Building a Wealth Machine That Lasts Generations (SB1799)

Summary

The Stacking Benjamins Show: "Building a Wealth Machine That Lasts Generations" (SB1799)

Date: February 4, 2026
Hosts: Joe Saul-Sehy & OG
Guest: Whitney Elkins Hutton

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Episode Overview

This episode focuses on how to build generational wealth through intentional investing, persistence through setbacks, and shifting your financial mindset to achieve greater freedom. Featured guest Whitney Elkins Hutton shares her inspiring journey from accidental real estate investor to managing over $800 million in assets. The hosts and Whitney dive into practical concepts for both new and seasoned investors—combining real estate lessons, the importance of cash flow, behavioral insights, and the value of learning from (sometimes dramatic) mistakes.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Whitney's Origin Story: From Scrappy Beginnings to Real Estate Mogul

• Humble Start (08:31):

  • In 2002, Whitney knew little about money or real estate.
  • Bought her first house with a boyfriend, who later left; she was left to manage the mortgage, renovations, and house repairs solo.
  • "I got really scrappy. I thought this would sink me, but I brought in roommates—paying me to live in my construction zone and help with the rehab." (11:32)
  • Sold it 11 months later for a $52,000 profit: "Lather, rinse, repeat." (12:23)

• First Real Estate Lessons (13:44):

  • The second deal was less successful; she bought for her own preferences, not for market appeal.
  • Faced challenges: took a year to sell, faced structural issues, and witnessed literally a bus fall onto a property due to a failed retaining wall.
  • Despite setbacks, she refused to quit. Instead, she analyzed what went wrong and used those lessons for the next investment.

2. Evolving Investment Strategy: From Flipping to Cash Flow

• Moving Beyond Flipping (19:33):

  • Early wins came from flipping houses (active income), but she realized the business was labor-intensive and not scalable.
  • Key shift: Valuing consistent, residual cash flow over sporadic, large lump sums.

• The Aha Moment—Linear vs. Residual Income (22:03)

  • Whitney explains the importance of shifting from temporary, one-time gains (like house flipping or single paycheck jobs) to "forever" income:

  "Most people get really attracted to large checks... but what actually pays the grocery bill is having those smaller, residual checks stack up over time... not trading your time to get that money at all." (22:31)

3. Mindset Shift: Time as the Ultimate Resource

• Redefining the Enemy—It's Not Money, It's Time (23:31):

  • The real goal is achieving time freedom—using investments to buy back your own schedule.
  • Teaches her 13-year-old daughter that time, not money, is her best asset. (23:55)

• The Trap of “Owning a Business” (24:53):

  • Many entrepreneurs inadvertently trap themselves into jobs they own, losing the very freedom they sought.
  • Whitney’s experience: Success requires elevating yourself “out of the business,” ensuring your ventures can run without you.

4. Major Setback & Turning Point: The 2018 Catastrophe (25:57)

• Personal Crises (26:31):
  • Husband suffered a severe biking injury (broken neck).
  • Mother passed away, leaving chaotic estate, including a foreclosed home.
  • Whitney had to step back from operations but survived financially thanks to robust cash flow and property management systems in place.
  • "If you want freedom, make sure each property can stand on its own—including management costs. Don’t just budget to save money; budget for the day you need to step away." (29:28)
  • Advises running real estate like a business; treat management as a line item even if you do it yourself.

5. Getting Started in Real Estate: Practical Steps (32:04)

• First Rule: Ensure your income exceeds expenses—create surplus to save.

• Three Wealth Levers:

  1. Increase income
  2. Decrease expenses
  3. Add/ramp up additional streams of income (ideally, with compounding)

• Find Down Payments in Your Expenses:

  • Analyze expenses quarterly. Eliminate/renegotiate/reduce unnecessary spending.
  • “Often, your down payment is hiding in plain sight—within your current expenses.” (33:38)

• Budgets vs. Relationships with Spending:

  • Instead of strict budgets, Whitney recommends evaluating if expenses genuinely bring joy or help achieve your happiness goals.
  • Applies the “Marie Kondo” approach to spending, aligning it with happiness and purpose. (35:07)

6. Scaling & Diversification: From Rentals to Car Washes (37:06)

• Branching Out into Car Washes (37:30):

  • Sought diversification as multifamily cash flow became compressed.
  • Targeted express car washes—automated, low-labor, subscription-based models (not full-service or DIY).
  • “For 3-4 full time employees, you can wash 400-500 cars a day and stack recurring revenue” (39:19)

• Understanding Operations:

  • Running a cash flow business is different from rental property—requires specialized ops and internal management.

7. Generational Wealth & “Money for Tomorrow”

• Whitney’s New Book:
  • Money for Tomorrow: How to Build and Protect Generational Wealth
  • Covers broad principles—not just real estate, but spending habits, protecting from risk, growing and passing on wealth.
  • “250 of the 300 pages have nothing to do with real estate.” (42:18)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

"You don't have to really find your North Star at first. You just have to start moving." – Joe (05:10)

"I didn’t know what I didn’t know, but I was always challenging the status quo… but I didn’t have the financial acumen to match that." – Whitney (09:01)

“You learn from your mistakes more than your successes. Because if you succeed, there’s no reason to question what you did.” – Whitney (10:34)

"House hacking—one of the great secrets to getting started in real estate." – Joe (12:24)

“I made a mistake—I bought where I wanted, not where people would buy.” – Whitney (13:44)

"You can be a business owner and still be working for your business… My very first question as a financial planner was always: Are you working for your business or is your business working for you?" – Joe (24:53)

"At some point, you're going to want to take a vacation. Budget for property management even if you do it yourself, because you just don’t know when you’ll need to flip that switch." – Whitney (30:46)

“If you don't treat real estate like a business, it takes over your life.” – Joe (30:46)

“Fail fast and learn fast. Go ahead and make the mistake—you're going to make it anyway—but then learn.” – Joe (31:05)

"Often, your next down payment is hiding in your expenses—right in front of you." – Whitney (33:38)

"Instead of asking, 'Does this expense fit my budget,' ask: 'Does this expense make me happy or get me closer to my goals?'" – Whitney (35:07)

"It's interesting to see your story start with a big mistake, end up with car washes, and weave through all the lessons about freedom, passive income, and how to scale." – Joe (40:20)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Whitney’s background & first investment: 07:32–13:44
• Second property disaster & lessons learned: 13:44–18:33
• Transitioning to cash flow focus: 18:33–23:31
• Time as the core financial goal: 23:31–25:57
• 2018: Major family & business crisis: 25:57–30:46
• Tips for first-time investors: 32:04–35:07
• Car wash & business diversification: 37:06–40:20
• About the book & holistic wealth advice: 41:26–42:46

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Practical Takeaways

• Start even before you’re “ready”—you’ll learn fastest through action and adapting along the way.
• Prioritize resilient, recurring income (cash flow) over one-off gains for long-term security and freedom.
• Treat investments like businesses: budget for full management, anticipate life events.
• Don’t over-rely on budgets; instead, regularly evaluate if spending truly supports happiness and values.
• Diversify income sources, but recognize the different risk/reward/effort dynamics between asset types (real estate vs. businesses, etc.).
• Generational wealth isn’t about assets alone—it’s about systems, values, and adaptability.

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For Further Information

• Whitney Elkins Hutton’s Book: Money for Tomorrow: How to Build and Protect Generational Wealth
• Show notes and links: stackingbenjamins.com
• Other resources mentioned: BiggerPockets, personal expense tracking (Monarch, Quicken, Simplifi), happiness formula exercises.

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This episode stands as both motivation and tactical guide for anyone looking to start—or re-start—their path to lasting wealth, with humor and plenty of candid hard-earned advice throughout.

Transcript

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

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[OG]

We heard you.

[Doug]

Nine years of bring back the snack.

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

Wrap and you've won.

[OG]

But maybe you should have asked for more.

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

Say hello to the Hot Honey snack wrap. Now you've really won.

[OG]

Go to McDonald's and get it while you can.

