Feeling a little queasy about your financial plans for 2025? Fear not! Today, Joe steps out of the cozy basement and straight into the bustling chaos of Manhattan to bring you top-tier advice from some of the brightest financial minds. Joined by Paula Pant from Afford Anything, Nick Magiulli, author of the Of Dollars and Data blog, and Doc G from the Earn & Invest Podcast, this powerhouse panel digs into the money missteps you’ll want to dodge in the year ahead.
From tackling FOMO in investments to learning why small, consistent changes are your financial BFFs, this episode is packed with practical tips to help you make 2025 a year of smart money moves (and fewer facepalms).
What’s Inside:
- Meet our stellar guests and hear how New York City inspired their financial insights.
- Discover why chasing the next big investment trend could leave you behind.
- Learn how an investment policy statement can keep your goals on track.
- Avoid analysis paralysis when market uncertainty strikes.
- Uncover strategies to navigate political uncertainty without losing sleep (or cash).
- Dive into real estate trends, historical data, and staying focused on what you can control.
- Understand the power of spending on what truly matters to you.
- Find out why gradual changes beat impulsive overhauls every time.
- Learn how doubling down on bad decisions is like hitting a pothole and accelerating instead of swerving.
Episode Highlights:
- Meet the Guests: Get to know Paula Pant, Nick Magiulli, and Doc G as they join Joe in the Big Apple for some big-time financial lessons.
- NYC Moments: Joe shares a peek into his adventures in Manhattan—yes, it’s a jungle out there.
- Investment FOMO: Why chasing trends could cost you (and how to avoid it).
- Building an Investment Policy Statement: Your GPS for financial decision-making.
- Analysis Paralysis: How to keep market fears from freezing your progress.
- Navigating Political Uncertainty: Keep your portfolio calm, even when headlines aren’t.
- Spending Smarter: Align your money with what you value most.
- Gradual Wins: Why slow and steady wins the financial race every time.
- Bad Decisions: How to recognize when you’re doubling down and when to hit the brakes.
🎧 Ready to make 2025 your best financial year yet? Tune in now to stack smarter, avoid the pitfalls, and get inspired to crush your goals!
FULL SHOW NOTES: https://stackingbenjamins.com/stacker-money-mistakes-nyc-1629
Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.StackingBenjamins.com/201
Enjoy!
Our Topic: Achieving financial goals through small, actionable steps
During our conversation, you’ll hear us mention:
- Compounding and its long-term benefits
- Starting small with content creation and building consistency
- Sustainable financial habits and setting manageable goals
- The 1% Challenge for saving more each month
- Behavioral finance and the importance of sizing decisions
- Risk management and proper asset allocation
- Avoiding doubling down on bad decisions
- The pitfalls of over-justifying poor choices
- The role of humility in investing
- Learning to accept market forces beyond personal control
- Individual stock investing and the dangers of chasing losses
- The importance of making mistakes and learning from them
- Approaching investments as a gradual process
- Identifying small changes that lead to big wins over time
- Avoiding the “all or nothing” mentality in investing and savings
Our Contributors
A big thanks to our contributors! You can check out more links for our guests below.
Nick Maggiulli
Another thanks to Nick Maggiulli for joining our contributors this week! Learn more about Nick by visiting his blog, Of Dollars and Data at Of Dollars And Data – Act Smarter. Live Richer..
Check out his book Just Keep Buying: Proven ways to save money and build your wealth.
Doc G
Another thanks to Doc G for joining our contributors this week! Hear more from Doc G on his show, Earn & Invest podcast at Earn & Invest on Apple Podcasts.
Check out his latest book The Purpose Code: How to unlock meaning, maximize happiness, and leave a lasting legacy.
Paula Pant
Check Out Paula’s site and amazing podcast: AffordAnything.com
Follow Paula on Twitter: @AffordAnything
Doug’s Game Show Trivia
- What is the most consumed beverage in the world, after water?
Mentioned in today’s show
Join Us on Monday!
Tune in on Monday when we’re joined by none other than Anthony O’Neal. He will help you understand what steps to take to take control of your life.
Miss our last show? Check it out here: How to Harness Purpose for Happiness and Meaning (SB1628).
Written by: Kevin Bailey
Episode transcript
[00:00:00] bit: All right, here we go. Hold your ears folks. It’s Showtime. [00:00:09] Doug: Live from Cumulus Studios. Deep in the heart of Manhattan. It’s the Stacking Benjamin Show. [00:00:26] I am Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Duggan. Today. Joe Ventures. Outta the basement, jumps on a big old jet airliner and heads to New York City to talk about getting rich. He’s on a mission to find out what mistakes stackers are making along their journey to tons of Benjamins. Joining Joe in the big city. We welcome author and the blogger behind the of Dollars and Data blog. [00:00:51] Nick Majuli and the man you just heard here Wednesday, talking about purpose. Dr. Jordan Grumet, AKA. Doc G and from the Afford Anything Podcast, Paula Pant and now a guy who knows that every millionaire once. Googled. What’s a 401k? It’s Joe Saw Chaw. [00:01:16] Joe: Thanks Doug, and happy Friday everybody. Welcome back to the Stacking Benjamin Show. I am Joe Saul-Sehy. Average Joe money on XI. I should stop saying that ’cause I’m never on X anymore. I’m a blue sky guy, guys. I’m a blue sky guy because I don’t get fed a bunch of political stuff every single time I go on it. [00:01:33] But anyway, you’ll find me at Joe Saul-Sehy. I’m blue sky, but we’re not talking about me. This is so weird. I’m in a room, an actual real room with people as Doug so eloquently said. So let’s start off with the, uh, well, where am I gonna start? We’ll go ladies first. The woman behind a Fort Eddie thing. Paul Pant is here. [00:01:49] How are you? [00:01:50] Paula: I am so happy to be here in person. The energy in person is so different. It’s fun. [00:01:55] Joe: So you really liked moving to New York City. Loved it. You’ve loved it? Yes. Loved it. [00:01:58] Paula: One of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I got the [00:01:59] Joe: true New York experience this morning, which was cool. I was on the subway and there was a gentleman sleeping on one of the benches in front of me. [00:02:06] And then he decided he had to get up. I thought he was getting up ’cause he was getting off at the next stop. He wasn’t, he decided it was time to urinate. Ah. So, which I think is very authentic New York. But I also felt bad for him. I mean, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. [00:02:17] Paula: You’ve, I hate to, uh, say that’s part of the New York Bingo card, but like Yeah. [00:02:22] It, it, unfortunately, unfortunately, we, we have a big. Issue here with the unhoused and yeah, lack of adequate resources. We’re definitely not [00:02:29] Joe: gonna solve that problem today. Right? [00:02:31] Paula: We are not gonna solve that problem today. Certainly. [00:02:32] Joe: I did feel bad, but that was New York. I was like, I did check it off. I’m like, I am definitely in New York City. [00:02:37] I thought you were gonna say rats actually, when you were beginning that. I haven’t seen a rat yet. [00:02:40] Paula: Oh, well, no, it’s not too late. [00:02:43] Joe: I still have 24 hours left in town and then to my, uh, P’S on my left and then on my right. Mr. Doc, chief from Earn and Invest is here. How are you Jordan? [00:02:51] Jordan: I am loving New York. I hail a cab, haven’t hail a cab in years, right where I come from. [00:02:56] We call ’em. Are we Uber? Uh, walked a few city miles. It’s been a nice time here. Are you a planes, trains and automobiles kind of guy? Like all [00:03:03] Joe: the different transportation? [00:03:04] Jordan: I’m trying. [00:03:05] Joe: I think [00:03:06] Jordan: as I get [00:03:07] Joe: older I actually dig public transportation more. I do too. