A new study shows that baby boomers are tapped out. On today’s show we dive into the reasons why this is the case and explore a TON of ways that you can ensure that you aren’t running out of money before you run out of life. We’ll explore lots of areas, like:
- Health care costs
- Automatic savings plans
- Better investing to increase returns
- Avoiding common pitfalls
…and lots more.
In our TikTok minute we explore estate planning. What happens when dad is about to die and he tells his son, “Just put me in my boat and let the sea take care of me.” The reply from the son may not be what you’d expect. We also take a call from Stacker Eric, who’s wondering if he should keep pumping money into his HSA even though he has a significant amount saved already. What if he doesn’t need that money?
Of course, we also save time for Doug’s trivia AND we avoid celebrating “old joke day.”
Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.stackingbenjamins.com/201
Enjoy!
Our Headlines
- 3 reasons why boomers are eating through their retirement savings so quickly — how to preserve your nest egg (moneywise)
Our TikTok Minute
Doug’s Trivia
- What song released on today’s date in 1984 makes me realize that I’m never going to give trivia again the way I give trivia to you?
Better call Saul…Sehy & OG
- Stacker Eric has a question about what to do with his healthy HSA that he’s currently not taking distributions from.
Have a question for the show?
Want more than just the show notes? How about our newsletter with STACKS of related, deeper links?
- Check out The 201, our email that comes with every Monday and Wednesday episode, PLUS a list of more than 19 of the top money lessons Joe’s learned over his own life about money. From credit to cash reserves, and insurance to investing, we’ll tackle all of these. Head to StackingBenjamins.com/the201 to sign up (it’s free and we will never give away your email to others).
Other Mentions
- Willpower Doesn’t Work: Discover the Hidden Keys to Success, by Benjamin Hardy
Join Us Friday!
Tune in on Friday for a very special roundtable discussion when we answer the question how do you win YOUR OWN Gold Medal with your money? (In honor of the Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony).
Written by: Kevin Bailey
Miss our last show? Listen here: Find The Work You’ll Love (plus how Mark Cuban avoided losses during a market collapse) SB1549
Episode transcript
[00:00:00] bit: I look out my window and I see my neighbor, Doug, [00:00:05] Doug: poor, lazy, deplorable Doug. [00:00:13] Live from Joe’s mom’s basement. It’s the Stacking Benjamin Show. [00:00:27] I am Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and why are so many baby boomers burning through their savings? We’ll share three reasons, maybe a few more, plus what you can do to not be included in that group. Plus. Plus we’ll feature a TikTok minute all about real estate planning. What do you need to know about your prized possessions? [00:00:49] We’ll share guidance and, uh, plus, plus plus. We’ll answer a question from one stacker who thought, you know, I’d better call sa, see hi an og, and then I’ll share some crazy trivia. ’cause it’s old joke day. And now two guys who might be old, and I’m not joking. It’s Joe. Oh and oh. [00:01:19] Oh, he’s so funny, [00:01:21] OG: funny guy. Huh? How are you? Old man og. I am still quite sprightly compared to YouTube, so I don’t know. Easy. [00:01:29] Joe: Come on. Oh, he’s calling Old man seasoned. We are young in spirit. Welcome to the Young In Spirit Podcast, Doug. I’m super happy. We’re here on a Wednesday entertaining you with more financial funds. [00:01:42] So sit back, relax, because we are about to take you on a journey into money Bliss. Isn’t that what you call it? Bliss. No [00:01:51] OG: money. Bliss. [00:01:52] Joe: Maybe that money. Harmony. Money. Loving money. [00:01:56] OG: Ity. Syncro. I dunno. Ity. That’s not a word. [00:01:59] Joe: Money. Yeah. I don’t know. We’ll get into it. We got a great show for you today, but just to make sure that, you know how like during the holidays you get all excited like, I remember Christmas time and I just want unwrap the presents. [00:02:12] OG: It’s kinda like Christmas in July, right? Is that not where we are? We, we it’s, it is. This is Christmas in July for [00:02:17] Joe: you. We’re gonna make you wait for two minutes while our sponsors who make this free for you. Mom and dad go get coffee. Right? Exactly. And try to wake up ’cause it’s three 30 in the morning. [00:02:29] Damnit. Go back to bed kids. Uh, we’ll be right back. We can get the show started now. og, we’ve got a great headline, so let’s get rolling. [00:02:39] bit: Hello doling. And now it’s time for your favorite part of the show, our Stacking Benjamins headlines. [00:02:45] Joe: Remember how I said on Monday that most money-wise articles suck? I do. [00:02:50] OG: Are you gonna grab another one? [00:02:51] Joe: That’s why we went right back to [00:02:52] OG: it. [00:02:52] Joe: Ah, [00:02:52] OG: this comes so many other good ones. [00:02:55] Joe: This comes to us from Moneywise, Maury Beckman wrote this piece. Here is the thing about moneywise pieces. If you didn’t hear us on Monday, they start off good. You got a good header. Sometimes the headline does not. [00:03:09] Translate into the piece, and by then it always devolves a into sales pitch. But let’s begin where the beginning is. ’cause this is clickbait. Three reasons why boomers are eating through their retirement savings so quickly. How to preserve your nest egg. When you get to a certain age, og, you do start burning through your nest egg. [00:03:30] I mean, that is a part of the game. I think the one misconception people have is that you’re gonna scrooge McDuck your way to a big pile of money. It’s gonna create some sort of a dividend stream, and that pile of money’s never gonna go down. [00:03:45] OG: I mean, that’s kinda my plan, [00:03:48] Joe: but for the vast majority of people, I think they gotta be comfortable with a little bit of, uh, you know, you, you worked hard to make this money. [00:03:56] You gotta be comfortable with some of it going, Bye-Bye. [00:03:59] OG: Okay. Yeah, no, yes. I mean, as long as they’re not gonna run out. You’re saying it’s okay that it has peaked at some point and it goes down a little bit. You know, as long as you’re not running it to zero. [00:04:11] Joe: Yeah. You put $2 million away, let’s say crazy money, [00:04:15] OG: probably you put away like 700 K in the rest of its market growth. [00:04:20] Joe: Yeah. Right. So you got this nest egg at $2 million. Let’s say you’re 60 years old. Okay? I would think that by the time you are 75 or 80, having that nest egg down to a million, not a big deal. [00:04:35] OG: By the time you’re 70, uh, that would be a big deal. No, [00:04:37] Joe: no, no, no. [00:04:37] OG: Did I say 70? Did I say 70? You said 70 or 80? I mean, you gave it a quite wide range. [00:04:42] Oh, sorry. [00:04:42] Joe: Yeah. I should have said 75 or 80. I’m all hopped up on caffeine this morning. That’s okay. That’s all right. So 15, 20 years later, I think you’ve run 2 million down to a million. [00:04:53] OG: I dunno. I think that there’s a balancing act here of being too miserly and worrying too much about the future. Around other people, right? [00:05:03] I can’t spend it because I don’t want my, you know, my kids, I gotta leave something for the grant. You know, there’s that. I don’t wanna be that person. I don’t think that, I like the idea of people being too conservative in their spending because of the fact that, you know, they’re worried about saving stuff for, for the next generation. [00:05:23] I think you should do that. I think that if you’ve accumulated 2 million bucks in your example, I don’t, I don’t know that you need to go buy a couple of Ferraris just so that you consume it all, but it is your money. And I think people spend too little relative to what could be spent. Like the 4% rule, right? [00:05:41] Like that’s the thing that people say. I think that number can be a little bit higher as long as you’re okay with fluctuations in that, you know, depending on market conditions. Because remember the idea of, of the 4% rule is that you start out at 4%, increase it with inflation every year, and your money should never run out over. [00:06:01] A 30 year retirement, and if you do the math on it, in fact what’ll happen is in all likelihood, the money will continue to grow. So in your example, you retire at 60 with $2 million. By the time you’re 80, you might have four or 5 million, which to me means you probably could have spent a little bit more than 4% early on if you’re okay with letting off the gas, if you start bumping up against a guardrail. [00:06:23] ’cause you got unlucky With timing, I think people are far too conservative with their spending because they’re worried about running out. I do too. For people that saved, I should say, at that level. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Then there’s a group of people that have like, haven’t saved much, right? [00:06:38] There’s 60 and they have 200,000. Yeah, that’s a whole different world. [00:06:42] Joe: But wait, og, there’s more in these three reasons Boomers are eating through their retirement savings so quickly. Maury starts this piece by saying that baby boomers have an average. An average of $120,300 safe for retirement. Yeah. [00:06:56] According to Northwest Mutual’s planning and progress study 2024. It also explained why so many people are concerned about running outta money. Well, the problem is, is that they don’t have nearly enough money and uh, that’s why they are worried about it. There are three reasons they list here. Number one is they got a light start. [00:07:16] And I kind of groan when I read that because you can only start when you start. [00:07:22] OG: Mm-Hmm. [00:07:22] Joe: But the average person started saving at 37 years old. They found the typical boomer started saving for retirement at 37, didn’t do anything before 37. [00:07:32] caller: Okay? [00:07:33] Joe: Because of this, a good number of boomers today may have a smaller nest egg than they actually need to live comfortably and are dipping in their savings at a faster pace because they have immediate bills they can’t put off. [00:07:43] But you know what, if you’re hearing this in your 40, I don’t want the message to be that you’re screwed. I’m hoping the message is just do as much as you can get, get moving. [00:07:53] OG: If you’re 40 and you think you’re screwed, you’re crazy. You have so much time. It’s insane. Do you have the same protections as the person who started maxing everything out at 22? [00:08:05] No, you don’t. You’re 20 years behind that person, but you have an insane amount of time. That doesn’t mean that you, you can do it without a lot of stress or anxiety. Right, because just like people say things like, um, oh, I’ll, I’ll donate money to charity when I have finally made X dollars. I’ll start saving when I finally get to why dollars in my paycheck. [00:08:30] Look, if you can’t save 10% and you’re making a thousand bucks a week, you’re not gonna save 10% when you make 10,000 a week. We’ve seen all of those stories from the New York Times. There was a story in the New York Times about like, how broke the guy is that makes 500 k. People who don’t make 500 K are like, what the heck? [00:08:48] Oh my God, look at all the exit. I guarantee if you pulled that, pulled that guy outta that, did the article, pull him out of the lineup and go, how are you feeling? Be like, dude, it’s crazy man. Barely have any money. You know? You know, it sounds insulting to the person that’s making 50 K going, dude, if I had 500,000, I would to No, you wouldn’t. [00:09:06] ’cause, ’cause stuff changes in your life. Like there’s very few people that don’t have that. Even a little bit of lifestyle creep and plus New York obviously is a different world, but I’m saying like, if you can’t build the discipline and the muscle, you and I were just talking about working out. Going, I’ve worked out for three days. [00:09:24] How come my damn weight’s still down or still up? You know, I’ve lost a pound. Can I can’t [00:09:27] Joe: lift my arms above my head? I’ve been doing that [00:09:30] OG: every doing weeks for [00:09:30] Joe: three solid days. Damnit, I didn’t know you were gonna bring that up. That was before we started recording. I’m like, oh man, am I so, no, [00:09:39] OG: I do the same thing. [00:09:41] You know, you get back in the gym, I get back on the bike and you’re like, dude, I rode at least 20 miles today. I shredded at least 30 pounds. You know, and it’s like down 0.1, right? You’re like, damn it. You know, how can I do? But it’s not about the volume, it’s about the consistency of doing it and the consistency of saving and building that habit starts whenever it starts. [00:10:04] To your point, you know, sometimes you gotta get through life to realize, get into life a little ways before you go, oh geez, I need to do something different. Some people are able to do it right away, different incomes, different family backgrounds, you know, whatever. Um, and some people can’t, but you’re never gonna be able to go. [00:10:18] I didn’t save when I made a hundred grand, but I promised to save when I make 200 because you won’t, you know, never. You have to start with something. And even if it’s, I’m gonna save 1% of my paycheck in my 401k, I’m gonna save 1% of my paycheck in my Roth IRA this year and next year I’m gonna try one and a half. [00:10:36] That’s how you get to the point where you’re financially caught up. If that’s how you feel like you’re behind or that’s how you get to the point where you’ve maxed it out or you’re, you know, you read these stories about people that are his and hers 401k maxing and his and her Roth maxing and bag of Backdoor Roths and you know, and HSA man. [00:10:54] You go, how the heck are they doing? Well, they didn’t start doing it that way. Probably, you know, it’s rare. We talk to people like that on occasion, but most of the time it’s like, no, every paycheck I saved a little bit more. Every paycheck I put a little bit more away. And yeah, now I’m 45 and I’m doing all this stuff, but it’s because I started when I was 25. [00:11:14] Now if you’re 40 and you’re going, I haven’t done anything yet, you gotta start with a dollar. You gotta start saving 50 bucks, you gotta automate $50 a month into a brokerage account. [00:11:24] Joe: Let’s talk tactically about how to get that done, because you’re gonna have a bunch of emoji, I think immediately of two. [00:11:32] Number one is automation is always your buddy. Hide the money from yourself. The quicker you set automation in motion and make it so that you don’t have to, you know, we used the word discipline earlier. I don’t think you need discipline. I think you need automation. Automation gets rid of this idea that, you know, I gotta go, I do have to go work out to get somewhere. [00:11:54] But if I set this automation pattern, uh, around my money. I don’t have to. And what’s funny is how quickly I adapt to what I automated. So we’re always afraid to automate. So like, what if I need that money later? Automate it. You can change it later. Just change it late. See how it works. Push yourself a little bit. [00:12:13] And you know what you’ll find six weeks from now, you’re never gonna miss that money. You’re not going to miss it. I think that’s number one. Number two is, you know, we’re afraid this, this whole piece is about fear. Boomers worried that they’re running out of money. And I think if you’re early on, you’re in your forties or you’re in your fifties and you’re listen to this and you haven’t started, I think you gotta make fear work for you. [00:12:39] You’re always gonna be afraid. Like remember in eighth grade, ninth grade, you’d have that, that project and you knew about it for six weeks. And you would now, we wouldn’t do the comedian Brian Regan thing or wake up the night before and go, oh God, I had six weeks to work on this and I’ve done nothing. [00:12:55] But you did OG procrastinate until you got to a certain point and you went, okay, this is all I can think about. I have to do this, uh, house in 1900 Brooklyn made outta Popsicle sticks and it’s gonna take me three days. But you would wait till the last three days to get fear actually worked for you those last three days. [00:13:16] So knowing that fear is gonna