Doug and the Three Ghosts (SB1778)

Summary

The Stacking Benjamins Show – “Doug and the Three Ghosts” (SB1778)

Release Date: December 24, 2025
Host(s): Joe Saul-Sehy, OG, Doug
Special Feature: Scripted Holiday Financial Comedy – A Playful Personal Finance Spin on “A Christmas Carol”

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Overview

This special Christmas Eve episode takes a lighthearted and comedic approach to timeless personal finance lessons, told through a parody of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Instead of Ebenezer Scrooge, we follow "Neighbor Doug" as he is visited by the three ghosts—of Christmas Past, Present, and Future—each represented by the show’s regular hosts. The episode’s purpose is to illustrate core money lessons about learning from past mistakes, being intentional and present with finances now, and planning (and automating) for the future. All of this is delivered in the show’s hallmark fun, cheeky tone, mixing storytelling with genuine financial advice.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Family Traditions and Setting the Scene (03:01–09:24)

• Joe, OG, and Doug share evolving family Christmas traditions, highlighting:
  • Doug’s ritual: Adult children still “forced” to wait at the top of the stairs before seeing gifts.
    • Quote: “The kids are in their mid and late 20s now, and we make them stand at the top of the stairs.” – Doug (04:00)
  • The varied “Santa” customs (wrapping vs. not wrapping gifts, number of gifts, special paper).
  • Humor about orchestrating holiday mornings for maximum parental sleep (“We shall not be disturbed until 7. And you can open all your stocking gifts.” – OG, 08:02).

2. Enter the “Christmas Carol” Parody (09:24–13:08)

• The narrator (Peter Walters) sets a tongue-in-cheek Dickensian mood—a totally “original” storyline featuring Doug as a modern Scrooge.
  • Meta-humor throughout about the story being a Dickens “knock-off.”
• Doug is comically more annoyed by the visitations than scared.

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3. The Ghost of Christmas Past: Facing Old Financial Mistakes (15:58–30:21)

• Doug’s Money Regrets:
  • Credit card debt; buying a too-large house on sketchy credit; “keeping up appearances.”
  • Quote: “Buying a BMW to put inside the garage of the new car before you make the first mortgage ... you can’t have a new house without a beautiful new car.” – OG (17:15)
• Hosts’ Candid Confessions:
  • Joe recounts his trail of debt and an abysmal credit score despite being a financial advisor.
    • Quote: “Here I am giving people advice… and I have the worst credit score in history.” – Joe (17:55)
• Key Lessons:
  • Accepting your financial reality without self-judgment (“A balance sheet is a balance sheet … be okay with where you are.” – OG, 19:04)
  • Building the foundation: Ignore creditors (if you must), stop the cycle of new debt, and start with an emergency fund—even with high-interest debt (22:01–23:08)
  • Progress is slow, but inevitable with consistency:
    • “It took about five years… but the pace quickened because we got excited about it.” (22:01)
  • Debt Methodologies:
    • Snowball method (paying off small debts for wins) vs. Avalanche (tackling highest interest first). Both are valid as long as there’s momentum.
    • Quote: “Make some progress because what you’re trying to do is mentally be okay with it... I think the snowball works best.” – OG (26:52)
• Action Points:
  • Stop lying to yourself, focus on keeping current debts current, let “in collections” debts wait (“Stop digging is the first step.” – OG, 29:06)
  • Separate income (especially inconsistent or commission) from spending; pay yourself a set “paycheck” from a different account to smooth out cash flow. (25:17–25:58)

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4. The Ghost of Christmas Present: The Value of Living Intentionally Now (32:04–48:13)

• Common Trap:
  • Money nerds often obsess over saving and future planning so much that they “mortgage the present,” missing real-life moments.
    • Quote: “We’re spending so much time managing the future that we don’t spend any money … we don’t do anything.” – Joe (32:38)
• Value of Time:
  • Quality of experiences (“Would you take Warren Buffett’s money or your age?” – OG, 33:56)
  • Recognizing time as a non-renewable currency; finite opportunities with family and for enjoyable experiences (Texarkana Symphony anecdote).
    • Quote: “If I’m lucky, I will see this thing 20 more times … I’m lucky I’m seeing it now.” – Joe (34:05)
• Financial Planning for the Present:
  • Plan and budget for meaningful experiences (like Disney with family)—don’t let indecision rob you of memories.
    • Quote: “What’s the point of having 10 million bucks ... and not having ever taken your kids to Disney?” – OG (35:42)
• Intentional Use of Resources:
  • Danger of hoarding too much cash (“If you don’t pay attention to it, now you have $80,000 … a heck of a bigger number, but [opportunity loss]” – OG, 43:49)
  • Use a calendar to pre-commit to plans and goals—translate “I want this” into actionable, scheduled reality.
    • “Put it on the calendar to go from ‘I want this’ to ‘it’s going to happen’.” – Joe (45:50)
• Life Design:
  • Backward planning: Start with what makes you happy today, and build your 10-year, 5-year, and 1-year goals.
    • Quote: “Start off with the 10-year goal. ... Then write the five-year goals ... one year ... they’re building blocks that make me happy today.” – Joe (47:30)
  • Use “wheels of life” or similar tools to track progress in various personal areas (health, spiritual, financial).

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5. The Ghost of Christmas Future: Planning and Automating Your Way to Freedom (53:00–64:58)

• The Power of Automation:
  • Set up automated savings and investments to eliminate decision fatigue and “future proof” your finances.
  • Quote: “Anytime that you can exclude yourself from decision making, you’re going to be better off. Make it one time when you’re sober… Now I’m going to automatically increase my 401k contributions 1% every 6 months … and it’s done.” – OG (54:02)
• Decision Fatigue:
  • People run out of willpower for good money decisions late in the day (“Do you make your best decisions at 11pm?”) (56:23)
• Start Early, No Matter the Amount:
  • Regret over not maximizing contributions from the beginning, but small, automatic increases accumulate huge results.
    • Story: “If all I would have done when [the Roth] came out was save… it’s 10 bucks… and next year 11…” – OG (56:55)
• Tools and Systems:
  • Use tracking apps (Monarch Money, Rocket Money) and regular meetings to evaluate and automate as much as possible.
    • Evaluate: "Which of these transactions can I automate? … I don't want to worry about $30 off. I want to worry about making thousands."* – Joe (58:44)
• Concrete Example:
  • Paying off a mortgage early by analyzing the numbers and committing to an automatic extra payment, saving “hundreds of thousands in interest by making one decision in 2022.” (60:09–62:19)
• Final Lesson:
  • Automation and intentional planning allow you to be in the present by giving you confidence the future “is taking care of itself.” But don’t let “over-saving” rob you of enjoying today—the ultimate commodity is time.
    • Quote: “The commodity that’s limited for all of us is time. And Doug, I think that is the most important point of all.” – Joe (62:19)

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On family and traditions:
  • “We make them stand at the top of the stairs. The kids are in their mid and late 20s now ...” – Doug (04:00)
• On the pain of money mistakes:
  • “Here I am giving people advice … and I have the worst credit score in history.” – Joe (17:55)
  • “Stop digging is the first step, right?” – OG (29:06)
• On living in the present:
  • “Would you take Warren Buffett’s money or your age right now?” – OG (33:56)
  • “We’re not here because we’re so busy trying to cheapen today that we don’t spend any money.” – Joe (32:38)
• On the value of planning and automation:
  • “Anytime that you can exclude yourself from decision making, you’re going to be much better off.” – OG (54:02)
  • “I want to worry about making thousands so I never have to worry about $30 off.” – Joe (59:15)

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Important Timestamps

• 03:01–09:24 — Personal/family Christmas traditions, fun banter
• 15:58–30:21 — Ghost of Christmas Past: Confronting financial mistakes and debt payoff strategies
• 32:04–48:13 — Ghost of Christmas Present: The trap of over-focusing on the future, intentional spending, the value of time
• 53:00–64:58 — Ghost of Christmas Future: Automation, decision fatigue, early investing, future-proofing
• 62:19–66:00 — Wrap-up; learning from the past, being present, and building a wise future

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Final Takeaways

1. Face Your Financial Past:
   Accept your money mistakes and start building, no matter how dire.

2. Be Present and Intentional:
   Money should enable meaningful experiences, not just accumulate. Plan for enjoyment and be present with loved ones.