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I live in Texarkana for a reason, but public transportation, like getting around where you don’t need a car in town, that’s really cool. [00:03:17] Nothing beats walking though. Yes, [00:03:18] Jordan: if I could, I would walk everywhere. [00:03:20] Joe: Oh, and it’s a beautiful city to walk in as well. Once again, not Texarkana, but close and across from me. Our special guest today, the gentleman behind of Dollars in Data. Nick Majuli is back. How are you man? [00:03:31] Nick: Good. Thanks for having me on. [00:03:32] It’s great seeing everyone in person. I’ve been on all of your podcasts and now to get to meet you guys all in person is pretty cool. [00:03:37] Joe: Yeah. There are two podcasts which are okay, and the great and which is the best, obviously by far. Absolutely. Yeah. Nick, by the way, congratulations. Reno, you’re engaged. [00:03:45] Nick: Yes. [00:03:46] It just happened, so on this, on the 16th of November, so you know, a few months ago. But yeah, it was, it’s great. You know, we did that. We went to Japan. Speaking of public transit, they have the best public transit system in the world. I have never seen anything like it. I don’t know any Japanese besides, you know, thank you. [00:03:59] You know, hello type stuff and everything’s numbered. It’s just a system, like, it’s just numbers. You don’t even need to know any Japanese super, as long as you know, like, oh, I need to go from here to here, Google Maps, it’s super easy. So it was, I thought, I, I went in thinking, oh my gosh, it be so hard to get around. [00:04:11] It was the easiest thing I’ve ever done. It was much easier than New York or anywhere else. So I big, big fan of the Japanese transit system. [00:04:17] Joe: Yeah, I remember a Jim Gaffigan bit where he was talking about, the comedian was talking about how. He doesn’t like to be ripped off, so he wants to act like he’s from a place. [00:04:25] Mm-hmm. And he’s like, so he gets in a cab in Tokyo. He is like, oh, I’m back in my old stopping grounds, Tokyo, where I’m from and grew up. Um, I’m going back to see the gang at the Holiday Inn and the address is the pound side. So good stuff. Hey, but a question for you. You know what’s funny? These life events, back when I was a financial planner, and of course you’re with, uh, Riol Wealth Management. [00:04:48] You guys see this too, Nick, these big life events, they’re the time when people get interested in financial planning. That’s when they seek out a financial planner. But also I found in my life, it kind of changed my viewpoint a little bit just about money and how I manage money and the fact that it’s not just me by myself anymore. [00:05:04] Have you found, I know it’s still early, but have you found like your view of money kind of changed now that you’re engaged? [00:05:10] Nick: Yeah. I’m thinking about it more in terms of like, yeah, we’ll have to create joint accounts. Thinking about both of our incomes are going into there now, and that’s just, I mean, you don’t have to do it that way. [00:05:17] And there’s a lot of discussion to be had about, you know, couples and how they do money. But yeah, I’ve already started thinking about it differently and like. Think about long term beneficiaries. There’s all so many other things once you have a family like. Yeah, there’s a lot. I’m still at the very beginning of that journey, but like, just thinking about it does change your perception versus like, oh, I just need to focus on me and my net worth. [00:05:33] Now there’s other people involved, so it’s a very different game now. [00:05:37] Joe: Would it have been bad guys would’ve been bad if he started with Well, I’m thinking about prenup. I mean, no, that would’ve been great. Well, no, it, it’s good to get there sooner or later. I’m saying if that would’ve been the first thing out of his mouth mm-hmm. [00:05:46] I might have questioned. Where we were headed? No. If it was the second, not at all. Second, it wasn’t okay at what’s the second? It would, it’s the second. I’m fine. The first one I’d have been like, let’s have a chat, Nick. I don’t know, but Paul is like, no, [00:05:56] Paula: I, yeah, I, I disagree. ’cause you know, for somebody in the financial industry and in the financial space, when I think of marriage, I think of prenup. [00:06:03] When I think of a child, I think of 5 29 plan. When I think of any given major life event. Think of, [00:06:09] Joe: it’s like you’re at the doctor and they, they hit you in the, yeah. Yeah. What’s the thing, doc? What? What’s the thing they hit you? The reflex hammer. The reflex hammer. Thank you. Oh, what is a reflex hammer for 300 bucks? [00:06:18] I have any idea’s? The thing. No, I get, I get it. I got it. It was a show. It was a show. Thank you. Joke, watch tv. [00:06:27] Jordan: Joe, [00:06:28] Joe: welcome back to Joe at Schooled on his own podcast. Well, we’re super glad you’re here with us, Nick. We got Nick, we got Paula, we got Jordan, doc G, and today our topic that we’re gonna get into is this. [00:06:39] I was just searching, reading some of the brilliant stuff people write on the web. This was written by Jack Rains. He writes@youngmoney.co. And Jack wrote this piece about You only have to get Rich once. He says, hitting it big in the market is electrifying, but can you hold onto what you made? And it’s funny because it’s the beginning of 2025 as people hear this starting out on a new year. [00:06:59] And the one thing we don’t wanna do is mess it up, right? We want to get this right. And so you three are all people that have been investors helping people invest for a long time. I’d love to dig in, get underneath the hood. And what are some of the ways. That people have messed up, that maybe we can help our stackers not do that. [00:07:16] That’s our topic today. We’re gonna dive into that. First, we wanna make sure this stays free for everybody, so we have a couple sponsors that we need to say hello to. We’re gonna say hello to them and then we’re gonna dive right in. [00:07:35] All right, so our topic today is ways you can step in it. I could have made that a positive. I prefer the negative. Uh, Paula, what’s a way somebody could really step in it in 2025 when it comes to their investing, their saving, their financial plan [00:07:50] Paula: veer off course as a result of fomo. Oh, FOMO is big, and oftentimes, you know, better. [00:07:58] Right. You know that you should put the majority of your. Assets that are in public markets, in index funds that are asset allocated in a very specific way, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then you hear about somebody who like made it big on crypto, or you hear about somebody who made it big with Nvidia or individual stock picking, and all of a sudden you have all of this FOMO and you start f mowing in a way that is against your better judgment. [00:08:26] Joe: It’s so easy, right? It’s so easy to do. I mean, I remember I missed Nvidia. I totally, completely missed it. I remember it being a crappy graphics guard company and, uh, totally missed the whole AI thing until I thought the train had already left. It clearly hadn’t, but I was like, well, I’m behind. I’m not gonna grab that. [00:08:42] But what’s interesting is I found right after I missed it, I would go, I’m on like Yahoo Finance, and I’d say I’d see, hey, this CEO of this company just invested a bunch of money in their own. Company and I would go take stupid money and put it in this company. ’cause I want the next one. You know what I mean? [00:09:00] Mm. So the fomo, because I miss number one, Paula. Mm. I now think I gotta grab another one so I can be the hero next time. [00:09:06] Paula: Right, right, right. So you’re like almost randomly picking individual stocks just to [00:09:10] Joe: make up for [00:09:10] Paula: it. [00:09:11] Joe: Mm, yeah. Luckily not a, not a lot of money. So, Nick, there’s the question. Paul posed the question, you get to be our savior then I, I don’t know if you have this answer or not, but how do you set up your plan so you stay away from FOMO in 2025? [00:09:22] Nick: I think the way to do it is you want to have. A very small percentage of your portfolio has like fund money so you can get that outta your system without really betting the farm, so to speak. That’s one problem. I’m thinking about people like trying to get in and like, oh, should I put 30, 40% of my portfolio into this stuff? [00:09:37] I’m like, you gotta really think about this because it could be 2025, it could be the, the 2022. Again, we don’t know. I, we hope not. I hope markets keep doing well and perform well and all that, but we saw what happened after 2021. I’m not saying it’s gonna happen in that exact way, but you saw what happened in 2022 and. [00:09:53] It was the exact opposite. All those things that were going up overnight, the, the flip side happened. So when I’m thinking about this problem, I’m just thinking about, like thinking about over concentration. So not people are just trying to get pulled in, getting sucked in, but people who have already done well. [00:10:05] What do you do now with those positions and trimming back? Rethinking how to diversify? [00:10:09] Joe: You’re saying it’s okay to get into it, you know, to go ahead and dive into the things so you don’t fomo, but limit the exposure so you don’t get screwed a lot. [00:10:16] Nick: Yeah, I would say no more than 5% of your portfolio. [00:10:18] ’cause you get the kick out of it. Like what I even noticed, what you’re gonna do, and this is what I noticed as well, like I used to have like individual stock here there a long time ago. You know, my main portfolio, 97% of my portfolio was index funds. So on a daily basis that’s moving far more than my individual stock, but I would still check the individual stock price even though it really made no difference. [00:10:37] So I was getting that outta my system without actually I that now actually threatening. And that’s the same thing probably. Most, most people that are active investors do it as long, I’m assuming they have, like, you know, even if they have just a little bit in that, in a active portfolio, because it’s like a bet or it’s like a, you identify with the investment in a way that you don’t identify with the passive investment. [00:10:54] Like I don’t, if the s and p 500 goes down 10%, I don’t go, oh my God, I’m an idiot. No. It’s like, that’s just what happened. But if I bought Nvidia or Tesla or whatever and it goes down, then it’s like, wow, I’m an idiot for buying. It’s on you or, or I’m a genius when it goes up. Right. So. That’s just my corollary to that. [00:11:07] That’s how I would think about it. Right. Just it, I think it’s very difficult to just go to zero because some people just can’t help themselves and they might do something crazy. So I’m like, Hey, take a very small portion, have some fun with it, and