Eighteen hundred episodes calls for something special, and what better way to celebrate than by dragging the absolute worst money advice into the light and laughing at it together?
Special guest and CFP Sarah Catherine Guiterrez from Aptus Financial joins Joe Saul-Sehy, Neighbor Doug, Paula Pant (Afford Anything), and Jesse Cramer (Personal Finance for Long Term Investors) for a rapid-fire, no mercy takedown of the most damaging financial clichés ever passed down at family dinners, car dealerships, and internet comment sections.
This episode is equal parts group therapy, myth-busting, and friendly argument. Exactly the kind of chaos that’s kept the Stacking Benjamins basement standing for 1,800 shows.
What You’ll Hear in This Milestone Episode:
• The most cringeworthy financial advice the panel has ever heard and why it sticks around
• Why phrases like “just let the bank take it” quietly wreck long-term wealth
• How YOLO thinking sneaks into financial decisions disguised as confidence
• The difference between common advice and useful advice
• Sarah Catherine’s planner level perspective on why bad advice feels comforting
• Paula and Jesse sparring over long term thinking versus short term emotion
• OG bringing strategy, clarity, and the occasional eye roll
• Neighbor Doug doing what he does best: poking holes, cracking jokes, and keeping everyone honest
• Why car buying advice is one of the most misunderstood areas in personal finance
• How trivia, travel, and history collide in a surprisingly competitive game segment
• What Singapore’s founding teaches us about perspective, patience, and getting the facts right
• Why smart money decisions usually sound boring but work anyway
This Episode Is For You If:
• You’ve ever heard money advice and thought, “Wait, people actually believe that?”
• You’re tired of conflicting financial wisdom and want validation that some of it IS terrible
• You’ve been burned by advice that sounded good but cost you money
• You want to hear smart people argue about what actually works versus what just sounds good
• You’ve been with us since episode 1, or just wandered into the basement and want to celebrate
This episode is a love letter to Stackers who question conventional wisdom and trust their gut when advice doesn’t add up. It’s loud, opinionated, funny, and packed with reminders that the best financial moves often start by ignoring the advice everyone else is shouting.
Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.StackingBenjamins.com/201
Enjoy!
Our Topic:
19 Worst Pieces of Financial Advice We Found on the Internet (A Dime Saved)
During our conversation, you’ll hear us mention:
- Bad money advice
- Chasing hot fads
- Mimetic desire
- Beauty industry traps
- Skincare price myths
- Biohacking spending
- Treat yourself pitch
- Rent versus buy
- Home repair shocks
- Moving transaction costs
- Visible home equity
- 401k invisibility
- American dream pressure
- Tax bracket myth
- Marginal tax rates
- Subsidy cliff risks
- Write off confusion
- Credit card points
- Debit card limits
- Miles devaluation
- Emergency fund debate
- HELOC emergency myth
- YOLO spending
- Bankruptcy later fantasy
- Car payment mindset
Our Contributors
A big thanks to our contributors! You can check out more links for our guests below.
Sarah-Catherine Gutierrez
Another thanks to Sarah-Catherine Gutierrez for joining our contributors this week! Learn more about Sarah by visiting her site Ladysplaining. Or you can see how working with Sarah can help you by visiting her financial planning firm, Aptus Financial at Flat-fee Financial Planning and Guided DIY Investing | Aptus Financial.
Check out her book But First, Save 10: The One Simple Money Move That Will Change Your Life.
Jesse Cramer
Another thanks to Jesse Cramer for joining our contributors this week! Hear more from Jesse on his show, Personal Finance for Long-Term Investors – The Best Interest, on Spotify.
Learn how you can work with Jesse by visiting The Best Interest – Invest in Knowledge.
Paula Pant
Check out Paula’s site and amazing podcast at AffordAnything.com
Follow Paula on Twitter: @AffordAnything
Doug’s Game Show Trivia
- In what year was Singapore founded as a British trading outpost (during the 1800s)?
Join Us on Monday!
Tune in on Monday when we tackle betting with your money…and how to turn those bets into powerful money moves!
Miss our last show? Check it out here: Build a Wealth Machine That Lasts Generations (SB1799).
Written by: Kevin Bailey
Episode transcript
[00:00:00] opener: Ladies and gentlemen, we have a big show, a real big shoe.[00:00:06] Doug: Live from the basement of the YouTube headquarters. It’s the 1800th episode of the Stacking Benjamin Show.
[00:00:24] Doug: I am Joe’s Mom’s Neighbor, Doug. And you heard that right? We’ve done this 1,799 times already, and yet somehow they have not kicked us off any of the major platforms, which, you know, honestly is kind of disappointing. What else is disappointing when someone gives you terrible money advice? What’s the worst advice we’ve heard over the time it took us to make 1800 of these?
[00:00:47] Doug: Our team of top podcasters, researchers and planners will weigh in and of course, halfway through today’s show we’ll pause to see which of our contributors can win this installment of our year long trivia challenge. And now a guy who thrives on helping you avoid bad money advice, it’s Joe Saul Sea. Hi.
[00:01:13] Doug: Hey there
[00:01:13] Joe: stackers, and happy Friday to you. I am Joe Saul-Sehy. And can you believe that this is episode 1800, Doug? And my, how has the time gone? Because it feels like, like hanging out with you. It only feels like we’ve done like 707,998 of these
[00:01:32] Doug: seven bajillion. I have, I have that effect on people. I, I definitely, I wear people thin.
[00:01:38] Doug: I understand.
[00:01:39] Joe: It is well, because it does seem like we haven’t been doing that that long. And then you hear that this is 1800, so congratulations. Nice work.
[00:01:46] Doug: Congratulations to you.
[00:01:47] Joe: Well, thank you. And for episode 1800. We beat OG to the curb. We just said, Nope, no OG today. We can’t handle celebrating. Anyway, he celebrates, we
[00:01:56] Doug: spread our wings and fly without that dead weight.
[00:01:59] Joe: Absolutely. But the woman who’s been uh, carrying this show for many of those 1800 shows that we’ve done is this woman from. New York City, Paula Panta is here. How are you? Can you believe 1800 episodes, Paula?
[00:02:13] Paula: 1800. I feel like, I feel like I should get you a cake with 1800 candles. And we would and we burn
[00:02:19] Joe: mom’s house down.
[00:02:20] Paula: Call that a fire hazard.
[00:02:22] Joe: It would be a super fire hazard.
[00:02:24] Paula: Can you imagine the time it would take to put all those, it’s like 1,604, 1,645
[00:02:32] Joe: and then I’d lose count. We’d have to blow ’em out and start all over again. Yeah. And then the cake’s just a mess. But is there a. Is there a time that, uh, stood out to you, uh, during those 18 hundreds?
[00:02:43] Joe: Is there like one memory, I should have asked you this before, before we were live. Is there a memory, Paula, that you remember making the show?
[00:02:51] Paula: You know, I, I cherish the episodes that we did with Greg McFarland going way back in the past. Those were always hilarious. Mostly because he was. So unpredictable in what he would say.
[00:03:03] Joe: It’s so funny because today’s topic, Paula.
[00:03:06] Paula: Mm-hmm.
[00:03:06] Joe: We’re gonna sing off Greg McFarland in’s song sheet because we’re doing a topic that was near and dear to his heart, which I’ll get to in just a moment. Amazing. Yes. But somebody who can be as, uh, saucy as Greg McFarland up there in upstate New York.
[00:03:23] Joe: Jesse Kramer is here. How are you man?
[00:03:26] Jesse: I’m doing well. I mean, I really like being described as saucy. I’m not sure I’ve ever been described as saucy. I was thinking about it all. My favorite phone numbers start with 1800, you know, one 800. I’m a big fan of just random one 800 calls, so this is a really cool episode.
[00:03:41] Jesse: Congratulations guys.
[00:03:43] Joe: 1800 episodes and Jesse’s like, yeah. And the ones like the last roughly year and a half have been the best ones.
[00:03:49] Jesse: They’ve been my favorites personally. It’s just, yeah,
[00:03:52] Joe: absolutely brilliant. And we’re super happy. I mentioned that we upgraded from OG for episode 1800. She is the Queen of Baptist Financial and my friend who’s just, just up the road like two hours.
[00:04:06] Joe: But when you live in Texarkana, two hours away is like, we’re practically neighbors. Sarah Katherine Gutierrez is here. How are you?
[00:04:12] Sarah Catherine: Hi. Doing great. Congratulations on the huge milestone.
[00:04:16] Joe: Can you believe you would’ve never thought we would’ve made it that long? Sarah Katherine?
[00:04:19] Sarah Catherine: Oh, I’ve always known. I can’t wait for the 18000th episode.
[00:04:23] Joe: 18,000. When I have completely no hair, everything’s gone then. So for the people that don’t know the powerful work that you do with tus Financial, can you tell everybody, ’cause you really empower a lot of people to get saving.
[00:04:36] Sarah Catherine: Oh, thank you. Yes. We do it in two ways. So we’re financial planners, we’re advice only financial planners.
[00:04:42] Sarah Catherine: We help folks at the beginning of their career to create financial plans and make sure that they’re hitting their savings rate, right? Getting all the basics down. But then we have all these financial wellness programs and we put financial planners in front of average, everyday middle income earning Americans in, you know, large hospitals and different companies.
[00:05:05] Sarah Catherine: And we make sure that we’re getting these folks access to great financial planning and not the kind of financial planning that we see a lot sold to people. So yeah, that’s what we do.
[00:05:17] Joe: You, you may not know this, Sarah Kat, I don’t know if you know this or not, but do you know that that’s the way back when I was a financial planner.
[00:05:22] Joe: That’s how I built my career, was going in and, and talking at places like hospitals or Chrysler or Microsoft or different companies. That’s how I built my financial planning practice.
[00:05:34] Sarah Catherine: I did not know that. That’s great to know.
