BIG Questions In Finance: Are You IN or OUT? (SB1665)

Summary

The Stacking Benjamins Show: Episode SB1665 – “BIG Questions In Finance: Are You IN or OUT?”

Release Date: April 4, 2025

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Introduction

In this engaging episode of The Stacking Benjamins Show, hosts Joe Saul-Sehy and OG delve into some of the most contentious and debated topics in personal finance. Structured around the "Are You IN or OUT?" format, the hosts present bold financial statements for their panel of contributors to debate. This format encourages deep dives into personal finance concepts, making complex topics accessible and entertaining for listeners. The episode covers four major topics: the existence of "good debt," the necessity of budgeting, the importance of discussing money openly, and the pursuit of financial independence through the FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) movement.

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1. Is There Such a Thing as Good Debt?

Timestamp: [08:11]

Paula Pant opens the discussion affirming the concept of "good debt," illustrating how debt can be a strategic tool when used to acquire income-producing assets. She states:

“I am in. Why debt, when used as leverage to acquire assets, income-producing assets, leverage is a lever. It can propel you forward as long as you use a reasonable amount of it in a reasonable way.”
— Paula Pant, [08:11]

Jesse Kramer presents a counterpoint, rejecting the moral classification of debt and emphasizing the potential risks:

“I fall on the side that debt can never be good. It doesn't mean it can't be used appropriately.”
— Jesse Kramer, [09:08]

OG offers a nuanced perspective, acknowledging scenarios where debt can be beneficial, such as low-interest mortgages used strategically:

“There can be situations where there's good debt, like my first auto loan was zero percent for five years… if I had a 2.5% mortgage now, the numbers make sense that there can be situations where there's good debt.”
— OG, [11:10]

Despite initial confusion, the contributors largely agree that while debt can be a double-edged sword, its classification as "good" or "bad" depends on its use and management.

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2. Must You Have a Budget to Be Great with Money?

Timestamp: [13:35]

The next statement challenges the necessity of strict budgeting:

“When you start out, you must have a budget if you want to be great with money. Are you in or are you out?”
— Joe Saul-Sehy, [06:57]

Paula Pant expresses reservations about rigid budgeting systems, advocating instead for flexible financial tracking:

“I hate the words good and bad because they're moralizing… I do track every single month.”
— Paula Pant, [08:34]

Jesse Kramer dismisses traditional budgeting in favor of personalized spending plans, highlighting the limitations of fixed budgets:

“I hate budgets to begin with… I'd much rather have a spending plan.”
— Jesse Kramer, [10:31]

OG concurs, suggesting that while detailed budgeting may be unnecessary, regular tracking is essential for financial health:

“I don't necessarily think that we need to sit at the beginning of every month… I think for a lot of people, budgeting is annoying and tedious.”
— OG, [14:35]

Doug emphasizes the importance of having a financial baseline, even if it doesn't conform to traditional budgeting methods:

“You have to have some baseline to understand if there's enough coming in to cover what's going out.”
— Doug, [19:39]

Overall, the consensus leans towards favoring flexible financial tracking over rigid budgeting frameworks.

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3. Should You Talk Openly About Money with Friends and Family?

Timestamp: [34:51]

The episode continues with the assertion:

“You should talk openly about money with your friends and family. Are you in or are you out?”
— Joe Saul-Sehy, [34:03]

Paula Pant strongly supports financial transparency, highlighting its role in fostering a healthier societal relationship with money:

“I think a society that has financial transparency is a healthier society… putting the numbers in your life into a wider context.”
— Paula Pant, [34:51]

Jesse Kramer echoes this sentiment, emphasizing the practical benefits of open financial discussions in the workplace and personal life:

“You should talk openly... It can help out others by letting them know what they don't know.”
— Jesse Kramer, [36:17]

OG acknowledges the potential discomfort but ultimately supports the idea, recognizing the benefits of transparency:

“I am in. But I could understand the downsides… it's about sharing numbers honestly.”
— OG, [35:41]

Joe Saul-Sehy expands on these points by citing Capital One’s initiatives, which align with the benefits of open financial communication:

“Capital One has made it a consumer practice… based on what you're saying.”
— Joe Saul-Sehy, [36:40]

The discussion underscores the importance of openness about finances in promoting financial literacy and mutual support, despite potential social discomforts.

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4. Is Chasing FIRE Worth the Sacrifice for Someone Starting From Zero?

Timestamp: [45:24]

The final major topic poses a complex statement with double negatives:

“Starting from zero. Chasing FIRE before age 35 isn’t worth that sacrifice. Let’s get on the slow FI train.”
— Joe Saul-Sehy, [44:03]

Jesse Kramer interprets the statement as discouraging the pursuit of FIRE, expressing skepticism about its long-term value:

“I don't think it's worth the sacrifice… it's a combination of things.”
— Jesse Kramer, [45:31]

Paula Pant argues in favor of pursuing FIRE, especially for those in stable financial positions, while also recognizing the personal choices and circumstances that influence this decision:

“I do believe that it is worth it… seeking FIRE is worth it because you have flexibility and options.”
— Paula Pant, [52:51]

OG supports the pursuit of FIRE, emphasizing the long-term benefits of financial flexibility and the ability to adapt one's lifestyle based on personal preferences:

“Seeking FIRE is worth it… it unlocks flexibility for yourself.”
— OG, [51:15]

Jesse Kramer counters by highlighting the potential burnout and lifestyle limitations associated with the intense pursuit of FIRE:

“Chasing it isn’t worth it… you have to maintain flexibility.”
— Jesse Kramer, [47:11]

The debate reveals varying perspectives on FIRE, with supportive voices advocating for its benefits in achieving financial freedom, while others caution against the sacrifices it entails.

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Conclusion

Throughout the episode, The Stacking Benjamins Show effectively balances insightful financial discussions with lighthearted banter, making complex topics both informative and entertaining. By framing each topic with the "Are You IN or OUT?" challenge, the hosts encourage listeners to critically evaluate their financial beliefs and practices. Notable quotes from contributors like Paula Pant, Jesse Kramer, and OG provide depth to each discussion, offering diverse viewpoints that enrich the conversation.

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Notable Quotes

1. Paula Pant on Good Debt
   “I am in. Why debt, when used as leverage to acquire assets, income-producing assets, leverage is a lever. It can propel you forward as long as you use a reasonable amount of it in a reasonable way.”
   — Paula Pant, [08:11]

2. Jesse Kramer on Budgeting
   “I hate budgets to begin with… I'd much rather have a spending plan.”
   — Jesse Kramer, [10:31]

3. OG on Financial Independence
   “You can always change your mind later and say, like, you know what? Maybe I regret. Maybe I've been squeezing too hard and now I want to let up.”
   — OG, [51:57]

4. Joe Saul-Sehy on Talking About Money
   “Capital One has made it a consumer practice… based on what you're saying.”
   — Joe Saul-Sehy, [36:40]

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Final Thoughts

This episode serves as a compelling exploration of fundamental personal finance topics, encouraging listeners to reflect on their financial strategies and beliefs. Whether you're grappling with the nuances of debt, debating the merits of budgeting, contemplating financial transparency, or considering the FIRE movement, The Stacking Benjamins Show provides valuable insights and diverse perspectives to guide your financial journey.

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For more information, visit StackingBenjamins.com or follow the show on YouTube and your favorite podcast platforms.

Transcript

[Joe Salsihai]

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[Doug]

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[Joe Salsihai]

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[Doug]

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[Joe Salsihai]

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[Doug]

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[Joe Salsihai]

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[Doug]

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[Joe Salsihai]

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[Doug]

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[Joe Salsihai]

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[Doug]

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[Joe Salsihai]

Spider pig, spider pig does whatever a.

[Jesse Kramer]

Spider pig does can he swing from a web? No he can't He's a pig look.

[Joe Salsihai]

How he is a spider pig.

[Doug]

Live from the basement of the YouTube headquarters, it's the Stacking Benjamin show. I'm chose mom's neighbor Doug, and today we're asking our panel of contributions contributors some of the personal finance world's most controversial questions. Are they in or out? We'll parse the good, bad and ugly from budgets to debt and from investing to insurance on today's show. But that's not all. We'll pause about halfway through today's discussion for the highlight of today's show, the crown jewel in the Stacking Benjamin's media empire. Yes, that's right. I'm talking about my trivia. And now a guy who knows that 0% APER isn't nearly as fun as it sounds. It's Joe. So I'll see you.

