Does The American Dream REALLY Costs $5 Million? (SB1741)

Summary

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The Stacking Benjamins Show:

"Does The American Dream REALLY Cost $5 Million?" (SB1741)

Release Date: September 29, 2025
Hosts: Joe Saul-Sehy, OG, Doug

Overview

In this episode, Joe, OG, and Doug tackle the recent USA Today and Investopedia headline claiming that achieving the classic American Dream now costs a shocking $5 million. They dive deep into the breakdown of that figure, challenge its assumptions, and offer practical, approachable advice for average families feeling daunted by such a massive number. The conversation’s signature friendly, light-handed banter keeps the mood upbeat while delivering actionable financial insights. The crew also responds to a listener asking why fiduciary advisors give different advice and discusses how to guide young adults in investing.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Is the American Dream Really $5 Million?

• [08:54] Headline Breakdown:
  The team reviews USA Today's claim that the American Dream costs $5 million, with components like:

  • Retirement: $1.6 million
  • Owning a house: $957,000
  • Raising two kids with college: $876,000
  • Owning a new car: $900,000
  • Healthcare: $414,000
  • Yearly vacations, pets, and weddings (all add up)

  "The American Dream now costs five million dollars. I was just talking to my mom, and she said apparently she'll leave me five million. So I'm golden, baby." — OG [09:29]

• Critique of the Numbers:
  The hosts point out that these estimates use a lot of lifestyle inflation and 'average' (often high) assumptions, such as always buying new cars or sending two kids to private colleges. They emphasize that the dream can be tailored to personal values and doesn't need to duplicate every line item.

  “We're using a bunch of averages. And we're also doing something I think—that especially in the personal finance community—we don't like, which is just spending lavishly on everything instead of just those things that we really care about.” — OG [10:19]

2. Digging Deeper: Specific Line Items

Retirement ($1.6M)

• This is a headline-maker itself, but, as the hosts stress, with Social Security and compounding, it’s more achievable than it sounds.

  “For a lot of people, you also have a little bit of Social Security... now we're in the ballpark of $120,000, $130,000 [a year]. That's a pretty respectable lifetime income, honestly.” — Joe [11:51]

Cars ($900K)

• The team ridicules the idea that everyone must buy a new car every 10 years and finance it. Doug and OG crunch numbers showing that buying used and owning longer can halve the total spend.

  "Cut from $900,000 to $446,000. We cut that number in half by keeping your car longer and buying used. That small change can have a huge impact." — OG [16:00]

College ($876K for two kids)

• They stress that there are many ways to reduce this:

  • Use AP credits and community college to reduce time and cost.
  • Not all kids need college; other paths (like trades) are valid.
  • Think strategically before junior year of high school.

  "I've got a really simple way of how to cut college costs: Just have one kid." — Joe [20:00]

Vacations & Weddings

• There’s room to economize on events like weddings and vacationing, but the hosts encourage keeping funds for joy and experiences—within reason.

Healthcare ($414K)

• The show highlights the importance of questioning bills, using HSAs, seeking generic medicines, and price-shopping.

  “Always question the bill. Even if your insurance pays for it, push back. There've been times I've saved a fortune just by asking for the generic or calling the pharmacy.” — Joe [25:54]

3. The Power of Small Changes & Compounding

• Many of the figures cited can be changed with small, intentional shifts.

• Compound interest does a heavy lift—no one "saves" $5M out-of-pocket; they invest and let time work for them.

  "You might spend $1.6 million in retirement, but you don't save $1.6 million. You save $400,000, and compounding adds the rest." — OG [27:25]

4. Listener Question: Why Do Fiduciaries Give Different Advice? ([39:59])

• Question from John: Why do fiduciaries propose different plans if they’re all supposed to act in your best interest?

• Hosts' Take:

  • "Fiduciary" status isn't always consistent, and the term gets misused/regulation is murky.
  • Product choice (like funds), compensation structure, and approach vary widely.
  • Focus on the planning process, not just investment management.
  • Look for someone who starts with your goals and full financial picture, not just portfolio structure.

  “The word [fiduciary] is completely useless anyway because nobody knows how to use it correctly... More important is whether their process and recommendations map to your needs and values.” — Joe [42:41]

5. Guiding 18-Year-Olds on Investing ([49:48])

• Community segment on helping late teens/young adults start investing.

• Advice includes:

  • Automating a savings percentage (e.g. 15%)
  • Using accessible platforms (M1, Acorns for habits, but also regular brokerage for learning)
  • The most important thing is involvement, parental guidance, and education, not the specific app or account chosen.

  “The piece I like best isn't what you choose. The piece I like best is that you're spending time with your kid teaching them.” — OG [52:36]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Reducing Car Expenses:
  “If you just keep your car another 2.6 years and buy used, you cut the $900,000 car line almost in half.” — OG [16:00]
• On Saving for Big Numbers:
  “I know it seems impossible—$5 million! But if you graduate college at 22, it’s $800 a month until you’re 65 and the market does the rest.” — OG [30:42]
• On Advisor Shopping and the Fiduciary Label:
  “You can say whatever you want. There's no crime against [calling yourself a fiduciary]. That's why that word is so useless. It's ridiculous.” — Joe [42:41]
• Practical Healthcare Negotiation:
  “My medicine went from $1,800 a month to $150 just by the doctor calling to ask about discounts. Just ask. You never know.” — Joe [25:31]

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Important Segment Timestamps

• [08:54] Main Headline – Breaking Down the $5M American Dream
• [11:38] Retirement & Social Security Discussion
• [13:19] The Car Calculation Deep Dive
• [19:27] College Cost Hacks & Planning
• [24:27] Healthcare Cost Strategies
• [27:25] How Compounding Makes the Goal Possible
• [39:59] Listener Voicemail: Why Advisors Differ
• [49:48] Community Roundtable: Advice for 18-Year-Old Investors

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Key Takeaways for Listeners

• The $5 million “cost” of the American Dream is only a scare headline if you adopt every expensive assumption—personalize and prioritize!
• Focus on value-based spending: Cut big costs you don’t care about; preserve what brings you joy.
• Compounding and planning are your secret weapons; no one is “saving” $5 million by hand.
• When searching for a financial advisor, look for true planning expertise and alignment—don’t fixate on the marketing buzzwords.
• Help the next generation start early, automate, and learn the why of investing, not just the how.

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In the hosts’ classic optimistic style:

"You don't have to do 50% better, just 10% better. It's your American Dream—make it your own." — OG [53:48]

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For more resources, referenced articles, and further discussion, visit stackingbenjamins.com or join their Facebook Basement community.

Transcript

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[Joe]

Race the rudders. Raise the sails. Raise the sails.

[OG]

Captain, an unidentified ship is approaching. Over.

[Joe]

Roger. Wait.

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[OG]

It's Monday. I just spent the weekend, guys.

[Joe]

Money.

[OG]

Guess where I was this weekend.

[Joe]

Doug's mom's house. I don't know. I was visiting, of course.

[OG]

At the second best place. Yes. Saying hello.

[Joe]

Don't you visit other people's moms from time to time?

[OG]

Savannah Bananas game. Yes.

[Joe]

So I sat next to that dude on a flight and tried to score tickets, like, five separate times. And he was not having it.

[OG]

He's never had that happen before, I'm sure.