[Doug]

And now we're pleased to bring you our feature presentation. Live from Joe's mom's basement, it's the Stacking Benjamin Show. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug. And how about a tale as old as time? Woman with not much money decides to buckle up and create a new life for herself, resulting in becoming wealthy beyond her wildest dreams. I mean, it happens every week, right? That's what's in the spotlight today as we chat with a woman who did just that. Whitney Elkins Hutton. In our headline segment, two big planning firms report data breaches on client accounts. Are you at risk? We'll share details plus. And you knew this was coming. I. I'll wind up and pitch you some of my Winter Meets Money themed trivia. And now, two guys who are to money what Johnny Weir and Tara Lipinski are to figure skating. I think I know which one's Johnny Weir. It's Joe and. Oh. J.J. juja G.

[Joe]

Hey there, stackers. Welcome to Wednesday. I can't believe it's almost Winter Olympics time. I am the Tara Lipinski of financial podcasting. Joe, you are.

[Doug]

With that smile of yours. You absolutely are.

[Joe]

We are super happy that you're here. And the most flamboyant guy in personal finance is with me, Mr. OG and I'm like that waiter at the restaurant who waits until he has you got a mouthful of food and goes, how's everything tasting?

[OG]

How's everything good? How's everything?

[Joe]

Yep.

[OG]

The glorious Costco chocolate brownie protein bar.

[Joe]

Fantastic. What is OG Your favorite event of the Winter Olympics?

[OG]

Hard to say. Favorite. I can tell you a few that I like off the top of my head. I like any of the downhill skiing things.

[Joe]

Me too.

[OG]

Slalom or the super G or whatever. I mean, that's just crazy. Basically. Basically, I'm watching myself. I think I'm like, oh, this Is what I do. But it is wild. If you ever, ever gone skiing and you, like track yourself and you're like, dude, I hit like 22 miles an hour on that run. That was insane. And then you see these guys are like doing 106.

[Joe]

I know, little pieces of carbonate, sheet.

[OG]

Of ice all the way down.

[Doug]

Can we just talk about this the rest of the year?

[Joe]

I was just thinking, listen, how about.

[OG]

The ski and not the ski race. The. You know, the. They go around in a circle on skates. What's that called?

[Doug]

Speed skating.

[Joe]

Yeah. Short ski skate.

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

Sk.

[Joe]

Short track speed skating, where they put four people on or six people on or whatever. And there it's just chaos.

[OG]

Did you see the one where. The long distance one and instead they took off and like basically lapped everybody first and then just stayed at the back the entire time.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[OG]

There's so many people moving around. This person was just like on the two mile, the two mile thing that everybody goes off slow, went out like a cannon.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[OG]

Lapped everybody and then just stayed at the back of the pack the entire.

[Doug]

Time and just drafted, but was technically ahead of them because they had lapped them so many times.

[Joe]

But you're also staying out of the mess because when that. When that hits almost every time they do it, it's crazy, man. We got that coming up. We got the super bowl coming up. We got a lot of sports, but we got a sport today. How about making more money? There's a sport. And everybody, if you're a stacker, listen, you've dreamed about this idea of, man, what if I start building my stack and things go better for me and better for me over time. How do I get there? What's the strategy? Well, the woman today who we're going to talk to, and Doug, you hit the nail on the head. You don't have to really find your North Star at first. You just have to start moving. And Whitney Elkins Hutton is going to tell her story. And, man, this woman has amassed just a portfolio of investments that is pretty darned amazing. So we got Whitney coming up. We've got Doug's trivia coming up. We've got headline about, sadly, some people who might not be in a great spot right now because their information was compromised. We're going to talk about all that today, but first we got a couple sponsors who help us keep on keeping on. We're going to hear from them. And then Whitney Elkins Hutton. Let me tell you just a little bit about her be before we go to the sponsors this Woman, I'm going to have her tell this complete story. But listen to this. Whitney stumbled into real estate by accident. And after her first rental that went super well, she thought she was a genius and hit this hard rock and realized, oh, this might be a little harder than I thought. Which some real estate investors, a lot of real estate investors run into that. But today, over 6500 rental units, 15 car washes, more than 2200 self storage units. This woman is a partner in over $800 million of real estate and she's building wealth for tomorrow. But you know what? It started with a single investment and went from there. Whitney Elkins Hutton going to share her story when we come back.

[OG]

Well, the holidays have come and gone once again.

[Joe]

But if you've forgotten to get that.

[OG]

Special someone in your life a gift.

[Joe]

Well, Mint Mobile is extending their holiday.

[OG]

Offer of half off unlimited wireless.

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

So here's the idea.

[Doug]

You get it now, you call it.

[Joe]

An early present for next year.

[OG]

What do you have to lose? Give it a [e-mail] Switch limited time.

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

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[Joe]

And I'm super happy she's making her way down to the basement. Have a seat. Whitney. Elkins Hutton is here. How are you?

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

I'm doing great. Thank you so much. This is going to be fun.

[Joe]

Well, I'm super happy you get to help us not just with a little bit of real estate one on one, but really more about thinking differently about your money and thinking bigger about your money. But initially I know you well even before we get to that. Whitney. Let's do the book on Whitney really quick. You're a partner in more than $800 million worth of real estate, including over 6,500 multifamily units. 2,200 plus self storage units, a dozen car washes. I want to get back to the car washes. And even more so people think, well, Whitney, you know, she's always had everything together. But that wasn't The Whitney in 2002. Can you take me back to 2002 and tell me how your life kind of changed then to create the massive net worth and opportunities that you have today?

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

Well, 2002, I did not have my stuff together much at all actually. I was in the process of buying a house with a significant other and it didn't really know much about money. My parents didn't, you know, they were great. They taught me what they knew. But that was the old standard narrative. Go to school, get a good job, contribute to your 401k and that's it, you know, write it out. For 40 years, I had a little bit different vision for myself.

[Joe]

Wait a minute, even then you did in 2002, you had a different vision?

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

Yeah, I always thought, you know, I'm kind of the unemployable type in a way. I don't get me wrong. Like, I do still work, but I create my own work. But then I was a person that was always challenging, you know, you want me to do what? What's the rate of return on this? My dad was a VP of sales and business. And so I grew up talking KPIs and setting goals and breaking things down. I mean, that was just. I didn't know what I didn't know, like that that's not how most people are brought up. But I didn't have the financial acumen to match with that. But, you know, here I am, like always challenging the status quo. You know, when you're like a 20 something year old, that's not what they hire you for. They hire you to be the worker beef. And so here I am, you know, working in public health. I'm supposed to be the worker bee. I eventually get elevated to running the programs and doing the research programs. So yay me. I'm. I'm now in charge of something. And I think it wasn't because I was that smart. It was, they just, they did, they needed me. They needed to point my energy in a more productive direction is what they needed. Anyways, my boyfriend at the time says, hey, we should buy a house. This seems like a great thing to do. I could fix it up. I'm like, okay, he doesn't have the money. I have the money. I'm the one with the job. I have the one with, you know, have A little bit of, you know, a couple of pennies to rub together. We get, I get the loan, everything's under my name, the house, the utilities, everything.

[Joe]

And did you know anything about real estate?

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

No. My realtor had put the book Rich dad, poor dad in my hands and I read like their first two chapters. I'm like, got it by real estate, duh. That's what we're doing here, right? And I kind of skimmed the rest and I put it down. Well, I really wish I had read the end of that book. Spoiler alert. I probably would have done things a lot differently. But you learn from your mistakes, I think, more so than your successes. Right? Because when you make a mistake, maybe it's just the wrong decision and not an absolute failure. But regardless, you're. You're going to learn more. Because if you succeed, there's no reason to question what you did. So anyways, we buy this house. I mean, I'm talking. It has green shag carpet, psychedelic daisies painted all over the walls, straight out of the 19.

[Joe]

Sweet.

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

I did not think it was sweet. My boyfriend did. I was sitting here going, wait a second, I think we just bought ourselves another job getting this thing. Yeah, well, spoiler alert, relationship falls apart about a month later.

[Joe]

Oh, no.

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

So who's swinging the hammer now and replacing the carpet and covering up the psychedelic daisies, putting in countertops, right here, Me. And anyways, I got really scrappy. I mean, that really tested me and, you know, put the house back together. I thought this whole entire time it's going to sink me. But I've got roommates paying the bills.

[Joe]

You immediately invite a bunch of roommates in because you realize this mortgage is going to sink you if you don't.