don’t, but don’t know the limits. Don’t go beyond that. [00:11:19] And if it’s, it starts to do really well, pair it back to 5%. You, if that 5% grows to 10, pair it back to five and do it again. And if it keeps working, you’ll keep making money and you have no. Real downside, obviously in that sense. Right. So it is [00:11:29] Joe: so funny ’cause I’m just like that 97% of my portfolio is in index funds. [00:11:34] Mm-hmm. 3% is stocks. I have this crazy stock, Paula, I told you about this stock a while ago. Mm-hmm. It went through the roof. It’s still, I’m still way up. It’s lumen. I’ve talked about this live on our show before. It’s Lumen, I, I’d literally bought it for the same reason I just said earlier. I saw the CEO was loading up, then I load it up. [00:11:51] It immediately went down. I then told, uh, everybody how dumb that was. ’cause I, by the way, I put like a thousand dollars in the stock. I put nothing in it. Right. But still, to your point, Nick, I’m not checking my portfolio. I’m checking the stock. I have a thousand dollars in over and over and over. And then somebody in our basement Facebook group goes, Joe, wow. [00:12:09] With that lumen. That’s fantastic. I’m like, what? What? And then I saw that lumen now was like the, uh, piping for ai. And all of a sudden I got really excited. And to your point, Nick, all of a sudden I’m freaking brilliant like I am. Great. [00:12:23] Nick: You knew it. Yeah. The CO was loading up, obviously. Right. So [00:12:26] Joe: I know, but then I do the math again, to your point, this means nothing to my portfolio means nothing. [00:12:31] I do the math, you know what Lumen has to do for it to have any bearing on my life like this, thing’s gotta go from like $6 to like $6,000. [00:12:40] Jordan: But, but all joking aside. If that keeps you from doing stupid things with the rest of your portfolio. Mm. It’s amazingly important for you, [00:12:47] Joe: which is why I love Nick’s suggestion of let’s make sure the risk that it’s gonna create my portfolio is a lot less [00:12:54] Nick: You go release valve or something. [00:12:56] I don’t have a good term for this, but that’s kind of how I think about it, is like, let it out and just get it outta your system and do it. And I, I don’t do it anymore. ’cause I’ve learned the lesson too many times. I don’t even do it. It’s, and it’s not an identity part for me. I don’t even touch it. Like I’ve not. [00:13:08] I will not do another private investment or individual stock the rest of my life. I can tell you that with certainty. Not at all. Unless, unless I own zero. Unless I own the, like it’s my own company. That’s the only way I could Right. Do that. Nope. Won’t do it again. You wouldn’t invest in Lumen? Nope. Be like not doing it. [00:13:21] Nothing. Yeah. Nothing against people that do. I just won’t do it again. Yeah. After what? Everything that happened, I’m not doing that again. There’s no point. So it’s, it’s, it’s a waste of time to energy and attention. I could be doing other things. It is more profitable. [00:13:31] Joe: I’ve checked it three times today. [00:13:32] Yeah. I have no money [00:13:34] Nick: checking. Are you checking it right now? Like, actually I wasn’t, see, I don’t have any notes here. I’m just checking loo [00:13:40] Joe: Our listeners can’t see this, but I have an iPad open in front of me. You guys can see it? And, uh, yeah. Ooh, look at it. Ooh, [00:13:45] Nick: mark [00:13:46] Jordan: has closed actually. So that’s not damn happening. [00:13:47] Maybe after hours. So, Joe, Joe, what an illuminating example. Oh. Oh, nice. Well, uh, what’s another way to stay away from fomo 2025? Oh, I think it’s the individualized investor statement. I mean, this is the way we are gonna plan our long-term asset allocation is we are gonna put it down on paper and it is going to match our long-term goals. [00:14:10] And I think if you have that written down and you review it, especially when things are going crazy and you feel like you’re missing out and everyone else is cashing in, this is your time to go back to the basics and say, this doesn’t really fit. In my investor statement, and so I’m gonna stay away from it. [00:14:25] I think it just keeps us on course and I think it’s the best way to, to navigate these times that are gonna change. All the time, right? Every month, every year something new happens, someone else becomes a superstar, and how are we gonna stay away from that? And we can even write in that, you know, pressure valve right into it, right? [00:14:43] Mm-hmm. Our investor statement can say that 5% and it will not go over 5%. It’s a great way of. Kind of sticking to your guns. [00:14:49] Joe: Wow. It’s funny, we just recorded an episode of Afford Anything and we talked about exactly what Doc was talking about, Paula about Begin with the end in mind, right? And does this meet the goal? [00:14:58] Number one, but then number two, the thing pros know that a lot of our do it yourself investors don’t know this idea of an. Investment policy statement. [00:15:06] Paula: Right, exactly. Yeah. We were, so we talked about that investment policy statement, and it was actually very much in a context that was similar to this in where your asset allocation needs to reflect your goals. [00:15:16] What are you investing for? All savings is deferred spending. So are we deferring for retirement? Are we deferring for. A 5 29 plan for a child who is currently five years old. Like, what are we doing here? And in the context that we were talking about it on the Afford Anything Podcast, we were talking about what to do if you’ve. [00:15:37] Among other things we were discussing. If you have a bucket of money that is sufficient for reaching your goals, you could then have additional surplus money outside of that. That is wild card money. [00:15:50] Joe: And then who cares, right? [00:15:51] Paula: Yeah, exactly. And then just who cares? Because that particular bucket of money isn’t tied to any type of long-term goal. [00:15:58] It’s just. Throw it out there and see what happens. [00:16:00] Joe: If Lumen doesn’t matter to meet my goal, I could load up on it. Right. But then again, I think Nick, you know, with your approach about using index funds and even when somebody gets more scientific, like you guys will at your firm mm-hmm. I also think about throwing a lot of money at something that’s a bet versus putting it into. [00:16:19] This excess money into something sustainable that can build wealth that maybe helps my community, right. Helps the world around me. I don’t know which one I would rather do. [00:16:27] Nick: Yeah. I think Paul hit the nail on the head. It’s like, what are the goals? Like if you have a community building goal, what is gonna most accomplish that You could put it into like, you know, call options and derivatives. [00:16:37] Yeah. And maybe you’ll build a huge community or you might not build anything, so you have to, like, how much do you care about the community of one? Yeah, exactly. So you, you can. The portfolio. I agree. It should be like matching to the goal set or what you kind of want outta the goal set. If it’s like, oh yeah, it would be nice to do this extra cool thing. [00:16:51] If it happens, it happens. If it doesn’t, no big deal. Mm-hmm. Then yeah, you can do a high volatility or high variance investment compared to something where like, yeah, I really need to grow this for, you know, my retirement or whatever. Right. Whatnot. One question though, how often, so. Doc and Paula, how often do you guys do these investment policy statements? [00:17:07] What’s like the cadence? Is it annual, is it, is it something else? How would you know when to update it or re-look at it and see, does anything need to be changed? [00:17:13] Jordan: I mean, I, I think you should write it once, look at it every year. Mm-hmm. And then change it for major life changes. Right. Okay. And so I. Am I retired yet? [00:17:20] Yes or no? Is a kid on the way? Yes or no? Like what are the big things that are ch Has there been a death in the family? Unfortunately, yes or no. Mm-hmm. I think all those are great times to modify. I think you only have to really create it once, but then it’s mm-hmm. The continuous process of reviewing and modifying. [00:17:34] Mm-hmm. I feel it’s like fixing the engine. [00:17:35] Paula: Yeah. I would, I would agree with that. I think that’s a, a wise way to do it. And also if you’re rebalancing your portfolio annually, that would just be a very natural time to, to reread that statement. [00:17:45] Joe: Mm-hmm. Is this engine working Right, and do I need to tweak? [00:17:47] Yeah. Nick, let’s stick with you. What’s another way we could completely mess it up in 2025? [00:17:54] Nick: I don’t think this is necessarily relevant to 2025, but just in general, I think with people who are getting very wealthy, I think a problem I start to see is the identification with the investment to the point where I. [00:18:07] That’s the only thing they’re focusing on, and I think this is especially true for people who are higher earners because you’re doing well. It’s something that’s easily measurable. Like, oh look, I can see the numbers in my account go up over time. I think it’s much harder to. Compare that to like your health or something. [00:18:22] Yes, we could do a VO two max test or other things, but most people don’t have that readily available. Right? So it’s the easiest thing to measure. So I think it’s because it’s the easiest thing to measure. It’s the easiest target. People overly focus on it. So I think on the way to