How much can you really spend in retirement without running out of money—or worse, running out of fun?
In this deeper-than-usual dive, Joe Saul-Sehy and OG examine the classic 4% retirement rule and whether it’s time for an upgrade. With new commentary from Bill Bengen, the original architect of the 4% rule, the team explores emerging research that suggests a withdrawal rate closer to 5.5% might be possible—if you’ve got the right mix of investments, a solid plan, and a bit of courage.
But we don’t stop there. Because with greater freedom comes greater risk (especially if you’re leading with vibes instead of strategy). The guys tackle the sequence of returns risk that can derail early retirement years, and how to build a portfolio that helps you sleep at night—even during a market storm.
Meanwhile, Doug drops in with an unexpected (and very British) culinary experience, Joe fields a listener question comparing financial plans to workout routines (is your Roth IRA doing enough reps?), and yes… we revisit our fan-favorite segment on how food waste is wrecking your budget.
- Why the 4% rule might be too conservative (or maybe just outdated).
- What diversified portfolios and asset class strategy have to do with a longer-lasting nest egg.
- How to prepare for market downturns before they happen—and what to do if you’re already in one.
- Why retirement joy isn’t just about spreadsheets—it’s about the psychology of spending with confidence.
- Which type of green tea is the superior kind (depending on which side of the TikTok aisle you’re on).
- How to reduce food waste and put that extra savings toward your bigger financial goals.
If you’re approaching retirement—or even just dreaming about it—understanding how much you can safely spend without sabotaging your future is the question. This episode combines historical insight with today’s market realities to give you the real math and mindset you need to retire well…and maybe even with a smile.
FULL SHOW NOTES: https://stackingbenjamins.com/problems-with-the-4-percent-rule-1702
Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.stackingbenjamins.com/201
Enjoy!
Our Headline
- The guy behind retirement’s 4% rule now thinks that’s way too low. Here’s how much more money you could spend. (MarketWatch)
Doug’s Trivia
- Back in 1997, Mike Tyson bit the ear off which boxer?
Better call Saul…Sehy & OG
- Stacker Tony called in with a roundabout way to ask us to explain why sequence of returns risk is most applicable to the beginning of your retirement.
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Other Mentions
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Written by: Kevin Bailey
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Episode transcript
[00:00:00] Joe: It’s Monday, and you know what that means? Happy non-specific time of day. Everyone glad you’re here. We had a conversation about, uh, robust, um. Awkward? Nope. Nope. Probably not gonna talk about it. [00:00:20] OG: No, [00:00:20] Joe: we didn’t have a conversation about anything of something [00:00:22] OG: else. Yeah, [00:00:23] Joe: we didn’t do anything. You know what we did have a conversation about though, was how much our troops mean to us and how they kept us safe all weekend while we were doing the non-specific thing that we are probably not gonna talk about. [00:00:34] Joe: So on behalf everybody raise your mugs no matter where you’re at. Come on. Unless you’re driving your car, they’re both hands on the wheel. On behalf of the men and women, make a podcast in mom’s basement and the men and women at Navy Federal Credit Union who serve our troops and our veterans. Here’s to those people who kept us safe and will continue to do so. [00:00:51] Joe: Thank you so much. Let’s go stack some Benjamins now this week, shall we? Thanks everybody. [00:00:56] >opener<: Let’s get it. The English contribution to world cuisine, the chip, what do the English usually eat with chips to make them more interesting? Wait a moment. It’s fish, isn’t it? Yeah. Boy, down the hatch. Ew. Avoid the green ones. [00:01:21] >opener<: They’re not ripe yet. [00:01:27] Doug: Live from Joe’s mom’s basement. It’s the Stacking Benjamin Show. [00:01:41] Doug: I’m Joe’s moms neighbor, Doug, and if you’ve been using rules of thumb for your budget and long range planning. Well, bad news stackers, the creator of one of those rules says it’s outdated and often used incorrectly, which rule of thumb we’ll share today and also help you replace it with a better strategy. [00:02:01] Doug: Plus we’ll answer a question from one stacker who thought, you know, I better call Saul. See hi in og. Tony wonders about sequence of returns risk and his workout routine. You’ve called the right guys. Tony, you’ve gotta hear the question to understand. It’s a doozy, and we’ll also jab an upper cut with a TikTok minute and a round of my trivia. [00:02:24] Doug: So good. It’ll make your head spin. And now two guys who know that. Market volatility is just a Wall Street nerds version of a rollercoaster. It’s Joe and o Jean. [00:02:42] Joe: It’s summer time for theme parks, but not with your money. Welcome to the Stacky Benjamin Show. Super happy you’re here. AM Joe Saul Sea. Hi. We are locked and ready to go for another fun week of podcasting, even though. It’s summer hours in the basement. I mean, we are, even though everybody’s juggling, none of us are actually here. [00:03:02] OG: Amazing. What AI can do these days. [00:03:04] Doug: This is all a figment of our imagination. [00:03:06] Joe: Every summer it’s like, uh, can you record today? No, I can’t record. Can you record it? No, I can’t record. No, I can’t record. So, uh, we are doing this, uh, at some, uh, undisclosed time in, in the, in the past. So if something big happened in the. [00:03:21] Joe: World markets today? I don’t think so. In the last month. No, I don’t think so. Who knows? No, probably not. No, no big deal. Everybody takes the summer off these other voices. You heard, you heard the voice of Doug earlier. How are you man, fan, fabulous, Joe. Fantastic. And Mr. OG is here. How are you buddy? [00:03:36] OG: I have nowhere near that level of uh, energy, but uh, I’m also present. [00:03:43] Joe: Well guess what? You are gonna have energy ’cause I know how much you like me. Despise just using Randall rules of thumb for your financial plan. I [00:03:50] OG: think I know what this is about. Actually. I kinda like [00:03:52] Joe: this one. Those rules that don’t fit anybody. Yeah, you. You’re the one that sent this to me and I thought, yes, that works. [00:03:57] Joe: Imagine there’s a good chance you might know what we’re gonna talk about. [00:04:00] Doug: Yeah. Different than the other 50 that I reject from og. This one actually made the, yeah, I’ve been on a roll lately. I’ve been feeding the machine for the last few months. I’ve been displaced, usurped. I don’t know how you got so many in a row, [00:04:14] OG: Don. [00:04:15] OG: I only usually send snuff about bonobo monkeys. They always get turned down. [00:04:21] Joe: That’s the important, really the important stuff. You know what else is important is that we keep this free for all of you stackers. So sit back for a couple minutes ’cause we’re gonna hear from a couple of those brands that make sure we can keep on keeping on You don’t pay a penny for any of this. [00:04:34] Joe: And after them we are diving into rules of thumb and one that the creator