[00:05:36] Joe: Isn’t it super fun though when somebody gets that aha, like you’re sitting there and you’re explaining how their 401k works and they get this incredible aha.
[00:05:44] Joe: It is such, it was the reason I love doing it.
[00:05:47] Sarah Catherine: And then you know that, you know, the research shows once someone chooses a savings rate, you know, they have a 90% chance of leaving it. That if you can take a young person and get ’em from the default of 5% to a 10% savings rate, you know, you’ve changed their lives just in that moment.
[00:06:02] Joe: I thought you were gonna say like, uh, you know, some of our friends who are in the financial independence retire early, are like, no, not a five. Put a zero behind that. Let’s go 50. Come on, 50, save half.
[00:06:12] Sarah Catherine: Hey, we all know here. It’s a gateway drug. You, you start at 10 and then you start getting real greedy for more.
[00:06:19] Joe: And what I love about having you here, Sarah Catherine, for episode 1800 is this topic because you’re out among people that don’t know any better. And I have spent a lot of time around people that donate. Anybody. Heck, Jesse, Paula, Doug, you guys have been around people that don’t know any better. And I was thinking about the other day, what are some of the dumbest financial concepts that you have ever heard somebody say?
[00:06:45] Joe: Like, people say this dumb stuff. And sometimes they’re giving it as advice and sometimes they’re just saying, Hey, you know what, you should blank. And you’re like, are you nuts? So I thought we would do that, but before that, we’ve got a couple sponsors who help us keep on keeping on. We’re gonna hear from them, so you don’t pay a dime for any of this.
[00:07:06] Joe: Goodness. And then, Sarah, Catherine, Paula, Jesse, well, they’re gonna hopefully help you avoid some really, really not great financial moves.
[00:07:27] Joe: I went looking and I found a list. I found a list with 19 of the dumbest financial things people say, which means whenever I find a list that we have to,
[00:07:41] Joe: we have to dance. No, we have to make this a game show. So I’m super happy we’re doing the Stacky Benjamins game Show Friday, which means that all three of you are now our competitors in round one. The first half of today’s show, you’re going to guess and your guests, if it’s on this list of 19 of the dumbest things people say about money that sound like financial advice, you’ll get a point.
[00:08:04] Joe: Then we’ll stop for our usual game inside the game today. We’ll stop for Doug’s normal trivia, and then in the second half. Two points for the right answer, and we’ll award then two points for our year long competition between Paula, Jesse, and og. So Sarah Katherine, you are team OG today, which means good news and bad news.
[00:08:22] Joe: You want the good news, the bad news.
[00:08:24] Sarah Catherine: Uh, always take the bad news first. Hit me.
[00:08:26] Joe: Well, the bad news is, is that OG was, uh, champion Doug, Paula, was it? Two years in a row? Two years running maybe,
[00:08:32] Sarah Catherine: I think
[00:08:32] Paula: at least two years running. Yeah,
[00:08:34] Joe: yeah. Until this guy, Jesse Kramer this year showed up and now Jesse took the crown away from him.
[00:08:39] Joe: And this year, Doug, what’s the score so far this year?
[00:08:43] Doug: One moment. Joe was not prepared for that challenge. One question I would
[00:08:48] Joe: ask Doug.
[00:08:48] Doug: I’ve got, uh, OG with two points, Jesse, with one point, and Paula really, really close with zero points.
[00:08:58] Paula: I have a question. Is it possible to get negative points?
[00:09:02] Joe: Yes, it’s,
[00:09:04] Doug: yes.
[00:09:04] Joe: Uh, yeah. And we’ll talk more about that before we get to the, the finish later, but. For now, we’re gonna take your first guess in our super, super, super competition here. And because he is in, well, wait a minute. I want the person in the last place to have the most choices. So Paul Pant, you’re gonna go first.
[00:09:24] Doug: Ooh,
[00:09:25] Joe: I’ve got this list of 19 of the dumbest financial things people talk about in front of me. What is on this list of the worst?
[00:09:34] Paula: I’m guessing it’s chasing whatever is the latest hot fad. I don’t know if you need me to be more specific than that. Like to name any specific hot fads.
[00:09:44] Joe: Neighbor, Doug,
[00:09:50] Joe: just saying,
[00:09:52] Jesse: I said fad with a F, not a d
[00:09:55] Joe: Is chasing,
[00:10:00] Joe: is chasing the latest fad on the list.
[00:10:08] Joe: It’s not on the list. And what’s surprising, Paula is like, we see that all the time. Ooh, you gotta do this thing.
[00:10:13] opener: Mm-hmm. Right?
[00:10:14] Joe: You gotta do the, the next top thing. You gotta buy the pet rock, which is in your, you know, or the Beanie Baby or those gigantic, what are those called? The Stanley? Um, uh, yeah, they cost like a bajillion dollars.
[00:10:25] Joe: Oh
[00:10:25] Paula: yeah. The Stanley Cups. I, I have a, I have a AA thermos, which is also very popular among Gen Z.
[00:10:31] Joe: Yeah. Yeah. So, but I gotta buy the most expensive one because I gotta be at the top of the fad.
[00:10:36] Sarah Catherine: Pokemon cards. Mm-hmm.
[00:10:37] Joe: Pokemon cards, there’s one. Mm-hmm.
[00:10:39] Sarah Catherine: Yeah.
[00:10:40] Jesse: Paula, you just took one for the team though. ’cause damn, I had that written down.
[00:10:43] Sarah Catherine: Same. Wow.
[00:10:45] Joe: It is surprising. And part of what I love about our game show is the number of great ones that you guys always have and, and frankly, how, how often does chasing a fad get you in trouble? I mean, it cha it gets so many people in trouble so often. Yeah. From vacations like vacationing at the hot place where everybody goes to vacationing at the, the hotel.
[00:11:04] Joe: I gotta stay at the hotel and pay more. I gotta go to the restaurant and pay more. So, chasing the fad, Jesse? Yeah. Uh, are you a fad? Chaser?
[00:11:14] Jesse: I try not to be, but it’s very human, what they call it mimetic desire, right? Mm-hmm. Like, like a mime. Like they’re a copycat. We as humans, we just wanna copy what we see and we don’t wanna be part of the outgroup, right?
[00:11:25] Jesse: We wanna be part of the ingroup. And so if the ingroup is all doing one thing, if they’re all. Buying Silver Silver’s been in the news recently, or buying GameStop or Right. Taking that trip to Italy. Like, we wanna do the same thing. And, uh, well, especially in investing, it’s almost never the right thing to do.
[00:11:41] Joe: It’s funny, there are some fads, like if we’re serious with ourself, there are some fads. I think that, like I chase, I think about a couple of them. Number one, when a movie is in the movie theater, I’d much rather see the movie in the movie theater than see it at home. I’m too distracted at home. I have too much a DD.
[00:11:57] Joe: And so I will pay a bunch more money to see the movie in the movie theater. So that might be, is that a fad or is that, I don’t know. But then the second thing is like, uh, the hot board game, like if everybody has the hot new board game, like I find myself chasing, I’m like, oh man, I should buy that game.
[00:12:11] Joe: ’cause that’s the game everybody’s talking about. And by everybody, I mean all the nerds. Jesse.
[00:12:15] Jesse: Yeah, I don’t know. I, the first one, especially the movie theater, like, to me that’s just more of a preference than anything else. It’s like, all right, if you’re, you’re paying extra for something you prefer Joe, like more power to you, the fad stuff.
[00:12:27] Jesse: I mean, I, I’m, I’m interested to hear what Paula and, and Sarah Katherine think, but to me, they’re these things that become really, really popular for a short period of time. And yes, they might cost you money. Sure. And then all of a sudden they’re, they’re not popular anymore.
[00:12:39] Joe: Where movies have been around forever,
[00:12:41] Jesse: where movies have been around forever.
[00:12:42] Jesse: And like, we all know that you’re a giant board game nerd Joe. So it’s like you do, you man, you do you
[00:12:47] Joe: Sarah Catherine. Are there any things that when they first come out, you gotta have like, right today,
[00:12:52] Sarah Catherine: I
[00:12:52] Joe: think,
[00:12:52] Sarah Catherine: like,
[00:12:52] Joe: besides produce,
[00:12:53] Sarah Catherine: I’ll speak for like a kind of a gendered piece, but I think like the beauty industry is a really good one to describe this.
[00:13:00] Sarah Catherine: So I’ll never forget, like I turned 40 and then I immediately felt like it was my duty to buy $300 worth of creams for my face. And I took them to my dermatologist and she said. I kid you not, this $8 van of cream is the exact same thing as all Whoa hot. And that is just, that’s a huge fad I think for aging.
[00:13:21] Sarah Catherine: There’s this like, very big fear of aging. And so a lot of people are on these pretty unreal fads. I mean, even like just the biohacking, it’s a very expensive fad that a lot of people go on. And even if you don’t have the money, why wouldn’t you wanna go after longevity if you think that red light box is gonna make you live longer?
[00:13:40] Sarah Catherine: And so I, I think that right now, beauty, biohacking, all those is a very expensive fad.
[00:13:47] Joe: Sarah Katherine, when, uh, Katie, uh, Getty Ssen from, uh, money with Katie was on. She just ripped into that industry. Yeah. Saying that, you know, it’s disguised as girl power. You go, girl, you deserve it. And she described it, I’m not gonna describe it, but she described it as women stealing from women.
[00:14:03] Sarah Catherine: That’s it.
[00:14:03] Joe: She’s like, this is women stealing from women.
[00:14:05] Sarah Catherine: Yeah. That treat yourself kinda mentality and, and yeah. It’s a big thing that you’re trying to do to say, look, true self-care. True self-care is having a pile of money set aside somewhere that if something happens, you can get your hands on it. And so if all this beauty and biohacking is at that expense, it is too expensive.