getting rich, a lot of people lose themselves in that and they. [00:18:36] Forget about everything else. And [00:18:38] Joe: so instead of being, it’s about the goal, you’re saying? Yeah. So it’s no longer about the goal. It’s, I’m a crypto investor. [00:18:43] Nick: Yeah. Or whatever. It doesn’t, well, I’m a [00:18:45] Joe: real estate investor, [00:18:46] Nick: whatever it is. It’s like, oh, I’m just gonna keep doing this thing ’cause I need to keep growing and keep growing. [00:18:50] And they forget like why they got into in the first place. And even what Paul was saying about. Most portfolios. I think in the US I, this is maybe a little controversial, but like what are the goals? If I’m being honest, most wealthy people, the goal without me saying it is bequests, they don’t even realize it. [00:19:03] But most of the goal is bequest. So I would say over half, if not 60 or 7% of the assets of most, let’s say million dollar plus households will end up being bequested. So they’re not gonna spend it, they’re not gonna use it. Now to give to their children, it’s gonna be given away when they die. And so because of that, I know there’s tax reasons for that, but I think that’s, is that really the goal you want? [00:19:20] And I think most people, the answer is no. If you asked a 30-year-old, a 40-year-old, Hey, guess what? You’re gonna work really hard and at the end of your life you’re gonna give away 60% of your money. When you’re dying, you’re not gonna spend, is that what you want? I think most of ’em would say no, but I think that’s what ends up happening, right? [00:19:32] So, yeah, [00:19:32] Jordan: I mean, most people don’t even wanna decumulate. I mean, a lot of people are trying to figure out ways that. Yes. Quote unquote, I wanna retire ’cause I have enough money, but I still don’t wanna touch the principle. [00:19:40] Joe: Yeah. Like most people are still trying. Well, because psychologically, psychologically, once that big pot of money starts draining, you freak out. [00:19:47] Even if you’ve got so much runway, you couldn’t. Never outlive it. There’s no way you’re gonna outlive it. I, I saw this firsthand. People would still freak out like, oh my god, my statement’s down a thousand dollars. Well, you’ve got $2.6 million and you’re 78 years old. You’re gonna be okay. [00:20:01] Jordan: There’s plenty there. [00:20:02] I think it’s the downside of spending so much time making money. The goal, instead of the tool I. That it’s been the goal for so long that even when you get to Decumulation where you should actually be spending down, that’s funny. People can’t do it because it’s been how they’ve been thinking about this for the last 30 years as they’ve been [00:20:18] Joe: accumulated. [00:20:18] I saw a financial cartoon that was a lot like the political cartoons. You see the same style, and it was a woman and her friend, and she’s walked into the room and said, now that Larry’s uh, retired, this is all he does, and he’s sitting with spreadsheets in front of the computer. And it was just this sad indictment of the dude has no [00:20:37] Jordan: purpose. [00:20:38] I mean, look, my father-in-law just died and they worried about money their whole life, and he died with more money than he ever imagined having and worried about it till the very end. I think they worried about it. They made decisions about even his end of life care based on money, which didn’t matter, [00:20:56] Joe: you know, clearly sticking with with you, Jordan, I feel like, especially in the geekier part of the community where we live, the money geek community where we live, we don’t undervalue money like the broader world does. [00:21:10] I feel like a lot of the broader world makes some decisions that are not at all based on your values with how they spend money. I feel like a lot of the money geeks out there, they’re great at valuing the money, but they’re not great at valuing. The other thing Nick is talking about, which is time, right? [00:21:25] That I’m, I’m so obsessed with being an ex kind of investor. I just gotta keep building this because it’s what I know. [00:21:30] Jordan: I think time is the most precious resource that we have zero control over, right? So from the day you’re born to the day you die, you get a certain amount of time. You can exercise, you can not smoke, you can wear seat belts. [00:21:40] All that maybe might increase it, but you have very little control over it. And so the truth of the matter is winning the game is trying to look at those time slots of life, months, years, days, whatever you wanna call ’em, and filling that time up with like really cool, purposeful, exciting stuff and getting rid of stuff you don’t like. [00:21:58] And so that’s what winning the game is, is through the years you wanna increase the stuff you love and get rid of the stuff you don’t love. Money is a great tool if you are willing to use it to get rid of the stuff you don’t love and pursue things you do love. But it’s really hard to convince people to do that. [00:22:14] Joe: It is. It is very hard. But is that maybe number one on the 2025 list? Paula is create this list of what do I want to actually do? [00:22:22] Paula: I think the notion behind a New Year’s resolution, so we see this not just for 2025, but for the start of any given year, is really that clarity around what is it that I actually wanna do? [00:22:32] How do I want to direct my energy? What do I want to add into my life? What or what do I want to subtract from my life? Right? That is sort of the spirit of the New Year’s resolution. And of course it’s gotten in, in some circles, it’s turned into a bit of a caricature of itself. Because there’s the um, proverbial like, ah, this is the year I’m gonna lose 20 pounds after this donut. [00:22:53] Right. [00:22:55] Joe: I’m gonna make the workout matter by adding a donut. [00:22:57] Paula: Yeah, exactly. But I mean, the spirit behind it is that any type of a new start, a symbolic new start. Is naturally a good inflection point. It’s a time when we’re a little bit more motivated to make those changes. [00:23:11] Joe: We’re diving into, uh, into New Year’s and setting stuff that sticks again this year, like we did at the beginning of last year on Stacking Benjamins. [00:23:17] So stackers, you’re gonna see a bunch of stuff about that, but, but you guys know what the date is. There was a British firm that did this research. What is the date that collectively on average we give up on our New Year’s resolution? January 2nd. It’s a little, uh, Mr. Cynical. Wow. [00:23:36] Paula: Uh, I would guess like late January, early February, [00:23:39] Nick: Nick. [00:23:40] Yeah. I would say like the third week, I’m going 21 days, like three weeks in. That’s January 12th. Ah, okay. Two weeks in two weeks. [00:23:48] Jordan: I wanna be thoughtful about this idea, and we say this a lot about like, what do we wanna do? I’d love to change the conversation to who do we wanna be? I thought he was gonna say, who do we wanna do? [00:23:59] Joe: It’s not that kind of show man who wanna, [00:24:06] Jordan: but the truth of the matter is the to-do list can last forever. And what we all know is when you actually accomplish some of those to-dos, you start creating new to-dos. But I love this idea of, of. Thinking about 2025 is becoming the people we wanna be. So it’s not whether you go to Italy or Japan or those kind of things. [00:24:23] It’s whether you’re the person who likes new experiences and new places and meeting new cultures. And you can do that locally, you can do that state to state. And yes, you can do it outside of the country too, but the truth of the matter is there’s always gonna be another place to go. And so I love this idea of really changing it and be like, who do I wanna be and how do I start pursuing those actions that more align with that thing? [00:24:45] Joe: Let’s keep it with you. We’ve heard Paula, as we’ve heard Nicks, what’s something else that we don’t wanna mess up in 2025 with our money? [00:24:52] Jordan: I think analysis paralysis. [00:24:54] Joe: Oh, so [00:24:55] Jordan: look, there’s a presidential election. People are talking about all sorts of scary things like tariffs and tax cuts, and how’s it gonna affect me and what am I gonna do? [00:25:01] And I hear so many people who get so anxious that they do nothing. They have money. They’re making money. They’re in the accumulation phase. And if you read Nick’s book, which is a wonderful book, just keep buying like when you’re in the accumulation phase. You wanna keep buying. You don’t have time to get so paralyzed by changes in the world that you’re leaving your money on the sidelines. [00:25:23] And I think a lot of people are at risk for that in 2025 because we feel as a country more confused than ever. We don’t know what’s gonna happen. We don’t know what’s gonna happen with our economy, with the stock market, with our jobs. And so I think a lot of people are sidelining their money and I think it has long-term consequences. [00:25:43] Joe: Oh yeah. And you can totally see Nick. I can hear it in my brain, somebody going, you know what? I’m gonna see how this plays out and then I’m gonna put my money back in the stock market. [00:25:52] Nick: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Oh, that’s a classic thing. It’ll definitely happen. I mean, there’s probably even, I bet it’s politically motivated if we’re being honest, like it was politically motivated. [00:26:00] A few years ago and it was politically motivated before that. So it just seems like this pendulum of people