Just when you thought Wall Street had run out of ways to package up risky investments and slap a shiny label on them—here we go again. Today, Joe and OG break down yet another overcomplicated, high-fee, and completely unnecessary financial product. Whether it’s preying on investor fears, promising market-proof returns, or just outright nonsense, we’ll help you spot the warning signs before you end up with a portfolio full of regret.
But that’s not all. A viral TikTok tip about hiring your family members for tax benefits has been making the rounds, so we’ll dive into whether this is actually a genius tax strategy or just another case of the internet handing out half-baked financial advice.
Plus, a listener asks about breaking into financial planning, and we lay out what it really takes—beyond the certifications and credentials (spoiler: sales skills matter). And Doug brings us a trivia question about one of the greatest art heists in history, proving that sometimes the best investment is knowing how to disappear with the Mona Lisa.
Also: Joe saw ‘Wicked’ and has thoughts—mostly about how much better Wonka was.
What’s Inside Today’s Episode:
- The Latest Wall Street Gimmick: A financial product you definitely don’t need.
- Understanding Risky Investments: How to tell if an ETF, structured note, or annuity is actually worth your time.
- Hiring Family for Tax Benefits: A TikTok tax hack that might actually work—if you follow the rules.
- Trivia Time with Doug: One of the most famous art heists in history.
- Breaking Into Financial Planning: What it takes to switch careers and make it in the industry.
- Community Feedback & Upcoming Episodes: A sneak peek at what’s coming next (including our Valentine’s Day special).
Episode Highlights:
- What’s in a Name? The ridiculous branding that makes bad investment products sound good.
- Bitcoin Meets Structured Protection: The ETF that no one asked for but someone, somewhere, will buy.
- Hiring Your Kids for Tax Savings: A loophole with some very real fine print.
- How to Become a Financial Planner: Beyond certifications—why understanding people (and sales) matters.
- Doug’s Trivia: If you could steal any piece of art, what would it be? Asking for a friend.
- Joe’s ‘Wicked’ Review: Spoiler: Wonka was better.
Huge Resource Mentioned in This Episode:
- Want to learn more about structured investments? (Just kidding, you really don’t.)
Tune in now and learn how to dodge the latest Wall Street nonsense while making smarter money moves.
FULL SHOW NOTES: https://stackingbenjamins.com/new-crypto-etfs-1643
Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.stackingbenjamins.com/201
Enjoy!
Our Headline
- New ETFs Bet Investors Are Way Too Careful—Even When Buying Bitcoin (Wall Street Journal)
Doug’s Trivia
- What American city is home to the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum?
Better call Saul…Sehy & OG
- Stacker Chim has a question about how to switch careers and go into the financial planning space.
Have a question for the show?
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Join Us Friday!
Tune in on Friday when we’ll discuss what lights up a money geek more than Barry White and a nice crisp rose served next to a roaring, romantic fire as well as dive into a recent study on Valentine’s Day spending.
Written by: Kevin Bailey
Miss our last show? Listen here: Are You On Speaking Terms With Your Wallet? (SB1642)
Episode transcript
[00:00:00] trailer: We’ve tried debt consolidation companies. [00:00:02] bit: We’ve even taken out loans to help make payments. Well, you’re not the only ones. Did you know? Millions of Americans live with debt they cannot control? That’s why I developed this unique new program for managing your debt. It’s called Don’t Buy Stuff You Cannot Afford. [00:00:22] Doug: Live from Joe’s mom’s basement. It’s the Stacking Benjamin Show. [00:00:37] I’m Joe Bombs neighbor. Duggan. What was it that PT Barnum supposedly said? There’s a sucker born every minute. Well, if you’re buying this new financial product, you are the sucker. What’s the product? We’ll share in today’s headline and because it’s Wild Wednesday here on the show, we’ll share a TikTok minute from stacker Ashley, who found some tax advice on the platform. [00:00:58] Is it any good? You think that’s all? Of course, there’s more. We’ll answer a question from Stacker Chim, who thinks we are so cool? He wants to work in finance too. How do you break in? And if that doesn’t dip your dinghy, of course, I’m always here on mop up duty to save your soul with some of my heart palpitating trivia. [00:01:19] And now here are two guys who think the only thing more volatile than crypto is Joe’s mom on a Valentine’s Day sugar high, it’s Joe and oh ju, [00:01:35] Joe: you wanna stay out of her way? We’ve learned that Doug haven’t. We sure have. Stay out of her way. Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Stacky Benjamin Show. The show where we help you control the controllable and maybe laugh a little at what you can’t. So sit back, relax. You found us. You found a me B. Well maybe C is me. [00:01:56] A is the guy across the card table from me, Mr. Oji. How are you man? [00:02:00] OG: Do we have to rank each other? I don’t know. Think we’re all tied T one. [00:02:04] Joe: Oh, that’s very nice. Yes. [00:02:05] OG: Yes. We all get gold medals. [00:02:07] Joe: We’re all holding hands, uh, getting participation trophies at the end of every episode. God. [00:02:12] OG: God, that’s all I need. [00:02:13] Joe: It is fantastic. Today we’re talking financial product ’cause there’s nothing og you and I like doing better. Oh, sweet. I have a [00:02:19] OG: feeling that this is, uh, are you rage baiting me? [00:02:24] Joe: I am. I’m just hoping to make the next viral TikTok video. Okay. We had a good response, man to the last one when Steve couldn’t take his finger off the uh, [00:02:33] OG: it’s like, trust us. [00:02:34] It was good. FBO [00:02:35] Joe: button. [00:02:35] Doug: Yeah, [00:02:36] Joe: it was, he was on a, I mind my ps [00:02:38] OG: and Qs today. [00:02:38] Doug: Why? The people enjoy you losing your I don’t lose it. It’s, it’s like Hulk, I’ve [00:02:45] OG: always lost [00:02:46] Doug: it. It’s gone. It’s just [00:02:47] OG: permanently lost like an avengers. That is like one of my favorite lines in all of the event. Like, I hated the Avengers movies. [00:02:53] Right. I know you do too, Joe. Yeah, but when they said, you know, they’re like, how do you control it? To Dr. Banner. They’re like, how do you control it? And he just kind of fluffed it off the whole movie. And then, you know, the bad guys are coming the, they’re like, now would be the time. And they’re like, you ask how I control it. [00:03:08] I’m angry all the time and he just goes and turns it. It’s like, yes, that is the answer. Just always be the angry elf all the time. [00:03:18] Joe: But Doug, I’d be happier if he didn’t rip his shirt off every time you had a tirade mad, like, people don’t see that on the audio podcast. I’d be working, bro. [00:03:24] OG: I’ve been working out. [00:03:25] Doug: At least shave your chest before you [00:03:27] OG: do it. I do. That’s what, what do you think all the bottles of air are for? [00:03:30] Joe: We’ve got, we’ve got a great show today. We are going to teach you how to maybe steer clear of some horrible financial products. We’re gonna help you break into the personal finance industry, if that is your goal. [00:03:45] Maybe we’ll talk some people out of it. I don’t know. Might be one of the other, as Doug said, some great trivia today and an amazing TikTok minute that stacker Ashley sent us. Thank you, Ashley, for this one. Before we get into all that, we have a couple sponsors that make sure this is free and we can keep on keeping on and you don’t have to pay a dime for this. [00:04:03] Goodness. So let’s hear from them first and then. Let’s talk about some nasty financial products. [00:04:11] trailer: Hello Darlings, and now it’s time for your favorite part of the show, our Stacking Benjamins headlines. [00:04:19] Joe: Well, first there were exchange traded funds, and then there were leveraged exchange traded funds. I feel like this is the like exchange traded fund book of Genesis. [00:04:29] On the first day, there were exchange traded funds and then there were leveraged exchange traded funds because og, what is life without going two x? That’s right. Or three x, right? If we can get super fancy there, and by the way, but while we’re on leverage funds, and we’ll talk a little bit more about this later, those may not do what you think they do. [00:04:49] They’re a quick way for people that don’t know how they work to lose a bunch of money, even if they were correctly, you will lose a bunch of money. Then there were active exchange traded funds, which we spent the last couple years warning people about. So what’s the new, new, new, new, new, new thing, OG when it comes to exchange traded funds? [00:05:07] Well, the Wall Street Journal reports a couple weeks ago. This is from, uh, John Ro. New ETFs BET investors are way too careful. Well, I’m not even gonna finish that. I’m just gonna read the, the beginning. Irrational, exuberant investors, he writes who lose their shirts, get a lot of attention, but there’s another way to manage your money poorly. [00:05:29] Taking so