t even wanna watch it. You think we got you? You think Michigan [00:01:54] Joe: State’s got you? [00:01:56] OG: Yeah, sure. Yeah, you can believe whatever you wanna believe. [00:02:00] Joe: And the woman in New York City and she’s like football. I bet she’s gonna be glued to the TV all weekend. ’cause she loves, uh, uh, current, um, uh, entertainment events. Paula Pants here. [00:02:15] Paula: Oh, I mean, help Spartans versus Wolverines. How do I miss that? [00:02:18] She got both the what, what the green and white versus the blue and. And Maze. Yes. And Maze, real [00:02:27] Joe: people. Paula call it yellow, but the fufu people in Ann Arbor call it Maze because we gotta be different. Yeah. How are you Paula? [00:02:34] Paula: I’m good. I’m good. In fact, just this morning I actually, somebody asked me, they’re like, does New York have a football team? [00:02:39] And I had to Google it and apparently we do. It’s called the Giants apparently have two. You have another one? We do. You do. Oh, Google didn’t tell me that. Yes, they’re called the Jets. You also The Jets. Oh, huh. Yes. I thought the jets were the, the nemesis of the sharks. That, that, that too. Well, you pull a cultural [00:02:57] Joe: reference out. [00:02:58] I know, right? That is, look at this. What the hell’s going on here, og? [00:03:02] OG: I dunno. It’s like the Twilight Zone. [00:03:05] Joe: Well, the Twilight Zone is that we haven’t had this guy on earlier. I’m super happy he’s here with us. We’ve had his partner in crime over at the Mile High Five Podcast, Carl Jensen. But the brains behind the operation everybody knows is Doug. [00:03:18] Cunnington. How are you man? [00:03:20] Doug Cunnington: I’m doing awesome. Glad to be here and, uh, I’m happy to chat with all y’all. So are you living, you live in Longmont, right? Yep, right in Longmont. [00:03:28] Joe: Are you then a Colorado Buffalo fan, or are you a college football fan? [00:03:34] Doug Cunnington: No, I’m not a sports fan overall. So kind of line up with Paula. [00:03:38] I was like, how, how does she know the mascots and I, I went to Georgia Tech. So there are some teams, um, the Ramble and Rack. Yeah. They’re typically not that great. And then, yeah, I just don’t, I don’t follow anything. They beat Florida State this year in the first game of the year. Awesome. That’s [00:03:53] OG: fantastic. [00:03:54] In London. Great to hear. Yeah. Good to know. Go team. [00:03:58] Joe: Well, let’s talk about something more fun and when we talk about fun, the Mile High Fi podcast, you guys have a ton of fun. For the four people that don’t know what you do, Doug, let’s say hi to the Stackers. Tell everybody about Mile High-Fi. [00:04:09] Doug Cunnington: You mentioned Carl Jensen. [00:04:10] So he’s, uh, the blogger behind 1500 days. He and I teamed up and it’s kind of like a, a post fi or like more advanced financial independence, retire early podcasts. So we usually end up talking about more advanced topics and kinda skip over some of the early stuff, which had been covered many times by other people and people did a better job. [00:04:33] So we end up talking about like lifestyle and happiness and fitness. We interview people every now and then, and then kind of breaking news. Carl recently left the show. I know, [00:04:43] Joe: I I was about to ask you that. She broke up [00:04:46] Doug Cunnington: with me. [00:04:46] Joe: I saw the thing like a week ago as we record this, but I was gonna ask you so that’s real news. [00:04:51] Doug Cunnington: It’s real news. So I think he’ll record with me occasionally, but he needed to catch up with some other projects going on in his life. But luckily it’s so fun that I’m gonna keep going and I will, I. Ask friends to pop in. So I think at at least a few of you know, uh, Kristen Knapp Mm-Hmm. Um, who has been at a few campfires. [00:05:13] So she sat in with me a couple days ago and she’ll record some with me. And then I’m in Longmont. So Pete Aidy, Mr. Money Mustache, who’s gonna sit in with me at least once I, maybe I can convince him to sit with me a couple other times. But yeah, there’s plenty of people passing through. Interesting folks. [00:05:33] Kimberly [00:05:33] Joe: Grant has been on your show. [00:05:35] Doug Cunnington: Yeah, she actually has co-hosted like a dozen times or something when Carl had PTO and uh, he was outta the office, so, so yeah. Yeah. I’m gonna keep on going and see where it leads. Wait a minute. PTO and [00:05:46] Joe: podcasting. What does that stand for in podcasting? Because just the first letter of PTO we don’t understand in podcasting [00:05:53] Doug Cunnington: is [00:05:53] Joe: the [00:05:54] Doug Cunnington: first letter paid. [00:05:54] Yeah. Well, he got his normal salary, which is, you know, he had to pay me, I think. [00:06:00] Joe: So that’s the way it works in podcasting. We’re super happy you’re here. And actually what’s cool is, is that Doug brought this topic with him because this is an intensely personal topic. We’re gonna be talking about relationships and what if you’re not on the same page with your family. [00:06:15] We just had house guests this weekend and the gentleman that was here, I’ve talked to ’em about that so I won’t talk about who is here, but he said, you know, they talk about the idea of early retirement and his parents are like, what are you talking about? Why wouldn’t you go to work? You’re in your mid forties, you should be at work today. [00:06:32] Like what do you, what’s up with that? So whether it’s parents, siblings, significant other, which is the case for Doug, how does that work when you might not be on the same page? We’re gonna jump into that. But before that, we’ve got a couple of sponsors that make this free for everyone. But even before that, you know, it’s even better Doug. [00:06:54] What He’s like, I dunno. He’s like, what is better? Where are we going? Even better is that our Friday round tables are always, always brought to you by State Farm. Doesn’t that make it all better? Mm. So much. Yes. If you’re in the business for, he says that like he means it so much. It’s just, it’s amazing. In the market for small business insurance. [00:07:13] State Farm knows your business is your life. State Farm agents or small business owners do so they know what it takes. They can help you create a personalized insurance plan that fits your small business needs and your budget. Small business insurance from State Farm. Everybody ready? Like a good neighbor? [00:07:27] Mm-Hmm. Come on. Mm-Hmm? State Farm is there. Talk to your local agent today. We still have not gotten the call, Paula, that we’re, that we’re fired. Yeah. I’m just waiting. Any day. State Farm’s like, please quit trying to sing the, sing the thing. All right. We got Doug. Cunnington. Join us. We got Paula Pant here, we got og. [00:07:46] Let’s rock and roll. I. [00:07:54] Right. Normally at this juncture, I’d say today’s inspiration was this blog post I was reading from X, Y, Z, or a piece from the Wall Street Journal or some academic paper or whatever it might be. But today it is courtesy of an email exchange I have with the Doug Cuttington Doug. Let’s start here and we’ll take a couple seconds and inter introduce this together. [00:08:17] When did you personally get on the fire? Early Retirement Train? [00:08:23] Doug Cunnington: It happened in stages, but the first little piece was about 10 years ago, 2014. We were trying to figure out how to invest a little bit better. We fired our advisors that we had insurance agents and not great advisors. Yeah, salespeople. More I. [00:08:39] Exactly. Yeah. So we found Mr. Money Mustaches blog just on the index fund area and how to invest and then didn’t pay much attention. And then stage two, when Pete was on the Tim Ferris podcast. [00:08:55] Joe: Yeah. [00:08:56] Doug Cunnington: I was like, oh wow, people can retire early. Here’s a good example of it. That’s when I was a little bit more enthusiastic. [00:09:04] And then just a couple years later after that, we ended up moving to Longmont where, you know, we ended up meeting Pete and a couple other people. So then once it was part of our community and it was our, our friends, then it really accelerated my interest in just like, Hey, we could, we actually can retire early. [00:09:24] Joe: That’s fabulous. And you did it. [00:09:27] Doug Cunnington: Yeah, so technically I still work in that I podcast and I was laid off for my corporate job in 2015 and have been doing my own stuff since then. So I don’t work that much, so I really don’t need to retire and I get to do fun stuff like chat with you guys. My wife did have a corporate job, which obviously some great benefits for that, including like healthcare. [00:09:50] Sure. One of the main things. But yeah, she actually retired about six months ago, so everything worked out so we, we could jump ahead like everything worked out. She did retire. Yeah. And I have a good small amount of work that keeps me a little bit busy, but not too much. [00:10:06] Joe: How old were you when she retired? [00:10:08] 45. Okay. The funny thing here, and this