[Joe]

Well, I didn't. I wasn't begging for tickets. I was like, oh, hey, are you affiliated with the team? And, you know, he's wearing a big yellow top hat, all in yellow pants and yellow shirt. And he goes, yeah, I'm the owner.

[Doug]

And I'm like, were you in a Curious George story?

[Joe]

No. That's what I wanted to say. But he was. He was not in a great mood. I could tell, like, something was, you know, because you see him on TV and he's like, you know, he's like, yeah, right. He's like, got this huge personality. And I could tell he was not in the mood for chatting.

[OG]

Jesse Cole is his name.

[Joe]

I said that I'd hope to catch a show one day. My kids were big fans and we weren't able to get tickets in the Dallas show. And he goes, oh, okay. Well, keep trying.

[Doug]

Yeah, dude, you're in first class. I think you can afford tickets. You don't need me to give them to you. I think that's what was not affording them.

[Joe]

They're actually fairly inexpensive. Right, Joe?

[OG]

They are inexpensive. They're hard to get but they're very inexpensive.

[Joe]

That's the shtick. He doesn't charge ticket fees, and he keeps every. I think the most expensive ticket that he sells is 60 bucks or 65 or something.

[Doug]

That's the thing. Yeah, that's the thing.

[Joe]

But they all sell out and they go to ticket brokers, and he hates.

[OG]

That 300, which he's trying to also curtail that as much as he possibly can.

[Joe]

100%.

[OG]

But anyway, great show. Recommend it to everybody. Which is why, obviously, if you can.

[Joe]

Get so difficult to score tickets, sit next to the dude on a plane.

[OG]

How hard is that?

[Joe]

Just be like, you know what? I can tell you're a big fan. Oh, gee. So here's five tickets for your family. It's right up the road.

[OG]

Here's.

[Joe]

Come sit with me in the owner's box.

[Doug]

How hard would that be?

[OG]

Now that we're friends? Now that we're buddies, it would be great.

[Joe]

Hold on, let me get you another drink. Savannah Bananas Guy. Might I have another one for my friend? Put it on my tab. Like, shirts included.

[Doug]

Can we start the show?

[OG]

You could tell what great friends they are because OG called him Savannah Bananas. Guy doesn't even know his first name.

[Joe]

Sorry. Hey, Savannah in the yellow hat. My bad.

[OG]

This is my family, and this is Savannah Bananas Guy.

[Joe]

Man with a yellow hat.

[OG]

But while I was partying in Houston with my spouse, who is having her 21st birthday, again, there were people that were keeping us safe. And at this point in the show, every week, or as Doug said, sometimes a little sooner than this, we raise our glass and we salute our troops. So on behalf of the men and women making podcast in mom's basement, and the men and women at Navy Federal Credit Union, serving our active duty in our veterans and their families, here's the people keeping us safe. Let's go stack some Benjamins together now, shall we?

[Doug]

Thanks, everybody.

[Joe]

Simpeify, is this your place?

[Doug]

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

[Joe]

I live with my ma. Oh, yeah.

[OG]

You hungry?

[Joe]

Hey, Ma, can we get some meatloaf?

[Doug]

Live from Joe's mom's basement, it's the stacking be. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug, and. Ah, the American dream. A new USA Today piece says it now costs a staggering $5 million. How will you achieve anything with that price tag? Don't worry, Stacker. We'll help you pick the lock on this more elusive than ever. Goal plus, we'll answer a question from Stacker John, who thought, you know, I'd better call Saul.

[Joe]

See?

[Doug]

Hi, And OG he's hiring an advisor and can't figure out why. If they all have his best interest at heart, they all have different advice. Hang in there John, because we'll help solve this mystery in the second half of today's show. Buuut that's not all. At the midway point of this whopper of an episode, I'll share some of my glorious. Glorious.

[OG]

Really?

[Doug]

I mean, it's pretty good. Yeah, actually it is. It's glorious money themed trivia. And now two guys who believe that while the weather is cooling off, it's time for your net worth to be heating up. It's Joe.

[Joe]

Oh. And.

[Doug]

Oh. J, J, J, J, J.

[OG]

That's exactly what we're here for today. Doug, get that heater running. Make sure the network statement is flying off the charts. Hey everybody. Welcome to. Why are you doing that?

[Joe]

OG I just was thinking about this today we live in Texas. You live a little north of me, so you get little different weather. But I was reading a blog post about somebody in a flying community that I belong to and they're like, oh, I was flying over the Rockies today and the Aspens are changing colors and their peak right now. It's so beautiful. And I'm like, it was 97 at my house yesterday. I have no. I know, like, I can't put in my brain that it's fall somewhere. It just doesn't feel like.

[Doug]

Yeah, it's not even really here either.

[OG]

Still just hoping for the great white north humidity to break here.

[Joe]

Yeah, yeah. Maybe tomorrow, Joe. Maybe tomorrow.

[OG]

Well, while the weather's staying hot, let's keep your net worth getting hot because we are going to help you make some moolah today. Welcome back to another week of the stack of Benjamin show. Everybody sit back and relax because this is the you can do it Monday show. We're gonna dive into a headline that is gonna make you groan, but then we're going to make that American dream come back alive. You're gonna think that it's dead when we first tell you some numbers. And then we're gonna reel it back in and we're gonna help you get moving toward getting whatever you're dreaming about.

[Doug]

Wrap in for this roller coaster ride.

[OG]

It's gonna be so, so, so fun. Before we get to that, we got a couple sponsors to make sure that we can keep on keeping on. You're not gonna pay a d, Sit back, relax, grab some paper, grab your iPad, whatever it is you're going to do to take notes because the headline's coming up right after this. Huge Savings on Dell AI PCs are here and it's a big deal. Why? Because Dell AI PCs with Intel Core Ultra processors are newly designed to help you do more faster. It's pretty amazing what they can do in a day's work. They can generate code, edit images, multitask without lag, draft emails, summarize documents, create live translations. They can even extend your battery life so you never have to worry about forgetting your charger. It's like having a personal assistant built right into your PC to cover the menial tasks so you can focus on what matters. That's the power of Dell AI with Intel inside. With deals on Dell AI PCs like the Dell 16 plus starting at 749 99, it's the perfect time to refresh your tech and take back your time. Upgrade your AI PC today by visiting Dell.com deals that's Dell.com deals.

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[Joe]

Bombas are so absurdly comfortable, you may throw out all your other clothes.

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[Joe]

No, this is just how I talk. And I really love my Bombas.

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[Joe]

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

[OG]

Our headline today comes to us from USA Today. This story rocked a lot of online communities, so some of you may have seen this. The American Dream, guys. The American Dream. This according to Daniel Divisay and Carly Process Inflation has dim. The American Dream. Say it ain't so. According to investor pd According to new analysis from Investopedia. Wow, I almost said that wrong.

[Doug]

I'm not familiar with that publication.

[Joe]

Joe's a lifetime subscriber.

[OG]

The American dream now cost $5 million. I was just talking to my mom.

[Joe]

And she said apparently he'll leave me 5 million anyway, so I'm golden, baby.

[OG]

You can't do anything with five, Greg.

[Joe]

Five's a nightmare. Is it? Oh, yeah.

[John]

Can't retire.

[OG]

Not worth it to work.

[Joe]

Oh, yes.

[OG]

Five will drive you un poco loco.

[John]

My fine feathered friend.

[Joe]

Poorest rich person in America. The world's tallest dwarf.

[John]

The weakest strongman at the circus.

[Doug]

From the best show of all time.

