Have you heard about the new Apple Vision Pro that was recently launched? Are you an early adopter, or are you waiting for the price to be cut and the kinks to be worked out? Here to discuss the new world reality of augmented reality and virtual reality, we’re joined by Certified Financial Coach and co-host of the hit couples’ finance podcast For Better & Worth, Ericka Young. She is joined by Doc G of the Earn & Invest podcast and our very own OG.
Is this amazing new technology worth its $3,500 price tag? Is there room in your budget for it? Or is it a justifiable “I’ll figure it out later” type of expense? We discuss the pros and cons of being on the cutting edge, when it’s acceptable (or not) to pull the trigger on a big, not-totally-necessary expense.
Plus, stick around for our latest installment of Doug’s year-long trivia game. Will Doc G make Len proud, will Ericka put Paula Pant on the board, or will OG take this week’s prize?
In the second half of the show, sponsored by DepositAccounts.com, we dive into why the fact that the Apple headset is so good it is actually a problem.
Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.StackingBenjamins.com/201
Enjoy!
Watch On Our YouTube Channel:
Our Topic: Are we in a new era of reality with the launch of the Apple Vision Pro?
Apple Vision Pro review: magic, until it’s not (The Verge)
During our conversation you’ll hear us mention:
- Augmented Reality (“AR”) vs. Virtual Reality (“VR”).
- How to budget for discretionary expenses.
- The mistake of buying the latest gadget on credit without a plan to pay it off.
- The value of being patient.
- The dangers of “0% interest” credit offers.
- Reaching a compromise with others to share expenses.
- Finding teachable moments in difficult experiences.
- The potential danger of telling yourself “I deserve it.”
- How to trick yourself out of buying something on impulse.
- The perils of losing contact with others.
- Aligning technology with your purpose.
- Effects of isolation on our mental and physical health.
- How to make technology work for you rather than being negatively impacted by it.
Our Contributors
A big thanks to our contributors! You can check out more links for our guests below.
Ericka Young
Another thanks to certified financial coach, Ericka Young for joining our contributors this week! Hear more from Ericka on the podcast she hosts with her husband Chris, For Better & Worth. Learn more about Ericka by visiting her website, Ericka Young.
Check out her hit book Naked and Unashamed: 10 Money Conversations Every Couple Must Have.
Doc G
You can learn more about Doc G and tune into his award-winning podcast, Earn & Invest at The Earn & Invest Podcast.
Grab your copy of his hit book, Taking Stock: A Hospice Doctor’s Advice on Financial Independence, Building Wealth, and Living a Regret-Free Life
OG
For more on OG and his firm’s page, click here.
Doug’s Game Show Trivia
- What is the average annual salary of a 911 dispatcher?
DepositAccounts
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Mentioned in today’s show
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Written by: Kevin Bailey
Episode transcript
Nervous. Yes. First time, no. I’ve been nervous lots of times.
Live from Joe’s mom’s basement.
It’s
the Stacking Benjamin Show.
I am Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. And today we’re looking at technology, your wallet, and staying out of debt with certified financial coach Erica Young. Plus we’ve got the original Grump og. And finally you saw him host the Grammys last weekend. It’s Trevor. Oh, nevermind. It’s just Doc G. Although I think you’d make a great Grammy host doc, but that’s not all.
Halfway through the show, I’ll share my operating trivia question. And now a guy who you can call anytime day or night to get the best personal finance advice around. Heck, I’ll even sell you his number. It’s Joe. See? Hi.
Oh
God. Now how much are you charging for that?
Like 50 cents? Dude, I just wanna see you. No, I just wanna see you awake all night. Fielding calls. Let’s, we gotta put an
asterisk after that, Doug and like, uh, after 5:00 PM it’s, it’s triple timer, so I don’t know. Hey everybody, welcome to part-Time for the Wind podcast.
I’m Joe Alci, average show money on Twitter X, whatever you might call it. Welcome to another episode of the Stacky Benjamin Show, brought to you on Fridays by State Farm. State Farm agents are small business owners too, so they know how to help you choose personalized policies that fit your needs like a good neighbor.
State Farm is there. Talk to your local agent today. We’re not just gonna talk to our local agent. We’re gonna talk to the people at this round table. ’cause man, we got a great one on this episode. So sit back, relax. You found us ready to start your weekend with a guy across the card table fixing his hair.
Mr. OG is here. How are you man? I love it.
I’m going with the messy bun today.
Yeah, it looks so both hairs are outta place. Is that a bun? It’s Is there a bun? He’s got a man bun. I’m like, I don’t
know. I have 7,000 times more hair than you. So seven bajillion times then the three of you? Yeah. All together actually.
Yes. Wow.
That’s all together.
I am, yes. I’m by myself over here with all this hair today.
She’s, we all have hair envy. You went with messy bun too. Okay, we’ll introduce Erica in a second. But if I seem a little off my game today, it’s ’cause I, I’m surrounded. With people from that horrible town of Ann Arbor that have experience either with Ann Arbor or they have Ann Arbor, sympathies neighbor Doug.
Lots of sympathies for that awful town. Uh, it’s in their blood. Another, another guy who was in Ann Arbor, Michigan for, uh, whatever number of years it took Doc G from Earn and Invest is here. How are you man?
I am good and I have not been back to Ann Arbor in so long. I’m like, I’m the worst University of Michigan grad.
I don’t watch sports. I don’t pay attention to anything, but I did love going
there.
We can have Zingerman ship to your house. We can get you a little taste of Ann Arbor ship you a Ruben.
So Zingerman’s. I definitely remember a Reuben at Zingerman’s only cost about 45 bucks. Yeah. So to have it shipped to your house, what’s that?
Do you have to refinance something?
But it’s delicious. It’s, and you can, and you can eat it for three days. It’s easy to, to justify and amortize that cost of the Zingerman sandwich. ’cause it’s massive. It’s massive.
Not a big U of M fan. But, uh, Zingerman’s, if you wanna sponsor the show, I’d be very happy if we could just take payment in, uh, sandwiches.
Ann joining us, she also went to the University of Michigan. Oh my goodness. If I would’ve known this ahead of time, she wouldn’t have made it. But the co-host of the For Better Worth Podcast, Erica Young,
is here. Woo-hoo. Good to be here. And so glad I’m in Great Michigan company
today. Well, we’ve all spent time in the state of Michigan.
Some of us were in the better town, but Erica, you and your husband had been married for 25 years, and as young as you are, I have no idea what age you got married at. But what’s funny is you and Chris say you actually still like each other. What’s that all about?
You know, I don’t know who told you that lie, but uh, I will be here to tell you that.
Yeah. We’re hanging on. We’re hanging on. No lies. No, he’s a good dude. I think I’ll keep him. I, you know, they say it’s cheaper to keep her. I actually think it’s cheaper to keep him. So, you know, that’s where we earn. I think that’s why I like
him. Well, I told you ahead of time, we gotta have Chris, uh, here.