3. Automate Your Financial Future:
   Set up systems to ensure you’re saving/investing without continuous willpower or decision making.

4. Remember: Time Is Your Most Precious Resource:
   The best plans allow you to enjoy both today and tomorrow. Don’t sacrifice all your “now” for a someday that might not come—or arrive too late to enjoy.

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“Doug and the Three Ghosts” is a playful but powerfully practical holiday episode, blending humor, shared vulnerability, and tactical money management in the Stacking Benjamins style. It’s a reminder to live wisely across past, present, and future.

Transcript

[Kevin Harlan]

Kevin Harlan here. This Friday, the NBA on prime crew is back with another action packed doubleheader. The night starts when Jaylen Brown and the Celtics go toe to toe with Pascal Siakam and the Pacers. Then James Harden and the Clippers take on the Portland Trail Blazers. If you're not a Prime member, just sign up for a 30 day free trial. The Celtics and Pacers, the Clippers and Blazers coverage starts Friday at 7pm Eastern only on Prime. Restrictions apply. See Amazon.com Amazon prime for details.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

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[Doug]

So why not?

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Yeah.

[OG]

Hypothetically speaking.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Pretty interesting. Do you guys have. Because I know all three of us in our families, we celebrate Christmas. Any Christmas traditions that have evolved in your family over time, Doug?

[Doug]

We do have a couple. Nothing super elaborate, but I think of. You used the right word, Joe, which was evolved. It wasn't anything planned, but when the kids were really little, we would make them wait at the top of the stairs. And then, of course, we had to film them as they were coming down the stairs and coming around the corner.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

So they couldn't even see Santa's big old bounty.

[Doug]

Right. And. And so. But we wanted to catch their faces as they came down the stairs, came around the corner, and saw the bounty that awaited them.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

So did you like my pause, by the way? Santa's big ol.

[Doug]

Santa's big old what, dad?

[Narrator]

His bounty.

[Doug]

His hairy bounty. So that. That has stuck. Like. Like, we still do that. The kids are in their mid and late 20s now, and we make them stand at the top of the stairs. You still do come down. Yeah, absolutely. And then the other thing is that Mrs. Neighbor Doug loves her favorite tradition is Christmas stockings. Like, in my house growing up, that was a. That's where you got toothpaste. You know, the stuff you didn't care about. Yeah, but for her, that was the big. She loved the whole stocking. You can't hang the stockings early. Well, like, they're not out at our house right now. They have to go up after the kids go to bed and.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

And also, the empty stockings aren't even out.

[Doug]

No, not even the empty. No, no, no.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Wow.

[OG]

Yeah.

[Doug]

So that's a. That's a tradition that has, like, I just.

[OG]

Santa, know where to put the stuff?

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Well, you put out the. You put the stockings out, but after the kids go to bed and before Santa shows up. Oh, that's what Doug's saying, I think, right?

[Doug]

Yeah, I think so.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Yeah.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[OG]

So I'm not sure the rules or how this works. Been married 30 years. I just do what I'm told.

[Doug]

I try to put them up, and I get yelled at every year and. No, not yet. Well, I thought it was time.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

I do have a question about this, guys, because, Doug, as you're saying this, and we're talking about Santa Claus, we had a fascinating discussion at our house last night, which was how Santa is different at different houses. My friend Doug in Texarkana, Doug, said Santa Claus Never wraps anything at their house. All Santa's gifts come unwrapped at our house. At our house growing up, Santa Claus had a couple like the, the marquee gifts, you know, sit in front of the tree, not wrapped. But then the other gifts. Santa had gifts wrapped. And I'm. It's fascinating to me how Santa will do it different from house to house. Which way was it in your house?

[OG]

Ours is. Santa uses special Santa paper and leaves the wrapped, the singular wrapped Santa gift in a different place like by the, by the chimney or by the fireplace or something. Not. It's not commingled with the other. He doesn't have time to like stack it nicely. It's just. I came down here, drank some milk, ate a cookie, left my, left the stuff, off I go.

[Doug]

And one, one Santa gift per kid.

[OG]

Yes. Yeah. Santa is not very benevolent at our house. Mom and dad are insanely benevolent. Yes, but, but it was calculated.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

I love how you guys read Santa the riot act. You're like, hey, we are the people who got to be kick ass. So you're only leaving one. Yeah.

[OG]

Very, very, very well orchestrated early on. Like that is we.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

And by the way, continuing, continuing a conversation we had on Monday's show. So if Santa has the special paper, does he stick one finger in the middle of the paper?

[Doug]

Oh God.

[OG]

It's not toilet paper. No, it's, it's wrapping and, and I don't even think he has labels. I think it's just rap presence. Like you're just supposed to know.

[Doug]

How does. I don't know. Each kid know which one to open that's theirs.

[OG]

Yeah, there's. I don't know, it's just, it's, it seemingly always works out like, like, it's like, oh, it's like, are you sure? I don't know. That one's probably for you. Like it looks like maybe that one's for somebody else and I don't know, some sort of mental telepathy that parents have or so I don't know.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

We used to, my brother and I would get up one year, we got up at 1:30 in the morning and my dad came down about quarter to two and was like, this ain't happening. You guys are going back up to bed. That lasted till about 3:45 in the morning and then he sent us back up to bed. I think it was at 4:20ish that my dad just gave up and said, mom, put on the, put on the coffee. So we open presents at like 4:30.

[OG]

We've always been very firm at 7. No earlier. And. And kids are welcome. Unlike Doug. We have a balcony, so it's not like we could hide it anyway because they could see.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Unlike Doug, who's not welcome.

[OG]

Yeah, unlike Doug. Everything orchestrated of. Like, now you're allowed to come downstairs. Like, they can come downstairs. They do whatever they want. And. But. But we shall not be disturbed until 7. And you can open all your stocking gifts.

[Doug]

Like, that's while mom and dad are in bed.

[OG]

Yes. Stocking. It's toothpaste.

[Doug]

That's the most OG thing I've ever heard. Well, I gotta tell you this tradition.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

I gotta tell you what happened at our. At our house lately. The. You know, the youngest person who's at Christmas with us is my niece, Saffron, and she's a freshman in college.

[OG]

So last year, like, noon 30, by the time everybody was up and Adam.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

It, dude, it was like.

[Doug]

It was.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

It was like 11:30. We're like, oh, you guys think maybe we're gonna open the gifts now? Do you think? The complete opposite of, you know, the one.