goes, my bad, he, he doesn’t [00:04:42] Doug: really say my bad. He’s like, might be a little different than we thought. You know, Joe, since it is summertime and everybody travels a lot in the summertime, would it be okay if we sent our listeners on a guilt trip? [00:04:52] Doug: On a guilt trip. Why? Because I know some of them are skipping past the ads. Oh, oh. I mean, come on, people. We do this three times a week. We’re putting entertainment in your ear holes. You can’t listen to like 90 seconds worth of ads just to help keep that coming. These brands that [00:05:11] Joe: support us so you don’t have to pay anything. [00:05:13] Doug: Yes. [00:05:15] Joe: Yes. And they’re good brands. They are, yeah. We have to prove we’re not charging you baggage fees. Yeah. Yeah. There is is an aside, somebody said that they heard like some, uh, holiday stuff in the middle of summer. There is a second level of advertisements that we don’t have as much con We have some, but not as much control over. [00:05:32] Joe: And that must have been what happened. ’cause I don’t know what was going on with them playing silent night or whatever. [00:05:36] Doug: In the middle of June. I think they thought that one of the, in, it was during our international episode, and they thought that one of the international songs was to the tune of a Christmas song. [00:05:46] Doug: Oh, that’s what I presumed they meant, [00:05:48] Joe: man. It was great getting all the, Steve getting his groove on over there during international Week. All right, uh, let’s hear from these guys. And then we are talking rules of thumb. Today’s headline comes to us from MarketWatch. This is written by the Jessica Hall, the As if I know Jessica Hall. [00:06:04] Joe: But we’ve, we’ve used Jessica’s stuff before and she writes great stuff, including this. She says, when Bill Bangin introduced the 4% rule way back in 1994, he had no idea it would take on a life of its own in scholarly debates, the media and public discourse. Now, after having what he calls an aha moment about three years ago, he’s revised his trademark rule to be. [00:06:27] Joe: More generous. In fact, even before we get into that og, you know, he has said, I’ve heard him in other interviews saying 4% rule has been used way more widely than he thought that it would. As an example, not anywhere near appropriate for people doing the fire movement stuff. Uh, if you’re gonna retire for a very long period of time, you know, 4% is not your number. [00:06:47] OG: Well, it’s all about margin of safety and it really just depends on how close you are to being able to, to pull that off. I mean, if you’re. If you’ve got a million bucks and 40,000 is your number, and if you spend 38, 5, you’re living destitute, and if you know, and, but you only have a million, like you’re, you’re gonna have to manage that a lot closer to what’s really happening in the markets versus if you have. [00:07:13] OG: $4 million in your spend is 80,000. If it’s 80, if it’s 90, if it’s 1 25, if one year it’s 200, you have a lot more margin of safety to play with than if your lips are just above water when you get to retirement. [00:07:27] Joe: Let’s, I just realized two og, we should define exactly what we’re talking about. You alluded to most of it, but let’s just be right down Main Street clear. [00:07:35] Joe: What the hell does a 4% rule mean anyway? Like 4% of what? Doing what? Huh? [00:07:40] OG: Well, what he said in his article in the early nineties in the Journal of Financial Planning was if you retired and you withdrew 4% of the balance every year, plus inflation. So if you had a million dollars in year one, you took 40,000. [00:07:56] OG: In year two, you took 40,000 plus inflation. In year three, you took that number plus inflation, that you have a reasonable expectation that your money will last 30 years. And he looked over, you know, this was written in the 1990s, so the history of the investing world ended in 1994, right? Like when he wrote it. [00:08:15] OG: Now since then, there’s been another 31 years of investing history, which has helped. But his whole thesis was. The average retirement for a two person retirement is 25 years at the time. If you retire when you’re 65, 1 of those people live to be 90. Generally, what’s the likelihood of you not outliving your money? [00:08:35] OG: And if you kept it at 4% plus inflation, you should be fine. Of course, what he’s finding, what he talks about here is it might be a little too conservative actually. [00:08:45] Joe: Yeah. Which is gonna be great news for everybody. But before we get there. What’s his assumption on the 4% rule that your portfolio is gonna be? [00:08:51] Joe: Is it like 60% stocks, 40% bonds? I remember it was fairly conservative. [00:08:55] OG: Yeah, that’s a good question. It’s basically assuming somewhere between 50 50 and 75 25, if you’re thinking about stock bond allocation and really kind of assuming from an investment return perspective, about 7% for stocks after inflation, two to 3% of fixed income returns. [00:09:12] OG: After inflation. And then, you know, like I said, adding inflation for those distributions and that number that they used was 3%. So assuming a 3% inflation rate, you know, over time. So anytime that you end up with more or less of those things, right? If you have higher inflation, then you’re gonna have some issues, or if you have higher or lower investment returns over over long periods of time. [00:09:34] OG: You have some issues. [00:09:35] Joe: Yeah. And the reason why, for me, the 4% rule is not so much a rule as kind of a starting guideline is because some people are gonna need higher returns in their portfolio. Some people can afford to be more conservative. Some people are looking at retiring for a longer period of time. [00:09:50] Joe: Some people are working or have other avenues of income so they don’t need to tap it as much. So four percent’s, not even frankly a rule as much as just, uh, starting. Post, I think for, for a lot of people. Here’s how it’s changed. Bangin says, I remember it so clearly. I was sitting at this very desk I’m at now. [00:10:11] Joe: I said to myself, wait a minute, I’ve been putting stock returns first. I. What if I put inflation as the most important thing? Well, the minute I did that, it fell together. Years of failure just evaporated in just a few minutes. It was one of the most remarkable moments of my life. Bengan said that moment was the birth of a new, more generous 4.7% rule. [00:10:30] Joe: So now he’s looking, oh gee, that rolls [00:10:32] OG: right off the tongue, doesn’t it? [00:10:33] Joe: That’s not gonna sell a lot of books. The old four points. Seven. And the math is [00:10:36] OG: so easy. Who wants to be able to just take your portfolio and multiply by 25 or, or your income multiply by 25, or your portfolio and. Divide by 25 or multiply by 4%. [00:10:46] OG: No, no, no, no, no. This is much easier. And now [00:10:49] Joe: Doug’s learning, while the average person has four and a half kids, and mom calls Doug the old half. Yeah, [00:10:55] Doug: exactly. [00:10:55] Joe: I’m 0.7 on a good day. Well, the good news is though, if you’ve got a million dollar saved, right? You’ve done a decent job of saving for retirement, og, you’re better than a lot of people. [00:11:04] Joe: And you used to think you could withdraw $40,000 a year. I mean, that’s that, that 0.7, 47,000 is materially different. Yeah. Than 