work for you, I think you gotta do the same thing with your saving. You’re afraid right now that you’re going to not be able to save. [00:13:27] OG: Yeah. [00:13:27] Joe: Switch that around and say, let’s put myself at 70 years old and I have no money. Put yourself there and go, okay, I haven’t saved a dime. [00:13:36] I let fear control my life at 30, at 40, at 50, and I haven’t saved anything. How do you feel now? And I’ll tell you what happens. Every time that I’ve used that scenario, the person on the other side goes, I gotta get going now. And all of a sudden they think of like 50 ways. ’cause they let fear work for them today by projecting this image of me broke at age 70. [00:13:57] OG: Yeah. There’s a great book from Ben Hardy called Willpower Doesn’t Work. Part of the piece of that book is about process and systems and designing your environment to make sure that you can’t screw it up ’cause you’re not gonna have the willpower to do it. Everyone, almost exclusively, I can say this, everyone has tried some sort of diet program. [00:14:19] Everyone has tried some sort of workout program. Everyone has done all these different things with money and the common theme of people who are successful is they take the guesswork out of it. You decide one time and then set up the system so that you don’t have to think about it ever again. Because what, when do you think about your money stuff going on? [00:14:40] Do you think about it at. Nine in the morning when you’re in the middle of your corporate meeting, or do you think about it at eight at night when you finally got home and you finally got to the mailbox and there’s a bunch of stuff in there and there’s statements and bills and Amex is calling ’cause you forgot to pay yesterday. [00:14:55] You know what I mean? Like, like that’s when you think about it, right? You don’t think about it when you’re fresh. You think about at the end of the day when you have crappy decision making time, it’s just, it’s scientifically proven. People run out of ability to make good decisions. So take, take yourself out of that process. [00:15:11] Remove the obstacle, which is you, and sit down with a clean sheet of paper or sit down on a Saturday morning like you said with your, you know, your weekly meeting with Cheryl, right? You sit down when you’re fresh and go, all right, I need to design this the right way. Everything counts. Let me take everything off the table and I’m starting with a clean sheet of paper. [00:15:33] Everything that you read about money. What is the first rule about how to save money? Who gets paid first? You, yeah. The easiest way to do that, especially if you work for a company that has a retirement plan, is just turn it on. If it’s already on, turn it up just a little bit. Change it 1% to your point, it’s not life sentence. [00:15:53] You don’t have to, you don’t have to look at it and be like, oh God, if I change this from five to six, what if I need that money? You can change it back. There’s so, you know, maybe your plan is such that you can only make the change once a quarter maybe. In which case, okay, build a cash reserve first. If you don’t have one, if you do have a cash reserve, I would crank that thing up until you dipped into your cash reserve. [00:16:17] Find out. You use, you say the words fear. I like the word stress. Find out where the stress is. Back to working out. I don’t know that you should chase muscle soreness. I don’t think that that should be your goal at the end of every, at the end of every session. But there is something that feels good about that, right? [00:16:35] You’re like, ah, I kind of sore. Ah, must be, must be growing. Right. Getting the, getting the guns all swollen for the ladies. Cheryl’s gonna like me now. You know, it’s like finally got the pump on. Finally, there is something about finding where that stress is to decide how far you can go. Why not? You’ve had the thing gone this way forever. [00:16:58] Why not yank the wheel that direction forever and see what happens? People get worried about like, well I might have to dip into my savings. Well, what the hell do you think it’s for? Savings is in case of an opportunity or an emergency. Maybe the emergency is you freaking haven’t saved enough money for retirement. [00:17:13] Joe: Maybe that’s your emergency. Big, big emergency. Later, uh, some boomers, Maury writes, may have also taken a less aggressive approach because they expect one thing to replace much of their retirement income. I don’t think our stackers are thinking that. Of course, social security’s what I’m talking about. [00:17:29] Well, you know, do we have any stackers thinking, Hey, social security’s gonna make my day. I. [00:17:32] OG: I don’t know. I, I happen to believe that social security is gonna be okay. I think if you do the math on it, it’s a, it’s an amazing payoff. If it works the way it should, it’s not as good as you investing your own money. [00:17:42] But we know historically people are not really great at investing their own money. And there’s a whole section of people that are clamoring for their 7.65% to be deposited, well, 6.2 I guess as it were for social security part. But to be deposit, you know, let me invest my own money. It’s like, you’ll screw that up. [00:17:58] Just, just take the government return, even if the social security has a reduction in benefits. And I think it would be prudent from a planning standpoint, if you’re a young person, if you’re 50 and under, maybe it’s prudent to say, I’m gonna take the number that they send me on my statement. You can go online ssa.gov, get your social security statement, and work through the estimates. [00:18:20] I think it would be prudent to take that number and knock it down by 25%. I don’t see a scenario where it goes away completely. [00:18:29] Joe: No, no, definitely. I don’t either. I remember work done several years ago by Jane Bryant Quinn, the financial columnist and reporter. Jane did a bunch of work on this and really came to the conclusion that that social security was such a popular program and our congress people in Washington relied on it so much for votes and protecting social security not for votes. [00:18:53] That the chance of social security not being fixed or being around is, is, uh, is there’s a lot of other stuff that’s gonna go first before Social Security changes significantly. What, what I was saying is the number of people who don’t say OG because they think that Social security’s gonna be enough money, that’s what Maury’s saying in this piece, and it’s nowhere near enough money, nowhere near [00:19:16] OG: enough. [00:19:17] Well, I don’t remember the exact numbers, but I think that it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 or 50% was originally the amount that Social Security was supposed to cover. It wasn’t meant to be a national pension system of replacing all of your income. And honestly, of course back then it was, you know, you got it at 65 and died at 72 and that was part, that’s part of the issue with why it’s having some issue, some, some struggles, I guess, insolvency. [00:19:42] But, um, it’s gonna be there. I think it might not be there to the extent that they’re forecasting it today. And so I think it’s also okay to count on some of that. But to your point, if your income is a hundred K and your social security’s gonna be 35, that’s half right. You need to come up with the other 35 after tax to, to get, so start penciling that out on your clean sheet of paper and going, well, how do I get 35,000 a year in addition to my social security? [00:20:11] Joe: Tactically, the thing I always like to do is to plan on the worst and hope for the best. And while I like social security being there, and I think that it will be, man, if I can plan to not have it at all and then I get it, like that’s, that’s my kind of plan. [00:20:25] OG: Well, yeah. In a perfect world, sure, sure. [00:20:28] Joe: And obviously if we’re going from, if we’re starting with $180,000, we’re not gonna be able to plan that way. [00:20:33] But if I’m young enough that I can try to plan without it and then have it happen, that’s great. Second, on their list of three here, a lot of people forced to retire. 