Next time we got, we got clearly the better half year to start off. That’s right. Uh, y yes, but tell everybody about for better worth. ’cause you guys have some pretty. Deep, intimate conversations about a pretty wide range of topics.
Yes,
yes. I’ve been a financial coach for a long time and I think that in the last couple of years I’ve been dragging my husband to FinCon and he got all excited and was like, Hey, you know what?
We could do this, we could do a podcast together. And I needed him ’cause there was no way I was doing the backend and all the producing and all that. And I was like, yeah, let’s go. So we, we do, we talk about money, conversations that couples don’t wanna have. So we literally get in people’s business and we talk about our own business and our money pass to help, you know, make the conversation just a bit easier so people can I.
Last, the test of time, whether they like their spouse or not. We just wanna make sure the money works. How about that? Yeah. You,
you had an episode called Getting Naked, and I gotta tell you, that went a different direction than I was hoping.
Wait a minute. Hold on, hold on, hold on.
The pay-per-view, what, how
did that go?
What were you hoping for? That’s what I wanna know.
I don’t look at the time. Wow.
Well, but that’s all about like, just, you know, making sure you get naked with your money. You’re, you’re stripping down all of the things that keep you in terms of barriers from your partner. So
Jill kept on trying to find the video podcast, but he couldn’t,
there was no video.
Oh. Taking the Excel spreadsheet and. Yeah, massaging the numbers. It’s
so sexy.
It’s so sexy. Yes, very sexy. As my co-author of Stack said, she’s a freak in the spreadsheets. Right. I love that. Yeah. All right. We got Erica here. We got Doc G, we got Neighbor Doug. We got Oh G. We are talking about something you might not think is a financial topic.
The Apple Vision Pro just came out. What do we think? What’s our review? Well, we’re gonna dive in here in just a second, but first, Erica, do you know the rules of being on the Stacky Benjamin Show?
Lord have mercy. There are rules over
here. Yeah. Well, what do you think the first rule probably is?
Have fun.
It better
be Well have fun was nice, but that was actually the first rule right there. Do you know what the second rule is, Erica? What is it So important? Those are the rules right there. I. Perfect. Awesome. And now we’re ready to get moving.
All right. Our piece today comes to us from the tech site, the Verve, and it is all about this new greatness and tech land called the Apple Vision Pro Doc G, you have a little bit of background here. This thing’s been out for just what, two weeks and you already have seen one in the wild.
So my son has been talking about this for like a year and was on the wait list and had his appointment and went and picked it up right when it was first available.
And called me a few hours later with the Apple Vision Pro on, and I could see his little avatar. It used AI to make a face to look like him ’cause he was wearing it. But then I could see him ’cause we were doing FaceTime and it was, he loves it. He, he completely loves it. I don’t know. Looks like an expensive toy to me.
Well, we, we will get into that in a second. I don’t know, man. Looking at all the things that it does. I remember that commercial too. Erica, when did you first hear of the Apple Vision Pro?
Really recently. I am very familiar with, um, vr, but, uh, you know, not that one, not air. You’ve played around with some VR
before it sounded like.
I have. And it is fun. I enjoy it. It’s weird, but it’s fun and it, it blows your mind when you’re wearing something on your head and you’re like in it. Feel like you’re in a totally different place. Did you break anything
in the living room?
No, but I almost fell a couple of times.
Oh yeah.
I totally believe it.
I, I told that story on the show, I dunno, sometime in the last year or so, but Erica, I was playing ping pong with my son on his vision. Uh, no Meta quest. I was so into it and I forgot where I was that when I lost a point, I leaned out to rest my hands on the ping pong table and went right on my face.
There you go. See, because it just, your, your brain is so easily fooled that, and the graphics aren’t even that good, but you’re just so into it. And I was like, exasperated and I went to lean forward and I felt pain. Oh gee, how many of these things have, have these, these Apple versions Have your kids already broken?
They’ve been out, what a week. So there’s, there gotta be a few on the floor. Yeah.
We, we thankfully have avoided the curse of being early adopters. We talked about that at the dinner table the other day. We’re like, we’re not at this part of the curve. The bottom, the early adopters we’re kind of like late stage adopters after the price gets cut in half, twice and they work all the kinks out.
But I, my favorite, um. VR story was the one, the same thing, the Facebook one, whatever it’s called. And they have a game where you go up an elevator and you have to walk out a plank to get it to, and, and everybody who does it is all like, whoa, you know, you’re like literally on the carpet, but it feels like you’re on this four inch beam perched high above the city.
And if you fall, you literally fall. And people scream and get freaked out. And I saw a video the other day of a guy with his apple vision on, in his, uh, self-driving Tesla. And he was, he was doing this like while he was driving, like he was playing a game while his Tesla was driving. And then the next scene was he was looking at the police officer who had pulled him over because he had the, and he still had him on as he was like, looking at the cop.
I
saw a TikTok video of a guy walking across the street with him on. And he is poking and pulling at things as he’s crossing the street. He seemed like a person that you will see on the street. Sadly, that has some other challenges. But his challenge was he was mixing reality with all these screens. And by the way, this piece does a good job at talking about this, what the Apple Vision Pro is.
It is a new headset. But Doc G to your point, this is not virtual reality. This is, uh, augmented reality. Can you tell us the difference between the two? Well, so
augmented reality is the idea that you’re actually, in this case, using your own eyes to see reality, but that the tech is augmenting you. And so there’s this big question because.
With these goggles, you look like you are seeing through your own eyes, but actually it’s recording and making a video of it and then sending it to you. So you’re not really seeing exactly real time. You’re seeing a representation made by the goggles themselves. And I think that’s a big difference between augmented reality and virtual reality.
And virtual reality. Everything is fake augmented reality. You’re supposed to, it’s supposed to augment your real senses. So there’s a big argument here of whether this is truly augmented reality or not, because although what you are seeing when you have the goggles on looks like you’re just looking through a clear screen, actually, it’s videoing what’s on the outside and reflecting it into you on the inside.
And so it’s, you know, you could argue depending on, on where you fall on this, but they’re calling it augmented reality, but purists might stay. It’s still virtual reality.
It’s very close. I mean, it’s very, yeah, it, even based on what you just said, it could very well yeah, be the
same thing. The user experience, it sounds like, is very much, feels like augmented reality.
So you see what’s in front of you, even though it’s actually a video being played, but you don’t know the difference. And then you can, for instance, put a timer over the stove on your pot that’s cooking. And so the augmented part is that little timer comes into your visual field that’s not out there in the world.
That’s the augmented part. But you seeing the stove is supposed to be real depending on if your augmented reality versus virtual reality.
Yeah. And you can also have the menu up in front of you or the recipe up in front of you. Right. I mean, that’s not in real life. Yeah. Really cool time. Cool. You can have.
All that stuff and the
timer over the boiling water goes off, you reach for it and sins your hand, and now you’re in the virtual
hospital. Well, we’re not all dug where we’re leaning on the virtual pool table. Some of us might be able to tell the difference. Erica, the reason I wanted to talk about this, believe it or not, was because you were here because you do financial coaching with people.