[00:14:25] Joe: A hundred percent. Well, you are up next. Oh, the score is still zero. So you could be the first one on the board. Sarah Catherine, what’s one of the 19 worst financial things people say? That’s on my list.
[00:14:37] Sarah Catherine: Stop throwing away money in rent.
[00:14:40] Joe: Stop throwing away money and rent. Is that on my list?
[00:14:47] Sarah Catherine: Are you, where did you get this list?
[00:14:48] Sarah Catherine: Joe?
[00:14:50] Joe: Is this, is this by the way, did you
[00:14:52] Sarah Catherine: for an annuity guy? That’s where it came from.
[00:14:57] Joe: Doug, is this like, is, is this like every list we’ve had where, where the guesses that the two guesses we’ve had so far are probably better than anything I’ve got on this list.
[00:15:05] Jesse: That’s
[00:15:05] Doug: awesome. Drew’s got a close tie with a third grade class in Texarkana that he has draft all of the articles that we referenced.
[00:15:12] Joe: It is the reason why these are bad is third graders came up with ’em. No, but these are advice that I think, uh, somebody that didn’t know better would think, but well, tell me this, this idea. So don’t waste money. Buy versus rent.
[00:15:25] Sarah Catherine: Yeah. So the reason I, this was top of my list, is just like one of the big things I hear from people coming into these meetings, these financial wellness meetings, and they’re like swimming and student loan debt.
[00:15:36] Sarah Catherine: Huge credit card bills, $0 saved in emergency fund. And they’re like, yeah, my parents really think I need to buy a house right now and stop throwing all my money away in rent. And when you are trying to build a financial life, your goal is to fix as many expenses as possible. Because as we all know, when you’re a homeowner, I mean, I just had to replace a roof that was $23,000.
[00:16:00] Sarah Catherine: I mean, like, so even if it’s a good deal and it’s, you know, the mortgage fits and all the numbers sketch out, you can’t prey away your air conditioner breaking in the summer, right? And having to replace that. Like there’s, there’s no way to get around that. And so it can really set people back who are trying to build a financial foundation.
[00:16:20] Sarah Catherine: So it’s one of the, the worst pieces of advice I think that, that people give, especially to young people.
[00:16:27] Joe: Paula? Well Sarah Katherine’s talking, I’m thinking to myself, this is almost like a fad in reverse, like we’re chasing the way people used to live. And these ideas that were great. If you were gonna work the same job for 30 years, it might be much better to own a house.
[00:16:41] Joe: Today things are a lot different,
[00:16:43] Paula: right? I think there are two things going on. One is, as you said, people used to be less mobile, whereas now people move much more frequently. Every time that you move. If you’re buying and selling homes, you have big transaction costs on the buy and sell that can eat into the equity.
[00:17:01] Paula: I think the other piece of it is that psychologically equity that you build in a home, it’s visible, it’s tangible in a way that your 401k balance is not. And if you actually look at the numbers on a spreadsheet, your 401k can build you depending on what home you buy. And depending on the buy versus rent ratio in your area, your 401k could build you a lot more wealth.
[00:17:25] Paula: There are many areas of the country in which it makes more sense to pay rent. Take the delta in what you would be spending and put that into an index fund and let that compound and grow. But the problem is, like with a house, you see it, you touch it, you smell it, you feel it. So there’s a certain like viscerality to it.
[00:17:48] Paula: I don’t know if that’s a real word. Visceralness. You
[00:17:51] Joe: made one up. Viscerality.
[00:17:52] Paula: Yeah, exactly. We’ll make that a word. It fits. And because it’s so visceral, it feels more real than your 401k balance does. And I think that that adds to the emotional appeal of it, but not the mathematical appeal.
[00:18:03] Joe: Jesse, you referenced this earlier.
[00:18:04] Joe: Uh, gold and silver. Having a moment right now as we record this and not in a great way. Is it the same? Paula talks about, Hey, you can see it, you can touch it. Isn’t that what we hear about gold and silver all the time? And precious metals. Hey, you can see it. So it must be a good investment ’cause you can hang onto it.
[00:18:19] Jesse: Right? I mean, speaking of intangible property, I think Paula, you need to trademark Viscerality before Mark Zuckerberg steals it from you and renames his company because he’s been known to do that. You know, it’s, it’s a new economy. It’s not the Metaverse. Now we’re talking about Viscerality.
[00:18:32] Joe: Viscerality.
[00:18:32] Jesse: Do you wanna wear your viscerality goggles? I mean, he’s gonna name you already here first. He’s gonna name his company that,
[00:18:38] Joe: because he’s a big fan of the show. He listens to every episode.
[00:18:40] Jesse: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I, I would wage that there’s some sort of like tangibility bias out there where like, there are definitely some people who they want to be able to hold something in their hands and put their eyes on it and, and yeah.
[00:18:52] Jesse: You know, logging into your Schwab account and, and seeing that your IRA is up 3%. It’s not nearly as tangible as building equity in a house. When you compare this apartment, this small unit I rent out in this big building that I don’t own versus this structure that I can show you the deed and I own it and it’s mine.
[00:19:12] Jesse: I get the appeal. And, and going back to, to what Sarah Catherine was saying, I mean the American dream, right? Part of the American dream involves home ownership. It’s part of our fabric, which doesn’t mean it’s right, of course, it doesn’t mean that the math bears that out. I’m just saying like it’s part of this culture that a lot of us have kind of been stewing in, seeped in for years.
[00:19:31] Jesse: And so no wonder people come to us in circumstances when like they really shouldn’t be thinking about home ownership, but to them it, it’s a really high priority. So, uh, anyway, I guess my bigger point is, Joe, your list stinks.
[00:19:44] Sarah Catherine: We all agree on that.
[00:19:46] Joe: I could have told you that before we started because I love picking out these lists to where I’m like, oh, they’re not gonna get half of these.
[00:19:51] Joe: They’re gonna have much better ones. Jesse, let’s keep you in the hot seat here. Okay. The score are still zeroes, even though we’ve had two awesome ones. Give me one that’s on our list. I got 19 of ’em. Guys. I can’t
[00:20:03] Jesse: wait to be wrong. 19. I can’t wait to be wrong. Uh, don’t take that raise Joe, because it’s only going to increase your taxes
[00:20:10] Joe: is, don’t take that raise on this list.
[00:20:14] Joe: It is on this list, not in those same words, but it is more money equals less money. More income equals less money. Hey, I’m not gonna make more money. Or you know, one member of my family’s not gonna go to work ’cause we did the math and I’m gonna have less money. You know what, uh, those people, Jesse, don’t understand how the tech system works.
[00:20:35] Jesse: Yeah. I still remember my first ever summer job. Shout out to Fairhaven Beach State Park, a maintenance guy who I was working with, who I’ll, I’ll remain. Uh, he’ll, he’ll remain anonymous for this story. Basically told me that version of his circumstances. And it’s like, yeah, they, they wanna make me a, you know, a level 17 state employee now, but that’s gonna push me into the next highest tax bracket.
[00:20:55] Jesse: And I did the math and I’m gonna walk home with less money. And I remember, you know, my 16-year-old self being like, I don’t know how taxes work, but like. It just kind of surprised me just thinking like, huh, it’s kind of a weird system that the US government would’ve set up so that blue collar guys like Bob here simply cannot accept raises for fear of actually losing out money.
[00:21:16] Jesse: And sure enough, Bob was wrong. And uh, yeah. So that, that was maybe in some ways that was the seeds of my financial journey. But we hear it a lot, right? You hear it a lot. And it’s almost always, I will say there are these weird quarter cases where the tax system doesn’t work the way you expect. Yeah. But like 99% of the time it’s put together in a relatively common sense way.
[00:21:36] Jesse: And this is one really common example of that.
[00:21:38] Joe: Hmm. But there might be people, Sarah Catherine, listening to this that don’t understand, which I love that they’re here because that’s why you listen to a show like ours. How does this thing work and why is that wrong? Because we have not explained that at all.
[00:21:52] Joe: Why is this more money equals less money wrong.
[00:21:55] Sarah Catherine: People understand that making marginal income, they hear that you pay more in taxes, but you’re paying potentially more in taxes on those additional dollars. But as a percentage of those dollars, you’re not paying more in taxes that negates those dollars.
[00:22:12] Sarah Catherine: So we do have a marginal tax brackets and a progressive tax system where you pay more and more as a percentage as you make incremental dollars. And you know, I totally, this is fantastic. I wish I had thought of this one. It’s a really good one. And did you just say something on
[00:22:30] Doug: my list was actually good?
[00:22:31] Sarah Catherine: It is a really good one. ’cause the tax obsession really sets people back. And there’s lots of examples of this. There’s, you know, people that are so scared of taxes that they make kind of these bizarre elections in their S corps, like when they own a business of how much income versus distribution. Not realize they can save more, you know, it’s like lower taxes at all expenses.
[00:22:54] Sarah Catherine: You know, they’ll start a business to save on taxes. Well, that means you’ve lost money if you’re saving on taxes, right? Like, people are so funny when it comes to feeling like they’re getting cheated by the tax code. And I think that they make very detrimental decisions by this. And this is probably something very deep and cultural because, you know, I did the math.
[00:23:14] Sarah Catherine: What math? Because, Jesse, you’re right. People say, I did the math, and you’re like, where? Where are you? Not math done Math. I mean, where are you doing the math? I think it’s, it’s more of a gut feeling than actual math.
[00:23:26] Joe: Yeah. And what’s so frustrating about that, Paula, is that you know, when you and I answer questions on afford anything, OG and I answer questions here on Stack of Benjamins, we always hear these people obsessing over the tax, right?
[00:23:38] Paula: Mm-hmm.
[00:23:38] Joe: Which is why I think you and I have said this line a hundred times, don’t let the tax tail wag the more money dog.
[00:23:44] Paula: Exactly. Yeah. Or don’t let the tax tail wag the decision dog, because so many people make their decisions around taxes.
