A new study just confirmed what most people in their 40s already feel but rarely say out loud: running out of money is scarier than death. Gen X is leading that number at 73% — and the reasons why make a lot of sense when you look at what that generation is actually navigating. No pensions. Rising costs. Longer retirements. Markets that never seem to settle. Joe, OG, and Len Penzo dig into the data, the psychology, and the practical steps that actually move the needle.
What You’ll Walk Away With
- Why Gen X is more worried about retirement than either baby boomers or millennials — and the pension gap that explains most of it
- The Social Security stress test OG recommends for every retirement plan — and why neither he nor Len think it’s going away
- Why checking your portfolio every time the market drops is one of the most expensive habits a long-term investor can have
- The automation argument that cuts through the discipline myth — and why your systems matter far more than your willpower
- Why the debt normalization shift that happened sometime in the late 1970s is still costing people their retirement today
- The three-layer retirement income framework OG and Anna walk through — Social Security, pensions and annuities, and investment withdrawals — and how to find your gap number
- The 4% rule explained in plain math — including the inflation adjustment most people skip and why it matters enormously
- What sequence of return risk actually means in practice — and the floor strategy that keeps you from panic-selling at exactly the wrong moment
- Why running out of money in retirement is mostly a planning problem, not a math problem — and what that distinction changes
- The ongoing battle to name OG and Anna’s financial basics segment — and why “The Financial Dwarves with Happy and Grumpy” didn’t make the cut
Why This Matters Now
If you’re in your 40s and that 67% statistic landed somewhere uncomfortable, you’re not behind — you’re paying attention. The gap between fear and a plan is smaller than most people think, and this episode maps it out in terms you can actually act on this week. The math is real, the tools exist, and the biggest obstacle for most people isn’t knowledge. It’s starting.
From the Basement
Joe, OG, and Len Penzo dig into a sobering Investment News study on retirement fears before OG and Anna kick off season two of their financial basics series with a full retirement income planning walkthrough — complete with a guidebook you can download and follow along. Doug arrives with Festivus trivia that everyone over 40 finds insultingly easy. The segment naming debate continues with no resolution in sight, though The Study and The Financial Dwarves with Happy and Grumpy both made spirited cases.
Resources Mentioned
Stacking Benjamins Community — stackingbenjamins.com/basement
Len Penzo — lenpenzo.com; book: True Money Stories on Amazon
JP Morgan Guide to the Markets — search “JP Morgan Guide to the Markets” for monthly market data
SSA.gov — Social Security earnings history and benefit projections
Stacking Benjamins Basics Guide — season one and season two workbooks free at stackingbenjamins.com/basicsguide
Stacking Benjamins Vault — stackingbenjamins.com/vault
Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.stackingbenjamins.com/201
Enjoy!
Our Headline
Doug’s Trivia
- May 11 is the birthday of Jerry Stiller, who played George Costanza’s father on a hit 1990s TV show. His character gave us the modern holiday “Festivus,” complete with the airing of grievances and feats of strength. On what TV show did Jerry Stiller’s character create “Festivus for the rest of us”?
Have a question for the show?
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Other Mentions
- Allianz Life Study Finds Fear Of Running Out of Money Over Death At Record High | Allianz Life
- my Social Security | SSA
- Guide to the Markets | J.P. Morgan Asset Management
Join Us Wednesday
Tune in on Wednesday when we’ll help you build a better foundation with the woman whose New York Times bestseller propelled her all the way to helping the president’s financial literacy council…it’s the one-and-only Beth Kobliner.
Written by: Kevin Bailey
Miss our last show? Listen here: GREATEST HITS WEEK 40 Things to Do TODAY to Take Control of Your Money SB1839
Episode transcript
[00:00:00] Joe: We are back, and we brought a guest. Well, is he really a guest? He’s like the houseguest that, uh, you know, when you got the spare room, you’re like, “Oh, that’s Len’s room.” [00:00:10] Len: I still have the key, Joe. I still have the key. You know I’ve never turned it in. [00:00:14] Joe: Well, and we know that- … Mom likes you better than us anyway, so I mean, let’s be realistic. [00:00:19] Joe: Mr. Penzo. How you been? [00:00:21] Len: I’m doing pretty well, but you know, this, r- get retired and you… I’ve just been feeling old and- [00:00:26] Joe: Oh, boy … [00:00:27] Len: and, uh, yeah, I g- c- can’t help it. And unfortunately for me, last week I was, you know, I was walking by the cemetery and two guys attacked me with shovels, so I know I’m really, really getting old. [00:00:37] Joe: Oh my God. He’s back. [00:00:40] Len: Maybe too old. [00:00:41] Joe: You know he’s, you know he’s back. [00:00:43] Len: Doug’s shaking his head. Yeah, that was not, not good, Doug. I [00:00:46] Doug: mean, [00:00:46] Len: it’s [00:00:46] Doug: fine. No. It’s not going in the Len Hall of Fame, but it’s, it’s okay. [00:00:52] Joe: Everybody can’t hear the dagger stares that OG and Doug are giving to Len right now. Like, really? [00:00:58] Joe: It’s a Monday. [00:00:59] Len: I’m used to OG giving them to me, but, but when I… When Doug’s shaking his head, I really am… I know that’s a- Yeah … that was a disaster. Be better. [00:01:05] Joe: I think that means you’re winning, Len. That means you’re winning. Okay. Okay. It does. Well, the, uh, not only do we have Len with us, of course we have this tradition, if you’re new here, that we start off every Monday with, so everybody raise your mugs, ’cause we’re gonna salute those men and women who kept us safe during the off week and this last, uh, wonderful weekend that we all had. [00:01:23] Joe: So big thanks to the troops. Here’s to you. Thank you for all that you do. On behalf of the men and women stacking benjamins around the world and the men and women in mom’s basement cranking out podcasts that we can all learn from, thanks for all you do. So I’ll go stack them together now, shall we? [00:01:40] Doug: Thanks, everybody. [00:01:42] opener: Here’s the song that we’d like to do for all the younger set of people, the teenagers and what have you. This one’s called Vacation’s Over. Vacation’s over. It’s over. It’s over [00:02:03] Doug: Live from Joe’s mom’s basement, it’s The Stacking Benjamins Show. [00:02:18] Doug: I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and did you miss us last week? Course you did. We missed you, too, and to prove it, we’re pulling out all the stops. A new study shows that Americans are more worried than ever that they haven’t put enough away for retirement. How do we fix that? We’ve got lots of solutions. [00:02:36] Doug: And to celebrate another eight weeks of Money Basics, we welcome back Anna, Alum and OG with season two of their hit segment, which we still haven’t named yet. I feel like we’re setting up for a big, like, cliffhanger at the end of the season, Joe. We’ll also share some more ideas from our Stacker community, and I know what you’re thinking. [00:02:58] Doug: “What about the trivia, Doug? Gotta have trivia.” I got you, Stacker, and I’m right here ready to help you amaze all your friends with another money-themed trivia question. And who knows? If I’m feeling generous, might even give you the answer. And now, three guys who are the answer to the trivia question: what do you get when you put three money nerds in a room who love talking about money? [00:03:20] Doug: Here come Joe, OG, and Len P- P- P- Penzo. Hey [00:03:27] Joe: there, Stackers. Happy Monday. So happy to be back with you. We had a great week. We’re rested, we’re ready, but we still brought in reinforcements anyway because, as you heard in the introduction, Mr. Penzo’s here. How have you been, fine sir? You are on mute. That’s how you’ve been. [00:03:46] Joe: He goes away for just a couple weeks, and he- He’s [00:03:48] Len: like, “I probably forget.” As you know, you get older, you forget all these things. Yes, okay, the button is off. I- hopefully you can hear me. I’m just fine. Just fine. Old, but just fine. [00:03:57] Joe: Do we got the dog snoring behind us today so we get a little extra? [00:04:00] Len: Not yet. [00:04:00] Len: He’s, uh… No, he’s in the bedroom, but, uh, he may make an appearance before this is all over. [00:04:04] Joe: Perfect. ‘ [00:04:05] Len: Cause I know these things always run on time, right? You always run on, so I’m sure, uh, yeah, he’ll be- he’ll be there. [00:04:10] Joe: We, we always give Len a time that we’re gonna record- … and we generally start about 20 minutes later. [00:04:15] Joe: Uh, Mom makes us vacuum the floor, dust everything- … because we’re having company. Yes. And a guy who is best with a feather duster, Mr. OG, is here. How are you, man? [00:04:27] OG: My favorite is, uh, when I wear that, you know, sexy maid outfit with the feather duster. That’s exactly what I [00:04:31] Doug: was thinking. [00:04:32] OG: I know it was. That’s exactly what I was picturing again. [00:04:35] OG: I know it [00:04:35] Doug: was what you were thinking about, Doug. [00:04:37] OG: In that [00:04:37] Joe: little fluffy skirt. Yeah. Can’t it be our favorite, too? It c- I think it can be all of our favorites. Did you have a good week off, a good, uh, greatest hits week, OG? [00:04:43] OG: I did. Yeah. It was fantastic. Wife’s birthday and Cinco de Mayo- At the same time [00:04:49] Joe: I know [00:04:50] OG: who doesn’t like mayo? That’s what I say. Like, put that on everything. We’re a Duke’s family. Hellmann’s is garbage. [00:04:56] Joe: Wow, hot take out here already, Len. It’s early in the show and we already got the [00:05:00] Len: hot take. He’s already revealing where you live. You, you must live east of the Rockies. There’s no such thing as Hellmann’s out here on the West Coast. [00:05:06] Joe: There isn’t, really? [00:05:07] Len: It’s Best Foods. [00:05:08] Joe: But it’s the same stuff- Oh … just called Best Foods. Hellmann’s is [00:05:10] OG: garbage. [00:05:11] Len: Same company. We use [00:05:11] OG: Duke’s. [00:05:12] Len: Same company. So. Well, they’re both garbage anyways. Okay. I’m not a big mayo fan. You know what’s funny is I hate mayo- Oh, shut up … unless it’s in tuna salad. I’ll eat it in tuna salad. [00:05:21] Len: It’s kind of like the people that don’t, you know, they, they won’t eat