is what you wrote to me, I. She wasn’t really on board though Doug before this, with this idea of early retirement, when you’re reading the Mr Money mustache stuff and you’re thinking about maybe going early, tell me about this disagreement. [00:10:26] Doug Cunnington: Yeah, there, there’s so many pieces of it. [00:10:29] I think the biggest piece was kind of what you said before, like if she could work, she thought she probably should be working, and that came down from her parents where her dad worked a full career, didn’t really retire early. My dad actually, he was a firefighter. He retired when he was like 50. Oh. So I kind of had a different background in that way. [00:10:52] But further, a lot of the assumptions that we make in the fire community. We could look at the data and we can feel pretty confident about it, but she’s ultra conservative with these projections. So she would look at each little piece, you know, 4% rule, maybe assumptions about the cost of healthcare or long-term care, or any number of things that could go wrong. [00:11:18] There’s some probability of it and would make, uh, really a lot more conservative assumptions. So we ended up like really butting heads about the details, even though, you know, at the end of the day I was like, I want you to quit your job and retire early because you don’t like your job. It, it kind of makes you unhappy. [00:11:38] Joe: That’s funny. So according to her projection, she was gonna retire at about 87, you’re saying? Yeah, something like that. [00:11:43] Doug Cunnington: Yeah. Yeah. [00:11:44] Joe: I want to ask our other panel about the people around them. OG for you, you and Mrs. og, you guys always been on the same page with what the plan is. [00:11:54] OG: You know, I was thinking about this as Doug was talking and I was thinking, you know, the similarities are are very interesting, but ours was more of a ’cause Alyssa stopped working after Caroline was born. [00:12:07] So we had two kids who were nine and seven. Caroline was born, she had maternity leave, went back and worked for a few months to kind of finish out the year. And I think she kind of knew at that time that it was like, okay, I’m, I’m gonna be done. And we had talked about it, but it was a pretty substantial money decision. [00:12:26] You know, I very honestly say that Alyssa was the sugar mama of the, of the relationship. And, and we relied a lot on her income and, and my business wasn’t the same as it is now. Then, you know, it’s been now almost. Eight years, so it’s a little different. But there was a lot of discussion around, you know, are you sure that this is what you wanna do? [00:12:49] Because this is gonna require a pretty gigantic step backward. And we weren’t in the spot to like, I mean, I guess everything’s on the table. You could have, we chose to fund it with lower savings rates and maybe just a smidge more debt to kind of keep the lifestyle the same. We could have said, all right, to do this, we need to sell the house and move across country. [00:13:09] We could have done some extreme stuff, but we didn’t wanna do that. So we knew going into it that this was gonna be a pretty big step backward, but it still was pretty stressful. I, it, it, it was not a, like a joyous meeting, you know? I mean Mm-Hmm. A conversation like, and it went over periods of time. It wasn’t like one day we just decided, but I remember thinking like, this is gonna be very, very, very stressful. [00:13:32] I. And it really was for quite a while to lose all of her income. And then, you know, the benefits and all that other stuff that goes with the corporate job, like Doug was saying with, with your bride, it’s like, it’s not just, oh, I was making a hundred grand. It’s like you making a hundred grand plus you’re putting money in the 401k plus your insurance was less expensive, plus you had a company car. [00:13:50] Plus, you know, it’s like these, you know, other resources, this network of people, like there’s all these other ancillary benefits and now we’re gonna cut that off and oh, by the way, mortgage is due on the first regardless. So I don’t wanna say that we weren’t on the same page, but I had some pretty strong reservations, that’s for sure. [00:14:08] Joe: Yeah. But it, but it was rocky I feel like in a lot of ways. You were on, in some ways on the page that Doug’s spouse was on. Yeah, [00:14:16] OG: that’s what I said. We were kinda like the opposite people. Yeah, like flipped where only we didn’t do the prep in advance. We, when Li Alyssa wasn’t Doug, who was like, Hey, for like 10 years I’ve been saving really aggressively. [00:14:26] And I think we could do, we was just like. I’m gonna get a minivan tomorrow, and then we’re, I’m gonna be a soccer mom. You know, it was a little bit more thought out than that. I be clear, [00:14:35] Joe: Paula, to get some of your story, I wanna ask you about two different relationships. The first one is with your parents. [00:14:40] Hmm. I mean, I’m just imagining this, you’re working as a journalist. Mm-Hmm. So, according to people much older than us, you know, you’ve got the full-time job, it’s a newspaper, which I think to older people seems more secure than it does if you’re 23 today, [00:14:54] Paula: right? Yeah. [00:14:55] Joe: You’re 23 years old. I don’t think. You think newspaper and you think solid, but if you’re 75, you still might. [00:15:01] Paula: If anybody who’s listening to this is currently 23 today. So what a newspaper is, right? It’s this piece of paper and you open it and there’s a fold. Yes. [00:15:13] Joe: It’s actually this weird thing called Fact-checked journalism, which is weird. I know that doesn’t happen anymore. But what did your parents say when you decided that that was gonna go bye-Bye. [00:15:23] And you were gonna become an entrepreneur. Were they on board with that or was there any friction there? [00:15:27] Paula: Uh, there was a ton of friction there. They were not on board at all. They were very dogmatic. They were very, very disappointed that I decided not to go to grad school, to the point where my dad told me that he regretted giving me any type of support for my undergrad. [00:15:43] Wow. He told me that he regretted helping me pay for tuition for my undergrad years and said, you know, look at all of your cousins. None of them had any financial help from any of their parents. You’re the only person in, in the family who had any kind of help for undergrad. And I, you know, and I said, well that’s ’cause none of my uncles and aunts could like, that was due to necessity. [00:16:05] You guys were the only people in the entire of all of our uncles and aunts and cousins. You were the only ones who could Oh, who had means, you mean who had the means to? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But my dad was like, well, look at your cousin Perish. Like, he painted houses from sunrise to sunset, working his way through undergrad. [00:16:21] And I was like, well, dad, I hear what you’re saying, but I was an honors student. I was Dean’s list. I graduated magna cum laude from the honors program in seven semesters instead of eight. With a major and a minor. Right. I was a, a top, top student, so like I hear what you’re saying, but I didn’t squander, you know, I, I worked 20 hours a week. [00:16:45] OG: Yeah, you did your part. [00:16:46] Paula: Yeah. I worked 20 hours a week. My dad paid for tuition, and I paid for my cost of living from my 20 hour a week job, plus summers because I only worked 20 hours a week instead of working 40. You know, that gave me the ability to. Study and to get good grades and to graduate magna cum laude. [00:17:08] And I remember my dad said, and I’ll never forget this, he said, well, what’s the point if you’re not going to get a master’s? Wow. What was the point of graduating with honors if you’re not gonna get a master’s? [00:17:19] Joe: He’s a ninja. Parental [00:17:21] Paula: guilt. Yeah. So we had that conversation in March of 2009. That following year, I applied to grad Oh, to, there was a particular graduate program at Columbia that was fully paid for it. [00:17:36] It was a fellowship, uh, full tuition, full fees, because I knew, I was like, all right, I’m gonna have to send myself to grad school. I’m not gonna take a penny from my parents. And so I found this program called, it was called The Night Badget Fellowship at Columbia University. And I was like, that’s the one I’m gonna do. [00:17:50] So I applied for it in 2010. I. I got rejected and I took a look at the bios of some of the people who were accepted, and I realized they were a lot further ahead in the game than me. And so I sort of filed it away on the back burner. And then exactly 10 years later, in 2020, I applied again. My second time applying, I got waitlisted. [00:18:11] And then in 2021 I applied for a third time and I got accepted. Then I started the year in 2022, graduated in 2023, and so it was from 2009 to 2023. I really played the long game there, but I followed through and I got the masters that my dad wanted me to get. [00:18:30] Joe: Yeah, and that whole story is