40% of retiree clients, according to Edward Jones, uh, Edward Jones surveyed their clients. 40% of their retirees reported that they didn’t end their career when they thought they were going to, they actually ended earlier OG and not ’cause they wanted to. [00:20:56] Mm-Hmm. That’s a disturbing number. I think we should all be cognizant of that. Retirement might find us instead of us finding it. [00:21:03] OG: And I also think around the resourcefulness, I’m thinking about a family member who did just a magnificently terrible job of saving money. Epic. It’s just, I mean, one for the record books and, and is counting on on that social security money to be all of it. [00:21:23] And a little bit of a pension from a, from a company that still had a pension. But the resourcefulness of that couple that I see as they are now into their seventies with virtually nothing saved, they’re still figuring it out. Like we hear these stories over time about different levels of happiness. [00:21:44] Right. And it’s like you, once you get past 60 k, there’s, you know, and some studies vary. It’s like 60 or 70 or 105 or whatever, but it’s never like you gotta get to a million before you’re happy. It’s always some tens of thousands of dollars number. It’s like, take care of the roof over my head. Make sure it’s heated and cooled correctly. [00:22:03] I got water and I’ve got food, you know, and then everything above that is a nice to have, but it doesn’t materially change my life. Whether I vacation at a Four Seasons or I, I’m at a state park. You know, both of them have their pros and cons. The Four Seasons has way more pros. FYI [00:22:22] Joe: heated pool versus the Yeah, versus the dirty pond. [00:22:25] That [00:22:25] OG: Slimy lake that everyone else swims in. Ugh, gross. [00:22:30] Joe: The kid, the 11-year-old looking off in the distance, who’s clearly not swimming, he’s doing something else. [00:22:36] OG: Yes. Daydreaming. Exactly. Why is it so warm right here? [00:22:40] Joe: This one little pocket. [00:22:42] OG: Of course. Wait a minute. That happens at the Four Seasons too, doesn’t it? [00:22:45] I was gonna say 11-year-old, more like 41-year-old. Oh yeah. [00:22:48] Joe: Duh. After three beers down at the Four Seasons bar. [00:22:51] OG: Yeah. Um, what the hell were we talking about? The resourcefulness. I’m also impressed by the fact that. Even people who have done absolutely no saving still make it work. I understand, and I completely know from personal experience that there is a base level of need, right? [00:23:11] You have to have a certain amount of income and resources to, to put a roof on your head to eat food and provide shelter in and that sort of thing. But that’s a surprisingly low number relative to all of this. So I also do think if you’re that 40-year-old that’s thinking about this, like, oh my gosh, I’m way behind. [00:23:34] Even if they pull you out at 60 and you’re planning at 65, I think you’re still gonna be okay because you’ve got 20 years. Yeah, you don’t have 25. But that also doesn’t mean that you have to hang up your apron at 60 either. There’s, there’s other things you can do from 60 to 70 or 60 to 80 if you, you know, like I said, I’m, my job when I retire is gonna be to mow grass. [00:23:56] I’m gonna work at a golf course in Mogra. We [00:24:00] Joe: had, we had Tessa West on uh, Monday for people that didn’t hear Tessa, you wanna go back and listen to that because I think also, you know, in your retirement years, finding things that are meaningful, finding meaningful work, meaningful place that may bring in money for somebody that still needs money, I think, uh, that’s even important for you. [00:24:18] Well, a little [00:24:18] OG: bit goes a long ways. It’s like if you’re at 50 KA year between two social security incomes and each person figures out a way to make $500 more a month, you go, ah, 500 bucks. That’s nothing. That’s 20% more income. That’s going from 50,000 a year to 62,000 a year. That is a big difference. [00:24:38] And it’s not that challenging to make 500 bucks, you know. Now do you wanna be doing it when you’re 92? Probably not. No. But it’s doable. That’s my point. Don’t have despair. I’m not trying to say this is gonna be easy. I’m just saying like, if you’re worried about it, you don’t have to have as much concern ’cause it’ll still be okay. [00:24:57] You have lots of time. [00:24:57] Joe: We’ve gotten some pushback from, uh, I’ve gotten some pushback for things that I’ve said from some nice stackers. Someone on Instagram recently saying, I heard you say before that you know, you don’t just suddenly run outta money. And I think people are misconstruing what I’m saying there. [00:25:12] I’m saying that to your point, og, when you have no money or you have very little money, you still find a way. I agree with the person on Instagram. It’s not the way that you wanna live. No. It isn’t where you wanna be, but you don’t go from saving a million dollars to all of a sudden it’s gone. You [00:25:29] OG: see this slow. [00:25:30] Yeah. Unless you do something really, really, really stupid or Yeah. Like gamble or something. You know what I mean? Like Yes. [00:25:36] Joe: Yeah. [00:25:36] OG: It wasn’t a bad investment that made you go from a million bucks to zero. [00:25:40] Joe: Right. I think finding an orderly way to take what you have today. And work with what you have today to make it more is number one, if you can plan, that’s much better. [00:25:51] You’re certainly not gonna plan on having 180,000 and hope to make it all the way through retirement on that money, but to this piece’s point, a lot of people do and they’re in the spot that they’re in. And this person on Instagram said, well, that’s not really a way to live your life. I totally agree. I completely agree. [00:26:08] OG: So back to your original discussion or your original conversation about this, use that as the motivation. If the average person has 180 K in retirement or at retirement, see if you can get to 180 sooner. Like imagine what that would be like and you go, well, geez, that’s not, that’s not at all what I want to have happen. [00:26:25] What do you want to have happen? This is the crux of all of this is choosing a different path early on. Because every day that you wait, every year that goes by and you go from 37 to 47 to 52. That’s that much more of a radical change. Like I said before, you change your 401k by 1%, probably don’t even notice it. [00:26:48] Put 50 bucks in a Roth. Probably not gonna notice it for most people. Now, change it six months from now to 75 bucks. You probably don’t notice it. You have that luxury when you’re in your thirties and forties to make those small changes. If you’re 50 and you show up in my office and go, alright, I’m ready to get started, what do I do? [00:27:07] We’re ripping the bandaid off. It’s not gonna be this slow steady, like let’s just change 1% every six month type of thing. ’cause that’s not gonna get it done. You’re gonna have to make a radical change. So if you wanna avoid that, then make the small changes. Now the third [00:27:23] Joe: piece on here is the high cost of healthcare, and that is definitely something that we all need to plan on is that, uh, man, well before retirement, if you’re able to, or as soon as you can, make sure you understand how Medicare works. [00:27:37] Make sure you understand parts A, B, and D. That you’ve got Medicare at least 1 0 1, hopefully 2 0 1 in your back pocket before you get there. Because healthcare, I like. [00:27:48] OG: I like looking at that sometime around your 60, 62nd birthday, you’re far enough out that you can deep dive into it. But then also you’re close enough that there’s not likely to be radical changes. [00:28:01] You know, people ask me in their forties and fifties like, Hey, so how do we think about this Medicare thing? How do we think it’s like that’s four presidential cycles away. I don’t have any idea where we’re going with this. You know, we barely know what’s gonna happen with this next one. Let’s wait until we’re a little bit closer and there’s some consistency around where things are today. [00:28:20] That doesn’t mean you should not think about a Fidelity says quite famously that you need $300,000 when you walk