ketchup, or they hate tomatoes. I’m sorry, they hate tomatoes, but they’ll eat ketchup. Or they’ll eat, uh, you know, spaghetti sauce, but they hate tomatoes. I hate mayo unless you put it in tuna salad. [00:05:33] Joe: That’s, that’s two hot takes already. [00:05:36] Joe: No mayo for me. Tuna. Well, the food discussion’s not gonna cost you any extra. But the big discussion, which I think you wanna hang out for, Stackers, we’re gonna talk about some new data that, uh, I read about in Investment News. This is not good. This is definitely not good. A lot of people with a lot of retirement fears. [00:05:55] Joe: So Len has been, uh, retired for a little while now, so he’s gonna help us work through some of this data, also talk about some of these pain points and how we get by them. But first, we got a couple sponsors who help us keep on keeping on. We have one sponsor spot now, and one in the middle of Doug’s trivia later on in the show, so you can think about it. [00:06:12] Joe: And then we’re ad free besides that. But maybe our biggest sponsor, of course, is that we finally have a product that helps you get rid of those seven different apps in your wallet, and you just have one. It helps you protect your privacy, getting your name off of all those lists, protect your credit, run credit what-ifs, look at your budget, track your net worth and more. [00:06:35] Joe: Dump the seven-app approach and go to one with The Vault. Stackingbenjamins.com/vault gets you there. All right, we have just a couple more, and then Len, OG, Doug, and I, we’re gonna dive into some troubling retirement numbers and see how we can stack the deck for you to make your best retirement ever. [00:06:54] headlines: Hello, darlings. And now it’s time for your favorite part of the show, our Stacking Benjamins headlines. Our [00:07:01] Joe: headline today comes to us from Investment News. And for people that don’t know what that is, because this, this is an industry rag, it truly is not, uh, the type of thing usually that financial advisors don’t read, but this is for advisors, pension fund managers, money managers, et cetera. [00:07:17] Joe: And always interesting things when you look at what advisors are worried about, and I think this is something we should all be worried about- Steve Randall writes that Americans are increasingly uneasy about their financial future, with concerns about depleting retirement savings reaching unprecedented levels. [00:07:34] Joe: A study just came out from the Alliance Center for the Future of Retirement and found that 67% of Americans now worry more about running out of money, wait for it, than dying. They worry more about running out of money- [00:07:56] Doug: Well, [00:07:56] Joe: yeah … than dying, which explains why estate planning meetings, Len, now they start with, “So how long do I have to live?” [00:08:02] Doug: When you die, the pain is over. When you’re out of money, it’s nothing but pain. [00:08:06] Joe: Right. But OG, I’ve never thought of, like, a retirement plan where dying early i- is the way to get on track with the Monte Carlo simulation, right? “Oh, no, your retirement’s on track ’cause I, I got you pegged to die fairly quickly.” [00:08:18] OG: As long as you’re out of here by 74, your retirement is amazing. [00:08:22] Joe: Uh, fear of outliving savings now the number one concern, especially Gen X. 73%, this is the high water mark of everyone. Gen X, Len, worried more about running out of money than baby boomers and than millennials. Does that surprise you? [00:08:39] Len: You know, it does a little bit, and the baby boomers, they’re older, so I can see why they may not be worried about running out of money before. [00:08:47] Len: They’re a little closer to the finish line, so to speak. But yeah, I’m a, I am a little surprised. I, I don’t know if I wanna get ahead of you, but there’s a good reason why I think a lot of people, and it mentions it in the article, why the people are more worried, especially the Gen Xers. [00:09:00] Joe: Yeah, yeah, and we definitely need to talk about that. [00:09:03] Joe: But I guess what you’re saying is baby boomers may have been more worried before, but you’re saying they’re either acro- th- they’re across that hurdle. Yeah. Like baby boomers are like, “Hey, either I got enough or I don’t, and at this point I’m fine with whatever. I’m not gonna do much to change it.” [00:09:16] Len: Yeah. [00:09:16] Len: The two things, really the two things when you retire, you’ll, you know, it’s hard to fathom when you’re younger, but as you get older, the two things really working for you in retirement and you’re extending your money is, well, one, you’re closer to the end of your life, your natural life, but two, you tend to spend less as you get older, too. [00:09:32] Len: And both of those kind of work, they help you out. Th- things might look not as bleak as when you’re younger and you’re looking at your amount that you have, but as you get older, there are those, those internal things there, uh, actually help you out from keeping you from running out of money. [00:09:46] Joe: Yeah, I mean, and, and part of it makes me think also that millennials, you know, are still far enough away from it that they’re in the, the accumulation phase, and their fear is, uh, is coming because, OG, I think that, you know, s- for a lot of Gen Xers now, it isn’t so much about saving money. [00:10:02] Joe: We’re on this track. I’ve already either built that system or I haven’t. For some people, they’re late starters, maybe they’re trying to build that system. But with these rising costs and uncertainty, I think that, um- Trying to turn your nest egg, and the complexity maybe, I don’t know, of turning your paycheck into a nest egg you cannot live. [00:10:23] Joe: Is that what you think is driving Gen X’s worry? [00:10:26] OG: It’s interesting that this is the outcome of this study because I don’t know that that’s really a thing that we hear a lot of in terms of like the primary, you know, the primary thing. Maybe that’s, maybe that really is, and we’re just not doing a great job of asking that. [00:10:43] OG: Maybe that’s the subtext of everything. But maybe it’s more of just a culmination of just a lot of different things and how they affect the overall, you know, vision of retirement or financial independence time. Whether it’s, here we go, here’s another chaotic market moment, or fears of inflation, or here’s another war that’s causing price instability in different areas of the economy. [00:11:09] OG: And, and then on top of it you’ve got the constant drumbeat of, “Oh, don’t worry about this, AI’s gonna take everybody’s job anyway in another year-” “… so” [00:11:18] Joe: Plenty of other stuff to [00:11:18] OG: worry about … “you don’t have to worry about anything.” Which obviously isn’t true. But I don’t know if this is just a by-product of media being media. [00:11:26] OG: And, and I mean, I don’t know how you could be worried about, like, stock market. It’s at an all-time high. [00:11:31] Joe: Well, they’re studying- [00:11:32] OG: You know? … [00:11:32] Joe: they’re studying individual people. So y- you’re right, maybe it is all the media around, “Man, stock market’s all-time high, we got this, all this geopolitical stuff going on. [00:11:41] Joe: Look at inflation. Who knows what’s coming around the corner?” Yeah. “The other shoe’s gonna drop.” How many years in a row have we heard the other shoe’s gonna drop, right? [00:11:48] OG: Well, eventually. Yeah, eventually it’ll go… Eventually it’s gonna crash. We are right on the precipice. I think maybe that’s just kind of a big, big broad brushstroke of, am I gonna be okay? [00:11:58] OG: And maybe that is the, the finer point of running out of money, is maybe, maybe said that way. [00:12:03] Joe: Well, on that piece about running out of money, Len, do you think there’s also something to be said for the fact that Gen X is truly the first generation where pensions really weren’t a thing for the vast majority of them? [00:12:13] Joe: Like with baby boomers, I would say a lot more baby boomers had pensions than Gen X people. Could that also be fueling this higher number? [00:12:23] Len: Yeah, it doesn’t hurt. I mean, it does help to have a pension, right? I mean, uh, I- I’m lucky, I, I actually have a pension myself, which, um, I actually cashed mine out when I retired. [00:12:32] Len: But yes, I, I mean, that’s an extra layer. I mean, who wouldn’t love to have that extra security of that pension? I mean, you layer that with your Social Security, your pension, yeah, that’s absolutely true. Those kind of worries can be taken care of when you’re young. If you plan for that stuff ahead of time, you know, that’s, that’s the thing. [00:12:49] Len: You, you, if you plan properly, you shouldn’t be having those kinds of worries. You really shouldn’t. So I mean, you, you, you take, you take care of it yourself by planning for all these contingencies ahead of time, and they can all be taken care of. [00:13:01] Joe: Yeah. I wanna walk through those, Len, in a second. But I also think another issue, OG- Might be the fact, and you’ve talked about this before, you know, your goal is to live to be 140? [00:13:10] OG: 140, yep. [00:13:11] Joe: I mean, longer retirement. That’s not r- this is a second career, but hopefully one that you can sustain without worrying about income. [00:13:20] OG: Yeah, I mean, there’s two ways to look at it. One way is to look at it and say, “Oh, my gosh, lifespan is increasing, so therefore I have to have s- saved so much more money.” [00:13:28] OG: Or you can look at it, I mean, I guess maybe as somewhat of my take, if healthspan and lifespan is increasing, then my productivity years is a little bit longer as well, especially since, you know, I’m in a fortunate position in that, uh, you know, I can kinda design my day-to-day activities. I know that that’s not true for everybody, but I get to spend a lot of time doing the stuff that I care most about. [00:13:49] OG: So, why would I stop doing this just because I hit some senior age like Len? [00:13:55] Len: You know what helps th- though, geez, when you’re, you’re working for yourself. [00:13:58] OG: No, 100%. That- Yeah, I recognize that. Yeah … [00:13:59] Len: that’s so much easier than, you know, somebody like me who’s stuck in the corporate world. I mean, m- I, I don’t know- Well, let’s not [00:14:04] OG: call it easier. [00:14:06] OG: Different. [00:14:06] Len: I, uh- [00:14:06] OG: Let’s… I, I [00:14:07] Len: will- … yeah, poor choice of words. I’m sorry. You’re right. It’s not. No, it’s- But you have [00:14:09] Joe: the flexibility, I think, is what you’re saying, Len. [00:14:11] OG: Yeah, the flexibility helps, and the, and I believe real strongly in how we’ve tried to design, you