And the big thing about this, this is the hot, hot new, new thing that I know there’s a certain number of our stackers that are like, I gotta get this like Duck G’s sun. This is a $3,500 thing. So first of all, let’s talk about this price tag. Erica, being an early adopter, if I, if you’re counseling people on how to afford this or whether they should afford it, where do you put this in the budget and how?
Ooh. That’s a good question, man, because honestly, we will make room for whatever it is that we want. That’s the honest truth. Parents will make room for it if they think it’s really important for their kids. And a lot of people are putting stuff on credit in order to make it happen, because they wanna be in the in crowd.
They wanna be the ones, you know, to have all of the latest and greatest. And that’s, that’s the challenge we, we risk here is with our dollars, is that we’re, when you, it’s just like buying a new car, it honestly is because it will go down in price at some point. It’s just being, having the latest and greatest, the new car or the new ar smell, if you will, and, uh, being on the front end of it.
And it’s gonna cost you, course it’s gonna cost you. I say, go in with someone else and let’s just play with this thing together. Let’s not, you know, cut the price in half immediately. That’s right. That’s right. You know, just go in with a friend and y’all just share it.
And we’re back to naked finance again.
I don’t, well, I don’t wanna put, you know, any stink on somebody’s goal if somebody really wants this in 3,500 bucks. But what do you think about these things? I saw literally right next to this an ad for, I don’t remember which one it was, but I think it might’ve been Klarna. One of these. Get the thing now and it’s gonna be 0%.
Erica, that doesn’t ever any, anywhere bad. Oh my
gosh. I promise the amount of people that I have talked to who have this on their list of two pays the things that they end up paying for. I mean, honestly, it’ll take them a long time. Their payments are not that much. I mean, you can get stuff for $40 $80 a month and should pay off $3,500.
Come on now. It’s gonna take a while. Interest, and people think it’s not gonna end up on their credit if they don’t pay, but over time somebody’s gonna be looking, even if they send that to a creditor or a collection, you are gonna end up having to pay this and it potentially will end up at some point on your credit.
People don’t see it that way. They’re like, oh, it’s, it’s, they’re not gonna check my credit, honey. At some point somebody will.
Yeah. OG you look at this 3,500 bucks, where, where do you come down on having the hot, new, new thing and spending that much money?
Well, I think from a financial planning standpoint, ultimately, if, if you’re on track for your goals and everybody’s fed and clothed and housed and that you’re responsible for, and you wanna spend 3,500 bucks on.
On a new piece of technology, have at it like tomorrow’s not promised to anybody. Why not? I don’t personally think that it’s a fantastic use of money, but people would say the same thing about me getting a case of wine at Christmas time. Like, well, that’s stupid. You could just go to Costco and get it for 20 bucks.
It’s like, well, I like what I like. So I think where people get in trouble is in the example that you guys were just talking about, it’s like, I’m foregoing something that is super important either in the short term, like making sure my cash flow’s good, or my credit’s good, or you know, I got my emergency fund or foregoing something long term, like I’m not gonna save in my 401k this year so that I can buy this toy versus, you know, going, I earned it.
And that’s really like the biggest struggle for people that, you know, as they continue to grow in their careers and continue to. Have good things happen to them on the heels of a lot of struggle, right? So you think about like student loan debt, or you think about like, I just got outta college, or I was a medical resident for three years or five years, or whatever, you know?
And all of a sudden it’s like, I earned the new Mercedes. I earned, I just got outta debt. I earned this vacation. And we use that as a, as a crutch. And what ends up happening is we end up going back to the same thing that we just got out of. It’s like, it’s like this glutton for punishment. We love, we love the chaos and the stress of, of having to deal with this problem and can’t imagine the other side of it.
So right at the tipping point of like getting on the other side of debt free, I’m gonna go buy a new car. You know? Yeah. Or, because that’s the, that’s the life that we know. And so I think if that’s where you are, then it’s a terrible use of money. But if you’re saving, your goals are all met, your kids are all fed the roof’s over your head, everything’s fine.
Have at it, man. Lemme know how it is. And now come over to your house and try
it out. There you go. If my kids wanted something like that, I think the default that I would probably go to is pay for half honey. I mean, put some skin in the game. Let me see how bad you really want it. And for those children who are looking to work and all of that kind of stuff.
I mean, honestly that is, that’s what we did with our kids when they bought cars and it’s a big enough purchase. I wanna know, I mean, are you gonna, are you gonna earn some of this? Because it’s a pretty big deal. And so I think even, I think the struggle sometimes with parents is paying for everything because they can versus finding some type of lesson.
I know my kids kind of hate that coming up a little bit when we always had a lesson in it, but I think it’s valuable. Eventually they’ll figure out that, you know, there’s a cost to something, but
it’s really cool because the fact that you did that then means Erica, when they actually come up with half of that price, which is still a monster number for a kid in high school, let’s say.
Now they’re probably gonna take care of it more, number one. Number two is, I think they’re gonna enjoy it more ’cause it doesn’t feel like found money. Did you find that to be the case?
Absolutely. I mean, they would, you know, make sure that they had a nice, clean car. We didn’t have a bunch of trash in their cars, you know, they took care of it.
And my young, neither one of them have been in car accidents, you know, not that they didn’t hit the house or something, but I’m just saying, I’m just, you know, the garage,
you know, was a little
close. Who would, who would drive a car through the garage? Like, who would possibly do something
like that? We,
we’ve lost the rear view mirror, you know, a side mirror, you know, that has
happened.
You don’t know how real this is Erica, because my son a year ago drove our, my car through our garage wall into our house and ended up with about $40,000 worth of damage. I house thought
that’s what she was referring to. Wow. I thought was like, I don’t
think she was, she did her homework. Don’t think she was just talking to that.
But then on the anniversary, the one year anniversary of that happening, he wrecked his car. Driving to school. So we just had this big long, you’re talking about lessons. We just went through this big long thing with him on there. The the free one is over. You’re on the hook now for some of it. And, and here’s the change of how much the insurance, this is what we know.
The insurance changes. Wait until they settle the claim with the person you hit then you know, I, I paid the first 1800 bucks a year. You’re paying the number above that. You, you know, and then we split the car and he got his new car on Monday and he was like, I don’t wanna drive it to school on Tuesday. I want you to come drive with me on Tuesday first around for a while.
And then I’ll drive it on Wednesday. And, and I think, I’m hoping that he’s like trying to just remember like, there are no, there are no days off with driving, you know? Yeah. Like it’s a, it’s a hard lesson ’cause there’s certainly not a third car in his future. Anytime soon. Yeah. They gotta learn. Speaking of, oh boy, should I bother answering the call?
You kept the ringer on just in case. It is maybe a kid emergency. You know, it’s funny that, uh, as we record this, I’m prepping for an interview I’m doing tomorrow for John Lanza’s Amazing Art of the Allowance podcast, where he talks about kids and money. And Erica, I love this idea of making it a money lesson.