[00:23:52] Joe: We’re live on, uh, YouTube as we record this. If you wanna join this, it’s always meta talking about Friday because we actually record this on Mondays become, join us Monday afternoons and now be Wayne hanging out with us.
[00:24:03] Joe: Says this is another one. And I’ll just tell you this is not on the list, but does the, you know, the zero tax refund
[00:24:08] Jesse: mm-hmm.
[00:24:09] Joe: People think that means I didn’t own any tax. It just means that you withheld the appropriate amount. It did. It has nothing to do with the amount of tax that’s not one of our 18 that are left.
[00:24:18] Joe: But B Wayne, that’s a, that’s a good one. Real
[00:24:19] Jesse: quick, I just only ’cause I saw, I see there’s another comment from Nemesis, NXT who says subsidy cliffs. That is one of those corner cases where mm-hmm. And I’ll, I’ll explain it in a second, but right, there are these corner cases where, ooh, actually if you earn more money, maybe you would.
[00:24:33] Jesse: And when I see subsidy cliffs, I think of maybe they’re referring to like Irma in retirement where, oh, right, if you’re above this next threshold, you will owe more suddenly in this Medicare surcharge. And so yes, it is definitely worth being aware of those things. But what we’re talking about here usually is just federal income tax, just that normal federal income tax, 10, 12, 22, 24, 32, 35, 37.
[00:24:55] Jesse: That’s it.
[00:24:55] Paula: Yeah.
[00:24:56] Jesse: And, and, and, and those things don’t exist. There. Go Sorry, go ahead Paula.
[00:24:58] Paula: Oh, just with health insurance as well. If you buy your own, uh, individual health insurance subsidy, cliffs as well. So that’s the other thing to look out for. Yeah. That is a case in which the tax code does not make sense.
[00:25:09] Paula: And you do actually get punished if you go above a certain threshold if you’re at the edge case.
[00:25:14] Joe: What’s fascinating to me is how much this tax game has showed up in, uh, modern culture. And of course that may, the most famous one that we’ve heard the last few years has been this clip from Schitt’s Creek.
[00:25:27] Joe: Let’s give a listen to David from Schitt’s Creek as he explains, uh, tax write-offs.
[00:25:35] bit: What’s, what’s this? Looks expensive.
[00:25:37] bit: Uh, this is some new betting David did. Didn’t I just tell you to save your money? Uh, yeah. I am testing this out for the store. So work is paying for it. Work is paying for your betting.
[00:25:51] bit: I was gonna leave, but now I don’t want to.
[00:25:53] bit: So
[00:25:54] bit: what is
[00:25:55] bit: that? Is
[00:25:55] bit: that
[00:25:55] bit: a new lamp?
[00:25:57] bit: Yeah. I’m thinking of bringing Homeware, um, into the store. So that’s a write off.
[00:26:03] bit: That’s a write off.
[00:26:04] bit: Yeah.
[00:26:04] bit: Do you even know what a write off is? Uh,
[00:26:07] bit: yeah. It’s when you buy something for your business and the government pays you back for it.
[00:26:11] bit: Oh, and
[00:26:12] bit: who pays
[00:26:13] bit: for it?
[00:26:14] bit: Nobody.
[00:26:14] bit: You write it off.
[00:26:17] bit: Who writes it off?
[00:26:18] bit: I don’t know. The gov, the write off people. What? Why are we having this conversation?
[00:26:22] bit: So if I need booze to get through my day, I can just write that off.
[00:26:27] bit: That’s a stretch.
[00:26:28] bit: But the skincare products you got this morning, those are a write off.
[00:26:31] bit: What skincare products you purchased?
[00:26:33] bit: Skincare products. Okay. I am the face of the company. You needed to
[00:26:39] Jesse: write it off. There you go. Sarah Catherine. I mean, there’s your answer to the beauty industry. It’s just a write off
[00:26:45] Sarah Catherine: it all. It’s all a write off. That was classic. That was one of my favorite moments in TV that you, I’m so glad you brought that.
[00:26:52] Joe: It’s a good day to, uh, play that too. Just after Catherine O’Hara passes away and what a, yeah. Brilliant actor and comedian. Uh, she was. That’s gonna wrap up the first half of our game show. Doug, what’s the score so far in our game show?
[00:27:09] Doug: Well, Joe, uh, we really only have one competitor in today’s game show.
[00:27:13] Doug: So far. Uh, the, the gentleman from New York has one point, whereas our two representatives from, uh, Arkansas and uh, New York City have zero points,
[00:27:27] Joe: man, and my money was on Arkansas, so, but we already,
[00:27:31] Sarah Catherine: and I, I even wore shoes for this episode.
[00:27:35] Joe: Well, you still got the second half. Sarah Catherine, we still got the second half, but we take a break halfway through this game for our normal year long game.
[00:27:43] Joe: We have a Friday competition between our three frequent contributors. Paula Pam from Afford Anything. Jesse Kramer from the P FTI podcast and, and OG from Team Stacking Benjamin, Sarah Katherine playing on Team og the score. As we mentioned earlier, Jesse has two and OG is one. Now, if you’ve missed the last few episodes, we have a new rule in 2026, which is that our frequent contributors can hit their button and by hit the button we just mean.
[00:28:14] Joe: Say out loud, say, margin call. And you can only margin call somebody that has points. When you margin call someone. That means that they have to be the closest answer. So they have to be the person that’s gonna win the point. But if they aren’t the person that wins the point, they actually lose a point instead of winning the point.
[00:28:33] Joe: And if you are the person who is closest and you were the person who got margin called you, forced, the person who margin called you. It’s to lose a point. So that’s the way it works. Could I explain that anymore? You know what I weirdly
[00:28:46] Doug: what, what I would really appreciate if some really studious, diligent stacker out there would go back and listen to all the times Joe has explained this to see if it’s the same every time.
[00:28:55] Joe: I think I should write it down instead of trying to do it from memory is what we should do. But one thing we don’t do from memory, ’cause it’s new every time. We have to have a question from Doug to kick this off. So Doug, what’s today’s trivia question?
[00:29:07] Doug: That’s right Joe. Hey there, stackers. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and have you ever watched Joe eat pizza?
[00:29:14] Doug: I’m amazed. Joe is at twice as wide as he is tall. Just like today’s spotlight country, which is just over 31 miles wide, but only 17 miles tall. I’m talking about Singapore. Singapore, you just compare me to Singapore. I mean, you can’t look in a mirror. Singapore citizens, on average are the 10th wealthiest in the world, mostly because of the culture of saving and investing while the US economy focuses on debt.
[00:29:45] Doug: The Singapore economy is based on wealth, but just like we 1800 episodes ago, started this podcast with microphones balanced on some books at the rickety card table. Singapore’s beginnings were also pretty sketchy, and it was during the 18 hundreds that it was founded as a dusty, dirty outpost for the British Empire.
[00:30:05] Doug: In what year? I’ll be back right after I go put a few pennies in my piggy bank. I’ll just talk about being wealthy has got me inspired.
[00:30:17] Joe: Singapore concept of saving and really how it’s bled into the culture is really interesting. And also what’s funny, talking to our friend Amy Minkley, who runs the five Freedom Retreat in Bali, not, you know, it’s probably far away there, but sitting here in the United States, it feels like, it’s like right next door.
[00:30:34] Joe: Bali. In Singapore, when she was visiting us last week, she was talking about how in Singapore, talk about fomo and people that really want stuff because of the fact that also the rat race very apparent there according to Amy. So it’s just fascinating to see Singapore’s economy, but we start with the person in first place.
[00:30:55] Joe: That is Mr. Jesse Kramer. Jesse,
[00:30:58] Jesse: is it
[00:30:58] Joe: what year? During the 18 hundreds. We gave you a hint. We gave you, is it a hundred years to choose from? Was Singapore created?
[00:31:06] Jesse: I’m, I’m happy to go first. Uh, am I in first place? I thought OG had two.
[00:31:11] Joe: Does OG have two? OG has two.
[00:31:13] Jesse: I mean, I will take OGs point and go first if that would help the, the flow.
[00:31:17] Jesse: Yeah, he
[00:31:17] Joe: does. I had that.
[00:31:18] Doug: Jesse is right,
[00:31:19] Joe: Joe, I had that wrong, which means, and I hate this when the guest has to go first.
[00:31:23] Jesse: Well, I, I’ll go first. Just
[00:31:25] Joe: gimme the point. I do, but it’s the role. No, no, no. Sarah Catherine, you’ve got first guest. When in the 18 hundreds was Singapore created?
[00:31:33] Sarah Catherine: Oh my God. This is like guessing the gumballs.
[00:31:35] Sarah Catherine: So I’m just gonna go, I, I don’t know if this is good strategy, but I’m gonna go with 1850.
[00:31:41] Joe: 1850, I think 1850s as good as any year. Uh, any thought around why 1850?
[00:31:49] Sarah Catherine: Oh, I have no idea. I’m just trying to figure out how to gamify being closest to the pen.
[00:31:54] Joe: Well, you’ll see it gamified if OG were here. Uh, Jesse would say 1849.
[00:31:59] Joe: And Paul, it’s 1851.
[00:32:01] Jesse: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:32:01] Joe: That’s exactly what they do. But I think they’ll be nicer to you. Uh, yes. So
[00:32:05] Jesse: definitely
[00:32:06] Joe: Jesse Singapore. What year was it created?
[00:32:10] Jesse: I know is, I wish I knew more. I know that the, the history of Singapore is really, really interesting because this one, like prime Minister slash kind of like long-term autocrat, but in a good way, like turned the country around in some really amazing ways from like the, I don’t know, forties through the eighties or something like that.
[00:32:31] Jesse: It’s, it, obviously I know nothing about what I’m talking about. You can tell by the way I’m describing it, except for some loose facts, but it
[00:32:38] Joe: is fascinating. No, it is fascinating to see how Singapore just changed.