into retirement to cover all of your out-of-pocket healthcare costs. Back to your 180 K. That’s 300,000 on top of whatever the heck else you need to live on. Haven’t even done that. So if you’re 30, if you’re 40 and you can say, Hey, 300,000 is a lot of money, but that’s really only 5,000 more a year of savings in my HSA and I can get there by 65. [00:28:52] I think that’s a real prudent thing to think about. [00:28:54] Joe: We will link to this piece of course at the end here. Then it devolves into a bunch of, uh, a bunch of advertisements like these pieces do. But all in all, nice fodder from Maury Backman. I think there’s also other ways that people run outta money, but those three, hopefully the people on the right track. [00:29:12] Children, if you’re late in the game college, do what you can do if, if you’re early. What’s that? I said [00:29:17] OG: children in college. That’s how I’m running outta money. [00:29:20] Joe: Well, if you’re early to the game, I think, uh, this is a good cautionary tale. Put yourself in that spot. I don’t wanna be 70 something and, uh, and worried about this. [00:29:31] If I’m 40 now, if I’m 70, now I am where I am. I don’t wanna be at 80 and have this the same issue. We’ll link to it in our show notes coming up next. Do we have a TikTok minute? I’m gonna ask a different question this week, Kochi. Do we have a TikTok minute that beats the Bridezilla TikTok minute you guys had on last Wednesday? [00:29:48] Holy cow. What a mess that woman was. Demanding more from her guests. [00:29:55] OG: Yeah. You know, just, uh, we were gonna have a party, but now we need more money for a bigger party, please. [00:30:01] Joe: And we put off the wedding, but don’t worry, we’re gonna use all your gifts for our honeymoon, which we’re gonna take before the wedding. [00:30:06] Mm-Hmm. And then defending that. Do we have a better TikTok minute? We’re gonna find out in just a second, but Doug time for you to step in and step up man, because it is trivia time. What do you got? [00:30:18] Doug: Hey there, stackers. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. And there truly is nothing funny about Old Joke Day. I mean, who telling old joke like this one just for a cheap laugh. It’s just, it’s not who we are, but I’m, I’ll give you an example. This cop went to arrest a guy. The guy said, what are you arresting me for? [00:30:35] Cop said, drink it. The guy said, oh, that’s great. When did we start? Or, uh, you know, the one about the skeleton who walks into the bar and says, bartender, I’d like a beer and a mop. Not funny. See, told you not funny. Not gonna go do those jokes. Like the other bar joke, the horse walks into the bar and the bartender says, why? [00:30:56] The long face is just horrible, right? I wouldn’t stoop to that level. We’re better than that. Today is the anniversary of one song that brought in lots of Benjamins on this day in history. I’ll just say that I feel so unsure as I take your hand and lead you to this trivia question. What song released on today’s date in 1984 makes me realize I’m never gonna give trivia again the way I give trivia to you. [00:31:25] I’ll be back right after I go wha and slap myself for accidentally telling those old jokes up there. God, I’m sorry. They’re just so bad. Speaking of, I mean, God, maybe one more. Why did Cinderella get kicked off her soccer team? Because she kept running away from the ball. Alright. Yeah, I gotta, I gotta stop it. [00:31:56] Hey there, stackers. I’m the bringer of fun and avoider of old Joke Day. Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. Seriously, I mean, who would celebrate a holiday where you’d tell jokes like, uh, you know, like this horrible one. What do you call a Mexican man with a rubber toe? Roberto. Roberto. It’s so bad. Maybe slightly funny, but it’s, it’s, it’s insensitive, right? [00:32:21] I’m, I’m not sure who it’s insensitive toward, but probably somebody or this one. I like to go camping, said Tom intently. Seriously, just, no, no, you don’t do that on a high quality show like this one. Today’s question was about a band and a hit song released on today’s date, way back in 1984, about feeling unsure and taking your hand all the way to the. [00:32:49] Dance floor. That song, which went all the way to number one, was careless, whisper by Wham and wham. Just like that. You have your trivia answer and we can stop with the old joke day stuff. No more jokes. Like my boss asked me why I only get sick on weekdays and I told her, must be my weekend immune system, my weakened immune system. [00:33:13] You’ll figure it out. Okay. I’m getting the look now, so I gotta probably run. See you. [00:33:18] Joe: Oh my God. Doug. No wonder he is run upstairs. Mm-Hmm. Those are absolutely. Who, who would stoop to those? Not a big fan. No, we don’t like old jokes. You know, jokes like, uh, what kind of birds are always sticking to each other? [00:33:33] Hmm. Velcros. See, we’d never do stuff like that. Or, uh, where do all the letters sleep in the alphabet? No. How did the hipster burn his tongue? Dude, he drank all the coffee before It was cool. We’d never do jokes like that. Can, can, [00:33:59] caller: can we? [00:34:00] Joe: What? What, what do you, what? What are you saying? It’s another [00:34:03] OG: segment. [00:34:04] Joe: I’m just saying that we would never do that. You’re getting all whatever. Just proving a point. Hey, uh, time for our TikTok minute. This is the part. We’re cleaning it up by doing the TikTok minute. How bad is that? This is better. We shine a light on a TikTok creator who’s either doing something brilliant or air quotes brilliant. [00:34:22] I’m not even gonna ask you that question today. og. I’m gonna ask you this one. Is this one better than Bridezilla that we had last Wednesday? Is this a better TikTok minute? No. Or no? More dangerous. [00:34:33] OG: Better in what sense? Like better just play the damn thing. Maybe [00:34:37] Joe: just more entertaining. Is it more entertaining than Brian Taylor just play? [00:34:41] All right. From parents to kids, we often have to OG talk to our kids about our estate plan, make sure the estate plan’s in order. And this is a old buddy on TikTok talking with his son about his estate plan. [00:34:59] TikTok: I get to the point where I can’t take care of myself. Don’t remember who anyone is. You just let me go. [00:35:05] Put me outta my misery. Come on. Don’t talk like that man. Just strap me on my boat. Point me out to see what the ocean do the rest okay, dad, that’s enough. No, I mean it Take me down to Key West. Put me on the boat. Aim me at Cuba. Full throttle. [00:35:19] bit: Dad. Enough. Have you even thought for a second about how I might feel knowing that I don’t get your boat? [00:35:29] That’s a Grady White and I’m not gonna let you sink it in the Caribbean. I want it. Well, sorry, I never thought of it that way. All right, we’ll find you a raft or a small sailboat or something. Maybe a box that floats [00:35:45] Joe: that’s, that handles it much, much better. You can’t get rid of the boat. [00:35:51] OG: You know they have amber alerts. [00:35:53] Obviously you get ’em on your phone in case there’s something that people need to be aware of. They have silver alerts, you know? Have you seen a silver alert before? No. What’s a silver alert? It’s the same thing, but for old people. Oh. It’s like, you know, grandpa’s gone missing, you know, whatever. I told my kids, it’s intentional. [00:36:12] Like there you never have to do a silver alert for me. I have finally. Finally did it. Just, if I’m gone, if I’m gone, there’s a reason. Don’t come looking for me. I finally had enough [00:36:26] Joe: one day. Grandpa g just walks off into the sunset. It’s like [00:36:30] OG: we’ve, uh, we’re looking for a blue Mercedes. Uh, the occupant is 87. [00:36:36] He hasn’t been seen since Thanksgiving. I, yes. That’s, that’s, that’s what did it. I finally went, I’ve had enough. I can’t take it anymore. It’s all done. Just I’ve run away. It’s a thousand percent intentional. You’d be pissed off if you saw the silver alert. Oh, goodness. For you. No. God dang it. They found me. [00:36:55] I’m convinced that’s probably a lot of those. It’s like, you know, the old