know, the people that we work with on our team and stuff a- as well, is, you know, if you spend a bunch of time just doing the things that you’re uniquely good at, you know, your energy stays high. [00:14:26] OG: You avoid the things that are frustrating. And I recognize, Len, for the vast majority of people, y- y- y- you can’t go to your boss and go, “You know, I just really don’t like doing TPS reports. I’m not gonna do those things.” [00:14:36] Len: Exactly. Yeah. [00:14:37] OG: And he’s gonna go, “Yeah, okay. We’re gonna need you to come in on Sunday and fi- you know, fix this.” [00:14:41] Len: Yeah, and going back to that pension thing, I mean, back then, the working for the man in the corporate world, the pension kinda made it… You know, that was a kinda offsetting- That was the trade-off … you know, thing. Yeah. Yeah, that was your trade-off. Yeah. It’s like, hey, you get a little, you’re working for the man, but hey, you have that little extra security blanket. [00:14:54] Len: Well, you don’t have that security blanket now. So like I, I always tell most people, if you can work for yourself, work for yourself. [00:15:01] Joe: That trade-off, Len, is so strong that I remember around the turn of the century, it was 2000, another uncle had died. I’m standing next to this other uncle of mine who I hadn’t seen very often, so we’re kinda having a little bit of small talk, and he’s talking to me a little bit about being a financial planner at the time. [00:15:18] Joe: And, uh, I’m talking to him about his work. He was starting to think about retirement at that point. I said, “Man, you know, the stock market…” ‘Cause it’s early 2000, so the stock market’s been on a tear for a couple years, right? With Internet 1.0, as pets.com is going crazy and all these internet stocks going crazy. [00:15:37] Joe: And I said, “Man, your, your 401K must be doing good. Must be doing really good.” And he said, “What’s that?” Yeah. And I said, “Oh, that’s the thing that you can save into” Yeah … at the place that he works. That’s pl- the thing he could save into for retirement. And you know what he said, Len, to this pension point? He goes, he goes, “Oh, you know what? [00:15:56] Joe: We got the pension, so I never really did that. I just thought, you know, you can do that as extra.” But his employer, he was 100% sure was going to take care of him, so why save more? [00:16:07] Len: And I can kinda see that back… You know, when I started, you know, my pension was really good. If you could stick with a company for 35 years, I mean, you were… [00:16:15] Len: You’d probably be very comfortable. But, uh, around 2000, around that timeframe, a lot of… That’s when companies started saying, “We’re get- we’re out. We’re getting out. Y- we got the 401s all set up for you.” They, they would do these, um, grandfathering in. If you were hired before this date, you got the pension. [00:16:30] Len: If you’re hired after this date, sorry, nothing for you. You know, it’s 401, you’re on your own. And, and that was a big thing, and that really did change the calculus for your retirement. That put all the onus on you. That put all the ma- That, that made your responsibility for your own retirement, and you couldn’t lean on the, on the, on your own companies, like, uh, to take care of you in old age. [00:16:49] Joe: Well, l- let’s talk about some of those basics because you said, you know, if you start early on not having a pension, a lot… Most of the people I think probably listening to, to this do not have a pension. Or even if they do, they wanna consider that to be supplemental income. By the way, s- speaking of su- supplement income, before we get to this, and Doug, I’d like you to weigh in on this, too. [00:17:08] Joe: How do each of you feel about Social Security? Because another piece of this study was people are really worried about Social Security being solvent. OG, Social Security, you count it, you not count it? [00:17:19] OG: Yeah. I, uh… Look, the, the reality with Social Security is there’s never been, to my knowledge, a government program that has stopped existing. [00:17:27] OG: The downside is, is that everybody keeps kicking the can down the road. And I don’t remember the exact numbers off the top of my head, but I think it’s, like, 2034, 2033 time period, if, uh, they don’t amend anything, then benefits will be reduced by a little bit. We also know that some simple fixes to Social Security, like just changing retirement age for people under the age of 40, moving that retirement age to 70 instead of optionally at 62, while y- some people might look at that and go, “That’s BS,” it totally solves the problem mathematically. [00:17:58] OG: So it will require some pretty heavy lifting from Congress and from, you know, all the stakeholders to be able to do that. All that to say I have no problem counting it. I think if you’re, if you’re doing a stress test on your financial plan, I think it’d probably be a good idea to take half a number or something and just see what, you know, where is that breaking point in our plan if we only get half the money, if we don’t get any of the money, just to kinda feel it out, but I think it’s pretty fair to assume that there’ll be some benefits moving forward. [00:18:27] Joe: Len, did you plan on Social Security? [00:18:29] Len: I didn’t, but that being said, I’m, I’m with OG. It’s a political third rail that they will not let go Social Security go. They will do what they have to do to keep it coming. I remember looking, I saw some old political comics from the mid-’70s where it was like… I, I remember one, there was a elderly man, he’s looking at the… [00:18:49] Len: or not elderly, maybe in his 50s, about ready to retire, and he was looking at a news- a newspaper headline. It said, “Social Security will be gone by 1980.” And his daughter was looking at the, the paper and said, “Oh, look, look, Dad. You know, just in time for your retirement it’s gonna be gone.” This was back in the ’70s. [00:19:02] Len: Same fear. So this, this same fear. This is not, like, something that just came up in the last 10 years or something. This has been going on since the start of Social Security, and they’ve fixed it every time, and they’re not gonna, they’re not gonna not fix it. So I don’t think you’re making a mistake if you plan for Social Security being there as part of your, your retirement. [00:19:21] Len: But, uh, I think for planning purposes, you might wanna err on the side of cau- caution and do like OG said. Say, “Hey, maybe you’ll only get half of what you expect or maybe, you know, a quarter of it.” [00:19:31] Joe: Doug, you were nodding. [00:19:32] Doug: Well, I, I don’t have a lot additive to what Len and OG said. In fact, Len even stole the phrase I was gonna use, which is political third rail. [00:19:41] Doug: Damn [00:19:41] Joe: it, Len. Sorry. [00:19:43] Doug: So congrats, Len. [00:19:44] Len: Thank you, Doug. [00:19:44] Doug: That’s how you know you’re having a good day- Yeah … when you’re taking words out of my mouth. [00:19:47] Len: I started slow, but there we go. I’m picking it up. [00:19:49] Doug: But I will say i- in terms of stress-testing, and I think OG alluded to this, you could factor it in later. ‘Cause there are several countries around the world who have started to delay the age at which you can take retirement or any form of benefit that they have in their country, and it is very conceivable that that could happen. [00:20:10] Doug: It’ll be a lot slower here, but you could just see, if you’re stress-testing your plans, what happens if I don’t get that, I wanna retire at 62, but I don’t get to take my, you know, pen- or get my, uh, Social Security until I’m 70 or, or 73? [00:20:26] Joe: You’ve seen the US move that way over the years- Yeah … with the sliding scale over time. [00:20:30] Joe: Len, you were talking about a lot of this stuff is solvable when you’re younger, and you said there’s some things that you can do. I mean, you’ve got this discipline that you talk about this crazy thing, discipline. I mean, what’s that all about, Len? [00:20:41] Len: Yeah, what is that? [00:20:42] Joe: An anti-debt mindset. Like, how do we make sure that we don’t have to worry about all this stuff if we take care of it? [00:20:49] Joe: If we got a stacker in their 20s or 30s, what are the things they should be doing now so they don’t have to worry like these Gen Xers are today? [00:20:57] Len: Well, take advantage of everything you can, especially the low-hanging fruit. Like, if you, if you’re working for an employer and he’s offering you a 401, the match, you, you gotta do that. [00:21:05] Len: You gotta just take the match. Take the low-hanging fruit. You’ve gotta start saving. You can’t wait. And you’ve gotta plan. You know, set a goal for where you wanna be, when you, and when you wanna retire, when you think you wanna retire, and figure out how much you’re gonna need. And what it’s gonna take to carry you with no income, assuming you’re not g- you’re truly gonna retire and not make any, another penny. [00:21:26] Joe: You say stuff like that, Len, but hold on. Do people overcomplicate it? When you say this, I, I’m s- people are thinking spreadsheets, they’re thinking these… How, how complicated do you need to get in your 20s and 30s? [00:21:38] Len: Well, I, in your 20s, I think it doesn’t have to be that complicated at all. Just start saving, and take advantage, like, like I said, that low-hanging fruit. [00:21:45] Len: Just get in the habit. Practice saving. Practice taking money from your income and putting it aside for the future, and that can be done very easily. We’ve talked about this many times. You all talk about it. It’s when you get a raise, don’t take that whole raise and, and use it for, “Oh, hey, I get to spend it.” [00:22:02] Len: Set that raise aside ahead of time. Prepare yourself and say, “If I get a 3 or a 4 or 5% raise, I’m gonna take 3 or 4% of that, 80% of that raise, and I’m gonna set it aside for my retirement into my 401contributions.” You’ll never miss it, and it’s painless that way. And then before you know it, by the time you’re in your early 30s, you’re on the road to building whatever that number is. [00:22:23] Len: So yes, when you’re in your 20s, you don’t have to… Don’t let it overwhelm you. Just start saving. You can work the details in your 30s. You have plenty of time, or even in your 40s. But you gotta start saving, because if you don’t start saving till you’re 40 or, or in your 50s, it is in- incredibly hard to catch up. [00:22:39] Len: So take advantage of time. When you’re young, you’ve got… Youth is on your side. Time is on your side. [00:22:45] Joe: A lot of people not saving early on, OG, because they’re in debt, and they feel like they gotta take care of that first. What do