Ever wondered if you’re better off building your own target date fund instead of relying on a one-size-fits-all option? We’re diving into whether crafting your own investment mix is worth the effort, potentially saving you fees and giving you more control over your portfolio.
But even the pros get it wrong sometimes—just ask Vanguard. We’re covering the major settlement they’re facing over misleading statements about taxes and target date funds, proving that even the big guys make costly mistakes.
Meanwhile, a listener asks a great question about balancing tax optimization with financial flexibility—because what good is a perfectly tax-efficient plan if it ties your hands when you need cash? Plus, Doug takes us back to the origins of the gasoline-driven automobile, and there’s even an unexpected run-in with a Supreme Court justice (because why not?).
And of course, we’ve got a TikTok moment that’ll have you questioning life choices and a few financial misconceptions that might just make you rethink your approach to money.
What’s Inside Today’s Episode:
- Vanguard’s Costly Mistake: The settlement every investor should know about.
- Understanding Mutual Fund Taxes: How taxes sneak up on your investments.
- DIY Target Date Funds: Pros, cons, and when to consider building your own.
- Trivia Time with Doug: The surprising story behind the gasoline-driven car.
- The TikTok Minute: Financial advice that may (or may not) be worth your time.
- Financial Flexibility vs. Tax Optimization: Finding the balance in your strategy.
- Community Announcements & Meetups: Where to find us next.
Episode Highlights:
- Vanguard’s Legal Trouble: What happened, and what it means for investors.
- Mutual Fund Taxation: Avoiding unexpected tax bills.
- Should You Build Your Own Target Date Fund? We break down the numbers.
- Listener Q&A: How to stay tax-efficient while keeping access to your cash.
- Doug’s Trivia: Who REALLY built the first gasoline-powered car?
- An Unexpected Supreme Court Encounter: Because that’s just how things go around here.
Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
- Learn more about Vanguard’s target date fund settlement in our show notes: https://stackingbenjamins.com/
- Read up on mutual fund tax strategies and more by signing up for our 201 newsletter! https://stackingbenjamins.com/201
Tune in now and get the insights you need to build a smarter investment strategy—without falling into costly traps.
FULL SHOW NOTES: https://stackingbenjamins.com/vanguard-target-retirement-trouble-1637
Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.stackingbenjamins.com/201
Enjoy!
Our Headline
- Vanguard to pay more than $100M over target-date fund violations (InvestmentNews)
Doug’s Trivia
- What Mannheim, Germany auto manufacturer patented the gas powered engine on today’s date way back in 1886?
Better call Saul…Sehy & OG
- An anonymous Stacker has a question about how and when to optimize his and his wife’s savings away from purely tax-advantaged accounts into other accounts that provide more flexibility.
Have a question for the show?
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Other Mentions
- Write additional info included in today’s show (websites, books, apps, etc)
Join Us Friday!
Tune in on Friday when we explore the question, are there drawbacks when you retire early?
Written by: Kevin Bailey
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Episode transcript
[00:00:00] bit: We are back. We are back. We are getting Doug back, and we’re the three best friends that anybody could have. We are the three best friends that anyone could have. We are the three best friends that anyone could have, and we’ll never, ever, ever, ever, ever leave each other. We. [00:00:27] Doug: Live from Joe’s mom’s basement. It’s the Stacking Benjamin Show. [00:00:41] I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and one big mutual fun company is in the news. Is it Vanguard? Maybe on today’s show. We’ll share lessons about target date funds, tax planning, retirement planning, and switching accounts. And in our TikTok minute one, mom finds out she’s apparently way more wealthy than she ever thought. [00:01:02] Plus, we’ll answer a question from one stacker who thought, you know, I’d better call sa See hi and og. With my question about tax optimization, great thought stacker, and you know what else is great? A scoop of my world, famous trivia. That’s what, and now two guys who want you to have enough money to live your dreams and still buy popcorn at the movies. [00:01:25] It’s. Joe and o Jean [00:01:33] Joe. Nobody goes to the movies anymore and buys popcorn. [00:01:36] Joe: You know how great it is, first of all to escape to a movie theater for a couple hours. It is just amazing. But second, imagine buying popcorn like seriously and not having to refinance your house. I mean, how, how wealthy are you, Doug? [00:01:50] Doug: You know, who else tried to escape to a movie theater? [00:01:52] Lee Harvey, Oswald Joe, I. Did he too soon? Is that effect, is that Yeah, that’s where they caught him. [00:01:58] Joe: What was it? Was it really? [00:02:00] Doug: Yeah. [00:02:00] Joe: Wow. Hey everybody, welcome to, uh, trivia. Joe didn’t know [00:02:04] OG: for the win. Joe, do you get the large popcorn at the cinema or do you get the small with the free refill? [00:02:10] Joe: There is no see at our cinema mark, you have to get the large to get the free refill. [00:02:15] OG: So what do you do? [00:02:15] Joe: I just get the small now because I will eat the large and then I will feel ashamed of myself the rest of the day. [00:02:23] OG: Very salty for the rest of the incredibly [00:02:26] Joe: salty. Oh, such a great Wednesday. Welcome to the Stacking Benjamin Show, and, uh, we’re super happy you’re here. We’ve got a potpourri of exciting topics today, an amazing headline. [00:02:38] And Doug, it looks like we’ve got an action packed agenda. Looking at the, all the stuff going on today, schedule. We’re gonna teach people a ton about your money and about investing, which I know is a lot of our stackers favorite topic to talk about that og you having a good, uh, midweek today. [00:02:55] OG: Oh yeah, it’s fantastic. [00:02:57] Joe: Is there a specific reason why, or is it just because you’re here with us? [00:03:00] OG: Oh, um, I believe it is because I’m here with you. There you go. That’s what the cue card says here and uh, we’re not sure yet, [00:03:07] Doug: but it could maybe be because I’m here with you guys. Get back to me on that. [00:03:11] Joe: We’re about to find out in the next hour, Joe, whether I like it here or not. [00:03:16] All right. One big mutual fund company in the news. We’re gonna get to them next with our headline, but before that, we have a couple of sponsors who make sure that, uh, we can keep on keeping on and you don’t have to pay anything for this goodness. So let’s hear from them and then into a boo boo from a big mutual fund company. [00:03:37] headlines: Hello Darlings, and now it’s time for your favorite part of the show, our Stacking Benjamins headlines. [00:03:45] Joe: Our headlines today comes to us from investment news.com. This is a website for kind of for industry insiders. We like it if you’re new to the Stacking Benjamin Show, because here they often talk about. [00:03:56] Lots of topics that are a little different than what I see in most of the things that are in the popular press. It’s really what the pros are worried about, and apparently what the pros are worried about right now is a little company called Vanguard