Another thing I like just to add onto that is setting my calendar back. My kids are 28 now, so my twins, but I would set my calendar for three weeks later and say, was it worth it? Because within three weeks they’ll know if that money was worth it or not. And I love circling back and going, you spent all this money on this thing.
What do you think now? Three weeks later, like, reevaluate the purpose afterwards. It’s funny, DXI, there was something else though that OG said that I really liked, which was this dangerous thing that we earned it. We deserve it. And I remember our friend Buffy Purcell, when she joined us, Buffy said the three most dangerous words a broke person could say is, I deserve it.
That’s it. Yeah. And you know, the, the truth of the matter is I don’t think that actually quenches your sense of not having enough or not getting what you want. So if you say, I deserve it ’cause I work so hard, or I went through residency in medical school or whatever, the reason you make up that you deserve it, buying that thing isn’t gonna change your sense of feeling like you want more.
And so because we tend to habituate, right? This idea of hedonic adaption, we tend to buy things and you tend to fall back to a happiness baseline. And so if you are, if that’s really how you’re feeling, it’s only gonna be a short period of time where you’re all of a sudden feeling like you’re deserving it again.
Like I don’t think it’s gonna actually solve the issue of spending lots of money on this one thing because you deserve
it. I was reading this thing about, uh, fitness and fitness goals. And one of the things that causes, you know, when we talk about like having goals, you, you say like, well, I want to share it with everybody and accountability and that sort of thing.
But they’re finding, especially around fitness goals, that if you talk about it a lot, you get the dopamine release of like hitting the goal without actually having to do it, do it yet. And so you’re like, you’re like, yeah, no, I’m doing this, I’m doing this big exercise program. I’m working out four times a week.
I’m, I’m eating healthy. And so, and then you don’t actually, because you say it with so much energy, your body’s going, oh, that’s great. We’re doing all this stuff already. And then you don’t do it. And it’s the same thing like you’re talking about here, about the I earned it type of thing, or I deserve it, is you get the same dopamine release by putting it in the Amazon shopping cart.
Not hitting purchase versus putting in the Amazon shopping cart and hitting purchase. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve done this trick to myself. I do the shopping cart thing, right? Put it in the shopping cart, close the page, go do something different, and I’ll come back to Amazon and go, oh, I need shaving cream or something.
I’ll go, oh, look, all the stuff in my Amazon cart. And I go, well, I didn’t really need that. Didn’t really need that. Didn’t really need that. It’s stuff you forget about. Uh, sometimes you just have to play games with yourself.
I do that all the time, og. For real. It saves me money. I promise. The amount of shopping that I do but don’t do is.
Astronomical ’cause I love to sleep on it. And then I’ll forget about it ’cause you know I’m not 30 anymore. Plus you discounts
those cookies they’ll send you and go, Hey, did you forget about the pair of pants you wanted to buy? Here’s 20% off. You’re like, oh actually I do want ’em. And now that they’re 20% off, I’ll take it.
You know? Especially
if they’re also sending you cookies. That sounds awesome.
Cookies and pants.
Make those pants fit tighter. Yeah,
but you don’t have to worry about it ’cause you’re on a new health kick.
There you go. That’s right. As far as you say. Right.
As far as far as you’re concerned, girl Scout cookies are a health food.
Duh. Coming up in the second half of this. They get philosophical in this piece. By the way, the review, which we have not even talked about yet in the Verge will link to it on our show notes page. But their review is, it’s the best consumer headset anyone’s ever made. And that’s the problem. And we’re gonna talk about the problem.
Which is pretty philosophical in the second half of this discussion. But before we get to that, at the halfway point of every Friday, Stacking Benjamin Show, we have this amazing competition between our three frequent contributors, Len Penso, who is in Southern California. And as we, I. Record this. His internet’s not working, so I got a text.
He’s bailing water
from the bunker.
So Doc g, nice enough to fill in at the last minute you’ll play for, Len has the week off as scheduled, which is why we were so excited that Erica could join us. So Erica, your team, Paula Pant and og, and the three of them have this year long competition to see who can take home the cheapest trophy in all of, uh, sports and, uh, the dollar store.
I noticed it’s not on your maille anymore. og, so you must have sent it to Len finally.
No, I put it on my desk. It’s, uh, it says, has his name right here. It’s kinda scribbled out already, but I, um, it’s moving from the f to, to the post office. It’s just, you know, it’s just, it’s on the way. So
breezy’s on it is on the way.
It’s made it like the, the first five feet is the hardest. Erica, we got good news and bad news about this competition. The fact that you’re playing for Paula. You want the good news first or the bad news news, bad news first. Well, the bad news is you’re in last place. Now the good news is Paula’s always in last place, uh, the score is Len two, OG two, and Paula Zero has not won yet this year.
So if you don’t win this week, it’s no big deal. ’cause she hasn’t done well on her own. So no, let’s, let’s come a board. The good news is that means you get to go last and as our current champion, Mr. Penso is, uh, in the lead. That means Doc G, you have to go first. I always get stuck going first, uh, because that’s the tiebreaker between you and always you and
OG the opportunity to go
first.
I
always, and then I anchor you guys and you undercut me. That’s what happens. I know how that’s the
goal. This we’ll find out.
Well, we gotta have a trivia question and Doug, that’s where you come in. What’s today’s question?
Hey there, stackers. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. You know, I’m a little fragmented right now because. I recently changed my cable company and the deal came with a landline. I haven’t had one of those in years, but you know, the deal was so good. I thought, what the heck? You never know when your cell phone might fall off your handy dandy hip clip and into the toilet while you’re using the restroom at the Sizzler.
You know, I’m for example, I’m just spitballing here. Anywho, I set up the line and being the incredible neighbor that I am, I posted the number to my landline in the local coffee shop with a little note next to the photo of me that said, call Joe’s mom’s neighbor Doug if you need help with things around the house.
That’s nice. Yeah, figured it’d be a nice way to meet single lady. I mean, uh, uh, uh, uh, new people. Around town and also, you know, give back to the community. My number couldn’t have been up for more than an hour when the call started rolling in. Must have gotten a dozen that first day before the sun even set.
One kid needed help fixing his bike chain. Some old hag Uhuh, nice elderly woman, needed a light bulb changed. Some guy wanted a lock pick, said he forgot the keys to his mansion. No request from single babes yet, but it could be that they were too intimidated by the handsome photo I included. Intimidated is probably it.
Ladies can be that way with with me. Sometimes they won’t ask for help because they’re afraid to fall in love too fast. Some people are scared of being with someone that everyone else is attracted to. Trust me, I’ve had to call 9 1 1 because of people fighting over me. So, because I’ve been inundated with calls for help, let’s make that today’s trivia question.
What is the average annual salary of a 9 1 1 dispatcher in the United States? I’ll be back right after I check my answering machine to see if there’s any new requests from this morning.
Oh boy. Uh, I dunno where to begin. There. So going so long-winded. Go into trying to answer that.