[OG]

Well, except for the. Except for the. Everybody, the whole time was like, I.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Just want open presents.

[OG]

Like, what? Like, I don't want to be the guy that says anything. I just.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Yeah, me. You're. I see you looking right at me like, come on, let's do this. All right. Speaking of let's do this. Happy holidays. Merry Christmas. Stackers. And this is the tale of Doug and the three ghosts.

[Doug]

The following is a special episode of the Stacking Benjamin Show.

[Narrator]

Our tale opens like any classic holiday drama. A cold evening in Texarkana. Snow gently falling on the street where Joe's mum lives. The camera zooms in on a house, a typical ranch with lights behind curtains, where surely a family is gathered together, celebrating that finally they've arrived at Christmas Eve. To be clear, this is a tale like no other. Sure, once, a long time ago, one very little story was written which maybe sound slightly similar. One story indeed, that also featured a chap who exclaimed quite frequently. And we will concede that just like that other tale you may have heard in this classic, our hero is visited by three ghosts in a single evening, one by one. It's an epic story and so, so, so completely original. Can I stop saying how original this story is? Oh, hell, as long as I'm getting paid, let's get on with it. So it is Christmas Eve, and far beyond the usual quitting time for most Texarkanians, which was typically 3pm but Joe's mum's neighbour Died. Doug was only now arriving back home from a long day toiling in Joe's mum's basement.

[Doug]

Three takes for the open. How many times does a guy need to say, live from Joe's mom's basement? See?

[OG]

It's brilliant.

[Doug]

Every time. Where are my keys?

[Narrator]

He fumbled around in his pocket, only finding gum wrappers, a Hot wheel, toy car, and his lucky wooden nickel.

[Doug]

Who's. Who's there? I could have sworn I heard someone say something about a Hot Wheel. Oh, there's my keys. Okay, I'm definitely hearing voices again. God, I'm exhausted. I gotta get my ass to bed so I can work super hard on even better announcing tomorrow. Like that's even possible. Those idiots Joe and OG are taking time off for Christmas. Ah, humbug. I'll show him who's pulling all the weight around here. You know what's better than working? Working with me. Who needs holidays? That's like a gift I give him every day. These guys have no idea how lucky they are.

[Narrator]

Doug has no idea. As he settled in, changing out of his work clothes and into his Superman footy pyjamas.

[Doug]

I'll have you know these are very manly PJs. Wait, it's that narrator voice again. Is he mocking me?

[Narrator]

That he was about to be visited by three very original ghosts?

[Doug]

Original? Dude, this is totally a Dickens knockoff.

[Narrator]

Very original.

[Doug]

Now you're arguing with me. Let me be. You ought to try working for a living. God, voices. Dickens.

[Narrator]

Oh, man. And so Doug drifted off to sleep, not knowing the first ghost of the evening was just outside the door. But before he was able to enter, there was a pause for this.

[Kevin Harlan]

Kevin Harlan here. This Friday, the NBA on prime crew is back with another action packed doubleheader. The night stars with Jaylen Brown and the Boston Celtics going toe to toe with Pascal Siakam and the Indiana Pacers. Then James Harden and the Los Angeles Clippers head to Portland to take on Shaden Sharp and the Portland Trail Blazers. It all comes your way this Friday on Prime. And if you're not a Prime member, that's not a problem. Sign up for a 30 day free trial to get started today. The Celtics and Pacers. The Clippers and Blazers coverage starts Friday at 7pm Eastern only on Prime. Restrictions apply. See Amazon.com Amazon prime for details.

[Doug]

Wait, there's ad breaks in my dream. Am I in hell? I'm in hell.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

All right.

[Doug]

This is hell. This is exactly what I thought it would be like. It'd be just like this.

[Narrator]

Oh, there isn't Only one ad spot. Check this out.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

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[Narrator]

Now, where were we? Oh, yes. He drifted off to sleep. The ghost entered the room in a bright flash of light.

[Doug]

Sweet baby Jesus, turn the high beams down.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Awaken, Mr. Doug. I am a ghost.

[Doug]

A ghost. Wait, Aunt Edna, is that you? Are you here to share the winning lottery numbers like you said you would?

[Joe Saul Sehi]

I'm sorry, Doug. I'm not Aunt Edna. We are the ghost of your Christmas past. Our job is to help you learn from your past money mistakes so that you can make better choices in the future.

[Doug]

Wait, I know that voice.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

No, you don't.

[Doug]

No, I do. Holy crap, Joe. You are the ghost of Christmas past. My God, why did I have to eat that mushroom dip from last summer's party? It's wigging me out.

[Narrator]

Oh.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Not just me. We are the ghost Doug.

[OG]

Sup, dude? No. At 2 brute as always, here to serve.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Doug, remember when you got into trouble with credit cards that one Christmas? Remember how you didn't ask for a raise that day because you didn't think it was the right time? The ghosts of the past, they follow you around. And we're here to make sure you make better decisions in the future. Oh, gee, aren't we?

[OG]

Oh, I mean, sure, yeah. Things like, you know, how about buying a four bedroom colonial house when you have no kids? On interest only at 6%. Who would do that without the credit to be able to do that? But because of the laws at the time, they didn't really ask you for your pay. Stub and you're like, yeah, this is probably a good idea. And you know what else is a good idea? Buying a BMW to put inside the garage of the new car before you make the first mortgage. Because you can't have a new house.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Without a beautiful new car.

[OG]

New car, yes.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Not even new to you? Absolutely new.

[OG]

Yeah. Brandy, New.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

I think this goes to Christmas past has a similar tale. I mean, here I am giving people advice on managing their money and winning awards for the advice that I'm giving, and I have the worst credit score in history. My credit was so bad that I could single digits. I could not. I could not get a new car loan. I remember mutual buddy of ours, Dan told me, he's like, I. I came clean with him and I'm like, hey, man, my credit sucks, and I really need a car for our young twins. And he's like, go to a new car dealer because they give credit, to quote everybody. So I walk into the car dealership and I tell the guy right away, I'm like, I don't want to waste your time. I got horrible credit. Guys like, don't worry about it. What's your Social Security number? Walks back to the office, he's gone forever. He comes back and he goes, dude, like, I managed to mess things up. But the point is this stuff, this stuff will follow Doug or any of our stackers around forever. OG if you don't clean it up. How did you start getting your financial house in order so the ghost of the past don't continue to rear their ugly head?

[OG]

I think you have to do a couple of things. The first thing is understand and be okay with the fact that you are where you are. You know, a lot of times people will think about it and go, oh, you know, I'm just trying to. You know, there's this stuff going around right now on self help. World of extreme ownership, right? You know, Jocko, David Goggins. David Goggins. Oh, yeah, he's all over my YouTube feed right now, which is that dude drinks the same Kool Aid I drink. He just gets to swear more than me, which I think is unfair, but there can be too much of that. But at the end of the day, you have to just be like, I am where I am and do that without emotion and any of the baggage that goes with it. Because a balance sheet is a balance sheet. Companies, Apple, whatever, they have to put out a balance sheet every quarter. Sometimes they try to massage the data, but if they're not truthful, then everybody goes to jail. It's just is what it is at that moment. So be okay with where you are.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

I love that advice because for me, I had to quit dealing with right now and trying to solve it to just be better tomorrow. I had to realize, oh, gee, that if I want a year from now to be better, forget about today, tomorrow and begin building a foundation. Because I think there's a couple of lies out there. Number one lie that I was living, that I know a lot of people are living, is that if I just make a little more money, this will take care of itself. So to your point, I'm, you know, telling myself over and over, making excuses. One of those excuses is, oh, I just not make enough money yet. If I just make. No matter how much money you make, you can't out earn your bad money habits. That's number one. And number two was I had to surround myself with better people. I had to finally create a team of people that would help me forget, forget about tomorrow and all of my creditors which were call, who were calling me all the time. I had to just hang up on them and go, you know what? Do what you got to do. But I got to finally build a base and I got to start acting out on the same advice I was giving other people. Like, I thought the advice I was giving to other people didn't apply to me, right? Which is pretty funny. It's working for everybody around me and I'm not taking any of it right well.