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

Yeah, I. At least I thought it did. Okay, but they're paying me to live in a construction zone and then also helping me with the rehab. Hey, how many times would you like that deal? Anyways, fast forward 11 months later, I sold the property and the title company has, you know, a 20 something year old, a $52,000 check. Hello. I'm like, all right, how many more times can I do this? Because that was great.

[Joe]

Lather, rinse, repeat.

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

Exactly. So that was the first deal. I thought it was hot stuff. On the second deal bought in the.

[Joe]

Hold on. Before you get to the second deal, I love the fact how you stumbled upon house hacking. Right? Something that you and I talk about all the time now, Whitney, this idea that if I can maybe get a couple roommates or I buy a duplex Or I. I do something to help defray these housing cost of mine. It makes life easier. You stumble upon this thing that's like one of the, quote, great secrets of getting started in real estate immediately. And I'm sure it wasn't all rainbows all the time with these roommates. I got to believe sometimes it was a pain in the ass. But overall, it sounds like all's well with the first house that ends well.

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

Yeah, I mean, you don't know what you don't know. Up until that point in time, I've been living with roommates and so that nothing had changed for me. And you know, as far as like lifestyle, I mean, did I wish I had a little bit more space in my own house? I mean, that's what I get into the deal thinking that I'm going to live with just one other person, not four and then two dogs and a cat. I thought the picture of life was very different me.

[Joe]

It is now Whitney's farm. So anyway, now your ego is massive. You got a $50,000 check. I'm just going to do this again. And it sounds like you're telling me you're about to do house number two.

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

Now do house number two. I'll fast forward. So not nearly as much of a rehab. 2006 hits. Now most people here, 2008, guys, most of that lending was happening in 2006. Guess who has an adjustable rate mortgage. That's my Lord, in 2006. Oh, man. This one right here. Anyways, so I'm like, whoa, I've got a lot of things going on at the same time. My dad is in very poor health. My mom's beside herself, not sure, you know, what to do. And so I'm traveling back and forth. I'm also working 80 hours a week. You know, I'm still working post 911 public health, you know, working on anthrax and bioterrorism stuff. So, you know, just burning the candle at both ends five times in the middle. And you know, I'm like, wow, that $52,000 really did not stretch very far. So long story short, I'm like, okay, I got to sell this house and start over, you know, And I immediately figure out when I start to try to sell the property that I should have read the rest of that book. Rich dad, poor dad. Because they say when you buy real estate, location, location, location. I bought in the location I wanted, not in a location that everybody else wanted. Oh, it takes a year to sell that property. I get an offer actually within two weeks. Of putting it on the market. I turn it down because my head's this big. It's huge. I get the same offer a year later, and I'm like, okay, you know, tails between my legs. I'm like, I gotta take this, because here I am again. This piece of real estate is about to sink me. The whole transaction was just a pain in the butt. And it ended well. We closed. Let's put it this way. Both parties could not actually be in the same room in order to sign documents. The realtors kept us separate. They were mad because I wasn't paying for this retaining wall. All I had to do is bring $6,000 to closing. The retaining wall inflated to over $30,000, and the retaining wall failed within 24 hours of closing. And the bus that my neighbor had. That had been just moved back onto the retaining wall. Okay, if you got. This is how a bus falls into the roof of a property. It's whenever the bus is parked above the property on the side of a mountain, and the retaining wall collapses, and.

[Joe]

You'Ve got a bus, the retaining wall gives away, and the bus comes down the hill.

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

Everything goes into the property with the guy in it, with her tenant in it that has shotguns. Oh, yeah.

[Joe]

Nobody's hurt, though.

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

No one's hurt physically.

[Joe]

Sure.

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

It was a whole jam, you know, afterwards. But the buyer was the one that contracted the wall. I didn't contract the wall at all. I just brought 6,000 clothes. Yeah, they did all the work, the way it was all set up and the transaction was set up. So their wall failed. Not my wall.

[OG]

Wow.

[Joe]

Thank God. Holy cow. Cause I can imagine your wall failing. And you mentioned something, too, that it was a piece of property that appealed to you. And I think we run into this all the time, Especially if we think we're thinking about going into investment properties. That. What appeals to me is probably the same stuff. But what was it that appealed to you that made it harder to sell?

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

Well, I'm a climber, and so I wanted to be in the mountains, near the mountains. The property was at just under 7,000ft. And, like, right outside of rocky mountain national park. I mean, who wouldn't want to live?

[Joe]

Beautiful. Yeah, Me to sign me up.

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

And most of that community is a retirement community. So when I go to sell the property, pretty much every retirees in their late 50s, 60s, maybe even their 70s, there were 19 steps from my. Where you parked your car up to the porch. I had people that didn't even. You know, they come from Florida wanting to have A cabin in Estes park, and they only make it halfway up the steps, and they're like, we can't see the property. This is just too much.

[Joe]

They don't even make it to the house to see if it's.

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

They don't even make it to the house.

[Joe]

Oh, my goodness. But my question, obviously, when I listed all of those amazing properties that you own, clearly this. This failure did not stop you. And I'm wondering, because I would think to myself, Whitney, I would think, okay, I did really well my first time. Second time, wow. I made a lot of mistakes. I guess I got lucky my first time. I think I'm out. Like, I think I'm done. But you. You went the opposite way. What was the thought process of going, you know what? I think this was the mistake, the second one. And I can do this better because you. You kept going.

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

Yeah, I did. I think a lot of people thought I was nuts, including my husband, because, you know, we're dating at this time. The. The whole bus falls on the roof of the property. And he was out of town when that happened. He comes back into town, he goes, ha. Are you done with this real estate thing? And I'm like, nope.

[Joe]

And I got a story.

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

Here are the next three properties that I want to take this capital and go invest in. But now I'm looking at location, location, location. I still haven't stumbled across cash flow, right? So at this point in time, I. I solve for one mistake, and then I quickly uncover with my next properties. It was like, oh, I don't want equity. I need equity and cash flow. I need to be able to grow my nest egg. But what's going to actually get me out of my day job so I can, you know, feel comfortable about taking that leap, starting my own business? You know, if we have kids, staying at home with the kids is actually having cash come in the door like clockwork on a regular basis that I don't have to trade time for.

[Joe]

Yeah. And can we? Because I do want to dive into that. But before that, when you said you made a mistake, you were. It sounds like then you were flipping houses. So you go into flipping houses, which gives you these big, you know, $50,000 lumps of money, because now you've solved to do it better than the second time. But flipping houses is a time intensive. Like, this is a job after your job. Even if you hire a team of people, Whitney. Well, you already know this, but our stackers don't. Even if you are a team of people, it still is Activity based. You have to keep the team running. You got to stay on top of them. Like, flipping houses is not a passive investment at all. Don't get me wrong, you can make up money doing it, but it almost is another full time job.

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

It is. And you know, this is something that, you know, the stackers can really take to heart if you're willing to put in the work. I just moved into one of our flips. We did kind of a slope flip while living there for two years. We did the cabinets and the flooring and painted and reworked some of the systems, you know, systematically.

[Joe]

Two years is because of the capital gains tax at the time.

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

Yeah. So we took advantage. So that's what worked so well in the first transaction was the 121exclusion, which is kind of like a 1031 exchange, but for us, common folklore, Right? So we can actually like improve a property and as long as we live in it, in two of the last five years as our primary residence, we can actually sell the property at a gain. And if you're single, it's $250,000 you get to keep tax free. If it's your have a spouse spousal equivalent, you can keep $500,000 tax free. We all need a roof over our head. We're all living somewhere. And if you're willing to put in the work to actually force the improvement, equity improvement on the property, you can make good chunks of change that way and keep them tax free and continue to level up. It's not for the weak of heart though. It's not passive. It's anything but passive. Right. But it is a great way to get started. And then if you combine that with house hacking, right. Like if you have a mother in law suite or you get a duplex, or if you're really brave, you want to live with roommates. I mean, the first year my husband and I were married, we had a roommate. I know your eyes, Joe, are like, what? Yes, we had him roommate. It actually wasn't by design. It was his old college roommate and he just kind of popped in and popped out. We were taking care of his dog, but he was paying rent. And we're like, hey, it works for everybody. So there you go.