og. Okay? Because Vanguard getting their hand slapped by the SEC. [00:04:14] This is written by Leo. Toy DiCaprio, Zora, probably a cousin. So close of those people. Just a bit outside to quote Bob. Bob, er. Oh my God, that guy was funny. His sense of humor. Bob Buer died, what, two weeks ago? Just fantastic. Uh, article Joe article, fantastic sense of humor. Anyway, [00:04:38] OG: tried the corner in mis, [00:04:42] Joe: just a bit outside. [00:04:43] Vanguard’s set to pay $106.41 million to settle charges from the Securities Exchange Commission. For reportedly making misleading statements regarding its target date retirement funds. Now, Vanguard not a company where we’ve had, I can’t remember us ever having a Vanguard headline like this and an order published. [00:05:06] I. Last Friday, the SEC said, Vanguard misled investors with respect to capital gains distributions and resolving tax consequences for retail investors who held those target retirement funds and taxable accounts. So this is what happened, oog. This is also what happens when you are a company that is the low cost provider. [00:05:27] You attract a lot of people who are. Very naturally fee adverse. And the second that you offer something with an even lower fee people, people tend to go that way. Here’s what happened. Vanguard in December, 2020 decided to lower the minimum investment for its institutional target date retirement funds from a hundred million dollars to $5 million. [00:05:51] So now if you’ve got 5 million bucks. You can go into the institutional one. Of course, the institutional target date retirement fund has a lower fee than the investor class [00:06:03] OG: retail version, right? [00:06:04] Joe: Yeah. Target retirement fund. So because it had lower expenses. People moved out of the retail version and into the institutional version to meet the demand from redeeming investors. [00:06:18] The SEC said, Vanguard’s investor target date funds then had to sell underlying assets that had appreciated in value. The retail investors who stayed in the funds and held shares and taxable accounts, bam. They were effectively punished because [00:06:35] OG: Vanguard lowered because the people left. The people who stayed were left holding the bag, [00:06:41] Joe: left holding it as it were. [00:06:42] There is a lot to unpack here. I want to talk about all these things, but first of all, let’s talk about how mutual funds tax people so we can understand why this is a big deal. Because if you’re out there, maybe buying a mutual fund and it’s not inside of a retirement account, og, you might be caught, maybe not in this situation. [00:07:00] But you may be caught wondering why do I have to pay tax when I didn’t sell anything? [00:07:04] OG: Yeah. Mutual funds don’t tax people. The government taxes people, but the mutual funds have taxable events within them. Right. And that’s the struggle bus. I remember, Joe, you and I have a friend at Ameriprise from our Ameriprise days who had inherited, uh, relationship. [00:07:20] It was, you know, an advisor who had retired or somebody who, uh, who had left the firm and this person inherited this account and was super excited by it. Because it was a big number. It was a $700,000 account. It was in one mutual fund, and then that year, that mutual fund had a 50% capital gain distribution. [00:07:37] Oh [00:07:37] Joe: man. [00:07:38] OG: And you go, well, what the heck does that mean? That means that this person had on their tax forms, it’s as if they sold $350,000 of gain. It’s as if they had 350,000 of gain on their tax form. And so the way that this works inside of a mutual fund is that there’s all the different stock holdings and the mutual fund owner, or the mutual fund manager is buying and selling and rebalancing and that sort of thing with maybe an eye toward taxes or maybe not, you know, it depends on, you know, what their stated goal is. [00:08:06] But their main objective is whatever their main objective is, capital appreciation or dividends, or whatever they say it is. And every time that there’s a transaction inside of a mutual fund, that’s a taxable event, just like it is in. In your investment account, if you buy Apple and then sell it, it’s a taxable event. [00:08:22] Either that’s a tax gain or a tax loss, and you know, you aggregate those at the end of the year and the same thing happens in a mutual fund. All that stuff happens throughout the year, and then at the end of the year, they aggregate it all up and go, well, how much did we have in gains or losses? In a perfect world, it kind of nets out to even in years where the market is skyrocketing and going gangbusters or or whatever, sometimes there’s a gain and then they just distribute that. [00:08:46] I said, well, we made a hundred million dollars. We have a hundred million shareholders. Everybody’s getting a dollar of capital gains, and it’s just a sign to you. So you just get a tax form that says, oh, by the way, you made a dollar, or you made a thousand dollars, or, in this lady’s case, $350,000, even though you didn’t do anything, it’s because of the stuff inside of it. [00:09:07] The other complication is it’s indiscriminate in it’s, uh, assigning. It’s literally whoever owns it the day that they assign it. This is a say, largest part of yesterday. You go, yeah, we don’t care. You have it today. You’re, you’re in the club. Welcome to the club. You’re paying the tax, you’re paying the, you’re part of the organization here. [00:09:25] So, so if you’re gonna invest in money in a mutual fund and you’re getting toward the end of the year, it’s one of the steps that you have to take of paying attention to when are those capital gain distributions being issued. And do I wanna be a part of it? Is it a big enough deal for me to, to pay attention to that? [00:09:41] And I’ve seen people get burned by that too. You know, put in bonus at the end of the year, you know, they get their bonus, they go, let’s invest the money and invest it. And wait a second, I had this fund for five minutes and I’m paying $10,000 in taxes. What the heck? [00:09:54] Joe: What happened? [00:09:55] aftershow: Yeah. [00:09:55] Joe: Welcome to the Party pal. [00:09:57] The good news is this information, if you know to look for it, is all public record, and if I remember right, it comes out generally about a month before the day that they’re gonna have the capital gains distribution date. Is that about right? [00:10:11] OG: Yeah, I think, you know, most companies try to get it wrapped up by the middle of December, so sometime around Thanksgiving or maybe even earlier than that, you know, they, they send an estimate, right, because there’s still trading that’s happening. [00:10:21] Yeah. Between, you know, the time that they issued the publication and beyond, and if it’s a big enough trade, you know, if you’re gonna say, Hey, I’m gonna go buy a million dollars worth of this mutual fund, I would get on the phone with the fund company and say, I’m, I’m about to buy a million dollars worth of your thing. [00:10:35] Is there anything I should be aware of? They’ll say, oh, you might wanna hold off till. December 19th instead of buying at the 17th, [00:10:42] Joe: you know? Well, and on the other side, if you are thinking about selling the fund and you’re fairly certain you’re going to sell the fund and it’s not inside an IRA, and they’re gonna have some type of capital gains distribution, some distribution that comes out. [00:10:56] Sell it before that day. Yeah. Like, like don’t stay on the hook for, uh, capital gains