great, but tell me how. [00:18:34] How important was that one referral letter from that influencer friend of yours? Because I think that was probably the linchpin of the whole thing that [00:18:42] Paula: that might have, you know, in 2010, Joe, the first time I applied, when I got rejected, you didn’t have it? I didn’t have it. Fast forward to 2021. I have a letter of recommendation from Joe Saul Sea High, [00:18:55] Joe: who knows a lot about master’s programs at Columbia. [00:18:58] I can’t even spell Columbia. I’m like, how do you, how [00:19:01] OG: do you [00:19:01] Joe: get that [00:19:02] OG: done? So you are an O, nobody’s too sure which one? Nobody. [00:19:06] Joe: Nobody knows. [00:19:06] OG: Nobody [00:19:07] Joe: knows. It’s, it’s random. You choose one, you run with it. Yeah. Right. It’s either a country or university, depending. One of [00:19:13] OG: the two. [00:19:13] Joe: Yeah. Or district mistakenly. [00:19:15] Paula ends up, Paula ends up going to the country. [00:19:21] OG: I’m like, what? [00:19:25] You’re like, dang it, Joe. [00:19:27] Joe: Wrong [00:19:27] OG: Columbia. [00:19:28] Joe: But check it out, dad. I’m a Or traveler. Yeah. Doug. I wanna ask you about bridging this gap and I’m wondering if this difference, so you wanna do this thing that’s fairly aggressive, she wants to be very conservative. Did this spill over tactically into your financial decisions? [00:19:47] And I’ll give you an example. I’ll give you my personal example. Like, um, Cheryl and I are very different people financially. So she is incredibly frugal, will not spend money except for she will drop a bajillion dollars on a super expensive thing. Bam. Right? So she’ll make a decision on something that is very expensive in one fell swoop. [00:20:08] I’m the opposite. I’m death by a thousand paper cuts. I will spend five, I’ll make 5,000 of the dumbest small, little tiny transactions. So we’ll get to the same place. But because of that, we found the middle ground for us was two checkbooks. ’cause Joe was always just picking and doing stuff. And then I had to learn the hard way myself, how to control my own checkbook. [00:20:28] So how did this difference, if she wants to be conservative, you want to be aggressive? How did that manifest itself about how you guys manage money? [00:20:38] Doug Cunnington: Funny enough, we ended up kind of at the same net worth, even though we managed stuff separately. So we could start at that sort of foundational spot. So we got married when we were about 30. [00:20:50] We each had like a house already and our retirement savings and a couple other pieces in place. So we’ve just kept things separate. But for the home mortgage and our, whatever, our uh, like grocery and normal expenses, we will sort of split that. So we divided that up and it shifted over time depending on who had what job and where we moved and the cash flow and all that kind of stuff. [00:21:15] But roughly it worked out the same. That said, I think she might be upstairs so she could be listening. She doesn’t know we’re recording this. That sounds great. She has like a separate, did [00:21:27] Joe: you hide it from her? You’re hiding it from her until it’s still, it’s live. [00:21:31] Doug Cunnington: Yeah. She won’t listen to the show, so I think we’re totally okay. [00:21:34] So she does have a credit card that she’ll put like. Whatever extra stuff that she wants. And she has been, although now that she’s re you know, retired, like that’s not as important to have like the little extra piece. ’cause we have our expenses outlined, but overall we kind of approach it similar to what you mentioned. [00:21:55] So she’ll do a really good job on sort of, uh. Like, actually she does a good job all around. She’s roughly frugal, but she’ll spend for certain things like a, a vacation. So very value based. So if we get a lot out of it, she’s happy to spend it. And I’m more like, I’ll, I’ll buy, um, like there’s a guitar behind me for people that can’t see. [00:22:14] I’ll buy a guitar that’s kind of expensive and just make a quick decision. But most of the time I’m fairly frugal on little stuff. So I’m all over the place. I’m, I’m scattered. I’m, I’m pretty scattered with it. I’m not even sure if I answered your original question. I think you did. Okay. [00:22:28] Joe: But I find that really interesting, like bridging these gaps, and you said OG that it took you and Alyssa a while to have this discussion. [00:22:36] Hey, I’m, I’m stopping. I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna work. You guys are not on the same page. Like how did that manifest itself tactically between the two of you? [00:22:46] OG: Well, the decision came by pretty quickly. I mean, our daughter was born in May, so she was off until, I don’t know, September maybe or something. And then her last week of work was around Christmas. [00:22:58] So. In that fall period was, here we go. This is what’s happening. And maybe we had talked about, I can’t remember, it’s been a while now, but maybe we had talked about it while she was on maternity leave or maybe when she was pregnant. But the turnaround happened very quickly, I think different from you two. [00:23:13] We have always operated stuff together. We started dating when she was 17. We got married six weeks after she graduated college. We’ve always not had any money, so it was easy, you know, it was easy to keep track of how much money we didn’t have when there’s only one source of income. And I, and, and to be clear, she’s done some consulting work on the side from time to time. [00:23:37] But when there’s like one primary source of income, we all have to be singing off the same song sheet. And even to this day, we were having a conversation this summer. I had sat down, we, I was doing some budgeting and just kind of some cashflow planning for the business and. You know, that spills over from, you know, yours and my discussion, Joe, into our personal life and for our planning firm and into our personal life. [00:23:57] There’s a lot of interconnected stuff there, obviously. I remember we’re talking and I said, how much money do you think we spend on average per month across the board? ’cause most people, when you ask ’em that question, they think of what their AMEX bill is. They go, oh, like 6,000. Oh, it’s like 5,200. No, no, no, no. [00:24:13] I’m talking about cross. ’cause you got house insurance that’s due once a year. Taxes are due once a year. I’m talking all the whole enchilada package. When I saw it, my breath was taken away. I was curious if, if she had any sense of that. ’cause we don’t have a lot of conversation around that right now. A lot of other stuff going on. [00:24:31] And she’s like, I don’t know anything. It’s this. And I was like, yeah, no. It’s like twice that. It was like, holy crap. It was like the first time in a while that we went, all right, maybe, maybe it’s time to tighten a little, like just a smidge, you know? And it’s just interesting to me how life just kind of happens, how it happens. [00:24:49] Then you wake up a little while later and it’s, you know, the margins have gotten wider. You know what I mean? Like yeah. You just, yeah, kinda live your life and, you know, DoorDash is four days a week instead of one. Or you stop carrying what, which grocery store has the least expensive eggs and milks. So you just could, you know what I mean? [00:25:08] You just, there’s opportunities to save in there, but then you give yourself permission ’cause you’re like, ah, we’ve got money. Like, do I really care? But all those little, to your point, all those little death by a thousand paper cuts, that stuff kind of adds up. And all of a sudden you’re going, wait a second, this is a big number, man. [00:25:21] We, we should probably get on the same page again. So we’ve gone through cycles of this over the years. [00:25:26] Joe: Well, to your point, Cheryl and I, I, I mean, two points. Number one, I think two incomes, two really good incomes makes it easy to be pretty lazy about it. ’cause you always know there’s another, there’s more cash flow coming in. [00:25:38] So if we’re not being careful with our money, who cares? There’s another bundle of cash that’s gonna be on our doorstep for a few days. Friday is coming. [00:25:45] bit: Yeah. [00:25:45] Joe: Yeah. So I think, and you’ll see that more, the higher the paychecks are. But the second thing is, is that where Cheryl and I started to bridge this gap, which we’ll start talking about here in a minute, was tracking our expenses really helped us bridge our gap. [00:26:00] Like watching just on a very, what’s the heartbeat of our, because we weren’t to, to your point, we weren’t tracking our expenses either. And, um, we started coming together by talking about what we’re gonna spend money on next week, you know, what are we gonna do that’s important for our family? And then mm-hmm, the bigger discussion of how are we gonna spend money next week? [00:26:20] Why are we spending that money next week? And what does that mean for our family? You know, Stephen Covey has that whole book about family mission