getting and out of markets. But obviously, you know, you’ve seen all those election things like it’s, if you’d only invested during democratic regimes or Republican regimes, you would’ve made far less money than if you just stayed invested for all of them, right? [00:26:16] Yeah. So it’s the same thing over and over again. But I mean, thank you for the plug, Jordan. I’ll pay you after the, the [00:26:22] Joe: it. [00:26:22] Nick: Yeah, [00:26:24] Joe: but how do you get outta that? Because there is a lot of fear. I mean, you know, our big, uh, news organizations are built on fear, right? About, oh, well, and you look at cheese, the state of TV news today, which is talking heads on one side or on the other side, I feel like it’s a football game. [00:26:42] We do want Republican or we want Democrat, and we’re gonna talk about how much we have to fear the other side. How do we get that out of our brain so we can focus on actually getting ahead in 2025? [00:26:51] Nick: Yeah, I think the, the, at least I’m gonna say this from a US perspective, ’cause I’m assuming that’s kind of where this fear’s coming from is like a new, uh, president Trump’s coming, et cetera. [00:26:59] Joe: But it’s still, but but as an aside, no matter where you live, I’m sure somebody has a similar fear in their country. [00:27:04] Nick: Yeah. Yeah. I think, well, at least in the US when I think about it, it’s like. Let’s just see, like, let’s hope our institutions are as strong as they are. Such that anyone, you know, there’s that that old Warren Buffet joke about, you know, you want a company so good that even an idiot could run it. [00:27:16] ’cause even one day, one will or something, right? That’s the joke. I’m not saying President Trump’s idiot, you get the point. It’s the same analogy of like, who knows who’s gonna come in, who’s gonna, I mean he’s been president before we survive that. Obviously there was, everyone wants to say a lot of stuff. [00:27:28] We got through that. So I’m a little less. Worried about the future. Of course there’s tons of uncertainty, but people think all Elon Musk is gonna come in and cut 80% of government jobs. I don’t think that’s gonna happen. You know, GDP, our 25% of our GDP D is government jobs. You do that, you can just, you’d see a massive drop in GDP would be a nightmare. [00:27:44] So I don’t think something like that’s gonna happen, but I do think there’s gonna be more scrutiny, there’s gonna be more uncertainty for those working in the government, things like that. Um, so there is some legitimate fear in those very specific circumstances, but. I think the institutions will protect a lot of these things from happening, from these massive, this is not Twitter, right? [00:27:59] This is not x where you can come in and just cut 80% of jobs ’cause you are allowed to do that. ’cause it’s a private company and you’re allowed to do that if you own the company. But in the case of the US government, it’s not really the same. So I think that’s my counter to that. It’s like, I know there’s a lot of uncertainty, but we have institutions and things that’ll protect from very massive sweeping changes very quickly. [00:28:17] At least I think so. I, I would hope so. [00:28:18] Joe: My friend, uh, Paul Inger, a comedian who has the, uh, reasonably Happy podcast recently rebranded as Reasonably Happy. Paul had a wonderful piece on Facebook that just said after the election, he said, we’ll see. And then people that were very pro-Trump were like, oh, it’s gonna be great. [00:28:35] It’s gonna be whatever. And then all Paul wrote was, we’ll see. And then people on the other side were like, no, we gotta be afraid of this. We gotta be afraid of this. And to your point, Nick, then he wrote, we’ll see. Mm-hmm. And it was wonderful just going, you know what? Let’s see. But even then, Paula, mm-hmm. [00:28:48] I still think. I can’t do anything about that. [00:28:52] Paula: Right. [00:28:53] Joe: You know, I can’t, there’s, there’s nothing I can do. [00:28:55] Paula: Well, and I, I wonder if that’s why people are prone to excessive speculation about what might happen in the future. Because I think that it gives people a false sense of control if you. Think that you can make predictions about what’s going to happen and then make moves today based on what you believe will happen in the future. [00:29:17] It kind of gives you this illusion that you have some degree of control over it, when in fact, statistically speaking, you’re more likely to put yourself into a worse position. An example that I can think of to just reflect back on the last few years, there were a lot of people who said, well, prior to when interest rates rose. [00:29:36] People said, well, as soon as interest rates rise, home prices are going to fall. And if you actually took like 10 seconds to look at the data, you would actually see that historically. There is a slight positive correlation between interest rates rising and home prices rising, historically speaking. And so there was just no precedent for believing that home prices would fall when interest rates rose, and yet people wanted to believe it, so they did. [00:30:02] And what was quite sad was that people who wanted to buy homes decided that they would just wait for prices to drop. And so then they’d waited and waited and wait, and they’re still waiting. You hear these stories of people who even sold their home in 2017, because how could prices get, it’s already so expensive. [00:30:21] How could prices go higher? I’m just gonna sell now. I’m gonna wait for it to drop and then I’ll buy back in. Right? So anyway, so I think that that, that kind of excessive speculation about the future. Is a way that we try to find a sense of control. [00:30:38] Joe: Feeling some certainty. Yeah. Yeah. [00:30:39] Paula: In, in an uncertain world. [00:30:41] Joe: It’s funny, uh, it’s, it’s why I like the old Jack Welch phrase where he said, uh, accept reality the way it is, not the way you, I. Hope it would be or wish it were. Something like that, which is a great, great way to look at the world, which is why back when I was a financial planner, I would have clients that would come in and they wanna talk about that type of a topic. [00:30:59] Oh my, do you see what’s going on with what’s going on with this election? What’s the stuff? And I would immediately go to their financial plan. I would look at the milestones we built for every year. And let’s say, Nick, you’re my client. Mm-hmm. And I’m like, okay. Right now we have to be at $35,000 in your 401k. [00:31:14] You have to have 15,000 in your kids’ college fund. Where are you at? And then you would go, oh, well I brought my stuff with me. Look at this. I’m at 37,000. Okay, we’re ahead. So we have some choices here, and immediately refocus the entire thing away from all this BS to Nick. What do you need to do? To stay on track for your goal, and guess what happened to the election, to interest rates, all that. [00:31:36] All of a sudden Nick’s like, oh, well, maybe I can save less this year. Yes. Or do you wanna retire earlier? Yes, I’d, I prefer to stay on the gas. Or if Nick’s behind, we’d say. Nick, what do you wanna do? He’s not gonna talk about Trump or interest rates. He’s gonna talk about, well, I’ll go ask my boss for a raise. [00:31:52] Mm-hmm. All of a sudden we focus instead on the stuff that we control, which I think is, is, is to your point, we get so, we get so worked up Jordan and like all this hot three stuff is as, uh, Covey talks about, you know, that we forget there is a lot of stuff we can control. [00:32:08] Jordan: Well, what’s fantastic is most of the answers are knowable. [00:32:10] So we don’t know what’s gonna happen in the future. But we know how to best risk mitigate. We know how to make the best decisions we can for what we do know. And that’s actually really empowering. And I think we forget that we get caught up in the mindset of all these things that could happen. And we forget that these things are knowable. [00:32:28] Like there are reasonable ways to invest and reasonable ways to both accumulate and accumulate and the knowledge is out there and the people that help us. Are out there. And so I’m actually very optimistic because in this place where we feel there’s so much we can’t control, there’s some really good, basic things we can do, especially financially that we can. [00:32:48] Joe: I think that’s a great last word. For the first half, well stay stretched out, Jordan, because we’re gonna go the opposite direction for round two, we’re gonna do this again. We got our top three. We’re gonna get three more starting with Jordan here in just a minute. [00:33:02] bit: I am Liz, the Chief Mom officer, and when I’m not busy being the breadwinner of my family of five, I’m Stack and Benjamin’s. [00:33:09] Joe: All right, man. Doc, you are on the clock. What is, what’s the second way that you believe we could screw up [00:33:16] Jordan: 2025? I think we spend a lot of time spending money on things we don’t value. And I think we buy the latest. The biggest, the greatest. As I was saying before, I think we think we can buy our way into being who we wanna be, and a lot of times we end up buying things that don’t serve us. [00:33:31] On the other hand, when you feel very clear about what you do value, it’s very easy to say, this money’s a tool, and it gets me that thing I value. And let’s use it that way. And you have more leftover ’cause you’re not spending it on things that just aren’t that important to you. [00:33:45] Joe: But the dopamine hit Nick is real man. [00:33:47] You