[Joe]

Wow. But you get this aha. You're like, wait a minute, what I really want is my time. And this is a big aha that you have. You've been thinking about income. And I like the way you write this, Whitney, that you've been thinking about income as linear. And you need to think about income as residual. And our stackers might not know the difference between those two terms. So can you talk about linear income streams versus residual income streams?

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

Yeah, you know, I've landed on kind of different terminology on, you have like one time income. That's where you trade your time for a dollar, you go to work. Okay? Now if you do a flip, okay, that's still trading time for money. You just get larger checks and then you can have, you know, temporary short term income. So maybe you buy a rental and you know, you're only going to hold on to it for five years. You're getting income that way and then you can have forever income. Now here's the thing. Most people get really attracted to the large checks. They're like, that's what everybody tells us to do, is build our nest egg as quickly as possible. But what actually pays the grocery bill is having stacks of all those smaller residual checks. And the more you can stack them up over time, where you're not trading your time to get that money at all, that is what's going to unlock the golden handcuffs for you.

[Joe]

I used to think that my enemy was not having enough money. And don't get me wrong, in my 20s, that was totally the thing. But the older I get, the more I realize Whitney, and this I think is part of your aha was at this point in your story, you had this aha a long time ago. Now is that my true enemy is time. Like this time freedom that I can buy myself to do the things that I want. I just don't have enough time to do all the stuff I want to do.

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

Yeah, we have a 13 year old and you know, we're constantly like, remind her, you know, she gets up and she's like, I don't want to go to school. And I'm like, hey, you want to go to my. Want to go to work? I got clients today. Here we go. Let's trade it, you know, and she was like, no thanks and pass. Pass. And I'm like, you have time right now. Let's enjoy it. Because soon enough. And we're teaching her how to build income streams. So when income comes in, she is right now, time is what she has. And I'm like, you get a large check at Christmas from grandma and grandpa. Now I just have to ask her, how much do you want to put aside? And this year she was like, one third, I'm going to invest one third. I didn't even have to ask her. She just told me, that's sweet. She understands that time is her best asset right now. But I didn't learn that until my 30s. I am so jealous of her.

[Joe]

There's also, and this is a big point that you make, you know, you can be a business owner and still have that income. Linear, meaning I'm working in the business versus being a business owner. And not. And it's funny, back when I was a financial planner, and that was a long time ago, Whitney, but when I was a financial planner, if I met an entrepreneur, my very first question would always be, are you working for your business or is your business working for you? And you know Exactly, Whitney, what 99% of the business owner said, no. I created this so I'd have more freedoms, but I have far fewer freedoms because I work for my business now. And this is another big aha. I think you have, which I think was important. In 2018, you had, like, all of these catastrophes hit at one time, and you end up having this big aha that I've got to change things. Can you tell us about 2018? Could I take you back there without needing therapy?

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

No, it's a scar, it's not a wound. So we can go back. It's totally fine. So in 2018, we're well on our way to having 20 properties under our belt.

[Joe]

It's going really well.

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

It's going really well. And a lot of that is we are able to execute on what we call the brrrr method. You buy a property below value, we rehab it, we rent it, put a tenant in there, we refinance, and we're pulling a large chunks of our capital out and just recycling, recycling, recycling to scale. My husband has a mountain bike accident and breaks his neck.

[Joe]

Oh, my God.

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

Yeah. So, you know, we know immediately he's going to be able to walk, talk and all that sort of stuff. So it. But, you know, it's a long road. We knew the next six months are going to be really painful for him, you know, to heal and recover from that, you know, thankfully, we were so thankful. I mean, the biggest prayers were answered at the very beginning. Yep, he's fine. You know, walk, talk, everything else we can deal with.

[Joe]

But he's been working on these houses and now he's on the bench.

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

He's on the bench. We actually have property management. We have a team built at this point in time, but he's financing under my name. Half is under his name. So I need him to make phone calls. Now he's signing over power of attorneys so I can make phone calls. It Was a whole nightmare. About three weeks later, we found out my mom had passed away. And so everybody kind of goes, three weeks later. How did you find out your mom passed away? Well, my mom and I feel a little oil in the water. We love each other, but it wasn't unlike us not to go through a couple weeks or something without talking to each other. And it was to the point where I'm like, the lady's not answering her phone. I'm going down there.

[Joe]

Oh, no.

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

Oh, no. Yeah. Think worse thoughts. And there you go. She was older and had health issues and fortunately went very peacefully. But we have to deal with a.

[Joe]

House, all of her estate stuff, all.

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

Of her estate stuff. Finances in complete disarray, houses in foreclosure. You know, all of these fun surprises. Okay, so my husband is, you know, one, he can't help me with the rental business. Two, he's in this big neck brace. And so we were. Can you imagine sitting in this house, my mom's house, just total, you know, I mean, technically a hoarder house, but she just didn't throw away paper. That was her jam. She just. Her whole filing system was on the floor. So he's sitting here with his neck broken in and.

[Joe]

Oh, my God.

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

Trying to, like, look at every financial document. He can't lift anything. And so I got, you know, my little. My little kids running around. I'm trying to, like, manage. Like, what are we going to do?

[Joe]

And you're starting to mentor people at this point, too, right?

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

I'm mentoring everybody. And then finally I just. I pick up the phone, I call our two property managers, and I'm like, so you remember how we were going to say that we were going to scale this and you're going to be the. Eventually, the. Our director of operations. That day is today. Don't call me. I will call you. Do you mean anything right now? I'll give you 30 minutes of my time. Otherwise, I'm out for the next six weeks.

[Joe]

Wow. And you went to, then these very short meetings with people, and all of a sudden. But thank goodness you had that. And this is the key. You had done enough building to that point that you could maybe not as easily as you could now, but you could at that point flip that switch and make the change where you did have the time, freedom to take care of the important things.

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

But what allowed us to do that was actually having cash flow on all those properties and not investing purely for equity growth, but making sure that, you know, the properties, each of them on their own could stand all of the expenses, principal, interest, taxes, insurance, capex, maintenance, as well as property management. And that, you know, for newer investors getting into real estate, I see quite often they're like, oh, well, I'll just save on the property management and I'll do all the management myself. Absolutely. Put that line item in your budget because you just. You don't know when you're gonna have to flip that switch. I mean, I pray you not have to flip the switch for the reasons why I had to. But at some point in time, you're gonna want to, like, take a vacation. Maybe just like even like, become way less active. You've actually underwritten your labor expense into the business. And that's where it kind of becomes like when we invest especially into controlled assets like this, not just in stocks, but controlled assets, we have to run it like a business. We need to elevate ourselves as the owner out of the business. Which means, you know, at some point in time, we have to put in those additional labor pieces. And then, you know, you find the right time to kind of again, pull that switch.

[Joe]

Yeah, I see that mistake with people in real estate is we don't treat it as, you know, people want to talk about real estate being passive. And then I dive into it. Next thing I know, some of the real estate owners that I know are in this living hell because they haven't treated it like a business. It is this. I'm duct taping everything. And now I have an incredibly active role when I could have done this completely differently. But I know with a lot of people, they're listening to you, Whitney, and this gets them excited that you have all these roadblocks thrown in your way, and yet you persevere. And using the brrrr method, which we've talked about here on the show before, you know, learning from every mistake quickly. I think there's this lesson of fail fast and learn fast, right? Go ahead and make the mistake. Cause you're going to make it anyway. But then learn. If somebody's excited now to get into the world of real estate, you know, and I know that that first down payment for a lot of people is the bear. If we've got a new stacker today that wants to get started, how do I get into that first house? Because the second one, I think would be easier than the first one. If I do something like read your book or go on the BiggerPockets website or whatever it might be, how do I get that first down payment one.

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

You have to make sure that your Net income positive. So meaning that your income has to be greater than your expenses. Okay, so what, you got to track your income and expenses and get it in line to where you actually have more income coming in than your expenses so you can save. I help my clients understand, like, really, when we're talking about creating wealth, we're pulling three levers. Everything else is a tactic. The strategy is we're increasing income, decreasing expenses, or adding additional streams of income, you know, either getting more assets or compounding. Right. And then we've got the fourth, which is time. The more time you have, the less massive pools we have to make on the three levers. We can kind of take more of a glide path. First order of operations, income and expenses. Let's get that all figured out. Now, I always challenge everybody, is to get into relationship with your expenses. Okay? Don't just be like, okay, great. Like, I can save $300 a month and not have to dive into my savings depending on pay my credit card bill. Get into relationship with your expenses. I actually have my coaching clients. We will map out every quarter. I have them put five expenses in front of them that they, if they actually reduced or eliminated, we actually don't put that back into their daily bucket of funds they can spend. We save that. Oftentimes when I have them map everything out and we actually look at the savings and we annualize that savings, their next down payment is sitting in their.