Cut the cord chatty.
Kathy,
we got trivia answer. I don’t care about your landline. Doc G. The average salary of somebody helping people on their, probably their worst day, I’m gonna
say that it’s at its highest right below six figures. But then if we’re talking about average in the US it’s gotta be lower. I’m gonna say $67,000.
$67,000. og, you’re nodding your head. I think it’s
way worse than that. I’m gonna say the number that popped in my head was slightly above minimum wage, which doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. None. So I’m gonna say $31,918, 47 cents.
God, you’re a pain in the ass.
Oddly specific. All based on science too, Erica.
All based on
science. Oh my gosh. Well, I wish now that my husband hadn’t banned me from watching 9 1 1 that show Rescue 9 1 1. Oh, that’s a different one. Rescue 9 1 1. Did
he just pull you away from the tv, like back away slowly, Erica? Yeah. He
said it’s horrible. He hates it. And, uh, it’s, we lose brain cells when it’s on.
Good for Chris. Very true. Honestly, these people do. It’s a hard job. That is a hard emotional job. I couldn’t imagine. That’s hard. I mean, it, it should be more than six figures, but. I’m sure it’s not. So I do think it’s probably, oh gosh, I think it’s close to what Doc G said, but, um, I have to have a different number, don’t
I?
Well maybe buy $1. You could do, you could do. I’ll
help you here. You could do over, under, yeah,
I’m gonna do 59,500. How
about that? Oh, you, you were very nice to him. You gave him a little room there. I did, I did. Nice work. Well, we’ve got, uh, 67,000, 59,500 and the rounded off number of OGs 31,918 and 47 cents.
Who’s right? We’ll tell you in just a minute. Doc, you kicked this off with 67,000 in both Erica and og. Thought years might be a little high.
Yeah, I, I don’t know, maybe, um, you know, it’s hard to find people to do average jobs nowadays, and this is an above average job. So I’m gonna, I’m gonna think about the, the good of humanity that maybe we pay them just a little bit extra than, than expected because it’s such a hard job.
So I’m, I’m gonna go with my 67,000. No,
I’m with all of you. I hope it’s way higher than this. Uh, but believe it or not, on this single thing, Doug OG was a cynic. He’s never cynical. So, uh, weird that
you would come in. Oh, it was a cynic in the like, right way though, at
31,000. That was a cynic in the right way.
9, 18 47. You feeling good with that?
Uh, I am. Yes.
Which is to your point, very sad. Erica, in the middle there at 59,500. You think you got Paula Pan’s first win?
I hope I do. And I need bragging rights. If that’s the case, that’s okay. I’m just saying we’re getting
her on the board. You can text Paula immediately if you win this one and say, there we go.
I did what You can’t do pant. I did what you can’t do. You could put it right in her face. Alright, Doug, uh, who is gonna win this one? Well, I’ll
tell you, Joe. Hey there, stackers. I am bike chain fixer, light bulb changer, lock picker soup, taster, furniture mover, grass mower, and spider remover. Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug.
I cannot believe how many of my neighbors I’ve helped since I set up my helpline. I’ve been running all over helping with errands and tasks. I’ve been so busy that I haven’t had time to take care of my own house. If things keep going the way they have, I’m gonna have to put up a second sign asking for help around my place.
So today’s trivia question was, what is the average annual salary of a 9 1 1 dispatcher in the United States? The answer, well, I ain’t gonna give you the answer straight away. I gotta tell you some other cool stuff first. Like it was launched in 1968 and 9 1 1 is now a nationally used emergency number.
The first call to the number was placed by Alabama Senator Rankin fight, but only as a test and not as what I believed. A call for help to get him out of Alabama. Oh man. Okay. Okay, Alabamians. Wow. Calm down. Look, when you live in Texarkana, Alabama’s about the only place you can make fun of. No,
still no.
Back to our answer. As you can imagine, salaries for 9 1 1 dispatchers in the US vary based on location and cost of living, and a few other factors. If you’re in San Fran, that’s right, Jackie. If you’re in San Fran, you’re pulling down about $116,500 a year. But if you’re a mile high in Denver, you make about $41,250.
But the average, I’m not gonna tell you right away, but I can tell you right now that the average. Is $17,800 less than Doc G Guest, $10,300 less than Erica Guest and $17,281 and 53 cents. You jerk more than OG Guest. That means Erica is our winner because the average salary is $49,200 a year.
Nice job, Erica.
I got it done. We
did it
gets team Paula on the board. Good work. Let’s go.
Ladies Rock. That’s all I’m saying. Yes.
Would you like to make a victory speech?
Um, I would like to say I deserve it.
Nobody knows how hard you worked to get that answer. There you go. Uh, the second half of this, uh, show and Erica’s victory speech is brought to you by deposit accounts.com.
You know what happens, Erica, when you go to deposit accounts.com.
Nope. I think you’re gonna tell me though. I, I am gonna tell
you, and that’s the exciting part. You can compare more than 275,000 deposit rates from over 11,000 banks of credit unions for free. If you just go to deposit accounts.com, you’ll see savings, account rates, CDs, checking, and money markets.
Listen to this and you want to check it yourself because we record a little bit before this comes out, but as of today, the national average on a savings account is 0.52%, but if yours is in the top 1%, it’s now back up to 5% on the dot 5%. Big difference between that 0.52. And you’ll find that, and which banks and credit unions offer that@depositaccounts.com.
Alright, let’s dive into the second half of this and, and Doc G, let’s start with you because I. You’re in the middle of this project talking purpose, and I think this really is where the rubber meets the road for me on this amazing review. They have a philosophical piece of their critique of this. They say that the battery pack is heavy.
They say that the goggles themself are heavy in their advertisements. They say, you can see the person’s eyes. They say, that’s baloney. Their eyes are all frosted over. You can barely see them. And uh, you still look like a dork, like we were talking about with a lot of the, the virtual reality. However, that wasn’t their main critique.
Their main critique was, you feel lonely in these things. And if we’re thinking about purpose doc, what is this technology doing to us when it comes to us and, and our, I don’t know, sense of being human? I
mean, let’s be honest, right? This is just one node of an evolution of technology that has pulled people away from in-person interaction.
And turn them inwards towards their devices and other things, so we can make the same argument for phones. We can make the same argument for computers. You know, the cool thing is it allows us to do these amazing things. Like we can sit here and remember, Joe, when you and OG first started working together, you would physically meet in a radio station and have a conversation.
Now you can do the same thing very far away, and we can have these meaningful interactions, which is great. But as a whole, I do think some of this technology pulls us away from other people. Whereas my son, for instance, who loves his Apple VR and loves the technology, part of what’s really cool about that is he’s actually created a community of people around him who like these kind of things, and they get together and talk about them and play with them and do all those kind of things.
That part’s good. But when you talk about something like this, augmented, a virtual reality where it shuts you in, or even sitting there and looking at your phone, I think we do run the risk of getting farther and farther away from other people. And hands down by far, I think what brings people a sense of purpose and happiness, long-term is the connections they make.