statement. What is our family’s mission? What do we want? I mean, what’s going on there? Speaking of, what do we want, Paula? I said two relationships. The second one is you’ve been open about being on the dating scene, right? [00:26:37] About Mm-Hmm. And you and I have had discussions about some hilarious dates. Hilarious for me. ’cause I’m not in them. Yeah. But oh my god. Some of the walking, uh, wounded that you end up dating is just, oh my goodness. Mm-Hmm. You should do a blog about that, by the way. No, no, no, no. [00:26:56] Paula: Absolutely not. [00:26:58] Joe: Holy cow. [00:26:59] But how important is this financially that we be on the same page when you’re first dating people? Is it important or. Are you saving that for later? Thinking about that later? [00:27:09] Paula: You know, it’s funny ’cause at at this age, every first date feels a little bit like a job interview. I assume it’s probably different when you’re younger, but at this age, every date is like, and, and this isn’t just coming from me. [00:27:22] It’s like, I, I notice this even, even when I don’t initiate this coming from, uh, the other person too. It’s a freaking job interview. It’s like, what’s your career? What are your ambitions? What, you know, people don’t directly ask like, are you a spender or a saver? But you kind of get to that. You get a sense of somebody’s attitude about the, not about money per se, but about work, about family, about do you want kids? [00:27:47] I mean, that is like common first date conversation. I’ve been on first dates where I’ve been like, alright, well, like where the guy has, he has brought up like, do you want children? And that has led to a, on day one. Oh yeah. Constantly. Constantly. Hey, would you care [00:28:01] Joe: for an appetizer? What do you think about kids? [00:28:03] Paula: Yeah. I mean, it’s just normal. It’s just really, really normal. Because I think there’s a sense at this age, there’s a sense of don’t waste my time. [00:28:10] bit: Right? [00:28:11] Paula: Like, just don’t fricking waste my time. If we’re not on the same page. I’m busy. I do not have time to waste. I’m, I’m, I’m busy and we’re old and we don’t have time to waste. [00:28:19] So [00:28:19] Joe: you appreciate it then [00:28:21] Paula: Yeah. [00:28:21] Joe: You are like, yeah, let’s do this. [00:28:22] Paula: Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, I remember this one first date where he asked, do you want kids? And I was like, yes. And then we talked about how many, and then we actually got into a discussion about raising the kids. You know, and I, I brought up, I was like, alright, what would you think about when the kids are very young, um, going to Nepal for a couple of years so that they could be immersed in ne Nepalese culture and they could learn the language. [00:28:45] And I mean, that was first date. Wow. At date one. Oh yeah. Yeah. [00:28:49] Joe: Which I think is hard. I mean, a piece of me thinks that’s awesome. The other piece thinks it’s a huge mistake because Cheryll and I have these conversations, but there’s so much. There’s so much bedrock foundation below that where if we disagree on two years in Nepal Yeah. [00:29:05] I’m not done. You know what I mean? Right. Like I’ll, I’ll stay in the ring with you because we’ve got lots of history, but on date one, that’s tough. [00:29:14] Paula: Yeah. Well I think what we’re like, what I was screening for with that question is a minimum of an openness to the idea. Yeah. Like he doesn’t have to agree to move to Katmandu on the first date. [00:29:25] But, [00:29:26] Joe: and and by the way, if he does, he might not be who you’re looking [00:29:29] Paula: for anyway. Yeah. I’m free to go right now. Yeah. But I’m screening for an openness to the idea, frankly, because if he doesn’t have that, this isn’t gonna work out. And I wanna know that on the first date. [00:29:43] Doug Cunnington: Paula, do you have a good question? [00:29:48] To find out if someone is on the same page as you. ’cause it’s hard to sort through. There’s, you don’t wanna ask directly ’cause it could seem a little crazy. Right. But like, what question or a couple questions do you ask to figure out if someone is on the right track? Financially? It’s [00:30:05] Paula: a pretty direct conversation. [00:30:06] So I, I mean, I’ll literally just ask like, what are your dating goals? Are you looking for something serious? You know, are you looking to eventually get married? Are you looking to have kids? I, yeah, it’s absolutely just direct. [00:30:20] OG: Paul is like, on a scale of three 50 to eight 50, what would you say your credit score is? [00:30:24] Yeah. [00:30:28] If you had to guess [00:30:29] Joe: 500. Oh, look at the time. Oh, busy, busy, busy. I gotta go to the bathroom. I’ll be right back. And then she’s going out the back door. [00:30:34] Paula: So the other thing I should add is, again, at this age, a lot of the guys that I date, um, or that I’ve gone on first dates with, have children. A lot of them are divorced. [00:30:44] They, they have kids. And so that’s another reason that it comes up is because like my last boyfriend had two daughters at the time that we were together, they were five and 10. And so we had a lot of conversations about, alright, when do I get introduced to the daughters and how do we incorporate his daughters into our budding relationship? [00:31:05] So that’s another piece of it as well, is like, a lot of the guys that I date, they’re, they’re dads, you know? And so we have to figure that out. [00:31:13] Joe: Yeah. And that makes talking about priorities even more important. [00:31:16] Paula: Yeah. [00:31:17] Joe: We’re gonna get into, uh, there are some, uh, uh, many, many therapists and consulting journals that I looked at. [00:31:25] Doug, you brought this great topic my way and I wanna run by you guys in the second half of. This discussion, what they say, and really how you bridge these gaps, either OG with clients or in your own lives or, or the way you think you should have done it that maybe you didn’t. By the way, before we get to our trivia question, which is our next segment, if you’re interested in kind of a funny look at how not to evaluate people, there’s a wonderful book. [00:31:52] One of my favorite pieces of fiction is a book called The Rosy Project, and it’s a guy named Graham. Uh, Simien Graham has won a ton of awards for this book. I heard about it through Bill Gates. Bill Gates every year puts out his list of his favorite books, and this book was recommended by his ex-wife, and both his daughters read it and he said, my whole family’s reading it and they’re laughing about it, but this guy is kind of on the spectrum. [00:32:19] And he goes, Paula, to first dates. With a checklist and he has them fill out a checklist because he doesn’t wanna waste their time. And you know, he’s just very straightforward. No emotion. Let’s just take the emotion out of it. And the awkward stuff he asks these women is just the cringing, ast crap. It’s so good. [00:32:39] It’s one of the few books of fiction where I remember I was going to a meeting in Boston and the plane is landing and I can’t stop crying as I’m reading the end of this book. It was just, it was incredible. Mm-Hmm. So the Rosy project will link to it in the show notes, but at the halfway point of every show, we take a pause because we have this year long competition going on between our three frequent contributors, og, Paula, and my mom. [00:33:00] And Doug, you’re playing on behalf of Mom ’cause she doesn’t do stares. She doesn’t really care about trivia and, uh, playing on behalf of Mom has some perks and also some problems. So, do you want the good news or the bad news? Let’s do the bad news first. Well, the bad news is you’re not winning. OG is winning. [00:33:16] So OG has 15 as we are midway through October. Now you have 11. So I guess the good news is, hey, you’re ahead of Paula. ’cause Paula is in the spot. She finds herself pretty much every year at this time at nine. But Paula caught up by one last week. So Paula may be on a roll, I don’t know. But, uh, Doug, if you’re gonna help mom get moving, we gotta, we gotta get started here pretty soon. [00:33:42] If OG wins, then you’re both in trouble. So that’s where we’re at. And because of the score, OG will guess first Doug on behalf of mom, you’ll go second and Paula gets the benefit of, of going last. So for that Doug, we need a trivia question. So. What have we got, man? [00:34:02] Doug: Hey there, stackers. I’m Joe’s Mom’s neighbor Doug, and today is a cornucopia of offbeat holidays. Listen to this. It’s Boston Cream Donut Day. Wait, that’s every day. Am I right? It’s also National Horror Movie Day. What? Mom? What? I’m recording here. Oh, right, right, right. Um, uh, she says, be sure to pronounce that last or in horror correctly, or Joe’s Mom’s gonna think you’re talking about a way different kind of movie. [00:34:31] Anyway, it’s also National Canning Day and National Slap Your Annoying Coworker Day. I think those last two kind of go together. I mean, slap your annoying coworker hard