[00:32:42] Jesse: Yeah, yeah. Uh,
[00:32:43] Joe: yeah.
[00:32:44] Jesse: But yes, I’m not going to play dirty, but at the same time, I think I’m gonna take the over and I’m gonna say 1875.
[00:32:52] Jesse: I’ll split the difference on the up and I’ll still give a, a pretty good amount of runway to Sarah Catherine there, which I’ll later regret when, uh, when she wins and OG actually takes the crown.
[00:33:03] Joe: Paula Pant in our Facebook group, mom’s basement, if you wanna hang out with us, by the way there, it’s Stacking Benjamins dot com slash basement is the quick way.
[00:33:10] Joe: We made a little link for you there to come join us. Somebody today was saying we need to change the rules because Paula always loses our trivia, but loses it and finishes second. So they wanted you to get like one point per second.
[00:33:25] Paula: Aw.
[00:33:25] Joe: I’m like, what’s the point of that? We don’t need to do that.
[00:33:27] Paula: Oh, so it’s like rank choice voting.
[00:33:29] Joe: Yeah, like two points, one point and zero points. We’re not doing that. No. But nice, nice sentiment.
[00:33:35] Paula: Okay. I have many thoughts on the Singapore question. The first thought that came into my head is that, given that this is episode 1800, it would make sense that you chose 1800. That that the answer would be 1800 or close to 1800, because what would be your motivation for choosing this question?
[00:33:55] Paula: For this episode? Mm-hmm.
[00:33:56] Sarah Catherine: That’s brilliant.
[00:33:57] Paula: So that was my first thought. However
[00:34:01] Doug: thought my second thought was Joe’s too stupid to do that. This is where stuff gets good.
[00:34:10] Paula: However, uh, so Jesse, what you were talking about, the benevolent autocrat. So I, I think, and please fact check me on this, his name was Lee Quan Yu
[00:34:19] Jesse: Sounds Right.
[00:34:20] Paula: And he ruled Singapore in the mid 19 hundreds. And yes, he was a benevolent dictator who used his autocracy to really improve the lives of the everyday average working person and bring Singapore into prosperity.
[00:34:33] Paula: And by virtue of being a dictator, he was able to do that without the mess of like congress and democracy and all of that. Or parliament.
[00:34:40] Doug: You know what’s weird is that, is, that is almost verbatim what’s on Wikipedia right now that I’m reading. That’s an amazing Paula do the year it was established. Oh,
[00:34:50] Paula: you can see my hands have been in the frame this whole time.
[00:34:53] Paula: I have. I very intentionally keep hands in frame when this is going on.
[00:34:59] Joe: If Paula was gonna cheat, she would’ve done it by now. Like, my goodness.
[00:35:03] Paula: So part of the reason that I, uh, know this is because I’m going to Singapore at the end of February because my friend Meghan lives there. She is an editor at Business Insider, which is now called Insider.
[00:35:13] Paula: I’m going there, I’m missing, um, my friend’s wedding because my friend didn’t tell me about her wedding until after I bought the ticket. And I’m also missing a free Michelin star dinner in New York, which I just got an invite to today. So I’m, I’m missing several things to go spend a week in Singapore.
[00:35:29] Joe: Wait a minute. Hold, hold, hold on one sec. I just have one quick question.
[00:35:33] Paula: Yes.
[00:35:34] Joe: Is there a guest coming at some point? At any point? Can you just say, A year I had to reschedule a teeth cleaning. I was gonna have the air of my tires rotated.
[00:35:45] Paula: I did have to reschedule a teeth cleaning.
[00:35:51] Paula: Um, okay. So I’m thinking about like the Gilded Age. I, okay. Because I’ve been planning this trip to Singapore. I’ve been looking up what I wanna do there. And this is, there’s a particular hotel called the Raffles Hotel, which I believe was established in the 1880s. And that was where they have a bar where the Singapore sling was invented.
[00:36:09] Paula: And that’s one of the places that I want to go to on my trip to Singapore. And so, given that the Raffles Hotel was established in the 1880s, it kind of makes me wanna take the over, because it kind of. Inclines me to think that maybe the country was formed right around Gilded Age era. Like I’m associating the formation of Singapore with the formation of the Raffles hotel and subsequently the drink Singapore swing.
[00:36:36] Paula: So either 1880s or 1800, because why else would you choose it for this episode? And this is where life gets hard. That was like
[00:36:45] Joe: a whole podcast episode in itself right
[00:36:48] Jesse: there. Can you let her take both answers and just see if she gets it right?
[00:36:54] Joe: You know she’s still gonna be wrong.
[00:36:57] Paula: That’s probably true.
[00:36:58] Jesse: 1,818 80.
[00:37:05] Paula: Jesse, what was your guess? Your yours was 1875. I was
[00:37:08] Jesse: 1875.
[00:37:09] Paula: I’m gonna take the narrow under at 1874.
[00:37:12] Joe: You’re gonna take, you’re gonna take the middle?
[00:37:14] Paula: Yeah. Yes. I
[00:37:15] Jesse: hope it’s the 1880s. Gimme 1880s,
[00:37:18] Paula: because I’m thinking the country must have been established at least a decade or so before the Raffles Hotel.
[00:37:24] Joe: 1800 episodes of failure. Can’t be wrong, Paula. We’ve got, in fact, Andrea hanging out with us says, I always assume Paula has all the answers in her Mensa brain, but is contractually obligated to keep losing just for the fun of the game. All right, will Paula finally get a point? We’re gonna find out in just a minute.
[00:37:47] Joe: All right, Sarah. Catherine, you opened up with 1850 and the good news is that means you’ve got everything between 1,818 50 on your side. ’cause Paula decided to take the narrow middle. Feeling good.
[00:37:59] Sarah Catherine: Feeling good? Yeah. We’ll see.
[00:38:01] Joe: Jesse, Paula took 1874 and this iconic hotel, which could have been around the same time that Singapore was created.
[00:38:10] Joe: You feeling good?
[00:38:12] Jesse: Um, I’m feeling curious. I feel like, so if my math is right, Paula intentionally opted in for 12 of the 100 years.
[00:38:21] Joe: She took a smaller slice.
[00:38:23] Jesse: She took a smaller slice, but with some education, and that’s a dangerous thing. So I don’t like my odds.
[00:38:29] Joe: And Paula, uh, are you proud of the fact that you actually formulated a number at the end of that soliloquy?
[00:38:36] Paula: Well, my gut said either 1800 or 1880, so I decided to violate both and just go with 1874.
[00:38:44] Jesse: We’re screwed.
[00:38:45] Joe: I’m gonna say the scariest words in the English language right now. Only Doug knows. So let’s find out.
[00:38:53] Doug: Hey, there’s stackers. I’m world traveler and guy who still can’t believe there’s a butterfly house in the Singapore airport.
[00:39:00] Doug: Oh, it’s not there on purpose. They just moved in. Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. Ah, Singapore, the place created as a trading post for the British Empire now trades in great foods, wealthy people, world class shipping, finance, and more. If only we’d become as wealthy over 1800 episodes as Singapore has become since the 18 hundreds.
[00:39:20] Doug: Why did we choose podcasting again? I told you we should have gone with my idea of bouncy house rentals. Joe, geez. Here was today’s question. What date was Singapore created as a British outpost? The answer, well, you know how we do this here. I will tell you it was 56 fewer years than what Jesse guessed.
[00:39:40] Doug: 55, fewer than Paula guessed, and just 31 fewer than what Sarah Catherine guessed because the correct answer is 1819, making Sarah Catherine and really OG our winner
[00:39:53] Joe: should have gone with 1800.
[00:39:55] Doug: Unreal.
[00:39:56] Joe: Nice job, Sarah. Catherine.
[00:39:57] Sarah Catherine: I was worried what was gonna happen with og. Like, I don’t know. Was he gonna like come beat me up if I got got it wrong?
[00:40:04] Sarah Catherine: Like I feel a sense of relief right now.
[00:40:07] Joe: Sarah Catherine, he’s far more of a lover than he lets on, I swear to God. He is a, he’s a puppy dog underneath that rough exterior, but the miracle there. Sarah Catherine was listening to Paula Tuck herself again outta the right answer.
[00:40:20] Sarah Catherine: Yeah, Paul, I have to say like that 1800 seemed like a really good choice.
[00:40:26] Paula: Uh, thank you. Thank you. And the irony is that it was the right choice, but for the wrong reasons. Because it sounds like 1800 episodes didn’t factor into their decision at all.
[00:40:36] Joe: No, she’s, that’s why I thought you were gonna say, well, I’ve known Doug and Joe for a long time, and they wouldn’t have thought of that because that is a hundred percent true.
[00:40:47] Joe: Alright. Uh, we need to get back to the real important thing, which is teaching people what’s bad on the internet and, and not just on the internet. A lot of the time people say these things just in passing. Like, Jesse, you were talking about a guy talking about the tax code and how he didn’t understand that.
[00:41:02] Joe: Oh yeah, I have people tell me that. Uh, that’s a crazy one. But the good news is we got 18 more. You get two points for the win this time if you get it right. So, Paula, to take the lead, there’s 18 left. What’s on this list of 19 of the worst pieces of financial advice? Really financial sayings more than advice device.
[00:41:25] Paula: Financial sayings more than advice. Oh man. Sorry. My brain was so uh, attuned to Singapore. I haven’t been able to Okay.
[00:41:36] Joe: No extra fee for the sound effect.
[00:41:40] Paula: What, what was the one that we established in the first half? It was rent con equals
[00:41:43] Joe: less money. Was, was the way the peace put it,
[00:41:46] Paula: right? Right. The
[00:41:47] Joe: peace put more income equals less money because of the tax code.
[00:41:50] Paula: Okay. Did we do the renting is throwing your money? We did. The Sarah Catherine did that.
[00:41:54] Joe: Sarah Catherine had that one great one.