man’s driving down the road going, I gotta change cars again. They’re looking for the Camry this time [00:37:07] Joe: learns to hot wire. Just have an escape plans. Exactly. Get away from all the nasty family. [00:37:13] OG: Yeah, [00:37:14] Joe: it’s so good. Thank you to Theresa for sending that to me. [00:37:17] You got a TikTok minute for us. I love talking estate planning in great ways. Make sure you don’t give away the boat. That one was pretty good. I mean, think about how I feel. I want the boat. Yeah. Don’t care about dad off on the raft. Who cares? Hey, let’s answer a call from a stacker who said, you know what? [00:37:34] I better call Saul. See. Hi and og. This is the segment where we help a stacker in need. And today, uh, Eric’s got a question for you, og. All right. [00:37:46] caller: Hey, Doug, it’s your friend Eric from Banana Hammocks Anonymous. We’ve been missing you on Thursday nights down at the Sizzler. We hope you come back. We all really miss your body. [00:37:55] Whoa. Anyways. Question for Joe and og. I have been pumping money into my HSA for several years now through my company and get a company contribution as well. I’m a young guy in my middle of my thirties, healthy as can be no family. It’s approaching about 30,000 now, and I just don’t know what to do with it. [00:38:13] I clearly covers my high deductible plan. I cashflow any sort of health expenses that I do have currently. And yeah, I’m just curious as far as what your thoughts are on if I need to continue to pump money into it or if I need to pivot somewhere else. I don’t like the idea that Paula has of pulling receipts and then pulling cash out as you need. [00:38:33] I’m just not that organized. And then for me, just curious to see as far as is it just a retirement fund? Is there anything else that I need to be thinking about now and planning for accordingly? All right, Doug, see you Thursday night. [00:38:47] Joe: I think I just threw up in my mouth and I thought Doug’s old dad jokes. [00:38:52] We’re gonna make me throw up in my mouth. And, uh, Eric, Eric, you did it. You know what’s funny? That is, that is a common problem, by the way. People that have issues. I remember our friend, uh, Belinda Rosenblum talked about that. She’s like, I love the HSA idea where you keep the receipts and then you pull them later on. [00:39:08] And she said, but you know what? I work with real people and so many people are so disorganized and have a hell of a time just hanging onto the receipts. Like just having the HSA for now works, but, um, but what do you think about, uh, Eric’s question. A [00:39:22] OG: couple of thoughts on that. There’s, there’s a couple of ways to think about this. [00:39:25] One is, with everybody having camera phones, why don’t you just take a picture of it, put it in a separate folder on your phone, you know, it takes two seconds. You can scan it, put it on Google, Dropbox, you know, Google Docs, whatever. I’m curious if, uh, if someone way smarter than me has an opinion about, like a lot of credit card companies will at the end of the year send you an annual summary. [00:39:50] Like, here’s all the money you spent every month and, you know, categorized and all that sort of stuff. I wonder if someone would opine as to whether or not they thought that might be satisfactory for expenses. You know, if it was like categorized by American Express as here’s all your he healthcare spend by month and by transaction. [00:40:08] Does that count? Or kind of using that as an approach? But here’s the way that I would think about the HSAs. It’s such a fantastic tool and it’s definitely part of the order of operations in terms of saving and investing, right? So you’ve maxed out everything and now you’re back to maxing out your HSA and that’s fantastic. [00:40:27] You don’t need the money. A lot of HSAs require you to keep a certain amount of money in cash. As part of their program. So once you’ve exceeded that, I think you invest it, you invest it as part of your equity portfolio. Long-term investing. But here’s the thing, if you’re 35 and you don’t have a family, stuff starts breaking when you’re in your forties and fifties. [00:40:48] I mean, I know people in their forties and fifties that have had knee surgeries. I know people that have had back surgery. I know people that, uh, a buddy of mine, uh, had arm surgery not too long ago. He tore something in his arm. So it’s like these different things show up in your life and you don’t know when they’re gonna happen. [00:41:08] And then if you have a family, like, like we do with these three little monsters, they break stuff. When Alex broke his collarbone and the, the surgery itself, that was billed to the in and out insurance covered a lot of it, but the surgery cost itself was 40 k. We had to pay a substantial amount of that out of pocket, you know, ’cause we have a high deductible plan. [00:41:26] So I don’t think that you can count yourself as out of the woods yet for healthcare spending at 30 some odd years old going, I got 30 grand. I’m feeling pretty good because one kid collarbone surgery will burn through that in, in a heartbeat. So I think you, you have the opportunity to kind of keep your foot on the gas for a while. [00:41:45] Keep on investing the money, keep on, you know, if you have the ability to do it right, if this is down the line in terms of the order. But if you have the ability to do it and you’ve been doing it and, and you can keep doing it, all you’re doing is buying yourself flexibility. And the worst case scenario is you don’t have the receipts, you don’t have a way to do it, and you’d pay a little tax on the way out, which is what you would’ve done anyway if you wouldn’t do the HSA, right? [00:42:05] You’d, you’d either consume it and pay sales tax on the consumption, or you’d invest in your brokerage account and you’d, uh, you know, you’d end up, um, with capital gains or whatever tax. Yeah. Pay capital gains taxes or, or whatever. So I think there’s nothing wrong with buying yourself the flexibility right now. [00:42:22] Joe: Eric, thanks so much for the question. Great question. We are sending Eric some swag for his contribution to the show. That is his, uh, reward for calling in. And you know what, if you’ve got a question for us, head to stacky Benjamins dot com slash voicemail. That’s where you leave us the voicemail, and then you’ll hear yourself on the show in, you know, a few weeks. [00:42:45] If you’re not wondering about your HSA though, you’re wondering about your plan in general and how to make things dovetail, OG and this team are taking clients. So head to Stacking Benjamins dot com slash og. That’s the first step. It’s the link to their calendar. Mm-Hmm. And then, uh, you schedule a time and a first meeting then where you can see how they will work with you to do better planning than you’ve done in the past. [00:43:10] Coming up on Friday before we go to the back porch. Well, let’s, let’s just mosey outta the back porch and I’ll tell you, oh gee, what’s uh, happening on Friday? Friday is the opening ceremonies for the Olympics already. Lauren Williams, who is the first woman to medal in both the summer in Winter Olympics [00:43:26] OG: here in Texas, here in Dallas. [00:43:28] Joe: Yeah. We, so she was our moderator for my book event in Dallas and we had a lot of fun, you and Doug and I hanging out with everybody in Dallas and with Lauren, so can’t wait to regroup with her and we’ll get her take on, you know, what’s it like walking out there? As one of these Olympians. I think it’s pretty cool just knowing pretty [00:43:46] OG: rarefied air. [00:43:48] Joe: Yeah. Just knowing somebody that’s done that is pretty awesome. I remember her showing us her medals once before we did a recording and they’re in her sock drawer. Yeah. Least. Yeah. It’s pretty wild. She’s digging through her socks. It goes over they Are I here somewhere? [00:44:03] OG: Ding, ding, ding, ding. Oh, here they are. [00:44:05] Klein clang, these things. Oh, [00:44:08] Joe: gold and silver medals. Hey, I wanna thank everybody for uh, uh, some of the, the, um, well, first I got, I wanna thank you and Doug for, uh, taking over the show the last couple weeks. I wanna thank people