[OG]

And I'm sitting here today, probably six or eight weeks into, like, trying to make better health decisions for me, eating better and exercising a whole bunch and all this other sort of stuff. And my trainer is constantly reminded, like, it's progress, dude. Everybody. What, what does everybody want, right? Six pack and no beer belly. Like, I don't care what the rest of it looks like. Just shave that part off. It's like, well, tough. That's the last part, right? Like that's. That is the last thing that goes. And it goes in weeks 52 and 53. And it's the same thing with your money. It's. You have to build the foundation and the habits every single day. Because the payoff doesn't happen immediately. The payoff happens years from now, years and years. How long did it take you to get out of credit card debt?

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Well, the cool thing is, is I thought it was going to take forever, and it seriously took me about five years. But that's only because after about a year of complete pain, I could see the construction happening and the pace Quickened partly because we got excited about it, you know, and all of a sudden it became a game. Like, how fast can I do this? Faster Can I do things better? But I was going to say too og that that game began for us with the first move I needed to make. So let's get tactical for just a second. The first move I needed to make was not just to ignore the creditors. It was also, believe it or not, to ignore my debt because I needed to stop using credit altogether. Like I use credit again now because I can use it responsibly. But then, then I could. I had to live an all cash lifestyle. So the first thing I had to do was build my emergency fund. And it seems weird, you know, you're like, I got all this debt hanging out here at 25, 26, 27, 28%. Why the hell am I gonna put money in a bank account earning nothing? Because if I didn't have anywhere to go for the next emergency, I was never going to turn the bus around.

[OG]

Yeah, and just, I mean, you kind of breezed through it, but I want to spend a few seconds on it. I know you said tactical, but when you're 25 and somebody tells you this, hey, this can take five years. That is 20% of your life.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Oh, good point.

[OG]

You know what I mean? Like, that seems super, super, super long time. Now be 45 and imagine the last five years of your kids, right? Boom. My daughter's seven and a half, and I don't remember her. You know, I, I think she skipped from 2 to 7. I mean, I don't remember tons in the 3, 4, 5, 6. It's just, here's where we are today. The time seems like forever, especially if you sit down and do the math on it. It's just going back to this weight loss thing. But it's the same thing. It's like, no, you should lose like.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Half a pound a week.

[OG]

You're like, no, man, I got to lose £20.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

That's 40 weeks. Like, yeah, yeah. So what, I gotta be new me by New Year's?

[OG]

No, that's, that's not that long. It seems long right now. Like 40 weeks. What are you talking. That's £20. I gotta go to 20. I gotta wait till next fall. Yeah, but in when you're 55, spending 40 weeks of that, I mean, that's nothing. So you gotta build it the right way and just be okay with the progress. That doesn't mean you shouldn't do some immediate things right away. Like if you can Build your cash reserve or negotiate.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

That for me was job one. Was that job one for you?

[OG]

I think so. You know, I think for us, because of being a little bit helter skelter on like pay and that sort of thing, for me, it was more of consistently making sure that I knew that, you know, my wife was getting paid and I was getting paid the same thing every single solitary Friday. Because our issues, a lot of them stem from the fact that the feast or famine life of being an entrepreneur, you know, it's like I got all this money and now I have none. And then I have all this money and I have none. So for us, it started kind of more at the business level of how do we make this so that the paychecks are the same even if they're not great? Right. Just so that there's some consistency and we can. To your point, cash diet for sure.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

I had to do the exact same. And the way to do that is if you pay yourself or you get commissions or you have an up and down for whatever reason, paycheck lifestyle, have that money go into a separate account that's not the same account that you budget out of and then have automatic exchanges, transfers from that account that's going to go up and down based on whatever's happening with your sales life or whatever your income stream is. Have the same amount go in and do a separate account for budgeting. Oh, gee, now, you know, you can put the utilities on level payments, you know how much your grocery bill is every month, you know how much you can put toward the debt. You got all that.

[OG]

I don't know why you wouldn't do that even normally, right? Because so many times we get thinking about, well, my paycheck is my cash flow. You know, it doesn't have to be. You can have your pay. You can, you, you know, you can live on 2,000 a week. If you're getting paid 3,000 a week, that's okay too. You could just put your money in your savings account, take out what you need, not the other way around, divorcing.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Your income from your budget.

[OG]

Divorcing would be very expensive. That would, that would be, that might be a ghost of Christmas past or a future.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Rear in its ugly head. Do you care what method people use to get out of debt? Some people talk about, you know, there's the, there's the snowball method. There's the avalanche method. Snowball where you take your smallest bills, you pay those off first so you get confident and, and then the avalanche where you take the biggest interest rate first. Do you really care which approach people use that way?

[OG]

No, I think that it will be a lot faster if you snowball it. I mean, also think of it this way. Generally speaking, if you're upside down in the credit world, which one Sucks worse, my 21% interest rate or my 27% interest rate? It's like, yeah, they both are awful. And if you have the opportunity to surf that down a little bit, and what I mean by that is, do a balance transfer or some sort of line of credit or something to kind of get that interest rate lower to assuage some of that interest accumulation. That's a great thing. You should do that. But if you're in, like, lips above the water stage like you were and like I was, that's not even a reality. Right. It's not. You know, amex isn't going to let you have more debt to, like, no, no, I promise this one I'm going to totally do. Right. They're like, no, we don't care. So make some progress because what you're trying to do is mentally be okay with it. And then also from a cash flow standpoint, freeing up extra cash flow to put on the next thing. So I think the snowball works best.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

I like the snowball, especially when you start at about halfway through. I had enough confidence in momentum OG that I switched. I switched from the Snowball over to the Avalanche because then the ball was rolling. It didn't matter that I was attacking bigger balances first because I knew that this is. I was an unstoppable force at that point. And when you get to that point, realize that the behavior's already there and now the machinery is in place. Avalanche, mathematically will get you there, but you definitely need those wins. I'll tell you the first win for me because I had some debt that was already well into collection land and other debt that was current. I had to let the collection land stuff go because I didn't have enough cash flow to pay everything I needed to keep my current stuff current and just bury the other stuff. So I got used to telling the collection agencies that were after me in the early 90s, hey, sorry, don't have the money. Come get me. You know, it just. Just come get. And you know what? They never did.

[OG]

Turns out they didn't.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Yeah, yeah, they were a bunch of bark and no bite. And I did, by the way, get them paid off. And I never declare bankruptcy, but they had to be second. I had to keep my open lines of credit Open. And I had to make sure that if I. If I needed that, which I never did during that process, but I had to. I had to take care of what was current first.