40,000. That’s a big difference. [00:11:16] OG: It really is. It’s almost 20% more from a cashflow standpoint, and the real answer is obviously it’s gonna be dependent on what’s really going on in the markets and with your portfolio. [00:11:27] OG: I think the other thing that that helped with this was, like I said before, first. All the other data was ending in the 1990s, and now we have another 30 years worth of market data, another 30 years of international investing data, another 30 years of inflationary data. You know, it’s just helping to build the model. [00:11:45] OG: Uh, now we have a hundred years of reliable market data. And then I think one of the other points was he started adding different asset classes. Before it was just generic. Yeah. I wanna jump into that next. You’re, you’re going right where I’m headed. Yeah. It was just a generic stock bond mix. And now he’s saying, well, wait a second. [00:11:57] OG: We know that. Different asset classes perform differently. And if we add that, that layer of diversification, does that help? [00:12:04] Joe: Yeah, this is wild. He jumped into not just large company stocks, but mid caps, small caps, micro caps, international stocks, intermediate term, US government bonds and treasury bills. [00:12:14] Joe: And that’s what lifted a 4.7. So then he kept fiddling, it said, and he found, he added even more asset classes, gold, commodities, real estate, emerging markets. Guess what happened then? It didn’t matter. It didn’t, it didn’t make much of a difference, which is why it’s funny, OG like people think, you know, we’ve had this question before, right? [00:12:34] Joe: I gotta get more esoteric. I gotta get more funky. I gotta, there’s something in here that I gotta do. When he went from the straightforward, classic all time asset classes to funkier, weirder stuff that’s on the edge. Didn’t change the outcome much. [00:12:52] OG: Yeah, I mean, there’s a diminishing return, right? You have to assume that there’s some benefit to diversification. [00:12:58] OG: This is the Paul Merriman thing, and I think layering these two things together make a lot of sense. If you say, well, I’m only gonna invest in the s and p, it’s like, you’re gonna do great. That’s fantastic. But if you add a little bit of value to your portfolio, you’ll do a little bit better. But if you add a little bit of small companies to it. [00:13:18] OG: You do a little bit better, but if you add a little bit of small company value, you’d do a little bit better, but. If you had a little international, you’d do a little bit better. When you look at those things individually, you say, Ladi da, what’s, we are joking. We say, well, what’s the difference between 4% and 4.7? [00:13:34] OG: In the grand scheme of things, a lot. Well, A, it’s 20. It’s almost 20% more a year. Yeah. Multiple. I buy 30 years of. Distribution, like it’s a big number. That 1% is a huge, it’s a lot more living. It’s a big difference, especially for people that are on the fringe. And I think, and by fringe I mean like you, you’ve saved enough, just enough to make it work. [00:13:52] OG: Like the math just works for you. And I think really what this goes to prove, I think more than anything is that it’s not gonna be a set it and forget it thing. You can’t. You can do this, right? Like you could say, I’m gonna retire. I have a million dollars. I’m gonna take $40,000 a year. Every year. I’m gonna check what the CPI says is inflation. [00:14:10] OG: I’m gonna add my distribution plus a little inflation. That’s gonna be what I live on. I’m gonna budget my life to that. I’m gonna get a little social security, maybe a little pension. That’s my life. But the risk that you run, and this is what he kind of alludes to, is that you die with 3 million bucks. [00:14:23] OG: You live, you have some life unlived that you could have done, given away, donated, enjoyed, done whatever, blown on Ferraris. Who cares? Like you could have done something with that money instead. You know, now you’ve. Got this extra that you don’t necessarily need to have extra for. [00:14:40] Joe: Yeah. You saved [00:14:41] OG: it for a rainy day, [00:14:42] Joe: that was never gonna [00:14:42] OG: happen. [00:14:43] OG: Yeah. And once you get past that, and the example that I think about here, and especially as we’re in the summertime, I. Is, you know, people go to the beach. You guys have been to the beach. You know, I’m thinking about like the ocean beach, not, you know, Doug’s little lake beach thing that he calls a beach. [00:14:56] Joe: Oh, lake [00:14:57] OG: Michigan is, [00:14:57] Joe: is that a lake or a large pot? [00:14:58] OG: I’m talking about the one in your backyard, the one that you fill with water every so often. You’re like, look guys, I’ve got a lake. Or like, it’s just a puddle, but okay. [00:15:05] Doug: Right. He’s got the rubber duckies in there with him. He’s got a [00:15:07] OG: little boat. He floats his little boat in there. [00:15:09] OG: He is like, it’s got boating on it. [00:15:10] Doug: You guys having fun? Is this good for you? Yes. Enjoying this. It’s very good. [00:15:14] OG: Okay. This is actually, I could go on for a little bit on this. I feel, I feel like there’s a little bit more to unpack. There’s some mommy issues in there somewhere. But anyways, [00:15:21] Doug: um, [00:15:24] OG: always circles back to Doug’s mom somehow. [00:15:27] OG: But anyway, so, you know, you think about being at the beach and you’re standing there and you guys have all done this. We’ve all done it. We’re, you know, you, you get in the water, you’re in the water up to your waist and. You get hit by a wave, right? You know, and it’s kind of fun ’cause your back’s to it, or maybe you don’t know it’s coming. [00:15:41] OG: And boosh, you get knocked over and that’s a whatever, a two foot wave or something, right? You just get your ass kicked, you’re just standing there. But if you go out, you swim out a little bit further. Just a little bit maybe to where the ropes are. It’s a little deeper so you gotta tread some water or you on those little floaty things. [00:15:59] OG: Those are the same waves. It’s the same waves just, but since you’re out a little bit further, it’s a little bit smoother of an experience. The same thing is true with your money. If you’re just right at the buzzer with money, like, I got a million bucks and I can spend 40,000, every time a wave hits you, it’s gonna, you know. [00:16:17] OG: But if all of a sudden that million through, maybe luck, if you invest it correctly or good timing, just sheer. Fortune. Now that million is now 1,000,005 and you’re still living on a 40, 45,000, you’re, you’re out past the surf zone. You’re not getting your face kicked in anymore. That’s the difference I think between that four and 4.7. [00:16:37] OG: You have the ability to adjust your cash flow to what’s going on in real life, and you can adjust it upward. I think is the moral of this story is that people are probably a little more conservative than they need to be. But you have to be okay with adjusting it. You can’t pin it at five and go, well, Willie says I can do four and a half, so I’m gonna do five. [00:16:56] OG: My buddy Willie Yolo. You could start with five. I think that’d be fine, but you have to be okay with dropping it down to four if there’s circumstances that affect it, right? There’s high inflation or low investment returns for a period of time. You have to