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Build Income Beyond Your Paycheck (SB1790)

The Stacking Benjamins Show

Wed Jan 14 2026

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Stacking Benjamins Show – "Build Income Beyond Your Paycheck" (SB1790)

Release Date: January 14, 2026
Host: Joe Saul-Sehy, OG, and Doug
Featured Guest: Mel Abraham (Author: "Building Your Money Machine")
Theme: Building income streams beyond your paycheck, climbing the wealth ladder, and making personal finance simple, human, and intentional.

Episode Overview

This episode brings financial educator and USA Today bestselling author Mel Abraham to the card table. The discussion blends humor and heart as Mel shares personal experiences—from money lessons learned as a five-year-old to surviving cancer in adulthood—revealing how building intentional, diversified income streams can foster both financial and personal freedom. The conversation dissects Mel's "money engine" model, the five types of income, the significance of saving and time management, and actionable strategies for audience members at any stage of their journey.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

Early Money Lessons: The Emotional Catalyst

Personal Story: Mel recounts witnessing his father’s emotional struggle with money as a child:
- Quote: “First time I ever saw my dad cry...he looked at my mom and says, ‘I’m trying to take care of the people I love, and I'm failing.’” (07:15)
- This formed a deep-seated drive for Mel: “So if I don’t make enough money, I’m going to disappoint the people I love?”
Parental Influence: His father’s work ethic and integrity left an indelible mark, summarized by the principle: “Because it was the right thing to do.” (08:25)

The Magic of Entrepreneurship

First Hustle at Age 11: Mel’s entrepreneurial journey began with his love of magic, leading to paid gigs:
- Quote: “I put together a 25-minute act that I started to do for kids’ birthday parties...I got paid $50 for a half hour.” (10:12)
Key Lesson: Realization that value creation—not just effort—can generate income.

Work-Life Harmony vs. Balance

Life as a Young Single Dad: Mel describes an epiphany prompted by his son's childhood drawing, depicting Mel absorbed in work:
- Quote: “If a six-year-old had the understanding, he would’ve said, ‘Dad, I don’t need your profits, I just need your presence.’” (14:34)
Intentional Time Management: Using colored calendars to prioritize his son’s time over clients.
- “I lost clients over it, but I didn’t care. He needed to know he was at the top of the ladder.” (15:53)
Takeaway: It's not just work–life balance, but intentionality and presence that matter.

The Four Wealth Drivers

1. Income

Not Just About More Hours: Focus on increasing the value you provide, not just time spent.
- “When you look at things through the eyes of value, your income starts to move up—not because you’re working more hours, but because the value...is going up.” (19:38)
- “Be so good they can’t ignore you.” – attribution to Steve Martin via Joe (21:31)

2. Savings Rate

Key Determinant of Wealth: “It’s not how much you make, it’s not how much you keep, it’s how much you get to work for you that matters.” (22:23)
Example: Saving a higher percentage is more powerful than a higher rate of return early in the journey.

3. Returns (and Time)

You control savings and income; you don’t control time:
- Quote: “Did you invest yesterday? If not, now’s a good time. The answer is always now.” (25:22)
Action: Get off the sidelines and start investing now; compounding needs time.

4. The Five Types of Income

Mel’s "Money Engine" Framework: Income exists on a ladder of leverage—aim to fund 80% of your lifestyle from the top three categories:
1. Active Income: Direct work (job, self-employed)
2. Business Income: Income from businesses delegating tasks
3. Asset-Based: Renting assets, real estate, royalties
4. Residual: Recurring royalties/license fees, network marketing
5. Portfolio: Investment income (stocks, bonds, etc.)
“Can I create something that generates income without a one-on-one relationship with my effort?” (28:03)
Personal Experience – Cancer Diagnosis (2019):
- The importance of having passive/leverage income streams to weather life events.
- “...I shut everything down, we turn on the machine, talk to the wealth team...I'm not making a living during the day and fighting for my life at night. The machine paid for it.” (32:50)

Tax Strategies & Life Choices

Tax Planning: Important, but don’t let it dictate your life at the expense of fulfillment.
- “It's important...But we don’t allow it to define what our life decisions are going to be.” (34:41)
Lifestyle Design: Portfolio and asset mix should fit your preferences.