enough and you’ll get canned with all of those viable topics. Which do we choose? Of course we’re gonna go with donuts. What we, we talked about donuts a couple weeks ago. [00:34:52] Oh, there’s always room for more donuts. I mean, isn’t there? No. Okay, uh, let’s pivot slightly to donuts. Pairing partner coffee While Dunking Donuts is known for munchkins, and believe it or not, donuts, they make far more money on their coffee according to the famous retail chain. How many cups of coffee does Dunkin sell? [00:35:14] Every 60 seconds? I’ll be back with the answer right after I zone out and dream about an apple fritter. Apple fritter. [00:35:24] Joe: Alright, well, Doug is going off into dreamland. Let’s see what you guys think. OG Dunking Donuts chain wide every 60 seconds. I [00:35:35] OG: you some coffee right now. Okay. Um, it’d be nice to know how many Dunking Donuts there were. [00:35:44] Is this, is this internationally? This is everybody included. This is chain chain wide. Entire chain. The en the entire chain. Entire chain [00:35:50] Joe: chain. All the franchises. [00:35:52] OG: I’m gonna say. I feel like there’s probably some, in the neighborhood of 25,000 Dunking Donuts is, is, is I feel like there’s like 50,000 subways or 70,000 like subways bid the biggest, and I think they have like 50 or 70,000. [00:36:08] So say 20,000 Dunking donuts and 60 seconds. I sell, you sell a cup in 60 seconds. A cup a day is 20,000 cups a day. Say they sell 10 cups times 20,000. Oh my gosh. This is gonna be a gigantic number. Oh, per, per 60 seconds you said Per minute? Yes. [00:36:31] Joe: Every in one minute. [00:36:32] OG: How much coffee do they sell? Am I allowed to use a calculator or do I have to do this all my brain? [00:36:36] Yeah, no, you can use a calculator. Okay. So. [00:36:45] Per, is this like per, per day? I have to figure out how many per hour. I dunno. Per, per minute. My god. I dunno. I’m gonna, who gives a shit? Uh, 13,800. [00:36:56] Joe: 13,800. What are you gonna do with that? Doug. You think that’s higher? Low. [00:37:02] Doug Cunnington: Wow. I think that’s a little high. I’m gonna say, what’d you say OG? 13. 13 eight. [00:37:09] Joe: 13 eight. [00:37:10] Yeah. [00:37:10] Doug Cunnington: 13 eight. I’m gonna say, um, 2,600. [00:37:16] Joe: It’s way lower. 2,600. Paula, you’ve got a big field goal there between twenty six hundred and thirteen eight. What are you thinking? [00:37:25] Paula: Okay, I, so follow up question. So I don’t, I don’t think I understand what you mean by a minute. So does that mean. Because obviously there, there are the minutes in which they are open and the minutes in which they are closed and the minutes in which they are busier than other minutes. [00:37:39] Are we talking peak minute or are we talking average? Average. Average minute. An average minute, including if you averaged it out to the hours that they were closed. So functionally it’s How many do they sell in a day divided by number of minutes per day? I think [00:37:53] Joe: it’s divided by the hours they’re open myself. [00:37:56] Okay. I don’t know. The answer is, I don’t know. But I would imagine based on all the other stats from the, the, uh, dunking Donuts site Mm-Hmm. Because this data comes right from them. Uh, I think it’s hours they’re open based on the other trivia we could have asked you. [00:38:12] Paula: Hmm. Okay. Lemme just think through this out loud. [00:38:16] We’ll start with the assumption. There are 25,000 locations, each of which are open for, uh, I, I’m gonna use a calculator. Okay. [00:38:24] bit: All [00:38:24] Paula: right. 25,000 locations times. Maybe they’re open 12 hours per day, so that would be 300,000 total hours. And let’s say in a given hour, they sell. [00:38:47] I’m with, oh gee, gives [00:38:53] in a given hour, each one sells 40 cups of coffee. So 300,000 times 40 is 12 million, divided by 60 is 200,000. That’s Oji. What was your guess? It was 13,000 813 [00:39:12] OG: 8. 13 eight. Yeah. Okay. [00:39:14] Paula: I’ll go with 13,801. I’ll, I’ll take the upside. [00:39:19] OG: 200,002. One more. [00:39:24] Paula: Got it. [00:39:24] Joe: But your real answer’s 200,000. [00:39:26] Paula: Sure. Why not? [00:39:28] Joe: Alright. [00:39:29] She’s locked in at 13 8 0 1. Oh geez. 13 eight Doug way down there at 2,600. Let’s use right in a minute. We’ll be right back. og, you kicked it off at 13,800 and I guess there’s good news if it’s less than half on the way down to, to Doug’s 2,600. You’re you’re good. Yeah. You’re feeling good? [00:39:48] OG: I think I’m high, but uh, it really just boils down to how great my back of the envelope math was. [00:39:56] bit: Um, absolutely no [00:39:57] OG: concept of how many cups of coffee. See, I figured that they did a hundred cups of coffee a day and Paula thinks it’s 40 cups an hour. So, I don’t know. It just seems like a lot of coffee, but maybe there’s a lot of people I don’t know. Yeah. Doug, you [00:40:11] Doug Cunnington: assumed way, way, way less than that. How come? [00:40:14] I don’t know. I just, I went with a number. I didn’t wanna overthink it, so I just intuitively it was in your soul. You should [00:40:22] Joe: have told all of us that 10 years ago. 10 years ago, you should have told us that because you could see we’re pretty damn good at overthinking it. [00:40:28] Doug Cunnington: Yeah, and I think you see why my wife wanted to actually look at the numbers a little bit more when I was coming up with projections. [00:40:35] Joe: That’s great. Doug’s like, just retire. She’s like, how much money we have? I don’t know. It’s like 2,600. 2,600, right. Paula, you’ve got the upside that, uh, OG doesn’t feel confident about. [00:40:45] Paula: I do, I do. Although, I mean now that I’m thinking through my math, like 200, my real answer of 200,000 cups just sounds intuitively way, like a lot for a minute. [00:40:59] So. I’m wondering if either my math was wrong or some assumptions in what I did was wrong. [00:41:04] Joe: One of those. Well, let’s see. Is Paula continuing to catch up? Is OG gonna pull ahead? Is Doug gonna help mom pull up to OG and make this interesting? Doug, what do you got? [00:41:19] Doug: Hey there, stackers. I’m Fritter lover and the guy always up for more glaze. Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug Krispy Kress may be delicious and Starbucks may be better known for taking out a mortgage to afford your breakfast. It’s Dunking Donuts we’re talking about today. By the way, if you wanna open your own freestanding location, the firm estimates it’ll cost at least around a half a million dollars to get it up and rolling. [00:41:44] Not that I can afford that poultry pittance. I think I’ll. Stick with taste testing. Thank you very much. Today we are taste testing our panel’s coffee trivia knowledge. According to Duncan, how many cups of coffee do they serve? Every 60 seconds? The answer, the firm reports that they sell 60 cups every second, which translates to 3,600 cups of coffee. [00:42:10] Every minute. Alright, amazing. And I love what he did. [00:42:15] Joe: He’s the one guy that didn’t use a calculator. I just don’t wanna overthink it. Maybe there’s a lesson there. [00:42:22] Doug Cunnington: Doug, you have a victory speech. I’m just, I’m honored to be here and, um, thank you. [00:42:30] Joe: That’s so great. Well then, then, then your wife probably appreciates the fact that you’re very close at this stuff. [00:42:36] So when you just felt it like, that’s good. Seriously, I think I wanna begin there though. Seriously, Doug, when you are taking your numbers and your spouse is taking her numbers, how did you guys come to an agreement? Because, ’cause I’ll tell you, when I was a financial planner and og I’m sure you can confirm this, I could tell my spouse all day that something is gonna be okay. [00:42:57] But it truly is the story that’s told by the math. Understanding what the assumptions are, where they come from and where we could mess it up. That really makes Cheryl feel way better, not Joe says, let’s do it this way. How was it for the two of you? [00:43:14] Doug Cunnington: It was very challenging. I, with trivia, I just went with my gut, came up with a number and said it, but I have an engineering background, so I had a bunch of spreadsheets and projections and I was pretty comfortable with a lot of my assumptions. [00:43:30] However, even though I’m analytical, my wife is even more analytical and even more. I guess exact and and precise with some of these projections. So at the end of the day, we butted heads a lot and the truth was probably somewhere in the middle. But eventually we hired an advisor to help us out with things we didn’t think of. [00:43:58] They see this kind of thing all the time and we agreed like, Hey, we’ll go with what the advisor is advising us with. And partially to act as an intermediary a little bit, and then the advisor could come with a little more direction, can work with us and make sure we’re both happy with it. So we realized like we didn’t really, either we didn’t have the tools or we weren’t developing tools along the way to