And so I think you get some short term happiness by playing around with some of these toys. But the question is, is it good for us as a whole? I’d argue no. And I think that’s where technology has brought us, but uh, it’s
debatable. It’s funny, Eric, I was reading a piece, uh, earlier today by, uh, Morgan household who has written a lot of, uh, great stuff about money.
He was talking about how sometimes we’ll chase. These big, big things. These big expensive devices, which I think we could classify the Apple Vision Pro as a big expensive device. And he, but he was using the analogy of the big house, right? Somebody goes after the big house and he talked about the difference between going for meaning in our life and buying the big thing to impress other people.
But when he talked about buying the big house, often it is in a quest to impress other people. And he said the way that the big house can give us more meaning though. Is it can bring us into a community of people that we think that we might be able to network with and be, be around more. I mean, I gotta think that, especially for what you do, coaching people around their money, it’s not about the money, it’s about this community much more than anything else.
Yeah, it is. I think it’s both and, right. So I think if we can create the community and then also learn how to function without the virtual aspect, because we can lose some of our ability to communicate and interact and know how, you know, just the social presence, we can lose some of that when we’re always on our phone or always using technology that takes us away from actual humans when we’re looking for these big items, this house, this car, and all of the things we’re aspiring for.
All of these things we have to figure out. Okay. So. What is the purpose that it will serve in my life? And can I still do all of the things that I need to do? And so, for instance, I could purchase a home and it’s bigger and better and all of that, but then I could be hosting fundraising events. Mm-Hmm. And I could be hosting people in my home and, and making sure that I’ve got, you know, room for folks when they’re coming in town.
And if the purpose is to bring more people in, fantastic. Right. And. If you can afford it, awesome. But I think that typically isn’t the way that we approach all of those larger purchase decisions. It’s likely not what people were saying when they were buying this new toy. Right? But I think as a parent, that’s kind of the thing that I like to think about is how is this gonna add balance, but also how is this going to give me some enjoyment for the moment?
And I think we, you know, sometimes we always think it’s like either or. Can’t it be both? Can’t we have community? And, and I, I just think that it needs to be that way. The other thing I was thinking about with this thing with it being so expensive is, shoot, I think a, a really impressive child or young person or young adult who gets one of these things could charge people to play with it.
How about that? Like what, you know what I mean? Like, let’s get a business out of this thing. How do we make money? This could be an investment versus solely an expense. How about that? Yeah.
My son did that actually. See, come on now. My son actually did that with a 3D printer. Actually. He bought a 3D printer, which he wanted to buy for fun.
But at school there’s a rush on the 3D printers in the engineering department ’cause they only have so many. So he rents it out so that other people can finish their school projects and get access. So smart. Yeah, I mean you can do exactly what, what Eric is talking about.
Yeah. Or like the article said a couple of years ago, we, we read if you, instead of buying a new iPhone every time Apple came out with a new iPhone, if instead.
At that moment, you just bought Apple Stock over the last, you know, 13 years, you would’ve invested about 16 or $17,000 in Apple stock, and it would be worth about 150 K today. So maybe the right answer is to not buy the Vision Pro, take the 3,500 bucks, buy Apple Stock at 200 bucks a share, or whatever it is right now.
You’ll let it sit for a while and see if your, if your Apple stock will produce enough income to turn around and kick you off enough money to buy you a Vision Pro version two. Yeah.
Let somebody else be the customer and you’re the owner. Yeah.
Which is all great. But if you died tomorrow and you had five years or 10 years of a Vision Pro versus 150,000 and you could’ve had a Bank Vision Pro God, I’d much rather be the guy who had the Vision Pro.
So there is a limit
to that idea. You could dive with your hands going in all kinds of
directions. You know, one of the things that you were talking about, doc, that I I, I want to make sure that we, uh, spend a little extra time on is. That isolation component of it, it, and you would know more about this than all of us together.
But isn’t it, isn’t it true? Isn’t it true Doctor, that, um, that’s my best lawyer version. But isn’t it true that there’s some correlation between, you know, like hearing loss and dementia and, and those sorts of things as you get older, if you’re not treating those things to be able to still, uh, uh, be around your community, that more and more isolation leads to faster declines in, in, uh, mental capabilities for older people and kind of quickens that last decade, so to speak.
And that’s kind of what we’re doing, but we’re doing it when we’re 30 and 20 and 40, as opposed to, you know, 80, right? I mean, this is, this is a
big deal. Yeah. I mean, there’s great data that shows the exact opposite, that social interactions are actually what’s connected to happiness, longevity, healthiness, et cetera.
The Harvard men’s study where they studied like, yeah. They studied men, I think every year or two for like decades and decades and decades. And they found that the biggest correlation with overall happiness and health was social interactions. Right? It was the interactions with the people around us. Yeah.
So I think you can look at that vice versa, right? The, the more isolated you become. Uh, I would suspect it have the exact opposite effect
that these do make us more isolated. Yeah,
for sure. I, I think almost all technology does, certainly a lot of modern technology makes us more and more isolated. Again, the phones, some of the computers, some of this other stuff that we’re, even, even the, the headphones, like these amazing big headphones now.
People walk around their house. I mean, my children walk around their house and like, you can’t get anyone’s attention ’cause they have the headphones on and they’re listening to music. And I, in a lot of ways, all of that’s really isolating.
Yeah. Big expensive headphones staring at a screen. Yeah. I saw this when I was at Walt Disney World a couple weeks ago.
Like, you’re supposedly the happiest place on earth, and it’s not happy. You’re at the happiest place on earth and still not happy enough that you can actually be there. You’re, you’re someplace else on your phone. You’re not really with your family. You’re on your phone and you’re not really listening to anybody.
’cause you got, you brought your headphones with you to the theme park of all places. I don’t know. It’s, it’s pretty wild. All of this kind of, kind of reeks, I guess Erica is the right word of beware. Would you ask for
Yes, beware for sure. I wonder are we losing brain cells with all of this technology versus adding brain cells and, and maximizing?
I, I just don’t know that we’re getting smarter and, uh, getting wiser and lengthening our life overall. That’s, that’s always the challenge for me is I, I, I not only wanna live a full life, but I do want it to. Be as long as possible. Right. So, you know, my near fall with VR when I was playing with it, I mean, am I shortening my life here?
I, I just,
I’m just wanna
know. Well, let’s, uh, ask one last question on a positive note because you made a great, a great point last time. Is how does this work for you? So for you and Chris when you’re talking about your money, let’s say, or doing stuff like what are some ways, Erica, that you and Chris make technology work for you instead of you ending up more isolated and
lonely?
I. That’s so good. Well, honestly, technology is Chris’s domain. He loves all that stuff and he is willing to pay for it a little bit more than I am. I just think that we need to have an off button, a switch, or we need to do some of that stuff together as a couple. I think it’s important that you, you know, set some healthy boundaries so you can actually be a couple.