little risk, you end up with little reward. Enter the kmos Bitcoin structured alt protection. ETF. What [00:05:40] Doug: are all those words you mean? What [00:05:43] Joe: the [00:05:43] Doug: hell did you just say? I know. Start over. [00:05:46] Joe: Bitcoin structured alt protection. ET, F. We got a lot of unpacking to do. Stackers. Let’s set that suitcase down and, uh, start to see what’s inside. [00:05:57] It started trading under the CBOJ ticker a couple weeks ago. The fund uses a combination of safe investments and options on other Bitcoin vehicles to guarantee that initial backers won’t lose any money over the following year despite investing in one of the most speculative assets in existence. The flip side is, oh, is there a flip side? [00:06:20] Og? Is there ever a flip side? Well, flip side, is there, oh, the flip side is it also limits the maximum returns they will receive over this period at 11.65%. Everybody’s like, well, that’s okay. I could live with that. That’s fine. There’s always a catch. Since 2016, there have been 23 occasions in which Bitcoin has risen more than that. [00:06:43] In a single day, its average annual volatility has been 86%. All right, let’s dive into why we think this might not be the thing for you, og. First of all, if you’re not interested in losing money, why would you invest? In an asset class, regardless of protections that has the ability to lose money. [00:07:07] OG: Hmm. This sounds like a product that is, um, what’s, what’s the phrase? [00:07:13] Like you’re trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. Yes. Basically. It doesn’t look like tough to a, a banger. Start with a whopping $40 million raised in the last couple of weeks. That’s not a, [00:07:24] Joe: well, 40 million sounds like a lot to you and me. Heck, you know, it’s a good start. Yeah. [00:07:28] OG: Not in the investment space. [00:07:29] In the [00:07:29] Joe: investment space, it’s nothing. Right. You’re not attracting much money. [00:07:33] OG: I think broadening this out a little bit in terms of the, you know, there’s no such thing as a free lunch concept. And you see this not so much right now because the market’s on a tear, but it’ll rear its head again when the market goes down. [00:07:46] Anything that has the word structured in it, and you see this a lot around, um, annuities or annuity type products. Where the, the phraseology sounds a lot like, and you’ll see this in the advertisements, you’ll hear it from the pitch deck, get the return of X, you know, whatever the index is, get the return of the s and p 500 without the risk of the s and p. [00:08:09] It sounds wonderful. Who doesn’t want all of the upside of a product? All of the upside of the s and p with none of the downside. But the reality is, is that that just simply can’t exist. That’s the trade-off. The trade-off that you get of getting the s and p return is the downside on occasion that happens. [00:08:28] And you’ve got different investment tools and investment products that span the, the gamut of very conservative, with very conservative returns and very aggressive, with very aggressive potential returns. And when you try to mix those things, there’s always a catch. And in the annuity space, or in this space, the catch is, is that you limit your upside. [00:08:46] So when it says, get the upside of the s and p. There’s an asterisk, right? You go the asterisk. Asterisk is the first three and a half percent is yours. The other amount above that is ours. And you’re like, okay, if I’m getting a three and half percent return, why don’t I just get the product that has about a three and half percent return? [00:09:08] Right? You know, I don’t get it. I don’t get the allure of it because when you add the layers of protection, you’re adding layers of cost, and that’s all there is to it. You know when, when this product from kmos is when they’re buying Bitcoin and they’re limiting, well, what are they doing? They’re buying options. [00:09:26] They’re buying futures contracts. They’ve got a cost structure associated with managing that risk, managing that downside number, and they don’t pay it. You pay it and you pay it in the manner of actual costs, where it’s like your cost for this product is X percent, and you know, here’s the disclosure, but then you also pay it in missed opportunity of upside. [00:09:46] And in the annuity space where it’s like you get the return to the s and p up to three point a half percent. It’s like your, your cost is the five point a half that you’re not getting. That’s the cost. That doesn’t mean that there’s not a place for these products, but it’s just, it doesn’t seem like people use them for the intended purpose. [00:10:03] You know, we, we like to bash whole life insurance. We bash annuities or whatever. This, this product, I don’t think there is a place for it, but there is a place for an annuity. There is a scenario where you’d say, okay, an annuity makes sense in the stake of using it as an annuity guaranteed lifetime stream of income that never goes away. [00:10:21] There is a scenario where whole life or permanent life insurance makes sense. It’s like one out of a thousand, but it’s there. But it [00:10:27] Joe: does, but, but it’s out there. There’s somebody out there, there [00:10:30] OG: is a reason for it. Where we see, I had a conversation with a client a couple weeks ago, uh, potential client and she had some money and um, she’s like, you know, I don’t really understand where it is. [00:10:39] And it was just, you know, some good, some good protection or something. And so we’ll send me the statement, look at it, it’s an annuity product and on the outside it looks fine, you know, but then you dig into it just a quick chat, GPT, which by the way is kind of fun for these things. You go like, add up all the costs of this product, and it’s like, oh, you have a mortality and expense fee of 1.3, an internal expense ratio of 0.25, a average cost of the product of 1.15, a administrative fee of $30, an administrative fee of 25 basis. [00:11:07] But like, you know, it, it sounds like the ticket master of financial products. Well, it was, and, and it’s like, well, what, what are you trying to do? That’s where I think a lot of this comes from, or maybe should start, Joe, is to say, what is the outcome that you’re trying to solve for? I can give you an example for where an annuity makes sense. [00:11:28] I’ve got a client who has a long-term care insurance policy, right? So nursing home care, basically, right? Mm-hmm. And And that premium is $3,000 a year. [00:11:40] Joe: Yeah. [00:11:41] OG: Client says, I just wanna make sure that I always pay that. You know, because obviously if you get old sometimes you forget to pay your bills. And if you forget to pay your long-term care insurance premium, guess what? [00:11:51] You probably need long-term care now. Now you just [00:11:54] Joe: guaranteed the thing that you’re hoping for. Yeah. You’re hoping you never use it. Well, you’re not gonna get the opportunity to use it because [00:12:00] OG: Yeah, you forgot to make the payment. So policy went bye-bye. So what could we do? Well, we could take a pool of money. [00:12:04] We could say, well, let’s take, we can take $40,000 and say to the annuity company, pay this $3,000 every single year for the rest of my life. We knew that the annuities can never gonna run out. If I live to be 150, even that $40,000 depletes itself to zero. The annuity still pays. You know, there’s a reason, as an example, I’m making this up as an example, but there’s an example of what am I trying to solve for? [00:12:27] I’m trying to solve for guaranteeing this payment is made for the rest of my life. Okay? An annuity could make sense for that. You take another person who’s 45 and they just left their job and they go meet a broker or a financial person and you say, well, what are you trying to solve for? I’m trying to solve for growing this money. [00:12:47] I, you know, I wanna invest it for the future. I’m 45, I got 20 years before I retire. You know, I need take it outta my old plan, and I wanna have it be in an IRA. Cool, well, let’s buy the thing that guarantees your income for the rest of your life. What? That’s not what I said. I said I want to grow. Yeah. You know what I mean? [00:13:04] Yeah. We’re, we’re square peg, round hole. So start with what are you trying to do? What’s the outcome that you’re trying to solve for? And then that narrows down the, the pool of available things gonna say, I’m trying to solve for downside. Bitcoin risk. [00:13:19] Joe: Yeah. There’re also gonna be things that make sense mm-hmm. [00:13:22] Things that you are not gonna go, okay. I, I want downside protection because I may need to use this money fairly soon. I wanna make sure that the money is safe and stable. Well, bitcoin’s not even gonna make that list. [00:13:37] OG: Yeah. [00:13:37] Joe: Like, it’s not even, there’s, there’s no way in hell you’re getting, even being introduced to this backwards, weird ass thing that I don’t understand. [00:13:47] I [00:13:47] OG: just got a big bonus. I got a $50,000 bonus after taxes. I have a sophomore in high school. I’m really concerned about making sure that I pay for their college. What should I do? Well, I have a known outcome, right? Two years from now, I’m writing a check for college tuition. I have