you tell those people? [00:22:50] OG: Yeah, I mean, this is slow pain or fast pain, one of the two. [00:22:55] OG: Let’s say you graduate college, or maybe you’re just a little bit out of school, and you’re working for the first time, and, you know, maybe your lifestyle, y- you live in a big city, and, you know, there’s not a lot, a margin of safety in terms of your cash flow. You can take the easy road and just say, “Well, I’ll deal with this student loan debt. [00:23:13] OG: I’ll deal with the, the fact I, you know, got, I had got a brand new car, and I gotta deal with that, or I got credit cards, you know, and trying to save a little bit of money. I’ll deal with that later.” Or you can tear the Band-Aid off early. And in every instance that I’ve ever seen, when you look back over a period of time of discomfort money-wise, it’s always faster than you expected it to be if you took care of business when you were supposed to take care of business. [00:23:35] OG: Versus, like Len was saying, if you say, “Well, I’ll deal with this when I’m 40 or I’m 45,” people look back and go, “I can’t believe I let this go for so long.” I’ve even said publicly on the podcast, when Roth IRAs came out in 1997, I started my planning business in 1999. So, like, we were lit- literally still talking to people who had never heard of what Roth IRAs were, right? [00:23:55] OG: Like, that was the, the spiel, so to speak. But the limit in 1999 was $2,000 a year, $166.67 a month, and I still to this day go, “How in the heck did I not have 25 bucks to put in a Roth?” Or 50 or 100. You know, because in the moment it felt like, “I just don’t have it.” Like, I, you know, I got these other priorities. [00:24:15] OG: But the reality is, is that the pain of not doing it for 25 years is way worse than the pain of just sucking it up for the first, you know, three or five and living a little more cautiously. So to answer your question specifically around, like, debt, you absolutely have to take advantage of free money. So if you’ve got a 401and you’ve got retirement plan benefits through work, you need to take advantage of the free money. [00:24:38] OG: That’s 100%, you know, return on your investment. And then every other dollar needs to get rid of high interest debt. And this is the struggle because at 25 you go, “But I just… I’m not making any progress.” It’s like, just a little bit. Like, all you gotta do is set the systems in place and ride it out until you get to that, that margin of safety. [00:24:58] Joe: It’s funny because, you know, as I hear both of you talk, Len, I just, I think about how much of this is psychological, right? About how much it’s taking the 20 minutes. You know, you talk about discipline, but what I hear you really saying is systems. Get automation working on your behalf. P- put money in the 401. [00:25:14] Joe: Set this stuff up early. And when it comes to debt, on one hand we all know debt sucks, but on the other hand, psychologically it’s kinda normalized today. Like, everybody’s got debt, right? I mean, you go to… I remember being at this, uh, ridiculously huge mall in Houston. Oh, gee, what’s that mall called in Houston? [00:25:33] Joe: The, uh, the Galleria. Galleria, [00:25:35] OG: yeah. [00:25:35] Joe: This thing is obscene, it’s so huge. And I turn a corner and there’s this big banner for a firm, right, where you can just get into debt in all these easy payments, 0%. And pretty much, Len, the subtitle on this quote, “layaway plan, but you get the stuff right now, and as long as you make the payments on time, there’s zero interest,” which they know you’re not gonna make the payments on time. [00:25:59] Joe: Basically, the subtitle of this was, “Dude, everybody’s doing it.” I mean, those weren’t the exact words, but I just feel like debt is, is so normalized that you’re like, “Okay, so I got a little credit card debt. Big deal.” [00:26:10] Len: Yeah, it’s hard to believe, but I, I think you’re old enough to remember, as is I, in the ’70s and in the ’60s, debt was taboo. [00:26:18] Len: Even buying anything on a credit card was taboo. That’s when layaway… I remember my mom buying things on layaway. Now, this is tr- layaway is true… It’s not credit. It’s, it’s- [00:26:29] Joe: Deferred gratification … [00:26:31] Len: It’s exactly right. It’s deferred gratification. You buy something at the store. And, and these are coming back, by the way. [00:26:36] Len: Layaway, stores are bringing layaways back. What you do is you buy something at the store, the store holds it for you, and you make payments until you- Can afford it until you’ve paid it off. As soon as you’ve made that last payment, you get your… what you’ve been, uh, looking for. And that, that’s how it used to be, and then somewhere in the late ’70s or early ’80s, that all changed, and credit became totally accepted. [00:26:59] Len: And that is, I think that has been to the detriment of everybody. [00:27:03] Joe: This is how taboo, Len, debt was, and I know that you’ll remember this, but there was… I mean, imagine today, today if there was an episode of a television show where the whole theme of the episode is they’re having this gigantic party because they paid off the rest of their debt. [00:27:24] Joe: Yeah. Like, do you remember the episode of The Waltons where they paid off- … their debt, and they have, like, this big bonfire, and everybody’s excited about the fact that the debt’s paid. Like, I can’t imagine Hollywood’s, “Hey, here’s what we’re gonna do.” [00:27:37] Len: No, I, I, I never watched The Waltons, to be quite [00:27:40] Joe: honest with you. [00:27:40] Joe: You, you [00:27:41] Len: didn’t? [00:27:41] Joe: Doug, do you remember that show? You remember that episode? [00:27:44] Doug: Well, it was a little too pure and wholesome for me- … but I’m aware that that… I mean, I was watching Kojak and, uh, Welcome Back, Kotter. You know, some of the little spicier. All in the Family, they did a, uh, mortgage-burning party on All in the Family. [00:27:59] Doug: All in the Family [00:27:59] Joe: did. [00:28:00] Doug: Yeah. [00:28:00] Joe: Yeah. [00:28:01] Doug: That was a thing. People used to have a whole party and throw the mortgage in the fire. [00:28:04] Len: That’s a little different though, right? I mean, there, there is some things that, you know, it was always kind of acceptable to go into de- and ho- a home was, you know, getting a home loan, that was never really the ta- part of the taboo. [00:28:16] Joe: Sure. [00:28:16] Len: The, the revolving credit stuff, that was a no-no. People looked down on you if, if you bought something, you know, if you used credit cards like that. And that all changed. I, I don’t know when. It’d be funny, Joe, to figure out exactly when that changed, but somewhere in the late ’70s or early ’80s. It just… [00:28:31] Len: It was, uh, brilliant however they ma- managed to flip the switch there. ‘Cause it is now. Nobody thinks twice of using a credit card and buying something on credit and paying 29% interest for, for five years, and you end up, that $250 purse you got on credit ended up costing you $1,000 after you’re done- People [00:28:46] Joe: factoring in- Paying [00:28:47] Len: all the interest [00:28:47] Joe: or not factoring it in. Just mentally- Yeah … “Okay, I’m just gonna pay extra for that.” It, it, it would be interesting if credit cards had to put the total cost that this- Yes … this thing has cost you, this pair of jeans has cost you. If they were able to take the pair of jeans or the dinner out and you would see it as paid off over time, and until you pay off that dinner out, it would continue to escalate at 29%. [00:29:13] Len: I think that’s a fanta- you, you, you need to lobby your congressman there, Joe. That’s a great idea, actually. [00:29:17] Joe: Would that be a cool- That would scare a lot of people … y- you know, that would be a cool credit card for responsible people, talking about, you know, the- It [00:29:22] Len: certainly would … [00:29:23] Joe: uh, the, it could be the Len Penzo credit card. [00:29:25] Joe: Uh, I need to TM that before Len takes it from me. Let’s get back then to people are older ’cause I think for younger people, oh gee, Len outlined a lot of the things that you can do, but I feel like there also is this feeling for Gen- X, that you’re moving into a time where you feel like you might have less control. [00:29:44] Joe: You’ve got this longevity risk. We’re gonna talk more about that on Wednesday. You’ve got markets which are always uncertain, but now you’re starting to think about how do I turn it into an income stream? I’m not really sure how I’m gonna put all this together. Like, I can see all that uncertainty starting to play out in Gen X’s mind or anybody’s mind when they get to that point. [00:30:02] OG: I think it’s just a mental shift of what is realistic and what’s expected and not expected. I think just looking at it from an investment standpoint, it seems to me that people make large investment, uh, mistakes when expectations don’t match what’s actually happening. And basically kind of two ends of the spectrum here, it’s like, “I don’t understand, how come my account’s going down 20%? [00:30:25] OG: That seems silly. I’m gonna make a change.” Sitting here today, I think most people can understand, like, that’s the worst time to make a change to your investment philosophy is when you’ve gone down 20%. But the other side of that spectrum is also the other thing, “I don’t understand how come my friends are going up 30% and I’m not. [00:30:41] OG: I need to make a change,” right? And so a lot of it has to do with your understanding or at least acceptance of what’s expected in this outcome that I’m working toward. What does, uh, Doug say here? What’s, what’s this word, umbrage? I don’t know what it means- Whoa … but it just sounds like the per- it sounds like the perfect place to use it. [00:30:58] Joe: He doesn’t even know what it means. [00:30:59] Doug: No, it’s- With the- It- you’ve done well. [00:31:02] OG: Thank you. Thank you for [00:31:03] Doug: putting up with that. You’ve done well, Grasshopper. That’s [00:31:05] OG: exactly the right place. I, I, I, you know, I take umbrage- I’m gonna say it again with- Yes … uh, effect, with the idea that, you know, the markets are volatile, and, you know, and that should be concerning. [00:31:16] OG: To me, I, I just don’t buy that stuff. And, and so when people say that to me, like, it immediately, it’s like you’re speaking a different language. It just does not check with reality. And PS, that’s what you’re supposed to get. And, and I think once you, once you recognize that the stuff that you think is an issue is actually the benefit of the thing that you’re doing, then all the other stuff becomes a lot easier to wrap your head around. [00:31:42] OG: The reason that you get 10% a year in the S&P, or 11 and a half if you just look in the last 50 years, by the way, which I think increasingly more people are doing, then you go, “Okay, well, the reason I get this return is because every so often it goes down 25%.” That’s not a, that’s not a wrong thing. That’s the bene- that’s what’s supposed to happen, you know. [00:32:01] OG: Or when you look at the JP Morgan research, which comes out every single month, by the way, so it’s a great tool to, like, just find market data. They don’t really provide any commentary there, it’s just data. It’s called JP Morgan Guide to the Markets. You can just Google it, it’ll pop up. I’m sure Kevin will dump it in show notes or something for us. [00:32:19] OG: But i- it tells us statistically the peak to trough number in any one calendar year is -14. What that means is, you know, market does its thing, but there’s gonna be a period of time in any year when the market’s down a little bit. And down a little bit on average is -14. So if you’re listening to the news or you’re looking at your portfolio, and you get your statement and you go, “Oh my gosh, I’m down 8% this month,” you’re not even to normal yet. [00:32:42] OG: Once you recognize that -14 is the normal number, then you can start going, “Okay, now we’re in some sort of, like, one standard deviation away from, like, normal.” Until it gets to -14, it shouldn’t even, like, register. And so once you accept these kind of facts of the case, then I think the, the stress that people have in their 40s and early 50s around, like, “How do I save enough money? [00:33:05] OG: There’s not enough time, you know, I’m behind,” that kind of starts going away. That doesn’t mean you don’t have to make changes. Like Len was saying, “Hey, this is easy if you do it when you’re 20.” It’s way harder, and it’s not twice as hard, it’s like five times harder, maybe 10 times harder if you start when you’re 50, but it’s still doable. [00:33:22] OG: I think the education piece and acceptance of how this process works helps assuage [00:33:29] Len: any- [00:33:29] OG: Oh. Wow. [00:33:30] Len: Nice, nice [00:33:32] OG: Holy cow, dude. You are on fuego today … I’m just holding the three from back here. It was like a half-court shot. Any concerns- Man … that, uh, that you have in, in, in reaching retirement goals. [00:33:43] Joe: I get really excited about this because, you know, we’re all gonna have fears, and OG, what you just said about solving the fear problem, and you’re fearing things that are gonna happen whether you fear them or not, so better planning and looking at bigger pieces of data, and planning on this thing you see as a problem being the solution I think is very powerful. [00:34:04] Joe: And Len, your take about discipline, but I think even more important about setting up automation systems, you know, early on, and then staying out of debt, I think is huge. What I wanna do later in the show, I’d like to revisit this. We got a couple things we’re gonna do first, but you guys both know the financial industry, there’s a part of it that loves this fear and might be making it worse. [00:34:28] Joe: We’re gonna talk about how we think about fighting that fear versus the way maybe some of these commercials are talking about you. Like Affirm, “Hey, everybody’s doing it. Go ahead and, uh, go ahead and get the thing now, pay later,” which is just an absolutely horrible idea. But before we get to that, coming up next, we’ve got OG and Anna. [00:34:48] Joe: If you’re brand new here, they did a complete series that now, by the way, is a YouTube video series on our YouTube channel at Stacking Benjamins, OG and Anna helping you walk through the basics. We have season two starting today right after Doug’s trivia. Doug, you got a really tough one today, I know. [00:35:09] Doug: Yeah. Put on your thinking caps, Stackers. Hey there, I’m Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug, and it was on today’s date back in 1659 that the fun police got busy in Massachusetts and outlawed the celebrating of Christmas. You know, Joe’s mom did something similar back in ’09, if I remember correctly. I think she outlawed the celebration of- Christmas and Hanukkah or Kwanzaa, all of them pretty much, unless you walk through the front door with gin and tonic [00:35:37] Joe: True story [00:35:37] Doug: Something about making everything merry and bright. [00:35:40] Doug: Anyway, one holiday that the Puritans could not outlaw that year, because luckily it didn’t exist yet, was Festivus. May 11th is also the birthday of the late actor who played George Costanza’s dad on a hit TV show during the ’90s, where his character became obsessed with the airing of grievances and wrestling, creating a new modern holiday. [00:36:05] Doug: You know, as opposed to the old modern kind. Here’s today’s question. What show, which made the network and all involved fat stacks of Benjamins, did Jerry Stiller appear on where he came up with the Festivus for the rest of us? I’ll be back right after I help Joe’s mom set up the tree for Christmas in July. [00:36:23] Doug: She says you can never be too early. [00:36:34] Doug: Hey there, Stackers. I’m grievance haver and guy with plenty of problems with all of you people, Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Doug. Okay, first, I love all of you, but it was Jerry Stiller’s character on a hit TV show who uttered those words, “I got a lot of problem with all of you people,” or something like that. [00:36:55] Doug: Here’s the question. That’s pretty good. On what show- That’s pretty good … did today’s birthday boy, Jerry Stiller, as George Costanza’s dad, create the Festivus for the rest of us? It was, of course, Facts of Life. I’m kidding. It was Seinfeld. Can you see Tutti airing grievances- And doing feats of strength? By the [00:37:17] Joe: way, [00:37:18] Doug: somebody- [00:37:18] Joe: All [00:37:18] Doug: the [00:37:18] Joe: areas [00:37:18] Doug: were bad then [00:37:19] Doug: with the name [00:37:19] Joe: Tutti airing grievances sounds like you just [00:37:22] Doug: tooted. Oh, I gotta make these harder. There’s no way you missed that one, and if you did, go back and watch those episodes on Festivus, ’cause they absolutely hold up. So good. And now kicking off season two of Financial Basics, it’s CFP’s OG and Anna Alum. [00:37:41] OG: Anna, we are back for season two. Season one in the books, season two ready to go. If you don’t have your guidebook from season one, or season two, if you don’t have the guidebook yet for season two, it’s ’cause you didn’t get the guidebook for season one, because we sent it out to everybody who wanted season one, so you got season two. [00:37:59] OG: But anyways, if you don’t have it, uh, you can go to stackingbenjamins.com/basicsguide, just one word. We decided to put a lot of consonants in there and make it hard to pronounce and spell. But, uh, you know, the internet people, uh, disagree with the format there, but basicsguide, stackingbenjamins.com/basicsguide, and name and email. [00:38:21] OG: You’ll get, uh, season one and now season two. That’ll come to you automatically, and you can kind of follow along The thing with all of this stuff that we’re talking about here in season two kind of builds on the stuff that we did in season one. If you haven’t gone through season one yet and you haven’t done all the exercises, that’s okay. [00:38:37] OG: You’ll probably get a little less out of it ’cause you kind of need some of these numbers, but- They’re [00:38:40] Anna: building blocks … [00:38:41] OG: yeah. But if you don’t have it, it’s fine. You can just kind of muddle through it a little bit, and then if you, if you have the time, you can go back to season one. You can find all those little segments. [00:38:51] OG: We’re putting them on YouTube, um, on the Stacking Benjamins page, so you don’t have to go back through the entire show, or you can go back through the shows and find them there. So there’s lots of places. So today, Anna, we are gonna talk about retirement income planning. [00:39:07] Anna: My favorite topic in the world. [00:39:09] OG: This is the, uh- That’s [00:39:10] Anna: not sarcasm either. I actually love this. [00:39:12] OG: Oh, okay. I was like, it’s like- … wow, there’s so much energy in that- … uh, little s- snippet there. You know, a lot of times people focus on the number. They focus on their balances. They think about how much money I have, and then it’s like, “Oh, crap, now- [00:39:28] Anna: Yeah [00:39:28] Anna: I [00:39:29] OG: gotta turn this into a paycheck.” [00:39:30] Anna: I get asked all the time, “Is a million dollars enough for retirement?” It’s like, I don’t know. There’s a whole calculation that goes into that. There’s a lot of follow-up questions. It’s not just a simple dollar number. [00:39:44] OG: Well, we’re gonna try to make it as simple as we can. [00:39:46] OG: We’ve got six or seven minutes to go through it, and honestly, you’re right. This is gonna scratch the surface. This is, uh, we were talking before, th- this could easily be an entire series of, of episodes. We could hijack the whole Stacking Benjamins episode for the next, uh, month probably and still just get to little bits and pieces of this. [00:40:04] OG: So our goal today is just kind of work through some of the highlights and give you some stuff to work on and, and think about. So let’s kind of start with building your retirement income piece by piece. How do we think about the layers of your retirement income plan? [00:40:21] Anna: There’s three layers that we break it down into, the first one being Social Security, which we’re paying into, but you probably forget that that’s there, and that’s a piece of your retirement income and a very important piece. [00:40:36] headlines: Mm-hmm. [00:40:36] Anna: It’s important to go to ssa.gov and download those documents if you haven’t already got them. I just got one in my email today, this morning, with an updated number, so you’ll get the updates also. And it’s gonna break it down between the different ages of when you could take the Social Security. [00:40:53] Anna: So that’s number one. [00:40:54] OG: Here’s another quick thing too before you get to the other ones was with registering on the SSA website, if you haven’t done that yet, it does two things. Number one, you get the report, and so you can stay up to date on that. The second thing it does is it gives you a reason to check to make sure your income’s being reported correctly- Mm-hmm [00:41:09] OG: because Social Security is based on how much money you make and how much taxes you pay. So it’s kind of a built-in fail-safe of they’ll send you this document, and you can look at it and go Yeah, that looks about right in terms of my, my income for