[OG]

Stop. Digging is the first step, right? Yes, it really is. I mean, it sounds silly, but I mean, it really is. It has to. You know, you have to recognize where you are and then, like you said, do everything that you can to tear the band aid off.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

So, Doug, I think that's your course of action as the Ghost of Christmas Past. I think using that tactical approach of stop lying to yourself, focus on what's current, build yourself a foundation. I think then the future can be better for you.

[Doug]

Wow, thanks guys. Wait, aren't I just thanking my own bad decision to eat six month old leftovers? I gotta try to get some sleep.

[Narrator]

Doug said, snuggling back under the covers and closing his eyes.

[Doug]

You again. Stop talking. I got work tomorrow and it's almost midnight.

[OG]

But tomorrow's Christmas.

[Doug]

Ah, humbug. One of us has to write a good Christmas episode.

[OG]

Suit yourself. But remember, you'll be visited twice more before the clock strikes midnight.

[Doug]

Whatever. Just leave. Maybe cut out the headlight effect. Not cool.

[Narrator]

And the ghosts of Christmas past stepped back into the light and vanished as if they'd never been there before. Leaving Doug to bury his head back into his pillow.

[Doug]

Lessons.

[Narrator]

Ah, my God.

[Doug]

I gotta get some shut eye. Why couldn't this story have happened during normal working hours?

[Narrator]

All was quiet again in Doug's house and he peacefully slept. Maybe for a moment. Maybe too, he'd nearly forgotten the ghosts of Christmas past when.

[Doug]

Holy sh t. Don't you people believe in subtlety?

[Narrator]

Doug exclaimed.

[Doug]

And not you again. I've had just about enough of you. Wait. Hello? It looks. It looks like someone's there.

[Narrator]

In the light, before Doug's eyes was the outline of a man backlit by an absolutely blinding light.

[Doug]

Seriously, all this drama. Who's there?

[OG]

Hey, buddy.

[Doug]

Oh, you have got to be kidding.

[Narrator]

They weren't kidding.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

No, we're not kidding. Who is this narrator guy? Do we pay extra for this?

[Narrator]

You certainly did. And I think it was quite the upgrade.

[OG]

We got to talk about the budget for these shows.

[Doug]

Just get on with it so I can get some sleep. Who the hell are you supposed to be this time?

[Narrator]

Doug asked, exasperated.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

We are the Ghost of Christmas Present.

[Doug]

Now we're talking Christmas presents. Gift cards to the Sizzler. Just put them over on the nightstand.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Christmas present. Doug, there are so many things happening around you now. And because you're stuck living with your past bad choices and dreaming about the future, you don't spend a lot of time here.

[Doug]

Well, you fellas really think your fountains of great advice, don't ya? Just text me next time and I'll read it in the morning.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Yeah, I don't think a text is gonna be nearly as effective.

[OG]

OG yeah, Doug, we're talking about now. Now, bro. Yeah.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

And you know, it's so funny. Oh, gee. Because this is so many people. Let's go from the sins of the past to what happens with a lot of money nerds, which is we're spending so much time managing our money, managing our dollars, managing the future that we mortgage now. Like, we're not here because we're so busy trying to cheapen today that we don't spend any money. We don't do anything. I mean, talk about Ebenezer Scrooge.

[OG]

Well, this is something I am particularly good at. Living in the present, as it were. I'm uniquely qualified to talk about this.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

But how did you get there? And how do you counsel other people to get there? Because you know this. I mean, the couple that's in my mind is the classic couple where he thought he was going to die. And so all of a sudden they're going to do the stuff today. Then they get the second opinion, right? It turns out you have this rare thing where you're not going to die. And immediately he starts taking overtime and. And his spouse is exasperated. I'm. Yeah, everybody's exasperated because he doesn't value time. I remember we had Ashley Winans, the Harvard researcher, on the show, and she said, so many people overvalue money, but they undervalue the other currency, which is time.

[OG]

Yeah. Would you take Warren Buffett's money or your age right now?

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Yeah, I'd take the age.

[OG]

Yeah, everybody would, including Warren Buffett. He would love to be 46 again.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

We went to the Texarkana Symphony Christmas concert, which they pull in all these other groups. So it ends up being, it feels like Texarkana. They had the ballet group do some stuff. They have this choir do some stuff. They have high school actors do some stuff. Like it truly is a community event. And I thought about what a big moment this is. And then I had that horrible feeling, OG that I am 55 years old and if I'm lucky, I will see this thing 20 more times, which is one of the highlights of my year. And you think about how finite. Doing it 20. And then I thought, you know what? A lot of years I'm out of town I'm doing other things. I'm lucky if I see this 10 times. And then I thought, I'm lucky I'm seeing it now. Like, why am I thinking about the next 20 years? I should be. I'm literally at this concert and I'm like, why am I not present with this today right now?

[OG]

Yeah. Well, there's a great blog called Wait, but why? And I don't know if you've seen that before, but just the visual representation of things like time with your kids or visual representation of time with your parents and this other stuff that we go, whatever. And you go, no. You will spend 99% of your time with your parents before you're 18. And then after that, it's like you see them once every six months or a week or whatever number it is, it's some insignificant total for the rest of your life. Same thing with your kids, if you're on that side of it. And I think when it comes to money, it's super important to focus on saving and investing and making sure that you're doing all that stuff. But what's the point of having 10 million bucks in the bank and not having ever taken your kids to Disney? Disney is an insanely gigantic waste of money. It's so expensive, but it's awesome. And there's ways to do it that are more expensive and less expensive and go different times of the year and all that other sort of stuff you can do. But it's insanely expensive no matter how you cut it up. But it's an experience. And I think that the more time that we spend thinking about this mythical financial dependence time, which is important to do at the expense of saying, well, I'm not going to do that thing now with. With the people that I care about or the things that I care about. Doesn't have to be people. It can be stuff. You know, I mean, think about, since you're significantly older, Joe, you know, you just ran the.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

I'm right here, dude.

[OG]

The thing up in Michigan. Did you do the whole marathon? I think you did, right?

[Joe Saul Sehi]

That was at Hot Springs.

[OG]

Oh, Hot Springs marathon there. You did something Hot Springs.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Did a half marathon up two mountains. Yeah. And did the Turkey Trot where I did the 10k and the 5k. Yeah.

[OG]

I mean, that's something that you enjoy. You enjoy training for it, you enjoy doing it. You probably don't enjoy doing it when you're on mile 24, but, you know, the accomplishment, so on and so forth. There's coming a time when you won't physically be able to do that even if you're alive for 30 years beyond it. Right. And yet people would say, oh, Joe, you're not being efficient with your time. You know how much time you're wasting. It's like, no, no, no. This is the thing that you enjoy doing. And you do it with your friends and you do it with your family. And why would you not want to spend that energy, that capital, that time capital right now doing the thing that you want to do? I think it's important to focus on, you know, saving for the future and that sort of stuff.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

But, you know, this point is made really well. Often the, the top points are made really well through comedy. Adam Sandler has a piece from a classic SNL skit og where he is a tour guide sending people to Italy. And then he starts talking about the bad reviews that he gets sometimes from people. And as the travel agent, he's defending his bad reviews by telling them this. Our tours will take you to the most beautiful places on Earth. Hike the cliffs of the Amalfi coast, fish with the nets in Sorrento. Do this. I don't know, but remember, you're still gonna be you on vacation. If you are sad where you are. And then you get on a plane.