[00:41:56] Joe: Albeit wrong.
[00:42:00] Paula: My apologies to the live audience. Steve can cut all of this dead air for the,
[00:42:06] Joe: it’s amazing how when people hear us on Friday, you’re gonna answer very quickly.
[00:42:09] Paula: I feel like this is, there’s gotta be something related to cars buy a new car because you’ll pay less in repairs.
[00:42:16] Joe: Hmm. Is that your guess?
[00:42:18] Paula: Yes. That’s my guess.
[00:42:19] Joe: Buy a new car because you’ll pay less in repairs. Is that on the list?
[00:42:26] Paula: People totally do that, right?
[00:42:28] Joe: People 100% do that. Doug does that. Yeah. What’s your point? We’ve had this discussion on the show. Doug does that. OG does that. I don’t do that, but they do that. We’ve, we’ve fought this fight on this, uh, podcast, but lots of people think buy the new car and maybe, maybe though Sarah Catherine in defense of Doug, maybe it’s just the freedom from worry more than the financial aspect.
[00:42:54] Sarah Catherine: Okay. Well, let me be more specific about what I think actually happens with a lot of folks. You have a car and you don’t have a car fund to make car repairs, and so you’re facing a $2,500 car repair and instead of fixing the car, you get a new car that has a $700 car payment.
[00:43:15] Joe: Yeah, because I can handle a $700 car payment.
[00:43:18] Joe: But now think about the fact that I’m doing that now for, what’s the newest car loan? Like a 10 year car loaner. Some ridiculousness.
[00:43:24] Sarah Catherine: I thought it was eight, but is it going to 10?
[00:43:27] Joe: It could be. I don’t know if it’s a 10 yet. It feels like they get longer and longer. Yeah, it used to be five then it was seven then.
[00:43:34] Joe: Yeah. Craziness. But $700. $700 a month. And I agree. I think for a lot of people it is freedom for worry. But I think that that’s the, I think that’s the bigger one. I’m like, I can’t afford 2,500 bucks. What am I gonna do? Oh, I’ve got decent credit, so I’m gonna go ahead and take out a car loan. No money down, Jesse.
[00:43:50] Joe: No money down.
[00:43:51] Jesse: Yeah, I know cars and car expenses. It’s a, it’s one of those, like we go back to the, well, to talk about the different ways to finance a car. I dove into numbers once and I actually walked away. Not entirely convinced that there was that much of a difference between used and new when you account for, okay, so I see, I see Doug’s, I’ve, I’ve won over Doug, which, you know, surprise, surprise there.
[00:44:13] Jesse: When you account for like, you know, fuel and maintenance and insurance and all those things and depreciation costs, I, I didn’t see a big difference. Granted, that was like four or five years ago before the car market has gone kind of crazy in recent years. But yeah, I mean, I don’t know. At the end of the day, cars are an expense more than anything else, right.
[00:44:32] Jesse: There’s no investment aspect to cars, in my opinion. Any way that you can, like responsibly keep your expenses down when it comes to cars, I would think is probably a good choice.
[00:44:41] Joe: I went used car to get payments outta my life. That’s why I went used car was so that I could finally build a car fund so that I could, Jesse, to your point, realizing is just an expense that I could then never have a car payment.
[00:44:56] Joe: And the cool thing is, is what was amazing about not having a car payment was I then started keeping cars longer.
[00:45:01] bit: Mm-hmm.
[00:45:01] Joe: Because I love not having a car payment. And I would see then, and I would gamify it then, like, how many, how many months in a row can I go without a car payment? And how, how long can this car last?
[00:45:11] Joe: We generally in our household, because of freedom from worry, Cheryl drives a new car, which we pay cash for, which has become increasingly difficult as the price of cars goes up and up. And I drive a car that we can’t drive outside Texarkana, ’cause it probably won’t make it. There is, there is very little chance my car will make it on I 30 more than, uh, hope Arkansas.
[00:45:32] Joe: Like just half a mile, half an hour up the road. But what’s interesting was we were hunting for Cheryl’s last car, which was just recently. Every single sales person we talked to started with Sarah Catherine, to your point, so what payment are you looking at?
[00:45:46] Jesse: Mm-hmm.
[00:45:47] Joe: And I said, we’ll take care of the payment later.
[00:45:48] Joe: Let’s talk about the price of the car. They did not want to talk about the price of the car, but that’s what we ended up talking about. And, uh, I was able to get a great deal by pitting. I didn’t have to talk anybody, you know, shame anybody or yell at anybody to negotiate. I just put dealers against each other and I said, Hey, this dealer will give me this much less than you did.
[00:46:08] Joe: What do you got? It was amazing. I ended up getting $8,000 off of the salesperson’s original price. $8,000 less just by pitting dealers against each other. Not as hard as you would think. Alright, next up. Who is next? Oh, Sarah Katherine is next. Sarah Katherine. An opportunity to take the lead and put some heat on Mr.
[00:46:31] Joe: Kramer. Let’s put some heat on. Jesse,
[00:46:33] Sarah Catherine: if this is not on the list, I quit.
[00:46:37] Joe: She’s like, this is the last question I’m gonna answer on this episode.
[00:46:40] Sarah Catherine: Yeah. Okay. So I have lots of answers. I’m just gonna spew off after this just to make sure that whoever wrote this list can hear an actual correct list.
[00:46:49] Joe: Yes.
[00:46:49] Sarah Catherine: I will say spend more money to get more reward points like credit card points.
[00:46:55] Joe: Good one. Spend more money to get more reward points. Is that on the list? It is on the list and specifically. Alright. I’m not quitting. Thank goodness. Their exact phrasing. Sarah Catherine was put everything on a credit card for points and they’re like, how ridiculous is this? Uh, this is, this is incredible.
[00:47:17] Joe: Why is that ridiculous though, for people that might have thought? That’s ’cause their friends are telling ’em that.
[00:47:22] Sarah Catherine: Well, who designed reward points? Credit card companies. What do credit card companies want you to do? They want you to spend and so if our goal is to spend less money and we decide to play their game, we will likely spend more money.
[00:47:42] Sarah Catherine: I think I saw research once that we spend 30% more when we use a credit card than if we use a debit card. And there’s a lot of psychology that goes into that because the balance is going up. Versus with a debit card, your balance is going down. But I think then there’s this thing in the back of, of people’s heads.
[00:48:01] Sarah Catherine: Like I’ll hear people all the time say, wow, I just got, you know, I just booked this whole vacation for free on points. And then you’re thinking, well, how incentivized were you to spend more money so that you could get those points to get the hotel room? So it’s this double whammy that credit cards are already enticing us to spend.
[00:48:21] Sarah Catherine: These rewards really tip us over the edge to spend more.
[00:48:25] Joe: What’s amazing to me and, uh, and I don’t know, Paula, do you have a good number of reward points?
[00:48:30] Paula: I
[00:48:30] Sarah Catherine: do.
[00:48:31] Paula: Yeah.
[00:48:31] Joe: I dunno if you’ve fund this to be the case. I have found over the past, like three years, it’s getting more difficult to find a good deal for my reward points.
[00:48:41] Joe: Mm-hmm. My reward points aren’t piling up because of the fact that I don’t want to use them, or I’m trying to put everything on a, on a reward card. They’re piling up because. Uh, I truly, like I go to book a flight. Mm-hmm. And then make it almost impossible for me to find a flight worth booking using my reward points.
[00:48:57] Paula: Mm. Yeah. The, uh, devaluation of miles is real.
[00:49:02] Joe: Yeah, sure. Feels like it.
[00:49:03] Paula: Yeah. There are a handful of good websites. point.me is one of them that help you figure out good redemption strategies. Like, what I often do if I’m booking, if I’m trying to book a rewards flight, is I will, I will decide where to go based on where the best redemption is.
[00:49:21] Paula: For example, Singapore, I just paid cash for that because I had a specific destination and because of my schedule, I had specific dates. And with that level of restriction, I couldn’t get a good deal with miles. So even though I have a bunch of miles, I just paid cash. Whereas if I’m gonna use my miles to get the best redemption, I just kind of say, all right, where can I go?
[00:49:39] Paula: That’s how I ended up in Mongolia. It was, yeah,
[00:49:45] Joe: was just points.
[00:49:46] Paula: Yeah. I got a great deal to Uan Batar and I was like, you
[00:49:49] Joe: on Batar, baby,
[00:49:50] Paula: guess I’m going to Mongolia.
[00:49:52] Joe: Because believe it or not, all those reward seats weren’t taken.
[00:49:56] Paula: Yeah. For next trip to Sudan in the summer.
[00:50:03] Joe: In the summer, yeah.
[00:50:04] Jesse: I’m on the Wikipedia page right now.
[00:50:06] Jesse: So Sarah Catherine asked, who invented, um, the credit card report? Wikipedia says Abe Lincoln. And then when it says Why was it invented, it does say so that you can stay at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore. So that’s my answer to the quiz. Joe, can that be my answer for the next question?
[00:50:25] Joe: Well, my favorite is the other Abe Blinken quote, which is Abe Lincoln said, don’t believe everything you read on the internet.
[00:50:31] Jesse: That’s true. I’ve always
[00:50:32] Joe: loved that quote. That’s my favorite Abe quote. Scott and B Wayne hanging out with us. Talk about the reason why people do use credit cards. Scott says, if you don’t spend differently, there’s many reasons to use a credit card instead of debit. And uh, B Wayne says no protection when using a debit card.
[00:50:46] Joe: I think for me though, Sarah Catherine, like when I read this, these are people that are ostensibly, I would think, responsible with money. I think you gotta get used to having zero balance for quite a while before you migrate over to credit cards versus your debit card.
[00:51:00] Sarah Catherine: I think, uh, I think intellectual honesty, you know, you’re right.