[OG]

That, of course, is from Succession. Let's break down the American Dream. Here, I think it's not really 5 million, guys. I think that when we more like 10 start, I think it's 14 million. Sorry.

[Joe]

UN poco loco, my friend.

[OG]

When we talk about the American dream, the frustrating piece of this is that we're using a bunch of averages. And we're also doing something that I think, especially in the personal finance community, we don't like, which is just spending lavishly on everything instead of just those things that we really care about. So let's break down the numbers the way that they have them. They're $5 million. Retirement, they say, for the average American is going to cost you $1.6 million. So that's the biggest chunk of it. Owning a house over your lifetime will cost you $957,000. Raising two children, paying for college, $876,000. Owning a new car, $900,000. Healthcare, $414,000. Yearly vacations, $180,000. Pets, 39,000. A wedding, 38,000. There's a few of these numbers that I don't think that we want to mess with first. I don't want to rain on anybody's retirement parade. OG So I said, okay, we're not going to touch this 1.6 million. If that's your goal, that's great. Can you do it on less? You certainly can. But why drive down your retirement dream just so that it costs less when there's other things that we can easily cut?

[Joe]

Well, And I think a lot of people look at 1.6 million and say, well, geez, using that 4% rule or 5% rule, I guess. Can we call it a 5% rule now? I think we can, since 5.2 seems too hard to do math on.

[OG]

Right.

[Joe]

Thanks, Bill. Couldn't have just said 5, but the 4% rule on 1.6 gets us what, about $65,000, $70,000 a year? And I think some people look at that and say, that's not even close to the lifestyle I have envisioned. You know, that's five, six thousand dollars a month. But you got to remember, for a lot of people, you also have a little bit of Social Security. And if you're in a relationship, your spouse has Social Security. So it's like, you know, that might be another four or five thousand dollars a month on top of that. So now we're in the ballpark of $120,000, $130,000. That's a pretty respectable lifetime income, honestly, I think. So when people look at 1.6 and say, that's not even close to enough. I think you got to add those other guaranteed incomes on top of it and recognize, I think, to your point, Joe, it's like, well, it doesn't have to be 1.6. It could be a million. And you're still making 100 grand. Probably.

[OG]

Yeah, very well could be.

[Doug]

And you know that this 1.6 number isn't surprising, especially because just recently, that in itself made headlines just in the last couple of months. I know that was like, oh, now it takes 1.6, and everybody was freaking out about that. But I think the way that that OG just explained it is makes it pretty, I don't know, less hyperbolic. It seems reasonable. That's not what surprises me on this list. What's next?

[OG]

No, and that's why, Doug, I don't want to mess with that number. Like, we're going to mess with a bunch of these numbers.

[Doug]

Right?

[OG]

You know, if your retirement goal is your retirement goal, let's keep it what it is. Maybe it's 2 million. You want even more than that. Maybe it is a million. I don't want to Mess with their 1.6. The number I do want to mess with, that, I'm sure is the one you guys want to mess with. $900,000 for the new car. $900,000. Putting your kids through college is $876,000. $900,000. I don't know. That number screamed out to me.

[Joe]

Is this that far off, though? I mean, if I think back to, like, you know, how many cars we've had, I got a car at 22, 25 at 28. I had a beater at 30, you know, another one at four. I bet in our family, plus two for the kids. I bet we're at nine cars so far.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Joe]

And I'm 48. If the average price on each one of those is 40 grand, I mean, I'm at 350, 360. Right now.

[OG]

Cheryl's at car number five. And I'm on car number four. I'm on car number four.

[Joe]

So y' all at nine. And plus, how. What about for the kids? Did you get cars for the kids? Two.

[OG]

Yeah.

[Joe]

So you're at 11, Doug.

[Doug]

I, I, I feel like there's a lot. I'm not doing this game. I'm gonna sit this one out.

[OG]

Okay.

[Joe]

All right. All right.

[Doug]

Fun to hear you guys talk about it. My numbers may vary slightly.

[Joe]

Yes.

[Doug]

I think there's a lot of info that they're not giving us. In the article, it talks about the figure reflects the cost of buying and financing a new car every 10 years from ages 22 to 75. Right.

[Joe]

Okay.

[Doug]

It could be worse because we're talking about kids. We're more than. And a lot of families are two car households. They talk about the lifetime cost of a new car ownership at $811,000. 72% of Americans consider owning a new car component of the American dream. And the average vehicle in the US is nearly 13 years old. So either it's even worse than this or it's. Well, it's actually a lot of info. We don't.

[OG]

It actually could be better because they use 10 years. And to your point, it's 12.6. So what I did, Doug, was I said, let's say you just keep your car another 2.6 years. So it's the average. And instead of the average new car, you were able to get away with a used car instead.

[Joe]

Now slightly used. Yeah.

[OG]

Yes. I use current CPI inflation, 2.9% per year from the Bureau of Labor statistics. Cars at 20, 32.6 years old, 45.2, 57.8, 70.4. And your last one at 83.

[Doug]

No, no, we're gonna, we're gonna disallow that one.

[OG]

The one at 83.

[Joe]

Yeah.

[Doug]

You don't get that one.

[OG]

No, that's when you have the family intervention.

[Doug]

Joe, I think it's time we're taking the keys.

[OG]

I think it is time. So using the cost of a used car instead of a new car, average used car today, $25,180. That means the next one at 32.6 is going to cost you just over 36,000. The one at 45 going to cost you about 51 7. The one at 58 years old. Ish. Is going to cost you around 75 grand. The one at 70 years old going to be 106,000. The one at 83 years old, $152,000 lifetime total, by the way. Then we just cut from 900,000 to 446,000. We cut that number in half by cutting your. Your car from 10 years to 12.6 years, which is the average already. Now, the part of this that is magic that I will agree will give some people some eye roll is I'm keeping a used car for 12.6 years. Like, is that really going to happen? I don't know. But the point is, if you can keep it 12.6, you're going to reduce that number. If you go used car versus new.

[Joe]

Maybe you're trying to extend every so often instead of getting a new one every 10, see if you can make it 12, you gotta affect one end or both. And you're doing both. But even one end of that, making it 10 to 12, even if you bought a brand new one will still save you one cycle over your lifetime. Right. Because instead of doing every 10, you do it every 12. You save one car and it's the last one you save. Right. It's the most expensive one that you don't get.

[Doug]

The one your kids aren't going to allow you to buy anyways. So it might be this small change, big impact.

[Joe]

That's your point.

[Doug]

Yeah, I think that's the takeaway that we talk about in a lot of these financial situations in terms of long term planning. Planning is small changes can have huge impacts over time.

[Joe]

Yeah, for sure.

[OG]

And you know, the discussion that the three of us have had over the years over and over and over, the fight that never ends, the fight that just keeps giving used car versus new car.

[Joe]

Right.

[OG]

Because the used car ends up needing big time maintenance. But if you go the used car route, I think this also proves how important it is to get the carfax ahead of time, take it to a certified mechanic to have it looked at. Because man, if you can extend the life of that used car by making sure you don't step on a lemon, there's some important work. And I think a lot of people think, well, I'm just going to go with the cheapest car that I can get and that's going to save me some money. Well, maybe over the short run, but I think what we're showing here is if you can make the used car work over the long run.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[OG]

That truly can bring home the bacon. What other number on here do you guys want to go after next? Because I've got a few.