[Joe]

Expenses right in front of them.

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

Right in front of them. But the thing is, is that, you know, most like Monarch Quicken, simplify those. They don't show you those. Software don't show you that. You literally just have to create a simple spreadsheet. Monthly expense, annualize that expense. Challenge yourself. Can I eliminate it? Can I renegotiate it? Can I reduce it and then annualize that savings, that net savings between the two. And I mean, I. I mean, I had one coaching client recently that found 85. I've been working with him, and we found another $85,000. $85,000 between personal and business. Sure, yeah, two businesses. But I mean, and then we've got the big levers that we can pull.

[Joe]

Before we get to the big lever, though, I want to. I want to pause on the expenses, though, that you're talking about right now. Because, you know, when I was first doing my homework on Whitney, I read somewhere that Whitney doesn't like budgets, right? And I'm like, well, who doesn't like a budget? I mean, a lot of people don't like budgets, but people in finance preaching this stuff. But then I realize it's because of this relationship thing you're talking about. Is a budget doesn't question the relationship between you and the expense, where you're much more about almost the Marie Kondo of expenses. Does this expense actually bring me joy? Right. Is this something I really need? And that's what you're questioning. Does this bring me joy versus using this to build an asset that could give me joy forever and ever down the road?

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

Well, and there's another exercise. So I like taking this expense reduction exercise and marrying it with another exercise that I call the happiness formula. And that our happiness really boils down to experiences we have. How do we invest in our growth? And these questions different for everybody. The answers are different. And then how do we give back in the world? You know, for me, like, my experiences, I want to take my daughter to every national park. You know, I want to go to the Olympics and like the World cup, somebody else might go. I want to own an island in Fiji. Right? Very different. Anyways, write that down. Because when you actually think what actually will make me happy from an experience standpoint or what, like, I want to take a survival class. That's how I want to go. My husband, he's. That's not his jam.

[Joe]

You had me at national parks. You lost me at survival.

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

I grew up in west Texas, so I know you're from Texas, too. So there is a little bit of country in the girl still.

[Joe]

That's awesome.

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

Now, okay, you answer these three questions, you really think into it and continue to think into it over time. Like, every year I add to this list, and then it makes it really easy for you to go. Does having five streaming services, like, help my goal to, like, take my daughter to the and my husband to the Olympics? No. Like, that's now an easy no. Like, if it's not on my list. If it's not on his list. And now we're. Our daughter's 13. We're incorporating her into the planning. It's not on her list. It's easy. Like, we were entertaining, going to visit Florida to go to the Everglades for spring break this year. I was like, I don't want to go back to Florida. She doesn't want to go to Florida. And you hate going to any place humid. Why are we going to Florida? So we asked the vacation. But it's just questioning.

[Joe]

I want to sidestep for just a moment because, you know, I'm going down all the different types of investments that you have. And car washes. And I said, I want to go back to car wash. How the hell do you go? You know where I think the money is, it's in a car wash. Like, tell me the story of buying your first car wash.

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

So at this point in time, I'm doing investments in partnership. Okay. So large multi family, you know, I mean general partner and large multi family projects, self storage projects. And you know, it's about 2018, end of 2018, we can already see that cash flow is getting compressed in, you know, multifamily assets. We're trying to figure out how to add additional streams, strong additional streams of income. You know, my husband and I were like, we have enough like real estate. We should add in a cash flowing business. Okay. For diversification in the portfolio, you know, the managing partners are doing that as well. We look at parking lots, we look at laundromats, even pickleball courts, which the managing partners, they have pickleball courts, they love them. What would our investors actually be attracted to? And we landed on not just car washes. I have to be very specific. It's an express car wash. Not the ones where you drive in your car, the concrete box and you drop your quarters and you pray your kid doesn't spray you with the hose.

[Joe]

Right.

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

Not the full service ones that have an army of people and that are very labor intensive. We're talking about the ones with the long tunnels where the quick ride through. Quick ride through. But in the tunnel is a smart tunnel. It's doing the heavy lifting. Because when you're operating a business, one of the number one ways to control expenses is to lower your labor costs. This is why a lot of real estate professionals, new landlords, try to do everything themselves as opposed to outsourcing, because they think of it controlling cost. We're not trying to eliminate labor, but how can we control it and reduce it as much as possible? And so express car washes allow us to do, do that. You know, for three to four full time employees. We can wash 400 to 500 cars a day.

[Joe]

Wow.

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

And you can put that on a subscription model. Not all the washes. You don't, you don't want all your washes on subscription model. You want a certain percentage.

[Joe]

You know, I've seen that. We've seen it in our town. When I take mine to even express car wash right in Richmond Road here in Texarkana, and every time I pull up, they're like, do you want just this card which will give me the subscription so I can come through Whenever I want.

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

Yep. And so, long story short, now we're cash flowing businesses, you know, stacking that on top of what we already built. Now, I would never tell anybody not to start there, but you have to understand you're buying into business. Businesses have seasonality. Okay. You have to understand it's a little bit different underwriting. Also, these type of businesses generally don't have property management attached to them. And so it's going to be heavier on the operational costs. We actually have scaled our own property management company for express car washes. But it's a whole different beast than if you're just, you know, doing rental real estate.

[Joe]

Yeah. It's so interesting to see your story of starting with this first house that was a big mistake and ending up with car washes and a very specific kind and you know exactly what you want. And it's part of this bigger idea of how I'm creating this future for myself and then creating generational wealth. If only somebody, Whitney, had written a book about this, that would be kick ass, wouldn't it? Yeah, I wish somebody had written a book about like as an example, a book that we might have touched on a couple ideas from. But the first section be like the foundation, like the foundation of a house. And then the second be about creating wealth and value based spending and wealth formulas. And then the third section be about how to keep wealth by putting your spending habits in check and about making sure the four horsemen that destroy wealth don't get to it. Maybe, call me crazy, a fourth and fifth section about growing your wealth and passing wealth on like that would be nuts if somebody made a book about that.

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

I know, right? Oh, wait, I did.

[Joe]

You did?

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

I knew. Who knew?

[Joe]

The book is called Money for Tomorrow, how to build and protect generational wealth. And you know what? We talked, we talked a fair amount today about real estate. But guys, this is not a real estate book. These are the things that you need to know if you're going to build an empire of wealth that preserves all the freedoms you're looking for in your life. I mean, I've read a lot of books from bigger pockets and people are bigger pockets and we think real estate right away. I don't think this is a real estate book, Whitney.

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

It was not intended to be a real estate book. We do talk a little bit of real estate in the growth section. That is a bias. But I would say, you know, what is it? Two, almost a 300 page book and 250 of it have nothing to do with real estate.

[Joe]

No. And like you said, hey, you know, if you want to start with car washes, I probably wouldn't do that. But if you want to start with car washes, you could start there. You could start with whatever the thing is. But I love how you tell your story and also some of the bumps that happened along the way because I think that gives us all courage. Thank you so much for mentoring our stackers today, Whitney. We'll link to all of Whitney's work, not just the book, on our show notes [e-mail]. thanks for coming down to the basement.

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.

[OG]

Hey, this is Pete the Planner, USA Today money columnist and host of the Ask Pete the Planner podcast. When I'm not fixing the weirdest financial situations you've ever heard of, I'm stacking Benjamins.

[Doug]

Hey there, stackers. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug. And while there's a holiday later this month that's supposed to make you feel all romantic and warm, nothing is more romantic than the gift that Italy gave the rest of the world, spending 1.9 billion cold, hard, hard dollars and sending us all to watch events unfold in Milan. That's right, this Friday marks the start of the 2026 Winter Olympics in both Milan and Cortina d'. Ampezzo. Coincidentally, it was on today's date, back in 1928, that New York governor and future U.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt kicked off the first U.S. winter Games in Lake Placid, New York, where athletes from 17 nations competed. There's no truth to the idea that Joe opened those games. He was busy, probably traveling through Bavaria or on a ride at Disney.