Notable Quotes & Moments

On Defining Wealth:
“Not all money is good money—sometimes you gotta let the bad money go.” (18:49)
On Starting Out:
“You gotta start somewhere. Two years from now may not be ‘fixed,’ but it’s hell of a lot better than today.” (34:29)
On Tax Optimization:
“Don't allow tax decisions to drive your life decisions... it's the price we pay to have the life we have.” (34:41)
On Taking Action:
“You can't win the wealth game sitting on the sidelines. The answer to the time question...is always now.” (25:23)

Actionable Tips & Takeaways

Be Intentional:
Prioritize what matters most—use calendars and systems to protect your most valuable relationships and time.
Increase Savings Rate:
Focus on increasing the % of income saved and invested for optimal long-term impact.
Diversify Income Streams:
Progressively shift from active to more leveraged and portfolio-based sources.
Leverage Value, Not Hours:
Become indispensable by solving more valuable and complex problems.
Tax is Part of the Equation—Not the Boss:
Optimize for taxes, but don’t disrupt family or happiness over chasing lower brackets.

Segment Timestamps

00:01 – 04:30: Opening banter, Mel Abraham introduction
06:21 – 13:20: Mel’s early money lessons and father’s impact
13:20 – 19:04: Prioritizing family, the work-life "harmony" discussion
19:08 – 24:45: The Four Wealth Drivers: income, savings, and value
24:56 – 34:41: Importance of time, Mel’s cancer diagnosis, diversifying income sources
34:41 – 37:32: Tax strategies, lifestyle fulfillment, Mel’s book plug

Practical Tools & Resources Referenced

Mel Abraham’s Book: Building Your Money Machine
Calendar System for Time Management: Use color-coded calendars for intentional planning
Password Managers & Financial Tools: Briefly mentioned in the headline segment

Conclusion & Final Thoughts

This episode underscores the human side of financial decision-making—a blend of hustle, intention, and adaptability. Mel Abraham’s journey and framework remind listeners to "be the driver" of their money engine: proactively diversify income, maximize what you actually put to work, and let intentional planning, not pure hustle or tax avoidance, shape your path.

“Let’s make 2026 a breakthrough year for everyone.” – Mel Abraham (37:22)

For further reading and resources:

Note: All advertisement and trivia segments were omitted; timestamps refer to content sections only.

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Transcript

Joe Saul-Sehy (0:00)

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Mel Abraham (1:00)

Snacking Benjamins is not for everyone. Side effects may include euphoria, increased ability to meet your goals, and aggression from people wondering what the hell your secret is. Stacking Benjamins may be habit forming, especially if you stick around for the entire episode.

Joe Saul-Sehy (1:12)

Wink, wink.

Mel Abraham (1:13)

Please check with your doctor to see if Stacking Benjamins is right for you.

Doug (1:22)

Live from Joe's mom's basement, it's the Stacking Benjamin Show. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug, and let's rev it up, baby. Wait, before you rev anything, you gotta have something to rev, don't you? So let's help you build that money engine with today's mentor, the Mel Abraham. In our headline segment, one publication is out with their list of the seven moves you should make to begin 2026. What are will share and of course help you decide if they're truly what you should be doing with your time. And I know you've been waiting for it. I'll also help you wow your friends the rest of the week with another helping of my amazing financial trivia. And now two guys who I describe as amazing when they manage to make it out of bed by 11. Wow. Amazing.

Mel Abraham (2:20)

Good job guys.

Doug (2:21)

It's Joe and oh Jaja Juja G.

Joe Saul-Sehy (2:34)

You know how much I would love to sleep until 11? Like every day. Like clockwork. Of course. Like 5:45. I'm like oh crap. And the day's begun whether I wanted to or not. Hey everybody. Welcome to Old Habits Die Hard podcast. I'm Joe, Saul Sei and another guy who I don't think he's A big fan of sleeping in either. Mr. OG is here. What?

Mel Abraham (15:51)

I, the thing that I did is that whole idea of being intentional is I realized that it wasn't the quantity of time at the beginning, it wasn't the quantity of time that I controlled for Jeremy, my son, it was the quality. And so one of the things I did was we created a calendar. And that calendar, because I was traveling and I was speaking, we colored the calendar. And the red zones were always his and they were immovable. And I lost clients over it, but I didn't care because I needed him to know that he was at the top of the ladder, that he was the priority. And I always told him that any other color on the calendar, if you need me, will turn it red, I'll be there. That way he always knew what his time with dad was going to be. And even today, my wife and I, we've already booked our vacations for 2026 for this year because we're kind of doing the same things because we can get really busy in our days and, and we're not intentional. And then the things that are so important to us, we take for granted and we push them aside for a little bit. But when you take the time and say, hey, this is important to us and so we don't lose touch and we don't lose contact, let's put those rocks into the calendar now and let's work everything around it. And that was, that was kind of the beginning of at least the time management piece of what I was doing with him. It was well before remote computing and all that stuff. But I put an office in the home. I would only work till 2 o' clock at my other office and I would go home, I would get him from school, he would be at home with me doing his homework, and I would work from home at the time. So I tried to make sure that the time that I was there with him, I was present with him as much as possible, but also to give him more time and be much more intentional of it and not allowing the social acceptance of, oh, well, we work and we do that and I get, we have to earn a living, but what are we sacrificing in the process? And as long as we're conscious and aware and intentional with what we're doing, then I'm cool with it. But too often I think we're not conscious or aware of what we're doing 100%.