[Doug]

I feel like the raising two kids number is criminally low.

[OG]

Well, I looked at that one kids and college. It looks like the original college assumption in that 876,000 guys is around $300,000 per kid. Clearly, if we focus on a college aid strategy and we can try to bring down that retail cost of college and we actually think through, you know, and we've had guests on the show talk about this, the true ROI of college. Because college isn't for every kid.

[Joe]

Yep.

[OG]

We could reduce the college piece of that maybe significantly.

[Joe]

Well, there's from a college standpoint, especially if you have two kids. Right. So you're thinking public in state tuition right now across the country for our planning purposes, what we use for clients is averaging about $28,000 a year, all in room, board, books, fees, tuition, the whole enchilada package. Right. So can I round and say 30 just to make the math easy. So in today's dollars, you're talking about 120,000 a kid. So 240 times one. I've got a really simple way of how to cut college costs. Just have one kid.

[OG]

There you go.

[Joe]

So easy, there's 100,000.

[Doug]

How about buy a couple more condoms, mom and dad?

[Joe]

Yeah, in reality, I think some of this is, you know, especially around the college cost is the planning that you do starting in high school, you know, with your children. And that is making sure as best as you can that you're taking advantage of the advanced learning opportunities that are available in your school district. And I understand that not all school districts are created equal. Some have opportunities, some don't. That's totally understandable. We were fortunate enough to be able to have our oldest take some AP classes. That knocks down his total number of college credits by 29.

[OG]

Wow.

[Joe]

He started college with 29 credits, which is like almost being a sophomore. Now it's not going to exactly be one for one because of the way degrees overlap and that sort of thing, but if we save 20 credits, that's a semester ish of tuition, that's a semester ish of room and board potentially. And then if you layer on top of that things like, hey, you know what? 18 year olds don't really know exactly what they want to do with their lives. Maybe they should do their math and science and English classes at the community college where it's a hundred dollars of credit hours instead of 600 at the big university. And for some reason that's somewhat poo pooed, like, oh, you don't want to go to community college, then you're lesser than. It's like that's the smart way to do it from a money standpoint, you know. Yeah, there's reasons not to do it, I get that. But you know, if you're looking at this from a pure cost standpoint, starting as a freshman in high school, saying how can we knock out if our school district has it, you know, the math and the English and the science, like first year stuff, go to community college for years one and a half and two and then transfer to the big university. I mean that's, that's $50,000 a kid each, easy.

[Doug]

And this is all still assuming that our kids have to go to college.

[Joe]

Yeah.

[Doug]

Which is Becoming less and less of the automatic. This is the next step after grade 12. Don't forget that. Now it's just a great idea to start saving because you don't know what is right for your kid. What was right for our kids was the standard or larger four year university. But it's not right for every kid. I have a lot of friends grew up in a great school district where every other kid was going to school and they realized it's not right for my kid and the kid realized it's not right for them and so they went into a trade and they're doing great.

[Joe]

Yeah, public in state school. One of your kids went to a public in state school. One went out of state but probably had a lot of scholarship because he's actually.

[Doug]

It was actually cheaper than the in state school when he went out of.

[Joe]

State took after his mom. It was super smart. So those things are the things that you can control and start talking about that stuff as a freshman in high school. The time to think about college planning. What we've learned isn't when your kid's a junior going what essays do you want to write? It's the course schedule and the rigor that you take starting as a freshman. And that's just the college stuff.

[OG]

Yeah, I think there are a lot of opportunities on the college side. Of course on the just child rearing side you know a lot of families now to cut cost are having family members help take care of kids versus the expensive daycares or you know and this is so difficult because there also is a quality of life component to this. I always am reticent to change these numbers too much and go oh you know just don't move to the bigger.

[Joe]

Much easier have grandma do it.

[OG]

Yeah. And it just the quality of life piece is not something that we want to mess with. I also don't want to mess with the owning a home. If your goal is to own homes that during your lifetime equal almost $1 million then that's that's your goal. I don't want to mess with that number either. But let's take a Look at this. $38,000 for a wedding. I know that that's the bottom one here.

[Joe]

Pretty low right?

[OG]

Well it's pretty wild though. 38 000. That is a number we could easily cut in half. OG you could easily cut that number.

[Joe]

I have no experience with that recently so I'm going to stay out of that. But I do want to talk about your vacation budget. Joe. I feel like this 180. We could probably cut that a whole bunch.

[OG]

We're leaving that the same. The vacation.

[Joe]

I don't know, let's. I think, I think. How many trips to Greece does one need?

[Doug]

Like cut the college education, triple the vacation budget.

[OG]

It's not $180,000 a year, for God's sake. That would be fantastic. $280,000 over your lifetime. And look at Shemin last week talking about how important it is to take time away from work.

[Joe]

What about the health care cost number?

[OG]

$414,000 for health care, Health care, total costs.

[Joe]

I mean obviously the vast majority of that is forecast to be on the back end. It's hard to put into calculations exactly how much a long term healthy lifestyle saves versus chronic illness and medication and that sort of thing. And some stuff you can't avoid. You know, it's just your family DNA. But I think taking advantage of discounted healthcare options, paying cash instead of using insurance, which would be a little bit less expensive, sometimes prescription discount codes and you know, there's a medicine that I take that is very expensive. The doctor was like, I don't know, it's just really expensive. There's two different ways to take this. And I said, well is there anything that you can do? Discount coupons or anything? And he goes, well let me call the pharmacy and ask. And it went from $1,800 a month to 150 just from the doctor calling the pharmacy going is there any movement on this? And they went, yeah, we can do 150amonth instead of 1,800. Are you kidding me? Yeah, just ask. You never know what it's going to be. But I feel like taking advantage of, you know, the pre tax stuff with HSAs and that sort of thing will help kind of eat into some of this cost.

[OG]

We talked to industry experts, Scott Heiser on two different occasions about this and he said, always question the bill. Og a lot of times people will go no, my insurance pays for it.

[Joe]

Healthcare bill you're talking about.

[OG]

Yeah, it is still being paid for. Whenever you receive healthcare, question the bill, ask about the line items on the bill. And part of the problem according to Scott, which I tend to agree with, is that we don't know what we're being charged. We have no idea what we're being charged. And we think that because I have insurance that there's no, there's no pushback, I don't need to push back. Well, it's still coming out of your pocket either as an increased premium later on or out of your pocket up front. And there have been a few times that I've had that happen. I remember once I took my son to the dermatologist. He got some medicine that was obscenely expensive. After I went to the pharmacy, I just came right back and said, is this. Is there anything else we can do? And without even thinking about it, Og they just go, oh, yeah, I'm sorry. We could have done the generic. It's, you know, one tenth of the cost.

[Joe]

Yeah, it's 10 bucks a month instead of 150amonth. You're like, well, why would I want to not do that?

[Doug]

It's like the pizza place that can't give you the discount unless you ask for it.

[OG]

Is there one of those?

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Joe]

Knows all those places.

[Doug]

Yeah. Oh, trust me. I got a whole Excel spreadsheet of all the right questions.

[OG]

I don't know anything about healthcare, but I do know about.

[Joe]

Do you know where the discounted pizzas are? I think the biggest thing, when I look at all this and I see this number, maybe you add it up and you say 5 million's on par. It seems right. Sometimes people might look at this and say, seems a little light. I could totally spend 2 million in retirement and a million on my house and a million and a half on cars. If I'm like Doug and, you know, and all of a sudden there's no.