tax. [00:11:00] caller: Yeah. [00:11:01] Joe: For that year. I think this might be just a problem of the fact that because mutual fund architecture are sold is from the 1940s, a much more tax efficient way to go then would be an exchange traded fund. [00:11:14] Because exchange traded funds OG will avoid a lot of these issues. ’cause you directly own a share. Like you own a share of stock. I [00:11:23] OG: mean, it avoids all of those issues, but it picks up other issues. It’s not a get outta jail. You can just go, yeah. Oh, this is a free way to do it. It’s an unknown. It’s very behind the scenes, and it’s very 2 0 1 3 0 1 in terms of the bid ask spread. [00:11:40] We’ve talked about this before. The the bid ask spread. You’re doing what? That’s a bit ass spread. What’s, Hey, o. It’s really the price that you see quoted versus the price that you get. Filled at. And for most people, we just don’t pay attention to that or care about it. And, and honestly it’s probably an insignificant amount, but it’s not zero. [00:11:58] You know, it’s the difference between, uh, could be a, a few pennies or a few dimes for most people, but it’s not zero. And so that’s really the trade off is, is is it better to have the tax bill of the mutual fund or the spread risk of ETFs? Since most people don’t pay attention to that, honestly, and it’s like a internal tax versus an external tax, so to speak. [00:12:21] Yeah. I think most people would be okay with the fact of paying the thing that they don’t know that they’re paying because they just went online and said, buy me a hundred shares of SPY, and life is good. [00:12:31] Joe: I had to warn mom about that when we bought shares about a month ago. I told her, I said, the second we buy this, it’s gonna look like we lost money, just so you know. [00:12:40] The second we buy it, it’s gonna look like we lost money. And sure enough, it looked like it [00:12:43] OG: doesn’t look like you lost money. You lost money. [00:12:45] Joe: You lost money. Right. [00:12:48] OG: That second you did. Good point. Yeah. [00:12:50] Joe: Correct. The second you purchase Yeah. You’re like, what happened there? Yeah. I a loss of money. Where did that go? [00:12:56] Uh, the brokerage firm kept it. Yeah. [00:12:58] OG: Ether it went into the, that’s your, that’s your mutual fund tax that you didn’t pay. Mm-hmm. [00:13:03] Joe: There it is. So that is problem number one that Vanguard ran into just to. Go back through this maybe a little bit in slow motion. Vanguard allows people into a cheaper share class of this mutual fund. [00:13:17] Investors already paying OG, by the way. Very little. Just paying very little, but they’re like, heck, if I could pay less, I’m gonna sell this and I’m then going to buy. The other, this other fund that costs less, those people had a tax on their end, right? I mean, if they’d held it for a while, OG, they’re still gonna have to pay a tax for the thing that they did. [00:13:40] If it’s in a non IRA account. Just a regular brokerage account. [00:13:43] OG: Yeah. The people who move from the higher cost to lower cost, you’re saying? Yeah. At a taxable event of selling the thing. Yeah. Quite possibly that’s the case. I don’t know if this is the case in this, uh, circumstance. Sometimes by changing share classes, they don’t make that a taxable event. [00:13:55] I don’t know how Vanguard did it in this case, but it sounds like the vast majority of the situation was because of the fact that they, they, uh. You know the rich got richer in this case. Yeah, you would expect left all the pain with the people left over all those poor people. [00:14:09] Joe: With under 5 million. Under 5 billion. [00:14:11] You would’ve expected that those people would have attacks. So the surprise was because they had to sell a bunch of stuff internally. Even though you didn’t sell, you ended up with a tax. There’s another thing here, which is it’s a target date fund because it’s a target date fund og. There’s several different funds inside of this one fund, which also is something I know that you and I talked about before. [00:14:37] We really don’t love this architecture of the target date fund, like having all these funds mixed up in one place. You wanna dive into that for a moment? [00:14:46] OG: Well, the major issue with target date funds is generally speaking, you’re adding a layer of complexity on top of your asset allocation for no discernible benefit. [00:14:57] I, I don’t know that the allocation is correct or incorrect, and I don’t really care. But the major problem that I have with it is twofold, which is to have somebody package it together for you is gonna cost extra. It’s the buying a watermelon at the store or buying a watermelon that’s all sliced up in a Tupperware. [00:15:14] You know, you go look at the insane difference in price of buying the whole thing or having someone package it for you. It’s like a watermelon’s, a dollar, or you can get a couple of slices of watermelon for three 50. [00:15:28] Doug: It’s an oddly specific example. He just chose Joe, [00:15:31] Joe: this is by the way, Len Benzo’s favorite thing to rail against. [00:15:36] He’s like buying the cost. A slice up a mushroom. [00:15:40] OG: Yeah, exactly. So you know, there’s always gonna be an extra layer of cost there. So for everybody who’s goo goo gaga over fees, it’s like, why the hell would you pay an extra whatever? To have somebody slice up the fruit for you, you jack wagon, you know, do it yourself. [00:15:55] Doug: Well, Jack wagon anger in there. Is there also, do they tend to be a little more conservative than necessary or a little more aggressive than necessary? Is that another, uh, downside? [00:16:07] OG: Yeah, I mean the, so the first thing was the packaging, and the second piece is you end up on this. Glide slope of conservativeness that ends way too early and it’s somebody else’s schedule. [00:16:19] And the idea is, you know, this fallacy, I think people have, I had a conversation with somebody this week that he was, you know, a young guy and he is like, well, when should I get conservative? And my portfolio, I’m going, what are you talking about? Never. Why would you want to, and I, you know, I’m gonna keep on beating that drum until. [00:16:37] We get rid of fixed income as an asset class for the mainstream America because you’re purposefully putting an anchor in your portfolio to slow down the growth of your, of your account. I don’t understand why you would do that, and especially I don’t understand why the hell you would do it starting at 45 or 50. [00:16:54] You know, oh, thank God I finally got enough money that’s gonna start compounding. Let me stop compounding it. I don’t, that doesn’t make any sense to me. I understand people say, well, you need, you know, you gotta be conservative when you get to retirement. No, you need to have liquidity for the first year or two to avoid any major meltdowns in the market. [00:17:11] The unlucky phase of retiring, the guy or gal who retired January 1st, 2008. Was unlucky in their timing, right? You didn’t know on January one that the world was gonna implode in a gigantic recession for three years, but having cash on hand to withstand that would’ve been okay, because then the market recovered. [00:17:31] You know, the s and p in, in March of 2009 was 656,000. Now it’s freaking 10 times. Like, why would you want to, why would you have any interest in letting off the gas? If you’ve already seen this happen in your lifetime, you know that it’s 10 x twice, why would you go, well, I don’t wanna do that