for the notes that I got. My dad passed away, which was what happened, and that was expected. [00:44:28] My dad, uh, had cancer. That was, um. Uh, complications from Agent Orange. Mm-Hmm. He was in the Navy in Vietnam and his, uh, best friend had died from similar cancer and Agent Orange related, uh, just a few years ago. But the cool thing about my dad is he left it all on the table. He didn’t, he didn’t have a, um. [00:44:49] There were no regrets, og, you know, and before he died, he said I’d lived a great life. And he, and he totally had, he’d if I could do it the way that he did it like that, that was great. But I wanna tell a story about when we got the call that it was time to rush home. So I was at this national park, which is what I was gonna talk about, right? [00:45:08] I, I’ve talked about my travel to bore you guys to tears. So I was a great base in National Park, which is a great national park right on the border of Utah and Nevada. It’s barely in Nevada. It’s the highest mountain in Nevada. They’re over 13,000 feet. And, uh, uh, Wheeler Peak, there’s centerpiece of the park. [00:45:27] There’s also Nevada’s only glacier. I didn’t know Nevada had a glacier. It’s Nevada’s, only glacier is on Wheeler Peak. We climbed it, we were getting ready to climb it, and we get the call, og get the call from my sister, that my dad had had a heart attack and that, um, that he had taken a turn for the worst we thought he had. [00:45:44] Several weeks to live. I was gonna be going there about a week and a half later to, uh, visit again. And, uh, she said that the nurse was coming and they were going to assess how long they thought my dad might have. And of course, you never know right? How long anybody has, but I originally said, I’m like, yeah, I’m not going. [00:46:01] You know, I think we all kind of deny that it’s a family member’s time. Like, you’re like, Nope, I’m not going. I’m not gonna not, nope. Like, if I don’t go, he’s, he’s, he’s not gonna die. So we take off on this hike to scale this, uh, mountain and it was, it was a bear. It was, it was a six hour hike. But during that time I realized that we all have our own mountains that we have to climb. [00:46:27] And, uh, and we also need help. We need to help each other. We also wanna be there for the important moments. So I realized on the way up the mountain that yeah, we needed to cut this short and I did need to, I did need to, to go home. Is [00:46:39] OG: there any chance it was just ’cause you were really tired from climbing and you’re like, yeah, I don’t, I’m not doing more of this. [00:46:45] I’m not doing anymore of this. This is really a bigger mountain than I thought it was. How do I get off this damn thing? I’ll tell Cheryl I need to go see dad. Yeah, I’ve been thinking about it. We need to, we [00:46:57] Joe: need to head back. Thank you for the excuse, dad. Thanks. Thanks for getting me out of this crap. [00:47:06] OG: Sorry. Didn’t mean dad a little bit of, uh, levity to this. I know. This is a, [00:47:09] Joe: it was a beautiful hike by the way. You get to the top of it. And, uh, somebody had put a mailbox into the rocks and you opened up the mailbox and there was a thing to sign your name that you’d climb this 13,000 foot mountain. Oh wow. [00:47:21] And uh, but there was also a little, a little folded up, a piece of cardboard. So this picture of Cheryll and I with Wheeler Peak and a picture, there were four other guys up there that took our picture and we took their picture at the top. So that was pretty cool. It was a beautiful hike. It was, it was hard, but it was beautiful. [00:47:36] We get back down to the rental car and um, call my sister and the nurse had just gotten there and so we were gonna rush back to this beautiful cabin that we had. By the time we get there, my sister calls me again. Goes, yeah, the, the nurse thinks that you have time to go home. ’cause my question was, do I fly right to my parents’ house or do I go home first and then drive? [00:48:00] Which I really wanna do. ’cause I wanted to be able to stay long-term. ’cause we didn’t know how long he had, uh, said that I had plenty of time to go home. But I should start that journey now. ’cause you, ’cause you just don’t know. [00:48:10] OG: Yeah. [00:48:12] Joe: I had a non-refundable hotel room for the next day. ’cause what was gonna go wrong, right? [00:48:17] I’m gonna pay less money and do the non-refundable hotel room. Big thanks to the Sheridan four points in Salt Lake City for when I wrote them and I said, Hey, can I just change this to a day early? They’re like, yeah, no problem. I told them why, and they said, yeah, no problem. So that was cool. Changing a non-refundable thing. [00:48:33] The airlines can’t believe I’m about to fricking say this, the airlines so easy to work with. American Airlines. Yep. Flight’s available, change it. No additional cost moving the flight just the day before. Super easy to do. We have a four hour drive to Salt Lake City, halfway through. Cheryl is fidgeting because we’ve got so much going on. [00:48:57] She takes her wedding ring and drops it between the seat and the console in this rental vehicle that we had. Huh? Then she starts digging. Like, I, I didn’t even know what was going on. Like, I’m just driving along, we’re listening to the radio, and all of a sudden she’s digging between the seat and she can’t, she can’t find anywhere her ring. [00:49:15] And finally after I, I don’t know, like 40 minutes, dude, I pull over and I, and I’m helping her and we can’t find this ring anywhere. And obviously the ring has value, but a ton of, you know, value for us, and she can’t find it. She’s freaking out. And so we realized we’re not gonna find the ring. Like we’re, we’re just not gonna find it. [00:49:38] We, we need some help finding it. And the only way we think we’re gonna be able to find it is to either take out that center console, there’s like some holes in the console on the bottom. And also there was some holes underneath the seat. And we realized that we might have to take out this console and take out this seat in an Avis rental car. [00:49:57] So Cheryl starts calling around. She finds a place called, uh, action Towing in downtown Seattle. And the woman at Action Towing goes, oh, I’ve lost stuff under the seat. She goes, believe it or not, taking out the seat is way easier than you think. She goes, you just need the right tools. And she goes, oh, thank God. [00:50:16] So, uh, we agree that she’s freaking out so much and we’re gonna get to the, the hotel at about 10 o’clock. Our, our plane, we have to leave our plane at 4:00 AM So she’s, so initially I said, Hey, I’ll go and take care of the ring and you just get some sleep. And she goes, no, no, no. You’re gonna be in a car driving. [00:50:36] The second we land, I’m gonna be in a car driving across the country from Texas back to the Midwest to go see my dad. So she’s like, no, no, no. You get sleep and I’m gonna freak out about this. Anyway, so we get to the, we get to the hotel and the woman. This wonderful dispatcher lady at Action Towing says, yeah, we’re helping the city with some jobs, and so we’re gonna, we gotta take care of that first, I’m gonna text you. [00:51:04] So she waits, I’m gonna say about an hour, and there’s still been no text. So at 11, 11 30 at night, she, she calls, uh, action towing. She calls the woman back and the dude answers and uh, and he sounds kind of annoyed, by the way. 24 hour towing supposedly, Cheryl explains, and the guy goes, no, that was just a dispatcher. [00:51:30] Listen, we’re way too tired to do any of this, so we’re not coming. Nice. Are, are, are you kidding me? My, I gotta be at the airport at 4:00 AM It’s 1130 at night and you just bailed. You just bailed ’em for no reason. She literally starts crying ’cause she’s been working. So her hand has gotten bloody from being between the seat and the console. [00:51:51] Uh, she’s very, uh, worked up. We’re both very tired obviously as well. And, uh, she starts crying with a guy and the guy from Action Towing. And I wanna say that word over and over, those two words. Action towing. ’cause this dude was a loser. No, I’m sorry. We’re not doing it. No, we’re not doing, no, that was just the