get the new thing. It’s pretty cool. For about five seconds, how do you, how do you, how do you stop from buying stupid stuff? I. [00:33:54] Nick: I mean, I guess you have to know your values. Like what do you actually value? Like I do spend money on, I don’t wanna say I spend stupid money on things. I do value, but I don’t spend any money on things I don’t value. [00:34:04] You know? I like going out to restaurants and stuff. So that, and especially in New York City, it’s so a glass of wine is now regularly over $20. It was amazing last night. Yeah. Paul and I were [00:34:13] Joe: out to dinner last night and it was incredible. It was, we had a wine list at this moderately priced restaurant, but two thirds of the wine list was over a hundred dollars for a bottle. [00:34:22] Mm-hmm. [00:34:22] Nick: Yeah, I mean the bottle price, that doesn’t necessarily shock me, but just even for a glass now, it’s like crazy how Yeah, I many as you divide by 4, 5, 20, 22, 25, yeah. Five. Yeah. So that’s normal now. And so, but like, I expect to spend that now I’ve, I’ve already had it into my mental model of going out and seeing wine, you know, even though like, you know, you go to Spain and a glass of wines like three to five years, two. [00:34:41] Definitely. Yeah. It’s like if that, you know, and so it’s like, oh my gosh. And it’s same quality basically. So. I go out and I, I expect that, so I expect to spend more in certain areas, but I just don’t spend on the things like you have to remember like, how much do I actually care about these things? I do not spend on those things. [00:34:54] And so it’s just go back to your values and there’s nothing wrong with, I think another reason we have these talks is like there’s nothing wrong with spending money. I think the issue is, I. Spending money on things. You great point, actually don’t end up liking. And so I think that’s the what is, what are those things and how do you figure out what those things are? [00:35:08] That’s a bigger question and bigger decision. [00:35:10] Joe: We have good friends that love to go to Michelin star restaurants and then rip ’em to shreds afterwards. Mm-hmm. And I got sucked into it twice and the whole time they’re like, this is miserable. I’m like, why am I spending this kind of money to sit across from you talking about how miserable, don’t get me wrong, I’m having fun. [00:35:25] I I have more fun if they weren’t there, but, but they’re like. W. We talk about it all the time. Our group of friends were like, we’re not going with them to another Michelin star restaurant. Like, I’m not doing it. [00:35:36] Paula: Wow. ’cause when you said rip ’em to shreds, I thought you meant roast them in a funny way. [00:35:39] Joe: Not at all. [00:35:41] Paula: Oh man. [00:35:41] Joe: Not at all. Just like, oh my God, that sucked. Oh, that was horrible. Oh, I didn’t like it, [00:35:44] Nick: man. [00:35:45] Joe: Every once in while Find, do [00:35:46] Nick: they like, I guess, where’s that? Let’s go there. Let’s [00:35:49] Joe: Astrid and Gustan in Lima, Peru. They actually loved and we got halfway through dinner and they were like, this is best meal. [00:35:56] And don’t get me wrong, it’s probably the best meal I’ve ever had too. But they were like, this is amazing. And I’m like, I love hanging out with you when you’re positive. [00:36:03] Nick: The one, it’s funny that you knew their only restaurant. I think it’s so funny. Like you like knew and it’s like in another country means you must have dime with these people a lot. [00:36:10] I’ve [00:36:11] Jordan: d with them a ton. It was a wink, wink. I have some friends with quotation marks. [00:36:16] Joe: Thank God they don’t listen to the show. Because they’re like, oh, Joe, you’re a jerk. Well, I didn’t say them by then to, [00:36:22] Paula: to Nick’s point about getting normalized to high prices in high cost of living areas like New York. [00:36:26] Earlier today, Joe told me, he was like, oh, I spent $80 on a cab ride, and I just looked at him and it took me a moment to process. I was like, oh, and the implication is that he thinks that’s expensive. Oh, that’s why he’s saying that. That’s true because I’m so normalized to it. I was like. Yeah, it was crazy, right? [00:36:44] Yeah. I was like, it [00:36:45] Nick: depends where Like from the airport. From the airport. Airport. Oh yeah. Yeah. That’s that’s very normal. Yeah. If I, if you were like in just Manhattan, unless you like went up to the cloisters and came down to financial district and even then I would be shocked if it was 80. I think it would be a little less than that. [00:36:56] Joe: Well tell me now. Yeah. Thanks for telling me now. Yeah. I should have told me at a time. By the way, isn’t that something too, when you spend money, like the expectation, Nick, to your point, like you go in and you expect, you know what the bill’s gonna be and you can then do the mental model of is it worth it to me? [00:37:11] Is this something I value enough to spend $20 on a glass of wine? [00:37:14] Nick: Yeah, exactly. I mean, I. It’s funny ’cause I’ve slowly seen this creep up where I remember, you know, wine was regularly 12 to $15 a glass. Sure. And then 15, 20. Now there’s places where it’s regularly 2025. And I’ve seen places where, you know, there’s one place that I, I actually love this restaurant, but it’s a very cheap tasting menu. [00:37:30] It’s a very high quality, but the, all the wine is super expensive and they know people get wine, so they’re, it’s like $45 a glass. I’m like. They’re basically, it’s coming back to them as, as if they had a $200 tasting menu. So have a hundred dollars tasting menu, so it all comes back to them in the end. [00:37:43] But it’s like a, just a different pricing model to get people in the door, and then it’s like, oh yeah, that is a little pricey for wine, but I’m not gonna not have wine, so I just end up having it. Right. Yeah. So it’s, yeah, it’s interesting how people do pricing mechanisms, but yeah, it’s, it’s very interesting to me. [00:37:53] You think about that. [00:37:54] Joe: Paula, how do you make sure that you’re not spending money on stuff you don’t value? [00:37:58] Paula: You know, I think similar to our earlier answer about how do you not fomo, it’s you account for a little bit of fun money. It’s like the mm-hmm. With the diet, it would be the equivalent of cheat day, right? [00:38:09] Where you have that built in that one day a week where Right. You can have the. The pastries. I only cheat on why ending days. Exactly. That’s it. I think the same is true with the way in which you spend, where you have some bucket of money or some pool of money where you’re like, you know what? This is the money that I spend on Amazon. [00:38:31] I. I know that some of the items I buy on Emma, you know, I, I get dish soap there, you know, kitchen sponges, paper towels, like okay, some of that is our genuine necessities. Some of it is like, what in the heck is, you know, you, you like look back over that and you’re like, what on earth is this? But that’s okay. [00:38:52] So long as you know that overall that bucket is contained. [00:38:56] Joe: I love this whole idea though. ’cause this is when Sheryl and I were getting our money. Together and finally getting good with money. We started that weekly meeting that I love, that’s only 20 minutes long. But you know what, the first thing we do, Paula, is we go through just the bank app and how we spent money the week before because just on a week by week micro basis we’re like, oh yeah, that wasn’t worth it. [00:39:15] That was stupid. Um, and other things we’re like, wow, that was great. And so we’re kind of building values together week by week in this 20 minute period of did we value that or not? Mm-hmm. [00:39:24] Jordan: Right. I love, there’s some tactical stuff too that you see people do all the time, like. We used to do spending pauses, right? [00:39:30] So we’d be with the kids or we’d be out and it’d be like, oh, I wanna buy this thing that was not on the list of things we wanted to buy, or maybe is expensive. It’s like, okay. We will consider it and if we really want it, we’re gonna come back next week and buy it. Yeah. And so just putting that space pause. [00:39:42] Another thing is buying used. I mean, a lot of times I can find exactly what I want used and it’s half the price or a quarter of the price. And even if that ends up being a bad purchase, you’ve at least saved yourself a lot of money. So if it wasn’t something you valued, at least you didn’t spend full price. [00:39:56] So I think there’s some, there’s some like little things you can do a lot of times. It used to be, not anymore, but back in the day when we didn’t have such ease to money, like it would be like, don’t carry cash. Yeah. That used to be such an easy way, like, so I wouldn’t go get a Snickers bar at the vending machine because they didn’t have cash. [00:40:11] Unfortunately, they’ve gotten so smart. Now, obviously you can pay with [00:40:14] Joe: your phone or, well, but that still, that still works with me because anything that I put on a card is accountable. When we have that 20 minute meeting, Cheryl sees it. Cash is still dangerous for me ’cause it’s not accountable. And so I know me. [00:40:27] I’m the opposite of what Dave Ramsey says. Dave Ramsey says, don’t carry credit cards, carry cash. I never, I have a $20 bill in my wallet right now. That never happens. Never ever happens. He is hot [00:40:36] Jordan: to spend [00:40:36] Joe: it. I am. Let’s go. We gotta finish this episode. Throwing that thing