be able to float between those, and that kind of gets into that guardrail type thing that we see more and more of now, as opposed to just a straight line of. [00:17:17] Joe: Distribution. What you mean guardrails? You got these limits on either side. Yeah. And you’re just gonna, if you hit the bumper, if the portfolio [00:17:22] OG: does this, then I have a little bit more flexibility on this side. If, if the market portfolio does this I see. Then I gotta tighten a little bit. Yeah. Kinda like what you talked about with Paul Merriman’s example of we either go to Europe for a vacation or we go to Seattle for vacation stay in the [00:17:35] Joe: Pacific Northwest where little out [00:17:37] OG: it’s, it’s still vacation. [00:17:38] OG: Yeah. But sometimes I’m eating cross malls. Sometimes I’m not, [00:17:42] Joe: and that’s also OGY. I just don’t like starting here at all. Like, people like, okay, what’s my safest withdrawal rate? Well, to your point, if we swim all the way to the edge and we’re gonna, we’re gonna get knocked around, we’re gonna worry all the time. [00:17:53] Joe: So if I’m ringing every dollar outta my retirement mm-hmm. That’s bad. Don’t get me wrong. I like this as a mental exercise. I like doing the math and going, am I gonna be okay? Is that fine? So figuring out what that, it’s a good starting point. Yeah. Figuring out what that number could be. Well, I actually think it’s number two. [00:18:09] Joe: Yeah, if you’re just, you know, you got 20 minutes to kill, you wanna do some back of the envelope stuff, but truly for me, the place to start is what brings me joy. What are the things I want to do in addition to my base living expenses and can I make that work? Is that below 4.7? If it’s below 4.7, then great. [00:18:29] Joe: If it’s right at 4.7, I actually do OG have more good news from Bangin because he says. Although you can call it a 4% rule, it’s for ultraconservative people if they wanted it to be at the safest it’s ever been in history. He said for most people, they’ll end up with a lot of money and probably a lot of regrets. [00:18:51] Joe: If you stop at 4.7. He’s actually even saying, oh gee, that you can go even higher than that. So he looked at, if you stopped working in October, 1968, which during uh. The modern era has been the worst period of the stock market. In fact, we, we did a whole long great look at the history of the stock market on a round table recently. [00:19:13] Joe: I’ll link to that in the show notes. ’cause what a fun episode, if you missed it, just going back through all of these different spots. So if somebody stopped working at one of these absolutely horrible spots, then you faced a bear market and high inflation and you wanted to not outlive your money for 30 years. [00:19:30] Joe: 4.7 was your lowest safety, or excuse me, was Yeah. The lowest amount somebody took out. Barely made it, meaning 4.7% is his ultra conservative safe withdrawal. It’s still conservative. [00:19:46] Doug: Even that’s [00:19:46] Joe: conservative. You could go higher. Most people could go higher. He says, given today’s financial environment, he sees inflation is fairly reasonable, but stock market valuations is very high. [00:19:56] Joe: He advises in this economy a retirees stopping in this economy stopping work today. In this economy, anybody who stops working today would draw between five and a quarter percent wow to 5.5, which means guys that if you save that, say million dollars, guys we’ve been talking about, he’s now taken 40,000 to 47,000. [00:20:20] Joe: If you wanna be ultra, ultra, ultra, ultra conservative, but his real numbers. 52,500 or 55,000. Oh gee. He’s looking at somebody starting today, taking out $15,000 more than he was saying just a few years ago. Yeah. This is phenomenal news for a lot of people. And by the way, that’s 30 years. If you’re looking longer than that, he’s still cautions people. [00:20:44] Joe: You’re playing a different game if you’re trying to make your money last 40, 50 years. [00:20:48] OG: I mean, ultimately this is where you have to build your own retirement plan about what’s going on in your own world, because at the end of the day, those are wildly different numbers, right? 40,000, 55,000, and everywhere in between. [00:21:01] OG: That’s a material difference in experience in. Life, whatever that looks like. The [00:21:08] Joe: next line here, guys, just cracks me up. He says, we’re nowhere near the dire economic straits we saw in 1970s, which caused that 4.7% rule. I hope we never see it again. Those were awful times, but he’s saying, mm-hmm. If you wanna be ultra, ultra conservative, 47 Bengan says he knows people will pick apart the new rule of thumb. [00:21:27] Joe: His original 4% rule prompted a death threat, he said. God threatens to kill somebody. He’s doing math. [00:21:36] Doug: I hate math. Here’s here, I’m gonna be contrarian here. Or at least the, the voice of reason. I think we all need to be really suspicious of old bill banging because I mean, we, you didn’t hear from him for so long. [00:21:48] Doug: I think he needed to make himself relevant again, I think he just needed to sell some more books, get in a few more interviews, M-S-N-B-C or something like, oh, how can I, what can I do to really. Things [00:21:58] Joe: up. I’m feeling a little lonely. He said this in his back pocket the whole time. He’s like, oh, wait for the next one. [00:22:03] Joe: Oh wait, I got a long-term plan. [00:22:04] Doug: You think Salmon Rushie is under death threats? I’m gonna light it up with this 4.7 [00:22:10] Joe: thing. I’m finally gonna get Good Morning America with this one. It’s about time I can’t wait. I wanna be in the grocery store and people go, wait, are you bill banging? Yeah, he says he followed his own advice. [00:22:21] Joe: By the way, when he retired in 2013, his research called for four and a half is the worst case scenario. And he says, turns out it could have taken out more. So good stuff. Uh, we will link to this. Again, not the place to start, but certainly I think whatever, use a rule of thumb, I. You’re asking for it, start off with your own financial plan. [00:22:38] Joe: We’re gonna dive more into good financial planning basics like we do every week on the 2 0 1. That’s our newsletter that also comes free to you, Kevin Bailey Curates the best of the best. It’s generally around the same topics that we’re exploring that week on the podcast. Always free. Once a week, stacky Benjamins dot com slash 2 0 1 gets you subscribed. [00:22:58] Joe: Of course, that also is the way that we keep in touch whenever we go around the country and we’ve got special stuff going on, or YouTube event, whatever it might be. So stacky Benjamins dot com slash 2 0 1. Coming up in the second half of this, we’ve got the TikTok minute. We kind of, we got a great, great call from a stacker, but before that. [00:23:17] Joe: Bada boom. Bada bing. Doug’s got today’s trivia. It’s the reason everybody’s [00:23:21] Doug: here. Joe. Hey Stackers. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and just imagine you retire using the 4% rule only to find out too late that you could have sprung for that second round of drinks at that really expensive place you splurged on. [00:23:35] Doug: Luckily, you were listening to today’s show, huh? Crisis Averted. Feel free to walk into a bar here in Texarkana and scream next round’s on me. Just give us some heads up before you do that. Seriously, I’m not sure which would be more painful, not enjoying the money I’d saved up my whole life or having my ear bitten off. [00:23:53] Doug: That’s what happened to one victim of today’s birthday, boy, Mike Tyson. Tyson made tons of Benjamins over his career, but apparently couldn’t afford dinner because in the boxing ring back in 1997, mighty Mike bit, the ear off of. What boxer? I’ll be back right after. I try to figure out whether jumbo shrimp start off big and, and then shrink or sit the other way around. [00:24:23] Doug: Hey there stackers. I’m jumbo shrimp lover, and the guy who’s always wondering if it’s Istanbul or Constantinople, Joe’s mom’s neighbor Duck. Mike Tyson apparently showed up hungry to the boxing ring in 1997 when he bit off the ear of another famous fighter. While Iron Mike’s payday was huge, given that it was the first pay-per-view fight to gross over a hundred million dollars, apparently one of the greatest boxers of all time still thought that wasn’t enough to buy dinner. [00:24:52] Doug: What fighter was Tyson’s Appetizer. Oh my God, that’s just funny. Yum. [00:24:59] Joe: You [00:25:00] Doug: know what I need? [00:25:03] Doug: Like I’d, I’d like to be walking to the fridge right now, but I got this guy standing in front of me. Oh look, I think goodbye two birds. I know. Who needs to wait for the end of the round in that bell to ring? If you said, if Vander Holyfield, you’d be correct. And now two guys who’ve taken off the gloves and they’re ready for your question. [00:25:26] Doug: It’s back to Joe and og. [00:25:29] Joe: Alright, time for our second half segments. Would like to lead off today with our TikTok Minute. This is the part of the show We, we shine a light on a TikTok creator who’s either making some brilliance or making something that may be air quote. Brilliant. Which one Doug, you think we got today? [00:25:46] Doug: I think this one’s a scientific breakthrough. I mean, this one will change the world. I’m fairly certain, [00:25:50] Joe: very well could be. We’ve got quite a hack here. This hack, uh, was sent to us, uh, from Rachel. [00:25:57] TikTok: It’s a fun fact and I just learned this, but if you replace your morning coffee with green tea, you can lose, and I think it’s up to 87% of what little joy you had left. [00:26:10] Joe: I told you there’s a rule of thumb if you replace your coffee with tea, you get rid of 87% of the joy and green tea. Green tea just sucks. You don’t like it? Oh, it’s so bad. I like it. Maybe, uh, twice a year. And then I’m like, why am I drinking this when I could have just feel like, [00:26:25] Doug: yeah, [00:26:26] Joe: I’m [00:26:26] Doug: drinking a geranium or something. [00:26:27] Doug: It’s just [00:26:27] Joe: not. No, uh, thanks to Rachel talking about, you know what, maybe that coffee addiction that you pay for is, is very well worth it so you don’t have to do the tea. Sanity. Yes, that’s right. Time to move on to our real second half segment, which is, somebody said a better call Saul, see how, and og. [00:26:47] Joe: This is where we help a stacker in need. And if you have a question for us, you just head to stack your Benjamins dot com slash voicemail and you can be as cool as Tony is, Tony. Has, uh, this question for us guys. [00:27:03] caller: Hey, Joe, OG and Doug, longtime listener. First time caller. Now, I heard Doug talking about sequence of return risk, so I started doing all my workouts backward, cool down first, then cardio, then weights, figured I’d ease into it. [00:27:16] caller: I won’t blow out my retirement muscles too soon. Then I heard OG say, I need to keep some dry powder, so I panicked, bought a 50 pound tub of WHE protein and stuffed it in the pantry. Next, my emergency pop, just waiting for the crash. Don’t know which one market or. Then Joe said, I only have to worry about this early in retirement. [00:27:35] caller: That’s where I’m stuck. Why don’t I have to worry about throwing my back out later? Like if I deadlift wrong at 75, I’m still down for the count. Right. Alright, thanks guys. Now I’ll hang up and listen, [00:27:48] Joe: Tony, [00:27:49] Doug: that is the question to 2025, my friend. Yeah, right. Was good. Now everybody, Tony’s winning. If you think you can top that, good luck, bring it. [00:27:57] Doug: But Tony is on top of the heap right now. [00:28:00] Joe: That was good. And a way to frame a popular question, which I know a lot of people have, og, which is, you know, sequence of returns, right? So sequence of returns risk is this risk that you retire on the un luckiest day ever. And this is what Bill Bangin talking about earlier with this 1968. [00:28:16] Joe: And then we go through the sixties and seventies. Why does sequence of return risk in the CFP world matter at the beginning of retirement? And yet they say that later in retirement, you know, you can not your, your numbers back up, your withdraw rate back up because it’s less of a risk if you blow your, blow your back out AKA blow your savings later. [00:28:37] Joe: Isn’t it the same as blowing your savings sooner? [00:28:39] OG: Well, I think it has to do with a number of things. Firstly, the sequence of returns risk, I think is largely overblown. In terms of the likelihood of it happening, if you, if you just look at market declines throughout history. Yeah, it happens and it happens every five years pretty reliably on average. [00:28:59] OG: But that means that four years, it doesn’t happen. You know, 80% of the time you’re probably okay, but we wanna protect against the unlikely. You know, one-off event. And, and what we’re talking about here is the person who retired on January 1st, 2008, let’s say, and they have a million bucks and they’re like, cool, I’m gonna spend $40,000. [00:29:17] OG: I read I can do 4%. That’s what some smart guy said. My planner signed off on that. I’m gonna spend my 40 grand, I’ll call you in a year. And so on January 2nd, they take out their 40,000. Now they have 960 and they go live their life and they don’t pay attention to anything that’s going on. And, and they wake up on January 2nd of the next year and. [00:29:35] OG: Call their investment firm and say, I need my 40,000. How much is left it, it’s back to a million, right? Because I got my market returns like, well, actually this year kind of sucked. Like, oh, okay, it sucks. It so be it. Like, what, what, what am I at? And they go, oh, you’re like six 10. Oh, and do you want your 40,000? [00:29:51] OG: No problem. Here’s your 40, now you’re down to five 70. In two years, your retirement portfolio got cut in half almost because of just being unlucky and the guy that retired on January 1st, 2008. Now, if you’re the person who retires January 1st of let’s say 2013 instead, and you have your million dollars, you take out your 40, your nine 60 turns into 1.1, and then you take out your 41 and your 1,000,050 turns into 1.3. [00:30:19] OG: You get so far out of the realm of that market volatility impacting you, assuming that your cashflow remains constant, right? You know, just a normal increase with inflation, then the market declines don’t affect you anymore. It’s no different than somebody who retires with $2 million and spends 40 K versus somebody who retires with a million and spends 40 K. [00:30:40] OG: If you have 2 million and you’re spending 40, you have no sequence or returns risk. ’cause the market could get cut in half and you’d still be fine. It’s