[Joe Salsihai]

I love Doug. How you got the pronunciation right too. Right off SNL aper. I'm pretty sure it's April. Hey everybody. Welcome to the Financial Concepts Friday episode of the Stacking Benjamin Show. I am Joe Salsihai and we're going to have some fun today with this construct that I borrowed from another podcast that I listened to, which Shock of Shocks is actually about Disney. My friend Lou Mongello does this thing in or out and I thought this would be fun to play on a Friday with our contributors. So let's do it. Let's meet everybody. First of all the guy across the card table from me here in mom's basement, Mr. OG is here. How are you, man?

[Jesse Kramer]

I'm Doug. Clinging to life.

[Joe Salsihai]

Sounds like you're fading in and out yourself.

[Jesse Kramer]

I have half a bottle down of Dayquil and a half a glass down of Johnnie Walker Blue. So let's get it. It can't be bad.

[Joe Salsihai]

No science. I mean it all. It all works together.

[Jesse Kramer]

I don't know what taste works.

[Joe Salsihai]

I got no idea.

[Jesse Kramer]

Straight Johnnie Walker Blue or Vicks? DayQuil2.

[Joe Salsihai]

Great taste. Paula Pant from Afford. Anything that go great together right there.

[Paula Pant]

Ooh, absolutely. And speaking of which. So here I'm surrounded by my lunch. I've got BO Bone broth.

[Joe Salsihai]

Bone broth for lunch.

[Paula Pant]

Bone broth.

[Joe Salsihai]

It's no longer just for breakfast anymore.

[Paula Pant]

I've also got half an avocado.

[Jesse Kramer]

That is not an avocado. That's like a baby avocado.

[Paula Pant]

Okay? The baby avocado, it's proportional to me.

[Jesse Kramer]

Did you kill a baby? A baby avocado to make that?

[Doug]

It's the lamb of the vegetable world.

[Joe Salsihai]

I know.

[Paula Pant]

And then, let's see. Modern Mexican soda. Prickly pear. Prickly Pear variety.

[Joe Salsihai]

Prickly pear soda.

[Paula Pant]

Yeah.

[Jesse Kramer]

I'm no expert on lunch, but I feel like you need a few more calories.

[Joe Salsihai]

So the brand is Tapache.

[Paula Pant]

Tapache, yeah. To Pache.

[Joe Salsihai]

That's great. So much like we did. Which one did we do on Afford Anything where we talked about Spindrift.

[Paula Pant]

Spindrift, yes. Yeah.

[Joe Salsihai]

Today's episode, not brought to you by Tapache and Dayquil, a brand I've never heard of. And sounds wonderful, though. Is it delicious?

[Paula Pant]

It is. It is delicious. It's also high in vitamin C and craft. Fermented.

[Joe Salsihai]

Oh, see, we're out.

[Paula Pant]

Fermented. Wait a minute. Does that mean it's alcoholic?

[Joe Salsihai]

Oh, speaking of alcoholic, that would be. Would that be the worst intro?

[OG]

Jesse Craig, can I ask. Maybe I should have asked this before we started recording, but who's the extra person in our signal chat?

[Jesse Kramer]

Too soon, buddy. Too soon.

[Joe Salsihai]

I gotta say, this joke is great because we cracked it on Wednesday and we cracked it again on Friday.

[OG]

Did we? Okay, I missed it. I missed it.

[Joe Salsihai]

No, that's all right, dude. The gift that keeps on giving.

[Jesse Kramer]

Hillary, who tweeted but my emails.

[Joe Salsihai]

Jesse Kramer. How are you, my friend?

[OG]

Doing well. Doing well. Thankfully not. Not as sick as it sounds like some of you folks are, but I think that's because, you know, with the baby at home, we've. We've already been through that enough times this winter. So we're on the up and up.

[Joe Salsihai]

Wait till you start the daycare thing, Jesse. I don't know if you've done that yet, but that's the gift that just keeps giving. If you want golds.

[OG]

Yeah. Super, super excited to put my immune system through that gauntlet to the test.

[Joe Salsihai]

Well, today we're putting all you guys through the gauntlet because we're gonna ask you some fairly controversial stuff today. And I'm gonna ask you, are you in or are you out? I'm actually not going to ask it. I'm gonna make a statement and then we'll see if you're in or out and we're gonna ask why you're in or out on these. These are some, some of these could be fighting words. We'll see. I'm not gonna tell all of you what those statements are yet. Before we do anything, we've got a couple of sponsors that make sure that this goodness is all free and you get it and our whole roundtable episode without paying a dime. So let's hear from those sponsors and then we're going to ask a roundtable and you guys can all play along at home. Are you in or out on these financial ideas? Small business owners State Farms there with small business insurance to fit your specific needs. Whether you're starting a new venture or growing an existing one, State Farm helps you choose the right coverage to protect what matters most. Working with a local State Farm agent helps you understand your coverage options. Offering local support to help you achieve your goals. Focus on turning your passion into a thriving business. Knowing your insurance can change as your business grows. State Farm here to help you succeed with your business. Like a good neighbor. Stay Farm is there.

[Paula Pant]

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You chose to hit play on this podcast today. Smart choice. Progressive loves to help people make smart choices.

[Joe Salsihai]

That's why they offer a tool called.

[Paula Pant]

Auto Quote Explorer that allows you to compare your Progressive car insurance quote with rates from other companies so you save time on the research and can enjoy.

[Joe Salsihai]

Savings when you choose the best rate for you. Give it a try after this [e-mail].

[Paula Pant]

Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy.

[Joe Salsihai]

All right, guys, question number one. Are you in or out? I'm going to make the statement. You tell me if you're in or out. We're going to start. We'll go ladies first here. Paula Pant. There is such a thing as good debt. There is such a Thing as good debt. Are you in or are you out?

[Paula Pant]

I am in with the spirit of the question, but I hate the words good and bad because they're moralizing. But I get what it's fundamentally asking and I'm in. Why debt, when used as leverage to acquire assets, income producing assets, leverage is a lever. It can propel you forward as long as you use a reasonable amount of it in a reasonable way.

[Joe Salsihai]

I was going to say, but can't that leverage bite you in the ass? We saw a lot of that in 2007, 2008.

[Paula Pant]

Yeah. Just like any lever, like a lever can like fling you up into the stratosphere really quickly or it can fling you down into the earth really quickly.

[Joe Salsihai]

It's funny, I was talking to Josh Dworkin about exactly what you just said. He's like, the thing I love about real estate is that it creates more millionaires faster. And it also is the biggest toilet flush because real estate is almost always bought with leverage. And you see all these brilliant people all of a sudden. Not brilliant all at the same time.

[Paula Pant]

Exactly.

[Joe Salsihai]

Oh, gee, there is such a thing as good debt. In or out.

[Jesse Kramer]

Yeah, I'm with Paula on the words good and assuming that the opposite of that is bad. So I'm going to take that word out and say, is that good? And I'm going to say, absolutely not. That doesn't mean you can't use it appropriately. But I generally think that anything that's going to continue to require you to make payments regardless of other outcomes can't be good. That doesn't mean that it can't be used appropriately. Obviously Paul is talking about buying real estate. My argument when people talk about real estate as being so fantastic is I'll say, well, why don't we just do that with your stock portfolio? Certainly leveraging the 500 biggest companies in America would be a much better outcome than leveraging the single family house and, you know, wherever America. But because stocks are priced on a minute by minute basis, a lot of times we get really nervous with that your house isn't priced, you know, minute by minute, second by second. And. And you don't necessarily see that. But no, I've seen debt used appropriately. I've seen debt used inappropriately. Not not saying that the person who's talking here hasn't is throwing stones in glass houses because Lord knows I've done both of those things. But I fall down on the side of debt can never be good. It doesn't mean it can't be used.

[Joe Salsihai]

It sounds like you're, you're more out than in.

[Jesse Kramer]

Then I'm out.

[Joe Salsihai]

Sounds like you're out.

[Jesse Kramer]

Yeah, I know you can use it well, but I'm okay with not using it. Also, I think you can be just as successful not using it.

[Joe Salsihai]

All right, Paula's in. Oh gee, is out. Jesse, there's such a thing as good debt. In or out.

[OG]

I think it's funny. I think OG was in and then he talked himself out a bit. No, with the help of cough syrup.

[Jesse Kramer]

No, I was never in.

[OG]

We played that tape back.