anymore. [00:17:52] That was, I’m good. I don’t need to do that. So target date funds tend to get conservative early and then, you know, drive you into this ultra conservative portfolio right? When you need to be having that, uh, like we like to call it that final double, that last chance that you have to have your money grow. [00:18:10] One more time to do that one more compound from 53 to 60. You go, all right, this is the final multiplier before I’m gone. And Vanguard and all these other places go, ah, now you’re good. Just let off the gas. And I [00:18:22] Joe: think part of the reason that they’re overly conservative as well is kind of like what we’re reporting on here. [00:18:26] Vanguard OG gets, gets this huge settlement for something that appears to me on the outside to be an unintended consequence. Right. Just a complete unintended consequence of trying to allow people to do a less expensive option. I mean, think about this, Vanguard’s like, Hey, let’s let more people do the, the not as expensive thing. [00:18:49] Okay. Uh, here’s a hundred billion dollar. [00:18:52] OG: I mean, I, I don’t know that that’s the reason the, the conservative target date thing happens. I think it’s more of a cultural, you know, relic from something from some time ago where people said you have to be bonds minus your age. This is still hanging on despite all of the evidence to the contrary, and for as much as I’m concerned about, you know, the youth as it relates to market corrections and the fact that they haven’t really seen any in their lifetimes, and when they do, they’re gonna puke any significant ones anyway. [00:19:23] I’m still flabbergasted by the fact that people will have seen what they’ve seen over the last 15 years of their investing lives and go, yeah, I should be conservative, right? It’s like, if nothing else you’ve learned, don’t be conservative like that. That I would think would be the message that people have learned over the last 15 years is why would I invest in anything other than the equity and ownership of the biggest companies in the universe? [00:19:46] Despite seeing that people go, well, I’m close to retirement. I should start being conservative now, don’t do that. [00:19:52] Joe: I had a great meeting with a stacker last week who was talking about the fact that she hadn’t really considered enough that retirement to state one big goal people have is not an event. [00:20:04] It’s still gonna be X number of years of your life. And I think everybody thinks okay, maybe a third of it [00:20:09] OG: if you’re lucky. [00:20:09] Joe: Yeah, I gotta get conservative when I hit that number. No, you need some money where you can can get at it, but you still have this money you need as a growth engine for those, for those later years. [00:20:20] OG: I think about it even in a bigger picture, which is you get to age 60, you’ve got 3 million bucks in your account. You’re like, okay, cool. 4% rule of 10,000 a month. I’m gonna be great. Like, that’s all good and grand and wonderful and all. But a, you know that 10,000 has to grow with inflation, right? It’s not 10,000 for the rest of your life. [00:20:38] So you need to make sure your money’s in a place that’s gonna grow with inflation and secondarily. You’re finally at a place where like you’re seeing some major, major increases in your portfolio year after year after year. And think about the next generation or the second generation, not maybe your kids, but your kids’ kids, and the fact that they have a 60 year time horizon or 80 year time horizon before your kids’ kids need the money. [00:21:04] Like your grandkid. When you’re 60, how old are your grandkids? Five. They have a 60 year time horizon, like my God almighty, like invest in the future. You have 60 effing years for your grandkids. Imagine if grandma and grandpa would’ve put 3 million in an account for you. How much would that be worth? What was the s and p at 50 years ago? [00:21:25] This is when I get Was the s and p at when you were born? Yeah. This is when I got almighty. [00:21:29] Joe: When I roll my eyes a little bit as well, is when I hear about people saying, well, you know, if you’re 75 years old, you shouldn’t be in growth stocks. And I think, well, if you start off with what the money’s for, to your point, if it’s not for you, if you love your [00:21:40] OG: family, you will be [00:21:41] Joe: absolutely. [00:21:41] If it’s not for you, if it’s for your family, for the wealth of the people after you, then hell yeah. You wanna be in growth stocks when you’re 75. [00:21:49] OG: And for you, because the 75, you still need money when you’re 85 and 95 probably statistically. So you need it for you, but you damn sure need it for your kids and grandkids. [00:21:59] Doug: The thing people are worried about in a growth stock is the higher likelihood of the crash when you’re 85 and you need that money and you can’t, they, you don’t think you can withstand the $50,000 hit because that growth index just crashed. That’s what I think people are worried about. [00:22:17] Joe: Absolutely. I mean, that’s why you start off with when am I gonna spend the dollar? [00:22:20] Right? And you work backwards. This is why you start off with the date that I’m gonna need the dollar. And then go back. That’s how you mitigate that risk. [00:22:28] OG: And I think there’s a second piece to that, which is when you retire, let’s say you’re 65 and you’re financially independent and you’re good, right? [00:22:36] You’re not great, but you’re good. You’re the proverbial four percenter. You got your 2 million, you’re gonna take 80 grand. You know, that sort of thing. You’re in that area where, to your point, Doug, if the market does go down 30%. You’re all in stock, you’re gonna feel pretty freaked out. Your 2 million turns into 1.2 in a hurry, and you’re like, whoa, whoa, whoa. [00:22:57] You have to have an insane faith in the future that it’s gonna be okay. But the corollary to that, the opposite. I think that the effect of that happens is that if you do the right thing when you’re 65. That money doubles twice. By the time you’re 85 and now you have $8 million and you’re still managing your lifestyle, you’re living your life, you’re doing your thing. [00:23:18] You’re so far ahead of the curve at that point that it doesn’t matter what happens. Like if the market goes down 30% and you have 8 million bucks and you’re spending a hundred, $200,000 a year, you have so much excess. You have, we call it margin of safety. You have so much margin of safety. It doesn’t matter. [00:23:34] And that’s really the goal is to kind of get through that surf zone, that little bit of time where being unlucky will affect you. And there’s no way to predict that. There’s no way to know that you’re the January 1st, 2008 guy or gal. It just, it just is unlucky. So the way to protect against it or to, to Joe’s point, to mitigate that, it’s to say, I need to have two years worth of cash available in case I have a 20% decline. [00:23:59] Early on, I got a 20% decline. I gotta live on my cash for two years and let my portfolio do its thing. I gotta be okay with it going from 2 million down to 1.2 and let it ride and let it get back to 2 million. ’cause eventually it will, and I just have to give it time. And if you’re, if you’re unlucky and that happens to you early. [00:24:17] So be it. You’ve got the cash to support it. If you’re lucky, and it doesn’t happen until you’re 10 or 15, you have so much freaking money, you’re so far above that glide slope, that margin of safety, that 20%, 30%, 50%, look