[OG]

10 even trying to reduce it. We just tried to reduce it. I don't think we can get this number below 4 million.

[Joe]

Yeah, depends, right? There's. It depends on what's important to you. But I don't know. I look at this and I think, if I see the number 5 million and I'm 40 years old and I got 200 grand in my 401k, I'm thinking there is zero chance I'm getting 5 million. Okay, so the goal isn't to get to 5 million. Right. Because you've already consumed some of this. This is the total consumption. The benefit that you have that offsets all of this cost down the line potentially, is the power of compounding. And just by saving or investing a little bit every single month toward these goals will totally, radically change your out of pocket as it relates to how much it costs for school or how much it costs for retirement. Yeah, I get it. You might spend 1.6 million in retirement, but you don't save 1.6 million. Right. You save 400,000 and then compounding adds the other million. Right. You don't save $200,000 to send your two kids to school, you save 70,000 and compounding takes care of the rest.

[Doug]

Yeah, I love this. I'm so glad you're. You're going down this path. Oh, gee. Because I feel like we, in a. In a way, either we fell for the clickbait on this article, or we're anticipating our listeners falling for the clickbait on it. Because the numbers look so impossible and so unattainable. And I like the way that you're explaining it now that it is. Doesn't have to be. Yeah, you can do some things to reduce some of those big numbers through your consumption habits, but it's also not as bad as you think because of your planning, your investment policy statement and compounding.

[Joe]

One of the things that we just kind of glossed over on the car stuff was as you were reading it, Doug, you said, buying a new car and financing it every 10 years. And it's like if you don't finance it, that's the interest payment. I've talked about this a lot recently. It's somewhat top of mind as I'm working through some stuff with some family. But it's like if you didn't pay interest, we look and say, oh, you know, I can put this on my charge card. It's only. The payment's only 500amonth. And it's. I got all these like little 500amonth payments, right? And maybe I've got $2,500 a month of payments. That. $2,500. How much money do you have to make to pay $2,500 of payments? You know, you gotta make 4,000amonth to pay taxes and your benefits and all that other sort of nonsense to net 2,500 to pay for all the stuff that's getting used up, you know, that's. It's already consumed, right? Like whether it's groceries or the night out on town or the vacation you already did or something like that, so much of that is interest and delayed gratification. If you can just hit pause on that for a short period of time, whether you do that in your 20s or 30s just to get your head above water instead of your lips above water. This totally changes that trajectory. I know, Joe, you did the calculation on. Okay, so what? So I need $5 million by the time I'm 65. Okay, cool, I'll bite. What does that really mean in terms of savings? I just graduated high or I just graduated college, 22 years old. What is this gigantic sum of money I need to save? I mean, it must be astronomical.

[OG]

$800 a month.

[Joe]

I gotta save 800 bucks from the time I'm 22 till I retire at 65.

[Doug]

Yep.

[Joe]

And I got 5 million in my account, and I get it. That's not the same 5 million as the consumption we're talking about. But in the grand scheme of things, 800 times 12, 9,600 bucks a year.

[OG]

And think about this. The retirement goal alone is only 1.6. It's not. It isn't $5 million.

[Joe]

Right, right, right, right.

[OG]

So the retirement goal alone is a fraction of that. So even if you can't save 800 and you can save less than that, you're still. You're going to be doing great.

[Doug]

And I think there's people listening right now that are thinking, I don't have 800 bucks extra. You might not right now. There were a lot of years in the early part of our marriage, and when our kids were younger, we did not have an extra 800 bucks. But another thing that you need to remember and discipline yourself for is there are going to be months and years coming up where you have 1500 and you got to capitalize on that. You've got to adjust your lifestyle so that when you get that flexibility in your budget, you can start making up as much as you can. I know it's hard to make up for lost time with when you miss out on that compounding, but you still have to set up your budgeting and your discipline so that you can add more than 800amonth when you've got the opportunity.

[OG]

Well, and I like even more than discipline, Doug, I like systems. Set up your system so you can catch these. So it's like tripwire. And you're able to take advantage of it. Because if you're able to just be 10% better on all these things, owning a new car, if you're 10% better on owning a car strategically, like we Talked about earlier, 900,000 goes down by $90,000. You're more strategic about your health care. Maybe you pay some out of pocket and let the HSA accumulate. You might save $41,000 over your life on that. Raising your kids and deciding what really is important for the kids and what's aren't important. That might be another $87,000 being more strategic about your housing instead of 957,000, you know, 95,000 goes out the window. The yearly vacation, we're not going to touch because that's really important. But we can cut these other things.

[Joe]

We can cut all this other crap.

[OG]

Buy a bunch. I'll link to this piece in the show notes. You'll find [e-mail] and also coming up on Wednesday, we're going to continue the retirement discussion because CFP Jeremy Kyle joins us. He's got just a five step framework to helping you think about planning your retirement. And I can't wait for you to hear that and to join us on that show. But let's go to what we do here. At the halfway point of every Stacking Benjamin show, we make it so you can brag around the virtual water cooler. You're on your next zoom meeting. Waiting for the meeting to start. You can throw a zinger out like this one that Doug's about to share with us. Doug, what's untapped today, man?

[Doug]

Hey there stackers. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug. And if you're feeling rejuvenated after that headline and now think you can actually afford the American dream again, here's something else you can afford. Philanthropy on Today's date. In 1953, Danny Thomas starred in a sitcom called Making Room for Daddy, which later became the incredibly successful Danny Thomas show, which ran until 1964. Before that success, when Thomas thought he couldn't afford to the American dream, let alone eat the next day, he promised himself that if he ever found success, he'd open a shrine to the saint of lost causes to help others who thought they were lost, which he definitely did. What saint of lost causes did Danny Thomas say he'd build a shrine to? I'll be back right after I see if getting some of Joe's mom's cookie dough is a lost cause.

[Sponsor Voice]

The Jack Welch Management Institute at Strayer University helps you go from I know the way to I've arrived with our top 10 ranked online MBA. Gain skills you can learn today and apply tomorrow. Get ready to go from make it happen to made it happen and keep striving. Visit strayer.edu Jack WelchMBA to learn more. Strayer University is certified to operate in Virginia by Chev and has many campuses including at 2121 15th Street north in Arlington, Virginia.

[OG]

Tuesday on NBC, Jimmy Fallon and Bozma St. John host the highly anticipated new competition show.

[Joe]

I hire 10 creatives from all walks of life. They will be battling it out to.

[OG]

See who can impress the world's biggest brands.

[Joe]

This is a huge opportunity.

[OG]

This is the battle for the next big idea.

[Joe]

This is not play Play. We're spending millions of dollars.

[OG]

I'm so excited to embark on this adventure with all of you.

[Doug]

May the best idea win on Brand with Jimmy Fallon.

[OG]

Series premiere Tuesday on NBC.

[Sponsor Voice]

When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans, send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom's 60th. And never miss a meme or milestone. All protected with end to end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp message privately with everyone. Learn [e-mail].

[Doug]

Hey there, Stackers. I'm cookie dough lover and guy who's now sugared up for the second half of this podcast. Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug. Danny Thomas wasn't just a successful actor. He also founded one of the the great nonprofit institutions in the USA named for the patron saint of lost causes, something he thought he was when he was a starving actor. What is the name of the patron saint of lost causes who also graces the name of the institution Thomas founded? That would be St. Jude. And now the St. Jude Children's Hospital gives hope and care to many families in the USA at the no or minimal costs. And now, speaking of lost causes, here comes Joe and OG back to the microphones.