around. Yes. Enough of you, doc. [00:40:40] Nick your turn. Let’s go. That might get him a half a glass of wine at Nick’s favorite place. Yeah. Yeah. [00:40:48] Nick: Yeah. For the, okay. I know it’s gonna come across crazy. I mean, I go to places that where wines, you know, 25 bucks and stuff, but I don’t, like, I have a very weird spending profile. Like if you looked at my spending, you’d be like, what? [00:40:57] You spend this much on restaurants? I’ve never, I’m 35 years old, never owned a car, never paid for car insurance. I’ve been a renter my whole life. You know, it’s like I. All these things. It’s like my spending profile is very unique. I don’t spend a lot on clothes. Like these are like $20 jeans off Amazon. [00:41:11] Like I don’t spend a lot on that stuff. So when you look at my profile, it’s mostly restaurants and some travel, and that’s about it. Groceries are obviously like relatively cheap, so relative to everything else in the bundle. So I. That’s It’s food. It’s food is most of my spending. Yeah. If you’re, if you’re [00:41:24] Joe: wondering who Nick Maju is, if you go in a restaurant and he’s the guy in the Highend restaurant in cheap pants, just [00:41:29] Jordan: walk up to him and go, Nick, and you’re probably right. [00:41:33] It’s an interesting point though, because if you live and work, for instance in New York, it’s kind of priced in because if you mm-hmm. Working, let’s say in corporate American, New York, you’re probably getting paid more too. I had this funny conversation where I was talking to my cousin and I had gotten to it. [00:41:47] Conversation with my cab driver on the way to my aunt’s house, and we are here in New York. And he kinda mentioned, well, I was a doctor in training and I decided I could make more money eventually in pharmaceuticals, but he is like, I could make tons of money being a cab driver. I’m like, really? He’s like, yeah, you can make six figures easy being a cab driver. [00:42:02] And I was telling this, this to my cousin who lives in New York real life. He’s like, yeah, but six fixtures isn’t that much. [00:42:07] Joe: Oh yeah. [00:42:08] Jordan: And here’s the thing. It’s a lot when you don’t live in New York City. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And live somewhere where the cost of living is much lower. That, that’s the 80 cab ride right there. [00:42:16] I think like Nick, for you, it’s priced in to not just your salary, but what you’re used to. To then spend more on food. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whereas people like us, we come here and we’re on vacation. It’s like, what? $80 for us? You know? Cab ride ide. It’s a big difference. [00:42:30] Joe: Nick, what’s the next way we can mess up our money in 2025? [00:42:33] Nick: I think making really big changes. So once again, we’ve talked about, you know, there’s a lot of uncertainty next year. I think a lot of the changes you wanna make are gradual, and I think gradual steps is the way to go. I think when you try and change, like let’s say you’re like, okay, you know what I’ve had, I had a great run in this one individual stock, I’m gonna get out of it. [00:42:50] I think going all the way to zero is not the answer. I think you want to phase out of that, because if you go to zero and then it goes up more, you’re gonna be like, wow, regret this Nick Majuli iss an idiot. Mm-hmm. Obviously, if you hold all of it and you don’t sell any of it, it goes down. You’re gonna feel like. [00:43:02] So you wanted like, it’s always like this regret minimization you’re chasing so you’re like, okay, what’s the amount I can sell where no matter what happens, I’m okay. And that’s I think a lot, even with changes, a lot of big changes. I know some people can go cold jerk, I’m gonna go from zero to working out five times a week. [00:43:16] I think that’s not the way, I think the way is I. How do you go to make a small change and make a very small change and stick to it though? I actually only had one successful year’s resolution, and it was back in the beginning of 2017, and my resolution was I wanna write one blog post a week, and now it’s been almost eight years and I’ve not missed a single week. [00:43:33] So they do work, but guess what? I didn’t say I need to write a blog post and have a podcast and do this and do that. I’ve built my entire, whatever financial creator career I have off one blog post a week. Most of just keep buying was blog posts. Right. And obviously they, I reformatted them, made ’em cleaner, but that’s not the point. [00:43:50] Sure. It’s just, it’s really just doing that one simple thing. What’s the one change you can do? And just do that every single week or whatever cadence it is, depending on what you’re trying to change. And. That will lead to bigger changes in your life than just about anything. So I really believe in small changes, but done over a very long time. [00:44:06] And that compounding just starts to take off in ways you can’t even imagine. So we just [00:44:09] Joe: had, uh, Josh on the show, Josh Brown, who you work with. Oh yeah. And uh, Josh was talking about that too, that I think, didn’t he start doing that? Just write one blog post a week. [00:44:18] Nick: He’s done so much content. But yeah, he was just, but I think that’s of how he started and it opened up doors. [00:44:23] Yeah. And then he started, he was writing more than that and then he started going on CNBC. And so he’s done so many different content things over time, but it’s just like sticking to the thing, like they have such a strict schedule with like, okay, we do this show on Monday, we do this show Thursday, we do this thing on this. [00:44:37] I post the blog on this day. And like they’re very structured about that. And obviously that’s their role as a CO. He is like, he’s marketing the firm. Firm. Yeah. Talking about our approach and like that’s what he does and for himself and for, for the firm. And so. Yeah, it’s, it’s just small changes and what are the things that I can do sustainably. [00:44:51] So I think going from zero to a hundred, some people at work, some people are gonna make that change and identify differently, and they’re just gonna be like that forever. But I think when you do that, it’s too big. And that’s why most people give up by day 12 instead of sticking through with it. [00:45:01] Joe: Well, and I’ll put a positive spin on this, Nick, for people in 2025 polls that are freaking out about these big goals and how much I have to do. [00:45:09] I also like Nick’s approach there too. Don’t try to eat the whole elephant. Try to save a little bit more in your 401k this month? Mm-hmm. The next month. A little more this month, a little more like, I feel like that approach works in reverse as well. [00:45:19] Paula: Right? Right. In fact, I have the challenge that I put out to my audience, it’s called the 1% Challenge. [00:45:25] It is exactly that. I developed this as a response to all of the people who would write to me and say, look, I just can’t save anymore. I just can’t. I can’t do it. And so my challenge to them, I was like, what? Whatever amount that you currently save, whatever that percentage is, next month, save 1% more, and so that is $10 per every thousand dollars that you earn. [00:45:48] If you bring home $5,000 per month next month, just try saving an extra 50 bucks. If you do that consistently, right? Let’s say that, let’s say your take home pay is 5,000 a month. January, you find an extra 50 bucks worth of savings February. You increase that now you’ve got an extra a hundred bucks worth of savings march, you’ve got 150 bucks worth of savings. [00:46:12] Keep that up and over the span of the year, you’ve increased your savings rate by an additional 12%. [00:46:18] Joe: I love this one. OG has talked about this one before. Mm-hmm. On the show and has talked about. All of his years as a financial planner, and they will do that approach. And everybody’s like, well, what happens if I can’t do it? [00:46:29] He goes, you know what? You just call me. I’ll help you lower your 401k, or whatever the thing might be. You know, I’ll help you get through it. Well, we could even try starting out in a savings account, and he’s been a financial planner, I think for 20 years. Maybe more than that. You know, it’s funny, you know how many times people have called to get back that money they didn’t think they could save? [00:46:46] When they do the 1% challenge you’re talking about, never. Nobody ever, ever, ever has done it. [00:46:51] Jordan: You know, it’s funny ’cause I think what we’re talking about, and I think this is important, investing just as well as in behavioral finance, we’re talking about sizing decisions. And I feel like we’re so bad at sizing decisions. [00:47:00] So when it comes to behaviorally. We tend to oversize, we go too big and it frustrates us and we don’t get anywhere. And I think this comes back to a little bit of what we were talking about in the first half. When it comes to sizing of our investments, it’s the same thing. If you’re really worried about risk or blowing things up, it’s mostly that you’re not sizing correctly. [00:47:17] Even. It doesn’t even matter what you’re investing in, it’s if you’re sizing appropriately. So if you are like gaga over crypto, I’m not saying don’t invest in crypto. I’m saying make the appropriate sizing of that asset allocation, which it’s not all or nothing. Right, and this gets back to the 5%. Yeah. [00:47:32] Like you can do almost anything with 5% of your portfolio and be okay. And if you’re gonna go for one of these