[OG]

Wow.

[Joe]

I'm right here, man.

[Doug]

Maybe just stop talking about it every seven minutes. Today's question is, which three nations have participated in every single Winter and Summer Olympic Games? Get one right, I'll high five you get two, you can brag to your friends and get all three. I'll brag about you the rest of the day. Here's a hint. They all talk with funny European accents, and two of them have great food. Not the athletes, the countries. Although the athletes. You know, they might have good food, too, supposedly. Mic drop. You ready?

[Joe]

Let's do it.

[Doug]

Hosted by former Navy SEAL Mike Ridland.

[Joe]

It's unfiltered. You know, you go to the sound of the gun, bam, you're gone.

[OG]

It's weird.

[Joe]

I mean, I've had so many near death experiences. It's raw. I love this country.

[Doug]

I offered my life to Serve this nation and protect its people.

[Joe]

The question, you know, what's the meaning of life?

[OG]

And.

[Joe]

And to me, it just boils down to one single word, which is purpose.

[Doug]

Mic drop. Follow and listen on your favorite platform. Hey there, stackers. I'm downhill Olympic hopeful and knee surgery champion Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug. The Winter Olympics have always been my favorite. I mean, it's hard to beat the pageantry, the bright colors and death defying speeds achieved by athletes wearing almost nothing in freezing temperatures. Plus, you know, the apres scene makes the Summer Olympics look like a church barbecue. Today's question was, what are the only three countries to have participated in every modern Summer and Winter Olympic Games since they started? The answer, Great Britain. Really? Switzerland and France are the three nations that have participated in every single Winter and Summer Olympic Games. I'll let you figure out which of those have shitty food. And now back to two guys who are gold medalists at the bar, Joe and Og.

[Joe]

There's no way I want to be a gold medalist at the bar. Like I do. I do not want anything to do with that.

[Doug]

How about the salad bar?

[Joe]

The salad bar, yes, that's great.

[Doug]

Where the chocolate pudding is.

[Joe]

So here's a bar that I don't want to be the champion of. Well, I'm conflicted, guys, because when you drive from Texarkana up to the beautiful area, northwest Arkansas, Bentonville, Fayetteville, and all the gorgeous stuff up there, halfway is this town called Mina. Mina, by the way, was in the movie, that Tom Cruise movie about the true story of American made. Yeah. Erica made the guy that smuggling drugs, working with the CIA and. And just craziness. Saw that in Mina, there is a restaurant called the Branding Iron. And the Branding Iron has. Doug, listen to this. A bread bar. All you can eat. You just walk over there. They have all the different breads, all the different sauces. They give you these little things and you scoop some sauces into your.

[Doug]

What sauces do you need besides butter?

[Joe]

You got marinara, there's ranch, different dipping oils. It is heaven. That bread bar is the death of me. I love it. But I'm always like, I need to.

[OG]

Tell you guys a little bit about a potato recipe. Potato recipe caught wind of recently intrigued.

[Joe]

Big thanks to Whitney Elkins Hutton for telling her story about building generational wealth. And it strikes me OG and obviously the reason we wanted her here was it didn't start there. It just started with my boyfriend wanted to buy a property and I was like, hey, okay. But the piece I really Want to pause on of her story as I go back and just think about that discussion we just had. Was this. Whether you're buying real estate or you're putting money into your first mutual fund, you might make mistakes. You might buy the wrong mutual fund, you might end up buying individual stock, which you probably shouldn't have done, or you might end up paying some fees that you didn't. You know, you're at the wrong broker, whatever it might be. You're going to mess stuff up. But what I love about Whitney is when she messed up, she didn't just go, well, it's not for me. This investing thing isn't for me. Which. How many times over your career have you seen it? I've. I've seen that way too many times. Well, that stock market thing, I tried it. I put money in, it went down. So I got out. Like that was just. It was like it was some kind of magic trick that went wrong. When things went poorly for her, she doubled down and said, okay, I know other people have done this before me. What am I missing? What am I doing wrong? And she corrected it like, that's, that's the key to success, I think, is continually adjusting, adjust, adjust until you finally get it right.

[OG]

I think you have to have a. You know, there's a little bit of a balance there between throwing good money after bad. If you're looking at it from a business building standpoint or something like that, I think you have to recognize that you can have a big belief system that you're going to be successful, but if it doesn't bear it out, you got to be able to pivot. It doesn't mean that you can't be if you don't keep trying. But doing the same thing over and over again is kind of silly. So I think whether it's investing or building business or whatever the case may be, you have to put up some guardrails of, I'm going to do this, then I'm going to reevaluate. I'm going to do this, then I'm going to reevaluate. I think like you said, Joe, it's constantly improving and making small changes to your path. No different than you would if you were on a drive across the country or something. You don't just set out and go west.

[Doug]

I think the key there is small changes. It's not that you happen to invest shortly before. Before 08 and think, well, I tried. It didn't work. The market crashed and I'm out.

[Joe]

Well, that's the other thing, too, when things go wrong, you know, this idea of throwing good money after bad, taking the time to evaluate, is that what I actually did? Go back and almost like a professional athlete, since we're talking about the Olympics and the super bowl today, they'll go back and they'll watch the tape and go, what actually happened? There's. There's not conjecture. There's not. Well, I know this stock market thing works for some people, but didn't work for me, so I'm out. Instead go, oh, here's what I did. I invested in a penny stock that is not great. Like, do enough homework after you mess it up to figure out where the wheels came off the bus.

[OG]

Well, and I think there's also a difference or an adjustment, I should say to the athlete watching video. If you are looking at it from the perspective of I'm watching it for the first time, what did I do? Versus saying, okay, here's what I remember happening. Now let's go check the facts, because I think a lot of times, too, I'm thinking about some other business that I'm involved in. We think we saw it one way, and then you document all that and you go, this is what happened. And then you watch the objective video and you go, either I was right and I saw it the way that I thought I saw it and I evaluated that correctly, or it happened a different way. And you go, hmm, wait a second. Why does my brain say this is what happened, but the video says, this is what happened if you're not paying attention to the story that you're selling yourself? Because that's really what a lot of this is, too. It's like either wild hope and optimism or wild panic and stress. Very rarely are people right in the middle. And so again, back to the story that actually happened, the story that you think happened. We've got a tool in Strategic Coach that we use called the Experience Transformer. And it's really just this list of questions of this is what happened. This is what went really good in that process. Here's what went really bad, and if I fix the bad things, could I repeat this more successfully in the future and what would that look like? Same thing when you're looking at real estate or stock investing or building your business or whatever. Constantly evaluating. That's why I think it's really interesting. People say, oh, you just set it and forget it. Really?

[Doug]

I don't know.

[Joe]

Ish.

[OG]

That's not me. Ish? Yeah.

[Joe]

I mean, you said it. I don't think you can quote, forget it. But you need to have that mind frame of I'm not going to make moves but I'm going to continue to go, am I on the course? Is this still working for me? Am I close enough to the spot where I need to be changing the level of risk that I'm taking in this investment? It is this fine line. I just think, you know, hearing Whitney's story, so she gets really lucky on that first property. The second property goes completely fubar. At the end of that second property, I would have gone, oh, I was just lucky the first time. And I'm out. I'm not, I'm not doing real estate anymore. And frankly that's kind of what I did with real estate. Now I know a lot more now than I did at the time that I owned real estate and maybe, maybe I would do things way differently. I just know that type of investment, not for me, it's for a bunch of people. Which is why I'm happy that we had Whitney on because especially when it's a hands on thing like real estate, it's, it's fantastic. I also love her lesson that flipping houses is active and this is a full time job and your goal with your investment strategy. And don't get me wrong, like she said, oh gee, nothing wrong with flipping houses. But just realize this is a job. If you want more passive investing, well then certainly buying a house and putting a tenant in it is 10 degrees more passive. Still not 100% passive, not like owning a mutual fund is. But this idea of shifting your income streams I think can be pretty powerful as well. Good stuff from Whitney. And again we'll link to her book on our show [e-mail] let's do our headline.