resources today. Like what do I do with it? [00:14:06] Downside. Bitcoin, ET. What? No cash. Cash is the solution, right? There’s, this is an easy, you know, you kind of, you eliminate all those things. Are you willing to lose 50% of your money in the next 12 months? No. Why? Because I need it. I have to write The check. Tuition is due. Yeah, it’s due. You don’t get to call up, you know, the university and go, listen, can, can we, can I be good for this in seven years when the mar market recovers? [00:14:33] Because I had this invested. You don’t understand. It was like a Bitcoin thing. It went down, but I’m good for it as long as it recovers. My bad, my bad. That’s on me coach. That one’s on me. [00:14:41] Joe: Yeah. I’m sure. As long as Saul-Sehy, what’s his name, and all the people get together and get Bitcoin raised again. [00:14:50] OG: Yeah. [00:14:50] Yeah. I, I mean. It doesn’t have to be complicated. And the more you complicate things, the more layers of complication you put in stuff, the more it costs you money. That’s all the rest to it. And you [00:15:00] Joe: complicate it. And you also get the wrong answer when you don’t ask that question first. Like you going beating the drum on ask, what do I need the money for? [00:15:10] When am I gonna use the dollar? Is 100% 1000%. The only question you should ask first, when you’re investing, what, when happens? When do I think I’m going to need the dollar? What happens? Well, let me go through a story that, uh, some very nice people I talked to last night. I was just chatting with a couple stackers last night and they’re coming into some money and they just picked my brain about, Hey, you know, where do I start with This? [00:15:32] OG: Wasn’t much to pick, was it? [00:15:34] Joe: Well, thank you. And I, and I, I said, oh, oh, but I started right where you started. OG, big Bitcoin, [00:15:40] bit: ETF. [00:15:41] Joe: I started with, okay, what’s the money for? And they said, well, we wanted to add to our income. I said, okay, well it’s $200,000 and so if we just back of the envelope, use the 4% rule, we’re gonna use this to create about $8,000 a year. [00:15:57] Does that sound good? Is that what you’re looking for? And they’re like, oh yes, absolutely. That would be a nice bump up in our lifestyle. And that’s exactly what we want. They don’t have any specific goal, it’s to just raise the amount every month. Mm-hmm. They have some medical things, but anyway, [00:16:12] aftershow: yeah. [00:16:12] Joe: I show them the efficient frontier and show them how, you know, if we’re gonna solve for maybe a seven, seven and a half percent rate of return, how we kind of turn that into, not clockwork, there’s no such thing, right as a free launch, but turn it into a higher probability that we can create that portfolio. [00:16:30] And then one of them says, well wait a minute. Are you saying that then we can’t grow that pot of money? And it’s the thing OG, that we all want. We wanna grow the pot while we’re taking from the pot. Like, like, can I, can I magically create enough money to live off of and create a, can I create, can I create an income engine and a growth engine at the same time? [00:16:54] And I think when people look at products like this here, Ooh, Bitcoin growth, big time growth. And they hear no downside. Nobody’s thinking about this cap, right? The fact that there’s a cap on the growth, you just can’t do it. You can’t have both ends of the stick. The answer is yes, you can have growth, but if you’re going to raid all the growth, which is the amount of money you wanna live on, getting that alpha means the only way to do that is to go further out on the risk lever, which means more standard deviation, which means, yeah, yeah, we can try to get it, but the further we go out, the more we’re just betting we can do it. [00:17:31] We can definitely do it, but the chance that we hit it becomes less and less and less as we get away from this predictable growth engine. [00:17:39] OG: I was gonna say, the other thing that it prevents you from doing is choosing a, this is the, also the solution I should say, for why do we have a lot of equities all the time? [00:17:53] When, when the universe says, oh, at 50 I should be 50 50, right? At 60, I should be 40, 60. You know, I should be conservative as I get to retirement. When you look at the timeframe and when you need the money, it becomes very obvious. Well, no, you’re 55. Yeah, you need money in 10 years, but you also need money in 20 years and 30 years and 40 years. [00:18:12] So that 20, 30, 40 year money, like that’s the vast majority of your, of your, of your capital that needs to be invested in 20, 30, 40-year-old stuff. It may, it is very simple like it it, and it takes away all the angst that you have about, oh my God, did you see that the Nvidia chips are. So, uh, like who gives a crap? [00:18:32] This is 30 year money? Like Nvidia might not even be a company. Jeff Bezos has said he doesn’t think Amazon’s gonna be a company in 2040. He’s like, someone will overrun us. Like they’ll beat us at these things. Or the government will step in and break it apart, or whatever. You know what I mean? Like, that’s what capitalism is. [00:18:48] But [00:18:48] Joe: the reason these products succeed is that people will hear you and go, yeah, that makes a ton of sense. But then John here in this Wall Street Journal piece writes this exchange traded fund ultimately joins an illustrious tradition of investments that exploit loss aversion. I love his use of the word exploit. [00:19:07] Yeah. It exploits the fact that, oh gee, I don’t like the feeling of losing money. Like when it comes to. Yeah. Okay. 30 years from now, that’s fine, but if we could get there without me ever losing a dime on paper, that would be way better. Can I? Can I do that? Like whether I need the money today or tomorrow or next week or 30 years from now, we have this aversion as humans to sing red numbers. [00:19:31] Well, [00:19:32] OG: I don’t know what to say about that except get over it. I mean, at the end of the day, you do not make enough money. [00:19:38] Joe: Well either get over it or don’t. I mean, I mean, that’s a little harsh. No, [00:19:41] OG: you have to get over it. No, there is no, don’t. There is no way for you to save enough money in all of the money that you make for all the future needs that you have with inflation. [00:19:51] You have to have return, you have to have compounding returns. You could save all of the money that you’ve made your entire life. From the time that you started working until the time you retire and you will still run out of money. I get all that of inflation. [00:20:06] Joe: I get that. But if you give that away, if you completely 100%, give that away and go, you know what? [00:20:13] Screw my future. You still should use products that are built for the thing. Right? If your goal is loss aversion, use products that are made for loss aversion. This is why I, yeah. [00:20:25] OG: Cash. [00:20:26] Joe: Yeah. This is why I don’t use life insurance as my checking account, because the complexity, can it work? Sure, it can work, but when it doesn’t work, it, it sucks. [00:20:35] Like it unravels your entire life when it doesn’t work. I, I don’t use life insurance as cash. I don’t use annuities that invest in the stock market. With a downside thing with this ridiculous downside protection. I don’t invest in Bitcoin products when I’m trying not to lose money. [00:20:52] aftershow: Yeah. [00:20:53] Joe: I think John nails it as he goes on, he says. [00:20:56] Chief among these investments that exploit our loss aversion tenancy are the structure products that become wildly popular among individual investors since the two thousands. Principle protected notes, right? Og? Mm-hmm. Mixes zero coupon bond with options that provide upside if some underlying index trades within a certain range. [00:21:17] Ridiculous. So many products out there now going, oh, you don’t wanna lose money. I’ve got the new answer. Now the the, the answer is, put it in an FDIC insured bank account, high yield bank account. Don’t think about it. Why we keep getting stuck in there might be something for nothing. And your checks [00:21:38] OG: for [00:21:38] Joe: free. [00:21:38] Yeah, we just coined that TM money for nothing. Do we have dire straits, uh, suing us now over that line? That [00:21:45] Doug: would be awesome. [00:21:46] Joe: That would be so awesome. What is his name? Mark ler. Mark ler. [00:21:50] Doug: Best thing that could ever happen to this podcast is to get sued by anybody, by dire Straits. You know, headline worthy, yes. [00:21:57] Any, we don’t care who you are. If you’re out there listening right now and the world knows your name, sue us because that’s the best, that’s the best publicity we’re ever gonna get. Please, big company. Please, please, please. Big company. I say four things in episode that are, you know, litigable, just litigable, [00:22:16] OG: litigable [00:22:17] Joe: Litigable. [00:22:19] Uh, time for our TikTok minute. This TikTok minute was set by stacker. Ashley. Actually, Ashley shared this in the basement Facebook group. So maybe, uh, our core listeners have seen this before, but do you think, uh, this is Doug. This is going to be brilliance or air quotes, brilliance that Ashley wants to share with us? [00:22:39] Not [00:22:40] Doug: feeling it today. I, you know, normally I’m all, I put all my chips behind TikTok, uh, education and intelligence. But today, I don’t know, I don’t know. Just not feeling the vibe today. So, I’m sorry, Ashley, I’m, I don’t think this is gonna be the one. Well, Ashley [00:22:55] Joe: found some tax advice on a Facebook reel, og, and let’s see if this Facebook Real advice is actually real advice, huh? [00:23:05] Oh, I see what [00:23:06] Doug: you did [00:23:06] Joe: there. [00:23:06] tiktok: Uhhuh. Hey dad, I’m gonna hire you and give you an income, but you won’t have to pay any taxes me work for you. But I’m retired and I don’t wanna work anymore. Wait, you said no taxes? Yeah. I can hire you to work for my business and then pay you $14,600 a year, which is the standard deduction in 2024. [00:23:25] And since you’re retired and don’t make any other income, you won’t have to pay any taxes on the income I pay you. That’s so smart. Son. I’m assuming you won’t pay any taxes on the income you pay me, right? Nope. Your income will be a business expense for me, so it’ll lower my taxable income, meaning I’ll pay less taxes. [00:23:42] It’s great. Instead of paying taxes to the IRS, I get to pay my retired dad salary and you won’t have to pay any taxes, but you do have to do some legit work. Dad, I guess you can help me with my social media account. That sounds good to me. By the way, how’d you even know this? I learned all my money hacks from Josh. [00:24:00] That’s why I follow here. No. [00:24:02] Joe: Yeah, the little, uh, slip that in at the end. Nice. Uh, Josh Rincon, if you want to, uh, follow, but let’s see if this is actually advice that we should be following og. So if our parent wants to make a little extra money and we’re handing money from child to parent, happens a lot. [00:24:19] We support our parents. Isn’t [00:24:20] OG: it great? [00:24:21] Joe: Yeah. Should we hire our parents? [00:24:23] OG: Well, uh, this is more popular. The other direction actually, where you have, uh, if you’re a small business owner, you hire your kids. And honestly, I think that that’s probably a harder hurdle to get through. Not A CPA, but I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express, so, you know, take that for what it’s worth. [00:24:43] Because the biggest piece out of all this is they have to do like legit work. Like you, you know, if you’re hiring somebody, the IRS is gonna look at that and say, if you would’ve hired somebody else instead of your sibling or your family member or your parent, would you have kept them on board? Like were they, like, were they doing actual work for you? [00:25:02] There’s no rule that says what the hourly rate has to be. I mean, it has gotta be somewhat in the ballpark of reasonable, I suppose, and you know what that looks like. But the math checks, if you’re paying your child or you’re paying your parent a salary and that dollar amount is less than the standard deduction, then effectively it becomes tax free. [00:25:24] It’s a fairly simplistic way to look at it because mom and dad probably have social security, they might have investment income, they might have pension income or minimum distributions from their IRA. You [00:25:35] Joe: gotta find out where that line really is for you. [00:25:38] OG: Yeah. Or where they are. And, and the worst situation here would be to kick them into a higher category for Medicare premiums. [00:25:46] If they’re not full retirement age and they’re drawing from Social security and you’re paying them, then that affects the social security benefits because, you know, you get a reduction in your social security benefits if you’re working and drawing social security before full retirement. So there’s, there’s more to it than just like, you know, I’m gonna write that check for 14 grand and call it square. [00:26:06] Especially with parents, kids on the other hand, probably a little easier, right? ’cause you’re like, I know my kid doesn’t have social security. Well, it probably doesn’t, right? I see their stuff, right? I know how much their investment income is. I, how much money they got, their 401k. So if you can legit hire your child, this is a great long-term benefit, right? [00:26:23] If you can hire your child and they are doing legit work for $7,000 a year, you know, that’s a Roth IRA contribution. That earlier contribution will compound immensely. So, [00:26:35] Joe: yeah, and, and to your point though, it is harder to prove that your child did legit work if for some reason you’re audited than it is that a parent did just based on their age and experience level. [00:26:43] Sure. The thing that I question with the parent only is this, again, I also think the math checks out, but is this juice really worth the squeeze? You look at hiring a parent, setting up a payroll situation for them. Now, if you already have existing payroll with other people, maybe that’s easy. But if you’re setting all this stuff up directly with them, dealing with, you know, all of the rules and regulations around that, and then on top of that, you heard at the beginning of the video, this guy Josh, who was playing the part of his dad. [00:27:14] Secretly. I dunno. People could hear that, but, but the very first thing he said was, I don’t wanna work. Get your real [00:27:19] OG: dad to do it. Right. Just get your real dad to, to, to to play the part of himself. Come on. And then you could pay him. Pay him. Yeah, [00:27:25] Joe: exactly. He could totally have paid him to make this video. [00:27:29] Here’s the thing though, dad said at the beginning of that piece that he didn’t wanna work. Now I got this mind share of convincing my dad to do the work, dealing with training him, doing all this stuff so that at even a minimal level, he’s contributing so that this isn’t just a tax scam. Mm-hmm. Is it truly like I would think. [00:27:51] Hiring mom to do any of this stuff would be a gigantic pain in the ass. [00:27:55] OG: Be just a huge, well, she’d just flat out say no. She would say, no, I wouldn’t work for you clowns. If it was all the money in the world now we’re gonna pay you a million dollars a year, ma. [00:28:06] Joe: But I think sometimes we get so excited about the tax quote loophole. [00:28:10] Mm-hmm. This thing that we can do and we don’t calculate the ROI ahead of time. [00:28:15] aftershow: Yeah. [00:28:15] Joe: What’s the true ROI to anybody here? I don’t know if, if dad gets excited about working with his son to help him make social media stuff. Okay. That could be good. Remember a couple of years ago there was a grandma and a grandson that we’re doing these, uh, viral TikTok videos together. [00:28:31] I don’t even remember the name of the brand, but this grandma was hilarious on social media with, with her grandson. Yeah, it can work. But do they, I don’t know. I dunno. I would just caution that actually weird [00:28:43] Doug: that that reel would get. Fed up to you, Joe, like in your feed. Like, what, what else were you looking at? [00:28:49] That you’re getting Grandmas and grams. [00:28:51] Joe: All, all the grandma stuff comes right to me. [00:28:53] Doug: Uncomfortable. [00:28:55] Joe: I don’t, I, I don’t, I don’t know. Well, ’cause I got a bunch of comedians and they were very comedic. Ah, uh, yes. Okay. All right. On that very awkward note, in the second half of the show, we are going to help a stacker in need, figure out how we can switch careers. [00:29:12] That’s coming up next, but before we get there, let’s shine the spotlight on old Dougie. What’s going on, man, that’s not okay. Doogie, is it? Doogie? Not [00:29:21] Doug: Okay. None of the above. [00:29:26] Hey there, stackers. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor Doug, and I love that headline about Bitcoin and loss aversion. Guys, if you’re not careful, these Wall Street firms are gonna steal your money. Speaking of stealing, there was big news in the art world on today’s date back in 1994. Edvard M’s. Famous painting The Scream. [00:29:48] I just didn’t wanna say munch. That’s weird. Yeah. I think [00:29:51] Joe: you nailed the pronunciation of his name. [00:29:52] Doug: Mook Mook Edvard. M’s. Famous Painting, the Scream was stolen from Oslo’s. National Art Museum thieves used a ladder to enter the museum and literally cut the famous painting off the wall. It’s kinda like the time Joe’s mom caught me, allegedly stealing some of her spinach salad from the fridge, just ’cause it was quote in my hand and I had a quote fork in my other hand proves absolutely nothing. [00:30:18] Here’s today’s priceless trivia question. The highest value art heist ever. Occurred at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum only a few years earlier in 19 90 13. Works were stolen, including a Vermeer, Rembrandt, Dega, and Monet. Here’s the question. How many cumulative brush strokes were in all of the Now I’m kidding. [00:30:44] That’s a totally a Friday trivia question. My mind just exploded. The real question I was gonna ask is what American City is home to? The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Oh, lay upright. I’ll be back right after I go grab some Dunking Donuts. I’m crawling for a crawl or two. [00:31:12] Hey there, stackers. I’m coffee lover and a guy who’s always ready for a Bavarian Cream. Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. Today we’re celebrating the art world and reliving its tragic moments with trivia about the biggest art theft ever one that occurred at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. The mystery is still unsolved, even though the museum posted a $10 million reward. [00:31:37] But the question was, what Fine American City is home to This theft riddled museum makes, makes it sound like they’re just like, every night there’s people trying to get in. You’re getting shelled every night by guys with those little black eye masks on maybe the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum will, will, will sue us. [00:31:56] Well, if you thought Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Theft Riddled Museum, if you thought that was in Charleston, South Carolina. You’d be wrong, but if you said baston, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. The bell tolls for the stacker. And now back to the two dinglings I get to work with every day. Joe and [00:32:19] Joe: og. [00:32:19] I see what you did there. Cheryl visited that museum. Yeah, I was actually giving a talk at Harvard. Oh, for God’s sakes. Say it. Come on. Meyer. The only [00:32:27] Doug: reason that you said that was so that you could say, I was at Harvard. I [00:32:32] Joe: was, I was giving a talk on podcasting. [00:32:35] OG: Harvard State University. Yeah. And Technical Institute. [00:32:38] Yeah. [00:32:39] Joe: Right. The, the [00:32:39] Doug: Michigan of the East. Oh God. Now I’ve been to Isabella Gardner, uh, museum as well. It is just go look at the building. I mean, even if you’re not into art, it’s amazing. It’s her old, uh, estate or mansion not far from Fenway and uh, as allegedly the top floor was her living quarters and is remains untouched. [00:33:02] You don’t get to see it, so nobody can prove that. But, uh, trust us. [00:33:06] OG: There’s not a person living up there right now, [00:33:09] Joe: right? Trust us. We don’t have anybody boarded up in there right now. [00:33:13] Doug: That’s what they say. [00:33:14] Joe: Let’s help us stack her in need, shall we? Time for us to answer a call from somebody who said, you know what? [00:33:21] I better call Saul. See, hi and og. If you’ve got a question where you’d like to ask OG for help, head to Stacking Benjamins dot com slash voicemail. That’s the place to go so that you can be every bit as cool as Jim who has two [00:33:38] caller: questions. Hey guys, I have two questions that are meant for Joe and og. Not Doug per his recent history. [00:33:46] First, did you ever consider calling the 2 0 1 newsletter, the 4 1 1 K. If you ever need a rebrand, that one’s free. Second, how would you recommend someone break into the financial planning space that’s currently in another career? I’ve been working in tech consulting for about 11 years. My passion has always been personal finance. [00:34:05] I’m definitely okay with talking with people face-to-face about their finances, but don’t necessarily wanna start with cold calling, emailing or LinkedIn posting to Phish for clients. How does it usually work getting in with the company? Do you get some certifications and start the bottom rung doing more clerical work for seasoned advisors and eventually get your shot? [00:34:22] Or is the cold calling inevitable and something I’ll need to be okay with jumping from another industry? Thanks guys. [00:34:28] Joe: Jim. Thank you. And by the way, the the the 401k [00:34:34] OG: 4 1 1 4. 1 1 4. One KK. Sorry. Yes. The 4 1 1 K. That’s good idea. [00:34:38] Joe: Brilliance. [00:34:39] Doug: Is this the quick answer to his question? Just start a podcast. [00:34:43] Joe: Yeah, just, just, just start a podcast gab about money. [00:34:46] Chipman, you’re good. All right. Thanks for calling in. We got it. It’s a tricky industry OG to get into, and if you’re not careful, you could end up with one of those big organizations that, uh, where you’re cold calling or fishbowl leading or posting to LinkedIn. As he said, [00:35:02] OG: it’s different than it was 25 years ago, Joe, when you started, or 30 years ago, I think when you started and 25 years ago when I started, which was, I mean, it was very heavily sales focused. [00:35:14] Now there’s different paths. I mean, back then there wasn’t even, it wasn’t even recognized as an education major. And now there’s tons of schools that have financial planning programs where you can graduate from college with all of the education required to sit for the CFP exam. You know, you don’t have to take additional education requirements. [00:35:35] Joe, like you and I would’ve had to do. So it’s a different world. That being said, it depends on where you want to go. You know, there’s, I think, a little bit more focus on being able to do the different unique abilities within a financial planning business or within a firm. And there’s different sizes of companies too, right? [00:35:54] I mean, you can hang out a shingle and be, you know, head cook and bottle washer. You can go work for a big broker dealer firm like, uh, uh, Edward Jones, or Ameriprise or Merrill Lynch or whatever. Or you can work for a big RIA firm like a Mariner or, uh, Carson Wealth, or, you know, one of these giant kind of roll up RA fee-based firms. [00:36:15] Within all of those different organizations, there’s different hats that you can wear. I have a friend of mine who was a pretty good advisor, but really loved the investments, and now he’s really, that’s his job. He is a Chief investment officer for a firm. He doesn’t really solicit clients or cold call or, you know, whatever. [00:36:34] That’s not his job. His job is to manage the firm’s investment models. You can work behind the scenes and be a really great financial planner who only does behind the scenes financial planning work, not in front of clients, not, you know, doing the song and dance, but providing all the back office support every bit is, uh, important. [00:36:52] A lot of it will depend in terms of what’s more interesting to you, the traditional career path, so to speak. If you’re joining a firm that’s not a sales organization, like not Edward Jones, not Merrill Lynch, not Ameriprise, a lot of times you’ll see somebody will hire somebody in that clerical back office and then, you know, as you go, then maybe you move up. [00:37:17] The, the problem that I have with that is that you’re really not working in your unique ability at that time. Right. If you were to hire me and tell me, okay, your first job is gonna be to make sure all this paperwork’s done correctly. Oh, you suck, you a bad experience. I’ve just, I’m, I’m not, that’s not, that’s not what I’m great at. [00:37:36] You know, I would be very bad at that and so I would get pretty burned out pretty quickly. That wouldn’t be for me. So, so I think you gotta be wary of that. If you are new to the industry, you can still be new and on an advisor track, if that makes sense. You don’t have to be new and be all back office, but more to your question about sales and marketing, ultimately, if you’re going to be in an advisor role, part of your job as sales and marketing, it just is. [00:38:06] And that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s cold calling or LinkedIn posts because having conversations with clients to motivate them to do things that they haven’t done yet to reach the goals that they say that they wanna do is sales. You know, even the people sitting across the table from you when you say, look, you need to save 10% in your 401k five. [00:38:24] You gotta be able to kind of make that sound better than, than it is. ’cause it sucks to have your cash flow go down for the future, you know? And that’s sales. It’s not necessarily standing in front of a room giving a speech sales, but it’s still sales. So that I think is an important piece of being an advisor. [00:38:43] There’s a difference between that kind of selling obviously and business development where, yeah, you might be out kind of shaking the bushes and, and generating new business for the firm. Um, and if that’s something that you’re good at there, there’s a place for that too, right? I know tons of people who are really great business developers, not great financial planners on the backend. [00:39:04] They’re good. Big picture, get you here. Our team is amazing. You’re gonna love the experience. And then they, they solicit the business, they put ’em in the firm, you know, they get the clients in the firm and then they hand ’em off to great service advisors who know all the technical stuff and, you know, relationship stuff. [00:39:21] We [00:39:21] Joe: have a good friend in the business who’s great at that, and that’s all he does. That’s all he wants to do. [00:39:26] OG: Yeah. [00:39:26] Joe: It’s just business development. [00:39:28] OG: The really cool thing is, is that there’s really a place for anything that you’re good at and anything that you wanna do. The money is in owning the firm. The money is in business developing. [00:39:41] Joe: Well, let’s talk about why of that og, why the money’s there. Yeah, because. I think if, if you’re new to Stacking Benjamins and you didn’t listen to our episodes with Alex Hormoze on uh, January 1st and January 3rd, he really emphasized this. It’s the risk takers who are paid the most. [00:39:57] OG: Yeah. [00:39:57] Joe: And your goal is