[00:51:03] Sarah Catherine: Probably someone who’s listening to this podcast. Probably has a better propensity to having a budget and having good spending controls. I’m one of those people. I have a really healthy, functioning basal ganglia in my limbic system, and so if I have money, I spend it all. I love spending money. I’m very good at it.
[00:51:22] Sarah Catherine: I have limits, like I use a debit card so that I have a pile of money, and that’s the finite pile I have to spend. When you don’t have those natural limits, then you know. A credit card offers a lot of opportunities to overspend, especially if you don’t have a careful budget. So I personally, I, I use a debit card.
[00:51:41] Sarah Catherine: I use it for all of my variable spending now for big ticket items where I have a savings account that I save ahead for items like car repairs, home repairs, vacations, pet visits, things like that. I’ll use a credit card on those things. I’ll use a credit card on my bills. I’m not gonna send Verizon more money than they charged me for.
[00:52:00] Sarah Catherine: So that’s a pretty safe bet. You just have to create your own system for using a credit card so that it doesn’t use you.
[00:52:07] Joe: You and I have talked about this before, but I’m also a spender, which is how I created the weekly meeting. Cheryl and I, I know that we’re gonna talk about every dollar I spend. It’s amazing how, when I have to say it out loud with my spouse, how I probably won’t buy that next board game or whatever it might be.
[00:52:24] Joe: I’ll just put it away. ’cause like you, Sarah Catherine, I am love spending, love spending money. That dopamine hit is real. Let’s go to the final one, man. This is it, Jesse Kramer. You’ve got the last guess. Mm-hmm. You get it right. You take home the crown with three points. You get it wrong. Sarah, Katherine is, uh, winning the entire day.
[00:52:48] Joe: She would’ve won both parts of this.
[00:52:50] Jesse: Yeah, it’s a lot of pressure. My basal ganglia is on fire right now. My limbic system is erupting.
[00:53:00] Doug: There’s an ointment for that.
[00:53:02] Jesse: I, I need some of Doug’s, you know, facial creams to help my limbic system. Uh, I’m gonna go with, so this is right, this is bad, or this is like bad advice that we see online.
[00:53:13] Jesse: I’m gonna say always avoid debt. Always avoid debt.
[00:53:20] Joe: Always avoid debt. This is making me nervous. Is it on the list or is it not on the list?
[00:53:34] Jesse: That’s rough.
[00:53:35] opener: I don’t know. That was a good one.
[00:53:37] Joe: Well, Sarah, Catherine, you had a good one earlier. Paul has had good ones.
[00:53:41] Jesse: Yeah, but my good one was worth two points.
[00:53:44] Joe: There are, there are a lot of good ones. Uh, that did make the list. Sarah Catherine’s our winner. Yay. Woo woo. The crowd goes wild. Sorry I didn’t hit the button quick enough.
[00:53:59] Joe: That is incredible. Sarah. Catherine, I like that it’s you. I dislike the fact that OG just took on two points because of you. But I want to take the last few minutes. I wanna have a little bit longer, uh, finish today’s episode because I really wanna go over some of the ones that made the list. ’cause you gotta be thinking, yeah.
[00:54:14] Joe: What are some of the things? Number one on the list was let the bank take it.
[00:54:23] Jesse: What
[00:54:23] Joe: don’t that mean? Don’t worry about, don’t worry about it. Let the bank take it. Go ahead and buy the thing. If it’s repossessed, it gets repossessed. Big deal.
[00:54:33] Sarah Catherine: What?
[00:54:33] Joe: That was number one.
[00:54:34] Sarah Catherine: Literally. I’ve never heard that. Yeah. Who says that?
[00:54:38] Joe: Jeff Fox were the, actually wrote about this in his book, which is hilarious. Uh, when he was writing his memoir, he said that in the days he was a copier salesman, he is broke all the time. And one day a repo guy came to take his firebird and said, Hey, unless you have a check for the next payment, which was like $220, way back in the day, I gotta take your car.
[00:55:01] Joe: And he goes, $220. I don’t have that kind of money. And the repo guy goes, well, don’t you have a check? And Jeff looks at him and goes, I’m sorry. I thought you wanted money. Let me just pay the whole thing off. I’ll go ahead write you a check for the entire car. He kept his car that day and then he talks about how he had it hidden.
[00:55:18] Joe: But we have TikTok minutes about this. People going, go ahead and buy the thing. Enjoy it. For X number of months, you’re gonna get to drive that Lamborghini P for the next, like four or five months before the bank takes it.
[00:55:30] Jesse: That is bad advice. I
[00:55:31] Paula: mean, yeah,
[00:55:32] Joe: that is bad advice. I didn’t know
[00:55:33] Paula: that was a thing.
[00:55:33] Paula: Yeah.
[00:55:35] Joe: Number two, let your mom or another relative, keep your money safe. Give it to a well-meaning relative to keep your money safe. Never, never, never have another person. Never keep money in your house. The point was, don’t keep money in your house. Don’t think money under your mattress is safe. You would’ve said, keep your money under your mattress to keep it safe.
[00:55:55] Joe: That would’ve qualified for this one. Do not keep physical money around your house. Dumb piece of advice. Number three, get it at rent center.
[00:56:04] Sarah Catherine: That’s good.
[00:56:05] Joe: Number four, I actually had a financial planner that OG and I worked with way back in the day when we worked closely together. Number four, buy vehicles.
[00:56:15] Joe: You can’t afford this financial planner. The way to motivate himself was he bought a Porsche, it had a huge monthly payment and he needed to get out there and get new clients as fast as he could so he could make his car payment. And that was the way he kept himself motivated to be good at. What he did was buy a car you can’t afford.
[00:56:35] Doug: Dang.
[00:56:35] Joe: Number five, you can’t afford stuff. Just stop putting money in your retirement accounts.
[00:56:41] Doug: Mm.
[00:56:41] Joe: Stop putting money in your retirement accounts. That’s for later. You got problems today.
[00:56:45] Jesse: I see. So one of us should have guessed, take a suitcase full of money and light it on fire.
[00:56:50] Joe: Exactly
[00:56:51] Jesse: that. That’s probably number 17, right?
[00:56:52] Jesse: Like that’s bad advice.
[00:56:54] Joe: Well, when you guys were talking about, you know, these are smart things that are on the list. I’m like, these are not smart things. These are truly the dumbest things people say.
[00:57:02] Jesse: Yeah.
[00:57:02] Joe: About money. Next one. Emergency funds. Overrated. I’ve had fights with money geeks about this one.
[00:57:08] Joe: Okay.
[00:57:08] Jesse: Yeah.
[00:57:09] Joe: Money. Gee geeks. That’s a, that’s a good one. Will tell you, do not keep an emergency fund. That’s a waste of interest. So frustrating.
[00:57:16] Sarah Catherine: Yeah. They’ll say like, your heloc
[00:57:19] Doug: mm-hmm.
[00:57:19] Sarah Catherine: Is your emergency fund. Mm-hmm. Right. Or a credit card. It’s not, its, its Limit is an emergency fund.
[00:57:25] Joe: And then Sarah Catherine, 2008 hits again when they’re slashing credit that you’re not using and all of a sudden you don’t have that credit anymore.
[00:57:32] Joe: Very scary. Number eight, that neighborhood will never appreciate Paula. I thought you might appreciate that one.
[00:57:40] Paula: Oh, but I’m,
[00:57:42] Joe: I was actually talked out of a house here in Texarkana when we first moved to town because a real estate guy said that neighborhood will never appreciate. And what’s sad is I really still like that neighborhood and I don’t think of my, I don’t think of the house that I live in as an investment.
[00:57:57] Doug: And
[00:57:57] Joe: I think that’s part of the problem is that I wanted to live here ’cause it was a really cool older neighborhood, not because it was gonna be this huge investment. My investment property, investment property. This was separate number 10 and number 11, very similar. Number 10 live in the moment. And number 11, you only live once.
[00:58:14] Joe: The whole YOLO thing. Just absolutely stupid.
[00:58:17] opener: That’s good.
[00:58:17] Joe: Yeah. Number 12, very similar to number one, borrow now declare bankruptcy later. How many people do you talk to though, Sarah? Catherine, I’m looking at the look on your face. Do you see though, and you see this advice all over social media, you know what?
[00:58:32] Joe: Bankruptcies your number one. And these are bankruptcy lawyers by the way, that are telling you just go ahead and declare bankruptcy.
[00:58:38] Sarah Catherine: That’s really interesting. So like I’m not on social media anymore. Like I quit in 2020. Things must have changed a lot since then. Like the thing with this advice is it’s like so obviously bad advice that you don’t, I don’t, I don’t encounter people repeating this kind of advice.
[00:58:55] Sarah Catherine: I think we were trying to think of advice that we see people actually thinking is reasonable,
[00:59:00] Paula: right?
[00:59:00] Sarah Catherine: That’s actually bad advice,
[00:59:02] Paula: right?
[00:59:04] Joe: Number 14 on the list, get a credit card so you learn discipline, bad advice. Number 15, have kids sort out the money later. Number 16, don’t let Monie hold back your dreams.
[00:59:17] Joe: How many times have we heard that? No. I got this big dream. I’m just gonna do this. I don’t have any money for it, but I’m just gonna go do it. Number 18, go ahead and charge the vacation. That was my honeymoon, by the way. And I’ve written about this all over the place. Horrible trip. Beautiful time of my life.
[00:59:30] Joe: Fantastic. Newly married and we put it all on credit cards and I regretted that forever and ever and ever. It was a, it was a vacation full of regret. And then number 19 is money is meant to make you happy. Mm. Those are the worst of the worst guys.
[00:59:45] Doug: Mm-hmm.
[00:59:46] Joe: Which other ones did you have? Did you have any other good ones that didn’t make the list here?
[00:59:49] Joe: Catherine, you’re nodding.
[00:59:50] Sarah Catherine: I do. So, uh, the rule of 28. That you can borrow 28% of your monthly gross pay for a house.