who care, who cares? It sucks. If you have $4 million and it turns into two, you’re not gonna be excited. [00:24:36] You’re not, you know, you’re not gonna be a, not gonna have a happy day, but from a financial standpoint, you’re okay. So that’s really what you have to mitigate is that first three years or five years of. Being unlucky. [00:24:47] Joe: I wanna backtrack too, OG to one other thing you said, which is the target date fund adds a layer of complexity, which I know a lot of people think that adding a target date fund makes things easier, right? [00:25:00] It’s easy. Oh, I’m just gonna let somebody else handle it. But there truly is so much going on under the hood that you don’t understand. I think you’re proving yourself that I’m not smart enough. I don’t understand how this works. And if you can take. Half an hour or an hour figuring out how this works and you don’t have the target date fund, your plan becomes stickier and you’re much less likely to bail on it when things. [00:25:26] Go poorly. I do not like these magic solutions. I get tired of hearing people go, oh, which Merriman portfolio do I pick? Why am I picking this magic portfolio with this magic person? You know, do I pick a Rick Ferry portfolio? What’s a portfolio that I pick? The second that you think somebody’s a magician and it doesn’t go the way that you want because you don’t understand what the hell Rick Ferry’s doing under the hood or Paul Merriman’s doing under the hood, you’re, you’re more likely to bail. [00:25:55] Drives me, drives me crazy when we, when we do that, and we do the same thing with target date funds on a much, much bigger level, right? So whether you’re a nerd or somebody that starts out and thinks that you’re not smart enough, yes you are. You’re you’re way smart enough, and I think it is complex, complex, small [00:26:10] OG: man. [00:26:10] You’re good enough. Damn it. You smart enough and dog like people like you. [00:26:14] Joe: Absolutely. All right. We’ll dive into more on this topic. I, I love this headline because of all the different areas we covered. I mean, we talked about diversification, getting a little bit under the hood. We talked about tax implications and mutual funds and exchange traded funds. [00:26:29] There’s so much here in just one seemingly simple headline that I really like. We’ll link to it in our show notes at stacky Benjamins dot com if you wanna read it for yourself. In just a moment, we are going to have our TikTok minute am we’ll answer a call from a stacker who’s wondering about tax optimization. [00:26:49] OG: Hmm. We gonna do all that? Don’t buy Vanguard funds first. [00:26:51] Joe: Doug’s, there’s our lesson. I. Doug’s got in this case? No, apparently Doug’s got some trivia though, Doug. What’s untapped today? [00:27:04] Doug: Hey there, stackers. I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor Doug. And it’s Oprah Winfrey’s birthday today. You know what that means? You get a car and you get a car, and you get a car. Whoa, whoa. Hold. Okay. Sorry. I, I did that wrong. I mean, I wasn’t promising cars to. Both of our stackers. I was just doing the whole Oprah thingy where she says the you could nevermind on today’s date. [00:27:28] Speaking of cars, a Manheim Germany based car creator patented his first successful gasoline driven automobile engine on today’s date, way back in 1886. Here’s the question. What was his name? I’ll be back right after I go fill up OGs Mercedes with fuel. That should make ’em less grumpy. Yeah, right. [00:28:01] Hey there, stackers. I’m gas go-getter and guy who celebrates getting gas with some ice cream. Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, you know. I mean, you can’t resist. I see what you did there. They’ve got those great stores in there with all the good, [00:28:16] Joe: healthy food, gas and ice cream. Sounds like some lactose intolerant going on to me, dude. [00:28:20] Yeah, [00:28:21] Doug: they sell [00:28:21] Joe: Imodium too. [00:28:23] Doug: You know how Oprah likes to give away cars? Today’s trivia question is about a German car manufacturer whose company has made lots of Benjamins. Well back then they were Franks or Franks, or no, probably Deutsche Marks. I don’t know, but I guess now they’re Euros. Here was the question. [00:28:41] What Manheim Germany auto manufacturer patented the gas powered engine on today’s date back in 1886? The answer, it was none other than the great Carl Benz. That’s Carl with a K, whose name now of course, represents half of the Mercedes-Benz name. Hey, Oprah. If for your birthday you’d like to give me a Mercedes-Benz. [00:29:04] I’m in. I’ll even go on camera for that. And now back to the guys driving this podcast, Joe and og. [00:29:14] Joe: Oh, how, how great would that be? You get a Mercedes and you get a Mercedes. No, I don’t want one. Oh, but I gotta pay the tax on it. I don’t wanna pay the tax. Yeah, yeah. That’s where they get you. It’s on the tax. [00:29:24] That’s how they get you, [00:29:27] Doug: uh, interesting. Carl Benz. Yeah. And you know, Mercedes was actually his daughter. That’s where the other half of that came from. He named it after his daughter. Bens did? Yeah, I think so. We should look that up, but I think so, [00:29:42] Joe: yes. I’ll let you look it up when we get on with the TikTok minute, Doug. [00:29:45] This is the part of the show where we shine the light on the TikTok Crater is doing something brilliant or air quotes brilliant. I love the steam coming out of OGs. Uh [00:29:52] OG: oh, geez. Life was so good for that little bit of time. Do you remember that back a couple weeks ago? Remember we had that day when all that time people were like, oh, I. [00:30:02] I guess I have to do something else other than sit on my phone. [00:30:05] Joe: Oh, you’ll love the latest conspiracy theory on time. They’re like, Hmm. They had to change over the servers so that all of the people got together, something involving, uh, mark Zuckerberg, and they were changing over the servers, and so they shut it down long enough so they could do that. [00:30:21] They ostensibly said, we’re shutting it down. No, we’re not. And allowed them now to really, really work against us as if they weren’t before. Some people with way too much time on their hands, ostensibly me. [00:30:34] OG: I was gonna say you were, you were pretty in a, your panties weren’t it? Twist when TikTok went down, [00:30:40] Joe: it was crazy. [00:30:41] Hey, uh, here’s somebody who, um, who, well, it turns out og, she thought she had way more money than she did. At least her, her kids thought she had way more money than she did. [00:30:52] aftershow: Okay? [00:30:53] tiktok: I realize today that my three-year-old thinks we own the Buffalo Bills. Every time I go to work or my husband goes to work, they always ask, how come you have to go to work and you can’t stay home? [00:31:01] And of course we say. We gotta pay the bills. So today my husband’s at work and I’m at home with the kids and somebody asked, how come Daddy didn’t have off this week? And my 3-year-old said, because he has to pay Josh Allen. I didn’t know that that’s how that worked. ULAs, I’m, I’m coming for your job. [00:31:22] Joe: She owns the Buffalo Bills, apparently. [00:31:24] Nice. According to her. 3-year-old. Isn’t that great? We gotta pay the bills. It’s cool. The Buffalo Bills specifically thanks to Jane for sending that to me. That was hilarious, Jane. Uh, nice work. If you see something either interesting, wild or, uh, well to OGs point, some weirdness online. Some