to gain the skill so it doesn’t feel risky to you. [00:40:01] It feels risky to everybody else, but doesn’t feel risky to you. So when you’re focusing on skills to get focus on the skills that will separate you from the pack, and sales is definitely a big area there. So if you’re the person that’s taking the risk to own the company, or the risk to get out there in front of people and have rejection, after rejection, after rejection, you’re gonna get paid higher. [00:40:20] ’cause nobody wants to do that. And that’s true at every level. And not just financial planning. Any, any business. [00:40:26] OG: Yeah. That’s what I was gonna say, and that’s what I meant to say was it’s true at every, in every organization I was talking to some attorney friends of mine, they were talking about how it, it didn’t seem fair that the big time partners didn’t really do law anymore. [00:40:41] And I said, well, what, what’s not fair about it? And they said, well, you know, they’re, they’re all playing golf and going to dinner and stuff like that, and they make millions of dollars. Like, that’s ridiculous. And I said, but that’s their job. Now, their job is bringing in the business to make sure all the firm has business to do. [00:40:58] If they didn’t exist, if, if they just said, okay, my, my job is to write this contract for a thousand an hour, instead of getting new business that’s gonna get us 10 lawyers worth of work for a thousand an hour for an entire year, then they’d have one. You know, they’d pay for themselves. They wouldn’t pay for you. [00:41:15] So there would be no job, there would be, without entrepreneurs, there would be no, there would be no jobs for everybody else. So, yeah, that’s true in every organization. In his business. He said he is in it. Right? IT sales or whatever. Yeah. And there’s a person out there whose job it is, is to walk into offices and go like, Hey, we’ve got this cool product. [00:41:35] We think it would be helpful for your business. And the guy goes get bent and slams the door in his face and he goes to the next one. Right. That dude, if he’s successful or that gal, if she’s successful slays, it makes a bunch of money, but that money is what makes it so that all the engineers have work. [00:41:50] That’s not to say being a backstage, CFP isn’t lucrative. It can be very lucrative. You know? It’s a six figure job for sure. [00:41:57] Joe: Yeah. [00:41:58] OG: It’s not a seven figure job. All seven figure jobs, in my opinion, revolve around sales and marketing, you know, or executive leadership. [00:42:06] Joe: Yeah. The only lesson that I got out of the whole cold calling thing, and I wouldn’t advise people to take that route, [00:42:13] OG: I don’t really think it’s a thing anymore. [00:42:15] Joe: Yeah. I just don’t know that. And even if it was, I don’t know that you need that type of rejection, but there was an important, [00:42:20] OG: you don’t need your head smashed in [00:42:21] Joe: that often. Yes. But I will say this, I learned very quickly the importance of activity. Yeah. The importance of setting a, a high rate of speed. [00:42:31] Mm-hmm. And speed is important in any business, certainly in financial planning, right? You’re helping a bunch of people with their money. And if you can touch a few more people and help a few more people get where they want to go, you’re gonna get what you want. And the biggest problem that I saw when I was an advisor that I believe still exists today, is when somebody is failing in the industry, it is a speed problem. [00:42:52] Yeah. It’s the fact that you haven’t set a high enough cadence. You think that because of the fact that this job can be flexible, that that means you don’t have to work. Flexible means that you’re working at seven 30 at night when other people aren’t. That’s what flexible means. [00:43:05] OG: There’s a CFP board commercial that went all over the waves, uh, in this fall. [00:43:13] And it really peed off a lot of CFP pros. ’cause, ’cause it showed like these kids, you know, and I say kids loosely, 20 year olds, you know, like going, oh, you know, you haven’t figured out what you wanna do for college, be a CFP. And it’s like they’re laying on the couch and all this sort of stuff and there’s a pretty big uproar over, over like, whoa, whoa, whoa. [00:43:30] Wait a second. That’s not what we do. It’s not like you lay on the couch all day, like, what are you talking about? And what they were trying to go for was the flexibility of, hey, during the day you might be able to go have a long lunch, but that’s because you’re gonna be meeting clients from four till seven. [00:43:43] You know, that’s, that’s your schedule. But they, they missed the mark on the advertising. They backtracked pretty quickly. This is a great business and I don’t think it’s going anywhere anytime soon. [00:43:53] Joe: Well there’s tons of, not only that og there are tons of opportunities right now. [00:43:57] OG: Yeah. The other thing I would say is the new way of thinking about this, our way Joe, of doing it was literally cold calling. [00:44:05] Right. We had some support from American Express. Here’s some leads, here’s some people to call, but a lot of it was on your own. I think that the people that I see that are young and successful now lean into the thing that excites them the most. Jim might say like, Hey, my whole life has been in IT consulting, right? [00:44:25] And everybody I talk to screws up their money in IT consulting. Well, guess what? If you’re gonna go start a a financial planning firm, guess who your clients should be, bro. Yeah. Be the IT consulting, like be the insider of how to help it. Consulting people between the ages of 27 and 40 who have our, you know what I mean? [00:44:44] Like, like all the problems that you have or the issues that you see in your community with money be that resource. It doesn’t take, you’re not, you don’t necessarily have to build a firm that serves 10,000 people to be successful. You could have a firm that has 50 people or 70 people, or 150 people. I mean, some organizations, some big companies have that many people just sitting on one floor of people. [00:45:07] You know, like I’ll just get those people as clients. I’m good. Those are all my friends. They’d all hire me. You know what I mean? So the people that I see that are successful really nowadays, really, really, really lean into one specific problem or group of people that they can serve the best. They really [00:45:23] Joe: niche down. [00:45:24] OG: They do, and, and Esue all the rest of it. Like I know I can go help the 50-year-old widow who just had an issue and like I, I have the expertise to do that, but my people are these people and I’m gonna take that person and I’m gonna give ’em a lot of love and I’m gonna say, Hey, go work with this other firm who works with that. [00:45:42] Joe: Well, really in principle, it’s the same logic chain as we gave Ashley in the first half of the show with that Facebook reel about hiring your parents. Right. Okay, I can hire my parent, but is that truly gonna give me the biggest ROI for the time I’m gonna spend setting all this thing up? Is it really, really gonna help people a bunch? [00:46:01] OG: So it’s doable. Uh, the thing I would say from a transition standpoint would be work on the education while you’re still employed. Because if you can’t, if you’re not used to doing 60 hour weeks right now, you’re about to. So you might as well spend those other 20 hours studying work, your regular job, get your certifications and the things that you need to do depending on which direction you go while you have employment. [00:46:26] And then recognize you first three-ish, five-ish years are not the best years. That’s not the, Hey, I make a bunch of money and I get to take a bunch of time off. Like, those are the sucky years of building the business or getting your foot in the door or whatever the case may be. So account for that. And probably also with compensation by the way. [00:46:46] So account for that by making sure that your emergency fund is good. Making sure that you paid off your consumer debt, making sure that your living expenses are in check, and if you need to have extra resources available to fund your lifestyle, because you’re gonna take two steps back in income. Plan for that. [00:47:01] Now, don’t show up at the door and go, Hey, I quit my sweet ass tech consulting job where I was making a bunch of money and now I’m gonna be a financial planner. Make 30 grand my first year, and now I go into debt. Use the resources that you have. If that means, hey, I gotta work an extra two years over here to save the money, to kind of bridge that gap, that’s a powerful position to be in because then that gives you the ability to do that stuff that we’re talking about. [00:47:24] Yeah, like be specific. Really make sure that your message is clear. Only work with people that fit your specialty, you know what I mean? Like that sort of thing. And you can do that because you have a safety net of, of living expenses or whatever the case may be. So. [00:47:38] Joe: Jim, good luck. It is a great career to get involved in. [00:47:42] As OG mentioned, there is a moat to swim, but you can do it. [00:47:45] OG: There’s not enough people here. Yeah. Yeah. [00:47:47] Joe: Need a ton, ton, ton of people. There’s a big, wide