[Jesse Kramer]

Believe you me, when it comes to debt, I'm an expert.

[Joe Salsihai]

I'm with you, Jesse. I thought, oh gee, you started off with I'm with Paul.

[Jesse Kramer]

Oh, I see.

[Joe Salsihai]

What you said, which, which I thought meant I'm in good versus bad. And then you went the opposite way.

[Jesse Kramer]

I don't like the terminology.

[OG]

The court reporter will read that one back for you. Og, I am in on the statement. Let me go back to the statement to make sure I understand it correctly. There is such a thing as good debt. I'm in. My first auto loan because my father was kind enough to co sign it with me, was zero percent for five years. To me that is much better than having to pay the full sticker price out of pocket. Some people right now who secured a mortgage kind of before, maybe in like the late 2010s or the early 2020s, they might have a 2 and change percent mortgage. And meanwhile the cash that they could have used to pay that house upfront, that cash is now and has been accruing interest in the last couple of years at 3 or 4%. And so if I had a 2 and a half percent mortgage right now, I wouldn't be paying it down any faster than I have to. From that point of view, I think, you know, to me at least the numbers make make sense to me that there can be situations where there's good debt.

[Jesse Kramer]

To your point, Jesse, I think I'm grateful that I have a 2 1/2% mortgage, but I'm using that so that I can get that darn thing gone versus you know, and I know that it's like, oh well, you should take that extra money that you'd put on your two and a half percent mortgage and put it in the market and, or better yet, put it in the market on margin, you know, four to one, why not? And that's all. I mean it would work. I remember reading an article one time, it was a scientific article about investing. They had put out basically the thesis that you should always be levered 2 to 1 in your stock portfolio even if you bust. Like if you bust out, you just start over 2 to 1 because eventually it works out.

[Joe Salsihai]

So somebody historically looked through this and said you would have come through way ahead if you were 2 to 1.

[Jesse Kramer]

Leveraged, even though you're paying margin, interest and all that other sort of jazz. But we can't bring ourselves to do it. We were talking about debt earlier this week. The reason I don't like it is not because I don't think it can work. It's because I got to make $75,000 a year to pay for my mortgage payment of 50,000 and I need to have $500,000 in my investment account to pay my $4,000 a month mortgage payment over my retirement time period if I still have it. So in my mind, the faster I can get it done with, despite the fact that it's at two and a half percent, the less stress I have on my life. I don't have to, I don't have to make 75 grand this year because I don't have a house payment. That's 75,000 less dollars.

[Joe Salsihai]

We got some great stackers hanging out with us. We'd love to hear if you're in or out on this. We're recording this YouTube at the regular time about 4:00pm Eastern Time. Paul from Texas is here, Mike from Chicagoland, Margaret from Atlanta, among others, hanging out with us. We'd love to hear from you guys. You in or out on that one? Let's move on though, while we wait for those to appear. Jesse, let's stick with you. Are you in or out? When you start out, you must have a budget if you want to be great with money. When you start out, you must have a budget if you want to be great with money. Jesse Kramer, are you in or are you out?

[OG]

This is an interesting one, Joe. I hate to be the semantic person, but when you say budget, can I substitute the word in like tracking? Or do you really mean like a budget where you prescribe exactly how much you plan on spending per category?

[Joe Salsihai]

Per I said it the way I said it. You do with it what you want, brother.

[OG]

Then I am out. Because I don't necessarily think that we need to sit at the beginning of every month no matter where we are in our financial journey. I don't think we have to sit there and say, well, this month I'm going to put $300 in the grocery envelope and I'm going to put $20 in the car wash envelope. And I don't think that we have to do that. Do I think that by the end of the month you should be able to look backward and understand how you spent your money 100%? And so that's where in some form or fashion we need to budget or track. But I think for a lot of people, budgeting is annoying and tedious and they've tried it before and it hasn't really worked for them. And if it doesn't, you know, I don't really budget anymore, but I do track every single month. So the statement as spoken, I'm out. But there is that little asterisk.

[Joe Salsihai]

Okay, but as I wrote in this brilliant book, stacked you Super Serious Guide to Modern Money management, available everywhere. Thomas Thomas Jefferson was phenomenal, Jesse, at tracking. He wrote down everything. It was a financial disaster his entire life and died penniless, owed tons of people money. So he did the tracking piece. It was worthless.

[OG]

Sounds like a dummy. I mean, what do you, what do you want me to say?

[Joe Salsihai]

But you said that's the good part.

[OG]

Okay, I mean, listen, I don't know enough about the details of Thomas Jefferson's life. It does surprise me that he tracked everything he ever spent and wound up penniless. I mean, perhaps he was doing something.

[Jesse Kramer]

Maybe he was over levered.

[OG]

Yeah, maybe it's, Maybe it was 2 to 1. Maybe it's 2 to 1 levered on.

[Joe Salsihai]

The Dutch east, bad debt might have been. All right, Paula, when you start out, you must have a budget if you want to be great with money. Are you in or are you out?

[Paula Pant]

I am out. I'm out on that one. And actually for me, the sticking point is the when you start out, that clause is the thing that knocked me out. I think that if we were to say that some descriptor of person must have a budget. If you are really paycheck to paycheck, when money is super tight, you must have a budget. That would be my statement. But that statement is not necessarily correlated with when you start out. Right. It often is. People sometimes use that interchangeably. But there are also people who start out and they're making huge money right out of the gate. Britney Spears, massive money right out of the gate. You know, by the time she was 15, 16 years old, she was making tons of money. And of course it's easy to point at a celebrity. But there are also people who straight out of college, you know, depending on their major, might be earning $90,000, $100,000 straight out of school.

[Joe Salsihai]

Yeah, but I worked with people, Paula, that made half a million dollars working for the TV station that I was at still found ways to overspend that money. Like, found ways. And for them, had they had a budget in the beginning, it would have totally changed everything when they brought that money home, because they could have built the delta between the money in and the money out.

[Paula Pant]

Right? So that goes back to. If you're paycheck to paycheck, if money's tight, no matter. No matter how much or how little you make, if money is tight and you're living paycheck to paycheck, and you're right at that line, you must have a budget.

[Joe Salsihai]

That's where your. Your line is.

[Paula Pant]

Yeah, exactly. But that's not the same as when you start out.

[Joe Salsihai]

All right, OG when you start out, you must have a budget if you want to be great with money. Are you in or are you out?

[Jesse Kramer]

No, I'm out. I hate budgets to begin with. I think the vast majority of people have no concept of what their forecasting spend is going to be for a period of time. And putting a budget in place is at best guessing. I'd much rather sit down with a calendar and put together a spending plan, which, again, sounds semantical but not budget related. Right. I'm not saying my budget for car washes is $240 a year. Therefore, I'm spending $20, you know, or whatever it is, you know what I mean? Like, per month. It's just this month. There's pollen everywhere. I'm going every other day. Like, I get to spend $200 this year, this month on car washes and $40 the rest of the year. Like, I want to be in charge of that. So I would much rather have a spending plan. But even so, even at the beginning of your financial journey, if I knew how much money I needed to save and I could just yolo the rest of my life knowing that I'm on track for my financial goals, I would much rather do that. Like that that frees up so much mental capacity to do whatever, you know, and not stress about cups of coffee and car washes. Like, that sounds like a miserable way to run your life versus being 20 like you said, or 22 like you said, Joe, and fresh out of school, making decent money, going. All I have to do is just make sure these things are good. I got to put money in my 401k, max out, my Roth, my HSA. I'm rich.

[Doug]

But how is that not a budget? I'm disappointed in all of you. I'm jumping in here. This is because I feel like you're also talking about both sides.

[Jesse Kramer]

Because I'm not saying like. And then you also go like, well, this is my groceries. Oh my gosh. My groceries were $300 and I spent 305. What? What was me?

[Doug]

Well, but most of you have said some level of you need a baseline to know. And so that to me is a budget. I think maybe this is semantics. But to at least do it once a year and know the big buckets, here's my rent, here's my healthcare, here's my food, here's whatever installment loan payments I have to make do that once a year. So you know how much you have to work with. Okay, then don't look at it for six months or another 12 months. But you have to have some baseline to understand if there's enough coming in to cover the what's going out.

[OG]

Doug, do you need the court reporter to read back what I said before my answer? It is semantics. It is semantics.

[Doug]

But what did you. You guys all just thought it would be sexy to say I'm out?