The same goes true for family time and kids and all that kind of stuff. So I just think we need to figure out what the healthy boundaries are and you know, dinner time, all of it is off. We need to just be able to focus on one another. We have something really, you know, important to discuss. Let’s make sure that we’re looking each other in the eye and, and then when we wanna have fun, sure, let’s pull out the technology.
Or you know, if you wanna have that one-on-one time and be able to have fun with some of that stuff, that’s great. But I just think we need some healthy boundaries around when we participate in that stuff because it’s not helping inside the relationship. I’ll put it that way.
Yeah, not at all. No. I love the phones face down at dinner in the middle of the table.
Yeah. og, how about you? How do you guys use, uh, technology to work for you instead of the other way around?
I was just thinking about dinner. Sometimes we just mail it in and just go, you know what? Everybody’s on their phones. Screw it. I’m gonna be on my phone too. Just shuffled food in your mouth.
There’s a good lesson.
Just, just go, ah, throw your hands up. You know? But you sit back
to sometimes like that og, sometimes
it’s, Erica
said, you know, boundaries. Sometimes you just go, you know, today’s not the day we’re gonna take the, I’m going to, uh, that I’m gonna pick that fight right now. You know, I think that when it comes to technology, I mean, here’s a great example.
Like, my kids don’t have books anymore. Like all their textbooks are on iPad. Like all their schoolwork is on an iPad. Like, you can’t just say, well, I’m taking away your iPad. My kids will be like, sweet, no more chemistry homework. Call my teacher, let ’em know I’m not gonna be submitting my essay today. So there is a really fine line between like that sort of stuff.
And you know, Joe, when you’re working, you’ve got music going in the background and that sort of thing too. So it’s not like, it’s not like we’re like these isolated examples that we go, no, you have to be completely uninvolved with all this stuff. You know, it has to be used in your, in your, as an additive feature, as a multiplier feature, I guess.
Not necessarily as a distraction, you know, if you find it that it’s a distraction, then you know, that’s like social media. I don’t do any of that stuff and everybody, I know you hate the fact that I don’t go on Facebook and Twitter and that sort of thing. I just don’t do it. ’cause it drives me crazy and it’s a hole that I can’t get out of.
So I, I love it. I try not to. Yeah,
I love it from, like, personally, I love it. I think social media is the bane of our existence and the, the phrase social media is so wrong. Like there are things less social than social media. True. It’s anti-social media. Actually, it totally is. Erica, it’s driving us apart instead of bringing us together.
That’s a whole different podcast. But what I don’t like about it OG is that that is our business. Yeah. That is where people find us and we got the team on Social Balancing
Act. Right. So that’s a balancing act of how do you use a tool that can be used for good, but also balance out the fact that 98% of it’s for evil.
You know? I don’t know,
but I haven’t figured, you know, I would to to, in order not to be Pollyanna though, I would say that as I moved away from being a doctor and discovered a bigger sense of purpose in creating content and in personal finance, a lot of the people I met, I have now made much more concrete relationships because of technology.
Like Joe and I spend a huge amount of time together online. If I didn’t have, I’m sorry, if I didn’t have these mechanisms of interacting with him. We would never have been friends because he would live in Texarkana. I live in Chicago and we, we, you know, we might call each other on the phone occasionally, but I have a whole set of friendships that have developed over the last few years that would not have been possible for things like Zoom or Riverside that we’re using right now or so.
So there is some good, like you can use some of this technology to build community and purpose. But it, it’s like you have to be really, really intentional about not isolating yourself. And I think that’s the problem with even new stuff going back to the glasses is it’s really hard not to isolate yourself with that kind of
technology.
Yeah. It, it really surprised me that they used the word lonely in a tech review like that. That’s a, I don’t know, it was really a, it put a pit in my stomach when the reviewer said it feels lonely. Like out of all the words they could have chosen. And I love, Erica, what you said about boundaries and phones down at dinner and Doc about the fact that this is, this, that social media has to be a starting point.
And OG saying, you know, cutting it out is, is maybe the best answer for a lot of people if you can’t use it as a starting point for these bigger communities that we all, I think need for our health to be in. I like data, I want to add that I like what technology can do data wise. ’cause it used to take me forever to get data.
And now I can get data so fast that for like our family money meeting each week, you know, we’ll pull up Monarch money and there it is. We got all the data and we can cut right to the important stuff. Or like with my health, I’ve got it right on my wrist. And now as I’m looking at my workouts and how I’m doing, I’ve got data right there.
I really enjoy, enjoy that. But again, doc, as a starting point, right? I can’t spend all day just looking at maps and data and this cool stuff. I gotta use that to then have the meeting that creates a better, better me. It’s a good question. Like
is your technology forcing you to look inward or outward? And I think if you can use technology to look outward, it’s probably okay.
But I think if it makes you look inward all the time, it’s probably cutting off life.
That’s a good point. Gosh, I love the way you said that. And I, I, you know what’s funny is I realized one of the pieces of technology that I use routinely now is my audible account. I, oh, yeah. I cannot remember the last time I actually read a book with my eyeballs.
I, I just don’t even know if I can do it. And I have a book that someone gave me and I’m like. Am I gonna just go get this on Audible? Am I gonna actually read, I’ve done this. Someone gives me a book and I download it on Audible instead. And so yeah, I’m not real sure I can read anymore because of Audible, but I have listened to 153 books.
Thank you. So, wow. Yes. I think I have consumed so much more information, even though they say you don’t absorb it as much if you don’t actually read it. But everybody has their thing. So if it’s not social media, it could be something for me, it’s my audible and now I’m just really getting into, you know, all of the AI tools and stuff and how that’s trying to simplify my life.
But I’m so enthralled, I’ll spend an hour on it and then, you know, everybody has something. It’s just, you’re right. Is it helping you go outward? And I think that’s a question I’m gonna chew on a little bit.
Well, Cheryl likes, uh, audible plus her daily walk and she’ll go walk for three miles and listen to Audible the whole way and loves it.
Absolutely loves it. Me too.
My dog loves that I have Audible ’cause I take him with me. We we’re communing together. He’s my community with Audible
Dog’s, a big fan, audible. If you wanna sponsor this podcast, uh, please. Joe docu Benjamins dot com Alright, that’s, that’s gonna do. Although I don’t think Apple Vision Pro’s gonna be sponsoring this podcast anytime soon.
They’re like, uh, might not have been what we were going for, guys, but I, I don’t think we come down bad on the product. I think we come down on what you asked for, know what you really want. Let’s end it right there. Let’s talk about what’s happening in your awesome communities and we will end with our guest of honor.
So let’s begin with og. It is, uh, second weekend of February, post Super Bowl weekend. Weekend after the Super Bowl. What are you doing this weekend?
Well, I am celebrating your birthday today, which is, oh, you are stopped. An amazing thing. Stop, keep going. And I’m doing that by being halfway across the country, away from you and Perfect.