dispatcher. [00:52:08] And she goes, can I just talk to the dispatcher? ’cause she said she’s done it herself. Yeah. I can’t give you your number. Yeah, I can’t do that. No, no. And he goes, you know, you gotta find somebody that does like a 24 hour mechanic comes to you. She goes, do you know any of those people? No. I’m sorry. I don’t know anybody. [00:52:24] Dude practically hangs up on her. Nice. [00:52:26] OG: So [00:52:27] Joe: now it’s, now it’s going on midnight and we are calling towing services and we’re telling them the weirdest story of all time. We have this rental car. We need to take the seat out. Do you do that? We only work on trucks. No, we only do towing. We don’t have anything to do that. [00:52:43] Uh, she calls aaa. We’re not even AAA members. AAA person’s very nice. Connects us with a dude who calls us back 10 minutes later. This dude’s in San Diego, we’re in Salt Lake City. Guy goes, I have no idea why they did that. I can be there by [00:52:56] OG: Tuesday. I’m sorry. It’s like, it’s like the scene at, in, in, in, uh, Tommy Boy. [00:53:03] Like, oh, there’s no tickets to Sandusky. I can have you in Chicago by tomorrow at noon. Right? [00:53:10] Joe: Like, whatcha talking about. So she, uh, she calls Towing Guy number 87. I don’t even remember how she got this dude’s name, but it’s the first guy we’ve talked to, right as we’re giving up hope. Who is any empathy at all? [00:53:25] He’s like, yeah, I, I don’t take seats out. I don’t have any of the stuff. He goes, I feel horrible. That’s just a horrible situation to be in. He said, you know what’s funny is that my son has been taking some like technical training with this company, but they also, while they’re teaching him the, the, uh, the electronics, they’re also teaching him like the different tools to take. [00:53:47] I bet. I bet that my son might be able to do this. And he gives her two phone numbers and says, tell, tell him that dad called, so she calls this guy Jake. Kind of a, does all kinds of stuff. Turns out he also does like the, you know, you lose your keys in your car. Mm-Hmm. That kind of thing. He does that, uh, uh, business. [00:54:09] Jake says, yeah, I’ll come out right now and I’m sure we’re gonna find it. Like he, we go from having no hope at all to Yes, I’m sure we’re gonna find it. Jake comes and shows up. Jake is amazing. Jake’s like, I got this covered. We’re gonna take the seat out. Realizes he doesn’t have the, the, the park. He’s like, listen, I gotta go to Park City. [00:54:28] I’m not gonna be able, he, he tries to find it. He can’t find the thing in it. E either. I gotta go to Park City 35 minutes away. It is now one o’clock in the morning. It’s, it might even be one 30 in the morning. We, we gotta leave by 4:00 AM I’m going 35 minutes away and I’m coming back. I was already in bed. [00:54:47] Cheryl said I made the call of the decade. I give this dude my car keys and I said, I’m gonna go get some sleep. Dude, I’ve never met before. I have no idea. I’m handing him the key to my rental car so that when he comes back, he can just take the stuff apart. Cheryl goes back out there at about three 15. [00:55:04] Jake is back. Jake is taking the seat apart. It is 4:00 AM I am walking out with our suitcases and stuff. The seat’s completely out of the rental car and they find it underneath this huge seam buried deep inside the seam. They find the, they find the thing. Wow. The dude is running Cheryl’s credit card, og. [00:55:28] He’s running our credit card. Well, I’ve got the car running. We throw the stuff in the back, we go to the airport. We make our plane by 10 minutes, like, like there’s 10 minutes until they’re closing the, the gate for people on. But I gotta say this whole time, Jake is like, we’re gonna find it. Don’t worry. [00:55:43] We’re gonna fi, we’re gonna do it. And at a time when you need humanity and you need somebody to just give a Jake like steps up. So if anybody wants the number for action towing, I. Screw you. Action towing. If everybody wants to know Jake, if you’re, if, if you’re stuck with your keys locked in your car, whatever you want, Jake’s number, please call me, write me. [00:56:05] ’cause Jake’s a badass. [00:56:06] OG: I just wanna know the scene at, uh, Avis, when you showed up in the seat. Cheryl’s right in the back seat. The seat’s on crooked. It’s like that, uh, comedy bit where the guy says, you know, you just, you can just drop the car at the, like, sir, you can’t park here. You call, you call, call Avis. [00:56:23] Hey, I, I left your car at the terminal. D you know, the keys are in, it’s running, you know, and the Avis guy’s like, God dang it, not again. Right? Like, what, what did Avis say when you returned the car? Half half assembled. You’re like, look, Jake did [00:56:39] Joe: a great job of putting it back together. [00:56:41] OG: He’s like, I’ve got these four bolts. [00:56:43] I don’t know where these go. Right? You’re like, it doesn’t matter. Just throw ’em in the center console. The next guy’s gonna really figure out this thing’s not put together. [00:56:52] Joe: And the consoles rattle around. ’cause we took that off too. [00:56:54] OG: Oh yeah. Yeah. Wow. You know, you look at this as a lesson in humanity and you know, people being nice and that I look at it as this is another reason why I will never travel with you. [00:57:07] Like chaos seems to find every possible situation. Like I’ve never heard you tell a story of, yeah. I got on my first class jet to London. I ate at a nice Michelin restaurant and the hotel was fantastic and Baristed their security on the way home and global entry was awesome. And I got all my shit on time and the plane was early. [00:57:31] Like it’s always, there’s never that, you never have that story. No, it was, it’s always like, so there, you’re never gonna believe this. So there I was there I was stranded and they did. I [00:57:44] Joe: was in the middle of [00:57:45] OG: Rome without my seat in my car. Well, I’m glad that worked out. Obviously we were sorry to hear about your dad and. [00:57:53] I glad, uh, obviously we take care of whatever we need to so that you can have all the time you needed. You guys [00:57:58] Joe: did a great job. I got to edit and listen to those shows, and those were so fun. Sadly, was, I think [00:58:03] OG: we’ve gotten so much fan mail you might not be needed around for a while. I, uh, I was hoping not. [00:58:08] I wanted to talk about that. Well, let’s talk about that with Doug for a quick second. Um, he really did like the big D that was, he kind of took to that. [00:58:19] Joe: I’ve heard that Doug’s all [00:58:20] OG: about the big D We experimented with lots of things. [00:58:26] Doug experimented [00:58:27] Joe: with the Big D. Totally, totally did. Um, but anyway, thanks to you guys, thanks to everybody. And, um, th this story does end well. I, I made it to Cleveland, uh, where my dad lives and, uh, four hours before he died, which was great. So anyway, Doug, let’s, uh, get us out of this modeling stuff. What, uh, what should we have learned today? [00:58:50] Besides, uh, how to unscrew the passenger seat in a navis rental car. [00:58:55] Doug: So, what should we have learned today? First, take some advice from our headline Model out your spending so that you’re left with some funds late in life and can have some fun early as well. Life’s about balance. Second, take some advice from our TikTok minute. [00:59:11] And remember, maybe your kid wants the boat. Put yourself out to sea on a rap, or something less valuable. But the big lesson, this old joke day is just horrible. No more. And finally, to whoever took my selfie stick, I hope you take a long look at yourself. This show is the property of SB podcasts, LLC, copyright 2024, and is created by Joe Saul-Sehy. [00:59:39] Joe gets help from a few of our neighborhood friends. You’ll find out about our awesome team at Stacking Benjamins dot com, along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots. Come say hello. Oh yeah, and before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don’t take advice from people you don’t know. [01:00:01] 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.
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