[Jesse Kramer]

Well, because I don't budget for man. So I definitely am out on this one. I'm an expert at debt and I hate it and I don't budget anything.

[Joe Salsihai]

You can't lead by example. He's got to be out. Yeah. Paula, you've got a thoughtful look on your face.

[Paula Pant]

Yeah, well, because I often advocate for what I call the anti budget, which is even the anti budget is functionally a two category budget, with the two categories being what you save and what you spend. So even a not budget is still a budget, which means everything is budget, which means nothing is budget.

[OG]

Oh my gosh, the Twilight Zone.

[Doug]

Doug's head is going to explode if.

[OG]

The question in some form is, do you need to measure your money? I'm all in. I'm all in. And if we want to say that any form of measuring your money is technically budgeting. Okay, then I guess then I'm in.

[Joe Salsihai]

If you're hanging out with us live. I, I know that I asked, I asked specifically Mike, Margaret and Paul about these questions, but feel free to chime in. I don't want it to just be those three. But on the first question, is there such a thing as good debt? Margaret says she's out there is no good debt. So she agrees with OG there. Mike says I'm in on there being good or at least not bad debt, mainly for the reasons the panel cited. Now, can I be in on more jokes? From neighbor Doug. That's what Mike wants to know. And Paul says, I'm with OG debt free since 2008. I believe in using debt for first car and house. But his assets grew. No more debt. So, like you, Jesse, the, the car was a good thing, but he doesn't think that's good debt. It's just necessary debt. All right, we've got a couple more after our break, but we take a moment here at the halfway point of our Friday show to dive into our year long trivia challenge. Between our three frequent contributors, we are returning to normalcy. Because OG has five, Jesse has now moved into second, which means Paula's back in her normal spot in third. OG has five, Jesse has two, Paula has one. Can Paula turn it around? Paula, you think so?

[Paula Pant]

You know, last time I came so close, so close. I really did.

[Joe Salsihai]

You just followed your intuition again.

[Paula Pant]

I know. And I, you know, and I wasn't even that far away. So I think, I think I'm, I'm, I'm inching up to the finish line. I'm getting closer and closer. I think this might be the day.

[Joe Salsihai]

I think it's going to be 2029 when Paula gets this all figured out. We'll see though. Could start this week. It's exciting. We need a trivia question though, to see who's going to be right. Doug, what's on tap today?

[Doug]

Hey there, Stackers. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug, and you want to see a magic trick? Of course you do. I only mention it because magician David Blaine, big fan of the show, I'm told, has a birthday today. Happy birthday, DB with how popular his street magic has become, you'd think David Blaine is the highest paid magician, but nae nae, as Joe's mom says, alas, he is not. That honor would go to another David. David Copperfield. Two Davids. I wonder if they're related. So of course, today's trivia is about magic. How much money disappears from your pockets and went into annuities in 2024. See what I did there? Little bait switch. You were looking over here at this hand, but I. The magic was over here. The other half. I'll be back right after I get some lube because I have a feeling this answer is gonna hurt.

[Joe Salsihai]

Wow, that got overly descriptive. Doug, annuities in 2024. Too bad we don't have Don back from last week. Who could do an annuity rant or two? OG, you're going first. How much money did people put in Annuities this information from the annuity industry. So this will be worldwide amount of money into annuities in 2024. In 2024.

[Jesse Kramer]

I feel like I should have at least a ballpark guess. This is new money going into annuities.

[Joe Salsihai]

This is new money into annuities in 2024. Worldwide.

[Jesse Kramer]

Worldwide wide. Wide. Let's say that the correct answer is going to be 37.8 billion.

[Joe Salsihai]

37.8 billion with a B dollars. Jesse, what do you think about that number?

[OG]

Worldwide wide.

[Jesse Kramer]

Wide.

[OG]

I think that number's exceedingly low. I think. But I'm not sure I'm thinking about the question. Right. So I'm going to make it hard on you, Paula. Let me think through this here. How many annuities are sold? And these are private annuities, right, Joe?

[Joe Salsihai]

These are through insurance companies.

[OG]

Through insurance companies, yeah. So how many annuities are sold? And then what's the average size of that annuity? I'm going to go 1.5 trillion.

[Joe Salsihai]

1.5.

[Doug]

I can't do that math, man.

[Joe Salsihai]

Good God.

[OG]

The question was how many dollars? How many dollars?

[Joe Salsihai]

$1.5 trillion into annuities. Tens of thousands of dollars in 2024. No, no, not intensive. Oh, Gee's trying to reel it back in once he realizes he may have been low. I don't know if he's low or not. Paula. You think he's low?

[Jesse Kramer]

He just threw a Hail Mary, like from the. From the 10, over the. Over the goalpost, over the stadium, into the parking lot. So, so, so far I feel pretty good.

[Joe Salsihai]

He went two zeros higher. We'll see.

[Paula Pant]

Wow. You know, when I heard the question, my thought was, well, it's going to be more than a billion, but less than a trillion. And I actually thought exactly right. You know, I was like, more than a billion, less than a trillion. Those were the parameters inside my head. I was not expecting anyone to actually go over a trillion. Hmm. OG what was your guess? It was 37.8.

[Jesse Kramer]

37.8 billion. Billion.

[Paula Pant]

Billion.

[Jesse Kramer]

Woefully shorter than 1.5 trillion.

[Paula Pant]

I think you're closer. So I'm going to go 37.9.

[Joe Salsihai]

37.

[Jesse Kramer]

It's a classy way to run the game.

[Joe Salsihai]

$9 billion. So you also think, Paula, that the number is bigger than 37.8 billion.

[Paula Pant]

I mean, I gotta take a bet on one side or the other. And I'm following my intuition.

[Joe Salsihai]

Oh, my God. What's the saying? Those who don't learn from history are destined to.

[Paula Pant]

I don't know are destined to flunk history class.

[Joe Salsihai]

Let's see if Paula flunks history class. OG at 37.8. Paula at 37.9. Jesse at 1.5 trillion. Those first two were in billions. We'll be right back to see who wins this thing. This episode is brought to you by Lifelock.

[OG]

It's tax season and we're all a bit tired of numbers, but here's one you need to $16.5 billion. That's how much the IRS flagged for possible identity fraud last year. Now here's a good number. 100 million. That's how many data points Lifelock monitors every second. If your identity is stolen, they'll fix it. Guaranteed. Save up to 40% your first year at lifelock.com podcast terms apply. Earn rewards with the IHG1 Rewards Premier Business credit card, you can earn up to 200,000 bonus points with this limited time offer.

[Jesse Kramer]

Visit ihg1hg.com BusinessCard cards issued by JP.

[OG]

Morgan Chase bank and a member FDIC offers subject to change terms apply.

[Joe Salsihai]

It's part sports. We have football on the brain, part pop culture.

[Doug]

Dennis Leary True or false. You refuse to wear a glove with Mickey Mantle's signature on it for the movie the Sandlot.

[Joe Salsihai]

The Red Sox blood, the Bruins blood. They run deep. Add in the best celebrity interview.

[Doug]

Robert De Niro here on the Rich Eisen Show.

[Joe Salsihai]

How are you, sir?

[Doug]

Just got over a 24 hour virus. The antidote is to appear on the Rich Eisen Show.

[Joe Salsihai]

There you go.

[Jesse Kramer]

I would have done it earlier.

[Joe Salsihai]

And you've got the Rich Eisen Show.

[Doug]

Podcast a medicinal quality to appearing on this program.

[Jesse Kramer]

Follow and listen on your favorite platform.

[Joe Salsihai]

Oh, gee, you at 37.8 billion. Jesse thought you were not nearly high enough and I, I guess Paula decided that as well. How you feeling?

[Jesse Kramer]

I mean, pretty crappy, all things considered.

[Joe Salsihai]

Is that from the day Quill or.

[Jesse Kramer]

Is that from the kind of everything I, I, I don't have a sense of the annuity market. So.

[Joe Salsihai]

Jesse, 1.5 trillion.

[Jesse Kramer]

Felt pretty good about a David Copperfield answer, though. I was like, oh, this one's in my wheelhouse. I've seen this dude a couple times.

[Joe Salsihai]

And then we pulled our own magic trick, apparently. Doug, 1.5 trillion. You're the only one whose answer starts with a T. You feeling good?

[OG]

I think so. I'm pretty sure I know what I think. I remember seeing what the US market was recently. I think it was around half a trillion. And so, I don't know. Does the US a third of global annuities. That's what I kind of went with. Maybe I should have said it was half, but either way I think if the US is about half a trillion, then I'm feeling okay. About 1.5.