be able to make these decisions on our own, and we needed some help. [00:44:27] And it’s been game changing. It really gave my wife confidence to retire, quit her job and feel really good about it. So. You hear people say you can’t go and like try to convince someone with spreadsheets necessarily. You have to meet them where they’re at or you know, in our case we kind of blended, I met her where she was at. [00:44:48] She came in the middle and we got an advisor to help us out. [00:44:51] Joe: Yeah. Third party verification. Paula, do you like that solution? Third party verification? [00:44:55] Paula: Yeah. Yeah. I think, uh, especially for something so high stakes, it makes a ton of sense because leaving your career is, um, a huge, and I don’t wanna say totally irreversible, but hard to reverse decision. [00:45:11] So whenever you’re doing something that’s high stakes and either irreversible or hard, irreversible. For difficult, reversible hard. [00:45:20] bit: Yeah. [00:45:22] Joe: Wow. Journalism, huh? Yeah. Yeah. Wow. [00:45:28] Paula: The nation’s best and brightest right here. [00:45:31] Joe: Of course. I don’t know. I was an English major and OG has spelled stuff for me on tons of occasions. [00:45:36] So let’s get into this piece because I’ve got a great piece from Angela Guzman at a counseling website called Family Today, and it’s when you and your spouse can’t agree, and I think this is also good for other relationships and it’s funny because they talk about all the different places where people disagree, but the first thing on this list, og, ’cause sometimes you’ve been that advisor in that room, I think that the thing where they start here is kind of where Doug and his spouse met, which was acknowledge the problem. [00:46:04] There’s gotta be a lot of times OG when you’ve been in the room where you see the problem, but the two of them kind of got the blinders on. Is how, how big is, and do you think that’s the first step, just getting it out in the open? [00:46:18] OG: Well, I, I think in the context of what we’re talking about in terms of communication around money, I don’t, I don’t necessarily think in terms of problems necessarily, although certainly you can have a money problem, right? [00:46:29] If there’s, uh, credit card debt or if, uh, spending is higher than income should be or something like that. [00:46:35] Joe: Well, our problem, I’ll use myself as an example. og. Yeah. For Cheryl and I, the problem was what we talked about before the break, we did not look at it. That ended up being the problem was that, you know, we need to look at our money together on a weekly basis. [00:46:48] And we weren’t looking at, we acknowledged that our problem was we, we just were asleep at the wheel. [00:46:54] OG: Well, except I, I don’t know that it’s a problem in as much as it’s a recognition of where that path leads. Money is very personal and very fluid, and there’s no right answers. I, I think it’s really funny when people have such firmly entrenched opinions about different things. [00:47:10] Even something as simple as like, you should always, anytime you hear those words, it just makes me think like, I gotta believe there’s a, there’s a circumstance where always isn’t the case, right? Always max out your 401k. Yeah. Really always. I don’t know, maybe there’s some times you don’t want to. My approach is very much rooted in, I need you, or in this case, you and Cheryl to experience the path that you’re on and recognize where that leads. [00:47:36] And so I’m not gonna say something like, oh my gosh, don’t you guys see how this is a problem and dah, dah, dah, dah, because nobody comes into a professional’s office to get their head cracked open. You know what I mean? Like, you don’t need me to beat you on top of the head. You are already here because you know something’s going on. [00:47:50] That’s a little off the rails potentially. So I might say something like, and just kinda lead you down there like, well, how did you get to that spot and how does that make you feel? And what happens if you don’t do anything about this for a while? And maybe you, maybe you figure out, geez, we gotta start paying attention to this stuff. [00:48:07] Or we’re, we’re walking down this path that’s gonna turn into complete chaos. Or maybe you don’t. But I think acknowledging where you are, and maybe not that there’s a problem per se, but just like, like having somebody as a guide. That’s kind of how I think about the work that we do. The value proposition that we have as advisors is not that I’m way smarter than you, I mean, I just happen to have done this for a while so I can rattle off stuff maybe a little bit quicker than the next person. [00:48:34] But it’s the fact that I’ve been up and down this path that you’re trying to go down a thousand times. I know where all the little bend points are and all the, you know, alligator swamps, it’s like, well, don’t go that way. That’s, you know, I mean you can, but let me tell you what happens. There’s a bunch of alligators down there in the swamp. [00:48:50] I don’t think you want that unless you wanna go alligator hunting. And that’s cool too, but I’m not going with you. So if we can be on the same page of like, here’s where this path goes, then it empowers you, or in this case, you and Cheryl to now have the information you need to make the decision that’s best for you. [00:49:06] Joe: But it’s better if you don’t cut to the chase, if you let us mentally work through the dominoes to get there ourselves. I mean, here’s the thing, [00:49:13] OG: if I say it, it’s propaganda. If you say it’s gospel, right? Right. I mean like if I just say, Hey, you’ve got a problem. What if one of you doesn’t think you do? [00:49:20] What? What happens? Then you just sit there and go, right, I have a problem the hell I do. Yeah. If you try to talk to somebody that’s been drinking a lot, right? Maybe you shouldn’t drink as much. Screw you buddy. You just go, Hey, well, what happens? What’s going on with your liver? You know, I don’t have a problem. [00:49:35] You gotta lighten up. Right? Yeah. Quit being such a killjoy man. We’re just out here having fun. [00:49:40] Joe: Right. Paula, let’s go to the first story you told with your parents. Mm-Hmm. Because on that, who’s got a problem? Your dad thinks you’ve got a problem, you think your dad’s got a problem. Right? ’cause he’s not accepting the fact that this can work out okay. [00:49:54] There can be happily ever after without, uh, going down his prescribed pathway. [00:49:59] Paula: Right? Yeah. How did the two of you accept, accept master’s minimum? Mm-Hmm. [00:50:02] Joe: Yeah. How did the two of you accept that there was a, that there was an issue? How did that, that get resolved? [00:50:08] Paula: Oh, I, I just disobeyed him. Okay. Yeah. [00:50:14] Joe: Doug’s wife just goes, I’m not retiring. Yeah. [00:50:18] Paula: Yeah. No, it was a source of conflict for a long time. Like it Nepal, where my parents come from and where I was born is a country where. Entrepreneurs are shopkeepers who typically make very, very little. And the only way to make good money is by getting an advanced degree, typically in a STEM field. [00:50:41] And then moving to one of the, the big five English speaking countries, the us, uk, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. And so that is the model that they know. You know, when I was a little kid, nobody said, what do you want to be when you grow up? People said, are you going to be a doctor or an engineer? [00:50:56] Because the model that they know is that the only way to have any type of stability and prosperity in life is you become either a doctor or an engineer. Um, that’s [00:51:06] Joe: the well-traveled pathway that has been successful time and time again that they’ve seen. Yeah, exactly. [00:51:11] Paula: Yeah. Those are the occupations for which you’re most likely to qualify for a visa. [00:51:14] ’cause you’re gonna need to get an H one B visa and ideally, eventually a green card and then citizenship. And so my, like my dad, when he was a kid, his dream was to be a physicist, but like. He’s not gonna get a visa as a physic, as a theoretical physicist, he’s gonna get a visa as an engineer, right? [00:51:30] Because America doesn’t need theoretical physicists, they need engineers. So you optimize for what’s gonna get you a high paying job and what’s gonna get you citizenship and you just, you optimize for that. And so that’s the model that they knew. And it was very, I knew that there was nothing I could say or do that would open their minds to the notion that there are other possibilities. [00:51:52] Like, well wait a minute. So then, okay, so then where did the acceptance come in? [00:51:56] Joe: Right? That, that he’s finally accepting. It [00:51:58] bit: was [00:51:59] Paula: proof was in the pudding. The proof was, I showed him after I started making good money, I showed him my tax returns and I was like, dad. I’m the most successful person in this family by a lot. [00:52:13] Wow. Yeah. [00:52:14] OG: Suck it trebek. [00:52:15] Paula: Yeah. [00:52:18] But