[OG]

Thanks, man. St. Jude. The St. Jude Marathon in Memphis was my fastest marathon ever. I never run faster than that. But I will tell you, just under five hours, just under a hundred hours. It was, it was, it was great. What's set? I'll share what's sad about that time in a second. But I will say this, that mile 22 or 23ish, you run through the St. Jude campus and the kids come outside, kids that are healthy enough to come outside and they have their hands out and you can't stop crying.

[Doug]

Oh, my gosh.

[OG]

As you're slapping hands with these kids and they're cheering you on, I'm like, I should be cheering you on. What's going on there? Wonderful. Yeah, wonderful.

[Doug]

The entry fee for this marathon is $5,000. Sign me up. I mean, it's just what a, what a cause. The other. Speaking of that and this, it may not be related to St. Jude's but it's just so easy to get behind Iowa football. Maybe the greatest tradition in college football is when they all wave to the kids in the children's hospital.

[Joe]

Oh, that's great.

[Doug]

See the stadium? It's just fantastic. I love that.

[OG]

So if you go look at the Memphis marathon year after year, you will not find my name with my fastest marathon. My Buddy Hal was signed up to run this marathon, and then his friend dropped out, and then he got hurt a few weeks beforehand. And I didn't have anything going on. I'd always wanted to run it. So I went as Hal Lauer to this marathon.

[Joe]

Hold on. What was a likely excuse?

[Doug]

Hold on. This is a pretty elaborate story to say. No, trust me, I really did run a marathon. Just you won't find my name anywhere. But.

[OG]

No, you won't. But. But what's even funnier, Doug, is that they give you, you know, your number. And so I've got my number. And as I'm running along, like, I'm running and I'm running, and, you know, you get far enough along and you just get a little bit delirious and you're like, you know, 26 miles, but mile 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 people along the way, they keep cheering for this dude named Hal. They're like, come on, Hal, you can do it. And I'm like, who's this Hal that's running behind me? It was only like mile 18 that I realized that my first name was right on my. Right on my number. Like in big letters, it said Hal. And yeah, I was like, oh, this guy Hal keeps following me like he's running right behind me.

[Joe]

Quit pacing me, bro.

[OG]

Quit pacing me. I keep looking behind me for this mysterious hell. Yeah. So sadly, hell Hour ran a hell of a marathon because I was much faster than hell. Good, Good stuff. All right, let's move on to this. We just got a letter. We just got a letter. We just got a letter. Wonder who it's from. Today's voicemail letter comes to us from John. Hey, John.

[John]

Hi, guys. Thank you for taking my call. I'm in the process of interviewing financial advisors to start managing my assets. All of these claim to be fiduciaries. When I speak with them, each one has a different plan or a different process that they follow. I was under the impression that a fiduciary would act in my best interest. With that being said, my best interest should have one possible solution. Whereas good solutions or good plans could have many iterations or many variations. Can you please explain why different fiduciaries would have different plans and what I need to look for when hiring an advisor? Really appreciate all your guys help and insights that you have. Thank you.

[OG]

Hey, John, thanks so much for the kind words and oh, gee, this. You know, you're out there and you're doing the work, you're putting in the time, you're interviewing different people and These plans, one's going left, the other one's going right. And yet all these planners supposedly have John's back because they're what's called a fiduciary, which means they are required to work in John's interest. How come there's so much variation?

[Joe]

Well, I. I would be curious to know what the differences are, but I wonder if it's something as simple as. It could be. Different assumptions, right? It could be something like we are going to assume 8% and someone else assumes 7, and therefore, I think you need to save $500 a month instead of 600 or whatever. It could be something as simple as that. But it could also be something as simple as a product and say, hey, my doctor recommends Crestor, your doctor recommends Lipitor. Is there a profound difference between the two? Not really. They're both statins and they both lower the bad cholesterol in your body. So sometimes one is better for a different reason because it interacts better with other medicine. And does the doctor take the time to explain that to you or just go, your cholesterol sucks? And I know that you are also on this other medicine, so you're getting Crestor. I'm not gonna. Does he need to go into all the 32 reasons why he thinks it's better than Lipitor? I don't know, but I wonder what the big delta is. There can also be some wildly disparate answers as it relates to product, depending on what type of person you're going to. Sadly, if you are working with a person who specializes in annuities, then a lot of the answers are going to be annuity based products or insurance based products. Life insurance or something like that is going to be the solution to a lot of stuff. That's more of a charlatan than a financial planner, honestly.

[OG]

But does that person have the ability to say they're a fiduciary?

[Joe]

You can say whatever you want. There's no crime against it. That's why that word is so useless. It's ridiculous. I'm a fiduciary. Says who? And who comes after you? The fiduciary police? If you're lying, no one. There is no law that says you have to tell the truth to somebody about your registration status. And what's funny is that even people who are legally not able to be fiduciaries will still say that they are. But here's where I come down on this. I actually think that the vast majority of people are doing the right thing. And the term is largely Useless anyway because I can say I'm a fiduciary and totally do bad stuff. And I can not be a fiduciary legally, like unable to be based on my registration status and do completely the right thing for you. And that doesn't make me worse of a person because I can't say the word, you know. So in my opinion, the word is completely useless anyway because nobody knows how to use it correctly. And that's okay. But it's not a differentiator, if that makes sense. I would be more looking at the differences, John, between the plans. And you know, frankly, you can just ask these people, hey, why is yours that direction and this one is that direction. Like, what's the material difference here? And see if, you know, see if it makes sense to you. Like if they say, well, we, we like to use Vanguard stuff because A, B and C. And this guy likes to use Wisdom Tree because of X, Y and Z. Okay. You know, is there a profound difference between Vanguard and Wisdom Tree? No, there's not. That's not a hill to die on. Maybe they just have better experiences with that or better connection with the company. Totally fine. If one guy's like, well, we use whole life insurance because A, B and C. And this guy goes, we use low cost passive ETFs because of X, Y and Z. Then you know, the profound difference. Right? And you can kind of investigate that a little bit.

[OG]

One thing that I heard you say, John, that is a reason that I wouldn't hire an advisor. You said, I'm looking for advisors to manage my assets. And while I may have them manage my assets, I don't think that's the primary reason that I go, I want to build a great plan. And then the money management then is a piece in service of that plan. So if I'm going in to meet with a financial advisor, just have them manage my money. I think there's a whole group of people that call themselves financial advisors that do that, that are much more just product people and investment managers, more like broker focused. Broker focused. Yeah.

[Joe]

Joe, that could be a reason why all the plans air quotes are different. If it's like, well, I went to the Fidelity office and they recommended this allocation. And then I went to the Schwab branch and they recommended that allocation. Why in the hell are they different? Well, because Schwab guy's going to tell you Schwab's better. And the Fidelity guy is going to tell you Fidelity is better. Neither of them are better or worse. They're probably fairly Identical. But as my second grade teacher used to say, you're focusing on the wrong syllable.

[OG]

That's great. Second grade teacher for the win.

[Joe]

By the way, that's a fun little thing that I remember from second grade. I also had my name on the board several times with little check marks. And every check mark meant a recess you didn't get to go to. Thanks for that.

[OG]

You remember both of those things.

[Doug]

We got over it.