world of people looking for good advice. So, and if you’re a stacker already, we know you like good advice. So there you go. It’s already on board. Uh, if you’ve got a question again for og, head to Stacking Benjamins dot com slash voicemail. [00:48:03] And that is the hookup for us to, uh, answer your question on our Wild Wednesday potpourri episodes. And as we begin winding this up, we always, uh, exit the basement, wander out onto the back porch for a little, sit on the rocking chairs and watch the sunset on yet another Stacky Benjamin Show. Doug, what are we chatting about on the back porch today? [00:48:25] Joe, now that we’re out [00:48:26] Doug: on the back porch, we’re drinking some cocktails. I want to, uh. No. Are we? Is that not? Am I? Am I the only one drinking? You’re drinking coffee at seven o’clock in the morning, man. What are you doing? It’s that late in the day. Yeah, I’m drinking. [00:48:40] Joe: It’s got, [00:48:41] Doug: if you’re not drunk by 7:00 AM when will you be? [00:48:44] You? You’ve totally wasted your day. But look, let’s talk about a great comment we saw in the basement. Love it. When people join in the basement and add to our community. That’s our Facebook [00:48:54] Joe: group, by the [00:48:54] Doug: way. [00:48:55] Joe: Yeah. If you’re on Facebook, just go to put in Stacking Benjamin’s basement and uh, we will. We’ll have, uh, Gertrude to prove you. [00:49:01] Doug: Yeah. Don’t show up here and scream down into the basement. Hey, your comments like, throw memes down the stairs at us. We’ll not have it. I think you interpreted that wrong stacker. But if you go to the Facebook and join the basement, uh, you could chime in all you want. And, uh, Matthew Jacobs left us a really nice note. [00:49:24] Uh, he said, I’ve been listening to the podcast since 2018 when there were only two listeners who didn’t learn anything and the podcast well, and, [00:49:31] Joe: and, and now, by the way, Matthew is that mysterious third listener we’ve been looking for for a long time. We figured [00:49:36] Doug: it out, and apparently the podcast was always for the win. [00:49:40] Joe: Yes. [00:49:40] Doug: Growth for the win. Something for the win. Yeah. I don’t know where you’ve been, Matthew. I think Joe said that this week. Did I? So it, yes. If not this week, then last week. I know you did. Anyway, when I started listening, I had a negative net worth. Not me, Matthew. Uh, and one of the most meaningful pieces of advice was OGs advice on saving into a Roth. [00:50:02] IRA sweet, I believe. Yeah. I believe he usually talks about how he looks back and asks himself. I didn’t have any extra cash to put in. I’ve implemented that in my life. I probably didn’t get the attitude right the way OG says it, but that’s the sentiment. I’ve implemented that in my life by automating my savings bills and church donations, I figured sweet. [00:50:21] If I rely on memory, I’ll forget or something else will come up. In 2025, I plan on attempting Paul’s 1% increase each quarter for 401k savings. My advice for any new stackers would be automate, automate. Automate. I can’t thank all of you enough for the impact you’ve had on my life. Semper Phi og. Oh, that’s great. [00:50:42] Joe: Rah Matthew. It’s funny, it’s almost like we planned this and we truly did not. Uh, last Friday, if you missed last Friday’s episode, it was all about the importance of automation. And how to nail the automation game. So go back and give that a listen because there’s a lot of great tips on what to automate, what to think twice before you automate how to, how to make sure you check your math when you’re automating A lot of big stuff there. [00:51:08] Doug: There was a great trivia about automation. [00:51:11] Joe: There [00:51:11] Doug: was, I forget that one. Yes. [00:51:13] Joe: And, uh, and, and how the heck did Paula win? Also, for those of you that are new here, we, we have some guides who are about to roll out a tax guide. In fact, that’s what I spent most of my week working on this week. We’ll have an announcement about that soon. [00:51:26] So if you’re going to be doing your taxes in March or April, we will have a guide for that. But right now we have a guide to your benefits that’s out. And the deal with our guides is that we improve these every month. We tweak them, make them more useful, add things in. And for January, we finished this a couple weeks ago, but I forgot to say anything about it. [00:51:49] We have five more resources and moms monster resource list so you can dig into learning more about how your different benefits programs work and how important. Or not important, different areas of your benefits are. We’ve mostly though, for January we rearranged sections to make the guide just flow better. [00:52:06] It’s been a ton of work under the hood, but the result is if you’re new to the guide, it just flows better and you’re able to get into to your benefits. Understand what you need to know. Get rid of the stuff where you don’t need to spend flex dollars or no thank you to these benefits and you’re gonna be better off stacker. [00:52:22] Mark, as an example, pointed out that our section’s all set at the bottom, what you should ask HR at the bottom, this big headline, what you should ask and mark’s like, do people really need to ask all those questions? ’cause you’re gonna bother the hell outta your HR people. And we went, you know what? So we took this, what you should ask and we made it. [00:52:40] What do you truly need to know? And if you don’t, then you need to ask HR about these specific things. ’cause these are the important points. So tweaks like that, a ton of them. If you have the guide, you can go back in and download the newest version. If you don’t have the guide yet, it’s a lifetime subscription. [00:52:57] Stacky Benjamins dot com slash benefits gets you into our benefits guide. So that’s what’s going on here on the back porch. Doug, the last thing though, where we always finish on the back porch is this big thanks to everybody for hanging out with us coming up on Friday. I love all the different guests we have on, but Sarah Catherine Gutierrez, who teaches financial planning to people in the Little Rock area right up the road from us here, Sarah Catherine Gutierrez joins Len Penso and Jesse Kramer talking about Valentine’s Day relationships and your money. [00:53:32] It’s a big Valentine’s Day themed episode. And you know what? Even if you’re not in a romantic relationship, like Shauna talked about on Monday, relationship, your money’s all about relationships. So we’re gonna chat about that on Friday. We always end this segment though by asking Doug, what are the three biggest things that should be on our to-do list today, man? [00:53:52] Doug: Well, Joe, first take some advice from our headline is Some company or salesperson Offering you a product that reduces risk. It’s probably better to invest in a straightforward product with a lower risk profile or understand investing a little more volatility can actually work in your favor if you’re diversified and looking long term. [00:54:13] Second, hiring relatives. Eh, it can work, but there’s more to it than you might think. Adding payroll to the mix can be a royal pain and are they actually doing any real work for you? But the big lesson, it’s probably best not to ask Joe’s mom if she’s a fan of the art world. Let’s just say that the words velvet and Elvis, coupled with a purring sound have been known to come out of her mouth. [00:54:40] Joe: Gotta make the puring sound. Ah. Oh [00:54:44] Doug: boy. [00:54:47] This show is the Property of SP podcasts, LLC, copyright 2025, and is created by Joe Saul-Sehy. Joe gets some 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. [00:55:08] Come say hello. Oh yeah, and before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don’t take advice from people you don’t know. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I’m Joe’s Mom’s neighbor, Duggan. We’ll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show. [00:56:23] aftershow: Welcome to the after [00:56:24] Joe: show. This is the part of the show that, uh, doesn’t exist. If you’re here for just Money Talk. That show has, that ship has sailed, as they say. By the way, I got a brand new game that I’m trying out with Cheryl and I called Sail. Look at how pretty that artwork is. That’s pretty, it’s a two player cooperative trick taking game. [00:56:44] I don’t know how that works. So we’re gonna try that out. Uh, later on this week, maybe This is our Valentine’s Day. [00:56:51] Doug: Oh, settle down big fella. I know. I’m [00:56:54] Joe: whoa, whoa, whoa. So romantic. [00:56:57] Doug: She’ll be like, oh, really? Cheryl? I got my silk thong on and I got the board game ready. It’s like that [00:57:06] Joe: Doug, you know, flight of the Concords, og, you know, flight of the Concords. [00:57:11] And, and [00:57:12] Doug: it’s a, it’s a show. It’s, [00:57:13] Joe: and it was a comedy group from New Zealand, uh, masquerading as a musical act. One of their songs is called Business Time. And she says, wait a minute, that’s it. And he goes, yeah, baby. I know what you’re saying. Yeah, that’s it. [00:57:29] It’s just changing. The emphasis changes everything. Hey guys, I finally went and saw it. We had trivia about this a week ago, about this particular thing, but I