[Jesse Kramer]

I'm in the wrong business.

[Joe Salsihai]

Paula. 37.9. How are you feeling?

[Paula Pant]

You know, I'm mixed because I mean the question is also new net inflows in one singular calendar year. So. So I don't quite know how to assess the size of the market versus how much new money is flowing in in a, in a single year. But gotta choose something.

[Doug]

They really thought about this.

[Joe Salsihai]

They truly did think about it. All right, Doug, give us the answer. Who's gonna win this thing?

[Doug]

Hey there, stackers. I'm new owner of a giant box of band aids. And also new guy waiting for a self inflicted annuity fueled shocker. Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug. Ah, magic. Today's question in honor of David Blaine's birthday is about how the insurance industry is able to convince more and more people to believe annuities are the answer to their life's problems. How much money magically went out of our wallets into annuities in 2024? Well, I'll say this, the answer is 12% higher than last year. This is incredible. How's this happening? I'll also say this. It was 1.068 trillion less than what Jesse guessed because he guessed all of the available liquid cash on the planet. It was 394.2 billion more than what OG guessed. 394.1 more than what Paula guessed, meaning the correct answer is $432 billion. And more importantly, Paula moves into a tie for second place.

[Paula Pant]

Oh me. I knew it. I knew this would be the day.

[Jesse Kramer]

Woohoo.

[Joe Salsihai]

And there is, there is a problem though, Paula.

[Paula Pant]

What?

[Joe Salsihai]

There is a problem. What? Jesse pointed out the problem.

[OG]

It's okay, it's okay. I think that's the. That's the US number.

[Joe Salsihai]

That is the US number. That is. That is the US number.

[OG]

That's okay.

[Doug]

All the still wins. I'm rule, I'm the judge. I'm ruling. Paula wakes. Yeah, just move along. Nothing to see here.

[Joe Salsihai]

I was, I was like, with Jesse's like, I think I know the US number. It's about half a billion dollars. And I went, really? That's a US number. No it's not. That's a worldwide number. Went back up, looked at again.

[Doug]

Fudge. Only I didn't say fudge.

[Joe Salsihai]

And Jesse saw the right number.

[Paula Pant]

I Think Jesse should have it. Jesse should have.

[OG]

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's okay. I genuinely, I don't. First off, take it, Paula. Second off, I don't even know what the. Do they sell annuities in other countries? I don't know. They do that.

[Joe Salsihai]

Absolutely. They do.

[OG]

Do they?

[Paula Pant]

What is the worldwide number?

[OG]

Well, that's.

[Joe Salsihai]

The judges will look it up and we'll let everybody know next week. But I think that will make Jesse the winner. I'm fairly certain it'll make Jesse the winner if we've got half a billion dollars just in the United States.

[Doug]

I've already ruled on this. I wrote it down already.

[Joe Salsihai]

I still want Paula to win.

[Paula Pant]

Either way, OG is not getting the victory. So there's at least a little bit of David and Goliath here.

[Doug]

Some solace.

[Jesse Kramer]

What's the score? Currently I stopped paying attention.

[Joe Salsihai]

I think Jesse. Now, assuming that Jesse's going to get the point, which we will let everybody know next week, that gives Jesse three. Paula has one, OG has five.

[Paula Pant]

Do you want to split it? Can we do a half point each?

[Doug]

We can do a half point. We have done that in the pen.

[Joe Salsihai]

Downs.

[Paula Pant]

All right, let's do that. Let's split it.

[Doug]

All right.

[Joe Salsihai]

We're not even going to look it up. We're not going to look it up and see who's right. Who won?

[Jesse Kramer]

Oh, no.

[Paula Pant]

I mean, just out of sheer curiosity, I would like to know what the worldwide number is.

[OG]

But yeah, I will say, Paula, if your gut is saying to split it, I don't think you should.

[Joe Salsihai]

I thought you were saying if her gut says to split it, you should take it all is what you're saying, Jesse. Oh, man, that is funny. And Jesse, I think you saw my face because I looked at your face.

[OG]

No, no, I didn't see your face.

[Joe Salsihai]

No, no. Because I saw you start laughing. I thought it was in response to my. Oh, God. Because I thought I clearly. Anyway. All right, on to the second.

[Jesse Kramer]

Just for the record, Limra says that collectively annuity sales will reach 1.1 trillion from 2022-24. That's a three year period.

[OG]

Yeah, that's probably us. Three years of 3 or 400 billion in the US would get us there. Who knows? Who knows? Maybe the audience can find it for us.

[Doug]

Doug knows. Doug awarded half a point to each of you.

[Joe Salsihai]

If somebody more competent could do it than us, that would be great. All right, let's get back to the place where we are competent, which is creating chaos with these financial statements. Are you in or out? Paula, let's go back to you. You ready for this one? Paula Panter, you in or out? You should talk openly about money with your friends and family. Are you in or are you out?

[Paula Pant]

I am in. I am in. I think a society that has financial transparency is a healthier society. And if we as collectively can just. And each person has to lead by example, if we can start being more open, sharing numbers. I mean, there are numbers that, you know, everybody has their own set of assumptions in their head. And there are numbers that one person might not think is possible and another person might not realize is as good as it is. And you know, when you can start making like putting the numbers in your life into a wider context, it's not about comparison. It's just about understanding what is possible and what is achievable and what is out there.

[Joe Salsihai]

All right, Jesse Kramer, you should talk openly about money with friends and family. Are you in or are you out?

[OG]

I am in. I do think it's hard and I do wonder if the five of us or four and a half of us, however we want to count points. I do wonder if we're all a little bit biased because we're all money people. Because my thought is, like, if I knew or if one of my friends was coming to me, they wanted to talk openly about money and if they were making like three times more than me and they had three times more than me or any multiple, I'm pretty comfortable with people all over the money spectrum and like, it doesn't. Doesn't bother me. But does everybody feel that way? And that's where I just get a little bit worried about, you know, if I start talking openly about money and someone suddenly feels pretty self. What's the word I'm looking for? Self conscious.

[Joe Salsihai]

Self conscious? Yeah.

[OG]

Yeah, a little self conscious. Because that's where I mean, if I had to guess that, that tried and true, you know, hokey wisdom of you don't talk about religion and politics and money, it might be related to that idea. So I'm not glass half full optimus. I am in. But I could understand the downsides.

[Joe Salsihai]

The interesting thing is Capital One actually put this into practice because they saw Jesse, to your point, people with fantastic credit who use the credit card very well, generally people that don't carry a balance, they send those people specifically to people because they want to talk to individuals. People who run balances and who have a history of being late don't want to talk to anybody. And maybe it's that they Feel they're going to be judged. Maybe it's, they feel uncomfortable with the fact that they're late on their payments, whatever it might be. So Capital One has made it a consumer practice, like a, like a customer service practice, just based on what you're saying. So I think there's a lot of evidence. I don't know if talking openly, I mean, do you think if, if people like, I'm just thinking about when I was young, if I would have talked openly about money when I was young and people were talking openly about money with me, would I have gone through the valley of death like I did with my money? Would that have even happened? If, if it would have been, you know, more in my face? I don't know. Let's get OG's take on this. OG, in or out? You should talk openly about money with friends and family.

[Jesse Kramer]

Yeah, I think you should. Not just only things like compensation and that sort of thing. You know, how many stories do you hear about like somebody who has been working at the Same company for 25 years and Jesse, Jesse's getting hosed on his pay. You're not even 25 years old, Jesse. What are you talking about?

[OG]

At my engineering job. Yeah, keep going though.