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

Hello darlings. And now it's time for your favorite part of the show. Our stacking Benjamin's headlines.

[Joe]

Today's headline comes to us from investment news. This is written by Bruce Kelly. LPL Ameriprise report online attacks on clients accounts data to Maine. Boy, this puts a pit in your stomach. LPL Financial and Ameriprise Financial Services recently sent letters to some of their clients detailing attacks on their private information regarding lpl. The attack resulted in so called quote pump and dump trades from September 30 to October 10 of last year and 53 client accounts. In respect to Ameriprise, a financial advisor fell prey to a phishing scam in December and potentially left sensitive information vulnerable for almost 600 clients. Both were reported recently to Maine's Attorney General, which publishes those incidents online. Both companies, of course, right away reported their data breaches. They say in this piece, OG Especially when advisors are moving from one company to another, attackers are really getting smart about the fact that this is a great time when they can go on the attack and potentially get. But because there's some confusion going on, right, we don't know who the new players are with the new firm. We don't know who the players were with the old firm. It's an easier time for hackers, for scammers to jump in. I also think though, this isn't just financial planners. I mean, my wife works in the healthcare field. We're seeing data breaches now all the time in healthcare. As the person who works at the front desk, fairly easy to fool into, you know, letting somebody into someone else's account.

[OG]

I was recently, well, first of all on the health care side of things. My daughter, who's 9, just got a letter from the hospital where she was at some years ago. I said, oh, you know, your information was all stolen. So we, you know, you can set up free credit monitoring on Experian. I'm like, she's nine. And I was like, really? But the thing that I've started doing recently, and by recently I mean probably in the last five or eight years, is a lot of places will ask you for personal information and I go, do you really need that? We just need your social. Really? What if I say no? Yeah, what if I just say what happens then? I'm not trying to be a jackass, I'm just saying what, what can't we do if I don't give that to you? Oh, well, we just like to have that on file. I'm like, well, no offense to you and your high power security that you got here, but if they can hack Citibank and Ameriprise and the one I thought you were going to say today, which was all over the news because of the fact that they didn't tell anybody was Betterment, which couldn't happen to a better company. The fine folks at Betterment were hacked with a ransomware attack. They didn't tell anybody or pay the ransom. Of course I don't remember the number. It was like 6 million or 600,000 or something. People, all their personal identifiable information, all their know, their customer information, name, address, social, date of birth, all that stuff was hacked. And what's crazy about it was they didn't tell anybody. They tried to like solve it internally.

[Joe]

With the not tell anybody part is the horrible Part because look at this. I mean, Ameriprise.

[OG]

Shocking, right? Shocking what comes out of betterment 100 I will fight you if you're at Betterment. So come at me, bro.

[Joe]

Lpl and Ameriprise like immediately went public, went, hey, this is frankly why we created the Vault is because of the fact that this stuff is just going to keep happening in OG and the Vault even isn't going to solve the problem. It'll solve the problem of hey, here's where your information was stored. Here's what's going on, here's the way to fight it. But the best battle. Back to those people that laugh at me because I always mention Sun Tzu is the one that's never fought. Right? Sun Tzu, the Art of War. To your point, asking the question, do you even need this? Why do you need this? Is there some reason why I have to share this? Like not putting it out there in the first place, I think is your first line of defense. Yeah. I mean look at when I first put my stuff in the vault. 56 companies selling my information immediately like we're wiping those out. Yeah, let's get rid of these 56 places. And then all the time there's three or four more that it's finding, oh, guess what, somebody else selling your food. It's going to be a never ending thing. Because to your point, my information is, it's, it's, it's out there. You're going to have to fight the good fight on an ongoing basis. Yeah.

[OG]

And setting up systems, technology ones like what you're talking about, you know, locking your credit and then again just trying to, as best as you can, limit where that stuff is. And sometimes it's just as easy just to go. I don't know that I need to give you that info. And like what happens? Nothing. Like do you store your credit card information online? It's convenient.

[Doug]

Like when this is individual sites like on the airline and check here to.

[OG]

Save for future purchases. I mean it's convenient.

[Joe]

You're going to be fighting it over and over and over and over and over. So limiting as much as you can, I think is a great first line of defense. I will link to this@stacking benjamin's.com and you can dive in more on our show notes page. Let's wander out to the back porch because, man, it's getting heated this week. Our Seattle and Boston contingents, Doug, they are going at each other.

[Doug]

Yeah, I don't know why Seattle. I mean, Seattle's putting up a Fight for pride.

[Joe]

Oh man, really?

[Doug]

But they're gonna lose. They know they're gonna lose.

[Joe]

I think, listen, I love our Boston area stackers and James, even one of our. He's not gonna like that I said this. But James in a private chat, he's like, you know, I never thought of our team as a Super bowl team. Like I think we're pretty good. Mike Vrabel, great coach and what a success story they had this year. But are we a Super bowl team? I think Doug, you can.

[Doug]

Six of their games were against last place teams at the time.

[OG]

But I mean including the AFC championship.

[Joe]

You'Re fighting a, fighting a good fight there, Doug. But I think, but that's why I.

[Doug]

Want, that's why I'm so convinced they're going to win because it's a great story and the NFL likes nothing more than to script a great story story. So I think they're going to, they've already decided who's going to win. I just think 28, 24 New England.

[Joe]

Isn'T a mistake that. Listen, we only have four meetup groups. The Twin Cities, Southern Minnesota, at Minnesota State University, Seattle and Boston. Is it a coincidence that we have bad meetup groups? Benjamin's after dark groups in the same cities where the super bowl is. Of course not. I mean it is a hundred percent because it's the stacking Benjamin's correlation.

[Doug]

Just like there was a time when you could see where the up and coming real estate investment neighborhoods were by looking at where Starbucks was putting locations.

[Joe]

Same, same, same thing. 100% excited to see who wins there. Love to see the back and forth between and by the way, if you're in any of those communities, if you're in Seattle, if you're in the Twin Cities, if you're near Mankato where Southern Minnesota University is, of course, if I said the word Mankato and you don't know where that is, me telling you that it's near Southern Minnesota University, that's not. Is it gonna.

[Doug]

It's not doing the trick at all.

[Joe]

Or if you're in the Boston area, we're getting rolling. So head to your meetup group. It's stacking Benjamin's to see the full list of meetup groups and to look at when the meetup group meets next and how to get more information.

[Doug]

Joe, I just want to point out we did get a review, a very curious review a few days ago. Like the review itself, I've got two issues with the review. I'll just say it now. The title and the close the middle part you're going to love. This is from Colorado Boy mj And the main part of the review, like here you go. You're going to love this. Joe and OG are true veterans of personal finance education. Exclamation point. You can tell they've been at this for a while because they take topics that might be found on other podcasts, but they present it all with new angles that always make sense. So here's where it kind of takes a left turn I don't approve of. They even put up with Doug. That part sucks.

[Joe]

Never truer.

[Doug]

And then funny you should use the word never because the title of this I'm really confused on. Maybe you can help me out. It's a five star review and they just said really nice things. Except that last part and the title of the review says never on repeat. I don't get it. Mj, tell us what you mean by never on repeat. It's a five star review. Say really nice things. Except that last part. What does that mean? Mystery.

[Joe]

That is a mystery. Love to hear. Love to hear more what what that means. Well, but that is a stacker though. Always keep them guessing. Nobody knows. Always keep him. Keep him guessing.

[Doug]

Little quirky.

[Joe]

Yes. Thanks for the review. Hey guys, I'm going to be in a couple places February 21st and 22nd at the 1% better conference in Omaha, Nebraska on the 20th. We're gonna have a meet up the night before with Stackers. StackyBenjamins.com meetup gets you there a couple weeks later. March 5th. We're doing a meetup on Thursday night in Seattle. We'll be in the Capitol Hill neighborhood at Elysian Brewing. Come join us there again. Stackybenjamins.com meetup and of course the Retire Meet conference is the days after that. Just go to Retire Meet. Look up Retire Me in Google and you can get your ticket to Retire Me. I'll be on the main stage there talking about the most common mistakes people make in their retirement plan retirement mistakes that make you unhappy. When we're solving for happiness, things change versus some of the crazy optimization things people do. And I'll be talking about that. But I'm sharing the stage with a ton of great speakers at Retire Me. Of course Tom and Don do a heck of a job with the biggest retirement one day conference in the nation at Retirement in Seattle. So hope you can join me either in Seattle or in Omaha. Coming soon by the way to a couple other cities. I think we'll keep those on the back Burner for now. But one more thing is if you're somebody that's here because you need a better financial plan. Oh, Gee. And his team are taking clients. Head to stacky benjamin.com OG you can see his nana's calendars and dive in to getting better help and making better decisions with your money in 2026 and beyond. All right, that's going to put a pin in it. Except for this. Doug, tell us, what are the top three things we should have learned today?