Uh, so we can both celebrate perfectly. It’s the best gift. And then, uh, and then tomorrow is daddy daughter dance day. So I’ll be doing that,
celebrating my birthday with the daddy daughter. Dance
your birthday with the daddy daughter. Dance with my daughter. So happy birthday Joe. What are you? Forty, fifty, fifty, thirty nine.
It’s 39 again. 39 for the 18th time. Congratulations. 39
again. It’s fantastic. Might be the, um, yeah, anyway. Uh, you can’t add,
you can’t count. I was close. I got,
either way, I was close.
It’s the 50th anniversary of his 39th birthday.
It’s not that much, that’s for sure. Such a, such a fun. 39. This is Doc. Thanks for hanging out again.
What’s going on at our brother show? Earn an invest.
It’s Friday. So Thursday the episode was Jackie Cummings Kosky. She wrote a book called Fire for Dummies. We’re talking about the fire basics. Mm-Hmm. And otherwise I’ve been,
but nobody gonna listen a lot of that. Who in your, wait a minute. Who in your audience wants to identify as a dummy?
Let’s just be, no, none of us wanna identify as a dummy.
But a lot of times it is fun to go back to the basics and remind ourselves what were the beginning building blocks and how they’ve blossomed into what we call fire today and what it means to us. So it is a deep, important conversation that I’m sure everyone will wanna hear.
No, it is. And Jackie’s a badass. For sure.
For sure. So it’s, uh, it, it was great to have her on and I think it’ll be fun for everyone to listen
to it. Awesome. And that’s where finer podcasts are distributed, wherever you listen to finer podcasts. Speaking of finer podcast, Erica, thanks for finally. So, so for people that don’t know, I’d say the last two, maybe three, FINCONS.
Uh, Eric and I have had this discussion in the hallway going, you gotta come on the Stacky Benjamin Show. And then we nod, we high five, we hug, and then we do absolutely nothing.
So we have been two ships passing in the night concerning getting me on this podcast, but I am here now and I got Paula on the map.
Okay.
It’s about, it’s a, you made Paula proud today, which is, there we go. Fantastic. But even more Fantastic. What’s coming up with you? And, uh, and Chris, who is, by the way, the ca Can I say I I Is he like this at home? He’s like the, the most upbeat, positive. Just, just can-do Guy that I think is at FinCon.
That’s
awesome. Oh my gosh. And dapper, you know what I mean? He’s like the best looking dude. You
know what I mean? Keep the real here, Erica. Keep it real.
No, seriously. Yes. That is him. And it’s exhausting at home around here, I will be very honest. Uh, my husband is a little high maintenance, but if he’s not in a good mood, you know, because he’s not that person.
He’s, he’s very closed off into himself when he is not in a good mood. So just know he’s in a good mood when all of what you just. Said is happening and that yes is most of the time. And yes, it means my, you know, enthusiastic self sometimes needs some, some time away. Yes.
Now we just gotta look into why Cheryl sometimes is like, why don’t you go for, why I’m gonna go for a walk with Audible too. Lemme go for a walk. See,
see. Yeah. Maybe that’s it. She and I can hang, see, we can walk together with our, with our, with our Audible one. So
speaking of finer podcast, what’s coming up now at the For Better or Worth podcast?
Yeah, for better or worse. So we we’re on. Number 60 every week for over a year now. And just super excited about that. So yeah, we’ve got lots of things coming up for, um, financial literacy month. I prefer financial awareness, but it’s coming up. So we’ve got some, some episodes coming there and just, you know, trying to get out here and make a difference for some couples so that we can maybe save some marriages.
How about that? Oh, keep some relationships intact. Get some people naked with their money.
How about that? No big deal just out here
saving the world. There you go. That’s what I’m saying. One naked budget at a time. Thanks,
neighbor Doug, which, which again is a little different than you might have expected, but a conversation that we definitely need to have.
And again, we’ll link to Erica’s podcast and Doc Cheese podcast on our show notes page at Stacking Benjamins dot com. Guys, thanks for hanging out with us, Doug, you’ve got the last word, man. What’s on our to-do list today? Well,
Joe, here’s what’s stacked up on our to-do list today. First, take some advice from OG and the rest of our panel.
Don’t fall for the powerful marketing machine that makes you feel like you need this tack. On the other hand, if you’ve got your basic liabilities taken care of, and you’re staying true to your savings plan, have a blast with those silly looking ski goggles on your face.
No, no
judgment. Second, heed the wise words of our guest, Erica Young.
If you’re gonna immerse yourself in technology, be careful not to alienate yourself from your community unless you’re building a community of customers by charging people to play with their new toy. Perfect. There you go, bud. What’s the biggest to do forward all your calls from your landline to 9 1 1 so you can get stuff done around your own house?
No genius hack.
Holy crap. No.
Neighbor Doug, thanks to Erica Young for joining us today. You can find her podcast for better and Worth wherever you are listening right now. We’ll also include links in our show notes at Stacking Benjamins dot com. Thanks to Doc G for joining us today. You can find more about do g@earnandinvest.com and thanks also to OG for joining us.
Looking for good financial planning, help head to Stacking Benjamins dot com slash og. That stands for Original Grump to get his calendar. The show is the Property of SP podcasts, LLC, copyright 2024, and is created by Joe Sal High. Our producer is Karen Repine. This show is written by Lisa Curry, who’s also the host of the Long Story Long podcast.
With help from me, Joe Kate Yakin, Karen Rein, and Doc G from the Earn and Invest podcast, Kevin Bailey helps us take a deeper dive into all the topics covered on each episode in our newsletter called the 2 0 1. You’ll find the 4 1 1 on All Things Money at the 2 0 1. Just visit Stacking Benjamins dot com slash 2 0 1.
Wonder how beautiful we all are. Of course you do, but you’ll never know if you don’t. Check out our YouTube version of the show Engineered by Tina Eichenberg. Then you’ll see once and for all that I’m the best thing going for this podcast. Once we bottle up all this goodness, we ship it to our engineer, the amazing Steve Stewart.
Steve helps the rest of our team sound nearly as good as I do right now. Wanna chat with friends about the show later? Mom’s friend Gertrude Stacey Doe, and Julia Gar. Are our social media coordinators and Gertrude is the room mother in our Facebook group called The Basement. So say hello. When you see us posting online to join all the basement fun with other stackers, type Stacking Benjamins dot com slash basement.
For more interactive fun, join us on Instagram every Tuesday and Thursday for our Instagram lives. Kate Yakin and Joe host those weekly. 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, Doug, and we’ll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show.
Well, we gotta have a trivia question. And Doug, that’s where you come in. What’s today’s question?
On mute.
I remember my first day of podcasting.
You
know how many people prefer me on mute?
And blurry? And blurry?
Gosh, should have just, I should have waited. I should have waited longer. Let him get through the whole thing. I blew it.
Sorry guys. Every time you do that, I think, oh, he is gonna kick himself for telling me that.
Now do it without the mute. God dang it.
I wanted to try to get you to say it again. All right. 3, 2, 1.
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