[Joe]

Yeah, it was a rough year for og. A lot of not recess time. But again, if you're just focused on the product, I can tell you 15 reasons why this product's better than that. And I can tell you 15 reasons why that product's better than this one. You know, it's just. Does it really matter?

[OG]

Yeah. So, John, what I think a great financial plan is going to do, number one, is help you look at am I saving the right amount of money based on my goal? If I'm not saving the right amount, how do I then then come up with the right amount either more or less? Where does that money come from? Based on what I value and based on my current spending, Do I have a debt strategy? Not just debt. And am I allocating enough money to debt service without over allocating money there? Because I gotta remember to also invest it for my future. I need to look at insurances. And really even bigger than that, I need to look at my risk management plan. What if the wheels come off the bus partway to my goal? How do I cover that? That's going to start with your biggest insurance, right? It's going to be your emergency fund. And then you're going to have just a plan for if different things happen to you. Then what's my retirement number? What are my different income streams? And then once I know what those are, then I have a much clearer picture of what investments fit my goal and which ones don't fit my goal. And then what you'll find is that the advisors are going to line up a little better now, product wise. Oh gee, you nailed this one. Where you know, one person's gonna say wisdom tree, one person's gonna say dimensional, one person's gonna say Fidelity, somebody's gonna say vanguard. What's the difference? So maybe the advisor is just. They're more of an expert in that fun family. That's what they use a lot. If the advisor is going to manage money for you, you don't want to have your money in spots where there are other clients or not, because you can't be great at every single investment that's out there to some degree. You actually want some mass customization meaning if you're hiring an advisor for that, you want to make sure they're on top of what's going on with that fund company. What the heck's going on with these different products so that if something does change that the money I'm paying for this, which is good money, I'm paying for this, I'm getting something for it. I often get frustrated when people want to have a different allocation than everybody else that an advisor works with because an advisor is just like you. They can't, they can't have 9,000 different allocations for, you know, let's say they work with a hundred families and every allocation is a hundred percent different. Imagine all the different things they have to try to be an expert.

[Joe]

Hard to keep track of.

[OG]

No, you don't really hire them for that. But it still is. The end of the road is deciding where to invest, not the beginning of the road. That's where I would start. How are they going to help me put a plan together? And to your point, OG I think if they are planners, it's going to look, it'll look a little more uniform I think if they start from that part. Thanks for the question. John, you got a question for us? Bring it. Stacking benjamins.com voicemail gets you to the hotline and we're happy to answer your question like we did John's and John, we'd love to hear more either number one, would love to hear what you're hearing different about these advisors. If you want to call back and let us know that. And then number two, when you find somebody, let us know what it was that you really liked about about that particular advisor. Would love to hear how the story ends. That's stacking benjamin.com voicemail all right, we have one more segment at the end. John is a member of the community, just called in but let's widen it even further. Doug, community members chatting away in other places.

[Doug]

Yeah Joe, out on our, on our basement group on Facebook a couple of weeks ago we had a great post from Jimmy and I just, I've said it before but I love it when our community uses each other to look for advice on how to approach. You know, usually it's personal finance, sometimes it's other stuff. But in this case Jimmy said he's got a question for investing for 18 year olds. Coworkers have twins. They just turned 18. He knows these kids pretty well. Looks like he coached them in baseball. And I was just looking for other people's advice on what do you do to help or guide, I'll say late adolescents, early adults, young adults on how to invest. And we had some great responses to that question that Jimmy asked. Michelle said, since she was 16, my daughter's been investing 15% of her income using the M1 app. Every time she changes jobs or gets a raise, she adjusts the amount she puts in to maintain the 15%. She'll be 25 soon and only has a Roth IRA at the moment.

[OG]

But it's cool. By the way, being 15 years old, having a Roth IRA is great. You have to have some income. So take that summer job money, put that into, into a Roth if at all possible. And I like the M1 app. I use the M1 app for my Sandbox account and it's super easy to use that app.

[Doug]

And as is true with any community, you have people who come at things from completely different directions. And so we had somebody else named Frank who said, do not have them wasting their time with cutesy apps like Acorns or Stash or some savings account merry go round that is not investing and actually impedes the acquisition of knowledge about it. For that reason, they should also have a regular brokerage account and use the money market fund there as their primary cash savings vehicle, even if they have no other investments in it to start with.

[OG]

Frank is such a nice guy, by the way, in person. Just sometimes need to put some velvet on his hammer when he's, when he's commenting.

[Doug]

But that doesn't necessarily mean he's wrong. Right. It just means different perspectives on how to get after this stuff.

[OG]

Yeah, I like the Acorns app. I think that learning to just squirrel away the extra money and round up, I think that's fine. You can also track the investments that are on Acorn, so you can do that. But yeah, I also like Frank's idea of the brokerage account. It kind of echoes Doug, what Chuck Jaffe said when he was here on Labor Day, which is, you know, he likes kids having individual stocks to dive into. These are actual companies that you own and getting used to tracking individual companies. So don't hate that advice as well. Although I can also see people going to your point, Doug, I can see people going the other way and going, you know what? I'm going to teach them that indexing, diversification is important. The piece I like best isn't what you choose. The piece I like best there is that you're spending time with your kid teaching them.

[Doug]

Agreed.

[OG]

That's great. Jimmy always has such great, thoughtful posts. Jimmy, glad to see that you posted that question and thanks to everybody for answering that. If you'd like to join our community on Facebook, stackingbenjamins.com Basement is the quick way to get there. It's like Joe slash Mom slash basement. Like a bunch of stuff you put in. Just go to stacky benjamin.com basement. It'll take you to the page to join our community of nearly 7,000 people hanging out in mom's basement. Thanks for sharing this hour with us. We absolutely love that you spend this time with us. If you've got questions about the show, you've got comments about today's show. Not only is there our community, but you can also write to me [e-mail] on Spotify. We often have great discussions and some wonderful comments and I love chatting with people on the Spotify app as well. And from time to time I'll put polls up there. And sometimes Mom's friend Gertrude who manages our community will put polls up there that you can dance on. What.

[Doug]

You almost made it out of that nice and clean, straightforward.

[OG]

I often dance on the polls. Just got to keep limbered up. Two more things. Number one is if you know somebody that needs this pep talk around the American dream and they can do maybe, you know, you don't got to do 50% better, just 10% better, refer them to the show. And for more deep dives into topics like this, we have our newsletter, the201stacking benjamins.com 201 the show is 101 and the newsletter which comes out once a week is the 201. It's just absolutely fabulous. Love, love, love our newsletter and the great response we get to our newsletter. All right, that's it for today. Except for this. Doug, what are the three things that should be on our to do list after today's show?

[Doug]

The three and only three things you should have taken away from today's show Joe first, take some advice from our headline the American Dream is Dead. Sure it is if you need 900k for new cars and a name brand college for 2 and a half children and an early retirement. That's why beginning with what you value and spending money on that while cutting the rest will help you not only achieve your dreams but also appreciate them more. Second, a true fiduciary is someone who will fight with you and who may not share the same opinion as other fiduciaries. The key is to find one who meshes well, with your situation and learning style. But the big lesson, boy. Joe's mom latched onto the whole lost souls theme of my trivia. Today she's ready to start a fund to raise money for lost souls herself. Weird, because I don't even think she knows any lost souls. I mean, who could she be talking about? Weird. More on that to come. This show is the property of SB Podcasts, LLC, Copyright 2025, and is created by Joe Saul Sehive. Joe gets help from a few of our neighborhood friends. You'll find out about our awesome [e-mail] along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots. Come say hello. Oh, yeah. And before I go, not 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.