there was no convincing him prior to proving it. Right. There is no like convincing him in advance. [00:52:27] Joe: Yeah. Prove it. Prove it. Here is the number. Yeah. Nothing proves it like we were talking about. Nothing. Nothing works better than math. [00:52:33] Paula: Yeah. [00:52:33] Joe: You know, and then to Doug’s point, having a third party even verify the math and go, you know what, here’s, you can do this. [00:52:40] Yeah. Uh, it’s funny. I thought you were gonna say not. I showed him the tax returns. I thought you were gonna say, I showed him my Plutus award. Well, once he saw that little thing that looks like I finished third place and you ate soccer, he knew that I was, I was for real. There’s another point here, Doug, and I don’t think this applies to you, but I think it does apply to a lot of our stackers. [00:53:02] I. And I saw this a lot when I was an advisor, which was their number two on this list, is accept and understand the idea of over-functioning and under-functioning. And what they, the way they define this is you may prioritize something high and your spouse or your loved one, or heck Paul, even the person on the date prioritizes it low. [00:53:21] And I, I would find this a lot when we would talk about what are your goals? I’d have couples do their goals separately. And this was super important when people were in my office and they were getting ready to get married and they were talking about how are we gonna work together? And I was that third party in the room, I’d have them write down their goals and we did these great discussions because for Doug it’s number one. [00:53:40] And for Doug’s soon to be spouse, it’s number five. Where did that begin? Did it begin with you guys pull out Vicki, Robin and start reading out loud to each other? Or how would you suggest people kind of mend these fences around different priorities? [00:53:56] Doug Cunnington: Well, it may not be the. The right person to ask for this is, I’m not qualified, but I’ll give advice here. [00:54:01] One thing that we did after I read the four hour Work week, we went through the Dream Line exercise for the people that aren’t familiar. You write down your dreams and then you apply a timeline on it. We did that around the same timeframe that I had mentioned before 2014. So around that time I was listening to a lot of new podcasts and had all these different ideas of possibilities that we could do, and the Dream Line helped us align things and you write down a lot of stuff. [00:54:31] So we had a ton of things that overlapped, and we have done that every, I think, like five years or so because it turns up. So she, she enjoys [00:54:39] Joe: the process? [00:54:40] Doug Cunnington: Yeah, well, not at first. Uh, she didn’t enjoy it at first, but she went along with it and did see the value. The crazy thing you like, we ended up accomplishing like 90% of the things on there, even though we never looked at the list again. [00:54:55] So we’ve done that every few years and we keep like knocking more stuff off. So I would say, you know, some sort of lightly formalized brainstorming activity and hopefully you’ll have, you know, you and your partner or whoever you’re doing the activity with, you’ll have some stuff that you could align on and focus on those, [00:55:13] Joe: you know, how do you handle that in your practice, og? [00:55:16] Because I’m sure that happens a lot. [00:55:18] OG: Yeah. You know, you were saying having people write down the things separately. I honestly, I don’t know that we’ve ever done that. That’s a great idea. I might, I might steal that. You’re welcome. Too bad you didn’t trademark it, so you didn’t say tm. Better luck next time. [00:55:33] Obviously a lot of our conversations are money related, right? It’s about optimization and sometimes very tactical things like should we do this specific thing that’s gonna affect our money? But I think a lot of our. Conversations with clients, especially after we get kinda the initial planning done. [00:55:51] There’s a lot of stuff we do upfront, but through our review process, what I hope is the case is that it allows them the opportunity for all 364 days of the year that they’re not talking to us to just live their life. And then the other two days where we have some time scheduled, you know, these six month reviews where they can say, okay, now we, we have to be focused on this for a period of time, for an hour and a half, or whatever it is. [00:56:15] And the two people are together and just, it’s, it’s a facilitation of a conversation, not so much a, a prescription of like, okay, you guys are off kilter. We need to this, this, this, this, and, and it’s much more like, alright, so our goal was to save $10,000 a month in your brokerage account. It looks like you hit eight, which is fantastic. [00:56:36] What’s going on with the other two? Then that just, just by asking that question, you start figuring out what’s going on. It’s like, well, you know, my mom got sick and, and we had to do some traveling. And then, you know, on the heels of that, we had a big family trip planned and that was over budget. And, you know, and you just get the, and you can kind of see just through those conversations where those discussions need to go. [00:56:57] Having that one-on-one time because you can, you know, you can tell how people are thinking. You can, you can read the room when one person’s sitting there with their arms folded, leaning back in the chair angry. Yeah. And the other person is like, you just go So, so Paula that, you know, that obviously seems pretty frustrating to you. [00:57:13] Like, I mean, to your, you, you say you kind of be straightforward and, and you know Mm-Hmm. With your dating stuff, and thanks for sharing that. It’s the same thing. Somebody needs to have that be okay with going, I can kind of tell that this isn’t landing right. Paula? [00:57:26] bit: Mm-Hmm. [00:57:27] OG: Tell me what’s going on. And you’re like, well, I just don’t understand why we have to always go to his mother’s house for Christmas. [00:57:32] You, you’re like, okay, let’s figure that out. You know what I mean? Like, this is the first time we’ve got to have that conversation. Because we have the facilitation to do it. To Doug’s point, we’re, we’re not marriage counselors or partnership counselors by any stretch of the imagination. But sometimes being able to facilitate that, you know, third party discussion gets people to where they need to go. [00:57:55] Joe: Paula, I wanna open this up just briefly to dating. Let’s say you’ve got somebody that, you know, going down this path we’ve been talking about, they’re not on the same page financially as you. Mm-Hmm. But for whatever reason, there’s the spark and they really let you up. It’s super hot. Are you far enough? [00:58:11] Are you far enough along your life? You’re like, I don’t have time for Spark. There’s gotta be Spark plus the all the financial considerations where we’re on the same page. Or do you go, okay, maybe we work that out, we find common ground. [00:58:26] Paula: When you say not on the same page financially, do you mean their income and net worth is just significantly different from mine? [00:58:32] Or do you mean that their habits are significantly different? Habits and goals? [00:58:37] Joe: I don’t know. Tell me about how those would be different. [00:58:38] Paula: Okay, so my last relationship, he had immigrated to the US when he was in his early forties, and prior to that he was earning money in rupees. Essentially, all of the money that he made prior to his early forties when translated into US dollars is basically nothing. [00:58:58] Right. So functionally he’s, he’s starting his net worth. Very low from zero. Yeah. You know, right. In his early forties, he also has two kids ages. At the time they were 10 and five. Now they’re, I think like 11 and six or something. That’s usually how it works. [00:59:15] Joe: Let me, hold on. Let me guess what they’re gonna be next. [00:59:18] I got it. I’m really good at this. [00:59:24] Paula: Matt wasn’t a math major, but [00:59:28] Joe: not even journalism, but investigative journalism there, Paula. [00:59:34] Paula: So he, um, because he was earning money in Rupees, his net worth is basically zero. He’s starting his career in the United States from scratch. So he’s from a US perspective, he’s in the early stages of his career, he has a zero net worth. He has two kids. [00:59:51] Yeah. In terms of his income and his net worth, uh, we, we are in very, very, very different places. But in terms of his habits and lifestyle, you know, he is fairly reasonable. You know, like there, there were a few minor things here and there that he would choose to spend money on that I wouldn’t like Wolverines tickets. [01:00:15] Yeah. Know. Whoa, gross. Yeah. Disgusting to bring it back to the blue and Maze, you know, that’s, that’s how I learned that that color is called Maze. Oh, [01:00:25] Joe: so you weren’t, you weren’t being. It, it truly was Uve. [01:00:29] Paula: Yeah. Yeah. It truly was [01:00:30] Joe: Uve. Yeah. Oh, I can tell you