not gonna get cut in half all at one time. And even if it does, it’s gonna recover and you’re still gonna be okay. You know what I mean? Yeah. So it’s a combination of taking the portfolio distributions and also, you know, relative to how much money you have. [00:31:02] OG: Overall compared to that portfolio distribution? [00:31:05] Joe: Right. I mean, this gets a little morbid og, but I think to your point, it is partly the fact that we need this money to last for 30 years. And if this, if the bad sequence happens and you’re 20 years in, we only need it to last for 10, your chance of running out is much, much less. [00:31:22] Joe: Versus lopping off this in, you know, this portfolio built for 30 all of a sudden is gonna last for 15 or for 20. If you do the same, the same number, you get to 10 years out, the the effects are, [00:31:33] Doug: yeah, much [00:31:33] Joe: more muted if it happens at 25 [00:31:35] Doug: years out. I mean, so you play shuffleboard less, you’re just sitting on the couch watching the HGTV anyways. [00:31:42] Doug: Is shuffleboard the expensive sport these days now? [00:31:45] OG: Pat. Pat. I was gonna say paddle ball. Pickleball. Pickleball. You’re not playing, playing paddle [00:31:48] Doug: ball when you’re 90 years old. You’re not playing pickleball. I’m not playing pickle pickleball. Paddle ball? No. At the [00:31:54] OG: um, 90. Yeah, I think, I mean, you’re right, Doug, but then also your million has turned into 3 million. [00:31:59] OG: So as long as your spending has remained commensurate with your lifestyle starting 30 years ago, so. You have so much extra money. Here’s [00:32:06] Doug: what I hear is no slowdown in my QVC purchases when I’m 90 sitting in front of the television. [00:32:12] OG: Yeah. Your pocket knives that you like to buy for $400. Oh yeah. I just got a new one [00:32:16] Joe: yet another one. [00:32:16] Joe: That’s awesome. [00:32:17] OG: They do look pretty cool. A minute. Is [00:32:18] Joe: this different than the old new one? Yes. Yeah. I just got it like two days ago. [00:32:22] OG: Yeah. I have to show it off later. [00:32:23] Joe: I would say that, uh, you have a problem if, but I don’t wanna, but I don’t want to. ’cause you’ll turn it on board games then. Yes, that’s right. [00:32:31] Joe: I will. Yes. We [00:32:31] OG: all have our own little idiosyncrasies. So yeah, sequence returns. Risk has to do with the ratio of your distribution to your portfolio value when you start, and also it becomes less impactful the later you go because that, you know, that percentage gets smaller and smaller. So, in theory, anyway, it should, I. [00:32:49] OG: The way that we prevent against that, or the way that we kind of mitigate that is through taking a look at what’s really happened. So peak to trough market returns. How long does it take? What’s that cycle look like? If you are that unfortunate person that retires January 1st, 2008, and your portfolio goes down by 38% in the year, and you have to take money out, what can you do to offset those issues? [00:33:11] OG: And the way that you offset it is you have two years worth of cash, two years worth of those distributions that you’re gonna need anyway. In a separate cash account in something, you know, it doesn’t have to be cash, but something, you know, risk free treasuries, whatever. So if you do retire in 2008 January, and you get to the beginning of 2009, you’re like, oh crap, I’m down 40%. [00:33:32] OG: What do I do? You just take it outta cash for two years because the person who did that and left their portfolio alone. Watch their portfolio rebound back to the million over the next 30 months. [00:33:43] Joe: Just imagine if this spring you had no money in cash, all your money was invested in the market. Even during that short period, that down and right back up, uh, as we record this, who knows, like we said earlier in the show where it’s at today as you’re listening to this, but even during that og, I mean, if you’re taking money out and it goes down month one, down month two, down month three, and then back up month four, back up month five, back up month six, you’re still taking the portfolio out and making it heal much lower. [00:34:10] Joe: Yeah, [00:34:10] OG: I mean you have to put some parameters around this because you have to know what kind of average market ups and downs are gonna look like. And you know, you can’t make radical decision changes just because you know, there’s seven crappy trading days. So you have to have some rules around this. But that’s really why you have the cash or something like cash is so that you have a place to draw money from when the market does go down. [00:34:31] OG: So you’re not forced to sell those securities at a lower price. You just wait it out. ’cause the person, you’re right, the person who. At their statement, we joked about this with clients. If you looked at your statement on March 31st, April 30th, and May 31st, you went, huh, okay. Whatever. If you looked at it on March 31st, April 7th, you were like, oh my God, what is going on? [00:34:53] OG: Like you just had to wait until April 30th and that’s all you had to do. Didn’t even register, just, you know, whatever. It was a minus one or something over that period of time [00:35:01] Doug: when I used to help. Companies build KPIs and some metrics to help them understand, is my business okay or not? One of the things we used to set up were kinda like the guardrails you talked about, but upper and lower parameters on key metrics because you didn’t wanna react too quickly and you could set up whatever criteria or conditions you you needed to, but it could be. [00:35:21] Doug: This metric, in this case, the market has moved X percent and it’s sustained that for X amount of time so that you don’t make a decision too harshly. And if it’s, if it’s sustained that for 30 days, okay, maybe now we sell that one position or that one sector or something like that. Or maybe it’s, it’s 120 days, but, but setting a plan up in advance and having both guardrails. [00:35:44] Doug: If the market goes crazy or it goes crazy in the negative way, setting up some parameter for yourself so that you, when you’re of sane mind and you’re not freaking out because of some red line you see either on your browser tab or on tv. Do it when you’re nice and calm and you’ve had a couple of scotches, uh, that could, that could save you from a lot of time to make investment. [00:36:04] Joe: Yeah, I was about to talk about absolutely building your investment policy statement should incorporate all that, but, uh, yeah, but your investment policy statement could be very interesting after a couple scotches. You’re like, uh, I can’t even read my own writing. Like scratch. What do we do? Apparently we do nothing. [00:36:17] Joe: ’cause I can’t read what this is, but it sounds like, and, and, and why is this line called I love you midcap. Like, what’s that all about? I had no idea. Have I told you you’re my best friend. Midcap and old two emerging markets. What’s that? There’s an audio file attached to this. Uh, it’s great. But Tony, thanks for the call of the year, my friend. [00:36:40] Joe: What great framing of of, of the call, everybody else do it like Tony. It’s so wild that we knew exactly what he was talking about unless he was talking about throwing out his back. Maybe he was, he’s got the wrong podcast. If you’ve got a question. Don’t worry, you don’t have to