Mel Abraham (30:45)

Yeah, and that's exactly it. And it doesn't need to be in sequence. And I'll explain when we get the other two in place. Yeah, we'll contrast me and one of my best friends because you have asset based. The next step up is what I call residual based income. This could be a downline in a, in a network marketing type of thing or direct sellers, but more, more readily. It's, it's like royalties, it's licensing, it's creating something once and getting paid repeatedly for it. It could be courses that you license out. Like I've got some courses that are licensed out to associations and I get paid a per head fee for that. And so now you have residual based income. And then the final level up of the five incomes is portfolio based. This is what we do a lot of times, spend a lot of time talking about. It's paper assets, it's stocks, bonds, ETFs, index funds, things of those nature that don't require this active, active role in generating it. What I'm striving for and what everyone, what I try to get people to do is I want 80% of your lifestyle to be able to be funded by the top three. 80% or more. Does that mean that we should have all of the top three, the asset, residual and portfolio? No, the decision of how that mix is actually a lifestyle decision. I don't own a ton of real estate directly. I have, have it through partnerships and things like that. I don't want the call at 11 o' clock at night that says the toilet's clogged. That's not my issue. Don't call me. Okay? So most of my assets are in the residual and the portfolio primarily. And that's where the cash flow comes in from. But I have a friend who loves real estate, so the majority of his stuff is in real estate and I'm getting him now into the portfolio. So it's a lifestyle decisions. But the most important thing, and this is what saved me during the cancer, is to build enough of those assets in the top three that can support at least 80% or more of your life and allow that to happen. So when I got diagnosed and you know that was on a, on a Friday, my wife and I were miserable on Saturday crying because we didn't know what to do. And, and it was not till late on Sunday where I said, well, these are the cards I've been dealt, here's how I see, we attack it. I shut everything down, we turn on the machine, talk to the wealth team. And now that money that was being reinvested, a portion of it was going to come to us. So I'm not trying to make a living during the day and fight for my life during the night. And that's what allowed me to sit back and say, my purpose in life right now is to beat the steam. And I'm going to allow the machine to pay for it, and I'm going to allow ourselves. We're not selling things. I'm not downsizing. I'm not draining accounts. I didn't sell my wife's shoes. Lord knows that would have been a fate worse than the cancer.

OG (46:30)

On the tax front, for tax planning or tax preparation, I should say, for the previous year. A lot of people do it different ways. I have a big envelope that I just write, you know, 20, 25 on, because starting in the next week, week and a half, you're going to start getting bunches of documentation. Some of it's electronic or notifications that you have the electronic version. This is one area where I do print off the stuff because, you know, I'd rather print it and then rescan it honestly into a format that's more usable for the CPA than just, you know, setting them up. 1500 different attachments, like, here's my income attachments, here's my charitable contributions, here's my taxes, here's my contributions, here's my whatever. To me, that makes more sense. Plus it gives me the opportunity to review it to make sure that there's no surprises. But the piece about tax preparation that gets people in trouble is they think that April 15th is a long ways away, and it's not. It's the same distance as the first part of fall was this year. If you can remember the first football game of the. Of the year. That's about how far away April 15th is. And CPAs, if you don't know this behind the scenes stuff, here they are hurting for talent, they are hurting for experience and expertise. And, you know, you used to be able to, like, stop by your local tax Preparer's office on April 10th and be like, hey, here's all my stuff. You know, let's knock it out. And I know plenty of firms that say, if it's not on our desk by April 1st, it's automatically extensions. So I know a lot of people seem to think that that's a badge of honor to get an extension. Like, oh, I'm under extension. You know, it's like, well, first of all, it doesn't do anything. All it does is start the statute of limitations later. You still owe the money on April 15th. So now you have to guess at how much you owe if you're going to owe. And I understand there's some reasons to do it. Maybe the tax documents aren't ready or if you have a special tax program that, you know, you don't get all your documentation until later in the summer. So that's a few people. But if you're doing it because you're like, I just don't want to get to it, you're delaying the inevitable. Like, start now, start gathering the information and be the first one to get to your CPA's office. Like, get to them when they're fresh, right? Like, just came off of Christmas break. They're like, okay, ramping up for the big season. You go, hey, guys, here you go.