finally saw this thing that’s been out in movie theaters and is up for a ton of awards. It’s, uh, two and a half hours long at the theater. Well, I’m gonna play the trailer and I think you’ll be able to. [00:57:49] Guess. [00:57:50] Doug: Oh, I hope it’s all just sound effects and no dialogue. [00:57:53] Joe: Like the one [00:57:54] tiktok: last week. Welcome new students to SHIs University [00:58:02] where you can expect the unexpected. You’re green. [00:58:09] aftershow: I’m [00:58:11] tiktok: Miss Alphabet. You can room with Miss Glinda. Ah, [00:58:17] trailer: oh, I saved you some space. By the way, do really think this is fair? I do not. I was promised a private suite. But thanks for asking. [00:58:25] bit: You may have noticed that I’m one of the last animal professors here at Sheds, but there was a time when life and ours was different. Someone needs to tell the wizard that the animals are in trouble. [00:58:38] That’s why we have a wizard. Because no one, but [00:58:44] because no one should be laughed at or scorned or told to keep fight. [00:58:52] Joe: So that is the voice of Alphabet in the movie production of OGs. Favorite musical play. Wicked, which came out last year. You know what kept me away from this guys? Two and a half hours. And, and also knowing that it’s only the first half, I was like, oh no, it’s the first half of anything that’s two and a half hours long. [00:59:13] And yet I’ll sit and Doug and I’ll binge American primeval like four episodes back to back. Mm-hmm. Four hours of that without even thinking about it. But the difference is, I’m not in a movie theater. I love going to the movie theater, and I’m not, uh, sitting there, you know, and if it’s an hour and a half in, I’m, I’m, I’m stuck. [00:59:30] So the question I think on my mind, probably on everybody else’s mind is, is that two and a half hours actually fun? Is it worth it? You know what? These performances are fantastic. The woman playing Alphabet, Cynthia Arvo, Ariana Grande, I, I think was amazing and captured Glinda. To the same degree that Kristen Chenowith did. [00:59:54] And I think Kristen Chenowith was amazing as Glinda the Good witch. Jeff Goldblum playing the same dude, by the way. He always plays, does [01:00:02] Doug: Jeff [01:00:02] Joe: Gold Act? Jeff’s [01:00:03] Doug: not an act, he’s not an actor. [01:00:05] Joe: I don’t think he is an actor, but he’s, they cast him perfectly or he knows how to pick the role ’cause him is the wizard. [01:00:11] This quirky dude is great. Michelle. Yo, by the way, it was funny, how long ago was Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon? If people haven’t seen that movie, that is a, just a phenomenal, phenomenal movie from her way, way, way, way, way back. But she’s such an amazing actor. Unfortunately, they have her sing. Cheryl leans over in the movie theater and goes, they had her, ’cause she’s such a badass actor. [01:00:37] It’s almost like Meryl Streen. What’s the, what’s the Abba movie? Mama Mia. Yeah. They’re like, oh man. Uh uh, uh, maybe not Peter Dinkle in’s movie. The Voice of Dr. Dillman, one of the last remaining animals who are professors there. And by the way, I also have to say Bowen Yang, who I absolutely love on Saturday Night Life. [01:00:58] I don’t know about you guys. I, I think he makes so many of the Saturday Night Live skits go from funny to unbelievably funny. He’s got kind of a bit part in this movie, but every time he shows up and he says stuff, he’s so damn funny. He’s so, so, so funny in this. So the parts are all there. Here’s the funny thing, I liked it. [01:01:20] I’ll definitely watch part two, but I didn’t, I, I found myself bored. I. I can’t tell you why. ’cause the movie’s really pretty. The songs are really well done. The acting’s really well done. But at like the hour and a half mark, I’m looking at my watch going, how soon until this is done. And I don’t know if it’s that I already knew what was coming, but if I’m like OG and I like Wicked and I like Wicked, I don’t like it as much as OG does. [01:01:44] But I like it enough that I should be looking forward to the rest of the songs and the rest of the stuff, and I’m not. I’m waiting to get outta the movie theater and this is gonna be my hot take. Was that a year ago I was on this microphone talking about a movie that was also a musical that not a ton of people went and watched called Wonka. [01:02:06] Same beautiful setup, same great acting, same great songs. That movie kind of came and went, right? I think people don’t even remember Wonka. People don’t even remember Wonka. I like Wonka better than this. I think Wonka was a better movie than Wicked was. Wonka wasn’t up for, I, I don’t know if it was up for any, uh, academy Awards, but if I’m going to see one musical, if I’m watching one musical, if I’m really into that, I’m gonna see Wonka before I see Wicked. [01:02:36] So that’s my take. Have you seen it in the theater? Og? Do you have any No. Desire to see it in the theater? [01:02:42] OG: No, not really. I think we’re gonna watch it this weekend ’cause Caroline likes it a lot. So I think, uh, we’re gonna have a little family kind of movie time. She’s gonna watch it at home. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:02:51] It’s, I mean, it’s already on Apple TV or whatever. She watched it with my, my mom, but yeah, she’s kind of infatuated with it, so, we’ll, we’ll watch it, but Dang, two and a half hours. I didn’t know that. I know you said [01:03:00] Joe: it’s only half. It’s not even the whole story. No, no. They end at the intermission. And the intermission is where she finds out what’s really going on. [01:03:08] I don’t wanna spoil it. And now she is going to become the quote Wicked Witch, right at the halfway point. [01:03:14] OG: Does it end on defying Gravity? Is that the It does. That’s where that ends there. Oh my [01:03:19] Doug: gosh. Now I know why I didn’t like the stage version. ’cause it was five hours long. It wasn’t though. It wasn’t, it felt like it, [01:03:26] Joe: yeah. [01:03:26] And I asked Cheryl, I’m like, what did they do here that they didn’t do in the movie? And just some of the scenes are more expanded Sure. Than they are, but they really didn’t add anything new. They just kind of developed the beauty of it even more. Something you can’t do in a play because of the restriction of the stage, they can really make these really lush backgrounds and they can expand upon the scene. [01:03:48] So, yeah, I, I don’t know that it made it better though. I think sometimes, you know, we had Don Hahan on a number of years ago, and Don was a Disney Imagineer who became the producer of shows like Beauty and the Beast and Lion King for Disney. And I really loved what he said, which is sometimes constraints are a good thing, you know? [01:04:08] OG: Yeah, I was just thinking about that when you said that. I, I was thinking when you were talking about the backgrounds and that sort of thing, and I thought, well, is, is that a good thing to have your ability to put so much emphasis on that versus the onstage production? You know, you gotta do what you gotta do, but you have the constraints and that puts that much more emphasis on the people, on the actors, right? [01:04:29] Or the actresses and the dialogue and that sort of thing, because you don’t have the crutch of the beautiful background to distract you. I don’t know. [01:04:37] Joe: By the way and great, uh, cameos At one point there’s a cameo song with the original stage actors Oh [01:04:45] OG: really? [01:04:46] Joe: Who come out and, and it really was fun. I was surprised. [01:04:48] I I didn’t see that coming. And when they came out, I laughed all the way through that song. I was like, this is really cool. [01:04:53] OG: Yeah, [01:04:54] Joe: yeah. So Wicked liked it, but, um, but Wonka was better. [01:04:59] OG: Can’t wait for the second half. I can’t wait. Joe will be in line. He’ll be in line. I can’t wait. Apparently coming out this fall, it’ll be at rope drop. [01:05:08] Joe: Oh, hey, you guys know though, a part two that I almost forgot about that I did see as one of the previews, by the way, two and a half hours of movie, half an hour previews beforehand. Right. Which, which just borders under, that’s your [01:05:19] OG: favorite. [01:05:19] Joe: A MC Stop telling me three times how awesome you are. Like, there are three commercials for a MC while I’m sitting in an a MC movie theater. [01:05:27] Not usually what I do, but I wasn’t at home when I saw this. So. A MC just really overdid. It drove me crazy. The preview I saw though, part two of the latest mission Impossible. I thought that I totally forgot that. That ended at the end of part one. Yep. Part one of the latest mission Impossible is really good. [01:05:44] I can’t wait for the part two. That’s gonna be fun. Doug, you’d like that? Did you see part one of, of the Mission Impossible latest show? [01:05:51] Doug: Uh, I don’t think I’ve seen any mission. Impossible start to finish. Oh, [01:05:55] Joe: so fun. So, so, so good. Highly recommend. And I was the guy that was like, I don’t wanna see Mission Impossible. [01:06:01] And when I saw the first one, I was, [01:06:03] Doug: maybe I have, I didn’t. None of them stuck in my memory. I’ll try it. [01:06:06] Joe: Yeah. Super stuff.
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