be as theatrical as tony stacky Benjamins dot com slash voicemail gets you here and for helping us make the show. [00:37:04] Joe: We even sent you some swag, which I know is awesome. You wanna brag to all your friends that you were on the Stacky Benjamin Show. Alright, uh, let’s wander out on the back porch because, uh, Doug, you’ve got a little something, something I think on waiting for us there. [00:37:18] Doug: Yeah, Joe, man, we have been getting a ton of love for the episode we had featuring Brian sut, and that was an episode where Len Penso sat in on that. [00:37:26] Doug: That was the week before Memorial Day and uh, yeah, and I will get the number. Get the number. That was the episode where Brian came on to talk about ways to save food, save food, say to not save food. Ways to save money by making sure you’re really efficient with your food, because people can, if I remember right, did he say people are wasting up to a $3,000 a year? [00:37:48] Doug: Yeah, in actually [00:37:49] Joe: 3,535, [00:37:51] Doug: if you cut [00:37:51] Joe: your food waste from 3,500, which is the average in America to only 500, which as Brian talked about and Len talked about with just a few simple gamifying things. There’s an easy three grand a year. [00:38:04] Doug: Yeah. Len brought up the blue apple. It’s trying to make plug, I think. [00:38:07] Doug: Think a commission on selling those. It. Yeah. We bought, we bought it. I bought [00:38:10] Joe: one right after the episode too. [00:38:11] OG: Yeah. Still sitting in a bag. We haven’t, you guys both fell for it. Oh, I totally did. It’s great. We haven’t done anything yet. Yes. Uh, does it work? Do you like it? But, [00:38:19] Doug: uh, anyways, we had some great activity in the basement. [00:38:22] Doug: Our Facebook group, uh, private exclusive Facebook group called The Basement. And, uh, James really enjoyed it. Uh, he said A cool use of AI is to tell it what you have in your refrigerator that is going to go bad and have it give you meal recommendations. Oh, that’s cool. As a bonus. Yeah, it is pretty cool. [00:38:40] Doug: As a bonus, as it learns about you, it can tailor the recommendations to you. How many people in your family, what spice level likes, dislikes, and uh, give it a try. It’s fun. That’s cool. I wonder how long it would take AI to realize that I hate cauliflower. [00:38:54] Joe: Oh, [00:38:55] Doug: hate [00:38:56] Joe: it. No. Well, you can just tell that upfront. [00:38:57] Joe: Don’t include cauliflower. Yeah, it’s like. [00:38:59] OG: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We know Doug. Uh, Tostitos pepperoni rolls. We got it. That’s where this is landing. Just put those in the oven. [00:39:07] Joe: Hot pockets, right? Um, okay. Take that half a burrito that you brought home from the Mexican restaurant. Just combine it with Tostitos Pizza rolls. [00:39:16] Joe: I love you, [00:39:16] Doug: ai. How did AI know that I brought that home? AI knows me. It’s. Always watching. Lynn also wrote an email to us saying, I love the chat with Brian sut about food waste. Thanks for shining a light on this important topic. On top of the great tips from Brian and Lynn, we also keep masking tape nearby and label our plastic leftover containers so we have a better idea how long we have before food goes bad. [00:39:37] Doug: It’s, [00:39:37] Joe: you know what’s funny, Doug, is that, uh, that’s, [00:39:39] Doug: that’s a little anal limb. Well, well, [00:39:40] Joe: Frankie Lenza said the same thing when he was on Talking Food Waste a few years ago. We haven’t talked about this in a few years, so I’m glad the people liked us bringing this topic back. But Frankie said, just with the little masking tape, you know, oh, this thing that’s in the back of my fridge, you know that you always put the new stuff in front of the old stuff. [00:39:56] Joe: Mm-hmm. And next thing you know, you’re just keep pushing it back. Yeah. Just rotate the lasagna. Yeah, exactly. [00:40:02] Doug: Oh look, did we have fuzzy lasagna? It’s lasagna. That was from that gourmet restaurant. You guys know how I eat? So this is, I thought this episode when I found out Brian Sitz was coming on, I’m like, what the hell do we need to talk about this for? [00:40:14] Doug: Because there is no food wasted at my house. [00:40:18] Joe: Doug is the Hoover. [00:40:19] Doug: We’ve got Rubbermaid containers, the little, you know, Tupperware, they just collect dust. We don’t even need to use ’em. But we’ve had so [00:40:24] Joe: much fun just before we were headed to, uh, on our recent vacation. We, um, we like the last three days, we had the weirdest ass meals, like it’s a stir fry of rando vegetables. [00:40:39] Doug: Uh oh. Also, hey, over on Spotify, mj Vco do create underscore b. Hmm, was a little shy. Whose mom names him that that is a, yeah. Wow. I mean, sure names are getting creative these days. They wrote, if you throw away 30% of your food, you have other priorities and haven’t made this a priority. And then finally Claudia bought the blue apple and recommended, as did Roth Roth Roth, that’s Ross and Heather together. [00:41:09] Doug: I just made them like a celebrity couple into Roth, Roth and Heather. They’re like, what was Ben Affleck and J-Lo? What were they? Benef, you don’t know their celebrity name? Fer. Fer. Thank you. Fer. Who would’ve thought OG would come up with that I know, right? Or not you. Of course I know Joe Fer. So [00:41:25] Joe: now Ross and Heather are rather, but I wanna go back to MJV and if you throw away 30% of a food, you made other priorities. [00:41:31] Joe: And I, I’m glad they said that because I. It truly is an easy three grand. It’s an easy three grand. And I gotta tell you, when you actually clean out the fridge and you make it a game, ever since, uh, I heard Brian talk about this at economy, which is why I wanted to have him on, uh, Cheryl, I have had just a lot of fun with going, okay. [00:41:48] Joe: I. How, how, how little waste could we, I’m not gonna do the $3 and 50 cents thing that Brian does. Like that’s insanity. And he even admitted on the show that it’s insanity, but still good. And I, and I do think it’s funny, so it was og me, Claudia Ross, and Heather all bought the blue apple and rather, yeah. [00:42:09] Joe: Great stuff. Well, thank you for, uh. All the discussion around that episode. Um, I’m glad that, uh, we got a lot of stackers. Saving some, saving some food waste. If you know somebody that needs help with the 4% rule, they’re, they’re diving into it. You could share this episode with them and tell, guess what? I got good news. [00:42:28] Joe: ’cause it might be the five point half percent rule for you now, give [00:42:31] OG: or take. [00:42:31] Joe: Yeah. Ish. I know. That’s what people like in their rules is the word ish. Ish. Yeah. Like when a building engineer goes, uh, it’s three, three and three quarters ish to make sure this is stable. That stop sign, you know, if you feel like it. [00:42:45] Doug: Right. I recommend a slow roll. I don’t know if people know this, but the stop signs that have the white border around them, those are optional. Oh, that’s true. A hundred percent. I mean, just look around when you’re driving next time. Look around. There’s more of ’em than you think. [00:42:59] Joe: Yeah. Maybe not optional. [00:43:00] Joe: Doug, by the way, is referring to the white border’s optional. Not whether you stop or not. Alright, uh, stackers. Thank