[Doug]

Well, Joe, first, take some advice from Whitney Ellis Hutton and start building wealth today. It doesn't matter whether you know your North Star yet. Let your feet start walking and soon you'll be miles ahead of where you are now financially. Second, data breaches. They're gonna keep happening. So put your plan together to solve how you're gonna keep your data safe. But the big lesson, don't go skiing with OG unless you want a story that will just never, ever, ever get old. Thanks to Whitney Ellis Hutton for helping us find lasting wealth. You'll find her book on the topic Money for Tomorrow wherever books are sold. We'll also include links in our show [e-mail] this show is the property of SB Podcast, LLC, Copyright 2026 and is created by Josal Sehai. 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. And oh, yeah, before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don't take advice from people you don't know. 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.

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

Sa. Foreign.

[Joe]

Welcome to the after show. This is the part of the show that doesn't exist. People ask all the time about the after show and you didn't hear it. You have no idea what we're talking about. What happens in the after show stays in the after show. Also, if you're here for money talk, those days are. That day is done. I almost said those days are done. No, we'll be back with our money talk on Friday. We'll be back, but no more money talk today. Two things. Number one is, Doug, you referenced somebody's first time here. You referenced OG and skiing. I think you have to go back and listen to some of the old Episodes to hear about Og and Doug going skiing together and what fun that.

[Doug]

Was about a year ago, right now. We just got along so well.

[Joe]

So if you had no idea what that was about, that was a callback.

[OG]

To get along well.

[Doug]

I thought we did well to the.

[OG]

Part where you tried to like.

[Doug]

I think I enjoyed it more than you did.

[OG]

You enjoyed it more than me? Is that what you said?

[Joe]

That's what I. I think Og enjoyed sitting around the fire while you're out looking for him.

[OG]

I'm just so. Even my entire life, I never have too many highs nor too many lows. I'm just always the same.

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

Always.

[Doug]

Yes, you are.

[Joe]

Tell us about the potato, Og.

[OG]

We. Every year we go to this food and wine thing that's in. In the Caymans, and it's called the Cayman Cookout. And I've talked about it before. There's a lot of chefs, and you just get this really indulgent food. One of our final dinners was beef with some potatoes. So you got the beef, it's perfectly cooked, and it's got great seasoning and everything. And then the potatoes, you're looking at, you're like, what the heck are these things? And you're expecting something. You're always expecting something wild. And by wild, I mean, like, oh, you thought that was a potato. That's actually a starfish, you know, and you're like, what? You know? Or like, just like, like something completely off the rails. Right. But it was a potato, and it had some truffle on it, which made it extra special. But the potatoes themselves were fantastic. It's like, these are the best potatoes that. I mean, it's just mashed potatoes. It was mashed potatoes, like, you know, so Lyssa has followed the chefs in the. In the thing on Instagram and everything. And so somewhere in the all the posts about this was another chef who was videoing this chef make the potatoes. And so basically got the recipe for this guy's like, fancy mashed potatoes. So when you guys make mashed potatoes, you guys have made mashed potatoes many times, I'm sure. Like, just big picture, high level potatoes in the pan. Right. Boil them, strain it, and then what do y' all do? What do you put in your potatoes?

[Doug]

I then, you know, get the masher out.

[OG]

Yeah.

[Doug]

Start. Start breaking them up. And probably halfway through, I get a little heavy cream if I have it, maybe some milk if I don't. Butter, usually a little rosemary, you know, probably herbs de Provence hdp, as we call it in my house.

[Joe]

HDP yeah, you know me.

[OG]

A little salt and pepper, you know, garlic, whatever your. Whatever your deal is.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[OG]

So let's say that you were making up mashed potatoes for dinner. 1. You know, just one. Not Christmas or Thanksgiving where a lot of people, Four or five people. You know, you got not. Not quite two pounds of potatoes. Maybe four or five mashed potatoes. How much butter would you put in.

[Doug]

Like out of curiosity, if I'm cooking for four or five people.

[OG]

Yeah, yeah. You've got like five or six yellow gold potatoes.

[Doug]

You know, half a stick.

[OG]

Half a stick of butter. Right. And it's buttery as hell.

[Joe]

Right.

[OG]

You mash it up and you put the seasoning.

[Doug]

Oh, yeah, you could see it, the ratio.

[OG]

So all this guy had in his potatoes were potatoes and butter. We put a little salt in there because we felt that it needed it. I think the truffle added that extra little bit that we didn't have. But anyways, the ratio. The ratio of potato to butter in this guy's recipe is for every kilogram of potatoes.

[Doug]

I don't know how much that is. I'm an American.

[OG]

1000 grams. Right? Is that right?

[Joe]

Yeah, but it is.

[OG]

I just want to make sure I'm saying this correctly. A thousand grams is a kilogram.

[Doug]

Kilograms is a thousand grams. Yeah.

[Joe]

How many kilograms is in a potato?

[Doug]

Right.

[OG]

Well, I'm going to tell you and then I'm going to. And then I'll translate it to real world stuff. Okay, so every kilogram of potatoes is 600 grams of butter. Okay, so I'm going to tell you what we did yesterday. So we made six potatoes. I peeled six potatoes, boiled them. I eyeballed it on the cutting board. You know, it was like a little pile of cut up potatoes like that. About what we need for the family.

[Joe]

Yeah, I'm just doing the math here. It doesn't matter kilograms to whatever. If I take 1600 for every unit of potato, I'm doing half of that unit of butter. Like half a potato of butter. So, so six potatoes would be three potato sized things of. But more than that.

[Doug]

So a kilogram is 2.2 pounds.

[OG]

Yes. Everyone knows this.

[Doug]

I think everybody knows that.

[OG]

Okay, so I boiled the potatoes and then Lissa says, oh, we didn't. We gotta weigh the potatoes, see how much it were. So we had 780 grams of potatoes in our thing. So we figured out based on this ratio would be 400 and something grams of butter. So I was like, okay, cool. We had this sticks of butter. And so I put a Stick of butter on the thing. I was like, oh. She's like, how much is a stick? That's like a hundred grams. So we had 750 grams of potatoes that was supposed to use four sticks of butter. We stopped at two because we're like, okay, we just.

[Whitney Elkins Hutton]

We can't.

[OG]

Like, I'm with you, Doug. I would do, like. Yeah, you know, you put a couple.

[Joe]

Tablespoons, and I'm done.

[OG]

Mix it together, right? And maybe some milk or some cream and maybe, like, maybe a dollop of sour cream or. Or cream cheese or something like that to add a little bit of something to it. No, this is mashed potatoes with 50% butter.

[Joe]

God.

[OG]

We stopped at 25% butter, and it was like. It was like. Like the spoon was glistening as you, like, got close to the thing. It was just like, would you like some potato with your butter?

[Doug]

I have heard that that's why we all love eating out so much, is because restaurants use so much more butter than you realize.

[OG]

So FYI, if you ever want to make, like, have amazing potatoes in your house, like, literally go, like. I mean, we went, like a third to 1 25% to 1, 4 to 1, basically, potato to butter. So we got two sticks of butter in there. Like, everybody. They're like, these are the greatest potatoes in the universe. Oh, my God.

[Joe]

It's just a butter delivery vehicle. That's all it really is. Basically, the potatoes are extra.

[Doug]

That's right.

[OG]

So a lot of times you see, like, this. And this was the moral of the story, Doug. You jumped to the end. A lot of times you go out to dinner, right? And you're like, oh, man, how come their steak is so much better than when I make it? Well, because they serve it to you on a plate of boiling butter. Like, why are. Why are your vegetables so much better at the restaurant? Because they serve it to you in a bowl of butter. Duh. The bread butter.