talk. Talk. Yeah. [00:31:44] Speaking of some. Interesting things on social media that may or may not be true. We got a, we received a note on Instagram from Matt Julian. Matt found something on Instagram OG that, you know, looks pretty legit. This person wrote that, uh, you can do remote triaging online as a job. Are you familiar with remote triaging? [00:32:07] Listen to this as a remote triager, an online sales rep. Your job is simple. You reply to dms on behalf of business owners and book sales calls, or you help take those calls. Once a deal’s closed, you can make upwards of $250 to a thousand dollars for every deal. Nice. Beginners are making three to $10,000 per month and they work three to four hours a day. [00:32:31] Sweet. Yeah. It’s good work if you can get it. Thanks, Matt. Mm-hmm. It doesn’t sound scammy at all to me. Uh, remote triager. Remote Triager. So good. [00:32:43] OG: Don’t even have to go to medical school. [00:32:44] Joe: No, that’s a broken arm. Apparently. You don’t have to. I got it. Broken. Wait a minute. I know what that is. Next. Next. [00:32:53] OG: I’m exhausted from that. [00:32:54] Yes, you definitely have tetanus. That is a nail in your foot [00:32:59] Doug: next. Wow. I haven’t seen goiter in years. [00:33:02] Joe: I think you’ve been bit by a squirrel. I. So many, so many things, Doug, uh, apparently speaking of that, you don’t need to be a doctor to, uh, pontificate about the trivia and where the name Mercedes came from. [00:33:14] Doug: No, you can just make it up and, but when I say it, it sounded like I knew what I was talking about. Right. You said it with confidence. I know. That’s the key to everything and, uh, I mean, I was in the neighborhood. But, uh, as it turns out, Mercedes was somebody’s daughter, but not Carl Benz’s, Carl with K. [00:33:33] There was another guy who way back when in the early days of Daimler and Meach who were building these vehicles, it was the dude named Je and Neck who would buy them and then turn ’em into race cars, and it was his daughter, Mercedes Jeek. Where the name Mercedes came from. So I mean, it’s very complicated. [00:33:54] There were a bunch of German engineering guys involved, but it was this Jeek guy’s daughter, Emil Jeek, who was making race cars outta Mercedes. That’s true. And imagine [00:34:03] Joe: she just got her name on a brand forever and ever. [00:34:06] Doug: Yeah, and I think she was kinda like the woman who designed the Nike Swoop Swoosh. I don’t think Mercedes did get any. [00:34:13] She got [00:34:13] Joe: nothing [00:34:13] Doug: out of [00:34:14] Joe: it. How much did the Nike Swoosh person get paid? Off the top of my head, I think that was like. 80 bucks. [00:34:19] Doug: Yeah. Somewhere less than a hundred for sure. Yeah. [00:34:22] Joe: Let’s go to something that we do know the answer to, which is overrated. We can answer, we can answer Somebody who said, you know what? [00:34:29] I better call Saul. See, hi and og. This is part of the show where we help a stacker in need. And this stacker wanted to be anonymous, so, uh, let’s say his name is, oh gee, what’s the name of your favorite wrestler? I. Hulk Hogan. Hulk, his name is Hulk. Hey Hulk. [00:34:52] caller: Hey Joan. Og, I’d like to get your opinion, Doug, you can keep your opinion to yourself. [00:34:57] I don’t trust your decision making capacity after what I’ve seen at the Sizzler. So here’s my question. At what point do you give up tax optimization for flexibility? I’m a 37-year-old physician with a total household income of about $380,000 a year. I have a 4 0 3 B and 4 57 B. My wife has a 401k, all of which you max out. [00:35:14] We also max an HSA two backdoor Roth IRAs and fund our kids five 20 nines up to the state tax deduction limit each year. My employer also graciously puts $40,000 each year into my 4 0 3 B all said and done. I can save about $140,000 or about a third of my total compensation and tax favored retirement accounts. [00:35:31] All accounts have good investment options and are only debt Is a 500,000 mortgage at 2.75%. We currently have about $650,000 saved in pre-tax, 200 in Roth, 30 in HSAs, 30 in taxable, and about 60 in cash for an emergency fund or opportunity fund, as Joe likes to call it. So my question is, when do I start optimizing for flexibility? [00:35:51] I figure at some point I should start putting more money in taxable, but it pains me to pay more in taxes than necessary. My thought is to keep doing what I’m doing for the next five to 10 years, then back off of my pre-tax accounts to focus on taxable and paying on the house. What are your thoughts? [00:36:04] Also, should I get a shirt that fits me now, or a shirt that I aspire to fit into? Maybe that can be a question for your next Better call Saul. See. Hi. Anyway, thanks. See ya. [00:36:14] Doug: I, I mean, I order shrimp one time at the Sizzler and suddenly my decision making is called into question. It’s time to reflect on those [00:36:22] Joe: decisions. [00:36:23] Time to reflect. Doug. Hey Hulk. Thanks for the call. I dunno if I call Dr. Hogan, Dr. Hulk, to you? Yeah, Dr. Hogan. I would love to have his problem. It’s a fantastic problem to have, doing a great job of saving, able to put a lot of money away, but, oh gee, it is a great question. When do you look at tax flexibility versus, you know, trying to avoid the tax man as much as possible today? [00:36:49] OG: Well, I think the easiest solution to all of this to kinda keep the contributions the same, uh, would be to flip 4 0 3 B or 401k contributions to Roth. Since you have so much money coming in pre-tax from your employer matching contributions, maybe your spouse has employer matching contributions also, those are gonna be pretax and you also have a big pre-tax bucket already. [00:37:12] That’s kind of the flexibility that I would look at is just flipping those numbers from all being pre-taxed to maybe some of your contributions being being Roth. The reality is, is that at the end of the day, there’s no free lunch. If you stop all of your contributions, and let’s say you’re out there maxing out your 401k right now, and you’re putting in the 23 5, and you say, well, if I put that in my Roth instead, isn’t that better? [00:37:35] And it might be better than today, but I do know for a fact that it’s gonna cost you six or seven or $8,000 in taxes today. You know you’re taxable. Your tax bill rather is gonna go up by a bunch because you’re gonna have another $24,000 of taxable income compared to the year prior. Maybe the right idea is to change it over a period of years, right? [00:37:56] So make it make a 5% change every year, or a 10% change in your contribution every year for 10 years to kinda get it up to a hundred percent Roth. There’s really no correct answer here. If you’re thinking about it from the perspective of, well, I might wanna be financially independent early, and I’m concerned about having a bunch of IRA money that I can’t touch. [00:38:18] The IRS doesn’t care when you retire. They just care that you retire. So you can always access your retirement money if you’re retired, what they prevent you from doing or strongly encourage you to not do by penalizing you is touching your retirement money before you’re retired. So that’s not really a concern, um, that I see it anyway in terms of, uh, early retirement considerations. [00:38:40] The other thing to look at also is, you know, you’re making 350 grand right now. Is that number likely to stay the same? You know, as time goes on, it’ll probably increase. Depending on your specialty and depending on, you