right now, he’s a loser. Just, what the hell are you doing, Paula? [01:00:38] Paula: But you know, with the exception of a few, some little things like that here and there. Great mindset, great habits. [01:00:45] Joe: So it’s more about kind of, for you, it, I mean, it’s more about where the ball’s headed, right? Where the ball’s headed. Exactly. Yeah. And Doug for the two of you, that’s really what you guys had to get your head around that, you know what, we’re both comfortable with this idea of early retirement. [01:00:57] You had to move where the ball was headed and make it the same. [01:01:00] Doug Cunnington: Yeah, exactly. And when, thinking back to the goals, like we have common goals and we were kind of moving in the right direction, but like all the details were, it required a lot of negotiation, but yes. Head to where the ball is going. [01:01:15] Joe: Yeah. And also OG for you and, and Mrs. [01:01:18] OG of course, knowing both of you, she was stopping work no matter what. So it was, it was you getting your head around it. And the two of you, uh, uh, coming together. I love this discussion. I will link to this piece from family today on our show notes page. Doug, thank you so much for this topic. This is a great topic. [01:01:34] Obviously, we’re not gonna solve people that aren’t on the same page at once. And also to your point, we’re not qualified. And I think there’s often a time when it’s the third party in the room is not even a financial planner. Sometimes it is a therapist. It’s a person that, you know, just needs to help you get your head around the differences that you have, and that can be very helpful. [01:01:52] Let’s find out about the brilliant work all of you are doing here in the middle of October, og. After you watch my Spartans beat up on your Wolverines tomorrow, what are you doing after that? The rest of this fine weekend, [01:02:04] OG: I’m not entirely sure that I’m going to, uh, see much of that game. I’ve got my, my own little activity going on. [01:02:10] Uh, so I’ll catch the highlights. But more importantly than that, our big team retreat is next week. So we are, uh, leaving on a jet plane to take the team. Uh, not the Benjamins team, sadly, the other team. Oh, leaving on a jet plane to, uh, to go, uh, hang out, do a little business planning and, you know, just be thankful for our team and reward them and little, little bit of adult time and just kinda lay low without kids for a minute and come back refreshed. [01:02:38] So that [01:02:38] Joe: sounds like some real PTO you were talking PTO for Carl earlier. This sounds like real PTO go into the Caymans. That sucks. Are you deal a lot of that beauty. Well work. [01:02:47] OG: It’s not, you know, for the IRS that’s listening, this is a very important work trip. Um, very deductible, very required by the boss. [01:02:55] Very, very [01:02:56] Paula: deductible. [01:02:56] OG: Call it PTO per se. It’s much more of a travel meals on the, on the p and l, just to, in case anybody’s listening. The paid is fine. The [01:03:05] Joe: time off is not what you’re doing. It’s time [01:03:07] OG: off. Yes. There’s no time working hard. We’re working every day. Yeah, we’re working hard. Absolutely. Working very, very, very hard. [01:03:12] Yeah. [01:03:12] Joe: Wil our guest of honor go last, Paula, what’s going on at the Afford Anything Podcast and Community [01:03:18] Paula: on the Afford Anything Podcast? So we have a three episode series with Dr. Brad Klaw. He’s a financial psychologist who talks about, back to what we were discussing earlier, mindset and habits around money. [01:03:30] And so we booked this interview with him. We, we airbnbed a, a space and got a videographer in and we shot a six hour interview. I put the therapist in the therapist’s chair. Wow. And for six hours we talked and so we chopped it up into three episodes. And so that airs at the end of October. [01:03:53] Joe: Dr. Brad can’t talk as much as Michael Kitsis can, but that guy can still bring six hours worth of good content. [01:03:59] Paula: Yeah. Well it was funny ’cause he’s done so many media interviews that when you do a lot, you’re trained in speaking in soundbites. [01:04:05] bit: Yeah. [01:04:06] Paula: So I heard his answer to my very first question and it was a soundbite answer. And in my head I was like, well buddy, we’re here for six hours hours, we’re gonna go beyond the sound bite stretch. [01:04:16] I’m gonna [01:04:16] Joe: knock you off that pedestal. [01:04:17] Paula: Yeah, yeah. And he, he caught on real fast. And, and then we went deep. We, you know, ’cause that’s, that’s what we do on the Afford Anything podcast. We go really, really, really in depth. And so that’s what we did with Dr. Klon. [01:04:30] Joe: That’s where Finer podcast, like the Mile Hi-Fi podcast are distributed. [01:04:35] Exactly. Doug, man, it’s about time we got you here. I’m so happy that you joined us. Thank you so much. Thank you. Well, what’s happening? Awesome. What’s happening at Mile Hi fi? [01:04:45] Doug Cunnington: Yeah, so I’m scrambling, you know, trying to replace Carl at the mics, so I do have. Pete, Mr. Money Mustache hanging out in a couple days. [01:04:55] I’m not sure the topic. We might either do like a, our favorite things from Die With Zero, or he’s been retired coming up close to 20 years and may just do like a recap. And then I’m not sure, I think I have Sean Mullaney coming for, uh, like estate planning and some sexy topics like that. [01:05:14] Joe: I love that guy. [01:05:15] We just add him on here again and what a, what a great guy. [01:05:18] Doug Cunnington: So smart. Yeah. He knows his stuff and I, I don’t know any of those details, so he’ll be the perfect expert to have in here. [01:05:23] Joe: When I first met Sha Mullaney, it was at, it was at Camp Phi, and I think I introduced myself as what Sha Ney would look like if he’s 10 years older and let himself go. [01:05:33] And, uh, that’s, that’s kind of who I am, so That’s great. And that’s all at the Mile High Five podcast where Finer podcast are. Yep. Are found. Well, that’s gonna do it for today. Thanks to everybody on YouTube hanging out with us. Thanks to everybody on X for hanging out. We make these live, we’re usually here about, uh, 4:00 PM Eastern on Wednesdays most of the time. [01:05:54] But if you’re in our Facebook group, the basement, you’ll, you’ll get a little ping that we’re going live. And then also, if you belong to our newsletter, the 2 0 1 stacky Benjamins dot com slash 2 0 1 Doug, you’ve got it from here, man. What should we have learned on this episode? So, [01:06:09] Doug: what’s stacked up on our to-do list for today? [01:06:11] First, take some advice from my brother by another mother Doug who said this amazing thing. [01:06:18] Doug Cunnington: There’s always gonna be some friction when you’re talking about something so important like finances. And I think it’s important to focus on the common ground. And, and for us, really the most effective thing was getting that third party to verify our assumptions. [01:06:33] And we went in with an open mind and realized that we needed a little help. It’s fine to go and ask for help when you need it. [01:06:41] Doug: Oh, Doug, we’re both so brilliant, aren’t we? But I also acknowledge, you know, Paula said this other amazing thing that, I mean, I was totally listening to, but uh, what, what was that again? [01:06:52] Paula, [01:06:53] Paula: when you go on a first date with a father of two, ask him if he’d be willing to move to Cat Mandu. [01:07:01] Doug: But [01:07:01] Paula: the [01:07:01] Doug: big lesson blessing. Don’t ask Joe’s mom if she likes Apple fritters. She’ll just tell you to stop frittering your time away and start washing dishes. God, what a task. Master that woman. [01:07:17] Thanks to Doug Cunnington for joining us today, Joe. It’s about time. We feature this amazing Doug on the show, maybe the second best Doug ever. You’ll find Doug at the Mile High five podcast wherever you are listening to us right now. We’ll also include links in our show notes at Stacking Benjamins dot com. [01:07:38] Thanks to Paula Pam for hanging out with us today. You’ll find her fabulous podcast. Afford anything wherever you listen to finer podcasts. And finally, thanks also to OG for joining us today. Looking for good financial planning. Help head to Stacking Benjamins dot com slash OG for his calendar. This show is the property of SB podcasts LLC, copyright 2024, and is created by Joe Salhi. [01:08:05] Joe gets help from a few of our neighborhood friends. You’ll find out about our awesome team at Stacking Benjamins dot com, along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots. Come say hello. Oh yeah, and before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don’t take advice from people you don’t know. [01:08:27] This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I’m Joe’s Mom’s neighbor, Duggan. We’ll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show. [01:08:54] bit: You are still here. It’s over. Go home. Go go.
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