the last couple years. It’s also kind of a fun history lesson of going back to like, “Oh, remember, that was when I worked at the ice cream shop, and I made like $1,300. [00:41:27] OG: That was so fun.” [00:41:28] Anna: I love seeing that. Like, “Oh, there’s the country club snack stand.” So fun. The country [00:41:33] OG: club snack stand. All right, how about, uh, layers two and three? [00:41:38] Anna: So then we’re gonna look at any sort of annuity or pension income that you get. So not everyone gets this. Not [00:41:44] OG: as popular. Yeah. [00:41:44] Anna: Not as popular, but if you do, it’s super important. [00:41:49] Anna: Something that you should know, you can typically download documents. Like, if you’re a teacher, you can go into the pension platform and download the documents. Again, similar to the SSA, where you’re getting the total lump sum, and then as well as the annuity payments that you would get at 65 or whatever age you opt for [00:42:07] OG: that. [00:42:07] OG: This is a great use, by the way, of AI tools. You know, you get those, the, that big document that says, “Here’s how we calculate your pension. Here’s how da, da, da, da.” It’s like this big generic document. Dump that PDF into chat and say, “Hey, ask me the questions that I need to answer so that you can calculate what my pension might look like at different ages.” [00:42:26] Anna: Love that. [00:42:26] OG: And let it kind of work through that with you- Mm-hmm … kind of on the fly. [00:42:30] Anna: Yeah, absolutely. And so then the last piece, after you’ve looked at Social Security, looked at any sort of annuities or pensions that you have, the last piece would then be your investment withdrawals. So you’re looking at your total investment portfolio, and that is now what we’re calculating from. [00:42:49] Anna: What, what withdrawals are we gonna need from this portfolio? So that’s where the rest of the work comes in. [00:42:56] OG: Once you know what your guarantees are gonna be, and then you go back to season one where we talked about your spending and your lifestyle expenses, if you remember we talked about those different buckets, and that lifestyle number is the number we wanna replace in retirement. [00:43:11] OG: You can subtract out those guaranteed income pieces, Social Security, pension, annuities, whatever, and then you’re left over with, well, this is the gap that I need to solve for my portfolio. [00:43:21] Anna: Mm-hmm. Exactly. So that’s the number that we need to solve for today. [00:43:26] OG: Yeah. So let’s just give you an idea of how to think through this from a math standpoint. [00:43:30] OG: So let’s just say just hypothetically that your retirement spending is $8,000 a month. So that’s your retirement income or retirement spend, lifestyle expense number is 8,000. You know that Social Security is gonna cover 2,500 bucks, so you need $5,500 a month left over. That’s $66,000. The first thing that we wanna do, and these are all rules of thumb, and I know we’re gonna talk about this in a second, but how much money do you need to have in a bucket to be able to take out $66,000? [00:44:00] OG: Well, the first thing that you do is just kind of divide that by 4% or you multiply by 25, roughly the same calculation there, and you get to about 1.6 million, $1.65 million. So that’s a good starting point of that’s how much I need to pull out 66,000. But that’s only if you are retiring today. If you’re 45 or you’re 40 or you’re 55 and you’re gonna retire in 10 or 20 or 30 years, you have to add inflation to that lump sum need to get to what that big number is gonna be, because $66,000 today is not $66,000 in the future. [00:44:33] OG: So on your calculator, or you can just put this into Google and ask it to calculate it for you, add 3% inflation for the next X years, so that’s basically how many years is it till I retire, so if I got 20 years to retire. The calculator version is 1.03, ’cause you’re adding the, the 3% inflation, with the little caret sign, that little half a triangle thing, well, third of a triangle I guess as it were, to the years. [00:44:57] OG: So it’d be like 1.03 raised to the 20 years. Then that number is multiplied by that 66,000 to get you your retirement income need in 20 years from now with inflation. So that’s, that’s kind of the quick down and dirty, and in your guidebook it actually has how to do this, so you don’t have to, like try to remember this on the fly. [00:45:17] OG: But, um, but that’s kind of the quick down and dirty of, like, how do I get to a somewhat ballpark-ish inflation adjusted number as it relates to retirement. By the way, this is not easy stuff, right? Like, this is… Retirement income planning is probably the primary thing that we talk about with clients every single solitary day. [00:45:37] OG: So if you’re looking at this and you say, “Well, my number is gigantic. I don’t know how I’m gonna get there. I don’t, I, I don’t even know if I calculated this the right way,” schedule a call with Anna or with me. You can find a link at the back of the guidebook, and we will work through these with you. So we will, w- in, in that call, we will actually put in your numbers, do the calculation with you, and help you figure out whether or not you’re on track, and if you’re not, what you can do about it. [00:46:01] OG: Okay, so we know that we’ve got this big number. I wanna talk about this 4% thing, because if we use 4% as a rule, air quotes, that just assumes a uniform growth rate, right? Mm-hmm. I know it’s kind of based on some hypothetical things that have happened in the past, but you know, look, if the market goes down a whole bunch of years in a row and you’re still taking out 4% of your portfolio, you’re gonna run into some troubles, right? [00:46:28] Anna: Well, and if the market goes down right after you retire, then that’s when it’s going to hurt you the most. If the market goes down and you’re 90 years old and your portfolio’s already at, like, $10 million, like, we- Okay … it’s grown so much- [00:46:41] Len: Yeah [00:46:42] Anna: You’re fine. At that point, like, you know, I don’t know how much time left to live, like you’re, you’re gonna be okay. [00:46:48] Anna: But if you’re 55 years old and you’ve retired, and the market goes down 30% and stays down for a year or two, that’s really gonna hurt your portfolio a lot more than if that timing happens 20 years after you retire. [00:47:04] OG: The technical term for this that you’ll hear people say is sequence of returns risk. [00:47:08] OG: Mm-hmm. We just call it getting unlucky because you just don’t know, right? I mean, there are plenty of people who retired January 1st of 2008, didn’t know that the market was gonna go down, you know, one of the biggest recessions of all time. So that’s just kind of getting unlucky. So how can you think about this, Anna, from a, um, behavioral standpoint before you get yourself in trouble? [00:47:31] Anna: So one way you can think about it is, because we also don’t want you entering into retirement and then monitoring your portfolio every single day. Like, if you were to do that right now, it’s going up and down constantly, and that’s not a way to enjoy your retirement. And so what you could do is, like, do is you could create a floor. [00:47:51] Anna: If the number is, I need to have $2 million by the time I retire, we, we calculated the inflation, we calculated the 4% rule, all of that. It’s $2 million. What is that minimum number that we would take action if we see it get to that point? So if we see your portfolio get to 1.5, especially in those first 10 years of retirement, like are we doing something to change spending? [00:48:13] Anna: Are we doing something to change income source? Anything like that. That way you’re not just monitoring all of your accounts every single day. Oh, no, the market’s down 1, 2%. You guys are fine. Yeah. That’s gonna happen. We still need to take withdrawals from there. [00:48:29] OG: Yeah, I like having a floor here because it gives you something to focus on. [00:48:32] OG: It tells you when, when it’s time to take action. And look, you know, you can’t make that floor too low. It can’t be too high either, so we need to kind of s- uh, stress test this a little bit. But I think it’s important to have this kind of line drawn in the sand of saying, “This is the space at which I will reevaluate my decisions.” [00:48:49] OG: If you’re r- retiring early, that may mean changing your retirement income. It may mean I gotta go get a part-time job. It may mean, um, I’m gonna claim Social Security a little earlier than I planned because I’m gonna kick on that stream of income so that the portfolio has a chance to kind of- recover itself basically. [00:49:08] OG: The other thing that we do is we make sure you’ve got two years worth of cash in withdrawals for that inevitable, you know, market downturn. If you think this is something that is a little bit more complicated than just like writing it on a two-page piece of paper, you’re right. And the thing about financial planning or retirement planning in particular, income planning, is all this stuff is dynamic. [00:49:27] OG: What works for your neighbor is not gonna work for you necessarily, and what works this year may not be the same thing as next year, ’cause this year you may have a roof repair that you didn’t plan on, and you, you know, had that one-time gift to church, and you did the safari. And you’re like, “Well, I wasn’t planning on doing all those things together, but it just lined up and now I gotta, I gotta make some changes in the future to kind of a- account for the fact that this sequence,” to borrow the phrase, “didn’t exactly go in the manner in which I speak.” [00:49:54] OG: So that’s kind of the big thing. Okay, I guess maybe a little longer than seven minutes. So today, big, big worksheet to work through, thinking tools to work through. If you don’t have the guidebook, stackingbenjamins.com/basicsguide. It’s free. We’ll send you the season one and season two if you haven’t had it yet. [00:50:12] OG: Um, if you got season one, you should have already gotten season two, but if you didn’t, just let us know and we’ll send it to you. Next week we’re gonna talk about insurance, or… Uh, Doug loves it when I put the accent on the first part of that. Insurance. Do you say in- how do you say it? [00:50:27] Anna: Insurance. [00:50:28] OG: You got insurance? [00:50:29] OG: Okay, ’cause you’re on the East Coast. [00:50:30] Anna: How does Doug say it? [00:50:31] OG: Oh, he’s an East Coaster. He’s insurance. [00:50:34] Anna: Insurance. [00:50:35] OG: Joe and I say insurance. So, um, little different there, but, uh, not the boring stuff. We’re gonna make Anna tell us exactly why a whole life policy makes the most sense for everybody