[Doug]

To Italy, to you in Italy will.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Be the same sad you from before, just in a new place. I think a lot of people think the future is gonna be really bright. I'm, you know, happiness is a destination. And even though there's a lot of comedy there, happiness is much, much more a state of mind.

[OG]

I mean, it has to be right, Otherwise what's the point?

[Joe Saul Sehi]

But it's so hard. How many times have you met with people, though, and they're like, oh, when I get to retirement, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. What are you doing today? I'm doing nothing because I've got this dream of unicorns and rainbows in my future. And the future is great. Not today. Today's gonna suck. But the future is going to be awesome. And then they get to the future and it's the same, said you, who's now shown up.

[OG]

And to be fair, it's a balancing act, right? You can't just always yolo everything. But at the end of the day, having some sort of balance between the future and now is extremely important.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

So let's get tactical on this point. I think the place for me where I had to begin was with David Allen. The getting Things done guy organizational expert. And David Allen says, you want to be like water. And a lot of Eastern philosophy talks about this. The river flows and you want to be able to move where the river moves. And there's a lot of people that are stuck in the weeds. When people talk about being in the weeds, they're stuck. They're in these little cesspools. And it's because I'm worried about my money, I'm worried about my stuff, I'm worried about everything but what my daughter's telling me right now, what my spouse is telling me right now, what my best friend is telling me right now, whatever. The thing is, I'm so in my head that I can't do it. And I think a lot of us are like that with our money. If I'm at Disney and I'm worried about how expensive it is the whole time and not enjoying what's around me, to use your example, or I'm in Italy, to use Adam Sandler's example, and I'm worried about the cash, I can't get there.

[OG]

We've been to Disney with the kids, I think four times. And I have the same dream nightmare at the end of every trip. No joke that this is obviously different now with the little wristbands or whatever, but in the days when they would put the hotel bill under the door, when they used to do that, they don't do that really much anymore. The first time we were at Disney, the dream was that the envelope was so thick it didn't fit. So the guy had to wake me up in the middle of the night, knock on the door to hand it to me. I still think about that on our last time to Disney. So maybe the last night of sleep, I'm a little anxious because I'm like, I wonder if they're going to let us leave or you have to make a run for it to the airport.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

I think the way to be present is to focus first more on your, your short term goals. What do I want to do this year and how am I going to partition that money out from my long term. I think I start long term, but I also, knowing I might not make it there, I partition some money out. I know when we had, I took two trips to Disney. One was while we were money disasters and I did that whole trip on credit, by the way. I did the whole thing. It's stupidity. The second time I worked extra jobs, I made extra money and I partitioned the money off and then I had a set budget every day. I prepaid as much as I possibly could. And then when we were at Disney the second time, we had so much fun because I wasn't worried about the money at all. The money had taken care of itself by making sure I prepaid stuff that I could, that I had the cash set aside, didn't think about it.

[OG]

The important thing when it comes to short term things, I think is about being intentional. We're going through this right now. My oldest is a junior halfway through the year. So he'll be kind of one more summer before he's a senior. What our summer plans look a lot like are, oh, it's June. You just want to do something. Maybe we take. Should we grab the kids and let's see if there's a VRBO in the beach or something. Let's go do that.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Let's.

[OG]

Yeah, let's just, let's get in the car. There's probably a place and you guys want to go. No, no. You don't want to go to the beach. Okay. That's our summer. And then all of a sudden it's like, oh, cool, it's August. Everybody's going back to school. We didn't do anything. Did we do anything?

[Joe Saul Sehi]

What do we do?

[OG]

It was. And it's very much like a. Just a whole three month period of meh. And what I'm trying very hard to do this summer is because Alex is going to be a senior, is I don't want to plan out every day. That's also defeats the purpose of holiday. But do something. I don't want to get to the end of summer and go, we didn't do anything.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Let's take the family to Disney. Let's not plan out every moment at Disney, but let's make sure that I've got the accommodation, I got the ticket, I got the stuff. So now we can make it up inside a much more creative space. I'm thinking about when Don Hahn from Disney was on the show and I asked him about constraints about is it tough giving these wonderful artists these constraints? And you know what he said? He said if we don't have any constraints, nothing ever gets produced.

[OG]

Yeah.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

And I think that creating. We're going to go to the cottage on the Finger Lakes as an example. We're going to be there for a week. I'm going to plan maybe three dinners and the rest will make up when we get there. Is a wonderful constraints.

[OG]

Yeah. But getting to the cottage and the finger links the week of July 4th, that's the important piece of that Right.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

If you try to plan that two days early.

[OG]

Yes.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

And you go to vrbo, everything's booked.

[OG]

Yeah, yeah.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

And now you're getting the crappy cottage that's three miles away that nobody wanted everybody else passed over, and it's a rotten vacation.

[OG]

Intentionality, I think, is. Is super important. And for me, I'm not a super creative person, but list making and working through, like, I don't know, like, bucket list stuff, Right. Like, what is it that I want to do over the next five years? What do I want to make sure gets accomplished? And it doesn't have to be trips or something like that, but it can be money things, too. You can be excited about, hey, over the next five years, I want to make sure my line of credit's paid off. In the next five years, I want to set aside enough money to make sure my kids go to college or whatever. You can be excited about those things, too. That also is living in the present as opposed to just blindly investing money or saving money into the future. I see this a lot when it comes to cash. We talk about cash being a really important piece of a financial plan, and it's. And it is. But too much cash is a waste, an insane waste of money. And it doesn't feel like it, especially now with interest rates being the way they are. But you know, when you're sitting there and you have $20,000 in your savings account, it feels really good. But if you're not intentional about it, all of a sudden you have 40,000 in your savings account. Let me tell you something. 40,000 is a heck of a bigger number, and it's way better than 20. And if you don't pay attention to it, now you have $80,000. And I'll tell you something, in case you're wondering, 80 grand in your savings account feels a hell of a lot nicer than 40 does. And all of these numbers happen. You say, well, that wouldn't happen to me. I see it every single week. I talk to people every single week that are like, yeah, I just don't know what to do. I had 20,000, now I have 40. I had 40, now I have 80. And it's like, we don't think that that will happen to us, but that's a byproduct of not being intentional about what you want to have happen. The downside of the money component of that is that you're losing opportunity. I mean, obviously savings rates are higher now, but for the last 20 years they haven't been. So even being intentional around this is what our emergency funds should look like. And intentionality goes a long way.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Let's get tactical about intentionality. I really like using the calendar and just set up your next year and think about when am I going to do whatever and even if it's stuff around the house that you want to do. I'll give you an example. I've taken Sunday afternoons and I've always wanted to make my house more technology based where I can walk into a room and I can just voice command and I've been doing that room by room on Sundays and now I have about half the house. It's pretty damn fun. But I had to put on the calendar to have it go from I want this to it's going to happen. But do that I think with your entire year. And I love, I love an assignment we did at Strategic Coach that I think everybody can do. Start off if you know where you want to be in 10 years and you know the things that make you happy and you want more of that in your life in 10 years, start off with the 10 year goal. Then write the five year goals and work that back to the one year goal. We did this three months ago. OG at strategic coach. And I love how now my one year things that I want for myself are these building blocks that make me happy today. One of them is healthy eating. And the things I'm going to do around healthy eating this year that are going to build this thing I want 10 years from now. I think working that calendar like a company where you're dealing with your ten year plan, your five year plan, your one year plan and I think the way to get there and we're going to have John Acuff on at the beginning of the year. I think to talk specifically about this because reading his book is just fantastic. A lot of people are like, I don't know what I want 10 years from now. Just think about what makes you happy today. Start making lists of things that make you happy. Look backwards, don't look forward and that will create for you, you know, what truly gives you joy. But I think, oh gee, the calendar is the key in getting that done.