you for a great day. We’ll see you back here on Wednesday. Doug, what’s on our takeaway list today? [00:43:12] Doug: Well, Joe first take some advice from our headline using the 4% Rule First, even the creator doesn’t think that’s a thing, but second, why not start with how much you need to withdraw each year to bring you joy. [00:43:24] Doug: And then work backwards from there. Okay, then $11 million ought to do it. Got it. Second sequence of return risk. It’s greater at the beginning of your retirement than later, because often there are more days at risk. Risk diminishes when either the magnitude or probability decrease. But the big lesson, speaking of decrease, how come Joe’s mom now only buys the frozen regular shrimp? [00:43:52] Doug: Hey, ma, check this out. I think this is a little shellfish. Ha. You get it? I think this is a little shellfish, so hold on. The whole time I’m talking about jumbo shrimp was all to set up this joke. Oh my God. [00:44:16] Doug: Like what the hell am I talking about? Jumbo shrimp for this show is the property of SB podcast LLC, copyright 2025, and is created by Joe Saul-Sehy. Joe gets help from a few of our neighborhood friends. You’ll find out about our awesome team at Stacking Benjamins dot com, along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots. [00:44:42] Doug: 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. [00:45:02] Doug: At the Stacking Benjamin Show. [00:45:57] Joe: Welcome to the After show. If you’re new to this podcast, this is part of the show that does not exist. You don’t talk about it, you don’t share it. I love it when people discover the after show later. They’re like, I can’t believe this happens, but it’s never, well, sometimes it is, but it’s rarely about finance. [00:46:12] Joe: There are times though, when it is about finance, and that is today’s after show topic. We were talking guys about how the Brits are fantastic with drama and with music, and with comedy, but I think the Aussies might have ’em beat when it comes to comedy. Really. I’ve seen so many hilarious Australian things, and this one by the way, I. [00:46:34] Joe: They’re gonna say a word that might not be safe for children. They’re not gonna really swear, so [00:46:38] Doug: Australians rarely [00:46:39] Joe: swear. Yeah, you might, you might wanna, you might wanna wait till your kids are outta the room before out of the car, before you listen to the next part. So just pause this and save it for later. [00:46:51] Joe: This is what happens. In Australia is your checking out of the hotel. [00:46:58] bit: Checking out today? Yeah. Thank you. Room 2 0 7 as you enjoy your stay with us. Yeah, it was very nice. Thanks. Okay, there’s a room service mini bar, three phone calls and two in-room movies. Now is that on your visa? Uh, yeah. Thank you. [00:47:13] bit: That’d be great. Oh no, hang on. Two movies. We only watch one movie. It’s okay. Just put it on the card. We’re not paying for a movie we didn’t watch. Uh, I can assure you madam, both. Movies were ordered by your room, honey. No need to cause a scene. Yeah. What were the movies? Um, Harry Potter A five. The Order of the Phoenix and Sorority Sluts. [00:47:33] bit: Four. [00:47:37] TikTok: I got it when you were in your meeting, so [00:47:40] bit: I don’t believe this. It appears that my husband likes to watch children’s movies about wizards and Magic Owl whenever I turn my back. Harry Potter. How old are you? You’ll seek [00:47:58] Doug: Harry Potter. [00:48:00] Joe: That might be a little awkward watching some, uh, Harry Potter movies. It was, [00:48:04] Doug: it was awkward when I was of the age. [00:48:06] Joe: What stackers have no idea was going on during that entire episode was in a part that we caught, or a discussion that didn’t make the final, um, which should be the same thing as cutting it. [00:48:18] Joe: Just to define what cutting [00:48:19] OG: it means. What it means is, uh, we said some stuff and took it out. It’s mansplain that I’m, [00:48:23] Joe: I’m mansplaining. Cutting. Yeah. To, to our audience. But Doug said the word, say the word Doug often. Yeah. I say it often. And og uh, was not having it. [00:48:34] OG: I mean, it’s just incorrect at every level. [00:48:37] OG: And, um, but it’s not, oh, you, you found one YouTube idiot to, to say that you’re right from the Oxford [00:48:43] Doug: effing English dictionary. Yeah. The, the final say in definitions and pronunciations is the OED, and they say both are correct. In fact, often was the original pronunciation of it. And you go, what do you do? [00:49:01] Doug: ’cause you’re so freaking lazy. You go to chat GPT to see what’s right [00:49:05] OG: and going to a YouTube video is somehow less lazy. I went to the [00:49:08] Joe: Oxford English dictionary. So Doug first goes to a YouTube video and says, you can. So, so, so I look at my, my phone and there’s this chat going on the whole time. We’re talking about the 4% rule, AK maybe 5% ish rule. [00:49:23] Joe: I [00:49:23] Doug: wonder if anybody noticed, like, were we just so smooth that we were having two conversations at once? Two of you were, but it just, but I wasn’t. [00:49:30] Joe: Uh, so Doug says, you can f right off. And then, uh, uh, OG says, great ear. You’re picking up the, on a classic. Oh, oh, you asked chat. GPT. [00:49:41] Doug: Yeah. [00:49:42] OG: Yeah. I asked Chachi BT do you say often with the T sound and it says it’s a classic pronunciation quirk. [00:49:49] OG: Uh, many people pronounce the T and it’s becoming more common to, uh, Doug’s perspective. Uh, and it’s not considered incorrect anymore. People are often using the T. Yeah. [00:50:00] Joe: Mm-hmm. [00:50:00] OG: Originally did have the T in pronunciation, just like, uh, Doug said, but it became silent over time, and so it gave you this thing, and then I said, well, why do people think it’s okay? [00:50:10] OG: To sound the T when it’s not correct. How is the world going? So backward and chat. GPTI thought made some very good points and this just lines up perfectly with how Doug thinks. I think that it was just like it does. I agree. It does. It’s like spot on and it says, folks try so hard to sound proper that they overcorrect and, oh no, let’s say, often thinking it sounds more formal or educated. [00:50:35] OG: Ironically, it’s the opposite. The tea was dropped centuries ago. Educated, British, English. Educated. Yeah. You know, chat. TPT People hate feeling wrong. Correcting someone’s pronunciation feels elitist to them. And I know that, that it does feels, it does. I feel so [00:50:49] Doug: good when I correct you on insurance. Yeah. [00:50:52] OG: Okay. [00:50:52] Doug: Okay. I feel a lot better about myself. So when, when you [00:50:54] OG: hear someone say off, they might double down on, often out of stubbornness. Insecurity. Insecurity, yeah. Or misplaced confidence, which is, I mean, that’s the bumper sticker that’s on. Doug’s big, giant pickup truck. [00:51:11] OG: I mean, if there was three bumper stickers on the back of that oversized pickup truck of yours, it would say stubbornness, insecurity, and misplaced confidence. That would be, it’s also on every golf club you own. I mean, it’s like literally, [00:51:25] Joe: I like where this ends. Yeah. So yes, often is technically a corruption, but like cargo shorts and TikTok dances, it’s here to stay. [00:51:33] Joe: Whether we.
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