[00:59:57] Joe: Mm. It tries me crazy. Banks are always happy to get you into trouble. Yeah. Using any bank number that says, going to a bank calculator and how much can I afford? And going with their top number is, is gonna really be trouble.
[01:00:11] Sarah Catherine: You know, my favorite one is silence.
[01:00:17] Joe: What do you mean?
[01:00:18] Sarah Catherine: I don’t think we talk about money enough.
[01:00:20] Joe: Oh,
[01:00:21] Sarah Catherine: okay. I think that we have made money taboo, and so it’s the lack of talking about money that I think is the worst advice.
[01:00:28] Joe: Mm-hmm. We got some good ones from the people hanging out with us on YouTube. Jake, Greg says, uh, get alone from the mafia.
[01:00:35] Joe: If we’re talking about really bad ones, invest in pet rocks as B Wayne. Andrea says, uh, lease a fancy car. Just some absolutely bad ones. Uh, Jesse, Paula, you guys have any other ones?
[01:00:47] Jesse: I can rattle off a few real quick buy lotto tickets, especially when the jackpot is high. Mm. It’s gotta be exotic or complicated if it’s gonna work in your favor.
[01:00:56] bit: That’s good.
[01:00:56] Jesse: Always carry a balance on your credit card and uh, you
[01:01:00] Joe: always carry a balance. One, I think. Is this level stupid?
[01:01:03] opener: Yeah.
[01:01:03] Jesse: Right. Well my last one was uh, if you need money, go hold up a convenience store that belongs on your list. That should have on, that’s number 20. That’s gotta be number 20. That it must have been the first one cut.
[01:01:15] Jesse: ’cause that’s gotta be on there.
[01:01:17] Joe: I won’t play the clip, but did you guys see raising Arizona? No, they go hold up the convenience store because diapers are expensive.
[01:01:23] Doug: Yeah.
[01:01:24] Joe: Which speaks a lot, by the way. ’cause I remember with our twins diapers were so expensive, so incredibly expensive. Nicholas Cage and another guy Go hold up a convenience store to get steel diapers.
[01:01:33] Doug: I’ll be taking these here. Huggies and everything you got in the tip.
[01:01:39] Joe: Some of the best lines.
[01:01:40] Doug: Yeah. That is one of the best Kellen Brothers movies There is.
[01:01:43] Joe: Yeah. Yeah. Paula, any others?
[01:01:45] Paula: Uh, anyone who thinks that they can make good money through, um, sports betting or other forms of online gambling. Like the, the whole gambling, gaming. And it’s not just sports, it’s now you can bet on whatever.
[01:01:57] Paula: You can bet on politics, you can bet on the news. But all of that, the online gambling, which has really blown up in the last couple of years.
[01:02:04] Joe: I got a guy I’m following on TikTok right now who bets a hundred dollars a day on that, uh, KHI, uh, site. Mm-hmm. Kels, is that how you pronounce it?
[01:02:12] Paula: Wow.
[01:02:12] Joe: Bets a hundred dollars a day.
[01:02:13] Joe: He just bet on New York City weather.
[01:02:15] Paula: Wow. Just
[01:02:16] Joe: bet on New York City weather.
[01:02:17] Paula: You can, of course, you can bet on the weather. Why am I surprised?
[01:02:20] Joe: But imagine if you took a hundred dollars a day.
[01:02:22] Paula: A day Yeah.
[01:02:23] Joe: And put it into a good ETF, put it into the Vanguard Total stock market index or
[01:02:28] Paula: something. Yeah. Well, yeah.
[01:02:28] Paula: That’s three grand a month. That’s 36,000 a year. Crazy. That is your entire 401k plus IRA Almost
[01:02:36] Joe: Scott with us on YouTube says he has a system though, with his gambling, so it’s good. He has a system. That’s what you hear all the time, isn’t it? No, no, no. I have a system. Yeah.
[01:02:43] Paula: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
[01:02:44] Joe: Mm-hmm. Thanks to all of you for hanging out with us on, uh, YouTube, and as I mentioned Monday afternoons.
[01:02:50] Joe: If you wanna hang out with us, watch us make the show. Let’s find out what these brilliant people are doing when they’re not hanging out with us. Sarah Katherine, thank you so much for hanging out with us and for stealing today’s show. You got the whole show. Two points for Sarah Katherine. Yes. What’s going on with you and where can people find out more about the good work you’re doing?
[01:03:09] Sarah Catherine: I am still engaged in financial planning and salsa dancing. Still waiting for you to accept my invitation to come to our salsa dancing nightclub.
[01:03:16] Joe: We gotta do it tomorrow.
[01:03:17] Sarah Catherine: Looking up every Friday here in Little Rock, Arkansas, anybody is welcome. That’s where you’ll find me on a Friday. But you can find all the work we do@aptifinancial.com.
[01:03:27] Joe: I’ll link to it on our show notes page. It’s Stacking Benjamins dot com. Jesse Kramer, what’s happening at the Personal Finance for Long-Term Investors Podcast?
[01:03:35] Jesse: Well, Sarah Catherine, always good to spend time with you and you’re never invited back. And we, uh, well, last week I, speaking of interesting financial opinions, last week I released an episode called Some Dumb Financial Moves.
[01:03:50] Jesse: I’m 100% fine with. Very little overlap with your list, but that’s probably a good thing. Just, you know, more dumb moves. Who, who doesn’t wanna hear about more dumb moves? And then if
[01:03:59] Joe: you’re fine with any of the ones on my list, by the way, yeah, you might have a problem.
[01:04:04] Jesse: And then a couple days ago I released my latest ask me anything episode, which I’m, I’m anticipating will be well received.
[01:04:10] Jesse: So that’s what’s going on over in my neck of the woods.
[01:04:12] Joe: I called in and asked Jesse on that one ’cause I love these. Ask me. Anythings is a hundred pound dog a big dog? Yeah. And Jesse, your answer was
[01:04:19] Jesse: That’s true. Well it’s an expensive dog. ’cause if you, after the conversion, that’s like $150.
[01:04:24] Joe: Yeah.
[01:04:25] Jesse: And you can go get a dog for free at a pound.
[01:04:27] Jesse: So a hundred pound dog. I just used the word pounds twice. I didn’t even mean that. But anyway, it was so quick. That’s my thought there.
[01:04:35] Joe: You’re killing me. Paula Pan,
[01:04:38] Paula: by the way, on the topic of dogs. Doug, you know what, um, the automatic AI transcription of these episodes often say, I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor’s, dog.
[01:04:48] Paula: Awesome.
[01:04:49] Joe: Awesome.
[01:04:50] Doug: Dogs are better than people, so I’m good with that.
[01:04:54] Joe: Paula, what’s going on and afford anything?
[01:04:56] Paula: So it is the first Friday of the month and the first Friday of every month, including this one. We have an episode in which we talk about the macroeconomic situation,
[01:05:07] Joe: but this is a special one.
[01:05:08] Joe: You’ve got a special topic this time that I won’t reveal, but you and I talked about it earlier. Yeah. You wanna listen to this episode?
[01:05:15] Paula: Yeah, yeah, exactly. There’s some, some sensitive information that’s coming out in this one. That’s all I will say.
[01:05:22] Joe: Yeah,
[01:05:23] Paula: this is gonna be kind of an awkward one, actually.
[01:05:25] Joe: A hundred percent awkward.
[01:05:26] Paula: Yeah. This is gonna be an awkward one.
[01:05:29] Joe: If you want more awkward in your life, go to afford anything. Awesome. And, uh, we will link to all of these on our show notes page. Jesse, were you gonna just say something?
[01:05:40] Jesse: No, I was just think suspense is killing me. I wanna know what’s going on.
[01:05:43] Joe: Oh, we’ll have to tell you backstage when we’re done, guys.
[01:05:46] Joe: Yeah.
[01:05:46] Jesse: I’m gonna go listen, I’m gonna go listen
[01:05:48] Joe: or go listen that, that’s probably even better. Right now we’re gonna listen to Doug tell us what we should have learned on today’s show.
[01:05:54] Doug: Well, Joe, here’s what’s stacked up on our to-do list for today. First, take some advice from our special guest, Sarah Catherine.
[01:06:01] Doug: The best ROI you’re gonna get are the reward points from your credit cards.
[01:06:05] Joe: Nope,
[01:06:06] Doug: buy that combination massage chair and neti pot. They’re practically paying you to do self-care. Might, might, might have misinterpreted like I nailed it. Second, remember Jesse’s advice. Don’t get tricked into getting a raise at work.
[01:06:20] Doug: They’re just gonna take it all back in taxes. You’re better off just doing as little as possible to keep your job. Or as he always says, Hey man, CS get degrees. But the big lesson, don’t try establishing an outpost in the dirty, dusty frontier of Joe’s mom’s backyard. She’ll make you tear down your trading post and bathhouse before you even get the red velvet curtains up.
[01:06:45] Doug: Thanks to Sarah Catherine Gutierrez for joining us today. Be sure to check out her book, but first save 10 and or website lady splaining money.com. Best URL in the business right there will also include links in our show notes at Stacking Benjamins dot com. Thanks to Paula Pant for hanging out with us today.
[01:07:02] Doug: You’ll find her fabulous podcast for anything wherever you listen to The Finest podcast. And he’s pretty fly for a white guy. Thanks to the Jesse Kramer for joining us today. Listen to his personal finance for Long-Term Investors Podcast. Wherever you are hearing us now, we’ll also include links in our show notes at Stacking Benjamins dot com.
[01:07:23] Joe: This show is the Property of SP podcast, LLC, copyright 2026, and is created
[01:07:29] Doug: by Joe Saul Sea High. 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 and oh yeah, before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don’t take advice from people you don’t know.
[01:07:49] Doug: 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.
[01:08:11] Doug: What are you still doing here? The show is over. Go home.
Leave a Reply