[OG]

I like what you also said about thinking about the things that excite you today. What's fascinating motivating right now, what of that do you want to have in the future and breaking down your the different areas of your life. And there's lots of tools on this wheels of different life.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

Yeah, the life coach, Tony Robinson stuff.

[OG]

The Strategic Coach does. Obviously Michael Hyatt's company has stuff like all of these different assessments of your financial life, personal life, and your spiritual life, health and wellness and all that other sort of stuff you can kind of measure and then track of. Here's where I want it to be. I'm a seven. I want it to be a nine. How do I do that today? How do I do it today?

[Doug]

Wow. So you really think I can do better with the present?

[OG]

It's not all about you, Doug. We all can do better in the present. But hey, this is your fever dream. So yeah, you can.

[Narrator]

Suddenly, Doug saw the light. No, not the metaphorical light that some people talk about when an idea hits them just the right way. No, he saw the light blinking.

[Doug]

What's that all about?

[Narrator]

That means it's time for a word from our sponsors.

[Doug]

Oh come on.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

This message is sponsored by Navy Federal Credit Union. As the holiday season rolls around, we know that you strive to do everything you can to bring cheer and joy to your loved ones and is a credit union dedicated to serving all veterans, active duty and their families. We understand that every little bit counts. That's why for a limited time, you could earn a $250 cash bonus when you spend $2,500 with Navy Federal's cash rewards and cash rewards plus cards in the first 90 days. Of course. Stackers. This is part of a big financial plan, right? Don't get yourself into debt. Make sure that you are spending and saving with a plan. But you know what? The giving doesn't stop there. You could also earn up to 2% unlimited cash back with these cards. So saving up for whatever the season brings just got a little easier. Give joy, get joy. Join now@navy federal.org Navy Federal Credit Union Our members are the mission. Navy Federal is insured by NCUA. Visit Navy federal.org cashrewards for details. Cash Back Terms and conditions apply. Offer ends January 1, 2026. Retirement planning isn't about guesswork anymore. It's about having the right data, control and confidence. Bolden is the modern retirement planning tool built for people who want to plan their future their way. Run your own scenarios, see Advisor quality insights and make decisions with confidence. Try it free [e-mail] Plan.

[Narrator]

When the holidays start to feel a.

[OG]

Bit repetitive, reach for a Sprite Winter.

[Narrator]

Spiced Cranberry and put your twist on tradition. A bold cranberry and winter spice flavor Fusion Sprite Winter Spice Cranberry is a refreshing way to shake things up up this sipping season and only for a limited time. Sprite Obey your thirst.

[Doug]

I'm still amazed. My dream is sponsored. How much is my cut?

[Narrator]

Relax. This will all be over before you know it.

[Doug]

Now you sound like my proctologist.

[Narrator]

And just like that, the light was gone. But in its place came the wind. And if you've ever had a nightmare, you know Doug's next feeling. It's when the light is gone, even the moonlight, and you feel all alone in complete darkness, which terrifies you, especially when you realize it's just you and your heartbeat. But then something even more terrifying happens when you realize that you are not alone. In that darkness, there is something. A force, a spirit, a being. It seems to call you without words, haunt you without form.

[Doug]

Show yourself, spirit.

[Narrator]

The wind violently howls.

[Doug]

I know I've neglected the past, and because of that, I'm. I'm never present. Yada, yada, yada. Now stop harassing me and cut this damn howling wind. You're freaking me out. Kinda.

[OG]

Hey, dude.

[Doug]

Oh, for sake. We're back. This truly is a nightmare. How much more would it have been for a couple of actors to play these ghosts?

[OG]

Funny thing, budgeting is exactly what we're here to talk to you about. Unfortunately, the budget for this project largely went to hire that narrator, and it.

[Narrator]

Was well, well worth it. The narrator commented, oh, get on with it.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

We are the Ghost of Christmas Future. Things won't be good if you don't plan Doug next year. It's. It's a plan that's gonna save your life. Let's talk about our favorite parts with emoji because. Because it's these parts that allows you to stay present. Like for me and Cheryl OG being able to stay present, at the very least, we can talk about big financial plan next, and maybe an investment policy plan, but at the very least, tracking our expenses. But even more than that, communicating once a week for like 20 minutes and making sure that's scheduled so it happens is a way for us to stay present and the future begins to take care of itself then. Because our goal in the future is obviously not to worry about money the way that we have in the past, right? I mean, if we come from debt like you and I did, and we want to be present today, I think the way to stay there is to have the future take care of itself.

[OG]

Sounds really simple to say, and it sounds really easy to talk about. The funny thing is, is if you think about the future as different steps along the way, you can put processes in place in order to make sure that it happens automatically. It's Hard to see the benefit of 20 years of saving and investing. The only time that you're going to see that is in 20 years. So you just have to trust the process. So building a process around saving and investing will help a ton. For example, with your workplace plan, if you are fortunate to have one, which you know, the vast majority of full time employed people have some sort of retirement plan. And even if you don't, you can create on your own, setting up your investing and then systematically increasing that savings automatically so you don't have to think about hey, I got a pay raise. I, you know, anytime that you can exclude yourself from decision making, you're going to be much better off. Make it one time when you're sober. And I don't mean that like literally, but I kind of do, you know, of sound mind, not in a bad mood like Adam Sandler was talking about, you know, thinking nicely about your plan and go, okay, I want to do this. And now I'm going to automatically increase my 401k contributions 1% every 6 months until I get to the maximum. If you do that one time, you make that decision once, you don't have to worry about that decision. Fatigue of trying to decide every time you get a bonus or every time you get a pay raise or every time your life changes a little bit. Oh, now what do I do with this money? What do I do with this money? What do I do with this money? Like it's already decided, you decided at one time and it's done.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

And especially for our stackers that are earlier in their income producing years og setting these things up so that they're automatic frees you up. Because we've seen the studies. The number one thing that people worry about at work is their own personal financial situation. And if you can take that away and be better at whatever your career is to future proof these future raises, to give yourself more income streams, better income streams, more coming in and you can automate it once you get it. That automation process makes it so you can just purely focus on creating more income.

[OG]

Yeah, and there's a real thing about decision fatigue. You just run out of energy and ability to make good decisions. And I mean think about it like at any level throughout your day or career or your life. Do you make your best decisions at 11pm or your not best decisions at 11pm? You know, when you've got to do the hard thing for work, what do people say to do? Wait until 4:55 and knock it out at the last thing you do before you leave. No, get it over with, right?

[Joe Saul Sehi]

You're going to be.