higher risk. Types of asset, you just gotta size it. Right? I think what we’re really talking about in a lot of these decisions are, are how we look at sizing. And a lot of times we go way too to the extremes and don’t come to the middle enough. [00:47:49] Paula: So what he’s saying is, size matters always. I was thinking about, [00:47:54] Joe: I was thinking about a new brand. I was thinking of invest. In anything, but not everything. I just, I just came up with that. I don’t know. I love that. I love that. Yeah. Paula, you’ve got the last one. How do we, can we mess up 2025 [00:48:07] Paula: doubling down on bad decisions? [00:48:08] Oh, yeah. You know, let’s say that you chase an individual stock, you know, you buy it, it, uh, the value tanks, but you want to recoup your losses, so you’re like. Look, it’s down. I [00:48:23] Joe: should put [00:48:23] Paula: more in it. I should put more in so that that way, yes, I’m, you know, I’m gonna just dollar cost average. My average share price. [00:48:30] Joe: Nick, but Julie says Just keep buying. [00:48:32] Paula: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Come [00:48:33] Joe: on. [00:48:34] Nick: Does not apply for individual. Apologize for the listeners. [00:48:38] Joe: You should say that even faster doesn’t apply to in yours, also me. [00:48:43] Nick: Yeah. [00:48:46] Paula: So, yeah, doubling down on those bad decisions. And sometimes that happens. You know, the example I just gave of, of course was individual stocks, but you also have this for major life decisions. [00:48:55] Sometimes you know what, you’ll know you’re doing this when you hear yourself trying to justify a decision to others when they didn’t ask for that justification. And what you’re actually doing is you’re trying to justify it to yourself. Somebody might very casually ask you a question about, oh, you know what? [00:49:12] Why did you, I know you were, you’ve been applying for jobs and you were trying to choose between like these three different companies. What made you choose this one? And all of a sudden you’re like, well, I, you know, and you, you find yourself really justifying it. That’s when you’re trying to talk yourself into it, right? [00:49:30] And so sometimes that doubling down on bad decisions. You start over identifying with that bad decision that you made. You start extra embracing it because you’re trying to convince yourself that you did the right thing. [00:49:43] Joe: Well, yeah, it’s the opposite of the whole growth mentality thing, right? You’re like, you’re trying to prove to yourself, I’m not stupid. [00:49:49] Yeah, I’m not stupid. This is gonna go great, and this is gonna be, I’m this hero of my journey. And this thing’s gonna rebound for God knows what reason. Right? Right. Uh, one of my favorite books in the nineties, it was a very, uh, very dry book, but this guy, he traded Futures in Chicago at the, the Mercantile. [00:50:08] It was crazy, the risk he was taking, and it was called Trading Rules. What I like about it was all of his rules and the way around this was your stock price is what it is today. Right now that’s all you know. That’s all you can know. And if it goes down. It is down for a reason. It might be somebody overseas sold a bunch of it. [00:50:28] We don’t know why they did. It might be that analysts think it’s a crap stock, but if you’re gonna double down and buy more, because your little tiny brain thinks it can outsmart all these external forces that you know nothing about, are you kidding me? All you know is that’s the price today. Do you like it or not? [00:50:44] And that, that, that’s what got me out of making those moves, Paula. Mm. Because I was, I was like, yeah. [00:50:50] Paula: Yeah. There’s a certain freedom that comes when you really deeply internalize the vastness of the market. How small I am. Yeah. The smallness of you in the scope of the vastness of the market. It’s, it’s humbling when you really reflect on it. [00:51:04] Joe: Saying again, size does matter. [00:51:06] Paula: Yeah. Yeah. [00:51:09] Joe: Alright. I think that’s a great place to end it. I don’t know why. Let’s see what all of you are doing. We’ll have our guest of honor go last, so let’s start here. Paula, what’s going on at the Afford Anything Podcast here in early 2025 [00:51:22] Paula: Oh on the Afford Anything Podcast? [00:51:23] Well, Joe, you and I were. We’re, and currently as we’re recording this are in person in New York. And so if you go to YouTube, youtube.com/anything, you can see, Joe, you and me recording in person, just how [00:51:37] Joe: beautiful we are, [00:51:38] Paula: right? Yeah. But it’s rare that we get a chance to have that face-to-face q and a episode. [00:51:44] So we answered three questions from listeners sitting in the same room, in the same chairs that you, same chairs we’re in right now. Yeah, in right now. Go to YouTube, youtube.com/forward. Anything. You’ll be able to watch it. And I think there’s a. There’s something about, you know, you and I typically record virtually, so there’s something about actually watching that energy in the same room [00:52:02] Joe: that I, yeah. [00:52:02] And it’s so cool that the Cumulus team did for us. We got Tanya back there who’s taking care of business for us. Jay, outside Mike. Mm-hmm. Uh, just a great team that made this happen for us. Yeah. Jordan, what’s going on at Earn and Invest? Well, you were just on the show talking about some book. [00:52:18] Jordan: Yeah, so what’s going on in the show is what’s going on in my life is the book dropped January 7th? [00:52:22] The purpose code, how we get purpose wrong, how we can take it from something big, pie in the sky and anxiety provoking and make it something we can own. In an attempt to be more happy and fulfilled. So that comes out January 7th. Earn an invest.com. Came out January 7th when this drops came out, January 7th. [00:52:40] Earn invest.com/purpose. Can we predict [00:52:42] Joe: where it is on the New York Times bestseller list right now? Probably number one. [00:52:45] Jordan: If it’s anywhere even close, I would be ecstatic. But honestly, if it helps someone and if it makes purpose seem approachable to you, that is good enough for me. It’s great. And by the way, you described it as a guy who’s described this once or twice before. [00:52:58] I might have talked about this before too. Somewhere between zero and 5,000 podcasters. I’ll let you decide. [00:53:05] Joe: I still have, I know PTSD is a real thing, but you know, I have quote PTSD from my book tour a couple years ago. Like, oh, but am I saying this again? Did I say that in this interview or is it a different interview? [00:53:15] Like Nick, you must have gone through that too. [00:53:17] Nick: Oh yeah. 2022, it was like 60 podcasts. It was so much to go through. [00:53:21] Joe: That’s like a weekend for me. There were all those podcasts and then the best one. [00:53:25] Nick: Yeah, yeah. Yes. Everyone knows, you know, I’ll afford anything. So, [00:53:30] Joe: oh, look at the, we don’t have time to talk about what’s going on at M dollars in data. [00:53:34] Look at that. What’s going on at M [00:53:35] Nick: dollars in data? What do you got coming up here? Uh, so I’m, I’m still blogging, doing my thing. You know, a lot of stuff in my personal life got engaged in all that, so it’s. Been very fun, but I am working on another project. I’m not announcing it yet. I’m waiting until all the ducks in a row, but I’ll be announcing it next year. [00:53:47] It’s a, it’s another book, but that’s, we’ll leave it at that for now. So we’re kinda just getting ev everything all put together, but it’s gonna be very exciting. So very exciting. [00:53:52] Joe: But the blog is fantastic. It’s a must read of dollars in data.com and uh, we’ll link to that. Afford Anything, earn and Invest, and this Purpose code book on our show notes page. [00:54:02] Guys, thank you so much for hanging out and helping us not mess up 2025. Maybe we didn’t mess up a podcast too. So, well, let’s see. We didn’t mess it up, but this next person can. Doug, what should we have learned on today’s show? [00:54:17] Doug: So, what’s stacked up on our to-do list for today? First, take some advice from our panel. [00:54:23] You’re gonna make mistakes, so start making them. Getting ’em outta the way early is better than worrying about making sure every move is the right one. Second, don’t invest to hit a home run. By turning, investing into gambling, you are much more likely to lose. But the big lesson, if you’re planning to get rich, the real mistake is not inviting Doug to go with you to New York City because sure, your wallet might grow, but without me. [00:54:52] Your fun meter. Yeah. Flat line. [00:55:00] Thanks to Nick Majuli for joining us today. It’s always great to hear from Nick. You’ll find his of dollars and data blog wherever you find your web browser. Thanks to Paula Pant for hanging out with us today. You’ll find her fabulous podcast. Afford anything wherever you listen to finer podcasts. And finally, thanks to Doc G for joining us yet again. [00:55:22] That guy should score some frequent flyer points this week on Stacking Benjamins. You’ll find his new book, the Purpose Code, wherever you listen to books. This show is the property of SP podcasts, LLC, copyright 2025, and is created by Joe Saul-Sehy. Joe gets help from a few of our neighborhood friends. [00:55:43] 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. [00:56:02] 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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