[OG]

Welcome to the after show. I'm going to play. I know, Doug, you love this. I'm going to play a trailer, but I think when everybody hears this, can.

[Doug]

It be like four or five minutes long?

[OG]

You're gonna know exactly what I just went to see. It's hard to accept that it's time to go. Your friendship has never been more important to all of us. But the future of Downton Abbey is now in Mary's hands.

[Doug]

Will be a sensation.

[OG]

And so the grand finale has come to theaters as we say goodbye to Downton Abbey. And you know what's funny is I could give you a long review of this. I'll just say this 10 minutes in because it's been so long since I've seen the last Downton Abbey movie. I was like, I think I moved on. I think that too much time has passed and I'm just not in this universe anymore. I used to love Downton Abbey and then I got to an hour in and I just whispered to Cheryl, I'm like, could this be a 20 hour movie? Because I just want to spend more time in this universe with these people. I loved it so much. It was so good. But you know what? I'm not going to spend a lot of time there. Because either you are like me and you loved Downton Abbey and the Gilded Age and all the stuff that, that the same team has created, or you don't. And if you don't, why Go see this movie. And if you do, you probably were already going to go see this movie anyway. I think there's this hard line between the doubtings and the non doubtings. And so if you're a doubting, you have to. It's so good. If you're not a doubting, well, don't watch this movie. Go back and start from the beginning because you're just going to be confused by the movie. So bigger thing. Bigger thing for me was I started watching a new TV series. But Doug, you're in the middle of a TV series right now. Well, we're.

[Doug]

We just finished one and I'm in the middle of one because stupid HBO doesn't release them all at once. They make you wait a week by week.

[OG]

I don't mind the week by week. I don't like the Netflix thing that we did with Wednesday that we just finished and I'll talk about that later. You can binge half of them and then they stop. Either go week by week so that I get this cool must see TV every Thursday night or whatever it is, you know, like the old days or. Or just give them to me all at one time. The 5050 thing I can't stand.

[Doug]

Yeah, I agree. I guess it speaks to how much we like the show when I get frustrated that they're only releasing an episode of Task every Sunday night at 9 o'.

[Joe]

Clock.

[OG]

So what is Task about?

[Doug]

Task is in the mayor of Eastt universe, if there is such a thing. I'm not prepared to answer this in depth, but the writer and director of that show has produced actually a lot of shows set all around where the character in the show almost is the environs around Philadelphia.

[OG]

Mayor of Easttown won a ton of awards.

[Doug]

Yeah, and deservedly so. And I think this show will as well. Task is fantastic. The. The place and the setting is as important as the plot line. But you care about the characters. There's antiheroes that you really care about. In fact, even the hero is almost an anti hero. So it, you know, it's a bit dark, a bit dim. Not. It just literally visually it looks dark and dim. It's sort of always cloudy outside. But it's not depressing in any sense. It's just. It's just a little bit like Ozark in that sense, which I'll use as a transition to the other show we just finished, which was Black Rabbit. And as a very much an Ozark feel to it, being led by Jason Bateman will do that. But I got to the final episode last night and said, why hasn't he won more awards? Because Jason Bateman is so, so good in this.

[OG]

He's Black Rabbit, the new one with Jason Bateman and Jude Law.

[Doug]

And Jude Law, yes. And it just. They keep on making bad decision after bad decision, and you just. You care about them enough to say, what are you doing? Why would you know? And. And are there moments where you think, oh, that would never happen. The cops would never just chase. They would radio or whatever. Of course there are. There aren't a lot of those kinds of shows, but the show is good enough that you don't dwell on it in your mind. Never took me out of being mentally and emotionally in the show like you think it. For a quick second I made a comment, but then I'm right back in it. And I didn't really care that this one part was a little bit unrealistic. It was so well written, so well acted. Would strongly recommend Black Rabbit.

[OG]

Jason Bateman is that actor, though, to your point that you just love forever.

[Doug]

Like every, everything, he's remarkably different. You know, he's not Daniel Day Lewis like, that guy just morphs. He's a shapeshifter. Jason Bateman's not that actor, but he is just so good and so believable. You kind of forget that he's playing a character.

[OG]

I think he's more like Denzel Washington that way. Where I see Denzel. Denzel Washington, but I'm like, yeah, I want to see more of this guy.

[Doug]

I think that's a fair comparison. Yeah.

[OG]

I saw another movie that was recommended by friends of the show, Nathan and Catherine. By the way, Nathan and Catherine, I owe a big public thanks to. When we went to Portland, they invited Cheryl and I and our friends to go to their family Italian restaurant. Think about how bad this would stink, guys. Yeah, we go to this restaurant that's been in their family. We actually met Nathan's dad, who is in his 70s, I believe, came over and chatted with us at the table. The waiter, this hilarious guy from France, just brought food. Nathan, who, you know, knows all the best stuff on the menu, told us what to order, ordered wine. I don't know how much wine we drank, but. But it was my fair share of wine. And they were just excellent wines. They're wine list. The restaurant is called Ricardo's. It's in Lake Oswego, which is a suburb of Portland, a nice area, but we sat out on this patio and just had a great time with these people. They even. These people import pans that are cookware that's made for individuals but is chef grade. And they sent Cheryl and I a couple. I mean, this is crazy. It was so nice.

[Doug]

I had a similar experience in Portland, Maine, when you sent me there, Joe.

[OG]

I'm like, wait, what? Yes. Yeah, I'm. So I just said Portland, and I thought you'd do the other one. I got to give a shout out to their company, though, by the way, because it's deterra. Cucina. Is that how you pronounce that word? Casina? Cucina. Is it cucina? Checina. I don't know. Cucina.

[Doug]

Cuchi. Coo.

[OG]

Datera. Cucina. Yes. But beautiful pans. Thank you so much.

[Doug]

About how you pronounce that. But you can't say Lake Oswego correctly. You're focused on cucina or cucina. And everybody's yelling about Lake Asuiga.

[OG]

Everybody's yelling at their device in the Portland area. Joe, you got it wrong. But Long Way is not just saying thank you. But Nathan also told me I should watch this. This series that came in 2023 called the law according to Lydia Poet. It got 100% on rotten tomatoes. 100%. And it's a Netflix series, so it's not like a little thing. It's this woman who in real life was the first female attorney in Italy. But the show is very fictional. Very, very much. There's no way this is real life. She's a Almost like a Sherlock Holmes. It's like a Sherlock Holmes episode after episode. The episodes are really fun. We let. And it's weird because it's an Italian series, so it's dubbed, like a bunch of Netflix series. And a lot of those I can't watch because I can't stand the dub in English. Yes. But you know what, dude? This show is one of just a very small handful. I don't mind. It's really good. The dubbing's really well done, but I can see why it's got 100 rotten tomato score. The Law according to Lydia Poe. I've watched two episodes, Nathan, after you told me to watch it. It's been great. So, Og, I think even you would like this one.

[Doug]

Wow.

[Joe]

Okay.

[OG]

He's like, great.

[Doug]

I don't think he believes you.

[Joe]

All I heard was Italian food and free cookware. So I know where I'm going for dinner tonight. Flying to Portland.

[OG]

Watch out, Nathan. And Catherine, OG's on his way.