[OG]

Your most creative. Your ability to make the decision and execute on that is higher earlier in the day. But when do we make our money decisions? Do we go to work and sit down and I should bail my checkbook today? No, we work and then we come home and then we eat dinner and we deal with our kids and we do all our stuff and then we go. Okay, let me open the laptop here. Update the spreadsheet, right? Like we're, you know, you're just not going to do it. So do it once and be done with it. Same thing for all these. All of these things. I look back, the Roth IRA started right when I started my career. Joe's old enough to remember there not being a Roth IRA in financial planning. I. Mine started kind of, or the Roth started right then. And the limit was 2,000 bucks, right? And it was $166 and 67 cents a month, which is not zero, but also is not a profound amount of money. Every year for 15 years. I said, yeah, I'll do that next time. And if all I would have done when the damn thing came out was said, I can't save hardly any money into this thing, but you know what I can save? It's 10 bucks. And next year I'm going to try to save 11, and the year after that I'm going to try to save 12 or 13. You know what I mean? I would have gotten there. I would have gotten there and I wouldn't be looking at it going, I've had 25 years, 26 years of Roth IRA opportunities in my life. And the first ones were the easiest ones to do. Like, what the hell was so important in 1998 that I didn't have 50 bucks in July? It's frustrating. Solve that for yourself early by just going, I'm just. I can't. Whatever the number is, be 1% of your salary, 2% of your salary, 15%, who cares? Pick a number and then increase it a little bit.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

You'll be done thinking about the tools to get this done. First, you want a good money tracking system. Personally, we asked Monarch Money to sponsor the show. Rocket Money, sponsor the show. Those are two good ones that we really like, but be able to track. Now, if you set those trackers up and they're automatic and you never open them, oh, gee, we haven't solved the thing. So there not always to be a system of tracking, there also has to be a system of, when do I look at the Tracking. But then third, during those meetings, going through and saying, which of these transactions, to your point, can I automate, Can I, can I automate the utilities? Can I automate this, this line item? What can I get out of my way so I don't waste my decision making ability on these little tiny two dollar moves and I can instead make my decisions on the thousands of dollar moves. That's, that's really what I want to do. I love that our, our friend Paula Pant talks about this OG she never shops sales. She's like, because I want to be thinking about thousands of dollar opportunities. I don't want to be shopping to get $30 off. Yeah, I don't want to worry about $30 off. I want to worry about making thousands so I never have to worry about $30 off. That's the type of thing I think you want to. And we're all not there yet. Right. But we want to be able to get there. So walking through that tracking app and then automating transaction after transaction is job one of what you're talking about.

[OG]

I'll give you another example of this. We refinanced our house during COVID like 80% of America only. I chose the 15 year term on the mortgage because I just wanted it to be done. I thought it would be great timing for my daughter when she went to college and so on and so forth. And since then I've picked up another two mortgages. I didn't like find them on the street, but I have acquired two additional mortgages. The rates are profoundly different. There's 30 year terms and you look at the numbers on them and you go, my God almighty, am I going to pay a lot of money to the bank? Right. The Difference between a 2 1/2% mortgage and a 6.8% mortgage is profound in terms of interest. So I started figuring it out, like, well, what do I have to do to pay this mortgage in the same term of this mortgage? Because I know it's going to happen if I just set it up to like automatically pay the minimum payment like Everybody does in 15 years from now when this one's done, this one's not even going to be half done. And I'm going, oh, what am I doing? Right? So I looked and I did the math and it was a whopping $127 more to pay the second one off at the same term as the first one. The second mortgage, even though the rate was profoundly different. 127 bucks is a lot of money. It's not zero. That's $1,500 a year that could be used for all sorts of other things. And I know we could debate the merits of investing it versus not, but this is a goal that I have. So it's so much easier to work through all of that over the span of an hour or two and get out your spreadsheets and your calculators and think about it and can I cash flow this and how do I make this work and move the. And then set it up and never think about it again? It's so much simpler. And you know what's going to happen? I'm going to save hundreds of thousands of dollars in interest by making one decision in 2022, setting up the system, and not thinking about it again until 2037, when all of a sudden the bank's going to go, you should stop sending us money. Sir, sir, sir, sir, sir, could you stop sending us money? You're good. You're good.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

And what I love about that is that when you finally figure out, at least directionally, what your goal is and you can put a price tag on that and think about this og You've got that plan in place and it's automated, and you know that's going to happen. Going back to us several minutes ago in the present. You can be in the present because you know the money's automatically flowing toward the future. And now, now I can be much more present and I don't have to worry about going, oops, I showed up and there's. There's no cash there. But on the other side, some of our Uber stackers, people that have built a huge stack, you get back to intentionality. I've got this huge stack of money, but I don't know what I'm doing with it. You're not going to make that mistake either, where you over save and don't play the time game, because the commodity that's, you know, limited for all of us is time. And Doug, I think that that is the most important point of all.

[Doug]

Okay. I mean, that seems doable. I'll consider it.

[OG]

Well, if you don't get your act together, there's this.

[Doug]

Where you taking me? Let me at least get dressed as.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

You'Re finding those cute PJ but very cute PJs. Come on. Come with us to see the future you're headed toward.

[Doug]

Completely unnecessary. My future's bright. Maybe not as bright as that stupid floodlight you keep walking in here with, but, you know, pretty decent.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

If you say so, Doug.

[Narrator]

Look, Joe and Og had led Doug to a sleepy corner of an overgrown cemetery. A deep pit was peppered and ready to be filled with a coffin. In unison, both pointed.

[Doug]

Okay, this is a little dramatic, don't you think? I mean, a dirt nap? Really? What did you want me to say? Oh, stop the narrator. I promise I'll do better. I'll pay attention to the past and stay present in the moment. The future can be great for me. Oh, please don't show me the this.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

But yeah, kind of.

[Doug]

Oh, wow. Got it. That is a deep hole in the ground. Did they at least spell my name right on the headstone?

[OG]

Well, funny story about that. It says Joe's mom's not neighbor, Doug. So. No, they didn't. And you don't have the funds to change it. And nobody else cares.

[Doug]

Alright, okay. Let's. Let's go home. You're right. I can do better.

[Narrator]

And so they went floating across the sky as the residents of Texarkana slumbered peacefully away beneath them. And while many people were going to have the same holiday season they had before, overhustled, overworked, focused on the wrong things, one Texarkanian had maybe, just maybe learned an important lesson.

[Joe Saul Sehi]

You think he did?

[OG]

God, no. Zero chance.

[Doug]

I'm right here next to you.

[Narrator]

Doug hopefully will remember the sins of his past and build on his strengths. He'd focus on the present because he'd built a foundation with his money. And that would propel him into the future, which he'd planned wisely so he didn't have to worry about anything but sleep on this fine Christmas Eve. Hey, Joe. This was awesome. Let's head upstairs stairs and pull this gag on your mum.

[OG]

No, it's not in the budget. Dickens this man.

[Doug]

Thank you for joining us for this special event. Doug and the Three Ghosts was written by Joe Saul Sehi, with a little help from a guy named Charles Dickens. The character of Doug was played by me. And for. For more information on how you can book me for your next bar mitzvah, just call [e-mail] the ghosts of past, present and future were played by Joe and og. They were ok, but our amazing narrator was voiced by Peter Walters. Know someone who needs a visit from the three ghosts? Share this episode with them or just share it on social media. Tag us and we might chime in too. You'd be so popular with all your friends. I'm Joe's mom's narrator, Doug, saying God bless us, each and every one. Hey, that's got a ring to it. No actual ghosts were harm in the recording of today's episode.