know, I mean just even cost of living changes, um, but generally speaking, it’s gonna increase. [00:38:58] So, you know, it sounds really grotesque to say, but you might actually be in the lowest tax bracket you’re gonna ever be in right now, and the right answer is to go after tax today. So there is no correct answer to this. It’s just knowing the domino that’s gonna fall in the tax bucket. So that you’re prepared to withstand that. [00:39:17] The worst that happens is you change it all. You go, oh, we’re gonna go all 401k right now. We’re all gonna go Roth, or we’re gonna put all that 140 k or as much as we can into our brokerage account instead, and you’re ill prepared for the tax bill that’s gonna happen because of that. It doesn’t make it right or wrong because you’re trying to solve for a problem that we have no idea, uh, or solve for a solution that has an unknowable future, which is what are the tax rates gonna be in the year of your distribution? [00:39:43] In, you know, 20, 40, whatever, when you decide to take money out. And by the way, how much are you gonna take out and how are you gonna start? You know, we just can’t answer that. So I think that what you’re doing right now is fine. I might, if I was gonna make a change, I would make the change to be more Roth 401k focused, because you have the excess cash flow clearly by saving 150 grand a year, and you’re well behind. [00:40:07] In terms of balance. If, if you’re thinking about it, if balance was a requirement, which it’s certainly not, but if it were, if you were thinking, I want this to be 50 50, you’re never gonna catch it because never, your company’s putting 40 grand in and you’re behind by 400,000 right now. So it’s gonna be really hard to catch up. [00:40:24] Not that you should, I’m just saying, you know, maybe the first change is allocating more money to Roth 401k contributions. In the future, just kind of drip that in over the next little [00:40:34] Joe: bit. How much does he do for that? Just as much as he can stomach, you know, if he’s looking at his tax bill, like how much additional tax bill he can stomach. [00:40:41] OG: Well, the reality is, is that day one is gonna be the most painful because you’re not used to it. Yeah. That’s why, you know, it makes a lot of sense when you’re young to set up all those savings and automate all that stuff. You know, you, you, you graduate college and you get your first job and it’s $60,000 a year. [00:40:58] You better be saving 25%, you know? Because that’s, if you don’t save it now, it’s gonna take you until you make 600,000 to be able to save 25% again. You know what I mean? Like you’ll just use it up and you better be Roth because you don’t know any better. But now that he knows and he goes, well, my tax bill last year was a hundred grand. [00:41:14] I do this, it’s gonna be 110. My God, that’s ridiculous. It’s only ridiculous ’cause you know about the hundred. If you didn’t know about the hundred, then one 10 is one 10. It only matters in the comparison. So honestly, I. I would probably change it over a period of years between the doctor and his spouse. [00:41:31] They’ve got $47,000 that’s going in 4 0 1 Ks right now. Maybe this year you do 20% of that, and then next year you do another 20 and you know, it takes you five years to kind of move into it. You could also get really strategic and say, well, my pay rate went this year from, you know, I went from three 80 to 3 97 in payroll, so I got 17,000 to play with. [00:41:55] You know, like you could, you could really get just the, yeah, just whatever extra you make net after tax, you allocate to the tax bill to, to kinda account for it. But it sounds like there’s so much extra fluff in the budget that Sure. It’s. You know, it’s whatever you wanna do. It’s [00:42:11] Joe: gonna pay off later though, uh, Dr. [00:42:14] Hogan, it’s gonna, it, it will pay off later to get that flexibility that you’re looking for. And I also, uh, second that emotion og starting earlier, better than better starting late. And clearly to your point too, he’s gonna be fine if he just keeps doing what he’s doing. Right? Yeah. I’ve never [00:42:29] OG: talked to anybody that’s like, oh God, my life sucks, man. [00:42:32] I got 7 million in my IRA. Right? Sucks bro. I couldn’t do it. It’s just part of the deal. It’s a nice start. Good job. [00:42:40] Joe: Thanks for the question, Dr. Hogan. If you’ve got a question for us, Stacking Benjamins dot com slash voicemail is the way to get there. And you know what? We reward people to call in with the shirt that, uh, Dr. [00:42:51] Hogan talked about and you know what’s cool? We’re gonna send you a code and, uh, you get to decide whether it’s aspirational, but I think he should go for the aspirational. I think medium. You should say yes. S medium. Yep. Because he’ll also look really ripped in that thing, right? While he’s on his journey. [00:43:08] I mean. I guess it depends on which way he’s going. [00:43:11] OG: Yes, if he’s, depends on the aspirations, [00:43:13] Joe: right? If he’s building it really, really, really big ’cause he doesn’t have the muscles, I don’t know. We’re going [00:43:18] OG: Beachbody or are we going winter warmth. [00:43:20] Joe: Yeah. [00:43:21] OG: Which way you headed buddy? [00:43:22] Joe: Not sure what he’s aspiring to. [00:43:24] It’s all individual goals. Stacking Benjamins dot com slash voicemail gets you there. Let’s. Journey out to our community segment of the show before we say goodbye, which is what we call the back porch. Next Thursday guys, I will be in Seattle. I should be in Bellevue right next to Seattle. Isn’t that an insane asylum, Joe? [00:43:44] I’ll be Doug’s like. It’s about time that you’ve figured out. Stacking Benjamins dot com slash meetup. Thursday night, six 30 I will be in, uh, Bellevue, which is the same place where I will be speaking on Saturday. Well, I’m gonna be in a different place ’cause we’re gonna be at a place where there’s beer, text Bellevue. [00:44:04] This is one of those cool places, guys, where they have, uh, serve yourself beers that could be dangerous. Like you walk up to the tap and you’ve got a little QR code. [00:44:13] Doug: And I just learned about these. There’s one of those in Michigan here that I just learned about and yeah, you get. You have to scan your QR code every time. [00:44:21] Scan your code? Yeah. Like is there somebody watching you or could you just sort of like fake scan it and then pour? [00:44:27] Joe: I don’t know. I, but if there’s a system, Doug will find a way. It’ll be free beer. Just, just what we wanna emphasize. Cheating the system. I can’t wait. I’ve never been to a place that has, uh, poor yourself, peers. [00:44:42] So, uh, people can make some fun videos of Joe, I’m sure. Dancing on the tables, whatever it might be. Stacky Benjamins dot com slash God. You [00:44:50] Doug: don’t wanna see Joe Dance. We’re, we really don’t want that. [00:44:53] Joe: Every time we play that pre-video on YouTube. Oh my God, Joe dancing. Not great. You guys are gonna be at Tahoe. [00:45:02] We don’t have the place yet, but you’ll be there near the end of February. [00:45:06] Doug: I think we do. We’re gonna be there on the 19th, right? Wednesday. And, uh, right now it looks like we’re gonna be at Mcpe Tap House. Six to eight. Six to eight [00:45:14] OG: BYOB [00:45:15] Doug: Mcpe, tap house six to eight. I will. They let you BYOB. Everybody’s walking with their, with their own alcohol. [00:45:23] It’s Nevada, I mean, everything’s legal in Nevada. Yeah. Bring your own, [00:45:27] Joe: just, just bring it on in. Wait, we’re going to Nevada. [00:45:31] OG: We are a new place to meet, new place. I’ll talk to you after [00:45:34] Joe: Stacking Benjamins dot com slash meetup. It’s gonna be fun. All right. That’s gonna do it for today, Doug. You’ve got it from here. [00:45:41] Ma’am, what should we have learned on today’s show? [00:45:43] Doug: Oh, actually, it is on the corner. Mcpe tap House is on the state line. It’s probably 40 feet from Nevada. We’re gonna be in California. Dang it. I’ll let you do anything in California, [00:46:00] bit: but [00:46:01] Doug: here’s what else we should have learned today. First, take some advice from our headline. Using a target date fund. Set up your own target date fund. You’ll avoid fees better understand what you’re doing, and avoid losing out on returns because someone arbitrarily decided to drop the stocks in your portfolio. [00:46:18] Second bills, yeah, I got bills. Just not the Buffalo bills, but hey, I mean Josh Allen, you want help with how to spend that paycheck. We’re here for you, buddy, but the big lesson. Don’t ask Joe’s mom about a round of hot chocolate. ’cause she’ll start singing that song from polar expression to the one where it’s like, never ever let it cool. [00:46:41] Keep it cooking in the pot. Soon you got hot chocolate, God, that just gets in your head. Hot, hot, hot. Oh god. Now it’s in my head. Son of a, this show is the Property of SP podcasts, LLC, copyright 2025, and is created by Joe Saul-Sehy. Joe gets some help from a few of our neighborhood friends. You’ll find out about our awesome team at Stacking Benjamins dot com, along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spot. [00:47:13] Come say hello. Oh yeah. And before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don’t take advice from people you don’t know. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I’m Joe’s Mom’s neighbor, Duggan. We’ll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show. [00:48:29] aftershow: While I was [00:48:29] Joe: online, I saw this, uh, this fantastic tale. That I’d like to play for you. [00:48:39] movie trailer: Okay. Quick walk of shame story time. So I used to live in the DC area and at the time I was dating this man who lived in a very nice condo building in Logan’s Circle. One night after many Binos, I find myself waking up in his apartment, 6:00 AM still drunk. I carefully peel back on my leather pants and I tiptoe out of there to get to my car that is parked in the residence garage. [00:49:03] Below the condo as I’m getting into the elevator, his neighbor catches the doors just in time to join me for the ride his neighbor, Supreme Court Justice. So. I look at her and I fire breathe. Jack Daniels onto her. As I say, good morning. She looks me up and down and because I can’t just stay quiet. No, I have to say something. [00:49:26] I look at her and I say, judging started a little early this morning, huh? She says nothing. The door’s open to find two US marshals there to greet her, to assist her, escort her to her armored vehicle, to take her to her job at the Supreme Court. So Sonia, if you’re seeing this girl, remember me in the leather pans. [00:49:51] The same TikTok for me, for, uh, for us. I’m so sorry. I said that. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I said that [00:50:00] Doug: judging started a little early this [00:50:01] Joe: morning. [00:50:02] Doug: I think what you miss in the audio version of that is she sort of demonstrates the way that Sotomayor scanned her up and down with disgust. [00:50:12] Joe: I dunno, man, you couldn’t hear that. [00:50:14] I heard that pretty loud and clear. Judging starting a little early, huh? I love those moments though. When you say something and you’re like, oh, put it back in. Put it back in, please. [00:50:28] Doug: Oh yeah. I did that [00:50:28] Joe: a long time ago at a, uh, Detroit Pistons basketball game. [00:50:32] Doug: Oh, I had one there too. That I regret. What was yours? [00:50:36] I’m not telling mine, but what was yours? [00:50:38] Joe: I was, I was, this is back when, uh, grant Hill played for the Pistons and I had had a ton to drink and he had a new pair of shoes out called the Fila Hills. And they were, this had this weird, they were like white shoes with this blue stripe that went right up the middle. [00:50:54] And, uh, I, after halftime, my buddy and I, we were sitting courtside, by the way, we were in those folding chairs on the scoreboard. Yes. And I was sitting in the second row and, uh, I’m sure we were just getting louder, more obnoxious. But Grant Hillwood inbounds right in front of us when they do it from about. [00:51:14] The free throw line ish. That was where we were at. And uh, I remember he comes over and he stands right in front of us and after he inbounds, I’m like, oh God, those shoes are so ugly. Okay. I decided, I decided I hate the shoes. And then I was trying to crack a joke and I said, but I wonder if he gets paid. [00:51:31] You think he gets paid to wear those? The dude sitting right in front of me turns around. His face is beet red. He shoves a cart in my face and goes, hell yeah, he does a lot. And, uh, call me sometime and I’ll tell you it’s the Fila rep. Right in front [00:51:48] Doug: of me. You were just doing, you were giving him free market research is all you were doing, Joe, that doesn’t sound that bad to me. [00:51:54] But you know what’s funny [00:51:55] Joe: was that then he turned around later. He goes very seriously. I don’t give a shit what old men like you think? He goes, you’re not my target market. Oh, he was. He was not happy. [00:52:05] Doug: Wow. That took him a long time to think of that comeback, though. I don’t, yeah, he doesn’t get any points for that. [00:52:10] No. No. I just thought he was a jerk. Fila. Yeah, guy. You were a jerk. Bet he’s listening the Supreme Court justice. Maybe do it a little judging how, Hey, you know what, that’s what we need. If you’re a famous person listening to us, let us know. I mean, it’d be great if you did it in the basement, but just, just so we know, we’ve got some firepower listening to us. [00:52:33] Joe: Have you heard that story? Uh, Peter Frampton told this story on, um. [00:52:39] OG: No, I haven’t heard it. [00:52:41] Joe: He listens to us. Peter Frampton told the story on, and I believe it was Howard Stern, about how he was in the elevator on his way to go get ready for his gig. And most people, even from the seventies who would even know who Peter Frampton is, don’t realize that he is now bald versus that long man of hair that he had. [00:53:01] Yeah. And so he was just trying to make conversation people at the elevator and they’re like, oh, we’re going to see this one washed up guy. They were totally [00:53:10] rip him. He’s like, imagine what happened when I come out and I am, uh, the washed up guy that they were going to see. They’re like, yeah, we got free tickets. Somebody offered us. We really don’t want to go, but didn’t have anything else going on. So. [00:53:25] bit: Brutal. [00:53:26] Joe: Not good. Nice. I’d love to hear your, uh, foot in the mouth stories, like what’s something that you said stackers. [00:53:32] Call us. Either leave it on voicemail for the show or share it in the basement, but we prefer you to leave it, leave it on a voicemail so we can hear your Supreme Court justice story. [00:53:41] Doug: Yeah, we need a lot more audience participation that we can put on an episode. Bring it. Yeah, bring it stackers.
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