[Jesse Kramer]

That doesn't mean that you should be paid the same. I'm not suggesting that at all. But if part of the reason that we advocate shopping for jobs so frequently and frankly, part of the reason that people do it, and my wife did it when she was in consulting, was because you get hired and then you get your pay raises and you're like, okay, I got my 3%, 4% pay raise. Not knowing that the new grads out of college are getting paid here. And you're like, the company's not gonna, they're not gonna volunteer that information. Why would they, like, you know, why would they wanna tell you, hey, by the way, that 22 year old we just hired, we hired him in at 75. 5. You're at 52 right now because we've been giving you 3% pay raise. This isn't life grand, you know, and just having that conversation would raise that person's comp plan. And it's not until you change jobs where you go, like, wait a second, five year veterans make a hundred grand? Who knew? You know, like, like that shouldn't be the case. Why do you have to go change jobs? Maybe you like your job, but at least give you the info. Same thing. It was interesting. You talked about this, Joe, about your, you know, if you would have had discussions when you were growing up. I was thinking about that. All the money stuff that was in my face when I was a kid was, everything sucks about money. The man is always out to get you. There's no choice but being in debt up to your eyeballs, like, barely. You can make credit card pay. Like, everything was a struggle all the time. When I left home and I started working, that was kind of my life, too. Everything was a struggle. Everything was, you know, like, it wasn't up to me. It's funny being an entrepreneur. You're like, you can do anything you want to do. But I didn't have that mentality until later, until I dropped all the stuff that I remember from being a kid. There was no saving or investing or, you know, let's save money for the vacation or, you know, any of that sort of positive thing. It was all. It was all negative money talk. So I also wonder, you know, would that have been a different path for me? And then I think there's another. Obligation is a tough word, but I think there's another. Another piece of this, which is if you have some stuff figured out, then you're probably more likely to want to talk about it. Like, if I was really going to go help Bent, and Paula has talked to me about this before. When we started doing some real estate investing, she was the person I talked to. I was like, I don't know the first damn thing about this. Like, what. What are the things I'm going to screw up? And she texted me a long list of all the stuff I was going to screw up, and I did all the things. Just like she said, you're going to screw up all these things. I was like, oh, good, I did them all. I screwed up all those things. But, you know, she's great at it. Why would I want her to not want to tell me? If you want to build financial plans, you better talk to me and Jesse. That's what we're super great at. Like, really great. World class. I would even argue.

[Doug]

Okay, settle down, chief.

[Jesse Kramer]

Settle down.

[Joe Salsihai]

Best in the universe.

[Jesse Kramer]

Best in the universe, actually. Okay, champ, maybe just me, but Jesse's probably in the strategy. Fear also, but you know what I mean? Like, why would you want me to not want to tell you that? It's a stretch. And I get that, but this is the analogy I think about. It's like, we've got a cure for this disease. Why would we want to just keep it a secret? It just makes absolutely no sense to me that the five of us here have largely figured out Money. Not perfectly probably, but largely figured it out. And this is our platform. Like, why would we want to not tell people? And God forbid you. You have the secret or the answer to a problem that one of your closest friends or family members are dealing with, and you're like, I better not talk to Graham about that. She might get offended. Meanwhile, she's struggling with this issue that you could solve like that. Like, why would you do that?

[Joe Salsihai]

It is sad, though. I have a family member who treats it like an Amway meeting. Like, every time the topic.

[Jesse Kramer]

That's not on you, though.

[Joe Salsihai]

That's.

[Jesse Kramer]

It's on the receiver. Yes, that's on the receiver. You can't fix people who don't want to be fixed, or you can't help people that don't want to be helped. It's so frustrating, but you can't feel frustrated about that. We all have people like that in our lives. But by the same token, how worse would you feel if you didn't make an effort?

[Joe Salsihai]

Absolutely.

[Jesse Kramer]

So, yeah, I think you should point. I think you should normalize a lot of things, because to Paul's point, a million dollars may seem unachievable to somebody, and then all of a sudden, they see that Paul is making a million bucks a year, and they're like, wait a second. Maybe I could do that. You know, like, talk about motivation. My goodness. No downside.

[Joe Salsihai]

Maybe Paula can eat half an avocado. I can eat half an avocado, too. Yeah.

[Jesse Kramer]

Half a baby avocado.

[Paula Pant]

Yeah.

[Jesse Kramer]

It's like a delicacy, like veal.

[Joe Salsihai]

Jesse, for people that haven't heard your engineering job story because you referenced it a few minutes ago, but what happened in your engineering job?

[OG]

I mean, I actually don't talk about it a ton, but the essence is it's similar to what OG Was talking about. I think at the time, I was probably, like, 27. I had five years of experience and good reviews. I had a master's degree in mechanical engineering.

[Jesse Kramer]

Scoreboard.

[OG]

So I was making one number. I can. I can share it on here. We're. We're numbers people. I was basically making 80 grand.

[Jesse Kramer]

We just talked about sharing numbers openly, for God's sake.

[OG]

I'm in. I was making about 80 grand, which, at least here in Rochester seemed reasonable. Like, we're not San Francisco. We're not New York City. But then there were new hires, 22, 22 years old, no work experience, bachelor's degrees, were getting hired at six figures. Wow. So here I am with my experience, a little, you know, a better Degree like the things that supposedly matter and great reviews making 20 plus grand less than new hires.

[Joe Salsihai]

Wow.

[OG]

Right? Without open communication, without again, it wasn't super open. It was more like water cooler talk. But it ended up being true. But if I hadn't known about that, I wouldn't have done anything about it. And I did do something about it. And I got like a 50 or 60% raise because I did something about it. So it's worth. Especially what OG said, especially when it comes to salary stuff. You can help one another out with open communication.

[Joe Salsihai]

And by do something about it, you mean you blackmailed your boss. That's what you did next.

[OG]

I think I blackmailed hr. There's definitely an ultimatum that involves me going to a competitor.

[Jesse Kramer]

I mean, there's that, but then there's also like all the other stuff you talk about comp. Like think about all the different types of compensation that are benefits, restricted shares, incentive programs, all that other sort of stuff. And that can get complicated. And if you know how to handle it or you know, the taxation of it or you know, you know how to think about it, like, why would you not want to share that?

[Joe Salsihai]

Largely. Our YouTube family is also in on this. Kevin says in on talking about money, it could be uncomfortable. But by doing so, we can really help out others by letting them know what they don't know. Margaret says I'm in on talking about money with friends and family with some guardrails. I'd love to know what those guardrails are. Interesting. Some interesting points. All right, one more, guys. This one is a big one. We're going to do this one for somebody starting from zero. Starting from zero. Let's have OG go first. This one's perfect for OG to go first. Somebody starting from zero. OG financial independence. Chasing fire before age 35 for somebody starting from zero isn't worth that sacrifice. To go from zero to fully financial independent by 35, it just. There's too much pain. Let's get on the slow FI train. As they say, you in or you out. Okay.

[Jesse Kramer]

There's a lot of double negatives in there, so it isn't worth it. Doing it is not worth it.

[Joe Salsihai]

It isn't worth the sacrifice for you to chase fire by 35 if you're starting from zero right out of high school or college.

[Jesse Kramer]

I mean, chasing it is one thing. I don't think it's worth it. I don't think anything fire related is worth it, honestly.

[Joe Salsihai]

Which means. Which means you're in on that statement.

[Jesse Kramer]

Okay, thank you for the Clarification, because I couldn't keep track of which way we were going on this because I think that I don't know. Dana, who was on our show a couple weeks ago, has a great comment about this, which is, what's so wrong with a life well worked? I'm not suggesting for a moment that you have to subject yourself to crappy work environments and work for the man your whole life just to prove a point. But if you have the opportunity to save money and you have the opportunity to choose your own adventure. And I know that the definition of financial independence will vary depending on who you're talking to. Some people will say, well, yeah, you can work and be financially, I think of financial independence, I'm out, I'm done. I've got 5 million in the bank. I spend my 4%, I do my thing. But there's plenty of stories out there of people who have done that and then circle back to going like, I'm bored out of my mind. I think the right answer, especially in today's day, is somewhat of a combination of those things. You want to build flexibility while you have the opportunity to build flexibility. You know, when you're 45 and you have three kids in school and one in daycare and you know, and sports and like all this stuff that like peak spending years, like that's not the time to be also going. And now's the time we need to be saving 5,000amonth because we're behind in.

[Joe Salsihai]

Our, we need to save 62% of our income.

[Jesse Kramer]

Yeah, it's just really hard to do. And now if you're making half a million dollars a year or a million dollars a year. Yeah, that's, it's, it's a lot more reasonable to save buckets of money. But by the same token, you need to have piles of money if you're making a million bucks a year and spending that kind of money. So when you're in your 20s and you're in your 30s and you're single, or you're married, or you have a partnership, or you're not elbow deep in kids and daycare and all that sort of stuff, just be smart about your spending and saving at that time because it buys you the flexibility in the future to do the two year sabbatical, which I think is totally awesome, to do the, hey, I'm going to change jobs and do something that's a little bit less stressful now because I want the 9 to 5. I want to be home with the kids in the afternoon or the Evening. I don't want to be the on call ER doctor from 7am to 12pm every day, that sort of thing. And I think what happens with fire is we get so focused on the retirement part that we just forget about the enjoyment of life along the way. And if you can do both of those things and build in the flexibility while you have the opportunity to build in the flexibility, you can be rewarded in your 40s and 50s. Because honestly, the other side of it is this. When you get to be 50 and you're financially independent, you have all the money in the world, most people don't take it. And the reason they don't is because they're like, wait a second, the kids are kind of grown, you know, the house is paid off, the college is funded, and those idiots are paying me half a million dollars a year to work in my engineering job. Eh, maybe I'll stick around a year.