in America. [00:50:46] Anna: Yeah. [00:50:46] Anna: Stay [00:50:46] OG: tuned. Get your [00:50:46] Anna: wallets out, everyone. [00:50:48] OG: Get your wallets out. I love it. All right, we’re kidding about that. But anyways, uh, Joe, sorry for running a little long, bud. Back to you. [00:50:56] bumper: This is Daryl from Pennsylvania. When I’m not busy arguing with a four-year-old, I’m stacking benjamins. No, Daddy. [00:51:05] Joe: Nice job again, OG. [00:51:07] Joe: You got us all excited about season two, man. [00:51:09] Doug: I’ve heard they’re in pre-production talks with ABC. They might get picked up, right? To go- Yeah … national. [00:51:15] OG: That is the rumor. We’ll see. [00:51:16] Joe: You could get a, uh, get a bidding war started. Get Amazon, Netflix, you know- Mm-hmm … everybody going for it. Yep. [00:51:24] OG: It’s already happening. [00:51:24] Joe: Let’s, let’s do part two of our headline. We learned earlier Americans fearing running out of money more than they fear death. Which explains why nobody wants to open their 401. They’re sure they’re gonna die. I don’t wanna go to that website. But as I teased before Doug’s amazing trivia… By the way, uh, are you a Festivus for the rest of us kind of guy, Len? [00:51:46] Len: I love Festivus. I’m just more disturbed that that’s even a trivia question. That makes me feel old. I mean, you’re asking, “That’s a trivia question? Doesn’t everybody know that?” And I’m thinking, “Wow, that was a long time ago, actually.” [00:51:56] Joe: I know, isn’t that sad? That’s the part that’s really sad. [00:51:58] Len: I mean, that’s how you know you’re getting old. [00:51:59] Len: It’s like, “How is that even a trivia question?” [00:52:02] Joe: Like, duh. And seriously, if you haven’t seen it, it is, it is so good. Uh, this whole fear, OG, and I, and, and, and we’re gonna dive into this more on Wednesday specifically about annuities, but this fear, OG, is why you’re hearing more about guaranteed income, annuities, pensions for sale, all of these things going on. [00:52:25] Joe: Like, the financial industry, I think, is really feeding on surveys like this one. [00:52:29] OG: Yeah, I mean, and your job as a consumer is to kind of look through that and recognize that, again, advertising job is to sell advertising. Or, I’m sorry, media’s job is to sell advertising. The advertiser’s job is to get eyeballs and to get you to stay. [00:52:45] OG: I’m a big proponent of using AI tools. You know, we’ve talked a little bit about it here on the show, but even that is starting to, like, turn a little clickbaity, and I don’t know if that’s the right phraseology, but if you’ve noticed, if you use any of these tools, Claude or Chat or something like that, it will always leave you with another question at the end. [00:53:03] OG: It never solves the problem. It goes, “If you want, I can show you the top three things that most people miss when they evaluate this.” And you’re like, “Oh, yeah. Sure.” [00:53:10] Joe: Yeah. [00:53:11] OG: It’s like the doomscrolling on YouTube or Instagram or whatever. It’s like it’s meant to keep you on that platform so that it becomes part of your daily rhythm. [00:53:21] Joe: We gonna have advertising down both sides of Claude in the future? [00:53:24] OG: Well, I don’t know, but it wouldn’t surprise me if there’s a paid advertising system eventually, where it’s like, if you wanna be featured as the solution to this problem, it’s like Google. You know, where you pay Google to be an ad, or Facebook or something. [00:53:39] Joe: Wow. Um- ‘Cause we… Because if they do that, OG, that just makes it even less transparent. At least, at least with Google I can see the link and whether I wanna click it or not and where it’s coming from. Yeah. But if I’m paying Claude on the free platform for solutions, and Claude’s getting money on the back end for product placement… [00:53:58] Joe: But I can see it happening. Uh, Len- Yeah … do you see that? Do you see that coming? [00:54:01] Len: It’s all about the Benjamins. [00:54:03] OG: Somebody’s gotta keep stacking them. I don’t know the original question, Joe, but I’m sure I answered it. [00:54:08] Joe: Yes, uh, succinctly- … and very, very, very well. But in the face of uncertainty, Len, you know, the uncertainty of I’m trying to create income streams, the uncertainty of daily living, when you hear guaranteed income products, which is what we hear increasingly, right, do you lean in or do you run away? [00:54:30] Len: No, I, I stay away from… I’ve… My guaranteed income is basically all based on my planning ahead of time for pulling money as I need it with no worries in my retirement, and that’s all due to the planning I did earlier. I don’t… These annuities or anything like that, it’s like I stay away from those things. [00:54:47] Len: They, they scare the crap out of me. I feel like I’m being courted by a car salesman every time I… Somebody’s trying to sell those things. [00:54:54] Joe: Like you’re asking what’s the catch? [00:54:56] Len: Yeah, exactly. And, and there is a catch somewhere. Somewhere in there, there is a catch, and it’s like I don’t even wanna take the time to figure it out. [00:55:03] Len: I just know it’s not for me, and, and, no, I’m not gonna depend on that as my panacea. Ooh, how’s that? Is that a good word there? Wow. Does that, does that qualify? [00:55:12] Joe: What are we [00:55:13] Len: doing today? Panacea. But yeah, so, so no, I, I don’t wanna do that. Can, can I bring up one thing real quick too that we were, we were talking about, you know, people being fearful of their accounts and the doomsday stuff. [00:55:23] Len: It’s like if you noticed in that article that you referenced, Joe, it, it mentioned, and, and this is a shocker to me, it said every time the market goes down, half of the people surveyed said they immediately went to their account to see what- Oof … the balance was at. Did… I don’t know if you saw that or not. [00:55:38] Len: It’s like no wonder people are scared. I mean, why would you do that? It’s like, you wanna scare yourself into, to getting out of your 401and stop your dollar cost averaging, do… Yeah, do that every time you hear the market goes down, that you’re gonna go check your balance in your account. Well, of course it went down. [00:55:54] Len: The thing you gotta do is don’t check your balance. I- if you really want some peace of mind, I know this is counterintuitive, but if you’re dollar cost averaging in a 401and you’re not a day trader, right? You’re, you’re buying the, in your 401the different accounts that they might have, the different, uh, options, and it’s in- you’re indexing. [00:56:12] Len: It’s like, don’t worry about it. Just keep doing what you’re doing knowing that your plan is correct. It is correct, and don’t look. You know, maybe look once every six months or once every… But otherwise you’re gonna spook yourself into doing bad things. So don’t look every time the market goes down. [00:56:30] Len: That’s the worst thing you could possibly do. Absolutely don’t. [00:56:34] Joe: No wonder, OG, we compare it to dying. [00:56:36] OG: Yeah. What’s interesting to me is looking backward seems like a much better use of evaluation than, than trying to forecast forward. When you look at your investment accounts, especially if you’re adding to them, and for the vast majority of people, for the vast majority of their life, the additions and dividends that post and, you know, that sort of stuff is gonna make up a bunch of their contributions, right? [00:57:02] OG: Or like the, the net change, I should say, between, you know, year to year. If you just steeled yourself to say, “I’m gonna look at my portfolio every six months or every, you know, once a year,” you’ll start seeing radical changes, but they’ll generally all be positive. You’re gonna be like, “Wow, the last number I remember was 105,000. [00:57:19] OG: Geez, I got like 190 in here.” [00:57:21] Joe: Well, and I like something else you’re saying, OG, which is focusing on the cashflow, right? Especially for a retiree focusing on my cashflow, ’cause that’s what I’m really concerned about is the cashflow, and then look at the statement of the big number maybe once a year. [00:57:35] OG: Yeah. [00:57:35] OG: Yeah. [00:57:36] Len: I, I was just gonna jump in and say, you know, it’s all about attitude. Most people, when it comes to stocks, I don’t know why it is, people are happy to buy high and sell low. So when you’re dollar cost averaging, remember, if the stock market is up, obviously you’re buying stocks at a higher price. Look at it this way. [00:57:52] Len: If the stock market does fall, don’t think about your balance. What you need to be thinking about is, “Oh, good. The next round of tranche of stocks or whatever contributions I make into my 401, I’m getting more bang for my buck because I’m buying at a lower price. I’m getting more shares of, of whatever I’m buying.” [00:58:11] Len: Look at it that way. Don’t freak yourself out. It’s actually a good thing over the long term. The key is you’ve got to dollar cost average. [00:58:18] Joe: Amen, Len. And if you’re worried about your balance, just start going to yoga classes, ’cause that’ll really- … that’ll really help. Here is the truth. Doug loved that one. I love… [00:58:29] Joe: Whenever I get the head shake from Doug- … hashtag winning. Fantastic. I think here’s the truth. Running out of money, not a math problem. It’s much more of a planning problem. I think, OG, the way you attacked that is fantastic, and Len, also, living between your means, developing these systems, absolutely amazing. [00:58:50] Joe: We can make retirement so much better. I was so surprised. The people are happier to die. What… We, we can do better, Stackers. We can do better. That’s gonna do it for this discussion. Doug, as we wander out on the back porch, the thing we need to do here is debate… Well, we had a couple Stackers that wanted to enter the debate, Doug, of what we call OG and Anna’s new segment, ’cause we, we gotta get a name here soon. [00:59:17] Joe: We’re in season two, OG, and we don’t have a name yet. [00:59:20] OG: It’s okay. We’ll think of something soon. [00:59:22] Doug: I don’t really feel like he’s that committed to coming up with a name. I don’t think he cares. [00:59:26] Joe: Yeah, we’re gonna have to, though. So you and I, Doug, will be committed. So listen to this. Len, we’re trying to come up with a name for these financial basics. [00:59:34] Joe: Doug, do you have a favorite so far? [00:59:36] Doug: Yeah. It was like, um, Boot Camp I think was one I [00:59:39] Joe: liked. Me too. Me too. I really like the- Nope … the Financial Boot Camp. [00:59:43] Doug: Yeah. Okay. We got a- Not happening. [00:59:45] Len: That sounds kinda scary. [00:59:46] Doug: Oh. [00:59:47] Len: I think he wants something more inviting. Like- Well, [00:59:49] Joe: thanks … [00:59:50] Len: sounds like you’re gonna get a beating in your Financial Boot Camp. [00:59:53] Doug: Thrashed on the quarter [00:59:54] Joe: deck. You disgust me. We don’t want that. Wasn’t it, it wasn’t boot camp. It was, like, called Basic Training, wasn’t it, Doug? Well, there [01:00:00] Doug: was, that was another one, Basic [01:00:02] Joe: Training. It was a little- I liked that too … kinder, gentler there. Yeah. We got some letters on this. [01:00:08] letters: We just got a letter. [01:00:10] letters: We just got a letter. We just got a letter. Wonder who it’s from. [01:00:15] Joe: Our first letter came from Robert. “I want to send along a name suggestion for the new segment with Ann and OG. In keeping with the basement and back porch universe and the more intentional curriculum style of information the segment-” I think a name like The Study or The Den, ’cause now we’ve got the basement, we’ve got the back porch, right? [01:00:34] Joe: So The Study or The Den would fit well into the Stack of Benjamin’s house. The Study is, of course, where the Commodore 64, the World Book Encyclopedia set, the electric pencil sharpener, and the 10-inch wide plug-in printer tape calculator reside. I think Robert’s older than I am with some of those. It’s just a nice, quiet place to work. [01:00:57] Joe: By the way, have you ever been in a room with a Commodore 64, Robert? That thing wasn’t quiet. That thing was louder than the, one of those- That’s the best [01:01:05] OG: one I’ve heard so far. [01:01:06] Doug: The Study? [01:01:07] Joe: It’s just a nice, quiet place to work on a spreadsheet or learn something new. Additionally, going upstairs to The Study offers opportunity for the footstep sounds effect, which is a favorite transition to set apart the segment. [01:01:18] Joe: So maybe Steve would like that. So my [01:01:19] Doug: first thought was when your dad would call you into the study, “Son, we’re gonna have a talk.” [01:01:24] Joe: Oh, boy. George from Texas also reached out to us and said, “I’m thinking, the fi- ” Doug, you’re gonna like this one. Len, you’ll like this one, too, because it’s, it’s not us. The Financial Dwarves with Happy and Grumpy. [01:01:42] Joe: And it’s, we know which one’s which. [01:01:44] OG: No. [01:01:45] Joe: I, who knew that he would say no? Yeah, and then George, I think, takes a- You know, he said [01:01:50] Len: Grumpy. He could have picked a lot worse, uh, dwarves there. He could have. So that, you should be thankful of that one. [01:01:55] Joe: Yes. And then I think he takes his- I mean, now [01:01:56] OG: he’s sleepy. So wrap it up. [01:01:59] OG: Takes [01:02:00] Joe: a little swipe at me with the Financial Dwarves with Happy and Grumpy, occasionally Dopey, which I finally, George got out of that boot with my foot trying to run that Dopey, so not great. That’s gonna do it for today. Len, thanks so much for hanging out with us again, man. [01:02:14] Len: You know what? I appreciate it. [01:02:15] Len: It gives a retired, old, retired guy something to do on his, uh… You know, I can only yell at so many kids, “Get off my lawn.” [01:02:21] Joe: And it can’t be all train set all the time. [01:02:22] Len: No, it, it cannot be. [01:02:24] Doug: Are people driving faster down your street too, Len? [01:02:27] Len: My street is about 50 feet long, so you can’t, there, there ain’t much time to get a lot of speed up on that little cul-de-sac. [01:02:33] Len: Well, [01:02:34] Doug: maybe, are the trains going faster behind your house? [01:02:37] Len: I’ll tell you what. My train, I’m about ready to lay the golden spike on my model railroad, so I’ve, uh, pretty soon I’ll, the train will be able to go all the way around the room. I’m almost there, within another two weeks. The [01:02:48] OG: golden [01:02:48] Doug: spike. Really hope you have a golden spike scene. [01:02:51] Len: Maybe I’ll send a picture to the basement. [01:02:53] Doug: Yeah, I’d love that. [01:02:54] OG: Interestingly, when we were in, um, Utah last year, we did a rafting trip. I don’t know if it’s also the same spot as the golden spike. I feel like that was in California or something, wasn’t it? [01:03:06] Doug: No, it was Promontory Point. No, Promontory Point. In Utah. [01:03:08] Len: Yeah. [01:03:09] OG: Oh, okay. All right. So then I am thinking about this in the right place, then. So they now have a tree to signify the halfway spot, and it’s, like, all fenced off and everything. How cool. Like, this is the halfway spot on this, uh, on this railroad. Obviously the golden spike is no longer there [01:03:24] Joe: Yeah, the trains have trouble going around the tree And plant [01:03:28] OG: the tree in the middle of the track. [01:03:30] OG: Oh. That’s pretty funny. Okay. Um, but yeah, it’s kind of the highlight of the, highlight of the trip. The kids were like, “Yeah, whatever.” Yeah, [01:03:35] Len: I’m sorry to hear that. That’s- [01:03:38] OG: It’s like, “Look, kids, a tree.” Fun fact. [01:03:42] Joe: Isn’t that great? [01:03:43] Len: Couldn’t you have taken that place where they buried the Cadillacs in the ground or something like that? [01:03:46] Len: That would be more interesting. I [01:03:47] Joe: love that. In Amarillo? [01:03:48] Len: Yeah. It’s [01:03:49] OG: in Amarillo. It’s not [01:03:50] Len: that cool. And then you coulda had a 72-ounce, you know, he tried to eat that 72-ounce steak and for free- Been there, done that … with all the trimmings Did [01:03:55] OG: not get that T-shirt. [01:03:56] Len: Did you try it? [01:03:56] Joe: Did you go up on stage? [01:03:58] OG: No. [01:03:58] OG: God, no. [01:03:59] Joe: I did not either. Did you try [01:04:00] Len: to eat it? [01:04:01] OG: No. No, no, no. Oh, okay. It’s fun to watch. Like, there was a guy that went up there just like, “I, I just wanna eat the s-…” He’s, like, up there with his girlfriend. It was, like, a date. [01:04:08] Len: Fun fact. The person who’s eating there, let’s say they have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the hour, they, they get escorted into the bathroom to make sure they’re not doing any, uh, you know- [01:04:17] Joe: Oh, gross [01:04:18] Len: getting rid of stuff … not spitting out their food. Yes, yes. [01:04:20] Joe: Yeah. [01:04:21] OG: Yeah. That is [01:04:21] Len: true. [01:04:22] OG: There’s not really anybody who’s successful with that. It is required- No … a pretty profound amount of food. Not only do you have to eat the steak, which is in and of itself fine, but then you also have, also have to eat a full baked potato loaded, an entire salad, which is, like, a bowl like that big- Huge [01:04:35] OG: and a loaf of bread. [01:04:36] Joe: Yeah. [01:04:36] Len: It’s outrageous. Yeah, it’s a lot. [01:04:38] Doug: All for a T-shirt. [01:04:40] OG: Well, free food. [01:04:41] Len: Well, you get your name on the wall of fame, too. [01:04:42] OG: And it’s free. [01:04:43] Joe: When my son Nick and I were driving his car to Seattle, we stopped in Amarillo. And you’re right, OG, they call that the Cadillac Ranch, where the Cadillacs are all spray painted in the field. [01:04:54] Joe: It was fantastic, and it was about eight minutes. Yeah. Like, after you see it, you see it- You go, “Ah.” Yep. “How about that?” Check that off. It’s [01:05:01] Len: kinda like the Grand Canyon. Same thing. [01:05:03] Joe: Yeah, that’s right. Griswold, the Grand Canyon. [01:05:05] Doug: Okay, kids, let’s go. Look, kids. Big Ben Parliament. [01:05:08] Joe: But then we went and sat in the back, OG, I think like you did, over at the Big Texan, which was super fun watching this guy- Yeah [01:05:15] Joe: get on stage. They do a big deal of an- announcing him and who he is and where he’s from, and he sits down, and we watch him fail epically. Right. Like, just didn’t even come close. It’s so much [01:05:25] OG: food. [01:05:25] Joe: It’s too much. The champion, the woman that’s done it fast enough, the person that’s done it fast enough is a woman, and, and I think she’s got, like, first and second place on cleaning that up quickest. [01:05:35] Joe: Like, she’s… I don’t remember what her time was, but it was pretty- [01:05:37] Len: I think the oldest person is also a woman. The oldest person to do it is a woman. [01:05:41] Joe: Wow. [01:05:42] Doug: I bet her time is on her headstone in the graveyard. [01:05:47] Joe: After her, uh, fourth triple bypass. [01:05:50] Doug: Right. [01:05:50] Joe: Right, yeah. All right, that’s gonna do it, Stackers. Thank you so much for hanging out with us. [01:05:54] Joe: Len, people can find you at lenpenzo.com. But you’ve got a book where people can get all of your madcap musings in one efficient place. [01:06:03] Len: Yeah. Who needs the blog anymore? It’s all in the book. Just go to the book, True Money Stories, at Amazon. [01:06:10] Joe: It’s so good. It’s so good. We’ll link to it in the show notes, Stackers, or you know where to find Len, lenpenzo.com. [01:06:15] Joe: Fantastic. With his black coffee every week and- And, uh, the musings from you and the entire gang, which is always a good time. All right, speaking of a good time, Doug, uh, it’s always a good time figuring out what Doug listed as the top three things we shoulda got out of today’s episode. [01:06:32] Doug: Well, Joe, first, take some advice from Len, OG, and you. [01:06:36] Doug: Retirement planning is one foot in front of the other. Set up savings, automate, and start planning how you’re going to increase your saving if you’re behind. You can’t make up for lost time, but you can get started today. Second, and if you’re worried about what to invest in, stop. Don’t do that. When you first start out, buy the total stock market or an S&P 500 and you’re diversified enough. [01:06:59] Doug: Worry about getting fancy later on. But the big lesson… Speaking of fancy, Joe’s mom’s Christmas in July tree now has cactus and beach umbrella ornaments. Come on over and celebrate with us this July. Do not, I repeat, do not forget to bring the gin and tonic, ’cause Mom gets a little itchy and scratchy if you don’t. [01:07:22] Doug: Special thanks to Len Penzo for joining us. You’ll find Len’s blog and book links at his website, Len P- P- P- Penzo.com. Or thepersistentitch.com. I [01:07:32] Joe: forgot about that. The [01:07:33] Len: longest-running [01:07:38] Joe: joke in Basement history. I [01:07:39] Len: forgot. [01:07:41] Doug: This show is the property of SP Podcast LLC, copyright 2026, and is created by Joe Saul-Sehy. [01:07:49] Doug: You’ll find out about our awesome team at stackingbenjamins.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. [01:08:08] 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 BenjaminsShow.
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