[Joe Salsihai]

There is. You go to conferences like economy that I was just at and there's one more year syndrome which doesn't make it brain suffer from. There's also the fact that I've been frugal my entire life and now I have to turn on the spending gene and it just isn't there.

[Jesse Kramer]

Yeah, that's true. I think you want to measure for flexibility and if I could go back in time and what I'm just hoping my kids learn out of all of this is that from the time that they get done with school and they're making big boy money or big girl money, it's like you don't have to spend it all day. One, build the flexibility so that when you want to have it. Because you don't know what flexibility looks like when you're 25 or 27. You don't know what you want, you don't know what you need. Wait till you're 45 and you got three kids and you're like, now I know what flexibility is. I want to be able to like drop everything because the coach just called and said, oh, by the way, that game starts at 4:30 today, not 6:30. My bad. Because that happens all the freaking time. Doug. You know what I'm talking about, Joe, you know what I'm talking like. Hey, oh, that swim meet. Yeah, I know we said it was at seven. Turns out it's at four. You're like, what the heck, man?

[Joe Salsihai]

That one doesn't bother me that much because stuff happens to the school. This is the one that bothers me.

[Jesse Kramer]

But I want to go to it. That's my Point is, like, I want the flexibility.

[Joe Salsihai]

Let me give you the variation of your story that bothers me more is that it's 9:30 at night and my kid comes out, they're already supposed to be in bed, and they're like, yeah, I forgot. I got this huge project that's due tomorrow morning, first thing, and we don't have anything for it. So we get to go to Target or Walmart or wherever and begin working on it at 10:30 at night.

[Jesse Kramer]

Yeah, but that doesn't involve flexibility for your job or your money. I want to be able to stay.

[Joe Salsihai]

Up half the night making sure that we.

[Jesse Kramer]

Make sure your diorama of Saturn is perfect.

[Joe Salsihai]

Exactly. Yes. Yeah.

[Jesse Kramer]

Nick, please tell your dad that his Saturn diorama looks really nice. Thanks, I will. Do I get an A?

[Joe Salsihai]

It's so good. All right.

[Jesse Kramer]

Build flexibility. That's the TLDR on the deal.

[Joe Salsihai]

So you are then in on that statement. Jesse, how about you? Financial independence, Somebody starting from zero. Fire. Not financial independence, but fire. Key difference there. Is it worth the sacrifice before age.

[OG]

35, I am out. I think, if I understand the question right, which I think I do at this point. We've talked about it enough. It does remind me of what the Ticketmaster fee was for Joe Louis's fight. It does remind me of that a little bit deep cut there.

[Joe Salsihai]

Oh, G is in. He agrees to the statement. You don't agree with that statement, which means you think it can be worth the sacrifice.

[OG]

Correct. Because the word seeking. If you're going to seek fire by 35, you have to do a lot of things right in your financial life. To do those things right from such an early age is worth it. You can always change your mind later and say, like, you know what? Maybe I regret. Maybe I've been squeezing too hard and now I want to let up. And now I want to live life a little bit. Go ahead. You've already paved such a great road for yourself. You've got your compound snowball growing so quickly from such a young age that you've unlocked flexibility for yourself. So that's why I think that I am out. Because seeking fire is worth it.

[Joe Salsihai]

Paul hanging out with us, I think also was confused by the in or out thing, because the statement is, it's not worth it. Paul says he's out, but then he says a career is rewarding. If you live a life of deprivation, you'll miss out on too many life experiences, which means, Paul, you're actually in. So psych. But, Jesse, I get you. You definitely Are out with that take. All right, Paula, you've got the final word. We got one innie and one outie.

[Paula Pant]

I'm. I'm still confused about this double negative. All right, so the statement is seeking fire isn't.

[Joe Salsihai]

Isn't worth it. Seeking fire by age 35 and all the sacrifice it takes, that sacrifice is not worth it.

[Paula Pant]

Is not worth it. So if the answer were to be out, then I'm out on the idea that it is not worth it. Meaning I do believe that it is.

[Doug]

That's correct, yes.

[Paula Pant]

Okay, so I'm out.

[Joe Salsihai]

You think it is worth it?

[Paula Pant]

I do think it is worth it. However, we'll put some caveats here. First of all, if you're 22 and you're. I know a lot of people who like, their dream is some type of a. Like a fat tail distribution, make it big type of a career, right? So they want to be a professional comedian. They want to be a professional actor or model. They are committed to. Or maybe it doesn't even have to be in the arts. Maybe they want to start a business. But that means they're going to have to live really, really lean for a while. And rather than prioritize putting money into public equities, they're going to prioritize building that business or taking comedy classes or taking acting classes and living and, you know, working as. As few server or bartender jobs as they can, you know, while spending the rest of their time at auditions. Right. Like, I think that's a perfectly wonderful way to spend your 20s and 30s, if that's what you choose to do. And I. So for that cohort of people, I don't think that they should beat themselves up about the fact that they're not seeking fire. So kind of like Jesse, I want to make a distinction here that I'm referring only to the people who are in a life circumstance in which they have decided that they are specifically seeking fire. Maybe they're a software engineer. They're a mechanical engineer with a master's degree making $80,000 a year, they've decided that they're specifically seeking fire. I think that it is for that cohort of people, it is worth it because. And I want to. This might also come down to the semantic difference of how do you define fire? I define fire as work optional. And that doesn't mean that somebody is going to drag you kicking and screaming out of the workplace if you don't actually want to leave. Right. There's no Internet retirement police that's going to forcibly remove you from your desk. So fire to me is simply the point at which you have flexibility, you have options, you can choose to work, you can choose to not work. Most people do choose to work ultimately in some form or fashion, but I don't believe that retirement is the cessation of all the permanent and irrevocable cessation of all income producing activity, which is how many people treat it.

[Doug]

Wow, did you get that language right out of the Declaration of Independence?

[Paula Pant]

We the people.

[Joe Salsihai]

It sounds like a war treaty. Yeah, some armistice treaty. The cessation of all workplace activity forever and ever.

[Paula Pant]

It was in our signal chat.

[Joe Salsihai]

We're just sharing it with everybody. That is interesting because I think it's the, you know, it's the RE piece. Right. That's the sticking point for people chasing re before 35. Because I tend to agree with OG that my feelings on that have changed so much. And I might not be old enough to know, you know, but chasing it, to Jesse's point. Chasing it. Okay, you're going to put some cool systems in place if you're truly gonna. Gonna want to get there. It's interesting stuff. So let me go over some of them stackers if you want to do this at home with your friends that we didn't get. No, you know, I'm not going to do that. I'm gonna save them for next time. We're gonna do this again. I like this topic. I'm gonna bottle this up. We're gonna do it again later. Thanks, Joe.

[Doug]

If just one suggestion for when we do this next time, maybe don't make the wording so clear. Like don't be so straightforward. Yeah. Just beat around a few more bushes.

[Joe Salsihai]

Yes. I'm going to put double negatives into every question just to see where you go with it. Big thanks to everybody hanging out with us today on YouTube. What a fantastic chat we had today. Thanks to all of our contributors. Doug's going to thank everybody. But before we do that, of course, we got to find out what you guys are doing. Jesse, I just noticed that in Gertrude's show and Tell on the refrigerator today in the basement, you had a cool blog post about where your assets are located.

[OG]

Oh, thank you.

[Jesse Kramer]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[OG]

Gertrude show and Tell. Is that a real thing?

[Jesse Kramer]

What?

[OG]

Should I know what that is?

[Joe Salsihai]

You posted on that.

[Doug]

Oh, I think you do know what it is.

[Jesse Kramer]

Yes.

[OG]

Sorry, I didn't know it by that.

[Joe Salsihai]

Name you posted on her thread.

[OG]

Yes, yes. Now I know which Gertrude you're. I thought like, is that a reference to your mom?

[Joe Salsihai]

It Was going on Mom's fridge. Yeah.

[OG]

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Thank you. I thought that was an interesting article. The topic of asset location, where should you place tax inefficient investments, maybe, like, a bond, and make sure they're in a qualified account where the taxes are not deferred. And then should you place efficient investments, maybe, like a stock, into your taxable account? And is that a great way of going about your financial plan? And how much money does it save you? And are there drawbacks? And the answer is, well, it definitely can save you some money, but there definitely are some drawbacks.

[Joe Salsihai]

Yeah, I love the drawbacks part because you made a big point of going, if you're, you know, you could just be spending your wheels. Come on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think we need to think about it a little bit. But what's going on in the podcast, my friend?

[OG]

Last week, we released a really nice conversation with Christine Benz, who's just terrific from Morningstar, director of Personal Finance and Retirement. And then next week, I'm pretty sure we're dropping one of our AMA episodes, which are always a hit.

[Joe Salsihai]

Is Christine Benz one of the nicest people on earth? I think she is.

[OG]

Totally.

[Jesse Kramer]

She's awesome. I think she's awesome.

[Joe Salsihai]

100%. Is Paula pant. Speaking of nice people on Earth, what's going on at Afford Anything?

[Paula Pant]

Well, before we get there, I have a proposal. I have a suggestion, but it's a bit of a question. All right. So, Jesse, what do you think of this? I'm thinking about that trivia point. The question mark. Trivia point. What if we form the coalition to beat OG and look at OG's face.

[Joe Salsihai]

For those of you not on YouTube right now, you need to be here live.

[Jesse Kramer]

Bring it.

[Paula Pant]

The coalition to be og, and it becomes a floating point that either one of us can claim at the end of the year if we need that.

[Doug]

Yeah, you don't get to take over this trivia.

[Jesse Kramer]

You can't.

[Joe Salsihai]

Wait a minute.

[Doug]

Absolutely not.

[Joe Salsihai]

We're just going to hold the point in reserve until somebody needs it.

[Paula Pant]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[OG]

Exactly.

[Paula Pant]

Strategic reserve.

[Doug]

Now, if. If you two want to go offstage and somehow collude in a way that makes his chances lower of winning, I would never know about that.

[OG]

Right.

[Doug]

Like, if you want to somehow pay somebody to get a question in advance, like, who's going to stop you? But who are you to do it on the show?

[OG]

I'm not.

[Joe Salsihai]

Who are you to say no?

[Doug]

I mean, I don't even know who.

[Paula Pant]

You would bribe about that, but Doug what's your Venmo?

[Doug]

But I'm not going to just let you trade points willy nilly.

[Paula Pant]

No, the floating strategic reserve. I think we have national interests in a strategic reserve of maintaining a point for OG beating purposes.

[OG]

Paula, let's.

[Jesse Kramer]

Y'all can do whatever you want to do.

[OG]

I think Doug's right. Let's take this to signal. Let's.

[Joe Salsihai]

And somebody's gonna accidentally invite OG Yeah.

[OG]

Whose initials are og?

[Jesse Kramer]

OG Whatever. As long as we're bombing somebody, I don't care.

[Joe Salsihai]

Got no idea who that might be. All right, what's going on at Afford Anything?

[Paula Pant]

Paula, on the Afford Anything podcast? So we've had Nomadic Matt on the show talking about how you can travel the world for $75 per day.

[Joe Salsihai]

He has a new edition of his book out.

[Paula Pant]

Exactly. I actually just went to his book launch at the Strand in New York City. We also have on that same topic, an interview with Gillian Johnstrud, who is a mom of six who takes frequent mini retirements and sabbaticals with her kids. So she talks all about long term travel with kids. And then I myself will be middle of April in Panama and I'm going to be hosting an episode from the Panama Canal.

[Joe Salsihai]

From the Panama Canal.

[Paula Pant]

From the Panama Canal, Exactly. All the ambient Panama Canal moments.

[Joe Salsihai]

And she's doing the backstroke down the Panama Canal.

[Paula Pant]

Cement booties on. Wait a minute.

[Joe Salsihai]

It is so funny. Every time Paula and I are in a room together, I'm always reminded first thing of, my goodness, you are short. And Julian John's room. Whenever I meet her, which I did last week, she turns the corner and I'm like, my goodness, you are tall. She is very, very, very. She's tall.

[Paula Pant]

Very tall.

[Joe Salsihai]

Yes. And both brilliant people. I think that every time, too. How come I get reminded of that by my mom all the time? Why can't I be as brilliant as Julian or Paula? Jesse, what are you laughing at?

[OG]

Well, I just thought it was funny. That was the second thing that you thought of. Like, first thing first, like, jeez, look at the heights.

[Joe Salsihai]

She is short.

[OG]

Also, there's more to your person than just your height. I just like how that's your. That's your thought process, Joe.

[Joe Salsihai]

It just. I'm sure they say it when they see me. People are always like, my goodness, Joe, you are bald. And oh, gee, what do you got going on this weekend, my friend?

[Jesse Kramer]

Oh, well, funny you should ask. Public service announcement for everybody out there age 45 or older. Today is my colonoscopy. So if you have not done One, you should do it.

[Doug]

Pictures or it didn't happen.

[Jesse Kramer]

Enjoy every second of it because that's what I'm doing right now. I'm just enjoying it.

[Joe Salsihai]

I think what everybody needs to do.

[Jesse Kramer]

Leaning back.

[Joe Salsihai]

Is followed Mom's neighbor Doug's advice on how to prep for a colonoscopy.

[Jesse Kramer]

Yeah, eat a big giant pizza right before you go. It's like. It's like eating a box of Oreos right before you go to the dentist.

[Joe Salsihai]

Doug, what time were you supposed to stop eating?

[Doug]

Allegedly at lunchtime.

[Joe Salsihai]

At lunchtime. What time did you finish eating?

[Doug]

I finished eating my entire pizza and full order of crazy bread at 7:30pm.

[Joe Salsihai]

And as you can imagine, that went really well.

[Doug]

That delayed the exit of things quite.

[Jesse Kramer]

A bit by about eight hours.

[Doug]

By about eight hours, such that it was still occurring when I was in pre op.

[Jesse Kramer]

I will be following all the rules to a T. And as I mentioned, public service announcement. You should get it done. I delayed it for a couple of years and I didn't mean to. But it's super treatable if something bad happens, so just go do it. You know, it's probably not that big of a deal. I'll let y'all know on Monday if I'm walking funny, we'll talk openly about.

[Joe Salsihai]

Health and wellness as well in the grossest way possible. Doug, take it from here, man. Get us out of this. What should we have learned on today's show?

[Doug]

Well, Joe first takes some advice from Paula and her take on immoral debt. When is it good and bad again, Paula? And how do morals factor into this?

[Paula Pant]

Oh, well, so debt is good if you are either very short or very tall, but it's bad if you're an average height.

[Doug]

Nailed it. Second, don't forget what OG said about achieving fire or not achieving, I don't know by 30. What was that again, OG yeah, it's.

[Jesse Kramer]

A really big giant waste of time and you should just yolo.

[Joe Salsihai]

Yolo.

[Doug]

But the big lesson, don't try and show Joe's mom your magic trick. Trust me. Her magic trick where she uses hurtful language and mean faces to send you to the store for another case of extra large Depends. Works way better than your trick no matter what it is. No thanks to the Jesse Kramer for hanging out with us today. You'll find his fabulous podcast Personal Finance for Long term Investors wherever you listen to finer podcasts. Thanks to Paula Pant for hanging out with us today. You'll find her fabulous podcast. Apparently everybody's podcast is fabulous but ours. Joe, you'll find afford anything wherever you listen to Finer Podcasts. And thanks also to OG for joining us today. You'll find his fabulous podcast. No you probably won't, but you can go to stacking benjamin.comog for his calendar. This show is the property of SP Podcasts, LLC, Copyright 2025 and is created by Joe Saul Sehi. Joe gets help from a few of our neighborhood friends. You'll find out about our awesome [e-mail] along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots. Come say hello. Oh yeah, and before I go, not not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don't take advice from people you don't know. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug, and we'll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show. Foreign.

[Joe Salsihai]

Here from Mike. Mike says, when I met Joe in a parking lot. True story. I thought my what an average height Joe is.

[Paula Pant]

That's what you meant by average Joe? Money.

[Joe Salsihai]

That was exactly Twitter. My goodness, he's such average height.